Saturday & Sundry Shorter Religions

From QUORA


"What are TL;DRs for some religions?"
(TL;DR = too long;did not read.)

I guess, really, the questioner was asking: what are shorter definitions/explanations of some religions. But what do I know ? In acronym-laden cyberland much is taken for granted!

Barry Goldberg's great answer (and I trust he will not object to my borrowing it):

Barry Goldberg, Born Jewish, Raised Mormon, Discovered Philosophy and Became Atheist.[With a VERY large grain of salt and tongue firmly planted in cheek] ----

Judaism: People hate us because we’re God’s chosen people, and what God apparently chose us for is to be hated by everybody else.

Catholicism: God sacrificed Himself to Himself to appease Himself in order to save us from Himself.

Islam: We are the Religion of Peace™ and we will totally kill anybody who says otherwise.

Sikhism: We wear turbans and carry ceremonial swords and no, we are not Muslims!

Hinduism: Don’t eat meat; that cow could be your great-grandfather.

Buddhism: We’re a religion, but we don’t believe in God. Psyche!

Mormonism: “As Man is, God once was; as God is, man may become.”

Born Again Christians: “I know because I know because I know. Oh — and everybody else is going to burn in hell forever and ever!”

Jehovah’s Witnesses: We may believe some crazy stuff and be annoying as all get out, but at least we’re not as bad as Scientologists!

Universal Unitarianism: We don’t actually believe anything in particular, but we love to dress the part.

[Bonus joke: What do you get if you cross a Jehovah’s Witness with a Universal Unitarian? Somebody who knocks on your door for no particular reason.]

Even more!

Lutherans: We’re just like Catholics, except grumpier.

Anglican/Church of England: We’re just like Catholics, except we can get divorced.

Episcopalians: We’re just like the Church of England, but without the posh accent.

Wicca: We recently decided to call ourselves witches and now claim the right to define what the word “witch” has meant throughout all of recorded history.

Shakers: We enforce celibacy for everybody. And now there’s only two of us left. Seriously. I am not making this up.

Satanists: Baby-eating practitioners of the dark arts, or just a parody religion to poke fun at Christianity? We’ll never tell! BWA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA!

Pastafarianism: OK, we really are just a parody religion to poke fun at Christianity. All hail the Spaghetti Monster, praise be His Noodly Appendages, Ramen!

Zoroastrianism: You know that cool music at the beginning of “2001: A Space Odyssey” called Also Sprach Zarathustra? That’s us, Baby!

Scientology: Trillions of years ago the evil galactic overlord Xenu flew a bunch of aliens to earth in Boeing 747s and blew them up with hydrogen bombs inside volcanoes and… Never mind, just give us all your money!

Young Earth Creationism: Our minds are made up, don’t confuse us with the facts!

And finally…

Atheism: “We’re not a religion, damn it!”