Atheists in Foxholes

I’ve been asleep at the wheel over this story and wasn’t even aware it was going on until I stumbled onto a broadcast this morning on CBS, covering the story of Spc. Jeremy Hall.

Hall, like myself and others who deal with the empirical, just happens to be atheist because of this view of the world and such has gotten him into a world of hurt from his own associates in the military. As Hall’s lawsuit against the Department of Defense stipulates, he is being harassed and threatened with physical injury and death by many members of the military, who have come to conclude that the US military is a body of the church. All he’s asking for is equal respect for his beliefs. What he’s gotten so far is a round the clock body guard and the aid of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation in his lawsuit. The MRFF press release sums up the current situation.

Austin Cline writes further on the egregious action, where Spc. Hall had gone through all the proper channels to attempt to hold a meeting of like minded individuals at the fort where he was stationed at the time in Iraq, which was sabotaged by an attending Maj. Freddy Welborn. Welborn had described himself as a “freethinker” but ended up instead berating the others at the meeting and said that he would charge Hall with violating the Uniform Code of Military Justice and prevent his reenlistment.

Now, if Spc. Hall had only seen the Major’s MySpace page, he would have known the sabotage was coming before it did.

The most obvious risk in this environment, would be instilling a sense in our soldiers that we’re fighting a “holy war”. Pitting faith against faith, in this case Christianity against Islam, would do nothing but further Islamic distrust and hatred toward our forces, as our already untenable position becomes a new crusade. I can predict no good will come from delusional religionists pushing their distorted view of the Apocalypse onto impressionable youth (most of the military, that is). Knowing the Bush administration and it’s connections to Christian fundamentalism, I highly doubt anything is being done to slow this process down, but rather - like torture - they will promote it as being part of the general good and needed to face the “dangers” against our nation. Ludicrous, but predictable.

Like all things in history, what goes around comes around. As a recent documentary points out, we are back to the days of Constantine.

CNN covers more of this story. TruthOut has an interesting story on Christian fundamentalism in the military.