I would like to remind you, Mr. Amabile, that we are living in a free-speech society, and everyone has the right to convey to others what they believe. If you don’t like what someone is saying, you can do one of three things: walk away, tell them to leave or shut your ears. This is the price we pay for living in a democracy. In the United States we have the right to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” and by someone expressing their religious views to you they have violated none of these.I assume that because the religious zealots that speak to you are narrow-minded that you consider yourself open-minded. “Your way doesn’t work for me as mine doesn’t work for you.” Are these the words of an open-minded person? How do you really know that they won’t work for you and yours for them? Have you really thought this through before you spoke? You use an “I think, therefore it must be so” type of argument. What I mean is because you are narrow-minded, you think everyone else must be as well. By the claim, “Don’t bother wasting your time trying to tell me that I need to see things your way,” you speak for the campus as a whole. Some people on campus enjoy hearing other religious views.You claim that you are not a “religious hater,” but I will be bolder than you and claim that I am. I think most religious traditions are illogical and senseless, but I can assure you of one thing: any hatred for religious traditions is far less in magnitude than my love for a free-speech society. If you can’t handle others expressing their religious beliefs, there are plenty of other places where you won’t hear “the upset rambling of another holier than thou.”Surely, isn’t a university campus perhaps one of the very few places in the United States (and indeed on earth) where we should encourage discourse and argument? In order to acheive that, sometimes we have to listen to ideas and arguments with which we disagree.
Sections