Sunday, April 27, 2008

Interesting.

Apparently, I'm not the only one who is concerned about the rising Evangelical element in the Army.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/04/26/atheist.soldier.ap/index.html

I'm curious as to what you all think of this lawsuit. Has it any merit? And does anyone else giggle a bit when they realize that it appears there is at least one atheist -- even in a foxhole?
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9 comments:

kimba said...

This might lead to someone opening a can of internet whoopass on me, but I believe him. J and I are atheists, and I would be hesitant to discuss this fact at nay vee events, even though houses of worship and religion are spoken of freely.

I am familiar with Mikey Weinstein and the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, and they have their work cut out for them. Did you see the videos of Colonels and Generals at the Pentagon, during the workday, being interviewed about their involvement in and promotion of an evangelical group called The Christian Embassy? (Try to ignore Lou Dobbs' pathetic inability grasp a simple point at the end of the video.)

3:42 PM
Bette said...

Ha! When I read the NYT story, I was thinking of the atheist-foxhole thing too.

My sweetie and I have discussed this (since we both resent the Jesusy nature of every single Army event -- and we're Christian!), and he pointed out that the soldier's case would be much stronger if he'd followed the chain of command in his complaint.

6:55 PM
KL Grady said...

I think it has merit based solely on my experiences as a Wiccan, especially when we were stationed in the Middle East. It seemed like a lot of "good Christians" who felt like they had to witness to those darned heathen Muslims took orders over there to do just that. Unfortunately, that bled over onto the rest of us.

From reading what other Wiccans have gone through (and especially considering the 10 year-long fight to get the VA to approve a Wiccan religious symbol for headstones), I don't doubt a single claim he makes could be true.

4:35 AM
S said...

this is one thing I can write a book about.....or I will blog about it, lol

6:39 AM
Sarah said...

In our experience, I've never seen anything like this. In my husband's recent Army school, among the five students, two were atheists, one was Unitarian, and the other two were quiet Christian. One of the atheists went on and on at length about the Flying Spaghetti Monster. My husband says no one ever batted an eye at him.

Once I heard some soldiers express surprise that another soldier was agnostic, but all it was was surprise. Nothing stronger than that.

I bet there are some people in the Army who are extremely religious, but it's never been an issue in our experience. So whose experience is more extrapolatable, Hall's or mine? I don't know. I don't know how much atheist persecution there is in the military; all I know is that I've never seen any.

12:43 PM
Just Laura said...

I read the article and I guess I just don't understand. From what hubby says, everyone gets picked on for just about anything these obviously bored guys can think of.

I have a couple of questions though - please realize, I'm not being judgemental - just asking.

1. Have people become so very sensitive about personal issues that a lawsuit is the only answer?

2. Why Evangelical? Why not Catholic, Lutheran, LDS, etc?

I'm a Christian and feel quite bad about the treatment of this soldier. Just dialoging.

2:06 AM
Bon said...

My husband and I were having this same conversation at dinner the other night. Actually we both got a chuckle out of the fact that there IS at least one atheist in the foxhole.

I do see this happening too, I actually asked Lt Dan about it before this lawsuit came up. I found all the prayer groups and bible studies on post, well, interesting...

10:48 PM
liberal army wife said...

Being an agnostic - I find the constant religious overtones at some functions to be .... not annoying... but just another not so subtle reminder that those who are not in the mainstream Christian flow, are subtly excluded. Having a Baptist minister give the beginning speech at a redeployment seminar sorta set the tone!

I ignore it, for the most part. Anyone trying to preach at me, will usually receive a polite "I'm not interested in this conversation" unless they begin to bug me, in which case I'll get up an walk away. I can see that we are getting too litigious (I work at a law firm!) but in this case, when a soldier is being discriminated against and not receiving any recourse when going through the chain of command - he doesn't have a lot of options. It's also a great way to have the problem brought to the attention of everyone... it did, didn't it?

LAW

6:22 AM
Non-Essential Equipment said...

I can't say that I've been discriminated against. But I will say that there is an assumption that all soldiers and spouses are Christian. And Protestant, to boot. I can't figure out why that's so exactly

And when people have learned that we are not Protestant, we've gotten invitations out the ying-yang to go to those events.

The only reason why I think this lawsuit is particularly interesting is because CPT Dick has noticed more of that religious element crossing over into his work. At a counseling session not too long ago, his Commander spent half of their time talking about how CPT Dick should not be afraid of his faith and how to incorporate that faith into his work. I found that totally inappropriate.

5:55 AM

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