Last updated 7/2008
Q: Who are you?
A: My name is Bobby Henderson. I’m 27. I grew up in Oregon and move around a lot. I have a physics degree and have successfully avoided a “real” job for years.
Q: Did you really send the Open Letter to the Kansas School Board?
A: Yes. But, I received no replies until after I posted the website online and the School Board started getting lots of emails about it. You can read some of the responses I received here.
Q: Are you an atheist / heathen / what?
A: I don’t have a problem with religion. What I have a problem with is religion posing as science. Teach Creationism in school, fine, but don’t teach it in a science classroom. And don’t change the definition of science so that you can teach these things. That’s retarded.
Supernatural explanations are by definition not science, so why would you teach them in a science classroom?
Religion, itself, isn’t bad. But it isn’t necessarily good, either. There are plenty of good Christians (and Muslims, and Buddhists, and Hindus), and plenty of bad ones.
Dogma is bad for everyone.
Q: You are making God angry.
A: I doubt it. If there’s a God, and he’s intelligent, then I would guess he has a sense of humor. And how do you know He is NOT a Flying Spaghetti Monster?
Q: Do you make money off this?
A: Yes. The Church makes money off T-shirts, car emblems, book sales, and occasionally donations. We are saving a lot of money and pretty soon here we’ll buy our first Pirate Ship which will serve as a floating church, open to all Believers.
Q: Your graph is messed up.
A: No, it’s not. The X-axis doesn’t have to represent time. And the data points don’t need to be in order. A graph is just a collection of data points, I can display them however I want. It might not be what you’re used to, but it’s not messed up. Please stop writing me emails about it (well over 200 at this point).
Q: There are more pirates now than ever. Look at the South Pacific. And song-downloading pirates, and blah blah blah.
A: Real pirates use swords (cutlasses, actually). Those “pirates” in the south pacific are guys with machine guns, cruising around in power-boats. They’re not pirates. And the song-downloading “pirates” are smelly nerds, and therefore not real pirates.
Q: Your grammar/spelling/etc is bad.
A: Yah.
Q: You’re wrong. It’s actually a linguini / mashed potato / dinosaur / elephant / whatever monster.
A: Maybe He just disguises Himself as those things. Also, you’re not funny.
Q: Can I reprint your letter?
A: Yes. Send me a link, please.
Q: Acceptible use of content?
A: It’s ok with me if you’re using the FSM images/content as long as it’s not for profit, and you’re doing it to further the Cause of the church. I.e. printing out FSM propaganda materials and distributing them is ok (and encouraged). Making FSM t-shirts, selling FSM merchandise, etc. is NOT OK.
Q: What blogging/cms software are you using?
A: The recently redesigned site is built on the Wordpress platform with the K2 template.
Q: How many members are there?
A: I don’t know. There are no membership records as such, so I can only guess based on the amount of traffic the site receives, etc. Traffic to date (September 2006) is somewhere in the vicinity of 350 million hits, and around 15 million unique visitors. Google returns close to 2 million results for the phrase “flying spaghetti monster“. So, who knows - your guess is as good as mine.
Q: Why Pirates?
A: We believe that humans evolved from pirates. Consider that humans share around 95% DNA with monkeys, and more than 99.9% DNA with pirates.
Q: Interview requests
A: I’m happy to answer your questions. I recommend you just send me your questions in an email with a subject that I’ll notice, like “INTERVIEW QUESTIONS”. You don’t need to ask permission or set up an interview for some future time, just send me the questions. Thanks.
Q: Website statistics
A: Somewhere around 10k-40k visitors per day, and somewhere around 500k-1million hits a day. Hits are extremely high because lots of people hotlink images,etc from the site. Which is fine w/me.
Emails - depends, but 50 per day is not uncommon. I have 13,839 unread emails right now (9/25/06). I’ll get to as many as I can.
Q: Why is there an FSM banner on my MySpace profile?
A: It’s a virus/worm that WAS NOT CREATED BY ME. I had nothing to do with it. I’m sorry - it caused everyone a lot of problems, and I do not approve of this sort of thing. You can remove it by following the directions here.
More questions? Ask me below, or email me at bobby.henderson@gmail.com
totally need a membership, dude. this is awesome. though a substitute for capitolism might be nice too :P
Hooray for Bobby, for understanding and respecting His Noodly-ness.
RAmen!
Pasta Fazool to you all!
Dear Bobby,
The old continent salutes you.
We have been struggling with religious zealots for centuries.
Now we are fighting not only Intelligent Design supporters from getting key positions in the EU parliament in Brussels but also “newcomers” on the market such as the Scientology “church”.
Your initiative is highly appreciated by many believers, agnostics and atheists alike in Europe who reject dogmas.
I agree with our FSM Brother ‘Krip’: let’s create memberships!
Love and RAmen
I LOVE THIS SITE!! I am a Pastafarian. Thank you for spreading the good news. And those people who send you hate mail because they actually think there is a real church need to read your CAUSE section and your FAQs.
I have been touched.
If you ever want to read a reader’s feedback :) , I rate this article for 4/5. Detailed info, but I have to go to that damn google to find the missed bits. Thanks, anyway!
sir, I’m not a scientist, and so I may be wrong on this, but according to the definition of science on the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, it is “: knowledge or a system of knowledge covering general truths or the operation of general laws especially as obtained and tested through scientific method”. Now, sir, I’m not positive on this, but I’m quite certain that Macro-evolution has not been proven through the scientific method, so how is this a valid “scientific” explanation for origins? I understand that there are micro-evolutions that occur, but sir, I’m not quite sure that it has ever crossed species. How is this scientific?
OMG!… er, i mean OMFSM!!!, how did i survived this years without the almighty guidance of the FSM?!. Today my boyfriend told me about His church and i’m so ashamed i didn’t knew about this before!.
I’ve been truly touched!
PS: I agree about the membership :D
:)
@ Geary #807
You are mistaken, nothing can be “proved” in science, we simply make the best guesses that we can based on the available evidence. A good scientist must admit that they have spent their entire lives on an incorrect theory if that is what the evidence says. At the moment, there is considerable evidence that supports the theory of “macroevolution” as you choose to call it, such as fossils, DNA sequences, and the presence of vestigial limbs in living species. There is, however, no scientific evidence for intelligent design, because intelligent design is not a scientifically testable theory. However, if God (or the FSM) were to appear tomorrow, declare that he made the world and point out the evidence that he did so, every respectable scientist would have to acknowledge the new evidence. The simple fact is that has not happened (yet).
Ramen,
Sarah
I am a believer….I have emailed brother Bobby regarding my FSM sighting this morning…hopefully he will share my photographic evidence with you all and place it on the sightings page.
Love and RAmen,
Your Pastafarian sister,
Evelyn
Not too sure about the membership thing. Rules tend to follow closely on its heals and then people start living by rules - commandments if you will - and forgetting why they showed up in the first place. After rules come committees to make sure the rules are followed by the members and thus you’re a step further away again from why you showed up in the first place. And remember also, a pirate is ever only really loyal to his captain and his ship - neither of which should be metaphorical - and that’s the way it should be.
Lastly, I’m following enough bloody rules as it is.
RAmen
I’m in bro, I’m in! Do I get to wear an eyepatch, matey?
Forum has been out of action for over 24 hours. HELP!
How does one become an ordained FSM minister? I live on Maui and weddings is a big business out here. I am quite sure that no one currently offers an FSM ceremony. I would also be interested in doing Bar Mitzvahs, vow renewals, confirmations, baptisms, etc. Thanks for your guidance.
Arrrrgghhh y’all,
I’d be genuinely interested in converting from atheism to Pastafarianism (stripper factory + unlimited beer, HUGE selling points) HOWEVER, I’m currently having several issues with this. If any of you can resolve them I’d gladly go ahead with the big move, so without further ado here they are:
1. How come the prophet gets to avoid a real job and I don’t?
(that’s just not fair, sorry)
2. Why can’t I sell images of his holy noodlage if I so desire?
(not that I do, but even Christianity can beat Pastafarianism at this game since I wouldn’t require any kind of permission from the church to manufacture crucifixes and that’s just mega-uncool)
3. I’m concerned lest this turns into a Scientology type of thing.
(the L.Ron Hubbard argument has been outlined in one of the earlier comments so I won’t repeat it here)
4. Last but not least, some inconsistencies must be resolved if I am to join, such as the inability to trust scientific instruments to collect data…
(maybe it’s time for the second gospel? hint hint)
I really hope these concerns can be addressed in a satisfactory manner, though now that I look at them, it seems a remote possibility as it would require pretty radical changes to Pastafarianims as we know it.
Notwithstanding, comments would be most welcome.
RAmen
AAAAAARRRRRGGG!!!!
I desperately want to join the church and society but there is no way to register on the forums. Also the forums do not have a ‘Contact Us’ that I could find. I tried clicking on “The Team” and the links for “The Power Struggle” but you must be logged in to use them or contact them in that way. I know the forums are not technically part of this site but I was hoping, for all His Noodly Appendages, that you might be able to get me in contact with them.
Also is there a recommended way to search for local chapters? And if there are none near me, how can I get one started in order to spread his sauciness to my neighbors and friends?
Thanks me Mateys!
In his Noodley Name, RAmen
Hey, I am kind of confused about this whole thing, I am just wondering is this seriously a religion? Do you believe in a flying spaghetti monster? Or are you only doing this to mock other religions/get your point across?
Thanks for any response =)
Check out Pastafarians on Second Life! A quick and easy way to “join” a group.
@ - schwrz - #816,
I’ll try to answer your questions as best as I can, but I have to start with a couple of child rearing premises. Parents must teach their children at least these two truths in order to have not failed: 1) Dads must teach their children, “THE WORLD ISN’T FAIR!” 2) Moms must teach their children, “WHEN SOMEONE SAYS, ‘TRUST ME’, DON’T!”
With those premises we can begin. 1) The world isn’t fair. Get used to it. If you didn’t learn that early in life, your parents should be questioned as to why. 2) For a church that has no annual membership dues (pledges, donations, etc.) Bobby needs some source of income to operate. Faith alone is insufficient, as any televangelist will readily tell you. 3) The loose canon of this church allows a great deal of latitude for members to self define much of their belief system, as long as it conforms to the eight “I’d Really Rather You Didn’ts”. The only other piece of sacred dogma is our opposition to the inclusion of theology of any kind in public schools science curricula. At this point, remember Mom’s lesson from above. 4) In undergraduate school you are never told of the perversity of even the best scientific instruments, but in your first graduate research lab you are invariably given a crash course in Murphy’s Law. By the end of the course, you have fully absorbed the nature of the perversity of inanimate objects.
There can be no further additions to the sacred canon, since as in all religions, when it is closed, IT IS CLOSED. However, there is an extensive responsa literature on this site, and questions of all kinds are addressed here.
Although we have a prophet at the head of our church, we have no other formal hierarchy, and the site is kept honest by the Pastafarians who write the responsa.
RAmen
Just so ya know, qmalvadore is my brain’s name, not mine, and is a silent “Q” I really think that FSMism is the only religion that really makes sense, and also is hilarious. At school, i’ve already converted many classmates by saying Do u believe in the Flying Spaghetti Monster? It has Pirates.”
¡very funny! •)
( { PS awesomest emoticon ever!! — Qmalvadore
•)
the flying spagetti monster has changed my life…. for the better! it is (as many people have said) the only religion that has ever made sense to me. I used to be a catholic, but then my sister told me about this religion and i thought it was interesting and i bought the gospel of his noodly apendage.
i am glad that you took the time to respond to those questions as i have wondered on some of them myself.
i have ut 1 more qu..
how exactly do you officially become a pastafarian? or is believing enough to become one?
thanks people for answers.
@ - PirateQueenAnna - #822,
Welcome aboard, Anna. Consider yourself an official Pastafarian. Try to live by the principles of the Eight “I’d Really Rather You Didn’ts”. Enjoy life and pasta with your chosen libation.
May the sauce be with you.
RAmen
have you ever been accused of being a bit cheesy? don’t forget the meatballs either.