Investigator finds reasonable grounds for claim of atheism firing »
Posted By Wil 1 year, 6 months ago in Business & FinanceAn investigator for the Maine Human Rights Commission has found reasonable grounds for a manager's claim that he was fired from his job at DeCoster farms because he's an atheist. Cacy Cantwell says Austin "Jack" DeCoster told him before he was fired that they might have to "part ways" because Cantwell didn't believe in God.
Read Full Story at boston.com »
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Wil
I'm a Propeller Scout, and I run the Geek group. I'm a writer and actor who loves technology and science fiction. But I ...
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Comments So Far: 21
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Sachmo4991 year, 6 months ago
It's nice to know that no matter how much I try to help someone, my religion will always be a cause for concern.
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kctrixter1 year, 6 months ago
people on the right post stories that agree with them and people on the left post stories that agree with them, seems normal to me.
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Candida1 year, 6 months ago
ANNEofCOULTER: "...why do members ... constantly post liberal agenda stories with out shame"
Why should they be ashamed of posting stories they believe to be true? The people you list are not THE MEDIA; they are members like you. Don't you think they have a right to be liberal, left-wing, atheists, or no affiliation at all if they like? If you don't like the stories they post, you can ignore them, argue with them, or post the kind of stories you like and discuss those. That's what freedom of speech means.
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Dionys1 year, 6 months ago
I know logic isn't your strong point, Anne. Whichever Anne you are..
But a non-religious man claiming to be fired on grounds that his faith was the cause isn't "hypocrisy." Atheists, out of all the faith traditions, have the greatest faith of all. The complete, utter belief that they as individuals know all the secrets of the universe and know more than anyone who has come before them or will come after them.
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Candida1 year, 6 months ago
Or the strong belief that they know nothing and neither does anyone else.
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Charlson1 year, 6 months ago
You don't like atheists? Too bad, they're people too. With the same rights as all you bible thumpers. If an atheist fired a christian, he is wrong and should be punished. Same goes for the christian who fires an atheist for his beliefs or the lack of. Bad performance of duties or disruptive behaviors are reasons for job termination not if you believe in God.
It is a totalitarism frame of mind that wants everyone to think as you do.
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HannibalBarca1 year, 6 months ago
If a board of directers and the CEO of a company ran the company into the ground,spiritually,morally and was always facing allegations of being corrupt,then the shareholders usualy fire them.In the case of the US administration whose top man(can't call him leader now can we)is hearing Gods' voice then maybe you will get your wish and an athiest will fire him;lets hope so;it is only Monday morning,what kind of scandals are we in for this week
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blksentra21 year, 6 months ago
I don't think that religious views should have been brought up in the work place at all. The article says that the employer brought up God in a conversation, in which the employee responded that he was an atheist.
If you ask me, he shouldn't have brought up the subject which was what brought about the firing.
You can't expect everyone to agree with whatever you believe.
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lvrofwolves1 year, 6 months ago
Sounds to me like DeCoster was 'baiting' him. Decoster the devout Christian didn't like Cantwells unmarried living arrangements either-they was all like unchristian like.
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2ponies1 year, 6 months ago
I too believe this issue was likely about the living conditions much more than any belief in God. However, we are presented too little information to make a reasonable judgement as outsiders. It could be that DeCosters complained about the living arrangements and made statements about morality. It could be that the rebuttal, based on morality, was that the employee didn't believe in God and therefore was not acting immorally. It could be that this was really all about the size of the family, and the economics of supporting them, or the inconvenience of so many children, and the conversation about God was peripheral to the real issue. None of us knows. So, why should we feel compelled to jump off the deep end into inflammatory rhetoric about the antics of believers and non-believers? Much ado about nothing to me.
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Candida1 year, 6 months ago
The living arrangements, the number of children, and the economics of supporting them are none of the employer's business either. The point is that the Human Rights Commission found grounds to believe that the firing was based on religion (or lack thereof), and that is illegal.
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alxnsc1 year, 6 months ago
No wonder... An author named Charles-Theodore-Henri De Coster wrote a novel to tell us how people perished on the stake for less. Obviously, these two De Costers are rather different...
Well, I have for you just the reverse kind of a story. I had a subordinate in the past who (being very tired as we worked hard together over a computer program) had a dream. He saw Him and He made clear to him that the polynomial coefficients I defined to approximately solve a set of differential equations were wrong. During his dream the guy was told by Him the right coefficients. The guy was ordered by Him to keep this in secret. These "right" coefficients, entered not by Him but by him made the computer program that had to control some process in industry malfunction... This made me lose a month debugging to find the reason as I'd never expect that He would wish to solve my equations.
Guess what I did tell the guy...
Just what the contemporary De Coster did...
Anybody laughing?
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Candida1 year, 6 months ago
I'm laughing, but there is a crucial difference: you had an actual performance problem.
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crespi1 year, 6 months ago
In the late eighties, a Fundamentalist Christian was ranting how his brethren were all being "persecuted" in America.
An hour later, I saw a newspaper machine with a headline about how another gay man had been beaten to death by Christians on an American city street.
I checked into it and there has NEVER been a case in the U.S. where a Christian was openly killed for their faith.
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crespi1 year, 6 months ago
However there were thousands of cases of "good Christians" lynching (hanging, castrating, and immolating) innocent black men, killing social workers, murdering hippies, murdering Jews, and recently killing atheists.
That was a fun case where the Christian killed the guy for being an atheist, and then his family name-called and tormented (how they're all going to hell, etc) the victim's family IN THE COURTROOM.
Personally I wish to return what the Christians have "given" my friends and loved ones. Christians say they're persecuted. They are not. Maybe we should really persecute them. They truly need to suffer for their faith instead of inflicting suffering and death on others in the name of their creepy god.
Google "Christian Identity" movement to see the kind of Christians we're talking about here.
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Candida1 year, 6 months ago
I agree that Christians (and many other religions) have done a great deal of harm to others, often in the name of their God, but revenge is not the answer. I once read that envy is like acid, it eats away its container. I think the same goes for jealousy, hatred and anger. We should resist the harmful influences of all religions, but we should not persecute anyone because it would destroy us too.
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