Awwwwhhhh, If I Culd Happen To Me

Wow, an actual excommunication letter. Wow.

I do believe that if I choose to officially leave the Catholic church of my childish years...it certainly would not be this easy. Hell, I would be totally stoked to get a letter like this from Pope Poo-Poohead ("poopoohead, one word, two, three?). In fact, I think it is impossible to leave the Catholic church (anyone know fer sho), it is something like they, or God owns your soul forever, or something. I'll just go down the excommunication letter point by point, but don't take my word for it, read it yourself.

The letter states that bad attendance is the reason for getting kicked out and then a bible passage is spouted out (spouted is a good descriptive word for what they do, right(?)). It is something about not hanging out with your team (ie going to church) specifically "not to forsake our own assembling together." What am I gonna say Team Atheist....

Classic cherry picking! So humans decided to kick another human outta their elitist club and they chose to look thru the bible to cherry pick a passage to justify their thoughts/beliefs. They could have chosen the passage where Jesus says that when you pray/worship me, then do it in privacy. No they can't choose that one because it would be...gasp, a contradiction.

The next paragraph is so good. They claim that Jesus said that it is up to the church to discipline the losers that do not go to church. But then again, they could have chosen the one that says no one can judge, only God can judge.

The end of the paragraph is everything that is coo-coo crazy pants with religion. They obediently follow the commands of Jesus (they are innocent, just following orders), and they hand you over to Satan (who said I/you/we/us wanted to go to Satan, we just didn't want to go to church) because...because, this is the best part...because when you are suffering in hell and it totally sucks...then you will see the love of God. Their words, "....come to your senses, repent and return." My words, "After you suffer a suffering so bad you can't even imagine it...well, yea, to see God's love tho, right." Yyyyeeeeeaaaaaaa.....

The last paragraph says the words that I wish so badly to hear from my old church "...we are declaring that you are no longer a Christian,..." Ya know, kind gentle and very good looking readers, as a joke, if that ever did happen to me (which would be awesome), I would cherry pick my own passages from the bible and....veto their excommunication.

...well of course it couldn't be "everything" that is wrong with religion...it's too short.

* poo poo head, poopoohead, poo-poohead, poo-poo head, poo-poo-head (naw, that last one sucks, it couldn't be that one....is it(?)

Pirates, I.D.'s and Ramen Oh My

F

I bet this dude drinks beer all the time. That is why he is the Most Awesome Dude in the World.

I was going to take a blog break (without telling anyone), but this story is made of awesome (1). I briefly mentioned this dude a couple of days ago and thought that was that, but, really, it just gets better.

Nico Alm waited three years for the"OK" to wear a pasta strainer on his head for his official ID. Somehow it was a protest about wearing the hijab in Austria, but I don't really understand that part. What I do know is that the super awesome Alm is a Pastafaria and he belongs to the Church of the Flying Spaghetti  Monster.

For those that do not know and are just plain stupid The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster arose outta that stupid Kansas State School Board thingy a couple a few years back where they tried to inject religion in the form of Creationism into the science classroom. So this dude, Bobby Henderson, wrote a letter to the school board saying, like, yea I agree with you, we should teach all creation stories not just that scientific, peer reviewed, rational, big bang, abiogenesis, evolution thru natural selection thingy. So he proposed that they also teach the mythology of his holy noodle-ness, The Flying Spaghetti Monster. If it seems silly, that is the point. Teach the controversy (2).

Satire and pushing the envelope of what religion is has always been fair game (fair to Team Atheist that is). Russell had his Teapot, in the 60's they had that awesome acid church and in recent times stuffs like the Church of Body Modification have come into play and is forcing peeps to rethink what religion and what church is. Does it makes sense that one of the beliefs of a Pastafarian is that a decrease in the number of pirates directly contributes to global warming (when other factors like community support and united belief(s) are in play). Does it makes sense that a one third god/man/ghost that lived 2,000 years ago is going to reanimate, save a certain select portion of the population and his dad will kill all remaining peeps on the erffs...because they love us. No, that sh*t doesn't make sense, it doesn't have to, it's religion. 

If you can turn the critical eye on the super awesome Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, then why not on your own religion...and it is a religion, or is it. Austria authorities are grappling with that very question. If dudes can walk around in robes chanting stuffs and banging tambourines, if peeps believe that snakes talk and a bronze age book told them that those gays, those powerful hurricane, tsunami producing gays are immoral, if peeps are making millions because they believe that the universe will heal you and make you happy, if some people believe that the world rests on two gigantic turtles (guess who?), then why can't the people who brought us Talk Like A Pirate Day and Skepticon believe that every Friday is a holiday.

If it doesn't makes sense, that is because it doesn't.

Ramen.

Pastafarian 101. The eyes evolved from meatballs.

"For functionalists, it is irrelevant whether Pastafarians sincerelybelieve in their noodly deity. This shared body of symbols and practices has spawned an esprit de corps, uniting philosophical atheists and agnostics into a moral community, meaning that Pastafarianism may well be on its way to becoming a religion—in both the substantive and the functional sense (RD)."


"After providing a doctor’s note ensuring that he was mentally fit to drive, his request was granted, but Austrian authorities were careful to point out that he was not granted a religious exception: The pasta strainer did not cover his face, thus making the photo acceptable. Alm’s next step will be to petition the Austrian government to recognize Pastafarianism as a valid religion (RD)."


(1) I just hope that I have the capacity to do this and makes sense. The other day I decided to go out for a pack of cigarettes (that means leave and never come back) as far as this blog is concerned, or at least take a break, but this story is too awesome. Troy, I'm frackin' trying man. Thank you and thanks to everyone. I'm trying y'all.

(2) The only thing controversial about "teach the controversy" is that 'they' really mean teach Christianity along side science as equally valid and likely. On the surface they say teach all sides, but they really only mean their side.  Are they going to teach all the Native American creation myths (which, there are hella), all the creation myths from all the cultures of the world...no. First of all it would not be practical, second myths/folklore are not science and third...it's just plain stupid.

* The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster

* Religion Dispatches. This is the article that inspired me to un-hibernate. Unfortunately I feel like I failed and I didn't get my point across. I don't even know what my point was. le sigh.

* For those keeping score...I have an appt. tomorrow and maybe they can get me the meds that I need...maybe.