Posted on 05/01/2011 3:23:08 PM PDT by neverdem
The report in the New York Times that atheists are looking for official recognition as chaplains in the American military in order to cater to the needs of non-believing servicemen is interesting.
On the one hand, it’s kind of absurd. Atheist chaplains? It’s a contradiction in terms. What are they going to teach? Non-belief? What services will they offer? Non-prayers and sermons on evolution? And what comfort will they offer dying soldiers, G-d forbid (oops! Even that doesn’t work). Will they say, “Game over. You’re going to a place of complete oblivion. Thank you for your service.”?
On the other hand, I am completely opposed to any kind of religious coercion, and why should non-believing military personnel not have someone they can talk to who shares their absence of faith? If you’re an atheist and you’ve returned from Iraq or Afghanistan and you’re finding it difficult, say, to reintegrate to life back home, maybe you don’t want to talk to someone whom you think views life only through the prism of faith. In the same way that it might be uncomfortable for a Jewish soldier to talk about his deepest issues with, say, a Catholic Priest, it is arguably just as uncomfortable for an atheist soldier to talk to the same Priest.
Still it would seem that those who profess an absence of belief can’t really be religious or spiritual chaplains. If you’re an atheist then what you see is what you get. There is no other reality – higher or lower – and the word spiritual is nothing but a crude con.
I am well aware that many of my atheist friends will tell me, “Come on Shmuley. OK, so an atheist ‘chaplain’ might not be able to offer the same comfort...
(Excerpt) Read more at nysun.com ...
They can do what George Carlin proposed and praise “The Big Electron” It doesn’t punish, it doesn’t reward, it doesn’t judge at all. It just is.
Absolutely - it’s a religion and so CANNOT be supported by the federal government or established as the de facto state religion under the antiestablishment clause of the first amendement.
Atheism is not no religion. They cannot prove there is no God. They are acting out of faith alone.
They are also wrong, but that’s not the point.
I can just hear the atheist prayer now. “Dear Heavenly nobody, thank you for nothing.”
Don’t they already have non-religious chaplains?
They call them bartenders.
GI to atheist Chaplin, “I don’t believe in God”, atheist Chaplin to GI, “me neither, see you again next week.”
They have a “Dial a Prayer” for atheists. It's the same
format, except no one answers.
So, when the “Church of Evolution” is officially organized, does that mean evolution won’t be taught in government classrooms?
The only atheist I ever met were of course democrat. Very few donks in the armed services and even less atheist. This is a BS issue, some one looking for attention
Does this mean evolution is no longer a scientific theory but an act of faith?
Ann Coulter nailed it.
Various universities have “humanist chaplains”:
http://www.harvardhumanist.org/
I suppose that the military might have “humanist chaplains”, and learn from the ones at universities how to dispense the meaningless treacle that they probably dispense. But an “atheist chaplain” is the same as a nihilist “chaplain”, which doesn’t work one bit!
If you don’t know, I’m an Orthodox Christian, so you see where I am coming from on this issue. Christ is Risen!
ping
This is so comical that it has to be ordained by God personally. Romans 1:18-32. :)
“GI to atheist Chaplin, “I don’t believe in God”, atheist Chaplin to GI, “me neither, see you again next week.””...
GI to Chaplin “BUT I don’t DISbelieve, either {as YOU do}! Ergo, I won’t be here next week.”
I doubt that any Agnostic [read DOUBTER] would want a Chaplincy!
(And I guess now that the front lines are integrated, they can *attempt* to propagate the genes: but waiting for the next generation will likely prove a bit problematic.)
Cheers!
The military already has Unitarian Universalist chaplains.
“Contemporary Unitarian Universalists espouse a pluralist approach to religion, whereby the followers may be atheist, theist, or any point in between.”
Agnostic and atheism are the same in my book, the choice of words only tells me something about how evasive the individual is.
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