God vs. The Flying Spaghetti Monster

Why Theism Isn't Noodle-Headed

So, The Flying Spaghetti monster—let’s talk about this.

Effectively, the idea is that theism is unreasonable (or just plain stupid) because it is no better motivated than believing in a creator or designer that is, essentially, a sentient ball of noodle appendages that can somehow fly. It’s a funny example; it gives me a chuckle every time I think about it.  But is it really an effective parody of theism?

First, a little background. Here’s the history of the spaghetti monster, as told by my friend—perhaps, at times, my only friend—Chat GPT:

The Flying Spaghetti Monster (FSM) is a satirical figure created by Bobby Henderson in 2005 as part of a parody religion known as Pastafarianism. Henderson introduced the Flying Spaghetti Monster in an open letter to the Kansas State Board of Education to protest the teaching of intelligent design alongside evolution in public schools. He humorously argued that if intelligent design should be taught, then the existence of a divine being like the Flying Spaghetti Monster—a deity made of spaghetti and meatballs—should also be presented as a valid theory.

Pastafarianism is a tongue-in-cheek critique of religious literalism and the push to include non-scientific theories in educational curricula. Its followers, known as Pastafarians, claim that the FSM created the universe after "drinking heavily," and that evidence of evolution is simply a test of faith. The religion is not meant to be taken seriously, but rather to highlight the importance of the separation of church and state, especially in education.

The FSM has since become a symbol of religious parody, often invoked in discussions about the role of religion in public policy and science education.

As the robot points out, the Flying Spaghetti Monster has become a general symbol of religious parody. These days, it’s often invoked as an objection to belief in God—basically a version of the “sky-daddy” argument (sorry—”argument”).

So, is belief in God really no better, rationally speaking, than belief in the Flying Spaghetti Monster?

To address this, we need to consider the notion of relevant differences. In other words, are the motivations for theism the same as those for believing in the Flying Spaghetti Monster, or is theistic belief different in important ways that make belief in God reasonable without having to accept belief in a Flying Spaghetti Monster? Most of us, I think, would agree that belief in a Flying Spaghetti Monster is not well-motivated.

To answer the question of relevant differences, however, we need to look at the ways people have historically thought about or argued for the existence of God.

If we consider traditional arguments—such as those from Aristotle, Plotinus, or Aquinas—it becomes clear, almost immediately, that the Flying Spaghetti Monster is not an effective parody. For example, one major line of thought among Neo-Platonists is that all composite objects (anything “made up” of parts) must have a cause, and that whatever is truly fundamental or ultimate must be absolutely, ontologically simple. Reasons are then provided for why an absolutely simple being, whose essence just is its existence, is rightly called God (for those interested, I detail these extensively in my book). But the Flying Spaghetti Monster, being a composite entity with many different types of parts (both physical and, more importantly for traditional theistic arguments, metaphysical), clearly does not meet this criterion.

So, we see a relevant difference: what motivates theism in this respect does not equally motivate belief in the Flying Spaghetti Monster. In fact, if these traditional arguments hold any weight, they would just as easily prove that the Flying Spaghetti Monster, if it did exist, could not be truly ultimate or ontologically independent. It would have to have some further cause or explanation for its existence.

Similarly, if we follow Aristotle’s argument from motion, where anything moving from potentiality to actuality—which is Aristotle's metaphysical analysis of change—must ultimately be moved by that which is purely actual (I’m skipping a ton of steps, of course), this also rules out the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Being susceptible to change—even in the angles of its noodly appendages—it could not be the immutable being of pure actuality. Again, we have another clear relevant difference.

Of course, I’m not detailing or defending these traditional arguments at length here—just highlighting enough of their features to show that, if one finds these traditional lines of thought convincing (which I do), then the Flying Spaghetti Monster is no real threat. The parody fails. Sorry, Pastafarians.

In fact, even if we consider more contemporary arguments from contingency, the Flying Spaghetti Monster doesn’t fare particularly well. After all, it’s described in such a way as to exhibit all the usual features that imply contingency—features that suggest it is not the sort of thing that could be necessary in itself (himself?) or truly ontologically ultimate.

Joshua Rasmussen, for example, argues that anything with arbitrary limits—sudden, unexplained cut-offs in terms of power, geometry, knowledge, etc.—always points beyond itself for further explanation. Clearly, the Flying Spaghetti Monster is arbitrarily limited—it has only so many noodly appendages of certain strength, length, and so on. God, however, is not arbitrarily limited but qualitatively unrestricted along relevant dimensions: immaterial (no restricting shape), omnipotent (no restricted power), omniscient (no restricted knowledge), and perfectly good (no restricted goodness or value).

Again, there are obvious relevant differences, meaning that what motivates theism in this respect does not equally motivate belief in the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Sorry again, Pastafarians!

OK, so whether we look at traditional metaphysical arguments for God or more contemporary contingency arguments, it’s clear that the Spaghetti Monster is obviously not a good objection. If set against arguments of this sort, it shows a powerful lack of understanding of what these arguments are even up to. Again, I’m not interested in fully detailing or defending these arguments now (I do that in my book), only showing why objections along Pastafarian lines are clearly not good ones.

Let’s turn now to another way of motivating God’s existence: inference to the best explanation. Perhaps the Spaghetti Monster will fare better in these debates—or perhaps not. Let’s find out.

So, the basic idea of this approach is to compare different hypotheses and see which can explain the most with the least—generally speaking. That is, we want to hit the ideal balance, if we can, between explanatory comprehensiveness and theoretical simplicity. As many theists argue, theism has enormous explanatory power, and there’s a strong case to be made that it’s an extremely simple and elegant theory—perhaps the simplest and most elegant of all—especially if we think simplicity matters most at the fundamental level.

Classical theism, in particular, with its commitment to the idea that goodness is naturally self-diffusive, anticipates that if God creates, He will create a world with an enormous hierarchy of beings that exhibits layered structures, is generally orderly, stable, and in many respects beautiful—and importantly, that it will include persons. God, being omnipotent, clearly has the ability to bring these states of affairs about, since omnipotence is the power to bring about any possibility of being. Finally, classical theism is a very simple theory because everything that isn’t God is grounded in God (or God’s will), and God Himself is just one ontologically simple entity with no arbitrary limits or complexity. Dang—that seems like a pretty good theory, and, indeed, I argue that it is, even when considering the data of suffering and evil, often thought to be the strongest anomaly for theism—in my book.

What about the Spaghetti Monster, then? Honestly, not so much. First, the being is obviously limited and not omnipotent, so there’s no reason to think it could produce much of anything. Even if it’s described as extremely powerful, it’s still clearly a physical being and so cannot possibly account for all physical reality (since self-causation is absurd), unlike God (who is not self-caused but a necessary immaterial being). In this sense, the Spaghetti Monster is deficient in explanatory comprehensiveness—there is something, namely, the physical realm, that God can explain but the Spaghetti Monster cannot. Given its other limitations, the Spaghetti Monster also doesn’t seem able to explain much else that God can, such as order, stability, integrated complexity, teleology, etc. The monster assumes all these things, whereas God—as classical theists understand Him, as the absolutely simple, incomposite, undirected director of everything—explains them. But heck, even if the Spaghetti Monster could account for some things, there is no reason to expect that such a limited being, which, just by getting drunk, would create anything that resembles a world like ours. But theists have very God reason to think that God, just by his nature (no alcohol required) would create a world like ours!

As for simplicity, the Spaghetti Monster is a huge mess. It’s riddled with arbitrary limits and complexity, so much so that almost anyone would immediately rule it out as a viable contender—it’s just so internally improbable given all that complexity. Not only that, but you also have to add the further complexity of this being creating whatever it did because it got drunk—another huge cost—which, as we’ve seen, does nothing to increase its predictive power.

Really, on all accounts, the Spaghetti Monster is a terrible objection because it’s a terrible attempt at parody. There’s a reason you don’t find serious, sophisticated atheists throwing this objection around—they know it’s stupid!

However, I am grateful for the invention of the Spaghetti Monster. For one thing, it’s good for a laugh, but beyond that, it’s useful in allowing the theist to spell out why their belief is actually well-motivated, whereas the Spaghetti Monster isn’t. Interestingly enough, many of the reasons for preferring the existence of God over the Spaghetti Monster also apply when considering God versus any natural or physical reality as ultimate or fundamental. And these are useful things to think about.