Why I Started my own “Religion”
By: Daniel Goldman
Tags: Education, Philosophy, Humor, Penguinism, Religion

Why I Started my own “Religion”

Penguinism as a literary tool.

Photo by Peter Hershey on Unsplash

I have my own “religion.” I use quotes because it’s not truly a religion. I don’t promote any actual religious beliefs. It’s a faux religion. It’s called Penguinism, and it centers around the concept of “The Divine Penguin.” There’s even a publication for it here on Medium. Maybe you found this article because you’re already a “follower.” Perhaps you just clicked on the link because it seemed weird. Technically I started Penguinism many years ago, with my nephew, but it was more or less just a Linux joke, and had next to nothing to do with what Penguinism is today. A while back however, I decided to do something with it.

Penguinism has its focus in the promotion of science, cooperation, and sustainability, including the cooperation between science and religion, and religious and non-religious people. It’s also very critical of fundamentalism and bigotry. It doesn’t however promote the merging of science and religion and reaffirms that they are different realms of thought. Here’s why I created Penguinism rather than simply worked on promoting these ideas in a more direct way.

Communication

There’s a lot of difficulty in getting some of my ideas about religion and science across to people. A lot of times there’s a wall that I just can’t break through. It’s not just from laypeople either. A lot of scientists hate discussing philosophy of science, and academia has become loaded with religious antagonism.

Take for instance my commentary on religiophobia. Do people listen? Sometimes, but usually not. People very quickly become defensive. And I’m tired of seeing the criticism of religion, as a whole, rather than criticism of fundamentalism and dogmatism, religious or not. There are plenty of bigots who are religious, who label themselves as religious, and so on, but there are plenty of people who attack religion and religious people in just as hateful a way. I can criticize both religiophobia and fundamentalism through Penguinism and The First Church of Penguinism.

Meanwhile there are a lot of other topics that can be a little esoteric, including various philosophy of science topics that I cover. I talk about the nature of science itself, and it’s a lot easier to do that when using humor. Penguinism is basically just a literary tool that I can use to wrap all of these ideas into a humorous narrative: a spoonful of sugar, so to speak. But it’s also a framework to discuss a lot of my ideas all in one place. And since The First Church of Penguinism is a growing organization with a lot of people becoming interested in it, Penguinism can also become a force for creating the future.

Humor

While communication plays a major role in why I continue to promote the idea of Penguinism, honestly, it’s just fun. I’m hoping to build up a community of lighthearted science loving people who enjoy the lore of Penguinism. I even want to create some tabletop games, and maybe a video game for Penguinism. I think that the more fun that people have while learning, the more easier it is to learn. And even for very important topics, I think a little humor goes a long way to make difficult topics more palatable.

Serious, But Not

I’m serious about a lot of the material I cover in discussions about Penguinism. I’m serious about science, and promoting cooperation. I’m serious about criticizing fundamentalism and bigotry. But I’m not serious about forming a religion. I don’t mind religion, but I have no intention or real desire to see Penguinism because a true religion. I don’t expect people to believe that the Eternal Dishwasher is real. I don’t expect people to believe that Sq’wak and her species are real. They’re just literary tools.

I really do hope that people enjoy Penguinism. I hope that the community grows. And I hope that I can do some interesting things, including fundraising for charities, conservation efforts to help penguins, and much more. I guess we’ll see how things go as time progresses.

Further Reading

Hopefully you’ll check out the publication and the articles that are posted there. We have some really fun reads, including the draft (abridged) Penguinomicon.