Pastafarian wins right to wear strainer in driving licence photo

[Slargos]

I would chalk it up to knee jerk defense but whatever makes you sleep better.   

[Malthus]

I suppose there are many different kinds of heroes.

However, a guy that dedicates his life to arguing with the Austrian DMV over his right to be photographed with a kitchen implement on his head is unlikely to break my top 100.

Would he gain your list if he yelled "FREEEEEDOOOOMMM!!!!!" a la the movie Braveheart - while wearing his chosen kitchen implement? 

[The Minsky Moment]

The government typically doesn't test the sincerity of anyone's belief.

No they don't and that is why this Austrian fellow "won".
Yeah, he really showed, uh, those guys, uh, something.

[Admiral Yi]

No they don't and that is why this Austrian fellow "won".
Yeah, he really showed, uh, those guys, uh, something.

What Mongers said on the last page.  If people get arbritrary rights for religious reasons everyone should have the same arbitrary right.

[The Minsky Moment]

Would he gain your list if he yelled "FREEEEEDOOOOMMM!!!!!" a la the movie Braveheart - while wearing his chosen kitchen implement? 

No that was Mel Gibson so once again we are back on the Slargos hero list.

To make my hero list, he'd have to whip up a decent pasta and pair it with a gruner veltliner.

[The Minsky Moment]

What Mongers said on the last page.  If people get arbritrary rights for religious reasons everyone should have the same arbitrary right.

Mongers raises the question of whether society as a matter of basic values make reasonable accomodation to confessional belief.  We already had this argument.

What is lost on me is how this guy's antics make a contribution to that debate.  Is there someone out there who is so clueless that they don't realize their nation has a policy of religious accomodation and needs a see a pasta strainer head on a driver's license to figure it out?

[Malthus]

I would chalk it up to knee jerk defense but whatever makes you sleep better.   

What would make me sleep better is a mattress made out of hundred-dollar bills and a bed filled with beautiful starlets.

Sadly, my wife does not approve. 

[Admiral Yi]

Mongers raises the question of whether society as a matter of basic values make reasonable accomodation to confessional belief.  We already had this argument.

What is lost on me is how this guy's antics make a contribution to that debate.  Is there someone out there who is so clueless that they don't realize their nation has a policy of religious accomodation and needs a see a pasta strainer head on a driver's license to figure it out?

Your characterization of Monger's question sounds more like the rebuttal.

Using your language, why should accomodations be made on the basis of faith but not on the basis of whim or fancy or taste?

[Malthus]

Using your language, why should accomodations be made on the basis of faith but not on the basis of whim or fancy or taste?

I think it's fair enough to accomodate fancy or taste.

The difference, to me at least, is the presumption that people hold to their faith with greater strength than they hold to their taste, so it is more of a burden on them to give it up. Obviously this is not true in individual cases, and in any event is not tested for - hence "pastafarianism". It works well enough as a presumption, though. 

[The Minsky Moment]

Using your language, why should accomodations be made on the basis of faith but not on the basis of whim or fancy or taste?

That's a question every political community must resolve.
But colander head doesn't really engage with the question.

[Viking]

Define meme and define believe. And, name one atheist that you can quote using the word believe and meme in one sentence that supports your assertion.

http://brandonwalsh.wordpress.com/2010/01/16/atheist-meme-of-the-day-atheists-believe-in-things/  Here's one apparently.

Atheists believe in things: kindness, fairness, honesty, truth, love, etc.

None of this supports your assertion, if anything it just shows that the word believe is badly defined.

[Barrister]

Mongers raises the question of whether society as a matter of basic values make reasonable accomodation to confessional belief.  We already had this argument.

What is lost on me is how this guy's antics make a contribution to that debate.  Is there someone out there who is so clueless that they don't realize their nation has a policy of religious accomodation and needs a see a pasta strainer head on a driver's license to figure it out?

Your characterization of Monger's question sounds more like the rebuttal.

Using your language, why should accomodations be made on the basis of faith but not on the basis of whim or fancy or taste?

Accomodations are made on the basis of whim or fancy, but the accomodation must be balanced out against the societal goal being pursued.

Here we're talking about the importance of photo ID which can be used to correctly identify the person being portrayed.  You generlly may wear whatever clothing your whim or fancy wants in your photo ID, because your clothing really doesn't impact the quality of the identification.

Hats can be used somewhat to obscure identity, so we don't allow you to wear a hat based on your whim or fancy.  But religious faith is treated somewhat higher than mere whim or fancy, so we do make exceptions for religious headwear.

But religious accomodation is not absolute.  We do require photo ID, even for the oddball religious types who find any photograph to be some kind of religious observation.  We also require the face to be uncovered, despite those who may wish to wear such covering for religious reasons.

[Admiral Yi]

Hats can be used somewhat to obscure identity, so we don't allow you to wear a hat based on your whim or fancy.  But religious faith is treated somewhat higher than mere whim or fancy, so we do make exceptions for religious headwear.

Right, and Collander Head is saying I can get around this arbitrary rule by declaring my whim a religious belief.  So either you have to accomodate all whims the same as religious beliefs or stop accomodating religious beliefs.

[Viking]

Your ability to rationalize yourself around your own cognitive dissonance is stunning. The guy wearing the strainer and the guy wearing the turban are using precisely the same argument for being allowed to wear them. They just appeal to different gods over different religions that have different pedigrees.

What "cognitive dissonance"? I'm not a believer.

My point is that the guy wearing a pasta strainer is not going to convince anyone of anything, other than that he's an attention whore.

The notion that this would in some manner cause a Sikh "cognitive dissonance", or in any other manner cause a Sikh to re-evaluate his Sikhdom, is simply wrong. Humans are generally not like that. They react negatively to being parodied. 

The point you continue to avoid dealing with is that the argument for being allowed to wear the pasta strainer is precisely the one that is used for being allowed to use the turban. The point of the exercise is to show that the sikh turban is only separated from the pasta strainer by your individual perception that Sikhism is a real religion while Pastafarianism is not. Your congnitive dissonance lies in your inability to realize that both religions are untrue and you know it and both use silly argument to be allowed to wear silly headgear but only one is attention whoring while the other is the will of yet another non-existent god.

I'm not trying to deal with Sikh "cognitive dissonance" but rather non-Sikh cognitive dissonance when approaching the issue of religious exceptions to various reasonable regulations and laws.

I've spent some time reading up on muslim theology. If you want to make a case for or against anyting know something about it. The muslim case is that the were complete and perfect but were corrupted by the jews and christians.

If you conclude from my argument that Muslims have good arguments against Christianity, Judaism and Hinduism that I must find some argument for Islam compelling is a false dichotomy.

Not where the argument against is that the religion was complete and perfect but for the corruption of it by Jews and Christians. In that case, to find the argument "compelling", you'd have to believe that the religion was complete and perfect.

You know very well that I think they are all wrong and you are arguing in bad faith when you have to conjure up a logical fallacy to try to associate me with a position that you very well know I do not hold.

As a Legal profession you must understand that merely proving that the defense is wrong does not prove the prosecution is wright. When you pretend to be this stupid I just lose respect for you. You have earned alot of my respect on previous occasions, so there is much left. If you are going to continue to argue that

Not A => B

without first proving that

IF Not A THEN B

(if somebody can give me the ASCII codes for logical notation I'd be much appreciative)

Your problem is that I asked you what is known as a "rhetorical question", to demonstrate why you are wrong. This is not arguing in "bad faith". I know full well you don't actually believe in Islam. I did not expect you to agree that you did. I expected that you would re-evaluate your argument.

What I'm saying is that it is difficult to logically find the Islamic attack on Judaism and Christianity "compelling" without belief in elements of the Islamic faith. The Islamic attack isn't primarially based on elements of Judaism or Christianity that are "wrong" outside of the context of Islam.

You somehow concluded that I agreed with Muslim arguments FOR Islam because I agreed with some Muslim arguments AGAINST other religions. It does not follow from the statement "Yes, the Muslims are right, Judaism and Christianity are false religions." that "Yes Islam is true." That is the leap you accused me of taking when you very well know that I find Islam to be just as untrue as the rest and in fact I hate Islam a bit more than the other because of its highly immoral teachings. It may have been a rhetorical argument, but it was an exceedingly false one which did nothing but try to obfuscate the issue.

This is not a debating society or a court of law. The is no judge, jury or committing which will grant one of us a diploma or document to demonstrate that one of us won the debate. We are participating in dialectic, not debate.

Your rhetorical question did not even deal with my issue. It just suggest to me that you do not understand what I am saying. This might be because I don't express myself clearly enough or it might be because you aren't interested in understanding me, merely refuting me or it might be in denial because if you had to deal with my actual arguments you would have to deal with your own congnitive dissonance.

What you seem to miss completely is that the point of the act is to show how silly special dispensation to religious people is silly. You, however, ignore this argument, preferring to continue arguing that being rude to religious people makes you a dick, regardless how true your criticism might be. What I cannot understand is why you can't deal with the argument I am making.

[Viking]

It's not about convincing the true believers . . .. It is about convincing the believers in belief.

Seems to me the only point this guy gets at is that in pluralistic society, confessional status can be established by any form of belief honestly held.  Ok, no surprises there.

But the point is wholly undermined by the fact that this guy doesn't honestly hold the belief he purports to confess.  So at the end of the day, all he proves is that he is an obnoxious schmuck with too much time on his hands, and that the authorities wisely made the call to allow him to make an ass of himself rather than waste further resources litigating.

Malthus already made the point that this guy is an obnoxious schmuck. Now, go away and find me a court ruling where it explicitly states that obnoxious schmucks don't get the same protection of the law that everybody else does. (though that might not be too relevant since Austrian law doesn't fetishize precedent like common law jurisdictions do).

This was a political protest for freedom from religion and against the special dispensations granted to religions.