I would like to comment on the letters written by Peter Swanson and Jerry Hales in Wednesday’s Daily (April 13 letters, “Moral neutrality is impossible” and “Atheist not fit for religious studies”) as they both made a related mistake in dealing with the role of neutrality or non-advocacy in education regarding religion.

Mr. Hales stated that Dr. Avalos was incapable of being a professor of the religious studies program due to his atheism. It’s ironic that he accuses Dr. Avalos of being ignorant, since he seems completely guilty of ignorance with regard to the operation and aims of the religious studies program.

Its goal is not to advocate religion, but to study it from a social and humanistic point of view. It’s more like sociology or anthropology than theology.

Also important is that it not be taught with an angle of “which one is correct?” any more than an anthropologist would describe the marriage practices of the Incas as “correct.”

It simply exists, and its existence is what is being studied. With that in mind, you can see that there is no problem with Dr. Avalos being an atheist and a professor in the field.

This idea of describing the practices of religion without advocacy is exactly what allows for the neutrality of position that Mr. Swanson incorrectly dismisses as impossible.

In making his argument, he misattributes a position to Eric Christensen, stating that he wants his (atheistic) view forced into schools while other beliefs are forced out.

He said nothing to that effect. What Mr. Christensen implied was that advocacy of any position, be it Christian, Hindu or, yes, atheist, has no place in the public classroom. That’s the place for instruction, not indoctrination.

Let people come to their own conclusions as to which position is correct. The point is that neutrality is possible, even desirable.

Last, Mr. Hales seems all too willing to run roughshod over the Establishment Clause in favor of the benefits that would arise from Christianity being the basis of moral instruction in the classroom.

Now, notwithstanding that Christianity is not the only moral system that advocates “being honest, not stealing or cheating, not promoting violence, and being faithful to his/her wife/husband,” and that Christians are often guilty of all of those things, the benefits that could be gained are immaterial in that they fly in the face of our country’s basic opposition to promoting a specific religion.

It was instituted for a very good reason.

Freedom of belief and action, insofar as it does not harm others, outweighs the possible benefits to be gained from the unilateral promotion of religion.

The way we do this, then, is for the government (and its arm, the schools) to remain neutral, and to let people make up their own minds.

Ryan Ritson

Senior

Philosophy