Religious Discrimination

[goddamnit]

If you are not a hiring manager, pretend you are one. Two applicants try for the same position. You believe one is an atheist and the other is a Christian. How might you arrive at the belief? Well, this example is an imagined situation, so I will leave that up to your imagination. (Maybe your firm's cameras saw a Darwin bumper sticker on one candidate's vehicle and a Jesus fish on the other when they came for interviews?)

Before knowing about the religion of these candidates, they seem equally likely to offer what you are seeking. But, as it turns out, this is a job that requires logic and critical thinking, and you now know that one is an atheist and the other is a Christian. If you have a personal preference to work with an atheist or religious person, leave that factor out of the decision. Would your awareness that one applicant is an atheist and the other is a Christian, tip the scale and lead you to select the atheist?

If your answer is "yes," then do you accept that religious discrimination is ok?

If your answer is "no," are you sure you did not fall for a societal trap by treating religious discrimination as if it is racial discrimination?

[CliveStaples]

If you are not a hiring manager, pretend you are one. Two applicants try for the same position. You believe one is an atheist and the other is a Christian. How might you arrive at the belief? Well, this example is an imagined situation, so I will leave that up to your imagination. (Maybe your firm's cameras saw a Darwin bumper sticker on one candidate's vehicle and a Jesus fish on the other when they came for interviews?)

Before knowing about the religion of these candidates, they seem equally likely to offer what you are seeking. But, as it turns out, this is a job that requires logic and critical thinking, and you now know that one is an atheist and the other is a Christian. If you have a personal preference to work with an atheist or religious person, leave that factor out of the decision. Would your awareness that one applicant is an atheist and the other is a Christian, tip the scale and lead you to select the atheist?

If your answer is "yes," then do you accept that religious discrimination is ok?

If your answer is "no," are you sure you did not fall for a societal trap by treating religious discrimination as if it is racial discrimination?

Well, if they seem equally likely to offer what I'm seeking--in this scenario, logic and critical thinking--then it would have to be a random choice between them.

Statistically, atheists are probably more likely to be highly educated. But that information would already be available on their CV, so that inference would be superfluous.

I wouldn't want to discriminate against either of them based on their religion--I don't give a fuck what they believe, I care about their logic and reasoning abilities--but I've known too many smart Christians (I went to a Christian college) and too many ignorant atheists (Taq, lookin at you bro) to make the inference I suspect you're hinting toward.

[goddamnit]

Well, if they seem equally likely to offer what I'm seeking--in this scenario, logic and critical thinking--then it would have to be a random choice between them.

I stated that without knowing what their religions are, they seem equally likely to perform well (in this example). It is entirely up to the hiring manager (reader) to decide what to think and do upon becoming aware of the religion (or lack thereof).

Of course, you and I probably differ in that respect. I think a person can not be religious without failing to critically think in the context of religion, and is therefore more likely to fail at critical thinking in another context. Obviously, this is not absolute and there are bright Christians. Also, my assessment would have nothing to do with a correlation between atheism and academic education; it would have everything to do with critical thinking and logic.

[Creed of Heresy]

I wouldn't want to discriminate against either of them based on their religion--I don't give a fuck what they believe, I care about their logic and reasoning abilities--but I've known too many smart Christians (I went to a Christian college) and too many ignorant atheists (Taq, lookin at you bro) to make the inference I suspect you're hinting toward.

In other words you'd make the biased judgment towards the Christian on the excuse that you went to a "Christian college" and are a Christian yourself. Pay no mind to the fact that a vast majority of young-earth creationists come from Christian colleges; this is YOUR perception and opinion. What you may call smart, I may call ridiculously ignorant and vice versa. Point is, you WOULD choose the Christian then, yes?

[CliveStaples]

I stated that without knowing what their religions are, they seem equally likely to perform well (in this example). It is entirely up to the reader to decide what to think and do upon becoming aware of the religion (or lack thereof).

Of course, you and I probably differ in that respect. I think a person can not be religious without failing to critically think in the context of religion, and it therefore more likely to do it in another context. Obviously, this is not absolute and there are bright Christians. Also, it would nothing to do with a correlation between atheism and academic education; it has everything to do with critical thinking and logic.

Well, even if you think that every religious person has necessarily committed an error in reasoning, it doesn't necessarily follow that they're more prone to reasoning errors than irreligious people.

First, an error in one context doesn't necessarily translate to other contexts. A person might have a 'soft spot' for their parents' religion. A man who is unfaithful to his wife might be very loyal to his bank, or very trustworthy with his clients' money. So a theist who reasons poorly in religious matters might reason well in other contexts.

Second, a lack of error in one context doesn't necessarily translate to a lack of error in other contexts. A person who is meticulous in his reasoning with regard to investments might have terrible reasoning with regard to chess strategy. So an atheist who reasons well in religious contexts might reason poorly in other contexts.

Third, an error on one matter doesn't necessarily indicate a systemic flaw in reasoning. Suppose A and B reason just as well as each other. A and B both experience some event E; A correctly believes that he has experienced E, whereas B mistakenly believes he has experienced some other event F. A and B might come to different conclusions, but not due to a difference in reasoning.

So if you know they're going to be reasoning in some particular context--finance, law, whathaveyou--you'd probably want to crosscheck their backgrounds against that context.



Of course, I suspect you're just guilty of assuming that the people you disagree with are dumb, and the people you agree with are smart. It's the easiest way to look at the world. It's a lot harder to be humble about your own understanding. But then again, I might be completely wrong.

[Skepsis]

If you are not a hiring manager, pretend you are one. Two applicants try for the same position. You believe one is an atheist and the other is a Christian. How might you arrive at the belief? Well, this example is an imagined situation, so I will leave that up to your imagination. (Maybe your firm's cameras saw a Darwin bumper sticker on one candidate's vehicle and a Jesus fish on the other when they came for interviews?)

Before knowing about the religion of these candidates, they seem equally likely to offer what you are seeking. But, as it turns out, this is a job that requires logic and critical thinking, and you now know that one is an atheist and the other is a Christian. If you have a personal preference to work with an atheist or religious person, leave that factor out of the decision. Would your awareness that one applicant is an atheist and the other is a Christian, tip the scale and lead you to select the atheist?

If your answer is "yes," then do you accept that religious discrimination is ok?

If your answer is "no," are you sure you did not fall for a societal trap by treating religious discrimination as if it is racial discrimination?

It isn't religious descrimination if I were to select the atheitic applicant over the Christian applicant. If both are equally competant to perform the task at hand, it wouldn't hurt anyone's feelings if you made whatever arbitrary choice you felt like.
The best thing to do is actually toss a coin, or draw from a hat, or something of the sort. I wouldn't care if one was religious and the other wasn't; if the religious applicant turned out to be an asshole, I would fire him and hire the atheist, and vice versa.
Though I don't condone descrimination in any facet of society, I feel I might have a harder time choosing the Christian for the group they stand for.
It would be subconscious, I'm sure, but I have had too many encounters with bigoted, stubborn, unintelligent, True Christians™ and as such would certainly be swayed towards the atheist.
Just being honest.

[CliveStaples]

In other words you'd make the biased judgment towards the Christian on the excuse that you went to a "Christian college" and are a Christian yourself.

...uh, no. I didn't say that. I didn't imply that. You're just seeing what you want to see, broheme.

Pay no mind to the fact that a vast majority of young-earth creationists come from Christian colleges; this is YOUR perception and opinion.

That's not even the right conditional probability. The question isn't "What's the probability that a young-earth creationist came from a Christian college?" It would be, "What's the probability that a person who came from a Christian college is a young-earth creationist?"

It might be that almost every young-earth creationist comes from a Christian college, but that the huge majority of people who attend Christian colleges aren't young-earth creationists. (What the actual numbers are, I don't know--but P(A|B) isn't the same as P(B|A), which any sophomore who's taken P&S could tell you.)

What you may call smart, I may call ridiculously ignorant and vice versa. Point is, you WOULD choose the Christian then, yes?

Um, I don't even think I'd give a preference to having any college education; I certainly don't give two shits about the religious affiliation of the applicant's university. Degrees don't make you smart.

[The Grand Nudger]

Meh, equal candidates as per the CV? Which one is cuter?

[kılıç_mehmet]

If you are not a hiring manager, pretend you are one. Two applicants try for the same position. You believe one is an atheist and the other is a Christian. How might you arrive at the belief? Well, this example is an imagined situation, so I will leave that up to your imagination. (Maybe your firm's cameras saw a Darwin bumper sticker on one candidate's vehicle and a Jesus fish on the other when they came for interviews?)

Before knowing about the religion of these candidates, they seem equally likely to offer what you are seeking. But, as it turns out, this is a job that requires logic and critical thinking, and you now know that one is an atheist and the other is a Christian. If you have a personal preference to work with an atheist or religious person, leave that factor out of the decision. Would your awareness that one applicant is an atheist and the other is a Christian, tip the scale and lead you to select the atheist?

If your answer is "yes," then do you accept that religious discrimination is ok?

If your answer is "no," are you sure you did not fall for a societal trap by treating religious discrimination as if it is racial discrimination?

I do not discriminate on religious basis. I don't know what the religious preference of a person has to do with his qualification.
However, there are people who do. So if you want to do so, you can verily do so. But do it subtly, at least.

[jackman]

i'd just ask them one of the questions a company asked me in the interview. "how many gas stations are there in the united states?" ...

i know the answer but it's not as important as the way they come to it.