Christianity and the US Military

[kinvore.livejournal.com]

Whenever I read an article on the Huffington Post that isn't being covered by the mainstream media I tend to take it with a huge grain of salt. I may be a bleeding heart pinko commie socialist liberal but that doesn't mean I take everything George Soros tells me as fact. ;)

However this article has given me much food for thought. I've never given much thought to how closely the US government ties Christianity to our military but apparently it's a regular occurrence. I've never heard of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation but personally I'm glad that they're around.

Should the military be allowed to indoctrinate any religion in our military? Are there any benefits from doing so?

Comments

[thies.livejournal.com]

but that doesn't mean I take everything George Soros

you've been hanging out with Melvin again, haven't you?

Are there any benefits from doing so?

sure, once you've brainwashed all your people that they are fighting for their god which rewards them 42 virgins in valhalla upon death during battle against the heathens you got yourself a more effective army.

[rogerdr.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately, this is historically proved to often be the case. Not always, but too often to be considered anomalous.

[kinvore.livejournal.com]

you've been hanging out with Melvin again, haven't you?
haha I trolled him once but his tripe gets old. I'd be a lot nicer to him if he dared to show his face here though.

[meus-ovatio.livejournal.com]

This seems to be a new thing, but I may be wrong. In my experience, religion was an afterthought. Nobody in my unit was particularly religious, the chaplain's services were always sparsely attended, and my superiors never talked about religion in any way, shape or form. As far as it goes institutionally, the cultural bias is for Christianity, since 90 percent of people who join are Christian of some sort or another. However, the training and indoctrination (at least for the Marines) goes only so far as to affirm a God, without any sort of sectarian bias. Drill instructors will talk about God and stuff, but it's a very sort of generic monotheism. What can I say, Marines don't prefer the Jesus. They prefer the Yahweh.

With that said, if you have a particular group or chain of command which is itself, personally, highly Christian and religious, they will then impose biases and preaching, but it has nothing to do with "official" indoctrination.

[rogerdr.livejournal.com]

Instilling the military with the Jesus may not be their primary goal, but rather instilling it with anti-everything else, especially Islam.

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

That's about what I've observed too.

[http://users.livejournal.com/aviation_/]

Affirming a God is, for all intents and purposes, the same as pushing a specific religion.

[kinvore.livejournal.com]

the cultural bias is for Christianity, since 90 percent of people who join are Christian of some sort or another
While this sounds about right do you have any source with an official count? It certainly didn't seem to be 90% of this unit in question.

[dwer.livejournal.com]

Should the military be allowed to indoctrinate any religion in our military?

Of course not.

Are there any benefits from doing so?

For the public? No. For the military needing grunts to throw into the grist? Sure.

[meus-ovatio.livejournal.com]

I really don't think religion plays that much of a role here, for throwing oneself into death. Nationalism and patriotism do just fine in motivating young soldiers to kill themselves.

[telemann.livejournal.com]

Oh lord, Fort Useless, lol. That's right by where I am from in Newport News, Virginia! GO FIGURE. Huah! Huah.

[rogerdr.livejournal.com]

Oddly, they don't have to enforce so much nonsense in the forts here in Texas. We've got it home grown.

MESS WITH US AND WE'LL BACK A TRUCK OVER YOU!

[devil-ad-vocate.livejournal.com]

home of the fightin' tranportation corps.

[op-tech-glitch.livejournal.com]

I'd only join up if my unit got to scream "KILL FOR THE LOVE OF KALI!" whenever we charged into battle.

[rogerdr.livejournal.com]

Now there's a god who really cares about merciless destruction!

[abomvubuso.livejournal.com]

Love of Kali = oxymoron :)

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

I'd shout "For Teztcatlipoca!". At least then it'd be an *American* God. XP.

[box-in-the-box.livejournal.com]

As a non-Christian who served, I can personally attest to the fact that the pressure was always on from certain quarters to convert, repent and get saved. You're in an organization that lives and dies on orthodoxy, in terms of getting the troops to do what you want, so yes, even as someone who strenuously avoided ever discussing his own faith (or lack thereof), I was always regarded as just slightly suspect for it.

Check out...

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

... this review (http://www.forteustiswheel.com/articles/2010/07/29/military_life/religious_activity/religious01.txt) of the band that was playing that night. It sounds more like a Klan style band.

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

Religion has been thrown out of our military ever since 1944. People no longer swear over a stack of Bibles/Qurans/Torahs when they subscribe to the military. It's one of the very few things for which I'm grateful to the commies.

You...

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

... godless commies! It's no wonder Bulgaria hasn't raped and pillaged a single nation since then.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Hell no. That never works out very well. Given what Imperial Japan did when *it* had a theocratic military.........I really can't say that modern armies mesh with wars for God much better than their predecessors and I'd rather not find out. This is unconstitutional, immoral, and frankly belongs to the 1st Century, not the 21st.

[eracerhead.livejournal.com]

Of course it is in the best interest of the military to have troops believe they are going to heaven to live with the 100 star general when they die. Christianity is in some sense custom-made for justifying self-sacrifice.

Benefits of religious indoctrination

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

It's better that soldiers be indoctrinated into religious extremism so that they will plunder, slaughter, and sabotage with the full weight of Kali (http://www.sepiamutiny.com/sepia/archives/Killa%20Kali-thumb.jpg) behind them.

That being said, here (http://www.talk2action.org/story/2010/8/19/113223/843) is another article on the topic. It includes some quotes from soldiers complaints.

[chron-job.livejournal.com]

> Are there any benefits from doing so?


Yes... to the religion doing the indoctrinating.

Every cult knows instinctively how to hit on the easy marks... young men and women, often recently removed from families, under extreme stress.

The temptations to evangelizing zealots are obvious... thus the necessity of watchdog groups like MRFF.