The Book-a-Week Project, Week 8

The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster
Bobby Henderson

I don’t understand why people are religious. I mean, I understand what makes people want to believe in myths – fear of nature, fear of self, fear of death – but I don’t understand how people are able to deceive themselves to the point where they can say, “I don’t care that this belief is unfounded, illogical, and obviously wrong. I have faith and that is all I need.” Because generally, having faith in something that has absolutely no basis in reality is a sign of psychosis. Believing one can fly and jumping out a window is crazy, but believing one can talk to a magical ghost spirit in the sky and that he guides the basketball when you make three-point shots during county semifinals is totally fucking reasonable?

I do lack faith. It's true. Most of the reason for that is that I have the capacity for critical thought and I enjoy using it. Turns out most folks are able to think deductively, observing evidence and making judgments and inferences based on that. Yet, oddly, depending who you believe, somewhere around 85 percent of Americans believe in capital-G God. And oh-my-fucking-god MORE THAN HALF believe that God created humans in their present form. Fifteen percent believe in Darwin’s theory of evolution. Thirty percent believe in evolution guided by God, so they're only half stupid.

Seriously think about that for a few seconds. Most people in this country believe that a magical fellow WHO LIVES IN THE SKY pointed his magic finger at the planet he just made and went DING! and there was a magically made person who could talk and walk around. He had remnants of a vestigial tail and shared 99% of his DNA with certain non-human primates but that was just put there as part of an important test by God. Because even though Adam could talk to God and spent a fair amount of time hanging out with him, God could foresee a time when he wouldn’t be kicking it quite as often with us humans and would have to give us a test to make sure we were still down with the program because if we weren’t he’d essentially throw us into a Sarlacc pit of suffering for eternity.

It also means MOST PEOPLE believe that all prehistoric fossil evidence is just a sly ruse by that clever magic man that you have to see past to prove your faith and show that you’re willing to believe in his utter bullshit for absolutely no reason because otherwise his feelings will apparently be hurt and he won’t admit you to the super-fun theme park in the sky where you can do anything forever as long as it’s not a sin, which means you can’t fuck, drink, listen to the Rolling Stones or Ween or really probably anything but Christian rock and gospel, read books about witches or science, cuss, or dance. Plus you have to go to services practically every night, and since basically every Christian priest is up there (even the one who fucked your son?) and feeling especially self-righteous now, they drag on like forever. Which frankly doesn’t seem like that great of a deal, especially considering you spent the last eighty years on Earth acting like a completely ignorant dumbshit just to get there. Did I mention you can’t even masturbate? Nope. Not even that.

I’m happy to argue with creationists when I’m drunk and riled enough, but it inevitably comes down to that claim of faith, which is basically the same as the greasy bully from grade school saying with a smirk, “I said I didn’t steal your pen,” and you saying, “Yes, you did! I can see it in your goddamn hand right now!” and him just shrugging with that smug, dumb smile on his face and walking away. I always expect those nuts to at some point double over, wracked with laughter, and say, “Oh shit! I can’t believe you think I’m actually that stupid! Of course I don’t believe a grumpy old elf created all living things! Come on, man!”

But they never do.

Jesus, what was I talking about? Right, that book. It’s the story of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, which has proofs for its existence remarkably similar to those used by proponents of Intelligent Design, which is basically Creationism served cold with an artificially-flavored sciency dipping sauce. Henderson argues that since ID is being touted as “just another possibility and shouldn’t we expose these kids to all the possibilities, no matter how absurd,” FSMism deserves equal space. It’s a silly book, filled with the same a priori logic and specious reasoning as ID, so it serves its purpose perfectly. Henderson has a good sense of humor about the whole thing, but isn’t above mean jabs when he feels them appropriate. Plus he promises a Beer Volcano and Stripper Factory in his version of heaven, so fuck it, I’m in.

He’s got a website, too. The best thing there is the open letter to the Kansas Board of Education, along with responses.

If you insist on believing in God, please at least consider this final warning from C-3PO: “In his belly, you will find a new definition of pain and suffering as you are slowly digested over a thousand years [eternity].” Is it really worth it? I bet Boba Fett doesn’t think so.

Next? Well, it’s Pastoralia by George Saunders!