Q: Who are you?
A: My name is Bobby Henderson. I’m 26, currently living in Arizona, Originally from Oregon. I have a Physics degree and am happily unemployed.
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 on the T-Shirts?
A: Some. Not enough to buy a pirate ship, but enough to avoid a real job for a while.
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
To: Jer & The Family Ennis
.
“By the way,where do the faithful stand on noodles??????”
.
Thank FSM, all noodles (except those of the heavenly FSM, of course) are created equal. We can all partake of His goodness in our own way.
.
RAmen
my friends don’t take me seriously when i say i am a pastafarian, and say i am only doing it for attention. however, i very much support the aims of the religion and i think a point needs to be made. how can i stop them being difficult about his issue (they say it’s not a real religion so i can’t believe in it :S) (they also say i can’t believe in it because it’s silly, i think they have missed the point)
is this a suicide church
Change page Colors. Nobody can read this.
I believe I ate the Creator… what should I do? Does this qualify me to become a Saint?
Franki,
Tell them to prove their religion is real. They can’t so this religion is just as real. Remind them when their religion started it had a small number of people then it grew. Ours will too.
Ramen!
i think its totally awesome the church of FSM
and i agree, religion isnt a bad thing, dogma is
and science is science let it be… dont teach creationism in a science classroom.
you are infact my hero for the FSM
:D
i’m a potential convert to pastafarianism, but i just want to confirm that after devoting myself to this religion, upon my death i’ll encounter some male strippers in heaven, too …and are there possible merlot-spewing volcanoes?….i mean, beer’s great, but i like the idea of a heaven with variety
Can we just say. GET FUCKING REAL TO ALL THOSE HATERS. They come on here, saying all this shit to u saying ‘ITS NOT REAL’ yadda yadda yadda…ummmm WHAT DO THEY THINK U R - DUMB? Clearly this is a creation of sumthing fun- sumthing different. Not necessarily authentic.
They know this, yet feel sum sort of threat…. threatened enough in sum way to get shitty about it. Pffff..
ne way we love how u posted your hate mail. ballsy. love it
shows ur holding your own and not caring bout their opinions..and practically rubbing it in the haters faces by not hiding any of it
anyway all the best,
hope the Kansas schoolboard respond
Kristina & Casley
Bobby,
*
I really appreciate this page, the first time I landed on it I almost pee in my pants of laughter. It’s very creative, of course many will argue is not original but that’s not the point. I wanted to congratulate you on making this such a fun past-time for me, my husband, some co-workers and a few friends (yes I have been spreading the gospel of the FSM).
*
I actually wanted to ask you something and maybe you have gotten this question before but I’m seriously not looking forward to trying to find a similar question amongst all these posts. So here it is: Are you concern that some people might take you seriously on the teachings of Pastafarianism and go onto the world trying to create real churches and worship the FSM? It seems to be that people sometimes tend to be so gullible and believe anything they hear that it might as well be very plausible. I don’t know if you have wonder about this before but I would like to know what your thoughts are on this subject.
*
BTW, are you on Yahoo!Answers or is that just a poser with the FSM name, noodles.
*
May his noodly appendage be with you.
*
P.S. Oh! One more thing, what if you don’t like beer? What will I do in Heaven or Hell for that matter if I don’t like beer? I don’t mind wine or some mixed drinks but I can’t stand beer.
Hey, ppl, my name’s Pito. How does one become a member, if at all?
Thanks.
How are you going to deal with heretics? I suggest setting up an Inquisition (it has been tried before and was successful for a while). I would like to volunteer as one of the guys that get to heat up the branding irons (I did a blacksmiths course for a while until I got over enthusiastic with the forge and burn the school down - I promise to be more careful next time). Can’t wait to get going!
Just to clarify, I believe anyone can “take this seriously” or take it as a joke as much as any other religion. If you look at the activities surrounding traditional religions and belief systems and broaden your view, just about every ordered human social activity has religious qualities. Think sports fanatics and conspiracy theorists. Is bigfoot real? Does anyone worry that bigfoot might be taken seriously? Does anyone worry that the concept of 72 virgins awaiting suicide bombers in heaven might be taken seriously?
Why do people suggest that this religion declare itself false? No others ever have.
youve gotta be kidding me, this seriously sounds like its trying to make a mockery out of the Roman Catholic Church.
Do you eat spaghetti?
may his noodly appendage be with ye believevers and damn all other to hell
How do you pray to the great FSM I’m a new convert to Pastafarianism and I just really want to know the practices. So whenever I eat I can pray to him before every meal giving thanks. And also to ask for his help whenever I’m down on my luck.
ananonymus? That’s a new one on me. I don’t think you quite read things here closly enough, Mr. lower case a. This church does not discriminate. We sound like we’re making a mockery out of pretty much every church, at least the ones that try to stuff their beliefs down our throats. Leave us alone, and we’ll leave you alone. Although, I must admit that the enthusiasm with which so-called *mainstream* churches to attempt to infect the general population with their particular delusions is quite remarkable, and seems unlikely to abate any time soon.
Oh, and check out the dictionary for the definition of “apostrophe”. You’ll (see!) be amazed at what they can do.
Ana Nonymus,
Too late, the RCC has already done enough by itself. FMS is just expanding the feeling to ALL religions, in an equal opportunity manner.
Pito,
FMS pastafarians aren’t made, they just suddenly become one in their heart. Welcome to the fold my child!
Gabs,
Never fear, our great FMS has provided! Besides the usual swill sold on the market as “beer”, some fine craftsmen (following secret orders from FSM Itself) produce some wonderful Boks, Stouts and Porters. My wife didn’t like “beer” until I introduced her to Eko Ruben Dunkel, Spaten Optimator and Negro Modelo. Now she’s a regular brew drinker, but still hates “beer”.
Kristina and Casley,
True Pastafarians are never bothered by hate mail and infidels. It just makes for a richer target environment when we put on the eye-patch, get out the cannons and blast them with the truth, love and meat sauce that is the FSM! RAmen.
Thank you for fighting for children. Not many are willing to take up this noble fight and more needs to be done, you sir are quite frankly a pioneer when it comes to the introduction of broadening the minds of children and therefore the collective conciseness. Please let me know if any other brilliant insight brings you to a point that it is once again time to take up the pen, as well as if there is anything I can do to help.