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.
Any sort of threats of violence towardsa any group or individual is wrong in my opinion, religeous or otherwise. One wonders how people like this got into an institution of higher education in the first place…
Violence only leads to more violence, be it a justification of a conflict or not. Doesn’t preaching threats toward the followers of the Flying Spaghetti Monster show that they are bad citizens? We live in America, the land of opportunity, life liberty and the pursuit of happiness, along with the Bill of Rights, we should accept the beliefs of others with open arms as we expect others to open their arms and minds to the beliefs of our own.
Um…didn’t know they had redwoods in Michigan. Who’da thunk?
I kind of like the threat. Redwoods and raging seas bring out thoughts on the beauty of nature. Perhaps the person should thank the flying spaghetti monster for creating nature in all its wonder
The only reason the irony of the situation is not mind-boggling is because of the depressing predictability of Poltically Correct over-reaction. The Pastafarians could arguably be accused of Hate-baiting; by inventing a quasi-religion that is guaranteed to offend the sensibilities of those least likely to have a sense of humor about it, one could say they were inviting attack. That doesn’t excuse Hateful behavior, but the administration should take the nature of the group into account in its deliberations.
Also to be considered is whether or not the ‘Hate crime’ was meant to be taken seriously, or to be a response in kind to the whole Pastfarian schtick. If the ones who wrote the note meant it to be taken seriously then yes, the Uni’s response should be harsh. If, however, it was meant as a ‘black humor’ response to the Pastafarian creed then the punishment should be measured, as it is not so much a hate crime as an exercise in poor taste.
@Fenrir
If FSMism is “Hate-baiting” every other religion is too.
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There is nothing “quasi” about my religion. Also, “quasi” sounds funny when you say it rapidly many times in a row.
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By your definition nothing would really be a hate crime because the accused could always say something like “oh, I was just joking; sorry if you don’t think it’s funny.”
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You bring shame to Norse Mythology enthusiasts everywhere. Lucky for you, I don’t care (caring takes effort, and I am lazy). That being said, I think I’ll keep Vidar’s cell phone number handy just in case you decide to eat Odin a bit early (that I would care about).
☠DutchPastaGuy☠
Nov 26th, 2007 at 6:50 pm
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?
*
Tinsel looks noodly right? And the balls in the tree well, clearly those are representations of his noodlyness?
While i don’t think they should be expelled, If they ever do anything like that again they should definetly be kicked out, if not worse.
Of course we are to be persecuted - we are the true faith!
We pastafarians will be persecuted like all true religion in its begining, we just have to show the world that we have the truth and we will share it with everyone.
Ironic that the harassment directed at you guys is neither wrong nor right without the existence of God. You’re just evolved sentient biomasses, folks! Quit complaining and just revel in your smarmy condescension.
By the way, I’m glad your church doesn’t believe in Darwinian macroevolution via natural selection, since that bankrupt belief-system certainly takes WAY more faith to accept than an FSM. Can we replace Darwinian macroevolution with FSMism in mainstream academia? Would’ve made my undergraduate Biology class experience a lot more “palatable,” so to speak.
@ A Darwinian macroevolution-denying Physician:
We don’t need God to know what is right or wrong. We can figure that out for ourselves.
n00b
A Darwinian macroevolution-denying Physician
You do realise that evolutionary theory has progressed, via evidence, far beyond Darwin’s original theses don’t you? Just have a look at any areas related to comparative genomics for the latest findings. Surprised you aren’t already aware of the plethora of findings in those areas of research? Most colleges cover quite a bit of that at undergraduate level. Well except for the bible *colleges* which probably don’t even teach biology.
@ Pastafarians and people in general
Uh-oh, we have a Physician that doesn’t understand biology here. That’s like…like…wait for it… a school board that doesn’t understand the definition of science (:O OMFSM).
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Note to self, make sure all Physicians that I may ever have actually passed out of medical school and make sure that they know more about biology than I do (I used to think that this was a given).
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@ that crazy dude
So you think that Christians are the only people that could ever possibly have morals?
I think that we could solve this whole thing by shipping all the religious psychos to their own little box somewhere they cant hurt normal people. Like Australia, or the Sea of Tranquility. We could watch them attack each other with pieces of their padded walls. If they destroy each other and never discover the truth of peaceful coexistance, then we were right about evolution. If not, they might develop super psychos, immune to anti-biotics and tear-gas.
Maybe I should think about this more closely…
NNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
How dare they insult us Pastafarians!!!!
May His Noodly Self take pity upon those strange and insulting few and bless them with macaroni etc, and may they in turn hope fervidly that global warming / “climate change” does not melt the cheese onto their skin and make them lick it off, bubbling, without sauce or noodles.
Ironic, (directed to “A Darwinian macroevolution-denying Physician”), that there is no evidence for God either. Too bad. Read The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins; it’ll do you good!!!! (Yes, this is worth an argument; you insult the FSM, I insult mainstream religious USA etc. It’s a cycle - science vs. religion - science is winning - has been doing it for millennia.)
(Yes, we realise that the FSM is *myth*, but it’s interesting when you try to get teachers to disprove His existence, and especially when you compare it to other established religions worldwide; they just don’t know how to react!)
This is just another example of the on-going prejudice toward members of the ‘out-group’ that has existed, not just at Michigan Tech University, but in all of Michigan dating back to the British presence there in the 1760’s and 1770’s. Finally, in 1779 the British Lieutenant Governor of Detroit, Commandant Henry Hamilton, otherwise known as the ’scalp buyer’, was captured by the American frontier forces. Even Thomas Jefferson who was governor of Virginia at that time, found it impossible to speak to or deal with this terrible, violent, hatred monger from the Michigan area. Jefferson and many others would applaud you “Pastafarians’ and support you in your struggle with the university. You and the FSM church deserve to have your creation theories discussed in science classes along with creation ideas from the west coast of Canada where we ‘know’ that the great God of the universe created man inside a giant clam shell. The sculpture of this creation of man is on prominent display at the Museum of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia. We ask your help in promoting our view of creation along with your own and the church of FSM. sincerely,
reg accipitrine December 3. 2007
@ A Darwinian macroevolution-denying Physician - “Ironic that the harassment directed at you guys is neither wrong nor right without the existence of God.”
Not really, I think it’s just sad that the harassment only exists in the first place because of god!
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“By the way, I’m glad your church doesn’t believe in Darwinian macroevolution via natural selection, since that bankrupt belief-system certainly takes WAY more faith to accept than an FSM.”
Belief-system?
“Can we replace Darwinian macroevolution with FSMism in mainstream academia?”
Of course we can, we just need to get some underhanded undercover individual to infiltrate a school board before in order to gain a majority vote, before revealing our true intentions! However, few Pastifarians are that sneaky.
“Would’ve made my undergraduate Biology class experience a lot more “palatable,” so to speak.”
Yes too true. Then you could have ignored more of you education. How many times do you get to right off your incompetence as “Gods Will”?
Oh goodie, there’s that so-called physician again!
“By the way, I’m glad your church doesn’t believe in Darwinian macroevolution via natural selection, since that bankrupt belief-system certainly takes WAY more faith to accept than an FSM. Can we replace Darwinian macroevolution with FSMism in mainstream academia? Would’ve made my undergraduate Biology class experience a lot more “palatable,” so to speak.”
The only thing bankrupt here is your brain, it seems. I get this strange feeling that you slept through undergraduate Biology…then again, that assumes that you actually took Biology, about which I have my doubts. It requires no faith whatsoever to understand natural selection - merely a logical and rational brain…so that rules you out.
I love how people want to get violent before they realize all this is parody.
NOOB 5@UC3!
love, muff1ns, and pasta,
Booger :)