Dear Editor: The Devil is usually responsible for taking your clothes off but in the Genesis story God asked Adam and Eve who told them they were parading around in their birthday suits. The fig leaves were not enough to cover the shame of their souls so they hid in fear behind bushes away from their best friend when God came to visit.

“Adam, where are you?” Certainly, The Supreme Artist knew. Their naivete was gone feasting upon the “tree of knowledge and evil” and profound doubt filled their void. So was born agnosticism!

Hereon in man and women will question everyone and everything around them. Bold, unadulterated proof would be needed to make sense of the unknown and even all we see around us. To foster any conception otherwise a new word faith was instituted.

People of the 21st century think themselves original in matters of theology, philosophy and even science when they profess to be atheists or metaphysical. They can cheat death or aging in a sickly manner or even ward off dementia if we live long enough. This and so many ways God humbles us or if you choose not to believe in a creative intelligence, then you must admit, the forces of Mother Nature keeps us at bay!

I say that the spiritual realm is often more real than the temporal physical realm, whether or not you are a theist or atheist. When you send a young man or woman off to war the “establishment” must brain wash, not necessarily in a negative sense, an individual mindset to give up life for a cause.

To respect all social norms be they elite or poor, whether you are in populated cities or the sparse tribes in jungles there is a code of etiquette. You honor the person’s home into which you are invited and you stand for a nation’s anthem, whether you believe or even like its principles or tenets because that is what civilized people do most especially if you eat their food or take their money!

RICHARD C. BURRIESCI

Woodside