Air Force Officials Rightly Remove God from Group’s Patch

It’s amazing that 35 congressman want the patch to bare a statement that more obviously violates the establishment clause than anything I’ve seen – “Doing God’s work with other people’s money.” So not only are they promoting God as a part of a public organization, but these senators want this organization to use our tax money to do God’s work? It’s amazing how people only care about the sanctity of the constitution when what it says can be construed to align with their personal interests.

Seems like they couldn’t get a good Latinist the second time around.  Should be “miracula”.  As it is, it reads something like: “of a miracle–we carry (something) out with the money of others.”

Translating “miracula” as “miracle” is a mistake. It’s better translated as “wonder”.

It is now de rigueur for Republican politicians to strike a phony pose of indignation every time their Sky Spook isn’t acknowledged front and center by any and every government agency. Wasting government time and money costs them nothing personally. I think that most of them quite literally don’t give a damn about these things, and they know that most of their silly bills and resolutions are going to be passed over in committee or thrown out in court. It’s all about pandering to the religious right for a few more votes.

It’s a silly fight.  The “Doing God’s Work with other people’s money”  bit is an old military joke.

But sometimes both are rolled into one.  Joke or not, the slogan (both before and after) is lame. 

http://www.atheistrev.com/2011/02/idiot-of-week-rep-j-randy-forbes.html

It seems Randy Forbes is a genuine lunatic, this isn’t just political. 

So a military agency uses a joke for its motto. Does that mean the agency is also a joke? 

I’ll be honest; I read the description of what the RCO does and it still doesn’t make much sense to me, but it’s pretty evident God is nowhere to be found in that office.

I read and re-read their description, especially their transparent-as-cement “mission statement.” As best as I can interpret, they pull strings and cut corners to get nasty things done quickly, when the Air Force would otherwise be bogged down in its own bureaucratic paralysis.

If they want a joke for a motto, what’s Latin for “We put cruise missiles up camel’s asses.”

I think that “Doing God’s Work with other peoples’ money” is a fine slogan.  It certainly isn’t promoting religion, or at least not the way I read it.  It comes across as wry and sly.  Now “Doing miracles with other peoples’ money”  is a much more religious sentiment in my opinion.  Should have kept the slogan.

It seems some agree the original complaint was a hypersensitive overreaction.  Getting worked up over the word “god”, especially when it isn’t used in the sense of an actual deity, is what Forbes was referring to.  The desire for censorship by some atheists is so strong they can’t stand to see the word “god” in any language under any circumstances, apparently.

And to Felyx Leiter in re: “Allah,” it already said that.  The English “God” in Latin is “Dei.” Guess what the Arabic “Allah” is in Latin.

http://christianfighterpilot.com/blog/2012/02/08/rep-randy-forbes-calls-on-air-force-to-put-god-back-in-motto/

JD, I really tire of you using your rank to push your anti-Constitution, theocratic views on us. You have lied about numerous things, including the Rock the Fort concert and have personally slandered many atheists proudly serving in the military who simply want equal protection under the law. You won’t even stand up for the Constitution you swore to defend when you became an officer. Shame on you.

Good work. Thank you.

Odd how the conversation never goes:  Promiscuously putting “god” in every possible government document and into every possible government service is as pious and reverent as a 5-year old plastering scratch and sniff stickers all over their bedroom furniture.  True xtians shouldn’t be wasting the time and money doing such silly and frivolous things……
But maintaining the bully pulpit over non-xtians is just too tempting, I guess.

But if a letter from the MAAF or the FFRF would turn the economy around and create jobs, I’d be all over them writing those letters like white on rice!

And the Salvation Army snaps up the old motto in…3…2…1….

Both versions have some terrible Latin.

They couldn’t just hire someone who actually knows the language?

I would have done the new version for free.  Seriously.

 “If they want a joke for a motto, they should use Latin to say, “We put cruise missiles up camels’ asses.” ”

Missilia automata in culis camelorum ponimus.

I’ve read the comments on other news websites about this and they were screaming bloody blue murder.  None of them seemed to remember when the fundamentalist Christian cadets at the Air Force Academy were trying to drive out anyone who wasn’t “Christian enough”. If you were not a hard-line Christian, let alone Jewish, Islamic, Buddhist, atheist or an agnostic, they would set out to make your life a living hell and try to get you to resign. Even those who were already Christian were pressured to go the fundamentalist route. In a classic case of overkill, when all that came out publicly, the Air Force Academy did a 180 and now this policy is in place.

We have separation of church and state for a reason. Just because you are a Christian doesn’t mean someone who also calls themselves a Christian doesn’t like your particular flavor of Christianity and decides to persecute you. Religious wars are some of the bloodiest known to history. I would leave God in the USAF logo because that is a part of its history. But unless you’ve been persecuted for your religious beliefs, you don’t understand how what you believe in can turn on you.