And here I leave you

Well friends, we have come, as all things must, to the end. We’ve had some fun (at least I hope so) and learned lots of interesting things.

So how to conclude my blog?

Well, my Communications Studies lecturer used to say the way to write an academic paper was to tell your audience what you’re going tell them, then tell them, then tell them what you’ve told them. So what have we learnt?

Well, that parody religions come in all shapes and sizes, that they wouldn’t exist without the internet and that on the whole they are little rays of silly sunshine in the over serious world of religion.

And what might the future might hold for the wonderfully weird world of parody religions? I like to think that maybe, in hundreds of years, when, as a particularly bleak folk-song has it “all our bones are blackened, and our faces are no more” that futuristic archeologists (River Song perhaps) will find records of Discordianism and the FSM and Jediism and maybe even Linus and his great Pumpkin (see what I did there?) and think that their anscestors where a little bit odd, but really, rather wonderful.

Don't these people have anything better to do?

So why does anyone ever join a parody religion? Sure we’ve all had a few laughs at their antics, but most of us haven’t rushed out and bought a copy of the Principia Discordia, or covered our cars in FSM stickers. But there are some who actually do. So why?

Well that’s where the term parody religion becomes problematic, because people join different parody religions for different reasons – stands to reason when there are so many of them and they’re all so different. And of course most of what I’m going to say in this post is simple logical deduction. There really isn’t much info out there about the whys and wherefores of parody religions – it’s mostly just pictures of people in silly costumes. But here’s my uninformed opinion anyway. People's reasons for joining parody religions depend entirely on the parody religion they choose to join.

Members of the Church of the Blind Chihuahua for example, are practising and believing Christians, in search of a place where they can meet like-minded Christians and find a new and friendlier way of worshipping Christ.

Pastafarians on the other hand may join the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster for a variety of reasons. Those within the USA may join because they agree with the original point Bobby Henderson was trying to make, about the unconstitutional encroachment of Christian beliefs into state funded education. In this country though they mostly join because they think it’s cool. The teaching of ‘creation science’ has never been a big issue over here – I seem to remember my biology teacher briefly mentioning that some people belief that a deity of some kind created the world and that frankly that created a lot more questions than it answered and that was that.

Ultimately though, I think parody religionists are simply looking for a reasonably polite and socially acceptable way of flicking the Vs to the establishment and societies' norms. They’re too sociable to become hermits and too peace loving and generally sensible to become violent extremists, so they dress up as pirates or give people business cards telling them they’re Pope. And good luck to them.

Touched by his noodly appendage...

According to the website of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster (also know as Pastafarianism) their faith has existed in secret for hundreds of years, only recently bought into the mainstream by a letter written by Bobby Henderson to the Kansas school board. In this letter Mr Henderson praised the school board for adding intelligent design (read creationism) to the science curriculum, and insisted that, if the Christians were to get their own slot in science lessons, then he should get his as well. He went on to explain exactly what it was he believed, complete with helpful diagrams. He claimed that the creator was a large sentient ball of spaghetti and meatballs who created all living things. He also went on to explain how Pastafarians reject the concept of gravity, claiming instead that the Flying Spaghetti Monster holds us on the earth using his 'noodly appendages'.

What began as a highly original political protest about the separation of church and state quickly became an internet sensation. It's popularity among sudents especially was boosted when Mr Henshall published his 'Gospel of the Church of the FSM', in which he claimed that global warming was the FSM's punishment on mankind for the lack of pirates. This lead to founding of the holy day of Pastafarianism, International Talk like a Pirate day. This holiday has quickly gained popularity, with many people celebrating it unaware that it's actually as Holy day of a Parody Religion.

The FSM is a prime example of an anti-religious Parody religion which has been embraced by the Atheist movement, though in a Q&A session on the church’s website, Bobby Henderson insists that they’re not anti-religious.