The US Atheists have
lambasted the chancellor of Alabama Troy University for using his public funded
office to promote religion in a secular state of USA.
They are demanding
an apology from the university
chancellor who suggested religion is fundamental to a functioning democratic
society.
Jack Hawkins, the
chancellor of Alabama’s Troy University, sent his students and staff a video
about "religious freedom" as part of an end-of-year message, AL.com reported.
The group strongly
disagree with Hawkins that those who do not believe in God cannot be
"moral, law-abiding citizens."
In the 90-second
clip Clay Christensen, a
professor at Harvard Business School, details a conversation he had with a
Marxist economist from China, in which the other man said democracy works
because people believe that "they aren’t just accountable to society,
they’re accountable to God".
Christensen then
asks: "As religion loses its influence over the lives of Americans what
will happen to our democracy? … Because
if you take away religion you can’t hire enough police."
David Silverman,
the leader of American Atheists in a message published in AL.com
said that a concerned student alerted them about the video clip, and writing on
behalf of the student and the entire members of the group demanded apology from
the chancellor:
"On behalf of
the student who contacted us, the Alabama members of American Atheists, the
thousands of atheists at Troy University, and the hundreds of millions of
atheists worldwide who live productive, law-abiding lives without religion, we
demand an apology from you for using the public university
email system and your publicly funded position to disparage atheists and
minority religious groups as well as perpetuating the discrimination and
anti-patriotic sentiment against atheists in the United States."
He then went on to
suggest that atheists statistically lead more fulfilling lives, before inviting
Hawkins to attend the organisation’s annual national convention in Memphis in
April, "to experience for yourself what atheism and atheists are
like".
Hawkins hasn’t
lent any comment to the demand.
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