From the April 30, 2007, edition of the US News & World Report:
'Schools and Scripture'
Stephen Prothero is right about religious illiteracy in the US, but
teaching about the Bible and world religions in public schools is a
questionable remedy. Teachers are not trained for the task, there are no
adequate textbooks, scholars and educators cannot agree on what should be
taught, fair and comprehensive teaching would offend too many people, and
there are other curricular inadequacies that should be addressed first.
Colleges, however, are free to offer elective courses for those who want
them.
Edd Doerr
From the April 24, 2007, edition of the Baltimore Sun:
'Use flags to salute the troops in Iraq'
In many places, flags have been lowered to half staff for the 32 people
murdered at Viginia Tech on April 15. Yet 100 times as many Americans have
been killed and tens of thousands wounded in Mr Bush's mistaken war in Iraq.
Shouldn't we keep all our flags at half staff until those who are left come
home?
Our soldiers and Marines can come home with heads held high for doing
their duty, but Mr Bush and his enablers should be hanging their heads in
shame.
Edd Doerr
From the April 19, 2007, edition of the Concord Monitor:
Don't look to religion for values
The New Hampshire Humanities Council's "Shifting Ground" project is a peculiar backdoor attempt to bring religion into New Hampshire's secular political life. This is consistent with the stealth strategy of promoting Jesus while talking about something else adopted by Christian evangelicals. No doubt the sneaky saved are behind it.
Selden Strong (Monitor, March 31) astutely pointed out that the one model omitted from the program was any view that "religion is a fraud and intentional enslavement of human minds." The program is stacked with speakers afflicted with a god delusion, and I'm confident Odin, Zeus and other Great Spirits get the short end of the god stick.
What makes the project even more mysterious is the council's avowed mission, which includes the unfettered pursuit of knowledge. The American Humanist Association suggests that humanism includes ethics, reason and progressive values. Religion cares little about any of these.
Religion involves the fettering of the pursuit of knowledge, a certainty based on ancient texts, a preference for faith over reality, applications of moral law over ethical behavior and archaic values over progress. This is what it means to be a Bible believer.
Consider George Bush's rationale for not pursuing the knowledge that would come from stem-cell research: "We recognize in every human life the image of our creator." This is nothing but the support of ignorance over progress.
Or consider Republican state Rep. Dan Dumaine (Monitor, April 11), who remarked on the difference between "manmade" religion and Christianity as he attempted to deny homosexuals a humanistic and progressive rite of passage.
So, Humanities Council, welcome to the influence of religion on secular policy. Here's hoping the women in your group and your daughters will have access to reproductive health care in the future as you let the papist in the back door of the courthouse and the statehouse.
JEFFREY METZGER
Loudon
From the April 13, 2007, edition of the Washington Examiner:
'Don't blame Planned Parenthood for unstable families'
John Naughton's April 10 letter blaming Planned Parenthood for unstable
and/or single-parent families has it exactly backwards. Planned Parenthood
exists to promote responsible, non-exploitive sex and reproductive health.
It does not promote extramarital sex. Without Planned Parenthood we would
see far more unwanted children, unstable families, poverty, and social
disorganization.
Our country and the world need more Planned Parenthood activity, not
less.
Edd Doerr
From the March 31, 2007, edition of the Washington Times:
'An important message'
Al Gore's film and book "An Inconvenient Truth" have been suffering the
slings and arrows of outraged conservatives. But certain facts are
undeniable.
Melting polar and Greenland icecaps will not only raise sea levels,
though by precisely how much is hard to predict, but also reduce the
reflective power of the ice-cap areas and warm the oceans and contribute to
global warming and climate change. Climate change is already being blamed,
in part, for the tragedy of Darfur and for the spread of harmful plants and
insects to more temperate climes.
Switching from oil to ethanol is not a very good answer. It produces too
little power and will inevitably lead to more soil depletion, more
deforestation, more desertification, and much higher corn prices.
Developing country overpopulation, warned against by President Ford's
1975 NSSM 200 report that was classified and suppressed for nearly 20 years,
is further contributing to climate change while condemning countless
millions to poverty and misery.
What is obviously needed is immediate action to stabilize Third World
populations, reduce dependence on fossil fuels through conservation and
development of renewable nonpolluting power from wind, solar and geothermal
sources. Rather than costing jobs, these measures will create a great many
new jobs.
Three cheers for Al Gore!
Edd Doerr
From the March 09, 2007, edition of the Idaho Statesman:
Pseudoscience
Science is the process of the best humanly guess possible. It is a simple process that can be applied to all ideas:
1st step: Scientists minimize personal, cultural and religious biases.
2nd: They observe the world on its own terms.
3rd: Based on these observations, they propose ways the world works (hypotheses).
4th: Then, they test these hypotheses for accuracy.
5th: With reliable data and tested hypotheses, they propose the best humanly guess to explain "why." This is scientific theory.
6th: To make sure it's the best humanly guess, and to be held accountable for biases, scientists publish their work in respected academic journals so that others can criticize - and replicate - their work.
Pseudoscientists for "intelligent design," "young Earth," "homosexuality-by-upbringing," "healthy Earth climate," and several others, usually fail before the third step. They rarely, if ever, achieve the sixth step. Instead, these pseudoscientists must publish their work in books, mass media, cheap Web sites, political thinktanks, and letters to the editor.
So when "youth Earth" charlatans like Allen Marsh write their letter, you know that you are witnessing pseudoscience at its humanly best.
Anthony Rasmussen, Boise
From the March 02, 2007, edition of the Las
Vegas Sun:
Letter: 'Faith' not needed to care about people
It's sad that University of Colorado law professor Paul Campos would express such bigoted and irrational ideas in his defense of discrimination against atheists in his Feb. 28 column headlined, "Why faith, or a lack of it, is relevant to political life."
The only legitimate statement by Campos is that "the human race has existed for an eye-blink of cosmological time and will certainly cease to exist in another eye-blink or two."
But then Campos comes to the strange conclusion that a "genuine atheist" (whatever that means) would respond by saying, "So what?" implying that atheists are not concerned with extinction of the human race. That is sheer nonsense.
An atheist might say, "So what," regarding the cause of the existence of the human race. But we certainly care about the future of humanity.
Almost all atheists (which includes those who call themselves humanists, agnostics, freethinkers, etc.) believe we must be proactive in delaying the extinction of our planet. We cannot wait for some deity to intervene. If we don't act to save ourselves we will truly be doomed sooner, rather than later.
Campos asserts that the desires to save ourselves "don't make sense without a belief ... in God." Well, it should make sense to any rational person.
We believe that the future of the human race depends on the present actions of the human race. This makes us, according to Campos, unqualified to be president of our country. That is nothing more than a lame attempt to excuse bigotry.
Mel Lipman, Las Vegas
The writer is president of the American Humanist Association.