Charlotte Allen wrote her absurd anti-atheist rant in the Los Angeles Times on Sunday. By Monday, a staffer had already issued a response — a non-apology which focused on the backlash from atheists.
Yesterday, they began publishing letters-to-the-editor.
The one thing that Allen gets right is that many atheists are motivated by anger.
We are angry that freedom is deprived from people of all faiths by people of one faith simply because majority rules.
We are angry that scientific research with the potential to dramatically improve life is restricted or even prohibited because of archaic religious principles…
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From what I have seen, the people running around trying to write laws to enforce their ideas and beliefs, and exclude those who do not hold similar beliefs, are not atheists but believers.
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Charlotte, what do we do about those other nonbelievers? The ones who have manners, are respectful to believers, don’t tell lame jokes, aren’t angry and would love to have a serious discussion about the existence of God?… I find it difficult to hate and ridicule them. You?
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What an astonishing bit of drivel. How can anyone with a modicum of intelligence lump all atheists into one category as she does?
And she thinks atheists are crashing bores?
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To characterize those enlightened enough to question a belief system as “whining victims” is akin to similarly classifying all those brave souls who, throughout history, have challenged the status quo and, in so doing, have guided the human race into more progressive and evolved thinking.
I have to think there were hundreds of responses that were not published. The ones above seem fairly tame and not nearly as critical as they could be.
And there’s not a single letter in favor of the piece? That would be wonderful, but I find it hard to believe…
Reader Claudia has her own theory about this:
… my gut instinct tells me that they chose the letters-to-the-editor in such a way that legitimizes the discussion — that merely reflects it’s a “controversial subject,” not bigotry, that rightly outrages the offended group and has no place in a newspaper.
I’m hoping they’ll publish more letters in the coming days. This doesn’t make up for their mistaken decision to give Allen the space to voice her ignorant and unbased opinions.