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The thing that strikes me as the most odd - is that until ww1 (thats right the recent Battlefieldified one)- soldiers would carry talismans into the battle, tha
by Pica_soO 10y ago
The thing that strikes me as the most odd - is that until ww1 (thats right the recent Battlefieldified one)- soldiers would carry talismans into the battle, that where supposed to make them bulletproof and immortal.
Thats right, something that sounds oh, so exotic, right in the midst of the west.
Also, it helps if you look at the Congo and Europe during WW2. The same chaos, the same refugee rows, the same anarchy and murdering. Noting is written in stone.
- ralfd 10y agoThat doesn't sound so odd? I bet quite a few modern soldiers still have some talismans or lucky charms.
- prawn 10y agoI imagine prayer is quite common in the military, as one example.
- toomanybeersies 10y agoIf someone's shooting at you, you're going to make damn sure you take every measure possible to not get shot. There are no atheists in foxholes.
- anigbrowl 10y agoI don't get that phrase. I've been in a bunch of life-and-death situations and not once have I felt a sudden alteration in my religious views. I have to wonder whether it's an expression of anxiety on the part of the speaker rather than any sort of objective observation.
- JabavuAdams 10y ago> There are no atheists in foxholes. This is just a thing that people say that doesn't stand up to even cursory scrutiny.
- vacri 10y agoHowever being in a foxhole is an entirely artificial situation, and people in foxholes aren't known for their long-range planning and forethought. If you're being shelled, you're not going to be thinking about whether you can service a new mortgage and whether you should refinance, for example.
- Pica_soO 10y agoI wonder, if you put a mathematician specializing in statistics into a foxhole, what are the odds he becomes a believer?
- dang 10y agoWe detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14205839 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14205839 and marked it off-topic.