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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. T

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 11y 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 11y 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 11y 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 11y 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 11y 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 11y 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 11y 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 11y 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.