Letter - Response to 'Educate yourself'

To the editor:

In September 1782, Benjamin Franklin wrote the pamphlet Information to Those Who Would Remove to America. He wrote: “…serious religion, under its various denominations, is not only tolerated, but respected and practiced. Atheism is unknown there; infidelity rare and secret; so that persons may live to a great age in that country, without having their piety shocked by meeting with either an atheist or an infidel.”

President George Washington expressed this opinion in his Farewell Address on September 1796: “With slight shades of difference, you have the same religion, manners, habits and political principles.... Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens…”

Americans considered Thomas Paine to be an atheist after he wrote Age of Reason. As a result of that book plus the letter he wrote attacking Washington’s military reputation and his presidential policy, Paine’s popularity was gone when he returned to America in 1802. Paine died in 1809. Robert G. Ingersoll wrote of Thomas Paine: “…One by one most of his old friends and acquaintances had deserted him… his virtues denounced as vices – his services forgotten…”

The notice of Thomas Paine’s death from the New York Citizen was reprinted in most American newspapers. It read in part, “He had lived long, did some good and much harm.”

The state constitutions of eight states – Arkansas, Maryland, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas – still contain clauses that prohibit atheists from holding public office. However, the Supreme Court has declared those clauses to be unenforceable.

Melva Jean Ruckheim

Parkers Prairie, MN

Tags: opinion, letters