A few weeks ago I blogged about the recent spate of bus adverts promoting the atheist viewpoint. The buses bore the slogans: “There probably is no god. Now stop worrying and enjoy life”. They were a response to an earlier Christian bus campaign. Now the religious lobby has hit back. As I escaped being struck by lightning last time round, let’s have another trot round the Bus Station of Life and see what emerges.
This time three religious groups are piling in. The adverts are all pretty mainstream, pro-God affairs, nothing too fire and brimstone. I suppose a bus bearing the message “You’re All Going to Hell” might deter passengers. But clearly there is money to be made out of theological debate and I would like to point out that my car is available, for a fee. Obviously I’d have to include an advert for Satan in the interests of balance.
Meanwhile, there are a couple of belief systems which probably won’t appear on the side of a bus, despite having notable qualities to recommend them.
The Sky Kingdom is a sect which hails from Malaysia. Their primary religious icon is the teapot, symbolising the love which pours down from the heavens. Sadly their sacred texts make no mention of a tea strainer. We should immediately adopt it as England's national religion, especially as they will be looking for a new home. The Malay authorities are a tad disapproving and recently demolished the Sky Kingdom’s teapot temple, albeit on a planning technicality.
The other religion worthy of our attention is the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. No, I am not making this up. Adherents are known as Pastafarians and eschew The Ten Commandments in favour of The Eight I’d Really Rather You Didn’ts.
You may well scoff (thereby qualifying you as ‘spagnostic’) but the Noodly One has a serious purpose. It was conceived by Bobby Henderson, a physics graduate, as an alternative to Intelligent Design, the tarted up version of Creationism which is sweeping America. His aim was to challenge those state education boards keen to force Intelligent Design onto the science curriculum, despite the fact that is neither science nor, indeed, intelligent.
The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster is both intelligent and designed. I have no doubt that it will one day qualify as a major world religion.
The science fiction author L Ron Hubbard once remarked that the only sure way to make money was to start your own religion. He said this shortly before he founded the Church of Scientology.
It’s not a bad idea. I’m working on it.
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