Spaghetti Strainer Helmet Driver's License Photo Approved On Religious Grounds (immortal.org) 518
PolygamousRanchKid writes with the news (widely reported, here an excerpt from the story as carried by Immortal News) that [i]n the Massachusetts city of Lowell, a woman identifying herself as a follower of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster (FSM), otherwise known as Pastafarianism, has been approved by the state's Registry of Motor Vehicles (RMV) to wear a spaghetti strainer on top of her head in her state issued driver's ID. The approval to wear the helmet was initially denied. However, citing religious grounds, Lowell resident Lindsay Miller filed an appeal. Following intervention by the American Humanist Association's Appignani Humanist Legal Center, the RMV reversed their decision and allowed her to put on her colander and get her driver's license picture taken. According to the church's website, while there are those who perceive the religion to be satirical in nature, it "doesn't change the fact that by any standard one can come up with" the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster is "as legitimate as any other" religion.
Asks PolygamousRanchKid: "Now what about my tinfoil hat . . . ?"
Scientology (Score:5, Funny)
If a tax evation group makes a billion and a half dollars on the idea that depression is caused by the souls of aliens tormenting the world than some crap like the spaghetti monster is not really surprising.
Not sincerely held (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Not sincerely held (Score:5, Informative)
The Church's beliefs only require the colander for official photos. It's not everyday headwear, it's special-occasion headwear.
Re:Not sincerely held (Score:5, Funny)
The Church's beliefs only require the colander for official photos. It's not everyday headwear, it's special-occasion headwear.
Now you tell me.
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Re:Not sincerely held (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem with this is, there is no sincerity test for religion available, as a religion can state any number of weird things and their followers believe only in a part of it or violate rules on purpose or because of ignorance. For example Catholics (at least in Europe) they use condoms. This is not really allowed especially not when having sex with different people. So total commitment is not a necessary criteria. And as they do joke about their religion, this cannot be a criteria either. If you look at the Discordianists, part of their believe is it to make fun of believes (including their own). And Christians believe that a cookie wafer is a part of their beloved god or symbol for his body and that they have to eat it in remembrance. So in the end you have to accept any weirdo with any hat like thing as long as the face is visible..
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The magic wafer is mostly confined to catholics.
It's still a pretty weird religion to outsiders. The central idea is that God had to sacrifice himself to himself in order to appease his sense of justice, otherwise he would have to burn everyone in hell for eternity because they violated rules that he wrote.
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The magic wafer is mostly confined to catholics.
It's still a pretty weird religion to outsiders. The central idea is that God had to sacrifice himself to himself in order to appease his sense of justice, otherwise he would have to burn everyone in hell for eternity because they violated rules that he wrote.
The magic wafer is mostly confined to catholics.
The difference is that Catholics believe in transubstantiation, i.e. the bread and wine become literally the body and blood of Christ. Protestants just take them as symbols.
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It's not a big surprise that the stories place Eden in the Persian Gulf since all of the people who originally wrote the tales came from the Middle East. They knew that part of the world best. It's not like they knew of North and South America to say Eden was somewhere in the Amazon. If we got the mythology from the Australian aboriginals then Eden (or whatever their version is) would be in Australia.
Pastafarianism protects other religions' rights (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm a Christian, and Pastafarianism is mocking aspects of people who share my general corner of the religious world, and I'm just fine with that. Not only do some of my fellow believers sometimes act in ways that deserve mocking, we often do it ourselves (at least friendly mocking.) And more importantly, by doing things like this, Pastafarians are protecting other minority religious beliefs and practices. The US Army still hasn't quite figured out how to cope with Sikhs wearing turbans (and sometimes they even have trouble with Orthodox Jews, even army chaplains, because they violate critical military doctrines about gentlemen not wearing hats indoors), the TSA harassed them because they're different even before they decided to start harassing other hat-wearers, schools don't let students wear head-scarves (or mini-skirts) because that's Not How Proper American Girls Dress, Muslim-hating idiots beat up Sikhs, the list goes on.
I attended Quaker meetings for a few years, and we'd occasionally get the question about those hats the oatmeal-box guy wears. Quakerism came from England, where it's beastly cold and rainy and Anglos are prone to male pattern baldness, and moved to Pennsylvania and New England where it's also beastly cold and rainy much of the year, and many of them believed in wearing plain durable clothing instead of wearing flashy stuff to draw attention to themselves. But English social custom and legal practice was big on forcing lower-class people to acknowledge the importance of higher-class people, and taking off hats to your betters (especially government officials and nobility) was a big part of that, and Quakerism believes very radically in equality, so Quakers would often get thrown in jail for not taking off their hats around their betters. I wear hats to keep my head warm (as an Anglo who went bald early), and when my beard was longer I could pass for Orthodox if I was wearing a dark suit and a hat.
Back when the TSA were new, they didn't make people take off hats or coats in security lines, but out here at San Jose airport, the main people who wore them were Mexicans wearing cowboy hats heading down to Mexico, and the TSA were the white guys who'd replaced the previous mostly-immigrant screeners, and they decided to make a local rule telling the Mexicans to take their hats off. My first reaction was "if they tried this at LaGuardia the Hasidim would been in the mayor's office in an hour telling him to fire the bigot who thought up that nonsense", but as a Quaker I felt I ought to argue with them because they're clearly just doing it to bully people, and I was successful at making it difficult for them to avoid the bigotry issue for a while.
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Then they will just claim their religion only requires they wear the helment when posing for photos. "Sorry you need to provide me with a spaghetti strainer before we can take these mug shots"/.
There is no good solution to the problem.
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It would be interesting to see a case come up where the plaintiff insists that there be no photo on the driver's license at all due to a sincere belief that a camera steals the subject's soul.
Of course, that belief needs to be wrapped up in a religious sounding name, perhaps something along the lines of Great Spiritism or something else tying it to a traditional Native American religion.
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(I read the other response, and think that it reasonably disputes your claim.. but still...)
GOOD.
I'd willingly give up a lot of tax breaks (even the mortgage interest deduction), to make the tax code far far far far far far more simple and equal among all people. (I purposely avoided the term 'fair', since some people think it's fair to steal money from one group to give to another.)
The little things (Score:4, Interesting)
Later if the person gets stopped for a traffic violation and isn't wearing their spaghetti strainer, that should be grounds to investigate and charge them with fraud if it were a sham.
And why is this? Why should the DMV care, why should the police be on the lookout for this, and why should society embroil someone's life in the legal system over something that has no effect on anyone, whatsoever?
People seem to think that we need to uphold some sort of justice against the *intent* of some rule or another(*).
Why bother? Can't we just let little things go?
(*) The one that comes to mind first is the "If you can't be bothered to vote, you can't comment on the voting proceedings [wordpress.com]", but there are others. People seem caught up in enforcing some sort of "just universe" [wikipedia.org], and take it to absurd extremes.
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You cannot sue without damages (Score:4, Insightful)
There are two reasons. Because if you commit fraud, you should be prosecuted for fraud. That's pretty easy to understand.
And here I thought we prosecuted fraud because of the damage it does to others.
You can't sue someone unless you can show damages. Shouldn't the legal system work the same way?
Are we to completely circumscribe behaviour now, prosecuting things that have no effect on others whatsoever, based on a petty definition?
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If they make the disingenuous argument that they are doing it due to a sincerely held religious belief and they have no such belief, I can't support it.
Who cares if you support it? The topic of discussion is if the government should care enough to enforce "fraud" laws where no one is possibly affected. Driving on left side of road in the US is dangerous for practical reasons, colander is not. Does that have to be spelled out for you?
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Investigation and fraud? Why? Are we never allowed to change our beliefs once they are 'sincerely held'?
Accommodation should never be made exclusively on religious grounds. First, it is not fair and secondly it puts the state in the rather uncomfortable position of evaluating the legitimacy of a religion.
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Courts can evaluate whether a belief is sincerely held. This happens frequently, e.g. in perjury cases. So the DMV could require the applicant to swear that the belief is sincerely held, and then in cases (like this one) where it obviously isn't, they can take the person to court to make an example of them.
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A religion could easily just require it for photographs.
Also ignoring that, if some Muslim girl took off the shit forced on her by her community once she drove her car far enough away would you really want to sue her for fraud?
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For the second time, in one thread, I'm reminded of Emo Philips.
"So, I was at the library in New York the other day. I told the librarian that I would like to get a card. Well, he said, "You'll have to prove that you're a citizen of New York - blah meah bmeha leamah." So, I stabbed him..."
I'm kinda torn (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't know if making fun of a delusion is worth looking like a dork on your driver's license.
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Fun is always a good reason to do something. [imgur.com]
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All driver's license photos look bad. (Score:4, Funny)
My first one looked like I had a beard - I didn't back then, it's was just really bad lighting at the DMV. (And one of my recent DLs said I needed to be wearing glasses - I don't need them for distance, and didn't use them for the eye test, but I put them back on to read the forms.)
What you really need as a driver's license photo is one that shows you looking like you're extremely tired and someone's shining a flashlight in your face, because that's how a cop will really see you. If that includes wearing a colander on your head, then go for it.
Re:I'm kinda torn (Score:4, Funny)
I don't know if making fun of a delusion is worth looking like a dork on your driver's license.
Are you somehow implying that there exists a person in this world who actually looks good on their driver's licence photo?
They mustn't have followed the instructions of stare straight ahead, empty your brain, and try to look like you just murdered your whole family.
I would do the same but... (Score:4, Funny)
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Now she'll have *no chance* at talking herself out of a ticket when a cop pulls her over and looks at her drivers license.
This religious persecution will not stand, man.
frat religion (Score:2)
so devote panty-raiders can wear silk lace panties on their head for picture?
Hardly as barmy (Score:3)
I have to say it's pretty sad.... (Score:2)
In fact, taking the whole FSM idea seriously, and trying to espouse it as if it were a real religion completely undermines the point that Bobby Henderson was trying to make about teaching intelligent design in classrooms in the first place, using the idea of
Re:I have to say it's pretty sad.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Wanting to make fun of other people's religions and laugh at them for being superstitious is one thing, and not wanting to have intelligent design taught in schools is fine, but then turning around and calling that whole idea a religion of its own that deserves to be taken seriously by society seems nothing less than self-defeating.
You're not getting it. This case (the colander on the head) is pointing out the absurdity of "god makes me wear this" headware generally, and of state-government-level capricious laws/policies with respect to it in particular.
The only way to point out how ridiculous religion is, is to do something just as ridiculous, and force the government to treat it with the same level of credulity and absurd dignity. So this is just a case of the same tools (satire generally, and the FSM's teachings in particular) to point out another area of nonsense, separate from the intelligent design masterstroke with which it all started.
And god said... (Score:3)
You're not getting it. This case (the colander on the head) is pointing out the absurdity of "god makes me wear this" headware generally.
Dude, if no one thought "god wants me to cut off the end of my dick" was absurd, this one won't even get noticed.
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For whose benefit is this being done?
For all of humanity, which would benefit greatly from a reduction in magical thinking and especially in government endorsement of magical thinking.
The argument from the ID crowd wasn't "I believe this, so it should be taught", as Bobby Henderson seems to believe. It was "there is some legitimate scientific controversy, so it should be taught". That's wrong, but not in any way addressed by the FSM letter that started this nonsense.
The FSM letter challenged the state government to either embrace the FSM as another "legitimate" perspective or explain why the more popular mainstream religious mythology WAS "legitimate" while the FSM was not. That puts the burden squarely on the government to explain in detail their capricious embrace of one particular mythology (something they cannot do) or
Tinfoil hats are normal madness (Score:2)
Old news... (Score:4, Informative)
Former porn star Asia Lemon (aka Asia Carrera) did this in Utah back in 2014.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new... [dailymail.co.uk]
Re:Athiest Symbol (Score:5, Informative)
As long as it doesn't obstruct her face or otherwise interferes with identification, it is of course acceptable...
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This photos shows how absurd the world is getting. Religion has to bend over the law, not the other way around. It the law says "no hat", it should be no hat, and fuck religious zealots that want to have their hat of the photo.
If sate laws and your religion laws are incompatible, then forget about your religion laws, they just don't apply.There are many religions - all of them incompatible, and pretty irrational to say the least -, whereas there is only one state law at a given place, and in many decent cou
Re:Athiest Symbol (Score:4, Insightful)
Religion has had the first mover advantage. Law has had to ask for permission of religion for its very existence. Bending over is nothing in comparison.
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The US has confiscated Athiest and Lesbian equipment sent through the postal service.
Atheist and Lesbian 'equipment'?
Do tell ....
Re:Athiest Symbol (Score:5, Interesting)
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Non-sequitor much?
Re:Athiest Symbol (Score:4, Insightful)
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Lesbin equipment I understand - vibrators, strap-ons and stuff like that. But atheist equipment?
I didn't miss what wasn't there.
As far as the colander headgear from the main story, yes, it's absurd.... which is the intentional meaning (the absurdity) of it by the person wearing it. It's certainly no more absurd than the trappings and dogma of most religions, who do not have those trappings and dogma because they're absurd, but because they live in some warped fantasy land where reality never enters.
Re:Athiest Symbol (Score:4, Interesting)
More people should have their photo taken with a colander on their head to highlight the absurdity of religious symbols.
Re:Athiest Symbol (Score:5, Interesting)
Drivers licenses did not always have pictures on them. We have become the enemy we once mocked.
It was our parents generation that screwed it up. They abused the pictureless licenses, passing them amongst friends and faking them. So when they got in power, they changed the rules and laws to what we have today. The hippies grew up into fascists, and blamed their children for their actions.
Re:Athiest Symbol (Score:5, Insightful)
What the FUCK are you talking about?
Could you please provide any kind of model where a license of any kind works where it is impossible to find out whether a person holding said license is the rightful holder of it?
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Gun license has no such requirement, since it is opposed by the NRA.
http://www.in.gov/isp/images/N... [in.gov]
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A picture is not adequate identification. Next step will be a DNA sample.
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Since it is apparently possible, please enlighten me how I should find out whether a license you present to me is actually yours and not that of your dad or some random stranger and you just found it.
Re:Athiest Symbol (Score:5, Insightful)
Because it is in your possession, how else?
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I am not white. I've had very similar things happen - even recently. Even very recently. Hell, I've been caught driving without my license. They just look me up, confirm my SSN, and I'm on my way. Worse, not too long ago, I drove straight across a park (it was raining and looked like a one way street) and was just let go before I even found my license.
Err... I'm a little white? I'm a mutt. The largest percentage of me is Amerindian, then comes Western European, and then some Black African. I actually look A
Re:Athiest Symbol (Score:4, Informative)
There is a subtle but important difference between these two situations. In the OP, the religious garb does not impede identification. In your situation it very much does. The best solution available to my mind, is to have the appropriate picture taken but if identification is required later have it performed by a woman.
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There is a subtle but important difference between these two situations. In the OP, the religious garb does not impede identification. In your situation it very much does. The best solution available to my mind, is to have the appropriate picture taken but if identification is required later have it performed by a woman.
You would support institutionalised and government sanctioned sexism? For what? So someone's imaginary friend doesn't get annoyed?
No thanks. Freedom is far more important that supporting crazy, harmful and dangerous ideas.
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This gets tricky. While emotionally I get your argument, do you *really* want to trust the current crop of politicians to write an amendment?
Protection of religion is written into the bill of rights. Sexism is quite a bit later. And, honestly, does it seem unreasonable to you that women would prefer to be stripped by women when identification was necessary? Men might also prefer to be stripped by men. And in either case a lawyer should be present. The tricky part of that is that the lawyer should be p
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Same rights? Of course not, she'd get more!
An ID photo where you look like any other idiot dressed as a ninja rather defeats the object, does it not?
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I'm a Ninja, you insensitive clod!
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Its a "drivers license", its intended purpose is simply to prove that you have the skills to control a certain class of motor vehicle. Its disturbing that more and more they are becoming a de facto national ID card which is requiring an ever increasing amount of identifying data (photo, eye color, weight, ss number, etc), something generations of our forefathers fought to prevent.
Re:Athiest Symbol (Score:4, Informative)
You might want to actually read history beyond a decade or two. When Social Security numbers were created they explicitly placed requirements (virtually ignored) making it illegal to use for unique ID for citizens. Some of these requirements have quietly been removed in the name of "fighting terrorism". Virtually every attempt at the federal level to openly create a national ID card has been crushed. If you want to go really far back several of the Founding fathers and influential authors made pushes for independence via pen names (Benjamin Franklin, Washington Irving, John Adams).
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The key question is: when do the rights to exercise religious freedom conflict with the legitimate interests of the rest of the people? This is not only a hard question but a potentially dangerous one, with plenty of room to go wrong on either side of it.
Is a burka -- which objectively speaking prevents identification of the wearer -- in conflict with the legitimate interest of identifying drivers for the sake of accountability? Does that conflict override the tenet of religious freedom?
Not easy to answer.
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It's easy to answer.
If you want to drive on the same road as me, go in the same supermarket as me, and ride on the same bus as me you should be as identifiable as me.
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I will fight that civil war on the side of the Union, I refuse to be you, to make myself identifiable as you, or even to make myself identifiable to you. And if you want me out of the supermarket because I refuse to tell you my name, you're welcome to bring it up with the store manager. I have a feeling one of us is going to get kicked out of the store. ;)
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If you want to drive on the same road as me, you should be as identifiable as me.
FTFY. The other two scenarios are on the other side of the line.
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If you want to drive on the same road as me, go in the same supermarket as me, and ride on the same bus as me you should be as identifiable as me.
I'm an identical twin, you insensitive clod!
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You can't drive with your face covered. So it would be reasonable to require your face uncovered for a driver's license.
Re:Athiest Symbol (Score:4, Informative)
You can drive wearing a helmet with a visor which obscured visibility of your face, and many people (like racing drivers) do just that...
Re:Athiest Symbol (Score:5, Insightful)
The 'not easy' part isn't so much in the theory, as in the myriad ways people can come up with to develop 'suitably compelling interests' that just so happen to rub sects they dislike the wrong way.
Where available, chronology clues are always useful: if the policy was in place before the people who feel excessively burdened by it were even a matter of much thought among the policymakers; it is substantially less likely that the policy was devised primarily to harass them. It might still be possible to amend it to suit people better without harming the interest it was put in place to achieve; but that's a good sign that it was imposed with some non-sectarian objective in mind.
If, by contrast, the arrival of some new and controversial sect prompts an...unrelated...interest in achieving some purportedly non-sectarian goal that just happens to ruin the new guy's day springs up; you should probably look more carefully at the idea.
(By way of example, 'making photo-IDs that are actually useful' is a fairly obvious matter of state interest, and dates back about as far as the techological viability of taking and reproducing photographs at acceptable cost; which makes the idea that it was concocted as a scheme to outrage modesty and crack down on assorted religions' preferred funny hats difficult to take seriously. There is a strong argument to be made that, given the easy and pervasive use of haircuts and dye jobs to change the appearance of hair, there isn't any good reason to crack down on headscarves, colanders, etc. while allowing people with dyed and styled hair to go about their business; either hair isn't a core ID feature, or you should be putting greater effort into worrying about any way of concealing or modifying it. By contrast, when people with no prior interest in slaughterhouse standards start freaking out about the chilling barbarism of kosher or halal butchery, it's worth a raised eyebrow. Such practices may well be incompatible with acceptable standards of animal welfare; but if you didn't care about any of the delightful things done in meatpacking plants because they are the cheapest, fastest, methods; some skepticism is in order when you develop a sudden interest in the subject.)
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And of course the counter point is that it is illegal for a police officer to order you to remove religious attire, (they would need a court order even if they have a compelling interest) so for the purpose of identification prior to any probable cause for an invasive search they have a hard time showing that the attire is not included in what they have to identify. If they can't tell her to take it off, how is having a picture of the naked skin underneath going to assist in identification? If they were req
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I suspect that most pastafarians don't wear their colanders in day-to-day life, just for official photographs.
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So in other words, you were talking out your bottom end and can't back it up with anything.
Got it...
Dude, you didn't provide a shred of support for your claim that police can require women to remove their niqab, either. You just said "I'm not aware of anywhere in the US where a police officer cannot ask...", but your lack of knowledge isn't evidence of anything.
Googling a bit seems to show that it's not really well-settled. I can find comments from police officers who say that they aren't sure if they could ask a woman to remove a face covering, and that they'd refer it to their supervisors, or if absol
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Is a burka -- which objectively speaking prevents identification of the wearer -- in conflict with the legitimate interest of identifying drivers for the sake of accountability?
Yes, and people should not be allowed to drive, if they will not remove the burka to have their picture taken, And remove the burka while operating a motor vehicle.
Does that conflict override the tenet of religious freedom?
No it does not, because you are free to not drive. This might limit your options and choices in ot
Re:Athiest Symbol (Score:4, Informative)
Do you look like your photo? (Score:3)
Plus, you never know when you're going to need to strain some spaghetti.
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Do you wear the same clothes every day that were in your license photo? How about the same hair style? If you grow a mustache or dye your hair, do you make a pilgrimage to the DMV to get it updated?
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http://www.americasfreedomfigh... [americasfr...ghters.com]
Quit your whining, we already have religious freedom for real religions. This is about religious freedom for satirical fake religions.
Re:Athiest Symbol (Score:5, Insightful)
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How does this get referred to as an atheist symbol?? I have read about the Pastafarianism religion enough to understand that it is NOT atheistic. It does believe in a higher power, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, a god by any other name.
Atheist means a belief that there is NO god, not a belief in a god that happens to be different from the Judeo-Christian-Islamic one.
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"The pasta strainer is obviously an atheist symbol."
Everybody is an atheist.
Since Sumerian times, people have invented 2780 gods, you don't believe in 2779 of them while others don't believe in 1 more.
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Re:Another attack on Christianity (Score:5, Insightful)
Stupid ideas should be attacked. Reason should always win over insanity.
Re:Another attack on Christianity (Score:5, Insightful)
This is just another thinly veiled attack on Christianity and other religions. As a Christian I find this offensive, but I expect no one cares since I'm also a white male.
And a great many people find Christianity and other religions offensive, and consider them to be a thinly veiled attack on rationality. The great thing about society in the more enlightened parts of the world is that we have these things called freedoms, which protect our rights to do, say and believe things which others may find offensive.
As a corollary of this while anyone can consider something to be offensive, NO ONE should have the right to demand that other people do not offend them. As a christian you ought be particulary willing to defend this freedom; particularly given the persecution those of your religion face in some parts of the world.
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If you or your religion cannot withstand parody, then you and/or your religion is weak. It's attitudes like yours that result in people being killed for printing cartoons that depict Mohammed with a bomb on his head.
Free speech goes both ways. If you want to have the freedom to express your religion, then you must allow others to expr
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Is that anything like the multitude of thinly veiled attacks by Christians on pretty much everyone else? The "war on Christmas" is the first thing that comes to mind, somehow celebrating the time of year without including numerous references to Christianity draws the ire of their fundamentalist branch. Despite of course the fact that this time of year historically speaking has nothing to do with Christianity, beyond the attempt by the church to bolster their numbers hundreds of years ago by absorbing the
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Nope... no veil at all.
Re:Another attack on Christianity (Score:4, Insightful)
No, it is not. It is actually a very clever way to highlight the importance of the separation between church and state.
The very first part of the First Amendment is that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;" and, making explicit exceptions for religious attire in legislation breaks not only the spirit but also the letter of that text.
Making an exception in the law for religious reasons (like in this case, no head gear except for religious reasons) undermine that very principle and opens the door for other kinds of abuse and, in the future, even in the establishment of a state endorsed religion, one that may not even be the one you profess if you think about it.
Re:Another attack on Christianity (Score:5, Insightful)
I Care Very Much (Score:5, Insightful)
This is just another thinly veiled attack on Christianity and other religions. As a Christian I find this offensive, but I expect no one cares since I'm also a white male.
I care very much and I say; FUCK YOU! You have no right to not be offended.
Your position indicates that you regard Christianity and the only allowable or acceptable religion. That it should be some right that no one else offend you and your selfish beliefs. Fuck you!
No one mentioned Christianity, God, Jesus or you. You have no justification for being offended and you have no right to not be offended. This is a suit about a driver's license picture and a completely other religion. It had nothing at all to do with Christianity, until you chose to make it about your own self-centeredness.
Pastafarian is about mocking all religions in general. It is a belief system, and therefore a religion, whose central tenet is that the belief in omnipotent magical beings is illogical and absurd. Your resentment of Pastafarianism is as unacceptable as Muslims and their insistence that no one create images of the prophet Mohammed.
Do you think that American Indians smoking peyote, taking spirit journeys and worshiping a Great Spirit and totems is ridiculous? To the Pastafarian and atheists and agnostics, worshiping God and the totem(Jesus on the cross) is exactly the same. Exactly the same.
But, what you completely fail to understand is that you would have Pastafarianism outlawed, banned, negated, stifled while they are making absolutely no such attempts on your own bizarre primitive rituals. They are simply saying that they feel that if you get special treatment, then they should too, because your system is as absurd to them as theirs is to you.
This is my issue with all religions except possibly Buddism and Sikhism. They all try to convert or persecute non-believers, especially Christianity and Islam. It's their way or eternal damnation. Meanwhile the atheists are very reasonably saying, that's not for me and I don't think that your sky fairy should entitle you to any more than I am entitled to.
Re:Another attack on Christianity (Score:5, Insightful)
It's an attack on a special privilege only granted to religious people. If everyone could wear whatever headgear they wanted, we wouldn't be having this argument. The church of the FSM isn't making fun of your or anyone else's beliefs, it's just making sure that if the government recognizes one of them it must recognizes all of them as equally valid. That the government got no right to say that your religion is "true" so you can wear your headgear and my religion is "false" so I can't, or that you can teach your religious beliefs about the creation of the universe or the human race but I can't. I know you have faith in your religion, here's a newsflash: So does every other religious person. Maybe you as a person can dismiss everyone else's beliefs. But as a society with freedom of religion, it can't. Even when they don't comply with your ideas of what a religious conviction should look like.
Re: (Score:2)
No have a real religion like the Disconrdianists https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Have a hot dog on Friday man.
Re:F*ucking idiot (Score:4, Insightful)
Grow up, girl, Get a cute boyfriend to hump your brains out on a regular basis and you won't feel the need to go around with a fucking pot on your head.
You do know that while sex is enjoyable and all that, it really is not the solution to all of life's problems, and not everyone you disagree with is suffering from sexual frustrations. This is not totally unlike telling a woman to "get back in the kitchen (or bedroom)", or telling a young person to "go back to the kid's table", or telling a black person to "get back out into the fields". While it might be an effective technique to belittle others, It is dismissive, petty, rude, and does little to actually advance the discussion.
While you might like to think that you can tell what everyone's sincerely held beliefs might be - you really can't. While you might like to be the arbiter of what is important and what is not important - others are going to disagree with you. Clearly in this case, this person does sincerely believe that this issue is important to them - important enough to go through all the legal necessities to get this type of ruling.
Re:License valid only with spaghetti strainer (Score:4, Insightful)