Atheists in foxholes
Old Trooper sends a link from CNS about some dildo who is complaining that the troops are praying together before they leave for missions into the mouth of the lion;
Jason Torpy, president of the Military Atheists and Free Thinkers Association, told “All Things Considered” over the weekend about an incident in 2003 or 2004, in which his commander gathered his team together to pray before the Army unit deployed — rather than make preparations for the mission.
NPR: Can you give some examples of where as an atheist, as a humanist, you felt left out?
TORPY: Going on a military mission, for example, we were getting ready to roll out. And ‘Everybody come in.’ So as the commander of this convoy (said), ‘Everybody come in and we’re going to do a prayer first together.’ We’re not going to talk about communications, we’re not going to talk about route planning, we’re not going to talk about first aid, we’re not going to talk about maintenance.
Like I’ve said before, I’m not a real religious kind of guy, but I’m also not anti-religion either. When I found myself in those kinds of situations, I just bowed my head and went along with it…why get in the way of someone else asking for a blessing from their Creator, or being a dick and complaining to NPR that someone violated my right to be a God-less heathen.
In the remainder of the interview, Torpy told NPR that chaplains in the military today do not “minister” to troops. but carry out secular “support” roles — and that atheist chaplains are needed to support humanist soldiers.
The military already has atheist chaplains, they’re called psychiatrists and psychologists. How do people with no faith need “ministering”? I guess what pisses my off most is the implication in the name of Torpy’s organization that being faithful to God isn’t “free thinking”.
I guess he and I are both lucky that he wasn’t my company commander.
Category: Military issues
I guess the military has really changed since I was in . I enlisted in 1975, USAF. In basic training there was manditory 30 seconds of silence before you were able to eat. everyone complied with this, it was prayer time.TI said if you dont pray respect those that do sit there quietly and let them pray. now people are bitching because they pray before they go out ? I dont get it. We have freedom of religion not freedom FROM religion.
Real atheists don’t care if other people pray. They just don’t believe it’s effective.
This argument cuts both ways….people bitch if mandatory time/effort is expended on religion, and people bitch if it isn’t.
I just had a thought after I hit the submit button ( and yes it did hurt) shouldnt the headline be ASSHOLES in Foxholes?
Each mission we did in Iraq that I was in charge of, or in charge of those who went on the mission we had a good plan and a good back up plan…
I asked the Reg Army Chaplin we had if he’d come over in the morning and do something “nice” for the teams as they were leaving…he said that was too early for him. I felt HE was a lazy and useless POS.
Other units I worked with had chaplins come out everyday and pray with the group going out. regardless of the time of day.
You know, I never heard of psychiatrists or psychogists on the battlefield. Nor have I ever heard of a chaplain on the battlefield saying, “Son, I heard that you are an atheist so I’ll just be moving on now to the next wounded man.” Chaplains have never required a profession of faith in God to minister to a soldier, sailor, airman, or Marine, to write a letter to a grieving family, or to just lend an ear. Ever heard of the Four Chaplains? Do you think that those men asked, “Son, before I give you my life vest and ensure my death, I want to be certain that you are not agnostic or atheist.” Or Father Duffy: “Son, get your atheist ass out of this trench!”
Gotta wonder what he is calling “secular support roles.” Having spent some time hanging out with the chaplain corps, I do know that they were not spending all their time conducting worship services, but much of the rest of their time was spent doing more or less what the pastor of a local church would do – visiting sick folks, advising the commander on stuff like the spiritual needs of the troops, conducting memorial services, counseling the berieved and such.
What are “secular support roles?”
@7 – No such role exists, except in his own mind perhaps.
“…he said that was too early for him.”
This kind of crap amazes me. Our Chaplain would roll out anytime day or night, Bible in hand, cigar firmly clenched in teeth, to support us prior to heading out…and 75% of the time he’d roll out with us if there was an available seat. He’d read a “smite thee thine foe” passage followed with a wrath of God prayer just before we mounted up (you know, AFTER all the PCCs/PCIs, etc were done) and we loved him for it…even the less than faithful loved it. But what do we know, we were just a bunch of backwards National Guard hillbillies from Tennessee.
I can say as a chaplain assistant that 75% of our jobs consisted of just being with the troops. If a prayer was requested we prayed….if a listening ear was needed we were there. Religion wasn’t a necessity for me or the chaplains I worked for to be with Soldiers….we wanted to be with them.
“We were getting ready to roll out” on a convoy, and Torpy thinks the time just before you roll out is the time to talk about maintenance, route planning, first aid and commo? Shouldn’t that already be done and out of the way? I’d be less than enthused, to be ready to mount up and then the commander decides it’s time to talk about that which should have been covered already.
Or is he butthurt because the commander didn’t play to his sensitivities?
The definition of a chaplain, “A member of the clergy attached to a branch of the armed forces”. Wouldn’t that make the term, atheist chaplain, an oxymoron?
I love these people. First, they tried using Separation of Church/State to remove Chaplains. When that failed, they try to get Atheist Chaplains in. Come on, really?
———-
A wounded soldier sees a Chaplain walking through the ward.
“Chaplain,” he says weakly, his wounds causing him pain.
“Yes, soldier,” the Chaplain replies, walking over and sitting beside his bed.
“Sir, could you pray with me for healing.” The young soldier, a Christian his whole life knows that God will help him to heal.
“No,” the Chaplain replies. “But, I’ll go over the physiological process of how your body can heal on its own.”
———-
Chaplain’s are not just about praying and religion. They are a morale support officer, a lesser form of a shrink, and a confidant. In BCT, my BN’s Chaplain was with us in the field the entire time. He ran with us, he did the courses with us, he even did the gas chamber with us (including unmasking).
I was Catholic at the time, so I never heard his message. But, that didn’t stop him from talking to me. He even prayed with my squad before we did NIC-at-Nite (Night Infiltration Course).
Then there was the Chaplain’s Movie Night during 7th week, which was awesome! Everyone got a can of soda and a bag of buttered movie-style pop corn. No prayers, no Bible’s, just the Chaplain looking out for the morale of the troopies.
He is the reason I am going into the Chaplain Corps when I graduate.
So does the Atheist chaplain carry a copy of “The Origin of Species” under his arm?
To the troops before combat:
“Boys, you are a fortuitous collection of happenstances, driven nowhere, to no end, for no purpose. When the universe rips itself apart at the end of time, it will be as though you never even existed. Take comfort and gain joy from the brute, uncaring, mechanistic universe that doesn’t even know you exist, and remember that ALL your sacrifices, and indeed everything, is totally in vain.”
I’d kind of like to see atheism formally designated a religion.
Not only would that make Torpy feel better about himself, but it also means we could sue about any government space that did not have religious icons displayed, as that would be a violation of the Sstablishment Clause. Ka-ching!
I always like to point out to my hardcore atheist brothers and sisters that they are just as religious as religious folk, but their argument is a negation. Of course this goes down another long winding path of yaddda yaddda… I used to say I pray to Crom but I don’t think he listens very often.
I’m sorry this guy is pretty upset that someone prayed while going into harms way? They must never have actually been in combat.
I never really cared about these types of prayers. I would just look around thinking, “These people sure do enjoy talking to themselves.” They felt better about themselves, and I wasn’t hurt, so who cares… Although I’ve always suspected most were thinking the same thing, as out of all of us only a half dozen actually went to services on Sundays.
The only time I didn’t like the whole chaplain thing was when it was time for me to leave Iraq. I had to get an exit counselings from our chaplains, which was annoying. No psychiatrists or psychologists were involved, not even when when I go back to CONUS. Just chaplains. Which is extremely annoying and uncomfortable for people who are not religious. What nonbeliever, in that situation, is going to bring up any issues with a chaplain? Would any of you christians bring up personal issues with a muslim or buddhist chaplain?
But based upon what I’ve read, that problem has been solved. So I really don’t see the issue. Dude tries to make it sound like they were taking away from mission prep. Look, if a 45 second prayer means your unit is going to fall apart because it didn’t spend that time going over their route planning and life saving steps, your are a type of fucked not even a god can fix.
To answer #13, I kept a pocket Constitution in my left breast pocket.
@#15 “I used to say I pray to Crom but I don’t think he listens very often.”
Yeah, to hell with him.
@17 Then you failed to realize that the constitution is simply a giving of Laws, much like the 10 commandments (without God) The Decoration of Independence came first and is a statement of our Ideals that bind us together as a nation. As it came first, it in fact supersedes the constitution. And yes it does mention God. Several times.
@18: LOL “I pray to the four winds. . . your God is beneath them” kidding.
>Then you failed to realize that the constitution is simply a giving of Laws
Not to mention Doc that the Constitution only works if people believe that rights are guaranteed by a Creator which the founders intended. If not, it is the state giving you the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. If that is the case, then the state could take it all away!
@20 – That argument reasonably opens the door [for the sake of argument] for non-compliance by those who do not believe in God.
I don’t subscribe to an argument of the state trying to usurp a god role, but to base an entire society on a notion that cannot be seen, felt, heard or touched seems a bit flimsy on it’s face.
Does the Constitution not work if I don’t believe in God, but rather, believe that a society can come together and craft a code to live by that embodies justice and accountability? Does the Constitution not work considering that we do not abide by a large majority on tenets laid out in the bible?
Actually, CI, it does not. The founders made that quite clear. Without a basic Judeo-Christian (they only said Christian because at that time it was understood that Christian priciples are based their Hebrew origins) ethic among the citizenry, none of it would work.
As we are seeing today.
@22 – So you believe that without a belief in an omnipotent, spiritual being, a lawful society cannot exist?
>Does the Constitution not work if I don’t believe in God, but rather, believe that a society can come together and craft a code to live by that embodies justice and accountability?
Whose accountablility? Whose justice? Democrats? Republicans? I am not going to argue the philosophy of religion with you. I think atheists can be fine people, and I am sure you are. There is something more powerful though when rights are given by something that NO ONE can control or change(and as we have seen in court even the meaning of the Constitution can change). That is the philosophy I am talking about.
>So you believe that without a belief in an omnipotent, spiritual being, a lawful society cannot exist?
No I do not. Morals and justice become relative. They rely on the society who makes them up. Power corrupts absolutely and all that. You are relying on “people” to follow the law. Laws are only as infallible as the people making them and keep them. If no one in society answers to someone bigger then themselves then society devolves in moral relativism much the way we see today. In the end CI, we are all a bunch of animals. Without a higher law we devolve into natural law which does not guarantee rights to anyone- and the Constitution just becomes a piece of paper with no meaning.
@Melle – Then why do we as a society pick and choose what tenets to follow? If we are beholden to a higher power in terms of accountability, why have we decided that slavery was immoral and outlawed, to name one example?
Because we are human and make decisions based on the best information we have at the moment. Or not, if that is your choice.
@23 Certainly a lawful society can exist without any religious belief at all! How well it exists would rather depend upon the laws, would it not? Maybe also the strength/charisma of the one/s making the laws, and the size of the army that enforces the laws??
> If we are beholden to a higher power in terms of accountability, why have we decided that slavery was immoral and outlawed, to name one example?
The fight against slavery was started by religious people. Christian tenets is based on free-will. You would agree based on your knowledge that slavery is not Christian, correct? If you don’t, I can assure you that it isn’t.
> Then why do we as a society pick and choose what tenets to follow?
We generally go with consensus which you would agree is not infallible. Consensuses have said that genocide was okay in other countries. Life and liberty should not be based on consensus, but the fact that everyone is born with those rights guaranteed. I am not even talking about being “answerable” to a higher power. I am talking about the rights being guaranteed by a higher power. Even if you don’t believe in one, I would think that it would be comforting that those rights are supposed to be out of the purview of man.
CI– Would you also agree that just because something is “legal” by man doesn’t mean it is ethical and moral? And that ethical and moral is EXTREMELY subjective?
@melle – “The fight against slavery was started by religious people. Christian tenets is based on free-will. You would agree based on your knowledge that slavery is not Christian, correct? If you don’t, I can assure you that it isn’t.”
Of course, though it is treated in the Bible with enough recognition as a societal norm to provide for treatment of slaves. Perhaps this wasn’t the best example. To be clear, I am not trying to defend Torpy…I had no problem with standing quietly while others prayed to an invisible deity to make themselves feel better; it’s simply respectful. Discussions of this sort fascinate me for many reasons, but Torpy’s tantrum isn’t one of them.
“Life and liberty should not be based on consensus, but the fact that everyone is born with those rights guaranteed.”
Exactly…then why do some of the most devout ignore this obvious rule in favor of a couple of passages from the Bible? Society has to guarantee those rights, unless that society is homogeneous in it’s belief system, to a citizen. Those rights can absolutely be based on a particular belief system, but would you agree with me that we should not be bound to any code that has a purely religious, but no secular value?
@melle – Sorry, missed this…..”Would you also agree that just because something is “legal” by man doesn’t mean it is ethical and moral? And that ethical and moral is EXTREMELY subjective?”
Sure, but even in the context of a religious belief, ethics and morality require a consensus of some sort. The different ends of a societal spectrum is always going to be extremely subjective. The goal is to find the common ground for the good of society as a whole.
>but would you agree with me that we should not be bound to any code that has a purely religious, but no secular value?
I don’t think the government should be overly religious, but allow for religious expression. That being said I think a fully atheistic society would be as bad as a theistic society. I think we have a perfect mix in America, but I also think the creation of our society was largely based on the fact that most have a “religious filter.” I don’t like man being the ultimate judge. I am not overtly religious either. I just find a lot of distrust in man and the state. I like the fact that there is a higher authority, but that is just me 🙂
@32 – “I don’t think the government should be overly religious, but allow for religious expression.”
I certainly agree with that, as I think we do.
“That being said I think a fully atheistic society would be as bad as a theistic society.”
That’s certainly a possibility.
“I just find a lot of distrust in man and the state.”
I share that distrust…..but for me as an Agnostic, it hasn’t driven me to believe on something that I cannot commit to. On one hand I’m a bit jealous that so many people find comfort in religion, but I also see the utterly damaging effects in ‘can’ have on society regarding the liberty of it’s citizens.