Bombs for Jesus

Sorry for the delay on my promised post (not that I have an audience). I sometimes get distracted.
In the article I linked before is described an ethics class given to military officers. Ethics are a good thing to be teaching people who are ingaged in a conflict. Especially since the conflict in which these people are engaged is one where pressing buttons or giving orders can lead to a number of deaths. I would even go so far as to say it is imperative to be sure that military officers have a strong ethical foundation. These classes in particular were taught by chaplains, which may not be of issue in and of itself. Many religious officials have gone to school and studied many philosophical points of view and are very likely equiped to offer a class on general ethical principals.

Unfortunately these classes in particular were taught bibilical ethics.

"There were several things that they found disgusting," Mikey Weinstein founder of the [Military Religious Freedom Foundation] said. "The first was the fact that there is actually a slide that makes it clear that they're trying to teach that, under fundamentalist Christian doctrine, war is a good thing."

There are a few obvious objections that a secularist would immediately raise. Nevermind those. Nevermind the fact not everyone in the military is christian or religious. Nevermind religious chauvinism. Lets instead think about the ramifications of what these types of ethical lessons might have on the christians who take this class.

You take a soldier, one that already believes in an omnipotent, omnibenevolent, omniscient God. You teach this soldier that war is sanctioned by God. You show him the passages where war is commanded by God. This is all set amongst a backdrop of standard Christian doctrine: belivers go to paradise and non-believers deservedly recieve eternal torture. You take this soldier and you place him in a conflict where there are obvious religious lines drawn (intentionally or not). Now you give this soldier power. You give him missles. You give him command of other soldiers. You give him authority.

It seems like a volitile situation from my point of view. Now mind you, I'm only privy to the information in the article. I wouldn't dare accuse anyone in our armed forces of falling into this category without evidence. But as someone sitting on the sidelines, as someone who has seen how egregious acts become honorable in the eyes of fanatics, I would not think we would want to take the chance of poking that nest of bees.


But on a good note, here is one of the many, many totally awesome things that have come out of the US military