The fact atheists define themselves based on the non-belief in deists, but the primary deist they cry about is God, means there really isn't any difference between "God" and deists in this context.
Uhm... You may want to look up the term deist in a dictionary. For someone who was claiming I was misusing a term in his past message, this misuse is comedic gold.
Does the Association of Computing Machinery meet at a church every week, sing from hymnals, have Sunday School, and run around the country filing lawsuits claiming they have suffered emotional distress because they had to look at a Christian symbol on government property?
Plenty of religions don't meet in Churches, don't meet on Sundays, don't sing from hymnals, don't have Sunday school. If all that is a prerequisite to being a religion, that's news to a whole lot of religious people.
The issue of Christian symbols on government property is an interesting one and we can discuss it if your like, but it seems to be slightly off-topic for this thread.
Yes, I see how accuracy matters, because the answer to that question is "no." So your absurd hypothetical is . . . absurd.
I'm just going by what you said. You quoted things which, you implied, make atheism a religion. Don't blame me that they ended up stupid.
Where did I say I treat all faiths interchangeably?
You implied that a chaplain can work with people of any faith (and yes, chaplains typically work with people of any faith, even no faith at all) by virtue of having faith, whereas an atheist cannot. That effectively equates all faiths and suggests the differences between them are just superficial.
Regarding credentialing, what I said is the military requires licenses.
Well, not exactly licenses but let's not ding you too many points since you're not a lawyer. But if a license is all that's needed, I can become an ordained minister in five minutes... and that's recognized not only by the State I live in but by all other States as well.
The government already decides which religions are "serious." The only protected faith is a "sincerely held religious belief," which requires an examination of whether the religion is "serious." And not every sincerely held religious belief is entitled to protection.
The Supreme Court has never defined the term "religion" - much less the term "serious one" so you're talking out of the wrong orifice again. But the Goverment doesn't decide whether a religion is serious or not. You may find Kaufman v. McCaughtry interesting which held that, in the context of the First Amendment religion need not be based on a mainstream faith or a belief in a Supreme Being, but instead “when a person sincerely holds beliefs dealing with issues of ‘ultimate concern’ that for her occupy a ‘place parallel to that filled by . . . God in traditionally religious persons,’ those beliefs represent her religion”.
The question is whether a person sincerely holds the beliefs he holds. No further evaluation is made, no critical analysis of the religion in question, no value-judgement by some government bureaucrat about whether this is or isn't a religion.
To be sure, governments have refused to recognize particular
practices as legitimate exercises of religion, but they almost always fail in Court. As an example, I'll point to cases where local governments have prosecuted people who practice animal sacrifice as required by Santeria for violating local ordinances. They have, invariably, lost and have often been slapped pretty hard by Courts. Look up "Church of Lukumi Babalu Aye v. City of Hialeah" if you want some background.
I'm not looking up whatever other crap you posted about some spaghetti monster or whatever the heck else you posted.
Of course you aren't. You aren't interested in educating yourself or having a legitimate debate. Just venting and attacking those who don't believe the same things that you believe. That's why I called your reaction visceral.
The issue is whether atheists deserve a military chaplain, not whether some nonexistent comedic concoction deserves a military chaplain.
Again, it's a religion and meets all the requirements you set. But I digress... The question re: chaplains boils down to something very simple. Do chaplains serve a need in the armed forces? If so, what need is that? I submit that they do and it's more than just delivering sermons. I also submit that the need they fill isn't a need that only religious people have.
If your objection is with the name, well... you may as well object that we use terms like "cavalry" or "get on the horn".
If your objection is with the concept, then I'm curious what grounds you have for arguing against this seeing how
you consider atheism to be a religion.
No, you clearly don't know what the word visceral means. But no biggie. People often use words out of context to mean whatever they want them to mean.
Like this buffoon earlier, using the word "deists" completely wrong? That you fail to see why the word applies doesn't change the fact that it does. Your reaction is not rational; it's emotional and raw. In your post you throw hissy-fits and refuse to consider - much less answer - questions that challenge your beliefs and you get upset that they're even asked.
