That's what was going through my head when I read this headline from
I breathed a sigh of relief when I actually read the article. The soldier was in Afghanistan, where it is agreed that the soldiers will not try to prosyletize the natives. These bibles were printed in the local languages and were obviously sent to the soldier for proselytizing purposes. So, saying that these were the soldiers' bibles is using the term rather loosely.
4 comments:
and that's ignoring the fact that soldiers have exactly as many rights as the military chooses to give them.
I watched the video. No doubt in my mind they disobeyed orders. My only question is are the morally obligated to follow them?
There is some precedence for disobeying orders that are immoral, e.g. if your CO hands you a gun and tells you to blow a civilian's head off and you refuse. I am stretching a bit here.
There's a reason they're not supposed to prosyletize. The region is volatile when it comes to religion. There are several sects of Islam in the country and they're all fighting each other. The introduction of fundyism there would only make things worse. Also, it adds new danger to our troops.
This is the same country where Abdul Rahman was almost stoned to death for converting to fundyism. He wasn't because of worldwide outcry. What those soldiers are doing is a very dangerous thing.
To be honest, I could care less. I say let the fundies preach all they want. However, Afghanistan should have religious freedom, but they don't. And, as long as they don't, any prosyletizing is puting people in real life danger (not the after you die kind of imaginary danger).
Actually, the reason they are not to proselytize is mostly because it's a violation of the US Constitution. It amounts to using their position as an official of the US to push for a specific religion.
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