It’s not being done by those people. The Region Trg Off have been asked to approve the replacement version.
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In the world the state its in I find that its the lack of Christian values that are causing the most issues.
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Evening for my first post and as a long time lurker I would like to point out that in my neck of the woods that while many people are moving away from Christianity most of the cadets I work with, their beliefs play a large part of their life and are offended when religion is thought of as some minor. Surely we should be aware of their religion to be able to work around celebrations such as Ramadan. Just a thought.
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I have to say, having only ever been part of the CCF, we have never, as far as I am aware, had a ‘cadet promise’. Perhaps rather than get all ‘touchy’ about peoples feelings over the use of the word God, perhaps you should look at whether it (the promise) is still relevent at all?
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With the intended changes to the 3822 and introduction of the Cadet Code of Conduct, I suspect that the promise will be revised.
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What constitutes “moving away from Christianity”?
What beliefs play a large part of their lives?
If we can’t recognise Christianity how can we recognise any religion, surely it’s all or nothing.
The only thing to understand is that the removal of the recognition of a deity is only to appease atheists and supposedly “move with the times”, whatever that means.
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Well said. Christians remain easy targets. Anyway, what are aetheists so afraid of?
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The lack of Christian values?
The Church over it’s 2000ish year history has hardly been a bastion of humanity or even Christian values. More a tool for power and oppression. If the professionals can’t do it why should anybody be expected to take moral guidance from the Bible. How many wars have been started directly or indirectly because of religious values?
I couldn’t care less what religion somebody is and would never hold it against them, in fact on my Sqn we have most of the major established religions. I care about people’s actions. Values don’t need to be from a book you just have to have them. RISE is a good start.
More to the point, I don’t think the promise should changed. The option for people to omit the word “god” is there. So in my eyes there is no problem.
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[quote=“blueforyou” post=1030]Anyway, what are aetheists so afraid of?[/quote]The erosion of our rights and imposition of a set of practices with which many of us strongly disagree or find genuinely offensive and the enforcement of a set of bigoted values based on obsolete texts rather than what might be called a “christian” (small c) view.
The Secularist takes the view that granting privilege to any system of beliefs (religious or not) leads to an imbalanced , unfair and non-inclusive society where the feelings and beliefs of specific individuals are regularly subjugated by the feelings and beliefs of others. The best stance for an organisation which is open and welcoming to any member of society is a secular one where there is no reference (positive or negative) to any specific religious stance. Religious belief or non-belief is simply not a factor in membership or the way that the organisation is run.
Christianity is an easy target in society today in much the same way as pigeons are an easy target in Trafalgar square: They are all over the place and they have crapped on everything. Christians are “targeted” because they are the dominant religion in the UK and they are entrenched through centuries of influence - dug in like a tick. Their radicals also tend not to blow up shopping malls (even the Irish have stopped doing that) so people are more comfortable lambasting them in public.
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what are Christians afraid of?
they are perfectly at liberty to make their own promises to God, and if they are in close communion to him they won’t care whether those promises are made publicly or privately.
personally i think that a promise made to god by an atheist has a serious effect on integrity - i know that that (most) of the cadets don’t believe it, they will know that i don’t believe it: it becomes a charade, it makes the organisation more of a mockery, it says that the ACO is an organisation where you just parrot rubbish you don’t believe to be true, and everyone around you knows you don’t believe it to be true - and you then begin to ask yourself what other rubbish people parrot at the request of the ACO that they don’t believe to be true. child protection perhaps…?
at the heart of the matter, i believe it to be fundamentally ethically unacceptable to require a person - of whatever age - to mouth words they don’t believe in order to become a member of a youth organisation, or for that person to be required to undertake an act of worship. simple as that.
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I believe now is an appropriate time to hear from our good friend, Gunny Hartman:-
[i]Gunnery Sergeant Hartman: Private Joker, do you believe in the Virgin Mary?
Private Joker: Sir, no, sir!
Gunnery Sergeant Hartman: Well, well, Private Joker, I don’t believe I heard you correctly!
Private Joker: Sir, the private said “no, sir,” sir!
Gunnery Sergeant Hartman: Why you little maggot, you make me want to vomit!
Gunnery Sergeant Hartman: You Goddamn communist heathen, you had best sound off that you love the Virgin Mary, or I’m gonna stomp your guts out! Now you DO love the Virgin Mary, don’t ya?
Private Joker: Sir, NEGATIVE, sir!
Gunnery Sergeant Hartman: Private Joker, are you trying to offend me?
Private Joker: Sir, NEGATIVE, sir! Sir, the private belives any answer he gives will be wrong and the Senior Drill Instructor will only beat him harder if he reverses himself, SIR!
Gunnery Sergeant Hartman: Who’s your squad leader, scumbag?
Private Joker: Sir, the squad leader is Private Snowball, sir!
Gunnery Sergeant Hartman: Private Snowball!
[/i]
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I am tending to fall on the side that the promise should be done away with entirely. A simple ceremony can be written which would simply acknowledge the new cadets by name and welcome them into the organisation.
In many ways, the old promise has been usurped by the new cadet conditions of service.
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So, just to confuse the issue:
I’m certainly not a Christian.
I’m definately not religious.
I don’t ‘believe in God’…
But I certainly don’t have a problem accepting the existance of a higher power and I don’t mind using ‘God’ as shorthand to refer to that. I also have to accept that blokes like Jesus had a lot of good ideas and talked a lot of sense.
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[quote=“incubus” post=1041]I am tending to fall on the side that the promise should be done away with entirely. A simple ceremony can be written which would simply acknowledge the new cadets by name and welcome them into the organisation.
In many ways, the old promise has been usurped by the new cadet conditions of service.[/quote]
Frankly ditch the promise this appeases athiests and republicans in one go, afterall we can’t be seen to move against the tide of opinon, and the conditions of service are testes (I’ve read them, adminners must salivate at the thought of them) so get rid of them as well and while we’re at it.
I wouldn’t have any sort of ceremony just sign the 3822, give it to them along with a uniform and be done with it.
Also if we’re losing all religious references, that frees up all of the Remembrance type parades. No ATC Sunday parades or any parade or religious observance. Good more Sundays off to read the paper and do things with the family.
I know 3 people who wear their atheism like hi-vis, who without fail attend Remembrance Parades, go to church at Christmas and likewise go to hatch, match and despatch services. However they do make a big thing about how they are there. I don’t make anything of it and their lack of belief, as much as they bang on about my personal beliefs.
However as I said not very many cadets who join will have made a personal choice as to their faith/reglious conviction, just as many won’t have become atheists, similarly they won’t have made a choice in terms of Monarchist or republican, they will be parroting the line at home or whatever teacher they think is best. I think that simply making an assumption that a non entry in a religios context makes them an atheist is just that, an assumption, but an easy assumption for the so called atheists to make. I don’t make that assumption however, just as I don’t think a no entry makes them a Jew, Muslim, Buddhist etc etc.
The ultimate truth is that Christians (well modern ones anyway) don’t go around blowiing people up for disrespecting their belief, so are a very easy target and as it is the established religion and the Monarch is the head of that religion, taking one word out such as God while keeping a royal reference, does make for an interesting concept.
As for religion being a war mongerer, war/conflict has been more about acquiring land, wealth and resources and stopping people acquiring that over the millenia.
BTW do negative Karma points come with not towing the line and failing to fall in step with the main body of opinion? If that’s their purpose then I hope to make double figures pretty soon. :evil: 
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Negative Karma is usually given when someone thinks that someone else posts drivel, or they’re unhelpful.
In relation to your post above, I believe it is folly to suggest that you would abandon Remembrance Day if you got rid of an antiquated promise to a specific deity. As you well know, more than just Christians have died in wars, and Remembrance day is about commemorating their sacrifice, not glorifying one religion over another. Hence having many denominations at the Cenotaph every year.
Personally I think that removing the promise is fairer to all, or at least having a promise that makes no mention of relgions. Something like “And I promise to serve my squadron loyally and be faithful to my obligations as a member of the ATC”
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i don’t see why - HM The Queen is also the patron of the Mothers Union, but i don’t see that having any impact on the ACO…
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i don’t see why - HM The Queen is also the patron of the Mothers Union, but i don’t see that having any impact on the ACO…[/quote]
You’re right they don’t, they dump their kids outside the gate and speed off into the night, maybe to come back, maybe to wait until poor CFAV has stood outside with their kid until 10pm!
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OK then Karma is not empirical, as such meaningless and a so probably bit of coding that could have been avoided. I’ll ignore it.
So back OT, WRT Remembrance and the cadet promise; by the argument about who died, the atheists effectively get to eat their cake and keep it, while anyone of religious faith has to forgo their belief because someone with no belief, thinks they should, which is what seems to be the case by the imposing of the suggested change.
It is not a specific deity the only reference is the word God and each religion has it’s own God or Gods in their religious texts.
To say it is a specific deity just illustrates the narrow-minded attitude among people who feel themselves to be ultra-worldly, but are in fact as, if not more, closed minded and bigoted than the people who they are forever having a pop at.
What is having a religious faith or belief, IMO it has very little to do with going to church, which is what the baying masses seem to think. Going to a place of worship doesn’t make you a Muslim, Jew, Buddhist, Hindu, Seikh, Christian (in it’s many guises) etc, it’s the person’s inner belief and way they act.
But still the best option is to not have the promise at all, just give them a membership book or perhaps card in the future. Just like you would get anywhere else, with none of the fanfare. As I said though which no one has commented on; how many cadets actually understand, put any store or realise what they are saying in the promise anyway, regardless whether or not it fits with what they have been told to think or think. This is all of it not just the religious reference. I would say less than 1% actually understand, realise or put any store in it.
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[quote=“glass half empty 2” post=1059]To say it is a specific deity just illustrates the narrow-minded attitude among people who feel themselves to be ultra-worldly, but are in fact as, if not more, closed minded and bigoted than the people who they are forever having a pop at.[/quote]No, to assume that everyone has a ‘god’ of some sort is the narrow-minded view. Buddhists, for starters don’t have a god, and neither do humanists.
The fact that you can’t empathise with those who are actually devout in their non-belief isn’t entirely surprising - the fact that you seem unwilling to even try is what is worrying.
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The word “God” in the propmise is not an open-ended ‘insert your own deity here’ clause… it’s a reference to the christian idea of god. Plain and simple.
Here’s a thought. Let’s suppose we change the promise to read “do my duty to Allah”; or “do my duty to Buddha”; or “do my duty to Thor”…
How does that sit with the christian members? HONESTLY?
Are they happy to accept that it’s just a word and they can say it whilst actually meaning something else? Or are they likely to think “Well that’s silly! I’m not Muslim, so why am I promising to do my duty to Allah!? Why can’t I promise to my own god?”
I reckon many will think the later… and that’s exactly the point. “Allah” is to christians, as “god” is to non-christians.
Just as a christian might prefer to promise to their own god instead of some other religion’s, a non-religious person might prefer not to promise to ANY religious god.
It’s not a case of “well, they don’t have a particular god so it’s just fine for them to promise to ours and they can just not mean it or whatever…”.
I think that what a number of religious people miss (and I’m going to pick on christianity here simply because in 30 years I’ve never had a Buddist, or a Muslim, or Hindu, or a Sikh try to encourage me to follow their belief) is that religion is a members club, and should be treated as such. It shouldn’t be expected that non-members conform whether they believe or not just to keep those who do, happy.
I’m not an atheist; but I’m most definitely not a christian, nor am I religious. Why should I be expected to promise something to an idea of ‘god’ that I disagree with? Why should anyone?
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