Religion

Speaking of the FSM…

The FSM is on the agenda of the American Academy of Religion’s Annual Meeting.  This article on CNN.com gives a fair representation of what Pastafarianism is all about and actually portrays it in a positive light, which surprised me.  When I saw the title I braced myself for cheap shots (I guess I’ve watched too many supposedly fair interviews of Richard Dawkins in which he is constantly interrupted and attacked).  Anyway, I thought the article was great, in fact, I forwarded it to all my friends who have looked curiously at the emblem on my car!

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9 Comments

  1. Blake –

    I hear what Sunclipse is saying about the last quarter of the article. However, I interpreted it as an interesting question they were posing – not that they were drawing the conclusion that we use FSMism (or sports or Star Trek) to fill our “God shaped hole”. Overall, I thought the article fairly represented the ideas behind the FSM, even if they did pose controversial questions. (Cross posted at Sunclipse)

  2. As I noted over at Making Light, this isn't even close to the first spoof religion to "get out of hand". (Hail Eris! ;-) )

  3. Can you really call it a religion when it's lacking the very first requirement for it to be a religion? I.e. that you actually believe, on faith, that the deity you claim to follow is real despite lacking evidence to the contrary? Since everyone knows it's a spoof, nobody's really believing it, are they? Likewise, everyone pretty much knows their favorite football team is real. Perhaps the only thing taken on faith is the unwaivering conviction that your team is going to win.

    Unless you're going to change the definition of what a religion is, it'll pretty much be limited to religions.

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