Jimmy Akin, Pirates and the Flying Spaghetti Monster
September 19 is International Talk Like a Pirate Day (ITLAPD), a parodic holiday created in 1995 by John Baur and Mark Summers, who proclaimed September 19 each year as the day when everyone in the world should talk like a pirate.
Today, the initiative still sparks a lot of creativity and many jokes on social networks like Twitter and Facebook.
The Flying Spaghetti Monster
Over time, the parody was embraced by fans of another parody – of religion this time: the so called ‘Pastafarians’, followers of the “Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster”.
According to Wikipedia (link), the Flying Spaghetti Monster “first appeared in a satirical open letter written by Bobby Henderson in 2005, protesting the decision by the Kansas State Board of Education to permit the teaching of intelligent design as an alternative to evolution in public school science classes.”
“In the letter, Henderson parodied the concept of intelligent design by professing belief in a supernatural creator that closely resembles spaghetti and meatballs. Henderson further called for Flying Spaghetti Monsterism to be allotted equal time in science classrooms alongside intelligent design and evolution.”
Pirates
According to Pastafarian “beliefs”, pirates are “absolute divine beings” and the original Pastafarians. The depiction of pirates as “thieves and outcasts” would be misinformation spread by Christian theologians in the Middle Ages.
In his letter, Henderson presented the argument that “global warming, earthquakes, hurricanes, and other natural disasters are a direct effect of the shrinking numbers of pirates since the 1800s.”
With the addition of pirates to his satire, Henderson parodied the suggestion from some religious groups that the high numbers of disasters, famines and wars in the world are due to the lack of respect and worship towards God.
‘Followers’ of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster are encouraged to observe ITLAPD each year and talk like a pirate would for the entire day, even at work.
Jimmy Akin
In a recent episode of his new podcast, Catholic apologist Jimmy Akin offers an in-depth discussion of the Flying Spaghetti Monster phenomenon and its implied reasoning.
Click here to listen and to subscribe:
http://www.jimmyakin.org/2011/09/podcast-episode-011-jimmy-vs-the-flying-spaghetti-monster.html
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