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?
Finally! Somebody else who has seen the vision of the Lord of all Lords, the Flying Spaghetti Monster! Having finally found the one, true religion, I would humbly like to request the privelege of joining your great chuch, and worship the Flying Spaghetti Monster with others with the same beliefs. Please sign me up!
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@red Dec 18th, 2007 at 10:16 am
“I would humbly like to request the privelege of joining your great chuch, and worship the Flying Spaghetti Monster with others with the same beliefs. Please sign me up!”
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You’ve just already been signed up with your post red :)
Welcome!
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Where does it fit in? The obvious answer must be; Beside Islam, Christianity, Jewry and what other monotheistic religion there may be. Simple question, simple answer. I love this new awakening…
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Well.. you could just set up a guest book of sorts so people can “declare” themselves to be members of FSM (under whatever name they care to list), and say why.
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I have been a member of the Church of Raptor Jesus for a while now, but I have now converted to his noodliness’ church the church of FSM.
The 8 I’d really rather you didn’t summarise how everyone should act, be kind to all others, regardless of their own views, and/or preferences, skin colour, sexual orientation etc.
As thus, I am now your newest member.
Also the Beer Volcano sounds good =)
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Carolyn and I were on a date to Disneyland on January 25, 2003 when the name occurred to me, and Carolyn loved it. ,
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The upper class just keeps on dividing and ruling. ,
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