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| Author | Topic: Air Force Academy creates worship area for Pagans, Druids, and Wiccans | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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ZephyrWiccan Junior Member (Idle past 1063 days) Posts: 9 Joined: |
Nice to see progress is being made in this country, at least in the armed forces (it was about three years ago - will be exactly three years on the 23rd that the Veterans Admin. made the decision to allow us (Wiccans like me who served our country in the armed forces) to put symbols of our faith on our tombstones. Hopefully other branches will follow the Air force. Here's the link to the story: http://content.usatoday.com/...ship-area-for-pagans-druids/1 Here's the article: The chief of the academy has made religious tolerance a priority after 2004 a survey of cadets found instances of harassment, the Air Force Times reports. On the school's Website, public affairs Staff Sgt. Don Branum says the new area, featuring a circle of stone formed by inner and outer rings, will join other worship areas on campus for Protestants, Catholics, Jews, Muslims and Buddhists. Tech. Sgt. Brandon Longcrier, who became a Pagan after joining the academy, worked with the chapel to create the new site and asked the public to "treat it as you would any other religious structure." "There really haven't been any obstacles for the new circle," he said. "The chaplain's office has been 100-percent supportive." One of the chaplains, Lt. Col. William Ziegler, said the dedication of the site should be "another example of celebrating the freedom we enjoy as well as the freedom we, as Airmen, have pledged to defend." "If you take [a copy of] the Christian Bible and put it out in the wind and the rain, soon the paper on which the words are printed will disintegrate and the words will be gone. Our bible IS the wind and the rain." --Carol McGrath “An' it harm none, "Mind the Threefold Law you should,
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Admin Director  Posts: 11271 From: EvC Forum Joined: Member Rating: 9.6 |
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Buzsaw Member (Idle past 122 days)  Posts: 9158 From: new york usa Joined: |
Hi ZeppherWiccan. I'm glad that Wiccan paganism wasn't acknowledged at West Point when my son was there and back in the 1950s when I was in the USAF. If Jehovah, the Biblical god be true, Wiccan and other forms of paganism become a curse to a culture. Things did not go well when Israel allowed the pagan high places and King Saul was rejected as king when he consulted the Witch Of Endor. If Jehovah be true, things will not go as well with the Air Force Academy and the USAF for accommodating Wicca and other pagan activities on campus. BUZSAW B 4 U 2 C Y BUZ SAW. The immeasurable present eternally extends the infinite past and infinitely consumes the eternal future.
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Rahvin Member  Posts: 3821 Joined: Member Rating: 9.6 |
Don't Wiccans and other non-Christian individuals have the right to worship according to the dictates of their own conscience? Aren't they guaranteed the exact same freedom of religion granted to Christians? Don;t they have the right to a place of worship and consideration from the military chaplains just like Christians do?
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bluescat48 Member (Idle past 165 days)  Posts: 2347 From: United States Joined: |
Which Jehovah? The one who creates things and when humans, act human destroys what he creates, or the one his alleged son taught about? You sound like a member of the KKK or a fascist. There is no better love between 2 people than mutual respect for each other WT Young, 2002 Who gave anyone the authority to call me an authority on anything. WT Young, 1969 Since Evolution is only ~90% correct it should be thrown out and replaced by Creation which has even a lower % of correctness. W T Young, 2008
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DrJones* Member  Posts: 1511 From: Edmonton, Alberta, Canada Joined: |
To be fair to Buz and now i feel dirty, he didn't say that they shouldn't be allowed to practice their religion (though i suspect those are his true feelings on the subject), just that his petty and jealous god would punish them for it. Edited by DrJones*, : No reason given. It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds soon I discovered that this rock thing was true Jerry Lee Lewis was the devil Jesus was an architect previous to his career as a prophet All of a sudden i found myself in love with the world And so there was only one thing I could do Was ding a ding dang my dang along ling long - Jesus Built my Hotrod Ministry Live every week like it's Shark Week! - Tracey Jordan Just a monkey in a long line of kings. - Matthew Good If "elitist" just means "not the dumbest motherfucker in the room", I'll be an elitist! - Get Your War On *not an actual doctor
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Rahvin Member Posts: 3821 Joined: Member Rating: 9.6 |
True enough. Though that's still a step closer to Fred Phelps and his "thank god for dead soldiers" nonsense than I thought our Buz would go.* *(Phelps thanks god for his "righteous punishment" in the form of dead soldiers for the US's crime of generally accepting homosexuality. It's the same thought process Buz is demonstrating in that he believes the acceptance on non-Christian religions will bring down god's wrath, though thankfully I don't think Buz would make that final step into being happy were said wrath to be expressed)
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Faith Member  Posts: 12303 Joined: Member Rating: 2.1 |
I agree Buz. Freedom to practice your own religion isn't the same thing as having your religion officially recognized by an official body of the government and you and I know that the true God won't tolerate that for long.
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Meldinoor Member (Idle past 784 days)  Posts: 400 From: Colorado, USA Joined: |
So you would rather the Air Force Academy not provide worship areas for any religion then?
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Faith Member Posts: 12303 Joined: Member Rating: 2.1 |
That would be better, yes.
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Meldinoor Member (Idle past 784 days) Posts: 400 From: Colorado, USA Joined: |
You wouldn't mind at all then if, say, the beautiful Air Force Academy chapel in Colorado Springs were shut down? ABE: Personally, I think it's an important service for our service-men and women to have access to priests and a place to worship. I don't see why providing them with this is tantamount to the government endorsing specific beliefs. I would never advocate depriving our troops of this. Respectfully, -Meldinoor Edited by Meldinoor, : Added some of my own thoughts
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Faith Member Posts: 12303 Joined: Member Rating: 2.1
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The nation has already gone so pagan that shutting down a chapel would be just another expression of it just as creating worship space for pagan religions is. As far as the overall safety of the nation from God's wrath goes, officially endorsing NO religion is safer than endorsing a pagan religion. ABE: It's an official recognition to create a worship space. Since they already recognize Buddhism and Islam, of course the deed has already been done anyway. Might as well include the Wiccans. But it's not a good thing for the safety of the country or the success of our military operations. Edited by Faith, : No reason given. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
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hooah212002 Member  Posts: 2929 Joined: Member Rating: 9.5 |
But the Air Force is not "endorsing a pagan religion". They are providing these particular religions with places of worship. This thing called....freedom. Maybe you've heard of it? "Some people think God is an outsized, light-skinned male with a long white beard, sitting on a throne somewhere up there in the sky, busily tallying the fall of every sparrow. Others—for example Baruch Spinoza and Albert Einstein—considered God to be essentially the sum total of the physical laws which describe the universe. I do not know of any compelling evidence for anthropomorphic patriarchs controlling human destiny from some hidden celestial vantage point, but it would be madness to deny the existence of physical laws."-Carl Sagan "Show me where Christ said "Love thy fellow man, except for the gay ones." Gay people, too, are made in my God's image. I would never worship a homophobic God." -Desmond Tutu
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Meldinoor Member (Idle past 784 days) Posts: 400 From: Colorado, USA Joined: |
Well, rest assured that the establishment clause of the constitution prohibits the government from endorsing ANY religion. That's why Christian creationism can't be taught in public school science classrooms (beside the point that it's unscientific). Perhaps you'd like to elaborate on why granting all religions a place to worship equals endorsing any specific religion. It seems to me that what's going on is really the opposite. Now if religion A were prohibited on the grounds that it offended members of religion B, would that not be a tacit endorsement of religion B? Food for thought. Have a nice day. -Meldinoor
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Meldinoor Member (Idle past 784 days) Posts: 400 From: Colorado, USA Joined: |
Then they've already officially recognized your (our) religion.
Bit of a double standard? So if God doesn't tolerate government recognition of any religion, then there should have been problems as soon as the Christian chapel was built. Respectfully, -Meldinoor
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