What Hebrew word, meaning "vanity" or "meaningless," is frequently used in Ecclesiastes?

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Progressive Christian

Last updated on: March 24, 2006 at 12:06 pm by Cathleen Falsani

2006-03-24T12:06:00-07:00 Cathleen Falsani

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

GODSTUFF:

GOSPEL OF PASTA STICKS TO RELIGIOUS FUNNY BONE

Maybe it’s all the pedophile priest stories, or the Muslim factions methodically killing one another in Iraq, or the rabbi in Israel this week who said avian flu is God’s wrath for efforts to legalize same-sex marriage.

(Heavy sigh.)

Organized religion’s been having a rough month. Again.

Maybe it’s a genetic response — the gallows humor that runs in my family, the lifeboat of laughter that has kept us dry when the ship is sinking — that draws me, once again in these pages, to the altar of religious satire.

Maybe it’s because if I weren’t laughing, I would be crying.

Whatever the psychological or spiritual reasons were, when it came time to write my weekly religion-and-popular-culture column this week, I put aside the book on the saints I was reading, decided against going to an art exhibit at a local cathedral titled “Enemies,” and moved several e-mails about clerical malfeasance, the ordination of women and what to do about America’s emerging “theocracy” into my “column fodder” folder for another week.

Instead, I turned my attention to The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

Call it Pastafarianism.

That’s how its self-proclaimed “prophet” Bobby Henderson, a 25-year-old guy from Corvallis, Ore., with a B.S. in physics, a vivid imagination, and extensive post-graduate work in applied smartaleckery, refers to his religious tradition. (It’s FSMism for those truly in the know.)

It’s an ancient religion, Henderson explains in the very first printing of what I suppose would constitute its sacred scriptures that the New York publishing house Villard (Pastafarianism’s modern-day Gutenberg) is set to release next week.

But in spite of its apparently antediluvian provenance, most people (including your correspondent) hadn’t heard of Pastafarians and their veneration of the benevolent Flying Spaghetti Monster (creator of the universe) until last year — when Henderson wrote an open letter to the Kansas Board of Education demanding that FSMism’s theory of how the world came to be, be taught on equal footing with evolution and the ever-controversial “intelligent design” theory.

Henderson was kidding. Mostly. At least, I think so. It’s hard to tell, and when I tried to contact him Thursday, his publicist said he didn’t have time to talk because he’s busy building his pirate ship.

Yes, pirate ship.

As in ahoy and aargh.

Instead, Henderson’s recently deputized prophet, Chris Schluep (a.k.a. his editor at Villard) agreed to answer some of my questions about Pastafarianism’s unorthodox theology and its elusive prophet.

First of all, Schluep said, “He does actually exist.” Henderson is not the J.T. Leroy of the religion world. He’s a real guy who really wrote FSMism’s hot-off-the-presses “gospel.” And there is an actual pirate ship in the works. And it will have cannons (if not canons).

Henderson intends to use the pirate ship for “missionary” work, spreading Pastafarianism’s good news. It’s complicated (what doctrine isn’t?) but let me summarize:

Pastafarians believe that 5,000 years ago, an actual Flying Spaghetti Monster (pictured above and in a more artistic rendering a la Michelangelo at the top of the page) created the universe, including planet Earth. It was a rather underwhelming event, Henderson explains in his gospel, and took 0.062831853 seconds to complete. The Noodly Creator, as he is called, disguised the Earth to look a lot older than it actually is because he knew humans (scientists in particular) would want to figure out how things worked and he wanted to keep them entertained.

The Spaghetti Monster also created the heavens (which he populated with scantily clad women in see-through high-heels), a beer volcano and one midget, whom he installed on Earth and later gave a woman to get things started. Midgets are much loved by the Spaghetti Monster (who may or may not be “God” — Pastafarians are leaving that open-ended) and you can tell that because they’re short and that means he’s touched them with his Noodly Appendages more (which is how gravity really works, Henderson explains).

Oh, also, pirates are God’s chosen people. It’s the dramatic decline in the number of pirates in the world that has caused global warming, according to the Pastafarian gospel.

Henderson says Pastafarianism’s explanation of how the world came into being — its creation story — is just as valid a theory as “intelligent design” or evolution. The Spaghetti Monster is the intelligent designer.

The “Big Bang” was actually the Spaghetti Monster falling out of bed on the fifth day of creation after he’d spent too much time with the beer volcano. That was the day he created the midget, apparently, and so he decided to declare every Friday from then on as a holiday.

Which is why Friday is the Pastafarian sabbath, when the faithful are encouraged to take it easy and, if possible, get some sun.

Pastafarians also celebrate Pastover, Ramendan, (it’s a carbohydrate-based religion, after all) Halloween (because it marks a time when pirates roamed free), and International Talk Like a Pirate Day every Sept. 19 (it’s roughly their equivalent of Easter and the day they win the most converts because of all the grog, Henderson says in his gospel.)

There’s no dogma to speak of in FSMism, but the Spaghedeity did give his early followers the Eight “I’d Rather You Didnt’s,” chief among them being:

“I’d Really Rather You Didn’t Act Like A Sanctimonious, Holier-Than-Thou Ass When Describing My Noodly Goodness. If Some People Don’t Believe in Me, That’s Okay. Really, I’m Not That Vain. Besides, This Isn’t About Them So Don’t Change The Subject.”

Pastafarianism and its not-too-reluctant prophet, Henderson, really do skewer most organized religion. It’s not gentle or loving. It’s unabashedly snarky, but often there’s ample truth in satire. Henderson is trying to hold up a mirror. I recognized myself in it and managed to laugh through my mortification.

But does he have something against all organized religion, or Christianity in specific, I asked his deputy prophet and editor, Schluep.

“I don’t think Bobby has anything against religion in general,” Schluep said, noting that some of Henderson’s family members are quite religious and he worries about offending them. “I think it’s just when religion and society get a little too closely tied together, when it starts to affect policy, when it’s . . .”

“Bossy?” I offered.

“Exactly,” deputy prophet Schluep said.

Right.

And Noodly Goodness may not be used as a weapon.

It’s really hard to push anybody around with a wet noodle.

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