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posted by CoolHand on Monday April 06 2015, @05:32PM   Printer-friendly
from the better-than-sacramental-wine dept.

AlterNet reports

In a classic case of "unintended consequences", the recently signed Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) in Indiana may have opened the door for the establishment of the First Church of Cannabis in the Hoosier State.

While Governor Mike Pence (R) was holding a signing ceremony for the bill allowing businesses and individuals to deny services to gays on religious grounds or values, paperwork for the First Church of Cannabis Inc. was being filed with the Secretary of State's office, reports RTV6.

Church founder Bill Levin announced on his Facebook page that the church's registration has been approved, writing, "Status: Approved by Secretary of State of Indiana - "Congratulations your registration has been approved!" Now we begin to accomplish our goals of Love, Understanding, and Good Health."

Levin is currently seeking $4.20 donations towards his non-profit church.

 
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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by tathra on Monday April 06 2015, @05:57PM

    by tathra (3367) on Monday April 06 2015, @05:57PM (#167057)

    so in other words, you're saying this law will have so many precedents narrowing it down that it will only apply to christianity, and then hopefully get voided for being unconstitutional (violating the 14th).

    the law says "religion > * (so long as its not used to discriminate)". that means all religions, whether you agree with them or not. these idiots crying about "creeping sharia" just passed a law that allows it to do more than just creep. you've also got a legal way to run around naked and not comply with drug tests [rawstory.com] and pretty much anything else you can imagine so long as you can find a religious excuse.

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  • (Score: 4, Informative) by bob_super on Monday April 06 2015, @06:22PM

    by bob_super (1357) on Monday April 06 2015, @06:22PM (#167068)

    We all know that enforcement will be based on whether your attitude is offensive to good people.
    Good people are defined by their attachment to the Christian values.

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by ikanreed on Monday April 06 2015, @06:27PM

      by ikanreed (3164) Subscriber Badge on Monday April 06 2015, @06:27PM (#167074) Journal

      Of course, is that's how it's always been, but codifying that de facto rule into a legally meaningful one is nottheless problematic.

    • (Score: 3, Informative) by tathra on Monday April 06 2015, @06:45PM

      by tathra (3367) on Monday April 06 2015, @06:45PM (#167080)

      and those enforcements will either get thrown out or narrow down the law such that it violates the 14th amendment. either it applies to all 313+ religions held by the people of this country or none at all, the constitution is clear that there is no in-between.

      • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 06 2015, @07:20PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 06 2015, @07:20PM (#167111)

        either it applies to all 313+ religions held by the people of this country or none at all

        Nope. Either it applies to *everyone* or none at all. I'm not part of a religion and won't be part of one. Religious people shouldn't get special rights.

        • (Score: 4, Insightful) by tathra on Monday April 06 2015, @07:53PM

          by tathra (3367) on Monday April 06 2015, @07:53PM (#167133)

          "atheism" counts as a "religion" for the purpose of this argument. take your pedantry elsewhere.

          • (Score: 4, Insightful) by bob_super on Monday April 06 2015, @08:05PM

            by bob_super (1357) on Monday April 06 2015, @08:05PM (#167141)

            No, it doesn't.

            "I refuse to do this because I don't think it's right" does not carry the same weight as "I refuse to do it because it goes against the bible that the president used when he got sworn in"

            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 06 2015, @08:39PM

              by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 06 2015, @08:39PM (#167160)

              > "I refuse to do this because I don't think it's right" does not carry the same weight as "I refuse to do it because it goes against the bible

              In whose mind?

              In objective reality they are the same thing. Ultimately unprovable beliefs are the basis of all our own personal definitions of "right." Some people pick a religious tradition, some pick a superficially rational philosophy, others pick half-truths that satisfy their biases. But in the end it all comes down to something or another that can't be proven.

            • (Score: 2) by tathra on Monday April 06 2015, @08:48PM

              by tathra (3367) on Monday April 06 2015, @08:48PM (#167161)

              lets look at the definition: [reference.com]

              religion
              noun
              1. a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, especially when considered as the creation of a superhuman agency or agencies, usually involving devotional and ritual observances, and often containing a moral code governing the conduct of human affairs.
              2. a specific fundamental set of beliefs and practices generally agreed upon by a number of persons or sects
              3. the body of persons adhering to a particular set of beliefs and practices
              6. something one believes in and follows devotedly; a point or matter of ethics or conscience:

              for #1, the "superhuman agency" considered is that there isn't one
              for 2, 3, and 6, the shared, fundamental belief to which one is devoted is that there is no god. its still a belief system.

              there's also arguments made by others about how atheism is a religion. [strangenotions.com]

              but regardless, i already stated flat-out that for the purposes of this argument i am considering it a religion. saying "Nuh uh!" doesn't change that. for the purposes of my argument (constitutionality), atheism is considered as a religion. unless you'd really like to argue that the right to believe in no god is not guaranteed by the 1st amendment and that 'religious laws' like this aren't guaranteed by the 14th amendment to also apply to atheism...

              • (Score: 2) by bob_super on Monday April 06 2015, @09:44PM

                by bob_super (1357) on Monday April 06 2015, @09:44PM (#167195)

                > there's also arguments made by others about how atheism is a religion[link].

                Interesting, but flawed logically: he says that the answer to "are you religion_n" is often "no I am atheist", and uses it to imply that atheism is like religion.
                To see why it's wrong, rephrase it:
                  - are you in the blue boat, the red boat, or the yellow boat?
                  - No, I'm swimming
                Swimming is not a boat type. It is an individual behavior. (Your definition #6 is wrong in the regard: it's not a definition, but an common extension of the term. Religions always require multiple people.)

                He uses the same flawed logic to say that Atheism is a double-negative.
                Religions specify a construct for the divine and/or afterlife. People believe in the specific construct (otherwise, they wouldn't fight about it).
                Atheism does not provide a NULL construct. You don't "religiously believe" in nothingness after death anymore than you "religiously believe" in the void of an empty container.

                > unless you'd really like to argue that the right to believe in no god is not guaranteed by the 1st amendment

                Read it:
                "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech..."
                Atheism is constitutionally protected as free speech, not as a non-interference of .gov into religion.

                • (Score: 4, Interesting) by hemocyanin on Monday April 06 2015, @09:57PM

                  by hemocyanin (186) on Monday April 06 2015, @09:57PM (#167201) Journal

                  Yesterday I ran across a little controversy Neil DeGrasse Tyson set into motion:

                  "He has as much interest in meeting with other people to discuss their absence of belief in God as in meeting with non-golfers to talk about their absence of a passion for watching golf." http://www.npr.org/blogs/13.7/2014/12/08/369356881/what-if-atheists-were-defined-by-their-actions [npr.org]

                  The article is somewhat interesting -- I skimmed it a little because it seems to get bogged down and repetitive in certain areas. Anyway, the upshot is that some labels are more useful at categorizing people than others, i.e., "pentacostal" is going to let you make presumptions that have a much better chance of being correct than "atheist" is. But aside from all that, as a non-golfing atheist, I love that non-golfer metaphor. It's really true -- the reason you don't see all the atheists in the world gathering for services or whatever it would be called, is because atheism is a category that crosses over many differing groups of people who don't really hang out together in the first place. Like all the non-golfers of the world -- it just isn't enough to form an association who share that one single non-interest.

                  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 07 2015, @02:07AM

                    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 07 2015, @02:07AM (#167287)

                    Post theological

                    http://thehumanist.com/magazine/january-february-2008/features/the-post-theological-umbrella [thehumanist.com]

                    Opening paragraphs:

                            An American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS) from 2001 indicates that over 13 percent of the population identifies as secular/nonreligious, but only 1 percent identify as atheist, agnostic, or humanist.

                    The University of Minnesota results no doubt help to explain the results of the ARIS survey. That is, the fact that atheists are so vilified explains why only less than 1 percent of the population will identify as atheist, even though over 13 percent will identify as secular/nonreligious.

                    For humanist activists trying to advance their worldview in a culture that discourages open nontheism, there have traditionally been two ways of dealing with this issue. Some do so by trying to hide the nontheistic nature of humanism, avoiding discussion of nontheism with the hope that maybe nobody will notice it. This approach rarely works, however, because most discussions of humanism with nonhumanists inevitably result in the question: So are humanists atheists?

                    Another way to address the issue is to attempt to improve the public’s perception of the atheist identity. This is a worthy goal, and surely it should be encouraged. Given time, the image of atheism in America might improve, as people slowly realize that atheists are more likely to be found in research labs than in prisons or drug hideouts. But this approach, even if it works, will take time, and one must consider whether other strategies might be possible.

                    This question of atheism, and specifically how the public’s poor image of atheists makes the advancement of humanism difficult, became a topic of discussion with a friend at a recent conference. Her response pointed to a third way to address the issue: “When people ask me about atheism,” she said, “I just tell them I consider myself post-theological.”

                  • (Score: 2) by sjames on Tuesday April 07 2015, @08:10AM

                    by sjames (2882) on Tuesday April 07 2015, @08:10AM (#167357) Journal

                    That is actually a useful metric. Some people DO practice Atheism as a religion. They do get together and talk about not-believing. Or more accurately, they can't resist long conversations about why not not believing is harmful and stupid. If anyone says anything that even hints that there might be the possibility that they may harbor the vague notion that anyone in the room might believe in anything not immediately visible, it's off to the races!

                    Others just don't believe.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 07 2015, @10:20AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 07 2015, @10:20AM (#167378)

          A lot of atheists are very religious about it. Including blind believe in texts instead of critically analysing them. It's just that their "holy" texts are not written by Moses, the Evangelists or Mohammed, but e.g. by Dawkins.

          Truly non-religious people are known as agnostics.

      • (Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Tuesday April 07 2015, @03:30AM

        by PartTimeZombie (4827) on Tuesday April 07 2015, @03:30AM (#167305)

        Seriously? 313 different religions? I couldn't name more than a dozen or so, and I probably got several of those from playing Civ.
        Not that I'm doubting you or anything, it just amazes me sometimes what crap people claim to believe.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 07 2015, @12:19PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 07 2015, @12:19PM (#167404)

          A different religion doesn't necessarily mean a completely different believe system. How many variants of Christianity are there? I'd not be surprised if they'd already make up half of the religions in that count.

        • (Score: 4, Insightful) by tathra on Tuesday April 07 2015, @01:20PM

          by tathra (3367) on Tuesday April 07 2015, @01:20PM (#167421)

          i got the number from here. [procon.org] most of them are under "Other Unclassified" (124), "New Age"(127), and "Christianity" (35), and then another 25 different ones on top of those groups (and atheism is covered by Humanism).

          • (Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Wednesday April 08 2015, @03:08AM

            by PartTimeZombie (4827) on Wednesday April 08 2015, @03:08AM (#167711)

            That's an awesome read, there are a lot of Christian sects, but the big surprise for me was that here are more Druids in the US than Zoroastrians.