An atheist on Colbert

[tahnan]

I appreciate hearing Richard Dawkins saying, "All of us are atheists about all those gods [e.g. Zeus, Poseidon]; some of us just go one god further." (And it's both cool and very strange to see him on the Colbert Report.)

But I think it genuinely saddens me to hear him also mention the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

Comments

[jenaflynn.livejournal.com]

Flying Spaghetti Monster?
Google leads me to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Spaghetti_Monster

Ignoring what it signifies.. It just seems to remind me of a pasta version of Cthulhu.

[tahnan.livejournal.com]

See, now, I could get behind a Pasta Cthulhu. (Rigatoni ftangh rilyeh!)

I understand the idea behind the FSM, and I appreciate the sentiment, but I just find it so sophomoric.

[marith.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure I get why the FSM is more sophomoric than a Pasta Cthullu. :) Silliness is such a fine and delicate art...

[tahnan.livejournal.com]

Because a Pasta Cthulhu is just silly!

No, well, mostly, because I just felt like the FSM got pushed too far. As a quick one-off analogy/joke, it was amusing and silly, but when people started wearing "touched by his noodly appendage" T-shirts, it was like, for the love of whatever god you actually believe in, just wear a T-shirt with recipes for Ragout of Irish Infant. It's satire, OK? Stop taking it so seriously.

[530nm330hz.livejournal.com]

just wear a T-shirt with recipes for Ragout of Irish Infant

Hey, where can I get one of those? :-)

It's satire!

[eyelessgame.livejournal.com]

It's sophomoric. Yes, indeed. So is Colbert.

There is a serious subtext to both.

Re: It's satire!

[tahnan.livejournal.com]

The difference is that Colbert at least has a new episode every night. The FSM...look, it was funny once, and yes, it made its point, and can we move on now? Reference it when necessary? What annoys me about the thing is, again, the way it gets used, and used, and used...

[jmjoyce.livejournal.com]

Damn, I missed it! Oh well, I'll catch it in reruns. I'm reading The Ancestor's Tale at the moment. :)

[bourbon-cowboy.livejournal.com]

I'm with you on this one, Tahnan. Atheists would get more mileage in mainstream culture if they were also more respectable of others. The Flying Spaghetti Monster is short for "All theists are idiots."

[qaqaq.livejournal.com]

Sheesh, blame the victim, why don't you? Atheists have been quite literally demonized for so long that I hardly think the occasional swipe back is uncalled for.

Most of the atheists I know go by the philosophy "Believe whatever you want, just don't bug me with it", even if they themselves think believing in religion is idiocy, they don't try to bring believers' worlds down. In general, atheists are far more respectful of Christians than the reverse.

[bourbon-cowboy.livejournal.com]

I absolutely agree that atheists have been unfairly demonized (Wouldn't it be great if atheists were actually allowed to serve on all our nation's courts?) and I similarly agree with you about what most atheists are like. But the perception of atheists as meanies who go around kicking down other people's sand castles is widespread (albeit wrong), and the Flying Spaghetti Monster wing of the atheist family is a group I'd just as soon hear less from precisely because they reinforce stereotypes about atheists that make it harder for the rest of us to, say, run for public office in West Virginia. (Which I think is one of the states that doesn't technically allow atheists to hold office.)

I love Mark Twain, I love Voltaire, I love Mencken (when he's not being anti-Semitic), and I respect them all to death. But by comparison, the FSM is a college prank in the "epater les parents" school, and I just want someone like Richard Dawkins--who's a big hero of mine--to have a little more taste in his sub-references.

[eyelessgame.livejournal.com]

Personally, I think Twain would have adored the FSM.

And expecting Dawkins to refrain from mentioning a satirical atheistic referent while on Colbert is to forget that Colbert, too, is satire.

[entropyspring.livejournal.com]

Most of the atheists I know go more by the philosophy of "if you have to believe in some stupid god-type-thing go ahead, but please keep it out of the public sphere even though I feel the right to go broadcasting my Atheism all over the place, and if the subject of religion happens to come up in front of me don't expect me to respect your right to believe in anything."

Of course, a good number of the theists I know (not from my religion, of course) seem to feel the same way toward the atheists.

Just goes to show we need more religious tolerance from all sides, including from those who claim to practice no religion at all.

[tahnan.livejournal.com]

I think I'm with entropyspring on this one--there are certainly disrespectful Christians, but there're also a whole lot of Christians who are accepting; and there are quiet atheists, but I know quite a few rabid, evangelical ones who are quite disparaging about the silliness of all that religius superstition.

[lunchboy.livejournal.com]

Are these evangelical atheists going door-to-door?

[eyelessgame.livejournal.com]

Isn't Colbert's show an ongoing metaphor for "all conservatives are idiots"?

[lunchboy.livejournal.com]

I thought the FSM was short for "creationism shouldn't be taught in schools," which is a somewhat different sentiment.

[entropyspring.livejournal.com]

"All of us are atheists about all those gods [e.g. Zeus, Poseidon]; some of us just go one god further."

I wonder whom he includes in "All of us"? It so happens that there is a not-entirely-insignificant neopagan movement in today's Western World that includes people who believe in "all those gods". And then there are those whose thoughts on God are sufficiently complex that Dawkins' statement simply draws a "huh?" and a shake of the head.

Perhaps Dawkins would be wise to avoid lumping all non-atheists into one camp (ie, those who believe in the Great-Old-Guy-with-a-Beard version of God). It so happens that there are at least ten common forms of "-theism" ranging from monotheism to pantheism to deism. It's just that the traditional-monotheists seem to get all the press time.

[prog.livejournal.com]

If he were here reading this he'd say something like "No, I do mean to lump you all together, whether you listen to sermons from pews or dance naked around moonfires, because you're all equally deluding yourselves. Furthermore, *blat* [<- bronx cheer] ."

I've heard him say as much on radio show when a neopagan caller asked if he thought that worship of nature was a step in the right direction, coz science is the study of nature, right? And he was like: no.

[entropyspring.livejournal.com]

If he said that, I would ask him to stop pontificating long enough to address the problem I actually raised. I did not admonish him for his unprovable assertion (that -theists are "deluding" ourselves in your words) but for his provably false assertion "All of us are atheists about all those gods...". If he wants to be listened to and isn't talking just to hear himself speak, he might want to at least get his facts straight before going on to his beliefs.

As for the subject of deluding ourselves, I wonder if the atheists might be deluding themselves a bit in thinking that those of us who are both educated and religious actually believe the very simplistic things they accuse us of. There has been much thought, at least among the liberal religious, about what the word God might really mean / be a metaphor for in a world where we don't "need God" to explain existence -- but at the same time have a need for (or a personal experience of) something deeper within that existence. That something deeper might be as simple and non-delusional as the connections between people (God-as-a-metaphor-for-community) or the common-underlying-psyche suggested by many psychologists. Or it might be something like what the American transcendentalists reported experiencing when immersed in nature, or something more akin to the buddhist belief in Buddha-nature or the idea of "the Tao." Quakers sitting in silence *do hear* a "still, small voice," experience physical sensations, and find themselves inspired or led to do great things. You may call all of these experiences psychological, but they are still real experiences, not delusions.

OK. My two cents. Slash soapbox. Have a nice day!

[dtm]

If you've seen the clip (check the archives on pharyngula; it showed up there sometime in the past few days), it was clear (from body language and other context) that "all of us" meant himself, Colbert, and the studio audience.

[prog.livejournal.com]

I tend to think it's an issue of approach between the ha-ha-screw-you-mom-n-dad atheists versus us grown-ups.

I'd assume that Dawkins figured that the former group made up a significant enough percentage of Colbert's audience to warrant a shout-out and bump his book sales or summat. Of course I say this without having actually seen the ep yet so who knows.

I am seeing Dawkins speak at (I think?) the Harvard Bookstore later this week btw; will report on.

[tinhorn2.livejournal.com]

Oh, I dunno. One of the points of FSM is to try to back people into a corner if they argue Religion X is more valid than Pastafarianism. One simple retort is that, oh, there are only a few adherents to FSM, so by virtue of mere numbers it can't be a "real religion." Thus, one goal of FSM is to increase the number of adherents, and indeed their zealotry. I suppose another retort is oh, it's only been around a few years, so it can't be a "real religion." But if it gets sufficient legs (or other appendages), then eventually that retort will be empty as well. While yes, a joke, its serious point is to be a foil for those who espouse Religion X as "the truth," since many (concededly not all) of the things that can be said about the truthiness of Religion X can also be said, in a fairly unfalisifiable way, about FSM. Me, I like to use the Greek gods example (or Norse -- I usually use Thor), but to each his own.

Empirically, it is not likely to change anyone's mind. But, neither is almost anything else.