truthout
Truthout’s reporting on the Army’s so-called “spiritual fitness” test was featured on Thursday by MSNBC host Keith Olbermann on Countdown.
Mikey Weinstein, president and founder of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, discussed Jason Leopold’s report detailing the forced spiritual testing of over 800,000 uniformed soldiers as part of the Comprehensive Soldier Fitness Program.
The original report by Leopold can be viewed here.
>> Publius said, on January 7th, 2011 at 5:25 pm
>> @Greg Allen
>> Enlightenment is a better support system than deities.
You don’t need to be condescending. I’ve studied the Enlightenment. There was some great philosophy but there was also that bloody inconvenient French Revolution as well!
In any regard, how is it a comfort or support to you in the hard times?
Greg Allen asked “An question for atheists: what kind of support or consolation does atheism give you when times get hard?”
What kind of support or consolation does a basketball give a fish when times get hard? Dude, that’s a kind of a non-sensical question when you think about it. You may want to ask what kind of comfort does my first year Calculus textbook give me when times get hard. Actually, that would make more sense.
Just think of it this way: when times are difficult for me, I turn to my wife, family, and friends for support. I can rely on them and they can rely on me. Maybe that sounds a little weird but that’s what most atheists do.
Just so you guys don’t misunderstand me…
I don’t know enough about this test to defend it.
The article made me believe that religion was among a list of possible support systems that a returning soldier might have to help them.
I see no problem with this, unless the test has a bias for religion above other support systems. Certainly, that’s how some atheist soldiers perceived it and I’m sympathetic to that.
NCO, have you read this article in The Atlantic?
Greg Allen said “I see no problem with this, unless the test has a bias for religion above other support systems.”
You’re missing the point. The test was designed by a well know pop psychologist who hopes you’ve hugged a puppy today. It’s how your CO “interprets” the results that matter.
foobar,
What you say would make more sense of atheism where a trivial past time like basketball.
But atheism is a whole world view.
Atheism says that we have brief temporal consciousness which is erased at death, leaving everything meaningless. This would include your family, as well.
How would that world view be an emotional support to a returning soldier?
foobar,
>>You’re missing the point. The test was designed by a well know pop psychologist who hopes you’ve hugged a puppy today.
You can probably convince me on that point.
(Not about puppy hugging.. which could be good therapy.)
If this guy had ANYTHING to do with Bush’s torture policy, he should be in jail rather than creating expensive tests for the military.
>> JimD said, on January 7th, 2011 at 3:11 pm
>> Any kind of “Spritual” testing is CLEARLY UNCONSTITUTIONAL !!!
>> Case Closed !!!
Case never made.
It strikes me as perfectly reasonable to assess the support system of returning combat soldiers.
This would include religion but only as a part of a long list of possibilities.
Let me risk an example, even though I know the atheists here are going to smear it.
I personally knew a Vietnam veteran who returned home and, within a couple of weeks, was in a car crash that killed his finance and seriously injured him. He had no family in town, no job or work friends. I was have serious suicidal feelings.
The guy started attending our church and told his story. A pastor spent many hours counseling him. We lay people became his friends and many people had him over for dinner and similar. We prayed with him and for him.
By this own account, we saved his life.
Now, you can believe religion is pure fantasy but you can’t deny that religion was a support for that returning solider.
Was it the only support available to him? Of course not.
Greg Allan==god, I feel so that you are pimping me, but as I like giving myself cover: you aren’t the only one with the same question, so I answer for others who may not have your wicked sense of humor.
My Mom died last year. How did I get thru it? I remembered my good times with her. I was happy for her that she did not have to suffer the shingles she had for 5 years. I was happy she really didn’t feel any pain from the cancer that took her from start to finish in about 6 months. I took comfort in knowing she was surrounded by those who loved her and who she loved in her final days. I was happy she never lost her sense of humor or her memory and that she read books until the last week of her life. I wonder if her non-judgmental ways ultimately helped or hurt her children and grandchildren–finally deciding they hurt by not giving them stronger values to begin with but then probably helped in giving them a rock to rely on. I felt sorry that too many in my Mom’s situation got the same crappy care she did and worse for those who don’t even get what she did. I was sad she was in too much pain to enjoy traveling and seeing her friends around the world, but as said, happy she could still walk around, read, enjoy a good meal now and then.
It made me reflect on my own mortality, that my time is coming on its own schedule. I hope I stay as healthy as I am and as she was. I note ruefully that I will have no family support system as she did, but no kiddies stealing me blind before they flock around for the inheritance either.
I take heart in the recognition that we all die. I am forewarned that health and simple joys/accomplishments are all that matters, in the main, and these are available to us all if we look inward for these things. I wonder if she died and went to heaven, who would she be? The girl graduating high school, the young woman getting married, the young mother raising kiddies alone as the old man was always gone on business, the widow, the old woman feeling sorry for her friends in poor health who outlived her? The gentle pressure from the two religious sisters for her to find peace and Mom’s gentle response to ignore them. Ha, ha. She was MY MOTHER – not theirs. Happy that she and I had that bond that we weren’t savages or reformed drug addicts trying to get by in life preying on others less reckoning.
So–heaven and religion came into my thoughts, god never did. Close but no salvation. There is, what is your word—–comfort and support knowing that in times of struggle I haven’t turned to faith healers or gypsies, or any false god of personal preferences.
Just the world as I find it and my limited time at bat. Do I think others find comfort in religion? Of course, the logic is self evident. As is the lack thereof. All rather self evident. I take comfort in being honest.
As close to an eulogy as Mom will ever get from me. Sisters gave her a ceremony but I didn’t attend. That gave me comfort too, not engaging in ceremony.
Since we all struggle, or not, every day in our lives, interesting I would go to Mom’s death. I struggled more with the toilet bowl leaking last week and I’m still upset god didn’t answer my prayers on that one.
Ha, ha. To each our own. So, now you have one answer to your question. I suppose you can still continue to say you’ve never gotten an answer you understand.
We are all the same, yet different, at the same time. Not ying/yang but how a general concept can be implemented by many different approaches. Taking comfort during times of struggle is one such life challenge. We all need and find comfort making us all the same. We find it in different ways, making us all different. I take comfort in that idea as well.
Greg Allen said” Atheism says that we have brief temporal consciousness which is erased at death, leaving everything meaningless. This would include your family, as well.”
Honestly, you should think this through. You just implied that my family is meaningless.
“Atheism is a world view”. Um no. Atheism is rejection of the belief in existence of deities. And if someone named God shows up and says “Hey I created the universe and here’s the YouTube video to prove it” then I’d say “What do you know? God exists. Let me buy you a beer.”
In the meantime, I know my dog Clancy exists since I just took him for a walk, fed him dinner, and gave him a chewy for actually existing in a perfectly obvious way. I don’t have to believe in Dog, he exists.
Believe what you want. I’ve heard worse. Just don’t expect me to believe in your belief. And shame on you for implying other people are meaningless.
It’s about time for a similar spiritual fitness test for all elected offices in the USA, for the same reasons the Army was doing it.
And then let’s see just how that all works out.
@Greg Allen
How does what help me in hard times?
Publius nails the landing.
I had to go to Post #21 to pick up the Allan/Publius thread: “I’ve studied the Enlightenment. There was some great philosophy but there was also that bloody inconvenient French Revolution as well!” /// Ha, ha.
Well, you are only about a century behind in your thinking. Only another 80 years before you forgive Galileo?
The timing of the Enlightenment should be better placed in your mind for it formed the basis of that other pesky Revolution: The American One. You know: freedom from Religion? Inalienable rights? Yes, The Sun King was torn over supporting the common rabble.
The Enlightenment: you don’t have to pay a church official for magic words to give your loved one’s safe passage into heaven. You live, you die: just like the universe. One universe, one death. Much better than having to pay off 197 different denominations all claiming the ultimate truth and all in conflict with one another.
Yea, veerily.
“temporal consciousness”
We leave behind the sum of our good and bad works.
These last as long as their magnitudes justify.
It is ego that wishes for more.
I need only exist in the interval of my time.
# 20 Greg Allen said, “than the bug that hit my windshield on the way home from work.”
Greg, I think you’re being sincere, not trolling. But I am going to troll you in response.
I believe my life is more significant than that bug because, first, I can appreciate life and love and everything that makes this world a wonderful place to live. I can even appreciate the things that make it a miserable place to live.
I believe my life is more significant than that bug because in some small way, my life has affected other people, often making them feel better, sometimes easing their way out of this existence,usually leaving them better off than if they had not met me. (NB: my ex-wives might disagree.)
Now, let me ask you a question: don’t you ever get tired of praying to an invisible guy-in-the-sky and not getting an answer? I gotta agree with Foobar in #30: If god existed, it would be so easy for him/her/it to prove it. Simple way? Appear in the sky amidst lightning and thunderbolts, station an angel at every intersection to enforce silence while he tells us how tired he is of our errant ways. “Oh, and by the way, I want you to all to be Mormons!” When that happens, I’m going to stop getting divorced but keep on marrying.
Of course, if god is Mormon, Foobar won’t be buying him a beer…
#4 So you hate Christians? Seems to be the in prejudice for the non thinkers at the present so why not you?
You also seem to blind to the obvious observation that a lot of other religions exist and offer a base of support for their adherents.
Speaking of how pervasive religion is in the military, I can’t recall the last event I’ve been to that didn’t have an opening prayer. We even have some anonymous holy roller at work who is nice enough to leave his silly “you’re going to hell” pamphlets in the head.
since spirituality has nothing to do with god or religion, i’d say it was stillborn on inception.
add to that, religion’s goal to destroy the spiritual aspect and replace it with..religion, -makes the “test” even more absurd.
seems like a crude “crusade recruitment tool” to enforce the “my god is better than your god..BOOM” crowed.
absurd.
-s
I for one, welcome our new spiritually healthy super warriors.