Enough Of This Stuff

I agree with the major's stance on this. The army is no place for atheists.

If we're going to send our kids to Iraq and get them blown up and shot for no real good reason, you should limit it to Christians, who will at least go to heaven.

Keeps the brass from having too many feelings of guilt.

 

This isn't a referendum on Christianity as a whole, unless you want to believe the worst of the faith. Yes, there's intolerant nuts and people who genuinely don't like those that don't like people of different faiths, and the rare (thank God) abortion clinic bomber or Phelps character. But most Christians I've encountered are nothing like that. They do their thing during the week, praise God for His blessings, go to church most Sundays and try to take the lessons our savior, Jesus Christ, taught in His short time on earth before dying for our sins and applying them in their everyday life.

If you believe Christianity is being defined by actions like those at the start of the thread, it's because you want it to be. A little exposure to Christians outside the realm of activists paid attention major national media, combined with an open mind, will give you a different perspective on us. I hope.

 

Oh, God, the abortion clinic argument. As if a handful of those situations somehow equals 3,000 in one day on 9-11.
Yes, McVeigh, Koresh and those of that ilk are rat bastards who are frying in hell. As they should be. But the current body count for one particular religion as compared to another is so overwhelming that you making the argument that one is a tradeoff for the other indicates an appalling lack of perspective and objectivity on your part.

 

And if you had bothered to read my first post in full, you would have noticed that I said this Army major and others like him are wrong.
Don't let that little fact get in the way.

 

MM, please go back and read Fenian's initial post. He talked about the fringe elements, not Christianity as a whole. And the fill-in-the-blank aspect of this (i.e., Christian or otherwise) is what you're focusing on, as opposed to the fact that certain elements are doing this.

 

I'll go back and re-read it and if I missed it, then I readily admit to having done so. But that wasn't my focus. My focus, instead, was on why you felt it necessary to go the "other religion" route since it's not particularly germane to the situation.

Don't get yourself in a bunch. I wasn't attacking you but really trying to understand why it's necessary to bring other faiths into this.

 

Not responding to Fenian's post, but small potatoes' one that included this statement: "How, exactly, did Christianity go from a religion of love and forgiveness to "If you don't pray to the same God we do, maybe you need to find another country?" Probably should have quoted it, but it seemed obvious the thread was drifting into a more general discussion.

And I like Fenian enough for not agreeing with him on shit, but he lost me in another thread when he unilaterally declared that people who went to megachurches were wingnuts (not remembering the exact title, but it had something to do with religious demographics)

 

Some of my best friends go to mega churches ... really! But I admit I do not understand the appeal ... at all.

 

Hondo, I never said it was the same, but your above statement is simply false.
What is to be gained out of attacking the Muslims in this case anyway? Let's clean up our own house and then go after someone else's.

 

Previous response got gobbled up by the fail monster, so here's my Reader's Digest version: I don't get it either. My uneducated, purely antidotal assumption says it's a combination of a lot of factors -- people want to worship anonymously, and it's easier to get lost in a crowd of thousands than in a small church where everyone knows who the new person is; people are attracted to extracurricular church activities, and it stands to reason bigger churches have more of them; people like to go to the big TV church and/or assume bigger is better; and people like the message or the beliefs being taught and professed, and accept or tolerate the massive building around it.

I don't feel comfortable being so disassociated from everyone at a megachurch, but to each their own.

 

Then I readily grant that painting this as a solely Christian issue with such a broad brush stroke is definitely wrong.

But as an issue, regardless of what religion you use to fill in the blank, this needs to be addressed. I found it interesting during my shipboard time that every night, five minutes before Taps, one of the chaplains always did a prayer broadcast over the announcing system and heard everywhere on the vessel. That some people might not have been receptive to that because of their beliefs is something that can't be challenged. As to how that equates or compares to this situation isn't as clear.

 

Speaking of holes in stories (crossthreading from Clemens....)

Army majors do not hold commands (except in rare cases in which they are promotable to lieutenant colonel). Captains command companies, and lieutenant colonels command battalions. Majors (the rank in between) typically serve as battalion XOs or on brigade staffs, and do not hold powers of bars to re-enlistment.

It's very likely this particular major was not in this soldier's chain of command, whereby said major could get fucked.