How dare an atheist fight for his country! The only thing worse in a REAL soldier’s eyes would be if this scumbag were also gay. Right? I SAID RIGHT, MAGGOTS! I CAN’T HEEEEAAAARRRR YOU!
Atheist soldier claims harassment
Like hundreds of young men joining the Army in recent years, Jeremy Hall professes a desire to serve his country while it fights terrorism.
But the short and soft-spoken specialist is at the center of a legal controversy. He has filed a lawsuit alleging that he’s been harassed and his constitutional rights have been violated because he doesn’t believe in God. The suit names Defense Secretary Robert Gates.
[…]
It eventually came out in Iraq in 2007, when he was in a firefight. Hall was a gunner on a Humvee, which took several bullets in its protective shield. Afterward, his commander asked whether he believed in God, Hall said.“I said, ‘No, but I believe in Plexiglas,’ ” Hall said. “I’ve never believed I was going to a happy place. You get one life. When I die, I’m worm food.”
The issue came to a head when, according to Hall, a superior officer, Maj. Freddy J. Welborn, threatened to bring charges against him for trying to hold a meeting of atheists in Iraq. Welborn has denied Hall’s allegations.
And in a vaguely, yet not totally unrelated story, an anthropologist describes how religion is a figment of human imagination.
46,
it is…he was a dirty VOYEUR..
LOVED it until we found disgrace in being Naked..
And so all the other atheists that served in the military over the past 60 years have done so with honour and no mishap until this guy.
Now HE is singled out as a problem.
Sounds either fishy or he just wants some attention. Send him to Afghanistan.
Cursor_
The referenced link in the OT is actually worth reading. It caught my interest when it said:
“One can be a member of a transcendental group, or a nation, even though one never comes in contact with the other members of it,” says Bloch. Moreover, the composition of such groups, “whether they are clans or nations, may equally include the living and the dead.”
I’ve noticed how “unthinking” notions of patriotism, team sports, family, and religion can be. Never put it all together under one such label.
Nice to have food for thought other than twinkies.
Bobbo (#51),
Please accept my apology for going off. Our banter is usually fun and ultimately, informative.
#65–ethanol==no problem. I find 95% of the time I “go off” I wind up being wrong. I should be more mellow myself. Hopefully, all these good things will come.
So–its not just humor that is difficult to communicate. So is being serious? Sounds like maybe just communicating is difficult.
Damn!!!!!
#50, ethanol,
On controversial topics, Wikipedia is highly suspect at best. Thus the links to prior postings on Dvorak Uncensored. In addition, your lack of vocabulary is astounding as you are unable to express yourself without swearing. Try reading a book or websites other than DU and Wikipedia, maybe you can expand your grasp of the English language.
Geeze, such bitterness. But I guess World Book Encyclopedia is fair and honest on, oh, say, abortion, torture, or Bush’s subversion of human rights. Encyclopedia Britannica is more than fair when it describes how the Supreme Court handed the election to the loser in 2000 or the controversy over whether Bush conspired to destroy the World Trade Center.
Lack of vocabulary? Sorry, but you demonstrate your lack of comprehension. You confuse a simple exclamatory for a lack of vocabulary. I doth think you are too intoxicated upon your own verbosity to fully comprehend the impact your mere mutterings don’t have.
Would you recommend one of your favorite sites, such as Disney or Nick Jr.? As for books? I not only have a library card, I use it. Currently I am almost finished reading Cornelius Ryan The Last Battle for about the third time. Love his writing. I also have a gift First Edition of O. Henry’s Collected Works waiting for me. I can honestly say I have yet to read an O. Henry I didn’t enjoy.
Since your handle is reflective of a well known and understood intoxicant and after reading your unilluminating comments, one is left with the distinct impression you have imbibed a little too much over your short life. In short, grow up asshole.
#52 – >>precludes atheism from being an ideology
>>or a religion.
Oh sigh, OFTLO. How naive you are.
At least I am not dishonest.
English isn’t a vague symbolic language. It is rife with words which have precise, unambiguous meanings.
Either you don’t know what “atheist” means, or you are lying about what it means. And since we’ve talked about this for entirely too long, I cannot accept that you are ignorant of the definition. That means you must be lying.