What is religion?

[Curmudgeoness]

I was reading a vile article in our local paper's Faith section, when I ran across this quote by Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren Burger:

"Religious beliefs need not be acceptable, logical, consistent, or comprehensible to others in order to merit First Amendment protection."

This quote, by a conservative no less, got me to thinking about the ridicule recently of Pastafarians, followed by non-support of the people who believe that SSN is the mark of the beast. All of this from people who profess to be, I suppose, "proper believers".

I remember when I was in the evangelical teen movement in the mid-1960's, and SSN was definitely an issue of discussion. It was theorized that it could be "the mark of the beast", since that mark was something that you needed to do anything in the society at the end times. I cannot say that a SSN is not a necessity that follows you from birth to death, and that you cannot do much without one. Could it be that these people are the ones who have it right?

Personally, I do not believe any hare-brained religious theories. And they are all hare-brained in my eyes. But that does not mean that people who say that they believe in these religions or interpretations of religions should be automatically discounted. Maybe I am wrong. Maybe all those other people are wrong. Maybe the non-conventional believers are right.