Bizarre Religions
Frisbeetarianism
Frisbeetarianism is a belief where its followers believe that when you die, your soul will become like a flat frisbee and get stuck on the roof of a building. It was originally created as satire from comedian George Farland to mock Christianity believing that a soul could have any destination to go to after death. This wound up taking on a sincere streak with some of the population.
Church of All Worlds
I am deeply sorry to inform all my wiccans out there, but unfortunately this is where wicca stems from. Church Of All Worlds is a bizarre belief that stems from a fictional sci-fi book that was written in the 1960s to mock pagans. It went over worshipping the earth and calling the goddess Earth Gaia. Eventually many who were uninformed on paganism and its true identity took this fictional book as literal and began Wicca with combining this with the rituals that were placed out into public by Aleister Crowly. This fictional book took on a life of a major misinformed religion that still thrives in today's world. This is probably the most successful fictional belief.
The Church of the Subgenius
If there were to ever be a religion for the slothful, this religion would be precisely it. The Church of the Subgenius was formed in the 1950s. One of the most convenient decades of all. I guess the struggles of the 30s and 40s finally caught up with some. In this belief the followers worship a salesman by the name of J.R. "Bobb" Dobbs. It promises "slack" and a mystic state of freedom from everyday duties. They believe that the man J.R while fixing his TV heard from the space god JHVH-1 that told him about the "slack". They believe that the workforce is a all a conspiracy just to make people work for the heck of it and that it should be everyone's' goal to get out of the matrix and live work and effort free.
Church of the Latter Day Dude
This belief is strangely sincere after being developed in the early 2000s based on the 1990s movie The Big Lebowski. They have thousands of "Dude Priests". They believe that one must be devout and wear bathrobes and go bowling on a regular basis. It almost feels like something the group on the show Workaholics would come up with.
Temple of the Goddess Cat Bast
This is a modern reformation and resurrection of the ancient Egyptian belief in cats. These people worship their cats as gods and assign cats to be priestesses. They form alters and shrines for these cats and host regular ceremonies for attending worship for these cat priestesses and receiving guidance from these grand kitties.
The Aethurius Society
This religion was founded by a British Taxi driver. He believed that he received a telepathic message from a Venusian God that we have alien masters that live on other planets that will one day return to us. The following members believe that it is their duty to charge our mountains for their ability to return to us. They do this by saying ritualistic chants into batteries and leaving them on the mountains they seek to charge with their spiritual power. (Let me please leave the disclaimer that this is absolutely horrible to do in the environment and can poison the soil and air surrounding, so please refrain from trying this.)
The Neo-American Church
This religion is a hippy religion basically. It was formed by hippies in the 1960's that believed that there is a grant sacred mushroom god. They worship this god with ceremonies of tripping. They take LSD as their eucharist to worship the sacred mushroom. They believe that through LSD we can receive the sacred mushrooms divine connection and advice and evolve ourselves.
Stoned Ape Theory Religion
Formed by an ethnobotanist by the name of Terrance Mckenna in the early 1990s. The belief is that all humans had evolved from monkeys that took psylocibin mushrooms. It's a bit more of an evolutionary theory, but really is treated almost like a religious belief on creation. These people believe that humans were all originally monkeys and that only through a monkey trying out psylocibin mushrooms did we evolve. They believe that the mushrooms caused the monkeys to have the epiphany they talk of Adam and Eve having when their realization that they were naked, and that the monkeys started to think the way we do. Then from there evolved into humans after starting to think like humans. Many of these people are big on taking psychedelics and believe that psychedelics help advance their brains. Sadly, none of these people are educated with any degrees, and most could probably agree that if we performed an experiment on this that it would be very quickly debunked.
Prince Philip Movement Religion
This one kind of sounds like the crazy conspiracy theories that go around sometimes. This religion is based in Vanuatu. They worship Prince Phillip as a mountain god spirit that transformed itself into a human and traveled to Britian to pretend to be royalty.
Heaven's Gate Cult Religion
This is an infamous cult religion that has created the phrase "drinking the Kool-Aid". This is a belief that there will be an end of the world and beforehand there will be aliens to come and save them. This cult believed that they were preparing themselves for the ascensions onto a spaceship upon the passing of a comet, The Hale-Bopp comet. During the infamous mass suicide, a group of people in a dwelling collectively drank poisoned Kool-Aid. This has been one of the more extremist sci-fi religions that have become dangerous to people. Sadly, there are still believers to this day although thankfully scarce.
Universe People Religion
This religion is where the tin foil hats originate and actually has extended very far with conspiracy theory believers. It originated in the Czech Republic and has a surprisingly large group of followers. Similar to some conspiracy theories out there that flourish today, it believes that reptilians run the world and we are waiting for another race to save us. They have believed that the world leaders are shape- shifting reptilians farming humans to feed on. They wear aluminum tin foil hats because they believe its the only way to block out the telepathic control these aliens hold on people of the Earth. This is where the tin foil hats for conspiracy theories come in.
Church of the Whale
Originating on the northwest coast of America, these followers believe that whales are the utmost advanced species. They believe that whales are advanced ancient beings that run the world. Worship and honor is given by preforming ritualistic meditations to listen to whale calls trying to interpret their messages for wisdom. On the show Rick and Morty they have an episode of visiting a parallel universe that actually has things that way.
Church of Perpetual Life
This is one believe that may be considered more of a philosophy or way of life but that has constructed itself into a full-blown religion. In the show Orphan Black, they review over this society of people. These people feel that there is a key to immortality that has been hidden from humanity and that it is our duty to find this fountain of youth. Many of these people are tech geek people and or people that are big on body transformation. In example the types to dye their eyes, fork their tongues, and implant pieces into the body, but with the Church of the Perpetual life they do this with tech. They believe in cloning and inserting chips within people that could give them advanced human abilities. They would be the type to replace their eyeball with a bionic eyeball or get the Japanese dragon tail people wear. These people are all about mutating the body and finding how can they advance the human body to be more resilient and never age.
Pastafarianism
Sadly, I actually know someone that my husband and I grew up with that believes this sincerely. To add, he has done a lot of drugs in his lifetime. This religion started out as a protest done by a teacher back in 2005. At the time, the school he worked at allowed the theory of Intelligent Design into schools. Bobby Henderson a science teacher was in strong protest to allowing this idea into science class. So, he developed a fake religion that he started to teach in his science class to protest that he felt the intelligent design theory was ridiculous and basically teaching religion in school.
This religion believes in a flying spaghetti monster who has created all of humanity and the universe. They say that the decline of pirating (there has been no decline in pirating, it's still very active today) is the reason for global warming and that we can only reduce global warming by bringing pirates back. They wear a colander as their headwear and there actually has been legal weddings done under this religion in some states. Unfortunately, this protest once started in a school, turned into a real full-blown religion that even my priest has had to debate against with some, sincerely.
Church of Euthanasia
This religion is probably the most downing, sad religion of all. The followers of this belief system are very mentally ill and human hating. They believe that humans are a poison to the earth and that the only way in which we can save nature and care for nature is for all humans to commit suicide. Their slogan is "Save the Earth and kill yourself"
Overall, after taking a look at all the quirky belief systems out there, when considering a sociological view, it can show how fragile the psyche can be. Multiples of these started out as an obvious fictional protest or mockery of something, and turned into a real full blown religion. Wicca from the Church of the Worlds has probably been one of the strongest. Some of them were plain cults that have claimed the lives of many. Where do we draw the line on the shades of grey of religion on what is rational and what is not. With faith being a physically proofless thing, it becomes a slippery slope to stand on and try to draw lines with. Although, I feel that it has proven in itself how easily disinformation can form and spread like an epidemic. Some of these actually hold political influence in American politics, like the Universe People. With this we are able to see how all it takes to start a movement, is people that are willing to follow, it doesn't always require being right.