moderate libertarian
03-31-2012, 09:06 PM
I doubt this new precedence is result of US Churches/SBC's overwhelming support for costly Iraq war blunder but God's hand may still have worked mysteriously and sent rain that dampened the non-believers festivities:
Concert at Army post in US geared toward atheists
By TOM BREEN, Associated Press – 41 minutes ago
FORT BRAGG, North Carolina (AP) — For the first time in history, the U.S. military hosted an event expressly for soldiers and others who don't believe in God, with a county fair-like gathering Saturday on the main parade ground at one of the world's largest Army posts.
The Rock Beyond Belief event at Fort Bragg, organized by soldiers here two years after an evangelical Christian event at the eastern North Carolina post, is the most visible sign so far of a growing desire by military personnel with atheist or other secular beliefs to get the same recognition as their religious counterparts.
The purpose was not to make the Army look bad, organizers said, but to show that atheists and other secular believers have a place in institutions like the military.
"I love the military," said Sgt. Justin Griffith, main organizer of the event and the military director of American Atheists. He added, "This is not meant to be a black eye."
Griffith said he and other non-religious soldiers are not permitted to hold atheist meetings at the post and have so far been rebuffed in their efforts to change that. They feel their beliefs marginalize them.
Organizers were hoping for a crowd of about 5,000. At least several hundred people gathered on the parade ground by midday Saturday. Rainy weather for most of the morning may have affected the turnout. Fort Bragg officials said they would provide a crowd estimate later.
The atmosphere was festive, with carnival treats like ribbon fries and ice cream, games for children and a demonstration jump by the Army's Golden Knights parachute team. Speakers and bands performed on the main stage. In many ways it was indistinguishable from a county fair except for the information booths ringing the parade ground and the content of the performances.
"We got any Darwin fans in the house?" asked a performer named Baba Brinkman, before launching into a rap song about evolutionary biology that culminated in a call-and-response chant of "Creationism is dead wrong!"
Organizers said the goal was not to disparage soldiers with religious beliefs. In the weeks leading up to the event, some bloggers and others expressed concerns. A chaplain currently deployed in Afghanistan posted an open letter on Fort Bragg's Facebook page, saying he feared the event would be devoted to mocking religious soldiers.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5g9SeWsj_Ysdz3dEWdSaiJ70NMrRA?docId=6adc1117d f02444c81b005164dacb2ce
Edited to add:
Could what has been happening in America lately be blowback for this:
The so-called “Land Letter”
By Richard Land - Oct 3, 2002
The Honorable George W. Bush
President of the United States of America
The White House
Washington, DC 20502
Dear Mr. President,
We believe that your policies concerning the ongoing international terrorist campaign against America are both right and just. Specifically, we believe that your stated policies concerning Saddam Hussein and his headlong pursuit and development of biochemical and nuclear weapons of mass destruction are prudent and fall well within the time-honored criteria of just war theory as developed by Christian theologians in the late fourth and early fifth centuries A.D.
First, your stated policy concerning using military force if necessary to disarm Saddam Hussein and his weapons of mass destruction is a just cause.....
1 On Apr 9th, 2007, at 8:02pm, Steve Hays wrote:
Does Dr. Land have plans to apologize for this false and unChristlike guidance? First, it seems strange for people who claim to be Biblical to appeal to Augustine and later writers for principles of behavior—since there was apparently no New Testament basis for such an argument. Second, the most fundamental assumption of this argument—that the invasion of Iraq was necessary to defend the US—turned out to be entirely false. Consequently, even by 4th/5th century standards this argument falls apart. Dr. Land and the Ethics ... Commission(!) of the Southern Baptist Convention endorsed an invasion as “just war” which was not “just war.” Dr. Land has left the the church with blood on its hands. Will it take the SBC as long to repent of this stance as it took it to repent of its position on civil rights?
Sincerely in Christ,
Steve Hays
http://erlc.com/article/the-so-called-land-letter/
Do Evangelicals have blood on their hands?
God does not take death lightly. The Bible is full of instances which show that human life is precious, and that when this life is deliberately taken, a great evil is being perpetrated.
American Evangelicals, strangely enough, do not understand this. They are willing to jump upon Abortion as a moral outrage - which they should - but are unwilling to apply the same piece of Biblical truth to other spheres of life.
The best example of this is the Iraq war. Evangelicals in America were the war's most ardent supporters. In 2002, an open letter written by a number of Evangelical leaders was published that gave their explicit support for the war. The signatories included Bill Bright, James Kennedy, Charles Colson and Richard Land. It is known as the "Land letter" since Richard Land was its original writer. The text of the Land letter can be found at Wikisource.
The Land letter was an attempt to justify a pre-emptive attack on Iraq. It outlined what it thought was the biblical basis for a "Just war", and attempted to justify an American attack on Iraq from a Christian point of view.
http://one-salient-oversight.blogspot.com/2005/10/do-evangelicals-have-blood-on-their.html
Concert at Army post in US geared toward atheists
By TOM BREEN, Associated Press – 41 minutes ago
FORT BRAGG, North Carolina (AP) — For the first time in history, the U.S. military hosted an event expressly for soldiers and others who don't believe in God, with a county fair-like gathering Saturday on the main parade ground at one of the world's largest Army posts.
The Rock Beyond Belief event at Fort Bragg, organized by soldiers here two years after an evangelical Christian event at the eastern North Carolina post, is the most visible sign so far of a growing desire by military personnel with atheist or other secular beliefs to get the same recognition as their religious counterparts.
The purpose was not to make the Army look bad, organizers said, but to show that atheists and other secular believers have a place in institutions like the military.
"I love the military," said Sgt. Justin Griffith, main organizer of the event and the military director of American Atheists. He added, "This is not meant to be a black eye."
Griffith said he and other non-religious soldiers are not permitted to hold atheist meetings at the post and have so far been rebuffed in their efforts to change that. They feel their beliefs marginalize them.
Organizers were hoping for a crowd of about 5,000. At least several hundred people gathered on the parade ground by midday Saturday. Rainy weather for most of the morning may have affected the turnout. Fort Bragg officials said they would provide a crowd estimate later.
The atmosphere was festive, with carnival treats like ribbon fries and ice cream, games for children and a demonstration jump by the Army's Golden Knights parachute team. Speakers and bands performed on the main stage. In many ways it was indistinguishable from a county fair except for the information booths ringing the parade ground and the content of the performances.
"We got any Darwin fans in the house?" asked a performer named Baba Brinkman, before launching into a rap song about evolutionary biology that culminated in a call-and-response chant of "Creationism is dead wrong!"
Organizers said the goal was not to disparage soldiers with religious beliefs. In the weeks leading up to the event, some bloggers and others expressed concerns. A chaplain currently deployed in Afghanistan posted an open letter on Fort Bragg's Facebook page, saying he feared the event would be devoted to mocking religious soldiers.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5g9SeWsj_Ysdz3dEWdSaiJ70NMrRA?docId=6adc1117d f02444c81b005164dacb2ce
Edited to add:
Could what has been happening in America lately be blowback for this:
The so-called “Land Letter”
By Richard Land - Oct 3, 2002
The Honorable George W. Bush
President of the United States of America
The White House
Washington, DC 20502
Dear Mr. President,
We believe that your policies concerning the ongoing international terrorist campaign against America are both right and just. Specifically, we believe that your stated policies concerning Saddam Hussein and his headlong pursuit and development of biochemical and nuclear weapons of mass destruction are prudent and fall well within the time-honored criteria of just war theory as developed by Christian theologians in the late fourth and early fifth centuries A.D.
First, your stated policy concerning using military force if necessary to disarm Saddam Hussein and his weapons of mass destruction is a just cause.....
1 On Apr 9th, 2007, at 8:02pm, Steve Hays wrote:
Does Dr. Land have plans to apologize for this false and unChristlike guidance? First, it seems strange for people who claim to be Biblical to appeal to Augustine and later writers for principles of behavior—since there was apparently no New Testament basis for such an argument. Second, the most fundamental assumption of this argument—that the invasion of Iraq was necessary to defend the US—turned out to be entirely false. Consequently, even by 4th/5th century standards this argument falls apart. Dr. Land and the Ethics ... Commission(!) of the Southern Baptist Convention endorsed an invasion as “just war” which was not “just war.” Dr. Land has left the the church with blood on its hands. Will it take the SBC as long to repent of this stance as it took it to repent of its position on civil rights?
Sincerely in Christ,
Steve Hays
http://erlc.com/article/the-so-called-land-letter/
Do Evangelicals have blood on their hands?
God does not take death lightly. The Bible is full of instances which show that human life is precious, and that when this life is deliberately taken, a great evil is being perpetrated.
American Evangelicals, strangely enough, do not understand this. They are willing to jump upon Abortion as a moral outrage - which they should - but are unwilling to apply the same piece of Biblical truth to other spheres of life.
The best example of this is the Iraq war. Evangelicals in America were the war's most ardent supporters. In 2002, an open letter written by a number of Evangelical leaders was published that gave their explicit support for the war. The signatories included Bill Bright, James Kennedy, Charles Colson and Richard Land. It is known as the "Land letter" since Richard Land was its original writer. The text of the Land letter can be found at Wikisource.
The Land letter was an attempt to justify a pre-emptive attack on Iraq. It outlined what it thought was the biblical basis for a "Just war", and attempted to justify an American attack on Iraq from a Christian point of view.
http://one-salient-oversight.blogspot.com/2005/10/do-evangelicals-have-blood-on-their.html