Dear Editor,
This is in response to two letters in the April 4 issue. I agree with the first letter that the article these letters reference (“Tired of Trends,” March 23) does a poor job of drawing a concrete line between what is considered the trend, and the larger issues the trend in question tries to reflect.
As I understood it, Mitchell was not trying to question the motives of atheists and agnostics in general, but a small sub-culture within that movement that calls itself “God-Free.” I may be generalizing, but this sub-culture seems to largely consist of formerly conservative Christians who, upon finding contradictions in their faith, give up the search for truth and try to exist as “God-Free.” Whereas most agnostics and atheists I know have searched long and hard for the truth in spirituality, and come to either the conclusion that there is no such thing as a spiritual realm, or that it is unknowable. I believe that Mitchell is arguing in favor of such people, not against them. She correctly asserts that trends tend to devalue the original movements they are based on, by simplifying them to the point of irrelevance. She argues that people in the “God-Free” movement are empty inside, not because they don’t know God, but because they don’t fully understand themselves.
The second letter took a personal tone, which seemed to be largely based on a textual misunderstanding. In Mitchell’s article, she uses the (admittedly awkward) sentence “I am not offended by this because I am a generalized ‘Super Christian’ who cannot fathom that someone would not see an absolute truth with God,” and then goes on to show in a more concrete fashion why she has issues with the “God-Free” trend. The second letter takes this sentence and runs with it, assuming a lot of personal things about the author that the sentence does not support. Mitchell is not saying that she inhabits the guise and values of the purported “Super Christian,” etc. She is instead saying that the trend does not offend her on those grounds, but the grounds that she details in the coming paragraphs. It is akin to saying, “I am not going to eat this steak. Not because I am a vegetarian, but rather because I don’t like the taste.” You wouldn’t assume from this that the speaker is a vegetarian, necessarily. Take a closer look at what you are reading. If you are going to stand on a soapbox, please be more careful not to stand under false pretenses.
-John Fields

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