Comment on the Open Letter

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

2368 Responses to “Comment on the Open Letter”

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141 - September 30th, 2006 at 3:12 am - Dolmio SanRemo Says:

Ahhh! But is He? The vast majority of His priesthood is, but once upon a time, pre old testament, worship of the deity was controlled by females. perhaps The Deity is an hermaphrodite… though why such a being would require sex organs and reproductive capability is beyond me. Does the spirit enter Mary and impregnate her or his non noodly appendage?
142 - September 30th, 2006 at 3:51 am - djjack Says:

Good questions, Cap’n and Dolmio. Strangley, I have an easier time accepting a male pasta dish as my chosen Deity than accepting a human male (i.e. Jesus). He has meatballs, so he really has to be male. Even though I’ve always had a major beef (no pun intended, but I’ll go with it) with the Christian God’s gender, I’ll happily worship His Noodliness. Although, and this might be too much for this forum, I once had a dream where I had to choose between Jesus and Satan after meeting them and spending time alone with each one. Interestingly, Satan was rather a hornball, whereas Jesus was gentle and kind, wanting to commune only with my soul. I guess I chose Jesus in the dream. I don’t want to analyze that one, I’ll tell you. Thank Noodliness for the FSM. Now, I suppose, I can admire all of those qualities in one convenient Deity. That is not to say that I think I’ll be somehow interacting personally “in the Biblical sense” with the FSM. That would be rather, well, kinky.
143 - September 30th, 2006 at 4:09 am - Studmuffin Says:

Did Adam have a belly button? If he did, why?
144 - September 30th, 2006 at 4:27 am - John Dunlop Says:

I thing Pastafarianism and all other religions should be discussed in all American schools, because I think education is about learning to think and you can’t think properly with half the subjects verboten.
Maybe teaching more world history and geography and all American teachers taking a sabbattical in a non-western country would help too.
145 - September 30th, 2006 at 7:56 am - Ronny Mueller Says:

Hey Bobby,

The FSM has reached Germany and I really have to say that the Story of the FSM seems more logical to me than any bible story or something.
I hope that you will go on like this.

Greetings from Germany

Ronny
146 - September 30th, 2006 at 12:51 pm - Bill Lawrence Says:

I personally think we’d all be a lot better off if Christians started concentrating on the precepts taught by Jesus rather than the rules governing a Bronze Age tribe of shepherds and goatherders.

As for evolution, it is not (as some have said in your hate mail) a fraud, but a scientific theory, which means it is tweaked as new evidence comes to light. So pit a mountain of scientific, empirical evidence against the creation myth of those same goatherders and you really have to set aside your “god-given” intellect to believe the latter. Intelligent design is an unintelligent end-run around scientific evidence, unproven and unprovable.

Finally, to those who think you will go to hell — a Christian invention, not a Jewish idea — or have ticked off this malevolent OT god, please note that it is precisely hotbeds of creationist fervor like Kansas and Oklahoma that regularly get slammed by tornadoes, and it was Pat Robertson’s airplane that got swatted out of the sky. Do you really think a god that supposedly created a trillion stars in an expanding, infinitely complex universe is so small that it would even notice what goes on here on this dust mote of a planet? Or care?

Ok, one last observation. I wonder how many of these vitriol-filled religionists realize that there were many, many early Christians who did not consider the tribal god of the Israelites a true god at all, but rather an ignorant, arrogant demiurge. The true god, they believed, was the female principle that governed the universe.
147 - September 30th, 2006 at 9:03 pm - Jonathan Keith Says:

Pastafarianism should not be taught in Science class because a careful examination of its doctrines reveals that it is actually a heinous attempt to teach Creationism in disguise. Oh my! Despite its attempts to conceal the Christian Creator behind a screen of airborne noodles, the resemblance is obvious to any impartial person who hates both. Consider, for example, the following similarities:

1) The FSM is intelligent. So is the Christian God!
2) The FSM created a mountain, trees and a midgit. Note the use of the word ‘created’, a term with roots in Creationism. Pastafarians have attempted to conceal their origins by adopting a new approach to spelling, but no-one is fooled.
3) Pastafarians claim that radiocarbon dating gives unreliable results because the FSM changes the results with his Noodly Appendage. Words like ‘Noodly’ and ‘Appendage’ make this sound like something new, but the essence of the argument is something everyone knows proponents of Intelligent Design have asserted. Repeatedly. Many times. Probably even in writing.
4) Pastafarians attempt to establish a link between pirates and global warning based on an argument that assumes correlation implies causation. This is really dumb. So are Creationists!

Pastafarians will claim that they are distinct from Creationists, and they do come up with some differences. However, these are all about irrelevant details, such as whether the Biblical account of Creation is literally true. In any case, they can’t be trusted to define their own position. We know what they’re really up to.

Regards,
Jon K
148 - October 1st, 2006 at 6:33 am - VladoRomani Says:

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P.S. Sorry for my post in this category.
149 - October 1st, 2006 at 12:08 pm - FSM soldier Says:

We are missing one key aspect of a religon! As a formally trained military officer, I volunteer to begin recruting training and employing FSM warriors to impose the belief of FSM on others, or to suit our material gain.

Soldier on!
150 - October 1st, 2006 at 4:02 pm - Jonathan Keith Says:

Pastafaranism should not be taught in Science class because Science, fundamentally, is a game. It is a game with one overriding and defining rule: Let us see how far and to what extent we can explain the behaviour of the physical and material universe without invoking intelligent pasta.

Now some might see this exclusion as rather arbitrary, and might suppose that the only reason why it is a rule is that Science is culturally dominated by people who don’t like pasta. But far from it, this rule is an important and necessary principle, without which Science could not function. QED. It even has a fancy name - Methodological Apastarism - which proves the point as far as I’m concerned.

I understand your position and I respect it, I really do. But we can’t change the rules of Science. Sorry about that. At least you’re still allowed to believe it - just like you can believe any other silly primitive thing that isn’t Science.

Regards,
Jon K
151 - October 1st, 2006 at 4:34 pm - Dolmio SanRemo Says:

Dear FSM soldier, may I suggest that that conversion should be culinary, ie a large bowl of Spaghetti and meatballs (complete with lashings of parmesan) must be eaten by the convertee as proof of conversion.
A requirement for enlistment in the FSM army should be the ability to prepare such a dish to perfection.

Blessed be His balls. Ramen
152 - October 1st, 2006 at 5:38 pm - Jon Keith Says:

I’m opposed to teaching Pastafarianism as Science, but please don’t assume I hate this religion. Actually, I’m a Pastafarian. I’m also a scientist. I study the evolution of midgits.

Although I believe the FSM made mountains, trees, midgits and everything else, I think it’s very important to pretend that he didn’t, at least while I’m doing things called Science. I often say to myself: ‘While it may be true that this fossilized midgit was designed by the FSM, indeed, it may be THE midgit, nevertheless I should not consider that a possibility’. It’s easy once you get the hang of it.

I’m happy for Pastafarians to be scientists, as long as we keep our religion separate from our Science. That way, our ridiculous, outdated beliefs won’t pollute the search for truth.

RAmen
153 - October 1st, 2006 at 7:42 pm - Buck an ear Says:

Good stuff this.

Sincerely,
van Gogh
154 - October 1st, 2006 at 7:49 pm - Jonathan Keith Says:

Pastafaranism should not be taught in Science class because Science, fundamentally, is a game. It is a game with one overriding and defining rule: Let us see how far and to what extent we can explain the behaviour of the physical and material universe without invoking intelligent pasta.

Now some might see this exclusion as rather arbitrary, and might suppose that the only reason why it is a rule is that Science is culturally dominated by people who don’t like pasta. But far from it, this rule is an important and necessary principle, without which Science could not function. QED. It even has a fancy name - Methodological Apastarism - which proves the point as far as I’m concerned.

I understand your position and I respect it, I really do. But we can’t change the rules of Science. Sorry about that. At least you’re still allowed to believe it - just like you can believe any other silly primitive thing that isn’t Science.
155 - October 1st, 2006 at 7:53 pm - A skeptic Says:

Pastafaranism should not be taught in Science class because Science, fundamentally, is a game. It is a game with one overriding and defining rule: Let us see how far and to what extent we can explain the behaviour of the physical and material universe without invoking intelligent pasta.

Now some might see this exclusion as rather arbitrary, and might suppose that the only reason why it is a rule is that Science is culturally dominated by people who don’t like pasta. But far from it, this rule is an important and necessary principle, without which Science could not function. QED. It even has a fancy name - Methodological Apastarism - which proves the point as far as I’m concerned.

I understand your position and I respect it, I really do. But we can’t change the rules of Science. Sorry about that. At least you’re still allowed to believe it - just like you can believe any other silly primitive thing that isn’t Science.
156 - October 1st, 2006 at 10:42 pm - Tim Thomas Says:

Come on, you guys. Everyone knows there was a singularity and then it went bang (really big) and then we got infinity. Duh! Guys with calculators feeding us B.S. are way better than guys with Bibles feeding us B.S. Pastafarians? Those guys are fags! (Not that there’s anything wrong with that! What a man does with his Noodly Appendage is his business, alone.)

How about teaching “We don’t know.” How about saying, “It’s a little risky to extrapolate 200 years of information across 4 billion years.” Leave the children alone. I didn’t give a shit then, and I care even less now. Man is not famous for being correct. Mostly, he’s full of shit on all levels. This is just another reason to not get along. Anybody sick of that yet?
157 - October 2nd, 2006 at 1:24 am - Al Bacteria Says:

His noodly appendage chose us as his messengers to really propogate the truth and the truth alone. If the faith was a joke, why esle wud it spread like wildfire and bcome such a large phenomenon? This clearly shows that the noodly appendage is with us…

Ramen
158 - October 2nd, 2006 at 4:04 am - Sherpa C. Says:

You really are a genius.

RAmen.
159 - October 2nd, 2006 at 7:01 am - KRIS Says:

I cannot believe that there are still people who don’t seem to believe in the fSM. Thank you so much, since I read about this new religion I believe there is truth in the world.
And thank you even more for making me laugh like shit. Its great and I since I saw the movie with the FfM on the roof, hey, thats an evidence, or has some of those “creationists” ever saw god???
I hope it will spread even more, so one day it will also be taught here in Germany.
Ramen!
160 - October 2nd, 2006 at 7:52 am - GreenIguana Says:

I appreciate how much better this arguement is that the creationist arguement. This actually makes sense and explains why the scientists’ data is changed. If the spaghetti monster truly is invisible (which we can prove by the fact that no one has seen him/her/it) then the scientists would have no way of knowing that their data is being messed up.

Since some people don’t seem to realize this yet: this is an arguement fabricated to show the many flaws in the creationist arguement. The author is trying to emulate the arguement of the creationists except this time with a spaghetti monster to make people who use these reasons to argue for creationism realize that their reasons are faulty. If he were to use God instead of a spaghetti monster, he assumed no one would get that he is making a fake arguement (even with the pirate graph), so he included the spaghetti monster, but some people still fail to realize this. Some people are actually arguing against the exact same arguements they use for supporting creationism just because they are being used to argue for a different (obviously false) theory.

A well formulated theory relies on nothing but evidence and explains why things happen the way they do. The theory of evolution is an attempt to explain why there are all these humaniod skeletons buried around the world, why living things are so well adapted to their environments, why when the humaniod skeletons are carbon dated and put on a timeline they show a gradual change (or evolution which is another word for change), why humans and some animals have organs that aren’t used (such as the appendix), etc. The theory of creationism doesn’t address all of these. A good theory can also be tested. If a new humaniod skeleton was found, the theory of evolution could be changed. If that skeleton fell on the timeline in the expected place, the theory would be more accepted. If the skeleton fell in a completely unexpected place, the theory might be changed or even abandoned. There is no way to test the creationist theory.

This arguement for the spaghetti monster theory violates all the rules of the scientific method and then some, not because the author doesn’t know what he is talking about, but because he is trying to prove a point about the creationist arguement (which violates every rule of the scientific method and then some).

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An elaborate spoof on Intelligent Design, The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster is neither too elaborate nor too spoofy to succeed in nailing the fallacies of ID. It's even wackier than Jonathan Swift's suggestion that the Irish eat their children as a way to keep them from being a burden, and it may offend just as many people, but Henderson, described elsewhere as a 25-year-old "out-of-work physics major," puts satire to the same serious use that Swift did. Oh, yes, it is very funny. -- Scientific American