Journal #9

Organized religion is quite the sticky subject to discuss. There are very many different groups and cults for that matter, and they all have their own completely different set of beliefs. Personally I have my own set of beliefs that really do not fit any sort of specific sect, but I mainly base my beliefs off of the Catholic faith. However, I have a feeling that later in my life, another sort of crazy religion will come my way. Recently, I have read and investigated the "religion" of Pastafarianism. It was started by a teacher one day who was ordered along with the rest of the teachers to start teaching Creationism to little school children. This teacher was outraged that the children could not have any sort of choice with their beliefs. So what this man did was he formed his own "religion," and he called it Pastafarianism. To the normal churchgoer, the rules and regulations of this little known sect seems very ridiculous. There are such things as at the end of a prayer, you say “ramen” instead of the normal “amen.” This man basically made a big joke and political statement out of his own religion. The basis of this sect is that the followers worship a flying spaghetti monster that is supposedly up in the sky somewhere. I think the man is a champion for following his true beliefs and for making a large scale statement. Anyway, after the “sect” was started up, a bunch of college kids picked it up and started following it for real. They were mostly atheists who went along with this statement, and they took it maybe a little too far. There is now a book published about the supposed rules, and there is a large and fully functional website dealing with every subject there is to possibly know about Pastafarianism. I do not believe in Pastafarianism itself, but I do agree with the man who started it all.