J. Warner Wallace and the flying spaghetti monster flop

This is my reply to an article by J. Warner Wallace entitled

“Believing in God is the same as believing in the ‘Flying Spaghetti Monster’”

Posted: 14 Oct 2019 01:29 AM PDT

Response #1:
“What do you mean by ‘Flying Spaghetti Monster’? Are you referring to the fictional deity created by Bobby Henderson in 2005?

Yes.  It's comparable to the fictional character created by Iron Age goat-herders.  Hence the analogy.

Mr. Henderson created that character (and a larger narrative called, ‘Pastafarianism’), to protest the fact that Intelligent Design was being considered as part of the science curriculum in the state of Kansas.

Good for him.  You open the door to ID in the schools, fairness demands that you give equal time to ALL over views.  

No one actually believes in a Flying Spaghetti Monster, including its creator, Mr. Henderson.

Ok, then we'll use the analogy of "tooth-fairy" or "Santa Claus". 

He’s tried to protest the existence of religion by equating Pastafarianism to religious belief, and he’s even applied for religious status in a number of countries. He’s been repeatedly denied, however. Why? Because international legal bodies understand the difference between religious claims and fictional claims. Can you see the difference as well?”

And since international bodies have no ulterior motives to keep the status quo, their solitary motive in denying the FSM religion is their advanced degrees in philosophy,  no doubt. 

No one actually believes in a Flying Spaghetti Monster, including its creator, Mr. Henderson.

But if he started publicly proclaiming belief in such god, America and certain other countries would likely permit him freedom to exercise that religion. 

Response #2:
“Are you saying that belief in God is the same as belief in fairy tales or imaginary characters?

Yes.  There is no more evidence that adherents of major world religions (Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, etc) have any more accurate knowledge of the deity they worship, than Henderson has of the FSM.  But most of them are probably deceived into thinking that because people have cooked up lots of stories about these others gods for thousands of years, there is something "more" to the "major" gods.  Not so. 

If so, this assumes that fictional characters and God are equally unsupported by the evidence.

They are. 

But this isn’t true at all. What evidence do we have, for example, to support the existence of the Flying Spaghetti Monster?

About as much evidence as there is to support your Christian notion that your mind exists in another dimension, or that your moral outlook is beamed into you from another dimension. 

Is there anything other than the text written by its creator (in this case, Bobby Henderson)?

Yes, the big bang proves that the FSM is spaceless, timeless, immaterial, etc. 

The case for God’s existence, by contrast, is evidentially robust, even without any ancient text.

Hold it just a cotton pickin' minute:  there is nothing about the word 'god' that distinguishes it from the FSM, you are merely choosing to use a term that has been around longer.

For example, the existence of our finite, finely tuned universe points to an all-powerful, creative force outside of space, time and matter.

Except that speaking of "outside of space, time and matter" is to defend an incoherernt concept, since there is no such thing as "outside" of "space", or "time".  The universe is no more finely tuned for humans than your attic is finely tuned for mold-growth, and your own bible contains passages that logically contradict the notion of God's omnipotence.  Since every biblical description of heaven indicates events take place there in no less temporal progression than they do on earth, biblical "heaven" is not in another dimension, it is within "time".  You will insist all such language is mere "anthropomorphism", but you'll have to demonstrate the non-literal intent from the context of each passage, you cannot, and if you did, you would open the door to the possibility that some other biblical passages, the literal interpretation of which you require to ground your theology, were not intended literally. 

The inexplicable origin of life (driven by information in the genetic code)

God of the gaps fallacy.  No, you are not saying this because the origin of life looks like intelligent design.  You simply rest upon the fact that science doesn't have all the answers yet. 

and appearance of deign in biology point to an intelligent creator who has a purpose in mind.

If so, then that purpose was that carnivores exist before sin entered the world, which means the sadism in nature is not a result of evil or sin, but of God being like a demented toddler, and chaining two dogs together just because he knows they will massacre each other.  Sure, you can escape those problems by being a young earth creationist and hence blame all the yucky stuff on 'sin', but the biblical case for old earth creationism is strong, in which case we are reasonable to interpret the biblical god as desiring carnivores to inflict misery on other creatures long before "sin" happened.  For example, birds obviously cause misery to lower life forms, such as eagles which tear apart the squirrel, fish or rabbit while it is still alive, yet Jesus says it is God who supplies the birds their food: 

 26 "Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they? (Matt. 6:26 NAU)

  41 "Who prepares for the raven its nourishment When its young cry to God And wander about without food? (Job 38:41 NAU)
  9 He gives to the beast its food, And to the young ravens which cry. (Ps. 147:9 NAU) 

Really?  It is god who not only wanted predatory birds to tear apart their still-alive prey, but for some of them to eat the newly hatched chicks straight out of the nest (see here), not much different than the human cannibal who sneaks into your infant's bedroom and eats him alive.  There will be stupid Christians out there who insist that birds of prey make sure their prey is dead before they rip into it, which would then mean that certain videos on youtube are just really clever photoshops.  See here.

Wallace continues: 

Our experience of consciousness and free agency is also incomprehensible under atheistic materialism, but can be easily explained if we were created by an immaterial, conscious, free agent. 

The consciousness argument is ridiculous, as Christians don’t believe animals are made in the image of god, yet animals still have a “consciousness”.  Sure is funny that consciousness becomes more and more complex as we move up the ladder from simpler to more complex life forms.  As for freewill, there is no scientific evidence that the will of a person is “free” from the laws of physics (alcohol, drugs and brain injury obviously cause an impact on our “freewill”, and attributing this to the mind being the brain, is far more rational and reasonable than the trifling that maybe the mind comes into the brain from another dimension, and has trouble manifesting itself if the brain is altered).  If the will could be free from physics, it would thus be free from the laws of cause and effect, which would then mean freewill proves that we are ultimately irrational.  At the end of the day, there really is no "reason" why you choose a pencil over an equally available pen...you "just" did...the very definition of irrationality (i.e., action without reason).

“easily explained”?  Ok, if you are trying to keep Christian “babies” from apostatizing, then yes, whatever the "easier" explanation is, would be their preferred choice.  But truth is not limited to what’s easy.  however, given that you wish to make money selling Jesus, I can understand why you'd be quick to give those potential donors to your ministry, or buyers of your books, the "easier" solution. 

Finally, the existence of transcendent, objective moral truths and obligations are best explained by the existence of a transcendent, personal moral law giver. 

You are also high on crack:  there is no such thing as objective moral truth in the transcendent sense you intend.  I don’t care if you insist “thou shalt not torture babies to death solely for entertainment”,  YOU are the one that has the burden of showing any moral to be transcendentally “objective”, and you aren’t doing that by discovering that other human beings agree with you about certain morals. 

You will say the fact that the vast majority of people in history obeyed this is proof that it is objective, but that’s like saying that because most dogs have a natural inclination to attack anything that is trying to get into their food, this moral only comes into them from "god". 

Can you see how – based on science and philosophy alone – the existence of God is reasonable even while the existence of the Flying Spaghetti Monster is not?

No, but I see how by switching out "Flying Spaghetti Monster" for "god" would likely cause your mostly Christian readership to think all is well.  The truth is that "god" is nothing but a made up word with made up definition, and like the FSM, does not link to anything in the real world.

Can you also see that the case for God can be made without any ‘sacred text,’ while the case for the Flying Spaghetti Monster is entirely dependent on Mr. Henderson’s text?”

Didn't you know that Henderson chapter 1 v. 20 says you are inexcusable because what may be known of FSM is manifest, because the FSM has declared it unto you?  The more you deny this truth, the more you prove to be a disciple of the devil.  I go to Henderson church every Sunday, and I'm not gonna let you steal my joy in the FSM.

Response #3:
“There’s one incredibly important difference between belief in God and belief in the Flying Spaghetti Monster, and the creator of the Spaghetti Monster, Bobby Henderson, mistakenly admitted the difference when he first created the character. Henderson conceived the fictional deity as a form of protest against religious belief in general. He originally claimed that his belief in the Spaghetti Monster (called ‘Pastafarianism’) was the same as other religious beliefs because Pastafarians had ‘several lengthy volumes’ explaining all the details of their religion and that there were ‘over 10 million’ Pastafarians (neither fact is true, however). Henderson’s intentionally false claim, however, reveals the error in comparing God to the Spaghetti Monster. Henderson assumed that belief in God was dependent on religious texts and accepted belief.

Blame it on the fundamentalist Christians who think quoting the bible infuses magic into the air.

 Neither is true, however. A belief in God is reasonable even without a religious text, 

First, what's reasonable for YOU does not dictate what's reasonable for another person.  Reasonableness and accuracy are not the same thing.

Second, my attack on Jesus' resurrection is solid, therefore, Christianity is false.  If Christianity is false, you would likely just play the odds and start stacking all of your money on the God of pre-Christian Judaism.  But the falsity of Christianity would then mean you had been misrepresenting that god for 2,000 years, in which case, there is far more evidence that, under the assumption Christianity is false, whatever god still existed would be far more pissed off at the Christians than he would at atheists.

Third, the god of the bible has no problem getting rid of a person's sin with a wave of his magic wand (2nd Samuel 12:13) and causing people to believe and do whatever he wants, with a wave of his magic wand, see Ezra 1:1.  So if I was in trouble with this god, I would be able to correctly protest that he must have wanted me to make all the decisions I did, because he had both ability and opportunity to make me think differently, and yet just sat there doing nothing....like a man who notices a woman being raped, sees no further danger in reporting this to the police, has ability and opportunity to so interfere, but then doesn't report anything, then later insists he cannot be held morally accountable because he was just doing what god was doing, and respecting the rapist's freewill.  FUCK YOU.

and even if no one joins a religious group. God’s existence can be inferred from cosmological, biological, neurological (mental) and moral evidence in our universe, unlike a belief in the Flying Spaghetti Monster. 

We can fix that right now:  Let's stop saying "Flying Spaghetti Monster", and start saying "Flying Spaghetti GOD who decides when and where to open the eyes of unbelievers".  There, now we use the word "god", and we infuse into our new cult the same bullshit theology you tell yourself to explain why some people resist your religious claims.  Maybe we'll incorporate a "still small voice" in there somewhere, achieve tax-free status, make up songs about the FSM, and eventually put you completely out of business?