Today, January 18, ABC News reported that high powered rifle sights provided to the US Army and Marines by the Michigan weapons maker, Trijicon, have encoded biblical references to Jesus. The sights are used by U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and in the training of Iraqi and Afghan soldiers. The maker of the sights, Trijicon, has a $660 million multi-year contract to provide up to 800,000 sights to the Marine Corps, and additional contracts to provide sights to the U.S. Army.U.S. military rules specifically prohibit the proselytizing of any religion in Iraq or Afghanistan and were drawn up in order to prevent criticism that the U.S. was embarked on a religious "Crusade" in its war against al Qaeda and Iraqi insurgents.
One of the citations on the gun sights, 2COR4:6, is an apparent reference to Second Corinthians 4:6 of the New Testament, which reads: "For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ."
Other references include citations from the books of Revelation, Matthew and John dealing with Jesus as "the light of the world." John 8:12, referred to on the gun sights as JN8:12, reads, "Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life."
"It's wrong, it violates the Constitution, it violates a number of federal laws," said Michael "Mikey" Weinstein of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, an advocacy group that seeks to preserve the separation of church and state in the military.
The sights are used by U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and in the training of Iraqi and Afghan soldiers. The maker of the sights, Trijicon, has a $660 million multi-year contract to provide up to 800,000 sights to the Marine Corps, and additional contracts to provide sights to the U.S. Army.
U.S. military rules specifically prohibit the proselytizing of any religion in Iraq or Afghanistan and were drawn up in order to prevent criticism that the U.S. was embarked on a religious "Crusade" in its war against al Qaeda and Iraqi insurgents.
10 comments:
I commented on this at MikeB's, but
OK, how long before the Supreme Court rules that the First Amendment doesn't preclude calling the US a Christian nation based on the same sort of BS that changed the Second Amendment from something that protects me from Standing Armies to something that doesn't protect me from a maniac or criminal acquiring a gun?
I don't for a second entertain the notion that there could be any intelligent discussion about this subject if push came to shove.
The religious right would pull their persecuted christian act and totally obscure the real issues which are behind the ban by the military.
Most religious right people who I encounter are under the impression that there was never any separation of church and state in America, as long as the church is christian.
As with everything else, the facts are not to be interpreted as facts, but only what they want them to mean.
By the way, Trijicon sponsors a number of radio ministries...all revolving around god and guns and the great outdoors.
I checked out one, based in the great state of michigan called "God's Great Outdoors" Guns, Hunting, Jesus all mixed together in a patriotic stew, served up steaming fresh from the campfire, piney smoke and all!
The jesus image looks alot like a work by the great Banksy.
Madame SR,,,I tried to find out who was the artist. It is not Banksy. As far as I can tell the original stencil was offered on a site called stencilry.com that offers designs with political content for free use with stencil art tutorials.
The picture I used was untagged...someone cut the stencil from the webpage and used a little creativity when applying it.
There were a lot of great designs on the site.
I found the image by originally seraching google images with the words "jesus with a gun".
Okay, how exactly is putting abreviations and numbers proselytizing?
From Wikipedia:
Proselytizing is the act of attempting to convert people to another opinion and, particularly, another religion.
I don't see the references as an attempt to convert anyone.
So, please explain how the mere appearance of "2COR4:6" is attempting to convert anyone?
Unfortuantely, there are loads of ministries to the US troops. All that seems weird to me:
http://www.militaryreligiousfreedom.org/
I think you are quibbling with the concept...
Either you support a separation of church and state or you want to make America a theocracy which supports a specific religion.
And you are right as far as killing someone with a gun with religious symbolism isn't exactly converting them, but what you are doing with guns that even covertly convey a christian religious message is reinforce the muslim extremists ability to proselytize using the fact as evidence that a religious war is being fought against them.
But then again, that is straying from the original point which that is it is illegal and violates the spirit of the United States Constitution.
Here is the best post I've seen on this topic:
http://dar2dream.wordpress.com/2010/01/19/turn-your-eyes-upon-jesus-given-new-meaning-by-gun-sight-manufacturer/
BobS. misses that part of the Jihadi's problem with the US is the comment that it is on a crusade. Even something like this which would seem insignificant could be incredibly damaging to US interests.
And again, we confuse the issue of church and stage separation with religious freedom and obscure the real purpose of the ban with faux outrage.....
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