Good for smiting
Mentioned how trijicon had some bible verses on their products. Well, ABC news notices:
Coded references to New Testament Bible passages about Jesus Christ are inscribed on high-powered rifle sights provided to the United States military by a Michigan company, an ABC News investigation has found.
And by “ABC News investigation” they mean “ABC News found it on the internet”.
ABC says it goes against the military rules on proselytizing.
January 18th, 2010 at 2:08 pm
I guess ABC didn’t notice that all the bible verses are about light…from an optics company. Yeeeesh
January 18th, 2010 at 2:23 pm
Hard to believe that Muslims will draw the conclusion that our entire mission over there is a veiled crusade because of trijicon’s Bible passages.
January 18th, 2010 at 2:57 pm
In other news, ABC is shocked, SHOCKED to learn that any atheist troops are still paid in money declaring “In God We Trust” and soldiers from EVERY SINGLE Scandinavian country and Britain have flag patches bearing a cross. If they ever figure out Alabama’s flag then all H-E-doublehockeystick is going to break loose…
January 18th, 2010 at 3:01 pm
Personally, I’m disappointed they didn’t run with “Now I say to you, let him who does not own a sword sell his cloak and buy one.”
January 18th, 2010 at 3:11 pm
Considering that almost no one knew about it before this little “exposee” (otherwise known as a “Google Search”), that last bit is a hell of a stretch.
January 18th, 2010 at 3:54 pm
Wondrous scholarship. IANAC, but I’ll fight the man who holds this against them.
All Christian prayers for unbelievers stem from a line in 1 John, “for those who still walk in darkness.” A sniper’s prayer if ever I heard one.
I’m going to stand by Canticles 1:5, on a Galil:
“Lo, I am black yet comely, daughters of Jerusalem.”
January 18th, 2010 at 4:38 pm
I like how they declare it a “secret code.” Ya know, cause JN8:13 and 2COR6:12 is so frikin’ hard to suss out. I’m suprised they didn’t say it was “hidden” on the weapon sight.
January 18th, 2010 at 5:09 pm
As expensive as the damn things are you’d think Jesus made them himself.
January 18th, 2010 at 5:30 pm
I wonder if Michael Whinestein sees the inherent contradiction in his position and the fact that “Michael” is Hebrew for “Who is like G~d?” Maybe he should change his name for consistency. What a nimrod (wait, I can’t say that either!)
January 18th, 2010 at 5:38 pm
How about this one: Psalm 109:8 – “Let his days be few; And let another take his office.” GO SCOTT BROWN GO!!
January 18th, 2010 at 6:08 pm
ABC is also assuming that the folks at Trijicon are Christians. Does the AEGIS system make the Navy Greek polytheists, or are they simply appropriating commonly known that has a bit of cachet?
I haven’t decided yet if I think a crucifix reticle would be funny or not.
January 18th, 2010 at 6:43 pm
Good God, ABC is full of retards, and Whinestine is a crybaby pouge.
January 18th, 2010 at 6:59 pm
Just to chime in with my own individual atheist view point:
I could care less what they put on the damned things. I want one, BAD.
If it offends someone…well, ain’t nothing a file won’t take care. Oh, it’s .gov property? “Well, Sir, that’s what we call normal wear and tear, that is.”
January 18th, 2010 at 7:50 pm
While I find the inscription misplaced, all I really want to know: How do we get our hands on one when the government inevitably withdraws them for service and sells them for pennies on the dollar?
January 18th, 2010 at 8:10 pm
I didn’t know that “kiss your ass goodbye” was in the Bible…how about that.
January 18th, 2010 at 8:32 pm
As for ABC, and anyone who still watches news on a network channel for that matter, I refer to Proverbs 26:11
“As a dog that returns to his vomit, so is a fool who repeats his folly.”
Would ABC prefer the sights be engraved with prayers to Cthulu from the Necronomicon? You know, so the person saying the prayer can go mad, and be eaten first, and avoid the suffering of the rest before the end of humanity?
January 18th, 2010 at 8:51 pm
This is going to become a huge ridiculous firestorm of nonsense.
January 18th, 2010 at 9:01 pm
I like Dr. Bronner’s soap … he sells it cheap in order to get his message out on the bottles.
If Trijicon sells their optics to me cheap, I can probably find it in my heart to forgive this affront to my atheism.
January 18th, 2010 at 9:43 pm
@M4Finney – I used to pray that one a lot during the Bush days. All that happened was that 43 took a hell of a lot of vacation and Cheney took over.
January 18th, 2010 at 11:42 pm
It’s a cheeky joke and also potentially slightly blasphemous to some, I might think.
It’s wrong to put it on GI-issue stuff, though; It can be construed as .gov endorsement of religion and there fore lawsuit worthy. You may not like it, but that’s how it would go down in the courts, and correctly so. Trigicon should save that stuff for their civilian market.
January 19th, 2010 at 12:55 am
It’s wrong to put it on GI-issue stuff, though; It can be construed as .gov endorsement of religion and there fore lawsuit worthy.
Well, yes, it can be construed that way. And yes, you can file a lawsuit for anything you care to imagine (seriously). However, reasonable people aren’t going to construe this as an Establishment Clause violation (seeing as the military has paid chaplains and has churches on their bases, the abbreviation to the location of a verse in the Bible by a company that doesn’t claim to be Christian is going to be a tough sell). Rather than smack Trijicon around, I have a strong suspicion that the plaintiff would lose his case on summary judgement for failing to meet his burden of proof.
Remember: there is no “wall of separation” except in Thomas Jefferson’s head. It’s not in the Constitution. There can be some touching of the two so long as no one’s rights are getting violated. What is the right being violated here? There is no right to be kept unaware of the presence of the Bible (which, from the perspective of the government, is simply a book and is as inspired as Moby Dick or Slaughterhouse 5).
Now, what may happen is that you get some supply official who decides that safe is better than sorry and makes the military waste resources by at best removing the reference or at worst trying to make the military replace all its ACOGs with someone more secular.
January 19th, 2010 at 2:28 am
“Now, what may happen is that you get some supply official who decides that safe is better than sorry and makes the military waste resources by at best removing the reference or at worst trying to make the military replace all its ACOGs with someone more secular.”
Effin’ stupid if it happens. But, and this is only looking on the glass-half-full side, cheap slightly-used and inexpensive new ACOG’s for everyone!
January 19th, 2010 at 10:53 am
>> 22. Brass
Sad to say, but knowing the gov, all the decommed “offending” ACOGs would probably simply be crushed or otherwise destroyed. Remember all those M-14 a few years ago that could have been obtained through the CMP, had Clinton not ordered them trashed?
January 19th, 2010 at 11:33 am
Allah akbar!
January 19th, 2010 at 3:30 pm
I’m sure Jesus would approve.
January 19th, 2010 at 3:43 pm
For the record, they’re not even inscribed with a Biblical passage, only the chapter and verse reference to a specific one. You’ll never know what JN8:12 says unless you actually open a Bible and read the verse.
January 19th, 2010 at 6:30 pm
Good for you RML. But W never jacked this country up as bad as Obama and the progresso-tards are trying to right now. Get back on your knees and pray harder. While you are at it, have the common courtesy to spell my moniker correctly next time please. Thanks.
January 20th, 2010 at 2:25 am
Now hold on a minute. You’re not allowed to offend the guys you’re shooting at. That would just be wrong!