WARNING: If a satire of religion, especially your own, offends you then you probably shouldn’t read any further…but now that I said that you probably will. I did warn you though.
So I am researching an idea I had for an algorithm I posted about last week and in the process I was looking at anti-spam technology (it and winzip may actually hold the key). Wikipedia has always been a useful place to find links to related sites, so I began there. To my surprise the directory tree for spam includes a link to Spaghetti & Pulsar Activating Meatballs, which immediately caught my attention and I had to check it out.
I sh!t myself laughing.
The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, or as they like to call themselves, Pastafarians is hilarious. Here is a sampling of their beliefs:
- An invisible and undetectable Flying Spaghetti Monster created the universe, starting with a mountain, trees and a midget.
- Global warming, earthquakes, hurricanes, and other natural disasters are a direct consequence of the decline in numbers of pirates since the 19th Century.
- All evidence pointing toward evolution was intentionally planted by the Flying Spaghetti Monster. The FSM tests Pastafarians' faith by making things look older than they really are. "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 10,000 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 this can be possible and the reasons why He does this. He is of course invisible and can pass through normal matter with ease."
- Pastafarian heaven includes at least one beer volcano and one stripper factory.
- "RAmen" is the official conclusion to prayers, certain sections of the Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, etc., and is a combination of the Hebrew term "Amen" (as used in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) and Ramen, a type of noodles. While it is normally spelt with both a capital "R" and "A", it is also acceptable to spell it with only a capital R.
It goes on. What started out as a letter to a school board to protest Intelligent Design replacing evolution in the classroom has apparently turned into a cult following, complete with a newly published book that details their religion. Instead of the 10 Commandments, they have 8 I Really Rather You Didn’ts brought down the mountain by the Pirate Moses (Pirates are spiritual beings apparently). There were originally 10, but he dropped 2 on the way down.