Posted on 01/09/2014 12:32:23 PM PST by nickcarraway
It wasn’t his flashy suit or fresh haircut that people noticed when new Pomfret, N.Y. Town Council member Christopher Schaeffer was sworn in last week -- it was the colander he wore on his head.
Schaeffer was wearing the spaghetti strainer atop his dome because he is a minister with the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
"It's just a statement about religious freedom," he said. "It's a religion without any dogma."
According to its website, the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster really started to take off in 2005.
"Our ideal is to scrutinize ideas and actions, but ignore general labels," the website says.
"Some claim that the church is purely a thought experiment, satire, illustrating that Intelligent Design is not science, but rather a pseudoscience manufactured by Christians to push Creationism (the doctrine that God created the universe) into public schools. These people are mistaken. The Church of FSM is real, totally legit, and backed by hard science. Anything that comes across as humor or satire is purely coincidental."
Members of the church are called Pastafarians.
"Most of us do not believe a religion -- Christianity, Islam, Pastafarianism -- requires literal belief in order to provide spiritual enlightenment," the website reads. "That is, we can be part of a community without becoming indoctrinated. There are many levels of belief."
Pastafarian or not, Schaeffer plans on making the citizens of Pomfret proud.
"Mostly, I'm just looking forward to making sure that the town is run smoothly and we meet the needs of all of our citizens," he said. "If anybody ever has any concerns or questions, I hope they contact me, because I want to make sure that everyone is represented."
The church called Schaeffer’s choice of headwear “encouraging news.”
I hope he provides good service to the citizens of his town. It doesn’t matter what religion he is, even though this sounds like something out of Monty Python.
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The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster was a direct result of the discussions of Intelligent Design, wherein the ID believers sugguest that they don’t know who the Designer is and that it frankly doesn’t matter, just that the designer exists. As a result of taking that position, how could the IDers deny the possibility that it was the Flying Spaghetti Monster who is the designer.
The crevo wars here on FR back in the day were great sport.
Well, we KNOW how they’ll be making decisions.
They throw a piece of spaghetti up against the wall and if it sticks, it’s a “Yea”...if it doesn’t...it’s a “Nay”.
It’s not a religion - it’s a way to ridicule Christians. Kind of like blackface directed towards Christians.
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Not true. It’s about ridiculing some of the statments made by believers in Intelligent Design.
Since I am known as the strange uncle, I dressed as the Spanish Inquisition (no one expects the Spanish Inquisition).
Plastic is too informal for such a solemn event - he should have gone with a nice shiny stainless steel strainer.
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I agree. White plastic colander after Labor Day. Fashion faux pas.
hahahaha!
Yes, Mencken would agree.
The only way to solve what is being taught in schools is to end government involvement in education at all levels. Privatize all of it, from beginning through college. Then parents and students can choose what they want for themselves. Until that happens, we will have a perpetual battle for control of the curriculum and every other aspect of education in government schools.
Amen. The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom. It is apparent this man lacks both.
Signature hymns of various churches:
Lutheran: A Mighty Fortress Is Our God
Methodist: Oh, For a Thousand Tongues to Sing
Baptist: Just As I Am
Pastafarian: Living In the Pasta
They need a better writer. Elron Hubbard (I know, L. Ron) pulled off a marvelous scam with Scientology.
“The crevo wars here on FR back in the day were great sport.”
Oh yeah, that is for sure.
“One would expect a serious Pastafarian to have a nice ceremonial steel colander.”
From Willaims-Sonoma, no less!
Oy, I’ll have to check that out.
This satirical concept has been largely debunked by philosophers as rather amateurish, yet still remains a cultural meme through the propagation of idiocy about the universe and metaphysics. But then, it’s NY. If the people of NYC will elect an open communist as mayor, then this is no surprise. Let’s just hope their population continues to slip away along with political influence.
Reminds me of a study I saw I think in the mid-2000s responding to the claim by atheists that “higher education causes people to REJECT the supernatural!”.
It found that while belief in God did decrease in higher education, belief in ridiculous things like ESP and telekinesis showed a marked increase!
It’s very easy to refute the argument. The designer of the universe has a strict set of attributes it has to adhere to, one being the property of being immaterial. Since spaghetti is material, and what’s more, occupies both time and space, it cannot fit this definition.
The common response is to say that it’s ‘immaterial spaghetti’, and of course the response to that is, then it’s not really spaghetti. Eventually, so many of the attributes of the Flying Spaghetti Monster have been rendered incoherent, the person is actually just applying the name ‘Flying Spaghetti Monster’ to God... which isn’t very powerful.
It’s a meme argument. Not one taken seriously by scholars. Indeed if one attempted to use it in a philosophy debate, they would be immediately regarded as a fool.
Gosh I wonder what political party he belongs to?
aha Thank you.
The Silly Party.
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