If you are still searching for the perfect religion, look no further than Bokononism.

Useful information:

Bokononist words

The boko-maru is a Bokononist ritual in which two people put their bare feet together, in a mingling of awareness.

Duffle is the destiny of thousands upon thousands of people when placed in the hands of a stuppa.

A duprass is a karass of only two people, which cannot be invaded by anyone or anything. The members of a duprass die within a week of each other.

Foma means harmless untruths or, more descriptively, useful and harmless sort of horseshit.

A granfalloon is a false karass, a seeming team having nothing to do with God's Plans for getting things done. (ie. a nation, ethnic group, etc.)

A kan-kan is the instrument which brings one into their karass.

A karass is a one of many teams humanity is organized into to do God's Will without ever discovering what they are doing.

Pool-pah is translated to both "shit storm" and "wrath of God."

A sin-wat is a man who wants all of somebody's love, a very bad thing in Bokononism.

A stuppa is a fogbound child.

A vin-dit is a sudden, very personal shove in the direction of Bokononism

A wampeter is the pivot of a karass, around which the souls of the members of the karass revolve. A karass has two wampeters at any time, one waxing, one waning.

A wrang-wrang is a person who steers people away from a line of speculation by reducing that line, with the example of the wrang-wrang's own life, to an absurdity.

Zah-mah-ki-bo is fate - inevitable destiny.


The Books of Bokonon

The First Book of Bokonon

Don't be a fool! Close this book at once! It is nothing but foma!

In the beginning, God created the earth, and he looked upon it in His cosmic loneliness.

And God said, "Let Us make living creatures out of mud, so the mud can see what We have done." And God created every living creature that now moveth, and one was man. Mud as man alone could speak. God leaned close as mud as man sat up, looked around, and spoke. Man blinked. "What is the purpose of all this?" he asked politely.

"Everything must have a purpose?" asked God.

"Certainly," said man.

"Then I leave it to you to think of one for all this," said God.

And He went away.

The Books of Bokonon. I:1

I wanted all things
To seem to make some sense,
So we all could be happy, yes,
Instead of tense.

And I made up lies
So that they all fit nice,
And I made this sad world
A par-a-dise.

The Sixth Book of Bokonon

The Sixth Book of Bokonon, is devoted to pain, in particular to tortures inflicted by men on men.

"If I am ever put to death on the hook," Bokonon warns us, "expect a very human performance."

After mentioning the rack and the peddiwinkus and the iron maidens and the veglia and the oubliette, he states:

In any case, there's bound to be much crying.
But the oubliette alone will let you think while dying.

The Seventh Book of Bokonon

The Seventh Book of Bokonon, "Bokonon's Republic", is concerned with Utopias

The hand that stocks the drug stores rules the world.

Let us start our Republic with a chain of drug stores, a chain of grocery stores, a chain of gas chambers, and a national game. After that we can write our Constitution.

The Books of Bokonon on cosmology:

Borasisi, the sun, held Pabu, the moon, in his arms, and hoped that Pabu would bear him a fiery child.

But poor Pabu gave birth to children that were cold, that did not burn; and Borasisi threw them away in disgust. These were the planets, who circled their terrible father at a safe distance.

The poor Pabu herself was cast away, and she went to live with her favorite child, which was Earth. Earth was Pabu's favorite because it had people on it; and the people looked up at her and loved her and sympathized.

A paraphrase of a suggestion by Jesus:

"Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's."

Bokonon's paraphrase:

"Pay no attention to Caesar. Caesar doesn't have the slightest idea what's really going on."

The Fourteenth Book of Bokonon

The Fourteenth Book of Bokonon: "What Can a Thoughtful Man Hope for Mankind on Earth, Given the Experience of the Past Million Years?"

Nothing.

The Books of Bokonon advises us:

Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before. He is full of murderous resentment of people who are ignorant without having come by their ignorance the hard way.

The Final Sentence of The Books of Bokonon:

If I were a younger man, I would write a history of human stupidity; and I would climb to the top of Mount McCabe and lie down on my back with my history for a pillow; and I would take from the ground some of the blue-white poison that makes statues of men; and I would make a statue of myself, lying on my back, grinning horribly, and thumbing my nose at You Know Who.

From "Cat's Cradle" by Kurt Vonnegut
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[This message was edited Mon Sep 9 10:30:32 PDT 2002 by IceNine]

Excerpts from Bokonon's autobiography:

I once knew an Episcopalian lady in Newport, Rhode Island, who asked me to design and build a doghouse for her Great Dane. The lady claimed to understand God and His Ways of Working perfectly. She could not understand why anyone should be puzzled about what had been or about what was going to be.

And yet, when I showed her a blueprint of the doghouse I proposed to build, she said to me, "I'm sorry, but I never could read one of those things." "Give it to your husband or your minister to pass on to God," I said, "and, when God finds a minute, I'm sure he'll explain this doghouse of mine in a way that even you can understand."

She fired me. I shall never forget her. She believed that God liked people in sailboats much better than He liked people in motorboats. She could not bear to look at a worm. When she saw a worm, she screamed.

She was a fool, and so am I, and so is anyone who thinks he can see what God is Doing.

(guy from "laugh-in" voice) verrry interestink...

Someday, someday, this crazy world will have to end,
And our God will take things back that He to us did lend.
And if, on that sad day, you want to scold our God,
Why just go ahead and scold Him. He'll just smile and nod.

- Bokonon

uhh..Ice baby...you okay?

SkletonKee said:

Just trying to spread the TRUE word of God... you know, witnessing and such.

IceNine said:

amen, brother

testify!

1. I think that religion is all true.

I know it is not all true, but I want to believe it for comfort.

2. I believe the purpose of life is to do good, and go to heaven.

I believe that we are on earth to complete a job.

3. I want to have one partner for life, that I love.

I don't want to be tied down.

4. I feel a connection to people who are from the same state or town as me.

I think all that, "Oh we're both from Indiana," stuff is pretty dumb.

5. I want the majority of people to be the same religion as me.

I am not afraid to have my religion be illegal, as long as it does what a religion should for me.

6. I want to think that religion is based on truth.

I can know that religion is based on lies.


Give yourself one point for every blue statement that you agreed with. If you got a 6, are you sure your not already a Bokononist? If you got 4-5 points (and if Bokononism was a real religion) you should become a Bokononist. If you got 2-3 points you should consider Bokononism. If you got 0-1 points Bokononism is not for you.

Courtesy of Kurt Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle.

langebleu said:

EXACTLY!

As everyone knows, Kurt Vonnegut is my favorite writer and I consider him the be the greatest living writer!

The material presented above is only a very small part of what I consider to be one of the greatest novels of all-time.

I suggest that everyone read all of Kurt Vonnegut's work, especially:

Cat's Cradle
Slaughterhouse Five
The Sirens of Titan
Player Piano
Breakfast of Champions
Mother Night

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[This message was edited Mon Sep 9 10:29:02 PDT 2002 by IceNine]

IceNine...You are so true and sincere to yourself . And this is THEE most important thing to an invidual. Especailly one who believes in noboby but HIMSELF but yet struggles with theology YOU are ONE of thee true geniuses of our time...*** GOD ***Sometimes I lay and wonder before I go to bed, I wonder WHAT, just WHAT would this world be like if there were a GOD. Damn we would sure be in a hell of alot of trouble..THANK "goodness he don't exist"

TailGate said:

hi doucheana that gibberish of yours is a lot more fun to read with emoticons sprinkled throughout. kudos! i like your new style

IceNine you are in trouble now!

sag10 said:

I am always in trouble!

OH PLEASE...
pull this STUPPA out of the POOL-PAH!!!

Aaron said:

why thank you RETARD! LOL ...J/K...I still say no comparing you with IceNine...Me...who care but you and "she who's name I WILL NOT NAME"

TailGate said:

... right ...

SkletonKee said:

Oh leave him alone...He is fine. I think he just needs some attention right now...LOWDOWN? Where are you when we need you? Hum, now I can understand Prince a little more better...Jeez IceNine...Thanks!

TailGate said:

Huh? No offense Tailgate but I couldnt understand any of your posts.

TailGate said:

No need for attention... I just wanted GOD and Kurt Vonnegut to get the attention that they deserve.

For the record, I did not write even ONE word of the Bokonon material and all praise or criticism belong to Kurt Vonnegut.

IceNine said:

I know this!

nLA said:

No offense taken ...I did not expect for you to understand any of my post!

Hey Ice, I did like that "I don't want to be tied down" though. ...

TailGate said:

why is that? because you speak in your own unintelligble language that only those from the planet Uranus can understand?

If so, you are what I thought you were... AN ALIEN!
Where's David Duchovny when you need him?

nLA said:

it's worse. she's doucheana

Aaron said:

So she speaks in a language that only walruses and puffer fish can understand?

That's some high pitched conversation!

Tiger got to hunt,
Bird got to fly;
Man got to sit and wonder, "Why, why, why?"
Tiger got to sleep,
Bird got to land,
Man got to tell himself he understand.

Don't really care. I doubt the creator of this thread cares either.

Let's chalk it up 2 boredom shall we?