Hey Bobby, just looking at your site, and I wonder to myself why you got so carried away with your whole FSM thing. I understand your point- religious fundamentalism is getting in the way of a progressive world. The fact that some schools only want to teach Intelligent Design is a bit scary. But then again, it’s probably difficult for you to try and teach your kids something that is being contradicted at school. And religion is not a bad thing in and of itself. A lot of people live good productive lives, and are even directed towards them by religious faith of some sort. Again, religious fundamentalism in all its guises is a bane, and it makes rational belieivers in God (among whom I count myself) feel defensive about their religions when there is actually no need to be. Kind of like the one kid in class who misbehaves and spoils it for everyone else.
This is precisely why I am writing. If your website offered a concise and clear explanation of why you think ID is an incorrect theory or should not be taught in schools, then maybe you’d actually be reaching people who disagree with you, rather than just those who already think the same things.
I think interested and well-informed debate between opposing viewpoints is fundamental for progress of our ideas and society, but that’s not what your site is promoting. Your site simply appears to be a way for you to prove your own popularity to yourself, and make a few bucks with merch and this book while you’re at it.
The fact that you decide to take an extreme approch to this matter is something which is all too familiar of late. I see America raging with political, moral, religious, and social debates. People are hugely polarised. But this isn’t getting anyone anywhere. People are standing on soapboxes as soon as they find something they disagree with just to shout "I disagree," and when asked about their beliefs they respond "I believe the opposite of what that guy said." People are not informing their ideologies with solid values, and so as soon as the argument is over nothing is resolved, and people are just floating around like helium balloons after a little kid’s birthday party.
The problem is that while they’re fighting, nobody sees the middle ground, and so the easy solutions get missed. I don’t think ID and Evolution are incompatible theories.
Look, it’s easy: all life on this planet evolved from DNA. DNA is a really really awesome molecule, because look at all the things it has adapted into to populate our planet! Someone really smart must’ve designed that stuff.
Or you can take it a step back, if you’re going with the ridiculous improbability of DNA forming by coincidence: Wow, a planet showed up with just the right conditions to create this awesome molecule…
or Wow, the universe has laws and constituents which are capable of producing all this life from such basic things…
The point is that nobody, not even the scientists, can explain the reason the universe is this way, or what happened at the moment of its creation. At that point, all we have is our best guess, our gut feeling, and at that point it really doesn’t matter what you believe.
The sort of intervention which the FSM is capable of refers to a very specific sort of belief in God, and pointing out that that particular sort of belief seems silly to you does not bear any relevance to the question of the initial creation of the universe.
Some people just don’t want to put everything down to "dumb luck" which is what science (for all the understanding it offers) ultimately does.
Whatever your opinion of religious faith, you have a right to express it, I’m just a bit puzzled by the way you chose to express yourself if you did actually want incite some sort of awareness or change about the matters which concern you. If you were just trying to piss a few people off and have a few people on your side laughing with you, then maybe you should have just pulled more pranks in high-school, or got the jocks together to beat up some freshman. That’s basically what your website acheives with its current content.
Of course, if you have no interest in changing people’s minds about these issues, then I guess I don’t have much else to say, except that your logic is horribly flawed at several points, even in terms of serving as analogous to what Christians say about creation.
Pach
Scientists have explained why the universe is the way it is, it has to do with M Theory and the Anthropic Principle. It’s partly covered in The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins.
Dirk Aug 2nd, 2006 at 11:03 am
“Some people just don’t want to put everything down to “dumb luck†which is what science (for all the understanding it offers) ultimately does.â€
Pach … Luck? You call THIS world LUCK? Dumb, OK – but LUCK? Looking at the human race, DUMB and RANDOM is exactly what comes to mind … I mean, male nipples?? David Hasselhoff???? Bokdroolverspoeg????
Dirk
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Well said Dirk! haha,
Ramen
“offered a concise and clear explanation of why you think ID is an incorrect theory or should not be taught in schools, then maybe you’d actually be reaching people who disagree with you, rather than just those who already think the same things. “…ID is an incorrect theory because it is based on the assumption that the universe was created by, or helped along by a “god” like thing. To buy into ID, means one must buy into the idea that god exists. Evolution does not require anything more that proper chemistry and natural selection. I do not believe in god. I do not believe fosils were planted by “him” to trick me. I believe in physics, chemistry, biology, etc. I can test these things. You can say ‘well, god created them too..’, and it still is an argument based on assumption. I say FSM created you. You try and prove me wrong. My ‘bible’ says I’m right, your bible says you’re right. Try to prove your god exists.
All points of view are valid. I am a moderate Flying Spaghetti Monster believer, but I accept that my position, of insisting on an idea’s validity through faith, rather than any evidence, fuels the problem of extremism as followers feel they do not have to back up their ideas with any concrete evidence, and once you start from that, where do you stop? I reason thus: the Universe must have started from something, ergo that something is the Flying Spaghetti Monster. I do not believe that anyone can live without the FSM to give him/her meaning and purpose, and do not believe that if the FSM was removed tomorrow that there would be any values or ethics left in the world, as all goodness, Truth, Beauty and Liberty proceed directly from the FSM through Its Grace. (I’m a feminist FSM BTW) All other ideas can stand or fall on evidence, or contestability, but my belief in the FSM is sacred and unassailable, because you can’t DISPROVE that It exists. I don’t personally subscribe to any of that silly Einsteinian awe at the incredibleness of the universe (“so we shall know the mind of God”), as my belief is posited on an absolute, undeniable belief, that the FSM exists and created the world for Its pleasure, and constant pasta consumption. Scientists have to PROVE that the FSM doesn’t exist before I will listen to them, yet I can merely assert that because they can’t DISPROVE it, that the default position is, that IT EXISTS!!
Oh frabjous day! It’s so great to be a believer!!
Oh come, His Noodliness! RAmen!! xx
Sure it would seem to make sense that rationally giving the myriad reasons ID is wrong. But I must ask you this, when was the last time you had a constructive, rational decision with any proponent of ID?
“I don’t think ID and Evolution are incompatible theories.” Still not understanding the difference between a necessity for supernatural causes and a complete lack of supernatural causes?
“DNA is a really really awesome molecule, because look at all the things it has adapted into to populate our planet! Someone really smart must’ve designed that stuff.” Kind of a big jump there buddy. Please tell me who designed the first molecule of Polytetrafluoroethylene. Perhaps you don’t have any use for lubricants though.
“the ridiculous improbability of DNA forming by coincidence” Go roll one billion dice and record the result of each. Show me the results. I will tell you that the odds of you getting those results after a billion dice rolls is so low that it could not have happened. Do you still believe that you had the same results from those billion dice throws?
“The point is that nobody, not even the scientists, can explain the reason the universe is this way” Their not supposed to. Look up science in a dictionary sometime, you will find that science studies how things work, not why they are the way the are. That’s the job of religion and philosophy.
“The sort of intervention which the FSM is capable of refers to a very specific sort of belief in God, and pointing out that that particular sort of belief seems silly to you does not bear any relevance to the question of the initial creation of the universe.” I believe the reason that the FSM came about (well, the reason I tell non Pastafarians anyway) was to keep the separation of church and state, not to explain why the universe began.
“then maybe you should have just pulled more pranks in high-school, or got the jocks together to beat up some freshman. That’s basically what your website acheives with its current content.” No, that’s the type of things christians do to non-christians. Also, it’s spelled “achieves”.
I am amused by the fact that these fundies are always pointing out that we have all of the bad logic, but then refuse to tell us what it is, or they try to tell us, but just say that our opinions don’t jive too well with the bible. I wonder why they never examine their own logic. I wonder…
Nobody “rationally” believes in God, just like nobody “rationally” believes we didn’t land on the moon. You can’t rationally believe in something that is irrational in its nature.