LETTER: Atheism is a religion too

To the editor:

I read Jon Adam’s editorial, “Recognize the right to express beliefs,” in last Wednesday’s Statesman with much interest. My first reaction was a rather sarcastic thought about how timely the piece was by appearing over a month after all the talk over the preaching had died down.

The reason I wanted to write, though, is because of this particular sentence that caught my eye: “Listening to both sides debate whose faith was more irrational, I couldn’t help but think, ‘Thank God I’m an atheist.'” I’m writing for one main purpose, to point out that atheism is not a rejection of religion; it is itself a religion. It is just as unscientific and irrational as any other religion. First off, one should not confuse atheism with agnosticism. Atheism is the religious belief that there is no God or other form of deity. Just as Christianity is based on the unscientific hypothesis that the man Jesus, born sometime around 3 BC, died and returned to life and is the Savior of the world; so atheism is based on the unscientific hypothesis that there is no divine being or beings. It should be pointed out that equaling absence of evidence with evidence of absence is a logical fallacy.

Just as there are many different types of Jews, Christians, Muslims, and Buddhists, atheists also have differences of beliefs. Atheism has its “Evangelists,” such as Christopher Hitchens. There are atheists today as intolerant of other religions as the most fundamentalist members of other religions. Secular fanaticism is responsible for as much pain, suffering, and death as Christian or Muslim fanaticism.

This letter is in no way meant to be an attack upon atheism or any other religion. I am also not laying the burden of proof on atheists to prove that God or gods don’t exist. Freedom of religion is the most important right in the Bill of Rights (and thus the first mentioned) and should be protected. I’m only saying that atheism should be known for what it is, a religion.

Adam Vanderwerf