Another comic irony written by a local atheist 2/26/06: “The religious industry complex…has a vested interest in keeping the masses ignorant, distracted, divided, indebted, anxious, fearful. Acting in concert by these means the privileged class thrives and maintains its dominating role in power, wealth, and political control.” This atheist, Frank Jeniker concludes the solution to the world’s ills is “phasing out of the superstition of religion by education in critical thinking and the analytical scientific method…”

      He further states that people with religious beliefs “express opinions on a host of subjects without appreciable knowledge, authority, or expertise.” It is amusing that he neglects to state by what authority or expertise he supports his own opinions, and he himself fails to demonstrate capacity for critical thought.

      His focus on the class struggle and blaming religion is reminiscent of Karl Marx’s “Communist Manifesto”. To maintain his beliefs, this local atheist has to ignore the horrific human rights violations of Marxist-based atheistic movements and governments. Their dictatorial style and oppression are well-documented. Many more people have been killed in the name of godlessness (ex. regimes of Lenin, Stalin, Pol Pot, etc.) than in the name of religion. Furthermore, power shifted to the masses has typically been associated with violence and oppression (ex. Marxist-Leninist Bolsheviks vs the more Marxist Mensheviks). Religion cannot be used as a scapegoat to explain the terror perpetuated by these regimes and movements, since they typically ban religion and persecute its believers.

      Mr. Jeniker suggests that for people to have and express opinions, they need “literacy in the fields of physics, chemistry, geology, genetics, biology, cosmology, mathematics, other sciences.” By making this a requirement, he is himself promoting class conflict between those having different levels of education. In his fantasy ideal society, the educated elite ruling class would no doubt be limited to those that promote his belief system.

      As long as we have been a nation, U.S. presidents have spoken of God in their inaugural addresses and called for national days of prayer. The writings of our nation’s founders make it clear that they believed it critically important to the individual and nation that we praise and thank God for His providence and protection. Thomas Jefferson is often falsely given credit for the perverted version of “Separation of Church and State” that says what we’ve been doing in this country for 220 years to promote God-orientation is suddenly wrong and unconstitutional. To believe this about Jefferson, one must ignore or lie about his “Declaration of Independence” that refers to God in critical places (“endowed by our Creator”, “God-entitled”, “Supreme Judge of the World” and “Divine Providence”). One must do the same regarding Jefferson’s quote engraved on the memorial that bears his name: “God who gave us life gave us liberty. And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the Gift of God?...”

      There is common ground between members of various religious and non-religious belief systems, provided the individuals are honest, caring and well-intentioned. For fruitful dialogue, there is a further requirement of some degree of logic and rational thinking, including, but not limited to, acceptance that there is such a thing as objective reality. Secular humanists claim to base their belief system on science and history, yet they bypass honest study to create intellectual constructs that have no basis in reality. This lack of honesty poses an enormous barrier to dialogue.

      Mr. Jeniker’s 2/26/06 letter reveals his ignorance, bigotry and arrogance when he makes a sweeping generalization that religious people don’t think critically. The most tragic irony of his letter’s harsh disparagement of others is that he clearly has not scrutinized his own belief system.

Annie Bukacek MD