Every now and again, an exchange frequents The Free Lance-Star's opinion section, carried on by the defenders of a faith versus the champions of the godless.

Perhaps it is saying too much to aver that both sides are in error.

The atheist camp, glorifying the new divinity of science, neglect in their panegyrics how deficient in humanity their vast regime of coordinated control proves itself at each turn.

Treating people as biological specimens leads to callous manipulation or even worse. One might well name Dachau or Nagasaki as the triumphs to record in the annals of the modern Tower of Babel.

The Bible-thumping cohort needs reminding of at least one salient theological conundrum.

The Johannine gospel attests that the Word of God is Christ in person, by whom "all things were made."

Outside of kabbalism or necromancy, the Good Book hardly makes anything--although holier-than-thou judgmentalism might with justice be ranked among the dark arts.

What these adversaries lack is one subtle trait, not confined to any creed: the ability to reflect.

The Logos, the Word, is certainly not any bound volume of dead letters. And Truth, that rare pearl of wisdom, does not factor into any equation, no matter how often we roll the dice of chance.

Christopher M. Ellis

Stafford