I wrote the Open Letter sometime around January of 2005 and posted it online several months later after receiving no reply from the Kansas School Board. Within days of posting it online, the letter became an internet phenomenon, generating tens of thousands of visits each day, as well as personal responses from the school board members themselves. To date (August 2006), the venganza website has received upwards of 350 million hits, and somewhere in the proximity of 15 million unique visits. This website operates on a dedicated server and uses 600 - 800 GB/month in bandwidth. I’ve received over 15,000 emails in response to the letter.
The letter, after being blogged heavily for months, was printed in several large newspapers, including the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Chicago Sun Times, and many others. The newspaper articles caught the attention of book publishers, and at one point there were six publishers interested in getting the Word of the Flying Spaghetti Monster out to the public. In the end, the Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster was released by Random House in March of 2006.
It’s now been over a year since the FSM phenomenon started. I hope that a year from now we will be recognized as a legitimate religious organization, with all the same benefits *and tax loopholes* that the mainstream religions enjoy.
Please leave me a comment on the Letter, the FSM movement as a whole, or whatever you like. Thanks,
-Bobby
the problem with teaching pastafarianism in schools is that the creater has a name. the main scientific proponent of ID is that the ‘creator’ has no name. ‘it might be the christian god, but it might not! THATS what makes it scientific!’
i propose a fourth theory that marries “intelligent design” to evolution! novel, i know, but it’s what the majority of (i know one exception, who doesn’t believe in dinosaurs………i know…) my christian friends/acquaintances/family believe. we’d say that the two aren’t incompatible, but something like the following: the biblical creation story [7 days, man named all the animals, the garden of eden etc.] is one in a long laundry list of ancient creation stories, and that like much of the bible, its figurative lessons, and not the literal translations are the meat of the lesson we glean. the evidence for evolution is incontrovertible. interesting fact: did you know that animals evolved to adapt to land, and then some animals WENT BACK to the water? dolphins & whales –> look it up! whales even have tiny pelvic bone relics. we know this by observing body plans and conservation of Hox genes. supa fly [drosophila]! hurr*nerd*hurr. ok, back to the point, evolution is a fact of the universe, and because i believe in a divine being, i believe that God used the mechanism of evolution to carry out the creation plan. in fact most of the stories in the bible have scientific explanations. think the deluge, the red sea split, and the eclipse upon Jesus’ death. all confirmed by analysis. in summary, the plans are complementary and not at all contradictory.
i’m a biology major and very much a christian (shout out to the catholics! woot woot), and don’t see a clash at all (never have, and never understood those who did) between the two school of thought. i’m also a hippy wannabe.
peace & love dudes
RAmen brother, its about time we stopped decieving our children with false gods let them now be annointed in the tomato suace of the flying spaghetti monster(blessings of pasta be upon his name).
Dear Sir
I believe that you are not being truthful about the fact that you do not believe in a FSM, nor does anyone else. Therefore, since you are only pretending to believe something, you do not have a belief or religion at all, and therefore you do not deserve the protection of the Constitution.
Yours Sincerely
Miland Joshi
Yes I agree that your Organization should enjoy the loop hole of not paying Tax . lol . I have since finding your website become a ” concientous spaghetti eating objector ” . lol again .
I fully believe in the spaghetti monster’s Eight I really wish you didn’ts, but I don’t understand why we must refer to the great creator as a HIM. Would it be all right if I refered to the great creator as a HER or as a an IT?