Why Pastafarianism didn't persist.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Lotsa good points, here. I agree with alla youse.

I would actually go a step further, too, and say that beyond the superficial veneer of "joke religion", Pastafarianism and Discordianism have almost nothing in common. Discordianism is a framework of philosophy, whereas Pastafarianism is really nothing more than a joke with Christianity as its butt.

And they never added to the joke.

If we just kept mouthing the PD over and over again...Well, we'd be...Hugh.

[Kai]

Lotsa good points, here. I agree with alla youse.

I would actually go a step further, too, and say that beyond the superficial veneer of "joke religion", Pastafarianism and Discordianism have almost nothing in common. Discordianism is a framework of philosophy, whereas Pastafarianism is really nothing more than a joke with Christianity as its butt.

And they never added to the joke.

If we just kept mouthing the PD over and over again...Well, we'd be...Hugh.

Yeah, one-liners seldom add to creativity. It's like people repeating Monty Python lines.

[Juana]

I'd argue it's dead because of drama nonsense (Venganza was THE hub of FSM activity for years; Bobby Henderson and Venganza's long term Capellini are drama queens, the both of them. Cap is also everything you do not want in an admin) and not necessarily because of the admitted age/lameness of the joke. It probably would have died anyway, though, and become one of those things people discover in their adolescence and think is really fucking cool before they grow out of it.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Lotsa good points, here. I agree with alla youse.

I would actually go a step further, too, and say that beyond the superficial veneer of "joke religion", Pastafarianism and Discordianism have almost nothing in common. Discordianism is a framework of philosophy, whereas Pastafarianism is really nothing more than a joke with Christianity as its butt.

And they never added to the joke.

If we just kept mouthing the PD over and over again...Well, we'd be...Hugh.

THIS.

Lotsa good points, here. I agree with alla youse.

I would actually go a step further, too, and say that beyond the superficial veneer of "joke religion", Pastafarianism and Discordianism have almost nothing in common. Discordianism is a framework of philosophy, whereas Pastafarianism is really nothing more than a joke with Christianity as its butt.

And they never added to the joke.

If we just kept mouthing the PD over and over again...Well, we'd be...Hugh.

Yeah, one-liners seldom add to creativity. It's like people repeating Monty Python lines.

AND THIS!

[Cain]

I'd argue it's dead because of drama nonsense (Venganza was THE hub of FSM activity for years; Bobby Henderson and Venganza's long term Capellini are drama queens, the both of them. Cap is also everything you do not want in an admin) and not necessarily because of the admitted age/lameness of the joke. It probably would have died anyway, though, and become one of those things people discover in their adolescence and think is really fucking cool before they grow out of it.

Yeah, those strike me as contributing factors.

The FSM was narrowly situated in the existing cultural milieu.  By comparison, Discordianism had deeper roots - despite being heavily influenced by the 1960s counterculture and western interpretations of eastern mysticism, it has a more widespread appeal, precisely because it is not strictly connected to a particular cause or time.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

Wow, this is an awesome thread. Excellent comments all around!

I think the main points I agree with is the simple difference that Discordianism is an absurdist philosophy and FSM is an absurd joke about one aspect of one type of one religion. The FSM wasn't designed (hah!) to be anything more than a joke... some spags simply held on to it for too long.

Had the Pastafarians focused on expanding the absurd joke, perhaps it would have grown. Same for CoG.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Wow, this is an awesome thread. Excellent comments all around!

I think the main points I agree with is the simple difference that Discordianism is an absurdist philosophy and FSM is an absurd joke about one aspect of one type of one religion. The FSM wasn't designed (hah!) to be anything more than a joke... some spags simply held on to it for too long.

Had the Pastafarians focused on expanding the absurd joke, perhaps it would have grown. Same for CoG.

No, because the people at CoG were fucking idiots.  That place never had a chance.

[Juana]

FSM mirrors Christianity in a lot of ways, too (ie, Mosey the Pirate and the eight I'd Rather You Didn'ts), which is not really refreshing or very interesting for very long because that's old hat.

[Q. G. Pennyworth]

CoG?

[Placid Dingo]

CoG?

Church of google.

There was a discordian jihad against them before I arrived.

[Kai]

CoG?

Church of Google.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

CoG?

Church of Google.

Now consists of two neoconservatives, one of which is a pedo.

[Q. G. Pennyworth]

I like that every email they ever got is "hate mail."

[Cainad (dec.)]

All of the above are very interesting thoughts, and the OP is almost exactly like something I tried to write quite a while ago but never managed to articulate to my satisfaction. Nice work, Kai.


Discordianism has the seeds of its own deconstruction built into itself. No matter how many iterations it goes through, there is a message etched into the foundation:

"Consider that this is probably all bullshit, no matter how good of a model it seems to be. Destroy this model in the event that it fails to coherently describe reality."

This is why Confusion is said to be a "holy state of mind." Confusion is when you've been presented with some information that your current understanding of the world cannot account for. It is in this state of confusion that we have to destroy the mental models we've built up (even if we built them with the help of Discordianism) and construct new ones that can account for the new information.

Discordianism isn't something you believe. It's something you practice.

[AFK]

After I got the PD, my wife started an annual Xmas tradition of getting me irreligious bibles as a present.  The next year I got the CotSG book, and then the FSM book.  I return quite often, and even regularly, to read pieces or the entities of the PD and BotSG.  I don't think I ever read the whole FSM book because, as others have commented, it was a one trick pony. 

Both the PD and BotSG have deeper and varied philosophies that are useful in the real world outside of the "organized religion is kooky" argument. 

It's kind of like the Joe the Plumber, of irreligions.