Christian Fundamentalism and American Politics, Part 2

You're investing more in this than i, Scrat, your goat seems more "gotten" than mine.

I've never heard anyone complain about the Jews--must be the crowd you run with. I never expressed any hatred for fundamentalists. All i've said here is that they bear watching.

You are, by your own definition, bleating, Scrat.

Religion can be trouble in workplace

By PAMELA REEVES, Anderson, Reeves & Cooper P.A.
December 21, 2003

A case filed in federal court in Nashville two weeks ago illustrates why employers need to make sure their employees' religious beliefs remain outside the workplace.

The case was filed by a woman who adheres to the Baha'i faith, a sect that believes several religious figures are equally authentic messengers of God.


The lawsuit alleges that when she was fired, she was told that she was being fired before the Christmas season because her mere presence in the workplace would ruin her co-worker's holidays.

The plaintiff also alleged that other co-workers told her that they were praying for her soul and that the office manager gave her a framed picture of Jesus. She claims that her termination notice contained a letter from her supervisor that said, "Realize why Jesus Came. Recognize his Holy Name. Receive Jesus Christ into your heart. Rely on Jesus everyday."

While it is too early to predict the outcome of this lawsuit, it is safe to say that the actions of the co-workers have, at a minimum, created a potential for liability.

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits discrimination in the terms and conditions of employment based on religion in companies with 15 or more employees. The Tennessee Human Rights Act prohibits religious discrimination for employers with eight or more employees.

It is difficult for employees to realize that their desire to share their religious beliefs with co-workers can be a form of religious discrimination. Many have strong religious convictions that they should share their faith with others. Unfortunately, this type of behavior in the workplace can create concerns.

Companies should make sure that their supervisors are aware that attempts to impose religious beliefs can be a violation of law. In particular, supervisors should be trained to avoid this type of behavior personally and to take affirmative action to make sure that co-workers are not harassing other employees.

This is not to say that one can never discuss religion in the workplace. It is fine to invite someone to attend church or to answer questions about religious beliefs. The problems occur when an employee begins to harass a co-worker about religious beliefs or makes religion such a focus that it begins to affect the terms and conditions of employment.

While the Christmas season is definitely a time for many of us to take stock of our religious beliefs, it is also a time to remember that those beliefs are personal. The workplace is simply not a pulpit.

It may be difficult in this part of the country to accept this fact, but the New Year will be a lot happier if the company and its employees are not having to spend their time defending a religious discrimination lawsuit.

Pamela Reeves is a partner in the Knoxville law firm Anderson, Reeves & Cooper P.A. Because factual situations vary, competent legal counsel should be consulted for individual advice

I never expressed any hatred for fundamentalists. All i've said here is that they bear watching.

Setanta wrote:

I never expressed any hatred for fundamentalists. All i've said here is that they bear watching.

This statement is true, whether or not you agree with it, smiling or frowning, Scrat. Suit yourself, its immaterial.

Quick example...

george's rusting vessel steams into (or is paddled furiously by attractive scantily clad virgins into) a protective south pacific island cove. george swims ashore. george discovers that the locals believe that their island was set onto the vast oceans by an original ancestor with supernatural powers. george is sceptical. george's scepticism is not a belief.

The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, in its article on Religion, lists some characteristics of religions. The more markers that are present in a belief system, the more "religious like" it is.
1. Belief in supernatural beings (gods).
2. A distinction between sacred and profane objects.
3. Ritual acts focused on sacred objects.
4. A moral code believed to be sanctioned by the gods.
5. Characteristically religious feelings (awe, sense of mystery, sense of guilt, adoration), which tend to be aroused in the presence of sacred objects and during the practice of ritual, and which are connected in idea with the gods.
6. Prayer and other forms of communication with gods.
7. A world view, or a general picture of the world as a whole and the place of the individual therein. This picture contains some specification of an over-all purpose or point of the world and an indication of how the individual fits into it.
8. A more or less total organization of one's life based on the world view.
9. A social group bound together by the above.
Personally, I don't see that secularism/atheism/agnosticism can be lumped into a catagory of "religion." but perhaps thats just me.

If I smile and agree with you, will you drop it?

I wonder Setanta, if Scrat isn't so much using what he thinks of as a tactic, but rather he actually believes this is what you meant........these are his assumptions about what you meant. He hasn't thought about the possibility that you might not have meant these things at all.

blatham wrote:

The pond-hockey thug from Michigan

I agree that the presence or absence of theism or religion is not an aceptable discriminator for participation in discourse (or in governance). Except as it relates to what I've just said. For example, I'd be quite unalarmed to see Malcolm Muggeridge or the Dalai Lama or Joseph Campbell or Desmund Tutu arriving in the presidency or onto the Supreme Court. But Billy Grapham's son is a different kettle of fish. What makes the one case different from the others is the nature of the belief system held, and the consequences of that for liberty.

Well, this is real progress. I might argue with you about Joseph Campbell (he's dead) or even Billy Graham the younger, but not too forcefully as these would be questions about the merits of individuals and, as such, part of the normal politicaL vetting process. Perhaps we would agree that a Muslim who advocated imposition of Sharia law and a Caliphate would be disqualified, but one who supported secular government, distinct from any particular religion, would be OK. I suspect we might even agree that anyone who has an excess zeal to use the power of government to reform human behavior in areas that go beyond prohibition of or the requirement for specific actions needed to preserve public order, the general physical, economic and social welfare of the popuation, is suspect. This could also include people whose excess zeal springs from non-religious sources as well.[/[/color]quote]




Focusing on the sentence in bloody rouge...

What might those 'merits' (or demerits) be? In a televised discussion on PBS about a year past which included a number of diverse individuals representing various faith groups and at least one speaker who wasn't a member of any faith, there was only one of those individuals who insisted that there was but one way to truth - Franklin Graham. (Rather funny side point...I can never remember his first name, and typically mispell his last, adding a 'p'...so typed into google "Billy Grapham's son", which resulted in only one hit...a post of mine on a2k from a year past)

That man, and his idea, stood in unique and intellectually despicable contrast to all others present. A comparison between Graham and Joseph Campbell is even less happy. Why? Because there is so much merit in Campbell's breadth and depth of appreciation (and learning) regarding the human condition and in the richness of our endeavors to negotiate with conscious mortal existence. And there is so little merit, and much to despise, in the poverty of Graham's single, fixed idea.

Graham's idea excludes all other notions. It attributes to those other notions the quality of mistakeness, or delusion. Note that isn't a claim that notion A is delusory, but that ALL OTHER notions are. Further, it carries with it (we know) the moral duty to effectively remove all other notions from discourse, for where other notions hold sway, true salvation is unattainable. Graham is not alone in holding such an idea, and Lola's links both here and in earlier threads show the commonness of this idea within American evangelism.

Which brings us to the sentence in Desert Caliphate Blue. You bet I would agree to that. Plunk a Christian or a Jew or a Buddhist or an atheist into the White House or the Parliament building in Ottawa where secular governance is assured, and I have no problem. But plunk Franklin Graham or Pat Robertson into such a seat of political power and you lose such a guarantee.

And finally, the sentence in Deceased Avacado

Aside from disagreements regarding what may be 'needed' for social order and welfare (for example, I'd take every man-hour spent working on marijuana prohibition and shift it over to prevention of environmental degradation by the many naughties in the corporate world), sure, zealotry is apparently a characteristic of some percentage of any given population, if we are to define zealotry not merely as 'passionate', but as manifesting a psychological/spiritual/social pathology which holds to a simple comforting idea not for reasons of evidence but rather out of some discomfort with randomness or unknowns.

I've not met a 'secularist' who hold that his idea is the one truth (what idea could that possibly be?). Nor have I met such a fellow who believes that if others don't also become secularists, that their souls will be damned into eternity. Nor one who believes that the world is but a mere playing field for the battle between forces of good and evil. Nor one who considers that the cultural stories of a little group of herders who lived three thousand years past might provide an accurate description of the universe and man's place in it.

Secularism is not a belief system like religious belief. The differences are so far greater than the similarities that such a comparison could and would be made only by someone of religious belief.

. . . however, if that is the case, one has to wonder why he is so incapable of taking a statement at its face value--why he finds it necessary to restate everything one writes in such a negative manner.