Letters to the Editor
Serai1
Published Letters: 527 Editor's Choice: 33
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*SIGH*
[Read the article: Can't Darwin and God get along?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I've been reading at Salon for about four years now, and I used to enjoy the letters sections appended to articles like this. There would be an interesting diversity of opinion and viewpoints, and some intriguing discussions.
But over time, these spaces have gotten overwhelmed by bitter, angry people looking to mock and deride any viewpoint that is not exactly their own. It's a sad phenomenon, made even sadder by the fact that it's the people who side with science that are those responsible, a development that I never in my life thought I'd see. I grew up believing that science instilled in people a rational, balanced view of the world, an ability to see things in perspective and not get caught up in the kind of vicious sneering and accusation that I associated with the worst of religious fundamentalism.
And yet, here we are, with two sides completely polarized, mirror opposites of each other, engaged in exactly the same behavior. Two sides of the same coin - both literalistic, limited, blinkered, mean-spirited, accusatory. YOU are the blind idiot. YOU are the deluded one. YOU don't see reality. YOU are the evil. YOU are responsible for society's ills. YOU STARTED IT. YOU YOU YOU YOU YOU.
It makes me so sad. When I was a kid going to Catholic school, where we were taught evolution by the same teacher who taught us catechism (and both with the same enthusiasm and joy), I always thought there was an obvious and right place for both religion and science, each dealing with the world in its sphere, and intersecting in ways that enhanced and improved each other. Later on, as an admirer of the late Carl Sagan, I came to understand that, although science has no need of religion, there is also no need for science to look down on or deride the religious impulse, that it can be understood and interpreted by science as something integral to human experience even if a particular interpretation carries no supporting evidence. The impulse to religion is the same as the impulse to science - wonder, awe, and the desire to understand the universe we live in.
But to see them both, but especially science, used the way ignorant schoolchildren use rocks in the playground is disheartening in the extreme, and gives me no hope for the future at all. Indeed, it makes me think of close-minded armies, gangs in the streets, doors slammed in faces, and the dogmatic hatred that can arise out of simple misunderstanding, and what Giberson rightly terms intellectual laziness and the willful refusal to reach out and meet somewhere in the middle.
Which brings me to the article - refreshing, interesting, and fun to read. This is the kind of thing that gives me hope - the fact that there are more and more people around like Giberson, who are tired of the shouting match and want to see people become more sophisticated and nuanced in their views of both physical reality and the human psyche. I certainly hope he continues to write and speak, he and others like him; perhaps their voices will help bring these issues to a calmer place where we can breathe easier and learn more open-mindedly.
But I don't think I'll be reading these letters any more. They make me tired.
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@Taliesan
[Read the article: Can't Darwin and God get along?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Thank you for proving my point so admirably. I appreciate it.
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Thank you so much, Steve
[Read the article: On the faith-based initiative, Obama's way isn't Bush's way]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]for clearing that up. I literally yelled aloud when I read that erroneous story this morning. After the telecom fiasco the other day, this would have turned me against Obama completely, had it been true. I'm very gld to hear that it only isn't true, it's really not true. Like, in the opposite direction. It's encouraging to hear that he intends to replace the safeguards that were there before the baboons ran amuk. Perhaps he'll work at replacing and rebuilding all the other structures torn down in the last eight years.
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I wonder
[Read the article: Go ahead, treat your vulva]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]A thousand years from now, will virulent hatred of one's own body be considered the most prominent legacy of American culture? Will plastic surgery, radical diets, and self-torturing "exercise" regimens be considered quaint, not to mention weird? Will food, physical activity, and the body human find their place as enjoyable realities, rather than enemies?
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Nah!
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Right
[Read the article: The economics of abortion]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Economics or no economics, that should still be her choice.
And that is exactly what the anti-choice people object to, and why they fight so hard against it. In their view, it should not be her choice. Once a woman is pregnant, she no longer has the freedom to decide how her life should go. Her fate is sealed, and it's her damn fault for being such a slut in the first place.
It's just that sort of pseudo-slavery talk that's always made me glad I got pregnant back when it was not difficult to obtain an abortion. Planned Parenthood was still a respected organization, and the crazies had only just started to come out of the woodwork. I would not be a young woman now for any money.
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What I find interesting
[Read the article: Jesse Helms dies on July 4th]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]is how many of the ones crying "you're so mean!" are the folks who regularly point fingers and call others nasty names in these pages. They are themselves no strangers to the kind of ugly bigotry that Helms made popular, but let people who are different from them take a single opportunity to lambast a monster, and suddenly they're on the side of civility.
As Captain Buck Murdoch said, "I guess irony can be pretty ironic."