Thread: Russian Pirate Church formally requests to be an official religion

I'll try to bring some clarification to it
First of all it has nothing to with religion of any kind
The key part is this "insult religious feelings of the believers"
This is a quotation from ridiculous law Russian officials have passed, recently. The law basically allows people to do virtually anything as long as they can prove that it's related to their religious believes (punishments are severe: up to 500000 rubles in fines and up to 3 years in prison) - Закон о наказании за оскорбление чувств верующих подписан президентом |

This law has been passed as a reaction to "Pussy Riot" actions (the law is very stupid I'd say)
As consequences after passing the law many young Russian who oppose it started registering all kinds of religions and churches, so they can do whatever they want, because otherwise it would be "insulting religious feelings of the believers"
Here is an example of such "churches" -
Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster - Lenta.ru: Из жизни: События: Церковь Летающего макаронного монстра зарегистрировалась в
http://www.rpcmp.ru/news/index.htm
http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Пастафарианство

The church was originated in 2005 in the USA as an opposition to Kansas state, which suggested to put "Intelligent design" to the school program, instead of Evolutionism as main concept of the creation of the world

Originally Posted by Doomer

I'll try to bring some clarification to it
First of all it has nothing to with religion of any kind
The key part is this "insult religious feelings of the believers"
This is a quotation from ridiculous law Russian officials have passed, recently. The law basically allows people to do virtually anything as long as they can prove that it's related to their religious believes (punishments are severe: up to 500000 rubles in fines and up to 3 years in prison) - Закон о наказании за оскорбление чувств верующих подписан президентом |

This law has been passed as a reaction to "Pussy Riot" actions (the law is very stupid I'd say)
As consequences after passing the law many young Russian who oppose it started registering all kinds of religions and churches, so they can do whatever they want, because otherwise it would be "insulting religious feelings of the believers"
Here is an example of such "churches" -
Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster - Lenta.ru: Из жизни: События: Церковь Летающего макаронного монстра зарегистрировалась в
http://www.rpcmp.ru/news/index.htm
http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Пастафарианство

The church was originated in 2005 in the USA as an opposition to Kansas state, which suggested to put "Intelligent design" to the school program, instead of Evolutionism as main concept of the creation of the world

I thought it was a brilliant form of protest, actually.

Originally Posted by Doomer

I'll try to bring some clarification to it
First of all it has nothing to with religion of any kind
The key part is this "insult religious feelings of the believers"
This is a quotation from ridiculous law Russian officials have passed, recently. The law basically allows people to do virtually anything as long as they can prove that it's related to their religious believes (punishments are severe: up to 500000 rubles in fines and up to 3 years in prison) - Закон о наказании за оскорбление чувств верующих подписан президентом |

This law has been passed as a reaction to "Pussy Riot" actions (the law is very stupid I'd say)
As consequences after passing the law many young Russian who oppose it started registering all kinds of religions and churches, so they can do whatever they want, because otherwise it would be "insulting religious feelings of the believers"
Here is an example of such "churches" -
Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster - Lenta.ru: Из жизни: События: Церковь Летающего макаронного монстра зарегистрировалась в
http://www.rpcmp.ru/news/index.htm
http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Пастафарианство

The church was originated in 2005 in the USA as an opposition to Kansas state, which suggested to put "Intelligent design" to the school program, instead of Evolutionism as main concept of the creation of the world

But it's the least bad of many choices! The other choices are:

• Have only ONE approved state religion, which people need to conform to, like they did in the 1700s when many in Europe emigrated to the USA because they preferred some other religion or way of expressing their faith.
• Ban religious expressions altogether, like only very oppressive states do -- and it's not like people stop believing just because it's banned.

If you allow religious freedom, then you can't make judgements about which religions are OK and which aren't.
You have to allow Kopimism and Spagetthi Monster...... and Scientology, Jehovas Witnesses, Hare Krishna...... Otherwise where do you draw the line, and who is qualified to say which religions are approved and which aren't? The truth is, nobody can have any objective knowledge; the whole point is that it is about believing.

The Spagetthi church was invented by someone who wanted to make the point about how religion is illogical and deluded. Kopimism was invented by the Pirate Bay guys, I think. I agree that it is an insult against real religious views, but I don't think there is much that can be done about it, without proposing to pass judgement on people's faith.