ugh. what happened to the separation of church and state?
this is absolutely terrifying.
the first amendment in the united states constitution was intended to build a "wall" between church and state. it's written the way that it is because the concern at the time was that one religion would use the state to oppress another. that is, the intent was to prevent one sect of christianity from forcing itself on another. that might seem a little alien today, but that's because it was relatively successful. the underlying idea was that the state should reflect the values of no single religious institution. as mentioned, what that meant at the time was largely in relation to different sects of christianity, but it's meaning has been correctly interpreted since then to apply equally as well to different religions. if you're writing a constitutional amendment to separate church from state for the purposes of preventing anglicans from oppressing catholics, it follows that you don't want the state to act as a vehicle for christians to oppress jews or atheists, either. there are various morons that have tried to interpret the amendment differently, but they are just that - morons - and should not be listened to. there's absolutely no ambiguity in the historical record if you read the words of the people that wrote the constitution (most of whom were deists or atheists) that the first amendment was meant to separate church and state and honest, educated christians will agree with you on that point. there's no value in entertaining arguments to the contrary, as they are necessarily disingenuous.
now, the reason this is concerning is because it is attaching a religious component to what should be a religiously neutral institution. i'm not commenting on this in a vacuum, either. the state has been carefully nurturing religious sentiment in the military since at least the second bush administration, for the purposes of creating an us v them mentality.
the end result is a lot of self-righteous people with guns, who think they're acting out god's will of manifest destiny in "american exceptionalism". it's dark age, byzantine nonsense.
toantanya
I'm sure this was done on their own time and not forced.
deathtokoalas
the military is fostering it. "forced" is not the right word to use. "coerced" is more like it.
Newb55
what are you afraid of? Marines are atheist, agnostic, etc.....if they did not want to participate, believe me they wouldn't.
deathtokoalas
religion is a very powerful tool of control that states have historically used for horrific military purposes.
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deathtokoalas
again, i don't see a use in this discussion. people want to talk about jefferson's writings as though they were just some isolated, irrelevant musings. well, he's the guy that wrote the damned thing. if you want to know what he meant, you need to look at what he said. i know that religious people want to look at things in strict, literal interpretations and when you're dealing with ancient texts that come down to us with little if any commentary there may be some justification for that - i mean, what else are you going to do besides discard it as archaic? but, we have a wealth of literature from the founders, and it's not ambiguous on the topic.
if you want to get into it, you should look into the writings of some british preachers like richard price, who argued for the separation on the grounds that it would keep the church pure from statist corruption. they weren't as far removed from the reformation at the time, and understood the papal lesson of integrating the state too closely with the religion. they would have also been working on roughly lockean principles in their understanding of power as a corrupting force. all that stuff about the separation of powers is kind of meaningless if you're going to fuse the church and the executive, or the church and the military, right afterwards.
there's just absolutely no meaningful argument for this, and i'm not interested in giving space to demagogues that want to push it. so, you'd might as well just drop it.
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deathtokoalas
i'm more worried about them destroying everybody else. these are people that want to see the apocalypse, you have to continually remember.
"yay! it's the end of world! i'll be judged and separated from the wicked and spend eternity with god! yay!"
there's one thing i'll agree with them on: it's really hard to get them out of public life. i'm not particularly threatened by somebody hanging out in a church and talking to an imaginary friend, but that's not really what religion is.
Edward
dumb bitch. I remember when we had one of those in Bootcamp and we all participated just to get the fuck away from the Drill Instructors and im an atheist that gives no shit about god. So stop spreading your stupid bs about the government trying to fuck all of us.
deathtokoalas
no, but this is what i'm talking about - it's not a spontaneous display of religious fervour (from people that kill for a living), but something that's very organized with specific brainwashing purposes. they didn't send you there to get away from the drill sergeant, they sent you there to steal your mind.
Michael
Fear not, Jesus loves you too!
deathtokoalas
yeah, well, if jesus loves me, maybe he can do something about his followers for me, 'cause they have a habit of freaking me the fuck out.
Terry
Zen Training at Fort Benning, Buddhist Chaplain Part:2 here you go. Enjoy your freedom. -Merica'
deathtokoalas
yeah. that's meant to eliminate empathy. equally terrifying.
(deleted reply)
yeah. so, as i've stated repeatedly, the first amendment was built on lockean principles (as articulated by jefferson) with the purpose of separating the institutions from each other. somehow, you idiots seem to think that the purpose of the american revolution was to create a monolithic british state. no. that's what was being avoided. the singular, driving purpose of the american constitution is the separation of powers into executive, judicial and legislative branches. in addition to this separation is the separation of the military, the church, banks, etc. that is the foundation your country is built upon.
you can deny that if you want, but if you want to live in a country where the military is interconnected with the religion, your best bet is israel - and second best bet is saudi arabia. in the united states, it's not constitutional for the military to conduct prayer services. what you're seeing in this video should not be happening and will hopefully be stopped shortly. hopefully, somebody gets the information and launches the proper court battles.
thread closed. replies to new threads will be blocked.
(deleted reply)
again - as i've stated repeatedly - the issue here is not voluntary exercise of religion or accommodation of services but hierarchical enforcement of engaging in religion as a mandated experience.
this is a good start to learn about some of the recent issues surrounding the military forcing religious services on it's officers.
http://www.pewforum.org/2008/07/03/accommodating-faith-in-the-military/
another thing worth reading: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:5dyrGlQ-uoQJ:www.truth-out.org/article/military-evangelism-deeper-wider-than-first-thought+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=ca
