Sunday, March 1, 2009

An open letter to Kansas School Board -- Hilarious

Background:

Proponents of intelligent design believe that certain features of the universe and of living things are too complex to not have been designed by an intelligent, supernatural agent, such as a god(s). This contrasts with the naturally directed, impersonal processes described by the theory of evolution

The Kansas Evolution Hearings were a series of hearings held in Topeka, Kansas May 5 to May 12, 2005 by the Kansas State Board of Education and its State Board Science Hearing Committee to change how evolution and the origin of life would be taught in the state's public high school science classes

On February 13, 2007, the Board voted 6 to 4 to reject the amended science standards enacted in 2005.The definition of science was once again returned to "the search for natural explanations for what is observed in the universe."

Excerpt of the letter from the Church of the Flying Spaghetti monster to the Kansas School Board:

""
........ Let us remember that there are multiple theories of Intelligent Design. I and many others around the world are of the strong belief that the universe was created by a Flying Spaghetti Monster. It was He who created all that we see and all that we feel. We feel strongly that the overwhelming scientific evidence pointing towards evolutionary processes is nothing but a coincidence, put in place by Him.

It is for this reason that I’m writing you today, to formally request that this alternative theory be taught in your schools, along with the other two theories. In fact, I will go so far as to say, if you do not agree to do this, we will be forced to proceed with legal action. I’m sure you see where we are coming from. If the Intelligent Design theory is not based on faith, but instead another scientific theory, as is claimed, then you must also allow our theory to be taught, as it is also based on science, not on faith.

Some find that hard to believe, so it may be helpful to tell you a little more about our beliefs. We have evidence that a Flying Spaghetti Monster created the universe. None of us, of course, were around to see it, but we have written accounts of it. We have several lengthy volumes explaining all details of His power. Also, you may be surprised to hear that there are over 10 million of us, and growing. We tend to be very secretive, as many people claim our beliefs are not substantiated by observable evidence. What these people don’t understand is that He built the world to make us think the earth is older than it really is. For example, a scientist may perform a carbon-dating process on an artifact. He finds that approximately 75% of the Carbon-14 has decayed by electron emission to Nitrogen-14, and infers that this artifact is approximately 10,000 years old, as the half-life of Carbon-14 appears to be 5,730 years. But what our scientist does not realize is that every time he makes a measurement, the Flying Spaghetti Monster is there changing the results with His Noodly Appendage. We have numerous texts that describe in detail how this can be possible and the reasons why He does this. He is of course invisible and can pass through normal matter with ease. ...........

"""

Imagine our children fighting in their class rooms on which god(out of the millions mankind has conveniently created) "intelligently" created our universe :D ....

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Questioning the existence of god is a funny thing. This is because definition of god is so much different in everyone's belief.
Whatever I read in your blog you are just questioning materialistic/anthropomorphic definition of god.
You are saying that I don't believe that someone(like god is a person) has created this universe.
I am Hindu so I can't authoritatively speak much about other religions but AFAIK god in most religions is much like a tool used for social well being. It is good that some people question that god. It would make us go to next level of thinking.
I know one thing for sure god is without any form. This is easy to s say but hard to accept in our heart. God in its this form is more like mathematics you just can't question if 1 + 1 is 2 but of course you can question if is there any better solution to an equation.
I know even if u don't accept god but u know what is right and wrong. So stop hating anyone and accept that we are all on the ladder of understanding.
Even you not believing in God must be god's wish as god is omnipotent :) :)

Unknown said...

@anonymous:

yup it is funny to question non-existence things, isn't it? :)

I tried questioning the popular definitions/descriptions of god that i got to hear.

"Whatever I read in your blog you are just questioning materialistic/anthropomorphic definition of god."

I don't just question the "materialistic definition of god", i question all definitions of a god. I am sorry you got that idea from my blog. My questions about god is independent of whether he/she/it has a form or not.

"I know one thing for sure god is without any form"

Being sure/confident about a thing doesn't make it true. A god without a form is "your" idea of a god just like a million other ideas floating around the whole world. You are not the only one who is sure about his/her world view, most people are very sure about it and adhere to it(although very few of us actually give it a thought).

God is an idea/theory that has been put forth to me and i decided to question it and so far i have not been convinced that there is a god.But i am still open to the idea.

"So, Stop hating anyone .." ????

I don't hate anyone because they are religious.What i hate is the prestigious position religion has in our society. If one can question any other idea openly, why cant i question organized religion?, which is essentially another superstition. Its funny that the same people who question superstitions like the ones involving black cats, tantriks, etc get up early in the morning and bow their heads in front of the picture of imaginary monkey/elephant/{animal} faced entities they called god :D

"Even you not believing in God must be god's wish as god is omnipotent :) :)"

Yes, god just randomly decided that more than 10% of the human population shouldn't believe in him, just for fun ;)

Anonymous said...

Looks like your philosophy is totally dependent on existing religions because it doesn't offer any philosophy or explanation. It just questions(/hates?) existing theories. You doesn't seem to ask unbiased question but want to observe things you want to observe. Like you have already made up your mind that I won't believe in god may be because you don't like traits of people that believe in god. Now you just want to find people think that way and build up your fanaticism.
So you also want another religion with all the fanaticism which is bad in most religions.
I won't think your questioning of things is unbiased until you give explanation of things which accepting existence of god get answered.

From your comment it looks like you think millions of people in India do things just because they are made to or are not used to questioning. You better validate this assumption before making any comments. Rather than making fun assuming u know all the things, have scientific way of thinking.

"Its funny that the same people who question superstitions like the ones involving black cats, tantriks, etc get up early in the morning and bow their heads in front of the picture of imaginary monkey/elephant/{animal} faced entities they called god :D"

You think praying a idol of some animal is a foolish thing.
For me it is a representation of god and I don't think that praying god in the form of some animal will make me foolish because I know it is most basic way of reaching god but I it is also easy one.
You also say that praying god is same as black cat superstition.
I think then behaving good(in general sense like not hating/ not hurting someone) is a superstition.
You can never establish a scientific proof between behaving good and good happening to you. But still most people behave good because on broad scale they observe that it works. Same way praying god works. You won't find a single scientist who believes in black cat kinda superstitions but u will find thousand of scientist believing/praying god. This is because they know it works.

Whatever I said was just to counter your bias towards religions but good to know that you can think independently.

Unknown said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Unknown said...

http://pastebin.ca/1459902
(blogger wont let me comment more than 4096 characters)