@fractalmstr "So by that logic, should Pastafarian students also be able to wear colander hats while in uniform at the Citadel? Technically, it is a belief “understandable to same-culture peers”.
And look! They even allow people to wear them in their driver’s license photos…
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/pastafarian-colander-license-photo_us_56498e42e4b08cda34897b27"
Definitely, yes. If the student says s/he has a sincerely held belief in the Flying Spaghetti Monster, may sauce be upon him, and is it “understandable to same-culture peers” then it goes in the religious bucket. While some may think Pastafarianism is a joke, that can not be a test for religion because there are people who think every religion is a joke. If they say they are sincere, there is no way to prove otherwise. Also, you can’t judge by evidence because religion exists outside the natural world, or it would be science, so that would also rule out all religions.
The DSM uses the “understandable to same-culture peers” clause to distinguish a religion from a delusion. Basically, if you decide that fractalmstr is God, that is going to be a delusion, unless you get a group of people around you to agree with you and acknowledge your Godliness, then FractalMstry would be a religion. Does that make sense?
That is why the government allows the colanders in Driver’s license photos, and in other places. If the government decides that only X, Y and Z are “real religions” and others are just silly, then who is going to decide which ones are “real”, and on what basis can the just silly ones be separated from the “real” ones? If there were an objective test that would clearly identify a “real religion” I suspect we would only have one religion for everyone.