The next time you dig into a bowl of pasta, treat it with respect. For what may be a heap of Spag Bol to you, is the earthly manifestation of the Supreme Being for some. For the Pastafarians ‘believe’ that the universe was created by the Flying Spaghetti Monster (FSM) — a giant, invisible lump of noodle. The Church of the FSM is one of about half a dozen spoofy religions that have started online. They turn the notion of faith on its head in a way that attracts as much hate mail as followers.
Started in 2005, by physics graduate Bobby Henderson, the site saw three million hits in its first year. Henderson says he only discovered the religion that has “existed in secrecy for hundreds of years”. Satire? No prizes for guessing. Henderson is the prophet; the rules are ‘Eight I’d Really Rather You Didn’ts’ and prayers and sermons are concluded with ‘RAmen’ — a combination of ‘Amen’ and a noodle brand name. Their ‘scripture’, ‘The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster’, has to be bought from stores.
Followers of FSM and similar sites seem to be drawn to concepts of noodle-ball-as-God or a gerbil-as-the-supreme as satire. A spoof like FSM is, perhaps, the most sophisticated form of criticism for it takes the form and uses the idiom of the very discourse it targets. Writes nyx@-Stevee, “If the Bible is not historical, but allegorical, why is it taken so literally. It only takes a few charismatic nutjobs to take something potentially good, make it ridiculous and get millions of people to run with it. RAmen.”
On similar lines is the Virtual-Temple dedicated to “The Invisible Pink Unicorn” (IPU). Its origins are not clear but the site is still up. The IPU “is capable of being invisible and pink at the same time.”
“The Faith of the Invisible Pink Unicorn is based on logic and faith. We have faith that she is pink; we logically know that she is invisible because we can’t see her.” That is religion with tongue firmly in cheek.
Much of the satire is on legends and rituals. For instance, Church of the Gerbils started in the late 1990s when the messenger of Gerbil God — a Chinchilla — accosted one Hacim in his dream and put him on the mission to ‘spread the word of the great benevolent members of the holy family GERBILLUS’. Gerbilist hell is the microwave and according to their scriptures, “Evil Gerbils are often reincarnated as one of the more base forms, most horribly, humans.” There are instructions on ‘baptism’ of non-Gerbilists as well.
Not all the ‘religions’ survive once they’ve run out of holy steam: like the Church of Blow, Reverend Cornelius Blow’s creation institutionalized on Youtube in 2006. This ‘sect’ disapproved the colour orange, had a smiley face as icon and had its holy Sabbath on Wednesday. The Church is now defunct.
More information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Spaghetti_Monster
