A book development blog for DIY Religion: constructing your own personal religion from the ground up. Below, you will find articles, segments, and strands of thought related to the book. I attempt to post every Saturday.

Friday, March 25, 2011

Little - Yellow - Different


Nuprin is ibuprofen. Yes, sorry. It is no different than Advil, and it is exactly the same thing as the small container marked CVS Ibuprofen.

But… is it really the same? It’s little, it’s yellow, and it doesn’t taste anything like a Hostess Twinkie. Some people still want what they want, and need what they need.
            There is a massive amount of research and development that goes into modern day pharmaceuticals, hence the wallet-gouging prices of Zoloft, Percodan, and Xanax. Imagine the aligning of forces and the great minds that came up with the little blue pill that allows men to once again think with their penises. Are these super drugs all they’re cracked up to be? They help some people a lot and with minimal side effects. Others have had severe reactions. Suicide. Isolation. Men have gone blind kids (and we’re not talking about for paddling their canoe too often).
            I advise against experimenting with and creating your own pharmaceuticals. In the case of modern day medicine, we have to work with what we’ve got. But when we do have the capacity to experiment and shape something that affects what many consider an equally important aspect of our lives, our spiritual health, we should. It’s not a stretch to say that religion can have severe side effects as well. Suicide. Murder. Killing (only added because Christians vehemently insist on differentiating it from murder). War. Rape. Torture. The list goes on: abuse, neglect, insanity, and etc…and etcetera…
The gods that have been passed down through the ages are magnificent examples of spiritual entities formed or discovered not by one human, but by the millions who worked on perfecting that god as well as they could. To take one of these as your god, after researching and finding the proper rituals and beliefs, is folly without making the god perfect for you. Spare yourself the headache of potentially harmful side effects. Make the god your own. If the god you like, at one time in history, demanded the cutting off of your pinky toe – how about cancel that condition? Maybe the god had other similarly offensive ideas at some point in history. Should gays and lesbians have to be put to death because one person on your god’s R&D team was an idiot?            
These are important things to contemplate when considering adopting a god of old. They are great gods to consider because they have interesting histories and backgrounds you may connect with. Dagon, Triton, and Aegir are three of many sea gods. These have potential for someone who likes to spend his or her time on the water. Take what you need, drop what you don’t, and adjust and tweak until you have the proper foundation to build upon. Unfortunately we can’t simply discard the ill effects of all drugs. We can do this with religion.

Tip of the week:
Don’t write a strange god’s name on the wall in blood just to freak out friends.

DIY Religion

Friday, March 18, 2011

Cleofus Fasthand


Ronaldo and Samantha begat E. Honda, who with Jennifer begat Candi, who with…

Well, at some point Cleofus Fasthand was born into the world. A lover and illusionist, Cleofus mastered the art of skipping. He had the overhand backside skip, the gold nuggie, and the rondo roller all at his disposal. He was the best skipper since Saint Vitus, and he had the award showcase to prove it. Cleofus skipped his way up the sacred escalator to heaven after the Otis repair team had finished with the overhaul. There, he rightly took his place as Chancellor of Heavenly Communications. Because she no longer had the capacity to contemplate the silly problems of the overpopulated mess that was humanity, God installed Cleofus to handle and organize the maelstrom of prayers and cries for help.


Welcome! You are now a member of the Official Church of Saint Cleofus: Chancellor of Heavenly Communications and Master of the Lost Art of Skipping. In your packet, you will find a Polaroid photo of Saint Cleofus taken just before he skipped up the sacred escalator. Tape or paste this photo onto your refrigerator so you may pray to it daily. Regular donations of $13.75, based on a modest percentage of your income, will be offered up for server space and other organizing paraphernalia that will help assist Cleofus in this massive endeavor. The booklet titled Skipping Techniques is yours to learn from and master when you get out of your car and make your way to work, the grocery store, and Big John Ballz’s Q Shack. Your initial investment of $375.13 was sent to the office of Cleofus via vacuum tube delivery method.


Remember, every person you refer will earn you a golden earmark. These earmarks are attached to your prayer file. The more you have, the closest your file gets to being considered for answering. So get out there and skip as if your soul depends upon it, because it does. Your family and friends may thing you’re a complete jerk at first, but once you convince them with your mad skipping skills, they’ll realize that pissing into the wind earns you nothing more than odd stares and disgusted passersby.

DIY Religion

Friday, March 11, 2011

The Super Secret


Jesus knew it. So did Zarathustra, Muhammad, Abraham, and Siddhārtha. However, they didn’t seem to want to keep it under wraps like the super successful people who are privy to the laws of attraction as described in a book that regurgitates New Thought Movement ideas, then repackages these ideas in a slick, marketable, and manipulative book called, The Secret.  They weren’t even interested in ‘like attracts like’ and the science of fulfilling your dreams for material wealth and acquiring more stuff. The super secret (that is not a secret) the religious greats were interested in was DIY Religion. This very book!
Some couldn’t understand. They used the ideas for corrupt reasons. They postulated that everyone had to follow their religion or face death. Death? Isn’t that a tad bit extreme? With DIY Religion we can all get in touch with our spiritual side while at the same time get along with each other. Your developed religion is yours. It is a part of you personally, and it wouldn’t quite fit any other person. For this very reason, most religions don’t jive completely with anybody other than the unique individuals that spawned them.

Friday, March 4, 2011

Step By Step - Just 1 Million Dollars

 
How to create your own personal religion:

1.     Form a circle with golden dust acquired via begging on the streets of Rangpur (crystalline pixie stick dust may be used as a substitute).

2.     Enter the circle, shoeless.

3.     Fill out form I-62R1 and place it in an envelope with seven hundred seventy seven dollars.

4.     Place the envelope outside of the circle. Detach your mind from material things. Kneel in the center of the circle and place your forehead and palms to the floor.

You are feeling sleeeeepy…pay no attention to the small man in the rooooom.

The cool thing is that everybody reading the above list of magical instructions realizes it’s just that – maaaagic.

Unfortunately, many folks willingly give much of their hard won treasures to people who pursue them as wild game in a land of milk and honey. The coin is used for building new temples and spreading their truth far and wide, but wait – if there was no towering building of holy marble, and there was no need to spread the truth to others, then why the hell should the precious be wasted on such triviality? Perhaps a more important gesture is that of sacrifice. Yes, that’s another ballgame entirely. And, of course, the quest for treasure should also be explored as it can be found that it often pits human against human and all of nature. Karl Marx better explains that, so I’ll leave it to him.

Sacrifice can be done without tithing. Tithing, or pooling resources, can be done to the extent that it helps maintain a sacred place. Overpayment can be done to buy the minister a new ride.

(Yes, that is a Steve Irwin Australian dollar)