Abide With Me

In this episode, we talk about Parody Religions! These are religions based on pop culture or as a commentary on religion. 

If you've ever been curious about Dudeism, the Invisible Pink Unicorn or the Flying Spaghetti Monster and his noodly appendages, then this is the episode for you.

Religious parody holds an important place in society, whether you are a diehard fan of Star Wars, or want people to think more critically about the role of religion in society.

Even though they may seem a bit "out there", parody religions share many similarities with the world's major religions. And who are we to say that they aren't true believers? Should they be taken as seriously as mainstream religions? 

We discuss all this and more on this fan-requested episode of the Holy Watermelon Podcast!

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Katie Dooley  00:00

Hi Preston!

Preston Meyer  00:12

Hi, Katie.

Katie Dooley  00:12

How are you?

Preston Meyer  00:13

I'm doing great. How about you?

Katie Dooley  00:15

I'm snazzy. I'm excited for today's episode

Preston Meyer  00:21

of the... 

Both Hosts  00:21

Holy watermelon podcast.

Katie Dooley  00:26

We've been on a spiritual journey pun intended. We've done all the world's religions, major religions. We talked much about belief, and why people believe the things they believe which there was no answer to that question so...

Preston Meyer  00:46

We've examined what a god is, what religion really is, and may or may not be, which of course, is still way too nebulous and tricky.

Katie Dooley  00:56

We got into cults. Last episode. Now, I think we're ready for the real hard-hitting content.

Preston Meyer  01:08

Oh, I'm ready for it. In fact, there's a nifty article that I want to tell you about. Before we get into-the most read article on explorefaith.org in 2005, written by John M. Sweeney, well-respected Catholic author. Would you guess what his article was on?

Katie Dooley  01:33

Probably Catholicism. Was there a pope thing happening then?

Preston Meyer  01:40

You know, I don't remember.

Katie Dooley  01:43

Maybe Benedict in 2005. You know what? That sounds close to right.

Preston Meyer  01:44

I was in high school when Benedict came in. Am I right? Oh, I'd have to google that.

Katie Dooley  01:47

I'm clearly not right.

Preston Meyer  01:55

I feel like Benedict was new in office in 2005. Yeah. So that's a fair guess I like it. No. In fact, Sweeney's most popular article on explorefaith.org in 2005, was on Jedism. The Jedi from Star Wars.

Katie Dooley  02:17

You're not just saying Judaism wrong? That's not how it's said. We've been over this one.

Preston Meyer  02:28

Now I'm just thinking of Spaceballs. She doesn't look Druish.

Katie Dooley  02:37

That's a good sneak peek of our episode. So first, I want to say thank you to our listener, Tim, for inspiring this episode. He specifically wanted us to talk about the Church of the Latter DayzDude, or more commonly known as Dudeism. And we figured we couldn't talk for a whole hour about The Big Lebowski, so we have put together a whole episode of parody religions for you today. Thanks, Tim!

Preston Meyer  03:07

Yeah, it's pretty awesome. Thanks for that suggestion. And we've found some great material to surround this whole topic. And if you remember from our episode, talking is hard for some reason. Right, amateurs. If you remember from our episode about religion, and what is religion, you'll remember it's way too hard to define. So you'll see some parts of these religions that will look an awful lot like their legitimate religions.

Katie Dooley  03:41

And who are we to say they're not legitimate? This is part of the big questions we'll be getting into today. But let's start with religious parody and religious satire at sort of a high level. And then we'll get into some of the fun specific ones like Jedism and Dudeism.

Preston Meyer  04:00

For sure. All right, you did a little bit of research on what most school teachers will tell you not to do. But it looks really good. And it's worded really well what do you got?

Katie Dooley  04:10

I feel accused. He means I went to Wikipedia.

Preston Meyer  04:21

Wikipedia is not a source in itself, but it is an excellent tool for research. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

Katie Dooley  04:29

So basically, Wikipedia defines a parody religion or mock religion as something that challenges conventional or mainstream religious belief. It can parody several religions or it can...

Preston Meyer  04:51

Or it can be a little more focused.

Katie Dooley  04:54

I was gonna say or it could not be based off of any particular religion at all.

Preston Meyer  04:58

It could just be the idea of religion in general.

Katie Dooley  05:02

Yeah, I was gonna say commentary on religion. So that is, what a parody religion is, but as Preston mentioned, there are, this is where it's so convoluted there are beliefs and practices that look more conventionally religious, and then how do you separate someone who's perhaps just taking the piss, from someone who legitimately believes? And how can you tell, right? As per our belief episode, you can't tell someone that they're just, if they're telling you that they genuinely believe in Jedism, who are you to say that they're not or that they're wrong, or that it's a joke religion, this becomes convoluted.

Preston Meyer  05:55

It's tricky to say you have a place to tell them that their religion that is obviously new and constructed on popular culture is nonsense, and that they're wrong.

Katie Dooley  06:08

When yours was, but just 2000 years ago. I said it, I said what I said!

Preston Meyer  06:15

You can't tell somebody that they don't get to believe a thing. If their experience tells them that they do.

Katie Dooley  06:25

Well, and we'll get we'll touch on proof of burden today. And touch on proof of burden even more next episode... teaser! Yeah, we'll talk about proof of burden today in because that's a big part of parody religion, I think. And I have some favorites for that very reason. As an atheist, of course, so there's also religious satire, and if you've been on our Discord, I've been calling this episode satirical religions and satire is not quite the right term for it. But religious satire is a, it's a thing. And this feels as good of an episode as I need to bring it up.

Preston Meyer  07:08

For sure. And a little bit, like very similar, but slightly distinct from

Katie Dooley  07:15

Satire/parody let's all go back to high school English class.

Preston Meyer  07:19

A little bit different, but still connected, is the satire, which targets clergy, which doesn't show up a whole lot in parody religions, but you'll definitely see loads of this phenomenon. If you follow a handful of our favorite comedians, maybe.

Katie Dooley  07:41

And even you'll see it in political cartoons.

Preston Meyer  07:44

Yeah and so that that satire, which targets the clergy is definitely more of a political satire than a religious satire because you're targeting a person in a position of authority rather than the beliefs of the group.

Katie Dooley  07:59

So my understanding and jump in please, is that the difference between a parody religion is so a parody religion is I don't want to say entirely new ideas, because we know that's wrong, but it's its own entity, whereas religious satire is critiquing an existing religion in a hilarious way. And I honestly didn't even think about this example until I was reading up on it, but Life of Brian, and even to some extent, Monty Python, the Holy Grail is a great example of religious satire, where they essentially make fun of the life of Jesus.

Preston Meyer  08:36

I'm not the Messiah, He is the Messiah.

Katie Dooley  08:42

And this comes up more with satirical religions and with parody religions, but it's this idea of freedom of speech and how much we're allowed to have a commentary, especially this idea of making fun of a religion, how, what level is appropriate. I think you know, from our podcast, where we stand on that, I don't actually think religious satire is a bad thing.

Preston Meyer  09:12

I think it's healthy to be able to criticize both people for their actions, and the thoughts that they are willing to hurt others to protect. For sure.

Katie Dooley  09:29

And I also think, like, if you're going to be critiquing anything, especially something so serious, and where people can get hurt, why not do it with humor. It just makes it that much more comfortable.

Preston Meyer  09:42

It makes it more palatable too

Katie Dooley  09:44

Right? if you can laugh at yourself or your group or whatever, or even you know, at others, then that's a lot better than fighting each other, I think. That's my thought on religious satire. I think that's probably all we'll touch on it today.

Preston Meyer  10:04

Yeah. All right. So, as I alluded to in episodes past, and the beginning of this episode just a little bit, there's some big questions that I want to keep in mind as we look at these religious parodies and weird pseudo-religions, parareligions. Sure, why not? I like it. So, the real question, the big question with sub questions is, is it fair to call them religions all? Remember, we don't have one solid, everybody agrees on this definition of religion. So things get tricky already.

Katie Dooley  10:49

I, not having dived into the conversation yet.

Preston Meyer  10:58

Your verb usage.... awful.

Katie Dooley  11:02

Not having gotten into the meat of the conversation, my guess is that it's a spectrum. Spectrum. I think I said that too quietly spectrum, spectrum!

Preston Meyer  11:14

So some ideas that can help us with this question. Again, pretty subjective and tricky, but we're gonna go ahead anyway. Number one, are they real systems of deeply held beliefs. Some people genuinely deeply hold that Jesus is their Savior, or that Muhammad is the last prophet that there ever can be. And there's some similar tiered values we're going to see in some of these groups. There's also the question of belief that is hugely important to those people who like to undermine the claims of some of these groups, that they can only be joke religions, and should never be taken seriously. But does religion bear the prerequisite of full dogmatic belief in each of its doctrines? What about those people who belong to various churches that happen to doubt one or many of their doctrines, or are straight up skeptical of the whole thing, but still belong to the community? So maybe you don't have a connection to the Force, but you still identify as a Jedi? Who gets to tell you you're not a Jedi?

Katie Dooley  12:39

Nobody, Preston, nobody. I almost want to answer one of your questions now. I don't know if I, if I'm jumping the gun.

Preston Meyer  12:52

Go for it, are you going broadly? Are you thinking of a specific religion?

Katie Dooley  12:55

I can speak quite broadly. Preston has mentioned like how deeply do some people believe and of course, I've already said it, take a shot. It's a spectrum. So I'm sure for each of these parody religions that we're about to talk about. There are people who hold this deeply as a belief. 7 billion people, of course, there's someone who really, really really truly believes in the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, for example. But that being said, and Pastafarians are one of them, that they're parody religions as a critique of religion. So there's I'll point them out when we get to them, that there are these set of parody religions, we're going to talk about where the whole idea is that believing in a higher power can't be proven. So I would say in that group, which like I said, I'll point out, those beliefs are less deeply held because it's just a critique of.

Preston Meyer  13:57

Yes, some of the groups we're going to look at are definitely just exercises looking at Russell's Teapot, and others are actual committed philosophies.

Katie Dooley  14:09

Let's do the Russell's Teapot at the end, we'll do actual philosophy. I didn't separate them that way in the notes, but now I'm like, that would probably be a good way to do it. We're gonna... we're improvising, guys.

Preston Meyer  14:20

All right now according to the request that launched this whole idea, we're going to start with the Church of the Latter Day Dude

Katie Dooley  14:27

I love that name. Church the Latter Day Dude. Or Dudeism.

Preston Meyer  14:33

Right. So it's mostly inspired by the film The Big Lebowski.

Katie Dooley  14:38

Where he is called The Dude.

Preston Meyer  14:43

Good ol' Jeff Bridges, super chill most of the time.

Katie Dooley  14:48

And he's not a Dudeist himself, but he thinks it's pretty rad that dudeism exists.

Preston Meyer  14:54

Wouldn't you? If you did a movie and everyone is like we're starting a religion based off of your portrayal of this character in this movie, you'd be flattered too.

Katie Dooley  15:04

You know what? I didn't like The Big Lebowski.

Preston Meyer  15:09

Oh the movies not that good.

Katie Dooley  15:11

I feel like that's a really... I watched it with your wife, probably 10 years ago. 

Preston Meyer  15:15

She hates it.

Katie Dooley  15:16

We both hated it. So, I don't want to digress too much, but

Preston Meyer  15:21

I had to watch it without her.

Katie Dooley  15:24

So Preston's wife and I went to school together. And we had a school project that was themed on The Big Lebowski, and so that, it sounds cool. But the teacher made us watch The Big Lebowski in class. And this is University, right, like two free classes of University for a movie, like that's elementary school stuff. And we just, we couldn't stand it. Sorry, probably to Tim. I assume you like The Big Lebowski if you're into Dudeism, and anyone else who's listening, but we're gonna cover it for you. 

Preston Meyer  16:02

I got a side thought. I just realized this. So I'm sharing this with everybody all at the same time, through this wonderful medium of the podcast where none of this is actually contemporaneous. So I just realized just now, The Big Lebowski is basically the same thing as John Wick just replaced the dog with the carpet. And John Wick got several sequels.

Katie Dooley  16:40

I don't know what he's talking about.

Preston Meyer  16:44

Somebody out there in radio land knows what John Wick is.

Katie Dooley  16:47

No I know, somebody's gonna like hop on our Discord and be like, Katie, why don't you know what this is? Here's a link, but I don't know what you're talking about. But I'm sure it's a great analogy I'm really proud of you.

Preston Meyer  16:56

For those who know, they'll be like, oh, yeah, or maybe they'll disagree with me. And we can chat it up on our Discord server

Katie Dooley  17:03

Which we're clearly plugging. All right. Church of the Latter Day Dude is based off The Big Lebowski, as you said. It's also has some tenants of Taoism in it, which we didn't spend an episode on Taoism, but it's similar to Shintoism. A little bit like Buddhism, it's very...

Preston Meyer  17:23

It's more complicated than Shintoism. But similar in a lot of ways.

Katie Dooley  17:29

It's very reflective,  and very meditative. So yeah, some, maybe we'll do an episode on Taoism one day, but it's very similar to Buddhism or Shintoism. In that you are trying to elevate yourself and remove yourself from the everyday cares and sufferings of the world.

Preston Meyer  17:56

It's kind of interesting that even though this is a new religion based on a pop culture phenomenon, the practitioners of Dudeism tend to take it pretty seriously.

Katie Dooley  18:07

This is one of those ones where, yeah, people take it very seriously. There's lots of books on it and lots of like doctrinal readings. They're all like, I mean, they're all very modern. In comparison, The Big Lebowski is fairly new compared to you know, the Bible.

Preston Meyer  18:27

For sure. That comparison, yeah.

Katie Dooley  18:33

So Dudeists have a doctrine that will actually look quite similar to the Buddhist doctrine. I actually saw a comparison side by side on life is suffering, you can overcome suffering. And what's the third point I'm missing?

Preston Meyer  18:54

Wasn't the third point, the escape is nirvana. Yeah and so there's those three same questions are asked relative to Dudeism, and what are those answers?

Katie Dooley  19:09

Dudeism is trying to liberate us from thinking that's too uptight. Life is suffering. Dudeism is trying to bring us to the state of just taking it easy, man. And how do we get to this state is by abiding. The Dude abides. So there's the mirror that's in Buddhism,

Preston Meyer  19:35

Right? It's nice and simple. Just relax. Let it be. It's very zen. That's pretty great. There's there's a lot of philosophies that have been picked through to pick out the most easy going bits to make this philosophy.

Katie Dooley  19:58

Yeah, their High Holy Day is March 6 is the Day of the Dude. It celebrates the release of The Big Lebowski in theatres.

Preston Meyer  20:14

If you're gonna pick any day, why not that?

Katie Dooley  20:16

I mean, how would you pick that?

Preston Meyer  20:20

All right. And even you can be ordained as a Dudeist Priest. There's about 600,000 in the world. 

Katie Dooley  20:30

That's a very high number

Preston Meyer  20:32

Right? Like, that's, that's alarming. That's more than half a million.

Katie Dooley  20:37

Yes. 600,000 is more than 500,000. Very good.

Preston Meyer  20:41

But I just like, when the word million is useful. It helps to actually use it to understand scale. 600,000, just like this, that's a number you stop paying attention how big it is? More than half a million.

Katie Dooley  20:54

Yes. So because you can be an ordained do this. I think it's more common in the States. Canada has stricter laws on who can perform marriages than the States, but you can perform marriages as a Dudeist Priest.

Preston Meyer  21:13

Yeah, I think in Canada, it's just left up to the province, the provincial governments and where we are, those restrictions are quite tight.

Katie Dooley  21:23

Yeah. So I don't remember if it was Dudeism or Pastafarianism, where there have been some serious debates on like, who can perform like, is it alright, to ordain a Dudeist to perform a marriage? Like, is it actually a religious thing?

Preston Meyer  21:40

That's a great question that I think was related to the Spaghetti Monster. I think I actually have that in our notes. 

Katie Dooley  21:50

Maybe that's what I'm thinking. Yeah. Cool. That's Dudeism. The dude abides.

Preston Meyer  21:55

The Dude abides. Nice and simple.

Katie Dooley  21:59

The Church of SubGenius. I don't think that's a Russell's Teapot is it? 

Preston Meyer  22:04

I don't think it is. 

Katie Dooley  22:05

It's pretty out there to be...

Preston Meyer  22:08

Yeah. The Church of the SubGenius is a really odd group. I couldn't really find lots of information that would be useful or interesting for this, but I did find a little bit.

Katie Dooley  22:24

It's a very like sci-fi based religion, not quite the it's obviously not like a Scientology. I don't think it has any cult tendencies. But it does have this weird scientific basis that I'll let Preston get into.

Preston Meyer  22:41

So the Church of the SubGenius was founded in the 1970s. Around this fictional character, I need to emphasize this person never existed

Katie Dooley  22:53

When I looked it up, I thought he existed. So yes, emphasize this.

Preston Meyer  22:58

So J.R. "Bob" Dobbs, Bob is always written with quotation marks around it. No exceptions, J.R. "Bob" Dobbs, is a fictional salesman back in the 50s. It is claimed that while messing around with the TV, he received a vision from JHVH-1 that spelled J-H-V-H dash, the numeral one. Which sounds suspicious already, but that's not enough grounds to dismiss a thing. And the story within this Church of the SubGenius is that Bob's started the church back in 1953. Remember, the church was actually founded in the 70s.

Katie Dooley  23:56

I mean, I like that, a different origin story,

Preston Meyer  23:59

Right? It's totally fine to lie about your history. I mean, if you look at a lot of scholarly works, looking at Christianity, loads of people say that Jesus was a collective invention of his apostles, which is tricky and unpopular, but it's a position that a lot of people hold to. And so the number one founder of this group, there's there's a few names that are important to this group, but the fella named Drummond which is an assumed name, not his name from birth. Yeah, nobody's using the real names. Drummond was contacted by this "Bob" salesman, J.R. "Bob" Dobbs telepathically in 1972. And then a year later, Drummond reached out to a few more people. And over the course of a few years they actually collected. I want to say a couple of 100 people who are committed followers. We don't know how commited they were.

Katie Dooley  25:13

I was gonna ask how big this. I don't think it's very big.

Preston Meyer  25:16

It's not a huge group. But as far as I can tell, it's still around. Which is pretty impressive for this weird religion that popped up 50 years ago.

Katie Dooley  25:29

That's impressive. Yeah.

Preston Meyer  25:31

I mean, we've we've mentioned the Flying Spaghetti Monster a few times. I really doubt the Flying Spaghetti Monster is going anywhere. I think it's here to stay. At least for a while.

Katie Dooley  25:41

Physially going because he's flying... That was a bad joke.

Preston Meyer  25:49

A little bit, but I liked it. So one of the biggest, most important ideas of the Church of the SubGenius is that all conspiracies, all of them every single one is just a lesser conspiracy to the great conspiracy. And... 

Katie Dooley  26:16

Party of me wants to comment on what the great conspiracy is, but that's not our place.

Preston Meyer  26:21

It's far too complicated for any one person to be able to nail down exactly what it is. Which sounds like a real problem.

Katie Dooley  26:30

II feel this make it cut out... But Bryant says that if you follow any conspiracy theory long and like far enough it all ends up in anti-semitism. It was all the Jews. That's the great conspiracy. It wasn't. Don't misquote me on that. But yeah, if you follow any chemtrails or lizardmen far enough it was the Jews! It wasn't. But that's what it is. That's the first thing I think of when you say the great conspiracy is anti-semitism.

Preston Meyer  26:43

It reminds me of Arrested Development. Some old guy wants to blame the dinosaurs as something that the Jews put there to confuse the Christians.

Katie Dooley  27:14

Great prank. I love that. Good!

Preston Meyer  27:19

It's actually kind of nifty. There was a pamphlet published by the Church of the SubGenius, in 1979, that criticized all popular concepts of God, but also all New Age spirituality, as part of this conspiracy thing to control people. And also, it's more especially New Age spirituality, of this idea of consumerism, that the two are inseparable. And they really wanted to basically jam up consumerism. I have to admit, I didn't look very hard. But I didn't find any testimonials for the Church of the SubGenius.

Katie Dooley  28:06

So we don't believe in it.

Preston Meyer  28:08

I mean, I don't. I think that there might be somebody that does.

Katie Dooley  28:17

Now, this next one, I feel like you're very excited for

Preston Meyer  28:21

I think it's pretty cool. I did all kinds of research on this.

Katie Dooley  28:26

Judaism, oh, Jedism!

Preston Meyer  28:30

It's only a couple of letters off, but they're important letter.

Katie Dooley  28:36

It's the whole Yahweh/Jehovah thing again.

Preston Meyer  28:40

I mean, there's a lot of books out there that draw parallels between the Christian or the Judeo-Christian faith, and Jediism and the force in general.

Katie Dooley  28:52

We had this conversation in our religion as pop culture episode, Jesus of the Silver Screen, I think it was episode four. It's been a minute, where we talk about how narratives are written. And the Bible and Star Wars follow the same narrative story or narrative structures. So yeah, of course, there are parallels

Preston Meyer  29:16

Well, the the monomyth, as described by several scholars, including Joseph Campbell, definitely looked at the big religions to construct what really is the layout of the monomyth and George Lucas deliberately sculpted his Star Wars story using Joseph Campbell's hero of 1000 faces. Yeah it's a story structure that's worked for 2000 plus years. Yeah. And so this religion that has popped up is basically just people saying 

Katie Dooley  29:50

Something something.. dark side...

Preston Meyer  29:53

Don't join the dark side. Be a good person. Follow these handful of morals that we see associated with the Jedi. And that's it's pretty simple. Minimize your time dwelling on negative emotions. Don't become a Sith Lord.

Katie Dooley  30:13

Don't kill your wife with your negative emotions.

Preston Meyer  30:18

Rright? My wife and I just watched Revenge of the SItht like... no it wasn't Thursday, it must have been a Wednesday or Tuesday. It was this week.

Katie Dooley  30:32

I haven't seen that in years now I kind of want to watch it.

Preston Meyer  30:35

I mean, it's not that good. But we're doing a run through

Katie Dooley  30:38

It's better than Attack of the Clones

Preston Meyer  30:40

Yes.

Katie Dooley  30:41

So Jedism is incredibly popular.

Preston Meyer  30:45

Yes. I mean, Star Wars fans all around the world are huge in number. 

Katie Dooley  30:50

There's difference between being a Star Wars fan and being a Jedi.

Preston Meyer  30:55

It's absolutely true. And so in 2001, we saw the scope of this issue. There was a worldwide phenomenon. Loads of countries had their census in 2001. 

Katie Dooley  31:07

All this was right after Episode One came out. 2001 I was like wondering why the numbers were...

Preston Meyer  31:14

People were very excited about the newest Star Wars movie looking forward to the next one, hoping Jar Jar Binks had a smaller role in the next one. Luckily, he did. And in 2001, huge numbers of people reported on this census that they belong to the Jedi Order, or that they were Jedi, or that they were Jedi Knights variations using the word Jedi, is the important detail here. In 2001, Australia reported more than 70,000 Jedi on their census. Canada reported more about 21,000. New Zealand reported 53,000 Jedi in 2001. Scotland reported more than 14,000 Jedi, and England and Wales together reported more than 390,000 Jedi. It's the fourth largest religion in that census.

Katie Dooley  32:15

That's wild!

Preston Meyer  32:19

There are more Jedi in England and Wales at this time, according to the census than there were Sikhs, more than there were Buddhists. There are more Jedis than Jews in England and Wales at this time.

Katie Dooley  32:34

There's a lot of Jedis in the world.

Preston Meyer  32:37

And so the biggest numbers were recorded in England and Wales, which is pretty cool. What's really interesting to me is that there were more than 2000 people in Scotland said that Jedism is the religion they were raised with. Additionally, Scotland also reported 14 People in the census saying that they were Siths.

Katie Dooley  33:07

Not to be confused with Sikhs. How many people just like check the wrong box? There's no Sith box on the Census I hope!

Preston Meyer  33:17

They weren't checkboxes they were just write in your religion. And that's, like 600,000 people, as many Dudist priests, as there are today. There were that many people telling the world and their various national census reports that they were Jedis 20 years ago.

Katie Dooley  33:42

Well, and this is where we get back to that spectrum we were talking about of how many of these people believe truly and I imagine somewhere in that 2000 people they probably due if you're raised with it, and then I'm sure there's a huge portion that are just like, "Oh, it would be funny to put Jedi on the census"

Preston Meyer  34:03

I mean, there's definitely a bunch of people who just thought it'd be funny. Yeah, almost every one of these people, though, not all of them, but probably almost all of them probably identify as agnostic or atheist, realistically, but I bet you an awful lot of them genuinely believe in ghosts, or the possibility of ghosts, maybe that might be more correct to say.

Katie Dooley  34:26

Even just like the universal energy. Arguably, that's the force.

Preston Meyer  34:33

And this idea that you just shouldn't be a good person and not give in to negative emotions. I mean, that's a pretty easy thing to say, yeah, I believe that. That's good. So it's an interesting religion to look at.

Katie Dooley  34:48

I love the story you put about the founder of The Church of Jedism.

Preston Meyer  34:55

Oh, yes. Yes, in 2005. There was the temple of the Jedi Order that was registered in Texas. They were granted IRS tax exemption 10 years later, just 2015. And in 2006, just the year after the temple was set up in Texas, two Jedi delivered a protest letter to UN officials in recognition of International day of Tolerance. In their letter, they decided that it should be called the Interstellar Day of Tolerance, and cited the 2001 census showing 390,000 Jedi in England and Wales as a good reason to expand this title. 

Katie Dooley  35:42

It didn't get changed did it?

Preston Meyer  35:44

Oh, of course not. But they tried real hard.

Katie Dooley  35:47

Fight for what you believe in and arguably they're true Jedi, as in they truly... Yeah if you're going to take that time out of your day to write a letter to the UN.

Preston Meyer  35:59

Right? The next year 2007 is a story that I love and I shared with your husband earlier. I just I crack up every time I think about it. Daniel Jones founded the church of Jedism with his brother, Barney just gone crazy as I try and read. They believe that the 2001 UK census recognized Jedism as a religion, and that there was more Jedi than Scientologists in Britain. 

Katie Dooley  36:35

He's not wrong. 

Preston Meyer  36:36

Right? That's pretty solid. In 2009, just couple years later, the fan band Jedi is are very welcome to shop in our stores. Although we would ask them to remove their hoods. Obi Wan Kenobi, Yoda and Luke Skywalker, all appeared hoodless, without ever going over to the dark side. And we are only aware of the emperor as the one who never removed his hood.

Katie Dooley  37:05

Calling out the founders evil.

Preston Meyer  37:08

He's definitely pointing out some issues that may be Jones might have some more allegiance to the Sith and the Jedi. Even though we definitely see the Sith without their hoods to that he makes a strong argument as far as the movies go. And I think it's great.

Katie Dooley  37:31

Another movie religion. You should pair this episode with our Jesus of the Silver Screen episode just saying, if you haven't listened to that one. Listen to it after because it's that good one. And it relates to this lot is Matrixism. That's really hard to say Matrixism.

Preston Meyer  37:53

Yeah, the mouth doesn't like forming those sounds that close together.

Katie Dooley  37:57

Which is based off of..

Both Hosts  37:59

The matrix

Katie Dooley  38:00

Which is another... Neo is a Christ figure. So just like Luke Skywalker, so we're not... it's not a far stretch to see how this can be made into a religion. It was created in 2004, which I presume is when a bunch of the Matrix movies came out

Preston Meyer  38:23

Close. The first one came out in '99. And then two sequels came out almost back to back in 2003.

Katie Dooley  38:31

Okay, they were good movies. I remember those better than the most recent Star Wars.

Preston Meyer  38:36

Fair enough. The sequels were decent. My complaint is probably the same as most other people's that they really dumbed down the philosophical elements for the sequels.

Katie Dooley  38:49

It has the four tenants of Matrixism. 

Preston Meyer  38:53

Are you saying tenant or tenet? 

Katie Dooley  38:55

Tenants, tennant tenets, tenants? Tenants

Preston Meyer  38:59

Tenet, there's only one n in a principle. 

Katie Dooley  39:02

Not David Tennant 

Preston Meyer  39:03

Right, a tenant is somebody who lives and rents.

Katie Dooley  39:06

Or if your David Tennant the best doctor of the entire show. He's hands down my favorite. Anyway. That's different episode. The four tenets of Matrixism. Number one, they believe in a messianic prophecy, Neo is a Christ figure.  Check. Number two, the use of psychedelic drugs is sacrament.

Preston Meyer  39:33

See, this makes a lot of people get a little uncomfortable. But is it that weird? I think it's actually pretty common for a lot of the really old primal religions.

Katie Dooley  39:43

I was going to say using drugs in religions not uncommon. Or is even... I'm sure there's instances in Christianity where it's been done.

Preston Meyer  39:54

Oh, probably. Rastafarianism is like relies heavily on cannabis. Which is pretty light compared to the harder psychedelics, but it's a perception altering...

Katie Dooley  40:10

Which honestly, in the context of the Matrix makes sense. I can see how that maybe won't make Matrixism for everyone, but I can see... I understand why it works in their belief system. Number three, a perception of reality as multi-layered and semi-subjective.

Preston Meyer  40:33

It's complicated and tricky. We've talked a lot about some of these ideas in our belief episode that what is subjective is a hard thing to argue against somebody who sees them differently.

Katie Dooley  40:52

Yeah, so basically, everything is subjective. 

Preston Meyer  40:55

Pretty much. Reality is perception. It's a problem.

Katie Dooley  41:03

Absolutely. So I don't even think this is that weird, because we should probably just look at life in general as multi-layered and semi-subjective.

Preston Meyer  41:11

Yeah.

Katie Dooley  41:14

All religions should stick that one in actually.

Preston Meyer  41:17

That might help.

Katie Dooley  41:19

And then number four is the adherence to the principles of at least one of the world's major religions. That's interesting.

Preston Meyer  41:30

Yep. To be a true Matrixist... you have to believe in the principles of a religion.

Katie Dooley  41:45

I don't I don't know how to feel about that. 

Preston Meyer  41:48

I'm curious how they outline what counts as acceptable principles.

Katie Dooley  41:52

Or religion. 

Preston Meyer  41:53

Yeah, your question is as good as mine is.

Katie Dooley  41:57

Part of me is like well I don't like that because I don't want to adhere to anything but then I you know, I can... Can I pick and choose? There's like a handful, like, the dude abides!

Preston Meyer  42:07

Yeah, if you don't want to adhere to anything. Do you even want to adhere to Matrixism

Katie Dooley  42:11

I guess so guess? If I liked the first three then...

Preston Meyer  42:18

You like the the real movies but not the Animatrix.

Katie Dooley  42:24

This one hurts my head. I guess that's not surprising.

Preston Meyer  42:30

So there is a holy day for Matrixism, April 19, known as Bicycle Day. Which just That's a weird name for the day, considering that it marks the anniversary of Albert Hoffman's 1943 experiment with LSD. So the symbol, lots of these religions have symbols. And the Matrixist symbol is kind of obvious on the surface, but also has some baggage to it, I guess. It's the Japanese symbol, the kanji for red, which is reference to the red pill that one takes to be extracted from the Matrix. You get woke when you get red. And there's of course, the internet phenomenon of the red pill, which has some serious baggage on its own.

Katie Dooley  43:36

Yeah, different connotations now than when Matrixism started. So yeah, we'll just gloss over that. So with those three covered, four? So those pop culture we'll cover, we're going to go to the ones that are based off of Russell's Teapot, and we'll start with Russell's Teapot. So if you haven't heard the theory, we'll start there. So Russell's Teapot is this idea that there is a teapot orbiting the planets between Earth and Mars or the Moon and Mars.

Preston Meyer  44:20

Close it's not orbiting a planet. It's just chilling out between Earth and Mars. 

Katie Dooley  44:25

I thought it was moving.

Preston Meyer  44:28

I'm sure it moves both Earth and Mars move.

Katie Dooley  44:30

And this is the start of the commentary on religion and burden of proof. It's used a lot in I mean, I guess arguments for atheism and agnosticism is that you can't disprove that there isn't a teapot between Earth and Mars.

Preston Meyer  44:52

Right. And I don't have to prove that there is.

Katie Dooley  44:56

Right? So this is where when we talk about burden of proof for falls on the note I found says it falls on the believer, not in this case of the atheist to prove that there's a teapot, right? You can't just say, well byou can't disprove that there's no teapot, right? You have to prove that there's a teapot. 

Preston Meyer  45:15

That's the exact way that our legal system works out. If you want to accuse somebody of something, it's not up to them to prove that they didn't do it. It's up to you to prove they did. And so that same principle applies here that it's not up to the atheists and agnostics to find any evidence that there's no God. It's up to everybody who believes that He exists to prove it if they want to have this argument,

Katie Dooley  45:38

Or whatever you believe. So yeah, let's start. So that's the Russell's teapot theory. The most famous example I think, is the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, or Pastafarianism. You're a Pastafarian if you prescribe to the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. So the Flying Spaghetti Monster started as a, I guess, like a counterpoint to intelligent design, or creationism being taught in school.

Preston Meyer  46:13

Yeah, shut up in 2005, in an open letter addressed to the Kansas State Board of Education, after they decided to permit teaching intelligent design in science class, which, if you know anything about science, you know that intelligent design doesn't fit in there.

Katie Dooley  46:32

And so the argument that was made is that if you can teach creationism, then you can teach Flying Spaghetti Monsterism.

Preston Meyer  46:45

They should be given equal position, since they have equal scientific evidence.

Katie Dooley  46:49

Scientific backing. And one thing I've read, we don't have it in our notes, but that I've read in the past about Flying Spaghetti Monster as well, is that, from the commentary standpoint, is that you can use the Flying Spaghetti Monster as a filter for your beliefs. So if a Flying Spaghetti Monster told you to do it, does it make sense? Or is it still okay? Right. So if a Flying Spaghetti Monster tells you love your neighbor, okay, yeah, I can get behind that. That's not a terrible thing. It's the Flying Spaghetti Monster says you have to stay in your house when you're on the rag and saucy like me. You're like, that's kind of weird. I'm the only one that can have red sauce. I assume that's what he'd say he'd be jealous of your menstruation then it's a little like that's kind of weird Flying Spaghetti Monster.

Preston Meyer  47:54

That's great.

Katie Dooley  47:55

So that's and Pastafarians are also well known for religious garb, that... the big thing is that they wear colanders on their heads, in situations where you know, where people are, you know, arguing that they want to wear their religious garb. And just, you know, again, pointing it out. So you can get your driver's license with a colander on your head if you cite religious reasons for itl.

Preston Meyer  47:58

And it works in some places and not others. There are a loads of places where they have approved for your legal ID in various forms, whether it's your your gun license, your driver's license, whatever. There are loads of places that have said yes, it's okay for you to have your colander on your head because it's a religious garment. And basically as many others saying, no, that's nonsense.

Katie Dooley  48:58

Just like Dudism and Jedism, you can be ordained. You can perform weddings as a Pastafarian. I think you're a Pastafarian minister.

Preston Meyer  49:11

Yeah, it's actually one of the...

Katie Dooley  49:13

But as clergy of the Pastafarians you can perform weddings.

Preston Meyer  49:18

It's one of most the one of the loudest complaints against Pastafarianism is actually that the ordination mill, and there's a huge fight going on about who gets to say that this religion is a legitimate religion and this religion is just an ordination mill. Who gets to decide what criteria are valid criteria to do is to decide who gets to perform a marriage? 

Katie Dooley  49:48

Well, and then we get into this, which this will be a whole different episode, but the idea of what the sanctity of marriage is and you know, this whole idea of like, it matters who performed your wedding. I get it. So where we are in Canada, it's quite strict because people make their livings marrying people. And that's why they're pretty strict about who's allowed to marry so that the people who do it for a living can make a living. And so that I get but other than that, it's like, 

Preston Meyer  50:23

The province employs a dozen people, basically part time to do this. As far as job creation. It's not a strong action.

Katie Dooley  50:33

No, it's not. But

Preston Meyer  50:37

It's a move of authority. That's it. Just look at me swing around my dick. That's basically what the government's doing.

Katie Dooley  50:47

Yeah, so this is like, this is just, I think, the most popular example of commentary on religion. I'm into it. I like seeing the Flying Spaghetti Monsters on the backs of cars.

Preston Meyer  50:59

Right? There are holidays for Pastafarians too 

Katie Dooley  51:04

I love these. I want to be a Pastafarian.

Preston Meyer  51:05

The best two, in my opinion, is Pastover and Ramandan.

Katie Dooley  51:14

I want to celebrate Ramandan,

Preston Meyer  51:17

Pastover, kind of obvious, eat pasta. Ramandan gets a little bit more specific. You gotta eat ramen, Gotta have those instant noodles.

Katie Dooley  51:32

Now I really want ramen... we have pho broth in our house too that I don't know what to do with. Hmm.

Preston Meyer  51:39

So the biggest highlight for Pastafarians that is pretty easy to get behind, I think, is the absolute rejection of dogma and formalism. That even the, the writings and the more well-published things that we know about Pastafarianism. They're all just suggestions anyway.

Katie Dooley  52:05

Well, and I think that comes back to it's basically an atheist religion.

Preston Meyer  52:08

Basically, it's deliberately a parody.

Katie Dooley  52:11

I understand that's an oxymoron. But yeah, it is meant to question religion. I love this one, too. The is that the Church of... It is the Invisible Pink Unicorn. So good. It's an internet meme, basically. Basically. And it's one of those things you can't prove it doesn't exist. It is both pink and invisible. At the same time, the quote from who I assume is the creator,

Preston Meyer  52:48

Not the creator, Sara.

Katie Dooley  52:50

Sara Eley she says Invisible Pink Unicorns are beings of great spiritual power. I believe that 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.

Preston Meyer  53:14

It's pretty solid.

Katie Dooley  53:15

I mean, let's look at that. Let's take that lens and look at literally every religion we've talked about.

Preston Meyer  53:23

Right? And the adherence of the invisible pink unicorn had been around for decades. The Invisible Pink Unicorn first showed up in Usenet forums.

Katie Dooley  53:34

It's an internet meme. It's the first internet meme.

Preston Meyer  53:37

Yeah, this is so far back. This was 1990.

Katie Dooley  53:41

There was like three people on the internet in 1990.

Preston Meyer  53:44

I mean, at the time, the Internet was pretty much just for nerds. And the really creepy creepy people. The dangerous people and people running really big businesses who wanted to get on early enough to get their domain name before we got expensive. 

Katie Dooley  54:03

That's really smart, actually. 

Preston Meyer  54:04

Yeah. But those are nerds too.

Katie Dooley  54:08

www.holywatermelon.com. We bought it so don't try. I know someone's like furiously Googling, as I said that. No, we've bought it, we just don't have a website yet. 

Preston Meyer  54:19

We're working on it. And yeah, it's paradoxical by being obvious that you can't prove that this unicorn does or doesn't exist, because and it's paradoxical in that, yeah, it's invisible and pink. It's loads of fun. It's a cool thought experiment. And there's a community built up around this paradox.

Katie Dooley  54:42

Well, I mean, this is basically Russell's teapot just because you can't see it doesn't mean it's not there. Or insert anything. I just think that's a cute one. And the last one parody... Yeah, this is This one's interesting. We've talked about it before, on on the Jesus of the Silver Screen episode, Our Lady of Perpetual Exemption, which is the John Oliver religion that he creates. I would actually call this more of a satire.

Preston Meyer  55:16

Oh, absolutely. The whole thing was an exercise in satire

Katie Dooley  55:19

As opposed to a parody on Christianity,

Preston Meyer  55:24

Especially those dirtbags that want to preach on TV and steal your money and collect your seed money for the prosperity 

Katie Dooley  55:34

Yeah, we're gonna do a whole episode on prosperity gospel and seed faith. Yeah, so his is absolutely a commentary on. Sorry, I just read the quote. So it's called seed faith, which this idea is that you will plant a monetary seed and then God will reward you with your money. So John Oliver does this whole sketch I highly recommend about 40 minutes long, but because it's called seed faith. At the very end of the episode, he says, when someone sends you jizz through the mail, it's time to stop whatever you're doing. So someone literally sent him jizz.

Preston Meyer  56:13

He you got so many gifts and donations.  So this church existed for about a month from August to September of 2015. And, yeah, it was just satire nonsense.

Katie Dooley  56:27

Oh, sorry. I'm just gonna, it was also a commentary on. So obviously, it was a satire of Christianity and seed faith, but also a commentary on what is a religion, and then how the IRS deals with religious institutions and how convoluted that all is. Sorry.

Preston Meyer  56:44

Yeah, it was it was a complicated, multifaceted, wonderful piece of satire that lasted a month. And he got all kinds of donations. He got giant penis statues, he got bags of seeds in reference to seed faith. He got jars of semen in reference to seed faith. He also raised $70,000, for Doctors Without Borders. Because, yeah, because because of his church status, he raised $70,000. He gave it all to Doctors Without Borders, which is awesome, I think. But yeah, that quote is a an excellent way to finish your one month long religious excursion.

Katie Dooley  57:28

And it's a good rule to live by. Whenever you receive jizz in the mail, stop doing whatever you're doing, reevaluate your life.

Preston Meyer  57:37

I love it. John Oliver, very clever guy,

Katie Dooley  57:42

To wrap up this episode, I want to revisit those questions. So we've talked about parody religions that are based in mostly pop culture, and we've talked about parody religions that are based in atheism. So...

Preston Meyer  58:00

Are they real religions?

Katie Dooley  58:01

Are they real religions?

Preston Meyer  58:05

Yeah, I think that it's, it's a lot easier to say yes than no.

Katie Dooley  58:11

Yeah and I think honestly, I think this goes back more to our belief episode, and you can't you can't tell someone what they believe it. You also can't can't even police it right? We can only do what we're doing now and having conversations around it. And I mean, I'll always go back to my point, as long as you're not hurting anyone who the fuck cares.

Preston Meyer  58:33

Right? And the question of belief, how important is that to religion? It doesn't matter if people really believe that somebody out there can wield the force for anybody to say that they belong to the Church of the Jedi.

Katie Dooley  58:52

I guess it depends on why you've gotten into religion. Yeah, which is a topic we actually haven't addressed. But yeah, if you're getting into it for community then it doesn't matter if you believe as long as you like the people you're with. If you're hoping to find a higher power, maybe these aren't the right ones for you.

Preston Meyer  59:10

Feel free to shop around. 

Katie Dooley  59:12

Yeah, and some of them might be maybe the Flying Spaghetti Monster is the higher power. I don't know. I mean, I guess it depends on what you're looking for maybe the forces is the higher power. i=If you're looking for answers to where we go when we die. I don't actually think any of these address that particularly well, but

Preston Meyer  59:30

Not really as far as I'm aware.

Katie Dooley  59:32

But I also think that's a really poor reason to get into religion if it just because you're scared to die. But yeah, so these ones probably aren't for you if that's that's your current concern. I hope it's not your current concern. Yeah, so that would be my answer of how important belief is and of course, there's I'm sure there's diehard Pink Unicorns out there. If you're a diehard member of the Church of the invisible pink unicorn can you please email us at [email protected]? Because I would really like to speak with you.

Preston Meyer  1:00:11

Feel free to look us up on Facebook or Instagram 

Katie Dooley  1:00:14

I love how we're getting on this and our Discord is also up on on those social media sites if you need our Discord link to join our server. We are having a ton of great conversations. And you can always request episodes like our good friend Tim did so thank you again Tim for this fantastic episode. I hope you enjoyed it.

Preston Meyer  1:00:35

And thank all of you for listening. 

Both Hosts  1:00:39

Peace be with you.