There's too much shaming on DU whenever prayer is mentioned.

I'd like to see this group have more activity, too

James 5:16

Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.

Happy New Year to y'all

As there are those here who do not consider other, alternative religions legitimate.
Do these prayers have to pass a legitimacy test? Does their religion have to be recognized by certain members of the group?

I have seen in this room, just recently where an alternative religion was essentially banished from posting a blessing.
I think that people should consider that others may have religious beliefs so different from their own, that they may not seem like religious beliefs. I am not sure that there are people around here who are ready for such a thing.

Just because my beliefs are different from those of the mainstream, some people thought that my comments were "snarky."
People have to understand that when they do not understand something, they should not make judgements.

is the fact that they do not understand the beliefs of Pastafarianism, and because, at one time it was stated to be a "parody," that it still is.
There are many followers of His Holiness, The Flying Spaghetti Monster. His images have been seen in many places. We of FAITH know that he exists, and when we die, we shall be rewarded with endless intoxication, and sexual encounters, those unlike anything we have experienced on Earth.

My religion is vastly different from mainstream religions. Why should I be persecuted, called names, and banned from these religious groups?

Am I not free in this country to believe in WHATEVER religion I choose? Am I not free in this country to practice WHATEVER religion I choose?

Apparently, there are some in this forum who don't believe so. Are they not Americans, and/or do they not understand the meaning of the First Amendment of the US Constitution?

they should be able to believe in, as long as they are not violent. Even if they choose to believe in nothing.

My training is my business. It is my religion, and is between me and His Holiness.

You only recognize mainstream religions. Alternative religions, like Pastafarianism are not allowed.
So much for tolerance, I guess.

appropriate in this room. It will upset several of our members.

But today it is being practiced by many.
Many christianist people are upset by muslim, shinto, or buddhist religions. are they banned as well?

Explain your sincerely held belief in stripers and beer volcanos.

"Heaven." Our's is much more entertaining. Oh, and there are not only female, but male strippers there for people of any sexual persuasion. The beer volcanoes spew different types of beers. Some have IPA, others stout, but my favorite ones spew Belgian tripel beer!

So, you believe there is a sexual "persuasion" as well? Do go on. I rarely hear such comments outside frat houses and reddit.

that others get along with one another, and appreciate their differences. We do not seek to control, we do not seek violence.
All humans have some sort of sexual persuasion as you call it, so why not in our "heaven?"

So, what about that sexual "persuasion" tenet. You didn't answer.

Now, kindly explain why Pastafarians allegedly believe there is a beer volcano in heaven and strippers with STDs in hell.

Kindly do so without reference to any other religion, such as snakes in Eden or gods in the form of elephants.

Because if you do do that, you've proven you are doing no more than engaging in a parody of other religions and not espousing any authentic belief of your own.

Now, how about those beer volcanos?

You have faith in your religion, why should I not be allowed to have faith in mine.
It states in the gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, and I have faith in that Holy writing.

Maxim is your gospel and reddit your seminary.

Is this a value of your beliefs? I have never ridiculed your beliefs, yet you continue with the attacks.

Do you not understand the meaning of the First Amendment of the United States?
Do you not understand that I have the right, under this amendment, to practice ANY religious belief of my choice, even if that is no belief at all?

This is not parody, simply because you do not understand the tenets of the religion.
Maxim is not my gospel, and reddit is not my seminary. There is actually a Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Look it up for yourself. There is even a book of prayer. Our seminary is our own. We do not have, nor need any physical buildings. We have our Faith.

Yes, to you (as well as the originator of our religion) our faith may be parody, however it has many followers, and is growing. Many of us take our beliefs quite seriously.

Please try to understand, that we mean no ill-will. We just want to be able to have our own beliefs, just as you do. We wish this without violence, hatred, or control. We only wish that others do good between one another.

May you be touched by His noodly appendages.

Arrgh, and Ramen!

I thought people on DU had open minds?



http://www.klps.pl/pliki/gospel_fsm_eng.pdf

Q: If there's a Beer Volcano and a Stripper Factory in Heaven, what's
FSM Hell like?
A: We're not entirely certain, but we imagine it's similar to FSM
Heaven, only the beer is stale and the strippers have venereal diseases.
Not unlike Las Vegas.

Q: Your "religion" offends my beliefs. What should I do about feeling
mocked?
A: Our alternative beliefs are in no way mocking your beliefs more
than yours mock ours. FSM believers are peaceful, open-minded,
well educated, and reject dogma outright. We've never started a
war and have never killed others for their opposing beliefs. Compare
our record to yours.

Q: Where does the FSM exist?
A: We're not sure exactly, because He's invisible most of the time and
rarely makes His presence known. Prayers don't seem to reach
Him until well after they're prayed. This leads us to believe there is
some sort of time dilation effect. Plus, so many prayers are offered
to Him that even He wouldn't have the time to hear them all without
a time dilation effect. For this reason, we suspect He spends a
great deal of time orbiting a black hole.

Buying bullshit is not a sign of an open mind.

It is not appropriate in this room.

than mainstream religion? Without the beer volcano and stripper academy, of course.

However, as with many other religions, it has become a practiced religion by many.

that any religion was not started as a farce, to explain that which science explains today.
I guess that it's your forum, so your opinion is worth more than mine though.
Just remember that there is no real tolerance, if you exclude ANYONE.

religious privilege and discrimination. So that I could officiate a wedding, when my alternatives were; become ordained, or become a circuit court judge.

Those rules created by religious people to exclude the non-religious.
So sorry it offends your religious privilege, but I'm not going to just chip away at that ivory tower, I'm bringing the whole thing down.

Check your religious privilege, or people like me are going to continue to check it for you, in court.


I don't believe. I'm ordained anyway. That's ok, because belief isn't required to be a member in good standing. But RoccoR5955 told you he does believe. You have no credibility to stand on to tell him he doesn't. Remember your objection when I said 'I don't believe you anymore'? Remember your outrage? Try feeling that on his behalf, if you can set aside that privilege for a second.

I told skinner this when I pmed him about this and there was no objectIon.

Thanks for your opinion but as host I ask you to refrain from doing this. You can call me out in the religion room.

If I post there, about what you are doing here, I'm providing fodder for a Jury, am I not?

I don't go into your safe haven complaininabout your room anymore because I was asked not to. I would appreciate if you didn't do it here.

However, if that is your solution to this issue, I will return to religion to discuss it.

Meta is not appreciated in this room.

The poster persisted and I gave honest answers.

You are brining your dislike of me into this room and i will not have it.

My like or dislike of you has nothing to do with objecting to your use of power on this forum, in an area where you and I have documented history I can link to.

You are doing to him, what you accused me of calling you a "liar" for in that other thread. The difference is, mine was opinion, yours is moderation authority and you are using it to silence him.

atheists and agnostics?

You KNOW the legal source of the FSM idea, and it is not mockery. It was deadly serious, during a court battle.

What it may have grown into after that fact, might be called mockery by some, might be genuine faith by others. I personally am consistent, I don't 'believe' people who claim it, just like I don't believe you. But I would not use my OPINION of the veracity of their belief as criteria to bounce them from the room.

And I haven't seen A&A do it. I've seen the A&A mods do it for people attacking other people, not simply standing there and saying 'this is what I am'. Prophet 451 is a luciferian Satanist. He posts in A&A from time to time, and it has caused no shitstorm, because he talks about what he *is* not what he thinks others are.

I have made clear that it is mocking religion and is not tolerated here. I told skinner my plans before I became host. I got no objection.

The hosts of AA would not tolerste mockery of atheists and agnostics. They know it when they see it and so do I.


I locked a thread this morning that was meant to disrupt.

But what you are doing here most certainly rejects that individual (an individual who is not Warren). He would have to adopt a new faith in order to participate, per your rule. As an observer, I find that highly unfair, and wanted to speak up about it.

You know my opinion, it's on the record. I am disappointed in your treatment of RoccoR5955. Otherwise, I guess we're done here.

You see the reactions when that stuff is posted in this sites by believers.

I am disappointed in you that you don't see that.

You don't see me going into prayer threads, or condolence threads, or 'I need support' threads, and shitting on people for religious sentiments do you?

You'll even find one by me in the pinned thread in Interfaith, because I didn't know the thread was in interfaith, as it was on the Top Five on the front page when I clicked on it, and I recognized the thread author.

It's one thing to put out religious faith as an article of discussion, and maybe receiving contentious debate on it. It's another to participate in a thread for expressing support/well wishes/prayer, and being told you're not welcome because your faith isn't real.

There has to be uniform rules.

There are occasions where even I will show up and well-wish from an entirely secular position, and genuinely mean it.
I don't think you should exclude anyone on a litmus test of your perception of their faith's sincerity. I think you should base it on the sincerity of the individual. We're all humans here.

RoccoR5955 seemed sincere to me, when he asked that question.
Prophet 451 seems also an outlier that might need allowances, if he came in here to pray to Lucifer, that might offend some people who participate in this sort of thing, even though I think that poster is sincere.

There are those that would dismiss luciferian Satanism as a 'mock' religion as well. (Recall the 'black mass' threads)


I think your rule should be more welcoming and along the lines of 'be positive, and participate', and if you see someone say something controversial, maybe just 'vote 1 and move on' (ignore it/give them the benefit of the doubt).

Disruptors will make their disruption known, if that's what they are after.

It triggers anger.

I am keeping the rule.

It was a parody and a sham from the get-go and better minds than his were involved in the litigation with Kansas and creationism.

It's even more of a sham today with internet posers batting their eyelashes that it's a legitimate religion.

For 20 bucks I'd join you in getting ordained but I don't do scams.

Now, since you've come in here calling people hypocrites - for seeing a scam as a scam - I'll give you one chance before I returrn the favor.

You've stated several times you're an ordained minister in the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

Fine.

Explain your church's beliefs in strippers and beer volcanos.

There will be one of three results.

1) You will demonstrate those are your sincerely held beliefs.

2) You don't believe them in the slightest and we will then move on to the topic of hypocrisy.

3) You will demonstrate it is in fact a sham designed to mock other religions.

Go ahead.

For twenty bucks I over-rode your institutionalized religious privilege, and officiated my brother's wedding. My only other options were:

1. Lie my way into a 'real' faith, so-called.
2. Become a circuit court judge.

FSM gave me exactly what I wanted, the power to step over the dead corpse of your religious privilege. All legal and above board.

Liar.
Post 115:

1. I wait for a court case to wend its way through the courts, trying to spike the requirements to officiate a wedding at the state level. (And miss the scheduled wedding date.)
2. Lie my way into a 'faith'.
3. Become a circuit court judge (and miss the scheduled wedding date.)


I like weapons that work. That one works.

If you're talking about your need to legally officiate at a wedding, it depends on your jurisdiction. Some have secular paths.

If you were in a hurry, the Universal Life Church has been doing the same thing for decades and it's free. Without all the trappings.

A clown car makes a poor weapon.

And it worked perfectly.

I didn't need any trappings, either. Just :20bux:.

My state has no secular path, that lies outside getting elected as a circuit court judge, which, I am not qualified to attempt.


You want to impress me? Why don't you religious folks tear down the barriers you've put in my path? Just because I CAN drive right through it with a clown car, doesn't mean I should have to.

I would think honest, earnest people would be all over ripping down their own barricades to a open, honest, and respectful society.

After all, they are your barricades. Not to mention issues your church specifically, has erected on other issues.

I get the distinct impression you're not even talking to me but responding to echoes in your head.

By all means, start out with 'pick one of these three disingenuous options' and also 'gotcha, you said a word I'm going to pretend I didn't use'.

Some religious, some political, etc.

usually something self-inflicted.

Being coyly obtuse does not rescue this sham.

Because the moderator and a few others deem it a parody.
This is as bad as those who want to ban Islam from their areas because they believe it is terrorist.
And here I thought that Christians were tolerant. I guess I was sorely mistaken.

Us so it is not allowed in this room.

against religious people injecting religion into public schools.

Kitzmiller, et al. v. Dover Area School District, et al. (2005)

This is just so hypocritical, but I guess you do not see it that way.
Oh well, it's not the first time, I am sure it is not the last time that a lesser religion is persecuted.
May you be touched by His noodly appendages,
Arrgh and R'amen!

I am sorry if this offends you but this spaghetti monster thing offends believers because it mocks us.

offends me. It also offends me that you believe that my faith is less legitimate than yours.
So much for Christian tolerance.
May you be touched by His noodly appendages, and learn the Way of Pastafarianism.
Arrgh, and R'amen.

claiming that it is not legitimate.

Any of these monotheistic religions were originally setup to mock the polytheistic religions of many centuries ago.
Now they practice it seriously, just as many of us Pastafarians are practicing seriously. I have a mass at a local bar every Friday night (our holy day). Granted, there are few followers, but I have had about a dozen or so on a good day.

It mocks people of faith. Skinner knows my thoughts on this and he made me host.

No more.

It's not about religious belief, it's about control. So you are allowed to mock MY beliefs, and the beliefs of others, because you feel that our beliefs mock yours.
You know the boss, and that's the end of it.
Okay, you win by the golden rule. The one with the gold, makes the rules.

Your insinuations are ridiculous.

It is no more 'mockery' than Russell's Teapot, of which, FSM is simply a more elaborate version.

The difference is, in having been crafted along a template resembling an actual religion, it may actually have earnest believers, today.

And that I have and will say over and over again.

exclaim 'it's mockery' at people like the poster you were just arguing with?

You can't provoke *me* with it, because it is not a deeply held belief of mine, but mistreating him or her, does provoke me.