Invented Religions

The aim of this dissertation is to explore the theories of ‘Invented religions’, which means to create new religions through fiction parody and play. This conception was proposed by Carloe. M. Cusack in her monograph Invented Religions: Imagination Fiction and Faith(2010). Invented religions refers to deliberately announce their invented status, and thereby to refuse traditional legitimation strategies. And they can be distinguished by their defiant rejection of the legitimating strategies employed by other religions.In the first section, it presented some invented religions from the the middle of the 20 th century to now,such as Discordianism, the Flying Spaghetti Monsterism, Missionary Church of Kopimism, Jediism. It argued that the main characteristic of the invented religions were admitting to be human-inventing products.In the second section, it discussed the causes of formation to invented religions. On one hand, it talked about the social backgrounds, including the boost of religious diversity; the challenges to traditional religions, which were caused by the development of science and technologies; and the contributions to the contents of invented religions by the development of the mass media and consumer culture. On the other hand, it discussed the direct origin from the rise of post-modernism. The rise provided the invented religions a position of secularization, also a deconstructivism discourse. Those five factors are not only causes, but also the characters.The third section explored the realistic challenges and prospects of invented religions. The challenges referred to traditional religions and the administration of the government. For the traditional religions, the invented religions have removed the sanctity of religions and the religious exclusivity, fulfilling the targets of religious tolerance and religious diversity. For the administration, the government has come to the condition that it has to answer the appeals from those new religions, including the demands of equality and various social and political appeals. Referring to the prospects, this dissertation argued that they would be promising, despite of the invented religions facing plenty of problems.