Radical Atheist

If I may, I’d like to introduce into evidence the following letter, written by the founder of the FSM movement. Who should know better the purpose of the concept of the FSM than the person who created it?

Open Letter To Kansas School Board

I am writing you with much concern after having read of your hearing to decide whether the alternative theory of Intelligent Design should be taught along with the theory of Evolution. I think we can all agree that it is important for students to hear multiple viewpoints so they can choose for themselves the theory that makes the most sense to them. I am concerned, however, that students will only hear one theory of Intelligent Design.

Let us remember that there are multiple theories of Intelligent Design. I and many others around the world are of the strong belief that the universe was created by a Flying Spaghetti Monster. It was He who created all that we see and all that we feel. We feel strongly that the overwhelming scientific evidence pointing towards evolutionary processes is nothing but a coincidence, put in place by Him.

It is for this reason that I’m writing you today, to formally request that this alternative theory be taught in your schools, along with the other two theories. In fact, I will go so far as to say, if you do not agree to do this, we will be forced to proceed with legal action. I’m sure you see where we are coming from. If the Intelligent Design theory is not based on faith, but instead another scientific theory, as is claimed, then you must also allow our theory to be taught, as it is also based on science, not on faith.

Some find that hard to believe, so it may be helpful to tell you a little more about our beliefs. We have evidence that a Flying Spaghetti Monster created the universe. None of us, of course, were around to see it, but we have written accounts of it. We have several lengthy volumes explaining all details of His power. Also, you may be surprised to hear that there are over 10 million of us, and growing. We tend to be very secretive, as many people claim our beliefs are not substantiated by observable evidence. What these people don’t understand is that He built the world to make us think the earth is older than it really is. For example, a scientist may perform a carbon-dating process on an artifact. He finds that approximately 75% of the Carbon-14 has decayed by electron emission to Nitrogen-14, and infers that this artifact is approximately 10,000 years old, as the half-life of Carbon-14 appears to be 5,730 years. But what our scientist does not realize is that every time he makes a measurement, the Flying Spaghetti Monster is there changing the results with His Noodly Appendage. We have numerous texts that describe in detail how this can be possible and the reasons why He does this. He is of course invisible and can pass through normal matter with ease.

I’m sure you now realize how important it is that your students are taught this alternate theory. It is absolutely imperative that they realize that observable evidence is at the discretion of a Flying Spaghetti Monster. Furthermore, it is disrespectful to teach our beliefs without wearing His chosen outfit, which of course is full pirate regalia. I cannot stress the importance of this enough, and unfortunately cannot describe in detail why this must be done as I fear this letter is already becoming too long. The concise explanation is that He becomes angry if we don’t.

You may be interested to know that global warming, earthquakes, hurricanes, and other natural disasters are a direct effect of the shrinking numbers of Pirates since the 1800s. For your interest, I have included a graph of the approximate number of pirates versus the average global temperature over the last 200 years. As you can see, there is a statistically significant inverse relationship between pirates and global temperature.

In conclusion, thank you for taking the time to hear our views and beliefs. I hope I was able to convey the importance of teaching this theory to your students. We will of course be able to train the teachers in this alternate theory. I am eagerly awaiting your response, and hope dearly that no legal action will need to be taken. I think we can all look forward to the time when these three theories are given equal time in our science classrooms across the country, and eventually the world; One third time for Intelligent Design, one third time for Flying Spaghetti Monsterism, and one third time for logical conjecture based on overwhelming observable evidence.

Sincerely Yours,

Bobby Henderson, concerned citizen.

P.S. I have included an artistic drawing of Him creating a mountain, trees, and a midget. Remember, we are all His creatures.

http://www.venganza.org/about/open-letter/
(graph of relationship between the number of pirates and the global average temperature and a drawing of the FSM not included in this quote)

The concept has been borrowed by atheists and applied to religious faith in general, but the original focus of the parody was the Kansas School Board fiasco over the Intellectual Design movement.

Can satire ridicule and humiliate? Sure, watch Life of Brian and Monty Python and the Holy Grail sometime (both available from Netflix-awarded five stars by this reviewer). But satire is also useful in making people think instead of presume, to look at familiar situations from a different perspective.

When it comes to granting an unwarranted exemption-from-criticism to religious belief I agree with AC Grayling when he writes,

It is time to reverse the prevailing notion that religious commitment is intrinsically deserving of respect, and that it should be handled with kid gloves and protected by custom and in some cases law against criticism and ridicule.

It is time to refuse to tip-toe around people who claim respect, consideration, special treatment, or any other kind of immunity, on the grounds that they have a religious faith, as if having faith were a privilege-endowing virtue, as if it were noble to believe in unsupported claims and ancient superstitions. It is neither. Faith is a commitment to belief contrary to evidence and reason, as between them Kierkegaard and the tale of Doubting Thomas are at pains to show; their example should lay to rest the endeavours of some (from the Pope to the Southern Baptists) who try to argue that faith is other than at least non-rational, given that for Kierkegaard its virtue precisely lies in its irrationality.

On the contrary: to believe something in the face of evidence and against reason – to believe something by faith – is ignoble, irresponsible and ignorant, and merits the opposite of respect. It is time to say so.

Those who claim to be “hurt” or “offended” by the criticisms or ridicule of people who do not share their views, yet who seek to silence others by law or by threats of violence, are trebly in the wrong: they undermine the central and fundamental value of free speech, without which no other civil liberties are possible; they claim, on no justifiable ground, a right to special status and special treatment on the sole ground that they have chosen to believe a set of propositions; and they demand that people who do not accept their beliefs and practices should treat these latter in ways that implicitly accept their holder’s evaluation of them.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2006/oct/19/acgrayling

It’s clear that the original intent of the FSM proposal was specifically to challenge the philosophical underpinnings of the ID movement in its attempt to infiltrate the Kansas high school science curriculum. I submit it could be successfully argued that the FSM has been co-opted by atheism to illustrate how religions are formed and how difficult they are to debunk. In neither case do I believe there is evidence of intent to ridicule or humiliate believers.

However, we all know that intent does not guarantee a particular outcome. Similarly, intent does not protect against mis-perceptions. If offense is taken by satire directed against religious belief, it must be understood that this is a choice, the insulted party is responsible for their perception. No one knows another mind completely. If one chooses to take offense the intent of the “offender” matters little.

There are many people I go out of my way not to offend. I respect them and feel they deserve this from me. Some of them I know as individuals while others are members of groups that as a group earn respect.

Religious believers is not a group that has earned respect, and loses points of respect every time I hear them demanding it or threatening what they’ll do if they don’t get it. Atheists are expected to passively submit to frequent postings on the internet and statements by people with whom we associate that portray atheists as evil, devil worshipers, Satanists, Communists, molesters, rapists, doomed to hell to suffer eternal torment for having the audacity to question the gods and to laugh at the belief in them. And while not taking offense ourselves, we’re expected to offer respect to those who espouse and announce such judgmental ignorance. In fact, we’re further castigated for not showing respect to our overlords, just another sin added to an already long list. Sure, that sounds reasonable. Let me throw myself in the mud so that you may step on me and avoid becoming soiled, my lord.

Theism is horrified by the realization that atheism has finally developed into a formidable foe. There is a growing number of atheists who can defend their opinion with intelligence and citations. A growing number of “celebrity atheists” are emerging, outspoken and out of the closet, the beginning of a well prepared counterforce to the Jim Bakkers and Pat Robertsons we’ve had since the beginning of this nation. And the FSM is one of those celebrity atheists. Some branches of theism despise cartoons about their prophets and gods, but now atheism has its own.

The FSM is an appropriate satire on several levels. It was successful in exposing the true intentions of Dembski, Behe and their fellows. It’s equally effective when used by atheists to draw attention to the often overlooked weaknesses in the arguments supporting the notion that gods exist.

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People contend that science and religion can coexist. Science itself is not anti-religion but much of what we’ve learned about reality from science exposes the errors in theology.

The Bible, the Koran and the Book of Mormon were written by people of a certain time and a particular social setting. Holy books reflect the society that gave birth to them. None of them clearly and without requiring convoluted interpretation state anything that was not already known in that time and part of the world.

Why wouldn’t the gods mention something in their books (using “their” loosely, as we know that the books were written by human scribes who only claimed to be inspired by the subject of the book) that was going to be common knowledge only much later. Think of the stunning effect that would have on future generations. A specific and detailed prediction of the internet, for instance. Something that would have made no sense at all to the scribes but would only be understood 1000 years later. The gods in the holy books give no indication of knowing anything about the rest of the world, present or future, that isn’t also common knowledge of the time and people from whence it comes. I’ve heard tons of excuses for that but no rational example of any god showing an awareness of something completely unknown and foreign to the authors of those books.

The Bible, because it’s the one I’m most familiar with, clearly indicates “truths” that are not correct according to the current evidence. For example, the Earth did not come into being in seven days or seven thousand years (There are two places in scripture that say a day with the Lord is as a thousand years, which either means that his time scale is different than ours or that he’s a really boring person) but over millions of years. Science is clearly at odds with the Biblical creation story. Conclusions drawn from available evidence also lend no validity to American Indian creation stories, Egyptian creation stories or any of the thousands of other fantastic and supernatural creation stories.

Creation stories persist because humans have only recently begun to have the means to examine nature on the scale we can today. We’ve been ignorantly superstitious for thousands of years. We’ve only been able to look at the universe the way we can today in the last hundred. There’s a lot of ingrained ignorance, yes, in even the most brilliant mind, to eradicate. We really only just begun.

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If you think the title is an oxymoron, keep reading:

Fascination with animals permeates childhood. Yet, with biology books oozing evolutionary propaganda and conjecture, an animal enthusiast’s faith in the Bible is in danger of erosion. So how can a Christian child maintain and grow their faith if they want to study animals? The answer is the latest book in Jeannie Fulbright’s creation science series, Exploring Creation with Zoology III, which covers the land animals created on the sixth day.

Released in March 2008, Christian book stores are already selling out of this well researched, scientifically profound book, which is the fifth book in Fulbright’s creation science sequence. Covering all the land creatures from parasites to primates, Exploring Creation with Zoology III presents scientifically sound teaching, along with evidence for deliberate design, a biblical model for origins and explanations that expose the absurdity of evolutionary leaps of logic. All this is accessible to a child, with Fulbright’s engaging writing style, full color photos and entertaining experiments and projects. Many children and parents alike will appreciate the chapter dedicated to dinosaurs. Not only will they learn the scientific classifications of the dinosaur kinds and become virtual experts in the field, families will discover data that supports the dinosaurs’ recent history on planet earth.

“The animals God created are beyond fascinating. Children need a resource with which they can study them in-depth, one which does not compromise their faith or sow seeds of doubt,” Fulbright communicated at a recent conference in Georgia. (Source)

It’s hard to know where to start dissecting this example of horrid ignorance.

“Yet, with biology books oozing evolutionary propaganda and conjecture, an animal enthusiast’s faith in the Bible is in danger of erosion.” Nice use of terms that make an emotional rather than intellectual objection to evolution, but unfortunately it lays bare the lack your lack of understanding about the theory. If children’s faith is in jeopardy from being exposed to knowledge rather than mythology, good. Blind faith can only fill the gaps in our knowledge. Gawd forbid any child should be allowed to think for themselves.

“So how can a Christian child maintain and grow their faith if they want to study animals?” So how can we be sure our brainwashing isn’t undone by exposure to real scientific research?

“The answer is the latest book in Jeannie Fulbright’s creation science series, Exploring Creation with Zoology III, which covers the land animals created on the sixth day.” The answer is compelling children to read baseless speculation disguised as fact.

“…this well researched, scientifically profound book…” What can I say but, bullshit. The only reference book used by this author was the Bible.

“Covering all the land creatures from parasites to primates” Not humans, though, because we all know humans aren’t animals, they’re god’s favorite little playthings.

“…Exploring Creation with Zoology III presents scientifically sound teaching, along with evidence for deliberate design, a biblical model for origins and explanations that expose the absurdity of evolutionary leaps of logic.” Of course we can’t explain design, since there’s no absolute standard for what compromises design. And just trust us that evolutionary theory is absurd. Don’t risk your faith by trying to actually study it yourself.

“All this is accessible to a child, with Fulbright’s engaging writing style, full color photos and entertaining experiments and projects.” Because even creationists realize that propaganda works best if it’s presented in a friendly, entertaining fashion. The pretty pictures distract a child from asking uncomfortable questions.

“Many children and parents alike will appreciate the chapter dedicated to dinosaurs. Not only will they learn the scientific classifications of the dinosaur kinds and become virtual experts in the field, families will discover data that supports the dinosaurs’ recent history on planet earth.” I sure hope she explains that god buried all those fossils where he did just to fool the paleontologists because that god, he’s got a real sense of humor.

“Children need a resource with which they can study them in-depth, one which does not compromise their faith or sow seeds of doubt” We sure hope you’re home schooling your kids as well, because every Christian knows that education is like loamy soil and water to those seeds of doubt.

This book and the review are both so transparently ignorant. They reflect the fear creationists feel of the future, of our increasing knowledge about the workings and processes of nature. They know as well as we do that for every little bit of verifiable knowledge mankind uncovers, the need to invent gods to explain those things we don’t understand (or want to admit to ourselves because reality is so uncertain) is reduced.

Eventually there will be so little left to credit to the gods that all religious belief will become no more important to us than any other outdated superstition. Raise your hand if you still avoid stepping on sidewalk cracks, or worry about spilled salt. Every day another old, tired superstition falls by the wayside, usually without ever being well understood. Most superstitions began as a means of protecting oneself from the revenge of angry gods. Some had more mundane origins. But very few people have ever studied the origins of superstitions, fables and myths. Most of us quit believing in the efficacy of tossing the salt over our shoulder or avoiding the cracks because we understood, at a nearly unconscious level, that there was no cause-and-effect at play here. How in the world could stepping on a crack cause your mother to break her back? It’s patently nonsensical. A creationist would be hard-pressed to find causality where there so evidently is none.

In a world dedicated to sanity and reasonableness any parent who either allowed, encouraged or required their child to read and believe that book would be…wait, it isn’t necessary to even conjecture. In that kind of world, that book would be perceived rightly as satire.

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As long as god refuses to personally appear in person during Super Bowl each year, god will be shown to be false and atheism true. The day god appears at half time, then theism will be valid.

Oh, someone says god doesn’t work that way? That I obviously don’t know very much about god and how he does things? That god is obvious if one looks to find him?

Precisely. That concept works both ways.

I can understand not grasping evolutionary theory in its entirety, but the basics are out there in language anyone can grasp.

I strive everyday not to let what I believe supersede what I know. What I believe fills the gaps in what I know. What I know is always of higher value than what I believe.

So I can’t understand people who will ignore adding to what they know just because it takes away from the what they believe category. Who wants to continue to believe if one has the chance to know? Wonder is great, but why wonder when you can know. It doesn’t matter that knowledge isn’t complete or absolute. Belief is there to plugs the holes.
Human advancement is only possible if decreasing the number of holes is more highly regarded than worrying about what will happen to the nonsense we used to fill the holes. It doesn’t matter, we’re done with it now. It’s no longer relevant. Creationism and ID are the stuff we plug the holes with. Every year mankind advances, there are fewer and fewer holes.

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My ability to appreciate absurdity is being taxed to the limit with this story

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Ben Stein, known for his lead role in the film Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and his Comedy Central show Win Ben Stein’s Money, believes in liberty and truth. In recognition of this, Biola University’s masters in science and religion program will present him with the 2008 Phillip E. Johnson Award for Liberty and Truth on March 27, a month before the release of his major controversial motion picture, Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed.

In light of Stein’s contribution to the pursuit of liberty and truth, particularly as it relates to the field of Intelligent Design, he is being honored with the 2008 Johnson Award. The award ceremony will feature premiere clips from the forthcoming movie, the personal appearance of scientists who were expelled from their jobs because they are sympathetic to Intelligent Design, and will include a brief address by Stein.

Biola University, a Christian university in Southern California, established the Phillip E. Johnson Award for Liberty and Truth in 2004 to honor legal scholar and Berkeley law professor Phillip E. Johnson, who was the award’s first recipient. The award recognizes Johnson’s pivotal role in advancing our understanding of design in the universe by opening up informed dissent to Darwinian and materialistic theories of evolution. British philosopher Antony Flew, once considered the most prominent defender of atheism in the English-speaking world, became the second recipient of this award in 2006 for his Socratic approach of “following the evidence where it leads” and abandoning atheism on account of design arguments.

The sentences I made bold almost made me spit coffee on my keyboard.

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