The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster: beliefs, history and sources

History & overview

An argument about science, in the shape of a religion.

Pastafarianism holds that the universe was created by a Flying Spaghetti Monster who arranges the evidence to look otherwise, that Friday is the weekly holy day, and that full pirate regalia is His preferred dress. It began as a single letter written to a state school board in 2005 and became the most legally tested religion of the century: courts and registrars in the United States, the Netherlands, Poland, Austria, New Zealand and Strasbourg have all had to rule on whether it is one. They have not agreed. New Zealand licensed a Pastafarian marriage celebrant in 2015; a federal judge in Nebraska and the European Court of Human Rights both said it is satire and nothing more.

Why it is filed this way

Parody is both the church's own account of itself and the finding of every court that has examined it. In Cavanaugh v. Bartelt (D. Neb. 2016) Judge John M. Gerrard held that FSMism is not a religion under the First Amendment or RLUIPA but a parody advancing an argument about science and public education. The Dutch Council of State reached the same conclusion on 15 August 2018, and the European Court of Human Rights declared a Pastafarian application inadmissible on 9 November 2021 for lack of the seriousness and cohesion Article 9 requires. Against that: New Zealand's Registrar-General approved the church as an organisation able to nominate marriage celebrants in December 2015, and the first legally recognised Pastafarian wedding was held on a boat at Akaroa on 16 April 2016. The category is settled in law and unsettled in practice.

DeitiesOne god, made of spaghetti and meatballs, with a Noodly Appendage. Belief is not required of Pastafarians and most are explicit that they do not hold it; what is held is the argument the god is standing in for.

Founded2005 CE · Oregon, United States

FounderBobby Henderson

AfterlifeA heaven with a beer volcano and a stripper factory, and a hell with the same two, gone stale. Named in the Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster and not taught as doctrine.

TextsThe Open Letter to the Kansas School Board (2005) · The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster (Villard, 2006)

The map

The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster’s corner of it — solid lines are descent; dotted lines are resemblance only, ideas held in common across unrelated faiths. Click a node to recenter; ✕ returns here. All 171 faiths →

Core Tenets

2 — a sample of the center, never the sum Enter →

He built the world to look older than it is. The letter's central move: every measurement that contradicts the creation account was altered at the moment of measuring, by a Noodly Appendage. The claim is unfalsifiable on purpose, and it is unfalsifiable in exactly the way its target is. Go deeper — context & 1 source →

Pirates cooled the earth, and there are fewer of them now. The letter includes a chart of global average temperature against the estimated number of pirates since 1800, showing an inverse relationship, and concludes that the decline in piracy is the cause of global warming. It is the clearest demonstration of correlation mistaken for causation ever put in front of a school board. Go deeper — context & 1 source →

Figures

who it looks to — gods, spirits, ancestors; some rooms are empty on principle Enter →

T The Flying Spaghetti Monster. Created the universe while drunk, which the Gospel offers as the explanation for its condition. He touches with a Noodly Appendage, and being touched by it is how Pastafarians describe conversion. Domain Creation, and the falsification of the evidence for itStanding Creator of everything, including the data that says otherwise Meet them — context & 1 source →

Rites & Ritual

what its people do — and when Enter →

Friday. The weekly holy day. It requires nothing — no fast, no attendance, no abstention — which is the point being made about weekly holy days that require a great deal. When weekly, every FridayWho all Pastafarians Go deeper — context →

Where next

the museum exit — every door leads deeper in

Judaism — 10 shared ideas, a different faith Sikhism — 10 shared ideas, a different faith The Bahá'í Faith — 10 shared ideas, a different faith Hinduism — 9 shared ideas, a different faith Branch The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster — inherit everything, change what you must The library of ideas — what The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster shares with every other faith A faith at random — somewhere you have never been

Sources

2 cited texts

Bobby Henderson, Open Letter to the Kansas School Board, 2005 cited 2× →
Cavanaugh v. Bartelt, 178 F. Supp. 3d 819 (D. Neb. 2016), Gerrard J. where it is cited →

These citations identify texts used in the linked passages. Follow each passage to read its quotation and context. A tradition’s own texts explain its teachings; historical claims may also require independent scholarship. Translations marked (rendered) are our own plain-English wording, not a standard edition; where a passage matters, read it in a full translation.