" God, or Bust?" Military Becomes More of Cult State Force Than Imperial Rome

 One Man's Church is another Man's Truth*

  ""Beyond Humanism, the new listing is a win for diversity in general, . . . abandon the outdated concept of a god-or-bust chaplaincy," Jason Torpey, Military Association of Atheists and Freethinkers,

 "Moses has words. Pharaoh has spears!"  Dathan in Ten Commandments

Yeah, Father Duffy would want more Wiccans in The Fighting 69th.

Inclusive, diverse and as remarkable as the Defense Department's new policy of expanding the list of approved religions to include the " Church of the Spiral Tree" and other earth-centered people of faith, one wonders which god is being served - Mars Invictus, or Lady Gaia.

You see not only did Barack Obama sign America up for Paris Peace Accord by a stroke of the pen, he also signed an Amended Religious Freedom Act just before Christmas, or Saturnalia in 2016, which, on the surface, is an Atticus Finch-like defense of humanism, atheism, agnosticism, and by golly just anything old thing one might like to believe with all of one's little heart.

The Defense Department which has struggled to defeat monotheistic bigots in Iraq, Afghanistan and around the globe, has planted  the Rainbow Flag for the LGBTQ community and managed to cover the Cross and Star of David, when devotees of the Crescent Moon get upset. Threats, really imagined and trumpeted loudly.

Anyway, Chaplain Charlie's Light Show now includes - New Age Churches, Unclassified Churches, Pagans, Wiccans, Magick and Spitualist, Agnostic, Atheist, Unknown, No Preference, No Religion and the Unknown faiths.

Humanism was recognized by the military in 2014, but until this order it wasn't recognized by all branches of the military.
"There have been prior declarations that the government or the military has recognized Humanism in one way or another," Torpy said. "But this is different."
While many new faith groups, such as the "Church Of The Spiral Tree" and "Dianic Wicca" have been added to the list, there are some that have been discarded. Faith groups such as the Tioga River Christian Conference, as well as nondenominational Protestants have been removed from the list.

This sprang for the unofficial religion of the United States the First Church, Temple, Mosque and Meetin' House of the Victim:

The Army has disciplined a military chaplain for making references to the Bible during a suicide-prevention seminar last month.

A serviceman brought the Judeo-Christian religious content to the attention of an atheist group, which complained about it. Now, the chaplain is fighting back, maintaining he did nothing wrong.

The dispute has renewed a debate over the appropriate role of faith in the military.
The chaplain, Capt. Joe Lawhorn, conducted the training session on suicide prevention Nov. 20 at the University of North Georgia. During the session, he shared his personal struggles with depression while an Army Ranger.
What upset the atheist group is that Lawhorn explained how he learned to conquer adversity by following the example of Israel’s warrior king, David, one of the great heroes of the Old Testament.

The three tenets of this secular faith are - Beef, Lawyer-up, Collect.

All these iconoclastic measures against Military Chaplaincy rooted in Judeo-Christian traditions were applauded wildly by the same folks who worship at the Church of Climate Change.

The Roman Legions of the Republic were comprised of citizens who served in in times of crisis and then went home.  The Roman Legions of Imperial Rome were given cults to follow - especially the cult of the State. Ennius wrote in his Annals " Moribus antiquis res stat Romana virisque." - trans. "The Roman state survives by its ancient customs and its manhood." Annals, Book V

The Roman Army was the last bastion of the pagan. The American Military seems to have reversed that under Obama.

You see, when you do not choose to believe in God, you choose another thing to believe in like The Spiral Tree,

 * 

A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF EUTHANASIA

The Church of Euthanasia was inspired by a dream, in which Rev. Chris Korda confronted an alien intelligence known as The Being who speaks for the inhabitants of Earth in other dimensions. The Being warned that our planet's ecosystem is failing, and that our leaders deny this. The Being asked why our leaders lie to us, and why so many of us believe these lies. Rev. Korda awoke from the dream moaning the Church's infamous slogan, Save the Planet - Kill Yourself.

Every aspect of the deepening global environmental crisis, including climate change, poisoning of the water and atmosphere, reduction of biodiversity, and topsoil erosion, directly results from the over-abundance of a single species: homo sapiens. The human population is increasing by one million every four days, according the Washington-based Population Reference Bureau. This is a net increase of 95 million per year, the current population of Mexico.

Even a major war or epidemic hardly dents the rate of growth, and modern wars have tremendous environmental consequences. It is for these practical reasons, as well as moral ones, that Euthanasians support only voluntary forms of population reduction, including suicide, free abortion, and sodomy, which they define as any sexual act not intended for procreation. They are also fiercely vegetarian, and support cannibalism for those who insist on eating flesh.

The planet is a living, breathing organism, and is capable of defending itself if necessary. The Church hopes to avoid the suffering this would entail by achieving a massive leap of consciousness in which human beings begin to think of themselves, not as individuals belonging to races or nation-states, but as a species. This species awareness would be the first step towards what Biodiversity author and population expert Paul Erlich calls "our absolute responsibility to protect what are our only known living companions in the universe."

American Halloween: Satan is dressed like Atticus Finch

"The real Satan however will look just like Jesus Christ (Revelation 13), he shall come in peaceably (Daniel 11) and he shall work wonders in the sight of mankind in order to deceive them into believing he is Jesus Christ (Revelation 13)." comments from Times of Israel

The ACLU vigorously defends the rights of all Americans to practice their religion. But because the ACLU is often better known for its work preventing the government from promoting and funding selected religious activities, it is sometimes wrongly assumed that the ACLU does not zealously defend the rights of all religious believers to practice their faith. The actions described below – over half of which were brought on behalf of self-identified Christians, with the remaining cases defending the rights of a wide range of minority faiths – reveal just how mistaken such assumptions are. ACLU

America has a devil of problem.  We believe that everyone has a right to practise their faith.  Americans have a poioumenon problem - in over two hundred years we have decided to take the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence and The Devil and Daniel Webster as a metafictional taffy pull.

My twenty dollar words  roughly translate to a 'product' in which the story is about the process of creation.   Pure John Dewey - the play is the thing and it is all about the inquiry, Yo!

Take a text, an article of faith, a statement. a word, or even a gesture and make something huge out of it.  Think of a social justice defense lawyer, - a protester has a constitutional right to exercise his free speech (verbally, artistically, dramatically and confrontationally); ergo, the charges against a protester must be dropped, unless they embarrass the mayor who blesses the actions of said attorney.

It is not what the Bill of Rights actually says in the document, but what a press protected, politically paid up pettifogger can make the public go along with at the moment.

Feelings help. Appeals to the breast of a public television subscriber can't miss in America.

America no longer trusts in God and it bans prayer, religious iconography ( unless Muslim for the time being, anyway), rosaries, crosses, or even solemn looks.

However, amid all of this civitas in bella Dei,  quasi-quack collegia et Satanas Wicca vocati sunt. Satan and Wicca are welcome.

I travel to the great State of Wisconsin as often as possible.  The people the grace and simple courtesies offered statewide above the Illinois border are a tonic.

I tend to go to Monroe, Green, Lafayatte and Madison counties, lands settled by sturdy Swiss, German, Nordic and Celtic immigrants before the Civil War.  There are United Churches of Christ, Catholic parishes, and every Evangelical and Mainline Protestant houses of worship up and down the rolling hills of Dairyland.  There is at least one synagogue in Madison and more than few Mosques and Muslim Circles. It is the UCC Swiss and Mennonite Dutch and others whose dairy barns in the Swiss/Nordic counties that sport Hex signs.  

The word Hex is believed to have come from the Teutonic word Hexe, or "witch." The signs are elaborate Rosetta's, circles with interior designs of geometric shapes.  They are beautiful examples of folk art. Some believe they have more to do with flowers, than witchcraft.  Most acknowledge the pre-Christian designs as part of the Alpine German " Sun of the Alps."

I was told by a Swiss blooded American that farmers placed Hex Signs on their barns to ward off Satan - he explained that many built round barns " so the Devil had no corner to hide in."

Actually, they were very practical and sound structures.  Here is one in Dane County near Mount Horeb that was converted into a magnificent home
Mount Horeb is home to Circle Sanctuary's many tribes of 'witches' and Wiccans, shamanns, circkes of drummers and Indigenous Peoples practitioners along what is collectively called The Spirit Pathways.  

In Mount Horeb,  the "Circle comprises a network of Pagan, Wiccan, Goddess and Shamanic gatherings from around the country and the world. Directed, more or less, by Selena Fox. The Circle home page is an extensive informational site, to say the least."  That it is.

The ACLU has no beef with The Circle whatsoever. The ACLU is all over Catholics, Jews and Evangelicals ( Main-liners are totally NPR and Muslims have yet to experience the Roger Baldwining of their beliefs).


The ACLU has no problem with Satan, but sure has one with the Decalogue.

Satanists have found a haven and coven in Salem, Massachusetts , home to full-blooded nut job and 1/2,6789th Cherokee Senator Bessie Warren.  Salem was where deplorables and abolitionists burned witches at the stake in 17th Century, inspiring Hawthorne's Hester Prynne to proudly sport the Big A and causing Arthur Miller to attack McCarthyisms with the Crucible. Roger Baldwin's ancestors ran Catholics and Baptists to Maryland and set the tone for  ACLU the American bed and breakfast industry  

Located one-mile from historic sites tied to Salem’s 1692 witchcraft hysteria, the building — a former funeral home — was inaugurated last month by activist Malcolm Jarry, a self-described “secular Jew” who co-founded The Satanic Temple (TST) in 2013. Jarry is a pseudonym, and he refuses to be photographed.The temple houses an art gallery in honor of Baphomet (see above), a “sabbatic goat” representing the universe. Behind the two-story building, an eight-foot tall statue of Baphomet sits in a plain shed, where visitors can pay to view it.
With up to 50,000 members in chapters around the world, TST has garnered colossal media attention in the last three years. Chief among Jarry’s causes are marriage equality and women’s reproductive freedom. Any issue related to the government using religion to restrict individual freedom is also likely to engage temple leaders, some of whom staged a 2014 “Black Mass” at Harvard University to push the envelope on religious freedom.
Outside of New England, TST has taken legal action against the placement of edifices of the Ten Commandments in civic settings, including statehouses. To illustrate how such displays violate religious freedom, the temple has insisted it be allowed to erect goat-headed Baphomet statues in the same locations. TST is also planning to take on some schools’ use of isolation, denial of bathroom access, and corporal punishment of children. Times of Israel (emphases my own)

Man, talk about outdoing the public relations of NPR and the Unitarians!  Satan is a Progressive and dresses up like Atticus Finch for go-to-meeting duds, I'll Elizabeth Warrant !

The establishment of a religion?  No. the State sponsored destruction of religious liberty.

Happy Halloween!

The Seeker Says Secularist Will Select for Chicago Catholics: Archbishop Chosen by Holy Spirit is So . . .Wrong Side of History

The Seeker - The Chicago Tribune's Holistic Spiritualist Manya Brachear-Pashman determined that 'secular forces' will play a key role in the selection of Chicago's next Archbishop.

Manya failed to mention that Chicago's Archbishop Francis Cardinal George spent Mothers Day celebrating the Eucharist with expectant mothers at Holy Name Cathedral and will ordain twelve priests on this coming Saturday. Pretty busy for a guy fighting cancer, ministering to troubled teens, dealing with Pastoral Center bureaucrats and lawyers, managing the largest Archdiocesan school system in America and still answering his phone when guys like me give him a call about some family in need of his prayers and good offices. That's The Seeker!

Manya Brachear warns us unevolved  Friday Tilapia Tasters this - "As much as Chicago's Roman Catholics believe the selection of the city's next archbishop will be guided by the Holy Spirit, experts and history point to other forces, such as demographics and local politics, that help shape such decisions."

I know that I generally fail to consult the Paul Simon Institute on matters theological and take a somewhat dim of the power of Mount Horeb's(WI) Circle Sanctuary dictae in matters ecclesiastical, but I continue to doubt that the late Dawn Clark Netsch's pie-chart bandito Ralphie Martire's Center for Tax and Budget Accountability which drove Illinois off the cliff, or Thundering Dick Simpson's Cut & Paste Political Papers Workshops at Cement City ( UIC) will be determining, much less compelling, factors in the selection of whoever wears Cardinal George's massive wing-tips.

I doubt very much that fatuous Catholic back-sliders like Governor Pat Quinn, Senator Dithering Dick Durbin, Congressman Wee Michael Quigley will be asked to give voice to the episcopal selection recommendations presented to Pope Francis I anymore than the seedlings gifted to His Holiness by President Obama will see the light of day.

The Seeker found a 'source' who offers insight to the debt American Catholics should and must offer bonfires of thanksgiving due to government largess in their lives -

Jo-Renee Formicola, a political science professor at Seton Hall University, a Catholic institution in New Jersey, said while the pope might be aware that the church relies heavily on public funds to fulfill its mission, that's probably a minor factor in choosing George's successor.
"He will make his decision based on what is the best religious, spiritual role that the church can play and the individual is someone who's got to be able to straddle the problems between Catholic Charities and the state governmental structure," she said. "This is not a political appointment. It's a religious appointment."
She said she would not be surprised to see an archbishop who shares Obama's experience of community activism, largely honed in Chicago's Catholic parishes.

Let's see, Prof!  Pope Francis I is at the top of his game. Barack Obama . . .?????? Mmmmmm.  No game. I doubt the Pope will spread the Obama Playbook on the Vatican gym floor in this matter.

I do not understand why in the world The Seeker did not ask Cook County Board President Toni " The Crypt-Keeper" Preckwinkle about the apostolic succession here in Chicago. After all, Toni Preckwinkle was on the payroll at Visitation High School for a brief period of time.

Gee.