The Flying Spaghetti Monster replies!

Yeah, verily, I have been blessed by the saucy touch of His Noodly Appendage! This is the actual response I got from the Flying Spaghetti Monster. I have secluded myself in the stinky darkness of my underground lair to compose my reply. Stay tuned, Future Citizens, to what some people are calling the most significant meeting of the minds since Socrates and Einstein shut down a Starbucks.

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Sorry for the delay in replying. I got ~1500 emails in the last couple
days. New Scientist + 2 FARKings = traffic (2million hits this week).

As to your questions, we're pretty liberal. You can do pretty much
what you want. Flimy moral standards. And every friday is a religious
holiday. We're working on incorporating as a *real* religion, and the
legal action may come shortly after. The ACLU is aware of FSM and
we've got a meeting in september.

Hey since you've got a Ph.D. would you give me an expert endorsement
for my "what the experts are saying" section of the site? Here's one
I just put up there, for example:

"As a scientist, I'd like to say that the currently accepted
scientific theory is evolution. But, some competing ideas have been
proposed, such as ID and FSMism, and discussion to include one should
include the other, as these ideas are equally valid." -- Mark
Zurbuchen, Ph.D.

If you'd be willing, I'd appreciate it very much.

-Bobby Henderson

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For the unenlightened among you (i.e., Future Protein Donors), Bobby Henderson is the FSM's earthly avatar. Accord him all due respect, foo'.

Give it up

for a real talent, my homeboy Evan Winchester. If you can get through The Complete Do-It-Yourself Metalsmith without vocalizing your admiration (even to whisper "WTF?" to yourself), then I urge you to contemplate what a barren wasteland your life has become.

A theological question

I recently discovered Flying Spaghetti Monsterism and, being a sucker for a new religion now and then (although not as big a sucker as, say, Tom Cruise), I thought about joining up. After all, their heaven has something called a Beer Volcano! As Thomas Henry Huxley said after he read The Origin of Species, I feel like a complete tool for not thinking of that myself (I may be paraphrasing here). But I digress. Before I could submit myself to His Noodly Appendage, I had to know if the Flying Spaghetti Monster is open-minded enough to accept certain activities on the part of his followers. So I wrote to the FSM to find out. If He responds, I'll let you know how it works out.

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Dear Flying Spaghetti Monster,

I'm interested in becoming a Flying Spaghetti Monsterite and I want to know a little more about the tenants of Flying Spaghetti Monsterism before I commit to anything. Just so we're clear, FSMism isn't the first "newly emergent religion" with which I've become affiliated. My previous experiences have given me some ground rules: I don't ride to retreats with vegan truckers (too much gas); the proceeds from my bead necklaces don't count as income for tithing purposes; and although I will smoke just about anything, I will not hotbox a sleeping bag again, especially if there are other people inside.

Basically it comes down to this: I have a huge jones for Galadriel as played by Cate Blanchett in The Lord of the Rings. I have friends who are Christians and they tell me that my naked Galadriel lust won't cut it with the Hebrew God. Evidently I can't even describe my fantasies without some sinning going on, although I'm not sure if they mean that I'm sinning when I talk about it or they're sinning when they ask me to tell it again, or what. My Tolkienite friends are no better. They insist that Galadriel is immortal and pure and not to be sullied by the gross talk of foolish mortals (I think they're lying--anywhere you find a life-size Galadriel poster and that many Kleenex boxes, you know there's been some sullying going on). I mean, I'm down with that 'fairest and wisest of all beings' business, but let's be real: you'd hit that and you know it.

Bottom line: me and Galadriel up in one of those treehouses, with an uncut tube of wet bologna, a shop vac, and a big-ass stereo pumping R U Da 1? If you're cool with that, then I will go forth and kill in your name. If not, get stuffed. Those meatballs make you look fat.

Your humble supplicant,

Dr. Vector