Dear Editor:
Elaine Flood says she can’t comprehend that all people who died September 11 were not praying to any god to spare their lives. What a shame Elaine’s imagination is limited by theocratic narcissism, that she simply can’t accept that there are indeed atheists in the world, or that their position is simply a sham that evaporates in times of crisis. I wonder, Elaine, how insulted you’d feel if someone suggested the converse: that there were theists among those victims whose faith faltered, or even evaporated in those moments? But yes, Elaine, there are most certainly people that might not have prayed to any god that day. Perhaps people killed instantly who didn’t have time. People focusing on survival. Maybe some were too busy thinking about other things, like how tasteless and cheap it is to exploit a tragedy to make a point. Perhaps some were thinking, “I wish more people would use intellect and objectivity when making a point, and not emotionalism.” Perhaps some of them just didn’t believe in a god.
And just like many theists who see attempts to separate church and state as some type of attack upon them, rather than the converse as attacks upon the non-religious she claims that “we’re prohibited from using the words ‘under God.’ Not really, Elaine. We’re prohibited from forcing atheists, and non-Judeo-Christians to do so.
Elaine claims, “These words were instituted in 1954 and have not caused a problem for 48 years.” Says who? Just because the recent case is the first you’ve heard of it means atheists have not felt it a problem up til now? Perhaps it has been one, one that they’ve simply been unable to address publicly. Elaine asks, “Do not the majority of us believe in God or some other Supreme Being?” I think we do, Elaine. I also think it’s irrelevant.
What’s right and wrong in a government has nothing to do with personal individual beliefs. To force atheists, agnostics, Hindus, Wiccans, Buddhists, etc. to make a reference to God in a national pledge in a public school is wrong, period. Countries like Iran are governed according to one national religion. We should not be. Atheists, agnostics, etc. aren’t some “tolerated second class.” They’re citizens who should be given the same consideration as theists like you and me. I wonder if you’d be in such a hurry to approve mandated spiritual references in public schools if the god was Allah, Japanese wind spirits, or the Hindu Holy Trinity.
Elaine asks, “Can’t (those in the minority) refrain from reciting those two words?” Maybe they can, Elaine. Can theists simply read the pledge without it, and pray on their own time, since we’re not living in a theocracy?
Elaine asks, “Should we remove ‘In God we trust’ from our currency or swearing on the Bible in court?” Yes, we should.
Elaine says, “Loss of religion means loss of values.” Nonsense. I will never understand why some theists seem to think atheists are amoral savages who can’t live moral, decent lives, and to whom theists are superior. Moreover, removing references to spirituality from mandated public areas has nothing to do with “loss of religion.” It has to do with keeping religion in the personal arena, rather than forcing it upon people of different faiths or no faith in the public one.
Luigi Novi