I had NRP (No religious Preference) on mine for a long time because I just didn't want to deal with the botherers and stigma. But then I saw how the entire US culture is preloaded to think that it actually means christian, so I finally changed it to Atheist. The young airman was almost SHOCKED that a senior officer would be atheist I guess, but she made the tags as I requested (although she had to ask how to spell atheist).

So, what is on your tags, and why?

When I first enlisted I had No Pref on my tags. I thought it meant what it said - that I had no preference for any religion. Later on I was doing an annual readiness check, and the unit Chaplain asked what my religion was. When I said that I was an atheist, but had "no pref" on my tags to avoid conflict, he informed me that No Pref was viewed as non-denominational Christian, and that if I was an atheist I should put it on my tags. He then assured me he would help defend me from anyone who tried to give me flak for it (only Chaplain I've ever had who viewed his duty as protecting everyone's freedom of religion!).

Since I had atheist put on my tags I've received a few sideways glances from people, but no harrassment (probably helps that I was getting promoted above routine crap by that time). The only thing people have asked me about is whether I didn't feel it made me more vulnerable if captured by our current enemies because of their religious extremist views. I reply that expoused belief in a god didn't seem to help any of the people who were captured/kidnapped so far, and that I thought it was a far better idea to try to ensure I never became a prisoner in the first place.

I think mine has christian on it due to me considering myself a christian at the time despite not actually believing any of it. Didn't know any better then, and don't care enough to get a new set made now.

Of all the times I've seen dog tags on films I never once saw a person's religion stamped on one. Not totally unexpectedly Hollywood's general inaccuracies in film but you'd think at least one film would show them accurately.

I told them "pagan" and they put "no rel pref", go figure. Eventually I had my own made that said "pagan".

I had No religious Preference when I was in the service.

Weaver wrote:The only thing people have asked me about is whether I didn't feel it made me more vulnerable if captured by our current enemies because of their religious extremist views. I reply that expoused belief in a god didn't seem to help any of the people who were captured/kidnapped so far, and that I thought it was a far better idea to try to ensure I never became a prisoner in the first place.

From what I understand, they hate atheists more than Christians as they both have the same god and atheist deny him.

So long as my uniform has "US Army" on it, I really don't think it matters one bit whether I'm religious or not - I'm still getting killed if captured.