Letters: Christianity, Christmas and Sarah Palin
Re “Ka-chingle all the way,” Opinion, Dec. 6
While their defense of things Yuletide is no doubt heartfelt, Jonathan Zimmerman reminds us how intellectually impoverished Sara Palin and the Christmas warriors actually are.
The vibrant religious culture Americans enjoy today is — perhaps ironically — a function of our historic secularism. The tolerance, pluralism and free expression we all enjoy are assured only by the freedom of conscience and disestablishment of state from church at our founding that Palin laments.
Without a heritage of radical secularism, the United States would have, like other Western nations, by now kicked its official church to the curb. It might even enjoy an approval rating as low as our national legislature.
Palin is, once again, celebrating the wrong part of our history; she seems not to be able to distinguish the difference between her enemies and her friends.
David L. DiLeo
San Clemente
I welcome Palin’s rage against “angry atheists.”
Thomas Jefferson, a Founding Father, assembled his own manual of morals from the Gospels but omitted the supernatural miracles. He was grounded in the practical and secular world, without the dictates of priests or churches.
Likewise, Alexander Hamilton, also a founder, was reportedly asked after the 1787 Constitutional Convention why God was not referenced in the Constitution. His reply: “We forgot.”
This is not a secular attack on Christmas but a solid endorsement of individual liberty.
J.H. Benson
Altadena
Whether this country was founded on Christian, Buddhist or even Nazi principles, the argumentum ad antiquitatem (appeal to antiquity) is fallacious, and dead men cannot vote. The goal is to do right, whether the Founding Fathers did or not.
Even if they did get some things right, I for one am not about to own slaves or wear a powdered wig just because they did.
Jim Johnson
Whittier
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