Now this I find to be a far more compelling line of reasoning. But is this actually against the rules to do this?
Probably. Game mechanics trump RP. What the game mechanics say is what happens. Period. If you use a game mechanic and then say something like "Ignore the game mechanics, that's not what we're doing", then you are doing something wrong.
* Declaring war and then saying "It's not really a war, we just have to do this because we need to be at War status to do something"
* Sending a message tagged as Orders, and then saying "This isn't an order"
* Sending a message
not tagged as Orders, and then saying "This is an order"
Does starting a religion, then saying it is not a religion count as well? Do you need to specifically declare that you're not a religion for it to count? Or can you just create a religion that is completely devoid of content, has no gods, etc., and have that count?
