Saturday, March 24, 2012

Come Join My Religious Journey

So, since I’m not an atheist anymore, I figured… why not try some new religions?

Now, I know what you’re thinking… “Bret, you don’t need some rebound faith this soon after leaving atheism. You should take some time to get comfortable with yourself. If you can’t make yourself happy, you won’t be happy with any religion.”

Okay, noted, but I don’t need any help with my happiness. I’m not getting any younger here, people, and I should figure this stuff out. I’m 28 years old already, and all my friends have religions, so it’s time I get my shit together.

Now, I want to promise daily updates, but honestly, I can’t imagine that happening. I can’t think about the same thing for too many days in a row, so I’m sure there will be breaks. However, for a while now I plan to try out new religions and share my thoughts on them with you guys.

Oh, and if you know any that are looking for new members, feel free to point me in the right direction.

That said, I already did some hunting for religions on my own, and I came across one called Discordianism.

Discordianism is the worship of a goddess named Eris in Greek, and Discordia in Latin. She is the goddess of chaos. I have to admit, I’m already not impressed. Still, I promised myself I would have an open mind…

Malaclypse the Younger’s work, “Principia Discordia,” forms the basis for the religion. It references quite frequently a lost work called “The Honest Book of Truth,” a collection of knowledge revealed to Lord Omar Khayyam Ravenhurst and taken by a garbage collector who would not return it.

While most religions encourage order, Discordianism promotes disorder. The religion is collectively called “The Discordian Society,” which operates with a definition of, “The Discordian Society has no definition.”

There are all kinds of clever little puns and jokes abound in the religion, and I enjoyed reading them (I won’t reprint them, but if you’re interested, you should just Google it and laugh for yourself). I ultimately can’t follow this, because I don’t even believe chaos exists. Even when there appears to be randomness, there is still reason and basic laws of cause and effect at work. If Chaos were even a real thing, I would think the whole universe would have ripped apart by now.

While I thought I could be a Discordian, I can’t. I just can’t bring myself to believe in Discordia, and I don’t even think I want to be the opposite, which I guess is an acordian.

[If you correct my Greek Latin, you are everything that is wrong with humor.]

So, until I find the next religion to try out, I’ll be on the lookout…

6 comments:

  1. The opposite of discord is accord (English, derived from Latin). I suppose you could be an accordionist.

    ReplyDelete
  2. You should try maltheism, as explained in David Malki's Wondermark, starting with this strip, and particularly in this longer strip which got edited to pieces. Dunno if there's actually a holy book (unholy book?) to go with it, though.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. ...aaaaaand I screwed up that first link. (Got the tag syntax right, but forgot to actually put a URL into it. Duh.) The other two links work, and you can get to the main page from the first of them, but just in case: Wondermark is actually at http://www.wondermark.com/.

      Delete
  3. Have you concerned Pentecostalism? It has many flavors, from the most charismatic, to something that really does not resemble Pentecostalism: paradoxical, but true.

    I highly recommend it as one of the truest religions that does not try to work around itself in order to gain validation.

    ReplyDelete
  4. acordian - funny. correction - idiotic
    try Jainism...I hear they're awesome.

    ReplyDelete

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