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Good reasons for leaving church

To the editor,

On Nov. 16, Dan Cassino editorializes about the "I agree with Dave" campaign. As a person who is not religious, who has a moral philosophy of my own and who had previously been religious, two statements in Cassino's opinion stand out:

" ... at some time in the past, they have turned away from church. Maybe it was too much effort to go to church and not enough spiritual reward. Maybe they got fed up with what they perceive to be the hypocrisy of the church."

These are the reasons given by Cassino to explain a turn away from religion. What about the obvious one? Maybe "they" realized that it is not logic and reason that leads someone to believe in a non-perceivable, omniscient, omnipotent being about whom no scientific statement could be made. Maybe, like me, "they" realized that one's only means of gaining and understanding knowledge about the world cannot lead them to god and that to just "take it on faith" is to discount that means of knowledge as useless in, seemingly, the most important issue. Maybe like me, they didn't want to discount their brains as useless organs.

The other statement was "they (Christian groups) provide a social group that, for the most part, avoids drinking, sex and most other kinds of immorality."

Alcohol and sex immoral! I will grant that excessive use of alcohol is damaging to one's body and mind and therefore immoral. I will also grant that promiscuous sex with anyone (perhaps with an STD) for any reason is immoral for the same reason. But sex between caring people is good - it is a pleasurable (at least for me) and productive thing. Who cares if a person is married! As long as they know what they're doing, they don't create a child unless they will care for and love him and don't have sex for the wrong reasons, it should be a happy and moral experience. As for alcohol, alcohol is a good thing - so long as one doesn't get drunk all the time and throw up on one's friends and ruin one's life for the dubious pleasure of not being able to think clearly. Why should these two things be immoral?

Rachael Ludwick

Mathematics and computer science junior