Quote:
Originally Posted by Hitch
Personally, I'd rather have root canal performed with a rusty spoon in a 3rd-world country without the benefit of anesthesia than to try to convert someone to some faith or the other, but then again...you know, ain't my bag.
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I once worked with a Jehovah's Witness for whom proselytizing for the faith was a religious duty. He was more interested in doing it than in doing the work we were hired for. I quickly discovered that he wouldn't accept anything I said as valid.
I'm a science fiction fan, and SF fandom has a tradition of hoax religions. One was invented by an old friend called The True Faith of the Sacred Cat.
The True Faith had two tenets:
1. The Lord Mota resides on Mars in the form of a sacred green cat.
2. If you believe
that, you'll believe
anything!
There was a liturgy, with beer and potato chips as the sacrament, and a church lowerarchy (I was a Discardinal and member of the Privy Council, which met in a Privy to advice the leader of the faith.)
True Faith heresy trials were a popular event at SF conventions. In one, a member of the faith was accused of heresy for
not having attained
cognitive estrangement, and another was accused of heresy for
having attained it. (The leader of the faith was trying to tie a tin can of ridicule to the tail of a European academic who coined the term in writings about SF.)
I gave my co-worker the True Faith with a straight face as
my religion. Possessing no sense of humor about religion, and being none too bright, he accepted my claims, decided I was an utter loon, and stopped talking to me. Win-
Win!
I deeply amused the guy who founded the True Faith when I told him I'd found a real world use for it.
______
Dennis