Last week when we did the reading for Elvis Pilgrimage, I was a little unsure about it. I know who Elvis is, but I was a little unsure about how this was a pilgrimage and how some people believed it to be a religion. I found the reading we had to do very interesting and contained informational things. I learned a lot about the Pilgrimage I would have known nothing about. I found it interesting how this Pilgrimage doesn’t relate to other types we have studied about. It has the things it needs to be considered a pilgrimage but I’m still not quite sold on the idea that the it’s a religion.
I understood better after our class discussion that some people really do believe he is like the “other” Jesus. Some people believe someday, he could return. When Jessica talked about how when you really think about it, that’s what people believe could happen with Jesus, it made me think about what I considered for the elements of this Elvis Religion. It does have all of the elements for this to actually be classified as a pilgrimage but as for right now, I still can’t bring myself to consider this to be a religion. I would be very interested to hear other people’s thought about what they classify it is and maybe there is information out there that could change my mind.
I think that just because it is so outside the box, and unconventional we all find it a little hard to call a religion. However, this class has really been about things outside of our comfort zone. I don’t think it was a like of evidence or proof stopping you from believing it is a religion, I think it is just because it is so different from everything we have called a religion our whole lives. I do agree with you that it is crazy to believe, but I think that anything could be a religion as long as the people following it believe it to be. It is all about what it means to you personally.
I also find it interesting that people believe that Elvis will one day return and think that he is like Jesus. I also find it interesting that the beginning of Christianity was a lot like the beginning of Elvis. Elvis started out with very few followers and then it began to grow in popularity. The same way, Jesus had very few followers but then after his death, like Elvis, his popularity exploded and is now one of the biggest following in the world.