Los Angeles

With Lebowskifest upon us, serious acolytes may wonder "is bowling and drinking and dressing absurdly all there is?" Well freshen your Caucasian and plunge into the lore of the Church of Latter-Day Dude.

Only just recognized as a fictional religion, Dudism was founded by a guy who doesn't answer e-mails, but does espouse a complex Taoist belief system lynch-pinned by the mantra "Just take it easy, man". This philosophy might seem too lofty to implement, but the site lists an inspirational roster of patron saints who've done just that -- including everydudes like Quincy Jones, Julia Childs, and Jesus (but not "The Jesus"). For a more structured path to beatific dudedom, "Duderonomy" lays out 38 core precepts, the most crucial being "Never go into a tournament with a negative attitude", "Never trust a known pornographer to whom any sizable sum of money is owed", and, of course, "Never have an outward opening door on your house".

The Church even offers supplicants a chance to become a Dudeist Priest by filling out what looks like an unmodified email subscription form and printing out the resulting certificate. You can then perform various unspecified religious activities in states TBD, and prove to those costumed Lewboskifest bowlers that you take your life of noble irrelevance very seriously, man.