Rules; Reverence for Religion
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* 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.
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".
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
"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?
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.
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.
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.
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!