Friday, August 04, 2006

Even the Flying Spaghetti Monster Gets Hate Mail

Do you know who the Flying Spaghetti Monster is? Apparently, the only "being" more upsetting to the far, far, far right-wing religious conservatives than Bill OR Hillary Clinton. Who knew that uber-Christians were so totally devoid of a sense of humor. And irony.

In case you need a quick overview:

The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster was created by Bobby Henderson as a response to the Kansas school board voting to allow the teaching of intelligent design in science classes. His point is that there is as much scientific evidence to support the idea that the Flying Spaghetti Monster created the universe as there is that the universe was created by ID and so the FSM should get equal time in classrooms as an alternative theory. In his words:
I don't have a problem with religion. What I have a problem with is religion posing as science. Teach creationism in school, fine, but DON'T teach it in a science classroom. Science = the study of repeatable, observable, natural phenomena. Accepting a supernatural explanation is a cop-out. It's faith, NOT science.
Some of the emails in the mail bag seemed relatively sane and even thoughtful. In the main, however, they were, um, not. A small sample from his Hate Mailbag (Note: I cannot take credit for the creative grammar, spelling and punctuation that follow. But I can imagine that when one is writing with this much passion, these things might slip a little):
If I was your creator and you mocked me in this manner I couldn't think of a hell hot enough for you. . . . I am sick to my stomach that my small babies will live in such a disgusting generation where God is no longer the source of strength and power. I should hope that as you mature, have children and they ever are in need of a miracle in their life, that you won't know whose name to call on.
And:
I find your site degrading and offensive. God does not allow for the type of logical fallicies you promote on your site. For instance, why would a perfect, infanate being have to rest for three days after creation? The bible clearly establishes a maximum one to six day resting ratio for the creation of the universe by an infante being. Ok, I'll be sympathetic to your tortured logic and explain how mankind knows that the bible is the word of god. 1. the bible is infallible.

And:

PASTAFARIAN?!? that doesn't even make sense!! why the hell would god be PASTA?!? It sounds like you were bored and asked "why don't pirates exist anymore? and why doesn't heaven have a stripper factory and a beer volcano?" Well buddy, just because you google searched some stupid fact and made a website, doesn't mean you made a religion.
And that FSM bible is a load of crap.
This is fun! Can you stand a couple more?

You don't need to question, God does all the thinking for us; he actually has a degree in Philosophy. Abortion is wrong, it says so in the bible, I dare you to go look it up- you probably won't find it, but that's just because your gay, which is also wrong- it says so in the Bible. Now some of us will be wondering the justification for that moral assertion, but remember the Bible is flawless- it says so in the Bible.

And my favorite (also from the letter above):

As a Christian, I follow Jesus for his teachings of love and tolerance; it is people like you who make me sick, I hope you die in a lake of fire and get your eyes pecked out by crows, so that you may go to hell and exist for eternity in a lake of fire getting your eyes pecked out by crows.

With love,

Tsk. And we think Americans don't understand fundamentalism.

4 comments:

Her Bad Mother said...

That last one, that's a pitch-perfect lesson on contradictions-in-terms and reductio ad absurda.

Love it.

Anonymous said...

I'm embarrassed, as a Christian, that my online counterparts have no sense of humor, cannot spell and spew hatred to those who may not share their beliefs! D'oh! I bet devotees of the Flying Spaghetti Monster are grateful . . . but not eternally.

Melanie K said...

I don't think you should be embarassed. Some of these people are so far out there that they basically have their own religion. Just happens to have the same name. :)

Anonymous said...

Yeah, I loved the last one. But then I also love the FSM.