This is at once ridiculous and hilarious: the Charity Commission of the UK has decided that druids—or rather the Druid Network—is to be granted status as a religion. This status comes of course with tax breaks.
The BBC reports:
BBC religious affairs correspondent Robert Pigott says that with concern for the environment growing and the influence of mainstream faiths waning, druidry is flourishing more now than at any time since the arrival of Christianity.
Druidry’s followers are not restricted to one god or creator, but worship the spirit they believe inhabits the earth and forces of nature such as thunder.
Druids also worship the spirits of places, such as mountains and rivers, with rituals focused particularly on the turning of the seasons.
After a four-year inquiry, the Charity Commission decided that druidry offered coherent practices for the worship of a supreme being, and provided a beneficial moral framework.
Since (according to Wikipedia) the druid religion has a long history, antedating Christianity, and since by its own lights the Druid Network is largely polytheistic, recognized religions clearly have a new and serious competitor. It will be fun to see Christians like Karl Giberson explain why they’re so sure that there’s only one god—the Christian one—and not a bunch of supernatural spirits.
h/t: Anthony Grayling
Or natural spirits, for that matter.
So can I be a Druid priestess and not have to pay tax? What training is involved and who says I’ve passed or not? Will I need a planning permit for a standing stone in the back garden?
You would still pay tax on your income, no special status for religious folk fortunately. Planning permission would be required depending on the size of your ‘henge’ monument. Pity, as I want to have a burial mound on a cliff top like Beowulf!
Are you saying that even (as a religion/charity) if I do not have to pay rates and Council tax on my property, if I let out my property for income producing activities that result in my garnering rent from such premises, that I will have to pay income tax on the income??
Yes?
This article also demonstrates why I’m against special benefits for religions above and beyond what other non-profit organizations get. It’s not just that religion gets benefits over non-religion. It requires the government to determine what is and what isn’t a proper religion.
This should also worry the religious. If you give the government the authority to give religions its status, you have also given it the authority to take it away. This has obvious consequences for the freedom of religion, as well as for the separation of church and state.
Yes – when ‘seahenge’ was excavated a nutty new age ‘druid’ person sat on it & held up the archaeological rescue/excavation.
More disturbing, below the abstract to this new article, Deus or Darwin: Randomness and belief in theories about the origin of life, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology
Volume 46, Issue 6, November 2010, Pages 1078-1080
http://tiny.cc/5of8i
Elsevier have sponsored links – including one for Scientology. How can they justify sponsored links, & for religion at that?
Heh. If there’s a way to charge for it or squeeze one additional kroner out of it, Elsevier will find a way.
I see no problem with this. One religion is as worthy as another, I say. If the LDS get breaks, then the druids get breaks. Plus the druids are a bit more fun to hang with.
Jedi knights next ?
One way to bring down ridiculous legislation like this is to take it at face value and overload the bureaucratic process.
There are a lot of gods out there waiting for their tax breaks.
Anybody have a recommendation on the “very best” treatment from a serious theologist supporting the truth and value of Druidism?
I think it is very important to hear what those people think about the case for these religions, because they are (as we all acknowledge) the experts on these things. I mean, it’s hard give “respect” to the opinions and yammerings of a bunch of non-theologist non-druids, since what do they know?
I’m sure it is in Mr Shooks newest book. Just buy it to be sure!
This is so Spinal Tap. I, for one, welcome druids and bards with open ovates.
I don’t know. I’m kindly disposed toward Druids and Wiccans. Unless I’m naïve, most understand that they’re fabricating the supernatural. They’re believers in belief without the mendacity. We could use some of that. Oh, yeah, and Jedi knights, too. Why not?
And that’s exactly why I’m not kindly disposed towards them. If you want to role play, fine — I enjoy D&D as much as the next person. But don’t expect me to treat your roleplaying as if it were a religion, with all the associated privileges and social expectations. It’s bad enough we have people who are actually deluded about gods and the supernatural, we don’t need anyone who is merely pretending to be deluded.
But what about jousting in the park? Don’t they have first amendment rights? It’s time for Tolkien to make a cultural comeback.
I like offbeat religions, because they remind the main religions why we have a secular society. I encourage theists not to ask for privileges they would not want to have granted to druids or other religions and I encourage the wackier religions to demand everything the Christians demand.
The government can’t be in the business of deciding what is and isn’t a religion, right?
It will be just another group looking for opportunities to whine about disrespect and intolerance any chance they get, as likely as not.
Like the time the giant Homer Simpson was drawn beside the Cerne Abbas giant.
Even though it was done in biodegradable paint and wouldn’t harm the giant in any way, pagan groups didn’t hesitate to start whinging about disrespect and talking of performing magic rituals to cause it to rain and wash away the Homer.
It was particularly annoying in that paganism today is basically an invention and probably has hardly any resemblance to the original.
But then the same goes for Druidism.
I did like someones bit of creativity with the Cerne/Homer thing though.
HomerChalk
Let’s face it: much the same is true for Christianity as well.
Wait…I thought the Druids practiced human sacrifice…
I can just see the schism coming.
Honestly, I would not care one whit if it weren’t for the tax breaks. The people of Great Britain should be angry as hell.
NO TAX BREAKS FOR RELIGION.
Sorry for the shouting.
Democracy considers all religions as illogical and irrelevent resultantly there are no seriuos attempts to know and understand this most important aspect of human being. If divinity exists there has to be single plateform where logic, science and religion can stand on the same platform in a symbiotic state; unfortunatelythis is the most neglected field of study; though most important.
Suppositional error.
First, prove the existence of such a thing. After you do that, we can talk about the rest.
You’re putting the metaphysical cart before the epistemological horse.
There’s this certain online game I play where Druids can turn into “cat forms” and “bear forms”…
…and sorry, I can’t get that out of my mind when I read this article. 🙁
“After a four-year inquiry, the Charity Commission decided that druidry offered coherent practices”
*blink*
If it takes a commission FOUR YEARS to figure out that the offered practices are ‘coherent’, then, maybe, the practices weren’t THAT coherent after all.
But now that they’re done with it, maybe the committee can tackle the coherency of a Roman Catholic Mass.
I predict a much longer process.
.. wouldn’t you LOVE to be on such a committee, though? 😉
I’m more apposed to tax breaks for religious groups that outwardly participate in getting their agenda pushed into our government, especially the judicial branch.
Their was a Druid festival in Seattle held downtown under the freeway a few years ago. Other than a really cool cello player (Jamie Seibert) it was rather strange and no one at any of the booths seemed to me to have a real grasp at what they were doing.
“…seemed to me to have a real grasp at what they were doing.”
Hahahaha. Yes, the intellectually oblivious “mystique” of a ren-fest.
What is a ren-fest? It would have been pleasant to hold it in Fremont, around the Troll.
Don’t forget, these tax breaks come because Druid Network is a registered charity. All Druid organisations are not receiving tax breaks.
The issue is, should religious organisations be charities? I would say say.
Should advancing a religion be charitable? I would say no, as to me, there is no public benefit.
http://www.charity-commission.gov.uk/library/about_us/druiddec.pdf
“The issue is, should religious organisations be charities? I would say say.”
Vital missing word: “Yes”
Link hopped to this page of the site Jerry linked to:
http://druidnetwork.org/en/deity
…and immediately was reminded of an early scene in 2001: A Space Odyssy.
Ya gotta love that they’re so upfront about basically arising from mythology & folktales…
http://www.dailymotion.com/swf/video/x2lk56_homer-beside-cerne-abbas_fun?additionalInfos=0Homer Beside Cerne AbbasUploaded by smoggy-chris. – See more comedy videos.
Faith Skools for Druids!
Now come on, and what about the Olympians (OK, I’m greek so what?). They have being recognized as a religion in mid-2005 and nobody seems to be excited.
If Giberson have to start somewhere to justify christianity the Olympians would be a nice (better?) start.
I’m waiting for the talk show round table where they bring in various religious leaders to discuss some topic from a religious perspective and you have a Protestant, a Catholic and a Druid presenting their views of, say, the economic austerity measures in Greece.
Here’s my tuppence worth:
http://furtherthoughtsfortheday.blogspot.com/2010/10/on-druidry-being-officially-recognised.html
Anything that breaks into the market share of the book religions is fine with me. The more weird, marginal religions like druidism elbow their ways in demanding equal time, the more ridiculous the whole shebang looks.
Imagine 20 years from now the UK government holding an inquiry into whether they should be subsidizing religious belief and the advisory council consists of a druid, a witch, a scientologist, a jedi, a pastafarian, and an Anglican priest. Even sitting at the table to make his voice heard is going to make the priest look ridiculous. Isn’t that exactly what we want?
There are some militant Druids in the UK. They don’t like archaeologists digging up prehistoric sites and want all prehistoric human remains reburied and never studied. They have no idea about real prehistory and I do wonder if they are afraid that archaeologists will keep on proving their beliefs wrong which is why they want to silence them. This is bad move as it could well lead to the stifling of scientific research.