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Wednesday 13 July 2011

Austrian atheist has won the right to be on his driving-licence photo wearing a pasta strainer as "religious headgear" -

Austrian atheist has won the right to be on his driving-licence photo wearing a pasta strainer as "religious headgear" - 
Driving licence of Niko Alm

Niko Alm first applied for the licence three years ago after reading that headgear was allowed in official pictures only for confessional reasons.


Mr Alm said the sieve was a requirement of his religion, pastafarianism.


The Austrian authorities required him to obtain a doctor's certificate that he was "psychologically fit" to drive.


The idea came into Mr Alm's noodle three years ago as a way of making a serious, if ironic, point.


A self-confessed atheist, Mr Alm says he belongs to the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, a light-hearted faith whose members call themselves pastafarians.


Passport photos of Niko Alm with a colander on his head
A medical interview established the self-styled 'pastafarian' was mentally fit to drive
The group's website states that "the only dogma allowed in the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster is the rejection of dogma".


In response to pressure for American schools to teach the Christian theory known as intelligent design, as an alternative to natural selection, the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster wrote to the Kansas School Board asking for the pastafarian version of intelligent design to be taught to schoolchildren, as an alternative to the Christian theory.



Read more - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-14135523

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