So yeah.. just read Trejkaz’s blog for the first time in ages and he mentions the Census is coming up. In fact, it’s due tomorrow.
He asked me what I was going to put for religion. Last year (and probably years before) there was an internet campaign to get people to put "JEDI" for their religion. Trejkaz has some weird one I’ve never heard of. . Check his blog to see what.
I was thinking about this and remembered recently introducing a friend at work to the "Church of the flying spaghetti monster". This may be my religion in the Census this year. What’s that? You don’t know about the Church of the flying spaghetti monster???!?! Shame on you!
Remember the pirate fish!
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage??? WELL HAVE YOU?
Here’s an excerpt nicked from the Wikipedia without permission of course cos this is a blog dammit and not a news article!
The Flying Spaghetti Monster is a deity of a parody religion founded by computer scientist Bobby Henderson in 2005 to protest the decision by the Kansas State Board of Education to require the teaching of intelligent design creationism as an alternative to biological evolution. In an open letter on his website, Henderson professes belief in a supernatural Creator entity that resembles spaghetti and meatballs called the Flying Spaghetti Monster, and calls for Pastafarianism to be taught in science classrooms, essentially invoking a reductio ad absurdum argument against the teaching of Intelligent Design.
Pastafarian heaven includes at least one "beer volcano" and one stripper factory. According to the Pastafarian belief system, pirates are "absolute divine beings" and the original Pastafarians. Their image as "thieves and outcasts" is all misinformation spread by Christian theologians of the Middle Ages. In reality, Pastafarianism says that they were "peace-loving explorers and spreaders of good will" who would distribute candy to children.
The inclusion of pirates into Flying Spaghetti Monsterism was part of Henderson’s original letter to the Kansas School Board, as a way of illustrating that correlation does not equal causation. In it, Henderson puts forth the argument that "global warming, earthquakes, hurricanes, and other natural disasters are a direct effect of the shrinking numbers of pirates since the 1800s." A chart accompanying the letter shows that as the number of pirates decreased, global temperatures increased, bringing attention to the fact that things with statistically significant correlations are nevertheless not necessarily related.
Hey! I just found this on the Wikipedia article. Looks like they are one step ahead of me….
There has also been a recent movement by Pastafarians in Australia to use the Census in Australia of 2006 to raise public awareness of Pastafarianism in a campaign similar to the Jedi census phenomenon, by asking Australians to record their religion as "Pastafarian" in the August 2006 Australian Census.[11]
I will have to pass this on to my friend. He will love it!
Edit….
Just rang him and yes he’s going to get all his mates in on it.. Also, I just found this about the religion Trejkaz is putting down:
Religion based on the belief that a girl named Haruhi is God. If she is not appeased, it is feasibly the world will be destroyed.
The blasphemous have started a new religion based on the teachings of Haruhiism, called Yukiism.
I’m surprised there’s not already Yuffie-ism! I’ve seen some ‘interesting’ images of her on the net.. mostly on Kazaa and similar P2P apps 
Sometimes with Tifa hehe.
August 10th, 2006 at 5:51 pm - Edit
Thing is, the notion of Haruhi being a god is supported by the storyline itself. So that makes Haruhiism somewhat stronger than something like Yuffie-ism, where someone arbitrarily picks a cool/cute/popular character to idolise.
Haruhiism could also be extended to the generalised notion that the world is created as if by the dreams of some person in the world itself. Maybe there is a more general term for that sort of philosophy that could be used in place of Haruhiism without necessarily being easily findable by way of Google.
I guess if the census people do hit Google to search on what I’ve put in, a few things could happen. They could try fining me… but that’s going to be hard for them to enforce. They could just do what they did with all the Jedis and outright ignore their vote. Or they could perhaps believe that it’s a legitimate belief system and leave the statistic as-is. I’m hoping for the latter, of course.
If all else fails I just pull out the typical Chaote strategy where you state that religion is something you can change at will in order to produce a change of mind suitable for what you’re trying to achieve at the time. I mean, who are they to dictate what I choose to believe?