Laughing Matters: "Parody Religions" and the Command to Compare
The term "parody religion" is used to describe movements that deliberately mimic the elements of established religions and are intentionally absurd. It is generally assumed that people create and participate in parody religions primarily for their own amusement. However, the participants o...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Interlibrary Loan: | Interlibrary Loan for the Fachinformationsdienste (Specialized Information Services in Germany) |
| Published: |
2013
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| In: |
Bulletin for the study of religion
Year: 2013, Volume: 42, Issue: 3, Pages: 19-26 |
| Further subjects: | B
Flying Spaghetti Monster
B First Amendment B Neo-American Church B parody religion |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | The term "parody religion" is used to describe movements that deliberately mimic the elements of established religions and are intentionally absurd. It is generally assumed that people create and participate in parody religions primarily for their own amusement. However, the participants of parody religions occasionally demand to be taken seriously by invoking the legal rights and privileges that Western democracies afford to traditional religions. This article examines two such cases involving The Neo-American Church and the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. It is argued that the true function of parody religions, as demonstrated by these cases, is not simply to entertain, but to force a public conversation about the definition of religion. When practitioners of parody religions demand the legal rights afforded to traditional religion, they are issuing a public challenge to articulate how exactly religion is defined. Furthermore, ardent practitioners of parody religions frequently have a political agenda and feel that the legal system’s unstated criteria of religion unfairly benefit particular established religious institutions. |
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| ISSN: | 2041-1871 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Bulletin for the study of religion
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1558/bsor.v42i3.19 |