There isn't much you can do; at least you can't make religious fasting the reason for your actions unless you are interested in lawsuits and tons of negative publicity.
What does it take to start a new religion? What if I start a new religion which says working more than 4 hours a day is against my gods? Can employers deny me jobs? Or if they don't deny it, are they bound to pay me full salary even though I work half the hours? If not, why am I being discriminated against when you are accommodating others(prayers 5 times a day, month long fasts, pregnancy etc).
> What does it take to start a new religion? What if I start a new religion which says working more than 4 hours a day is against my gods?
It would be somewhat easier to just start your own company if you wanted to work four hours a day. Though with a good marketing department, some cold reading and a truthy sounding manifesto I'm guessing you could probably pull it off if you wanted to.
> prayers 5 times a day, month long fasts,
IME, not many muslims outside muslim countries actually pray five times a day, and as demonstrated by this thread the ones that fast seem to do as much as possible to align their religious obligations with their employers interests.
> pregnancy
Why is this a problem? Would this extend to paternity too? It doesn't really count as discrimination in my book, as barring any social or biological obstacles in your path, applicable to you should you choose to have children.
If I were a full-time employee and by implication not independently wealthy, I would expect an employer to fund some time off to deal with babymaking. I think this is one of the primary benefits of being a full-time employee (especially since as I'm a consultant now, it costs five figures in potential fees to take two months off).
> It would be somewhat easier to just start your own company if you wanted to work four hours a day.
I do own my own company, and I work more than 4 hours a day. Let's say my religion permits working 2 jobs regardless of state laws(they permit multiple wives, multiple husbands. What's the big deal with multiple jobs), but you can work for more than 4 hours only for your company.
Let me try this:
The lord sayeth thou shall not work more than 4 hours; except for the company you have more than 35% stake in.
> IME, not many muslims outside muslim countries actually pray five times a day,
That's not the point. The thing is you are allowed to do so, and the employer doesn't have a say.
EDIT: So let's assume my religion is an exclusive one, and there is only one member - me. Does that mean I should be allowed to work 4 hours a day, come in drunk etc. because only a few people(exactly 1) does that; or else I shout persecution and give my life savings to a legal team.
> pregnancy
>> Why is this a problem?
Sorry about that. That was my failed attempt at political correctness. My examples were particularly about Islam, and I thought I should include something non-Islam.
Who is in-charge of making the call, and on what basis? What is to say working while starving is more reasonable than say, coming in drunk to work which my religion mandates. The funny thing with religious mandates is you can selectively choose the mandates. Someone whose religion dictates head gear isn't required to wear head gears whole of his life to contest that he should be allowed to wear head-gear while passing through a security check, or withdrawing from a CCTV monitored ATM, etc. My religion says you should work drunk; I can ignore it when I am not drunk and when I am drunk and called out on it, I will claim persecution.
These folks are my heroes http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missionary_Church_of_Kopimism Someday I hope to start a religion whose sole purpose is to benefit people like me and is as unreasonable as I can get away with, because hell, why not. It's not like a lot of unreasonable behavior isn't already excused based on religious grounds(not particularly about fasts; I am talking about other extremities).
The judge will be in charge of that. If you have tons of money and very interesting case - nine Supreme Court judges, otherwise - probably your local court judge. And from what I heard, judges are not very tolerant to people that try to game the system and make fools of them, so you better be sure you are very persuasive with your new religion or you'll lose the case very quick.
It's not that simple. There's a few standards such as the beliefs being "sincerely held" and that accommodation should not render an "unreasonable burden" on the employer. You can say these are subjective but welcome the legal system. No judge is going to let a non-Abrahamic sham religion impose strange conundrums for the employer.
People have played games with this before. Some prostitutes have tried to make their business a religion and that sex with them is a "rite" of the practice. Others have tried to make their mansions be referred to as religious buildings to avoid paying property taxes, hasn't worked.
> No judge is going to let a non-Abrahamic sham religion impose strange conundrums for the employer.
What qualifies a religion as sham? From what I have seen, whatever complies with a religious person's belief is legit, everything else is a sham. People often love to mention scientology is a made up religion. No one ever explained to me scientology is made up as opposed to what?
So is the application of most of our laws. I don't know what your point is. "Beyond a reasonable doubt" is the most subjective thing I can imagine but does that really matter?
The answer is, in reality and not in fantasy, NO.
> What qualifies a religion as sham?
If you made a religion that was "It is a commandment that one shall not be taxed more than 10% and that one cannot work more than 4 hours" it will be clearly seen that you do not "sincerely" hold that belief and that you are just trying to game the system and you will have put, under any normal person's view, an unreasonable burden on the employer.
This is a distinct question from objectively makes a religion a sham. We were talking about what you could actually get away with in the real world right? If that's the case then what I said is true and holds.
Now, if you want a defense of religion or why Judaism is any better than Scientology, you certainly won't get one from me. But if you try to play games and expect a judge to agree with you under EEOC laws, I doubt you will get very far. :)
If his employer decided they weren't okay with this, then yes, he might try to argue that it's discrimination. However, this argument would almost certainly fail, because he stated, in writing, that fasting severely impairs his job peformance.
b) I always laugh at this because our Constitution doesn't talk at all about "freedom of religion" but it does explicitly mention "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion".
If you want to start a new religion, be prepared to spend an awful lot of donation money on a crack legal team who can defend a) your religion from anything that looks like defamation and b) your adherents from anything that looks like discrimination.
I am aware of the fact that whatever you can get away with(what you do doesn't affect others, legal team, political pressure, terrorism) becomes reasonable after some time. Religion is just a ruse. It's not that people adhere to everything their religion tells them to. Gay bashing, female subjugation etc. are just bigoted assholes hiding behind their religion and projecting their limited, hateful world view on others.
There isn't much you can do; at least you can't make religious fasting the reason for your actions unless you are interested in lawsuits and tons of negative publicity.
What does it take to start a new religion? What if I start a new religion which says working more than 4 hours a day is against my gods? Can employers deny me jobs? Or if they don't deny it, are they bound to pay me full salary even though I work half the hours? If not, why am I being discriminated against when you are accommodating others(prayers 5 times a day, month long fasts, pregnancy etc).