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Religious Discrimination at Google

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Re: Religious Discrimination at Google

#211

Post by leeroyjenkins11 »

teekert wrote: post #31
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…

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…

No post body was provided.

Re: Religious Discrimination at Google

#212

Post by tialaramex »

synu wrote: post #128
tialaramex wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Sorry, to me it's pretty obvious that most of these people don't really believe they were silenced when they're on TV shouting about it. But I can't prove that, so, fine, maybe they believe this, we should treat both the false belief and the lying about it the same way.

Re: Religious Discrimination at Google

#213

Post by LinAGKar »

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.

No one is trying to prove that nothing happened before the big bang. What may or may not have happened before (or even whether there was a before) is unknown. The big bang is as far as we can extrapolate cosmology backwards in time.

Re: Religious Discrimination at Google

#214

Post by LinAGKar »

paganel wrote: post #150
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 discrimination, and I say that as an atheist. Imagine asking a devout Hindu: “you really don’t eat beef? How crazy is that? Do you know how good it tastes?” or questioning a devout Hebrew about he not doing any work on Shabbat.

Not eating beef isn't something factually incorrect though, that's just a matter of personal preference.

Re: Religious Discrimination at Google

#215

Post by swat535 »

hackyhacky wrote: post #178
concinds wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The argument isn't "you can only be moral if you're religious", it's: "modern Western moral attitudes, even explicitly atheistic ones, are strongly influenced by historical religious ideas, and therefore the idea that religion is inherently immoral is incoherent; and contempt for religion is unjustified." Seems reasonable to me.

Your argument ignores cause and effect. Religion was created by man, not by god. Religious ideas, including religious morality, are the results, not the causes, of the prevailing cultural attitudes of the societies that created them. In the modern West, such as the US, "religious morality" is mostly synonymous with the morality of the ancient societies in which those religions originated, which is why religion is so…

Thomas Aquinas saw a connection between the metaphysical existence of God and the values of morality in the sense that they are both grounded within His existence.

In other words, Aquinas saw God as the basis for and to all we experience. From the theistic perspective, my question is if moral subjectivism is true, it seems to be self defeating as the concept of truth is fundamentally underwhelmed.

There are plenty of atheistic and some theistic philosophers who see morality as independent of God. I wouldn't necessarily agree with them, but it's just a thought

Re: Religious Discrimination at Google

#216

Post by ch_123 »

> The fact that I’m from the US South is a double whammy. There’s a reason that Google doesn’t have any engineering offices in states like Louisiana where I’m from. I’ve pressed them over and over again to explain why they refuse to build engineering offices closer to where I’m from. The answers they give boil down to some version of either “Their values don’t match ours” or “They’re too poor”.

This just reeks of self entitlement to me. Why is this guy more entitled to have an office built closer to where he is from versus anyone else who comes from a place which does not have a Google office?

Re: Religious Discrimination at Google

#217

Post by quantified »

ekianjo wrote: post #144
eps wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Big Bang is the best available explanation of observed facts. Best available is not proof. The sun rotating around the Earth was also the best explanation for a long time in Human history. Traditional physics theory was the best until we started to observe things at the atomic level. Certitudes in Science don't age well, and should teach humility more than absurd dogma.

Big bang has a lot more supporting evidence than a magical seven-day wishing-into-existence spree 6400 years ago. Closer to home, it makes a lot more sense that animals lived, died and were fossilized over millions of years than that they were added as hidden sculpture during the creation. Come on. And that particular god is very good at being useless since the Enlightenment.

One thing religions don't do is give up their certitudes in the face of evidence. Or prove useful to human existence. The Abrahamic God is a father who shot his wad, abandoned the child, but still demands tribute.

Re: Religious Discrimination at Google

#218

Post by johannes1234321 »

Renaud wrote: post #51
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’s quite baffling to me that people would start talking about religion at social events that are not related to religion in the first place. To me, one of the basic rules of social etiquette is never talk about religion or politics unless you’re amongst people who share your views or it’s a specific religious or political gathering. If I’m attending a social function, I certainly don’t want to hear about your relig…

> To me, one of the basic rules of social etiquette is never talk about religion or politics unless you’re amongst people who share your views or it’s a specific religious or political gathering.

This to me is destroying social debate. How can one grow without believes being challenged? - I don't want to live in my bubble of self-confirmation. I want my believes to be challenged with good arguments and improve my thinking.

Of course the key is "good argument" and not "bah stupid"

Re: Religious Discrimination at Google

#219

Post by tasuki »

HuwFulcher wrote: post #185
tasuki wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Your equation of Santa Claus with God reveals your prejudice and stereotyping of religious people. The person you're replying to never equated Santa Claus with any kind god. It was just a question. Would you take an adult insisting Santa Claus is real seriously? Do you think people are entitled to their beliefs, whatever they may be?

They didn’t explicitly state it but it’s heavily implied based on the context. No, I wouldn’t take an adult believing in Santa Claus seriously. They’re entitled to their beliefs and if they do their job well then I have no reason to have an issue with them. The issue I take is with the equivocation they have made. Believing in Santa Claus and believing in a divine entity are two drastically different things.

> No, I wouldn’t take an adult believing in Santa Claus seriously.

Why not?

Re: Religious Discrimination at Google

#220

Post by 0xy »

Tomte wrote: post #191
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…

He goes even further. "My superiors said clearly discriminatory things, but I won't tell you what. I will tell you some other words which I believe they truly wanted to say — but didn't — and look how awful those invented utterances are. No, I really won't tell what they actually said."

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