Help me argue against the colander
December 28, 2018 1:23 PM Subscribe
I have a longstanding and lively blog where many things get debated, but have backed myself into a corner about Pastafarianism. I need help rationalizing a feeling that Pastafarianism is not a true "gotcha" that essentially neutralizes all religion.
I am a nonbeliever myself, but I'm arguing against someone who maintains that religious people are accorded more rights than the nonreligious, and feels that if it's all nonsense – whether the idea of a God or of virgin birth or whatever – it's all at the same level philosophically as the FSM and thus any socially entrenched regard for "real" religion should be excised. In some sense, to him, religious people are essentially only doing it for the perks.
We don't live in the U.S. and the city where we live (and blog) has been known to exercise tolerance e.g. for parking around synagogues on Saturdays and churches on Sundays, which burns my interlocutor something fierce. That we're now being asked to be tolerant of Muslim practices as well is an extra burn.
I tend to feel that "real" religion has offered the good with the bad, but that you can't throw out the ethics, the community, the framework that inspired people to do great paintings and music and architecture and writings. I almost feel like the great religions are a sort of collective creative venture, even if they bring along with them a lot of abuse and trouble, being human creations over time.
But I am not trained in philosophy. How do I counter his point, and the point of Pastafarianism in general?
I am a nonbeliever myself, but I'm arguing against someone who maintains that religious people are accorded more rights than the nonreligious, and feels that if it's all nonsense – whether the idea of a God or of virgin birth or whatever – it's all at the same level philosophically as the FSM and thus any socially entrenched regard for "real" religion should be excised. In some sense, to him, religious people are essentially only doing it for the perks.
We don't live in the U.S. and the city where we live (and blog) has been known to exercise tolerance e.g. for parking around synagogues on Saturdays and churches on Sundays, which burns my interlocutor something fierce. That we're now being asked to be tolerant of Muslim practices as well is an extra burn.
I tend to feel that "real" religion has offered the good with the bad, but that you can't throw out the ethics, the community, the framework that inspired people to do great paintings and music and architecture and writings. I almost feel like the great religions are a sort of collective creative venture, even if they bring along with them a lot of abuse and trouble, being human creations over time.
But I am not trained in philosophy. How do I counter his point, and the point of Pastafarianism in general?
This post was deleted for the following reason: AskMe is really not set up for philosophical debates, sorry. -- restless_nomad
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