{"id":23115,"date":"2011-04-28T10:23:23","date_gmt":"2011-04-28T14:23:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=23115"},"modified":"2011-04-28T10:23:23","modified_gmt":"2011-04-28T14:23:23","slug":"atheist-chaplains","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=23115","title":{"rendered":"Atheist chaplains?"},"content":{"rendered":"

I don’t usually discuss religion here, mainly because I don’t understand much about it, and my own relationship with my Creator is unnecessarily complex so who am I to question other people’s beliefs? But NotSoOldMarine sent us this link to the NY Times<\/a> about atheists wanting a chaplain in the military;<\/p>\n

Strange as it sounds, groups representing atheists and secular humanists are pushing for the appointment of one of their own to the chaplaincy, hoping to give voice to what they say is a large \u2014 and largely underground \u2014 population of nonbelievers in the military. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u201cHumanism fills the same role for atheists that Christianity does for Christians and Judaism does for Jews,\u201d Mr. Torpy said in an interview. \u201cIt answers questions of ultimate concern; it directs our values.\u201d <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re not a faith group; you\u2019re a lack-of-faith group,\u201d First Lt. Samantha Nicoll, an active atheist at Fort Bragg, recalled a chaplain friend\u2019s saying about the idea.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I don’t know how an actual atheist chaplain would be trained by his or her group in order to prove credentials to minister to soldiers, since the military is non-denominational and an atheist chaplain would be required to minister to soldiers of all faiths regardless of his own beliefs, or the lack thereof, in this case.<\/p>\n

It’s a case of “me too-ism” and a cry for attention. I’m sure that real atheists are embarrassed by this publicity grab by their own kind. Since atheism is based on being excluded from groups of faith, this attempt to group them into a faith of sorts should upset them greatly.<\/p>\n

A brilliant piece by my buddy, McQ at Blackfive<\/a> on the subject.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I don’t usually discuss religion here, mainly because I don’t understand much about it, and my … Atheist chaplains?<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[84],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23115","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-military-issues"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23115","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23115"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23115\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23115"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23115"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}