Flying Spaghetti Monster gaining religious credibility

It's good to see that Pastafarianism, the glorious revelation of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, is back in the news.

I was an early embracer of this alternative to both evolution and intelligent design, praising this witty rebuke to creationism several years ago. And supporting the cause by buying a Kansas Museum of Science t-shirt.

Bobby Henderson is the prophet through whom the Flying Spaghetti Monster (blessed be His Noodly Appendage) speaks.

His open letter to the Kansas School Board first revealed the gospel of Pastafarianism to a spaghetti-starved world. I'm proud that Henderson is a recent physics graduate of Oregon State University – which is close to where I live.

May his unemployment be short-lived. This man's talents mustn't be wasted.

The Flying Spaghetti Monster is coming in for serious attention at the American Academy of Religion's Annual Meeting.

Indeed, the tale of the Flying Spaghetti Monster and its followers cuts to the heart of the one of the thorniest questions in religious studies: What defines a religion? Does it require a genuine theological belief? Or simply a set of rituals and a community joining together as a way of signaling their cultural alliances to others?

In short, is an anti-religion like Flying Spaghetti Monsterism actually a religion?

I don't think so, for reasons I'll describe in my next post. My current focus is on deciding which new t-shirts to buy from the FSM store.

There's a intimate, albeit appropriately mysterious, link between pirates and Pastafarianism. So I think I'll show my devotion to the Flying Spaghetti Monster by getting a Pirate Fish t-shirt.

An iconic image of His Noodly Appendage also is appealing. Likely I shall wear both with the religious zeal of a true believer in non-belief.

Comments

[cpmcd2000]

LOVVVVE it!

[william]

The intelligent design folks or the Darwin folks cannot explain what many refer to as the hard problem and that is consciousness. The universe is indeed intelligent but we humans have a ways to go before we can claim much of that intelligence as our own.

But we will in time because we are gods in the making. The law of progress towards an evolution of consciousness demands it.

There is a big enough gap in Darwinism one could propel an aircraft carrier through that gap but yet it is taught as fact and truth not as theory. The Darwinists have made a religion out of their theories.

If anyone believes we are here by chance they have little understanding of consciousness and awareness and if anyone thinks in terms of religious creationism well you have a lot of explaining to do because the evidence of your beliefs is in serious doubt.

I am not sure in Kansas they wanted to teach creationism but the atheists were in fear they would.

There appears to be a huge difference in the teachings of the intelligent design folks and the creation folks. At least on the websites I have visited.

Just saw a skeptic on Larry king show on the paranormal and this skeptic was living proof of everything I have being saying on here about skeptics and their lack of knowledge of the paranormal. He actually brought up the Randi one million dollar proof of paranormal challenge as a valid challenge. One of the best pr stunts every conceived by a human.

All the paranormal folks had to do was say “read the small print it is a fraud challenge” but not one person challenged it. Randi 10, paranormal folks 0. Randi wins again. The guy has made a fortune out of that challenge. In England he tried to do what john Edwards does as a medium and failed so bad they the producers had to stop filming and it did not air. Darn that would have been fun to watch.

[Brian]

William, neither Darwinism nor science in general is a "religion," given the definition of religion I'll talk about in my next post.

You also could say that playing golf every weekend is a "religion," or any other human activity that arouses dedication and passion -- but this is a misleading use of the term. Which you have done also.

Regarding creationism and intelligent design, the fairly recent court case that dismissed the intelligent design claim to scientific respectability found that the ID folks simply changed "creationism" to "intelligent design" in their written propaganda.

This puts the lie to the claim that there is a significant difference between creationism and intelligent design.

I enjoy your comments, William. But as others have pointed out (repeatedly), you decry the unproven and unvalidated claims of debunkers of the paranormal, but then you fail to prove or validate your own claims about the existence of metaphysical realities.

Can you solve the hard problem of consciousness? Can you demonstrate the existence of spiritual phenomena? If so, I and many others (the whole world, really) are eager to learn the truth.

I'm not being facetious. It just bothers me when people put down skeptics, or science, for not possessing the whole truth about reality, but then those people can't show that they possess the truth either.

[william]

What is truth even Jesus did not answer that question.

And why should anything I say bother you.

"This puts the lie to the claim that there is a significant difference between creationism and intelligent design"

On the websites I visited there appeared to be a huge difference between intelligent design and creationism.

"Can you demonstrate the existence of spiritual phenomena?"

I cant but others have but one must look for it and be open to do the research. Very few are that open but the numbers appear to be increasing.

Religion is when we believe something in spite of the evidence. Atheism and the religious two sides of the same coin called paradigm paralysis.

It is not about possessing the whole truth no one has that? We humans are at the beginning stages of our evolution of consciousness.

Glad to see you enjoy my comments that was a surprise thank you for that.

Just because a court case said there was a significant difference does not mean there was. You must have more faith in the court system than I do.

But I must admit religious folks would use any term to get their dogma into the schools. That is the nature of the human mind whether it is preachers, scientists, or whomever.

[Tucson]

"I cant but others have but one must look for it and be open to do the research."

--William, I thought you had spent years in research of spiritual phenomena. Why do you think others "must" have demonstrated its existence if you can't?

"Atheism and the religious two sides of the same coin called paradigm paralysis."

Why is atheism necessarily a paralyzed paradigm? It is simply the non-acceptance of the existence of a diety without observable proof. All atheists are saying is, "Show me". Most of them live in Missouri. ;)

"We humans are at the beginning stages of our evolution of consciousness."

This seems to be your paradigm, and it may be correct, but how do you know it? In other words, where is the proof of the evolution of our consciousness or that it exists outside of the biological processes of our bodies? Where is there any evidence that our consciousness, as humans, is any more evolved than it was 10-20,000 years ago?

This is interesting for me to say because I have had what would be considered "out-of-body" experiences. Yet, I have to admit even to myself that I am not certain these experiences were not dependent on some unexplained physical component of my brain. I think they were, but I don't know it for sure and won't until this body is truly dead.

[tAo]

For William...

Nature of Science:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6A58X73GnzE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ls8mYJIncdA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DagLYWseing

[Purushadasa]

The atheist, since his own childish theories hold no merit of their own on which to stand, and since the absolute truth of the Supreme Lord cannot be challenged directly by any means, all too often mentions such bizarre red herrings as "spaghetti monster," "mermaids," "sky faeries," and a myriad of other ridiculous straw-man arguments that he manufactures in his fertile imagination. The straw-man argument is perhaps the most shameful and childish of all of the logical fallacies, and is among the atheist’s very favorites.

The fact is that the ungodly atheist is afraid to face the issue directly, and the issue is simply that God's personal and intelligent plan for the highly structured, ordered, and variegated universe that we all experience every day makes much more sense as its ultimate origin than such silly, mythological concepts as "chance," "randomness," and "evolution theory."

It is physically, logically, and mathematically impossible to derive life from nonliving chemicals, personality from some imaginary, impersonal system of “chance,” or any amount of greater intelligence from any amount of lesser intelligence. The conclusion is that all life comes from life, all personality comes from personality, and all relative intelligence comes from absolute intelligence.

There is not so much as one single example, in the experience of any scientist throughout all time, of one species being observed producing a member of another species. Conversely, every nanosecond, every millisecond, every instant, every moment, every second, every minute, every hour, every day, every week, every month, every year, every decade, every lifetime, every generation, every century, every millennium, every epoch, every aeon, every era, and every age, since time immemorial, and right down the line, to this very red-hot nanosecond, what we observe, each and every time, without fail, adjustment, or substitution, is that each respective species produces members of its very own, very same species. There is absolutely not so much as a single example, throughout the entire history of all time, of crossover from one species to any other species. There is none, none, none -- none at all.

Since scientific method is based, first and foremost, upon observation, and the very lynchpin of “evolution theory” (species crossover) has never been observed by anyone, ever, the only rational conclusion is that the theory is 100% unscientific.

Only the insane can neglect these hard facts and insist upon the foolish, illogical convolutions of "evolution theory" instead.

More information:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=BxYacGWRlMw