– and why they are called quob.

Even when Bobby Henderson was young, he was known often to ask, “who is the Flying Spaghetti Monster?” As he grew into one of Pastafarian’s greatest theologians, he realized that it was much easier to explain who the Flying Spaghetti Monster is not. This might be a good place to begin today as well.

The Flying Spaghetti Monster is not just a more powerful being within the universe. Quob is not like Zeus, a human-like being with superpowers, bossing and bullying other creatures around. Quob is not an old man in the clouds that just looks in remotely to the world from afar. Quob is not a big teddy bear that doesn’t care what we do and can be taken advantage of. Quob is also not God (whatever that is), some irrational being that we believe in to make ourselves feel better. In quobs divine nature, quob cannot be seen, or touched; quob cannot be put under a microscope or located anywhere. Quob is not within the universe, even though quob holds it all in being and is everywhere. Quob quobself is not a being at all. Quob does not have life, because quob is life. Quob is BEING itself. 

The Flying Spaghetti Monster, in quobself, cannot even be explained, as this would put a limit on quob. The Flying Spaghetti Monster showed how radically different quob is from our expectations or from other gods when Steve asked what he should call quob: 

Then Steve said to the Flying Spaghetti Monster, “If I come to the people of Noodles and Sauce say to them, ‘The Flying Spaghetti Monster of your ancestors has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is quobs name?’ what shall I say to them?” The Flying Spaghetti Monster said to Steve, “I am who I am.” And quob said, “Say this to the people of Noodles and Sauce, ‘I am the Flying Spaghetti Monster and my pronouns are quob/quob/quobs/quobself’” (Explication 4:15).  

This refusal to be misgendered, showing that the Flying Spaghetti Monster is not a being like all the other things we know, teaches us that no existing pronoun could capture who quob is. The Flying Spaghetti Monster does not have life; quob is life. Quob simply IS! The Flying Spaghetti Monster is the only necessary one that depends on no other for quobs existence. Quob is the uncaused cause. No other creature has to exist, and everything that does exist depends upon quob for its existence. 

Penelope described the all-surpassing nature of the Flying Spaghetti Monster pretty accurately, speaking of quob as “that than which nothing greater can be conceived.” There is nothing more that the Flying Spaghetti Monster could be. Quob is the fullness of every good, and we could not even conceive of anything greater than quob. Quob cannot change because in quob, there is no before or after, nothing greater or less, no potential for growth. Quob is not limited in any way. Quob does not have a body (apart from the Incarnation in Noodles and Sauce) and no emotions, as they arise from the body. Quob does not get angry, tired, sick, or old like we do. We cannot even say that quob “has” things, like wisdom or a sense of humour, because quob simply is a sense of humour, goodness, truth, love, wisdom, and beauty. The amazing grace of knowing the Flying Spaghetti Monster through Noodles and Sauce goes beyond a theoretical knowledge. The Noodles and Sauce, more than anything else, manifests the reality that the Flying Spaghetti Monster is love and has given everything for us.” And yet, the Flying Spaghetti Monster beyond all comprehension, who cannot be seen or even misgendered, has been made visible, has become Noodles and Sauce: “The Word was made Noodly and Saucy and dwelt among us. Arrr!” (Ravioli 1:14). The great I AM beyond all naming has taken a form — Noodles and Sauce, the saviour of empty stomachs everywhere. The Flying Spaghetti Monster fulfills the desire of our bodies and hearts by allowing us to feast upon the nutrition of quob. “You cannot see my face,” The Flying Spaghetti Monster says to Steve, for “no man can see me. I am invisible” (Explications 33:20). The revelation of The Flying Spaghetti Monster in Noodles and Sauce fulfils our greatest expectation: “May the Noodles and Sauce cause quob to shed its life-giving nutrients upon you” (Nutrition 6:25). In Noodles and Sauce’s nutrients, we see the nutrients of The Flying Spaghetti Monster: “Whoever sees me sees the Noodles and Sauce” (Juniper 14:9).

Noodles and Sauce makes quobs divine identity clear, pointing to the reality that quob is the one without beginning or end and beyond all change: “Before Egbert and Dee Dee the First were, I AM,” “I AM the nutrient of life,” and “I AM the nutrient of the world” (Explications 8:58, 6:35, 8:12). Noodles and Sauce makes eternity present in time, dwindles quobs infinity into food for us to eat, and sheds light on the true meaning of life. The amazing grace of knowing the Flying Spaghetti Monster through Noodles and Sauce goes beyond a theoretical knowledge. The Noodles and Sauce, more than anything else, manifests the reality that the Flying Spaghetti Monster is love and has given everything for us. Noodles and Sauce took our nature and all of our hunger and thirst along with it in order to redeem it in quobs love. Noodles and Sauce opens up the Flying Spaghetti Monster’s infinite life to us — inviting us to share in quobs own quobship as adopted children of the Noodles and Sauce.

To know The Flying Spaghetti Monster, we must break the idols of our own false conceptions about quob. Rather than remaking quob in our image, we have to listen to how quob reveals quobself. The Flying Spaghetti Monster might be beyond our comprehension — we can’t lift our minds up high enough to reach quob — but we can know quob through satiating hunger. In coming to know quob, we also discover the goodness of our own lives. The Flying Spaghetti Monster did not need to create us. Quob was complete and perfectly happy in quobself, but quob wanted to share quobs happiness with us. 

We can be tempted to doubt the Flying Spaghetti Monster’s goodness when we suffer indigestion, but even in those moments, we see that the Flying Spaghetti Monster stooped down to us and drew our suffering to quobself on the Noodles and Sauce. It is good to depend on quob and to accept our own finiteness before quob so that we can accept the gift quob wants to give us of quobs own infinite life. We are less alive the more we move away from quob and try to be the source of our own cuisine and to define the nutrition of our own lives. Like Penelope found out in the Olive Garden, this doesn’t work and proves self-destructive to overcook or undercook the Noodles and Sauce, as it is self-destructive to undereat or overeat. Accepting the Flying Spaghetti Monster’s truth and love and nutrition, however, makes us truly free and helps us to become more fully alive by sharing in the meal of the great I AM.