Denial Ho!
As my friends know, I’ve become a fairly devout follower of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Well, when I say “devout”, I mean that I’m about as devout as you can be when you also ask yourself “What Would A Pirate Do?” on a daily basis. Because a pirate probably wouldn’t stress about it.
So, this week, a well-phrased question by a Christian made me doubt all that I believe. What if it’s all a hoax?
A hoax?
And suddenly it hit me. Everything about the Flying Spaghetti Monster religion seems suspiciously like it was just, you know, made up. The holy scriptures, the holy illustration of his noodlyness creating everything, all of it. What if Bobby was not divinely inspired? No, no! If that’s true, then all the time I’ve invested, the fish on my bumper, the tattoo, the eye-patch, the pamphlets…I’ve wasted all this time spreading “good news” that was really all made-up lies! I would have to admit to all of my friends that I’ve been fooled.
Admitting that I’m wrong: that’s just too painful to face. Goodbye truth; hello denial!
So, to those of you who are trying to tell me my faith is misguided and that I should follow your god instead: I’m sorry. I’d like to say that I see where you’re coming from. I’d like to listen to your point of view and decide objectively what parts are valid.. But, that would require first admitting to the merest possibility that I might be wrong. And, you know, that would mess with the whole denial trip that I’m on and stuff. You know how it is.
Yes. I’m quite sure you know how it is.
June 7th, 2010 at 3:01 pm
One of the “straw-man” arguments against the existence of the FSM goes like this: Is the spaghetti that makes up the FSM finite or infinite in length? If my answer is “finite” the argument says that such a being could not be omnipotent because it has limited dimension – and therefore is not a true God. If I say “infinite” then the argument says that we would not even have enough room between our fingers and the keyboard to type into a blog, as spaghetti would fill every nook and cranny of the universe. Is it just me, or does it seem rather absurd that “straw” could take on “spaghetti” in the first place? To this I say: Fiddle-faddle! The FSM is beyond our puny abilities to measure. Try thinking outside the noodle! The secret is in the sauce. It’s not how long the strand – or how round the meatball, it’s…gee… I’m getting hungry again.
June 8th, 2010 at 11:09 am
I believe that his noodles are exactly as numerous and as long as they need to be, according to his will. Since they pass through normal matter “with ease” then possibly they are not constrained by the bounds of the universe, which is to say by infinity. So they could be more than infinitely long and exceed the boundaries of this reality.
This is of course the main problem with the noodle-length argument–his noodles are not constrained, therefore their length is not either!