i remember going through the same kind of thing when i was in the AF. i had superiors that would come barging in sometimes when we met to talk and get to know each other. spouting orders and what not is not the way to make an atheist into a 'christian'. i could care less what religion you are, what you believe in, or what you do for a living; but to try to force something down my throat because i'm not like you is not right. so i jumped up in this captains face and told him how i felt, and then was recycled into another flight, but at least i stood up for what i believe in.

I don't know about that... How about "I'm an atheist, but tell me about this Quran book"

Well if you've only got one life it makes sense that you'd want to preserve it!

Speaking of conversion at the point of a gun, I'll say right now, if I were ever caught in another country the future of which I wasn't invested in, and asked my religion on pain of death...
"Praise allah, JC, Buddha, Vishnu, XENU, Hank (and his blessed ass), or whoever the heck you want!"

Yeah, I'm kinda chicken.

"We atheists need to go on the offensive out outlaw Christian and Muslim churches once and for all." -- Dr John Nahay

Personally, I hope you leave knuckleheads like this on your blog. It allows me to come here not only get in touch with my fellow freethinkers, but to satisfy my humor jones as well. :D

Maybe, maybe not. But in general, from what I understand, and I may be wrong, Muslims consider Christians to be "people of the book",
see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People_of_the_Book
while it is common for atheism to be punishable by death -- this in peacetime. Hence my conjecture
about, in a course about how to survive when captured, what might be taught
which would be labeled the "correct faith." Seems not unreasonable that in a
survival course, the "correct faith" to claim would be that likely to allow
you to survive.

> In
> any case, I think the intent was not to tell soldiers what faith they should
> claim to have, but what faith they should actually have, presumably because
> that way they could look forward to salvation even if they were killed by
> their captors. I'd have to listen to the interview again to be sure, though

Perhaps so. My point wasn't that I disagreed with you (not sure I do)
so much as that I could see a way, given what was written, that the
implication might be wrong. If what you think is this: "the intent was
not to tell soldiers what faith they should claim to have, but what faith
they should actually have", what you wrote doesn't on the face of it
support that, or at least, is plausibly deniable, given only what's written
here. If there was more to the interview, be it only a tone of voice which
implied a certain interpretation of ambiguous words to be the intended interpritation, which you didn' write about, well, perhaps you should have
written about it. Better to take the more charitable interpretation of these words and be wrong than to assume bad intentions and be wrong.

Anyway, consider this _friendly_ criticism. It's a pretty rare event that I can find anything to complain about in what you write.

I think he should have been given more time to debate. Surly Mr Spitz believes he is correct and doesn't want to believe in a lie. Who has the facts? Who has the evidence? Why do believers readily drop their belief when they debate an atheist? The bible is not a textbook and the bible is not a reference book. How can we put a hole in the wall when the door is locked? Getting Spitz to fall would be like sinking the Bismark.

We are talking about a person who is convinced he has the absolute truth, who has immunized himself to reason, ethics, and decent human feelings. He has already made up his mind and is unwilling to be swayed by arguments grounded in observable evidence or real grown-up morality.

(Whoa, serious deja vu...

Gotta' have rules for the omnipotent unprovable invisible entities that so many are so sure they know how those omnipotent one's think.

I guess.

SteveC: I'm not sure that claiming to be a Christian if captured would be likely to save a servicemember's life, considering who we're dealing with here. In any case, I think the intent was not to tell soldiers what faith they should claim to have, but what faith they should actually have, presumably because that way they could look forward to salvation even if they were killed by their captors. I'd have to listen to the interview again to be sure, though.