Comments on: Comment on the Open Letter

By: Liam O'Donovan

Liam O'Donovan — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 22:46:28 +0000

I’m Catholic but I agree that Intelligent Design should not be taught in schools

By: scimmia

scimmia — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 20:20:20 +0000

Per dirlo in italiano:
Ho appena avuto una brillante ispirazione per unire le due teorie del evoluzionismo e del creazionismo! Dovrebbe finalmente calmare le acque turbolente dell’acceso dibattito!
Nessuno si è mai chiesto come Caino e Abele (i figli di Adamo ed Eva) sono riusciti a procreare e a continuare la specie umana? Con chi hanno copulato se non c’erano altri esseri umani lì in giro? Per quanto ne sappiamo non avevano sorelle (la Bibbia non menziona delle figlie di Adamo ed Eva… e procreare con una sorella è cosa piuttosto strana, anche per un cristiano!)
L’unica spiegazione possibile è che hanno scopato con le scimmie! E poi questi uomini e donne primitivi (mezzi umani - mezze scimmie) si sono scopati a vicenda fino a quando la razza umana, come la conosciamo, si è infine evoluta!
Quindi questa teoria meravigliosa include un po’ di creazionismo e un po’ di evoluzionismo… è perfetta! Perché non la suggeriamo alle autorità scolastiche del Kansas?!

By: scimmia

scimmia — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 20:08:16 +0000

I’ve just had a brilliant inspirational explanation to unite the theories of Creationism and Evolutionism! It should finally calm the waters of debate and dissention!
Has anyone ever wondered how Cain and Abel (Adam and Eve’s sons) managed to procreate and continue the human species? Who did they mate with if there were no other human beings around? As far as we know they didn’t have any sisters (the Bible doesn’t mention any daughters of Adam and Eve… and procreating with your sister is pretty wierd even for a Christian!)
The only possible explanation is that they fucked with monkeys! And then these half human - half monkey primitive monkey-men and monkey-women fucked each other until the human race evolved!
So this theory includes a bit of Creationism and a bit of Evolutionism… it’s perfect! Let’s suggest it to the Kansas school board!

By: tris

tris — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 17:27:19 +0000

I have a little complaint to make about this site (sorry!!!)
It is oriented far too much towards English speakers… we need to spread the word all over the world in order to foster universal humour and understanding and to spread the love of the spaghetti monster for his children, and I don’t think that is possible unless we give people a chance to speak and write in their own languages!
I have discovered that if you join up to this site through a complicated registering procedure you can enter a section dedicated to foreign languages… but that doesn’t make sense!
If you speak a foreign language and your English is pretty crap you won’t have the time or energy to find that section and you won’t understand how to go through the registering procedure!
After all it took me at least 20 visits to the site before I even suspected that there was a section in Italian, but when I got there (after the complicated registering procedure!) I found that there were only 3 or 4 Italians who had sent a total about 5 messages over the past 10 months! (and most of these messages were about Italian politics and had nothing to do with Pastafarianism!)
I was so shocked that I set up my own “New Topic” in Italian but the only reply I’ve had so far was from a non native Italian speaker (probably from the US) who gave me some words of support…
Spaghetti is Italian! The Italians are enslaved by the Vatican! We have to set them free and open their eyes to the cosmic beauty of PASTA! But unfortunately most Italians can only say “Ello, you want buy postcard?!” or “What your name, bella? You spik ingliish? You want come home wiv me? I big Latin lover, I love you long time!” and things like that, so how can they hope to understand the meaningful depths of this site if it’s all in English??
I’ve noticed that there are Germans, Dutch people (do you call them “Netherlanders” “Dutchians” or “Dutchies”?) and Norwegians contributing to these pages, but we all know that they understand English and speak it quite well.
Maybe you could make access to the “hidden” parts of the site more easy (with a link in Italian, something like “Amanti della pasta cliccate qui!”) so that also speakers of Italian and other languages can read and contribute. In fact I don’t really agree with the whole idea of an esoteric “inner circle” of “other Pastafarians” with their own private “discussion forums”… shouldn’t Pastafarianism be for everyone?

By: lexa

lexa — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 13:54:28 +0000

i hope you’re kidding because this is the biggest joke i’ve ever read.

By: tris

tris — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 10:55:23 +0000

I was interested to see how my mails-posts sent on Sunday weren’t posted till Monday… does that mean the Pastafarians responsible for the “venganza” site respect the Sabbath day as sacred to the FSM? (but in that case shouldnt they be devoutly dealing with the supplicants and contributors to his site?!) Or are they just people who enjoy a bit of time off?! After all I guess no-one’s paying you to manage this site… so there’s no need to do it like Stakanov, is there
BTW, where does the word “venganza” come from anyway? I mean it’s Spanish for “Revenge”, isnt it? Is this site a form of revenge against fanaticism?

By: Wench Nikkiee

Wench Nikkiee — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 13:14:53 +0000

# 2468 Hasnain Mir Mohammed Says:
“You spelt ‘midget’ wrong in your drawing!”
.
No! It’s not your average garden variety ‘midget’! It’s a divine Midgit of the Creation!!

By: tris

tris — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 11:44:34 +0000

I said I was gonna write about morality… so here’s my latest “serious” stuff:

Coming back to the whole faith vs. non-belief thing and its relation to moral values, doesn’t it piss you off no end when people ask you “what religion are you?” and you (honestly) say “I haven’t got one!” or “I’m an atheist” and they start looking at you as if you’d said something like: “I’m a cannibalistic paedophile serial-killer who devours his innocent victims after torturing them by cooking them on a slow flame and enjoying their screams!” and then (if the conversation continues after they’ve hidden their children from the horrible child-eating monster that is you) they say “Oh, so you don’t believe in anything?” as if to say you have no morality or any ethical system or values of a “spiritual” kind.
Why do some people automatically assume that the lack of a god or the lack of belief in something illogical or supernatural necessarily implies some form of moral depravity? After all Buddhism in its purest forms doesn’t have a god, nor does Taoism (unless you wrongly interpret the Tao as anything other than an abstract cosmic principle or force) but both of them (especially Buddhism) entail a very highly advanced moral philosophy or respect not just for people but also animals and nature… much more advanced than anything we ever came up with in the west! If we had been Buddhists instead of Christians, capitalists and colonialists we probably wouldn’t have fucked up the whole planet with pollution or destroyed rain forests or invented atom bombs and killed millions of people in the name of faith or opening new markets… Buddhists and Taoists have never done that altho’ they managed to develop the martial arts to the highest levels of perfection, sublimating our animalistic violent urges into a form of personal transformation, respect for others and personal responsibility for one’s actions… an incredible spiritual achievement when you think about it!
As I said in the previous mail: “you can’t have any morality without any knowledge or idea of reality… otherwise you can’t apply morality to anything real… I would say that existing (as an intelligent entity in the universe) obliges every intelligent entity to search for the truth” (and therefore some form of personal morality)… but since the morality of most religious belief systems is based on a distorted perception of reality and therefore a partial or limited idea of the truth that would explain why believers have often done such horrible things in the name of their own twisted morality, such as burning people alive, stoning them to death, forcing them to follow silly rules and regulations and generally repressing the free manifestations of the spirit and the intellect whenever they might seem to contradict the rigid canons and rules of the dominant authority’s belief systems and religions.
If that is what spirituality is all about I’d much rather not have a spirit thank you very much!
In fact it seems that institutionalised monotheistic religion is often in opposition to the evolution of genuine values of spirituality and morality. When religion is all about power it inevitably becomes a form of repression, whether social, political or spiritual. Religious “morality” often consists exclusively of defending one’s own religion and its adherents from any form of criticism or alternative ideas… I’m sure that isn’t what Christ (if he really existed) wanted for mankind… he probably never even wanted to found a church in the first place since he was clever enough to know that it would soon have fucked up his ideas… after all didn’t he say “thou shalt judge a tree by its fruits”? and wasn’t he an anti-authoritarian and anti-capitalist who called the Pharisees “whited sepulchres” and overturned the tables in the temple? Well then, according to Christ’s own instructions and judging by his own criteria as expressed in the bible (“love others as you would love thyself”, etc) we have to conclude that Christianity and its adherents have done some pretty fucked up things… it’s a pretty fucked up tree alright… I wouldn’t eat its fruits even if I were starving… they would probably kill me by food poisoning!
Anyway I’m hoping that next time they ask me “what religion are you?” or “what do you believe in?” and I say “the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster!” I might get a bit more understanding and respect… but something tells me I won’t be taken very seriously! Sigh! It’s tough work having a free spirit!

By: tris

tris — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 11:40:40 +0000

Hello Ken, NY Post #2475
Thanks for the feedback. It’s nice to occasionally get something serious on this site, even tho’ the mocking and joking part is often very funny! “Serious” stuff can be fun too… in fact I’m enjoying writing this to you!
What you said really reminded me of how I felt 15 or 20 years ago (I’m 40 now, shock horror!) I don’t know how old you are, but an existential crisis can hit you at any time in your life!
At that time I was on a big “quest for truth and reality” (I guess I still am, but I’m more laid back about it now!) and I went thru’ Christianity for a phase (altho’ I stayed with Buddhism and Gurdjieff for much longer!)
It’s very true that, as you say: “believing in the majority superstition (religion) of any country lets people turn their thinking over to someone else (the preacher and the doctrine). This relieves them of much fear and uncertainty” and all this schizophrenic delegation of their spiritual life to an authority basically make their lives easier… of course it is easier to be a child with mummy and daddy deciding everything. But sooner or later if you want to be a spiritual adult you have to find your own reality.
When I was 18 or 19 I (like you) decided that I didn’t want an easy life of conformity and false certainty and I would prefer to suffer a bit in order to find “the truth”. Of course what I found was not an ABSOLUTE truth (I think that if such a thing exists it’s almost impossible for most human beings to find it and understand it), but I did find a new, more intelligent and free way of living my life.
There’s probably some trouble ahead for you, since you are surrounded by believers… I was lucky enough to have non-fanatical parents in England who never forced any doctrine down my throat which made the search easier, altho’ my father probably thought my search was a waste of time! But if you want to find some real values of your own I suggest you should keep on searching. It’ll be worth it in the end… even if you don’t find anything SOLID you can say at least you tried!
The search is the most important thing… it doesn’t matter where you end up! It’s better than kidding yourself you’ve found an ABSOLUTE truth just because your parents or a bunch of fanatics keep telling you what to believe!
So keep up the good work, Ken! Loneliness and confusion seem bad and shitty but, as the Buddhists say: “the beautiful lotus flower grows from shitty sludge!” (they probably said it more poetically in Sanskrit!) Now that you’ve found Pastafarianism and its intelligent adherents you shouldn’t be so lonely and confused… may the great FSM heal our wounds of doubt and fear and show us the way to a higher plane of (mental and spiritual) existence!
By the way you said: “Since I left the church, I did not turn to drugs or crime” in fact in a way you could say that by leaving the church, you turned your back on drugs or crime (the drugs of rituals and fake certainties and the crime of murdering your free spirit)! Or am I being too dramatic?!

By: Ken, NY

Ken, NY — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 01:22:57 +0000

To Tris:

Tris said: So religious belief exists in this isolated absurd dimension where there is a suspension of reality and rationality… but the really absurd thing is that sometimes they’re ready to die and kill for that absurd belief although with the rational part of their mind they know it is really crazy!… and of course religions and their priests encourage this schizophrenic division between rationality and belief because it makes people easier to control.

Ken: I have often wondered how people I admire claim to be Christian or Jewish, etc., when it seems schitzophrenic like you say. I think it has more to do with identity because they come from Christian homes and just can’t think of themselves any other way. Religion is so essential to who we are and how we think of ourselves. In many cases, change of religion means friends are no longer friends, even family. I know: I was raised Unitarian, but became Christian first year of college, then went back.

Life is very difficult for many of us and believing in the majority superstition (religion) of any country, lets people turn their thinking over to someone else (the preacher and the doctrine). This relieves them of much fear and uncertainty and frees them to focus on the here and now: their careers, etc.

I didn’t find it hard at all to remain Christian for a year. The message is constantly re-enforced. Soon, many of your friends are Christians. You live in a separate world. And since it’s not usually wise to bring up the subject, most people won’t try to talk you out of it. It could be simply the great weight of Christianity is not easily lifted and since atheism’s advantages are more subtle–freedom to think unhindered by dogma, lack of Christian guilt, although I still feel guilt (we humans are complex).

Since I left the church, I did not turn to drugs or crime, but I guess I’m more susceptible to loneliness and confusion. I don’t need a god or gods right now and I prefer to live in reality however it seems to really be according to my perspective. The agnostic life is harder than the Christian life, but the Christian life is make-believe and I don’t want to live in make-believe.

By: tris

tris — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 00:38:05 +0000

I’m sorry to keep bombarding you all with my ideas… but since I couldn’t play tennis because of the rain today I ate some delicious pasta con pesto and it (together with the ideas expressed in this website) really inspired me with the divine grace of the FSM and his light has been shining down upon me like mad… so, as promised here are some more sublime (I hope!) musings… on morality, epistemology, metaphysics and ontology (or knowledge and how we get it) and how they can lead to humorism (having a sense of humour)!
In fact I think all these concepts (ranging from existence, knowledge, reality, truth and certainty to morality and humorism) are very closely connected, often in a logical succession.
First of all you can’t have any morality without any knowledge or idea of reality… otherwise you can’t apply morality to anything real. I would say that existing (as an intelligent entity in the universe) obliges every intelligent entity to search for the truth (not necessarily a universal truth, maybe just a personal set of certainties). Of course we have to start the journey at a basic level of non-certainty (in order to give it a sound and solid epistemological foundation for certainty)… if you start off on your pathway with some form of fixed belief (whether you inherit it ready-made from family and society, or you look for it elsewhere) you can never find certainty or truth, because you take the conclusion for granted before you even start looking!
Belief therefore does not lead to knowledge, whether specific or universal. In fact it often blocks the journey on the pathway of knowledge before it even starts! A religious friend of mine once said: “I want to be able to understand, when faced with the trials of life, what is the best way to go and the right decisions to take… and my faith helps me to do that!” But I think that understanding the right route to take is something you have to learn from experience and it actually changes from moment to moment depending on the circumstances… you just have to be sensitive to what is around you and try to understand what is going on in the interplay between your inner and outer realities…
In the end I’m not sure if life really has any great cosmic or universal fixed meaning or if it leads to anything else afterwards… I sometimes think it’s just a pointless game we play and in the end we usually try so hard and use all our energy and efforts to get nowhere at all! The important thing is to be on the journey, without jumping to conclusions or taking things for granted just because someone told you that you have to believe some crazy idea… Truth and meaning changes over time, depending on the situation you are in. You just have to go with the flow… as Heraclitus said: “Panta Rei”, which roughly translates as “hang loose man”!
I suppose the important thing is to make the game as fun and interesting as possible and this usually means making it fun and interesting for other people, although I’ve discovered that many religious and fanatical people have no idea of fun and they don’t find things outside their belief systems very interesting. Anyone without any trace of a sense of humour is usually either extremely stupid or very obsessive and fanatical (whether in a political, professional or religious sense)… in fact the stupid and the fanatical usually have a very close statistical correlation!
If people are devoid of a sense of humour their energy is often limited or negative, and therefore anti-life, so it’s better to avoid them, but sometimes you even have to block and fight these negative forces in order to survive as a spiritual and thinking being. However, if they have a completely different idea of “fun” and “interesting” from me I am usually happy to listen and learn from them, so as to widen my own possibilities!
In fact I think life is so absurd and contradictory and apparently senseless-meaningless that you need a sense of humour not just to enjoy it, but also to UNDERSTAND IT! Humour, irony and a sense of the absurd can therefore be a form of understanding, leading to knowledge. I think being heavy and serious all the time just kills your soul or spirit (which is the part of you that thrives and gets its energy by being in tune or in harmony with existence and everything around you)… So you often need humour and the ability to smile at life just to survive and stay alive (I mean in your spirit, not just in your body, ‘cos so many people are already dead on their feet!)
In a sense I guess this is my “credo” or belief system: “laugh at life in order to live it well”. (Freud would probably have called it “die Spaßtrieb”, but he was more interested in sex and death than having fun!). But when the people around you try to block or suffocate that fun-impulse it becomes more and more difficult to express it. They sometimes feel afraid or threatened by it, or think you are mocking them and taking the piss out of them. When people see someone who is spiritually freer and less inhibited than themselves and who knows how to enjoy life they try to crucify him (they did it to Christ and the Christians sometimes try to do it to free thinkers like him!).
Of course when I say “enjoying life” and “having fun” I don’t necessarily mean getting dead drunk or having sex with everyone you meet… most people have a very primitive and limited idea of having fun… you have to discover the best way to do it by yourself, instead of following the herd and having fun the way other people try to… maybe your way of having fun would be bad or destructive for me and vice versa. In fact my own personal way of having fun necessarily changes over time as I develop and evolve and get bored with what I’ve been doing… In fact having fun can be hard work, or hard investigation! It isn’t always physiologically spontaneous and it should correspond to the reality that surrounds you, otherwise you are out of synch and that causes conflict and confusion and no more fun!

Wow! Life gets so difficult when you start thinking about it too much! I’d better stop here before I go mad!

Anyway the divine inspiration continues and I’m gonna write something about morality next… be warned! Watch this space!

By: MANU

MANU — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 20:58:04 +0000

Dear Sisters and Brethren of His Noodley Holyness,

I’m truly aware of the fact that the Flying Spaghetti Monster is just so real, the FSM does exist. I’ve been twice to Italy last year where I observed the many shapes in which He appears and I tasted a lot his wellformed images in which He has shown Himself to mankind!

May his appendages keep on touching me

Manu, Belgium

By: tris

tris — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 17:02:53 +0000

Since I’m in a philosophical mood today I’ll give you all my ideas on belief (the word and the concept):

I wouldn’t describe myself as a “believer”, not at all… I only “believe” in what I know or am almost sure of and I suppose that isn’t really “believing”… it’s knowing or having an opinion!
You can of course use the word “believe” when you want to say you think some things are more possible than others, e.g. you COULD say “I believe it will rain tomorrow” instead of “I think it might rain again tomorrow” or if you have an impression which isn’t 100% certain you COULD say “I believe people are more stupid than they used to be” instead of using an adverb: “I think people are probably more stupid than they used to be”…
These are very concrete things but I suppose you COULD say “I believe in ghosts”… instead of “I think some people have probably seen what they think are ghosts, and if I see one I might think so too!”
But I generally dislike the word “believe” because it’s so vague and at the same time it seems to signify the end of searching and debate. Most religious believers tend to think “I believe it so fuck you if you don’t believe and don’t try to change my mind!”…
If you say “I believe” it usually sounds like you haven’t looked carefully at the data and you have made up your mind too quickly…. of course there’s a grey area between knowing and not knowing (after all it would be so boring to have only certainties)… but that area is occupied by “I think” or “I feel”, Personally I wouldn’t say “I believe” because “I believe” usually means you have given up thinking or weighing up the possibilities or listening to other people’s ideas and you aren’t going to change your mind even if with your rational mind you know you’re probably wrong…
In fact religious belief is almost schizophrenic because many people say they believe something which we all know is absurd, like Christ turned water into wine or his mum was a virgin, but deep down in the pre-conscious mind they know it’s absurd so if they met someone who claimed to turn water into wine or said his mum was a virgin, they certainly wouldn’t believe him, and they would think he was mad… even if he really did turn water into wine or his mum really was a virgin! So they make a schizophrenic division between their daily lives and what they CLAIM to believe, usually in order to be accepted in the community of other believers. So religious belief exists in this isolated absurd dimension where there is a suspension of reality and rationality… but the really absurd thing is that sometimes they’re ready to die and kill for that absurd belief although with the rational part of their mind they know it is really crazy!… and of course religions and their priests encourage this schizophrenic division between rationality and belief because it makes people easier to control.

I’ve written a lot of poems on these themes…
I might post one next time! Pastafarians be warned!

By: tris

tris — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 16:13:28 +0000

On the theme of humourism … I think it’s what keeps us sane… haven’t you noticed how seriously the fanatics take themselves? (and we all know how close fanaticism is to insanity!) I don’t think scientists consider their theories as being sacred articles of faith… and so they can joke about science.
Science is actually based on self criticism (which is close to humorism) as well as the attempt to DISprove itself… if a theory is disprovable or non-provable then it is wrong. If religion were based on the same rigorous criteria there probably wouldnt be any religion!
p.s.
Not all scientists have a good sense of humour… but those that do are often hilarious!

By: tris

tris — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 15:01:43 +0000

and by the way, another distinction, religion is belief… science is knowledge!

By: tris

tris — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 14:58:30 +0000

Reply to post #2467 - Kaiser Bill October 3rd
What a breath of fresh air… The voice of moderation speaks… But wait a moment!
I agree with the essence and substance of your post, and it is true that most contributors to this site SOUND pretty crazy! Nevertheless, although the principles you profess to espouse (toleration, mutual understanding, etc) are all very laudable and worthy of respect you do not seem to have grasped an absolutely essential and fundamental fact about this site and the “faith” of Flying Spaghetti Monsterism.
This is the fact that, whereas the Christians who contribute to this site REALLY DO believe the weird ideas they profess, the Spaghetti Monsterists (or Pastafarians) PRETEND to believe… for satirical, ironic and humoristic purposes.
This is a truly fundamental distinction… In fact the reason the Pastafarians write crazy fanatical things is because they are PRETENDING to be fanatics. They are inventing the tenets and belief system of this religion as they go along (in a creative way) and in the process they often produce a parody of Christian dialectics and its archaic forms of expression, and the results are often extremely funny (at least I think so!)… In fact they are SUPPOSED (intended) to be funny, while the things the Christians write are usually supposed (intended) to be serious, but actually they are often UNINTENTIONALLY funny!
By the way, you mention the fact that “Most of them can’t spell or have no grammar”… but I think you’ll find that this applies above all to the ‘hate’ mail, rather than to the ’support’ stuff (a fact which I commented on in a reply to “Hello, I am a Christian” post 144 - October 2nd where I said: “ I’m starting to realise that ugly grammar (such as endless strings of subordinate and relative clauses), terrible spelling, obsessive CAPITALIZATION, non-sequiturs and clumsy, confused or ambiguous expression of over-complicated and undigested ideas is rather typical of religious “believers”!”)… by the way Kaiser Bill, you say that they are either nuts, or certifiable… but isn’t that the same thing? (!)
So, returning to the above-mentioned distinction, you can see Pastafarianism comes from a completely different direction from Christianity because Pastafarians do not really believe their “faith”! When they seem to be attacking Christianity and other “faiths”, they are really defending the right of all people to believe whatever they want (and for scientists to continue their work without being harassed or hindered by Pre-Medieval ideas, which are all very interesting in their own way, but should in no way be considered as a substitute for science).
You sound like an intelligent person and I hope you understand that (as well as the distinction between Christianity and Pastafarianism) there is an even more fundamental distinction between Christianity and science. The first is based on a set of ancient texts, traditions and mostly obsolete belief systems, which have continued in a modified or deformed way until the present day, while the second is based on rational observation and logical analysis of our observable world.
I intend no disrespect to Christianity by defining it in this way, and it is certainly possible that there is an UNobservable world which in some way “created” or “formed” or “maintains” our observable world and “everyday reality”. In fact I find some Christian ideas absolutely fascinating from an anthropological and historical point of view (the wonderful weirdness of human cultural manifestations never ceases to amaze me!). But what Pastafarianism rightly points out is that there is no PROOF (in the scientific sense) that our world was created by the Christian God and that we should believe in the Christian set of ideas (some of which are in direct contradiction to logic and rationality) rather than any other ancient idea, or for that matter a new idea such as Pastafarianism. Just because our relatively recent ancestors in the west (often many centuries after the fall of the Roman Empire) believed in that stuff (often because it was imposed on their own ancestors by force and violence) doesn’t mean that we should too, does it? Nor does it mean we should try to impose such beliefs on others. That is a form of cultural colonialism and arrogance.
Trying to replace the more typically modern scientific and rational forms of thought with such ancient non-scientific belief systems and superstitions is even more arrogant and dangerous… and could lead the world into another “dark age” of ignorance, intolerance and conflict.
If we really want to progress as a species perhaps it is time to look at some of our belief systems in a more critical way, also by putting them in a historical and cultural context. The recent attempts of Christians to “save” or “modernise” their flagging religion by making it sound scientific and hyping it as a viable alternative to scientific research, or even as a substitute for rational scientific thought, is in fact direct threat to hundreds of years of human progress, which basically started in the Renaissance.
Christianity can perhaps complement science for those people who are unable to understand the true depths of scientific wisdom… it in fact requires many years of study to appreciate as well as a relatively high IQ… but it cannot and must not REPLACE science! After all if the west still believed exclusively in Christianity we would probably still be subject to periodic plague epidemics and would be persecuting or burning homosexuals and handicapped people and everyone with original ideas… in fact many Christians are still trying to persecute those with original ideas, such as the inventors of this site (the persecution of original ideas has been a constant feature of Christianity ever since its institutionalisation under the Emperor Constantine)
So what Pastafarianism is really trying to do is to make the light of tolerance and logic shine. Although at a (very) superficial glance they may look like fanatics, they are in fact the torchbearers of a sort of relativistic truth, which is that all weird ideas (including Christianity!) are worthy of respect and toleration AS LONG AS THEY DON’T TRY TO REPLACE OR OPPRESS OTHER IDEAS. The fact that Pastafarianism is able to do this in a funny and ironic way means that they can criticise without entering into direct conflict. (I consider this the true stroke of genius of Mr Henderson… he has brought us salvation through laughter!).
I would like to write more on the theme of humourism and its possible epistemological implications, but I suppose that’s enough for now… if anyone wants some more they can ask me for it!
In conclusion, Mr Kaiser Bill, I’d just like to say that sometimes we just need to laugh at the fanatics. Let’s stop being so serious and politically correct when it comes to religion. If our respect for people’s beliefs means that we become afraid of the fanatics and fundamentalists and let their beliefs penetrate into areas where they don’t belong (such as science and medicine) we might end up like the Taliban, letting women die because doctors must not look at their bodies, or growing long stinky beards and putting smelly sacks over women’s faces because god or allah “tells us to do it” and blowing up beautiful statutes of Buddha because they belong to another religious tradition… is that what we want for us and our children??
I think everyone has a right to believe but I dont think they have a right to force others to believe!

By: Hasnain Mir Mohammed

Hasnain Mir Mohammed — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 11:59:33 +0000

You spelt ‘midget’ wrong in your drawing!

By: Kaiser Bill

Kaiser Bill — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 19:56:47 +0000

I’ve read some of the ‘hate’ mail, and some of the ’support’ stuff, and quite frankly I think that a lot of the subscribers to both forums, are either nuts, or certifiable. Most of them can’t spell or have no grammar, and the rest would have difficulty reading their own names, even if someone else wrote it down for them. (if it was in ‘joined-up’ writing then they would be really screwed!)
That said, any educated soul would have to pay attention to the ideas put forward by the subscribers, if only to encourage discussion among the ‘pros’ and the the ‘cons’.
This is the way things normally get done.
Listen to other people’s ideas, and maybe you’ll get a different angle - or quite a few - on the subject. (Edward de Bono (q.v.)) Often this way of thinking comes up with some surprising avenues, which may lead you to a conclusion.
Sorry, everyone, I’m getting on my orange box! I didn’t mean to, but I got a bit carried away there. The point I’m trying to make is - by all means make your point, but don’t try to shove it down everyone else’s throat, if you you get my drift.
Regds., Prof.

By: Alex

Alex — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 01:56:14 +0000

I have seen the appendage and it has given me freedom and truth, and the truth has set me free! My newfound atheism has left me in an existential “funk” only relieved by copious amounts of masterbation and alcohol. Heal me dear flying spaghetti monster! Your existence, as unlikely as Noah and the flood, the trials of Job, the sons of God getting freaky with the daughters of men, parting of the Red Sea, etc etc etc, has given meaning and hope to my otherwise meaningless and rudderless life. I impart my soul unto the loving embrace of your multiple appendages!

Alex Ward

p.s. Do you prefer prego or ragu?

By: Joslyn Ching

Joslyn Ching — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 19:03:37 +0000

wow. just…wow.