“Pop Culture – a New Source of Spirituality?”

Pavol Kosnáč writes for the Abide University and Institute website – AUI itself being the laid-back academic branch of the Dudeist faith – on the subject of pop-culture religions;

As Terry Pratchett once said, religion requires believers – if there is no religion, the god is not believed in, and ceases to be ‘god’ to anybody (Pratchett, 1992). If we reverse this idea, if someone believes master Yoda or The Doctor (Who) to be their god, then they become gods and new religions are born. Such is the approach of those who find spiritual and religious inspiration in modern popular culture (i.e. members of pop culture based religions (PBRs). A PBR can be based on a book, movie, TV series, anime or manga, on comics, video-games, or pop culture personalities (real or fictitious) – anything originating in modern pop culture. The most famous example is Jediism, a religion based on the movie hexalogy Star Wars.

This essay introduces the concept of pop culture based religions and tries to answer questions about the legitimacy of these religious groups. How can PBRs be distinguished from mock-religions or fandoms? What motivates their creators to found religions based on man-made stories or characters when there are so many other religions they can choose from that claim to be authentically transcendent, ancient and original? The Church of the Latter-Day Dude, or Dudeism, will be used as a case study to illustrate how a PBR may originate and function. There is some reason to believe that Dudeism may even have a bright future.