Oh, man, we’re in trouble now—they’re catching on. Casey Luskin wags his finger at the Flying Spaghetti Monster, and you know that when the sharpest tool (a phrase intending a variety of meanings) in the ID creationist toolbox notices the obvious, we can expect…we can expect…well, we can’t expect much, but we do get lots of gassy blitherings.
He makes much of the fact that he knows the FSM is supposed to be a joke (a joke that, personally, I think is getting well past its sell-by date), but he clucks primly at the fact that all these “Darwinist academics” are finding the joke humorous…yet the FSM “Mocks Judeo-Christian Religion”!
While much of this is witty and fun, these comments reveal an underlying anti-religious mindset by these Darwinist academics who “endorse” FSM in a tone which mocks traditional Judeo-Christian religion.
Some theistic scientists still manage to find the Spaghetti Monster amusing, though; I suspect it’s because most of the sarcasm is directed specifically at the Intelligent Design nonsense, and the irreligiousness is merely an incidental by-blow of the fact that religiosity is at the heart of ID. But still, that’s awfully perspicacious of the usually thick-skulled Luskin—he noticed that a lot of scientists do think it’s perfectly acceptable to laugh at religion.
It’s a positive development. It’s OK to kick Intelligent Design creationism, and we can see that it’s religiously motivated, which makes it more acceptable to laugh at religion, which is exactly what we godless scientists want. Thanks, Discovery Institute!
These morons can’t stick to the “ID is not a Christian thing” script for more than about 5 minutes at a time, can they. Hilarious.
While much of this is witty and fun, these comments reveal an underlying anti-religious mindset by these Darwinist academics who “endorse” FSM in a tone which mocks traditional Judeo-Christian religion.
I can’t speak for Darwinist academics, however most of us in the Gen X and later really don’t give a fig about religion. We’ve seen the damage its done, we’ve lived with media stories about pedophile priests, KKK preachers and religious talking heads of all ilk calling for the harassment and physical abuse of anyone who disagrees with them (homosexuals and opposing religious sects come immediately to mind). I can still remember a televangelist claiming that AIDs was god’s plague upon the gays for going against ‘his’ laws.
These people disgust us, we have no use for them. More and more the newer generations are understanding this at an earlier age and not just in the USA (in fact the USA is way behind the curve on this one).
My generations looks to the Netherlands and says “why can’t we live in a society like this?” universal healthcare, affordable child care, laws based on logic and society’s needs/wants versus based on a bunch of useless supersitions.
Every time we hear the religious claim that without god society will crumble into chaos we look to the Netherlands with their low crime and say, “Oh really?”
Its sad, they have themselves so deluded and they keep trying to get the rest of us to ‘see the emperor’s clothes’ too, but we’re NOT drinking the kool-aid.
I think that during the brouhaha over Life of Brian, Billy Connolly observed that any religion that felt threatened by a comedy film was in trouble. Seems rather apposite here.
Bob
these comments reveal an underlying anti-religious mindset
Well, yeah, except for the “underlying” part.
PZ, dunno if you have seen this, but it is certainly worth checking out -very funny.
PS: There are also some awesome videos of the FSM.
I was also starting to find the FSM a little tired (not that it was ever especially hilarious in the first place). However, since little Casey is irritated by it, then I suggest an upturn in usage.
Anyway, what the hell is wrong with mocking Judeo-Christian religion? Not a lot as far as I’m concerned. Not that FSM was ever really attacking this target; it was primarily pointing fun at creationists, not religion per se. Idiot.
Once the FSM reaches its kill date, will they auction off the pirate ship? Because I could use a pirate ship.
and the irreligiousness is merely an incidental by-blow of the fact that religiosity is at the heart of ID.
So atheism and materialistic universalism is at the heart of evolution.
Anyway, what the hell is wrong with mocking Judeo-Christian religion?
Nothing. But it is interesting to see how loud you guys yelp every time evolution is mocked.
Spoken like a true scotsman… I mean christian.
The Flying Spaghetti Monster is a joke? No way. Next thing you’ll be telling me that Esperanto isn’t a real languange.
Look, the Great Pumpkin is a joke; the Flying Spaghetti Monster is serious. Klingon is a fake language; Esperanto is serious. See the difference?
A Good Christian Man said : “[I]t is interesting to see how loud you guys yelp every time evolution is mocked.”
You would also find the same crowd “yelping” if schoolchildren were taught that the Sun revolves around the Earth, based on Joshua 10:13. This is not mockery, it is willful ignorance.
Now if anyone, Christian or otherwise, actually satirized evolution in an amusing way, I think you’d see the yelps turn to laughter pretty quickly.
“Anyway, what the hell is wrong with mocking Judeo-Christian religion?
Nothing. But it is interesting to see how loud you guys yelp every time evolution is mocked.”
Mock Evolution all you wish! You still cannot change the fact of Evolution or the myth of ID.
Sucks being wrong doesn’t it?
Yes, one has to wonder how loud AGCM would yelp if it was say… the president saying that he was going to ban all vaccinations and antibiotics, on the basis that the Bible doesn’t mention them, or some similarly stupid BS that he *does* recognize as dangerous, and not just the foundation of 99% of all modern research on new medicines, agriculture, mental illness, virtually all diseases, aging in general, premature aging, etc, etc, etc. I am sure some guy in the back waters of no place is still dissecting animals to try to figure out what chemicals you can pour into them to “cure” them of something, but the rest of us are doing really silly stuff, like looking for genes that do X in species Y, so that we can look for the same or similar gene in species *human* as a means to cure a problem, without killing tens of thousands of more animals (or people) looking for a cure using what barely qualified as better than fracking alchemy before genetics came along.
You might as well say something really stupid, like, “I bet you people would even whine a lot of we just did something harmless, like insisting that clean water was over rated and its OK to dump toxic waste straight into it.”, for all that your complaint about our whining does anything but show how bloody ignorant you are.
While much of this is witty and fun, these comments reveal an underlying anti-religious mindset by these Darwinist academics who “endorse” FSM in a tone which mocks traditional Judeo-Christian religion.
Oh Christ, what a liar. The FSM mocks any and all religions which rely on unknown and un-evidenced claptrap to “explain” what we see. Of course “Judeo-Christian religion” is one of these, but we’re not focusing on one particular flavor of horseshit.
And most specifically the FSM is aimed at the IDists’ Philosopher/Mechanic God. To the degree that it does collateral damage to the philosophers’ God, Allah, Raven, or Quetzalcoatl, WTF do we care? No one is trying to force those down our particular throats, so we can mock them as much or little as we might wish. But we especially mean to laugh at the pathetic little demon that the IDists worship and serve, that idiot savant that designs “like us”, except not at all like us in any of the details, and who can produce such perfection that it is simply sacrilege to call out him out on his many blunders (which oddly enough follow evolutionary principles–as do the “perfections”) and resolute cruelty.
No, we’re just mocking any fakery that masquerades as truth, Casey. Quit imagining that the world revolves around your favorite idiocies, and recognize that we only target your ideas because they’re a threat to intelligence to an extent that fuzzy accommodating religions aren’t, while we (most of us, anyway) treat the woolly-minded accommodationists equally.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/b8ykm
Nothing. But it is interesting to see how loud you guys yelp every time evolution is mocked.
Uh-huh, just like we “yelp” at all charlatans, fakers, and cheats. Mockery is properly for the ridiculous, not the excellent and the true (science in general, evolutionary theory in this particular instance). What do you have against honesty?
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/b8ykm
You think FSM is getting old? Then what are your thoughts on the sell-by date of christianity?
it is interesting to see how loud you guys yelp every time evolution is mocked.
I save my loudest yelping for those occasions when the rain theory of puddle formation is mocked.
On a page linked to this one, I see the Discovery Institute promises us an upcoming discussion of “the difficulty Neo-Darwinism is having constructing robust phylogenetic trees”. Some of this discussion is already taking place over at Uncommon Descent under the catchy title of “The Sound of Taxonomy Exploding”.
http://www.uncommondescent.com/archives/1895
You know, between the FSM and ID, it’s actually the latter that seems like more of a mockery of traditional Judeo-Christian religion.
AGCM:
Actually, evidence is at the heart of evolution, but I think you just made up the term “materialistic universalism” because you thought it sounded fancy and vaguely sinister. It’s not actually a real thing.
But it’s nice to know that you think the only way anyone could ever believe anything is if someone told them to. Too bad that your “because I said so” argument doesn’t actually work out here in the real world.
It is so good we have insightful Casey to tell us those things!
Oh, and the period in which the IDists can toe the party line “it is not religion!” makes Planck time seem like an eternity.
I hear yelping.
Let’s face it: any explanation of the evolution of species, the origin of life, the beginnings of the observable universe, etc. that doesn’t have a nice big gap for theists to wedge their gods into will never be accepted or even tolerated by them.
If it rules out magical intervention, they’ll decry it, precisely because it doesn’t leave room for their gods.
Hey, maybe Christianity started as a joke, too.
Or on a bet, like Scientology.
Hear’s the voice of god too I suspect.
Hears damn it.
The big problem with “mocking” evolution: All the ID/Cretinist attempts I’ve ever seen end up being making fun of a Cretinist manufactured lie and trying to pass that lie off as what evolution says. The straw man is what we’re objecting to.
Mockery of Creationism typically lies in changing only superficial details and getting down to its core of “a wizard did it!”
Considering this is all text, I suggest you visit a doctor!
You’d yelp too if our description of Christianity was “they all worship donkeys on sticks.” THAT is the level of accuracy in your descriptions of evolution.
I hear yelping.
Congratulations, you got a scrap of attention from people smarter than you. Give yourself a nice big pat on the back.
FSM mocks religion in the pursuit of truth and accuracy. Mocking evolution is mocking truth and accuracy. The first is a noble purpose, the second is evil.
I worry when people who claim to be Christian have difficulty figuring that stuff out.
I’m not bothered by the concept of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, though I’ve never been very interested in it.
But that aside, there is now a whole atheist bestiary of imaginary beings:
The Flying Spaghetti Monster
The Invisible Pink Unicorn
Bertrand Russell’s Interplanetary Teapot
Carl Sagan’s Invisible Dragon in a Garage
Sam Harris’s Refrigerator-Sized Diamond Buried in a Backyard
Ed: It worries me, too, especially when one conclusion you can draw is that most of our fellow believers are on the doltish side. For that matter, I wonder, how thin-skinned and insecure can these guys get? Earth to Luskin and Disco Boys: any ‘faith’ that it finds it necessary to ‘defend’ itself against the Flying Spaghetti Monster is not much of a faith in the first place.
Caledonian wrote: “any explanation….that doesn’t have a nice big gap for theists to wedge their gods into will never be accepted or even tolerated by them. If it rules out magical intervention, they’ll decry it, precisely because it doesn’t leave room for their gods.”
A slightly smaller brush, if you please! This Christian, for one, thinks the FSM is a hoot. I’ve got no problem tolerating the FSM or (alternatively) scientific explanations, even those which seem to delimit or eliminate the supposed gaps in explanation.
After all, that’s the only way science can be done, so (whether I like the inferences that others draw or not), I don’t have the alternative of rejecting such work, or pretending such work doesn’t exist. If I’m intellectually honest, then I put all the cards I have on the table even if I risk losing the hand—or the game.
A Good Christian Man: “So atheism and materialistic universalism is at the heart of evolution.”
You so crazy. Evolution is not a theory about the existence or non-existence of God, or an account of the universe’s origin, etc. It’s a fact that is part of models that have been developed to explain the diversity and distribution of living things over time and space.
Now, the facts of evolution and natural selection demolish one traditional argument for God in the living world, that of Design, but there’s nothing special about these facts or the theories derived from them in that regard. Any scientific theory is atheistic in that it attempts to explain phenomena without appealing to God. And, again, that’s just how science is done. Get over it!
SH
Yikes!
These folks crack me up. They whine, bitch and moan about being misrepresented in the press, and then turn around and do their damnedest to get science misrepresented in the press.
If there was a god(s), and she/he/it (s/h/it) honestly gave a damn about truth, the IDiots would be first on the smack down list.
Hey, AGCM. Let’s go back to “But it is interesting to see how loud you guys yelp every time evolution is mocked.”
There are countless instances of unintentionally funny creationists: pygmies, dwarves and the endless questions their existence raises; Jack Chick; the feed back section of talkorigins; dinosaurs attacking the ark; the Rapture Index; Ken Ham’s beard…
Where’s the intentional humor? Could you give us a top five list? I think everyone here is already familiar with the Judge Jones flash animation. Are farts and silly voices the best ya’ll got?
Raven? Hey, that would explain a lot! Eyes that are wired inside-out, aortas that start off in the wrong direction, non-coding DNA, and of course the scrotum. It all makes sense if you imagine the Intelligent Designer with a big tattoo on his forehead:
Poor Impulse Control
(Apologies to anyone who hasn’t read Snow Crash.)
And yet there are so many Christians who are willing to mock the FSM.
This is blasphemy against Him! Do you people have no faith in He of the floating noodly appendadges? One day one of these appendadges is gonna slap all your silly faces! Am I the only True Believer? Luskin’s faith wavers and everyone jumps off the ship? and at Christmas-time!!!! now that you all have gotten your presents bestowed unto you by his ever generous appendadges you decide to bite the “hand” that feeds you! (Outside the context of the holy sacrificial memorial bowl)
I just cannot understand this. I am appalled and disgusted and will be seen in the streets and on your television screens as I defend the one true faith.
Michael Shermer was asked about FSM in the Q&A session of a program described & linked from here:
http://curricublog.org/2006/11/22/shermer-wells/
The questioner suggested that FSM & the pink unicorn maybe trivialize the issues. Shermer answered that they do serve one important function: They make clear that finding some “gap” in evolutionary science is no more reason for believing in ID/creationism than for believing in FSM. It continues to serve that function, even after it’s grown old as a joke.
I would say it is up to the claimant to explain why “the issues” do not deserve to be trivialized.
The FSM was actually invented to serve a purpose. The basic outline of the FSM gospel was sent to the school board in Kansas (I blank sometimes – I’m sure someone here remembers offhand the city) that was going to approve ID being taught in schools. The young man who came up with the idea sent letters to the board members insisting that if ID were going to be taught in schools, the FSM version should be taught as well, because it was just as valid. Now, yes, it’s gone on for a while, and yes, it’s gotten silly, but as long as IDiots try to get science curricula changed, it’s a good focal point in that it’s recognized outside of the circles of atheists.
Perhaps we should orchestrate a schism, between devotees of the traditional view of the Creator as a flying SPAGHETTI monster and those who suggest that He is in fact made of fettucine! We can start by nailing 95 recipes to an FSM church door somewhere… :D
Loren Petrich, you raise a serious and troubling issue. It is clear that the imaginary armies of the theists vastly outnumber our own!
Azkyroth, you blackguard, every true Scotsman knows that the only right way to worship He of the Noodly Appendages is through the Eucharisti Lasagna Al Forno, wherein the Host is transubstantiated into semolina!
Don’t even get me started on your fettucine heresy! It leads down the slippery slope to a low-carb diet, or (even worse) a compromise with those ‘theistic spaghettiests’ who claim one can worship the FSM and yet not believe in a literal semolina. Everyone knows where that leads: to PZ, which (my sources inform me) stands for Pastaless Zone.
I abjure, forswear your fettucine backsliding, or else I must pronounce you pastanathema.
Defending The Truth Of His Righteous Noodle…SH
What is the official FSM stance on elbow macaroni?
Stanton asked:
Pastafarians don’t approve of such perversions. I think the Good Book, Book of Le-Ziti-Cus, chapter 20, verse 13 says it all: