To the Editor:
I’m one of those atheists who Richard A. Shweder says is up in arms these days. Is it because my confidence in Enlightenment thinking is waning, as Mr. Shweder suggests? Actually, it’s the opposite: I’m alarmed that the Enlightenment principles embodied in our Constitution are being compromised, distorted and weakened.
We have a president who is reported to believe that a god is personally talking to him. President Bush wants to operate as a “unitary executive,” with the power to do whatever he wants despite what the law says.
Conservative politicians, including the president, use code words to send signals to their fundamentalist Christian base. Evangelicals are trying to rewrite American history, telling us that there is no such thing as separation of church and state and that we live in a Christian nation.
The same forces have tried to hijack science classrooms with creationist dogma and place religious commandments in courtrooms.
For more than 225 years, through divisive and painful fits and starts, our nation has been advancing individual and economic freedom. Atheists like me are up in arms because we don’t want to see our republic become a theocracy.
Jeffrey Zack
New York, Nov. 27, 2006
Note from AnalPhilosopher: Oh no! Jeffrey Zack has broken the code!
That's really just Karl Rove talking through a chip that's been implanted in Bush's head. All part of his master plan to turn America into a theocracy.
Someone should ask Mr. Zack: "Hyperbole much?"