WEBVTT - Hyper-Real Religion: Pastafarianism and Beyond 0:00:03.080 --> 0:00:05.920 Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from house stop 0:00:05.920 --> 0:00:15.760 ward dot com. Hey, you're welcome to stuff to blow 0:00:15.760 --> 0:00:18.680 your mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, 0:00:18.760 --> 0:00:22.160 and I want to share with you a modern legend. 0:00:22.760 --> 0:00:24.639 Probably heard this one before it. It's one of the 0:00:24.640 --> 0:00:28.280 most persistent rumors of the modern age, the L Ron 0:00:28.400 --> 0:00:33.360 Hubbard Robert A. Heinland bar bet. You know this one, Robert, Yes, Now, 0:00:33.400 --> 0:00:35.720 I looked into it, and I couldn't find any convincing 0:00:35.760 --> 0:00:38.559 evidence that this bet ever actually took place, so it's 0:00:38.600 --> 0:00:41.240 probably just more of a legend than than a real 0:00:41.320 --> 0:00:45.440 historical account. But the legend I always heard goes something 0:00:45.520 --> 0:00:48.320 like this, You've got L. Ron Hubbard and Robert A. 0:00:48.400 --> 0:00:52.239 Heinland to science fiction authors of the twentieth century, and 0:00:52.280 --> 0:00:54.920 they're sitting in a bar. They don't walk into a bar, 0:00:55.280 --> 0:00:57.000 I guess. I suppose they have to walk into the 0:00:57.000 --> 0:01:00.080 bar first, if they don't take hoverboards or maybe a 0:01:00.120 --> 0:01:03.600 power armor stamp into the bar. But anyway, they're in 0:01:03.640 --> 0:01:06.360 the bar. They're down in some bruskis and this is 0:01:06.360 --> 0:01:08.840 probably some time I would guess in the late nineteen forties, 0:01:09.040 --> 0:01:11.520 and they are discussing the best way to make a 0:01:11.520 --> 0:01:15.000 ton of money, because let's face it, writing science fiction 0:01:15.040 --> 0:01:17.960 doesn't always pay amazingly right, and at this point in 0:01:18.000 --> 0:01:20.920 both of them in his career, they are sci fi writers. Yeah, 0:01:21.080 --> 0:01:24.040 very much so. Uh so Hubbard has an opinion. L 0:01:24.160 --> 0:01:26.920 Ron Hubbard says, you know, the best strategy is really 0:01:26.959 --> 0:01:30.600 to take advantage of the common people's desire for transcendence 0:01:30.600 --> 0:01:34.760 and salvation. So he says, quote religion, that's where the 0:01:34.800 --> 0:01:38.640 real money is. And Hubbard boasts that he could invent 0:01:38.680 --> 0:01:42.840 a religion and make millions. Of course, Hinland balks at this. 0:01:43.000 --> 0:01:45.720 That sounds kind of extravagant. So they make a bet 0:01:46.200 --> 0:01:49.160 can he do it? Can he not do it? And 0:01:49.200 --> 0:01:51.160 by the end of the century there are at least 0:01:51.200 --> 0:01:54.600 tens of thousands of Scientologists in the world. The Church 0:01:54.600 --> 0:02:00.360 of Scientology claims millions of adherents those numbers. Who knows 0:02:00.400 --> 0:02:02.000 what the real numbers are, but it seems like at 0:02:02.040 --> 0:02:05.400 least tens of thousands. And Scientology is the sci fi 0:02:05.480 --> 0:02:08.760 religion founded on the teachings of l. Ron Hubbard. Yeah, 0:02:08.800 --> 0:02:12.240 and it has official religious status in numerous countries. So 0:02:13.280 --> 0:02:16.680 even though this bat probably did not take place, like 0:02:16.680 --> 0:02:18.520 it's one of those things where, yes, it could have 0:02:18.639 --> 0:02:21.639 if you really crunch it, but there's an absolutely no documentation. Yeah, 0:02:21.680 --> 0:02:23.840 there's no good evidence for it. And and in fact, 0:02:23.880 --> 0:02:26.960 we we we probably really should emphasize that because apparently 0:02:28.080 --> 0:02:30.400 in the past there have been some legal actions against 0:02:30.440 --> 0:02:33.120 people who promulgate this as if it were true. So 0:02:33.280 --> 0:02:36.760 probably not true. But why is the rumors so persistent? 0:02:36.880 --> 0:02:39.840 Everybody's heard this, right, I bet you sitting at home, 0:02:39.960 --> 0:02:43.399 or sitting standing running wherever you are listening, I bet 0:02:43.440 --> 0:02:46.680 you've heard some version of this before, right, So you 0:02:46.680 --> 0:02:50.280 could chalk it up to people's just general distaste for scientology. 0:02:50.320 --> 0:02:52.800 There there's a lot of antipathy out there, right, there's 0:02:52.880 --> 0:02:57.000 no sortage of scientology criticism, uh and and lampoon ing 0:02:57.560 --> 0:02:59.960 on the internet these days. Right, But you could also 0:03:00.080 --> 0:03:03.040 say that this kind of story sticks in the mind 0:03:03.240 --> 0:03:08.000 and merits repeating simply because of the sheer audacity of it. 0:03:07.800 --> 0:03:12.720 It offends our most basic sensibilities about what religion is 0:03:12.880 --> 0:03:16.760 and is supposed to be creating a religion out of 0:03:16.800 --> 0:03:19.680 thin air, just on a whim, coming up with a 0:03:19.720 --> 0:03:27.119 new religion. Something about it seems fiercely wrong, just nakedly perverse. Well, yeah, 0:03:27.160 --> 0:03:29.960 I think I think so. I think yeah. On one hand, 0:03:30.720 --> 0:03:33.640 it does seem like sheer audacity that somebody would just 0:03:33.919 --> 0:03:37.480 create it wholesale. Though, of course, as we'll discuss to 0:03:37.520 --> 0:03:40.640 a large extent, nobody creates a religion wholesale. You're building 0:03:40.640 --> 0:03:42.640 it out of existing parts. It's all kind of like 0:03:42.680 --> 0:03:46.800 that first Iron Man suit that that that start builds 0:03:46.800 --> 0:03:48.320 in the first Iron Man film. He just builds it 0:03:48.400 --> 0:03:50.600 out of all the stuff that's laying around, and then 0:03:50.600 --> 0:03:53.280 he uses that to his advantage. And that's I think 0:03:53.280 --> 0:03:54.960 I would argue that that's what you see in most 0:03:55.000 --> 0:03:58.320 of these cases, though the particular suit of religious armor 0:03:58.680 --> 0:04:01.240 changes depending on the qual day of the ingredients. Yeah. 0:04:01.280 --> 0:04:03.800 And I would say this relates back to something we 0:04:03.840 --> 0:04:06.520 talked about in our Techno Religion for the Masses episodes, 0:04:06.600 --> 0:04:09.400 which is that I personally think that a lot of 0:04:09.440 --> 0:04:13.720 the power we attribute to religion lies in our chronological 0:04:13.760 --> 0:04:17.280 alienation from its origins and from its contents. I mean, 0:04:17.320 --> 0:04:19.120 it comes down to sort of like, what does someone 0:04:19.240 --> 0:04:21.520 want from a religion? What does one want from a 0:04:21.520 --> 0:04:24.359 a god? They want something greater than themselves, something that 0:04:24.360 --> 0:04:27.320 stands outside of themselves. What better way than to have 0:04:27.400 --> 0:04:32.000 something that stands outside of not only your lifespan, but 0:04:32.120 --> 0:04:35.760 even your generation, outside of your your your era, even 0:04:36.040 --> 0:04:39.440 you know it's calling to you from a distant place 0:04:39.640 --> 0:04:42.800 slash time. Some of the power comes from the mystery 0:04:42.880 --> 0:04:45.920 of its separation. That's sort of what holiness is. It's 0:04:46.040 --> 0:04:49.200 way less impressive if it seems to spring from the 0:04:49.279 --> 0:04:52.960 very ground we walk on from day to day. And 0:04:52.960 --> 0:04:57.919 and yet all religions start somewhere. No religion can have 0:04:58.040 --> 0:05:02.200 always been ancient, uh, because every religion that exists today, 0:05:02.320 --> 0:05:05.120 even the one you believe in, you would you would 0:05:05.160 --> 0:05:07.680 have to admit, has an origin. It started at some 0:05:07.760 --> 0:05:11.040 point people started believing in this thing. Uh. Though most 0:05:11.080 --> 0:05:15.200 are probably not the result of a single moment of creativity, 0:05:15.200 --> 0:05:18.240 whether inspired by gambling in Bruskys and whatnot. I mean, 0:05:18.240 --> 0:05:22.120 they're probably from gradual evolutions of beliefs, right, Yeah, new 0:05:22.160 --> 0:05:25.440 ideas that suddenly get picked up by, in many cases 0:05:25.560 --> 0:05:29.159 a charismatic individual who is bringing this to people or 0:05:29.440 --> 0:05:32.640 you know it ties into uh two shifts and changes 0:05:33.400 --> 0:05:36.960 in the structure of society and uh and then in 0:05:37.040 --> 0:05:38.840 our sort of in and then when you layer over 0:05:38.880 --> 0:05:42.279 the mythic uh materials as well. You're gonna throw in 0:05:42.320 --> 0:05:45.760 some miracles. You're gonna throw in some some fantastic occurrences, 0:05:45.800 --> 0:05:48.440 golden books falling out of the sky or emerging from 0:05:48.480 --> 0:05:51.080 the ground. Right, Yeah, But this is what we want 0:05:51.080 --> 0:05:53.760 to talk about today, right, So it's the beginnings of 0:05:53.800 --> 0:05:58.039 religious movements, and especially on those that draw from sources 0:05:58.279 --> 0:06:01.240 other than direct spirit whole revelation. So you might have 0:06:01.279 --> 0:06:04.159 a movement that starts with somebody thinks they've received a 0:06:04.160 --> 0:06:07.520 message from God or from other worldly powers, from a 0:06:07.560 --> 0:06:11.200 supernatural agent, and then they deliver that message and found 0:06:11.200 --> 0:06:13.719 a new religion. You've got those, But we want to 0:06:13.720 --> 0:06:18.240 talk about what happens when something that everybody recognizes as 0:06:18.240 --> 0:06:22.479 a fiction or an in joke or a prank or 0:06:22.560 --> 0:06:26.599 a fan club takes on the mantle of religion and 0:06:26.720 --> 0:06:30.960 genuine sanctity. Yeah, when does it become an actual religion? 0:06:31.040 --> 0:06:32.800 And I know that some of you might be thinking, well, 0:06:32.800 --> 0:06:34.800 what does any of this have to do with science 0:06:34.839 --> 0:06:37.560 and the flag of science that is up there over 0:06:37.760 --> 0:06:41.360 stuff to bow your mind? Well a lot actually, because 0:06:41.680 --> 0:06:44.279 because most of what we're gonna talk about is occurring, 0:06:44.360 --> 0:06:48.160 if not right now, than at least in the scientific age. 0:06:48.680 --> 0:06:52.360 And I believe that that that the the age of science, 0:06:52.400 --> 0:06:54.520 this age of a reason, has a lot to do 0:06:54.680 --> 0:06:58.640 with the emergence of hyper real religions. Absolutely, and I 0:06:58.680 --> 0:07:01.159 think we would be remiss if we did not begin 0:07:01.279 --> 0:07:05.360 this discussion with one of the most popular jokes turned 0:07:05.440 --> 0:07:10.600 religions of our modern age, and that is postafarianism. Yes, 0:07:10.760 --> 0:07:12.080 and and I do want to just throw in real 0:07:12.160 --> 0:07:16.320 quick this is, of course, the the word postafarianism is 0:07:16.320 --> 0:07:20.440 is a play on Rastafarianism, and I do I do 0:07:20.520 --> 0:07:23.720 want to just point out that we are aware that 0:07:24.440 --> 0:07:29.160 adherents of the Rastafari faith uh often do not like 0:07:29.240 --> 0:07:32.520 the term Rastafarianism. So it's kind of like there's a 0:07:32.520 --> 0:07:39.600 little bit of an insult to Rastafari adherents built into postafarianism. 0:07:39.720 --> 0:07:42.360 Well maybe maybe for that, for that reason, we could 0:07:42.360 --> 0:07:45.280 avoid it and just say flying spaghetti monsterism. Well we 0:07:45.440 --> 0:07:47.000 I think we can refer to either just what I 0:07:47.040 --> 0:07:50.360 just thought it was important to acknowledge that, yes, uh uh, 0:07:50.640 --> 0:07:54.600 there's I don't think it was intentional, but they're Postafarianism 0:07:54.640 --> 0:07:58.400 could be deemed offensive by some out there, certainly, and 0:07:58.480 --> 0:08:01.120 if you're already lost. We need to back up, because 0:08:01.200 --> 0:08:02.920 in order for this to make sense, we've got to 0:08:02.920 --> 0:08:05.720 start with a brief bit of historical context, especially for 0:08:05.760 --> 0:08:09.160 those of you who live outside the United States and 0:08:09.240 --> 0:08:13.880 aren't familiar with the school creationism controversy that's gone on 0:08:13.960 --> 0:08:15.920 in the United States, I'd say mostly in the last 0:08:15.960 --> 0:08:19.560 twenty years or so many twenty years. So in the 0:08:19.640 --> 0:08:24.240 United States, we have a constitutional doctrine of separation of 0:08:24.320 --> 0:08:27.600 church and State, and this is traditionally interpreted to say 0:08:27.600 --> 0:08:30.920 that private citizens can believe whatever they want. You have, 0:08:31.000 --> 0:08:34.000 whatever religious beliefs you want, an agents of the government 0:08:34.040 --> 0:08:37.200 can't interfere with that, but also agents of the government 0:08:37.280 --> 0:08:41.920 can't use their civil authority to punish or promote particular 0:08:42.040 --> 0:08:45.080 religious ideas. Right. And for the most part, that works 0:08:45.080 --> 0:08:48.120 pretty well, except where there's this crossover where on one 0:08:48.200 --> 0:08:51.040 side the science book is saying, uh, there's this thing 0:08:51.080 --> 0:08:54.480 called evolution. There were these things called dinosaurs. This is 0:08:54.520 --> 0:08:59.360 the basic timeline as a science understands it versus more 0:09:00.080 --> 0:09:04.800 fundamentalist and literal interpretations of biblical tradition. Right. And this 0:09:05.000 --> 0:09:07.640 is the most common example in the United States of 0:09:07.760 --> 0:09:12.600 a conflict between between separate between the sort of individual 0:09:12.679 --> 0:09:16.040 beliefs of people who work for the government, and the 0:09:16.040 --> 0:09:18.760 the idea that civil servants of the government shouldn't be 0:09:18.840 --> 0:09:21.920 using their power to inflict their religious beliefs on other people. 0:09:22.400 --> 0:09:25.319 Uh So, a large percent of Americans are what we 0:09:25.360 --> 0:09:29.480 would call Young Earth creationists. And what does that mean. Well, 0:09:29.520 --> 0:09:33.960 a Gallop poll released in June found that forty two 0:09:33.960 --> 0:09:37.880 percent of Americans said they agreed with the following statement 0:09:38.120 --> 0:09:42.160 quote God created human beings pretty much in their present 0:09:42.240 --> 0:09:45.800 form at one time within the last ten thousand years 0:09:45.880 --> 0:09:49.960 or so, which is of course complete nonsense, right, And 0:09:50.000 --> 0:09:52.360 if you're listening to this podcast, I'm just gonna go 0:09:52.480 --> 0:09:55.400 and assume you do not believe this. Yeah, as you 0:09:55.400 --> 0:09:58.600 could guess, this entails a rejection of biological evolution and 0:09:58.600 --> 0:10:03.480 common descent usually, uh, pretty much all of geology, radiometric dating, 0:10:03.520 --> 0:10:08.040 all mainstream scientific thinking about fossils and paleontology, probably a 0:10:08.080 --> 0:10:11.720 lot of astronomy and astrophysics too, for example, the creation 0:10:11.760 --> 0:10:14.440 of the Solar System and the formation of galaxies, and 0:10:14.520 --> 0:10:17.240 probably plenty of other things. You could just generally say 0:10:17.280 --> 0:10:21.439 that Young Earth creationism is a belief that encounters generalized 0:10:21.600 --> 0:10:25.640 difficulty when held alongside a scientific picture of our world. Yeah, 0:10:25.679 --> 0:10:29.719 it's the the rejection of the best modern scientific understanding 0:10:29.760 --> 0:10:32.560 of how the world works, and the acceptance of and 0:10:32.600 --> 0:10:38.800 the reliance upon a sort of modern untangling of ancient 0:10:38.840 --> 0:10:42.560 Babylonian right. So, but the problem is plenty of civil 0:10:42.600 --> 0:10:45.760 servants in the United States, especially people who might be 0:10:46.040 --> 0:10:50.840 teachers in public schools or approving curriculum or textbook selection 0:10:50.960 --> 0:10:55.640 for public schools, hold these beliefs themselves, and they sometimes 0:10:55.640 --> 0:10:58.280 try to promote these beliefs and their consequences in what 0:10:58.360 --> 0:11:03.440 are supposed to be secular, religiously neutral classes for all students. 0:11:03.920 --> 0:11:06.440 And this can take a lot of forms. At one extreme, 0:11:06.480 --> 0:11:09.000 it might have biology classes teaching about the Garden of 0:11:09.160 --> 0:11:13.000 Eden and Noah's Ark as an alternative evolutionary theory. At 0:11:13.000 --> 0:11:16.120 the other end, it might be less overt than that, 0:11:16.160 --> 0:11:20.360 and it might just insist on biology classes including materials 0:11:20.400 --> 0:11:24.080 prepared by creationists that sort of cast vague, unfounded doubts 0:11:24.120 --> 0:11:28.200 on modern biology, or that uh teach children scientifically false 0:11:28.320 --> 0:11:31.760 arguments against evolution, like you know, things you've heard before, 0:11:31.840 --> 0:11:34.640 like there are no transitional fossils and stuff like that. 0:11:35.160 --> 0:11:38.720 And obviously this has led to lots of social conflict, 0:11:38.720 --> 0:11:41.840 big public debates, and lots of court cases. One example 0:11:41.880 --> 0:11:44.079 of such a court case occurs very close to home 0:11:44.120 --> 0:11:46.720 for us here in Cobb County, Georgia, which is includes 0:11:46.840 --> 0:11:51.040 northern suburbs of Atlanta. And on March twenty, two thousand two, 0:11:51.360 --> 0:11:54.640 the public school officials in Cobb County approved a measure 0:11:54.760 --> 0:11:57.559 requiring biology textbooks to wear a sticker on the inside 0:11:57.559 --> 0:12:01.560 cover that has the following statement. It's says evolution is 0:12:01.600 --> 0:12:05.360 a theory, not a fact, regarding the origin of living 0:12:05.559 --> 0:12:08.640 living things. Uh. And in two thousand five, this was 0:12:08.760 --> 0:12:13.040 ruled unconstitutional by US District Judge Clarence Cooper, who said, 0:12:13.040 --> 0:12:16.520 of this ruling quote, by denigrating evolution, the school board 0:12:16.520 --> 0:12:19.880 appears to be endorsing the well known prevailing alternative theory 0:12:20.200 --> 0:12:24.040 creationism or variations thereof, even though the sticker does not 0:12:24.120 --> 0:12:28.800 specifically reference the alternative theories. And this gets us back 0:12:28.840 --> 0:12:31.800 to the monster in question, the spaghetti monster. Where where 0:12:31.800 --> 0:12:36.480 did this come from? Well? This originates with a protest, Yeah, 0:12:36.480 --> 0:12:40.240 a protest against the inclusion of statements like the stickers 0:12:40.320 --> 0:12:43.520 like this in science textbooks. Like the basic idea here 0:12:43.679 --> 0:12:47.760 is hey, if this nonsense is going to be presented 0:12:47.800 --> 0:12:52.439 as an alternative to our science. How about this nonsense? 0:12:52.480 --> 0:12:55.959 How about I just blatantly make something up, just completely 0:12:55.960 --> 0:12:58.280 off the top of my head, just the craziest thing 0:12:58.320 --> 0:13:01.480 you can imagine. Let's put that in there as well. Yeah, 0:13:01.679 --> 0:13:04.000 and this of course takes this to Kansas. Yeah, to 0:13:04.120 --> 0:13:07.040 two thousand five, when the Kansas State Board of Education 0:13:07.440 --> 0:13:10.440 had decided to allow intelligent design the sort of a 0:13:10.480 --> 0:13:13.920 moniker of creationism, you might call it, like a marketing 0:13:14.040 --> 0:13:17.200 term to make it seem more scientific, like to add 0:13:17.240 --> 0:13:23.360 a lexicon of scientific vocabulary to h to creationism. And 0:13:23.400 --> 0:13:25.599 they said that they wanted to introduce this into the 0:13:25.679 --> 0:13:28.480 curriculum as an as an alternative to evolution, you know, 0:13:28.559 --> 0:13:33.160 teach both theories. So uh. Then twenty five year old 0:13:33.200 --> 0:13:37.560 physics graduate Bobby Henderson wrote what is known as the 0:13:37.600 --> 0:13:40.880 Open Letter to the Kansas School Board, published online in 0:13:40.920 --> 0:13:45.160 two thousand five, to present his vision for religious inclusivity 0:13:45.200 --> 0:13:47.240 in the science classroom. Robert, would you like to read 0:13:47.280 --> 0:13:50.520 a select quote from the letter? I shall quote. I 0:13:50.520 --> 0:13:53.720 am writing you with much concern, after having read of 0:13:53.840 --> 0:13:57.160 your hearing to decide whether the alternative theory of intelligent 0:13:57.200 --> 0:13:59.800 design should be taught along with the theory of evolution. 0:14:00.200 --> 0:14:03.400 Let us remember that there are multiple theories of intelligent design. 0:14:03.840 --> 0:14:06.560 I and many others around the world are of the 0:14:06.600 --> 0:14:09.800 strong belief that the universe was created by a flying 0:14:10.040 --> 0:14:13.920 spaghetti monster. Right. So throughout this letter, Henderson goes on 0:14:14.000 --> 0:14:19.160 to critique and satirize the intelligent design arguments by showing 0:14:19.200 --> 0:14:22.560 how the claims of flying spaghetti monsterism, though they might 0:14:22.600 --> 0:14:26.440 appear to conflict with scientists around the world, don't actually 0:14:26.520 --> 0:14:29.320 because the flying spaghetti monster reaches out with his newly 0:14:29.320 --> 0:14:32.640 appendages to tweak the results of experiments so that we 0:14:32.680 --> 0:14:35.880 will be tricked into believing in an evolutionary model of 0:14:35.920 --> 0:14:38.800 the old Earth. Uh. And he goes on also to 0:14:38.920 --> 0:14:42.680 insist that when flying spaghetti monsterism is taught in science classrooms, 0:14:42.720 --> 0:14:46.560 the teacher must wear full pirate regalia. Quote. The concise 0:14:46.600 --> 0:14:52.000 explanation for this is that he becomes angry if we don't. Yeah. So, 0:14:52.320 --> 0:14:56.120 and of course this leads to um wonderful depictions of 0:14:56.120 --> 0:14:59.440 the flying spaghetti monster, yeah, which we've all seen before, right. 0:14:59.520 --> 0:15:02.320 The meme very much. It started as a bit of satire, 0:15:03.000 --> 0:15:07.880 a joke on this religious social movement that the author 0:15:07.920 --> 0:15:10.520 of this letter opposed, but it really took on a 0:15:10.560 --> 0:15:12.560 life of its own. It became a meme, it became 0:15:12.600 --> 0:15:15.080 picked up on the internet. So there's artwork. Like you said, 0:15:15.120 --> 0:15:20.520 there's uh, it's a whole living library of self referential 0:15:20.600 --> 0:15:24.920 humor based around this original idea of a flying spaghetti monster, 0:15:25.400 --> 0:15:30.720 including actually becoming some form of church. Yeah. I mean 0:15:31.320 --> 0:15:34.600 it's interesting to look at the evolution of the joke. 0:15:35.480 --> 0:15:38.400 I mean, I'm often just taken by the visual depiction 0:15:38.400 --> 0:15:40.120 because I feel like those really pick up a lot 0:15:40.120 --> 0:15:43.880 of steam. And the spaghetti monster itself is funny looking. 0:15:43.920 --> 0:15:47.000 It kind of looks like testicles, so it's it's it's 0:15:47.040 --> 0:15:49.840 inherently goofy. It has meatballs, by the way, it's a 0:15:49.960 --> 0:15:52.320 it's a large pile of spaghetti flying through the sky 0:15:52.400 --> 0:15:55.840 with eyes and meatballs generally too, and and and yeah, 0:15:55.920 --> 0:15:57.640 to your point, like a lot of it's kind of 0:15:57.720 --> 0:16:01.920 a community, a symbol, myth those as well, Like everyone, 0:16:02.320 --> 0:16:04.400 all sorts of little bits and pieces are thrown in 0:16:04.600 --> 0:16:08.280 kind of willy nilly to create this overall faith. And 0:16:08.320 --> 0:16:10.760 it's one of those the theology is not all top down, 0:16:11.160 --> 0:16:14.560 sort of bottom up theology. Yeah, and it's it's one 0:16:14.560 --> 0:16:16.280 of those jokes that I think over the years, like 0:16:16.280 --> 0:16:18.000 when I first heard it, I was kind of like, 0:16:18.040 --> 0:16:20.000 didn't get the joke, and then I got the joke. 0:16:20.040 --> 0:16:22.680 I'm like, Okay, I get it. But then the joke, 0:16:22.760 --> 0:16:25.400 it's the joke just keeps going. People keep telling it 0:16:25.640 --> 0:16:29.200 to the point where it's not really that funny anymore. 0:16:29.840 --> 0:16:31.840 But you know, it's kind of like having that that 0:16:31.880 --> 0:16:34.440 friend in high school who loves Monty Python so much 0:16:34.880 --> 0:16:37.880 that they won't they just fit a reference or half 0:16:37.880 --> 0:16:40.520 a skit into every conversation. Like that's kind of how 0:16:40.520 --> 0:16:44.560 I feel about Pastafari. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I know 0:16:44.640 --> 0:16:47.080 exactly what you mean. And also I would say that 0:16:47.160 --> 0:16:52.520 in some cases it evolved from a specific satire of 0:16:52.520 --> 0:16:56.640 of teaching of Young Earth creationism in public schools to 0:16:56.800 --> 0:17:00.920 become a more general critique of of religion across the board, 0:17:00.960 --> 0:17:05.520 which I think is not necessarily what the author originally intended, right, 0:17:05.600 --> 0:17:08.280 But yeah, that's definitely becomes kind of a you know, 0:17:08.280 --> 0:17:13.760 an atheistic protest religion, um, and it serves a useful 0:17:13.760 --> 0:17:19.760 purpose there, I think, you know it. It's it continually argues, hey, um, 0:17:20.040 --> 0:17:22.119 why do we believe that in the things we believed in. 0:17:22.560 --> 0:17:25.640 You know, why is this valuable? And this isn't um 0:17:25.680 --> 0:17:28.600 and you know, as a joke goes it is it 0:17:29.000 --> 0:17:32.000 has proven to be effective, you know, in the way 0:17:32.000 --> 0:17:35.840 that jokes can often tear down the most formidable walls 0:17:36.240 --> 0:17:39.760 in our society but also piss people off royally. Now, 0:17:39.800 --> 0:17:41.679 I can take the other side for a second and 0:17:41.680 --> 0:17:44.320 say that I can understand why some religious people would 0:17:44.840 --> 0:17:49.200 be less than impressed with this joke as it exists today, because, 0:17:49.760 --> 0:17:51.720 let's be fair, in a lot of cases, it does 0:17:51.760 --> 0:17:55.119 seem to represent a just sort of generalized critique, and 0:17:55.160 --> 0:17:59.600 critique might be a generous word of of religion without 0:17:59.760 --> 0:18:03.600 much attempt to understand people's religions or doctrines and the 0:18:03.720 --> 0:18:06.960 values they provide to the people that that hold them. Yeah, 0:18:07.000 --> 0:18:08.560 it is you can just look at as a kind 0:18:08.560 --> 0:18:14.040 of shallow, outsider mockery. Yeah, and I and I definitely, 0:18:14.320 --> 0:18:16.680 you know, I can definitely relate to some of those 0:18:16.680 --> 0:18:19.280 feelings about it, you know, over the years, because at 0:18:19.320 --> 0:18:21.520 times I have felt like, not only is it a 0:18:21.600 --> 0:18:23.880 joke that I maybe don't don't get or I don't 0:18:23.880 --> 0:18:26.000 find as funny, but yeah, I could also see where 0:18:26.040 --> 0:18:28.480 it's a little a little offensive, you know, because you're 0:18:28.640 --> 0:18:31.600 it's kind of like you're taking just three minutes to 0:18:31.680 --> 0:18:36.639 throw up a spaghetti monster image to rebuke a person's 0:18:36.840 --> 0:18:39.880 lifetime of faith, you know, to to rebuke their their 0:18:39.960 --> 0:18:43.520 their cultural heritage in many cases. But as we said, 0:18:44.440 --> 0:18:47.440 this is becoming a new heritage of its own. And 0:18:47.560 --> 0:18:50.399 I'm I'm curious to see what the Church of the 0:18:50.400 --> 0:18:54.119 Flying Spaghetti Monster looks like in twenty years. Yeah. I 0:18:54.160 --> 0:18:58.000 think for the most part, for most people, it's it's 0:18:58.000 --> 0:19:01.159 remains at that bumper sticker level involvement, you know, it 0:19:01.280 --> 0:19:03.000 is just something you throw up on social media or 0:19:03.000 --> 0:19:04.679 stick on the back of your car. Other people have 0:19:04.760 --> 0:19:07.720 taken it to two greater extremes, going in and trying 0:19:07.720 --> 0:19:10.359 to get their official um, you know state I D 0:19:10.840 --> 0:19:12.840 with a colander on their head, which is of course 0:19:12.880 --> 0:19:16.040 one of the other articles of faith for the adherents, 0:19:17.040 --> 0:19:20.960 and UH and other folks have pushed for official religious status, 0:19:21.960 --> 0:19:24.840 which is is really taking it to the next level, 0:19:24.920 --> 0:19:28.520 saying not only is our joke religion jokey, but it 0:19:28.720 --> 0:19:31.960 is actually a religion, or it is as real religion 0:19:31.960 --> 0:19:34.800 as your religion. And we want the government to recognize 0:19:34.800 --> 0:19:36.960 that fact. And I think there are some governments that 0:19:37.000 --> 0:19:41.000 have recognized it, right, Yeah, at least the Netherlands and 0:19:41.119 --> 0:19:45.080 New Zealand to to some degree. That the Netherlands where 0:19:45.200 --> 0:19:47.760 that was where we saw the most recent headlines about it, 0:19:47.800 --> 0:19:50.439 and apparently they had to they had to prove that 0:19:50.520 --> 0:19:52.679 it wasn't just a fad, that it was an actual 0:19:52.760 --> 0:19:54.919 thing that people believed in and that they had like 0:19:54.960 --> 0:19:57.679 a marriage ritual, uh, that sort of thing, so that 0:19:57.720 --> 0:19:59.439 it was it's the kind of thing that people are 0:19:59.480 --> 0:20:02.960 invested in enough that it is, you know, potentially a 0:20:03.000 --> 0:20:05.679 part of your life. Yeah, and this leads us to 0:20:05.840 --> 0:20:09.639 the realization that a religion need not be ancient in 0:20:09.760 --> 0:20:13.720 order to be followed. So I I stand by what 0:20:13.800 --> 0:20:16.760 I said earlier about a lot of the aesthetic power 0:20:16.880 --> 0:20:19.439 of religion does seem to come from its antiquity and 0:20:19.480 --> 0:20:23.760 its chronological alienation sort of alien holiness of the distant past. 0:20:24.640 --> 0:20:27.080 But this doesn't mean you can't create religions in the 0:20:27.119 --> 0:20:29.600 modern day that gain a following. Yeah. I mean we've 0:20:29.600 --> 0:20:34.560 already mentioned Rastafari, which is an Abrahamic religion, uh, you know, 0:20:34.640 --> 0:20:37.040 certainly with a lot of elements that are based in 0:20:37.160 --> 0:20:42.119 deep history, but it also venerated uh then Emperor of 0:20:42.200 --> 0:20:47.080 Ethiopia highly Stilassi, you know. And it's it's it's certainly 0:20:47.080 --> 0:20:49.399 a religion I would love to look at in greater 0:20:49.480 --> 0:20:51.879 depth at some point in the future. But yeah, you 0:20:51.920 --> 0:20:54.840 have a situation where it's it's in the past, it's 0:20:54.920 --> 0:20:57.439 it's taking place in the present. And I mean to 0:20:57.560 --> 0:21:02.280 have your Messiah of and and die within the lifespan 0:21:02.560 --> 0:21:04.879 of the faith, uh and to see that sort of 0:21:04.920 --> 0:21:08.760 happen in in recent history, it's fascinating. Well, how about 0:21:08.920 --> 0:21:11.560 how about Joseph Smith and the Latter day Saints. Oh yeah, 0:21:11.600 --> 0:21:14.280 I mean there's another good one. Um, it's the origins 0:21:14.359 --> 0:21:18.240 date back around eighteen thirty. This is a millennialist religion 0:21:18.640 --> 0:21:22.959 that preach the impending second Coming, continuing revelations and uh 0:21:23.560 --> 0:21:26.400 uh an identity and values that I guess you'd say 0:21:26.400 --> 0:21:29.199 we're more grounded in the temporary setting. So you know, 0:21:29.240 --> 0:21:33.880 it's America. It's there's a modern cosmology, very American religion. Yeah, 0:21:34.000 --> 0:21:35.919 very much. So. If if you don't realize that this 0:21:36.000 --> 0:21:38.200 is the name, the official name of the Mormons, the 0:21:38.280 --> 0:21:40.680 Church of Jesus Christ, of Latter day Saints and it too, 0:21:40.720 --> 0:21:47.440 of course, sprang up around a single charismatic individual, and uh, 0:21:47.640 --> 0:21:50.600 it's it's it's actually a very interesting religion to look 0:21:50.600 --> 0:21:54.000 at in terms of science as well, um, in the 0:21:54.040 --> 0:21:56.520 in since it's since it is more of a more 0:21:56.560 --> 0:21:59.639 closely tied to our scientific age, you do find elements 0:21:59.760 --> 0:22:03.880 of it that are that that conflict less with modern 0:22:04.520 --> 0:22:07.880 scientific cosmology, such as the the idea that there are 0:22:07.960 --> 0:22:10.760 other planets and that there is a potential for life 0:22:10.760 --> 0:22:14.080 on other worlds. Oh yeah, though even without the introduction 0:22:14.240 --> 0:22:16.760 of new holy texts such as the Book of Mormon, 0:22:17.600 --> 0:22:20.280 you could point out that lots of modern Christians have 0:22:20.440 --> 0:22:25.000 adapted their beliefs to include modern science. Oh certainly. I mean, 0:22:25.640 --> 0:22:29.000 when we look at the numbers from from that Gallup poll, 0:22:29.200 --> 0:22:32.040 only forty two percent of Americans adhered to a literal 0:22:32.119 --> 0:22:36.040 understanding of the Bible, and so that's obviously not even 0:22:36.080 --> 0:22:39.600 maybe that's like half of Christians or something in America. Yeah, yeah, 0:22:39.600 --> 0:22:43.440 I mean, you can certainly still be a Christian according 0:22:43.440 --> 0:22:44.919 to me anyway. I mean, this is going to very 0:22:44.960 --> 0:22:49.000 depending on who's who's serving you your Christianity, but um, yeah, 0:22:49.040 --> 0:22:51.159 you can still be a Christian and not believe that 0:22:51.200 --> 0:22:53.240 there was a literal garden of eaton. You can still 0:22:53.240 --> 0:22:56.720 look at something like Noah's ark uh and and really 0:22:56.800 --> 0:23:00.840