Atheists Seek Chaplain Role in the Military

[AnimatedDirt]

This is very interesting.  What are the ideas/thoughts about this here at HAF?

Atheists Seek Chaplain Role in the Military

I hope this wasn't already mentioned here at HAF...

[fester30]

I think it depends on what their real role will be.  All the other chaplains work out of the base chapel.  Will they?  Will they be allowed to provide invocations at official ceremonies?  So far, all I've seen for invocations in my 9 year Air Force career is prayer in Jesus' name.  I haven't once seen a Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, or Wiccan chaplain give a prayer.  There was a time when the Department of Defense policy barred them from using religion-specific prayers, such as in Jesus' name, but they did it anyway.  At my bases, nobody called them out on it.  Chaplains in the military are there to serve both religious and counseling needs.  When an atheist needs a therapist, an atheist will see an actual therapist who has completed an actual licensure program.  Do we need "chaplains" for this?  Personally, the only thing I could see an atheist chaplain would be valuable for is to check the influence of the Christian fundamentalists that practically run the Air Force, and bully their influence into every nook and cranny.  Even then, I'm not convinced this would be effective.

Personally, I would rather see some sort of effort in the military to be religion-neutral.  When I was deployed, I certainly felt the relative ostracism, as I wasn't invited as often to go on morale trips or even just to lunch with the other people in the office.  I wasn't confrontational, yet they didn't want to be around me as much.  I guess they were afraid they'd catch the atheism.  Perhaps it also had something to do with my comment about Fox News not being fair and balanced.  That also seemed to hurt their feelings.

[Whitney]

I wish the nyt would get overthemselves and not make people sign in to read articles...lol

So, without having read it, I think there does need to be a person there to provide support to atheists during their times of need.  Emotional support is the reason why the army has chaplains, correct?

I thought the army already had secular humanist chaplains...I do think there needs to be some sort of group (or ideally groups) feeding in the atheist chaplains so that the soldiers have a good idea of what the person stands for before approaching them for help.  For instance, if I were a Christian I'd want to know what kind of Christian the chaplain was.  In the same way if I happen to be a somewhat spiritual atheist it would be good to know if I was approaching an atheist chaplain who thought my views were stupid.

[fester30]

They'd definitely need to have a separate location.  Chapel might keep some away.  As an atheist service member, I'd rather see groups get together at each base.  Groups who could have some influence with the wing commander.

[Tank]

A while ago I considered becoming a hospital 'chaplain'. In the end I decided I would be doing it for the wrong reasons. But one thing I considered that would be an advantage being an atheist would be that I wouldn't have a particular view to support. As long as I respected the right of a person to hold a world view different from mine I would be ok, of this would be true for a theist as well. But as an atheist I'm not sure how comfortable I would be seeing talking about my imminent demise with a God botherer. So maybe there is room for both types of Chaplain.

[Too Few Lions]

I think it has to be a good idea, I'm sure there must be plenty of non-believers in the military. Not that I'd ever join the army, but as a non-believer I wouldn't want to have to listen to or deal with a Christian chaplain whatever job I was in.

These days I imagine a large part of that job is counselling, which doesn't require any sort of religious faith, so surely it's discrimination if the military chooses not to appoint atheists as chaplains?

[fester30]

I think it has to be a good idea, I'm sure there must be plenty of non-believers in the military. Not that I'd ever join the army, but as a non-believer I wouldn't want to have to listen to or deal with a Christian chaplain whatever job I was in.

These days I imagine a large part of that job is counselling, which doesn't require any sort of religious faith, so surely it's discrimination if the military chooses not to appoint atheists as chaplains?

Counseling can also be done at the mental health clinic on base.  Chaplains aren't necessary for that, and in fact, I'd prefer the non-chaplain route for most people.  A couple I know goes to a chaplain for couples counseling.  Instead of being an unbiased, professional counselor, he is obviously very beholding to his religious views on marriage, which are clouding the therapy.  He is encouraging the wife to be more submissive and basically just put up with the husband's verbal abuse and neglectful behavior (neglectful both to her and the children).  He is also doing everything in his power to convince her that the marriage is worth saving.  Neither of them should be married, much less to each other.