Slashdot Mirror

We atheists have been given the short shrift for a very long time now.

The god you believe in FSM will continue to welcome you in it's noodly embrace. Maybe.

If that is your claim, then what is the harm in teaching both theories?

I don't care if creationism is taught, where it belongs in a philosophy, religion, mythology or other class but it does not belong in a science class. And if it's going to be taught in other classes then other creation mythologies should be taught alongside it. Such as the The Navajo Creation Story and the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

And creationism is no more scientifically discontinuous than evolution is.

Evolution is a scientific theory but creationism IS NOT. And Intelligent Design is just an attempt to sneak creationism into the science class.

Falcon

These backwards magical-thinking buffoons have no evidence, no tests, nothing to point to a different theory; they have a book. A book they believe trumps the evidence of our own eyes and our most advanced scientific methods.

Evolutionary theory has no tests either. You have a book too: Origin of Species. You have no evidence of your own eyes because your life span is less than 100 years and the lifespan of human existence is easily less than 10,000 years. Your only "evidence" says that because Animal A has feathers and Animal B has feathers and Animal A lived a long time ago then Animal A must be related to B. How do you explain that leap of logic? That's what I call magical thinking. That is no evidence at all.

YES! YES! I agree!!!

Evolution is just theory and science is just a bunch of theories!

I also want public funds to be spent teaching the gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster!

We also have a book!

I say all three theories (evolution, ID, F.S.M.ism) should be presented with equal time and children should be left to decide on their own!!

Could somebody just mail the Flying Spaghetti Monster original letter to everyone in this board?

Oh, and BTW, if haven't done it yet. Read it. It is the best rebuttal to Int.Design I have ever read.
 

Silly AC, everyone knows that has to do with the decline in piracy!

I think a good example of this is the Pastafarian view regarding pirates and global temperature. Over the past 100 years global temperatures have gone up, while the population of pirates have gone down. A nice chart can be seen here:

http://www.venganza.org/piratesarecool4.gif

However, as smitten as I am with the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster the causality of global temperature increase being attributed to the decrease in the number of pirates seems silly at best.

I am sure a large portion of obese people have played video games. I am sure a large portion of people with cancer, heart disease and diabetes have played video games. I am sure a lot of people who have died have played video games. Therefore the reason for obesity, illness and death *must* be video games, right? Or not.

There is a direct correlation between piracy and lost sales, I've seen it. Grow up.

There is also a direct correlation between the lack of pirates and global warming.

All of this piracy is saving the planet So grow up and get over it.

I personally believe that everyone was touched by His Noodly Appendage. Kinda like your "poof" theory, but with pasta sauce. Ramen.

how could we tell? I don't know enough to prove him wrong, so whatever.

This theory is thoroughly explained here: http://www.venganza.org/ and here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Spaghetti_Monster

Evidently, you have to give me a bunch of money and goto this site

No, you don't have to give me money but that site has all the info you should need.

The Great Flying Spaghetti Monster has revealed to us that there is a link between pirates and global warming, as piracy goes down, global warming increases.

Hear hear! And the fact that there hasn't been any global warming for ten years now (i.e., since 1998) is proof!

Oh, praise His Noodly Appendage.

The graph needs to be extended.

The Great Flying Spaghetti Monster has revealed to us that there is a link between pirates and global warming, as piracy goes down, global warming increases. Surely this is evidence (not that any is needed) for this basic truth? As pirates steal oil tankers the price of oil will increase thereby limiting its consumption and decreasing the amount of global warming.

It's plain simple logic, just like the plain, simple, wholesome taste of pasta with a tomato sauce.

Any anyway, "Science" already has a better "alternative to an intelligent creator".

All hail to His Noodly Appendages!
(it's been proven by Science!)

RAmen.

Any anyway, "Science" already has a better "alternative to an intelligent creator".

All hail to His Noodly Appendages!
(it's been proven by Science!)

RAmen.

The problem with that is that the new is supposed to be a check in this system of checks and balances. That is a major reason for the freedom of the press. They are supposed to be able to investigate and criticize the government. If you bring in "news for ratings" you break the balance. The news is supposed to report...well, the news. Biases will happen, but gross, conscious biases prevent people from getting the facts. The fact that many news organizations wrote positive articles about Obama can be directly abtributed to his charisma and positive message. What I found appalling is the lack of research and fact finding the news has been doing on either side. They should have been digging deep and offering information without an agenda. Fox on the other hand was inventing stories with and obvious bias. They had nothing to back up many of the stories, but headlined them anyway. This is just irresponsible, and if someone were doing it in the liberal direction, it would be just as bad. Even if all news organizations were unbiased, you have to realize that the news will not always be in the direction you like. Putting the number of article for one candidate against the number of the other one without understanding the other factors is simply bad science and is only hurting us as a nation. Remember that the decrease in pirates is the reason for global warming... http://www.venganza.org/about/open-letter/

That has been long known!

I think liquidpele just uncovered that Open Office is actually subsidized by the Pastafarian Church.

Brilliant. That would also reverse this trend nicely.

GO McCain/Palin!

Scientists have attempted to map these regions. They are, of course, not sure what is tugging at the galaxies, but by looking at the relative velocities it's possible to create a map of the structure of the filament like "flows". Their best guess at the moment is: this

I think you'll find that's 'midgit' not 'midgets'. Heathen.

Lo:

http://www.venganza.org/him2.jpg

Science is an attempt to find testable hypothesis that help us understand how the world might work. Science knows that it doesn't know all the answers and the "answers" it puts forward may turn out to be incorrect.

It is not an attempt to explain how the world works. By the very nature of the question, any attempt to explain how the world works must allow for the possibility that some particular untestable hypothesis is in fact how the world works.

The key advantages of science include:
* Testability: Even if a theory cannot be proven today, it should be provable or disprovable with enough information and technology. Big Bang and human-evolution theories fit into this category.
* Utility: Most scientific theories have or in the future will have applications which allow us to create new things, good or bad.

While you can argue that religious theories that explain the way the world works have some utility, by definition they are not testable. If they were, they would fit in the realm of science or, if and when a given religious theory is proven false, in the realm of discarded theories.

Is Biblical Creationism the correct explanation of how the universe works? Maybe. We'll never know as long as the universe is obeying the rules it is currently obeying. Of course, if rapture comes all bets are off. Is Biblical Creationism science? Not hardly. Is it wrong to teach a science course that says "according to the data we have available, the theory of evolution put forth by Darwin and tweaked by others best explains the variety of life forms found in the fossil record and on earth today"? No, it is not wrong to teach that. In fact, if you are going to teach the science of biological history, it's both scientifically incorrect and morally wrong not to teach it.

The one scientific disservice we do to our youth is to pretend that non-scientific explanations of the world are junk. They may be junk science, but as non-scientific explanations of how the universe works, they may turn out to be correct. All hail the Flying Spaghetti Monster!

I say we just load up the ships with pirates. Should have roughly the same effect.
I mean, look at this chart!

Neither argument has been proven correct.

Thanks for providing an object lesson for why we need more science in our schools.

Because you obviously didn't get it.

Science doesn't prove things. It disproves things.

So if you say one is a theory by your own logic you should say the other is also,

Mostly because you are ignorant of what the word "theory" means in a scientific context.

You see, evolution qualifies as a well-tested scientific theory.

The other doesn't even qualify as a hypothesis.

Because, you see, one requirement for a hypothesis -- or a theory -- is that it be falsifiable. The claim that the Earth is six thousand years old has quite a lot of evidence against it -- nearly as much as the claim that the Earth is flat.

So, of course, modern Creationists claim that everything was placed just so by God to fool us scientists -- that he is tricking our instruments, or that he put the carbon there, and the dinosaur bones in the ground, to make us think the world is older than it is. (Pretty devious for a purely-good being, but I'll let it slide.)

But that claim is not falsifiable -- we can never disprove it, because for any evidence we find against it, some lunatic can say "Oh, God put that there to fool you."

Which puts it strictly in the realm of fantasy -- I can make up crazy shit all day that isn't falsifiable. Take the Flying Spaghetti Monster, for example. You can't disprove it -- therefore, it must be given time in the classroom!

In fact several places it's mentioned that God doesn't have any concept of Time.

Citation, please? There are several public-domain translations of the Good Book online; give me a book, a chapter, and a verse number, and I can go check for myself.

Unless, of course, this is just your interpretation.

And I have not problem with creationism being taught as long as it is taught as science. So every bad fact they have can be pointed out.

I do. Creationism belongs in philosophy class, not science, because creationism makes no testable claims. Creationism says that the world we see is the world science describes, only god not natural processes made it that way. Dinosaur bones in the rock? God hid them there. Structural and genetic similarities in the tree of life? God did it. Why? God works in mysterious ways. No testable claims. Or, more accurately, any testable claims are then altered to match the outcome of the test.

Science class is where we learn how claims are tested. Philosophy class is where we learn to compare systems of thought and see how they differ. The Flying Spaghetti Monster was invented to show now easy it is to make up systems of thought that "explain" the world we see without making testable claims.

But there are three sides to this debate.

As long as they teach all creationism theories, including the one I believe in.

Since when did the multiverse colt become make it onto slashdot. There is no scientific evidence for it. It is not testable. It is not scientific. It might as well be an invisible flying spaghetti monster.

If we all originated from africa, then why oh why did Europeans come back to africa many years later with significantly more advanced technology and knowledge than the local populace? I've asked this a million times, and not one person has had the balls to answer it truthfully.

I've asked millions of times how life began on Earth, and nobody can answer my question. That confirms the "painful" truth that it was created by the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

Just get some cajones and admit it. I mean, I know you deny it becasue it's really an uncomfortable truth with uncomfortable consequences. I understand. If we were created a flying ball of spaghetti, with meatball eyes, think of what that says about us!

Personally I think I should have equal time to evangelize the Church of flying Spaghetti Monster.

http://www.venganza.org/

I'll avoid taking time now to argue I think this is indicative of Design, because I expect to see the usual spontaneous compulsory posts insisting it isn't indicative Design, as sufficient psychological indication of it being considered plausibly Design.

But I will. This is clearly an indication of Intelligent Design. His noodliness is obvious in almost everything we do! The recent discovery of the world's smallest snake makes clear that FSM has a message to the world: I am ruler of all I survey! Worship me!

Compare pictures here, of the world's smallest snake and an artists rendering of the FSM. Aren't the similarities striking?

Long live Intelligent Design!

I'll avoid taking time now to argue I think this is indicative of Design, because I expect to see the usual spontaneous compulsory posts insisting it isn't indicative Design, as sufficient psychological indication of it being considered plausibly Design.

But I will. This is clearly an indication of Intelligent Design. His noodliness is obvious in almost everything we do! The recent discovery of the world's smallest snake makes clear that FSM has a message to the world: I am ruler of all I survey! Worship me!

Compare pictures here, of the world's smallest snake and an artists rendering of the FSM. Aren't the similarities striking?

Long live Intelligent Design!

what about people who believe in this one?

The pirate/temperature graph has been part of FSM scriptures since the beginning.

Really? How many are working on counter-theories to evolution? Yeah, sit down Skippy. SOME scientists are just as religious about their theories as religions themselves.

Try reading his sentence again:

More importantly, they are always looking for new evidence which will either corroborate or contradict their theories.

The question is... is there actual evidence that can be found anywhere to indicate that evolution is clearly wrong?

And don't give me the idiocy of irreducible complexity - arguing that this debunks evolution so it must be intelligent design is kinda like saying: "Well I can't figure it out, so some guy in white pajamas musta didit". Might as well argue that it was a care bear armed with a pickle, or maybe the flying spaghetti monster...

One might also argue that there is a giant invisible, undetectable yet all powerful beetle that pushes the earth around the sun.

That would be the flying spaghetti monster. All hail His Noodly Appendage.

If anyone wishes to know more about what the parent is talking about, I've collected some required reading below. May it enlighten you wholly:

Genesis

Chapter One
 
In the beginning, the universe was cold and barren and empty. Suddenly a massive explosion occurred made up of particles and strings. In time many strings came together and his Noodleness was born. But the Flying Spaghetti Monster was not yet complete and he commanded, 'give me two balls in which to increase my mass so that I may travel' and the balls were created and gently lodged into his mass. When the Flying Spaghetti Monster felt it become part of him he felt that it was good. Then he commanded, 'Give me eyes for which to see that which needs to be done' and the Flying Spaghetti Monster took his first look at the early universe and said, 'Boy, do I have a lot of work to do.' Thus ended the first day.

He then with his mighty noodles organized the mess and created galaxies, nebulas and stars. After he looked at what he had done he saw that is was good. Thus ended the second day.

He amused himself by sitting on a black hole spinning to such speed that his Noodleness was flown away from the hole at a great speed. A galatic 'WHeeeeeeee' was usually present at the point of release. In one particular galaxy, the ride was so great and gave him so much pleasure that he released a galactic fart, the shock wave so great that it collapsed a nearby nebula. He watched as the cloud grew into a planetary system complete with a different kind of star then he had created and he saw that it was good.

He was so pleased that he returned to every galaxy he had made, and to every nebula large and small he turned and produced the same galactic fart and he did this throughout the universe. Thus ended the third day.

On the fourth day a particular planet caught the Flying Spaghetti Monster's eye. A small blue planet, in a good neighborhood. He commanded 'Let the land rise from this little gem and fire burn within to bring forth mountains.' And he saw that it was good. 'And let there be plants and foliage on the land, because blue green is so slick' and trees were seen on the mountains and he rejoiced at what he had done.

It was at this point that the Flying Spaghetti Monster realized that he was alone. 'In all of my travels I have met no one like me, nothing that.' And the Flying Spaghetti Monster sat atop the highest mountain and sobbed and his tears created the world's first rivers. Thus ended the fifth day.

On the morning of the sixth day, the Flying Spaghetti Monster wiped his eyes and combined several minerals together from the earth and added water and stirred the mixture with his noodles into the form of a midget and blew the breath of life into him saying 'Here is one I may talk with, walk with, nurture and be friends with.' The midget opened his eyes looked at the Flying Spaghetti Monster and smiled (although it could have been gas) and said 'Googa wawaa poopoo'. The Flying Spaghetti Monster sighed. Thus ended the sixth day.

On the seventh day the Flying Spaghetti Monster said 'Fuck it, I'm going to the beach.'

Scientist 1: "Hey everybody! I have a new theory! Wanna hear about it?"

Scientist 2: "Sure! Golly gee whiz I'm always excited when there's a new theory in town. What is it?"

Scientist 1: "I think that since everything was created as a result of something else, being a reaction, event, or otherwise, that there has to be an original creator!!"

Scientist 2: "Wow! How did the creator get there?"

Scientist 1: "I don't know, but that isn't important now. What we need are some good hard evidence. Especially so we can explain how us humans got on earth. I mean, those crazy evolutionists don't even have EVERY PIECE OF THE PUZZLE yet! Even though they are finding more answers in physical evidence and test results year after year, it's obvious they are only going in the wrong direction. This is proof that they believe in Darwin; such blind faith."

Scientist 2: "Hey - I agree, completely agree. Hey! Speaking of evidence, I found some the other day, that goes beyond Jesus Christ, that invisible man who I gave my soul to! Her name is Gaia, and she was the one who originally created the earth!"

Scientist 1: Are you crazy? Where is your empirical evidence?? I think I am on a better track than you. I think I have evidence that the universe was created by two gods, Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca who attacked and ripped apart Hungry Woman to create the universe. Where did I leave those notes..."

Scientist 2: "Ah HA! But look at what I found.. *reads notes* That the universe was created when Papa and her husband Rangi hugged and bore children, and were subsequently separated by their son Tane who let light shine between them!!! The Moriori knew it all along!"

Ok, you get the point. Personally I like the FSM. The rules aren't as threatening as most religions, and it doesn't discriminate. But, even though there may be more evidence against it, I must follow my blind faith in Bob. Why? Because that is the least financially risky religion. "Eternal Salvation or TRIPLE Your Money Back!"

The Church Of The Flying Spaguetti Monster made it to the classroom!

scientists try to scare us about global warming, but nature has a way to balance things out, we don't have to do anything to fight global warming:

with hotter temperatures, vampires get more sun, thus dying off. with less vampires to prey on pirates, pirate numbers explode, thus lowering global temperatures. with global temperatures down, vampires get less sun, rebound in population, and begin keeping piurate populations in check again

see the beauty and wonder of the natural world?

Which obviously resulted in the ice age all those years later. See illustration of latter-day pirate activity

Yup, its the whole "correlation doesn't imply causation" all over again. See the Pastafarians' position that global warming is a result of the decrease in the number of pirates over the last 200 years.

Piracy up, global warming down.

Greenpeace is certainly involved in piracy

Entirely consistent with their environmentalist goals. That's part of their strategy to stop global warming.

He is not eating shit out of a bowl, he's eating out the same bowl he shits in. I can't be bothered to learn the cleaning regime between these two acts, but there is a difference between shit being the main course and shit simply being an additive. Of course I wish neither on myself and that's why I stay clear from posting any images online ever, otherwise his noodly appendage might reach out and get me.

The upper limit on the amount of baryonic matter is computed with increasing precision based upon WMAP and other CMB observations. It's something like 4-5% of the total mass of the universe. You should avail yourself of the procedure used to get the result. It's a beautiful calculation.

...We know that dark matter can't be accounted for by large mass objects (like planets, asteroids, dust, etc) because CMB measurements tell us that the total amount of baryonic matter ('normal' matter made up of protons and neutrons) is a small fraction of the total matter

At least it will help with global warming.