Preferences of all—including Freethinkers—should be respected

Responding to Chuck Flickinger: Once upon a time Spiritual

Reflections was written by only one Christian minister. Other Christian submissions are now included, yet this by no means reflects the spiritual diversity of the community.

Yes, I suspect that the News-Herald strives to be inclusive, if only the various spiritual views are first recognized, and writers step forth.

Chuck, you may require a belief in a supernatural to be spiritual, but many of your neighbors find spirituality from being in synchrony with life on this amazing planet. This requires learning about nature, an inquiry where facts are established.

You should appreciate that honest methods of acquiring evidence are essential of fact finding. Hearsay

does not qualify. Equally important is a lack of evidence, which is inherent in supernatural ideas. Intimidation under the guise of love, fear-mongering, guilt, and threats of damnation are methods of domination and control, not enlightenment.

The message of a symbol is not the same to all people, which was the point of my last letter. When the crucifix was removed from my patient’s wall in the Catholic hospital, it was at his request. He was neither Christian nor atheist. His choice was respected.

I fondly recall the sweet grandmother of my childhood best friend who had a crucifix on each of the four walls of her dining room. If this grandmother were in the hospital bed, I would have put up three more crosses and a rosary if she so chose. Her preference would be respected.

As for Freethinkers, yes, they were present during our nation’s development and lead the way for religious freedom, abolition, voting and property rights for women, nonviolence towards women, access to birth control, attempts to abolish the death penalty… Thomas Paine, Robert Ingersoll, Abigail Adams, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Walt Whitman, Mark Twain, Margaret Sanger come to mind, and then Newton, Einstein, Lennon, Hepburn, Galbraith, Weinberg, Clooney, Sagan, B. Gates, T. Turner …too many to list and not a bad lot.

Geri Jensen
Grand Marais