As Pastafarianism approaches its 15th year, the founder of the world’s silliest – or smartest? – religion reflects on how it came to be

As F Scott Fitzgerald once observed, the test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function. By this measure, the religion of Pastafarianism is the creation of a first-rate mind.

There are two contrasting explanations for how Pastafarianism (officially known as the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster) came into being. The first is that an invisible monster, comprising a tangle of spaghetti flanked by two meatballs, created the universe after a bout of heavy drinking. For hundreds of years, his followers – pirates, mainly – worshipped in secret. Only recently has it become better known.

The second explanation is that Bobby Henderson, a young physics graduate from Oregon State University, wrote to the Kansas Board of Education in 2005 to protest against a proposal to teach “intelligent design” alongside evolution in secondary schools. The arguments supporting a scientific basis for intelligent design, he wrote, apply just as well to a universe created by a flying spaghetti monster.

Much of our traditions just happen, and either it sticks or it doesn’t. Like spaghetti Bobby Henderson

“I fully expect, then, that this FSM theory will be admitted into accepted science with a minimum of apparently unnecessary bureaucratic nonsense, including the peer-review process.”

When ignored, he posted his letter on the web, where it became an internet phenomenon.

If, as adherents insist, this is a genuine religion (which several governments, including that of New Zealand, have recognised), there’s no reason we shouldn’t take them at their word. After all, it’s no more ridiculous to believe that there’s a beer volcano in heaven than it is to believe that a wafer biscuit is the body of Christ, or that 72 virgins await every martyr in Paradise.

If, on the other hand, we view FSM as a clever spoof of “all the crazy things done in the name of religion”, then that is also clearly the case. It takes fundamentalist Christian arguments against evolution and, instead of trying to counter them, mischievously mimics them until they collapse under their own weight. It exposes, with wit and style and a perfectly straight face, the absurdities and self-contradictions common to all religious arguments against rationalism.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest In 2016 Pastafarian Andrei Filin was the first Russian to win the right to pose wearing a pasta strainer in his driver’s licence photo. Photograph: Alamy

Take, for example, International Talk Like a Pirate Day: a Pastafarian favourite. This, Henderson points out, “is a good example of how acting like a pirate can influence the weather. Every September 19, millions if not thousands of people communicate in Pirate-speak, a subtle nod to their Creator and a conscientious effort to curb global warming. And with great success. Since its creation several years ago, the temperature on September 19 each year has been colder than on the day I picked scientifically at random – July 10 – without exception. Just a coincidence? Unlikely.” (Note: this makes even less sense in the southern hemisphere.)

FSM veers vertiginously between fantasy and reality. Which is why, when speaking with Henderson, it’s hard to know whether you’re communicating with a canny science graduate or a somewhat spurious prophet. Even when you’re being assailed by a welter of non-sequiturs, he can be so deadpan it’s hard not to take him at his word.

Pastafarianism differs from other religions in that it doesn’t solicit funds from its followers, having no hierarchy and no physical places of worship to maintain. Its home is in cyberspace. And the only dogma is that there is no dogma. (Instead of 10 commandments, it offers eight “I’d really rather you didn’ts”.)

“We see FSM groups pop up all over the world,” Henderson says. “New groups might ask advice but they don’t ask permission any more – we’ve seen that change over just 10 years.”

An example is the adoption of colanders as Pastafarian headgear. There is no mention of this in the Gospel of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster (a very funny book, incidentally). Originally, pirate costumes were the only recommended form of dress.

“I’d love to tell you that our traditions are all planned,” Henderson concedes, “but much of it just happens and either it sticks or it doesn’t. Like spaghetti.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Touched by His Noodly Appendage, a parody of Michelangelo’s Creation of Adam, is beloved by Pastafarians. Photograph: Niklas Jansson

Admirably egalitarian, then, if also potentially confusing. The more you learn about it, the more gloriously addled Pastafarianism gets. Yet, as Henderson says: “Look at Scientology and Mormonism … Joseph Smith transcribing scriptures out of his hat, L Ron and the alien stuff, it was bonkers.

“Could it be that people joined up for other reasons, like self-improvement or polygamy? Who knows. But those scams have grown into huge institutions over time, for better or worse.

“I take from this that religion mainly is about community, and also that members shouldn’t have to justify the absurdity of their gospels. To Mormons, I’m saying it’s OK that your gospel story is nuts.”

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So, while it may be satirical, the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster is not anti-religion. Henderson once wrote that “the only difference between FSM and other religions is that they are wrong and we are right”, but that was just one of his satirical flourishes. In fact, its tolerance, peacefulness and openness (“No wars have ever been fought in our name”) align it with Quakerism, with the important addition of that wicked sense of humour.

I ask him about the future. As FSM develops its own rituals and fosters its own mythologies, is there a danger it will lose its satirical bite and harden into just another religion?

“Lots of new Pastafarians have no idea how this all started,” he says. “They only know that it exists for some reason. Breed that for 200 years and I have no idea what you get. But we need to seed it with some positive ideas while we still can. Keep religion out of government schools, keep money out of religion, that sort of thing.”

• Peter Timms is the author of Silliness: A Serious History, out now in Australia through Wakefield Press





