Answer to the Iota Theta Eta Question....

[DeltaBetaBaby]

Would anyone here like to join my new sorority, Phi Sigma Mu? We are dedicated to serving the Flying Spaghetti Monster. You can read about our beliefs here.

We are way better than all other sororities, because we have been touched by his noodly appendage. If you'd like to join, please acquire a pirate outfit for the pledging ceremony.

[Drolefille]

Originally Posted by DeltaBetaBaby

Would anyone here like to join my new sorority, Phi Sigma Mu? We are dedicated to serving the Flying Spaghetti Monster. You can read about our beliefs here.

We are way better than all other sororities, because we have been touched by his noodly appendage. If you'd like to join, please acquire a pirate outfit for the pledging ceremony.

*raises hand* Are ninja outfits acceptable for Pastafarians?

[DeltaBetaBaby]

Originally Posted by Drolefille

*raises hand* Are ninja outfits acceptable for Pastafarians?

I'm sorry, that's private ritual information.

[UGAalum94]

Originally Posted by DeltaBetaBaby

Would anyone here like to join my new sorority, Phi Sigma Mu? We are dedicated to serving the Flying Spaghetti Monster. You can read about our beliefs here.

We are way better than all other sororities, because we have been touched by his noodly appendage. If you'd like to join, please acquire a pirate outfit for the pledging ceremony.

DBB, I'm not busting on you, but the Flying Spaghetti Monster thing always just seemed mean spirited to me, much like some devoted believers so I get that.

But personally, if I were a resolved non-believer, I don't think I would waste any of my time baiting the religious. What's the only thing that would be more pathetic than devoting your life to an irrational belief system? Devoting your life to mocking those who hold an irrational belief system.

ETA: I was looking at the site, and I concede on the point of resisting the teaching of Creationism in school, it's effective, which really was their point. Actually, I think all effective resistance would take is promoting exactly how specifically religious Intelligent Design is. For a long time, I though it just kind of said, hey maybe evolution didn't just happen on its own. When it says instead stuff more like, "and at this point, we think God did this and here's why."

[Drolefille]

Originally Posted by AlphaGamUGAAlum

DBB, I'm not busting on you, but the Flying Spaghetti Monster thing always just seemed mean spirited to me, much like some devoted believers so I get that.

But personally, if I were a resolved non-believer, I don't think I would waste any of my time baiting the religious. What's the only thing that would be more pathetic than devoting your life to an irrational belief system? Devoting your life to mocking those who hold an irrational belief system.

ETA: I was looking at the site, and I concede on the point of resisting the teaching of Creationism in school, it's effective, which really was their point. Actually, I think all effective resistance would take is promoting exactly how specifically religious Intelligent Design is. For a long time, I though it just kind of said, hey maybe evolution didn't just happen on its own. When it says instead stuff more like, "and at this point, we think God did this and here's why."

Except that the people who want intelligent design taught in school know exactly how religious it is. They're the ones who repackaged it as faux science. No one else is really fooled. They want to be able to teach that "some supreme being" (aka GOD) created things, but ignore the fact that intelligent design is an equally valid description of what happened when the FSM stretched out his noodly appendage. It's real purpose is an exercise in absurdity. Some of taken the FSM further than that, but that's really all it is.

/Ramen.

[UGAalum94]

Originally Posted by Drolefille

Except that the people who want intelligent design taught in school know exactly how religious it is. They're the ones who repackaged it as faux science. No one else is really fooled. They want to be able to teach that "some supreme being" (aka GOD) created things, but ignore the fact that intelligent design is an equally valid description of what happened when the FSM stretched out his noodly appendage. It's real purpose is an exercise in absurdity. Some of taken the FSM further than that, but that's really all it is.

/Ramen.

Yeah, I remembered it more as a general attack on religious belief which isn't the point so much as resisting Creationism in the form of ID in schools. My bad.

The ID folks know it's religious. It's the rest of us who I think need to be educated about specifically what they are advocating teaching.

I think a lot of us are open to letting biology teachers acknowledge that students don't have to choose between science and religion and that religious kids don't have to feel that they are adversaries somehow, which real or not, is I think how the real thumpers see it. But that doesn't mean that we're cool with teaching masked Creationism in schools.

I guess that I was slow to catch on to the actual full fledged ID agenda, so I think it could use some more mainstream debunking. When the usual atheists and super-strict-secularists are principally against something, moderate religious people don't necessarily listen as attentively as they should, so everyone is just preaching to the choir.