Flying Spaghetti Monster is Popular With Bloggers

Posted on November 26, 2005

Bobby Henderson, created the Flying Spaghetti Monster, which has become a blog phenomenon. Since being mentioned on Boing Boing in June the FSM has spread around the blogosphere and the Internet. Recently, the originator of the FSM signed a book deal to bring the Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster to print. The FSM was originally created in an open letter written by Bobby Henderson to the Kansas Board of Education, which was trying to force intelligent design, which is religion and not science, to be taught in science classes in Kansas high schools. The letter urged the Kansas Board of Education to add the Flying Spaghetti Monster as well.

I am writing you with much concern after having read of your hearing to decide whether the alternative theory of Intelligent Design should be taught along with the theory of Evolution. I think we can all agree that it is important for students to hear multiple viewpoints so they can choose for themselves the theory that makes the most sense to them. I am concerned, however, that students will only hear one theory of Intelligent Design.
Let us remember that there are multiple theories of Intelligent Design. I and many others around the world are of the strong belief that the universe was created by a Flying Spaghetti Monster. It was He who created all that we see and all that we feel. We feel strongly that the overwhelming scientific evidence pointing towards evolutionary processes is nothing but a coincidence, put in place by Him.

The Kansas Board of Education eventually did add intelligent design but not the Flying Spaghetti Monster theory. In a BlogPulse interview (no longer available), Bobby Henderson talks about traffic to the FSM website, the Kansas Board of Education and pirates. Henderson said the website now gets over 2 million hits daily.

Henderson says, "It's received well over 100 million hits now, currently at about 1 to 2 million/day (including hot-linked images, which I totally support - helps spread the propaganda). I have received more than 18,000 e-mails, currently 5,800 unread. I get anywhere from 50 to 300 e-mails a day, depending on the news."

Technorati shows over 5,000 results for Flying Spaghetti Monster and 2,500 posts for FSM. BlogPulse.com also lists over 5,000 posts for Flying Spaghetti Monster and 2,500 posts for FSM.

The official Church of the Flying Sphagetti Monster is located at venganza.org. You can find an interesting research article about FSM here. Gelf Magazine also has an article which includes an interview with Bobby Henderson. You can find more information about FSM in the Wikipedia entry.

Update: Here is the cover of The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster by Bobby Henderson, which was published by Villard Books in March 2006.