Unitarian Universalist Discordian

This past Sunday my local UU church had a guest sermon from a local Discordian. It talks about Jesus, Bob, St. Syadasti, and the nature of belief.

“Howdy, folks. My name is Jonathan Prykop, and I’m a baptized Catholic, born-again Discordian, ordained minister of the Universal Life Church, and recent zealous convert to Unitarian Universalism. I’m what you might call a freelance minister in this town, preaching in any church that will have me, and so I would like to thank Jesse Spencer-Smith and the Worship Committee for giving me the opportunity to speak to you today, and I thank you for coming to listen. I’d like to especially thank Maryly Crutcher, my partner in crime, without whose help I could have never pulled this service together. Before we begin, I’d also like to clarify that the opinions expressed in this sermon are my own, and do not necessarily represent the views of this church or the Unitarian Universalist Association.”

Worth a gander, it was certainly an entertaining service.

The Return of Birthing Rituals

Neat article on a new trend towards ‘birth-circles’. My favorite quote was from a Catholic attendee “the pagan aspect was a bit of a shock.”

Is That Triumphalism I Smell?

Catholic World News waxes rhapsodic over the new Pope’s coat-of-arms.

“An especially distinctive element in the new papal coat of arms is a bear with a pack-saddle, the so-called ?Bear of Corbinian.” There is a charming legend involving a bear that is told about Bishop Corbinian, who preached the Christian faith in the ancient Duchy of Bavaria in the 8th century and is honored as the spiritual father and patron of the archdiocese. It is said that while he was traveling to Rome a bear mauled his pack-animal. The saint then rebuked the wild beast, and commanded the bear to carry his packs to Rome. Once he arrived there, however, he let the bear go, and it lumbered back to its native forest. The meaning of the legend is clear: Christianity tamed and domesticated the ferocity of paganism and thus laid the foundations for a great civilization…“

Thanks for all that civilization Christianity! I’m going to go read that part in the history books where Constantine finds an empty patch of ground and totally creates the whole idea of civilization! It is SO awesome. Laws, government, medicine, science, art, like the power of Jesus was really flowing through him to be able to invent all the stuff from nothing.

Quote of the Day

“The conservatives say their rights are trampled by keeping prayer out of schools, out of tax-supported buildings and out of courts. What absolute nonsense. They remain free to worship and pray with their families when they wake up, when they take their children to school, when they come home, when they dine, when they go to their place of worship. The only restriction is on their right to impose their religious moral views on others. What the religious right wants to do is mandate its version of morality as the only acceptable version. There is a simple way to test this. How would the religious right respond to the invocation of a Santaria prayer or Wicca prayer by a student at a school event? Or, an invocation by an adherent of Satanism? I think we all know there would be uproar.” – Ira Cohen, Letter to the Ventura County Star

Allowing prayer in public schools means (in the end) allowing ALL prayers, not just the Judeo-Christian variety. Keeping government buildings and schools free of public religious expression is the best compromise against allowing faith-based tyranny.