Discordianism is a either joke masquerading as a religion, or a religion masquerading as a joke. Discordians worship Eris, aka Discordia, goddess of chaos. If you’re not familiar with it, go read the Principia Discordia. My primary introduction to it was through the Illuminatus trilogy.
Good stuff:
- The image of goddess as a bright-eyed, impish, slightly naughty girl with a short attention span and a penchant for mischief is an attractive one to me. Eris is a goddess of potential, of pushing the red button, of why-the-hell-not? She’s the antithesis of the precautionary principle. Plus, she’s one of the few goddesses mere mortals have any chance of getting lucky with.
- Embracing chaos. If there’s one thing that the universe is not in short supply of, it’s chaos. Entropy rules. Most religions celebrate the victory of order over chaos. Discordianism takes the opposite tack. It’s important to note, though, that Discordians make a distinction between constructive disorder and destructive disorder. The former is the one they revere. This love of chaos meshes nicely with my worldview, and provides a meeting-point between my spiritual side and my social and political outlook. I’m and advocate of a world of free agents pursuing their own ends, forming spontaneous orders, cross-pollinating, generating new forms of art and expression; the creative destruction of the marketplace; liberty and anarchy. Eris represents that ideal. She’s the goddess of the the internet, of anarchy, of dynamism.
- The incorporation of humor. I need my religion to be able to laugh at itself. Discordianism laughs at itself, at me, at the world, and especially at the people that don’t get the joke.
- With the possible exception of Zen Buddhsim, Discordianism is the only religion which utilizes the brainfuck as a method of awakening spiritual consciousness.
- Fnord.
you know, i might actually start reading up on this shit, and who knows, become awakened.
Did you happen to notice that you didn’t list any cons for this one? I did.
I’ve been specifically avoiding thinking of them in terms of “pros” and “cons”, because they’re not. What I’m doing could be compared to determining the dimensions of some large, buried object using an electronic detector of some kind. The positive bullet points are really the places where the practice and experience of a religion intersected with an aspect of my “inner religion”, and the detector went “beeeeeep!”. The negatives are places where the detector indicated there was nothing of interest below the soil. So the fact that there aren’t any negatives in this case doesn’t really indicate anything, other than the fact that my experience with discordianism hasn’t been enough to run into anything went noticably against the grain. It says more about my limited experience of it, and the fact that as a religion, it really isn’t all that well fleshed-out.
The question is, did you notice which number in the series this one is?
Heh… or how many bullet points there are? I did’t notice that one until just now.
Did you happen to notice my AIM s/n?
Or my email?
muahahaha…
Yep, I noticed… I had wondered if that was the interest that lead you to me.
Only in a roundabout way…
worshiping eris is amusingly self-contradictory 😉
I must be a goddess
The image of goddess as a bright-eyed, impish, slightly naughty girl with a short attention span and a penchant for mischief is an attractive one to me.
Um, pardon me, but… that describes me to a T. 😛
Plus, she’s one of the few goddesses mere mortals have any chance of getting lucky with.
Well, that’s odd. I wonder why I intimidate so many “mere mortals”, then.
Re: I must be a goddess
c’mere little lady, lemme, uh, “worship” you… 😉
Re: I must be a goddess
“Little”? There’s nothing little about me! It’s tall petite, that it is. 😛
Rockin’ book, the Trilogy
In contrast with Focault’s Pendulum, by Umberto Eco, which, while good, made the distasteful decision to take itself seriously.
Re: Rockin’ book, the Trilogy
I concur.
hahaha….
trickster. Loki. The Raven. Prometheus. Eris. The Morrigan. Mercury.
Creativity in Chaos.
Embrace the Change.
Engage your Will to Power.
That is what I have also always found myself drawn to… thus the tattoo on my right shoulder of “trickster” in Norse runes.. (which looks vaguely like “tricstmr” in terms of orthography…
haha.
now I must get sleep.. need nappy nap before getting up later to make spazghetti and then clubbage…