Does Religion have a legal definition?

[Carcano]

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..."

This is what appears in the first amendment...but what is the point without a legal definition of what religion is.

For example, you could start a religion that upheld public nudity as one of its sacred sacraments. I thought about this recently while watching a women baring her nipples on the main streets of my city to protest the gender discrimination inherent in the dress codes.

http://www.demotix.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/a_scale_large/100-8/photos/127388.jpg

Has the supreme court ever ruled on a legal definition of religion?

 

[Balerion]

The Constitution doesn't specifically define what the term 'religion' encompasses, but the courts have rounded out the parameters of what "free expression" of religion encompasses. From usconstitution.net:

The Court concluded that to make religious rule or law superior to civil law would make each person "law unto himself" and render the government ineffectual and irrelevant.

So if women wanted to create a religion that mandated public nudity, the government would still be within their rights to prevent them from doing so.

 

[kx000]

We all get religious. Maybe that helps.

 

[Read-Only]

The Constitution doesn't specifically define what the term 'religion' encompasses, but the courts have rounded out the parameters of what "free expression" of religion encompasses. From usconstitution.net:



So if women wanted to create a religion that mandated public nudity, the government would still be within their rights to prevent them from doing so.

In addition to that, I think the BEST place to get a definition would be in the federal tax code because they (The IRS) are the ones that grant or deny tax-exempt status to any group claiming they are a religion.

 

[Carcano]

The Constitution doesn't specifically define what the term 'religion' encompasses, but the courts have rounded out the parameters of what "free expression" of religion encompasses. From usconstitution.net:

The court concluded therefore that the constitutional amendment is like a 'blank check'...and therefore has no legal value or integrity.