Alan C. Posted July 26, 2013 Posted July 26, 2013 The United States Marine Corps Officially Declares 'Lack of Spiritual Faith' as a Sign of Instability In 2011 the Army faced public scrutiny after the exposition of once mandatory "Spiritual Fitness" testing which assessed the resiliency of soldiers on such qualitative measures as frequency of prayer or attendance of religious services. When a soldier failed this religious test they were denigrated with the following:"Spiritual fitness may be an area of difficulty... You may lack a sense of meaning and purpose in your life. At times, it is hard for you to make sense of what is happening to you and to others around you. You may not feel connected to something larger than yourself. You may question your beliefs, principles and values... Improving your spiritual fitness should be an important goal.". . ."Lack or loss of spiritual faith" is included as a "Guidance/moral compass issue" in both of these documents under a list of risk indicators for use by "leaders at all levels" to "identify and address risky behavior or events that may lead to risky behavior, as soon as possible." This apparent character flaw is juxtaposed with such things as "lack of courage," "history of psychiatric hospitalizations," "past or current substance abuse history," and being "anti-social." In the simplest terms, it is the current official position of the United States Marine Corps that those who do not profess a religious belief or choose to leave their religion are to be considered a potential hazard to themselves and the Corps and be placed under greater scrutiny than their peers.. . .... the insistence by chaplains that non-believers make inferior warriors... Those chaplains are actually correct. Non-believers are probably less likely to follow orders without question, dehumanize others, and rationalize murder. Knowing that one is doing God's work helps ease a guilty conscience.
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