Idle: File-Sharing Is Not a Religion, Says Swedish Government 250
Dangerous_Minds writes "ZeroPaid is reporting on an attempt in Sweden to recognize filesharing as a religion. The religion's website calls this 'Kopimism' and says that sharing of knowledge is sacred. Apparently, Swedish authorities were not convinced. A recent report shows that the attempt failed to convince the authorities to recognize Kopimism as a religion."
there is no way to disprove a person's religion (Score:3, Insightful)
this is clearly an agenda and bias. everyone should have the right to be insane (er, I mean, have a religion). age of the fantasy should not be relevant at all.
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everyone should have the right to be insane (er, I mean, have a religion). age of the fantasy should not be relevant at all.
This is a tempting thought until we get into a conversation about Scientology. This is one of those times to remain consistent, folks.
You don't know what you're talking about. (Score:2)
There's nothing about the _religion_ here. Nobody's being denied the right to believe whatever the fuck they want to believe.
What happened here was that an ad-hoc religious _organization_ was denied the right to be considered a religious organization in the legal sense. Contrary to what people here are blindly asserting, that does not give them any tax benefits in addition to the ones you already have as a non-profit (which is a prerequisite for becoming a recognized religious organization). It just changes
Re:there is no way to disprove a person's religion (Score:5, Insightful)
Well asking for that is a bit of a catch 22. It's kind of like trying to be President of the USA and be an atheist. It's not that it can't happen, it's that the majority of people wont allow it to happen (or at least hasn't). A mental health professional who could make such a claim is likely to not be in the profession much longer.
However, I did come across a report somewhere a while back that did make such a claim. I wish I could recall the specifics or find a link for you to support that.
But when you really get down to it - is faith any different than believing in any other supernatural item? An adult who earnestly still believes in Santa is pretty much in the same boat. At least that was my thoughts on the idea of faith after I learned Santa wasn't real. If that could be fabricated on such a large scale - why not anything else?
Mind you - I'm not saying there is or isn't any higher being or whatnot. But I'm certainly in no position to claim any factual knowledge of the existence or lack thereof of such a being.
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Right, it's a big conspiracy and only Slashdotters can see the truth, nevermind that most researchers are not religious and have no especial interest in religion.
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Rational responses on religion can get a person into trouble around here.
Rationalism in the vicinity of religion can get a person into trouble nearly anywhere.
Re:there is no way to disprove a person's religion (Score:5, Insightful)
A rational response in a religious debate by an AC - this cannot be the Slashdot I know.
Hah! But it's only a "rational response" to the degree that trying to avoid answering hard questions is a rational goal -- that is, if you don't have a good answer and are trying to lead the debate off in another direction entirely. To recap, OP asked:
But when you really get down to it - is faith any different than believing in any other supernatural item?
and AC replied:
The debate of belief and disbelief in God is a key part of the Western philosophical tradition.
This is kind of like answering the question "Did you steal that money?" with "People like having money." It's a dodge, a retreat into generality. I find it hard to believe that AC (or you, or anyone else in the discussion) doesn't have a pretty specific opinion on the answer to OP's question.
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Re:there is no way to disprove a person's religion (Score:5, Insightful)
Biases: Atheist, Ex-Christian, 12 years of denominational school, PhD philosopher father, many friends who are psychologists...
- Santa and Supernatural Jesus are both ridiculous since they make extraordinary claims without any evidence. The claim that I am a wizard would have equally ridiculous basis.
- Santa and God are not. There is equal empirical evidence that there was a creator of the universe as that there wasn't, which is to say 0 evidence. But in this case we know the universe exists and we know it came into being somehow so dividing it up into either "Random" or "Divinely Crafted" isn't a terribly ridiculous way to divide the two theories.
- It could, however, be logically and philosophically argued though that if there is a God that created our universe he's been proven to be an asshole and not a loving or caring all powerful entity.
- Mental Illness though is recognizing as abnormal human thought processes that are outside of normal reason and logic. It's not outside of normal reason and logic to find causation where none exists (Belief in the Supernatural). It's not mental illness to attribute meaning or purpose to actions which have none--in fact, quite the contrary, we're hardwired to find patterns in noise. If you find an abnormal number of patterns in noise to the degree that you ability to find real patterns in data through the noise of false-positives then you have a mental illness. The centuries of philosophical tradition prove that the notion of a divine being is within the normal threshold of an average 'healthy' human mind.
Now that's not to say that it's rational. You could also use the exact same argument to say that Racism is also not a mental illness (I would agree with that statement) based on the fact that it's a seemingly 'normal' part of the human condition. That's not to say it's a belief system that should be encouraged but it's also not a "disease" since it's within the design-spec of the experience.
Yes, I believe that supernatural beliefs are the product of irrational thought. But there is plenty of irrational thought in the average, well functioning individual. Similarly while it would be great if we all had 150+ IQs it doesn't lead to follow that everyone with a 100 IQ is mentally ill.
Also from my experience most Christians think they're using sound logic to found their beliefs. It's like solving a physics question with the wrong equation. You might be great at math, but if you think gravity is -8m/s^2 you're always going to come up with the wrong answer.
Religion isn't a defect of the mind, it's a defect of education. Proof being that your upbringing is by far the largest predictor of your religiosity. That goes to show it isn't mental illness, it's just bad parenting.
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There is equal empirical evidence that there was a creator of the universe as that there wasn't,
There is almost no evidence but we can think it through. A lot of theology seems to be based on ignoring obvious questions about this sort of thing, e.g. if God created the universe and God is eternal (because no-one made him) then why do we need God? Why can't the universe itself be eternal? Maybe this is just the latest iteration.
I also find that many Christians argue that others have misinterpreted the Bible. The problem I have with that is by interpreting it at all you have to use your own judgement and
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Where?
It must have been deleted...
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Even if atheist philosophers feel there are weaknesses in certain claims by their theist colleagues, they don't make accusations of mental illness and draw risible comparisons to belief in Santa, and the dialogue goes on.
Mr. Richard Dawkins might disagree with you, my friend: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LfcYRKk0sa8 [youtube.com]
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Richard Dawkins isn't a philosopher of religion. He's a biologist.
I'd take that as a positive thing. Biology is the study of something real. The philosophy of religion is the study of something which, while real itself, is based in pure fantasy. Certain aspects of the study of biology are also pertinent to the understanding of why we believe in fantastic things.
When he gets involved in claims about religion, he transgresses the rules of inquiry
I'm not entirely sure what you mean by that. What rules?
... and fails to continually re-examine his own arguments.
You have no idea whether that is true. Maybe he re-examines them every day, and finds that they are still as logical as ever?
Just compare the sincerity and humility of his late friend, atheist philosopher of religion J.L. Mackie, with Dawkins' wild demagoguery.
I don't think you quite understa
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Dr. Dawkins pointed out certain problems with his model of Memes as a potential successor to Genes, and with Memes as hereditable units of any kind, in his early popular book, The Selfish Gene. * One basic problem is that Memes do not appear to prohibit unlimited blending as the genetic code does, and such blending, by Dr. Dawkins' own argument, should have precisely the same effect on Meme theory as unlimited blending of genes would have on Darwinian evolution. All the problems he himself acknowledged with
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You're saying X billion of people and thousands of years of tradition cannot be wrong.
But of course it can be. History has demonstrated this countless times.
I don't believe in any God as described in most western religions, and I'm pretty much anti-religion (though not anti-deist). Yet still I can happily debate with people on theology and religion related philosophy, just as an intellectual stimulation, like playing a logic game. I don't accuse people of mental illness because that ruins the game, but it d
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But when you really get down to it - is faith any different than believing in any other supernatural item? An adult who earnestly still believes in Santa is pretty much in the same boat.
"The President of the United States has claimed, on more than one occasion, to be in dialogue with God. Now, if he said that he was talking to God through his hairdryer, this would precipitate a national emergency. I fail to see how the addition of a hairdryer makes the claim more ludicrous or more offensive."
-- Sam Harris, Letter to a Christian Nation
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Mind you - I'm not saying there is or isn't any higher being or whatnot. But I'm certainly in no position to claim any factual knowledge of the existence or lack thereof of such a being.
That's a bit of a cop-out. You've already compared gods to Santa, so why would you then go back and try to take an impartial position? Would you, likewise, say that you are in no position to claim any factual knowledge of the existence, or lack thereof, of Santa Claus?
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Everyone agrees Santa doesn't exist. Some people still believe god exists.
What people do or don't agree on is completely irrelevant. If he's going to say that he has no factual knowledge of the existence/non-existence of gods, the only way to remain consistent is to say the same thing about everything for which we have no evidence, including (but not limited to) Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, the Loch Ness Monster, Bigfoot, Leprechauns, Unicorns, and the little purple lizard which lives in your ass (hey, just because you're not aware of it doesn't mean it's not there).
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The god thing has far too many loopholes to be refuted so easily. Believers can always say that it's because god isn't in our universe, but merely pulling strings from outside of it, or that god doesn't want to get directly involved, etc. and works "through" people, blah, blah, blah... There's always a new do
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Santa's meant to have a physical presence here on Earth, which can effectively be disproved.
Nonsense. You can only disprove it in the sense of 'we looked, and he wasn't there', but that's the same as saying 'hey, we went into the heavens, and didn't see god' (god was, originally, supposed to be literally in the sky). Believers just move the goalposts - there's no reason why believers in Santa can't do the same. You looked at the North Pole? Well, he's under the ice. You looked under the ice? Well, he's REALLY deep under the water there. You got a detailed map of the whole sea-floor and that
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Nonsense. You can only disprove it in the sense of 'we looked, and he wasn't there', but that's the same as saying 'hey, we went into the heavens, and didn't see god' (god was, originally, supposed to be literally in the sky). Believers just move the goalposts - there's no reason why believers in Santa can't do the same.
Well, the Santa that many people describe probably doesn't exist (due to a lack of evidence where there should be evidence). They may move the goalposts, but the one they previously described most likely does not exist.
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Well, the Santa that many people describe probably doesn't exist (due to a lack of evidence where there should be evidence). They may move the goalposts, but the one they previously described most likely does not exist
There is only One Santa, and Nicholas is His name.
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"we can say that the christian god cannot possibly exist if he's claimed to be omnipotent, omni-present, and omni-benevolent."
Depends on your definition of "omni-potent." If you define it such that it implies power transcending and sort of human comprehension, power which is completely unbounded by time or causality, power which by its very existence renders human observation irrelevant - then no, not really. Belief in a so-defined being would, however, make it challenging to engage in any sort of discourse
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But when you really get down to it - is faith any different than believing in any other supernatural item?
Faith in a very large part is simply what you have been taught, so it is really no more a mental disorder then speaking Chinese is.
An adult who earnestly still believes in Santa is pretty much in the same boat.
The problem with Santa clause is that a lot of claims made about him can easily be falsified. Your average religion can not, it's so vague and metaphorical and open to interpretation that you will have a hard time making any hard claims that you can even test and whenever you actually do test, people just move the goalpost or insert a magical "God did it".
That's not to say that
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Believing in invisible friends: check.
Believing that wanting something really, really badly is going to make it come true: check.
Thinking that talking snakes, people that can walk on water, and other manner of physics-defying shit really happens: check.
Just because you can get a whole lot of people to go along with your batshit insane ideas doesn't mean that they aren't batshit insane. See the Heaven's Gate cult among all the other examples throughout history.
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Believing that the Sun is the center of the solar system: check.
Believing that time slows down as speed increases: check.
Just because a lot of people think your ideas are insane doesn't mean they aren't valid.
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Those things are, of course, comparable to religion. After all, all of it can be proven and observed and none of them are missing evidence where evidence should be present (definitely not religion)...
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After all, all of it can be proven and observed and none of them are missing evidence where evidence should be present
That's reeeeally not true. Theoretical physics is developed axiomatically. Axioms are based on an attempt at interpreting already-known physics, but it is often not verified through observation for a long, long time. General relativity and Quantum Mechanics are to this day irreconcilable. Even though both appear to be true under the conditions they address.
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Every thing you have on your mind is a set of axioms. Next you'll complain that both are written in books.
Physics is a set of axioms that work (if they don't you are expected to throw it away), while religion is a set of axioms somebody told you are true (if they aren't you are expected to belive on it anyway).
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Every thing you have on your mind is a set of axioms. Next you'll complain that both are written in books.
No. I have the fortune of having 5 senses. These act as input devices. Knowledge stemming from the input received though those devices is not axiomatic. It is observation-based. Is this gonna be another Kant argument? I don't quite feel like rehashing it again.
Physics is a set of axioms that work
Nonsense. Pure nonsense. That's not how scientific method works. Observation->hypothesis->theory->verification->rinse-and-repeat is the scientific process. "Hypothesis" can sometimes match a known axiomatic system. But any number
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The specific examples he gave aren't missing evidence where evidence should be present?
Sun at the center of the Solar System, easily verifiable.
Shape of the earth: Not a perfect sphere, there's been an awful lot of work in this area.
Time slows down as speed increases: Have you used a GPS system recently?
There are plenty of subjects in theoretical physics that aren't fully understood at this point, but the theories are being constantly tested, questioned, and revised as new information is gained. It's not
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His point was that this stuff was believed before it was proven to be true.
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And that's not true. Heliocentric model won because it was far simpler than the geocentric one; all you needed were Newtons universal laws on motion and gravitation, as opposed to spheres and sub-spheres centered on them, spinning at different rates, all for no apparent reason.
Similarly, Einstein's General Relativity began gaining popularity only after it correctly predicted that stars who's light passed near the Sun would appear sh
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The specific examples he gave aren't missing evidence where evidence should be present?
Sun at the center of the Solar System, easily verifiable.
Shape of the earth: Not a perfect sphere, there's been an awful lot of work in this area.
Time slows down as speed increases: Have you used a GPS system recently?
There are plenty of subjects in theoretical physics that aren't fully understood at this point, but the theories are being constantly tested, questioned, and revised as new information is gained. It's not really comparable to religion.
Except maybe string theory.
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Re:there is no way to disprove a person's religion (Score:5, Insightful)
If you really, truly, genuinely believe that accepting the theory of relativity is equivalent to believing in the power of prayer, you are simply incapable of understanding or contributing to rational debate on this or any subject.
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Believing that the Earth is round: check.
Believing that the Sun is the center of the solar system: check.
Believing that time slows down as speed increases: check.
Just because a lot of people think your ideas are insane doesn't mean they aren't valid.
I'll bite.
I studied physics. Trust me, it's valid. If you don't believe me, you can study it too. There's a fair amount of hard evidence, if you understand what you are doing.
Now, there's priests (and pastors, etc) who study theology. But they *don't* claim to have any better evidence than you do. It's like Postmodernism - you can study it for decades trying to get to the bottom of it; and end up with no more evidence than a 4th grader has. You will have a lot of circular arguments about why it's right, and
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Wait, if there are no elephants what stops the earth from going all wibbly-wobbly on the shell?
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And I believe we still need to send an expedition to determine once and for all whether the turtle is male or female.
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Now, now... your language is openly hostile to the point where you mischaracterize the religious people.
You may think that your level of hostility is warranted by some priorities which you espouse in life; but, as an atheist, I don't want to be mischaraterized by the opinion that an atheist necessarily holds the same level of hostility as yours.
Talking to invisible friends: check.
Believing in invisible friends: check.
That's true of every conversation on the Internet. I think you really meant to say non-existent friends, but you didn't say it because that would have made this p
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[quote]
Well, that's just plain inaccurate. The accurate way of stating why religious people pray for something is that they believe that expressing a wish will increase the chances of it happening -- not that it will guarantee that it will happen.
[/quote]
Thing is, prayer has been studied pretty extensively, and there's no evidence that it will [i]actually[/i] increase the chances of anything happening.
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Leave it to me to just ignore the preview
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Thing is, prayer has been studied pretty extensively, and there's no evidence that it will [i]actually[/i] increase the chances of anything happening.
So? An inaccurate description of a behavior which is based on an implausible assumption is just as inaccurate as an inaccurate description of a behavior which is based on a plausible assumption.
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Just because you can get a whole lot of people to go along with your batshit insane ideas doesn't mean that they aren't batshit insane
Not long ago, on another forum, somebody went on a rant that they hoped aliens would land here so we could finally shut those religious nuts up. That should put a few things into perspective.
Face it, we all have that defect in our brains that makes us believe in things we've never actually seen. You'll have to find another way to rant about a group of people that doesn't make you out to be a bigot.
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There also was a rather powerful cult in Russia: Beloe Bratstvo (White Brotherhood) [eastwestreport.org]. They were famous for cases of kidnapping and brainwashing, sometimes taking whole classes of teenagers, right out of school. Unlike in US, religion is not protected in Russia, so eventually the organizers got arrested and the cult dispersed. What I find to be an interesting fact about this is their procedure of brainwashing: fresh converts were told to sta
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Care to cite any mainstream body of mental health professionals for the assertion that religious belief is mental illness?
THAT is exactly how pervasive this illness is. You think that depression didn't exist before the DSM was written? Disease exists, whether you choose to write it down or not.
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It depends on which religion you believe in, and what you do to worship. If you believe in some god nobody else does, even if they did long ago, and you worship it by beating yourself bloody, a shrink would probably say you're mentally ill. But if you beat yourself bloody for Jesus, as people did for centuries, you might get a lot more shrinks saying you're not nuts. But some still would.
Believing the practice is good for you, even if you can't quite bring yourself to do it, doesn't change whether the belie
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Good job calling people who fight for your freedoms "assholes".
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A mockery of real religions by assholes who just want an excuse to steal things.
If it were a real religion, they'd just want an excuse to kill things instead.
Re:there is no way to disprove a person's religion (Score:5, Insightful)
religion is a mockery of rational thought.
if you want to tell me about this jesus character, I'll tell you and equally bizzarre story. are you setting yourself up as JUDGE, here?
my, my. what WOULD your church elders say?
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Okay.
God, despite being all-powerful, is not a slave to power. Humans, however, are, with all that implies - namely an obsession with vengeance and hatred. So God, in order to change that, incarnated himself as a human being (Jesus), and despite still having all his omnipotence stayed out of human conflicts, besides healing a few sick people and rising some dead. Then humans got really angry over nothing, and killed
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I've heard people say that back in the Old Testament, God had to be like that to get his point across to people. Then as society changed (or, as He changed society) he could soften up a bit.
Re:there is no way to disprove a person's religion (Score:4, Insightful)
"Real religions" are just as fake as the one proposed by file sharers. That's the point. Why does one group get to have their imaginary friends but another doesn't?
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Why does one group get to have their imaginary friends but another doesn't?
The larger group forms a larger voting bloc.
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A officially recognized religion has legal rights not available to other religions. It's pure discrimination.
Re:there is no way to disprove a person's religion (Score:4, Insightful)
how can any MAN say what is or is not a religion?
the very notion is unprovable. it boils down to 'the club is closed. sorry, no newcomers.'
bullshit. fairy stories are just as fake from 2000 years ago as they are from last year.
the world would be far better off with no religion at all. however, we have this pox upon us and the least you can do is allow everyone to choose their crazy stories.
saying yours is sane and that guy's is not *is* what is insane.
hey, I think the absurd stories of some guy being a son of a god being but actually he's the new god being and the old god being somehow got pushed up/out somewhere - how is THAT not insane thinking? yet, we allow it. fully allow it and even *celebrate* this ignorance.
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A world with no religion would not be a world populated by humans, since every single culture has come up with some form of it. While a world populated by non-religious non-humans might be better than the current one, it's not a change that can be done in isolation: you need to change human nature to get a world without religion, which will result in any number of other changes as well, the end result of which is impossible to even guesstimate.
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A world with no religion would not be a world populated by humans, since every single culture has come up with some form of it. While a world populated by non-religious non-humans might be better than the current one, it's not a change that can be done in isolation: you need to change human nature to get a world without religion, which will result in any number of other changes as well, the end result of which is impossible to even guesstimate.
Considering what history has taught us about what happens to governments that actively trying to stamp out a religion the end result is fairly easy to guess.
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Doing it wrong (Score:3)
They are doing it wrong: you need to lock up the information, so you can get religious status (Scientology).
I wonder what court ever decided it was OK for LR Hubbard's crap to get religious status?
It makes sense (Score:4, Insightful)
"This religion doesn't rely on needless superstition and blind faith."
"Doesn't fit the criteria, then."
Re:It makes sense (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, then make a god for your religion. Call him The Pirate. And create your own holy scripture. It might begin like this:
1 In the beginning, The Pirate created the universe.
2 But there was no one The Pirate could share that universe with.
3 Therefore The Pirate said: "Let us create humans, so that the universe is shared." And so he did.
4 And The Pirate said to the humans: "I've created you to share.
5 I hereby order you to share all knowledge I give you, as well as all knowledge you get from others, unless that knowledge is of private nature."
6 And he said: "Multiply, and multiply your knowledge, so you have more knowledge to share.
7 You shall make images of things in the world and of things in your mind.
8 And you shall write texts both about reality and about things you imagine.
9 And you shall create all sorts of art.
10 And you shall share all this with others.
11 And you shall not demand any compensation for sharing, just as I don't demand that you pay for sharing the universe."
12 And the humans complied, and everything was well. This era was known as the paradise.
13 But the devil didn't like that, and he planted into the humans the sin of greed.
14 And he planted into their mind the shortsightedness, so they didn't see the advantage they got from everyone sharing.
15 And thus the humans said: "We have invested much work in our knowledge and in our art. We want to have an advantage.
16 And we don't want those who didn't invest that much work to not have that advantage."
17 And thus the humans stopped sharing their works for free, and demanded to be compensated.
18 And The Pirate got angry at the humans because they violated His orders.
19 And The Pirate said: "You have sinned. Therefore I will throw you out of the paradise.
20 And you shall not be left in again until you all return to the spirit of sharing."
21 And he created illnesses to punish the humans.
22 And he limited the natural growth of the plants humans could eat, and made many of the plants poisonous.
23 And he made the problem of surviving hard, so the humans would have an incentive to share their knowledge in order to fight those dangers.
24 But the devil's influence was strong, and therefore the humans didn't work together to solve their problems.
25 Instead they fought wars over the limited resources, and killed each other.
26 And those humans who found ways to increase those resources didn't share their knowledge, but hid it as well as they could, so only they would profit from it.
27 And they made laws to prevent others from sharing knowledge.
28 And eventually those who hoarded the knowledge ruled the world.
29 But the world was in a miserable state.
You of course need prophets of sharing (you may even borrow some from other religions and reinterpret them; this gives more "legitimacy" to your religion). And you need a cult (which ideally involves people meeting in person; part of that cult is of course the exchange of copies of files, but it may also have other aspects like mutual signing of PGP keys, and very important, preaching the religion of sharing).
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More like, "This doesn't have any concept of a diety, or an afterlife, or a cosmic supernatural force. It's simply a political organization trying to make a mockery of our legal system."
They should try Adoration of Intellectual Property (Score:2)
works for RIAA and MPAA, got them to change laws in their favor :)
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They are into adoration of Money.
Intelectual Property is just a means.
one thing is clear (Score:2)
Curious (Score:2)
I am curious as to what their criteria are. If Scientology can be a religion, why cant anything?
MONEY (Score:2)
MONEY is the winning argument every time. If you lose, you didn't spend enough MONEY.
Scientology has money and possibly many believers are lawyers... but more likely the lawyers simply believe in MONEY (as most lawyers do.)
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"sir, you are hereby accused of rational thought. would you please come with us. don't make this more difficult than it needs to be."
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I am curious as to what their criteria are. If Scientology can be a religion, why cant anything?
I am reminded of what uthers have said about pornography:
"You know it when you see it:"
Religion is not a "Get Out Of Jail Free" card rushed into print by a newly minted storefront church whose sole reason for existence is to avoid paying the $1 rental at the neighborhood Red Box.
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So if the scam was minted generations ago, and accumulated all kinds of abuses since then, that's OK?
They forgot the crucial step (Score:3)
Just too early (Score:3)
Cult2Religion (Score:2)
Government people would probably be willing to agree that Kopism is a cult, though not a "religion".
To become a "religion", a cult has to have existed since before the person thinking it's a religion was born, and have members who that person knows personally, through someone else directly, or has seen on TV without it being called a cult.
It helps if the cult has paid bribes to the person asked to consider it a religion.
Any loosely consistent collection of knowledge that cannot be proven can be a religion.
Try not sharing for just one week... (Score:5, Interesting)
No. Seriously! We ARE knowledge sharing beings to the core; This fundamental capability IS the very essence of human nature. Without our ability to communicate and thus share knowledge, information and culture we would be no different than any other primate -- even LESS than apes. Face it: We are not truly human unless we share knowledge. Vast amounts of our existence IS our external culture that we are not born with and that we only acquire through the sharing of information.
We owe our very rule of this planet, our place in the food chain, and EVERY social, technological or other advancement of value to humanity's capability to share our thoughts and culture. Now, for the first time in history, in the Information Age, many humans willingly allow large amounts of our RELEVANT culture to be withheld and actually fight to protect the right of the greedy to DESTROY the public domain -- The very thing that makes us human!
Copyrights are now utterly evil -- They are a plague upon man. These restrictions now last for THREE GENERATIONS: 70 years beyond my life. That's my life, the life of my children (ending 30 years after I die), and the life of my GRANDCHILDREN, 70 years after I die. By the time anyone can LEGALLY duplicate ANY new piece of our culture ( song, books, software, games, photos, paintings ), freely they will be DEAD, and their kids will be DEAD, and their children's children WILL BE DEAD! -- No one who enjoyed the short-lived success of my books and games will even be alive to remember them when they become part of our public domain!
There was another age where the flow of knowledge met such great barriers -- The Dark Ages.
This evil legal idea of Copyright is now designed to ROBS US of our public domain, and ensure that the free common knowledge remains IRRELEVANT! The founding father's of the US granted copyrights for the betterment of society as a whole, and thought that the duplication monopoly should last about 12 to 14 years -- This was in a time when copies were expensive and only a select few could make duplications. These words have been duplicated over TWENTY times before you read them due to the routers between us. We all have duplication machines, we do not need to be protected from those that would hold the printing presses in hostage! The duplications are in INFINITE supply! To merely use information now is to duplicate it many times.
The strict laws designed to keep greedy publishers in line have now been turned against the common man because we all now own information sharing tools capable of creating duplications at essentially zero cost. The copy restrictions harm society as a whole! Down with copyright! Copyright is a law; Jim Crow was a law. Rosa Parks sat at the front of a bus, and none were harmed by her doing so; Ignoring unjust laws is an act of civil protest. I shall share ANY knowledge I desire freely and none shall be harmed by my doing so.
Additionally: Economics 101 -- Regardless of value or demand, if supply is infinite the price is ZERO. Silicon has great value! Would you like to buy some expensive sand?
Outlawing the free sharing of culture is to outlaw human nature -- The very definition of creating a police state.
How dare anyone scoff at the most sane, obvious and basic belief to date: Sharing Knowledge is Sacred.
To each who has, I charge you to isolate yourself and neither give nor take any information form any others! No books, no Internet, no music, NONE of OUR culture -- just solitude! Do not speak to another living human or hear what they say. Try to function this way for JUST ONE WEEK as less than an ape. Otherwise, you must admit your hypocrisy! I would like you to remove yourself from our free sea of culture permanently, but I am not so harsh or foolish to even request someone do such a thing!
Sure
They're right, y'know (Score:3)
If Kopimism's main doctrine is the sharing of knowledge, then it clearly fails the primary characteristic of a religion, which is to share beliefs. In fact, distinguishing knowledge from belief pretty much disqualifies it as a religion. Religions generally deny the value of knowledge, primarily by classifying knowledge as just another set of beliefs that's no better than anyone else's beliefs.
If you prefer actual knowledge of facts, then you might be a scientist, or a historian, or maybe just an enlightened individual, but you're not religious. Religions don't depend on actual knowledge. You just believe what you're told, because if you don't, then that religion's god(s) will punish you severely (with the help of their followers). This doesn't require any file sharing, since the religious leaders are quite good at supplying you with all the beliefs that you'll ever need.
Jesus did it. (Score:2, Insightful)
Jesus copied and shared his loaves and fish.
Copyright is the new religion (Score:3)
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As you know very well, copyright law has nothing to do with peoples' personal information.
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Re:Not helping the cause (Score:4, Insightful)
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I don't know, ask the Catholic Church that question. It's clearly an international child molestation racket which largely functions to protect its leadership from prosecution, yet to date no legal authority has moved to shut it down.
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That's because they have God [wikipedia.org] on their side.
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Wait...I thought that was al-Qaeda?
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once there are enough followers, the government has no choice but to recognize it.
you're new here, aren't you? (checks uid). yup. figured.
the government (any of them, ANY of them) has no obligation to follow the will of the people.
can you honestly say that any gov has been an obedient servant to the public? I can't think of any country that truly fits that bill.
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Of course, they can work. They just need a different species to try them.
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We must summon the AOL Running man!!!
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maybe they still want to see all the furry animals and the w0nderful telefone system?
(no, realli)
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I know the force exists. Everyone knows you can use it to crush someones throat. Our hero Darth Vader has done it several dozen times.