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[Excerpt]
Austrian Wins Right To Wear Pasta Strainer In Driver’s License
Niko Alm first applied for the licence three years ago after reading that headgear was allowed in official pictures only for confessional reasons.
Mr Alm said the sieve was a requirement of his religion, pastafarianism.
The Austrian authorities required him to obtain a doctor’s certificate that he was "psychologically fit" to drive. . .
Read more at: The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster
One need not "deny vehemently" that atheism is not a religion. It is simply a fact. There is no deity or central revered figure. There is no dogma. There is no scripture. There are no commandments. There is no particular fellowship or "church." To an atheistic agnostic like myself, my "atheism" is merely a way of saying that I put God/Jesus/Krishna/Whomever in the same category as Santa Claus/Easter Bunny/Tooth Fairy/Superman. Fiction.
ReplyDeleteI would put atheism or agnosticism in the "religion" category only in the sense that you would put it there on a form or survey. Much like you'd put "bald" in the "hair color" box. Bald is not a hair color, and non-belief is not a religion. Or maybe even more succinctly, "non-smoker" is not a category of addiction.
The Flying Spaghetti Monster (bless His noodly goodness) is a parody of religion. The action of the man with the strainer is much like the actions of the man who invented FSM to make a point about the ridiculousness of "Intelligent Design." It is social commentary, and it's particularly humorous commentary. I find the "Eight I Really Rather You Didn'ts" much more sensible than the ten commandments.
As for your link? Meh. "Raised in Christianity" means exactly what you think it does. It means raised like any other Christian, but at some point had a revelation that it wasn't true. To assume that many or most non-believers have an immature, child-like basis for this conclusion is insulting and presumptuous. And to conclude that a non-believer--after dumping religion at Sunday-school age--never revisits or ponders their reasons, never continues study--is likewise insulting and presumptuous. In fact, most non-believers I've met are well versed in the tenants of Christianity, and usually have quite a bit of knowledge about other religions as well. I do not claim encyclopedic King James knowledge, but I always do well with Biblical "Jeopardy!" and Trivial Pursuit questions. So there!