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The Satanic Temple, an activist group based in Salem, Massachusetts, is threatening to sue Twitter for religious discrimination after one of its co-founders had his Twitter account permanently suspended.
Lucien Greaves, the Satanic Temple's co-founder and spokesman, said his Twitter account was permanently suspended without any notice after he asked his followers to report a tweet that called for the Satanic Temple to be burned down.
"We're talking to lawyers today," Greaves said Friday about whether he planned to take legal action.
Source: http://www.newsweek.com/satanic-temple-threatens-sue-twitter-over-religious-discrimination-780148
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Satanic Temple Threatens to Sue Twitter Over Religious Discrimination
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If life gives you lemons, make lemonade.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 15 2018, @05:09PM (6 children)
> ... legal definition of what constitutes a religion...
No reason to reinvent the wheel, the IRS will guide you, relative to US non-profit tax laws:
Publication 1828, Tax Guide for Churches and Religious Organizations
https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p1828.pdf [irs.gov] [pdf warning]
Google's cached html version is fairly readable...
https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:3MOGKlbn_qoJ:https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p1828.pdf+ [googleusercontent.com]
(Score: 5, Informative) by Thexalon on Monday January 15 2018, @06:08PM (5 children)
It should be pointed out that the definitions are remarkably loose, as John Oliver demonstrated by creating the completely legal church, Our Lady of Perpetual Exemption. Our Lady of Perpetual Exemption met weekly in his show's studio in New York, engaging in a form of worship of a brief silent meditation on the nature of fraudulent churches. The full series of videos discussing this is available on Youtube [youtube.com].
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by sjames on Monday January 15 2018, @07:52PM (2 children)
The definition MUST be loose. In fact, loose enough for things like Our Lady of Perpetual Exemption to exist in order to minimize the chances that a genuine religious belief gets excluded simply for not being sufficiently mainstream. I have met a few members of the Church of the Sub-Genius and I assure you they are quite devout in their dis-belief.
On the surface, the many Discordians and Caoists may seem to be telling an elaborate joke, but look deeper and they are exploring what it means to have a religious belief. and what makes a religious belief viable.
Laugh at the Church of Binary Consciousness if you will, but the core belief that each individual is the sole arbiter of what constitutes their belief is a powerful one.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 15 2018, @10:25PM
Belief itself isn't really a necessary aspect of a religion anyway. What do Taoists believe?
Religion tends to rather be a set of shared traditions held by a people that binds them together as such (religion is derived from Latin "religare" meaning "to bind"). Many of those religions have shared beliefs as part of their tradition, but some don't, and indeed, some share their disbeliefs as a matter of tradition.
It's one of those things that is almost impossible to avoid as a human, and always makes me amused to hear when a person insists that they're entirely non-religious. Most atheists belong to some sort of religion or other, however informal, and indeed, national rituals such as flag raising and the pledge of allegiance are considered as civic religion by religious studies scholars.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Tuesday January 16 2018, @01:27AM
Sub-Genius founder Ivan Stang is actually among my circle of friends, and he's not the only X-Day regular I know, and he's very clear about how it's only somewhat all a joke.
And yes, I agree that the definition has to be loose. Which to me makes the case for treating religious organizations exactly like any other organization even more compelling.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 15 2018, @09:56PM (1 child)
Is it related to Our Lady of Perpetual Collections?
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 16 2018, @03:16AM
Hillary didn't win the presidency, though, it's not our lady, thanks FSM for that.