Fort Bragg Atheist Celebration Gets…Complicated
The Fort Bragg Freedom Festival, the atheist response to the evangelistic Rock the Fort, has previously been discussed. How, precisely, it will be executed appears to have gotten…complicated.
For one thing, the “Freedom Festival” Facebook page now says it is (emphatically) “no longer associated” with its own website:
The website www.ftbraggfreedomfestival.com is no longer affiliated with the Freedom Festival. Soon it will be redirected to promote another event that does NOT have any connection to the Freedom Festival.
The new website appears to be the not-at-all confusing www.ftbraggfreedomfest.com, which, while still under construction, currently looks exactly like their old site. All of these announcements have been made by Geri Weaver, who is apparently the ‘organizer’ of the Cape Fear Atheists and Agnostics in the Fort Bragg area. (Weaver has been in the news before, complaining to the ACLU when her child brought a Bible home from school.) CFAA is presenting itself as the ‘sponsor’ of the event.
In the meantime, the original site is being replaced by Rock Beyond Belief, which, aside from the name change, is also identical to the original effort — and the new site.
Interesting text has also been added to the group’s Facebook page. For one thing, the Freedom Festival reportedly has “support” from the Fort Bragg MWR to host their event, including access to the main parade field — assuming they meet the requisite attendance numbers. At this point, then, it appears Fort Bragg is allowing this festival the same access as Rock the Fort.
Further, the organizers said the event is a
celebration of our 1st Amendment Right which states that the government “may not penalize or discriminate against any individual or group of individuals because of their religious views nor may it compel persons to affirm to any particular beliefs”.
Now, which part of the First Amendment, exactly, is quoted? For those that are a little rusty:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
They might need to rethink their wording. In addition, a post by “Audrey” said
Having the event on the main parade field will show that the Army is not afraid to support the right of 20% of its community who have “no religious preference” or who declare themselves atheist, agnostic, etc. [sic]
Problem is, that’s fun with numbers. The misrepresentation of the “20%” to which Audrey makes reference has already been explained, but the short version is that declared atheist/agnostics make up 0.5% of the Armed Forces. An additional 22.9% do not declare anything, which does not mean they are atheists or agnostics.
Repeated anecdotes detail how Jews in the military use “no religious preference” on their dogtags to avoid persecution if they’re captured; Nidal Malik Hasan was also one of those “20%” who declared “no preference.” While there are almost certainly atheists/agnostics in that group, the evident presence of other faiths makes it intellectually dishonest to imply that 22.9% of the military needs an atheistic event on an Army parade field to feel their rights are supported.
Audrey was stretching in an apparent unwarranted bid for legitimacy. The fact the Army would provide support for an event with which only 0.5% of the military declares ideological association is impressive and positive by itself.
To return to the point, in the end, it is difficult to tell if there is a single or two separate atheist events vying for support at Fort Bragg, though a concerted effort is certainly underway. Any public event like this will certainly have challenges, and theirs is no exception.
Hopefully they’ll achieve their stated objective of an event that ‘celebrates’ rather than ‘denigrates,’ though they’ll have their challenges there, as well.
I say let them have their “reprisal” concert and please report back to us on how many people attended. We all DO have our rights to free religion and this could backfire on them because atheism IS a religion.
Laura, according to Merriam-Webster atheism is NOT a religion. See below.
1: a: the state of a religious
b: (1) : the service and worship of God or the supernatural (2) : commitment or devotion to religious faith or observance
2: a personal set or institutionalized system of religious attitudes, beliefs, and practices
3: archaic : scrupulous conformity : conscientiousness
4: a cause, principle, or system of beliefs held to with ardor and faith
I do not disagree with you about the likelihood of the festival backfiring. Chances are that they will have a low turnout and many of the participants will violate the proposed secular viewpoint and become anti-theist preachers.
Now, to the point that really bothered me – the numbers. “But the short version is that declared atheist/agnostics make up 0.5% of the Armed Forces” is a very hard statistic to swallow. Gallup places atheist at 6% of the US population; ARIS tracks that about roughly 12% of Americans are atheist (no God) or agnostic (unknowable or unsure), and another 12% are deistic. I feel pretty comfortable saying that your numbers are a bit skewed
Sorry Laura…atheism IS NOT a religion and I’m really not sure why you think it is. YOU are probably confusing “Secular Humanism” as a religion that does not believe in God. People can be atheists and not secular humanist or vis versa.
BJL,
one could argue that atheism falls under definition number 2, but I’m more inclined to go with watchtower’s viewpoint.
the 0.5% is likely the number of armed force member who have declared atheism officially.
The word that the writer chose was purposefully misleading. “… 22.9% do not declare anything, which does not mean they are atheists or agnostics” should be stated as “… 22.9% do not declare anything, which includes more than just atheists or agnostics.” The previous statement implies that “no religious preference” does not include atheist or agnostic service members, when it does include many. The article above was extremely biased and was written in a way to persuade, not to inform.
Atheism is a religion, and my favourite sport is “Not Running The Marathon”
I have always been an atheist, and during over 20 years of service in the US Army, I requested my dog tags to reflect ATHEIST, but was not allowed. I had to settle with “NO PREFERENCE”. Such may be a whole bunch of others that fear the stigma attached to the “A” word.
This is the Audrey who you quoted in this article. My quote clearly identifies first and foremost that the 20% is of those self identifying as no religious preference, or those identifying themselves as atheist or agnostic, and was not intended to be misleading. Percentages of religious preference can be difficult to rely upon which is why I endeavored to be clear on what I was quoting.
Since your article above seems to take issue with atheists in particular, let me state that it wouldn’t make a difference if the number of atheists was .5%, 5% or 50% because the point is that CFAA is organizing a family-friendly festival that supports our right to practice any religion or none at all. I agree that the support we have so far received from MWR is “impressive and positive by itself” and shows how much we as a nation have to celebrate about the freedoms we enjoy!
You are welcome to contact me directly in the future if you find anything else I post to be confusing and I will work to clarify my meaning. I hope you can join us in celebrating our freedoms at the Fort Bragg Freedom Festival in fall 2011!
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Atheists (like my husband) also specify “no religious preference” to avoid being ostracized by their fellow soldiers.
Also, atheism is a religion like bald is a hair color.
“to avoid being ostracized by their fellow soldiers.” – which I suppose would be YOU.
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