London 2012: How do the Olympics handle religion?

[cbayer]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-17515410
By Michael Hirst
BBC 2012

30 March 2012 Last updated at 03:43 ET

The man responsible for delivering the Olympics is in a panic, drafting a press release heralding London's pride in its "mulitculturality", and hoping the Algerians will not follow through on their threat to boycott the Games due to a religious faux-pas.

Thankfully, the scene is taken from the new series of Twenty Twelve, which takes a satirical look at London's preparations for the Games, rather than the preparations themselves.

But the Olympics throw up a range of religious issues that need to be confronted, from the religious obligations of Sikhs wearing daggers despite security concerns, Christians refusing to run on a Sunday, or the requirement for Muslims to observe the Ramadan fast, which this year coincides with the Games.

How do you cater for athletes of nine different religions at the Olympic Games?

more at link

[Nihil]

1. Two possibilities:

1) Properly
or
2) Badly


#1 would be to simply state that religion is a personal preference so the adherence
to any particular religious requirements is left purely up to the individual (within the
existing confines of the law of the host nation - UK in 2012).

#2 would be to fart around in a half-arsed attempt to satisfy everyone in every
single aspect that could possibly be covered under the blanket of "religion"
(even the mutually exclusive ones between different religions) and end up with
a collection of distracting failures that will simply add to the periodic global farce
known as "the Olympics".


The addition bonus of #1 is that it would apply equally to those of the major
faiths (the article referenced 10), those of any minor (yet still legal) faith and
those of no faith whatsoever without any discrimination or bias.

This leads me to suspect that they will actually go with option #2.

[cbayer]

2. Certainly some accommodations will need to be made.

For example, planning a big event on a Friday night that involved the team from Israel would be pretty thoughtless.

[cleanhippie]

3. Does every team member from Israel follow religious doctrine?

Last edited Wed Apr 4, 2012, 12:25 PM - Edit history (1)

As of 2009, 8% of Israeli Jews defined themselves as Haredim; an additional 12% as "religious"; 13% as "religious-traditionalists" ; 25% as "non-religious-traditionalists" (not strictly adhering to Jewish law or halakha); and 42% as "secular" (Hebrew: חִלּוֹנִי??, Hiloni).[6] As of 1999, 65% of Israeli Jews believe in God,[7] and 85% participate in a Passover seder.[8] However, other sources indicate that between 15% and 37% of Israelis identify themselves as either agnostics or atheists.[9][unreliable source?]

Israelis tend not to align themselves with a movement of Judaism (such as Reform Judaism or Conservative Judaism) but instead tend to define their religious affiliation by degree of their religious practice. Of the Arab Israelis, as of 2008, 82.7% were Muslims, 8.4% were Druze, and 8.3% were Christians.[2] Just over 80% of Christians are Arabs, and the majority of the remaining are immigrants from the former Soviet Union who immigrated with a Jewish relative. About 81% of Christian births are to Arab women.[10]
[edit]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Israel#Religious_self-definition

Seems like to not hold an event on Friday night out of respect for what probably is a small minority of people on just one team fails to respect everyone else, no?

Will every team have such accommodation and respect given to them as well?

I think that is what nihil is getting at. Making individuals responsible to respect whatever beliefs they may have and do what they need to do to follow those beliefs. IOW, personal beliefs are a personal matter that should be handled personally. I would think that is something we can all agree on?

[Nihil]

5. Strikes me that you'd end up with a four-day week (or less) if you adopted that approach.

Friday, Saturday & Sunday are all holy to a mainstream religion (quite apart from any specific feasts).

Then again, making the automatic association (as CleanHippie noted) between "the holy day of religion X"
and "some members of a team from country Y" isn't particularly valid either.

As noted in the past, orthodox believers will adhere to their beliefs even when the scheduling of events
isn't convenient while more laissez-faire believers and non-believers will simply concentrate on the sport.

[cbayer]

8. Very few religious believers have restrictions on what they can do on specific days or times.

Observant Jews do from Friday sundown to Saturday sundown.

Observant Muslims do during the brief periods of prayer throughout the day.

I have never met a Christian who had rules about what they could do on Sundays, but they may exist.

There was recently a post here about a private school sports organization that refused to reschedule a championship game for the sole Jewish school in the league. That seemed very wrong to me. The christian majority would not make a simple accommodation, although I believe they relented under pressure.

I do agree that if there are differences among members on a team, then it is the responsibility of the team to decide what kinds of accommodations they will make.

[Nihil]

10. If it's so few then there is no need to make special arrangements is there?

FWIW, I've known a couple of Christians who held to the "keep the Sabbath day holy"
doctrine to the extent that not only would they not take part in any sport (as in the
famous case in the 1924 London olympics) but neither would they take part in the
dress rehearsal for amateur operatics society shows (when we opened on a Monday,
the dress rehearsal was on a Sunday but they would always politely send their
apologies right at the start that they couldn't take part in any Sunday rehearsals).

Again, as I mentioned earlier, the majority of believers and non-believers are sufficiently
flexible in their interpretation of "rules" that scheduling a sports event on a nominal
"holy" day isn't going to be an issue so it brings it back to my original point: leave it
as a personal, individual choice (as all such decisions should be) and don't cause a
mess for everyone by trying to enforce & special case all *potential* conflicts.

[cbayer]

11. The article talks about some accommodations that have been easily made and

shouldn't intrude on anyone else. I think this is a good thing and can't see why anyone would object to it.

It's much more supportive than it is restrictive. They have supplied a *chapel* that will accommodate all faiths, chaplains available from all major religions, prayer rooms at the major venues, etc.

I don't see anything in there that create a mess for anyone.

[muriel_volestrangler]

12. The world record holder of the triple jump wouldn't compete on Sunday in the early 1990s

When he leapt 18.29m, he became the first athlete to clear 60ft for this event and since then only other athlete, American Kenny Harrison, has cleared the 18m-barrier - and he did that to beat Edwards to Olympic gold in Atlanta in 1996. Edwards achieved his success in a career where this vicar’s son, as a committed Christian, at first he chose not to compete on Sundays, passing the chance of taking part in the World Championships in 1991. But by Stuttgart in 1993, he had changed his mind, which proved a fortunate decision because the qualifying round of the triple jump at the World Championships was on a Sunday. He progressed safely to the final, where he took the bronze medal and it proved the foundation to greatness.

http://www.uka.org.uk/e-inspire/hall-of-fame-athletes/jonathan-edwards/[/div

It was less than 3 years ago that the first ferry to run on a Sunday to Lewis and Harris took place.

[cbayer]

13. I recognize that there are exceptions, but as pointed out by others, most believers

do not have these kinds of restrictions and will be flexible.

I was recently shocked (and really disappointed) to discover that I could not buy alcohol in Philadelphia on a Sunday. New England still has a lot of blue laws.

[trotsky]

6. Consider the following hypothetical situation:

Suppose that there were 7 majority faiths, all with athletes who follow them at the Olympics.

Then suppose that each faith had their "holy day" on a different day of the week. And in each religion, it is imperative that one not compete in a contest or perform physical exertion on their holy day.

Try to find a solution to that one.

[SamG]

15. I have an answer: ONLY ATHEISTS ...

can compete!

I think it's the ideal solution! REALLY! If you want to compete, don't believe in mythological tales, be a scientist with no inbred bias from your ancestors.

[SamG]

4. Surely this is not the first time the Olympics have..

had to deal with various religious beliefs from around the world, is it?

How has it been dealt with in the past?

What makes this issue more important or more controversial this time around?

[cleanhippie]

7. Because we need to find religious persecution, even when it doesn't exist.

[SamG]

14. Religious athletes must be the most persecuted people in

the USA and the UK.

Yes, I got it! Let's write another puff piece article to fill the pages of the paper and have a place to post ads, and get some ads from various religious groups to pay for it. Let's put it up on our internet web site and get more religious advertisements to be displayed on the same page, we might even get money from Muslims, from Jewish groups, and from Christians to appear all on the same web page!!!!

Brilliant article about nothing new at the Olympics, about lots of people with different beliefs, and we can make money from all of them, genius!!!

[cbayer]

16. Wow. Please let the Israel olympic team know how you feel.

BTW, they will be commemorating the massacre at this Olympics.

Do you really think the BBC is the rag your describe?

[SamG]

17. So you are saying the German Olympics massacre happened because...

the Germans didn't adequately plan for observances of various religious faiths?

I don't think so.

Respect for people who died in violent attacks has nothing to do with religion.

It is true that religions often take the opportunity to invade the space of vulnerable people who have suffered a great loss and use that moment to convince the vulnerable of the sincerity and value of a certain religious way of belief. Vulnerable, emotionally injured people are often unable to reason logically and wish to grasp on to any reasonable supports offered them. But the bottom line is: grief over major loss is a universal human emotion, and no religious faith has a corner on healing those so afflicted, although most religions are more than willing to volunteer at these tragic moments.

[cbayer]

19. No, I was responding to your snarky statement about religious olympic atheletes

not being persecuted.

That attack had everything to do with religion.

[SamG]

20. The attack had everything to do with hatred, and

different sets of realities for two populations, one from a nation where exploitation of centuries-long natives of the area by recent Jewish immigrants had reached an intolerable point for many extremists.

Religion is not what separates Jewish folk from Arab folks in the Middle East. If only it were that simple, since both Muslim and Jewish faiths have much in common in their belief structures and in their history.

[cbayer]

9. Good question. From the article it looks like they may be taking a unique approach.

The person in charge has formed a group with 9 major religious organizations to address the issues and it sounds like they have come up with some good, positive solutions that show respect for all.

[muriel_volestrangler]

21. Not 'important' or 'controversial', so much as "tied in with a BBC comedy", I think

This is more of a background piece being used to push the second series of 'Twenty Twelve', a mockumentary about organising the Olympics. It's actually very good, and, with the main story in the first couple of episodes being a row about the multi-faith centre (or whatever they've called it), someone on the BBC website thought they could do a tie-in with what is actually done in that area.

Life imitated art for the first series:

It's always a special joy when real life events mirror TV in ways so startling you feel you've slipped into an episode of The X-Files (or, if you're really out of luck, Paradox). Just hours after BBC Four's Twenty Twelve satirised a defective Olympic countdown clock on Monday night, the real Olympic countdown clock ground to a halt with the kind of comic timing once honed by years of playing the working men's clubs. Humdrum incompetence is made glorious. You almost feel like applauding.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/tvandradioblog/2011/mar/16/twenty-twelve-olympic-clock