The Subgenius Religion

From: SubGenius Spice <sgspice@safe-mail.netnoise>
Newsgroups: alt.slack
Date: Mon, Nov 5, 2001 10:09 AM
Message-ID: <oqadut00ptnfq104dgdaep1dg2b8oam62g@4ax.com>

In <plmF7.72493$8a.50423800@news1.rsm1.occa.home.com>, Jake [insert
clever saying] :

> Does anyone truely know if we are recognized as a real religion by the
>U.S. government? Any resources would be appriciated.
> -Rev. Jake

we're still a wooden religion until we get spit out by the whale.

--
http://www.bangedup.com/Current/cluepon45r.jpg
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Subject: Re: The Subgenius Religion
From: "Rev. Ivan Stang" <stang@subgenius.com>

In article <F5rF7.65528$pb4.33537581@news2.rdc2.tx.home.com>, Rev.
Magdalen <magdalen@home.com> wrote:

>
> No, we are not. I suppose you could look this up in the CIA Factbook or
> some almanac or something like that. In order to be an official religion, a
> group must meet certain criteria. For example, you must have a "church" --
> an actual physical structure where "worship" is carried out. You must have
> regular "meetings" for the purpose of "worship". You must have a "belief"
> in some kind of "divinity", and a statement of accepted "dogma".
> "Ministers" must have some kind of "training" in this "dogma" and then
> "teach" it to the "congregation". If you do all these things and more, you
> may/must apply for "tax-exempt" status, a whole other headache.
>
> Obviously, all of this is quite a problem for us, since we don't even HAVE
> congregations, only Reverends, and they take it as a sacred duty to make up
> beliefs as they go along, stamping out dogmaticism wherever it rears its
> head. But, even if the government made all those rules lenient enough for
> us to pass, we still would not apply for tax exempt status, as a form of
> protest, since we believe Pat Robertson and all his swinely ilk should pay
> their taxes just like Joe Sixpack has to, instead of hiding behind Jesus to
> keep all their filthy lucre.

Uh-oh... I guess this means all those legal marriages I performed in
Texas, Louisiana, Illinois, Pennsylvania and Ohio aren't legal after
all. Those SubGenius couples have therefore been giving birth to
BASTARDS. And they wasted their money on those divorces. Dang, sorry,
ya'll.

The last I heard, however, this supposed doctrine of separation of
church and state was supposed to make all this a moot question. There
is not Department of Religion in the federal government that we have
been told of, is there?

--
4th Stangian Orthodox MegaFisTemple Lodge of the Wrath of Dobbs Yeti,
Resurrected
P.O. Box 181417, Cleveland, OH 44118 (fax 216-320-9528)
A subsidiary of:
The SubGenius Foundation, Inc. / P.O. Box 140306, Dallas, TX 75214
SubSITE: http://www.subgenius.com PRABOB
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Subject: Re: The Subgenius Religion
From: "Rev. Ivan Stang" <stang@subgenius.com>

In article <3BE612A0.276F00C0@sheayright.com>, Artemia Salina
<y2k@sheayright.com> wrote:

>
> I don't know, but I would hope not. I mean, I'd always thought of The
> Church as an anti-religion, and so I'd be disappointed if they thought
> otherwise.

Technically, it's an anti-religion reiligion. But it's still a
religion. It just happens to be a religion for people who want to stamp
out folks like themselves.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Subject: Re: The Subgenius Religion
From: andreux <andreux@eterna.net>
Newsgroups: alt.slack
Date: Mon, Nov 5, 2001 11:08 AM

Actually, IIRC, you (as are many of us) are a member
of the Universal Life Church which, correct me if I'm
wrong, DOES allow us to do honest to goodness "SubGenius"
weddings as a kind of weird loophole.

Either that, or you're right and there are a few people in
Illinois who are prolly VERY pissed off at me.

-andreux

well, pissed off at me for the MARRIAGE thing... there's
plenty who are pissed off at me for OTHER things, I'm sure.
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Subject: Re: The Subgenius Religion
From: nu-monet <nothing@succeeds.com>

Rev. Ivan Stang wrote:
>
> The last I heard, however, this supposed doctrine of
> separation of church and state was supposed to make
> all this a moot question. There is not Department of
> Religion in the federal government that we have been
> told of, is there?
>

You really should read the news more often.

http://www.ciao.gov/News/EOonOfficeofHomelandSecurity.html

Gee, ain't I a stinker?

--
*
MILLIONS SURVIVE FLU EPIDEMIC
"A flu epidemic will strike in 2006.
Happily, a cure will be found before
there are any fatalities."
--Robert Schultz, psychic for "The Sun"
*
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Subject: Re: The Subgenius Religion
From: "Rev. Magdalen" <magdalen@home.com>

I think that what it all boils down to is that the government is not going
to give us any free advertising by putting us down as a choice on any of
their standardized forms.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Subject: Re: The Subgenius Religion
From: Geoff Bronner <geoff.bronner@dartmouth.edu>

In article <051120011025137890%stang@subgenius.com>, Rev. Ivan Stang
<stang@subgenius.com> wrote:
>
> The last I heard, however, this supposed doctrine of separation of
> church and state was supposed to make all this a moot question. There
> is not Department of Religion in the federal government that we have
> been told of, is there?

The Feds don't even have a formal definition of what counts as a
religion, but the Civil Rights Act of 1964 took a stab at one:

"To be a bona fide religious belief entitled to protection under either
the First Amendment or Title VII, a belief must be sincerely held, and
within the believer's own scheme of things religious."

You can tell a politician wrote it.

-G

--
<http://www.dartmouth.edu/~geoffb/>
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Subject: Re: The Subgenius Religion
From: "St. Marc the Perpetually Amused" <disciple@templeoferis.org>

The U.S. government does not recognize any religion as real, fake, or just
sort of questionable. Your religion is whatever you say it is. If you get
press-ganged, you are entirely within your rights to say that your religion
is "Church of the SubGenius" and have it enscribed upon your dogtags.

However, there are two caveats:

1) Religions and their elements and followers are not automatically tax
exempt. For instance, people who are paid to perform religious functions
(preachers, pastors, priests, and so forth) must pay income tax upon those
wages. However, many religions are *non-profit* organizations. Non-profits
don't have to pay taxes on income under most circumstances. The IRS
adjudicates whether or not an organization is a non-profit entity and
therefore exempt from taxation. As I recall, the Church of the SubGenius is
most emphatically NOT a non-profit organization, and pays its taxes. (This
is mentioned in the books.) The Church of Universal Life *is* recognized as
a non-profit organization, but you must form a congregation which is a
non-profit entity to even begin to try to take advantage of this.

2) Religious organizations are not automatically exempt, even if recognized
as valid non-profit "real" religions, from laws which are generally
applicable. Rastafarians are not allowed to claim that their religion
requires them to smoke marijuana to commune with God and thereby escape the
ban, nor are Satanists allowed to sacrifice human beings (even willing ones)
to the Evil One. Lemon v. Kurtzman and its progeny describe most of the
tests which courts use to see if a law is in violation of the First
Amendment's requirements.

Why, exactly, did you want to know?

St. Marc
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Subject: Re: The Subgenius Religion
From: "Alliekatt" <alleykatzen@hotmail.com>

I don't know about government, but the authorities certainly don't know what
to make of it. Do I have a related story for _you_! I had a nasty catfight
years ago with an insane devil-store owning bitch who apparently had sold
herbal poison to a 19 year old CMU kid. He tried to get high off of it re:
her suggestions, and almost died, as well as nearly killing 3 friends who
took it. He put himself in a longterm mental ward, and I was the managing
employee who had to deal with his bereaved parents showing up and telling
me. After I simmered on that for a week, I finally flipped, took my week's
wages and threw the keys at her. She then tried to nail me with theft
charges, THEN!!! stole items from her own store and tacked that onto the
charges, hysteriating about me being a psycho. The police detectives who
paid me a visit saw a picture of "Bob" on my wall upon entering my humble
abode and proceeded to ask me a few "questions".

Apparently they had been informed at some point in previous experience that
everyone who had "Bob" in their home was insane, dangerous, or destructive.
When they started grilling me about "Bob", I asked them, WHY in the HELL
they were wasting their time inquisiting me on a pointless joke religion
when they wanted a straight story about a completely unrelated set of
incidents. They looked at each other, cleared their throats, and started
talking to me normally. After having a very factual conversation with me
about her activities, they left much more enlightened about the nature of
the fight, and the illegality of her activities, but probably far more
confused as to the nature of "Bob".

The job was under the table, unfortunately, and I was forced to give back my
earned wages which I did. The officers even apologized to me profusely when
they took the money. But on their too-gleeful prompting, I reported my
income to the IRS, who then found reason to audit her business in a nasty
fashion. She's closed and has been for a good couple of years now. I like
cops, they always have great advice on how to joke people who can't take a
"fuck you".

They shitcanned my charges when the detective showed up to court in a
Hawaiian shirt. I guess that's a secret code of some sort.

That particularly lame picture of "Bob" painted in its cheesy glory by
Legume was sold to me for thirty dollars via the devival she put on, (in
which she heist-fucked the Church out of a shitload of money,) was done on
cheapass Fredrix canvas board, has bowed nastily and has been falling off of
my wall ever since. Love me, Church, I got the bitch back for you.

It's all your fault, Legume. Can you make me another one to buy at 5X day?
I want a tarbaby Dobbshead this time around. On stretcher bars instead of
Fredrix board preferably.

At this point all I can say is that "Bob" confuses authority. This is why
Borders puts the BOSG in the "humor" section. After that, all I know is
that the SubGenius Foundation has been incorporated.

alliekatt
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Subject: Re: The Subgenius Religion
From: virtualole@aol.com (VirtualOle)

Lookee here:

Couser, Richard. Ministry and the American Legal System. Minneapolis: Fortress,
1993. ISBN 0-8006-2603-6

The IRS's 14 criteria guideline (p.157) for what is a church (helpful but not
decisive):
1. a distinct legal existence
2. a recognized creed and form of worship
3. a definite and distinct ecclesiastical government
4. a formal code of doctrine and discipline
5. a distinct religious history
6. a membership not associated with any other church or denomination
7. an organization of ordained ministers
8. ordained ministers selected after completing prescribed studies
9. a literature of its own
10. established places of worship
11. regular congregation
12. regular religious services
13. Sunday Schools for religious instruction of the young
14. school for the preparation of its ministers

-------------------------------
Ole Olson, P.O. Box 592, Ishpeming, MI 49849
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Subject: Re: The Subgenius Religion
From: Lilith von Fraumench <lilith@ZubJenius.com>

In article <051120011027014366%stang@subgenius.com>, Rev. Ivan Stang
<stang@subgenius.com> wrote:

>
> Technically, it's an anti-religion reiligion. But it's still a
> religion. It just happens to be a religion for people who want to stamp
> out folks like themselves.

Think about how many potential Swaggerts and Tiltons we prevented just
because we gave 'em first shot at preaching and they decided it wasn't
fun. They could've gave some sermon and got lots of hollow thanks and a
basket full of donations and thus sold their souls and slack for
mammon, rather than selling mammon for slack.

What have we done?!?

Her Ladyship Lilith

--
=====Her Ladyship Rev Dkr St Popess Lilith von Fraumench, Esquire=====
===Prophet===Corrective Phrenologist===Supreme Commandrix===Devivor===
==SSUCC 4739 University Way NE #1302 Seattle WA 98105 (877)=381-9354==
====Web: ssucc.ragnarokr.com = foolspress.com = mp3.com/foolspress====

Back to document index

Original file name: The Subgenius Religion - converted on Thursday, 20 December 2001, 03:29