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Posted: 05-08-2009 01:40 Post subject:

Vintage 2005 thread here. Smile

Posted: 05-08-2009 13:31 Post subject:

I'm puzzled...is there a rationalist in the house???

Surely, the point of religions is that the percipient who experiences a numinous event - say, a burning bush, the angel Moroni handing down the law or Mr Angry God whipping up a storm on Mt Sinai - actually believes the event to be real and goes on to act on that 'revelation'....

Now there are three main options;

1) the percipient is making it up - they are deliberately lying
2) the percipient is insane
3) the percipient experienced 'something' - what it was is irrelevant for our purpose

So we can say that #1 above would make them a lying scumbag and #2 a raving loon. Let's be good rationalists and stay safe and discount #3 temporarily for argument's sake.

Now to FSM: for it to be admissible - remember, we are invoking the great God 'rationality' here - then it has to be a metaphor or analogy for the religious experience (for those in the cheap seats that means it is 'the same thing' - more or less).

So...is anyone claiming to have actually had a real experience with an FSM? No..So that's #3 out....

Therefore, top be a true rational analogy - the FSM 'followers' must be either

#1) Scumbag liars
#2) Clinically insane

Either of which disqualify the FSM meme from sane rational consideration...

It's very worrying.....

Posted: 05-08-2009 13:43 Post subject:

You are rapidlt constructing straw men again.

Its perfectly possible to accept that a prophet believes in what they experienced. This may be due to the ingestion of peyote etc, alcohol or from long periods of mortification in a wilderness or even from extremely deep meditation.

It doesnt mean that it really happened, but for the prophet it was real. Depending on how convincing the aforesaid prophet is/was and how many armed thugs he can gather around then he will build a sect, cult or religion. If he gathers enough followers then his armedthugs become soldiers/police.

In the case of the Mormons, its hard to believe that Joe Smith was anything other than a conman. Thats because we're closer in time to him and its possible to strongly argue that Mormonism was based on a bad SF novel as well as some earlier texts.

Posted: 05-08-2009 13:49 Post subject:

Posted: 05-08-2009 14:02 Post subject:

Segovious I have kept up, in so far as it is possible to keep up with such an eminent philosopher*. Actually, theres very little that you say clearly.

And I wonder at the men of straw you set up to knock down so easily. You must be a farmer ot a silage dealer to have so much.

Marx wrote:

Posted: 05-08-2009 14:07 Post subject:

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Posted: 05-08-2009 14:34 Post subject:

Posted: 05-08-2009 17:36 Post subject:

I like The Church of the flying spaghetti monster because it provokes such extreme reactions from most American fundamentalists, the hate mail page on the website is very funny and very revealing of the fundy thought process.
I think the whole point is to provoke reaction and reveal the illogicalness(!) of religion.

Posted: 14-07-2011 08:59 Post subject:

Austrian driver's religious headgear strains credulity

An Austrian atheist has won the right to be shown on his driving-licence photo wearing a pasta strainer as "religious headgear".
Niko Alm first applied for the licence three years ago after reading that headgear was allowed in official pictures only for confessional reasons.
Mr Alm said the sieve was a requirement of his religion, pastafarianism. Cool

The Austrian authorities required him to obtain a doctor's certificate that he was "psychologically fit" to drive.

The idea came into Mr Alm's noodle three years ago as a way of making a serious, if ironic, point.
A self-confessed atheist, Mr Alm says he belongs to the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, a light-hearted faith whose members call themselves pastafarians.
The group's website states that "the only dogma allowed in the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster is the rejection of dogma".

In response to pressure for American schools to teach the Christian theory known as intelligent design, as an alternative to natural selection, the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster wrote to the Kansas School Board asking for the pastafarian version of intelligent design to be taught to schoolchildren, as an alternative to the Christian theory.

In the same spirit, Mr Alm's pastafarian-style application for a driving licence was a response to the Austrian recognition of confessional headgear in official photographs.
The licence took three years to come through and, according to Mr Alm, he was asked to submit to a medical interview to check on his mental fitness to drive but - straining credulity - his efforts have finally paid off.
It is the police who issue driving licences in Austria, and they have duly issued a laminated card showing Mr Alm in his unorthodox item of religious headgear.

The next step, Mr Alm told the Austrian news agency APA, is to apply to the Austrian authorities for pastafarianism to become an officially recognised faith.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-14135523

Posted: 14-07-2011 12:35 Post subject:

I'm glsd I did a search as I was going to put a link to that!

Posted: 05-08-2013 03:32 Post subject:

Posted: 05-08-2013 08:53 Post subject: