You haven’t had a really good one.

Completely understand that. My point is that these beliefs are capable of making real-world changes, and just because someone sincerely believes in an unsubstantiated claim they shouldn’t have more power than someone who doesn’t really believe in a different unsubstantiated claim.

What’s the legal difference between a sincerely held religious belief and a sincerely held nonreligious belief?

I read somewhere that they choke their chickens. It’s horrible.

Again, how do you objectively determine if someone’s beliefs are genuine? I personally don’t believe that the vast majority of religious people actually believe their religious texts, but I also can’t definitively say they are lying. Does that mean I could, given the power, rule that they aren’t sincere because i…

Is it necessary to prove a belief is ‘sincerely held’, or is the burden to prove that someone does not believe?

You’re not wrong. This is actually interesting because the reason pastafarians have been able to wear colanders in IDs is because courts are not supposed to look at whether the judge finds the religious belief plausible or legitimate. The judge’s statement that it’s not a religion just because the plaintiff says it is…

Actually (man, I’m that fucking guy...), courts aren’t even really supposed to delve into whether or not a belief is sincerely held (see: Hobby Lobby). Rather, they look at if govt even has an interest in prohibiting that practice/belief and if the govt is interfering with that practice/belief in the least restrictive…

Hey, they never said the stripper factory made female human strippers. It could also make male human strippers, or bear strippers, or paint strippers.

Maybe it's a male stripper factory.

I agree. In this case, I’m not even entirely sure what he’s campaigning for. Like, I get the joke, yes haha pirates and whatnot. But what point is this trying to make? That prisoners should not be allowed certain clothing accomodations based on religious beliefs, because all religions are as ridiculous in his eyes as…

I kind of disagree though the stripper factory nonsense is rather silly. The Satanists try too hard to be in your face and shocking while the FSM has a whimsicality that is enjoyable. I teach World Religions and the students seem to get a kick out of the FSM.

As an atheist who is very much against all the laws that exist based on religious belief...I feel like the Church of Satan does satirical protest right, and these guys are just annoying (and not a little misogynist.... “heaven has a stripper factory”? ughhhhhh)

What do you mean a great serpent laid an egg and from it the Earth was hatched, you loin-clothed heathen? A bearded white dude willed it into existence over a six-day period, and then took a Sunday nap, and that’s why we can’t shop for liquor on that day. GET SERIOUS.

if they can accomodate Christianity, they should accomodate Pastafarian faith

I genuinely hope his lawyers appeal this and that at some point the Supreme Court grants cert (which I know they won’t, but a man can dream). When it came to all this Hobby Lobby contraception bullshit, the stance of many of the justices was, “Who are we to say whether a belief is ‘sincerely held’ or not? Petitioners…

I can’t wait until Cthulhu returns to Earth comes and wipes out all of these noodly-appendaged pretender-deities.