The rarely heard from organization American Atheists has called upon the National Guard to issue an apology for supposedly insensitive remarks uttered by Chief of the National Guard Bureau Army Lt. General H. Steven Blum at the NAACP’s annual Armed Services and Veterans Affairs Awards. In the course of giving a speech that heavily emphasized the importance of racial and gender diversity in the Armed Services, General Blum stated that the battlefield might be the greatest promoter of diversity because “[a]gnostics, atheists and bigots suddenly lose all that when their life is on the line.” He continued, “Something that they lived their whole life believing gets thrown out the door, and they grasp the comrade next to them, and they don’t care what color their skin is, and they don’t care where they pray. They just care, ‘Can you save them? Can I trust you? Are you going to cover my back? Are you going to get me out of this?’” Demonstrating a penchant for overstatement, the president of American Atheists complained that General Blum’s diversity remarks were “stained by an animus directed at Agnostics and Atheists,” and the communications director for the organization said that the remarks show that the military still has a problem when it comes to religious belief.
American Atheists is obviously a fringe organization with nothing better to do than to pull out one or two lines from a very long speech and become offended by those lines. There should be nothing offensive about General Blum’s remarks about atheists and agnostics because they happen to be true: when faced with the immediate threat of death unbelievers have a tendency to abandon their condescending attitudes toward religion and they plead with God to protect them, as any sane person would. Such was all General Blum meant. The irony of the whole thing is how liberal and “open-minded” the rest of General’s speech was, saying such things as the military is that it “looks like
America.” Yet, as most people eventually discover, in the liberal world there is always some group that professes to feeling left out and offended no matter how hard a person may try to be inclusive. The American Atheists proved that once again.
July 29, 2006 at 4:41 am
You call it whining about nothing, but consider: would you still be so cavalier about the whole situation if the General had said that the battlefield was great for diversity because “agnostics, atheists, Christians, and bigots suddenly lose all that when their life is on the line”? I don’t know how you’d respond, but from your comments chances are you’d likely be taking these two lines as a sure sign of the ever-persistent persecution of Christians in a godless America.
American Atheists is demanding an apology because of people like you, who turn a blind eye to discrimination against nonbelivers. No one would sit idle while Blacks, homosexuals, or any religious group is discriminated against, yet when it gets to *atheists* then not only is it a “whatever” issue, but often a “yeah good for them, they deserve it!”.
Furthermore, your comment that anyone would plead with god to protect them in the face of death is BS. In the face of certain death, would Christians spontaneously start praying to Allah? Do Jews invoke the protection of Krishna? Perhaps some do, just as a few atheists may develop a sudden believe in some strange god. Most wouldn’t, because these gods played no consequence in their life up to this point, so they’re not going to suddenly start believing. It’s the same with most atheists; why pray to a god you never believed in? I might as well pray to Santa, for all the good it would do. In addition, there have been many atheists in the military who didn’t resort to praying to a god they didn’t believe when their life was on the line.
Finally, I would ask you to justify how a non-believe in any dieties equate with bigotry. You seem to have much animosity and negativity towards nonbelievers; why?