Starting a Religion is not something to do lightly

Ray Dillinger bear at sonic.net
Thu Mar 29 21:49:22 PST 2001




On Thu, 29 Mar 2001, Steve Schear wrote:

>At 09:09 PM 3/29/01 -0600, you wrote:
>>http://www.sightings.com/politics6/dwbb.htm
>
>There have been a few discussions on this list of possible means for 
>defeating such systems operating in public places.  I recall suggesting a 
>new religion, whose worshipers are encouraged to appear with veils and 
>masks, might make an interesting legal challenge to anti-mask laws in effect.


You can start a new religion which upholds anonymity as holy 
(like all those monastic brothers who gave up their worldly 
identities and names), but to pass it in reaction to this 
sort of thing would identify it, in most courts, as something 
that was done for temporal considerations rather than as a 
"sincere" religious movement.  

The whole "temporal considerations" thing wears off after a 
while, but don't expect to get any respect in courts of law 
until you've been at it for at least a dozen years and have 
a solid and well-documented position in some kind of 
philosophy and, optionally, theology, which devotees of your 
new religion have written and published.  

Performing works that benefit the public (such as operating 
charity kitchens, crisis lines, or shelters for the persecuted-
but-not-prosecuted masses) can add a bunch of credibility to a 
religious movement; That's the sort of thing that seems to 
have elevated the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence in San 
Francisco from being a joke to being taken seriously enough 
to be declared a "heretical sect" by the catholic pope.*1

In short, establishing a new religion - and doing it properly - 
would be hard work.  Possibly very fulfilling work, but hard.
I think to do it with integrity, you'd have to put serious 
effort into caring for the spiritual needs of the members.
And the masks would have to mean something, personally, that 
tied in with the philosophical/theological position you 
espoused.  

I have from time to time wistfully considered the calling of 
a "Holy Man", but, well, Whatever my religion is I'm pretty 
sure I'm the only one and I don't really believe that missionary 
work is respectful.  Puts a damper on the whole "ministry" 
idea.  ;-)


				Bear

---
*1:  For those who are *not* students of religious history, 
charges of "Heresy" are the Big Guns of the Catholic Church. 
It gets used about once or twice every three or four centuries, 
and in the past has only been leveled at groups which are a 
clear and present danger to the continued existence of the 
Catholic Church.  Whole countries used to go to war over 
such pronouncements, to protect the church from impending 
annihilation.  Groups that do not pose a clear and present 
danger to the continued existence of the Catholic church, in 
all  previous centuries, have been considered to be merely "in 
Error" rather than "Heretics".  Everybody's wondering if the 
pope knows something we don't about the fragile infrastructure 
of the Church and the nearness of its possible demise, or 
if he's just overreacting because the SOPI involves openly 
gay men dressing in vaguely catholic-looking nun's habits 
and performing good works. 






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