Comments on There Are No Atheists In Foxholes

The way those words go...I don't know. I guess murdered was the last fucking thing I was expecting to read. So I laughed.

Either way, it's so sad.

Indeed. Very much so.

It's all sad.

Except for the part where God murders Tillman. That's still funny.

In other news, evidence continues to mount that the moon *might* be made of green cheese.

Come on, Dan, you're better than that. Why not say *speculation* continues to mount that Tillman may have been murdered?

Murder from the highest levels too. Bush has put exective privilage on the investigation of Tillman's death...

@6 No, it's not speculation, it's mounting forensic evidence, such as the entry wounds from the American bullets that killed him.

There's nothing in the quote itself to suggest that Tillman was an atheist. He doesn't say there is no God, merely that no Divine Help would be forthcoming...

If Tillman had lived, he'd probably be sitting in Congress right now as an anti-war Democrat. Imagine the embarassment...

@9 tillman was an open atheist in life this is very clearly documented in any truthful report on his life.

@9,

I've heard from many sources, other than this one, that Tillman was an atheist.

j @ 9,

Pat Tillman's atheism is very well known. You might Google up that huge profile that was published in Sports Illustrated awhile back about who he was and the investigations (5 now, and counting) into his death.

Some military asshole actually blamed the Tillman family for causing this ruckus because they're atheists and couldn't just say their son is with Jeebus now like they're supposed to.

Oh, it just keeps getting worse. Last week, the media reported that Tillman's final words to the grunt (O'Neal) he was under fire with were something along the lines of "God's not going to help you, stop praying you sniveling..." but O'Neal himself disputes that:

"He never would have called me 'sniveling,"' O'Neal said. "I don't remember ever speaking to this chaplain, and I find this characterization of Pat really upsetting. He never once degraded me. He's the only person I ever worked for who didn't degrade anyone. He wasn't that sort of person."

I've followed Pat Tillman's life and death closely and this whole situation is just so sick. He truly was an exceptional person and everything that's happened since the day he was killed has just been appalling. Now it appears there were other soldiers there when Pat was killed that no one "remembered" previously.

Apparently, you have to be a compulsive liar to be in the US military these days. Someone's lying, but who and for frak's sake, why?

Rich Tillman at his brother's funeral:

"Thanks Pat. I didn't write shit because I'm not a writer. I'm not just going to sit her and break down on you. But thanks for coming. Pat's a fucking champion and always will be. Just make no mistake, he'd want me to say this: he's not with God. He's fucking dead. He's not religious. So thanks for your thoughts, but he's fucking dead."

@15, loved your post. That is why I think athiests value life more than the religous folks (sorry but my opinion). Since there is no afterlife you have to make the best of this life and also VALUE this life. This life is all you get, there is nothing afterwards. You die end of game. No inserting additional quarters, that is all. Fin!

In the SI article:

"A chaplain who debriefed the entire unit days after Tillman's death later described this exchange to investigators conducting a criminal probe of the incident."

Do chaplains normally debrief squads and platoons after an incident where a soldier dies? That doesn't seem right to me.

Chaplains typically debrief after any death in a unit. It is a sad thing but men die in combat every day, and Pat Tillman isn't the only one killed by friendly fire.
The "he was murdered" crowd need to take a breather. The fact that Tillman was hit multiple times isn't suprising since he was engaged with machine guns. And those who respond they were rifle rounds don't realize the M249 uses the same bullet as the M4. For a Ranger Company to have fragged him is absolutely ridiculous.

I read the article, but totally failed to catch where there was evidence of murder.

Fratricide? Yes. That's not necessarily murder.

@18 & 19,

He was shot multiple times, and the grouping suggests it was from moderately close range (i.e. close enough to tell he was a friendly). That's not much evidence, but combined with the deliberate coverup of other evidence it is suggestive.

There's also speculation (though no hard evidence that I know of) that there was another unit in the area, for whatever that's worth.

You know, there is actually a difference between saying "God can't help us" and being a full-blown atheist.

I swear, atheists are like newly-uncloseted queers - they want to see others like them everywhere.

Rumsfeld apologized today to Tillman's family...CNN seems as shocked as I am.

You mean to say that a supreme being that created everything we know (and more) can not (i.e. is not able to, or willing to, or allowed to) help a human being in distress, whatever kind of distress that might be?
I think that means that that supreme being does not exist. There's evidence of that all around you, if you're just willing to see it.