Loss of faith, fair enough. I bet that's a risk factor for depression. I'm a happy humanist, but speaking from experience, the process of losing your religion can be pretty alienating, even if some people come out happier on the other side.

Given that they have denied atheistic chaplains and initially refused to let that guy put "atheist" on his dog tag, though, there seems to be a valid basis to claim resistance to atheism in the armed forces.

Well said Draug.

Oh, I agree hecks. I'm saying what it should be, not what it is. Hell, when I was active, it was "God, Country, Corps!" Being an athiest was as much a "don't ask, don't tell" issue as being gay.

"It should just say a "loss of faith" as a loss of a once existing belief while in the service *can* be an indicator of a serious personality change."

Personality change?
Yes.
In a negative way?
Not necessarily, and that's the point.

I agree it isn't necessarily a negative personality change, but *any* personality change of that nature can be a symptom of depression. If you read through that document in detail, it doens't take just one indicator to trigger this counseling, but *many*. So even with "lack of faith", that alone is not sufficient. But "loss of faith" combined with facotrs like "tardy" and "not doing his duties to his once established potential levels" could be a sign of depression and, considering the rise of suicides, taking stops to prevent them is a "better safe than sorry" approach. The goal is to get someone who is on a potential suicide path help, not to punish for lack of faith or poor morale. The Corps has been doing *that* job for years. They are trying to become the kinder, gentler Coprs that cares about the mental well-being by being proactive when tell-tale signs of depression make themselves apparent.

Closing your eyes, holding your ears, and hollering "nah nah nah nah" isn't going to make those warning signs go away. And a loss of faith combined with other factors can be a warning sign.

"Personality change?
Yes.
In a negative way?
Not necessarily, and that's the point."

Yeah, but it can be a challenging thing to go through. If you know a soldier's having a crisis of faith, I don't think it's insulting to throw up a flag and have somebody say to him/her, "Hey, that's probably rough. Do you need to talk this over with somebody?"

Obi =- ever stop believing something? I've had my religious faith pretty well shattered over the past 5 or 6 years for a variety of reasons - it isn't a good thing for the psyche In my experience, having something you believed without question for 35+ years suddenly be something you don’t believe in…especially when that thing is the “magic bullet” that makes everything OK. Dying of cancer? It’s OK…heaven awaits! What? Personal struggles? That’s OK, God lets it happen because you are strong enough to endure it, and He will us this experience in the end for His glory…just have patience and faith!

Etc. etc….if you have never had faith, Obi, than you truly can not understand the comfort that faith provides, in that is answers and solved *all* the problems of life (not literally – but it comforts in times of trouble). Losing that…IN WAR…would be emotionally devastating. With faith, death means home to glory...a soldier's comfort. Lose that faith...now death is meaningless...depressing.

Typical religious claptrap. "Oh, how anybody could bear to live in a world without God, atheists must be so depressed!"

It sounds stupid, but I've heard it said here too.

"ever stop believing something?"

Yes. God.

I thought God existed when I was a kid.

Didn't make a big deal about it (I think my biggest conception of "Heaven" is about what you'd expect from a 10-year old boy--"In Heaven I'll get to watch all the best baseball and football players play...and the Star Wars and Star Trek cats will reunite...and maybe I'll get to meet King Arthur!") but I thought God was real, at the very least.

And then...I didn't.

That didn't shatter my view of the world or crush me as a person...

Because what I wanted (what I think A LOT of people want out of God and Heaven, even if they don't admit it, that is, something after death and to see some of their fantasies realized) is 1. Silly if you think it'll ever literally happen and 2. At the same time possible in a secular sense--

Jackie Robinson and Babe Ruth will never play on the same team as Mike Piazza and David Wright--but I can still think about them all...their memory isn't going anywhere.

The episodes of Star Trek aren't going anywhere.

King Arthur, Odysseus, even Moses and Jesus--those legends aren't going anywhere...

So in a way, King Arthur, Odysseus, Moses and Jesus all do "live on"...

And while I could cite a Dead White Male Author, let's cite Freddie Mercury, that's always fun...

"Who Wants to Live Foreeeeeeeveeeeerrrrrrr?"

As Hamlet recognizes with Caesar "dead and turned to clay"--I'll day someday.
And my body will become dust.
And some of that dust will go here and there.
And the atoms that make up that dust will disperse even more.

I will be gone, but the atoms that were once me will make planets and stars (and maybe even 1,0065th Editions of Shakespeare's Complete Works!) ;)

Hitchens said it best--"I've met Shakespeare, in his works...meeting the man would almost certainly be a disappointment."

True of Shakespeare, true of Hitchens.

I never met either of those heroes of me, but I "know" each of them by their works, and carry that with me...and whether I pass my thoughts and feelings on to one person or a class-ful someday or maybe even thousands or millions or more in a book--

They will know me, pass me on, and so in thought and atomic form, I will be used and reused over time.

Given that...who needs spirit form?



So loss of faith didn't shatter me. Not at the moment (to be honest, I was most "shattered" by the idea the Arthurian Legend wasn't true than the idea God wasn't true, and God and Judaism was supposed to be my religion!) and not now.

I think it has made me stronger and, on the whole, better.

YellowJacket -- that is exactly NOT what I said. Such is the depth of your stupidity and misunderstanding.

A person that has "lost their faith" is not equivalent AT ALL to an atheists.

I don't think that atheists are at all in danger of suffering from the emotional dilemma that I am describing, and if you would -- just for a brief moment - stop being the Constant Asshole and engage in a discussion - you might learn something.

This discussion isn't about the truth of God...it is purely about psychology. You *do* believe in psychology, don't you?

A person afraid of aliens is still afraid, even if aliens are non-existent. Does that make their fear stupid?

Quit being a jackass, YJ...jut once.

hey krellin, remember when I wasn't talking to or about you but you were such an egocentric prick you just assumed I was?

"Quit being a jackass, YJ...jut once." --krellin.

Oh, the irony.........

But Obi - your loss of faith was after having that faith for how many years? I mean truly having it, not just drilled into your prepubescent (att he time) head and saying "Oh, OK, I guess there is a God, let's go play baseball!" but truly believing *in* God. What maybe 2, 3 years tops? Try losing it after decades as krellin describes. I've had faith in *a* God for most of my young adult and adult life, since maybe 13 or 14 as I took my Catechism classes very seriously. IF I were to lose faith in any God tomorrow, that would be a sign of a serious risk facotr. Remember, we aren't talking about something necessarily being bad, but a sympton of a possible underlying problem. Sometimes a cough is just a cough, but sometimes it is the first symptom of pneumonia. Well, sometimes loss of faith is just a person amtruing and coming to understand themselves andwhat they truly believe in (especially in an 18-25 year old soldier) but sometimes it is a sign of a serious issue and so we look for other warning flags to see if they are present.

You're making a lot of sense draugnar, but the article in question doesn't focus exclusively on "loss" of faith, it also considers "lack" sufficient grounds to worry.

That's horse shit.

"I mean truly having it, not just drilled into your prepubescent (att he time) head and saying "Oh, OK, I guess there is a God, let's go play baseball!" but truly believing *in* God."

Explain to me what that means.

What makes my level of belief better or worse than another's?

Isn't the SINCERITY of the belief what counts?

I sincerely believed there was a God and a Field of Dreams up there if I was a good little boy and didn't do the sort of things that get you sent to Hell...

That doesn't count?

Losing it after decades...probably more difficult, but then any change after decades of the same thing is difficult--religion is no different there.

I don't think losing anything after years of having it makes you a "risk factor."

I think YOU make you a risk factor--that is, I think different people react to different changes, well, differently.

Some will be relieved or elevated, some will go to pieces...some will shrug and move on.

Addressed *twice* now YJ. But even so, one single flag (even a flase flag) is not enough to set off the system. If you click on the linkl to the PDF of the document and read it all, you will see it takes *several* indicators before anything is initiated. So one false indicator would only be one of several others. Additionally, rmember this isn't a punishment nor is it something that will get them drummed out of the Corps. It is an honest concern for their well being to prevent them from committing suicide. Can we really pick nits and have a fit over something that actually *doesn't* discriminate and, if you truly new the first amendment and realized that no where in the constitution do the words "Separation of Church and State" exist, is not intended to establish *a* religion, but tio monitor the mental health of individuals and prevent them from committing harm to themselves by addressing anything that may come up while they are in the service.

In short, a private graduates boot and it is immediately recorded as "lack of faith" on his mental health chart. As long as all that is ever there is "lack of faith" then there is never an issue anyhow.

But if he has faith and suddenly "lack/loss of faith" appearts along with "derelict in duties" and "loner/introspective" when the private had once been an outgoing amiable guy, it is a warning sign to take a look at them and try to *help* them (again, *help* not punish, the Corps isn't prison and, even in boot, the DIs would take special pains to help recruits who clearly needed it and not just punish them to instill discipline). The Corps is a family who cares about its members. To an outsider, the punishments look like all there is: Death before Dishonor, red flags, apparently excessive physical conditioning are not all there is. Far from it. We tutor and help those who fall behind and we work as a team and a family so that no MArine gets left behind. Not on the battlefield and not in life.

"sometimes loss of faith is just a person amtruing and coming to understand themselves andwhat they truly believe in (especially in an 18-25 year old soldier) but sometimes it is a sign of a serious issue and so we look for other warning flags to see if they are present."

Exactly--it's not the loss of faith ITSELF that is the warning flag or issue...

The person changing is the issue--that's just the way in which they express or manifest that change.

"Some will be relieved or elevated, some will go to pieces...some will shrug and move on."

Exactly the point! The point of the program is to get those who are going to peices the help they need! Again, it isn't one single question or the answer to any one of those questions, but the mental makeup as a whole that this evaluation looks toward to prevent risk to the individual Marine.

And, yes, it is about the depth of belief and as you grow older (yes, even you the 19 or 20 or 21 something college student), you will discover what us "agists" already know... That when I was a child I thought as a child and I acted as a child, but now I put away childish things. You will see that with age comes insight and wisdom. I think you have seen it in yourself even in just the last couple of years I have known you. So look tot he future and imagine better the wisdom you will have then as far as what your faith was like (were you truly fervent in that belief or was it really an afterthought because it never really was the focus of study outside being bar-mitzvahed).

That's totally reasonable, obi. Just read your own side's literature to see why. For example, read Dan Barker's "Godless," or "Losing My Religion," or some of the hundreds of deconverstion stories on the internet, and you will see that *often* (not always, but often), there is a sense of depression or loss of identity that accompanies the loss of religious faith. Some people get past it, and other people don't, but it's a perfectly reasonable thing to keep an eye on if you're concerned about noticing depression among marines in a high-stress situation.

@ Obiwanbenkenobiwan,
I think you are conflating different issues
one issue is how do the military better help personell in crisis, how do they identify individuals suffering under extreme stress BEFORE they self harm / harm others
the separate issue is, is it possible for a person with no belief in any particular religious faith to fight against religious extremists, and I would say that is easily possible

One of the traditions of the RSL ( Returned Services League ) in Australia is that in an RSL club two subjects do not get discussed, Religion and Politics & that goes back to the formation of the RSL by veterans of WW1
we support each other because what unites us is more important than what divides us

There's also another point to be made here. There may be a distinction to be made here between religious faith and what they refer to as "spiritual faith". I know a lot of humanists who don't believe in a god, but when they see a sunset they are reminded of how, scientifically, the atoms that presently make up their body are exchanged every time they breathe with the atoms that make up the tree next to them, or the air itself, and that, in a quite literal way, their body may one day *be* a sunset. It reminds them of the chemical interconnectedness of all living beings, and gives them an almost Buddhist sense of oneness with the universe. This is a very spiritual faith that in no way relies on religious faith.

@ hecks--- good point, a person can have "spritual" beliefs / values
and moral beliefs / values that are independent of a religious faith.
The best soldiers are not the "psychopaths" or "religious fanatics"
but are the individuals with a strong internal set of moral values and moral code that are consistent with the moral code of the defense / military force they join.
There is a lot of published work on Military Law / Ethics etc
I would certainly reccomend John Keegan's "A History of Warfare" as worth a read,
"modern" warfare / military culture didn't arise in isolation, it is the culmination of what
has gone before, so an understanding of military history is essential in understanding
the present day range of military cultures & ethics