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Official: File-sharing is a religion... in Sweden

Cop a load of Kopimism

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Sweden has acknowledged that online file-sharing can be deemed a religion, after campaigners fought to get their cause recognised for more than a year.

The Church of Kopimism was apparently registered by the Swedish governmental agency Kammarkollegiet, which - among other things - manages the purse strings on behalf of organisations linked to the state or the Church of Sweden.

According to a statement from the Kopimists themselves, the pro-piracy outfit's church was recognised as a religious org "just before Christmas".

It took three attempts before Kammarkollegiet caved in, said Kopimist board chairman Gustav Nipe.

"I think it might have something to do with the governmental organisations abiding by a very copyright friendly attitude, with a twisted view on copying," he thundered.

All of the kopimi are apparently grateful that Sweden has become the first country to recognise that file-sharing is in fact a religion.

Some might draw comparisons with the controversial Church of Scientology, which is recognised principally in the US as a religion, and also with Jediism, which is yet to be decreed as a faith by anyone on planet Earth.

What exactly are the Kopimists preaching, you might ask?

Well, the religious group's spiritual leader, Isak Gerson, hopes that Kopimism's followers will one day be able to "live out [their] faith without fear of persecution".

Sweden's courtrooms had previously served as the centre of The Pirate Bay drama, which led to four co-founders of the notorious BitTorrent site being handed prison sentences and fines for their involvement in running the site.

The men saw their case reach Sweden's appeals court in September 2010, however the verdict went against them in late November that year. A Supreme Court hearing is now being pursued in the country.

Here's a final word from your Church of Kopimism sponsors:

"The organisation formalises a community that's been well spread for a long time already. The community of kopimi requires no formal membership. You just have to feel a calling to worship what is the holiest of the holiest: information and copy.

"To do this, we organise kopyactings - religious services - where the kopimists share information with eachother through copying and remix.

"Copy and seed." ®

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Anonymous Coward

So you are saying...

...it is a win-win deal?

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Anonymous Coward

Atheism is a religion?

Just like not collecting stamps is a hobby, and not smoking is a habit.

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@"Everyone on the planet has a religion"

No, you are totally misrepresenting an atheists world view. Its nothing like a religion. An atheists world view is not based on faith, its based on Science, as in centuries of accumulating scientific knowledge that is continuously under extremely detailed scrutiny to check and recheck every aspect of it is correct. Religious leaders by contract demand belief in what they say and many religious leaders throughout history have caused their followers to inflict terrible suffering & abuse on non-believers to prevent anyone openly questioning the religious leaders.

What is interesting is that each religion has a different set of supernatural explanations for the world around us, so they can't all be right, but even more interesting is that all the followers of each of these religions fail to see they can't all be right. Also morality is ultimately empathy for others, so compare that with the harm that so many Religious leaders have and continue to cause the people they abuse.

Once you take out the supernatural explanations from religion you are left with a sense of community and morality is a means for the community to work together, which makes perfect sense. We are pack animals after all, so a sense of family and community is all part of our pack thinking. The supernatural explanations however are used by religious leaders to separate all of us into different groups, (followers and non-followers) because they want to build gangs of followers to give them power to influence others, as has been shown throughout history how religions seek to influence politics. A gang of people gives power to the leader to bully others into what the leader wants and being at the head of the gang is also a source of attention. Power and attention and a pack of lies about supernatural explanations, that is what religion is to the true religious leaders and its why they will never want people to see the truth. The followers of religions need to learn that they see religion differently to the true leaders of religions.

The problem is some of the lower level leaders of religions (who can do good for the community) are really just more religious followers, not true leaders, because they like all followers are blinded by a torrent of manipulation and lies from the truly powerful top leaders of religions. The top leaders of the religions need to be taken down and side lined by society. They are lying deceitful manipulators pretending to be pious. Don't believe me, then look at the catholic church and the number of cases of child abuse being reported now people are starting to openly question religious leaders online. Meanwhile we have other religious leaders calling for the death of non-believers and there are many others examples of how the religious leaders fail to practice what they preach. Its therefore no wonder religious leaders have refused to want their followers to learn an atheists world view which is so central to working out what is real and what is false and therefore a lie.

Everyone should be taught Critical Thinking so they can see through the deceit. The sense of community and morality is true, the supernatural explanations are lies and even religious leaders in different religions don't believe each others supernatural explanations. Take out the supernatural explanations and you are left with sense of community and morality but the religious leaders don't want people to think like that. They want division in society because they want as many people as possible to follow them as possible whilst they try to bully everyone else to also follow them. That isn't morality, that is abuse and more and more people are no longer standing for it.

An atheists world view is not based on faith, its based on Science and Science is about finding out what is true. Its no wonder the religious leaders don't want that because they secretly know they religious teachings are filled with lies and more and more people are learning the leaders are liars through reading the Internet. Some in society want to build up more followers for their particular religious gang and they will never want people to see the truth and they will put down anyone who speaks out against their lies. That is why atheists are now speaking out against the lies and abuses and hypocrisy of the religious gang builders.

Welcome to the Internet age where the dark ages of people being bullied into believing supernatural mysticism are finally coming to an end and it can't happen soon enough.

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