Let's suppose that somebody at JPL was promoting atheism, complained that the Christmas party should be renamed to the Holiday party, and suggested that California allow gay marriage. Would that be offensive as well? Be careful about piling on with "serves him right" when somebody is fired for what amounts to political incorrectness in the workplace. Without more detail I am skeptical of the accusations that he was "too aggressive" with this stuff or that it was a serious dereliction of his job.
With your self-avowed lack of knowledge of the details, maybe you should assume the judge knows what he's talking about.
In my experience, many atheists are offended even by any public display of personal religious belief and practice, or any religious people engaging in discussion with others about it. They think religious people should be forced to maintain an appearance of secular belief when in public places, which is actually absurd and offensive in its own way.
So how would you feel if one of your coworkers constantly tried to proselytize you to homosexuality?
As a religious person who works professionally with a diverse bunch of colleagues, I have experienced offensive pushing of personal beliefs from atheists much more often than from religious colleagues.
My experience is quite the opposite. I do have one coworker who puts in an irreligion jibe in a meeting about every two years. Compare that to a former coworker who couldn't let a conversation go by without trying to recruit you to his religion, whose religious decorations on his office walls kept creeping out into the hallway around his office, etc.
And frankly, it's my habit to just smile and get along. I don't think my colleagues should be fired for promoting atheism, gay marriage, abortion, or what have you.
I just smile and get along too. But there are limits to how much someone should be able to promote their personal agenda in the workplace.
Freedom of speech is not the guarantee of a captive audience.
it was a replica of the HMS Bounty, and is popularly called as such. the world doesn't care about royal navy registration and can put HMS in front of anything they please.
I only use YT to find music, and occasionally pause to read the comments. It's amusing (and sad) to see people blather on about things like what "Snoopy vs. the Red Baron" is about, without the faintest sign of a clue.
For example, when "They give politicians scores based on how their votes align with consensus on policy in the tech industry.", are they going to grade them up or down for wanting to increase visas?
Uhm. The OS is released and there's major dumb-fuckery going on in their online store, the ONLY place you can buy apps from for certain versions of the new OS.
Perhaps the main reason that Steve "me-too!" Ballmer is copying Apple is because he has seen them do something that has proven to be very profitable and decided that it would be a good way to try and turn-around Microsoft's ailing fortunes
Yeah, they could copy Apple's graphical desktop UI, and rename their product from 'DOS' to 'Windows'..
We can all agree the X is a gigantic mess. It needs replaced by something better -- badly.
Maybe instead of everyone jumping in and telling us how bad X is, someone could take a minute to explain what's wrong with it for us non-technical types.
religion as one of the most arbitrary labels by which people divide themselves when involved in conflict
He's got it backward here -- it's one of the least arbitrary labels, since it reveals what underlying philosophy and values we stand for.
At the probabalistic level, it reveals every bit as much about where and in what century you were born, what language you speak, and probably strongest correlation of all, what religion your parents espoused.
I have to disagree. Those labels change from family to family and even person to person depending on their personal beliefs, their church, sect and priest/pastor/rabbi..... Unless you are talking about absolute fundamentalists. The truth is a person's religion gives you a possible look into a person's values but it will not be accurate enough to rely on.
Basically, religion is what people use to justify their actions and values, even if they directly conflict the formal dictates of that religion.
Slashdot Mirror
Let's suppose that somebody at JPL was promoting atheism, complained that the Christmas party should be renamed to the Holiday party, and suggested that California allow gay marriage. Would that be offensive as well? Be careful about piling on with "serves him right" when somebody is fired for what amounts to political incorrectness in the workplace. Without more detail I am skeptical of the accusations that he was "too aggressive" with this stuff or that it was a serious dereliction of his job.
With your self-avowed lack of knowledge of the details, maybe you should assume the judge knows what he's talking about.
In my experience, many atheists are offended even by any public display of personal religious belief and practice, or any religious people engaging in discussion with others about it. They think religious people should be forced to maintain an appearance of secular belief when in public places, which is actually absurd and offensive in its own way.
So how would you feel if one of your coworkers constantly tried to proselytize you to homosexuality?
As a religious person who works professionally with a diverse bunch of colleagues, I have experienced offensive pushing of personal beliefs from atheists much more often than from religious colleagues.
My experience is quite the opposite. I do have one coworker who puts in an irreligion jibe in a meeting about every two years. Compare that to a former coworker who couldn't let a conversation go by without trying to recruit you to his religion, whose religious decorations on his office walls kept creeping out into the hallway around his office, etc.
And frankly, it's my habit to just smile and get along. I don't think my colleagues should be fired for promoting atheism, gay marriage, abortion, or what have you.
I just smile and get along too. But there are limits to how much someone should be able to promote their personal agenda in the workplace.
Freedom of speech is not the guarantee of a captive audience.
That's really the whole point of it, when religitards are saying "religious freedom".
Right. Notice that his position in the lawsuit was that he was being persecuted.
Remember that getting a degree does NOT mean that you agree with the material. Only that you have mastered the material.
Unless you get it from Liberty University.
Cue the Farside comic w/ Prof. Metzbaum and his dog-translation helmet.
(Sorry, I can't find it on the innerweb.)
have never had a regular job.
Just as an edit, I'm not certain the votes came back 51% win from the lost votes. I heard that, but I can't confirm it.
We're such amateurs. Hated dictators usually get 100% of the vote.
Awesome, now we have a standard format to send the fraudulent vote tallies to the server.
Spot on. Not speaking the common language is hardly the worst problem with electronic voting machines in the USA.
it was a replica of the HMS Bounty, and is popularly called as such. the world doesn't care about royal navy registration and can put HMS in front of anything they please.
I've never seen an HMS first post.
for-profit healthcare
I thought that since the 90's the flynn effect had stoped and that IQ had held constant or in some places went backwards.
Apparently it's not only still going on, but has had an unvarying amount/decade since first noticed.
All of those people are more successful then you are, Anonymous Coward.
Depends on how you measure successful.
Except your true 125 is showing because you haven't realized that Mensa is pack with idiots.
It's also the bottom rung on the ladder of smug smarter-than-thou bragging clubs.
It's reading Slashdot. Posting is just confirming the diagnosis.
Yes, we've progressed from not reading the articles to not even reading the comments we're replying to.
I know I'm personally getting smarter: recently stopped reading YouTube comments!
I only use YT to find music, and occasionally pause to read the comments. It's amusing (and sad) to see people blather on about things like what "Snoopy vs. the Red Baron" is about, without the faintest sign of a clue.
At least one person knew who the Red Baron was.
For example, when "They give politicians scores based on how their votes align with consensus on policy in the tech industry.", are they going to grade them up or down for wanting to increase visas?
Uhm. The OS is released and there's major dumb-fuckery going on in their online store, the ONLY place you can buy apps from for certain versions of the new OS.
That's not a "could have a big problem" thing.
That's a "HAS a big problem" thing.
Are people scooping up Windows 8?
There's a side story here, right?
Perhaps the main reason that Steve "me-too!" Ballmer is copying Apple is because he has seen them do something that has proven to be very profitable and decided that it would be a good way to try and turn-around Microsoft's ailing fortunes
Yeah, they could copy Apple's graphical desktop UI, and rename their product from 'DOS' to 'Windows'..
de nae wonder. The soundness of the policy will no doubt benefact the benefactors.
And leave the users feeling benefact.
We can all agree the X is a gigantic mess. It needs replaced by something better -- badly.
Maybe instead of everyone jumping in and telling us how bad X is, someone could take a minute to explain what's wrong with it for us non-technical types.
Switch to OS X or Windows and dump Linsux already.
Actually, I keep a Windows box to use for gaming. Linux works just fine for everything else.
(And would probably work just fine for gaming, if anyone would bother making games for it.)
Well, despite what the guy at the top might have thought, your rank-and-file German soldier still had "Gott mit uns" on his belt.
According to Wikipedia, you couldn't join the SS unless you professed some religion. It didn't matter which, so long as you had one.
"Jew" didn't count, since they deemed it an ethnicity rather than a religion.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller%E2%80%93Urey_experiment
We can make the building blocks of life from inanimate objects.
Wöhler's synthesis of urea probably did more harm to religion than evolution ever did.
I'd make a similar argument to Christians. [...] Like your lives like Mother Teresa
FYI, not everyone holds MT in saintly regard.
(I don't know enough about her to have an opinion on it.)
He's got it backward here -- it's one of the least arbitrary labels, since it reveals what underlying philosophy and values we stand for.
At the probabalistic level, it reveals every bit as much about where and in what century you were born, what language you speak, and probably strongest correlation of all, what religion your parents espoused.
I have to disagree. Those labels change from family to family and even person to person depending on their personal beliefs, their church, sect and priest/pastor/rabbi ..... Unless you are talking about absolute fundamentalists. The truth is a person's religion gives you a possible look into a person's values but it will not be accurate enough to rely on.
Basically, religion is what people use to justify their actions and values, even if they directly conflict the formal dictates of that religion.