2001 - In front of thousands of believers and accolates, the Flying Spaghetti Monster is chopped up, saute'd, seasoned with garlic and grated Romano Cheese, then set in a large wooden bowl inside of a Palestinian cave for three days.
When he appears intact three days, later, and performs a variety of miracles, including turning water into single malt scotch, he heads to China to reform their ecological system, then on to Utah, to laugh at the Mormons in person (in appendage?). On his way, a whole slew of other miracles take place.
To the faithful FSM followers, this holiday is known as Wester, and they uniformly follow the one strict rule from their leader - not a single Chocolate Bunny or the chocolate eggs they lay can be harmed during the ongoing celebation.
More below the Pirate Flag. arrrrrr.
One horrible result of the growing popularity of the FSM, is the concurrent rise of a disease that can only be called, Pteromerhano-Cibo-TeratoPhobia, or P-C-Terp, as psychiatrists are beginning to call it.
P-C-Terp, put simply, is the horrifying, baseless, inordinate, and severely disabling fear of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. What is shocking is just how widespread and devastating this mental illness has become. The sufferers are quickly identifiable by their words, and even more so, by their actions. By causing random chemical-electrical storms in the pre-frontal cortex, as well as the frontal lobes, sufferers display a sudden onset of delusional thoughts, incoherent framing of political theories, and a uniform blaming of "liberals and communists" for troubles often created by political entities to whom they are most attracted.
At first, scientists were confused and without a clue as to the cause of what people had been previously describing as rampant Tea Buggerism. The initial signs were talking irrationally, taking economic decisions that would cause severe discomfort, even distress to themselves and their loved ones, creating signs with truly ineffably spelled signs, and a bizarre preference for guns and a religious book (as well as a strange attraction for a two bit hack politician from Alaska).
Both political and social scientists, as well as many professionals in the psychiatric field, were initially convinced that this was simply a manifestation of some poorly educated, financially strapped, elder white males who were convinced by Talk Radio and other ultra-conservative sources, that all of their woes, troubles, and financial difficulties were caused by this imaginary, amorphous creation ominously called "The Left."
To compound the difficulty, Even the media (who coincidently happened to be owned by the same corporations that caused so much financial strife and damage) jumped on this explanation, and in a move to ever prevent any further accusations of "Liberal Media Bias," took to aggressively pushing wrong-headed Reich Wing agendas. The Media ignored economic experts, social experts, their own sad performance regarding the recent IraqNam invasion, and began concentrating on pushing all things TeaBuggery, including Sunday morning News programming.
And for some years, this was the status quo. Americans only heard conservative news, Americans only read conservative editorials, and Americans were constantly told that
a. theirs was a conservative nation
b. the founding fathers were christian conservatives
c. the bible has all answers for today's complex economic, ecological, social, and engineering problems.
This messaging was so overwhelming and consistent, like a drum beat during a dirge, that no one ever considered examining the initial assumptions.
That is, not until an obscure scientist from New Hampshire, Doctor C. Albert Lyss and his partner, Psychologist Ova Rhea, decided to test Tea Buggers as a distinct and separate group, and measure them against the general population.
Their findings were astounding and will likely shake up America's entire political establishment.
As an example of how earth- (and meme) shattering their findings were, the last time that the medical profession was rocked so significantly was when another obscure New Hampshire doctor determined that ulcers were actually caused by an easily treated bacteria. The resulting financial damage to the militant pharmacology industry is still felt a decade later, as companies try to "create" new diseases in order to unload their billions of dollars of impotent anti-ulcer drugs stockpiled in their warehouses.
What Dr. C. Al (his nickname) and Ms. Rhea (pronounced Ree) found was that there was a distinct and readily identifiable mental illness present in each and every TeaBuggering supporter. This particular phobia, the Pteromerhano-Cibo-TeratoPhobia, or P-C-Terp, can be quite dangerous, even deadly, in its advanced stages, as its sufferers begin attending gun shows and begin acting out their delusions and misguided ideas. Some sufferers continue to profess that a certain former Illinois Senator is a black, fascist, communist, Muslin sporting terrorist who bribed a Hawaiian newspaper before his birth to lie about his mother's pride and joy. Others spout Groverisms (a weird political theory, based on the laughable theory that government is bad, and greed-based policies, designed by million and billionaires is good) or if their cases are more advanced, by reciting whole sections of illogical crap once penned by a hypocrite named Ayn Rand. Still others act out with violence, easily confusing young, slight, black teens armed with Skittles, for heavily armed Muslim Terrorists, with often fatal results.
Luckily, C.Al and Ms. Rhea also found a cure, although current medical and criminal laws preclude using it, except in extremely rigidly controlled laboratory conditions. Apparently, liberal doses of MDMA, followed by two full courses of LSD, have achieved tremendous results in increasing general awareness, empathy, rational thinking, memory, even problem solving. Before the treatments, people were closed-minded, refusing to accept facts as real, even when their own beliefs were so illogical and so clearly wrong. After treatment, they were socially aware, pleasant, cooperative, even friendly, with clear logical thinking and extremely coherent speech patterns.
The spouses of the men who underwent the cure were also interviewed, and occasionally tested (using standard double blind psych tests, with standard checks to insure against dissembling or exaggeration) Again, the spouses of those men who successfully navigated the cure uniformly reported similar reactions. "What have you done with the old Joe? Can you keep him forever, please?" or "My gosh, he's human again! Thank you thank you thank you!" and the commonly repeated, "I can't explain it, but this new and improved version is a keeper. How did you make him so smart and friendly? He's just like the wonderful man I married!"
Follow up testing supports the theory that the cure is long standing, and potentially permanent, especially if the test subjects maintain a daily minimum dose of Tetrahydrocannabinol, via inhalation or eaten in a dessert based substance such as a brownie.
Already, economists are predicting that there is a huge benefit, in terms of lower health care costs, lower incarceration, and much higher productivity from the test subjects, not to mention incidental benefits in far warmer familial relationships.