Religion just brings trouble to world

I was interested in Gloria Trejo's comments in the March 18 Daily Herald. She is the principal of Pioneer Elementary School in West Chicago and was interviewed for the column, "Meet The Principal."

When asked what was the one thing in the world she would change if she could, she said, "Eliminate all religions. All the negativity that exists in today's society is due to religious beliefs: wars, hatred, racism."

Ms.Trejo is certainly attuned to the intentions of our Founding Fathers. John Adams in his famous 1817 letter to Thomas Jefferson declared that, "Twenty times in the course of my late readings have I been on the point of breaking out, 'This would be the best of all worlds if there were no religion in it.'"

And Jefferson, when he sent his draft of the Declaration of Independence to Benjamin Franklin for review, had written the statement that "We hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable." This bothered Franklin who took his stick pen, lined out the words "sacred and undeniable," and substituted the words "self-evident." That's the way our Declaration came to read that "We hold these truths to be self-evident."

So Ms. Trejo was preceded by others when she declares that she would like to eliminate all religions.

Indeed, religions are a serious divisive factor in the world today, causing many conflicts, and perhaps we would be better off, as John Adams said, if there were no religions in the world.

Theodore M. Utchen

Wheaton