Tom, I just wanted to mention that I am in complete and utter awe at that reply. That is, during the rare moments when I’m able to catch my breath due to laughing so hard. 
Classic.
[Moderator Hat ON]
Joff-Rey!, despite your masterful display of proficiency with the “enter” key, I must warn you not to call anyone a “moron” in Great Debates. Direct personal insults are not allowed here.
And don’t use so many carriage returns, either, for your bons mots. It tires out my scrolly-mouse.
[Moderator Hat OFF]
… this thread. Been a little busy on the ‘movie’ thread, and now I have 2 dozen posts to respond to over there. I will attempt tomorrow night to at least give a summary response to the many posts addressed to me. Any of you who are believers around here, please pray that I get a good night’s sleep so I’ll be ready to go tomorrow night 
Again I ask, Friend of God-Where are the Atheist television shows and radio programs? If there is this great conspiracy to demote Christianity and promote Atheism, surely there are shows on the big three networks dedicated to Atheists. Surely there are nationally syndicated radio shows that are dedicated to converting people to Atheism. I see shows that promote Christianity. I see entire radio stations dedicated to the promotion of Christianity. I see bookstores that shout the purpose of Christianity advertising freely in the newspapers of most cities.
What do we not see?
A regular character on national television that is an Atheist, is proud of it, and makes no effort to hide the fact.
A regular column in the newspaper that is about Atheism.
A spokesman for the Cause of Atheism that is consulted 1/100 as much as Christian spokesmen as consulted whenever the nature of God comes up in the media.
Y’know, I could come up with a thousand examples of how Christians have it over Athists in this, and most any other, society. The politicians here fall over each other scambling to sit in the front pew of the local church when the cameras are rolling, and they are proud to show off the endorsements from religious groups come election time.
Yeah, being a Christian is sooooo tough, ain’t it? 
First off…I would like to say that Yosemitebabe’s and FoG’s stories about discrimination in the work place probably were anti-Christian discrimination. Think about it: if either of them had been taking that time out for Muslim or even Jewish activities, do you honestly think they would have met with that much opposition?
I think that a big part of the backlash against devout Christians in general and Fundamentalist Christians in particular has to do with what Esprix touched on (but seemed to deny): in many senses Christianity IS the “default” religion (for lack of a better term…well, there’s “predominant,” I guess) in this country. And what that means is that for most sensible folks raised Christian, Jews, Muslims, etc. get treated as neighbors while FC’s get treated like a wayward member of the family. For your average American raised in a “Christian” family (because culturally speaking, even a family that only gets to church for Christmas is still more Christian than anything else), the religious views of Muslims and Jews get treated with the level of respect and, above all, DISTANCE, normally bestowed upon strangers and outsiders. But FC’s get treated with the kind of irritation and contempt on reserves only for one’s relatives.
I hesitate to include smaller religions such as Wicca…though I have no personal experience of discrimination against Wiccans, I assume they do not receive the respect that Jews and Muslims receive, if for no other reason than the fact that Christians, Muslims, and Jews are unable to apply the old “Well…they’re all the same god anyway…” view to a polytheistic religion.
Which is probably why the bosses in question felt comfortable discriminating against FoG and Y-babe. Insistence on attending regular worship is seen as silly by less devout Christians.
Of course, another big(ger) cause of the anti-FC backlash in this country is that FC’s are by far the most annoying religious group in this country. What’s more, they pride themselves on BEING annoying. (“Annoying” is not the word they would use, but “witnessing” can come dangerously close). They are also the whiniest religious group in the country. And the irritation they cause often gets heaped on Christians in general.
I don’t think the above cases count as “persecution,” necessarily, but they are certainly discrimination.
Christianity, n: the only majority with its own bookstores.
This strikes me as significant, somehow. (Can you imagine heterosexual bookstores?)
I think you have touched upon something there. I think that this is often the reason people feel comfortable dumping on Christians (and I’ll repeat, I don’t think it happens a lot.)
I think that can sometimes be it, but I am not sure if that was the reason behind my boss. I am unsure if she was religious, or not, after all. And I know that I did not come off as a sanctimonious bible-thumper. I got rather huffy when they started to question my regular (and agreed-upon prior to employment) Sundays off. I got a little huffy then, and pissed. But never annoying, or preachy about religion. I cannot say what motivated my boss to act the way she did. I think that she just wanted to see how far she could push me. She thought I’d buckle under, that I was bluffing. Because, after all, it was such a great job :rolleyes: and I’d take any crap dished out to me. And, after all, no one would seriously quit over something like church, right? I guess she didn’t understand, it wasn’t just about church for me - it was the principle of the thing.
Perhaps she didn’t think I was serious, because I didn’t come off as an intense, earnest Bible-thumper at work. Maybe she had it in her head that only stereotypical zealots wanted to attend church regularly. I don’t know. I made it as clear as I could that I was serious about Sundays off, but she just couldn’t fathom it. She was totally shocked and did not expect me to quit. She wanted be to keep working there, and I know that my co-workers probably didn’t think too well of her after I quit. I was reasonably well-liked, and I think my co-workers understood the principle of the thing as well.
And that sucks. If someone wants to take it out on a Christian, find an annoying, preachy one, and give it to them. Don’t find any random minding-my-own-business Christian and heap all sorts of crap on them. It does no good, and only causes ill-will.
I don’t know if I’d call it “persecution” (in a large sense) either. But it can be a one-sided attack, and to the victim of the attack, it sure feels like “persecution”.
But what I’m saying is, it doesn’t matter whether she was religious or not. If she is a “default Christian,” then Christianity is the religion she feels she knows well enough to dump on. Default Christians (myself included) are a little like Buddhists/Shintoists in Japan. The basic precepts of the religion are so culturally ingrained that it doesn’t matter whether or not they attend religious services, or even whether or not they would call the themselves “Christian.” They feel close enough to the religion that more devout Christians are seen less as members of another religion and more like “just like me, but taking the whole church thing a little too far.”
Yes, I understand, and you make a good point. I just am not sure if that description applies to this particular boss. It might. However, I don’t know if she was ever religious, even in a vague, “default” way. It could also be quite plausable that she had anti-religious attitudes, but was too repressed to openly admit them. (She was very passive-aggressive.) So, perhaps she took her latent hostility towards religion out on me in the way she did. (Because, after all, I must be a “religious fanatic” to not want to work Sunday.) Never mind that I made it clear that I merely expected that the terms of my employment (“I’m not available Sundays”) to be respected. A whole lot of it was about the whole respect/principle of the thing as far as I was concerned. I tried to make that clear. But she would not see that, her judgment was clouded by whatever irrational hostility or intense irritation at my GALL for wanting to go to church.
Discrimination? I don’t think it’s possible to have ORGANIZED discrimination against a religion in the US. The Christians are a majority and effectively run things, other religions are extremely apt to whip out a lawyer if they sense even a touch of discrimination.
I believe, as you point out above, that many Christians, especially fundamentalist ones, use high pressure sales tactics to gain converts. Well, I resent this and believe many others do as well. In return, people are rude and just possibly go out of their way to say something spiteful.
I’ve never gone out of my way to harass or insult Christians. But, I see no reason why they should be exempt from an appropriate response when they become intrusive or just plain rude.
How is being rude to a fundamentalist Christian who gets in your face any different than being rude to the loony down-town that wants to pass out doomsday brochures or racial hate pamphlets?
Just my 2 cents worth.
Regards.
Testy.
What was the treatment I got then? If it was not discrimination, what was it? Bear in mind, my boss made it clear that had my “reason” for not working Sunday been a class, or kids, she wouldn’t have pressured me to work. She didn’t pressure other people to work on Sundays, if they had “reasons” that she approved of. Never mind that I was hired with the understanding that I was not available for work on Sundays. She decided that she didn’t want to honor that, because my reasons for not working Sundays (church) were not acceptable to her. THAT is discrimination, most people seem to agree. It is not organized disrimination, it’s one-on-one discrimination. But it still is discrimination.
I resent being preached at, by Christians, or atheists (that has happened a few times) or whoever, as well. No one is arguing that rude, pushy, in-your-face Christians are annoying and out of line. No one is suggesting that an annoying, obnoxious person should be treated with kid gloves.
I don’t think anyone here has implied otherwise. What many of us have been discussing is someone who is irritated or hostile towards Christians, and will “take it out” on even the low-key and unobtrusive Christian, because they are available, and an easy target. This has happened, though thankfully, not every day. Do you think that there is any excuse for such behavior? I sure don’t.
I think they would, depending on where the occurrence took place. In Shaker Heights, Ohio, for example, it wouldn’t be at all unusual to see Orthodox Jews who worked in retail get Friday night and Saturday off, despite the fact that those are peak retail times. In Perry, Ohio, however, a Jew asking to take that time off to observe the Sabbath would be looked at like he just sprouted a third eye in the middle of his forehead.
It even happens here in cosmopolitan Northern Virginia. At my wife’s workplace, people who think nothing of going to church every weekday during Holy Week, and having soot smeared on their faces on Wednesday of that week, were astounded (and a fwe offended) that a co-worker took time off for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. It’s all about context.
y-babe, I agree that what you experienced was dead-on discrimination. I don’t think that anyone is disputing the existance of such one-on-one discrimination. What FoG was bleating about in the other thread, and what got carried over into this one, was the idea of intense, organized discrimination against Christians. FoG seems to be saying that Christians in this country are being persecuted in an on-going humanist Reign of Terror. And, that’s just silly. He used an example of one-on-one discrimination (although he didn’t document it nearly as well as you documented yours) to support his argument. Of course, it does no such thing – the world is full of assholes of every stripe and one-on-one discrimination by one of these assholes just doesn’t equal the type of conspiracy-level deeply-ingrained society-wide prejudice that FoG postulated.
Of course, none of this means that what you encountered with your idiot boss was right. Far from it. Nor would I ever say, “Now you know how it feels.” Prejudice is always wrong and nobody should have to know how it feels to be discriminated against. I’m totally on your side in that regard – you were wronged. However, I think that the kind of discrimination you cite and the kind of persecution that FoG is trying to build a case for are two very different things.
There is another explaination for FoG and YBs work experiences. Their jerk bosses decided for some reason, that they didn’t like them. Might have been religion, but without a pattern of other people who weren’t allowed to take time off for religious studies, we will never know. Might have been their height, or that they had an “L” in their name. Might have been because FoG and YB were competent, well liked, and therefore threatening to the little minds that were their supervisors. Who knows. Anyway, once the boss decided that this was their whipping boy (girl), they chose work hours to be the point of contention. Possibly because they couldn’t choose tardiness or incompetence. The fact that religious activities were the cause of the work/life conflict could have been completely unrelated. A little power can go a long way to making a minor jerk into a major asshole.
Or these could have been anti-Christian or anti-religious bigots. The point being, unless we can establish a pattern, we don’t know if its religious discrimation or not. This is actually one of the problems with minority religious filing discrimination suits. If you are the only Wiccan at a job, proving a pattern of discrimination against Wiccans is tough (unless your boss is stupid enough to put something in writing or say something in front of witnesses). Your boss is going to come back and say, “doesn’t have anything to do with religion, he was just incompetent.”
A real lawyer (Jodi, you still there) can correct me if I’m wrong. This is what I’ve been told when I tried to file a EEOC claim (not religious discrimation, but the pattern of discrimination).
For the hell of it I shared this thread with my Texan-raised lebanese Maronite Catholic apartment-mate here. (How’s that for an ID?) Perhaps not the wisest move, but interesting.
After he finished cursing, he gave me an earful of how he felt FoG-style born-agains made the Maronite community’s life difficult in Texas (I think near Austin, have to check with M. Karam again on that point, there was a lot of Texan style profanity in this convo). Maronis are apparently at best 2nd class Xtians in their book and in my comrade’s op the FoGers do their level best to put the screws on anyone not of their religious flavor.
I have no independant verification, but coming from a level-headed fellow I’m inclined to think there’s at least a grain of truth in this. So perhaps FoG could address intra-Xtian discrimination and in particular the apparent position of a significant segement of born-againers that others aren’t real Xtians.
Otherwise, I have real trouble taking his position seriously.
Oh yes, theres a cable channel which turns people atheist; its called Trinity Broadcasting Network.
One look and listen to P. Robertson, Jan Crouch, et. al. will do it!
Well… maybe I understand what FoG is saying.
Maybe this is peculiar to the circles I travel in, but no one makes fun of Wiccans, or Jews, or Atheists, but often mock Christian fundamentalist beliefs.
I wouldn’t do anything to specific PEOPLE, but if I were discussing theology with a Wiccan, an atheist and a Christian, I would be a heck of a lot more critical of the Christian’s views.
Maybe he means that the growing trend towards science and rationality (which will spark atheism) and new spirituality (which often is associated with Wicca) is causing people to reject more organized religion, of which Christianity is the most obvious.
I DO know that my boss had a problem with church, because she told me as such. The word “religious fanatic” was used. My boss didn’t think me going to church on Sundays was a “good enough” reason for Sundays off. So she didn’t want to honor the pre-employment stipulation I had - that I would get Sundays off. She said had I been taking a class on Sundays, or taking care of kids on Sundays, she wouldn’t have insisted I work. But church? There was no reason (in her mind) that I should miss work for church. Clearly it was the CHURCH that bothered her. She didn’t dislike me that much - else she wouldn’t have made overtures to try to persuade me from quitting. (Sure, it also made her look bad when I quit - but she didn’t dislike me intensly, I am sure of that.) It was the “church” thing that really got to her.
And yes, I agree - I don’t see any large, nation-wide campaign to discriminate against Christians. It would be a hard sell to convince me of that, seeing as there are SO many Christians out there!
And, LauraAnge, you make a good point too. I think it is almost “fashionable” to dig into Christians. “Familiarity breeds contempt”, or something? That’s understandable, up to a point - especially when you have in-your-face fundimentalists making an ass of themselves. But - there is a point where it goes too far, and ruffles the feathers of ALL Christians, which does no good.
There’s no fun in taunting the already-persecuted minorities? 
I’m sure this may seem like a bit more piling on to FoG, but I mentioned this above as an example of fundamentalist persecution of persons of different faiths. Since I was at the library today, I got a copy of the article, which is about the background of the recent prayer-in-schools case of Santa Fe Indep. Sch. Dist. v. Doe (U.S. 2000). The story presents a very ugly picture of fundamentalist bigotry and harassment.
The original article is “They Haven’t Got a Prayer” by Pamela Colloff, from the November, 2000 issue of Texas Monthly. For those of you who aren’t from down here, TM is a fairly upscale glossy (lots of ads for jewelry stores and plastic surgeons) with a fairly conservative readership. In other words, it’s not just a bunch of ACLU mucracking. And as for fair use, mods, I’m only summarizing from relevant portions of a rather long article, supplemented with info from the Supreme Court opinion.
Lawsuits against the school district started in 1995 after many years in which the schools permitted Gideons to distribute Bibles inside schools, teachers to lead classroom prayers, and Jesus-specific prayers to be broadcast over the loudspeakers at football games. When Danielle Mason refused a Bible from a Gideon inside her elementary school, students began to taunt her by accusing her of devil worship and/or atheism. Nevermind that the sole reason she refused the Bible was because she had one of her own at home. One teacher–eventually reprimanded by the school district–“spent ten minutes of class time denigrating a Mormon girl’s religion as a cult.” No matter what you think of SOCAS issues, any rational person would at least have to admit that the school district’s actions were enough to give rise to good faith lawsuits. Nevertheless, when two anonymous families filed suit, the community freaked out.
Jennifer Mason (Danielle’s sister) recounts how adults at her Baptist church urged the younger members to find out who were the anonymous plaintiffs behind the lawsuit. This obsession with finding out who was suing led to Catholic and Mormon being harassed at school by their fellow students. Anyone who seemed like a good candidate for the job of plaintiff began to be ridiculed, and pro-prayer “petitions” were used to ferret out anyone who didn’t sign as being a potential plaintiff. One of the “Doe” plaintiffs recalled the time immediately after filing suit as “a very fearful time” becuase she and her family were accused of Satanism and threatened with having crosses burned in their yard.
As you can see in footnote 1 of the Supreme Court opinion, such harassment led the federal judge to enter an unusually blunt injunction:
Mrs. Mason, who had made the mistake of being outspoken in her opposition to the school district’s practices, says “I was called a lesbian, a Communist, an atheist–everything you can imagine.” She and her family were also subject to late-night telephone harassment, including a warning to “watch your children’s backs.”
Amanda Bruce was a Catholic senior at Santa Fe who was also opposed to the district’s policies. When the district insisted on continuing the tradition of Christian prayer over the loudspeakers before football games, Amanda showed up in a small group of protestors. While holding up a sign declaring “I’m Not Protesting Prayer, I’m Protesting Discrimination,” she was called a devil worshipper and told she was going to hell.
But the worst example in the article is Phillip Nevelow, the only Jewish student in the school district. Even though his parents stayed out of the school prayer fight, he became a target simply because he was a Jew. Phillip was tormented by students who shouted such lovely things as “Hitler missed one!” and “Dirty Jew!” He was routinely assaulted, and had swastikas drawn on his notebook. School district and religious leaders continue to insist that Phillip must have provoked the fights himself, and that “Christians seem to be fair game these days.” Phillip’s mother insists that the community’s insistence on Christian prayer in the schools is responsible for an atmosphere of hatred against anyone who doesn’t support the fundamentalist point of view.
I already know what FoG’s response to all this is: those people just aren’t good Christians. Needless to say, I am unimpressed with his rhetorical strategy of defining as non-Christian anyone who persecutes or harasses someone of a different faith. These people are self-identified Christians, reacting to a perceived “assault” on their good ol’ fundamentalist values. That, in my book, makes Santa Fe a prime example of persecution by Christians.