February 28, 2007
February 27, 2007
His Noodliness, The Flying Spaghetti Monster
A couple of years back, my good friend and I were discussing the ridiculousness that is Intelligent Design Theory (if you don't know, it's the most popular version of Neo-Creationism being pushed by the anti-science Christians, which states that the world is so complex that it couldn't have evolved by natural selection and was therefore created by an Intelligent Designer, i.e. "God"). We were emailing back and forth about how funny it would be to apply the logic behind Intelligent Design to other disciplines. Below, you'll find excerpts from some of our emails. Numerous references are made to the Flying Spaghetti Monster ("His Noodliness"), a religion created with the same logic that holds all other major religions together (You too can convert to Pastafarianism by going to The Church of FSM.)
***Begin Email Exchange***
Intelligent Paleontology: Holds that dinosaurs and other ancient life forms were put there by the Intelligent Designer within the last 6,000 years to test our belief in His divine designs; fossils and other records were "just created" by an intelligent paleontologist.
Intelligent Nutrition: Holds that many food items are so complex they could not possibly have resulted from combining and modifying simpler ingredients, so all food must have been created in its present form by an Intelligent Chef.
Intelligent Meteorology: Holds that the wind and rain patterns outside my Florida home this morning were so complex that they could not have simply developed from an arctic cold air trough interacting with warm Gulf moisture. It should be clear that the weather outside of my apartment was created this morning by an Intelligent Weatherman.
Intelligent Relativity: Holds that light is such a wondrous and complex thing that could not travel at such a perfect speed as 186282.39705122 miles per second by pure chance and so must have been created to travel that speed by an Intelligent Speedometer. Additionally, because we can see the light from stars so far away that it requires billions of years for that light to reach Earth (and just the idea of such a great distance just boggles the divinely-created mind), an Intelligent Electrical Engineer must have made sure the light was already here when the Earth was created by His Noodliness 6000 years ago.
Intelligent Quantum Mechanics: Holds that
***Begin Email Exchange***
Intelligent Paleontology: Holds that dinosaurs and other ancient life forms were put there by the Intelligent Designer within the last 6,000 years to test our belief in His divine designs; fossils and other records were "just created" by an intelligent paleontologist.
Intelligent Nutrition: Holds that many food items are so complex they could not possibly have resulted from combining and modifying simpler ingredients, so all food must have been created in its present form by an Intelligent Chef.
Intelligent Meteorology: Holds that the wind and rain patterns outside my Florida home this morning were so complex that they could not have simply developed from an arctic cold air trough interacting with warm Gulf moisture. It should be clear that the weather outside of my apartment was created this morning by an Intelligent Weatherman.
Intelligent Relativity: Holds that light is such a wondrous and complex thing that could not travel at such a perfect speed as 186282.39705122 miles per second by pure chance and so must have been created to travel that speed by an Intelligent Speedometer. Additionally, because we can see the light from stars so far away that it requires billions of years for that light to reach Earth (and just the idea of such a great distance just boggles the divinely-created mind), an Intelligent Electrical Engineer must have made sure the light was already here when the Earth was created by His Noodliness 6000 years ago.
Intelligent Quantum Mechanics: Holds that
- One can not actually see gravity,
- Gravity is understood in terms of the Theory of Universal Gravitation which is, of course, just a theory,
- The gravitational constant 6.673 × 10^(-11) m^3 kg^(-1) s^(-2) is such a simple number that gravity must have been created in its present form by an Intelligent Newtonian Physicist.
Additionally, because just a small difference in the gravitational constant would mean that everything in the universe would look and behave differently, then it MUST have been planned this way...otherwise what are the chances things would be the way they are now?
Intelligent Geometry: Because circles are so elegant and simple and their circumference and radius are related to each other by such a simple and obvious number as Pi (3.1415926535897932384626433832795... see: this page for just the first 50,000 digits of His Noodliness's perfect number), then all geometric shapes involving arcs and circles must have been created in their present form by an Intelligent Shaper.
Intelligent Grammar: Holds that large words are so complex (especially scientific words) that they couldn't possible have come from individual letters; all words were "just created" in their present form by an Intelligent Grammatician.
Intelligent History: Holds that modern events are so complex that it’s an impossible notion that previous historical events could have had any influence on the modern era; all current events were "just created" by an intelligent historian with no sense of past (or irony, for that matter).
We could keep going, but you understand where we were going with this...
Intelligent Geometry: Because circles are so elegant and simple and their circumference and radius are related to each other by such a simple and obvious number as Pi (3.1415926535897932384626433832795... see: this page for just the first 50,000 digits of His Noodliness's perfect number), then all geometric shapes involving arcs and circles must have been created in their present form by an Intelligent Shaper.
Intelligent Grammar: Holds that large words are so complex (especially scientific words) that they couldn't possible have come from individual letters; all words were "just created" in their present form by an Intelligent Grammatician.
Intelligent History: Holds that modern events are so complex that it’s an impossible notion that previous historical events could have had any influence on the modern era; all current events were "just created" by an intelligent historian with no sense of past (or irony, for that matter).
We could keep going, but you understand where we were going with this...
February 5, 2007
The Middle East, Reimagined
The Premise:
The Middle East is all fucked up partly due to how the region's national borders were drawn (by Western colonial powers): without regard to history, ethnography, or religious sensitivity.
The Solution:
Redraw the Middle East to properly reflect modern ethnicities, rather than the politics of energy.
Difficulty Level:
10/10
Graphic Illustrations (click for larger versions):
The Middle East is all fucked up partly due to how the region's national borders were drawn (by Western colonial powers): without regard to history, ethnography, or religious sensitivity.
The Solution:
Redraw the Middle East to properly reflect modern ethnicities, rather than the politics of energy.
Difficulty Level:
10/10
Graphic Illustrations (click for larger versions):
Middle East as it exists today
Middle East, Reimagined
12 Years Ago
12 years ago, life was so much simpler. 12 years ago, things were more laid back. 12 years ago, I didn't know any better. 12 years ago, I was a different person.Photo Credit: Kelly
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