Atheists Tend Toward
Strict Moral Code
Tedi Trindle
From: "Common Sense on Radio Free Callahans"
To: "Positive Atheism" <editor@positiveatheism.org>
Subject: Positive_Atheism_Letters_Section
Date: Wednesday, June 13, 2001 11:28 PM
I was recently guided to your site by a Wiccan friend of mine who admired it. I just finished reading "The Philosophy of Positive Atheism," and I must say that I am impressed and gratified.
I am a scientific pantheist married to an atheistic agnostic. I have produced three children, now young adults, and raised them under the policy of religious freedom. Two are now claiming to be agnostics, and one claims to be a theist. If I have preached one philosophy, it has been that of personal and social responsibility, because it falls into my view of what it is that major religions are trying to teach, and what works well in a world dominated by social animals.
My overwhelming sense of the experience of atheists in a primarily theistic society is that they are assumed, by lack of theism, to lack ethics and morals. Nothing could be, in my experience, further from the truth. All of the atheists I know or have met adhere to a moral code which is often more strict than the most fundamental of theisms. My husband is the kindest, most ethical and moral person I know, bar none. We have no religious conflicts in our household, because we hold respect for individual beliefs at a high premium. Would that the world would do the same.
I just wanted to write and thank you for a well-devised, intelligent, and thoughtful site. It has given me a lot of food for thought. And we all know how hungry thought is. I just thought you should know that some of us theists appreciate your work.
Sincerely,
Tedi Trindle
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