Isn’t it swell when the generals tell us what we should or should not believe-“for our own good”?
When an active-duty Marine was given a Marine Corps training document describing “potential risk indicators” commanders should look for to prevent loss of life among service members, he found one checkbox that didn’t seem to fit. Among warning signs like substance abuse and prior suicide attempts was “lack or loss of spiritual faith.”
Advocates for the policy say the military is simply doing everything it can to promote emotional well-being among troops, especially in the face of its growing suicide epidemic. (Last year, the U.S. military saw more active duty soldiers commit suicide than die in combat — 48 of them Marines.)
The training document does not specify how a commander is supposed to test whether a Marine has spiritual faith… but it does say that when a Marine is identified as high risk, a “Force Protection Council” will interview, monitor, and recommend further action at the council’s discretion.
And this type of persecution of non-believers in the military is, of course, not without precedent.
Until 2011, the Army required soldiers to take a survey that measured “spiritual fitness,” and soldiers who failed were told that “improving your spiritual fitness should be an important goal.”
Defending the test in 2011, Brig. Gen. Rhonda Cornum told NPR, “Researchers have found that spiritual people have decreased odds of attempting suicide, and that spiritual fitness has a positive impact on quality of life, on coping and on mental health.” The Marine Corps document also notes that its risk indicators for early death are “derived from scientific studies.”
Well, since our military commanders are so well versed in the science of mental health, they may want to take note of this:
Entitled ‘Spiritual and religious beliefs as risk factors for the onset of major depression: an international cohort study’, the relationship with religious and spiritual belief was investigated in depth by researchers led by Professor Michael King from University College London. Over 8,000 people visiting general practices across seven countries were followed up at six and 12 months. The general practices were in the UK, Spain, Slovenia, Estonia, the Netherlands, Portugal and Chile. These general practices covered urban and rural populations with considerable socio-economic variation.
The study has just been published in one of the most respected academic psychiatric journals, ‘Psychological Medicine’. It was conducted by researchers at several UK and European universities and Chile.
Some interesting data points:
A key finding of the study, conducted in several different counties, is that a spiritual life view predisposed to major depression, especially significantly in the UK, where spiritual participants were nearly three times more likely to experience an episode of depression than the secular group.
The study defined religion as meaning the practice of a faith, eg going to a temple, mosque, church or synagogue. Being ‘spiritual’ was defined as not formally following a religion, but having spiritual beliefs or experiences. For example, believing that there is some power or force other than yourself, which might influence life.
People who held a religious or spiritual understanding of life had a higher incidence of depression than those with a secular life view. However, this finding varied by country; in particular, people in the UK who had a spiritual understanding of life were the most vulnerable to the onset of major depression.
Regardless of country, the stronger the spiritual or religious belief at the start of the study, the higher the risk of onset of depression.
Although the main finding of an association between religious life understanding and onset of depression varied by country, there was no evidence that spirituality may protect people, and only weak evidence that a religious life view was possibly protective in two countries (Slovenia and the Netherlands).
Those with the more strongly held religious or spiritual convictions were twice as likely to experience major depression in the subsequent 12 months. [Emphasis added]
But it gets better. Maybe whatever factor causes people to be more “spiritual” also makes them depressed? After all, we know correlation and causation are different, correct?
Not so.
Although a religious, spiritual or secular outlook on life seems to be relatively stable in most people, slightly over a quarter of participants in this study changed their life view during the period of the study. And this was with a higher risk of depression for those changing to a more religious path, a lower risk for those moving in a secular direction.
That this study followed participants over a year, meant it was possible to demonstrate that it was more likely a spiritual and religious outlook which was leading to future lower mood, than the other way around.
Will military officers and push-polling organizations like Gallup, which advocates open discrimination against atheists because “they are a drain on healthcare systems”, now reverse course and advocate people being rewarded for being non-believers? Of course not, and I wouldn’t want them to. Because whatever you believe or disbelieve should be a personal matter. Matters of conscience are not for employers, or worse, the military officers, to decide.
I thought that question was settled after the Inquisition. It wasn’t, even in the home country of the Inquisition.
