[POLITICS] Religious Freedom

[Trunkage]

With all the talk about laws to protect Religious Freedom, I wanted to point out somethings. They may not be answerable yet as none of these laws are any where near ready to come to the US congress or Australian Parliament

Does Religious Freedom laws protect atheists? Are they excluded because they aren't Religious?

Should Religious Freedom delete the employers Right to Discriminate? (currently you can discriminate against ideologies and performance in a workplace setting.) This would put it in line with current Anti-discrimination laws about gender, sexuality and race.

Note we don't have any laws that protect ideas or ideologies, dispite some pundits comments about protection for things like Sharia laws

Most Anti-discrimination laws give the rights to people who dont have them (or have them trampled on by others) and lift them up to everyone else standard. Not beyond. If Atheists aren't included somehow, would that be, in fact, a Discriminatory Law not an Anti one.

 

[SupahEwok]

Whether atheism is religious or not is largely up to the atheist. There is Atheism, the defined, philosophical position, and being areligious, wherein you simply do not care about religion. Atheists have logical arguments that amount to their own creed or dogma, whereas the areligious just don't give a shit.

That's just kinda the way I see it, in a very broad sense, anyway. There are people who take atheism as seriously as its own religion, and there are those who just don't see a reason to go to church.

American freedom of religion laws in particular came about due to several of the US' original colonies being founded by various different nutty sects of Christianity getting out of England cuz their neighbors were tired of their shit, and their descendants needed legal guarantees that no one group of them would be able to take over the government and squash the rest under their thumb. At the time, capital A Atheism was not a widely recognized philosophical position; if someone had doubts in God, they kept it quiet, and they just didn't participate in church, if they thought they could get away with it.

I don't think you'd have much luck in defining Atheism as a religious movement for the purposes of religious protection (in the US) in light of that history, even if I think personally that the Atheist movement has enough of its own dogma (for good and ill) to be qualified as one for all practical purposes.

Lastly, ideologies aren't subject to religious protections because an ideology is any collected related set of ideals and just imagine the can of worms that opens up in the legal world.

 

[Saelune]

The freedom FROM religion is more important than the freedom OF religion. We give Christianity too many privileges. Not being rounded up and executed for believing in whatever is all the 'religious freedom' anyone needs. (Don't need religion to not want to eat pork) The rest just comes down to general personal freedoms. But no religion deserves tax exemptions, and instead we should just give everyone enough fluid days off to account for any sort of religious need.

Its like giving smokers scheduled break time. Everyone deserve equal break time, if people want to use it for smoking, or religion, fine, but they don't deserve more for their habits.

 

[Shadowstar38]

Atheists express their freedom of religion by choosing not to participate in any capacity. There aren't any extra legal provisions they would need as far as I can think of.

 

[Trunkage]

Atheists express their freedom of religion by choosing not to participate in any capacity. There aren't any extra legal provisions they would need as far as I can think of.

Lets imagine there are new freedom of religion laws that protect you from, let's say, a job loss for saying something religious. Do these laws cover Atheists because they aren't religious?

Let's say that an employee stated to a customer that 'Homosexuals are an unnatural abomination.' We have these new laws to protect people saying this so they don't get fired. Would the religious person be protected and the Atheist not?

What about an employee using 'Abortion is murder.' An Atheist might be very against it for scientific and rights reasons but its not based on religion for them. Could a Christian say this and not an Atheist?

 

[Shadowstar38]

Lets imagine there are new freedom of religion laws that protect you from, let's say, a job loss for saying something religious. Do these laws cover Atheists because they aren't religious?

Of course. If you get fired for being an atheist that's still religious discrimination in my view.

Let's say that an employee stated to a customer that 'Homosexuals are an unnatural abomination.' We have these new laws to protect people saying this so they don't get fired. Would the religious person be protected and the Atheist not?

If this hypothetical law were put into place, everyone should be given equal footing. So no, I think the atheist should be protected as well. If you were to consider the statement a discriminatory remark and argue that it shouldn't be protected with whatever argument you use for that, religion shouldn't get a pass.

What about an employee using 'Abortion is murder.' An Atheist might be very against it for scientific and rights reasons but its not based on religion for them. Could a Christian say this and not an Atheist?

I feel like the degree to which a person is able to express their views in a given situation should be equal for all parties involved, regardless of where those opinions are coming from.

 

[Abomination]

Let's say that an employee stated to a customer that 'Homosexuals are an unnatural abomination.' We have these new laws to protect people saying this so they don't get fired. Would the religious person be protected and the Atheist not?

If this hypothetical law were put into place, everyone should be given equal footing. So no, I think the atheist should be protected as well. If you were to consider the statement a discriminatory remark and argue that it shouldn't be protected with whatever argument you use for that, religion shouldn't get a pass.

In order for this new law to work then, it would be illegal to fire someone for saying that homosexuals are an unnatural abomination. Or, to avoid such specificity, one can not be fired for extolling a religiously supported statement. Anyone can say any religiously supported statement - no matter what religion they are. But for what reason would an atheist want religiously supported statements to have extra protection?

It is a case of religion being used as a sword AND a shield at the same time.

The only solution is to ensure that religiously motivated speech has the exact same rights as any other speech. You are free to speak it, but also free to suffer the public consequences of speaking it. You are free to believe however you wish, but you are not free to act however you wish. Under no circumstance is a crime not a crime because it was carried out with religious intent.

 

[Worgen]

Technically atheists are included in religious discrimination laws and its illegal to discriminate against them. But, atheists are also the least trusted members of society and when someone is talking about religious freedom, they are usually talking about using religion as an excuse to discriminate against someone else and its become political enough that the religious people claiming they need freedom will tend to have more backers in politicians and after trumps appointments, possibly judges also.

 

[Satinavian]

Obviously atheists should get the same religious protection. Yes, there is stuff that does not make much sense when applied to atheist. That is mostly about making it possible for religious people to adhere to their religion. But there is also a lot of stuff that would work for atheists as well. Topics like mandatory education in the main religion in school for everyone. Discrimination in hiring or getting university stidendia. Stuff like that. What kind of marriages are allowed. There are many ways you could discriminate against atheists and they are as worthy of being protected as religious people.

Let's say that an employee stated to a customer that 'Homosexuals are an unnatural abomination.' We have these new laws to protect people saying this so they don't get fired. Would the religious person be protected and the Atheist not?

What about an employee using 'Abortion is murder.' An Atheist might be very against it for scientific and rights reasons but its not based on religion for them. Could a Christian say this and not an Atheist?

Both of those are not religious statements. The first one is scientifically wrong as homosexuals are very much natural. And abomination does count as insult so depending on jurisdiction it actually is hatespeech (in opposition to the "hell" statement in the other thread)
"Abortion is murder" is either a statement of a current legal situation or a statement about how society should decide the laws to be. Because if abortion is/is not murder is kinda arbitrary and depending on what counts as human. That should be part of regular free speech without the need for any extra protection.

Personally i live in a country where you can't be fired on a whim anyway. At least not for saying stuff that is legal to say and if you are not specifically paid to say/not say certain things.

"Could a Christian say this and not an Atheist" should always result in a "no". The deed is relevant, not who does it.

And yes. If a atheist wants to get Islam based prayer breaks like his muslim coworkers, he should get them to the same conditions. The existance of such breaks would obviously be there to benefit muslims, not atheist. But once they do exist, everyone should have a right to them.