The Michigan Tech University Pastafarian club has been the victim of harassment even before their first meeting. The MTU Lode reports:
Two individuals are currently undergoing disciplinary procedures through the Dean of Students Office after an investigation by MTU Public Safety determined that they posted a threatening message on the door of the President and Vice President of a recently-formed student organization called the Pastafarian Club.
Some background on the MTU Pastafarian club’s leaders:
According to the president of the Pastafarianism Club, Matt Halberstad–who identifies as agnostic–the group is a parody “religion.” But the group’s purpose isn’t to attack religion, and one would be hard-pressed to find a member of the group who truly believes in their parody deity–the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
The vice president of the Pastafarian Club, Steven Wheeler–who is atheist–believes that Henderson’s argument boils down to the main belief of the Michigan Tech chapter of the Pastafarians: creationism, whether or not one believes in it, is not a science, and should not be taught in a science classroom.
I agree with that, but there are people - maybe not in this particular club - who do truly believe in the FSM. Also, I want to make the point that there are plenty of Christians who are members of the Christian religion without truly believing in the deity God/Jesus.
The harassment was hateful, not unlike some of the messages I receive. In part, the message said:
they [Pastafarians] should be shot and hanged from the tallest redwood and then thrown to the raging sea.
The individuals who left the hate messages were caught and are now facing a hearing:
The Bias-Related Harassment and Violence section of MTU’s Code of Community Conduct covers threats due to one’s “race, ethnicity, national origin, disability, religious or cultural identity, sexual orientation, gender-identity or gender.” The penalties for violating the Bias-Related Harassment and Violence section range from disciplinary probation to expulsion.
The outcome of this will be very interesting. Even if the death threats were not meant to be taken seriously, they were still hateful messages directed at members of a religious group on campus. What if the harassment had been instead directed at an Islam club? I strongly suspect the kids would be expelled.
I wonder if the school admins are willing to make the statement that Pastafarians deserve less protection against religious harassment than other mainstream religions.
That said, I don’t think these kids should be expelled. But it would upset me if a Pastafarian organization received less protection than another religious organization (or any other organization).
I guess we’ll see what happens.
Read more about it here.
Death threat = expulsion, publicly. Actually, expulsion followed by counseling. Sorry. That’s just not the sort of thing one can apologize for.
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I’d like to repeat a suggestion I made a while back, that Bobby, Richard Dawkins, John Spong, and other thinking people who have spoken up have received death threats from the god-is-love camp should get together and publish the letters and transcripts in a book. Title it “God is Love”, and let the letters tell the story. God may indeed be love for many good religious people, so I’d hope that such a book would force them to confront this behavior. People here in the USA like to think that only those crazy Islamic extremists would be sick enough to do this sort of thing. And to be fair, it would be interesting to see if various religious leaders receive threats like these. Also, I know that if a book like this came out you’d suddenly start hearing from various churches how they receive death threats all the time from godless liberals and such, so this last item would help unmask this, if it actually happens.
@neal Nov 21st, 2007 at 7:17 pm
“vatican releases its line of bobble-headed Pope dolls in its on-line store.”
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Oh my FSM! I suggested to Bobby 12mnths ago that we get some FSM bobble-heads! Well anyway let’s see the landlubber “pope peoples” faces when we sail by in our Pirate ship! So there!
If it’s the Pope doll then shouldn’t it shake its head in disapprovement of the nature of humanity and how it can never reach the imagined ideals that are the pillars of his faith, rather than nod?
Hate notes? Pfffft. If it happened to me I’d like to see them wankers actually trying to DO something to me, i’ll give their faces a proper introduction to my baseball bat. Good on the university for dealing with them, and though this is serious i think a note hardly qualifies them for expulsion. However, if they do it again, i think a public whipping might be in order. Weenies…
They ought to be expelled anyway. Yes, they posted the message for a specific group of people, but if I were a Dean, such behavior would warrant no less than the harshest possible punishment.
Hahaha! All of you = L O S E R and BAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWWW!!!
Thank you for you’re intelligent contribution to this discussion anon. (Couldn’t come up with a better name than that?)
Ooooh site redesign since my last visit.
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@The subject material… bleedin’ tossers, the lot of em. If you have an issue with our faith, face us front on, preferably in a public place, where the average pastafarian’s superior grasp of language and wit can allow us to utterly destroy your argument ;)
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This skulking around leaving spiteful messages is just cowardly.
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Disappointed with bells on.
Hi Jingles.
Hey stormy. How goes the good fight?
Ah, holiday season on CoFSM. Nice to see the FSM joining in the December spirit.
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Have we laid claim to Christmas yet, the way christians have annexed the pagan end-of-year celebrations for their own ends? Surely we can come up with something why Christmas is all about His noodly glory. What’s our take on christmas?
@DPG ~ A good excuse to drink.
Everyone drinks at Christmas, it already is a pastafarian holiday, even if few people realise it.
If any of you have ever read “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” by Jonothan Edwards, you know that violence against non-believers is an integal part of the belief system of Christianity. Indeed, according to Edwards, when you die, if you are a sinner, Jesus himself will cast you into the pit of hell, and then come down there and stomp on you until your soul splatters its spiritual blood on 150 ft tall Jesus godzilla monster while he laughs at your pain. Then after a brief reset period, he will come down and do it all again for all eternity.
He will do this because he loves you but is angry with you, and it will be all your fault. Later, when he cools down he might buy you roses, and take you to a romantic restaurant to make it up to you. (Oops, that last part is the modus operandi of the physically abusive spouse, well, I’m old and sometimes I get confused)
But my point is crystal clear, these kids were just be being good, faithful christians. I’m sure Gerry Falwell is smiiling down on their actions from somewhere in heaven, when he not pissing on the souls of the damned with his spiritual urine which he has in great quantity since he spiritual doctor prescribed diuretics for his spiritual congestive heart failure!
@neal
I read that. I thought it was one of the most sadistic things I had ever read. It was right up there with the buy bull!
The recent issue of Free Inquiry has an article detailing how Islam, in the Koran and related texts, seems to enjoy hurting/killing Jews. Hatred of members of competing religions seems to be a common theme in most if not all religions.
I wonder what religion these harrassers practived? We all know how tolerant religions are.
I was a Pastafarian until I realised it was just as dumb as Christianity. Now I’m an atheist.
THIS IS RIDICULOUS!!! what would have happened to those students if they harassed members of the christian club? public expulsion, black marks on their resume, and counseling at the very least, if not worse. what happens to people that insult pastafarians? seems like a whole lot of nothing. a religion is a religion, however small. i have three friends that go by their completely own code of religion, and pray to their own god. its a religion. the entire point their filthy pilgrim mothers and fathers came to this country was to get religious freedom, and they make a mockery of all this corrupt country is supposed to stand for.
You gotta wonder, why hasn’t Bush appointed Ann Coulter Secretary to the new cabinet post of Chiristian Value enforcement. When that day occurs Ann’s troops will storm the dens of the counter colture such as Bill Mahrer’s office and send guys like him packing to specially created re-education camps. If not under Bush, all we gotta do is elect another republican gete another right wing supreme court justice, and the door will be wide open f or these people to re-do American society according to their own warped vision.