The Flying Spaghetti Monster

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Inmate wants to worship Flying Spaghetti Monster F Recommend Tweet ! 16 8+1 2 PrintEmail Share September 12, 2014 6:00 am By RILEY JOHNSON / Lincoln Journal Star 쿠64 An imprisoned "Pastafarian" has sued Nebraska prison officials, saying staff violated his civil rights by denying him the chance to worship the Flying Spaghetti Monster Stephen Cavanaugh, 23, filed the federal civil rights lawsuit against the Department of Correctional Services and Nebraska State Penitentiary officials, saying penitentiary staff repeatedly discriminated against him by not allowing him the right to meet for worship services and classes, or to wear religious clothing and pendants. "The only reason (my) requests were denied is that (my) religion does not conform to the 'traditional' Abrahamic belief structure," said Cavanaugh, who claims he isn't the only Pastafarian at the prison. Adherents believe the Flying Spaghetti Monster created the world and pirates were its initial followers, according to the church's website. They are known to wear colanders on their heads. Stephen Cavanaugh Enlarge Photo An Oregon man who brought the so-called religion to prominence in 2005 said more than 10 million people "have been touched by His Noodly Appendage." Members claim Pastafarianism isn't anti-religion but rather the rejection of dogma. Religions accommodated by Nebraska prison system Asatru Buddhism Catholicism Community of Christ House of Yahweh Islam The Nebraska prison system recognizes 20 different religions, including Rastafarianism and Satanism. Officials claim the Flying Spaghetti Monster is a satirical movement, which Cavanaugh calls insulting. "The founder of Pastafarianism stated that it was a parody of religion," a prison official wrote in denying one of

humansofnewyork "It's a Spaghetti Monster pin How would you describe the Spaghetti Monster? It's a semi-serious, semi-parody religion. If you substitute the word Spaghetti Monster for the word God, it exposes religion to critical thinking Because of the cultural reverence for the word 'God,' so much of religion flies under the radar of critical thinking. But if you think about it-the word 'God is just a noise we make, just like 'Spaghetti Monster is a noise. Both are placeholders for a concept, and neither is more valid than the other. The whole point of the Spaghetti Monster is not necessarily to say that God isnt real, but to point out the flaws in our conceptualization of him. 864 notes

Five thousand years ago... fER When Pirates ruled the earth!

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Navigation
About • Origin • Spread • Pastafarian Drivers License • Notable Examples • Search Interest • External References • Recent Images • Recent Videos

About

The Flying Spaghetti Monster is a satirical deity for the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, a parody religious organization with followers known as "Pastafarians." The being resembles a large floating mass of cylindrical pasta with two large eyestalks that carries meatballs on each side of its body.

Origin

In January of 2005, the Kansas Board of Education was considering making changes to its science standards. The board proposed that "intelligent design", the claim that a conscious being created the universe, be presented as an alternative explanation to evolution and that teachers should be required to state that evolution is a theory and not a fact. Bobby Henderson, a 25-year old Oregon University student at the time, noticed that the Board only specified "Intelligent Designer" and not the specific name of any one known deity. This inspired Bobby to protest the proposal by creating the fictional deity named "Flying Spaghetti Monster." In May of 2005, Henderson posted an open letter to the Kansas school board on his website^[2], in which he addressed his opinion that intelligent design was no more valid than the belief that a Flying Spaghetti Monster created the universe.

Spread

On June 22nd, 2005, the Internet news site BoingBoing^[4] posted an article titled "Dear Kansas: Why stop at 'Intelligent Design?' What About Spaghetti Monsters?", which featured an excerpt from Henderson's open letter. On August 19th, BoingBoing^[5] followed up with a $1 million "Intelligent Design challenge", announcing that they would pay one million dollars to anyone who could "produce empirical evidence which proves that Jesus is not the son of the Flying Spaghetti Monster." On August 29th, 2005, the New York Times^[6] published an article titled "But Is There Intelligent Spaghetti Out There?" In September that year, a Flying Spaghetti Monster flash game was developed by Plasmic Studios.^[7]

FLYING SPAGHETTI MONSTER THE GAME CONVERT THE MASSES! SCORE: 0 TIME REMAINING:PASTAFARIANS: 0 MUSIC: ON OFF

Pastafarian Drivers License

On July 13th, 2011, The Telegraph^[8] published a story about Austrian Niko Alm who was awarded the right to wear a colandar on his head in his driving license photo, as it had been deemed "religious headgear". Niko wrote on his blog^[9]:

"Today I was able to get my new driving licence, and in it you can clearly see that I'm wearing a colander on my head to demonstrate my allegiance to the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster"

FUHRERSCHEIN REPUBLIK OSTERREICH MODELL DER EUROPÄISCHEN GEMEINSCHAFTEN 1. ALM 2. NIKOE 3. 19 4a. 2009-10-12 4b. 4c. BPD Wien/VA Jsahilube Permis de Condstre Paanta d gulds 7. Praseo Ja Carta de Conducão 9.

Greek Arrest

On September 21st, 2012, a 27-year-old man was arrested in Greece for creating a Facebook^[14] page satirizing the deceased Greek Orthodox monk Elder Paisos. The Facebook page, titled “Geron Pastitsios” after a Greek pasta dish, was disabled shortly after the man’s arrest.

Like This Page March 6 Like Comment Share r3 2 people like this. F 1 share R iew all 9 comments Comantante Tse Baptpevo See Transiation 21 hours ago - Lke Comantante Tse eprvEUBITa See Translation 21 hours ago- Like 20 hours ago Like 2 See Translation 15 hours ago Like Leyte rts Georgellis To aaTuo tval on τα

On September 24th, Greek authorities sent out a press release^[13]revealing that the man had been arrested after Cyber Crime officials had received “thousands of complaints.” That same day, a Change.org^[11] petition was launched to urge the Greek parliament to free the man--now dubbed “Geron Pastitsios”--and abolish the country’s anti-blasphemy laws, which was later submitted to the /r/atheism^[10] subreddit with a claim that the man was arrested for creating a Pastafarian group on Facebook.

Sign this petition with 7,957 supporters FREE SPE 12,043 NEEDED First Name Last Name Email Street Address City State Zip Code Why is this important to you? Outside U.S.? Petitioning greek parliament greek parliament: Free 'Geron Pastitsios' and abolish Greek anti- blasphemy laws! Optional SIGN 回Display my signature publicly by Eliza Goroya London, United Kingdom By signing, you accept Change.org's terms of service and privacy policy

Within 24 hours, the Reddit post received over 17,700 up votes and 950 comments and the Change.org petition received over 7,950 supporters. On September 25th, the Internet news site The Daily Dot^[12] published an article titled "Greek authorities charge man with blasphemy for Facebook page." On Twitter, the hashtag #freeGeronPastitsios was was used to spread awareness of the man's arrest.

Tweets about "#freeGeronPastitsios"

Notable Examples

Images

crude pastry as an example of the Flying Spaghetti Monster in the flesh of this world

Video

The Flying Spaghetti Monster has inspired the creation of several real-life installations, photoshops into historical footage and has been extensively covered by news media regarding intelligent design controversy.

Search Interest

Search query volume for the keywords "flying spaghetti monster" rose significantly in June of 2005, shortly after Henderson posted the open letter to his website.