A great article highlighting Humanist meetings for servicemembers at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland. According to the article, the weekly meetings attract more than 1,000 of the 3,800 total attendees for all religious services that take place. As humanists and other nontheists comprise a larger share of the Armed Forces, they are receiving more official recognition. “Humanism”, for example, was included on a Defense Department memo that added more than 100 new “faith groups” to the officially recognized list of religious labels. Unfortunately, this newfound recognition has not yet allowed humanists to have their own chaplains, which the article discusses at length.
“Atheist groups, who failed in an attempt to establish a chaplaincy in 2015, see the expanded list as a step toward one day being included, but many view the idea of secular chaplains as absurd…The clash also has been noted by advocates for secular and minority beliefs such as the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, which in the past had been fielding about 110 complaints a month about chaplains, many involving unwanted proselytizing. This year, it jumped to between 250 and 400 monthly complaints…”
