How It All Started
or
The Tale of the Original Snub


The Tale of the Original Snub is a key element of Discordianism. It is significant that this episode is viewed by much of the world as a footnote to a much more interesting tale. We feel that it provides subtle but profound insight into the human condition and instructs us on the proper way to live.


As it has been recorded in the Principia Discordia:
THE MYTH OF THE APPLE OF DISCORD

It seems that Zeus was preparing a wedding banquet for Peleus and Thetis and did not want to invite Eris because of Her reputation as a trouble maker.*

This made Eris angry, and so She fashioned an apple of pure gold and inscribed upon it KALLISTI ("To The Prettiest One") and on the day of the fete She rolled it into the banquet hall and then left to be alone and joyously partake of a hot dog.

Now, three of the invited goddesses, Athena, Hera, and Aphrodite, each immediately claimed it to belong to herself because of the inscription. And they started fighting, and they started throwing punch all over the place and everything.

Finally Zeus calmed things down and declared that an arbitrator must be selected, which was a reasonable suggestion, and all agreed. He sent them to a shepherd of Troy, whose name was Paris because his mother had had a lot of gaul and had married a Frenchman; but each of the sneaky goddesses tried to outwit the others by going early and offering a bribe to Paris.

Athena offered him Heroic War Victories, Hera offered him Great Wealth, and Aphrodite offered him the Most Beautiful Woman on Earth. Being a healthy young Trojan lad, Paris promptly accepted Aphrodite's bribe and she got the apple and he got screwed.

As she had promised, she maneuvered earthly happenings so that Paris could have Helen (The Helen) then living with her husband Menelaus, King of Sparta. Anyway, everyone knows that the Trojan War followed when Sparta demanded their Queen back and that the Trojan War is said to be The First War among men.

And so we suffer because of the Original Snub. And so a Discordian is to partake of No Hot Dog Buns.

Do you believe that?

-------------------------------------
* This is called THE DOCTRINE OF THE ORIGINAL SNUB


You will notice, for instance, that Eris didn't respond to the Snub with violence and destruction - she responded with the beauty of the Apple. The pettiness of everybody else at the banquet led to years of warfare, the extermination of an entire city, and the creation of a cycle of epic poems that use the phrase "rosy-fingered dawn" waaaaaaay to much, but Eris is the one that got labeled "Discordia".

And so it is today. Free people to make their own choices and they will respond like infants and blame you for the failure. Respond creatively, though, and you may just have the last laugh. Just don't expect people to be that thrilled with you....


DISCORDIAN CALENDAR