Strap-on yes, bomb not so much
I would suggest you A) find out everything you can about the camp, in advance, with citations, and B) privately discuss this information with your boss and request to be excused on religious grounds. Don’t mention lawsuits until they’ve shown themselves to be unreasonable.
I understand where you’re coming from. I’m not saying I want to make a big deal out of my birthday, as such. It’s just my custom to take the day off and chill out on my birthday. Like lezlers said, it’s a “personal holiday”. I don’t always get to do it, and if there was a big busy day at work where there was stuff of genuine importance to be done, then I’d show up and work like normal. But team building retreat with a side order of Bible study? Uh uh.
You’re not considering attending, are you? This is the sort of thing I wouldn’t even consider doing. I’d not have the slightest problem telling my boss I wasn’t doing Christian sing-a-longs on my birthday, and I’m normally fairly shy and a good worker.
You are under no obligation to attend. Lawsuit talk is silly - start by telling your boss that you aren’t attending, but hope that they and your co-workers have fun, and if he presses you, tell him exactly why. Make it sound like a minor thing, and be friendly about it, but don’t let them convince you to go. These things are absolute crap, and if indeed it’s Christian that’s even worse.
Well I did. Sort of.
My company merged with a number of similarly sized companies a few years ago. We went down to Park City for what I was told was a chance to meet with our opposite numbers in our various departments. I thought that’d be great since we were changing software and OS.
Imagine my surprise when the first thing we did was hold hands in a circle and pass a hula hoop around the ring without letting our neighbor’s hands go. I turned to my buddy from marketing on one side and said, “You know, they’re actually making us jump through hoops.”
I talked to my company’s head after dinner and told him, nicely, that I wouldn’t be around for the next two days. I let him know that I could have been back home at work and doing something productive. He was fine with it. I still think about what I might have done with three days to work and no one to bug me.
So, vibrotronica, I’d say, “Be nice; be civil; explain clearly why you object; but don’t go.”
You’re not alone, wring.
For me, the OP contains two completely separate issues.
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Being forced to attend what might be an overtly Chrisatian team retreat.
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Being forced to work on your birthday.
My response to these, in order, would be:
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Find out if it is indeed Christian-themed, and make it very clear that you will not attend such a gathering. If it’s simply a secular work retreat, you might have to grit your teeth and go along.
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Suck it up, crybaby. The world doesn’t stop because it’s your birthday, and i’ve never met anyone who insists on having his or her birthday as a personal holiday.
Um, did you miss this?
Try reading the whole post before before jumping on someone.
I also advocate that you ‘forget’ to turn on your answering machine, and not show up. Plead ignorance. If you keep your story straight, there isn’t much they can do. I used some carefully timed absences to get out of a ton of useless crap at my old job, and when I quit, they still begged me to come back.
As long as you do good work when they ask you to do work, you are a valuable asset.
This is all assuming you do good work at your job. 
Another vote for:
please go and take notes.
I’m laughing to tears just thinking about it.
And think of your co-workers. This kind of thing has to be nipped in the bud; I’m sure that after a week-end with a recovering “wacko cut-and-paste, fire-and-brimstone, no-instrumental-music Church of Christ holy warrior”, upper management will think twice before engaging in this foolishness.
He could fire you. Not showing up to work is a pretty good reason to fire someone.
Telling him it violates one’s religious convictions is a much better plan.
You see, vibrotronica, you’re just not a team player.
And that means going along with everyone else, even when they’re wrong. You can be wrong together.
You do realise that if you make a deal out of it you’ll only end up with extra-special personal birthday team building? You want a birthday hug off everyone??
If I was working for a boss who’d fire someone for a petty matter as skipping a team-building exercise, I’d be looking for a new job toot sweet anyway.
It’s a scheduled work day. You have been asked to show up at this camp. I suggest that you go. Wouldn’t be the first time you had to do something you are not happy about…right? Employers hate high maintenance employees, so if you really can’t bear the thought of going, just be sick that day. Forget the religious conviction part because it causes too much attention. In the meantime, you need to refrain from having this kind of discussion with anyone who works with you. Employers spend alot of money on these kind of things and they like when everyone shares their vision…no matter how lame it is. You really don’t want the boss to think you were not a team player. So try to at least act like you wouldn’t want to miss all the fun. HAPPY BIRTHDAY in advance.
as long as all the employees learn to sacrifice goats as a team you should be ok.
Motivational team-building is the greatest waste of time invented by business America since all-day meetings. The Trust Game and Rope-Climbing don’t build teams that are in any way relevant to business. Figuring out a plan for whose talents are utilized best within the business’s processes builds teams that are relevant to business. Knowing what the receptionist’s husband’s favorite hobby is won’t make the processes more efficient or successful. Making sure the receptionist knows who is supposed to be in charge of what so she can direct the incoming calls more accurately does.
“Team-building”, as the modern motivational industry defines it, is shit.
I think a lot of the previous posters are being too negative and confrintational. The OP has had this date marked down for a long time and has booked time off, right? So all he needs to do is say that he has committed to a prior personal engagement, not make a fuss and get other’s backs up.
I think you’re right. The SDMB has a bad culture in some respects. I think we should take some time and work on building our communication skills, and to remember that we Dopers are a team. That’s why I’ve booked a retreat at the White Hills Nature Center, where we’ll be engaging in activities designed to bring us together and build a group feeling. Trust falls, communication games, rope climbing - activities that will encourage us to get to know one another and to think outside the box. We’ve got a new paradigm - this is the twenty-first century and we have to learn to change with the times!
You’ll all be expected to attend.
If you do wind up going to the “team-building” retreat, vibrotronica, I suggest you take the mimosas with you. For co-workers may go out for a drink with you after work, while teammates will get drunk with you during a stupid pointless retreat!
And take your own goat. The Christians came along after the Temple was destroyed, so they don’t know Jack about animal sacrifices. I wouldn’t have the veneration of Baal depend on whether the heathens* just happen to have animals fit for sacrifice.
*: In the context of Baal-worship, monotheistic religions do count as heathens.
BTW, why is a nice atheist like you trying to drum up support for an obsolescent pagan deity? 
(Aside: The first time I flew first class, my seatmate introduced me to mimosas. One perk of the first class cabin is the free booze. Mmmmmm…)
I’m in the crowd that highly doubts the retreat is a christian oriented thing. We had a recent all-building offsite that was held at a church. It was not religious at all; in fact it was completely, almost uncomfortably, secular. The higher ups either didn’t see the irony of droning on about record profits while sitting in a house of worship or didn’t care. (Luckily God was either highly amused by the whole ordeal, highly impressed by their record profits, or more likely, highly bored like the rest of us.)
If the OPer really doesn’t want to spend the night, which I completely understand (ick), then I’d advise attending any session held during normal working hours but begging out of anything above and beyond that.
I’ve heard of companies sending their employees on a 3 day whitewater river rafting trip on the Colorado for their team building exercise. Now why can’t we work for a company like that?
Whatever you do, don’t be bullied into doing a team-building firewalk, like those Burger King marketing department people in 2001… :rolleyes: