Shut the Internet down

The Flying Spaghetti Monster has announced that the internet needs to be shut down immediately and not started up again.

As we all know the gift of faith in Pastafarianism is essentially belief in a set of extraordinary claims which (deliberately) lack extraordinary evidence. For faith to blossom it is essential to ensure that children and teenagers are never exposed ideas that oppose the one true (Pastafarian) faith. When the young have access to the internet they are exposed to all sorts of concepts. It makes it almost impossible to control their thoughts. Much evidence sugguest that when people grow up with the internet, most end up without religious faith. This looks set to be a tragedy, particularly in places in the world where faith leaders have significant power.




In the days before the internet, it was reasonably straight forward to protect children from blasphemous thoughts. Television stations wouldn't dare criticise the one true faith. There were indeed some philosophy books such as "A History of Western Philosophy" which promoted atheistic ideas, but fortunately they were long, dull and had been deliberately written in a style that ensured few would understand the simple ideas they contained. So although they appeared on some people's book shelves they were never read.

Contrast that with the modern world where the web is full of satire of religion. We see that things really have changed (for the worse).

For faith to survive it is essential that:
1: children are never exposed to non-pastafarian ideas.
2: those with doubts must keep quite about them, they need to be encouraged to continue with pastafarian rituals to give the impression that their faith is strong
3: further those who are struggling with their faith must never found out that others are having similar doubts. Each person who is having difficulty believing must be persuaded that they are the only one.

None of this is possible with the internet and so the internet needs to be shut down.

Children teaching Children a Second Language

If you visit Japan and try to talk to thirty year olds in English, the first thing that may surprise you is that most of them understand very little and can speak even less. This is in spite of the fact that English was taught to them as a second language for many years in school.
Sometimes you’ll meet people who can get by in English. However, for the most part, even those who have spent some time abroad during their adult life generally have a very strong accent. They simply never learnt to pronounce English correctly.

Occasionally you’ll come across someone who speaks flawless English. There are two things you can be fairly sure about: (1) that person lived abroad as a child and (2) that person primarily did not learn English from a teacher, but rather from other children.
For many children in Japan it really is impractical for them to move abroad for a few years to learn English. So how about arranging play-dates with native English speaking children? Well, there really aren’t many native English speaking children in Japan, so we need to think of a new solution…

We now have skype and indeed other internet based video conferencing technologies. One of the great things about skype is that once you have your computer with mic and web-cam along with a decent broadband connection there are no more incremental costs.
Suppose we were to carry out the following experiment involving 4 year olds in England and France. At the start the English and French kids don’t share a common language. We have two English children sitting at a booth with a web connection and also two children in France. The children can see each other using skype and we’ve set-up an interactive fun game that they can play. If we let them play like this for one hour a day for a year, we’ll come back and look at their language ability.
Our hypothesis is that with this approach we can achieve a remarkable growth in second language ability for a very modest cost with only a small amount of staff training required. It is not necessary for the teacher based in France to speak English nor for the teacher in England to speak French. The children will be able to teach each other their respective languages though play and interaction over skype.
Our suggestion is that after a successful trial run, this method of teaching should be rolled out in all state-run schools for kids starting at the age of 3.

The skype based interaction between the kids needs to be more fun than forced.
If they get along well, then the same kids can meet up each day (via skype).
Small groups, such as 2 +2 may work better than one on one.
If we observe one session, with 2 English and 2 French kids, we will probably find that one language will become dominant. There may be one French child who dominates the talking and keeps proceedings in French. We will need to think about how to ensure that the French kids learn English (and vice versa. )
So if there is one 2+2 group that (almost) always speaks French, that’s fine, that group can be maintained, but half the time we may need to send those kids into different groups to ensure that the French kids are exposed to English.
To encourage one language over another we can try the following:
(i) The audio-visual interactive game that the kids play will be in one language to encourage use of that language.
(ii) Each child will be a member of two groups, one for their native language and one for their second language. So they will know that consistently when they see A and B ( via skype ) they’ll speak say French, but when they see E and F, they’ll speak English.
(iii) The booths can be colour coded, to build up an association between a colour and a language. That way they’ll know what language they’re expected to speak.
(iv) Suppose we want the kids to speak English, we may find that if we put the two English kids together at one computer and the 2 French kids at two separate computers that may help to encourage the use of English.

After initial trials we may be in a better position to understand how to influence the language that becomes dominant in a session. This could be useful if for example we find that there is a greater demand for kids in Italy to learn English rather than for English kids to learn Italian. We suspect that with some clever tricks one English kid may be able to teach 3 Italians to speak English. So a 3 to 1 ratio would be fine. However, iIf ( as we suspect ) the ratio is even more extreme we may need to get Italian kids with a few months experience of speaking English to teach those who are just starting out.
The initial trials should be carried out in under-privileged. It can provide a more useful proof of concept than if the schools chosen were elitist private schools.

If you're interested in the ideas of children learning from other children, then have a look at this video of a TED talk given by Sugata Mitra: The child-driven education.

The Pastafarian Uncertainty Principle

The FSM has given us the Pastafarian Uncertainty principle which states that all economic forecasters are liars or fools or both. Only the FSM knows the future and he’s not telling.

The fools include the modern alchemists and those people who are like the lottery winner who has gotten lucky picking a few numbers in the past and so he thinks he’s a genius.

The liars include those people who know that they can’t predict the future, but they are paid to do so and hence make a very good living, keeping a straight face and always sounding plausible. They are very careful not to keep a track record of how their earlier predictions faired.

To help understand the Pastafarian teaching on financial uncertainty, we start by considering the problem of forecasting the change in stock price between tomorrow’s closing price and a year from now. Today’s stock price is determined using all existing market information. If some new data comes out or we have a new way of analyzing existing data, then that will move the market before tomorrow’s close of trading. The move in price after tomorrow will be driven by new information, which we fundamentally can’t know now.

The same is true for predictions of any freely traded item: from foreign exchange rates to the price of oil. We cannot know what will happen to prices in future. So we do not know what future inflation will be like. Equity prices, FX rates and indeed inflation are all very significant factors that drive the economic growth and they cannot be predicted. So there is no point in trying to predict economic growth.

Just as there is no point trying to pin point exactly where and when a forest fire will start, we don’t know when an economic crash will happen. But we can do the following:
* Ensure that people behave in such a way as to minimize the risk.
* Understand where there is an increased risk.
* Have mechanisms in place that mitigate the effects when they do happen.

People put in a lot of time and effort into making financial forecasts. However they are wasting their time and your money. You are paying for them, either as a tax payer or as a consumer.

When a forecaster makes a statement, it often gets lost in translation. For example I could say to a pregnant woman that I expect her child will have one testicle.
Something may well have been lost in translation. The statistician could come along and say that there is a 50% chance of having a girl with none and a 50% chance of having a boy with two. So the (statistical) expectation is 1 testicle. But that’s not the way the word ‘expect’ is used in standard English, hence the misunderstanding.
So we need to be careful. A central banker could release a statement that he expects economic growth to be 5% next year. He might just forget to mention that he reckons there is a 20% of a 10% contraction in the economy. But the probabilities of both an economic contraction and bubble are included in the ‘expected 5% growth’.

If you want to know for sure that your friendly economist or financial advisor is to be trusted or if he’s in the liar/fool category, then ask him for a prediction. If he gives you one, then it is time to walk out of his office. It is only a trivial detail whether he’s in the liar or fool subcategory. You can respect the man who says he doesn’t know the future.

People have understood and accepted the Pastafarian Uncertainty principle for years. A very valid question is: if the economy is known to be fundamentally unpredictable, then why do institutions embarrass themselves by making forecasts? The answer is the same reason that newspapers soil their pages by publishing horoscopes. The bottom line is that there is a demand for forecasts and indeed astrology. Where there’s a demand there’ll be a supply. When people are investing their money they don’t like the feeling of throwing their life savings into a random number generator, hence they pay for a financial advisor who’ll do what he’s paid to do: make predictions. The difference between the financial advisor and the astrologer are the clothes they wear.

When it comes to determining the exact location and velocity of an electron, Heisenburg has told us that there is some fundamental uncertainty that we can’t overcome. The problem is not that we aren’t clever enough nor that our instruments aren’t good enough. We just can’t violate the Heisenburg Uncertainty principle.

In the same way precise economic forecasting violates the Pastafarian Uncertainty Principle.

Nerdy Appendix:

It is left as a rather simple exercise to the mathematically inclined reader to come up with a short list of assumptions required to prove that a stock price is fundamentally unpredictable. You should make use of the concepts of a ‘sigma-algebra’ and a ‘filtration’.

On day zero the FSM created God

It is an article of Reformed Pastafarian faith that on day zero of creation, the FSM created God, the Abrahamic God who then proceeded to create the universe starting on day one. The FSM has always referred to the Abrahamic God as Mr Deity.


The FSM has been rather disappointed in Mr Deity's refusal to profess faith in the FSM and although initially the FSM had no plans for a judgement day, he has now come round to the idea, in particular after witnessing Mr Deity's promotion of the concept. So the FSM has decided to use Mr Deity's own rules to judge him.

Lust
To start with, the FSM would like to know more about a rather unusual liaison with a teenage girl called Mary. Details are rather sketchy, but the FMS would like some specifics cleared up.
Some questions have also been asked about why nuns have referred to themselves as brides of Christ. What exactly is going there? Though the FSM would like to go on record as saying that the idea that convents mirror harems being lined up for Christ's return sounds preposterous.

Wrath
The ethnic cleansing of the Amalekites orchestrated by Mr Deity needs to be fully investigated. There have been reports that Mr Deity said: go and strike Amalek and devote to destruction all that they have. Do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.
The FSM does not want to jump to any conclusions but he would like to hear an explanation from Mr Deity.

Pride
Mr Deity has been accused of showing excessive pride in his own achievements, in particular bearing in mind the sloppiness of his work while creating the universe. The FSM was unimpressed that Mr Deity aparently deliberately brought into existance childhood cancer.

Sloth
Mr Deity has been accused of being excessively lazy, in particular for doing nothing at all to prevent recent human atrocities and natural disasters, most recently in Haiti. Mr Deity has some explaining to do. His initial excuses which cite human freewill have not been coherent.

Envy
Mr Deity has shown excessive jealousy of other gods and has become unreasonably angry when people who call him by the wrong name. The FSM does not approve of his commandment not to have other gods before him.

Eternal Torture
The FSM is strongly against both the use of torture and the use of threats of torture. When accused of setting up an eternal torture camp, Mr Deity has responded that in fact the threats of torture in the New Testament were indeed just that: threats. The torture camp called Hell was in fact never constructed nor were there any real plans to construct it. The FSM has, alas, seen some conflicting evidence. Either way, he still wishes to censure Mr Deity for his use of the threat of torture, which the FSM deems to be a form of emotional torture.

Dogs have 7 legs and nature is never cruel to people

As all pastafarians know, all dogs have 7 legs. Some people have claimed that when they look at dogs they seem to have only four legs. However that is of course just an optical illusion. From our faith we know the truth, dogs have 7 legs each. In the photo below we can see how easily our eyes can be fooled. It looks like this dog has only 1 leg:


We all know that the benign Flying Spaghetti Monster created the universe and that he loves everyone of us. Some claim that
(i) we can see the mind of the creator in the way that nature treats humans since he was the designer behind nature.
(ii) all evidence suggests that nature shows no compassion for the individual
(iii)frequently nature is very cruel to individuals
(iv) thus there is good reason to believe that the creator either doesn't care about people or is cruel.
But again they are mistaken. It is here that faith can lead us to the truth, that the Flying Spaghetti Monster who created us all cares for us and that nature is not cruel to people. When evidence and faith clash, we know we should always trust faith, then we will be able to pass this wonderful gift of faith on to our children.

Supporting the Pirates

As everyone knows, the leading cause of global warming over the past century has been the tragic decline in the number of pirates. But all is not lost. We have seen a miraculous increase over the past few years.



We would like to congratulate the hosts of The Pirate Bay for their fine work. They offer a place of refuge for pirates who have been shunned by society for a few centuries.

Sadly it has come to our attention that there is a repulsive minority who work in the music industry who are utterly amoral and seek to take money from people who just want to listen to music. The battle between good and evil wages on. Though we know that in the end, good will always triumph.

The Pirate Bay users are a kindly lot. They share what the have with their neighbours, even though in many cases their neighbours live on the other side of the world and they've never actually met. But we applaud their virtue.

In other news, we're proud to announce that Reformed Pastafarianism is now on facebook.

Religious Quotes Quiz: Who said what

Do you know your religious quotes? Why not try the simple quiz below.



Question 1: who said the following:
Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other.
Choose one of the following answers:
(i) Buddha
(ii) Confucius
(iii) Jesus
(iv) Muhammad


Question 2: who said the following:
It's better for a leader to make a mistake in forgiving than to make a mistake in punishing.
Choose one of the following answers:
(i) Buddha
(ii) Confucius
(iii) Jesus
(iv) Muhammad

Question 3: who said the following:
To study and not think is a waste. To think and not study is dangerous.
Choose one of the following answers:
(i) Buddha
(ii) Confucius
(iii) Jesus
(iv) Muhammad

Question 4: who said the following:
Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many.
Choose one of the following answers:
(i) Buddha
(ii) Confucius
(iii) Jesus
(iv) Muhammad

Question 5: who said the following:
I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell.
Choose one of the following answers:
(i) Buddha
(ii) Confucius
(iii) Jesus
(iv) Muhammad

Question 6: who said the following:
Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.
Choose one of the following answers:
(i) Buddha
(ii) Confucius
(iii) Jesus
(iv) Muhammad

Question 7: who said the following:
We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts we make the world.
Choose one of the following answers:
(i) Buddha
(ii) Confucius
(iii) Jesus
(iv) Muhammad

Question 8: who said the following:
If people do not recognize me and it doesn't bother me, am I not a Superior Man?
Choose one of the following answers:
(i) Buddha
(ii) Confucius
(iii) Jesus
(iv) Muhammad

Question 9: who said the following:
The best among you are those who are best to their wives.
Choose one of the following answers:
(i) Buddha
(ii) Confucius
(iii) Jesus
(iv) Muhammad

Question 10: who said the following:
Anyone who says, 'You fool!' will be in danger of the fire of hell.
Choose one of the following answers:
(i) Buddha
(ii) Confucius
(iii) Jesus
(iv) Muhammad

The answers are in the first comment below.

If you want to try this quiz on facebook, click here