The top European Union court ruled on Tuesday that public authorities in member states can prohibit employees from wearing signs of religious belief, such as an Islamic head scarf, in the latest decision on an issue that has divided Europe for years.
The case came to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) after an employee of the eastern Belgian municipality of Ans was told she could not wear an Islamic head scarf at work.
Like it or not religion is a formative part of people’s lives. If letting someone essentially wear a hat to work is “favouring on religion over another” then I can only posit that comes from a place of extreme pettiness. Where I am we have a large number of Sikh folk and I have gone into government offices and been served by agents wearing turbans a number of times. Not once has it ever been commented on. Not once have they ever mentioned their religion to me nor I commented on it to them. Neither would have been particularly proper because between the both of us in that professional setting it is quite strictly none of our business. I can’t say that what the agents were wearing ever in any way altered my experience.
It is the attitude of killjoys and sour grapes to strip people of the things that make them feel confident in the way they conduct themselves when out in the world or at their workplace. Your feelings about a piece of cloth are not most important. You only have to deal with a government agent once in a while in a professional capacity and your very temporary discomfort is not to be highly weighted. For the person forced to give up the things that make them feel supported and comfortable they feel that lack every single day. It is a crushing and disheartening experience.
Why do I need to accommodate someone’s mental illness? Being religious is a choice, not a genetic trait you can’t change. You can choose to just stop. It’s not my job to accommodate someone’s imaginary friends.
The “hat” isn’t the issue. A hat is hat. What the hat represents is the problem. If you believe in imaginary beings that watch and control you, you aren’t fit to perform duties in government offices. You need to be in therapy and a hospital.
How is it any different than if someone wants to look at porn at work? Porn is very formative for many people. Why is imaginary friends ok but not imaginary girlfriends?
Being religious is not a mental illness. A lot of people grow up inside the culture and a belief held that dearly is not one you can change so easily. Life is difficult and what helps people navigate it particularly given it’s remaining mysteries isn’t really your problem. People draw their comfort from many sources and stripping them of it isn’t ethical. Nor is it entirely right to look at atheism as not a set of religious beliefs themselves in the context of government work. If a government agent started rattling on about how someone’s beliefs were stupid and that they thought little of them for holding them it would be just as alienating and threatening to the person seeking help as if some religious person decided to use their captive audience to proselytize to an atheists.
But if you still insist on pathologizing the one coming across here as deranged is you. Your complete lack of empathy for your fellow humans sounds like it has it’s root in a particular form of narcissistism or other type two personality disorder. Being an atheist is fine. Being an asshole about it and demanding everyone be exactly like you to be considered worthwhile to participate in their society makes you no different than the religious assholes who insist the exact same.
I never said anything about atheism. It’s interesting and telling how you jump to that conclusion.
Yes believing in imaginary beings is a form of mental illness. The fact you can’t understand that is also telling as to what your issues are with what I’m saying. Being religious is absolutely and without question a form of mental illness.
Life is difficult and drug addiction, alcoholism, rape, domestic abuse, self-harm, etc helps people navigate it and comforts them… So by your twisted logic we should all condone those forms of mental illness as well. Gotcha, that makes perfect sense.
You clearly suffer from the mental illness of religion, so you aren’t exactly the best person to be arguing for it, are you? A heroine user is going to put forth the same arguments as you do for heroine… But somehow you are right and they are wrong? Lol
The thing with religion is, if you have the intelligence and aren’t otherwise mentally impaired, you can look at the evidence critically and come to the logical conclusion. It becomes a choice. Unlike drugs, etc… Where you have a biological dependency driving you, making it harder to quit. An otherwise healthy human can choose to quit religion without much difficulty, so that’s really on you at that point.
But I digress. We don’t allow drug users, etc in government positions, so why do we allow religious nutcases? Keep your shit out of government. Go work in a church.
I would not be welcome in a Church. I grew up essentially an atheist and do not believe nor ever have believed in the God prescribed by the Christian, Jewish or Muslim faiths. I am now closer to agnostic. As a queer kid from an extremely Christian town I have my own complicated relationship with Christianity as an outsider and my own history of inflicted traumas. Yet, I hold no issue with those who do not attempt to force their beliefs on me because those people who have harmed me do not represent everyone who has a religious belief. How people comport themselves towards others and their empathy and kindness towards their fellow humans matters to me more than what particularly they individually believe exists.
I recognize that for those people who hold beliefs that they do in fact believe them. They aren’t simply pretending to entertain you and that means that their dogmas have perceived consequences. Religious beliefs aren’t something people can change like their socks. It often lies very close to their personal conception of what it means to be human. To shake that belief they require a lot of evidence that makes a high degree of sense to them and disbelief often causes them to be at odds with their own families and communities.
It is enlightening to see that your definition of “religious nutcase” is someone who has any religious beliefs at all regardless whether they ever attempt to spread them or impact you in any way. I imagine you likely have experienced some sort of religious related trauma yourself but that does not make reacting to everyone with a belief system the way you are right now okay. You also seem to place people who experience mental illness or addiction as a category that makes it ok for you to dehumanize people. You place yourself as the only viable model of intelligence… Something which isn’t healthy. You may just be very young in which case you might grow out of these beliefs naturally over time but if not then you should really be seeking some therapy.
As for addictions and mental illnesses, people’s individual struggles are not my business either. Some people do struggle and it’s not my place to judge them on their quality of life, only the quality of their work.
Exactly as I thought. You don’t even understand your own hypocrisy with regards to which mental illness are ok and which aren’t. Even when they are pointed out to you directly you refuse to acknowledge them… Just like a religion. No amount of logic or facts will shake your belief in your ridiculous nonsense because you simply lack the ability to self analyze and react to facts with reason and rationality.
I’m literally arguing with a religious zealot for all practical purposes, whether you admit it or not. You are the religious person I’m talking about.