Keith Burgess-Jackson, J.D., Ph.D.

To the Editor:

In “God Is a Question, Not an Answer” (The Stone, Sunday Review, March 27), William Irwin writes, “Any honest atheist must admit that he has his doubts, that occasionally he thinks he might be wrong, that there could be a God after all.”

Many “honest” atheists, including me, don’t care to consider the question of God at all. Aside from the simple truth that the question does not interest me, the existence of a god or gods would not change the way I live my life, and therefore holds no value to me. I also find it a waste of time and attention to wonder about the unknowable when there are so many interesting and urgent questions with real answers waiting to be revealed.

I would not assume that another’s theological quandaries do not benefit them in some way, and Mr. Irwin should not assume that my lack of interest in those same questions leaves me spiritually impoverished, or my “doubt of indifference” has “no clear benefits.”

The issue we must come to accept is not that some believe and some do not; we are not, as Mr. Irwin writes, “partners in a continuing conversation, addressing an enduring question.” What must be accepted is the fact that many atheists do not find the question enduring and would rather have a conversation about something else.

STACY SCHIERHOLZ

Seattle

Note from KBJ: Poor, uncurious Stacy Schierholz! I feel sorry for someone for whom the question of the existence of God is of no interest. It's immensely interesting, and always has been. I think about it, read about it, talk about it, write about it, and teach it. Though I'm not a theist, I just received, as a birthday present from dear Katherine, my own eight-volume set of Thomas Aquinas's Summa Theologica. I can't wait to get started reading it. One reason Schierholz gives for not being interested in the question of the existence of God is that it would not change the way he or she lives. By that standard, Schierholz should not be interested in 99.9% of science.

Michelle Malkin is running for the United States Senate. See here. (I suppose it's possible that this is an April Fool's joke. I hope it's not.)

This blog had 5,468 visits during March, which is an average of 176.3 visits per day. A year ago, the average was 180.8.

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Battle Axe (1977). This was supposed to be the final Alice Cooper album. When Alice left the band, his mates carried on without him.

I don't understand why anybody would support Ted Cruz. He's way behind Donald Trump in delegates and is highly unlikely to catch him. The best he can hope for is a brokered convention, but there is no chance—zero—that he would emerge from such a convention as the nominee, given how much he is despised by those who wield power at the convention. In short, Ted Cruz won't be the Republican nominee for president, at least in 2016. Donald Trump has an excellent chance, since he's way ahead in delegates. Are Cruz's supporters delusional? I don't get it.

Addendum: In light of the fact that he won't be the nominee, Ted Cruz should end his campaign immediately. If he persists in his doomed quest for the presidency, he may deny Donald Trump the necessary delegates, which would result in an establishment Republican such as Jeb Bush or Marco Rubio being the nominee (at a brokered convention). Cruz should find that prospect appalling. Get out, Ted, for the good of the party, the good of conservatism, and, most importantly, the good of the country. In case anyone is wondering, Trump will destroy Hillary Clinton. Please don't cite head-to-head polls. At this stage, as you well know, such polls are meaningless, if for no other reason than that most people aren't paying attention to politics. (It's only April!) Trump hasn't even begun to focus on Hillary. By election day, every one of her many scandals will be fresh on every American's mind, as will the prospect of having Senile Bill Clinton back in the White House. (Hide the interns!) And please don't say that Cruz would do better against Hillary. She will destroy him, just as Barack Obama destroyed John McCain and Mitt Romney. By election day, Cruz will be little more than a sleazy, dishonest Bible thumper in the minds of voters. Hillary will have him pegged as Theocratic Theodore.

Addendum 2: As one of the commenters pointed out on my original post (before the addenda), I used to support Ted Cruz. He looks good on paper, but when you see him on the campaign trail, you realize just how shifty and sleazy he is. What he did to Ben Carson is unforgivable. (Only someone as decent as Carson could actually forgive him.) Remember when Cruz fired his campaign manager, Rick Tyler? That was an eye-opener for me. Did Cruz not know who Tyler was when he was hired to head the campaign? I could see that Tyler was a crook the moment I laid eyes on him. I was also turned off by Cruz's Bible thumping. I have nothing but respect for Christians, but Cruz scares the bejesus out of me. Have you seen his father in action? Yikes! This is Branch Davidian stuff, folks. I expect snake-handling at any minute. Donald Trump is every bit as religious as Ted Cruz, but he doesn't broadcast it. Please don't say that I turned on Cruz because of his religion. That's at most 10% of my change of heart. It's the sleaze, stupid! I also believe that Cruz has far more ties to the establishment than he lets on, some of them through his wife Heidi. This is a Washington power couple, like Bill and Hillary Clinton. I'm sorry, but I've had enough power couples for one lifetime. I want a First Spouse who stays out of politics.

The Internet is atwitter with talk about Donald Trump's abortion gaffe, in which he said, in response to a hypothetical question by a left-wing hack,  that he would punish a woman who had an abortion. Trump is being taken to task by progressives, many of whom wouldn't ban even a late-term abortion performed for the convenience of the mother. What concerns me here is the criticism by conservatives. I keep hearing it said, for example, that Trump doesn't understand the pro-life movement, which (it is said) is about caring for the victims of abortion, namely, pregnant women and their fetuses. Isn't that special? But wait. Don't some of these conservatives—indeed, most of them—support the overruling of Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton, the 1973 abortion cases? Suppose these conservatives get their way and that those cases are overruled by a Supreme Court stocked with, say, Ted Cruz's justices.

Presumably, some of the states whose anti-abortion statutes were struck down as unconstitutional would reinstitute those statutes. Here are the pertinent provisions of the Georgia statute that was struck down in Doe v. Bolton:

26-1201. Criminal Abortion. Except as otherwise provided in section 26-1202, a person commits criminal abortion when he administers any medicine, drug or other substance whatever to any woman or when he uses any instrument or other means whatever upon any woman with intent to produce a miscarriage or abortion.

26-1203. Punishment. A person convicted of criminal abortion shall be punished by imprisonment for not less than one nor more than 10 years.

Got it? Until 1973, abortion was a serious crime in states like Georgia. Anyone who supports the overruling of Roe and Doe is willing to punish abortion with imprisonment of up to 10 years. Admittedly, the person being punished is the person who performs the abortion, not the woman on whom the abortion is performed. It was foolish of Trump to say that the woman herself would be punished. But conservatives who are criticizing Trump for this (including Ted Cruz and his henchmen) should not pretend that they don't want anyone punished for performing an abortion—that all they want is to succor the pregnant woman and her unborn child. You can't have it both ways. If you support the overruling of Roe and Doe, then you support the punishment of abortion, for that would almost certainly be the result.

Ted Cruz needs to stop attacking Donald Trump and point out that he favors (1) criminalizing abortion and (2) punishing those who perform it. In other words, he needs to stop acting like a progressive and start acting like the conservative he says he is. But then, he won't, because he's Lyin' Ted.

To the Editor:

Richard W. Painter’s claim (Op-Ed, March 23) that President George W. Bush would have nominated a judge like Merrick B. Garland, who was appointed to the Court of Appeals by President Bill Clinton, a Democrat, to a late-term Supreme Court vacancy is simply implausible.

Mr. Painter’s speculation requires the belief that President Bush would have abandoned his clear and consistently expressed view—which was based upon fundamental beliefs about the nature of American government—that his Supreme Court nominees must be judicial conservatives who shared the president’s understanding of the proper role of the courts in our system.

President Bush believed that judges should act as law interpreters and not lawmakers, and that they do so by using the text of the Constitution and case law. Anybody who knew the slightest about President Bush’s mind on judicial appointments would have expected to be laughed out of the Oval Office for suggesting nominating someone like Judge Garland.

While there is no question that Judge Garland is an accomplished judge, his judicial philosophy, as reflected in his 19-year record on the Court of Appeals, is not that of a judicial conservative.

WILLIAM KELLEY

Notre Dame, Ind.

The writer served as deputy counsel to President Bush from 2005 to 2007.

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