My mom was a Buddhist, so I was raised as both a Buddhist and a Christian. I went to a protestant school since Grade 1 and I found biblical stories to be quite fascinating whereas the Buddhism that I grew up with was essentially idolatry. To this date, my mom will pray to Quanyin for things she wants without really thinking much about it.

When I was impressionable and young, I really wanted to become a Christian but my parents told me to wait until I was eighteen. When I hit college, I was constantly bombarded by Asian Christians and their dogma on campus and that really made me think twice about being Christian. To me, Judeo-Christianity is a way of thinking and the foundation of Western culture rather than dogma. And then I started meeting Buddhist friends who embraced Buddhism as a philosophy and way of living rather than the idolatry that I was raised with. A great example is Ms. Canyon Sam, my documentary subject, who passionately follows the teachings of the Dalai Lama.

With my training in literary criticism and post-structuralism, I see religion in a totally different light. Religion is like a language. It’s a medium for me to communicate with the divine or God or whatever you name that transcendental perspective.

And to me, God is ultimate knowledge… Truth you may say. But just like in Platonic philosophy you can communicate with God or get closer to the Forms through language but you can never be God or truly achieve that all knowing perspective.

As humans, we aspire to come closer to Truth but we can never really hold onto it.

About a few years ago, I thought it would be great idea to start a religion on Facebook. A religion can exist perfectly on the internet because just like languages or ideas it is virtual and abstract rather than physical and dogmatic. Isn’t the internet a perfect medium for abstract thoughts and knowledge?

All my friends thought I sounded crazy, but I went ahead and wrote my religion manifesto anyway.

I find the dogmatic nature of current religions to be limiting for anyone at all who is intellectual. It’s really hard to be intellectual and religious at the same time because of dogma, but really why can’t we be intellectual and religious at the same time if the religion is intellectual rather than dogmatic?

You can take it as a joke or take it however way you want… but I’ve decided to found my religion and named it “Metadivinism.” And if you ask me about my religion, I’ll tell you, “I’m a metadivinist.”

And here’s my manifesto. And no, I am not a cult leader!

Metadivinism: A Manifesto

I invite you to join me as an empowering community who believes in the progress of humans, us, along with a philosophically spiritual way of living and thinking.

I’m hereby naming this meta-religion “Metadivinism.”

We are not dogmatic, nor do we endorse any dogmatic religion.

We are a meta-religion over all contemporary religions.

We come together, at our will and intellect, because we feel the need to form a community with the unanimous belief of us humans being capable of improving our thoughts, lives, bodies and the world through ideas, discussions, thoughts, culture and science.

We vow against dogma, violence, fanaticism or blind faith.

We believe that a religion is like a language, part of one’s culture.

There is not one culture better than another, or one religion better than another. A religion is simply a tool for us communicate with divinity, or that whom we might choose to call “God.”

If there were a God, then God had made a self-contained world. We have all our resources and loved ones here, and it’s up to us to find them. Through your religion, or your belief, you may communicate with God who gives you knowledge to fulfill your life.

If there were a God, then God would have given you a heart. We may not know what we want. We just have to find what we want and go for it in a humanistic way.

We simply follow our hearts.

If there were a God, then God would certainly not move us like chess pieces. God helps us in imparting us with knowledge and emotions so we will reach our resources.

If there were a God, then God would be Knowledge, that transcendental perspective of all perspectives that we can aspire to but never fully grasp.

If we choose a religion, we approach it from a philosophical and non-dogmatic perspective.

This is not a church, nor is it a cult. This is a community.

Metadivinism expresses the desire to form a community who believes in the progress of humanity without dogma.

All is welcome, except those who exclude others.

Let’s say or do something that we believe in.

Anything at all.