When I submitted a letter to the opinion page of the Iowa State Daily, I was expressing not only my right to freely criticize some things I was uncomfortable with at MY university, but also with MY society in general.

I emphasize “my” because contrary to some, I still belong here whether I am a Christian or not. My attempt at expressing those topics was not to start a “tit for tat” argument, but I was merely posing a question to those who may pay homage to this Atheist and Agnostic society.

I have been accused of being afraid, too opinionated and a “Jesus-bigot.” These attacks on my character and my belief system not only prove my point of how hard it is to be a Christian, but how intolerant certain people are when faced with legitimate questions and criticism.

I believe my questions were not in any way shouting to the entire campus, “We don’t need an Atheist society here!” Nor did anything in my letter suggest that an Atheist shouldn’t teach a class on the Bible. As a matter of fact, I really didn’t know if Dr. Avalos was an Atheist until after I dropped the class due to the frustrating biased deconstruction of the Bible.

As a further emphasis I have had other professors, just as decorated as Dr. Avalos, present the material in the Bible in a manner that students do not feel as though they have just been berated. Do I know if those instructors are believers or not? The answer is “no” but I still received a strong literal, unbiased deconstruction of certain aspects of the Bible and Christianity.

Secondly, I am never so naive as to believe the demise of our society lies solely with the abandonment of the Bible. Yet I still stand firm in believing that it has a huge part of it. Whether people look to religion for spiritual growth, psychological growth or a combination of both, we as a society have no right to point our fingers and play shame games.

The point of my argument was to express to those who wish to listen that the constant attack on religion, and especially Christianity, is disheartening and extremely upsetting. My point was proven this week by the demeaning statement Gov.Ventura made.

If certain people have the intent to form a society of Atheists, then I say go ahead, but please don’t be so thin-skinned as to be offended when someone asks why.

---

Albert Farr

Senior

English