Your all just KIDS.
always pointing fingers and trying to be better.
when you realize what you are doing wrong its going to be to late.
FSM is nothing more than that of which it is.
And if you really think FSM can beat GOD…it already lost.
you have no faith. You probably cant even tell me what faith means.
-Crulix
The Church is funded entirely by your purchases of FSM merchandise. Thank you for your support.
An elaborate spoof on Intelligent Design, The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster is neither too elaborate nor too spoofy to succeed in nailing the fallacies of ID. It's even wackier than Jonathan Swift's suggestion that the Irish eat their children as a way to keep them from being a burden, and it may offend just as many people, but Henderson, described elsewhere as a 25-year-old "out-of-work physics major," puts satire to the same serious use that Swift did. Oh, yes, it is very funny. -- Scientific American
|
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License. This means you're free to use the content but not sell it. More Details |
“I’m not a kid myself, but I teach them everyday. Interestingly enough, they understand what an apostrophe is….”
.
I’m sorry to hear that, Jeremy. The world has a sickening surplus of apostrophes and a frightening shortage of apostates. Perhaps we could swap a couple in the classroom when nobody is looking.
.
OEJ
I believe Mark Twain once wrote that “Faith is belief in what you know ain’t true.” That seems like a pretty good evaluation to me.
This is really interesting stuff, don’t you think. The Christians and Pastafarians love to taunt each other, each believing the adherents of the other faith are ignorant, short-sighted dullards who blindly accept one or the other teachings blindly. Isn’t this the problem with most, if not all, of the major organized religiions? The preaching of tolerance and the giving of none seems to be a defining characteristic. As such, are the radical Pastafarians any better in their behavior than the fundamentalist adherents of Christianity, Islam, Judaism, and on and on?
Perhaps the problem is greater than religion itself. It would seem that Human Beings, of any creed, race, or nation, or naturally given to “Us” vs. “Them” behavior. There would seem to be plenty of observable evidence for that. If the theory that we’re all going to seek out conflict regardless of circumstances is ture, it doesn’t matter what icons we worship, since we’ll create and then rally around the ones that we prefer, be it flags, sports teams or religious beliefs.
I am Christian and I try not to taunt anyone, mainly because I’m quite aware of how ridiculous I am and spend most of my time laughing at that and futurama.
That being said, I can see where you would discern a tendency in groups to define the opponent and then the subtle or overt war ensues. Livescience just posted an article discussing behavioral patterns which are considered ingrained within the human mind. They then supposed that to be why person use similar motions when reaching for food and what not. There is the possibility that the need to compete and the survivalist instinct is ingrained and that is what drives the desire to obliterate/stigmatize/blog someone interpreted to be competition or prey. The continuity of this behavior could be ingrained in the mind. Then considering that the survival is not for the individual but divined by group,then what you suppose about religion as not necessary to conflict makes sense.
Nonetheless, I don’t necessarily believe that radical pastafarians are equal to the behavior of Islamic or Christian extremists. To me, in the mosaic of American society, it would seem that Christianity has a strong foothold that presupposes territory whereas pastafarianism is more individualized. In other words, it doesn’t necessarily seek to ‘convert’ to pastafarianism it merely seeks to prevent conversion to Christianity without choice.
That being said this is great. I think I may make some spaghetti later.
christians posting things here.. NOTHING YOU SAY WILL MAKE A DIFFERENCE. But you’ll never give up, will you. You just keeeep posting. I don’t think you would like it very much if i went to some christian forum and started rambling about the FSM and how you need his forgiveness and other shit. No, we wouldn’t do something ridiculous like that. You have abosolutely no right to tell us who we should worship.
Why do you think everyone hates fundamentalist, traditionalist, extremist christians so much? Why do you friggin think? Because your such lovely people who like telling us we’re going to hell? Ok i’m generalising here, i know not all christians are like this, but it’s too hard to ignore the ones who are.
just fuck off.
Ashes, that was a refreshingly lucid, level-headed post. Thanks. That being said, I must point out that I really resent the fact that because Christianity does have such a foothold, its followers are so bold in their assumptions about the rest of us. If we were able to look at human civilization in its entirety through time and cultures, wouldn’t we see that Christianity is one among thousands of belief systems, and that the Christian God is one among tens of thousands of deities man has dreamed up? Doesn’t that make Christianity the Faith of the Month, so to speak? With this in mind, I definitely do not want my children, or my society’s children, taught the current, popular religion as science. That’s the kicker for me. I don’t care if it’s taught, but it should not be taught as science. It should be taught in the proper context: Christianity, and its first cousin Intelligent Design, is one of many belief systems and is no more valid than any other just because it has many, many followers.
You know, the assuming nature is very unsettling for me as well. We hosted a symposium on religion and morality and it was disturbing that so many people equate atheism with amorality. Although I must admit that I am always nervous when large groups form and start developing regulations to accomodate for innovation based on their own interpretation of text written ages before by people.
Nonetheless I would like to point out that I am not a fan of intelligent design being taught in schools. It looks like persons basically attempting to shoehorn religious theology through the back door because the first amendment prevents it getting through the front. Also, I don’t believe that the number of followers lends a religion validity. If in fact what you choose to believe is based on faith, the number of persons joining you in that regard should be irrelevant. Likewise, the timing also should make no difference in a faith based situation. That being said, I wonder if religion is one of the habits ingrained as the article suggested. I mean you could certainly make the point if you grew up in a religious household, but how interesting would it be if there were in fact a dynamic to the brain that necessitated belief?
Now, moving on to Cathie. You should probably read the rest of the post before you begin your next verbal tirade. I was posting in relation to a livescience article on scientific examination of ingrained human reactions within the brain. If you want to go post on some website somewhere feel free, I’m a big fan of the first amendment.
I have not now, nor have I ever told someone who/what they should worship. Nor have I ever told someone they are going to hell. Although if that is their destination I will surely see them there. I have an excruciatinly flexible morality. Plus, I suffer a crisis of faith practically constantly, to attempt to persuade or even inform someone of Christianity well, it would smack of hypocrisy.
Ashes,
You are obviously an articulate and intellegent person.
“I mean you could certainly make the point if you grew up in a religious household, but how interesting would it be if there were in fact a dynamic to the brain that necessitated belief?”
.
Google “Belief Gene”. See what you think of that research.
The link below is a newspaper report:
“Geneticist claims to have found ‘God gene’ in humans”
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20041114-111404-8087r.htm
.
I haven’t gotten around to reading any of the actual findings or reviews myself yet.
Every time I read a post by Ashes, I think my IQ goes up a little bit.
I’m going to sit here quietly and read and not say anything (now, y’gotta admit kids, that’s unusual).
Hi, Ashes,
.
Thanks for not taking umbrage to Cathie and leaving. If people like you didn’t come here and post, we’d all be sitting around in dumb mutual agreement until we got bored and drifted away. (I’d probably get some work done, too, which would spell The Beginning of The End.)
.
There was some discussion about the notion of evolutionary bases for religion on one of the other threads. I think I spouted a whole lengthy late-night rant on the subject (not rare). I’m also pretty sure that people have written books on the subject. (One of Daniel Dennett’s, possibly?) Whether there is specific ‘God gene’ or not, I find it highly likely that a combination of the pre-programmed mental processes that have evolved in us, leading us to work in groups and perceive the world around us in terms of ourselves, could overlap to create the ‘God-Shaped Hole’ that so many of us urgently want to fill.
.
This is one of the knockout blows to theism, for me. Once your grasp of the world has reached the point where you can more easily explain a believe in a non-existent god than the existence of a real god, you logically find yourself having to ask any religious faith you hold some pretty stern questions.
.
What’s nice is that, when you do decide that you’re an atheist, the sun still rises in the morning, the same people keep showing up doing the same things, and god conspicuously fails to smite you. And you can absorb the mind-blowing things we are learning about the world without a trace of metaphysical guilt.
“Your all just KIDS.” “FSM can beat GOD”
Wow! Such heavy use of acronyms (why else would these terms be in capital letters, right?). Yes we are KIDS if, by that, you mean Knowledgeable and Intelligent Disciples of the Spaghedeity. Thanks for the compliment. And while we all are aware of what FSM stands for it may not be clear, however, as to what GOD means. I must admit to having had no clue as to its meaning myself, until I conducted a little research. Here is what I found out:
The only religious entity I found with the initials GOD, or something close it was; Dios de Gazpacho Ondeante (loosely translated this means God of the undulating, cold cucumber soup). Apparently, this a deity held in high regard by small reformist religion from Central America. The article I found about it was a little (and by a little I mean; a lot) fuzzy on the details, so I can’t really tell you anything about it. If anyone has any insight into this religion please let me know.
And so to comment on “if you really think FSM can beat GOD…it already lost.†I beg to differ. Spaghetti is way more appetizing than gazpacho.
By the way, might I suggest purchasing The Little Brown Handbook? It can be found in any bookstore I imagine (I found mine in my college’s bookstore). I too, used to suffer from bad grammar, but I found this book to be quite helpful. Good luck and FSM-speed.
It would be wonderful if there was a “God Gene” (note the capital G for gene) and then we could simply take a pill that reversed that gene and suddenly everyone would wake up and start loving one another like brothers and sisters and peace would flourish and everyone could eat whatever they wanted. But I have to think that religion has been an evolutionary staple of our human diet propelling us to Noodly Goodness so we could learn how to get along well enough to have time in the tribe so we could invent the computer and Internet and waste our time eating hamburgers, which are making us sick. And that is what the war is coming to, (not between McDonalds and Olive Garden) but the fight between intelligence and moron-ism, only there are many more marching morons then us and no amount of Killer Tomato attacks are going to stop them in their tracks. If humans are to ever grow up and become more then an Oregano seed on the planet they are going to have to shed all vestegables of superstition and wake up and realize that we were always the God, god, Gog, Magog of life.
Gleaned from the little I have read about this research.
Firstly, it came out of a fairly reputable organisation: “Gene Structure and Regulation Unit at the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda”
Thing is, that a male and female each carrying two dominant copies of this gene are likely to meet up, say at a meeting of their chosen belief crowd, and be attracted (upbringing influences may play a large part as which crowd it is) to each other. If they were to marry and have kids, then the kids genome will already be stacked. Add the religous training to the mix and the circle goes on. I must point out that the researchers suggest that it is the interaction of the protein products, for which this gene codes, with those of other genes. They also suggest it affects overall tendency to spiritual leaning or questioning. So I guess, this implies, that the function of this gene could be involved in all areas of abstract questioning.
It’s only a thought! I will get around to reading more background about it when I get a chance. I have a fairly strong interest in elucidation of gene function and gene interactions.
Religion comes no where near the awe inspiring mechanations of natural biological systems.
I have several problems with the ‘God Gene’ theory. The first is that it treats belief in a deity or a religious system (faith) as being the same as connection to the universe or religious experience. They are not the same at all, almost by definition. Religious experience does not demand faith. It is an experience that is so far removed from normal experience that it is indescribable, and like any experience, it does not require faith. It is just an experience. That means no beliefs, no practices, and no faith.
.
The genetic link is problematical. I’m not against the idea at all, but I think you would need a very large test group to support it. Then you would have to ask if the presence of a gene that predisposed people to religious experience has anything to do with the reality of the experience? I don’t think genetics can’t answer that question.
.
Finally, is the presence of chemicals in the brain corresponding with various mental conditions a cause or an effect? Are the chemicals present when people have a certain experience or do they produce the experience? I’m pretty sure clinicians don’t know.
This is a little off topic, but it relates to the assumptions made by followers of “popular” religions like Christianity. The other day at work, I saw some people attempting to find somewhere to meet. Out of curiosity, I asked one of them what they were meeting about. I thought it might be something I could be interested in, or FSM forbid, a meeting I was supposed to be attending. One of the group told me they were journaling. I said, “Journaling?” I was confused because it seemingly had nothing to do with work. Then she said that they read some scripture and then journaled about what it meant to them. I said something like “Wow. That’s interesting.” Now, I don’t care that they were doing it at work, as it was during lunch. What bothered me was that they just assumed that nobody would be offended. Actually, I don’t think anyone should be offended. I don’t think they even thought about it from that angle at all. Yet, what would happen if I tried to organize and carry out a quiet discussion based on pagan beliefs? You better believe I would think about whom I might offend. I would also be very afraid of losing my job. I do talk about FSMism with one colleague because she “gets it,” but mostly I keep my beliefs to myself. For some reason, I seem to be working with a bunch of Christian churchgoers with deflated senses of humor. I must be needed there!
By the way, I wasn’t equating Pastafarianism with paganism. I call myself a pagan because I don’t follow any mainstream religion. I’m a pagan in the sense that I don’t believe in Jesus Christ as my personal savior. I love telling Christians I’m a pagan. Most of the time, I say I’m not Christian, but when I’m feeling especially ornery I say I’m a pagan. One time, a co-worker asked me what I believe about my own salvation if I’m not a Christian. I told him that salvation meant nothing to me. That pretty much ended the conversation. I like this person, and we are still friendly when we run into each other, but I won’t even entertain the notion that I need his God for salvation. I won’t even discuss it.
Fr.
“Finally, is the presence of chemicals in the brain corresponding with various mental conditions a cause or an effect? Are the chemicals present when people have a certain experience or do they produce the experience? I’m pretty sure clinicians don’t know.”
.
Your right Fr. and it will probaby be many many years before we can even get the basic idea. Chicken vs Egg.
There has been some elucidation of abherrant gene sequences relating to some mental disorders. This affects the level or the function of the gene product.
Genes also code for, and maintain levels regulatory products involved in chemical messenger interactions.
Stimulation could direct these regulators to stimulate/supress the level of end products OR the effect could be reliant on the ability of their products (example: how fuctional they are) to interpret the stimulation.
Our knowledge of the interactions of enviromental stimuli, neurotransmitter production role in cause and effect is still in an embryonic stage. I think everyone agrees that the switches which are triggered by such stimuli are of the utmost interest.
Possibly this gene was hinted at in some past research along those lines of enquiry.
@Fr. Corpus Callosum
Here is an overview and some background on the author and his area of research.
Unitl I get time to have a further look into this, I’m afraid that is all I can offer.
RAmen
http://rex.nci.nih.gov/RESEARCH/basic/biochem/DiscoverArticle.html
WOW!! I’VE NEVER HAD ANYONE PUT IT SO ELOQUENTLY BEFORE!! IT ALL MAKES SO MUCH SENSE NOW!! THANK O GREAT CRULIX!! YOU HAVE SAVED ME AND I AM NO LONGER A SINNER!! YOUR JOB IS DONE!