November 09, 2004

• Oups... this was meant to be a "Curious George" question. Can this be fixed?
• Me, I prefer Alonzo Church's Lambda Calculus, because it's got nil instead of null.
• Dip them in tar. Add feathers.
• Oh, and next time you try to do a funny sandwich, actually put some funny in it.
• Ouch. A little harsh, no?
• Mmmm.... Richie... I must admit that this sandwich reference really got me puzzled. If your trying to say that the "Church of Null" is not funny enough, you might be right. But that was not really ment to be funny... absurd yes, but funny isnt really the goal here.
• This would be some kind of front page self-link, no?
• Actually... come to think of it, Richie, your comment is quite welcomed. I'm barelly in my third day of worship and now I can say that I already been persecuted and ridiculed for my religious beliefs. It adds to the "experience" I must say.
• Well, yes. Like other people tried desperately to avoid.
• Yeah, I thought I was pretty clever starting my pseudo-religion. When I was 15.
• Ok... scratch the link if you want (I'm new at this and didnt realize it wasny permitted). But I'd still like my question to be addressed... so far all I got is tar and feathers.
• Kool-aid's a classic.
• poo
• M: you're also one of the few Monkeys (beside Wolow and I) who can pronounce my name right. Please use it and not some derivative.
• You can also go for the classic Animal House thing: beer & spanking. THANK YOU SIR MAY I HAVE ANOTHER!
• Well, since it's sort of an anti-religion, I think baptism by air might be interesting. Get a nice hand-held fan, symbolically evaporate the clinging moisture of their non-sins. Besides, the forcast is funny--in a few hundred years when the unreligion is worldwide, windtunnels are standard equipment in churches. I wonder if you could tie that in somehow with the organ. Hmm.
• Oh, and Richer made me laugh with the kool-aid comment.
• Ok... now I have : Tar and feathers, Kool-aid, Beer and Spanking and obviously "poo". Is it me or does it all sound more like college innitiations rather than a religious procession ?
• It's not like there's any difference between the two.
• Would this baptism you are thinking about be considered a sacrament or an unsacrament, MonsieurM?
• How about something with an e-meter? Very scientific, that.
• Mmmm... I do see a difference, like catachresis said, I guess baptisms have something to do with washing sins away. Tar, feathers and poo is all I'm goign to be washing away if nobody find anything else clever... Sacrement? Unsacrement?... god, this is getting complicated. I'm used to be an atheist for jesus sake... so most of this is really new to me. What's the difference?
• Starbucks half-caff double latte frappacino with sprinkles.
• Yeah wolof.... that e-meter looks cool. But now I became a religious man... So I'm cheap and technology frightens me. How about something like wavering a big stick and chanting mindles mumbo jumbo in latin?
• Dunno, since I'm Buddhist -- we don't have sacraments. Googling yields this: sacrament a formal religious act conferring a specific grace on those who recieve it; the P{rotestant sacraments are baptism and the Lord's Supper; in the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church there are seven traditional rites accepted as instituted by Jesus: baptism and confirmation and and Holy Eucharist and penance and holy orders and matrimony and extreme unction.
• So I suppose unsacraments are anything that isn't those.
• Well, you're trying to be a Nihilist, and, in the immortal words of fashion nihilism... nihilism is not easy: it's all about contradiction we can't believe in anything yet we have to believe in nihilism every morning it's hard to choose which black shirt we're gonna wear and when you do the laudry black clothes become grey kids kick us dogs bite us and people laugh at us every time we take the bus it's hard to be a nihilist (n.n.d., Kunphormyst Kunphlykt)
• Richer, are ye saying nihilism and absurdism are the same thing?
• Forget null, she's an imposter.
• Richer, are ye saying nihilism and absurdism are the same thing? As applied to religion they pretty much are.
• Get the initiate to buy an assault weapon, clad in an electric shock jacket (the one that stings the attacker when he grabs you), and end the ceremony at a Hooters or lapdance bar. Then spike the initiate's drink with rohypnol and leave in a ditch somewhere.
• Well, a church of Null kinda implies nihilism, doesn't it?
• How about Holy Hand Grenades.
• Flagpole: won't fly: the minister & fidels live in Quebec.
• Bad things happen when you dereference God.
• Bad things happen when you dereference God Yeah, I used to play in a band that promoted itself as "the Satanic drag show for the whole family", and all I got was this lousy CD.
• How about something like wavering a big stick Baptism by corn-dog?
• To me Null implies Void. But I don't want to get into that. *steps fastidiously around it*
• The church of nil, on the other hand, could easily answer Pilate's question, What is truth? (NOT NIL) I have SEEN the CONSING!!
• Tap water. Or distilled water and pure grain alcohol, if you're concerned about the fluoridation.
• We already have the Church of Null - Unitarian Universalists. When I was a kid, I invented a religion which ascribed to aspirins the role of Communion wafers. They made you feel better & soothed pain. The Church of Null site owner spells "we" as "whe" and "healthy" as "healty." His higher purpose should be to consult a spell checker.
• I suggest baptizing your members in the blood of your enemies. Or the excretions of sea anemones.
• AHAHA, (funny_p goetter) returns t.
• I have SEEN the CONSING!! But do ye know the REESING for it all?
• Jeez, and I always thought nihilism was a religion.
• I tried to see the consing of the light, but (cons 'light) only raised a too few arguments error and sent me into the purgatory of r-e-p level 2.
• (CAR (CDR (CAR (CDR (CAR (CDR (CAR (CDR (CONS 'ME (CONS ('SICK 'FUCK))))))))))
• For a baptism ritual text, you could do worse than to swipe the following passage from Vonnegut's novel God Bless You Mr. Rosewater :

  Hello babies. Welcome to Earth. It's hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It's round and wet and crowded. At the outside, babies, you've got about a hundred years here. There's only one rule that I know of, babies: Goddamm it, you've got to be kind.

• Well, if you're gonna use a Vonnegut speech, you might as well take the plunge and go Bokonist. Of course, I don't think there's any baptism involved...
• Is there a membership fee? That might work. And you "used to be an atheist for jesus sake?" What a contortionist! (plus, Richer, what was the above about?)
• I dont plan on having any membership fees... I think people are more inclined to join cults if there is no money invloved upfront. But as any good religion... I might eventually ask for donations and setup fundraisers in order to fund events and donate to other goood causes. I thinks there shoud be a least SOME money flowing around... otherwise it wouldnt be much of a religion.
• THIS SOUNDS FUCKING COOOL! CAN I JOIN? DO YOU HAVE A WEBSITE?
• Any religion worth a salt pillar in Sodom ought to have some fairly stringent and, preferably, nonsensical rules about sexual congress, all of which are secretly optional for the (ahem) top guys. Your baptism could easily include something along the lines of "so, now, you are never allowed to do that again except with me. Gimme 20 minutes, and we'll go over the details again, just for review..." Or, since this is more of a non-religion religion, you could get on board with the rest of us secular humanists. We have pretty good meetings (with no attendance taken, in case a game is on or something), and no dogmatic conflicts with historically well-proven scientific precepts.
• cynnbad: it was about me (not) being a crazay Lisp Programmer. Where instead of Null, they use nil.
• Gotcha.
• Dear old Dad, who dabbled in LISP told me it stood for "Lost In Stupid Parentheses." Now I see why.
• Fes: I have no real interest in other non-faith-based organisation... I think a good solid secular religion is what a lot of people need. A solid sense of directions... a pyramidal scheme... a dictatorious leadership... practicing rites... buying stuff about their religion. People relate to all that... I'll stick with the "religion" scheme if you dont mind. It's proven to work! hehe
• Fair enough. Best of luck!
• So let me get this straight ... you're admitting that your first post here is a self-link, for the purposes of founding a pseudo-religious organisation and make yourself some money?
• I was going to remove it, but this post made me laugh, likewise anyone I mentioned it to.
• Well, if THAT is the standard of moderation at MoFi, I'm fucking LEAVING.
• Hi, I'm back. God I missed you guys.
• Rev. MonsieurM, I suggest that you personally bathe the feet of every member, to baptize them, in their homes, with only their families present. The water/soap/oil/ etc. which you use is your pick, though you'd have to pay for it. But, without your personal touch, they couldn't become consecrated members. You'd need to pay your own way to get to the domicile. And, once you performed the ceremony, you'd need to provide a meal to friends and family to celebrate the new member's non-religious epiphany. I mean, this should be a celebration, right? Sorry, I know some of you are having fun with this, but it strikes me as one of the lamest posts we've seen. I just hope it's not even semi-serious.
• Well, Path, I'm sorry to say that I'm actually very semi-serious about all this. The part about making money was no doubt irony, but I am trully trying to start a real religion. It started as an idea for a blog in which I would simply dictate things to do during the week or day... just like a preacher. But the whole Idea took wings of itself and now I'm getting great support from close friends and all the ideas I came up with pleases anought to get onboard. I'm basically planning on making this a true secular religion. A religion for the agnostics and atheists that wish to be part of a organisation which would provide a "commonly agreed" set of secular beliefs and a strong bound between its practitionners. I want to build it like a religion, taking advantage of its well made structure and cleverness at providing what people need. But I also want to leave-out or change what we dont like of religions as "secular humanists". A idealist fools you might say. So, that was the serious part... the less serious part, is how I'm trying to get there. I'm starting a blog and web site, I'm recruiting friends and baptising them wearing silly hats, discussing backward issues with theologist friends, improvising a worship as I go along, etc... I'm trying to make the process as light and as fun as possible. Without making as far as to make it a farce. So... I wont be baptising people over the interet or taking large amout of money from my eventual followers anytime soon. And yes, I plan on making it a "payless" and "painless" process. The fact is that my best friend, who will be the first baptised (and will be baptised for the first time of his life) is taking this quite seriously and does believe in what I'm trying to start. He also want to be part of it... and invent it with me. As for the rationnal behind this... my motivation if you will, might be explained as follows: I, much like my best friends and other secular humanists, have been feeling a sort of void, some hard to describe bitterness or jealousy when witnessing masses of people worshiping and being "part" of something together. Through the years I went from being a frustrated and marginalized atheist to understanding why people gather aroung beliefs and cultivate them. As I get older I feel this need more and more, thus enabling me to "understand" those behaviors more easilly. So, instead of bearing this feeling alone, I'm choosing to act upon it and do what I do best... which is start a ridiculous, non-sensical and "out of proportion" project thats has all the chances of never reaching its goal... I like trying things that have never or rarelly been done before and that have a huge chances of failure. So... thomorow, in order to proceed with the first baptism, I will be shopping for a nice sheet of red felt, from which I will make a "Ceremonial Dunce Cap". We will then use it as the main religious garment for the baptism and other processions. Its silly... but I'm enjoying this and I feel good about it. I think thats how religious worship should feel. So I think I'm on the right track. I feel it. May the "absence of god" be with you, and cheers to everyone. P.S.: Thanks for everybody's comments, most were silly (which is good), but as a whole I did learn something: People respond strongly to this (60 comments is way more than I had expected from Mofi).