Published: September 21, 2009 05:20 pm      

Letters - Tuesday, Sept. 22, 2009

County council just doesn’t understand

Cheers for Councilman Paul Wyman on his lone vote against the deficit spending budget passed by the Miller Corp. (Howard County Council).

It just seems that Miller and company just doesn’t get it. Of course that scheme seems to follow all men who stay in politics too long. Mr. Miller states, “All of Howard County needs to understand the council will be monitoring the fiscal situation.”

Sure, they will. That sends fear into us. Miller and company will just do more of the same and just transfer more funds. Doing that is not tax savings to Howard County financiers (taxpayers).

Howard County government for too long has been fortunate enough to have had, in the past, a super source to draw from and has become too placid. It seems that Mr. Miller does not realize that source has come to a halt and we all will have to give up much more than just perks.

Perks like 16 paid holidays, paid lunch hours, personal time off, free dental care, just to name a few that most in the private sector don’t enjoy. If we in the private sector had all of these perks also, this country would have been broke a long time ago.

Small businesses just can’t afford to stay in business with all the extra costs the government (national, state and local) is forcing upon us. Plus the extra tax-free perks demanded by the employees are causing more and more businesses to leave or close down. I know, I have been there.

Ted L. Tate

Kokomo

Detractors continue to demean atheists

I am writing in response to Peter Heck’s column in the Sept. 8 edition of the Kokomo Tribune, “There are no atheists in birthing centers.”

To begin, I would like to congratulate Mr. Heck and his family on the birth of his daughter. That being said, I found it terribly disappointing that he couldn’t simply take joy in that occasion; rather, he felt it necessary to use his child’s birth to attack those who don’t share his religious beliefs.

Mr. Heck is certainly entitled to express whatever opinions and beliefs he wishes. However, I do wish he would not insult the readers’ intelligence by contradicting himself from the outset of his column. One cannot claim to intend no disrespect to atheists, while referring to them in the same column as “arrogant” and without “a lick of sense.”

In his column, Mr. Heck makes the claim that atheists are living in rebellion to that which is patently obvious, i.e., creationism. I would remind Mr. Heck and others who would malign atheists that it was once patently obvious to the ancient Greeks that every lightning storm was the result of Zeus having a tantrum of some sort. Their level of scientific knowledge did not serve to explain electrostatic atmospheric discharge, so their priests filled in the gaps.

My point is this: There is no conclusive evidence for the existence of God. This statement takes nothing away from religious faith. Indeed, faith, by definition, is a belief in that which cannot be proven. I have no desire to deprive people of faith in their beliefs, or their right to share them.

That being said, I and my fellow atheists are just as entitled to our beliefs and our right to share them.

In this day and age, atheists cannot be set ablaze as heretics. So, our detractors resort to demeaning us and deriding us, hoping to shame us and bully us into silence and acquiescence.

Those days are long gone, and they are not coming back.

Richard C. Thompson

Kokomo