Wednesday, April 05, 2006

What Pieism is all about...

Pieism.org's opening was on March 31st, which is also Pieism's celebrated "Swarming of the Pies." Since that day I've promoted the site on Myspace, various forums, and spoke of it to my personal friends.
The site has under 200 hits, which is terrible. Plublicity is scarce, and I'm trying to think of cheap inexpensive, non Spaming ways of promoting the site. It seems the majority of people's reactions is that the Religion is completely rediculous. Mind you, it is a small number of people, but nevertheless I've been trying to make the website more friendly to navigate and to learn about.
Still, people ask me what Pieism is about. It's about Pie, obviously...
The mythology is interesting and funny, but Pieism really is a way to live your life. Most of us practice it day to day already, save for the specifics of pie-eating and such.
The only code of what you must do is...

1. Like Pie
2. Don't Kill.
3. Don't Steal.
4. Have a Sense of Humor
5. Don't Waste Your Life.

Pieism is all about empowering ourselves as people. Making the day to day count...making society more friendly by being kind to those around us. But also having a sense of humor and noting how Life can be a bitch sometimes... Life is so busy we often get lost in our jobs, school, and work...Religion should be a means to escape that, but for some of us, we just don't want to be preached to, or we don't believe in organized religion, or more often than not, we are consumed in our day to day lives and the idea of spirituality is impossible for our practical, tangible world.

Well take Pie. Pie is real. We've all seen it. There's something we can believe in. The goodness of Pie (well, as long as you enjoy pie). Of course there's all sorts of Pies, so it's hard to not like at least one form or another. Therefore Pie is universal.
But, there are plenty of other things in this world we enjoy.
Take cellphones. Take chinese finger traps or those little army men with the plastic parachutes. They're all real things, and part of our society. We can believe in them.
Praying to the chinese fingertrap and little army men with plastic parachutes god is praying to the God of Useless Crap. Whereas praying to the God of Cellphones is praying to the God of Technology. All of Pieism's gods are modeled after things in our day to day lives.
Ironically praying to such Gods sort of basterdizes Religion, no? We're basically praying to our own inventions and everything we have created over the past decades and in pop culture. Pieism is therefore a religion highly concentrated in aspects of mankind and society.

I know tons of people who claim themselves Agnostic or Atheist. A lot of these people have been practicing Pieism for years, they just don't know it yet. Most teenagers are great candidates in that they are consumed in pop culture and material things. Even children idolize their video games and action figures, and we can learn a lot from that. Enjoy what you can see. You see all these material things everyday and use them everyday. Why not be thankful for them? What is life without them? Have you ever imagined life without your precious cellphone or computer?
Maybe a more appropriate name for this kind of Materialism is Materialism or Tangibleism or something...but Materialism isn't always necessarily a good thing...

Of course adding the mythology about the world baking in a giant oven by a Pie God, and all the other colorful stories of Pieism is just icing on the cake, and has to do more with accepting life's mystery...and who are we to say its not true? I believe Pieism is more plausible than most religions. We can see, touch, and taste most of the things Pieism's gods embody. There's not much faith asked for. But to believe in an idea purely on feeling is a bit different, though you could argue your God "created the earth, trees, and sky and we can see them, therefore He must exist," I'm not asking anyone to have faith in a mysterious presence that cannot be explained logically. I'm just saying, Pies, Cakes, and Pointy Objects are everywhere, so lets worship them...and...believe that a mysterious presence that cannot be explained logically looks like a pie and baked the world in a giant oven.
The belief in these gods could be looked at as satire, but really, that's the whole point. Humor is the best cure for taking the world too seriously. We all need to grow up to survive in the world of course, but laughter comes too few in the day for a lot of us.
Laughter can cure depression, prayer can't. You can make someone laugh and you're given instant results. Pray for someone and your heart may be in the right spot, but you're asking for a magical omnipotence to help out, when you could aid that person yourself. Naturally all gods want us to do what we must do by ourselves. It's not like we have a giant almighty butler to do everything for us. I'm sure "He" has enough things to do as it is anyway, despite how cool a Buter God would be.
You'd be surprised that most depressed people just want someone to listen to them. But it doesn't have to be a one on one emotional encounter. Any happy little distraction can add relief for these persons. Telling a joke. Slipping on a banana peel.
And laughter may be the only thing to keep the physically ill from dwelling on their problems nonstop. Some may turn to Religion as something to believe in when all else seems lost, and when that happens I think Religion is a good thing. It keeps the mind hopeful and optimistic, no? It gives us something to believe in...something to strive for. But if we believe in ourselves and the experience of life and family and all that warm fuzzy stuff, we can keep the mind busy too AND have an aim in life...to make the world a good place to be. Really, making the most out of the time you have left in your predicament is good advice no matter what you believe in.
Besides, The Pie God has got your back when all else fails. ;)