Ah, to be young and noodly again…
on February 23, 2013 at 8:16 PM
Alert reader Drew (unrelated to Drew, the magician who keeps me from wrecking the servers) wanted to know if this Aaron Williams is me. Sadly, it’s not, as I’d be 25 again and have my name in the digital newspaper.
I’d also have to admit that I usually go and get my license renewed at a remote Missouri DMV the minute it opens so I don’t have to wait in line. Consequently, I barely have enough functioning brain cells to do something like my namesake above, let alone look like I’m not halfway to being undead in my photo.
On a tangental note: If your DMV has just installed a new laminator, never be the first person to ever use the thing when getting your ID. I was, however many years ago it was. They hadn’t quite figured out the machine, and so the plastic coating has these lines of air pockets in it, making my license look kinda fake and/or tampered with to many an authority figure. After some reflection, they apparently just look at me and go “meh,” sending me on my way, wondering if I should feel insulted. 
Glad to be of service to our noodle-y pirate loving brothers and sisters of the sauce.
Maybe people would take it more seriously if the people weren’t following specifically to mock other religions. If someone could assure them that their belief in the FSM was not sarcastic, ironic or sardonic at all, then people might take your beliefs seriously. But kindly point out even a single Pastafarian that isn’t following the “faith” solely for the sake of mocking/shaming/demeaning other religions. Unless such a person is a complete and utter fool, there is no such person.
As a Christian, I suggest you try claiming your mockery-faith to Thor — he’s much cooler than the FSM. Seriously; THUNDERBOLTS beat spaghetti hands down!
I only practice this aspect of my beliefs on religious holidays like pirate day, so I’m not fully in the know. But I’ve been more and more disturbed by the realization that there are truly people that are taking it beyond the sarcastic and are truly in belief, now I imagine a lot of Romans just thought Christians were some annoying upstarts trying to mess things up. I think a lot of this true conversion has to do with the intelligent design of its dogma. Most of them are essentially trying to carve out religious protections for atheists and or atleast other less dominant or organized faiths. They started as a response to overbearing religious interference with children of all and no faiths, risking the independent intelligence of future generations. The guidance their scriptures provide is actually very agreeable and fits with what most other religions say they are like but which fall short of because of historical mess ups or human intervention for societal control. Ironically my own faith in my understanding of a higher power is that my Christian God would much rather I followed the tenets that mirrored the loving and thoughtful ones suggested by these noodle heads.
Now because I have a mind that God gave me to play with, I can also remind you that the myth of Thor is a reinterpretation based on a flawed understanding. Thor was actually a messenger of the FSM. He and his people tried to switch into a more perfect pirate based society (ok they didn’t quite achieve the do unto others part of the ethos) and his lighting powers have been corrupted by religious interference. Most lightning depictions tend to be the famous zig zag slash. This is not a direct image but and over simplification. If you look at the lightning in the sky or on a “realistic” cartoon you will see a bigger and bigger link between the lightning and the source of its power. The Flying Spaghetti Monster can choose to manifest electrical extensions of itself by rubbing its noodle appendages together then controlling that static electricity to manifesting a hugely gloriously powerful way.
So, in other words, you’re saying that Pastafarianism is something that started out as an idea for a good and benign movement, and has now been turned into a RELIGION by idiots, morons and control-freaks?
Gasp! Gee, now where have we seen that happen before?
I think this whole thing says less about the human nature to “create” gods, and more about how human nature screws up good things and turns it into something oppressive and dominating.