The Flying Spaghetti Monster

In the beginning there was The Flying Spaghetti Monster....

          The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, was born in 2006 out of a satirical letter written by young Bobby Henderson to the Kansas State's board of education to protest the boards decision to make intelligent design as equally taught in school as Darwin's evolution. After sending his letter to the board, young Henderson posted his letter on his website recieving a huge response, thus leading to the internet phenomena of the flying spaghetti monster, a common symbol for the opposition of teaching intelligent design in schools. However, since then The Flying Spaghetti Monster (FMS) has expanded beyond those original boundaries and is now a fully practiced religion also known as Pastafarianism and is legally recognized in New Zealand as well as the Netherlands, where marriage ceremonies can even be preformed by an ordained minister of the Church of The Flying Spaghetti Monster.


So what is Pastafariansism/ the FMS?
           Pastafarianism is the worlds fastest growing carbohydrate based religion. The Flying Spaghetti Monster, or the FMS is the sole deity of the church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, attendants to which are known as pastafarians. He himself is a complex carbohydrate based entity who consists of "willowy eye-stocks, two large meatballs, and a multitude of noodly appendages". The creation story as believed by pastafarians is that the universe was created by an all-powerful flying spaghetti monster who after intense drinking created the universe and the first humans known as "midgets. Within the Pastafarian religion,  Pirates are considered to be sacred and of the holiest beings as they are revered as the original Pastafarians. 

          While to many readers including myself, this church may seem completely satirical, the church itself has many devout followers and a large community especially in New Zealand. According the the official website of the FMS,  "The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, after having existed in secrecy for hundreds of years, came into the mainstream just a few years ago.With millions, if not thousands, of devout worshipers, 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.Some claim that the church is purely a thought experiment or satire, illustrating that Intelligent Design is not science, just a pseudoscience manufactured by Christians to push Creationism into public schools. These people are mistaken — The Church of FSM is legit, and backed by hard science. Anything that comes across as humor or satire is purely coincidental." (veganza.org)

Beliefs of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster
          As mentioned before, the church believes in the sacredness of pirates as they are the original pastafarians. According to pastafarian scripture, humans descended from pirates, and that despite the fact "'so called science experts'" may have us believe we descended from primates as 99% of our DNA matches, the church of FMS assures us that while that may be true, 99.9%!! of our DNA is in common with pirates, thus we are descended from them, and that it is christian misinformation that pirates have the thieves and criminals reputation today. Henderson himself also claims, that it is because of the decline in the number of pirates today that there is global warming.


(from wikipedia)
Note the purposefully misleading and inaccurate graph (view x axis and the in organization) to show how as the number of pirates has decreased global warming has correspondingly gone up. 

Pastafarians also have a belief in the afterlife. According to the FMS, in Pastafarian heaven there is a beer volcano and a stripper factory. In Pastafarian hell, everything is similar except the beer is stale and the strippers have STDs.


Pastafarian Practices
          While pastafarians do not meet regularly on a Sunday, they do instead have a Sabbath day of Friday  However this entails no such event and instead people worship by "drinking beer and relaxing".  Like most other religions , pastafarians say prayers to worship their creator. The most common prayer, "The Noodle Prayer", as dictated by the prophet Ragu, says. "Our saucer which art in a colander, draining be Your noodles. Thy noodle come, Thy meatballness be done on earth, as it is meaty in heaven. Give us this day our daily sauce, and forgive us our lack of piracy, as we pirate and smuggle against those who lack piracy with us. And lead us not into vegetarianism, but deliver us from non-red meat sauce. For thine is the colander, the noodle, and the sauce, forever and ever. R'Amen."  

However, the biggest practice of the Pastafarian religion is that of a good time, as the church of the flying spaghetti monster strongly promotes time spent relaxing by drinking beer and enjoying the jovialness of life.

Bibliography:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/1498162/In-the-beginning-there-was-the-Flying-Spaghetti-Monster.html
https://www.venganza.org/category/sightings/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Spaghetti_Monster
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/11/big-in-europe/501131/
http://metro.co.uk/2016/01/28/the-netherlands-has-recognised-the-church-of-the-flying-spaghetti-monster-as-a-religion-5649017/