Noodles Are The Strings Of The Lord.

In the beginning, He created the earth below, the heavens above, and everything in between. He passed on his word through his followers, through his miracles, and through His books preserving stories and his spoken word. I’m talking of course about the Flying Spaghetti Monster and Pastafarianism, but if you know about Catholicism, you’d see there’s already a similarity between the two. Both are considered to be “a truth” of the creation of life & everything in existence; a guideline on how life should be lived, and a teaching of morals for living one’s life. However, the truth is, Catholicism was created by handful of people long ago to bring people together by their beliefs; Pastafarianism is in fact a parody of modern religion, created to challenge the decision to require teaching of intelligent design as an alternative to evolution in public schools in Kansas. Its written creator,Bobby Henderson, wrote the idea of the Flying Spaghetti as a practical joke toward people who took religion too seriously . But then again, religion is quite a practical joke to begin with anyway...
Once again, in the beginning of the earth, Catholics believe God created the world, the heavens, and all of existence in six days, and finally resting for the seventh day, where all believers gather to praise his gift of creation. The story carries on though stories, revealing conflict between the first few humans, (for example, the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden and the first temptation of man) in light of showing the correct morals and revealing the temptation of the devil and all alike. Through hardship and conflict, the Lord tests the faith of their followers, even in a flawed earth. And in the afterlife, depending on how we lived our life, we can choose between living in eternal paradise in the clouds of Heaven, or suffer in the flames of hell. These stories and books written by a handful of writers/followers of the Lord would later become the Old Testament in the Bible.
For the Pastafarians, the beginning of creation was somewhat similar. It starts with the creation of the universe by an invisible and undetectable Flying Spaghetti Monster. On the first day, He separated the water from the heavens and on the second, he created land, as he could not tread water for long and grew tired of flying. With land, he also created a volcano spewing beer, and the satisfied Flying Spaghetti Monster drank from the volcano and awoke on the third day hungover. The Monster's intoxication was the cause for a flawed Earth, and on this day, the Flying Spaghetti Monster spawned a little midget, which he later named Man. Man and an equally short woman lived happily in the Olive Garden of Eden. When we reach the end of our lives, the Monster promises a paradise in Heaven, which contains a beer volcano and a stripper factory. Hell is similar to the heaven, except that the beer is stale and the strippers have STDs. As a test of faith to all Pastafarians, the creation of evolution was planted by the Flying Spaghetti Monster. These stories are recorded in, “The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.” Both the Bible and “The Gospel” can be bought at any bookstore for the right price, of course.
Like many religions, it has traditions, such as commandments, holidays, and ceremonies celebrating saints, martyrs, and most importantly angels, who inspire miracles; and on the Catholic Calendar, such as Lent, Pentecost, St. Patrick’s Day, Easter, and the most popular one is the birth of Christ, also known as, Christmas. In the Catholic Community, they live by the Ten Commandments, brought down from Mount Sinai by Moses, that are simple to understand and are abided by those who aren’t Catholic. At the house of their worship, they read from the Bible and similar traditions practiced since the time of Jesus Christ, the human form of the Lord. And at the end of every prayer read to thank the Lord above, they conclude it with ‘Amen.’
In the Pastafarianism world, it is very similar. Where Catholicism has saints and angels, Pastafarianism has pirates, as they are considered, “peace-loving explorers and spreaders of good will" who distributed candy to small children (Henderson, Open Letter). Due to the decreasing numbers of ‘good ol’, fun-loving pirates,’ the Flying Spaghetti Monster responded by increasing global temperatures, causing global warming everywhere (parodying the rule ‘correlation does not equal causation’). Proof of this relationship with the observation is that “many people dress up as pirates for Halloween, and the months following October 31 are generally cooler than those that precede it” (Henderson, Gospel). They also have a handful of holidays, such as “International Talk Like a Pirate Day” (which is actually on September 19) and a vaguely entitled, “Holiday.” Holiday does not take place on a specific date and there are no specific requirements for Holiday (which parodies everyone saying “Happy Holidays” in the clump of holidays, such as Christmas, Hanukkah and Kwanzaa). Like the Ten Commandments, they have the Eight "I'd Really Rather You Didn'ts," brought down from Mount Salsa by pirate Captain Mosey, which obviously parodies what most religions are actually doing, both intentionally and unintentionally. While there are no churches to celebrate His Noodly Goodness, as read in the Sixth “I Really Rather You Didn’ts,” they conclude each prayer with the word of Noodle, “R’ Amen.”
After many generations passing, and centuries go by with conflict and wars declared in the name of one’s religion, human nature doesn’t often change. Sometimes, it takes a joke to point out the irony in what is something sacred and cherished upon on human beliefs. While the nouns and the adjectives between both Catholicism and Pastafarianism are extremely different on how it is presented and written, the verbs, the actions, and the symbolism connects the two, and presents a façade of modern religion. While the world itself isn’t perfect, and that it holds many scattered ideas of its creation; we must remember is that, Religion was created as a guideline to live life at its fullest. Regardless, we must respect others, whoever they are or what they believe in, as it is not the religion that defines the person, it is the choices they make. “Only this and forever more, R’Amen.”