There are some misconceptions in the article about this space at the AFA.
1. There is an indoor Chapel that is primarily for Christians, but can be used by any faith group at the AFA. Likewise, there is now an outdoor Chapel (Falcon Circle) which is primarily for Earth-Based spiritual groups, but can be used by any faith group at the AFA.
2. The $80,000 cost. The cost cited is a bit misleading. Most of the stones used had been removed from other areas of the AFA and put up there just to get them somewhere out of the way. This was long before Falcon Circle was approved to be constructed. So the previous costs of moving the stones were added into the cost total cited. Even if there was no Falcon Circle, the costs would have been approximately the same. Due to vandalism, an additional cost are the cameras in place around the area.
There have been additional comment on here about if Pagans, Heathen, or other polytheists can serve or should be allowed to serve in the US military.
First, if you believe in the US Constitution, and I do, then the question of if they should be allowed to serve shouldn’t even be asked. Lt Col Dan Brantingham, AFA Cadet Wing Chaplain says it perfectly, ““As an Air Force Chaplain my responsibility is to ensure the free exercise of religion for all cadets to include the minority faith group cadets. When I protect and advocate the freedom of religious conscience for all cadets, I fulfill my oath and because of the brilliance of the First Amendment, I safe-guard my own freedom of religion as well.”
As for if they will serve? Like other religious groups some Pagans will choose the honor of serving, some won’t. I served, my son serves. There are Pagan Veterans groups.
Pagans and Wiccans have died serving their country.
Pagan is an umbrella term and the different Pagans religions vary widely. Very widely. Very, very widely. I don’t worship trees, dance nude, paint myself blue. I pray at home. I celebrate the holidays with my family. I light a candle. I make offerings of wine. You’d be familiar with many of the practices of my religion because Paul, a Hellenized Jew, brought them into Christianity.
Pagans, Wiccans, and polytheists are just as diverse as any other group. We are all over the political spectrum, we live in work in your city, we are from all different racial and ethnic backgrounds, all different income levels. Chances are, you know and work with Pagans - but they keep their religion under wraps because of comments like the ones that have popped up on here.
I served, my son serves.
You went to the Air Force Academy?
I personally know some pagans. Without exception they are left-wing wackos who detest the military. They also have no sense of humor.
“You’d be familiar with many of the practices of my religion because Paul, a Hellenized Jew, brought them into Christianity.”
Spirited: Your claim is only partially true. Christian theism is the “new” thing while all earth-based systems are the very “old” thing, having their Hermetic origins in ancient Babylonia and Egypt. Thus all nature systems have as their point of orgin nonliving yet nevertheless divinized primordial matter, usually called Chaos but Nu by the Egyptian Sun-god Ra.
Chaos was the first substance to exist and apparently spontaneously generated itself from nothing as it has no living Creator. Out of Chaos evolved, emerged, and/or emanated, depending on whether one is a Gnostic materialist or Gnostic pantheist, either man (materialists) or the gods and goddesses and everything else (pantheists). All things are therefore parts of the not-divine or divine one-substance.
With Hermetic materialism the formula is, “As below (matter) so above (matter) while with Hermetic pantheism it is, “As above (divine), so below (divine).”
Both systems converge on the idea of man’s divinity.
Earth-based systems are naturalistic, meaning that there is only the one substance. Christian theism is supernaturalistic, meaning that between the substance of man and the substance of the supernatural Creator there exists an unbridgable chasm. Man does not share God’s substance is not divine.
The supernatural God lives, is personal and He created all things ex nihilo. The one substance is not alive, but is rather an impersonal energy force tantamount to electricity or an impersonal intelligence tantamount to a computer.
Returning to your claim, up until Jehovah spoke to Abraham, Isaac and Moses, virtually all people were believers in earth-based systems. Not everyone though. For immediately after the deluge, Noah established worship of the living God in the East (i.e.,India, China) while in Babylonia, Ham, Cush, and Nimrod established history’s first earth-based system. Babylonia is the mother of all Mystery Religions, Hermetic magic, and earth-based systems.
In light of this, it makes sense that Old and New Testament prophets and apostles understood that the practices of the earth-based systems were in appeasement of gods and goddesses evolved from noncreated, nonliving primordial matter. Being concerned for the salvation of Gentile souls it was only natural that they dedivinized nature and esoteric objects like the egg and dove and reinterpreted them in accordance with worship of the supernatural Jehovah.
That increasing numbers of Westerners are returning to Hermetic magic, the Mystery’s and earth-based systems is not a sign of progress to something new and better but rather the very reverse.