Lukas Novy says he’s a member of the “Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster,” a satirical faith which teaches that a creature composed of pasta and meatballs “created the world much as it exists today,” that pirates “were peaceful explorers and it was due to Christian misinformation that they have an image of outcast criminals today,” and that beer is good. In observance of this faith, Novy, a resident of the Czech Republic, insisted that he be allowed to wear a pasta sieve on his head while being photographed for an official government ID. And he succeeded…. Czech officials ruled that the nation’s religious liberty laws required this result. According to a government spokesperson, Novy’s request “complies with the laws of the Czech Republic where headgear for religious or medical reasons is permitted if it does not hide the face.”
On it’s face, this is an absurd story about an absurd person making an absurd point…which, to my way of thinking, is pretty much what modern religion is all about. How many millions of innocent souls have been dispatched from this Earth because they didn’t have the right flavor of imaginary friend? You can look at the Crusades, pogroms against the Jews, the Holocaust, the wars in the former Yugoslavia…I could go on, but you get the point, right??
Religion was never intended to be an excuse for justifying genocide. It was never meant to be used for one group to declare itself superior and collect the resources to enforce that belief. And it was certainly never meant to be used by Christians to denigrate and discriminate against Muslims, who some blame for all manner of ills facing this country- from 9.11 to terrorism to Sharia law, to…again, I suspect you get my point. It was never meant to be used to further the pursuit of bigotry and intolerance. And yet here we are….
Religion, in its purest form, is a framework that assists people with the challenge of understanding the world around them. It’s about peace, love, charity, and coexistence. It’s about people helping people, looking out for the less fortunate, caring for the sick, feeding the poor, and just generally working to make the world a better place. If it can’t be used to advance the interests and well-being of mankind, religion has no use at all. When intolerant zealots believe they have the absolute right to enforce their narrow, ignorant, fear-based theology on others, Pastafarianism makes as much sense as (and perhaps more than) any other belief system.
It’s not Christianity I’m afraid of; it’s ignorant, narrow-minded, bigoted, intolerant Christians who terrify me.
