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By Pope Fayanora The Faintly Saintly Dainty (Tristan Arts)
As the commercials for Lilo & Stitch™ say, every family has one. Every family has a funny-looking, blue, weird, scary alien in it. Or... um... I mean, a black sheep. Hmm... 'black sheep' doesn't fit well here if we're talking about Discordianism. Yes, Discordianism is the weird little genetically-engineered alien of Paganism.
Yet just as Stitch™ was more than he seemed to be, so too is Discordianism more than it seems, as I will show. For I, as a Pope of Discordia, will perform miracles such as defining Discordianism, showing there is depth in Discordian humour, and showing the similarities between Discordianism and other federally recognized religions. Show mote it bee.
For my first miracle, I will attempt to define Discordianism. Which will be difficult, and maybe impossible since we define ourselves by our inability to be defined. But I shall try: Discordianism is like the Tao, or Zen--you could read all the books and materials about it that exist and still never understand it, or you could see a flower growing in a crack in the middle of the concrete ocean of a parking lot, and suddenly understand in a flash of gleeful enlightenment.
People who know a little about Discordianism already think of Eris when they think of Discordianism. Yet you don't have to believe in Eris to be a Discordian. The cool thing about Discordianism is that you can believe in any or no deity you want to, or all of them. I myself center the Discordian aspect of my spirituality around a Deity named Shoikin who revealed Herself to me years ago as a Deity I worshipped in a past life on another planet.
Some beginning Discordians (who think they "get it" but haven't) think that Discordianism's humour is just for laughs. I even thought that at first. Then, two things happened. I got email-yelled-at by a Delphi user who was a Discordian, and I got my first printed edition of the Principia Discordia.
Confusion is what often leads to Discordian Enlightenment, and from experience, I can tell you that there's nothing more confusing to a newbie to Discordianism than a serious Discordian. Whoever it was who email-yelled-at me shook me up, and prepared my mind for the cover-to-cover reading of the Principia Discordia and for the resulting enlightenment.
After reading the Principia Discordia cover-to-cover, my mind was churning. I was on the edge, almost there. Then something fell to the floor, and I understood. In a flash, I knew that chaos is the vital spark of life, the constant change so necessary to live. That which refuses to change, dies. All our static, unchanging cities will eventually crumble and die, overtaken by life, which owned those resources to begin with. Chaos is that flower growing in a crack in the middle of the parking lot, chaos is the life in your veins, chaos is the screaming out of life against entropy. Too many people, who are afraid of chaos, give undue focus to the "negative" aspects of chaos, and thereby classify only those aspects as chaos. Discordians who "get it" see that chaos has been given a bad rap.
Further Reading
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