As the president of ISU Atheist and Agnostic Society, I was compelled to write a response to the article printed in the 1/30/2015 edition of the Daily, under the title listed above. The author, Zoe Woods, claimed that no one is in a position to condemn religious terrorism — in light of the recent Charlie Hebdo attacks — as it would imply moral or religious superiority. Instead, Woods suggested tolerance and forgiveness as the proper response.

Coming from a family of ministers, I am familiar with the compulsion to offer platitudes about religious tolerance, while simultaneously attempting to convey that one’s own faith would never lead to violence. As a former Christian, I used to do this myself.

Now, however, this response angers me.

In the face of religious violence, many paradoxically call for more religion, like a drowning man crying out for water. To defend violence using “religious tolerance” only serves to negate any true pluralistic goal, and turn “tolerance” into a vapid ideal used to shelter religion from criticism.

What follows is an excerpt, which should offend all morally inclined people.

“As a result of what our society has defined to be moral, we have deemed [the attack at Charlie Hebdo] purely wrong.

Yet, who are we to confront and discredit the beliefs of others? How can we label our convictions superior above those around us? We can’t. What we can do, as humans, is believe whatever we want to and in whatever we want to”

Excuse me?!

Philosophers have struggled to define moral actions for centuries, however, if we can agree on anything it is that cartoonists should not be murdered in their studios for drawing satirical comics. Surely we can acknowledge that, even if the implicated cartoons were in poor taste, that their authors did not deserve death!

After all, if morality is rooted in anything, it is rooted in being able to distinguish right from wrong. Thus, morality at its most basic level must take into account avoidance of unnecessary human suffering. With that in mind, if any unverifiable ideology leads to murder, then it is immoral not to question the implicated belief system, with an eye toward preventing similar actions in the future.

It is time that we stop allowing the religious to claim a monopoly on discussions of morality. Strict adherence to any Abrahamic religious text would lead one to be viewed by modern society as not only immoral, but likely psychopathic.

From the Bible alone we see the strict instructions about how to acquire slaves (Exodus 21), the New Testament reiterates this position, and commands slaves to submit to their masters

(Luke 12: 47-48, Ephesians 6: 4-6). 1 Timothy 2: 9-12 orders the subjugation of women, with commands to be silent, never assert authority over a man, and never wear jewelry or makeup.

Perhaps most importantly, though, in the context of the Charlie Hebdo attacks, there are explicit calls to kill non-believing friends and family by stoning (Deuteronomy 13: 6-10). For those who think that Jesus solves the problem of violence, see Matthew 10: 34-35.

Can we at least agree that if you must disregard as much as what you accept from these texts,that any claim to be the one true source of morality is a totally unfounded assertion.

Forgiveness is an important part of healing, but using outrageous rhetorical questions like,“who are we to confront and discredit the beliefs of others?”, as a way of dismissing murder should be viewed as nothing more than a crass attempt to spread the guilt around so far that no one can be held to blame. It is passed time that all morally inclined people stand up to proclamations like this and say, “NO MORE.”