LETTERS IN THE EDITOR'S MAILBAG.

Byline: The Register-Guard

Religious beliefs aren't provable

Researchers in early civilizations could imagine no explanation for the existence of the stars and Earth's creatures unless a God who could do anything had created them. All life forms will do everything possible to escape dying, and since everything dies, they included an afterlife in a paradise - all provided for by that same God.

These explanations cannot be proven, nor can they be disproved, because they go beyond the observable laws of the universe. Because they are not provable, all are equally valid, including similar claims from all religions.

We are involved in a war with a religion the God of which demands that the faithful kill those who don't believe. Some adherents volunteer for suicide missions for the reward that their faith guarantees.

Those who aren't interested in the religious differences as much as they are in making money in any way possible are doing everything possible to prolong the conflict because it is providing profits for them. Altogether, it is costing thousands of lives and still counting, and it is causing millions more to suffer the horrors that war brings. But those involved consider their interests to be more important.

We need to become involved in whatever is required to change the world's thinking away from ancient claims of supernatural things that are not provable and into realistic expectations for this life we are living. Otherwise, the devices that are available for warfare now may end life as we have known it.

Al Ratledge

Eugene

Speeding took the life of a pet

In 2001, I hit a cat because I was driving too fast in Springfield. I was visiting from Vermont.

I think the owner came out immediately and was kneeling by the cat and I drove off. When I returned to Vermont, I totalled my car and almost killed myself and my friends because I was driving too fast.

When I hit the cat I must have taken someone's friend, and that is not OK. I want to apologize. It was near the bus stop closest to Fourth and C streets.

Today, I helped take a cat who was hurt to the veterinarian and to get a new home, and I thought of this incident in Springfield and had to write. I hope the cat's companion reads this, and if anyone knows who it was please tell them.

And please, slow down. I now am a good driver, and I can't believe the way I used to drive. If you want to race, do it at a racetrack. If you drive fast in public you are endangering everyone.

I was not the only person driving fast, but I was the only person who hit that cat. I can apologize, but I can't make that cat be alive in its body again in this life with its friends.

Again, I am very sorry, and I hope this helps some.

Walter Leitgeb

Bellows Falls, Vt.

Bush playing shell game in Iraq

"Bush orders limited withdrawal from Iraq" was the front-page headline on Sept. 14, based on the president's speech to the country the prior evening. This headline is at best misleading, and it is very telling about the mind-set of the newspaper's editors.

President Bush in February asked the nation to accept a temporary "surge" in troop level, instead of troop redeployment, in order to allow more time for Iraqis to take over their own security. Bush said this would allow him to later reduce troop levels from the then-existing 137,000 level.

He demanded additional billions with no strings attached. Eight months later, he changes the topic, effectively extends the surge for at least a year, and reveals his plan for an "enduring relationship" that will keep troops in Iraq for generations.

No one would doubt that if infinite resources and infinite time are allowed, the United States would win this war. The president, and his speech writers, have been playing a shell game with the public, and The Register-Guard's editors, to maintain the occupation of Iraq and to establish a strong presence in the Middle East and beyond, so we can completely colonize it.

The only thing the president announced in his speech is that he is phasing out the surge in a year - maybe - and that he wants to maintain the occupation and pass it on to his successor. Withdrawal was never considered. The headline should have been: "Bush orders limited phase-out of the surge."

Mike Knefaty

Eugene

What's origin of liberal labels?

The origin of characterizations might be a good weekly article for Register-Guard readers. You know, "Where did that come from?"

When someone calls you a "crackpot," what does it mean, and where did it come from? I am curious because when I asked the Eugene City Council and Mayor Kitty Piercy, "How come we need a 5-cent-a-gallon gas tax for road repair when we already have millions of dollars in the bank to buy residential property in southwest Eugene so some developer does not buy it and build some more tax-generating properties," they called me a crackpot.

When my friends and I ask several people in our local government why we, the registered voters in the area, are not asked our opinions prior to law-changing decisions, we are considered "conservative elitists."

The one that really burns our cheeks is when we pledge allegiance to the flag in honor of soldiers in uniform and are called "warmongers."

It is a silly thing to ask, I realize, but evidently we are not as wise as some. We would just like to know the origin of these characterizations so we can find out what the Eugene liberals really think of us. Never can tell, we might change our ways.

John Caudill

Eugene

Loaded words aren't helpful

I found myself in basic agreement with Chris Culhane's opinions on what the fate should be of the mother of the poor child who died in the heat of her car (letters, Sept. 16).

But I am disappointed, although not completely surprised, at his remarks about our "secular progressive environment." I fail to understand why the words "secular" and "progressive" are used, unless it's for the purpose of bringing religion and what he surely knows is a politically loaded word into this tragedy.

Is he saying there would be even more legal consequences if this were a religious and conservative environment? I think not, unless those legal consequences were even more of an erosion of our individual liberties than we have now under our current religion-oriented and conservative administration.

To throw those words into this sad situation is self-serving and gratuitous, in my opinion.

Dick Romm

Eugene

Frohnmayer selectively tolerant

The selected quotes in Jeff Wright's report on University of Oregon President Dave Frohnmayer's address to an interfaith community breakfast (Register-Guard, Sept. 12) smell of hypocrisy.

Recent history reminds us that Frohnmayer did not just "get over it" when confronted with his own misunderstanding and intolerance against the Native American Church throughout the 1980s. Despite numerous decisions in Oregon that claimed a Indian Oregon citizen was protected by the First Amendment in an unemployment case, Frohnmayer, as Oregon's attorney general, appealed the case to the U.S. Supreme Court - not once, but twice. In 1990, the decision in Smith vs. Oregon eroded freedom of religion in this country, sending shock waves through the interfaith communities and legal scholars alike.

His seven-year legal onslaught was not because the Native American Church group was a bunch of fanatics engaged in reckless endangerment as was the Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh group he referenced. This was a quiet, peaceful, faith community that required cultural respect and religious tolerance, neither of which he could muster.

Take a better look underneath this facade of liberal tolerance. Be accountable for history. It was Frohnmayer's aggressive legal tactics as attorney general that, as an AFL-CIO spokesman put it, "drove a spike in the heart of the Bill of Rights," stripping many in this nation of religious exemptions and the very tolerance his Huguenot ancestors came here to enjoy. The pen may have replaced the sword, but the colonial game's the same.

Jane Farrell

Eugene

Kahle offers food for thought

I am thrilled to see Don Kahle's column added to The Register-Guard. I have enjoyed Kahle's humorous insights into our community and our world for years. His Sept. 7 piece was food for thought as we entered into the weekend of the Eugene Celebration.

Laurene Larson

Eugene

Support Iraq war? Then enlist

My partner is in the Navy reserve and is on a 15-month deployment in Afghanistan. He is expected to return home next month. What should be a time of celebration and joy of his return has been tainted this week.

Reports from Gen. David Petraeus and President Bush reinforced that we will continue to stay the course in the war on terror. My partner's eight-year commitment of service ends in December 2009. If our current dictator is allowed to continue, we will still be at war at that time.

It is likely he will be redeployed and forced to involuntarily serve past his original eight-year contract. The all "volunteer" U.S. military cannot meet its recruiting goals and will not be able to maintain proposed troop deployment levels without calling up progressively more Individual Ready Reserve forces.

This pool of Individual Ready Reserve forces has been used previously on a very rare basis for national emergencies. However, both President Bush and his father decided to use this pool to sustain wars in the Middle East.

To those who support the war, I say enlist in the military and put yourselves or your children in front of the bullets for this "just" cause. Enlist in the military with a contract whose length may change at any time without your control.

If you are unwilling to do that, then don't support a war that forces good, decent, patriotic Americans and their loved ones to this fate.

Jill Papenheim

Eugene