The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster Read online

  If we don’t act now, I fear the day will come when judges and the media are free to operate with little regard for the tempering hand of public outrage. Laws will be passed and upheld, and only judges will be able to rule on them. The media will report the news without threat of subpoena. To put it bluntly, the god-hating communists will have finally won.

  I wonder if they’ll appoint Bobby Henderson to be their dictator.

  Toward a New SuperScience

  WE ARE ENTERING INTO AN EXCITING TIME, when no longer will science be limited to natural explanations. Who is to say that there aren’t supernatural forces—magic, some might call it—at work, controlling events around us? Propelled by popular opinion and local government, science is quickly becoming receptive to all logical theories, natural and supernatural alike. Not since the Middle Ages have we seen such open-minded science policy.

  What is science, really? Some might call it the observational, descriptive, experimental, and theoretical explanation of phenomena. And so, not surprisingly, there are a few who argue that supernatural theories have no place in science, since they make no testable claims about the world. But that idea is a little shortsighted. Science is also a collection of tools whose purpose is to enable mankind to solve problems. In this sense, supernatural—or magic, metaphysical, not real, what have you—theories have the potential to be just as helpful, if not more helpful, than the standard natural-only science we’ve used for the last two hundred years.

  Extending the science tool metaphor further, shouldn’t we endeavor to give scientists the largest collection of tools possible? No one is saying that they have to apply a supernatural explanation to any particular phenomenon, only that the supernatural be available if nothing else works, or if it is convenient for deceptive political purposes. And remember, this is not a radical new idea. In terms of years in use, supernatural science—SuperScience, if you will—has the edge on conventional science. Conventional, or empirical, science has been in use for only a few hundred years. Obviously there must be a reason supernatural science lasted so long, before this empirical-science fad began. Could it be that supernatural science is more productive than empirical science?

  Consider the discovery and development of new land, an important scientific pursuit by anyone’s standard. If we compare a period of time in which supernatural science was the norm—say the years A.D.14001 to 1600, to a period of time in which empirical science was preferred-say the years 1800 to 2000—we can get a clear picture of just how detrimental empirical science can be.

  Here, empirical science comes up short even with every technological advantage it possesses. Even with satellite imagery and GPS navigation, scientists bound by the chains of empiricism have been unable to discover even a paltry 3 percent of the amount of new land that their supernatural-science counterparts found in an equal period of time. Scientists and explorers in the years 1400–1600 had few maps, only a compass, cross-staff, or astrolabe for navigation, and no motorized transportation. Yet even with these setbacks, they still managed to discover more than 14 million square kilometers of new, developable land. Clearly their openness to supernatural forces had something to do with their success, and we can only guess that they were guided to these new- found lands by some creature—most likely the Flying Spaghetti Monster, as historical art suggests.

  The Italian explorer Christopher Columbus was guided by a Higher Power.

  It’s only logical to assume that returning to balanced methods of science—natural theories and supernatural theories both—would allow us to find more land, something we greatly need for our growing population. More land means more resources, and more resources means fewer starving children. I can safely say, then, that anyone against the inclusion of supernatural theories into science wants children to starve. Such people obviously have no place in policymaking, and so I suggest that they get no say on the issue.

  Next, we’ll look at medicine. It might seem crazy to claim that medicine was superior in the Middle Ages—when science included the supernatural—than it is today—being now limited to the study of natural phenomena—but let’s take a closer look. Medieval medicine was dominated by religion, and yes, sickness was generally thought to be punishment for sins, and so treatment then consisted mainly of prayer. But let’s not forget about the “antiquated” medical procedures that were ultimately so successful as to render them unnecessary today.

  Bloodletting, the removal of considerable amounts of blood from a patient’s body, is considered heinous by today’s supposedly superior doctors, but who is to say that the procedure didn’t do more good than modern medicine? Medical texts from the Middle Ages—anyone with even a moderate understanding of Latin can read them, and we have no reason to doubt their validity—tell us that many ailments, from headaches to cancer, are the result of evil spirits who are angry with us. We now know, of course, that there are many causes for these ailments, not just spirits at work, but it’s clear from the texts that they were a very significant cause of sickness—one that does not exist today, because bloodletting worked so well as to defeat these sickness spirits completely, much the same way polio was cured with high doses of vitamin C. To those who disagree, let me ask you: When was the last time you suffered a demon-induced fever?

  But there are more diseases out there, and it’s apparent that medical science, equipped with only modern methods, cannot defeat them all. Why not, then, give these doctors and scientists more tools and the flexibility to consider supernatural causes as well as natural ones? Who knows what other ailments, even non-demon-induced ones, might be cured with a simple bloodletting or application of leeches? We’ll never know until we try.

  And while it’s true that many people believe in the power of prayer to cure disease, there’s never been any verifiable evidence to support the practice. That’s not to say it’s not possible—it certainly is possible that prayer aids in healing—but it could very well be that these prayers are being applied in a nonoptimal fashion, thus explaining the lack of evidence for their effectiveness. The truth is we don’t know because current scientific methods and religious sensitivities don’t allow this type of study. What if those praying are simply praying to the wrong God, or offending Him somehow? What if, by the wearing of a simple eye patch or Pirate bandanna, those praying might have their prayers answered by the FSM?

  History is full of examples of supernatural events, and unless we are saying that we’re somehow more intelligent and educated, better equipped to understand unexplained events today than we were five hundred years ago, then we must accept the explanations given to these events by those who witnessed them. Witches, for example, existed in such quantity and caused so much trouble that it was necessary to hunt them down and burn them in the tens of thousands. Here it is, the twenty-first century, hundreds of years later, plenty of time for the population of witches to have grown exponentially, yet they are decidedly less of a problem now than they were half a millennia ago. I have never even seen a witch, let alone felt the need to burn one to death. We can conclude, then, that our forefathers, equipped with the knowledge that supernatural explanations were reasonable, rounded up all the witches in existence and took care of them.

  The other possibility is that there are witches out there, hiding somewhere, plotting their revenge, liberally applying fire-proofing compounds to themselves. And someday they may reappear and start causing trouble. And then what will our high and mighty scientists do? Throw calculators at them? Witches eat calculators. The scientific community will be helpless to defeat the threat of these witches, offering only “logical” and “reasoned” explanations for the horrible events the witches are magically inflicting on us.

  Witch eating a calculator.

  We tend to exalt our rigid empirical methods and technological advances, almost as if we’re proud of what we’ve accomplished with them, but when the record clearly shows that supernatural, nonempirical science produces these kinds of results—the discovery of new lands, the
elimination of demon-inducing illnesses, and the extinction of witches—it’s time to rethink our methods and return to what gave us real results.

  The biggest irony is that the arguments given against the inclusion of supernatural theories in the realm of accepted science actually show clearly that supernatural theories are legit fields of scientific study. No one is saying that empirical, natural-only science and supernatural science can’t live side by side. They can, and in fact, they must. Intelligent design may shun natural explanations for phenomena, but FSMism makes use of both the natural and the supernatural equally.

  1. Al dente.

  What’s the Matter with Evolution?

  Highlighting the Problem

  WE HEAR A LOT ABOUT EVOLUTION these days. Scientists seem to have embraced the subject as though it were the Second Coming of … well … science. But where has it gotten us? Are we to believe that just because we’re descended from a common ancestor shared with monkeys, dogs, or whatever, that we understand our situation on this earth any better than we would without Evolution to guide us? Is Evolution going to somehow make my life more satisfying? Can Evolution put food on my table? Will it save the earth from global warming?

  The answer to all of the above is a big No. And why is that? Because Evolution is about as useful as a screen door on a submarine. Sure, scientists while away their days trying to devise this or that proof to show that Evolution is a credible idea, but as long as it’s just a theory, no one in the real world is going to take it seriously. So I’ve decided to do some debunking of my own to show the world that the big, bad scientists aren’t “all that,” as the kids like to say.

  What is Evolution but the gradual change of species over a lengthy period of time as a result of various internal and external selective pressures? My grandfather, who is as old as dirt, has been through that. According to early lithographs, he was quite a looker in his day, but now, a century later, after years of hard drinking and working in the mines, he has no hair and looks like shit. Could Evolution just mean growing old? I posed this question to a scientist friend who explained that the change has to take place over many generations. You’d think the Evolutionists would have stated that right out front, and I admit that I stand corrected. But Evolution still sounds a lot like growing old to me, and I can’t help thinking that this is where the Evolutionary scientists first got their wacky ideas.

  Having cleared up this common confusion, let us move on to the proposed selective force of Evolution—namely, Natural Selection. What the fuck is this supposed to mean? Is there unnatural selection? And who’s doing the selecting? Neither of these questions could be answered by my scientist friend, and so I have been forced to ditch my now former friend and perform my own research. What follows is, to the best of my ability, what I’ve been able to uncover regarding Evolution and Natural Selection.

  A Closer Examination of Natural Selection

  Apparently, there are not one but two forms of selection. They are Natural Selection and sexual selection. I’ll let you mull over the second “sexy” form of selection for a minute, at least until I’ve torn the first one to shreds. You should have time to masturbate while reading my proofs, if that’s what you’re in to.

  According to the neo-Darwinists, most Evolutionary change is attributable to Natural Selection, meaning that individuals carrying genes that are better suited to their environment will leave more offspring than individuals carrying genes that make them less adaptive. Over time, these more adaptive traits will proliferate, altering the genetic composition of the overall population, since individuals with better “fitness”1 pass more of their genes into the next generation. It is this process, scientists will tell you, that produced the platypus, the penguin, and the poodle—leading us to conclude that scientists are definitely full of shit. If someone can explain to me the adaptive traits of the “duckbill,” then they can certainly tell me why the platypus is the only mammal on the planet that has one? Are platypii (pusses … who knows?) concerned with ingratiating themselves into local duck populations? Do they think that they’re funny? Why the fuck do they have a bill?

  I’ll take it easy on the scientists regarding the platypus, because obviously it’s a tough one, but I’m sure there are several hundred scientists right now earning their tenure in a pointless search for the Evolutionary significance of this ridiculous creature. I’ll close on the platypus by stating an alternative theory that I’ve come up with: the Flying Spaghetti Monster made the platypus because, unlike scientists, He has a sense of humor. It’s an unlikely sign from God—and until someone can prove me wrong, that’s my theory.

  I will next turn to more ordinary and boring examples of Natural Selection, which I will then proceed to slice to ribbons. Let us look at the fascinating case of bacteria. It is well known that antibiotics are used to cure various illnesses caused by bacteria, and it is equally well known that most bacteria (for example, staphylococci)2 eventually develop immunity to these antibiotics. Looking a little closer at the case of staphylococci, we find that, in 1929, Sir Alexander Fleming3 first observed the bacterium staphylococci to experience inhibition on an agar plate contaminated by a penicillium4 mold. Sir Alexander Fleming, or “F-Man” as the queen liked to call him, isolated the penicillium to make penicillin, which then went on to be known as a wonder drug for many diseases, mainly VD. But gradually penicillin in its natural form became useless. Scientists will tell you that the bacterium—which replicates faster than a chinchilla in a Cialis factory—eventually developed a strain of itself that was resistant to naturally formed penicillin, and that the process of Natural Selection caused this resistant strain to propagate in nature. This is an outright lie, which I will decimate momentarily.

  If we look at bacteria that grow resistant to antibiotics, insects that grow resistant to DDT, or even HIV that grows resistant to antiviral drugs, we see a fascinating correlation between “Natural Selection” and “resistance.” But what are we really seeing here? I submit that they’re not changing their genetic makeup, they’re changing their minds. In short, they’re getting smarter. If I go to your house and you feed me a shit sandwich two days in a row, I’m having lunch at McDonald’s on the third day. It’s that simple. Don’t let the scientists, with their big phallic bacterial names, tell you anything different. They’re not as smart as they pretend to be, no matter how much they try to demean so-called lower life forms.

  One other example of Natural Selection should just about put this puppy to bed. Scientists have pointed to “artificial selection” to show that humans, by providing their own specific set of selective forces, can mimic the forces of nature. We see this over and over again in the actions of “breeders,” who purportedly have wrought immense changes in plants and animals. We can look to the various breeds of dogs as an example, where claims are made that all dog species originated from one common source: the ancestral wolf. From this ferocious beast we are expected to believe that a diverse assortment of species was created by man himself—such four-legged brutes as the Chihuahua, the dachshund, the poodle, and the bulldog—all of which have been with us since time immemorial. This breeding “myth” appears to be a form of propaganda, possibly put forth by anti–Intelligent Design campaigners, although I’ll save any conversation about Intelligent Design for a later chapter. How can we believe such claims about “man’s best friend” when it is obvious to the common observer that every breed has been put on this planet to serve a purpose. I, for one, would point to the FSM as the creator of dogs, although there is valid evidence that God (if he is ever proven to exist) might have had a hand in their creation. After all, aren’t German shepherds meant to provide us with protection, maybe even from their own “forefathers,” the wolf?5 Weren’t poodles and Chihuahuas put on this earth to make us feel better about ourselves? There can be little doubt that an intelligent creator put all the species on earth to serve man. And Evolution wasn’t even properly invented until the late 1800s. Is that enough time to get a Labrado
r retriever from a dire wolf? I think not.

  If you don’t buy this argument, consider this one last example, which in this case regards plant species. If we look at domestic cabbage, broccoli, kale, cauliflower, and brussels sprouts, are we to claim, even if they did originate from a common ancient wild cabbage, that selection, be it natural, artificial, whatever, could not have done better over the last few thousand years? The answer is written in the squinched-up face of every child with a brussels sprout in his or her mouth. Yet another strike against Evolution.

  From Pirates to People

  Any discussion of Evolution will eventually lead us to ourselves. Humans have been around for as long as we can remember, and yet the Evolutionists will tell you that we weren’t. They will tell you that humans and chimpanzees shared a common ancestor some five million years ago, and that we “diverged” from that common ancestor and eventually invented the space shuttle while chimpanzees were only able to invent “the stick.” To support this thesis, scientists tell us that we share 95 percent of our DNA with chimpanzees, and yet we share 99.9 percent of our DNA with Pirates.6I ask you, who is the more likely common ancestor? And are the Pirates not the Chosen People of the FSM? Why do we spend so much time talking about something that didn’t happen, while the FSM is dangling His Noodly Appendage right in front of our faces?

  But I shall persevere just a little further, and I shall examine the human body—specifically, I will examine organs that have been deemed “vestigial,” or useless, as a result of losing their function over millennia of Evolution.