I am now an Ordained Minister

[Zeroth]

No seriously, I am! I have the certificates to prove it! Or, receipts in two cases, as they wanted to charge for certificates, and I'm not giving my money to a random website.

It really is as easy as all the shows make it out to be. I thought this would make a fascinating blog entry as I investigate the parodies of internet ordination... but goddamn for once they were right. I filled out forms, got certificates or receipts.

Check out my certificates! (Hmm, no file upload on off-topic?)
Ordination for Universal Life Church
Ordination for Church of the Latter-day Dude

Both are legally religions in Canada, and thus as I am an ordained minister, I can officiate marriages and the like.

[Clayton]

Just... wow.

[Sniper4Life]

lol funny

[Tony]

you guys need to tune into the Twitter conversation happening around this

@ZerothOfTheLaw
@aazizorg
@csgrad

[BigBear]

How is this legal and why is it accepted in Canada?

[Dan]

It's legal becues the goverment can not pick and chose what relgiones it wants to recognize beyond being non-profit and fitting a few cirutiera. Just becues demontations of christeintiy might have more fallowers it dose not mean smaller relgiones are any less vaild. This includes modern and "made up" relgiones. I use "made up" in quoutes as legealy there is no diffrence between a relgione i came up with and went threw the procese of being recognized by the state and one that has been around for thounsadns of years, so in effect they are both just as real.

Each relgione can set what it's requirements are for being an minister or member of it and if one wants to just make it singing a form and paying so money then they have the right to do so.



In any case this is rather cool Zeroth. Can you post a link to your blog about it or the steps you did to do it? Some of us do not have twitter :p

Edit: I am ordained now too aprently :p


Edit2: I looked in to it a bit more for fun and it looks like most places in canada won't let you do any cermoneys unless you have been with the church for x number of years and you repersent a church in a psyical location. Tho they do recogize them as relgiones. However it is posible to become a "marriage commissioner" in canada who is able to perfomr marages with out any conection to a relgione (tho it is alot harder to become then just singing an online form).

[BigBear]

I had a neighbour that had a smoke hut and had a ceremony but he said it wasn't legally recongnised even though they had a minister

He said he tried for several years to get it recognised by who I am not sure or even what religion it was but it seems wierd that wouldn't be recognised

[Dan]

Well it likey had more to do if the correct things where side and if he had the correct documenation.

If he wanted he could just go to a justice of the peace or marriage commissioner and sign a form to be married. He must have not been trying very hard.

[Zeroth]

Thanks for the info Dan. Here's my blog post: http://www.oddco.ca/zeroth/zblog/2009/05/14/how-to-become-a-minister/

I had hoped it would be a bit harder than that.

[Zeroth]

With the ease of ordination, this leads me to an idea: founding a new church.

This church would be The Church of the Source. We would believe there is some entity, that causes bugs in software to exist. Maybe its simply cause and effect, probability, or a reminder that humans are fallible. We really don't say. But, we do require our ordained ministers to learn and keep up software practices that help prevent bugs. It is maintained that when the perfect software is created, free of bugs and design flaws, the programmer responsible shall be transported to another realm, one like Heaven. What do you guys say? Ministers of the Church of the Source would be required to use version control, comment their code, use unit-tests, and other best practices, all to reduce flaws in software, and move themselves and other programmers to a state of perfection.

[jernst]

you could use collection money to start up your own church's "source summer of code (SSoC)" and run Sunday Software School haha

[Zeroth]

I was considering that, actually. Ask for donations from the members of the church, and give that money to open source organizations and to charitable organizations. An even mix of the two.

[Tony]

And since it's a church, as an organization, you'll be eligible for tax breaks and such!

Edit: also, some reddit love -- http://www.reddit.com/r/atheism/comments/8kjxi/this_morning_i_became_an_ordained_minister_of/

[Zeroth]

Tony, you're kind of distorting my message with that title. I didn't do it because I could, but I was testing the hollywood myth of internet ordination. It wasn't a myth. My actions are not intended as an attack on religion, but rather to highlight how these organizations cheapen the efforts of real priests, ministers,nuns and monks. Those people spend years, of dedicated effort and service, and those organizations cheapen all that effort. That is shameful, regardless of your religious(or not) beliefs.

[BigBear]

Tony @ Thu May 14, 2009 4:04 pm wrote:

And since it's a church, as an organization, you'll be eligible for tax breaks and such!

Edit: also, some reddit love -- http://www.reddit.com/r/atheism/comments/8kjxi/this_morning_i_became_an_ordained_minister_of/

tax breaks ? why and how so