I vote inappropriate. For some people (me included), it puts them immediately on the defensive. Many people assume that, if you ask them, you’re going to try to witness them.
Last time someone asked me what religion was, it was because they were “concerned” about how I was going to raise my son - we have a very mixed household religiously.
Because if there is a potential problem to answering honestly, your non-answer will be interpreted as the “bad” answer, whether it’s true or not.
So, co-worker asks what religion I am. I say I don’t discuss religion at work. They say, “Oh, you belong to one of those weird religions, huh?” Perhaps followed up with proselytizing… etc.
So basically, once the question is asked, there is NO answer I can give that won’t cause me a headache. Unless I lie. In which case, I resent you a hell of a lot for putting me in a position where I have to lie just to keep my own privacy.
Amen to that, and I’ll add that I don’t care for “what did you do last weekend” either. We have to work together, I’m not here because I’m your friend. My private life is still private. And frankly, if I had an exceptionally good weekend, it’s not work-appropriate to answer, anyway. 
Really, please, just talk to me about work stuff. I assure you there’s plenty to talk about there.
Maybe I missed OP addressing it already, but I’d just loooooove to know what “unrelated” reasons the work colleague has for wanting to ask the neighbor’s religion. I’m willing to bet serious cash that it comes down to “fella looks/dresses/talks funny and I wanna know his label.” Seriously, why the fuck *else *would you ask someone that, straight outta the blue?
If it weren’t that, it would come up organically (as in the block party food/summer camp examples listed upthread). To just come out and ask means you have an ulterior motive for wanting to know, and most people would be justifiably suspicious of that ulterior motive.
So it’s inappropriate to ask for a handshake but it’s OK to ask about someone’s religion?
Yes, it’s inappropriate to ask a person’s religion. If they discuss it first, however, then the topic is fair game.
Hoooo, boy. I gotta go soon, but I’m looking forward to seeing if there’s a 4-page hijack when I get back.
Read the suggestion, I’m not advocating asking. I’m suggesting the curious person offer details about their own religious background to stimulate a conversation.
Actually asking verbally for a handshake is just fine. Gesturing with the presumption that somebody wants to shake your hand is disgusting and should be grounds for termination.
You just made my eyeballs roll so much that they popped entirely out of their sockets. As soon as I get them un-enucleated, you are so gonna get it.
Say what?
At my company, I checked the HR manual, and they mention that you shouldn’t ask someone about their religion. There you have it.
I personally think people place too much importance about the religion question (that it’s a big deal to ask someone what religion they belong to), but I can see I’m in the minority about it.
My point of view: if I see you at the coffee machine or in the lunch room, I have no interest in talking about work. I have no problems with sharing what I did over the week-end, even if it’s going to church or going to a “political” event. And I don’t think it’s because I’m necessarily part of the majority group, I’m an atheist going to a UU church. Some of my part-time activities are going to Amnesty International events (AI is a human rights group considered by many in the USA to be “leftist”.) I understand better now that many people are afraid of the consequences if they talk about it.
No, I didn’t address the reasons my colleague had. That might be another thread, but probably not. In any case, the neighbour was making some assumptions about her neighbour based on how the neighbour dressed. I told her “maybe your assumption is wrong. If you want to know if your assumption is right, just ask her.” I’m still not convinced that this is bad. To me, it would be like seeing a flag of another country in the neighbour’s front yard and asking “what’s that flag for?” Or seeing a guy wearing a turban and asking “Are you a Sikh?” Or seeing someone dressed in traditional costume, like at a world festival, and asking “what country are you representing?”
You must have missed the memo, jsgoddess. There’s a big, old-fashioned, trainwreck of the thread over here.
I’m skeered. Hold me.
In my experience, those who feel a need to ask invasive personal questions of people they have no personal relationship with are those least responsible in using that information fairly or wisely. I had a boss who thought that it would be a good “team building” exercise to draw and share graphic “lifelines” which depicted all of our major emotional highs and lows thus far in our lives. Sorry, man, it is incredibly inappropriate to ask your employees to share something that personal, and incredibly inappropriate for me to tell my co-workers and boss all about that time in college when I tried to commit suicide / I watched my mom die a slow painful death from cancer / whatever. You don’t need to know. I don’t want to tell you. It’s not even relevant in an office context. I will do the work, we can talk about work, otherwise leave me alone. Access to my personal, private life is by my permission only. If I haven’t invited you, you are not invited.
Not surprisingly, this was the same boss that fired me for going to chemotherapy, too. I’m pretty sure the attitude and the actions are correlated. (He was appallingly bad at the whole concept of personal/professional boundaries.)
There’s also a difference between listening to someone who shares stuff voluntarily, and asking personal questions of people you have no intimacy with.
I don’t bring my personal shit to work out of respect for the working/productivity environment. I expect work not to nose into my personal life out of respect for my privacy.
But again I ask, why? Why does she need to have that label assigned? Is it as innocent as she has always wanted to learn more about Sikhism so she hopes he is Sikh? Or is it as obnoxious as wanting to know whether or not to fear her neighbor because he’s one of them skerry Mooslims? Either way, wait for it to come up naturally. If she’s got a report on Sikhism due, she can check out Wikipedia instead.
It’s ok baby, just close the window.
The little x in the corner.
There.
All better. <strokes hair>
I would, but you haven’t signed the consent form.
Why not?
Totally inappropriate: if religion is a big enough part of their life that I should know about it, it will be obvious without asking if you just watch for the clues. For example, the guy I know who wears a yarmulke and tzitzis all the time, didn’t come in on Tisha b’Av, and who takes his lunch breaks to coincide with the Mincha minyan at the campus Hillel is not someone I’m going to embarrass by offering treif potato chips that he’ll inevitably have to turn down.
I’ve ended up knowing the religion of pretty much every non-US coworker I’ve had (and maybe half the Americans), but not by me asking, but because it comes up. There’s places where it comes up real fast (in Spain you’re likely to know how many kids, their ages, how well they’re doing at school, the spouse’s name and profession, how many pets, which species, their names, where someone grew up, what kind of vehicle(s) they drive and where they live within 24h of meeting them), others where it comes up on the occasion of some religious feast or when picking up vacation. Last Monday I discovered that one of the Indian-looking guys at work is a strict vegetarian (I don’t even work with him), but I didn’t go and ask why, I just helped him find out whether the mayo did or did not have egg (it doesn’t).
Mind you, in Spain the assumption is that anybody who’s born in Spain or Latin America will be either practicing Catholic, not-very-practicing Catholic, hates-priests-but-goes-to-weddings Catholic, can’t-remember-the-Lord’s-Prayer Catholic, an atheist (but still extremely likely to be baptised Catholic, if they’re over age 20) or Evangelista (most of these are gypsies). So part of it is that it’s simply a non-issue unless you’re the kind of asshole who wants to convert anybody with sligthly-different beliefs, and that is a very heavy no-no.
Presumably the point is that it’s normally ok, a natural way of getting to know someone better. But because sometimes it turns out really badly, it’s polite not to ask (or at least, to ask only in a casual conversation where it’s clear – in advance – that there’s no pressure to answer).
It’s like, normally, a conversation about religion is interesting. But if I were a religion I knew most people I worked with really disapproved of, I might not want to become permanently known as the “satanist guy” or “atheist guy” or “fundamentalist mysoginist wacky guy” or whatever. Hence, caution.