Adherents.com has ranked the major religions of the world. What surprises me is that there are only around 500 thousand Scientologists, and that there are more - 600 thousand - Rastafarians in the world. Note that I said Rastafarians, not Pastafarians. Pastafarianism did not make the list, unfortunately.
Now I’m wondering how many Pastafarians there are in the world, and how we’d go about quantifying that. The FSM website has received well over 10 million unique visitors in the last two years. I’m guessing that the number of people vaguely familiar with FSM is in the millions, but that those who consider themselves Pastafarians number only in the tens of thousands. And of those people, I’m guessing that only some of them consider this a legit religion. For others it’s a joke, satire, entertainment, whatever.
I’m wondering how the mainstream religions count members. Do they count only those who truly follow the core beliefs, and disregard those who are there mainly for the social benefits? Or do they count everyone who’s signed up, or possibly those who pay dues?
Is FSM all that different than the other religions? How many Christians Truly Believe the Bible is the Infallible Word of God, and how many are members because they enjoy the social network and lifestyle that being Christian affords them? It seems to me that many Pastafarians enjoy this community, even if they don’t actually believe there is a Flying Spaghetti Monster controlling events around us at will. Of course, many of us do.
The Church of the FSM has no organized registration process - I’ve never liked the idea of it; it seemed too close to what the major religions do… tracking, asking for money - which I’m strongly against. But maybe it’s time for FSM to become more organized. What do you think? What do you want out of FSM?
It had better be a good quality bench, Ûž, I don’t put up with any old crap, you know!
Don’t worry I’ll make sure its pretty strong. It’ll need to be.
And what is *that* supposed to mean???!!!! ;)
Now wait wait wait. Our Holy Land is somewhere in France, though I can’t remember where. We went over all that in a previous thread.
Sure, I suppose we could have a BACK-UP Holy Land in Israel, or a Just In Order to Make You Angry Holy Land.
RAmen
I just think it might get a bit of a pounding… ;))
Hmmmm, nice save! ;)
Pixel, do you mind? Me and Ûž are busy talking dirty to each other!
Pope Pixel, just leave it at that May 26th, 2007 at 6:35 am
“@Aristotle
If we get that published, we can call a holy war on Israel, but since we’re a non-violent religion I don’t honestly see where that will get us.”
.
But, you see, there won’t need to be any crusades. When the undeniable truth of the Pastafarians’ evidence is revealed to the world, the imperialistic religious institutions will instantaneously cease to exist because their presence will no longer be possible in this universe.
If the article doesn’t seem believable now (which is, like, impossible), it will most definitely support our cause when I’m done with it. We still haven’t discussed the beginnings of the anti-Pastafarianism….
.
In Soviet Russia, Pastafarian historical records publish YOU!!
@Booty
Sorry, didn’t get it fast enough. It’s one of those, “Why the fuck are they talking about… oooooooh.” moments.
@Aristotle
I think we ought to just send them a ton of papers with the sentences “This sentence is false” and “This paper left blank intentionally” written on them, the shear paradoxes will cause them all to implode.
RAmen
In Soviet Russia, a rat’s ass doesn’t give YOU!!!
I’ll post more if I come up with them.
Bless, you are so sweet and innocent, Pixel :D
I want what anyone wants out of their invisible omnipotent friend:
1. Smite my enemies. I don’t want crappy smiting, like locusts. I want something out of a Stephen King book. I want the mofo’s *smote.*
2. I want those of other, wrong, religions to suffer for all eternity starting *now*. Not after they’re dead. Right now.
3. I want the scummy heathen bastards who have no religion to get thrown out of schools, government jobs, non-government jobs, and fast-moving trains. I want FSM in the classroom. Brook no dissent.
4. I want lots and lots of fund-raising, and that fund-raising should go to people who engage in achieving items one-three (the prophet needs no fundage). As a non-prophet, I elect myself as recipient of the fund-raising.
5. I want non-idealogically pure FSM’s expelled from the church. You’re not a real religion until you’ve split a few times over dogma issues.
Now, get to work, oh holy prophet. Now! Now! Now!
–JRM
Oh take a chill pill, JRM!
Jeez! Someone pass me some rum!
O….M….FSM. T4l
well. tl-l4t didn’t c0m3 out w3ll. Okay, JRM, cl-lill 4 a sec.
I totally cl4im #42!
what’s w/ all the symbolz? You guys doing that on purpose or what?
have 2 say I’m slightly supprised. I thought there would have been more posts in 3 days.
where is everyone?
@JRM
I think you’re not entirely in touch with all aspects of Pastafarianism.
.
“I want what anyone wants out of their invisible omnipotent friend:
1. Smite my enemies. I don’t want crappy smiting, like locusts. I want something out of a Stephen King book. I want the mofo’s *smote.*
2. I want those of other, wrong, religions to suffer for all eternity starting *now*. Not after they’re dead. Right now.
3. I want the scummy heathen bastards who have no religion to get thrown out of schools, government jobs, non-government jobs, and fast-moving trains. I want FSM in the classroom. Brook no dissent.”
.
It’s almost the exact opposite of your points 1-3. One of the FSMs ‘I’d really rather you didn’t’ commandments says that it’s ok for people not to believe in His Noodly goodness.
.
“5. I want non-idealogically pure FSM’s expelled from the church. You’re not a real religion until you’ve split a few times over dogma issues.”
.
We already have a split. The evil macaroni-ites claim that our great pasta-based deity is made of macaroni. Ridiculous of course, who in their right mind would believe that the whole universe and life on earth was created by a bunch of macaroni with some meatballs in between?
Indeed, that must’ve been from western society. Otherwise, that’s completely inaccurate. :/
Well, as far as I know, you put down your religion in a registry blank, and no one checks if you’re really religious or not. That’s how it is here in Lithuania. Many people say that they are catholics even though they don’t have strong beliefs and never visit church. It’s like a tradition. So if someone says he’s a pastafarian as a form of joke or w/e, we should still count him as pastafarian, because it’s the same with other religions.
@Andrew
Thanks for mentioning you’re posting from Lithuania, I keep track of countries with a Pastafarian presence. Now we have 32:
Argentina
Australia
Austria
Belgium
Brazil
Britain
Canada
China
Denmark
Finland
France
Germany
Guatemala
Hungary
Iceland
India
Ireland
Israel
Italy
Lithuania
Mexico
Netherlands
New Zealand
Norway
Poland
Russia
South Africa
Spain
Sweden
Switzerland
United Arab Emirates
USA