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!
Ramen to all!
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Not good not good
how can young ppl with no knowledge about the FSM learn about intelligent falling or the truth about global warming :(
It’s indeed a sad day for the youth of america :(:(:(:(:(
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I don’t know whether I should react sarcastically, or honestly…
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But I do believe we need to make an apology for making the issue too big.
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Woot! Go us!
RAmen.
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does this count as a victory over intelligent design, or a failure for unintelligent design?
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More proof of His Divine Existence!
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As we all know, the FSM works hard to hide any evidence of his existence. The fact that another school board has been dissuaded from teaching His noodly story is further proof of His presence.
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Or is it?
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OEJ
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““They’ve made us the laughingstock of the world,” said Margaret Lofton”
Like they weren’t already.
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hurrah!
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Heh, heh, heh, it shows the power of His Noodly appendages! :)))
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It appears that his Noodlyness has touched us with his appendage just in time to celebrate chriFSMas!!
On to Pinnellas County. Ramen to all!!!
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Great!
I’m proud to have done my part in preserving science standards around the country.
RAmen!
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I love this!! The CoFSM may have lost much of its appeal to many of the ‘old guard’ posters because of the moderation, but this is still unbe-asskicking-lieveably sweet! In the words of one of histories great men (and early Pastafarian, I have been told) Winston Churchill:
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“This was the CoFSMs finest hour.”
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A RAmen to that, our greatest hour sofar at least. With hopefully still greater to come.
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I’m sad they misinterpreted our incessant stream of e-mails as “satirical” and “mocking” when we only had the best interest of their students in mind. Their students NEED to learn about the Flying Spaghetti Monster! There’s nothing wrong with being fair.
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Hahahahahaha!!!! We win!!! And sorry, Ms. Lofton, but I agree with CatholicLiberal–you did a good job making yourselves laughingstocks all on your own. And to Mr. Harris, stop playing politics. You *were* in support of *teaching* ID in the science classroom, and not just believing in it personally. Here’s hoping Pinellas County wises up as well. Merry ChrisFSMas to you all!
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They must find it difficult…
Those who have taken authority as the truth,
Rather than truth as the authority.
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WOW…another victory for common sense & critical thought !!
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FSMism is empowerment…thanks Bobby.
Now its off to Pinellas county !!
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Victory!!!
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JT
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Wohooooooo!!
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Oh, and, Tar…I will so not apologize, you can do it if you want.
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Hahahahahahaha as I always say…Elightment!
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God will so not be proud of them…Didn-t they throw their beliefs over the window when they decided that their carrier and what other people say was more important than the so-called god? Aren-t they supposed to keep preaching what they belief even when other people make fun of them, just like Jesus did when he was mocked by the Romans when he was preaching that he was the son of God. For fuck-s sake, he even died.
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Hyprocrits!
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By the way sorry for the dashes, I just couldn-t find the fucking apostrophe in this computer.
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Ramen and ramshank!
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@all: So happy to be a tiny bit of al dente in this piratical, pastafarian siblinghood (?). An extremely merry chriFSMas to you! I have so much enjoyed the privilege of being a communicant in the Church. FSM touch us, one and all….
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oh well… And I was really hoping for a school to teach about His Spaghettideity.
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True, we were unsuccessful in getting FSMism taught in Polk County schools. But as long as 700 club viewers serve on school boards, we will continue to have more chances spread His Noodly Deliciousness.
And there is nothing like a public controversy like this to bring future Pastafarians to our site, or better yet to read Our Prophet’s Gospel.
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Proud sigh…
You all rock :)
RAmen
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@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
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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
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YAY!!!
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Merry ChriFSMas!
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Victory is ours!
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@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.
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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!
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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?
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Satirical? Seriously how long are we going to let them step all over us when we have the right to slander and libel charges.
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@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….
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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..)
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I just want to give a RAmen to those who posted on the newspaper website
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Viva la evolution!
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Ha! Flawles victory!
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@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
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@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.
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Arrrr, load up the victory cannon! R’Amen
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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.
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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
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We Win, The power of pasta shines through!
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Oh yes, Merry Chrisfmas and Happy Holidays to all!!!
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No FSMism in schools yet, but now we know we have influence…
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The Spaghetti Monster will live to fight another day…
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why do they keep calling us satirical? I’m tired of this marginalization.
and Margaret, we didn’t make you the laughing stock of the world.
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The best ChriFSMas present of all n.n
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@DPG–I like the idea of an organized email campaign. I think Bobby does a pretty good job at it right now. However, there are organizations, like the Christian Coalition and Focus on the Wallet (Family), not to mention members of the US congress that could use email bombardment by us Pastafarians. Definitely something to think about.
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“Lofton, a former geometry teacher with a master’s degree in mathematics and one of the pro-intelligent design board members, said she has no interest in engaging with the Pastafarians or anyone else seeking to discredit intelligent design.”
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How can you justify your own beliefs if you refuse to defend them?
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Every incident like this makes me laugh hysterically. Good show, FSM. Your noodly appendage has shown us to the most efficient way of dealing with morons!
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@Satan
“she has no interest in engaging with the Pastafarians or anyone else seeking to discredit intelligent design.”
The ostrich employs the same defence mechanism as this old bird.
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