Whatever the official definition, the general real-world rule seems to be:
If I like my neighbor’s faith, I call it a religion.
If I’m uncomfortable with my neighbor’s faith, I call it a sect.
If I strongly dislike my neighbor’s faith (or my neighbor), I call it a cult.

I can only take credit for putting the chocolate and the peanut butter together.

As for persecuting smaller religions, I could easily see it happening because the bigger superstitions don’t want new, upstart competition.

And really, what is the difference between superstition and religion? It’s all just baseless belief in rituals that appease the supernatural. At least the pagans have a connection to the real, natural world we can see and experience.

In this country. I think we protect superstition too much. We allow illogical beliefs to interfere in the good governing and operation of the nation.

After all, one person tells you he’s god, and he’s a mad man. A few people believe him, and it’s a cult. A lot of people believe him, and it’s a religion.

I work all day, and get half-drunk at night.
Waking at four to soundless dark, I stare.
In time the curtain-edges will grow light.
Till then I see what’s really always there:
Unresting death, a whole day nearer now,
Making all thought impossible but how
And where and when I shall myself die.
Arid interrogation: yet the dread
Of dying, and being dead,
Flashes afresh to hold and horrify.
The mind blanks at the glare. Not in remorse
- The good not done, the love not given, time
Torn off unused – nor wretchedly because
An only life can take so long to climb
Clear of its wrong beginnings, and may never;
But at the total emptiness for ever,
The sure extinction that we travel to
And shall be lost in always. Not to be here,
Not to be anywhere,
And soon; nothing more terrible, nothing more true.

This is a special way of being afraid
No trick dispels. Religion used to try,
That vast, moth-eaten musical brocade
Created to pretend we never die,
And specious stuff that says No rational being
Can fear a thing it will not feel, not seeing
That this is what we fear – no sight, no sound,
No touch or taste or smell, nothing to think with,
Nothing to love or link with,
The anasthetic from which none come round.

And so it stays just on the edge of vision,
A small, unfocused blur, a standing chill
That slows each impulse down to indecision.
Most things may never happen: this one will,
And realisation of it rages out
In furnace-fear when we are caught without
People or drink. Courage is no good:
It means not scaring others. Being brave
Lets no one off the grave.
Death is no different whined at than withstood.

Slowly light strengthens, and the room takes shape.
It stands plain as a wardrobe, what we know,
Have always known, know that we can’t escape,
Yet can’t accept. One side will have to go.
Meanwhile telephones crouch, getting ready to ring
In locked-up offices, and all the uncaring
Intricate rented world begins to rouse.
The sky is white as clay, with no sun.
Work has to be done.
Postmen like doctors go from house to house.

Philip Larkin

While on the surface that seems one in the same, in reality it’s not as you can still be prosecuted for things such as cruelty to animals, violation of some law about butchering animals, improper disposal, slaughtering an animal in an area not zoned for such, etc. Thus by codifying what’s acceptable methods of slaughtering animals, the conditions of the facility in which it can take place, and the like states and communities can outlaw such practices without actually outlawing it. In a very real way, it’s akin to cities bending over backwards to rezone everything such that there is literally no place left where something like a strip club, adult book store, toy shop, or the like can be opened.

But yeah, when speaking about Constitutional heroes, you run into some really strange bedfellows. I mean, when else would it make sense to bring up Larry Flynt, Howard Stern, and the Jehovah’s Witness, and all in a positive light?

Oh, and the last link in my post above was to the text of the 1796-1797 treaty with Tripoli. A quick google search can pull it for those who are interested.

Maggie, if I’m being too long winded feel free to tell me to shut up.