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.
Really, Darwinian Macroevolution-denying physician?
“…the harassment directed at you guys is neither wrong nor right without the existence of God.”
Would you please for even a moment consider the implications of what you’re saying?
Ask yourself:
If God did not exist (insert “counterfactually” here if you like) would you then be unable to come up with reasons to avoid killing/harming/stealing? Would you be unable to come up with reasons for cooperating/helping/healing?
Try it this way, if you’d rather not contemplate the possibility of God not existing:
1. Either God has reasons for his moral teachings, or he chooses them arbitrarily.
2. If he chooses them arbitrarily, then it is immoral (or at least amoral) to follow the teachings.
3. If he has reasons for choosing those specific teachings, then why not appeal directly to the reasons for ourselves?
Try it another way:
Why is it noble or even moral to behave in accordance with the teachings of someone who threatens to punish you if you do not?
It doesn’t really get much more obvious…
“Why is it noble or even moral to behave in accordance with the teachings of someone who threatens to punish you if you do not?”
Are you one of those kids who never get grounded or anything?
I don’t know about you but my parents punish me if I do something wrong.
Punishment isn’t a bad thing. It corrects your mistakes
“…the harassment directed at you guys is neither wrong nor right without the existence of God.”
Of course it wouldn’t be right or wrong.
Nothing would be right or wrong.
Nothing would exist.
God made everything, therefore, without God, nothing would exist.
That includes right and wrong… and us.
“We don’t need God to know what is right or wrong. We can figure that out for ourselves. n00b”
See above.
“I love how people want to get violent before they realize all this is parody.
NOOB 5@UC3!”
That’s the thing.
It’s offensive.
So of course the people of the religion you are making a parody of (in this case Christianity) are going to try to defend their faith.
What do you expect?
Except for the violence. lol
The theory of god only exists in people. Scientists have proven that evolution exists (only to a certain degree. Until we have created life can we only prove it as fact)
If god or any other deity exists then where is the PROOF to show he exists?
And no, saying “he’s everywhere” doesn’t count as proof, only absurd babble.
I neither believe in Intelligent design nor a god/deity that created the universe, nor the fact that everything ‘just happened’ it’s a case of lets see what happens.
If you decide to believe in this then fair enough, but do not say or write anything that is hateful to another religion.
Would a christian or Islamic put something hurtful so openly to one another?
There are those that generally do not care about other religions, but those that are true ‘crazy’ fanatics actually make the religion very bad.
Religion is one thing, god is another…Can you tell the difference?
The topic is very complex and this, like many other posts is only a opinion. To have a fully fledged answer about everything would require many man hours of writing which I neither have the time nor the attention span for.
It’s amazing how intolerant Christers can be when faced with the absurdity of their own religious beliefs.
>If God did not exist (insert “counterfactually” here if you like) would you then be unable to come up with reasons to avoid killing/harming/stealing? Would you be unable to come up with reasons for cooperating/helping/healing?
Sure, that’s easy. I help other humans because it’s the right thing to do. My belief/disbelief in god doesn’t factor into the equation.
What about the pirates? The real story is that I live in Pacifica right off the ocean and have not spotted one Pirate in over three years!
I was thinking that perhaps our Evolution denying physician is his own proctologist.
“The theory of god only exists in people. Scientists have proven that evolution exists (only to a certain degree. Until we have created life can we only prove it as fact)”
I’m not debating this point, but just so you know, evolution itself is absolutely 100% a fact. Evolution has been proven through a mountain of evidence and the convergence of almost every discipline of science. The “Theory of Evolution” simply describes how living organisms evolve over time.
In the language of science, a “theory” is a description of facts which describes how and why those facts are the way they are. This is unlike what theory means in normal language. In normal language it means “an unproven idea that may or may not be true”. This is not at all what it means in science. Evolution is a fact. The “Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection” is a scientific theory which describes HOW life (facts) evolved.
The spontaneous creation of life is known as abiogenesis (look it up on wikipedia). Abiogenesis has nothing to do with evolution. It is a totally separate field of study. Evolution only addresses how living organisms have evolved. It has nothing to do with how life got started in the first place.
“Are you one of those kids who never get grounded or anything?
I don’t know about you but my parents punish me if I do something wrong.
Punishment isn’t a bad thing. It corrects your mistakes”
Sure, negative reinforcement (punishment) has its place. Especially in moderation for young children. But positive reinforcement generally works better. Either way, these are all human concepts invented by humans. Adult humans are not little innocent children.
That said, my parents (who I am quite certain genuinely and unconditionally loved me) usually just grounded me and gave me a reason for why they inflicted that punishment. They never threatened me with eternal torture and unimaginable endless pain in a lake of fire if I didn’t strictly follow their ill-defined draconian rules like your false God does in the bible.
Well said Bill
maybe the threat was just a parody inspired by the spag parody
I see this was already covered by FenrisWolf
Negative reinforcement and authoritarian punishment based teaching is simple. A rat could learn the codes of conduct that way (and they probably have in some experiment or another). The problem is that what you learn when you hear “these are the things not to do, so if I catch you then I’ll smack you into last week” is “these are the things we arent supposed to do, so don’t get caught.” The benefit of religion is that you always get caught, so always behave. The down side is that people in religion assume that if you don’t believe that every thing you do is recorded, you will act like they would if THEY thought THEY weren’t being recorded. So the religious killers assume you are like them but with even less control and they panic.
The thing is that some people, either inside or outside of religion, learn empathy. They behave themselves Anyway because they don’t want to hurt other people. They understand that with or without God, every action has a consequence. If all parents could teach this to all of their children, then there would be no religious zealots and no criminals. But there’s no required class for being a parent, and that’s the worst problem with society.
“Sure, negative reinforcement (punishment) has its place. Especially in moderation for young children. But positive reinforcement generally works better”
The hell do you know about raising children Bill? The crime rate of theft in Saudi Arabia is almost 0 percent because if you get caught stealing you get your hand cut off. Positive reinforcment is for hippies who were and are afraid of punishment. If a kid who is not mentally challenged gets spanked , theyll know not to do it next time.
The whole belief in God mindset hails back to the day when ordinary people regarded themselves as property of the temporal ruler. When man invented god(s), he was made in the image of these early bad-ass temporal rulers. You know, an insecure, bloodthirsty, greedy guy who demanded his subjects adoration and punished transgresions with torture and death. In some cases a transgression was punished by killing the transgressor’s entire family. So it made sense when Genesis was writted that god would punish all of Adam and Eve’s descendents , indeed all living things, because that was how a ruler in the day that book was written would have handled it. In short, a lot of the things we find “mysterious” about god, make perfect sense when we understand he is a human invention, a piece of made up fiction written by a committee, steeped in the values and mores extant at the time of his invention. That’s why we have a “blessed trinity” in the catholic church, the virginity of mary, the ascension of jesus, lengthy apologetics on the problem of evil by theologians, a theory of salvation involving a human sacrifice to a deity, etc, etc. It;s all easily explained when you realize man created god and not the other way around.
To Person.
They know not to get caught next time. And you so made those numbers up.
“Evolution has been proven through a mountain of evidence and the convergence of almost every discipline of science.”
Yes evolution does occur. Christians don’t argue this. Evolution is just “the changing of a species over time”. What we dispute is the fact that one species evolved into another or that we became humans through evolution. If you are saying that it has been proven that humans can from another species, I don’t think you know what the word “proven” means. It is impossible to prove the evolution theory. Hence the word “theory.” Unless you were actually there, no matter how much evidence there is supporting it, it cannot be proven. It is merely a widely accepted theory. Not to mention the many questions it leaves unanswered.
“This is unlike what theory means in normal language. In normal language it means “an unproven idea that may or may not be true”. This is not at all what it means in science.”
No offense, but you are completely wrong. That is exactly what it means in science as well. For example, take the current model of the atom. We don’t know if that is what atoms really look like. It doesn’t matter how logical it seems or how much evidence supports it. It’s not a fact, it’s a theory, and until it is disproved or until we actually see an atom, it will remain a theory.
“Sure, negative reinforcement (punishment) has its place. Especially in moderation for young children. But positive reinforcement generally works better.”
Of course, this is just my opinion but I disagree. I believe that people learn best from their mistakes. If you touch a hot stove, you quickly learn not to touch it again. Here in America, a lot of parents tend to stick with all of that “It’s okay if you just screamed at the top of your lungs in the middle of the store because I wouldn’t buy you Cheetos. I still won’t discipline you in any way, shape or form.” I think that’s crap. I think punishment works best, as long as it fits the crime.
“Either way, these are all human concepts invented by humans.”
And how do you know that? Were you there when it was invented? Is there any kind of proof that supports the notion that humans invented the concept of punishment? The answer is no.
“They never threatened me with eternal torture and unimaginable endless pain in a lake of fire if I didn’t strictly follow their ill-defined draconian rules like your false God does in the bible.”
God doesn’t fit in this description. God doesn’t threaten people with “eternal torture and unimaginable endless pain in a lake of fire.” God doesn’t threaten us with hell. He gives us a choice. There are only two places to go. The first, and more preferable, one is Heaven, where God is. God cannot be with sin or unholiness so to make up for this, He sent His Son to cleanse us of our sins and make us holy. If we refuse to accept His Son, then we can’t go to Heaven. Not because God is punishing us for not accepting His Son, but because He cannot be with sins and we refuse to be cleansed of our sins. So if we refuse to go to Heaven, we go to the other place. Hell. So its a choice to go to hell. Not a punishment.
Also, God’s laws are neither ill-defined nor draconian. God’s laws are definite and clear but may seem ill-defined when twisted around or taken out of context and/or character. You may think His laws are cruel, but you don’t see the whole picture. Only God can. And even if they were cruel, we would deserve it all. It is only by God’s mercy, grace and love that we are alive and given a chance to be with Him.
Neal, I see nothing that your reasoning could explain better than how it is explained in the Bible. You say it all makes sense when you say that man created God. Its true that a lot of things would make sense, but everything makes sense when you say that God created man, just like the Bible says.
Bill
Science is not set in stone. It is a changing body of knowledge advanced through the scientific method to give us further understanding of our world. All that can be said is that current scientific belief supports cetain theories. Its all “based on gathing observable, empirical, measurable evidence subject to the principles of reasoning”.
Evolution is not proven, but it is supported by a wide range of empirical, obserable, and measurable evidences.
YoleYole
Hold up. How did you go from talking about ‘proof’ and how in effect ‘nothing’ can ‘truely’ be ‘proven’ to talking about God and how the universe is? Irony?
Tell me, do you believe in Africa?
Have you ever seen it? Has anyone know know ever been there? Are you or are they sure it was truely Africa? can you ‘prove’ that it was beyond a doubt exactly the Africa you had heard about. No, you cannot PROVE it, but saying that there is no Africa because it cannot be proven is simply unreasonable. In the truest sense the only thing you can prove is that you exist, but that you can only prove to yourself and not others(As it remains a possibility that all others are simply a figment or yours or some one elses imagenation).
This leaves it up to Faith. I must say there is a difference between faith and faith backed with “relyable observation”(which will henceforth be refered to as “fact”). Faith backed with fact or “Confidence” is the basis of which Science is built on, that the world we live in is not a Chaotic ever changing world built from the whims of an all-powerful super being but rather a consistant world that we can learn about and understand. When you have faith in “God”(which will refer to not just the Christian God, but also FSM and all other Dieties) it is simply faith, a belief with no basis bound to fact. The entire purpose of Pastafarianism is to keep Faith seperate from Confidence and more over, keep Creationism outside of the Science class.
1. Evolution isn’t just “the changing of a species over time”, it’s an accumulation of mutations in a species’ DNA/RNA (depending on what it uses to store it’s genomic information), and through the process of natural selection leads to a new species. You say that it is impossible to prove the evolution theory, however, this is not true. The HIV-virus, is but a humble example of this massive process. Medication against this virus targets special receptors on the surface of infected cells. As each of these cells undergo mutations the genes encoding the receptors will also change. The medication that targets the receptors of most of the cells will therefore cause these cells to die, but those that have undergone a mutation in the receptor genes are invulnerable to that specific medication. These “survivors” are different from the original species and will give rise to a new population of species. (This is a simplified version of evolution, but the message still stands.)
2. Why is your religion better than any other? Because God said so?