Score one for his Noodliness! The Flying Spaghetti Monster has won a place at the annual gathering of the American Academy of Religion. This satirical deity, followed by pirates everywhere, will be discussed amongst the yearly meeting of some of the most important and influential religious minds in the world.
Although FSM isn’t taken seriously by the majority of people, he has proven to be a great way to raise awareness about the insidiousness of religion squeezing its way into our school curriculum. Because I have the privilege of calling Kansas my home, this battle between science and craziness was in my own back yard, so to speak.
In fact the Flying Spaghetti Monster was introduced in 2005 by Bobby Henderson in an open letter to the Kansas State Board of Education. The conservative majority was seeking to rewrite the state science standards to include Intelligent Design, the idea that the universe is too complex to not have an intelligent creator. Of course, Intelligent Design has no scientific basis so teaching it as science is asinine, nonetheless, the Board succeeded in changing the standards to include questioning the theory of evolution, for a short time.
What FSM pointed out was that if we give credence in our science classes to a theory that is really just disguised religious theology, with no scientific basis, we must then give equal time to anyone’s nut job ideas. This would, of course, ruin science and not make any sense, leaving the only viable option of actually teaching the best scientific data in our classrooms.
As FSM “creator” Bobby Henderson stated in the letter, “I think we can all look forward to the time when these three theories are given equal time in our science classrooms across the country, and eventually the world; one third time for Intelligent Design, one third time for Flying Spaghetti Monsterism, and one third time for logical conjecture based on overwhelming observable evidence,”
So here’s to free thinker and boundary pusher Bobby Henderson and to the Flying Spaghetti Monster, may his noodly presence be felt in all of our lives.
Bill Ludwig
Summer Ludwig