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“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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