we've finally hit one million subscribers! There are just so many people we need to thank: our loyal viewers,

our sister shows, and the entire TestTube and Discovery team.

Now, over the past few years we've spent a lot of time looking at religious figures

but we've been saving one of the most influential for last: His Noodly Appendage, The Flying Spaghetti Monster

Because we've PASTA million subs, we wanted to know:

just how powerful is the Flying Spaghetti Monster?

Well, first off it may help to explain that the "Flying Spaghetti Monster"

is the central deity in Pastafarianism, which is actually a protest or parody religion.

Religious satirehas been around almost as long as organized religion, stretching back to Ancient Greek plays in 400 B.C. .

Today, organizations like the Temple of the Invisible Pink Unicorn,

Last Thursdayism, or Jedi-ism are created to point out flaws in belief-based logic, usually related to Christianity.

For example, Last Thursdayism believes that the universe was created last Thursday,

parodying the biblical interpretation that the universe is less than 10,000 years old.

One of the most famous religious satires is Russell's Teapot. This was a thought experiment by philosopher Bertrand Russell

He proposed that a small teapot was in orbit around the sun, and he challenged anyone to prove him wrong.

Since it would be basically impossible to locate such a teapot,

it's basically impossible to disprove its existence,

which parodies a central argument for the existence of a God.

Similarly, the Flying Spaghetti Monster was invented in 2005 by Bobby Henderson

after the Kansas State Board of Education enacted controversial education science standards

including creationism, or intelligent design. Henderson argued that

there was just as much evidence for his belief in a flying, omnipotent heap of spaghetti and meatballs

as there was for creationism, demanding that pastafarianism was taught as well.

There are a few important central tenets to Pastafarianism. Pirates are the most divine beings,

and likely go to Pastafarian heaven, which is full of beer volcanoes and stripper factories.

Additionally, the slow drop in the number of pirates worldwide is directly attributed to

the rise in global average temperature, earthquakes, hurricanes, and other natural disasters.

As such, full pirate regalia must be worn at all times.

The religion claims to have ten million followers, roughly two thirds the size of Judaism,

and roughly two hundred and twenty times smaller than Christianity.

But as a matter of fact , Pastafarianism is officially recognized in a number of countries,

including Poland, the Netherlands, and New Zealand.

And although it's not officially recognized in the United States, in 2015, a woman in Massachusetts was even allowed to wear

a pasta colander on her head for a driver's license photo, claiming it was religious headgear.

Above all else, the Flying Spaghetti Monster really represents the growing face of atheism and the religiously unaffiliated.

Today, those without a religious preference make up the

third largest religious group, after Christianity and Islam, with more than a billion non-adherents worldwide.

From 2007 to 2014, atheists and agnostics in the United States rose from about 36 million to more than 55 million.

Meanwhile, the conversation about the place of religion in a secular world

has only gotten larger and more heated. So just how powerful is the Flying Spaghetti Monster?

Ahh, Spaghettabout it.

Anyway, thanks for being one in a million TestTubers, we literally couldn't have done it without you.

And let's keep this going, let's hit our next goal: a billion subscribers. Right?

If you want to learn more about the changing face of religion worldwide, and what the next

few decades will look like,find out more in this video.

But the five big ones are Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, plus the unaffliliated

Today, Christians and Muslims make up roughly half of the world's population, with 31% and 23% resepctively

Thanks for watching, and make sure to look out for a big announcement from us in the coming days.