For a while I didn't believe in anything, as far as religion goes. Our family, or at least the four of us, didn't go to church, and the concepts of god and all that never evolved for me past a kind of abstract idea. When I was little I did assume there wa sa god and he was out there somewhere, as depicted in the cartoons and other places, that there was a Heaven, and all the Jesus stuff happened like they said it did. I'm not saying I was a believer in the sense that I was religious or anything, but I just took it all for granted the same way I did with Santa Claus and such.
My first real experience with religion didn't come until I was hooked up with Betsy, and she tried to convert me to the Catholic Church when I was 18, and by then it was just too late. I gave it an honest effort, but really I was just going through the motions of trying to appease her and make her family happy. I'll try it, but that's about it. Then she gave me a whole book of stuff that I "had to believe" if she and I were going to get married, and I looked at it, read some of the stuff in there, and sorry ... I just don't think so, babe.
Around that time I played around with the idea of atheism, but that was never little more than a pose. If anything I was just agnostic, and didn't know what I believed in. Even so, even if I didn't buy into everything that Betsy wanted me to, there was still a sense in my head that there was something out there in the universe directing traffic. Now remember, this was long before the notion of the Nice Lady came to fruition as a benevloent force helping me out, long before I had any ideas about the Wheel of Destiny, and even before I found Calliope. I just had a vague sense of something.
The first thing I came across that started to connect the dots was Chaos Theory. The first time I'd ever heard of that theory was in Jurassic Park, where the theory is expounded upon by Dr. Ian Malcom (Jeff Goldblum), one of my favorite movie characters of all time (he has all the best lines in that movie). I didn't know if chaos theory was something real or if it had just been made up by Michael Chrichton and/or Steven Speilberg, but I was utterly fascinated by it. A couple years later, Colleen bought me a book on chaos theory for my birthday, which I still have, and even though I'm utterly confused while trying to read that book, I'm still fascinated by the theory. In the Cliff Notes version of the theory, it's the thing you've probably heard about where the flapping of butterflies in Africa can cause hurricanes to hit the United States. That sort of thing. But it's way more complex than that.
As influential as chaos theory was, however, it was something that stayed in the back of my mind, and it didn't cause any sort of religious epiphany. Then I bought and read the book that changed my life. It's funny how books can do that. There are others, and I'll write a post about those later on, but I don't want to get too far off point right now. The book is The Illuminatus! Trilogy by Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea. It's a book that defies rational description, because it's the most bananas thing I've ever read, dealing with conspiracy theory, secret societies, the secret history of the world, and all sorts of other wacky things. Most importantly, it introduced me to Discordianism, which is the religion I now most closely associate myself, even if I don't follow it to the letter.
Discordianism itself sort of defies any rational description as well, except that the Goddess they've chosen is an old goddess from Greek Mythology, so obscure I didn't even remember her, even though I'm fairly versed in that mythology. In the Greek myths her name is Eris, and she's responsible for the start of the Trojan War, through an act of mischief and troublemaking among the other goddesses. She's the goddess of chaos, and she's all over the Trilogy. As soon as they started talking about her, I knew she was the one for me. I even tracked down a copy of the Discordian bible -- the Principia Discorida -- and studied it until my brain hurt. This was ten years ago now, and I still don't understand it all, but I find it endlessly fascinating.
In the Trilogy she's given a full name: Eris Kallisti Discordia. As portrayed there and in the Principia she'd be enough goddess for anyone, but I didn't stop there. If I had, I just wouldn't be me. I started to think about the universe being run by a crazy woman, and thought about chaos theory and how that works, and I sort of made a connection with the Wiccan goddess (I won't talk about Wicca very much here at all, because I haven't studied it, and I'd only be talking out my ass), and it struck me that if they worship a sort of nature goddess, and I'm interested in a chaotic goddess, and chaos can affect nature in a very real way, that Eris as I understand her could be the real name of Mother Nature. As with the Nice Lady it all just locked together in my brain.
I found an image that kind of represents Eris as I see her in my brain, personified here by Myspace icon Holly Clark. Rather fetcing, no?
You can call me a lunatic if you want to, but it all makes sense to me. Compared to what Betsy wanted me to swallow, I think it makes *more* sense.
Hail Eris. All hail Discordia.
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