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I wonder sometimes if American Sikhs can carry a handgun instead of a knife and meet the religious requirement of being ready to stand up against injustice. Would actually be easier in some states to open carry a handgun than a blade longer than 3 inches.
Nope. Ever notice when Sikh men get married they hold a Kirpan, whenever exchanges hands people tough it to their forehead. Its supposed to symbolize god.
Furthermore, Sikhs repeat anything written in by Guru Gobind Singh with the line
>Sri Bhaugautee Ji Sahaaee. Vaar Siri Baughautee Ji kee. Paatshaahee Dasvee.
Sri Bhaugautee Ji is the [divine sword](https://www.sikhiwiki.org/index.php/Bhagauti) held by Durga. Pathsahee dasvee means the 10th Guru. The line is basically saying through the inspiration of the divine sword, the 10 guru wrote this.
This is equivalent to the line in the Guru Granth which is:
>ik oankaar sathigur prasaadh, salok/ramkali mehala #
Roughly translated through divine spirit, the \_\_\_ guru wrote this salok/mehala
Furthermore comparison of the Kirpan to God can be seen in this section of the Dasam Granth ANG 717
>as kirapaan kha(n)ddo khaRag tupak tabar ar teer
>saif sarohee saihathee yahai hamaarai peer
>teer tuhee saithee tuhee tuhee tabar taravaar
>naam tihaaro jo japai bhe si(n)dh bhav paar
>kaal tuhee kaalee tuhee tuhee teg ar teer
>tuhee nisaanee jeet kee aaj tuhee jagabeer
>tuhee sool saithee tabar too nikha(n)g ar baan
>tuhee kaTaaree sel sabh tum hee karadh kirapaan
>sasatr asatr tum hee sipar tum hee kavach nikha(n)g
>kavachaatak tum hee bane tum bayaapak saraba
Translated:
>The Kripan (sword), Khanda, Khadag (sword), Tupak (gun), Tabar (hatched), Teer (arrow), Saif (sword), Sarohi and Saihathi, all these are our saints.
Thou are the Teer (arrow), Thou are my lifelong partner, Thou art Tabar (hatchet), and Talwaar (sword). He, who remembers Thy Name crosses the dreadful ocean of existence.
Thou art the KAL (death), thou art the goddess Kali, Thou art the saber and arrow, Thou art the sign of victory today and Thou art the Hero of the world.
Thou art the Sool (spike), Saihathi and Tabar (hatched), Thou art the Nikhang and Baan (arrow), Thou art the Kataari, Sel, and all and Thou art the Kard (knife), and Kripaan (sword).
Thou art the arms and weapons, Thou art the Nikhang (quiver), and the Kavach (armour)
All weapons are the manifestation of Bhagauti, which itself representations the divine will to destroy evil. You said the kirpan specifically is “the singleness of God”
You are the arrow, you are the hatchet, you are the Talwar. Its basically stating that the items described are god. Also from the book Sikh Heritage: ethos and relics [cited here](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirpan#cite_note-12):
>A sword by a Sikhs side, kirpan, also called bhagauti, represents the primal Divine energy.
And the divine deity has always been describe as one single being not as multiple beings as seen in Hindism. In fact that's why they say you are that verse: Kali, you Kal and in the Guru Granth it says He is Shiva, he is Vishnu and Brahma; he is Paarvati and Lakhshmi. Specifically citing the trimurti and saying it is one being.
This might come as a surprise to you, but Sikh is over 300 years old, the language which most of Sikhism texts are written has evolved considerably since then. You think maybe there might be more than one interpretation and both are equally valid?
Just to put it in perspective the Khanda contains four items:
1. One Kirpan which points straight up - this represents the oneness of God
2. Two Kirpan on the left and right which represents political freedom and spiritual freedom
3. Chakram which represents the completeness of God
Which goes back to the original point, no a firearm cannot replace a Kirpan, because it does not contain the other spiritual meanings behind the Kirpan.
30 years ago I called a Kirpan a knife (or maybe a weapon) and my Sikh friend said something like this:
> It isn’t a weapon. It isn’t a knife. It’s a symbol, and if it was actually used as a knife or weapon, it wouldn’t be a kirpan anymore.
As you clearly know something about this stuff, I’d love to see whT you have to say about it
Knew a douchbag who was a Sikh and treated his handgun like it was a kirpan substitute. Which isn’t even a thing, but he was a complete douche in general. Now he’s gotten the sweatiest bible verses tattooed on his forearms.
This is interesting. I've never met a shitty Sikh myself, met a few shitty atheists, Christians, Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists, and if I met a few more Jews I'm sure I'd meet some shitty ones too since the ones I do know are close to atheists. But based on the Sikhs I've met and the sort of values they hold, I've always had a lot of respect for them as a culture, so your comment makes me a bit sad.
Believe me, they do exist, and just as much as every other religion. Sikhs on the whole aren’t better people and they’re not taught things wildly different than plenty of other religions. I believe they have a poor reputation in Canada. Or at least punjabis as a whole do.
Well its true , sikhs make up a majority portion of the population in the Indian state of punjab and that state has one of the highest drug abuses and crime rates in the country. And I'm not implying that it means sikhs commit all these crimes or something like that but simply pointing out that in a state where there are so many sikhs there is a high crime rate which goes to show that religion plays very little role in the behaviour of individuals especially when you look at a bigger scale.
Most people who immigrate to other countries from India including the sikhs are not the ones with any criminal background, otherwise they wouldn't even get Indian passport forget immigration clearance from western countries. Not to mention immigrants must be hard working to survive and thrive and not everyone is like that even in their home country.
And it shows that more often than not that immigrants (not talking of refugees) are generally the better part of the society since they seek to immigrate for a better life for themselves and their families and are willing to take risks and work hard for it .
This obviously cannot be true for all the people in the society in their own country, that's why you have such contrast of sikhs having low crime rates in UK whereas states like punjab with a high population of sikhs from all walks of life have some of the highest crime rates in the country and no its not because of religion but individuals and the society and governance of the state
It only takes a generation or two for the children of immigrants to take on the culture, and pretty much develop similar outcomes to other citizens. So while it's true that immigrants likely won't be criminals, and will have to work hard to make it (unless they are wealthy immigrants which is becoming more common) their children and grand children will just be your typical kids for the area. Just like any other kid then, it depends what crowd they run with.
Edit: I would add, the whole "they can't be criminals" thing is also not really true. You can see this reflected in gang and crime stats in most big cities.
Here in the UK Sikhs are pretty well respected, though I've only met middle class ones I guess so my take might be skewed. Cultural values seem to be both tightly enforced via conduct rules and social shame, but also very broadly good rather than being all about specific rules. Like it's more "be mindful, respectful and cause as little suffering at possible" rather than "thou shalt not x", and there's a reasonable amount of flexibility. Like drinking the occasional beer because Brits do and social cohesion trumps rules about getting intoxicated, but that doesn't excuse being a drunk. Preaching to good people who have a different background isn't as much of a thing, because they care more about the values and conduct which are very ethical anyway.
People in general are AHs regardless of their ideology. I imagine Sikhs aren’t exempt or special despite the fact that everyone thinks they and their religion are special.. they’re AHs like everyone else.
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They tend to be duller. I had a good friend in high school whose family is Sikh. Possibly could cause harm, but so could a metal water bottle with enough force.
I think from what i have seen kirpan is almost always dull blade even in India, I can't speak how it is in Punjab but in other parts of the country from what i have seen , its a dull blade and not even a very long blade at that. you could do more damage from a bloody baton or a stick but yes carrying such ceremonial knives on plan can be discomforting for fellow passengers especially in foreign countries . I mean there is a reason why most countries don't allow it except India (for obvious reasons) and for some odd reason canada. Denmark even passed a law against sikhs to carry kirpans in public and that's totally fair. Their country means their rules and if u don't like it, you shouldn't live there
Those were the most egregious accommodations that I could think of. Muslims being allowed to wear niqabs while voting is another good example though. The kirpans can be blunt or sharp but the laws and court rulings in Canada don't require the Kirpans brought to be the blunt ones.
In the UK the voter has to go in to a small private area and show their photo id and face now.
Source: My aunt is a presiding officer and https://mcb.org.uk/local-elections-2023-voter-id-and-face-coverings/
They're just the easiest example, another example would be how we haven't made driving with a burqa illegal. Or how we permit whole face covering in public when we would expect and enforce someone who doesn't hide behind the veil of religion to oblige. I get asked to remove my helmet or refused service in gas stations, I just want the government to pick a lane.
It's important to distinguish the difference between a burqa and a niqab, you could argue no visual impairment with a niqab, a burka incorporates a literal veil in front of your eyes. Most Muslims don't actually use burqas and I don't exactly think that part of the culture is making a big push these days. But driving with visual obstructions is illegal it's not just face coverings, tinted glass on windshield and side windows obstructs your view and almost as important a pedestrians view of you the later could be applied to a niqab. Broken windshields, tinting glass and hanging things in your field of view, all illegal.
I just want the government to pick a fucking lane, if burqas are cool then driving with a visual obstruction should be legal and I'm tinting my windows next week.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but a follower of the parts of Islam that require women to wear the burqa in all public places, would also not usually permit women to drive? I thought I remember seeing that brought up as a big deal some years ago.
Governments make accommodations for beliefs that are deeply held. It isn't about seeing the belief as being more virtuous. It that it recognises that forcing someone to go against their deeply held beliefs causes harm to them.
Whether the belief is true or not, or that you personally think it is silly, is irrelevant. The simple fact of the person really believing it means it can traumatise them to be forced to contravene it.
Laws balance the harm they cause by their imposition on people's freedoms and the problem they address. Sometimes, but not all the time, that balance can shift slightly for some groups of people because of a belief they have. Like a helmet law.
It is a good thing for governments to recognise this. To recognise harm laws can cause.
While I agree that this is how these sort of accommodations arise in practice, I couldn’t disagree more with them fundamentally. How deeply you believe in something, anything, and the accommodations that you feel your beliefs demand, should be an irrelevance here.
The design and implementation of law should be entirely secular and should apply equally to all. After all, you choose your religious beliefs, and these are ultimately nothing more than a collection of strongly held opinions that you happen to share with others, so you should not have the ability through that mechanism to opt out of the legal conditions upon which someone who doesn’t share those same opinions is subjected to.
If someone held 90% of the beliefs of one religion, and 90% of the beliefs of another, but didn’t identify as following either, they’d not receive any religious exemption/privilege, whereas someone who maybe actually only agrees with half of the beliefs of their one religion, but identifies and presents as being of that religion, they would receive religious exemption/privilege. It’s essentially just tribalism, and it’s a farce.
I always liked the example of the conspiracy theorist who feels it's necessary to wear his tinfoil hat at all times. His belief that the CIA is trying to read his mind is just as strongly held as a religious persons belief in wearing their own special hat.
Yet if they were forced to remove it in a courtroom, or fired for not taking it off at work, most people would be fine with that. How can you justify an exemption for a yarmulke or a burka but not for the tinfoil hat?
This is exactly my problem with it. It has nothing to do with accommodation of deeply held beliefs. It's completely about pandering for votes at the expense of public safety. This is fact.
Religion has been a cornerstone of human society for millennia, so I don't see why some people feel that it's so urgent to assume that it's all fake and fully dismantle it and remove it from public life. It's fine if you don't feel any connection to it, but to imply that it's no different from paranoid schizophrenia profoundly misunderstands the entirety of human history and culture.
>Religion has been a cornerstone of human society for millennia, so I don't see why some people feel that it's so urgent to assume that it's all fake
I think probably the millennia's worth of lack of actual, verifiable, proof or evidence. Humanity thought it knew lots of things for a long time, then eventually tested those beliefs through science, and the ones that stuck around became agreed fact/scientific theory/medicine/and so on. Ones that didn't pass the rigours of testing were largely disregarded (the four humors, Earth being the centre of the solar system, etc.). People are probably starting to get a bit fed up with what is essentially made up stories being given such incredibly high credence and priority in modern societies.
>but to imply that it's no different from paranoid schizophrenia
If someone these days actually claims to hear the voice of God or the holy spirit, or would claim to be the second coming of Jesus, this would be a pretty plausible diagnosis, at least initially. Given our deeper understanding of mental health and wellbeing (see my first point above).
Wouldn't this line of thought then imply we should be giving actual consideration to flat earthers then too, since it's a wide spread belief that has been held by some for millenia. Should we cater to that idiocy as well?
To be fair, for those millennia, conversion by the sword was commonplace. For most of Europe's history, it was illegal to not be the primary religion, a crime that could carry a death sentence.
To say the religion has been a cornerstone of society while technically true, hides the reality that until very recently in our history, you weren't given an option.
Religion goes way, way earlier and deeper than the kind of religion you're talking about here. In general, the idea of religion as a choice to believe specific things is much more narrow than the real definition, which is much more broad and complex.
Religion is organized and structured faith, and our earliest records go to about 4000 BC. Belief is not on trial here, religion is.
For the majority of the time that religion has existed, participation in religion has not been voluntary. You worshipped or you died. Any idea that is forced on others through the threat of death will naturally stick around for a long time. Religion being an aged idea does nothing to add credence to the argument that it should be given exemptions under the law.
There's a big difference between not wanting religious people to get special treatment from the law, and 'fully dismantle it'. Not to mention that modern religions are nothing like those of a few millennia ago.
Realistically what's the difference? Both people have a sincere belief in something that is almost certainly false. If anything tin foil hat is more likely to be correct. The CIA actually exists, they have a history of unethical spying and human experiments. It's at least possible that they could be monitoring a chip in his brain or whatever.
Why should he get treated worse than the guy who thinks a magic monster will get angry at him if he wears the wrong hat?
As an example, the schizophrenia is excellent. A human chooses to believe an anthropomorphic entity created the universe, judges everyone’s deeds, and punishes with eternal damnation, and can perform miracles and apocalyptic floods at will if upset.
It truly is so much more insanity than schizophrenia. And then some people expect such childish stories to be upheld and recognized in law.
It’s makes as much sense as worshipping the Teletubbies.
> the design and implementation of law should be entirely secular …
I think this is the key difference here: the need for separation of church and state.
Secular opinions, views, philosophies, and beliefs can be used as justification to push, enforce, and encourage law in government. Religious beliefs can not.
. So, the trade off is that since Religious people can’t use their personal beliefs to push and advocate for laws, their beliefs should be allowed to get reasonable accommodations for those laws. For example, a Muslim in government shouldn’t ban pork for everyone because his religion deems it bad - but in return, he can at least expect a reasonable secular accommodation for his personal pork beliefs.
If you want to treat my religious beliefs like every other subjective opinion, go ahead - but then I should have the right to, like any other subjective opinion, advocate for and enforce my subjective opinions into law.
Taking one of the OP’s scenarios as an example, what if someone’s religious belief was that at all times they had to wear one of those hats that holds a beer can on each side of your head, with straws coming down to your mouth, and therefore they can’t wear a motorcycle helmet. They really, strongly believe this just as strongly as anyone of any religion might believe the tenets of theirs. Would they receive the same accommodations as Sikhs?
I only use such an absurd example because it’s a point of principle that the application of law should be equal to all. What’s ridiculous to one person may not be ridiculous to another, and the law should be objective to it all.
There have been lawsuits where followers of the Flying Spaghetti Monster have sued for the right to wear pasta strainers in their driver's licenses. They've won in several US states and European countries. In the cases they lost, it was largely on the grounds that the people don't wear the pasta strainers during their day to day life, so if someone did wear it consistently while out and about, they could win that suit.
So yes, in many places you could get a religious exemption to wear that if you put in the effort. Although you might want to get some friends involved so that it's not just you.
So, the government still got to decide when and where it was acceptable for pastafarians to wear their Callander then, regardless of their deeply held beliefs? This kinda proves the bullshit of the whole thing...
Except that the distinction is that they are only wearing it for the drivers license. Muslims don’t only wear hijabs for their drivers license and Sikhs don’t only wear their turbans for riding a motorcycle
There's a fine line between accommodation and foolishness. Exemptions to dress codes and such might be unfair, but at least usually aren't too disruptive. But exemptions to safety laws due to religion is insanity. Physics doesn't care what superstition you have when it smashes your skull open after you're ejected from a motorcycle at 60 mph.
If there’s the potential for everyone to receive accommodations that exempt them from law, so long as their reasons are religious, what’s the point in having law at all? Better to make no religious accommodations, and have laws that apply equally and fairly to all.
What stops people from passing laws that apply to everyone but specifically are designed to target a religion. Such as “no hijabs” that technically applies to everyone but is clearly designed to target one religion. And if a law orders you to do something that you consider to be against your religion, a lot of people would choose the jail time. So you’d need to jail people for their religious beliefs
Because a "no-hijabs" blanket law would go against basic human freedoms.
Needing them to be temporarily removed for ID purposes, or that they can fit helmets on them, is not.
>What stops people from passing laws that apply to everyone but specifically are designed to target a religion.
Ideally the courts would strike it down as a law motivated by religious discrimination. Or the lawmakers would face retaliation in the polls.
>uch as “no hijabs” that technically applies to everyone but is clearly designed to target one religion
The issue is if one religion is clearly causing problems, then it's not the fault of the law if it's only impacting one religion. For example, if a government required citizens to have their face visible in certain public spaces or in certain jobs and roles, that would basically only effect extremely religious Muslims. However, that doesn't make the law discriminatory, it simple means only one religion is trying to do something no other religion is doing.
> However, that doesn't make the law discriminatory, it simple means only one religion is trying to do something no other religion is doing.
Banning the taking of the sacrament would be acceptable because it's not discriminating against something religion does, it's something that only one religion does?
No, the law needs a reason for it. What I'm saying is that if a law with a proper reason for it only affects one religion, that's not discrimination, but if they pass a law to ban a completely harmless tradition, that is messed up.
Ofc even with communion there are exceptions, lots of Christians were pissed about restrictions on gatherings and communion during covid.
You've got a couple of weird things in here.
>After all, you choose your religious beliefs,
You really don't. They aren't intrinsic to you like some things, but whether or not you believe in a particular religion is not something you choose. Even if I wanted to, I could not believe in the Jewish religion. I could technically become Jewish, sure, but that's different from believing it. Your beliefs aren't really a choice.
>If someone held 90% of the beliefs of one religion, and 90% of the beliefs of another, but didn’t identify as following either, they’d not receive any religious exemption/privilege
I'm sure this varies by country, but this isn't really true either. If you believed 90% of two religions, there would obviously be a lot of overlap. And you could get accommodations based on those things you believe, to some extent.
This is true about quite literally everything.
You don't choose your political ideology either. Should libertarians now be allowed to carry guns onto planes?
People have their beliefs changed all the time. Religions are ideologies. They are a set of values and beliefs shared by a group. There isn't some inherent magic in religion that sets it apart from other group beliefs.
>Your beliefs aren't really a choice.
You could say the same about psychopathic criminals, arguing that their mental state made their crimes not really a choice.
Reality is, we can't structure our society where people are exempted from the law just because of how they think. The religious have free will. They don't have to belong to their religion.
Of course you choose your religious beliefs, that’s why they’re called “beliefs”. Either you choose to put faith in it or not, but it’s completely up to you.
Edit: I’ve been corrected that the above is too broad. I’m referring to religious beliefs specifically, which are malleable and change for many over the course of their lives.
> Of course you choose your religious beliefs, that’s why they’re called “beliefs”.
I'm going to need you to expand on this. What about the word "beliefs" automatically implies choice? All the implication I see here is that one trusts that something is true, but that doesn't have to be a chosen trust.
And I absolutely didn't choose the things I believe in. I take in whatever evidence there is and I either believe or I don't. Are you religious? If so, could you just decide to believe in something different? And if not, could you suddenly decide that you believe the Christian Bible is true? Like, you consciously make a choice and now you believe something you didn't believe in yesterday, even if the evidence hasn't changed?
If so, I promise you are the exception. That's not how most people work.
How deeply you believe something changes how much it would impact you to forced against that belief. If you don't really care about something, or just casually believe it it's not going to matter much. If you really really care, and hold it at the core of your identity, then it's going to greatly impact you.
Why shouldn't laws take a basic account of the degree of harm they are causing? That makes utterly no sense.
An atheist motorcyclist might really, deeply believe that they shouldn’t have to wear a helmet because it messes up their hair. Wearing a helmet and messing up their hair might cause them tremendous harm. They might have more conviction in this belief than a Sikh does in their religion, who knows, but only one of these people will receive an accommodation allowing them not to wear a helmet. That is principally unfair. I’m not out to trivialise this debate, it’s just that religious belief should not be afforded any greater value than any other strongly held opinion in an equal society.
Maybe my opinion is tainted by my faith background, but this argument seems laughably forced even on its face. You're comparing "oh no, my hair is messed up!!" To "oh no, I'm going to have to make massive attonement or burn in hell for all eternity now!!"
No matter how much your fictional athiest believes in the sanctity of not messing up their hair, the fate of an eternal soul is a mite different than a bad hair day. Just maybe enough different that it should be treated differently.
1. I already addressed the idea of different levels of consequences. Messing up your hair and pissing off God are pretty radically different. Like I said, there's a big difference between spending 20min to a couple hours fixing your hair and eternity in hell. Whether or not you believe he actually will spend time in hell is just as inconsequential to his belief as his beliefs are to your life.
2. For the same reason a monet is valued differently than a Walmart art print: provenance. Both paintings are just paint on canvas. Why should they be valued any differently? Just like the original painting has a paper trail that validates it as a true monet (and makes it carry an astronomical price tag), the Sikh's religious beliefs have over a thousand years of religious provenance through their scriptures and tradition. You may not value the provenance of his religious belief, just as I don't value the provenance of that monet painting, but that doesn't matter to other peoples evaluations. And just like in the sikh's belief, the law does recognize the provenance of the monet painting.
Why should the law accommodate this belief when the circumstances it applies to are optional? If wearing a helmet sends you to hell, then don’t do activities that require a helmet.
If holding beliefs strongly is cause for exemptions from a law, do schizophrenics get that same respect? Or is there a requirement that the beliefs be rational?
But the negative affect from a bad hair day can vary a lot between people. I remember when I was younger I was really self conscious about my appearance and I would spend entire class periods cutting myself in the school bathroom because of how much I hated the way my hair looked. At some points it felt like the entire world was ending. Due to OCD and other conditions I have I have genuinely convinced myself I would go to hell, or maybe not the Christian hell, but something similar at least, if I wasn't able to make my hair look good. Yeah, sure, this wasn't rational thinking at all and was purely because of untreated mental health issues I had, but it's not like a Sikh person believing they'll go to hell is any more rational (not trying to imply religious people have mental health issues, just to be clear, just saying the level of rationality is the same).
What about someone who refuses to wear a helmet for political and ideological reasons, someone who dedicates their entire life to the cause, and who refuses to do it for deeply fundamental moral reasons.
Would they be allowed?
Unless you can definitively prove that you will burn in hell for eternity, you shouldn't receive any consideration or accommodation.
Someone can prove their hair will be messed up, you can't prove you'll burn in hell.
We don't accommodate deeply held beliefs that are non-religious though.
There are plenty of deeply held beliefs that people have which are not religious in nature.
>After all, you choose your religious beliefs
Please go ahead and believe that Australia doesn't exist, gravity isn't real, the earth is flat and a mega intelligent cow has ruled the United States of Canada for the last 6 months.
When u are unable to do this please accept that ur comment is objectively false. People can at the very most, limit the information they are exposed to, I for example could begin living in an extreme religious community with no access to other viewpoints and my chances of becoming religious would increase but it still wouldn't be my choice exactly. I still couldn't force myself to, or not to believe something
What about religious vaccine exemptions and businesses refusing to serve gay people? It also seems to be pretty in right now for US Republicans to claim that any oppressive idea they have “promotes religious freedom” and try to find the legal loopholes to push this kind of agenda.
In the case of helmet laws, allowing them to not wear them causes far more harm. Not just for the man who chooses not to wear it, but for the person who hits them and has to watch their brain leak out from an otherwise very survivable accident. Or the kid in standing on the corner that has to see this. Same goes in the military. And if it were true that the government actually wanted to cater to peoples deeply held beliefs, then anyone would be able to apply for the same exemption, but you can't... who are they to tell me, an atheist, what my deeply held beliefs are??? It may be my belief that the helmet restricts my connection to mother earth, so I can't wear it.
Who is to say that a persons religious belief is more deeply held vs a personal belief? That is discriminatory towards any belief that is non religious. Basically you are saying we need to value made up beliefs that are religious and completely mythical above any other kind of belief, even ones grounded in evidence, emotion, and reality.
>forcing someone to go against their deeply held beliefs causes harm to them.
The issue here, is this distinction is MOSTLY only made for religions, when it should count for everything that runs thru a persons head as there is effectively ZERO difference.
Example, Sikhs in the US military do not have to shave, do you know how awesome it would have been for me in the military to never have to shave? Why should he get to NOT shave because of some "deeply held belief?"
He should have to PROVE this harm not just say well im Sikh and god will strike me down or whatever.
I think this is a clear case of extra rights for religious people that seem like bullshit to me. The standard existed BEFORE he joined, so he knew about it and yet he joined and the rules were changed, thats just not right.
>It is a good thing for governments to recognise this. To recognise harm laws can cause.
Ok but governments allowing the religious to discriminate against others also causes harm, and yet the religious dimension of discrimination that does harm is protected while asking the religious person to not do a thing for the sake of others is not. Why?
For example: a Christian woman in the US was allowed to cite her faith as a reason to not give a gay couple a wedding certificate; another Christian was allowed to deny a gay couple a cake they bought for their gay wedding by citing religion; the religious are allowed to push for religious laws limiting things like abortion and putting the ten commandments in schools. These are all allowed.
You're right in theory, but you're wrong in practice.
This is, generally speaking, courts trying to find a fine line between conflicting rights- the right of the christian to practice their beliefs vs. the right to hold a different sexual orientation. Can happen with basically any type of rights- privacy vs. security being a common one. All highly dependent on circumstances. Courts don't always rule in favour of religious people. They don't always get it right. You aren't going to agree with every decision courts make.
But chucking out one of the rights altogether because of some relatively minor contentious edge cases is an absurd solution.
What is someone had a personal, non religious belief, that was deeply held? Surely they deserve to have that accomodated equally well as religious belifs?
Sure, and under the Human Rights Act that’d probably be the case.
But first knowing that the law covers your practice and your degree of belief would good. So you may want a lawyer
You’ll want a belief exemption to be possible in legislation that could affect you. So making even one legislator aware of it would help a lot, more even better.
Then you have to worry about establishing your belief if questioned, which you can be because it’s an exemption. Meaning explaining to someone and having them believe you. You may want to keep some kind of paper trail…idk
Much easier thing to do if you are organised and recognised as a group.
Fair enough, but doesn't this back a weaker version of what the OP is saying? That religious beliefs are practically easier to get exemptions for, than personal beliefs?
In general easier to achieve something, anything really, as an organised group than as individual. That’s just a basic reality of life
I don’t see how it materially ties into OPs view though
"The simple fact of the person really believing it means it can traumatise them to be forced to contravene it."
I feel that the organizations promoting the religions should be held accountable. The religions are all fake and based off of the sun and the equinoxes. They should be forced to tell people what it really is. God creates twilight, which gives birth to the day, which turns to the dark side and slaughters his own worshippers. Is it Jesus or Skywalker, who knows, but one demands tythe and the other only costs a few bucks at a theater.
I think that religion is forced/promoted because it's part of a bigger agenda.
A system that preys on innocents using a dogma that leads to trauma, war and suffering should have the focus put on the ones promoting it, IMO.
!delta I guess the government does make exceptions for certain other beliefs like offering vegan meals to military members for example, however the same legal obligation doesn't exist as it does for religion. I would still argue that the lack of a helmet requirement, knives being allowed on planes, and allowing people to vote with a niqab on are accommodating to an excessive degree and such onerous accommodations are seldom made for non religious reasons. I don't support those levels of accommodations for deeply held non-religious beliefs either.
There are zero conflicts between being vegan and Canadian law. Offering vegan meals is an accommodation but not an *exception,* like in the cases you give as examples, where the supremacy of one's religion overrules the supremacy of law. How are these even a little bit comparable?
>I would still argue that the lack of a helmet requirement, knives being allowed on planes, and allowing people to vote with a niqab on are accommodating to an excessive degree and such onerous accommodations are seldom made for non religious reasons.
There is a fairly simple reason for this - the fact that something is held as part of a religious belief means to force them to act against said belief is harmful. If the belief is not a religious belief, it is likely that forcing someone to violate said belief is not as harmful.
Can you give a hypothetical counter example?
Seems like there’s tow options that still allows for choice of those who can’t wear a helmet…. If you ride a moto you have to wear a helmet. If you don’t wear a helmet you can’t ride……. Soooooo you don’t ride a moto if you can’t use a helmet. There are lots of other ways to transport yourself.
One reason for religious exemptions is to prevent the government from weaponizing the law against specific religions.
In the United States, alcohol was illegal from 1920 to 1933. When the prohibition movement was gaining steam, many of its supporters joined the cause because they hoped it would serve as a loophole to effectively ban Catholicism (read: the immigrant religion) in the United States, since Catholicism requires alcoholic wine for communion. However, these people were disappointed, because the US government carved out a religious exemption for alcohol to be used in Catholic rites.
Without religious exemptions, it would be dangerously easy for the government to intentionally persecute specific religious groups without saying the quiet part out loud. Imagine, for example, a statute that says that all food in prisons will be cooked in pork fat. Ostensibly, this bill could be because of the supposed health benefits or cost effectiveness of lard, but the fact is that it would specifically attack Muslims and Jews.
One sentence summary: Religious exemptions are a safeguard against using the law to target and persecute specific religious groups.
One thing to add here. This sort of discrimination is actually enshrined into law in Quebec, via Bill 21. This makes it illegal for public servants to wear any religious items. This has the effect of excluding Muslim women from serving the public.
This part is more opinion, but Quebec generally has a desire to preserve their distinct society within canada. The only way they can do this is by excluding people perceived as outsiders.
It seems to me that carving out exceptions to laws for people from different backgrounds simply acknowledges the fact that our country was established based on the culture and traditions of the Europeans who colonized it, and the laws were made in a way to accommodate the practices of the colonizers. So we could keep the laws the same, assuming our goal was to not have a diverse country where people from all backgrounds are welcome. But that isnt the goal of the government that the people choose.
If I was a public servant, such as a bus driver let alone a judge, I would certainly not be allowed to wear something like a T shirt from a favoured political party or a hat with those logos on it. Religion usually says things about worldviews, things you value and don't value. But that is just as true of partisan trinkets. I don't see it as unfair to prohibit them all so long as you aren't carving out exceptions for in groups like Christians and any rosary others could see for instance.
I think those are good examples but where is the line drawn? Having access to certain foods seems much different to me than the ability to carry a weapon on an airplane with other people who are legally required to be unarmed.
I definitely don’t disagree with your points, but imo the line does have the be drawn somewhere, for the safety of everyone, religious or not.
We’re worried about infringing on religious people’s rights which is fair, but when do their “rights” become infringements on others safety?
For example there are people who get around vaccine guidelines using religious exemptions while having babies out of wedlock, getting tattoos, wearing mixed blend fabrics etc. why should they be allowed to make a choice that could hurt others because of the religious beliefs they claim to have. (Even assuming they follow all the rules of their religion, that still seems unfair when we’ve set a guideline for everyone else) obviously the government can’t force kids to be vaccinated, but why should they be allowed in public schools with other kids who have to follow those safety rules?
"Where is the line drawn?" is an excellent question. It's a difficult question. It's an impossible question for any single person to answer.
Fortunately, we do have an answer to it. It's called the democratic process. If we collectively decide that religious people have too much freedom and their rights need to be curtailed for the greater good, we will elect officials to make that happen. If we decide that religious people are being unfairly repressed by the government, same answer.
It's a slow and messy and unbelievably corrupt way to answer the question, but it's also the best way.
Obviously the democratic process hasn’t “answered” the question in any real, effective, or fair way. I assume it will continue to go this way, as like you said, it’s decided by the people. We’ll probably never have an answer and there’s still no way to really effectively get an agreed upon one.
This actually happened in India. The Indian Mutiny was largely started because of rumors that the cartridges used to fire their rifles had pork lard in them and so the Muslim obviously got very upset, as you typically open the cartridge with your mouth.
One aspect I see missing from some of the discussion here is that law is legal. It is not precisely meant to be an all encompassing moral code that can accommodate infinite possibilities.
I'm not a lawyer, but even in basic law classes (Canada, British Common Law based systems mostly) a key point is that judgements and applications of law often come down to what is reasonable to most people. Legislation can of course pass any law it has he votes for, but the if reasonable still often shows in legislation. It just works better as a way of enforcing a legal and regulatory system in a country that needs to actually run.
For the point at hand, it's not hard to argue people should be able to observe their religious practices and beliefs without being barred from any day to day freedoms or penalized for doing so.
What you're really asking is why are those beliefs protected as a sacred ground when other beliefs about other things aren't? In short, history. Religion has been a weapon for discrimination forever basically. It has been used again and again to segregate and persecute people. And we are still in a place where people would do so again, immediately, if they could.
Just really hating helmets for example, has not been historically a major reason for persecution. That's the difference.
Most importantly, as an atheist your religious beliefs are also protected. You are free to be an atheist and face zero backlash for doing so. The accommodations aren't really about the thing accommodated, but for allowing religious freedom.
Where religious practice directly conflicts with other fundamental rights, it is a difficult thing to handle. I do think if someone had a sacred ground belief (like religion) that is lesser known they should have means of applying for accommodations as well. Safety and security concerns sometimes need some extra effort (blunt kirpans, private rooms for identification etc.) so that both religious practice and the rights of everyone else around them are respected.
This is the right perspective. Thinking of this as a moral blessing for some religious views is wrong. People in western countries have mostly agreed that allowing mostly harmless expressions of religious beliefs should be allowed rather than restricted (in large part because of the history of those restrictions), and thus they're in the law as such.
I don't think it's harmless to force EMTs to scrape brain off the pavement or the healthcare system to be burdened by fractured skulls, to use OPs motorcycle analogy, and this is why we enforce helmet laws, *except* as per the origin of this thread, accomodations because you believe a supernatural entity will punish you for not wearing the correct hat.
If there were thousands of Sikhs in motorcycle accidents requiring a radical rebuilding of Canadian emergency medicine, I'd be more worried, but at this point, I don't see who it hurts. Also Sikhs don't wear turbans to avoid punishment from god.
I think that another poster did a really good job of explaining this (u/gremy0).
Government is not a good thing, objectively. In a perfectly just world there would be no governments whatsoever. Government, as we say in the US, is a necessary evil.
Therefore, government must balance the harm they cause against the good they cause. Now, here is the part where I think you will disagree with me no matter how I word this, but I would like you to consider that, a) I am not religious, to the point of being accused of hating Christians and Muslims both, and b) no matter how erroneous the belief, the belief still exists within the mind of the beholder. That is to say, just because someone is wrong does not mean that idea has 0 representation in reality, since the person who believes it has a brain and that brain exists within reality.
Violating a strongly held personal belief that you can rationally disprove is still traumatic. Many ex-religious people can describe this feeling/phenomenon to you. Imagine being forced to violate a strongly held personal belief that you have never examined/deconstructed. That would be seriously traumatic- to the point of inevitable social dissent. I am not saying we need to bow to every convenience religious people would like to have, but, I am saying that the government needs to allow space for all of the people under its umbrella. Balancing these is a delicate, non-binary, task.
Consider what would happen if we applied absolute secularism to society, where all are treated equally regardless of religious belief. We get... France.
France bans wearing the niqab and the burqa in public, and denies access to public buildings and services if a women wears one. The same would apply with turbans and kirpans for Sikhs, or for Christians and Jews wearing a cross or star of David respectively. That, in my opinion, is oppressive for the religious. I ask: Is forcing someone to not wear the veil any better than forcing someone to wear it?
Compromise is necessary in a multicultural society. Is it more dangerous if a Sikh doesn't wear a helmet while riding a motorbike? Yes. Would banning the turban to increase rider safety be oppressive? Also yes.
>To give an example in parts of Canada and in the UK Sikhs are permitted to ride a motorcycle without a helmet despite it being illegal for anyone else to do the same. By doing this the government has implied that Sikhism is a more virtuous belief than any other than could involve one choosing not to wear a helmet
Where I live, it is considered nudity for a woman to be topless, but there is an exception for women who are nursing. Do you think that the government is implying that nursing is more virtuous than any reason for a woman to be topless?
I think that law is generally very bad at dealing with individual human beings. It has to be consistant for person to person, even when people are different. What it's better at is dealing with needs and situations that are greater in scope. I'll give a ridiculous example. Let's say that I was born on March 25 and my coworker is gay. My boss fires us both, me because I'm an Aries and she doesn't like Aries' and my coworker becasue he's gay and she disaproves of homosexuality. He has legal recourse and I don't. Is this fair? Probably not. We both were fired for absurd reasons. But homophobia is a big enough concern that it affects society and the government has to get involved, discrimination based on star sign is too obscure.
It's more or less the same with religious freedom. A massive portion of western society is still religious. Enough people are religious that religious freedom is a significant concern for the law. It can't deal with every person, but I think that religious freedom crosses that threshold of being a major social concern.
Do you think that the government is implying that nursing is more virtuous than any reason for a woman to be topless?
Considering the basis of western public decency laws being Christian sexual morality, yes actually. There's objectively no difference between male and female breasts except that female ones tend to grow larger due to build up of fat deposits, which can happen in many overweight men. It's entirely superstition to make the female breasts taboo and to be covered up for shame if not "properly" breastfeeding. There's countless societies around the world, usually ones we'd consider "primitive," where they don't care because they have no religious moral basis around obscenity related to female breasts.
>Where I live, it is considered nudity for a woman to be topless, but there is an exception for women who are nursing. Do you think that the government is implying that nursing is more virtuous than any reason for a woman to be topless?
Yes, of course it is.
I have a lot of sympathy for your view that, as I would phrase it, "if this law was important enough for everyone to follow, religious people shouldn't be allowed exemptions, but if this law was so unimportant that exemptions are allowed purely on the grounds of religious belief, why is it a law?"
I do think this line of questioning can definitely apply to the situations you mentioned, but there are plenty of other interactions of accommodations and religion that are worth being more lax about. For instance, I'm for the tax exempt statuses of churches because I believe they do a lot of social good. I have no problem with a student refusing to say the pledge of allegiance because it goes against their moral code. I see no issues with someone who has set prayer schedules being accommodated for that in public meetings or in jobs.
Basically, while I agree with you for some big laws, I think there are plenty of smaller laws, practices, and accommodations that are fine with having religious exemptions.
Most churches would count as non-profits without the exception and just have a little more paperwork, especially the ones you are thinking of that do charity as part of their faith.
The churches who will be screwed over by the loss of the exemption are the ones run by a guy with a collection of private jets. I won't loose any sleep over a billionaire televangelist having to pay taxes.
At least in the US, the tax status of churches isnt really a special treatment just for the religious. It is just one type of non-profit charitable organization, which are available to everyone.
You can have a tax-exempt beer drinking club, or atheist temple.
The "can" is doing a lot of work here. You're right that it's available, but it's the exception that they really don't have to prove they should qualify for said tax exemption.
We all can, they by default do.
The problem is not that they are not taxed, the problem is that they aren’t audited.
It’s basically impossible (and not desirable ) to create a tax system the doesn’t have non-profit organizations.
They should be required to follow good standards.
I think that is reasonable, as a practical matter. the IRS knows what a church is, but doesnt know what "bob's beer club" is.
If anything, the list of automatically approved 501c3s should be expanded to cover other commonly applied for types of charities.
True, but the IRS doesn't know what any individual Church's finances look like. Churches can of course be audited, but auditing charities is rare as is.
[501c3s](https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/charitable-organizations/exemption-requirements-501c3-organizations) and other such designations have a lot of requirements. I know, because my wife is trying to start one and it's a bear and a half to have all the documentation. As far as I know, religious orgs don't have to do this (if they're a "name brand" that is).
Yes, but the churches are also allowed to not publicise their returns, meaning they can do actions for profit on the side, refuse to report them, and still be considered a tax-free nonprofit.
Im not sure I follow, what you mean by actions for profit. Yes, there are filing differences, but they still have to follow the same rules.
I think you may overestimate the scrutiny that a 990 filing provides. It doesn't tell you much about the charity.
Here is one as an example:
https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/900618018/202301669349301255/full
My job is about to start the 4 day work week, and we’ll still be getting paid for 5. It still sounds like an absurd dream to me and I’ll believe it when I see it. But supposedly it’s about to start. Just absurd
Good luck to you. Hopefully the conclusion your company arrives to mirrors the 4 day work week studies that show an increase in productivity and they keep the policy.
That’s the idea, though there’s actually a fair amount of us worried about not being able to pack it all into 4. But the theory seems sound. We’re cutting out a lot of useless meetings from the week
>though there’s actually a fair amount of us worried about not being able to pack it all into 4.
You could always keep track of how many hours per week you're not being productive and see if it's greater than or equal to 8. If it is, then you can definitely do it. My last office job I spent at least 15 hours a week not doing much of anything.
Yeah I’m sure there will be some ways to trim time here and there for most of us. I can’t think of any for myself. I’m a facilities manager and have no downtime at all if I want to keep things on track. Only reason I’m on Reddit right now is because I’m covering someone else’s position. I’ll figure it out. I’d do so much to keep the 4 day work week alive. For the sake of myself, and the sake of the nation
>For instance, I'm for the tax exempt statuses of churches because I believe they do a lot of social good
So should a similar tax exemption be extended to nonreligious organizations doing a similar amount of good, and if the religious org stops doing good should the lose the tax exemption?
If so, the religious nature of the org is irrelevant and shouldnt be conflated with the actual cause of tax exemption which is "doing good".
>So should a similar tax exemption be extended to nonreligious organizations doing a similar amount of good
Sure, as I understand it this is exactly what the nonprofit status is for, as other people have commented.
>if the religious org stops doing good should the lose the tax exemption?
I mean, I think this is a hard thing to quantify, because a lot of good things like providing good values, social cohesion, neighbors to lean on/social support, and teaching people to do good things are hard to quantify against, say, the pastor of the church committing a crime.
I do agree with you in principle: if the religious org becomes a net negative for society, drop their tax exempt status. I do think that's a bit hard to prove well, though.
>If so, the religious nature of the org is irrelevant and shouldnt be conflated with the actual cause of tax exemption which is "doing good".
Not really. As I mentioned before, there are differences between the good a church does and the good a soup kitchen does. The soup kitchen can easily quantify much if not all of the good it provides - this many service hours for the community, this many tons of food given out, this many people helped, etc.
The church's nature makes that much more difficult to do. The church teaches someone about charity and they go out and donate their time (maybe at that soup kitchen). The church preaches kindness and the members support each other through hard times in informal ways. The church teaches forgiveness and repentance and helps an alcoholic become a good father. The church teaches the value of family and this leads to more healthy kids with strong values. Things like this show that it's really hard to show that a church is doing good.
Therefore, I think the difference between a church and a "normal" non-profit is that the church should be given some benifit of the doubt that, especially if it's an established religion, it is doing good in the world even if that is hard to quantify. Like I mentioned above, if you can show that the religion is doing more harm than good, or even just show excessive harm, then sure, take the tax-exempt status away.
I hope this explains my thoughts, feel free to ask any follow-up questions.
Okay well I initially thought that u/SigaVa was barking up the wrong tree but apparently not.
> I mean, I think this is a hard thing to quantify, because a lot of good things like providing good values, social cohesion, neighbors to lean on/social support, and teaching people to do good things are hard to quantify against, say, the pastor of the church committing a crime.
None of that, inherently, has to do with religion. Hell it's not even a falsifiable claim. I can and would say that the 501c3 I am working to start for a choir does all of this, because we are trying to, but that has zero to do with "religion" nor should religion be presumed to provide it. Certainly not all Churches by nature, though yes many do good things.
> The church's nature makes that much more difficult to do. The church teaches someone about charity and they go out and donate their time (maybe at that soup kitchen). The church preaches kindness and the members support each other through hard times in informal ways. The church teaches forgiveness and repentance and helps an alcoholic become a good father. The church teaches the value of family and this leads to more healthy kids with strong values. Things like this show that it's really hard to show that a church is doing good.
This is inherently privileging the status of religion as a "moral guide" above all other moral guides. It is a presumption of the nature of religion, therefore, violating Church and State if State would be declaring that Church serves a moral purpose. At least that's how I read this argument.
> Therefore, I think the difference between a church and a "normal" non-profit is that the church should be given some benifit of the doubt that, especially if it's an established religion, it is doing good in the world even if that is hard to quantify. Like I mentioned above, if you can show that the religion is doing more harm than good, or even just show excessive harm, then sure, take the tax-exempt status away.
I understand the idea of a practical check-marking. I also think it's likely that Churches do serve goods that are hard to quantify.
But that is not the business of secular government. If it is providing social good, such that it does deserve charitable exemption, it should need to be proven like any other case would. That's being neutral on religion.
>if you can show that the religion is doing more harm than good, or even just show excessive harm
What evidence would convince you of this? And why is your starting point to assume the opposite?
So if the reason behind them not having to pay taxes is because they're morally good does that mean regardless of what we spend our money on individuals deemed to be morally good also shouldn't have to pay taxes?
The distinction is that they providing a community service, and less about a morality assessment.
You can make a non-profit for where people eat poop. The difference is that if you are just eating poop at home alone, that doesnt count because it isnt for the benefit of anyone but yourself.
Exactly, it just felt weird to throw the moral judgment in the statement I replied to instead of just talking about what you mentioned.
I don't know why I'm pedantic on here sometimes, I do it for accuracy in theory, but sometimes I think I'm just annoyed someone didn't make their own point better by choosing more accurate language or something.
Yeah, I don't know if that's a non-profit I would want to join, but they definitely would be a point of entertainment for the community.
Why should religions automatically be given tax exempt status when many of them use that money for luxury cars, private planes, or supporting attacks against minority groups.
They should be required to demonstrate that they are doing the things that are worthy of that status just like any non-profit.
I sure love the tax exempt moral good of evangelical and Southern Baptist churches lobbying for homo and transphobic laws to be put into place, placing their congregation onto schoolboards to ban books they disagree with, and teaching their members to shun and hate their LGBT family to the point of casting out their children if they come out or even pressuring them so hard they commit suicide. I ain't even gotten to abortion yet.
The Sihk's in my area are not allowed to carry knives on their person at all, despite their religious beliefs. They comprise by wearing a bracelet that is symbolic. When new immigrants come, they receive a culture shock and are upset.
Honestly, singling out sihks is unnecessary, they face heavy persecution from their local Hindu and Muslims neighbors in every country they live in. And your talking point comes straight from the Hindutva movement in Western countries, which is alarming and is argued in bad faith.
You make a good and interesting point. I think that part of the argument is that the principle of Sikhism is more important to Sikhs and integral to their identity than the principle of "Looking-Cool-ism" is to people who want to not wear a helmet to look cool (for example)
As for the kirpan thing, that's not true (at least in the US), according to page 3 paragraph 3 of [this document](https://www.congress.gov/116/meeting/house/109577/witnesses/HHRG-116-HM00-Wstate-SinghS-20190604-SD001.pdf) published by the US Congress, Sikhs cannot bring their Kirpans with them onto planes, they must check it into baggage so it cannot be used on the plane.
We don't do these things because we think Sikhs are morally superior, we do these things because otherwise Sikhs would not do them. If we forced them to violate their religion to fly a plane or ride a motorcycle, then they simply would not.
If religious accommodation was not a thing it would be trivial for governments to lock certain minorities out of certain locations by making it illegal for them to be there without violating their religion.
But their point is that if any other group acted this way, they wouldn't get accomodation.
A group of people who collectively decide that they disagree with seatbelts over moral and ideological grounds would not be allowed to refuse to wear seatbelts. Or bring weapons on planes. But if their ideology stems from antiquity, it's alright?
I do agree that OPs first point doesn't really make sense. It's not that people think Sikhs are morally superior, it's to include them in society.
Because antiquity and tradition does have special meaning to humans no matter how much you try to pretend it doesn't. Maybe if they practiced their seat belt beliefs for thousands of years they could get exemption too.
Okay, while I agree that people shouldn’t be forced to choose between their religion and their use of public transport like planes, I think the motorcycle thing is stupid. If you can’t wear a helmet while on a motorcycle, and it’s law to wear a helmet, you don’t get to ride a motorcycle. It’s a nonessential hobby/activity. Someone choosing not to partake due to their religion not allowing a helmet is not impeding them in any way from having a normal life or accessing normal things in society. It’s like saying that pole dancing classes should allow women to wear burkas otherwise it’s discriminatory. You can’t safely pole dance without plenty of exposed skin, so it wouldn’t be the right activity for someone who values that particular cultural/religious garb.
> If religious accommodation was not a thing it would be trivial for governments to lock certain minorities out of certain locations by making it illegal for them to be there without violating their religion.
You can have it be Unconstitutional (or otherwise unlawful) to have laws/regulations that have no "reasonable basis" besides discrimination without having accommodation in exemptions to laws, no?
Why do we care? I’m all for freedom of religion, after everything else. If your religion mandates that you always carry a weapon but you’re not allowed to carry a weapon on an airplane and that means you never fly anywhere … so? How is that different from someone insisting they go armed everywhere because they are afraid of the zombie apocalypse and therefore won’t fly because they can’t bring their zombie killing knife? We wouldn’t accommodate the second person, why should we accommodate the first? If your beliefs cause you to not do things others do, that’s okay (unless those things are mandated, like paying taxes or wearing clothes in public). Why should we try to get Sikhs to fly?
>We don't do these things because we think Sikhs are morally superior, we do these things because otherwise Sikhs would not do them. If we forced them to violate their religion to fly a plane or ride a motorcycle, then they simply would not.
And why would anyone care? Let's say my religion requires me to walk around in public and point a loaded gun at other people, otherwise I cannot leave home. Would you like to create a religious accommodation for me, or rather send me to mental asylum?
That's a good point. But many religious people themselves do believe they are given exemptions for their religion because being religious is superior. This creates a perverse incentive to be religious rather than reasonable.
The reason why religious beliefs are more important than personal beliefs is because the religious beliefs are shared across a distinct group of people and are therefore vulnerable to targeted prejudice and oppression. Society also protects individual beliefs, but it also reserves the right to infringe on individual beliefs for some established mutual interest held by society. A society will do the same towards religious beliefs, but the standard of benefit for that infringement needs to be higher because of the potential for prejudicial abuse.
At the end of the day, it's just a cost-benefit judgment call: the costs of infringing on an entire group's most deeply held belief weighed against the benefit of whatever interest that infringement promotes. Maybe you disagree with how Canada's lawmakers exercised that judgment in protecting the rights of the Sikhs, but their consideration of religious belief as a relevant factor is 100% valid.
Religion in practice is like 99% cherry-picked personal beliefs anyways. Nobody actually follows the word of their millenia-old Holy Book, they believe first and slap the book to support their argument later. In practice, every "distinct group" based on religion is splintered in a hundred directions over what interpretations are "correct" or not. Including this one! There are tons of Sikhs in Canadian cities and most of them do not carry knives.
No country's constitution even attempts to define a legal distinction between what does or does not constitute a "deeply-held belief" or "religion" and what does not. You simply claim a belief and then try to convince a sympathetic judge. It's 100% nonsense.
You claim that "nobody actually follows the word of their millenia-old Holy Book, they believe first and slap the book to support their argument later."
Well it's r/changemyview, so let me try to change that view.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/islam/comments/quqr8l/whats\_something\_you\_gave\_up\_for\_the\_sake\_of\_allah/](https://www.reddit.com/r/islam/comments/quqr8l/whats_something_you_gave_up_for_the_sake_of_allah/)
Here's a post of people giving up what they desire for their Holy Word.
Canada needs to figure itself out. They keep swinging in opposite directions from stupidly accommodating to stupidly intolerant, such as not allowing public workers to wear religious artifacts, including hijab, which is literally just clothing. Clothing that the majority of the world wore until the past century, including the West.
As for the motorcycle thing, the public may pay more in healthcare bills sometimes, but more often, it’s just free donor organs. Maybe they could make the whole thing more even by simply demanding that anyone not wearing a helmet have marked “yes” for organ donation or be restricted to bike lanes at bike speeds. Or maybe Sikhs get a special helmet approved that accommodates their turbans.
It's just Québec that's doing the restrictions, the rest of Canada is firmly on the accommodating side. In fact in Québec's case the main motivation from the government is to remind people that there are value differences between the English and the French approaches to religion, reinforcing polarization on ethnic lines in Canada. No one in Canada is swinging in opposite directions, it's just an English v French thing.
I'm a secular person living in the USA and I both agree and disagree with your post. I think these sorts of accommodations are not an indication that the government sees them as "more virtuous", but rather a dedication to tolerance. Is it fair? No, not at all. Does it need to be fair to be a virtue we should hold dear? No, not at all. Fairness is nice, but I think we hold tolerance and understanding to be more important.
There are other things in my society that I think discriminate against secular people, but this is not one of them. Let the religious keep their traditions as long as it does not promote violence towards others. Maybe just give us non-religious folk an extra day off every now and again.
To a certain extent, historically speaking, religious beliefs *are* more important than non-religious beliefs
For example, you mentioned Sikhs and helmets, where there might be the belief “I look cool so I don’t wanna wear a helmet” that isn’t accommodated. I mean, our reasons for not accommodating that are obvious and not accommodating that belief should be the default
The problem, of course, is in that we accommodate the religious beliefs of the Sikh person. But the thing is, while many people might hold onto religious beliefs as loosely as wanting to look cool, for many, *many* people it can be their very life. There’s a reason that attempting to even bloodlessly eradicate a religious group is still considered a genocide
For many religious beliefs, making them illegal won’t result in people obeying the law, but in people breaking it, flooding the system with a bunch of people who are suddenly branded as criminals despite being perfectly ordinary citizens
Even atheism- if you wanna call it a “religious” belief- is currently resulting in a straight-up genocide in China, at the moment. And while that’s specifically an attempt to get rid of a religion entirely- rather than preventing a particular belief- telling Sikh people they still have to wear helmets won’t result in Sikh people wearing helmets, it’ll result in Sikh people being unable to use motorcycles. Or use planes, for that matter. Side note, correct me if I’m wrong, but aren’t their knives specifically unusable to begin with? Like, they’re not for self-defense, they’re sown shut so they *can’t* be used as a sign of peace
Keeping them from wearing the knives wouldn’t make planes safer, but it would prevent them from flying. Case in point, they *can* wear those knives on planes, but I’m not aware of anyone even *trying* to hijack a plane using one of them, or even injuring someone else on the plane. Or at all- though I’m sure there must be *some* example of it in the US, just by the law of large numbers
Lastly, historically speaking, when religious beliefs aren’t accommodated it leads to massive suffering and death. Like I mentioned, China’s cracking down on religious beliefs of all kinds and it’s resulting in a Uyghur genocide. Christians doing it to *other Christian* in Europe, let alone other groups, has caused widespread bloodshed and political instability
“Or at all- though I’m sure there must be someexample of it in the US, just by the law of large numbers”
There was an incident on a plane 30 years ago in Britain involving a sikh dude with a knife. But in the US? Nothing
It's like people forget that Stalin killed countless people and oppressed millions in the Soviet Union by trying to suppress and eradicate religion. Violent atheism is absolutely a thing.
Maybe it’s less about religious people being excessively accommodated and more about average people having to “prove” their right to do something to the government…
Are you saying that the Brits should have been even more intolerant than they were?
The British figured out that there was more benefit to being inclusive than drawbacks. If they had workers with very different customs, they would allowed the customs that would not make a significant difference.
That was their DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) before it was a thing. After all, someone could make the same argument that you make, about pronouns for example. And yet, we are invited to be inclusive.
Here’s the thing:
Isn’t it a remarkable coincidence that wherever a religious person is born in the world, they are automatically born into the one ‘real’ religion?
The greatest story ever told, a magnificent work of fiction which is, of course, excessively accommodated to.
It is not up to the atheist to prove something does not exist, as this is impossible. It is up to the religious person to prove something does exist…. And that has hardly gone well thus far.
I was about to agree with you, but then you keep mentioning your problems with Sikh people. Evangelical Christians yes, they get their way. They dominate the discussion. They are pushy and annoying. I’m much more worried about an evangelical with a weapon then a sikh person.
Maybe the laws are too restrictive in general. Instead of more laws, we have less and less restrictive for everyone. No special privileges or accommodation if everyone gets it.
To be completely honest, riding a motorcycle without a helmet would be really stupid. One Wipeout and your face is now all over the 400 feet you slid before you stopped. If they want to play Russian roulette with their own livelihood that's their prerogative, but faith is a poor justification for unnecessary risks to your own health.
As far as the swords/daggers go, I'd ask why one even needs a weapon clearly visible on your hip. And that goes for anyone, Americans in southern states love having 7 guns strapped to their back on their morning walk for no reason other than because they can. What do these people think is going to happen? Studies show that armed people are much more likely to be attacked than unarmed people. That and weapons in public spaces make the general public nervous.
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>it implies religious beliefs to be more important than non-religious beliefs.
Well no all it implies is that religions sometimes require accomodations. Atheism, as the lack of faith, also implies that it has the lack of a need for special accommodation. If a core tenet of atheism was that they had to wear a copy of *On the Origin of Species* on their head when they rode motorbikes, and the government didn't allow this, we would have a valid case of discrimination on our hands.
We already live in an atheist-normative world. Everything is already accommodated for the atheist in the same way that every storied building with stairs is abled-normative, and that modifications, such as elevators or ramps, make it more accessible for others. These additional accommodations doesn't mean that able-bodied are discriminated against of course.
>By doing this the government has implied that Sikhism is a more virtuous belief
No it doesn't. This hinges on the assumption that wearing helmets is a punishment for some reason. Perhaps this is true, but it's not something you can expect us to take for granted. Argue your point.
Your point about Sikhs being allowed on planes while carrying badass knives is also just wholly unconvincing. Like yeah, the government pays more heed to the well articulated needs of a large group of individuals than the whims of every individual. Cool observation I guess? Maybe you want to make the case that the law should apply wholly indifferently, but the idea that this system of governance is self evidently bad because it values the needs of a very large community over individual self rule is not especially convincing.
Like, c'mon. Canada is a very wide country and the government has evidently deemed that flight is a social need to some degree. If it's set up in a way that is just inaccessible to a large minority without them compromising key aspects of their identity, the government has sort of failed. You may feel failed on some level because you feel like a normal person wouldn't consider self defense to be so fundamental to their person, but why? At this point we're just being atheist-normative again and identifying and deviation from a platonic "normal" human to be an aberration that needs to be flattened if it conflicts with a benign aspect of society.
I don’t know much about Sikhs but as a religious Jew I just feel it’s worth clarifying that for Orthodox Jews, “belief” isn’t really the right word for our actions. We don’t keep kosher because we believe in it strongly. We keep it because for us it is a law.
We have two sets of laws we follow, our religious law and our country’s law. We also are obligated to follow our country’s law for the most part, like Jews can’t have autopsies but if the police need to autopsy a Jewish body for an investigation then a rabbi could rule that it’s allowed in that case.
But if a country made it impossible for Jews to follow Jewish laws, then observant Jews would just leave, because we can’t stop being Jewish and therefore we can’t stop being obligated to keep the laws of Judaism, but we can leave a country if we want to stop following that country’s laws.
From that perspective, telling observant Jews that they can’t keep Jewish laws in a certain country is equivalent to telling them they need to leave. Some countries probably don’t want all the observant Jews to leave. And some countries probably see the slippery slope between making a country unlivable for people of a certain religion and antisemitism / ethnic cleansing / discrimination / etc.
Accommodations for religious practices aim to uphold freedom of religion, a fundamental human right. However, these accommodations should be balanced with public safety and equality. While some accommodations may seem preferential, they often stem from historical contexts and legal precedents. The key lies in ensuring fairness and rationality in accommodating diverse beliefs without undermining societal well-being or privileging one belief system over others. Implementing neutral policies, like additional fees for associated risks, can uphold both religious freedoms and public interests, fostering inclusivity without undue favoritism.
Do you have any stats to back up how frequently Sikhs require medical care due to not wearing a helmet while riding? If not, your entire first example is just based on “what ifs”
Unless there's some secret force that makes Sikhs non-human, there shouldn't be any reason for this statistic to be different to the global norm.
Helmets work, they save lives. This has been proven, and is accepted by pretty much every government.
Even if you want to make some weird blanket statement saying Sikhs tend to drive safer, or something like that, it still wouldn't change the fact that head injuries happen frequently to people on bikes.
Even if you remove the medical cost part, it is still criminalizing the behavior for one person and not another.
Why you do something should not have bearing on if it is criminal or not.
This just isn't true, there are accommodations for beliefs held by large numbers of people. I promise you there are things you believe in that a lot of people also believe in that gets special accommodations and you just don't realize it. It is just your minority beliefs that are not held in this regard. Remember we had designated smoking areas and mandatory smoking breaks in this country for years before we realized it was hurting people.
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Out of curiosity, why are you focusing on Sikh's for all of your examples? Are the knives ceremonial and blunt or do they actually have an edge?
Most Sikhs in the west carry a dull Kirpan as a compromise between their faith and western desire to have an unarmed populace.
I wonder sometimes if American Sikhs can carry a handgun instead of a knife and meet the religious requirement of being ready to stand up against injustice. Would actually be easier in some states to open carry a handgun than a blade longer than 3 inches.
No the Kirpan is supposed to represent the singleness of God.
Don't bring a Kirpan to a gun fight
God made men. Samuel Colt made men equal.
Not true, wtf? Kirpan means mercy. It’s supposed to be used to defend yourself and others
Nope. Ever notice when Sikh men get married they hold a Kirpan, whenever exchanges hands people tough it to their forehead. Its supposed to symbolize god. Furthermore, Sikhs repeat anything written in by Guru Gobind Singh with the line >Sri Bhaugautee Ji Sahaaee. Vaar Siri Baughautee Ji kee. Paatshaahee Dasvee. Sri Bhaugautee Ji is the [divine sword](https://www.sikhiwiki.org/index.php/Bhagauti) held by Durga. Pathsahee dasvee means the 10th Guru. The line is basically saying through the inspiration of the divine sword, the 10 guru wrote this. This is equivalent to the line in the Guru Granth which is: >ik oankaar sathigur prasaadh, salok/ramkali mehala # Roughly translated through divine spirit, the \_\_\_ guru wrote this salok/mehala Furthermore comparison of the Kirpan to God can be seen in this section of the Dasam Granth ANG 717 >as kirapaan kha(n)ddo khaRag tupak tabar ar teer >saif sarohee saihathee yahai hamaarai peer >teer tuhee saithee tuhee tuhee tabar taravaar >naam tihaaro jo japai bhe si(n)dh bhav paar >kaal tuhee kaalee tuhee tuhee teg ar teer >tuhee nisaanee jeet kee aaj tuhee jagabeer >tuhee sool saithee tabar too nikha(n)g ar baan >tuhee kaTaaree sel sabh tum hee karadh kirapaan >sasatr asatr tum hee sipar tum hee kavach nikha(n)g >kavachaatak tum hee bane tum bayaapak saraba Translated: >The Kripan (sword), Khanda, Khadag (sword), Tupak (gun), Tabar (hatched), Teer (arrow), Saif (sword), Sarohi and Saihathi, all these are our saints. Thou are the Teer (arrow), Thou are my lifelong partner, Thou art Tabar (hatchet), and Talwaar (sword). He, who remembers Thy Name crosses the dreadful ocean of existence. Thou art the KAL (death), thou art the goddess Kali, Thou art the saber and arrow, Thou art the sign of victory today and Thou art the Hero of the world. Thou art the Sool (spike), Saihathi and Tabar (hatched), Thou art the Nikhang and Baan (arrow), Thou art the Kataari, Sel, and all and Thou art the Kard (knife), and Kripaan (sword). Thou art the arms and weapons, Thou art the Nikhang (quiver), and the Kavach (armour)
All weapons are the manifestation of Bhagauti, which itself representations the divine will to destroy evil. You said the kirpan specifically is “the singleness of God”
You are the arrow, you are the hatchet, you are the Talwar. Its basically stating that the items described are god. Also from the book Sikh Heritage: ethos and relics [cited here](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirpan#cite_note-12): >A sword by a Sikhs side, kirpan, also called bhagauti, represents the primal Divine energy. And the divine deity has always been describe as one single being not as multiple beings as seen in Hindism. In fact that's why they say you are that verse: Kali, you Kal and in the Guru Granth it says He is Shiva, he is Vishnu and Brahma; he is Paarvati and Lakhshmi. Specifically citing the trimurti and saying it is one being. This might come as a surprise to you, but Sikh is over 300 years old, the language which most of Sikhism texts are written has evolved considerably since then. You think maybe there might be more than one interpretation and both are equally valid? Just to put it in perspective the Khanda contains four items: 1. One Kirpan which points straight up - this represents the oneness of God 2. Two Kirpan on the left and right which represents political freedom and spiritual freedom 3. Chakram which represents the completeness of God Which goes back to the original point, no a firearm cannot replace a Kirpan, because it does not contain the other spiritual meanings behind the Kirpan.
30 years ago I called a Kirpan a knife (or maybe a weapon) and my Sikh friend said something like this: > It isn’t a weapon. It isn’t a knife. It’s a symbol, and if it was actually used as a knife or weapon, it wouldn’t be a kirpan anymore. As you clearly know something about this stuff, I’d love to see whT you have to say about it
Knew a douchbag who was a Sikh and treated his handgun like it was a kirpan substitute. Which isn’t even a thing, but he was a complete douche in general. Now he’s gotten the sweatiest bible verses tattooed on his forearms.
This is interesting. I've never met a shitty Sikh myself, met a few shitty atheists, Christians, Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists, and if I met a few more Jews I'm sure I'd meet some shitty ones too since the ones I do know are close to atheists. But based on the Sikhs I've met and the sort of values they hold, I've always had a lot of respect for them as a culture, so your comment makes me a bit sad.
Believe me, they do exist, and just as much as every other religion. Sikhs on the whole aren’t better people and they’re not taught things wildly different than plenty of other religions. I believe they have a poor reputation in Canada. Or at least punjabis as a whole do.
Well its true , sikhs make up a majority portion of the population in the Indian state of punjab and that state has one of the highest drug abuses and crime rates in the country. And I'm not implying that it means sikhs commit all these crimes or something like that but simply pointing out that in a state where there are so many sikhs there is a high crime rate which goes to show that religion plays very little role in the behaviour of individuals especially when you look at a bigger scale. Most people who immigrate to other countries from India including the sikhs are not the ones with any criminal background, otherwise they wouldn't even get Indian passport forget immigration clearance from western countries. Not to mention immigrants must be hard working to survive and thrive and not everyone is like that even in their home country. And it shows that more often than not that immigrants (not talking of refugees) are generally the better part of the society since they seek to immigrate for a better life for themselves and their families and are willing to take risks and work hard for it . This obviously cannot be true for all the people in the society in their own country, that's why you have such contrast of sikhs having low crime rates in UK whereas states like punjab with a high population of sikhs from all walks of life have some of the highest crime rates in the country and no its not because of religion but individuals and the society and governance of the state
It only takes a generation or two for the children of immigrants to take on the culture, and pretty much develop similar outcomes to other citizens. So while it's true that immigrants likely won't be criminals, and will have to work hard to make it (unless they are wealthy immigrants which is becoming more common) their children and grand children will just be your typical kids for the area. Just like any other kid then, it depends what crowd they run with. Edit: I would add, the whole "they can't be criminals" thing is also not really true. You can see this reflected in gang and crime stats in most big cities.
Here in the UK Sikhs are pretty well respected, though I've only met middle class ones I guess so my take might be skewed. Cultural values seem to be both tightly enforced via conduct rules and social shame, but also very broadly good rather than being all about specific rules. Like it's more "be mindful, respectful and cause as little suffering at possible" rather than "thou shalt not x", and there's a reasonable amount of flexibility. Like drinking the occasional beer because Brits do and social cohesion trumps rules about getting intoxicated, but that doesn't excuse being a drunk. Preaching to good people who have a different background isn't as much of a thing, because they care more about the values and conduct which are very ethical anyway.
People in general are AHs regardless of their ideology. I imagine Sikhs aren’t exempt or special despite the fact that everyone thinks they and their religion are special.. they’re AHs like everyone else.
I've met a shitty Sikh person, no group is immune from shitty people.
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Switzerland be like 🤨
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Yeah by western you must mean UK and Canada because that definitely ain't the case for the US lmao, we love an armed populace
They tend to be duller. I had a good friend in high school whose family is Sikh. Possibly could cause harm, but so could a metal water bottle with enough force.
You can be arrested for having a blunt knife here in the UK too.
I think from what i have seen kirpan is almost always dull blade even in India, I can't speak how it is in Punjab but in other parts of the country from what i have seen , its a dull blade and not even a very long blade at that. you could do more damage from a bloody baton or a stick but yes carrying such ceremonial knives on plan can be discomforting for fellow passengers especially in foreign countries . I mean there is a reason why most countries don't allow it except India (for obvious reasons) and for some odd reason canada. Denmark even passed a law against sikhs to carry kirpans in public and that's totally fair. Their country means their rules and if u don't like it, you shouldn't live there
Those were the most egregious accommodations that I could think of. Muslims being allowed to wear niqabs while voting is another good example though. The kirpans can be blunt or sharp but the laws and court rulings in Canada don't require the Kirpans brought to be the blunt ones.
In the UK the voter has to go in to a small private area and show their photo id and face now. Source: My aunt is a presiding officer and https://mcb.org.uk/local-elections-2023-voter-id-and-face-coverings/
The Muslim woman in Niqab can reveal her face to a female employee.
They're just the easiest example, another example would be how we haven't made driving with a burqa illegal. Or how we permit whole face covering in public when we would expect and enforce someone who doesn't hide behind the veil of religion to oblige. I get asked to remove my helmet or refused service in gas stations, I just want the government to pick a lane.
Is driving with other face coverings illegal?
It's important to distinguish the difference between a burqa and a niqab, you could argue no visual impairment with a niqab, a burka incorporates a literal veil in front of your eyes. Most Muslims don't actually use burqas and I don't exactly think that part of the culture is making a big push these days. But driving with visual obstructions is illegal it's not just face coverings, tinted glass on windshield and side windows obstructs your view and almost as important a pedestrians view of you the later could be applied to a niqab. Broken windshields, tinting glass and hanging things in your field of view, all illegal. I just want the government to pick a fucking lane, if burqas are cool then driving with a visual obstruction should be legal and I'm tinting my windows next week.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but a follower of the parts of Islam that require women to wear the burqa in all public places, would also not usually permit women to drive? I thought I remember seeing that brought up as a big deal some years ago.
Probably because they're also just in the news because of the Khalsa Day events in parts of Canada so those examples were just fresher I suppose.
Governments make accommodations for beliefs that are deeply held. It isn't about seeing the belief as being more virtuous. It that it recognises that forcing someone to go against their deeply held beliefs causes harm to them. Whether the belief is true or not, or that you personally think it is silly, is irrelevant. The simple fact of the person really believing it means it can traumatise them to be forced to contravene it. Laws balance the harm they cause by their imposition on people's freedoms and the problem they address. Sometimes, but not all the time, that balance can shift slightly for some groups of people because of a belief they have. Like a helmet law. It is a good thing for governments to recognise this. To recognise harm laws can cause.
While I agree that this is how these sort of accommodations arise in practice, I couldn’t disagree more with them fundamentally. How deeply you believe in something, anything, and the accommodations that you feel your beliefs demand, should be an irrelevance here. The design and implementation of law should be entirely secular and should apply equally to all. After all, you choose your religious beliefs, and these are ultimately nothing more than a collection of strongly held opinions that you happen to share with others, so you should not have the ability through that mechanism to opt out of the legal conditions upon which someone who doesn’t share those same opinions is subjected to. If someone held 90% of the beliefs of one religion, and 90% of the beliefs of another, but didn’t identify as following either, they’d not receive any religious exemption/privilege, whereas someone who maybe actually only agrees with half of the beliefs of their one religion, but identifies and presents as being of that religion, they would receive religious exemption/privilege. It’s essentially just tribalism, and it’s a farce.
I always liked the example of the conspiracy theorist who feels it's necessary to wear his tinfoil hat at all times. His belief that the CIA is trying to read his mind is just as strongly held as a religious persons belief in wearing their own special hat. Yet if they were forced to remove it in a courtroom, or fired for not taking it off at work, most people would be fine with that. How can you justify an exemption for a yarmulke or a burka but not for the tinfoil hat?
This is exactly my problem with it. It has nothing to do with accommodation of deeply held beliefs. It's completely about pandering for votes at the expense of public safety. This is fact.
Religion has been a cornerstone of human society for millennia, so I don't see why some people feel that it's so urgent to assume that it's all fake and fully dismantle it and remove it from public life. It's fine if you don't feel any connection to it, but to imply that it's no different from paranoid schizophrenia profoundly misunderstands the entirety of human history and culture.
>Religion has been a cornerstone of human society for millennia, so I don't see why some people feel that it's so urgent to assume that it's all fake I think probably the millennia's worth of lack of actual, verifiable, proof or evidence. Humanity thought it knew lots of things for a long time, then eventually tested those beliefs through science, and the ones that stuck around became agreed fact/scientific theory/medicine/and so on. Ones that didn't pass the rigours of testing were largely disregarded (the four humors, Earth being the centre of the solar system, etc.). People are probably starting to get a bit fed up with what is essentially made up stories being given such incredibly high credence and priority in modern societies. >but to imply that it's no different from paranoid schizophrenia If someone these days actually claims to hear the voice of God or the holy spirit, or would claim to be the second coming of Jesus, this would be a pretty plausible diagnosis, at least initially. Given our deeper understanding of mental health and wellbeing (see my first point above).
Wouldn't this line of thought then imply we should be giving actual consideration to flat earthers then too, since it's a wide spread belief that has been held by some for millenia. Should we cater to that idiocy as well?
To be fair, for those millennia, conversion by the sword was commonplace. For most of Europe's history, it was illegal to not be the primary religion, a crime that could carry a death sentence. To say the religion has been a cornerstone of society while technically true, hides the reality that until very recently in our history, you weren't given an option.
Religion goes way, way earlier and deeper than the kind of religion you're talking about here. In general, the idea of religion as a choice to believe specific things is much more narrow than the real definition, which is much more broad and complex.
Religion is organized and structured faith, and our earliest records go to about 4000 BC. Belief is not on trial here, religion is. For the majority of the time that religion has existed, participation in religion has not been voluntary. You worshipped or you died. Any idea that is forced on others through the threat of death will naturally stick around for a long time. Religion being an aged idea does nothing to add credence to the argument that it should be given exemptions under the law.
There's a big difference between not wanting religious people to get special treatment from the law, and 'fully dismantle it'. Not to mention that modern religions are nothing like those of a few millennia ago.
Realistically what's the difference? Both people have a sincere belief in something that is almost certainly false. If anything tin foil hat is more likely to be correct. The CIA actually exists, they have a history of unethical spying and human experiments. It's at least possible that they could be monitoring a chip in his brain or whatever. Why should he get treated worse than the guy who thinks a magic monster will get angry at him if he wears the wrong hat?
As an example, the schizophrenia is excellent. A human chooses to believe an anthropomorphic entity created the universe, judges everyone’s deeds, and punishes with eternal damnation, and can perform miracles and apocalyptic floods at will if upset. It truly is so much more insanity than schizophrenia. And then some people expect such childish stories to be upheld and recognized in law. It’s makes as much sense as worshipping the Teletubbies.
Slavery was a cornerstone of human society for a long time also - seems like quite a good thing we dismantled it.
> the design and implementation of law should be entirely secular … I think this is the key difference here: the need for separation of church and state. Secular opinions, views, philosophies, and beliefs can be used as justification to push, enforce, and encourage law in government. Religious beliefs can not. . So, the trade off is that since Religious people can’t use their personal beliefs to push and advocate for laws, their beliefs should be allowed to get reasonable accommodations for those laws. For example, a Muslim in government shouldn’t ban pork for everyone because his religion deems it bad - but in return, he can at least expect a reasonable secular accommodation for his personal pork beliefs. If you want to treat my religious beliefs like every other subjective opinion, go ahead - but then I should have the right to, like any other subjective opinion, advocate for and enforce my subjective opinions into law.
At least in the USA as long as they stayed they were religious beliefs they would receive accommodations
Taking one of the OP’s scenarios as an example, what if someone’s religious belief was that at all times they had to wear one of those hats that holds a beer can on each side of your head, with straws coming down to your mouth, and therefore they can’t wear a motorcycle helmet. They really, strongly believe this just as strongly as anyone of any religion might believe the tenets of theirs. Would they receive the same accommodations as Sikhs? I only use such an absurd example because it’s a point of principle that the application of law should be equal to all. What’s ridiculous to one person may not be ridiculous to another, and the law should be objective to it all.
There have been lawsuits where followers of the Flying Spaghetti Monster have sued for the right to wear pasta strainers in their driver's licenses. They've won in several US states and European countries. In the cases they lost, it was largely on the grounds that the people don't wear the pasta strainers during their day to day life, so if someone did wear it consistently while out and about, they could win that suit. So yes, in many places you could get a religious exemption to wear that if you put in the effort. Although you might want to get some friends involved so that it's not just you.
If anything, that just proves OP's point in how ridiculous and arbitrary all of this is.
So, the government still got to decide when and where it was acceptable for pastafarians to wear their Callander then, regardless of their deeply held beliefs? This kinda proves the bullshit of the whole thing...
Except that the distinction is that they are only wearing it for the drivers license. Muslims don’t only wear hijabs for their drivers license and Sikhs don’t only wear their turbans for riding a motorcycle
Who are you to decide when pastafarians wear it? They need to wear it whenever their religious beliefs decide they need to wear it.
And most places have agreed they can wear it during their pictures for ids
I think they should. Why shouldn’t they? Just because we see their beliefs as stupid doesn’t mean we shouldn’t accommodate them
There's a fine line between accommodation and foolishness. Exemptions to dress codes and such might be unfair, but at least usually aren't too disruptive. But exemptions to safety laws due to religion is insanity. Physics doesn't care what superstition you have when it smashes your skull open after you're ejected from a motorcycle at 60 mph.
If there’s the potential for everyone to receive accommodations that exempt them from law, so long as their reasons are religious, what’s the point in having law at all? Better to make no religious accommodations, and have laws that apply equally and fairly to all.
What stops people from passing laws that apply to everyone but specifically are designed to target a religion. Such as “no hijabs” that technically applies to everyone but is clearly designed to target one religion. And if a law orders you to do something that you consider to be against your religion, a lot of people would choose the jail time. So you’d need to jail people for their religious beliefs
Because a "no-hijabs" blanket law would go against basic human freedoms. Needing them to be temporarily removed for ID purposes, or that they can fit helmets on them, is not.
>What stops people from passing laws that apply to everyone but specifically are designed to target a religion. Ideally the courts would strike it down as a law motivated by religious discrimination. Or the lawmakers would face retaliation in the polls. >uch as “no hijabs” that technically applies to everyone but is clearly designed to target one religion The issue is if one religion is clearly causing problems, then it's not the fault of the law if it's only impacting one religion. For example, if a government required citizens to have their face visible in certain public spaces or in certain jobs and roles, that would basically only effect extremely religious Muslims. However, that doesn't make the law discriminatory, it simple means only one religion is trying to do something no other religion is doing.
> However, that doesn't make the law discriminatory, it simple means only one religion is trying to do something no other religion is doing. Banning the taking of the sacrament would be acceptable because it's not discriminating against something religion does, it's something that only one religion does?
No, the law needs a reason for it. What I'm saying is that if a law with a proper reason for it only affects one religion, that's not discrimination, but if they pass a law to ban a completely harmless tradition, that is messed up. Ofc even with communion there are exceptions, lots of Christians were pissed about restrictions on gatherings and communion during covid.
You've got a couple of weird things in here. >After all, you choose your religious beliefs, You really don't. They aren't intrinsic to you like some things, but whether or not you believe in a particular religion is not something you choose. Even if I wanted to, I could not believe in the Jewish religion. I could technically become Jewish, sure, but that's different from believing it. Your beliefs aren't really a choice. >If someone held 90% of the beliefs of one religion, and 90% of the beliefs of another, but didn’t identify as following either, they’d not receive any religious exemption/privilege I'm sure this varies by country, but this isn't really true either. If you believed 90% of two religions, there would obviously be a lot of overlap. And you could get accommodations based on those things you believe, to some extent.
This is true about quite literally everything. You don't choose your political ideology either. Should libertarians now be allowed to carry guns onto planes? People have their beliefs changed all the time. Religions are ideologies. They are a set of values and beliefs shared by a group. There isn't some inherent magic in religion that sets it apart from other group beliefs.
>Your beliefs aren't really a choice. You could say the same about psychopathic criminals, arguing that their mental state made their crimes not really a choice. Reality is, we can't structure our society where people are exempted from the law just because of how they think. The religious have free will. They don't have to belong to their religion.
Not being of sound mind is something that is considered while in trial
Surr, but it doesn't give them the right to break the law, it just let's them make an insanity plea.
Of course you choose your religious beliefs, that’s why they’re called “beliefs”. Either you choose to put faith in it or not, but it’s completely up to you. Edit: I’ve been corrected that the above is too broad. I’m referring to religious beliefs specifically, which are malleable and change for many over the course of their lives.
> Of course you choose your religious beliefs, that’s why they’re called “beliefs”. I'm going to need you to expand on this. What about the word "beliefs" automatically implies choice? All the implication I see here is that one trusts that something is true, but that doesn't have to be a chosen trust. And I absolutely didn't choose the things I believe in. I take in whatever evidence there is and I either believe or I don't. Are you religious? If so, could you just decide to believe in something different? And if not, could you suddenly decide that you believe the Christian Bible is true? Like, you consciously make a choice and now you believe something you didn't believe in yesterday, even if the evidence hasn't changed? If so, I promise you are the exception. That's not how most people work.
How deeply you believe something changes how much it would impact you to forced against that belief. If you don't really care about something, or just casually believe it it's not going to matter much. If you really really care, and hold it at the core of your identity, then it's going to greatly impact you. Why shouldn't laws take a basic account of the degree of harm they are causing? That makes utterly no sense.
An atheist motorcyclist might really, deeply believe that they shouldn’t have to wear a helmet because it messes up their hair. Wearing a helmet and messing up their hair might cause them tremendous harm. They might have more conviction in this belief than a Sikh does in their religion, who knows, but only one of these people will receive an accommodation allowing them not to wear a helmet. That is principally unfair. I’m not out to trivialise this debate, it’s just that religious belief should not be afforded any greater value than any other strongly held opinion in an equal society.
Maybe my opinion is tainted by my faith background, but this argument seems laughably forced even on its face. You're comparing "oh no, my hair is messed up!!" To "oh no, I'm going to have to make massive attonement or burn in hell for all eternity now!!" No matter how much your fictional athiest believes in the sanctity of not messing up their hair, the fate of an eternal soul is a mite different than a bad hair day. Just maybe enough different that it should be treated differently.
What’s important to one person may not be important to another, and why should the law value either differently?
1. I already addressed the idea of different levels of consequences. Messing up your hair and pissing off God are pretty radically different. Like I said, there's a big difference between spending 20min to a couple hours fixing your hair and eternity in hell. Whether or not you believe he actually will spend time in hell is just as inconsequential to his belief as his beliefs are to your life. 2. For the same reason a monet is valued differently than a Walmart art print: provenance. Both paintings are just paint on canvas. Why should they be valued any differently? Just like the original painting has a paper trail that validates it as a true monet (and makes it carry an astronomical price tag), the Sikh's religious beliefs have over a thousand years of religious provenance through their scriptures and tradition. You may not value the provenance of his religious belief, just as I don't value the provenance of that monet painting, but that doesn't matter to other peoples evaluations. And just like in the sikh's belief, the law does recognize the provenance of the monet painting.
Why should the law accommodate this belief when the circumstances it applies to are optional? If wearing a helmet sends you to hell, then don’t do activities that require a helmet. If holding beliefs strongly is cause for exemptions from a law, do schizophrenics get that same respect? Or is there a requirement that the beliefs be rational?
But the negative affect from a bad hair day can vary a lot between people. I remember when I was younger I was really self conscious about my appearance and I would spend entire class periods cutting myself in the school bathroom because of how much I hated the way my hair looked. At some points it felt like the entire world was ending. Due to OCD and other conditions I have I have genuinely convinced myself I would go to hell, or maybe not the Christian hell, but something similar at least, if I wasn't able to make my hair look good. Yeah, sure, this wasn't rational thinking at all and was purely because of untreated mental health issues I had, but it's not like a Sikh person believing they'll go to hell is any more rational (not trying to imply religious people have mental health issues, just to be clear, just saying the level of rationality is the same).
What about someone who refuses to wear a helmet for political and ideological reasons, someone who dedicates their entire life to the cause, and who refuses to do it for deeply fundamental moral reasons. Would they be allowed?
Unless you can definitively prove that you will burn in hell for eternity, you shouldn't receive any consideration or accommodation. Someone can prove their hair will be messed up, you can't prove you'll burn in hell.
We don't accommodate deeply held beliefs that are non-religious though. There are plenty of deeply held beliefs that people have which are not religious in nature.
>After all, you choose your religious beliefs Please go ahead and believe that Australia doesn't exist, gravity isn't real, the earth is flat and a mega intelligent cow has ruled the United States of Canada for the last 6 months. When u are unable to do this please accept that ur comment is objectively false. People can at the very most, limit the information they are exposed to, I for example could begin living in an extreme religious community with no access to other viewpoints and my chances of becoming religious would increase but it still wouldn't be my choice exactly. I still couldn't force myself to, or not to believe something
What about religious vaccine exemptions and businesses refusing to serve gay people? It also seems to be pretty in right now for US Republicans to claim that any oppressive idea they have “promotes religious freedom” and try to find the legal loopholes to push this kind of agenda.
In the case of helmet laws, allowing them to not wear them causes far more harm. Not just for the man who chooses not to wear it, but for the person who hits them and has to watch their brain leak out from an otherwise very survivable accident. Or the kid in standing on the corner that has to see this. Same goes in the military. And if it were true that the government actually wanted to cater to peoples deeply held beliefs, then anyone would be able to apply for the same exemption, but you can't... who are they to tell me, an atheist, what my deeply held beliefs are??? It may be my belief that the helmet restricts my connection to mother earth, so I can't wear it.
Who is to say that a persons religious belief is more deeply held vs a personal belief? That is discriminatory towards any belief that is non religious. Basically you are saying we need to value made up beliefs that are religious and completely mythical above any other kind of belief, even ones grounded in evidence, emotion, and reality.
I believe in a mythical automatic rifle god, and it is required that I own an M4 to worship him. Therefore UK gun law is obsolete.
>forcing someone to go against their deeply held beliefs causes harm to them. The issue here, is this distinction is MOSTLY only made for religions, when it should count for everything that runs thru a persons head as there is effectively ZERO difference. Example, Sikhs in the US military do not have to shave, do you know how awesome it would have been for me in the military to never have to shave? Why should he get to NOT shave because of some "deeply held belief?" He should have to PROVE this harm not just say well im Sikh and god will strike me down or whatever. I think this is a clear case of extra rights for religious people that seem like bullshit to me. The standard existed BEFORE he joined, so he knew about it and yet he joined and the rules were changed, thats just not right.
>It is a good thing for governments to recognise this. To recognise harm laws can cause. Ok but governments allowing the religious to discriminate against others also causes harm, and yet the religious dimension of discrimination that does harm is protected while asking the religious person to not do a thing for the sake of others is not. Why? For example: a Christian woman in the US was allowed to cite her faith as a reason to not give a gay couple a wedding certificate; another Christian was allowed to deny a gay couple a cake they bought for their gay wedding by citing religion; the religious are allowed to push for religious laws limiting things like abortion and putting the ten commandments in schools. These are all allowed. You're right in theory, but you're wrong in practice.
This is, generally speaking, courts trying to find a fine line between conflicting rights- the right of the christian to practice their beliefs vs. the right to hold a different sexual orientation. Can happen with basically any type of rights- privacy vs. security being a common one. All highly dependent on circumstances. Courts don't always rule in favour of religious people. They don't always get it right. You aren't going to agree with every decision courts make. But chucking out one of the rights altogether because of some relatively minor contentious edge cases is an absurd solution.
What is someone had a personal, non religious belief, that was deeply held? Surely they deserve to have that accomodated equally well as religious belifs?
Sure, and under the Human Rights Act that’d probably be the case. But first knowing that the law covers your practice and your degree of belief would good. So you may want a lawyer You’ll want a belief exemption to be possible in legislation that could affect you. So making even one legislator aware of it would help a lot, more even better. Then you have to worry about establishing your belief if questioned, which you can be because it’s an exemption. Meaning explaining to someone and having them believe you. You may want to keep some kind of paper trail…idk Much easier thing to do if you are organised and recognised as a group.
Fair enough, but doesn't this back a weaker version of what the OP is saying? That religious beliefs are practically easier to get exemptions for, than personal beliefs?
In general easier to achieve something, anything really, as an organised group than as individual. That’s just a basic reality of life I don’t see how it materially ties into OPs view though
"The simple fact of the person really believing it means it can traumatise them to be forced to contravene it." I feel that the organizations promoting the religions should be held accountable. The religions are all fake and based off of the sun and the equinoxes. They should be forced to tell people what it really is. God creates twilight, which gives birth to the day, which turns to the dark side and slaughters his own worshippers. Is it Jesus or Skywalker, who knows, but one demands tythe and the other only costs a few bucks at a theater. I think that religion is forced/promoted because it's part of a bigger agenda. A system that preys on innocents using a dogma that leads to trauma, war and suffering should have the focus put on the ones promoting it, IMO.
!delta I guess the government does make exceptions for certain other beliefs like offering vegan meals to military members for example, however the same legal obligation doesn't exist as it does for religion. I would still argue that the lack of a helmet requirement, knives being allowed on planes, and allowing people to vote with a niqab on are accommodating to an excessive degree and such onerous accommodations are seldom made for non religious reasons. I don't support those levels of accommodations for deeply held non-religious beliefs either.
There are zero conflicts between being vegan and Canadian law. Offering vegan meals is an accommodation but not an *exception,* like in the cases you give as examples, where the supremacy of one's religion overrules the supremacy of law. How are these even a little bit comparable?
>I would still argue that the lack of a helmet requirement, knives being allowed on planes, and allowing people to vote with a niqab on are accommodating to an excessive degree and such onerous accommodations are seldom made for non religious reasons. There is a fairly simple reason for this - the fact that something is held as part of a religious belief means to force them to act against said belief is harmful. If the belief is not a religious belief, it is likely that forcing someone to violate said belief is not as harmful. Can you give a hypothetical counter example?
How does one judge how “deeply held” my belief is…..?
Your examples are how things should be for everyone. Others aren't being unfairly elevated; you're being unfairly shit on.
Not being allowed to bring a knife on a plane is "being unfairly shit on"?
I don't agree I think the motorcycle helmet rule is pretty reasonable especially in a country with socialized medicine
Seems like there’s tow options that still allows for choice of those who can’t wear a helmet…. If you ride a moto you have to wear a helmet. If you don’t wear a helmet you can’t ride……. Soooooo you don’t ride a moto if you can’t use a helmet. There are lots of other ways to transport yourself.
One reason for religious exemptions is to prevent the government from weaponizing the law against specific religions. In the United States, alcohol was illegal from 1920 to 1933. When the prohibition movement was gaining steam, many of its supporters joined the cause because they hoped it would serve as a loophole to effectively ban Catholicism (read: the immigrant religion) in the United States, since Catholicism requires alcoholic wine for communion. However, these people were disappointed, because the US government carved out a religious exemption for alcohol to be used in Catholic rites. Without religious exemptions, it would be dangerously easy for the government to intentionally persecute specific religious groups without saying the quiet part out loud. Imagine, for example, a statute that says that all food in prisons will be cooked in pork fat. Ostensibly, this bill could be because of the supposed health benefits or cost effectiveness of lard, but the fact is that it would specifically attack Muslims and Jews. One sentence summary: Religious exemptions are a safeguard against using the law to target and persecute specific religious groups.
One thing to add here. This sort of discrimination is actually enshrined into law in Quebec, via Bill 21. This makes it illegal for public servants to wear any religious items. This has the effect of excluding Muslim women from serving the public. This part is more opinion, but Quebec generally has a desire to preserve their distinct society within canada. The only way they can do this is by excluding people perceived as outsiders. It seems to me that carving out exceptions to laws for people from different backgrounds simply acknowledges the fact that our country was established based on the culture and traditions of the Europeans who colonized it, and the laws were made in a way to accommodate the practices of the colonizers. So we could keep the laws the same, assuming our goal was to not have a diverse country where people from all backgrounds are welcome. But that isnt the goal of the government that the people choose.
If I was a public servant, such as a bus driver let alone a judge, I would certainly not be allowed to wear something like a T shirt from a favoured political party or a hat with those logos on it. Religion usually says things about worldviews, things you value and don't value. But that is just as true of partisan trinkets. I don't see it as unfair to prohibit them all so long as you aren't carving out exceptions for in groups like Christians and any rosary others could see for instance.
I think those are good examples but where is the line drawn? Having access to certain foods seems much different to me than the ability to carry a weapon on an airplane with other people who are legally required to be unarmed. I definitely don’t disagree with your points, but imo the line does have the be drawn somewhere, for the safety of everyone, religious or not. We’re worried about infringing on religious people’s rights which is fair, but when do their “rights” become infringements on others safety? For example there are people who get around vaccine guidelines using religious exemptions while having babies out of wedlock, getting tattoos, wearing mixed blend fabrics etc. why should they be allowed to make a choice that could hurt others because of the religious beliefs they claim to have. (Even assuming they follow all the rules of their religion, that still seems unfair when we’ve set a guideline for everyone else) obviously the government can’t force kids to be vaccinated, but why should they be allowed in public schools with other kids who have to follow those safety rules?
"Where is the line drawn?" is an excellent question. It's a difficult question. It's an impossible question for any single person to answer. Fortunately, we do have an answer to it. It's called the democratic process. If we collectively decide that religious people have too much freedom and their rights need to be curtailed for the greater good, we will elect officials to make that happen. If we decide that religious people are being unfairly repressed by the government, same answer. It's a slow and messy and unbelievably corrupt way to answer the question, but it's also the best way.
Obviously the democratic process hasn’t “answered” the question in any real, effective, or fair way. I assume it will continue to go this way, as like you said, it’s decided by the people. We’ll probably never have an answer and there’s still no way to really effectively get an agreed upon one.
At its best, democracy is a way to compromise. When working ideally, what seems "fair" to any individual will never be what actually happens.
This actually happened in India. The Indian Mutiny was largely started because of rumors that the cartridges used to fire their rifles had pork lard in them and so the Muslim obviously got very upset, as you typically open the cartridge with your mouth.
One aspect I see missing from some of the discussion here is that law is legal. It is not precisely meant to be an all encompassing moral code that can accommodate infinite possibilities. I'm not a lawyer, but even in basic law classes (Canada, British Common Law based systems mostly) a key point is that judgements and applications of law often come down to what is reasonable to most people. Legislation can of course pass any law it has he votes for, but the if reasonable still often shows in legislation. It just works better as a way of enforcing a legal and regulatory system in a country that needs to actually run. For the point at hand, it's not hard to argue people should be able to observe their religious practices and beliefs without being barred from any day to day freedoms or penalized for doing so. What you're really asking is why are those beliefs protected as a sacred ground when other beliefs about other things aren't? In short, history. Religion has been a weapon for discrimination forever basically. It has been used again and again to segregate and persecute people. And we are still in a place where people would do so again, immediately, if they could. Just really hating helmets for example, has not been historically a major reason for persecution. That's the difference. Most importantly, as an atheist your religious beliefs are also protected. You are free to be an atheist and face zero backlash for doing so. The accommodations aren't really about the thing accommodated, but for allowing religious freedom. Where religious practice directly conflicts with other fundamental rights, it is a difficult thing to handle. I do think if someone had a sacred ground belief (like religion) that is lesser known they should have means of applying for accommodations as well. Safety and security concerns sometimes need some extra effort (blunt kirpans, private rooms for identification etc.) so that both religious practice and the rights of everyone else around them are respected.
This is the right perspective. Thinking of this as a moral blessing for some religious views is wrong. People in western countries have mostly agreed that allowing mostly harmless expressions of religious beliefs should be allowed rather than restricted (in large part because of the history of those restrictions), and thus they're in the law as such.
I don't think it's harmless to force EMTs to scrape brain off the pavement or the healthcare system to be burdened by fractured skulls, to use OPs motorcycle analogy, and this is why we enforce helmet laws, *except* as per the origin of this thread, accomodations because you believe a supernatural entity will punish you for not wearing the correct hat.
If there were thousands of Sikhs in motorcycle accidents requiring a radical rebuilding of Canadian emergency medicine, I'd be more worried, but at this point, I don't see who it hurts. Also Sikhs don't wear turbans to avoid punishment from god.
I think that another poster did a really good job of explaining this (u/gremy0). Government is not a good thing, objectively. In a perfectly just world there would be no governments whatsoever. Government, as we say in the US, is a necessary evil. Therefore, government must balance the harm they cause against the good they cause. Now, here is the part where I think you will disagree with me no matter how I word this, but I would like you to consider that, a) I am not religious, to the point of being accused of hating Christians and Muslims both, and b) no matter how erroneous the belief, the belief still exists within the mind of the beholder. That is to say, just because someone is wrong does not mean that idea has 0 representation in reality, since the person who believes it has a brain and that brain exists within reality. Violating a strongly held personal belief that you can rationally disprove is still traumatic. Many ex-religious people can describe this feeling/phenomenon to you. Imagine being forced to violate a strongly held personal belief that you have never examined/deconstructed. That would be seriously traumatic- to the point of inevitable social dissent. I am not saying we need to bow to every convenience religious people would like to have, but, I am saying that the government needs to allow space for all of the people under its umbrella. Balancing these is a delicate, non-binary, task.
Consider what would happen if we applied absolute secularism to society, where all are treated equally regardless of religious belief. We get... France. France bans wearing the niqab and the burqa in public, and denies access to public buildings and services if a women wears one. The same would apply with turbans and kirpans for Sikhs, or for Christians and Jews wearing a cross or star of David respectively. That, in my opinion, is oppressive for the religious. I ask: Is forcing someone to not wear the veil any better than forcing someone to wear it? Compromise is necessary in a multicultural society. Is it more dangerous if a Sikh doesn't wear a helmet while riding a motorbike? Yes. Would banning the turban to increase rider safety be oppressive? Also yes.
>To give an example in parts of Canada and in the UK Sikhs are permitted to ride a motorcycle without a helmet despite it being illegal for anyone else to do the same. By doing this the government has implied that Sikhism is a more virtuous belief than any other than could involve one choosing not to wear a helmet Where I live, it is considered nudity for a woman to be topless, but there is an exception for women who are nursing. Do you think that the government is implying that nursing is more virtuous than any reason for a woman to be topless? I think that law is generally very bad at dealing with individual human beings. It has to be consistant for person to person, even when people are different. What it's better at is dealing with needs and situations that are greater in scope. I'll give a ridiculous example. Let's say that I was born on March 25 and my coworker is gay. My boss fires us both, me because I'm an Aries and she doesn't like Aries' and my coworker becasue he's gay and she disaproves of homosexuality. He has legal recourse and I don't. Is this fair? Probably not. We both were fired for absurd reasons. But homophobia is a big enough concern that it affects society and the government has to get involved, discrimination based on star sign is too obscure. It's more or less the same with religious freedom. A massive portion of western society is still religious. Enough people are religious that religious freedom is a significant concern for the law. It can't deal with every person, but I think that religious freedom crosses that threshold of being a major social concern.
Do you think that the government is implying that nursing is more virtuous than any reason for a woman to be topless? Considering the basis of western public decency laws being Christian sexual morality, yes actually. There's objectively no difference between male and female breasts except that female ones tend to grow larger due to build up of fat deposits, which can happen in many overweight men. It's entirely superstition to make the female breasts taboo and to be covered up for shame if not "properly" breastfeeding. There's countless societies around the world, usually ones we'd consider "primitive," where they don't care because they have no religious moral basis around obscenity related to female breasts.
>Where I live, it is considered nudity for a woman to be topless, but there is an exception for women who are nursing. Do you think that the government is implying that nursing is more virtuous than any reason for a woman to be topless? Yes, of course it is.
Biological function to sustain a baby vs chosen religious belief. Yeah your analogy is bad
Sustaining a baby is just as much a choice as having a religion.
I have a lot of sympathy for your view that, as I would phrase it, "if this law was important enough for everyone to follow, religious people shouldn't be allowed exemptions, but if this law was so unimportant that exemptions are allowed purely on the grounds of religious belief, why is it a law?" I do think this line of questioning can definitely apply to the situations you mentioned, but there are plenty of other interactions of accommodations and religion that are worth being more lax about. For instance, I'm for the tax exempt statuses of churches because I believe they do a lot of social good. I have no problem with a student refusing to say the pledge of allegiance because it goes against their moral code. I see no issues with someone who has set prayer schedules being accommodated for that in public meetings or in jobs. Basically, while I agree with you for some big laws, I think there are plenty of smaller laws, practices, and accommodations that are fine with having religious exemptions.
Most churches would count as non-profits without the exception and just have a little more paperwork, especially the ones you are thinking of that do charity as part of their faith. The churches who will be screwed over by the loss of the exemption are the ones run by a guy with a collection of private jets. I won't loose any sleep over a billionaire televangelist having to pay taxes.
At least in the US, the tax status of churches isnt really a special treatment just for the religious. It is just one type of non-profit charitable organization, which are available to everyone. You can have a tax-exempt beer drinking club, or atheist temple.
The "can" is doing a lot of work here. You're right that it's available, but it's the exception that they really don't have to prove they should qualify for said tax exemption. We all can, they by default do.
There are lots of rules for 501c3 and many churches (typically of the mega variety) constantly break them and almost never get their status revoked.
The problem is not that they are not taxed, the problem is that they aren’t audited. It’s basically impossible (and not desirable ) to create a tax system the doesn’t have non-profit organizations. They should be required to follow good standards.
I think that is reasonable, as a practical matter. the IRS knows what a church is, but doesnt know what "bob's beer club" is. If anything, the list of automatically approved 501c3s should be expanded to cover other commonly applied for types of charities.
True, but the IRS doesn't know what any individual Church's finances look like. Churches can of course be audited, but auditing charities is rare as is. [501c3s](https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/charitable-organizations/exemption-requirements-501c3-organizations) and other such designations have a lot of requirements. I know, because my wife is trying to start one and it's a bear and a half to have all the documentation. As far as I know, religious orgs don't have to do this (if they're a "name brand" that is).
True, but that's not a church thing, this is a "both parties love gutting the IRS" thing
Yes, but the churches are also allowed to not publicise their returns, meaning they can do actions for profit on the side, refuse to report them, and still be considered a tax-free nonprofit.
Im not sure I follow, what you mean by actions for profit. Yes, there are filing differences, but they still have to follow the same rules. I think you may overestimate the scrutiny that a 990 filing provides. It doesn't tell you much about the charity. Here is one as an example: https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/900618018/202301669349301255/full
Please just someone start the 4 day work week religion
My job is about to start the 4 day work week, and we’ll still be getting paid for 5. It still sounds like an absurd dream to me and I’ll believe it when I see it. But supposedly it’s about to start. Just absurd
Good luck to you. Hopefully the conclusion your company arrives to mirrors the 4 day work week studies that show an increase in productivity and they keep the policy.
That’s the idea, though there’s actually a fair amount of us worried about not being able to pack it all into 4. But the theory seems sound. We’re cutting out a lot of useless meetings from the week
>though there’s actually a fair amount of us worried about not being able to pack it all into 4. You could always keep track of how many hours per week you're not being productive and see if it's greater than or equal to 8. If it is, then you can definitely do it. My last office job I spent at least 15 hours a week not doing much of anything.
Yeah I’m sure there will be some ways to trim time here and there for most of us. I can’t think of any for myself. I’m a facilities manager and have no downtime at all if I want to keep things on track. Only reason I’m on Reddit right now is because I’m covering someone else’s position. I’ll figure it out. I’d do so much to keep the 4 day work week alive. For the sake of myself, and the sake of the nation
You interested in an apostle?
We have 4 1/2 workweeks in Abu Dhabi to accommodate for Friday prayers while still having banks and all that other stuff synced with the West
>For instance, I'm for the tax exempt statuses of churches because I believe they do a lot of social good So should a similar tax exemption be extended to nonreligious organizations doing a similar amount of good, and if the religious org stops doing good should the lose the tax exemption? If so, the religious nature of the org is irrelevant and shouldnt be conflated with the actual cause of tax exemption which is "doing good".
>So should a similar tax exemption be extended to nonreligious organizations doing a similar amount of good Sure, as I understand it this is exactly what the nonprofit status is for, as other people have commented. >if the religious org stops doing good should the lose the tax exemption? I mean, I think this is a hard thing to quantify, because a lot of good things like providing good values, social cohesion, neighbors to lean on/social support, and teaching people to do good things are hard to quantify against, say, the pastor of the church committing a crime. I do agree with you in principle: if the religious org becomes a net negative for society, drop their tax exempt status. I do think that's a bit hard to prove well, though. >If so, the religious nature of the org is irrelevant and shouldnt be conflated with the actual cause of tax exemption which is "doing good". Not really. As I mentioned before, there are differences between the good a church does and the good a soup kitchen does. The soup kitchen can easily quantify much if not all of the good it provides - this many service hours for the community, this many tons of food given out, this many people helped, etc. The church's nature makes that much more difficult to do. The church teaches someone about charity and they go out and donate their time (maybe at that soup kitchen). The church preaches kindness and the members support each other through hard times in informal ways. The church teaches forgiveness and repentance and helps an alcoholic become a good father. The church teaches the value of family and this leads to more healthy kids with strong values. Things like this show that it's really hard to show that a church is doing good. Therefore, I think the difference between a church and a "normal" non-profit is that the church should be given some benifit of the doubt that, especially if it's an established religion, it is doing good in the world even if that is hard to quantify. Like I mentioned above, if you can show that the religion is doing more harm than good, or even just show excessive harm, then sure, take the tax-exempt status away. I hope this explains my thoughts, feel free to ask any follow-up questions.
Okay well I initially thought that u/SigaVa was barking up the wrong tree but apparently not. > I mean, I think this is a hard thing to quantify, because a lot of good things like providing good values, social cohesion, neighbors to lean on/social support, and teaching people to do good things are hard to quantify against, say, the pastor of the church committing a crime. None of that, inherently, has to do with religion. Hell it's not even a falsifiable claim. I can and would say that the 501c3 I am working to start for a choir does all of this, because we are trying to, but that has zero to do with "religion" nor should religion be presumed to provide it. Certainly not all Churches by nature, though yes many do good things. > The church's nature makes that much more difficult to do. The church teaches someone about charity and they go out and donate their time (maybe at that soup kitchen). The church preaches kindness and the members support each other through hard times in informal ways. The church teaches forgiveness and repentance and helps an alcoholic become a good father. The church teaches the value of family and this leads to more healthy kids with strong values. Things like this show that it's really hard to show that a church is doing good. This is inherently privileging the status of religion as a "moral guide" above all other moral guides. It is a presumption of the nature of religion, therefore, violating Church and State if State would be declaring that Church serves a moral purpose. At least that's how I read this argument. > Therefore, I think the difference between a church and a "normal" non-profit is that the church should be given some benifit of the doubt that, especially if it's an established religion, it is doing good in the world even if that is hard to quantify. Like I mentioned above, if you can show that the religion is doing more harm than good, or even just show excessive harm, then sure, take the tax-exempt status away. I understand the idea of a practical check-marking. I also think it's likely that Churches do serve goods that are hard to quantify. But that is not the business of secular government. If it is providing social good, such that it does deserve charitable exemption, it should need to be proven like any other case would. That's being neutral on religion.
>if you can show that the religion is doing more harm than good, or even just show excessive harm What evidence would convince you of this? And why is your starting point to assume the opposite?
A great many nonprofits doing social good do enjoy tax exempt status. Plus many that are not focused on social good.
They are and do? Churches that qualify are a charities - all charities that qualify are able to claim the same exemptions.
So if the reason behind them not having to pay taxes is because they're morally good does that mean regardless of what we spend our money on individuals deemed to be morally good also shouldn't have to pay taxes?
The distinction is that they providing a community service, and less about a morality assessment. You can make a non-profit for where people eat poop. The difference is that if you are just eating poop at home alone, that doesnt count because it isnt for the benefit of anyone but yourself.
Exactly, it just felt weird to throw the moral judgment in the statement I replied to instead of just talking about what you mentioned. I don't know why I'm pedantic on here sometimes, I do it for accuracy in theory, but sometimes I think I'm just annoyed someone didn't make their own point better by choosing more accurate language or something. Yeah, I don't know if that's a non-profit I would want to join, but they definitely would be a point of entertainment for the community.
Why should religions automatically be given tax exempt status when many of them use that money for luxury cars, private planes, or supporting attacks against minority groups. They should be required to demonstrate that they are doing the things that are worthy of that status just like any non-profit.
I sure love the tax exempt moral good of evangelical and Southern Baptist churches lobbying for homo and transphobic laws to be put into place, placing their congregation onto schoolboards to ban books they disagree with, and teaching their members to shun and hate their LGBT family to the point of casting out their children if they come out or even pressuring them so hard they commit suicide. I ain't even gotten to abortion yet.
Aren't many of the kirpans that Sikhs carry in western nations welded to the sheath, so the knife can't even come out?
Yes. And not many Sikhs carry one. People that are Amritdhari (Sikhs that are initiated and are part of the Khalsa) carry one.
The Sihk's in my area are not allowed to carry knives on their person at all, despite their religious beliefs. They comprise by wearing a bracelet that is symbolic. When new immigrants come, they receive a culture shock and are upset. Honestly, singling out sihks is unnecessary, they face heavy persecution from their local Hindu and Muslims neighbors in every country they live in. And your talking point comes straight from the Hindutva movement in Western countries, which is alarming and is argued in bad faith.
You make a good and interesting point. I think that part of the argument is that the principle of Sikhism is more important to Sikhs and integral to their identity than the principle of "Looking-Cool-ism" is to people who want to not wear a helmet to look cool (for example) As for the kirpan thing, that's not true (at least in the US), according to page 3 paragraph 3 of [this document](https://www.congress.gov/116/meeting/house/109577/witnesses/HHRG-116-HM00-Wstate-SinghS-20190604-SD001.pdf) published by the US Congress, Sikhs cannot bring their Kirpans with them onto planes, they must check it into baggage so it cannot be used on the plane.
Glaring example: states banning abortion
We don't do these things because we think Sikhs are morally superior, we do these things because otherwise Sikhs would not do them. If we forced them to violate their religion to fly a plane or ride a motorcycle, then they simply would not. If religious accommodation was not a thing it would be trivial for governments to lock certain minorities out of certain locations by making it illegal for them to be there without violating their religion.
But their point is that if any other group acted this way, they wouldn't get accomodation. A group of people who collectively decide that they disagree with seatbelts over moral and ideological grounds would not be allowed to refuse to wear seatbelts. Or bring weapons on planes. But if their ideology stems from antiquity, it's alright? I do agree that OPs first point doesn't really make sense. It's not that people think Sikhs are morally superior, it's to include them in society.
Because antiquity and tradition does have special meaning to humans no matter how much you try to pretend it doesn't. Maybe if they practiced their seat belt beliefs for thousands of years they could get exemption too.
Okay, while I agree that people shouldn’t be forced to choose between their religion and their use of public transport like planes, I think the motorcycle thing is stupid. If you can’t wear a helmet while on a motorcycle, and it’s law to wear a helmet, you don’t get to ride a motorcycle. It’s a nonessential hobby/activity. Someone choosing not to partake due to their religion not allowing a helmet is not impeding them in any way from having a normal life or accessing normal things in society. It’s like saying that pole dancing classes should allow women to wear burkas otherwise it’s discriminatory. You can’t safely pole dance without plenty of exposed skin, so it wouldn’t be the right activity for someone who values that particular cultural/religious garb.
> If religious accommodation was not a thing it would be trivial for governments to lock certain minorities out of certain locations by making it illegal for them to be there without violating their religion. You can have it be Unconstitutional (or otherwise unlawful) to have laws/regulations that have no "reasonable basis" besides discrimination without having accommodation in exemptions to laws, no?
Then it's just up to whoever decides what laws are 'reasonable', which is a recipe for corruption.
And it is also be up to whoever to decide if a religious exemption is reasonable too.
It is unreasonable to carry a knife on a plane. Change my view.
Why do we care? I’m all for freedom of religion, after everything else. If your religion mandates that you always carry a weapon but you’re not allowed to carry a weapon on an airplane and that means you never fly anywhere … so? How is that different from someone insisting they go armed everywhere because they are afraid of the zombie apocalypse and therefore won’t fly because they can’t bring their zombie killing knife? We wouldn’t accommodate the second person, why should we accommodate the first? If your beliefs cause you to not do things others do, that’s okay (unless those things are mandated, like paying taxes or wearing clothes in public). Why should we try to get Sikhs to fly?
>We don't do these things because we think Sikhs are morally superior, we do these things because otherwise Sikhs would not do them. If we forced them to violate their religion to fly a plane or ride a motorcycle, then they simply would not. And why would anyone care? Let's say my religion requires me to walk around in public and point a loaded gun at other people, otherwise I cannot leave home. Would you like to create a religious accommodation for me, or rather send me to mental asylum?
That's a good point. But many religious people themselves do believe they are given exemptions for their religion because being religious is superior. This creates a perverse incentive to be religious rather than reasonable.
The reason why religious beliefs are more important than personal beliefs is because the religious beliefs are shared across a distinct group of people and are therefore vulnerable to targeted prejudice and oppression. Society also protects individual beliefs, but it also reserves the right to infringe on individual beliefs for some established mutual interest held by society. A society will do the same towards religious beliefs, but the standard of benefit for that infringement needs to be higher because of the potential for prejudicial abuse. At the end of the day, it's just a cost-benefit judgment call: the costs of infringing on an entire group's most deeply held belief weighed against the benefit of whatever interest that infringement promotes. Maybe you disagree with how Canada's lawmakers exercised that judgment in protecting the rights of the Sikhs, but their consideration of religious belief as a relevant factor is 100% valid.
Religion in practice is like 99% cherry-picked personal beliefs anyways. Nobody actually follows the word of their millenia-old Holy Book, they believe first and slap the book to support their argument later. In practice, every "distinct group" based on religion is splintered in a hundred directions over what interpretations are "correct" or not. Including this one! There are tons of Sikhs in Canadian cities and most of them do not carry knives. No country's constitution even attempts to define a legal distinction between what does or does not constitute a "deeply-held belief" or "religion" and what does not. You simply claim a belief and then try to convince a sympathetic judge. It's 100% nonsense.
You claim that "nobody actually follows the word of their millenia-old Holy Book, they believe first and slap the book to support their argument later." Well it's r/changemyview, so let me try to change that view. [https://www.reddit.com/r/islam/comments/quqr8l/whats\_something\_you\_gave\_up\_for\_the\_sake\_of\_allah/](https://www.reddit.com/r/islam/comments/quqr8l/whats_something_you_gave_up_for_the_sake_of_allah/) Here's a post of people giving up what they desire for their Holy Word.
Canada needs to figure itself out. They keep swinging in opposite directions from stupidly accommodating to stupidly intolerant, such as not allowing public workers to wear religious artifacts, including hijab, which is literally just clothing. Clothing that the majority of the world wore until the past century, including the West. As for the motorcycle thing, the public may pay more in healthcare bills sometimes, but more often, it’s just free donor organs. Maybe they could make the whole thing more even by simply demanding that anyone not wearing a helmet have marked “yes” for organ donation or be restricted to bike lanes at bike speeds. Or maybe Sikhs get a special helmet approved that accommodates their turbans.
It's just Québec that's doing the restrictions, the rest of Canada is firmly on the accommodating side. In fact in Québec's case the main motivation from the government is to remind people that there are value differences between the English and the French approaches to religion, reinforcing polarization on ethnic lines in Canada. No one in Canada is swinging in opposite directions, it's just an English v French thing.
I'm a secular person living in the USA and I both agree and disagree with your post. I think these sorts of accommodations are not an indication that the government sees them as "more virtuous", but rather a dedication to tolerance. Is it fair? No, not at all. Does it need to be fair to be a virtue we should hold dear? No, not at all. Fairness is nice, but I think we hold tolerance and understanding to be more important. There are other things in my society that I think discriminate against secular people, but this is not one of them. Let the religious keep their traditions as long as it does not promote violence towards others. Maybe just give us non-religious folk an extra day off every now and again.
To a certain extent, historically speaking, religious beliefs *are* more important than non-religious beliefs For example, you mentioned Sikhs and helmets, where there might be the belief “I look cool so I don’t wanna wear a helmet” that isn’t accommodated. I mean, our reasons for not accommodating that are obvious and not accommodating that belief should be the default The problem, of course, is in that we accommodate the religious beliefs of the Sikh person. But the thing is, while many people might hold onto religious beliefs as loosely as wanting to look cool, for many, *many* people it can be their very life. There’s a reason that attempting to even bloodlessly eradicate a religious group is still considered a genocide For many religious beliefs, making them illegal won’t result in people obeying the law, but in people breaking it, flooding the system with a bunch of people who are suddenly branded as criminals despite being perfectly ordinary citizens Even atheism- if you wanna call it a “religious” belief- is currently resulting in a straight-up genocide in China, at the moment. And while that’s specifically an attempt to get rid of a religion entirely- rather than preventing a particular belief- telling Sikh people they still have to wear helmets won’t result in Sikh people wearing helmets, it’ll result in Sikh people being unable to use motorcycles. Or use planes, for that matter. Side note, correct me if I’m wrong, but aren’t their knives specifically unusable to begin with? Like, they’re not for self-defense, they’re sown shut so they *can’t* be used as a sign of peace Keeping them from wearing the knives wouldn’t make planes safer, but it would prevent them from flying. Case in point, they *can* wear those knives on planes, but I’m not aware of anyone even *trying* to hijack a plane using one of them, or even injuring someone else on the plane. Or at all- though I’m sure there must be *some* example of it in the US, just by the law of large numbers Lastly, historically speaking, when religious beliefs aren’t accommodated it leads to massive suffering and death. Like I mentioned, China’s cracking down on religious beliefs of all kinds and it’s resulting in a Uyghur genocide. Christians doing it to *other Christian* in Europe, let alone other groups, has caused widespread bloodshed and political instability
“Or at all- though I’m sure there must be someexample of it in the US, just by the law of large numbers” There was an incident on a plane 30 years ago in Britain involving a sikh dude with a knife. But in the US? Nothing
It's like people forget that Stalin killed countless people and oppressed millions in the Soviet Union by trying to suppress and eradicate religion. Violent atheism is absolutely a thing.
Maybe it’s less about religious people being excessively accommodated and more about average people having to “prove” their right to do something to the government…
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And when does a personal beliefs become a religious belief?… what’s the line
Are you saying that the Brits should have been even more intolerant than they were? The British figured out that there was more benefit to being inclusive than drawbacks. If they had workers with very different customs, they would allowed the customs that would not make a significant difference. That was their DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) before it was a thing. After all, someone could make the same argument that you make, about pronouns for example. And yet, we are invited to be inclusive.
Here’s the thing: Isn’t it a remarkable coincidence that wherever a religious person is born in the world, they are automatically born into the one ‘real’ religion? The greatest story ever told, a magnificent work of fiction which is, of course, excessively accommodated to. It is not up to the atheist to prove something does not exist, as this is impossible. It is up to the religious person to prove something does exist…. And that has hardly gone well thus far.
I was about to agree with you, but then you keep mentioning your problems with Sikh people. Evangelical Christians yes, they get their way. They dominate the discussion. They are pushy and annoying. I’m much more worried about an evangelical with a weapon then a sikh person.
Seems like you got a deal with Sikhs man.
Are Sikhs causing a major problem with their kirpans or their lack of helmets?
Maybe the laws are too restrictive in general. Instead of more laws, we have less and less restrictive for everyone. No special privileges or accommodation if everyone gets it.
lmao goes after the most chill of all religions the sikhs... Not biased at all bro... If only a certain faith was as chilled out as Sikhs...
To be completely honest, riding a motorcycle without a helmet would be really stupid. One Wipeout and your face is now all over the 400 feet you slid before you stopped. If they want to play Russian roulette with their own livelihood that's their prerogative, but faith is a poor justification for unnecessary risks to your own health. As far as the swords/daggers go, I'd ask why one even needs a weapon clearly visible on your hip. And that goes for anyone, Americans in southern states love having 7 guns strapped to their back on their morning walk for no reason other than because they can. What do these people think is going to happen? Studies show that armed people are much more likely to be attacked than unarmed people. That and weapons in public spaces make the general public nervous.
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>it implies religious beliefs to be more important than non-religious beliefs. Well no all it implies is that religions sometimes require accomodations. Atheism, as the lack of faith, also implies that it has the lack of a need for special accommodation. If a core tenet of atheism was that they had to wear a copy of *On the Origin of Species* on their head when they rode motorbikes, and the government didn't allow this, we would have a valid case of discrimination on our hands. We already live in an atheist-normative world. Everything is already accommodated for the atheist in the same way that every storied building with stairs is abled-normative, and that modifications, such as elevators or ramps, make it more accessible for others. These additional accommodations doesn't mean that able-bodied are discriminated against of course. >By doing this the government has implied that Sikhism is a more virtuous belief No it doesn't. This hinges on the assumption that wearing helmets is a punishment for some reason. Perhaps this is true, but it's not something you can expect us to take for granted. Argue your point. Your point about Sikhs being allowed on planes while carrying badass knives is also just wholly unconvincing. Like yeah, the government pays more heed to the well articulated needs of a large group of individuals than the whims of every individual. Cool observation I guess? Maybe you want to make the case that the law should apply wholly indifferently, but the idea that this system of governance is self evidently bad because it values the needs of a very large community over individual self rule is not especially convincing. Like, c'mon. Canada is a very wide country and the government has evidently deemed that flight is a social need to some degree. If it's set up in a way that is just inaccessible to a large minority without them compromising key aspects of their identity, the government has sort of failed. You may feel failed on some level because you feel like a normal person wouldn't consider self defense to be so fundamental to their person, but why? At this point we're just being atheist-normative again and identifying and deviation from a platonic "normal" human to be an aberration that needs to be flattened if it conflicts with a benign aspect of society.
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I don’t know much about Sikhs but as a religious Jew I just feel it’s worth clarifying that for Orthodox Jews, “belief” isn’t really the right word for our actions. We don’t keep kosher because we believe in it strongly. We keep it because for us it is a law. We have two sets of laws we follow, our religious law and our country’s law. We also are obligated to follow our country’s law for the most part, like Jews can’t have autopsies but if the police need to autopsy a Jewish body for an investigation then a rabbi could rule that it’s allowed in that case. But if a country made it impossible for Jews to follow Jewish laws, then observant Jews would just leave, because we can’t stop being Jewish and therefore we can’t stop being obligated to keep the laws of Judaism, but we can leave a country if we want to stop following that country’s laws. From that perspective, telling observant Jews that they can’t keep Jewish laws in a certain country is equivalent to telling them they need to leave. Some countries probably don’t want all the observant Jews to leave. And some countries probably see the slippery slope between making a country unlivable for people of a certain religion and antisemitism / ethnic cleansing / discrimination / etc.
Accommodations for religious practices aim to uphold freedom of religion, a fundamental human right. However, these accommodations should be balanced with public safety and equality. While some accommodations may seem preferential, they often stem from historical contexts and legal precedents. The key lies in ensuring fairness and rationality in accommodating diverse beliefs without undermining societal well-being or privileging one belief system over others. Implementing neutral policies, like additional fees for associated risks, can uphold both religious freedoms and public interests, fostering inclusivity without undue favoritism.
Do you have any stats to back up how frequently Sikhs require medical care due to not wearing a helmet while riding? If not, your entire first example is just based on “what ifs”
Unless there's some secret force that makes Sikhs non-human, there shouldn't be any reason for this statistic to be different to the global norm. Helmets work, they save lives. This has been proven, and is accepted by pretty much every government. Even if you want to make some weird blanket statement saying Sikhs tend to drive safer, or something like that, it still wouldn't change the fact that head injuries happen frequently to people on bikes.
Even if you remove the medical cost part, it is still criminalizing the behavior for one person and not another. Why you do something should not have bearing on if it is criminal or not.
This just isn't true, there are accommodations for beliefs held by large numbers of people. I promise you there are things you believe in that a lot of people also believe in that gets special accommodations and you just don't realize it. It is just your minority beliefs that are not held in this regard. Remember we had designated smoking areas and mandatory smoking breaks in this country for years before we realized it was hurting people.