The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster or “FSM” or his “Noodly Goodness,” as he is often called,  has existed for hundreds of years.  Followers of the FSM are commonly known as “Pastafarians.”

The Gospel and Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster have thrust into the spotlight thanks to an Open Letter to the Kansas State Board of Education written by Bobby Henderson.  Mr Henderson wanted to include Pastafarianism as an official part of the Kansas State education curriculum alongside Creationism and Evolution.

By way of introduction, there are 8 Commandments (often referred to as “I’d really rather you didn’t” instead of commandments) that backstop Pastafarianism:

Mr Henderson also penned The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

In September 2005, before Mr Henderson wrote his book a Pastafarian known as Solipsy began collecting texts to formally memorialize the tenets of Pastafarianism.  This 203-page tome was completed in 2010 and is available for download here.

The church and gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster are real.

Pastafarianism is a real religion. Many of its followers, however, do not believe that religion, any religion, requires a literal belief in order to achieve spiritual enlightenment (I’m looking at you Christianity, Judaism, and Islam).  In fact, the only dogma allowed in the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster is the rejection of dogma. Many members of the Church do not literally believe the scripture.  This is not unlike other major religions like Christianity.  Most Christians don’t believe the bible is literally true – but they are still Christian.

Some followers see the religion as satire.  Mr Henderson states that satire is an honest, legitimate basis for a religion.  He believes that for satire to be effective it must be based on truth.  To understand the satire you must understand the truth that is the object of satire.

Pastafarians are not anti-god or anti-religion.  The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster is open to all.  Atheists, Christians, Muslims, Agnostics, and free-thinkers make up the ranks.  Many followers of the Noodly One recognize that religion has importance and value even in the absence of empirical evidence. These propounders of the Pasta’ed One see religion as equal parts community and faith.  Their shared community under the banner of the Flying Spaghetti Monster is just as legitimate a religious community as any other and perhaps even more so because of their honesty and rationality.

A central idea of the Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster is to scrutinize ideas and actions but “ignore  general labels.”

Speaking of scrutinizing ideas, Pastafarians aren’t above poking fun at melting polar ice caps.  With tongue-firmly-in-cheek, they insist that the globe’s ever-increasing temperature problem is directly correlated to a decline in the existence of hardy sea-faring folk, namely pirates!

Gay?  Lesbian? Enjoy marriage?  Fantastic! The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster supports same-sex marriage and marriage of every kind.  The Noodly and sauce covered embrace of the FSM is open to all who choose to enter.

In fact, the Noodly One is not a jealous all-powerful entity.  You can join the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster even if you’re a non-believer (yeah like that’s gonna happen, once you get touched by His appendages it’s over).

The Flying Spaghetti Monster is not one to sit on his laurels.  He stays busy.  In fact, unlike other omnipotent, all-powerful beings the FSM takes an interest in almost every scientific experiment or empirical investigation on the planet.

Every time a scientist attempts to measure our natural world, like determining the age of the planet, the Flying Spaghetti Monster appears and modifies the results with his noodly appendages.  The FSM, while a super-being, is a trickster.

The Flying Spaghetti Monster likes to remind the world that He is the boss.

Like all the other major religions the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster knows how to peddle its wares.  You can get your FSM t-shirts, mugs, stickers, pirate fish, emblems and more here.

Religion 101:  you gotta have that swag.

The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster and its followers love beer and they love Friday.  They combined the two into a holy day that coincidentally is called merely Friday.  This religious holiday is celebrated by wearing pirate regalia, drinking beer, and generally having a nice time.

Pastafarians like to reflect on this holiest of days by spreading the message of the Monster, which is that the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster is the world’s most peaceful mainstream religion.  Absolutely no wars have been waged in the Noodly One’s name.

The Flying Spaghetti Monster as the creator of all that is, is Jesus Christ’s father.  Choose to disbelieve? If you can prove it there is a cool million in it for you.  The website boingboing.com is willing to pay any individual $1,000,000 if they can produce empirical evidence which proves that Jesus is not the son of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

FSM Church followers contribute to the website KIVA.org, which is a non-profit organization whose mission is to connect people to alleviate poverty through micro-finance and micro-loans.  As of this article writing, the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster (Team FSM) has reached $2 million in loans on Kiva.

Our Pasta, who “Arghh” in heaven, Swallowed be thy shame. Thy Midgit come. Thy Sauce is yum, On top some grated Parmesan. Give us this day our garlic bread. And give us our cutlasses, As we swashbuckler, splice the main-brace and cuss. And lead us into temptation, But deliver us some Pizza. For thine are Meatballs, and the beer, and the strippers, forever and ever. RAmen.