Letterbox (Sept. 2024)
Thanks to FFRF for being an ally to secularists
I joined your organization today. As a resident of Louisiana and a staunch opponent of religion in our schools, I would like to thank and commend you for the work you do and will continue to do regarding this issue. Special thanks to your legal department for their necessary work.
Conservative policy is causing chaos in the Deep South. Thank you for being an ally for us secular folks who still believe in the Constitution.
R.S.
Louisiana
Louisiana law a violation of First Amendment
Through genealogical research, I have determined that my ninth great-grandmother was Mary Dyer, who was hanged on the Boston Commons on June 1, 1660, by the Puritans (of Thanksgiving fame) for being a Quaker. That was New World religion.
The First Amendment, not the Second or Third, reinforced the Founders’ desire for a separation of religion and state with the words: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”
The newly enacted Louisiana law requiring the posting of Ten Commandments is a clear violation of the free exercise of religion or non-religion among young, impressionable minds. This law amounts to nothing more than an indoctrination program sponsored by the state’s public school system and its taxpayers.
For these reasons, among others, I am enclosing a check in support of your litigation against this law. Let’s not go back to New World religion.
R.W.F.
Colorado
‘Atheist’ term should include all supernatural
The article “Why still so few atheists as Nones soar?” in the June/July issue was absolutely fascinating. The fact that many adults who say they do not believe in God but who do not identify as atheists is somewhat irrelevant because by its very definition they are. The authors are quite right that the reluctance to accept the word is due to the stigma attached, which could seriously affect social standing.
One might argue that if one is using the term “God” as an actual being, then defining an atheist as “one who denies the existence of God,” is quite incomplete because God is just one of an entire subset of creatures in which most atheists do not believe, including gods, angels, devils, elves, fairies, ghosts, giants, goblins, leprechauns, mermaids, ogres, spirits, trolls, unicorns, vampires, warlocks, witches and zombies.
All these creatures are of the supernatural. Many atheists would probably be pleased with the simple definition that, “An atheist is one who does not believe in the supernatural.”
R.R.
Wisconsin
Why so many bibles for women in my family?
I have been in the throes of moving lately. I’ve been surprised at how many bibles I keep finding on my bookshelves. Most of them seem to have been given to women — either my grandmother, mother or myself. None of them has been made out to men, including my father, who was active in the Methodist or Presbyterian church his entire life. You’d think as a little boy that he’d have been given at least one. I wonder if girls were just considered to be naturally better propaganda targets than boys.
I had begun to question organized religion in high school. And, to finish me off, along came Bertrand Russell in college! But Mom and Dad remained faithful to the end.
The myths I was imbued with since early childhood are like so much dust now, clogging up my mental sinuses. And it’s sad. But I suppose that is the price we must pay for outgrowing something.
M.A.
New Mexico
Contribution hopes to move FFRF forward
It is a pleasure for me to contribute to the activities of the Freedom From Religion Foundation.
I believe in what you do, in what you hope to achieve. I trust my contribution will continue to move the organization forward.
J.S.G.
Washington
We all need FFRF now more than ever!
Your efforts are needed now more than ever. Keep swinging at it. Secularism must win this battle! I hope you are being swamped with donations and support.
W.M.H.
Tennessee
Be careful how you cook those baby goats
As a longtime member, I greatly appreciate all the great work you do. Have you thought about recommending to those who want to post the Ten Commandments that they consider the set of 10 that ends with “Thou shalt not cook a kid (baby goat) in its mother’s milk.” Maybe they would see how ridiculous they are. Probably not.
Many years ago, a minister came to me to give me the “good news.” I quickly told him I was not interested, that I gave up pretend and make-believe when I was in grade school. I told him I had read the entire bible and, as a result, became a pacifist, socialist and atheist. He stammered something about me roasting in hell.
L.O.
Kansas
Pat Maginnis helped when I needed it most
Thanks for the heartfelt memories of Pat Maginnis! Although we never met, she affected my life in the most profound way.
In 1969, as a divorced single mother (no child support), working for a decidedly male-focused company and knowing that giving birth while unmarried would mark me forever as unfit for the promotion I needed, I was panicked and desperate. A friend took me to Ensenada, Mexico, where an old woman promised me she could help, but really just gave me a pelvic infection so severe that my own obstetrician begged me to finish a course of antibiotics before seeking an abortion anywhere else. This put me perilously close to the ‘’too late for a termination’’ date!
I heard about Pat Maginnis and the help she offered women in my situation. Somehow, I contacted her and received the information for a doctor in Mexico City. He agreed to do the procedure (for what was a hefty fee) and, on borrowed money, I flew there, terrified, to find myself standing on a street corner, waiting for an unknown man to pick me up and take me to what turned out to be a clean, very professional office.
I still remember crying tears of relief on my flight home — relief greater than any I’ve ever experienced since.
Pat Maginnis literally changed my life with her willingness to help an unknown woman! I sincerely hope she knew how many of us she saved from the disaster of unwanted pregnancies.
Thank you, Pat! And thank you, Annie Laurie, for such a lovely tribute!
P.W.
California
Everything doesn’t happen for a good reason
PJ Slinger’s essay in the March issue about the falsity of the concept that “God doesn’t give you more than you can handle” prompted me to write about an oft-repeated and thoughtless concept that I believe to be untrue, heartless and offensive: “Everything happens for a reason.”
Yes, everything happens for a reason. That is to say, everything has a cause, whether or not we know the cause. But when people intone this phrase, what they are usually asserting is that something good came out of something that looked bad. That is, that the bad thing happened for a good reason, for a good purpose. Oh, yeah? Dread diseases that lead to painful deaths of people whose lives are cut short? War? Genocide? Pandemics? Terrorism? Dire poverty? Slavery? Sex trafficking?
If people really thought about it, they’d be hard-pressed to assert that every dreadful thing in the world happens for a good reason or for a good purpose.
L.M.
New York
Eisenhower at fault for God in pledge, motto
Dwight D. Eisenhower: “Our form of government makes no sense unless it is founded in a deeply felt religious belief.”
A month before his inauguration in 1952, Eisenhower, a deeply religious man, was the first and only president to write and read his own prayer at his inaugural ceremony. With the Cold War in the background, Eisenhower signed a bill in 1954 to add the phrase “under God” to the Pledge of Allegiance. At a bill signing ceremony he said: “From this day forward, millions of our schoolchildren will daily proclaim . . . the dedication of our nation and our people to the Almighty.”
Two years later, Eisenhower signed a law officially declaring “In God We Trust” to be the nation’s official motto (replacing “E Pluribus Unum”) and also mandating that the phrase be printed on all American paper currency. The Constitution, which prescribes the presidential oath (or affirmation) of office in Art.2, Sect. 1, does not contain “so help me God” language or require use of a bible.
D.H.
Ohio
What’s left in bible if all killing is removed?
Oklahoma’s top education official has ordered all public schools in the state to incorporate the bible into their curriculum as a historical text, while many other states obsessed with religion want the bible to be taught in school! What a horrible idea to teach from a made-up story book and killer manual!
First, let’s strip from the bible(s) all the nonsense, impossible stories and evil orders to kill people for just about anything, from killing adulterers, witches, blasphemers, fortune-tellers, the curious, anyone who sins, gays, all non-Hebrews, non-believers and sons of sinners, anyone who curses God, and any child who hits or disobeys parents, those who work on or disobeys the Sabbath, strangers seen close to a church, those who curse mother or father, any bride discovered not a virgin, anybody in a town that worships the wrong god, and finally, anyone who kills anyone!
So, what are we left with after having cleaned it all up? We are left with good, old-fashioned humanism, which superseded all religions with the most basic of human values, namely, to help and look after each other, which initially spread from families to the wider circles.
J.A.
California
Graham statue does not belong in U.S. Capitol
Upon reading your June/July article about a bronze statue of evangelist Billy Graham being placed in our nation’s Capitol, I became angry — however, for reasons in addition to those
mentioned.
I served with the US Army’s 23rd Infantry Division in Vietnam in 1969. During the latter months of my one-year tour, I came to the realization that the Vietnamese people were not the primitive people that, through indoctrination and peer pressure, we soldiers were encouraged to believe. They were hard-working, family-oriented human beings, just like most of us.
Evangelist Billy Graham disdained “atheistic communism” and vigorously advocated for the United States to halt its spread in Vietnam. In a secret letter written to President Nixon dated April 15, 1969, Graham stated that bombing the country’s system of dikes, “could overnight destroy the economy of North Vietnam.”
True! The 2,500 miles of dikes, levees, dams and sluices constituted a vital component of the country’s transportation network. If destroyed, the resulting flooding would not only cripple the economy, but kill thousands of people.
Apparently for Billy Graham, the compassion expressed in Luke 27:8, “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you,” didn’t pertain to those who would be most adversely affected — North Vietnam’s majority population of peasant rice farmers.
Such callousness expressed by a revered moral leader is repugnant and hypocritical. This is one more reason why a statue honoring Billy Graham does not belong in the U.S. Capitol.
R.R.
California
Trewhella’s violence violates Jesus’ teachings
Matthew Trewhella is a Milwaukee-based pastor of Mercy Seat Christian Church and founder of Missionaries to the Preborn.
Prior to his born-again conversion, he dealt drugs, stole cars, firebombed houses, burglarized homes and businesses and fenced stolen items to the mafia.
Today, Trewhella is a favorite among anti-abortion movements. To those not in agreement, he sneers and shouts, “wicked dogs, whores and tyrants.” He instigates blockades at abortion clinics and declares shooting doctors who perform their services as justified.
Should this be of concern to humanists and freethinkers? Absolutely!
Trewhella’s violence totally violates anything the bible’s Jesus taught. His brand of Christianity is fallacious, and freethinkers must communicate such in everyday terms to the public. We can no longer just “preach to the choir.”
Those claiming to be Christians should be encouraged to follow Jesus’ example. Neither Jesus nor his disciples even once spoke a word opposing abortion. In other words, it is none of anyone’s business the decision a pregnant woman makes.
Trewhella’s concern for the unborn is a religious fabrication. The anti-abortion movement is religiously inspired. Our Founders recognized the dangers of religion and thus established the separation of church and state in the Constitution. Anti-abortion is not only contrary the Constitution, it is contrary to an America that respects all citizens of both genders as equal. The vast majority of Americans agree.
L.S.
Minnesota
Religion has unseen wide-ranging effects
As an atheist and a long-time member of FFRF, I must say that I think even your organization doesn’t realize the wide-ranging effects that religion has on all of our lives.
For example, where I live, the outside temperature has topped 100 degrees for several days in a row, yet every person in my local area (and, I suspect, pretty much everywhere else) has left their home fully clothed, when really, all that’s needed is a hat, sunscreen and a “fanny pack” for wallet, etc. It’s religion that forces us to be clothed, even in this heat, not to mention the laws against nudity passed by legislators influenced by religion.
Also, what’s with the description of people’s genitals as “private parts”? What’s private about them? Everyone has one set or another, and they’re not very different from person to person, so why are so many people so guarded about allowing other people to see theirs?
I’m sure there are more examples I could come up with if I gave it some more thought, but I think those questions are a good starting point.
M.K.
California
I like to say ‘under dog’ and ‘dog bless you’
I read with amusement Mark Nierenberg’s letter in the August issue about using “Underdog” in the Pledge of Allegiance. I have been saying “under dog” when forced to recite the pledge, or sometimes I just leave “under god” out and continue to the end of the pledge. That’s the way I learned it in grade school. Also, when someone says, “God bless you,” I say, “dog bless you.” Sometimes I get a “god” response and we just go back and forth: “dog”—”god”—”dog.” I’m easily entertained.
K.R.
Wisconsin
Don’t let Christian nationalists take over!
It is sad that large numbers of people want to make the United States a theocracy. They call themselves Christian nationalists. They believe our government was founded upon Christian principles and deserves to be returned to those same principles. They also believe that the Constitution was written as a Christian document. (It wasn’t!)
Their story often lacks finesse and tact. And no wonder! It’s the story of a government takeover, and, as some desire, the firing or execution of many federal employees. Then there are the inexcusable reasons for Jan. 6.
All of this is a good reminder for those of us who support democracy to realize how precious and delicate our democracy is and just how difficult it can be to keep it energized and relevant. Don’t give in, don’t cross swords and don’t give up!
E.A.
Minnesota
‘Ungodparents’ could help stop indoctrination
Many new parents ask other family members or close friends to serve as godparents for their child(ren). While this is sometimes simply a sign of special respect, in more religious families (especially Catholic ones) there is a specific expectation. This is that the godparents will play a role in the child’s religious education and also act to ensure the child is following in the faith if the parents should die.
I would propose that FFRF members step up to serve as “ungodparents,” offering to take steps to prevent children from being indoctrinated by any religion. Ungodparents can play an important role in assuring that children learn that there is an alternative to the religious beliefs of their parents. Parents who resist designating ungodparents can be told that this would be a great test of their faith as surely their god would block the influence of ungodparents.
L.C.
Michigan
