KindleLink to interview.The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, or Pastafarianism, turned into a phenomenon, appealing to scientists, academics and many others, who flock to Henderson's website to pick up FSM mugs and T-shirts, play games and learn about other school boards hostile to evolutionary thought. The site now draws as many as 2 million hits a day.
Meanwhile, public debate over intelligent design is intensifying. One Georgia suburb recently put warnings on biology texts stating evolution was "a theory, not a fact," prompting a legal challenge by the American Civil Liberties Union heard last Thursday in the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals -- a ruling is expected next year. And Tuesday, a federal judge ruled that intelligent design couldn't be mentioned in biology classes in Pennsylvania public schools, deciding a closely watched case that evolved from a Dover, Pennsylvania, school board policy that steered students to the intelligent design textbook Of Pandas and People.
Now Henderson -- a 25-year-old physics graduate -- has banked a reported $80,000 advance for the still unfinished The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, scheduled for publication in March. He isn't talking much publicly while he writes, but he took time for an exclusive conversation with Wired News about the Gospel, a future influenced by intelligent design, and his plans to build a pirate ship to convert heathens.
Previous Boing Boing posts about FSM and Pastafarianism.
See also Federal judge rules on Dumbass Design: science wins
Reader comment: Dougal Campbell says,
When I saw your entry about the Gospel of FSM book, I immediately checked out the page about it at Random House. However, I was disappointed to see that it's being filed under "Fiction, Humorous", rather than in "Religion, Bible, Reference", where it belongs. Shouldn't we be petitioning them to fix this grievous error?