By Benjamin Epstein
THE CHURCH OF THE PAPER OF EVIL THOUGHTS, also known as Paperism, is a religion that believes that somewhere out there is a paper with evil thoughts. Once this paper is eaten, all the evil thoughts in the world will disappear.
In order to practice for this fateful day, members of the church are instructed to eat paper. Paperist rituals involve the eating of the 1876 book “The Brothers Karamazov.”
The church was created in 1911 by Charlie Chaplin in the book “EAT THIS BOOK.”
In the book, Charlie outlined the 7 commandments of Paperism:
The full name of THE CHURCH OF THE PAPER OF EVIL THOUGHTS should be spelled in all caps in order to show how important this is.
Whether or not there is a god or multiple gods is not important. What is important is eating paper.
You don’t have to eat paper every day, but once in a while would be nice.
Never trust a librarian.
Origami is sinful, unless you're making a sandwich.
Eating encyclopedias should only be done on special occasions.
Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's newspaper.
You may notice that the eating of “The Brothers Karamazov” was never mentioned in the 7 commandments. That is because the practice of eating that book in particular was started in 1952 by William Shatner. There is a very small denomination of Paperism that instead chooses to eat the book “Crime and Punishment.”
There have been many attempts to start Paperist churches. However, all attempts have failed because everyone keeps eating the prayer books.