ROSEBURG, Ore. – With tongue planted firmly in cheek, Bobby Henderson has injected his Flying Spaghetti Monster into the straight-laced squabble over the creation of humanity.
Henderson and his growing legion of “Pastafarian” followers say they believe the universe was created by a giant Flying Spaghetti Monster, a clump of tangled spaghetti with two eyes and “noodly appendages.”
His Web site, www.venganza. org, has drawn more than 30 million hits in recent months.
Pastafarians say if alternatives to evolution such as intelligent design must be taught in schools, then the Spaghetti Monster theory, which is just as well founded, deserves equal time.
The Web site features letters, games, scientific testimonials, fan art and a forum for the debate of the finer points of Pastafarianism.
It has a fan base, but the humor escapes some people. A Web site illustration shows Spaghetti Monster seated at the table of the Last Supper.
One message told him to blow his face off with a shotgun, and that one was relatively mild.
“I am not too worried about the angry religious people who e-mail me,” Henderson said. He said the project is an attack on dogma, not religion.
He said the Spaghetti Monster built the world to make us think it is older than it really is by fooling with the Carbon-14 system used to date artifacts.
“What our scientist does not realize is that every time he makes a measurement, the Flying Spaghetti Monster is there changing the results with His Noodly Appendage,” he wrote.
As the Web site has grown, it has attracted more acolytes. Luke Bovard of Vancouver, B.C., is one of the moderators for the site’s message boards. More than 1,100 people are registered members of the site’s online family.
To handle the huge volume of traffic, Henderson has leased a dedicated server. He also sells Flying Spaghetti Monster T-shirts, posters, coffee mugs and other paraphernalia through the site.
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