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Religious Discrimination at Google

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Re: Religious Discrimination at Google

#121

Post by hackyhacky »

thinkingemote wrote: post #69
k1ll3r wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The notion that humanity would be morally lost without the guidance of religious belief is laughable. For sake of gaining some perspective and widening one's thoughts I'd suggest reading the works of any of the number of major philosophers. And if you need to read in some book that oppression is bad, that murdering people is bad, that basic human rights are a good idea, etc. - if you need to read that in a book and h…

"Moral compass is innate" is a belief. Science cannot provide evidence for it. It's such a good belief, that we are blind to it being a belief and blind to its origins. It's a belief that is so successful because it is true. It comes from the belief that every person has an intrinsic value. Philosophy isn't about rational atheistic science. Science cannot prove or disprove the idea that every human has value. The Naz…

False dichotomy.

There's a big gap between "morality is innate" and "morality can be achieved only through religion."

Re: Religious Discrimination at Google

#122

Post by tialaramex »

synu wrote: post #80
krisoft wrote: post #23

Quoting the most concrete example he gives: > If you start talking about your religious beliefs at a social event people treat you like you just farted in their face. They frequently will scrunch up their faces and might ask a question like “Do you REALLY believe all that stuff?” When you tell them that you do they might even go so far as to say “Sorry that’s just not the kind of thing I associate with someone as sma…

It is weirdly common for people to conflate running into others who disagree with or aren’t interested in them with authoritarian suppression. You even see people going on television to talk about how they have been silenced.

Because it's largely impossible to find out whether people believe nonsense or just pretend to, one should where possible avoid needing to know. If you can set things up so that the consequences for Jim killed the puppy plus either "Jim believes God told him to kill the puppy" or "Jim pretended God told him to kill the puppy" are roughly identical you needn't waste your time trying to see inside Jim's mind.

This is trickier with retributional justice. If you think your justice system's goal is to punish wrong doing it's difficult to argue that it doesn't matter what Jim really believed, as if he really believed God was telling him to kill the puppy how can that be wrong?

Re: Religious Discrimination at Google

#123

Post by eps »

ken47 wrote: post #110
teekert wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are at a meeting with colleagues, one colleague suddenly starts to insist that Santa Claus is real. Do you take them seriously? Sure it’s freedom of speech but there will be some kind of drop in respect. I mean I get that you believe that one book trumps all of human science because you were raised that way but when you grow up your critical thinking skills should kick in. If they don’t, it’s very difficult to ke…

Can you prove the Big Bang occurred? If so, can you prove that nothing preceded a Big Bang? If you are as rational as you arrogantly imply, then the obvious answers to these are no. Are you equally appalled when you come across average people talking about these theories as if they are facts? I wonder.

Big Bang is the best available explanation of observed facts.

This doesn't mean it's the right one, but other explanations are inferior. Especially those provided by religions.

Re: Religious Discrimination at Google

#124

Post by okeuro49 »

thinkingemote wrote: post #69
k1ll3r wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The notion that humanity would be morally lost without the guidance of religious belief is laughable. For sake of gaining some perspective and widening one's thoughts I'd suggest reading the works of any of the number of major philosophers. And if you need to read in some book that oppression is bad, that murdering people is bad, that basic human rights are a good idea, etc. - if you need to read that in a book and h…

"Moral compass is innate" is a belief. Science cannot provide evidence for it. It's such a good belief, that we are blind to it being a belief and blind to its origins. It's a belief that is so successful because it is true. It comes from the belief that every person has an intrinsic value. Philosophy isn't about rational atheistic science. Science cannot prove or disprove the idea that every human has value. The Naz…

I remember listening to Steve Peters, English psychiatrist, talk about brain imaging of psychopaths.

It seems there is some component of evolved morality; psychopaths would have been excluded by the tribe.

Re: Religious Discrimination at Google

#125

Post by anonymous_sorry »

HuwFulcher wrote: post #89
teekert wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are at a meeting with colleagues, one colleague suddenly starts to insist that Santa Claus is real. Do you take them seriously? Sure it’s freedom of speech but there will be some kind of drop in respect. I mean I get that you believe that one book trumps all of human science because you were raised that way but when you grow up your critical thinking skills should kick in. If they don’t, it’s very difficult to ke…

Your equation of Santa Claus with God reveals your prejudice and stereotyping of religious people. As another commenter has said, many great scientific discoveries over history have been made by Christians. It would be wrong of me to deny that there is an anti-intellectual strain in Christianity but it is not the dominant trend that American media would like to espouse. Whether you think Christianity is sensible or n…

> As another commenter has said, many great scientific discoveries over history have been made by Christians.

Given that Christianity was the social norm in Europe and many European colonies for centuries, this statement is nearly equivalent to saying that many great scientific discoveries were made by Europeans. It's true, but only slightly interesting.

Re: Religious Discrimination at Google

#126

Post by yunohn »

kukx wrote: post #14
hackyhacky wrote: post #3

In this article, the author doesn't provide any concrete example of the religious discrimination that he's allegedly experienced, or how it's impacted him in any way. It seems that he's very eager to play the victim. A good example of his rush to victimhood is when he tells how he confronted leadership about why Google hasn't opened an engineering office in Louisiana. He seems to take the fact that Google doesn't hav…

If you were to replace the religious belief with gender in his story would your assessment stay the same? You can use this method for example in this quote: "...VPs of research laughing in my face to HR representatives questioning my sanity based on my sincerely held religious beliefs...".

“What if I replace the topic of your point with a completely different topic and claim you’re bigoted”

You do understand how ridiculous this line of reasoning is, right?

Re: Religious Discrimination at Google

#127

Post by HuwFulcher »

anonymous_sorry wrote: post #125
HuwFulcher wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your equation of Santa Claus with God reveals your prejudice and stereotyping of religious people. As another commenter has said, many great scientific discoveries over history have been made by Christians. It would be wrong of me to deny that there is an anti-intellectual strain in Christianity but it is not the dominant trend that American media would like to espouse. Whether you think Christianity is sensible or n…

> As another commenter has said, many great scientific discoveries over history have been made by Christians. Given that Christianity was the social norm in Europe and many European colonies for centuries, this statement is nearly equivalent to saying that many great scientific discoveries were made by Europeans. It's true, but only slightly interesting.

That’s a valid point, I think what should be considered though is the interest that the Catholic Church had in encouraging scientific study

Re: Religious Discrimination at Google

#128

Post by synu »

tialaramex wrote: post #122
synu wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is weirdly common for people to conflate running into others who disagree with or aren’t interested in them with authoritarian suppression. You even see people going on television to talk about how they have been silenced.

Because it's largely impossible to find out whether people believe nonsense or just pretend to, one should where possible avoid needing to know. If you can set things up so that the consequences for Jim killed the puppy plus either "Jim believes God told him to kill the puppy" or "Jim pretended God told him to kill the puppy" are roughly identical you needn't waste your time trying to see inside Jim's mind. This is t…

Im sorry what are we taking about? I think I’ve gotten lost, or maybe your reply was meant for another thread?

Re: Religious Discrimination at Google

#129

Post by abofh »

dry_soup wrote: post #25

Whether or not this person's claims of discrimination are valid, this method of airing this kind of grievance is probably totally ineffective. This is your brain on not having a union.

I've seen this approach before - typically someone who wants to be special, pronounces their specialness as unique and wonderful, demands their specialness be recognized, and then screams 'they're discriminating on me because of my specialness', when in fact they're being fired because in their exhaustive (and exhausting) efforts to promote their own specialness, they're not getting work done. They see the writing on the wall, and try to find some way to blame the world around them (discrimination, anti-Whateverism, etc).

To be clear, discrimination exists in this world and it should be abhorred, but if the thing 90% of your coworkers think when they think of you is "Oh, that guy who's always talking about X?" instead of 'That guy who built Y' - you've let your personal identity overwhelm your work identity, and it's not a good career move.

Re: Religious Discrimination at Google

#130

Post by QuadmasterXLII »

hackyhacky wrote: post #3

In this article, the author doesn't provide any concrete example of the religious discrimination that he's allegedly experienced, or how it's impacted him in any way. It seems that he's very eager to play the victim. A good example of his rush to victimhood is when he tells how he confronted leadership about why Google hasn't opened an engineering office in Louisiana. He seems to take the fact that Google doesn't hav…

I agree. Some christians consider themselves oppressed if you say “I think everyone who believes in god is wrong,” and interpret the statement “I don’t believe in god” as “I think everyone who believes in god is wrong.” Therefore, they are oppressed until every atheist is completely silenced. Of course, forbidding Christians from talking about their beliefs is also verboten.
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