Talk:Discordianism

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Vision in a Bowling Alley and "The Big Lebovsky"?[edit]

Is there a connection? -- megA (talk)

Everything is connected. -zorblek (talk) 11:29, 18 March 2012 (UTC)
Oh, I forgot. Thanks. -- megA (talk) 16:10, 23 March 2012 (UTC)
This means something — Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.20.71.40 (talk) 18:50, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

Tons of original research/Article needs a major rewrite[edit]

I feel like far too much of this article is original research, and it's in need of a substantial rewrite. When the article talks about comparisons between Discordian "pure chaos" and Kantian or Platonic noumenon, or says that the 5th law of the Pentabarf mirrors a taoist phrase/the Epimenides paradox - it's not citing sources, it's doing original research.

In order to make this more encyclopedic, I think removing in-jokes where they aren't descriptive, and finding more non-Principia sources about Discordianism. The following might be fruitful:

Unfortunately, the first book, which looks like the more informative of the two, is expensive and only a preview is viewable on Google, but I think it's worth trying to imitate the general breakdown it does of Discordianism: history of the religion, teachings of discordianism (including: debt to Greek mythology, immersion in conspiracy theories, and relationship to Zen Buddhism), examining it as a neopagan goddess-focused religion, and an assesment of it as a "real" religion (examining it's views on humor, mockery and parody.) Osho-jabbe (talk) 21:48, 28 September 2015 (UTC)

Unsourced Statements[edit]

I'll go through the unsourced statements, to make my case that they're not original research:

Discordianism is divided into a number of sects led by "Episkopos" (overseer or bishop in Koine Greek, the same word used in the New Testament for Christian Bishops), who have received a unique (and often contradictory) revelation from Eris via their pineal gland.

PD Sources:

- "Should you find that your own revelations of The Goddess become substantially different that the revelations of Mal-2, then perhaps the Goddess has plans for you as an Episkopos, and you might consider creating your own sect from scratch, unhindered. Episkoposes are not competing with each other, and they are all POEE priests anyway (as soon as I locate them). The point is that Episkoposes are developing separate paths to the Erisian mountain top. See the section "Discordian Society""

- "AN EPISKOPOS OF THE DISCORDIAN SOCIETY is one who prefers total autonomy, and creates his own Discordian sect as The Goddess directs him. He speaks for himself and for those that say that they like what he says."'

- "Some Episkoposes / have a one-man cabal. / Some work together. /Some never do explain.

- "*THE PINEAL GLAND is where each and every one of us can talk to Eris. If you have trouble activating your Pineal, then try the appendix which does almost as well. Reference: DOGMA I, METAPHYSICS #3, "The Indoctrine of the Pineal Gland""

Discordians who do not form their own sects, whether they belong to someone else's sect or not, make up the Legion of Dynamic Discord, and may be referred to as Legionnaires.

PD Sources:

- "THE LEGION OF DYNAMIC DISCORD: A Discordian Society Legionnaire is one who prefers not to create his own sect."

Much of the Principia Discordia is devoted to the Paratheo-Anametamystikhood Of Eris Esoteric (POEE), which is the sect of Discordianism founded by Malaclypse the Younger.

PD Sources:

- "POEE (pronounced "POEE") is an acronym for The PARATHEO-ANAMETAMYSTIKHOOD OF ERIS ESOTERIC. The first part can be taken to mean "equivalent deity, reversity beyond-mystique." We are not really esoteric, it's just that nobody pays much attention to us. MY HIGH REVERENCE MALACLYPSE THE YOUNGER, AB, DD, KSC, is the High Priest of POEE, and POEE is grounded in his episkopotic revelations of The Goddess. He is called [The Omnibenevolent Polyfather of Virginity in Gold]."

There are five degrees in the hierarchy of the POEE. The highest order, Popes consist of every person on Earth. Below the Popes is the High Priest, Malaclypse the Younger, who ordains priests and runs the head temple of the POEE, the Joshua Norton Cabal. Below the High Priest are the priests and chaplins, who administer POEE cabals and appoint legionnaire deacons. Below legionnaire deacons are the legionnaire disciples, who may initiate others as legionnaires.

PD Sources:

- "POEE has 5 DEGREES: There is the neophyte, or LEGIONNAIRE DISCIPLE. The LEGIONNAIRE DEACON, who is catching on. An Ordained POEE PRIEST/PRIESTESS or a CHAPLIN. The HIGH PRIEST, the Polyfather. And POEE =POPE=. POEE LEGIONNAIRE DISCIPLES are authorized to initiate others as Discordian Society Legionnaires. PRIESTS appoint their own DEACONS. The POLYFATHER ordains priests. I don't know about the =POPES=."

- "If you can't find the Polyfather, or having found him, don't want anything to do with him, you are still authorized to form your own POEE CABAL and do Priestly Things, using the Principia Discordia as a guide. Your Official Rank will be POEE CHAPLIN for the LEGION OF DYNAMIC DISCORD, which is exactly the same as a POEE PRIEST except that you don't have an Ordination Certificate. The words you are now reading are your ordination."

- "Every man, woman and child on this Earth is a genuine and authorized Pope"

In typical Discordian fashion, two contradictory creations myths are presented in the Principia Discordia. In one, Primal Chaos is born from an interaction of the Hodge and Podge, and the Force of Discord (said to be a manifestation of the Nonexistent Chao) fathers Eris with the Queen - the whole story paralleling the Five Ages or Five Seasons of Discordianism: Chaos, Discord, Confusion, Bureaucracy and the Aftermath.

PD Sources:

- DOGMA I - METAPHYSICS #2, "COSMOLOGY" (Book of Uterus)

In the other, Void gives birth to the rival goddesses Eris, who is fertile and creative, and Aneris, who is infertile and destructive. They quarrel due to Aneris' jealousy of her sister, order is created and disorder emerges, and Void births a son, Spirituality. When the quarreling sisters confront Void over Spirituality, he declares that their brother will reside with Aneris, before proceeding to Eris and finally returning to the Void from whence he came. The whole story is an allegory for the journey of the spirit.

PD Sources:

- DOGMA III - HISTORY #2, "COSMOGONY"

The Sacred Chao is a variation on the Chinese Taijitu symbol, with a golden apple and pentagon replacing the smaller circles of each half. Rather than symbolizing yin and yang, the Sacred Chao symbolizes the hodge-podge and the eristic and aneristic principles, and has connections to key Discordian doctrines, like the Law of Fives and the story of the Original Snub.

This shouldn't be controversial, but:

- "And with that he revealed his scroll. It was a diagram, like a yin- yang with a pentagon on one side and an apple on the other. And then he exploded and the two lost consciousness."

- "THE SACRED CHAO is the key to illumination. Devised by the Apostle Hung Mung in ancient China, it was modified and popularized by the Taoists and is sometimes called the YIN-YANG. The Sacred Chao is not the Yin-Yang of the Taoists. It is the HODGE-PODGE of the Erisians. And, instead of a Podge spot on the Hodge side, it has a PENTAGON which symbolizes the ANERISTIC PRINCIPLE, and instead of a Hodge spot on the Podge side, it depicts the GOLDEN APPLE OF DISCORDIA to symbolize the ERISTIC PRINCIPLE."

That's a decent sample of the controversial edit. I hope this will spur a discussion that will allow us to come to a consensus. -Osho-jabbe (talk) 10:00, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

The Legion of Dynamic Discord[edit]

I don't understand why this organisation is considered so unimportant that a referenced section can be removed twice, since "The Legion of Dynamic Discord, or LDD, make up the bulk of Discordia's faithful." according to this, but I've no idea what all this is about, so I'll leave it to experts (are there any?) Dbfirs 17:53, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

The removed section was:

The Legion of Dynamic Discord[edit]

A Discordian Society Legionnaire is one who prefers not to create their own sect. "There are no rules anywhere."[1]

Does it need further references and expansion? Dbfirs 18:05, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

references (for this "section")[edit]

  1. ^ Malaclypse the Younger, Principia Discordia, Page 00032

Assessment comment[edit]

The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:Discordianism/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.

I think the clean-up tag at the top of the article was placed there due to a lack of external references to support the body of material. There is a plethora of internal (other wikipedia articles) references. Wiki articles are not sources, they only serve as helpful cross references.

It turns out that support for much of the content of the articles can be found in the external links at the bottom. I have inserted a couple references directly to them in the first two sections.

Libertyguy 16:42, 11 July 2007 (UTC)libertyguy

Last edited at 16:42, 11 July 2007 (UTC). Substituted at 13:29, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

Opening statement about legitimacy does not express the nuance and is OR[edit]

The statement "There is some division as to whether it should be regarded as a parody religion, and if so, to what degree" is original research. We are not to combine multiple citations to generate a new Idea. Insted we are to find secondary sources that do this analysis for us. None of the citations state there is a a conflict of opinion, and all state it is a parody religion. A better line could read: 

According to its primary historian (Adam Gorightly) Discordianism was founded as a parody religion. Many outside observers still regard Discordianism as a parody religion (Lots of citations). Some of its adherents claim its legitimacy as both a metaphor for a governing philosophy and a religion to be taken literally.

73.8.220.4 (talk) 14:04, 24 February 2017 (UTC)

External links modified[edit]

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Incorrect "TITLE" in footnote number [9][edit]

This comment / question is based on this version of the article, -- (the "14:01, 29 June 2017‎" version) -- which was the latest (current) version when this section was added.

Footnote number [9] currently has a "title" field [value] of "Internet Archive Wayback Machine", which IMHO is misleading, and it is probably based on (maybe even robotically / automatically set, based upon?) the "archiveurl" field [value], which is currently "https://web.archive.org/web/20091027092923/http://geocities.com/bloodstar84/pd_metaphysics.html" (OR ... maybe it's based upon the contents of the "web.archive.org" page that is pointed to, by that "archiveurl" field "link"...).

IMHO, the TITLE should probably be [something more like] "Principia Discordia" (or, maybe "an excerpt from [a certain 'chapter' of] Principia Discordia").

Also, does anyone have any advice about whether the problem of the original "geocities.com" website being defunct, should be solved

  • [a] as currently encoded in the wikitext, by keeping the "url" field of the "cite web" template [instance] pointing to that original "geocities.com" web page, and just using a "Wayback machine" ("web.archive.org") URL for the "archiveurl" field;

OR

  • [b] by instead, changing the "url" field to point to (that is, to link to) the "reocities.com" website instead (note: "reocities" with an "r", instead of "geocities" with a "g".)

-- ? --

Any comments would be welcomed. --Mike Schwartz (talk) 02:33, 30 June 2017 (UTC)

"case closed"[edit]

Resolved: "done!"

(See this edit.)

External links modified[edit]

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Sacred Chao and Pentabarf[edit]

Although the Sacred Chao is referenced several times in the article, no effort is made to explain what this is, or that it is a punning reference to the sacred cow of organised religion. And although typing Pentabarf brings the reader to this page, there is no mention made on the page either of this thing, what it is, or that it is a parody of the Five Pillars of Islam. Nuttyskin (talk) 01:25, 30 September 2018 (UTC)

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