DIY Jai Guru Deva

OR Learn To Pray (Like A Virgin.... ...joking, I’m having a pop song quoting flash. Ignore)

If you have forgotten how friggen nuts people are when it comes to religion and need to be reminded, you gotta watch the documentary “Jesus Camp”.

Watching the outright brainwashing of children into sobbing uncontrollably as they plead “No more, Jesus, no more” into the camera clinging to plastic figurines of supposed embryos (which looked suspiciously like small cupie dolls) is enough to make a normal person want to hijack a plane and drive it straight into their moronic heads.

But that’s not to say I don’t dig a bit of otherworldliness. Jesus is totally alright with me, even though he’s just an allegorical figure based on the ancient god Horace (have you seen Zeitgeist yet?)

The fundamentalist super right is causing all sorts of stirs everywhere these days, from teaching kids in the apparent leader of the free world intelligent design, to teaching them how to blow themselves up in the Middle East.

Since this site is all about doing it for yourself, I’m a complete advocate of hodge-podge spirituality. DIY Religion if you like, where you pick and mix all the best bits of other people’s religions and jumble them together, dance to your own divine tune and blaspheme your way to a better you.


Dinky DIY’s Guide to A More Spiritual You

• There is a reason the evangelical churches are called charismatics. It’s because they are. They add a bit of pep into the dry, old-school style realm of religion. Next time someone gives you good news totally do a happy dance, be oddly and overbearingly enthusiastic about it, THANK profusely and exclaim that it’s AWESOME to be alive. A bit of hardcore gratitude can’t hurt.

• Got a few sins to offload? Grab a chicken! The ritual of kaparot says all you have to do is read some of the psalms and swing a chook around your head three times and now you’re not the baddie as far as the Big Guy is concerned, he’s going to blame it all on the bird. Sweet deal.

• “Celebrate the rather obvious idea that "god" is nothing more than a raw hot energy that permeates all things at all times in all places and it is meant to be shared like a long slow tongue-kiss across all genders and locations and hairstyles.” (Mark Morford) Can we so do this?! I know what you’re thinking – arsonist orgies! Safety first, kids.

• Speak in tongues. I just love watching the Jesus Weepers pull this stunt, aside from being side-splittingly hilarious (have you ever seen one run out of made up words and then just go back to the beginning of Oooloogggulackamagucka again? They repeat their own nonsense... muahahahaha.... laughing alone, am I? Carefactor: 0) it really can’t be argued with. I mean, it’s the most infuriating way to trump an argument;

“Jesus loves me and I am imbued with the power of the Holy Spirit.”
“But he doesn’t exist.”
“Oh doesn’t he ? Oooloogggulackamagucka”
“Stop talking like that. I know it’s just you pretending.”
“Oooloogggulackamagucka, oh Holy Spirit, save this non-believer, gooeeebigillipliplipooosh.”

You can’t reply, because you don’t speak that language and you don’t speak that language because it’s just being made up on the spot. Next time you run out of good comebacks, just bust out a Holy Spirit ninja kick in your foe’s face, “Why didn’t you bring in the washing, like you said you would?” “Oooloogggulackamagucka!” It’ll work every time.

• Bad face day? Get a niqub, one of those dinky veils that only let your eyes peep through. But for those times when you’re feeling extra frumpy, best to have a burqa on hand. They come in one shade of hail mary blue and covers you up so well, if you just sit still people might just assume you’re part of the furniture and ignore you altogether.

Plenty of other wacky things you can find out in the world that you could add to this list, so get soul-searching and see what you can come up with.

But don’t forget "religion constructed on a 'do-it-yourself' basis cannot ultimately help us," customised religion, says the Pope, is very naughty but then again, the megachurches have been wrong before (Salem anyone?)

This just cracked me up.