Dan Brown will love this. Just the sort of hokum he fuels the bank balance with.

A sight barrel is made, the optics are fitted; it is a gun-sight and supports no religion.
A sight barrel is made, some coded letters & numbers are stampped into the metal , the optics are fitted; it is a gun-sight and now supports Christianity .

The makers profess their faith and make a gun-sight to assist a soldier in her/his task. A sight is a sight.

What's not helping is the greedy bastard who broke this to the press. The gear obviously meets the needs of the customer and has done for some time. This is just posturing. Whoever did it, has an agenda and is looking to stir things up. They haven't exactly inscribed verses on the kit, just subtle refs. You choose to "serve" (and I use that term in the pejorative sense), then you work with what your given. As a soldier, you don't get to choose who supplies you, you do the job your tasked with, without question.

Oh yeah, because I'm sure American or even British soldiers would be over the moon if passages from the Qur'an were printed onto the scopes.

All publicly purchased equipment should be completely secular. Not every soldier in the army (be it US army or British) is a Christian, in fact precious few are.

In fact I'd question what a "Christian" was doing killing people, but that's a debate for another thread.

No but the Army certainly gets to choose. The fact is by doing things like this you're going to piss people off, be these soldiers, citizens or the people of the land you've just invaded.

All public equipment should be secular in order to be acceptable to all those who might use/encounter it.

So to use an example from above, why is there not outrage at the "In God we trust" line printed on US currency? Or the British national anthem. Britain, certainly, is a christian country with a religous soverign monarch who is head of a religous sect. A manufacturing company is openly christian, and a government decides to buy equipment from them. In doing so, is the government stating that it supports that religion and the company's religous views, or simply that it makes good equipment and can fulfill the contract in the best way possible for the country? Are you saying that governments should use inferior equipment, or take less beneficial contracts, in order to remain completely agnostic?

That would cause riots where i'm from...

Secular is a myth. Religion is embedded in our culture. The company has a faith. They make their faith evident in their products, but in a subtle way. That is their right. If the buyers didn't like it, so be it. However, some idiot has decided to make an issue of it. The fact that "Islamic phrases would cause more problems" just reinforces the point that true separation of church and state is impossible. Practically everyone in the "civilized" world, is aware of religion in some form or another. What you take from it is up to you. If you don't take comfort in the writing on your scope, ignore it. Making this into an issue is part of the problem with the war on Islam. Ignorance and hate are the enemy, not religion.

It doesn't make it any less ridiculous a situation though. The religion of the supplier shouldn't even enter the equation. It does very much seem like a nothing-story, with someone trying to cause an upset.

Quite.

Frenchun, where you're from (assuming c'est France) it doesn't take much to cause a riot
Vive la revolution!!

I'm not going to comment on US currency, but suffice to say we don't resort to such things over here.

Secondly, the national anthem is traditional, I'm sure if we picked a new one the religious connotations would disappear.

Thirdly, the role of the Monarch as Defender of the Faith is also traditional. The Crown pre-dates secularism so I'll let them have that one.

Fourthly, a company can have whatever values it likes and we can buy their equipment. I don't however expect them to stamp those values or verses from a holy book on said equipment.

i know! demonstrating and rioting is different tho :s

If you don't like a product, and because of whatever product code it has been designated you feel that it is unsuitable, don't purchase it. Simple. Does having a product code created using a religious naming scheme make the sight unsuitable? I don't think so. Would a creationist avoid Mac OS-X because it's core is named after (ultimately) the founder of evolutionism?

That's exactly what I'm saying. If I was the US Army Procurement Officer, I would not be buying these scopes. I'm glad the UK does not buy these particular examples.



If you're going to be offending your soldiers, citizens and people of the country you're invading then yes, it does. We already have an image problem, we don't need equipment making this worse when it can be easily avoided. People already confuse the "Anglian" regiment with "Anglican", we don't need the situation made worse.

In the past a lot of weapons carried religious symbolism on them. They were the tools for doing “God’s work” - namely taking the message to the heathen, shortening their lives if necessary. Indeed, most wars at the time were carried out under the name of the Christian god, and his name is still invoked before a conflict. We do it. The Americans do it.
Given George W Bush’s use of the word “crusade” shortly after 9/11, and the worry that caused (the then president soon stopped using that word), it seems very insensitive that Christian references are stamped on weapon components used in a war which could be seen as Christians vs Muslims on a very simplistic level. It’s certainly the tack the “other side” would easily take in their propaganda, and given the wonderfully florid language that can be used by Islamist followers, this could be expressed very strongly and colourfully.

The soldier in the field has no choice about the suppliers of his or her equipment. I can only hope that those who disagree with the inscription are able to file it off without some kind of disciplinary action being taken against them. I am sure that others may take strength that such an inscription is there.