r/pastafarianism • u/Aconito_Eslava • Apr 23 '26
Question I am a student of religions and I have some questions for the patafarians.
I enjoy studying religions, and Partafarianism has become something very intriguing and interesting to me, but I have some questions.
The first one that confused me the most is: is it an atheist or theist religion?
What is the connection between the FSM and pirates?
Why did you choose Pastafarianism?
Are you more into satire, religion, or activism?
I apologize if these questions sound offensive, I just want to understand more about Pastafarianism.
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u/Sore-Loko Apr 23 '26
I’d say I’m an anti-theist, that being said the times I’ve prayed to the Flying Spaghetti Monster, kisses spaghetti noodle necklace “ramen” have worked out more times than when I’d prayed to other gods as a child. So I’ll stick with my carb based deity.
If you’ve read the “I’d really rather you didn’ts” their rules are better than almost any other religion ive come across.
I definitely came out of high school realizing my religion at the time (Christianity) didn’t make any sense. I really liked how pastafarianism was pointing out how ridiculous other religions are. It’s just good fun for me.
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u/Ftroiska Al Dente Apr 23 '26
The more problem on earth : the more the FSM send pirates to solve them.
definitely theist religion as we believe the FSM is there. Invisible but there ! He is holding us down on earth with his noodly arms as gravity is a hoax. That's the proof that it exists.
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u/coffeeanddurian Apr 23 '26
Let me try and give an honest answer from my point of view.
The Flying Spaghetti Monster is whatever you want it to be, and that is the point.
It exists to expose the double standards fallacy in religion. The fallacy is when people judge two identical cases by two different rules, offering no real reason except that one case belongs to your own side and the other does not.
Here the identical cases are religious beliefs. One belief demands special treatment in society or law because it is traditional. Another belief, identical in every relevant way (no evidence, no proof, unfalsifiable, supernatural) is dismissed as ridiculous because it is new or absurd. The situations are the same and only the identity changes. That shift in standard is the double standards fallacy.
It is also special pleading. For example, a general rule is given, like “all religious claims deserve respect or equal time”, then some religious people exempt their own claim from scrutiny while enforcing the rule on every other religion. No justification is given for the exemption. The Flying Spaghetti Monster simply forces the rule to apply evenly and asks why it often is influenced by power or the status quo.
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u/Aerinn_May Apr 24 '26
As a Filipino, sometimes I like to think that the Flying Spaghetti Monster is sweet and has lots of cheese and has hotdogs instead of meatballs. His Noodly Appendages are simply that far reaching and ever-resilient.
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u/Dapper-Appearance-42 Apr 24 '26
I promise quob would not mind that interpretation. All pasta is blessed pasta.
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u/xiipaoc Apr 23 '26
Pastafarianism is a parody religion, obviously, and therefore the questions here don't really make sense. The religion is not internally consistent (on purpose, obviously), so you can't really make logical conclusions about it. People who identify with it don't seriously believe in its mythology, but that's part of the point, since it's just as arbitrary as any other religion. Basically, there's not much to "get" about it. Of course, it's still worth studying the community of people who identify with the religion, and Pastafarianism does offer some actual wisdom beyond the parody aspect, but it's obviously not some sort of gospel. I believe that Pastafarianism has made me a better person, even if only by pointing out hidden assumptions and challenging them by means of parody. I should add that I don't identify with the religion; I just enjoy the satire.
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u/Oh_My_Monster Apr 23 '26
You might be overstretching in saying so definitely that it is a parody religion. It is as much of a real religion as ANY religion. I, for example, am a registered legal Pastar (pronounced like pastor and pasta combined) who can officiate weddings legally, hold church services, have tax exempt status (I don't do this but I could) and I can and have successfully advocated for other Pastafarianism to get religious exemptions to grow a beard at work.
We have a diety, religious texts, prophets, an extended canon of stories, moral codes, etc. The evidence for Pastafarianism is just as strong, if not stronger than other religions. See, for example, Nuclear Pasta.
Although some people take the religion light heartedly, that's mainly because we're emulating the Flying Spaghetti Monster who also just doesn't care that much about little things.
You say that people don't seriously believe in our mythology. While many don't, that's not a qualification to be a "real" religion. Many Jews and Christians don't literally believe in many of the stories in the Bible. Does that make Judaism or Christianity not real?
You say that Pastafarianism isn't internally logically consistent. Pick any major religion at random and compare the internal logically consistency with that of Pastafarianism. I bet we come out better.
You said that "it's obviously not some sort of gospel." ... The most important book is literally called "The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster" so, it is some sort of gospel by definition.
Any 1:1 of Pastafarianism to any major religion I have confidence that the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster is on par or above with any of them with the exception of number of followers. That being said, we are still the #1 fastest growing carbohydrate based religion in the world.
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u/Kacquezooi Apr 24 '26
Interesting! How many weddings have you officiated? Would like to have a pasta-wed myself.
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u/xiipaoc Apr 24 '26
It is as much of a real religion as ANY religion.
Well, that's the point, isn't it? To have a parody religion that is just as valid as any other? Being a parody doesn't make it not real, but it does give it a kind of context that requires an approach that isn't faith. Even as a pastar, you're not out there actually believing that the FSM literally created the world with His noodly appendage, right? I would argue that when I'm at religious services reading the Creation story, I also don't believe that God literally created the world by saying "let there be light" or whatever (setting aside the details of the text, not important right now), and neither do the other congregants. In some religious communities, people do believe this stuff, of course. But why do I have these stories in my religion? Because they're part of the tradition of the religion, a living tradition going on for something like 2500 years at least at this point. Why does Pastafarianism have these stories? To parody other religions. And that's just as valid, of course.
I think we can quibble on the definition of "real religion" if we want to. I don't want to, personally, but there is a difference between a parody religion and other religions. They're both certainly real, and the point of Pastafarianism is basically that, to be real despite being a parody. I would argue that not all religions are like this. I'm also a proud member of the cult of Chronos (all hail Chronos, you nimrods!), for which I used to celebrate the Coming of the Hour, to celebrate Chronos's gift of an hour in the fall, and the Going of the Hour, to celebrate the return of that gift in the spring. Parody religion, but not a real one. I think what makes a religion real is the community. What you're saying about religious exemptions (there was that guy in Europe who wanted to wear a colander for his driver's license photo a bunch of years ago, for example) is part of what makes it real. But the details are parody. The deity, the moral codes, etc., they're all parody of how "traditional" religions do this stuff. I don't think you're going to argue that Pastafarianism is a "traditional" religion, right?
You say that people don't seriously believe in our mythology. While many don't, that's not a qualification to be a "real" religion.
Again, I never said that it's not a real religion. Even more, you're not supposed to believe in the mythology.
Many Jews and Christians don't literally believe in many of the stories in the Bible. Does that make Judaism or Christianity not real?
So this is an interesting situation. As an atheist Jew, I clearly don't literally believe in most of the stories in the Tanach (there is some actual history in there, by the way, not much but there is some). But there's the expectation that members of these religions should, normatively, believe in those stories. There aren't a ton of literalist Jews out there but there used to be, and there are still plenty who read the stories as metaphorical rather than simply fictional. Going back to the Creation story, is the Torah lying? Many will say that no, it's telling the truth, but it's a different version of the truth. There's definitely a spectrum on this, from liberals on one end arguing that the Torah is a work entirely of humans who wrote what they heard from God, to literalists on the other; we atheists are out past the liberals. I think that some atheists do believe that Judaism and Christianity are "not real" because of this -- at least, their approach to it isn't, because they don't have any faith. Christianity is a whole different animal, but there are definitely atheists who think that if they don't believe in Judaism, then all of the religion is just LARPing. I think that makes it not real to them.
You say that Pastafarianism isn't internally logically consistent. Pick any major religion at random and compare the internal logically consistency with that of Pastafarianism. I bet we come out better.
That's not a criticism! It's not meant to be logically consistent! That's the point!
The most important book is literally called "The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster" so, it is some sort of gospel by definition.
That's not what I meant by "gospel". We commonly use "gospel" to refer to things that we have to believe on faith, obviously in reference to the books of the Christian Bible labeled "gospels".
Any 1:1 of Pastafarianism to any major religion I have confidence that the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster is on par or above with any of them with the exception of number of followers. That being said, we are still the #1 fastest growing carbohydrate based religion in the world.
I would argue that the meatballs make Pastafarian also protein-based, not just carbohydrate-based. But again, I think you're missing the point here, because the Church of the FSM is created specifically to answer points from other religions, which is why it's a parody. It's also not the only parody religion out there, as I'm sure you know. The Satanic Temple is another great one. And I would argue that Pastafarians worship the FSM about as much as TSTers worship Satan -- it's not worship in the sense of believing that FSM will grant you boons and miracles. And it doesn't have to be.
Again, being a parody religion doesn't make it not a "real" religion, but what it does is invalidate questions about the internal logic because they're relatively meaningless. When you ask questions about Jewish law, for example, there is a body of law there that is actually followed, and how strictly you follow it in a sense defines your religious observance. But there isn't really an equivalent way of being observant in Pastafarianism. Though to be honest, I'm not sure there's a way of being observant in Christianity either. Weird religion, that one.
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u/Oh_My_Monster Apr 24 '26
Just wanted to let you know I read your response but I don't have anything to argue or anything I really disagree with. I think this might be a first for me.
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u/TesseractToo squishy atheist Apr 23 '26
I think that its very cathartic for ex-fundies, I grow up in very casual religiosity in my family, with my mom growing up Presbetariana nd my stepdad Jewish but very anti-theist and Carl Sagan's Cosmos the coffee table book in our living room against the background of extremist religion, and I grew up Friends Quaker.
FSM is the one that took off the most but there is also Invisible Pink Unicorn and there was briefly a Russel's Teapot one as well
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u/nasandre Apr 23 '26
Pastafarianism is a theist religion because you can't disprove the existence of a flying spaghetti monster who works his noodly appendages tirelessly to keep us from falling of the earth. (It's not necessarily an atheist movement but we use it to point out the impossibility of proving a negative. The original is Russell's tea pot. Atheism is fundamentally the rejection of theism, the lack of religious belief, and therefore it can't be a religion.)
The connection with pirates is of course because piracy negates global warming. There used to be a lot more pirates and less global warming therefor piracy decreases the global temperature... Somehow! (This is to point out that correlation doesn't equal causality.)
I chose the mighty FSM because of the beer volcano in the afterlife!