Does anyone else think that religion is a bit of an odd protected characteristic?

[ADHDPI]

I may be way off the mark here as it is only a thought that has popped into my head just now.

As an atheist, I have quite strong feelings about religion and find it all quite bizarre and absurd. However, if I said that to someone religious in my office I could potentially be sacked due to criticism of their protected characteristic.

I just don't feel it is the same as saying a similar comment about disability, ethnicity, sex etc. Of course I don't think anyone should be actively discriminated against because of their religion, but no more so than because of the colour of someone's eyes. It doesn't effect anyone else. It's more the fact that I as an atheist cannot voice my opinion about religion without insulting a protected characteristic and vice versa.... Yet its generally OK to believe that God doesn't exist. Odd!

Thoughts? Have I missed something? Am I being far too black and white here?

I'm Jewish and I'll admit it is an odd one on the face of it, but I think what @moonbows says is probably the main reason for it. And I also agree you are allowed to say you disagree with religion and find it stupid as @BelperLawnmower says.

I would never expect someone to get in trouble for saying that of religion in general. If they said it in a really personal way, I'd find that an attack but more of a personal one, not a prejudice to my religious group one.

Also, as a Jew I would say we're in an odd position where you could be totally non-observant, but that doesn't stop you being Jewish or someone being antisemitic towards you. You could even not be Jewish and get antisemitic abuse - and being abused incorrectly for an assumed protected characteristic is still covered. Eg say there's a guy called Simon Schneider, but he's not Jewish - a workmate could still get in trouble under protected charactertistics if they were to say 'Ugh, Simon is such a typical stingy Jew'.

Are these paid for by the general public though?

This

Why would you want to criticise somebody,s views whilst in the work place?
It's not really appropriate or the place to bring up.a person's religious beliefs plus it you did it regularly it could look like you were bullying them

You think it's bizarre to believe in things you've never had proof of? You believe in the existence of other people despite the lack of proof? And you certainly believe in the non-existence of God despite the lack of proof of that. How ... bizarre!

It's not exclusive to faith schools. CoS has an enormously disproportionate presence in the Scots education system. It's one of the biggest reasons why the Christians' favourite of 'we don't try to force our religion on to anyone' is a complete and utter falsehood. It's everywhere in normal life, and it very much does attempt to foist it's own agenda upon the general public regardless of whether they are Christian or not.

what about ethno religions? You can’t ‘choose’ that in anyway, even if you don’t practice the religion.

Ah yes, or maybe we are all just brains in vats! You know what I mean. I accept that God can never be disproven. Technically nothing can. Maybe I should have referred to probability as opposed to proof.

Exactly.

It's easy to see religion as purely a choice if you're white, Northern European etc. OP might want to mingle with a few people from different backgrounds.

For all that religion is "a choice". I'm not sure many atheists whose employer decided that they only wanted to hire moral and god fearing churchgoers could just shrug and say "OK I really like this job so I'll become Christian".

I'm an atheist myself but I support legal protection from discrimination on the grounds of religious belief.

Especially as we have a fairly poor record in this country with different religions being victimised in a widespread way for pretty much ever.

I'm not white Northern European. I'm black, African and Caribbean background, my grandmother is Catholic and my mother is 'spiritual'. My dad is an atheist. I went to church as a child but stopped when I was about 14.

Even before religious belief became a protected characteristic antisemitic discrimination was specifically legally characterised as race discrimination for this reason.

Frankly most atheists I have met do not understand the true nature of faith anyway. I always think it’s bizarre that people think that the universe came from nothing. You might just as well say there is more probability that the information in Beethoven’s ninth Symphony evolved from nothing as that in the universe evolved from nothing without an agency. It just depends on your world view. What are the probabilities?The problem is we have been spoon fed this idea that because we know the mechanism we can dispense with the agency. That is something I do not accept

Spoon fed science...

I always think it’s bizarre that people think that the universe came from nothing

The only people who think this are Creationists.

The funny thing about this is that a few years ago, when government and local health boards wanted to reduce or get rid of gluten-free prescription food for coeliacs, lots of official documents were created which made it clear that coeliac disease is not considered a disability under the Equality Act. So, presumably, someone could refuse to hire me solely because I have coeliac disease and must follow a strict gluten-free diet. But since ethical vegetarianism is protected under the religion/belief characteristic, the vegetarian has a protection against discrimination that I don't have. And while vegetarianism is a choice, coeliac disease is most definitely not.

Going back to one of the OP's points, the whole choice thing is a bit of a red herring anyway. I can't choose to change my age or my race but I could choose to become disabled (if I weren't already), if I were willing to give myself an impairment that would qualify me under the Equality Act. Undergoing gender reassignment is a choice, although whatever led an individual to that decision may not have been chosen. People choose to get married or not to get married, and a lot of the time pregnancy and maternity have been chosen by the person protected by that category.

But I don't really think that people's beliefs — the things they think inside their head, rather than the things they do as a result of those thoughts — are truly chosen anyway. I can choose to act as though something is true even though I'm not sure or I think it's probably false, and I can choose to expose (or not expose) myself to things that I think may convince me that something is true (or false), I can train myself to avoid thinking in ways that may challenge things which I want to be true, but I can't directly choose to change what I believe to be true. No matter how much I wanted to, I couldn't make myself genuinely believe that I am a millionaire, or that cheese is made from coal, or that when I wake up tomorrow the sun will rise in the west.

‘Sorry love, we’re sacking you because you’re Jewish. Nothing personal, you understand’

I agree. But then I have really strong opinions on the fact that it is all clear bullshit anyway, and I struggle to reconcile intelligence with faith, even though plenty of religious people are intelligent.

Agreed for mainstream religion held by the majority of people, but 2 missing factors: (1) religion is often linked to ethnicity, so discriminating "legally" against minority religions could be a way to disguise ethnic discrimination (2) in many countries, conflict between different religions has had deadly mass consequences (eg civil war, riots).. We might say "this doesn't happen nowadays so we don't need anti religious discrimination legislation" but actually it might well be the other way round, that the legislation has nipped this in the bud well in advance

So it’s ok to skate Christian’s and laughable that you’d be accused of doing the same to another group? OK.

Extreme Christian’s aren’t the only religion who see women and gay people as second class citizens. Do you openly ridicule Muslims then? The extreme side of their faith also has discriminatory principles.

Yes, the same applies to being colourblind. It’s not a disability and so it’s perfectly legal to refuse to hire someone because they’re colourblind or to fire someone (within two years of them starting) because they’re colourblind. It’s legal to refuse to let a property to colourblind people and legal to refuse service in a restaurant or shop to someone because they’re colourblind. However, interestingly enough, if you have a blanket ban on colourblind people then that’s technically indirect discrimination on the grounds of sex because the vast majority of colourblind people are men. It’s a very strange area of the law and there’s a lot of it that I don’t agree with.

I assumed that protected characteristic means its something you should be free to practise not that people are prevented from saying they are an atheist. But Idon't think it's very tactful or kind to rubbish somebodys religion to their face.

I'm sure there will be people out there who would make the same argument about every protected characteristic.

Plenty of people would still be more than happy to make negative comments about homosexuality if they could get away with it.

Since Christianity overlaid the indigenous pagan religions in the British Isles, it consistently persecuted pagans and witches and/or people they deemed witches, in some cases hanging and burning them; and there was widespread demonisation and reframing of the old gods.
Vestiges of this are still hanging on today in some quarters, with active prejudice and persecution against pagans, heathens and witches.
This, despite religion being a protected characteristic.
Not all religions.