You can not make this shit up...

[bluestarultor]

Originally Posted by NonCon

"Well, they don't have any miracles..." wasn't relevant?

That was just arguing over the "fakey-fake" issue, but I'll leave that alone.

No, the relevant part was

In the different vein, this is less a religious movement and more of a protest in the actions they're committing. They're glorifying an act in hopes of sidestepping the law, rather than worshiping any sort of entity. This is an entirely selfish thing with no basis in faith and every basis in trying to validate something they're already doing. That's why it's bullshit. They're looking to establish legal protections against performing illegal acts.

Or, to put it less charitably, replace copying things with, say, torturing animals. Torturing animals becomes a "beautiful thing" and you should do it all the time, blah, blah, blah, just so the law isn't supposed to be able to touch you for it. That doesn't make it any less wrong. Anyone can make up a belief system over anything. Look at NAMBLA or whatever the acronym is for the gay pedophiles. They have their beliefs, but it sure as shit doesn't make them right.


EDIT:

They're labeling something as inherently, morally good. That's a pretty religious concept. Certainly some, or even most, may be doing it simply as protest, or as a way of justifying their actions, but there are also bound to be some who actually believe the moral teachings of it, even if not the exaggerated faux-spiritualism. They may be looking to defend illegal acts, but their moral code may in fact be that these acts are good and should not be illegal, and in that case I'd say they certainly qualify as as valid a religion as any other.

They're labeling something objectively harmful as morally good and right and while the industry makes a bigger deal of it than is probably warranted, when you get down to the nuts and bolts there's good reason to consider it morally wrong. Their views on source code are objectively harmful. There's nothing arguable about this. You can maybe convince yourself that copying things is morally neutral, but to say that copying things is the opposite end of the moral spectrum than is objectively observable until you get your fancy post-monetary Star Trek society is just plain self-servicing no matter how you look at it. Add in IQ's point of subjecting others forcibly to your beliefs and you get something in the same class, although a lower level, as anti-abortion legislation and other things.