A short review of The Book of the SubGenius

Jewish date:  22 Siwan 5773 (Parashath Shelah).

Today’s holidays:  Visitation (Roman Catholicism), Syaday (Discordianism), Desecration Day (Church of the SubGenius), Feast Day of Alphonse Louis Constant (Thelema).

Greetings.

J. R. “Bob” Dobbs, savior of the Church of the SubGenius

Having written about Neopaganism, your humble blogger decided to examine the Church of the SubGenius.  The Church of the SubGenius is sometimes connected with Discordianism, an eccentric Neopagan group, and I happen to have a copy of The Book of the SubGenius, a central text of the Church of the SubGenius, on paper.    The Church of the SubGenius is also significant enough to make the news.  One of their holidays, X-Day, is periodically reported, and a child custody battle between two members gained some notice.  It therefore seemed like a decent idea to get it over with and review The Book of the SubGenius.

The Book of the SubGenius rather reminds me of the literature of the Church of Satan, which creates a huge aura of evil meant to scare away of non-Satanists, under which is hidden a philosophy of selfishness.  The Book of the SubGenius likewise creates an aura, only this one of some of the worst and most insane ideas from religion, both real and imaginary.  Anyone with the endurance to read The Book of the SubGenius will find examples of conspiracy “theories” which reach all the way back to the gods, doomsday predictions (which have turned out to be wildly inaccurate), maltheism (Divine disinterest in or hatred of mortals, clearly styled after the Cthulhu Mythos), racism, selfishness, love of money, predestination, eisegesis (reading meaning into texts which is not there), taking texts out of context, alien visitations (probably inspired by Raëlism and Erich von Däniken), salvation through paying money to the Church, salvation ultimately being dependent on one man (clearly inspired by Jesus), sexual perversion, and incoherent rants.  The book is also littered on every page with bizarre drawings which may give the reader nightmares.  (Really.  This material is safe for neither work nor family.)

Clearly the insanity is not meant to be believed; The Book of the SubGenius in at least two places inside, as well as in the blurb on the back cover, insists its own contents are false.  The mass of insanity would thus act in the same way as the Satanic aura of evil:  to scare the heebeejeebees out of anyone not prepared to do the long, hard work of trying to figure out what is hidden underneath.  There also is a quality of humor to the entire book, as befits a parody religion.  But I have heard that there are SubGeniuses who practice SubGeniusism as a real religion, necessitating that they find something very meaningful under the huge pile of freaky goofiness.  If so, what is it?  Is it just a philosophy of hedonism combined with a warped sense of humor and getting the most benefit out of society with the least effort?  Or is there something else hiding there?

Seeking answers to these questions, I could have driven myself crazy analyzing The Book of the SubGenius and various other materials found on the Church of the SubGenius Web-site.  Instead, I took a perfectly valid empirical shortcut:  I sent E-mail to Reverend Ivan Stang, founder of the Church of the SubGenius and thus someone who should know the answers.  He told me he was unaware of anything hiding behind the aura of insanity.  Thus the Church of the SubGenius can safely be treated as a parody religion.

As far as a parody religion goes, the Church of the SubGenius is shallow and unfocused.  Well-constructed parody religions, such as the famous Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, focus on one religion or even one idea and show what may be wrong with it.  SubGeniusism, on the other hand, is a mishmash of bad ideas and does not accurately reflect any real religion or real religions in general.  There is no attempt to show why any of these ideas are bad, only attempts to freak out the reader with them.  As far as humor goes, this book will not appeal to everyone.  Your humble blogger recommends that anyone who does not find disgust or shock funny skip this book and read something from the Discworld series instead.

Peace and Shabbath shalom.

’Aharon/Aaron

This July 5, the World ends for the 15th time (sort of)

Greetings.

Jewish date:  28 Nisan 5770 (Parashath Thazria‘-Meṣora‘).

Today’s holidays:  Day 13 of the ‘Omer (Judaism), Monday of the Second Week of Easter (Roman Catholicism), Feast Day of St. Print Olive (Church of the SubGenius), Feast of Mary d’Este Sturges (Thelema).

Worthy causes of the day:  “Fight Climate Change From All Fronts - The Petition Site”, “Congress: Enact Fair, Ambitious and Comprehensive Climate Legislation Now - The Petition Site”, and “Take Action: Send Congress Your State's Invoice for Foodborne Illness.”.

Topic 1:  “UFO Cult Awaits Doomsday For 15th Time”:  The cult in question is the Church of the SubGenius, which as far as your humble blogger can tell is on the border between serious religion and parody religion.  The parody part involves lampooning serious religions, to the extent that they have created a model of reality which incorporates the most bizarre and unlikely religious ideas they could find.  It is doubtful anyone takes this model seriously, but some people actually seem to find “truths” hidden within the exterior of absurdity.  The Doomsday in question is X-Day, celebrated on July 5th.  On X-Day, a group of aliens known as “X-ians” is supposed to invade Earth and bring about the end of the World as we know it.  As should be expected for a parody religion, despite the repeated failure of the X-ians to invade, the “true believers” keep expecting it to happen every X-Day.  The moral of this silliness is that rational people should question the reliability of those who make predictions which do not come to pass, especially multiple times.

See also:  220 Dates for the End of the world!!! Date Setters!, which has an extensive list of predictions for the end of the World, most of which have already occurred.

Image of an advertisement for a counter-protest to the Westboro Baptist Church by kristinamay via Flickr

Topic 2:  “W.Va. rallies against hatred of Westboro Baptist Church”.  I have been especially requested to write about this topic.  The Westboro Baptist Church, as noted in a previous post, is a church group which travels around the USA protesting very insensitively, claiming that God hates everyone who does not agree with them and that disasters are happening to the USA because of people’s sins.  Descriptions for the reasons for their protests on their Web-site are poorly structured rants which make claims which have little to do with reality.  A major question that those offended by the Westboro Baptist Church’s antics (i.e., almost everyone else) ask is how to deal with this bunch of delusional hate-mongers.  Clearly many people just ignore them.  However, as noted in this article, some people form counter-protests, as it is written about what happened recently in Charleston, WV:

Local people peacefully overwhelmed the Westboro group. They carried their own signs, including: "I Love Everyone" and "God Bless Our Troops and Veterans."

Others signs had humorous messages: "This is a Sign" and "God Hates Signs."

Arguably this is a valid approach.  Given the disconnect of the Westboro Baptist Church from reality, nothing is likely to make them stop (at least quickly) other than physical force.  (And considering that they are nonviolent hate-mongers, justifying that either in court or in many moral systems may be difficult or impossible.)  Given that the point of the protests is attention, counter-protests serve to give anyone reporting on the protests an alternate message:  that others do not quietly accept what the Westboro Baptist Church, that there are others who reject indiscriminate hate.  Given all the trouble there is in our world, it is good to be reassured that not everything is wrong and hopeless.

Topic 3:  For today’s religious humor:  “I do not believe in”:

and “Buddha Cat”:


Peace be upon you and all the world.

Aaron