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?
1 = 2/2
No problem :)))
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Noob sticking his neck out! @ May 22nd, 2007 at 1:00 pm
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Makes some good serious points. Here’s the link:
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http://www.venganza.org/2007/05/22/fsm-and-the-other-religions.htm#comment-123874
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Although Bobby says he isn’t against religion in general in the FAQ, many of the people who post here are very much against religion.
Me for one. It is a terrible and harmful thing not just to science, but liberty, equality and society.
Nearly all the things we hold dear have historically been held back and continue to be held back by the silly stupid nonsense of religion.
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Woo hoo! I’ve been up all night doing absolutely nothing! And writing “historical documents” and “researching”!
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I’m bored. So I’m going to show off something that is incomplete! Isn’t that just wonderful?!
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In response to http://www.venganza.org/2007/05/22/fsm-and-the-other-religions.htm#comment-125893
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Jerusalem, the ancient holy city of the three imperialistic religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, in case you didn’t know), lies on the original site of an even older city from an antediluvian past. This archaic metropolis, known as Spagon, was founded by Pirates on the coast of the largest sea in the world (at that time), the Dead Sea (named for all the sailors who were condemned to a cold and watery grave in it).
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Spagon was the location of the Flying Spaghetti Monster’s deliverance of the eight “I’d Really Rather You Didn’ts.†He told Captain Mosey, the Pirate who received the message, that he should create a small seaport right there and then let it grow into a city. Captain Mosey followed the Flying Spaghetti Monster’s commands. He founded the town Spagon.
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Captain Mosey was the first Pirate Ruler of revered and holy Spagon; moreover, he was the first Pirate Ruler to enforce the eight “I’d Really Rather You Didn’ts.â€
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I need constructive criticism! Hurray!
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In Soviet Russia, criticism constructs YOU!!
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Can you tell that my medicine has worn off?
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I should be sleeping right now.
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Happy Saturn Day!
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Going to bed now. I’ll see the constructive criticism this afternoon.
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“I need constructive criticism! Hurray!”
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Sounds good to me Aristotle…. then again I’m easy :))
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“Can you tell that my medicine has worn off?”
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Nuh (;))
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“Happy Saturn Day!”
Same to you (:)))
RAmen
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You’re one of a kind Aristotle (:))
RAmen
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You kiddies certainly occupy your time, quite a bit! I’ve been reading some of this stuff, I definitely want my number to be i so I can be imaginary.
@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.
Hmm… if we piss them off so much they might all leave their country to come and kill us, and then we can sneak in through the back door! It’s like stealing candy from a really fucking mad religious fanatic with an assault rifle!
RAmen
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@Aristotle
RAmen to a job well done! Yes, that is a very plausible explanation of why Pastafarians must have all of Jerusalem for themselves. No xtian, Jew or Muslim could argue with that. Just look at the numbers. Out of more than 10 million visitiors to CoFSM, only one has sofar announced himself as coming from Israel. Pastafarians have obviously been persecuted and discriminated terribly. In compensation for more than two millenia of our unjust suffering we should not just claim all of Jerusalem, but all of the Holy Land where our captain Mosey lived.
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I think I’ll make a small addendum to Popoffs foreign policy platform. Once he’s elected, the US government will file a motion with the UN security council for adherents of all other faiths to either convert or leave the place so that we can settle there. And if Muslim countries or the Jewish lobby manage to block a binding resolution then we’ll just take unilateral action. Enough is enough, we have rights!
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It had better be a good quality bench, Ûž, I don’t put up with any old crap, you know!
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Don’t worry I’ll make sure its pretty strong. It’ll need to be.
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And what is *that* supposed to mean???!!!! ;)
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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
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I just think it might get a bit of a pounding… ;))
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Hmmmm, nice save! ;)
Pixel, do you mind? Me and Ûž are busy talking dirty to each other!
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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.”
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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.
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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….
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In Soviet Russia, Pastafarian historical records publish YOU!!
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@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
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In Soviet Russia, a rat’s ass doesn’t give YOU!!!
I’ll post more if I come up with them.
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Bless, you are so sweet and innocent, Pixel :D
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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
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Oh take a chill pill, JRM!
Jeez! Someone pass me some rum!
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O….M….FSM. T4l
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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.
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where is everyone?
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@JRM
I think you’re not entirely in touch with all aspects of Pastafarianism.
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“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.”
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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.
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“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.”
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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?
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Indeed, that must’ve been from western society. Otherwise, that’s completely inaccurate. :/
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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.
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@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
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wow this is dumb 6
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Guys, the first fundie since the server is back up! Thanks noodle hater, things have been quiet around since the server migration. Nice to see that the humourless crowd can be depended on to return.
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@noodle hater
I believe you would be -6 as all heretics and non-noodlers would assume negative numbers. I wonder who would be the most negative of all the noodle naysayers?
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I think we should do a registration. But the problem is that peraps some person sign in joke…
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If you are still looking for a place to meet, try this. http://www.creationmuseum.org/
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@Rick
You mean with all of us dressed up as pirates and carrying FSM leaflets to enlighten the under-evolved fundies that come to the museum?
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yes
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There are over 10,000 member on the facebook group. And that’s only one of them.
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Likewise one myspace group has over 4000 friends. however some people may join multiple groups and the problem with registration is that people may do it for a joke.
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However we could solve this problem by making people prove their faith for the religion to join. for exampleto register fully one must take a picture of themselves making/worshipping noodles and submit it with their entries. this would elliminate fundies who would not dare to worship something so holy as a noodle.
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it has also come to my attention that a christian group calling themselves FSM has sprung up. It stands for “Fire Student Ministries”: And i quote ”FSM, Fire Student Ministries, is based out of Palmetto Street Church of God in Florence, SC. We are geared towards meeting the needs of todays students with a positive message about Christ.”
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Clearly they are jumping on the bandwagon of the true Church of the Flying Spagetti Monster
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Holy be his noodles
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*not related to captain uberbob*
I had something like this occur.
We had a survey to take at school, and it asked religion.
Well, I identify as a Patafarian Universalist.
So I asked my teacher where Pastafarianism goes on it and she sadi, “That’s not a religion. What are you talking about?”
Then I asked where UU went. “Oh, don’t worry. Just mark ‘No religion’”.
So.
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On that subject, where are the “Recent Comments”? I am really missing them! Please, Prophet Bobby, bring them back!
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I sincerely hope that if this site has been visited by ten million people – if not more – that it would have a larger effect, not just maybe 10s of thousands. I just got chewed out by someone for being a pastafarian because it’s “satire”.
i argued that it’s not just a satire religion, but it has a deeper meaning to all pastafarians, and then he ended the conversation by saying that it just annoys him.
this is ridiculous, didn’t our founding fathers come to america to get away from all that “religion hating”? If i can’t be a pastafarian without being ridiculed, then maybe this country has to rethink its standards.
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Due to unknown circumstances, the regular members of the CoFSM are all out back in a room which currently has no windows…so to speak! What this means, is that we can’t see any direct indication of RECENT COMMENTS left by anyone anywhere else. (on other topic threads…like this one here) You’ll currently find us all over at the New Server (say no more) thread. Please drop over to by clicking the “New Server” link at the top right of your screen or by clicking the following link. Then we’ll know you are here. (:)))
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http://www.venganza.org/2007/05/27/new-server.htm
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RAmen
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About numbers being misused by religions. The major religion in Norway (oh, my sweet father country) is Protestantism, and so we’ve got a National Church. Everybody who confirm their Christian beliefs, becomes a member of this National Church – the ritual of Confirmation (Note: directly translated from the Norwegian term ‘konfirmasjon’, since I don’t know the correct English one) include receiving vast amounts of money from your relatives and other family members, hence 80 or 90 percent of the population is a member of the NC. A funny thing the NC did in one of the last years of the nineties, was to include, and get this, everyone not being a member of any other religious group in their member list, since their archives had just been burnt down. That means I was a member until recently, although I never had anything to do with the church.
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What are your major religious holidays? If you got one around December 25th, that would be great.
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Our facebook group has 11k members, so I think its safe to assume we’ve got at least that many followers.
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Ya’ know… I’m amazed this really has gone from being “just a joke” to being a well thought out “This is where we stand” religion. I mean, I’m Christian personally, but… It has been rather amazing to me after looking at this for the past year. When I first saw it the whole thing seemed like a joke, but now… ya’ are actually looking at things, and treating them like the real issues they are.
A Christian saying Good Luck with whatever it is ya’ are doing.
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As mentioned earlier in this thread… counting the number of pastafarians is futile since His Noodleness will simply change the figures when we’re not looking. By my last count we were near 62 billion… a number I’ll accept on faith alone.
As for collecting donations, I’m all for that. I’ll send a few $ towards an organized effort to build and maintain a galleon though I demand it have a multitude of cannons that can shoot meatballs.
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Shit, I’d buy this place a Galleon myself.
But two things would need to happen.
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1. I get a permenent birth on said ship.
2. Said ship would be used to spread the word of FSM.
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Since those things won’t happen,
I’ll not be buying any boats for the cause.
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Now, I know I know I’m a little late in responding to this, but I just came across it. I couldn’t be bothered to read all the above posts, so I hope I’m not repeating someone else’s opinion.
It seems to me that the ultimate issue here is not how many adherents we have. Rather, I see the issue as our being overlooked and excluded. After all, I think we all know that there are more than enough of us to make a good statistical showing on that chart.
Sometimes the best solutions come from looking to your childhood and thinking “How would I have handled this back then?” If you do that, the answer becomes obvious.
We bake our OWN pie, and don’t invite those other snobs. And we fill it with beer and candy.
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