[ertyuio]

LMAO. xD At first, I was speculative about the title of your thread, but then I read that you were, indeed, serious.

Nobody here can tell you about the probability of success that comes about as a result of trying to start your own religion. Because, quite frankly, nobody today has been around long enough to have started their own religion. The main ones around today have been there for thousands of years (unless you consider Protestantism, which has been around since the early 1500's, or even Scientology -- which hasn't been very well received), so there's not much to speculate about when considering how difficult it is to brainwash a large mass of people.

But, this is, of course, assuming that you're talking about starting a religion -- and having a fairly large amount of followers. But, if you want to get technical about it, then sure -- you can make your own religion on the way home from work! While you're brushing your teeth in the morning! It's ridiculously simple just to make a religion -- just think of something pertaining to a "higher power" or "supernatural entity", and believe it. I'd say it's pretty possible: but let's get back to what I think you meant.

So, let's consider the world's major religions, formed thousands of years ago: when they began, the people influenced by them were far less knowledgeable about the observable universe than we are today, and could easily have been swayed by men who were good with optical illusions and delusions of grandeur. Humans are gullible -- and they're even more so when they have a smaller basis of knowledge upon which to judge claims. If you want to "make your own religion", then it's gotta be something such that when people hear it, they won't immediately say "What a big load of s**t, snakes can't do that." -- to be successful, it'll have to be something that is ridiculous, but at the same time, that won't push people away outright (Scientology comes to mind).

I guarantee that if humans had no religion, but had our current basis of scientific and technological knowledge, the first guy claiming the same things that the Bible does would be laughed out of every serious discussion, and easily forgotten. Our society's lack of knowledge, when it was vulnerable and gullible, was the main cause of religion's vast success. In many senses, we are still naive of a great deal about our universe -- but you'd be hard-pressed to think of a belief in the supernatural that doesn't directly conflict with our modern conception of logic in some way or another.