Miami Herald Columnist Responds To My Post

Confirming my suspicion that he is a true gentleman, Leonard Pitts actually responded to my critique of his column about atheists being like fundamentalists.

A very thoughtful response.  Thank you for sharing it.  I was particularly impressed by how you say you handle people who innocently ask you to pray for this person or that.

Without re-litigating the rest of the piece (I think there’s little value in that) I will just point out that while you may have encountered few atheists who say they can disprove God’s existence, they are not rare in my experience.  In fact, Patricia, though she stakes a claim to a sort of non-judgmental, empirical neutrality, actually makers her argument in a condescending and dismissive tone that belies the claim.  That’s often been my experience.  And yes, I have to say that people like that remind me of fundamentalists in that both give off the same smug sense of having all the answers.  The piece I wrote was a defense of faith, but it was also intended, like Marilynne Robinson’s book, as a defense of questions.

Be well.

Yours Truly,

Leonard Pitts, Jr.

The response to Patricia, the atheist that wrote to him, received quite the negative response on the Miami secular humanists’ Meetup board.  Like me, they were surprised by her inappropriate reaction to Pitts’ innocent remark that Lara Logan “is deserving of our compassion, our empathy and our prayers.”  I guess I have just not met many non-theists like Patricia.