Religions > Atheism > The Atheist Foxhole: How Rumsfeld Marginalized Religion In Military
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Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"Sound of Trumpet" |
| Date: |
13 Mar 2006 06:41:19 AM |
| Object: |
The Atheist Foxhole: How Rumsfeld Marginalized Religion In Military |
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1585258/posts
The Atheist Foxhole (Rumsfeld "marginalized" religion in military)
American Spectator
Feb 06
Angelo Codevilla
-----Editor's note: As reported in the Washington Times, the U.S. Air
Force last Wednesday "released revised guidelines on religious
observance that say chaplains need not recite prayers incompatible with
their beliefs... The move won tepid praise from evangelicals, who see
the move as progress but not close to a guarantee that they can pray
'in Jesus' name.'" This action follows in the wake of strong critical
reaction to guidelines issued by the Pentagon last summer, as described
in this article from our February issue.----
THE ATHEIST FOXHOLE by Angelo Codevilla
Arguably the worst, most gratuitous, most ominous act inflicted on
America in living memory was Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's
August 29, 2005 promulgation of guidelines for religious expression in
the U.S. Air Force -- intended as a model for the rest of the armed
forces. Their essence is to forbid anyone in uniform from giving "the
reasonable perception that [the Armed Forces, and hence the U.S.
government] support any religion over other religions or the idea of
religion over the choice of no religious affiliation." However, they
place no restriction on anyone who might advocate atheism, or mock, or
restrict, or cause discomfort to, the religiously observant in any
setting. Indeed they are all about placing the U.S. government's weight
against talking about the presence, or praying for the guidance or
protection, of God. Meanwhile, the Air Force and other services require
their members to take instruction in "sensitive" thought and behavior
amounting to a secular religion.
Marginalizing religion among people likely to be shot at is always a
bad idea. But discouraging religion in forces once headed by George
Washington, whose current members come from the most devout sectors of
the modern world's most devout country, at the behest of people
scarcely present in those forces, shows incompetence more than evil.
Stalin's rules for the Red Army in World War II were more God-friendly
than Rumsfeld's.
Until recently, traditions and the habits of servicemen combined with
common sense to exempt the Armed Forces from the U.S. government's
longstanding Kulturkampf against religion in America. Anyone going up
to the Secretary of the Air Force's Pentagon office would pass by a
huge mural of an Air Force family going to church, with the words,
"Here I am Lord, send me." Cadets at the Naval Academy still pray
collectively before common meals. Young men away from home for the
first time -- at least those who do not simply drink and ***** -- find
religious practice a lifeline that keeps them connected to normal human
life. The advent of the "All Volunteer Force" in the 1970s increased
the proportion of practicing Christians among both officers and
enlisted. Since 9/11, the "foxhole factor" has come into play: The
number of atheists is inversely proportional to that of bullets flying.
In short, there have been the very opposite of popular pressures for
secularization.
THE EXCUSE THAT THE MOST recent restrictions on religion are being
forced by the courts is insincere. Yes, one Mikey Weinstein filed a
suit alleging that the longstanding patterns of behavior at the Air
Force Academy amounted to "severe, systemic and pervasive" religious
discrimination. But no ruling of the Supreme Court has invalidated
them. Nor has any law done so. Yet a few officers wanted to have less
Christianity there, and key officials in the Rumsfeld Pentagon agreed.
Nor does the excuse wash that the restrictions are necessary for the
maintenance of good military order. The pragmatic way to ensure unit
cohesion is surely not to displease the many for the sake of the few.
The guidelines are more radical than they seem. "Public prayer," they
direct, "should not normally be included" -- read, is banned -- except
in "extraordinary circumstances." The only ones they cite are "mass
casualties, preparation for imminent combat, and natural disasters"
(emphasis mine). In essence, the Bush Pentagon lets the name of God be
invoked only when absolutely necessary to provide the equivalent of a
shot of booze, or of a mood-altering drug. Practically, it treats
religion as Marx described it: "the opiate of the masses." Prima
faciae, even opening a routine meeting with the Pledge of Allegiance
flouts the guidelines, because it affirms that America is anything but
indifferent to God.
Worse, the guidelines also permit prayer where, "consistent with
longstanding military tradition," there are "change of command,
promotion ceremonies, or significant celebrations..." -- but only if
such "prayer" is emptied of "specific beliefs" and intended "to add a
heightened sense of seriousness or solemnity." How patent unseriousness
may add seriousness is part of the Bush White House's closely guarded
formula for success. It may not have realized that it outdid the judges
who had tried to outlaw the Pledge of Allegiance.
THE GUIDELINES PLACE special restrictions and responsibilities on
chaplains. Heretofore they had been allowed, even encouraged, to
shepherd men of their own denomination, urge members of other
denominations to be faithful to them, and to try to bring the godless
to God. Now they are to help restrict their flock's own urges to
proselytize, to restrict their own and their flock's religious
practices to the guidelines, and above all to give no one the
impression that God exists and that it matters. To chaplains who wear
the uniform, these are orders. But these orders raise the most
fundamental questions of all: What is the chaplain doing in uniform?
For whom is he working? To what end?
A chaplain's job has always been inherently problematic. On the one
hand he must do nothing to impair his flock's ability to do their
military jobs. On the other, he cannot simply be yet another voice
urging people to do what they're told regardless of what they might
think. His authority comes from God, on whose behalf he cares for the
things that are most important to each individual. For Christian
chaplains, Jesus' words "render unto Caesar the things that are
Caesar's and unto God the things that are God's" have offered a
practical solution to this conflict. In America, a nation explicitly
"under God," the chaplains could counsel people to follow the faith's
dictates fully, while obeying orders wholeheartedly because the two did
not conflict.
But what can a Christian chaplain under the guidelines say when he
reads, or someone asks him about, the Gospel's charge to "go out among
all nations, baptizing them in the name of the father..."? Or what can
a Jewish one say when several of his flock are disciplined for
gathering together in prayer at the times prescribed by the Law? The
free exercise of religion involves speaking and acting in public.
Clergymen's stock in trade must be to urge religious practice in
everyday life. What can they say, what can serious Christians or Jews
think, about an organization in which they risk their lives while
demanding that they behave in ways that they believe endanger their
immortal souls? It becomes difficult for them to say, I belong here.
It is inherently difficult to believe that one is serving God by
working in an organization that will penalize you for speaking his
name. But does not one serve God by serving His America? Not if America
insists that those who love God shut up about it while those who mock
him may do so at will. Whose America is it anyway? It cannot belong
equally to people whose views of it are incompatible with one another.
The Air Force cadets who charged that a critical mass of evangelicals
at the Academy had created an environment they could not stand, and the
captain featured in the New York Times article that supported them, had
every right to tell themselves and the world something like "this isn't
me, and this is not my idea of America." And, because their views of
America coincided with those of powerful people in Washington, the Bush
administration promulgated guidelines congenial to them. But, by the
very same token, these guidelines frame an environment unacceptable to
serious Christians and Jews.
THE ALL VOLUNTEER FORCE lives by attracting people. Its character, and
its size, depend on who finds military service attractive. There may
exist a pool of young people big enough to fill America's military who
combine appetite for physical challenges, tolerance for danger, a
spirit of self- sacrifice, discipline, and patriotism, but who don't
really care whether America is "under God" or not, who get along just
fine without the Ten Commandments, are more bothered by piety than by
homosexuality, and are inspired by "sensitivity" training. And perhaps
the social changes forced upon the U.S. military in recent years will
bring such people out of the woodwork and into uniform. Maybe America
will end up with atheist foxholes. But surely these changes tell the
families who now actually fill the Armed Forces that maybe the kinds of
people who are making the rules should also be doing the fighting.
Angelo M. Codevilla is professor of international relations at Boston
University, a Claremont Institute fellow, and a senior editor of The
American Spectator. His intellectual history of U.S. foreign relations
will be published by Yale University Press.
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| User: "raven1" |
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| Title: Re: The Atheist Foxhole: How Rumsfeld Marginalized Religion In Military |
13 Mar 2006 09:47:28 AM |
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On 13 Mar 2006 04:41:19 -0800, "Sound of Trumpet"
<soundoftrumpet@mail2world.com> wrote:
Arguably the worst, most gratuitous, most ominous act inflicted on
America in living memory was Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's
August 29, 2005 promulgation of guidelines for religious expression in
the U.S. Air Force -- intended as a model for the rest of the armed
forces. Their essence is to forbid anyone in uniform from giving "the
reasonable perception that [the Armed Forces, and hence the U.S.
government] support any religion over other religions or the idea of
religion over the choice of no religious affiliation
I agree. It's an awful, ominous act for the Secretary of Defense to
insist that the military actually adhere to the Constitution! What is
this world coming to?
--
"O Sybilli, si ergo
Fortibus es in ero
O Nobili! Themis trux
Sivat sinem? Causen Dux"
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| User: "Unsound Strumpet" |
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| Title: Re: The Atheist Foxhole: How Rumsfeld Marginalized Religion In Military |
13 Mar 2006 07:03:26 AM |
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Sound of Trumpet wrote:
Hey Mr Strumpet, I don't wish to ***** on your parade (actually I do)
but why the ***** do you keep posting this drivel when anyone wiith half
a brain (somewhat more than you) can find it by Googling.
Do you think atheists are as dimwitted as you? Are you trying to *****
us off by any chance? You can't really believe all this crap you keep
posting, can you?
Why do you never reply? I guess it's because you do not have the
cognitive function to argue a case but just have enough motor functions
to hit a keyboard.
Like most people on this newsgroup, I dearly wish you would just *****
off and annoy someone else.
Wanker.
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