Recent years have seen the arrival of scientology, hollywood Kabbalism, the cult of the Flying Spagehtti Monster, the cult of the Invisible Pink Unicorn, and the cult of Free Market Economics.
Now don't get offended by this next part, becuase if you do I declare you to be a doof.
If you found a religion, and you claim to have been visited with some form of imminent supernatural revelation, and you did all of this in the last twenty years, I will not take you seriously unless you can provide the following.
A. Specific historical evidence of the existence of your cult predating 1850. Not a cult like yours, not a cult whose prophet was a drummer in the same band as the prophet of your cult, and not some wildly misintrepeted mistranslation of some other established cults religous teachings. Your cult.
B. A signed deposition, presented to me in person by a winged, formless, maddly gibbering, luminous, or otherwise supernatural being. The deposition should be in triplicate, written in light, the blood of virgins, or the darkness between stars, on human skin, pure ether, or biodegradeable recycled paper made from 50% post consumer pulp.
C. A miracle. A visible, demonstrable violation of physical law. Doesn't have to be a big one. Turning water into orange juice would be great. producing an omelet out of thin air would be good to. If I wasn't hungry I'd settle for a ball that fell up when released.
D. There is a final conition under which I will take your religion seriously. If, by your actions or the the actions of another, I find faith in your beliefs then I probably won't make fun of you for being a cultist.
That said, the rest of you are free to practice and believe whatever the hell you want, with the foreknowledge that their is only so much nonesense that I will go along with. Please respect my paradigm, and I will do my best to respect yours.
Except for the Scientologists.
Now don't get offended by this next part, becuase if you do I declare you to be a doof.
If you found a religion, and you claim to have been visited with some form of imminent supernatural revelation, and you did all of this in the last twenty years, I will not take you seriously unless you can provide the following.
A. Specific historical evidence of the existence of your cult predating 1850. Not a cult like yours, not a cult whose prophet was a drummer in the same band as the prophet of your cult, and not some wildly misintrepeted mistranslation of some other established cults religous teachings. Your cult.
B. A signed deposition, presented to me in person by a winged, formless, maddly gibbering, luminous, or otherwise supernatural being. The deposition should be in triplicate, written in light, the blood of virgins, or the darkness between stars, on human skin, pure ether, or biodegradeable recycled paper made from 50% post consumer pulp.
C. A miracle. A visible, demonstrable violation of physical law. Doesn't have to be a big one. Turning water into orange juice would be great. producing an omelet out of thin air would be good to. If I wasn't hungry I'd settle for a ball that fell up when released.
D. There is a final conition under which I will take your religion seriously. If, by your actions or the the actions of another, I find faith in your beliefs then I probably won't make fun of you for being a cultist.
That said, the rest of you are free to practice and believe whatever the hell you want, with the foreknowledge that their is only so much nonesense that I will go along with. Please respect my paradigm, and I will do my best to respect yours.
Except for the Scientologists.
figmentation:
you're really cute when you're annoyed