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As believers feel free to make claims about the way the universe works, then they should be challenged on it.  That’s what happens when you make truth claims.  That your claims are hard to back up is unfortunate. You’re free to believe that the moon is made out of green cheese, but being free to believe that, doesn’t require that other people coddle that delusion.

It says something about the idiocy of our age that one finds oneself having to come up with new arguments in favor of the thesis that anvils don’t float.

Your delusions are not ours to defend, and you do not have the power to force everyone to stop laughing at you, as much as you’d like to be able to do that. And isn’t that what this is really about? That churches want to be able to punish you for disrespecting their sacred craziness?

“That’s something the apologists for faith need to learn, too: religion should be strong enough to stand against academic rudeness and mockery without this pathetic bleating for shelter from skepticism. It’s easy to be tolerant and civil when you’ve compelled everyone to be agreeable with you; the challenge is to do the same when you’re being denounced.”
P Z Myers

RAmen

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Hey, are these the same Christians who – in 19th century Italy – forcibly took a 6 year old Jewish boy away from his parents to raise as a Christian – simply because his slow-witted babysitter panicked when he fell sick and threw some water on him to baptize him so he wouldn’t go to hell for eternity if he died?

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What is this wonderful religion you espouse on? Obviously not christianity as that simply requires that you believe that jesus is lord and died for our sins; islam requires adherence to many strict rules; judaism another load of strict ridiculous rules, etc. etc. What religion is yours? Are you the “soul” member? And your evidence for these religious beliefs is? How do you know how and why you go to your heaven or your hell?

I bet every single one of your subjective “personal experiences” could be explained away by science or as a mistake by your body’s sensory organs (hang on, that’s also science). There is no evidence of any supernatural event ever – nothing, zero, nowt.

I love the “At most you can know that there is some entity that can do strange things that are not yet explained by science and/or is themselves a strange thing that cannot be yet explained by science.” Just because you feel like you experienced something wonderful does not associate that event with a loving god or anything outside of science and nature. Over the thousands of years that man has considered his existence he has thought of events as beyond his knowledge (science): volcanoes, earthquakes, floods, eclipses, the stars and planets, the movement of the celestial sphere, the Earth at the centre of the universe, disease, the Auroras; you get the idea, the list goes on and on and on. All of these “supernatural” events have now been explained as natural events without any supernatural cause. Just give it time and any outstanding unexplained events (which for the life of me I can’t think of) will be removed from the realm of the unknown.

You say that a lot of religions have a spark of truth and beautiful stories – you obviously haven’t read the religious texts I have. The bible is full of hate and jealousy and revenge with the occasional strange ridiculous story thrown in (ditto the Qur’an and the Plates of Nephi). Even the touted “beautiful stories” usually have an edge to them outside of the oft quoted passages.

I think you will find that the underlying question of “what is right and what is wrong” is driven from the wrong standpoint. We always seem to be told that we should consider what is good for humanity as a whole but that is not necessarily what our existence here is all about.

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The sauce is just right for anyone, some it is sweet, some acidic, but to all it is perfection. If only you could feel his love, you would understand.

I spool my noodles for you, and wipe the holy sauce from my chin, and invite you to break garlic bread in the pot of our LORD!

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And, Cait (211):
is asking for logic intolerant? Especially when it’s asking for logic IN A SCIENCE CLASS that is being demanded, here? I don’t know, but I was always under the delusion that logic ought to be included in a science class. Everything else can be put wherever (and no, that is not actually a crude reference, although I suppose that illogic can go there, too).

And pointing out criticisms isn’t intolerant, either. If I were to criticize the President for a few of his choices, nobody would say, “YOU’RE JUST INTOLERANT!”. It would be considered “being a good, intelligent citizen” of the United States. Criticizing religion when it pokes its illogical nose into the realm of logic is not intolerance, again. It is criticizing people for a few of their poor choices, and trying to defend America. Or whatever country. A President making a bad choice about who to go to war with, or what to do with the economy, is just as dangerous as teaching children that illogic is science. You don’t force teachers to teach kids alternatives to the theory of gravity, do you? Science sticks to the avaliable facts, not “what might be and some of us really really wish was”. Teaching children anything else jeopardizes science, and also our youth, and also our nation’s future. You can’t be an engineer who builds bridges our lives depend on and question the theory of gravity, and if you’re taught that theories “are only theories” and can be questioned if you have a really old book written by some random desert tribe that says so.

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Please feel free to credit me with the misquoted version, if you like. I can’t back it up with any evidence, but when has that ever stopped a true believer? :)

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Demanding evidence is not a position of intolerance. Burning people at the stake, executing people in ovens, torturing those with whom we disagree, those are positions of intolerance. If I demand proof that bruising one’s child was morally consistent with human rights, I am not being intolerant of the parent’s religion. In this example, I am stating that human rights come first and disciplining a child comes second, no matter what one believes. The same goes for Biblical Creation, demanding proof is not intolerance. Here, the demand is for empirical or logical proof. Provide proof of the Bible’s fantastical claims and your religion will be embraced. Lacking proof, your religion is another belch of human fantasy.

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“I find your religion very offensive” welll ya know what? WE the PASTAFARIANS think that Christianity isa offensive. Do we go around threatening people to believe in the Flying Spaghetti Monster or else they will go to hell? No. We stay in our own business and you stay in yours. RAmen and have a noodly day.

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This is our website, and we are fully justified in defending our cause. It is the exclusion of religious mythology from public school science curricula. Our theology is satire that depends on and
demeans no other faith or religion. You have obviously not read and understood both the Open Letter and the “About” tab material as you were directed when you entered this site.

You and your fictitious god and your book that you can’t read or understand, seriously overestimate your ability to frighten me.

Your delusions are not ours to defend, and you do not have the power to force everyone to stop laughing at you, as much as you’d like to be able to do that. And isn’t that what this is really about? That churches want to be able to punish you for disrespecting their sacred craziness?

The attached talk by Dr Andy Thomson tells us how our needs as helpless infants uses the same parts of the brain as our thoughts about the mythology of religion:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1iMmvu9eMrg

The fears and terrors of the unknown are powerful drivers in our need for superstition.

It says something about the idiocy of our age that one finds oneself having to come up with new arguments in favor of the thesis that anvils don’t float.

Goats on fire! Happy Monkey, 2010!

RAmen

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Cait – 211,

Doing what? All we do here is say things as they are. We expect the people who come here to be able to back up their claims. We ask for proof and offer fact. When we do it is called being condescending, intolerant, and critical. I was unaware that facts were offensive. I didn’t realize that asking for proof in an argument was intolerant. I think that is an interesting way to have a debate. Tell the other person they are wrong, expect that they will require no proof of your claim, and when they call you out on your lack of evidence scream “Intolerance! You cannot challenge religion!” I, personally, don’t buy that crap. So no, defending our positions with facts and evidence is not intolerant.

Oh, and by the way, there are plenty of Christians on this website who are aware of and fully support our purpose. So, we are not here to criticize Christianity, but it is interesting that those who think they are right and everyone who disagrees with them is wrong always conclude that we criticize Christians and are intolerant.

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How can we possibly be ashamed, when we’re so busy fondling HIS noodly appendages? Ooooh. Ahhhhh.

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“This would be the best of all possible worlds if there were no religion in it”. John Adams, Founding U.S. President

“We discover in the Gospels a groundwork of vulgar ignorance, of things impossible, superstition, fanaticism, and fabrication”. Thomas Jefferson, Founding U.S. President

“A just government, instituted to secure and perpetuate liberty, does not need the clergy”. James Madison

“That’s something the apologists for faith need to learn, too: religion should be strong enough to stand against academic rudeness and mockery without this pathetic bleating for shelter from skepticism. It’s easy to be tolerant and civil when you’ve compelled everyone to be agreeable with you; the challenge is to do the same when you’re being denounced.”
P Z Myers

“How is it that hardly any major religion has looked at science and concluded, ‘This is better than we thought! The Universe is much bigger than our prophets said, grander, more subtle, more elegant. God must be even greater than we dreamed’? Instead they say, ‘No, no, no! My god is a little god, and I want him to stay that way.’” – Carl Sagan

RAmen

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I find your ‘religion’ offensive, it really annoys me when i walk down the street and people are screaming passages from the bible at me and telling me that if i pray a lot i will go to a magical place called heaven and if i dont blindly obey i will burn for all eternity in hell. Christians are offensive, to convert people work on your delivery.

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All religions are obscene, offensive, and destructive. It’s pedantic merely to list their individual problems. A rational secular social structure is what we need in order to survive religion and it’s damage.

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