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Saturday, January 12, 2019

Sailors Hold Heathen Religious Services Aboard Deployed Aircraft Carrier

If you're deployed aboard the carrier John C. Stennis and consider yourself a practitioner of Norse paganism, you're in luck. The carrier, now operating in the Persian Gulf, is holding lay services in the ship's chapel to serve a "small, committed" group of sailors identifying as Heathens, according to a recent news release from the carrier.

The development is the latest in a series of boosts for Heathenism in the U.S. military, a little-known religion with roots in Viking mythology that has gradually gained recognition in the services. A 2013 non-scientific "census" poll by the Norse Mythology Blog identified nearly 8,000 Heathen respondents in the U.S. and more than 16,000 worldwide. A 2018 estimate from religious author Jefferson Calico suggested there may be up to 20,000 American Heathens.

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4 comments:

Anonymous said...

How much do you want to bet that they all have "heathen" tattoos?

Anonymous said...

Their heathen holidays were good enough for Christians to assimilate. There would be no Christmas if there wasn't already the Pagan holiday celebrating the winter solstice. The Pope bought it, rebottled it, and now has the best selling beverage on the market. December 25 is their best selling day.

Anonymous said...

AHHHH. Spoken like a true ATHEIST. Or Obama. You didn't build that. Someone else did. GTFOH.

Anonymous said...

Better Viking than Islamic.