Posted on 11/26/2011 5:28:51 PM PST by mandaladon
Reporting from Colorado Springs, Colo.— In the still of a cold November evening, a small gathering of pagans, led by two witches, begins preparations for the coming winter solstice. But these are not just any pagans, and this is not just any setting. They are future officers of the United States Air Force practicing their faith in the basement of the Air Force Academy's cadet chapel.
Their ranks are slim. According to the academy's enrollment records, only three of 4,300 cadets identified themselves as pagans, followers of an ancient religion that generally does not worship a single god and considers all things in nature interconnected.
Still, the academy this year dedicated an $80,000 outdoor worship center — a small Stonehenge-like circle of boulders with propane fire pit — high on a hill for the handful of current or future cadets whose religions fall under the broad category of "Earth-based." Those include pagans, Wiccans, druids, witches and followers of Native American faiths.
Witches in the Air Force? Chaplain Maj. Darren Duncan, branch chief of cadet faith communities at the academy, sighs. A punch line waiting to happen, and he's heard all the broom jokes.
For the record, there are no witches among the cadets this year. But the two spiritual leaders for all Earth-based religions — one a civilian, one an Air Force reservist — are witches and regularly cast spells, which they say is not so different from offering prayer. There also are no druids this year. But there could be next year.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
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“Many bog bodies show signs of being stabbed, bludgeoned, hanged or strangled, or a combination of these methods. In some cases the individual had been beheaded, and in the case of the Osterby Head found at Kohlmoor, near to Osterby, Germany in 1948, the head had been deposited in the bog without its body.[13]
Usually the corpses were naked, sometimes with some items of clothing with them, particularly headgear.[14] In a number of cases, twigs, sticks or stones were placed on top of the body, sometimes in a cross formation, and at other times forked sticks had been driven into the peat to hold the corpse down. According to the archaeologist P.V. Glob, “this probably indicates the wish to pin the dead man firmly into the bog.”[15] Some bodies show signs of torture, such as Old Croghan Man, who had deep cuts beneath his nipples.
Some bog bodies, such as Tollund Man from Denmark, have been found with the rope used to strangle them still around their necks. Some, such as the Yde Girl in the Netherlands and bog bodies in Ireland, had the hair on one side of their heads closely cropped, although this could be due to one side of their head being exposed to oxygen for a longer period of time than the other. Some of the bog bodies seem consistently to have been members of the upper class: their fingernails are manicured, and tests on hair protein routinely record good nutrition. Strabo records that the Celts practiced auguries on the entrails of human victims: on some bog bodies, such as one of the Weerdinge Men found in southern Netherlands, the entrails have been partly drawn out through incisions.[16]”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bog_body
They should be adapting to graduating war officers...
This is religion that we can be quite happy died out many centuries ago.
Diversity be dammed.
I had a co worker that was into all that shizzle.
She had dragons on the walls of her cubicle and would tell us how she worshiped nekkid in the backyard.
She is gone now, Not because of her BS beliefs but because she was a lousy worker, who spent all her time telling us this BS, rather than getting the job done.
Back in the 70s, I knew a guy that was kicked out of the Air Force ROTC at our university because of being a member of one of these “earth-based religions.” He was totally into the military as far as having good attitude and bearing but they still bounced him.
The worm has turned...
I’ve seen sorry bastages play the military for all they could get on training, then claim they refuse to serve on religious grounds.
They pulled their weight back on shore, doing logistics, that is the only reason they weren’t gone.
Anyone that wants “special treatment” needs to go.
They are going to fly nuclear armed aircraft for the USAF until such time that they turn against their own country?
If they want to fly, give them a broom.
OK: So which idiot Congress critter gave his/her endorsement to get these nuts into the Academy.
No, they're liberals.
Some time ago there was a Wiccan website that had an image of the moon on its home page. Presumably unbeknowst to themselves, the image they had chosen was taken from the Apollo 11 command module as it departed the moon, about ten thousand miles out, and at an angle never seen from the earth. This is how in touch they were with nature. I recognized it instantly.
I retire August 2014. I hate what my Air Force is becoming. On April 1st, 2015, my brother and I take our first steps on the Appalacian Trail. We are doing the whole trail. Can’t wait. I will miss the military.
The whole Wiccan/Pagan religion fad is about rejecting their own culture.
The modern public education system has used revisionist history to teach the younger generations that Western culture is sexist/racist/ecologically unsound and evil in general.
So they choose a religion that they believe is Earth centered instead of man centered.
Modern education is destroying our culture and our future.
From what I have read, I would have to say that the Naval Academy gives USAFA a good run for the money when it comes to Liberalism — especially of the Dhimmitude toward Islam is concerned, and West Point is not far behind! As I recall, it was the Navy that first pre-emptively said its chaplains can legally join (don’t call it marry, please) sodomite sailors in its chapels ... before the DADT reversal was even legally in place. But, I agree, USAFA is pretty sad. I fear our Republican candidates have no clue how much clean-up is needed at our academies and in our military leadership’s ranks.
[Scott - "The basic idea was Joe Allen's. It was another thing from sitting in the crew quarters at night, trying to figure out interesting things to do - that were useful, too. And I guess we had a lot of ideas. But Joe came up with the hammer and feather idea, and we decided where to get a feather. I had a friend who was a professor at the Air Force Academy. Their mascot's the Falcon. And we had the (LM) Falcon. So that was indeed, a falcon feather from an Air Force Academy bird. In fact, I had two of them. I was going to try it, first, to see if it worked - because of static charge and all that stuff it might have stuck to my glove. Didn't have time (for the trial run), so we just winged it. And it worked!"]
O tempora! O mores!
Thank you for your service.
“She is gone now, Not because of her BS beliefs but because she was a lousy worker, who spent all her time telling us this BS, rather than getting the job done.”
I had a wacko coworker like that as well. She was always wandering around the building trying to engage people in conversation about her church life, or leaving pamphlets on their desks if they had told her to go away in the past. Never getting her work done. I think she was “Cavalry Chapel”, which is some generic nondenominational Christian outfit.
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