Members of the Cadet Interfaith Council at the Air Force Academy. They need to stop playing nice and halt the odious "witnessing" at the AFA once and for all!
As a new survey has been released from practicing believers of all faiths at the Air Force Academy, it becomes ever clearer that something must be done to control Evangelical's "witnessing" and keep it out of the large scale public domain.
Since the horrific abuse of non-Evangelical, non-Christian cadets some years ago (making them run a gauntlet called "Heathens' run") and get smacked with sticks and KJV Bibles on either side, much has been accomplished to alter the hostile atmosphere at the Academy. A major step has been founding of the Cadet Interfaith Council, in 2005, following an Air Force investigation concluding that "a lack of awareness exists over where the line is drawn between permissible and impermissible expression of beliefs."
Proselytizing, in other words. "Witnessing", as the evangelicals call it. Or, "personal terrorism", as I call it.
As I noted in an earlier blog, the psychological terror employed by fundies inheres in taking a perfectly NATURAL act(death) , and transmogrifying it into a fearful, fretful possible transition to "HELL". In this way, the natural human fear of death is metastasized and magnified out of all proportion to its actual import – leaving the person in near despair unless they are prepared to surrender control of their minds to the “witnesser”.
Emmett McLoughlin has noted that this sort of dynamic is responsible for hurling more people (all believers) into insane asylums and institutions than any thing else – even drug use! He estimates in one of his essays (‘Let the Statistics Tell Their Sad Story’) that more than one in every two now languishing in insane asylums or prisons are there because they succumbed to an inordinate fear of death.
Yet this is what the AFA belief-pushers seek to sow!
Despite some AFA soothsaying that "all is well now" (which even the members of the Cadet Interfaith Council suggest), controversy erupted in August after the latest gauge of the religious climate, and other issues, was withheld from public release by Superintendent Lt. Gen. Michael Gould. He refused to share details of the 2009-10 cadet climate survey, saying it was "pre-decisional" and, therefore, not subject to disclosure.
When the survey finally saw the light of day the results were appalling, to say the least:
- 41 percent of non-Christian cadets (including Buddhists, Jews, Hindus) responding to the survey said they were subjected to unwanted religious proselytizing. (For Christian cadets, it was three fold lower)
- 42 percent of non-Christian cadets said they were drawn into unwanted religious discussions, compared to 21 percent of Christians.
These unwanted "discussions" including pointed questions asking them if they were "prepared" to die, where they thought they'd spend eternity, and if they knew about "Hell".
Typically, the fundie would then deliver his magical prescription for "salvation", to believe on the Lord JC as Savior to spare a dying soul from Hell. But this is hogwash, since Jesus is not unique, even as a God –man! (See all my previous posts-blogs on pagan Christs, or better yet, get the book Pagan Christs, by J.M. Robertson)
In 2004, when the academy asked slightly different questions, just over half of non-Christians said they had not felt pressure to be involved in religion at the academy. One assumes, then, that just under half did feel pressure.
Also that year, more than 60 percent of non-Christian cadets said they had heard religious slurs and religiously demeaning jokes from evangelical, bible-puncher cadets. That question wasn't asked in the recent survey. But it did ask how often cadets had heard disparaging remarks about religious background, and only 34 percent had "never" heard such remarks.
What the bulk of respondents really show is that the AFA must put a more intense spotlight on the Evangelical SPIRE operation. SPIRE stands for Special Programs in Religious Education. The preponderance of freshmen who responded might have helped boost some of the final numbers on religious proselytizing, since they're maybe seen as open to new ideas. The minutes of the Cadet Interfaith Council's March meeting hint freshmen may be targeted: "Group leaders trying to convert each other at the SPIRE picnic (it scares the Freshmen). Result: ask the SPIRE leaders to stop."
Former Cadet Mikey Weinstein, a 1977 grad who was beaten up as a cadet for being Jewish, and organized the nonprofit, the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, is to be commended for keeping a spotlight on the AFA. Weinstein claims that Gould's decision to keep the AFA survey under wraps triggered dozens of calls and e-mails from cadets, graduates, professors and staff, who contend fundamentalist Christianity still reigns at the school, and is running amuck and out of control in many ways.
Weinstein says all of his contacts are "scared to death" to go through military protocols with their complaints. In a Sept. 28 letter to Secretary of Defense Robert Gates demanding an investigation, Weinstein insisted that more than 100 cadets have told him they pretend to be fundamentalist Christians in order to maintain good standing among their squadrons and superiors. Weinstein claims the group consists mostly of Christians who "aren't Christian enough or the right kind of Christians." The latter obviously means the same "weak Christians" (like Anglicans, Catholics, etc.) singled out for Hell by the likes of Pastor Mike too - since they don't follow the bible to the point of idolatry or believe in the Lord JC as personal Savior. So, it's off to Hell for them....with the atheists!
It is time now to halt this second class treatment of cadets at the Air Force Academy once and for all, and that implies getting control of all the evangelicals running wild and "sharing their faith" when no one cares two jack spades about it, at least the non-Christian cadets. The latter should not be intimidated into compliance with a false Christianity based more on delusions, pseudo-interpretations and anti-intellectualism than genuine pursuit of truth. Oh wait, that's right! They believe they already have all the truth!
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