RAmen One time in my Humanities 1 class, we were talking about a short story by Gabriel Garcia Marquez entitled, “The Handsomest Drowned Man”. In here, the drowned man who was found by some villagers thought of how he lived, despite his enormous physique, as a generous person who always considers the comforts of other people. The villagers then named the drowned man “Esteban” who now became the center of the villagers’ lives, especially for the women. This is primarily because of Esteban’s physical features and his pure heart. With this, there is a transformation in the behavior of the villagers that was observed. We also noticed that the villagers in the story did not have names implying that they are not really important. However, when Esteban came into their village, they became known to other villages and in a way, they have created a name of their own through the presence of Esteban.
Speaking of transformation, as the class went on, our instructor then shifted the lesson to a more concrete and up to date example. He mentioned about “Pastafarianism”, a self-acclaimed religion, which was described by my instructor as the “Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster”. Pastafarians, which is what they call themselves, believe in the Flying Spaghetti Monster or FSM and even has their own version of the bible. This was the inspiration for this paper.
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The question however lies on what grounds (context and functions) are we to consider to see whether Pastafarianism can be a legitimate religion. First, in a theological perspective, let us look at the contextualization of religion in general. According to Rodrigo Tano (1981), contextualization involves: a) the interaction of the text (bible) and its context (historical situation); b) interpreting, challenging, and transforming a particular situation; and c) adapting the gospel within a given