Table of contents for Site In Focus
“Humor distorts nothing, and only false gods are laughed off their earthly pedestals.”
- Agnes Repplier (1855 - 1950)
Psst. Hey pal. Yes, you! … Do you have a sense of humor? Are you sure? Not everyone has the chutzpah to laugh about religion. Even fewer are the brave men and women who make laughing about religion into a religion. I’m not just talking about a parody of a religion, but a religion that is a parody of a religion of a parody of a real religion. So would that be a real religion, you ask? Well, if you don’t know, then you are already apart of the joke.
As of right now, there are three religious parody religions in existence; Discordianism, The Church of The SubGenius, and Pastafarianism. Each of these three religions have several important similarities. First, it is important to note that all three religions hold a great debt to Al Gore, whom you all know created the series of tubes otherwise called the internets; Gore is cut a check every second Tuesday of the month for his contribution. Second is the fact that each of these religions get proportionately funnier as the jokes age, unlike stale 80’s comedies, which were probably never funny having all been written by Chevy Chase and Steve Martin - but I digress. 
Finally, there is the astonishing coincidence that all three religious parody religions existed at the time this article was written, which of course is the hallmark of any true religion. Any other religious parody religions are false, heretical, and probably not as funny as the before mentioned three.
Discordianism, the oldest of these three religions, originated in the early 1970’s and was first popularized by the late Robert Anton Wilson when he wrote about it in his Illuminatus trilogy. The Principia Discordia, the holy book of this religion, has been described as a postmodern treaties on Zen Buddhism, a revival of an ancient Greek Chaos mystery cult, and ‘the hell if I know, now leave me alone.’ It is written by the prophet Malaclypse the Younger in the 1950’s, after having been exposed to an exploding chimpanzee at a all-night bowling alley frozen in time/space. He and his fellow prophet, Omar Ravenhurst, founded this religion based upon the worship of Eris, the Goddess of Discord, which would later grow to become the hidden power behind every U.S. Presidency since Benjamin Harrison, fnord.
The Church of the SubGenius is considered to be an off-shoot of Discordianism and is centered around the worship of J.R. “Bob” Dobbs as well as the acquisition
of slack. Currently headed up by it’s founder, Rev. Ivan Stang, the Church is seems to be lampoon of fundamentalist Christianity and Scientology drowned in copious amounts of 1950’s kitch. Don’t let the appearances fool you - The Church of the SubGenius is a genuine religion, complete with extensive tithing, alien space ships, and a mail order ministry ordination. Get your slack while it’s still hot.
The newest of these three religious parody religions is Pastafarianism, which emerged in 2005. Also known as the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, Pastafarians believe that the ultimate creator of the universe is a… Flying Spaghetti Monster. They also believe strongly that global warming, earthquakes, hurricanes, and other natural disasters are directly related to the falling number of pirates since the 1800’s. This is due to the fact that the Flying Spaghetti Monster is angered that pirates are going extinct and is exacting revenge on earth for the falling number of his chosen people.
Regardless of which of these three religions you adhere to, you can rest assured that your beliefs will not be scoffed or laughed at by those who can’t take a joke… Then again, they don’t laugh at much of anything, so these greyfaces deserve the slackless, stale-beer hell that’s reserved for them. RAmen.
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January 14th, 2008 at 10:53 am
Advice to all bloggers: Don’t insult the discordians. It’s just not worth the trouble. The voice of experience.
[edit: Links within blog posts don't seem to work. Click on CC's name above to see the post she is referring to. - John]
January 14th, 2008 at 11:18 am
Hello ChaliceChick!
Um… as far as I can tell, I didn’t insult Discordianism. Thanks for the warning, though.
Namaste.
January 14th, 2008 at 5:44 pm
The grandparent of all parody religions is Russell’s teapot:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russells_teapot
Here’s the description of this from Bertrand Russell’s essay:
“If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is an intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time.”
http://www.cfpf.org.uk/articles/religion/br/br_god.html
January 15th, 2008 at 10:45 am
Oh, I didn’t suggest you had. But since you’d brought the discordians up, I went ahead and linked to the insanity that broke out at the Chaliceblog the time I did.
CC
January 16th, 2008 at 4:44 pm
Hello CC,
The link didn’t work, that’s why I was a bit confused. Don’t worry - I found the post and fixed the link for you. In all honesty, though, I think they went pretty easy on you. It could have been much much worse… Take a look at the Usernet if you don’t believe me.
January 16th, 2008 at 4:52 pm
Hello Steve!
I’ve never heard of Russell’s Teapot before… You’re right - that would be the granddaddy of all parody religions. However, I don’t think it qualifies as a parody religion itself. Just my opinion.
Thank you & Namaste.
January 24th, 2008 at 3:42 pm
Anonymous’s reaction to the Church of Scientology’s attempts to control the spread of the Tom Cruise video on YouTube is very Discordian, and the sort of result one gets.
One of the precepts of Discordianism is that you may already be a member.
January 28th, 2008 at 11:20 am
Hello Pope,
I agree - Anonymous’s reaction is Discordian… You may want to read the article I post tomorrow (1/29) about that very issue.
Namaste.
February 18th, 2008 at 3:46 am
We Discordians are hard to get away with insulting. There are a lot of us around, everywhere, all the time.
Even if you think you’re alone, there are generally like six Discordians somewhere just out of sight. check your closets.
February 25th, 2008 at 10:58 pm
Hello Frater O:.H:.
Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not after you, huh?
Thank you for your comment & Namaste.
February 29th, 2008 at 7:10 pm
Discordia is not a joke. Or maybe she is, and she just hasn’t told us yet. We are very serious about not taking things seriously, and to quote the Principia Discordia- “If you think the Principia is all a big ha-ha, then go read it again.” Remember the Yahoo Jake of 3167!
March 2nd, 2008 at 4:06 pm
The invisible pink unicorn is glad of not being on your list, on account of not bring a joke.
March 5th, 2008 at 11:55 pm
Hello Grand High Jork,
Noted. Hence forth I shall no longer refer to Discordianism as a “Parody Religion,” but instead as the Uber-Serious Religion of Parody. May Eris forgive my ignorance and have mercy on my gonads.
Hello Thorn,
Invisible Pink Unicorns are real, for My Little Pony tells me so…
Namaste to you both.
March 19th, 2008 at 5:59 pm
Hi, John.
You didn’t mention Invisible Pink Unicornism, nor Frisbeetarianism. And Discordianism practice dates from the 1950’s (cf The Prankster & the Consiparcy), not the 1970s are you first say.
It might be useful to differentiate between a “Parody Religion” and a “Parody *of* Religion”. Although they are sometimes joint admixture, they are not always the same thing.
Oh, and look behind you.
HAIL ERIS –><– ALL HAIL KALLISTI
March 19th, 2008 at 6:02 pm
1) You did insult Discordianism, but I don’t think you’ll upset anyone with the typical outsider drivel. I beleived the same kind of BS until I actually read the texts involved.
2) Discordianism**, Subgenusism*, are both joke religions, think weird eastern zen BS with more jokes and maybe you’ll come close. They make fun of people who believe in other religions, but they make fun of *everyone*, especially people who believe things. Both were also around long before the intertubes, with The Andrew Norton Cabal having been founded in ‘57 or ‘58.
3) Pastafarianism, Invisible Pink Unicornism Last Thursdayism, Teapotism and probably a hundred others, are parody religions, they make fun of certain parts of existing religions to prove a point.
D) Click on my name for links to various discordian texts. Please keep in mind that said texts are non infallible, guaranteed to impart wisdom, or anything else you usually find religions claiming about their books.
V) Chalice I feel compelled to quote something you said in your blog: “First off, I don’t know enough about Pagans to know when they should be offended.
If you’re making fun of them, that’s really rude too. Shame on you. Happy now?
(And honestly, don’t scientologists have enough problems?)” -ChaliceChick
*I may be wrong about the CotSG, the extent of my knowledge here is that it costs $30 to get in, and that they have origins within Discordianism.
**There are slightly more sects of dicordianism than there are people in the world.
Disclaimer. This is my take on it, pieced together from various other people’s takes on it and my own thoughts.
March 19th, 2008 at 7:18 pm
@Requiem and @John, I’d better point out that Subgee is a parallel evolution to Discordianism, not birthed from it (as the Subgee have pointed out many times), and founded in the late 70s. Although sharing many traits in common with Discordianism, it did not come from it… although there have been many “meeting of the minds” between the two.
Chao, baby.
April 2nd, 2008 at 2:55 pm
Hello Rev. Dr. John,
Sorry about the mix-up with the dates… I’ll correct that.
No, I did not mention those parodies of religions because they are not parody religions. And yes, I know that there is a difference.
Requiem,
I’m sorry that you didn’t care much for my post. I actually had the gall to think that perhaps some of it was typical insider drivel. Shows what I know…
Namaste to you both.