To the Editor:
David Brooks is correct that there is hostility between secular and “orthodox religious believers” in America today. An important distinction must be made, however.
A secular person is much more likely to feel anger or frustration not because of what the fundamentalist religious person believes, but because of what religious beliefs drive that person to do. Suicide bombings, denying civil rights, exporting fear and loathing to other countries, bombing abortion clinics, “honor killings,” elimination of accurate science in education — these are examples of toxic behaviors with broad impact that have been justified by religious faith.
ELIZABETH L. BENJAMIN
Boulder, Colorado
January 28, 2014
"Darwin was the first to use data from nature to convince people that evolution is true, and his idea of natural selection was truly novel. It testifies to his genius that the concept of natural theology, accepted by most educated Westerners before 1859, was vanquished within only a few years by a single five-hundred-page book. On the Origin of Species turned the mysteries of life's diversity from mythology into genuine science." -- Jerry Coyne
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