Category Archives: Hate-Mail (and Concerned Criticism)

Hate Mail (and concerned criticism)

Thoughts on hate-mail

After 10+ years of receiving hate-mail (or if not hate, let’s call it well-intentioned criticism), I find it hard to take offense or argue with these people. For years I have stopped posting these messages and rarely reply to them. I don’t believe these people are representative of the groups they claim to speak for, so I often felt that posting these messages was in a way unfair to those groups, because it may give a wrong impression of the groups as a whole.

I’ve decided to post a few messages from time to time, but I will not argue with these people. I received a message today that moved me to respond, if only to try to make peace with a critic.

I do not agree with some of Jeremy’s statements such as “When you die , you will not go to your Satan invented Pasta Heaven where your beer volcano and sex factory . You in reality will go to the everlasting Hell where you will burn and suffer for all eternity . There no beer in Hell and not even water . No girls for sex , but demons who will torture you.” .. but I respect that these are his personal beliefs and feel no ill-will towards him. Let’s agree to disagree, live and let-live.

I’ve posted his email, and my response below:

Please do not delude yourself

Been a while since I posted one of these, but this one irked me.

Please do not delude yourself that people of real faith are not interested themselves in where you and the other FSM assholes live, and where your loved ones attend school, or work etcetera….

I am not making any threats of any kind, as I am a non-violent Christian.

However, all of the people with my beliefs are not so willing to tolerate your silliness.

My advice is to shut down this pathetic folly, before people far less tolerant of your mockery of their spirituality take an active interest in your membership on a very personal level…

Kevin B

Not sure if that’s a threat or general douchery. It’s weird that people can send such vile messages and assume (hope?) that we won’t publish their identities. I don’t have much interest in publicly shaming, but it’s tempting. You get a C for effort, Kevin. Next time leave an anonymous note or something on my car.

But I think we should give this guy the benefit of the doubt and assume he’s having a rough day, not not-so-subtly threatening us. I think Kevin needs the FSM in his life.

We shouldn’t live with absolute frivolity

While life should not be taken too seriously, this doesn’t mean we should live with absolute frivolity. Yes, so-called religions attempt to mandate all sorts of opinions and behaviors about morality and social conformity. This does not mean that actual religion — the sincere attempt to understand the unknowable — is inherently stupid or necessarily bullshit.

Quantum mechanics tells us that all possibilities exist simultaneously until foreclosed by inconsistent observations. So, with regard to what we truly cannot know or observe, it’s possible that all beliefs are equally "true" and very much real. It’s an incredibly powerful thought: that we can design our own eternity simply by imagining it.

Personally, I’d want much more from my eternity than to party on a pirate ship with a bunch of beer and strippers. The ability to have that experience at any time and for any duration? Sure, that would be great. But plain old life has plenty to offer that’s much more sublime and extraordinary than simple hedonism. And it’s not even a very ambitious vision of hedonism.

World history is replete with terrible evils committed in the name of "religion." Certainly, it’s an important message that moral and social "values" should not be elevated to the level of religious beliefs. But our ability as humans to recognize the fundamental unknowable questions — where are we from, why are we here, and where are we going — creates a fundamental human need to discuss and confront these questions.

Pastafarianism does indeed celebrate the power of the individual to choose his or her own answers to these questions. Some might like the idea of choosing answers that are deliberately silly or absurd. But to do so simply to make a point about the beliefs of others is to degrade and dishonor one’s own spirit.

-Tom

What exactly do you think you are going to prove?

What exactly do you think you are going to prove? it’s just disrespectful to other human beings faiths and beliefs, and im sure u of all people should know u can’t put any sense into say a devout christian. Honestly, what your doing is the equivalant of making a rude, sarcastic joke to a child that doesn’t understand humor. u cant tell a christian thats been raised from birth to believe that there’s a magic man in the clouds that he’s wrong. you’ll just get what uve been getting, hate mail, and death threats. God is the equivalant of santa exept the child is never told he isn’t real until it’s to late. and u think your doing a good thing by making up this pastafarian crap to prove how absurd the idea of god is. what i don’t think u understand is that u cant argue with idiots about this stuff as most christians are dont know a thing about science.(I apoligize to all respectable christian scientists). as an athiest, im disgusted what youre doing. like making fun of christians being killed by somali’s, and u quoting, "apparently they thought there god could give them safe passage"(yes ive read ur website). really, did it ever, or does it ever occur to you that these people are actually human being’s with family’s and feeling’s, and just because they think the world was created  differantly than u, u have to mock them… that’s kind of a dick move. your being no better than they are(religious people) by making fun of and disrespecting other people just ’cause they think differantly than u. oh wait u are religous, u worship a flying spaggetti monster. which means i have the right to ridicule u on how stupid your dumbfuck religion is(oh may the great pasta diety forgive me for my sin) and dont deny that u worship the all mighty pasta king, because your the leader of the church. with the true words of your religion written on a piece of paper. it’s ironic that u, by trying to prove how bad religion is. go about it by u yourself inbodying everything that is wrong with human beliefs. u are everything that is wrong with athiesm. u go around acting all superior and pompus, like u know better than everyone else and tell them why there wrong mockingly. the world would be a better place if u took all your "followers" (butt pirates) got on a pirate ship and ate spaggetti until you all died of overeating.have u ever heard the term live and let live? and i love it how  u post all the hate mail u get on a your page to be ridiculed by your cronies( who by the way need to get of the internet and do something productive)yes we all the the bible huggars are gonna say dumb stuff because they’re uneducated. but that doesn’t mean u have to be immature and make fun of there faults so just lay off. even though this message sounds hostile just know i agree with what your’e trying to do (i think) educating people, i just wholly disagree with how u are going about it.

-David

A short response from Bobby:

It’s not our intention to mock or offend anyone. But I realize people sometimes feel mocked  or offended.

It might be fair to say that we’re disrespectful.  I would agree that most Pastafarians don’t respect the notion that religion should sit on a pedestal.  We don’t think that because an action is explained in the context of religion it is exempt from the scrutiny it otherwise would have been subjected to.  Religion is not a free pass for crazy ideas and crazy actions. 

I would agree that it’s not our place to pass judgment on those who see the world through a lens of religion.  But neither is it our place to ignore when personal belief becomes public action.  We can accept that some choose to teach their kids the earth is 6000 years old and that dinosaurs are a myth.  But if they push for those ideas to be taught in our schools, it’s no longer a question of respecting personal belief.

The idea that rational minded people must be anti-religion is a wrong one, I think.   If we must draw a line to divide ourselves, I’d prefer the line be positioned between reasonable and unreasonable people, rather than religious and non-religious people.  

It’s one thing to see the world through a lens, and another thing to act as if it’s the only lens that can exist.

I believe there is no group more tolerant of other religious and nonreligious groups than Pastafarians, without question.  The death of the Christian sailors by pirates was a sad thing for everyone who heard of it, I’m sure.  My hope is that it doesn’t happen again.  The hard question is:  will criticizing the decision to venture into dangerous areas on the basis of faith help avoid a similar situation in the future?  I don’t know the answer.  But I wonder how many of their friends and family wish they had shaken them and said this is a bad idea, don’t do this.  This is one of the hard questions – this line between respect and concern.