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Comment by ubertaco | Hacker News Reader

This is a two-way street. As a Christian, I get upset when I hear my employer promote Bhuddist values (inviting Bhuddist monks on-site to otherwise-nonreligious corporate events) while also parading their role in defeating legislation to protect religious clergy who hold traditionally-Christian beliefs from being sued over their beliefs. This communicates to me both "you're the enemy, and we are working hard to make you vulnerable" and "these others who are directly opposite you are our favorites."

The CEO has brought his religion to the workplace to the detriment of many of his employees, and as a result I am both hurt (by being "enemied") and scared (for the long-term existence of 1st-Amendment protection for my religious practice, given the company's legal activism). Is it still true in this case that "insisting that people grow a thicker skin won't work"?

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A few things...

* Your boss parading his religion around and making you feel othered, while probably legal, is uncool.

* Though I would be remiss if I didn't point out that across America, it's by and large the Christian viewpoint that's flaunted at employees. I feel bad for you, but I'm also happy that you've been given an opportunity to understand why this is bad.

* You're protected from being _discriminated against_ based on his religious beliefs.

* That law being "paraded" is the one that protects you from your boss discriminating against you based on his religious beliefs.

1. Agreed

2. While I understand what you're trying to say, I don't think you'd be remiss, and in fact, I found it a bit presumptive to assume that I advocate for Christian viewpoints being "flaunted at employees" and that I somehow need "an opportunity to understand why this is bad" as though I didn't already.

3. While it's true that as a public secular institution, the company can't make hiring decisions based on religious beliefs, there appears to be no protection from being intentionally treated poorly on a systemic level (and no regard for "behaving" unless I wanted to pony up and lawyer up against my employer)

4. The law being "paraded" is the one that would have permitted religious clergy in religious institutions to make business decisions based on religious values (i.e. I can't sue a rabbi for refusing to host my pork BBQ event on Saturday night at a synagogue).

An update on this: all employees' posters and signs that have been part of the office for years have been taken down, and replaced with photos of HQ-based employees marching in various LGBTQ Pride parades (which is pretty controversial on its own), and photos of Bhuddist monks on stage at company events.

Marc Benioff is not so good at hiding his religious intolerance.

I might be misunderstanding your comment, but I'm curious to hear more about why you have felt that Buddhist monks have been communicated as being "directly opposite" to Christian clergy? Having studied and adopted practices from both traditions, this statement doesn't seem to accurately reflect core values from either of them.

(I understand that "Christian" and "Buddhist" are very broad categories, and that there are myriad forms contained within each of them...)

Christianity is an "exclusive" religion:

"Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." (John 14:16).

It is a core doctrine of Christianity that there is exactly one path to righteousness, which is through acknowledgement of personal sin and personal inability to pay the penalty for said sin, acceptance of the payment offered by Jesus Christ as the only way to pay that penalty, and submission to the Christian God as the only divine sovereign God.

Bhuddism is, from what I understand, a pluralistic religion, where there are many paths to enlightenment, and where many of those paths involve seeking something from within ones' self.

These are at odds as much as two signs saying "there is exactly one door to this room" and "there are many doors to this room".

> Christianity is an "exclusive" religion

To the extent that this is true generally of Christians (even by the narrow definition as those groups holding to the doctrines espoused in the Apostle's and Nicene Creeds, which excludes many groups that describe themself as Christian) it is arguaby only trivially true. While there are certainly Christians who hold to a narrow view of exclusivity where only that which is within the visible bounds of the Christian Church can be holy and only those people within it's visible bounds may be saved, many (and the official doctrine of the largest organized Christian group) do not.

I actually think that's a perfectly reasonable thing to be uncomfortable with, and probably warrants a chat with a higher-up or an anonymous complaint.

Probably just as likely to get ubertaco fired as to make any change.

Indeed; several months ago I used an anonymous-at-the-time internal feedback mechanism to submit a note about how the CEO's top-down religious decisions affect me. Since then, the only thing that's happened is that the internal feedback mechanism was made no-longer-anonymous.

I'm one worker bee among thousands, sitting on the opposite coast in a different office from the CEO, with (last I counted) 8 layers of management between me and the CEO. If any change is going to happen, it's much more likely that the change will be delivered to my employment status, so I keep my head down and learn to tactfully avoid subjects that could get me in hot water for simply being different from the folks in power. A kind of "script switching", if you will.

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