For me, the attractive thing about the FSM religion is that it is no more inconsistent nor improbable than many other organised religions. Many organised religions claim to be "the ONE true way". Some do so by insisting that all other religions are wrong, despite having no proof other than "faith". Others do so by (oddly) accepting, even embracing other religions in a grand gesture of "tolerance", without actually questioning or modifying their own beliefs. A little patronising, perhaps? How can so many different belief systems be accepted equally as "the ONE true way"?

Personally, I'm a Lapsed Agnostic (I used to wonder if there was an intelligent creator but now I just can't be arsed).

I grew up religious and my father was an evangelical preacher. He read into the Bible what he wanted to believe. So, why not a new God? The reason I was an evangelical Christian was because I was born into an evangelical Christian family. If I was born Catholic, I would have been Catholic. Truth? It depends on the culture or family you were born into.

So, why not CHOOSE a faith? Hey, I just had a spaghetti dinner, and it was great. So, bow your heads and pray to the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

Religion is a subject I've had trouble getting away from for the last five years or so. My father is, as I've said here before, an Anglican priest. I myself have been a Pastafarian for some years now, and we live happily under the same roof. Claims that Pastafarians lack something that the self-labelled "legitimate" religions have are downright ridiculous: Last year on holiday to Germany, I stopped off with my father at an internet cafe to check my email and ended up spending a good hour or so online, and yet I was charged less than a Euro for what should have cost three. I said, with my limited German, that it was not enough, but the man who ran the place held up his hand and said something. I caught the words "Nudliche" and "Bruder", so I can only guess he made a discount for a fellow member of the Pastafarian faith and, at the same time, to the Christian accompanying me. If Pastafarians are capable of showing friendship to their brothers of Faith, of all Faiths, then surely nobody can fail to recognise us as members of a genuine religion.

There is video evidence that he exists! How can you deny that?

I am religious, I believe in gods; but I also find the Flying Spaghetti Monster to be a rather hilarious addition to the Universal Pantheon of gods.

He is as real as any god; in the way that all gods are representations of forces and/or concepts. They are culturally determined faces on fundamental and universal qualities of man and nature.

If you listed the features and powers of FSM and compared him with other gods held be past or present "serious" religions you'd probably find a god that does the exact same things he does; only they look much different.

The ancient polytheists realized this; that's why whenever Greeks would invade a territory they simply merged their beliefs with the locals. (Oddly enough, the Catholics continued this tradition in the form of saints and the Virgin Mary.)

there is scientific evidence disproving any kind of supernatural being so how do we know that a flying spaghetti monster is watching over us?

there is a website devoted to his almighty Noodleness, along with a published bible, detailing how his followers are to act, what to wear, how the religion came into power, and the prophets of the FSM.

it is an internationally recognised religion, so how can it not be true?

The shear brilliance of the fsm is, (besides his obvious awesomeness as the only deity out there who also provides you with complex carbohydrates) is the fact that he is ultimately un-provable. After all, he is invisible aswell as hyper intelligent, and any evidence contradictory to his existance is just a joke made by him that we don't understand. Basically, he is as provable as he is unprovable, putting him on the same plane of reality as any other "god", whose only real supporting argument for existance is the difficulty it is to dissprove it. And so in the end, whatever religious teaching you chose to follow is primarily based on A) what you were brought up to believe and B) personal choice. But who would you really want to believe? A control freak Jackass who supposedly gave us free will and then chastizes us for using it in any way that he don't like? Or an all-accepting, all loving tangle of pasta and meatballs who shows us the joy of pirating and promises eternal life in a world of beer and strippers?

neither real or fake. it's the imaginary number. we use it to fill in parts that can not be explained with out it.

really, God and the universe is like 1i

I want to cast my lot with the FSM, But...Is he short of cash also?

The Flying Spaghetti Monster is simply another example of the "why should I believe in any god if I can't see/hear/touch/taste/smell him?" argument. In other words why should I have "Faith" in something that can neither be proved or disproved to exist? But there in lies the whole point, "Faith" is a feeling. To truly believe in any religion, or any higher power is to feel that a higher power exists.

One can not quantify a feeling, you can't measure Happy, any more than you can describe a feeling without using other feelings to describe it. You would never be able to truly describe melancholy to a computer in a way it would understand. So how can someone describe their "Faith" in something intangible, to someone who does not feel the same way?

The Answer to that is something theologians have been searching for since the beginning of time. So profits and have built their religions up with fables and parables to help describe their beliefs, and over the years those stories get distorted and picked apart to he point when people use them to back up any side of an argument to further their cause.

Thats where you get someone like Bobby Henderson who creates something so outlandish in order to make a point about how ridiculous organized religion, and the Dogma people create around it, has become. But I say if I believe in a God that is present in all things everywhere, then who is to say it couldn't portray itself as a flying spaghetti monster, just as much as it could be an old man with a long gray beard?

It all comes down to personal perception of how you Feel about God.

I'm only arguing for this side because in my opinion, G-d is more of a thought rather than an actual person/spirit thing, and if there was a flying spaghetti monster, i think that either i, or someone else, would have eaten it by now! Muahahahaha! ;]

His holiness the FSM doesn't exist outside our imaginations. As cool as it would be.

Touched by his noodly appendage...

Actually you do not believe in the FSM, because you cannot believe in something you know to be created for the sole purpose of creating a straw man argument.

Hence, like all followers of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, you are a liar and in bad faith - which lie is your fundamental creed. Questions: Do you trust a liar, especially in matters of ultimate reality and importance? Is the point to win converts or be right?

At the same time, FSM followers are also examples of the paradoxical sentence: "I am lying." Because it is obvious from the context that you do not and cannot believe in the FSM, you are publicly declaring yourself to be a liar, a heretic, and someone insensitive to the sacred beliefs of others. This begs the question of what you do believe, which seems to be that stupid people don't deserve respect, but ridicule.

While this is politically incorrect and tactically questionable, at least it is honest. And remember, some chickens come home to roost.

Yeah, whatever