You’re not used to thinking magically. Your next move was:
“Yes it does.”
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Damn! That’s me out of the running then.
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I remember a point in the 80s here in the UK when supermarkets transitioned from the checkout staff remembering all the prices to everything have a barcode on it. So barcodes were seen as this futurist timesaving device that could be applied to everything.
6.6.6
However, the simple numeric-to-bars code used had a format that had two thin lines at the start, the middle and the end (many still do) and in some systems, two thin lines represented the numeral 6. In turn that meant that not just was this representative of the mark of the beast, but also, by design every barcode contained the numbers 6_xxxxx_6_xxxxx_6.
At the time I looked up barcodes in the Readers Digest Enclopedia we had kicking around, which seemed to support || = 6 code, but looking through google now I can’t find anything to back this up.
But back then it was a fun playground thing to think that every barcode contained an encoded 666 and at some point we’d all have one.
This clearly isn’t that though, I just wanted to put it into the much narrower context of mid 80s UK playground chatter.
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I’m not exactly an expert on a how this transcribes into the law so this is mostly pontification for the sake of discussion.
Just as a measure though, if his beliefs are not subject to the scripture, than where does this open interpretation begin and end?
Like as some of the commenters in the thread have jested at frivolous beliefs so they don’t pay taxes for example, these would have to be catered to if the employee demonstrated genuine belief in them? And how does one measure the degree of genuineness?
The article said he was a Evangelical Christian, so if he was a devout practitioner with sincere beliefs, its possible he’d be of the belief of biblical inerrancy. This is why I brought up the scripture, because to measure one’s genuine belief, you need a metric to measure it against. Wouldn’t their revered scripture be an apt measuring point for an Evangelical in specific?
Not saying this would apply across the board, but the group to my understanding is pretty keen on literal understanding. Coming from an area in North Georgia that went from rural local churches to wonder bread suburbia with 2,000 person mega churches over the course of about 15 years (Forsyth County), I’ve seen a fair diversity of Christians.
I just think if one is going to cite a belief from a scripture as to why they cannot partake in something, that the scripture should be used as a metric to find a solution. Because the scripture specifically notes the right hand and forehead, I found that the offered solution of a left hand use to be more than apt and accommodating.
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Are all of your beliefs internally consistent?
I remember that too- we were actually taught the barcode format at school.
Snopes has a page on 666 in barcodes.
A virtual (digital) pendant. So it doesn’t really pendle.
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Perhaps it shall metaphorically pendle.
That depends.
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It ends when the accommodation he’s requesting places an undue burden on the employer. What neither of the two linked articles mention is that, in this case, the employer had already made exceptions for other employees who were missing fingers. Those employees were permitted to sign in and out manually. So he wasn’t requesting that the employer implement a whole new system to accommodate him: he was just requesting to be allowed to make use of a system that was already in place.
Given that, there was really no way that the employer was going to be able to show that accommodating his request would be a significant burden.
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I understand how this technology works. It takes a picture/image of your hand. Of course I’d be okay with that I’m not insane. This is no different then taking a picture of your FACE for a photo id. OMG they have my facial biometric data on file, also known as a photo. We all know photos steal souls…lol.
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Fair, enough! I was mostly being devil’s advocate; and as I said, wasn’t familiar enough with the passage in question to comment knowledgeably. Regardless, I totally agree with you about the madness of these kind of rulings; I’m just not totally sure how to tackle them vis à vis constitutional religious freedom.
hahaha, sir or madam, you are awesome.
Thank you kindly sir or madam.
@Nonhuman_Hominid
Your avatar looks suspiciously like Frank’s ManHog.
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That’s really more of an argument against any religious exemptions. Since religion is generally inherently irrational, you can’t really rationally establish the genuineness or “legitimacy” of one irrational belief over another.
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Ah, what a laugh.
It would be extremely unusual to be required to break a religious observance such as being forced to eat pork. At the same time, being forced to get tattooed for the purposes of identification probably could be considered a form of violence, never mind religiously questionable.
The fact of the matter is that the man didn’t like that thar technology, didn’t understand or refused to accept an understanding of said technology, stuck his fingers in his ears and blubbered until he was fired.
Put yourself in the position of a sane employer. Do you want someone working for you who refuses to listen to reason, refuses to engage with your saftey protocols for entirely imagined technicalities and, if catered for would open a pandora’s box of religiously fuelled, hysterical demands for exemption?
I know some of you out there are answering ‘yes’. You confuse me.
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Pedanting the Pendant? Must we?
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Which makes you pedanting the pedanting of the pedant. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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I continued the train of thought with measuring it against the established scripture. Or in other words, the written word of the belief system. I mean other than that, you are correct in that it cannot be rationally established. But if one holds them self to their holy text, as I mentioned with the biblical inerrancy, than it stands to believe that he is holding himself to the literal word in the book, which clearly limits it to the right hand and forehead.
I mean, I can’t really think of a case off the top of my head where these kinds of suits have ruled in favor of those who cannot substantiate the belief with the written text. If I am wrong, please do correct me, I’d like to not be wrong about this in future cases.
Yeah, but that’s my point. There’s nothing magical about “the written word of a belief system.” Religion is just an assertion. Whether it’s written. Weather it is followed by a group. Or whether it’s asserted by an individual.
I’d also point out that pretty much no Christians follow the litteral written word of the Bible. It’s impossible, because the Bible is self contradictory. All Christians cherry pick from the Bible.
It should not be up to employers or courts to try and dictate people’s exegesis. That road just leads to crazy town.
