The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster (12 page)

Then the FSM saw that the wickedness of Man was great on earth, and that every thought of the little midget was ruled by his stomach.

Then the FSM said, “Fine, I’ll just cook for myself,” and He produced a great Colander of Goodness and He did collect water in an enormous pot, which He heated; and He did drop in a heaping portion of pasta and slowly simmer the sauce for so long that the original humans
weren’t even around anymore when He was finally ready to eat. And He poured the spaghetti and water into the Colander of Goodness, careful to make sure that the water went down the drain of His sink. And as He was eating, He vacantly considered where the drain did empty, and the FSM said, “Uh oh.”

Luckily, Noah and Noah’s sons, Ham, Cheese, and Omel, and Noah’s wife and the three wives of his sons with them, had been working on “Big Noah’s Floating Menagerie,” which was to be housed in a giant ark of Noah’s design. On that day all the fountains of the great deep were broken up, and the drains of the heavens were opened. And the rain was on the earth forty days and forty nights, and the ark did float but it did stink.

After several battles with Pirates, the ark did finally rest on Mount Ararat, and when the waters receded it was a long walk home for Noah and his family. And no one could locate the unicorn pair, but they did discover Noah’s son Ham in a back chamber of the ark, picking his teeth with an oversized toothpick that remarkably resembled a horn.

Like Noah, his sons were real entrepreneurs, and they did spread out-Ham went to the southern nations and started the Hamites; Cheese went to the central nations and started the Cheese-Its; and Omel journeyed northward to start the Omelets. There they did establish family diners to supply the locals with foodstuffs.

Ham, who was a bit of a troublemaker and always looking to squeeze out a few extra sheckels, determined to develop a foodstuff that could be produced from the leftover pig snouts and sawdust that did normally just get thrown in the garbage at the diner. He ground up this waste and did call it “scrapple.” And he did enlist the help of Nimrod to help market the scrapple. Needless to say, it wasn’t a fast seller, and the scrapple did pile up out behind the diner, sitting under the sun until it formed a sort of wretched tower.

Since they couldn’t sell it for food, Nimrod suggested they call it the Tower of Scrapple and charge a fancy sum for passersby to come behold its majesty. “A fool is born every minute,” he said to Ham, and Ham agreed.

Shortly thereafter, the FSM started noticing a bad smell around the firmament. He floated down and declared, “That thing, and I mean this quite literally, stinks to high heaven. What do you think you’re doing?” Thinking fast on his feet, Nimrod said, “We built it as a tribute to your greatness.” But the FSM wasn’t buying it. “I thought I told you to be fruitful and fill the earth,” He said to Nimrod. “And not with
flies
, with people.” Nimrod didn’t have a response to that, so the FSM told him, “Just tear it down.” Since the Tower of Scrapple wasn’t the tourist draw he’d hoped for, Nimrod bowed to the FSM’s wishes. Unfortunately, he inhaled too many rancid scrapple fumes in the process, and he was rendered a babbling idiot.

And the diners did prosper, and the population feasted and grew in number until there were so many short-order cooks that Phil the night manager did fear a revolt to his authority.

And he ordered that no more short-order cooks be hired, but one young boy named Mosey, who couldn’t sit still and was always running his mouth, did talk his way into a job by claiming to be able to cook “the best papyrus on rye this side of the Euphrates.” Mosey did indeed cook a mean papyrus, and he was an artist with the deep fryer, but he did grow tired of the long hours and mistreatment, and one day he walked into his manager’s office, threw down his apron, and said, “I’m tired of the nine to five. I’m quitting to become a Pirate.” That got the FSM’s attention, and he kept careful track of Mosey. In fact, years later, the FSM, who had grown tired of Phil’s mistreatment of the short-order cooks and was getting to be in a generally bad mood,
found Mosey camping out in the desert, drawing up plans for a massive Pirate Ship, and the FSM spoke to Mosey through a burnt roasted marshmallow and commanded Mosey to go back and lead all the short-order cooks out from under Phil’s control. The FSM bade Mosey to hire the cooks and start a restaurant of his own, preferably one that specialized in foods more to His liking. “Maybe call it the Olive Garden. You could manage the kitchen staff,” said the FSM. But when Mosey returned to the diner, Phil refused to release the short-order cooks’ last paycheck if they followed Mosey.

Now the FSM was really angry with Phil, and He punished him with the following plagues:

1. A rain of spaghetti sauce
   

2. A hail of linguini
   

3. Repetitively playing Kid Abyssinia’s rap hit “I’m the Makkeda Daddy” inside Phil’s head
   

Phil relented, and the FSM commanded the short-order cooks to celebrate the yearly “Pastover,” where the angel hair pasta of death passes over all the houses that have a smear of sauce on the doorpost.

Now the FSM spoke to Mosey, saying, “This month shall be the beginning of your new restaurant franchise; it shall be the first month of the rest of your life. Speak to all the short-order cooks, saying ‘Begin your sauce on the tenth day of this month. Every man shall prepare a sauce, stirring it occasionally. If you don’t have enough people to eat it, go over to your in-laws’ house.

“‘Now you shall cook the sauce until the fourteenth day of the same month. And you shall take some of the sauce and smear it on your doorpost. Then you shall pour the remainder of the sauce over a heaping bowl of the pasta of your choosing, and you shall eat all of it.

“‘With a belt at your waist, a patch over your eye, and a cutlass in your hand, you shall eat the pasta. For you are no longer short-order cooks, but the sauce on your door will mark you as Pirates!’” Though Phil had reluctantly agreed to release the last paychecks, as
soon as Mosey led the short-order cooks out of the diner, he changed his mind. Phil chased after them, all the way to a giant red puddle of spaghetti sauce that had been left over from the first plague. The FSM parted the Red Puddle for Mosey, but He didn’t notice that Phil was hot on his heels. Unfortunately, Phil was swallowed up by the puddle and rolled into a giant meatball.

Mosey became “Pirate Mosey,” and later dried pasta fell from the skies like manna, which is Hebrew for “monster.” The Eight “I’d Really Rather You Didn’ts” Pirate Mosey really wanted that Pirate ship, and putting all labor issues aside he declared his band to now be Pirates, and he led the Pirates up to the top of Mount Salsa, where he thought there might be a good chance of finding the Pirate ship he’d been searching for all these years. But they didn’t find the ship, and the people didn’t know how to act like Pirates—after all, they were really just a bunch of short-order cooks—and the FSM came down and declared that they’d better clean up their act, because
real
Pirates belonged on the open seas, not on a mountain. And Pirate Mosey was embarrassed and wouldn’t come down from the mountain, even though the rest of his band took the FSM’s advice and went down into the town at the bottom of Mount Salsa to wait for their captain. Finally, the FSM got completely fed up, and He visited Mosey on the mountaintop and told him where to find the sea, and, after admitting that it had been a long haul since Creation and that maybe He’d even rethink some of His decisions if He had it to do all over again, He gave Pirate Mosey some advice, which came in the form of ten stone tablets. These tablets Mosey called “Commandments” (since he had a healthy sense of drama)—although the short-order cooks grew confused and misnamed them the “Condiments”—but because of the phrasing, the FSM refers to them as the “I’d Really Rather You Didn’ts.” Unfortunately, Mosey dropped two of them on the way down the mountain, which partly accounts for Pastafarians’ flimsy moral standards, but the rest can be read as follows:

I’d Really Rather You Didn’t Act Like A Sanctimonious, Holier-Than-Thou Ass When Describing My Noodly Goodness. If Some People Don’t Believe In Me, That’s Okay. Really, I’m Not That Vain. Besides, This Isn’t About Them So Don’t Change The Subject.

I’d Really Rather You Didn’t Use My Existence As A Means To Oppress, Subjugate, Punish, Eviscerate, And/Or, You Know, Be Mean To Others. I Don’t Require Sacrifices And Purity Is For Drinking Water, Not People.

I’d Really Rather You Didn’t Judge People For The Way They Look, Or How They Dress, Or The Way They Talk, Or, Well, Just Play Nice, Okay? Oh, And Get This In Your Thick Heads: Woman = Person. Man = Person. Samey-Samey. One Is Not Better Than The Other, Unless We’re Talking About Fashion And I’m Sorry, But I Gave That To Women And Some Guys Who Know The Difference Between Teal And Fuchsia.

I’d Really Rather You Didn’t Indulge In Conduct That Offends Yourself, Or Your Willing, Consenting Partner Of Legal Age AND Mental Maturity. As For Anyone Who Might Object, I Think The Expression Is Go F*** Yourself, Unless They Find That Offensive In Which Case They Can Turn Off The TV For Once And Go For A Walk For A Change.

I’d Really Rather You Didn’t Challenge The Bigoted, Misogynist, Hateful Ideas Of Others On An Empty Stomach. Eat, Then Go After The B******.

I’d Really Rather You Didn’t Build Multimillion-Dollar Churches/ Temples/Mosques/Shrines To My Noodly Goodness When The Money Could Be Better Spent (Take Your Pick):

•    A. Ending Poverty
  

•    B. Curing Diseases
  

•    C. Living In Peace, Loving With Passion, And Lowering The Cost Of Cable
  

I Might Be A Complex-Carbohydrate Omniscient Being, But I Enjoy The Simple Things In Life. I Ought To Know. I AM The Creator.

I’d Really Rather You Didn’t Go Around Telling People I Talk To You. You’re Not That Interesting. Get Over Yourself. And I Told You To Love Your Fellow Man, Can’t You Take A Hint?

I’d Really Rather You Didn’t Do Unto Others As You Would Have Them Do Unto You If You Are Into, Um, Stuff That Uses A Lot Of Leather/Lubricant/Las Vegas. If The Other Person Is Into It, However (Pursuant To #4), Then Have At It, Take Pictures, And For The Love Of Mike, Wear A CONDOM! Honestly, It’s A Piece Of Rubber. If I Didn’t Want It To Feel Good When You Did IT I Would Have Added Spikes, Or Something.

RAmen.

E
veryone knows that Pirates are badasses. But history is also full of non-Pastafarians who have dared to rock the boat, challenging the limits of religious and scientific dogma alike. With this in mind, we offer this rundown of heretics through time. Their poor lives illustrate just how hard a world without FSMism can be
.

Aristotle was born in northern Greece a really long time ago. He was the son of a wealthy and influential doctor, and studied under Plato,
¹
who was also the son of a wealthy and influential doctor. Thus began the Greek tradition—a key forebear to contemporary Western thought—which holds that the wealthy and influential shall grow even more wealthy and influential, while the poor and fluential grow poorer and increasingly lose their fluent.
¹
Because Aristotle dared to disagree with the teachings of Plato, he was not appointed head of the Academy when Plato died. Angered by this snub, Aristotle took a tutoring job with a young Alexander the Great, whom he encouraged to follow his dream of raping, pillaging, and eventually taking over the world.

After that, Aristotle retired to his writings. It is said that Aristotle wrote over 150 treatises. Although that is an awful lot of treatises, they can be summarized as follows: Everything in our world is composed of
potential
(matter) and
of reality
(form). Like an uncarved block of marble, we have the potential to “sculpt” our lives and make them into whatever reality we wish. Today, this line of thought is referred to as
“freaky New Age shit,” and contemporary scholars agree that, if Aristotle were alive today, he would definitely be a fixture on
Oprah
.

Aristotle has been a fan favorite of all the great thinkers throughout time. Not only was he a great philosopher, but he also developed a systematic classification of animals, which made him quite the Renaissance man, and it should be noted that his teachings experienced a real renaissance during the Renaissance. But there were dark clouds ahead for his Renaissance supporters … for although he talked a lot about God, he also declared that the universe was eternal, a belief that caused a lot of trouble about a thousand years after he died, when the Catholic Church finally started paying attention to all the Aristotle hype.