Air Force Academy Now Graduating Goose, Ice Man, Glinda

The Air Force Academy, once a hotbed of Evangelical Christians, has become more open to pagan students. In fact, they’re now boasting about the spiritual diversity of their witchy student body.

By Oct. 22, 2010

Photo by Irargerich, from Flickr

Religious tolerance is an interesting thing, as the Air Force is learning. According to Wired Magazine, the Air Force Academy - which used to be so pro-Christian it actually got slammed with lawsuits claiming religious discrimination - is boasting about its pagan students.

The Academy has put out a press release talking about how pagan cadets have been having interfaith meetings with other cadets:

Members of the Air Force Academy’s Special Program in Religious Education group invited atheists, agnostics and others from the Freethinkers organization to discuss their beliefs, views and experiences during a meeting here Oct. 18.
SPIRE is the Academy’s earth-centered spirituality group that meets to discuss religion, spirituality and philosophy for the religiously diverse cadet population that includes Protestants, Catholics, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Pagans, atheists, agnostics and others.

I’m not really sure what the ‘earth-centered’ stuff means, to be honest. Nature worshiping, I guess?

There’s more to the press release, but my favorite part is how the discussion between believers and everybody else turned to the problem of pizza poisoning:

“If I put out a healing spell—say, I wanted to heal you from pizza poisoning—if it doesn’t work for you, but it works for somebody else, does that mean it didn’t work?” one cadet asked.

You can read the whole press release - along with the riveting answer to the pizza poisoning question - here.

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