Top 5 Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster Facts
The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster believes the universe was created by a noodly appendaged god made out of pasta, and it's sparking a debate about what it means to be a religion. Welcome to WatchMojo's Top 5 Facts. In today's instalment, we're looking at the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, also known as Pastafarianism.
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Written by William Regot
#5: The Church Started Out as a Parody of Intelligent Design
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In 2005, Bobby Henderson, a 24-year-old Oregon State University graduate with a degree in physics, founded the FSM Church for the noblest of reasons: to prove a point. When the Kansas State Board of Education announced its intention to allow the teaching of intelligent design alongside evolution in science classrooms, Henderson sent a letter to the education board as a satirical critique. In the letter, Henderson wrote about his personal theory that the universe was created by a Flying Spaghetti Monster 5,000 years ago, and the creature made it look billions of years old for some unknown reason. Henderson said his theory carried equal weight with Intelligent Design and Evolution and should be taught in addition for a balanced perspective. Needless to say, the Board of Education didn’t take Henderson’s request into consideration, but the idea caught on when the letter went viral. This religion is often compared to joke religions such as Jediism, but Henderson insists his religion is the real thing. The FSM faith may sound ridiculous, but if string theory is proven correct, and we’re all tiny pieces of vibrating string, then we could possibly be made in the Flying Spaghetti Monster’s noodly image.
#4: There Is No Official Dogma
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While most religions have no problem running their followers’ lives and telling them what to do, the Church of the Flying Spaghetti monster likes to encourage independent thinking. It’s up to each individual follower to decide what they want to believe and go with whatever works for them. However, “The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster,” published in 2006, contains 8 rules know as “I’d Really Rather You Didn’ts,” which is more or less a Pastafarian version of the 10 Commandments. But, as the name implies, they’re more casual suggestions meant to discourage sanctimonious piety and bigotry than they are strict guidelines. Of course, some beliefs have found popular support among the Pastafarian community. Among them, the conviction that it is important to enjoy oneself and drink lots of beer and in Heaven, not only are the faithful rewarded with eternal life, but also with access to a beer volcano and stripper factory.
#3: Anyone Can Become a Minister
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If you feel the burning desire to spread the Pastafarian gospel but feel you’re not qualified, have no fear. There’s no theological training required or special seminary one has to attend. To become ordained, all you have to do is visit the church’s website and give $25 to– presumably– Bobby Henderson. In return, he’ll send you a special certificate and put you in an official registry containing the names other ordained ministers. Once you’re ordained you’re given the authority to perform baptisms and exercise last rites. Or, if nothing else, you’ll be able to go out to college campuses and bug students as they’re walking to class, just like Christian preachers. In April 2016, a New Zealand minister was able to perform the first legally recognized Pastafarian marriage, which featured wedding vows full of pasta-themed wordplay, and of course full pirate regalia. As a matter of fact...
#2: According to the Church, Global Warming and Pirates are Related
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Their reasoning? These two trends perfectly correlate. Back when there were more pirates, there was less global warming. Today, there are fewer pirates than ever before, and there’s more global warming. You do the math. Pastafarians also look toward evidence which suggests that Somalia has the most pirates of any other country in the world and the smallest carbon footprint. The church teaches that to combat global warming and reverse these trends, more people have to revive the lost art of pirating, which means, among other things, dressing like a pirate and talking like one. The church also teaches that pirates were once a forthright group of people and they only get a bad rap today because historical revisionists– namely missionaries– have cast them in a negative light.
#1: Wearing a Colander on Your Head Is Religious Expression
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As an outlandish, yet somehow logical symbol to proudly show one’s Pastafarian identity, the church encourages its followers to wear colanders over their heads in the workplace and in their photo IDs. In various countries all over the world, people are fighting for the right to wear these colanders in their driver’s license pictures. Many have been successful, but the struggle continues for recognition. The church has been legally recognized as an official religion in the Netherlands, New Zealand, and Poland. Unfortunately, other parts of the world haven’t been so progressive. In April 2016, a U. S. federal judge ruled that a Nebraska prisoner’s devotion to the Pastafarian faith did not entitle him to typical religious accommodations such as the right to wear his sacred colander. The judge saw it more as satire than a real religion.
So, have you been touched by the Flying Spaghetti Monster’s noodly appendage? Are you going to put a colander on your head the next time you update your driver’s license? For more devoted Top 10s and carb-heavy Top 5s published every day, be sure to subscribe to WatchMojo.com.

