50 Things You're Not Supposed To Know: Religion

by Daniele Bolelli

  In light of this, let's take a look at Mount Rushmore again. Here you have the people who stole your land blast your sacred mountains with dynamite to carve in them the faces of their leaders, and call the result a monument to freedom and democracy. Mmmmhhhh …. the Taliban at least have the decency not to pretend loving freedom.

  Needless to say, freedom and democracy are not the first words that come to the minds of American Indians when thinking of Mount Rushmore. Perhaps nothing I can write can clarify Native attitudes toward the sculpture as the story a Lakota man once shared with me. “I’ll tell you about a very sacred Lakota ritual”—he said—“I’ve participated in it a few times and I was spiritually uplifted every time. At night, when the rangers are not around, sometimes we will climb to the top of those big faces, pull down our pants and piss on top of their heads. Very uplifting stuff, really. A beautiful Lakota ceremony.”

  42 MY GOD HAS BIGGER BALLS THAN YOURS: THE GOSPEL OF THE FLYING SPAGHETTI MONSTER

  Most religions appear weird to non-believers. But whatever the dictionary definition of “weird” is, it falls painfully short in trying to describe what we are playing with today. This is what happens when Weird decides to start shooting steroids.

  A religion such as Discordianism, which holds that every man, woman and child is a pope, and includes scriptural quotes like “There are no rules anywhere. The Goddess prevails,” seems like a good candidate, but it is not it.

  The Church of the SubGenius then? I have to admit I can't help but admire a church that advertises its dedication to “total slack” and promises “eternal salvation or triple your money back,” but they are not our playmates today either.

  Knocking at our door, instead, is the religious mother of everything that's weird, the one and only Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

  It all began in 2005, when a graduate student in physics from Oregon State University, the one true prophet Bobby Henderson (Peace Be Upon Him) first proclaimed the gospel to the world. At the time, the Kansas State Board of Education had just decided to allow the teaching of intelligent design in schools as an alternative viewpoint to evolution. Henderson promptly wrote them a letter arguing that it would be highly unethical to present only one brand of intelligent design, and that for the sake of fairness his version should be taught alongside the Judeo-Christian one. After all, the supreme deity who had created the universe had appeared to him in a dream revealing him the ultimate truth. The master of time and space, the great God who had breathed life in everything that exists was none other than a flying blob of spaghetti equipped of very sizable meatballs—an anatomical detail prompting Henderson to add that no other god had balls as big as the Flying Spaghetti Monster (FSM). Other religions promoting intelligent design—Henderson pointed out—struggled trying to explain why a perfect, all-knowing God would create a universe that is so full of evil and imperfections. Their very confused appeals to free will and other equally contorted rationalizations sounded like clueless bullshit to anyone with half a brain. But instead, he alone knew the answer. The FSM had revealed to him that He had been mightily drunk at the time of creation, hence the less than ideal result … how can you argue with that?

  With the publication of Henderson's letter, a new religion was born: Pastafarianism had come to set the record straight.

  Unbelievers, always ready to discount the deep religious message of new prophets, denounced Pastafarianism as nothing but an elaborate joke—an atheist parody of true religion. But who is to say which one is a “true” religion and which one isn't? Henderson's enthusiastic followers took up the challenge by offering a $1 million reward to anyone with empirical proof that the FSM didn't exist and that He hadn't created the universe. Needless to say, there were no takers. And the legitimacy of Henderson's religion was reinforced by a decision made by the Austrian government: in July 2011 they acknowledged the legal right of an Austrian Pastafarian to wear a pasta strainer on his head for his driving license photo since religious head coverings are legally allowed …

  Over time, Pastafarian theology developed to new heights of sophistication. Heaven—the FSM told in later revelations—featured a stripper factory and a volcano erupting beer around the clock. But if your evil behavior bought you a one way ticket to Hell, you would find the environment there a lot less fun: hellish beer is stale and even though the strippers are hot they are plagued with a whole menu's worth of STDs. Now, if this doesn't scare you into being good, I don't know what would …

  The Pastafarian religious calendar includes a variety of sacred days of profound mystical significance. We go from the holiday of Pastover, when the faithful consume prodigious amounts of pasta shaped in His image, and celebrate the time when the FSM began touching people with His Noodly Appendage, to Ramendan, when they eat nothing but ramen instant noodles, remember their college days and give thanks for not being starving students any longer. (The importance of such cheap noodles is also underscored by the fact that Pastafarian prayers end in “Ramen.”) But the holiest of holy in the Pastafarian religious calendar is Talk Like a Pirate Day: with infallible logic, in fact, Henderson argues that global warming has increased since the number of pirates has diminished so dressing up like pirates and talking like them is a sacred duty to help the environment.

  Now, all this induces me to some musings. I wonder about the day when Pastafarianism will reach my native country. Considering their nearly religious worship of pasta, unconsciously, Italians are already closet Pastafarians. Once Henderson's pirate ship will come to spread the Gospel of Pastafarianism in the Mediterranean, Roman Catholicism may crumble. The pope might as well start packing his bags and selling all the real estate his predecessors accumulated over the centuries, because once the FSM will make its miraculous appearance, I doubt he will stand a chance.

  43 HORSES, NIETZSCHE AND THE DESTINY OF THE WORLD

  Random Fact #1: They say that when Nietzsche finally lost his mind for good, he was found crying in the middle of the street while hugging a horse.

  Random Fact #2: In his masterpiece, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Nietzsche appropriated the name of the founder of Zoroastrianism for the protagonist of his book—an interesting choice considering that Nietzsche hated with a passion Western religions, and that Zoroastrianism provided the building blocks for them.

  Random Fact #3: The legends about Zarathustra tell he was persecuted and couldn't find any converts until one day when he healed the Persian king's favorite horse, thereby gaining royal support for his new religious message. The history of Western monotheism, in other words, turned on a horse.

  If you'd be so gracious as to pour me enough tequila, I could start spinning some cool possible connections between the random facts listed above. But regardless of my tequila-inspired musings, the point remains that Judaism, Christianity, and Islam all owe much of their theologies to Zoroastrianism. Had Zarathustra not lived or, more simply, had he not received help from the king, Western religions would look very different today. The repercussions on human history would be more than we can even begin to imagine (unless you decide to be more generous with that tequila, in which case I’m sure I could come up with something).

  Zoroastrian theology, in fact, injected into Western religions all of their key characteristics: a worldview featuring an eternal struggle between the forces of good and the forces of evil, the idea of an omnipotent God concerned with human affairs, the Apocalypse, Armageddon, Judgment Day, the resurrection of the dead, a savior born from a virgin offering salvation to his followers, heaven and hell, plus the notion of an everlasting soul, and the casting of the devil as God's rival. I mean … if you were to take these things out of Western religions, what would be left?

  Considering how monumental is the Zoroastrian contribution to Western religions, it is only fitting that the authors of the Gospels tell a story about Zoroastrian priests, the Magi, visiting baby Jesus at his birth. Without Zoroastrian ideas paving the way for him, Jesus may have decided that being a carpenter suited
him just fine.

  The origins of Zoroastrianism are pretty much lost in time: some scholars place its beginning around the 6th century BCE, while others push it back to over 3,000 years ago. If legends are true, virgins in the ancient world were always busy popping out babies since Zarathustra, much like Jesus and a few of their prophetic colleagues, is said to have been born from a virgin. Since that was apparently not miraculous enough, they also tell he was born laughing. Continuing the script that Jesus later picked up, Zarathustra began preaching at 30, and was persecuted by the official priesthood of his society (Persian religion at that time was very similar to ancient Hinduism and Greco-Roman religion, with their pantheon of many gods and goddesses). But whereas Jesus ended up being crucified for his troubles, Zarathustra healed the king's beloved horse and all doors began to open for him.

  After becoming the main religion practiced throughout the Persian Empire, Zoroastrianism looked like it could have become the world's main monotheistic religion. But destiny sometimes turns on small things. In the same way as a horse had launched the popularity of Zoroastrianism, a failed Persian attempt at invading Greece in 480 BCE began to turn the tide. Later on, the invasion of Persia by Alexander the Great kicked Zoroastrianism in the groin, and later yet Islamic conquests put the nail in the coffin.

  But by that point, Zoroastrianism had already come in contact with Judaism, just at the time when Jewish scriptures were being written down, with the result that Judaism ended up borrowing plenty of ideas. And in turn, these would be passed down to Christianity and Islam.

  Did Nietzsche lose it thinking about how the very theologies that in his opinion had considerably screwed up life on earth would have never existed had it not been for that damned horse? Nietzsche's head was weird enough that it could be. But regardless of whether this is what drove good, old Friedrich crazy or not, it remains one of the biggest what ifs in history. It is entirely possible that if the Persian king hadn't taken a liking to Zarathustra, the entire history of the world would have turned out very different.

  44 I NEED A HOOKER, SO LET’S GO TO THE TEMPLE

  Let's say you just invented a time machine and decide to go hang out in Mesopotamia a few thousands of years ago. Let's also say that you find yourself in dire need of the expert services of a hooker. What to do … what to do … ?!? How would you go about finding an honest prostitute in the streets of Ur, or Babylon, or any other Mesopotamian city? Could you buy a copy of the “Babylonian Times” and check out the personal ads in the classified section? Where exactly could you go? As it turns out, your best bet may be to head out to the temple.

  Once upon a time I lived in a crappy, overheated town named Claremont (which looks and feels like the kind of place where Los Angeles goes to die). For reasons that are still beyond my understanding, the main businesses in town were Christian bookstores and strip joints—usually located next door to each other (I’ve always wondered if they had the same clientele …).

  In ancient Mesopotamia, a similar trend existed, since sex for sale and religion often went hand in hand. Many historians, in fact, tell that the temples were populated by hookers … ehm, I meant to say by priestesses who would routinely get paid for sex. And most of the money would then be offered to the altars of the deities worshipped there—in particular to Inanna, the Sumerian goddess of love, who was revered by many Indo-European populations under different names (including Ishtar, Aphrodite, Astarte, Cybele, etc.). Just how hot the cult of the goddess was can be inferred by this Sumerian composition that was supposed to come from the lips of the goddess herself: “Who wants to plow my womb? Who wants to plow the grain that grows so high? Who wants to make my moistened fields bear fruit?”

  The Greek historian Herodotus is our main source for this torrid tale of “sacred prostitution.” In his masterpiece, The Histories, he wrote that Babylonian women were required at least once in their lifetime to have sex with unknown men in order to raise money for the temple of Ishtar. Even other writers, who discount Herodotus as an old, horny, Greek bastard whose fantasy made up these titillating stories, are forced to admit that there is indeed some evidence of fertility rituals involving sex with priestesses among many Mediterranean and Middle Eastern peoples. The infamous Hieros Gamos, for example, was a ceremony for the fertility of the earth which featured the king and the high priestess getting it on (how exactly the exchange of bodily fluids between king and priestess was supposed to make the grain grow is a matter we better not speculate too much on …).

  One thing you can always count on scholars to do is to squeeze the fun out of anything that's even remotely enjoyable. Most of them love nothing more than to climb out of their academic graves to shake their reproaching finger against popular culture, and anything that could bring a smile on people's faces. Faithful to their reputation, the evil academics do in this case the only thing they know how to do: spoil a good story. In recent times, some of them have attacked the authenticity of all these references to Mesopotamian temple sex by suggesting that Herodotus and several Jewish writers who reported similar tales were just slandering foreign religions with lurid lies. Since the actual evidence pro or con is lost in time, it's a matter of faith whether one wants to trust modern scholars or Herodotus & co. For my part, when the choice is between the joyless ghosts of academia and the tellers of a good sex story … well, do I even have to finish this sentence?

  45 IF YOU ARE TOO STUPID FOR TAOISM, YOU CAN ALWAYS TRY CONFUCIANISM

  The two main religions born in China, Taoism and Confucianism, couldn't be more at odds with each other. Confucianism is super conservative, frowns on innovation, and emphasizes the need to follow strict traditions. Taoism is often extremely anti-authoritarian, and mocks any tradition that's not able to constantly reinvent itself. Confucianism loves a nerdy approach to life based on accumulation of knowledge and memorization. Taoism despises the accumulation of knowledge for knowledge's sake as an obstacle to spontaneity, and is only interested in what can be transformed in embodied wisdom. Confucianism worships order and conforming to an exacting social etiquette. Taoism invites us to free ourselves from any petty human construct in order to flow in harmony with the cosmos. Confucianism tries to convince all people to live according to its dictates. Taoism couldn't care less to make converts. Confucianism is very concerned with regulating human society. Taoism focuses on nature. Confucianism is hyper-moralistic and preaches obedience to a myriad of rules and regulations. Taoism's idea of morality is extremely flexible, for Taoists believe that what we need is the talent to navigate through a constantly transforming world—not laws.

  And yet, despite being polar opposites, Confucianism and Taoism have been often practiced together … Consider this: in much of the world followers of different religions are competing with each other trying to recruit people to their cause. Many Taoists, on the other hand, discourage prospective converts and urge them to join their rivals instead. In order to grasp Taoism—they argue—you need great awareness, an uncommon taste for paradox, and amazing insight. Since most people are too stupid to develop such talents, they are better off following Confucianism with its simplistic moral rules that would prevent idiots from doing too much damage to themselves and others. Elitist? Just a tad.

  Now, imagine people in the West deciding to be Muslim and Christian at the same time. Christianity and Islam, after all, are much more similar to each other than Confucianism and Taoism. But whereas an exclusive sense of “owning” the one and only truth prevents Western religions from going hand in hand, the prevailing Chinese mentality has historically encouraged the mixing of religions. If one religion is a good thing—they reasoned—then two, three or four are even better. We'll just take the best from each and mix them together to our liking.

  And so, it has been far from unusual for the same individuals to follow Taoism, Confucianism and even Buddhism at the same time.

  It is worth noting that perhaps this sympathy for syncretism has been facilitated by a couple of facts. Unlike what
happened in the West, Chinese religions don't claim to be absolute truths revealed by a single God. Rather, they began as philosophies of life and only later morphed into full-fledged religions. Taoist and Confucian philosophies, in fact, eventually mixed with the animistic rituals that characterize Chinese folk religion. But even after this happened, none of them believed that one God had entrusted them with the absolute truth. What they offered, instead, were just ceremonies and guidelines to make life easier. Nothing more and nothing less. The result is that whereas in the West mixing religions is pure heresy, in China it has been pretty much the norm.

  46 JOHN LOCKE AND THE LIMITS OF TOLERANCE

  When I think of John Locke, the first image that comes to mind is a bald dude who roams the island with an enigmatic smile, slaughters wild boars with a hunting knife and yells at people, “Don't tell me what I can't do!” (In case you have never checked out Lost, go repent immediately by racing to get all six seasons and watching them back-to-back.)