Sharing a wavelength

Sam Killay
Claremont
To the editor,

I’d like to take a moment to thank Mr. Lunderville for his recent (and past) supportive remarks. I haven’t heard of the book he recommends, but I’ll be sure to check it out. I have whole bookshelves of atheist literature, which means that I do happen to be familiar with the Bertrand Russell quotation Mr. Lunderville shares. Except the version I heard was a slight variant: “Not enough evidence.” But it amounts to the same thing.

Mr. Lunderville and I clearly share a wavelength, so I appreciate his use of the term “freethinker.” I take that as a compliment. Yes, I consider myself that. I take pride in it. Being a free-thinker isn’t the easy position to take: it demands work and self-scrutiny to free oneself from the shackles of dogma. Being a free-thinker isn’t the popular position to take: it would certainly be easier to conform. But I can’t live that way. I spent too many years as a kid being told what to think. I’ll do my own thinking now, thank you. “Live free or die,” right? For me, the foremost of freedoms is the freedom of my own mind.

I find it half funny and half sad: in many places around this country, places like Massachusetts or New York or Rhode Island where I grew up, the opinions Mr. Lunderville & I seem to share would be so common as to be banal. Yet, much to my surprise, here in Claremont opinions like these seem to make me an aberration. I often feel like a “vox clamantis in deserto,” as Dartmouth’s motto has it — a voice crying out in the wilderness. 

So any support is welcomed. Pity that Mr. Lunderville always writes from California. I’d share a beer with him anytime.

 

Sam Killay

Claremont