I found your March 26 article “New Atheism = religious fundamentalism?” both silly and disturbing.

The weak assumptions of Evan Sandsmark are evident before finishing the first paragraph. Harris and Hitchens, he says, “will denounce any belief system that posits existence as inherently meaningful.”

Assumption #1: all religions claim life has meaning. I disagree. Christianity makes this life out to be essentially worthless, placing all attention on an afterlife which, as Edward Gibbons explained in the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, distracts people from trying to make the world better, right here and now. Assumption #2: Life is meaningless without a supernatural framework. Harris and Hitchens may have no interest in Israelite/Pauline mythology, but I gather they find great value in honesty and what amounts to the Golden Rule. It is more honorable to be compassionate for its own sake than because you think a supreme being will whip you if you aren't.

Sandsmark also describes preachers as people who call for “profound human reform with conviction and optimism.” Really? Is it the preachers who stood up for the rights of women, animals or homosexuals? With the rare exception of somebody like Martin Luther King Jr., it is the secular philosophers who pulled the West out of medieval horror and into a somewhat democratic, enlightened society. When was the last time you saw average people vote on doctrine at a church house? Quakers and Congregationalists may be an exception, but that's as far as it goes.

Being intolerant of ignorance, myth and superstition is ethical for the same reason that being intolerant of the Ku Klux Klan is ethical. When people make decisions based upon logic and empathy, rather than superstitious dictums inapplicable in modern life, fanaticism is essentially impossible. Why? Because when you act upon reason, your decisions can be debated by anyone, for your opponent also has access to reasonable arguments. This has a tempering effect.

Religious ideals, however, are subjective and intangible, which makes them arbitrary and unavailable to scrutiny. That is unacceptable in any regime other than a dictatorship and truly dangerous.

When the article shifts to the views of author Chris Hedges, we find somebody who claims that, just because evil exists, we should “consider the wisdom of original sin.” I've got news for Hedges. There is no such thing as original sin in Judaism-the religion that made up the Adam and Eve story-and the capacity for violence and unkindness existed with the cavemen.

Brutality exists in nature; it is not a human invention, though it is still honorable to strive to overcome it. Original sin is a concept contrived by Catholicism and imposed upon a story that invites no such interpretation.

Recognizing biblical stories as mythology is not akin to fundamentalism any more than recognizing the Iliad as mythology. They are both examples of common sense, plain and simple. Hedges says “all humans are unethical” as if that is the default quality of humanity. Such pessimistic outlooks are what religious fanatics use as excuses to torture and maim other beings. If “God” already hates them, goes the rational, then it's okay if I hate them too. No; if you want to make the world a better place, think of people as essentially good.

It is my conclusion that, due to his upbringing by a Presbyterian minister, Hedges is unable to approach the subject with a sober mind, for he has been awash in superstition all his life. If he can prove any inaccuracies on the part of Harris and Hitchens, by all means let him write another book.

David Johnson, Boulder