Beliefs Question

[FlyMario]

Hello,

I am Athiest yet I also consider myself a Pastafarian. This is something I am struggeling with in my daily life... As much as I don't believe in a god, I have the overwhelming desire to follow the FSM... plus the heaven is pretty sweet!

Are there any support groups for this problem? Do any of you struggle from this same problem?

Thanks,

FlyMario

[Roland Deschain]

Hi FlyMario. Welcome to the Venganza forum. I don't know of any specific support groups relating to your problem other than this site, as this is the only place I know of specifically devoted to talking about Our Noodly One. I, too, am an atheist, as are many members here, so you are not in strange company.

Pastafarianism is, to me, an idea or a concept, and not a religion in the traditional sense. It's an identity that people can have that shows others that they believe in certain things (such as kindness, scientific enquiry, etc), yet without having the dogma that comes with many other religions. This is why we have the "I'd really rather you didn'ts" and not commandments.

Everyone is welcome in Pastafarianism, including agnostics, atheists, theists, polytheists, monotheists, and everything else under the noodle. We don't discriminate, and will talk on almost any subject. Some of us do get quite passionate about certain topics, as you will no doubt find out, but we try to keep such things professional and not personal (no ad hominen). Everybody, regardless of what they think, should have the right to air their opinions and discuss them.

So you see, there is no conflict between not believing in a traditional god and following Pastafarianism. I hope this goes some way to helping you resolve part of your conflict.

[Qwertyuiopasd]

I want to simply respond by stressing how incredibly chill the FSM is, particularly about things like humans believing in him or not. That is, you can be a pastafarian and still not believe in the FSM entirely. He won't mind, his cosmic omnipotence is not tied to the number of likes he has on facebook or anything.

So feel free to continue not believing in any deity, and also following the FSM. You really can't go wrong.

[Tigger_the_Wing]

I second/third what the others said!

aboard, matey!

[Roy Hunter]

There is a question that not too many psychologists seem to want to ask: why is religion so prevalent across humanity? Almost every society or community that has any kind of structure also has a religious belief system, if not a religious organisation. Even in societies where religion is forbidden, personality cults appear around people like Lenin and Mao. We seem to have a need for a higher power, for something to believe in. Why is that? Is it because there are questions that other humans cannot answer for us? Is it because we feel a need for the all-powerful parent figure of our childhood in our adulthood? Is there, as Richard Dawkins posited in The God Delusion, a 'God-shaped gap in the human psyche'?

I don't have a clue why we feel that way, personally. But in the meantime, I am aware that as an atheist I have that 'gap' in myself that might otherwise be filled by a God. And as Qwerty rightly points out, the FSM couldn't care less how much I believe in Him. The Lord my God is not a jealous God, and He is as fallible as the rest of us. Your idea of the FSM might be different from mine, or Qwerty's, or Roland's - it doesn't matter! No crusades, no reformation, no Inquisition; and I would hope no internal conflict either. Believe in what you want to believe in to whatever extent you want to. Just remember that if you are a Pastafarian, there is no associated guilt, anger or fear. It makes life so much easier...

[daftbeaker]

we try to keep such things professional and not personal (no ad hominen). Everybody, regardless of what they think, should have the right to air their opinions and discuss them.

Don't listen to him. He likes Anne Robinson and his opinion is therefore null and void

On a slightly more serious note, it's fine being an atheist and a pastafarian. After all, atheists (should) accept things based on the evidence provided and we have a graph

[gronank]

Pastafarism and atheism goes together because pastafarism is a belief in an empirically nonexistent diety (I think it says so in our holy scripture even). Is it a paradox of the meaning of belief? Possibly, but belief will always create paradoxes and we might aswell position our paradoxes where they're the least anoying.

[FlyMario]

Thanks for all the wise advice and comments!

My take on a lot of religions (not pastafarianism of course) is they were a way for early man in his infinite
ignorance, to explain how things work. Why people don't let go of these strange beliefs in with all the vast knowlege out there today tells me that perhaps not so many people evolved intellectually.

Gravity still being something of some confusion though can be so easily explained in Pastafarianism. How people can not see how obvious this is ... well blows my mind... Arg...

FlyMario

[Tigger_the_Wing]

Speaking of Gronank and his pair o' doxies, he got photographed with them the other evening:

[DavidH]

^

[Arkaeon]

Hiya FlyMario.
You are probably an atheist because you find the world-view proposed by major religions to be inaccurate at best, counterproductive to the advancement of your species at least, and obviously derivative and self-serving at large.

This is a function of evolution -- both their emergence in the body politic of the past and your rejection of them in the modern world. These are natural functions as the species continues to improve in bits and pieces.

You continue to have a religious urge because you recognize that there are things beyond your conscious understanding that are (and will be) meaningful in the future development of your self and your species. This is also natural. There is so much still left to learn that we must continue to explore the gaps in our understanding so that the instinctual and subliminal can become more fully conscious. Since there is much room for intellectual variation and emotional insecurity among social animals when exploring the unknown, it is natural to seek the company of like-minded or similarly searching "souls" of other humans to alleviate the sense of isolation when undertaking such searches.

Baby eels, born in the Sargasso Sea of the central Atlantic, will backtrack the many-thousands kilometers voyages of their parents to find the same freshwater streams from which their parents originated. Birds and other migratory animals will unerringly retrace the personally unknown pathways of their ancestors at the appropriate seasons to continue the cycle of life. Salmon essentially suicide en masse in their return to the freshwater spawning grounds to continue the next cycle of their species. Humans stare at the stars and wonder how to achieve a place among them. Supposedly dumb animals fled the environs of the Tunguska meteor fireball before it ever burned aerial destruction upon the Siberian landscape, and similar events predate and even predict earthquake and volcanic events on an ongoing basis. Tribal shamen can track and find prey (or lost tourists) by following their "spirit path" without any apparent physical evidence. All of this suggests a level of perception of the current and future reality which remains unexplained by scientific inquiry at "this time."

Albert Einstein asserted that god does not play dice with reality, yet he simultaneously knew that that was exactly how reality is developed: many small steps of an exploratory, chaotic nature that resulted in the appearance of greater order. You can try to understand the grand patterns and work down to the details that result (shamanism) or you can solidify observable facts and theorize the greater patterns of reality's behavior by extension (science). The two great paths meet at the individual, which is the balancing act of enlightenment.

Since you seek to be rational, yet you are surrounded by a world/cosmos/interaction/perception that you cannot fully explain, it is natural that you seek some tie to the unknown. In the family of the FSM, you can keep open your options of theoretical mystery without actually adhering to any rigid, limited, finite set of intellectual limitations. By embracing (tongue firmly ensconced in cheek) the ridiculous, you leave yourself open to the infinitely possible. This gives you the opportunity for community without self-serving and stifling dogma. In short and conclusion, perhaps you are exactly where you need to be to make the most of yourself after all.

[keithpenrod]

Is it common for Pastafarians to be non-atheist? For example, are there any Christian Pastafarians? Or non-denominational Pastafarians?

[Qwertyuiopasd]

I'm not sure how common it is, but there certainly have been and are Christian (and other monotheists or major world religion) Pastafarians out there.

I suppose I count, since I'm a Unitarian Universalist, and I identify as neither Christian nor atheist.

Remember, all that's really necessary to be a Pastafarian is being in support of the separation of church and state. Or, if you prefer, the non-separation of church and state, but in such a way that it includes all religions, including Pastafarianism.

[Arkaeon]

Hi, keithpenrod!

Generally, there are a bunch of christian (semi-)Pastafarians out there. The hold to their religion/beliefs about spirituality, but they also want their children to get a proper education in science. They already have churches to teach their kids about god, and they don't see the two as conflicting. Most christians are really not that stupid or parochial. Personally, my closest very christian friend was a computer engineer, a member of a national Chemistry-Alchemy Fraternity, and a black belt in jujitsu. Hardly the typical hick-thumper WBC profile.

There are a number of folks around here who believe in various kinds of supernatural stuff, but you won't find many dogma-thumping scripture-literalists. This forum is a difficult place to assert that there really is a specific Easter Bunny who really does lay chocolate eggs in the springtime. Too many folks here have already researched the origins of stories like that and will point to the historical Ishtar of Assyria and so on, etc etc.

If you ever force yourself to read through some of the "walls of text" that I leave scattered around this forum, you'll find I believe in all manner of subtle connections and phenomena outside the current purview of science. I suspect (and kinda hope) that most people scroll past them most of the time instead of wasting their whole night. Some of that stuff could be a bit disturbing to a normal person, anyway, I think. (Especially the story about Anderson's neighbor and the bubbling pond, which I'm not sure I'm ever going to put in here. Maybe for Halloween sometime.)

I'll leave it at that -- just a couple bricks in the wall this time.