Eventually, so many of the attributes of the Flying Spaghetti Monster have been rendered incoherent, the person is actually just applying the name ‘Flying Spaghetti Monster’ to God... which isn’t very powerful.
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From where I sit, that was the FSM’s entire point, at least back in the days when it first appeared. The IDers did everything they could to remove God from the equation. But as you say, so many of the attributes of the Designer (in this case) were rendered incoherent, the person is actually just applying the name ‘Designer’ to God.
I don’t believe the FSM argument was ever intended to be the subject of scholarly debates. But that method of debate, using your opponent’s own logic against them, is quite powerful.
For the record: I am not a pastafarian.
Well, designer is simply another name for God, but does not carry the religious overtones, since the Intelligent Design argument does not argue for any particular deity. It only serves as a supportive argument for general theism with some limitations. It doesn’t seem unfair to want to limit the designer’s designation simply to ‘designer’, since God in common parlance means the Christian God, and ID cannot be used to demonstrate the Christian God in particular.