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The Canon · No. 121

Parody Religions

Discordianism; Pastafarianism; Jediism

1963 / 2005 CE – present · Non-Theistic / Philosophical · Living · US, UK, Netherlands, New Zealand, Czechia, Australia

VIII. POSTWAR & CONTEMPORARY — 1945 – PRESENT

How many

390,000 people recorded Jedi on the 2001 England and Wales census, and around 175,000 in 2011. Pastafarian and Discordian numbers are unknowable by design.

Who began it

Discordianism: Greg Hill and Kerry Thornley, c.1963, after a vision in a bowling alley. Pastafarianism: Bobby Henderson, in a 2005 open letter to the Kansas State Board of Education. Jediism: an email chain before the 2001 census, since taken up seriously by some.

What it is for

Discordianism: to treat disorder as sacred and to use absurdity as a spiritual method. Pastafarianism: to demonstrate, by constructing an equally unfalsifiable alternative, that intelligent design has no claim to be taught as science.

What it worships

Eris, goddess of discord. The Flying Spaghetti Monster. The Force.

What it holds

Discordianism holds that order and disorder are equally illusory human impositions, and that the sacred is best approached through a joke — the Principia Discordia instructs the reader that a Discordian is prohibited from believing what they read. Pastafarianism holds that the universe was created by an invisible flying mass of pasta, that global warming is caused by the decline in pirate numbers, and that all evidence for evolution was planted by the Monster to test faith. The serious argument underneath is Russell's teapot: an unfalsifiable claim carries no evidential weight regardless of how sincerely it is held.

What it does

Pastafarianism: the colander as religious headwear, worn in driving licence and passport photographs, which has produced litigation in a dozen countries. Talk Like a Pirate Day. Friday as the holy day. Discordianism: the Law of Fives, the categories of Pope (every Discordian is one) and the ordination of everyone.

After death

Pastafarian heaven has a beer volcano and a stripper factory; hell has the same, with stale beer. The joke has a point — it makes visible how arbitrary the concrete furniture of any described afterlife looks from outside. Discordianism offers no afterlife and treats the question as another false certainty. Jediism draws on the Force and the idea of becoming one with it.

Its texts

Principia Discordia (1963–1970). The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster (2006). Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea's Illuminatus! trilogy carried Discordianism to a wide readership.

Its branches

Discordianism; the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster; Jediism; the Church of the SubGenius; the Missionary Church of Kopimism, which sacralises file sharing and was recognised in Sweden in 2012.

Of note

These entries do real work. Courts, censuses and legislatures have been forced by them to state what distinguishes a religion from a joke about one — and the answers so far have been uncomfortable, inconsistent and revealing.

Its timeline

  1. c.1963 CE Discordianism founded; the Principia Discordia circulates in photocopy.
  2. 1975 CE Illuminatus! published.
  3. <strong>2001 CE</strong> The Jedi census phenomenon; 390,000 in England and Wales, 70,000 in Australia, 53,000 in New Zealand. Statistical agencies record it and decline to recognise it.
  4. <strong>2005 CE</strong> Henderson's open letter to the Kansas board, arguing that if intelligent design is taught alongside evolution then Pastafarian creation deserves equal time. It goes viral and becomes one of the most effective pieces of science advocacy of the decade.
  5. 2011–2016 CE Colander photographs permitted for driving licences in Austria, the Czech Republic and several US states; refused in others.
  6. 2016 CE New Zealand permits a Pastafarian wedding, recognising the church for the purpose of solemnising marriages.
  7. <strong>2016 CE</strong> A US federal court in Nebraska rules in Cavanaugh v. Bartelt that Pastafarianism is not a religion for legal purposes but a parody of one — the clearest judicial attempt yet to draw the line.
  8. 2018 CE The Dutch Council of State reaches the same conclusion.
  9. 2016 CE The UK Charity Commission refuses charitable status to the Temple of the Jedi Order.

Sources

Not yet checked against named sources. This entry is the house's reading; until it is checked, treat each claim as unverified. Correct it, with a source.

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