First off, let me begin by congratulating Mr. Anderson — it has been many years since someone has so disturbed my mental faculties that I have had to respond to their written work in a public article.
As an agnostic, I often try to stay out of these debates, but you, sir, are so far out of line, I could not stand idly by anymore.
Your articles as of late have been becoming more and more inflammatory.
You claim that “atheists try to strip Christians of their rights on what seems like a daily basis.”
Your evidence is that atheist groups are trying to remove “under God” from the pledge of allegiance, and “In God we trust” from our currency.
For starters, the pledge of allegiance was originally worded, “I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands, one nation indivisible, with liberty and justice for all,” written in 1892 by Francis Bellamy, a baptist minister.
It was not until 1954, during the red scare, that President Eisenhower backed the wording “under God,” and it was added to the pledge.
Our currency did not receive the motto “In God We Trust” until 1956, when it was changed from “E pluribus unum,” which translates into “Out of many, one.”
Now, I would imagine that non-Christians in the ‘50s were crying out much the same as you are right now.
You argue that atheists are trying to strip away what you believe to be a currently equal playing field, such that if we get what we want, you will be discriminated against.
This is not the case, as you are still favored above every other religion in the U.S., as is evidenced by our current national motto and pledge.
Atheists want any trace of religion removed from public institutions, which is a perfectly reasonable request; why should you have something that others are not entitled to?
However, since the motto and pledge have been as they are for so long, the government is not eager to change it, as it will be a lot of work, and frankly, there are more important issues currently on the table.
Now, to have the pledge banned in schools is a solution to the problem — the pledge will not likely be amended any time in the near future.
If you are a first-grader, is anyone going to tell you that you don’t have to recite the pledge?
And even if they do, won’t the rest of the class look at you like something is wrong with you?
At that young of an age, we all just want to fit in and have friends, and are not yet mentally capable enough of making decisions on the level of our religious stance on our own.
Thus, by having the pledge in our nation’s public schools, you are in fact forcing your beliefs that this is a nation under your God upon non-Christian children, and very few of them know better than to not recite the pledge.
Lastly, your opinion that creationism should be a viable substitute for biology is downright wrong.
The belief that the “theory of evolution is just a theory” is uneducated at best.
As used in science, a theory is an explanation or model based on observation, experimentation, and reasoning, especially one that has been tested and confirmed as a general principle helping to explain and predict natural phenomena.
Whilst the theory of evolution and natural selection have large quantities of evidence to support it, the only support for creationism is your personal experience or beliefs, and that does not impress me.
All of science revolves around scientific theories, such that they are hypotheses that anyone of any religion can take and draw a logical conclusion from with the available evidence.
I challenge you to write a scientific paper that supports creationism without the use of the theory of evolution and have it taken seriously anywhere other than a church or similar religious institution.
Every other civilized nation on Earth teaches evolution.
Why would you choose to allow our nation to fall behind theirs?
More to the point, why do you not simply try to adjust your religion to accept evolution as a logical part of it?
It has been done many times before. A new Bible was created such that King James of England could divorce, the Old Testament was thrown out in favor of the new and the Protestant Reformation occurred because Martin Luther was so unhappy with the Catholic Church.
I leave you with this quote. It held true then, and it still holds true today:
“If we look back into history for the character of the present sects in Christianity, we shall find few that have not in their turns been persecutors, and complainers of persecution. The primitive Christians thought persecution extremely wrong in the Pagans, but practiced it on one another. The first Protestants of the Church of England blamed persecution in the Romish Church, but practiced it upon the Puritans. They found it wrong in Bishops, but fell into the practice themselves both there (England) and in New England.”
— Benjamin Franklin
Signing off for the side of reason,
Alexander Krochman
Mechanical Engineering
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