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
is there a hell? is it nice? if there is a hell can i be allowed to visit?
(only like, one or two days a month though. just in case)
Whatever allows you to sleep at night! It’s an amusing letter and you didn’t directly trash religion so I’m going to take it as an insight of how overly governed we are. However, I do like the pirate idea!
I don’t think this is amusing at all. You are mocking pasta and meatballs. The day is soon approaching when earth will be barren of such foods and the final battle of the cuisines will occur in the Valley of the Olive Garden in Israel (This is near the Outback Steak Valley). Everyone knows that once the tomato sauce has risen to the necks of horses, that only then will we live with perfect Italian food menus. And lead us NEVER to compare spaghetti to Lo mein, but rather deliver us from noodle!
I have seen the letter, and am soon going to embark on a project to breed pirates in order to suppress global warming. I need volunteer women to participate.
haha does any one else realize how much like Christianity this is? like read through it again and its basically saying that Christianity is just as legitimate as a flying spaghetti monster. I’m not taking offense at all. Strangely enough i always give props to people who point out how insane Christianity is. This is strange because I’m a churchy my self. but I love it.
Sadie Trig, I do that that’s rather the point.
Its very important that people know all the view-points of the same teory
Dear Pirate Breeder, in the name of science and in obediance to our almighty Flying Spaghetti Monster (May His Noodly Appendage Touch You!) - I hereby humbly volunteer myself to your most noble cause of the suppresion of global warming! Let the breeding begin!!!
All hail is noodly goodness, for the FSM is here to save us all and deliver us to a Ragu of freedom. Our salvation!
I love the site, and I think you have come a long way. You even made it into the movie “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed”, which is a feat for sure.
kicks ass! well done! From now on I will spread the word and FSM have mercy for those that will not take it!
May you forever be blessed by his Noodly goodness!
Ra’men
Pasta Be Unto You. May all come to know His warm embrace, and His true teachings of Al Denteism. The mystery of Lord Lasagna’s trinitarian nature will one day be embraced and no longer will the gastronomical evil of The Olive Garden mar our nation’s landscape. Let us pray that in His omniscience, He will guide the nation’s schools to teach the elements of satire and sarcasm to allow minds to be open to the Truth. Amen.
i beleive yees i asm one of the 17 remaining pirates but i have just heard of this so yippy P.S. i got ten bucks from my parents
I love him!!!
I love all this!!!
RAmen
Gravy-Tree
I think the FSM is a perfect platform for me to provide a historical, factual account of the actual series of events that led to the discovery of what we today call “Gravity”, and how it is closely linked to Him.
There was in fact, a long time ago, a midget living in Outback Tasmania who was called Albert Stein. Albert Stein was a part-time pro wrestler, and man-servant to a famous heathen named Issac Newton. Albert was a fine, study wrestler who had, and rightly so, earned himself the name of Albert ‘Iron’ Stein. In between his hectic pro wrestling schedule, and tending to the whims of his rather untalented, unsuccessful ‘Scientist’ (whatever that means) master, Albert had a great love for launching dirty gravy pans from a great catapult, positioned to the back of the servants quarters, toward the small fruit orchard.
On any given day Mr. Newton could be found slacking off in said orchard while poor Albert went about all his chores for him.
It is perhaps appropriate to mention that young Mr. Stein had a terrible lisp, and never spoke much, and was also never shown much respect by Mr Newton.
And so it was that one day Mr Newton was taking one of his ‘naps’ in the orchard, and Albert was happily indulging himself in some Gravy Pan Flight. When a stray gravy pan landed in a tree that Mr Newton was napping under, Albert quickly went to investigate to ensure no damage was done. His approach stirred Mr Newton from his daze just in time to witness a gravy Pan out of his tree and land on the ground near to him.
“ALBERT, what is the meaning of this?” exclaimed Issac in an irritated voice,
“Gravy Tree!” Said young Albert, referring to the game of launching pans into the orchard, in which the gravy pans inevitably returned to the ground. Of course, never one to really listen to anything Albert had to say or to take time to be patient with his faithful servants speech disorder, Mr newton responded in the following manner,
“Gravity! Of course!! Whatever goes up must come down!”
Soon after, young Albert Stein was shipped off to Germany in order to keep quiet the real circumstances behind Mr Newtons ‘discovery’, and Mr Newton was left to mislead the world about the nature of his gravity.
And so you can see that as it is up to Him to decide who is given the ability to speak with a lisp (as it is written in scripture, and therefor true) it is therefor Him who set about the events that led to what we now know as gravity, which indeed should be called ‘Gravy Tree’.
Glokem
my friends are being jack asses and dont belive our god and there wondering if its a god then why is it called the flying spaghetti MOSTER.
they say if its a monster how is it a god? plz write back so i can tell them why its like that.
thanks oh great wise one.
So…in FSM, which came first? The chicken or the egg?
@Noah L Diamond May 1st, 2008 at 7:12 pm
“You even made it into the movie “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed”, which is a feat for sure.”
.
Really? I somehow missed that tidbit about the movie. Oh they must be thanked (movie blog) for spreading His Noodley awareness.
RAmen
I am a concerned pirate who’s hope in the future of our world has been restored through the discovery of this letter and its associated religion. Halleluya praise the spaghetti lord!
it is high time that those of us living in the ‘true’ Pirate and Pasta knowledge of ‘what is really going on’ have an ‘organised’ religion to follow, so to you I am forever grateful.
may the Monster bless all your endeavours with his juicy red sauce, and may your meatballs always be as garlicy as they are in heaven
;)
peace and piracy
P.
When our traditional, ortodox religions dont give us the answers we need, we seek other means. This shows the gradual securalization of our society. Clearly people have had it with the conventional religous beliefs and now they seek a new religous paradigm. What ever makes people happy and satisfied with them self!!