AMERICAN ATHEISTS

"Aims and Purposes"

1. To stimulate and promote freedom of thought and inquiry concerning
beliefs, creeds, dogmas, tenets, rituals and practices.

religious

2. To collect and disseminate information, data and literature on all religions and
promote a more thorough understanding of them, their origins and histories.
3. To advocate, labor for, and promote in all lawful ways, the complete and absolute
separation of state and church; and the establishment and maintenance of a
thoroughly secular system of education available to all.
4. To encourage the development and public acceptance of a humane ethical system,
stressing the mutual sympathy, understanding and interdependence of all people
and the corresponding responsibility of each, individually, in relation to society.
5. To develop and propagate a social philosophy in which man is the central figure who
alone must be the source of strength, progress and ideals for the well-being and
happiness of humanity.
6. To promote the study of the arts and sciences and of all problems affecting the
maintenance, perpetuation and enrichment of human (and other) life.
7. To engage in such social, educational, legal and cultural activity as will be useful
and beneficial to members of American Atheists and to society as a whole.

"Definitions"
1. Atheism is the life philosophy (Weltanschauung) of persons who are free from
theism. It is predicated on the ancient Greek philosophy of Materialism.
2. American Atheism may be defined as the mental attitude which unreservedly
accepts the supremacy of reason and aims at establishing a system of philosophy
and ethics verifiable by experience, independent of all arbitrary assumptions of
authority or creeds.
3. The Materialist philosophy declares that the cosmos is devoid of immanent conscious purpose; that it is governed by its own inherent, immutable and impersonal
law; that there is no supernatural interference in human life; that man-finding
his
resources within himselt=can and must create his own destiny; and that his potential for good and higher development is for all practical purposes unlimited.

ERICAN
JHEIST
Vol. 19, No. 11

November, 1977

ON THE COVER
CONTENTS
NEWS
Gaylor Charges Legislator
Bias
U. S. Post Office Bows to American
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
GUEST EDITORIAL, JOHN CRUZ

Atheist.

2
3
4
5

FEATURE
ARTICLES
On Keeping God Alive. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ..
Christians
and Crim inals. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ..
Death
Freedom
from Religion
,
, ..
Superstitions
Grow in Soil of Ignorance
Speaking for Women
Where Do We Go from Here?
. .
. . . . . ..
.
Reflections
on Robert G. Ingersoll.
, .,
AMERICAN ATHEIST RADIO SERIES
The Arius Conflict
POEMS
EDITOR IA L

7
9
11
13
16
20
23
26
28
31
32

Editor-in-Chief:
Madalyn Murray O'Hair/Managing Editor: Jon G. Murray/Editor:
Edmund Bojarski /Assistant Editor:INancy Bojarski Circulationt.Jo h n Mays/Production: Barbara Herold, Ralph Shirley/Non-residential
Staff: Anne Gaylor, Warren
Shibles, Ignatz Sahula-Dvke, G. Richard Bozarth, Voltaire E. Haywood .
The American Atheist magazine is published
monthly
by American
Atheists,
2210 Hancock Drive, Austin, Texas, 78756, a non-profit, non-political, tax-exempt,
educational organization. Mailing Address: P. O. Box 2117, Austin, TX, 78768;
copyright @ 1977 by Society of. Separationists, Inc.; Subscription rates: $15.00 per
year; $25.00 for two years. Manuscripts submitted must be typed, double-spaced
and accompanied by a stamped, self-addressed envelope. The editors assume no
responsibility for unsolicited manuscripts.

THE AMERICAN ATHEIST MAGAZINE

Post Office Box 2117
Austin, Texas 78768
Enter my subscription for one year at $15.00 (two years at $25.00).
NEW
Total Enclosed $.

Name
Address
City, State, & Zip
The American A theist

RENEWAL
_

Alfonso John Cruz, born in Detroit,

Michigan, August 9, 1943; Mexican extraction. Parents: born and reared in Texas.
Grandparents: born and reared in Mexico.
John was reared on the outskirts of
Detroit with his brother and two sisters. As
a child, he spent most of his summers at his
grandparents' farm in Rogers, Texas.
He was educated in the Detroit public
school system. He was an excellent artist all
of his life and shortly after high school attended classes at the Detroit Society of Arts
and Crafts for two years.
About this time, he met his future
wife, Loretta. It was love at first sight.
They were married shortly afterward.
As they grew and matured
together
they began to question their religious
beliefs. John was a practicing Roman
Catholic and Loretta, born and reared
in the Appalachian
mountains
of Virginia, had a strong fundamentalist
upbringing. They both had a lot to question.
But, after several years they
reached the conclusion that they were
A theists.
They have two exuberant
boys,
Tim, age 12 and Tony, age 9.
John never pursued the art career
he started and chose instead to get into the unique field of wood die model
making.
That is, he makes wooden
cars.
Every single part of an automobile
is
first made out of wood in a precise full
size m ode!. These models, being the
originals
from which all others are
made are built under exacting standards. John receives a lot of satisfaction from his work and has lately been
active in his union.
John today considers his hobby to
be "life".
H is personal philosophy
recognizes
the inseparable
relationship
between
body and mind and he tries his best to
develop both.
Am o nz his favorite activities and interests are reading, swimming, horseback riding, canoeing, tennis and good
friends. John has been very happily
married
for 13 years and considers
himself
a very
fortunate
person.
"I've got everything
that counts, a
wonderful
wife and children,
good
health, an enjoyable vocation and now
my
involvement
with
American
A theists.
"Having the opportunity
to work
for the Atheist
movement
is the
proudest,
most fulfilling and exciting
period in my life."
AMERICAN A THEISTS
P. O. Box 3756, Oak Park, MI 48237
Telephone:
[313] 721-6630

Page 1

MILWAUKEE, WISCONSIN,
AMERICAN ATHEIST CHAPTER
With the verve of Sch Iitz beer advertisers - both
the brewery and the advertisers being from Milwaukee ,- the American Atheist Chapter there
was "gung-ho"
in its approach to the announcement of its aborning.
We are all here convinced that the Schlitz companies must be Atheistic with the themes in their
advertising of "We're from Milwaukee and we
ought to know." that "You only go around once in
this life, so grab it for all the gusto you can get. r r
Dr. Madalyn Murray O'Hair and Jon Garth Murray were in Milwaukee to participate in a 90 minute television talk program in that city and the
Milwaukee Atheists were out in force. There was a
dinner at a local steak house, the television program, a meeting at the hotel afterwards and the
following morning a Press Conference was set up.
The Press Conference was unique. I n all of the
fighting we have done, we have never been able to
convince other groups interested in First Amendment issues to join us. But - again, a first in history was accomplished - this time the Milwaukee
Atheists did it.
In attendance at the Press Conference were
Dr. Madalyn Murray O'Hair and Jon Murray of our
national office, Eunice Edgar, Executive Director
of Wisconsin Civil Liberties Union, D' Ann Prior,
State Coordinator.
Wisconsin National Organization for Women, Elinor Yeo, Religious Coalition
for Abortion
Rights, Carol Holt, Preserve Our
Public Schools of Wisconsin, and AI Haugen, State
Director, American Atheists of Wisconsin. As a
special guest, Anne Gaylor, Director of the Freedom from Religion Foundation, also was present.
It was an earth shaking event - almost. Because
absolutely none of the media came out. Television,
radio, newspaper had all been invited, but none
had the courtesy to advise that they would not
cover the event. If you live in or near Wisconsin,
you might give radio, television and newspaper
heads a telephone call to ask them why there was
no coverage of this important coalition, acting together, for the first time ever anywhere in the
United States.
Meanwhile, the persons involved were planning
to visit editors' offices and news desks throughout
the city.
But these Atheists know that nothing comes
easy which is for humanity's benefit. As their Presi-

Page 2

dent said to us, "We're from Milwaukee and we

ought to know."
He invites you to become a
participating
member of the Chapter there since,
"You only go around once in this life, so grab it
for all the gusto you can get. "
You may contact them as:
AMERICAN ATHEISTS OF WISCONSIN
P. O. Box 92205, Milwaukee WI 53202
AI Haugen, State Director [414] 931-8250
GAYLOR

CHARGES

LEGISLATOR

BIAS

Anne Gaylor, who is considered to be the leading Atheist in Madison, has fired a new salvo at the
Wisconsin legislature.
This time she pointed out that the legislators'
religious affiliations show up in their voting records
and official actions.
For example, Gaylor notes, two-thirds
of the
Wisconsin senators who recently sent a letter to
Health and Social Services Secretary Donald Percy,
asking him to stop state funding of abortions for
poor women, are Roman Catholics.
"1 think it is imperative that the general public
know the religious composition of the Senate and
the predominant religious pedigree of this particular group of men who want to deny abortions to
the poor," she said.
Gaylor said she has researched the religious affiliation of the senators in the current "Legislative
Counselor," a periodical published by the Wisconsin Protestant Legislative Council, and found that
of the state's 33 state senators, 18 are Roman
Catholic.
Fourteen of those 18 signed the letter to Percy,
she added.
Gaylor pointed out that "Catholics comprise approximately one-third of the state population, yet
over 40 percent of the Assembly is of that religion
and over 50 percent of the Senate. Wisconsin women have taken representation in the legislature,
while Roman Catholics are over-represented. No
wonder so many anti-woman bills get introduced,
"What is at stake here in the funding of abortions for poor women are women's lives and health
and futures, and frequently their families' stability
and security. Are we to sit by and let religionobsessed males determine that poor women must
be dragged deeper into poverty because reproductive health care available to the more affluent may

The American A theist

not be available to them?"

Gaylor also pointed out that in addition to the
14 Roman Catholics, the seven other senators who
signed the letter to Percy also have religious affiliations. Three are Lutheran, two United Church of
Christ, one Episcopal and one Church of God.
Here at the American Atheist Center we are always enormously pleased to hear more about Anne
Gaylor who is one of the bravest, most consistent
and openly honest Atheists of the United States.

U. S. POST OFFICE BOWS

TO
AMERICAN ATHEIST .- ANNE GAYLOR
In May, the Gaylor family went to Chicago to see
the Tut exhibit. It was enchanting, they reported,
even though wall-to-wall people made true enjoyment
a bit difficult.
But, back in Madison, Anne Gaylor
dropped her beautiful Tut postcards for friends into
the mail and in a few days had one back from a California friend with the admonition to examine the
postmark. There, unbelievably, was the cancellation
over the stamp: "Help St. Vincent de Paul Help The
Needy." The friend, a law student, enclosed the national post office regulations, wh ich so clearly stated
that cancellations were not to be given to fraternal,
social, trade and commercial, or religious groups.
Anne's first thought was that this would be an easy
problem to correct since, obviously, the post office
was violating its own regulations. Her telephone calls
to post office personnel, however, were met with hostility. When she reached the postmaster he offered to
read the postal regulations to Anne, unaware that she
had them before her when she called. He read them
carefully - but omitted the words "religious groups".
Realizing that she was coping not only with hostility,
but with downright deviousness, she decided to go to
court.
Karla Dobinski, a feminist attorney, undertook to
represent Anne filing as an individual. Ms. Dobinski
went to federal court in the summer to ask for an injunction to stop the Madison, Wisconsin, post office
from this unconstitutional practice.
Everyone can imagine the shock when the attorney
for the federal government proclaimed that St. Vincent's was a charitable, not a religious organization,
that "St. Vincent de Paul has absolutely no connection with the Roman Catholic Church." Anne's request for an injunction was denied on that basis, plus
the fact that the post office was not then using the
cancellation. They had used it on outgoing mail for
the month of May, 1977, and had said they would
use it again in December. Most cancellations, incidentally are used only one month of the year.
With intent to pursue the issue in December, when
the violation would again take place, the Gaylors
started to accumulate proof that, indeed, St. Vincent's
was a Roman Catholic organization. Paul,
The American Atheist

Anne's husband, took a picture of the larger-than-life

shrine-like statue in the window of St. Vincent's, and
of their sign, which has a cross above it. Karla Dobinski was starting to subpoena other documents, when
the word came in early October that the federal attorney had filed a motion to dismiss the complaint.
A newspaper report 'explains in vague language.
'POST OFFICE AGREES
TO DROP dePAUL CANCELLATION
"The Madison Post Office 'recently' agreed to drop
use of cancellation marks promoting the St. Vincent
dePaul Society.
. "The action came in response to a lawsuit by Madison's Anne Gaylor, a "freedom from religion" activist, who challenged use of a cancellation saying
"Help the needy - Help St. Vincent dePaul," on
letters processed in Madison last May.
"Gaylor argued that the postmarks violated a
postal regulation barring use of such cancellations
for religious groups, among others. She said the
shrine-like statue and cross on the roof of the organization's East Side center marked it as a religious group.
"Government attorneys contended that St. Vincent's was charitable, rather than religious, in orientation. But after Gaylor's attorney, Karla Dobinski,
demanded the group's incorporation papers earlier
this month, the government filed motions to dismiss the suit. For 'various reasons,' U.S. Attorney
Frank Tuerkheimer said, 'the post office has decided
not to use the cancellation'."
This is a clear cut victory for Anne Gaylor -again, and she is slowly but surely racking them up
as she brings Madison, Wisconsin, into conformity
with the Constitution of the United States.
In an interview in Milwaukee, Anne noted that
the "heavies" in Washington, D.C. had ordered the
post office to stop using the St. Vincent dePaul cancellation, but she did not know if that order affected
other cities, such as Boston which has used the St.
Vincent cancellation in the past. Anne won in Madison but we need the vigilant eyes of all Atheists
everywhere to report to the American Atheist Center
if any violations are occuring in any other city.
Anne had an especially poignant remark to make
concerned with the entire corrective episode.
"1 must add that the use of St. Vincent's cancellation on my mail was especially annoying to me, because I had been told by an acquaintance who had
attended a meeting of the local antiabortion group,
that it was announced at the meeting that St. Vincent's had made a large financial contribution to the
group. In other words, apparently people could not
only help St. Vincent dePaul help the needy, but they
could also help them help the antiabortionists. As a
feminist, I found such goings-on intolerable."
Anne, we agree. Keep on doing what you do so well.
Page 3

Dear Dr. O'Hair:

Your name leads me to assume
that you are, like myself, of Irish
ancestry. Mine was an unusually devout Irish Catholic family, but due
to some genetic quirk of fate, I
seem to have been born a skeptic.
Doubts began to assail my mind
at an early age, about eight or ten
years, and at seventeen, practically
overnight,
I threw off the shackles
of Faith, and declared my independence of both Heaven and Hell, the
former being only slightly less repugnant than the latter.
I am enclosing a little poem I
wrote
several years ago. I have
shocked my acquaintances
with it,
but it has never been published.
It
may amuse' the readers of your
magazine, if you care to use it. [See
p. 37, this issue, for the poern.]
Anne G. Vantz
Los Angeles, CA

trolling women's lives; we are determined not to allow it to control our

bodies!
Ms. Sherry Carter
Minneapolis, MN
Dear Sherry:
Old habits, even such simple
ones as modes of expression , die
very hard. Mr. Shibles was using the
general term "one" which has traditionally been followed by "he" and
we let it slip by. We stand corrected.
As for the article's having been
authored by a man, we'd be pleased
to give space to a woman's opinions
on the subject, which would no
doubt be more intense and personal, but unfortunately
we have had
no submissions on this subject by
women other than Anne Geylor.
Why not try your hand at it?

NATIONAL ENQUIRER.
For some time now this has been
on my mind and I am appealing to
you for your possible help. WHY
IN THE
NAME
OF JUSTICE
CAN'T
SOMETHING
BE DONE
ABOUT THIS. I believe this Congressman
is now serving his 2nd
term and he will be up for re-election next year - 1978. It seems
some Religious preach one thing
BUT practice something
else.
In
my opinion this is being a HYPOCRITE. Enclosed is a $50.00
bill
toward the expense of the investigation of this matter. You are to be
commended
for your courageous
stand for RIGHT against WRONG'
This country
is badly in need of
more people like you.
Sincerely, ANONYMOUS
P. S. For personal reasons
to remain Anonymous.

I desire

Editor
Dear Anne,
Ireland has produced some of
the world's outstanding Atheists
(vide George Bernard Shaw), so
your "genetic quirk of fate" has excellent ancestry, as no doubt has
mine.
Thank you for the poem which
we enjoyed and which we hope will
engender a thousand similar efforts
by our readers, at which time the
Atheist Press will be forced to consider the publication of a very thick
volume of Atheist poetry.
Editor
Editor,
It is indeed ironic that the recent
article [October,
1977, p. 19] on a
woman's
right to choose abortion
was written by a man and that he
frequently
used the pronoun
"he"
as in " ...
he must determine
for
himself on the basis of the arguments what conclusion he wishes to
draw." Once and for all - is is tor
each WOMAN to make decisions regarding her own body - it is not
for the men in Congress, the men in
the state legislatures, or the man in
the street to decide. This society
through its written and unwritten
laws have long succeeded
in con-

Page 4

Dear Madam,
I am writing this to call your attention
to the following
matter.
Congressman
Robert F. Drinan
(D-Mass) is a Roman Catholic Priest
and is a member
of a Religious
Order
of Priests
known
as the
JESUITS (Society of Jesus) whose
headquarters
are in Rome, Italy.
Members of this religious organization are required
to take several
VOWS, among these VOWS is the
Vow of Poverty. Since this Priest is
keeping this vow he is required to
turn over to this Jesuit organization
his entire Salary as a Congressman.
This is really something.
Here we have a case of the U.S.
Govt. and the American Taxpayer
supporting
a Religious Organization
- this is a violation of the AMENDMENT The Separation
of Church
and State. The eligibility of this Jesuit
Priest
to
serve
as
a
Congressman
should be challenged
.: also this Jesuit
Organization
should be required to return to the
US Treasury the total sum of money received from this Jesuit priest
while serving as a US Congressman.
A news item regarding this. appear-:
ed in one of the past issues of TH E

Dear Anonymous,
The Janus-faced Congressman
Drinan has long been one of our
back burner projects for which
there has been no funding. We share
your concern over the U.S. taxpayer's financing, even so indirectly,
such Roman Catholic flouting of
our laws as the illegal fund raising
bingo games in Texas played with
the collusion of the police.
We hope to use your generous
contribution
in bringing to life a
new Massachusetts Chapter of American A theists which will have as
one of its goals the enlightenment
of the citizens of that state re the
expenditure of their money by a
representative whose first loyalty is
to Rome rather than to Boston.
Massachusetts readers are asked to
write to us right now. Next year
will be too late.
Editor

J!jJ3~'
Ed Bojarski, Editor

The American Atheist

The time:
the beginning of the 22nd Century.
The place: a typical classroom in one of the major
megatropolises spreading across the United States of
America.
The dozen teenaged students, comfortably
sprawled across the lounges are especially attentive
to the lecture of their instructor.
It is an excellent discourse, due to the interest
she has in the subject. It covers a chaotic era in American history; Due to sudden advances in technology,
rapid social changeswere precipitated.
The resulting anomaly was a technologically
progressive society retarded by primitive and regressive religious mores.
The central figure of the instructor's speech is a
pioneer in a movement instrumental in bringing this
country, and subsequently the world, out of this regressivestage.
Because of the socio-economic ramifications of
the movement, this person and movement were especially significant ..
This figure was Madalyn Murray O'Hair, and the
movement, of course, was the American Atheist
group.
Wishful thinking? Certainlv not. It's going to
happen. For those of us who can't see it, it's there.
The trees are in our way.
Our new Atheist center, our constantly improving magazine, our increasing number of chapters,
membership, income, advertising and law suits are all
positive indications of solid progress.
There is one element of our movement, however, that disturbs me. Since my involvement with
American Atheists, I regularly run across an attitude
of Atheist parents concerning the rearing of their
children.
.
The articulation may vary, but the theme is always the same.
It goes like this: "I'm going to let my children
make up their own minds. They know that I don't
believe, but it would be unfair to impose my beliefs
on them."
Sounds familiar, doesn't it?
My wife and I, rearing our two boys as Atheists,
strongly disagree with this attitude and wish to share
with you our reasoning and empirical knowledge. Atheist parents who make this statement do so for one
of the following reasons:
(A) They really believe it.
(B) They don't believe it, but are rationalizing
to protect their children from Christian ostracism.
Of the former group of parents, I am curious about
several things.
Do we let our children make up their own
minds about playing in traffic? Brushing their teeth?

Eating junk food? Watching a lot of violence on

television, and what time to go to bed? Of course we
don't; we tell them what to do. We 'encouraqe them
to like school, to read books, to get along with other
children, to be kind to animals, to be respectful to
their elders, etc.
All parents issue such directives, and usually at
the child's resistance, because obviously they haven't
reached the degree of maturity necessary to determine what is best for them. We cannot become overly
concerned with an apparent lack of democracy in our
child-rearing. Clearly, parenthood is not a democratic
institution. In that facet of family that involves education of the young, only a tutor-student relationship
can exist. The student may in fact reject what is
learned, but it must be learned first.
All Atheists are well aware of the insidious and
pervasive religious influence in our environment.
There is no need to convince any of us of that fact.
Then we would all have to agree that the child
is not really 'making up his own mind'. With every
authority figure in their world showing official or
tacit recognition of rei igion, and their parents being
silent or wishy-washy on the subject, how fair and
objective will that messagebe?
You won't be sending them off to church or for
rei igious instruction, of course, but the religious
forces will see to it that they receive it in some manner.
At the very least, if they don't succumb, they
will learn one thing for certain: that Atheism is something of which to be ashamed and not avowed.
~ think we can agree on the following positions:
~ Religion is a detriment to the individual and
to Humanity.
~ Atheism is the result of intellect and reason
and a superior system of thought.
~There
is an overwhelming religious influence
permeating our society.
~ It is perfectly natural and right to direct and
influence our children's lives until they are mature.
The conclusion, therefore, is obvious.
Why then the non-involvement,
why this
supreme 'cop-out' when the subject is the belief
in the supernatural?
There is no need to ponder that question for I
will answer it.
There is no such thing as Category A to an
Atheist. Atheists cannot really believe they should
let their children make up their own minds. Atheism
is primarily a direct result of logical thought. If one
function of a parent is as a teacher, and if superstition is the norm outside of an Atheist world, then
we must teach our children to avoid this ignorance.
We must teach the value of logic; we must teach
human values from a logical viewpoint.
Page 5

The American Atheist

Category B is all rationalization.

They love
their children dearly and feel the risk of their
adopting a religious belief minimal and better than
subjecting them to critioism and ridicule because of
their Atheism.
This attitude emanates primarily from the closet
Atheist, whose situation parallels that of children
being raised as Atheists. They can benefit from the
same solutions which I will briefly outline.
Our first step is to determine if this fear of
religious prejudice is valid; and is so, to what degree.
Still vivid in most Atheists' minds is the persecution of Madalyn Murray in the early 1960s. If we
concentrate just a little more, we will also remember
that a mere half decade earlier, Rosa Parks broke the
law and refused to give her bus seat to a white man.
When the suit to end school prayer was filed,
the civil rights movement was raging, and black people were being jailed, beaten and murdered for rights
that today are routinely accepted.
Marijuana was tantamount to heroin and longhaired hippies prompted disgust and hatred. Lenny
Bruce and Ralph Ginsburg were jailed for obscenity
that today is considered bland and the subjection of
woman was the norm.
Do these loathsome attitudes and situations
exist today? Certainly, but nowhere near with the
prevalence of fifteen years ago.
Public acceptance and tolerance of controversial issues today make the old mores absolutely
primitive.
And it is exactly the same with Atheism.
My name and address have been published in
Detroit's major newspapers in connection with our
chapter's lawsuit and I have had letters published
with my title of Director. I have been on television
and radio several times. I live in a conservative community and my telephone number is listed in the
directory.
Yet nothing has ever happened. No' harassment
of any kind has materialized.
My children are very candid about their Atheism
in the wholesomely honest marmer of all children.
Yet they are vivacious, sociable and happy.
The few incidents that have occurred were
insignificant and easily ignored.
The secret here is the incorporation
of an
element of human psychology into your life style.
It is positive reinforcement and consists simply of
the reward or acceptance of other members of
society. You must seek out and enjoy the friendship and comraderie of compatible people who share
or accept your philosophy.
If you happened to live in a small rural town
where every man, woman and ch ild was a tonguestalking, snake-handling, Bible beater, obviously you
and your family would not be accepted by the community and you would find your lives rather uncomfortable because of your beliefs.
So, broaden your horizons, be a joiner, enlarge
your circle of friends and acquaintances. They need
Page 6

not be avowed Atheists, but intelligent, open-minded

people. If they have children, they will reflect their
parents values.
With the reinforcement
of others, you will find
yourselves unaffected by occasional religious bigotry.
It is in this capacity that a local Atheist chapter is
invaluable. Do everything you can to assist the chapter in your area. If there isn't any, please think seriously about organizing one.
Here are a few good points to remember:
Please don't inadvertently instill in your children
contempt for religionists, even when they are guilty
of bigotry. Their small world will be polarized, making them suspicious and mistrustful. Blame the deed
rather than the person. As they grow up, the normal
adjustments to life will be impeded if they cannot relate to people who are reliqious, They will have to
deal and associate with these people throughout
their entire lives.
You may be concerned about your children
being confused since so many more people believein
god. After all, the President of the United States is a
Christian.
As long as children are openly told the entire
truth about religion, there is absolutely no concern
about this.
We forget, those of us who were former Christians,
that our belief in the supernatural was the result of
massive indoctrination
from day One. We were instilled with the fear of hell, carefully trained to believe
without evidence and made unable to face the perils
of life without
the crutch of comforting
myths.
By eliminating these conditions from your children's lives, they will naturally accept reality and relegate religion to where it belongs, next to Santa Claus,
the tooth fairy and never-never land.
There is one basic and critical thing to remember in
rearing your children - and it makes all the difference in the world - it is the difference between Christian parents instructing their children in their beliefs
and Atheist
parents instructing our children in our
beliefs.
The belief is simply this: Atheism is the result of
objective inquiry, intellect and reason. Atheism is the
honest pursuit of truth. Religion is the antithesis,
whose entire foundation rests on "faith".
While all human beings have the ability to reason, we Atheists
should always strive to develop this ability in ourselves as well as our
children,
Teach them this lesson and they will be a credit to humanity,
In striving for a happy life for our children, the primary and basic
elements are unrelated to any philosophy,
They are manifold and include factors such as a healthy expectant
mother, a stimulating environment for the infant, proper nutrition, a
stable parent-child relationship, discipline, your neighborhood and so
forth,
What every good parent should do is to inform himself as much as
possible in all aspects of child rearing and human behavior,
The application of this knowledge, with plenty of love, is the best
assurance of doing all that is possible for our children,
In conclusion, we must recognize this reality:
Our organization's aims and purposes will remain abstract notions,
the emancipation of reason will stay a dream until we can gain the collective strength of our numbers, and all Atheists will proudly proclaim
our superior philosophy to the world and raise our children as such.
Let's get started now. We may not have to wait until the 22nd century!

The American A theist

ON KEEPING GOD ALIVE

by
"God is dead," Nietzsche dramatically
declared
in Thus Spoke Zarathustra. We Atheists today, if we
accept the great philosopher's judgement on God's
state of health, must admit that for corpses of Old
Yahweh and his sidekick JC Superstar are taking a
long time to stop twitching and grow cold. Nietzsche
can be forgiven his premature burial of God. At the
end of the 19th Century Christianity had seemed to
many to have one foot in the grave and to be on
slippery ground with the other.
Rather than examine why Christianity made a
comeback to its present state of health and wealth,
it would be better to get to the root of the matter.
That is, how can .such an absurdity as God be kept
alive as an influential force in human society? If the
answer can be found, then we can explain why religions live, why they die - even how to make them
die!
The answer is not that humans need religion.
Now I admit that religionists are humans who
need religion. I also agree with George Brantl, editor
of the book Catholicism, that "the roots ef religion
must be sought in a human need" (pg. 9). One must
ask now, are we born with this need? The obvious
fact of the reality of Atheism answers we are not
born with a need for religion.
But a human need is usually admitted by the
theologians to be the starting point of a person's
religiousness. How is this need that is not a natural
human birthright acquired? The answer is by education! "Those who need religion are, in some measure,
those who have been trained to need it - the training
comes first not the need" ("Religion, Social Aspects
Of" in Encyclopedia Britannica, 15th Edition). Religionists are made, not born. The need that keeps
religions alive must be created in each human being.
One must be trained to need religion as one must
be trained to use the toilet.
A religionist might say, "Ah what a bunch of
Atheist garbage! If you believed in god you wouldn't
say that." That seems like a reasonable conclusion.
After all, an Atheist is not likely to say or write anything that might aid religion's argument. And neither
would an Atheist expect theologians to help Atheism
in its argument.
But here is a surprise! Religionists agree perfectly on this issue of how religious need is caused in an
The American Atheist

G.

Richard

individual through training. To quote Brantl again,

"A moral and emotional precondition for reasoning is
the necessary seedbed in which the conviction of God
grows" (pg 37). How does one establish a precondition that leads to a belief in god? Alfred E. Garvie
wrote in The Missionary Obligation that "education
must lay hold of the young so that the Christian influences may mould the conscience and character
when the personality is most flexible" (found in
Protestantism edited by J. Leslie Dunstan, pg 182).
So the secret is out, and fully admitted by reliionists.To make a religionist one must labor upon the
young mind unable to know what is truth and what is
myth until one has convinced the child that there is
a god, and that the child needs this god as he, or she
needs parents. A truly staggering admission, for by
it religionists admit that if all children were allowed
to grow up without religious training, few would
grow up needing religion, and religion itself would
cease.
Make no mistake in believing that religionists
are not well aware of the precarious nature of religion
that re.quires so much effort to sustain. In its statement in 1884 the Third Plenary Council of Baltimore
frankly confessed that religionists cannot "ignore the
palpable fact that the school is an important factor in
the forming of childhood and youth - so important
that its influence often outweighs that of home and
church. It cannot, therefore, be desirable or advantageous that religion should be excluded from the
school" (found in Catholicism, pg 202).
There it is. Children must be indoctrinated
in
the home, and in the church, and most especially in
the school. If this indoctrination
is not successful,
then religion will suffer because those who grow up
not needing religion do not support religion. Worse
yet, they do not help indoctrinate their children. The
very life of god is at stake here!
So, it is not a surprise to read that Pope Pius XI
insists "it is the inalienable right as well as the indispensible duty of the church to watch over the entire
education of her children, in all institutions, public or
private, not merely in regard to the religious instruction there given, but in regard to every other branch
of learning and every regulation in so far as religion
and morality are concerned" (quoted from Rappresentanti in terra in Catholicism, pg 199).
Page 7

Nor is it amazing to read John Calvin asserting

that the only reasons for the existence of civil government "are, that idolatry, sacrileges against the nameof God, blasphemies against His truth, and other offences against religion may not openly appear and be
disseminated among the people" (quoted from "Institutes of The Christian Religion " in Protestantiism, pg. 68).
Old Pius and John knew that there was no such
thing as winning souls by the unaided force and truth
of Christian arguments. Young souls are molded until
they are in such a "precondition"
(a nice scholarly
term, isn't it?) that the Christian arguments become
for them forceful and truthful. Without the preconditioning, the Christian arguments become the bundle
of confused, contradictory
nonsense Atheists know
them to be.
With this in mind, it should make some current
events more understandable.
Consider the current
efforts of such groups as the Creation-Science Research Center. They claim their scientific findings expose the evolutionary description of our origins as
rubbish. But where do they fight the battle? In the
pages of such publications as Scientific American?
No. Do they send representatives to the various conventions scientists hold each year and fight the battle
there? If they have, it's a well kept secret.
Where are they fighting the battle? Where are
they endeavoring to get their theories established, and
where do they seek to prove evolution is rubbish? In
the textbooks, of course. They seek to convince not
scientists, but children "when the personality is most
flexible". That is, they want to get the minds of children at the age when a textbook and anything that is
in it is TRUTH, particularly if it is the truth that
brings in good grades. These religionists know what it
takes to keep god alive.
In the latter half of this century a new, exceptionally powerful educational (and indoctrinational)
instrument has been created. It is, of course, television, which the average child spends something like
20,000 hours watching as he or she grows up. Is one
to be surprised by the current religionist movement
to make television an instrument of the religionist
labor of turning children into religionists? Naturally,
they insist they are fighting to get rid of sex and
violence on the tube, but is anyone foolish enough to
believe that the morality they want religion to
conform to is not the morality of Christianity? If this
morality is taught overtly or covertly for 20,000
hours of a person's childhood, then imagine how
greatly aided religion is!
If the religionists suceed, then they will understand they have enlisted the mighty assistance of television in. the never ending labor of keeping god alive

by turning each new generation into religionists while

they are young children. After all, children don't
watch the glory halleluja shows in the morning, nor
are they likely to sit through a Billy Graham special
even if their parents turn it on. The religionists have
to go for prime time and Saturday morning to reach
the kids if one day these kids are to help keep god alive, Look about you. They are going after prime time
and Saturday morning. Don't doubt for a minute
their true motives even if you are offended yourself
by the sex and violence on television.
Now we can answer the question: How does god
stay alive? He is kept healthy by the continual process of infusing into children a religious need that
turns them into religionists believing in him.
And how does a god die? Quite simply because
all his religionists have been converted to another religion, and there is no one left to rnake children believe
they need him.
Finally, it is irresistible - we must ask howwe
can kill the god of Christianity. We need only insure
that our schools teach only secular knowledge; that
they teach children to constantly examine and question all theories and truths put before them in any
form; and that they teach that nothing is proven by
the number of persons who believe a thing to be true.
If we could achieve this, god would indeed be shortly
due for a funeral service.
But let's not get overly excited like Nietzsche
.did. The religionists know this as well, if not better,
Ithan Atheists do. If you think the battle to get Christainity to admit the earth orbits the sun was hard,
just wait till Atheists try to get American schools to
conform to the First Amendment - in other words,
to no longer be an instrument with which religion is
established. Atheists will be in a fight then because
the religionists will be fighting for the survival of god
- and they know it!
All humans are born Atheists I once heard Dr.
O'Hair say on the Phil Donahue Show. What we must
keep before us is that Atheism, not religionism, is the
true human birthright. The ultimate goal of Atheism
must be to return our Atheistic birthright to grow up
being taught only what is necessary to be moral, responsible, participating members of human civilization.

ZIGGY
The American A theist

PageB

CHRISTIANS

& CRIMINALS

During my many years in prison, I have always

thought that there may be some connection between
When I was a boy about a year old, my mother religion and criminal behavior.
Nearly all prisoners have been, or could be diagused to carry me to church every Sunday, and sometimes during the week, if there happened to be a nosed as "psychopathic personalities". According to
"tent meeting" within walking distance of our house. Webster, psychopathic personality is described as "a
By the time I was five, I was being forced to attend a disorder of behavior toward other individuals or to"holy roller" Church of God several times a week. I ward society in which reality is usually clearly percan still hear the preacher screaming out that we ceived except for an individual's social and moral obwere all doomed to hell, with everlasting fire and ligations; one who often seeks immediate personal
brimstone, unless we were "saved". Of course the gratification in criminal acts, drug addiction, or
preacher claimed to know how to "save" us all, if we sexual perversion."
Most prisoners were so effectively indoctrinated
would only follow his instructions and donate ten
by the church to look inward that they have become
percent of all our money to the church.
I can remember just as if it were yesterday, how adult egocentrics. Many have become living monumy mother used to stand up with the congregation ments of egocentricity, people who are prisoners of
their own point of view.
and sing the old hymn "God Will Take Care of You",
with tears flowing freely down her cheeks.
If a person is indoctrinated to look inward (by
During those depression years, a mother with the church), then it is not hard to understand how he
three sons and a very small allotment check needed becomes egocentric, and if he is egocentric, it's not
to believe in a god. My mother desperately neededto hard to understand why he feels no social or moral
believe that "God Will Take Care Of You". In those obligations to other individuals or society (psychodays there was no one else "to take care of you",
pathetic personality.) Here we have the missing link
with all of the massive unemployment, soup lines, between the Christian and the criminal.
and skilled workers earning little more than a dollar a
If we take the idea of predestination literally,
day.
the criminal would reasonthat if he should steal your
It was during these early years of my life, before automobile, he certainly wouldn't get caught unless it
the age of ten, that I was taught (conditioned), to was "god's wilL" Even if he did get caught, he cerrely on god. I was trained to look inward (using tainly would never go to prison unless it was "god's
intuition, emotions and feelings) to get solutions to will," and if it were indeed "god's will" there is nothmy problems. Using intuition, emotions, and feelings ing he could do about it anyway. The criminal,
to communicate with a non-existent god caused me through this line of thinking, assumesno responsibilto come up with some pretty irrational answersto my ity for his behavior. To be sure, most criminals do not
assumeany responsibility for their behavior.
problems.
Many prisoners havespent so much of their lives
The church taught predestination. So, if god had
already decided exactly what was going to happen, looking inward, using intuition, superstition, emoand I couldn't change that decision, then why should tions and feelings, that they even consult their "feelI assume any responsibility for my behavior, since ings" to answer complex technical questions. I know
god was directing my life anyway. You can really be- one prisoner who would feel free to explain to you
lieve that if a person looks inward to a non-existent how a nuclear reacter works, if you ask, even though
god to seek answers, he will get erroneous informa- he has never read a single chapter on nuclear physics.
tion, and if this erroneous information is followed, he He really believes that his answers are correct, and
will get angry if you question the validity of his anwill certainly demonstrate irrational behavior.
Shortly after I arrived at the Virginia State Peni- swers. He has mastered the art of self deception.
Forcing a young child to sit and listen to biblical
tentiary, seventeenyears ago, I discovered that most
prisoners, like myself, had been subjected to an un- stories read over and over again, telling about mass
usual dose of radical religious indoctrination. Many, murders and other vicious atrocities committed by
like myself, had been subjected to the "holy roller"
god, telling about sadism and burning live human
type indoctrination, others were victims of Catholic beings at the stake, ...makes the child less sensitive to
homes (indoctrination centers). Most prisoners have violence.
an extraordinary ability to quote the Bible. If you
Familiarity with any subject makes the individchallenge the averageprisoner asto the validity of the ualless sensitive.
For example, if a person spends thirty days in a
Bible, he will get very emotional, choke up, and
nudist camp, he will be less sensitive to seeingpeople
won't be able to find the words to defend it.
By D. FITCHETT

Page 9

The American A theist

;;

.in the nude. After an undertaker handles hundreds of

dead.bodies, he becomes less sensitive to the feel of a
human corpse. After a combat foot soldier kills a
half dozen people, he becomes less sensitive to the
idea of murdering people.
So it is with the young child who has been
forced to listen to the stories about murder, sadism
and other atrocities. He becomes less sensitive to viollence. Indeed, violence is a normal way of life, if he
believes the stories in the bible.
Finally; If you take an individual who accepts

violence as being normal; an individual who looks inward, (and gets irrational answers), to solve h is complex problems; an individual who acts on emotions
rather than intellectual reasoning; an individual who
is so egocentric that he feels no moral or social obligations to other individuals or society, (psychopathic
personality; ... then you have a very dangerous criminal.
To indoctrinate a child in irrational religious beliefs is criminal, and should be punishable by not less
than twenty years in prison.

PEOPLE ARE NO DAMNED GOOD

THE BIBLE TELLS ME SO

Page 10

The American A theist

SHIBLES' CORNER
'W"arrenshibles

DEATH
"What is death?" and "How can we cope with
it?" are the greatest problems man has to face. How
man has coped with these problems is mainly by
avoidance, denial, superstitious and mystical belief.
Almost entirely lacking was honest, open inquiry,
Death is still a taboo topic.
It is often thought that one solves the problem
of death by going to church. But contemporary theologians point out that religion does not clarify the
concept of death or dying and in fact, it says almost
noth ing about it. These views wi II be presented and
examined. Heliqion is found to have more to say
about how one should live. In any case, religion involves faith and fixed beliefs and cannot serve as a
means of adequate, objective inqu iry. But th is is
just to say that the philosopher's task is not merely
to present religion or science but rather to do philosophy, for example, the philosophy of religion and
philosophy of science. Philosophy is taken here to be
a critical clarification of concepts and methods in arw
area of study for the purpose of understanding and
to solve man's practical problems. Philosophy should
be clear, concrete, and relevant to man's evervdav
problems.
The above situation led to my offering' in the
spring of 1972 an interdisiplinary
3-4 credit Seminar
on Death at the University of Wisconsin - Whitewater.
The method and sources used in the course were the
same as those used in this book except that the class
situation allowed for discussion, group therapy and
confrontations, and term papers.
An attempt is first made to find out what people
actually believe and say, both directly and in traditional literature. Quotations of both professional and
non-professional people are extensively used not just
to support arguments, but at times only to indicate
what beliefs they hold. The survey is made adequate
by being an interdisciplinary
analysis. An extensive
bibliography, which was not previously available, was
gathered and included in this book. A student questionnaire was devised and administered to provide
actual statements and beliefs currently held.
The next step is to examine such concepts to see
if they can withstand criticism and counterexample.
Are they category-mistakes, naming fallacies, misuses
of language, etc.? Do the terms involved have an intelligent use in the context of everyday experience? The
method specified here is very similar to that used in
ordinary-language. philosophy, but it is a modified
and expanded version of it. One particular way it has
been modified or even replaced by the development
The American A theist

of a "metaphorical
method" of doing inquiry. This
book is in part an extension and application of my
previous work on metaphor.
The "metaphorical
method" is seen at work throughout this book. But
also any method is and may be used as long as it can
withstand critical examination or give suggestive insight. Thus there is also an examination of methods.
So after beginning with a report of the ordinary
language used an attempt is made to clarify the concepts of death and dying, as well as the existing theories and methods used. An attempt is made to provide
both a broad comprehensive presentarion as well as a
concrete in-depth analysis. It will be seen that statements made about death and dying are often misuses
of language, and that prevailing views in a number of
cases must be radically revised. The study does not
just leave everything as it was. This means that many
will find what is said here is controversial or even
shocking.
I n many cases much more work is needed, and
this book is in part an attempt to encourage such research and to break the taboo on the discussion and
study of aging, death and dying. This book is not just
a survey. Some contemporary
and some original research is presented here, especially in the area of philosophical psychology in examining the relationship
between emotions and death. An original analysis of
the concept of death is also given.
One of the arguments which seems to come out
of the material presented is that inquiry into death
points up the importance of inquiry itself. Some
reasons for this are the following:
1. Emotions are seen to be largely assessments
which guide feeling. For our emotions to be positive,
to prevent fear, anxiety, shock, etc., our assessments
must be clear and intelligent - thus the need for inquiry.
Inquiring into death is one of the ways of overcoming and coping with the fear of death. The very
act of discussing and communicating
about death is
therapeutic. This book has, as one of its goals, to help
one. cope with death by providing clarifications
of
both death and emotions. If one's assessments are
clear he will be less subject to negative emotions, and
merely openly discussing the subject
of death will
help to prevent fear, anxiety, shock, etc., when confronted with the death of a friend or the approach of
one's own death. Informed open communication
is
crucial.
2. Facing death leads one to consider how best
to live. Inquiry as a goal allows one to examine what
Page 11

is most important in life, and to inquire into goals

themselves.
3. Inquiry is needed for one to become clear
about the concept of death. The question as to the
nature of death and how to cope with it offers man
his greatest intellectual challenge. To avoid it, deny it,
or create arnvth of a magical immorality is to be less
than a complete human being. To avoid the issue by
busying oneself with T.V., art, church, money, sports,
stamp-collecting, gardening, social activities, etc., valuable as they may be in themselves, is nevertheless an
avoidance. No philosophy can be complete which
does not honestly and objectively deal with the question of death. In this sense, lito philosophize is to
learn how to die."
4. Research into death is needed by each discipline. Especially important is research in philosophical clarification, and research in the philosophy of
aging so that the elderly may live a long and healthy
life. We in 1973 [sic] still do not know what causes
aging. This is a telling commentary on the status of
present scientific knowledge.
5. Confrontation with death may sometimes
make one more realistic and honest, e.g., his beliefs
about an "afterlife" vanish when faced with the realitv of death. Often there are defense mechanisms of
avoidance and denial, but when faced with the reality
of death we sometimes stop playing deceptive social
games with others and stop deceiving ourselves.
6. To understand death one must understand
life. This leads to the need for a conceptual clarification of our language, environment, ourselves, eth ical
concepts, science psychology, etc. Thus not only is
"to philosophize is to learn how to die," but "to
learn to die is to philosophize."
7. Inquiry is needed to avoid being captivated by
a single model or metaphor and it provides diverse
perspectives. It is not acceptable to present a single,
fixed, exclusive, and unquestioned view of the experience and nature of death.
8. Ongoing inquiry has more reason to be universally believed in' than any other method. Our present methods are often those of more primitive superstitious beliefs peculiar to the particular culture we
happen to be in. If one must have ritual then he may
light a candle for inquiry.
9. The realization that all men die may force one
to realize that man has something like a blood pledge
to make this short life the best possible for others as
well as for himself. Inquiry is needed to make this
possible. Threats that man is guilty from birth or
that he will be punished in a hell, need reexamination.
10. Inquiry deals with suicide, whatleads one to
it, how a clarification of one's emotions and thinking
can avoid it, and provides the motive that one should
not commit suicide thereby allowing him to continue
inquiring.
11. Aristotle spoke of contemplation (of sciences and knowledgel as the highest goal of man, that

which makes man most perfect. By suggesting that it

is the rational "soul" which is immortal he may have
been covertly proposing that honest inquiry and its
resulting knowlege can in every way make man most
immortal. What survives is man's knowledge'. "Soul"
often meant simply "reason," and the soul seeks to
improve its knowledge. Inquiry makes man less subject to misconceptions and poor emotions. It therefore allows him to be most free.
12. What man basically seemsto desire is understanding, concern, care, friendship, and emotional
warmth. He is usually prevented from having such experiences. The reason is due to his own and others'
inability to cope with and understand their emotions.
Up to now there has been too little effective inquiry
into the nature of emotion. Some attempt at such
clarification is given here. Inquiry allows man to be
the sort of emotionally fulfilled person he wishes to
be. By changing his assessmentsone can greatly alter
one's personality and emotions. What begins as a
study of death ends up, to some extent, as a study of
life and love.

:SOMEI-l~WI
~lfoJ~

I K~~w '111Nr rr ~~
I'< 11-Us. II

-n::> Be

L..,

HANDS ACROSS THE THEIST VOID

A subscriber incarcerated in an Ohio prison (transgression unstated) requests friendship by mail from any Atheist who has a few minutes and a stamp to spare. He
promises faithfully to answer any letter received immediately.
His address is:
Gus G. Owens
P. O. Box 45699-138775
Lucasville, OH 45699

Page 12
The American A theist

FREEDOM

FROM

RELIGION

by Ralph First
It's hard for me to recall just when I became
an Atheist. I mean the real honest to goodness kind
who no longer has doubts and uncertain feelings
about it.
Webster defines Atheism thus-1. a: disbelief in the existence of diety; b: a doctrine that
there is no diety; 2. UNGODLINESS, WICKEDNESS.
How the hell did wickedness get in there?

gers made his hands appear to be wearing baseball fielder's gloves. Usually some of the congregation would go forward and with much weeping and
wailing were gathered into the arms of Jesus. Then
followed a long, terrifying account about some
poor fellow who had committed a crime and swiftly and cruelly he was punished by the hand of god.
One day when we were alone Dad confided:
"That preacher makes up everyone of those stories
and much as I hate displeasing Mom, I'll never go
to church again, and, he added, "1'11 not be made
a fool of."
II

But this may be one of the reasons why so

many people are aghast at the idea that any sane
person would dare not to believe in god.
. . .My parents didn't come from religious
families and were not religious themselves. Howev-er my mother was very superstitious; fearing black
cats, thunder and lightning, singing at the dining
table, rocking an empty rocking chair and others
I've forgotten.
When I was a lad of about eight years we
moved from an Indiana farm to a nearby city. At
first it seemed strange to have neighbors with no
more than a vacant lot in between. It wasn't long
before some pious female talked my mother into
attending church services. It was nearly a mile
walk but Mother was soon going to church every
Sunday. It wasn't long before she had Dad going
with her (he hated it) and I was soon a regular at
Sunday school. This wasn't enough for Mother.
When another church, only a few blocks away,
began holding what they fondly called 'revival
meetings' every Wednesday night, we had to attend, all except Dad, who went once and that was
the end of his church attendance.
The first meeting was awesome and frightening. The preacher was the direct opposite of the
one I had been used to seeing at our regular
church, which was, as I recall, the German Reform
and while my ecclesiastical affairs were with the
plain young lady who taught the Sunday school
classes I had seen and heard many times .. While
he was an average size man with white hair, glasses
and a well modulated voice, the man conducting
the revival meetings was a huge lout with a voice
to match. He would beg, he would plead with all
.the sinners to come forward and be welcomed into the fold. Tears made rivers down his fat cheeks
and he would hold his hands up in a beseeching
manner, and I remember that his sausage-like fin-

I was only ten or twelve years old at the time

and his words had a profound effect on me.
.... I, and several boys about my age, were
finally banned from attending the revival meetings,
much to the anger and embarrassment of Mother.
We just couldn't keep from laughing at this side
show ... To see a sixty-year-old woman "getting
the spirit" then galloping up and down the aisles
waving a handkerchief and shouting, "Praise the
lord!!" and "Hallelujah!!" was too much for young
boys. We would get started laughing and we
couldn't stop. Others would join in the shouting
and chanting and it was so completely ridiculous
that I wondered then and have wondered all the
years since: Why were these people taken in? Why
did they believe so staunchly in a god whose only
existence was in their minds? ...
The following spring we moved to another
farm in southwestern Michigan.
I shall always remember the next few years.
There was lots of hard work but there were also
times of the most complete freedom I have ever
known.
Our new home lay some three miles from
the little town that was our mailing address. This
distance plus the fact that our 1925 Oakland was
very temperamental and would only run after Dad
had made some mysterious adjustment. So going
to church on Sunday morning was completely forgotten. Nonetheless, Sunday was still a special day
and after seeing to it that the unavoidable chores
were done and a hearty breakfast devoured rrfy two
younger brothers and I were free to roam the
expansive fields and forests seeking the answers to
the mysteries of nature, and as we came upon
them, partaking of the sweet, wild strawberries
Page 13

The American A theist

II

that grew in profusion along the edges of the

woods. Then as the sun grew warmer we invariably
went for a swim in the 200 acre lake that lapped at
the far edge of our farm, laughing and diving like
porpoises, never even thinking of the homely Sunday school teacher and her constant prattling about Jesus and the Rock of Ages.
My two brothers had been too young to be
drawn into the religious exercises as I had so their
minds were entirely free and uncluttered ....
The contemporary religionist laughs and
sneers at the paganism of uncivilized peoples. But,
there is as much justification for their beliefs as for
the religious practices of our so called modern
society.
'
Long ago the Pawnee Indians (on certain occasions) would select a young man for sacrifice. He
was hung by his wrists from a cross pole and a fire
was lit at his feet. He was then killed by everyone
present shooting an arrow into his body. The fire
was kept burning until the corpse was entirely consumed. While this was taking place the Indians
prayed to their god, Tirawa, asking for bountiful
crops, victory in battle and good health.
To the Cheyenne life in the hereafter was little different than here on earth. There, people
went to war and otherwise lived a Iife with wh ich
they were familiar. There were no such frightening
things after death as providential punishment or
revilement. Free from reprisals beyond the grave
the Indians went simply and directly about the
rough tasks of making a living on the plains.
"Brutal and barbaric," says the 'person steeped in religion. But, is it more so than the atrocities
perpetrated by Mussolini and Hitler? Both were
Catholic and although guilty of the most savage
acts in the recollection of modern man neither of
these human beasts was excommunicated by the
church. Aren't the religious wars in Ireland and the
Middle East as brutal and senselessas any of the
practices of the ancient savage?
In truth, then, we are only engaging in semantics when we claim that the religions of today
are really different from those of centuries past.
No matter in what language it is couched it is all
mythology.
... The newspapers, television and radio
are daily referring to events (or predictions of
things to come) in which reference to god and
prayer is made. It is sometimes so completely preposterous that one wonders at the intelligence, or
lack of it, displayed by the people involved.

Page 14

Here are a few examples: A school bus with

thirty children aboard was driven into the path of a
train and completely demolished, killing or maiming a majority of the children. The mother of two
of the children who survived the accident was informed by telephone of the incident and that
luckily her two children had survived with only minor injuries. "Oh, thank god!" the woman said.
I never heard what the parents of the less
fortunate victims thought or said but it seemed to
me that it would be something unkind because if a
god were responsible for such things I wouldn't
like partiality shown.
Another case reported in the news a short
time ago is typical.
A woman was involved in an auto accident
and was quite badly injured.
The news reporter wrote: "It was an act of
god she wasn't hurt worse."
I simply cannot comprehend this kind of
thinking. If it was an act of god that the woman
wasn't hurt worse it must have been an act of god
that she was hurt in the first place.
I'm sure you have observed the reactions of
the survivors of natural or man-made disasters. It
has never been ascertained what percentage of the
people do not attend these meetings but the press
always takes pictures of a group of people (usually
led by a minister or priest if one is available) standing arnonq the ruins with heads bowed in prayer
thanking god for sparing them, completely ignoring
the fact that sons and daughters and parents had
had their lives snuffed out or were crippled, perhaps for life ...
Most of the people I have known profess a
belief in god or a supreme being, but many are not
religious and do not go to church. A majority drink
and smoke in varying degrees of excess or moderation; a few are unfaithful to their spouses.
Pressing for an explanation of this, it appears
that fear of death, the hereafter, or both is one answer. Probably the truth of the matter is that,
although their parents were not regular church goers and seldom discussed religious matters it has
being established that they befieve in god and/or
Christ, and therefore influence the thinking of
.their offspring if only to a minor degree. Even the
boys and girls who were schoolmates will, on occasion, casually mention something of a religious
nature. As a consequence of all these things the individual enters adult life with a fear of being ostra-

The American A theist

cized by friends and neighbors if he/she should declare a disbelief in god and religion in general.
I must admit that I was past my fiftieth
birthday before I became confident enough in my
own Atheism to profess it to others. I have read as
many books on the subject as I could find. This
includes the History of Evolution and other books
by the great philosophers. I have just recently read
A Philosophy of Time, by Louis A. Rietmaster that
is an education in itself. This studying has confirmed what I had already felt-that
the world was
formed through hundreds of millions of years of
evolution and, there is not now and never has been
a god as described in the Bible and by the Christian world of today. If, as they say, god created the
world (in six days yet) a world so full of misery,
starvation, blindness, cancer and other incurable
diseases of the mind and body, then I wouldn't
want to be that god, my tears would make the
oceans... There is a greet feeling of freedom after
becoming a true Atheist. I no longer make excuses
to anyone as to why I don't attend church and if I
feel like saying, goddamnit, I say it without fear
that I'll be struck down' by a bolt from the heavens.
In November of 1974 I applied for entry into the Winter Haven Hospital for surgery. The
young woman who made out the form requesting
admission came to the inevitable question; "What
is your religion?"
Her mouth dropped. open in
alarm when I answered: "1 have no religion and do
not belong to any church."
To quote
Madalyn
O'Hair,
"The
First
Amendment
is a guaranty of the separation of
church and state-a guaranty of not just freedom of religion but freedom from religion."
In my entire lifetime there have been many
wars. I often wondered at the temerity of great
leaders of the world who would, without fail, say
at the opening and during hostilities, "God is on
our side!" or "God is on the side of right!". But I
noticed that it was the guns biggest in size and
numbers that won the battles.
... It seems that nothing
religious segment of humanity

will convince the

that engaging in

MAN'S NATURE

Before sending his gigantic military forces

to storm the beaches (some turned out to be sheer
cI iffs) of Normandy, General Eisenhower gathered
his commanders and chaplains about him to pray
for the safety of his men ...
the loss of lives in
this lunatic expedition was staggering; and it happened over and over again ...
We are constantly
being informed -of the
sanctity of the politicians
in our capital. The
prayer breakfasts, the blubbering of the President:
"God sits in this chair with me." Or, as Billy Graham, his locks expensively coiffed, said, shortly
after the election of Richard Nixon, "The finger of
god is pointing to that man!"
I've had occasion to write to my congressman since then and I asked him if he thought
Watergate was the result of the finger pointing.
Needless to say, he avoided this question in answering my letter.
If I sound somewhat cynical it is because I
cannot understand why the majority of the people
refuse to educate themselves. It is so easy to acquire the knowledge that tells the true meaning of
life.
If, by the nature of our experiences we are
fully and completely satisfied that death is the end
of it all then there is no longer any need to be concerned about a mythical hereafter. But, as many
would point out, we think we can understand as
much as a god can. In answer to that we can say
that our knowledge encompasses far greater and
important episodes than any god. We can see and
travel through outer space watching the movements of planets and stars thousands of light years
away. And, here on our own planet the many diseases and ailments of mankind have been vanquished by our scientists-not
by prayer.

/'

'\
The American A theist

prayer is a futile exercise. Much publicity has been

given to the frequent praying of General Patton
during the last war in Germany. It is said that he
started each day by kneeling and praying ... and
yet his soldiers were killed and maimed by the
thousands. So what was all the praying about? I
think, for no other reason than to impress others
of his piety.

IS TO SIN

THE BIBLE TELLS

ME SO
Page 15

SUPERSTITIONS GROW
Not long ago, a certain magazine that used to express a left political viewpoint ran an article defending astrology. At about the same time, a television
talk-show interviewer mentions casually that
apparently, plants can think ... " A friend remarks to
me that he is about to get a job working for a company that manufactures small aluminum pyramids;
and what do thev do with these pyramids, I asked.
"They sell 'em to people to keep razor blades sharp."
Once again we have to recognize a very regrettable
phenomenon: in some way, highly unreliable informfl

'on

THE UNIVERSE
IS KNOWABLE.
NOTHING
THAT IS WITHIN OUR REACH TO EXAMINE
IS BEYOND OUR COMPREHENSION ...
... IT APPEARS THAT THE MOST IGNORANT
THEORIES AND HOAXES STILL REQUIRE REFUTATION.
ation is being scattered amongst a receptive and gullible audience. Dependence upon the techniques of
television and the mass communications facilities in
general has killed the critical faculty in many people,
while the demands of advertising and entertainment
have produced a variety of pseudo-factual features
catering to the desires of the mindless to be amused.
When the appetite of audiences is molded into a
hunger for something that need not be examined but
only accepted, an unexciting truth pays less than a
mysterious fiction that masquerades as reality.
So, while every major newspaper in the land runs
a daily or weekly astrology column, while every network with a few million viewers dedicatedly propagates the notion that a plant is capable of thought,
and while any book publisher you care to name is
willing to rush into print a chatty manual on "pyramid power" that is supposed to do anything from
sharpening knives to making plants grow better, the
only avenues for' expression of dissent to these
falsehoods and myths are journals here and there that
reach, at most, a few thousand of readers. Nevertheless, for whatever good it may be, I wish to add my
voice to those few others which object to the avalanche of impossible claims and mystical non-knowledge that is today being widely regarded as Truth.
In case these comments lead, in some individuals,
to a rejection of the prevailing silliness and a desire
to independently criticize all the pseudo-science that
is beginning to descend as a shroud over the light of
science and reason, then my purpose will have been
served.

CAN PLANTS THINK?

On this subject, my remarks appearing in a publication titled "The Match" two years ago deserve
repeating: "Plants do not. think or feel emotions
Page 16

contrary to an increasing popular belief, scientific

researchers reported.
"Following a poll which showed that, as a result of
reading sensationalistic accounts in newspapeer features, and Cleve Backster's book, The Secret Life of
Plants, one-fourth of Yale biology students thought it
had been conclusively established that plants could
think and feel, scientists decided to publicly counter
the absurd notion. Under most circumstances, noted
Dr. Arthur W. Galston, a plant physiologist, such false
beliefs do not attain this level of popularity. He said
that a proper airing of the matter has become necessary to counter the claims, which are supposed to be
upheld by scientific research.
"At the recent meeting before the country's largest
scientific body, the American Association for theAdvancement of Science, five of six panel ists presented
experimental results that contradicted the allegations
of Cleve Backster and his brine-shrimp experiment.
The sixth panelist was Backster himself, who challenged all the new experiments. However, he presented no new experimental results, and admits to not
having since duplicated his brine-shrimp experiment
of several years ago, by which he claimed to prove
that plants understood when an experimenter dumped living brine-shrimp into boiling winter.
"Scientists have been unable to duplicate the experiment with the same results that Backster claimed
to obtain. Dr. Edgar l. Gasteiger, a Cornell biologist,
described an effort of students who originally supported Backster's theory to achieve the same experimental results. Despite exceeding care in preparation of the experiment, which lasted a year, the testers were unable to detect any related electrical response in plants to the death of brine shrimp; nor has
anyone besides Backster been able to do so."
Why is this so important? Behold the implications:
If plants can think, then thought is not a product of
the nervous system, as plants have no nervous system
ACCEPTANCE OF THESE PREPOSTEROUS,
PROVABLY
WRONG SUPERSTITIONS,
IS A
MENACE TO CIVILIZATION.
whatsoever. Thus, if thought occurs, It IS a mystic
spirit that inhabits the organism. That being accepted,
the next consequence is to begin to see thought in
human beings as spiritual and not as an action of the
brain. From this place we might as well jump off into
the night of misunderstanding that cast its gloom
hundreds of years ago. What use is the brain, then, if
it is not the seat of memory and thought? Why does
the blood circulate to it? Probably for no reason,
Why does-the heart pump this blood? Probably to dispel bodily humors that lead to disease. Of what use in
this case is all the manifold understanding of the
chemical, electrical, and micro-organismic aspects of
The American A theist

IN SOIL OF IGNORANCE
life and health and disease? Science might just as well
collapse entirely, and our hospitals be replaced with
the tents of witchdoctors.
Although it may be lucrative to claim that plants
can think, this allegation is entirely fabricated and untrue: Plants have no thinking apparatus and are quite
unconscious.

PEER AMID SUPERSTITIONS

Twenty years ago men used a razor blade twice and
threw it away. Than a battle began between two huge
companies that manufacture shaving supplies. One began to claim that you could shave five or more times
with one ot its blades; the other firm countered by
upping .the total. Without substantially altering the
blades they were making, these companies had effected a change in the way their products were regarded by consumers. The day came when advertisements showed a couple of. dozen men with beaming
faces, all having shaved with the very same blade. This

ad titillated
people's ability to reason - a thought
tugged at the back of their minds: if the th irtieth barber in the picture shaved just as cleanly as the first,
why did they stop at thirty? Why not go on to fifty,
or a thousand? Suddenly everyone used a blade over
and over. Now convinced that the blade would remain sharp for a long time, users were reluctant to
throw one away. Earlier, however, when they had
thought that the thing to do was to discard a blade
after two uses, a three-or-four times used blade appeared to be impossibly worn out and dull; men nicked and cut their faces with these blades. Later, when
the only thing that had changed was their mental attitude, far older blades seemed to work just fine.
This illustrates the so-called Placebo Effect. It often happens that when a person believes something
will work, it does work, for the very simple reason
that more patience and care are put into use. Actuallv. of course, shaving blades examined under a micoscope exhibit a regular, continuous dulling in use,
totally irrespective of the beliefs of the user.
People who claim that placing blades in the center
of a pyramidal contrivance makes them sharp through
some "cosmic" action are Jikewise allowing their beliefs to influence what they seem to find as results, at
least when they are sincere but mistaken individuals,
and not outright charlatans and frauds attempting to
hoax others.
In case anyone might think that the little cardboard, aluminum or plastic pyramids of this new fad
have any sharpening or restoration effect upon shavblades, these questions need to be asked: First, can
changes be noted in a blade stored in a "pyramid",
from day to day, when examining the blade under a
microscope? The answer is no. Unless the blade is
used, in which case it will tend to become duller,
there is no change.
Second: If tiny amounts of metal were somehow
eroded from a blade to make tt sharper, wouldn't a
blade be worn away to nothing in a long storage?
Why, then, have actual, full-size pyramids not had
the effect of "sharpening" and wearing down to nothing the implements people placed within them thousands of years ago?
IT IS A SHAME TO HAVE TO DIGNIFY
TRIVIA
AND
STUPIDITY
OF
THIS
KIND,
WHICH SHOULD HAVE VANISHED
WITH THE
MIDDLE AGES ...
Third: By what mechanism does a pyramid supposedly accomplish its action? If by the concentration
through refraction of cosmic rays, as was the try at
explanation by the pseudoscientists in back of this
money-making fraud, how can thin layers of cardboard or aluminum - or anything else - refract rays
Page 17

The American A theist

~/

of such high velocity that delicate Instruments have

that it does, civilization has been hampered and stiactually detected them at the bottom of mine-shafts,
fled. But this is certain: Creatures that had no ability
to reason could never have been the constructive gewhere they had not been much altered or deviated
nius behind the simplest artifact. Astrology, as a sysfrom their path by thousands of feet of earth and
rock? What are known as cosmic rays, i.e., radiation
tem that is advocated to counsel anyone, actually
tries to replace logical action with advice derived
of sub-atomic particles from space arriving upon this
from totally arbitrary considerations.
planet, come from ALL directions simultaneously.
What are those arbitrary considerations? They are,
How does the pyramid know how to direct these rays
of course, the movements and apparent configuraso that only ones from a certain direction are used? If
tions of the bodies in the heavens. And yet, these
no selection is involved, rays might be directed upon
configurations are only apparent, not real. For as we
the blade in such a manner as to DU LL it. Thus,
know, light travels at a fixed speed, and as some stars
Fourth: How can anything achieve a uniform, foare farther away than others, Iikewise planets, an obcused effect without compensation for the earth's roject that appears to be next to another in space may
tation? If the pyramids make use of radiation from
be separated by millions of years of time. Planets may
space, why are not the pyramids rotated throughout
appear to 'be here or there when in fact they are actu360 degrees every 24 hours?
ally some distance from where they now appear to
It is a shame to have to dignify trivia and stupidity
of this kind, which should have vanished with the . be, owing to the speed with wh ich Iight travels from
them to us. Hence, all the attempted preciseness and
Middle Ages, by inquiring rationally as to its nature
"accuracy" of astrological projection and charting is
and consequences. But in context of present-day popular beliefs it appears that the most astoundingly ig- fallacious, since it deals with the VISIBLE, but not
the real. In any case, there is no basis for bel ieving
norant theories and hoaxes still require refutation.
that movements here or there of any planet against a
backdrop of stars that really shifted to somewhere
STAflS AND PLANETS
else hundreds of years ago, has any effect on anyone.
Gravitationally,
the effect of even a large and relativeThe leftist magazine I mentioned earlier noted the
ly near body like Jupiter upon any individual person
document against astrology recently signed by over
is zero, The qravitational attraction of a passing truck
180 members of the scientific professions, and slyly
is more significant by far.
inquired: "What do they have to be afraid of?" What
is it about astrology that threatens them? It is as
though to be threatened or fearful of anvth ing is
automatic proof that it is true and correct, that the
ASTROLOGY
IS SUPERSTITION
WITH
person who feels fearful and threatened is ipso facto
NO BASIS FOR BEING BEwrong. This does not follow. If the germ theory of ABSOLUTELY,
disease begins to be replaced, on a popular level, by LIEVED.
belief in spirits and demons of disease and health,
true practitioners of medical science will have good
reason to feel alarmed, and not because their Iivel iIf subtle pulls and forces influenced, at birth,
hood is endangered, since they could always begin to
the lifelong course of anybody, it would stand to reapractice the exorcism for pay, and convert to being son that more pronounced pulls and forces would exmumbo jumbo artists of the "organic"
to make a ert even greater influence. Shouts and noise, or music,
living. No, in such an instance, those whose true
involve motions of molecules and thus the exertion
concern is with health and medicine will feel threatof force upon the body millions of times greater than
ened and fearful because the rise of these popular
the actions of stars or planets. I n any event, the time
beliefs would promise to imperil the health of every- of birth is purely arbitrary itself, and was obviously
one, which it is the function
of doctors to preserve. chosen by astrologers for its dramatic effect, I n real iSly questions like "Why are you so THREATENED?"
tv, the moment of conception would be far more
do nothing except reveal the small minded flouncysignificant. Since this is difficult,
and indeed most
malicious mental structure of the asker.
often downright impossible to ascertain, the astrolRational people have all the right in the world to
ogers conveniently disdain to consider the instant of
be fearful of the upsurge in credence granted to as- conception in their "calculations"
about the "influtrology and the like. Acceptance of these preposterences" of the celestial bodies.
Astrology
is superstition
with absolutely no
ous, provably wrong superstitions is a menace to civilization itself, since true, civi Iized society depends basis for being believed. Yes, we feel "threatened" by
upon the exercise of reason. Whatever is illogical is, at astrology, as any thinking person must. It is a system
base, incompatible with civilization.
The cities and -that is wrong and pernicious, and should be held up
to derision everywhere. People who continue to beworks created by thinking people around the world
lieve it has something factual to offer, or some prerear their lofty eminences from a foundation of logic.
dictive value, are either mountebanks or imbeciles.
So far as illogic still prevails to the appallinq extent
Page 18

The American A theist

CONCLUSION
The universe is knowable. Nothing that is within
our reach to examine is beyond our comprehension.
With this realization we are proud and dignified peo-

~
Reprinted

ATHEIST THOUGHT

from 'l'HE SCIEN'l'H'IC MON'l'lILY

Vol. 80, No.6, Junc, 1955

A Note for the Preacher

H. R. Rasmusson (1) suggests a distinction between scientist and religionist: the former somehow
is supposed to be concerned with sense-impressions
that "lead into an external world" and the latter is
concerned with something else called "dimensions
of spirit" in experience that "lead to ,an order of
reality ... God." Thus much psychological work is
ignored-perhaps
because students of sense-impressions or perception no longer find such peculiar orders of reality in experience (2).
Undoubtedly physiological research is just beginning to supply some insights into how the brain
works when an individual reports different kinds
of experience. Some of the most interesting and
thorough reports are those of Penfield at McGill:
patients with their cortical tissue stimulated electrically during an operation may report experiencing specific past events, or sometimes what appears
to be a generalized experience, or they may report
experiences peculiar to that kind of activation (3).
The structures in the brain essential to consciousness are well established (4) ; research on the rhinencephalon and associated structures indicates they
may be essential loci for emotional aspects of experience (5). Not that such research can explain
yet specifically what is going on during a spiritual
type of activity, but there is no good reason to suspect that this will present a greater problem than,
say, what happens during various types of psychotic
episodes-and
the latter problem will soon be
cracked if it is given the support it deserves. To

The American Atheist

pie possessingintelligence. If the intelligence abdicates its right to know, it deservesto fall back into
the caves and the jungles and the ocean from which
it arose.
I . R , Vb arra

From time to time we will present statements,

facts, expressions of opinion, which have appeared in support of the idea of a stream of
Atheist history and thought. This is the first
such statement: please note date and source.

imply that there are some special aspects of human

experience protected from research or to pretend
that scientists would seek understanding of the
various human reactions to a sunset only in an
analysis of light rays is to ignore some of the significant trends in modern science.
There is a variety of quotations from scientists
one might use to offset those selected by Rasmusson.
The one I think appropriate for this discussion
comes from the witty W: S. McCulloch (6):
So, to my mind Newton, Planck, and Jeans sin by
introducing
God as a sort of mind at large in the
world to account for physical effects, like the action
of gravity at a distance.

H. C.
Department
of Psychology,
Buffalo, New York
References

University

and

LANSDELL

of Buffalo,

Notes

1. H. R. Rasmusson, S ci. Monthly

79, 392 (1954).
2. E. Brunswik, "The conceptual framework of psychology," in Int. Encycl. Unified Sci. vol. I, No. 10 (Univ.
of Chicago Press, Chicago,
1952).
3. W. Penfield and H. Jasper, Epilepsy and the Func-

,},
5.

6.

tional Anatomy
of the Human
Brain (Little, Brown,
Boston, 1954).
J. F. Delafresnaye, Ed., Brain Mechanisms
and Consciousness
(Thomas,
Springfield,
Ill., 1954).
K. H. Pribram and L. Kruger, Ann. N.Y. Acad. Sci.
58, art. 2, 109 (1954). An excellent
discussion
of
some of the implications
of animal and physiological
research for the study of human emotions and taboos
is given by D. O. Hebb and W. R. Thompson,
in
Handbook
of Social Psychology,
vol. I, G. Lindzey,
Ed. (Addison-Wesley,
Cambridge,
1954),
W. S. McCulloch,
in Cerebral Mechanisms
in Behavior,
L. A. Jeffress, Ed. (Wjley, New York, 1951),

Page 19

..:::.

..

SPEAKING for WOMEN

annegaylor
Feminists

And

That so many feminists do not perceive of

religion as a problem constantly amazes me. The
National Organization for Women, to its credit,
has tangled publicly with the Catholic Church on
several occasions. But for the most part, even in
the most liberal feminist circles, criticism of religion is muted.
On Women's Equality Day, August 26, which
celebrated the 57th anniversary of women's right
to vote in this country, I spoke at a rally at the
Wisconsin capitol, sponsored by a socialist-oriented
feminist group. I was one of four or five feminist
speakers, and since my area of activism and expertise is abortion rights, I spoke mainly about that.
But I also gave a strong pitch against Catholicism
for what it has done and continues to do to demean women. Surprisingly, I found myself talking
to the deaf, or, at least, the unresponsive. Most
people, including so-called radical feminists, apparently are quite willing to be religion accommodationists, even when that religion is doing its
damnedest to restrict their freedoms. We have all
been taught tolerance of religion, a lesson whose
usefulness diminishes as the religion tries to dominate us all.
Since my audience did not particularly warm to
my anti-religion remarks, I decided I would try
them out in a medium where more appreciation
could be expected. Here, more or less, is the latter
part of my Women's Equality Day speech.
What I really want to talk about today-on this
anniversary of women's struggle to achieve the
right to vote-is fighting back! We women should
do more of it. We are too staid, too demure, too
sedate, too ladylike. We smile too much; we smile
when we should be throwing verbal bricks. And
we should be considering seriously the strategy and
the success of those wonderful English feminists
who, as a last resort, threw a few actual bricks in
their battle to win votes for women.
Nationally, we must express our disgust with
Carter. Feminists must take to the streets-in
Washington and wherever Carter appears-to
express our outrage over his statements about
abortion and poor women. We find it unconscionable that Carter, a rich man, could so blithely
dismiss basic inequities by proclaiming his own

Religion
" Let-them-eat-cake"
philosophy.
Carter said,
"There are many things in life that are not fair,
that wealthy people can afford and poor people
can't." One would think poor women were asking
for yachts or diamonds or palatial homes rather
than merely the right and the means to control
their own reproductive lives.
It is instructive that on July 12, the day Carter
offered poor women his homily, Carter also asked
the Senate to consider the "undue financial burden of his multi-millionaire buddy, Bert Lance.
Carter should be picketed everywhere he goes.
Feminists should be where he is with signs that
say:
CARTER BETRAYS WOMEN!
CARTER POLICIES WILL KILL WOMEN!
CARTER EXPECTS POOR WOMEN
TO BE INCUBATORS!
IS CARTER THE PRESIDENT
OF THE RICH?
Others should hear from us, too-all those rich
politicians and judges who would say to the poor
woman, unwillingly pregnant: "Ah, but you can
be a breeding machine." What could be more
sexist and elitist than telling a woman who is
poor that she may not have an abortion, but, of
course, a delivery will be paid for so that a more
affluent couple may adopt her child.
What feminists do not need is women like presidential aide Midge Costanza. She is an example
of what should not be, of what should not happen.
About 40 of Carter's women appointees objected
to his "Let-them-eat-cake"
statement regarding
Medicaid coverage of abortion and held a meeting.
But under Catholic Midge Costanza's tutelage,
it was decided NOT to send Carter a strong, joint
official memorandum, but to write him "private
letters", to try to avoid the appearance of pressuring Carter. Can you imagine? At stake are the
lives and health and futures of poor women all
over the country, and Costanza wants to avoid
"the appearance of pressuring Carter." Can you
imagine black male leaders worrying about pressuring Carter? Vernon Jordan laid it on Carter
in the most public way possible, and next day
there was a presidential promise of a "flood of

The American Atheist

Page 20

(Feminists and Religion)

jobs" for blacks. Can you imagine the anti-abortionists worrying about pressuring anybody?
Women are fighting many battles, but the basic
fight, the one without
which other fights may
be meaningless, is the battle to control our own
reproductive
lives. Equal pay for equal work
doesn't mean a thing to the poor woman who is
having a baby every year. We need to move control of women's health to women. We need female,
not male, priorities. Can you imagine the ridiculousness of a society which will spend millions to
amass the technical
knowledge
to pinpoint
a
landing on the moon, but which still cannot pinpoint a woman's ovulatlon>
Why should we women have to put up with
lousy, harmful
methods of contraception,
while
millions of our tax dollars, which could be spent
on useful research, are wasted so that men are
ready to make war? Why can we not put abortion
within women's control? We need a simple, early
abortifacient
a woman can take herself-half
a
teaspoon in a glass of milk and presto-there
is that
late period. Of course, such things are possible,
but they are not apt to happen with the likes of
Carter, Califano, Berger and our own Wisconsin
nun, State Representative JoAnn Duren, making
the decisions.
(Note to out-of-staters:
JoAnn
Duren is a Cathol ic legislator in the Wisconsin
Assembly
whose major motivation
is ramming
Vatican
decrees down
everyone's
throat.
She
opposes contraception
for everyone, as well as
abortion.)
Speaking of religion, it really is critically important to note today that the leaders in putting down
feminists, now as in the past, have .been religious
leaders, both male and female. The fundamentalist
churches in the south, the Mormon
church in
the west, and the Catholic church all over the
country have opposed women's rights.
Do you think it is a coincidence that Phyllis
Schlafly, who so successfully opposes the Equal
Rights Amendment,
is a Catholic? Do you think
it is really a coincidence that United States Representative Henry Hyde, author of the infamous
Hyde Amendment
to ban federal funds for abortions, is Catholic? Do you think it is another coincidence that Wisconsin's JoAnn Duren is Catholic?
HELL,
NO! The Catholic
church
is women's
enemy. It trades in women's misery. It measures
its success by women's degradation.
Think of the multitudes of women whose lives
have been lost because of Catholic dicta against
contraception,
sterilization
and abortion.
Think
of the women whose Iives have been shortenedThe American A theist

who have had a baby every year until they died

of it. Think of the women-and
you all know
them-who
are not Catholic
themselves,
but
who cannot have the birth control,
the sterilization, the abortion they need because they live
in a community
with a Catholic
doctor and a
Catholic
hospital-a
doctor trained with public
funds and a hospital buttressed by public money.
The list of Catholic crimes against women, if
it could be compiled, would make the Ku Klux
Klan look like the Merry Homemakers.
The Catholic
church
is the major opponent
of women's right to choose abortion in the United
States. I n its relentless war against women, it has
spent its time and its treasure in this obsessive
effort. Just last week the president of the National
Council of Catholic Bishops, in a speech before
1800 Knights of Columbus representatives
from
all over the country,
announced
a major new
drive against women's rights-not
just abortion,
mind you, but contraception,
too.
There is really no reason why we should continue to tolerate Catholic domination and Catholic
intrusion
into our private lives. There is no legal
reason why the Catholic Church should be allowed
to engage in massive political activity while maintaining
its tax-exempt
status. Women can fight
back. There are actions we can take against Catholicism. We can read our local diocese newspaper,
available at the public library, we can note who
advertises there and we can stop patronizing these
Catholic
supporters,
Perhaps when a few bank
accounts start shifting, our message will be heard.
We can refuse to support all Catholic fund-raising
efforts, and encourage others to avoid them. We
can tell Saint Vincent de Paul to shove off! We
can tell our Catholic neighbors that they are not
good neighbors when they continue to support
this institution
of Catholicism
that victimizes
and degrades women and has done untold harm,
not only to women, but to families and to society.
We don't have to sit and wait for religion to
destroy women's hard-won
rights. We can fight
back, and we can start now.
BRIDGE THE REASON GAP WITH US
IN
THE CITY BY THE GOLDEN GATE
April 7,8,9 - 1978
EIGHTH ANNUAL NATIONAL
AMERICAN ATHEIST
CONVENTION
Write: John Mays, Coordinator
P. O. Box 2117, Austin, TX 78768

Page 21

BOOK REVIEW
CLASSICS

FREE THOUGHT

OF

ed:
A NEW ATHEIST'S LAST RITES
A MINIREVIEW

Blanshard

atheistic and agnostic writings by a variety of Christian skeptics, ranging from Voltaire to Thomas Paine
to Mark Twain and Bertrand Russell. Although the
editor's preface explains that he hopes the book will
help transform current 'religious and moral' thinking,
its main attack isn't aimed at Buddhism, Mohammedanism, the cults, or a particular school of ethics.
It is aimed, rather, at the divinity of the Bible that
provides the doctrinal authority for Judaism and
Christianity.
"I n my opinion, the editor is pathetically misleading and its [sic] distressing to learn from his biography on the book's jacket that his first calling in
life was to the clergy. He is truly a fool in the Bible
sense, otherwise he wouldn't be able to create this
work. 'The fool hath said in his heart, there is no
God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable
works, 'there is none that doeth good." (Psalms 14: 1)
"When the Christian reads this book, he doesn't
hear the witticisms of its clever authors, only the
wailing of souls in hell who were lead [sic] their [sic]
by their writings. The editor should publicly recant
th is work before it s [sic] too late and personally
burn all copies of it he can find. In the case of this review copy, I'll savehim the trouble.
"The whole tone of this book is repulsive because
of its gross blaspheme [sic]. It mocks God openly
and then laughs in His face.
"I'm sure the editor isn't surprised to find there are
people who dislike his book. Freethinkers should
look for a wide variety of ideas and opinions, and develop a strong enough stomach to Iisten to them, if
they are seeking the truth."

Paul Blanshard, long the enfant terrible among the

more rabid anti-Catholic polemicists who turned Atheist at the age of eighty has lived long enough to
pay his dues to his new philosophical mistress. He has
compiled a new volume entitled Classics of Free
Thought. Published by Prometheus Books (Boston,
MA) the 190 page book sells at $12.95.
Rather than penning a review in tribute to the new
convert's sacrifice laid at the feet of the godless, we
have decided that the minireview published in the
Asbury Park Press would be more appropriate in this
instance in that it shows clearly the eye rolling frenzy
of a reviewer who feels betrayed by the Paul Blanshard who formerly limited his attacks to the large
and worthy target of Roman Catholicism but who in
his advanced years has become sageenough to include
all religions in his damnation by a weapon much
mightier than the sword.
Following is the "review" by Colin Black, whose
opening sentence emblazons his rather fanatical bias.
"As an orthodox Christian bel iever I find th is an
extremely dangerous book, and it is just as dangerous
for Judaism as it is Christianity. Its purpose, as the
editor states in so many words, is to slit the jugular
veins nourishing the belief that there is a Lord God
Almighty who reaches out to man in love, a Holy
God who created heaven and earth and all things in
the ordered universe.
.
"This perilous work is a collection of chiefly

Yes! I want ___

Paul

copies of Classicsof Free Thought, at $12.95 per copy plus 55 cents postage and

handling. Pleasefind enclosed $13.50 for each copy.

Make checks/money orders payable to: AMERICAN
Or charge to my;

o MASTERCHARGE

o VISA
No ..
Date Expires

Signature,

L-

Page 22

ATHEISTS, P. O. Box 2117, Austin, TX 78768.

Name

_ Addres,lI..s

Ci~--------State

_
__ ------------------.s..Zi~p--------'(Texas

state residents please add S% sales tax.)

The American A theist

WHERE

DO WE GO FROM
Ignatz

HERE?

Sa hula - Dye k e

Sahula-Dycke, with this issue, begins as a regular

feature writer for the American Atheist magazine.
The title of this article presents an interesting
problem involving decisions easily understood on
the basisof geometry. Imagine that we're standing
on a straight line behind which is everything of
our past, and, in front of that line, all of our
future. As long as life goes on there can be no
final nor trenchant answer as to what will henceforth take place, especially so nowadays when
science and technology are advancing at a rate
hundreds of times more rapid than only fifty years
ago. Hence absolutely certain is only that our
advancestraight ahead must proceed in a direction
at a right angle to the line on which we stand. We
can proceed in any direction, but going straight
ahead will take us farther into the future-and
further away from the past-than were we to proceedon a tangent.
So which way we will go is a matter of decision,
depending on what we see, think, or imagine the
future holds for us. We will be guided in this by
our already experienced joys, sorrows, successes
and failures, and, of course, also by our education:
by our ability to discern, judge, analyze, differentiate, and-most important-by our decision to
let facts and not fantasies guide us. This obviously
makesit a problem for the mind.
The mind of Westernman-as proved by the way
he currently solves problems long perplexing
him-must be placed alongside Nature's other
and only slightly understood phenomena. Consider
if you will, how his mind behaves. He, on one
hand, solves the mystery of atomic fission and
power, and, on the other, continues blindly to
believe asseverations of priests about their imagined god-and this although no one, especially
not some priest, has ever presented the least
shred of evidence that this god, invented by
theology, exists anywhere except in the imagination, and in the tales still being preached from
church pulpit and rostrum, heard on radio and
TV, and printed in various newspapers, publications, books and pamphlets.
The priests expatiate voluminously and endlessly about their god's omnipotence and omniscience. They tell us that proofs of this god's
existence are the wonders of Nature, namely
our earth, the sun, the stars, etc., all of which
The American A theist

the god they talk about is supposedto have created. Unthinking people accept this old myth as
the truth, but only becausethere are myriad things
about the cosmos and its life that they do not
understand. Hence, when people worship the concept called "god", they worship nothing but
their own ignorance-hardly a procedure of activity anyone could call rational or commendable.
If this weren't true about their behavior, thenimmediately upon seeingsome new and astounding
invention-they
wouldn't call it a miracle of
science, as they do, but would add it to the list
of miracles until then being ascribed to that
mythical god. A miracle, after all, logically remains a miracle whether or not man understands
its manifestation. But, surprisingly true beyond
any dispute is, that as soon as anything of a miraculous nature is explained to man, he immediately
calls it an ingenious creation all his own, and no
longer some god's.
Where is this irrational state of mind now taking
the people of the West? The thinking people of
the West, not all of them Caucasians,are presently
and fortunately enabled to arrive at pretty sound
conclusions about th is question if they'll realize
that a good two-thirds of the world's people
are Asians and Africans, all of them aware that
Western man is constantly being impelled by the
dogmas of his ostensible eleemosynary Christianism to believe that he is a bosom favorite of
his imaginary god, and thus endowed with surpassing wisdom entitling him to dictate to all mankind how it should behave and live. This forces
the aforementioned Asians and Africans to see
him not at all as a man of wisdom, but as a lucky
interloper who, if he weren't rich as Croesusand
armed to the teeth, might possibly be occupying
a place far back in the column of the various rational peoples today questing for facts and truths
conducive to a contented and satisfying life.
The Westerner, because of his double vision
(one half rational, and the other half insane, due
to the religious fantasies he has been persuaded
to believe are factual truth), imagines himself
looming much more importantly in world affairs
than he actually does. Organized, commercial
religion has led him away from humility, and from
Page 23~

Ignatz Sahula-Oycke - painter, designer, teacher.

Formerly art director in Detroit for advertising of
top auto makers; later, art director of leading ad
agency in Southwest; illustrator of adventure
stories "Field & Stream" , Golden Books, etc.; still
later, art editor "New Mexico Magazine". Author,

The Way to Design, a mathematical analysis for designing, Dallas, 1943, alsoAlias Kinson, a sociologically slanted novel, New York, 1963, also The God
Fixation, The God Delusion, The God Business all recent books. Born Bohemia, Austria-Hungary,
1900. Active service USNRF 1918-1919.

the idealsof equality, into thoughtless greed, pride,

and vanity. He looks down his nose in patronizing
sufferance at" the people of the poorer nations,
forgetting that the basic principles of the education he today acquires stemmed from the philosophic cogitations of men who, in many instances,
thousands of years before the acme of Western
power, called these currently poor nations and
lands thelr home. Today this appliesIess to Asia
than to Africa where in recent years the world's
anthropologists, archeologists and paleontologists have been discovering unmistakable telltales of mankind's earliest occupancy of our
earth, prompting them to consider seriously
the possibility that in Africa, and not in the
Mideast, is where began what civilization is all
about.
All searchesof the above kind, which culminated in discoveries that over the centuries have
been making mankind better educated and more
civilized, were in most instances conducted in
contradiction to the dogmas of the Christianist
doctrine. Had the men who in the past searched
for facts permitted the Christian religion's oligarchs
and councilors to direct their efforts, such searches
would more than probably have led us back into
barbarism and savagery than forward to the enlightenment enjoyed by modern man.
Even the poorest of the young people today
are given an opportunity to acquire a fundamentally solid education. But for every single one
who gets it there exists another who wants it
in order to conform with the existing myth that
Western man is superior to people of other lands
and colors of skin. The Western student is constantly being confirmed in this mistaken assumption by the anachronistic dogmas of his religionan assumption which very few Westerneducational
institutions (the majority of whose personnel
and endowers have been indoctrinated to support
clericalism) take steps to pronounce erroneous.
We talk an indignant lot about conditions in the
USSR where people whose various opinions are
contrary to approved Soviet mores are gagged,but
we protest very little, if at all, when a news item
tells us that a teacher or instructor was fired for
transgressing our own tacitly approved establish-

mentarian Christian ism, which as arbitrarily dictates the limits beyond which such a teacher (or
for that matter, anyone else) is considered dangerous. And only rarely do we hear a voice protesting
against the political approval and support given
to all varieties of religious activism.
Our institutions of higher learning in fact approve of any kind of Christianistic dogoodying
whenever it appears in the student's thematizing
under the heading of territorial, national, or
international relations. Sadly enough, our coinage
which circulates all over the world still bears the
words "In God We Trust", in consequence of a
clerically initiated superstitious episode during
the early days of our Civil War;* and now so does
our currency. Believe it or not, the appearance
of this motto on our paper money is of much more
recent date. This resulted from similarly inspired
action, but also astute political truckling to reiigionary lobbying, having been authorized by
Congress in 1955. And we haughtily say that
we are advancing!
It's enigmatic, and surprising, how few are the
people who, curious about the integrity of their
outlook, trouble themselves to review historical
records for some factual verification of their
conclusions. Were they to do this they'd discover
sundry old records showing beyond all contradiction that the theistic concepts, cherished by
so-called Christians, are pure myths obviously
unworthy of worship. Aside from the fact that
the greater part of the world's people are far
better informed than the Christian himself is
about these myths-knowing them as concepts
more perniciously mind-enslaving than any fear of
the whip, torture and death-they'd
promptly
see them for what they are: mere, ridiculously
inferior Christianistic echoes of ancient, superstitious concepts, dogmas, and beliefs.
These very same concepts of ancientry-today
still existing and worshipped in Christianity-were
commonly venerated here and there all over the
globe thousands of years before Saul of Ta!sus
stumbled across them in some far easternprovince
of the Roman empire, where he servedasa Roman
soldier; later on taking them to Greece and Rome
where his preaching popularized them. Thereafter,

Page 24

The American A the

in the fourth century, the Messiah myth-the same

old plagiarism, still citing the conception of the
Messiah by a virgin, her flight from persecution
with him in her arms, the Messiah's itinerant
preaching and theosophising, his performing of
miracles, his betrayal, his imprisonment, his
crucifixion, his resurrection, together with incidental trimmings, the Trinity and all-was proclaimed the official religion of the Roman empire,
and thenceforth offered to the gullible citizenry
in the guise of great news, though stale from constant handling for perhaps the twentieth time in
history. This myth is nevertheless believed by
Christians as a factual narrative of events that
god caused to happen for the first time in all
history, and for the exclusive benefit of the Christian convert and believer.
How grown people can believe a mishmash
of outrageous dogmas such as these of Christianity, and, furthermore, honor them as the ticket
for entering the pearly gates of heaven, ought
to discourage anyone who is only modestly sane
from any desire to inhabit such a place. To balance
the books, it's cheering to observe that people of
all the world's races are becoming more and more
aware of the inhibiting character of supersititious
delusions, this promising to get us away from the
past and into the future with less trouble than
it would have taken in the bygone days of relatively recent centuries.
(*In 1861, the Rev. M. R. Watkinson persuaded
the Secretary of the Treasury to try to introduce
"In God We Trust" as a motto on the coins of the
land, arguing on the theological premise that in
a Judeo-Christian nation, "There is but one God".
Congress, then beginning to be responsive to the
religious community on the national level, aware
of the votes that the religions allegedly controlled,
passed the Coinage Act of April 22, 1864, which
designated that "In God We Trust" be put on coins
"when and where sufficient space in the balance
of the design" would permit it. At the time, there
was considerable opposition to moves such as these
and, in 1867, a national organization (The Free
Religious Association) was founded to counteract
such activities. Under the Nixon-Eisenhower
regime, the phrase was made mandatory to appear
not alone on coins, but on currency. The date
was July 11, 1955. The public law was PL 140.
"We can recognize the hypocritical
moralists
by their indifference to vices that destroy societies
and nations and by their passionate rage against
private vices."
Helvetius
The American Atheist

French philosopher,

17th Century

VOl LA, JOHN CRUZ.!

The following letter was received from Barbara
Schwartz, Secretary of the Detroit Michigan Chapter of American Atheists.
Since so many persons from Detroit have sent
other letters at other times, saying substantially the
same thing; since so many persons from Detroit
have called us to advise us of the situation; since so
many persons at our last National Annual Convention cornered us to tell us identical information,
we conclude that John Cruz is a loved and respected man in Detroit. We want to share this typical
letter with all of you.
The Schwartz family has a motto which is used
often on Atheist correspondence from the entire
chapter. That is:
TIP YOUR HAT TO ALL GOOD MEN
LIVING AND DEAD
BUT BEND YOUR KNEE TO NONE.
No one is bending his (or her) knee to John
the Director of the Michigan Chapter of American
Atheists - but many people are tipping their hats.
The letter:
"Hi:
I would like to add a few comments to the excellent biographical sketch that John submitted for
publication. Being the modest fellow he is, he
probably wouldn't write these few other facts
about himself.
"John has many exceptional qualities that are
lacking in most people today: he is one of the
gentlest persons we know; in the two years we have
come to regard him as a friend, we have never
heard John raise his voice in anger. His tolerance
toward the sometimes ignorant and insulting religionists is absolutely amazing!
"He also possessesa rare insight into people.
He realizes the shortcomings of others yet never
uses these shortcomings to their disadvantage and
embarrassment.
"John also does something quite rare these days:
he listens. Not plagued by an ego problem, he takes
the time to understand his associates.
"The members of the Detroit Chapter of American Atheists are extremely fond of John; we feel
we are the fortunate ones to have voted him into
the office of Director ... for we have benefited by
effecting a viable, growing membership and have as
our Director a true leader ... and a good friend.
Barb
And that, John Cruz, is what everyone in your
chapter thinks about you!!
We agree. We know you too.
All of us at The American Atheist Center.
Page 25

Reflections
An

on

Robert

Address
Atheist

by
on

G. Ingersoll:
A "Born

August

11,

Agai

nil

1977

by Voltaire E. Heywood
On this occasion, the one hundred forty-fourth
anniversary of the birth of Robert Green Ingersoll,
I would like to praise him, not only for his polished rhetoric, natural fluency, and vital subject
matter, but also for this greatest attribute, his
courage in speaking his mind. Actually very few
points that Ingersoll illustrated so melodiously
were unique to him. His secular ideas had been
collated by men of reason since the Age of Enlightenment. Voltaire, Rousseau, Locke, and
the like, all had a greater originality than Ingersoll ever did. He merely presented and consolidated the precepts of freethought, secularism
and agnosticism more spectacularly than any
and all of his predecessors.
Truly, aside from his particular wit, articulation, intelligence and showmanship, the one
characteristic .that sets Ingersoll apart from .all
others before him is his special courage and perseverance. He overcame hesitation and fear and
expressed himself honestly, regardless of the
consequences. Few so-called great men can claim
that virtue.
Similarly, Ingersoll conquered the overwhelming
suppressionof organized religion, which, if allowed
to go unchecked, may still be a serious threat to
us in our own century. For who can deny the
present wave of fundarnentalisrn ' again slowly
rising to inundate freedom of thought and individual liberties in our own land?
Nevertheless, of this courageous orator, Eugene
V. Debs once said, "Ingersoll lived and died far
in advance of his time." I do not think that statement is accurate. Did not Plato deny that divine
judgment could be bought off with offerings?
This was certainly a flagrant sacrilege against
a basic tenet of pantheism. Was he too beyond
his time?
And what of the men of the Enlightenment?
As they searched classical antiquity for a viable
alternative to a faith which no longer satisfied their
intellectual needs and provided unsatisfactory responsesto the needsof the world, the rest of civil ization still clung steadfastly to religious dogma.
Werethey also out of step with their time?
No, Robert G. Ingersoll did not live too soon.
He, like all men of reason, has no assignedplace

in history. Such men continue to materialize on

the periphery of various civilizations, while the
greater portion of society remains centrally affixed, conditioned to inflexible conformity.
Machiavelli explained this inflexibility with the
following statement from The Prince: "When
neither their property or honor is touched, the
majority of men Iive content. "
Rigid societies have been relying on communal
opinion and security since the Stone Age, when
frightened cave people banded together to hide
from acts of nature, such as lightning. Soon they
prayed to the sky-god, cloud-god, fire-god, whatever, to keep them safe from the dreaded electrical
phenomenon. Later, no real progress, only superficial changes, occurred in the Middle Ages, when
the massesdepended so completely on unworldly
clergymen and unsubstantiated scripture for
advice, direction, comfort and spiritual protection.
Technically, Western Civilization is still in the
medieval period. For, even in our own country,
that supposed seat of liberty, organized religion
still enslaves the minds and free wills of its proponents with preposterous claims of salvation
and horrifying threats of damnation. Actually,
how far has mankind advanced since the prehistoric fear of lightning?
Most people in any civilization stand still in
orthodoxy, therefore men like Robert Ingersoll
evolve more completely in one lifetime than
whole populations progress in milleniums. As
long as the majority of humans are in servitude to
superstition, conformity, and fear, which collectively are known as religion, great thinking men
who take giant steps in their lifetimes will continually appear to outpace their contemporaries,
who havedone no better than to mark time.
More significantly, like Ingersoll, I too am obsessedwith the pursuit and the defense of liberty.
The love for freedom invades my heart and mind
like no other human passion. Let "gods" and
governments take all else away: my every possession, every desire, every need, every thought.
All of these facets of human existence have no
meaning or value without liberty. For as long as
my brain can reasonand my physical being endure,
I shall praise liberty with my lips, and I shall
The American A theist

Page 26

1/

fight for it with my voice, with my pen, and,

if necessary,with mysword.
Let it be known for certain that I will indeed
take up that sleeping sword when the freedom
of any man is threatened. For the pursuit of
liberty is the only cause in which one fights ardently for, and not against, the rights of his enemies.
And I shall fight even more fervently for my
own freedom. How can a man be a moderate
when his own liberties are at stake? When my
friends try to subdue me with pleas for such
moderation, I say, "Nay!"
My friends implore,
"Surely, no one cares
what you do today. Besides, when church bells
ring and conqressprays, cover your ears."
"Nay," I say again. "A creed that imposes its
will and dogma on all people, whether they sought
after it or not and whether they reasoned over
it or not, is no more assimilated than a sectional
dialect of far-off aborigines. Still, to the populace bombarded with religious 'certainties', it
is assumed to be correct because 'Everybody's
doing it.' In addition, any challenge aimed at
the reIigious establishment to alter such practices
wou Id be considered generally as blasphemy,
whatever that may be."
My friends rebuke me again asking, "Why do
you haveto be different?"
Then I say, "1 will never submit to indoctrination nor, for that matter, will I surrender to
submissionwithout freedom of choice."
Since freedom of thought is the only key
to true happiness, I wish someone would explain
to me why there are so few outspoken freethinkers
in America today? Why also are the few still persecuted in the name of righteousness,whatever that
may be also? It has been said that ninety percent
of all the scientists who ever Iived are alive today.
If, according to Ingersoll, science is the child
of freethought, (I personally believe the converse),
then why is the general population still so entrenched with religious traditionalism?
How long can a lie be perpetuated? Howapropos is Sir Walter Scott's observation excerpted
from Lochinvar:

farsightedness, as well as for their influence over

their less rational contemporaries, in guaranteeing
us our liberties in writing. Yet, even with their
monumental efforts, the Bill of Rights is constantly being tested and retested judicially to
challenge these liberties. Is it not "common sense"
that these unalienable rights are already the due
of every citizen?
Now is the time for all men of conscience to
"grasp the torch" of enlightenment, as Ingersoll
did, and rekindle its brightness in our own century. Robert G. Ingersoll is gone forever; he has
been dead for seventy-eight years, over twice as
long as I have lived. His influence upon the minds
of rational men cannot be minimized, but he
will not return, and we cannot afford to contemplate his merits too long.
"Among democratic nations, each generation
is a new people," Alexis Tocqueville once said.
Thus, each new generation must do its utmost to
preserve its own liberties. For any free society
that relents on this preservation will sacrifice
its essence and therefore rightly wither away
into oblivion.
Let it be understood that we cannot wait
for another Robert Green Ingersoll to lead us
out of the wilderness of comfortable conformity.
.Let each individual: each man, each woman and
each child, vow to himself to find within himself
the courage to express his views honestly at all
times, to fight ignorance at all turns, and to defend
liberty at all costs.

WE ARE ALL DAMNED

Oh, what a tangled web we weave

When first we practice to deceive!
Plainly, religion is the "grandest deception",
the gravestuntruth of all centuries!
Ingersoll knew this.
Among the founding
fathers, Paine, Franklin and Jefferson agreed.
As Americans, we are indebted to them for their
The American Atheist

Page 27

The orthodox Epiphanius described Arius in this

manner: "He was exceedingly tall, with a clouded and
serious brow having the appearance of a man subdued
by self mortification. His dress corresponded with his
looks; his tunic was without sleeves, and his vest but
half the usual length. His address was agreeable, and
THE ARIUS CONFLICT
adapted to engage and fascinate all who heard him."
He was a man of acknowledged learning.
Now, at this time, the orthodox and the Arians,
No. 450 - 3rd September, 1977
that is followers of Arius, both believed the same
thing - that Christ was god. They differed on two
points.
First: the Orthodox believed Christ's generation
Hello there,
This is Madalyn Murray O'Hair, American A- was from eternity, so that he was coeval (equal) with
the father; whereas the Arians believed that Christ
theist, back to talk to you again.
Last week I gave you an introduction to the had a beginning.
Second: the Orthodox believed the son to be deCouncil of Nicaea where Christianity was given birth
in the year 325. Until that time there was such dis- rived of, and from, the father; the Arians held that he
agreement in the so-called Christian Church that it 'was created by the power of god, out of nothing, alcould not be called that. Individual persons, em- though they allowed him to have been the first creabracing this religion and interpreting it as they desired ted being in the Universe.
When Arius first came out with his opinions,
to do, gave it its birth.
.
Constantine the Great, Emperor of the Roman Alexander (the bishop) at first endeavored by arguEmpire, called the council so that doctrinal disputes ments and remonstrances, to convince Arius of his
could be settled and so that a cohesive religious doc- error. But Arius had the madness to make a public
declaration of his impiety. The Bishop ejected him
trine could come out of the council.
from
the presbytery, according to the word of god
There was one major stumbling block and his
name was Arius. He was a presbyter of the Alexan- which states "If thy right eye offends thee, pluck it
drian Church and presided over an independent parish gut and cast it from thee."
To go back to the historian Socrates, he states
of that city. He was a rigid ascetic and acquired great
respect from all.
that Alexander, the bishop of Alexandria, deposed
Let me read to you how Socrates described the Arius from his office and excluded him from the
advent of Arianism into the church - not that communion of the church, first at an assembly of the
Socrates, another one - an historian of the era. clergy in Alexandria and then at a more numerous
"After Peter of Alexandria, Achillas was installed in synod of Egyptian and Libyan bishops composed of
the episcopal office about the year 311. This bishop, about 100 members. However, Arius was claiming a
Achillas, in the fearless exercise of his functions for victory at this synod also. Therefore, Alexander pubthe instruction and government of the Church, at- lished an epistle to his fellow ministers everywhere,
notifying them of the excommunication of Arius, in
tempted one day, in the presence of the presbytery
and the rest of the clergy, to explain, with perhaps which epistle he made use of the following language:
"Know, therefore, that there have recently aristoo philosophical minuteness, that great theological
en in our diocese, lawless anti-Christian men,
mystery - the Unity of the Holy Trinity. A certain
teaching apostacy such as may justly consider
one Qf the presbyters under his jurisdiction, whose
and denominate the forerunner of Antichrist ...
name was Arius, possessedof no inconsiderable logiI am constrained to warn you to pay no attencal acumen, imagining that the bishop entertained the
tion to the communications of Eusebius (of
same view on this subject as Sabellius the Libyan (an
Nicomedi) should he write to you ....
The dogAfrican, who taught in the third century, that there
mas they assert, in utter contrariety to the
was but one person in the divine essence) controScriptures, and wholly of their own devising, are
verted his statement with excessive pertinacity: adthese - That 'god was not always a father; that
vancing another error, which was directly opposed,
the word of god was not from eternity, but was
indeed, to that- which he supposed himself called
made out of nothing; for, that the ever-existing
upon to refute. 'If,' said he, 'the father begat the
god (the I am, the eternal one) made him, who
son, he that was begotten had a beginning of exisdid not previously exist, out of nothing.' "
tence; and from this, it is evident that there was a
He then wrote to the Bishop of Constantinople,
time when the son was not in being. It, therefore,
necessarily follows he had his existence from noth- who was also named Alexander, and said,
"Alexander sending greeting in the lord to
ing.' Having drawn this inference from this novel train
Alexander, the honored and beloved brother.
of reasoning, he excited many to a consideration of
the question; and thus from a little spark, a large fire
"1mpelled by avarice and ambition, some evil
was kindled."
minded individuals have formed designs to obThe American A thei$

Page 28

!I

tain the highest ecclesiastical perferments. Under

various pretexts, they trample upon the religion
of the church; and, being instigated by satanic
agency, they abandon all circumspection,
and
throw off the fear of god's judgments. Having
been made to suffer by them in my own diocese,
I write to arouse your caution, that you may be
on your guard against them, lest they, or any of
their party, should presume to enter your diocese. They are skillful in deception, and circulate
false and specious letters, calculated to delude
the simple and unwary.
"Arius and Achillas (another bishop) have lately
formed a conspiracy, arid have acted even more
culpably than Coluthus, whom they rivaled in
ambition."
I may as well stop the letter here to tell you about Coluthus. He was one of the Alexandrian clergy
also. He taught the heresy that god is not the author
of those just punishments which providentially
afflict men. He also ordained bishops without authority. Most Christians in the United States believe that
the Christian Church was all sweetness and light, and
proceeded monolithically
from its founding by Paul,
. the Apostle.
That simply is not true. The doctrines
and dogma were put together piece by piece over a
long period of time and consisted of the opinions
of those persons who had won the fight by fair means
-or foul.
Now to continue with the Bishop's charges
against Arius and his fellow, Achillas. He was condemning Coluthus too and he goes on to say,
"He reprehended their conduct, for he certainly had some pretext to plead in extenuation of
his own guilt. When they perceived the gain
resulting from his sale of ordinances, they felt
unable to remain in subjection to the church;
they accordingly constructed caverns, like those
of robbers, in which they constantly assemble;
and, day and night, they there invent calumnies
against the saviour, and against us. They revile
the religious doctrines of the apostles; and,
having like the Jews, conspired against Christ,
they deny his divinity,
and declare him to
be on a level with other men. They collect all
those passageswhich allude to the incarnation of
our saviour, and to his having humbled himself
for our salvation, and bring them forward as
corroborative
of their own impious assertion;
while they evade all those which declare his
divinity, and the glory which he possesses with
the father. They maintain the ungodly hypothesis entertained by the Greeks and the Jews,
concerning Jesus Christ; and, at the same time,
endeavor, by every art, to ingratiate themselves
with those people.
"AII these suppositions connected with our religion, which have been advanced to excite derision, they represent as true. They daily excite
The Amercan A theist

persecutions and seditions against us. They bring

accusations against us before judicial tribunals,
suborning
as witnesses certain unprincipled
women whom they have seduced into error.
They dishonor Christianity by permitting young
women to ramble about the streets.
"They have had the audacity to rend the seamless garment of Christ, which the people dared
not divide. When their wicked course of life,
which had been carefully
concealed became
gradually known to us, we unanimously rejected
them from the church which recognizes the divinity of Christ.
"They then ran hither and thither to form cabals
against us, and endeavored, by means of fair
words, to delude some among them into their
own error. They are careful not to admit before
them that they teach unholy doctrines and perpetrate infamous actions amongst us, and that
they are for this cause excluded from communion with us.
"They conceal their pernicious doctrines by
means of their plausible and persuasive mode of
conversation;
they thus deceive the unwary,
while they never omit calumniating our religion
on all occasions. Hence it arises that several have
been led to sign their letters, and to receive them
into communion. I consider that the conduct of
our fellow ministers, in acting so rashly, is highly
reprehensible; for they thus disobey the apostolic canons, and co-operate in the work of the
devil against Christ. It is on this account that I
make you acquainted, without delay, beloved
brethren, with the unbelief of certain persons
who say that there was a time when the son of
god had no existence; and that, not having existed from eternity, he must have had a beginning;
and that when he was created, he was made like
all other men that have ever been born. God,
they say, created all things, and they include the
son of god in the number of creatures, both
rational and irrational."
The letter goes on to explain that:
"Many attempts have been made by me to gain
back those who have been led astray, and discover the means of restoring the people who
have been deceived by them." He then lists all
those who have been excummunicated and the name
of Arius leads.
It is said that seventy copies of this letter went
to as many different provinces. The balance of the
letter consisted of quotations
from the scriptures
which, allegedly, upheld the argument as advanced by
this orthodox bishop.
Meanwhile, Arius was busy writing letters also.
One to Eusebius of Nicornedia states that he is
"apprising you that the bishop oppresses and
persecutes us most severely, and that he causes
us much suffering. He has driven us out of the
Page 29

city as Atheists, because we do not concur in

what he publicly preaches; namely, that the
father has always been, and that the son has always been.
"We are persecuted because we say that the son
had a beginning, but that god was without beginning. This is really the cause of our persecution."
Naturally, the Emperor got into the act, writing
to both of them. The substance of his letter was that
any disagreement in the church should be buried in silence and that the two should exercise mutual friendship and grace.
But neither one would keep silent. Another issue
was stirring the church also. Some wanted to keep the
"Feast of the Passover," or Easter, more in accordance with the customs of the Jews, wh ile others preferred the mode of celebration and a time used by the
Christians generally.
The Council of Nicaea was called. Before the appointed day for beginning discussion of the questions
which had brought them together, the bishops assembled and summoned Arius to attend. They began to
examine the disputed topics. One theme was that the
faith of god ought to be received without curious inquiries. Others spoke against the introduction of novelties contrary to the faith which had been delivered
to them in the beginning. Others contended that former opinions ought not to be retained without examinations. One historian relates that a philosopher was
confounded and converted by a simple old man, who
advised him not to expend his labor in vain by striving to prove facts which could be understood only by
faith and not by reason.
The emperor opened the council with an exhortation to the assembled bishops to unity and accord.
He wanted contentious disputation to be set aside.
However, there was Arius and those who believed as
did he. These persons drew up a declaration of their
creed and presented it to the council. Instead of being
recognized, it was torn to pieces and was declared to
be spurious and false. The uproar was so great that
most of those present felt called upon to stand up,
cast reproaches on Arius and excommunicate him.
Arius' book, Thalia, was burnt on the spot. Arius was
banished from the Empire (to Illyricum) by the emperor and edicts were sent to all parts of the empire
denouncing him and his doctrines, threatening those
who would speak well of him. Immediately thereafter
a confession of faith was drawn up and approved
by unanimous consent.
This is the creed said in all Christian churches
today. [I believe in god, the father, creator of - etc.]
Later, of course, the emperor recalled Arius
from his exile. He died - suddenly - eleven years
later, perhaps [it was widely rumored]
by the
poison of his enemies and opponents who openly
rejoiced at his death.
.
We know a little more about Arius, but not
Page 30

much. We have 'some sentences and fragments from

his book Thalia. The word "thalia"
means "The
Banquet". It was written partly in prose and partly
in verse. Arius wrote also a collection of songs for
sailors, millers and pilgrims - an old expedient for
spreading religious opinion
among the common
people. An historian of the times says, "Arius appears to have been the first, who availed himself of
this means of impressing his doctrines on the popular ear, bequiling the ignorant; by the sweetness of
his music."
Of course, I have here recounted but a sketchy
record of one of the conflicts within the Christian
church as it was aborning. We must all see, even from
this brief recitation, however, that the doctrines so
dearly held today were put together by crude, illiterate, brutally ignorant men from fragments of insane ideas. The church was born by imposing those
ideas on the rotting culture of Rome.

This educational program is brought to you as a

public service by American Atheists, a non-profit,
non-political, educational organization dedicated to
the complete and absolute separation of state and
church. This series of American Atheist radio programs is continued and funded by listener generosity.
American Atheism predicates its philosophy on
materialism.
For more information, or for a free copy of the
script of this program, write to P. O. Box 2117,
Austin, Texas, 78768 and ask for program number

450.
I will be with you next week, same day of the
week, same time, same station.
Until then, I do thank you for listening and goodbye for now.

C2~'iY
MAN

MAk'S

SC:NSc
o

The American A the;

CREDO

TO THE APOSTLES OF CHRISTIAN FASCISM

-as you fly your flag of the green cross.

by Anne Gallagher Vantz

There is no God but our God,
The humble
Christians
say;
There is no God but our God,
To Him alone we'll pray.
What of the others by the score,
Gods just as great and mighty,
Allah, Odin, Jove and Thor,
Venus and Aphrodite?
It seems more logical to pray,
To all the Gods who've taken,
An active part in Earth's affairs,
Or we might be mistaken.
If to the One alone we pray,
And he is but a Fakir,
There surely will be Hell to pay,
The day we face our Maker.
Now Christians do take my advice,
Don't
be
so
egotistic,
And on occasions, in your prayers,
Address some other Mystic.
Remember, there have been a score,
A hundred, thousands, may be more.
To say there is but one God,
Might make the others sore.
****************

Good Christians believe in one God,

Myself, I must confess,
Am not so very different,
I believe in just one less.

John Wayne,
your most infamous role will be.
a Judas goat beneath the green beret,
as you sidestep death's moat
to lead ten thousand soldier boys
deployed in death's parade
through the hell of war.
To moulder in unquiet, haunted graves
dupes betrayed by a Judas goat
wearing a jaunty green beret.
Anita Bryant,
sterile shall be the bed you lay,
your bitter seedsshall blight
earth's fields of green.
Your obnoxious harvest
a growth of weeds shall be
because in the name of love
black hatred you created.
Preacher Lawson,
your proselytising is an ego trip from which
the bitter gall of hatred drips.
"Let he who has not sinned
cast the first stone.."
Judge not for ye too
shall be judged .. r r
See you in hell!
Let these words forever be
a remembered song within your head"Seven cities Claimed blind Homer dead,
along whose streets the hungry poet
begged his bread."
.

BOREDOl\~
She lends no hand to happiness
Contributes to no cause
Encourages no forward move ...
Her life is one long pause.
from:

. The American Atheist

"It Could Be Verse"

Angel ine Bennett

Page 31

-editorio,----There are hundreds of thousands of words poured out

to you every year: to titilate, to excite, to inform, to
educate, to amuse, to bemuse, to advocate, to bequile.
We have contacted every Writer's Guide in the United
States to list the magazine so that new writers can get to
us with their material.
We solicit works from college and university students
each time that any of us make an appearance. We ask for
the. same when we are interviewed on television or radio,
or by the press. We scan foreign books.
Good writers are urgently needed.
Recently we wrote to every leading scientist, sociologist, architect, educator, historian, writer - asking each
of them to provide us with something for the magazine.
Buckminster Fuller returned a long poem in support of
the god idea and Will Durant sent a brutish little note
that Atheists were dogmatic unthinking people.
A long time ago we knew that we would not be able
to please all tastes. Atheists are of every persuasion of
thinking, they run the gamut of political ideology, they
can be fiercely vegetarian or exist only on a diet of rich
thick beefsteaks. We get hell from antivivisectionists,
animal birth controllers, pro and con abortionists, violent statements supporting or crushing the E.R.A.
Everything we print - Atheists have an opinion on it
and they want to be argumentative about it.
.
We are told that we should use dirty jokes. We are
damned when we do use them. We are encouraged to use
cartoons and criticized when we do.
We open a letter and to our wondering eyes we are
told that someone did not like the Shibles article and
they are cancelling their subscription. We open another
letter and a subscription is cancelled because someone
does not like the cover. We are told that no more money
will come from this contributor as long as we use a word
like "excrement" to describe the product of the religious
mind.
We are damned when we print something and damned
when we don't. Often some of you send in articles that
are so bad that we shudder to read them and you
demand that we print them - first page - urgent.
We have, from all of this, come to these conclusions.
Those of us in the American Atheist Center have been
in the "Atheist Business" for over seventeen years. We
have been researching Atheist history, reading Atheist
books, confronting the publ ic every day, meeting
Atheists by the hundreds allover the nation - and we
have decided that we know what we are doing.
If you don't like one article - find something good in
another one. If you can't stand that cartoon, enjoy the
next one. If you are offended by one word go on to the
other one million words in the magazine.
We are trying to please as many of you as we can. We
are trying 'to cater to a diversification of tastes, life
styles, predelictions. We are trying to find good articles,
poems, cartoons, feature columnists, art. But, at the
same time we are trying to educate all of you to the'
main stream of Atheist thought which has been well
defined both in the United States and throughout the
world for over 200 years.
Page 32

Ours is the only source for this

American Atheism available anywhere.
not getting enough to you - we try to
pamphlets, books, the radio programs know how.

introduction to
We know we are
supplement with
in every way we

It is necessary for you to depend on our judgement.

It is a continuing educational process for us, as we

find more, as we see your reactions. When you re-subscribe to the magazine this is your vote of confidence
that by-and-Iarge you approve of what we do even if
you find some disappointments, once in a while. You
will have peaks of enjoyment, even as we do. You will be
shaken up, even as we are. You will be offended, even
as we are.
Sometimes, you know, our approval of an article is
borderline. We wish we had something better, but
lacking that - we use this, or that.
Atheism can only mature and grow, widen, broaden
in its open ended life style and intellectual course.
We get the magazine out from our office. We have
explained and explained that we work from a
minimum of ten to a maximum of 18 hours a
day in the American Atheist Center seven days a
week - and, in an ordinary year, with absolutely
no holidays off.
From this, we have diminishing returns at times.
From this comes errors. We cannot keep at that pace
more than another ten years and we will all be completely burnt out. We slave on the magazine and send it to
you. You quietly sit in your home, office, or in the
library which handles it and you read the magazine.
There are hundreds of thousands of words poured out
to you every year: to titulate, to excite, to inform, to
educate, to amuse, to bemuse, to advocate, to beguile ...
. .. and you sit there and read, then "Eureka!", you
have found it: ERRATUM.
But, by then, back here in the American Atheist
Center we have also found it.
You don't know that and we receive a letter from
you reaming us out and telling us off.
We delight in constructive criticism. We accept any
error you point out to us.We are happy to hear from
you even if only when you are angry with us, because
then we know that you are out there.
But, once in a while it would be nice if you sent in a
letter and said, "Over all fellows, I think you are doing
a damn good job."
We have inner strengths to call upon and we really
don't need that reinforcement from you. We are not
desperate for it. But, when a letter such as that comes in,
it quickly passes through the office and we notice that
everyone perks up just a little, and the day has just a
little more sunshine in it, and our job is just a bit easier.
That is: we plead guilty to being totally human and we
like to have a good word now and then.

~<t>~OR
The American A theist

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