The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster
A thought of the day in (exactly) 100 words
For those who, like me, have been living under a rock and don’t know what the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster is, it’s a religion. It has its own creation myth (FSM got drunk and made the world) and heaven (a beer volcano and strippers). Originally invented to satirize intelligent design, “Pastafarians” now gleefully deploy it to mock faith generally. It follows the postmodern playbook: Destabilize meaning for sport. Deconstruct ad absurdum. Delegitimize. At the risk of appearing humorless, I’ll point out that the endpoint of this game is a vapid, self-intoxicated nihilism, kind of like we’re seeing today.
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A word in defense of the Church of the FSM. As I understand it, they came into existence at least in part in opposition to Kansas's decision to require the teaching of creationism in science classes, as an alternative to evolution. The argument from Kansas was that creationism was the belief claimed by a significant number of people. The FSM folks corraled a bunch of people to proclaim the belief that a FSM created the universe, and therfore should be taught along with creationism and evolution. Disingenuous, yes. But in my view, a clever and lighthearted, if roundabout, defense of science.
I can't help feeling the members of this church have been disappointed and disillusioned by traditional religion (which is easy to understand) and yet...they belong to the church of the FSM because they really do have a yearning to be connected to a church community.