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Spaghetti Strainer Helmet Driver's License Photo Approved On Religious Grounds (immortal.org)
PolygamousRanchKid writes with the news (widely reported, here an excerpt from the story as carried by Immortal News) that [i]n the Massachusetts city of Lowell, a woman identifying herself as a follower of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster (FSM), otherwise known as Pastafarianism, has been approved by the state's Registry of Motor Vehicles (RMV) to wear a spaghetti strainer on top of her head in her state issued driver's ID. The approval to wear the helmet was initially denied. However, citing religious grounds, Lowell resident Lindsay Miller filed an appeal. Following intervention by the American Humanist Association's Appignani Humanist Legal Center, the RMV reversed their decision and allowed her to put on her colander and get her driver's license picture taken. According to the church's website, while there are those who perceive the religion to be satirical in nature, it "doesn't change the fact that by any standard one can come up with" the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster is "as legitimate as any other" religion.
Asks PolygamousRanchKid: "Now what about my tinfoil hat . . . ?"
If a tax evation group makes a billion and a half dollars on the idea that depression is caused by the souls of aliens tormenting the world than some crap like the spaghetti monster is not really surprising.
As long as it doesn't obstruct her face or otherwise interferes with identification, it is of course acceptable...
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
The Church's beliefs only require the colander for official photos. It's not everyday headwear, it's special-occasion headwear.
Wanting to make fun of other people's religions and laugh at them for being superstitious is one thing, and not wanting to have intelligent design taught in schools is fine, but then turning around and calling that whole idea a religion of its own that deserves to be taken seriously by society seems nothing less than self-defeating.
You're not getting it. This case (the colander on the head) is pointing out the absurdity of "god makes me wear this" headware generally, and of state-government-level capricious laws/policies with respect to it in particular.
The only way to point out how ridiculous religion is, is to do something just as ridiculous, and force the government to treat it with the same level of credulity and absurd dignity. So this is just a case of the same tools (satire generally, and the FSM's teachings in particular) to point out another area of nonsense, separate from the intelligent design masterstroke with which it all started.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
The Church's beliefs only require the colander for official photos. It's not everyday headwear, it's special-occasion headwear.
Now you tell me.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
As with most things not amenable to being hammered out in syllogism, it's a trifle fuzzy around the edges; but the basic outline(which I think we owe to Locke and derivatives heavily influenced by him) that 'if there is a suitably compelling interest behind some requirement, like making 'IDs' that actually identify, the fact that your objections are religious is irrelevant; but if the requirement is imposed to inconvenience some unpopular sect, without compelling interest, or with compelling interest that could be achieved by some less inconvenient means, then it's effectively just harassment with a greater or lesser degree of dishonesty.' has always seemed pretty compelling to me.
The 'not easy' part isn't so much in the theory, as in the myriad ways people can come up with to develop 'suitably compelling interests' that just so happen to rub sects they dislike the wrong way.
Where available, chronology clues are always useful: if the policy was in place before the people who feel excessively burdened by it were even a matter of much thought among the policymakers; it is substantially less likely that the policy was devised primarily to harass them. It might still be possible to amend it to suit people better without harming the interest it was put in place to achieve; but that's a good sign that it was imposed with some non-sectarian objective in mind.
If, by contrast, the arrival of some new and controversial sect prompts an...unrelated...interest in achieving some purportedly non-sectarian goal that just happens to ruin the new guy's day springs up; you should probably look more carefully at the idea.
(By way of example, 'making photo-IDs that are actually useful' is a fairly obvious matter of state interest, and dates back about as far as the techological viability of taking and reproducing photographs at acceptable cost; which makes the idea that it was concocted as a scheme to outrage modesty and crack down on assorted religions' preferred funny hats difficult to take seriously. There is a strong argument to be made that, given the easy and pervasive use of haircuts and dye jobs to change the appearance of hair, there isn't any good reason to crack down on headscarves, colanders, etc. while allowing people with dyed and styled hair to go about their business; either hair isn't a core ID feature, or you should be putting greater effort into worrying about any way of concealing or modifying it. By contrast, when people with no prior interest in slaughterhouse standards start freaking out about the chilling barbarism of kosher or halal butchery, it's worth a raised eyebrow. Such practices may well be incompatible with acceptable standards of animal welfare; but if you didn't care about any of the delightful things done in meatpacking plants because they are the cheapest, fastest, methods; some skepticism is in order when you develop a sudden interest in the subject.)
This is just another thinly veiled attack on Christianity and other religions. As a Christian I find this offensive, but I expect no one cares since I'm also a white male.
And a great many people find Christianity and other religions offensive, and consider them to be a thinly veiled attack on rationality. The great thing about society in the more enlightened parts of the world is that we have these things called freedoms, which protect our rights to do, say and believe things which others may find offensive.
As a corollary of this while anyone can consider something to be offensive, NO ONE should have the right to demand that other people do not offend them. As a christian you ought be particulary willing to defend this freedom; particularly given the persecution those of your religion face in some parts of the world.
This is just another thinly veiled attack on Christianity and other religions. As a Christian I find this offensive, but I expect no one cares since I'm also a white male.
I care very much and I say; FUCK YOU! You have no right to not be offended.
Your position indicates that you regard Christianity and the only allowable or acceptable religion. That it should be some right that no one else offend you and your selfish beliefs. Fuck you!
No one mentioned Christianity, God, Jesus or you. You have no justification for being offended and you have no right to not be offended. This is a suit about a driver's license picture and a completely other religion. It had nothing at all to do with Christianity, until you chose to make it about your own self-centeredness.
Pastafarian is about mocking all religions in general. It is a belief system, and therefore a religion, whose central tenet is that the belief in omnipotent magical beings is illogical and absurd. Your resentment of Pastafarianism is as unacceptable as Muslims and their insistence that no one create images of the prophet Mohammed.
Do you think that American Indians smoking peyote, taking spirit journeys and worshiping a Great Spirit and totems is ridiculous? To the Pastafarian and atheists and agnostics, worshiping God and the totem(Jesus on the cross) is exactly the same. Exactly the same.
But, what you completely fail to understand is that you would have Pastafarianism outlawed, banned, negated, stifled while they are making absolutely no such attempts on your own bizarre primitive rituals. They are simply saying that they feel that if you get special treatment, then they should too, because your system is as absurd to them as theirs is to you.
This is my issue with all religions except possibly Buddism and Sikhism. They all try to convert or persecute non-believers, especially Christianity and Islam. It's their way or eternal damnation. Meanwhile the atheists are very reasonably saying, that's not for me and I don't think that your sky fairy should entitle you to any more than I am entitled to.
It's an attack on a special privilege only granted to religious people. If everyone could wear whatever headgear they wanted, we wouldn't be having this argument. The church of the FSM isn't making fun of your or anyone else's beliefs, it's just making sure that if the government recognizes one of them it must recognizes all of them as equally valid. That the government got no right to say that your religion is "true" so you can wear your headgear and my religion is "false" so I can't, or that you can teach your religious beliefs about the creation of the universe or the human race but I can't. I know you have faith in your religion, here's a newsflash: So does every other religious person. Maybe you as a person can dismiss everyone else's beliefs. But as a society with freedom of religion, it can't. Even when they don't comply with your ideas of what a religious conviction should look like.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings