One thing I worry about that is a potential major barrier to secularism is this: a “pernicious pattern and practice” of infringement of religious liberties in the military.
I’m not the violent sort, and I think we need to achieve an enlightened society through reason and education … but that’s all futile when the other side is busily gathering the guns.
Zealotry and militarism always seem to go hand in hand.
The military responds exactly as it did to sexual and before that racial discrimination: meh.
The military responds exactly as it did to sexual and before that racial discrimination: meh.
It’s not just “meh,” but, “we’ll protect those hated folks by giving in to the haters.”
Personally I find the most disturbing part of this article the statement that it is reported that a large number of these cases are of Christian servicemen who are being pressed towards accepting a specific “fundamentalist evangelical interpretation of Christianity.”
I think it very much typifies the situation as a specific effort to create a theologically pure (in thier opinion) position of control within the military.
The military attitude here is understandable: soldiers not willing to kill for Christ have no business being over there among those vile heathens. Iraq is, after all, an important part of the Crusade.
Philip Zimbardo of Stanford has studied the question of good people doing bad things.
http://www.apa.org/monitor/oct04/goodbad.html
“Zimbardo said the experiment provides several lessons about how situations can foster evil:
* Provide people with an ideology to justify beliefs for actions.
* Make people take a small first step toward a harmful act with a minor, trivial action and then gradually increase those small actions.
* Make those in charge seem like a “just authority.”
* Transform a once compassionate leader into a dictatorial figure.
* Provide people with vague and ever-changing rules.
* Relabel the situation’s actors and their actions to legitimize the ideology.
* Provide people with social models of compliance.
* Allow dissent, but only if people continue to comply with orders.
* Make exiting the situation difficult.
Particularly notable, Zimbardo said, is that people are seduced into evil by dehumanizing and labeling others.”
There is also this lecture by him.
Much of what he says directly applies to the military.
Hmmm. Lets look at this.
Fundamentalism:
-Demands complete and utter belief that what you’re leaders state is the undeniable truth regardless of any evidence to the contrary.
-Requires unwavering obedience if you do not want to endure undending suffering.
-Separates from all other groups and believes that only they will be allowed into heaven and that all others will burn in hell and thus become natural enemies who are a threat to the salvation of the goup.
Now tell me again why are we are surprised that military officers are operating as the executive of this movement?
Has unwavering belief in religion not been utilized for all of written history and probably longer by leaders to convince people of their duty to their God and his chosen leaders to commit atrocities to other groups who happen to be on the other side?
I pity the poor guy mentioned who is the brunt of this needless hatred.
Jamie
My little brother, 21, was as much of a secular atheist as I am until about a year and a half ago — when he joined the Army. They “converted” him (I can think of a more apt term) over the course of about 3 months. He’s currently serving in Iraq, much to my chagrin, and it’s become obvious to me through our weekly chats that he is sliding more and more toward the fundamental side of Christianity. Oddly, though he insists that he hates being in Iraq, he said he intends to vote for John McCain in the general election.
I will not go into detail for his sake, but the Army has also turned my little brother into a bit of a depraved sadist. It’s quite sad.
Should have worked with the moderates in the mess hall to effect change and kept his mouth shut.
Bernada,
I have to wonder if officers are taught about Milgram during their training. Reports of abuses from Iraq would suggest that either they have not, or if they were refresher training might be in order.
Matt @ #10
I know whenever I’ve been in a psychology or sociology class (high school or college) learning about the Milgram experiment (or any sort of demonstration of the fact most people are easily pulled under by authority), most of the class seems to think they’d be part of the minority who would rebel against authority. It just doesn’t sink in. I can’t image that college kids would be that much different than officers in training.
(As for me, I’m cynical enough to think I’m not going to be the exception, unless I take extra care to be skeptical.)
Becca,
I know I would like to think I would be part of the minority but I am not at all sure I would.
Has anyone ever done any research on how religious beliefs correlates with all this. I would hazard a bet that the more fundamentalist a person is the more likely they are to go along with the torture.
Wasn’t this pretty much predicted by Chris Hedges in his book, American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America? If he is correct, I guess we can expect the evangelicals’ para-military wing, Blackwater, to start patrolling the streets any day now.
Who would have thought, freethinkers alongside Hedges and other “reasonable” believers in a confrontation with the real lunatic fringe. Dark days indeed.
If this is a hot-button for issue (and why shouldn’t it be), then here’s some recommended reading for you:
With God On Our Side
I felt that the text was a bit too melodramatic at times, but still… a good read.
#7, where did that definition of fundamentalism come from?
Is there a way we can support the freethinking groups in the military?
There are no atheists in mess halls, I guess.
Matt,
I’m a Major in the USAF. All officers and enlisted get annual training in the law of armed conflict (LOAC) which covers Geneva Convention rules for treatment of prisoners. I don’t recall offhand getting specific training by the military on the Stanford prison experiment but officers and enlisted are generally very educated and most know about it. I would caution about making an implied connection between religious zealotry and prisoner abuse. If Zimbardo showed us anything it was that anyone, even atheists, are capable of committing abuses. What has happened to prisoners was wrong and was the result of poor leadership. But I would point out that it was someone in the military who exposed that wrong, as we are trained and obligated to do, and it was the military that took corrective action.
For those of you who think the military goes “meh” to racial and sexual discrimination; I don’t know when or what service you were in or when but in my twenty years of service I have seen Colonels who engaged in sexual harassment and discrimination railroaded out of the service and charges of racial discrimination dealt with quickly. I’m not saying discrimination doesn’t happen but to suggest a general complacency in the military on these issues is disingenuous.
In regards to Hall’s situation, as a member of the Military Association of Atheists and Freethinkers I’m very familiar with it. Because of the legal authority officers have over those of lower rank I think religious problems like Hall’s are more common for enlisted members and cadets who feel they don’t have any recourse when confront by evangelical officers. There are rules against what the Major did to Hall but they need to be emphasized and enforced, with emphasis on the enforcement.
As a former Officer in the U.S. Navy, I fortunately was not subjected to such bigotry, but I did witness a few cases of careless or inconsistent handling of religion by people in authority.
First, our junior Chaplain forwarded an email to everyone (using his Chaplain’s distribution privileges) that equated being Christian with being patriotic. While I was used to seeing generic “God Bless”-type emails, it was clear that this one violated acceptable standards, so I complained, and he was counseled on it (and apologized to me). That was more a result of being careless and unthinking than being malicious, I believe.
Second, our Commanding Officer dictated that no non-emergency announcements would be done on Sundays since that day is to be a day for people to rest (a welcome thing on a ship). However, he also required that announcements for religious services still be made (all of them were listed on the day’s schedule); I raised an objection, but it was never considered.
There is definitely favortism for religion and religious activities in the military and a general lack of understanding that what may be “normal” for many is unjust for others. The prospect of such fundamentalist zealots in the ranks worries me greatly, as the potential damage from conscious efforts of harassment far exceed the damage from careless oversights; there needs to be more dialogue and discussion about clearer standards for acceptable and unacceptable exercises of religion and personal creeds in the military.
Rigoletto – opera lover? – I thank you for your comments. Apparently you watched the video, because that is where Zimbardo emphasizes that anyone is susceptible.
Check out Mikey Weinstein’s Military Religious Freedom Foundation:
http://militaryreligiousfreedom.org/
Also check out his book, With God On Our Side: One Man’s War Against an Evangelical Coup in America’s Military.
http://tinyurl.com/2t3wst
Weinstein was a USAF Academy grad (’77, IIRC) who became a prominent, GOP-connected Telecom attorney – enough so that he was named to the USAFA Overseers Board, a largely toothless equivalent of a Board of Regents. He was radicalized when his cadet sons, earlier this decade, encountered pervasive, Jew-baiting proselytizing during their stays at the Academy. His book is a real eye-opener. Needless to say, Weinstein wore out his welcome on the Overseers Board.
Rigoletto,
It was not my intention to suggest that religious beliefs played a role in what happened in Abu Ghraid, but I would hypothesise that people holding religious views where questioning of faith is discouraged may be less likely to stand up when abuses take place. I am not aware of any data to support that though. It is also the case that
With regards training, I would contend that any officer who was in charge of a prison and was not aware of Milgram has not received proper training. Learning about lack of supervision can lead to abuses is one thing, realising how easy it is for otherwise decent people to become involved in the abuse by studying Milgram I suspect would bring the point home much better.
I found this comment from the article very typical of the Army’s response to this problem:
The reason they have so few complaints about xtians pushing their views on others is that the fundies aren’t nice people. If you complain, even about egregious behavior, they will retaliate. I have first hand experience with these assholes.
A few years ago I was a reserve officer assigned to a division staff. One of my jobs was to lead a command inspection team that inspected our subordinate brigades. During one of these inspections, I was approached by two captains who were very upset that the brigade commander had forced them to participate in prayers during the command and staff meetings. The prayers were led by a fundy chaplain (a real piece of work in his own right, but that’s another story), and the fundy brigade commander’s excuse was that the division commander had ordered him to pray for the troops. That was a lie, but in any case, no commander has the authority to tell his/her soldiers when and how to pray.
When I raised the issue with the division inspector general, I discovered that he was also a fundy and sympathetic to the brigade commander. He sent email to a higher level IG, who said the prayers were okay as long as they were “non-sectarian”. Aside from being blatantly un-Constitutional, the IG’s opinion was also a violation of Army regs.
Now for the fun part – I was labeled a trouble-maker. Decorated combat vet, unblemished military record, etc., but suddenly I’m tagged for every “random” urinalysis, excluded from emails announcing command vacancies, and my name is mentioned more than a few times in sentences that contain “Baghdad” and “Kandahar.” All the while being accused of being a muslim sympathizer, a wiccan, or some other pejorative du jour. And you know what pissed them off the most? I wouldn’t give them the names of the captains who originally complained. Both were on the promotion list to major, and I knew their promotions would be tanked if anyone found out.
So there you have it – xtian values at their finest.
For those of you who think the military goes “meh” to racial and sexual discrimination; I don’t know when or what service you were in or when but in my twenty years of service I have seen Colonels who engaged in sexual harassment and discrimination railroaded out of the service
I’m sorry, what? We’ve seen case after case after case of female servicepeople raped, harassed, and gotten after, such that there were reports of women in Iraq suffering health problems because they were afraid of having to go to the bathroom alone at night so they weren’t drinking enough water, domestic violence among servicemen against their usually non-serving spouses being out of control (especially lately), and the kind of rampant sexist attitudes Ginmar, a disabled female veteran describes daily, and you’re trying to tell us that sexual discrimination in the military is usually handled with discretion and dispatch? I recall hearing one veteran posting on another blog how he was lectured in in-class training about not interfering in a sexual assault because it would damage unit cohesion and morale. Even one story of that type indicates a problem, given how many incidents never get reported (usually because the reporter fears not being believed or recrimination or both). So give me a break. All modern militaries are sexist by nature; the US military is no exception or no particular exemplar.
Further, fundamentalist Christianity of all stripes is explicitly misogynist, so the wholesale adoption of these attitudes within the military means more and bigger problems with at least sexual harassment and assault.
I had the good fortune to meet Philip Zimbardo at a conference last October. He’s a very interesting individual, and clearly a man of long thought; he also impressed everyone by looking like Mephistopheles.
From the Wikipedia article on the Stanford Prison experiment:
Yes, a very interesting individual indeed.
Here is just another blatant fact that flies in the face
of reality. Where was their god when all those soldiers
were horridly maimed and killed? This incredible fact
should be so obvious and thought-provoking, and yet the
religious among them never give it a thought, let alone
dwell on it when their religious buddy is blown to bits.
I am sure that after the religious services to invoke the
imaginary ghost’s protection, they go out into the field
and imagine they are free from harm by their god. And yet
the slaughter continues, with the religious dying right
along with the atheist, with the religious thinking and
hoping that his god will protect him and the devil will
take the atheist. Utter insanity.
Holbach @27:
Insanity is a good way to put it. I was a non-believer long before I ever served in a combat zone, but my experiences there confirmed for me that hell is not a component of any afterlife. It’s something humans create right here on earth. Furthermore, even if the xtians’ god could prove his existence, I still wouldn’t worship him. Any being with the power to stop that kind of suffering who refuses to do so is worthy only of contempt.
We have one thing to cheer us up. They may be gathering all of the guns, but they still haven’t figured out that we are gathering all of the brains. Guns aren’t the only way to destroy enemies, and when push comes to shove as it seems it might, I’ll stick with the side with the brains.
In The Lucifer Effect, Zimbardo describes how after just a few days, he was acting more like a prison warden than a scientist supervising an experiment. . . it’s a genuinely frightening book.
“Further, fundamentalist Christianity of all stripes is explicitly misogynist,”
I would add that it seems to be the same with the fundamentalist Muslims and though I have no real knowledge about the other religions that have a fundamentalist segment but I would bet that the same could be said for them as well.
If that is true, what are the things that are common to all of the fundamentalists and is there anything we can do to understand the “roots” to their actions to help them and ourselves escape the inevitable pointless and endless conflict?
“Further, fundamentalist Christianity of all stripes is explicitly misogynist,”
I would add that it seems to be the same with the fundamentalist Muslims and though I have no real knowledge about the other religions that have a fundamentalist segment but I would bet that the same could be said for them as well.
If that is true, what are the things that are common to all of the fundamentalists and is there anything we can do to understand the “roots” to their actions to help them and ourselves escape the inevitable pointless and endless conflict?
Hi mark @15. The definition was nothing more than a personal collection of interpretations of what I have read and witnessed.
In other words, nothing but ramblings from an unofficial source without any real authority on the matter. :o)
Keep you’re stick on the ice.
Jamie
OCF’s aim, as stated on its website, is to achieve “a spiritually transformed military, with ambassadors for Christ in uniform, empowered by the Holy Spirit.”
This is fucking scary…
Back in 1988 when I was in Hospital Corpsman ‘A’ school a female Chief petty officer was teaching our class about, and this is ironic, respecting people of other faiths in regards to our medical treatment of them. She asked if there were any Catholics, Buddhists, Baptists and people raised their hands and when she asked if their were any atheists I raised mine. A few others also raised theirs after they saw they wouldn’t be the only ones but the Chief had seen my hand first and just stared at me. Then she began asking me questions seeming at first to be merely curious but later becomming confrontational. When she asked me what I thought happened when we died I told her that we merely decompose and went on to explain that my grandfather was, at that time, dying of cancer in the hospital and while I loved him and would be saddened when he eventually died that I would not believe in a magical afterlife just because it might be comforting. She was irritated by my answer and tried to make it seem like I didn’t care about my grandfather because I didn’t wan’t him to go to heaven. Her disgust with me was obvious to everyone in my class.
After lunch the next day a note was passed to her from someone in the office and she announced, rather flatly, that my grandfater had died and that I was to report to the office for a pass to go to the funeral (or liberty or whatever they called it). She then announced that she wasn’t going to let me go. I am guessing she was waiting for a reaction from me but she never got it, the rest of the class began objecting before I could even open my mouth. After a minute or so she told me to go but asked me why I even bothered since I obviously didn’t believe in a soul. I told her that my family was grieving and that I was going to comfort them, and then I left.
I never saw that Chief in a classroom again but she did show me how intolerant my superiors could be even back then if you didn’t agree with them – in EVERY way. Military personel are trained to respect their superior officers and when those officers abuse their position of authority and cross the line into matters of personal belief we have a grave problem.
It looks like we are under seige from the evangelicals on every side, they are in our schools, in our pharmacies, in our government, and in our military. They are cranking out lawyers, teachers, and faux-scientists by the bushel in a bid to twist society to their will. Mark my words, this coup is FAR from over. Their plan is generational.
It’s worthwhile to note that some in the Milgram experiment did walk out, disgusted by the experiment.
It is doubly worthwhile to note that even of those who walked out after delivering shocks, not a single one went to check on the “victim” who’d been yelping in pain (and, in some cases, had been yelping in pain, then screaming, and then silent.
Kyle, sorry to hear about your brother. That really sucks. My brother is essentially also heavily religious, diagnosed schizophrenic and in an institution, but at least he’s not a sadist.
I have been an enlistedman in the U.S. Navy for five years and I figured I’d toss on my two cents. Judging from all the stories we have heard about bigotry of all types in the modern military it would be ridiculous to argue that it doesn’t happen. From my own experience, however, I can tell you that it is by no means ubiquitous. I have been openly atheistic since day one and have never personally been subjected to any discrimination of any kind. On Naval Base Guam I was even allowed to use the base chapel facilities to host an MAAF meeting. I just want to make sure that people don’t get the idea that there is some kind of constant pressure to “be religious” on the lower ranks. When these incidents happen, I imagine it is generally individual jackasses not supported by the organisation or command in general.
Eric Paulsen, it is very interesting to hear events like you recount, especially for someone like me who has no first hand experience. My brother was in the army long ago, but has told me very little about it.
A fitting last line to the article and stated by a former military chaplain no less. I wonder, even in his conflicts with more fundamentalist believers, if he sees the deep rooted conflict of that statement and his protest against those who, with the scriptural support of the very same faith he espouses, act on it?
*NOW* we know why you are a devo guy….
I was a Spc in the Army at a base in California from 2003-2005. My platoon sergeant (my immediate superior) was a fundamentalist Christian who broke regulations by trying to convert her subordinates. People reported her to the EO officer all the time, but the only thing that ever happened was that she would hold platoon meetings explaining that she was just trying to help us. She was also amazingly incompetent, which I think is why she never managed to harass anyone all that effectively, but nothing was done about her “witnessing” until we got a new First Sergeant, who replaced her because she was so incompetent.
I still remember the time she ran into me when I was off duty. I was having a horrible day, I’d had a fight with my partner, and she made me stand there for half an hour while she talked about how concerned she was about me, because I seemed sad and she knew I didn’t have the love of Jesus to make me happy again so how was I going to stand it? I still have nightmares about it.
She did seem to be a minority on that particular base, though.
Well, at least there isn’t a fundamentalist mercenary army named Blackwater with a hundred thousand soldiers with nothing to do when/if we get out of Iraq. No, sir, there won’t be any mercenary army sympathetic to dominionist rhetoric stationed around the country, with nothing to do and no-one left to kill, ready to be hired to fight for Christian Fascism in our own backyards.
No siree.
Matt @ 33:
I couldn’t agree more. That statement is a bit chilling. Religiously controlled armies don’t exactly have the best history.
In reply to #24…
To be fair, the problems that I’ve read about have all involved the Army or the Marines, not the Air Force or Navy (with whom the previous posters served.) I’m not saying there aren’t problems in those branches, but I don’t believe that they’ve been directly involved in anything I’ve read about in the last year or two.
Also, those dehydrated women you mentioned actually died.
Matt – thanks for clarifying. Whether or not religiosity plays a role in accepting that type of behavior is a good question. I would definitely agree that any officer placed in charge of a prison should be thoroughly educated in Zimbardo’s work.
T.A.C. – my point exactly. I’ve never had any problems with religion while on active duty. Once as a cadet I was “witnessed” by an officer who was supposed to be conducting a performance feedback. I listened quietly then just tossed the book he gave me in the trash after I left.
Interrobang – Let me clarify. There is a decided difference between official policy and individual, and even unit, actions as TAC as outlined. My point is that the military is not, as a whole, complacent on these issues as anyone who has been in the military will tell you. There is no denying that sexual harassment, rape and racial and religious discrimination happens, goes unreported, and is wrong. However, to assume these behaviors are part and parcel of the military is a disservice to the vast majority of personnel who do not engage in those behaviors and actively look out for each other.
Josh,
Actually, that story may not be credible. According to an article at Salon.com:
Last year, Col. Janis Karpinski caused a stir by publicly reporting that in 2003, three female soldiers had died of dehydration in Iraq, which can get up to 126 degrees in the summer, because they refused to drink liquids late in the day. They were afraid of being raped by male soldiers if they walked to the latrines after dark. The Army has called her charges unsubstantiated, but Karpinski told me she sticks by them. (Karpinski has been a figure of controversy in the military ever since she was demoted from brigadier general for her role as commander of Abu Ghraib. As the highest-ranking official to lose her job over the torture scandal, she claims she was scapegoated, and has become an outspoken critic of the military’s treatment of women. In turn, the Army has accused her of sour grapes.)
So which hearsay do you believe; the disgruntled, demoted officer trying to regain her reputation or the image conscious Army trying to maintain theirs? I tried to find more substantive, unbiased information but couldn’t. If anyone has any better resource I’d like to see it.
Interesting that this came up today, my little brother is coming home on leave from the Air Force tomorrow. He’s been stationed in Japan and hasn’t been home in a year and a half. I’m going to have to talk to him about this. He’s not an atheist but belongs to a rather liberal church so I know that sort of behavior would bother him as much as me.
Am I being too apocalyptic in worrying that the US military is exactly the wrong organization you want to be full of faith heads? Aren’t these the people who have the capability to largely empty the planet of life? Imagine a White House and Military full of wackos who’ve read one too many “Left Behind” books. Not good.
“Am I being too apocalyptic in worrying that the US military is exactly the wrong organization you want to be full of faith heads? Aren’t these the people who have the capability to largely empty the planet of life? Imagine a White House and Military full of wackos who’ve read one too many “Left Behind” books. Not good.”
Well you certainly would not want to have anyone who thinks that they are engage in some kind of holy war against Islam serving. It would also be nice to have those at the top be willing to say no to politicians sometimes.
Sorry if this is slightly off-topic but I wanted to point PZ’s attention to this nonsense being propagated by the supposedly liberal UK government:
http://www.pm.gov.uk/output/Page14536.asp
See here for my comments:
http://johnfalla.wordpress.com/2008/02/15/faith-schools/
No, you’re definitely not wrong in thinking that. The military, like the government (its employer) is supposed to be a secular institution and tolerant of all faiths.
I’m not sure there’s much imagination needed. “A White House and Military full of wackos who’ve read one too many ‘Left Behind’ books” is, in my estimation, just what we have now.
Sorry about comment #39. That was meant for the Poseur thread.
<wanders off mumbling to himself…/>
Please, people, get a grip with all of this ‘imminent Dominionist takeover of America’-mongering. That’s the liberal secular version of the imminent sharia takeover of the Western civilization. Are there some real issues here? Sure, and they can be considered without indulging in phantasmagoric paranoia.
And if I were the paranoid type, I would be more worried about Europe, which has seen the increasing electoral success of nativist ethnonationalist parties.
Come to think of it, the “imminent Dominionism” scenario (see: Chris Hedges et al.) mirrors TWO right wing tropes: 1) the “Reconquista” of America and 2) “Eurabia.”
Matt #48,
Isn’t the military accountable to the civilian public primarily through politicians and perhaps occasionally their appointees?
Looked like a chance for a plug!
Michael Weinstein, February 16, 6PM
Michael Weinstein, president of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation will be speaking at Town Hall. He is currently involved in multiple church-state issues involving the U.S. military, including a court case involving an Army major who allegedly threatened to retaliate against a soldier who convened a meeting of atheists.WHEN: Saturday, February 16, 6:00PM
WHERE: Seattle’s Town Hall, lower level. 1119 Eighth Avenue (at Seneca Street)
Maybe you have reported on this before, but there is this infamous propaganda film by Christian Embassy.
Jeebus freaks in government gone wild.
Josh in CA @ 43:
There is big talabangelical proselytization problem at the USAF Academy, which is located just outside of Colorado Springs, the city that is home base to many of the poobahs of the Xtian right. Check out the “Current Issues” tab at the Military Religious Freedom Foundation site that I linked to above at comment #21. Here’s the deep-linking URL:
http://militaryreligiousfreedom.org/urgent_issues.html
Eric, I’m sorry you went through that. I’ve heard urban legends of the sort, but were never sure if they were real. I just don’t understand the mindset that you shouldn’t be upset about someone dying if you’re an atheist. Wouldn’t that make you more sad, because now they’re dead and gone? I would love for someone to tell that officer that, in fact, SHE should be the one not needing leave when, say, her mother dies, because she will be jumping with joy that her mom’s with Jesus now, right?