The Church of The Flying Spaghetti Monster has its first elected official– Christopher Schaffer, a new town councilman in Pomfret, NY. In a (meat)ballsy move, the ordained Pastafarian minister sported a colander on his head for his January 2nd swearing-in ceremony.
The noodle-loving, strainer-sporting Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster (also referred to as Pastafarianism) was originally inspired by a 2005 letter from founder Bobby Henderson to the Kansas State Board of Education. In the letter, Henderson satirized creationism by equating it to a religion of his own creation, in which an enormous spaghetti deity changed the carbon-date of objects by touching them with “His Noodly Appendage.” After Henderson published the letter on his website, Pastafarianism rapidly gained followers, and although they maintain there’s no dogma to their carb-centric religion, they do claim a fondness for pirates and beer.
Here at Geekosystem we’ve been watching intently as awareness of The Flying Spaghetti Monster increases and its devotees gained the legal right to wear their regal strainer headdresses in government IDs. But the presence of an ordained Pastafarian minister in office seems to be a first for the non-religion (although hopefully not for long, it only takes twenty dollars to get officially ordained through Henderson’s website, and Obama would probably look dashing in a colander).
Although Christopher Schaffer’s religious allegiances seem to have surprised some of his constituents, we hope he won’t be in too much hot water, especially if he ever wants to run for mayor(inara). After all, the new councilman says he’s simply “looking forward to making sure that the town is run smoothly and we meet the needs of all of our citizens.” That’s something Pastafarians and creationists alike can hopefully say “Ramen” to.
(via Weird Universe, image via Team Mendeley)
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