I rather enjoyed the humorous Rumor Doctor column “Are Satanists running the military’s supply system?” But I can’t help but feel that the gentleman The Doctor cited, Peter H. Gilmore (spokesman for and high priest of the Church of Satan), incorrectly defined Satanists as merely “atheists who use the devil as a symbol of pride and individualism.” Atheists are nontheistic and, by definition, do not ascribe to the belief that any deity created the universe or has dominion over our lives.

Atheists find no evidence to credit our existence to Jesus, Allah, Buddha, Thor, the sun god Rah, Elvis, Satan or any other supernatural deity and, therefore, would find it ridiculous to pay homage to one. An atheist would certainly not be a high priest of the Church of Satan (or any church, for that matter), but instead would find membership in such an organization irrelevant.

Generally, atheists consider themselves enlightened and feel that religion is simply something human beings created thousands of years ago because, at the time, we could not explain the mysteries of life. Simply put, atheists believe in evolution over creationism, astronomy over astrology, chemistry over alchemy, and philosophy over religion. Compared to the more than 80 percent of Americans who actually ascribe to one of the popular monotheistic religions from the Bronze Age (Judaism, Christianity and Islam), atheists merely believe in one fewer god and, as such, feel that the rest have almost nearly (but not quite) got it right.

Maj. Mark Eskew

Camp Taji, Iraq

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