In response to the Feb. 8 article, “Atheists: OPRF Gospel Choir isn’t complying with law” [News], please understand that “Freedom From Religion” doesn’t mean that members of that organization are “atheists” as it is currently defined, since the meaning of atheism has been allowed to be defined by theists and is therefore demeaning. (https://www.atheists.org/activism/resources/what-is-atheism)
“Atheists,” as you refer to them, come in a variety of shapes, colors, beliefs, convictions and backgrounds. What they all hold in common is the lack of belief in gods and supernatural beings. And they may call themselves many things such as: nonbeliever, disbeliever, unbeliever, skeptic, doubter, doubting Thomas, agnostic, nihilist or humanist.
Using that negative word in summing up the organization is oversimplified and wrong. I hope you will remove it from the title of your article and any reference within it.
More and more people are beginning to understand that they want to be “free from religion” since religion often makes illogical demands on one’s thinking and one’s behavior and may require that, as a member of one religion, they should feel superior to all others. The result? Disharmony, hate, injustice, bigotry, racism, violence … and war.
Please understand that people have many beliefs, and no one targeted “religious” belief should be taught to our children in our “public” schools. It’s up to their families and eventually themselves as it should be. More and more often today, they are deciding for themselves as they grow older that they do not believe in gods and are free thinkers.Â
Julie Samuels
Oak Park
Good letter, but …
I have mixed feelings about this issue. On the one hand, gospel music is amazing music, and, quite honestly, trying to eradicate religious elements from all things public would be an exercise in futility (“good bye” being itself derived from “god be with ye”). J.S. Bach wrote almost every single one of his works “for the glory of God.” Do we ban his works from being performed by public school orchestras and keyboardists?
On the other hand, gospel music is very obviously just that: the music of the gospels. There’s no getting around the direct intention of this music, which is also the direct intention of the church: to praise God, and Christ in particular. It seems to me that separation of church and state should prevent not only faculty but students as well from collecting for this purpose in a public school. There are plenty of churches in Oak Park.
Back on the first hand, nobody is being forced into this activity, and unless it is getting in the way of secular activity at the school (which should most definitely take priority in a public school), I really don’t see an issue.
Of course, your issue was with the usage of the word “atheist” and its potential disparaging and reductive connotations. I agree, and I would even hazard to guess that not everyone who is a member of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, or at least not everyone who supports the idea of “freedom from religion,” is an “atheist.”Â
The real issue I have with the usage of that word is like you said: It suggests that the only people who might have an issue with a potential infraction of the Constitution are these “damn atheists,” which ignores the fact that the people who came up with the idea of separation of church and state were themselves “god-fearing” individuals.
The last thing this country needs right now is more reasons to turn situations into an us-vs.-them scenario. Reducing any group to a single ideology, or any individual to a single group, is counterproductive in the most dangerous way.
Aaron Cadam Samuels
OPRF instructor (and Julie Samuels’ son)