In spite of the obvious religious bias of the author, he has some accurate observations.

I recently had a chance to see the US main base in this part of the country on a Sunday, and estimated the percentage attending Protestant services to be about 2% of the base population. Most bases probably run somewhere between 1-10% - I can't think of a time when I've seen over 10% attending service on any particular day.

Sure, there are other ways the religious do their thing in combat zones - pre-patrol prayer circles usually involve closer to 40-60% of Soldiers. But that's about as high as it goes.

The only time you see numbers higher than that where religion is involved is at the memorial ceremonies for our fallen brothers - there the attendance is usually over 95%, but while the Chaplain runs his trap a lot, the main focus is the eulogies by the guy's friends.

The author is right on another point - the bit about pocket Bibles being fucking everywhere, in spite of the rules about limiting prostlytizing. Apparently it doesn't count if you are only pushing the New Testament - because I haven't seen the Mormons or the Gudions, for example, able to push their propaganda in anywhere like similar numbers. But those stupid Bible excerpts are everywhere.

This author seems to look for his god everywhere he goes, though I'm not really impressed by scare stories of Ft Benning jumps; they just don't get any easier or safer than at the schoolhouse. About the only hazard there is yourself, because you really don't know what the fuck you're doing until after you have about 15 jumps in. Personally, I've jumped 58 times, and both been hurt and seen friends hurt. Prayer never crossed my mind at all - I do recall thinking "Shit, this is gonna hurt" a number of times, but I can affirmatively say I never prayed before, during or after a jump.

Weaver wrote:...Personally, I've jumped 58 times, and both been hurt and seen friends hurt. Prayer never crossed my mind at all - I do recall thinking "Shit, this is gonna hurt" a number of times, but I can affirmatively say I never prayed before, during or after a jump.

It sounds to me like you were religious - or some kind of believer - at one point in time as stating this seems outlandish for any atheist to say (as in "Capt. Obvious") unless perhaps in response to a direct question. So now I'm wondering what type of believer you were and how long you've been an atheist (just curious...).

No, I've never been religious or any sort of believer ... my commentary was in response to the bullshit statements made by the Captain in the article Simon posted - he implied that there was a lot of praying going on during jumps at Benning (why is it that the 5-jump chumps always talk as if they know everything about being Airborne?)

Anyways, I've always been an atheist. My commentary probably is Cpt Obvious speaking, but it was meant in direct reflection to the article's statements.

Good article, and good counterpoint to the discussion we had previously from the other op-ed article.

i am going to suggest a merge with that topic ...http://www.rationalskepticism.org/athei ... ml#p577796

At boot camp, it was almost always 100% church attendance. At combat training, about 40%. Now that we have liberty/free time every evening and weekends we can leave the base; the number is somewhere around 2%. He he. I love God, only when he gets me out of stressful situations.

Some strong-willed Christians.