"religious beliefs ought to be irrelevant at work"

I disagree with this sentiment, and therefore the whole post. I am an atheist, but every personal characteristic is relevant at work.

If you have a staff-member who has claustrophobia, and you fire them because your office is a lightless dungeon and they are having trouble coping, this is unfair dismissal.

If you have a staff-member who has a physical disability, and you fire them because you don’t have the facilities available for them, it’s unfair dismissal.

If you have a staff-member who is religiously obligated not to drink alcohol, then your occupation shouldn’t force them to. But there is no religious obligation not to handle, or deliver alcohol – that should be taken to court and examined with the help of a Muslim scholar, if necessary, by the defence.

Ie. The employer would take the employee to disciplinary procedures, and the employee should have to prove that it is a genuine religious refusal.

The only argument against this I can see is that religion is stupid, or a moot aspect of personality, and is not the same therefore as a phobia. But I don’t see how the “friendly atheist” can make such a point. People are not equal – I have in my staff someone who is very charismatic, someone who works quietly but efficiently, a time-waster, so on. They all have their roles and need to be treated differently; anyone who tries a Communist-esque suppression of individuality is not a good employer or businessperson.

Just my $0.02.

But my prediction for this thread is that a consensus will emerge that religion is a primitive waste of time that is ruining the mechanical efficiency of life and all these religious people need to stop dictating their needs to our society (a society that was built by religious persons). Also Muslims are the worst example of religious tyranny, Islam is the religion of violence and so forth.

I really don’t like discussing these subjects any more, particularly on the Internet, because of this.

If i understand correctly, there is no religious obligation to avoid touching pork (or indeed cutting pigs open, if you were studying to be a vet) but because muslims associate pigs as haraam they feel it is wrong and dirty (or sinful) so while scholars will say it's ok, individuals seems to take exception to it.

"People are not equal – I have in my staff someone who is very charismatic, someone who works quietly but efficiently, a time-waster, so on. They all have their roles and need to be treated differently; anyone who tries a Communist-esque suppression of individuality is not a good employer or businessperson."

-I disagree Synapse, in case of the time-waster.

Time wasting is not what work is for. You can't be a principle time waster. Such a person would have to be disciplined and if that doesn't work, fired. Time-wasters do not belong on "staffs". It's perfectly fair for you - if you own a company - to accept such behavior, it is not fair if such a person would claim a right to time wasting if his employer thinks otherwise.

I don't see how 'charisma' or 'working quietly, but efficiently' have remotely to do with this conversation.

I also don't see how expecting a person to do his job is Communist-esque. In fact, tolerating all kinds of absurdities and waste in a company sounds very Communist-esque, whereas maintaining order and keeping production at max sounds very, very Capitalist-esque. Your gratuitous attempt to discard your opponents:

"But my prediction for this thread is that a consensus will emerge that religion is a primitive waste of time that is ruining the mechanical efficiency of life and all these religious people need to stop dictating their needs to our society (a society that was built by religious persons). "

is the more gratuitous because you yourself are trying to frame people who believe in equality among employees, in the sense that they can be required not to make bizarre demands on what kind of work- they do, as communists. I believe you are guilty of the name-calling you are accusing others of.

That being said,
I believe many of the cases above belong in a kind of "mediation programme" rather than a court.
The pork thing for example. If the transport company supplies supermarkets and is filled with a thousand different things, among them pork, then you can reasonably expect the job to be done. Same for alcohol. If, however, a specific pork transport is performed once a year, and the person agrees to trade with another employee to be performed that transport, I don't see why there shouldn't be space for that. As for shaking hands, I guess what a person who doesn't shake hands with women could do is to bow, ask for permission not to shake hands because his religion forbids it. The woman in question may insist (rightly so) on her hand being shaken anyways, but you definitely reduced the magnitude of the problem.

@SYnapse

The first two examples you list are not 'personal characteristics' in the same sense a religion is. A person cannot help their claustrophobia or physical disability. They have chosen (assuming they weren't inducted by their parents which is far more likely) to follow that religion.

If the job entails consuming alcohol they shouldn't take the job. It isn't up to the employer to pander to their choice, it is up to them to live with their choice.

I also really don't agree with 'a society built by religious persons'. Contributed to yes, but built? Definitely not.

Redhouse your reply didn't make any sense. There isn't a singular "job" slot which you need to squeeze a person into. Individuality is the reason capitalism works. People work in different ways.

"I also don't see how expecting a person to do his job is Communist-esque"

You don't employ somebody to push the same button every day. You employ different people to bring different things to your business, different approaches, different ideas. If your job is purely mechanical, why are you hiring people to do it?

It's communism that wanted people to do the same job in the same way. You weren't allowed to think outside the box, to use your contacts, to use your personality to get things done. Just operate in the minimum specified way and you get paid.

Equality is a useless concept in comparison to diversity. I don't believe in equality because people are not equal.

"@SYnapse

The first two examples you list are not 'personal characteristics' in the same sense a religion is. A person cannot help their claustrophobia or physical disability. They have chosen (assuming they weren't inducted by their parents which is far more likely) to follow that religion."

I disagree that people choose their religion. First off. This makes a huge difference to our terms of discussion. I didn't choose to be an atheist.

"If the job entails consuming alcohol they shouldn't take the job. It isn't up to the employer to pander to their choice, it is up to them to live with their choice."

It's up to an employer to employ the right people for the job. If they employed somebody and gave them a contract, its illegal to then decide that they don't fit the job.

"I don't believe in equality because people are not equal."
-And my reply doesn't make any sense?

"You don't employ somebody to push the same button every day. You employ different people to bring different things to your business, different approaches, different ideas."

-No. Sorry, but no. I employ the person who cleans my house to clean my house, not to bring different things to it, to offer me different approaches or ideas on my house, or different approaches or ideas on how to clean it.

My work is done here.

Cleaning a house is a purely mechanical task, which is why in a few years robots will be doing this kind of job.

Businesses don't employ people in the real world to just follow procedures, but as assets to the business. What I mean by this is that a charismatic person can build relations and gain confidence with your suppliers, a bookworm can advise you better on tax issues, a IT-savvy person can suggest new systems and improve your technologies.

Therefore you can have 10 account managers who do their job in completely different ways, but that’s not a negative thing. That’s capitalism; free ideas, free thought, diversity.

Humans are not robots, and a big problem in recent years has been the reducing of humans to robots (at least philosophically) as you are attempting to do.

I stand to my point, that diversity trumps equality 10 times out of 10.

And redhouse, if you did employ someone to bring new ideas of cleaning your house, you might be very pleasantly surprised to discover something new. On a personal side note, this reeks of close-mindedness, and fear of change.

"Cleaning a house is a purely mechanical task, which is why in a few years robots will be doing this kind of job."

...

How on earth does that REMOTELY have to do with what I'm asking my cleaner in the HERE and NOW???!!!???

'Humans are not robots, and a big problem in recent years has been the reducing of humans to robots (at least philosophically) as you are attempting to do. ' - and of course the other big problem is that our robots are not yet flexible enough to try new approaches and learn new things... but that's a different AI based discussion.

Because the majority of jobs that exist do require personal individual inputs, with the exceptions being cleaners, call-center workers, fast-food workers, and such. All of these jobs are being made obsolete by robotics.

No, SYnapse, I really, really, really don't want to hear about innovations in house cleaning. If he/she buys a cheaper, but more effective cleaning product, I'm all for it. If he or she has a different order of working the rooms and she explains that it saves time, I'm all for it. If he or she refuses to clean my fridge, because there's pork in it, he or she will be fired pronto and I'll recruit someone who doesn't have that problem. End of discussion. You keep pulling in different stuff, "charismatic people", "silent, efficient workers", "communism", "future robot-dominated workplaces", "IT-savvy persons suggesting new systems" and NONE of it has anything to do with the topic at hand. Go away, troll.

Yes - but now you are talking about what you will do, not what you should do, which means we aren't discussing ethics at all any more.

Do whatever you please, I won't interfere. I am discussing what is just and virtuous here.

I think we can all agree that it's just and virtuous to work hard for your employer, that it's just and virtuous to adapt to the world around you a little if it doesn't mean compromising life-and-death principles and I think it's just and virtuous to shake a woman's hand if you shake a man's. I'm well into the ethical debate you so encourage.

I agree redhouse, but these are life-and-death principles, in fact greater than, because people believe that their eternal soul is at stake in their quest to avoid sin.

I don't care if you think that that is stupid, because that is not what is up for discussion here. The discussion here is is it worth making somebody feel that they are disobeying God, and all the torment that goes with that, in exchange for a little business productivity?

Yeah, but my deity sends my soul to hell if I don't order my cleaning person to clean the fridge. In fact, my religion specifically instructs me to keep pork in my fridge and have it cleaned on a weakly basis. Whose deity wins?

That isn't what's at stake. The businesses who fire religious people in these conflicts are concerned about profit and losses, not about salvation.

They believe that profit leads to salvation. And they have a hell of a lot more reason to believe it does than that person who doesn't clean their fridge does not to clean it.

That isn't true. They believe that profit is important because it inevitably spills down to wages, and we all want to earn more money.

Then a religious person comes along and jeopardizes the opportunity to gain more money so the business gets annoyed. On top of this the non-religious colleagues start hassling the boss demanding the same treatment even though they don't have the same needs. You've got legislation, some good and some bad, trying to dictate to the business and you've got people becoming embittered because of that legislation thinking that their country/lifestyle is being taken over.

It's all a very large mess, but I don't think a religious person should be held accountable (within reason). Obviously, people using their religion as an excuse is not tolerable, just as it isn't for someone to use disability as a false excuse.

But allowing someone to wear a certain hat at work, or transferring them to a duty that doesn't involve pork, isn't a huge concession to make.

No, no, no, no, no.

Take the man who refuses to shake a woman's hand because of his faith, let's say he drives a truck. He made an error last time, a human error, he forgot to fill out a form. Instead of the delivery guy, the CEO of the client company walks out and says hey dude, no problem, but you forgot to sign this paper. It's a woman and she had a bad day, but she decided to be nice to the driver and feels good about herself. But upon extending her hand the driver refuses to shake it for religious reasons.

The CEO was already hesitating whether to continue business with this company, because there was a slightly cheaper competitor, but she liked the CEO of the driver's company and decided to stay with him. However... she's not happy and cancels the contract with the trucker's firm.

Now five jobs are lost, instead of one. What do you tell the owner SYnapse? Different ideas and different perspectives? Or just a complete inability to adapt to the world?

The religious person might also have gained other business that an atheist wouldn't have, this is complete conjecture.

To go back to one of your starting points - I am not a friendly atheist, so I will use the argument you describe - the idea that touching pork will endanger your immortal soul is stupid.

There's the only argument you can see against this and I've used it.

lol yeah I agree Hereward77.

The idea that Richard Dawkins is a well-versed philosopher is also pretty stupid, Hereward. Let's not start a debate (I use that word loosely) about religion here because it goes nowhere.

The point is that people don't choose their beliefs so you just need to decide how you deal with them. Tolerance is accepting people's beliefs that are different to your own. You need to be tolerant because being intolerant upsets people and devalues them, so if you're going to do something like that you need to justify it with a greater positive effect.

I don't think you gain anything valuable enough from belittling religious beliefs in order to justify the upset and harm you cause by doing so, so therefore it is not just or worthwhile to do so.

Shouldn't the religious people discussed in the blog not also be tolerant of the fact that society around them doesn't always work as they do and that in a democracy, while the will of the minority is respected and protected, there must also be a point where the will of the majority is respected and executed? Can't the guy who doesn't want to shake a woman's hand limit that habit to his private life and do it when he meets new people at work? Can't the person who wants to pray five times a day not stand up a little earlier, do a long prayer and apologize to his deity that due to circumstances, he can't do better than that?