Pasta Pirates

January 2005 was a landmark month for religion, for it was then, in an open letter to the Kansas State Board of Education, that the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster was conceived.

As a response to the breathtaking idiocy of the Board whose majority fundamentalist Christian members decided that Intelligent Design (and never was a hypothesis more amusingly named) be taught alongside the Theory of Evolution in high schools, Bobby Henderson wrote a letter explaining that his 'belief' had equal validity with ID. In his own words:-

"I think we can all look forward to the time when these three theories are given equal time in our science classrooms across the country, and eventually the world; One third time for Intelligent Design, one third time for Flying Spaghetti Monsterism, and one third time for logical conjecture based on overwhelming observable evidence."

A full copy of the letter can be found here:- http://www.venganza.org/about/open-letter/

The letter is a master-stroke of calm, reasoned silliness. As news of it spread across the interweb new sites emerged carrying its ideas further. One site, in a direct response to Kent Hovind's 'evolution challenge'* set up a $1m prize for anyone able to prove empirically that Jesus is not the son of the FSM.

One central tenet to belief in the FSM, or Pastafarianism, is that global warming is a direct result of the declining number of pirates since the 1800s. Henderson even produced a graph to make the point.

However, in a twist that may be taken as further proof (if such were needed) of the existence of the FSM, it seems that pirate numbers are on the increase.

Now, it must be realised that these are modern hi-tec pirates who bear little resemblance to Johnny Depp. These are really nasty individuals who are armed with sub-machine guns, rocket launchers and fast attack boats - they don't even wear eye-patches (although how one could call oneself a pirate without an eyepatch is quite beyond me).

Having said all that it is refreshing to note that the current news-worthy non-peg-legged-sons-of-sea-dogs are, how shall I put it, not that far removed from the captain of the Black Pearl.

On seizing a cargo ship containing aid supplies bound for Somalia on Wednesday the pirates wandered all over the ship looking for the crew, who had sensibly locked themselves away.

The crew have since regained control of the ship, holding a wounded pirate and caring for him as he was "bleeding all over the ship".

The raiders are holding the captain hostage (he apparently gave himself to them in exchange for letting the crew go free) and one of their demands is to be given another ship as theirs sunk (I can't explain why but I find this extraordinarily funny). They have also asked that the guided-missile destroyer shadowing them sails away over the horizon - thereby displaying an amusing lack of understanding about what guided missiles can do.

As things stand there is stalemate. The pirates and their hostage are in a small lifeboat being shadowed by a hulking great warship and more are on the way.

Maybe it could be time for them to don eye-patches and attempt the Keith Richards walk that has served Depp so well.



*Hovind's challenge states that he will give $250,000 to anyone who can prove the Theory of Evolution. One would think that should be pretty straightforward, but Hovind has a few stipulations:-

NOTE: When I use the word evolution, I am not referring to the minor variations found in all of the various life forms (microevolution). I am referring to the general theory of evolution which believes these five major events took place without God:
1. Time, space, and matter came into existence by themselves.
2. Planets and stars formed from space dust.
3. Matter created life by itself.
4. Early life-forms learned to reproduce themselves.
5. Major changes occurred between these diverse life forms (i.e., fish changed to amphibians, amphibians changed to reptiles, and reptiles changed to birds or mammals).

No-one has claimed the prize, for two very good reasons:-
1. The Theory of Evolution has nothing to say on most of the points Hovind wishes for it to prove, and,
2. Hovind is in jail for fraud and tax evasion.