… in a situation where it only hurts them.
Heck, you must have heard this by now: The spaghetti-heads who got started to ridicule the idea of design in the universe *in the Western world* —where that is cool and elite—tried it somewhere else, with predictable results: Police disruption of their activities, and arrest.
In their defense, they claim to be a religion, according to NBC News:
Pastafarians are part of an international ‘religious’ movement founded in the U.S. in 2005 in opposition to the teaching of intelligent design and creationism in public schools. It has become an international movement, generally recognized as satirical poke at organized religion. But its adherents insist that it’s a ‘real religion’ and the dogma they follow is the rejection of dogma. They claim to have 15,000 adherents in Russia.
As it happens, that won’t help at all. The 15,000 followers will be sought out (if they exist, under real names).
What this shows: These days, to get an absolutely crackpot idea going, it is safer to claim to be a science than a religion, and to have a grant from a U.S. science foundation. And to have Nobelists and Templeton Prize winners and National Academy of Science members and space aliens backing you.