Opinion of the Flying Spaghetti Monster argument

[Samof94]

What are your opinions on the idea of parody religions such as Pastafarianism or the Invisible Pink Unicorn?

[John Dule]

I'm sick of hearing it, but until the theists manage a cogent counterargument I guess we'll have to keep repeating it.

[Samof94]

I'm sick of hearing it, but until the theists manage a cogent counterargument I guess we'll have to keep repeating it.

It has a testable claim: pirates stopped global warming

[Mopsus]

I'm sick of hearing it, but until the theists manage a cogent counterargument I guess we'll have to keep repeating it.

What is there to argue? Even those who believe in it, don’t believe in it.

[PSOL]

An old meme that’s ran its course. This isn’t the 2000s anymore.

[John Dule]

I'm sick of hearing it, but until the theists manage a cogent counterargument I guess we'll have to keep repeating it.

What is there to argue? Even those who believe in it, don’t believe in it.

... What?

[Mopsus]

I'm sick of hearing it, but until the theists manage a cogent counterargument I guess we'll have to keep repeating it.

What is there to argue? Even those who believe in it, don’t believe in it.

... What?

No one actually believes in the Flying Spaghetti Monster, including Pastafarians. So there’s nothing to argue with.

[John Dule]

I'm sick of hearing it, but until the theists manage a cogent counterargument I guess we'll have to keep repeating it.

What is there to argue? Even those who believe in it, don’t believe in it.

... What?

No one actually believes in the Flying Spaghetti Monster, including Pastafarians. So there’s nothing to argue with.

Do you seriously think that is the point of the analogy?

[Mopsus]

I'm sick of hearing it, but until the theists manage a cogent counterargument I guess we'll have to keep repeating it.

What is there to argue? Even those who believe in it, don’t believe in it.

... What?

No one actually believes in the Flying Spaghetti Monster, including Pastafarians. So there’s nothing to argue with.

Do you seriously think that is the point of the analogy?

No, I think it illustrates that those who use the analogy miss the point of religion.

[John Dule]

I'm sick of hearing it, but until the theists manage a cogent counterargument I guess we'll have to keep repeating it.

What is there to argue? Even those who believe in it, don’t believe in it.

... What?

No one actually believes in the Flying Spaghetti Monster, including Pastafarians. So there’s nothing to argue with.

Do you seriously think that is the point of the analogy?

No, I think it illustrates that those who use the analogy miss the point of religion.

What is that point? That falsehoods become valid if enough of the population subscribes to them?

[Mopsus]

I'm sick of hearing it, but until the theists manage a cogent counterargument I guess we'll have to keep repeating it.

What is there to argue? Even those who believe in it, don’t believe in it.

... What?

No one actually believes in the Flying Spaghetti Monster, including Pastafarians. So there’s nothing to argue with.

Do you seriously think that is the point of the analogy?

No, I think it illustrates that those who use the analogy miss the point of religion.

What is that point? That falsehoods become valid if enough of the population subscribes to them?

For genuinely religious people, their religion serves a function in their life which nothing else is capable of filling. Authentic religion does not exclusively rest on truth claims; it is something that you can try for yourself and see whether it works or not. Said truth claims both follow from and support a religious tradition which makes a real, undeniable difference in people’s lives.

[John Dule]

Huh, my guess was pretty close.

[Mopsus]

Close. You’re actually thinking of my post four posts above this one.

[Alcibiades]

Close. You’re actually thinking of my post four posts above this one.

The “point” of a religion has no bearing on whether or not its truth claims are true.

[Mopsus]

Close. You’re actually thinking of my post four posts above this one.

The “point” of a religion has no bearing on whether or not its truth claims are true.

As everyone here knows, Hume suggested that every apparent law of the universe might be illusory, because we have no concrete reason to believe that cause and effect exist at all. But it doesn’t matter - human experience is impossible without believing in cause and effect, and this is a far more compelling evidence than anyone’s armchair philosophizing. Similarly, real religion - not the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster - unlocks an aspect of human experience than believers find otherwise inaccessible. This is also an evidence in its own right.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Might as well talk about Rickrolling or MySpace in 2021.

[John Dule]

Close. You’re actually thinking of my post four posts above this one.

The “point” of a religion has no bearing on whether or not its truth claims are true.

As everyone here knows, Hume suggested that every apparent law of the universe might be illusory, because we have no concrete reason to believe that cause and effect exist at all. But it doesn’t matter - human experience is impossible without believing in cause and effect, and this is a far more compelling evidence than anyone’s armchair philosophizing. Similarly, real religion - not the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster - unlocks an aspect of human experience than believers find otherwise inaccessible. This is also an evidence in its own right.

Nobody thinks we should believe in the laws of causality because they "unlock an aspect of human experience." They are useful only insofar as they can be used to make predictions about the future. If the laws of causality were to fail to make such a prediction, then that would be cause for reassessing them.

Religion cannot and has never been able to make accurate predictions, which is one of many reasons why it is clearly disconnected from reality in a way that causal laws are not.

[Mopsus]

Religion cannot and has never been able to make accurate predictions, which is one of many reasons why it is clearly disconnected from reality in a way that causal laws are not.

On the contrary, religious people can predict that if they obey the prescriptions of their faith, they will have a clearer mind and a more robust disposition towards life than they would if they didn’t. People are religious for the same reason they believe in cause and effect - it works.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

Close. You’re actually thinking of my post four posts above this one.

The “point” of a religion has no bearing on whether or not its truth claims are true.

As everyone here knows, Hume suggested that every apparent law of the universe might be illusory, because we have no concrete reason to believe that cause and effect exist at all. But it doesn’t matter - human experience is impossible without believing in cause and effect, and this is a far more compelling evidence than anyone’s armchair philosophizing. Similarly, real religion - not the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster - unlocks an aspect of human experience than believers find otherwise inaccessible. This is also an evidence in its own right.

Nobody thinks we should believe in the laws of causality because they "unlock an aspect of human experience." They are useful only insofar as they can be used to make predictions about the future. If the laws of causality were to fail to make such a prediction, then that would be cause for reassessing them.

Religion cannot and has never been able to make accurate predictions, which is one of many reasons why it is clearly disconnected from reality in a way that causal laws are not.

Couldn't you replace "Religion" with "History" in that statement?

[John Dule]

Religion cannot and has never been able to make accurate predictions, which is one of many reasons why it is clearly disconnected from reality in a way that causal laws are not.

On the contrary, religious people can predict that if they obey the prescriptions of their faith, they will have a clearer mind and a more robust disposition towards life than they would if they didn’t. People are religious for the same reason they believe in cause and effect - it works.

Sure. I bet the Branch Davidians, Manson Family, and People's Temple missionaries were quite confident in their futures. For a time.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

I'd be willing to bet that Pascal wouldn't think much of it.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

The OP summarized:

[RI]

I think the thing that's always bugged me about the FSM argument as an argument against religion is that using it as such is actually a strawman argument, and the entirely purpose of the argument is to trump theologically-illiterate Young Earth Creationists, not religion entirely. It addresses a very narrow vision of the nature of God not held by most of learned Christianity and is pretty ridiculous in any serious setting. That is has some merit against the YEC position is a testament to YEC theology also being ridiculous in any serious setting.

The FSM argument posits there exists an undetectable omniscient being who created the universe (who happens to be made of pasta), and because you can't disprove this claim, it is no less likely than any other theological claim. This is really the conflation of two separate arguments: 1) Does God exist and can this be demonstrated? 2) What is the nature of God? The argument assumes that, conditional on God existing, the nature of God can not be demonstrated and thus could be anything; it presupposes a naive prior distribution without justification. It inherently assumes that the nature of existence does not reflect the nature of the God who created it; it assumes that, despite existing, God has never revealed any relevant information concerning their own nature to humanity as never has such purported revelation supported God's nature reflecting such as the FSM; and it assumes that bad faith claim to God's nature is as valid as that of a good faith claim.

Behind this, however, is a deeper flaw which is a clear (and common) misunderstanding of what religion (at least Christianity) means by God. The FSM is a claim to the existence of a being who occupies space and time but is simply undetectable, not unlike a mythical god of old. If we had but the proper supreme tool we could detect this being, but we simply lack the capacity. This is not what Christianity claims by God; God is not a being, not even the supreme being, but is being itself. "The unconditioned ground of existence is that whose very nature is to be," "the non-contingent ground of contingency"-- that is, the First Cause, both temporally and ontologically, whose nature is inextricably linked with what follows from it, namely creation. Science can no more "prove" or "disprove" God than it can prove its own founding tenets; no tool, no matter how great, which is contingent can address the non-contingent.

The FSM isn't even in the same ballpark as what Christianity means by God. Next to God, the FSM is child's play.

[Statilius the Epicurean]

Is the Flying Spaghetti Monster supposed to be an argument?

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Is the Flying Spaghetti Monster supposed to be an argument?

No, an appetizer!