Apologies if this has been posted already: Judge Rules that Pastafarianism is not a Religion

[Donald Ian Rankin]

55. To go through those, not in order:

Two of those are very easy.

"a) no one literally believes in the FSM"

I don't feel any need to demonstrate this; I'm happy to rely on the fact that everyone already knows it's true.


"c) why belief in something incredible, however common, should have any import in law."

I'm not convinced that it should. I am, however, convinced in America at present it *does*.



That just leaves

"b) that belief in a metaphor is inferior to belief in something incredible"

Believing something is a metaphor is a special case of not believing it, not a special case of believing it.

People who believe the Flying Spaghetti monster does not exist and people who believe the Flying Spahetti monster is a metaphor are on the same page - specifically, the latter are a subset of the former. People who believe the Flying Spaghetti monster actually exists would be on a completely different page, if there were any, but there aren't.



And I think the answer to the final question is fairly clearly "one". If someone believes something religiously, it is their religion. If no-one believes something, it is not a religion.