Bruce Monson
Speak Out!
I originally wrote this essay for some of the Christian Firefighter friends I work with (and they are friends!) who are members of an organization called the Fellowship of Christian Firefighters (FCF). I wrote it as a response to their evangelistic efforts on my fire department that entailed not only verbal proselytizing ("Have you found Jesus yet?") but also physical bulletin boards they had placed in all the fire stations that presented Bible Tracts intended to "spread the Word" and convert people to Christianity.
Read Feedback/Discussion to this essay in the Point-Counterpoint section.
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Natalie Angier, the Pulitzer Prize winning science writer for The New York Times, read a shorter version of my essay in the September 2000 edition of Freethought Today, the publication produced by the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF), and was compelled to interview me for inclusion in her excellent January, 2000 article in The New York Times Magazine.
This article appeared in the April 22, 2001 edition of the Colorado Springs Gazette, my local paper. It was written by columnist Eric Gorski and details my plight against the Christian Tracts placed on bulletin boards by the Fellowship of Christian Firefighters (FCF), and how I am writing the new policy for the Fire Department on this issue.
While I thought Mr. Gorski was pretty fair over all in his presentation, there is one qualm I would like to comment on in regard for his use of the term "atheist" in the article. I took great care in explaining (and repeating) what my definition of "atheist" was; and that is, "I do not affirm that there absolutely is no 'god', and in that sense I am an agnostic; but I am an 'atheist' in terms of a non-belief in any form of 'personal god' who hears our prayers, interacts with us, and rewards and punishes us for our actions or non-actions. I further explained that I simply discount the existence of 'one more god' than Christians do."