U.S. Army Major Wants Dog Tag to Say ‘Humanist’; Military Says No

I don’t see why listing your imaginary friend social club (or lack of) belongs on a dog tag in the first place..

Why should the Army Chaplain Corps be the ones to decide what goes on his dogtag?

It’s kind of like a will crammed into one word so that people on the field will have a better idea of how to treat them if they’re about to die or dead. If you’re religious of one type or another efforts will be made to get a religious person of your listed faith to perform whatever rituals they’d want if they were able to convey the desire. It technically doesn’t mean anything if atheists are correct, but to the grieving family it could lend reassurances. I mean humans generally have a basic desire to carry out such things that their deceased loved ones would have wanted regardless of religious views.

Binary trans* people exist, don’t you stick us in some third gender category. Plus, transgender is not a noun. Seriously.

On the real subject: you must be privileged in a big way. I never met someone who was “label-free” and not white, cisgender, abled and likely straight. You have the privilege of being seen as default. Other people, however, do not, and when we use labels it may be a way to get the privileged folks to stop  erasing our identities. Please don’t assume.

Also: noticing difference on its own does not make a person bigoted.

Hemant,

You say that Humanism is ‘atheism+ethics’. This implies that those atheists who do not consider themselves Humanists do not have any ethics, which sounds a little too close to the religious ‘atheists have no morals’ trope for comfort. Non-Humanist atheists do exist, and do still have ethics and values.

For instance, I am an atheist, but do not define myself as a Humanist because  I think the term is too narrow and speciesist, and does not allow enough focus for animal rights and environmentalist issues. This certainly does not mean that I lack ethics, or even that I do not also care about humans too and try to be a good person, just that the term ‘Humanist’ is too narrow in my opinion.

There are many ways to be an atheist and have ethics, of which Humanism is just one.

 Put it this way, if you die or are in danger of death, far away from your next of kin and unable to speak for yourself, a dog-tag will determine some of what happens to you. In the US army you can be sure that if you do not specify otherwise, you will be treated as a Christian. Now that may not bother you, but I’m fairly certain it would bother some people.

I’ve heard many stories about atheist soldiers looking to chaplains for help, only to get lectured about how they need to get right with Jesus (which is just what you need to hear when you may be suicidal, eh?). The absolute last thing I would want, if something were to happen to me, is for some clergy to go to my grieving atheist parents to try to make it about God. It would not help, and it might get my dad arrested for assault.

From Wiki:
Religion is a collection of cultural systems, belief systems, and worldviews that establishes symbols that relate humanity to spirituality and, sometimes, to moral values.

see now?

 I think the point of this affair is that at present dog-tags allow for shades of difference for theists but prohibit it for atheists. It is absolutely accepted that Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Christians etc. have different worldviews and this is to be reflected. Christians in particular are allowed tremendous specificity on their dog-tags, distinguishing different kinds of Christians (you can even have official Salvation Army dog-tags). However non-theists are allowed no shades of difference. Basically, according to the armed forces, all non-theists believe the same thing, i.e: nothing.

The problem with this is that it’s not true. Even though atheism is only a lack of belief in gods, there are very obviously different kinds of atheists. For some, simply saying “atheist” is enough, but for others their identity is more properly fleshed out with an identifier such as Humanist. It’s not fair to allow the theist to distinguish just what kind of theist they are when atheists are not afforded the same right.

When my husband served he was asked ” what religion are you?” he said ” atheist” they put ” no preference” he and the others who said tbe same were given the same
” no pref” for my husband implied to him he believed in god just had no pref for religion. It infuriated him. Today saying ” atheist” at all on dog tags is a huge step forward to him.
I am an atheist but also have a humanistic ” outlook”
So I agree the space on a dog tag is to alert. Folks who or how to care for the religious when they need spiritual help. If you do not believe in God the statement is simple ” atheist”

I guess I understand the reasoning for having religion on dog tags, but risk of untimely death isn’t limited to the military. Perhaps a better solution would be something similar to a medic-alert bracelet that those with superstitions can wear, leaving the government issued supplies free of superstition and controversy.

Silverman isn’t a Humanist? While I am sure it isn’t the label he prefers, I think the label does fit him. 

First this isn’t about dog tags where I suspect you can get humanist but about the religion listed on a person’s official records  (probably more needed for deciding what to provide, e.g., we have a lot of Jewish solders so chaplains better be trained about Judaism  or deciding provisions for worship  in areas where it is not possible (or easy) to get off base or when notifying relatives [presumably of the same faith] about his or her death [especially if no body with dog tags is around]).   It probably needs to be on the official list so it has a numeric code assigned to it.

Second I wonder if Ethical Culture is a listed religion (this is a particular long established major Humanist group with regular meetings, etc.).  

In fairness to the military, this sounds more like bureaucratic malarky than religious malarky.  I wouldn’t be terribly surprised to see the same delay in recognizing some tiny Christian sect.  Doesn’t mean it’s a good thing, but I don’t think we can assume conspiracy or malice yet.  I think its more likely that they are resistant to adding any new classifications without understanding the distinction more clearly.

I don’t understand why we should use labels either.

It is impossible to be an atheist without ethics.

You can’t hold principles (“Reason is the only source of truth”) and evade ethics, because to have principles mean to abide by their moral imperatives. Ethics is not an optional accessory. It was the consequence of philosophy long before religion hijacked it.

Using the term “humanism” to connote some sort of “softer,” “spiritual,” “pragmatic,” or “inclusive” outlook is at best vain and at worst a sure sign that one does not grasp the full, moral implications of acknowledging the primacy of reason and objective existence.

The last thing atheism needs is to be parceled out to various denominations. Reason does not have the same epistemological status as faith.

I’d be embarassed to meet an atheist who calls himself a “humanist.”

As far what the dog tags are used for it wouldn’t make a difference if it says ‘Atheist’ or ‘Humanist’. So i can understand why someone wouldn’t want to spend so much time doing the paperwork to create new categories.

The humanists will get their way if they’re willing to invest the time and money to fight. I was part of the Wiccan effort to get the military (the VA, actually), to put the pentacle on grave markers. That took a decade plus and two lawsuits, but we ultimately won. 

Yes, the privileged seldom can see the privilege. Noticing differences is not the same as labeling. Labeling helps create stereotypes. I imagine if we had fewer preconceived notions brought on by labeling, we might just get to know others and ourselves a little bit better.   

Ethical Culturalists have a religion. The are also known as Ethical Humanists. What if the want to wear a tag that says humanist? You might argue that there is no one religion that is called Humanist and that it may include people who label themselves as such but claim no religion. However the same arguments could be made against having a tag that says Jew or Christian. There is no one religion called Christianity or Judaism. There are plenty of people who self identify as Christian or Jew who are atheists (including priests and rabbis).

Most of them are asshole. Not sure how you are different than any other racist or bigot who ascribes the behavior of a few to the many. You think all black love Watermelon? I’m sure the percent who do is way larger in that community than the percent in the US military committing atrocities. You conveniently forget that they have trials for and jail US soldiers that commit atrocities. I think you are one of the bad guys.

I got the same treatment, and had the same internal reaction. That and being forced to clean rifles while the other religious cadets when to church and had socials with girls got me motivated to quit West Point. I actually attended one of those sunday activities to see what they were doing, and I was quite pissed the special privileges the religious were getting. Social contact with support groups like local army families, access to girls, cookies and baked goods, free time outside, etc. The second I decide I wanted out I started acting up. I wouldn’t drop my pencil on command at the end of the test. I don’t like cherry pie and when force was made to get me to eat some at dinner and asked to justify why I shouted, “Because somebody has raped the Martha Washington cherry pie, Sir!”.

I never did tell them the real reason I wanted to quit because I was convinced they would be to bigoted to let me out on those grounds. It actually made me emotionally upset to learn that my great supposedly secular and just country had at it’s core such double standards. So my plan was just to act out till they got fed up with me. Perhaps I was wrong but I was just a kid.

They were actually fairly rational about letting me quit. Turns out it was my squad leader that was an unusually bigoted haze. A to be unnamed to protect the innocent, leader passed me in the hall after it was known I was quitting and said “I wish I quit three years ago”.

Great comments and discussions!  If I could do it over, I wouldn’t have mentioned dog tags, though.  It really detracted from the core issue; changing my official record.  The pragmatic truth is that a Soldier with atheist in their record risks damaging their career.  That information appears on the Officer/Enlisted Record Brief for supervisors and boards to see.  This risk prevents many Soldiers from identifying as atheists and, since that is the only secular choice, non-theists are under-represented in the military.  Besides, the issue isn’t about whether Humanism is a religion.  It is about  Soldiers’ right to self- identify as they choose.  And, isn’t it ironic that I can have a Humanist headstone in a national cemetary, but I can’t claim to be a Humanist.