Somebody has way too much time on their hands: they've modeled a Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster…in Legos.
I'm afraid, though, that I'm such an atheist that if such a building existed in reality, I'd still spurn it as superstitious nonsense.
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PZ Myers is a biologist and associate professor at the University of Minnesota, Morris.
…and this is a pharyngula stage embryo.
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…unless one is able to find faint foreshadowings of it in the dryopithecids. Pilbeam assumes that the relationship exists, and has so indicated in a chart he has constructed — although he does leave a huge gap in it, and makes no attempt to link any specific dryopithecid with any living ape. He contents himself with the observation that dryopithecids are primitive apes with certain things in common, things that they do not have in common with a second group of Miocene apes that he has also succeeded in sorting out and lumping together: the ramampithecids, named after the aforementioned Ramapithecus.
What is the distinction? It is a simple but overwhelmingly important one. With the exception of their premolars, which are apelike, all of the ramapithecids have peculiar unapelike teeth: Big molars, heavy enamel, small canines. They foreshadow hominids. The dryopithecids, with apelike teeth, foreshadow modern apes.
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More articles by PZ Myers can be found on Freethoughtblogs at the new Pharyngula!
Think of it as an architectural prospectus
Category: Weirdness
Posted on: August 16, 2006 2:00 PM, by PZ Myers
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Comments
Posted by: MikeM | August 16, 2006 2:16 PM
That is just beautiful.
Praise be to the FSM, and all It inspires.
Posted by: Stuart Coleman | August 16, 2006 2:16 PM
Even if it had a beer volcano? I think I could put up with a sermon by a pirate for that.
Posted by: j | August 16, 2006 2:17 PM
Well, the Brick Testament Reverend has even more time on his hands.
But yes, this building is truly inspiring. My faith is strengthened.
Posted by: Alex | August 16, 2006 2:21 PM
Clearly you have not been touched by His noodly appendage.
Posted by: Fred J | August 16, 2006 2:22 PM
We had better be careful...
Real religions got started this way.
Posted by: Alex | August 16, 2006 2:23 PM
Shouldn't this be classified under "satire" instead of "weirdness"? I mean clearly all superstitiousnees falls in the weirdness category....which would cover a large population of topics here.
Posted by: Steve_C | August 16, 2006 2:24 PM
The stripper factory is new to me.
It's starting to sound like the Church of the Man Show.
Posted by: King Aardvark | August 16, 2006 2:25 PM
Speaking as an engineer and an architecture afficianado, I must say that, if it were to be constructed, would be one of the most beautiful structures ever to grace His Noodly Appendage's green earth. The main entrance in particular with the eyes and the noodly features is particularly breathtaking.
Posted by: Jonathan Badger | August 16, 2006 2:33 PM
I've actually saved all my Lego bricks from childhood. Things like this make me wish that I had the time to do such things.
Posted by: Zeno | August 16, 2006 2:33 PM
What about Pascal's wager, PZ? If the gospel of the FSM is true, then following the tents of the Pastafarian faith will result in your being rewarded with eternal access to beer volcanos. If the FSM faith is false, then no beer (but no harm done). If Pascal's wager is okay for Christianity, it sure as noodles must be as valid for the FSM, right?
Since I don't drink beer, I suppose I'm an agnostic.
Posted by: Minnesotachuck | August 16, 2006 2:34 PM
Fred J.: This is real!
Posted by: DominEditrix | August 16, 2006 2:42 PM
following the tents of the Pastafarian faith
Does that make one a camp follower?
Posted by: Jonathan Badger | August 16, 2006 2:49 PM
But, but there's a *beer stand* inside. I mean, if you could stomache the irony of holding a "Drinking Liberally" session in an American Legion(!) beer garden, surely you could tolerate entering a church for beer. It's not like they're only offering cheap nasty wine like Christian churches.
Posted by: Alex | August 16, 2006 3:02 PM
Certainly this proves the legitimacy of pastafarianism...
..The first certain record of noodles cooked by boiling is in the Jerusalem Talmud, written in Aramaic in the 5th century AD....
http://www.inmamaskitchen.com/FOOD_IS_ART/pasta/historypasta.html
I mean come on now, with historical roots in the religion factory of the world it must be true...plus there's global warming!
Posted by: aiabx | August 16, 2006 3:20 PM
Come on PZ, a building like that would be evidence of the existence of the FSM. Especially if it had beer, strippers, pirates and midgits. You aren't going to let evidence get trumped by atheistical dogma, are you?
Posted by: roger | August 16, 2006 3:20 PM
are you telling us that legos aren't real?
Posted by: Alex | August 16, 2006 3:28 PM
And then there's the meatball for noodle's sake! I mean think about it....meatballs are fashioned in the shape of spheres! Can't you see the significance!! The sphere holds the most volume with a manifold carrying the least amount of surface area! I mean come on! Is your head in the sand?
Posted by: the valrus | August 16, 2006 3:49 PM
Yeah, but awesome superficial nonsense.
Posted by: the valrus | August 16, 2006 3:58 PM
Uh. Superstitious. Clearly my mind was elsewhere.
Posted by: CrispyShot | August 16, 2006 4:04 PM
PZ should appreciate this one from the site's "Bricktionary" section:
Sushi
Posted by: Dave Carlson | August 16, 2006 4:09 PM
If such a place were to exist in real life, I would convert in a heartbeat!
Posted by: NelC | August 16, 2006 4:28 PM
You're all filthy heretics!
It's "lego", not "legos"! One lego, two lego, many lego!
Posted by: Paul | August 16, 2006 5:52 PM
If you doubt the FSM is possible, how is it there are PYGMIES + DWARFS??
(Or should that be PIRATES + MIDGITS?)
Posted by: Сторож (Уатчман) | August 16, 2006 6:00 PM
Nel is correct. Lego is a plural noun, like, you know, like PASTA. The one and the many are one. The many and the one are many. Nestled in the many is the one meatball. Ok, the two meatballs. The duality of yin/yang and masculine/feminine being expressed in the perfection of the spheres. And Lego makes pirate sets. It all makes sense.
Posted by: Stephen Erickson | August 16, 2006 7:25 PM
I'm sorry, when I was a kid, I played with legos.
"Let's play Lego!" sounds far too effete and, frankly, European.
Posted by: Rick @ shrimp and grits | August 16, 2006 8:05 PM
Oh boy! LEGO(R) pedantry!
According to the company, "The LEGO brand name should always be written in capital letters. LEGO must *never* be used as a generic term or in the plural or as a possessive noun. When the LEGO brand name is used as part of a noun, it must never appear on its own."
( http://www.lego.com/eng/info/default.asp?page=facts )
So LEGO isn't a noun at all, apparently.
If you believe The LEGO Group, that is ... who have probably lost this battle, much like the battle for Kleenex and Xerox. :)
Having said that, someone really needs to get the designer of the LEGO FSM Cathedral some classic Castle sets.
Posted by: Zeno | August 16, 2006 8:39 PM
I sympathize with the effort of the Lego masters to control the way their trademarked name is used, but I won't cooperate as much as they would like me to. ALL CAPS? I don't think so.
Back in the day when I edited a little computer magazine (a club newsletter), I was always faced with companies that want to highlight their names in obtrusive ways. COMPAQ was notable for its uppercase corporate name, but I always reduced it to Compaq in text. They want ALL CAPS, they can pay for ad space. dBASE II (III, IV) was another. I dBased it. Weird internal capitalization was mostly okay by me, as long as it respected word boundaries. WordPerfect, for example. That was back before all of today's eStuff.
Good times. When "noodling around" was not yet a religious rite.
Posted by: Rick @ shrimp and grits | August 16, 2006 8:56 PM
but I won't cooperate as much as they would like me to. ALL CAPS? I don't think so.
I don't think anyone could realistically obey their wishes without sounding like a complete goofball, since all-caps today means shouting.
... but back in the days of computer club newsletters, did computers even have small letters? :)
Posted by: donna | August 16, 2006 10:46 PM
Ramen!!!!
Posted by: Eric Paulsen | August 17, 2006 3:32 AM
We had better be careful...
Real religions got started this way. - Fred J
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
When I was in Hospital Corpsman "A" School back in 1988 I spent way too much time staying up late watching AWFUL movies and reading the Weekly World News for kicks. I met a guy who was also an insomniac and over an article in the WWN (something about lizardmen found in the ruins of Noah's ark I believe) we came upon our inspiration for the religion that would result in three guys getting discharged. We determined after much heated philosophical debate that Gumby was OBVIOUSLY greater than God because Gumby made HIMSELF from a little green ball of clay. After polishing the creation myth and adding back story featuring his talking ass Pokey the first Church of Gumbology was born. It was a hoot at first and we even made up T-shirts for the few "followers" who wanted one, but it quickly spiralled out of control.
I won't bore you further with the details but suffice it to say that there were complaints lodged by evangelicals, a letter written in blood by a lunatic, and a minor scandal that tainted two classes on their way to graduation.
Posted by: Scott Hatfield | August 17, 2006 3:40 AM
Hmm. Perhaps one of you Pastafarians are ready to develop some serious theology, as in 'The Logos of Legos'?
Playfully...SH
Posted by: Pekka | August 17, 2006 12:29 PM
This image should shed any lingering doubts about the reality of the Spaghetti Monster. The facts are simply unspurnable, dear Professor Myers!
Posted by: MissPrism | August 19, 2006 6:41 AM
Small niggle, but I hate the phrase "too much time on their hands". It's always applied to someone who's having harmless creative fun: writing, knitting, satisfying whimsical curiosity, or blogging about obscure references to squid.
Nobody ever says "Do you know, over 1 million people watch Hollyoaks? They've got too much time on their hands!" or "You work overtime at a job you hate just so you can afford a bigger car? I wish I had that much time on my hands!"