Quote:
Originally Posted by Tully Mars
I think the laws of the US allow you (and whomever you can convince) to believe whatever you want. Why shouldn't you be able to start any church you want? The TV's full of people who have in fact started their own church. Most have based theirs on the bible. You want to base you're on the human body, something the bible refers to as a temple, who's to stop you?
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The US Government, for one. Being a religion has a wide variety of extremely tangible tax benefits, and they fairly narrowly define what is and isn't a religion for that purpose. Church of Scientology falls outside of the strict interpretation of those requirements, but they have enough lobbying money to keep themselves 'religified' so to speak, as it's probably worth millions of dollars to them to not have to pay taxes.