The One True Faith
or
You're a Discordian Whether or Not You Want to Be
In the fashion which is (and has been) popular with most (if not all) other
religions, I will now attempt to show how all religions are really ought but
variations on Discordianism, and all of them share in the fullness of the
Erisian Revelation.
Take as our first targ...er, example, Christianity. They hold the
belief that god is omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient, omnibenevolent and, one
could assume, omnimagazine. This has been a source of problems for theologians
from day one, because ``If god is all-powerful and all-good, why do such icky
things happen to people? Also, where did evil come from? Why do people go to
Hell?'' Those who have pondered this deeply have come up with a rather tidy
explanation:
-
-
``God created us with
free will,
so that we can do whatever we want to do. We can choose him and be happy
forever in his grace, or we can choose to turn away from him and damn ourselves
to Hell eternal. The choice is totally ours.''
Now, this is all well and good except for the fact that this assumption leads
us to yet another problem, which I will illustrate by way of several short
Marvel-esque WHAT-IF? tales, to follow.
Now, when god was going to create the universe, (for those getting ready to
give me a hard time about talking about ``before creation'' because there clearly
can't be time as we know it before there's a universe, don't. The only
pertinent point here is that god had complete control over creation) his
omniscience would allow him to know everything that was ever going to happen.
He, in effect, had a divine plan all set, from opening curtain to last act. He
knew, well in advance, that there were lots and lots of people who were going
to be created in an imperfect manner, reject his love and suffer for eternity
on the Lake-O-Fire®. ``Oh well,'' spake the Creator, and went ahead and
created this Veil of Sorrow for his beloved children. He did the macrocosmic
equivalent of dropping an anvil on a kitten and saying ``Nonono, gravity
killed the kitten.'' Now, no one who buys all this ``omnibenevolent'' stuff will
let that explanation pass. Heck, I think it would be grounds for eviction as
godhead. I offer the following, alternate possibility (cue the Wayne's World
diddlee-doo diddlee-doo diddlee-doo...)...
Rather than create a divine plan for creation, god decided that he would much
rather just get something interesting going without necessarily knowing what
was going to happen until after creation. He closed his eyes, pulled a handful
of Raw Creative Energy® out of his pocket and BLAMMO!!! here we all
are. This is much nicer, I think. Of course, it also means that god, quite
deliberately, infused the whole process of creation with a healthy dose of
Chaos, for no reason other than to make the whole deal a wee bit more fun.
Now, who would do such a silly thing except our Lady of Rollicking Ha-Ha's?
Or, alternately, you may feel free to decide that, since god is unbounded by
logic, neither of these explanations need hold any truth, despite the fact that
they're the only possibilities we can come up with (now, don't start hedging;
either he had a plan, or he didn't. P or Not-P). Of course, that leads to the
conclusion that this whole reason thing is a sack of moldering jelly beans,
which means that the whole of human existence is one grand Joke. Why's that,
you ask? Well, the only way we can think is reasonably (that is, using
reason). If we can't deduce any of the really important Truths by using the
only method of thought open to us, then clearly we're just cats jumping for a
rubber mouse that our owner won't ever let us catch.
We wandered quite far afield on this one, but it does actually tie together
(albeit in a strange-looking Boyscoutesque knot). Now, Christians will
clearly not allow the first (god the kitten-killer) scenario. Also, they will
probably not go for the second (god with his eyes closed) one, either. They'll
probably go along with the third right up to the point where human existence is
exposed as a Joke. Since both the second and third scenarios result in the
universe being based largely on Chaos and/or Humor, it is clear that Christians
are Discordians (though they don't know it).
Judaism's true nature can be found out readily by using similar heresi... er,
reasoning as was used to expose Christianity. Jews believe that there are
certain things that god wants them to do (most of which have to do with not
touching a pig or your wife; I'll leave the proof that this alone marks Judaism
as a sect of Discordianism as an exercise for the reader [hint: if you can make
5 particularly rancid jokes out of the Holy Tenets of some faith, you can prove
it to be a sect of Discordianism via the
Law of Fives
]). Now, if god feels the need to tell you to do something, it follows readily
that he isn't quite sure that you'll do it all by yourself. If god doesn't
know how any particular person will act, this implies that, not only did he
close his eyes when he set the clockwork in motion, but that he still has them
closed (if we again attempt the old ``well, God doesn't have to conform to your
logic, you Devil-worshipping, paganesque yudda yudda yudda...'' we end up with
the same conclusion that we found ourselves at earlier when we argued thusly)!
If that isn't proof that their YHWH and our ERIS are one-and-the-same, brothers
and sisters of Discordia, then you are clearly close-minded and therefore are
not able to see the Truth I preach for what it is (hey, that line works pretty
well. I guess the Christians have come up with some neat stuff). In
fact, I would say that the Jews are much closer to the true Erisian nature of
their religion (probably because they didn't have that well-meaning upstart
carpenter gumming up the works).
Okay, now move in real close and cover this page for the next few minutes; it's
generally a bad idea to piss off the Moslems (you'd think I'd learn after the
Satanic Verses incident, but never accuse a Discordian of knowing when
to keep his mouth shut). Islam bears a striking resemblance to both
Christianity and Judaism, mainly because good old Muhammad lived on the
outskirts of Mecca, and hence could have revelations that were whatever the 622
A.D. equivalent of ``politically correct'' was. Take a basically set and
accepted metaphysics, add a whole lot of head-lopping to please the children
and chauvinism to please the other children (oh, relax; I'm just pandering to
the Feminists) and bingo! you get the fastest-growing sect of
Discordianism on record. Sure, they're a little violent for my tastes, but
that's mainly due to the influence of Greyface; the insanity all flows from
Eris. I think the absurd metaphysics which we've already discussed combined
with the apparent lunacy of the bunch marks them very clearly as our
(thankfully quite distant) Brothers.
Next on the hit parade: Buddhism. I'll constrain myself to discuss only
Theravada (now known more often as the ``Mahayana'', or ``Lesser Vehicle'', mainly
due to the influence of a later school which called itself the ``Greater
Vehicle'') Buddhism, which was the first known form of Buddhism. If I can prove
that the original Buddhism is naught but another form of Discordianism, it
shouldn't be too difficult to prove that the other forms of Buddhism are but
imperfect variations on a theme. Buddhists of this school (henceforth called
simply ``Buddhists''; I need disclaimers like this to keep myself out of trouble
with the ``Vehicle of the Thunderbolt'' Buddhists) believe that nothing is
permanent, but rather that everything is in a state of constant change. They
also believe that the I that we suppose exists is nothing but an illusion
formed by interplay between various physical and psychic factors. The psychic
factors have a natural craving for permanence, which is not achievable, so we
reincarnate time after time, with the psychic factors drawing physical
existence to themselves until we eventually realize the illusion for what it is
and reach Nirvana (which means ``blowing out'', much in the way a candle flame
[which is really a complex interplay of energy and matter rather than an
``substance''] is blown out; note that the flame isn't destroyed [conservation of
energy and all that, you know] but reduced to its separate components).
Buddhists don't bother considering questions like ``Why did this process start?''
and other (in their opinion) idiotic questions. They don't
worry about such
questions because they are, quite simply, not of any consequence. What does it
matter if we evolved or were put together from the leftovers of some cosmic
turkey dinner? We're here, and that's that.
Let's turn to more practical matters, like getting the Hell out of here.
Since we're ever so slightly less pragmatic than our brothers, let us delve
into this paltry mystery of origin.
Our ``individual'' existence starts when the cosmic forces manage to somehow
tangle themselves into a kind of knot that starts believing that it's Henry
Kissinger (for example). This, according to the Buddhists, is a uniformly bad
thing because this ``knot'' has a natural predisposition towards completely
illusory beliefs (and hence the Four Sorrows of Buddhism, which all stem from
this unfortunate yen for permanence). Buddhism is silent as to why the cosmic
forces have such a tendency towards getting together to create a poor deluded
fool because, alas, the one truly important bit of knowledge from the venerable
Gautama Buddha somehow managed to slip through his disciples' fingers (probably
because their own veils of maya [illusion] wouldn't allow such a truth
through). Note that the cosmic forces get-together always results in a doofus
that has to trip over his own karma for any number of lifetimes because he has,
built-in, the entirely wrong set of ``intuitive truths.'' Something must be the
cause of the cosmic forces getting tangled up so ridiculously often (at least 5
billion times as of the last census, with more every year). The mutual
affinity of the cosmic forces is due, I believe, to a sense of humor which
bends the forces towards each other. Why else would they get together so often
to bring about such a silly thing? Eris could have no better definition than ``a
universal, all-pervading, eternal sense of humor.''
Since we're in India already (and I for one don't feel like stopping here
twice; you'd be shocked how hard it is to find a McDonald's in a country where
cows are sacred), we may as well consider Hinduism next. I suppose we could be
content with scooping all of Hinduism under our umbrella simply because one of
the Four Ends of Man that they hold as sacred is having a good time (o'course,
they normally list it as being less important than duty and virtuousness, but
hey,
Greyface
is everywhere). Far be it from me, however, to be content in
saying so little that could get people mad at me. Let us consider a story from
the Bhagavad Gita in order to expose the inherent silliness of Hindu
metaphysics (and thus, lest we forget, its undeniable link to She Who Done It
All).
It seems that Arjuna (big-time warrior-hero guy) was reluctant to enter into
battle in which he would have to kill large numbers of his friends and
relatives in the name of securing his kingdom. Krishna (local incarnation of
the divinity) assured him that the soul is deathless and that this physical
world is but a shadow of true Reality, so he should not feel remorse in killing
people because they couldn't really die anyway. Krishna went on to claim that,
if Arjuna didn't fight, he would be shirking his duty. Bottom line: ``Go out
there and kill your friends; they won't really die or anything (no,
really). Besides, your duty to this illusory world is much more important
than your Uncle Virender.'' Dunno. Sounds like god is giving Arjuna a
wonderfully complex line of bullshit (and we all know what that means).
Continuing eastward, we next find ourselves in China, home of Taoism and
Confuscianism, which are arguably complementary aspects of classical Chinese
thought. Confuscianism is more philosophy than religion (and I intend to save
the proof that all philosophies are variations of Discordianism for another
treatise, seeing how long this one is already), so I'll limit myself to
discussing Taoism, which differs from Discordianism in name only. Taoism, with
its yin/yang that so admirably approximates our own
Sacred Chao,
even shares
the tactics of Discordianism: to free the mind via patent absurdity (known as
``Nonsense as Salvation,'' as
The Golden Secret
explains). Let us consider some passages from the Lao Tzu, the book of choice
for discerning Taoists.
-
- ``Always nonexistent, That we may apprehend its inner secret;
- Always existent, That we may discern its outer manifestations.
- These two are the same; Only as they manifest themselves they receive
different names.
- That they are the same is the mystery.
- Mystery of all mysteries!''
Existent, nonexistent; P and Not-P. ``These two are the same.'' What utter,
wonderful nonsense! Would that we could make our homes where Lao Tzu made his
(Wackyland, that is)! What does Lao Tzu have to say of mankind's insane quest
for the Truth (the mantle thrust upon us by Greyface, most reviled of the
vile)?
-
-
``It was when knowledge and intelligence arose, That there appeared much
hypocrisy... Banish sageliness, discard wisdom, And the people will be
benefited a hundredfold.''
'Nuff said.
Now, for a quick tally. According to the most recent numbers I can get my
hands on, I've shown that 2.3 billion people are calling themselves any number
of odd things, but are really Discordians. That, my brethren (and sistren
[can't get those Feminists mad]), makes us the largest Disorganized religion on
the whole silly (and I've shown the ``silly'' part beyond a shadow of a doubt)
planet.
Therefore, walk proudly into church on Sunday morning, stroll up to the pulpit
and read the Sunday comics out loud to the congregation! Sashay into the
Temple on Saturday and make some good use of one of those Holy Flippy-Fliers!
The next time you see a man prostrate towards Mecca, hop on his back and yell
``Giddap!'' These men are your Brothers, after all, and will know how to treat
you.