Why is Discordia Irrelevant in the Year 2009?

[Cramulus]

Everything sucks now that Discordia is irrelevant again.

[Requia ☣]

More and more people are starting to realize how much bullshit is involved in politics, making our yelling about how both sides are useless redundant.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

Reality has become absurdity. The only non-absurdists are the people with their head in the sand and they can't read the PD in that state anyway.

[Cramulus]

Other modern irreligions lampoon religion much more effectively. Pastafarianism, for all its shallowness, probably has more followers, and has actually gotten science curriculums changed.


Nobody's heard of the Discordian Society, and its cultural impact has been dubious.


The Discordian Society rejects any/all leadership, effectively crippling it from certain types of activities


Discordia's faceman, Robert Anton Wilson, kicked the bucket. Nobody's left to carry the torch.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

More and more people, upon hearing about Discordianism, rather than getting excited about it for better or worse, simply placidly accept it as a natural and logical progression from the condition of the political and social environment we live in.

"Ah, yes, everything is incomprehensibly fucked up, and you belong to a religion that acknowledges that fact. OK. Did you want some of these fries?"

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Nobody's heard of the Discordian Society, and its cultural impact has been dubious.

On the contrary, almost everyone I encounter has heard of the Discordian Society, which is now larger and more active than it has ever been.

The difference is that nobody's surprised by us anymore.

[Thurnez Isa]

Everything has gotten so ridicules it's hard to lampoon it anymore
For example...
http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/1000/1000_01.asp
srlsy this should be a troll
but sadly it's not

[Triple Zero]

Nobody's heard of the Discordian Society, and its cultural impact has been dubious.

On the contrary, almost everyone I encounter has heard of the Discordian Society, which is now larger and more active than it has ever been.

The difference is that nobody's surprised by us anymore.

hm i suppose that must be more of a local thing? or maybe a US thing?

either way, cultural impact? WE GOT A FUCKING PLANET how about that??

[Chairman Risus]

Nobody's heard of the Discordian Society, and its cultural impact has been dubious.

On the contrary, almost everyone I encounter has heard of the Discordian Society, which is now larger and more active than it has ever been.

The difference is that nobody's surprised by us anymore.

Relatively unknown in the South, as far as I can tell.

The thing is, when you do explain it to somebody, most of the people down here that are receptive to it just see it as another trend or weird group to belong to amidst myriad similar groups, like the ones Prof. Cramulus pointed out.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I think that now is the time to really focus on producing new Discordian scripture, fleshing out and actually celebrating some of the holydays, and perhaps finding one of our own to torment by exalting him/her as a reluctant prophet.

People are starting to take us for granted (among weird/underground circles on the West Coast, anyway) so this is the time to lie low, build up a body of work, and emerge again far, far weirder and more fully-developed than anyone remembers us being.

In other words, kind of what we're already doing anyway.

We need to find our reluctant prophet, though. They need to be pretty publicly visible, or at least have enough of a body of work that we have some basis for bringing them unwanted fame and sychophants. Most importantly of all, they must not want this to happen to them.

[Cramulus]

 

I was re-reading the PD today

and I thought - hm, like most of Discordia as we know it comes from POEE. And the Erisians. Those were the two original sects, no? That was Mal and Omar.


maybe we should take all this garbage we're doing in 2009 and put it under a heading like POEE. And then each of our subsects can write a page or two of the PD09.



      yes, it's that idea again


       but with an accent on being relevant to 2009 and the sort of shit we deal with today.



                    I mean, practically half the PD is relatively meh to us today,
                    like the nomenclature of POEE or battle hymn of the Eristocracy.

[Verbal Mike]

But wait a second... With all these rival weird irreligions, wouldn't it be much easier to just count them as Discordian Sects and call it victory? I mean we were obviously here first, and they're obviously just lame watered-down offshoots, but that doesn't mean we should ignore the fact they are obviously part of our conspiracy... Y'know? If they protest, we can just tell everyone they're doing that ironic Discordian thing where you deny being part of this...
We should embrace our Pastafarian bretheren for the lousy splitters that they are!

[Payne]

maybe we should take all this garbage we're doing in 2009 and put it under a heading like POEE. And then each of our subsects can write a page or two of the PD09.

If I had another Discordian Freelance Bum (like my self) in the area I reckon the two of us could knock out the whole thing in a couple months. Especially if he or she didn't agree with me.

Alone, I don't have the skills to do anything with the idea.

[Cainad (dec.)]

Other modern irreligions lampoon religion much more effectively. Pastafarianism, for all its shallowness, probably has more followers, and has actually gotten science curriculums changed.

But wait a second... With all these rival weird irreligions, wouldn't it be much easier to just count them as Discordian Sects and call it victory? I mean we were obviously here first, and they're obviously just lame watered-down offshoots, but that doesn't mean we should ignore the fact they are obviously part of our conspiracy... Y'know? If they protest, we can just tell everyone they're doing that ironic Discordian thing where you deny being part of this...
We should embrace our Pastafarian bretheren for the lousy splitters that they are!

One of these freaking days I will shit out that essay on why Discordianism is distinct from other joke religions. I was going to jealously guard my ideas in my head until I could put them in a pretty package but fuck it this homebrew has got me buzzed so I'll just puke it out right here as-is:

1) Pastafarianism, The Invisible Pink Unicorn, the Church of Google, etc. are all centered around one basic joke that mocks organized religion. It lampoons the arguments often used by believers to justify belief in their deity by proposing an absurd deity and supporting it with the same arguments. Pretty much everything these irreligions do or say are variations on the parody upon which they are centered.

2) Discordianism has a much more complex and varied nature, so much so that it straddles the line between religion and irreligion, hence the common descriptor "a joke disguised as a religion and/or a religion disguised as a joke." Discordianism is clearly getting at something, but it seems to get at something different for everybody and is perhaps unique in that dissent about what it "is" is not only an accepted (by some) part of it, but is in fact considered desirable by many of its members. It is like 'real' religions in that it invites an ongoing dialogue about what is central to it (read James P. Carse's The Religious Case Against Belief to understand wtf I'm talking about), but like a parody in that it deliberately exposes the absurdities of belief and lashes out against the restriction of thought that religious beliefs often create.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

DOOO EEET CAINAD

I think a profound difference is that Discordianism is a real religion for some of us. It is my religion, and I am 100% serious about it. What "serious" means to a serious religious Discordian may bother some people, but fuck 'em.