The US Department of Veteran’s Affairs has added “Thor’s Hammer” to the list of approved emblems that may be placed on headstones in VA cemeteries.
Who knew the Marvel movie was actually a documentary?
The VA list already includes a variety of obscure symbols, including Eckankar, Seicho-No-Ie, an atomic-A (for atheism), the humanist H, and a “landing eagle,” which Read more
A 2011 graduate of the US Air Force Academy is apparently making his mark as a “cockpit atheist” US Air Force officer (and, presumably, an eventual Air Force pilot).
The cockpit atheist is a “militant” atheist, in his own words, and apparently has a famous umbrella.
As noted previously, some people seem to think the Air Force, or the US military, is overrun by Christians. A few think military officers aren’t allowed to speak out about their religious beliefs.
It seems the cockpit atheist undermines the former point and disagrees with the latter. The Lieutenant has taken not only to the internet with his religious beliefs and his status as an Air Force officer, but also to a small variety of atheist events from Rock Read more
A 16-year tradition of a “blessing of the fleet” has been canceled because the Americans United for the Separation of Church and State complained.
This wasn’t the military, though. It was a grade school.
South Bristol Elementary School eighth-graders will launch their handmade skiffs next month without the traditional “blessing of the fleet” after a letter from…Americans United for Separation of Church and State informed the school that student involvement with the historic maritime ceremony violated the First Amendment.
The US Navy and various small towns conduct “blessings of the fleet” in accordance with centuries of maritime tradition. Indeed, the US Navy just performed theirs.
Just don’t tell the AU…
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Just days after its first carrier launch, the Navy’s X-47B, the Navy’s Unmanned Combat Air System Demonstrator (UCAS-D), successfully did a touch and go on the USS George H.W. Bush (CVN-77) last week.
Don Blottenberger, UCAS-D Deputy Program manager, commented, “This landing, rubber hitting deck, is extremely fulfilling for the team and is the culmination of years of relative navigation development. Now, we are set to demonstrate the final pieces of the demonstration.”
But does it wear dogtags when it plays volleyball on the beach?
(That’s a Top Gun reference, for those UPT students who weren’t even born when that movie came out…)
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President Obama has explicitly told US military leaders to “leave no stone unturned” in their efforts to fight the “national security threat” of sexual assault in the ranks:
Obama said he is pleased that Hagel and Dempsey are looking at proposals on Capitol Hill and elsewhere to address the problem. “What I’ve said to them is I want to leave no stone unturned and I want us to explore every good idea that’s out there,” he said.
What do you think the chances are that the US military will consider the “good idea” that religious faith plays a substantial role in supporting moral conduct? That’s not Read more
Update: Former Marine pilot Tom Carpenter of the Forum on the Military Chaplaincy — a liberal activist group — largely repeated the list below a few weeks later, though he did so without attribution.
Jason Torpy, the one-man band that is the Military Association of Atheists and Freethinkers, recently posted a point-by-point refutation of recent accusations of the US military being hostile to Christianity.
Much of his disagreement was nuance or the way in which something was phrased, which isn’t worth discussing here. The interesting ones, though, were the cases in which he agreed with the US military’s “anti-Christian” actions:
January 2010 — Department of Defense orders removal of tiny Bible references on military scopes and gunsights.
Torpy: True and appropriate.
This issue has been discussed before. While there is no religious requirement the references remain, the fact they were targeted because of their (obscure) religious reference — only after Michael Weinstein complained, notably — is troubling. That he would seek this Read more
An interesting, if wordy and sometimes hard to follow, paper entitled “South Korea’s Christian Military Chaplaincy in the Korean War – religion as ideology?” was recently published by Vladimir Tikhonov, a Soviet-born professor at Oslo University with a doctorate in ancient Korean history. It seeks to find the “reason for the rapid growth” of Christianity in South Korea — which the author suggests is the military chaplaincy: Read more
As previously noted, Sally Quinn of the Washington Post has become the latest version of Pam Zubeck, the CSIndy “journalist” who is actually an advocate of Michael Weinstein’s cause. While it has become obvious Quinn is in the tank with Weinstein, it wasn’t clear until this weekend just how far she was willing to go.
In an article on sexual assault in the military — carefully crafted to get visibility because its on a topic of great interest right now — Quinn lays the responsibility for sexual assault in the military at the feet of…religion.
And guess who her source is?
Take the Cadets for Christ, a religious group at the Air Force Academy. According to Mikey Weinstein, Read more
