Christopher Schaeffer was sworn in as a member of the town council in Pomfret, New York, last week while wearing a colander on his head.

Schaeffer wore a colander (a strainer typically used to drain water from spaghetti) while Town Clerk Allison Dispense administered the oath of office to him before the board's reorganizational meeting. When the OBSERVER asked afterward why he wore a colander on his head, Schaeffer said he was a minister with an even more unique organization - the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

"It's just a statement about religious freedom," he said. "It's a religion without any dogma."

While Pastafarians have fought for the right to wear colanders in their driver's license photographs, this is the first instance of an elected official wearing one to be sworn into office. -via Laughing Squid

(Image credit: Greg Fox)

Matthew Inman of The Oatmeal has written a comic essay on Why the Mantis Shrimp is My New Favorite Animal. The picture here is an idealistic view of this strange creature, and not to be confused with the truth. And truth is stranger than fiction, as you'll find out. With bonus videos. Link

Photographer Marko Popadic took this marvelous photo of a butterfly inside the eye socket of a human skull. Titled Oko ("eye" in Croatian), the butterfly's wing looks eerily like an eye staring out of the lifeless void. Link - via Mighty Optical Illusions

Although Chelsea Bloxsom crafts in many different media, I'm especially taken with her Adventure Time embroidery. I drifted away from the series after Season 2, but I may go back if Jake frequently utters such wisdom.

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Even if religion isn't true, asserted writer and philosopher Alain de Botton, why can't we enjoy the best bits? To that end (and to circumvent the "boring debate between fundamentalist believers and non-believers" about religion and God), de Botton proposed in his new book "Religion for Atheists" that what atheism needs are ... temples!

As religions have always known, a beautiful building is an indispensable part of getting your message across. Books alone won’t do it.

De Botton argues that you definitely don’t need a god or gods to justify a temple.

You can build a temple to anything that’s positive and good. That could mean: a temple to love, friendship, perspective, calm, generosity…

This proposal is part of a wider argument de Botton makes that atheists should stop being merely negative about religion and engage with what people actually enjoy about religion. They should then copy it – simply without the God-bit.

With architect Tom Greenall and artist Jordan Jon Hodgson, de Botton proposed a Temple to Perspective, a 150-foot (46 m) tall black tower in the heart of the City of London. Each centimeter of the tower's height equates to one million years of life. At the bottom, there's a single line of gold - no more than a millimeter thick - that represents the entire existence of humankind.

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Josh Kurp and photographer Nadia Chaudhury went to Albuquerque, New Mexico, to see the places where the TV series Breaking Bad is shot. They saw (and photographed) plenty of locations, and since the show was in production at the time, they also got to meet series star Bryan Cranston. You can take the tour yourself, in a virtual sense, at Uproxx. May contain spoilers for those not up-to-date on the series. Link

(Images credit: Nadia Chaudhury)

This art installation titled "Superficial Essence of a Deep Appearance" by Fabio La Fauci and Daniele Sigalot of Blue and Joy looks like a colorful field of carpet, but take a closer look. See if you can make out what it's made out of:

The answer below: