Rugby and soccer were (sort of) co-created in the mid 1800’s in england, due to a split in the acceptance of the rules of an older less organized ball sport: one faction allowed the use of hands the other did not and the two separate sports were officially recognized.
Not correcting, just bored.
I generally refer to myself as “polytheist” (yes, no “ic”) meaning: I believe there are many people which believe in many (various) gods.
… And most will just never understand each other.
Attendance at services is not mandatory(*) and yes, US military chaplains include Protestant (various flavours), Catholic, Jewish, Muslim (but you can bet your bottom dollar no Wahabbis) and the ocassional Buddhist.
(*Though time to attend services may be taken from your duty time, so it can become an hour during which you are not painting bulkheads or loading trucks)
No.
Absence of belief is absence of belief. Absence of belief is NOT identical to active disbelief. Do I have any beliefs at all regarding something I have never heard of nor imagined? No. But I do have complete absence of belief in it. Skepticism is not “I disbelieve”. That is just another dogmatism in opposition to the first dogmatism. Skepticism is “I do not have enough information to either believe or disbelieve.”
I would say that a-theism as a whole is not a religion. However, there is a strain of proselytizing atheism that is a religion. Yes, some atheists do proselytize and do so very seriously. They seem to be convinced that they have to go out and SAVE everybody’s SOULS from the DEVIL–oops, I mean “save everybody’s minds from religion”. Likewise, they can be very narrow-minded and dogmatic. Evidently, lack of belief in a deity is no guarantee of ethical nor moral behavior, or of even not being a jackass.
Dogface, as kabbes put it in less sloppy notation than I,
Agreed?
We are not talking about skepticism, we are talking about atheism.
One’s “beliefs” are those statement to which one ascribes a probability of >50% of being true. Personally, I ascribe a probability of less than one in ten to G (God existing). I am therefore an a-theist, since I think it more likely that no Gods exist.
If one is not equipped to assess the truth of a given statement at all, or one contends that since it cannot ever be known there is no point even trying to assess its truth a la agnosticism, then one must simply stick at a 50-50 probability that that statement is true.
Of course, your comments regarding some atheists are entirely true.
AD:
The vast majority of Americans believe in some sort of God, and I’d presume that holds true for the military as well. Providing company Ministers (or not) should be left as an administrative decision. If the higher ups are convinced that it increases moral overall, I’m OK with it. With two caveats:
There needs to be a way to deal with the fact that “religion” does not equate to Christianity. I don’t know how one deals with the fact there are Jews, Muslims, Buddhist, and who knows how many other religions in the militiary. Many Christians seem to conveniently forget this and brush off concerns from people of other faiths. It’s already been noted that you probably wouldn’t like saluting, for example, an officer who’s job it was to promote the Shinto religion.
There should be absolutely no proselytizing. As you yourself noted, an officer who outranks you is hardly a neutral party to whom one can listen or not at one’s own discretion. Proselytizsing should be grounds for dismisal.
Not quite there but consider this:
(from http://www.milpagan.org/PC/military_witch.html)
Wisconsin also has a Wicca chaplain in their prison system. Some dingleberry in the Wisconsin statehouse is trying to get her fired, not with much success so far.
Are there any Wiccan chaplains?
From a purely economic standpoint, I hope there is some minimum level of practitioners needed before a new type of chaplain is hired.
Keep in mind that, for atheists, wiccans and the like are no more kooky in their beliefs than Christians. Both believe that supernatural powers exist in the universe.
Religious Tolerance mentions the military manual “Religious Requirements and Practices of Certain Selected Groups: A Handbook for Chaplains” (1990) which apparently includes Wicca.
I think any chaplain hired would probably be expected to be able to perform a variety of services.
As an officer, and an atheist, in the U.S. Air Force, I felt the subtle, unstated pressure to “conform” to the predominantly theistic majority in the ranks. My atheism was something I felt I had better keep “in the closet” lest I invite a negative impression of my character, which of course spells disaster for an officer’s career.
Going along with the flow wasn’t a huge effort, but I mildly resented having to go through these motions at functions where prayer was invoked or attending certain services at the chapel which, although carefully not labelled as mandatory, were certainly “encouraged.” “Encouraged,” of course, translates loosely as “mandatory” in the military. 
One moment I’ll never forget occurred at a formal dinner at the Officer’s Club. We were hosting a visiting General, and, as at all these functions, our Group Chaplain led us off with a prayer. Our unit was a B-52 bomber group – equipped with nuclear weapons and well practiced in their delivery in simulated combat conditions. We were only weeks away from competing in an event we called “Bomb Comp” – which is where all the B-52 units competed in various events to measure competency in carrying out their wartime mission… a sort of “Armegeddon Olympics” if you will. 
The Chaplain closed his prayer by passionately asking God for good bomb scores in this event… which struck me then, and now, as the absolute height of absurdity.
Any God that would “grant” that request, that our unit get a little divine assistance in proving that we could obliterate huge population centers more effectively than the next guy, probably loses a few points in the “merciful, benevolent, loves-all-his-children” department. And if he couldn’t grant it, and it really did come down to the training and abilities of the individual aircrews, the quality of the maintenance, and maybe a little dose of luck…
… why the hell were we praying?
Shall we say rugby and soccer evolved from a common ancestor?
You mean about athiests having a problem? You were thoroughly wrong? Well, you asked a question, which was answered. You’re worried you didn’t get it sooner? Fighting ignorance is the point. (I should know, I have a lot to be fought.)
Nitpick: it’s spelled morale.
Actually, I found the presence of a chaplain to be beneficial. Even though I’m a secular Jew leaning towards atheist, and a Jewish chaplain was not always available, I found the chaplain’s door was usually wide open. In addition to leading services, they offer nonsectarian counseling, recreational opportunities (very useful shipboard), and I found a few willing to throw their rank around if the need arose (and occasionally it does; sailors facing a hostile situation need someone with rank to mediate a problem with enlisted superiors on an unofficial basis). Also, when I was new to a command, the chaplain’s office put me in touch with other Jews.
There is a lot of pressure to attend religious services, however. On Sundays, you have two choices. You can go to church, or you can go on a working party. When you’ve busted your ass six days a week, you really don’t want to bust your ass on Sundays, either.
And depending on the particular unit, the policies regarding holidays and the like may be skewed in favor of Christians. I remember having to switch duty days so I could attend services. Although I got good at extorting extra days off from Christians desperate to get Christmas and Easter off. 
So, yeah, religion is a bomb in the bathroom of the barracks. No one really wants to touch it for fear of the mess. So it stays the same, and some people are happy with it, and some are unhappy. But I don’t think it’s going to change anytime soon.
Oh, and sweetie, your mom told me she won’t take less than $20.00. 
Robin
Sentient Meat: we’ve been over this with Lib, and even he agrees that non-belief is not itself a belief, at least not a belief about God. At best, it’s a belief about the present state of one’s own mind, but it need not even be that, because a person need not even know that they don’t believe in God. Generally, we accord people the right to speak about the state of their own mind without ever asking them to justify the claim (think about how impossible it would be to have any sort of discussion if we were constantly challenging each other to “prove” that we really believe something- a claim for which we have no non-question begging evidence!).
Sorry, but ~BG != B~G
This is simple to see from the fact that the latter statement is an assertion about reality, while the former is an assertion about the person making the assertion. If lack of belief was the same as a belief not, then you could claim that my lack of belief that my DSL would be hooked up today (because it could come at any day this week) was equivalent to a belief that it would not come today. And if it DID come today, as I sincerely hope it will, then you could claim that I was wrong. But the fact was I merely lacked a belief THAT it would come today- I DIDN’T reject the idea that it would come today, I rejected the idea that there was any good reason to think, in particular, that it would.
I think it’s ironic that a religion developed under persecution, and whose theology in many ways reflects the values necessary to perservere as an oppressed minority in a fallen world, is these days in many situations (especially in these military situations) not only in a majority, but a powerful majority that turns its nose up at the idea that other people shouldn’t have to pay for it’s operation and defer to its special privaleges.
And I mean ironic in the Alanis Morrisette sense of the word.
To me, these things persuade me further that there IS a God.
Also, if I have a job where the loss of my life is likely, I think most people would welcome the comfort a chaplain would provide.
I have read quite a few of the responses, some of which are persuasive, some not. I don’t classify myself as an atheist, perhaps more in the realm of agnostic, but I’m not even militantly that. I hope there’s no label for what my beliefs include, since I have come to them pretty much by the pick and choose approach.
That said, my problem with religion has less to do with the moral and ethical teachings that come from most of them, which I consider to be manmade components and which, taken as a body of ways that man can deal with fellow man (man here being mankind and not male necessarily), are essential to society making progress as society.
My problem has to do with the way that religions feed on themselves by refusing to acknowledge that human beings have some measure of natural curiosity and that some degree of fascination with the unknown leads many to look for “easy answers” that religions tend to provide. If we could keep the ethical and moral parts of religions, and trash the “easy answer” part that seems locked into the morality part, I hope that the freeing of individuals to find their own answers to the “eternal questions” would produce much more cooperation among us.
As it is, religions are more divisive than unifying, in spite of their claims. By insisting on the belief in one “right answer” to one of the “eternal questions” they drive away those who don’t share that belief or else they hope to quell that natural curiosity.
By setting up the opposing camp mentality, the us vs. them approach, more energy is spent on trivial matters that really don’t advance us as a species, but that continue to hold us in arrested development.
If there could be an instant abolition of something that has harmed mankind more than helped, I would vote for religion.
To restate my main point: we need morality and ethical order; we don’t need forced beliefs.
They weren’t listed as reasons to disbelieve, but as response to the claim that atheists are continually pissed off because our world isn’t bright and beautiful.
Most believers certainly would. A chaplain would provide no comfort to a non-believer, or at least none not better dispensed by, say, a psychologist or similar. No-one is disputing this. We are, however, opposing stuff like compulsory services and prayers.
I would classify myself as a nonsectarian theist raised in a Judeo-Christian religious culture.
Militant anythings tend to be militant (and often obnoxious) about whatever they happen to be militant about. It goes with the game. In most cases, they have at least a Constitutional, and arguably a natural human, right to be. To go head to head does not make them meeker, only more resolute. It strikes me that Witnessing Fundies and Witnessing Atheists do their convictions a disservice by what amounts to their self-indulgence. (With more than a little self-righteousness sprinkled on top.)
I had a friend who, whenever anyone would utter common colloquialisms like “God knows” or “Omigod” or “Jesus Christ–!”, had to say immediately, “Who??”. Uh-HUH. The attentive and persistent reform of someone else’s language seems to me a sign of militance and “witnessing.”
To make casual and more-or-less meaningless reference to a religious figure in the presence of someone who doesn’t believe in that, or any, religion is not a “diss” along the lines of dropping the N-word in front of an African-American, the F-word in front of a gay person, or the C-word in front of a female. It’s almost certainly no more than a bit of excess conversational lubricant spilling out. If conversations are of value, overlooking such dribs and drabs is a necessary art.
On the other hand, “praise Jesus!” hand-grabbing and knee-falling in the course of general conversation really IS like (etc.), and such persons deserve some gentle and respectful education. Right away.
Organized prayer at public events involving a mixed crowd is gauche and offensive. But if there is no serious whiff of governmental endorsement, I think it ought to be overlooked, even if in some sense a micro-percentage of public monies allows it to happen. (I mean the sort of bland devotions typical of such public prayer: anything that looks like sectarian doctrinal teaching crosses the line and deserves rebuke.) The majority (when it’s a big one) gets to feel a little bit fulfilled when they go out in public: or we’ve made a commitment to a “culture” of atomized individualism–and few people can get behind such a tyranical puritanism. It’s a question of details and degree.
As a gay man, I could feel distressed at my heterosexual office workers discussing, eg, “families” in specifically heterosexual terms. But such distress darkens my day, so I choose not to feel it if I can. Likewise religious subjects: details and degree.
In public prayer rituals I insist on quietly exercizing my right to either not stand, or to stand with slightly bowed head as a good-natured sign of respect to others and their beliefs. It wouldn’t occur to me to be disruptive, as if other people’s beliefs and rituals automatically constitute a threat or an insult.
As to prayer before the Inauguration… I don’t exactly care for it, but the President is, after all, a person–if hse feels moved to express an element of hirs beliefs regarding religious matters in connection with assuming office, I see no inherent problem. But again, detail and degree.
Campaigns of moral rectification from either side disturb me more than modest religionism or irreligionism.
(I probably missed a few comments along these lines.)
Well, that’s all well and good. Is there any reason why military chaplains’ salaries couldn’t be paid by the denominations which ordain them?
I’d be comfortable with those words BK as they pretty much sum up my atheism. I’m not indifferent to religion, I despise it and the reasons that you enumerated are just the tip of the iceberg.
Hand-stabbing?
You sound like one of those dimwits who starts webpages about how the devil convinced them to become atheists, but now they see the light of Jesus. While there are doubtless atheists who feel the way you describe, I happen to think existence from an aesthetic standpoint is much better off without a supreme being.
Nice to see that you return the perceived snottiness in kind.