Son of Intelligent Design

Actually, the Flying Spaghetti Monster is more an outgrowth of intelligent design. The sons of intelligent design will be "sudden emergence" or "abrupt beginnings" or some other junk science that will be pulled over the public's eyes. If it looks like creationism, it smells like creationism, and it sounds like creationism, it must be intelligent design....or sudden emergence....or something.

Worship of the Flying Spaghetti Monster - "Pastafarianism" as it is known to its adherents - began as a whimsical side dish in last year's standoff between advocates of evolution and intelligent design. FSM, as it is known to its followers, took shape in a protest letter to Kansas officials who were embroiled in a controversy about how to teach students about the origins of life. The parody religion leapt from those pages to become an Internet phenomenon, finding fans among supporters of the theory of evolution - and receiving e-mailed threats of bodily harm from evolution's opponents.

"I wrote the letter for my own amusement as much as anything. And it totally snowballed. Some people say I'm going to hell," says FSM's 25-year-old creator, Bobby Henderson, who recently moved from Oregon to Arizona, partly to escape the uproar.

It looks like the story behind the story all these months later is that proponents of intelligent design are a violent bunch. Judge Jones, the prophet Bobby Henderson...

Seriously, before anyone thinks I'm pimping for FSM, this is no disrespect to those who have faith. I'm a person of faith, for Buddha's sake. (Believe it or not, my faith is in the goodness of human beings, aka the true self, aka buddhanature. I know, read the newspaper and the goodness of human beings doesn't seem possible. Go ahead. Laugh.) It is disrespect, though, for the ID snake oil salesmen who try to claim that the "designer" could be anyone or anything. Fine, then make way for FSM. And don't forget Mike Argento's theory that cows think in spanish.

Andy in the HBG