Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

 LethalShade wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:

Baxx wrote:
Saying some religion is satire is rude, while saying other religion is satire is not rude? Certainly courts have judged christianity to be satire in courts too? I've heard many say other religions have had their day in the sun, they've said it about islam, about greek religion, about celtic religion, and now also about pastafarianism.

Where do you draw the line in all this?

It's perfectly good some say no to all religious clothing instead of having opinions similar to some have here.

You're saying all religions are a satire. That is extremely rude and I am saying that as a moderator.

He does have a point, though. What makes a set of beliefs different than another (including atheism) ?

That you could or could not condemn a religious official under the About-Picard Law...?

*Googles*

*Is disappointed it isn't based on something Jean-Luc said once about not being a jerk to people.*

Col. Dash wrote:
That's the point right there Sebster, there is no individual in uniform, nor individual cases. Uniform is the antithesis of individual. The uniform is the same for everyone, that is the most fair and equal as you can possibly get.

Applying random rules to an absolute standard with no consideration of reason is the opposite of fairness.

Again, voluntary association, going into it you know what the requirements are beforehand. Under no circumstances should you expect to be treated differently because of your beliefs.

Except it’s very stupid for an organisation to apply a pointless and arbitrary rule that excludes some people that it might want to have in its organisation. In order to operate as best it can, an organisation wants to be able to select from a candidate pool as wide as possible. Removing potential candidates from that pool for the sake of an arbitrary rule is stubborn minded nonsense.

Of course many rules exist for good reason. Not every preference should be considered, some exceptions create safety and performance issues, and in general too many exceptions will create a mess to administer. But that doesn’t mean no exceptions, where a work around or allowance can be made that isn’t inconvenient, why wouldn't you do it?

 sebster wrote:
Except it’s very stupid for an organisation to apply a pointless and arbitrary rule that excludes some people that it might want to have in its organisation.

You're assuming the military wants the sort of people who will pitch a fit and threaten a lawsuit over not being allowed to wear a hijab after voluntarily entering a school where they know going in they won't be allowed to wear a hijab. I think that may not be a wise assumption.

Seaward wrote:
You're assuming the military wants the sort of people who will pitch a fit and threaten a lawsuit over not being allowed to wear a hijab after voluntarily entering a school where they know going in they won't be allowed to wear a hijab. I think that may not be a wise assumption.

Logic fail. The people who are willing to drag this to court are already coming in – they have to be in to file the suit. The ones you miss out on are the people who’d like to take part but see they’re not accommodated and then go and do something else instead.

 LethalShade wrote:
He does have a point, though. What makes a set of beliefs different than another (including atheism) ? The number of believers and how old that particular set of beliefs is ?

No, he really doesn't have a point. All religions are false beliefs about the world and many religious beliefs and practices might seem absurd to an outside observer, but not all religions are satire. The term "satire" has meaning, and it isn't "false" or "absurd", as he seems to be using it. Here is the correct definition of "satire":

the use of humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize people's stupidity or vices, particularly in the context of contemporary politics and other topical issues.

A belief, no matter how ridiculous you think it is, that someone holds with absolute sincerity is not satire. They aren't saying something because they're exaggerating or using humor to make a point, they're saying it because they believe it is true. And it is indisputably true that most people believe in their chosen religion (or lack thereof) sincerely, even when other people think "WTF, how can you believe that?". Attempting to claim otherwise, by labeling all religion satire, isn't just needlessly insulting, it's obviously not a true statement.

Now, in relation to this thread, the issue IMO is when we put the courts in charge of deciding if someone's beliefs are sincere or not. When we say, for example, that someone who claims Pastafarianism as a religion is not sincere in their beliefs about the world we're essentially saying "this is so ridiculous that nobody could really believe it". And the almost-inevitable result of that is turning religious rights into a popularity contest, where "mainstream" religions get full rights and everyone else has to persuade the court that they have a valid religion.

The thing is there are situations in which lines have to be drawn. For example, it doesn't matter what religion you are, in your passport photo you have to obey the international regulations that state a full face shot with uncovered hair and so on. Otherwise passport photos would be useless.

There are other situations in which the wearing of a religious artifact may be possible but it still needs to fit into some existing structure like army uniform. When considering someone's supposedly deeply held belief that entitles them to consideration of having an exemption to the normal rule, the existence of a wide-spread religion of long tradition supporting them is a good clue that they may actually be genuine. Unlike some who gets up one day at boot camp and declares that his god told him in a dream to wear luminous condoms on his ears, please can he have an exemption. (One can only imagine the reaction of a Roman centurion who one day was told by a soldier he had got Christianity and no longer wanted to attend parades of worship of the Imperial cult.)

Presumably religions either fail or gradually grow towards greater respectability, as did Christianity, becoming the official religion of the Roman Empire over the course of several centuries.

 sebster wrote:
Logic fail. The people who are willing to drag this to court are already coming in – they have to be in to file the suit. The ones you miss out on are the people who’d like to take part but see they’re not accommodated and then go and do something else instead.

And if their desire to serve is overwhelmed by their desire to wear a hijab, oh well. The military will manage without them. Even the Sikhs who wound up with exemptions didn't get them at the start of their service - they shaved and didn't wear their turbans until they were approved.

It was only in 1981 that the top command of the armed forces decided to ban sikhs from wearing a beard and turban.

Recently, though they have had a change of heart and want the armed forces to grant exemptions where appropriate, and that is why sikhs have been applying for and getting permission to wear a beard and turban.

One reason for this change of policy was an appreciation that diversity was a valuable factor when units were being posted to diverse foreign locations, and was being hurt by the blanket ban on religious items like turbans.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
The thing is there are situations in which lines have to be drawn. For example, it doesn't matter what religion you are, in your passport photo you have to obey the international regulations that state a full face shot with uncovered hair and so on. Otherwise passport photos would be useless.

This is kind of the point I was getting at. I have no objection to blanket rules like "passport photos must show the entire face" that have legitimate reasons behind them. Obviously the state has a legitimate security interest in ensuring that identification documents can actually be used to identify a person, and having the person's face visible is an important part of that. What I'm objecting to is the idea that the state gets to decide which religions deserve protection. For example, allowing {popular religion} to wear clothing items that cover their face in their passport pictures, but not granting {unpopular minority religion} the same right. Or deciding that {thing people from the unpopular minority religion} want is not acceptable even though there is no compelling reason not to allow it, because {unpopular minority religion} isn't a "real religion".

When considering someone's supposedly deeply held belief that entitles them to consideration of having an exemption to the normal rule, the existence of a wide-spread religion of long tradition supporting them is a good clue that they may actually be genuine.

It's a clue, but it's far from proof. Someone can claim to be a member of a particular reason if they want a perceived benefit, and the fact that the religion they're taking advantage of has a long tradition behind it doesn't mean that the individual's belief is sincere. Nor does the absence of a long tradition prove that the belief isn't sincere.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
The thing is there are situations in which lines have to be drawn. For example, it doesn't matter what religion you are, in your passport photo you have to obey the international regulations that state a full face shot with uncovered hair and so on. Otherwise passport photos would be useless.

This is kind of the point I was getting at. I have no objection to blanket rules like "passport photos must show the entire face" that have legitimate reasons behind them. Obviously the state has a legitimate security interest in ensuring that identification documents can actually be used to identify a person, and having the person's face visible is an important part of that. What I'm objecting to is the idea that the state gets to decide which religions deserve protection. For example, allowing {popular religion} to wear clothing items that cover their face in their passport pictures, but not granting {unpopular minority religion} the same right. Or deciding that {thing people from the unpopular minority religion} want is not acceptable even though there is no compelling reason not to allow it, because {unpopular minority religion} isn't a "real religion".

When considering someone's supposedly deeply held belief that entitles them to consideration of having an exemption to the normal rule, the existence of a wide-spread religion of long tradition supporting them is a good clue that they may actually be genuine.

It's a clue, but it's far from proof. Someone can claim to be a member of a particular reason if they want a perceived benefit, and the fact that the religion they're taking advantage of has a long tradition behind it doesn't mean that the individual's belief is sincere. Nor does the absence of a long tradition prove that the belief isn't sincere.

No, it's not proof, but it's the kind of thing you take into account when you will have to make a decision you might need to stand up for in front of your peers, superiors and even in a court of law. The status of Islam as a major world religion would be bound to carry more weight compared to pastafarianism, which most people regard as a joke.

Of course you've also got your English middle class parents moving near a good church school and joining the local church for enough years to get a letter from their vicar to allow them to apply to the church school for their children.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
It was only in 1981 that the top command of the armed forces decided to ban sikhs from wearing a beard and turban.

Recently, though they have had a change of heart and want the armed forces to grant exemptions where appropriate, and that is why sikhs have been applying for and getting permission to wear a beard and turban.

One reason for this change of policy was an appreciation that diversity was a valuable factor when units were being posted to diverse foreign locations, and was being hurt by the blanket ban on religious items like turbans.

That's certainly a way of interpreting it, sure. It wouldn't necessarily be an accurate one, much like how the recent push for 'diversity' in NSW applicants was attributed to operational need, an operational need that, according to NSW itself, didn't actually exist.

Civilian leadership pushes a lot of things on the military that the military doesn't need, whether it's more tanks or A-10s, or 'diversity.' That's civilian leadership's job, but it doesn't make them infallible or automatically correct.

And let's be real; claiming that Sikh turbans will help us out in the areas we've been operating in and will likely continue to be operating in for the foreseeable future is pretty absurd. Muslims aren't going to be fooled by Sikhs.

It doesn't make them wrong, either.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
It doesn't make them wrong, either.

Automatically? No.

There's a strong argument to be made that it coming from Carter makes it automatically wrong, though. Dude seems to love batting .000.

 Peregrine wrote:

 LethalShade wrote:
He does have a point, though. What makes a set of beliefs different than another (including atheism) ? The number of believers and how old that particular set of beliefs is ?

No, he really doesn't have a point. All religions are false beliefs about the world and many religious beliefs and practices might seem absurd to an outside observer, but not all religions are satire. The term "satire" has meaning, and it isn't "false" or "absurd", as he seems to be using it. Here is the correct definition of "satire":

the use of humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize people's stupidity or vices, particularly in the context of contemporary politics and other topical issues.

A belief, no matter how ridiculous you think it is, that someone holds with absolute sincerity is not satire. They aren't saying something because they're exaggerating or using humor to make a point, they're saying it because they believe it is true. And it is indisputably true that most people believe in their chosen religion (or lack thereof) sincerely, even when other people think "WTF, how can you believe that?". Attempting to claim otherwise, by labeling all religion satire, isn't just needlessly insulting, it's obviously not a true statement.

Now, in relation to this thread, the issue IMO is when we put the courts in charge of deciding if someone's beliefs are sincere or not. When we say, for example, that someone who claims Pastafarianism as a religion is not sincere in their beliefs about the world we're essentially saying "this is so ridiculous that nobody could really believe it". And the almost-inevitable result of that is turning religious rights into a popularity contest, where "mainstream" religions get full rights and everyone else has to persuade the court that they have a valid religion.

And that exactly was my point. The numbers and age argument, the one religion is satire while another isn't and so forth.

I'm still new to the notion that describing or criticising religion can be rude. I thought that was long past.

Baxx wrote:
And that exactly was my point. The numbers and age argument, the one religion is satire while another isn't and so forth.

Except, again, that isn't what "satire" means. The word has a definition, and it is not "something I think is ridiculous or false". Christianity (for example) is not a satire because the people who believe it do so sincerely, not as an exaggerated or humorous commentary on an issue. It has nothing to do with how old it is or how many people believe it.

I'm still new to the notion that describing or criticising religion can be rude. I thought that was long past.

Of course criticizing religion can be rude. If you post "everyone who is {religion} is a ing " then that is rude, and you can expect moderator attention. Criticizing religion in an objective manner is fine, as you can see from the fact that my "all religion is false" comment is still there.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
The status of Islam as a major world religion would be bound to carry more weight compared to pastafarianism, which most people regard as a joke.

And this is a problem. It creates a situation where "mainstream" religions get special privileges, while new or unpopular religions don't. The legal status of a religion should not be influenced by whether or not people who are not members of that religion consider it a joke.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
The status of Islam as a major world religion would be bound to carry more weight compared to pastafarianism, which most people regard as a joke.

And this is a problem. It creates a situation where "mainstream" religions get special privileges, while new or unpopular religions don't. The legal status of a religion should not be influenced by whether or not people who are not members of that religion consider it a joke.

Of course, in the case he used, pastafaraianism, the members themselves see it as a joke (because it is), so if others do as well it should not be a big deal

My dog tags has Bacchus officially stamped on them.

Baxx wrote:

And that exactly was my point. The numbers and age argument, the one religion is satire while another isn't and so forth..

Numbers and age are nothing to do with whether or not a 'religion' is real or satire.

Pastafarianism is no more a real religion than the Onion is a real news outlet. I don't say that because it's new, or because it falls under some magical attendance threshold. I say it because it's a work of satire, that was created in response to a school district electing to teach Intelligent Design alongside Evolution, in an attempt to point out to everyone how silly the writer felt this idea was.


The fact that some people aren't familiar with the story behind it and so assume that the people claiming to be adherents of Pastafarianism are genuine (if slightly odd) doesn't make it a religion...

 insaniak wrote:

Baxx wrote:

And that exactly was my point. The numbers and age argument, the one religion is satire while another isn't and so forth..

Numbers and age are nothing to do with whether or not a 'religion' is real or satire.

Pastafarianism is no more a real religion than the Onion is a real news outlet. I don't say that because it's new, or because it falls under some magical attendance threshold. I say it because it's a work of satire, that was created in response to a school district electing to teach Intelligent Design alongside Evolution, in an attempt to point out to everyone how silly the writer felt this idea was.


The fact that some people aren't familiar with the story behind it and so assume that the people claiming to be adherents of Pastafarianism are genuine (if slightly odd) doesn't make it a religion...

And the 'source' of the religion doesn't mean that someone can't have a genuine belief in it. The 'source' or intent of a religion has no bearing as to whether it's a religion or not.

 insaniak wrote:
The fact that some people aren't familiar with the story behind it and so assume that the people claiming to be adherents of Pastafarianism are genuine (if slightly odd) doesn't make it a religion...

And here's where your explanation goes wrong. If people genuinely believe in Pastafarianism then it becomes a legitimate religion for them. Perhaps you could think of it as two separate but very similar beliefs: the original satire, and the new religion that just happens to be very similar to it.

 Peregrine wrote:
If people genuinely believe in Pastafarianism then it becomes a legitimate religion for them.

That isn't how religion works. People in asylums genuinely believe all sorts of things but that doesn't make it a religion. Usually it is those that think they are smarter than they actually are that confuse Pastafarianism for actual religion. It is a useful tool for pointing out the problems of religion but that doesn't make it an actual religion anymore than using a hammer to build a home makes that hammer a house.

Actually that'EXACTLY how religions work. Just some get special unearned bonuses.

 skyth wrote:
Actually that'EXACTLY how religions work. Just some get special unearned bonuses.

Actually just belief alone isn't how they work EXACTLY. It is more complex than that, but I guess if we want to boil it down to a simple, false definition so it can be argued against I guess that works to.

My religion is what I say it is. The tenets of my religion are what I say they are. It doesn't matter what someone else's beliefs are.

If I believe in Sigmar, can I carry a big hammer to hit people with?

How about the Holy Light from Warcraft - the Light's followers hit things with hammers as well.

 Peregrine wrote:

Of course criticizing religion can be rude. If you post "everyone who is {religion} is a ing " then that is rude, and you can expect moderator attention. Criticizing religion in an objective manner is fine, as you can see from the fact that my "all religion is false" comment is still there.

Criticizing religion can be rude because criticizing religious people can be rude?

Everyone who is this and that is this and that sounds like statement about people, not religion.

 Crazyterran wrote:
If I believe in Sigmar, can I carry a big hammer to hit people with?

How about the Holy Light from Warcraft - the Light's followers hit things with hammers as well.

Nope. The government has a compelling interest in keeping you from hitting people with hammers against their will regardless if it is a valid religious belief.

Baxx wrote:
Criticizing religion can be rude because criticizing religious people can be rude?

Everyone who is this and that is this and that sounds like statement about people, not religion.

Do you honestly not understand the difference between criticism and insulting? I said it before, but I'll say it again: the comment I made about "all religions are false" is still there, and that's just one of the many things I've said that are extremely critical of religion. It is clearly possible (and permitted by forum rules) to criticize religion without crossing that line.

 skyth wrote:
My religion is what I say it is. The tenets of my religion are what I say they are. It doesn't matter what someone else's beliefs are.

And to the law and the people who are not you it doesn't matter if you define religion in a simplistic manner or call a carrot a turkey leg. Having a personal belief isn't really an issue or a point of contention.