By staff writer Nathan DeGraaf
October 18, 2007
Nathan: If I owned a religion, I'd make a killing.
Brian: You can't own a religion.
Nathan: Who says?
I wonder how hard it would be to start a religion. Really, I mean, what would you need? First, I guess you'd need a core of beliefs. But that's kind of boring and not really what I think religion needs. I think that cores of beliefs get people into all kinds of fights. I think it would be better to have a party. But they get people into all kinds of fights too…sometimes. Though I will admit, a brawl bash usually yields less death than your average holy war, but whatever. The point is, nothing's perfect.
Now there's a premise for a religion: nothing is perfect.
The Shizmessedup Religion
Our core belief in the Shizmessedup religion is that everything is inherently, in and of itself, fucked up. Nothing really makes sense. That's why everyone has such a hard time getting along on this planet. So, to belong to the Shizmessedup religion, you must solemnly swear on a stack of your most valued pornography, that you will never expect anything to be perfect or make sense, and because of that value or belief or whatever we end up calling it (maybe some weird name, like Value Sub System—yeah, that's vague as hell but it sounds technical), you will always act accordingly; meaning that you will never take anything too seriously or worry about all that much.
“Zeus jumped out my motherfucking computer. He was like a soft laser beam and shit.”
So there you go, we'll sit around on Tuesdays and talk about how nothing's perfect. Why Tuesday? ‘Cause Tuesday already sucks. We'll meet at 8 PM. Or 9. It really doesn't matter.
I guess we need a God to worship now.
And I guess we have to go with an imperfect God, which probably won't have too many of the available gods jumping at a chance for the job. So we'll have to go old school, like the gods from mythology class. Zeus was one of them. Hell, why not Zeus? He was a rapist and a womanizer and I'm sure he had a whole bunch of other problems he would go to jail for today. He fits with the general concept. That's good. We don't want to confuse people with this shit.
But now we need a story. We need something that ties the coming of Zeus to our everyday lives. Well, no one's more credible than I, so let me tell you about this crazy shit that happened just a few hours before I wrote this column.
Zeus jumped out of my computer.
That's right. Your eyes work. Zeus jumped out my motherfucking computer. He was like a soft laser beam and shit.
And he got all up in my face and he said, “Nathan, there is a lack of understanding in this world. You need to start a new religion that informs people of the value of the imperfect, of the joy and happiness of the moments on this messed up planet.”
And I was like, “Damn Zeus, you all up in my grill and stuff. I don't know if I can handle the responsibility. I don't want to start a cult.”
And he said, “Well, I didn't want to have to leave badass God heaven so I could waste all this time jumping out of computers and shit, so you're gonna do it.”
And that's the story. There were witnesses too. Seriously, it happened.
Anyway, don't dwell on the story too much and let's just stick with the focus of Shizmessedup, the message of Zeus, and the idea that we should all ban together and recognize that the world is imperfect. All that jazz is the foundation for this here congregation of the hearts.
And with that in mind, there is one last thing we'll all need to get Shizmessedup off the ground and running.
You see, because the world is imperfect, we have to ask you for your hard earned money. It sucks, but I mean, you're of the Shizmessedup religion. You understand that nothing is perfect.