The following letter to the editor was published in the Toronto Sun on December 23.
A reader writes (Dec. 16) that "Judeo-Christian based societies are hands down the most decent, fair societies on Earth today". That is true, but he has reversed cause and effect. The reason this is true is not because of religion but because of the separation of church and state and recognition, to at least a significant degree, of individual rights and the freedom that brings - including religious freedom by definition.
The citing of communist dictatorships as athiest failures is flawed because in those cases the state was not secular, rather it elevated "athiesm" to a position as a religion and demanded its citizens obey. The vast majority of people, at least in the former Soviet Union, were never atheist, they were just not allowed to publicly practice their religious beliefs - one freedom among all the others they were denied. The current Chinese government still persecutes religious minorities.
Atheism is simply a lack of belief in any god. Atheists are not the problem, the problem is always and only when people have their freedoms denied by a despotic government; it is irrelevant whether such an oppressive, and often murderous, government is secular or religious.
