DoD Officially Drops 180 Faiths from Military's Recognized Religion List

uneekname

They don't recognize atheists anymore? Am I reading that right?

mschuster91

> The changes were iterated in a May 20, 2026, memorandum issued by the Under Secretary of War and signed by Anthony Tata, under secretary of defense for personnel and readiness of the United States, and obtained by Military.com. FFS there is no such thing as "of war". It's still "of defense" until Congress actually passes a bill. As for the rest of that topic... yeah. Fits the expectations one has these days when thinking about "how can the US Administration screw up the lives of anyone not fitting into the world view the average Fox News audience can squish in their brains".

throwaway81523

As long as the flying spaghetti monster is still on the list, I'm fine. First they came for the Buddhists, then they came for the Abrahamics, then the Zoroastrians, but it will be a while yet before they get to me.

slg

It's notable that the original list with the extra 180 religions was from Trump's first term, so this is another example of the doubling down on white Christian identity politics that has come to define Trump's second term. Also one small potentially controversial decision here that I find amusing in a narcissism of small differences kind of way, Mormons aren't considered Christian according to this list.

elyobo

What's the effect of this? I don't really understand why they have a "recognised" list at all or what the implications are.

gslepak

Here's the previous list: https://americanhumanist.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Fait...

derbOac

There are lots of problems with this, but taking off UU is sort of ironic and shortsighted in particular, given that the UU community is probably a good source of chaplains given the nature of the religion. You can see this in the comments.