A little extra fiber in his morning oatmeal, and Dr. Godley was moved to write the following explanation of religious enrollment.
IN THE BEGINNING, Yahweh (... a good buddy of the D(o)nut although with no real intelligent design sense) said, "Thou shalt have no other gods before me."
Unfortunately, this was mistranslated from the original Greek by Brother Ignatius of the Monastery of Perpetual Misery in the year 1369 after a wild night of debauchery, after already having been mistranslated from the original Aramaic after first being mistranslated from the original Balsamic. What Yahweh (known affectionately to his intergalactic drinking buddies as "No Way" after serving up the Ten Commandments...) really said was, "Thou shalt have no other gods below me." You know, like, in a downline? Frankly, "No Way" was not a big proponent of multilevel marketing. Which is crazy when you stop to think about it, because without all those meetings and house parties, how are you going to build a global network of donating parishioners? The Catholics soon picked up on this little problem and went right ahead and created a networking opportunity anyway. Not quite a home-based business. More like a dome-based business from the looks of the Vatican! The Catholic commission plan starts at the bottom (ahem) with the "altar boy" who is known to donate more than they sometimes want to, if you get my drift. From there you've got your priests (secret motto: "Get frocked"), on up to your cardinals, bishops and finally, the Pope who sits at the top of the entire pyramid scheme decked out in a stunning outfit that Rupaul would die for (and with Dorothy's ruby slippers, stolen from the back lot of Warner Brothers)... and gets overrides on all the action below him. MLM has worked out pretty well for the Catholics. Today they've got their own city in the middle of Rome, for heaven's sake! Recognized as a nation state in and of itself. Not a bad gig when you consider that it all started with a dozen Bronze Age front line signups. Like most religious MLMs, the Catholics (who apparently aren't all that organized) have seen some pretty serious attrition lately, with millions worldwide leaving the opportunity each year. Not that there haven't been measures put in place to stanch the bleeding. Like baptisms where you're enrolled as a junior distributor before you're even old enough to give the business any serious thought. Or indulgences where you can buy your way out of Hell for the cost of a pricey distributor pack. Exorcisms are always good to draw a crowd. Nothing like seeing a little girl's head rotate to pack a room! Unfortunately, Thomas Paine had to go screw it all up by publishing The Age of Reason which got people thinking(!) that maybe there was more to life than weekly meetings conducted in Latin which everybody mumbled to themselves and pretended to understand, plus dungeon floggings for the unfaithful which never really did much for enrollments. As for the D(o)nut Downline, his H(o)le-yness was the first deity to manifest in this four dimensional space-time, so naturally (or perhaps, supernaturally) all of the junior gods (Pan, Zeus, Bacchus, Yahweh, He Whose Name Cannot Be Spoken, Mr. Deity, His Noodliness, Xenu, a bunch more...) are on his first level. His H(o)le-yness could have sponsored them all under each other but these were some really high energy opportunists. So He chose to "go wide" rather than deep right away. Speaking of attrition, many gods have come and gone over the millennia. But fortunately the D(o)nut Downline has built-in rollup. So the millions of parishioners from one god who fades out over eons are automatically rolled up into the leg of the next most popular, up-and-coming deity. Hey, it's all good. As long as everyone dough-nates and keeps the gears of belief turning. And most of all, having fun at Sunday networking meetings! The Methodists seem to miss this point completely. And those churches with kids on bicycles with literature ringing your door bell? No one likes being sold anything they didn't order themselves, so most of those kids are sent away to pedal (sorry) their pamphlets somewhere else. You have to hand it to the Wiccans, though. Naked midnight festivals under a full moon are a lot more fun than sitting in an overheated church in an itchy wool suit listening to music that was Top 40 a few hundred years ago. That's no way to inspire future recruits. Truth be told (and D(o)nutarians can only ever tell the truth.... swear to God!), as legions of young people getting their first smart phone at the age of five pile onto the Internet, those monotheistic churches are having a tough time keeping up momentum in market penetration. Wouldn't you rather have fun speculating on the meaning of it all while peeking through a donut than washing dishes at the next Congregationalist ham-and-bean supper? Dr. Godley sure would. But then again the Good Doctor is one of the most phenomenally successful distributors of liturgical thinking ever to have lived. Any hole-y man who can walk on beer and feed the multitudes with a single pizza is bound to be a hit at parties. And religion is, after all, one big, crazy party... with the emphasis on crazy! So if you're not having an insane amount of fun in your antiquated, organized religion, why not become an instant Donutarian? Enrollment is quick and easy. And if you ACT NOW while shady operators are standing by, you get our instant download list of "The Ten Suggestions" suitable for framing (or hiding under the pillow if still living at home with your parents). If Donutarianism doesn't work out for you, you can always go back to your original religion, not to be confused with original sin. We're sure they'd love to have you back. You might even be able to sign up under your original congregation. Assuming of course that you haven't been shunned permanently, like those dour Amish who won't even let their kids play the electric guitar. Here at The Church of Donutarianism, just like Motel 6, the pilot light is always lit and waiting for you to step up to the front counter and rent some room in our Universe. Our God isn't just bigger than your god, He's at the top of the multilevel ecumenical food chain. What does this mean to you as a Donutarian? A lot, that's what! You automatically receive spiritual overrides on billions of parishioners in those other religions and set yourself up for a nice, fat afterlife retirement down the line. Get it, down the line? Downline? Dr. Godley hates having to explain his jokes. Although you can't move much product without a witty presentation. And you can't get more MLM-ey than that! |
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