In the name of Bob, Google and the Flying Spaghetti Monster: gods and religions that matter
By Navin Kumar
Article ID: 1227
The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster
Timeline May, 2005. The Kansas State Board of Education began its decision process in whether or not Intelligent Design would be taught in Kansas public schools. A young man named Bobby Henderson wrote them an open letter professing belief in the Flying Spaghetti Monster, a creature who created the universe after a heavy bout of drinking. Henderson went on to demand that the Pastafarian Theory of Creation be taught along with Intelligent Design and Evolution:
“I think we can all look forward to the time when these three theories are given equal time in our science classrooms across the country, and eventually the world; One third time for Intelligent Design, one third time for Flying Spaghetti Monsterism, and one third time for logical conjecture based on overwhelming observable evidence.”
Inventing fake religions in order to attack formal religions has become immensely popular, whether it’s a Henderson-like attempt to showcase the logical fallacies of religious arguments, or for a few convoluted laughs, like Discordianism.
Let’s identify Bobby Henderson’s approach: reductio ad absurdum. The principle is simple: take your opponent’s conclusions (e.g. there must be an Intelligent Designer), find the underlying principle (”the world’s complexity demands an Intelligent Designer”) and derive a conclusion from that principle which is so absurd that it blasts to pieces that principle and, by extension, your opponents’ conclusion: “why shouldn’t the Intelligent Designer look like spaghetti and meatballs?”
The Invisible Pink Unicorn
In addition to Henderson’s now-famous Pastafarianism, another popular parody religion with rich literature is that of the Invisible Pink Unicorn. The IPU has its origins in the early Usenet forum alt.atheism, with records going back to 1990. She is extremely popular on internet discussion groups where she is invoked for humorous and argumentative purposes. The IPU concept expanded in 1994 by a group of college students who created a manifesto, from which we get this famous quotation:
“Invisible Pink Unicorns are beings of great spiritual power. We know this because they are capable of being invisible and pink at the same time. Like all religions, the Faith of the Invisible Pink Unicorns is based upon both logic and faith. We have faith that they are pink; we logically know that they are invisible because we can’t see them.”
Written by Steve Eley - self proclaimed “Chief Advocate and Spokesguy” of the IPU - this quotation is used in response to the theist argument that atheists too are exercising faith - faith in a non-god - and that since God’s existence cannot be disproved, he must exist. In that case, reply the atheists, the IPU - whose existence cannot be disproved - must also exist, Blessed Be Her Holy Hooves!
The Jedi Census
A non-existent religion was recently the center of a massive practical joke: the Jedi census. Citizens of English-speaking countries were urged - through a massive email campaign - to register their religion in the census as “Jedi”. Nearly half a million people did so in countries like Australia, New Zealand, England & Wales, Scotland and Canada, with percentages ranging from .7% to 1.5% of the population. In many countries, “Jedi” surpassed serious religions like Sikhism or Buddhism. Most disturbingly, fourteen New Zealanders registered themselves as “Sith“.
The Church of Google
One web-based religion - the Church of Google - declares that Google is in fact God. As proof, it points out that Google is omniscient (all-knowing, since it indexes billions of webpages) and omnipresent (it exists and functions everywhere on earth with internet access). It answers prayers a lot more efficiently than any other deity: all you have to do is type in your problem and it will come up with hundreds of solutions in less than a tenth of a second. Google can live immortally in her servers - if one goes down, another would take its place. As long as the internet can grow, Google can grow, making it potentially infinite. Finally, Google has more verifiable evidence of its existence than any other deity.
Commandments
A parody of The Ten Commandments is a favorite feature of many “religions”. The Church of Google thunders,
“Thou shalt have no other search engine before me, neither Yahoo nor Lycos, AltaVista nor Metacrawler. Thou shalt worship only me, and come to Google only for answers.”
Instead of 10 commandments, the Flying Spaghetti Monster favors a slightly less demanding eight-count of “I’d Rather You Didn’ts” which, thankfully, includes,
“I’d really rather you didn’t go around telling people I talk to you. You’re not that interesting. Get over yourself. And I told you to love your fellow man, can’t you take a hint?”
Discordianism and the Church of the SubGenius
While these religions are fairly recent, some are ancient - with origins going as far back as 1958. Discordianism was founded in that great year by Malaclypse the Younger, who wrote Prinicipia Discordia. This somewhat anarchist religion worships Eris, the Greek goddess of disorder and declares, generously, that every man, woman and child can be Pope with the power “to excommunicate, de-ex-communicate, re-ex-communicate, and de-re-ex-communicate (no backsies!) both his-/her-/it-/them-/your-/our-/His-/Her-/It-/Them-/Your-/Our-self/selves and others (if any).”
Discordianism became immensely popular and created innumerable off-shoots like the Church of the SubGenius, which was claims to have been founded in the 1950’s by a guy named Bob (J.R. Dobbs, the worlds greatest salesman). It more accurately started with the 1979 publication of the Subgenius Pamphlet #1. In the 1980s and 1990s, it gained popularity with the rebel scene (underground music, colleges, etc). The Book of the SubGenius claims:
“The Church Of The SubGenius is an order of Scoffers and Blasphemers, dedicated to Total Slack, delving into Mockery Science, Sadofuturistics, Megaphysics, Scatalography, Schizophreniatrics, Morealism, Sarcastrophy, [yes, this is going to go on for a while] Cynisacreligion, Apocolyptionomy, ESPectorationalism, Hypno-Pediatrics, Subliminalism, Satyriology, Disto-Utopianity, Sardonicology, Fascetiouism, Ridiculophagy, and Miscellatheistic Theology.”
One of the most famous institutions of its kind, the CotSG’s central icon “Bob” was named Time Magazine’s #1 “Phony or Fraud” in it’s January 2000 issue. The Church of SubGenius is now an incorporated company which blatantly devotes itself to making money. For a sum of $30, one can become an ordained minister with lifetime membership. The Church promises “Eternal Salvation or Triple Your Money Back!”
(By the way, you too can become an ordained minister for free - with the power to conduct marriages - at http://firstchurchofatheism.com/. Don’t tell Bob I’m plugging the competition.)
Of course, joke religions do not exist purely to pull down other religions. Some are a light-hearted attempt to transfer the emotion of a religion to a non-divine figure - like Maradona. The Spanish Iglesia Maradoniana (or “Maradonian Church”) was created by fans of Diego Maradona, theologically the greatest football player of all time. The church claims 80,000 members worldwide. Tales of temples being built for cricketers and politicians are not rare in India. When South Indian actor Rajnikanth released his film Shivaji, fans held ceremonies where milk was poured on his cut-outs, a treatment usually reserved for Hindu gods.
The symbol for the Invisible Pink Unicorn (a pink ‘null’-like symbol which resembles a unicorn head & horn) was created by the users of alt.atheism and has become a mascot of sorts. It is possible to purchase t-shirts, mugs etc. with this symbol. One of the websites selling items with this symbol printed on them declares:
“As a logo, the Invisible Pink Unicorn is an informed and subtle symbol for Atheists and Atheism. It’s intended for active Atheists or otherwise informed people to recognize each other. It has been specifically designed not to directly offend people [with] theistic beliefs.”
Whether you believe in their gods, these newer upstart religions perform a function that traditional religions have longed claimed as their exclusive domain: community building.
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