The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster

“In the beginning there was the Word, and the Word was ‘Arrrgh! ’”. These famous lines taken from Piraticus 13:7 are the first words you will see in the Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Many do not know what exactly Pastafarianism is, and so I am here to spread the Word! Pastafarians stand for all that is good, and are against all that is bad. What more could someone ask for? The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, while having existed in secrecy for millions of years only recently came into the mainstream in May of 2005.

But what do they stand for, and what exactly are their beliefs? In May of 2005, an open letter to the Kansas School Board from concerned citizen Bobby Henderson sparked the mass intro of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster into our society. Some claimed that the church is purely a thought experiment, satire, illustrating that Intelligent Design is not science, but rather a pseudoscience manufactured by Christians to push Creationism into public schools.

But Bobby knew better, and wrote his letter to express his concern.

In the words of Bobby Henderson himself, “With millions, if not thousands, of devout worshippers, the Church of the FSM is widely considered a legitimate religion, even by its opponents – mostly fundamentalist Christians, who have accepted that our God has larger balls than theirs. ” A lot of people can’t bring themselves to understand this religion. Before I delve farther into what exactly this religion is, I would like to share what they consider the basic beliefs that they all share.

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By design, the only dogma allowed in the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster is that there is no dogma allowed.

There are absolutely no strict rules and regulations, there are no written rituals and prayers that must be abided by, and every single member gets a say in what the Church is and what it becomes. Due to this, the religion is actually quite difficult to clearly define what the religion is. According to them, they have a set of general beliefs that are as follows. First, they believe that pirates, the original pastafarians, were simply peaceful explorers and that due to Christian misinformation, they received an outlook of outcast criminals. To them, this is completely untrue.

Next, they are extremely fond of beer and other alcoholic beverages. To them, this is basically the equivalent of holy water. Every single Friday is a religious holiday and is to be treated as such. Another belief is that they should never take themselves too seriously. This religion wasn’t founded by a group of “uptight” individuals. Finally, they embrace contradictions. These aforementioned aspects are considered the core beliefs of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. The central “belief” is that an invisible and undetectable Flying Spaghetti Monster created the universe “after drinking heavily”.

According to these beliefs, the Monster’s intoxication was the cause for a flawed Earth. Furthermore, according to Pastafarianism, all evidence for evolution was planted by the Flying Spaghetti Monster in an effort to test Pastafarians’ faith—parodying certain biblical literalists. When scientific measurements such as radiocarbon dating are taken, the Flying Spaghetti Monster “is there changing the results with His Noodly Appendage”. The Pastafarian conception of Heaven includes a beer volcano and a stripper factory.

The Pastafarian Hell is similar, except that the beer is stale and the strippers have sexually transmitted diseases. According to Pastafarian “beliefs”, pirates are “absolute divine beings” and the original Pastafarians. Furthermore, Pastafarians believe that pirates’ image as “thieves and outcasts” is misinformation spread by Christian theologians in the Middle Ages and by Hare Krishna’s. Instead, Pastafarians believe that they were “peace-loving explorers and spreaders of good will” who distributed candy to small children, adding that modern pirates are in no way similar to “the fun-loving buccaneers from history”.

In addition, Pastafarians believe that ghost pirates are responsible for all of the mysteriously lost ships and planes of the Bermuda Triangle. Pastafarians celebrate International Talk like a Pirate Day on September 19th. The inclusion of pirates in Pastafarianism was part of Henderson’s original letter to the Kansas State Board of Education, in an effort to illustrate that”correlation does not imply causation”. Henderson presented the argument that “global warming, earthquakes, hurricanes, and other natural disasters are a direct effect of the shrinking numbers of pirates since the 1800s.  A chart accompanying the letter shows that as the number of pirates decreased, global temperatures increased. This parodies the suggestion from some religious groups that the high numbers of disasters, famines and wars in the world is due to the lack of respect and worship towards their deity. In 2008, Henderson interpreted the growing pirate activities at the Gulf of Aden as additional support, pointing out that Somalia has “the highest number of pirates and the lowest carbon emissions of any country. ” There are 7 occurrences of celebration within the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

The first is Pastover, in which pastafarians around the world are encouraged to eat copious amounts of pasta which is cooked “in his image” by family members dressed as pirates. A common practice on this day is the passing of the eye patch, in which each family member takes turn wearing the eye patch and explains why he/she is happy to have been “touched by his noodly appendages”. Next is Ramendan, in which pastafarians are encouraged to eat only ramen noodles and remember their times of eating quality pasta. Then there’s Halloween, a time of remembrance of when Pirates walked the earth freely.

A little known fact is that pirates were well known for passing out candy on this day but the practice dwindled as they became more and more persecuted. Next, on September 19th, is International Talk like a Pirate Day, in which pastafarians everywhere are encouraged to return to their pirate ancestor’s native tongue. Another important holiday is Friday. Every Friday, to be exact, is a holiday to the Pastafarians. On this day, they are to pay homage to their beer volcanoes and stripper factories. Finally is Holiday, which basically covers all the commercial holidays.

To be a world religion, there are seven things that generally must be met. The first is the experiential aspect in which you look at what that started it all. Although the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster has existed for “millions, if not thousands” of years, the main point that brought it into the mainstream was Bobby Henderson’s letter to the Kansas School Board expressing his concern about their denial of his alternative theory. From that point on, Pastafarianism exploded into the mainstream, and since then it has only expanded and grown.

In fact, according to them, you don’t even have to actually believe in the FSM to be a member. In their own words, “For the same reason that many in other religions don’t literally believe their scripture, you can be a Pastafarian without being a True Believer of our scripture. In other words, do you know Christians who don’t take the Bible literally – but who consider themselves True Christians, nonetheless? So do I. In fact, True Belief is not often a requirement of religion. Most religions are comprised of a group of people with similar – but not exact – world views.

Pastafarianism is no different in that regard. ” Next is the aspect involving myth. Here, we examine the storied that aren’t necessarily true scientifically, but convey important truths about life. One example of this is the FSM story of creationism. The story begins with the creation of the universe by an invisible and undetectable Flying Spaghetti Monster. On the first day, the Flying Spaghetti Monster separated the water from the heavens; on the second, because He could not tread water for long and had grown tired of flying, He created the land—complemented by a beer volcano.

Satisfied, the Flying Spaghetti Monster overindulged in beer from the beer volcano and woke up hung over. Between drunken nights and clumsy afternoons, the Flying Spaghetti Monster produced seas and land for a second time, accidentally, because he forgot that he created it the day before along with Heaven and a midget, which he named Man. Man and an equally short woman lived happily in the Olive Garden of Eden for some time until the Flying Spaghetti Monster caused a global flood in a cooking accident. This gives us a clear and understandable way to interpret how something as large as the Earth was made.

Next is Doctrinal, which involve creeds, gospels, and things of that nature. One way in which the Church of the FSM meets this standard is in its adaptation of the 10 commandments. This gives the pastafarians a clear list of things to do in order to get into Heaven. The story goes that Captain Mosey ascended Mount Salsa and received 10 pieces of advice from the Flying Spaghetti Monster. These pieces of advice are contained in the book known as “The Eight ‘I’d Really Rather You Didn’ts. ” The reason there are only eight is due to the fact that on the way back down from Mount Salsa, Captain Mosey ropped two of them. This event “partly accounts for Pastafarians’ flimsy moral standards. ” The Flying Spaghetti Monsters commandments address worship of Him, the treatment of people of other faiths, sexual conduct, and nutrition. The fourth aspect is ethical. In this, we examine what the religion says is good or bad. Here, we can again look at the wonderful story of Captain Mosey. Again referring to the “Eight I’d Really Rather You Didn’ts”, we can get a better picture of their moral code. The first says that they are not to “act like sanctimonious holier-than-thou people when talking about His Holy Goodness.

He goes on to say that if someone doesn’t believe in Him, it is okay. The second says not to use His Noodly Goodness as a means to oppress others. In His words, “Purity is for drinking water, not people”. Third, he talks about not judging people for the way they look, talk, dress, or choose to live their life. If they want to engage in homosexual relations, let them. “One is not better than the other, unless we’re talking about fashion and I’m sorry, but I gave that to women and some guys who know the difference between teal and fuchsia. I am not going to go over all eight of them in this paper, but the point is that they do indeed have a set of commandments much like another well-known religion. Next is ritual, in which we look at the varying rituals involved in the Church of the FSM. Actually, there are no mandatory religions involved in the Church of the FSM. However, there are rituals that are encouraged to be practiced during events such as holidays. One of which I mentioned earlier, in which the passing of the eye patch takes place.

Here, each member of the family takes turns wearing the holy eye patch and sharing why he or she is blessed to have been touched by His Noodly Appendages. The fifth aspect is the social aspect. Here, we look at the communities involved within the religion. The Church of the FSM does not have a set, established church anywhere. Instead, they believe that the Earth is their “church” and that wherever they happen to meet is okay with them, as many of them are “too lazy to be bothered to get up at seven in the morning and go to some building to be told what to believe”. They do however hold things uch as parades in order to unite together as “one under His Noodly Appendages”. Finally, there is the material aspect. In the Church of the FSM, one of the Eight I’d Really Rather You Didn’ts is that they are not to spend billions of dollars erecting statues, cathedrals, and other items of worship when the money could go to “stopping world hunger, healing the sick, helping the homeless, and lowering the cost of cable. ” However, there are many pieces of art created by a slew of talented ten year olds that serve to allow His Noodly Appendages to continue to touch those around us for millions of years to come.

As we can see, this religion has actually had a huge impact on our society since it went mainstream in 2005. People all over the world are changing to better serve his Holy Goodness and help those around them. If you look at the Church as a whole, not one death has occurred due to it, and “certainly no wars and slaughters were caused by it, much like another religion”. The FSM has allowed us to take a step back and look at what we believe in, and determine what actually makes sense.

By creating a religion completely based off of one guy’s imagination and determination for people to open their eyes and look at what they preach, the Church of the FSM has helped many to become better people, and it will continue to do so throughout the years as more and more people become aware of his Noodly Goodness. Works Cited 1. www. venganza. org. 2. The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Author: Bobby Henderson Published: 2005. 3. http://politics. gather. com/viewArticle. action? articleId=281474976877085 4. http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/The_Gospel_of_the_Flying_Spaghetti_Monster#Pastafarian_Creation_Myth