Atheists in the Military

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TallyMan
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14 Sep 2014, 10:22 am

luanqibazao wrote:

Way back in the late Mesozoic I was allowed to omit those words, and I did omit them. But if that weren't an option I think I would have joined anyway. They're just meaningless sounds to me, and it's not as if I were being forced to go to church or lead the unit in prayer.

I could not in all conscience say those words; even if they were required of me because it would cheapen the affirmation if I deliberately lied just to be unnoticed. Similarly I wouldn't be able to swear on a bible in a court of law as it would again be a lie. (I don't know if courts in some parts of the world still do that or not; I've never been to court, just seen it done on TV) If something is supposed to be a sincere and solemn oath / affirmation it makes it into a nonsense if you have to pretend to accept it. People might just as well say "Hubble, bubble, butterflies and bollocks" for all the affirmation / oath becomes worth.

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AspieUtah
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14 Sep 2014, 10:26 am

TallyMan wrote:

Exactly. In other words: "But above all things, my brethren, swear not, neither by heaven, neither by the earth, neither by any other oath: but let your yea be yea; and your nay, nay..." --James 5:12.

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Raptor
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14 Sep 2014, 10:54 am

Raptor wrote:

1. I dont remember being asked if I was an atheist
2. "So help me God" is in the oath but so what? It's not going to keep any atheist from taking the oath unless said atheists really don't want to join and are just using that as an excuse.....

trollcatman wrote:

Or maybe they don't want to swear an oath on something they don't believe in.

What it is is four (4) words at the end of the oath typically taken en masse that they are only repeating after someone. It's more of a formality than anything and is in no way a confirmation of any religion.

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If the atheist in question wouldn't want to join, why are they even there?

- Being pressured into it by parents that are tired of housing their over 18 kid while they arent doing anything constructive. It happens often enough to be counted.
- Going through the motions to "prove" they want to join up but use the "So help me God" part of the oath as a cop-out saying it goes against their "principles".

I know someone that went through the motions and flunked the ASVAB by getting such a low score that no branch would take him for ANY purpose. How do I know he flunked it on purpose? I don't know for a fact, but I've known him long enough to know he's too smart in every way to get such a sh***y score. That's just one story.

I can see this transitioning into another need for totally zero tolerance sec-u-lar government thread.

trollcatman wrote:

So you are saying having an oath that could be used as an excuse is good for filtering out the flakey people?

Duh, wut? How did you arrive at that? If people elect to use the "so help me God" part of the oath as an excuse that's hardly a tool for "filtering out the flaky people". If someone elects to kill themselves by ramming a retaining wall on the highway that hardly makes the retaining wall a killing device.

Quote:

That may be fine, but there are genuine atheists who feel they are being disingenuous by saying those words.

I doubt that 15 minutes after they took the oath they actually remember what all the words were, including the "so help me God" part. For someone entering the armed forces, by the time they get to the oath they're starting to have bigger things on their minds.
Trust me....

Quote:

It may not be a big deal to many people but it's also not a big deal to change the words, or have a secular version of the oath as an option.

"Change this, change that, or the sky will fall." Every time someone decides to feel butthurt over something we can't just change it.
Again, the oath is a formality. What keeps people in the military on the straight and narrow is either their pre-existing values or a fear of a court martial or an article 15, not the oath.

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TallyMan
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14 Sep 2014, 11:19 am

Raptor wrote:

Again, the oath is a formality. What keeps people in the military on the straight and narrow is either their pre-existing values or a fear of a court martial or an article 15, not the oath.

Then drop the oath completely, as it is apparently irrelevant.

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14 Sep 2014, 11:31 am

TallyMan wrote:

Raptor wrote:

Again, the oath is a formality. What keeps people in the military on the straight and narrow is either their pre-existing values or a fear of a court martial or an article 15, not the oath.

Then drop the oath completely, as is apparently irrelevant.

The US military is big on tradition and formalities. Dropping the oath is in the distant future if at all. Right now my money is on the oath staying.

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TallyMan
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14 Sep 2014, 11:34 am

Raptor wrote:

TallyMan wrote:

Raptor wrote:

Again, the oath is a formality. What keeps people in the military on the straight and narrow is either their pre-existing values or a fear of a court martial or an article 15, not the oath.

Then drop the oath completely, as is apparently irrelevant.

The US military is big on tradition and formalities. Dropping the oath is in the distant future if at all. Right now my money is on the oath staying.

So it is better to make atheists into liars and deceivers from the word go by stating an oath they don't acknowledge or accept? Way to go! :lol:

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LoveNotHate
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14 Sep 2014, 11:37 am

Raptor wrote:

I doubt that 15 minutes after they took the oath they actually remember what all the words were, including the "so help me God" part. For someone entering the armed forces, by the time they get to the oath they're starting to have bigger things on their minds.

Yes, and later non-religious people may "find religion" in the military, because they can get religious time off to attend religious activities. As far as I know, non-religious are not offered corresponding time off.

[rhetorical question] So, does one want to "chill out" worshiping a GOD, or do some likely hard manual labor ?

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14 Sep 2014, 11:38 am

TallyMan wrote:

So it is better to make atheists into liars and deceivers from the word go by stating an oath they don't acknowledge or accept...?

Well, those joining the U.S. military are working for the federal government, so, yeah! Hehe.

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14 Sep 2014, 11:57 am

LoveNotHate wrote:

Raptor wrote:

Was that your experience? Please enlightn us, for this is something I've not heard of.

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14 Sep 2014, 12:00 pm

TallyMan wrote:

Raptor wrote:

TallyMan wrote:

Raptor wrote:

Again, the oath is a formality. What keeps people in the military on the straight and narrow is either their pre-existing values or a fear of a court martial or an article 15, not the oath.

Then drop the oath completely, as is apparently irrelevant.

The US military is big on tradition and formalities. Dropping the oath is in the distant future if at all. Right now my money is on the oath staying.

So it is better to make atheists into liars and deceivers from the word go by stating an oath they don't acknowledge or accept? Way to go! :lol:

You're reading way too much into it.....

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TallyMan
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14 Sep 2014, 12:04 pm

Raptor wrote:

TallyMan wrote:

Raptor wrote:

TallyMan wrote:

Raptor wrote:

Again, the oath is a formality. What keeps people in the military on the straight and narrow is either their pre-existing values or a fear of a court martial or an article 15, not the oath.

Then drop the oath completely, as is apparently irrelevant.

The US military is big on tradition and formalities. Dropping the oath is in the distant future if at all. Right now my money is on the oath staying.

So it is better to make atheists into liars and deceivers from the word go by stating an oath they don't acknowledge or accept? Way to go! :lol:

You're reading way too much into it.....

Out of curiosity, what would happen to atheists who didn't say the final part of the oath and the sergeant major or whoever was there noticed their silence? Would it be ignored as a trivial irrelevancy?

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AspieUtah
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14 Sep 2014, 12:16 pm

TallyMan wrote:

Administratively (as far as "you're in the Army now"), of course; punitively (as far as "you didn't obey my order"), not a whit!

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14 Sep 2014, 12:24 pm

TallyMan wrote:

Raptor wrote:

TallyMan wrote:

Raptor wrote:

TallyMan wrote:

Raptor wrote:

Again, the oath is a formality. What keeps people in the military on the straight and narrow is either their pre-existing values or a fear of a court martial or an article 15, not the oath.

Then drop the oath completely, as is apparently irrelevant.

The US military is big on tradition and formalities. Dropping the oath is in the distant future if at all. Right now my money is on the oath staying.

So it is better to make atheists into liars and deceivers from the word go by stating an oath they don't acknowledge or accept? Way to go! :lol:

You're reading way too much into it.....

1. I'd have to look it up but I believe the oath has to be administered by a commissioned officer, not a non-commissioned officer.
2. Would it be ignored? It would depend on who the noticer is and probably what the recruitment number goals are.
I'm inclined to say that it would more likely (intentionally) go unnoticed if the oath were administered en masse. It can be more of a hassle to make an issue out of some things than to just pretend it didnt happen, depending.....

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14 Sep 2014, 12:38 pm

Would atheists be allowed to be conscientious objectors, given the opportunity to do so ever arose?

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14 Sep 2014, 12:44 pm

Spectacles wrote:

Are atheists allowed to be conscientious objectors?

Yep. In the Wikipedia.org article https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscript ... _objection "Conscription in the United States," at least two U.S. Supreme Court opinions defined the ability of atheists to seek and be granted conscientious objector status (which simply means that they would be conscripted, just not for combat duty). During the Vietnam war, most were assigned to medic duty putting them in harms way, but not armed.

Wikipedia.org wrote:

The Supreme Court has ruled in cases United States v. Seeger (1965) and Welsh v. United States (1970) that conscientious objection can be by non-religious beliefs as well as religious beliefs; but it has also ruled in Gillette v. United States (1971) against objections to specific wars as grounds for conscientious objection....

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14 Sep 2014, 1:16 pm

Raptor wrote:

Was that your experience? Please enlightn us, for this is something I've not heard of.

Yes, my personal experience is that in basic training/AIT in the US Army was that we were given a choice several times to attend religious ceremonies or do morning work. It was not presented as either/or, rather, it was explained that you can attend church and if you didn't , then you will be doing whatever B.S. work they thought of (e.g., "police the land" which in the military means pick up the trash. I went to the church on the military base to get out of doing work. My impression is that "religious activities" works as a good excuse to get our of work if they happen to schedule a religious event during work hours.

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