religion and profession

[cellio]

osewalrus posted an excellent essay on conflicts between religion and one's profession. He and I agree: you are completely free to practice your religion, but if doing so causes complications in your life, you -- not the rest of society -- need to deal with that.

Comments

[cellio]

The morality of a country shifts over time. And science advances.

True. I think it tends to shift gradually enough that most people should not wake up one morning and suddenly find themselves unable to work. For example, a pharmacist who objects to dispensing birth control in a world that's starting to trend that way but isn't there yet can probably find employment in a venue where it doesn't come up -- elder care, Catholic hospital, etc. I hope. The suicide thing was a more sudden change, but even so it happened over many years -- time for people who objected to change their job situations so they wouldn't have to be involved.

What if morality shifts in a way that your (wide use) morality/religion opposes? What happens then? Do you quit your job and start over?

I think it's an unlikely scenario, as most fields support a fairly wide variety of types of position. But let's take an extreme, hypothetical example: suppose you're a clergy person and you lose your belief in God? If you're willing to pretend you can still find employment in, say, hospital chaplaincy (whether that's a good idea is a separate question), but broadly speaking, you're out of luck and you have to start over somewhere. You might argue that that's a case of you, not society, changing, but it's very unlikely to be a willful act, so the guy in that position probably sees either as "bad stuff happening to me", not "I've made a change in my life".