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Worshipping the Flying Spaghetti Monster Isn't a Real Religion, Court Rules (arstechnica.com)
WheezyJoe writes: A court in Nebraska has officially ruled that Pastafarianism is not a real religion, and therefore a prison inmate with "several tattoos proclaiming his faith" will not get $5 million or privileges to order and wear religious clothing and pendants, nor meet for weekly worship services and classes and receive communion. The Federal judge ruled that The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster is not a "real" religion eligible for protection under the First Amendment...
In ruling against the inmate and the church of Pastafarianism, the judge wrote "there must be a line beyond which a practice is not 'religious' simply because a plaintiff labels it as such... A prisoner could just as easily read the works of Vonnegut or Heinlein and claim it as his holy book, and demand accommodation of Bokononism or the Church of All Worlds [citing Kurt Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle and Robert A. Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land]. The Flying Spaghetti Monster Gospel is plainly a work of satire, meant to entertain while making a pointed political statement," and thus not a "real" religion.
In ruling against the inmate and the church of Pastafarianism, the judge wrote "there must be a line beyond which a practice is not 'religious' simply because a plaintiff labels it as such... A prisoner could just as easily read the works of Vonnegut or Heinlein and claim it as his holy book, and demand accommodation of Bokononism or the Church of All Worlds [citing Kurt Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle and Robert A. Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land]. The Flying Spaghetti Monster Gospel is plainly a work of satire, meant to entertain while making a pointed political statement," and thus not a "real" religion.
In Virginia prisons you must submit to short hair and no beard. Even if it is against your religion to shave or cut forelocks. Those that refuse are kept in segregation. IE the hole. 23 hour lockdown, very limited recreation and privileges. When I was in VA prison we tried to help them. Sneaking items into the hole. There were people with active court cases against this practice that'd had been in segregation for years, even over a decade.
Silence is a state of mime.
So does that mean Scientology isn't a real religion also? After all Hubbard started it as a bet and not because he believed it was real. Of course I can't prove that Hubbard started it as a joke/bet but neither can I prove Pastafarianism was started as anything other than a serious religion. Since Scientology has its little alien in a space ship circling Neptune controlling the religion it sounds just about the same as the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
Dyslexics Untie!
In light of this ruling, would the JavaScript and Rust programming languages be considered religions?
They aren't religions in the traditional sense, like say Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hindu and Wicca are.
But they aren't intentional satire either, like the FSM is.
Yet their adherents exhibit the same sort of blind, often illogical, devotion that we see from the followers of other religions.
JavaScripters have a holy book in the form of Crockford's "JavaScript: The Good Parts". They worship their saints, including John Resig and Node.js. They don't care how awful JavaScript's semantics are, or how limited its standard library; they're so devoted to it that they will use it anywhere and everywhere, especially when doing so is the worst idea possible.
Rustaceans study the absurd and contradictory Rust Code of Conduct, and base their entire existences around it. They idolize Rust's borrow-checker. They worship Rust developers like Patrick Walton and Steve Klabnik, as well as the Rust Moderation Team. Rustaceans will launch a downmod crusade against you if you don't glorify Rust in the discussion at Hacker News or Reddit.
So should JavaScript and Rust be considered religions? I would think they should, since their followers are actually seriously devoted, and not joking, despite the many contradictions and the complete idiocy we see surrounding such programming languages and their communities.
"A prisoner could just as easily read the works of Vonnegut or Heinlein and claim it as his holy book, and demand accommodation" - That's exactly right. The government cannot judge the validity of a religion.
Much as I share the judge's doubts about sincerity of the plaintiff, I suspect, the ruling will not stand.
He is right — in this case. But it is difficult (if not impossible) to define a criteria — like in that earlier case, where judges where asked to distinguish between erotic art and pornography: "I know it when I see it. Religion is even more difficult to define.
But the whole idea of government — whether in prison or the military, wherever — recognizing a religion and making special accommodations for followers seems like a violation of the First Amendment. I mean the establishing part of it — you can still freely exercise whatever as long as it does not require special accommodations.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
All religions are obviously works of fiction, according to everyone not of that religion...
Take any religion, much more than 50% of living human beings think it's obviously fake.
So, tell me again: what is a "real" religion, objectively?
My Stack Overflow user
select any religious faith or none at all.
I think this judge ruled that since FSM is a parody, the inmate selected "none at all".
That said, I still think it's discrimination to give extra benefits to religious inmates, and none to agnostics/atheists.
the judge wrote "there must be a line beyond which a practice is not 'religious' simply because a plaintiff labels it as such
The judge is quite right here, unfortunately for him the Constitution expressly forbids Congress - and by extension him - from drawing that line.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
This isn't about means of worship, it's that this isn't worship because the guy in question doesn't actually believe there is a flying spaghetti monster.
There are a lot of worshippers who don't believe the literal meaning of their literature. For example, many Catholics don't believe in transsubstantiation, i.e. that the host (wafer) turns into the flesh and the wine turns into the blood of Jesus during communion. That reminds me: https://xkcd.com/1152/
...of L. Ron Hubbard and claim it as his holy book. Oh. Wait.
He never publicly admitted his book/faith was a satire, a joke, etc. He smiled and kept a straight face and said that its real. That's why the FSM didn't make the cut, they admit the farce, they did not take the farce far enough.