Pastafarian wins right to wear strainer in driving licence photo

[Tonitrus]

When it comes to "explaining the Universe", I agree.

Not so much when it comes to "keeping my neighbor from killing me for my stuff without caring".

But I don't want to drop the religion/morality nuke into this thread (and no, I don't think in the simple terms that one requires the other).

[LaCroix]

But I don't want to drop the religion/morality nuke into this thread

but you just did 

[The Brain]

What most will get out of a stunt like this is that this guy is an attention whore.

Agreed.  Most people cannot accept that someone with a differing opinion could just have a differing opinion.  They insist that the person with a different opinion is "making a fool of themselves" or "an attention whore."  By delegitimizing opposing opinions they avoid having to think about their own opinions.  It is sad that most people are so anxious to avoid thinking about their own opinions, but I suppose that is just human nature.

There is a slight difference between "having a differing opinion" and "insisting on his right to wear a pasta strainer on his head while being photographed for ID". 

The latter guy is "delegitimizing" himself by deliberately playing the fool.

Putting forward ridiculous ideas and actually believing them makes you look less like a fool? Hardly.

[The Brain]

so, i don't think viking deludes himself--unless he believes all atheists are smarter than all religious people, which is ridiculous and something few would actually believe

Sticking to the serious point here. I don't think religious people are smarter or stupider than atheists. I don't think a person who loses their religion gets smarter by doing so, nor do I think anybody adopting a religion loses any IQ points. Even if there was a working measure of intelligence (IQ tests measure nothing other than your ability to take IQ tests) then I don't think intelligence would even correlate to religiosity. I think that religious faith is not a result of logic, reason or brainpower, but rather an emotional issue.

"Stupid is as stupid does." - F. Gump

Religion makes people do stupid things, that makes them stupid, it doesn't mean they lack intelligence.

FWIW I have yet to meet a religious person that I consider highly intelligent.

[The Brain]

I don't understand why Viking got into a long discussion of memes (something that isn't relevant) with Raz (an insane person).

[Slargos]

I don't understand why Viking got into a long discussion of memes (something that isn't relevant) with Raz (an insane person).

You don't? 

[The Brain]

I don't understand why Viking got into a long discussion of memes (something that isn't relevant) with Raz (an insane person).

You don't? 

No.

[Slargos]

I don't understand why Viking got into a long discussion of memes (something that isn't relevant) with Raz (an insane person).

You don't? 

No.

Do you think it's because you lack an imagination? 

[The Brain]

I don't understand why Viking got into a long discussion of memes (something that isn't relevant) with Raz (an insane person).

You don't? 

No.

Do you think it's because you lack an imagination? 

You actually think that Viking is a Jew?

[Slargos]

I don't understand why Viking got into a long discussion of memes (something that isn't relevant) with Raz (an insane person).

You don't? 

No.

Do you think it's because you lack an imagination? 

You actually think that Viking is a Jew?

What gave you that idea?

[The Brain]

I don't understand why Viking got into a long discussion of memes (something that isn't relevant) with Raz (an insane person).

You don't? 

No.

Do you think it's because you lack an imagination? 

You actually think that Viking is a Jew?

What gave you that idea?

You're Slarg. It's all you ever talk about.

[Slargos]

I don't understand why Viking got into a long discussion of memes (something that isn't relevant) with Raz (an insane person).

You don't? 

No.

Do you think it's because you lack an imagination? 

You actually think that Viking is a Jew?

What gave you that idea?

You're Slarg. It's all you ever talk about.

That's a fair bit prejudiced of you. 

[The Brain]

I don't understand why Viking got into a long discussion of memes (something that isn't relevant) with Raz (an insane person).

You don't? 

No.

Do you think it's because you lack an imagination? 

You actually think that Viking is a Jew?

What gave you that idea?

You're Slarg. It's all you ever talk about.

That's a fair bit prejudiced of you. 

Thanks.

[Razgovory]

Another thing that Raz doesn't understand is that Atheists have just as much in common with each other as all A-Christians or A-Muslims or A-Hindus have with each other. Raelians, Randite Libertarians, Communists, Stalinists, Maoists etc.etc. are all Atheists of some stripe but they have little or nothing in common with Skeptics (such as myself, Dawkins and Brad Pitt). Atheists are not united by any common belief, they are merely united by a lack of a common belief. In a world without theist religion there would be no need for the word Atheist at all. Raz keeps thinking that Atheism has any positive beliefs, we do not. Us Skeptics consider Raelianism, Communism, Nazism etc. to be non-theist religions and consider that dogma or uncontestible assumptions to be the defining characteristics of religion rather than the belief in the supernatural.

Dawkins has taken atheism beyond lack of belief.  He's out there proselytizing.  I would say his statements have a positive aspect "that religion is evil" and the like.

I googled "that religion is evil" + Dawkins. No dawkins quote showed up, but multiple links from religious sites claiming that he said it with quote marks and atheist and skeptic sites claiming that he never said any such thing. Unless you can show me a dawkins quote where he asserts that religion is evil I'm gonna have to call you a liar.

Dawkins is doing precisely what your local pastor is doing. Every pastor says that his own religion is true and the others are false, dawkins has no religion of his own and considers the others to be false. All religious joiners consider preselytizing to be a good thing, yet when Dawkins does it he is "strident". You are a hypocritical fool.

It is fashionable to wax apocalyptic about the threat to humanity posed by the AIDS virus, "mad cow" disease, and many others, but I think a case can be made that faith is one of the world's great evils, comparable to the smallpox virus but harder to eradicate.
-- Richard Dawkins, The Humanist, Volume 57, Number 1

http://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/quotes/dawkins.htm


I've never heard the local priest say that Jews were evil (as a Catholic I don't see pastors).  But it's nice that Viking doesn't have to call me a liar now.

[Malthus]

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.

No, it's a *parody*. The guy doesn't really believe that he has to wear a pasta strainer. What he's testing is the court's willingness to test the sincerity of his belief.

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.

Meh? I'm not a Sikh. Of course I don't think Sikhism is "true". How on earth would I have an "... inability to realize that both religions are untrue"? I simply don't understand what you are attepting to say. Are you alleging I think Sikhism is "true"? Strange.

What I have, is the ability to respect the ways of other people, even if I don't happen to believe in them myself. 

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.

And I'm saying it is a fantasy to think this stunt will do anything of the sort. Most reasonable people - including atheists - will just think this guy's an attention whore. And rightly.

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.

Dude. Lighten up.

To address your argument: there are various types of attacks one could make on (say) Christianity. Some attacks are consistent with atheism (Christianity cannot be true without proof of the existence of a "god", and that proof lacks); others are simply not (Christianity is a falling away from a "perfect religion" that would otherwise exist; Christianity is false because it does not acknowledge the existence of Mohammed as the seal of the prophets).

I'm not saying you are actually a believer in Islam; what I'm saying is that finding the particular Islamic attack on Christianity "compelling" is inconsistent with what I know you are - an atheist.