Flying Spaghetti Monster



The Flying Spaghetti Monster is a fictitious character invented to parody God, which has become popular in anticreationist and anti-Intelligent Design circles. It was created in 2005 to protest the decision by the Kansas State Board of Education to require the teaching of intelligent design.

Intention, Comparisons and Contrasts
The intention of the parody is to ridicule the idea of Intelligent Design (ID) being taught in schools, by claiming that if ID is taught, the creation of the world by the Flying Spaghetti Monster has as much right to be taught as well. The parody misses its mark, however, as it overlooks some key factors that make it different to Intelligent Design.

The following table compares and contrasts a number of similarities and differences between the Flying Spaghetti Monster, evolution, Intelligent Design, and the creation model.



Anticreationists and anti-ID proponents repeatedly "overlook" that people who propose teaching Intelligent Design and/or creation in science classes are actually proposing that scientific evidence consistent with those viewpoints be taught. Proposing to teach other "theories" that lack meaningful scientific evidence is not an equivalent situation, but simply a case of refusing to address the issues. This lack of equivalence makes the Flying Spaghetti Monster an example of the straw man fallacy.