Joe O'Connell's letter, "Column shows ignorance in logic-based argument" (SN 1/19), perfectly displays one of the most overused and terribly flawed arguments — "It doesn't hurt to believe in God. … Wouldn't you rather be on the safe side?"

Well, why don't you follow Islam then? What about Judaism? Hinduism? Any number of other religions require you to believe in one god or multiple gods, or follow this or that set of rules, and if you don't, you will be damned for all eternity. Claiming you're on the "safe side" requires that Christianity is the only such religion to begin with, which it obviously is not. Illogical reasoning such as this is one explanation for the increase in atheism recently, but not the best.

The reason that agnostic atheists and strong atheists have come out in recent years also is not because of hypocritical people, such as Richard Dawkins or more qualified and well-spoken atheists like Sam Harris. Instead, it is because of religion's increasing influence on U.S. policy. We are decades behind the world on evolution education, years behind on stem cell research, and science as a whole is being needlessly restrained by ignorant people who care more about generic and unimportant cells than real human life.

As the United States continues to transition from a blue-collar labor economy to a white-collar service economy, science and technology education is more important than ever. People are welcome to their beliefs, and I won't ask them to change. However, as long as religion has such influence on U.S. policy, it will negatively affect our nation's growth, and more and more fed-up non-religious people will continue to come out and fight to preserve our standing in the world.

Jordan Cohen
computer engineering senior