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Pastafarian Wins Right To Wear Colander In License Photo
gregmon writes "An Austrian follower of the Flying Spaghetti Monster has finally won the right to don the religious headgear of his choosing (a spaghetti strainer) in his driving license photo. After a three year battle with the un-enlightened Austrian authorities, Niko Aim can now wear his colander in all official photos."
THIS is news for nerds!
That must be some heretical Pastafarian sect. Traditional Pastafarians wear pirate hats, not strainers.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
That's using his noodle.
If Muslims and Jews can get away with cutting up the genitalia of their completely healthy sons, why can't anybody wear the most preposterous adornments for a license photo?
Authorities say that he did not pick up his license for full 2 years and that the unusual hat has nothing to do with rules for any religious exceptions to *passport photo rules* because it is a drivers license. The law for driver licenses only specifies that the face in its entirety has to visible (spelling that out a bit more, but I did not read the rules myself). This also means that the conclusion "in all official photos" is not quite correct. If he would apply for a passport authorities would have to conduct an in-depth review... The question remains why it took one year for the license.
Do you feel that a driving an automobile does not require a license that shows at least minimum capacity to actually operate said vehicle?
Spelling and Grammar errors have been added to this post for your enjoyment
You don't have to have an official photo or even a license to drive... so long as you stay on your own property, and off of *public* roads. If you haven't proven you can drive, I don't want you doing it anywhere near me.
You're a moron.
Seriously, this is so wrong.
This is the opposite effect of what should be happening.
This is insane.
Religions shouldn't get special treatment, it's moronic.
The correct utterance for this occasion-most-touched-by-His-Noodly-Appendage is 'Ramen!'
Do you feel that a driving an automobile does not require a license that shows at least minimum capacity to actually operate said vehicle?
You just don't understand Libertarianism. In Libertarian Fantasy Land (tm), the Free Market (tm) solves all problems. Got run over by a guy without a license? Guess you'd better vote with your wallet next time!
Those people, who ordinarily would keep their faith to themselves, get pissed off at the trolls and fight back.
You, er, might want to re-calibrate your sample...
Yes atheists are assholes but, bright side, there are no atheism-motivated wars or ethnic cleansings.
If you mod me down the terrorists will have won
Yes what an ass. The right attitude is to sit in the middle, never challenge any stupidity, never take any risks, never try to change the world for the better by confronting harmful superstitions. It feels nice to hand out judgments to both sides of the argument wearing the "reasonable guy in the middle" hat.
This isn't about mocking religious people, this is about mocking multiculturalism, the idea that peoples rights should be affected by their religion or culture. It is clearly antithetical to the idea of a free society, and it restricts people from evolving their culture, but somehow, the powers that be need help to see that.
In this case, the right to choose what headgear to wear on your official photo is restricted if you don't belong to a particular religion. Either it is important that people don't wear headgear on official photos (to make recognition easier), and nobody should be allowed to wear headgear, or it isn't important, and everybody should be allowed to.
Cue a million posts by smarmy fuckers about how religion is the only thing harming society, and if we could just make one more smug internet post about the Flying Spaghetti Monster, it would all go away!
You complain about people who do not share your myths as ''trolling religious people'' and then proceed to do the same. What you are doing is to discourage discussion by getting those who might reply to think ''am I a troll and asshole?''.
People might not get so upsed about beliefs if everyone did indeed ''keep their faith to themselves'', but this generally does not happen with the result that you irritate non believers and induce those who adhere to different myths to shout back to show that their myths are the true ones ...
No: I don't think that ''religion is the only thing harming society'', there are plenty of other things as well.
What Mr Niko Alm is doing is to raise the question as to why religious people can bend society to give them special privileges. Why should everyone not be allowed to wear what ever they want on their head in their driving license photograph? Why restrict this right just to those who believe some mythologies to be true ?
Huh? Do you not understand the point of Pastafarianism? It is to mock religion through demostrating equally ridiculous claims as religions and demanding that they be recognised to be as important as those other claims. No-one actually *believes* in the Flying Spaghetti Monster (no-one sane anyway) and that's the point.
Well let's see. On the one hand you've got daily, if not more frequent, stories pushing the new hotness strewn across all sections of Slashdot. On the other, you've got one story about something actually kind of serious (special consideration given to religion) in idle.
If a bunch of submitters start trying to get me to buy into pasta strainers, then maybe I'll get annoyed. Otherwise? Not terribly bothered.
Two virtually impossible to compile statistics:
Anybody not throwing their religion in my face could either be keeping quiet or not have one. Similarly, you can be pretty sure that smugly atheistic posts are posted by smug atheists; but you'll have a bit of trouble determining how many other posts are or are not posted by 'internet atheists' whose primary definition is not the god they don't believe in.
More to the point, two not clearly relevant statistics: People who merely proselytize in public, while somewhat irritating(and definitely nonzero in number), are making a basically harmless use of their rights to freedom of religion and speech. Similarly, 'internet atheists', while potentially obnoxious, are at worst a minor subcategory of the trolls of the WWW.
What counts is how efficiently well placed people throw their metaphysical positions, or the consequences thereof, into your face, your laws, or other aspects of your society. And on that metric, the news ain't pretty...
I've never had an atheist ringing my doorbell to promote atheism. So far only religious people did to promote their religion.
So far only religious people have asked me to keep quiet for a while before dinner.
So far I've only received religion-promoting pamphlets on the streets, never pamphlets promoting atheism.
So far I've only seen religious people wanting to control other people's desires on topics like euthanasia and gay marriage. It is not that atheists say that other's should go for euthanasia or must marry a same-sex person.
So yes, please re-calibrate. What you see is response to a trigger. Like this one, yes.
Bert
Austrian regulations for drivers license pictures state that they have to have a specified size and that the whole head has to be visible. There is no constraint that you cannot wear something on your head! Austrian police released a statement, that they do not care about that and granted it because it is within normal specifications. Also, there was no "three year battle" at all. The guy applied for a license(Note: he specified that he did not want to be notified(!)) and the license was granted. End of story. Since the guy had specified that he wanted to take care himself and check for completion of the request himself(!), the license was simply waiting for him for more than two years. http://derstandard.at/1310511140592/Fuehrerschein-Nudelsieb-doch-nicht-aus-religioesen-Gruenden-genehmigt
Thank you for at least admitting that your sole goal is to mock people until they don't dare speak against you. That puts you a step above most.
Of course, in reality, mocking people simply makes them harden their stance. But hey, don't let basic knowledge of human nature get in your way.
He needs psychiatric help.
Apparently, the professional who conducted his psych evaluation disagrees.
Do you think that religion's utility as a smokescreen is unrelated to the degree of reverence that common opinion affords it? (or, for that matter, that every would-be theocrat is, in fact, insincere?)
While there is certainly some good, old-fashioned, trolling just for its own sake among atheists as elsewhere, the whole point of exercises like Pastafarianism, getting a driver's license with a colander on your head, Draw Mohammed Day, and the like is to corrode, by public display of irreverence, the great power of automatic deference traditionally enjoyed by assorted religious symbols.
It wouldn't be such a strain if they didn't force him to do a psych test. In fact, if they just treated him like any other religious person, it wouldn't cost more than what the license costs to make for anyone.
I am pointing out that anyone who pretends to believe in a fake religion to mock real ones is a troll.
I think you're missing the real point of the Pastafarianism thing; that all religions are fake. Most people are used to treating them as "real", and most believers are afraid of examining their core beliefs; by pushing the absurdity of a colander in their faces, this guy and others are forcing them to look again at the basic issues, and maybe help a few of them realize the absurdity of the whole concept of a religion,or at least help them take it less seriously. That's a GOOD THING.
Blasphemy! May His Noodleyness strike you down with one powerful touch of his appendage!
Pastafarians rise up and smite the non-believer!
Seriously, you cannot be an atheist and beleive in the FSM. Atheists who use the the FSM to premote their agenda totally miss the point and aren't really welcomed in the church.
R'amen.
I know, I know. But people can't have it both ways.
This post contains benzene, nitrosamines, formaldehyde and hydrogen cyanide.
BULL FUCKING SHIT. You want to know what is a REAL waste of taxpayer money? Having organized religion manipulate the government to pass legislation that favors their goals. Granting tax-exempt status for religious institutions. State funding for social services managed by religious institutions. Having to fight the legal impact of religious indoctrination in the courts, per evolution vs. creationism. The so-called "war on terror" would not exist if people weren't so goddamned busy blowing each other up over fairy tales.
And the coup de grace: The lives damaged and lost due to the decades-long history of CHILD RAPE that was condoned and hidden by the Catholic church.
Don't get all whiny about one guy costing taxpayers money because he wants to point out the hypocrisy and idiocy of pandering to religious nutjobs. Religion has cost humanity far more in terms of lost lives, productivity, education, and money, than it will ever be able to repay in the form of "goodwill" and "spiritual comfort."
To be fair, given enough extremely good weed...
If a Jew really wants to wear a skullcap in their picture, let them. You know it's important to them. Far more so than it is to you to be able to wear a baseball cap. So why mock them? Why go through this complicated three year ordeal just to try to convince people that the Jews shouldn't be allowed to wear their hats?
Had it occurred to you that perhaps this guy believes that all should be equal under the law more as or more strongly than other people believe in their religion? This is something that I believe very strongly too: I feel very strongly that I and others should not have fewer rights because we don't profess an allegience to something that clearly does not exist[*]. So, he's doing the best that he can and is mocking the official position, and raising the issue publicly.
[*] Many religions get special dispensation. Only one can be right at most, so this is a fair claim even if you are religious.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Somalia doesn't - off you go, I'm sure you'll love it there!
There was a brochure issued by the DMV that said that you only may wear headgear for religious reasons on the photo. That was the initial trigger why @NikoAlm started the whole thing. The law regarding driving licenses says nothing about religion, only that the head must be "fully visible", but that came up only recently.
The clerk at the DMV initially refused to issue the driving license, asking for a photo without headgear. When Mr. Alm asked to get that in writing, the DMV issued a (kind of) subpoena instead and had Mr. Alm examined by a medical officer regarding his mental health. Luckily the examination only took 5 minutes and Mr. Alm now has it in writing that he is mentally sane and fit to drive a vehicle.
The DMV then issued the driving license after about a year but did not contact Mr. Alm so that he could pick it up, that's where the long delay came from.
That's the whole story as told at http://blog.alm.at/2011/07/12/hl-fuhrerschein-episode-6-das-finale/ (translation: http://goo.gl/MOsG1)
Yes, it is only a moral victory. For a real victory, somebody would have to do that with a passport photo where headgear really is only allowed for religious reasons. But hey, given the even international publicity, somebody might... :-)
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I can't speak for all atheists, but my biggest problem with the religious is not that they want to tell me about their faith - it is the fact that they want their faith to be mandatory. You can't tell me that the opposition to gay marriage cones from anywhere other than religious intolerence, for instance. This becomes even more dangerous when a majority of the population buys into such bullshit.
To the haters: You can't win. If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine
Is there a combo mod for dumbass AND troll? Trollass? Dumbtroll?
Kristopeit., Michael Trollack
Even though I'm an apostolic atheist, I'd like to moderate this: Religions are part of nature, as much as humans are, and any other human behaviour. They've emerged as a primal means of organising society, making those societies more succesful, and spreading the meme of religion further.
But I have a BIG problem with anyone forcing their religion on me, trying to pass their fairy tales as truth, making me pay for their religion, killing for religion, using religion to get power over their peers, etc, etc...
Do you enjoy the tactile feedback that your finger tips provide? A super nerve dense area of skin that allows your hands to do delicate stuff. Imagine if as a baby someone came along and shaved off all of your finger tips. Do you think you'd be able to do the types of work that an 'un shaved' would be able to do? You wouldn't know any different. As far as you know that's how fingers are supposed to work.
"Ribbed for her Pleasure" condoms. Where the heck do you think 'rib' was supposed to come from? Prosthetics are nice but not quite the same.
. Glad he's fighting for the rights of people who really aren't discriminated against in today's society instead of actually helping people.
He is in fact fighting against preferential treatment for mainstream religions, i.e. for secularism, which is often not really thorough in so-called modern democracies. Members of the Catholic Church get tax cuts to compensate their membership fees, religious people get to teach ethics classes at school, crosses are still hanging on the wall in many classrooms. He chose this way to protest against lack of secularism and will apparently try to claim all other unjustified favours the Catholic Church gets for Pastafarianism as well, to get authorities to rethink this favouritism.
"I love my job, but I hate talking to people like you" (Freddie Mercury)
Hence the psychiatric evaluation.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1DVWX96PNg
When the religious stop trying to force their set of believes in my laws (from school curriculum to sex laws), I'll stop mocking them. Deal?
Separation of church and state, it's about time we finally do it.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
...mock-religions.
Which is... wait for it... to mock religions. ReligionS. As in plural.
Not "one sect's beliefs". That would be religious bullying, which is the first cousin (on its mother's side) of religious persecution.
Besides. Every religion out there already has its own methods and channels for that particular activity, on sect by sect basis.
Mostly based around claims that everyone else who is NOT a member of their sect is going straight to hell.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Pastafarianism [...] came into being during the "teach the controversy" creationism period in the US, to demand that its own creation myth be included in official curricula, if other people's were
If I were designing the curriculum, science books would have history sections explaining what people believed before the current models arose. For example, a book about chemistry might open with a progression from continuous matter to indivisible atoms to plum-pudding to Bohr orbits to quantum wave models of the atom. Likewise, the chapter on the big bang in an earth science textbook would list the creation myths of the most famous religions.
I suppose that within a few years, Pastafarianism, or the Church of the FSM, will gain earnest followers whose number will eventually overwhelm the ironic followers. Another ironic religion will need to be established, and fought for, to demonstrate how ridiculous the idea of a Flying Spaghetti Monster really is. The true believers will always chase out the ironic founders. This is what happened with Scientology, Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. They all started out as jokes or games, and soon became deadly serious. The Church of the FSM thinks it's so clever, but it's just giving the Ouroboros of credulity more tail to devour. Or something like that.
--I'm so big, my sig has its own sig.
-- See?
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It is a colander after all - straining is its job.
Thank you, thank you... I'll be here all night!
Sometimes "treat others as you would want to be treated" can be open to interpretation. Suppose you where doing something, that without your knowledge, would condemn you to hell -- like wearing shorts. Wouldn't you want someone to notify you of this horrible transgression so that you can fix it and go to heaven?
I'm not saying what he's doing is bad or wrong. I'm just saying there is a difference between fighting for what you believe in and fighting against what other people believe in. I have issues with a lot of people who claim to be Jewish and people who claim to be Christian. But what they wear on their head isn't one of those issues. And I wouldn't have a problem with this guy wearing a spaghetti strainer on his head, except for the fact that the only reason he's doing it is to insult people who believe in things he doesn't believe in. I can understand him being upset if the person believes in something that hurts him. But what they wear on their head doesn't hurt him.
Time to torch this strawman. This guy is insulted by the exemptions granted to people who are peddling fairy tales to other people for profit. He is not fighting against belief in a given fairy tale, but against a legal system that grants exceptions based on that belief. In my own country, there are two really big industries that peddle fairy tales to the public at large for profit. One of the industries pays taxes, and the other doesn't. This is an absurd situation, and this guy's protest simply underlines that absurdity.
I don't know if it matters but I do think there is one glaring difference between what this guy is doing and what all of the favorite targets of Slashdotters are doing. That is, the believers of real religious faiths actually do believe in what they're doing, even the apparel they wear as part of their worship. Does anybody truly believe this guy believes in a spaghetti god or any supernatural reason to wear a spaghetti strainer on his head?
Please list these "real religious faiths". As far as I am aware, there is no religious faith that has been proven real. And since all religious faiths (redundant phrasing) are not real, then who gets to be the arbiter of which unproven make-believe is acceptable and which make-believe is not?