I have seen the future.

But Chango *neeeds* blood.

(I didn't claim it was an unjustified firing - and the Principal alleges that the money was for something completely different and there was no coercion. That's not the point.)

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jagash.livejournal.com

Aye, but praying with the "kind donations" of the underling under you is more appropriately known as being fired for theft (and possible health code violations depending on how it was done).

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Did you or did you not miss the statement, twice, that the Principal says the money was unrelated?

That means it still sits in the "alleged" category, and I still take no position on it being a justified or unjustified firing, beyond that the Principal was obviously making decisions based on things that aren't real, and therefore insane. Since the replacement will almost certainly have the same problem, firing her on those grounds seems unproductive.

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jagash.livejournal.com

However, the problem wasn't that Tamayo was performing bizarre religious rituals but that she was coercing her staff to participate, Condon said.

Mis-formatting, i am just procrastinating unwisely at this point.

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Among other things, yes.

If I do something with my employer's money under false pretenses, even if I think it's for the benefit of my employer, my employer is justified in applying sanctions against me for that.

theweaselking, what is the point you're aiming at here if that isn't it? Because if it's just hollering, "Hey look, it's another case of a religious person doing something dumb and illegal in the name of religion, and duh, he eats poop," I have to start wondering about your motivations for such repeated trumpeting. After all, I can easily enough point out quite a few reasonable and helpful things that religious people do in the name of religion, and there are doubtless blogs devoted to that, but neither collection of anecdotes really proves anything about Religion In General or any specific religion.

jagash, sorry about tossing my reply to

theweaselking into your inbox, but the question has been building in me for a while, and your comment inspired me to let it out.

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flemco.livejournal.com

[war cry]

After all, I can easily enough point out quite a few reasonable and helpful things that religious people do in the name of religion, and there are doubtless blogs devoted to that, but neither collection of anecdotes really proves anything about Religion In General or any specific religion.

Bite your tongue.

Anyone who does ANYTHING AT ALL for reasons involving their imaginary friend(s) might be helpful, but they are the exact definition of unreasonable. They are insane, and nothing they do in the name of Jesus/God/Buddha/Allah/Magickal Faeryies/[insert imaginary friend here] is even in the same ballpark as "reasonable."

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And who said anything about your employer's money? Nowhere in the article does it say the school's money was involved.

What it says is that:
The principal had a religious "cleansing" ceremony at the school.
The veep says she was coerced into joining in and paying for it.
The principal says the money was duly owed, unrelated to the ritual, and there was no coercion to participate.

There are also allegegations of transporting students in staff cars at staff expense.

On to the rest:
The point I'm aiming at here, specifically, is that this is an interesting news story, and that I expect it to produce a staggering silence from the so-called Christians who'd be outraged if she was a Baptist.

I specifically mock young-earth creationists with the "duh, I eat poop" bit because they're abysmally stupid and deserve public mockery. I post a lot of religious-crazy-person news, apart from the poop-eaters, because I post crazy-person news and I post complaints about hypocrisy and bad thinking, and both religious-crazy-person news *and* religious-crazy-person-news-reporting qualify, most of the time.

And you could post a whole lot of things that religious people do that are good. You're welcome to. They're not interesting news, though, just as good things that unreligious people do aren't interesting news.

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Point on the money question taken; you're quite right.

You know, just calling them "so-called Christians" clarifies a lot, and in my opinion, in a good way. Christian principles which only apply when they favor their proclaimers' own in-group don't impress me much.

Kooks certainly make for entertainment; it's often a rather sad kind of entertainment, though. Circus clowns are funny, but they wash off the makeup after the show.

Yes, I know that most good deeds are pretty dull reading on the surface, and don't get a lot of press; you'll notice that I don't write that stuff on my lj (or worse, stuff others' with comments full of it). There's a way to write it that isn't dull, trite or sappy, but damn few people have mastered it.

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Dammit! I should've said "You're right on the money"!

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I think that it's a slippery-slope argument; essentially, what I read from this is, "If you think that the district was justified in firing this high school principal, but you also think that prayer belongs in the schools, you might be a hypocrite."

I don't entirely disagree here, though I generally distrust slippery slope arguments.

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Not really. If she really did take money from others and coerce attendance, she should be fired, just like all the Baptists who try to force creationism on students should be fired.

But I'm willing to bet good money that the usual "religious people are oppressed by our atheist society and our rights are being violated" crowd are 100% silent on this one, in a way that they would *NOT* be, even if all other facts about the money and the rest were the same, because the practitioner in this case is of the wrong religion.

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I'll certainly buy that some people use the law inconsistently to support their own agendas.

I won't support this principal, because I think his actions were wrong in principle independent of his religion. I wouldn't support a Christian one who did the same thing. I and others currently know of no chance to prove the latter, however.

Really, a better proof of your point would be a case of a Santeria practitioner being prosecuted in a clearly unjust manner and no outcry from the "religious freedom" crowd.

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Well, the question then becomes "what's 'clearly' unjust?" and you're kinda back to square one in the argument. The fact is, with the homogenaity of religion in North America, it's very easy to have limits to tolerance of other religious practices that wouldn't even be blinked at in the other 4 major continents.

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I think there are cases which would be pretty hard to argue as not being clearly unjust: private or community prayer, reading, and discussion in private space specifically designated by its owners for the purpose, for example. (Yes, I know, that sentence doesn't not have too many negatives!) At any rate, I believe there are conceivable cases in which I, at least, would be willing to speak out for others' religious practices, even if they differ significantly from my own.

Homogeneity of religion in North America? Ummm... I'll admit to a (shrinking) Christian majority, but homogeneity is a much stronger word than I'd use.

I don't know that Europe is so much more tolerant than North America, at least in some areas, and there are places in Asia (e.g. China) which are notoriously intolerant of any religious practice!

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According to the CIA World Factbook, 78% of the United States is Christian.

That's homogeneity!

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*rereads discussion from the top* This has kind of gone off on a tangent, hasn't it? I would call that predominance, not homogeneity; we're arguing semantics, though.

Anyhow, propose a religious practice that wouldn't even be blinked at in the majority of each of the other 4 major continents, and that you think would lead to dismissal from a public-sector job in North America. I don't think it's impossible, but I'm pretty sure that it's not so easy to find one for which at least some of the Christian agitators for freedom of religion won't speak up.

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Well, in a nation with 300 million people and change, it's about as homogeneous as we're ever going to get, I think. Heh.

I don't mind tangents! Sometimes they're more interesting than the actual discussion.

I guess... ecumenical prayer? That's almost designed to be as unoffensive as possible to any religion. Except, I suppose, for those religions that believe prayer is a deeply private thing...

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