[Vision2020] Of, By & 4

[Donovan Arnold]

Paul,
   
  I guess we just have had different experiences and a difference in what we consider higher standards. More people and society try to convince me to be atheist than to believe in and follow my faith. There are people that try to share their faith with me, but they don't force it on me, or call me stupid because I don't believe as they do. Nor do I believe that this solider is being prevented from expressing his view on his religion. 
   
  "Refused a leadership position based 
solely on his beliefs" would be another.
   
  That is OK with me. Most people are not leaders. Their ability to relate to the group, understand the group, think like the group, and be looked up to by the group is an important part of being the group leader. I could accept a group leader of the basketball team, or at work as an atheist. But not a person that was to lead the nation, or to lead me to a potential death. I would not want to die in a fox hole with an atheist, it would be a lonely death to me. My belief in God is a big part of me, and how I think of what is right and wrong, and what decisions I make. An Atheist rejects that part of me, and I just could not follow someone that rejected such an important part of who I am as a person.  
   
  "He probably has bought into the fallacy that the US government is 
supposed to care about inequality, prejudice, and other such topics."
   
  The military does care about those things, it defends them by defending this nation. However, it does not operate on the principle. Its mission is to protect the United States. It is not about equal opportunity employment. It is about making decisions that are best for the defense of this nation, that is the only real concern because there would not even be a country without the military discriminating against who it has a leaders and soldiers. 
   
  Best Regards,
   
  Donovan
   
  
Paul Rumelhart <godshatter at yahoo.com> wrote:
  Donovan Arnold wrote:
> Finally, most Christians, Jews, and Muslims, do not force or push 
> their religion on others. I have a VERY difficult time believing that 
> every one every where in the military is forced to follow the beliefs 
> of one minority religion. I don't buy that argument.
> 
I have found that to be untrue. I can't speak about Jews and Muslims, 
but evangelism seems to be a primary tenet of most Christian faiths. I 
have been preached to by many different people , all of whom have had 
the worthy goal of saving my soul. So far, they've all failed miserably 
through no fault of their own. 

It's been my experience that atheists and/or agnostics are much more 
comfortable with people believing differently from themselves than most 
Christians are. The only line they seem to draw is when Christianity 
tries to coopt the science classroom, and I can agree with them there.

> What I see is a guy that has zero respect for the beliefs of his 
> fellow soldiers, and because of that lack of respect, he didn't get a 
> leadership position that he thinks he is entitled to have.

That's one way to look at it. "Refused a leadership position based 
solely on his beliefs" would be another.
> 
> I don't think this guy understands or respects people or the 
> government which he is suing.
> 
> You are accepting this guy's allegations with no facts to back up 
> anything he is saying or claiming. Nobody else is backing this guy's 
> remarks except his lawyers. Why would a guy want to lead a bunch of 
> fundamentalists for an organization he is suing? Something is amiss.

He probably has bought into the fallacy that the US government is 
supposed to care about inequality, prejudice, and other such topics. I 
would say that he respects the government more by trying to hold it to 
higher standards than those who feel free to abuse their power just 
because they can ever will. By the way, he doesn't care if he's leading 
fundamentalists or atheists, it's the fundamentalists that apparently 
can't stand the difference.

He has the forlorn hope that this government actually cares about the 
principles it was founded upon from the beginning. I hope they let him 
down easy.

Paul





       
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