Concerning Military Freedom From Religion

Dear (name withheld),

The “old saying” is wrong. I am an atheist and I’ve been in my share of foxholes. I have the Combat Medic Badge and the Purple Heart to prove it. I am not alone. Atheists make up a larger percentage of the military than they do of the general population. I am attaching a photograph that a few fellow foxhole atheists took in Iraq for the sole purpose of showing people like you that you have your head up your ass. We are not isolated individuals. We are 200+ thousand strong in the Army alone (15-18% of the 1.4 million total).

Your religion had absolutely nothing to do with the formation of our gloriously godless Constitution. I challenge you to find the word “god” anywhere in my Constitution. Find the word “Jesus”. If you actually read it, you will not find anything remotely suggestive of your religion. The only time our Constitution even mentions religion is to stop the government (of which the military is a part) from being involved with it. James Madison, the AUTHOR of the Constitution, wrote: “The general government is proscribed from the interfering, in any manner whatsoever, in matters respecting religion”, “Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprize, every expanded prospect.”, “The establishment of the chaplainship in Congress is a palpable violation of equal rights as well as of Constitutional principles.”

John Adams, the Second President of the United States, didn’t even think it was possible for such ignorance to exist. He thought it obvious that people would forever know that we are NOT a Christian nation: “The United States of America have exhibited, perhaps, the first example of governments erected on the simple principles of nature; and if men are now sufficiently enlightened to disabuse themselves of artifice, imposture, hypocrisy, and superstition, they will consider this event as an era in their history. Although the detail of the formation of the American governments is at present little known or regarded either in Europe or in America, it may hereafter become an object of curiosity. It will never be pretended that any persons employed in that service had interviews with the gods, or were in any degree under the influence of Heaven, more than those at work upon ships or houses, or laboring in merchandise or agriculture; it will forever be acknowledged that these governments were contrived merely by the use of reason and the senses.”

We are not a single digit. We are over 10%. We are higher among college graduates, scientists, doctors, nurses, and paramedics. We are higher in the Army, Navy, Marines, and Air Force. The only population where atheists are “single digits” is in prisons, because we are statistically better, law-abiding citizens (we’re about 0.5% there). We are not thieves or murderers or rapists. We know our history and we love our country. We are not out to hurt you for believing in bronze age mythology, but we want to be left alone. We’re not going to put “God Sucks” on your money, we just want it to be neutral and fair for everyone. We don’t want “One Nation Under Nothing”, but “One Nation Indivisible”. We don’t want to stop you from praying if it makes you feel better, but we want you to stop making us listen in silent submission to Christian dominance, just as you wouldn’t want to hear a Satanist or Wiccan or Muslim prayer spouted by a government representative. If you want to telepathically communicate with the creator of the universe, I think you can do it without using the force of law to make everyone participate. (I’ve heard that he can hear you better if you talk to him through a telephone though… something about getting better reception.)

I hope you’re able to see the truth through the foggy blinders of religion.

Sergeant Dustin Chalker