Читать книгу The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster - Bobby Henderson - Страница 6

DEAR FRIEND,

Welcome to the wonderful world of religion!

These are exciting times in holiness—politicians are crusading, nations are invading, and science¹ is fading. With these changes come religious opportunities the likes of which haven’t been seen since the Reformation … or at least since the persecuted masses first huddled together and shipped off from Old Blighty to that great democratic revival meeting we call the United States of America.

With this in mind, the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster (FSM) invites you to learn a little more about us. We’d like to tell you all about our Heaven, which features a Stripper Factory and a giant Beer Volcano. We’d love to see you dressed in His chosen garb: full Pirate regalia. We want you to enjoy Fridays as His chosen holiday. But first you need to know a little more about us.

What do we stand for?

• All that is good.

What are we against?

• All that isn’t good.

Sounds sweet, right? Of course it’s not that simple, and that’s why we need a book. (Doesn’t every religion have a book?) The Jews have the Bible (The Old Testicle), the Christians have ditto (The New Testicle), the Muslims have the Q-tip or whatever, the Jains have Fun with Dick and Jain, the Sufis have Sufis Up!, the Buddhists have the Bananapada, the Hindus have Ten Little Indians, the Wiccans have The Witches of Eastwick, and so on. If this was a manifesto, a pamphlet, a flyer, an article, or some nut preaching from a street corner, you, fair reader, might perceive FSMism² to be just another two-bit cult. But we’re not a cult (we’re more like a boutique religion at this point), and this is a book that will stand up to any of the others—at least in terms of strict plausibility if not literary finesse and retributive beheadings and disembowelments. The more you read about us the more you’re going to be persuaded that the Flying Spaghetti Monster is the true Creator and that FSMism just might be the Best. Religion. Ever.

Go ahead. Try us for thirty days. If you don’t like us, your old religion will most likely take you back. Unless it’s the Jains, whose feelings are easily hurt.

RAmen.

BOBBY HENDERSON

Prophet

1. Also known as the language of the forked tongue.

2. Also known as “Pastafarianism”.