What would an atheist chaplain do?

[bhsup]

Ideally that would be great, yes, but let's be honest here. Say you have a base with 1000 soldiers. Per the figures above, 700 or so will be Christian, 1 Muslim, 1 Jew, 1 Buddhist, etc... It's just not realistic to expect them to maintain multiple religious leaders of multiple religions for 1 or 2 soldiers of various faiths. That said, I do think if there are local sources they could tap on a contract basis, that would really be a possible solution.

 

[Borachio]

Well, yes. But of course!

But why not do that for the Christian soldiers (if there are any, and I must say I have my doubts as to their sincerity, but still who knows?) too?

And just have paid army counsellors for everyone as the need arises?

 

[bhsup]

But why not do that for the Christian soldiers (if there are any, and I must say I have my doubts as to their sincerity, but still who knows?) too?

religion is such a fundamental part of our lives that the military has an obligation to provide religious leaders for its troops

5char

 

[Borachio]

But not for the one or two minority religions that you mentioned earlier. I must say there's some shady thinking going on here.

It might be impractical to supply religious chaplains for these few, but if religion is such a fundamental part of your lives, why would you not?

Or are you equating religion with your religion?

 

[warpus]

@VRWCAgent Yeah, I can understand that. But if 68% of the soldiers on average are Christian, that still leaves a sizeable chunk of non-Christians to be catered to.

And again, if a Christian can go see a Muslim chaplain and that doesn't cause any issues, I don't see what's so controversial about a Christian going to see an atheist chaplain. Say you go see the chaplain and he's Buddhist. You go through the motions, he gives you advice, but then at the end he mentions that he's also atheist. Does that change the situation for some reason? It was fine when he's affiliated with a religion but not when he outright tells you he doesn't believe that God exists?

 

[bhsup]

An atheist cannot be a chaplain. They're....ATHEISTS! That's the whole gripe here. There are, as mobby pointed out, plenty of services available for atheists to avail themselves of offered by the military.

@Borachio: Because it just isn't realistic, or monetarily feasible. That's just the real world intruding on ideal "this is how we'd do it if we could" dream worlds.

EDIT: @Warpus: For the stuff you added on. I cannot speak to every situation or for everyone. Myself, personally, if I were still in the service, I probably wouldn't avail myself of a Buddhist priest for the very reason you mentioned. I'd much rather stick to at the very least someone in one of the Abrahamic faiths.

 

[warpus]

An atheist cannot be a chaplain. They're....ATHEISTS!

That's just not correct

Though originally the word "chaplain" referred to representatives of the Christian faith,[1] it is now also applied to people of other religions or philosophical traditions–such as in the case of the humanist chaplains serving with military forces in the Netherlands, Belgium and Canada.

Humanist chaplains are a thing. Some of them will be atheist and some of them won't.

And what's your take on an atheist Buddhist chaplain? A lot of Buddhists are atheist.

 

[bhsup]

Yes, it is correct. AN atheist cannot be a religious leader because they do not believe in any religion. It simply isn't possible, and anyone trying to become a religious leader while being an atheist is a fraud and should be brought up on charges for...well something. America is not the Netherlands, Belgium, or Canada. I couldn't care less how they do things in their military or country as a whole.

This, btw, should be the focus of this thread, not the demographic breakdown of the religious leaders in the military and the unfortunate fact that sometimes there is one person on a base that doesn't have a dedicated preacher for their faith. That's really a totally separate issue.

Regarding Buddhists, as I've said before I am pretty ignorant about them. I, again stated before, always thought that was more of a philosophy than a religion.

EDIT: That part about America vs the other countries comes across as snippy when I re-read it. I apologize, I really didn't mean it to sound like that. That said, I cannot think of how to reword it...

 

[Kyriakos]

That's just not correct



Humanist chaplains are a thing.

Humanists with a solid background in religious study can sometimes be a naziMartin Heidegger though

 

[Formaldehyde]

That 63.7% as evangelicals is inflated. The study inaccurately marked Lutherans and Episcopalians as evangelical traditions, among others. Huff Post had a story where they said 33% of chaplains are evangelicals, which seems to be far more accurate after a brief review of the MAAF data.

It doesn't include either Lutherans or Episcopalians in that group. Here is the raw data.

An atheist cannot be a chaplain. They're....ATHEISTS! That's the whole gripe here.

Yet Netherlands, Belgium, and Canada have humanist chaplains, as do a number of colleges now.

If I owned a race track where NASCAR appeared, I would go out of my way to have a humanist give the invocation.

 

[BvBPL]

Yet Netherlands, Belgium, and Canada have humanist chaplains, as do a number of colleges now.

You mentioned this before, but neglected to say what those chaplains do and how they are similar or different to US military chaplains.

 

[warpus]

Yes, it is correct.

It's not correct though - we have atheist chaplains here in Canada. They also exist n the Netherlands and wherever else. They are a thing, they exist, so what you're saying can't be correct.

If they couldn't be chaplains, they wouldn't exist. Yet they do!

AN atheist cannot be a religious leader because they do not believe in any religion. It simply isn't possible, and anyone trying to become a religious leader while being an atheist is a fraud and should be brought up on charges for...well something.

A chaplain isn't a purely religious post though, which is where you err. The definition includes humanists for example, which is a point you have not yet responded to.

America is not the Netherlands, Belgium, or Canada. I couldn't care less how they do things in their military or country as a whole.

I'm not saying "This is how we do it in Canada, so you guys should do the same thing"

I'm just using them to give you examples of atheist chaplains. They exist... yet you say they can't. So either you are wrong or they don't actually exist and I am wrong.

 

[bhsup]

Okay but see that's the thing. If you guys in Canada want to call atheists chaplains, I can't help that. I call that a very wrong label and just don't accept that. A chaplain must be religious or they simply are not a chaplain, period. To try to claim to be one if one is not religious is just a fraud being perpetrated on the world. In fact, I'd go so far to say that atheist chaplains are a concerted effort by some hidden atheist movement to try to undermine religion in the world.

 

[warpus]

Okay but see that's the thing. If you guys in Canada want to call atheists chaplains, I can't help that. I call that a very wrong label and just don't accept that. A chaplain must be religious or they simply are not a chaplain, period. To try to claim to be one if one is not religious is just a fraud being perpetrated on the world. In fact, I'd go so far to say that atheist chaplains are a concerted effort by some hidden atheist movement to try to undermine religion in the world.

Ahh, I knew you weren't being serious

And it's not just Canada calling chaplains that, it's just what chaplains are. They used to be Christian only, but that's old news.

I think the important thing to get out of this whole thing though is that non-religious people need spiritual guidance too from time to time, as well as that somebody who doesn't believe that God exists is able to provide such guidance. And if you don't think that such an atheist chaplain can accommodate your personal spiritual needs, then that's fine, but then we're back at square one, cause.. You could say the same thing about all the possible religious/humanist/whatever combinations of chaplains and chaplain service users.

If we were all of the same faith or all lacked faith this would be made a lot easier, but we're not.

 

[Lillefix]

Perhaps we should stop calling it chaplain and call it counselor or something like in Star Trek, and remove all religious connotations. Some counselors can still be religious of course, but that would be a private matter.

 

[Oruc]

Perhaps we should stop calling it chaplain and call it counselor or something like in Star Trek, and remove all religious connotations. Some counselors can still be religious of course, but that would be a private matter.

Religion shouldn't be a private matter.

 

[warpus]

Perhaps we should stop calling it chaplain and call it counselor or something like in Star Trek, and remove all religious connotations. Some counselors can still be religious of course, but that would be a private matter.

It's meant to be someone to provide spiritual guidance though, not just shrink-like advice. I wouldn't be against a name change, but I'm not sure if it would really fix anything

 

[Formaldehyde]

You mentioned this before, but neglected to say what those chaplains do and how they are similar or different to US military chaplains.

What makes you think they don't do what all chaplains do?

If you can accept that a Hindu or a Buddhist can act as a chaplain to Christian soldiers, why is the notion of a humanist apparently so abhorrent?

Perhaps we should stop calling it chaplain and call it counselor or something like in Star Trek, and remove all religious connotations. Some counselors can still be religious of course, but that would be a private matter.

You mean like calling "marriage" something different for homosexuals so as to not ostensibly offend some Christians?

 

[BvBPL]

What makes you think they don't do what all chaplains do?

That being?

 

[Lillefix]

It's meant to be someone to provide spiritual guidance though, not just shrink-like advice. I wouldn't be against a name change, but I'm not sure if it would really fix anything

Can someone Christian explain to me what "spiritual guidance" is, and why it's important? I would love to rant against it, but I honestly have no idea what it is. Do they need to regularly ask a priest what Jesus would do or something?