Official: Pastafarianism is not a religion
PR dla Zagranicy
Nick Hodge
22.10.2014 11:17
Poland's Ministry of Digitisation and Administration has upheld an earlier ruling that the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster cannot be registered as a legitimate religious body.
Image: wikipedia
The ministry was compelled to reconsider its initial 2013 decision after the church successfully appealed to Warsaw's Regional Administrative Court in April this year.
Nevertheless, the ministry has reaffirmed its conviction that Pastafarianism is a “parody of religion,” as described in the latest ruling.
The ministry argues that “an organisation cannot be recognised as a religious community if it does not have any rituals involving the worship of the sacred.”
Pastafarianism emerged in the United States in 2005, after physics student Bobby Henderson protested against the Kansas State Board of Education's decision to permit the teaching of intelligent design as an alternative to creationism in science classes.
According to Pastafarians, the world was created by Flying Spaghetti Monster ('His Noodliness').
In a statement released by the Polish wing of COFSM, the organisation vowed to challenge the ruling, first by submitting an appeal to the ministry, and if that fails, returning to court.
“The whole matter of the registration of our church only serves to show incompetence, bad faith as well as practices that undermine confidence in the institution of the Ministry of Digitisation and Administration,” the statement concluded. (nh)
Source: IAR