8.0.8.5 Legal Definitions of Religion

Version 1.1 August 2017                               (Previous Version)

Australia’s High Court, in the 1980s, accepted that Scientology was a religion and as such is entitled to tax exemptions.  The Court determined that Religion must involve a) supernatural beliefs, and b) a code of conduct linked to those beliefs.  They defined a supernatural belief to involve:

•        more than the reality normally perceived by our senses,

•        more than mere reason and the evidence.

This matches similar opinions of other Courts, especially in the USA (eg Malnak v. Yogi, United States v. Seeger, Gillette v. United States, United States v. Kauten).

Our beliefs and values are consistent with this legal definition.

•        We really do believe in a reality that is beyond our ordinary perceptions:

o   Sound scientific ideas such as Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle and Poppers Falsifiability Principle lead us to accept that science will never know the true nature of reality.

o   Our notions of reality are socially constructed, so we aren’t sure what ultimate reality is.

•        We choose our core values, to some extent on faith:

o   despite the scientific evidence that our behaviour, beliefs and choices are caused, that we are in fact not all equal; and

o   despite the historical evidence of selfishness, suffering and grounds for despair.

Our core value choices are to this extent contrary to, perhaps more than, reason and evidence. 

We need to be even more sophisticated than this about the legal definition of the supernatural. 

More than reason?

The more in more than mere reason is not unreason.  The more is choice. 

Judges talking about religion are like the early Wittgenstein and Gould trying to picture distinct worlds, emphasising static things, obscuring that reality is dynamic.  Processes are different from hardware.  Values, morality, ethics and aesthetics, is making choices, a set of events, not some immaterial, mysterious thing permeating the ether.

To that extent only, this worldview involves the supernatural, as it has been defined by the courts.  So we can legitimately call this approach to life a natural, rational religion.

Transcendence

Judges talking about religion also use words like transcendance.  This has two major possible meanings: a) being somehow outside the universe, transcending ordinary reality; and b) being somehow above or more important that our individual selves in value.  The creator and sustainer gods fit the former definition.  More modern ideas of god and religion (for instance Karen Armstrong, in The Case for God) seem to focus on belief systems that are beyond or above our selfish needs and even more than our enlightened self-interest.  

The core values proposed here, and our vision of a reasonable global way, are indeed more than our enlightened self-interest.  They may have their origin in evolutionary drives to sustain our kin and our clan, but we still choose these core values even though those drives no longer dominate modern life.  Many atheists who don't believe in any kind of supernatural entity would defend their communities, and indeed defend liberal democracy, at the risk or the predictable sacrifice of their lives, which surely means that their beliefs and values transcend their individual survival.

To that extent, this worldview involves the transcendent, providing additional justification for calling this approach to life a natural, rational religion.

Adherents

The Australian High Court also indicated that its judgement in the Scientology case was based on the testimony of at least one genuinely sincere believer.  They emphasise that the number of followers does not have to be large for a there to be a religion, but there must genuine adherents.

To satisfy that criteria sincere followers of this way must be willing to identify themselves, perhaps by joining a local Association supporting this Way.  (We will provide links in due course.)

Religion’s Baggage

Many will prefer NOT to call this Way a religion because of the connotations of that word. 

You may prefer to call it a world view or a philosophy.  It doesn’t matter in most contexts. 

Either way, it is a sensible and emotionally satisfying philosophy of life.