http://www.maaf.info/A note from Amanda’s boyfriend (a.k.a., Jason Torpy, the President of the Military Atheists and Freethinkers)
(published on the maaf.info site)There is a full report from the Population Reference Bureau regarding religion in the military. They find greater than 20% atheism and also state that atheism is more common among the military than among civilians.The report was published in 2004 based on 2001 surveys.
I’m so glad to hear that he’s Amanda’s (my) boyfriend. It makes up for all the times that I’m “Jason’s Amanda.”
I served in the military…and I would love to agree with that stat…
I’m also former military. I’m an atheist. While I served, I knew a ton of Wiccans and other non-Christians. My husband, currently a sergeant is basically non-theistic. He’s spiritual, but not to any huge extent.
I didn’t realize there was such a large percentage! Thanks for the post.
I don’t think you can put atheist on your dogtags, though… It’s been too long for me to remember.
You can put “no religious preference”. My husband is an AF officer and atheist, but is quiet about it.
I believe you can have Atheist now (thanks in part to Kathlene)
Yes, there are a lot of atheists in foxholes. Let’s bring them home.
What: That is the truth. Judeo-xian “forces” landed them where they are without purpose, direction, cause, support, defense, or a snowflakes chance in hell for resolve in the long haul. We have to get the government (including congress) to quit patting themselves on the back and to think of something more important than their own personal political ambitions to get moving on bringing the troops home. If our political gamesters and rascals could rush to the defense of the little guy as much as they do to explain away their pro-war votes and disdain for an anti-war public.
The problem now is that Congress is trying to do something about the war and the Idiot-in-Chief is being a big baby about this.
We finally have a Congress that is representing what most of Americans want, and the shrub doesn’t care.
He still wants this oil (& religious) war to continue throughout his term.
1/20/09 can’t get here quick enough.
*On Topic*
My wife is also non-religious/Humanist and she served eight years.
It would be interesting to see a break-down of which branches have the most religious and which don’t.
When I was in, the tags said “no religious preference.” Now you can have Atheist put on it though. I served from 1996-2004 in the Army. The only time I went to church was to get out of yard detail in basic training. After sitting through that bore fest, I decided yard detail was better.
wisconsinatheist:
My experience was very similar to yours, just about 20 yrs. earlier.
After 1 day of church…I cut grass.
My dog tags also read no religious preference. At a few points I was ridiculed in front of my whole platoon in basic and AIT for my refusal to accept religious nonsense.
bilge
I don’t even remember religion being an issue in my BCT unit. In fact, I can only remember maybe five soldiers in my platoon (I think we had 40 total) that went to church every Sunday. The rest of us just didn’t care about it. Besides, I was too busy painting pictures on the walls of the barracks.
Now that I remember, I did a painting in the barracks at AIT that is still there today. Art kept me out of KP and yard detail. Everyone else was pissed at me though, LOL!
Might be I’m simply anti-war….. but is that really something to be proud of? :/
one minute there are no atheists in foxholes the next minute its look out the godless reds have a big army.
do you think it would go over well if atheists said not only do we serve but we have nukes too.
Exactly. Plus one can stumble upon a comment claiming that “no atheists in foxholes” means the religious are warmongers (I think I even read something to that point in comments on this blog). What’s stopping religious right to use the same argument (bolstered by the fact that atheists are more common in military then in civil life) to say the atheists are warmongers? Not like we need more negative epithets pinned on us.
I just read through this thread and I have a couple of points to throw out there on a variety of subjects raised during this chat:
1. Members of the military are not warmongers. We serve for a variety of reasons and we’re trained and prepared to fight, but since it’s our butts that are on the line when it comes to fighting, it’s not something we take lightly.
2. When people say there are no atheists in foxholes, they are insulting all atheists by claiming that atheists are incapable of hanging on to their disbelief when faced with life threatening danger, such as the dangers of combat, which we all know is crap. It has nothing to do with atheists being warmongers.
3. You can have atheist on your dogtags – mine have said atheist since at least 1998 or so.
There, I think that about covers it
Kathleen Johnson
American Atheists Military Director
MAAF Founder
US Army, Baghdad
HOOAH!
@KatJhnsn
I did not say that they (you?) are, I referred to the claim that tries to paint theists in a bad light, using the incorrect claim of “no atheists in the foxholes” at face value. My point is that making such an argument (which, in the end, I didn’t find in the comments here, so I must’ve been wrong and saw it somewhere else) leaves it open to return fire in this case.
Kinda like theists argument “without Bible, what’s stopping you from killing and raping” makes it seem as if the only reason they aren’t raping and killing is because of the Bible.
Bah, hope I expressed it clear enough. I really have nothing against military personnel, and I’m sorry if it came out like that.
No worries – I didn’t think you were personally saying we were warmongers -you were just relaying what other folks might think. But I thought I’d take the opportunity to chime in with my opinion since it came up. We ordinary (as in not high-ranking) military folks get accused of being warmongers on a fairly regular basis, but the true warmongering isn’t being done by the folks at my level.
Kathleen
It suddenly struck me as a possibility that atheism is in fact the perfect evolution of society. In many basic societies around the world, religion of some form is practiced, though it is usually very very unstructured. Yet, as society gets more complex, so does religion. Now we are entering into a phase where more and more people are becoming secular. Perhaps the ultimate then is that we as a society become atheist.
Funny you should mention that. The more people I talk to, the more I find are secular or Atheist.
My dog tags still say no preference, but that’s because I’m too lazy to go get them changed. I’m getting out soon, so I probably never will.
Also, after two years at my squadron, I’m only recently finding out about more and more people who I have worked with are also atheists. It’s so refreshing because I thought I was the only one for so long.
Lacy, you are far from alone.
http://www.maaf.info
Kathleen
Mine, which I still have, say no pref but I’ve thought about having a second set made while I’m near the base in Corpus Christi that say atheist on them.