The OP specifically said the religion had to be based on “divine revelation, where the founder of the religion claims to have received word directly from the deity him or herself.”
The problem with including Wicca is that there is no central authority, no specific founder, and no claim that the religion began from divine revelation. Wicca is so decentralized that they don’t even all agree on whether they are monotheistic or duotheistic – when various covens disagree there’s no mediator to settle the matter.
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See, that’s what I don’t get. Now admittedly, I come from a Jewish tradition. Much as you would debate say, climate change, you refer to the evidence and make your argument from the evidence. In the case of Judaism, we have the Torah for settling disputes of law. For example, is a turkey kosher? What constitutes work on the Sabbath? Different Jews and different sects disagree, but we all agree that the answers are to be found in God’s revealed word. Muslims have their Koran, Christians have the Bible.
So where does a Wiccan get answers? How can they argue over whether there are one god or many gods when no divine authority told them? Do they just make it up?
Now granted, I think the major religions’ holy books are all made up too, but since they were written over a thousand years ago or many thousands of years ago, I can’t prove that they aren’t divinely handed down. If you tell me there are two Gods and their names are Bob and Jane and they think asparagus is sinful then I’d be very interested in how you came to find this out.
If someone really could just magic up thousands of loaves and fishes, hundreds of people would capture the event on their camera-phones and the new prophet would be famous overnight.
There’d be a lot of skepticism initially of course, but a number of miracles, some captured under laboratory conditions, and I’ve no doubt that Adaher-ism would quickly be the world’s biggest religion
But you see, that’s reasonable! If someone claims that Bob and Jane revealed themselves, and commanded them to never touch asparagus, okay. I don’t believe you, but if you believe it, what an experience you had!
But if you “just know”, which is what I get from a lot of New Age and Wicca adherents, then you made it up. Or someone else did and shared it with you and you liked how it sounded.
The nature of divine revelation though isn’t that you heard something you liked and ran with it. Divine revelation is usually traumatic and frightening and involves the person receiving the revelation giving up the life they once knew. If there is a God, he’s not around to please you, he’s going to expect things from you that you may find inconvenient.
Sez who? The idea that God wants us to engage in difficult tasks is, itself, a specific religious doctrine. A religion that claims god wants us to take it easy is, on its face, no more or less ridiculous or unlikely than a religion that claims god wants us to suffer.
Yeah, except people “just believe” that God holds the same views they do, whereas people who have experienced divine revelation are portrayed to have become different people after the experience.
I came in to suggest Falun Gong, but someone beat me to it.
How about Jediism? I believe it’s newer than Falun Gong, although it currently lacks the numbers required in the OP. But I’m sure it’s just a matter of time until Jediism ranks up there with Christianity and Islam…
Tenrikyo has been mentioned but its followers’ numbers have been declining of late and they’re now well below one million.
On the other hand two much younger Japanese religions may count:
Soka Gakkai claims something like 8 million households but that number is probably inflated. They are nevertheless a very large and powerful organization that owns universities and to some extent exerts control over a major Japanese political party. Founded in 1930 as an organization of lay followers of the Nichiren sect of Buddhism but the two officially broke their relationship in 1991. Does it count as a separate religion rather than a sect of Buddhism? Nichiren belief are already pretty far from the original teachings of Buddha and there is a very strong personality cult centred around the current Soka Gakkai leader, Daisaku Ikeda.
So, if Soka Gakkai doesn’t count, Happy Science, founded in 1986, certainly does. It’s a bizarre hodgepodge of just about every major religion. The founder, Ryuho Okawa, claims to regularly receive revelations from Jesus. And Buddha. And Muhammad. And Confucius. Okawa claims to be the incarnation of God, or as the Happy call him – El Cantare. If after reading all this you get the feeling that Happy Science is just silly, consider that they claim (a slightly inflated) 10 million followers, Okawa’s books rank highly on the best-sellers’ lists, and they fully control a political party.
**Dopism **is the next major religion. It was founded by The Perfect Master Cecil in 1973 to spread faith in knowledge. Go ahead and put your hands on your monitor. Feel the warm, glowing, holy pixels. Your basking in His Perfect Knowledge right now. Doesn’t it feel good? Hallelujah!
I am not Wiccan myself, so if you want properly cited answers with backup data it will take some work to put together. I’ll take a shot at it off the cuff, though:
Most major religions are focused on the concept of large groups of people worshiping the same god(s) in the same way and following the same laws. Wicca, by comparison, is practiced principally by individualists. They congregate in small groups (“covens”) or practice alone (“solitary Wiccans”) and each group or individual creates a personal “holy book” known as a Book of Shadows – really more of a journal than anything else.
The majority of Wiccans I know were drawn to the faith by the Wiccan Rede: “an it harm none, do what ye will” (those first four words are what distinguish Wiccans from the Aleister Crowley crowd). A religious argument among Jews will indeed fall back on the Torah for answers, but a similar argument amoung Wiccans has no resolution. Each sect, each coven, each individual will look at the body of teachings related to Wicca and choose their own path.
Depending on whether you consider it a form of Hinduism, a conglomeration of existing religions, or a new religion, the Sathya Sai Baba movement is in the running. The founding would have been within the last century, and it claims many millions of followers. The now-dead leader claimed to be divine.
Joking about Dopism is heresy! Heretics are doomed to spend an eternity in the Pit being goofed on.
Well, I guess you could market science as a religion with the prophets Galileo, Newton, Einstein, etc. Sort of Science For Dummies. We could call it Scienetics! I’ll start writing the infomercial now. Since Tom Cruise is already shilling for that other “religion,” I’ll try to rope in Brad Pitt to be a spokesperson.
Another lesser, semi-recent groups is the Hindu-related BAPS. Founded c1907, but with an earlier form going back a couple hundred years (and of course based on the much older Hinduism). They claim a million followers worldwide. They recently built the largest Hindu temple outside of India.
The group seems to be remarkably well financed, given their immense temple building projects and other obvious expenses. (They have quite impressive fireworks at their temples on a surprisingly regular basis.)
The main thing in starting a new religion seems to be the charisma of the founder. Given a really savvy leader, it’s surprising how many people can be quickly brought in. Generic, daily horoscope-type platitudes are all that’s need for a belief system.
