Bobby Henderson - The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster

A friend of mine swears up and down that the following tale is gospel truth. He claims he overheard a customer leaving the meat counter at his local grocery remark gleefully to the woman with him, "Did you see that? I musta got about half that fish free because so much was hanging over the edge of the scale when the guy weighed it!"

Groan... chalk up another one in the scientific illiteracy column. Sad to say, the score is pretty high over there: these days there are so many people ignorant of science and the scientific method that any Tom, Dick, or Harry can cobble together his own "theory" and demand that it be given equal time in your kid's classroom. Since more than a few of the folks making the ultimate decision don't know enough about science to realize what the word really means, a few wacky theories are getting a lot more face time than they deserve with local school systems. The latest - and wackiest - just might be the Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. After all, if Intelligent Design deserves equal time, who are we to deny the Pastafarians their fifteen minutes of fame?


Every decade has its silly book: in the seventies it was The Dieter's Guide to Weight loss During Sex, in the eighties, The Yuppie Handbook. I'm here to tell you that The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster will not be the silly book of the aughties (or whatever the PtB have decided to call the current decade). It's not intended to be the silly book of the decade. Instead, it's intended as an all-out attack - albeit entirely comedic - on the proponents of Intelligent Design. Three cheers for the Flying Spaghetti Monster and His prophet, Bobby Henderson!

Allegedly a twenty-something physics student from Oregon, FMS's chief prophet's teachings comprise an elaborate (and often hilarious) spoof of the ID community or, as it's sometimes called in scientific circles, "Creationism in a Cheap Tuxedo." Pandering, as always, to the lowest common denominator - the great unwashed and partially educated - Henderson has constructed out of whole cloth new religion in its entirety. Pastafarianism has become a religion complete with its own chosen people, own heaven and hell, own creation story, own version of communion, and - now - its own gospel. Let's have a look!


In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was "Aarrrgh."

So beginneth the Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, holy book of the new religion variously known as FSMism and Pastafarianism - it doesn't seem to make much difference to its practitioners. It doesn't make much difference, because there's actually not much to the religion. Perhaps that's a good thing, as Martha would say. Some of the prime tenets of Pastafarianism are:


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we don't need no stinkin' dogma

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heaven boasts not only a beer volcano, but also a stripper factory

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pasta is the perfect food. Can I get a RAmen?!

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midgets are evil

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Every Friday is a religious holiday

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Pirates are His chosen people, and every bad thing you've ever heard about them is a lie

But there is more: those who study The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster will learn that many scientific "theories" are incorrect. Take gravity for instance - rather than the Earth holding people to its surface, instead the Flying Spaghetti Monster (FSM) pushes people down with His Noodly Appendage. There was no evolution: the FSM created the world in five days (hence Friday's status as a religious holiday for adherents of FSMism). On the fifth day, He laced the entire universe with false clues - red-shifted light to make it look like distant stars were receding, bazillions of fossils buried in the rock, and stuff like that there - all to fool future "scientists" into thinking that the universe is billions of years old and that life on Earth took hundreds of millions of years to "evolve." No wonder He was tired and took Friday off...

Have you heard of "string theory"? the latest scientific paradiddle that claims that everything in the universe is made up of eensy-beansy little strings way, way, way too little to see with the naked scanning electron microscope? Think about it: strings... spaghetti... strings... spaghetti... I'm beginning to see a pattern here; aren't you?


Those who take up the study The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster will learn much about their newly chosen religion. For instance, in answer to the question, "Does He hear my prayers?" one learns that indeed He does, "but that is not to say that they will necessarily be answered. To increase your odds, it's recommended that you wear full Pirate regalia or at least an eyepatch." Or one learns answer to the question, "How do you reconcile the glaring inconsistencies and contradictions in the FSM religion?" which is, "First, all those seeming flaws were carefully put in place, by Him, to test His followers' faith. Second, a certain amount of inconsistency is necessary for a religion to become widespread - for example, Christianity, Islam, and so on."

There is but one self-levitating Holy Plate of Pasta (complete with tomato sauce and meatballs) and Bobby Henderson is His prophet. Can I get a RAmen!?


Though it's all in good fun - at least as long as you're not a proponent of ID, I guess - The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster actually has a hidden purpose. That purpose is to point out the absurdity of the argument that ID and Evolution are equally valid because they're both "theories." Henderson points out that if those two can be considered equals simply because the proponents of ID say so (relying heavily on the listeners' unfamiliarity with the meaning of "theory" to a scientist), then any crackpot paradigm - such as FSMism - also deserves equal time. Sadly, his likely audience (young men suddenly interested by a Heaven with its own beer volcano and stripper factory) is unlikely to have much influence on their local school boards.

Ah, well, at least he tried - and quite a bit of it was funny...