Your Published Letters

From the Jan. 30, 2006, edition of the D.C. Examiner:

Committee hearings still are useful for choosing justices

Senate Judiciary Committee hearings on judicial nominees should NOT be scrapped, as they are the best way for the Senate and the public to find out exactly who will be interpreting the Constitution for many years to come. Remember, such hearings spared the country the embarrassment and danger of having Robert Bork on the Supreme Court and came very close to blocking Clarence Thomas.

Edd Doerr
President
Americans for Religious Liberty
Silver Spring, Maryland

From the Jan 25, 2006, edition of Times Daily (Alabama):
The Bible and death

To the editor:

A Gallop Poll found that Americans are woefully ignorant of Biblical content, yet the Bible is widely hailed as the underpinning of America's values.

In his letter (Pro-death crowd, Jan 19) Tony Shiflett tells us that Christianity and the teachings in the Bible celebrate life as a gift from God. The pro-death extremists celebrate "death."

While Shiflett no doubt knows there is a commandment against killing, he apparently is unaware that the Bible makes exceptions to this commandment that provide for killing just about anybody and everybody.

The Bible declares the following shall be killed: He that curseth his father and mother; witches; those who lie with beasts; worshipers of other gods; people who work on the Sabbath; adulterers; homosexuals; wizards; whores; blasphemers; stubborn and rebellious sons; thieves.

Notably absent from the Biblical hit-list are the practitioners of abortion. And today, Christ's most fervent followers crusade against abortion. Christ never mentioned the practice.

In Exodus 21:22, we find that an abortion has been induced through violence and this is not considered harmful, nor is it a capital offense or violation of "Thou shalt not kill."

Although Shiflett believes abortion is offensive to God, the prophet Hosea was comfortable asking God to induce abortions in the wives of his enemies.

"Give them, O Lord: what wilt thou give? Give them a miscarrying womb (an abortion) and dry breasts." Hosea 9:14. And from Hosea 9:16 we find, " ... yet will I slay even the beloved fruit of their womb."

While "pro-lifers" thump the Bible in their crusade against abortion, I don't see them thumping the Bible in protest against killing innocents in Iraq or campaigning against the death penalty. Hypocrites!

David N. Miles
Orange Beach, Alabama

From the January 13, 2006, issue of National Catholic Reporter:

President Carter's Values

Thanks to Fr. Robert Drinan for his perceptive review of former President Jimmy Carter's new book "Our Endangered Values" (NCR, Dec 16). Carter is a man whose Christian faith is far more deep, real and meaningful than that of the so-and-so currently in the White House.

Carter's definition of fundamentalism, which he also presented in an address to a Baptist conference in the UK in July 2005, is one of the best and most succinct I have seen.

We need more Baptists like Jimmy Carter and Bill Moyers and fewer of the
Jerry Falwell or Pat Robertson type.

Edd Doerr
Silver Spring, Maryland

From the Jan. 10, 2006, edition of the Asheville Citizen-Times (North Carolina):

Letters to the editor

Christianity not unique, and not very original

The letter, "Not all brands of spirituality are equal in reader's eye," (AC-T, Dec. 28), is strange indeed. I thought everyone was well aware that Christianity borrowed so many of its teachings from earlier - I suppose what the letter writer was referring to as "pagan" - religions. One Web site (home.earth link.net/~pgwhacker/ChristianOrigins/ introduction1.html) I found on the subject sums it up with the statement: "God, soul, sin, heaven, hell, demons, miracles, godmen, sons of God, savior Gods, salvation, eternal life, sacred meals shared with the god, mystery religions with initiations by baptism - all those things are unequivocally older than Christianity by centuries."

More specifically, another site (www.medmalexperts.com/POCM/ scholarship_con_BM_Metzger.html) points out: "The core of Christianity - the worship of a dying Godman who is resurrected, ascends into heaven and brings salvation to mankind - was also the core of a number of ancient pagan religions that began in the Near East 2,000 years before Jesus."

So how can the letter writer insist so vehemently that Executive Editor Susan Ihne's plea for respect for other religions demeans the "Lamb of God"?

Seymour Meyerson
Asheville, North Carolina