Saturday, October 15, 2005

Pastafarianism

It's hard to imagine that any of you aren't already familiar, but just in case...

There's a glorious epiphany embracing the nation.
I, too, can humbly say that I have been touched by his noodly appendage.

4 comments:

Lily said...

THEY (and I know some shrewd theys) would say that teaching Intelligent Design does not restrict/confine the implied creator to a particular deity but that it implies deliberacy- which can apply to noodles as well, and not be at odds... now the problem is with the fact that they assert a creator AT ALL which obviously violates church-state matters but not pastafarianism. They are careful now to say that the creator deity IMPLIED (those dumb enough to admit its implied though we all know it is anyway) is not specified and as such is not even limited to a singular creator, a non-noodle creator, etc. An assertion that the almighty noodle can be equally capable of intelligent design. Their loophole appears to be lodged in the 'unspecified deity' aspect, no??? Correct me please if the gist has escaped my digestive tract of late...

Cantankerous Bitch said...

I believe "their" lack of specificity is purely a political tool, and comically, assumes that "we" are dumb enough to be fooled by it.

Case in point, with His Holiness, the FSM. Since ID does not explicitly identify "Yaweh", there's no logical rule that prohibits FSM from actually being that Intelligent Designer.

However, if one were to point out this ambiguity to ID proponents, no doubt we'd see heads exploding.

Lily said...

Of course they know its a political tool- the ambiguity-they planned it that way... they're not stupid. And thats why they jump on their own when one of them slips up and gets backed into a corner, forced to admit that ID is divinity driven. If it is simply teaching the deliberacy of nature, it is harder to argue. I even find it hard to argue with a design but am not inclined to push that on other people's kids. But truly there are few positions at odds- such as atheism. Many religions would be compatible with a creator or spirit force that imparts some design or purpose. This is a church and state issue because you can insert your own creator into this controversy and they LOVE that. Its like a dollar bill.
They KNOW that *they* silently insert their own version of deity into the creator spot but from a legal perspective they say it is not necessarily a Christian deity and therefore makes intelligent design as generically benign as 'in god we trust' (they also now say refers to any deity) That is the ingenius appeal of ID versus the outlawed creationsim isn't it? You point out it amounts to the same thing, but many say it does by implication, less by spcifics.
Now creationism was a different matter and it cannot be treated as the same - that is what they bank on. A creation story is one perspective only and discriminates against other creation myths, cultural perspectives, and Darwinism. You can have Darwinism and ID together and simply say that the creator intelligently designed evolution. We know many ID proponents are essentially anti-evolution as well which is different than teaching both as possible. The movement to stop the teaching of evolution will soon distinguish itself from the inroads of ID...ostensibly to share the baggage.
Now you and I know that in America there ought not to be creationism OR intelligent design OR 'in God We trust" OR "one nation, under god" etc. But how do we distinguish why we permit it on money? The discrimination concern is resolved by not specifying the creator.
So- when pointed out that intelligent design by mere implication of a deity 'designer' does not push the limits when held next to other supposedly acceptable means of religious line crossing...the heads on some might explode..but some heads I've seen have shit eating grins because the argument of Christian versus other religions is IMPLIED but *not* overtly stated. The discussions behind this movement are fascinating- I feel like they perhaps will not pull it off right now but its coming. They screwed up with Dover, the pandas, and all the other crap but a hundred bucks says they clean it up and revive it as a corwd pleaser.
If you pause, remove the motives you know to be there, remove the agenda, strip away the implied discriminations and focus on the precedent of general legal permissability of unspecified 'god' - you have the basis for their talking points as they refine it. They know what they are doing.

Cantankerous Bitch said...

They'll have to ditch "Pandas" in order to ever really make it palatable, I think. The Dover trial is doing a fine job of chronicling precisely how "Creationism 101" later became "Pandas" simply by exchanging "creator" with "intelligent designer" and removing any ancillary mentions of Christianity.

And this may be hopeful thinking, but I don't see how they'll ever get their win as long as they push for the inclusion of non-science in a science class. Like you've heard me say before, if they had any sense, they'd be lobbying for something like "Religious History in the United States" as a supplemental social studies or history course.