Weaver wrote:

jinxu wrote:Not sure if this question belongs in the Atheist in Foxholes or here, correct me if I am wrong.

Question : As an atheist in the military, do you feel at all discriminated or not trusted by fellow soldiers during times of war / battle? I know there have been polls done, at least here in the US, where people tend to trust atheists less because of misinformation / misrepresentation. Regardless of religious background (hindu, muslim, christian, etc.) in general people had a notion that because atheists don't believe in a supreme being that they are more likely to be dishonest or some other negative. As far as I know those polls were from the civilian population and not strictly military.

If that is the case then I can begin to further understand the general "outcry" of atheists. In fact I just saw a youtube ad for "Non-Secular" kind of in line with some old Mormon commercials (not trying to make any comparisons or imply anything). As a Christian there is a general undertone of atheists = anti-christian as if simply being an atheist puts you in the "enemy" camp. And that is unfortunate and counter to what the Bible teaches.

I didn't.

My combat patrol unit in Iraq had many devout theists in it, and they would do a group prayer before we left every day. I never participated after the first one (I was unaware of the tradition). I was asked to participate, and declined - whereupon a couple other guys stopped going as well. But nothing anyone ever said to me indicated they trusted me less if we got in the shit.