Army probes soldiers skipping Christian concert

Yahoo ^ | Aug 20, 2010 | STEVE SZKOTAK

[tlb]

dozens of soldiers who refused to attend a Christian band's concert at a Virginia military base were banished to their barracks and told to clean them up.

Col. Thomas Collins said the military shouldn't impose religious views on soldiers.

"..it would be contrary to Army policy,".

Pvt. Anthony Smith said he and other soldiers felt pressured to attendt.

"My whole issue was I don't need to be preached at," Smith said "That's not what I signed up for."

Christian rock group BarlowGirl played as part of the "Commanding General's Spiritual Fitness Concerts."

Smith said a staff sergeant told 200 men in their barracks they could either attend or remain in their barracks. Eighty to 100 decided not to attend, he said.

"Instead of being released to our personal time, we were locked down," Smith said. "It seemed very much like a punishment."

The Military Religious Freedom Foundation first reported on the Christian concert. The foundation said it was approached by soldiers who were punished for not attending.

The group's president, Mikey Weinstein, claims Christian-themed events are "ubiquitous" throughout the military, and he credited the soldiers for stepping forward.

"Whenever we see this egregious, unconstitutional religious tyranny our job is to fight it," he said.

Smith said he and the other soldiers were told not to use their cell phones or personal computers and ordered to clean up the barracks.

Smith said he went up the chain of command and traced the concert edict to a captain, who said he simply wanted to "show support for those kind of events that bring soldiers together."

While not accepting blame, the officer apologized to the soldiers who refused to attend the concert and said it was not his intent to proselytize.

"But once you get in there, you realize it's evangelization," Smith said.

[DJ MacWoW]

This is what you think America is about?

Fire in the Mind of Men.

This text traces the origins of a faith - modern revolutionaries are believers, no less committed and intense than were Christians or Muslims of an earlier era. What is different is the belief that a perfect secular order will emerge from forcible overthrow of traditional authority.

[LomanBill]

>>By posting historical links?

The Virginia Act for Religious Freedom isn't historical?   Maybe not in your religionist/revisionist world.

 

Why did congress institute religious coercion during war-time?  Maybe because they knew it works - and they were desperate to win - and keep their heads in place. 

 

Observe, also, that many of them retained slaves rather than forcing that issue prematurely and fracturing the unity of states required for successful revolution.

 

Sometimes the necessity of self-preservation overrides ideological purity, if temporarily.

>>No.

Yes.  What was discussed in the lodge stayed in the lodge - under oath and penalty.

 

The lodge was a venue for protected FREE speech: Including criticism of the man-god-King.  Including talk of revolution against him.   Evidently the lodge's oaths and penalties were a protection against the likes of you.  You, who evidently values the power implicit in the ability coerce - more than you value the freedom of your fellow man.

 

As I said, if you don't believe me - read Fire in the Minds of Men, by Librarian of Congress James H. Billington.

>>The Church of England is the official church in England.

The Church of England is/was the STATE church of England.    A state establishment of religion - Precisely the kind of religionist institution forbidden by the 1st amendment.

>>But you have a real "bee in your bonnet" about Masons.

I have eyes and a FREE mind to see what IS for myself.   I've been to DC and read the writing on the walls for myself.  

 

 

And I will not be Shocked, Awed, "WoW"ed, nor otherwise coerced into subjugation under the religionist tyranny that you evidently embrace.

 

I don't need you or any other royal-religionist twit to tell me I have a Creator;  I can see the self-evident Truth of that for myself.   

 

And if I am reconciled to that Creator it is by His grace - not by the coercive "intercession" of religionist Eunuch tyrants who dress themselves in colorful plumage, chant in languages indiscernible to the people, and pretend to be what they are not whilst getting fat and drunk in their collectivist hives.

 

 

[DJ MacWoW]

Been reading Dan Brown?

[LomanBill]

>>This is what you think America is about?

 

America is about FREEDOM; the RIGHT to seek and observe self-evident Truth with your own eyes and FREE mind - without the permission of government. 

 

FREEDOM - and as Dostoyevsky noted - Fire in the Minds of men seldom leads to that; more often leading only to the burning of the village - especially when the Fire is the coercive religionist kind.

 

Got Sharia Law?

 

The temples of American FREEDOM exist in the hearts of Individuals - not within the walls of collectivist, religionist, manipulators  - Manipulators like those trying to build a mosque at the WTC; and manipulators like those who perch themselves on the pecuniary temple steps, with a mandatory audience, and call what they're selling "Christian" music.

 

 

 

[LomanBill]

>>Been reading Dan Brown?

No, but I did have breakfast with JimRob last 9/12.

Thanks again, BTW.

[DJ MacWoW]

For being in the Lutheran Missouri Synod, you sure are not very conservative.

Fire in the Minds of men seldom leads to that; more often leading only to the burning of the village - especially when the Fire is the coercive religionist kind.

I hate to tell you this but people came to this country because they could worship freely, not to get away from it. It wasn't coercive. And you completely ignore things like this:

"The foundation of our national policy will be laid in the pure and immutable principles of private morality; ...the propitious smiles of Heaven can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right which Heaven itself has ordained..." George Washington, First Inaugural, April 30 1789

"Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." John Adams

You denigrate greater men then yourself by making statements such as: Why did congress institute religious coercion during war-time? Maybe because they knew it works

[freebilly]

A Christian sex party? Killer...!

[DJ MacWoW]

No, but I did have breakfast with JimRob last 9/12.

Did you tell him all about the Free Masons building this country and only using religion as coercion?

[LomanBill]

>>Been reading Dan Brown?

Nope, I had good LCMS Lutheran teachers - Including the one I’ve been married to for 23 years.

What does this mean?

No Popa, No Sale!

[DJ MacWoW]

Been to a Missouri Synod church several times. They didn't sound like you. Ever. My best friend is Missouri Synod. He doesn't sound like you either.

No Popa,

I have no idea what this means.

[LiteKeeper]

I agree - there has to be more to this story than what we are being told.

And for the rest of you, I am a retired Army chaplain, too.

[LomanBill]

>>Did you tell him all about

I don't recall exactly.   But I do recall advocating the rebirth / reformation of American Ideals - expressly founded upon the cornerstone that "TO SECURE THESE RIGHTS governments are instituted among men".

>>only using religion as coercion?

Only?  

 

The Masonic Christians and other Americans who built this country didn't advocate the usage of religious coercion any more than they advocated slavery.  Nonetheless both religious coercion and slavery were part of their heritage and contemporary contextual reality.  Coercion was a tool on the shelf.  And the instinct of self-preservation would naturally encourage its use - even if doing so was inconsistent with the ideals of the Virginia Act for Religious Freedom and the 1st Amendment.

 

Just as Jefferson's instinct was to use the word "subject" before he erased / replaced it with the word "citizen", old coercive habits die hard.

 

 

Unlike some, I don't see Free Masons as boogie men.    Get the DVD of "The 10 Commandments" and watch/listen to the introduction at the start (never on TV BTW) from a gentleman who comes behind a curtain and describes why the movie was made.   Guess who?  In their depiction at least, Moses was evidently Mason....  (And what a beautiful movie as well)

 

 

Evidently the anonymous nature of  free discourse within the Founder's Masonic lodge is not unlike that which we enjoy here on FR.  

 

Like Jim, they built a FREE Republic.  Unlike them,  we don't need the oaths and protections of The Lodge - because, in America, we have the essence of those oaths and protections codified in the 1st Amendment.

America is about FREEDOM.

 

That's not a bad thing, is it? 

 

 

 

 

[trisham]

Look with your own eyes - and see what IS exactly, deliberately, 2 miles North of the Jefferson Memorial, and 1 mile North of the Whitehouse.

*********************

I guess that's got to be why Jefferson built his memorial exactly, deliberately there. Wow. Awesome.

I wonder if anyone else knows about this? I mean, besides us and Jefferson. But he's dead.

[DJ MacWoW]

The Masonic Christians and other Americans who built this country didn't advocate the usage of religious coercion

That's funny because here you said they did. Your post: Why did congress institute religious coercion during war-time? Maybe because they knew it works

Unlike some, I don't see Free Masons as boogie men.

Since it's based on the occult, you should. But I'm not surprised that you don't.

America is about FREEDOM.

America was also about God. This is a Christian nation. Not a Freemason one.

[LomanBill]

>>My best friend is Missouri Synod. He doesn't sound like you either.

That's not surprising.  I'd expect you to surround yourself only with those who parrot your own thoughts.  There are religionists in the LCMS too; it is a human institution after all.  Many are in the LCMS simply because "they were raised that way" - nothing wrong with that.

 

Others choose the LCMS because it encourages reasoned doctrinal discourse - instead of dogmatic coercion.

 

Why did Luther bother to translate The Word into the language of the common people?  Why did he have to?

>>I have no idea what this means.

"What does this mean?" - LOL.  Evidently you're not as familiar with things Lutheran as you might like to think.

 

 

 

[DJ MacWoW]

He told them from the grave. "Build me a freemason symbol". *snort*

That man has been so maligned. Accused of being a muslim, a deist, an atheist. All of this stemmed from election smears between Jefferson and Adams. Adams smears stuck. All because of an election in 1800.

[DJ MacWoW]

I'd expect you to surround yourself only with those who parrot your own thoughts.

Can you respond to a single post with fact instead of insult? You aren't old enough to have learned the art yet. Being sanctimonious does not make friends or influence people.

Others choose the LCMS because it encourages reasoned doctrinal discourse - instead of dogmatic coercion.

Actually they are VERY dogmatic in their practice of religion. I found them to be VERY rigid. You don't question their dogma.

Evidently you're not as familiar with things Lutheran as you might like to think.

When did I state that I was? Other than you don't question their RULES.

[trisham]

He told them from the grave. "Build me a freemason symbol". *snort*

**********************

He was immensely talented. It could have happened!

[DJ MacWoW]

He was a talented man. And he has been smeared and misunderstood because of his intellect.

This man is responsible for the First Amendment and the freedom to worship openly and he is smeared as an unbeliever. Would an unbeliever CARE if others could openly worship? It makes no sense.

[trisham]

Did you see the series about John Adams, which also focused on the other Founding Fathers?

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0472027/

It really brought the characters to life. What amazing men!