The Tampa Tribune reports the Polk County School Board was caught by surprise by the widespread response to their interest in Intelligent Design. They have decided not to pursue the teaching of Intelligent Design.
I suppose it’s a victory for science, but I was optimistic about Polk County being the first to introduce Pastafarian theories into the curriculum.
The article by Billy Townsend is titled “Polk Needled, Noodled in Evolution Flap“.
Public floggings hurt, even when administered by satirical sacred noodles.
Ask the Polk County School Board. The panel made news last month when five of its seven members declared a personal belief in the concept of intelligent design, the religiously based explanation of the development of life believed in by many Christians.
Four of those five sympathetic board members said they would like to see intelligent design taught in Polk schools as an alternative to Darwinian evolution, at a time when new state standards mentioning evolution by name for the first time are under consideration.
Just like that, it appeared the Darwin wars had found their newest battlefield.
Yet a few weeks later, the controversy is dying with a whimper. There’s no board support for a challenge to the proposed standards. Some of the five school board members blame the local newspaper for trying to start a fight.
“It’s not our agenda,” said Tim Harris, one of the board members. “My personal opinion and how I vote don’t always jibe.”
What happened? You can start with the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
The satirical religious Web site asserts that an omnipotent, airborne clump of spaghetti intelligently designed all life with the deft touch of its “noodly appendage.” Adherents call themselves Pastafarians. They deluged Polk school board members with e-mail demanding equal time for Flying Spaghetti Monsterism’s version of intelligent design.
“They’ve made us the laughingstock of the world,” said Margaret Lofton, a school board member who supports intelligent design.
It’s an excellent article. I’m even quoted a couple times. I admit it sounds like I’m against the inclusion of supernatural theories in science, which would include Pastafarian beliefs as well as Intelligent Design, but I assure you my statements are part of a larger strategy of some sort, in the best interest of Pastafarianism.
Here’s the article, enjoy!
Proud sigh…
You all rock :)
RAmen
@bobby
“I suppose it’s a victory for science, but I was optimistic about Polk County being the first to introduce Pastafarian theories into the curriculum.”
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We’ll probably get another chance at it…. :p
Here are a couple of my posts to the blog of The Tampa Tribune online edition concerning the Polk Needled, Noodled In Evolution Flap story.
My apologies for somewhat plagiarizing without attribution a few sentences in the first post. A reply is interspersed.
Posted by ( fizzmickpachee ) on December 22, 2007 at 9:51 p.m.
Science and religion increasingly become more opposing in their views with the passage of time.
Virtually all scientific advancement has been made despite the opposition of religion. From Galileo to stem cell research, understanding is removing superstition.
Scientific investigation not only fails to prove religion right, it exposes as fallacious what is written as truth in “Holy Books”.
Using satire and common sense humor to ridicule religion are powerful and effective tools to halt its destructive power. Atheism has stood silent for far too long as religiosity has taken a strangle hold on the world. When was the last time you saw an Atheist: Blow up a building? Hijack a plane? Start a holy war? Deny science by promoting Fairy Tales?
Faith doesn’t make you a good person.
I can think of no surer way to bring out the worst of attributes in people than to tell them that they were born sinners but that’s O.K., just believe a certain FICTION and you get into “Heaven”.
Reverently,
Fizzmick Pachee
Posted by ( Jen1897 ) on December 22, 2007 at 10:22 p.m.
fizzmickpachee,
Well said. But you must know that you are wasting your time with these people. Once they decide to believe in God/Jesus, they become so frightened by what will happen to them if they don’t repent and ask for forgivness, that they have completly closed their mind to any alternative view.
Posted by ( fizzmickpachee ) on December 23, 2007 at 12:55 a.m.
Jen1897,
When consistent accurate information is repeatedly delivered, it will overwhelm the inaccuracies in all but the most stubbornly ignorant. Fear of the dark can be overcome with the illumination of truth. If people want to cling to the belief of an afterlife, a better way to look at it is that those who embraced honesty will be rewarded with Heaven and those who promoted superstitious lies that go against all logic and evidence will be punished with Hell.
Sincerely,
Fizzmick PaChee
YAY!!!
Merry ChriFSMas!
Victory is ours!
@Fizzmick
“Using satire and common sense humor to ridicule religion are powerful and effective tools to halt its destructive power.” I’m not sure I agree. Most religious types don’t “get” satire and rational argument tends to fall on deaf ears with fundy X-tians (or other religious types generally) in my experience.
“When was the last time you saw an Atheist: Blow up a building? Hijack a plane? Start a holy war? Deny science by promoting Fairy Tales?” Yes but lets not forget where there have been Atheist states i.e. Communist Countries, human rights generally haven’t fared very well.
Good to hear!
However, after reading the article and some of the comments it seems that fundamentalists will never cease to amaze with their ignorance. I mean, they really have to get their definition of scientific theory right.
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Merry Chrifsmas!
With this being an online church and all, I would hopefully be forgiven for thinking about this in terms of money and power. How much of their resources did the ACLU etc spend on the Dover case? Sure, since they won, the IDiots had to pay the legal bill (at least, I think they did). But even without the lawyer fees it must be quite an operation to take IDiots to court. Maybe Bobby should make some arrangements with the ACLU, NCSE, etc. If some dozens of grass roots emails can save them taking such nutters to court just once then it would already be a substantial saving to them. And to the scientists who spend their time debunking ID crap. And all that needs to come in its place is a volume of our emails. Which we send basically for a hobby.
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The religious right has the Christian Coalition to organise ‘grassroots’ emailing campaigns etc to senators, members of the house, etc. Disgustingly well funded and influential. See
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http://www.cc.org/
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So how about we starting the Pastafarian Coalition? Just putting up the thread and contact info was already enough to help the Polk county case go the right way. And that was barely an organised campaign. It shouldn’t be too hard to get something more organised running. Gathering up emails of those who might be willing to send an email in similar cases in the future would be start. Those who wrote to Polk would probably be around regularly right now, but it can’t hurt to have a list of contact info at hand on future occasions.
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And has anyone thought about milking the Polk county saga a bit more? The Secular Coalition of America has an archive of press coverage they got. Maybe forward the Tampa Tribune story to those journalists who wrote positively about the Secular Coalitions activities in the hope that it might get reprinted elsewhere?
Satirical? Seriously how long are we going to let them step all over us when we have the right to slander and libel charges.
@Rumplestiltskin
Your point well-taken, but it’s worth alleging that communist governments were generally pretty nasty about suppressing satire and common-sense humor, so we presume they were vulnerable as well. I guess the point is to be sure that the Fundies don’t pass No Laughing at Christianity laws here in a nation of free speech….
Yesss! That’s it. Nice job.
If anyone tryes to insert ID crap in the curriculum, the pastafarians (may His Noodlyness bless them all) should be there, and tell a few words about our well-supported theory of the Unintelligent Design.
Ramen! Yarrr! (sorry for poor english..)
I just want to give a RAmen to those who posted on the newspaper website
Viva la evolution!
Ha! Flawles victory!
@Rumplestiltskin
I didn’t say satire and humor were always effective. However they have served well here. Not having religious leadership, does not preclude bad behavior. Greed and oppression still exist. At least those suffering under such regimes aren’t hoodwinked into believing that it is gods (no cap intended) will. Generally such societies have a better chance at overturning bad leaders.
Sincerely,
Fizzmick PaChee
@Rumplestiltskin - To be blunt, atheists are typically too self centered to blow themselves up for a cause. I would imagine that they would think that they could help more but doing more things.
Arrrr, load up the victory cannon! R’Amen
Because we chastised them for making foolish decisions, does that mean we should all email them to congratulate them on rectifying that mistake? I think we should, it’s how people learn.
Hmmm…
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Hello to all, it is kind of difficult to post now with this moderation stuff. I have been reading and I just want to tell you that you are great! Good job with the Polk county issue…
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Ramen