Kart Gods

Note: The religion described on this page is not in any way an official religion or philosophy of the kart community; it is only a personal opinion of the certain people who follow it. The people mentioned in this article are not necessarily followers of the religion.

The Kart Gods (not to be confused with a "god", or a person who has reached god status in one of the MKs) are all-powerful beings, similar to gods in other religions, who have omnipotent control over everything related to Mario Kart. They are the gods of the religion and philosophy associated with kart. Their exact age is unknown, but they have existed since ancient times, don't age, and continuously look like they're in their 20s.

The meaning of life

According to the Kart Religion, the meaning of life is to have fun, to compete to be the best you can be, to be honest, and to help people. Before Kart was created, there were other inferior methods of having fun, but it was like the dark ages, and for thousands of years people wandered aimlessly and unguided through life. Then when the Kart Gods finally created Kart, it became the people's savior and the main method of having fun. It was the main event in the Kart Religion, similar to Jesus in Christianity.

Rules and guidelines of the Kart Religion

Karters who follow the basic guidelines of the Kart Religion are sent to Kart Heaven when they die, and karters who perform the evil kart-related sins are sent to Kart Hell when they die. Unlike other religions, the Kart Gods don't get offended easily, so it's relatively unimportant that you believe in the Kart Gods. Of course it's better if you do, but if you don't you can still make it into Kart Heaven if you follow the guidelines. The guidelines are as follows:

• Take kart seriously and understand that kart is an important part of your life, and that karting more makes you a better person.
• Be competitive. It's not just about whether or not you kart, but also about how good you are at kart.
• Spend a lot of time karting. Never refer to kart as a waste of time.
• At times when you aren't able to kart, be sad.
• Understand that time trials is the most important mode in any MK.
• Do not lie about times or about your identity.
• Do not hide strats.
• Make vids of your best times. The more vids the better.
• Do not hoard times.
• Not required, but you can impress the Kart Gods even more (like extra credit) by creating or running one of the kart sites, being a staff member, or helping the kart community in any way.
• The Kart Gods are fairly forgiving compared to other gods. If you make a mistake and apologize then they'll most likely forgive you. Just make sure you don't make the same mistake again.

Kart Heaven

Kart Heaven is a wonderful place that all karters look forward to. Here's what Kart Heaven is like:

• Every race is a pr race.
• You get to watch the Kart Gods themselves play kart, so you get to see what a perfect race would look like in each track.
• You find out the truth to all kart-related questions.
• No more prb, no more other annoying glitches, no more missed MTs, no more sweaty hands, no more wobbly control sticks, no more NTSC/PAL differences, and best of all NO MORE GAB SPLITS (whatever that's supposed to mean)!
• You get to see nude pictures of the hot female Kart Goddess.

Kart Hell

Kart Hell is a terrible place that all karters dread. Here's what Kart Hell is like:

• You're forced to play Moo Moo Farm 24 hours every day, and you never pr.
• In every potential pr race, you hit a mole near the end of lap 3.
• Your hands are always very sweaty, and you have no grip whatsoever on the control stick.
• You always have a blister on your thumb.
• On the only message board you're allowed to read, every topic is a topic about snaking.

Powers of the Kart Gods

• They control exactly what prs you get.
• They control how often you PR.
• They control every detail of what happens during the race.
• They control what your kart-mood is and which race you feel like playing.
• They control when each karter decides to switch to a different MK.
• They watch every karter in the world as he's karting.

Praying to the Kart Gods

Like most gods, the Kart Gods like to be prayed to. However, unlike other gods, they're not obsessed with prayer, and they consider it a greater respect to them if you spend more time on actual karting rather than praying to them. All that's required is 5-10 seconds of asking them to help you just before you start karting, and they'll cause you to kart better throughout the karting session. It's possible to be a good karter without praying if they have some other reason to want you to do well, but praying will always improve your chances and make you better than you would have been otherwise.

The Kart Goddess

Though there are many Kart Gods, their leader and main representative is the female Kart Goddess. She likes watching karters kart even more than she likes watching porn. Until recently, she has been disguising herself as being male to avoid drawing more attention to herself, but she has recently revealed that she is in fact a female. The Kart Goddess is the only Kart God who chats with people online. She is also the one who makes all important decisions, such as when someone will become a new world champion. She can be communicated with through AIM or MSN, but she has only unblocks certain people when she feels they are worthy of talking to her, so random karters can't contact her. If there's something you should be talking to her about, then she'll contact you. If you believe in her, then she'll be more likely to contact you. Here is her contact information, so if anyone with any other AIM name or MSN name claims to be a Kart God, it's an imposter.

• AIM: kartgods
• MSN: kartgods_at_hotmail_dot_com

Evidence of the Kart Goddess's power

There have been several cases where the Kart Goddess has caused a karter to improve at a tremendously fast rate, or demonstrated power in some other way.

• When Thomas Bolton was ranked 5th in MKDS, it's rumored that he started praying to the Kart Gods (though this hasn't been confirmed by an official statement from him). It took him only 3 days to pass Michael Fried to become world champion.
• When Thomas Bolton quit time trials in MKDS, the Kart Goddess was mad at him for betraying her, so she decided to help Sascha Brauninger. It took Sascha only 3 days to become world champion by closing an incredibly large gap in AF between him and Bolton. However, when Bolton quit he managed to make a deal with the Kart Goddess that involved him not being sentenced to kart hell, which explains why he was able to make a short return later to get a few new world records.
• Shortly before Michael Fried passed Miguel Rodriguez to reclaim his world champion title, the Kart Goddess caused Miguel's R button to break, followed by causing Michael to make what was by far his fastest improvement so far in MKDS.
• The Kart Goddess helped Troy Ullman get his very strong CM 3lap WR in MK64. Well, I suppose there's no proof of that, but given how superhuman his performance was, surely there must have been some amount of divine intervention, right?

Advantages of the Kart Religion over other religions

• As mentioned earlier, you only need to pray for 5-10 seconds, so it'll save you lots of time comapared to other religions.
• The religion is not corrupt, and no one else gains power by you believing in the Kart Gods.
• Rather than using fear to control what people do, people are supposed to follow the religion because they feel it's the right thing to do. The religion is only meant to help people by guiding them in the right direction in life.
• Kart can solve many of the world's problems. For example, karting brings together many people from all over the world, and encourages tolerance of other types of people. Other religions divide up the world by creating hostility between different religions.
• Karting helps promote the idea that you should be competitive and do your best, and also encourages people to be creative and discover new strats, unlike most religions where questioning it or trying to change it is considered a bad thing.
• The Kart Religion is the only religion with a god who chats with people online, which creates a more personal relationship between the god and the followers than in other religions.
• No karter has ever murdered anyone.

Why did the Kart Gods put prb in MKDS?

They didn't. The only MK programmed by the Kart Gods themselves is MK64, which is why it's the best MK and the Kart Gods' favorite MK. For every other MK, the Kart Gods hired servants to do the programming. The Kart Gods just gave them general guidelines to follow, but because the servants are only human, they made mistakes. Therefore every MK other than MK64 has mistakes in it. SMK has zig-zagging that makes your thumb hurt, annoyingly slow acceleration, and replays where you need to press L and R to move the camera. MKSC has too many glitches to count. MKDD has messed up replays. MKDS has messed up replays and prb. The reason that the Kart Gods allowed these mistakes to be put into the games was to give people more motivation to want to go to kart heaven, where the games no longer have the mistakes.

Does Fried really believe in the Kart Gods?

Some people have been claiming that Fried completely serious. Other people have been claiming this is a joke taken way too far. Does Fried really believe in the Kart Gods? What points is he trying to make by writing this article and by arguing about it?

Well, the answer isn't really so complicated. I didn't realize I'd have to spell things out so clearly but it seems I have to. I do not have a strong belief in the Kart Gods' existence. I have never claimed to have proof of their existence. Therefore I should not be considered delusional regardless of how crazy you think the idea is that there are Kart Gods. My view towards the existence of the Kart Gods is agnosticism. It would be rediculous to claim that it's possible to prove they don't exist, and I don't see how it's delusional to refuse to make that claim.

Why did I continue to argue about it? I wanted to demonstrate that the Kart Gods can't be disproven. It's irrelevant if they actually do exist or whether or not I believe in them. That wasn't the point I wanted to make. I also wanted to expose Steven Meakings as the arrogant close-minded bigot that he is.

Is it a joke? Yes and no. I intentionally made the article more funny than it would have been if i was trying to pass it off as something I really believed in. The philosophy was somewhat serious, but of course I used some exaggeration. However, I don't want people to walk away thinking "ha ha, so it was a joke afterall, we can forget about this now". While the actual beliefs about the Kart Gods aren't all that important, the ideas I was trying to convey through satire and parody are serious. The article was not meant as a slap in the face to religion in general. It was meant to point out the flaws in the attitude that some people have towards religion. Seeing people become offended by the article was especially disturbing and shows that some people take religion way too seriously. Some people seem to get much more offended in religious arguments than in other arguments, maybe because they're insecure, I'm not sure.

As I mentioned in this article, religion is supposed to help guide you through life, not control you and cause bigotry. Also, the extreme close-mindedness and arrogance of people who refuse to even consider the possibility that their own religion just as silly as the one they're insulting is rather disturbing. The Kart Gods were just used to demonstrate that point, but it could have been any other religion. The point is that you shouldn't reject something as 100% wrong until you think about it first, and you shouldn't believe that something is 100% correct just because 1 billion other people believe it. As I listed earlier in this article, the Kart Religion obviously does have some real advantages over other religions, so having good evidence that a different religion really is the correct one should be an important part of choosing the religion.

So, in conclusion, people who were offended by this article (or in Meakings' case people who were laughing hysterically at how delusional they thought I am), get a life. Maybe if you played some kart your attitude would improve.