crazyfingers

Some at Pentagon decry invitation to evangelist

What on Earth is the Pentagon doing having a good friday prayer service?

I can live with the idea that troops in foreign lands benefit from chaplains but it's not like the Pentagon is in the Iraqi desert. There are plenty of Churches in the Washingtom area.

And that's of course in addition to who they actually picked to do this. :banghead:

Jewel

It's bad enough they have a chaplain's office -- payed for with tax payor money, no doubt. But they also feel the need to alienate those of non Christain faiths and those of us with no faith.

I noticed that in the article the chaplain's office downplayed the complaints saying that theycame from a "small group of Muslims working at the Pentagon". Like it matters whether there were 5 or 500 complaints. It is inappropriate.

Jewel

Also, speaking of government and Good Friday. When I was on my way to work yesterday I passed City Hall and saw a cross on the lawn beside it (still city property) with a proselytizing message painted on it.

This morning I brought my camera and took a picture:

crazyfingers

If that was my town I'd be on the phone to town hall pronto.

Shake

Well, I hate to do it, but I'm gonna play devil's advocate here for a sec.

I think the military is very responsible in looking out for its peoples needs ... soldiers, sailors, and airmen have spiritual needs, whether we agree with them or not. Now, I do think it's a problem that non-believing military members have no one other than their supervisors or perhaps the nice mental health people to go to for similar counselling, but I think that could be rectified.

Let me first state that I don't think that there should be any religious service at the Pentagon (Xian, Jewish, Muslim, etc). We also need to ask some questions about the service. Is it being held during work hours (lunch not included)? Are all employees required to attend? Is it being held in a public area? My opinion is that if the answer to all of these questions is "no," then, I have no (other than what I mentioned above) problem with them having such a service. If they want to use their lunch time, or do it after work, and it's not mandatory, then I wouldn't care what they do. Another consequence then should be that there should be no stink made if the Muslims want to have their own service on one of their holy days (or for Ramadan, for example).

Let me reiterate that I basically share your views that such a service shouldn't be taking place, but we don't have the full details either.

I don't know. It's better just NOT to have these sort of things and keep places (esp. gov't buildings like the Pentagon) secular. We wouldn't want to have to have everyone wearing some sort of symbol of their religious beliefs on their badges or clothing (like in WWII-era Germany). I agree, religion has no place in the workplace, especially in gov't.

ImGod

Stample a stuffed easter bunny to the cross and take another picture for us.

nj_heathens

Absolutely! And if you'll just post your home address, we'll all send bail money.

Mrs. Heathen

Jewel

It didn't sound like you were playing devi's advocate to me .

Seriously, you brought up some good points. I agree that the spiritual needs soldiers should me met by a military chaplain when in the field. For that matter, I pretty much agree with the rest of your post, too.

Having a chaplains office in a government building is just asking for trouble. Inevitably there will be people (employees) who will be offended by the actions of that office and it just opens the door to further entanglement of government and religion.


Don't tempt me . However, I should not have posted about finding that cross in this thread. Starting my own thread here about it was an afterthought. My apologies to crazyfingers for derailing his thread.

-Jewel