• Sterile_Technique@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    I wonder if TST has any presence in the military. When I was active duty, there was very frequent and very blatant overreach of Christian bs into military functions; but there were also no shortage of edge-lords who entered their religion in basic training as “Jedi” or some shit just to have it stamped on their dog tags. There was also a small presence of non-Christian religions, and while you’d never see a Muslim group prayer or something at a change of command ceremony the way you would with Christian shit, the other religions were tolerated and at least surface-level respected.

    …so, with the inclusion of non-Christian religions, and quantity of troops who acknowledge religion as a joke, you’d think the Satanic Temple would have a foothold in the military the same way they do everywhere else. It’d be fucking amazing if they ran services for trainees in basic!

    • Mojave@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      I asked about this at a wiccan service while I was in. What I remember is that while the DOD may recognize the funny religions like Jedi, Satanism, and various forms of Paganism, they don’t have a real process for Chaplains of these religions to enter the force.

      You need to be sponsored/vouched for by a leader of your religion if you would like to be a chaplain, and at least the Army doesn’t recognize anybody from Satanism as able to vouch for you to become a chaplain. So you can’t join as a Satanic Chaplain. But there was one case of a Christian Chaplain converting to Satanism while he was already in the Army. He put in the papers to change his religion, his christian sponsor was notified and revoked his sponsorship. The chaplain was kicked out.

      There’s no real administrative presence for Satanism because there are no religious leaders allowed in the ranks