Justin Griffith, the Army Soldier made famous by the event he organized at Fort Bragg, recently found a prayer group advertised on an Army unit’s Facebook page [redacted]:

Naturally, Griffith immediately took issue with the time of the prayer event, which is during what are traditionally considered duty hours.  He decided to call on his web followers to target the unit’s Facebook post [formatting original]: 

Okay, internet atheists – this is one of those times where people need you to speak out for them…If you choose to participate in the conversation, do so with respect. Do not engage in flame wars, and do not attack religious people (and this is not the time to attack their beliefs). We are aiming for equality.

Please (respectfully!) leave your opinion on the 2-508 PIR Facebook page.

What Griffith failed to grasp was the end of the announcement, which noted the availability of childcare.  Why would on-duty Soldiers need childcare?

They don’t.  The Soldiers of the 2nd Battalion, 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne, are deployed to Afghanistan.

The announcement of a prayer time was for their families, who are praying for the safety and quick return of their loved ones.  (Atheists can’t allow that, now can they?)  In fact, the first comment on the post was from the site admin, noting it was a voluntary event for the friends and families of the unit.  The 508’s deployment has not been without incident; it has lost Soldiers in just the last few weeks.

When the interlopers’ comments — which included vitriolic accusations and sarcastic condescension — started getting deleted, Griffith took the high road:

They’re deleting comments. I guess they want ‘the hard way’.

When the harassment finally drove the admin to pull down the announcement, Griffith celebrated:

That’s one way to do it. :)

Worse, this is one Fort Bragg soldier going after fellow Fort Bragg soldiers — and their families.  A supporter of the unit responded and criticized Griffith for organizing a “politically motivated” campaign that was “harassing in nature” against the deployed soldiers’ families [formatting original]:

The 2-508 PIR website is an information site for friends and families of 2-508th PIR to share information and opportunities. It is NOT a public forum or an avenue for political expression. The announcement for First Friday Prayer was for family members, NOT soldiers…The politically motivated posting on this blog and the encouragement to leave politically charged comments on our page were premature and harrassing in nature.

Even after the post was pulled, Griffith continued to call for those who hadn’t been banned from the page (as he had) to post on behalf of others — and accused “them” of “repeatedly violating laws [and] regulations.”  You know, those laws that say the families of Army troops deployed to combat can’t use Facebook to plan a prayer meeting.

As has been noted here before, atheists do not have an independent ideology; they exist only as an asterisk on religion.  Their actions here, though, seem to indicate they’ve tired of hanging out and discussing how much they don’t believe in religion.

Instead, they’re driven to troll the internet, searching for things over which they can be vicariously offended.  In a classic Michael Weinstein “ready, fire, aim,” they end up harassing the families of deployed soldiers.  Classy.

Think this is what we can continue to expect from atheists in the military?