Editor’s Note: The following is the text of Reed Secular Alliance President, Leslie Zukor’s letter to the editor of the Oregonian. Although this letter wasn’t published, it is the latest in the RSA’s efforts to stand up for science and rational thought.
I am disappointed by Charles Hunter’s (August 1st) characterization of the practitioners of rational thought. As the President of the Reed Secular Alliance, a college atheist and freethought group, I know that the majority of freethinkers are not advocates of genocide.
Contrary to Hunter’s assertion, leaders who use rational thought do not kill millions of their own people. In reality, the atheists I know rebuild houses in New Orleans, give food to the hungry, and donate books to prisoners. In short, we are concerned with creating a just society in this our only chance at life.
If the world were populated with more clear-thinking rationalists, I am confident that it would be a better place to live. In a universe of careful observation and analysis, Ava Worthington would have had the best of medical care. Now she is dead, and we have only religious dogmatism to blame.
Leslie A. Zukor
President, Reed Secular Alliance
Portland, Oregon
