Fear the majority or tolerance of the minorities…

The Nov. 4 letters to the editor by D. Dean and P. Polk stated the following:

• Because the founding fathers of this country were Christians, the country became great

• Muslims are intolerant of Christianity and conspire to dominate this country. Islam has a strong missionary movement which attempts to convert nonbelievers.

The following addresses the above issues.

The founding fathers and those that followed them defended religious freedom not because they were Christians, but in spite of being Christian. Their forbearers arrived from England, France, Spain, Ireland and Germany, which had religious wars from the 1500s to the 1700s.

Religious conflicts continued in the colonies where the majority of one faith in one region attempted to impose their belief on the minorities.

The founding fathers realized, unless freedom of religion was guaranteed, the nation would be torn apart. The constitution and the subsequent amendments granted to everyone the right to decide to follow their own beliefs and explicitly state that there would be no endorsed national religion.

The founding fathers were wiser than the Bible and the Koran, which do not grant these freedoms.

Here in Fountain Hills several months ago we viewed the conservative Christian churches as a group fighting the liberal Christian beliefs. Our American KKK, the Army of God, just as ISIS, is more intolerant in their respective countries.

The negative aspects of Islam in the cited letters to the editor are practiced by the Christians of this country. Freedom of religion including tolerance of the religion of minorities is the true measure of the freedom of our society.

We should guard the rights of the minorities and be fearful of the majorities imposing their will.

For me, this is noteworthy, because a century ago my grandfather’s family and 1.5 million Christian minority Armenians were slaughtered by majority Turkish Muslims.