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Well, on average I got 5 presents and shared one with my brother. I'm catholic and we celebrate christmas, we even go to church.

Its like if I payed you $10 an hour and then payed someone who didn't work the same wage. I work for my presents, so why should someone who doesn't work at all get the same amount of presents as I? It just isn't fair.

Start going to a stuffy church with hundreds of other people for an hour once every week and then you can get an unlimited amount of presents.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
@tblock, yes gifts were given, but they were given by theists.

I Still don't follow the logic by which Catholics and Atheists get different numbers of presents?

halonachos wrote:And no tblock, she isn't an atheist. At a certain age, children are unaccountable in religion(for catholics) so if your daughter committed murder it really wouldn't be a sin because she doesn't comprehend it. If you don't know what something is you can't deny its existance or approve of its existance, so shes not an atheist, she just doesn't know yet.

I know, some religions agree that the age is around 8-10 years of age. She doesn't understand death, let alone murder.
She doesn't even know that Seaseme Street is fake... how can she understand the concept of a god?

tblock1984 wrote:She doesn't even know that Seaseme Street is fake...

Seaseme Street is FAKE?!?!!???!?!?!!!!!

halonachos wrote:Well, on average I got 5 presents and shared one with my brother. I'm catholic and we celebrate christmas, we even go to church.

Its like if I payed you $10 an hour and then payed someone who didn't work the same wage. I work for my presents, so why should someone who doesn't work at all get the same amount of presents as I? It just isn't fair.

Start going to a stuffy church with hundreds of other people for an hour once every week and then you can get an unlimited amount of presents.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
@tblock, yes gifts were given, but they were given by theists.

you. Frazz, can you close this now? I see what you mean:
Comments attacking people's religious views out of hand are not acceptable, neither is attacking religion in general. The reverse is also true, attacking atheism out of hand is not acceptable on this board. We can discuss the merits of a religion/nonreligion and their philosphical points (the rare time a good discussion on that occurrs) but straight trashing is right out.

There are always 2 type of people in Dakka's Off Topic Forum

Type A) They are interested in what you want to discuss , and would discuss it with you .

Type B) They care not for what you want to say nor do they care for what you want to discuss .
They only care what you have said. And will hammer you over and over again ignoring the purpose and intention of the thread provided if your original statement isnt solid and allowes
the possibility for them to re twist the words. They pride themselves in arguing this way as "winning an debate" .

I had such high hopes...

Fifty wrote:
The 'Theism' part of 'Atheism' refers more to a belief in that which is beyond rational explanation. Thus, atheism generally refers not only to belief in there being no God, but also a belief in there being no gods/divine universe.

That's incorrect. Theism is a very specific term which refers to the belief in God/god/s. Atheism is the lack of such a belief, and makes no further comment on one's faith in any other supernatural concepts.

Referring to oneself as an atheist while lacking any belief in the supernatural is simply an incomplete description.

Roze wrote:yeah well i guess this is the same things as us not being allowed to have anything Xmas related at work now. No one is allowed to give or recive Xmas cards or wear clothing with Xmas pics, or saying or play Xmas songs or even have a Xmas calander, just incase someone somewhere is offended by it.
I think it sucks big donkey hole....and i'll leave it at that.

Where do you work? I mean, I know the NHS does not automatically rule out Christmas decor because I've been to hospitals that have up Christmas decor. The one where I did my knee re-hab even had a nativity scene, IIRC. Now, some hospitals may make a policy decision to not spend taxpayer money on decorations, or maybe some restrict decorations for hygiene/cleanliness reasons, but that is nothing to do with PC. I also used to work in the Civil Service and we had Christmas decor up their too.

Even if the NHS did ban Christmas decor in hospitals, I could understand it to a small degree. If you find decorations at Sainsbury's offensive, you could choose to not shop there. You can't really choose whether to need hospital treatment or not. I'd disagree with anyone who took offense at a Christmas tree, and think they were being ridiculous, but I would not consider when they need medical treatment the right time to confront them over their own silliness. I'd rather keep them alive and convince them to change their ways than let them die because they hesitated about going into a "Christian" hospital until it was too late.



i work in a testing lab, its not in a hospital, its a private testing building,

What's funny is that a Christmas Tree is about as unchristian as you can get, it's a recent Germanic Tradition that only exists in the UK because Victoria shacked up with a cousin

Gwar! wrote:What's funny is that a Christmas Tree is about as unchristian as you can get, it's a recent Germanic Tradition that only exists in the UK because Victoria shacked up with a cousin

Actually its an old German tradition Bat..troll...man?

Modquisition on:
As has been noted threads/posts directly attacking religion and threads directly attacking atheists are not appropriate. I will keep this open ONLY if it leans back to a nonconfrontational discussion. Lets move it back to that now please. Thank you.

Recent as in less than 1000 years old Frazzled, that's recent to you yeah?

Frazzled wrote:As has been noted threads/posts directly attacking religion and threads directly attacking atheists are not appropriate. I will keep this open ONLY if it leans back to a nonconfrontational discussion. Lets move it back to that now please. Thank you.

I'm stepping out for now... If I bring up Beltane, I think the end of Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back will happen to me...
I am going to get off the lawn, but watch you guys from a distance. If we can play nice, I will be back.

my interwebs is acting funny delete this post please.

Gwar! wrote:Recent as in less than 1000 years old Frazzled, that's recent to you yeah?

Yea pretty much.

"Son, I knew Moses, and you're no Moses."


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Again, lets move on shall we? Jokes and jibes don't always work over the internet.

Note:
Never send an email to a group of people complaining that a conversation with another party wasn't productive, and then cc that person. Just telling you now... That which does not destroy us makes us stronger!

Simply said, its reduced to:

Guy wears something company doesn't allow. Company warns him. Guy ignores them. Company fires guy.

Its that simple. A company has the right to terminate an employee for disregarding their rules/regulations.

Upon further insight into the story, there's a bit more bureaucratic BS going on. HD apparently waited for a year to tell him. Wait to make it an issue HD, but still, they do reserve the right.

Stupidity on both sides. Either way, he will win nothing. He broke rules, was warned, ignored them, got the boot. Look for another job.

You get a job that had a rule against smoking pot, and you got caught and fired for smoking pot.
Same gak... Breaking a rule is breaking a rule...

That is all...

Well there's another topic going so shutting this down. If anyone wishes otherwise please PM privately.

tblock1984 wrote:

Frazzled wrote:As has been noted threads/posts directly attacking religion and threads directly attacking atheists are not appropriate. I will keep this open ONLY if it leans back to a nonconfrontational discussion. Lets move it back to that now please. Thank you.

I'm stepping out for now... If I bring up Beltane, I think the end of Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back will happen to me...
I am going to get off the lawn, but watch you guys from a distance. If we can play nice, I will be back.

Oh please, you swore at me for nothing that was attacking atheism, but was instead putting a joke on at theism's expense. By saying that church is a labor I am making fun of religion. Get over yourself, I don't care enough about you or atheism to criticize either.

@ fifty.
Have you ever been to church? If you have you know it sucks and is boring. It also gets incredibly hot during the summer in Virgina and our AC is not the best. So sitting for an hour every weekend in a hot, sweaty church surrounded by strangers and paying to do so is work and I get paid for it on christmas with presents.

Well, I doubt this guy is suing on first amendment grounds. There's not states action, so that case would be dismissed early (before discovery even began). Basically one of the things you can do when you answer a law suit is move to dismiss it for a variety of reasons: wrong jurisdiction, expired statute of limitations, etc. The most used of this is Rule 12(b)6 of the Federal Rules (with most states having an analogue): "failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted." Essentially, it's a way of saying that even if every fact the plaintiff alleges is true, the law still backs up the defendent. Here, since any first amendment challenge requires state action, it would be dismissed early and often.

Now, it appears that the claim is made on religious discrimination laws, essentially arguing that he was fired because he was christian. In the US, you can't fire a person, even in an at will state, for bad cause. Meaning; while you can fire a guy for no reason, you can't fire him because he's black or deaf or jewish or a vietnam veteran. Now, as wierd as it sounds, Christian is a protected class under that law.

Now, to succeed in such a case, there's burden shifting approach taken by the courts. Normally in a civil suit, the Plaintiff bears all the burden of proving his case. The Defense can defend, to be sure, but honestly it can sit back and say "prove it" the entire time. In employment discrimination cases, there are three step, and if the defendent fails to meet their step 2, the plaintiff wins.

Step 1: the plaintiff must show that they are in a protected class, and that they suffered some tangible discrimination (termination, loss of hours, denial of promotion, even lesser duties). Here, that's simply not a problem. The guy was fired.

Step 2: the Defendent must now show that there was some other reason, aside from being in the protected class, for their actions. Here, Home Depot can show that they have a policy on dress code, and followed it.

Step 3: the plaintiff must show that the reason given in Step 2 was merely a pretext. Here, if the Plaintiff can show that HD didn't' follow the policy consistently, allowing people to wear other buttons, he might have a chance.

After all that, all the plaintiff gets is a jury trial. The real problem is that his transgressions (the button) are really only tangentially related to his faith. The timing with him bringing a bible isn't good for home depot, but assuming they're like most big box stores, the dress code is enforced.

more reading on the procedure, if you're interested:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_Douglas_v._Green

Yep Polonius, the only proof would be if any other employees were wearing any unsanctioned pins and were allowed to do so.

halonachos wrote:Yep Polonius, the only proof would be if any other employees were wearing any unsanctioned pins and were allowed to do so.

Exactly, then there would be discrimination.

We might not also be seeing the whole picture. HD might have tolerated the button for a while, but perhaps he got snappy with his religious beliefs, preaching "the word" at work, eventually boiling over to the button issue, etc.

The Locks are broken!

(This thread shows as locked to me )