Atheists are pushing for the military to have chaplains for atheists in the military. Uhm, we already have them. They’re called chaplains. An atheist has as much right to go see a chaplain as anyone else.
If an atheist wants an atheist to talk to, they’re called psychologists or counselors.
The NY Times reports:
In the military, there are more than 3,000 chaplains who minister to the spiritual and emotional needs of active duty troops, regardless of their faiths. The vast majority are Christians, a few are Jews or Muslims, one is a Buddhist. A Hindu, possibly even a Wiccan may join their ranks soon.
But an atheist?
Strange as it sounds, groups representing atheists and secular humanists are pushing for the appointment of one of their own to the chaplaincy, hoping to give voice to what they say is a large — and largely underground — population of nonbelievers in the military.
Joining the chaplain corps is part of a broader campaign by atheists to win official acceptance in the military. Such recognition would make it easier for them to raise money and meet on military bases. It would help ensure that chaplains, religious or atheist, would distribute their literature, advertise their events and advocate for them with commanders.
But winning the appointment of an atheist chaplain will require support from senior chaplains, a tall order. Many chaplains are skeptical: Do atheists belong to a “faith group,” a requirement for a chaplain candidate? Can they provide support to religious troops of all faiths, a fundamental responsibility for chaplains?
As to the question of whether atheism is a “faith group” I would say that it takes a great amount of faith to be an atheist. Believing that the entire universe and every human being who ever lived was just a random act of crazy chance takes an enormous amount of faith. But it doesn’t deserve a chaplaincy. This kind of foolish chase after some sort of elusive equality only seeks to make all things unintelligible. Words mean things. Chaplains are clergy. To expand the definition to atheism thins out the meaning of the word to non-existence.
Secularists are doing it with marriage. Marriage is between a man and a woman. But some don’t want to get married to the opposite sex so they want to expand the term and the institution into meaninglessness.
If the military accedes to this atheist chaplaincy request, it wouldn’t be expanding the use of chaplains, it would make it the entire institution meaningless. But isn’t that what atheists are all about -meaninglessness?
April 28, 2011 at 11:53 pm
@Mouse
First you have to establish that there's a difference, since what constitutes life is non-living molecules of chemicals. The base chemicals that constitute DNA are found elsewhere in the universe as well as in space. So when these chemical molecules build to a certain point that they are able to reproduce themselves, we call this life (also in this hazy line debate are viruses which could be viewed as both living and not.) So, in that way, life could be said to be chemical constructs that perpetuate themselves, and sometimes adapt in order to do so. I'm not sure how the question relates to theology though. Maybe you can explain that one.
April 29, 2011 at 12:03 am
Well, why can't they make those chemicals in a lab? Why has no one ever seen them and documented them in their most basic form?
Theology comes in here: Absent any scientific, provable, replicatable movement from a non-organic material to an organic, self-replicating material, the only conclusion that makes sense to me is that someone had to create that extraordinary leap from dead (non-living) to living. Why do my cells replicate? Why does my heart beat? Why does my blood live and replicate in my veins?
How did the soggy mass of matter in my head learn to generate electrical impulses?
Without a prime mover, none of this makes sense to me and I can't see what moved the matter on this little rock in this big universe to suddenly become separate itself from the non-moving to move of it's own volition.
And Catholics don't take the Bible literally, so scientific explanations for things like dinosaurs are allowable and encouraged.
I like my reality grounded in a science that is understandable and provable, but it fails me on this question.
Sorry for the digression. I didn't know how else to state the answer to your quesion.
April 29, 2011 at 12:25 am
@Mouse
I admire your striving to base your view of reality on science, but you have to realize that sometimes the answer is "I don't know" and that that's far more honest than making up an answer and claiming that to be truth. Religion offers made up answers, science looks for answers from the evidence. Any answer I give you to this question is honest conjecture on my part, as research is being done into this question, and I admit that there may never be a concrete answer.
But saying "God did it" doesn't answer any questions, because no one has offered the "how" portion of that "explanation." Define a God, and then explain how he created the universe. The bible attempts this, supposedly we humans are made from formed dirt (males) and rib bone (females.)
I think you are assuming that because we can't replicate a process in a laboratory, that somehow it is special or has some sort of special quality. Evolution has had billions of years to shape the life we see today, mankind as a species has only existed for 150,000 years. We can study the processes of life, and come to understand how it evolved, but replicating it is illusive.
Scientists at MIT have already created a better leaf in the lab. And yes, we can construct all new DNA chains. We are slowly figuring things out, but because we don't know everything, this does not give anyone license to assume their story is correct.
If a scientist created a self-replicating molecule in the lab, what would you say?
April 29, 2011 at 12:38 am
@TastyPaper,
That's probably the difference between you and me, as well as between any rational atheist I've ever spoken to and me.
For you, the answer "I don't know; I may never know" is enough to satisfy your doubts.
For me, I can believe that an almighty intelligence designed the elements, set the planets revolving around the sun, set the first spark of electricity moving and formed man, the only rational animal, apart from the others animals. The Bible, which, again, we don't take literally, may have specified dirt and rib bone. But it also states that man is created in God's image, giving him dignity and purpose.
When I see the wonder around me (and, though I don't always understand them), I marvel at how much we are able to discover about the world around us. But there's still those little nagging doubts about where it all came from; how it all started. Science and math can't give me that; Catholicism can.
And you may say those stories are made up, but they are the basis for my reverence for all human life, the fact that I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
The amazing complexity around me is frustrating when I don't have answers. But if I believe a great intelligence designed it for us, poor mortals that we are, it gives me joy.
Also, my faith gives me something no reason ever can. I recently lost a child. My faith says I will see her again someday. Your reason would have me believe that my loss is final.
So, I'm sorry that I just can't accept "I don't know" and that the explanations that I get from my faith supply the gaps that reason can't fill.
I can't reason my way to hope, or sacrificial love, or joy. I need faith for that.
And if they could create life in the lab, odds are, I would go away and think about it for a while, and then, come back and say "Well, I guess that's how he did it. Can you make that molecule a tree or a kitten or a baby?" When man can become all that God is said to be, then I'll believe your reason over my faith.
Be well, TastyPaper.
April 29, 2011 at 1:02 am
@Mouse
"I marvel at how much we are able to discover about the world around us. But there's still those little nagging doubts about where it all came from; how it all started. Science and math can't give me that; Catholicism can."
If you value reality at all, you should know that just because Catholicism says it has the answers, that doesn't mean it does.
"For me, I can believe that an almighty intelligence designed the elements, set the planets revolving around the sun…"
Okay, explain the nature of that intelligence and how it was created. What you're alluding to is an infinite regress, and God doesn't get a special pass out of that. If he is incredibly complex, he must have had a creator as well, and then that creator must have had a creator, and so on.
Your argument from ignorance doesn't hold any water. Just because you can't understand how these things came to be, it doesn't mean that humans can't. And any theory we can come up with will be more plausible than saying an infinitely complex being we can't remotely understand did it.
"Can you make that molecule a tree or a kitten or a baby?""
Evolution has, and we've demonstrated how.
"When man can become all that God is said to be, then I'll believe your reason over my faith."
The key phrase here is 'that God is said to be' in which case I might ask, what if he's not? What if the one true God was worshiped 4000 years ago and no longer has any surviving worshipers? What makes you think that anyone can know anything about a God without evidence. To me, God is a fictional character in a book called the Bible. I've never seen any evidence to suggest otherwise.
April 29, 2011 at 1:19 am
@TastyPaper,
I was going to sign off on this, but the tone of your last post seemed frustrated and you're started to betray the arrogant condescension that usually keeps me from these discussions.
What I've seen from science isn't contradicted by Catholicism, nor is it mutally exclusive. In fact, Catholicism offers the best "mesh" with science of any religion I've seen because of it's flexibility in that area.
I resent the dig at my perception of reality. I never insulted you or your beliefs.
Micro-evolution has been demonstrated; macro-evolution has not. When it has, I'll re-evaluate my stance on it.
Your concept of the "Russian Nesting Doll" God is ludicrous at best and only demonstates your ignorance of the aguments of a Prime Mover, which were posited long before the dawn of Christianity.
And, if humans can understand all these things and I can't then explain them. All of creation, distilled rationally and reasonably.
The truth is, you can't. No one, ultimately, can.
We muddle along doing the best we can with the world around us.
For you, you choose ignorance in the form of "I don't know."
For me, I choose to examine the explanations of a particular belief system and say "that makes sense."
Try to be less narrow-minded in the future.
April 29, 2011 at 6:53 pm
"Abandon HOPE all you who enter here" above the gates of hell. Man and Mouse know that they are frail and faulty, mortal and imperfect. God is love, Perfect LOVE, infinite, and immortal. The atheist says that there is no God, no LOVE, no perfection, no immortality, sowing despair among the victims of war and pestilence and discouragment. An atheist chaplain is going to be like pouring gasoline on an arson fire eating out the hearts of our countrymen.
April 29, 2011 at 7:17 pm
@Mouse: I thoroughly enjoyed your exchange with TastyPaper. You posts have clarity(something I pray to God for every day, sometimes twice a day)and exhibit a true affection for your adversary. Let us thank God for you and TastyPaper.
April 30, 2011 at 2:55 am
TastyPaper said…
Mary, Stephen Hawking also says "Science makes God unnecessary."
God is a PERSON,God is three Persons in the Triune God, Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Mankind is made in the image of God, a sovereign person worthy of all endowed civil rights, respect and acknowledgment of human dignity. SCIENCE IS NOT A PERSON. I REPEAT: SCIENCE IS NOT A PERSON, and if science is the god of Stephen Hawkings what respect and acknowledgment ought to be accorded to him and what self-respect can he have for himself as a non-person, or only a person not made in the image of the Divine Person of the God of LOVE??