Pastafarian wins right to wear strainer in driving licence photo

[Barrister]

Wow, you haven't met very many religious people.

I know many extremely smart people who are religious. I find it rather odd, I must admit, since I don't really understand how that works, but there is no question that it does.

In my experience the smarter the religious person the more elaborate the cartwheels he/she has to perform to get around the problem of lack of evidence for and massive amounts of evidence against the existence of god. Basically smart believers have to work harder and smarter to get around their own cognitive dissonance, which is not too much of a problem, because they are smart ones capable of working harder and smarter.

"cognitive dissonance" is a nifty turn of phrase to be sure, but you keep repeating it in this thread.   

[Malthus]

Well his sincere atheism, sincere humanism and his sincere skepticism mean that he feels that it is his moral duty to wear the pasta strainer. How hard is that to understand? Niko Alm (the guy's name) is a long term atheist, humanist and skeptic activist. He has a facebook fan page where he is self described as an athlete. This is the concluding part of a three year campaign to be allowed to wear the strainer.

His beliefs inspired the stunt, but they don't specifically require him to wear a strainer. It's a parody.

You know that the metaphysical claims of Sikhism are non-true. If you thought they were true you would be a Sikh.

What I am trying to say is that both Sikhism and Pastafarianism use untrue claims about the nature of the universe to justify wearing silly head-dress on drivers license photos. I'm baffled why you don't seem to realize that. It seems that just because the Sikh believes that god told him to wear a turban his irrational belief has to be validated by society.

Well, first, your facts are not correct. God did not tell Sikhs to wear a turban. Sikhs wear a turban because one of their historical leaders commanded them to identify themselves as Sikhs by doing so. They do not use any particular metaphysical claims to support the requirement.

I can, at one and the same time, reject every metaphysical notion of Sikhism *and* support allowing Sikhs to self-identify as Sikhs. What's so difficult about understanding that?

Why is that? Thinking that if there was such a thing as the creator of the earth that knows everything he would not take a wife, father a son, try and fail with new revelations each for Abraham, Noah, Moses and Jesus. I don't have to believe in a god to agree that if a god did exist he certainly would not be as incompetent as the god of christianity and judaism would be. Muslims has many non-theist arguments against Christianity and Judaism.

No, you specifically mentioned the primordial perfection of the religion. That isn't something that ought to be at all convincing to a non-religious person.

[Berkut]

Wow, you haven't met very many religious people.

I know many extremely smart people who are religious. I find it rather odd, I must admit, since I don't really understand how that works, but there is no question that it does.

In my experience the smarter the religious person the more elaborate the cartwheels he/she has to perform to get around the problem of lack of evidence for and massive amounts of evidence against the existence of god. Basically smart believers have to work harder and smarter to get around their own cognitive dissonance, which is not too much of a problem, because they are smart ones capable of working harder and smarter.

I think they break down into two groups.

One group has really smart people who are still actively trying to reconcile. They tend to be younger. They jump through a lot of mental gyrations to make it work. This can actually be kind of funny to watch. Many will end up atheists eventually, unless the graduate to group 2.

Group 2 are typically older, more mature. They don't jump through any hoops or have any real active cognitive dissonance, because they simply dismiss the entire rational/reasoned basis for their religious beliefs, and don't really care about evaluating their beliefs in that manner. They accept that perhaps their belief in god is not rational, but have decided it does not need to be rational, because it isn't about that anyway. Whether or not the earth was created in 6 days or not, or whether the earth is 6000 years old is simply not interesting - it is even a bit silly to worry about, as the message of their religion is not about those things.

[Viking]

One of the central tennets of Christianity was that Jesus was a man as well as the son of God. 

No, that is not true. Not all Christians believe that or hold that to be dogma. The schism on this issue is the one that created the catholic and the oriental churches.

That while on earth he was not a perfect, omnipotent being, but flawed as we all are.

And who ever said that the revelations failed?

Earth 1.0 - Created Eden - Reason for Failing: Eve liked fruit
Earth 2.0 - World full of wicket men - Resolution: kill everybody, except well ehh.. that guy Noah
Earth 3.0 - People unaware of Gods Law - Resolution: Make deal with Abraham; Greatest Moral Rule: Cuz I said so!
Earth 4.0 - Israelites in wrong country. - Resolution: Nature walk through desert followed by genocide. Special fun practical joke played on moses, hey you can see the promised land, but now you die.
Earth 5.0 - Wrong country in Israel. - Resolution: Change rules of the game, all sins forgiven for just asking nicely. Those sinned against and those roasting in hell for picking up a twig on a saturday feel unfairly treated.

Rules get changed each time. The strength and consistency of the muslim argument is that they claim that god didn't get it wrong (one wouldn't think that a all knowing omnipotent and omnipresent god would get things wrong) the humans got it wrong.

[Viking]

You are parsing these words awfully closely.

I'm parsing them as closely as Dawkins would.

[Viking]

"cognitive dissonance" is a nifty turn of phrase to be sure, but you keep repeating it in this thread.

It is a good term, well defined and it fits the issue. Look it up.

[Viking]

Well his sincere atheism, sincere humanism and his sincere skepticism mean that he feels that it is his moral duty to wear the pasta strainer. How hard is that to understand? Niko Alm (the guy's name) is a long term atheist, humanist and skeptic activist. He has a facebook fan page where he is self described as an athlete. This is the concluding part of a three year campaign to be allowed to wear the strainer.

His beliefs inspired the stunt, but they don't specifically require him to wear a strainer. It's a parody.

Oh, are you calling him a liar? Cause that is what he says.

I'm just gonna go out on a limb and say that

I can, at one and the same time, reject every metaphysical notion of Pastafarianism *and* support allowing Pastafarians to self-identify as Pastafarians. What's so difficult about understanding that?

I also am going to allow Pastafarians to define their own religion, like you insist that Jews and Christians get to do. You did that when I quoted bible and verse against this or the other christian dogma in many of our previous religion fight threads.

You know that the metaphysical claims of Sikhism are non-true. If you thought they were true you would be a Sikh.

What I am trying to say is that both Sikhism and Pastafarianism use untrue claims about the nature of the universe to justify wearing silly head-dress on drivers license photos. I'm baffled why you don't seem to realize that. It seems that just because the Sikh believes that god told him to wear a turban his irrational belief has to be validated by society.

Well, first, your facts are not correct. God did not tell Sikhs to wear a turban. Sikhs wear a turban because one of their historical leaders commanded them to identify themselves as Sikhs by doing so. They do not use any particular metaphysical claims to support the requirement.

I can, at one and the same time, reject every metaphysical notion of Sikhism *and* support allowing Sikhs to self-identify as Sikhs. What's so difficult about understanding that?

Well, the FSM didn't tell him to wear a pasta strainer. Guru Niko Alm told himself to wear a pasta strainer. He did not use any particular metaphysical claim to support the requirement. He actually sited a 2009 peer reviewed paper which demonstrated that pasta strainers are just as effective as tin-foil hats at keeping out alien mind control signals.

Why is that? Thinking that if there was such a thing as the creator of the earth that knows everything he would not take a wife, father a son, try and fail with new revelations each for Abraham, Noah, Moses and Jesus. I don't have to believe in a god to agree that if a god did exist he certainly would not be as incompetent as the god of christianity and judaism would be. Muslims has many non-theist arguments against Christianity and Judaism.

No, you specifically mentioned the primordial perfection of the religion. That isn't something that ought to be at all convincing to a non-religious person.

If you say you got 21 when rolling 2d6. I can counter that argument either by saying you can't get 21 with a 2d6 when I really hold the view that there are no such things as dice at all. That is what I am doing here, I'm granting both the muslim and the christian the point that god exists and merely pointing out that if god did exist he certainly would not resemble the christian god in any way whatsoever.

[HVC]

Earth 2.0 and 3.0 is my favourite god. vengful and cruel. not this earth 5.0 hippy god.

[Viking]

Earth 2.0 and 3.0 is my favourite god. vengful and cruel. not this earth 5.0 hippy god.

Watching martinus get stoned might be fun....

[HVC]

Earth 2.0 and 3.0 is my favourite god. vengful and cruel. not this earth 5.0 hippy god.

Watching martinus get stoned might be fun....

that's manmade punish through the laws of god. pillar of salt and barage of brimestone. Now that's a godly smiting worthy of a book.

[Viking]

Earth 2.0 and 3.0 is my favourite god. vengful and cruel. not this earth 5.0 hippy god.

Watching martinus get stoned might be fun....

that's manmade punish through the laws of god. pillar of salt and barage of brimestone. Now that's a godly smiting worthy of a book.

Dunno about that, but if I visit I expect Martinus to buy the weed if we are going to get stoned. I'll buy the munchies.

[Malthus]

Oh, are you calling him a liar? Cause that is what he says.

I have no idea what he says. I can see a parody for what it is, though.

I'm just gonna go out on a limb and say that

I can, at one and the same time, reject every metaphysical notion of Pastafarianism *and* support allowing Pastafarians to self-identify as Pastafarians. What's so difficult about understanding that?

I also am going to allow Pastafarians to define their own religion, like you insist that Jews and Christians get to do. You did that when I quoted bible and verse against this or the other christian dogma in many of our previous religion fight threads.

The guy is welcome to it. I'm simply saying what is obvious to everyone: he's doing it as a deliberate parody.

For all I care he can wear a giant diaper down the street and say he's doing it for world peace or whatever.

I reserve the right to laugh at him (and not as Sikhs). Freedom of expression isn't freedom to not be taken as a fool or attention whore.

Well, the FSM didn't tell him to wear a pasta strainer. Guru Niko Alm told himself to wear a pasta strainer. He did not use any particular metaphysical claim to support the requirement. He actually sited a 2009 peer reviewed paper which demonstrated that pasta strainers are just as effective as tin-foil hats at keeping out alien mind control signals.

And, once again, I reserve the right to find this dumb and unfunny. Sikhs, in contrast, do not appear dumb, and they aren't trying to be funny. 

If you say you got 21 when rolling 2d6. I can counter that argument either by saying you can't get 21 with a 2d6 when I really hold the view that there are no such things as dice at all. That is what I am doing here, I'm granting both the muslim and the christian the point that god exists and merely pointing out that if god did exist he certainly would not resemble the christian god in any way whatsoever.

That doesn't make any sense at all. If a god did exist, why couldn't it resemble the Christian god?

[Valmy]

Earth 2.0 and 3.0 is my favourite god. vengful and cruel. not this earth 5.0 hippy god.

Open your heart to love HVC

[Razgovory]

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.

Dickwad, you used quotation marks quoting the man as saying religion is evil. You fail at grammar again. Religion is evil =/= Faith is an evil. This is willful misrepresentation.

I dunno Viking - seems to me that when Dawkins says religion is evil, that's pretty much the same thing as saying faith is evil.  You can try and argue otherwise, but I'm doubtful.  And that's a far ways from being "willful misrepresentation".

evil =/= an evil

Raz is claiming that Dawkins thinks that Religion is metaphysical evil. Dawkins doesn't accept that metaphysical evil exists. Lets not get stuck in the issue that faith is not religion (another theist cop-out). Dawkins uses evil meaning a natural phenomena with bad consequences, he even compares it to Smallpox.

Uh, this is really bizarre viking.  I never said anything abut metaphysics.  I was using term "evil" as something that is bad.  Faith is a synonym of religion.http://thesaurus.com/browse/faith  Your reaction, is really really strange.

[Razgovory]

You are parsing these words awfully closely.

I'm parsing them as closely as Dawkins would.

Well, Dawkins is a well known dick.