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Then one must ask, could 'Apple' (or any corporation/idea that promotes a 'lifestyle brand') be considered a 'religion'? Harley Davidson, Amazon, Oracle, Cross

by pigpaws 10y ago

Then one must ask, could 'Apple' (or any corporation/idea that promotes a 'lifestyle brand') be considered a 'religion'? Harley Davidson, Amazon, Oracle, Crossfit, Microsoft, Veganism, etc... as 'followers/fanboys' of these by nature 'spread' the idea that their 'way of life' is better than that of their 'competitors'. How far down the rabbit hole does this go?

Freak_NL 10y ago
All the way! That is the point; religion is a personal matter in secular states. Treating them as anything more than normal organisations is not tenable in the long (long) term, because you cannot legally limit religion to just those you deem pious enough — well, you can, but then you are not a secular state, and in a lot of countries unconstitutional.
kapauldo 10y ago
It depends on who is doing the considering. If it's the government, then the answer is yes, because there is no good rule book by which to ratify a religion. The better approach is for government to get out of the religion business, revoke all tax exempt statuses, and let people join whatever organizations they wish. There is no way to ratify Catholicism or Islam or Scientology without ratifying CFSM, you simply cannot do it without being intellectually dishonest. The only solution is to ratify no religion.
- scotty79 10y ago
  What's intellectually dishonest about the rule that for something to be considered religion it must have been created "to profess and spread faith"? Even if you treat FSM most generously purpose of its creation was obviously not that and purpose of largest religions was exactly that.
  - logfromblammo 10y ago
    Does Scientology pass that test? I believe it was created to give its founders and leaders access to a profane amount of other people's money while simultaneously avoiding both taxes and accountability. From there, it's only a short leap to Mormonism, and another step from there to the Catholics, Southern Baptists, and United Methodists. The intellectual dishonesty comes in when actions observed to be taken by adherents to the religion are ambiguous, and interpreted in one way for a favored religion, while interpreted in another way for an unfavored religion. Pastafarians wear pasta strainers as hats, with full pirate regalia as vestments. This action is interpreted as mockery of religion. Catholics wear miters and embroidered dresses. This action is interpreted as tradition. Pastafarians end prayers with "ramen". Other religions end theirs with "amen". You can't be any more certain that a Pastafarian truly believes in the flying spaghetti monster than an adherent of an Abrahamic religion truly believes in Jehovah and stories from their holy book. How can you tell? Maybe they're just in it for the social networking one day a week. The fundamental problem is that religion is not founded on personal beliefs, not rationality, so any rational rule you can devise to separate "serious" religions from "fake" religions will end up harming a genuine adherent to some religion, somewhere. So the only good way to handle it is to allow all religions to self-identify as religions, applying "duck tests" only as necessary to uniformly enforce laws that may apply equally to all religions.
    - scotty79 10y ago
      Not sure about this test but there must be some tests it mostly does not pass. It doesn't have status of religion in many countries: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientology_status_by_country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientology_status_by_country
- humanrebar 10y ago
  Churches also get tax exempt status because, historically at least, churches also do charity work and social work. Non-profit organizations that do work the government would otherwise be doing get tax exempt status, at least in the U.S.
scotty79 10y ago
I think you had much easier if you tried to register Church of Apple devoted to observing and spreading religious faith in superior quality of Apple products. Everybody's aware that pastafarianism is a mock religion and won't believe that you can found church to seriously observe the mock religion. There are probably some additional requirements you'd have to fulfill but I don't know what are those.
- pigpaws 10y ago
  ...as is the Church of Scientology, but it is still considered a 'religion' in much of the world. Religion is about control. Religion is about conformity and forcing people into a narrow view of faith in a specific thing (see the multiple branches of christianity, judaism or islam). Faith is neither about control, nor conformity. You can have faith in anything, including a corporation, or a physical object or an idea.
chippy 10y ago
I think that the organizations primary aim would be the religion. So any organisaion, corporate or political, or ethical doesn't have that as it's primary aim then it wouldn't be classed as a religion. Consider the case of a charity, a corporation that donates to charity, a non-profit cooperative and a political lobby group. They all have a cause in mind, but only the charity has charitable works as the primary action.

by pigpaws 10y ago

Freak_NL 10y ago

All the way! That is the point; religion is a personal matter in secular states. Treating them as anything more than normal organisations is not tenable in the long (long) term, because you cannot legally limit religion to just those you deem pious enough — well, you can, but then you are not a secular state, and in a lot of countries unconstitutional.

kapauldo 10y ago

It depends on who is doing the considering. If it's the government, then the answer is yes, because there is no good rule book by which to ratify a religion. The better approach is for government to get out of the religion business, revoke all tax exempt statuses, and let people join whatever organizations they wish. There is no way to ratify Catholicism or Islam or Scientology without ratifying CFSM, you simply cannot do it without being intellectually dishonest. The only solution is to ratify no religion.

scotty79 10y ago
What's intellectually dishonest about the rule that for something to be considered religion it must have been created "to profess and spread faith"? Even if you treat FSM most generously purpose of its creation was obviously not that and purpose of largest religions was exactly that.
- logfromblammo 10y ago
  Does Scientology pass that test? I believe it was created to give its founders and leaders access to a profane amount of other people's money while simultaneously avoiding both taxes and accountability. From there, it's only a short leap to Mormonism, and another step from there to the Catholics, Southern Baptists, and United Methodists. The intellectual dishonesty comes in when actions observed to be taken by adherents to the religion are ambiguous, and interpreted in one way for a favored religion, while interpreted in another way for an unfavored religion. Pastafarians wear pasta strainers as hats, with full pirate regalia as vestments. This action is interpreted as mockery of religion. Catholics wear miters and embroidered dresses. This action is interpreted as tradition. Pastafarians end prayers with "ramen". Other religions end theirs with "amen". You can't be any more certain that a Pastafarian truly believes in the flying spaghetti monster than an adherent of an Abrahamic religion truly believes in Jehovah and stories from their holy book. How can you tell? Maybe they're just in it for the social networking one day a week. The fundamental problem is that religion is not founded on personal beliefs, not rationality, so any rational rule you can devise to separate "serious" religions from "fake" religions will end up harming a genuine adherent to some religion, somewhere. So the only good way to handle it is to allow all religions to self-identify as religions, applying "duck tests" only as necessary to uniformly enforce laws that may apply equally to all religions.
  - scotty79 10y ago
    Not sure about this test but there must be some tests it mostly does not pass. It doesn't have status of religion in many countries: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientology_status_by_country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientology_status_by_country
humanrebar 10y ago
Churches also get tax exempt status because, historically at least, churches also do charity work and social work. Non-profit organizations that do work the government would otherwise be doing get tax exempt status, at least in the U.S.

scotty79 10y ago

I think you had much easier if you tried to register Church of Apple devoted to observing and spreading religious faith in superior quality of Apple products. Everybody's aware that pastafarianism is a mock religion and won't believe that you can found church to seriously observe the mock religion. There are probably some additional requirements you'd have to fulfill but I don't know what are those.

pigpaws 10y ago
...as is the Church of Scientology, but it is still considered a 'religion' in much of the world. Religion is about control. Religion is about conformity and forcing people into a narrow view of faith in a specific thing (see the multiple branches of christianity, judaism or islam). Faith is neither about control, nor conformity. You can have faith in anything, including a corporation, or a physical object or an idea.

chippy 10y ago

I think that the organizations primary aim would be the religion. So any organisaion, corporate or political, or ethical doesn't have that as it's primary aim then it wouldn't be classed as a religion. Consider the case of a charity, a corporation that donates to charity, a non-profit cooperative and a political lobby group. They all have a cause in mind, but only the charity has charitable works as the primary action.