I’m thinking of establishing my own religion. The tax-free status is very appealing and it doesn’t seem too difficult to organise once I register on the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission website. (Heavens, I work in the arts, so not-for-profit is my middle name.) Once I get my charitable status I will design a nice logo and then think about what I want to worship.

This is not as silly as it sounds. Religion didn’t just drop out of the sky one day like a meteorite, it was invented. Some 2400 years ago the Buddha created Buddhism, Jesus arrived 400 years later and started to talk about how we should all be nice to each other, and some 600 years later the prophet Muhammad arrived on the scene and Islam was born. Unless you are inculcated at birth, religion is really a matter of choice, a buffet of belief. Like deciding to go to Woolworths or Coles or Aldi, you can shop around. 

In the 2011 census in the UK 177,000 Star Wars fans put down ‘Jedi’ as their religion, making it the seventh most popular...