I almost got shot. kinda.
A few days ago, as I was leaving my apartment, a car sped across the parking lot to intercept me. I had just about reached my car when I noticed the driver stopping directly behind my car, blocking me. The two passengers jumped out of the car and came straight at me.
I get a lot of hate-mail and I’ve had more than a few death threats. I keep my address a secret, but I’ve had people track me down in the past. So, when I saw a car speed up and two people jump out, it freaked me out.
One of them asked me if I valued the mind and body benefits of exercise. I said yes and that I needed to get going. They assured me that they’d move the car, but perhaps I wanted to take some reading material with me to look over when I had more time.
So I took their pamphlet. My only excuse is that I thought I was going to get stabbed or something, and I just wanted to get out of there. It wasn’t until later that I looked at the pamphlet. It slowly went from exercise to Jesus. It turned out to be disguised Jehovah’s Witness propaganda, the Watchtower. I figured that they tricked me fair and square, so I felt obligated to read it.
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What I learned by this experience
The pamphlet, itself, was kind of Jesusy. But it gave me some fantastic ideas for expanding the Pastafarian congregation. Clearly, the way to get more members is to trick them; make them think they’re signing up for one thing and then – bam – all the sudden you hit them with the gospel-speak, and you’ve got them.
So, I’ve decided that we’re going to do a similar campaign to trick people into joining FSM, specifically, members of other religions, especially the religions who propagandize. I figure that we’ve already got the open-minded people, now we need the gullible ones.
Internet advertising - like magic, but nerdier
You can target advertisements to specific categories of websites. We’re going to be targeting competing religious websites. Any religion who hands out pamphlets is fair game. Lots of religious websites sell ad-space through 3rd parties, and we’ll be able to place OUR ads on their pages, and steal their members.
It’ll work like this: their members will go to the church websites as usual, and they’ll see a small ad suggesting that there is more to their religion. Some of them will click the ad and be brought to a specific catch page, where they’ll hear fantastic arguments on why they should convert.
I need your help with any of the following:
1) Specific strategies for each religion. For example, for Jehovah’s Witnesses, we could push that we, also, reject Orthodox Christianity. And the strategies don’t need to be that on-topic. The Jehovah’s Witnesses got me with an exercise pamphlet, we could just as easily have a pirate angle or something. We’ll have different strategies for the other religions - Mormons, Young Earth Christians, Scientologists, etc. Let’s brainstorm. Either post in the comments or send me an email at bobby.henderson@gmail.com
2) Nich text ads. We need short, catchy text ads that will appeal to each of the target religions. The content of these ads will be more clear once we’ve established our strategies for each religion.
3) Small Image Ads. People with art skills, get creative. Same deal with the text ads, we’re going to know more once we know what our angle is. We’ll need ads in the following dimensions:
200×200
250×250
468×60
336×280
4)Individual Catch Pages. Once they click the ad, they’ll be brought to a page on the FSM site which will expand on the idea presented in the ad and slowly make the argument that they should convert to Pastafarianism. I need help with this.
5) Money. I’ve put aside a few thousand for this. Ads cost between $0.25 and upwards of $5 per thousand views. I’m hoping for a budget of at least $5k. If you want to help, you can either donate, or buy some FSM merchandise.
So, that’s my idea. What do you think?
@Pete
Welcome back. Any more substantial reply to the flurry of posts addressed to you than your ‘The truth hurts I guess’ to Red DPW? Specifically, could you produce anything of any scientific quality in support of the wild claims you make? See e. g. posts by Wench Nikkiee and myself requesting peer-reviewed literature that is indexed in the major scientific data bases. And no, an article by Behe in Discover Magazine that was ‘peer-reviewed’ by Dembski (the IDiot in the office next to him) who then says it’s all brilliant is not what is meant by peer review.
@Pete re - “The truth hurts I guess”
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Which truth do you mean? Your truth? Copernicus’ truth? The Bible? The Koran? The Gita? Solipsism? Existentialist truth? Aristophanes’ Cloud Cuckoo Land?
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If you’re so certain of your truth then why bury it in a three page diatribe? Without nice, reader friendly, white gaps.
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Years ago I did an advertising course. You don’t sell an idea (or product) by subjecting your potential market to three pages of solid black text!
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Ever written a report?
Pictures always help :)
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How about some original thought as well as quoting dubious sources?
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Remember Pete, nothing is true, everything is permissible!
If you had faith in your beliefs standing up to question and investigation why would you hide them in an unreadable diatribe?
“The truth hurts i guess” - is that why you desperately bury your head in the sand rather than consider that you might be wrong?
Point taken, Aristotle.
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And my two cents on tricking people into the religion…
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Since the FSM seems to like fooling people with false evidence of evolution (e.g. chromosomal evidence of common ancestry, transitional vertebrate fossils, dated archaeological findings, linguistic development, direct observation of bacterial evolution, etc.), it is only natural to conclude that he would want us to try to trick people into belief in him.
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I like the idea of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, using an otherwise innocuous subject to draw your attention, then relating that subject to their religious beliefs.
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I think there are two main ways we can go about this:
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(1) Play on peoples’ emotions. By providing comfort over some emotional upheaval in a person’s life, you can associate their feeling of comfort with a religious doctrine. If someone’s stripper girlfriend has died, for example, you could use the existence of the stripper factory in heaven (comfort that she’s doing what she liked most) to sneak in your rules about eating pasta (a doctrine they must follow to get a lap dance from her again).
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(2) Associate actual truths with proposed ones. The obvious example is the Watchtower magazine this topic is about - they show you an actual truth, that physical exercise promotes physical health. Because of that association, they need not establish the existence or necessity of spiritual health - they can jump directly to how to achieve it. Even though the two subjects are entirely unrelated, the proof provided for the actual truth can’t be questioned even when associated with the proposed one.
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That won’t work on everyone, of course. But we’re targeting the gullible :)
After posting, I thought of a funner example of the second point:
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I could show people that beer prices are rising worldwide, quoting the February 13th article in Brew and Beer magazine. I could then propose that that is a problem for beer drinkers who don’t have a lot to spare, and that it would be nice if there were a free source of beer for everyone.
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Now I can answer that desire for a solution: a beer volcano provided by the FSM.
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I didn’t have to prove the rising prices are a problem, or that you wouldn’t be able to afford beer. I just stated it as part of the fact.
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And there we have it. With the promise of free beer for life, I can probably get you to believe or do anything I want.
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:D
If you live in a state with concealed carry, I would buy a pistol and get a permit to carry it. Satirists needs to protect themselves from the supersitious.
DPG, since I wasn’t coming on with scientific rebuttals, I guess dear pete considered me the easiest target. He could’t say anything against you or Nikkiee that you haven’t trashed a few times already :)
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But petey-dear, truth doesn’t hurt, a yard of inane babbling and hear-say does. You’re dumb and boring. Sorry, but it is the truth.
My initial response is waiting moderation-I think it had too many links, so I have removed them but still wanted to get into this discussion while people are interested. I apoligize if my comments end up posting twice.
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ok, I am new here but great site! I haven’t read a lot of posts yet but this one caught my attention because of the JW’s. My wife is a JW and I can tell you that jon and pete are JW’s also. They are very much like fundamentalists, just with different beliefs.
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My wife and I have learned to live with our differences, and some is explained on my blog, with more to come as I am a new blogger. JW’s will mostly only send you to Watchtower sites as they are taught to not use another religions/non-believers literature. Even if they do start to read some they will get into a great debate like you have here with no one relenting. They will skew the facts, like the fact that piltdown man was a hoax but there are dozens of fossils of Neanderthals (that lost out in the survival of the fittest) and homo-erectuses.
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I have read many Watchtowers and Awake!’s and I am always amazed at how they skew everything to fit the Bible and their beliefs. The Noah flood story and the Genesis six day fact you all are trying to debate is just the beginning. I know jon and pete will never go to this site, and even if they do they will scoff at it, but the best arguments against the Noah flood I have seen are at biblicalnonsense dot com. I have had this debate numerous times with my wife and she still believes it happened. She will just find an old Watchtower for me to read because she has no valid way to argue her points. Science must be wrong about there never being a catastrophic flood (one destroying all life) 4-5000 years ago!
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All of that being said, JW’s are one of the few Christian religions, IMO that actually study the Bible and members of the congregation are held accountable to do the right things. If not they are dis-fellowshipped. Most (not all) JW’s are some of the most moral people around and have strong family values. On those topics I can agree with them. On religion, I think I may be converting to the Spaghetti Monster.
Well, we are reputed to have the loosest morals of any religion so that would even things out a bit in your household :)
But welcome anyway.
RDPW - Who has loose morals??? Shocked, appalled and insulted;)
@ cragar May 24th, 2007 at 11:22 am
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Yeah - more that two starting “http….” will get you that. If you post two that way, you can post a couple more by leaving of the httpness. - “www.” - it links.
Cat
May 24th, 2007 at 12:08 pm
RDPW - Who has loose morals??? Shocked, appalled and insulted;)
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Everyone knows that pirates wenches and cats do! Honestly ;)
Arrr, what all Pastafarians should be obligated t’ do is keep 2 pamphlets about his noodliness on him/her at all times. This way if approach by the “pusher” you can say “thank you” when they hand you their reading material then hand them yours. It’s good at that point to suggest that they give it the same careful consideration that you will give their material and be sarcastic about it. They should get the hint.
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I’m not the Monkey Fucker, I’m the Monkey Fucker’s son;
I’m only fucking monkeys till the Monkey Fucker comes.
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Boy, you go away for a month and they change everything around.
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Uhhh — RAmen?
Okay, there was a quote at the head of that last post. It vanished. Is there a problem with using doubled angle brackets to set things off?
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RAmen,
NTMF
To Ye Salty Wet Noodle… I like that idea. I’m going to print out some FSM pamphlets for that very purpose. I’ve seen a lot of Jehovah’s Witnesses on the warpath lately.
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Or maybe I should just skewer them with my cutlass? ;)
I think George W. Bush has invaded this site. I keep seeing references to the “Monkey Fucker”. This cannot be good.
@Canadian Freedom Lover May 24th, 2007 at 11:00 am
“I would buy a pistol and get a permit to carry it. Satirists needs to protect themselves from the supersitious.”
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Hahahahahahahahahaha…. (:))
RAmen
@ Cragar - Thanks for your comments. I’ve never had a inside look at JW’s, so your information was illuminating. The only other thing I have to say is this - wouldn’t it be homo erecti (vs homo erectuses)? I love it - grammar and taxonomy clashing.
I’m actually planning to start a campaign of deceit-
I’m gonna go into a christian chat room, and start talking about how I just opened up a new jesus-site-thingy
Then, if someone asks for it I’ll post a link to this website. Thatll get em for sure.