Which came first, the creation of Man or the Invention of God?
Well, whichever, some of us have decided that there is this Creator.
But after deciding that God exists, we then begin to fight among
ourselves over what He is, and what He expects from us. So we are
stuck with accepting each differing belief of what we are expected to
do, how to pray, when to praise this God, whether we should worship
from sundown Friday to Sundown Saturday, or all day Sunday, or just
Saturday. We struggle with the Word of God, printed in many books in
many languages, each one giving us a different set of commands, like
not issuing marriage licenses to same sex couples. And all of this
confusion because we had to go and discover God!
This law suit against the NFB brought a couple of things to mind.
First, is a National Advocacy Organization really going to be
inflexible and refuse to accommodate the religious needs of an
employee? Really? And then they go out and demand that the blind
workers be given reasonable accommodations. Something's rotten in
Denmark, there. Pardon me, Denmark, no slur intended.
But the second thing that came to mind is the absolute unbending
position by this employee that his God has set the Sabbath from Friday
sundown, to Saturday sundown. Really> I don't recall God naming the
months or the days of the week. He didn't invent time, either. We
humans set up methods of measuring time in order to remind ourselves
when it was time to harvest our crops, gather in fire wood, hunt, move
to warmer or cooler locations. We Humans gave these time frames
names. We set up our clocks. This is strictly Earthbound
measurements. Hop your handy little Flying Saucer and head out beyond
our Solar System and look around for a calendar or a clock. All we
know for certain is that stuff is rushing around and headed off into
the unknown.
The vast reaches of what we call our Universe, is not running on
anything even close to Time.
All that is by way of saying, how about the employee of the NFB....the
former employee, why can't he call Sunday Saturday? Make his own
calendar and keep his schedule from his own dates.
For years we Agnostics and Atheists have been forced to live by the
calendars invented by those Believers who decided which days we could
work and which days we could worship, even if we didn't want to.
Nowadays most communities no longer have Blue Laws, forcing businesses
to close on Sunday, so employees could worship with their families. I
bought into that for years, as a practicing Christian. Plus the fact
that the Law insisted that my boss pay me double time for work on
Sunday. He never forced me to work on Sunday. And not out of respect
for my religion.
But you can see how tangled up this all gets just because we all need
some All Powerful Father and a Life Everlasting.
Good luck on that last part.
Carl Jarvis
On 9/8/15, R. E. Driscoll Sr <llocsirdsr@att.net> wrote:
>
> All:
> This came in the morning mail. It had rather long "TO and COPY"
> sections which I have deleted... Further details may be found in the link.
> R. E. (Dick) Driscoll, Sr.
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> *National Federation of the Blind Sued for Religious Discrimination by
> EEOC*
>
> **/Advocacy Group Terminated an Employee because He Would Not Work on
> the Sabbath, Federal Agency Charged/**
>
> BALTIMORE - The National Federation of the Blind, the largest
> organization of blind and low-vision people in the United States,
> violated federal law when it refused to allow an employee to observe his
> Sabbath and instead terminated him because of his religion, the U.S.
> Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) charged in a lawsuit it
> announced today.
>
> According to the lawsuit, Joseph R. Massey II is a practicing Hebrew
> Pentecostal, a Christian denomination, and abstains from working from
> sunset Friday to sunset Saturday based on his sincerely-held religious
> beliefs. The National Federation of the Blind hired Massey for a
> bookkeeping position at its Baltimore office in November 2013. In
> January 2014, the Federation told Massey he had to work certain
> Saturdays. Massey explained he could not work Saturdays due to his
> religious faith and suggested alternatives such as working on Sundays or
> working late on week nights other than Fridays. EEOC charged that the
> Federation refused to provide any reasonable accommodation and instead
> fired Massey because he could not work Saturdays due to his religious
> beliefs.
>
> Such alleged conduct violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964,
> which prohibits employers from discriminating against individuals
> because of their religion and requires employers to reasonably
> accommodate an employee's sincerely-held religious beliefs unless doing
> so would impose an undue hardship on the employer. EEOC filed suit
> (//EEOC v. The National Federation of the Blind//, Civil Action No.
> 1:15-cv-02484-GLR) in U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland,
> Baltimore Division, after first attempting to reach a pre-litigation
> settlement through its conciliation process.
>
> "Employees should not have to choose between their jobs and their
> religious convictions when a religious accommodation will not unduly
> burden others," said EEOC Philadelphia District Director Spencer H.
> Lewis, Jr.
>
> EEOC Regional Attorney Debra M. Lawrence added, "Most religious
> accommodations are not unduly costly, such as allowing an employee to
> switch his schedule to observe his Sabbath. No employee should be
> forced to choose between earning a living and following the dictates of
> his faith."
>
> EEOC's Philadelphia District Office has jurisdiction over Pennsylvania,
> Maryland, Delaware, West Virginia and parts of New Jersey and Ohio. Its
> legal staff also prosecutes discrimination cases arising from
> Washington, D.C. and parts of Virginia.
>
> EEOC enforces federal laws prohibiting employment discrimination.
> Further information about the agency is available at its website,
> www.eeoc.gov
> <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.eeoc.gov&d=BQMCaQ&c=cBOA5YEoZuz9KdLvh38YxdrPtfJt83ckXekfBgq5xB0&r=CK8oOj7-JYZnTDmB5orNTVZXar6NrsnGtGHfQ5m79Do&m=X-azbiIlLDe6yFm40VOo18BkP3dAM0rd0Ra4aH1VCUU&s=r8E7HDDW1tHlrNnXx76co9RJpg0MAQYmFeuiHLDXiq8&e=>.
>
>
> http://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/national-federation-of-the-blind-sued-36517/?utm_source=JD-Supra-eMail-Digests
>
> <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.jdsupra.com_legalnews_national-2Dfederation-2Dof-2Dthe-2Dblind-2Dsued-2D36517_-3Futm-5Fsource-3DJD-2DSupra-2DeMail-2DDigests&d=BQMCaQ&c=cBOA5YEoZuz9KdLvh38YxdrPtfJt83ckXekfBgq5xB0&r=CK8oOj7-JYZnTDmB5orNTVZXar6NrsnGtGHfQ5m79Do&m=X-azbiIlLDe6yFm40VOo18BkP3dAM0rd0Ra4aH1VCUU&s=2h2gkTHVm-iso4Gw9uPk127o2sQOVIxWkTz82tm4L2k&e=>
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