All right, siblings, here we go.

There is a good deal of research in medical and nursing literature that indicates there are health benefits to religious practice (I would suggest the resources at the Duke Center for Spirituality and Health or the George Washington Institute for Spirituality and Health). Now, this isn't data that proves the activity of God, or even tries to. Most of the results can be explained by a disciplined life that includes a sense of personal value and a community commited to mutual support. However, religious communities can provide that, even if they're not the only communities that can.

Now, let me think again about the questions that troubled the specific soldier. The question about being "spiritual" might well be problematic, because there are just too many definitions out there, and too many seem oriented toward connection to a religious community. However, a person who claims no connection beyond himself might well lack some resources for resilience. He might also have other resources; and I can't quite fathom what, for the purposes of the military, "spiritually unfit" might mean.

Marshall Scott

By the way, Keith Olbermann had a long segment on this issue last night. The 6:39 video is here.

This is the same debate that surrounds 12 Step programs: they are "spiritual, not religious." Atheists (remaining atheists) are WELCOME.

...yet I've gotten into disagreements w/ at least one atheist about this (whom I hope will provide her side of this if she sees it! ;-/). Is "spiritual" just "religious" by another name? Can an atheist really endorse a "Higher Power", even w/ the proviso that they need not consider this to be in any way equivalent to the "G" word? [My 12 Step program, Emotions Anonymous, suggests the possibilities "Nature, the group, the universe, or any Higher Power a member chooses". Its daily meditation book includes one, I recall, by an atheist who says EA has helped him/her "become a better atheist!"]

Then there's the Hermeneutic-of-Suspicion thang. In the above Army case, there's the psychologist-who-endorses-torture (I thought I heard he was religious? I may have been mistaken). In 12 Step groups, it's undeniable that the movement was founded by Christians (the recent publication of the original "AA Big Book"---w/ all the notes in the margins by the authors---shows the gradual process by which EXPLICIT Christianity was scrubbed from it)

As a 12 Stepper, it's part of my own process of recovery (Step 12, to be precise) to offer the program, wherever it might be helpful...

...and at the same time, I hate it being seen (by some) that I'm "spreading (a) religion" (since that's explicitly what it's not, and I wouldn't evangelize that way anyway!).

I can relate to the Army, trying to promote mental health, being stuck in the same conundrum (but that "mixed messages" issue---employing so many "Turn or Burn!" sectarian chaplains as they do, and w/ a recent history of ConEv Christians in the military blurring the Church/State line---is probably inevitable).

JC Fisher

Just to reiterate (what 12 Stepper see as) the DIFFERENCE between "spiritual" and "religious", here's the actual language about Higher Power:

The steps suggest a belief in a Power greater than ourselves. This can be human love, a force for good, the group, nature, the universe, God, or any entity a member chooses as a personal Higher Power. [Concept 8, EA]

Some atheists have found room for themselves in the above---others haven't.

JC Fisher

Actually, this story might be a load of doo-hickey. This was brought up on a board that I post to a couple of weeks ago. I tracked it back and found that the source was one single Op-Ed piece. You even quote that particular piece. I've shared posts with people stationed at Fort Bragg and they've never taken this assessment. Just because it is on the internet does not make it true. This may also have been the work of one individual commander or a test program from some outside contractor. Has anyone with resources actually tried to follow up to confirm if this actually happened?

For anyone insterestd, this link has a rebuttal to the orignally article that started this furor;
http://www.truth-out.org/psychologist-martin-seligman-responds-truthout-report-army-spiritual-fitness-test66646

As a retired military chaplain, I find the concept of “spiritual fitness” fraught with danger. Spirituality, religion, and clergy (including military chaplains) do not exist as “handmaidens” of the warrior ethos to enhance warrior resilience or effectiveness. Both spirituality (however defined) and religion have their own sui generic functions and values. Sometimes, spirituality or religion may have the unintended, but not necessarily unhappy or unfortunate, consequences of improving a person’s psychological resilience in coping with trauma or enhance other skills for coping with life’s demands.

Questions about life’s enduring meaning imply a particular religious or philosophical point of view to which not everybody subscribes. I know well-adjusted atheists who believe that life has no enduring meaning, believing that life results from chance events and is not part of any larger scheme. Hence, the questionnaire the Army employs to measure spirituality reflects a latent and unhelpful bias.

Holy cr@p!

I didn't follow this story closely: Martin Seligman, the "psychologist who was involved in developing the controversial torture regimes"? I've been on his (institution's, Penn's Positive Psychology Center) mailing list for years.

Whatever this story is, it sounds like one of interpretation: academic-types sniping at each other re competing theories of mental health.

It doesn't sound like an Army conspiracy (to penalize atheist soldiers).

[SERE's work was infamously MISUSED by the Bush Administration to justify torture (teaching military personnel how to RESIST torture, was twisted into a rationale of how one COULD treat "enemy combatants"). Seligman's work doesn't sound like endorsing torture in the slightest.]

Well, as the saying goes: sometimes a cigar is just a cigar!

JC Fisher