Religious scholars mull Flying Spaghetti Monster

http://www.cnn.com/2007/LIVING/perso....ap/index.html

Indeed, the tale of the Flying Spaghetti Monster and its followers cuts to the heart of the one of the thorniest questions in religious studies: What defines a religion? Does it require a genuine theological belief? Or simply a set of rituals and a community joining together as a way of signaling their cultural alliances to others?

Well we will see if this thread can evolve and not entropy into being closed like previous ID threads, so please be nice to each other.

[bmxbandit]

Can I start the flame war off by vomiting profusely at your use of the word 'entropy' as a verb?

[Cobbydaler]

Indeed, the tale of the Flying Spaghetti Monster and its followers cuts to the heart of the one of the thorniest questions in religious studies: What defines a religion? Does it require a genuine theological belief? Or simply a set of rituals and a community joining together as a way of signaling their cultural alliances to others?

All that any religion which preaches the existence of an omnipotent being requires is a total suspension of reality...

Originally Posted by bmxbandit

Can I start the flame war off by vomiting profusely at your use of the word 'entropy' as a verb?

If you must...

[bmxbandit]

Ok, got that out of the way (sorry... )

Defining a 'genuine' belief is completely arbitrary, so can't really see that being an answer.

One of the reasons I enjoy reading about string theory is the, as I see it, potential for a spiritual as well as physical explanation for the existence we find ourselves in.

- I'm sure there must be a dimension in which 'spaghetti monsters' are also relevant - but a 'religion', I'm not so sure

[Lord Nikon]

Throughout history people have tried to come up with explanations for everything they perceive around them. If they encountered inclement weather or regularly lost ships at sea then they would label the maps "Here be dragons". The thing is, how do we explain our own existance? This is something we can't easily do, we can trace the origins of homo sapiens back, but we can't easily come up with a reason WHY we came into being, so we created an omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent being who would create us.

This also made things easier for controlling the masses.. "do this, this and this and you will be rewarded in the afterlife" was an absolutely EXCELLENT idea, you get control of people, you don't have to give them ANYTHING apart from a few words, they will give you money in the belief they will be rewarded when they die, and the best part? regardless of any reward or not, they won't be back to complain or call you a liar...

Of course, there MAY be a God, who may fall into the categories of omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent, but 2 points, Everything has a beginning and an end, infinity is only a theoretical concept as once you try to quantify it, you can add to it, meaning it wasn't infinite.... so even God had an origin point... Second, With man being in the equation throughout time, writing down the relevent religious works, reading them to the masses, translating them etc, and with man being fallible and corruptible, how do we know that what we see now as religious works bear even the slightest resemblance to what actually transpired except in the most general terms, over 2000 years ago at it's most recent?