Atheist Discrimination

According to CNN.com, a U.S. soldier named Jeremy Hall who "converted" to atheism while at war in Iraq is suing the government for alleged discrimination committed against him while serving. CNN's Randy Kaye reported, "His sudden lack of faith, he said, cost him his military career and put his life at risk. Hall said his life was threatened by other troops and the military assigned a full-time bodyguard to protect him out of fear for his safety." Admirably, he is not suing for compensatory damages, but only the guarantee of religious freedom in the military. For a devil worshipper he sure sounds like a principled man willing to stand up for what's right. Another soldier, Weinstein is suing alongside Hall and claims that 8,000 soldiers have contacted him claiming that they were pressured to follow evangelical christianity.

The article also discussed an interesting organization called the "Officers' Christian Fellowship" which has a representative on almost all of the U.S.'s military bases in the world. According to its website, the organization's mission is to create "A spiritually transformed military, with ambassadors for Christ in uniform empowered by the Holy Spirit." Just like our forefathers would have wanted.

Here are a couple of comments to the article I found interesting:

Jennifer said, "When I went to basic training the drill sergeants offered everyone a day pass (which of course they would be dying for) only if they went to an event at an evangelical church service in which we were all requested to come up and "be saved." I've definitely encountered plenty of evangelical proselytizing in my career."

Sarah (a Chrisitian) said, "It's interesting that none of the posters with stories of being harassed to observe religion in the military were harassed by muslims, jews, pagans or any other religious people besides christians. I was raised christian but the direction this faith has taken truly scares me. Zealots abound."

Patsy (an apparently devout) Christian said, "I praise you for bringing up this topic. With prayer in schools and now in the army...where is seperation of church and state? please stop openly praying. As in the Christain bible says Mt.6:6: "And when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to the Father which is in secret..."

Lois, a Christian (and an idiot), said, "If this guy is a true atheist, then he has no morals or no values, and why should he be trusted with a weapon?"

For the full story: http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/07/08/atheist.soldier/index.html