UNBELIEVABLE: ATHEISTS WANT ‘PERSONAL RELIGIOUS EXPRESSION’ REMOVED FROM SUICIDE PREVENTION TRAINING!

Written by Keven Card on 04 October 2012

It seems like Afghanistan and Iraq are not the only wars our military is fighting these days. There is a war within itself for the identity of our military. It’s those with religious beliefs vs. atheists and “freethinkers”. This time they take aim at the military’s suicide prevention training, but with suicide rates soaring within our armed forces personnel forcing the Army into a service wide ‘stand-down‘ to address the crisis that even the Military Association of Atheists and Freethinkers (MAAF) admits needs to be addressed. With an average of one suicide per day among our men and women in uniform, one would think that there would be sense that any help from any outlet would be acceptable in concern for our troops.

But that isn’t the case for the Secularists among us. In fact, they have taken this opportunity to promote their strict “No Religious Expression” policy. Jason Torpy posted on their site:

However, reports are coming in that chaplain-led sessions on ‘resilience’ showed a priority on religion, prayer, and “god’s plan”. These personal religious expressions may be appropriate in private, optional settings, but they have no place in mandatory settings and even violate the Army’s own guidance that its “spiritual fitness” training be optional. Organizations like MAAF and American Atheists are advising soldiers to report issues to their command to see if the military can resolve these issues internally.

Chaplain (Col.) USAR retired Ron Crews, executive director for the Chaplain Alliance for Religious Liberty told the Christian Post, he hoped that the military will dismiss MAAF’s request to remove the training saying: “Why would anyone not want every resource available to help our military personnel? This press release is one more example of intolerance toward faith that runs counter to everything we hold dear in this nation,”

Crews also addressed Torpy directly in a statement saying:

“Suicide is a serious problem in the military and those who have studied the issue as to surrounding causes for a service member to consider suicide include loss of a relationship, depression, feelings of aloneness, and many others usually accompanied with alcohol abuse,” Crews explained. “Chaplains are trained to help service members deal with these issues. There are testimonies of interventions by chaplains who have helped soldiers turn away from suicidal thoughts.”

COMMENTARY: Under the 1947 interpretation of “separation of church and state” Torpy is right that is his technical assessment, but that’s only because that interpretation hasn’t been challenge yet.

However, under a strict Constitutionalist and historical interpretation of the “Freedom OF Religion” Torby as well as other Atheists organizations are dead wrong. The Constitutional protection is for people of Faith to express their beliefs in public without restrictions. Further, the constant bowing down to an individual who is offended goes against the foundation of America’s founding. There is NO government that can EVER accommodate every citizen’s happiness and that’s why we are a Republic.

Our Constitution was written and ratified to accommodate the largest number of people; with respect to Faith and religious belief, the majority of our founding fathers were advocates of the Christian Faith and structured our Constitution and laws with that Faith in mind. Though that was the case, they also realized that a minority of citizens had different beliefs and made an accommodation for them by restricting the Congress from passing a law that forced a particular Faith on its citizens.

What needs to happen now?

We need to challenge these groups all the way back to the Supreme Court and have the previous interpretation overturned. That will set us back on a course toward the freedom our Constitution already adequately protects.

Think about this, the gay community has been allowed to come out of the closet within our military ranks while they simultaneously try to put men and women of faith into a closet. This is not the America our founders envisioned.

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Posted in War On Religious Free Expression | 2 Comments »

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  • http://www.facebook.com/jasontorpy Jason Torpy

    Added to the Military Atheists article: MAAF would like to clarify that the issue is with “personal religious expressions.” References to religion and even encouragement of personal religious practices according to the conscience of the individual may be appropriate for some training. The objection in this article is that personal religious expressions from trainers should not be mixed into official training programs and the Army’s own guidance requires all “spiritual fitness” training to be optional. Providing more recognition and inclusion of nontheistic beliefs is necessary to offset the excessive emphasis on god-based religious beliefs.

    • http://kevencard.com Keven Card

      Nothing was added to the article, opinion of your article were presented, but a link was provided to your
      original article for people to read.
      Chaplains have been part of the
      military since the military was formed and have provided many soldiers,
      units and even divisions spiritual and inspirational help during the
      challenges and tragedies of war and peace. As a former Marine, I’ve
      never seen “excessive emphasis on god-based religious beliefs”. No one
      is forced to attend church as part of their enlistment into the
      Military, it’s a choice! Chaplains represent the reality that the super
      majority of military personal hold religious beliefs and in fact
      predominantly, Christian religious beliefs.
      The reality that must be
      faced here is that the suicide rates in today’s military are escalating
      as the influence and involvement of Chaplains is diminished as a direct
      result of the 1947 Supreme Court interpretation of the letters send to
      the Dansbury Baptists by Thomas Jefferson, effectively overturning over
      150 years of a clear definition of religious free expression, both in
      private as a a protection in and on public property.
      Non-theistic
      beliefs, by your own definition aren’t a covered protection under the
      1st Amendment Freedom OF Religion but you have the protection to express
      your dislikes for religion as much as you’d like under the Freedom of
      Speech. But there is no “freedom from offense”.
      But, why don’t you
      please explain to the readers of The Christian Republic, how you can conceivably justify preventing the
      help that can and would certainly be provided to American troops who
      are believers, by allowing a Chaplains to express his personal religious beliefs, to a group of soldiers in a training to prevent suicide. which may prevent that soldier from the possibility of committing
      suicide; just to satisfy an Atheists’ or
      freethinker’s sensibilities.
      I have a suggestion, why not just show
      some tolerance for those who need their Faith in order to sustain
      themselves; and possibly save their lives because that kind of intervention may be their last hope. No one, not Chaplains or the Army are forcing anyone to
      abandon their personally held beliefs, but we are asking all of those who
      are clearly a super minority to tolerate what is socially acceptable to
      the rest of society, as was the original definition and understanding
      of the 1st Amendment.