Global Standard Deity

[TechBear_Seattle]

In Jasper Fforde's very funny Thursday Next series, there is a running joke about the Global Standard Deity, described as an amalgamation of every Supreme Being of every religion currently in existence. The header notes for chapter 21 of Lost In A Good Book states:

The very Irreverent Joffy Next was the minister for the Global Standard Deity's first church in England. The GSD has a little bit of all religions, arguing that if there was one God, then He would really have very little to do with all the fluff and muddle down here on the material plane, and a streamlining of the faiths might very well be in His interest. Worshippers came and went as they pleased, prayed according to how they felt most happy, and mingled freely with other GSD members. It enjoyed moderate success, but what God actually thought of it no one ever really knew.

Irreverent Next is not only the leading cleric of the GSD Church in England, he also leads various GSD breakaway sects including 'The standardised pro-baptist Lutheran sisters of something-or-other', 'The Idolatry friends of St Zvlkx the mumbler', and the 'Church of the misrepresented promise of eternal life' (link.) He is in a same sex union officiated by another GSD minister, and closest thing to a religious service we see is an art exhibit of Neanderthal painters (modern stuff and not the old-fashioned cave paintings.)

Sounds rather like the UUA to me. How can you not like a religion where clerics go by the title Irreverent?

[niyad]

1. my favourite religious group is Mother BoomBoom and the Sisters of Perpetual

Indulgence of San Francisco.