I love a good “South Park” reference. Or did Dawkins actually write about a Flying Spaghetti Monster?

I had seen a few references to the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster before, but hadn’t looked into it. It’s pretty fascinating how it’s caught on. Here’s some info about it from wikipedia:

The Flying Spaghetti Monster (FSM) is a deity created as a satirical protest to the decision by the Kansas State Board of Education to require the teaching of intelligent design as an alternative to biological evolution. This was in 2005

In December 2005, Bobby Henderson received a reported USD $80,000 advance from Villard to pen The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Henderson said he plans to use the proceeds from the sale of the book to build a pirate ship, with which he may travel the world in order to convert heathens to the Pastafarian religion.

The inclusion of pirates in Pastafarianism was part of Henderson’s original letter to the Kansas School Board. It illustrated that correlation does not imply causation. Henderson put forth the argument that “global warming, earthquakes, hurricanes, and other natural disasters are a direct effect of the shrinking numbers of pirates since the 1800s.”

And regarding Dawkins: The Flying Spaghetti Monster was used by Richard Dawkins in his book The God Delusion.

More here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Spaghetti_Monster ⇓

The Flying Spaghetti Monster (FSM) is a deity created as a satirical protest to the decision by the Kansas State Board of Education to require the teaching of intelligent design as an alternative to biological evolution. The FSM is the deity of the parody religion^[1][2] The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster,^[3] founded in 2005 by Bobby Henderson. Since the intelligent design movement used ambiguous references to an unspecified ‘Intelligent Designer’ to avoid court rulings prohibiting the teaching of creationism as a science, this presumably left open the possibility that any imaginable thing could fill that role.

In an open letter sent to the education board, Henderson parodies the concept of intelligent design by professing belief in a supernatural creator, which closely resembles spaghetti and meatballs.^[4] He furthermore calls for the “Pastafarian” theory of creation to be taught in science classrooms.^[5]

Due to its recent popularity and media exposure, the Flying Spaghetti Monster is often used by atheists, agnostics (known by Pastafarians as “spagnostics”), and others as a modern version of Russell’s teapot^[6] and the Invisible Pink Unicorn.

PASTAFARIANISM! OMG! That is the best thing I’ve heard all week.

Hey! I’m from Indy and created the FSM Cause on Facebook a few years back :). There’s 27,000+ members now… check it out :)

http://apps.facebook.com/causes/...