Athiest Discrimination?

[Harlowe]

Exactly (what Ddrak said) and I don't think it's at all about what they do that is "illegal" but how that ideology will affect the choices they make in office and if they are or not going to support your ideology within political office. I don't find it at all different than judging a candidate by their party affiliation. It's judging them on how you feel they will uphold your own ideology in office

A so-called religion that demonizes mental healthcare and harasses those that leave the church using information they gave them "confessional style"....I don't believe they are going to make good decisions for me in politics.

[wende darling]

Well the sad thing is......I remember a few people on this board saying they would not support this or that candidate because they are affiliated with this or that religion. And then I have to come in here and support the fact that laws are already on the books to protect athiests from discrimination based on their religious views.

Sad.

I think people should quite happily be able to not vote for a candidate based on their religion, especially if they are running with those beliefs as part of their platform. If a Scientologist was running, I'd sure hope people viewed that as a negative (for example).

There's a vast difference between public approval of political candidates, which should very much be done on the candidate's personal beliefs, religion and any other factors that may or may not make them a good representative of your own viewpoint and that of a public servant who should be employed based on their ability to work in a role. If the public servant in question can't separate their religion from their work then there's a definite reason to fire them, but that's still objective and not simply based on their private beliefs.

Dd

Yes, that.

I would have a very difficult time voting for someone who is basing their political campaign on their religious beliefs. We don't go and apply for a job at Taco Bell and when asked, "why are you the best applicant for this position" say, "because I'm a good, solid Christian". Yet, so many politicians do exactly that. If that is part of their platform, it will be judged and votes will be based on it. Not to mention, religion has quite a bit to do with personal belief systems. I don't discriminate against anybody but I am not about to vote for somebody who chooses to use religion as a basis for why he or she votes on certain laws that go against everything that I believe in.

My ex goes to a Lutheran church. I love him to death, but I disagree with him on religion. I find his beliefs to be a bit hypocritical, but I don't judge him because he doesn't see things the same way. Our only beef was when the day came that our daughter said she no longer wanted to attend church with him. She doesn't believe in God. We'd made an agreement early on that he could take her as long as she wanted to go. I would never discuss my beliefs with her unless she asked and if the day came that she didn't want to go he was to respect her wishes. I don't think I ever really discussed my beliefs with her and at 13 she came to the decision on her own. When he tried to force her to go anyhow we had a very long, very loud argument. In the end we both won. She is not forced to go, so most of the time she doesn't. However, she still attends youth group on Wednesday nights because she enjoys that. This morning, while he was at church, I hung out with his wife and our daughter. His wife attends church out of respect for him most Sundays, but I suspect that her beliefs lie closer to mine than his so she finds many opportunities to be busy on Sunday mornings.

[Select]

I don't discriminate against anybody but I am not about to vote for somebody who chooses to use religion as a basis for why he or she votes on certain laws that go against everything that I believe in.

I would watch my vote if they obviously based their campaign on a religion. Even if someone doesn't do such, if they are part of a religion it will have influenced them in someway. That's where I draw the line. I'm alright with someone being a part of any religion as long as what that religion preaches is legal and that religion is only one influence on the politician. Many things can shape a person. If someone subscribes to a religion, I hope that religion would be just as much of a personality/idea-molder as their life, social, and 'gut feeling' experiences. Religious beliefs can shape a belief system, but they can't dictate it unless that person's conscience agrees or the person allows himself to be controlled. Otherwise, we wouldn't see so many people breaking away, switching religions, or questioning. Atheists have morals and standards without religion. I'm alright with someone having a religion as long as they acknowledge the other part of their brain that might send up a red flag if that religion acts inappropriately in the 'eyes' of that part of the brain.

I'm doing a terrible job of explaining this opinion and I'm just rambling. If I can make it more concise and clear, I'll repost.

I think I'm trying to say I want my politicians to listen to their 'gut feelings' as well as their religion. Those 'gut feelings' are what I judge about the person.

I would like all politicians to be agnostic. Yes, that's unfair, but it would not be the first thing I would decide by. I don't want to see control by a religion, but I also want the religions acknowledged with the idea that there may be truth to some of their ideology. I find some atheists to be too judgmental and mocking. I think there needs to be a balance of respect without having stupidity cloud science, fact, and the basics of right and wrong.

And that was more rambling for ya.

[Klast Brell]

Kulaf. You might as well be putting your fingers in your ears and saying "La la la I can't hear you." Or "that doesn't count." Examples of discrimination were provided. The case from 1970 is very old. That's why i did not bring it up. Instead I provided you a well documented paper by an ivy league law school professor which documented dozens of recent cases.

The boy scouts are indeed a private organization. They are a private organization which discriminates. The dairy that fired the guy for being atheist is a private organization as well. You asked for examples of discrimination. Examples were provided.

Here is a gut check for you. Replace every instance of Atheist in our examples with the word Jew. Do you still feel the same way about them?

Boy scouts kick out scout leader for being a Jew.
Worker fired from dairy for being a Jew.
Bodyguards assigned to protect Jewish soldier while on base.
Divorced parent denied visitation rights because he is a Jew.
City council orders removal of Jewish billboard after receiving complaints.

[Freecare Spiritwise]

Here is a gut check for you. Replace every instance of Atheist in our examples with the word Jew. Do you still feel the same way about them?

Boy scouts kick out scout leader for being a Jew.
Worker fired from dairy for being a Jew.
Bodyguards assigned to protect Jewish soldier while on base.
Divorced parent denied visitation rights because he is a Jew.
City council orders removal of Jewish billboard after receiving complaints.

I absolutely see your point. Two of my own points to make on this:

1. I would completely accept the analogy except that you've claimed that your atheist beliefs are not a form of religion. How can you claim religious persecution against that which is not a religion? And how can you claim your right to religious freedom, for the same reasons? Atheism is just a rational view of the universe, and there are many others that sound kinda funny when plugged into your example:

Boy scouts kick out scout leader for being a nihilist.
Worker fired from dairy for being a fatalist.
Divorced parent denied visitation rights because he is a sophist.
City council orders removal of existentialist billboard after receiving complaints.

So I'm all for consistent discrimination laws against all ideologies, but I don't think it's appropriate to claim that atheism isn't a religion except when it suits you.

2. Here's the real gut check. Substitute Satanist or Islamic Extremist for Jew and see if you still feel the same. Personally the only ideologies that I find offensive (Hail Satan) are the ones which demand that everyone must believe thus and go to great lengths to force it on people. Again, Nietzsche: The indignant are liars.

Bodyguards assigned to protect Islamic Extremist soldier while on base.
City council orders removal of Satanist billboard after receiving complaints.

Edit: Food for thought. Socrates, one of the greatest thinkers of all time, was put to death for being an atheist.

[Partha]

1. I would completely accept the analogy except that you've claimed that your atheist beliefs are not a form of religion. How can you claim religious persecution against that which is not a religion?

'Jew' doesn't necessarily imply religion. See Jecks.

[Kulaf]

But the point you keep ignoring Klast is there are already laws on the books to address those issues. As much as you want to keep burrying your head in the sand that's not going to change.

Are there going to be individual cases where people have issues......of course. But that is what courts are for. You don't need more laws or to lobby lawmakers to address a situation already addressed.

[Kulaf]

Edit: Food for thought. Socrates, one of the greatest thinkers of all time, was put to death for being an atheist.

That is a bit of a stretch and an incredible oversimplification that would likely make Socrates roll in his grave.

[Freecare Spiritwise]

Edit: Food for thought. Socrates, one of the greatest thinkers of all time, was put to death for being an atheist.

That is a bit of a stretch and an incredible oversimplification that would likely make Socrates roll in his grave.

Weren't the exact charges against him atheism and corruption of the youth? It's been a long time since I've read Dialogues. Every time I go to read it again I end up with something like Kant or Spinoza

Yeah, he wasn't exacly a card carrying atheist but that's what he was charged with(?) And yeah, he did have a chance to escape his fate, which he chose against and drank the hemlock.

[Klast Brell]

Freecare:
Atheism is not a religion to me. But it is a beleif system You beleive there is a god. I beleive there is not god. And in the eyes of many christians Atheism is actualy seen as a religion.

Kulaf:
There are laws on the books addressing all kinds of things. Just because a particular expression of discrimination is not illegal does not stop it from being discrimination. I'm guessing you are one of those people who want's to get rid of hate crime laws because it's already illegal to assault people or murder them.

[Kulaf]

Well actually yes....I think hate crime laws are idiotic.

[Ddrak]

I should note that I discriminate against all sorts of things when voting for my politicians:

- I won't vote for a mentally handicapped politician.
- I won't vote for a politician with certain physical handicaps.
- I won't vote for politicians that belong to certain religions.
- I won't vote for politicians that are either "too old" or "too young".
- I won't vote for politicians that hold personal beliefs strongly different to my own.

All of those things directly affect the job I want the politician to do for me, which makes it all fair game to discriminate against.

Dd

[Klast Brell]

Here is another example of discrimination against atheists written in to the law.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld ... 3695.story

Reporting from Las Vegas -- In a city launched by shotgun weddings and quickie divorces, and which offers the chance to be wed by faux Liberaces, King Tuts and Grim Reapers, there remains at least one nuptial taboo: You can't be married by an atheist.

Michael Jacobson, a 64-year-old retiree who calls himself a lifelong atheist, tried this year to get a license to perform weddings. Clark County rejected his application because he had no ties to a congregation, as state law requires.

[Freecare Spiritwise]

I was married in Vegas. Maybe I'm wrong but I thought that anything past raising your right hand at the courthouse was fluff. Hmmm the wife just told me the marriage license had to be signed by the minister so /shrug maybe you're right.

So what was your ceremony like Klast? Did you have a pagan ceremony? Not to be flip but I was wondering whether you hand to stand in a church just to make the bride's family happy. One of my daughter's friends just had a pagan wedding and I thought it was pretty cool.

[Harlowe]

Wouldn't a pagan wedding be a religious one as well? I know there are many forms of Paganism, but whether it's neopagan, polythiest, shamanic etc, I wouldn't consider that any more appropriate for an athiest than a Christian or Jewish wedding.

[Freecare Spiritwise]

Yeah you're right Harlowe. I think my brain flew south for the winter.

[Klast Brell]

We interviewed several officiants before we settled on a pretty cool guy. As we were interviewing him it starts to dawn on my that this guy is gay. We had asked him how he got started doing weddings and he told us this story about some friends who couldn't find someone to marry them and so he decided to get a license to perform weddings and do it for them. Some other people who were at that wedding liked he he did it and asked him to do their wedding. He never mentioned a gender when talking about these people. Even when he was referring to one person he used the word "they". Once I caught on to that started noticing the small lilt in his voice.

We told him we did not want bible passages read and we did not want the word "god" used in the ceremony. He didn't even bat an eye. He just pulled out this big 3 ring binder to show us. It was broken in to sections for each phase of the ceremony. You've seen wedding programs. They always have that list of all the parts of the ceremony. This book had a ton of secular materials. Sonnets from Shakespeare. Poems by Shelley. Excerpts from essays and novels. All kinds of stuff really cool readings that expressed ideas about the different wedding topics like love, commitment, growing old together etc.

We had our wedding at a hotel downtown. We needed a hall big enough for 200 guests. (20 of mine and 180 of hers.) The ceremony was just over 10 minutes. If any of Mrs. Klast's catholic relatives noticed the absence of religion in the ceremony none of them mentioned it to us. We did however have several people tell us how nice it was that we had a short ceremony.

We hired a pair of DJs from the University of Minnesota radio station who turned out to be amazingly good. They started out the evening playing some oldies that were really good songs, but were not played out stereotypical oldies. Music that made the people from our parents generation say wow I haven't heard that song in years and get out on the dance floor. As the evening wore on and older people started dropping out they started playing the more modern tunes. People actually danced all night. from the first song they played to the last the dance floor was never empty.

Without being sarcastic I can say that it was honestly the most fun wedding I've ever been to.

[Freecare Spiritwise]

Awesome. That does sound like it was fun. We went for the same unpretentious effect. Wedding in Vegas, short ceremony, everyone had a good time. I didn't want one of those weddings where everyone looks at their watches and spends the whole ceremony plotting an escape. We had a suite at a nice hotel for the reception and after that we gambled for a couple hours in our wedding garb which was really cool. Probably 1000 total strangers shook my hand and hugged the bride.

[Klast Brell]

For our posed wedding pictures we stood in the Crystal Court. It's the entrance to one of our sky scrapers. If you ever saw the Mary Tyler Moore show that was where she was standing when she threw her hat up in the air.



It just turned to 5 PM as we were finishing all the posed shots. We started walking around downtown just as all the office drones cam flooding out on to the streets. It was pretty fun. People would see the wedding party in their tuxes and dresses coming down and just smile. It still makes me happy to think that every one of those smiles was someone who's day we made a little brighter.

[Harlowe]

Damn your wedding sounded cool!