How do you protect a secular military...

...from this bullcrap? Obligatory Military Religious Freedom Foundation link.

This sort of thing really cheeses me off. I want to limit military interventions, cut contracting and boondoggle research to spend more on the soldiers, and allow every U.S. soldier their Constitutional freedom from religious observance if they so wish. Yet I'm the America-hating pacifist hippy and this jackass commander is a proud patriot?

Uhhh there are chaplain services for every religion in the US Army unless you basically belong to a religion that's so obscure that they don't know it exists. Meaning yes things like Muslim and Jewish services do exist among others.

I...

I just...

Oh fuck it, I give up. Clearly freedom of religion and tolerance are words that don't actually mean anything to any significant number of people.

~*Grinds teeth*

Tom did you read the article(s)?

edited 17th Mar '11 7:22:10 PM by deathjavu

Of course, they have freedom of religion not freedom from religion. What I mean by that is just because it offends them that it exists it still can.

And Muslim and Jewish servicemen at that Fort will get prosletyzed at, as well as Catholics, Mormons, Hindus, Atheists, and servicemen of every denomination of Christianity not in line with those organizing Rock the Fort.

Besides, it seems like in yet another area of American life Atheists are the last minority it's still okay to oppress. Note, Radd: Atheists tried to organize an alternative event, and were shut down.

edited 17th Mar '11 7:29:46 PM by RadicalTaoist

I don't see it in the links, care to enlighten me on the event?

^ Theoretically, of course.

edited 17th Mar '11 7:32:29 PM by Radd

Look, I'm in the military and I've got an axe to grind against Christianity.

BUT I have no problem with Christian rock events or whatnot being held on the base. I don't care, it doesn't offend me, etc etc.

What I DO take issue with however is the way the Commander denied Rock Beyond Belief. That offends the shit out of me.

I haven't had any issues of prosthelytizing in the military. Not from Chaplains, not from anybody, I have no problem with the Chaplain Corps, they are there to help people, and differences of religion have never gotten in the way of that in my personal experience. If anything, the excessively religious get harassed by the majority in the military, and I mean the hardcore Jesus freaks.

So yeah, I don't feel overwhelmed or threatened by Christian influence in the military whatsoever, I do feel rather threatened by resistance from specific powerful individuals over it though.

These people who did this at Fort Bragg...I would set them in a pit of Crest Worms, and listen to their screams as they are ripped limb from limb!

...what is the problem?

I agree with Barkey. It's not the Christian event itself that bothers me...it's that its secular equivalent was shut down in an obviously prejudicial way.

^ Did you read the second article?

edited 17th Mar '11 8:59:04 PM by snailbait

No, but I just did. Sounds like an abuse of military power.

What I shouldn't have read was the comments' section; what knobs.

It seems this is just one person in the chain of command doing this.

Welcome to the internet; don't read the comments.

re: The topic. I don't know who Roy Zimmerman or the Golden Knights are, but having Richard Dawkins as a speaker indicates to me this wasn't a small thing. And offers an immediate explanation why this might have been cancelled. I've noticed here and elsewhere some Americans seem to have some antipathy for Mr. Dawkins

edited 17th Mar '11 9:16:11 PM by GreatLich

I don't think the pure reason was that Dawkins is an inflammatory asshole, although that is definitely a part of it.

If the Commander in question wasn't a Christian, then I could still understand some hesitation to having Dawkins speak, I'm agnostic/non-religious and I don't like the man.

But I don't think that was it, I think there was prejudice against non-Christians involved on the part of the Garrison Commander. He needs to be "Relocated" to the Pentagon or something. That's what they do with politically inconvenient officers of rank after all.

I wish that would explain it, but in that case the appropriate answer would have been to ask them to reconsider their choice of speakers, not shut the whole thing down.

Roy Zimmerman is a satirical singer/songwriter, and IIRC the Golden Knights are a military airshow, by the way.

edited 18th Mar '11 12:15:59 AM by Pykrete

Would the military put on an airshow for the military?

Could just be an organization that shares a name with them.

You protect a secular military with god ofcorse.

@OP: Meh, I was drinking when that happened.

Yeah, we do things like flyovers and smaller scale stunts at our own events relatively often.

Really fun fact. In Turkey its the military that keeps the religious from hijacking the government. Of course, the politicians pass laws to get around that like letting people jailed for religious incitement become president

That post deals with the OP's question. Basically it depends on the culture. Of course, what generals do is different than what the privates do in the turkish military. In the US these is a noticeable percentage of mid level and whatnot officers who I remember bought into this as well (remember the Colorado Air Force Academy?)

EDIT 2: heh. PZ Meyers. saw him with the World Cant Wait girl and another guy @ the Uniersity of Chicago a while ago....

edited 19th Mar '11 2:30:35 AM by BalloonFleet