Gary just excerpted it, no? ('What Gary has to say about it' doesn't seem to be in the link.)
Not that all evangelicals are nuts. But. I'm bothered by the military encouraging the growth of a religion that is concerned primarily with eschatology when we're likely fighting wars in the Mideast.
He's got a paragraph at the bottom of the long quote.
You know, I'm bothered by the military encouraging the growth of a religion full stop. I don't see any reason to assume that evangelical Christians are likely to do anything screwy because of their eschatological beliefs -- I just don't want them using the military to proselytize.
(I thought you meant more than the paragraph.)
Oh, me neither. It would be just as bad, from a separation of church-and-state standpoint, if it were a bunch of Buddhists sproselytizing. (Ignore the lack of an explicit missionary component to Buddhism arguendo, please.) But there's a worse practical result, I think, if the military is composed of people who view Israel as a lamb to be sacrificed to bring about the Second Coming.
Also, if you're a good evangelical, you're supposed to be swept up in the Rapture. And then what are we going to do,when the army all poofs away? Send in the Daoists?
Is there somewhere I can volunteer to join the army, biconditional on the rapture taking place? Because I would do so.
what does "biconditional" mean when it's used in 4?
I suppose this is none of my business, beyond the fact that I share a planet with these fruitcakes, but if I really wanted to weaken the US armed forces long term, one of the first things I'd do would be to encourage an ideological faction within them which regarded everybody who didn't agree with them as morally inferior human beings.
The impact on general morale of all the Jews, Atheists, Catholics, Episcopalians, etc. in the army having to endure this shit on a daily basis must be incalculable. How far do you trust your commanding officer if he takes every available opportunity to tell you you're going to burn in hell. In fact, if he thinks that, how far is he going to trust you?
Are the Bushwackos really so purblind that they can't see hoe damaging this is and move to stop it?
WD - if you enlisted after the rapture, you'd likely be deployed to fight in the Battle of Armageddon, which might not be a smart place to be.
I know about as much about Armageddon as one can find out by reading some negative reviews of the Left Behind books, but mightn't it be better, assuming one is not on the side of the Antichrist (but how would one know) than not fighting in the battle and waiting out the result?
Well, it isn't easy to understand, because Revelations reads like the drivelling of somebody who's been doing bad acid for a month, but it implies that "kings of the earth", which presumably includes any major head of state these days, will be recruited by the bad guys.
Apparently it's incredibly important to keep your clothes on at all times.
Are the Bushwackos really so purblind that they can't see how damaging this is and move to stop it?
Clearly.
This pisses me off so much. I wish I had something more intelligent to say about it.
I wonder how this would affect interforce relations. If I'm some poor army schlub trying to call in an airstrike, how should I Word my message? And should I change my name from "Sgt. Goldstein?"
Revelations reads like the drivelling of somebody who's been doing bad acid for a month
Have I mentioned before that Patrick Farley's Apocamon is worth your while?
The implication of this within a unit are intense. The military has its own ideas about individual rights, which they feel should be quite limited for servicepeople. The bullying of individuals by peers or superiors is routine. Anyone who wants to can stand up, dissent, and make a case of something, but from that point they will have to be on their toes every minute of every day, in the expectation of a flood of semi-legal and legal attacks.
I have a niece who just left the service. She's pretty spunky and pretty conservative too, but she said that for someone in the lower ranks, there's no realistic possibility of disagreeing or arguing with anything. She felt a respect born of fear for the powers of the military heirarchy.
All analogies limp, but I've thought for some time that the army of modern times whose history has the most to teach us about the danger of a military culture profoundly alienated from the values of much of the country and the democratic government they are sworn to defend, is France from 1871 to 1940. Fervent religious belief, in that case Catholicism, held defiantly against the secular values of the state, was a defining characteristic of the Officer Corps of those years, and played a crucial role in the Dreyfuss Affair, the development of the "offensive spirit" ideology before WWI, the careers of all the prominent generals of that war, and the distaste the Army had for the government, and eventually for the society, in the years before WWII.
Think about it a lot these days.
This pisses me off so much. I wish I had something more intelligent to say about it.
That's my attitude exactly. So rather than say something intelligent, I'll just point out this line from the article:
"There's this line where Meat Loaf in 'Bat Out of Hell II' says: 'We were born out of time.' That's my attitude exactly," Weinstein says.
Does anyone want to speculate on why Chalres Osgood felt compelled to deliver a poeme on entitlement reform this morning [unfortunately not yet in this archive]?
18: No.
I haven't read the article, but I know the Weinsteins personally and I can tell you that this was really a crushing blow for them. They love the AFA and the Republican party, and this whole mess has left them feeling betrayed.
I know the Weinsteins personally
Neat. If you talk to them and think of it, pass on my admiration for what Weinstein is doing.
and this whole mess has left them feeling betrayed.
Welcome to our world.
I don't talk to them much. We go to the same synagogue, but my family hasn't been very active lately.
Is this a particular problem for the Air Force, more than for other branches of the military?
I don't have any real experience with military culture. (I knew some ROTC members in college, and one guy was a serious military history and strategy buff, but that's not much.)
My sister is getting to know some military kids rhis summer, because she's working at a Christian camp in North Carolina..I think it's a Methodist camp. These aren't wackos or anything. She says that they talk a lot more about personal testimonials than she's used to, and she may have heard talk of being saved once or twice, but these aren't hard-core evangelicals.
The camp sessions are pretty short; I think that they last about a week. Some weeks they have Christian kids and other weeks the campers are Operation Purple kids. Operation Purple is run by the National Military Families Association, a private organization. They send kids to camp for free. The link aboive says that Sears is one of their main sponsors.
My sister says that when teh OPerationPurple kids are at camp, they are not allowed to talk about religion at all unless a kid specifically asks about it. Now, NMFA is a private organization; it's not the state, but it ought to be somewhat representative of military culture. They seem to be against using their monies to fund active proselytization. True, we're talking about kids and not adults, and there is a difference there. I think that most of those kids are Army Brats. Is teh Air Force just weird?
Is this a particular problem for the Air Force, more than for other branches of the military?
Yes.
24 is a great link. I thought it probably had something to do with being in Colorado Springs.
25 somehow seems like a really good candidate for google-proofing.
Sorry, didn't really give it much thought. But I guessed correctly?