A222 - Exploring Philosophy : FSM & The Open University

Book 2: THE PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION

I have to be honest, I'm not looking forward to this part of the course. I'm a believer in the quote (sorry don't know who) 'Where knowledge ends, religion begins'. 

 

I can understand that humans needed an explanation of why things happen, and this led them to believe in gods of whatever type. Having somebody to blame for crop failure, earth quakes, eclipses is fine - until you understand why these things happen - then your divine being is pointless.

 

Religion has been used through the ages to subjugate the poor and prop up oppressive rulers - and it continues today. Nearly all scientific steps forward were retarded by the church, as every scientific explanation chips away at the reasons for belief. From the working of the solar system to the explanation of the earth being a sphere the church has persecuted those with ideas that did not fit with their teachings, I could go on but that is not what prompted this post. 

 

Having sent in my assignment I decided to look at the next chapter and as usual checked out the End of Chapter Quiz to get an idea of what is coming up.

 

Question 1:

Option a. a giant spaghetti monster.

 

Great ! I thought this book may actually be written from an objective point of view which considers religion from every conceivable angle, and actually looks at the alternative ideas of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. It must do, I thought, its the answer 'Option A'.

 

But then I though that the lack of capitalisation for the Flying Spaghetti Monster was just disrespectful, and also is said 'a' Flying Spaghetti Monster, implying that there is more than one - when it should surely have been 'the' FSM, as there is only the one true FSM. You'd think an academic 'specialising' in the philosophy of religion would have known that!!!

 

This was troubling indeed.......

 

I searched the electronic version of the course text book for the terms Flying, Spaghetti and Monster in a mixture of cases and found only two hits - both on the same page, one referring to the other.

In case you can't read it is says,

 

Unreasonable Hope : If I say ' I do believe in fairies' often enough and loud enough, the Flying Spaghetti Monster will bring Tinker Bell back to life (see Figure 3.8).

 

This is a ridiculous thing for an academic to write. How can he possibly know this is unreasonable.... and why choose to use a metaphor with a fictional character (Tinker Bell) to test reasonable or unreasonable hope.

 

The statement would have been equally true had he used other deities such as Budda, Bramha, Vishnu, Shiva, Allah, Waheguru and even, may I suggest, Jesus Christ.

 

 Try it for yourself.......

 

Unreasonable Hope : If I say ' I do believe in fairies' often enough and loud enough, (insert your god)  will bring Tinker Bell back to life (see Figure 3.8).

 

Each religion substituted in the statement above results in the same outcome, proving all religions are equally valid or invalid..... there, I feel a bit better now, as according to the Open University text book on Religion, the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster is as relevant as any other major religion - at least as far as the resurrection of Tinker Bells goes - but then we all know resurrection is a load of nonsense anyway.......

For those who don't know about Pastafarianism, please have a look at the video below and also visit http://www.venganza.org/ 

 

RAmen

Spaghetti, Wenches & Metaphysics: Episode 1—The FSM from Matt Tillman on Vimeo.