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I saw an interesting license plate on the way to work this morning: “WWFSMD”, which I interpreted to mean, “What would Flying Spaghetti Monster do?” Clearly, this is a poke at Christianity and the passé trend of WWJD (what would Jesus do?) t-shirts, bracelets, stickers, etc. that still enjoy some vestige of popularity.

Pastafarians make a reasonable point that their deity is as valid an expression of an “intelligent designer” as any (and therefore worthy of equal time in public schools) if the intelligent design folks are going to be ambiguous about who the Designer is. Or put another way, intelligent design theory is the scientific equivalent of the emperor’s new clothes, if the Creator isn’t named.

I don’t disagree with that as a logical construct. Score a point for the pastafarians. Oh, not that I disagree with intelligent design. I believe that the structure and order of this planet as well as the vast complexity of even “simple” organisms rule out dumb luck as a explanation of origins. Design is self-evident, unless you’re purposefully looking for a belief system that can explain away the obvious. But the intelligent design folks get it wrong when they leave the identity of the Creator open-ended.

I am reminded of Paul in the Acts of the Apostles, declaring who exactly the Intelligent Designer is.

Acts 17:22-31 So Paul, standing in the midst of the Areopagus, said: “Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious. For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription, ‘To the unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, in the hope that they might feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, for”‘In him we live and move and have our being’; Being then God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man. The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.”

So, what would the Flying Spaghetti Monster do? Not a single thing.