ChaoSkeptic

Exactly 4 years ago, the single funniest event in our lifetime occurred.




That's right. On this day, the promoters of Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters created an all out terror panic in Boston simply by putting up some promotional Lite Brites that the police mistook for IEDs.

Wikipedia article.

What followed during the aftermath was the best press conference ever!



WE SHALL NEVER FORGOT THIS MOST SACRED OF DAYS WHEN A MAJOR AMERICAN CITY WAS SHUTDOWN BY AN ADVERTISEMENT FOR A CARTOON MOVIE!!!

If you didn't notice, a lot of time on the internet last year was dedicated to the topic of "tone". Not the musical pitch changes kind but the literary  "how-an-author-treated-his-audience" kind. Whether is was skeptics telling each other to not be dicks or accommodationists telling New Atheists to not scare people away or subreddits calling each other circlejerks or Discordians fighting with each other about how best to get our message out or even every single forum complaining that content used to be so much better, everyone spent a lot of time in 2010 picking the lint out of their own belly buttons. No matter where I turned it appeared that everyone was trying to have deep meta-conversations about how best to communicate with one another.

And all of those conversations were shit. I'm not going to include any links in this post because I feel your time is too important to waste on such trivialities. All of them can be summed up as followed:

A: "You should be nicer to people. People like it when you are nice to them."
B: "Whateva! I do what I want!!!"

As a Discordian I am all for internal strife because it helps to get rid of the riff-raff and pantywaists who weren't going to put in any effort anyways. But at some point you have to stop having committee meetings and backstabbing contests and get shit done. If you notice, while everyone was talking amongst themselves about how best to get their message across no one was actually working to get the message across. An outsider who came along wanting pertinent information was met with a bunch of monkeys throwing shit at each other.

The thing is no single tone works to get the message across. No two people communicate the same and no two people receive messages the same. What works in one situation might not work in another. We need as many voices as possible translating the message into their own personal language. We need people saying that Christians can believe in evolution as well as people saying that the Bible is all bullshit. Yes, being nice attracts people to your side but being a dick is more entertaining.

So please, for the sake of everyone can we stop fucking yelling at each other and go back to yelling at the world?

Yeah, I know that it's Sunday morning, not Saturday morning, and that this comic was from almost 2 months ago. Shut up and eat your damn cereal.

Jesus Camp is a 2006 American documentary film directed by Rachel Grady and Heidi Ewing about a charismatic summer camp, where children spend their summers learning and practicing their "prophetic gifts" and being taught that they can "take back America for Christ." According to the distributor, it "doesn't come with any prepackaged point of view" and tries to be "an honest and impartial depiction of one faction of the evangelical Christian community".

The scary part is that every single thing in this movie is 100% true. As far as I know nothing was scripted. This is not a work of satire and there is not a hint of irony involved. The camp in this movie no longer exists but there are tens of thousands of people scattered throughout America that look, think, and act like this. I know, because I've met them before. This is what fundamentalist Christians actually believe. Hopefully you'll still be able to sleep at night after this.




Also: LOL, Ted Haggard!

For some reason both atheists and Discordians have been stereotyped as people who don't believe in anything. Atheists because people often confuse it with nihilism (thank Nietzsche for that). And Discordians because people often confuse it with absurdism (and Robert Anton Wilson was a big proponent of Model Agnosticism). I, however, am not afraid to admit that there are things that I believe in. And yes, some of the things that I believe in based on nothing more than optimistic faith that the world isn't a complete pile of shit. Some of the things that I currently believe in:

I believe that humans are simultaneously the best and worst thing to happen to this planet. Us humans have made this tiny blue and green orb in the middle of a rather boring galaxy into a compelling story with a heavy underdog overcoming substantial odds to rise to the top of the heap. On the other hand there is a non-zero chance that we will destroy all life on this planet someday.

I also believe that as humans we are all that we have. There is no Superman, Spiderman or the Second Coming of Jesus to rescue us from ourselves. If we are to solve our problems we must rely on one another, quit our bitching and fix the goddamn problems. Then again, usually we are the problem in the first place. We can't get out of our own way because everyone wants what they want.

I believe that justice, purpose, beauty, good and evil do not exist outside of the human mind. But that doesn't mean that they aren't real.

Life will never be fair but that doesn't mean that we shouldn't try with all of our might to tip the scales into the right direction. Never be afraid to overcompensate those who have been wronged.

We have to create our own purpose in life outside of breathing, eating, and reproducing. Do what you must to make the world a better place for those that come after you. Learn, laugh, love, cry. Connect with other people. Enjoy the people that you love. Torment the people that you hate.

There are no sins other than harming another. That's not always an easy thing to determine though. What hurts one may help another. There's never an easy answer. Choose as best you can and beg for forgiveness and empathy when it doesn't turn out like you hoped.

I believe that logic, empiricism, and rationality will also win out over metaphysical guesswork. As Tim Minchin said, "Throughout history every mystery EVER solved has turned out to be Not Magic." Wishful thinking and talking to the ceiling will make you feel better but at some point you are going to have to get off of your knees and do the hard work. Likewise, if you really care about knowing the truth then you must have enough courage for your ideas to be tested to the breaking point.

I believe that Chaos is the most powerful force in the universe. The ability to create Order from Disorder and Disorder from Order is the closest to magic we will ever have. Unexpected creation/destruction has an amazing effect of producing both horror and mirth at the same time. It can evoke joy and sadness, trust and disgust, fear and anger, surprise and anticipation all at the same time. And it will never be the same emotions between different people. Chaos needs us to tell the story. And no two stories are the same.

And most of all, I believe that I'll have another beer.

Reposted from 23 Apples of Eris.

In 1958 or 1959 (we’re not sure which), Eris, the Goddess of Confusion, sent an Emperor Penguin to a bowling alley in California. It appeared before Malaclypse the Younger and Lord Omar Khayyam Ravenhurst and inspired them to create the Discordian Society: a tribe of philosophers, theologians, magicians, scientists, artists, clowns, and similar maniacs.

The Et Cetera Discordia proudly celebrates 50th the anniversary of this prophetic vision. It is a collage of the funny, weird, and often profound writings and art created by numerous modern (and post-modern) Discordians. This book is an invitation to join them in exploring, celebrating, and remixing this strange and exciting century
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A bit of background: Triple Zero and Cramulus had this idea back in 2008. The original idea was to create a quick one-shot internet forum which gathered content for quick publication of a new Discordian text celebrating Discordia’s 50th anniversary. So we threw THE PARTY AT LIMBO PEAK, an intentionally shortlived Internet forum, where people could post anonymously and then later unmask themselves at the end of the party. The project got out of control and we took a million years to finish it. And the finished product is a beautiful 128 page paperback, the latest addition to Grand and Glory Old Discordjia!

The Etc. Discordia can be purchased in paperback or downloaded for free in PDF form here.


et cetera discordia

Current scientific evidence points to the universe forming out of the expansion of a Singularity around 13 billion years ago. After about 9 billion years of matter forming, galaxies forming, dying and then reforming, our tiny star was born. Out of the refuse left over from the Sun came our minuscule blue planet. Around 3 billion years ago complex organic compounds formed in the oceans. For the first 2 billion years or so those organic compounds reproduced like crazy forming more and more complex life forms. Eventually fish appeared, then amphibians crawled onto the beaches, then reptiles braved the continents.

At some point some of those reptiles developed fur to help keep themselves warm. Some of these mammals roamed the forests and learn how to climb through the trees. But then the trees were not good enough for them so they came back down to the ground and formed tribes to keep each other safe. These upright apes roamed the lands hunting down other animals until that wasn't good enough either. They settled down, built huts to live in, and started planting their own food rather than searching constantly for it. At some point they learned how to read, write, do math, harness electricity, and kill each other very effectively. It's all been down hill from there.

As for the purpose of all this, it doesn't exist outside of your mind. However we constantly want purpose to be there so we start making stuff up until the world makes sense again. Some stuff actually does make sense. Others don't because we just don't have enough information. A lot of times the made up stuff is more interesting and exciting than the real truth. But that some people's made up stuff is very different from other people's made up stuff. That is the main reason why we learned to kill each other so effectively...