Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Could Paul the Octopus be the great prophet of the Pastafarians?

If you have lived in a cave the past few weeks, maybe you haven't heard of Paul the Octopus. Named for a German Children's poem by Boy Lorensen Der Tintenfisch Paul Oktopus, he lives in an aquarium in Germany and has made a name for himself by accurately predicting the winners of various games of the World Cup Football games. (By the way, that's soccer to anyone from America whom football is somewhat akin to rugby in Europe. Its a very American game played by overpaid, injury prone semi-athletes, who play in ever more expensive sports stadiums which suck valuable tax revenue from more deserving projects like fixing sewers, improving schools and the like, but I digress). Anyway, Paul has a relatively good record, predicting according to some reports 85% of the wins of the various contests he has been asked to make a prediction on, including the championship match which Spain won. According to his Facebook page, Paul has officially retired from making soccer predictions.

However, Paul's brief career as a prophet has earned him the love and contempt of Football fans everywhere. Love from the fans who have benefited from his predictions and contempt and Octopus preparation recipes from those who have not. In this brief time, I have started to wonder if Paul could be a great prophet of the Pastafarian religion.

For the uninitiated, Pastafarians are those who believe in the God of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, who was created by a computer programmer in Nevada as a contemptuous response to new school standards proposed by the Kansas State Board of Education. He reasoned that if they believed that God created the Earth in 6 days, he could equally believe that a Flying Spaghetti Monster cold do so as well and that his "religion" deserved just as equal respect by the school board.

I have read nothing of the Pastafarian faith, but reason that this religion, like many others has a great prophet or messiah who would arrive to save the world from its ills. Paul bears an uncanny resemblance to the great deity.
Now one must remember that Paul was the name of the first Christian prophet and evangelist, who spread the good word far and wide for all to hear. Now this Paul, being a denizen of the sea, has proven unable to do that, being unable to leave his tank. And with death threats and sushi recipes following him around, he might be ill advised to do so. However, Paul is not without his supporters and the faithful of the Pastafarian movement might be ones to jump on the bandwagon of the prognosticating cephalopod. Heck, it can't be any crazier than any one believing in some of the other lunacy of those who take the worlds various religions seriously. However, we must not denigrate the words other, more well recognized prophets. After all, all they have brought is peace, love and brotherhood, avoiding centuries of bloodshed, right?

2 comments:

Michelle aka Naila Moon said...

You are so crazy! Loved this blog, it certainly made me laugh.
Sounds good to me! ;-)

spacestevie said...

Under the category of great minds think alike, it seems I am not the first to come to this conclusion:

http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Curiosity-Shop/entry/is-paul-the-psychic-octopus

RAMEN! I have been touched by his noodly appendage.

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I am interested in CNG vehicles because they are good for the environment and aren't powered by dead Marines. I still have a little hope for the world. Read the musings and enjoy.