The Flying Spaghetti Monster!

Who thought that some seemingly nonsensical ramblings of a girl I barely knew at the time would end up making so much sense.

Backround Info:

The Flying Spaghetti Monster is the deity of a parody religion founded in 2005 by Oregon State University physics graduate Bobby Henderson to protest the decision by the Kansas State Board of Education to require the teaching of intelligent design as an alternative to biological evolution. In an open letter sent to the education board, Henderson professes belief in a supernatural Creator called the Flying Spaghetti Monster, which resembles spaghetti and meatballs. He furthermore calls for the "Pastafarian" theory of creation to be taught in science classrooms, essentially invoking a reductio ad absurdum argument against the teaching of intelligent design. Followers of the Flying Spaghetti Monster (FSM) call themselves Pastafarians, a portmanteau of pasta and Rastafarian.

Due to its recent popularity and media exposure, the Flying Spaghetti Monster is used by atheists, such as Richard Dawkins, as a modern version of Russell's teapot.

Henderson proposed many of the beliefs in reaction to common arguments by proponents of intelligent design.These are the canonical beliefs set forth by Henderson:

• An invisible and undetectable Flying Spaghetti Monster created the universe, including a mountain, trees and a midget, spelled "midgit."

• All evidence for evolution was planted by the Flying Spaghetti Monster. The FSM tests Pastafarians' faith by making things look older than they are (q.v. Omphalos). "For example, a scientist may perform a carbon-dating process on an artifact. He finds that approximately 75% of the Carbon-14 has decayed by electron emission to Nitrogen-14, and infers that this artifact is approximately 11,000 years old, as the half-life of Carbon-14 appears to be 5,730 years. But what our scientist does not realize is that every time he makes a measurement, the Flying Spaghetti Monster is there changing the results with His Noodly Appendage. We have numerous texts that describe in detail how that can be possible and the reasons why He does this. He is of course invisible and can pass through normal matter with ease."

• The Pastafarian belief of heaven stresses two points. "A) It has beer volcanos as far as the eye can see & B) It has a stripper factory."

• "RAmen" is the official conclusion to prayers, certain sections of The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, and so on, and is a portmanteau of the Semitic term "Amen" (used in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) and Ramen, a noodle. While it is typically spelled with both a capital "R" and "A", it is also acceptable to spell it with only a capital R.

In December 2005, Bobby Henderson received a reported USD $80,000 advance to pen The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Henderson said he plans to use the proceeds from the sale of the book to build a pirate ship, with which he may travel the world in order to convert heathens to the Pastafarian religion. The book was released on March 28, 2006 .

The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster is the Pastafarian equivalent of the Bible. It parodies biblical figures with characters such as Captain Mosey, a pirate and the FSM equivalent of Moses. The Gospel contains The Eight "I'd Really Rather You Didn'ts", parodying the Ten Commandments.

Okay, so when I started at Moe's on the Ohio State Campus, co-worker of mine was discussing the fanatical Christian Groups that were picketing on the Oval. Now this being a rather large Universty and, all this was not all that unusual. It was how she planned to counterpicket that interested me so. I mean we were busy working rolling burritos and I admit I was not completely paying attention, but she was talking about dressing up as pirates and claiming there was a pasta flavored God, and trhat heave had lots of Beer & Strippers. Well because I was a big fan of causing trouble and heaven sounded fun the way she described I kinda smiled, nodded my head and didnt think much more of it.

Well, evidently this Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster has a little something to it after all. It is a brilliant parody of Intelligent Design, that was spurred on byKansas considering teaching this flawed logic in their schools. The creator felt the need to speak out against this, and in a fascinatingly (and evidently infuruiatingly to conservative christians) way. In forcing them to disprove the noodly religion it makes them look at their faulty logic. And the fact that they continue to ignore the facts, and harshly critisize what is clearly a joke, shows how hypocritical and lost they really are. While some of the posters to the site are over righteous Athiests, I think the joke has legs, and I suggest checking it out.

RAmen!

TomC