United Church of Bacon
The United Church of Bacon is an atheist/skeptic philosophical church whose main goals are social progress and raising money for other charities, founded in 2010, by John Whiteside and friends. The church offers all kinds of traditional religious services, including weddings, baptisms, and funerals. Its founder chose a strange name for the church, and its belief in bacon, as a social critique that all churches have strange beliefs, seen from the outside. The church opposes special privileges to religions because religious people are somehow superior to for having strange beliefs. The church promotes separation of church and state, science education and critical thinking, and an end to discrimination against atheists. The official symbol of the organization is two pieces of bacon praying with the sun in the background.
Founding
The Church of Bacon was founded during a meeting at Penn Jillette's house in 2010, to fight discrimination against atheists. The official launch was at The Amaz!ng Meeting, in 2012. They believe in practical atheism and do not believe in the existence of gods. They chose a funny bacon name with an argument that bacon is demonstrably real whereas god is imperceptible by the eye. The Church's mission statement is "Hail Bacon, full of grease, the Lard is with thee.”Tenets
The chief criterion for joining is that members must love the smell of bacon, which can be turkey bacon or vegetarian bacon. Officiants are known as friars.The main code are the 8 bacon commandments :
- Be Skeptical
- Respect Boundaries
- Normalize Atheists & Religion
- Have Fun
- Be Good
- Be Generous
- Praise Bacon
- Advocate for fair church taxation
Activism
The United Church of Bacon is a philosophical parody church that fights against atheist discrimination, for separation of church and state, and for marriage equality. It has supported or organized several causes.In 2015, UCB was denied notary services by Wells Fargo, which gained international attention. Wells Fargo denied discrimination. The founder of the church later recorded seven out of eleven Wells Fargo branches denying simple notarisations. Wells Fargo quietly changed their notary policy in 2016, and since then UCB has not had a problem with Wells Fargo.
The United Church of Bacon currently has over 3700 clergy. Application for clergy is free, and if approved UCB clergy cannot charge for their services. Instead, clergy are encouraged to ask whomever is provided services to donate to either the charity of their choice or from a list on their website. UCB has no affiliation with the charities recommended.