CHRISTIANS TAKE OVER INTERFAITH ARMY CHAPEL IN COMBAT ZONE

[yortsed snacilbuper]

Atheists Call for Chapel’s Restoration

American Atheists recently became aware that a chapel on Forward Operating Base (FOB) Orgun-E in ChapelAfghanistan has been illegally modified to look like a church with a steeple and crosses etched on the doors.

These modifications directly violate military regulations, including Army Regulation 165-1. According to the regulation, chapels are a shared space and no religion has more right to these buildings than any other.

link

[Renew Deal]

1. Why would Atheists care about a chapel?

But if this really happened it is a legitimate issue.

[niyad]

2. perhaps because it is a direct violation of regulations, perhaps because it could be seen as an

insult to the host country, and perhaps because people are tired of the reichwing fundies in the military, and elsewhere, trying to take over everything

[longship]

3. ^^THIS^^

Thanks, niyad!

[jberryhill]

4. Atheists never want to sit in a quiet place and meditate, I guess

[snooper2]

6. we are busy being productive

instead of wasting time on mythology during our adult life...

It's fun when you are a kid though, my daughter LOVES Santa, but she is three LOL

[jberryhill]

8. Since when does meditation require a theistic belief?

I can guarantee you that someone who spends some quiet time in a place designated, literally, for "nothing to do and don't disturb me here" is going to be a lot more productive over the long run than someone who doesn't.

[snooper2]

9. I call that sleep...and falling asleep

LOL..

[jberryhill]

11. That's not the same thing

You should really get someone to put you in charge of the psychological profession. All that time wasted on getting people to clear their mind and take some deep breaths in a state of wakefulness is surely going to waste.

[DevonRex]

14. Hear hear! I'm not even atheist but I do meditate without any religious context.

I also do self-hypnosis for a number of purposes. If nothing else, a quiet space like that would be a space that signals to others that it's not cool to come up and shake your shoulder in the middle of a mediation or hypnosis session. In almost every other military setting there is no privacy and you can just imagine how it could be for enlisted personnel especially if they told their peers they were going to do a bit of self-hypnosis.

Personally, I don't want my quiet space to be a target just because some fundies want up a cross. And, yeah, I'm a veteran.

[cordelia]

10. Do you hate all religious people equally?

[snooper2]

12. hate is a pretty strong word...it really depends on intelligence level...

I have a hard time understanding people who can do open heart surgery or write software for space navigation and they still believe in a "creator" or "omnipotent god".

Grasping the fact that there are hundreds of bilions of stars in our own galaxy, and the fact that there are hundreds of billions of galaxies and attributing that to a "creator". Come on LOL

I wonder how many folks who work at CERN believe in any of the traditional "gods"?


Ever learn about a supernova and think, WOW, Allah did that

[OriginalGeek]

5. Looks to me like a case of atheists fighting for equality

for all faiths.

[backscatter712]

7. Separation of church and state is why.

The Founding Fathers made the very wise decision to keep the government out of the god business, which both protects the government from being captured by religious interests, and protects churches and other religious organizations, as well as individuals of all religions and of no religion, from being coerced by the government as to which religion to worship, how they can worship, etc.

That means that in the military, religious facilities provided to soldiers must be generic - the building that serves as a church must also serve as a synagogue, or a mosque. Chaplains must be able to cater their services to people of any belief.

[JHB]

13. Because the when fundy "christians" feel free to scent-mark everything for RW-Jesus...

...guess who rates high on the fundy's "target and harass" list?

The "hostile environment" is not supposed to be coming from within our own forces.