First Recognized Pastafarian Wedding

Last week the world witnessed its first official Pastafarian wedding. The wedding was held in New Zealand, one of the few countries that recognize The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster as a true religion (Microsoft Word doesn’t even recognize Pastafarain as a real word!). The couple, Toby Ricketts and Marianna Fenn, dressed as pirates, which is custom for Pastafarians as they believe that humans are descendants of pirates and that many of the worlds problems are caused by the shrinking number of pirates. For the rings, they used balls of pasta called rigatoni, and for their kiss, they slurped the either end of a noodle until they met in the middle. Karen Martyn, an ordained “ministeroni” was able to conduct the wedding due to New Zealand’s recognition of Pastafarianism. As you can imagine, it was a fun-loving wedding with much laughter and cheer.

The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster has been met with mixed views. It started in 2005 when Bobby Henderson wrote to the Kansas State Board of Education in protest of teaching intelligent design in schools. He said that according to his beliefs, a flying spaghetti monster created the universe and that if they didn’t teach his theory as well, he would take legal action. While this may seem just silly, it really addressed the issues of freedom of religion and teaching intelligent design in school. There are many theories of intelligent design, and if one is taught, they all must be taught. The Church of FSM has been a platform to challenge ideas of religious freedom and mainstream religion, but is Pastafarianism becoming more than just a political and religious statement?

At the wedding, the bride stated: “I would never have agreed to a conventional marriage, but the idea of this was too good to pass up, and a wonderful opportunity to celebrate my relationship with Toby, but in a way that I felt comfortable and fun.” Martyn, the ministeroni, said that Russia just got its first physical FSM church and that more couples have been looking to get a Pastafarian wedding. The religion is growing, and not just as a statement about teaching intelligent design; it’s taking the place of conventional religions. Many people are moving away from conventional religions and the FSM church can be a place for them to express themselves in a way that they are comfortable. It’s a new kind of religion, one where having fun and being kind/non-discriminatory are more important that truly believing the doctrine.

Pastafarianism is gaining recognition and rights. They can now wear colanders in driver’s license photos and the first Pastafarian politician, Christopher Schaeffer, was sworn into office wearing a pasta colander. For some, it’s just a statement about religious freedom. For others it seems to be taking the place of mainstream religion, fitting the needs for many who are unhappy with conventional religion. Either way, Pastafarianism is looking to be more than just a fad.

-Samuel True

Sources:

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/04/16/474510676/holy-macaroni-welcome-to-the-first-ever-official-pastafarian-wedding

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-36062126

 

The Changing Face of Religion

Like most everything, religion must adapt and change with the times in order to survive. Religion today looks much different than it did even a hundred years ago. Millennial specifically have grown up in a time dramatically different than previous generations. With the increase in technology of phones, computers, and the media, millennials have been called the most connected generation yet, while also being the most isolated of physical community. These massive changes in communication have led to religion evolving rather quickly, with social media playing a large role.

Previous generations were more limited by location and technology. In order to get educated, you had to go to school. To be religious, you went to church or your religious meeting place. Now you can go to school or find religious teachings online without ever leaving the house. This allows you to shape your ideals to better fit yourself as an individual. Many young adults are starting to call themselves spiritual instead of religious, allowing themselves to keep ties to religion while being independent from organized religion, but what has made organized religion so unappealing?

Millennials tend to be focused on individualism, and it’s not hard to see why. With the advances in media and technology, young adults are exposed to a myriad of ideas, beliefs, music, fashion, lifestyles, and more. Having a unique blend of these things can be what makes you you! This can make prescribing to a strict organized religion conflict with young adults desire for individuality. Previous generations would find community at their church or particular religion, but social media has given this generation a massive community with different ideas and beliefs at the touch of a button. Being exposed to so many different beliefs can also make it harder to believe that an organized religion really has all the right answers.

When you cut ties to organized religion, certain barriers come down such as sexuality, homosexuality, abortion, and even politics. The percentage of millenials that believe homosexual relations and abortion is wrong is decreasing every year, making a religion against these things unappealing. Some churches have begun to adapt to this by allowing homosexual pastors and leaders. They have also begun to focus on education instead of conviction to try to appeal to the younger generation. By discussing what’s going on in the media and the world while being respectful to different beliefs, they are allowing young adults to make informed opinions about important life choices.

While in general millenials are moving away from organized religion, some have actually been increasing such as evangelical mega churches. Other churches and religions have begun to adapt by changing what they have previously condemned and making a more accepting environment to different viewpoints. Either way, the advances in technology have created an online community that is starting to take the place of physical communities such as the church.

Source:

http://www.trivalleycentral.com/casa_grande_dispatch/arizona_news/millennials-reshaping-the-face-of-religion/article_ae956086-e2fb-11e5-9dc9-775c9511ef1d.html

Decisions of Death

Take a moment and think about what gives your life meaning. Is it your work? Your friends and family? Your hobbies? Now imagine that you have been diagnosed with a terminal illness. You’re suffering from constant pain and emotional distress. You can only see your friends and family from your hospital bed and there’s no treatment that can help. At this point, some patients see no value in living and request for physician-assisted death.

According to procon.org, Oregon was the first of five states to legalize physician-assisted death with its 1994 Death With Dignity Act. California, Vermont, Washington, and Montana legalized it more than ten years later, with California being the latest to legalize in late 2015. Physician-assisted death remains illegal in the rest of the United States and is a hotly debated issue. According to a Pew Research Center survey, 66% of U.S. adults in 2013 believed that some patients should be allowed to die compared to 73% in 1990. The number of adults who believe a doctor should always try and save the patients life has doubled since 1990, from 15% to 31% in 2013, showing a significant increase in people against physician-assisted death.

Of course there are some religious groups that tend to be more against physician-assisted death than others. The conservative Christians tend to be more pro-life when it comes to pregnancy and end-of-life medical treatment while the liberal and unaffiliated tend to be more pro-choice on these kinds of issues. While most people know these general trends of belief, we must look at specific religious affiliations and ethnicities to get the full picture. According to the Pew Research Center, 85% of unaffiliated adults say that a person has the moral right to suicide when they are suffering from an untreatable illness, while only 42% of white evangelical protestants and black protestants agree. After unaffiliated, white mainline protestants are the second highest agreeing group at 71%. After that is white Catholics with 67% and then Hispanic Catholics at 56%. From this we can see that specific religious affiliations as well as ethnicities play a large roll in preferences of end-of-life medicine.

Peoples religious and ethnic backgrounds play a large role in their world views and beliefs, as is seen with their belief in the morality of physician-assisted death. Physician-assisted death is only legal in five states and it will most likely be a while before more states decide to legalize it, seeing as how the current trend is that more people disagree with physician-assisted death. While religion plays a large role in this view, it is also apparent that generalizations that religious people disagree with physician-assisted death don’t show the entire picture, as these views depend very much on the specific religious affiliation.

-Samuel True

Sources can be found at:

http://www.pewforum.org/2013/11/21/views-on-end-of-life-medical-treatments/

http://euthanasia.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=000132