> But when we discuss matters of religious discrimination, atheists are a group against which there is discrimination on the basis of religion.
Citation needed. Specifically, show: atheists as a group have lower life expectancy and/or lower lifetime earnings than non-atheists when confounders are controlled.
People over-use "discrimination".
Edit: interesting points made about ethics, though. Worth reading.
No, it isn't "just democracy". Whether atheists should even be allowed to hold public office is a question that turns up regularly in public discourse. Now substitute "atheist" with "people of color", "jewish", "muslim", "gay" or "left handed" and see if you still think it is okay.
It's still just democracy if the majority wishes so.
Democracy (in the actual, direct demoracy sense) is not about ensuring inclusivity in public position offices and representation, it's about each person having one vote and then majority ruling.
If those groups have the right to vote and get elected, but don't because most don't want to elect them, that's still a democracy. It's even a democracy if the majority decides to stiffle a minority (it might not be ethical or decent to do, and the majority might have decided so for racist or sexist reasons, but that's still democratic).
Goodness. If you think the western concept of democracy is merely about voting I think your educational system has served you poorly. A good way to learn what a democracy is may be to learn a bit more about what it takes to safeguard a democracy. Timothy Snyder has written a few books that might be useful.
If you think the western concept and practice of democracy is actual democracy, then your educational system has failed you. Which in the US it's not that difficult to happen...
There are a number of countries where atheism (as apostasy or blasphemy) is punishable by death: Afghanistan, Iran, Malaysia, Maldives, Mauritania, Nigeria, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, United Arab Emirates and Yemen.
In some western countries you can be prosecuted for not following the law, which might be inspired by "Catholic views on sexuality and reproductive rights" (e.g. if you do X and X is forbidden) but which is a different thing.
It’s exactly the same thing: penalizing people in the name of religion. There are no examples in the other direction, ie penalizing people in the name of atheism.
You'd be surprised. It has happened in revolutionary France, up to and including civil war Spain, USSR, China, and several other times and places besides...
This is something that's often said, but it's just not true. In France, the Church was the "internal occupant"; it was an uprising. In Spain, the Church was known to be ally of fascists; we can see the consequences of failing to contain it. USSR was replacing Jesus with Stalin, himself a cleric. China - I'd love to see Western countries handling religious fundamentalism as well as they do.
In the US (which I think is where the author hails from) there's fewer atheists represented in congress than Muslims. (in fact technically none, only one or two members identify as 'non-observant'. That's fairly astonishing given that atheism or some form of secularism is probably the pluralistic, if not majority position among people with the kind of education status who get elected to that representative body.
And opinion surveys also consistently show American voters are even less likely to trust an avowed atheist politician than a muslim one. I wish they had also asked survey participants about LaVey Satanism :-)
I personally suspect the majority cult among politicians is actually Mammon (love of money) or Moloch-Baal (love of violence).
There's no citation needed, there's some education needed. It's a simple fact that discrimination occurs against atheists in many contexts - political, social, professional.
You're setting a very odd, nonsensical definition of what discrimination is to try to make a gotcha. Maybe if you tried to speak to the degree or effect of that discrimination you might have something interesting to add to the conversation.
>There's no citation needed, there's some education needed. It's a simple fact that discrimination occurs against atheists in many contexts - political, social, professional.
Any more than there's discrimination against religious people? (e.g. in progressive media, art circles, academia, and so on). Or just each team favoring their own, but none having systemic support, legal support, or any great power over the other?
Can this still be called discrimination? Perhaps. But if we overblow some words, they lose their meaning. Atheists do face serious discrimination in some countries, for example, but in general, e.g. it's not something that will hold you back in your career in America.
One might argue it can hold you back in rural Alabama, and that I'd accept. But then again, try being a card-carrying Christian in Silicon Valley and see the looks you get, and whether you'll likely to get any promotion in a liberal news organization...
Sure, it might hold you back in your chances for political election. But that's democracy. People get to pick someone whose politics and beliefs they like. That's more like complaining "there's discrimination against punk or hip hop fans", because they wouldn't accept you or your views at a prog rock group.
> it's not something that will hold you back in your career in America.
For tech workers in US cities? I don't think it will hold you back. But there are still wide swaths of American society were self-describing as an atheist will make people distrust you. It may even be regarded as antagonistic, like you're teeing up to pick a fight with them. I've found that self-describing as 'not religious' gets a warmer reception, even though it's the same thing.
>I've found that self-describing as 'not religious' gets a warmer reception, even though it's the same thing.
I think that's because identifying as an atheist implies (i.e. statistically goes with) intolerable preaching and better-than-thou antagonistic attitude, where identifying as non-religious mostly implies "I don't care for this religion shit".
Similar to identifying as a vegan vs simply not eating meat and animal products.
In the West, discrimination against Christians is practically nonexistent. What does exist is opposition against hate speech and promotion of harmful behaviors, and many fundamentalists claim they should get free pass because of their religion.
What does still often happen in the West is enforcing certain dogmas by law - from Catholic ideas on sexuality to abortion bans. Which shows not only there’s no discrimination against Christians, but the exact opposite is true - Christians are the privileged minority that discriminates everyone else.
That's what those doing discrimination had historically claimed in many ocassions tho: that the other group is not actually discriminated, but that they are "rightfully curbed" (because they stir up trouble, they have the wrong views, and so on).
That’s what fundamentalists keep claiming though: that preventing them from raping children and denying people their basic human rights is religious discrimination.
>Sure, it might hold you back in your chances for political election. But that's democracy.
Fifty years ago, you could have said the same thing about being black, or being a woman or a Jew - the majority being able to systematically deny political power to a specific demographic is an indicator of their having greater systemic and legal power than that demographic. The fact that being an atheist prevents one from holding any real political power in the US - I submit it would be impossible for a non-Christian President to be elected, for instance - whereas the worst discrimination Christians face is funny looks (I don't think your scenario of not being promoted in a "liberal news organization" because of religion is credible, if it exists it isn't common) kind of undermines your thesis that the power balance between Christianity and atheism is essentially equal. If it were, abortion rights would still exist given than the majority of Americans support them.
>Fifty years ago, you could have said the same thing about being black, or being a woman or a Jew
Yes, and if those cases were just about them not being elected because people don't like them for their beliefs it would also be fine.
Especially if otherwise they had all the right to be in an election, get elected, etc - which for wowen, blacks, and even jews in many places, was not the case. As opposed, to, you know, getting beaten up, lynched or genocided.
But women, jews, and blacks, faced certain different kinds of discrimination and persecution - and didn't even have the right to vote, eat in a restaurant, or even be left alone and alive. So, no, it's not really the same.
This is more like not voting for communists or libertarians.
>the fact that being an atheist prevents one from holding any real political power in the US - I submit it would be impossible for a non-Christian President to be elected, for instance
I'd say a Christian president, having God's work and charity and all as a real priority (as opposed to token gestures and lip service to religion, of the kind US politicians make), would also see it impossible to be elected. In fact they wouldn't even make it to their party's selection for President.
Ditto for a devout Catholic or Orthodox Christian (if I recall correctly, there was but one Catholic, not particularly hot on religion himself, and he was still smeared and called all kinds of names for being a Catholic, not to mention that he was also shot dead - though at least that wasn't because of his faith).
On the other hand, presidents who in practice, policy, and private life, couldn't give less fucks about religion, but are nominally Christian and make some empty gestures towards it, yes, are elected all the time.
Discrimination literally means "being able to tell two things apart".
In social contexts, it generally means "treating a group of people disadvantageously because of some trait that should not be relevant".
Showing that atheists are treated disadvantageously in the US is easy. Political representation is an obvious one.
Showing that this disadvantage also takes the form of life expectancy and lifetime earnings after controlling for confounders is not easy. But that ask isn't asking for proof of discrimination. It is asking for extremely strong proof of discrimination that would only be possible through monumental effort, and would require a really strong effect, depending on the manner of discrimination, it might not be measurable through life expectancy or lifetime earnings.
Discrimination that makes you less happy whithout shortening your life or impoverishing you is still bad!
My hot take: eating the icecream purchased for the observant Jews does make him a jerk. If he wants a special icecream for himself he should ask for one.
Edit: adding some further thoughts. this was an action that subverted another’s intended action — here the company trying to do something “nice” for a particular subset of employees.
However, I also don’t like it when a business or institution shows favoritism. So maybe it was a valid tit for tat.
> here the company trying to do something “nice” for a particular subset of employees.
Or the company is trying to be more inclusive to folks that do not want to eat regular icecream, and would not eat any otherwise. Then his action might have been in harmony with the intention.
Also, I don't see this as favoritism: While it is a special treatment, the ones eating kosher icecream do not have a better outcome than everyone else.
I would consider it favoritism if they were only trying to accommodate the special needs of a certain group, here the religious Jews, perhaps out of deference to religion… which seems to be a point of concern of the op since he goes on about his atheism.
I wouldn’t consider it favoritism if a general rule applied to which groups get special treatment, provided the rule itself did not show favoritism a priori and had reasonable motivation. A la “we want to accommodate as many people as possible but it’s too costly to get a special solution for any group with fewer than X people”.
So… yeah maybe you’re right and the latter applied here. In this case he followed the spirit of the law as a worthy tag along of the explicitly labeled intended recipient group.
When eating ice cream turns into an identity conflict there is something wrong with people. Surely, people with a positive attitude would see this as something that can be enjoyed by a bigger group and thus some common ground. It takes ill will to turn an opportunity for enjoying something together into a basis for conflict.
When I was in Israel on a business trip, I ate there in a buffet serving kosher food, because it was all kosher for simplicity. Was I wrong doing that? Should I seek a "foreigners" restaurant only in such situation?
I'm having trouble evaluating his example (having kosher ice cream available on free ice cream days). The logic seems to be:
* The company offers free ice cream on some days
* Some employees, due to being Jewish, can't eat the normal ice cream; so the company offers kosher ice cream instead
* The author is not Jewish, but also can't eat the normal ice cream, since he's lactose intolerant, but he can eat the kosher ice cream. So he figures that since the point of offering the kosher ice cream is to accommodate employees who can't eat the normal ice cream, it's OK for him to take some.
I mean, I don't see anything wrong with that argument? But I'm having trouble constructing a similar scenario that matches my own religion, so it's difficult to be sure. Kosher just means that it's prepared in a specific way; it doesn't mean that it's supposed to be somehow more holy, or imbued with some special religious significance (as far as I know).
By contrast, say that you worked for an explicitly Christian charity, which offered employees daily communion at 10am. You're an atheist, so don't want to celebrate the sacrificial death of Jesus, but you are a bit peckish at 10am -- is it OK for you to have a light snack? In that instance I'd say no -- the bread and wine are imbued with special religious significance, and so it's more respectful to abstain, even if you don't think there's anything special about them.
Suppose, on the other hand, that Ramadan was occurring at a place and time when the sun set at 3:30pm; and so they provided some snacks for Muslims who'd been fasting all day. You happen to do IF, so normally have been fasting longer by that point than your Muslim colleagues (who would typically have eaten before dawn at least, while you haven't eaten anything since yesterday evening). Is it OK if you break your fast with them?
My own guess is that C's issue has less to do with religion, and more to do with the idea of "cultural appropriation".
That is a term invented by the far-right to create a straw-man to attack as "cultural appropriation" negates the reality of how culture works. Should Americans stop eating spaghetti because it is Italian? Should Italians stop eating pasta because it is Asian? Should everybody stop using Arabic numerals? Should Arabs stop using Arabic numerals because are based in Indian numerals? "Cultural appropriation" is easy to discredit and to label as too much "correctness".
The real question is "did you wanted to hurt another person?". Did you eat the ice cream to mock Jews? Did you wear a kimono to mock the Japanese? Did you listen Flamenco to mock Spain? The same act can be done out of admiration as much as despise it all depends on context. And context and intention is difficult to asses.
So, is C's attacking a straw man to ridicule religion? Is C's offended because things that the author intended to mock Jews? What is the history with this kind of events at the company? What was what really happened as the ice cream is not what was really shared? More context would help to create a reasonable picture, from the author description I will conclude that there was not bad intention. But that is just one side of the story.
> The Oxford English Dictionary's earliest citation for the phrase was a 1945 essay by Arthur E. Christy which discussed Orientalism.
Amusingly, that essay turns out to be a rant about weebs opportunistically picking and choosing aspects of asian culture to suit their own needs. Maybe you're right after all.
I wish you were right, but this is not how people commonly use the term "cultural appropriation", which typically refers to people benefitting in some way (money, status, coolness) from using elements developed by other cultures or sub-cultures. Some high profile examples: the white high school girl that wore a qipao to her prom, the widespread adoption of many hairstyles invented or popularized by black people (dreadlocks, cornrows), and Madonna bringing voguing from the gay clubs of Manhattan to MTV.
>which typically refers to people benefitting in some way (money, status, coolness) from using elements developed by other cultures or sub-cultures
More specifically, when used by colonizing cultures in a way that erases the influence of, or disrespects the values of, the originating colonized culture for some material or cultural gain. The presence of an unequal power dynamic - real or implied - and inauthenticity in use is important, because the lines between cultural appropriation and cultural can sometimes be ill-defined.
my lack of respect for religion aside, this story seems utterly ridiculous to me.
I enjoy eating vegan food in vegan restaurants, but that doesn't make me a vegan.
I avoid pork, but that doesn't make me a muslim.
for crying out loud.. religion is group belief nothing more. who gives a shit about the special rules these people have about their beliefs.
it's their beliefs, not mine.
Interesting read. It sort of touches on the idea that, just as people of religious faith have a particular concept of God in mind when they assert that God exists, most atheists have a particular concept of God in mind when they state that God does not exist.
In particular, this essay concerns itself with atheism of the 'supreme being' type of God, with commandments and instructions laid down by a authority figure. Just as the family courts decreed a Saturday-only custody arrangement for Frank, Yahweh states a Saturday-only prohibition on work for Michael.
This essay may have been quite different if the author's atheism was focused against panentheistic gods, or other god-like concepts. But culturally in the Western world, atheism, at least as a reaction to existing religious structures, isn't so concerned about these.
I normally agree that western athiests over-focus on rejecting a monotheistic abrahamic god, but how do you see this particular article being different if the author had a more global worldview?
For instance the analogy could easily be adjusted with Buddhists instead of Jews. The company offers a vegetarian option for Buddhists at some meal, and the athiest author takes the vegetarian option because he just happens to be a vegetarian. I don't think this observation is overly western
Atheism only exists in opposition so it is necessarily defined in terms of whatever theism is knocking about in the local environment. If I’m not dealing with a religious person I’m just going about my day. I’m not constantly thinking about what I don’t believe in. “Atheism” has no impact on my life whatsoever.
When we ask if a government should allow a company to use religion as a basis for discrimination, we've reached a level of abstraction that defies any intuitive moral reasoning. Now if one thinks morality exists in an absolute metaphysical sense, then this isn't an issue. The author however is an atheist, and so has no possible moral justification argument that would be convincing to their religious coworkers.
The belief that notions like equality and anti-discrimination would hold any weight in a society of secular thought has now become about as laughable as Communist economics after the fall of the USSR. Now "discrimination" is merely a line used by each tribe in turn to justify why they should be owed special treatment for their victimhood. The weight of each group and individual "getting theirs" will not be bore for long. So I guess the author should enjoy his "ice cream" while he can. After all, it's not like (he thinks) there's any one to judge him for it anyway.
To quote Voltaire: "The populace considers all religions as equally true, the philosophers consider them equally false, and the legislator considers them all equally respectable".
Then again he is also the one who said "Let my tailor believe in God. He is less likely to steal from me this way".
H.L. Mencken: "We must respect the other fellow's religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart."
as a kippa wearing orthodox jew(tm). who while working in the USA had to get used to telling managers how he had to leave early on fridays in the winter months, I have zero problem with this.
At the end of the day, there's little reason to accommodate orthodox jews and not want to accommodate lactose intolerant individuals as well and if one can kill two birds with one stone, the better. (though in the US it seems that the vast majority of retail ice cream is kosher supervised, and is part of the reason oreos are kosher supervised, as nabisco wanted to get them in as a mixin for ice creams, though then can get into more complicated milk based issues which are beyond scope).
as an aside, I find non dairy kosher ice cream to be meh, dairy kosher ice cream is significantly better.
It seems to me the author misses a purely practical reason to have respect for a variety of religions: peaceful and happy coexistence. Historically a lot of blood has been spilt over religious differences and a lot of people have suffered oppression because of their religion. This was straightforwardly bad, and we are not free of these conflicts or their causes yet; so it's wise to try to keep things smooth and tolerate a variety of religious practices (dietary restrictions, days off, prayer times, etc). Obviously the exact level to which this respect ought to be enshrined in law is up for debate. But "respect for religion" can be an instrumental rather than a terminal value.
Why does that only apply to the big three? Why doesn’t my religion, which states that I can only eat kosher ice cream on Thursdays deserve respect? And before you question my religious sincerity, am I allowed to question anyone else’s sincerity also? Am I allowed to question how you are interpreting your religious doctrine? Am I allowed to criticize how closely you are or are not following your religion? If not, then I would say that the respect must go both ways, as otherwise we get to an extremely slippery slope extremely fast.
> For example, I have read that no non-Christian group has ever won a free exercise clause...
That's not true. Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye v. City of Hialeah is the first to come to mind, if you consider Santeria as a separate religion from Christianity. But there's also Torcaso v. Watkins and many other Establishment Clause cases, so I'm not sure it makes sense to separate them out anyway.
Except that wasn't the actual case, it's a substitute and probably a deliberately trivialised on, so I don't think we can draw any conclusions about the actual case from it.
I'm fine with accommodating religious observance as long as it's part of a culture of more generally recognising needs due to individual circumstances. As with the example given, companies should be willing to make exceptions or accommodating compromises with employees with particular child care or visiting needs. I don't think that would have been a problem at any of the companies I've worked for in my whole career.
If you think you feel the need to game the system, the real problem is with the system. The reason we respect religious beliefs should be because we respect people.
Why can't i just be Jewish for ten minutes to get some ice cream? I can't think of a reason that is not also antisemitic.
Motivation; We don't tell Jews they can only be Jewish if they have a reason we approve of. Time; no matter where you put the line, from a minute to generations, it would be intensely antisemitic to actually measure this and tell some subset of Jews they are not proper Jews.
Synagogue attendance, circumcision, bloodline, race, all of these would be antisemitic some prejudice to actually test for or require.
I'm left with the authors suggestion that the answer lies in the 'spirit of the law'. Which is just a nice way of saying 'what i think other people thought one time'. And about as subjective as it gets.
lets rephrase it differently. why does a gay person have to have the ability to marry someone of the same sex. "what will happen?" the answer is generally they won't be true to themselves (the whole concept of living in the closet).
I generally try to relate tolerance in these contexts back and forth to different groups. The conservative religious person might think that the gay person is doing something fundamentally wrong (and in their opinion bad for society), but tolerance would be allowing, (which doesn't require the religious person to condone), them to do what one finds to be wrong, as the cost of intolerance can be viewed as worse for society.
Vice versa, the secular person might think someone restricting themselves for "religious reasons" what food they are willing to consume is stupid (and even say arguably bad for society for various reasons), but the cost of being intolerant is worse than the cost to society of enabling people to have food / providing it to them in situations.
yes, one can try to nit pick this analogy, but I think its an effective way for trying to frame the problem and understanding tolerance. There are times where intolerance might justified, but one really has to be honest about what the cost to society of being "intolerant" in this situation is (and if you can't be honest about, you don't have the right to be intolerant) as well as the why that is outweighed by the societal benefit of being "intolerant".
As it relates to this ice cream situation, the cost of being "intolerant" to the kosher eater is that they will be isolated from their peers. These events are about bringing everyone together. So, even if providing kosher ice cream is a little bit more expensive, it can still be viewed as a net win for the company to be tolerant of different peoples self imposed food restrictions.
The same would apply to someone who is lactose intolerant, I would assume any company that buys dairy free desserts for one segment of their population to be able to fully participate, would be just as willing to include lactose intolerant people within that population for the purpose of this activity.
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[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 108 ms ] threadCitation needed. Specifically, show: atheists as a group have lower life expectancy and/or lower lifetime earnings than non-atheists when confounders are controlled.
People over-use "discrimination".
Edit: interesting points made about ethics, though. Worth reading.
Also, your definition of discrimination is oddly specific.
That's just democracy. People get to vote for people whose politics and beliefs they like.
Democracy (in the actual, direct demoracy sense) is not about ensuring inclusivity in public position offices and representation, it's about each person having one vote and then majority ruling.
If those groups have the right to vote and get elected, but don't because most don't want to elect them, that's still a democracy. It's even a democracy if the majority decides to stiffle a minority (it might not be ethical or decent to do, and the majority might have decided so for racist or sexist reasons, but that's still democratic).
You'd be surprised. It has happened in revolutionary France, up to and including civil war Spain, USSR, China, and several other times and places besides...
I personally suspect the majority cult among politicians is actually Mammon (love of money) or Moloch-Baal (love of violence).
People are murdered just for being atheists all over the world. Seems discriminatory enough to be deemed discrimination.
You're setting a very odd, nonsensical definition of what discrimination is to try to make a gotcha. Maybe if you tried to speak to the degree or effect of that discrimination you might have something interesting to add to the conversation.
Any more than there's discrimination against religious people? (e.g. in progressive media, art circles, academia, and so on). Or just each team favoring their own, but none having systemic support, legal support, or any great power over the other?
Can this still be called discrimination? Perhaps. But if we overblow some words, they lose their meaning. Atheists do face serious discrimination in some countries, for example, but in general, e.g. it's not something that will hold you back in your career in America.
One might argue it can hold you back in rural Alabama, and that I'd accept. But then again, try being a card-carrying Christian in Silicon Valley and see the looks you get, and whether you'll likely to get any promotion in a liberal news organization...
Sure, it might hold you back in your chances for political election. But that's democracy. People get to pick someone whose politics and beliefs they like. That's more like complaining "there's discrimination against punk or hip hop fans", because they wouldn't accept you or your views at a prog rock group.
For tech workers in US cities? I don't think it will hold you back. But there are still wide swaths of American society were self-describing as an atheist will make people distrust you. It may even be regarded as antagonistic, like you're teeing up to pick a fight with them. I've found that self-describing as 'not religious' gets a warmer reception, even though it's the same thing.
I think that's because identifying as an atheist implies (i.e. statistically goes with) intolerable preaching and better-than-thou antagonistic attitude, where identifying as non-religious mostly implies "I don't care for this religion shit".
Similar to identifying as a vegan vs simply not eating meat and animal products.
What does still often happen in the West is enforcing certain dogmas by law - from Catholic ideas on sexuality to abortion bans. Which shows not only there’s no discrimination against Christians, but the exact opposite is true - Christians are the privileged minority that discriminates everyone else.
Fifty years ago, you could have said the same thing about being black, or being a woman or a Jew - the majority being able to systematically deny political power to a specific demographic is an indicator of their having greater systemic and legal power than that demographic. The fact that being an atheist prevents one from holding any real political power in the US - I submit it would be impossible for a non-Christian President to be elected, for instance - whereas the worst discrimination Christians face is funny looks (I don't think your scenario of not being promoted in a "liberal news organization" because of religion is credible, if it exists it isn't common) kind of undermines your thesis that the power balance between Christianity and atheism is essentially equal. If it were, abortion rights would still exist given than the majority of Americans support them.
Yes, and if those cases were just about them not being elected because people don't like them for their beliefs it would also be fine.
Especially if otherwise they had all the right to be in an election, get elected, etc - which for wowen, blacks, and even jews in many places, was not the case. As opposed, to, you know, getting beaten up, lynched or genocided.
But women, jews, and blacks, faced certain different kinds of discrimination and persecution - and didn't even have the right to vote, eat in a restaurant, or even be left alone and alive. So, no, it's not really the same.
This is more like not voting for communists or libertarians.
>the fact that being an atheist prevents one from holding any real political power in the US - I submit it would be impossible for a non-Christian President to be elected, for instance
I'd say a Christian president, having God's work and charity and all as a real priority (as opposed to token gestures and lip service to religion, of the kind US politicians make), would also see it impossible to be elected. In fact they wouldn't even make it to their party's selection for President.
Ditto for a devout Catholic or Orthodox Christian (if I recall correctly, there was but one Catholic, not particularly hot on religion himself, and he was still smeared and called all kinds of names for being a Catholic, not to mention that he was also shot dead - though at least that wasn't because of his faith).
On the other hand, presidents who in practice, policy, and private life, couldn't give less fucks about religion, but are nominally Christian and make some empty gestures towards it, yes, are elected all the time.
Showing that atheists are treated disadvantageously in the US is easy. Political representation is an obvious one. Showing that this disadvantage also takes the form of life expectancy and lifetime earnings after controlling for confounders is not easy. But that ask isn't asking for proof of discrimination. It is asking for extremely strong proof of discrimination that would only be possible through monumental effort, and would require a really strong effect, depending on the manner of discrimination, it might not be measurable through life expectancy or lifetime earnings.
Discrimination that makes you less happy whithout shortening your life or impoverishing you is still bad!
Edit: adding some further thoughts. this was an action that subverted another’s intended action — here the company trying to do something “nice” for a particular subset of employees.
However, I also don’t like it when a business or institution shows favoritism. So maybe it was a valid tit for tat.
Or the company is trying to be more inclusive to folks that do not want to eat regular icecream, and would not eat any otherwise. Then his action might have been in harmony with the intention.
Also, I don't see this as favoritism: While it is a special treatment, the ones eating kosher icecream do not have a better outcome than everyone else.
I wouldn’t consider it favoritism if a general rule applied to which groups get special treatment, provided the rule itself did not show favoritism a priori and had reasonable motivation. A la “we want to accommodate as many people as possible but it’s too costly to get a special solution for any group with fewer than X people”.
So… yeah maybe you’re right and the latter applied here. In this case he followed the spirit of the law as a worthy tag along of the explicitly labeled intended recipient group.
* The company offers free ice cream on some days
* Some employees, due to being Jewish, can't eat the normal ice cream; so the company offers kosher ice cream instead
* The author is not Jewish, but also can't eat the normal ice cream, since he's lactose intolerant, but he can eat the kosher ice cream. So he figures that since the point of offering the kosher ice cream is to accommodate employees who can't eat the normal ice cream, it's OK for him to take some.
I mean, I don't see anything wrong with that argument? But I'm having trouble constructing a similar scenario that matches my own religion, so it's difficult to be sure. Kosher just means that it's prepared in a specific way; it doesn't mean that it's supposed to be somehow more holy, or imbued with some special religious significance (as far as I know).
By contrast, say that you worked for an explicitly Christian charity, which offered employees daily communion at 10am. You're an atheist, so don't want to celebrate the sacrificial death of Jesus, but you are a bit peckish at 10am -- is it OK for you to have a light snack? In that instance I'd say no -- the bread and wine are imbued with special religious significance, and so it's more respectful to abstain, even if you don't think there's anything special about them.
Suppose, on the other hand, that Ramadan was occurring at a place and time when the sun set at 3:30pm; and so they provided some snacks for Muslims who'd been fasting all day. You happen to do IF, so normally have been fasting longer by that point than your Muslim colleagues (who would typically have eaten before dawn at least, while you haven't eaten anything since yesterday evening). Is it OK if you break your fast with them?
My own guess is that C's issue has less to do with religion, and more to do with the idea of "cultural appropriation".
I think that you are into something there.
That is a term invented by the far-right to create a straw-man to attack as "cultural appropriation" negates the reality of how culture works. Should Americans stop eating spaghetti because it is Italian? Should Italians stop eating pasta because it is Asian? Should everybody stop using Arabic numerals? Should Arabs stop using Arabic numerals because are based in Indian numerals? "Cultural appropriation" is easy to discredit and to label as too much "correctness".
The real question is "did you wanted to hurt another person?". Did you eat the ice cream to mock Jews? Did you wear a kimono to mock the Japanese? Did you listen Flamenco to mock Spain? The same act can be done out of admiration as much as despise it all depends on context. And context and intention is difficult to asses.
So, is C's attacking a straw man to ridicule religion? Is C's offended because things that the author intended to mock Jews? What is the history with this kind of events at the company? What was what really happened as the ice cream is not what was really shared? More context would help to create a reasonable picture, from the author description I will conclude that there was not bad intention. But that is just one side of the story.
Really? Somebody should sort out this wikipedia page then, which evidently is far-right propaganda: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_appropriation
> The Oxford English Dictionary's earliest citation for the phrase was a 1945 essay by Arthur E. Christy which discussed Orientalism.
Amusingly, that essay turns out to be a rant about weebs opportunistically picking and choosing aspects of asian culture to suit their own needs. Maybe you're right after all.
More specifically, when used by colonizing cultures in a way that erases the influence of, or disrespects the values of, the originating colonized culture for some material or cultural gain. The presence of an unequal power dynamic - real or implied - and inauthenticity in use is important, because the lines between cultural appropriation and cultural can sometimes be ill-defined.
This is false as other commenters noted. Don’t spread propaganda. If anything, the opposite side uses it more
I enjoy eating vegan food in vegan restaurants, but that doesn't make me a vegan.
I avoid pork, but that doesn't make me a muslim.
for crying out loud.. religion is group belief nothing more. who gives a shit about the special rules these people have about their beliefs. it's their beliefs, not mine.
In particular, this essay concerns itself with atheism of the 'supreme being' type of God, with commandments and instructions laid down by a authority figure. Just as the family courts decreed a Saturday-only custody arrangement for Frank, Yahweh states a Saturday-only prohibition on work for Michael.
This essay may have been quite different if the author's atheism was focused against panentheistic gods, or other god-like concepts. But culturally in the Western world, atheism, at least as a reaction to existing religious structures, isn't so concerned about these.
For instance the analogy could easily be adjusted with Buddhists instead of Jews. The company offers a vegetarian option for Buddhists at some meal, and the athiest author takes the vegetarian option because he just happens to be a vegetarian. I don't think this observation is overly western
The belief that notions like equality and anti-discrimination would hold any weight in a society of secular thought has now become about as laughable as Communist economics after the fall of the USSR. Now "discrimination" is merely a line used by each tribe in turn to justify why they should be owed special treatment for their victimhood. The weight of each group and individual "getting theirs" will not be bore for long. So I guess the author should enjoy his "ice cream" while he can. After all, it's not like (he thinks) there's any one to judge him for it anyway.
Then again he is also the one who said "Let my tailor believe in God. He is less likely to steal from me this way".
At the end of the day, there's little reason to accommodate orthodox jews and not want to accommodate lactose intolerant individuals as well and if one can kill two birds with one stone, the better. (though in the US it seems that the vast majority of retail ice cream is kosher supervised, and is part of the reason oreos are kosher supervised, as nabisco wanted to get them in as a mixin for ice creams, though then can get into more complicated milk based issues which are beyond scope).
as an aside, I find non dairy kosher ice cream to be meh, dairy kosher ice cream is significantly better.
That's not true. Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye v. City of Hialeah is the first to come to mind, if you consider Santeria as a separate religion from Christianity. But there's also Torcaso v. Watkins and many other Establishment Clause cases, so I'm not sure it makes sense to separate them out anyway.
"I'm lactose intolerant, do you happen to have anything without (or with less) milk?"
"Oh, these kosher ones are, want that one?"
"Sure, cheers mate"
Seems simple enough, no?
If you think you feel the need to game the system, the real problem is with the system. The reason we respect religious beliefs should be because we respect people.
Motivation; We don't tell Jews they can only be Jewish if they have a reason we approve of. Time; no matter where you put the line, from a minute to generations, it would be intensely antisemitic to actually measure this and tell some subset of Jews they are not proper Jews.
Synagogue attendance, circumcision, bloodline, race, all of these would be antisemitic some prejudice to actually test for or require.
I'm left with the authors suggestion that the answer lies in the 'spirit of the law'. Which is just a nice way of saying 'what i think other people thought one time'. And about as subjective as it gets.
But why can't a Jew eat a normal ice cream? what will happen exactly?
I generally try to relate tolerance in these contexts back and forth to different groups. The conservative religious person might think that the gay person is doing something fundamentally wrong (and in their opinion bad for society), but tolerance would be allowing, (which doesn't require the religious person to condone), them to do what one finds to be wrong, as the cost of intolerance can be viewed as worse for society.
Vice versa, the secular person might think someone restricting themselves for "religious reasons" what food they are willing to consume is stupid (and even say arguably bad for society for various reasons), but the cost of being intolerant is worse than the cost to society of enabling people to have food / providing it to them in situations.
yes, one can try to nit pick this analogy, but I think its an effective way for trying to frame the problem and understanding tolerance. There are times where intolerance might justified, but one really has to be honest about what the cost to society of being "intolerant" in this situation is (and if you can't be honest about, you don't have the right to be intolerant) as well as the why that is outweighed by the societal benefit of being "intolerant".
As it relates to this ice cream situation, the cost of being "intolerant" to the kosher eater is that they will be isolated from their peers. These events are about bringing everyone together. So, even if providing kosher ice cream is a little bit more expensive, it can still be viewed as a net win for the company to be tolerant of different peoples self imposed food restrictions.
The same would apply to someone who is lactose intolerant, I would assume any company that buys dairy free desserts for one segment of their population to be able to fully participate, would be just as willing to include lactose intolerant people within that population for the purpose of this activity.