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Lawsuit Claims NASA Specialist Was Fired Over Intelligent Design Belief
New submitter period3 writes "The latest mission of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory is defending itself in a workplace lawsuit filed by a former computer specialist. The man claims he was demoted and then let go for promoting his views on intelligent design, the belief that a higher power must have had a hand in creation because life is too complex to have developed through evolution alone."
There is a not so fine line between espousing a belief and passing out DVDs to co-workers and trying to convert them. Sounds like disruptive behavior to me. I also would expect from the description that he was asked to stop, then warned before being let go.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
A thought:
If life were to be too complex to arise by evolution, and needed an intelligent designer, then surely the intelligent designer would also be too complex to arise naturally.
Who or what created the creator?
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David Coppedge, who worked as a "team lead" on the Cassini mission exploring Saturn and its many moons, alleges that he was discriminated against because he engaged his co-workers in conversations about intelligent design and handed out DVDs on the idea while at work. Coppedge lost his "team lead" title in 2009 and was let go last year after 15 years on the mission.
And...
Coppedge had a reputation around JPL as an evangelical Christian and other interactions with co-workers led some to label him as a Christian conservative, Becker said.
[he] says he believes other things also led to his demotion, including his support for a state ballot measure that sought to define marriage as limited to heterosexual couples and his request to rename the annual holiday party a "Christmas party."
First, don't shove it in everyone's faces and it won't be an issue. Difficult for an evangelical, I know.
Second...
It looks like a pretty straightforward case. The mission that he was working on was winding down and he was laid off.
Good luck getting around that. Sounds kinda... normal and uninteresting.
The man claims he was demoted and then let go for promoting his views
Since one's beliefs on the origins of life have absolutely zero do do with the work of a "computer specialist," I'd hope he was fired if he was proselytizing at work.
There's a difference between firing someone for their religious beliefs and firing someone for promoting those beliefs at work, especially if the person is in some position of authority over those he's passing the DVDs out to. There's a trend lately with Christians complaining that their religious freedom is being infringed, when what's really happening is that they simply aren't being allowed to impose (to some degree or another) their religion on someone else. Whether it's a teacher lecturing to her students about her religious beliefs, an employer specifying which legal medical treatment an employee's health insurance covers, or a supervisor trying to persuade his team of his religious beliefs, those are all examples of religious "freedom" going far enough to step on others' right to believe differently. Like the old saying that "your freedom to swing your arm ends where my nose begins", your right to proselytize ends at the office door.
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Exactly. Pushing your religious beliefs at work is bad enough, but doing it as a manager is something else entirely. Sounds to me like the dude crossed several lines.
I've worked with a few oddballs, like a Young Earth'er who'd fill your ear with great flood stories (the Grand Canyon is proof positive of the great flood!), but they all knew what lines not to cross and I had no problem with them professionally. One is still a good friend. You can talk about this stuff at a peer level, outside of work within reason (i.e. respect folks desire to change the subject when they are clearly getting uncomfortable). You can't create a situation where employees can reasonably be afraid that their review/raise/promotion can affected by agreeing or disagreeing with them on decidedly non-work topics.
religion without science is blind
That would be your Intelligent Design right there. You may not realize this depending on where you get your science information but there is quite literally ZERO evidence in favor of ID. Not a little. Or some weak evidence that needs more study to flesh it out. ZERO. Not a little bit vs. evolution through natural selection's large piles. I mean zero. Nothing. Intelligent design is blind religion at it's finest.
Agreed. I'm pretty religious (Jewish), but I don't make it a habit to discuss my religion at work. If asked about a certain aspect of Judaism, I'll answer. If I need to take a day off due to a Jewish holiday, I'll talk with my boss about it. Otherwise, my religion and my work are two completely different things.
If one of my co-workers started telling giving me DVDs and pamphlets telling me that I needed to accept Jesus or fry in hell, I'd complain to HR and would expect that this employee would be warned to stop and fired if he/she didn't.
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If you are actively promoting your belief at the job, and preventing other from working on their hours, yes, you should definitely be reprimanded and possibly let go. Whichever belief it is.
That does not mean what you think it means: Science is constantly proving religion wrong and it gives science an underlying purpose to keep moving forward with its work in every category while religion is constantly revising its interpretations of an apparently flawless book. While at the same time religion needs science because it does actually explain how some of the "miracles" could have occurred if the people in the stories were the thinking kind of people who could predict wind patterns and sun locations. In short, they "need" each other
Einstein was by no means a religious person - in fact, the great physicist saw religion as no more than a "childish superstition". "The word god is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honorable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this".
As the island of our knowledge grows, so does the shore of our ignorance.
bull. shit.
ID is nothing more than a rephrasing of 'God is real' without actually saying that.
It's wishfullfillment, nothing more.
Any of which shouldn't get you fired btw. Imposing your (misguided) beliefs upon others in your workspace is.
It sounds like he was finally fired for not being able to take a hint after being demoted for the above activities.
Definitely not the sort of person you want to spending tax dollars on at NASA.
No sig today...
NASA isn't just about flying rockets into space. If you're trying to find other planets which could harbor life you can't leave evolution out of the equasion.
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Also for being enough of a dumbass to try and convert people in a place which mostly hires scientists. Not the brightest bulb on the tree, methinks.
No sig today...
Except Shirley Sherrod has been working for the Departmenf of Agriculture for decades, has a long track record of excellent service, and was relaying a story of how she did something positive at a NAACP event on her own time. Cappedge was fired for actually being a disruptive and problematic employee.
Try not to take me more seriously than I take myself.