ERICAN ATHEISTs"

Winter 1998-1999

AJournal of Atheist News and Thought

$5.95

The Cost of Superstition An Interview with Douglas Adams

The Prospects For Physical Immortality Children of Freethought You Can't Fight Billy Graham
The Impossibility of Deity Rutabaga Baby - The Music
God, Guns, Oil Opium
Nasrin Situation Remains Desperate

American Atheists Inc.

is a nonprofit, nonpolitical, educational organization dedicated to the
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explanation of Thomas Jefferson
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life-asserting. It considers the
struggle for progress as a moral
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Winter 1998-1999

AIIIerican Atheist
A Journal of Atheist News and Thought
Editor's Desk
The Cost of Superstition
Frank R. Zindler

The Impossibility of Deity

28
Martin L. Bard
The author of The Peril Of Faith
shows that the god concept is
logically incoherent
Rutabaga Baby - The Sheet
Music
30
A song the Right-to-SingleCelled-Lifers probably won't
want to sing!
A Dial-an-Atheists' Classic.

AMERICAN ATHEIST

God, Guns, Oil & Opium

32
Conrad F. Goeringer
Don't worry about the bogeyman! The Taliban are on the
loose - thanks in part to the
USA.

. c.atl _

'r _

~~

__

O.W.-"",.-..... . , ... c..n"'wk"IIr~

____"""'''''''-0._''
0......_ c..I.c.-, Olj, 0,.;-

_ ,--Fp'",'oiuIf_..uw.
n..~""""1'

Cover art: Tom Sullivan provides

equal opportunity for many fantasies to give us a nativity scene
you'll never see on a courthouse
lawn - even though we are quite
certain it would pass constitutional
muster as a "Public Forum" expression of the holiday season.

Life, the Universe, and

Everything: An Interview with
Douglas Adams
4
David Silverman
The creator of The Hitchhiker's
Guide to the Galaxy is an
Atheist.
The Prospects for Physical
Immortality
Frank R. Zindler
Living more-or-less
forever may not be as
impossible as we once
supposed - or as far in
the future.
Children of Freethought
Carole Gray
17
Many great Atheist women
were thinking freely already
while yet children.

Volume 37, No.1

Austin, Texas

Nasrin Situation Remains

Desperate
40
The Atheist author Taslima
Nasrin is still in hiding for her
life in Bangladesh. You
can help.

You Can't Fight Billy Graham

Noel Singleton, RN
23
It's as hard for a Buddhist as
for an Atheist to survive in the
field of nursing.

Winter 1998-1999

Book Reviews
Conrad F. Goeringer

42

The Entrance Examination

Steven F. Durrant
46
Bertrand Russell ponders the
prospect of Heaven.
Letters to the Editor

48

Page 1

American Atheist
Volume 37 Number

Membership Application for

American Atheists Inc.

EDITOR / MANAGING EDITOR

Frank R. Zindler
ASSOCIATE EDITOR
Ann E. Zindler
CONTRIBUTING EDITOR
Conrad F. Goeringer .
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ATHEISTS

Winter 1998-1999

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American Atheist

Editor's Desk

The Costof SI,entitioD

A

familiar bumper-sticker declares,

"If you think education is
expensive, consider the price of
ignorance." It might better refer to the
cost of superstition, since superstition
is the main source of the ignorance for
which education should be the cure.
Readers will be well aware of the fact
that it was the superstition known as
Christianity that killed the science of
Greece and Rome, creating the Dark
Ages and thwarting for a thousand
years or more all attempts of science to
be reborn. Whenever a person dies of
cancer, the Catholic Church must bear
the blame: for centuries it forbade the
dissection of the human body and did
everything in its power to block the
development of scientific medicine.
The baleful influence of superstition did not end with the dawning of
the Renaissance. It works overtime yet
today to bar human progress - to maintain or even increase the misery of
travelers on this spaceship we call
Earth. The superstition industry is big
business - perhaps the biggest one
there is - and its cost is immense.
Consider the human price we pay
because so many people believe in the
superstition of souls - undetectable,
ectoplasmic, immortal entities thought
to make a living body a person. This is
the superstition .which, held with the
fanatical fervor that only religion can
engender, has led people to assassinate
and maim doctors, nurses, and others
who provide abortion services. If it
were not believed that a single cell the fertilized egg or zygote - had a soul
and was therefore a person on par with
the mother who harbors it, who could
consider the destruction of a single cell
murder?
But the terrorist acts of Right-toSingle-Celled-Lifers are only the most

Frank R. Zindler
Austin, Texas

visible cost of the soul superstition.

The real cost is probably incalculable
because it is the cost of opportunities
lost, the cost of discovering and applying truth later than necessary.
Because most members of Congress believe in the soul superstition,
they long ago banned the use of federal
funding
for research
on human
embryos or tissues derived from them.
By Congressional fiat, every embryo or
fetus that is aborted or stillborn must
die in vain. Humanity must learn nothing from such brief exercises in metabolism. Living persons who can think
and suffer must not be helped by. tissues that might or might not have
become human beings: actuality must
not profit from potentiality. Give those
hollow blastocysts a decent Christian
burial! They're human beings and in
need of baptism! The progress they
could promote in medical science is not
to be considered. Souls take precedence
over science.
Recently, several breakthroughs in
medical research once again have
focused attention on embryo research
and its supposed moral dimensions.
Without the use of federal moneys,
researchers
belatedly have learned
how to isolate human "stem cells" from
left-over blastocysts produced by in
vitro fertilization (such as might be
carried out in a fertility clinic) and
from the germinal tissues of early
aborted embryo's. Cultured in the laboratory, these cells form "immortal" cell
lines that not only can reproduce themselves indefinitely, they are capable of
differentiating into any tissue of the
human body. Potentially, they could be
used to replace lost brain cells, heart
muscle, kidney tubules, etc. But, being
only a small number of cell divisions
away from fertilized eggs, these embryonic stem cells are just as likely as
identical quintuplets to contain souls!

Winter 1998-1999

Perhaps to avoid the controversy

certain to arise from using stem cells
stemming from abortion or "unnatural"
fertilization, other scientists have succeeded in producing the equivalent of
stem cells from ordinary cells of the
human body - for example, oral epithelial cells of the sort you scrape off your
gums whenever you brush your teeth
with vigor. Then, just as in cloning ala
Dolly, such cells are fused with an
unfertilized egg from which the nucleus has been removed. In this case, however, the donor cell is human and the
unfertilized egg is that of a cow! The
cow cytoplasm
"rejuvenates"
the
human nucleus. The hybrid cell, when
cultured, forms stem cells which -like
those taken from human embryos, are
potentially
able to produce "spare
parts" to replace tissues and organs
lost due to ravages of age or disease.
When President
Clinton - .an
acknowledged authority in the area of
morals and ethics - heard about the
miscegenation
of species, he was
"deeply troubled." As Moralist-in-Chief
and believing in human souls - but not
believing in bovine spirits - he immediately ordered the National Bioethics
Advisory Commission to consider the
implication of research that gives the
lie to the notion that humans somehow
are a "special creation." Of course,
human cells were fused with mouse and even chicken cells - more than
twenty years ago, and religionists still
haven't gotten the message. Now, however, when something good or useful
might result from such "chimeric" life
forms we can expect the voices of
superstition to demand a halt to medical progress. Once again, like King
Canute, they will bid the advancing
wave of science to stay and come no
further. Unfortunately, they will also
try to stem the rising tide with legislative prohibitions.

Page 3

Life. the IJDiverse,

an. Ewer,..thing:
An Interview with Douglas Adams
First, a note about me. I'm a very
conceited person. I see myself as a
damn good writer who is quite eloquent and proficient at making
points about Atheism and related
issues. Fortunately for the rest of
the population, there are some people out there who keep my ego in
check. Every once in a while I am
reminded of my limitations by certain individuals who so obviously
surpass my abilities that I am
forced to admit that I still have lots
of work to do. Many of these people
are part of American Atheists, and
all serve the purpose of making the
rest of me strive for self-improvement. Then there are people like
Douglas Adams: talented writers so
brilliant in their prose as to give
even the most conceited writerwannabe an inferiority complex.
Many of these people are Atheists,
but few will take the time for an
interview for their fans. When they
do, well, the result is something you
save for future debates and arguments.

David Silverman is a professional inventor and is also the

American Atheists State
Director for New Jersey. He is
a frequent guest on the cable
TV program The Atheist
Viewpoint.

David Silverman
Page 4

or the rare reader who doesn't already know all about

him, Douglas Adams is the
creator of all the various manifestations of The Hitchhiker's Guide to
the Galaxy, which include a radio
series, a TV series, a stage play,
record albums, a computer game, a
series of internationally best-selling
books, a set of graphic novels, and a
bath towel. In a long and varied
career Mr. Adams has also written
thfiJJirk Gently novels, a non-fiction
book (Last Chance to See) on endangered species, worked as a chickenshed cleaner, a bodyguard for an
Arab royal family, and played guitar for Pink Floyd. He's brilliant,
he's witty, he's an Atheist, and he
has quite a bit to say about Atheism, Agnosticism, and religion.

THE INTERVIEW
AMERICAN
ATHEISTS:
Mr.
Adams, you have been described as
a "radical Atheist." Is this accurate?
DNA: Yes. I think I use the term
radical rather loosely, just for
emphasis. If you describe yourself
as "Atheist," some people will say,
"Don't you mean 'Agnostic'?" I have
to reply that I really do mean
Atheist. I really do not believe that
there is a god - in fact I am convinced that there is not a god (a subtle difference). I see not a shred of
evidence to suggest that there is
one. It's easier to say that I am a
radical Atheist, just to signal that I
really mean it, have thought about
it a great deal, and that it's an opinWinter 1998-1999

ion I hold seriously. It's funny how

many people are genuinely surprised to hear a view expressed so
strongly. In England we seem to
have drifted from vague wishywashy Anglicanism to vague wishywashy Agnosticism - both of which I
think betoken a desire not to have
to think about things too much.
People will then often say "But
surely it's better to remain an
Agnostic just in case?" This, to me,
suggests such a level of silliness and
muddle that I usually edge out of
the conversation rather than get
sucked into it. (If it turns out that
I've been wrong all along, and there
is in fact a god, and if it further
turned out that this kind of legalistic, cross-your-fingers-behind-yourback, Clintonian
hair-splitting
impressed him, then I think I would
chose not to worship him anyway.)
Other people will ask how I can
possibly claim to know? Isn't beliefthat-there-is-not-a-god as irrational,
arrogant, etc., as belief-that-thereis-a-god? To which I say no for several reasons. First of all I do not
believe-that-there-is-not-a-god.
I
don't see what belief has got to do
with it. I believe or don't believe my
four-year old daughter when she
tells me that she didn't make that
mess on the floor. I believe injustice
and fair play (though I don't know
exactly how we achieve them, other
than by continually trying against
all possible odds of success). I also
believe that England should enter
the European Monetary Union. I
am not remotely enough of an economist to argue the issue vigorously
with someone who is, but what little
American Atheist

I do know, reinforced with a hefty

dollop of gut feeling, strongly suggests to me that it's the right course.
I could very easily turn out to be
wrong, and I know that. These seem
to me to be legitimate
uses for the word believe.
As a carapace for the
protection of irrational
notions from legitimate
questions, however, I think that the
word has a lot of mischief to answer
for. So, I do not believe-that-there-isno-god. I am, however, convinced
that there is no god",which is a totally different stance and takes me on
to my second reason.
I don't accept the currently fashionable assertion that any view is
automatically as worthy of respect
as any equal and opposite view. My
view is that the moon is made of
rock. If someone says to me "Well,
you haven't been there, have you?
You haven't seen it for yourself, so
my view that it is made of
Norwegian Beaver Cheese is equally valid" - then I can't even be bothered to argue. There is such a thing
as the burden of proof, and in the
case of god, as in the case of the composition of the moon, this has shifted radically. God used to be the best
explanation we'd got, and we've now
got vastly better ones. God is no
longer an explanation of anything,
but has instead become something
that would itself need an insurmountable amount of explaining. So
I don't think that being convinced
that there is no god is as irrational
or arrogant a point of view as belief
that there is. I don't think the matter calls for even-handedness at all.

evangelist and, dutifully, stopped to

listen. As I listened it began to be
borne in on me that he was talking
complete nonsense, and that I had
better have a bit of a think about it.

pretation, and even though interpretation is in many ways a matter

of opinion, nevertheless those opinions and interpretations are honed
to within an inch of their lives in the
withering
crossfire of
argument and counterargument, and those that
are still standing are
then subjected to a whole
new round of challenges of fact and
logic from the next generation of
historians - and so on. All opinions
are not equal. Some are a very great
more robust, sophisticated and well
supported in logic and argument
than others.
So, I was already familiar with
and (I'm afraid) accepting of, the
view that you couldn't apply the
logic of physics to religion, that they
were dealing with different types of
'truth'. (I now think this is baloney,
but to continue ...) What astonished
me, however, was the realization
that the arguments in favor of religious ideas were so feeble and silly
next to the robust arguments of
something as interpretative
and
opinionated as history. In fact they
were embarrassingly childish. They
were never subject to the kind of
outright challenge which was the
normal stock in trade of any other
area of intellectual endeavor whatsoever. Why not? Because they
wouldn't stand up to it. So I became
an Agnostic. And I thought and
thought and thought. But I just did
not have enough to go on, so I didn't
really come to any resolution. I was
extremely doubtful about the idea of
god, but I just didn't know enough
about anything to have a good working model of any other explanation
for, well, life, the universe and
everything to put in its place. But I
kept at it, and I kept reading and I
kept thinking. Sometime around my
early thirties I stumbled upon evolutionary biology, particularly in the
form of Richard Dawkins's books
The Selfish Gene and then The
Blind Watchmaker
and suddenly
(on, I think the second reading of
The Selfish Gene) it all fell into
place. It was a concept of such stun-

I'd take the awe of understanding

over the awe of ignorance any day.

AMERICAN ATHEISTS:
How
long have you been a nonbeliever,
and what brought you to that realization?
DNA: Well, it's a rather corny story.
As a teenager I was a committed
Christian. It was in my background.
I used to work for the school chapel
in fact. Then one day when I was
about eighteen I was walking down
the street when I heard a street
Austin, Texas

I've put that a bit glibly. When I say

I realized he was talking nonsense,
what I mean is this. In the years I'd
spent learning History, Physics,
Latin, Math, I'd learnt (the hard
way) something about standards of
argument, standards of proof, standards of logic, etc. In fact we had
just been learning how to spot the

Douglas Adams (left)

with David Silverman
different types of logical fallacy, and
it suddenly became apparent to me
that these standards simply didn't
seem to apply in religious matters.
In religious education we were
asked to listen respectfully to arguments which, if they had been put
forward in support of a view of, say,
why the Corn Laws came to be abolished when they were, would have
been laughed at as silly and childish
and - in terms of logic and proof just plain wrong. Why was this?
Well, in history, even though
the understanding
of events, of
cause and effect, is a matter of interWinter 1998-1999

Page 5

ning simplicity, but it gave rise, naturally, to all of the infinite and baffling complexity of life. The awe it
inspired in me made the awe that
people talk about in respect of religious experience seem, frankly, silly
beside it. I'd take the awe of understanding over the awe of ignorance
any day.
AMERICAN
ATHEISTS:
You
allude to your Atheism in your
speech to your fans ("...that was one
of the few times I actually believed
in god"). Is your Atheism common
knowledge
among your fans,
friends, and coworkers? Are many
people in your circle of friends and
coworkers Atheists as well?
DNA: This is a slightly puzzling
question to me, and I think there is
a cultural difference involved. In
England there is no big deal about
being an Atheist. There's just a
slight twinge of discomfort about
people strongly expressing a particular point of view when maybe a
detached wishy-washiness might be
felt to be more appropriate - hence a
preference for Agnosticism over
Atheism. And making the move
from Agnosticism to Atheism takes,
I think, much more commitment to
intellectual effort than most people
are ready to put in. But there's no
big deal about it. A number of the
people I know and meet. are scientists and in those circles Atheism is
the norm. I would guess that most
people I know otherwise are
Agnostics, and quite a few Atheists.
If I was to try and look amongst my
friends, family, and colleagues for
people who believed there was a god
I'd probably be looking amongst the
older, and (to be perfectly frank) less
well educated ones. There are one or
two exceptions. (I nearly put, by
habit "honorable exceptions," but I
don't really think that.)
AMERICAN
ATHEISTS:
How
often have fans, friends, or coworkers tried to "save" you from
Atheism?
DNA: Absolutely never. We just
Page 6

don't have that kind of fundamentalism in England. Well, maybe

that's not absolutely true. But (and
I'm going to be horribly arrogant
here) I guess I just tend not to come
across such people, just as I tend not
to come across people who watch
daytime soaps or read the National
Enquirer. And how do you usually
respond? I wouldn't bother.
AMERICAN ATHEISTS:
Have
you faced any obstacles in your professional life because of your
Atheism (bigotry against Atheists),
and how did you handle it? How
often does this happen?
DNA: Not even remotely. It's an
inconceivable idea.
AMERICAN ATHEISTS: There
are quite a few lighthearted references to god and religion ill your
books ("...2000 years after some guy
got nailed to a tree"). How has your
Atheism influenced your writing?
Where (in which characters or situations) are your personal religious
thoughts most accurately reflected.
DNA: I am fascinated by religion.
(That's a completely different thing
from believing in it!) It has had such
an incalculably huge effect on
human affairs. What is it? What
does it represent? Why have we
invented it? How does it keep going?
What will become of it? I love to
keep poking and prodding at it. I've
thought about it so much over the
years that that fascination is bound
to spill over into my writing.
AMERICAN ATHEISTS: What
message would you like to send to
your Atheist fans?
DNA: Hello! How are you?

Postscript
Mr. Adams has just released a
novel and game called the "Starship
Titanic." It seems pretty cool. Here
is a blurb from the web site: "At the
heart of our Galaxy, an advanced
Winter 1998-1999

civilization of which we know nothing has built the biggest, most beautiful starship ever: the Starship
Titanic. On its maiden voyage, the
biggest, most beautiful, most technologically advanced interstellar
Etherliner ever built unexpectedly
crashes. Into your house."
Also, the big news is that The
Hitch Hikers Guide is being made
into a movie by Disney with a
planned release date of mid-2000.
Douglas is currently putting the finishing touches to the first draft of
the script, and Jay Roach (Austin
Powers) is lined up to direct.
Douglas will also be an executive
producer.
More
information
about
Douglas, his books and his movie,
can be found at www.douglas
adams. com and
www.tdv.com.
Douglas' books can be purchased
anywhere, including on-line at
Amazon.com.

Another CD ROM From

"Bank of Wisdom"
Ifyou already have the 1st CD ROM
(Collected Works of Robert G.
Ingersoll, #4500) you won't want to
miss the 2nd in the series: An Introduction to Freethought: The Religion
of Freedom, #4501. Containing 26
Freethought classics, this CD is
notable for its inclusion of S. P.
Putnam's 400 Years of Freethought.
With all the portrait pictures, this
item alone would be worth the $30
+ $2.50 shipping and handling for
which the disc sells. Works an both
IBMand Macintosh computers.

American Atheist

THE PROSPECTS FOR

PHYSICAL IMMORTALITY
A lecture delivered at
the 24th National
Convention of
American Atheists,
Washington, DC, 13
June 1998. Earlier versions of the lecture
appeared in the
author's column The
Probing Mind, in this
magazine in
September, October,
and November of 1985.

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

Formerly a professor of biology

and geology, Frank R. Zindler
is now a science writer. He is a
member of the American
Association for the
Advancement of Science, the
New York Academy of
Sciences, The Society of
Biblical Literature, and the
American Schools of Oriental
Research. He is the editor of
American Atheist.

Frank R. Zindler
Austin, Texas

The Ageless Query

Must we all die? This is a question which humankind 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 our
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
Winter 1998-1999

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 added the doctrine of bodily resurrection. But
there is something profoundly
immaterial about the bodies we will
be 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 passtimes for new-issue bodies. By the
time one subtracts all the activities
the resurrected "bodies" are not
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 people 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-benefit ratio
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 transPage 7

mISSIOnthrough 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 amebas which reproduce sexually only upon certain
occasions. 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

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. So men and women created gods and goddesses in their own images - soothing fictions to help
them face the fact of their mortality.
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 lifespans that put even old Methuselah
to shame, have changed only slight-

ly 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, for ever.
Admitting the biological necessity for death in the past, is death still
necessary? Is death still desirable?
(Only biologists and manic-depressives 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?
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. As we approach the
year 2,000, we have already made

Page 8

Winter 1998-1999

American Atheist

astonishing break-throughs in the

understanding of aging. We face a
new millennium in which - as I
shall try to show - aging will
become first preventable and then
reversible.
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, our ancestors
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 their human inventors,
religions have come and gone, have
lived and died. Though not one of
them has ever taken so much as 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 fear. Priests have waxed fat in
direct proportion as they have developed the ability to fool people into
believing that they do in fact hold
magic powers over death.
For millennia our superstitions
have sold us an ersatz immortality
and prevented us 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 our kind 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 very soon, 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 2,020 will be just
as dead as the one run over in 1998.
I shall, therefore, limit my discusAustin, Texas

sion to the kind of death conceived

to be the terminus of old age.
"Senectus ipse morbus est" ("Old
age is itself a sickness") said the
Roman poet Terence, who flourished
in the second century BeE. "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 cure any
disease, it is usually necessary to
identify the causative agent and discern the nature ofthe 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 get lots of
ideas about the causes of aging.
There are some things 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 much as five years
after their 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
Winter 1998-1999

named Ephemerida, in recognition

oftheir 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. A similar, but
more impressive phenomenon, is
seen in the so-called "seventeenyear locust" - actually a cicada which lives for sixteen years as a
larva, emerges as an adult in its seventeenth year, mates, and seeks out
a recycling service for its carbon
atoms.
Is there
any relationship
between salmon, mayflies, cicadas,
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 whose function is to get older generations out of
the way in order to avoid competition with their descendants.
Coin a Word
Back in the early 1980s, when I
first started writing on this subject,
no technical word for such selfdestruct genes existed, and so I
coined one. I termed them opsephoneal genes (from the Greek,
opse, meaning "late" and phoneus,
meaning "murderer'). Alas, the term
has not caught on, even though (as
we shall see) such genes 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 biennial, they are - if I
may be permitted the barbarism proverbially three-score-and-tennial.
Page 9

___

~ __~

.__

_,

0.

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. (The world record
is held by a French lady who died
recently at the age of 122.) This
reinforces the suspicion that opsephoneal genes are at work. .
The
suspicion
is
further
strengthened by the .bizarre disease
known as Werner's progeria - preI!I

~
~
~

_.

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.

When forty winters shall besiege thy brow,

And dig deep trenches in thy beauty's field,
Thy youth's proud livery, so gaz'd on now,
Will be a tatter'd weed, of small worth held:
Then being ask'd where all thy beauty lies,
Where all the treasure of thy lusty days,
To say within thine own deep-sunken eyes
Were an all-eating shame and thriftless
.
prazse ...

.....
---------.--.-.--

-,

ic basis for aging has indeed been

discovered. But before considering it
further, I think there are other factors in aging which merit our immediate attention.' There are factors
which, even if they should prove not
to be the central cause of aging, nevertheless are worth 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. If we are to be
the first immortal generation, we
must somehow "buy time." We must
try
first to retard the aging process
I!I
and stop it. Then we may seek to
undo the ravages already wrought
~
by time.
~
~

Stalling The Reaper

Although I am convinced we
~
~ have a genetic predisposition to succumb to the injuries accumulating
~
~ over time, there are other factors
~ with which we must deal first, even
~
if they should prove not to be the
~
~
central cause of aging. These are
~
~ problems which, if dealt with effecwould allow us to buy extra
~
- William Shakespeare, Second Sonnet ~~ tively,
~
time during which we could grapple
I!I
I!I with The Reaper himself.
Turn
It
Off
Two such factors for immediate
mature old age. By the age of eight,
Most
exciting
of
all,
genetic
attention
are cellular oxidation and
a child may be biologically eighty. It
engineers
have
learned
to
read
and
molecular
cross-linking. As we shall
seems as though something has
write
in
genetic
code.
It
is
now
a
see,
these
two factors are quite
happened to activate prematurely a
daily
occurrence
for
human
genes
interrelated.
normally
dormant
opsephoneal
(made of DNA) to be combined with
When life first originated, bilgene. * It seems not irrational to
particular
synthetic
or
natural
lions of years ago, the earth's atmossuppose, therefore, that if somesequences of DNA which will guarphere was rather similar to the
thing can turn on such a gene preantee expression (turning on) of the
atmospheres of the outer planets. It
maturely, we should be able to find
gene in a new host cell, say, a baclacked molecular oxygen. Though
a way to turn off - or at least delay
terium. That which genetic engiwe tend to think of oxygen as essensuch a gene as well.
neers turn on, can be turned off as
tial for life, the first steps toward
Many people, when discussing
well. In any event, if aging and
the formation of living systems
the genetic aspect of aging with me,
death were due to the action of suiwould have been impossible had
express the hope that aging will not
cide genes alone, the cure for old age
there been more than tiny amounts
prove to be genetically predestined.
would be conceptually no more comof oxygen in the atmosphere. For
They shrink from the notion as if it
plicated than finding the legendary
oxygen would have destroyed the
were a sort of biological Calvinism.
Fountain of Youth. All we would
simple organic molecules present on
"What hope can we have if our very
need to do would be to find a drug or
the early earth long before they
genes are against us?" they ask.
some other form of "magic bullet"
could have joined together to form
which was specific for the gene in
the complicated molecules needed in
*The same effect might be achieved, of
question and was able either to
course, by the sudden turning off of a
living systems. For all early forms of
gene needed for some vital Junction, or
repress it or permanently disarm it.
life - indeed, for some anaerobic
by a mutation in such a gene.
As we shall see shortly, a genetbacteria yet today - oxygen was a
~

Page 10

Winter 1998-1999

American Atheist

0'--

poison, a substance destructive to

the machinery of the cell.
Some while after life began, an
evolutionary
crisis
developed.
Although the first photosynthetic
microorganisms were not oxygenproducers, eventually photosynthetic algae evolved which began to produce what was to be the first worldwide environmental pollutant: molecular oxygen. From that time on,
algae and the plants descended from
them have given off oxygen as a
waste-product of photosynthesis,
and nearly all forms of life on earth
have had to develop physiological
defenses against it or perish. Over
billions of years of evolution, most
living things have "turned adversity
to advantage," and are now actually
dependent upon this erstwhile
enemy for the production of energy.
But oxygen can still be an
enemy in the cell. In a process analogous to rusting, it can still break
down the compounds of which life is
made. It may also cause the production of enormously reactive particles
called free radicals.
Free radicals may often be to
cells what bulls are to china shops:
dangerous. They may attack any of
the giant molecules of the cell,
including the genes themselves
(DNA molecules). They may chemically activate molecules in such a
way as to cause two or more of them
to link together, producing giant,
insoluble molecular monsters. In
short, oxidation may lead to the formation of free radicals; free radicals
may activate proteins and other
molecules and cause them to crosslink and join together. And that - as
we shall see - may lead to trouble.
One of the most dramatic examples of the destructive power of
oxidative free-radical processes in
human aging is the damage done to
structural proteins - molecules
which give us our characteristic
shapes, provide a stage on which the
chemical marriages and divorces
known as "life" can be solemnized,
and serve as selective barriers
between the participants in these
rites and the often-hostile audience
Austin, Texas

known as "the environment."

One such protein is collagen.
Perhaps the most abundant single
protein in the body, collagen
accounts for twenty-five to thirty
percent of total body protein. It is
abundant in skin, bones, tendons,
and the walls of blood vessels, and it
is frequently encountered as a sort
of wrapping around the cells of
many other organs of the body. It is
a major component of connective tissue. It is often associated with
another major structural molecule,
elastin.
Collagen and elastin molecules
are normally long and fibrous in
shape. In young persons these molecules are able to move freely past
and around each other. The skin,
therefore, is elastic and resilient.
When pinched, young skin will snap
immediately back into shape.
As a person ages, however, his
collagen and elastin molecules
become progressively oriented parallel to each other, very much as
though they were crystallizing. The
older one becomes, the more these
molecular fibers become welded
together, side-by-side, as a result of
oxidation-induced
cross-linkage.
Thus the skin of old people becomes
inelastic, deformed, wrinkled, and
leathery. As a matter of fact, tanning - the process whereby skin is
turned into leather - is actually an
artificial process which causes
cross-linking of collagen! If we could
find a way to prevent excessive
cross-linking ofjust these two molecules (some cross-linking is necessary, unless one is a jellyfish!), we
could eliminate almost entirely the
cosmetic debilities of old age.
The "forty winters," the "deep
trenches," and the "deep-sunken
eyes" which Shakespeare bemoans
all relate to the oxidative cross-linking of collagen and elastin, accelerated by the harsher environment of
Elizabethan England. Ironically, it
was not the forty winters which dug
the trenches, but rather the forty
summers with their free-radical-producing ultraviolet rays! Sun-tanning is not just a color-producing
Winter 1998-1999

process: sun-tanning is tanning in

the leather-making sense as well!
Ultraviolet light, like oxygen, is our
enemy. And so, as we shall see, is
glucose.
Most readers will agree that
preventing the appearance of old
age would itself be a significant
achievement. But I am confident
that the true effect of the process
would be more than "skin-deep"! As
mentioned above, many cells are
surrounded by a wrapping of collagen, or else they must receive their
nutrients from blood vessels which
are wrapped with collagen fibers. In
the young body, nutrients easily
pass through these barriers into the
cells, and wastes easily pass out of
the cells into the blood. When the
collagen is not excessively crosslinked, materials pass in and out of
the cell as easily as Olympic runners leaping hurdles on a track. But
as the collagen ages, the course
becomes more and more tortuous.
Runners have to pass through what
comes to be more and more like a
jungle-gym. They may get through
to the finish-line, but they won't win
any races. The cells become more
and more choked off from supply
sources, and metabolism slows
down. Fewer and fewer biochemical
deadlines are met, and disorder
increases.
Regulatory processes
become progressively imbalanced,
and death ensues. If we could prevent just the cross-linking of collagen and elastin, a lot of derailed biochemical trains could be put back on
their tracks, and we should be able
to double our life-expectancy.
Fortunately, we don't have to
wait until the next millennium to be
able to slow down, prevent, or perhaps even reverse the excessive
cross-linking of collagen. There are
steps we can take right now to help
stall The Reaper.
A number of antioxidant materials are known, many of which are
naturally occurring substances such
as vitamins and minerals. Not only
is there evidence they can slow
down the aging (cross-linking) of
collagen and elastin, there is eviPage 11

dence they may have prophylactic

value against both cancer and coronary artery disease - two major
impediments to the attainment of
even the traditional life-span of
three-score years and ten. Free-radical mechanisms have been implicated in the build-up of plaque in
artery walls - a primary factor in
hardening of the arteries and coronary heart disease. In the case of
cancer, free-radical processe~ seem
to be involved whether or not the
cancer is being induced by tumor
viruses or carcinogenic chemicals.
It is now known that one of the
major agents involved in the freeradical cross-linking of collagen and
other proteins is glucose. This most
common of sugars is needed for
energy metabolism, and it is probably safe to say that life cannot exist
without it. However, it is able to
react with amino acids (the building
blocks of proteins) to form compounds appropriately called AGEs
(Advanced Glycation End products).
The reaction is familiar to anyone
who has ever bitten into a snowwhite apple, set it on the table, and
watched it turn brown. Known as
the Maillard (or browning) reaction,
the sugar is first attached to a protein. Then, rearrangements involving a free-radical mechanism allow
the product to link up with a second
protein, cross-linking the proteins.
Since each protein can react with
niore than one glucose molecule, it is
possible for many proteins to
become joined together into an
insoluble molecular monstrosity.
Antioxidants to the Rescue
There is evidence that some of
the natural antioxidants can reduce
the risk of developing heart disease
and cancer, and some of these nutrients are known to stimulate the
immune system - a system which
tends to be one of the major casualties in the battle between the body
and its oxidizing environment. Unfortunately, too great a consumption
of antioxidants may interfere with
one link in the chain of immune
defenses, the process whereby cerPage 12

tain white blood cells consume and

digest (phagocytize) foreign cells
such as bacteria or tumor cells. It is
a disturbing irony that these cells
produce free radicals as a chemical
defense against microscopic invaders! Too many antioxidant molecules in the vicinity of these
immune cells can neutralize their
attempts at chemical warfare.
The two most important of the
natural antioxidant vitamins are
vitamins that are already being consumed in enormous quantities by
health-minded Americans and Europeans: vitamins C and E. Vitamin C
is water-soluble, and helps to defuse
free radicals in the water compartments of the cell and in body fluids
such as blood and urine. Vitamin E
is a fat-soluble vitamin, and it helps
prevent free-radical damage to cell
membranes - sandwich-like structures comprised of lipids (fatty molecules) covered above and below by
protein molecules. Since lipids are
good electrical insulators, they
make up a very large fraction of the
molecules found in the brain, where
electrical processes are of critical
importance. It is in the brain's lipid
structure that vitamin E may be of
great value in preventing the buildup of fatty oxidation products such
as lipofuscin and ceroid - metabolic
garbage that accumulates in nerve
and other cells until the cells are
killed by the metabolic equivalent of
suffocation.
Interestingly, vitamin C is also
of great importance in the brain,
where vitamin C levels exceed 100fold their levels in circulating blood.
Ever since Nobelist Linus Pauling
published his book Vitamin C and
the Common Cold, a large number of
people (including the author) have
been consuming a gram or more of
this vitamin per day - not only for
its antiviral effect but for its antioxidant and, possibly, its anti-aging
effect as well.
Lest my readers rush out and
start taking megadoses of vitamins
on the premise that "if a little is
good for me, a lot is better," I must
caution that with vitamin C as well
Winter 1998-1999

as with other vitamins and minerals, there may be definite cases in

which megadoses are harmful.
Persons suffering from certain
metabolic disorders such as diabetes
and parkinsonism, and particular
types of cancer such as melanoma,
may actually be harmed by megadoses of individual vitamins. For
example, very large doses of vitamin
C are thought by some scientists to
be able to inactivate the insulin molecule by breaking the sulfur bridges
that hold it together. In persons
with parkinsonism, large doses of
vitamin B6 may counteract the LDopa commonly used in treatment.
Another antioxidant vitamin is
vitamin B5, calcium pantothenate.
In a rather old experiment.! this vitamin (one of the active ingredients
in honeybee "royal jelly") increased
the life expectancy of mice twenty
percent when fed to them in dosages
roughly equivalent to one gram per
day for a human. I am unaware of
any recent confirmation of this
study, but if it is valid and can be
extrapolated to humans, it would
appear that humans taking megadoses
of pantothenate
could
increase their life-expectancy by
about fourteen years!
Not all antioxidants need to be
"natural" to be of possible use in
fighting the free-radical war. Back
in the early '70s, I had my college
biology students do some feeding
experiments employing both natural and artificial antioxidants. I had
them raise fruit flies on various
diets enriched with various antioxidants. They found that vitamin E
and BHT - the antioxidant put in
cereal boxes - measurably increased
life-expectancy. Moreover, the BHT
appeared to be better than the natural vitamin! Some authors believe
that people can be helped by adding
BHT to their yogurtl- Needless to
say, aTot more research must be
done before I will endorse that idea.
Nevertheless, I have an open mind.
The fact that something is "unnatural" is not necessarily a strike
against it. After all, "naturalness"
inexorably leads to the death of
American Atheist

everyone!
While we wait for science to map
clearly the pathway to the fountain
of youth, what can we do to keep
alive? What can we do to "stall The
Reaper"? For readers expecting to
be told to sleep in magnetized pyramids facing Stonehenge, most of my
suggestions will sound disappointingly like common sense. Nevertheless, here they are.
First of all, avoid suicide. That
is, don't give yourself lung cancer by
smoking
anything.
Marijuana
depresses not only sexual potency,
but the immune response as well.
Avoid cirrhosis of the liver by shunning excess amounts of alcohol, but
drink a glass of wine a day (unless
one is predisposed to alcoholism or
suffers from certain metabolic disorders, moderate consumption of wine
correlates with reduced rates of atherosclerosis). If you are overweight,
shed the excess fat (caution! burning fat produces lipid peroxides, and
increases your need for antioxidants) and engage in moderate exercise. (In experiments with animals
from roundworms to rats, drastic
calorie restriction of diets has
resulted in marked increases in
longevity, presumably by reducing
the amount of peroxides and free
radicals generated by eating large
amounts of food.) Walking and
swimming are fine. Avoid excess
exposure to the sun. When you have

to be in the sun, use a good sunscreen.

Reduce the amount of fat in
your diet. Both animal and vegetable fats peroxidize easily, and
they can become carcinogens.
Frying and baking are especially
hard on fats and render them more
harmfuL Vegetable fats are more
likely to be "unsaturated' - that is,
they contain less hydrogen per carbon than do "saturated" fats. The
greater your consumption ofunsaturated fats, the greater your need for
antioxidants - a fact often overlooked by nutritionists who wisely
counsel reduction of animal-fat consumption. Since cooking involves
heat, and since heat accelerates
free-radical formation, avoid overcooking. (But be sure you cook your
pork long enough to kill the trichina
worms!)
Avoid table sugar (sucrose) as
much as possible. Many artificial
sweeteners are far safer. Honey and
brown sugar are no safer. In fact,
brown sugar may be more dangerous, because of the impurities which
give it its color! Increase the
roughage content of your diet.
Reduce consumption of red meats,
since they are rich in iron, and iron
is a ready catalyst for peroxidation
of lipids. Unless you have a specific
medical requirement, avoid taking
iron supplements.
Begin a life-extension program

\\1 WilL NOW 'NTE~RUPT MY SERMON

FOR A COMMERClAL1BUT
DON'" GO
AWAV BeCAUSe MORE LlES AHEAD!"

b_
Austin, Texas

Winter 1998-1999

involving carefully chosen antioxidant vitamins and other substances.

This will require the help of a good
physician. Since most Americantrained doctors have almost no
knowledge of nutrition at all, and
since most spend more time studying accounting than the physiology
of aging, fmding a good physician to
help you may very well be the most
difficult - and most vital - task facing you. But if you want a crack at
real immortality - the kind where
you get to keep your brain and genitalia - you will not give up until you
find one, European doctors tend to
know more about preventive medicine than do American doctors, who
tend to think only in terms of crisisintervention,
but the situation
seems to be improving.
The most important advice I
have to offer is use your head.
READ! Read everything you can on
the subject of life-extension and
aging. Unless you are a scientist,
you will have to begin with the popular literature first. But once you
have mastered
the specialized
vocabulary, start reading the scientific journals and scholarly books
devoted to the physiology and therapy of aging. It is absolutely essential
that you proceed beyond the popular
literature, lest you be taken in by
quacks. There will soon be just as
much money in the rejuvenation
scam as in the religion scam. Be
forewarned!
Discovery of Genes
Controlling Aging
The existence of "suicide genes"
has been proven beyond any room
for doubt - at least at the cellular
level. It has been known for many
years that embryonic development
is accompanied by the "programmed
death" of large numbers of cells.
Called apoptosis in the technical
language of cell biology, scheduled
death of particular cells allows for
the movements and migrations of
other cells as they seek out the positions they will occupy in the mature
body. It has been discovered also
that the body has an apoptotic
Page 13

defense system for fighting viral

infections and stopping cancer
before it can get out of control. In
the case of cancer defense, apoptosis
causes the self-destruction of cells
before they can start proliferating.
Cancers develop when something
interferes with the signalling system that "decides" when apoptosistriggering genes need to be activated. An enormous amount of medical
research is now being carried out to
discover drugs that can induce
apoptosis where needed, drugs that
can turn on suicide genes. Once this
is all sorted out, we should also be
able to deal with the reverse problem: turning off suicide genes being
activated in tissues that we don't
want to lose, e.g., healthy brain tissue.
Concerning the discovery of
genes associated with the aging
process in general, the last two
years have produced so many discoveries in so many different areas
that it is hard to know how to deal
with it all. Earlier I noted the curious phenomenon of sudden aging in
salmon. It has recently been discovered that in brown trout (a close relative of the salmon) fish possessing
a particular form of a gene for the
enzyme lactic dehydrogenase (Ldh5) develop a giant, "ferox"body form
- and live about five times longer
than the smaller trout which have a
"normal" form of the gene." If this
could be extrapolated to humans, we
would expect a "feroxhuman" to live
350 years!
In the tiny roundworm Cae norhabditis elegans, a bunch of genes
have been discovered which can
greatly affect the life expectancy of
the humble creature+ Mutations in
these genes have been produced
that can greatly increase longevity
by - you guessed it! - increasing
resistance to free radicals, ultraviolet light, and other stressors. The
first of these, age-I, has been identified with the enzyme phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase and produces a life
expectancy about double that of
worms possessing the normal form
of the gene. Another mutation, dafPage 14

2, affects a gene resembling that for

the insulin receptor and may provide an explanation for the increase
in longevity associated with food
restriction in many animal species.
A number of so-called "clock mutations" have also been discovered in
this worm that can increase life
expectancy. The first of these, clh-L,
encodes a protein that indirectly
regulates the transcription of genes
controlling energy metabolism.
Combinations of these mutations,
such as daf-2 with clk-l, increase
longevity five-fold! Would human
analogs of these mutations give us
life expectancies of 350 years? Gene
switching that causes these worms
to go into a sort of slow-motion
dauer state resembling hibernation
can increase longevity eight-fold the equivalent of 560 years in
humanslf
A rather startling discovery was
made in June of 1998 when it was
learned that transplanting
the
human gene SODI into the nerve
cells of fruitflies could increase lifespans as much as 40 percent.f
Significantly, the enzyme encoded
by this gene is superoxide dismutase, which has the job of chemically disarming superoxide, a particularly dangerous free-radical form of
oxygen. (In recent years, health-food
stores have been selling capsules of
superoxide dismutase - ostensibly
for its antioxidant
properties.
However, the enzyme is a protein;
when taken by mouth it can be
expected to be digested before it can
do any good. Buying such a preparation is, in my opinion, a waste of
money.)
The importance of enzymes able
to disarm free radicals was underscored late in August of 1998 when
Naoaki Ishii of Tokai University
Medical School in Japan discovered
a mutation in a C. elegans gene
called mev-l which causes worms to
die sooner when exposed to excess
oxygen."The mutation allows excessive production and build up of free
radicals in mitochondria, the powerhouses of cells.
Winter 1998-1999

Moving up to mammals, in
November of 1997, Tokyo researcher
Makoto Kuro-o and colleagues
reported the discovery of a mouse
gene they called klotho, named after
Klotho, one of the Fates of Greek
mythology.f A defect in this gene
produces a syndrome resembling
human aging, including a short
lifespan, infertility, arteriosclerosis,
skin degeneration, osteoporosis, and
emphysema.
The genetic basis of Werner's
progeria, mentioned earlier, has
been found to involve a gene resembling those encoding enzymes
known as DNA helicases.? Mutations leading to loss of function of
this gene impair DNA replication or
repair - producing the premature
aging phenomena associated with
this fortunately rare disease. Significantly, this gene mutation is also
associated with a rapid decrease in
the length of telomeres - long DNA
structures at the ends of chromosomes that seem to be the functional equivalents of the caps placed at
the ends of shoelaces to prevent
fraying and unraveling.
It has long been known that the
telomeres are associated with the
ability of cells to reproduce in tissue-culture situations. Most cells,
when placed in culture, are able to
divide just so many times. After a
certain number of generations, the
cells "senesce," decline, and die.
Other cells - cancer cells, for example - seem to be able to reproduce
forever in culture. Somehow, the
changes that converted normal cells
into cancer cells "immortalized"
them. It is now fairly well established that the difference between
mortal and immortal cell lines
involves changes in telomere maintenance. Each time that an ordinary
cell divides, its telomeres become a
bit shorter. Finally, the telomere is
too short to protect the chromosome
to which it is attached; rather soon
the chromosome breaks down. In
tumor cells, however, the telomeres
do not become progressively shorter,
due to the presence of an enzyme
called telomerase. Active in the early
American Atheist

embryo and germ cells, the gene

encoding telomerase
is usually
turned off during the developmental
process - effectively limiting the
number of times particular cell lines
will be able to reproduce. In cancers,
however, the gene somehow gets
switched on again - allowing the
telomeres
to be continuously
repaired and granting unlimited
reproductive potential to the cells
that contain them.
The practical significance of this
is obvious: we need to find ways to
inhibit telomerase in 'cancer cells (to
prevent their unbridled replication)
and we need to find ways to activate
it in, say, nerve and muscle cells, in
order to allow such cells to reproduce so they can replace cells lost to
the ravages of disease or aging.
Hardly a week goes by without
someone, somewhere in the world,
filing for a patent on a drug or genetherapy procedure intended to control telomerase.
Progress in the Reversal
of Aging
Although it has been known for
a long time that the aging process
can be slowed down by such stratagems as caloric restriction of diets
and consumption of antioxidants,
the Holy Grail of aging research has
always been the discovery of agents
capable of reversing the chemical
ravages of old age. It would appear
that we are now beginning to drink
the rejuvenating waters of that otherwise mythical cup. Research during the last decade or so has struck
where aging hits hardest: the freeradical mediated glucose cross-linkage of collagen and other proteins.
It has been discovered - and
now confirmed by dozens of experiments - that a simple molecule
known as aminoguanidine
can
inhibit the formation of AGEs.IO
Having more nitrogen atoms than
carbons in its structure, aminoguanidine looks like it would more likely be a rocket fuel than a medicine!
Yet it seems to be relatively nontoxic and very effective in blocking
glucose cross-linkage of proteins.
Austin, Texas

There is even some indication that it

can undo cross-linkage that has
already occurred - thus actually
reversing aging's chemical curse.U
While the jury is still out on this
aspect of aminoguanidine's utility, it
seems clear that compounds related
to it will be found that will do this
safely and without harmful sideH,

/
H

~
N-C-N-N

/H

II

-,

N-H

Aminoguanidine
effects. Although some clinical trials
are now in progress that employ
aminoguanidine as an antiaging
and antidiabetic agent (the high levels of glucose in diabetes accelerate
the aging process), the compound is
not yet approved by the FDA for
human use. Until such approval is
forthcoming, we shall have to do
with some natural substances that
seem to be able to do the same thing,
albeit less effectively for the most
part. Most readily available is Llysine, a common amino acid which
is available at any drug store.t? One
can take several grams per day of
this simple nutrient without likelihood of harm. However, it is about
an order of magnitude less potent
than aminoguanidine.

Other anti-AGE natural substances are the polyamines spermine, spermidine, and putrescine.P
Occurring naturally
in seminal
fluid, it may be that these substances have some role in maintaining Sperm cells as the quintessence
of rejuvenation. Although the ability
of these substances to prevent glucose cross-linking, it is not yet
known if it is safe to consume large
amounts of these substances for prolonged periods of time.
Rutin, a flavonoid found in
buckwheat and many other plants,
also has been shown to prevent AGE
formation and may be of value in
treatment of diabetes.t- But more
exciting is the discovery that forms
of vitamins BI and Bs may be more
effective than aminoguanidine for
this purpose. IS Thiamine pyrophosphate (a form of vitamin BI) and
pyridoxamine (a form of vitamin Bs)
in in vitro studies (test-tube studies)
have been found to inhibit AGE formation involving human hemoglobin, bovine serum albumin, and the
important enzyme RNase A. At present, these particular forms of vitamins are not very easy to find, and
we may have to wait for some time
until these specifically anti-AGE
forms are mass-produced by the vitamin suppliers.

THEMoTtlEP.lfAlltEll. OF ALL riMS ...

Winter 1998-1999

Page 15

Finally, there are compounds

being studied that facilitate the
removal of AGEs that have already
formed. If you will, these are agents
that help aging cells put out the
garbage or take out the trash. The
first such compound of which I am
aware is FFI, which goes by the jawbreaking chemical name of 2-(2furoyl)-4(5)-(2-furanyl)-lH-imidazole.16 It is claimed to be effective in
removing accumulated AGE~ from
tissues. Further corroboration is, of
course, required.

what already is possible, the fewer

of us may hope to succeed where
Ponce de Le6n failed. We do well to
remember
the lines of Omar
Khayyam:

Your Prospects For Physical

Immortality
With reasonably good luck and
careful management, you can survive to the year 2010. If you can live
that long, scientific progress in the
interim should have advanced to the
point where it can keep you going
until you're 140. If civilization still
exists at that time, and if science
has not been eclipsed by religion,
you should be able to renew your
lease as often thereafter as you
wish. To an extent far greater than
you may have dared to hope, it's up
to you. You don't need help from the
man who wears high-pointed hats
and lace-fringed dresses. Barring
accidental causes of death, immortality is within your reach.
No day goes by without another
scientific paper reporting some
progress in the war against aging,
the war on death itself. In hundreds
of journals, in over a dozen languages, the battle is enjoined. The
New Day may dawn too late for
some of my readers and for me,: but
not necessarily.
The Brave New World of immortality may very well number some of
us among its citizens. The question;
"How will you spend eternity?" may
assume an important new meaning
very soon. John Donne's heroic
"Death, thou shalt die!" may prove
to be a boast more solid than skeptics have hitherto allowed!
But time is of the essence: time
is the stuff that life is made of. The
longer we delay our decision to do

The Bird of Time has but a little

Page 16

of proteins" (patent) PCT Int. Appl.,

WO 9314750 A2, 49 pp.
IIBrownlee, Michael, "Pharmacological
modulation of the advanced glycosylation reaction," Prog. Clin. Biol. Res.
(1989), Vol. date 1988, 304 (Maillard
React. Aging, Diabetes, Nutr.), 23548.

A Moment's Halt - a momentary

taste
Of Being from the Well amid the
Waste And Lo! - the phantom Caravan
has reached
The Nothing it set out from - Oh,
make haste!

12Cerami, Anthony, Peter Ulrich, and

Michael Brownlee, "Method and
agents containing aminoguanidine, nhydrazinohistidine,
and lysine for
inhibiting protein aging in animals
and foodstuffs" (patent) Eur. Pat.
Appl. EP 222313 A2870520, 32 pp.

* * *

13Charonis, Aristidis S., Leo T. Furcht,

et al., "Protective role of polyamines
in modifications of basement membrane macromolecules in diabetes"
(patent) PCT Int. Appl., WO 9412464
Al 940609, 19 pp.

way
To flutter - and the Bird is on
the Wing.

140detti, Patrizio R., et al., "Prevention

of diabetes-increased aging effect on
rat collagen-linked fluorescence by
aminoguanidine and rutin," Diabetes
(1990),39(7):796-801.

REFERENCES
1 Cited by Durk Pearson and Sandy
Shaw in Life Extension
(Warner
books, 1982).
2 Ibid.
3 Finch, Caleb E., and Rudolph E.
Tanzi, "Genetics of Aging," Science, 17
October 1997, 278:407-411.
4 F'me h ,op. cit.
.
5 Wade, Nicholas, "Tiny worm May
Offer Lessons on Longevity," The New
York Times, 15 August 1997, p. A8.
6
Associated
Press,
"Fly's
Life
Prolonged By a Human Gene," The
New York Times,
1998, p. A17.

3 June

7 "Roundworm Gene May Be

Key To Aging,"
The
Columbus
Dispatch,
23
August 1998, p. 6B.

Winter 1998-1999

16Mallon, Veronica, "Compositions and

methods for elimination of advanced
glycosylation endproducts (in vivo)"
(patent), PCT Int. Appl., WO 9706819
Al 970227,55 pp.

r;:::=======~----------I
Canadian author
David W. Hopewell

CHRISTIAN
FUNDAMENTALISM

has produced a
work we feel to be

8 Kuro-o, Makoto, et. al.,

"Mutation of the mouse
klotho gene leads to a syndrome resembling ageing,"
Nature, 6 November 1997,
390:45-51.
9 F'me h,op. cit,
.
10Brownlee, Michael, et al.,
"Aminoguanidine prevents
diabetes-induced
arterial
wall protein cross-linking,"
Science (1986), 232:162932; illrich, Peter C. and
Anthony Cerami, "Amino
acids useful as inhibitors of
the advanced glycosylation

15Booth, A. Ashley, et al., "Thiamine

pyrophosphate
and pyridoxamine
inhibit the formation of antigenic
advanced glycation end-products:
comparison with aminoguanidine,"
Biochem. Biophys. Res. Commun.
(1996), 220(1):113-19.

a major

contribu-

tion to the study of

that worrisome

l...- __

'"
-_w._"-

-'

phenomenon
Christian
Fundamen talism,

showing that thos e who are drawn

into its vortex are embarking upon
A Journey

Into The Heart Of

Darkness - to borrow

a title

from

Joseph Conrad.

#5581

$14.00
American Atheist

Clii{dren of Freethouqh:
I

have researched the lives of

nineteenth century women of
Freethought for some years and
have found that many of the most
endearing characteristics
of the
ladies were apparent when they
were only children. Those qualities
were quite unconstrained by family
or social influence, and can only be
attributed to an inherent independence of mind that made them unlike most children - question that
which was presented to them, even
by loved ones.

Frances Wright
Frances Wright was born in
Scotland in 1795 to a wealthy family. Her parents were quite liberal,
but unfortunately, both parents died
when she was only three years old.
Young Frances and her two-year-old
sister were sent to live with her very
conservative grandfather and aunt
in England.
One day, when Frances was
quite young, a beggar and his family came to the door, and her grandfather rudely ordered him away.

Carole Gray is an Atheist historian specializing in rescuing

the lives of Atheist heroines
from oblivion. Presently she is
completing her magnum opus,
the two-volume Nineteenth
Century American Women of
Freethought, which we hope
will be published next year.
Carole is also well-known for
the well-researched
Atheist
and Freethought
calendars
she has produced.

Carole Gray
Austin, Texas

Henry Inman's portrait of Frances

Wright, painted in 1824.
(Courtesy of The New York
Historical Society.)

Little Frances asked her grandfather, ''Why are those people so poor?"
"Because they are too lazy to
work," answered her grandfather.
"But you don't work, Grandfather."
"Certainly not," he replied. "I
could not associate with the rich if I
worked. It is a shame for a rich man
to work. Some are born rich and
some are born poor. The Scriptures
say, 'The poor you shall have always
with you.' God intended that there
should be poor and that there
should be rich."!
Frances thought that if she had
had any money, she would have
given it to the poor man.
This little incident reveals the
compassion Frances was to feel for
the downtrodden the rest of her life.
In adulthood, she moved to the
United States, where she spent half
her fortune buying, then freeing
slaves. She spoke for women's
rights, and for worker's rights, and
for reason over religion, although
Winter 1998-1999

this earned her the title "The High

Priestess of Infidelity."
Whether she was hated or loved
by the crowds, she was such a popular speaker that up to 10,000 people
turned out to listen to her, in a time
before microphones and speakers
that could project her voice.
Frances wrote that her dream
was "To develop all the intellectual
and physical powers of all human
beings, without regard to sex or condition, class, race, nation or color" a simple statement of the ideals for
which this magnificent
woman
worked all her life. Frances was far
ahead of her time in the first half of
the nineteenth
century, and, in
some instances, her ideas are still
ahead of the times in which we now
live at the end of the twentieth century.
The religionists, incidentally,
had one last victory over Frances.
U on her death in Cincinnati in
1852, before her nen s cou
be
lilforme ,a
nstwn ceremony was
he
over er grave. ranees, who
had said "the clerical hierarchy, and
clerical craft ... are the two deadliest
evils which ever cursed society,"
would have been appalled.s

Ernestine Rose
Ernestine 1. Rose was an amazing girl and an amazing woman. The
daughter of an orthodox Jewish
rabbi, Ernestine was born in 1810 in
Poland, where she spent her youth.
We can see the independent thought
present in her personality from a
very young age.
One day, when Ernestine was
quite young, her father scolded her
for combing her hair on the Sabbath, telling her it was a sin. Quite
earnestly, little Ernestine told her
Page 17

father she would go to her room and

ask god if combing her hair on the
Sabbath was a sin. Her father must
have smiled to himself as he
watched his little girl go to her bedroom to commune with god. A few
minutes later, however, the little
girl returned, and with great seriousness told her father ''I asked God
if it was sinful for me to comb my
hair on the Sabbath, father, and I
waited and waited, but he" never
answered."

"Mrs. Rose is not appreciated, nor

cannot be by this age. She is too
much in advance of the extreme
ultraists even, to be understood by
them."5

Lucy Colman
Lucy Colman was born in
Massachusetts in 1817. Even when
a young child, she was appalled by
the idea of slavery. The only thing
she could imagine that could be
worse was burning in a fiery pit in
hell. She had experienced the usual
religious training of children of the
time, and one day asked, "Mother, if
god is good, why does he cause little
children to be born as slaves?" Her
mother told her to read the Bible.
Little Lucy dutifully began her
reading.
Shortly thereafter, Lucy's mother died and Lucy went to her aunt's

Ernestine L. Rose
This tendency for investigation
and honesty resulted in Ernestine
becoming an Atheist while still
young. Moving to the United States,
Ernestine worked diligently for abolition and women's rights, and was
dominant in the Freethought community. Of course, this could not go
unnoticed by the church. "It would
be shameful to listen to this woman,
a thousand times below a prostitute," they said. She was referred to
as "a female Atheist" - so bad that
"we hold the vilest strumpet from
the stews [or slums] to be by comparison respectable."3
In Charleston, South Carolina,
the clergy ordered their parishioners not to listen to "the female
devil, so bold as to contest the right
of the South to hold their own
slaves."4
Susan B. Anthony, who respected Ernestine immensely, said of her,
Page 18

Lucy Colman
to be raised. She asked her aunt,
"Why does god use such filthy words
in the Bible? Why does he make
women obey commands that are not
natural? What good are such laws?"
Her aunt told her, "I don't know; put
away the Bible till you are older;
read the psalms and the New
Testament."
When Lucy was only seven, a
wave of Calvinistic evangelism
swept over the area. Lucy attended
Winter 1998-1999

the meetings, and was told that

some people were predestined to go
to heaven, while others were predestined to go to hell. "What is the use
of repenting your sins?" Lucy
thought, "If it is already decided you
will go to heaven or hell no matter
what you do?"
Religion was a very puzzling
matter to little Lucy. In later years,
her questioning resulted in her
becoming a confirmed and eminent
Atheist, who appeared at Freethought conventions "like a Queen,"
as one Freethought editor wrote.f
Lucy became an abolitionist
speaker and traveled from town to
town speaking on the subject of
slavery. She said that the ministers
in each town always caused her the
most trouble.
At one time, to discredit her, a
minister spread the rumor that he
had seen her with an unmarried
man under a bedcloth - twice! Lucy
forced the minister to appear with
her before an audience to explain
that she and the unmarried man
had been in a wagon on their way to
a speech when the minister saw
them, and that the "bedcloth," a
hostesses quilt, had been over their
legs as a means of keeping off the
chill air. The minister then said that
he had meant his accusation only as
a joke.
At another time, a minister rose
after one of Lucy's speeches to say
that Lucy must have weak morals,
for she ignored the commands of the
bible by uncovering her head and
speaking in public. Lucy asked her
attacker if he considered himself a
good Christian, to which he indignantly replied, "Of course I do. I am
a Christian, and I do not wish to be
insulted by such a question."
Lucy replied, "No insult was
intended, sir. I knew you were a
very ignorant man, but I did suppose you knew something of the
Bible laws in reference to your own
sex, as you were so familiar with the
laws by which I should be governed.
You come into a meeting of mine,
and insult me with your charges,
with your face as smooth as a
American Atheist

woman's; and your Bible says, 'Thou

shalt not mar the corners of thy
beard' - you have cut yours all off."
When the man vehemently
denied any such passage being in
the Bible, Lucy opened the book and
read the command to the audience,
and thus another heckler was
silenced.
Lucy went on to fight for
women's rights, free speech and free
thoughts.
.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton

Born in 1815, young Elizabeth
Cady was sent to a girls seminary
after graduating
from the local
school. While she was there, a "hell
and damnation" preacher was making the rounds of the area and was
invited to speak at the school.
Young Elizabeth was innocent and
believed what he had to say. Later,
she wrote "...we learned the total
depravity of human nature, and the
sinner's awful danger of everlasting
punishment.
This was enlarged
upon until the most innocent girl

might recover there. Her family

members were so concerned that
they sent her on a trip with her sister and brother-in-law, who talked
with her about rationalism until she
overcame the damaging words of the
preacher.
After she had married, Elizabeth Cady Stanton wrote of the incident that "my religious superstition
gave place to rational ideas based on
scientific facts, and in proportion as
I looked at everything from a new
standpoint, I grew more happy day
by day .... I view it as one of the
greatest
crimes to shadow the
minds of the young with these
gloomy superstitions, and with fears
of the unknown and the unknowable
to poison all their joy in life."8 She
also said that "Only those who have
lived all their lives under the dark
clouds of vague, undefined fears can
appreciate the joy of a doubting soul
suddenly born into the kingdom of
reason and free thought. Is the
bondage of the priest-ridden less
galling than that of the slave,
because we do not see the chains,
the indelible scars, the festering
wounds, the deep degradation of all
the powers of the God-like mind?"9
Elizabeth, of course, would go on
to be a leading women's rights advocate and prominent Freethinker,
publishing the extremely controversial book The Woman's Bible. Her
role in history is so dramatic that
she cannot go totally unnoticed, but
the religionists have done what they
could to discredit her and elevate
her less vocal Freethinking coworker, Susan B. Anthony.

Marilla Ricker
Elizabeth Cady Stanton
believed herself a monster of iniquity, and felt certain of eternal
damnation. "7
Elizabeth was so terrified by his
words, she was physically affected,
and began having nightmares. Her
condition became so poor that the
school sent her home, hoping she
Austin, Texas

It must have been a very odd

household - one in which the father
was a Freethinker and the mother
was a devout Free Will Baptist.
Marilla Young was born in 1840,
one of five children, and showed her
independence at a very young age.
She watched her four siblings dress
up on Sunday and dutifully follow
their mother down the road to
church. Marilla refused to go. She
Winter 1998-1999

chose instead to stay home with her

father and work on different chores
around the farm.
When Marilla's mother wanted
all the children to kneel and pray at
night,Marilla sat bolt upright in her
little chair, and with a determined
look, said "I will not pray, Hannah"

Marilla Ricker
(she called her mother by her first
name). Her mother would say to
her, "Marilla, you are exactly like
your father," and she would reply,
''Yes, Hannah, but you gave me my
father and I am entirely satisfied
with him."
Marilla became a teacher at sixteen,while
still attending school
herself. At that time, it was common
practice to have the children read
from the Bible each morning, but
Marilla had her pupils read from
different books. The school committee was upset by this, and came to
see her. They told her she must have
the children read from the Bible.
In typical "Marilla-style," the
next morning she said to her pupils,
"We will now read the startling and
truthful account of Jonah whilst he
was a sojourner in the sub-marine
hotel." She came very close to losing
her position.t? but in 1861, she graduated from the Colby Academy in
New London, and continued teaching until 1863.
That year, Marilla married John
Ricker, as unlikely a pairing as that
Page 19

of her parents.
Marilla
once
explained, "My husband was a
Congregationalist. Their creed is
complex from a mathematical
standpoint. They seem to think that
three gods are one, and one god is
three gods. I, having been taught
that figures didn't lie, couldn't
understand it until I thought of a
boy who said to his teacher when
she explained to him that figures
didn't lie, 'You should see my sister's
at home and then on the street. You
will find that figures do lie'."ll Mr.
Ricker died in 1868, leaving Marilla
a childless and wealthy widow. She
was never to marry again.
Marilla went on to become one
of the first women attorneys in the
United States, and was licensed to
present
cases before the US
Supreme Court. She was known as
the prisoner's friend and worked
without pay for the indigent jailed
in Washington, DC.
Marilla was very active in the
women's rights movement and
sometimes was invited to speak to
groups who did not know she was
also an Atheist. After the death of
Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Marilla
was invited to speak before a group
of women members of the Woman's
Christian Temperance Union. They
eulogized Elizabeth, making her out
to be a devout Christian. ''You really would have thought;" Marilla
later wrote ofthe incident, "that 'our
Elizabeth' had been a teacher in a
Methodist Sabbath School!"
Marilla went on to report: "I was
the last person called upon to speak
and I changed the aspect of the
meeting somewhat. I read Elizabeth's views on the Bible and something of her work in the Freethought line. I was the only person
present who had ever seen her and I
spoke 'whereof I knew'."
One woman asked Marilla, "Did
you ever have a creed?" to which she
responded, "No, except to pay one
hundred cents on a dollar, but I
know all about creeds" - and proceeded to illuminate them on her
upbringing by her Free Will Baptist
mother and her life with a
Page 20

Congregationalist
husband. It is
doubtful that the group ever invited
Marilla to speak before them
again.P
Marilla was delightfully blunt
and her books, I'm Not Afraid - Are
You? and I Don't Know - Do You?,
contain many wonderfully witty
quotes, such as:
"Nothing grows slower than
truth, and nothing faster than
superstition. "
"The first thing for people to do
is to get rid of the silly notion that
there is anything holy in the name of
Jesus any more than in the name of
Hercules, Bacchus, or Adonis."
''Above all, teach children that
prayer is idiotic. There may be one
God or twenty. I do not know or
care."
"We are living in the Twentieth
Century of what is called the
Christian Era, and we have not outgrown the superstitions of the First
Century."
"The greatest danger which confronts our nation today is not political but religious, and the preservation of our free institutions does not
depend upon our army and navy,
but upon the emancipation of the
human mind from ecclesiastical
slavery. ... You can not have free
schools, free speech and a free press
where the mind is not free."
Marilla Ricker died in 1920, just
as women were finally achieving the
political equality she had worked to
obtain for them all her life.
Margaret Sanger
Little Maggie Higgins was born
in 1879, the sixth child of eleven. As
with Marilla Ricker, Maggie's parents were an oddly matched couple,
with her mother being a devout
Roman Catholic and her father a
Freethinker.
When Maggie was a young girl,
her father, a stonecutter, invited his
hero, Robert Ingersoll, to speak in
their town. When Ingersoll arrived,
Mr. Higgins, with little Margaret by
his side, escorted their eminent
Winter 1998-1999

guest to the hall in which he was to

speak. To their dismay, however,
they found that they were denied
access to the hall. To make things
even worse, some of the citizens of
the town had gathered and began to
pelt them with tomatoes.
Eventually, a place was found in
which Ingersoll could speak, but
after his appearance in the town,
the neighborhood children called
Maggie and her siblings "Devil's
children" and "Heathens" and suddenly her father could not find work
in town.
This would not be the last time

Margaret

Sanger

little Maggie would find opposition

from religionists. Later in life, when
her compassion as a nurse led her to
want to save the lives of millions of
women, she published a little article
which included a description of the
reproductive process.
When she received her copy of
the paper in which her article was to
be published, she eagerly skimmed
the pages. There was the title:
"What Every Girl Should Know."
But under the title, instead of her
article, it read in big, black letters:
"NOTHING! By Order of the Post
Office Department." Thus began her
battle with the conservative Christian postmaster general Anthony
Comstock, whose sexual beliefs
were so restricted that he said that
American Atheist

all nonprocreative sex, even in marriage, was "bestial and base."

When her husband was arrested
for distributing her writings, the
judge sentencing him to thirty days
in jail told him, "Your crime is not
only a violation of the laws of man,
but ofthe law of God as well, in your
scheme to prevent motherhood. Too
many persons have the idea that it
is wrong to have children. Some
women are so selfish that they do
not want to be bothered with them.
If some persons would go around
and urge Christian women to bear
children, instead of wasting their
time on woman suffrage, this city
and society would be better off."
The lifelong battle between
Margaret and religionists which
began when she was just a little girl
continued all her life, and even now,
after her death, she is violently
hated by many religionists.
Conclusion
These are just little glimpses
into the personalities of some of the
leading Freethought women of the
nineteenth century. Even as children, they all shared a propensity to
question what they were told and a
commitment to truth that overshadowed a child's usual tendency to
simply accept the word of authority.
All of these women retained
these qualities in adult life, leading
them to work for abolition, worker's
rights, women's rights, and freedom
from ecclesiastical domination.
Although
largely
forgotten,
because of the successful efforts of
the religious, we must keep the
ideals of these women alive at a
time when our rights are being
increasingly eroded by religionists.
We must not forget their great fight
for freedom from oppression,
against a church organization that
supported slavery, industry over
workers, men over women, and
superstition over reason.
As another great nineteenth
century Atheist woman named
Josephine K. Henry stated after a
lifetime spent fighting for reason
Austin, Texas

and women's rights, "I sit alone on

the rock of my own individuality,
with the waves of superstition and
religious tyranny surging around
me, and if, when I have passed from
earth, my grave leveled, and my
name forgotten, the echo of [my]
words shall awaken to power, and
release from injustice, tyranny, and
cruelty, one woman, my reward
will be great indeed."13

Henry, Blue Grass Blade,

1908.

12 July

11 "Mrs. Marilla M. Ricker on Ye Olden

Thyme," Marilla Ricker, The Blue
Grass Blade, 30 November 1902.
12 The Blue Grass Blade, 30 November
1902.
13 The Blue Grass Blade, Vol. XI, No.
22, 20 July 1902.

REFERENCES
1 Frances Wright, Free Enquirer, A.J.G.
Perkins
and Theresa
Wolfson,
Harper and Brothers Publishers,
New York and London, 1939, p. 8.
2 "Address of the State of the Public
Mind and the Measures Which it
Calls For, delivered in New York and
Philadelphia,
in the Autumn of
1829," Life, Letters and Lectures
1834-44, Frances Wright D'Arusmont, Arno Press, New York, 1972, p.
174.
3 Ernestine L. Rose, Women's Rights
Pioneer, Yuri Suhl, Biblio Press, New
York, 1990, pp. 173-174.
4

"Ernestine
L. Rose," Jenny
P.
d'Hericourt, Agitator, 25 June 1869;
reprinted
by The Revolution,
16
September 1869.

5 Elizabeth
Anthony:
Speeches,
Schocken
70-77.

Dial
an

Atheist'
Current Atheist opinion
on just about everything
that matters.

Cady Stanton, Susan B.

Correspondence, Writings,
edited by Gerda Lerner,
Books, New York, 1981, pp.

6 The Blue Grass Blade, 10 April 1909.

7 Elizabeth Cady Stanton as Revealed in

her Letters, Diary and Reminiscences,

edited by Theodore Stanton and
Harriot Stanton Blatch, Harper &
Brothers Publishers, New York and
London, 1922,p. 47.
8 Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B.
Anthony: Correspondence, Writings,
Speeches, edited by Ellen DuBois,
Schocken Books, New York, 1981, pp.
9-13; ibid, p. 49.
9 Elizabeth Cady Stanton, "Speech to
.the Anniversary of the American
Anti-Slavery Society, 1861," Elizabeth Cady Stanton,
Susan
B.
Anthony: Correspondence, Writings,
Speeches, edited by Gerda Lerner,
Schocken Books, New York, 1981, p.
80.
10 "Marilla M. Ricker," Josephine K.
Winter 1998-1999

Frequently updated
recorded messages
Columbus, Ohio

(614) 294-0300

Salt lake City, Utah

(801) 364-4939
Page 21

CULTURALJETLAG-JIM

SIERGEY & TOM ROBERTS

I F YOU'VE :rUST RECtEVED

BLE5SING,CAl..L
ouR
PRA"IE.R COUIVSE/...ORS
AT

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Co"'mIBUT'O~ TO KE..C.P,
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ON 1i1 AIR'
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8uSS ~L/~

ReQueSTS

Page 22

Winter 1998-1999

American Atheist

You Can't Fight Billy Graham

By Noel Singleton, RN

endrick Health System is a

fairly large regional hospital
corporation
'in Abilene,
Texas. It was founded as Baptist
Sanitarium, back when God permitted lots of tuberculosis and polio and nothing useful could be done
about it. You know, the good old
days before AIDS and gangs.
So it has always been a Christian institution and long has been
run by the Baptist General Convention of Texas. Nothing wrong with
that. Religion has built and operated many a great American hospital:
Baptist, Methodist, Catholic, Jewish
- wonderful things, really ...
Since about 1964, it has been
theoretically illegal for such a hospital to discriminate by preferentially
hiring and retaining Christian staff.
Thus, when you think about it, a
church-affiliated facility of any size
should have some employees who
don't happen to embrace a Christian
conviction - Atheist, perhaps, or
committed to some "foreign" faith.
For eleven years, I was Hendrick's
resident Buddhist, having joined the
international sect Soka Gakkai in
my youth.
But another faith-based healthcare facility comes to mind and figures in at the beginning of my tale of
- whatever this is. As a child, I had
two surgeries at St. John's' Hospital
in San Angelo. Rather than being
traumatic, the experience was interesting, and the memory largely
pleasant. Stern yet kindly, gentle
and strong were the nurses and the
nuns. That primitive impression
may have influenced my eventual
career choice.

Austin, Texas

It was at st. John's, twenty-odd

years later, that the irony and the
outrage complicating that choice
began. There I had gone to work
scrubbing pots in the kitchen, and
during five years moved up to
dietary aide and then nurse aide. I
enrolled in the RN program at
Angelo State University.
The chaplain and the sisters
young' and old were respectful
regarding my Buddhist faith, and so
were all co-workers and supervisors.
In reply, I accepted and supported
the "Christian atmosphere" of our
setting. However, four months
before graduating to become an RN,
I was fired by St. John's for writing
an opinion letter to the local paper
on the legal abortion issue. At least
they were straightforward,
as
opposed to devious and wicked
about it. Anyone could see the chillingly impetuous presumptuousness
in such action, the unmistakable
stamp of religious zeal, a la
Catholic. We'll just require that our
nurses be "pro-life."
I have remembered the date I
was fired - January 28, 1986 because the spacecraft Challenger
exploded that day. Soon the newspaper that had printed my pro-babymurder letter carried the story of
my consequent dismissal on the
front page:
BISHOP WANTS REPORT ON
EMPLOYEE'S FIRING- [The] San
Angelo Bishop ...Tuesday asked for
a report on the firing of a St. John's
Hospital employee who lost his job
the day after the publication of a
letter he wrote criticizing foes of
abortion.

Winter 1998-1999

Nursing
assistant
Noel
Singleton, 32, defended the freedom
of choice for women faced with
unwanted pregnancy in a letter that
appeared Jan. 27 on the opinion
page of the Standard- Times.
On Jan. 28, Singleton said, he
was ordered to appear before the
vice president in charge of nursing
services ...
'She tossed the newspaper clipping across the desk and asked if I
wrote that and what was going
through my mind when I wrote it.
Then she pulled out a book and
quoted their philosophy,' Singleton
said ...
St. John's is a Catholic hospital
owned and operated by the Sisters
of Charity of the Incarnate Word of
San Antonio ...
Singleton ... did not represent
himself as a hospital employee in
his letter, which read in part: 'Let
them (pro-life campaigners) march
a trench around my courthouse!
Their right to judge, accuse and
deplore ends exactly where the individual woman's rights begin ... Sane
women ought to come forth to sign
that petition (calling for an abortion
ban) with the meaningful pseudonym, Frita Choose.'
(A hospital
administration
spokesman said) there was no reason stated for Singleton's dismissal
other than (that) the dismissal
came about without cause. 'We like
to have a specific reason but in this
case we do not ...he will be able to
collect unemployment because he
was fired without cause .. .' (San
Angelo Standard-Times, 5 Feb. 86)

Local TV news mentioned the

thing, too. After all, it was a bona
fide freedom-of-speech controversy.

Page 23

Okay, I confess that I enjoyed

having created a stir with my poke
at the pro-lifers. (This was before
they started routinely killing people.) Next to nursing, I wanted to be
a writer. Was one, apparently, in
terms of effect.
On the other hand, it was attention without which I could have
done. The other two hospitals in my
hometown were strangely cool
toward me when I went job hunting
as a fresh graduate. So it was that
my wife and I were more or less
forced to move to Abilene.
On Career Day at the University, a Hendrick Medical Centerrecruiter took my little resume. It
was the nearest large hospital. My
brother lived up there. I'd known
lots of Baptists before, and figured
they were okay
Steeple-studded, family-values
Abilene is known far and wide as a
Christian community. You want to
raise your kids in a town like this unless you are one of those beatniks
who have a problem with publicschool prayer. And public-school
church-youth-group proselytizing.
Oh - and public-school mid-day
Jesus metal concerts in the gym;
actual preachers preaching in the
auditorium; Fellowship of Christian
Athletes rallies; See You At The
Pole; Gideon Bible distribution - all
culminating in starkly sectarian
prayers at commencement ceremonies. In short, something from a
nightmare one has after watching
too much 700 Club.
Ah, but other than the public
school-church fusion, there are not
many serious shocks to constitutional religious liberty here. Well, there
is the state mental retardation facility, where born-again staff and volunteers have their witnessing way
with dependent residents (sometimes baptizing them). Just as with
other captive audiences - area prisons, jails - an inexorable state-payrolled chaplaincy network trains
young divinity students, using these
numerous citizens of dubious consent to practice on.
Page 24

I'd been in town a few weeks

when the topic of evolution in stateselected textbooks came up on the
opinion page in the Abilene
Reporter-News,
and I submitted the
first of many letters to that editor.
Evolution is my favorite subject
(isn't it everyone's?). Back in the
San Angelo opinion-page forum,
fundamentalist opponents had often
provoked me and we'd duked it out
in fine, traditional fashion. To me,
this classic topic is irresistible
because of my perception that creationism is helplessly stupid - I'm
like a cat that has sighted lame
prey, and it's no use telling me I
ought to let it be.
Cartoon was astute
.. .1 respond to the letter in Sept.
12's morning Reporter-News, from a
person who didn't care for that (proevolution) cartoon. Decrying the
influence of secular humanism on
scientific education, this Christian
lady would have children taught a
kind of science which is more compatible with her belief in the special
creation of the world as recorded in
Genesis.
It is my hope that all such parents will eventually turn to wellinsulated private or home schooling, to shield their kids from heretical facts of life like evolution. That
way, no child of mine will have to
raise her hand and question some
absurd pseudoscience designed to
obscure our natural origins ...
(This and all remaining letter
excerpts are from the Abilene
Reporter-News).

I noticed right away that local

fundamentalists were game, i.e.,
any evolution letter I fired off would
draw earnest creationist rebuttal.
Spittin' mad, sometimes.
Nursing is wonderful and dreadful. You have to be nuts to love it,
but-you do. You are seduced by the
decent wage and the professional
esteem, and especially the sense of
accomplishment when your skill
and hard work have figured into the
restoring of someone's health, or
even the saving oflife.
Winter 1998-1999

The pride is there as you come

to speak a language that baffles the
general public, as you perform the
scary procedures and operate the
fancy devices, making it look easy.
There's pride, albeit grim pride,
when you have learned to deal with
urine, pain, puke, confusion, stool,
fear, mucus, anger, and blood - efficiently rendering help in each
patient's hour of need. It's in that
regard that someone always says, "I
could never be a nurse."
Hope, confidence, and courage
are so important in nursing that a
candidate with plenty of these may
enter the field with minimal academic preparation - the "vocational"
approach. Roughly, LVNs have
kindness,
common sense, and
hands-on skill from experience,
while RNs have more education in
anatomy, physiology, psychology,
and so forth. I'm in the latter category, having always loved, and
believed in, science.
Religious nuts see nursing as a
spiritual mission. On your typical
staff of nurses, at least one is doing
this because "God told me to." The
rest are prayerful to one degree or
another. Count on it. I know the
Atheist nurse can draw on his or her
fundamental altruistic values and
have ample basis for compassionate
dedication, and yet my subjective
impression is that there are about
eleven Atheist nurses in the United
States. It's going to be up to the
Atheists to change that, and I wish
they'd get on with it - help offset
grievous Christian domination of
the field.
Although I consider myself religious, I belong to a sect that rejects
the idea of praying to an external,
supernatural
being. We strive
instead to realize some degree of our
own Buddha nature, the "inner light
of ultimate humanity." Nor do we
pin all hopes on the afterlife. To be
reasonably happy now is worth
more than all sorts of bliss after
you're dead. For humankind to
attain even an imperfect peace and
justice in this world would be better
American Atheist

than a thousand mythical heavens.

It is a rational and a humanistic
form of Buddhism - Soka Gakkai.
AB such it should be far less offensive to Atheists than a religion
which is counter-rational and antihumanistic. I'll go further: the
future of the movement to free
Americans from establishment of
religion may depend on the nominal
unity of all citizens who have chosen
anything other than Christianity.
During the early years, on the
night shift when there was time for
talk, I often got into religious discussions with the other nurses. No
one harassing or proselytizing, mind
you, but earnest apologetics and
outright debate as our faiths confronted each other. It pleased me to
let people know where I was coming
from and stand by it, though the
usual Christian take on Buddhism
is that Satan invented it.
More than one nurse of the fundamentalist persuasion engaged me
in the creation versus evolution discussion, opening with, "I saw your
letter the other day ..."
Graham's creation idea
can't go unchallenged
In his Sept. 16 column, Billy
Graham compares biblical and scientific explanations of where we
came from and - not surprisingly,
misrepresents what it means to
accept the scientific theory ...
Don't believe that evolution
stuff, warns Graham, or you come
to think we are here by accident,
that life is meaningless, with no
reason to follow any absolute moral
standards.
I can't let the evangelist's
charge go unchallenged, because I
am living proof to the contrary. I
embrace the evolution account
wholeheartedly, and yet my life is
distinctly meaningful. I am of sound
moral character, too.
Can Dr. Graham really think
biologists and paleontologists are a
gang of wild and godless crazies,
likely to go on a crime spree at any
moment?
Far from being an accident, the
universe follows a wonderful, profound Law. It is this Law which people sense as the will of a supreme
Austin, Texas

being. Science makes such order a

little clearer every day, and therefore is not the enemy of confident,
common-sense religious faith.

The real fun in opinion-letter

writing is the rebuttal. You write
something and it has an effect on
someone, Cool.
A question of standards
If N. Singleton read any of the
numerous books and articles written by Dr. Billy Graham, he would
know that repeatedly Dr. Graham
expresses his appreciation to scientists because they are currently
finding new evidence to support the
fact God created the world, controls
it and is the Sovereign God of the
Bible, although no proof is needed.
Never would I question the
sound moral character of which N.
Singleton says he is a living example. But I would ask, by whose standard? By God's or by man's? One
may live a perfectly normal life by
man's standards but God says no
man is able to do so by His standard.
And, lest we forget, every moral
standard man has is founded upon
the standard God wrote on two
tablets of stone on Mt. Sinai so long
ago.
N. Singleton and any of us can
deny the God of Creation and
believe in whatever we want. He
gives us that choice. But when we
reject Him, we reject His son - and
the day is coming when we will no
longer have the choice.

Evolutionist is invited to
consider his ancestry
Mr. N. Singleton's letter of Oct.
5 judging Billy Graham is not only
untrue but unjust.
It takes a lot more than faith to
believe this so-called evolution than
creation. Just where does one get
his or her facts for such a theory?
We get ours from the Bible. Yes, the
. word of God.
It's like what Henrietta Mears
says in her book, What the Bible is
All About: The world always has
been and always will be full of
antagonism to the truth and to
those who speak it. But God will
bring it to naught.

Winter 1998-1999

Now for me and my household:

We'll believe we were created in
God's image - and if Mr. Singleton
wants to believe he and his ancestors came from apes, 'be my guest.
Either way, he owes Dr. Billy
Graham an apology. I have his
address if he wants it.

"The world always has been

full of antagonism to the truth and
those who speak it." Amen, 0 my
adversary! I respect and appreciate
those who write in with their opposing view - the appropriate response,
as opposed to plotting and perpetrating harm to me and my family.
I was semi-joking when I first
began to complain of the discrimination. Annual performance evaluations drove me crazy. Whereas I
could have sworn my work was
downright heroic overall, it was
never rated "commendable" - just
"fully competent" at best, sometimes
dipping to "adequate." Meanwhile,
new nurses whom I taught to spell
codeine and seizure were becoming
my supervisors at an alarming rate.
Checking around, at one point I
found that the unit nurse manager
and more than one of her favorites
happened to attend the same
church. Actually, there was no end
of such coincidences. In time I would
see that, sure enough, advancement
was the exclusive province of professing Christians, and no joke to it.
A Stained Glass Ceiling, if you
will. Let those who doubt me investigate, and let them produce one
supervisor or manager who denies
being Christian.
Respect of people is fundamental to both nursing and Buddhism,
so it was occasionally necessary to
let my (often elderly) patients' family think they were surrounded
entirely by Christ-loving professionals. Actually, I'd evade, equivocate
and lie like a dog to keep from disturbing these precious folks' spiritual resource at a time when they
needed whatever placebo effect it
might afford.
The rare exceptions: I revealed
that I was Buddhist and mildly
Page 25

proselytized a young man from

Austin who was HIV positive but
had kept AIDS at bay for fifteen
years with internalized imagery,
optimism, and new-age B.S. He'd
heard of Nam-myoho-renge-kyo,
so I
told him a bit more about the thing.
A few years later, a patient's family
member voiced his "Eastern religions" inclinations, so I gave him
one of my Living Buddhism magazines.
But no, you don't normally want
to mention to the customers that
you're a heathen.
A costly demonstration
An epidemic of "faith" has
claimed at least five children in
Philadelphia. Their parents, refusers of medical intervention, apparently stood around praying while
the little ones contracted measles
and died.
Once again, Bible fanatics have
demonstrated at great cost that
faith healing is a lie. Will those parents now disavow the false teaching
that kills children? I doubt it.
One loses count of innocents
that have been publicly sacrificed to
the "miracle healing" doctrine in
recent years. Parents with this disorder deny a child insulin or blood
transfusion or surgery or immunization, citing religious reasons.
How many times must something be disproved?
But the Reporter-News buys
into the same pious fraud with its
.daily Billy Graham and religious
articles. It's always something like,
"God answers prayer but it may not
be in the way we want," or, "We
may not always understand His
plan," when urgent prayers go
utterly unanswered ...
Preachers and church activists
who presume to practice in the
stead of doctors and nurses ought to .
be held very strictly accountable
when their bogus methods get
someone killed ...
We shouldn't keep making
excuses for a set of beliefs that has
repeatedly been proven false and
harmful. When one prays for something and it doesn't happen, the
reasonable conclusion would be:
"This thing doesn't work. I must try
something else.". How about a
"revival" of common sense?
Page 26

Letters such as this were dismaying to my wife, a Christian. Not

only did she disagree with my view,
but she (and my mom as well) was
very astutely concerned that such
speech was going to get me in trouble at work again, and by now I had
a son to consider.
Meanwhile, healthcare as an
industry continued to get more and
more hectic, as the American people
recoiled at spiraling costs, waste,
and fraud. A brutal, bottom-line
cost-control motive tightened palpably around us. Its immediate effects
included a general drying up of raises, and the institution of an austerity in staffing that has become
acceptable today - the patient-tocaregiver ratios that mean somebody has to wait thirty minutes or
more for a pain shot, and somebody
gets to reek because of rushed and
cursory bed-baths, and somebody's
helpless butt is left on the bedpan
for six hours.
Stress and burnout took their
toll, but I still managed to render
competent care. For every case of
delay or error that went on my
record, there would be several
redeeming occasions of earning a
client's praise or compliment. To
sort of kiss up and earn extra credit,
I participated in quality improvement meetings and exhibited extra
effort in presenting inservices, etc.
When my accomplishments went all
but unacknowledged and I got the
minimum merit raise, the "commendable" annual rating eluding
me for the ninth time, I became professionally restless. "Medical/surgical," the mainstream of hospital
nursing, came to seem like a rut. If
advancement was to be denied, I
wanted some measure of "lateral
mobility," an occasion to broaden my
experience in a completely different
practice setting.
The transfer eventually granted
was to the Hospice subsidiary (care
of the terminally ill). To cut to the
chase: in this department I experienced
blatant
discrimination
because of my non-Christianity.
Prejudice and hostility were clearly
Winter 1998-1999

evident every time the topic of .reIigion came up, and with each letter
of mine that appeared in the
Abilene Reporter-News.
About that time, Billy Graham's
column attacked some Buddhist
ideas as "false doctrines" - Satan's
attempt to fool us. I shot back that
"This concept of a deceiver is always
convenient for preachers. They reckon God talks to them, but if someone
else picks up a signal, that's dangerous. You can see who's endangered
by it - the preachers."
Yikes. There's one I should have
kept to myself, if! valued my career.
Next I fired off my opinion contrary
to religious right-winger Cal Thomas'
bitter denunciation of Pope John
Paul II's "evolution statement," and
then I had the impudence to criticize
that judge who posted the Ten
Commandments in his courtroom.
My boss called me in to recommend, in all kindness and wisdom,
that I consider putting my hobby to
rest for a spell. These letters to the
editor were making the staffuncomfortable, afraid they would be associated with such views. Charitable
contributors
in the community
might see my name tag, make the
connection and punish Hendrick
Hospice Care for employing me. She
was personally offended by both
evolution and reincarnation,
but
hinted that others were pressuring
her to talk to me about it as well. I
had best start thinking about the
"consequences" of speaking my
mind.
Well, of course I didn't knuckle
under, so the consequences came
rolling in. Later, I would learn what
to call them - disparate scrutiny,
contextual cause. At the time, I only
knew that I had become the nurse
who couldn't win for losing. (It's a
shame, too, because I was an excellent Hospice nurse. My strong clinical knowledge and confidence
served well in an area where physicians grant broad autonomy to nurses in their delivery of highly specialized care. During eighteen months I
had frequent occasion to provide
"care" worthy of the name, i.e., full
American Atheist

devotion of skill to actions based on

sincere compassion. On a given day
I'd go from shabby little trailer
home to spotless and spacious town
house, exerting the best I had in the
battle against the pain and dread
God so often sees fit to inflict on His
children. It was an awesome privilege, and one that would be wrongly
taken from me. The truth about it
all goes in my eternal book, the real
one that I write myself. That
thought sustains me even now, as I
take odd jobs and apply for
Medicaid.)
Yep, it was strange - in spite of
my experience and background, I
began to display poor nursing judgment, as evidenced by the manager's constantly having to secondguess my decisions in the field. She
coached me and coached me, ever
exasperated at my failure to "get it."
If I went too long without committing some oversight or error for her
to pounce on, there were always
vague and subjective criticisms
about ''body language," attitude/confidence, "presentation" to impress
the customers, etc. Ask any nurse
whether it's hell when someone is
out to get you.
As this treatment intensified, I
sought transfer out of there. A word
of advice: if you suspect your
employer of discriminating against
you, do NOT report your concerns to
your company's Human Resources
Department! Naively, I mentioned
that I was sure religious prejudice
was a factor in my situation. The
response of this small-town corporate monster was to put a staff
member at my boss' disposal, to help
her avoid any appearance of unfairness in the trumping up and documenting of "performance-related"
issues.
From then on, I was all the more
expertly undermined, overloaded,
written up and shaken down. By
way of contrast, my peers got leniency in matters for which I was singled out and flogged. What was
worse, my application to over twenty openings in other departments
resulted in only two or three cold,
Austin, Texas

cold interviews - word was out on

me, and parties who'd been entertained by my letters from the start
joined in my blacklisting, with a
wink and a pious smile.
To escape the abuse, I accepted
their advice that I take an "indefinite" leave of absence. Hendrick represented that I would remain eligible for hire and should continue
applying. However, once rid of me,
they were not about to let me back
on board.
I went to work for the hospital
across town, where I performed
poorly, all burned out and bitter.
The old confidence had been scuttled utterly, and with it a delicate

SNAPSHOTS

by Jason Love

//

/"

property called professional reputation. I began my correspondence

with the u.S. Equal Employment
Opportunity Commission and the
Texas Commission on Human
Rights.
A .bit of advice. In matters of
religious employment discrimination, the EEOC is less helpful than
your Human Resources Department, if that's possible. They once
saw to it that employers must
accommodate
religious holidays,
and as far as they're concerned,
their noble work is done in that
whole area. Regrettably, your best
bet for obtaining justice may be to
go berserk and take some hostages!

"-

->
/

/
/

/
/"

Jesus gets gypped on presents again.

Winter 1998-1999

Page 27

The Impossibility
of Deity
ll people of faith believe that
their gods are good. Many
have used the term "The good
Lord," and those who haven't used it
have approved of that expression.
This would make us suppose that if
there is a god, he must be kind. But
one of the many objections we have
to the Bible is its portrayal of its god
as cruel.
The Bible tells us that its god
ordered men to wage wars of extermination. They were to invade the
land of other nations and kill all
who lived there. Men were commanded by this god to practice
human slavery. The biblical deity
required his people to engage in
religious persecution. They were to
stone to death those who followed
other gods. We must say that the
Bible lies. Shouldn't a god be only
kind and never cruel? Surely, a god
would not condemn men and women
to eternal pain because of a failure
to believe a prescribed doctrine. A
god would know that we believe as
we must.
However, we also realize that if
there is a god, he is intensely cruel.
In the spring of 1994, in the small
African nation of Rwanda, more
than a half-million people were
hacked to death during a tribal conflict. This was one of many sickening genocidal events in the terrible
history of the world. God did nothing. He who supposedly had the
power to prevent all of the suffering
hindered none of it. Not one hatchet
or machete was arrested in its murderous course. Not one vicious mind
was changed. Surely, some wicked
intentions could have been altered
without the awareness of anyone
that a god was at work. Some have
protested that a god therefore may

A long-time inember of
American Atheists, Martin
Bard is a U. S. Army Air Force
veteran of World War II. He is
the Author of the Gustav
Broukal Press book The Peril
Of Faith. (The Second Edition
of Mr. Bard's book is available
from American Atheist Press
for ten dollars. The product
number for his excellent book
is #5012.)

Martin L. Bard
Page 28

Winter 1998-1999

have been at work. It is certain that

he was not at work to the effect of
reducing the horror in Rwanda,
because
those
people
were
butchered alive. Among them were
at least one hundred thousand little
children. Perhaps there were many
more.
By what great irrationality can
we possibly believe that there is a
god who, having completely neglected those precious, mutilated children, nevertheless has concern for
us? Most of the slaughtered
Rwandans were Christians. Was
prayer effective for them?
Some will say that their god did
not kill those victims, but that the
violence was done by men who were
influenced by an evil spirit, thought
to be Satan or the Devil. However,
their god could have prevented the
slaughter so easily that, since he did
not, we must blame him no less
than the perpetrators.
Yet, this god cannot be cruel
because he must be kind. The various alternatives are unthinkable. If
we had ultimate power we would
not permit any suffering. How can it
be that a god is less kind than we?
When we consider the magnitude of human suffering and contemplate the oceanic immensity of
pain that engulfs the lesser creatures of the earth, we realize that a
god that is real must know of it all.
If he has the power to end it all
without effort or cost or danger to
himself'; we must conclude that
since he prevents none of it he is not
only cruel, he is totally cruel. There
is no kindness in him, because if
there were even a bit of kindness it
necessarily would be expressed in
the prevention of the anguish of
which we are aware. No other conAmerican Atheist

.. --.

sideration could overrule it. That

would not be possible.
So, we have a god who is both
totally cruel and not totally cruel.
We know that he cannot be totally
cruel because, ifhe were, only cruelty and its resultant suffering would
be valued at all. There would be no
toleration for kindness and joy.
Mostcertainly, ifthere were a god of
total kindness there could be no cruelty and misery in the world. We can
understand then, that god of total
cruelty would allow no kindness and
happiness. All of us necessarily
would be engulfed by evil, and yet
we are not. Indeed, there is much
goodness.
We have a god who is self-contradictory in essence, being totally
cruel and not totally cruel. No being
can be both totally cruel and not
totally cruel, any more than a figure
can be both a square and a circle.
Godis an impossibility. Nothing can
contradict itself essentially. It is
impossible that a being can exist if
this being contradicts itself in
essence. The alleged deity is purely
imagination. God is an imagined
deity. Any benefits attributed to this
supposed spirit must be viewed as
having purely natural cause.
We must accept that the universe is completely natural. There is
nothing which is unnatural
or
supernatural. There are no spirits.
There has never been the slightest
evidence of a spirit. Those realities
which are often considered to be evidence of a creative spirit, the complexity of living forms and the
remarkable courses of the planets of
the solar system in their revolutions
around the sun, to mention some
examples, constitute evidence of the
process of evolution. All that occurs
or exists does so as the result of an
immensely long evolutionary process.
The universe is eternal, and its
natural functions have resulted in
the multiplicity of forms and forces
with which we are acquainted.
There has been nothing for a god to
do, and therefore there cannot be
evidence of creation, or of interferAustin, Texas

ence otherwise in the natural

processes of the universe.
However, if there were a
supreme being, there essentially
would be evidence of his existence.
So great a being would not hide himself. He would not permit the great
bulk of humanity, the overwhelming
majority of mankind - if not the
world's population in its near entirety - to believe that he is other than
who he really is, and to worship
"false gods."
Then too, we must ask if a real
god would have tolerated all of the
monstrous evil which has been done
in his name. Would he have put up
with all of the cruel religious wars,
the horrible crusades, the unbelievably awful inquisitions, all of the
torturing and burning, the brutal
dungeons, the terrible suffering
caused by religion? Could he have
condoned the destruction of the
realm of science? This devastation
was brought about in the Dark Ages
of Faith by men who believed it was
desired by their god.

We may as well ask if a god really caused a world of humans and

animals to drown, or if he actually
killed the children of Egypt, or if he
would permit us to believe that he
did so.
We must respond with a negative reply, and settle in like fashion
any mental inquiry as to the existence of such an imagined being.

The Second Edition of Mr. Bard's

book is available from American
Atheist Press.
#5012
$10.00

Trov Kokol
Winter 1998-1999

Page 29

Dial-an -Atheist@Classics

IGHT-TO-SINGLE-CELLED-LIFERS don't just oppose abortion. As you know, they also oppose sex education
for twenty-year-olds, on the grounds that learning about sex might give them ideas about how to keep from
getting pregnant. Naturally, they want as many illegitimate babies as possible to be born, since there is a good
chance that if such children survive they will be sufficiently undereducated to join the kinds of churches that support the compulsory-pregnancy movement. If the mandatory-motherhood marauders oppose birth control and sex
education, it goes without saying that they oppose amniocentesis - checking the amniotic fluid during a pregnancy
to see if the fetus is defective. They fear that a woman, if she learns that she is carrying a cabbage, will try to terminate the pregnancy.
Unfortunately, the Right-to-Lifers don't have a very good song yet with which to underline the importance of giving birth to defective offspring. And so, we have tried to help them out by writing a song which they will certainly
want to use to advance their cause. It's called "Rutabaga Baby."

J=1IJUTABAGA BABY
n

1.:1

<
:

ttJ

Ruta-

<

Ruta-

baga
baga

...

;~age 30

r;

Baby
Baby
I

He's
He's

mine.

...

baga
baga

Baby,
Baby,

....

...

..

r-:I

..

got no arms and he's got no neck and he's

got a soul somewhere near his knee and he's

. ~. b.

mine.

of
of

RutaRuta-

. ..

r--:::I

=1 I

rl,.....

leg.
got
a taproot for a
gonna go to heaven some day.

-<

1="1

..

r'ir'i

..

..

...

c..

n.I

r-:::I r--1

Jesus loves this

Jesus loves this

.... ,

r--; . r-:I

by Frank R. Zindler

1987

..

r-:I

Jesus saved this

Jesus saved this

...

"111

Winter 1998-1999

..

..

, baga
Rutabaga

Baby,
Baby,

Ruta-'

!f-

!f-

I~

American Atheist

n r; Fl . n
I

RutaRuta-

of
of

to
if he

..

~r;

Ruta-

..

~0

baga

Baby

of

..

r--::I r--::I F1

Jesus loves this

-4

1II

:;ii

..

Ruta-

baga

mine.

Now

r-::I

..

r-=

Fal- wet

h.

~ H.

I~

Jerry

Baby,

and the pope say it's

r---:I F1

r--:=

r1r1ril""""'l

""

..

,'if-

21

'if-

fL

beg,
pray.

17

r--:::I r--::I

;.0

put 'irn on the sidewalk' for to

praise the lord and he would learn to

,
.

ri

make folks have more re spect for life, when I

had a tongue and if
he could talk, he would

n n n ,....,

r;

'mine,
mine,

13

baga Baby
baga Baby

!J

really wonderful we let him

n r;

F1

I
29

baga Baby
'if-

nn

It.

-4

of

they've

~
~

pay.

<

l
33

got
I

I tJ
hospi- tal keeps asking who will

r;

LI

T'.

mine,

n ,--,

Baby,

'if-

baga

:;ii

1II

Ruta-

'if-

~
Ruta-

saved this

'if-

25
J

Jesus

stay.

him in

a right

fancy

,..

box,

and the

Got>,
GUMS,
OI~ Ii
OPIUM
US Foreign Policy Courts
Islamic Fundamentalism in Afghanistan
American citizens pay
the bill as US and UN
officials flirt with a
reactionary clerical
government. Are
human rights being
downgraded in order
to "stabilize" the
Middle East,. and fight
the disastrous "war on
drugs"?And is our
government fueling
Islamic militancy in
the region?

Conrad Goeringer is Director

of American Atheists On-Line
Services, Senior Researcher
for American Atheist, and a
Contributing Editor.

Conrad F. Goeringer
Page 32

y now, the list of transgressions and affronts to human

rights is well known. Women
must wear garments covering them
head-to-toe while in public. They
are ostracized from businesses, educational institutions, even hospitals.
Men are required to grow beards,
and attend
dreary mandatory
Mosque services. Alcohol is forbidden, as are music, movies, videos.
Death, often by stoning, has become
commonplace for a number of transgressions from murder to adultery.
This is Afghanistan at the end
of the twentieth century. In an era
of globalization, economic development, and - for at least some of the
world - enlightened, though limited
secularism,
Afghanistan
has
become a metaphor for both religious reaction as well as the most
severe expression of the Islamic
faith. Ruled since 1996 by a clerical
regime known as the Taliban * or
"Students of Islamic Knowledge"
movement, Afghanistan also stands
at the center of a geopolitcal fault-

* Also known as Taleban, the term

derives from the Arabic talib 'student' i.e., a seminary student.'
Winter 1998-1999

line, a flash point where issues of

religious faith, political position,
and economic gain all intersect and
collide.
The popular image of the Taliban government, especially in the
United States, is one of stern religious fundamentalism and wholesale violation of human rights,
specifically those of women. There is
no shortage of articles even in mainstream
publications
like
the
Washington Post, New York Times,
or other media about the periodic
outbursts of puritanical xenophobia
for which the Taliban has become
infamous. Taliban has evolved into
a caricature of itself; we read of the
religious police smashing bottles of
liquor, rounding up men who fail to
grow beards, even arresting revelers
at a wedding because they were
playing music. Less understood,
though, is the origin of the present
Afghan leadership, and the role of
the US government in its history.
Afghanistan under the Taliban militants is about more than the imposition of a ruthless religious dictatorship; it is a story about key political players including the United
American Atheist

States and the former Soviet Union

jockeying for influence, the globalreach multinational corporations
anxious to capitalize
on the
resources of the area, and even the
conflicting (and at times intersecting) interests of both drug lords and
anti-drug warriors. It is also about
the willingness of political and economic elites to tolerate a harsh, dictatorial regime intent on imposing a
Draconian notion of religious law in
exchange for achieving "stability."
On The Road to Everywhere
Geographically,
Afghanistan
has served as the crossroads for
invading armies and' civilizational
incursions. This included the religion of Islam which was firmly
planted in the region by the 10th
and 11th centuries CE by the
dynasty of Muslim Ghaznavids. In
1220, Afghanistan was overrun by
the armies of the Mongol warlord
Genghis Khan; it was conquered
again in the 14th century by
Tamerlane. This tradition of conquest and intercine warfare persisted through the 16th and 17th centuries, when rulers of the Mogul
Empire, established by Tamerlane's
descendant, Zahiruddin Mohammed, divided the country during a
bitter feud with Persia. This laid the
foundations for ethnic conflicts
which carry into the modern era.
In the 19th century, foreign
powers including Great Britain and
Russia conducted their "Great
Game," idealized in the literature of
the time* - a confrontation that
yielded two Anglo-Afghan wars and
resulted in British rule. In 1919, a
Third Anglo-Afghan war won the
nation its independence from London, and Afghanistan soon began a
process of modernization under the
*The writings of (Joseph) Rudyard
Kipling (1865-1936) popularized the
region, particularly India and Burma,
as an exotic locus of adventure and
intrigue. Persistent in his books, short
stories and poetry were the themes of
British patriotism, the ethnic superiority of the English, and the divinely
ordained destiny of the British Empire.
Austin, Texas

rule of Emir Amanullah Khan. In a

prelude to events three-quarters of a
century later, Amanullah attempted
to end the practice of women being
ciothed in the head-to-toe garment
(the burqa), and the Islamic requirement that men wear beards. Ethnic
and religious backlash, however,
resulted' in a series of revolts and
civil war. By 1929, Amanullah fled
Afghanistan for exile in Rome. The
following year a brother, Mohammed Nadir Shah, assumed the
throne.
At the height of the cold war, a
nephew of Shah, Mohammed Daud,
became prime minister and initiated
a period of rapprochement with the
Soviet Union. His political star rose
and fell over the next two decades as
Daud became infamous for his dictatorial style of leadership and adroit
ability to play the USSR against
western powers. Daud was overthrown in 1978, and a subsequent
reform government failed to stabilize the situation. On 25 December
1979, Soviet troops crossed into
Afghanistan and installed Babrak
Karmal as president.
Though ostensibly Islamic and
nationalist, Karmal's government
was perceived by both the West and
many Muslims as a rump state created by the Soviet Union. Rebellion
again broke out, as dozens of factions - many calling for the creation
of a more religiously "pure" Muslim
regime - emerged, operating from
bases in neighboring Pakistan and
Iran. Building an Islamic state fit
neatly with the new government
which had seized control in Iran, led
by Ayatollah
Khomeini.
Iran
adhered mostly to Shi'ite Islamic
doctrine, although Afghanistan was
populated by the Sunni, more closely allied to Saudi Arabia. For the
United States, however, intervention in Afghanistan was perceived
as a geopolitical necessity to help
check the feared Soviet expansion
further into the Middle East. t
The Soviet incursion and "occupation" of. Afghanistan was often
compared to the involvement of the
United States in Vietnam. Both US
Winter 1998-1999

and Soviet forces bore the brunt of

the fighting in their respective crusades, and both established precarious client states in a quest for international legitimacy. Neither of the
superpowers really achieved their
objectives, though, and as with the
American presence in Vietnam,
Russian authority rarely existed for
any period of time in the countryside outside the capital of Kabul.
Over the next six years, the Soviet
presence continued to grow to about
118,000 troops. In addition to the
50,000 or so from the Afghan government, they faced a lose coalition
of approximately 130,000 guerrillas
organized as the "Mujahadeen."
Despite the rise of Islamic militancy throughout the Middle East,
American strategy rationalized support for Muslim guerrillas as a necessary price in containing the
Russian sphere of influence. US
financial and military aid, including
ammunition, small arms, anti-aircraft batteries, medical supplies,
and Stinger missiles flowed through
a covert network into the caches of
rebel groups scattered throughout
the countryside.
Fighting
was
intense, and estimates of casualties
go as high as 1.3 million victims.
The little industrialization
and
other reforms which had been made
prior to the civil war were quickly
eliminated. By 1985, the situation
had become untenable for the Soviet
leadership, and Mikhail Gorbachev
began steps to end his country's
involvement. Afghanistan, the US,
USSR, and Pakistan signed agreements in 1988 bringing a temporary
end to foreign involvement. By
February, 1989, Soviet forces had
totally withdrawn, leaving behind a
government in Kabul still operating
under the largesse of Moscow.
t China, which had cast itself through
the 1950s as an ally of the Soviet Union,
ended up opposing the Russians in
Afghanistan. Through the 1960s and
beyond, Beijing took the position of
attempting to lead the "Third World"
and denounced Moscow's incursion into
Afghanistan as an example of "Soviet
hegemony."

Page 33

Despite treaties and international agreements,

though, the
Mujahdeen forces continued their
war against Kabul. The different
factions also turned on each other,
often reflecting
bitter
conflict
between
the dominant
ethnic
Pashtuns and the minority Tajiks.
Control of the country's 29 provinces
shifted between different factions,
which included remnants of former
Mujahadeen groups, warlords, and
drug dealers. But something else
was happening
as well. By
September, 1996, nearly two-thirds
of the provinces had been seized by
the Taliban militias in what foreign
observers described as an "astonishing" series of battlefield victories.
Islam's "Holy Warriors"
Initially, little was understood
about the new movement which had
become known for its fanatical
determination in war and its imposition of a harsh, though orderly
religious law in the territories it
controlled. Areas under Taliban control descended into an "information
black hole," with limited or no
access to western journalists. What
was known was that the Taliban
intended to purge Afghanistan of
corrupting foreign influences, and
create aI'1 ultraorthodox
Muslim
society. Following the capture of the
northern
Afghanistan
city of
J alalabad, one Taliban warrior told
a reporter for the Christian Science
Monitor, ''We want to establish the
first truly Islamic state and extend
the jihad (holy war) from here. We
will take back all the countries that
were once Muslim - from Spain to
India."
Life in the Taliban-controlled
areas reflected that harsh agenda:.
Even with the relative information
blackout, a pattern became obvious.
As the Taliban seized a town or village, squads of militia, often teenagers armed with assault rifles and
religious police posted decrees and
announced the imposition of religious law. Women were ordered to
wear full-length clothes, including a
heavy veil, and were banned from
Page 34

the workplace and attendance at

schools. Females were even banned
from going out in public unless
accompanied by a male relative. At
the street level, vigilante justice was
hard and swift. Amputation of the
left arm was the penalty for any
kind of theft. Soon, couples who had
committed adultery were being
stoned to death in gruesome spectacles which often attracted large
crowds of curious, even enthusiastic
spectators.
The religious police
began rounding up televisions and
closing down the few movie houses.
Foreign books and periodicals were
confiscated. The only news in most
areas was the Taliban Radio
Sharia.
Curiously, the initial reaction of
much of the population was a mixture of relief and conditional enthusiasm. In Jalalabad and other areas,
people often welcomed the student
warriors as guardians of stability,
order, and peace after over a decade
of tumultuous civil war. "The first
need is security, here and all over
Afghanistan,"
declared one aid
worker. 1 "Until (Taliban) came,
every family was guarding their
houses at night because of the looting by government soldiers. (Now)
people can sleep peacefully." The
sentiment appeared to resonate in
western capitals and even in the
halls of the US State department.
Despite its ruthless imposition of
Islamic rule, the Taliban gradually
came to be seen as a force for order
and stability. In the game of political musical chairs which had characterized Afghanistan in the years
during and after the Soviet incursion, the Taliban appeared to be
capable of establishing a government Washington, other governments, and international corporations could do business with.
Little was known about the origin of the "student warriors,"
though, who appeared suddenly on
the Afghan political landscape and,
by the end of 1996, controlled over
three-quarters of the country. Taliban had been spawned in the crowded refugee camps just inside of
Winter 1998-1999

neighboring Pakistan. Like their

counterparts in Gaza, the camps
were breeding grounds of militant
zeal and fundamentalist
political
dogma. The movement also had its
roots in the Madrases, or Koranic
schools based in Pakistan and funded largely by Saudi Arabia.
The Taliban warriors
were
incensed not only by the Soviet invasion, but by what they perceived as
the betrayal by many Mujahadeen
groups after the negotiated settlement. Mujahadeen units quickly
allied with regional warlords, drug
dealers, or disintegrated into bandit
gangs - setting up impromptu
checkpoints to extort money from
travelers and invading small villages. The government in Kabul was
equally ruthless. One early Taliban
commanded declared, ''We decided
to disarm the checkpoints where
these bandits were taxing people ...
At first we had to fight, but soon
they just gave in. Many were addicted to heroin and hashish ... With God
on our side, our numbers increased."
There was also the presence of a
charismatic Taliban leader, Mullah
Mohammed Omar, who had come to
manhood in battle against the
Soviets. Omar has preached a stem
religious message emphasizing the
need to create a pure Islamic state.
In 1996, he was elevated to the status of emirulmonenin, a "master of
the world's Muslims" at a conclave
of 1,600 senior religious leaders and
scholars.f That contributed to his
already legendary status as both a
religious prophet and warrior. A
member of Taliban's ruling council
described him as sent from god, and
"bestowed ... with many abilities. He
is a good teacher, a politician and
military man. He is very pious, he is
very kind, and he is very just ..."
By late September, 1996, Taliban had seized most of the capital,
Kabul, .and had sufficient momentum elsewhere on the battlefield to
declare the formation of a provisional government. The regime of President Burhaduddin Rabbani had dissolved, and its military commander,
Ahmed Shah Masoud, was in full
American Atheist

retreat to the strategic Pansher

Valley. For Moscow, the situation
had gone from bad to worse, and it
faced the prospect of a militant
Islamic state on the edge of its
sphere of influence.s'" Moslem fundamentalism was becoming more of
a problem in the former Soviet
republics of Uzbekistan, Tajikistan,
and Turkmenistan.
Other players were part of the
equation, however, which has
brought the Taliban storming into
Kabul. Pakistan was both paymaster and armorer for the Taliban
militia, and saw the "student warriors" as a check on Russian influence in the region. Neighboring Iran
was in a more precarious situation,
though; Iran is the stronghold of the
Shi'ite religious tendency, a minority within the larger world Muslim
community. It was not religious
authoritarianism per se which disturbed the clerical rulers in Tehran,
as much as the prospect of further
destabilization. The following year,
timid reformists would make their
bid for power by electing Mohammad Khatami as Iran's president. A
zealous Islamic regime in neighboring Afghanistan, especially one run
by fundamentalist Sunni Moslems,
was a potential flash point.
The Taliban also received con*The confrontation between Islam and
other "civilizations," including Western
Christianity and Russian Orthodoxy,
will likely emerge as a geopolitical issue
with the end of the cold war and the
global transition to a multipolar world.
Admittedly, the US remains the dominant player, but as Samuel Huntington
notes in his prescient book, once-discarded factors like ethnicity, language,
national identity, and religious faith
will play more, not less, of a role on the
world stage.
In the former Soviet
republics, now the soft underbelly ofthe
Russian Federation, Islam is a vital and
thriving social movement.
See The
Clash Of Civilizations
And
The
Remaking of World Order, by Samuel P.
Huntington (Simon & Shuster, 1996).
For a general understanding of insurgent Muslim nationalism, see Islam
Against
The West, by William L.
Cleveland (University of Texas Press,
1985).
Austin, Texas

siderable aid and support from

Saudi Arabia, which only recently
has backed off its call for official
recognition ofthe new Kabul leadership. The Saudi role in the Middle
East picture is a complex, often confusing one. The ruling House of
Saud juggles its agenda to maintain
'power, . modernize the country's
technological and economic infrastructure, and maintain sufficient
identity as an Islamic state - all the
while working to contain more militant expressions of the Muslim religion. The Saudis were already sensitive to the denunciations
of
Islamic fundamentalists that they
had "profaned" the holy sites of the
religion by entering into agreements
with foreign interests, including the
US government, as a result of
Operation Desert Shield. Tensions
between the Saudis and their clients
in Kabul became strained due to the
involvement of Osama bin-Laden, a
Saudi businessman who according
to the US was linked to the bombings of the World Trade Center and
two embassies in Africa. Bin
Laden's compound in Afghanistanironically constructed with US
assistance during the Mujahadeen
war against the Soviets - was one of
a network of training camps for his
Movement for the Preservation of
Muslim Holy Sites. Bin Laden had
become persona non grata with the
Saudis, however, who resented his
criticism of the Royal family! and

the call that it be replaced with an

even purer Islamic state-r
That call for a "purer" expression of Islam resonates throughout
much of the Sunni Moslem community, which is often incorrectly cast
as more "moderate" in contrast to
the minority Shi'ites, particularly
those in Iran. Bin Laden and the
Taliban both espouse Wahhabism, a
doctrinal interpretation based on
the teachings of Muhammad ibn
Abd al-Wahhab, the 18th century
religious leader who captured Mecca
and helped to co-found the first
Saudi capital in 1824. In its modern
form, Wahabbism is an expression
of militant Sunni Islamic faith, and
one that in some interpretations fits
neatly with the Taliban goals of creating a "pure" Moslem society. For
the reigning Saudi establishment,
however, the Wahabbist militancy
of bin Laden has become a threat to
their own power; by default, bin
Laden's hosts in Kabul have also
become a liability.

t The present Saudi regime dates to the

*Despite the criticism from Bin Laden,

Saudi Arabia remains
profoundly
Islamic and socially conservative.
Enormous economic development, rising literacy rates and education seems
to have had only a minor impact in
terms of permitting western notions
about secularism, civil liberties, and
rights for women to percolate through
the culture. The monarchy rationalizes
its rule on the sharia (religious law)
which is interpreted by religious elders,
the ulama. In March, 1992, a ''bill of
rights" was established by royal fiat,
but simply established a 60-member
consultative council, the Shura, and
transferred some powers to the 13
provincial governments.

1930s and the rule of Ibn Saud. A

Moslem and "moderate" Wahhabist, he
introduced an extensive program of
modernization, and economic development, strengthened relations with the
US and Great Britain, and supported
the Allies during the Second World
War. Before his death on November 9,
1953, Ibn Saud had brought the country
into the United Nations and the Arab
League, and continued to position Saudi
Arabia as a military ally of the US. He
also compromised on the issue of Middle
East oil, by striking a new agreement in
December, 1951, for half the earnings
from the powerful Arabian-American
Oil Company, ARAMCO.
Winter 1998-1999

Oil and Opium

Other factors, though, go into
the mix which defines the present
situation
in Afghanistan.
The
Taliban effectively controls the
country, having beaten back repeated attempts by disintegrating opposition of the former military chief
Ahmad Massoud and Uzbek warlord
Rashid Dostrum. Upon taking
Kabul, the Taliban leadership called

Page 35

for immediate diplomatic recognition by the world's powers, and

there is considerable evidence that
Mullah Omar and his comrades
expected prompt recognition by the
United States. Even as late as
October, 1998, Kabul was "bewildered" by a gradually chilling US
response.s" And why not? Evidence
exists that the "astonishing" successes of the Taliban against
trained army units heavily equipped
by the departing Soviets - and still
supplied by materiel pipelines - was
possibly due in part to covert
American assistance. London Times
correspondent Christopher Thomas
observed, "The US administration
was so enthusiastic about Taleban
(sic) it talked about, and may have
sanctioned clandestine aid... Taleban fitted into American strategic
planning then; it no longer does
so..."
Why the possible American
romance with the Taliban? Prior to
1994, the political situation in
Afghanistan was uncertain; even
with the Soviets out, the regime in
Kabul was still considered within
the Russian sphere of influence, and
no clear victor was emerging from
the remnants of the Mujahadeen.
The "student warriors" of the
Taliban, despite their fundamentalist crusade, were the best guarantor
of achieving a modicum of political
stability. And Washington puts its
money behind the Taliban for several reasons.

planned construction of an enormous gas pipeline from Turkmenistan, across Afghanistan to Pakistan.f The energy firm UNOCAL
announced that it has agreements
with both Turkmenistan and Pakistan, but was looking for a reliable
deal to finalize construction in
Afghanistan. The project, described
as costing between $2 billion and
$4.5 billion - would traverse 1,300
kilometers of Taliban-governed territory, and would produce revenues
in excess of $100 million annually
for Afghanistan's rulers.
Americans weren't the only contestants, though, in this enormous
energy deal. In May, representatives from the Argentinian firm of
Bridas reportedly met with Taliban
officials as well. Kabul's Minister of
Information and Culture, Amir
Khan Muttaqi, said that the regime
had ''held talks" with Bridas and
UNOCAL, but that no binding

agreements had been signed. UNOCAL, however, was already pushing

ahead and had commissioned the
University of Nebraska to begin
training an Afghan crew in pipeline
construction.
The Taliban again raised the
prospect of a pipeline deal in August
of 1998 when its armies overran one
of the few remaining rebel outposts,
the key city of Mazar-e-Sharif and
several other strategic locations in
the north. Mullah Abdul Hai
Mutmatian told Australian news
that the route for a pipeline linking
the gas field's of Central Asia and
the Indian Ocean "was now clear."6
By now, the UNOCAL deal, which
had
originally
involved
the
American company, Delta Oil of
Saudi Arabia, two Japanese firms,
Hyundai of South Korea, the government of Turkmenistan, and a
Pakistani conglomerate." had mushroomed into a. project known as

Oil
In news not given wide circulation within the United States, a
Taliban delegation
arrived
in
Sugarland,
Texas,
in
early
December of 1997, for what were
described as "talks with an international
energy
company" that
*After citing a long list of human rights
violations, correspondent Christopher
Thomas noted,
"Western outrage
towards
these
cruelties
confuses
Taleban (sic) because nobody said a
word when similar rules were enforced
in urban centres elsewhere."
Page 36

1/

Ju~'1/'-tVoru, Ii/M.

Winter 1998-1999

He TIIIJAJt<s l-il:~.tS A

PoP~. I,

American Atheist

CentGas. Despite that kind of backing, though, CentGas was looking

for a $1 billion loan from the World
Bank to finance the deal. Correspondent Alex Spillius observed that
the project "would very probably be
conditional on US or United States
recognition of the Taliban ..." Conspicuously missing, though, was the
Russian Federation
which was
already signaling its opposition to
the arrangement, and had mobilized
its 25,000 troops along the border.
Spillius noted that the Central
Asian states, still part of the
Russian-sponsored CIS, feared that
Taliban hegemony in the area
"would bring an influx of refugees
and of weapons to fundamentalist
insurgents."*
Indeed, the statements
from
Moscow paint a dire picture of what
is happening with the rise. of
Taliban power in Afghanistan. The
government of Tajik has just finished a bloody civil war against
Islamic militants; and when Taliban
announced recognition in exchange
for the pipeline deal with international corporations,
the Tajik
authorities warned that they were
"ready to firmly repel any attempt
to breach the frontier." President
Imomali Rakhmonov called for a
meeting of defense ministers from
the Confederation of Independent
States (CIS) "to meet soon to discuss
the perceived Taliban threat ..."8
Opium. and the Politics
of the Poppy
There was another incentive for
governments and international
agencies to ignore the outrages of
the Taliban regime, and look the
other way while oil deals and other
*There has been speculation that
Moscow might not even be able to hold
the line against Muslim uprisings in the
area, especially with the economic meltdown and low moral within the former
Red Army. The only military force of
consequence in the region is the 201
mechanized infantry brigade based in
Tajikistan which Kremlin military
strategists have tried to "strengthen"
despite shortages of supplies.
Austin, Texas

exchanges took place. The clerics in

Kabul, while they led an army of
semiliterate warrior monks, proved
to be shrewd judges of the international situation and western interests. Oil was already a persuasive
argument on behalf of international
recognition, and in mid-October of
this year, Taliban dangled another
incentive in exchange for legitimacy
participation in the war on drugs.
On 6 October, Kabul announced
that having secured military control
of most of the countryside, it was
prepared to begin eradicating this
year's record harvest of opium and
eradicate poppy cultivation.? Even
with the disruptions of a Soviet
invasion and full-scale civil war,
Afghanistan managed to remain the
world's number-two producer of
opium. and heroin. In 1997 as a
"good faith" gesture, Taliban officials had announced that they
would be taking firm steps to stop
the expansion of poppy cultivation,
and shut down any refining laboratories.
Ironically, the expansion of the
poppy trade in Afghanistan was
facilitated by the civil war, as
American-supported
Mujahadeen
units joined local drug lords and
began establishing their own growing and distribution
networks.
There is compelling evidence to suggest that Taliban, despite its image
of Islamic purity, also cashed in on
the drug trade. There is no evidence
of a decline in opium production in
regions seized by the Taliban militia, and overall production actually
grew in 1997 by 16% to more than
3,000 tons.t? This came after a plan,
announced in November of 1997,
between
Taliban
and United
Nations officials to "virtually eradicate cultivation of the opium poppy
in Afghanistan."ll
Reuters news
service reported that the agreement
was struck between Pino Arlacchi,
head of the UN International Drug
Control Program and the Taliban."
The operation would take "five
years and several hundred million
dollars to complete ..."
Winter 1998-1999

Sorely in need of both international recognition and hard currency, the Taliban began proposing a
so-called "replacement" program.
Under this scheme, international
money - including "war on drugs"
funds from the US - would presumably encourage Afghan farmers to
not produce the lucrative poppy.
Other grants would encourage economic development as an alternative to drug cultivation, as in the
city of Qandahar where the UN was
to revitalize an abandoned wood factory and provide jobs for some 1,200
people hired from opium-producing
areas.
Nearly a year later, however,
there is compelling evidence that
drugs remain a vital part of the
Afghanistan economy and are produced and transported with either
the knowledge or participation of
the Taliban. The regime that maintains lists of men who do not attend
compulsory mosque services, and
floods the urban streets and countryside with religious police to
ensure that women are fully clothed
in the cumbersome burqa, seems
unable - or unwilling - to demonstrate its role in the western orchestrated "war on drugs." Taliban control 96% of the regions in Afghanistan known to be opium and heroin
production areas.P
A State Department
report
issued in March admitted, "AB the
Taliban expanded their control over
Afghanistan's opium-growing territory, they appear to have expanded
their drug involvement as well,
including facilitating major traffickers to move large quantities of morphine base and heroin to the West."
The Washington Post quoted an
anonymous senior US official who
observed, "The Taliban tax opium,
they tax morphine, and they levy
fees on transport ... They reap tens of
millions of dollars a year from the
drug trade, even though they initially said they were against it."
And there was more. Drug production exploded in Kandahar
province, a stronghold for Taliban
Page 37

sympathies and the base of 'operation for Osama bin Laden. The Post
added, "U.S. intelligence agencies
have received 'credible reports' that
members of bin Laden's security
forces protect drug shipments and
may have traded guns for drugs on a
small scale..."*
Taliban Then and Now
The chronology outlining the
interaction of drugs, oil, and political ambition in Afghanistan is disturbing. Taliban outrages - persecution ofwomen, public whippings and
executions, home invasions by the
religious police - were becoming
public knowledge even before the
student warriors
stormed into
Kabul and consolidated their power
in the north. It was known that
women were being expelled from the
workplacet and schools. Yet, even
before the capture of Kabul, US government and corporate interests
were already flirting with the clerical regime, seeing it as the best
guarantor of "stability" in the area,
and potential partner for everything
from lucrative pipeline deals to the
"war on drugs." Even as Americans
were seeing Taliban warriors operating bulldozers to crush cases of
wine, or setting fire to enormous
piles of video cassette recorders and
foreign magazines on the evening
news, corporate and government
officials from Washington to the
halls of the United Nations were
looking for influence, and a deal.
So, why hasn't the United
States followed through with plans
to recognize the Taliban government? Is it .concern for human
rights? That remains a doubtful

proposition, considering the extent

of plans before a crucial event took
place - the recent bombings of US
embassies in Tanzania and Kenya.
The explosions focused international attention on Osama bin
Laden, financier and Islamic terrorist who remains free in Afghanistan
under the protection of the Taliban
regime. The cozy relationship
between the clerics in Kabul and bin
Laden have even prompted the
Saudis to back away from their support for the Taliban; and the
announcement
by Afghanistan
authorities on 20 November 199813
that bin Laden was not tied to the
embassy attacks has surely strained

5 NAPSHOT5

relations with the United States.

Washington has offered a $5 million
reward for the capture of bin Laden,
a move that Taliban officials equate
with a call for terrorism within their
own country.
The August cruise missile
attack launched by US forces
against targets in eastern Afghanistan also has jeopardized USTaliban relations, and probably canceled - for now anyway - any
prospective deal on a gas pipeline
from Turkmenistan to Pakistan.
Twenty-six people were killed by the
attack on bin Laden's headquarters,
but he remains at large. It appears
unlikely at this time that the Kabul

l7y Jason Love

* Another official remarked that the

opium poppy "is grown and marketed in
areas where he (bin Laden) exercises
great influence, and he has done nothing to stop it ..."
tIn Kabul alone, some 40,000 women
and their families faced starvation and
poverty as a result of the Taliban
decree. Many of the women were the
sole support for families and husbands
unable to work due to injuries sustained
during the civil war.
Page 38

...

There is no god I but there are presents anyway.

Winter 1998-1999

American Atheist

government will hand bin Laden

over to any foreign representatives.
But there are problems and
questions even here, in the case of
Osama bin Laden. As early as May,
1997, CNN correspondent Peter
Arnett was filing reports about bin
Laden, noting that the wanted terrorist was in Afghanistan and that
"The country is dominated by the
Taliban...
(who) have recently
declared that bin. Laden is their
guest, providing that he does not
attack other nations."14 That fact
led supporters of th~ former Afghan
government of President Rabbanhi
to muse,
This wasn't supposed to happen. Only last September, the
Taliban occupation of Kabul drew
cheers from a chorus of Western
'experts' on Afghanistan. They told
reporters the Taliban were the best
bet to uproot "drugs 'n' thugs" opium poppies and international
terrorists - and reunify Afghanistan ... The notion the Taliban would
tackle "drugs 'n' thugs was always a
canard. Uprooting opium would
destroy their tax base and wipe out
their domestic revenues. As for
thuggery, the Taliban themselves
have cornered the market on domestic terrorism in Afghanistan by
deliberately starving and shelling
civilians, abusing women and carrying out ethnic cleaning, political
murders and mass 'disappearances ...'."15

Iran: Centerpiece For

New Strategy?
With 'I'aliban declining as the
apple of Washington's eye, Iran has
undergone a sudden and unexpected
rehabilitation. In September, Tehran mobilized nearly 300,000 troops
in Khorasan province near the border with Afghanistan for a series of
extended and high-profile "war
games," amidst talk of an impending confrontation with the Taliban.
The Iranian government of President Mohammed Khatami accused
Kabul of holding several dozen
Iranians, including diplomatic personnel, hostage following Taliban's
military sweep through the northAustin, Texas

ern part of the country. Sadeq

Zibakulam, anIranian political analyst at Tehran University, said,
"Iran wants to teach the Taliban a
lesson. On one hand, it seems that
some officials want to re-establish
Iran's influence in Afghanistan
through military means, something
they tried and failed to do through
diplomacy."16 The talk of war
between Kabul and Tehran also
meshed neatly with another development, when President Khatami
announced to reporters during a
visit to the United Nations General
Assembly that his government had
"forgotten" the death warrant or
fatwa
against novelist Salman
Rushdie pronounced by the late
Ayatollah Khomeini. That development was greeted as proof of
"reform" allegedly taking place
within the Tehran regime, and
incentive for the United States to
end economic sanctions which had
been in place since the 1979 Islamic
revolution. 17
Religious Extremism:
A Small Price?
All of this argues strongly that
human rights violations were a secondary consideration, at least in the
planning of some US and UN officials. Money, international support,
and diplomatic recognition appear
to have hinged less on a change in
the Taliban's Draconian policies of
internal religious terrorism and
more on a willingness to comply
with foreign policy gurus in
Washington (as in the demand to
hand over bin Laden) and economic
interests in America, South Korea,
Saudi Arabia,
and elsewhere.
Indeed, the Taliban's ability to guarantee "stability" was a primary consideration; the war against girls and
women, conscription of males for
dreary Mosque services, and other
violations of human rights were secondary. Indignation
over these
abuses stopped at the board room
and strategy meeting.
Had Osama bin Laden not been
linked to the embassy bombings,
there is every reason to believe that
Winter 1998-1999

the US government would be even

closer to extending official diplomatic recognition to the Taliban government. There is the "engagement"
argument, of course, which suggests
that such recognition and interaction could possibly end abuses of
human rights. What remains reasonably obvious, though, is that
pipelines, the war on drugs, and a
late- Twentieth century continuation
of the imperial "Great Game" from
the era of Kipling remain predominant considerations. A theocracy in
some distant land is considered a
small-price to pay.

REFERENCES
lChristian
1996.
2Ibid.

Science Monitor,

20 September

3Los Angeles Times, 3 October 1996.

4The London Times, 6 October 1998.
5BBC News, 5 December 1997.
6The Sydney Morning Herald, 15 August
1998, "We control the country now,
Taliban
tells UN" by Christopher
Kremmer.
7The Daily Telegraph (Great Britain), 13
August 1998 "Pipeline Plan as Taliban
seize towns" by Alex Spillius.
8Russia Today, 16 August 1998, "Moscow
Taking Steps to Defend Afghan Border."
9BBC News, 6 October 1998
10Ibid.
llMSNBC

News, 29 November 1997

12The Washington
Post, 5 October .1998,
"Drug Business Flourishes In Afghanistan, Taliban Denies Involvement but Is
Said to Reap Profit From Taxes,
Transport,"
by Douglas Farah and
Pamela Constable.
13Associated Press story, 20 November 1998,
"Taliban Clears Bin Laden Of Charges"
Kathy Gannon.
14CNN Impact, 12 May 1997, with Peter
Arnett, "Osam a Bin Laden: Holy Terror?"
15News Review And Comment,

19 May 1997.

16CNN News, 6 September 1998, "White

House
Confirms
Iranian
Military
Buildup."
17Boston Globe, 23 September 1998, "Iranian
Challenges US To End Sanctions."

Page 39

Nasrin Situation Remains Desperate

Atheist Author Still in Hiding as Muslim Fundies Call for Her Execution
oming from someone in hiding in a technologically and
economically backward nation
such as Bangladesh, the e-mail message was both startling and electrifying. Coming from s~meone of such
international significance, it triggered responses
both on the
Subcontinent and in America responses that are yet continuing.
Forwarded by Warren Allen Smith
(http://idt.net/-wasm/nasrin.htm)
and Dated 30 September 1998, the
urgent
message from Taslima
Nasrin read:

Dear Friends:
I was desperate to see my
mother who is dying. Even though
the government did not want me to
go to Bangladesh, I went. Soon
after my coming, the news broke
that I had arrived. The religious
fundamentalists immediately started their protests. They are demanding my execution by hanging. More
or less every day thousands are out
in the streets, making demonstrations and processions against me.
In the meantime an old case
emerged which was filed 4 years
ago for my book Nirbachito
Columns, on the charge of hurting
the religious feelings of the people.
The court issued an arrest warrant
against me and ordered the seizing
of my property. The case is nonbailable. I am in hiding now; if I
am arrested I will be put in prison.
If I still try to go to court for bail,
nothing is safe from me (sic).
On the 4th of October the fundamentalists will block the Home
Ministry and demand my death.
They have already created a general strike in a city called Sylhet. The
fundamentalists in Bangladesh
Page 40

have planned more future actions

such as a Long March and nationwide general strike to paralyze the
whole country. Ifthe government
fails to arrest and hang me, then
the fundamentalists have declared
that they must kill me.
So, in this desperate situation,
being with my sick mother, I need
protection. If the democratic governments of the world request the
Bangladesh government to ensure
my security, drop the case issued
against me and will allow me to
leave the country when I want, in
order to save my life, it would be a
great comfort to me.
Thank you for your support and
solidarity.

wrath
and
was
banned
in
Bangladesh. The book once again
criticized the Islamic view of
women, going so far as to defend the
right to practice sex outside of marriage. Contrary to the assertions of
Muslim fundamentalists,
she did
not call for a rewriting of the Koran;
she merely argued that religious
doctrines should be replaced by civil
codes as the guiding principles of
any enlightened society.
Despite her exile, Nasrin has
continued to write and edit literary
works. She is a member of the
Voltaire Society in France and continues to speak out against religious
violence and oppression of women.

Taslima Nasrin

The Case
Why are Bangladeshi Islamic
militants rioting and calling for the
arrest and execution of Taslima
Nasrin (Nas-reen), the feminist novelist and Atheist after her return to
her native land in mid-September of
this year? In 1994 the government
of Bangladesh ordered her detention
following the publication of her
Selected Columns. A state court
charged her with "deliberately and
maliciously hurting Moslem religious sentiments." Muslims took to
the streets in massive, often violent
protests against the author. She
went into hiding for two months to
avoid death threats until a court
granted her bail and allowed her to
leave the country. Nasrin fled to
Sweden, then traveled throughout
the United States and Germany,
supported by the writers group
PEN. A subsequent book, Lajja
('Shame'), further drew Muslim
Winter 1998-1999

Cover of the English-language

edition of Nasrin's Lajja, Published
by Prometheus Books in 1997.
In mid-September, wishing to be
with her sixty-year-old mother who
is gravely ill with colon cancer,
Nasrin risked all and returned to
Bangladesh. As we go to press, she
has continued to evade the police
and militants who are hunting for
her, but a court once again has
American Atheist

ordered her arrest and the seizure of

her property. On Friday, 2 October
1998, several thousand
angry
Muslims rallied in Dhaka, the capital. Moulana Fazul Huq, the secretary-general of the Islamic Unity
Alliance, told the mob to "Grab that
infidel and put her to death ... She is
a Satan who has dared to speak
against Islam and its Prophet
Mohammed." Banners at the rally
read "Kill the Infidel," and "There is
no place for her in Bangladesh or on
earth."

The Reaction on the

Subcontinent
In September
1998, before
American
Atheists
could get
involved, the International Alliance
against Fundamentalism launched
a campaign in support of Nasrin.
Together
with
the
Indian
Rationalist Association, they wrote
a letter to Sheikh Hasina, Prime
Minister of Bangladesh, calling
upon her personally to ensure the
safety of Taslima's life, to guarantee
that her government would restrain
from persecuting her, and arrest
those who offer rewards for killing
her. The Indian and the international press reported about their
demands. Many like-minded organizations and concerned individuals
reacted immediately and followed
request to write letters in the same
spirit.
Facing international attention,
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina
reacted on 6 October with the first
official statement after Taslima's
return. Trying to find a "balanced
position," she criticized Taslima as
well as the Islamic extremists for
"crossing the line." She said that the
Islamic groups were overreacting,
but on the other hand freedom of
speech did not mean the right to
hurt people's religious sentiments.
But she stated clearly, the government would not allow anyone to violate the law in response. Foreign
minister Abdus Samad Azad confirmed that Taslima would be provided security which she is entitled
Austin, Texas

to as a citizen of Bangladesh. But he

insisted that she has to face the
court.
During demonstrations by fundamentalists asking for public execution of Taslima Nasrin, police
used water canons and arrested
twelve persons. But no case was
filed against them. Then, one of the
leaders of the fundamentalist party
Jama-at-e-Islami offered another
reward of $2,500 for informing on
Taslima's whereabouts. Earlier, a
reward of $5,000 was offered by fundamentalists for killing Taslima the same day Taslima's petition that
she might be granted bail in absentia, because of the threat s to her
life, was rejected by the magistrate
court.
Taslima had to leave her parents alone in the new flat which she
bought for them and keep strictly in
hiding. "These are my mother's last
days, but I cannot see her," she said
in a telephone conversation from
her hideaway. "I cannot go anywhere or meet anyone. I love this
country. But my life here is something nobody would want." Some
days before she had reacted strongly to a false news-agency report that
she had succumbed to the demand
of the fundamentalists and agreed
to apologize: "I will never bow to
Islamic extremists," she said, "I will
never be silenced. Nor shall I compromise my ideas and thoughts."
Meanwhile,
Nasrin
has
launched a $10,000 trust for girls'
education in the name of her mother
Eid ul-Ara. In a ceremony in her
home town Mymensingh, ten selected school girls who are too poor to
afford schooling have. been awarded
stipends of $ 105 each per year. The
payments will continue until the
girls finish their tenth standard.
The funds for the trust have come
from royalties which Taslima is
receiving for her books. As a writer
Taslima has always demonstrated
her intent to liberate the oppressed
women of her country from the
shackles of religion and ignorance.
Her decision to initiate concrete projects in support her cause has met
Winter 1998-1999

with great public appreciation. For

security reasons, Taslima was not
able to take part in the function.

The American Atheists

Reaction
On Monday, 19 October, a small
contingent of American Atheists led
by District of Columbia Director
Chris
Prokop
and
Maryland
Director John Obst picketed the
Bangladesh embassy in Washington
to press for the safe release of
Nasrin. They were supported by
Wayne Aiken, Dale Hicks, and Jim
Senyszyn who made the trip up
from North
Carolina,
Conrad
Goeringer
from New Jersey,
National Outreach Director Neal
Cary who drove in from Virginia,
and long-time Board Member and
resident of Foggy Bottom Noel
Scott. The high point was when
John Obst walked into the embassy
to deliver a brief letter to the legation on Nasrin's behalf. John was
courteously received and was told
that the embassy was "making sure"
that officials in Bangladesh know
that Americans were speaking out
on this issue. A staff official told Mr.
Obst that Islamic fundamentalists
are relatively few in Bangladesh but
that the government - poor and
hard-pressed for resources - is having trouble dealing with their movements and demonstrations.
American Atheists is asking its
members to write to their congressional representatives and to the
Bangladesh Ambassador on Taslima Nasrin's behalf. Letters should
be sent as soon as possible. Every
day without safe conduct out of
Bangladesh
makes
Taslima's
prospects more desperate.
The
name and address of the ambassador is:
His Excellency,
Ambassador K.M. Shehabuddin
Embassy of the People's Republic of
Bangladesh
2201 Wisconsin Ave. NW, Suite 300
Washington, DC 20007
Page 41

The Millennium
And The Market
Book Reviews by Conrad
Goeringer
Questioning The Millennium, A
Rationalist's Guide To A
Precisely Arbitrary Countdown,
by Stephen Jay Gould (N.Y.
Harmony Books, 1997)
End Time Visions, The Road To
Armageddon? by Richard
Abanes (N.Y., Four Walls Eight
Windows, 1998)
Between Jesus And The Market,
The Emotions That Matter In
Right- Wing America, by Linda
Kintz (Durham, Duke
University Press, 1997)
The passage of time has a
poignant significance for naturalist
Stephen Jay Gould in his latest
work, Questioning The Millennium:
A Rationalist's Guide To A Precisely
Arbitrary
Countdown.
Gould,
Professor of zoology and geology at
Harvard and the author of provocative works such as The Panda's
Thumb and Dinosaur in a Haystack,
has been fascinated by the subject of
the millennium since, as a child during the 1950s, he began contemplating its approach. For moderns, the
year 2000 has signified the future in
popular culture, but it is also a temporal benchmark resonating with
eschatological symbolism and meaning for a startling number of
Christian fundamentalists and others. It can bring the return of Jesus,
the End of the World, calamity and
havoc, the arrival of benevolent (or
marauding) aliens, a period of social
collapse. The scenarios are abundant.
The millenarian spirit is a broad
topic, and Gould wisely concentrates
on a select dimension ofthis subject,
namely, the cultural and mathematical aspects of "the millennium." He
Page 42

explores how the biblical concept of

the millennium, said to describe the
thousand-year reign of Jesus on the
earth as part of the Second Coming,
metamorphosed into thousand-year
segments of the human calendar.
The calendar, of course, is part of
our quest for meaning and sense of
order in the universe; and as Gould
informs us, there is a random element in all of this, though there are
also rules which govern how we
keep a record of time in order to
make sense of anything! There is
nothing special about the year 2000,
and it is truly an arbitrary and
capricious demarcation in that we
can begin any calendric numbering
system from any day or year - so
long as those using it agree to the
rules of its operation.
Gould begins by examining how
the term millennium evolved away
from its original eschatulogical
sense in the two major biblical apocalyptic texts: Daniel in the Old
Testament and Revelation in the
New. While his accounts of how the
modern calendar evolved and other
temporal minutiae are fascinating,
his claim that "the traditional
Christian millennium is a future
epoch that will last for one thousand
years and end with the final battle
and Last Judgment of all the dead,"
is only partially accurate. The predominant view among modern fundamentalist Christians is a premillennialist position, wherein the
faithful are to be transported to
Heaven before the battle
of
Armageddon, and then return to
earth to "rule and reign" with the
Messiah. Gould is confusing the
varieties of millennialists with the
distinctions involving a somewhat
different lens through which to view
this whole matter - the question of
the Tribulation. This period does
not last a thousand years but rather
involves a mere seven-year period of
suffering. The sequence of events
surrounding this Great Tribulation
distinguishes still more eschatological camps, including pretribulationists and posttribulationists.
Technically, the millennium
Winter 1998-1999

refers to the thousand-year reign of

the returned Christ on Earth. Gould
neglects this and related crucial distinctions, but he redeems himself in
providing readers with a compact
summary throughout
his work
about how people in different times
came to view the significance of this
thousand-year period, the millennium. He skillfully links the apocalyptic millennium with the calendrical
millennium and asks, "Has so much
ever been based on so little?"
There is also a succinct discussion of that pesky eschatological
problem, the six thousand years
supposedly chronicled from the
beginning accounts described in
Genesis to the events foretold in
Revelation. We have the late Bishop
Usher to thank for this, a scheme
which Gould rightly describes as
"little more than an elaborate scholarly smoke screen for a preconceived
conclusion." By this account, Jesus
was born in exactly Anno Mundi
4000, leaving us two thousand years
until the apocryphal events of
Revelation. There are myriad difficulties even if one accepts the validity of this scheme, however: slippage
and mistakes in the calendric
record, and recalculating generates
dates such as October 23, 1996, as
the Beginning of the End. Gould,
also a baseball enthusiast, humorously links this to a "prominent miracle," though not the sort anticipated by Pat Robertson or others. The
New York Yankees, trailing 2-1 in
the World Series with Atlanta, were
down by a six-to-three score in the
eighth inning, but managed to best
the Braves in "one of the most
miraculous and improbable comebacks in the history of sport."
Gould's levity and perspective
on this whole tedious issue is
refreshing, but Questioning The
Millennium remains a book rich in
content' despite its brevity - only
190 pages. He discusses such topics
as the differences involving lunar
and solar calendric years, and why
Chanukah shifts according to the
machinations of the Metonic cycle
(named
after
the
Athenian
American Atheist

astronomer Meton) which describes

the shortest sequence of years that
reconcile solar and lunar calendars.
He closes by declaring his attraction
to all of these questions, noting that
"they display all our foibles in
revealing
miniature."
For an
insightful look into humanity's penchant for such details and how it all
relates to the millennium, Gould's
offering is useful and informative.
Where Stephen
Gould has
focused his inquiry on a narrow but
important segment of the whole millennialist discussion,
one that
becomes more appropriate as we
barrel toward the year 2000,
Richard Abanes has joined the
ranks of the generalists in attacking
the subject - linking together so
many of its component ideas, movements, and themes. His account is
an exhaustive one, covering such
topics as the alleged prophecies of
Nostradamus, the Millerite movement, the rise of Jehovah's
Witnesses and like groups, and even
the millenarian aspects of the contemporary "patriot" and militia
movements. His chapter on the
Witnesses is especially illuminating. After briefly reconstructing the
history of the sect, Abanes then displays side-by-side quotes from different editions of the group's doctrinal texts, beginning with Studies in
the Scriptures. The 1906 edition, for
example, clearly states that the
"Kingdom of God will be accomplished by the end of "A.D. 1914" obviously a clear failure of prophecy.
The 1913 edition, however, displayed some reticence concerning
that claim - promising its readers
instead that the "Kingdom of God
will be accomplished near the end of
A.D. 1915." Future leaders of the
Jehovah's Witnesses displayed similar flexibility in altering both the
substance of their texts and the
apocalyptic timetable they claimed
to divine from biblical scriptures.
In contrast to other books which
examine both contemporary and
earlier
apocalyptic movements,
Abanes does more than take for
granted the a priori foolishness of
Austin, Texas

some of the. outlandish claims of

doom, death, and destruction which
are so often a crucial part ofthe millenarian narrative. He has done his
historical research, for instance, in
gathering ample empirical evidence
to refute any claims that there exist
compelling "signs and wonders" that
humanity is in the End Times. To
those who argue, for instance, that
AIDS is a prophesied epidemic of
unprecedented proportions, Abanes
tracks down both historical and
medical evidence putting the claim
in a more reasoned perspective. He
quotes Professor Sten Iwarson, and
international authority on AIDS
based in Gothenburg, Sweden, who
reminds us:
AIDS is the most dangerous disease today, but as a pestilence it
is limited to certain risk groups.
AIDS cannot be compared to the
Black Death or the Spanish Flu
in which people died by the millions. The way of transmission is
different, and society is different ...
Mr. Abanes then uses a similar,
exacting method in analyzing claims
of famine. If modern doomsayers
perceive "signs" that starvation in
the world today is new and fulfills a
biblical prophecy, they do so at the
risk of ignoring a considerable body
of contrary evidence, including past
famines. Abanes documents over a
dozen which are known to have
occurred from approximately 3,500
BCE through our century. A famine
in Wales, for instance, claimed so
many lives that the earth "was covered with dead bodies of men and
beasts." Pat Robertson may See evidence of that today, but the Wales
famine took place in 836 CE. These
and other data support a compelling
argument which Abanes drives
home to the reader: the "signs" of
calamity supposedly foretold in
apocalyptic texts can be discovered
throughout human history.
Like Gould's work, End-Time
Visions discusses "Usher's Miscalculation," though in perhaps less
Winter 1998-1999

detail. Abanes concludes by including discussion on failed prophecy in

our time, those inevitable predictions of doomsday by "pole shifts,"
comet impact, UFO invasions, or
other mechanisms. As he points out,
all of this covers a wide range of the
American pop-culture terrain, from
claims by televangelists like Pat
Robertson and Jack Van Impe to the
equally lurid predictions of Louis
Farrakhan and even new-age spiritual gurus. Farrakhan, leader of the
Nation of Islam, has spoken of his
belief in (and visits to) UFOs,
including an enormous "Mother
Wheel" operated by an advanced
race of black aliens. He predicted in
1991 that the Gulf War would be the
"War of Armageddon," and that
same event, riveting attention on
the Middle East, was accorded similar eschatological status by others
as well.
If there is an overarching message in Abanes' book, it is this: the
enterprise of prophecy and sounding
the alarm over an approaching
Armageddon is an old and seemingly never-ending one. No amount of
contrarian evidence can quench the
thirst of those who are ensnared in
its clutches; like so much religious
belief, pseudoscience and pop-culture hokum, it possesses an incredible immunity to truth and rational
discourse.
Abanes saves a critical gem for
the appendix section of his work;
and it is an invaluable piece of intellectual ammunition for any of us
seeking to put a more sensible light
on the whole discussion of the millennium. His "Timeline of Doom" is
a wonderful chronology of ill-founded prophetic utterances, beginning
with Clement in the first century
CE, into our own era. William Miller
attracted hundreds of thousands of
followers in mid-nineteenth century
America with his forecasts of an
impending Final Judgment; but he
was carrying on a tradition which
included the likes of the Spanish
monk Beatus, who in 798 CE prophesied the arrival of the antichrist in
two years, or Joachim of Fiore who
Page 43

predicted the same event for the

year 1260. Abanes has assembled a
considerable list of similar prophetic faux pas for our own century: the
Witnesses, Herbert W. Armstrong
(founder of the Worldwide Church of
God), even a "respected physician at
Michigan State College" with the
unlikely name of Charles Laughead
all predicted imminent doom.
Richard Abanes is what might
be called a "Christian-recoveredfundamentalist" who still embraces
religious beliefs - but certainly not
in the destructive and apocalyptic
fashion he did as a former cult member. His religious credentials,
though, should not discourage readers from perusing his carefully
researched and well-written book.
Indirectly related to the subject
of millennialist fervor is the cultural
terrain explored by Between Jesus
And The Market, The Emotions
That Matter In Right- Wing America,
by Linda Kintz, Professor of English
at the University of Oregon (Durham, Duke University Press, 1997).
This is a much-needed examination
of the highly energetic Christian
right-wing movements that in the
past decade have defined so much
political discourse from a psychological perspective. It is also a work
that delves into the even less
explored region, that of Christian
women who, in seeming contradiction to their own feminist interest,
have taken up the banner of an
authoritarian and patriarchal ideology espoused by movements like the
Promise Keepers. What Kintz tells
us is that in. order to comprehend
this dynamic movement, we need
first to set about obtaining not so
much a philosophical comprehension of the theological underpinnings of this phenomenon, but more
of an appreciation for "the emotions
that matter."
Kintz dissected the internal
texts and other materials of groups
like Concerned Women for America,
Christian Coalition, and writings by
a number of religious-right luminaries seeking a deeper understanding
of how these narratives resonated
Page 44

with fundamental and deep-seated

emotional biases. Her analysis, all
313 pages of it, demands focused
consideration.
At times, though,
Kintz succumbs to the jargon
encountered in the academy and in
scholarly-press
offerings, which
threatens to numb the reader with a
mind-deadening cant of terminology. What exactly is "the relation
between a rich complexity of beliefs,
on one hand, and the reductive clarity available from a structure of
vaguely symmetrical layers, on the
other"? This sort of prose repeats
itself through the work, perhaps
offending and discouraging a less
patient audience.
Still, Kintz makes insightful
and important points. Much of her
work is really about the power relationships between men and women,
beginning with "Sacred Intimacy,"
and the writings of Beverly LaHaye
of the group Concerned Women for
America, LaHaye is certainly no
stranger in the writings of books
dealing with the modern religious
right, but while these works, such as
Sarah Diamond's Spiritual Warfare
concentrate on the political role
played by women like LaHaye,
mavens organizing their sisters
against the progressive changes in
modern society, Kintz digs deeper.
"Sacred Intimacy" analyzes this
"antifeminist
reconstruction
of
motherhood" and links it to a specific definition and sense of the body a belief that there is a biological destiny and, more important, that it is
a special creative anointing from a
god. What, essentially, the antifeminist religious right has done is to
re-sanctify, to make sacred again, a
whole cultural and sexual geography which has been changed by the
rise of secular beliefs, attitudes, and
institutions. It is not so much that
LaHaye and her ideological compatriots have "taken back" motherhood in the classical sense - it was
never "stolen," only changed by an
evolving culture - as they have
linked it to a cosmicimperative from
god and a specific religious and
social agenda. And more: all of this
Winter 1998-1999

has been identified with a particular

vision and emphasis on the body.
This is "body politics" at a near-primal level. Women are designed as
part of a cosmic matrix by god with a biological destiny. Alternatively, the gruesome depictions of
abortion, stock-in-trade strategy for
the anti-choice movement, dwell on
the physicality and invasiveness of
those procedures. Kintz later discusses the pro-life video The Silent
Scream, where viewers witness the
dichotomy between the "unborn
child" as a "fully formed, absolutely
identifiable human being" which is
"moving quietly in its sanctuary"
and the abortion procedure. Kintz
notes that the latter employs "phantasmatic, apocalyptic images" where
a fetus is "torn apart, dismembered,
disarticulated,
crushed,
and
destroyed by the unfeeling steel
instruments of the abortionist."
It is heady stuff, and it is only
one small example of how the "emotions that matter" to so many who
have enlisted on the side of righteousness in the culture-war battles
are so passionately mobilized, even
against their own apparent selfinterests. These emotions drive so
much of the culture-war discourse,
tapping into a raw physicality that
most of us on the other side of this
ideological divide simply do not comprehend or sufficiently appreciate.
Gender also looms large in
Between Jesus And The Market,
which is crucial in understanding
why the religious right is so furious
and, indeed, fixated with the issues
of homosexuality and the profound
changes in the relationship between
men and women. Kintz deconstructs
the claims of George Gilder, a neoconservative theorist who, despite
his "image as a cyberspace guru in
the socially liberal world" of high
tech and "Third Wave" economics,
echoes a highly religious and traditionalist social agenda. In his book
Sexual Suicide, for instance, Gilder
declared the primacy of "the
redemptive joys and crucial functions of marriage and family, the
roots of human civilization." As
American Atheist

Kintz points out, such a claim

assumes and demands "a logic of
purity in which gender absolutes
are recognized and revalorized,
while mixtures of dialectical relationships are demonized, then
forcibly eliminated."
Any rational observer concludes
that there are obvious and important differences involving sex. Fetal
brains are awash in different hormonal baths during gestation.
Obviously, these differences drive
the process ho human procreation,
and they may affect our interactions
and institutions in ways not readily
obvious. But the notion that the "is"
of sexual differentiation must dictate a cultural and political "ought'
is truly a leap of faith, as well as a
failure oflogic - a naturalist fallacy.
Once that logical gap has been
crossed (even on the shakiest. of
assumptions),
however, anything
becomes possible, as Kintz demonstrates.
Hyperbolic claims can
abound, when one is seeing culture
and politics through the lens of a
"gender war" that is tinted with religious overtones and even conspiracy
paranoia. Again, making use of textual materials that are not readily
known to most who disagree with
the religious-right crusade, Kintz
discusses her experiences at an
April, 1992, meeting of Human Life
International
(HIO in Ottawa.
Headed by Father Paul Marx, HII
emulates the tactics of its American
counterpart,
Operation
Rescue.
While its concerns dwell on an issue
involving the biological and medical
options for women (and, on a deeper
level, the taboo area of feminine
psychology and the reproductive
process), the leadership and participation is heavily male. It is also a
ground for demonization. Father
Marx sees a social universe populated by villains: "The enemies of life
and family are always the same:
feminists, Freemasons, Communists, secular humanists, and the
ubiquitous International
Planned
Parenthood
Federation."
This
reminds us of a similar rhetoric
espoused by Christian Coalition
Austin, Texas

founder Pat Robertson in his offerings, such as "The New World

Order." Father Marx employs "an
anti-Semitic subtext of such conspiracy [which] then becomes much
more overt." Robertson has done the
same, drawing on. classical antiSemitic conspiracy sources, but deftly masquerading his cast of villains
behind somewhat more respectable
labels.
If there is a shortcoming in this
book, it is Kintz's problematic
understanding of economics and the
agora. Her attempts to link these
more primal attitudes concerning
gender, sexuality, and religious discourse with the dynamics of the
marketplace fall short in chapters
like "Riding the Entrepreneurial
Frontier," or trying to bond the ideology of Newt Gingrich, Arianna
Huffrngton, or even Rush Limbaugh
to the "logic of the market." It's
quite true that most social conservatives embrace a form of market capitalism; but one can argue with
equal force that the rise of consumerist culture with its giddy preoccupation with material indulgence
and the ''here and now" has both
reinforced and eroded traditional
modes of social organization.
Industrial capitalism was the death
knell of the feudal world with all of
its stagnation and religiously rooted

CHECK OUT

oppression,
a fact obvious to
thinkers as diverse as Bastiat and
Marx. It eroded the power of the
aristocracy and church, while simultaneously creating new elites. A
global, consumerist economy brings
with it the promise of similar widespread and problematic disruptions.
Pat Buchanan is as skeptical about
NAFTA or other globalist projects
as are religious and government
interests in, say, the Middle East
who fear the intrusion of westernized pop-culture and, with it, a myriad of subtle messages and novel
modes of thought. Free expression,
anyone?
While tedious and very complex
at times, Linda Kintz's book is
worth the read. The research background and bibliography is considerable, and many of her source texts
have remained largely unexamined
by academic critics. It is too easy to
dismiss the religious right or groups
such as the Promise Keepers as
"extremists" or "crank fundamentalists" without understanding the profound roots and motivations which
anchor them. In this case, Between
Jesus And The Market begins to provide us badly needed insight into
those emotions that do indeed matter in the right-wing America of our
time.

AMERICAN

ATHEISTS

IN CYBERSPACE!
http://www.atheists.org
the American Atheist magazine

www.americanatheist.org
AACHAT - send e-mail to

aachat@atheists.org
ATHEIST FLASHLINE
http://www.atheists.orglflash.line/index.html

Winter 1998-1999

Page 45

. THE ENTRANCE EXAMINATION

Office of the Lord

Instructions
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Candidate Number!
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Name of Candidate: BeIIiie

5073129177

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Page 46

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Winter 1998-1999

American Atheist

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to (Ut, eHJ. p~
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u wJu, JIe u !W w4c1uJ,.

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p~
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~
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Iwwu 01~
(Steven F. Durrant,

Austin, Texas

the author of this little satire, lives in Bonfim, Campinas,

Winter 1998-1999

Brazil.)

Page 47

LETTERS
I

"Letters to the Editor" should be

either questions or comments of
general concern to Atheists or to the
Atheist community. Submissions
should be brief and to the point.
Space limitations allow that each
letter should be three hundred
words or, preferably, fewer. Please
confine your letters to a single issue
only.
Mail them to:
American Atheist
P.O. Box 140195
Austin, TX 78714-0195
Reply to "Spirit, Soul,
and Mind"
I too, have long been aware that
the only true utilization of words is
to stimulate individual or collective
feelings; all other words are just
squiggles on paper or meaningless
sounds that fade into obscurity.
Even those words that stimulate
and goad into action start to lose
their urgency an instant after they
are read or heard.
I saw a Jules Feiffer cartoon
once where two men were lying on
their backs trying to find the words
to stimulate them to get up. They
alternately said words like murder,
fire, Armageddon, hydrogen bomb,
massacre, amputation, decapitation, hell, heaven, venereal disease,
blindness, child molester, rape, herpes, cancer, Hitler and others, but
neither stirred a muscle. But when
they heard the words on the TV,
"... and here's the first pitch," they
both jumped up.
So, it seems, it's not the word, or
even the fleeting emotions or temporary picture it may stir up, it's the
long-term affect of the right group of
words and the level of emotion that
have long lasting effect. Prejudices,
for example, are born and solidified
when a person is thrust into situations where he is forced to defend
Page 48

his or her beliefs. To most people,

prejudice means racial or gender
bias, but it is more, much more. By
definition, prejudice, which literally
means "prejudge," pertains to all
illogical
emotional
fixations.
Actually, what it really comes down
to is honesty. Those who cannot
prove or demonstrate things they
profess to believe in are lying to
themselves.
Of course, there are those who
proclaim that thought transcends
substance, but, they, too, are lying
to themselves. Philosophy itself, is
just another attempt to obfuscate
the truth. Who but a spiritualist
would proclaim, "I think, therefore I
am," when the truth is "I am, therefore I think." My answer to all
philosophers' posed postulations is,
"it's your story, you tell me."
I firmly believe that the brain
itself doesn't make mistakes; if the
action it precipitates seems erratic
or .distorted, it's only because the
information it evaluates is distorted
or erratic. Somewhere back in time
when man was going through his
development state, he observed or
heard things he thought made sense
at the time, but as generations
passed, beliefs became more and
more distorted. Scenarios for belief
in a god and all other unexplainable
phenomena can be logically resolved
if one accepts the fact that there is
no superintelligence running everything and there was no creation of
any kind. Humans, and everything
else, are the result of millions of evolutionary changes.
It has long been assumed that
the human brain has untold power
and untold potential, but facts disprove this. All the brain does is constantly collect new data from the
five senses, compare it with the old
information in the memory banks,
somewhat like a word checker, and,
if action is required, it commands
the glands and muscles to act
accordingly. In other words, the
brain can only evaluate and act
upon the information it has on
hand. It cannot and does not create
So, it seems there is no spirit, soul,
Winter 1998-1999

or mind, just life and death and a

hard-working
stimulus/response
brain with limited experience or
power.
However, I try to keep an open
mind. If my conclusions are faulty or
incomplete, feel free to respond.
Richard L. Stover
Grand Junction, Colorado
Zindler Replies
I agree with Mr. Stover about
the non-existence of spirit and souls.
I also agree with his opinion that we
can probably get by without assuming the existence of minds as well,
substituting the cybernetic model of
the brain that he advocates.
However, it is amusing that he like me - tries "to keep an open
mind" - even if he doesn't have one!
This illustrates the practical difficulty of dispensing with the concept
of mind.
.
In my Autumn 1998 article
"Spirit, Soul, and Mind" I argued
that mind should be thought of as a
verb rather than a noun, a process
rather than a thing. Perhaps it
could be considered the process of
'braining'! Unfortunately, as science
progresses the distinction between
things
and processes becomes
increasingly blurred - even without
the obfuscations
of philosophy
which Mr. Stover decries. Is a flame
a thing - or a process involving
localized oxidation reactions that
convert one or more gaseous substances into carbon dioxide and
water vapor? Is the brain a thing or the process of myriad organic and
inorganic compounds entering and
leaving a metabolic region of the
body? Indeed, what ofthe atoms and
molecules themselves, which can be
thought
of as wave functions
instead of particles - even if thinking that' way makes the arithmetic
more difficult?
The whole question leaves me
with what certainly seems like a
mind-ache, even if it is really just a
headache.
American Atheist

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:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:::.:.:.:.>:.::~:::.:.:

:.:.......,

" , .....

Religion is in all forms useless, in most

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one of the worst forces in the
profound reaction which at present
menaces civilization. Materialistic
Atheism is the best basis for a
reconstruction of life.
-Joseph McCabe

Does Atheism Rest Its Case On Logic?