September,

1985

A Journal.of

Atheist

$2.50

News and Thought

eeT

Tr

A Review of

The Agnostic Position

The Torah Militant

see page 9

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American Atheists - P.O. Box 2117 - Austin, TX 78768-2117

Vol. 27, No.9

September, 1985

American Atheist
A Journal

of Atheist

News

and Thought

2
5
6
9
15
16
19
28
29
30
32
34
35
37
38
40
41
42
43
44

Editorial: The Mask They Wear - Jon G. Murray

Ask A.A.
News and Comments: American Atheists Care
The Torah Militant The Anti-Humanist Dogma of The Orthodox Right - H. J. Skutel
The End of The World - Vladimir Milovidov
See The Tree: A Review of The Agnostic Position - Madalyn O'Hair
A Few Meanings Please
And An Atheists View
Other Opinions
A Few Arguments - For God's Sake? - Madalyn O'Hair
The Prospect of Physical Immortality, Part I: Why Die? - Frank R. Zindler
Dial-An-Atheist
A Skeleton in The Cupboard - Margaret Bhatty
Historical Notes
George Eliot and Religion - Madalyn O'Hair
Book Reviews
Me Too - M. Hale
Letters to The Editor
Crosswords
Reader Service

On The Cover: A significant number of articles in this month's American Atheist concern the "position" called agnosticism. A question
is therefore raised by the discussions in those articles; is agnosticism a position? Or - is it rather an attempt to relate to antiquated
philosophical notions that "a tree does not really exist unless there are eyes with which it may be seen?" So long as the concept of
supernaturalism (religion) survives, such arguments will continue to command the attention of those who create and maintain such
nonsensical attempts to relate to irrationality. And - the agnostic, in his/her attempt to fraternize with such advocates of unreality (i.e.
supernaturalism), willalso attempt to justify religion through one school of thought and chastise it through another. After reading our
material ask yourself; should human thought and effort continue to be so wasted - forever? Then also ask yourself - do eyes really
exist?
G. Tholen
Editor/Robin Murray-O'Hair, Editor Emeritus/Madalyn O'Hair, Managing Editor/Jon G. Murray, Assistant Editor/Gerald Tholen, Copy Editor/Sandra M. P.
McGann, Poetry/Angeline Bennet, Gerald Tholen, Production Staff/Bill Kight,
Claudia Kweder, Laura L. Morgenstern, Gloria Tholen, Non-Resident Staff/Margaret Bhatty, Merrill Holste, Lowell Newby, Fred Woodworth, Frank R. Zindler.

The American Atheist magazine

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ISSN: 03324310
copyright 1985 by Society of Separationists, Inc.

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Page 1

EDITORIAL / Jon G. Murray

THE MASK THEY WEAR

n this month's journal our editor-in-chief
Idecided
to concentrate on the topic of

agnosticism.

Here We Go Again
My first reaction to this as a regular
contributor to the journal was "Here we go
again!" I am frankly rather tired of the
incessant circular arguments that go on and
on ad infinitum between the Atheist and the
agnostic. These worthless arguments have
been continuing now in the "academic"
community for hundreds of years.
All of "philosophy," the world's most
useless discipline, has been consumed with
the need to bat the fundamental tenets of
idealism and materialism back and forth like
worn-out tennis balls. These discussions
have, for the most part, been conducted in
educational institutions and private clubs for
the very rich, or those fortunate enough to
be classed, through wealth and family,as the
literati. In essence, this is the supposed
creme de la creme of society, who have been
freed from the necessity of survival labor
and who have had nothing better to do with
their time than to contemplate the vastness
of the universe. Often the zeal of their
"study" has been directly proportional to the
level of boredom in their dull wretched lives
sitting around the manor waiting for the hunt
to begin. These experts on human thought
most often gained their titles in various fields
by simply "being there." If one hung around
a hospital and looked smart for long enough,
the others in charge (who did not know what
they were doing in any real sense either)
simply dubbed one a doctor. Any book
carrier in a law office could become a
barrister. Usually the philosophers of the
world were ushered into their positions as a
matter of birthright, not by virtue of their
superior intellect, or even by education.
I have always considered the output of
these self-appointed solvers of the "human
riddle" to be essentially the beating to death
of ideas with words. I think that is the kindest
way that it can be stated.
Back In The Real World
Meanwhile, back in the real world of social
and political struggle, the Bradlaughs, the
Besants, the Francis Wrights, the Owens of

Page 2

the world were left to slug it out on their own

with the hostile and vindictive religionists
who would give no quarter - not that any
was expected by the brave individual Atheists. While the arm-chair intellectuals debated, the militant Atheist was battered,
slandered, abused, jailed, and otherwise
made an example of the value of compliance. With their lives, their honor, and their
dignity, the Atheists took the heat while the
philosopher sat in the shade with a mint julep
and debated the finer points of agnosticism.
The socio-cultural result of this was that
those of means and stature who could have
changed society for the better did not do so
and allowed those of honest conviction to go
down the drain - while the status quo
survived. Instead of showing their gratitude
to those who fought and suffered so that
they could relax, they invented new terminology to separate themselves from what
they considered to be the gutter rabblerousers. Thus the term agnostic was born.
The failure of the militant Atheists to
effect true social or political change was due
in a great part to their abandonment by
those of means who were too gutless to
openly admit their solidarity. They could
have remained at the manor and cultivated
the militant as a mercenary for their ideals.
They could not even bring themselves to do
that. What happened next was that the open
Atheist became an untouchable in the social
strata, not unlike the caste system of India,
or the black system of America during this
age. The noble name Atheism, born out of
honesty and applied intelligence, was allowed to be dragged through the mud and
defamed, together with the persons who
championed it. The establishment of all
nations took every opportunity to slander
the Atheist in whatever way possible. The
definition of Atheism was linked to insanity
in every culture. The Atheist was classed
with the idiot, the buffoon, the person of
childlike mind who could not comprehend
the value of complacency.
The Way It Has Been
In most recent history, Atheists were excluded from legal procedures because of
their lack of a morality based upon omnipotent authority. They could not take the
witnesses' oath or the oath of public office

September, 1985

without their veracity immediately coming

into question. They were not allowed to
adopt because they accepted no universal
arbitrator of conduct within the dogma of
which they could mold their offspring. They
were denied common burial because they
valued life over the spiritual bliss of death.
Their wills were broken and their estates
stripped as they were classed as madmen
who were not of "sound mind." As a way of
insuring their silence, employment was
denied to them at the merest whisper of their
Atheism. Those who did venture into business on their own found door after door
slammed in their faces by their fellow businessmen, and they were boycotted by potential customers.
Many could not stand the pressure of
holding firmlybehind an honest position and
had to begin a network of various apologetic
covers for their Atheism. The purpose of
each of these masks was to beg the forgiveness of the majority for their having an
original thought and not being a mere part of
the herd. The Unitarians, the rationalists,
the Ethical Culturists, the humanists, the
skeptics, and many others banded together
in fear and have remained there ever since,
trying to justify their collective cowardice by
every oddball rationalization that could be
mustered.
The Apologists
What has most fascinated me about these
apologetic movements is that they begin
with an intellectually superior position to
that of the religionist and then go to their
intellectual inferiors and ask them to pardon
the fact that someone has figured out the
fraud and fallacy of a dogma by which they
have been swallowed up. If your intelligence
leads you to the position that smoking is
hazardous to your health, you do not seek
out smokers and say how sorry you are that
you have figured out that something is bad
for your health and ask them to forgive you
for not smoking as they do. But the intelligent, sane, rational Atheist invents a cover
word for himself and goes to the insane,
irrational religionists and says, "Please forgive me for being intelligent and rational."
He begs to be allowed to participate in a
culture based upon irrationality which he
then embraces. This is highly bizarre. The

American Atheist

religionist should be coming, cowed, to the

Atheist asking for us to allow them to continue with their insanity and not the other
way around.
The agnostic constantly turns to the Atheist and accuses him of being just as dogmatic
as the religionist in his belief that there "is no
god." This is not only in the face of the fact
that an Atheist has no belief system, but the
agnostic has the audacity to bring up the
term "dogmatism," when the very philosophic system that their armchair intellectual
predecessors formulated dictates that the
proof-of-existence burden must be borne by
the person positing the existence of any
entity. The agnostic and the religionist set up
a system of rules for human thought and call
it logic. The Atheist says, "Fine, according to
your own rules you have to prove the existence of god because you posited such an
existence." The agnostic and the religionist
come back and say, "Now, wait a minute!
That is dogmatic. In the case of the Atheist
we willbend the rules to allow for the positing of an uncaused first cause which we shall
call god." Again, this is so bizarre that it
makes one feel as though one is in the middle
of Wonderland with Alice. The Queen of
Hearts just keeps changing the rules so that
the Atheist cannot win.
In the meantime, the agnostic, under one
false identity after another, is still essentially
what I choose to call a "white nigger." We
have allseen them, especially in the South. A
black politician tries so hard to be like the
white political majority that the values and
concerns of the black community he is supposed to be representing go out of the window in favor of the quest for "title," being
accepted, and respectability. He is a common Uncle Tom. The agnostic then is the
same, an Aunt Jane of the set of should-berational persons.
On The Use of Arrogance
I have made numerous analogies in previous editorials between the plight of the
Blacks and the plight of the Atheists in this
country. I think that the parallels are many.
The oppression of the Blacks and their subjugation as the "untouchables" of America
were only partially overcome when the
"Uncle Tom" mentality was overcome by
the militant Black who demanded equality
instead of apologizing for being different.
The Malcolm Xs and others of militant fame
in the black community who said, "Make
whitey call you Mr. Nigger!" brought about
the limited racial equality that we see today.
The only way to gain that seat in the front of
the bus was to take it and to say to the bigot,
"Move me if you dare." One simply cannot
go meekly to one's oppressor and ask for
equality. Equality must be taken with
arrogance.
The agnostic community in this country is

Austin, Texas

composed of a bunch of spineless twerps

who cannot face the rigors of a life of
honesty and straightforwardness.
They
simply prefer the tranquillity of the herd. As
an aggressive Atheist, I simply cannot sit
back and stifle the expression of conclusions
to which my intellect brings me in order to be
accepted. I will not pay for respectability
with my brain - that is too high of a price.
The Bible as Fly Paper
I willalso not be suckered into the biblical
errancy trap either. There are those who
suffered under the dogma of a particular
faith forced on them by parental prerogative
during their youth, who have since dedicated their adult life to striking back at that
which made them uncomfortable as a child.
They kick the Bible of their youth much as a
child plays "kick-the-can" as a way of expending youthful energy and frustration.
They are fixated with a notion of pecking
tiny holes in the book that caused them anxiety and frustration as a child, when they
should simply throw the entire book away.
In allowing themselves to become so fixated
within the covers of the book, they have
acknowledged the victory of religion in their
lives. Religion has trapped them within its set
of written dogmas, and they willconsume all
of their adult energies in the attempt to discredit something that has no overall intrinsic
value to begin. Instead of just abandoning
altogether the dogmas that they have determined to be unsound, they must remain
ensnared in them through their desire to
discredit them in most minute detail. But
discredit them in front of whom? It is to the
very persons who accept them unequivocally on the basis of faith, having no desire or
inclination to inspect them rationally. This is
like trying to discredit the home team to a
fanatic baseball fan. It amounts to beating
one's head against the wall, being careful to
pound it on every little crack.
Twits & Twerps
I have grown increasingly dismayed at the
number of persons in the readership of this
journal who are of the agnostic or biblical
errancy frame of mind. This is apparent
simply by looking at what type of literature
presented by American Atheist Press sells
the most. Two categories are at the top of
the "Best Seller List:"
(1) Anything with one of the following key words in the title, "Freethought, Agnostic, Humanist or Rationalist;"
(2) Anything that has to do with
biblical errancy in the form of contradictions, irrationalities, and anything
unbecoming or illegal in the conduct
of either laypersons or clergy, based

September, 1985

on biblical admonitions.
The works of militant Atheists are simply not
so palatable.
This obvious inclination towards apologetics turns me off cold. I cannot bring
myself to apologize for what I am nor can I be
less than honest about my conclusions concerning religion. It is impossible for me to
have my feet stuck in the flypaper. I want
free of it completely.
Why I Am An Atheist
For almost a year now, whenever I am
asked in the context of a media appearance
why I am an Atheist, I simply say, "Because I
have a high I.Q. and I use it."
I am then asked, "Are you saying that
someone who believes in god is either stupid
or less intelligent than you are?"
My reply is simply, "Yes."
"But that is an elitist position, is it not?"
they gasp.
Again, I reply, "Yes."
Atheists are superior intellectually to
those who have convinced themselves that
they need religion for some reason or other.
This is why I said, "Here we go again!"
with more analysis of agnosticism. The question of whether or not there is a god is totally
irrelevant to human life. The origin of the
universe is a totally irrelevant piece of information to our lives as well. I could care
less about the relative finiteness or infiniteness of the universe. Who gives a damn? I
am a finite organization and that is all that
has real significance to me. I don't understand why mankind has always had a driving
concern to answer the questions of "purpose" or "significance" with respect to human existence. My only purpose as an
animal is to continue my species by staying
alive to reproduce and see to the rearing of
my young. My existence has no special builtin significance. What significance there is in
my life, I make in my individual choice of life
style. But ifIceased to exist tomorrow everything else in the world would not cease with
me. Cycles would continue as before. There
are few of us around who can cope with this
knowledge, and I do not intend to be made
to feel inferior because I do not respect
someone who must construct an elaborate
mythological system to give their life an artificial"purpose" and "significance." Iwillcontinue to openly show my disrespect, my
intellectual repugnance, for those who cannot cope with their relative "insignificance"
and their singular purpose.
Who Wins Ultimately?
What is the use of trying to hide that contempt by even going to the extreme of
inventing a new term like agnosticism? I am
perfectly content in living a life of honesty

Page 3

and integrity based upon fact. Arguing over

the existence of "god" is a complete and
total waste of time. I suppose that an issue of
an Atheist journal such as this month's issue
is needed from time to time for those still
trapped in this useless "chicken or the egg"
argument to get it off their chests. If this
makes those of you who are agnostic happy

and lets you vent some steam, so be it. I see

no use or benefit in devoting a magazine
issue to the question myself. While we
rekindle the agnostic-Atheist split in our
ranks, the religious community rolls on in its
relentless march toward establishing a theocracy in this nation under which Atheist and
agnostic alike willnot be able to exist. ~

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

A second generation Atheist
Mr. Murray has been the Director of
the American Atheist Center for nine
years and is also the Managing Editor
of the American Atheist. He advocates
"Aggressive Atheism."

~
s
,-~------------~------------~--------

/";

~--------~----~-------~-------;>
Noah can so to Hell! I wouldn~tride on his
ark if he BEGGED me !
Page 4

September, 1985

American Atheist

ASK A.A.

In Letters to the Editor, readers give

their opinions, ideas, and information.
But in "Ask A.A." American Atheists
answers questions regarding its policies, positions, and customs, as well as
queries of factual and historical situations.
When I am asked if I am sure that "god"
does not exist, Ialways qualify my answer by
saying that I can't be absolutely sure in the
same sense that religionists are absolutely
sure, because I reject the idea of revealed
truth. I say something to the effect that in
everyday life we usually make our decisions
based on incomplete information, so our
certainties are usually relative. I say that for
allpractical purposes and in allprobability I
conclude that beyond a reasonable doubt
"god" as ordinarily posited does not exist.
I note that when you are asked the same
question, you simply say that yes, you are
sure that god does not exist. I have not yet
been called upon publicly to explain the discrepancy, but I am sure that it is .only a
matter of time, so I am asking you now for
some help in this. I want to be ready.
I realize that by qualifying my answer, I
make my position weaker. My concern
though, is that if I say I am certain or sure
absolutely I will lend support to those who
say that Atheism is just another religion
based on faith, that we are closed-minded,
and that we are unscientific.
The scientific method does specify that
theoretical conclusions always be held tentative and subject to revision by new evidence, and Atheism as posited in our aims
and purposes is derived from science and
materialism.
David Chris Allen, Director
Salt Lake City Chapter
The difficulty is that you are asked one
question by the ordinary persons you encounter on talk shows or in student situations, and you are answering an entirely
different question.
When just about anyone in the U.S. asks
if you (or any Atheist spokesman in these
circumstances) believe ingod, that person is
referring specifically to the god known in our
country, in the Judea-Christian religion, as
given life in the so-called "source" book of
that religion, the Bible. They ask concerned
with a particular god, and you respond with
a god theory analysis.
The answer to the question posed is an
absolutely unqualified statement: "God
does not exist. He has never existed. This is
a phantasmagoria of sick minds." You and

Austin, Texas

your questioner are then both operating on

the same plane, talking about the same
individual god. It is important that you keep
this in mind and be comfortable with it.
The niceties of the god theory, the generic
concept of god, and the scientific method of
evaluation are not appropriate in this theatre of operations.
In All the Questions You Ever Wanted to
Ask American Atheists with All of the
Answers, authored by Jon Murray and
Madalyn O'Hair, pages 17-21, there is an
analysis of the components of the god theory as evidenced in the history of the world.
Don't give your own esoteric definition of
what you think the god idea might be, but
rather use what has always been accepted
by all of humankind for as long as there has
been human history. When you look at
those ideas, you will have no difficulty at all
saying flatly: God does not exist. No scientific study could possibly support the absurdities inherent in the thirteen characteristics
of the generic god idea.
In regard to the probability factor of
scientific concern, Albert Ellis answered
that in a speech at the Seventh Annual
National American Atheist Convention in
Chicago, Illinois in 1977. He noted that currently there is a trend in all of science to
state that there is only a "probability" concerned with natural laws and that scientists
are not 100% certain of their ground any
more or at least at this time. They are only
99.999999999999999999999999999999999%
certain. They can only show that natural
laws have been operative in the same way
for only 4% billion years. He laughed and
said, "For all practical purposes in your life,
then, you can accept that natural laws 'may
be true.' To premise your life on the very
slim hope that they may not be true is to act
in an absurd and unproductive fashion. "
Remember that the probability factor
runs for fantasy ideas too. We can not be
100%certain that there are no leprechauns,
elves, gnomes, fairies. We are only 99.9999%
certain that during the last 4% billion years
there have been none.
Stop to think about that just for a moment
and see if you have any hesitation in regard
to the god idea.
In addition, the discussion on agnosticism
in this issue will be enlightening to you.
Some day, could you explain in your magazine or newsletter exactly what the "Sustaining Fund" is, if it doesn't sustain you? Is
the Sustaining Fund sustained strictly by
donations? What's it used for?
Louis Reynolds
Arizona

September, 1985

The American Atheist Center Sustaining

Trust Fund was established in 1980 to free
the American Atheist Center, eventually,
from dependence on individual donations. If
an organization needs to receive donations
to survive, it is constantly expending efforts
on fund-raising rather than on activism.
At the Tenth Annual National Convention of American Atheists, in Detroit, Michigan, Gerald Tholen, Vice-President of
American Atheists, proposed the generic
idea of the establishment of a Sustaining
Trust, based on repayable, non-interestbearing, one-year "loans" from members,
rather than gifts. The idea was accepted
and subsequently put into action.
Since the "loans" were often very small,
the interest derived from their investment
did not cover the cost of handling them.
(Even at a 10% return, $50 in one full year
only "earns" $5.00.) The Trust Fund was
therefore converted to a "gifts" and "large
loans only" basis in 1982. The money in the
Sustaining Trust Fund is itself forever inviolate, but the interest from it is used for the
daily operating expenses of The American
Atheist Center. Donors to the Sustaining
Trust Fund are named in each month's
Insider's Newsletter.
To free the American Atheist Center from
the need of yearly fundraising, it was estimated in 1980 that a $2% million trust was
necessary. At ten percent per annum (the
1980 rate), interest would yield $250,000 a
year or approximately $20,000 a month.
"The best laid schemes 0' mice and men
gang aft a-gley."
1. Interest rates have dropped from 10%
in 1980 to 7.3% at the time of this writing.
2. Atheists are parsimonious, and their
five-year record indicates that the American
Atheist Center can expect to receive
$25,000 a year. At this rate, it will take one
hundred years to attain the goal of $2.5
million.
Therefore the American Atheist Center
throws every spare buck it can acquire into
the fund. Currently it stands at $245,000. 96,
and from this approximately $18,000 a year
is earned, or $1,500 a month.
This is a far cry from the necessary goal.
No, this does not sustain The American
Atheist Center. At the present rate, it will
take ninety-five more years to make our
goal of being actually "sustained" by the
Trust Fund. Yes, American Atheists does
need continuing financial aid as does every
cause organization. No, the Sustaining
Trust Fund does NOT (presently) sustain
the Center. Can we count on you to help do
that?

PageS

NEWS AND COMMENTS

AMERICAN ATHEISTS CARE

More often than not, San Francisco has
had to speak for the nation. Indeed it could
well be said that it was in that city that the
first stirrings against U.S. intervention in
Vietnam were expressed. It was from that
city that the mood turned against militarism
in the 196Os. And, so it is again in the
mid-1980s.
American Atheists may be slow in reporting on the event, but this is not a news
magazine. It is a magazine which takes
positions and analyzes the news after the
fact. It is important to look at current events
of our era, from the distance and perspective of a little time. In addition to that, the
Chapters are slow, quite often, in having
pictures developed and sent to the American
Atheist Center. The Center reads about
Chapters' activities in the interesting and,
often, provocative Chapter Newsletters that
they all issue - and then delights in the
pictures when they do arrive. A magazine is
for visuals, as well as ideas. So, here we are
reporting an event of late April.
It is an American Atheist event of the type
that was initiated in Chicago on October 5,
1979 - a day of many historic firsts.
Heretofore Atheists had been afraid openly,
in public, to say they were Atheists, often
masquerading as humanists, agnostics,
secularists, and even Unitarians. But not
only had they been jolted out of anonimity
and cover words by the Murray-O'Hair
family, it was now proposed that on that
historic date they should "hit the bricks,"
with their feet of course, and picket, not
alone for the first time in the United States
for just the function of picketing, but for the
first time in history - to picket a reigning
pope. It was all to be done in front of the
public, with the hot bright lights of the media
world reporting it step by step.
Carol Wojtyla, alias John Paul II, also
known as the Pope, a medievalist, had come
to the United States to be adored by swarming crowds and a servile media as he attempted to grab our country by the scruff of
its neck and carry it back to the fourteenth
century. The homage paid was knee deep all
over the nation. And, it was at this point that
American Atheists not alone sued to keep
him and a Roman Catholic Mass off the
Washington Mall, but defiantly picketed him
in Chicago with the abrupt message:
"Wojtyla Go Home!"

Page 6

Oh, there were not that many who were

brave that day. By actual nose count they
amounted to forty-seven persons. There
were more police and more media than
there were picketers. Death threats against
Dr. Madalyn O'Hair were taken seriously,
and long after the fact the Center was
apprised that a person equipped with rifle
and scope was arrested in the hotel overlooking the determined picketers. Jon
Murray and Dr. O'Hair were at the head of
the line, and there were "incidents" by the
score. Chapter Directors came in from
Chicago, Arizona, Kansas, Missouri, Michigan, North Carolina, Indiana, Ohio, and
Wisconsin.
The picket signs were crude and somewhat flimsy for the Windy City. But, the
spirit of determination and joy made up for
everything. By the end of the day they were
all excited, exhausted, and brave enough to
admit that they also had been afraid, but
determined, to do it.
Nothing untoward happened to anyone
who participated. No one lost his job. No
one was ostracized by neighbors or friends.
Not one person on the line was divorced by
his mate because of his activities. But out of
it came a sense of "By damn! we did it!" And
in the eyes of the media and America,
suddenly the Atheists were thought to be a
little braver, certainly more visual - and
none of them had horns, tails, or elongated
teeth. No matter who was questioned by the
media - and most everyone was - the
Atheists were found to be educated on the
issues, intelligent, articulate, and caring as
much for their country and its basic principles as anyone else in the nation.
After Chicago, it was never so difficult
again. After Chicago, picketing came easily.
After Chicago, more and more Atheists
walked around with their bare faces hanging
out. After Chicago more and more began to
openly identify. And they all found out the
same thing: Freedom of speech is for those
who claim it.
And after Chicago, American Atheists
found Bob Fenn, of the Denver, Colorado,
Chapter. He manufactures beautiful, dignified, plastic picket signs for Atheists, and
they are all over the country now: always
red-white-and-blue. Most of the time they
sport a little American flag along with the
American Atheist symbol. By the time of the

September, 1985

12th Annual National American Atheist

Convention in Washington, D.C., in 1982,
there were perhaps two hundred and more
American Atheists happily on a picket line in
front of the White House itself.
They found that they could step out into
the streets anywhere and that they had
lacked freedom of speech only because of
their own inner fears. The Detroit Chapter
picketed over a local concern - an Atheist
policeman having been fired from his employment. And Pittsburgh Chapter members
drove to Michigan to help. The Virginia
Chapter picketed, and Arnold Via, as a
single protesting picket vote, defied 100,000
born-againers assembled in D.C. In Chicago,
Illinois, Chris Drew invaded the territory of
the Jesuits themselves to hoist his signs.
American Atheists recaptured the nation's
colors and its flag and raised those colors
and that flag defiantly in the name ofthe
ultimate freedom of all humankind: freedom
of the mind. And they are to be seen, these
American Atheists picketers, now, all over
the United States: in Austin and Houston,
Texas, in San Francisco and Los Angeles,
California, in Tucson, Arizona and in Salt
Lake City, Utah, in New York City and in
the heart of Falwell land - Virginia. In fact,
they are everywhere.
And that little list of 'The Chicago FortySeven" is typed up and in a filing cabinet in
the American Atheist - a little bit of history.
The messages of the thirty-five two-sided
signs are preserved also. Someday, we will
engrave them all on a plaque and somehow
have that plaque posted there in the Chicago
park: the first place in the world that persons
using the brave and proud name of "Atheist"
stood their grounds and claimed their right
of freedom to be.
Now, a new phase is found. For Atheists
are not picketing alone anymore. Once
upon a time, back in the beginning, when Dr.
O'Hair would volunteer to march with another cause group she would be rudely told
to stay clear. Almost every group preferred
not to be "contaminated" with Atheism, but
as Atheists, led by the Murray-O'Hairs,
spoke out for peace, for population control,
for equal opportunity, for freedom of speech,
they slowly began to be accepted as allies.
After having the doors slammed in their
faces for several decades, now and then Dr.
O'Hair was even asked to come and speak.

American Atheist

NEWS AND COMMENTS

Soon she was called in as a fund-raiser,
here and there, and later she filled this
function often. After all, American Atheists
do not live in isolation - they are more
politicized and more aware than perhaps
any other group in the nation.
It is still exhilarating though, to pick up a
newspaper, turn on a television set, and as
we see the assembled groups of protestors
determinedly marching past suddenly, into
view swings the American Atheist contingent
- banners afur!'
And that happened again in San Francisco
when that city was a kick-off point for
massive national demonstrations for "peace,
jobs and justice" earlier this year. On April
21, 50,000 persons rallied to start the job of
awakening America. Dubbed the Spring
Mobilization, the march was a coalition of
labor and cause groups of every conceivable
type - the Gray Panthers, Vietnam Veterans for Peace, Free South Africa, American
Atheists. The march was about "everything": peace, the nuclear freeze, senior
citizens' rights, apartheid, Nicaragua, El
Salvador, free speech, the homeless, domestic budget cuts, women's rights, arms
buildup, racial rights, and Atheism.
A seventy-year-old retiree viewed the entire march with more insightful wisdom than
anyone else:

God, and the Ten Commandments." Under

this criterion, allAtheists are pornographers!
In an inverse answer to the query as to
whether or not adult married couples should
be allowed to watch pornographic videotapes in their own homes, the following
extraordinary statement was made by Kro!'
No one is exempt from the laws of
God. No one has the right to do
wrong. We can't push aside moral
standards and set our own standards.
That's what Hitler did. [Emphasis
added.]
Of course, born again U.S. Surgeon
General Koop was there to protest the right
of anyone to purchase and view, or purchase
and read, what they desired. He declared,
The Federal Communications Commission and the Federal Trade Commission should be looking into this
problem.

daughters, who later bear his children.

It's not even a morality lesson. And
its impossible for biblical apologists to
rationalize it as anything but an obscene, salacious, and degrading piece
of filth.
Talley nicely put the Atheist position
when he noted that religious sexual repression is what ails society and that the way to
combat "offensive materials" is through
"more honesty about sex and ethics, beginning in kindergarten and extending
thoughout all of the American experience."
As viewed dispassionately from Austin, it
gives a great sense of pride and satisfaction
to see American Atheism come into its own.
And we can only hope that when the report
of the July 4th "blaspheme-in" comes in
from the Boston, Massachusetts, Chapter it
will be still more good news. Good enough /
news for you to be thinking about what you
want to carryon your sign - whether you

I wanted to stand up and be counted. Anything that affects people affects me. Look around you. Young
and old. You know, you sit at home
thinking nobody cares. Then you
come out and see allthese people who
feel just like you do.
He was talking, in part, about John and
Minerva Massen, for they are the Directors
of the San Francisco Chapter of American
Atheists. And, we are allinexpressibly proud
that John and Minerva and Chapter representatives were there.
The next time that there is a demonstration in your home town - we suggest you
get your own sign, identifying yourself as an
American Atheist, and get in there with the
rest who care.
Certainly Bill Talley, the Director of the
Denver, Colorado, Chapter does that with a
great deal of regularity. And he is always
accompanied by a contingent of that Chapter. It was like that again on June 1 when
Governor Dick Lamm went to curry votes
with the Roman Catholic Church by meeting
with Cardinal John Krol, archbishop of the
Philadelphia see of that church, at a national
"Conference on Pornography" in Denver.
Krol was intent on attacking anyone who
was trying to "discredit religious leaders,

Austin, Texas

The San Francisco Chapter of American Atheists March for Peace during the Spring
Mobilization on April 21, 1985.
That was about all that Bill Talley had to
hear. By that afternoon he had assembled a
group of Atheists to give the Cardinal and
Koop a bit of his own. Wearing T-shirts
bearing a "Holy Ghost-Buster" emblem, the
group had a smut read-in, strictly from the
Good Book. Talley mounted the back end of
a truck draped with an American flag and
read obscene Biblepassages. For one reporter he elaborated on the story of Genesis
wherein Lot commits incest with his two

September, 1985

are a picket line of one person such as was

Arnold Via in Virginia, Chris Drew in
Chicago, and (over twenty years ago)
Madalyn O'Hair in Maryland, or ifyou are in
with a group ringing the Pentagon with
Peace Panels, walking with women for the
E.R.A., or championing free speech. Let
them all know that you are an American
Atheist and that Atheists care.

Pag 7

NEWS AND COMMENTS

Militarily we emulate the Hun. We have
one ally only: Israel, which sucks our blood.
Citizens of our nation, political and religious illiterates, permit themselves to be
manipulated by the most reactionary uneduucated scum that has ever risen to the top of
"melting pot" of America ~ the born againers.
While we shed crocodile tears about our
thousands of veterans who were exposed to
Agent Orange in Vietnam (not really helping
them at all) we say or do nothing about that
country still suffering from the decimation of
its land base, its rural farm areas and its
civilian population because of that chemical.
While Reagan crushes the union movement in the United States he praises Poland's Solidarity. The world knows that
union leaders in the United States would be
given the "Philadelphia solution" ifthey tried
what the CIA and Vatican financed Les
Waleska church-based Solidarity attempted
in Poland. American unions one after another have either been crushed or forced to
take cutbacks in pay as well as benefits.
Colorado American Atheists picket the National Conference on Pornography. Left to Runaway factories abandon employees and
right: Tim Chambers; John Peterson; Gale Schreier; Bob Fenn; BillTalley, Chapter Direc- northern cities taking flight to areas with
tor; Edith Fenn; Rob Granhold; and Erica Bryne.
cheapertaxes and non-union labor. Our land,
our water, our sky is polluted beyond recovOur nation is sick. As other nations look Reagan, as commander-in-chief of the armed
ery for profit taking as we worry about who
at it, they see, with disgust and fear, the services, has engaged our military in aggreswillwin the National League Pennant.
terrorist nation of the world, with the Nation- sive acts of war in the invasion of Grenada,
Our nation is militarized at the expense of
al Security Council stationed in the White the naval shelling of Lebanon, the blockadhealth care, libraries, educational instituHouse and the CIA on the Potomac plotting ing of Nicaraguan ports, and ground wars in
tions, adequate nutrition for all. The shrinkdestabilizations of other nations, backing up Afghanistan and Central America.
ing "safety net" of public funded institutions
We are a barbarian and lawless internafascist military regimes, actively assisting in
which should aid persons who fall from the
the slaughter of civilians in El Salvador, in tional nuclear armed bully ready to destroy
system - vitally hurt by it - is cut back
Nicaragua, in Lebanon, in the Philippines. the world to force our will upon it.
daily. Women, the aged, the young, the
hungry the oppressed and the needy are
being discarded.
The Middle Class itself is under attack but
-- so artful is it that the members of that class
do not know, even yet, that it is in the process of being phased out.
There are cries against Apartheid, but
neither Watts nor Miami has been rebuilt
and unemployment among young Black
males in many of our cities reaches 50%. No
one gives a damn. In every city of our nation
one can see the homeless, the starving, the
unemployed, the children. Inner city and
roadway infrastructure decay is a spector.
Yet, the most prestigious university in our
land, Harvard, gives the lauditory theme of
the decade: "Maximize profits."
--.
ALl P >;-'
In the midst of all of it the Atheist seeks
'F THERE WERE
YOUR
some recognition to exist so that he can be a
fGION IN '~
part of the solution, in his own right, acknowl~
,is:!!
edged for what he is - a caring human who
wants to use his intellect to set things right.
We are proud of all the Atheists as they
put a timid toe forward for in the final analysis we will probably be the ones who come
up with the solutions for the nation's ills.

-HfTf

fA MIL Y

Page 8

September, 1985

American Atheist

H. J. Skutel

THE TORAH MILITANT

THE ANTI-HUMANIST DOGMA OF
THE ORTHODOX RIGHT*
[TJhe Jewish chauvinism of the present time has very deep roots in the
fanaticism of the Jewish religion, in the
Bible and even more in the Talmud.
Dr. Israel Shahak,
chairperson of the Israeli League
for Human and Civil Rights
n response to the racist and terrorist
Ioutrages
of Israel's religious extremists

and, more specifically, to the election to the

Knesset of Rabbi Meir Kahane, voices have
been raised in both Israel and the United
States which, in contradistinction, purport
to represent the spirit and tenets of authentic Judaism, To hear these Jewish notables
tell it, Judaism has always been actuated by
lofty considerations of universal love and
justice, which have been perverted by a
minority of misguided zealots.
A particularly forceful enunciation of this
view was made by Haim Cohn, former Deputy President Emeritus of the Supreme
Court of Israel, in the opening speech at the
founding conference of the International
Center for Peace in the Middle East in Tel
Aviv on December 15, 1982. Cohn was
speaking at a time when extremists among
Israel's Orthodox were urging the annexation of South Lebanon, which they described
as "the territories of the tribes of Naftali and
Asher" and "another part of Eretz Israel"
(i.e., the Biblically-promised "Land of Israel,"
stretching from the Nile to the Euphrates).'
And what of Jewish morality? We
have witnessed oflate (and not only of
late) manifestations of the Halacha
[Orthodox religious law] being inter-

preted to the effect that the Torah*

was extolling wars and conquests, as
if the people singled out to be the
chosen people were indeed superior
to other peoples and had every right
to despise and subdue them. We
reject this distortion of Judaism and
its values .... We are determined to
see to it that Jewish ethics are reinstated in their glory. The greatest precept of the Torah is that all mankind
was created in God's image, and we
are enjoined to love all men who were
created by the one God.
Subsequently, Rabbi Chaim Pearl, rabbi
emeritus of New York's Conservative Adath
Israel Synagogue, decried "this freak union
of Torah and terror" so "destructive of Jewish ethical standards."2 Dr. Israel Katz, head
of Israel's Center for Social Policy Studies,
admonished all "moulders of public opinion"
to "join forces . . . for the extirpation of
ruthless practices and the preservation of
the true humanistic Jewish values,"! while
Israel's Attorney General Yitzhak Zamir
inveighed against proponents of "Kahanism," which is a "distortion of Judaism,
which strives for justice."4
In fact, the ethical-universalism commonly
ascribed to Judaism by well-meaning communal leaders and Zionist apologists is regarded as unfounded, if not arrant heresy,
by thousands of Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox Jews who have proven the staunchest supporters of right-wing politicians in
Israel and the U.S.5
Why is this so?
The Reformist-Orthodox

*1have chosen to use the term "Orthodox

Right" whereas there are many self-described Orthodox Jews who incline towards
a liberal interpretation of parts of the Scriptures. Roughly twenty percent of the Israeli
Jewish population and ten percent of the
North American Jewish population identify
with Orthodoxy.

Austin, Texas

Schism

Over the centuries, observant Jews have

endeavored to adapt the rituals and mituahs

*Comprising for the Orthodox both the socalled Old Testament (Written Law) and the
post-Biblical compilation of laws and interpretations known as the Talmud (Oral Law).

September, 1985

(commandments) of the Torah "revealed at

Sinai" to the changed circumstances of the
Dispersion. The loss of the Second Temple,
priesthood, and sacrifices in the first century
A.D. engendered Rabbinic Judaism (embracing all subsequent sects and tendencies), which substituted in their stead prayer,
good deeds, and rigorous study of the
Torah. National purity and collective moral
perfection, it was believed, would entice the
Almighty to send a human Messiah who
would "ingather the exiles" - this time
forever - in the Promised Land. During the
Middle Ages (the period of classical Judaism), in both the Christian world and the
Arab-Islamic world, but particularly in the
former, this biblically-inspired ethnocentrism
was enhanced as a consequence of Jews
being regarded as a theologically threatening minority, frequently subject to officially instigated violence and despoliation.
Beginning in the latter part of the eighteenth century and continuing into the midnineteenth century, a number of German
Jewish intellectuals, among them philosopher Moses Mendelssohn (1729-1786) and
historians Leopold Zunz (1794-1886) and
Abraham Geiger (1810-1874), attempted to
reconcile normative (i.e., Orthodox) Judaism with the secular rationalism of the
Enlightenment.
In the new secular code of ethics "divorced from religious belief and independent
of dogma" promulgated by the eighteenth
century philosophes, primary importance
was assigned to the "love of humanity," a
concept already present in the teachings of
Christ, Seneca, and Montaigne, but which
now exerted an unprecedented influence.s
Accordingly, in the minds of many religious
Jews the centrality of the Children of Israel
in the divine Order and pining for the Messiah was supplanted by a new spirit of
humanitarianism which maintained that
"greater joy and satisfaction" was the reward
of those people "endowed with a capacity
for love and compassion . . . beyond their
biological pale." Evidence of this broadened
moral and social vista appears in the musings of Menasseh Ben Porath (1767-1831), a

Page 9

Jew living in present -day Byelorussia:

Assuming that the Creator, blessed
be He, would one day place me, my
family. and my beloved ones and relatives in a state of everlasting wellbeing, but there would still remain evil
in the world afflictingsome livingcreatures, especially human beings, Isurely would not choose to enjoy such a
lot. . . . What difference is there
between me and all other creatures?
All are His handiwork. As long as
there still remains even one living
creature that has not attained its relative perfection ... it certainly is impossible to think that the final goal of a
better world has been reached."
The ceremonial and liturgical reforms
initiated by the German maskilim (enlighteners) became the basis of the Jewish
Reform Movement which, by 1850, became
the dominant force in the religious life of
German Jewry. Contemporaneously, German-Jewish immigrants were establishing
Reform synagogues in the U.S.
In contrast to the then-predominant Orthodox view, the Reformists rejected the
doctrine of a personal Messiah and Kashruth (dietary laws), recognized the sanctity
and validity of the two other revealed religions, and most important from an ethical
standpoint, averred that the moral laws of
the Hebrew Scriptures were universally applicable. Indeed, at the Reform-led Pittsburgh Conference in November, 1885, it
was resolved that allmention of the return of
Jewry to its ancient homeland and restoration of the Temple be expunged from Reform prayerbooks. The Pittsburgh platform
proclaimed the doctrine of Israel's prophetdirected universal mission to the nations and
denied that Jews were a nation in their own
right.
A cynical analysis of the motives and ramifications of Reformism is offered by one Jewish commentator:
The term "prophetic Judaism" was
first put into circulation by the early
Reform rabbis in Germany and was
their warrant for housebreaking Judaism for the acculturated upper class
and its social satellites by spaying it of
its richest traditions and ethnic vigor.
Furthermore, the term provided the
acculturated Jew with the conceit that
his obscene pursuit of social acceptance by his Christian peers had a
divinely-preordained higher purpose.
... The "prophetic Jew" gravitates, in
politics, to the liberal wing of his country's Establishment, while his children
sometimes turn from the parental
bourgeois environment ... to Populism or more formal radical doctrines,

Page 10

a process which produced Leon

Trotsky and Rosa Luxemburg ... as
well as the young Jews on the American campus today who ... empathize
with Black Panther anti-Semitism and
with Al-Fatah.8
Needless to say, Reform Judaism, traumatized by Nazi anti-Semitism and the revelations of the Holocaust, subsequently joined
the other branches of Judaism (excluding
certain anti-Zionist Hassidic sects)* in its
support for political Zionism.
Meanwhile, Orthodoxy, with its Talmudic
fundamentalism, remained, for the most
part, firmly ensconced among the insular
shetI (little town) Jews of Eastern Europe.
Professor Shubert Spero of Israel's Orthodox-run Bar-Ilan University, delineates the
psycho-ideological supports which underlie
the Orthodox-extremist outlook:
Fundamentalism consists of a rigid, literalistic approach to the Bible
and to rabbinic teachings, without the
mediation of an historical perspective.
Example: the argument that retaining
Yamit [returned to Egypt in April,
1982], Sidon [in southern Lebanon],
and Hebron [on the West Bank] must
be fought for with equal zeal because
all three are included in the borders of
the Land of Israel as promised by God
to Abraham.
Particularism constitutes a focusing on God, Torah, and Israel in terms
which completely block out the wider
world with its concerns, outlooks, and
ability to affect Israel.
Authoritarianism . . . tends to
desensitize one to the normal promptings of reason and morality. Ifall questions are answered in terms of "permitted" or "forbidden," with obedience to a higher authority the overriding virtue, then the power of the
individual to discriminate between
what is normal and immoral, intelligent and foolish is progressively
deadened."
Not surprisingly, the Reformist threat was
greeted with intractable hostility by the traditionalist leaders, as may be seen from the
pronouncement by a group of nineteenthcentury Polish rabbis in the city of Lissa:
All commandments and prohibitions contained in the books of Moses,
and that, too, in the form that they

*Thousands of ultra-Orthodox Jews reject

political Zionism, maintaining that the Jewish "national home" can, properly speaking,
only be reconstituted by the Messiah.

September, 1985

have received by Talmudic interpretation, are of divine origin, binding for all
time upon the Jew, and not one of
these commandments or prohibitions,
be its character what it may, can ever
be abolished or modified by any
human authority. 10
Nor has the Orthodox attitude concerning the inviolability of the Scriptures
changed. "[T]he whole Conservative and
Reform so-called approaches to Torah and
Halacha [are] absolutely groundless, erroneous, without any vestige of truth, designed to deceive the inexperienced," fulminates an eminent Talmudist, Dr. Chaim
Zimmerman. In a joint statement denouncing Aba Ebban's portrayal of Judaism in the
Autumn, 1984, PBS series "Heritage: Civilization and the Jews" five major Orthodox
organizations assailed the Jewish State's
most articulate defender for suggesting "our
sacred Torah" is a "man-authored work,
incorporating myth and legend, of our faith
as a slowly evolved invention, and our Godgiven Halacha as a changeable system ... "
The statement went on to say that, "A presentation of Judaism deriving from a secular
historical, cultural, and humanistic viewpoint, no matter how laudatory, misses the
entire focus and axis of Jewish history."!'
Now, the Talmudic interpretations referred to by the aforecited Polish rabbis have
proved a continuous source of embarrassment for progressive Jews. As Dr. Israel
Shahak has shown in a courageous study,
the Torah and certain quasi-canonical, postTalmudic literature (no less esteemed by the
Orthodox) abound with dubious, if not
clearly derogatory, references to nonJews.12 This is least of all evident to the
assimilated North American or lion-Orthodox Jew, familiar only with the English
Masoretic text of the Bible.
"[W]hen Orthodox Jews today (or all
Jews before about 1780) read the Bible, they
are reading a very different book, with a
totally different meaning, from the Bible as
read by non-Jews or non-Orthodox Jews,"
explains Shahak. ''This distinction applies
even in Israel, although both parties read the
text in Hebrew. Experience, particularly
since 1967, has repeatedly corroborated
this. Many Jews in Israel (and elsewhere)
who are not Orthodox and have little detailed knowledge of the Jewish religion, have
tried to shame Orthodox Israelis (or rightwingers who are strongly influenced by religion) out of their inhuman attitude towards
the Palestinians by quoting to them verses
from the Bible in their plain humane sense. It
was always found, however, that such arguments do not have the slightest effect on
those who follow classical Judaism."13
In his book, A History Of Zionism (New
York: Schocken, 1972), Walter Laqueur
describes the profound discomfort expe-

American Atheist

rienced by the Jewish enlighteners during

the nineteenth-century period of Emancipation as they struggled to portray Judaism as
a repository of universal humanistic values,
"Much of the apologetic literature concentrated on refuting anti-Semitic attacks
on the Jewish religion, but in this respect the
Jewish liberals were on shakier ground than
they realized," writes Laqueur. "The antiSemites rediscovered the Talmud and the
[sixteenth-century] Shulkan Arukh [the
authoritative code of Orthodox law] whereas the Jews had just about managed to
forget them. Educated Jews of that generation genuinely believed that 'their religion
had always taught universalist ethics,' and
the general Jewish public was genuinely
astonished and outraged when it realized
that this was not so and that the Talmud
included sayings and injunctions which made
strange reading in the modern context"
The Pure And The Impure
The anti-humanist content of Orthodoxy,
accentuated in the homilies and declarations
of its right-wing adherents, derives first and
foremost from the conception of the Jewish
people as the "Chosen of God." "Those who
interpret the concept of chosenness to mean
that the Jews chose G-d rather than that
G-d chose Israel, reveal their G-dlessness,
as well as their intellectual dishonesty,"
Rabbi Dr. Samuel Turk tells the over 200,000
readers of New York's internationally-circulated, English-language Jewish Press
weekly. "The whole Torah is permeated
with the divine selection of Israel."14
In the same paper, Rabbi Abraham Stone
expands on the idea of the Jewish people as
the centerpiece of Creation, citing in the
process the relevant Talmudic passages:
Indeed, G-d expresses an innate
love to each and every Jew, as BaalShem-Tov [the founder of the mystically-oriented Hassidic movement]
teaches. Thus, the creation of the
world - "for the sake of the Jewish
people" (Ber. 1:1, Rashi) - is not only
for the sake of KlalYisroel [the Jewish
collectivity] but is also intended for
each individual [Jew]. ...
For this reason each Jew is required
to say - "for my sake the world was
created" (Mishna, Sanhedrin 4:5).
And, in the same vein - "Whoever
saves one Jewish soul is regarded as
having saved the entire world." For, if
even only one Jew is missing, there is
something basic lacking in the entire
Creation. IS
"It is unfortunate that Judaism has been
arbitrarily classified with all the 'religions' of
the earth," laments Rabbi Dov AharoniFisch, until recently Executive Director of

Austin, Texas

Herut Zionists of America. Only the Jews

were "personally briefed by god," asserts
Fisch, the event "confirmed by millions of
live witnesses who stood at the foot of
Mount Sinai.">
The assumption that Jews, by virtue of
being god's chosen, are superior to nonJews, informs the spirit and content of
Orthodox Right exegetics and popular literature.
In the birth of Esau and Jacob, Rabbi
Abraham Hecht, president of the onethousand-member Rabbinical Council of
America (the country's largest Orthodox
rabbinical organization), divines the "dichotomy between the Jewish people and the
gentile nations of the world." Jacob, sermonizes Hecht,
personifies the Jewish people. He is
described as "an innocent, perfect
man, dwelling in tents." In contrast,
Esau is identified as the embodiment
of the hunter, "a man of the field."
Jacob represents the purity of learning and the perfection of moral and
ethical conduct in the service of G-d,
while Esau demonstrates brute force
and beast-like cunning.
The Jewish people, Hecht concludes, are
therefore "a source of blessing to every
nation and country which willreceive them.
Their superior knowledge and moral rectitude creates the environment conducive to
the improvement of the way of life of the
nations amongst whom they reside."17
A leading propagandist of Jewish superiority is Yokheved Saks, a prolific Israeli
author (sixty-nine books, one hundred thirtyeight plays, forty songs) of religious children's literature. Evil in her books regularly
takes the form of secularist Jews and Arabs.
The latter are portrayed, in the words of one
reviewer, as having "heavy hairy arms, a
twisted mouth, black eyes shining with anger, they stink, they listen to noisy music.
They have low morals, they maltreat children, they swear, they are cowards and,
worst of all, they steal from Jews."IB Interviewed at her residence in the Orthodoxdominated city of Bnei Brak, north of Tel
Aviv, Saks synopsized her view of humanity:
"I think that the Arabs have a very clear
mentality: they are Arabs. I never heard a
story of an Arab who suffered an injury
because he defended a child or a woman.
But this judgment does not concern Arabs
only. They are not worse than Germans.
Americans and Europeans are more polite,
but they are also morally inferior. Ithink that
we are a superior race .... "19
The Manichean perception of Jew and
non-Jew as bearers, respectively, of human
and animal natures, moral/spiritual as opposed to an instinctual predisposition, originates in the canonical and quasi-canonical

September, 1985

writings in which Orthodox learning has for

centuries been steeped. Several canonical
passages compare non-Jews to animals (i,e.,
Berakhot 58a, Kiddushin 68a, Ezekiel
23:20),20 and, in fact, the Yiddish word
Shaygets, denoting a "gentile boy or young
man," is derived from the Hebrew Shegetz
which, according to the Meggido Modem
Hebrew-English Dictionary, published in
Israel, means: "unclean animal; loathsome
creature; abomination" and, finally,"wretch;
unruly youngster; gentile youngster."21
Regarding the sub-human, inherently impure nature of non-Jews, the revered twelfthcentury Jewish sage Maimonides (Ramban),
says the following:
[A] Gentile does not contract
corpse uncleanness; and if a Gentile
touches, carries, or overshadows a
corpse he is as one who did not touch
it. To what is this like? It is like a beast
which touches a corpse or overshadows it. And this applies not to corpse
uncleanness only, but to any other
kind of uncleanness: neither Gentiles
nor cattle are susceptible to any uncleanness .... Of all animated creatures there is no species which, while
yet alive, contracts ... uncleanness
except a man alone, provided he is an
Israelite."
.
"[T]he Sages have decreed," Maimonides
writes further on, that "all Gentiles, male
and female ... convey uncleanness like men
with a flux in every respect, provided that
the male is aged nine years and a day or
more and the female three years and a day
or more."23 Accordingly, the abridged codification of Orthodox law, the Kitzur Shulhan
Aruh, found in nearly every Orthodox home,
cautions the Orthodox woman upon leaving
the mikueh (purificatory bath) to
take precaution to have one of her
friends meet her and touch her, so
that no unknown thing such as a dog,
an ass, a pig, a horse, a leper, or even
an ignorant [irreligious] person or a
heathen [non-Jew] would meet her
first. If any of these do meet her, a
God-fearing woman should perform
the immersion again.24
Numerous similar examples of gentileavoidance can be cited from the various
popular guides for the observant
The uncleanliness of the "goyim" and the
concomitant imperative that the Chosen
defend themselves from all contaminating
influences, explains the Orthodox-extremists' abhorrence to intermarriage or, as
Rabbi Kahane has made clear, to any intimate commingling between Jew and nonJew. "In Beersheba and Dimona it is not only
Arabs who bed Jewish girls. It is also Black

Page 11

Hebrews [Negroes from the United States

not recognized as Jews] and the Portuguese
workers on the Negev bases," Kahane wrote
three years ago in his column (still continuing) in the Jewish Press. "In Nahariya and
Tel Aviv, it is also UN soldiers. In all of Eretz
Yisrael there is abomination and desecration .... "
In December, 1983, Israeli rabbi Ephraim
Zalmanovitch, head of the Institute for Examining Social Problems in the Eyes of the
Halacha, ruled that "Arabs should not be
permitted to buy flats in houses where Jews
live." Zalmanovitch's decision, submitted for
consideration to the Minister of Housing,
was prompted by the demands of the Jewish
residents of the so-called "Coptic Quarter"
of Jaffa that non-J.ews should not be permitted to settle in a new building in that neighborhood." A similar ruling by Rabbi Yoseph
Yashar, the Ashkenzai (European) Chief
Rabbi of Acre, decreed that "the 137 Arab
families which already live in the suburb of
Kiryat Wolfson should be expelled" and
"other Arab families prevented" from living
there "in the future."26
Meanwhile, Rabbi Kahane, who enjoys
the support of numerous right -wingers in the
Knesset, continues to agitate for legislation
reminiscent of the 1935 Nazi racial purity
laws, which would impose fines and imprisonment on any non-Jew having sexual relations with a Jew. In keeping with Talmudic
law, Kahane has suggested flogging for the
offending Jew.
In a Jewish Press article (August 3,1984)
entitled "Is She Jewish?," written in the form
of an open letter, the fictive writer, Steve,
beseeches his cousin Andy not to go through
with his contemplated marriage to a nonJewish girl. All manner of fearsome prospects are evoked to discourage the wayward
young man: "Goyish children," burial of his
wife and children in a non-Jewish cemetery,
misery for his parents, etc. But exactly
where in the scale of Creation this nonJewish girl stands is best suggested by the
piteous supplication to Andy: "Don't throw
your glorious holy heritage in the toilet."
Jews wishing to battle against the "plague"
of intermarriage can join Hineni (Here Iam),
an 18,OOO-memberNew York-based "international" organization founded in 1973 by
the glamorous "Orthodox revivalist" and
Holocaust survivor Rebbetzin Esther Jungreis. Jewish purity, preaches Jungreis, is
indispensable for the fulfillment of Jewish
destiny. "The Jew has been designated to
serve as the conscience of mankind," she
rhapsodizes in one of her inspirational booklets, with a "mission to educate and elevate
man to the heights of compassion, righteousness, and brotherhood." A Zionist militant
who describes the Arabs as "renowned for
their thievery," the Rebbetzin (wife of an
Orthodox rabbi) can be seen Sunday afternoons on television in "five hundred cities,

Page 12

coast to coast."
Recommended reading for Jewish parents is How to Stop an Intermarriage (New
York: Feldheim, 1984)by Oregon-born rabbi
Kalman Packouz, described on the back
cover as "an internationally renowned expert on intermarriage prevention." Ina resolute, matter-of-fact tone, Packouz proffers a
variety of polemical and even physically
coercive devices for thwarting a mixed marriage. One strategem calls for the rabbi concerned to ask the future bride (a Gentile
deemed ready for conversion) to repeat
after him a statement offensive to non-Jews.
"The essence of this method," explains
Packouz, is to pit "the non-Jew's latent antiSemitism and love for her religion against
her self-image as a would-be Jew."
According to a March 13, 1984, report by
Israel Shahak, certain Orthodox rabbis in
Israel require the prospective convert to
"spit on the Crucifix or before a Church" to
prove their allegiance to Judaism.
The Orthodox Right's obsession with the
Hebraic authenticity of one's antecedents
has now been wedded to computer technology. Operating out of a three-story building
in Brooklyn, New York, Rabbi Naftali Halberstam, assisted by six researchers, operates the World Jewish Geneological Organization (Yochsin Institute), designed to trace
the lineage of individual Jews. At present, his
computer database contains the names and
family histories of about 100,000 Jews. The
rabbi, a prominent Hassidic leader who
claims to have-traced his own lineage back
to King David, believes there willbe a more
pressing need for ancestral investigation in
light of the Reform decision to accept as
Jews children born of a non-Jewish mother
married to a Jewish father.
"With the sophisticated research tools
made available by our system," says Robert
Katz, manager of the J.G.O., "it is now possible to trace back family histories to Adam,
the first man."27
In short, all non-Jews in Orthodox law
remain strangers forever, with inferior status, until they are converted in accordance
with the rigorous and, some would argue,
demeaning criteria of the Halacha (e.g.,
immersion of a naked female convert in front
of three rabbis). * In Israel, non-Jews who
abide by the seven "Noachide commandments" (i.e., establish courts of justice and
forswear idolatry, murder, stealing, incest,
blasphemy, and the eating of flesh torn from
a living animal) receive the status of Ger
Toshav (resident alien) and are allowed to
live under conditions of accepted inferiority

*According to researchers at the American

Jewish Committee, 12-16,000 conversions a
year are performed by non-Orthodox rabbis, 2-3,000 by Orthodox ones.

September, 1985

among Jews. As Gershom Schoken, editor

of Ha'a retz (October 19, 1984) explains, in a
Jewish state run in strict conformity with the
Halacha "there shall be no objection to the
restoration of slavery." In fact, it is questionable whether in such a religiously-charged
atmosphere Christians would even qualify
for "resident alien" status. A pamphlet entitled "When a Jew Becomes a Christian,"
written by the late highly-respected Rabbi
Aryeh Kaplan and published by the National
Conference of Synagogue Youth (the fourthousand-member youth movement of the
Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations
of America), reads in part:
Christians claim that [the] threepart god that they worship is the same
as the God worshipped by the Jews.
This is not true. The Bible states
(Deuteronomy 6:4), "Hear 0 Israel,
the L-rd is our G-d, the L-rd is
One." ... Idolatry does not necessarily mean worshipping a god of stone
and wood .... The three-part god of
Christianity is not the G-d of Judaism .... Christianity for a Jew is a
form of idolatry ...
Hence, so long as Christians persist in
worshipping Jesus as god incarnate, moreover adorning their homes and sanctuaries
with "graven images" of him and those of
numerous saints, Christians would ipso facto remain idolaters whose presence in Israel
would constitute, in Orthodox law, hillul
ha'shem - a desecration of god's name.
"If there is a group that wants to put
bombs in Christian establishments, which
are a disgrace to Israel, you won't expect me
to be against them," declares a West Bank
computer programmer and supporter of
Meir Kahane.P
It is saddening that the long-persecuted
Ethiopian Jews will now be able to join with
their Israeli co-religionists in a shared aversion to Israeli non-Jews. "The Arabs are evil
in the eyes of the Ethiopians. They are something inferior and bad which one must take
care to avoid," reads a January 7 report in Al
Hamishmar. In defending the Jewishness of
the Falashas, Rabbi David Shloush, Sephardie (Oriental) chief rabbi of Natanya, notes
approvingly how it was their practice in
Ethiopia to "purify themselves" after "associating with non-Jews" at the market, and
how they initiallyrefused to pray on Mt. Zion
"because of the proximity of a church."29
The Sanctity of (Jewish) Life
A popularly-held belief, reinforced by
scores of post -Reform Jewish historians and
exegetes and their well-meaning, ifignorant,
Christian counterparts, is that Judaism, in
all its parts, has always regarded both Jewish and non-Jewish life as sacred.

American Atheist

"The unique status and stature of man is a

dominant feature of Biblical and rabbinic
morality," writes Hebrew University philosopher Dr. David Hartman. "In the Talmud,
the fact that Adam was originally created
alone was intended to teach that he who
saved a single lifeshould be regarded as ifhe
had saved an entire world, and he who destroyed a single life should be regarded as
having destroyed an entire world. "30
The former Israeli Defense Minister (now
Minister of Industry and Trade) Ariel
Sharon, alluded to this concept during his
recent libel trial against Time magazine. A
Time article (February 21, 1983) alleged that
Sharon had encouraged Lebanese Phalangists in September, 1982, to kill Palestinian
civilians in the Sabra and Shatilla refugee
camps in revenge for the assassination of
Lebanese President-elect Bashir Gemayel.
Sharon, an early patron of the Gush Emunim and himself the known perpetrator of
numerous attacks on Arab civilians, testified
in his defense that "high moral values" had
guided his long military career and that
human life had always been "the most
important thing" in the religion, culture, and
education of the Jewish state."
In fact, Orthodox fanatics regard as ludicrous any notion of the coequal value of
Jewish and non-Jewish life. According to
their reading of the Talmud, any acts of
decency to non-Jews are done to forestall
their hostility (i.e., "for the sake of peace,"
"in the interests of peace," etc.) or to secure
or enhance Jewish prosperity. (Jewish apostates, on the other hand, are deemed undeserving of even feigned goodwill!) These
fundamentalists point, for example, to passages advising that, "one is not obliged to
bring them [idolators] up [from the pit],
though one must not cast them down [into
it]" (Avodah Zarah, 26b); that "An Israelite
woman should not act as a midwife to a
heathen, because she delivers a child to
idolatry" (Avodah Zarah, 26a), and to
Maimonides (Mishna Torah, "Sabbath," 2,
20-21) where it is held permissible to violate
the Sabbath when the possibility exists that
an "Israelite" may be under a collapsed
building, and not a "heathen" - even if it be
"a thousand heathens." Arab life, specifically, is considered irrelevant on the basis of
Sukkah, 52b, stating that one of the four
things which god "repents that He had
created" are "the Ishmaelites."
Anxious lest these antiquated social categories and retrograde precepts languish and
wither away in obscurity, the medievalists of
the Orthodox Right dutifully resuscitate and
infuse them with fresh legitimacy in homiletic discourses read by thousands. *

*Contrast this situation with the assessment

of Catholicism's changed view of Jews "over

Austin, Texas

"Thou shalt not stand idly by the blood of

thy neighbor" (Leviticus 19:16), explains
Rabbi Dr. Samuel Turk, "obligates us not to
act indifferently when our fellow Jew is in
mortal danger. ... " What the Torah asks,
Turk continues, "is that there shall exist a
spirit of friendship between one Jew and
another."32
The Habad Hassid, Rabbi Shmuel Butman, one of the thousands of ultra-Orthodox
followers of the famed Lubavitcher Rebbe,
Menachem Schneerson (honored by Ronald
Reagan on April 13, 1984, for his "moral and
spiritual wisdom"), elaborates on precisely
who among our fellow men is to be loved:
Everything in the world revolves
around and is dependent upon Jews
and their conduct. ... Prefacing prayers with a declaration of intent to love
one's fellow induces G-d to fulfillthe
requests made in prayer. Just as a
father is happy when all his children
live together in harmony, and hastens
to fulfilltheir desires, so G-d complies
with our requests in prayers when His
children - all Jews - live in peace
and brotherly love .... The utterance
of "I hereby take upon myself to fulfill
the mitzvah, 'love your fellow as yourself " is obviously an expression of
love and unity between Jews.33
Widespread acceptance of these morallycircumscribed attitudes among Orthodoxy's
future educators and spiritual leaders is suggested by an anecdote from the liberallyinclined Rabbi Steven Riskin of New York's
Lincoln Square Synagogue:
When Mesivta Ohr Torah - Manhattan Hebrew High Schools - were
about to open nine years ago, I interviewed approximately one dozen
rabbinic candidates from major yeshivot [religious colleges] throughout the
country. One of the questions I asked
was: "If you prepay for an electric
shaver at a gentile-owned department
store and receive two shavers in the

the past twenty years" from Rabbi A.

James Rudin, director of "interreligious
affairs" for the American Jewish Committee (Op Ed page, New York Times,
February 23, 1985): "American Catholic
textbooks have been purged of antiJewish material, anti-Semitic prayers are
being removed from liturgy, and seminaries are changing their teachings about
Jews and Judaism. With the 'teaching of
contempt' about Jews and Judaism condemned, many young people cannot remember the animus that once poisoned
relations."

September, 1985

mail, what should you do with the

second shaver?" Much to my shock
and chagrin, all but one of these musmakhim [holders of rabbinical degrees] maintained that the second
shaver was to be kept as well, and a
number even insisted that it was forbidden to return the shaver, as one
dare not "strengthen the hand of the
Gentile." Needless to say, the one
candidate who insisted that the shaver
be returned with a note explaining
that, as an Orthodox Jew, it is forbidden to keep property which one did
not pay for - thus injecting the injunction to sanctify God's Name in the
eyes of the gentile world - received
the position.P
Interviews with ultra-Orthodox Israeli
youngsters indicate the horrific end to which
a brutally particularistic ethos may lead.
Comments one teenage student in Bnei
Brak: "In spite of the fact that Ariel Sharon is
not only a secular person but even eats nonkosher food, he does not violently oppose
religion, and perhaps without his knowing
this, his opinions about the Arabs are
somewhat similar to the opinions of the religious Jews. The opinions of the religious
Jews are that all Arabs should be killed."35
Asked in another interview when the Messiah would come, a ten-year-old girl in Jerusalem replied: "This is well known. After we
killall the goyim." How did she know? "From
school. And her father, who studies during
the day and teaches others in the evenings .... her father who knows so much,
confirms this. It is so written."36 Studies
done in "recent years," advises educational
psychologist Dr. K. Benyamini, "show a
deterioration in the image of the Israeli Arab.
Religious children are more extreme in their
negative attitude towards the Arab."37
When addressing kindred hearts, representatives of the Orthodox Right shamelessly exalt the selective spirit of compassion
and tolerance to which they subscribe, while
pointing to the necessity for moderation lest
the wrath of the Gentiles be aroused. *
Speaking at the 1984 convention of the
National Council of Young Israel (whose

*But not always. When a Jewish Press

reader, a newsstand operator, complained
(January 13, 1984) to columnist Rabbi Abraham Stone that his anti-gentile commentaries "would only bring out provocations and
disrespect" from non-Jews who were purchasing the Press from his newsstand, Stone
lashed back: "How long must Jews live with
a galut [exile] mentality? It's high time that
Jews worry less what non-Jews might think
- as long as we do the right thing as prescribed in the Torah .... "

Page 13

member synagogues serve over 200,000

Orthodox Jews), New York Rabbi Aryeh
Ralbag, according to one report,
emphasized the overriding importance of avoiding antagonizing the
non-Jewish world to the point of inciting more dangerous attacks against
Israel and the Jewish people. For that
reason, classical Torah scholars had,
for instance, permitted Jewish doctors to desecrate the Sabbath to save
non-Jewish lives, even though such a
dispensation is not normally part of
Jewish law. Thus, Rabbi Ralbag reasoned, the government of the State of
Israel may be justified in protecting,
for instance, the Moslem mosques on
the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, even
though there is a mitzvah in the Torah
to destroy the shrines of non-Jewish
religions in Israel. 38
Two months later, in a scathing attack in
the Jerusalem Post (Int. Ed.), Henry Siegman, executive director of the American
Jewish Congress, deplored "the ambivalent
response" to Jewish terrorism "from the
Orthodox community in the U.S., no less
than in Israel." Repugnance for Jewish terror, Siegman noted, "was most pronounced
among Israeli secularists." The Orthodox
. response, on the other hand, he continued,
seems to suggest that for this segment of the community (i.e., those
who are most observant of religious
law and ritual), non-Jewish life is less
valuable than Jewish life. Indeed, for
some it seems to be virtually worthless, except for the concern of ma
yomru hagoyim (what will the nonJews say?). What this says about the
ethical standards of Orthodox Judaism is painful to contemplate.
Reformism Not Enough
The presence of anti-humanist tendencies
in Judaism, blatantly propagated by a small
number of influential voices among the
Orthodox, must be vociferously repudiated
by progressive Jews. Anything less renders
hypocritical the work of the Anti-Defamation
League, the past fusillades of indignation
levelled at Jesse Jackson and Louis Farakhan, efforts to further Jewish-Christian" dialogue," and repeated evocations of the
Holocaust, predicated as it was on a racial
supremacist ideology. Moreover, insupportably deficient is any critique of political
Zionism which ignores the wellsprings of
scripturally-based exclusivism from which it
draws.
"There are in Judaism elements of discrimination and hostility against Gentiles
that were written as religious 'musts' and

'decrees,' " writes Hebrew University Professor Yehoshafat Harkabi in Ha'aretz

(August 9, 1984). "It is from them that
Kahane draws his power more than from his
supporters .... As long as the Jews were a
minority in a gentile area, they couldn't
afford to take hostile stands to the goyim.
But once we had the power in our hands and
we again became an active element in history, these elements in our tradition began
to bloom."
It is conceivable that for many Jews, however liberal and humanistic they consider
themselves, a forthright confrontation with
the pernicious assumptions of the Orthodox
Right willprecipitate a painful reexamination
of the scriptural components of their Jewish
identity. More important, however, is the
much-needed soul-searching which a groundswell of progressive-inspired incrimination
willhopefully provoke in the extremist camp.
Meanwhile, it is unreasonable to expect
that non-Jews (anymore than the majority of
secular Jews) are capable of identifying the
doctrinal and ritualistic features which distinguish the various tendencies in Judaism.
Given, therefore, the bravado of the extremist rabbis, and in the absence of any vigorous, sustained censure, there is the abiding
danger that the self-serving, tribalistic ethics
of the Orthodox Right willbe seized upon by
the ill-informed or demagogic and be attributed to Jews collectively .
References
1. From an advertisement by Gush Emunim (Bloc ofthe Faithful) in Ma'ariv, October
3,1982.
.
2. Opinion page, Jerusalem Post (Int. Ed.),
.June 24-July 1, 1984.
3. Quoted in David Krivine, "Living with
Violence," Ibid., July 2-8, 1984.
4. "The Danger of Kahanism,' Ibid., week
ending December 22, 1984.
5. Hanna Kim, "A Conservative Society,"
Al Hamishmar, March 28, 1984. See also
interviews with Jewish-American supporters
of Sharon in Tel Aviv weekly Koteret Rashit
(January 30, 1985), wherein an Orthodox
merchant tells the paper's New York correspondent Michael Shemer, "Since the sixties there has been a change here. Then (the
Jews) voted for Democrats, and their
(Israeli) idols were Abba Eban and Pinhas
Sapir. Today the Jews vote for Republicans
and even for the more extreme among
them."
Ronald Reagan's liaison with the "Jewish
community" is former law professor Dr.
Marshall Breger, an Orthodox Jew.
. 6. Henri Peyre, "The Influence of 18th Century Ideas on The French Revolution,"
Journal of The History of Ideas, Vol. 4,1949,
p.74.
7. Quoted in Isaac E. Barzilay, "Menasseh
of Iiya and The Enlightenment," Jewish

Social Studies, Winter 1984, p. 6.

8. Judd L. Teller, "The Jewish Experience
with Liberalism," Judaism, Winter 1972,
p.47.
9. "Messianism in Context," Jerusalem
Post (Int. Ed.), June 24-July 1, 1984.
10. Quoted in David Philipson, The Reform
Movement in Judaism (New York: Macmillan, 1907), p. 82.
11. Jewish Press, October 12, 1984. See
Ebban's rebuttal to Orthodox accusations in
Jerusalem Post (Int. Ed.), week ending
March 9, 1985.
12. Israel Shahak, "The Jewish Religion
and Its Attitude to Non-Jaws,' Khamsin,
Journal of Revolutionary Socialists of The
Middle East (London: Ithaca Press, 1981),
Vols.8&9.
13. Ibid., Vol. 8, p. 47.
14. "The Torah's World Perspective," Jewish Press, May 18, 1984.
15. "Expounding The Torah," Ibid., May 7,
1982.
16. Jews for Nothing (New York: Feldheim, 1984), pp. 298-299.
17. "Parashat Hashavua," Jewish Press,
November 4, 1983.
18. Neri Livneh, Kol Ha'ir (Jerusalem Friday paper), December 30, 1983.
19. Benni Avni, Ha'ir (Tel Aviv Friday
paper), January 13, 1984.
20. The Babylonian Talmud, Trans. by
Maurice Simon (London: Soncino Press,
1960) and The Holy Scriptures according to
the Masoretic text, Jewish Publication Society of America.
21. Shahak, "Jewish Religion," Khamsin,
Vol. 8,p. 38.
22. Code of Maimonides (Mishna Torah),
Trans. from the Hebrew by H. Danby (New
Haven: Yale University Press, 1957), Book
X, Treatise I, "Corpse Uncleanness," Chap.
1, 13 & 14, pp. 8-9.
23. Ibid., Treatise IV, "Render Couch and
Seat Unclean," Chap. II, 10, p. 212.
24. Compiled by Rabbi Solomon Ganzfried
(1870). Trans. from the Hebrew by Hyman
E. Goldin (New York: Hebrew Publishing
Co., n.d.), Vol. IV, Chap. 162, "Immersion,"
10, p. 42.
25_ Gad Lior, Yediot Ahronot, December
25,1983.
26. Ha'aretz, January 3, 1984.
27. Jewish Press, November 11, 1983.
28. Mauricio Yeger, Al Hamishmar, FebruaryS, 1984.
29. Haim Shapiro, Jerusalem Post (Int.
Ed.), week ending February 23,1985.
30. "Realism and Religion," Ibid., week ending October 13, 1984.
31. Arnold H. Lubasch, "Sharon Tells Of
'High Moral Values,' " New York Times,
November 16, 1984.
32. "Love Thy Neighbor," Jewish Press,
January 11, 1985.
33. "Challenge," Ibid., January 13, 1985.
The spiritual guide of the Habad sect is the
(Cont'd on page 34)

Page 14

September, 1985

American Atheist

Vladimir Milovidov

THE END OF THE WORLD

which question the ability of
Theories
mankind to make further progress have
gained fairly wide acceptance in the West
today. Moreover, the authors of many concepts predict an inevitable end of mankind
and the destruction of human civilization. All
these intrinsically anti-human concepts are
linked, to a varying degree, with the religious'
doctrines about the "approaching end of the
world" and "the last times" known as eschatology. Now that the real threat of mankind's
destruction in a nuclear war is hanging over
the world, there is a need to make a critical
assessment of the dogmas of religious
eschatology, taking into account that the
prophecy of "the end of the world" has
become the underpinning of the Christian
faith.
The fundamental ideas of Christian eschatology can be traced in several books of
the Old Testament, especially the Book of
Daniel, although the "Revelation" of John,
or the Apocalypse, remains the main source
of reference for all Christian theologists
propounding the idea of "the end of the
world," "the second advent" of Jesus Christ,
the ultimate defeat of Antichrist, or Satan,
and "the last judgment" where the "sinners"
will be punished and the "righteous" willbe
saved and rendered fit to enter heaven.
By studying early Christian sources,
scientists came to the conclusion a long time
ago that the early Christians associated
Antichrist with the Roman emperor Nero
who mercilessly persecuted them and the
"scarlet woman" with the "eternal city" of
Rome. They believed that "the second
advent" of Jesus Christ was near.
Painfully recovering from the crisis; the
Roman Empire was gradually rising from
slavery to adopt a more advanced social and
economic system: feudalism. Christianity
also was gradually gaining in strength. Once
a movement of the oppressed and the
dejected, it was gradually becoming moderate and loyal to the Emperor. That evolution
brought about a change in the Christians'
attitude to the problems of eschatology.
"The end of the world" and "the second
coming" of Christ were put off to an indefinite time in the future, while the eternal
"kingdom of god" on the earth was replaced
by the belief in the "kingdom of god" in
heaven.
Throughout the Middle Ages the eschato-

logical ideas of early Christians were repeat. edly revived in periods of major social conflicts and served as a kind of ideological
banner in the struggle waged by peasants
and artisans against lay and clerical feudal
lords. Each time new "signs" were discovered to prove the coming of "the last times,"
"the end of the world," the "exact" dates of
the advent of Antichrist and "the second
coming" ofJesus Christ.
Believers in Western Europe predicted
"the end of the world" in the year 1000, at the
start of the Crusades, and during epidemics
and other mass disasters. In Russia, the
"end of the world" was anticipated in 1669
and 1702. Many Russians at the end of the
seventeenth century and the beginning of
the eighteenth century believed that Emperor Peter the Great was Antichrist incarnate.
Modern history saw the appearance of
numerous religious organizations which
embraced the dogma about "the end of the
world" as their main doctrine. To these
belong, for example, the Adventist sects and
Jehovah's Witnesses, or the Jehovists. The
Adventist sect was set up by American
farmers in the 1830s. Its founder, William
Miller, predicted the "Second Coming"
between March 21, 1843, and March 21,
1844. When his prophecy did not materialize, he set a new date: October 22, 1844.
That prediction also proved wrong. The
Adventists have never again set a date for
the "Second Coming" but have continued to
urge their fellow-worshippers to be on the
alert and anticipate the "miracle" any time.
In the 1870s a group broke away from the
Adventists and adopted the name Jehovah's
Witnesses. The new movement was founded
by Charles Taze Russell. The Witnesses
believe that the history of the world is a
history of Jehovah's struggle against Satan,
who rebelled against him. They claim that in
1914 Satan was expelled from heaven and
that he hid on Earth. Christ followed him
invisibly to prepare his ultimate destruction.
The Witnesses predict a great battle (Armageddon) between the forces of Jehovah
God and those of Satan, which willresult in
the death of all people except the righteous.
It is highly significant from the point of view
of the political orientation of the movement
that the Witnesses' leaders associate Armageddon with a third world war in which all

Satanists willperish (a direct allusion to the

population of the socialist countries) .
In the last few decades the wave of eschatological doctrines has swept many Christian churches and faiths. This rise of the
eschatological movement results from the
dramatic social upheavals and conflicts of
our era. The modern scientific and technological revolution has brought to an extreme
man's alienation from reality and created
conditions for the spread of eschatological
views of the future of social development.
The most common belief among Protestants
is that rapid scientific and technological progress is an indisputable sign of the approaching "end of the world" and the "second coming" of Jesus Christ. Theologians anathematize "the Moloch of technology" which
poses the greatest threat to the future of
civilization. They believe that the industrial
Moloch not only symbolizes but also embodies Antichrist.
In the last few years apocalyptic fears and
gloomy forecasts have been stimulated by
the anticipation of an "ecological catastrophe" associated with the depletion of natural
resources, exploding population growth,
and unprecedented scale of environmental
pollution. This gave rise to religious prophecies of an inevitable "decline of civilization"
and an imminent "ecospasm."
Yet, the main source of eschatological
fears among believers is the new round of
the arms race resulting from the further
modernization of nuclear, biological, and
chemical weapons and the missile and space
means of their delivery. These new weapons
of mass destruction are associated in the
minds' of religious people with the "signs" of
an imminent catastrophe and viewed as the
"end-of-the-world weapons."
Eschatological doctrines have an extremely reactionary and sinister role to play in the
present situation. They foster pessimism,
undermine people's belief in the possibility of
ensuring lasting peace and peaceful coexistence, and weaken their efforts in the
struggle against the warmongers.
The real situation in the world today is
basically different from the picture painted
by the advocates of an apocalyptic approach
to reality. The real threat to mankind comes
not from any mythical Antichrist but from
quite real political forces which are interested in escalating the uncontrolled arms
(Cont'd on page 44)

Austin, Texas

September, 1985

Page 15

Page 16

E very
freshman philosophy class goes
through it. There is a tree. You see it.

e.

September, 1985

I
~l

From this line of reasoning, Pyrrho of Elis I

(B.C. 360-270), a Greek skeptic, founded a

school known as Pyrrhonism. Acatalepsia

was acknowledged - i.e., it was impossible
to know things in their own nature. The
Pyrrho school impugned not alone the validity of the senses but of objective reality. No
one could understand the tree.
The absolute skeptics professed doubt of
the validity of every reasoning process and'
held that no assertion is more valid than
another, that against every statement the
contrary may be advanced with equal reason. The result was that Pyrrho and his
disciples held that one should preserve an
attitude of reserve, of intellectual suspense,
of tranquillity and imperturbability. With
self-centered indifference, one should withdraw into one's self and forget the world or,
alternately, one could simply follow the
custom in ordinary affairs of life. Thus
agnosticism was born, although not then
christened with that name.
The ultimate of Pyrrhonism was that its
adherents doubted even their doubt, thus
accepting skepticism as a universal.
The Greek Academy, beginning with

You feel it. You smell it. You can taste its
leaves or its bark. You can hear the leaves
rustle. Through all of your senses you receive stimuli. Your brain puts it all together
and registers "tree." But can you really
know what a tree is? What does the tree
mean to itself? Under the external phenomenon lies what? What is the "essence"
of a tree? The argument is: Every sensation
of the five senses is a perception within
ourselves and from this we infer an external
object without - the tree. There is such a
great difference between the sensible and
the external object that we can never "know"
that external object. A relativist then says
that the tree has no objective existence at
all, but consists entirely of the conscious
state of the perceiver. That some phenomenal object has caused the sensation perceived is totally ignored.
Protagoras (B.C. 485-410), a Greek philosopher, in the same sense as agnosticism held
that knowledge is individual and momentary
opinion only. The "tree" quarrel has, thus,
been around for a minimum of 2,300 years.

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American Atheist

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Plato, had been located in an enclosed

garden in the suburb of the Ceramic us on
the Cephissus River, about one mile northwest of Athens from the gate called Dipylum. It was of course closed by order of the
Christian emperor Justinian in the year 529,
as were all Pagan institutions of learning. It

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Carneades (B.C. 214-129), the founder of

the Third or New Academy, was the most
important of ancient skeptics and was, in an
unrestricted sense, against the theory of
knowledge. His school taught that all our
sensations are relative and acquaint us, not
with things as they are, but only with impres-

Madalyn O'Hair

See The Tree

was there, however, that the idea of agnosticism began.

Arcesilaos (B.C. 316-240), the founder of
the Second or Middle Academy at Ceramicus, taught that he "knew nothing absolutely." He was the originator ofthe doctrine
of probabilism. The uncertainty of sensible
data applied, for this school, to conclusions
of reason; therefore man had to be content
with probability. This school also held that
"we know nothing, not even our ignorance."

A Review of
The Agnostic Position
sions that things produce upon us. Experience, he held, shows that there is no true
impression. He also assailed the doctrine of
final cause and of goodness of a divine,

Austin, Texas

September, 1985

Page 17

superintending providence. His attitude toward god was that nothing could be asserted
with certainty in regard to god. The philosophy by which one should guide one's life
then became a command for wise men to
practice suspension of judgment since knowledge was impossible.
Sextus Empiricus (B.C. circa 2(0), a physician, was the greatest of the later Greek
skeptics. He questioned even the possibilities of mathematical demonstrations. As to
physical science, he agreed with Plato that
the whole world of sense was mere opinion.

Peter Bayle (1647-1706). He himself called

his skepticism "historical Pyrrhonism." At
the time, however, it was commonly known
as "erudite skepticism." Although his writing
was anti-religious in nature, he attempted to
conceal this by arguing that faith and reason
are contradictory. Therefore, even when the
dogmas of faith are proven to be irrational,
they have as much right to acceptance as
the conclusions of reason. Inadvertently he
thus proved that religion could not reasonably hope to find a friend in skepticism.
The Unknowable

Hardly The Real Thing

All of this is akin to idealism, the philosophy upon which all religion is based. Idealism holds, basically, that a thing-in-itself
which is not a thing to some consciousness is entirely unrealizable.
This means that if there is no one
there to be conscious of the tree, the
tree does not exist. Realizing the
"idea" of tree gives, however, the
mind "into possession of itself." That
is not the actual tree, remember, it is
the "idea" of the tree that verifies the
mind!
Agnosticism - is thus the theory of
one's inability to know anything.
A is a privitive when used as a
prefix, constituting or predicating privation or absence of a quality. Gnosis,
of course, is a Greek term for "knowledge" or "recognition." And the word
agnostic means simply an absence of
the quality of knowledge, an inability
to know. The agnostic does not know
if the tree is there since he denies the
ability of his senses to transmit information and denies the ability of his
mind to understand the transmissions.
Moving To The Modern

spirit and reasoning of which were agnostic

in character. But since it was a ,defense of
theism against Atheism and in support of
Christianity, it was not attacked. According
to Charron, science is unattainable; truth is
hidden in the bosom of god and cannot be
reached by the natural faculties of men.
Reason, he held, is one of the most feeble of
instruments to attaining knowledge. A typical specimen of the seventeenth-century
skeptic, Le Mothe Le Vayer (1588-1672) was
thoroughly imbued with the spirit of the old
Greek Pyrrhonians and constantly used
their arguments. His two-line motto was:
De las cosas mas seguras
La mas segura es dudar
which translates to "Of things most sure the

Qt.

Sir William Hamilton

The first "modern" agnosticism
began with Henry Agrippa (1486-1535) and
his publication in 1530 of A Declamation on
The Uncertainty and Vanity of The Arts and
Sciences. He argued that it is dangerous to
trust human studies, foolish to be proud of
them, that all is dubious except god's word
and that truth is accessible to men only by
faith in Jesus Christ and the enlightening
grace of the Holy Spirit. Michel de Montaigne
(1533-1592) was the next to spread skepticism. In his Essais, published in 1580, he
represented so-called science as a failure
and the human mind as singularly unreasonable in its reasonings. His preference was for
a reaffirmation of the Pyrrhonian attitude.
His skepticism did not, however, reach to
religion, and he recognized a divine excellence in Christianity. A disciple, Roman
Catholic theologian Peter Charron (15411603), published his Les Tres Writes, the

surest is doubt." Jerome Hirnhaim (16371679), a dignitary of the Roman Catholic

Church in Bohemia, issued his De Typho
Generis Humani in 1676. It was a violent and
extreme attack on secular science and natura~ reason. All human knowledge, he assumed, rested on the testimony of the
senses, and that testimony proved to be
untrustworthy by both experience and the
evidence offaith. Daniel Huet (1630-1721), in
the posthumously published (1723) Traiie
de lafaiblesse de I'esprit humain presented a
completely Pyrrhonistic system, advocated
in the interests of Roman Catholicism. Blaise
Pascal (1623-1662), a man deeply saturated
in Christianity, was thoroughly agnostic in
his estimate of natural reason. He declared
Pyrrhonism to be the truth and Pyrrho to be
"the only sage before Christ." The most
influential of the skeptics was, of course,

A throw-back to this philosophy was to

openly develop in mid-nineteenth-century
England. There, in 1858, a conservative High
Church Anglican, Henry Longueville Mansel
(1820-1871), began his presentation of
the prestigious Brampton Lectures at
Oxford. His accepted task was to
defend Christian orthodoxy, everywhere on the continent as well as in
England under attack by a rising tide
of unbelief, vested particularly in the
findings of German biblical criticism.
The eight lectures attracted crowds to
the Oxford University Church. Published late in the year under the title
The Limits of Religious Thought, they
brought religious controversy in England to its height.
Applying the basic concept of acatalepsia and Pyrrhonism to god as well
as to a tree, Mansel concluded that
god, also, was unknowable. The posit
was necessary, for upon it Mansel
built his reply to the Bible critics in
Germany. Since mere man is unable
to possess knowledge of god, he
cannot criticize the scriptures and
therefore the High Church Anglican's
doctrine of biblical infallibility stood
fast. Mansel saw knowledge as limited
to the finite, external world and god as
outside of it. However, there is, he
proposed, a duality of consciousness which
testifies to the self and to the external world.
He seriously advocated a return to Aristotelian concepts but, in actuality, laid out the
essence of agnosticism, a doctrine which
thus arose out of religious currents of
thought to which it is intrinsically related.
The lesson was simple: Man's ability to
know has limits and the knowledge of god is
beyond those limits. Agnosticism, then, the
unknowability of god, was simply a reaffirmation of belief in god as differentiated from
an empirical verifiable knowledge of god.
It was a difficult time in England. In 1848
revolution had swept through every country
of Europe. In France, Auguste Comte (17981857) had developed a system of thought
which was called Positivism. He taught that
knowledge is confined to observable facts
and relations between facts. Hence he re-

Page 18

September, 1985

American Atheist

A Few Meanin s: Please

Pure agnosticism does not positively deny the existence of God, but does refuse to admit that we can have any
certain knowledge of His existence. Pure agnosticism is an
agnosticism of unbelief, a basic and deep-rooted skepticism
regarding the problem of God. . . . The pure agnostic is
convinced only that, concerning God, we can be sure of
absolutely nothing, not even whether He does or does not
exist. ...
Dogmatic agnosticism likewise denies that we can know
with objective certitude that God exists, but maintains that
we can be subjectively assured of this truth, on grounds of
faith, feeling, or moral imperative. Dogmatic agnosticism
has as little confidence as pure agnosticism in man's ability
to arrive at a certain knowledge of the existence or nature of
God through strictly rational processes. The dogmatic
agnostic wants to admit that there is a God, not because he
is able to discover in objective reality unmistakable evidence
leading to this conclusion as a necessary truth, but on
altogether other grounds.
John Reid
Man without God
To be an agnostic is to hold that nothing can be known
or at least that it is very unlikely that anything willbe known
or soundly believed concerning whether God or any transcedent reality or state exists.

The Agnostic one who asserts ... that there are limits
to the sphere of human intelligence. He asserts further ...
that those limits are such as to exclude at least what Lewes
[George Henry Lewes (1817-1878) British philosopher]
called "metempirics" knowledge. But he goes further, and
asserts, in opposition to theologians, that theology lies
within this forbidden sphere ... The Gnostic holds that our
reason can, in some sense, transcend the narrow limits of
experience. He holds that we can attain truths not capable
of verification, and not needing verification, by actual experiment or observation.
Sir Leslie Stephen
An Agnostic's Apology and Other
Essays
It [agnosticism] means, in its finest sense, a courageous envisaging of the awful problems of life and death,
and an admission of their total insolubility. It might almost, in
particular temperaments and personalities, be said to have
become a new religion by itself ...
Edgar Fawcett
Agnosticism and Other Essays

that man cannot know the truth about God and immortality,
and must leave the issue open.
The great majority of Agnostics today [1948] mean by
that term that they have examined the arguments for the
existence of God and rejected them. That the Agnostic
"leaves the question open," while the Atheist ... does not, is
a myth of the apologists . . . Agnostics and Atheists now
usually mean the same thing - that they are without belief
in God ...
Joseph McCabe
Rationalist Encyclopedia

The Atheist says he does not know of any God; the

Agnostic says he cannot know of any God.

Kai Nielsen
"Agnosticism"
Dictionary of The History of Ideas

Hence the original meaning [of the term agnostic] is

G.W. Foote
Freethinker, July 7, 1885

The Atheist is generally understood to be one who

denies the existence of God. Now, to the Agnostic, who
finds that to him "God" is an incomprehensible term, it does
not seem rational to deny the existence of a possible something of which he can form no conception. To say "I can
form no conception of Deity, therefore I deny the existence
of Deity," is a form of reasoning which does not commend
itself to the Agnostic, who knows that many things may exist
which he cannot understand. He has no belief in such
things, because he has no knowledge of them. Neither does
he deny the possibility of their existence. He does not know.

G. G. Greenwood
The Faith of An Agnostic

Austin, Texas

September, 1985

Page 19

garded all metaphysical speculation about

god and absolutes as worthless. Philosophy
must be based, he held, on scientific principles. Pressed for a system of ethics to guide
humankind, he invented a "Religion of Humanity," a kind of utopian mysticism.
In Germany, David Strauss (1808-1874)
had written his critical Leben Jesu (Life of
Jesus) in 1835* and Tubingen University
had begun its advanced school of theological
criticism, owing much to the writings of
Bruno Bauer (1809-1882) in the 1840's. The
Protestant revolution, having challenged the
authority of the Church, had to rest its case
for Christianity on another authoritarian
base and had chosen the infallible Bible.
Where the Roman Catholic Church had
opted to rely on Jesus Christ as a god figure,
the Protestants wanted to prove his historicity - turning to the Old Testament
for proof of the prophecy of the
coming of a Messiah and to the New
Testament for verifyingof history. But
with the advent of Strauss, of Bauer,
and of the "higher criticism" of the
German school, the Bible was crumbling.

As an Atheist, Bradlaugh denied the god

of the Bible, of the Koran, of the Vedas, but
he could not deny that of which he had no
knowledge. Technically, his definition differed little from that of Huxley's agnosticism. But for Bradlaugh, the agnostic, in
failing to oppose the churches actively, was
merely evading the consequences of his own
convictions. Agnosticism was simply, he
thought "a mere society form of Atheism."
Ding-An-Sich
In Germany a premise for the English
controversy had been laid by Immanuel
Kant (1724-1804)who, in his Critique of Pure
Reason, had stressed the antithesis between
objective reality and reason. His premise
was that phenomena are simply the results

Enter The Atheists

In the United States, Robert Dale
Owens (1801-1877) had established
an Atheist colony in New Harmony,
Indiana, and Frances Wright (17951852) had done the same in Nashoba,
Tennessee.
In England, Charles Bradlaugh (18331891), an open Atheist, was becoming
notorious. He was later to be elected
to membership in the House of Commons, a position he held from 1880 to
1891, there to cause a storm over a
religious oath which would ring round
the world. He had read Hamilton and
commented on his position. He never
hesitated to employ the word Atheist
in styling himself and explained that
this meant he was "without god." In the
National Review of 25 November, 1883, he
wrote,
The Atheist does not say "there is
no god," but he says "I know not what
you mean by god; Iam without idea of
god; the word god is to me a sound
conveying no clear or distinct affirmation. I do not deny god, because I
cannot deny that of which I have no
conception and the conception of
which by its affirmer is so imperfect
that he is unable to define it to me.

*This was translated into English in 1846 by

. George Eliot, with a Latin preface by
Strauss.

the phenomenal world. Kant, therefore, reaffirmed idealism and laid the premise for the
"unknowability" of any god concepts. The
proof for religion, removed from the area of
the new scientific reason, was promoted to
transcendent reason.
David Hume (1711-1776), in Scotland,
was taking the same course. He simply
denied the existence of matter but added
that mind also is an abstraction, a mere
name for a sequence of perceptions. He
could thus only affirm complete skepticism.
There was, he found, no rational evidence
for either god or immortality. His basic
theory was that the mind cannot reach
realities beyond the phenomena of sense.
Hence, he denied miracles. But he characterized himself as an academic skeptic and
not a Pyrrhonian.
Thomas Reid (1710-1796), a Scot
philosopher, repulsed by Hume and
his skeptical conclusions, rejected the
concept that all the objects of one's
knowledge were simply ideas in one's
own mind. He reasserted the independent existence of matter and its
immediate presence to one's mind.
He asserted that we know the properties but not the "essence" of things.
From this he posited what he designated as natural realism or natural
dualism. His three basic principles
were:
1) "All" human "knowledge is
relative."
2) "To think is to condition."
All human thinking is conditioned.
3) Notions of the "Infinite"
and the "Absolute" are negations of thought.
The Unconditioned

of the mind's contact with something else,

the nature of which we do not know. This
unknown thing he called noumenon, the
Ding-an-sich (thing-in-itself), and placed it
forever beyond the reach of either reason or
consciousness. There was in his philosophy
utter and complete skepticism in respect to
the ability to know.
If there is a god we do not know
him.
The soul may be immortal but we
cannot prove it.
The willmay be free but we cannot
demonstrate that.
Reason, according to Kant, had no contact with the world of reality and could never
tell us anything worth telling. This culminates in absolute spiritualism. Mind creates

Sir William Hamilton (1788-1856)

was much influenced by Reid. It was
he who published an edition of Reid's work
in 1846, with notes and supplementary dissertations. He held the chair of logic at
Edinburgh from 1836 to his death. In 1829,
he wrote the essay "Philosophy of The
Unconditioned" which appeared in the
Edinburgh Review. In this he put forth that
for the human finite mind there can be no
knowledge of the infinite. Limitless time,
space, and power, all of the supersensible,
are, humanly speaking, inconceivable. The
basis of this was his contention that to think
is to condition when every object is known
only in virtue to its relation to other objects.
Although there is a problem of the nature of
objectivity, we must accept the separate
existence of objects, not see them as existing
in our minds. We can have cognition of the
ego: such consciousness implies both 1)
knowledge of the self, and 2) knowledge of

Page 20

September, 1985

American Atheist

the external world. Thus he accepted Reid's was no such thing as infinite time and infinite
doctrine of dualistic natural realism.
space. He followed Hamilton closely on this.
He could not know the Unknowable or
We cannot, he thought, experience the
condition the Unconditioned. But, he wentinfinite in part, for the infinite cannot be
further, the cognizable existence of god
divided into parts. It is an absolute unity.
being undemonstrable, there was no moral
What we can know is phenomena only or dutiful obligation on man to recognize his and that through experience and reason.
being and make him the object of his worThere were, he thought, two methods of
ship. He, himself, however, felt an inherited
arriving at knowledge of god. One was
personal conviction.
subjective and psychological, based on
Yet, since he was partially disabled by knowledge of the mental faculties of man,
paralysis from 1845 forward, he lectured
and the other was objective and metaphyfrom a chair - over which a suggestive
sical, based on the knowledge of the nature
motto was inscribed:
of god. He was certain that by either method
one could not attain knowledge of the Infinite
and the Absolute, for neither had distincOn earth there is nothing great but
tions or determinants. As he posited his view
man;
that god was unknowable, however, he
In man there is nothing great but
came under more and more attack. Subsemind.

The Evidence Game

It was from this background heritage that Mansel took. Hamilton was
for many years a most prominent
figure in English philosophy and Mansel was considered by many to be his
foremost disciple. He relied on Aristotle, on Kant, and on Hamilton. Any
attempt to know god he found to end
in contradictions. One cannot attest
to both a finite and an infinite world.
This is an antinomy - a contradiction
between two principles each taken to
be true. Since the brain is compelled
to think in specific ways which it
cannot transgress (its own laws), no
matter what the issue with which it
deals, it is constrained in its function.
Theism, Pantheism, Atheism
John Toland (1670-1722)had introduced the concept of pantheism to
England in 1705, later enlarging on his
ideas with his work Pantheisticon in
1720. Pantheism held that god is the
universe and the universe is god.
Mansel wanted to refute both the
pantheist and the Atheist. He floundered
with the idea of the infinite. He saw the theist
as holding that there could be co-existence
of the finite and the infinite; the pantheist
denying the real existence of the finite; the
Atheist denying the real existence of the
infinite. Reason, he felt, could not justify the
theistic position. There was no hope of "the
cognitive" conceiving of "a first phenomenon" or embracing at one and the same time
both the finite and the infinite. He could not
accept the alternative of pantheism, for an
infinite god would destroy the "personal"
god of Christianity. He could not accept
Atheism since it was a negation of his
personal belief system. His special problem
with the ideas of the "Infinite" and the
"Absolute" led him to conclude that they
were meaningless words. All thought is
finite, limited, and conditioned; hence there

define god exist in man's minds and not in

god. Hence it is not the nature of god, but
rather the nature of the human mind that is
to blame. Therefore, one can still believe in
god though neither knowing or comprehending him. Revelation, which is above
criticism, was the answer - not reason. And
god's word was revealed in the Bible. Mansel
used his arguments of the unknowability of
god to defend an ultra-conservative and
dogmatic High Anglican Church and its King
James Bible.
Mansel grouped knowing, thinking, and
reasoning together in opposition to faith.
Reason had to be given a completely negative role in religious and transcendental
matters. Since reason can give us no knowledge of god, it is necessary to take the
avenue of revelation and faith.

Thomas Reid
quent editions of his book were forced to call
upon authorities to support him, all of whom
were cited in the preface. His most urgent
appeal was to acceptance of god ideas by
faith and not by reason, and he pointed out
that Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Cyprian, Chrysostom, Augustine, Aquinas, and other Christian fathers had sustained this position. *
He needed a scapegoat for his inability to
prove god; he found this in the human mind.
He pointed out that the contradictions into
which theology falls when attempting to

*Quintas Septimius Florens Tertullianus

(circa A.D. 155), church father.
Titus Flavius Clemens [Clement] of Alexandria (circa 150-211),Greek Christian theo-

But empiricism was here to stay.

Empiricism states succinctly that all
knowledge is derived from sense-given
data. It is opposed to any concept of
intuition or a priori reasoning. The
mind is a tabula rasa to begin. Individual impressions are stored, experiences are gathered together by association, and invariable results are
observed. Also associated with empiricism is the concept of the relativity
of knowledge, which is not absolute. It
is always conditioned by relationships,
and in its quality by our channels of
knowledge. Although we cannot know
the essence of a tree, we know that a
tree is there and from that we can
derive enough working knowledge to
liveour lives in relationship to the tree.
John Stuart Mill(1806-1873)contributed greatly by introducing Comte's
positivism to England. In 1844, when
he became aware of Comte's money
difficulties, he raised over 6,000 francs
to send to him so that he could
continue his writing. Both of them were
much concerned with women's rights and
were much impressed with Mary Wollstone
logian and church father.
Origen (185?-254?),Greek writer, teacher,
and church father.
Thascius Caecilius Cyprianus [Cyprian],
(d. 258), Christian father; bishop of Carthage (circa 248-258)_
.
Saint John Chrysostom (circa 347-407),
church father and patriarch of Constantinople.
Saint Augustine (354-430), church father;
bishop of Hippo (396-430)_
Tommaso d'Aquino [Saint Thomas Aquinas], (1214?-1274), Italian religious philosopher.

Austin, Texas

September, 1985

Page 21

~.

craft's (1797-1851) Vindication of The Rights

of Woman. Mill consistently held with
Comte's "Religion of Humanity" as a substitute for discredited Christianity.
Mill primarily scoffed at Hamilton and
Mansel for "bringing back under the name of
belief what they banished as knowledge." He
labeled Mansel's Limits of Religious Thought
a "detestable" and "absolutely loathsome
book." The thrust of his argument with both
was, "The notion that truths external to the
mind may be known by intuition or consciousness, independently of observation
and experience, is in these times, the great
intellectual support of false doctrines and
bad institutions." Mill, in his final analysis,
interpreted his agnosticism in terms of suspension of judgment. Mill also sent Bradlaugh, the Atheist, a contribution toward the
expenses of his candidature for Northampton.
But it was obvious that the ancient skepticism had been frankly opposed to religious
belief. Now, with a great body of doctrine
attributed to divine revelation and a great
institution like the Christian church having
functioned for over 1,500 years, the suggested possibility was of enlisting skepticism
in the service of dogmatic faith.
Slowly but certainly the conception of
Pyrrhonism, acatalepsia, and unknowability
of physical phenomena was forced to yield
to the evidence of objective reality so carefullydocumented by the scientific method of
inquiry. The retreat would finally become a
rout until its adherents were operating only
in the field of theology and its apologetic
discipline of philosophy.
Herbert Spencer (1820-1903), English
philosopher, the most illustrious adherent of
agnosticism, was born in the same year as
was Mansel but outlived him by thirty-two
years. Spencer was one of the most prominent exponents of the scientific movement
of the period, the last half of the nineteenth
century. He especially supported the great
development of biology and even attempted
to synthesize scientific knowledge. Faced
with theology and its theoretics, he put
forward the idea of an unknowable power.
He further held that certain ideas are innate
in each individual mind, established in the
race by numberless verifying experiences of
our ancestors, and hence necessities of
thought. Among these were space and time,
force, consciousness,self (ego), matter, motion, and rest. Behind the ego (and non-ego)
is an unknowable reality from which all
things have sprung.
Spencer used the philosophical principles
of Hamilton and Mansel as the basis for his
naturalistic First Principles published in
1864, in which he noted, ''The man of
science more than any other truly knows
that in its ultimate essence nothing can be
known." Yet he tried to reconcile science
and religion. He, as did Hamilton and

Page 22

Mansel, saw three different suppositions

respecting the origin of the universe theism, pantheism, and Atheism. Theism
posited the creation of the universe by an
external agency; pantheism opted for selfcreation; and Atheism for the self-existence
of the universe. The theories were not
reconcilable.
Spencer interpreted his agnosticism as
the belief in the existence of the Unknowable; that power manifested by the universe
is inscrutable; and that the Absolute was
both power and force. Still he pointed out
with some emphasis that while theology
might have such a rule, science would never
decree, "Thus far shalt thou go and no
further ," in regard to any quest for information or truth. And he held that the self was
also unknowable.

before turned a deaf ear to evolution, he

then stated, "I took my stand." Following
this, he became the most widely known
champion of Darwinism in the world. In this
position, he could only look forward to
continuing hostile exchanges with the byand-large Christian community of scientists
in England where the battle of evolution was
joined. In most historical articles on the
Darwin-evolution struggle Huxley figures
prominently, but little or no reference is
ordinarily made to his coining of the word

Those In The Drama

George Henry Lewes (1817-1878), another British philosopher, also took up the
cudgels for science. Because of his unorthodox relationship with George Eliot, he
has not been given as much credit for his
defense of the newly developing science of
biology as is his due.
Sir Leslie Stephen (1832-1904) gave popular agnosticism its finest expression in "An
Agnostic's Apology" which appeared in the
Fortnightly in 1876. Here he explained that
agnosticism was "a form of creed already
common and daily spreading." The idea, he
pointed out, had been formulated by Comte
in France, by Mill and Spencer in England,
but it had been given a popular name by
Huxley.
Stephen particularly felt that it would be
desirable to have an alternative to the word
Atheism. Writing of Bradlaugh, he opined
that "open Atheism" is "not common in
decent English society." He called upon
scientists to reject what he called "Dogmatic
Atheism" and to affirm "what no one denies," namely, that "there are limits to the
sphere of human intelligence" and that
"those limits are such as to exclude at least
what Lewes called 'Metempirical knowledge' " (which was meant to designate all
forms of knowledge of a transcendent, numinous nonempirical sort). "Theology lies
within the forbidden sphere." He was also a
champion of Darwinism, in open combat
with Gladstone, and a foremost exponent of
biological science from 1870 to 1884.
From the thought systems and writings of
Reid, Kant, Comte, Hamilton, and Mansel
developed the basis for the new Victorian
agnostic school of thought. Both James
Fitzjames Stephen, his brother Leslie
Stephen, and Thomas Huxley were following
the controversy closely. Thomas Huxley
(1825-1895) was a biologist and naturalist.
When Charles Darwin's (1809-1882) Origin
of Species was published, although he had

September, 1985

Thomasl
agnostic or his subsequent public jousts in
the literary and theological field of battle
over that coinage.
Huxley's Evolution
In matters religious, Huxley evolved slowly if at all.
He clung to a friendship with a clergyman,
Charles Kingsley, and on September 23,
1860, at the age of thirty-five, wrote to him in
these words:

American Atheist

Science seems to me to teach in the

highest and strongest manner the
great truth which is embodied in the
Christian conception of entire surrender to the will of God .... if that
great and powerful instrument for
good or evil, the Church of England, is
to be saved from being shivered into
fragments by the advancing tide of
science - an event I should be very
sorry to witness ... it must be by the
efforts of men who, like yourself, see

I neither affirm nor deny the immortality of man. I see no reason for
believing it, but, on the other hand, I
have no means of disproving it. I have
no a priori objections to the doctrine.
No man who has to deal daily and
hourly with nature can trouble himself
about a priori difficulties. Give me
such evidence as would justify me in
believing in anything else, and I will
believe that. Why should I not?
And again, to the same correspondent
wrote on May 5, 1883:

,-::
.: J.i-

he,

I have never had the least sympathy

with the a priori reasons against orthodoxy, and I have by nature and
disposition the greatest possible antipathy to all the atheistic and infidel
school. Nevertheless I know that I am,
in spite of myself, exactly what the
Christian would call, and, so far as I
can see, is justified in calling, atheist
and infidel. I cannot see one shadow
or tittle of evidence that the great
unknown underlying the phenomenon
of the universe stands to us in the
relation of a Father - loves us and
cares for us as Christianity asserts. So
with regard to the other great Christian dogmas, immortality of the soul
and future state of rewards and
punishments, what possible objection
can I - who am compelled perforce
to believe in the immortality of what
we call Matter and Force, and in a
very unmistakable present state of
rewards and punishments for our
deeds - have to these doctrines?
Give me a scintilla of evidence, and I
am ready to jump at them.
The Word Is Born

ypur way to the combination of the

practice of the Church with the spirit

of science. Understand that all the
younger men of science whom I know
intimately are essentially of my way of
thinking. (I know not a scoffer or an
irreligious or an immoral man among
them.
)
In another letter to the same man (September 23, 1866) he wrote very fully concerning his beliefs:

Austin, Texas

To cover this attitude, Huxley coined the

word agnosticism. R. H. Hutton wrote in
1881 that the word "was suggested by
Huxley at a meeting (party) held previous to
the formation of the (now defunct) Metaphysical Society at Mr. James Knowles's house
on Clapham Common (one evening) in
1869, in my hearing. He took it from St.
Paul's [Acts 17:23] mention of the altar to
the 'Unknown GOd'." [Parenthetical material
indicates variation in citations -ed.]
Alfred Lord Tennyson (1850-1892) had
helped to found the Metaphysical Society
for discussion concerning the old faith and
its relation to the new science. He wished to
discover the means which the intellectual
leaders could seek to reconcile their "advanced knowledge" with the spiritual purposes of man.
The name agnostic was then constantly
used by Hutton in the Spectator and becarne a fashionable label. The first mention

of the word was, allegedly, in an anonymous

article titled "Pope Huxley:' which appeared
in the January 29,1870 edition. Huxley was
called an "Agnostic" and an "evangelist"
who was "labouring to preach to us all the
gospel of suspense of judgment on all questions, intellectual and moral, on which we
have not adequate data for a positive
opinion."
Hutton understood the word to mean,
and used it in the sense, of it being "a belief in
an unknown and unknowable god." Huxley,
however, apparently meant it at the time to
be "absence of belief': a half-way position
between "belief' on the one hand and "disbelief' on the other. As did all of those in the
fight, he attempted to distinguish between
the sphere of science, which he thought to
be the knowable, and the province of religion, which was the unknowable. Spencer
had set up the two spheres of (1) religion and
(2) science and philosophy. In the latter
category - science and philosophy - he
saw science as a partially unified knowledge
- and philosophy as a completely unified
knowledge. Huxley set up instead the two
categories of knowledge as being those of
science and philosophy, omitting religion.
Huxley felt comfortable for awhile in using
the term "the Unknowable" for the word
god and in 1866 he referred to the "altar of
the Unknown" in one of his essays, "Method
and Results." But he gave a variant etymology of the word agnostic.
When I reached intellectual maturity, [he was at this time forty-four
years old] and began to ask myself
whether I was an atheist, a theist or a
pantheist, a materialist or an idealist, a
Christian or a freethinker, I found that
the more I learned and reflected, the
less ready was the answer. The one
thing on which most of these good
people were agreed was the one thing
in which I differed from them. They
were quite sure they had attained a
certain "gnosis" - had more or less
successfully solved the problem of
existence; while I was quite sure that I
had not, and had a pretty strong
conviction that the problem was insoluble. . . . So, I took thought and
invented [in 1869] what I conceived to
be the appropriate title of "agnostic."
It came into my head as suggestively
antithetic to the "gnostic" of Church
history, who professed to know so
much about the very things of which I
was ignorant. To my great satisfaction
the term took.

Huxley on Religion
The next year, 1870, he was elected
President of the newly-constituted London
School Board, where he remained for two

September, 1985

Page 23

years. During that time he insisted on the

teaching of the Bible in the schools because
he was "seriously perplexed to know by
what practical measures the religious feeling
which is the essential basis of conduct, was
to be kept up, in the present utterly chaotic
state of opinion in these matters, without its
use."
He was quite anxious to avoid the accusation of Pyrrhonism although he knew that
his 1869 definition of agnosticism suggested
the Pyrrhonist Aphasia. In 1885 he formulated "the perfect ideal of religion" in a
passage in his Life which became famous.
In the 8th century B.C. in the heart
of a world of idolatrous polytheists,
the Hebrew prophets put forth a conception of religion which appears to
be as wonderful an inspiration
of genius as the art of Pheidias
or the science of Aristotle. "And
what doth the Lord require of
thee, but to do justly, and to
love mercy, and to walk humbly
with thy God."

own pen. For example, he held that it was

not the part of any true agnostic to deny
god's existence at the same time his criticisms of the Bible, in the German style, were
devastating to the concept of god. He had
read Strauss and Renan and was quite
conversant with the Pentateuch controversy
as set forth by John Colenso, D.O., Bishop
of Natal in his Pentateuch and Book of
Joshua, Critically Examined, first published
in England in 1860. He had read extensively
in the critical schools and used their references and arguments on his own behalf. Yet,
he often and eagerly proclaimed he was no
materialist or Atheist.
He also stated that the idea of agnosticism
was for individual use only, since it was "not
a creed, but a method." This perhaps is the
cause of the confusion: Agnosticism has no

After his death, his familywould give a

totally different interpretation of this
idea than Huxley had given.
In 1892 he would write:
It is the secret of the superiority of the best theological
teachers to the majority of their
opponents that they substantially recognize these realities of
things, however strange the
forms in which they clothe their
conceptions. The doctrines of
predestination, of original sin,
of the innate depravity of man
and the evil fate of the greater
part of the race, of the primacy
of Satan in this world, of the
essential vileness of matter, of a
malevolent Demiurgus subordinate to a benevolent Almighty, who
has only lately revealed himself, faulty
as they are, appear to be to be vastly
nearer the truth than "liberal" popular
delusions ....
Huxley claimed to have read Mansel's
Limits of Religious Thought about the year
1840, when he was fifteen years old, and he
remembered
that he said to himself,
"Connu!" for "the thrill of pleasure with
which I discovered that, in the matter of
Agnosticism (not yet so christened), Iwas as
orthodox as a dignitary of the Church who
might any day be made a bishop."

Sir Leslie Stephen

real content.
He argued that we can and do gain
experimental and experiential knowledge of
nature. But for all of his argument, he was
called "a mere expositor" who did not create
an original proposition.
Hutton reaffirmed as late as the June 11,
1876, Spectator that agnosticism was the
name demanded by Professor Huxley for
"those who disclaimed Atheism, and believed with him in an 'unknown and unknowable' God."
The most celebrated passage in his most
celebrated essay described human life as
something like a great game of chess between men and a hidden player.

Confusion Starts Its Reign

Indeed, much of the confusion regarding
the term agnosticism comes from Huxley's

The chess-board is the world, the

pieces are the phenomena of the
universe, the rules of the game are

what we call the laws of Nature. The

player on the other side is hidden from
us. We know that his play is always
fair, just, and patient. But also we
know, to our cost, that he never
overlooks a mistake, or makes the
smallest allowance for ignorance.
Science vs. Theology
It was thought at this time that there was
an absolute dichotomy becoming apparent
between theology and science. The words
"antagonism" were often uttered. The core
of the argument was that of ability to know,
with science holding for objective knowledge
through the observation of phenomena and
religion holding for subjective knowledge. It
should be remembered that it was about this
time (in 1874) that John Draper,
Professor of History in the University
of New York, wrote his History of the
Conflict between Religion and Science, (1874) and Andrew Dickson
White, Professor of History of Cornell
University and its President wrote his
A History of the Warfare of Science
with Theology in Christendom (1896).
Those in the battle included William
Gladstone (1809-1898), leader of the
House of Commons and several times
Prime Minister of England. In the
former position it was necessary for
him to deal with Charles Bradlaugh
who, as an Atheist, was refusing to
pledge allegiance to Queen Victoria
with an oath "So help me God." As a
politician of importance, he felt the
need to challenge Huxley. The exchanges were in print and acrimonious. In addition, in a speech to
Parliament in 1883, he pointedly discussed agnosticism as a "general
movement against doctrinal authority" ... the "specific form of irreligion
with which the country had to contend." He labeled it "the mischief of
the age."
Meanwhile, in the U.S.A.
During the period of 1880 to 1885, many
articles concerned with the new idea were
appearing in the American journal of Atheism, the Truth Seeker. Allof them pointed to
the stark omission in the English battle
which waged on the level of the generic idea
of god and did not pause at all to focus on the
specific god of Judeo-Christianity. Yet, in all
nations and at all times in history, the god
questions has always been specific and not
generic. One J. B. pointed out in the April
25, 1885, issue in "Something about Agnostics":
we ask the Agnostic ifhe believes in
the existence
of angels, fairies,

Page 24

September, 1985

American Atheist

spooks, ghosts (holy or otherwise)

and a legion of other 'airy nothings to
which imagination gives a local habitation and a name,' he would no doubt
answer without reserve in the negative. Yet he could not disprove these
any more than any other negative. It is
illogical to deny them.
And,
Again, has the Agnostic any reason
to believe the Hebrew anthropomorphic deity, Jehovah, was less a myth
than the Roman Jupiter, the Grecian
Zeus or the Scandinavian Odin? Yet
he would think it no violation of sense
or logic to deny that these were anything but the creations of human
fancy to personify certain
powers or principles in nature,
of the cause of which the creators were in ignorance.

Atheist who fears Mrs. Grundy."

When Havelock Elliswas asked to write in
a journal which professed agnosticism, his
letter in reply, July 11, 1898, was succinct.
I have never reconciled myself to
the term "agnostic." ... There are so
many things that are knowable, and
worth knowing, that I scarcely think
one need concern oneself much with
the things that are unknowable."
Enter Morality
Huxley, of course, felt that a belief in
falsehood, even one traditionally accepted,'
was immoral. Yet he felt that society could
not dispense with the Bible as a moral guide.
His attitude and opinions on the matter of

He attacked only on academic grounds,

being unconcerned with social problems
which arose from the posits of theology. And
his introduction of morality into this intellectual position may be for his own reasons.
Perhaps he was attempting to compensate
for less than a moral life. His September 23,
1860 letter to Charles Kingsley certainly
would raise the question.
I confess to my shame that few men
have drunk deeper of all kinds of sin
than I. Happily, my course was arrested in time - before I had earned
absolute destruction - and for long
years I have been slowly and
painfully climbing, with many a
fall, toward better things.
For Huxley, who relied on German
Bible scholarship, the difficulty with
what Jesus Christ said or did was a
scientific problem, not a theological
problem. There was no internal or
external evidence. Whether there was
a god, a world of demons, an immortal
soul, were all taken by Huxley to be
factual questions open to careful and
systematic empirical investigation. To
commit ourselves to the Bible as an
infallible authority isto commit ourselves to a world view in which we
must believe that devils were cast out
of a man and went into a herd of
swine. It is evident from New Testament sources that Jesus believed in
demons. But once we challenge the
ultimate authority of the Bible, the
ground for the whole Judeo-Christian
world view is undermined.

Further, in the United States,

Robert Ingersoll was also speaking to
the issue:
The Agnostic is an Atheist;
the Atheist, an Agnostic. The
Agnostic says I do not know,
but I do not believe there is any
God. The Atheist says the
same. The orthodox Christian
says he knows there is a God;
but we know that he does not
know; he simply believes; he
cannot know. And the Atheist
cannot know that God does not
exist.
A Religious Man?
Huxley's wife, Henrietta Heathorn
Huxley, a Christian all of her life,
chose theistic lines for Huxley's tombstone. His grandson, Julian Huxley
explained, "My grandfather, Thomas Huxley
. . . was in reality . . . a man deeply and
essentially religious in nature." When Joseph
McCabe contacted both Mrs. Huxley and
her son Leonard (1860-1933)to ascertain for
himself what Huxley's position had been, he
was most taken by the son's statement,
affirmed by the widow, that before Huxley
had died he had said that "the most
remarkable achievement of the Jew was to
impose on Europe for eighteen centuries his
own superstition."
Because of his waffling on the use of the
word, the critics hurled charges at Huxley
and at agnosticism in general: It was an
attempt to ingratiate with orthodox academic colleagues; it wanted a place beneath
the mantle of Victorian respectability, it
included "men who didn't believe in God but
were afraid of priests;" it represented "an

there are propositions which men

ought to believe, without logically satisfactory evidence. [Emphasis added.]

The Equivocator
immorality were set forth in his Christianity
and Agnosticism - A Controversy:
agnosticism is not properly described as a "negative creed," nor
indeed as a creed of any kind, except
insofar as it expresses absolute faith in
the validity of a principle which is as
much ethical as intellectual. This
principle may be stated in various
ways, but they all amount to this: that
it is wrong for a man to say that he is
certain of the objective truth of any
proposition unless he can produce
evidence which logically justifies that
certainty. This is what agnosticism
asserts; and, in my opinion, it is all that
is essential to agnosticism. That which
agnostics deny and repudiate as
immoral is the contrary doctrine, that

Yet Huxley claimed not to have a dispute

with Christianity, but rather with ecclesiasticism - government by the unquestioned
authority of the church. Again from Christianity and Agnosticism - A Controversy:
It was inevitable that a conflict
should arise between agnosticism and
... eccelesiasticism. For theology, the
science, is one thing; and ecclesiasticism, the championship of a foregone
conclusion as the truth of a particular
form of theology, is another. With
scientific theology, agnosticism has
no quarrel. . . . The scientific theologian admits the agnostic principle,
however widely his results may differ
from those reached by the majority of
agnostics.

Austin, Texas

September, 1985

Page 25

He pointed out that theology, as a science,

admitted the agnostic principle and had no
conflict with Huxley.
What it came down to was that Huxley's
arguments were accepted by Judeo-Christianity as not undermining its foundations. It
simply helped Christians rid the world of the
historically-contingent cultural trappings of
the Bible's writers. The scientific way of
fixing "belief' is clearly the most desirable
for the Christian church.
Agnosticism is an inherently unstable position, tending to pantheism, and needs
some general philosophical supporting view
such as idealism or - if it is in earnest materialism. It has no solid rational foundation. There are no facts which science
cannot explore, what cannot at least in
principle be known by the method of science
cannot be known at all ... since there
is only one sort of level or order of
existence and that is spatio-temporal
existence. The modern answer to
agnosticism is now given in the
writings of Karl Barth, which holds
that man on his own can know nothing
of god but must rely utterly on an
unpredictable and rationally inexplicable god's self-disclosure by god. That
is a divine revelation which cannot be
assessed by man, but must simply be
accepted.

'U.' " His main concern was to avoid a

reference to god as the unknowable, for this
granted god an ontological status.
Agnosticism really rests on the doctrine of
the Unknowable, the assertion that we never
can have any scientifically-derived ground
for belief. One can never know the essence
of the tree. That this is the current idea of
agnosticism was reinforced by Bertrand
Russell, who made the statement in the
November 3, 1953 issue of Look magazine
that "An agnostic thinks it impossible to
know the truth in matters such as god and
the future life with which Christianity and
other religions are concerned. Or, if not
impossible, at least impossible at the present." In other writings he stated that agnosticism was not "negative skepticism" but
rather a plea for skeptical caution of belief

The Old and The New

Controverted Question
In regard to the existence of god,
the modern "Controverted Question"
is not ifgod exists, but when accepting
the proffered statement that he does,
the question then is, "Why does he
exist?"
The "Controverted Question" of
the time of Huxley was how far the
process would go of the fight for
dominance of the natural with the
supernatural. On this subject, he
wrote a fifty-eight-page prologue to his book,
Science and Christian Tradition. Despite
Huxley's hopes, the scientific method was
not to find the answer to theological questions.
Later persons thought that there were .
two Huxleys: one who urged the cause of
science and the other, who defended himself
from attack.
A Church Congress was held at Manchester in October, 1888. Dr. Henry Wace,
principal of King's College, there made a
statement concerned with Huxley which
forced him to reply in the February 1889
issueof Nineteenth Century, in an article
titled "Agnosticism." Later in the year he
was writing that he did not care to speak of
anything as 'unknowable' and confessed in
1893 that "long ago, I once or twice made
this mistake; even to the waste of a capital

majority. Agnosticism, thus, is a way of solving, by passing over, the ultimate problems
of thought.
Soon the term was used to cover any and
every variety of skepticism or cowardice.
We are at that point today in the United
States.
The most reasonable thing to do is to opt
for Atheism, particularly when we realize
that we do not need any religion to make
sense of our lives or to buttress morality.
In respect to the doctrines of Christianity:
predestination; original sin; the innate depravity of man; the evil fate of the greater
part of the race; the primacy of Satan in this
world; the essential vileness of matter; a
malevolent Demiurgus subordinate to a benevolent Almighty; a future lifeof rewards or
punishments; immortality of the soul; the
benevolence of a kindly watching,
loving, caring god - to name those
listed by Huxley - only the theist
would claim an agnosticism to anyone
or all of them. It is obvious to any
sociologist that they are a set of fears
with which people, individually, must
cope, while they are manipulated by
power groups.
Later writers construed agnosticism so that it was identified with
philosophical skepticism and that, as
such, it allowed for their being "theistic agnostics" and "Christian agnostics."
The kiss of death was given to
agnosticism most caustically by H. L.
Mencken, who put it briefly: "The
most satisfying and ecstatic faith is
almost purely agnostic. It trusts absolutely without professing to know at
all."
Agnosticism and The Trees

Immanuel Kant
- and opposed to materialism.
Robert Bostrom put it nicely in 1969:
One who is agnostic usually finds
himself saying something like the
following:"I don't personally believe in
god, but I see that a great many other
people do. Where there is a difference
of opinion we must conclude that the
issue is in doubt - therefore, I must
hold that the question of existence of
god is in doubt; that none of us know
for sure whether or not god exists."
Fear of The Majority
There is an obvious fear of majoritarian
viewpoints in the rationale. Because of the
great number of believers, if the issue can
said to be in doubt, abstain: Don't irritate the

Modern American Atheism's message is more wholesome and lifecelebrating. Whereas some life philosophies cannot see the forest for the trees,
agnosticism cannot even see the trees.
American Atheism assures you that you
may trust your senses and your reason. The
empirical approach to lifewillgive you all the
information you need to live a rich, filled,life.
Agnosticism, as it is known today, is very
closely related to the religious doctrine that
the ways of god are unfathomable, that
human reason is fallible, and that man
requires a different, non-scientific path to
the "truth." Agnostic philosophers are
always allies of the church. The reason for
this is clear - agnosticism puts forward the
false notion that the world in which we live is
unknowable, and this undermines science
and reinforces theology. It inclines man to
faith, inducing him to trust religious doctrines.
An Atheist is simply a person who is free

Page 26

September, 1985

American Atheist

from theism. Whatever the monkey on your

back, an Atheist doesn't have a similar
burden. life is what you have. Don't throw it
away in an elusive chase after an ephemeral
"truth" that has no substance and which
cannot make your lifebetter in the here and
now.
Bibliography
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1%5.
Benn, Alfred William. The History of English
Rationalism in The Nineteenth Century.
london: longmans, Green and Co.,
1906.
Bennett, D. M. The World's Sages, Infidels
and Thinkers,
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Bostrom, R. N. "Agnostic Belief Systems
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24-26.
Centenary Issue, Champion of Liberty:
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& Co., Ltd., 1933.
Colenso, John William. The Pentateuch and
Book of Joshua Critically Examined, 6
Vols. london: longman, Green, longman, Roberts & Green, 186l.
Courtney, Janet E. Freethinkers of The
Nineteenth Century. New York: E.P.
Dutton & Co., 1920.
Fawcett, Edgar. Agnosticism and Other
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Flint, Robert. Agnosticism. New York:
Charles Scribner's Sons, 1903.
Gould, F. J. The Life Story of Auguste
Comte. Austin, TX: The American Atheist Press, 1984.
Greenwood, G. G. The Faith of An Agnostic; or First Essays in Rationalism.
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Hawton, Hector. The Thinkers Handbook,
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Huxley, Julian. Religion without Revelation.
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Macmillan & Co., limited, 1903.
Huxley, Thomas, Christianity and Agnosticism - A Controversy. New York: D.

Appleton & Co., 1889.

Huxley, Thomas. Science and Christian
Traditions - Essays. New York: D.
Appleton and Company, 1896.
Ingersoll, R. G. "Professor Huxley and
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Karnoutsos, G. "Agnosticism," Journal of
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Texas at Austin. n.d.
Knight, Margaret. Humanist Anthology
from Confucius to Bertrand Russell. london: Barrie & Rockliff, 1961.
Lightman, Bernard. "Henry longueville
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Robertson, J. M.A History of Freethought

in the Nineteenth Century. london:
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Russell, Bertrand. "Am I An Atheist or An
Agnostic," Atheism, Collected Essays,
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and Other Essays. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1893.
Tribe, David, 100 Years of Freethought.
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Wace, Henry. Christianity and Agnosticism
- A Controversy, Consisting of Papers
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Huxley, The Bishop of Peterborough, W.
H. Mallock, and Mrs. Humphry Ward.
New York: D. Appleton and Company,
1889.

i
'-

i/I,
./ '

, ,

ii..

"01-\ qOD, IF -rI1ERE IS"A qOD,

:r.. -tlA'-IE.

Sf;..VE

My s ou L) IF

-A SoUL.

In History of European Ideas. Great

Britain: Pergamon Press, Ltd., 1984.
Macdonald, George E., Fifty Years of Freethought Being The Story of The Truth
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Seeker Company, 1929, Vols. I & II.
McCabe, Joseph. A Rationalist Encyclopaedia, A Book of Reference on Religion,
Philosophy, Ethics, and Science. london:
Watts & Co., 1948.
Mencken, H. L. A Book of Calumny. New
York: Knopf, 1918.
O'Hair, Madalyn. Why I Am An Atheist.
Austin, TX: American Atheist Press,
1966.
Putnam, Samuel P. 400 Years of Freethought. New York: The Truth Seeker
Co, 1894.

Wakefield, Eva Ingersoll. The Letters of

Robert G. Ingersoll, Edited with a Biographical Introduction. New York: Philosophical Library, 1951.
Ward, James. Naturalism and Agnosticism,
The Gifford Lectures Delivered before
The University of Aberdeen in The Years
1896-1898. New York: The Macmillan
Company, 1899, Vols.1 & II.
Weiner, Philip P., editor in chief, Dictionary
of The History of Ideas. New York:
Charles Scribner's Sons, 1968.
Weller, P. "Agnosticism: The Most Ecstatic
Faith of All." Religious Humanism, 3 (3),
Summer 1969, 102-106.
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Austin, Texas

September, 1985

Page 27

And An Atheist's View

Chapman Cohen (1868-1954) was the

third President of the National Secular
Society of Great Britain, the organization which had been founded by the militant great Atheist, Charles Brodlaugh.
He served as Executive President for
thirty-four years, during which time he
wrote over 2, 700 articles, many of which
have been gathered into books. Prior to
'taking that office he had spent twentyfive years in "open air work, which is to
say, speaking
in public
parks.
Cohen was an enthusiastic writer for
Atheism, an excellent administrator for
the organization, meticulous in his logic,
:and inordinately perceptive in his evaluation of the culture of the times.
Largely ignored by /reethought historians, he was probably one of the finest such thinkers the movement had.
American Atheists publishes his fourvolume set of Essays in Freethinking.
The following essay was originally
published in Theism or Atheism, The
Great Alternative under the title "Agnosticism.
primary difficulty in dealing with
Theagnosticism
is its elusive character. It is

a word of various and vague meanings, and

many of those who use it seem to have no
great anxiety to fix its meaning with any
degree of precision. It is used now in a philosophic and now in a religious sense, and its
use in the one connection is justified by its
use in another. It has become, in the half
century of its existence, as indefinite as
"religion," and about as enlightening. On the
one side it appears as a counsel of mental
integrity with which everyone willagree, and
on the other, the religious side, it will vary
from a form that is identical with that muchdreaded "Atheism," to a religious or "reverent" agnosticism that reminds one mentally and morally - of Methodism minus
its creed. Indeed, to say that a man is an
agnostic nowadays tells one no more than
calling a man religious indicates to which one
of the world's sects he gives his adherence.
The only aspect of agnosticism that we
are here vitally concerned with is its relation
to religion, or specifically with the god-idea.
But it will be necessary to say a word, in
passing, on at least one other phase.

And first as to the origin of the term. The

credit for the first use of the term has always
been given to the late Professor Huxley ....
Huxley appears to have given himself a lot of
needless trouble. In philosophy there was
the term "sceptic," and in relation to religion
the term "Atheist" was ready to hand. The
latter term certainly covered all that Huxley
meant by agnosticism as applied to the godidea. The plain, and perhaps brutal truth, is
that Huxley was just illustrating the fatal
tendency of English public men to seek for a
label that willmark them off from an unfashionable heresy even more clearly than it
separates them from a crumbling orthodoxy. It is certainly suggestive to find, in this
connection, a French writer of distinction,
M. Emile Boutmy, pointing out that in
France, Spencer, Mill, and Huxley would all
have been professed Atheists. (The English
People, p. 44.) But France is France, and has
always possessed the courage to follow
ideas to their logical conclusion.
When it comes to a definition of agnosticism Professor Huxley's position becomes
still more difficult of understanding. Agnosticism, he says, is a method the essence of
which may be expressed in a single principle.
"Positively the principle may be expressed;
in matters of the intellect follow your reason
so far as it willtake you without regard to any
other consideration. And negatively; in matters of the intellect, do not pretend that conclusions are certain which are not demonstrated or demonstrable." So far as this goes
we have here perfectly sound advice. But
why call it agnosticism? It is no more than
the perfectly sound advice that we must be
honest in our investigations, and make no
claim to certainty where the conditions of
certainty do not exist. But we have no more
right to call this agnosticism than we have to
give the multiplication table a sectarian or
party label.
Attitude of Mind
Nor do we believe for a moment that what
Huxley had in view, or what other agnostics
have in view, is no more than a counsel of
intellectual perfection. What is really at issue
here is one's attitude of mind in relation to
the belief in god. It is in pretending to know
about god that the theist finds himself at

issue with the agnostic, and it is to mark

himself off from the theist that the agnostic
gives himself a special label. And the trouble
of the agnostic is that so soon as he begins to
justify his position, either he states the Atheistic case or he fails altogether to make his
case good.
There is, perhaps, one other topic on
which agnosticism may be professed, and
that is in connection with the question of
what is known as the problem of existence.
We may profess our belief in the reality of an
external world, but deny that any knowledge of it is possible. Here we assert that
what "substance," or "reality," or "thing in
itself," is we do not know and cannot know.
But while many attempts are made under
the name of "the Absolute," etc., to identify
this with "god," it is really nothing of the
kind. The belief or disbelief in an external
"reality" is a problem in philosophy, it has no
genuine connection with theology . To identify the two is a mere dialectical subterfuge.
Mere existence is an ultimate fact that must
be accepted by all. It is only on the question
of its nature that controversy can arise.
Whatever may be claimed on behalf of
agnosticism, it certainly cannot be claimed
that it carries a clear and definite meaning.
As we have seen, Professor Huxley used the
word to indicate the fact that he was without
knowledge of certain things. But what
things? To answer that we have to go
beyond the word itself - that is, we have to
define the definition. As it stands we may
profess agnosticism in relation to anything
from the prospects of a general election
within a given period to the question of
whether Mars is inhabited or not. If, then, it
is said that what is implied is that the agnostic is without a knowledge of god, or without
a belief in god, the reply is that is exactly the
position of the Atheist. And there was no
need whatever to coin a new word, if all that
was wanted was to express the Atheistic
position. Still less justifiable was it to proceed to misinterpret Atheism in order to
justify a departure that need never have
been made.
Atheism - An Honest Word
One cannot at this point forbear a word
on Mr. - afterwards Sir - Leslie Stephen's

Page 28

September, 1985

American Atheist

curious justification of his choice of the word

agnosticism. After the enlightening remark
that the word "Atheist" carries with it an
unpleasant connotation, he says:
Dogmatic Atheism - the doctrine
that there is no god, whatever may be
meant by god - is to say the least of it
a rare phase of opinion. The word
Agnosticism, on the other hand,
seems to imply a fairlyaccurate appreciation of a form of creed already
common and daily spreading. The
Agnostic is one who asserts - what
no one denies - that there are limits
to human intelligence. (An Agnostic's
Apology, p. 1).
And then he goes on to assert that the
subject matter of theology lies beyond these
limits.
Now putting on one side this perversion of
the meaning of Atheism, was it really worth
while to coin a new word to affirm what no
one denies? Theists do not deny the limitations of knowledge, on the contrary, they
are always affirming it. Neither do all theists
deny that "god" is unknowable. That has
been affirmed by them over and over again.
What they have claimed is that "god" is
apprehended rather than known, and they
affirm his existence on much the same
grounds that others assert the real existence
of an external world. Professor Flint's comments on Stephen's performance are quite
to the point, and the more noteworthy as
coming from a clergyman. He says:
The word Atheist is a thoroughly
honest, unambiguous term. It means
one who does not believe in god, and it
means neither more nor less. It implies
neither blame nor approval, neither
desert of punishment nor of reward. If
a purely dogmatic Atheism be a rare
phase of opinion critical Atheism is a
very common one, and there is also a
form of Atheism which is professedly
sceptical or agnostic, but often in reality dogmatic or gnostic. (Agnosticism,
p.69).
The more carefully one examines the reasons given for the preference for the word
agnosticism, the clearer it becomes that the
real motive is not the wish to obtain mental
clarity, but the desire to avoid association
with a term that carries, religiously, disagreeable associations. The care taken by
so many who call themselves agnostics to
explain to the religious world that they are
not Atheists, is almost enough to prove this.
Indeed, the position is well summed up by
Mr. John M. Robertson:
The best argument for the use of
the name Agnostic is simply that the

Other0 iruons
So we are either Atheistic or agnostic. We admit that we cannot prove there
is no god, but claim that we don't have to disprove what there is no credible
evidence for. Neither do we feel the need to disprove the existence of fairies. It
is for those who believe in a god to explain the proposition fully and in testable
form, and to produce better than ancient books and "religious experience"
which can be just neural activity.
Jim Woolnough
"Presenting Humanism in the Media"
New Zealand Humanist, Winter 1985
The definition given by Spencer to Agnosticism cannot be accepted by
science. "The power which the universe manifests to us is utterly inscrutable."
Science will not affirm that anything is inscrutable. To do so is suicidal. Science
will never give up the eternal struggle to know. To know what - a part of
things? No, but all things. That is the goal, and nothing else will satisfy the scientific mind. It is theology that talks of the "inscrutable," but not science. Theology
puts up the bars of ignorance, but not a true philosophy. Philosophy nor Freethought ever says: "Thus far thou go and no farther."
Samuel P. Putnam
400 Years of Freethought
The most satisfying and ecstatic faith is almost purely agnostic. It trusts absolutely without professing to know at all.
H. L. Mencken
A Book of Calumny
One who is agnostic usually finds himself saying something like the following:
"I don't personally believe in god, but 1see that a great many other people do.
Where there is a difference of opinion we must conclude that the issue is in
doubt - therefore, 1must hold that the question of existence of god is in doubt;
that none of us know for sure whether or not god exists or not." An agnostic
position of this type is comfortable because it does not unduly irritate the majority. It is much easier to say "I don't know" than "Your position is one of rank
superstition." This position is no position at all. This type of "agnostic" reminds
us more of the Pharisee in the parable than anyone else.
Robert N. Bostrom
"Agnostic Belief Systems and the Problem of Knowledge"
Religious Humanism, Winter 1969
The Agnostic is an Atheist; the Atheist, an Agnostic. The Agnostic says Ido
not know, but 1 do not believe there is any God. The Atheist says the same. The
orthodox Christian says he knows there is a God; but we know that he does not
know; he simply believes; he cannot know. And the Atheist cannot know that
God does not exist.
Robert G. Ingersoll

Austin, Texas

September, 1985

Page 29

word Atheist has been so long covered with all manner of ignorant
calumny that it is expedient to use a
new term which though in some
respects faulty, has a fair start, and
will in time have a recognised meaning. The case, so stated, is reasonable;
but there is the per contra that whatever the motive with which the name
is used, it is now tacked to half a dozen
conflicting forms of doctrine, varying
loosely between Theism and Pantheism. The name of Atheist escapes that
drawback. Its unpopularity has saved
it from half-hearted and half-minded
patronage.
So that, on the best showing, we are to
take "agnostic" on the professed ground
that it is more exact than "Atheism," but on
the real ground that it is less unpopular,
waiting meanwhile for the time when it shall
have become more exact than it is by
becoming accepted in the same sense as the
Atheism that has previously been rejected.
Courage and straightforwardness saves a
lot of trouble.
God - A Meaningless Word

Mr. Bailey Saunders (Quest of Faith, p. 7)

calls agnosticism "a plea on behalf of suspended judgment," and this is a favourite
expression. It gives one an air of impartiality,
with the comforting reflection that it will
please the socially stronger side. But suspended judgment on what? To hold one's
judgment in suspense implies that we have
at least a workable comprehension of the
subject in dispute, and that judgment is suspended because the evidence produced is
not adequate to command decision. But is
that the case here? Does the agnostic claim
that the evidence produced by the theist is
merely inadequate, or that it is irrelevant?
Surely he holds the latter position. And if
that is the case, then he does not suspend
judgment, for the simple reason that there is
no case made out concerning which judgment is to be suspended. There is simply no
case before the court. For the agnostic, no
more than the Atheist, can attach no intelligible meaning to "god." He must have it
defined to understand it, and when it is
defined he rejects it without ceremony. And
it is quite obvious that when an agnostic
says, "I know nothing about god," he means
more than that; otherwise it would not be
worth the saying. He really means that no
one else knows either. He asserts that a
knowledge of god is impossible to anyone,
because it does not present the possibility of
being known. "God," standing alone is a
meaningless word, and how can one suspend judgment concerning the truth of an
unintelligible proposition?
For here are the plain facts of the situa-

. tion. If we ask the agnostic whether he suspends judgment concerning the existence of
the gods of any savage peoples, the reply is
in the negative. If we put the same question
concerning the god of the Bible, or of the
Mohammedan, or of any other of the world's
theologies we receive the same answer.
There is nothing here to suspend judgment
about, the characters and qualities of the
gods being such that there admits of no
doubt as to their imaginary character. Or ifit
is said that the agnostic, while dismissing the
gods of the various theologies, savage and
civilized, as being impossible, suspends
judgment as to the existence of a "supreme
mind," or of a "creative intelligence," the
reply is that one cannot suspend judgment
as to the possible existence of an inconceivability. For "mind" must be mind, as we
know it. And it is a downright absurdity to
speak of the possible existence of a "mind"
while divesting it of all the qualities that characterise mind as we know it. Really between
the statement that A does not exist, and the
affirmation that A does exist, but differs in
every conceivable particular from all known
A's there is no difference whatever. We are
denying its existence in the very act of affirming it.
Further, we quite agree with Mr. F. C. S.
Schiller (Riddles of the Sphinx, pp. 17-19)
that in practice such suspense of judgment is
impossible. We suspend our judgment as to
whether we shall die tomorrow or at some
indefinite future date, and for that reason we
make our arrangements in view of either
contingency. We suspend judgment as to
the honesty of an employee, and our attitude
towards him is governed by that fact. And so
with the question of a god. In one way or
another we are bound to indicate our judgment on the subject. We must act either as
though we believe in the possibility or in the
impossibility of "divine" interference. If the
mental hesitancy of the respectable agnostic
were accompanied by a corresponding timidity in action life would be impossible.
Reverential Agnosticism
A less common plea on behalf of agnosticism, but one on which a word must be said,
is that the agnostic attitude is more "reverential" than that of Atheism. But why in the
name of all that is reasonable should one
profess reverence towards something of
which one knows nothing? Reverence, to be
intelligible, must be directed towards an
intelligent object, and we must have grounds
for believing it to be worthy of reverence.
Reverence towards our fellow creatures is a
reasonable enough sentiment, but what is.
there reasonable in an expression of reverence towards something that can only be
thought of - and even this is unwarranted
- as a force? The truth is that this expression of reverence is no.more than the flicker-

Page 30

September, 1985

ing survival of religion. Numbers have

reached the stage at which they can perceive the unreasonable nature of religious
beliefs, but they have not yet managed to
achieve liberation from the traditional emotional attitude towards these beliefs. In other
words, the development of the emotional
and the intellectual sides of their nature have
been unequal, and for these the "Unknowable" has simply served as a peg on which to
hang religious feelings that have been robbed
of all intellectual support. The semi-religious
agnostic thus represents' a transition form,
interesting enough to all who observe how
curiously decaying types strive to perpetuate themselves, but which is bound to disappear in the process of intellectual evolution.
Finally, one would like from the agnostic
some authoritative announcement as to his
position in relation to what is -known concerning the origin of the god-idea. So far as
professed theists are concerned one expect's
this to be ignored. On the part of non-theists
one expects a more logical attitude. In this
case it is common ground with the Atheist
and the agnostic that the idea of god owes its
beginnings to the ignorance of primitive
man. We know the facts on which this idea

t------------------of millenia, the religion pushFOrersscores

used the same arguments for god
that drug pushers use today: "It makes you
feel good and takes away your cares. You
needn't worry any more."
Why should you do this? Because someone, somewhere, sometime, saw, talked, or
even wrestled with god. No one ever asked
what the person was "on" who - if he was
conscious - hallucinated this, or what he
had to eat - if he was dreaming - to cause
the nightmare. Was it drugs, booze, improperly digested pork? If the guy was big
enough and ugly enough and said he had a
"direct sensory experience" (real or imagined), the herd accepted it. When times
were bad, when bodies did not have enough
food, when minds, strained beyond endurance, turned inward, anyone could have
"mystical insight" which produced a god
even as perceptions show a mirage in a .
desert. Or there was that sensitive effete
who by intuition just knew there was a god.
Humankind in its infancy had no science,
education, or history from which to learn.

American Atheist

was based, and we know that all these are

now differently explained. The belief that
there is a god governing nature is just one of
those blunders made by primitive man, and
is on all fours with the numerous other
blunders he makes concerning himself and
the world around him. Knowing this, and
accepting this, believing that "god" springs
from the same set of conditions that gave
rise to fairies and spirits of various kinds, one
would like to know on what ground the
agnostic definitely rejects the grounds on
which the idea of god is based, while professing a state of suspended judgment about
the existence of the object created by this
primitive blunder. It is certainly surprising to
find those who accept the natural origin of
the god-idea, when they come to deal with
current religion talk as though it were merely
a question of the inconclusiveness of religious arguments. It is nothing of the kind.
The final reply to the arguments set forth on
behalf of theism is, not that they are inconclusive, but that they are absolutely irrelevant to the question at issue. We cannot
remain undecided because thereis nothing
to remain undecided about. We know that
the idea of god is pure myth, and was never

anything but myth. A belief that began in

error, and which has no other basis than
error, cannot by any possible argument be
converted into a truth. The old question
was, "Can man by searching find out god?"
The modern answer is an emphatic affirmative. Substantially we have by searching
found out god. We know the origin and history of one of the greatest delusions that
ever possessed the human mind. God has
been found out. Analytically and synthetically we understand the god-idea as previous generations could not understand it. It
has been explained; and the logical consequence ofthe explanation is - Atheism.

A Rose by Any Other Name

Ultimately, then, we come to this: (1) The
agnosticism that concerns itself with a confession of ignorance concerning the nature
of "existence," has no necessary connection
with religion and is only made to have such
by a confusion oftwo distinct things. (2) The
plea of a suspended judgment is invalid,
since there is nothing about which one can
suspend a decision. (3) The agnosticism that
professes a semi-religious feeling of rever-

ence towards the "Unknowable" is fundamentally upon all fours with the religious
feelings of the ordinary believer. Worshipping the Unknowable is more ridiculous
than worshipping Huxley's "wilderness of
apes." The apes might take some intelligent
interest in the antics of their devotees; but to
print our hypostatized ignorance in capital
letters and then profess a feeling of veneration for it is as ridiculous a proceeding as the
world has seen. After all, an absurdity is
never quite so grotesque as when it is
tricked out in scientific phrases and paraded
as the outcome of profound philosophic
thinking. (4) The only agnosticism that
seems capable of justifying itself is an agnosticism that is indistinguishable from Atheism. To again cite Professor Flint, Atheist
"means one who does not believe in god,
and it means neither more nor less." The
agnostic is also one who is without belief in a
god, every argument he uses to justify his
position is and has been used as a justification OfAtheism. Atheist is really "a thoroughly honest, unambiguous term," it admits of
no paltering and of no evasion, and the need
of the world, now as ever, is for clear-cut
issues and unambiguousspeech,

A Few Arguments - For God's Sake

There was only groping after "some way to
make it," day by day, coping in the world's
wildernesses for food, shelter, and sex.
With the one who was ugly, big and mean
enough to push his ideas onto others, authority was born. After that god ideas were
quickly based on authority: first, the authority of an individual (Moses, Christ, Mohammed, Buddha), then on the authority of an
institution (church, state), and then later,
when words could be scratched on stone or
sheep's hide, the authority of the written
word (Bible, Koran, Veda, Upanishads).
Since no god ever zapped himself into the
presence of men so that the god theory
could be tested, these substitutes for the
real thing were the basis of belief.
Late in mankind's development the "rational" or "logical" ideas were born, but they
were all based on a priori premises. That's a
polite way of saying that the beginning
statement, the first premise, has to be
accepted without examination. One good
argument was needed; the theists came up
with half a dozen because all failed.

Austin, Texas

e The cosmological argument: There is a

cause for everything. The first cause is god.
Theology says that the egg was not generated without the chicken; so the universe
was not generated without god laying it.
The reply: If everything has a cause, who
caused god? What chicken laid god?
e The teleological argument: Look how
wonderful it all is? See the design in nature?
A planning intelligence was behind it all.
The reply: Oh, sure! For god so loved the
world that he gave all of us bodies which
self-destruct. That's damn fine planning.
e The ontological argument: God exists
because he can be thought about and defined in exquisite detail. I know allabout him:
he is omnipotent, omnibenevolent, omniscient, omnipresent. I think god into existing.
The reply: I can think about leprecauns
and unicorns. But show me one!
eThe moral argument: I know god exists
because from him there flows goodness,
kindness, love, justice, truth, and wisdom.
The reply: That leaves unsolved badness,
unkindness, hate, injustice, falsehood, and

September, 1985

folly. No hell on earth - no reason for a god.

eThe pragmatic argument: But the god
idea works. The god idea has brought humanity to a peak of excellence.
The reply: Mankind could have made it
sooner and better without religious wars,
the crusades, the Inquisition, and the personal psychological hells into which religion
has cast most of the human race. Religion
exhalts cruelty, sadism, insanity, slavery,
sexism, war, and death. Either Santa Claus
or the Easter Bunny is a better idea!
eThe argument from entropy. When god
made the word flesh, corruptness set in.
Ultimately matter and energy in the universe
shall degrade to inertness and nothingness.
The reply: Living organisms have advanced in complexity not degenerated from
perfection. Humans in community become
more interrelated,
knowledgeable, and
sophisticated not more degraded and disorganized.
I'lltake my chances with humankind. You
can take your ideas of god.

Page 31

THE PROBING MIND / Frank R. Zindler

.\

THE PROSPECT OF
PHYSICAL IMMORTALITY
PART I: WHY DIE?

I am not resigned to the shutting away

of loving hearts in the hard ground.
So it is, and so it will be, for so it has
been, time out of mind:
Into the darkness they go, the wise and
the lovely.
Crowned with lilies and with laurel they
go; but I am not resigned.
Lovers and thinkers, into the earth with
you.
Be one with the indiscriminate dust.
A fragment of what you felt, of what you
knew,
A formula, a phrase remains, - but the
best is lost ...
Down, down, down into the darkness of
the grave
Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender,
the kind;
Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty,
the brave.
I know. But I do not approve. And I am
not resigned.
From Dirge Without Music,
by Edna St. Vincent Millay

The Ageless Query

men die? This is a question
Mustwhichall men
in all ages have asked. In
the Western world, the answer to this question has almost invariably been "yes." What
is, after all, more obvious than man's mortality? To be sure, our mythologies are replete
with characters such as Adam and Methuselah, who were imagined to have succeeded
in eluding the Reaper for a number of centuries. But, significantly, even they at last
cashed in their chips.
Our religions, for the most part, have
given up hope for physical immortality altogether and have invented spiritual immortality as a rather anemic substitute for which to
hope. Since eternity with neither bodies nor
brains is hard to market, some religions have

Page 32

added the doctrine of bodily resurrection.

But there is something profoundly immaterial about the bodies we willbe issued when
we're mustered up beside the plastic petunias in Forest Lawn. Certainly our new
bodies will not be equipped for fornication,
and it is unthinkable that a resurrected
Christian will recommence to urinate and
defecate. Sneezing and sweating, too, seem
unseemly pastimes for new-issue bodies. By
the time one subtracts all the activities the
resurrected "bodies" are likely to perform,
the bodies seem hardly to be bodies at all!
"All men are mortal," said Socrates, and
until the growth of modern biology Socrates
seems to have had the last word on the
subject. But today we may at least ask why
this should be so. Why do men die?
"Because they are descended from animals," the biologist replies. Which prompts
the question, "But why do animals die?"
Part of the answer (apart from accidents
and the fact that many animals are food for
other animals) is that from a cost-benefitratio point of view, maintaining animal bodies
after the genes they carry have been passed
on is wasteful. Just as a chicken is an egg's
way of making another egg, an animal body
is a device used by genes to insure successful reproduction and transmission through
time. From this perspective, bodies are
simply packaging for genes - wrappings to
be discarded once the genes have "done
their thing."
Sex Is for What!
Contrary to the opinion of the pope, the
"purpose" of sex is not reproduction. Forms
which reproduce sexually do so in order to
provide new genetic combinations, to reshuffle the genes of the parent generation.
Sexual recombination of genes allows evolution to occur much more rapidly than is the
case in asexually reproducing organisms.
Unfortunately, only sexually reproducing
organisms die of old age. Death from old age
is unknown in asexual forms such as bacteria or in forms such as amoebas which reproduce sexually only upon certain occasions.

September, 1985

These forms multiply by dividing, gradually

losing their original identities as their material is passed on to daughter cells. Although
such forms may die because of hostile environmental conditions, they never die of old
age. They are truly immortal.
Whereupon the question naturally arises,
"Why do animals need to evolve?" The ability to evolve is essential if species are to be
able to adapt to rapidly changing environmental conditions. It would appear that in
the evolution of life, the death of individuals
has been necessary for the survival of life
itself.
It is often the case that the longer the
life-span of an organism, the slower is its rate
of evolution. Thus, the giant redwoods, with
life-spans that put even old Methuselah to
shame, have changed only slightly since the
time of the dinosaurs. In the same amount of
time, however, our short-lived ancestors
have been transformed from tiny, shrew-like
creatures, cowering in the shadows of Mesozoic forests, into Prometheans who have
stolen the fire of the sun.
We may be glad that our amphibian
ancestors died, so that some of their offspring could evolve into reptiles. And we
may approve of the fact that our reptilian
ancestors died so that some of their descendants could become mammals and, eventually, human beings.
But confound it! We have arrived! We are
here! We are beginning to take control of
our own evolution, and we don't need to
continue the wasteful process of evolution
by natural selection! Admitting the desirability of a little improvement here, and a few
changes there, we like ourselves, and we
would like to savor the sauce of life for at
least a couple of millennia - even if not,
perhaps, forever.
Admitting the biological necessity for
death in the past, is death still necessary and
desirable? (Only biologists and manicdepressives ask such questions!) Is death
still inevitable, now that we have become a
form of life conscious of itself - aware of its
origins and using the insights of science to
chart its future course?

American Atheist

It Ain't Necessarily So
I believe the answers to all these questions
is an emphatic "No!" We no longer need to
die. Mortality is not an a priori necessity.
Biology should enable us to become essentially immortal. With reasonable luck, I think
this should be possible by the year 2000.
Before attempting to justify this claim, I
would note that for as long as our ancestors
have been recognizable members of the
species Homo sapiens, they have feared
death. Only the noblest of our kind have
failed to cower and quail when touched by
the shadow that precedes the "Great Dark."
While still they lived in caves, men feared to
travel in the "Valley of the Shadow." And
men and women created gods and goddesses in their own images - soothing fictions to help them face the fact of their
mortality.
Like man himself, his religions have come
and gone, have lived and died. Though none
of them have ever taken one successful step
toward the actual conquest of death (indeed,
almost all religions have been a major obstacle in the path of those who might have done
so), most religions have fed upon man's fear.
Priests have waxed fat in direct proportion
as they have developed the ability to fool
men into believing that they do in fact hold
magic powers over death.
For millennia man's superstitions have
sold him an ersatz immortality and prevented him from seeking out the real one. It
is only in the last century - which has seen
the growth of science into a force great
enough to expose this inventive fiction for
the first time - that man has been able,
systematically, to investigate the differences
between life and death. And only in the last
few decades have we found the courage to
seek a cure for dying.
In trying to justify my hope that essential
immortality should be achievable by the year
2000, I must declare the subject of "accidental" death to be beyond the scope of my
discussion. A person run over by a steamroller in the year 2000 willbe just as dead as
the one run over in 1985. I shall, therefore,
limit my discussion to the kind of death conceived to be the terminus of old age.
"Old age is itself a sickness," said the
Roman poet Terence, who flourished in the
second century B.C. "Old age is itself a sickness," echo the majority of modern biologists. No longer believing that sickness
comes either from god or the devil, biologists now view aging and death as just
another disease in need of cure - just like
smallpox, cholera, or cancer.
Self-Destruct

Genes

While the sickness model of aging and

death may prove unable to explain everything, it is a good place to begin. In order to

Austin, Texas

cure any disease, it is usually necessary to

identify the causative agent and discern the
nature of the damage which must be repaired. To fight effectively, one must first
know the enemy. To cure aging, we must
first seek out its causes.
Fortunately, we do not have to look very
far in order to obtain many ideas about the
causes of aging. There are some ideas which
practically leap up to capture our attention.
Consider salmon, for instance.
Salmon are hatched in freshwater
streams, develop, and then descend to the
sea to grow to sexual maturity. As long as
fiveyears after birth, the nubile fish reascend
the rivers which gave them life to consummate their nuptials. At this time a most
remarkable transformation occurs. The
formerly sleek, silvery-blue fish become a
dull reddish-brown. The males in particular
become ugly and misshapen. As the fish
spawn, they grow suddenly old. Most die
within a few days after the fertilization of the
eggs. Rare indeed is the salmon that survives
to spawn again. It is as though the fish had
happened into a never-sought-for Fountain
of Senility.
Similar to the case of the salmon, though
even more dramatic, is the case of the mayflies. These insects are classified in an order
named Ephemerida, in recognition of their
ephemeral existence. All but one or two
days of their entire lives are spent as aquatic
larvae. At last they emerge from the water,
tryout their new-found wings, perpetuate
their race - and perish. Within hours, their
temporary terrestrial tenure is at an end.
And then there are carrots.
Carrots, as everyone knows, are biennial
plants. That is, they live exactly two years,
flower, go to seed, and die. They die not at
the end of one year, nor at the end of three.
Almost always, they self-destruct at the end
of two years.
Is there any relationship between salmon,
mayflies, and carrots? I think so. The precision with which their aging and death occur
makes one suspect that there is some sort of
genetic predestination at work. It is as
though evolution has equipped these species with self-destruct genes the function of
which is to get older generations out of the
way in order to avoid competition with their
descendants.
Coin A Word
Although no technical word for such selfdestruct genes exists, the genes themselves
do exist. I have termed them opsephoneai
genes (from the Greek, opse, meaning "late"
and phoneus, meaning "murderer"), and I
am convinced that they have at least something to do with aging in all animal species.
Are opsephoneal genes at work in human
aging?
While humans are neither annual nor

September, 1985

biennial, they are - ifImay be permitted the

barbarism - proverbially three-score-andtennial. While improved care and nutrition
have steadily increased man's life expectancy, they have not significantly increased
his life span. That is still nearly fixed at about
seventy years, although some recent authors feel the human life-span really to be
about 110 years. This reinforces the suspicion that opsephoneal genes are at work.
The suspicion is further strengthened by
the bizarre disease known as progeria premature old age. By the age of eight, a
child may be biologically eighty. It seems as
though something has happened to activate
prematurely a normally dormant opsephoneal gene. It seems not irrational to suppose,
therefore, that ifsomething can turn on such
a gene prematurely, we should be able to
find a way to turn off - or at least delay such a gene as well.
Many people, when discussing the genetic
aspect of aging with me, express the hope
that aging will not prove to be genetically
predestined. They shrink from the notion as
if it were a sort of biological Calvinism.
"What hope can we have if our very genes
are against us?" they ask.
Actually, if suicide genes were the whole
story, we would be in great luck. For we
already know a great deal about what turns
genes on and off. Hormones, for instance,
are busy at this moment turning on and off
various of the reader's genes as he reads
these words. Other genes are turned on or
off as a result of the buildup of various, simple chemicals in the cell. Still other genes
may be inhibited by large protein molecules
located at strategic positions in the nucleus
of the cell.
Turn It Off
Most exciting of all, genetic engineers
have learned to read and write in genetic
code. It is now a daily occurrence for human
genes (made of DNA) to be combined with
particular synthetic or natural sequences of
DNA which willguarantee expression (turning on) of the gene in a new host cell, say, a
bacterium. That which genetic engineers
turn on, can be turned off as well. In any
event, if aging and death were due to the
action of suicide genes alone, the cure for
old age would be conceptually no more
complicated than finding the legendary
Fountain of Youth. All we would need to do
would be to find a drug or some other form
of "magic bullet" which was specific for the
gene in question and was able either to
repress it or permanently disarm it.
While I accept the fact that aging has a
genetic component, I think there are other
factors in aging which merit our more immediate attention. There are factors which,
even if they should prove not to be the central cause of aging, nevertheless are worth

Page 33

dealing with first - for the simple reason

that they would, if dealt with effectively,
allow us to buy extra time during which we
might grapple with any remaining problems.
Ifwe are to be the first immortal generation,
we must somehow "buy time." The most
pressing problems in aging - and possible
ways of forestalling them - willbe dealt with
in Part II: Stalling the Reaper. ~

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Formerly a professor of biology and
geology, Frank R. Zindler is now a
science writer. A member of the
American Association for the
Advancement of Science, the
American Chemical Society, and the
American Schools of Oriental
Research, he is also co-chairperson of
the Committee of Correspondence on
Evolution Education and Director of
the Central Ohio Chapter of American
. Atheists.

THE TORAH MILITANT THE ANTI-HUMANIST

DOGMA OF THE ORTHODOX RIGHT*
(Cont'd

from page 14)

Tanya, a work on "Jewish religious ethics"

which has gone through scores of editions
since it was first printed in Eastern Europe in
1796. Based largely on the Talmud and the
mystical fifteenth-century Kabbalah, it posits an absolute qualitative difference between
Jewish souls, which are intrinsically holy,
and the souls of "all the nations [gentiles] of
the world" which are "altogether unclean
and evil, containing no good whatever" (e.g.,
Part I, Chap. 7). Oded Granot reports in
Ma'ariv (January 22, 1985) that a delegation
of Habad Hassids led by New York Rabbi
Yitzhak Springer, visited Ariel Sharon at the
U.S. Federal Court building in Manhattan to
"cheer up" the man who one member of the
group called a "Jewish genius." A decision
favorable to Sharon, they felt, would constitute a "victory of the Jewish people over the
goyim."
34. "Inculcating Ethical Ideals within Our
Students," Tradition, A Journal of Orthodox Thought, Fall 1981, p. 234.
35. Nili Mandler, Ha'aretz, May 6, 1984.
36. Hubert Herman, Hotam (Friday supplement to Al Hamishmar), September 7,
1984.

37. Ha'aretz, January 31, 1985.

38. Jewish Press, June 8, 1984. According
to a letter and documentation sent to me by
Israel Shahak, religious-extremist pressure
in Israel has succeeded in obtaining the
removal there of all plus signs from pre-high
school arithmetic books - even those used
in secular schools. The plus sign, resembling
too closely the crucifix, has been replaced
by an inverted T. ~

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Mr. SkuteI is a Canadian writer of Jewish background. Articles by him on
Jewish religious extremism have
appeared in the Washington-based
newsletter Middle East Perspective,
the Journal of Palestine Studies, and
the British fortnightly Middle East
International. This is his third appearance in the American Atheist.

DIAL-AN-ATHEIST

The telephone listings below are the various services where you may listen to short comments on state/church separation
issues and viewpoints originated by the Atheist community.

Tucson, Arizona,
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Page 34

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DIAL-THE-ATHEIST

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September, 1985

(518) 346-1479
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American Atheist

REPORT FROM INDIA / Margaret Bhatty

A SKELETON IN THE CUPBOARD

ten years, pious Roman Catholics
Every
from all over the country and abroad

converge on the former Portuguese enclave

of Goa for an important event - the exposition of St. Francis Xavier. The most recent
one ended on January 13 of this year, when
the mortal remains of the saint were taken
from the See Cathedral back to their usual
resting-place in the Basilica of Born Jesus in
Old Goa, Over eleven hundred thousand
came to pay homage and participate in this
ghoulish event of venerating the mummified
remains of one whose body has not seen
corruption like more ordinary mortals.
There is, however, evidence that this incorruptibility is not because of divine intervention, but because of a confidence trick
played by the church on the devout. The
corpse which has been displayed so often as
St. Xavier is not his, after all.
The Catholicization

of Goa

Goa was conquered in the early sixteenth

century by Alfonso de Alburquerque. When
he held a victory parade to celebrate the
event, it was November 25, 1510, the feastday of St. Catherine of Alexandria. He therefore made her the territory's patron saint
and ordered the construction of the first
cathedral in her honour. Thereafter, the
conversion of the heathen went vigorously
ahead to turn them from their own kind of
idolatry to that of the Roman Catholic sort.
In 1540,the Portuguese government ordered
Hindu temples and Muslim shrines to be
razed and churches and cathedrals built on
their foundations. In 1560, the Inquisition
was brought in to terrorize those who drifted
away or tended to revert to their pagan
ways.

ordained and summoned to Rome by Loyola

to serve as secretary to the Jesuits. Turning
missionary, he set out eastwards, landing in
Goa in 1542 to found the first Jesuit mission.
Later, he travelled through India and went to
the Far East - to Malacca, the Molucas,
and to Japan. Accompanied by a Japanese
convert, Yajira, he penetrated remote regions in Japan and spent two years preaching and converting. He intended to go to
China next but died of a fever on an island
near Macao on December 2, 1552. Two
years later his body was brought to Goa and
placed in a silver casket fashioned by local
craftsmen. It was said to be as fresh as the
day he died. Xavier was canonized in 1622,
and his resting-place in Old Goa is the most
celebrated shrine among the many beautiful
churches and cathedrals which dot the
countryside of this lush and verdant coastal
region.
The Basilica of Born Jesus is a singlenaved shrine with a cruciform plan and a
classical three-story facade. Xavier's mausoleum is in the southern wing of the transept.
The tomb was made in Florence. The interior of the chapel is garish with a great deal of
gilt and glitter, woodcarvings, and paintings.
It is connected by a corridor to the vestry
which has more paintings, a collection of
human bones of various shapes and sizes,
and other magically endowed knick-knacks.
My own impression of the Basilica was one
of a morbid and over-explicit obsession with
death. Here, too, is found the Golden Rose
presented to the Basilica by Pope Pius XII in
1953. At each exposition the remains of the
saint are decked in vestments and taken in
procession to the See Cathedral to be
returned after fifty-four days.
Cutting Up The Remains

Enter Francis Xavier

After Catherine, the next most honoured
saint in Goa is Francis Xavier (1506-52),
"apostle of the Indies." Born at Xavero, son
of a privy councillor to the King of Navarre,
Xavier was reared in the lap of luxury. He
was educated in Paris and became a lecturer
at the College de Beauvais. Greatly influenced by Ignatius Loyola, he later worked
with him in founding the Society of Jesus in
1534.
At the age of thirty-one, Xavier was

Austin, Texas

As soon as Xavier's corpse arrived in

Goa, superstitious people sliced offpieces of
flesh as relics. In 1614, the church took off
his right arm and parcelled it to Rome. In
1626 the body was further scavenged when
all his innards were removed and distributed
to Roman Catholic centers round the world.
He'll have quite a time gathering himself
when the last Trumpet sounds.
Evidently, Xavier didn't cease from his
labours even while lying in his silver casket,
obviously dead but well-preserved and

September, 1985

standing up very well to the ravages of a

tropical climate. When, in 1683, Goa was
threatened by Maratha soldiers of a neighbouring Hindu ruler, the Portuguese viceroy
was unable to think of any way to save the
colony. He finally went to the Born Jesus
Basilica and placed his jewelled rod of office
and letters of appointment in Xavier's remaining hand, deputing him viceroy in the
hope that he would get the enemy to raise
the siege. Despite being not all there, Xavier
acted promptly. With a fine sense of timing,
he induced the Mughal army to threaten the
Marathas from the rear, and they hurriedly
abandoned Goa and retreated.
The myth still persists that as long as Xavier is present, Goa is under divine protection. But, he submitted the enclave to the
Indian take-over in 1961 and didn't lift a finger of his remaining hand to stop their
marching in, watched with mixed feelings by
the Portuguese colonists and a staunchly
Roman Catholic Goan population, but welcomed by the local Hindus.
After 1683 it became the convention for
the retiring viceroy to place his baton in the
saint's hand to be delivered by the mummified corpse to the succeeding viceroy. But
each time the casket was opened, a little
more of the poor, unprotesting saint disappeared. Finally, the Jesuit Superior-General
in Rome gave an order that the casket
should never be opened again. This ban was
violated in 1744 and 1751 and again in 1755.
On one occasion, Dom Jose, the King of
Portugal, even tried to get possession of the
body from the Jesuits. Politically powerful
groups in Portugal decided that the Jesuits
in the colony had acquired too much wealth
and influence and they were ordered to
leave Goa. Soon after their expulsion the
mortal remains of Xavier disappeared in the
mists of history.
A Substitute for The Real
The populace, however, were furious at
the loss of their mascot. To placate them the
Portuguese episcopal authorities were
forced to find another corpse. A Goan
churchman, Canon Antonio Gomes, who
obligingly died at this time, was put in Xavier's place. At the exposition of 1782 his
corpse, gorgeously decked, was put on
show for the devout to venerate. Pieces of

Page 35

his soutanes were sold in small squares as

scapulars.
Gomes' body didn't keep as good health
as did Xavier's. Back in 1654, a French
Jesuit Bayard described the century-old
corpse of the saint thusly:
The Saint's hair is slightly black and
curling. The forehead is broad and
high, with two rather large veins, soft
and purple in tint. The eyes are black,
livelyand sweet, with so penetrating a
glance that he would seem to be alive
and breathing. The lips are of bright
reddish colour, and the beard is thick.
In the cheeks there is a vermilion tint.
The tongue is flexible, red and moist,
and the chin beautifully proportioned.
The Chinese knew their embalming.
Not allthat paint and cosmetics could give
Gomes' corpse a similar credibility. In time
church officials discreetly referred to the
remains not as "the body incorruptible" but
merely as "sacred relics."
For generations the Gomes family kept
the bizarre secret, fearing the wrath of the
church if they spoke out. But in 1952 they

demanded the remains of their ancestor for

proper burial in the family mausoleum in
Cavelossim. On their petition the Patriarch
of Goa had the corpse examined and under
the vestments were found a skeleton, skull,
and small pieces of skin with hair. But the
secret was still kept.
In 1961, when Indian troops were poised
for the invasion of the Portuguese colony,
Salazar of Portugal ordered the silver casket
and its contents to be flown out from Goa.
But church officials enlightened the secret
police who went to the Basilica to carry out
the dictator's commands. The fleeing governor, however, made sure to take the gemstudded baton of office when he left the
territory.
In 1974 the Apostolic Administrator,
Monsignor Raul Gonsalves, said of the poor
remains, "We can no longer speak of incorruptibility, for what we have left is mainly
bones." But he did not think it necessary to
specify whose bones they are.
As Always - The Fraud
Meanwhile the Roman Catholic Church
continues to perpetuate a fraud on gullible

believers, and the thousands of pilgrims

bring in a lot of money to the coffers. But
even if the truth were told, it is unlikely to
shake anyone's faith. There aren't many
who can smell or tell the difference between
the bones of two dead men. We now know
that the Pope is to visit Goa in February of
1986. He can't possibly miss out on a trip to
the Basilica to call on "St. Xavier" (or his
stand-in, Gomes). Maybe for him there'll be
a special exposition. I doubt whether, with
all his infallibility, he'll be much wiser than
the rest about what he really sees in those
ghoulish remains. ~
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
In the year 1978, your editors, assisted
by Joseph Edamaruku, editor of an
Indian Atheist publication, combed
India seeking writers who would
consistently offer an interpretation of
Indian religious events. Margaret
Bhatty, in Nagpur, a well-known
feminist journalist, agreed that she
would do so in the future. She joined
the staff of the American Atheist in
January, 1983.

TALK ABOUT
RELIGIOUS
COMMERCIALISM!

THIS NECKLACE IS HAND-CARVED IN BETHLEHEM AND

THIS ROSAR\{ HAS A DROP OF WATER FROM LOURDES AND
THIS RING HAS SAND FROM THE JORDAN VALLE\{
Page 36

September, 1985

American Atheist

HISTORICAL NOTES

100 Years Ago ...

The Truth Seeker of September 12, 1885,
had a few comments to make on the history,
status, and future of the practice of
cremation:
"A few years ago a person who favored
incineration of the dead was looked upon as
a heretic but little less depraved than 'Tom'
Paine. So strong, indeed, was the opposition
of the church to this method of disposing of
the dead, that it was left to the heretics the Infidels - to advocate and defend the
practice. But today cremation has gained
strong headway not only in this country but
in Europe ....
"Dr. Le Moyne, who built the first furnace
in the United States, was a Freethinker. In
1876 Baron De Palm's body was incinerated
under theosophic auspices. Since then the
managers of Le Moyne's Crematory at
Washington, Pa., have been obliged to
refuse to receive bodies from outside the
limits of the county, so numerous were the
applications. In 1881was organized the New
York Cremation Society, of which J. B.
Brown was the president, and D. W. Craig
secretary. Both these gentlemen were active
Freethinkers ....
"This progress in cremation the Times
calls a victory of reason over sentiment and
prejudice. It is also a victory of progress over
the stupidity of the church. The impossible
dogma of resurrection has been a great
obstacle in the way of the cremationists.
Less and less do the people now believe in a
literal resurrection; to meet this growth
toward rationalism, the ministers say it will
be as easy for God to gather up a person
from ashes and gas as it is to collect the
gases from the mold of the grave or which
have gone forth into grasses and flowers. A
few clergymen are possessed of common
sense enough to boldly advocate cremation
as the most sensible, cleanly, and healthy
way of disposing of bodies. These preachers,
however, are those tinctured with radicalism, if not with absolute heresy. Catholicism, of course, willoppose the method, but
the fact that in Italy cremation is numerically
strongest shows that the pope cannot have
everything his way.
"As sanitary science long since established the fact that earth burial near towns
and cities is an evilinflicted upon the living,it
is not so much a matter for wonder that
cremation has made such progress during
the past nine years as it is that it made so
little progress during the preceding years. It
is probable that a quarter of a century from
now cremation willbe the prevailing custom,
and burials near cities forbidden by law to

Austin, Texas

protect the health of the living."

30 Years Ago ...

The Liberal, a "rationalist and freethought
journal" published by the Friendship Liberal
League, Inc., commented on an unusual
resolution passed by the Virginia state
legislature:
"On that date [February 26, 1954] the
State Legislature passed a joint resolution
making officiala salute to the flagof Virginia.
What's so strange about that, you ask? Well
there is no 'Under God' in it. In fact no
mention of God at all. Just a 'salute to the
flag of the Old Dominion, where liberty and
independence were born.' It looks like those
legislators still remember Jefferson, Monroe, and George Mason and the things they
stood for in that same legislature in colonial
days."

burden.
''This new plant, worth about $150,000, is
the product of the dedicated commitment of
a few American Atheist families who have
backed Richard and Madalyn O'Hair in
every aspect of their continuing national
fight to gain recognition and respect for the
position of American Atheism.
"The future is indebted to this handful of
people. We have personally met most of
them, visited in their homes, or had them
visit in ours. We recognize their handwriting
and know their chief gripes, their idiosyncracies and their hopes. We have worried
over them when they were ill. We have
sweated out their marriage problems. We
have agonized over their children. We feel a
sense of intimate association.
"From all of this, we have a base. We
oldsters did it together. It is a job well done."

5 Years Ago ...

15 Years Ago ...
This is just a bit of the shocking information found in the September 5, 1970 issue of
the British Freethinker under the headline
"Nun-Running Scandal Hits the Vatican".
"[T]he shortage of priests and nuns has
become such a serious problem that it can
no longer be solved by social and economic
pressure .... This concerns a 'nun-running'
racket from the poverty-stricken state of
Kerala in South India to convents in several
countries, including Britain .... one Mother
Superior admitted to a British newspaper
that she had paid 3,000 for ten young girls.
And it has been revealed that five nuns in a
Hampshire convent had been bought for
260 each, the money having been paid into
the personal bank account of one Father
Cyriac Puthenpura."

10 Years Ago ...

"The Editor's Notes" section of the September 1975 American Atheist announced
the acquisition of a new site for American
Atheists, then commonly known as the
Society of Separationists, Inc.:
"This issue of the magazine comes from
the new home of the Society of Separationists,Ine. ...
"[A]n office building has been purchased
as a site for American Atheist activities ....
"American Atheism has come to the scene
to stay. We intend to dig in for a long combat
with organized religion. We won't give up
until state and church separation in the United States becomes a reality and until the
churches are not only self-supporting but
until they must pay their fair share of the tax

September, 1985

The first State Chapter Convention in the

history of American Atheists was held September 13 and 14, 1980. The sponsoring
state was California and the site Solvang, a
small town known for its Danish heritage,
one hundred miles north of Los Angeles.
The Convention began with a very social
picnic, which was followed by a speech on
"The Political Threat of Religion in America
Today" by American Atheist Center Director Jon G. Murray. The Directors ofthe four
California chapters of American Atheists
gave reports on their chapters' projects during the previous year. Conventioneers were
also entertained by magic, Atheist music,
and a play during the first evening. On the
second day, Ellen Marden, then the Director
of the San Diego Chapter, gave a presentation on Percy Bysshe Shelley and a member
of the Los Angeles Chapter spoke on "Positive Atheism."
In the October, 1980, American Atheist,
Jon Murray wrote of the convention:
"To summarize it all: there could not have
been a better 'first' state level convention
than this in California. It fulfilleda number of
goals: creating better comraderie and understanding among the Chapter membership
and officers, at state level, introducing all the
Chapter officers and members one to
another, exchanging ideas and suggestions,
calling upon local talent and givingAtheists a
chance to see dozens of other Atheists in
action, increasing the amour propre of Atheists in general and implementing cooperation between these state Chapters on an
administrative level. This can only lead to
increased outreach and effectiveness from
all the Californians involved."

Page 37

AMERICAN A THEIST RADIO SERIES / Madalyn O'Hair

GEORGE ELIOT & RELIGION

When the first installment of a regularly scheduled, fifteen-minute, weekly American Atheist radio
series on KTBC radio (a station in Austin, Texas, owned by then-president Lyndon Baines Johnson) hit
the airwaves on June 3, 1968, the nation was shocked. The programs had to be submitted weeks in
advance and were heavily censored. The regular production of the series ended in September, 1977,
when no further funding was available.
The following is the text of American Atheist Radio Series program No. 335,first broadcast on March
15,1975.
heard much and read innuendoes
that Mary Ann Evans was an Atheist. She
Ihave

was known as, and wrote under the name of,

George Eliot. Born in 1819, she died in 1880
and was a significant figure in British
literature.
Now, I find in this old journal from England, titled The Agnostic and printed in
1885, that in that year her husband J. W.
Cross issued a three-volume titled, George
Eliot's Life, as Related in Her Letters and
Journals. This is now available in the U.S. in
reprint format and so expensive that I doubt
that we can afford to purchase it for our
American Atheist Library and Archives.
The magazine The Agnostic and F. Sydney Morris, writing there, has quotedextensively from the material, and I bring you now
what I find from that source.
It appears that her father was a comfortably prosperous man who was conservative
in both his politics and his religion. His
daughter was reared in his beliefs. At age
nineteen she was a most exemplary Christian and provincial Methodist, writing to her
friend, "Oh, that Icould livefor eternity! that
we could realize its nearness!"
But, as happens with the best of Christians, she found several books, and these in
1841 when she was twenty-two years old.
One was Charles Hennell's Inquiry Concerning The Origin of Christianity, and the
other was Isaac Taylor's Ancient Christianity. Incidentally, we are unable to find
either book now. But, of these, she wrote in
a letter to a female friend (Miss Lewis,
November 13, 1941):
My whole soul has been engrossed
in the most interesting of inquiries for
the last few days, and to what results
my thoughts may lead I know not possibly to one that will startle you;
but my only desire is to know the
truth, my only fear to cling to error.
From this point, apparently, she never

Page 38

looked back. The "results" at which she

arrived did startle many of her friends. But
four months later she wrote:
To fear the examination of any proposition appears to me an intellectual
and moral palsy that will ever hinder
the firm grasp of any subject whatever.
It was shortly after this that she began the
translation of Strauss's Leben Jesu, or the
Life of Jesus. This was brought out in Germany in four editions from 1835 to 1840 and
in sum, the impact of it was to end the idea of
miracle as a matter of historical belief and
give the mythological explanation of the
Bible its due.
And as she was working on this book, it is
instructive that the more heresy she developed, the happier she became. Where
her letters during her orthodoxy were filled
with melancholy, she now began to write:
I can rejoice in all the joys of humanity, in all that serves to elevate
and purify feeling and action.
She began to attend concerts and lectures. She says of this period,
I say it now, and I say it once for all,
that I am influenced in my conduct at
the present time by far higher considerations, and by a nobler idea of
duty, than I ever was while I held the
Evangelical belief.
At one interview in Cambridge, walking in
Fellows' Garden at Trinity, the interviewer
states,
. . . stirred somewhat beyond her
wont, and taking as her text the three
words which have been used so often
as the inspiring trumpet-calls of men
- the words God, Immortality, Duty

September, 1985

- (she) pronounced, with terrible

earnestness, how inconceivable was
the first, how unbelievable was the
second, and yet how preemptory and
absolute was the third.
Therefore, she boldly asserted her freedom and independence by giving up going to
church.
Now, I wonder why I was not taught this in
my literature classes in college? All I ever
heard about George Eliot was that she
affected the male.
Her refusal to go to church led to a rupture between herself and her father. She
made up her mind to go to lodgings and
support herself, ifpossible, by teaching. But,
home had meant more to her than she had
supposed and that intimate, daily relationship with her family was so missed that she
rued the break-up for her entire life.This led
her to taking a softer approach to others
who were not so important to her as her
father had been. She attempted to treat
believers (in one instance, Jews) "with such
sympathy and understanding as my nature
and knowledge could attain." This made it
impossible for her to take up the cudgels of
war against religion. She could not be aggressive in her feelings and writes,
I have too profound a conviction of
the efficacy that lies in all sincere faith,
and the spiritual blight that comes
with no faith, to have any negative
propagandaism in me. In fact, I have
very little sympathy with Freethinkers
as a class, and have lost all interest in
mere antagonism to religious doctrines.
George Eliot is legendary in respect to her
sensitiveness and she kept aloof from society. Her sensibility to criticism was most
acute. She wrote to a friend:
I feel that the influence of talking

American Atheist

about my books, even to you ... has

been so bad to me that I should like to
be able to keep silence concerning
them forevermore. If people were to
buzz round me with their remarks or
compliments, I should lose the repose
of mind and truthfulness of production without which no good healthy
books can be written. Talking about
my books, I find, has much the same
malign effect on me as talking of my
feelings or my religion.
But by 1854 she had published The
Essence of Christianity, a translation of
Ludwig Feuerbach. This is shocking, for
hardly anyone was brave enough to approach Feuerbach's works in those days,
least of all introduce them to England in
translation. It has been said that Feuer-

middle-class minds of her day is a masterpiece of scientific psychology when that discipline had not really found itself at the time.
In her letters she notes,
There is really no moral "sanction"
but this inward impulse. The will of
god is the same thing as the will of
other men, compelling us to work and
avoid what they have seen to be harmful to social existence. Disjoined from
any perceived good, the Divine willis
simply so much as we have ascertained of the facts of existence which
compel obedience at our peril. Any
other notion comes from the supposition of arbitrary revelation.
In her novels she demonstrated unceasingly that morality is wholly the construction

GEORGE ELIOT
bach's basic contention was that the Christian idea of man, far from liberating man,
actually succeeded in enslaving him to an
illusory absolute. Bruno Bauer and Karl
Marx are often said to have been disciples.
In 1855 she translated Spinoza's Ethics.
It was after this that her first fiction
appeared. She was never orthodox in religion after her break. She abandoned with a
fierce determination every creed, and although she passed, later, through various
phases, she remained incessantly a rationalist in matters of faith and in all other matters. She did write admirably about religion
and about religious persons. She knew the
strength of religious motivation from her
father and the ability to understand it and
handle it from her losing her relationship
with him. Her exposition of the upper-and

Austin, Texas

of social humanity independent of all godideas and all pretended revelations.

Turning from the little magazine, The
Agnostic, written before George Eliot died
- and going to larger critical works of the
writers of her day, I find reaffirmed everywhere what the contemporary observer
found:
She maintained with unceasing, and
yet never-wearying, emphasis that
man's happiness was not found in
obtaining all that he wanted, but in
accepting the cross laid upon him by
his relation to humanity; and that
retribution was not arbitrarily arranged by god, but was the necessary
outcome of certain conduct. To quote
George Eliot herself, "Our deeds are

September, 1985

like children that are born to us: they

live and act apart from our own willnay, children may be strangled, but
deeds never: they have an indestructible life both in and out of our own
consciousness ....
" and "Consequences are unpitying; our deeds
carry with them their terrible consequences, quite apart from any fluctuations that went before; consequences
that are hardly ever defined to ourselves."
The critics are in accord that it was out of
the question that she should enter into
polemics against the creeds of the majority
of her readers. In a conversation which is
recorded, she was urged to do this by her
"husband." She replied, why should she hurt
the numbers who loved and trusted her
through her writings? The point was so
obvious that it is astonishing that her "husband" should have missed it. (Allthe critics
refer to her lover as her "husband" although
he had a wife at the time.) A novelist who had
largely won her audience by the sympathetic
handling of religious feeling could not plausibly presume to use rationalistic polemics.
To sum up, George Eliot, after turning
(profitably) to fiction, felt that all critical
polemic was objectionable. Yet, throughout
her life,she affirmed her rejection of religion:
- in 1859, writing, "I have not returned
to dogmatic Christianity."
- in 1861, insisting that "the highest
calling and election is to do without opium."
- to the end "she firmly repugned [sic]
all the ethical forms of the god-idea."
Just about every religion has tried to claim
George Eliot, and it is not peculiar then to
find the author of this piece in the magazine
The Agnostic finish his evaluation in this
wise:
The attitude of her mind was Agnostic: this was bound to be the case
with one who was accustomed to
bring her keen logical faculty to bear
upon all questions, and to analyse
with care every proposition. Such a
one would, of necessity, arrive at the
only logical intellectual position. And
the result was that, with increasing
years, there was less and less disposition to waste time with the discussion
of speculative puzzles incapable of
solution, and a steady growth of the
desire to do some practical work in
the world while the opportunity lasted.
We really don't know what George Eliot
thought or felt - since, so far as we know,
she did not make her thoughts as explicit as
anyone would like to see them. Or maybe
she did, and these items were not included in
the selection of letters which her last
really only - husband published. ~

Page 39

BOOK REVIEWS
They Dare To Speak Out
People and Institutions
Confront Israel's Lobby
by Paul Findley
Westport, CT
Lawrence Hill & Company
362 pages, $16.95

a 6:Y4"
x 9:Y4"
hardback book issued
Thisby aislittle-known
press. It is written by a

Republican from IIIlinois who formerly

served in the United States House of Representatives for twenty-two years, from 1%0
to 1982. A rural Congressman, he began his
congressional career working mainly on
farming, budget, and welfare issues. In 1972,
however, he was appointed to the House
Subcommittee on Europe and the Middle
East. It was there that he soon became
aware of how Israeli interests had penetrated United States institutions. The primary instrumentality used to reach into Capitol
Hill is the AIPAC - the American Israel
Public Affairs Committee - the preeminent
power in Washington lobbying. The book is
a comprehensive study of the modi operandi, the recent history, the strike points,
the personnel, and the finances of the
AIPAC.
In order to manipulate United States foreign policy to benefit the State of Israel, the
AIPAC has entered into various state electorial processes during our nation's federal
elections to make certain that persons
elected to the United States Congress both the House and the Senate - willbe of
an inclination to assist Israel.
Once in Congress, all members are under
a constant surveillance in their activities
both in public and private life. The elected
officialis to carry the interests of the State of
Israel first and those of his own nation and
his electorate last. The AIPAC sees to it that
this is done.
No action on Middle East policy, affecting
any nation in that area, may be taken without the approval of the Israelophiles. The
AIPAC functions as an informal extension of
the Israeli government to see that this goal is
attained.
Since 1981, AIPAC's sixty-member staff
has been headed by one Thomas A. Dine,
who keeps the 250,000 Jewish political activists of the nation alert and doing their thing.
He keeps his "troops" well disciplined. A
national conference is held yearly, as are
workshops in five regions - Atlanta, Fort

Page 40

Worth, Des Moines, Hollywood, and Chicago. To help these outreach workshops,
AIPAC has full-time staff located in New
York, New Jersey, and California. In addition, activists and one thousand "Jewish
leaders" in our nation are bombarded with a
steady stream of position papers, monographs, and other publications. Among
these is an "enemies list." Every three
months a 132-member executive committee
meets in Washington, D.C. for briefings.
Dine is acknowledged to be among the
most influential people in our nation's
capitol.
During the 1982 Congressional elections
alone, three hundred candidates came to
visit AIPAC to be cleared of any heresy. In
the same year the staff of AIPAC filled nine
hundred speaking engagements to tie the
Jewish communities of the nation closer to
Israel and to raise funds. In April, 1982,
alone, 1,500 young Jews were taken on a
one-week tour of Israel. But governors,
members of state legislatures, community
leaders, and news media personnel are also
given expense-paid tours. Over half of the
sitting U.S. Congress have made trips to
Israel also, on "official business," paid for by
the U.S. government.
Although only twelve states have a Jewish
population of at least three percent*, politicians in all states are monitored.
In addition to AIPAC, seventy-five PACs
focus on support for Israel. These contributed $1.8 million to 268 election campaigns
during 1981-82,and $4.25 millionin 1984.It is
shocking to read that Lowell Weicker (RCT) received $42,075; Albert Gore (D-TN)
received $57,450; and James B. Hunt (RNC) received $130,350.
What happens if one dissents from proIsrael legislation? The voices are stilled by
intimidation as well as harassment. Opposition challenging their seats in Congress is
mounted and pressures to stop funding and
endorsements of them quickly appear.
One's senses stagger under the denouements offered in the book. With ten of the
thirty-seven members of the Foreign Affairs
Committee being Jews, why is such overkill
necessary? Who gains from it all? What does
this mean to Israel? It is now receiving grants
"with no repayment" of over $2 billion a year
from the United States.
In 1960, John F. Kennedy was very
troubled after a dinner with a small group of
wealthy and prominent Jews in New York.

They offered to help "significantly" his financially troubled campaign ifKennedy, as president, "would allow them to set the course of
Middle East policy over the next four years."
The story of pressures upon the Oval
Office constitute an entire chapter in the
book. The influence is everywhere - in the
Defense Department, in the State Department. And the author relentlessly reveals
and documents it.
He spends another entire chapter also on
the case of the Israeli assault against the
U.S.S. Liberty on June 8, 1%7, and the
incredible coverup of it.
Another chapter documents the efforts
toward intimidation of both campus publications and speakers in respect to issues
involving Israel and Zionism. And, these are
not minor campuses but instead some of the
most prestigious in the nation.
The strange marriage of the Falwellian
fundamentalists and the Zionists is also
explored. For example, in November, 1980,
Jerry Falwell was awarded a medal in recognition of his steadfast support of Israel. The
award came at a New York dinner marking
the hundredth anniversary of the birth of
Zionist leader Vladimir Jabotinsky - and
was made at the behest of Prime Minister
Begin! Meanwhile, unsuspecting "mainline"
Protestant ministers have found themselves
in hot water for delivering sermons with
even' a modicum of criticism of Israel. Examples are given.
When all is said and reviewed, the author
points out that one powerful group in the
United States has succeeded in inhibiting
free expression on one topic - Israel- and
from that inhibition has obtained fundings
for Israeli policies which are inimicable to the
general welfare of the United States. He calls
upon all our citizens to assist in stopping the
activities which threaten to make the United
States a satellite of Israel and her interests.
"In short, when a lobby stifles free speech
nationally on one controversial topic - the
Middle East - all free speech is threatened."
And Atheists know about that.
This book is highly recommended. One
cannot view the international political scene
without being privy to the machinations in
the United States which cause decisions in
the Middle East.
You won't find this book in your local
bookstore; therefore, American Atheists
has bought a supply, and you may order it
through its book service. See the back cover
of this magazine. ~

*New York, New Jersey, California, Massachusetts, Ohio, Illinois, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, Florida, and
Connecticut.

September, 1985

American Atheist

ME TOO
"Me Too" is a feature designed to
showcase short essays written by readers in response to topics recently covered by the American Atheist or 0/
general interest to the Atheist community.
Essays submitted to "Me Too" (P.O.
Box 2117, Austin, TX 78768-2117)
should be 600 to 800 words long.

"0 tion
K, Atheism might be a logical posi- but what has Atheism ever
done for humanity? Where are the Atheist
hospitals, orphanages, old age homes, charities?" How often I have heard that question
from acquaintances!
And how often I stumbled in reply. "Well,
uh ... but what about the horrible things that
religion has done to humanity? The Inquisition. The sexual discrimination. The religious prejudice," I would answer. I knew it
was a correct reply, but it always seemed so
weak, so limp. 1always felt a bit guilty when
theistic friends mentioned the various charities their favorite sects sponsored.
Then one day, I went to visit a friend in a
hospital after her surgery. A faithful Roman
Catholic, she had never thought to go to any
place but a Roman Catholic institution.
What would she do ifshe didn't have a priest
on call?
As the elevator doors opened on her floor,
a huge sign faced me: "We treat every
patient as though he were Jesus Christ." An
agonized face of Jesus accompanied the
headline as well as some smaller print. Not
really liking hospitals, wishing to visit my
friend and escape, I hurried on to her room
without reading the fine print. But the words
impressed themselves on me, and I thought
about them at some length later on.
The sign implied that the hospital staff
treated patients nicely because of Jesus. It
sounded a bit like the Russian story in which
a cobbler, believing that Jesus would visit
him, spends an anxious day and almost goes
to bed a bit disappointed. But just before he
goes to bed, Jesus visits to tell him that he
came earlier in the form of a beggar. I whimsically wondered ifall the nuns in the hospital
went to bed hoping that a voice would tell
them that the gallbladder in 302 had really
been Mary's first-born.
I also remembered all the various morals
theists put into practice because their god
"says so" - not because of any particular
ethical system. I - at first - idly wondered
what would happen to the patients of these
people if there were no Jesus Christ. Would
they beat them? Or what would happen if
they thought that their god asked for them

Austin, Texas

to kill the sick?

I had sometimes, when asked about Atheist benevolence, cited the few Atheists I
knew who had indulged in what one could
call public-spiritedness: Margaret Sanger,
Luther Burbank, James Lick ... But none of
these had left huge institutions behind them
whose front doors were emblazoned with
"For Man and Atheism" or something of that
kind.
Then it occurred to me: Atheists don't
help fellow human beings for the sake of a
slogan or an ideology - or a saviour. They
help them because they are fellow human
beings. Margaret Sanger didn't help poor
women control their reproductive systems
because birth control was mentioned in
some manifesto of Atheism; she offered aid
and education to members of her sex to help
them - not to get into a utopia for the dead.
Isn't that a bit more noble?
Atheists, in my experience, will quietly
help those in trouble both with long-term
and immediate aid. But they don't demand a
reward now or later. Nor do they really
demand the stroking that a theist might. I
have never known or heard of an Atheist
who, having done a good deed, demands
some sort of recognition for himself or his
ideology. The Atheist might give himself a
well-deserved pat on the back, but that pat is
not the motivation for the act. But for the
theist it almost always is. "Look at me,
Jesus, I've done a good deed; can I get into

heaven now?" "Look at us Catholics (or

Methodists, or Episcopalians, or Baptists, or
whatever): Aren't we nice? Wouldn't you
like to be a Catholic (or Methodist, or
Episcopalian, or Baptist, or whatever) too?"
That's another point: conversion by charity. Atheists don't say to the poor and aged,
"Here's a square meal, but before you can
swallow it we want you to recite - with
sincerity, mind you - one page from Ingersoll's Why I Am An Agnostic." They just try
to help another of their species. And yet,
how many Christian meal programs include
a "voluntary" prayer?
When someone insists that Atheism has
not contributed to the welfare of humanity,
I'll still calmly explain how religion has not
done that, how individual Atheists have contributed, and how until recently an Atheist
organization had trouble existing, nevertheless providing services for the troubled in
our society. But I think that I will also mention that when Atheists do something for
others, they don't do it tor a "higher good,"
to gain future rewards, because someone
(or something) told them to do so, to bring
those aided around to their point of view.
Atheists simply do it because they, as
humans, want to make other humans a bit
healthier, a bit happier.

[ SAVING- THf, WHALES

September, 1985

-M. Hale
Missouri

:J

Page 41

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

I have come across a word in the dictionary whose definition is "the branch of
theology concerned with the defense or
proof of Christianity." The word is apologetics.
As an Atheist, Ifind the connotations both
amusing and appropriate.
Bart Aikens
Oregon

religious taboos that inhibit us from dining

upon even completely deceased individuals
that we have known (whether human or
animal).
Mr. Massey also failed to make any mention of the scientific, economic, or political
reasons for avoiding the consumption of
meat. Hardly a week goes without another
announcement that meat or the additives
contained therein are bad for you in one way
or another. The production of meat for food
is extremely wasteful, as it requires, on
average, seven pounds of soy and grain to
produce one pound of meat. This massive
loss of protein and other nutrients is especially reprehensible since so many people
around the world and even in our own country are going hungry or starving to death.
While I question any moral or ethical
imperatives for vegetarianism, I also do not
see any for the ritual consumption of enormous quantities of meat. It is healthier and
more sensible for people to cut down on
meat and focus on vegetables as the staple
part of a diet.
Marshall Lulling
Texas

In response to Jamie Massey's editorial

(May, 1985, American Atheist, "Me Too"), I
would like to make several comments.
First of all, his logic is terrible. Using a
similar analysis, one could say that a carrot,
a tire iron, and my poor Uncle Jake (who's
kept alive on a heart/lung machine after
attempting a do-it-yourself lobotomy with an
ice pick) all have the same intelligence and
feel pain in pretty much the same way.
Therefore, since we're not prepared to roast
Uncle Jake for Easter supper, we shouldn't
eat carrots or tire irons.
This, of course, is ridiculous. The fault is in
our failingto classify Jake as a vegetable, not
in eating carrots. To say that we should not
eat animals because some of them are smarter than certain people and feel pain in
roughly the same fashion, shows that we
simply have a poor understanding of what
really makes an entity a "person" and therefore above arbitrary butchering.
Because of this lack of understanding, we
have developed the rather safe approach of
giving all Homo sapiens the rights of "persons," whether it is deserved or not. This is a
logical thing to do, since most members of
this species have crossed the line into personhood and it is extremely difficult to draw
the line as to when a particular Homo
sapiens ceases to retain this quality. There
are also the factors of sentimentality and

Page 42

I have read two issues of American Atheist, and a general theme in both (but particularly the June, 1985, issue) is the denigration
of capitalism as antithetical to the goals of
secular humanism. A great deal is said about
the necessity for individual freedom and
rational thought, but these two very important aspects of the Atheist world view are
not consistent with the disparagement of
capitalism made by many of your writers.
Capitalism as an economic system has
absolutely nothing to say about religion. It is
equally possible to believe in god or not and
still be a capitalist. Anyone who claims that
capitalism is a reflection of Judeo-Christian
religious morality, or that the various religious sects prevalent in the U.S. promote
true capitalism as an extension of their religious world view is talking nonsense. Again,
capitalism as a praxeological concept is neutral with regard to religion, although I will
admit that the word capitalism is anything
but neutral.
Capitalism is not neutral with regard to
individual freedom and rational thought.
Under the praxeological system of capitalism, individual freedom and rational thought

September, 1985

reach their highest levels of expression.

There is little wonder to me that the age of
enlightenment produced the golden era of
capitalism in the U.S. during the 1800s, and
little doubt that the destruction of capitalism
at the hands of socialists and welfare-statists
has led to the age of faith we are now
witnessing.
It is easy to see that in today's world the
socialist countries are those countries which
also have the greatest restrictions on individual freedom and rational thought. In
these countries, the state is not officially
Atheistic because it believes religion and
gods are bad. It is rather a question of competition. The state cannot substitute itself
for the omniscient focus of the citizens'
religious-like faith until it has routed out the
deists. Belief in the mythical abilities of the
state to lead its masses to utopia is in no way
different from the faith religions place in god.
The results in the Soviet Union are no different than the results emanating from the
Spanish Inquisition.
It is amazing to me to read works of the
Atheistic intelligence complaining about the
loss of this free program (provided by the
government) or that free program. It does
not take much mental effort to realize that
these free programs must be financed
through the confiscatory powers of government - used against some (religions)
who would not otherwise support the program. The Atheists decry the use of tax
money to support religious schools, and the
religionists complain about the use of taxes
to fund abortions. It is not a question of one
side having the better moral argument, but
rather like two dogs fighting over an old
bone.
I think it is time Atheists become a little
more critical when approaching the issue of
which economic system (and the resulting
political system) is best equipped to provide
us with the tools that we need to create a
rational society with a world view based on
secular humanism. The anti-rational premises of socialism won't do it. Capitalism will.
Allan J. Greenberg
Hawaii

The best way to sell a supposition is to

wrap it in a holy, divine package and then sell
the package. The package itself is a supposition but believers never question the words

American Atheist

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

"holy" or "divine."
For instance, the first five words of the
Bible contain three suppositions and one
contradiction:
"In the beginning God created."
Supposition one, there was a beginning.
Supposition two, there was a creator.
Supposition three, the creator wasn't
created.
Contradiction, there was a beginning,
there wasn't a beginning.

For centuries scientists who don't deal in

suppositions have been looking for evidence
of a beginning and have found no such
evidence.
It is easy to suppose, but to provide evidence requires reason, research, and determination.
To attempt to forge truth out of suppositions by compounding the suppositions is
absolute nonsense.
Hansel Harper
Florida

Cryptic crossword puzzles are not like the puzzles

seen in most American publications; they are much more
devious. The clues are almost never what they seem to
be. Some of the clues are anagrams of the word sought;
these are indicated by clues with an indication such as
"sort of" or "crazy." Some clues are puns giving an
association of sound or meaning. Charade clues are built
up by definitions of parts of the answer word. In some
cases the answer is actually hidden among the letters of
the clue. Punctuation can be used to obscure clues and
change the apparent meaning.
In general the cryptic clue consists of two parts. One
part is a definition of the word sought, and the other is the
cryptically constructed part. The fun and challenge of
this sort of puzzle is to figure out which part is which.
Often the relationship between clue and answer is a
humorous one or one that presents a peculiar view of the
world of words.

NOTICE
"Letters to the Editor" must be
either questions or comments of
general concern to Atheists or
Atheism. Submissions should be brief
and to the point. Space limitations
allow that each letter should be two
hundred words, or preferably, less.
Please confine your letters to a single
issue only. Mail them to:
American Atheist
P.O. Box 2117
Austin, TX 78768-2117

The numbers in parentheses are the numbers of letters

in each word of the answer.
If you would like a sample puzzle with answers and
explanations of clues, send a self-addressed, stamped
envelope to Steve Bratteng, Division of Biological Sciences, University of Texas, Austin, TX 78712.
ACROSS
4.
8.
9.
10.
11.

Does bird have urge to become a flower? (8)

Margo's wild about such excitement! (6)
Reputedly gay color found in mint condition. (8)
Is it oceanside fruit, or just wax, Myrtle? (8)
Sort of clue it takes to become rather transparent?

12.
13.
16.
19.

Might the braggart do so with his mouth? (5, 3)

Can't reason set off unfaithful acts within? (8)
Alas, trite ceremony revealed finally! (4,4)
Some cultures found to swap five for 100 to get such
birds. (8)
Used Trigonometry to land some fish? (6)
Confused Kong associate lost and expected to lose!
(4,4)
Might be descriptive of a real wise guy. (2, 2, 4)
Could they become seeds someday? (6)
I might regret it to say so. (1, 2, 5)

(6)

21.
23.
24.
25.
26.

DOWN
1. In the pits of La Brea they may find inspiring action.

(7)
2. Native abode in danger of being eaten by pandas? (6,
3)

3. I wore my robe awry when young (very young!). (6)

4. Low perennial herb - found in low spot judging by
the name. (4,2,3,6)
5. Within rights initially to develop (according to Darwin) such a weapon. (8)
6. Sound characteristic of drive-in. (5)
7. True of all leftovers! (7)
14. Hollers, but not inside! (6,3)
15. Sounds like a really dull fellow; but he might be a real
pig! (4,4)
17. You might just forget to have it. (7)
18. Flatters or just develops into something. (7)
20. Jack finds his bridge in Arizona? (6)
22. Beastly service club members. (5)
(Solution on page 44)

Austin, Texas

September, 1985

Page 43

(From page 43) .

(Cont'd from page 15)

SOLUTION
ACROSS: 4-LARKSPUR
8-0RGASM 9-LAVENDER
10-BAYBERRY ll-LUCITE
12-SHOOT OFF 13-TREASONS 16-LAST RITE 19VULTURES 21-ANGLED
23-LONG SHOT 24-IS NO
FOOL 2S-0VULES 26-1AM
SORRY
DOWN: I-BREATHE 2BAMBOO HUT 3-EMBRYO 4-UL Y OF THE
VALLEY S-REVOLVER 6SONIC 7-UNEATEN 14SHOUTS OUT IS-WILD
BOAR 17~AMNESIA 18BECOMES 20-LONDON
22-UONS

race and fanning the fire of war.

There are, however, real forces in the
world capable of opposing militarism and
foiling its plans. Most people on our planet
are coming to realize that the future of mankind depends, above all, on everyone's contribution to the efforts to prevent a global
disaster and that by curbing the arms race
they would create realistic opportunities for
saving the world from catastrophe. ~
- Novosti Press Agency

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Show your pride in being an Atheist! These attractive, comfortable,

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Royal blue with white lettering.

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September, 1985

American Atheist

From The Atheist Bookshelf

. . . "I do not see 'how any responsible American can be
unaffected by this book's eloquent and cogent argument."
George W. Ball, Former Deputy Secretary of State

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Geal'BaIl

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This is the first book to dare to speak out against the

pervasive influence of AIPAC (The American-Israeli
Public Affairs Committee). With careful documentation and specific case histories it demonstrates how
the AIPAC lobby helps to shape important aspects of
U.S. foreign policy and influences Congressional,
Senatorial, and even Presidential elections .
The author served twenty-two years as a Republican Congressman from Illinois. In 1982 after losing
his seat by a narrow margin to a candidate heavily
backed by AIPAC, he started work on this book. In it
he describes the influence AIPAC exerts on the
Senate and quotes Thomas A. Dine, head of the lobby
... "We made a difference (on election day) and as a
result we can set our own foreign policy agenda"; its
influence in the House where the Chairperson of the
Sub-Committee which deals with Foreign Aid pledged
to support "whatever AIPAC wants"; on the Presidential race in which of all the Democratic candidates
only George McGovern and Jesse Jackson dared to
criticize Israel.

~--\.qf::-~1
l

..

J!;' _ .i

)esseJac'SOO

Ge!i,lmeGeye!

IdI"St_

1JI.y1"Pe!cy

THEY DARE
TO
people and Institutions
Confront Israel's Lobby

SPEAK OUT
BY PAUL FINDLEY
A Congressman from Illinois for twenty-two years

Findley also describes the attempts of AIPAC to

influence curricula of university Middle East departments and to undermine the careers of teachers and
professors who seem too sympathetic to Arab and
Islamic States. He shows how leading Jewish spokespeople such as Nahum Goldman, 1. F. Stone, Phillip
Klutznick and others are shunned and criticized for
questioning some of Israel's policies. He describes the
pressure that AIPAC brings to bear on public officials,
newspapers, and even book publishers to soft pedal
criticism of Israel and her policies.

Sheila Scovillt

362 pp. Hardbound

Lawrence Hill & Company
Westport, Connecticut

Price $16.95

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AMENDMENTI

CONGRESS

SHALL

MAKE NO LA W RESPECTING

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"The Churches would come to terms with everything - Socialism, Communism, Anarchism except Freethought (Atheism). Jesus Christ could
be brought into line with everything except full
mental and intellectual freedom."
- Chapman Cohen

June, 1922

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