Be honest. You’ve thought of just making up your own religion.
That’s what Marshel Copple did when he came up with “Sun Worshipping Atheism,” a religion of which he was the only follower and which, among other things, required believers get 8 hours of sleep every night.
Unfortunately. Copple’s job required him to work overtime, potentially cutting into his religiously-mandated sleeping hours. So he requested a religious exemption. Rudely, the court said no:
Although there is a set of principles on which plaintiff relies to guide his life, it reflects a moral and secular, rather than religious, philosophy.
Interestingly, the court does not have a problem with making up your own religion as such. But if you’re going to make up your own religion and demand that your employer accommodate it, keep these three rules in mind:
- A religion must deal with “fundamental and ultimate questions having to do with deep and imponderable matters.” Sleep is apparently not profound enough, though I for one take it very seriously.
- Religions must also be comprehensive and not deal only with an isolated teaching or subject matter. For people hoping to make their own religion, this is gonna be the tricky one.
- Finally, religion “can often be recognized by the presence of certain formal and external signs.” In this case, the absence of bags under Copple’s eyes apparently did not suffice.
If anyone more successfully creates a religion involving sleeping a lot please inform me at once because I will sign right up.