Readers. I am all for religious freedom. After all, my God allows people to believe whatever they wish to believe even when they are wrong, so who am I to deny them the chance to burn eternally for their misguided belief systems. The fact that I, myself, am probably also wrong doesn't escape my attention...until I remember that I am always right...just ask my ex.
So when I read that Niko Alm was being harassed for his religious beliefs, I was instantly outraged.
Niko belongs to a church of thousands. This church follows the holy book The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster and they worship pasta.
Niko is studying to become a Pastafarian, and has recently applied for his license to minister to Olive Garden and Carrabbas.
Niko's troubles began when he tried to get his drivers license. He wanted to wear his "Holy Colander" in the picture and Austrian officials at the DMV said no.
This set Niko on a course for justice and vindication. Personally, I like laughing...so if someone wants to wander around town wearing pasta strainers for hats, I say let them.
Niko has claimed that he is being discriminated because of his religion.
The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster is the creation of satire write Bobby Henderson. He came up with idea when arguing against the practice of intelligent design being taught in Kansas schools. He wrote a letter to the State of Kansas' Board of Education that parodied the idea of creation via a deity. This led him to write a 200 page book about the Gospel of his "Deity".
In the "Gospel", followers are told that an invisible pasta creature created beer and then drunkenly created earth and all things in it, including two midgets called man and woman. These midgets lived happily in the "Olive Garden of Eden" until an accident forced them to flee.
This led to the midgets becoming pirates and giving candy to small children and singing campfire songs. These goodly souls were hated for their religious knowledge and later vilified by other religions as being murderers and thieves.
Henderson tried to correlate the decline of pirates with global warming and showed on his charts that as pirates vanished, temperatures rose. This is why they celebrate National Talk Like A Pirate Day on September 19th. They celebrate by dressing up as the goodly misunderstood pirates of the past and watch Tampa Bay lose in football.
The "Gospel" lays out some other holidays, including one called "Holiday" that takes place around the time of Chanukah and Christmas. This is celebrated by protesting the eating of Pasta unless prepared by a Pastafarian. The Pastafarians give you the body of their god along with garlic bread and a side of marinara sauce. They also celebrate a holiday called Ramendan which is around the same time as Ramadan, except instead of fasting and prayer...you get drunk and be gluttonous.
With beliefs like these, I think wearing serving ware on his head is the least of Niko's problems. Diabetes and liver spots are probably the most severe obstacles that he will face in following his 'prophets' examples.
Of course instead of protesting for the right to wear a hat, maybe he should preach in Supermarkets and Italian places around Austria. This would likely earn him much more publicity than this issue with the DMV. He could explain the beliefs and how to celebrate each holiday and after he gets beaten up, I am sure he will be in headlines once again.
As you can see, this was one of the suggestions that I offered to talk about so by it appearing here today, it is not the topic that was chosen for my college paper.
Stay Tuned for More Details!
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