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Vol. 20, No.3

March, 1978

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

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

Vol. 20, No.3

March, 1978
ON THE

EDITORIAL
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
NEWS
Atheists Take City Councils To Court
Coin Suit: No Trust In Gods
FEATURE ARTICLES
Atheism: A Cure For Neurosis
The Cost Of Freedom, Ruminations: Ignatz Sahula-Dycke
A Loss Of Faith
Twain On Death, Shibles' Corner: Warren Shibles
The Soul-Just A CaseOf Bad Breath
Old Habits Die Hard
Rooting For The Cannibals, Reflections: Voltaire E. Heywood
AMERICAN ATHEIST RADIO SERIES
Mark Twain, American Atheist
ATHEIST BOOK REVIEW
Jesus Son Of Man

2
3
.4
7
10
14
16
20
22
23
26
29
32

Editc)r-in-Chief:
Madalyn Murray O'Hair/Managing
Editor:
Jon Garth Murray/
Editor: Edmund Bojarski/Assistant
Editor: Barbara Grimes/Circulation:
John Mays/
Production:
Ralph Shirley/Non-residential
Staff: Anne Gaylor, Warren Shibles,
Ignatz Sahula-Dycke,
G. Richard Bozarth, Voltaire E. Heywood, James Erickson.

The American Atheist magazine is published

monthly
by American
Atheists,
2210 Hancock Drive, Austin, Texas, 78756, a non-profit, non-political, tax-exempt,
educational organization.
Mailing Address: P. O. Box 2117, Austin, TX, 78768;
copyright @ 1977 by Society of Separationists, Inc.; Subscription rates: $15.00 per
year; $25.00 for two years. Manuscripts submitted must be typed, double-spaced
and accompanied by a stamped, self-addressed envelope. The editors assume no
responsibility for unsolicited manuscripts.

THE AMERICAN ATHEIST MAGAZINE

Post Office Box 2117
Austin, Texas 78768
Enter my subscription for one year at $1.5.00 (two years at $25.00).
NEW
Total Enclosed $,

RENEWAL
_

COVER

Despite
the armament
race and
the escalating
sophistication
of killpower,
there
is only one possible
kind
of revolution
today
in our
world-and
that
is the
revolution
which
can occur
only
with each
individual:
a
revolution
between
the ears.
Unless and until each individual
person,
everywhere,
comes to grips
with the objective
reality of nature
and human life, we will be sore put
to ordering
the human
community
so that the fall-out
benefit of such
ordering
will be not alone the freedoms from hunger, from want, from
fear, but also the elusive freedom
of equal justice for all.
Mankind's
laws need
to be as
impartial
as nature's
laws, falling
on all equally,
not giving or taking
quarter.
It is for this reason that American
Atheists
have
insisted
upon
the seizing
of four
g\eat
natural
holidays
set by the inexorable
laws
of
nature.
These
belong
to
all
men,
everywhere,
for
all
time.
They
celebrate
the
geometric
procession
of the earth as it reaches
four cardinal
points
in the ceaseless ellipse which it generates around
the sun: the vernal and autumnal
equinoxes,
the summer
and winter
solstices.
The cover
picture,
a depiction
of the bluebonnets
of Texas, one
of the 1,600 wild flower
varieties
in this state alone, joyously
represents
the bursting
fullness
of the
vernal
equinox,
the
entrance
of
spring--and surely a time for you to
start your revolution
and to rejoice
that you are a part of nature and
of mankind.

Name
Address
City, State, & Zip
Austin, Texas

Page 1

Jon G. Murray

The Vernal Equinox

"Whan that Aprille with his shoures sote
The droghte of Marchehath perced to the rote,
And bathed every veyne in swich licour,
Of which vertu engendred is the - flour;
Whan Zephirus eek with his swete breeth
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
Hath in the Ram his halfe cours y-ronne,
And
smale
fowles
maken
melodye,
That slepen al the night with open ye
So priketh
hem nature in hir corages
Than longen folk to goon on pilgrimages"
These immortal words are, of course, from Chaucer's Prologue to "The Canterbury Tales." They
describe the wonders of spring bursting upon the
English countryside--the most awaited seasonof the
four when winter's blight is lifted and the green of
life returns to the land. But even this joy must be
denied to those who follow the false savior for as
Chaucer puts it, their first duty is "the holy blisful
martir for the seke." Death to be honored first before the wonders of birth.
On this, the holiday season for all mankind,
transcending all boundaries of nation or race, the
Christian gang of bandits rob us of life to salute
the death and imagined resurrection of their "Iord."
The vernal equinox (5:34 p.m., CST March 20th,
this year) is the first day of spring. Visions of baby
bunnies, chicks and ducklings bounce in children's
heads. Eggs, the symbols of life itself, the new
chick bursting forth colored brightly for the celebration. All subverted by lillies of death and the
carnaqeof crucifixion.

world more dear? To the uneducated mind, the

savage that dwells in the valley of ignorance still,
perhaps, but to the 20th century mind tales of
horror fit only for the films of Vincent Price.
The choice is yours; spend your life preparing
to die for the experience of a never-ending dream,
or live now in the only world you know. Ingersoll
put it best when he said, "Give me the storm and
tempest of thought and action rather than the
dead calm of ignorance and faith. Banish me from
Eden when you will, but first let me eat .of the
fruit of the tree of knowledge."
In short, life is to be grappled with and in that
struggle to enjoy all the victories and defeats asthey
come, becausethey are all you'll know. Seek to pass
on as you go a bit of kindness to all that cross your
path so that their struggle may be enjoyed all the
more.

,"Atheism breaks down the barriers of nationalities and, like one touch of nature, makes the whole
How dreadful to celebrate the murder of one's world kin," said Joseph Lewis. The seasonsof life,
only son. A kind creator that kills his only child the four great holidays we seek to save from the
in cold blood in order to save him? Such a story Christian cloud of gloom, do just that.
is not fit for the eyes or ears of a single child. The
In this seasonof so much life let nature be your
renewal of life is the most wonderful of all events. guide to the best of all things. Like the bluebonnets
A birth of any new entity, be it plant, mammal, on the Texas field scenewhich gracesour cover this
insect or fish, is a moment of happiness. New ad- month, bloom so that you and your fellows about
ventures, things for the fledgling to do and see you may fulfill your only purpose here, to live and
and learn. Is death and the promise of a dream to help others to come to Iive better.

American Atheist

Page 2

~J -

Dear Editor:
We recently made a trip to Seattle, and while given a tour of the
"underground"
part of the city (Pioneer Square) we were told by
the tour guide that a famous Seattle resident and Atheist willed a
large amount of money to the city on condition that the city provide a plaque containing his name. The money was used for the
Seattle opera house, but because he was a notorious Atheist, the
city fathers put the plaque in the basement of the opera house.
Perhaps the Seattle Chapter could mount a campaign, or even sue,
to right th is wrong.
Lastly, I note that the org's (pardon the use of a Scientology
term) convention will be held in S.F. next year. I have some free
time and if there is anything I can do here (provided it doesn't
conflict with my first love, vegetarianism, and provided I won't
have to layout
money--I dropped out and don't have much) I
will be happy to help.
David Pressman
San Francisco, CA
P.S. When we entered Washington State we were given the enclosed photograph with information
about the governor at the
information booth. On thinking about Dixy Lee Ray, it occurred
to me that she and Dr. O'Hair have a lot in common: physical
appearance, age, Ph.D., iconoclastic,
gender, accomplishments
in unrelated fields, etc. I wonder if she's an Atheist. The picture
of Dr. O'Hair in "Newsweek"
for Dec. 1, 1975, p. 22, looks
astoundingly similar to the enclosed picture of Gov. Ray.

Pres. O'Hair

Gov. Ray

Dear Dave,
We agree wholeheartedly that something needs to be done about
the Seattle opera house. Let's hear it from our people in the Seattle
area!
Thank you for the offer of help in San Francisco. We'll need
all we can get because we expect the largest turnout in American
Atheist history. We've already written to you on this matter and
hereby request any form of help from our readers in the far West.
What we need in particular is pre-convention publicity.
The Editor

Dear Editor:
I was very glad to receive your
letter. It is delightful for me to
receive a letter from you. Please
extend to your president, Dr.
Madalyn
Murray
O'Hair
my
warm regards.
I am very much interested
in
American
Atheists,
and
would
like
to
know
more
about
your
organization.
Your
letter
was postmarked
Aug, but it was del ivered to
me on
October
28.
Since
surface
mail
takes so long,
will
you
please send your
mail
by
air
next
time
if
possible?
I hope that I may continue
to correspond
with
you because I admire the work you
are
doing
for
American
Atheists.
The
more
opportunities
to get together with
American
Atheists
given
to
me, the more I can do for
the
future
of
American
Atheists. I'll do my best.
I feel it an honor, to become a member of American
Atheists. And I am enclosing
$30, half for membership and
half for a subscription. I should
deem it a great favor if you
would kindly
let me have an
answer
at
your
earl iest
convenience. Thank you.
Sang Man, Kim
Sung Buk-Ku, Seoul
Dear Mr. Kim:
We .are pleased to have subscribers in many countries of
the world and warmly welcome
this one from Korea. We also
hope that you wi II keep us
informed
of any Atheist activities
and developments
in.
your
country
because
our
readers enjoy
hearing
about
what
their
fellow
Atheists
in far away places are doing.
The Editor

1111[-.....-:

_N_EWl_S

JIi\1IIi\ttfI11111ttlllllil'i!ltl{tll

Atheists Take City

Councils To Court
The legal strategy was to file (almost) identical
suits--one in a New Jersey Federal District Court,
one in a Texas Federal District Court, both challenging opening invocational
prayers in city governments. In both cases the governmental bodies
to be challenged were the city councils.
In New Jersey, the litigant would be Paul Marsa,
Director of the New Jersey Chapter of American
Atheists.
In Texas, the litigants would
be Jon
Murray, Director of American Atheists and Madalyn
Murray
O'Hair,
President
of
the
Society
of
Separation ists.
In Texas, the city council prayers had already
been used as a vehicle to challenge the archaic
law of Texas that all persons elected to public
office and all persons employed by the state are
required to have a "belief in a Supreme Being."
In order to make that challenge it had been necessary for Dr. O'Hair to have herself arrested in
respect to the city council prayers. I n that instance, she went to the council chambers and when
ordered to either participate in the prayers or to
leave the room, she refused to do elther-resultinq
in her arrest. That case, being underway and proceeding satisfactorily,
was the precedent for the
two cases challenging the prayers.
All things being agreed, the law firm of Judith
Abbott and Debby Gardner was again employed.
Their collaborator,
David Horton, a Denver, Colorado attorney,
flew to Austin for the planning.
After days of research, grueling hours, collaborative constructive
criticism
from the Society of
Separationists
own
in-house
attorneys,
Ralph
Shirley and Madalyn O'Hair, a substantive battle
plan was accepted.

Hostile Judges
The suit being scheduled for filing in Austin
on December 18th, David Horton flew to New
Jersey the weekend before to consult with several
Constitutional
experts in several Eastern universities. A New Jersey attorney of record was needed
and after exploration
with the New Jersey Civil
Liberties Union it was discovered that the federal
district court judge in New Jersey was so hostile
that a suit there would be almost futile. Actually,

the same situation exists in Texas with the federal

district
court judge in open hostility.
However,
the judges are bound by prior decisions and their
decisions are open to appellate review and become
a part of legal history and of the precedent system
itself. It was felt necessary to take a chance on one
federal judge and to move the other case to a state
court, with the knowledge that we must expect
adverse decisions in both lower courts and that we
would obtain relief only as we got into the appellate
system.
On December 18th two cases were filed. In the
United States District Court for the Western District of Texas, Austin Division, Civil Action
No.
A-77-236, the case of Madalyn Murray O'Hair and
Jon Murray v. Lee Cooke, Richard Goodman, Betty
Himmelblau, Mayor Carole McClellan, Ron Mullen,
Jimmy Snell and John Trevino, City Council Persons, was filed. In New Jersey in the Superior Court
of New Jersey, Chancery Division, Middlesex County,
Civil Action No. C 1311 77, the case of Paul Marsa
v. Mayor Donald J. Wernik, Donald J. Barnickel,
John W. Bertrand, Diane Forney, Dennis O'Leary,
Thomas E. Sharp and John Wiley Jr, Borough
Council Persons, was filed.

First Amendment

Issue

In the Texas court, it was pleaded that the Murray-O'Hair

plaintiffs
were seeking to secure their
rights guaranteed by the First and Fourteenth
Amendments
to the Constitution
of the United
States and specifically
the right of freedom of
religion, including both the right of free exercise
and invoking the prohibition
of the governmental
establishment of religion. The heart of the matter
was contained in a specific paragraph:
"The
Defendants,
(Mayor
and City
Council
'members) acting under color of law and exercising
the authority
they hold as elected officials of the
City of Austin, State of Texas, have established,
I and
now maintain and sanction the custom and
usage of incorporating a rei igious ceremony as part
of the official business of the City Council of Austin,
Texas by conducting a religious prayer ceremony
at such official meetings."

The news which fills one half of the magazine is chosen to demonstrate, month after month, the dead reactionary hand of religion. It dictates
good habits, sexual conduct, family size, it censures cinema, theater, television, even education. It dictates life values and lifestyle. Religion is
politics and, always, the most authoritarian and reactionary politics. We editorialize our news to emphasize this thesis. Unlike any other maga~ine or newspaper in the United States, we are honest enough to admit it.

Page 4

American Atheist

It was concluded that:

"Each Defendant having knowledge of the wrongs
conspired to be done ...
and having the power to
prevent or aid in preventing the commission of same
refuse and neglect to take such appropriate action to
remedy the continuing violation alleged herein which
with reasonable diligence she or they could have
prevented ... "
"Wherefore,
the Plaintiffs
asked the court to
grant relief of the following nature:
Ita. Declare unconstitutional
as an admixture
of church and state the practices complained of;
b. Issue an injunction enjoining Defendants from
conducting such prayers in connection with City
Council meetings;
c. To award Plaintiffs and the class they represent
the sum of One Million
Dollars ($1,000,000);
d. Issue a declaratory
judgment
that
such
practice
is unconstitutional;
e. Award Plaintiffs attorneys' fees;
f. Award Plaintiffs all f
costs and expenses... "
In New Jersey a similar complaint
was filed
with
Robert
A. Vort,
the attorney of record,
but with Abbott, Gardner and Horton
doing
all of the work. I n that
state
the
Defendant
council members asked
for an extra 30 days
to give their response.
In Austin, the response
has been received.
One of the precautions taken in Austin,
Texas, was to obtain '"
copies of the agenda
of the Austin City Council meetings. On these, it
is clearly indicated that the business meeting of
the council is first called to order and that the second
incident of the meeting is the invocation, called for
by the mayor. It was therefore somewhat of a shock,
the kind which brings a chuckle, to find in the answer
of the Defendant members of the council the following:
1. Defendants admit that most meetings of the
City Council of the City of Austin commence
with an invocation.
2. Defendants deny that they established the
practice of commencing the Austin City Council
meetings with an invocation.
3. Defendants deny that the prayer or invocation
referred to in Plaintiffs' Complaint is part of the
official
business of the meetings of the City

Austin, Texas

Council of the City of Austin.

In New Jersey, the Borough attorney immediately
went to the newspapers ("The News Tribune" and
"The Home News") to advise what his "battle tactics" would be against Paul Marsa. He pointed out
that he would not, (unlike Austin) dispute that
there are prayers at the meetings, but rather he would
depend on a nine-point defense:
* Under the law, the plaintiff fails to state a cause
of action; the mayor and council have the right
to decide the ru les and regu lations of the body.
*The invocation is solely for the benefit of the
council, not for anyone else.
*The plaintiff
has no standing since he is not
a member of the council.
* Even if the plaintiff
is caused discomfort
(by
being subjected to the
prayer), as he contends
in his suit, one cannot
sue for
that
type
of
discomfort.
*The
plaintiff
has not
commenced
a class action, therefore
he may
not contend that other
people
would
be dissuaded from
attending
council
meetings
because of the invocation.
*The defendants shou Id
be allowed
their
right
of
free speech, under
the Constitution.
*The
plaintiff's
civil
rights
have
not
been
violated.
*No
member
of
the
public
is required
to
participate
in the invocation. There is a "lack
of compulsion"
in the
conduct of the meeting.
*The
invocation
is
consistent with other spiritual
recognitions,
such
as the president's Thanksgiving message, the Pledge
of Allegiance, the phrase "In God We Trust" on
U.S. currency.
Meanwhile, Councilwoman
Diane Forney voted
"no" to a resolution authorizing
the borough attorney to defend the council noting that she "didn't
want to spend the taxpayers'
money defending
such a position"
when she agreed with Marsa. All
along, she said, she had felt "more comfortable"
with a moment of silent meditation.
Mrs. Forney
also announced her resignation from the council
and she will probably be severed from the suit.
Her replacement on the council could be included,
in her stead.
All of this, of course, is only a part of the preliminary jockeying
which comes with a political

Page 5

suit filed in the courts. There must be an interchange

of interrogatories,
several more pre-trial motions,
pre-trial findings, before either case even gets to a
trial.
Much of what goes on could well be titled under
"Iitigious education." When such suits are filed, they
are then used as vehicles through which the public
may be educated in respect to the principle of state/
church separation. In New Jersey, the news was
electric. "The Home News" newspaper of Middlesex
and Somerset Counties, N.J., carried a series of
articles, as did the "News Tribune" of Woodridge,
N.J., the magazine "New
Jersey,"
"The
Star
Ledger"
newspaper, "The Recorder"
newspaper,
"The Courier-News" newspaper, "New York Daily
News" and-of course--"The New York Times" newspaper. The picture
reproduced on the previous
page is that carried in the "New York Times" on
November 25th, 1977.
The issues, facts and ideas brought out by these
reports are sometimes hostile, somtimes distorted,
sometimes inflamatory,
but seldom in favor of
the position of Atheism. For example, "The New
York Times" story stated that Marsa had enlisted
the support of the executive director of the state
of New Jersey chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union. That executive director very carefully
stayed away from the attorney who travelled to
New Jersey to meet with him. He was actively

estimation of most reasonable people," giVing the

full implication that Atheists must then be unreasonable people. One member stated that since the
council must consider issues affecting the lives of
16,000 borough residents, "1 think every additional
bit of guidance we can get is helpful." This reinforces
the idea that there is a god and that he can directly
interfere
in such mundane human activities
as
council
meetings and bring thereto
"guidance"
which would otherwise not be available.
In the general Biblical theme of "a little child
shall guide them," the "Home News" newspaper
featured a large article which reported- that 400
elementary school children of St. Helena's school
in Edison, New Jersey sent prayers to the city
council members in support of their position to
retain prayer. The town of Edison, of course, was
named for the American Atheist who gave us the
light bulb, Thomas Alva Edison, even if the town
is still unenlightened now. A large picture of one
child, age nine, was featured in this article, which
described the children at length as including "prayers
for Marsa, whether or not he wants them." When
asked if the children had the idea of writing the
letters, -the principal, a Roman Catholic nun, said
that the idea had come from. a local priest. However, she volunteered that "The Constitution
was
founded
by Christians"--indicating
that
she is
completely ignorant of American history.

"Paul Marsa is an Atheist. That makes him a target for abusive telephone
letters, bomb scares and accusations of communism. " --A New Jersey newspaper.
discouraging in his conversations and later made
it publicly
known that he felt a different
and
"better"
suit could have been filed by attempting
to keep state salaries away from ministers stationed
in New Jersey institutions.
Marsa is also cited as
having obtained the support of a Unitarian pastor
who had once led a meeting of the council in prayer,
but who now opposes the practice. The minister
did speak out at a council meeting but was very
much missing at the time of the filing of the law
suit and subsequent needed publicity.
"The New York Times" was the single newspaper which nodded to another one of our valiant
members when it noted that Marsa and other rnernbers of American Atheists "--including the actress
Butterfly McQueen, best known for her role as Prissy
in 'Gone With The Wind'--paced the council chambers earlier to argue for abolition of the opening
invocation."
The paper quoted Marsa as saying,
"I'm an Atheist, but more than that I'm a separationist.
I believe in the absolute separation of
church and state." It is not a minor point because
Paul Marsa is "a separationist, but more than that
an Atheist"
since the choice of Atheism comes
first.
Much of this article was taken up with comments
of the council members that the invocation is "always
nondenominational"
and "not a harmful thing in the

Page 6

calls, threatening

Paul Marsa instantly replied to the Sister advising

her that the nation was founded by Deists, not
Christians and charged:
"Finally,
you have collectively
and flagrantly
misinformed
and lied to your charges. More significantly
and atrociously,
you have manipulated
them deceitfully
to gain publicity
by deliberately
keeping them uninformed and limited in the scope
of their understanding." Of course, the paper did
not deign to print Marsa's reply.
Naturally, local clergy were polled as to opinions
in respect to the suit. Since Marsa is of Jewish extraction,
a rabbi was approached in Metuchen,
New Jersey, Marsa's hometown. The rabbi opined
that, "If they did away with it I wouldn't object.
It's saluting God for two seconds." The pastor of
the Unitarian Church in East Brunswick, New Jersey,
depicted the invocation as a "corporate
act" and
stated that the "prayer is recited with little meaning,"
hence he objected to it. The priest of St. Francis'
Roman Catholic Church felt that the council really
believed in prayer and that "It is a time-honored
precedent since the founding of our country to
acknowledge
the supreme being publicly."
The
pastor of the Centenary United Methodist Church
in Metuchen also praised the decision to keep the
invocation."1
see prayer as positive and construetive and would feel that the decision to preserve

American Atheist

prayer at the council meeting would be a healthy

decision." The New Jersey Civi I Liberties Union
director has said that his group is not ready to
II
.
make a statement
or take a stan d on t he SUit.
"The Hecorder": newspaper treated Paul Marsa
as an aberrant, in language such as this:
"Never mind that he is clean cut, well spoken,
conservatively dressed--the embodiment
of middle
America. Or that by his own admission, he is a
loyal American, a capitalist, a chamption of law
and order. And that he was wounded in the Korean
War."
The papers delight in recording:
"Paul Marsa is an Atheist. That makes him a
target for
abusive telephone
calls, threatening
letters, bomb scares and accusations of communism."
We sometimes feel that if the newspapers would
not play up the few zanies, if they did not go to
the religious leaders for opinions, there would not
be the abusive telephone calls, the threatening letters, the bomb scares or the accusations of communism. The newspapers dwell on these ideas so
that religious freaks are encouraged to enjoy the
fun of targeting an Atheist for foul play. They insist that the "heretic has a lonely life," which is a
fantasy the news media builds. Always, a gratuitous
insult is included: "Marsa is as zealous in his cause
as the most devoutly rei igious are in theirs." We
feel this adds insult to injury. In no way can the
fanatically religious person be equated to the cool,
determined, logical Atheist.
The final deprecation is always similar to that
which was found in "The New York Times" New
Jersey Opinion column written by a rabbi. In this
article. the rabbi decries that the giving of invocations is token window dressing and not a significant religious experience and hence he believes
that there should be none. The inference of his

contribution
to the issue is that only 'prayer which
is significant
and a manifestation
of a religious
experience should be included. That would be even
more unconstitutional
than the "token"
prayer,
but the rabbi, in an effort to make 'the Jewish
position' palatable to the dominant Christian populace of New Jersey and New York fawns and
malingers intellectually before them all.
Meantime, in Austin, Texas, the "Austin
American-Statesman"
newspaper continued the straight
reporting which it had begun in late November.
The issues were accurately reported. There was
no attempt to distort.
Facts were marshalled all
in a straight row. The "Letters To The Editor"
column,
of course, erupted.
Every radio and
television station in town bristled with the news.
The telephones
never stopped
ringing
at the
American Atheist Center.
And, BBC (the British Broadcasting Company)
phoned
from
London,
England, to work
out
some coverage; "The New York Ti mes" newspaper
sent a reporter to Austin to do extensive coverage
on the Center; John Dean (yes, THE John Dean)
called to interview
Dr. O'Hair
for his national
radio program; and, Harvard Law School requested
an autographed picture of her to hang in its hall
of fame.
Meanwhile, all suits continue, with more to come.
To date, the legal costs have been slightly over
$6,000 with more coming up. We need to push
all of these suits. We ask you, and we will ask you
again and again, to keep the legal fund in mind and
to write what checks you can. We want to push
every suit as far as we can. The address again, now,
for you is
"Legal Fund," American Atheists
P. O. Box 2117
Austin, Texas 78768

COIN SUIT:

No Trust
In Gods
Madalyn
Murray
O'Hair,
American
Atheist
leader and
Jon Garth Murray, her son and
General Manager of the American Atheist Center this month
announced their attack on the
national motto of the United
States, "In
God We Trust."
Dr. O'Hair and Jon Murray,
in answering the United States
government's
claim
that
"I n
God We Trust" on our nation's
currency only reflected a patriotic
slogan which was the

national
motto,
charged that
the national motto, too, then
was
unconstitutional
and
asked that it be stricken as such.
The government's reply came
in a demand that the suit filed
by the Murray-O'Hairs
to remove "In God We Trust" from
all currency and coins be dismissed.
Scoffing
at the reply Jon
Murray
pointed
out
that
a
series of
laws were
passed
during
the time of the Mc-

Carthy hysteria when the government

was
asking
the
nation's
religions
to
rally
against the "menace of Godless
Communism."
These
laws, he said, passed under
the
Eisenhower-Nixon
regime
were:
June
14,
1954,
adding
the words
"under
God"
to
the Pledge of Allegiance;
making
July
11,
1955,
all
curit
mandatory
that
rency
and
coins
bear
the

pejorative:
"In
God
We
Trust";
July
30,
1956,
replacing
"E Pluribus Unum"
(out of
many--one; i.e. out of many
people
came
one
nation)
with "In God We Trust."
Mr. Murray noted that the
cold war is over, that many
patriotic
Americans
are
Atheists
and
Agnostics
and
that it was time to correct
the violations
of state/church
separation which had been perpetrated at the time the nation
was seized with hysteria and fear.
He also noted that since a
federal law, 18 U.S. Code 331,
333 prohibits mutilation of the
money so that Atheists/ Agnostics may not even draw a line
through the offending phrase,
this
leaves them without
a
remedy, forcing
them to silently acquiesce in a government
establishment
of rei igion and
even depriving them of freedom
of speech in the matter
as
they hand Ie the money.
Meantime, a more extensive
history
of the coinage laws.
has been obtained.
It is, or ought to be, widely
known in the nation that our
founding
fathers were, almost
to a man, Deistic. That is,
they
believed in nature and
nature's god and were antiChristian,
viewing
Christianity
as a bane upon mankind.
It appeared that
in 1832
a little
company
of Baptists
started
what
came
to
be
known
as the "Old
Rid ley
Baptist
Meeting
House"
in
Prospect
Park,
Pennsylvania.
At the time of the beginning
of the Civil War in the United
States the minister there was
Mark R. Watkinson. On Nov.
13, 1861 he wrote a letter
to Salmon P. Chase, Secretary
of the Treasury proposing that
a motto giving recognition to
god be placed on the coins
of
the
nation.
His specific
idea was:
"One
fact
touching
our
currency
has hitherto
been
seriously
overlooked.
I mean
the recognition of the Almighty

Page 8

God in some form on our coins.

What if our republic were now
shattered beyond reconstruction.
Would not the antiquaries of
succeeding
centuries
rightly
reason from our past that we
were a heathen nation 7"
The reverend was correct.
It was an old theme. From the
time of the inception of the
nation the ministry
had been
harping that the exclusion of
god
from
the
Constitution
would bring disaster upon the
nation.
In th is instance, Watkinson suggested a motto on
the theme of "God, Liberty,
Law"
and
asserted
"Th is
would
relieve us from
the
ignominy
of heathenism. This
would place us openly under
the Divine protection we have

national recognition."
An
Act
of
Congress on
April 22, 1864 gave Treasury
officials discretionary
authority
concerning inscriptions
on the
nation's minor coins, and. the
motto
first
appeared on the
short-lived
two
cent
bronze
piece coined
in May, 1864.
On March 3, 1865 this authority was extended to gold and
silver coins and in the legislative act, for the first time,
the motto "In God We Trust"
was
specifically
mentioned.
The
motto
then
began to
appear on $5, $10 and $20
gold
pieces
and
on
silver
25-cent,
50-cent
and 5-cent
pieces. Because of design limitations it was dropped from
the Liberty
Head Nickel first

personally
claimed. From my
heart I have felt our national
shame in disowning
God as
not the least of our present
national disasters."
Secretary
Chase
received
the letter,
decided that the
idea had merit and promptly
dispatched a letter to James
W. Pollock,
director
of the
U.S.
Mint
at
Philadelphia,
Pa.
"No
nation can be strong
except in the strength of God,
or safe except in H is defense.
The trust of our people in
God should be declared on
our national
coins. You will
cause a device to be prepared
without
delay with a motto
expressing in the fewest and
truest
words
possible
this

coined in 1883 and from its

successor, the Buffalo
Nickel.
The
cent
remained
without
the motto
until
1906,
the
dime
until
1916
and
the
nickel until 1938.
Meanwhile, President Teddy
Roosevelt caused a tumultuous
response when he viewed the
situation.
At the time of his
election to office
the United
States eagle and double eagle
coins were literally the "coins
of the realm." The eagle had
been in circulation
since 1838
and the double eagle since 1854.
Teddy did not like the coins
and asked the sculptor Augustus
Saint-Gaudens to redesign the
coins in 1907,
without
the
motto.
"My
own
feeling
in the

American

Atheist

matter,"
he wrote, "is due to
my very firm conviction
that
to put such a motto on coins,
or to use it in any kindred
manner,
not
only
does no
good but does positive harm,
and is in effect
irreverence,
which
comes
dangerously
close to sacri lege."
"
. it seems to me eminently
unwise
to
cheapen
such a motto by use on coins,
just as it would be to cheapen
it by use on postage stamps,
or in advertisements."
He
noted
that
he
had
heard the expression "In God
We
Trust"
used
literally
hundreds of times "as an occasion of, and incitement
to,
the sneering ridicule which it
is above all things undesirable
that so beautiful
and exalted
a phrase should excite."
" . . . Everyone, must remember the unnumerable [sic]
cartoons and articles based on
phrases like 'In God we trust
for the other eight cents'; 'I n
God we trust
for the short
weight';
'In God we trust for
the thirty-seven
cents we do
not pay'; and so forth and so
forth. Surely I am well within
bounds when I say that a use
of the phrase which
invites
constant
levity
of th is type
is more undesirable."
"I f Congress alters the law
and directs me to replace on
the coins the sentence in question, the direction will be immediately put into effect; but
I very earnestly trust that the
religious sentiment of the country, the spirit of reverence in
the country,
will prevent any
such notion being taken."
Teddy, of course, was wrong.
Congress was overwhelmed with
communications
from the clergy
and religious folk and on May
18, 1908 it passed legislation
which made it mandatory that
the motto be used on all gold
and silver coins (except the
dime--where
it had not
yet
appeared).
The situation
remained - so
until
the early
1950's when
another person launched a cam-

Austin,

Texas

paign to have the motto appear

on all paper money, Matthew
H. Rothert, an industrialist and
prominent
numismatist
of
Arkansas. Through
h is efforts
and the rei igion ists' he rail ied
around
him the Congress of
the United States which passed
a law on July 11, 1955 making
it mandatory
that the phrase
be used on all coins and on all
printed
currency.
It took the
Bureau of Engraving and Printing
some time, and the first $1
silver note bearing the motto
entered circulation on October 1,
1957. It then took more than
10 years to finish the transition
and the process was not completed until April 1968, at which
point all U.S. printed currency
bore the inscription.
Matthew Rothert went on to
become president of the American
Numismatic
Association.
He assists in badgering of the
United States to keep the slogan.
Rep. Jack Kemp, a Republican
congressman from Buffalo, New
York has introduced a resolution
in the House of Representatives
to put Congress on record as
reaffirming support for the use
of the motto. Across the nation
groups and individuals
mount
petition
drives.
A
Treasury
Department
official
notes that
his department has "an immense
volume of correspondence ...
and
constant
congressional
phone calls," since "everyone's
supporting the motto."

Atheists Inactive
What hurts is that we find
the Atheists doing nothing.
The religious could take over
our nation tomorrow,
and we
sometimes feel that the Atheists
wou Id stand and watch them
do it. There are no Atheist
petitions. There are no Atheist
letters to congressmen. There
are no Atheist communications
with the Treasury Department.
The contributions
to the legal
fund for the suit are slow in
arriving and modest in amount.
If we permit our symbols to
remain
religious,
we cannot

complain when the government

undertakes the fu II support of
religious schools, colleges, and
universities. When the religious
have no opposition,
it is a
clear signal to them that they
may dip into tax funds with the
consent and approval of the
pol iticians of the nation who
rely on their votes to bring
them to office.
The Atheists in the United
States must speak up and be
heard. They must support the
endeavors of their
local and
national
Atheist
Centers, and
they must finance these efforts
to return our nation to the
posture of separation of state
and church--a
principle
upon
which
the nation
was predicated. We cannot do less: this
is
our
minimum
obligation
and commitment.
An Atheist's

Prayer

An atheist was allowed to JOin a

non-sectarian
club, which had the foolish habit of opening all its meetings
with an invocation. One day, the president, who did not know what faith the
atheist clung to, if any, called upon
him to give the usual invocation.
The
members bowed their heads and were
quite startled to hear him say:
"Oh, mythical god, invented by Hebrews and derived by them from a
multitude
of older Greek and Roman
gods, look down upon the poor, benighted
heathen
who are gathered
here, and shower them with thy pity,
in great measure, because thou knowest, oh god, how they need it.
"They are too lazy-minded,
oh god,
to wish such things for themselves, so
grant them, we pray thee, not all the
wisdom of the ages, but just a little
common sense, so they may come to
realize how foolish, how silly, how ridiculous
it is for grown-up
people,
who have lived, 10 these many years,
to raise their eyes to heaven and intone such things as this to thee, or to
bow their heads, in pretended
reverence and pious smugness.
"And, dear god, along with some
measure of common sense, grant them,
we pray thee, the courage of their convictions, so they, who don't believe in
thee (and you'd be surprised,
if you
knew, how many don't really believe
what they profess to) may have the intestinal fortitude
to raise their heads,
look their fellow hypocrites in the eye,
and tell them - and also thee - to 'go
to hell!' wherever that is."
AMEN!

Page 9

ATHEISM:
-A CURE

FOR

Albert Ellis, Ph. D.

Director, Institute for Advanced Study
in Rational Emotive Psychotherapy,
New York, New York
Although millions of words have been written,
especially since Freud's day, on the subject of emotional health and disturbance, most of them do
little more than obfuscate the fairly obvious fact
that what we usually call neurosis, nervous breakdown, mental illness, or some other term denoting
serious emotional malfunctioning
is really a subtle
designation for religiosity.
For in virtually
every
instance where an individual is "disturbed,"
he/she
is devoutly convinced of some kind of arrant nonsense: is bigotedly,
dogmatically,
and absolutistically certain that he/she is a worthless individual,
that other people are contemptible
and damnable,
or that the world is incontestably rotten and unquestionably should and must not be the way it
indubitably is.
People who are easily and continually
upset,
in other words, are true believers in horseshit.
They not only deplore their own and others'
fallibilities
and incompetencies
(which
is sane
enough) but they also insanely and Jehovianly
demand,
insist, and command
that
they and
these others be infallible and outstandingly
competent. So they frequently
create needless pains
in their own guts.
Evidence
to
back
up these hypotheses
is
voluminous
and I report some of the details in
various
of
my
Writings,
such as my books
A New Guide to Rational Living," "Reason and
Emotion
in
Psychotherapy"
and "Humanistic
Psychotherapy:
The Rational-Emotive
Approach."
Let me just give a common clinical example here.
Mary J. is an attractively
built woman of 24 who
rarely dates, who has never had an intense emotional relationship and who holds down a boring
civil service job even though she is very bright and
spends much of her leisure time reading good books.
She has a badly scarred face, as a result of her being
cut up by her father, in the course of one of his
many drunken rages, when she was nine. She dropped
out of college in her second year because she
couldn't stand the social life there and had no friends
or lovers. She is now continually depressed and angry
and is well on her way to becoming the same kind of
habitual drinker that her father was. As might be
expected, she blames the circumstances of her early
life for most of her troubles and is convinced that
II

Page 10

NEUROSIS-

had she not been done in by her terribly weak mother

and near-psychotic father, she would now be happily
married and well on her way in some promising
career.
Let us first examine Mary's depression. She says
she is depressed because (1) she is ugly and cannot
attract the kind of males she would like to go with;
and (2) she foolishly dropped out of school, failed
to prepare herself for a high-level career, and now
has to take the consequences of her own stupidity
and low frustration tolerance by working at a boring
job for the rest of her life. She believes that because
of the unpleasant Activating
Events (at point A)
--especially, her being scarred by her drunken father
and her refusing to stick it out at college--she now
suffers
dire
emotional
Consequences--depression
--at pointC.
Nearly all disturbed individuals, such
as Mary, similarly
believe that Activating
Events
at A cause emotional Consequences at C.
.
But that is pure magic! A (an Action or stimulus in the outside world) never really causes C
(an emotional
Consequence in one's gut). The
simple proof of this is that if 100 girls were scarred
in exactly the same manner as Mary was and later
foolishly dropped out of college and ruined their
future careers, by no means all of them would now
feel severely depressed. Practically
all of them
wou Id tend to feel sorry, regretfu I, and frustrated
about these unfortunate
Activating
Events but a
good many of them would stop right there and
would not go on to depress themselves and a
few of them would even manage to be happier
than most women
of 24 who had never experienced such misfortunes.
Mary's emotional
Consequences, at point
C,
then, do not stem from the Activating
Events
of her life, at point A. They arise, rather, from
her Beliefs (at point B) about these events. And,
like practically
all humans, Mary has both
a
rational and an irrational set of Bel iefs about A.
Her rational Beliefs (rB's) are along these l.ines:
"Isn't
it too bad that my father scarred me and
that this led to certain difficulties
in my life.
I strongly
wish that this had never happened.
How annoying it is to be rejected by many males
who might otherwise like me if I were not this
scarred! Whatbad luck!"
If Mary rigorously stayed with this set of rational
Beliefs and didn't in any way magically go beyond
them, she would feel (as I implied above) exceptionally
sorry, regretfu I, and frustrated about her
handicap but she would not feel depressed (that
is, self-pitying and self-hating) and she might even

American Atheist

manage to be quite happy most of the time and to

make a good sex-love relationship with a man who
could accept her and love her in spite of her unfortunately scarred face.
But, in addition to her rational Beliefs, Mary also
devoutly, religiously, and anti-empirically
has a set
of highly irrational Beliefs (iB's); and these really
cause her depression. Her irrational Beliefs largely
are: "Isn't it awful that my father scarred me and
helped ruin my entire life! I can't stand his having
done this! He shouldn't
have done this horrible
thing to me! How completely bleak and loveless
my life must always be!"
Why are these Beliefs irrational and senseless?
Because they actually have nothing to do with
reality and they can never possibly be empirically
validated; they are based on magical demands instead
of on healthy desires. For Mary to insist that it is
awful (awe-full) that her father scarred her is for
her to contend that it is more than very inconvenient,
exceptionally handicapping, or unusually frustrating
for him to have afflicted her in this manner.
But nothing--if
you really think about it--can
be more than 100 per cent inconvenient or disadvantageous; and awful
is a magic-filled
word
that
has surplus meaning that
can never be
empirically
validated. What is more, when Mary
feels--religiously, devoutly--that
it is awful for her
to be very disadvantaged, she will usually be so
stunned by the awe-fullness she has invented that
she will be able to do Iittle to remove or overcome
the inconveniences and frustrations that her scarring
may well produce. The purpose of bel ieving that
something is inconvenient
or disadvantageous is
to work concertedly at removing that inconvenience
or to live happily in spite of it. The goal of believing
it is awful is to change the world, magically, by
whining about it; for actually one terrorizes and
immobilizes oneself by this silly belief.
For Mary to believe that she can't stand her
having been mutilated by her father is, again, for
her to be dogmatically
convinced of drivel. Of
course she can stand it! She'll never, in a million
years, like or prefer being scarred; she'll always,
if she is sensible in her goals of wanting sex-love
companionship,
feel displeased and discomfited
about her handicap. But she'd damned well better,
if she wants to stick with reality and make the
most of an exceptionally
unfortunate
set of
conditions which have been foisted on her, stand
what she dislikes. Otherwise, she will be so perpetually focused on her handicap that she will
not develop her good points and will fail to get
half as much out of life as she could otherwise get.
For Mary to claim that her father shouldn't have
done this terrible thing to her is for her, with com-

Austin, Texas

plete religiosity, to invoke a kind, pleasant order

of things that must exist. Well, where the devil
is this kind order? She is, first of all, essentially
contending that, "Because I would have liked my
father not to have scarred me, he should not have
done it!" Well, is she God or the Holy Ghost? Does
she magically arrange the universe to be what she
would like it to be? She is, secondly, avowing
that whatever is good, right, or proper for anyone
should exist. Well, why on earth should it? It would,
naturally, be better if the world were replete with
kind, fair, undrunken
fathers who never slashed
their daughters. But the hypothesis that it would
be better, which is empirically confirmable
(since
there obviously are advantages to humans living
in a kindly, fair, undrunken
atmosphere), never
equals therefore it should be. From an empirical
and atheistic standpoint, there are clearly (as far
as have yet been determined) no absolute shoulds,
oughts, or musts in the world. And every time Mary
(or anyone else) upsets herself about the way her
father should have behaved toward
her, she is
fervidly
saying that absolutistic
(and presumably
God-given) shoulds, oughts, or musts do exist-or that they should!
For Mary to hold that her life must now be completely bleak and loveless because she has unfortunately been scarred by her father is more overgeneralization
and religiosity.
Factually,
her life
will, in all probability,
be bleaker and more loveless
than it would be if she were not physically handicapped.
But a more disadvantaged hardly means a completely
disadvantaged
life--unless
Mary chooses,
by her crazy thinking,
to make it so. Actually,
there are a few attractive males who might actually
like her because she is scarred; and there are many
others who could come to like her in spite of her
scarring. But if she piously believes that she must
lose all suitable male companionship because many
or most males would reject her physiognomy, she
is just as insanely religious as the person who believes that she must roast in hell because she was
never baptized.
If, then, Mary keeps upsetting herself about her
unfortunate
scarring (instead of feeling sorry or
sad about it but still managing to live fairly successfully with it), she is awfulizing and demonizing
enormously--and awfulizing and demonizing are the
essence of just about all kinds of severe emotional
disturbance. She is not only lamenting some of the
conditions of her existence but pietistically demanding that because they are unpleasant they must
not exist. She is consequently winding up by feeling
self-pitying and depressed.
The other main source of Mary's depression is

Page 11

her self-castigation--which
is also pure magic. For,
knowing that she herself has shirked at her schooling
and at her career, she is telling herself Beliefs like
these: "How terrible it is that I dropped out of
school and stupidly
didn't get the degrees that
would have enabled me to get into a more enjoyable career! What a worm I am for acting so
weakly and idiotically!
I'll never be able to forgive
myself for this shirking!"
These are all religious,
unempirically validateable statements because:
1. It is hardly terrible (full of terror) that Mary
copped out on her schooling. At most, again, it
is merely extremely inconvenient or handicapping.
But by calling her acts terrible, she doesn't really
mean that they are unusually self-defeating. She
means that they are more than that; that they
have some immanent
shouldness or should-notness about them.
She means, for example, "Because I could have
finished college, I should have done so; and because
I didn't do what I should, that is terrible!"
But,
as noted above, there are, scientifically, no ineffable
shoulds or should-nots
in the universe. Mary is
completely
inventing them in her head. And she
is thereby
needlessly making herself self-hating
and depressed.
2. Mary is palpably not a worm for acting so
weakly and idiotically.
Even though her actions
may be wormy, it is an arrant overgeneralization
to conclude that she, in toto, is a worm. For a
worm could never do anything unwormily;
and
Mary is a human who can act wormily today and
non-wormily
tomorrow.
Hence she can never accurately be designated as a worm (or a weakling,
or an idiot, or an anything else.)
Moreover, when she calls herself a worm, Mary
really means that she is subhuman--much
worse
a creature than all other humans and hence undeserving of human kindness and human relationships. But no human, obviously, is subhuman, just
as no human is superhuman. Humans can only be
human; and if they were truly, thoroughgoingly
atheistic (or humanistic in the sense that members
of the American
Humanistic
Association
are),
they would clearly see that, and never categorize
themselves in any subhuman ways. Humans cannot
be worms, lice, rats, vermin, slobs, shits, no-goodniks, or any other entity that even mildly implies
that they are less than human. They are always
(as far as we scientifically
know) human and (as
Nietzsche said) all too human. That is to say, they
are always fallible, error-prone, liable to be weak,
and imperfect.
When Mary condemns herself as a worm, she
really means that she should be perfect: should
not have human failings (or, at least, important
ones like goofing at college.) She should, in other
words, be goddess-like. All humans who condemn
themselves are really demanding that they be near-

Page 12

perfect and be able, in heaven, to sit on the right

hand side of god. They are, actually, damning
themselves
and
putting
themselves
into
hell.
For that is what self-condemnation
(as opposed
to condemning one or more of one's traits) really
is: and insistence that one not have weaknesses
and stupidities
and a thorough putting down of
one's entire self, one's being, for actually having
such failings.
All feelings of inadequacy,
insecurity,
worthlessness, "slobhood,"
inferiority,
etc. are really
forms of self-malediction
and are magical, religious
concepts. If one were a true atheist, one would
never condemn or excoriate one's self for anything.
One would merely negatively assess one's traits,
deeds, acts, or performances (which are aspects
of one's being but never one's total being) and
work to change those traits for the better.
3. When Mary says that she will never be able to
forgive herself for her own shirking, she is of course
again being devoutly religious. She is really believing
that since god and the universe are sadistic enough
to eternally condemn her (roast her in hell) for her
own poorly chosen behavior, she must follow their
all-encompassing
dictates and eternally
condemn
herself. This is a completely unvalidateable hypothesis, for which she could never get confirmatory
or disconfirmatory
evidence and yet she piously
clings to it. If she were truly an empiricist or an
atheist, how could she possibly believe such hogwash?
I n many ways, then, Mary is concertedly making
herself emotionally
disturbed by her true believerism: her inventing devils (herself, her father, the
conditions
of her life) and gods (her idealized
image of herself and the ineffable fates that should
make things go perfectly well in the world.) This,
I hypothesize, is what all people with emotional
disturbances do. They simply refuse to stick with
real ity--that
is, the way th ings actually are and
the way that, with considerable time and effort
they cou Id possibly or probably change them for
the better--and they constantly
deify or devil ify
themselves
or others.
Consequently,
they
frequently whine about unpleasant reality instead of
working hard to change it or gracefully accepting
it the way it is.
Virtually
all emotional disorder, in other words,
stems from demanding and awfulizing. You demand
that you act unusually well and competently--and
awfulize about and down yourself when you don't.
You demand that others act fairly and intelligently
--and awfulize about and damn them when they
don't. You demand that the world be exceptionally
easv and pleasant--and awfulize about and. whine
about it when it isn't. But both demanding and
awfulizing are palpable religious, grandiose attitudes.
They are childish,
authoritarian,
and Jehovian.
Scratch a person who is truly disturbed and you

American Atheist

invariably find a whiney little tin god.

The solution?
More detailed and complicated
than I can outline in this brief essay. Details on
rational-emotive
therapy, which I have used for
many years to solve this problem and which is
now successfully used by many other therapists
here and abroad, are again to be found in my various
other writings. Let me just briefly say here that if
you want to relieve yourself
of your needless
emotional disturbances and even temporary upsets,
you can fairly quickly do so by fully recognizing
the religious elements that you employed to create
it, by empirically
and logically tackling these elements, and by truly giving them up.
Thus, in the illustration used above, Mary could
overcome her depression by vigorously and repeatedly asking herself a series of incisive logico-empirical questions and steadfastly thinking
about
them until she came up with the fairly obvious
atheistic answers. Thus:
"Why is it awful that my father scarred me and
helped ruin my entire life?" Answer: "It isn't! It's
exceptionally
inconvenient
for me to be handicapped in this manner, especially in my society
which overemphasizes facial beauty. But it's only
frustrating
and handicapping,
never awful;
and
it will hardly ruin my entire life if I realize this."
"Where is the evidence that I can't stand my
father and society
having done this to me?"
Answer:
"There
isn't
any such evidence. Of
course, I can stand it, though I'll never like it. I
can stand virtually
anything
except intractable,
prolonged physical pain; and I only can't stand
this kind of handicap if I think I can't."
"Why
shouldn't
my father
have done this
horrible thing to me?" Answer: "It's not a horrible thing, only a disadvantage. And there's no
reason whatsoever why he should not have disadvantaged me in this manner, even though it would
have been much better had he not!"
"Does my life always have to be completely
bleak and loveless because of what has happened
to me?" Answer: "Of course not! It well may not
be as happy as I would like it to be, and as it
theoretically
might have been under other conditions. But it still can have a great deal of joy
and love in it. Now how the hell do I arrange to
get this kind of joy and love?"
"Why is it terrible that I dropped out of school
and stupidly
didn't
get into a better career?"
Answer: "It isn't. It is foolish of me to have acted
that way. It has led to poor results. But it isn't
terrible, horrible, or awful. Just too damned bad!"
"I n what way am I a worm for acting so weakly
and idiotically?"
Answer: "In no way! However
wormy my acts may be, I am never a worm for
doing them. Now, how can I manage to stop damning
myself for my poor behavior and look to rectifying
that behavior in the future?"

"Why can't I forgive myself for my shirking?"

Answer: "I can! I can always forgive myself for
anything I do, even though I'd better admit that
many of my doings are stupid and self-defeating.
But condemning me, my entire person, for these
acts will only lead to more stupidity and self-defeatism!"
If you, then, want to stop being disturbed, you'd
better first accept yourself with your disturbances
and stop damning yourself for having them. You
can then get rid of your shoulds, oughts, musts,
and demands that lie behind the disturbances, and
can gradually develop a philosophy that fully accepts uncertainty
and fallibility.
In this way, you
will not only be able to get over your current emotional upsets; but you will eventually automatically
deal with things, events, and people in an antiawfulizing
manner and refuse to upset yourself
about new,
unpleasant and unfortunate
circumstances as they arise.
As I point out in my book, "Executive Leadership: A Rational Approach,"
the two words that
you consistently
tell yourself
to' make yourself
disturbed
about almost anything
that arises in
your life are, "It's awful!"
or the common variations on this theme: "How horrible!"
"My God!"
"It's
terrible!"
or "How
catastrophic!"
If you
can consistently
replace these terribilizing
with
two other words, "Tough
shit!"
and basically
keep believing that there isn't anything
in the
universe that
is more than too damned bad,
very
inconvenient,
or highly
unfortunate,
you
will then frequently feel sorry, sad, and frustrated
--but rarely terrible or horrible. When you begin
reach ing th is point, you are then a true real ist,
empiricist, or atheist. Th is is a rough road for a
human to steadily follow.
But most atheistically
rewarding!

ARE THERE MORE6AO fEOf'Le

IN THE WORLDJ..OR ME 1HeRf
MORe GOOv PEOPLE?

, WHO 1~1'OSA't'?WHO 1$
I 'TO SAC(WHOI~ 6AO
O~ WHO IS GOOD?

~
!
,

"

:,

'*

-"

----':'

ON OUR WAY
Ignatz sahula-dyeke
The Cost of Freedom
The religionists of today are heard intoning the same siren
song as in the days following World War I, that freedom,
peace, progress, and improvement in the human condition
all await our making American education basically religious.
Were we to follow their advice it would mean that we
would be letting them, and not our own consciences, guide
us. But above all, this means that in more than 50 years of
eventful history these "advisors" haven't learned very much
from the cataclysmic war that followed the first one, nor
from the tragic adventure of recent memory in Vietnam.
And to think that people once thought that Irving's tale
about old Rip who slept a mere 20 years was unbelievable!
Hence it's no wonder that the advice of these "seers" hasn't
got everyone kneeling and groveling as of old.
These bumbling visionaries are so blinded by their dazzling dogmas, they can't see that the people they long bullied,
now using common sense, are seeing the big difference between a paradise promised, and one delivered--are thinking
less and less of the promise, and more and more about a
heaven here and now. The clerics are slipping, or they'd
do better than try to have us believe that religious education
and intellectual growth are one and the same--anidea far
short of the fantastic trinity they invented.

Intellectual

Paralysis

Minds like theirs, occupied with supernaturalistic fantasies

and dogmas, deject me; and make me wonder where today
they'd take us if we permitted them to lead. I feel sure that
on the basis of past performance they'd do as before, and
try to conduct into intellectual paralysis as many people as
possible who learned no better than to trust the fable that
life without religious education is devoid of purpose.
Well, has any religiously rooted educational process ever
been anything but constrictive and stagnating? Can any
process thus circumscribed be depended on to liberate and
amplify anyone's potentiality for mental creativeness? After
all, it must be remembered that the essentially negativeoutlook which these profit-conscious "mentors" recommend
isn't altruistic. It started out as a codification of taboos
devised for uniting a talented and ambitious people demoralized by centuries of escaping from genocide--a code glowing
with promises of Elohistic favoritism which dissuaded them
from self-demeaning despondency.
Today's Judeo-Christian
ecclesiasticism threatens with
perdition all who won't kowtow before its dogmas. A mixture of bluff, homily and bluster, it is the world's richest
beggar and its most expert business; two-faced and designing,
it sides with the powerful while praising humility; it entreats
those least privileged to suffer patiently dire wants and cruel
oppressors, though ranting about its compassionate and just
"God"; haughty and proud, it lauds truth but itself lies.
It is sadly unworthy of loyalty and trust.
Thoughts like these possibly occurred to the Israelite
clans who, after their deportation from Assyria by Sargon II,
scattered over the desert sands of Araby and Sinai until

Nebuchadnezzar repatriated them to Babylon, a part of

their numbers escaping from his kind of enslavement to
that of Egypt. Not the religion but their misery united
them. However, never forgetting the green strip of Judah
and Israel's Jordan valley which in their centuries of roaming
they discovered, they returned to it and to the life described
in biblical tales and anecdotes.
Throughout the Bible these anecdotes repeatedly tell
us that the human creature is sinful, evil-minded, revengeful, and awaiting a Messiah, a Christ, who is to come and
"redeem" it. Hence it's no mystery whence today's parents
have got the idea that their progeny needs "cleansing" by
baptism as the one right way of starting the offspring's
rearing and education.
The cleric never fails to abet the parents in this, ever
reminding everyone that baptism is vitally important--that
the Bible confirms it as the first of the "saving" steps the
human takes toward heaven. He, of course, does not tell
anyone that without this procedure the foibles of religion
wouldn't be lastingly transferred from generation to generation.
Just because something was imitated, and reimitated,
for many centuries, doesn't mean that it is irrevocably
right. One of life's subtle jokes is that there are two ways
of going about anything: the right way, .and also the wrong.
And still more wry is that the way called right very often
turns out as wrong--and the majority approves of it. And
let's not forget the many times when something deemed
right was scorned to begin with, it later was praised.
It is consequently inescapable that majority opinion at any
given time decides-but only for the time being--who or what
is right. There never was nor ever can be, absolute right nor
absolute wrong. So long as life exists thine will be no final
answers to anything whatever. At the present time more
people call religion absolutely right because these, who don't
know how religions evolved, outnumber those who do know.
The trend to atheism and agnosticism is a positive sign
that people are becoming aware that Christian itv, after 17
centuries of acceptance and activity, actually complicated
the life that during all those years it was supposed to simplify, and that now it is of but little value to the new generations who must devise ways to correct the ills bred by our
hypermechanized century.
Priestly exhortations that ptayers to some god will repair such damage are being roundly ignored by those who
know that this will take intensive work, preceded by thinking
--by planning for its efficiency. We who designate ourselves
as American Atheists are in this committed to guidance by
the doctrine of human rights proclaimed in the Declaration
of Independence and our Constitution's Bill of Rights.
The Christians think they deride the Atheists in calling
them godless. But Atheists gladly admit to living a godless
existence, seeing how viciously religions misadvise people
to trust that the specter called "god," and not the people's
resolute use of their intelligence, will take care of all and
sundry that annoys them.
So, the superstitious folk who today support the reli-

gions are uselessly doing whatever told by their pastor to do,

and not in vain are called his "flock of sheep." Pushed into it
by their fear of their god's retribution,
they're really being
tyrannized
into it less excusably than when it was done in
the same way to the far less informed people of ancient times.
It happens now, and always will, whenever anyone permits
his or her self-reliance to be eroded by an addiction to wishfulness. The harm in this isn't in the fantasizing
(imaginativeness is a mental trait to be prized). but in the mind's confinement by fear to a supernatural
milieu wherein mere fantasies
are worshipped,
the living world ignored, and punishment
inflicted for disobedience.
A situation
such as this puts an end to free thinking,
and isolates the freethinker
as an enviable person whom
the prejudiced
believer
tends to deride.
But why? The
believers
didn't
originate
the concepts
of their religion;
they are told to worship
what long ago their religion's
founders
lined up for them: all of it lined up unilaterally,
dictatorially.
Nor do the believers have to do this; they could
be as free as the winds had religion not taken away from
them
the instinctive
desire
for freedom,
that
in every
human mind dispels all spectral fears: the desire which, I
take it, somehow
made man into the creature
he thinks
he is.
When man's
yearning
for freedom--both
physical
and
mental--inspires
him, he becomes the creature that his every
fiber impels him to be. Christianity,
as well as the world's
other theistic
religions, planted
a veritable
forest of misconceptions
about
life:
misconceptions
out
of whose
shadows we of the human race of today still haven't found
our way into the sunlit expanse of meadowland
where for
everyone
exists the challenging
goal that enables
us to
think of existence as something meaningful.
Will-o'-the-wisp
or not, to reach one's
goal involves
skinned shins, tired feet, and often enough a badly torn
hide. So what!
the attainment
of nearly anything
of
consequence
was ever opposed
tooth
and nail by traditionally
respected
beliefs
of unthinking
men. Traditions
serve for good purpose,
not only for the satisfaction
of
defeating
them,
but also for protecting
mankind's
hardwon gains against collapse:
enabling
its thinking
creatures
to view with satisfaction
their animal progress from prehistoric
arboreal
life to the freedom
of self-government
by consent of the governed.
Then
what's
so objectionable
about
religions?
Well,
first of all, excepting a few nontheistic
religions, all of them
stand on a foundation
of fear, fear of the bogey they named
"god."
Next, they exist because, as soon in anyone's
life
as possible,
they persuade
the human earthling
that the
"god"
exists. And never the persuasion
by consent,
but
by the application
of pressure:
religious, social, or fiscal
(or any other) which at that time will serve religion's aim.
The religions talk endlessly about the brotherhood
of man,
but themselves
are wholly and blatantly
undemocratic.
Because everyone
of them is largely the result of only one
individual's
sanity--overwhelming
belief that he or she is
divinely chosen to lead others to his or her imagined "god"-not one of the religions ever presented
its taboos, dogmas,
or precepts
to prospective
believers for consideration,
approval, or acceptance
at a time before such tenets were made
public.
Religion, as such, comes ready-made. The excuse ordinarily
given for this intended
negligence
is that such commands
are a "god's" express orders. It's almost incredible that anyone in this enlightened
age could take such things seriously.
But it goes on, and at a time in which no governing body
would attempt to legalize any code, law, or ordinance with-

out consulting the people for whom intended. Anything done

without
the consent of the electorate
would nowadays
be
excoriated as unjust.
The clerical
disciplinarians
of Christianity's
trembling
victims
know full well that religions weren't
created
for
the people. It's the other way around:
the people for the
religions. And temples, cathedrals,
and chapels? The fabled
and much maligned
carpenter's
son of Nazareth
attended
no churches.
He fought against them.
Ecclesiasticism
has
been around for a long time.
Nary a one of the people who've once experienced
the
relief or release from religious dogmatism
would ever return to such dire bondage of their intellect unless mentally
deranged.
My opinion is-besides-that once people have been
informed
about
religion's
way of impinging
on mankind,
they're
privileged
to "remain in the rut where driven, or
get out of it as opportuned.
It's intellectually
rewarding
to investigate
the very many torts and crimes that (now
becoming
generally
known)
gave impetus
to religion's
decline in recent decades.
Details of these happenings
are
to be found
in the literature
of preceding
centuries,
in
philosophical
tracts
and in monographs
by the world's
most eminent
intellectuals.
It takes a bit of digging, but
the resulting
insights are worth
the effort.
Too, it will
provide what no university
lecturer would even nowadays
dare to discuss except
in veiled terms.
Those who for
some reason might find this impossible
to undertake,
can
at least keep a sharp eye out for the religious
gentry
who will be seen moistening
a finger for testing whence
blows
the
wind--promising
theism
an easy
advantage
over the unthoughtful
and the gullible of our religionbeset humankind.

.-sp-O-E-M-S-----)
PROGRESS
The Christians do not kill as once they did.
The rack and flaming stake we now forbid.
The holy wars of yore are not the fashion.
Fanatic Christians must restrain their passion.
The times have changed since medieval days
When, unopposed, the priests pursued their ways.
THE LUNATIC
The Christian is a superstitious clod
Who tries, upon the world, to force his god.
If he no longer burns the heretic
It's not because he is less mentally sick.
It's just because the world is not so mad
As to allow his former burning fad.
THE FOLLOWERS OF INFALLIBILITY
Infallible all Roman Catholics are
Their lordly self-esteem no one can jar.
The pope is always right, and so are they,
For him they never, never disobey.

- Maxwell Morton

A loss of faith.

The decline of the Roman Catholic Empire

By Hubert de Santana

"I M~ 'SAY ,11-1 CHURCH I~ A lOT M~ LlVtLY -mAN IT USb}) TO BE

For most Canadian Catholics over 30, the
complex experience of Roman Catholicism remains fixed forever in the amber of
memory. From the cradle we were subjected to a system of intense indoctrination
and force-fed with religion until our souls
bulged like the livers of Strasbourg geese.
It was easy to understand why the Jesuitical boast "Give me a child of high faith to
the age of seven, and I have him for life"
was not made idly.
Very often the Church was not so much
a loving mother as a censorious spinster
aunt whose pronouncements, especially
on sex, made up a long litany of prohibitions. But the church also provided Catholics of the Forties and Fifties with sublime
theatre: rituals of majesty and mystery,
with priests in gorgeous gold-trimmed
vestments chanting Latin prayers and
hymns amid fuming censers of incense.
For those of us who served as altar boys,
surpliced and soutaned, it did not matter
one whit that beneath the rubric and the
rhetoric were pagan rites of sympathetic
magic. We were privileged to assist at the
miracle of transubstantiation-the
changing of bread and wine into the actual body
and blood of Jesus Christ. We mumbled
responses to prayers we couldn't hear in a
Page 16

language we didn't understand. The

Church gave us solace and sophistry, peace
and ignorance.
We all went to confession on Saturdays,
kneeling in the screened darkness of confession boxes, humbly telling our sins to a
priest who took the place of God. We went
to Mass and Communion on Sundays. We
yawned through sermons, and sweated
with terror during retreats, when priests
described for us the horrors of hell, a vast,
burning infernal sewer populated by demons endowed with suppurating bodies
and more teeth than the shark in Jaws. We
had our throats blessed on St. Blaise Day;
our foreheads daubed with ashes on Ash
Wednesday; we suffered through the Stations of the Cross on Good Friday, and rejoiced in the triumph of the Resurrection
on Easter Sunday.
The school kids got holidays when the
Protestants didn't; and we grew up eating
fish on Fridays because we'd go to hell if
we ate meat. We gathered for the family
rosary every evening, reciting our beads
before a shrine which contained statues
and relics of saints. And wore medals and
scapulars to ward off evil spirits. The walls
of our homes were embellished with crucifixes, and pictures of the Sacred Heart

UJ

1/

which showed Jesus holding in one hand a

flaming heart wreathed with thorns, with a
gash in its side from which blood oozed; a
cross protruded from the aorta. His free
hand was held up palm outward, like a policeman stopping traffic. These grotesque
and powerful icons held our imaginations
prisoner-splendor
and superstition had
an equal place in Catholicism. For some,
Catholicism was balm for the spirit; for
others it was more like napalm-tenacious
and destructive.
All that has changed and changed utterly. The Catholic Church, which 20 years
ago talked of its laity as the church militant, is now thrashing in the agony of the
church disillusioned. Canada's to million
Catholics today are engaged in a debate
with their church as never before.
It started with Pope John XXIII, who
threw open the windows with the second
Vatican Council. But the windows opened
on perilous seas, and with the light they
also let in a flood which carried away the
historical implants and traditional underpinnings of the Church. Suddenly there
were no more comfortable certainties.
There was instead a headlong questioning
of all the old verities, and many of them no
longer seemed veracious.
American

Atheist

1
f

In the 12 years since the council ended,

theless Humanae Vitae polarized Cathothe Church has sustained heavy casualties.
lics as no other encyclical has done before
or since. "I was horrified when I read it,"
There has been a steep decline in church
attendance. A Gallup survey showed that
says Greeley, "and I read it with an open
in 1965 83% of Canadian Catholics
mind. He [Paul VIllisted the reasons for
claimed weekly attendance at church; II
change and then dismissed them without
years later the figure was down to 55%. In
answering them." Greeley states flatly that
1975 a Gallup poll indicated that 67% of
the encyclical was "a misuse of papal
authority."
Catholics felt that religion was losing its influence on Canadian life. Seminary enrollThe opposite view is expressed by Anne
ment has fallen from 1,565 in 1962 to a
Roche, who spoke for thousands of conmere 195 in 1977, because of a continuing
servatives in her book The Gates Of Hell,
"crisis of vocations." In 1962 there were
which attacked liberals in terms of shrill
7,107 priests in Canada; today there are
hyperbole more usually associated with
her father-in-law, Malcolm Muggeridge.
5,414.0f these the largest segment(25.6%)
are between the ages of 55 and 64. Totally
She is a very formidable lady, a Newthere are 41,145 nuns in Canada, comfoundlander with dark flashing eyes and a
pared with 59,712 in 1960. Most of these
voice that can flake a listener's mastoid
bone. She is the sCQurgeofliberals, who reare middle-aged; those between 25 and
34 years make up only 5.2% of the total
fer to her as Attila the Nun. Roche writes of
number.
the Pope: "Conservatives love Pope Paul
The principal cause of all this turmoil
and pray for him; they would not be surprised to live to see him canonized because
has been identified by Andrew Greeley, a
priest-sociologist who is director ofthe Naof Humanae Vitae, when it has proven to
tiona I Opinion Research Centre at the
have been the last great gallant attempt to
University of Chicago. Last year Greeley
halt the destruction of Christian society."
A 1968survey showed that 94% ofCathpublished a.study called Catholic Schools
In A Declining Church, which was packed
olics in Toronto felt that the encyclical had
with scientific data that exploded like
not settled the matter of birth control; and
80% felt that they could practise conshrapnel among conservative Catholics. It
offered a cogent theory to explain the prestraception in good conscience.
ent chaos in the Church, and reinforced it
with detailed statistics. Greeley has
The Second Vatican Council was
emerged as one of the most outspoken and
opened by Pope John XXIII in October
1962 and was closed by Pope Paul VI in
important voices in the liberal ranks of the
Church; as an author and sociologist (his
December 1965, after four sessions. Vatilatest book is The Communal Catholic) he
can II was a watershed in the history of the
Church. Its ostensible purpose was exis popular and influential and, however
trying he may be to conservatives in his fapressed in the word aggiornamento: a
vorite role as ecclesiastical gadfly, he canbringing up to date. But what it
not be ignored.
amounted to was the tremendous
Intense and highly strung, Greeley does ':l
not mince his words; he is convinced that ~
the crisis was not caused by Vatican II, nor ~
was it the result of any long-term seculari- ;:
zation. It is the result of "the massive mistakes made after the council, most particularly with the birth control encyclical
Humonae Vitae." This controversial encyclical was issued by Paul VI in July 1968.
It forbade the world's 600 million Catholics to use any artificial methods of birth
control; it gave its approval only to the
rhythm method (mockingly dubbed "Vatican Roulette"). It moralized loftily about
"mastery of self," and spoke of the need
for "ascetical practices" and "periodic
continence." Predictably, the encyclical
was a disaster.
Moving to try and defuse an explosive
situation, Canadian bishops issued a humane and sympathetic statement on the
encyclical in September 1968. It did not
contradict the Pope on any point, but it assured Catholics who found it difficult to be
Pope P.uI: he decoying the Church,
bound by his decree that "whoever honor vlng", The current tunnoll 8&11.
estly chooses that course which seems right
geeta the tonner, but hlatory will Juclge
to him does so in good conscience." N ever-

Austin, Texas

task of bringing a medieval church into

the contemporary world, and it could not
be accomplished without a severe trauma.
The 16 documents that the council produced affirmed all the central teachings of
the Church, but they were informed with a
liberalism previously unknown in a
Church whose authoritarianism was legendary. The Declaration On Religious
Freedom stated that religious freedom was
a human right-an admission the Church
had never made before. Gaudium et Spes
declared, among other things, that the
Church cannot allow itself to remain uninvolved when human rights are trampled.
The council introduced liturgical reforms. The Latin Tridentine Mass, whose
form had been fixed by the Council of
Trent in 1570, was modified, and permission was given for the mass to be said in the
vernacular, though Latin remained the of-

Page 17

ficial language of the Church. A dialogue

on ecumenism was opened with Protestants. And Catholics were granted greater
freedom of conscience.
The council sought to dilute anti-Semitism which was one of the most deplorable
aspects of Christian teaching. Instead of
acknowledging,
and rejoicing in, the fact
that Christianity is an offshoot of Judaism,
Christian churches had for centuries made
ignorant assertions that the Jews were
guilty of the death of Jesus by insisting on
His execution. Pope Pius XII's silence during the holocaust and the help provided by
the Vatican to escaping Nazis at the end of
the war are hardly surprising in view of
this tradition of anti-Semitism.
The council's liberalism, and particularly its liturgical reforms, were strongly
condemned
by conservative
Catholics,
who bitterly mourned the passing of the
old magnificence and mystery set aside in
favor of simpler rites. In her book Anne
Roche describes the new Mass as "wall-towall noise, amplified by microphones and
urged on to greater heights by priests. You
get the irreverent
feeling
that you
are a member of a studio audience

"ttJ
"
~

if!

"",",
Pope John, In portrait and opening the
acumenleel Council In Rome In 1982: did
the wind of change become a hurricane?

Page 18

at

a give-away
television
show."
I recently attended a Mass at Our Lady
of the Airways Church in Mississauga, and
found the ceremony barely recognizable.
The glory and solemnity ,'"e gone; in their
place is a homely, informal service. The
words of hymns and prayers are projected
on a screen for benefit of those who don't
know them. The congregation
stands for
the elevation of the Host and the chalice,
instead of kneeling with bowed heads as in
the past. Communicants
also stand, and
may receive the Host in the harid if they so
wish. The sermon is now "a "homily," but
its effect seems to be the same-the
yawns
were as frequent and as cavernous as they
were during my youth. The walls were bare
except for large banners with such legends
as: Jesus Brings New Life; Start of a New
Beginning; The Fire of Life. Gone are the
Stations of the Cross, holy pictures and
statues.
Most young Catholics prefer the new liturgy, because it makes church services accessible and comprehensible.
"The new
Mass is more human and less boring," says
Wilma Cortelucci,
a 22-year-old
social
worker. "I can understand what's going on,
and I can take part more fully than I could
with the Latin Mass." But for an older generation of conservative Catholics, a cherished tradition was irrevocably lost in the
wake of Vatican II.
The most extreme example of resistance
to change has come from French Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre in Switzerland,
who stubbornly refuses to celebrate the
Tridentine Mass in defiance of the Vatican. Lefebvre hopes for a return to a pristine Church which will be free of "thieves,
mercenaries and wolves"; but he is fighting a losing battle, for insubordination
to
Rome is futile. Far from posing a serious
threat of schism in the Church, "l'affaire
Lefebvre" is little more than a me-dia
event, for the archbishop
has already
placed himself outside the Church, and the
numbers of his followers are insignificant
when compared
with the world's total
Catholic population.
The Catholic conservative today is like
the old Australian
aborigine
who was
given a new boomerang and spent the rest
of his life trying to throw the old oneaway.
The only thing to do is to drop it; but this is
something conservatives are unwilling to
do. Instead they complain of the psychological torture to which they are subjected
by a church that they feel has badly mistreated their sensibilities.
The Most Reverend
Emmett Carter,
Bishop of London, Ontario, is an authority
in the field of religious education and an
expert on liturgy. And as president of the
Canadian Conference
of Catholic Bishops, his word carries exceptional weight,
authority and influence. Carter unhesitatingly admits that the Catholic Church-in

American

Atheist

Canada is in trouble. But he carefully defines what he means by trouble. He explains that the Church is "incarnational"-Catholics
believe that God
revealed himself in and through a man.
Therefore the Church is inextricably
bound up with the human condition. Says
Carter: "The Catholic Church has always
been a church of the people, never a
church ofthe elite ... " Viewed from an historical perspective, Carter feels thai the
Church's present troubles are "nothing."
He claims that the crisis of the Church is
that of all mankind. Carter uses the word
temporality to characterize the man of
today, who has looked away from eternity
and is concerned only with things of the
moment: "He lives from one television
program to another; from one sexual experience to another; from one pay day to another; from one car or yacht to another.
The Church has to be troubled by this because it lives with man; and the people
who are in the Church are not divorced
from it.and mustn't be divorced from it."
Yet most of Canada's 10 million Catho-

lics (they constitute 47% of the population)

feel that there is not enough communication between the hierarchy and the laity.
This was borne out by Grant Maxwell's
study, Project Feedback, undertaken for
the social affairs department of the CCCB.
Maxwell proposed an experiment in social
journalism: he would explore and report
how a cross-section of Canadians at local'
levels felt about social goals, everyday life,
faith experiences, religious and civil leadership, and prospects for the 1980s.
Bishop Carter's assertion that the Catholic Church is a church of the people was
not supported by many of Maxwell's respondents. A random sampling of their advice to the hierarchy:
Western Canada: Community worker"In the first place, get out of the churches,
get down to the people and find out what
they want and what their needs are."
.
Quebec: Suburban homemaker-"Be
with the people-women,
blacks, the
weak. Be a church for all the people."
Widow-"I'd try to follow the simple ways
of Jesus. He was not complicated; Rome

complicated it. Jesus was with the people."

A tlantic Canada: Single parent"Come down to earth and get back with
the people."
Prayer and social action groups have
multiplied across the country like spores
on a petri dish. The most dynamic of these
is the Charismatic Renewal movement,
whose membership numbers hundreds of
thousands in Canada, and about five million in the United States. A Pentecostal
group which began in California in 1960,
its first members were Protestant. But it is
interdenominational, and today at least
half its members are Catholic. Last June,
eight bishops and 900 priests officiated at a
meeting of 45,000 Charismatics in Montreal's Olympic Stadium. It was a spectacular display of mass hysteria, with members
rolling their eyes in a fine frenzy, swaying
and chanting,
practising glossolalia
(speaking in tongues), while "cripples"
leapt from wheelchairs and proclaimed
themselves miraculously cured.
For the past decade birth control, abortion, divorce, priestly celibacy and the ordination of women priests have remained
the most contentious issues in the Church.
Anne Roche finds artificial birth control
hateful. and repugriant ("I wouldn't touch
the Pill with a barge pole!") and passionately defends the Church's stand on contraception. But she is a voice crying in the
wilderness. More than 90%oflay Catholics
I talked to were in favor of birth control,
and felt that the Church's ruling was callous, irrational and outdated. "I don't
think the Church ought to leave something
as important as children to chance," remarks Doreen Cardozo, a 48-year-old
homemaker and mother of six children.
Most Catholics endorse the Canadian
bishops' statement on abortion: "Respect
for life is a fundamental moral principle.
Direct abortion is a most grievous wrong
since it involves the ending of a developing
human life." At the same time many Catholics feel that exceptions should be made
in cases of rape or other special circumstances. "I don't believe that either the
Church or the government has the right to
dictate un abortion: it should be left up to
the individual," says Pirette Skrba, a 35year-old community centre project manager. "A 13-year-old girl who finds herself
pregnant may lack the physical, mental
and psychological capacity to go through
the process of having a baby; in such a case
an abortion should be granted, if she still
wants one after she's had sympathetic
counseling."
"One of the great crimes of the Catholic
Church was its implacable stand on divorce: making people stay together when
they absolutely hated and despised each
other," said novelist Brian Moore recently
in Maclean's. Most Catholics agree with
Moore, though annulments are being

Page 19

Austin, Texas

granted with increasing frequency. ~

sists that these losses should be considered
Requests for annulments (a formal declar- ~
on a qualitative rather than on a quanation by the Church that because of some
titative basis. "If people have suddenly
lack of capacity, intention or impediment, ~
stopped going to church because there is
a true marriage never existed) pour stead- (5
no longer any social pressure to do so, then
ily into the offices of the eight Catholic
they didn't have very good reason for gomarriage tribunals in Canada. A Catholic
ing in the first place. So those who are gowho is granted an annulment can then obing to church now will be better Catholics
tain a civil divorce and remarry with the
because they're going out of conviction."
Church's blessing.
For some Catholics, the decision to drop
The drastic drop in seminary enrollment
out of the Church is a painful one. They do
is directly linked to the Church's insistence
not slip out of their religion with the ease of
that celibacy be mandatory for Catholic
a snake sloughing off a second skin. It is a
priests. The 1971 World Synod of Bishops
wrenching, agonizing experience which
decided against the abolition of celibacy
can leave a lapsed Catholic with lasting
for priests and this decision was reiterated
bitterness and disillusionment.
by Paul VI last March. In a society that puts
But the Church is resilient and durable
a heavy emphasis on sex, it is not easy for a
and has survived many crises in its long
young man to make a lifetime commithistory. Whether it will emerge from the
ment to celibacy, whereas a generation ago
present one strong and revitalized depends
it was considered an honor to try. Besides,
upon its ability and willingness to evolve
many lay Catholics feel that celibacy is
and adapt itself to the needs of a rapidly
emotionally dysfunctional, and prevents a
Gr ley: all wrong road.lelld to Rome
changing society. In its present anemic
priest from having any understanding or
state the Church cannot afford another
insight into problems of sexual intimacy.
the way of any further unity between the
decade of continuous hemorrhage. As it is,
The Church's thousand-year-old ban on
Roman and the Anglican churches. A solid
only massive transfusions of faith from a
women priests was upheld in January of majority (71 %) of Canadian Catholics
new generation of Catholics can restore it
this year. A declaration issued by the Vati- would accept women priests.
to anything like its former state' of health.
can's Congregation for the Doctrine of the
What is the future of the Church in CanBut it has first to win back the confidence of
Faith explained that "the Church, in fidel- ada? It is unlikely that the Church is on the
those under 30. And the way to do it is to
ity to the example of the Lord. does not verge of a religious renaissance; what is intalk less and listen more to what the people
consider herself authorized to admit
disputable is that the Church as an instituare saying. If the Catholic Church goes on
women to the priestly ordination."
tion is in very bad shape. with an unreturnwillfully ignoring the wishes of its people,
Apart from alienating its women meming army of clergy and laity marching away
it will wake one day to find itself addressbers. this ruling places a stumbling block in from worship and belief. Bishop Carter ining empty pews and ears of stone.
Reprinted by permission from "Maclean's" magazine, September 1977 issue.

SHIBLES' CORNER
wrarren shihles
Twain on Death
In his 1974 book entitled "Death," Dr. Shibles
opens his lengthy discussion of "The Funeral Industry"
with Mark Twain's hilarious "Art of Inhumation."
Because Mark Twain is the subject
of this month's American Atheist Radio Series,
we have decided to reprint this delightful satire.

The Art of Inhumation

I encountered
a man in the street whom I had not seen
for six or seven years: and something like this talk followed.
I said:
"But you used to look sad and oldish: you don't now.
Where did you get all this youth and bubbling cheerfulness?
Give me the address."
He chuckled
blithely, took off his shining tile, pointed
to a notched
pink circlet of paper pasted into its crown,

Page 20

with something
lettered on it, and went on chuckling while
I read, "J. B.,
UNDERTAKER."
Then he clapped his hat
on, gave it an irreverent tilt to leeward, and cried out:
"That's what's the matter! It used to be rough times with
me when you knew me--insurance-agency
business, you know:
mighty irregular.
Big fire, all right--brisk trade for ten days
while people scared: after that, dull policy-business
till next
fire. Town like this don't have fires often enough--a fellow
strikes so many dull weeks in a row that he gets discouraged.
But you bet you, this is the business! People don't wait for
example to die. No, sir, they drop off right along--there ain't
any dull spots in the undertaker
line. I just started in with
two or three little old coffins and a hired hearse, and now
look at the thing I I've worked up a business here that would
satisfy any man, don't care who he is. Five years ago, lodged
in an attic; live in a swell house now, with a mansard roof,
and all the modern inconveniences."
"Does a coffin pay so well? Is there much profit on a
coffin?"

American

Atheist

"Go-way!
How you talk!"
Then, with a confidential
wink, a dropping
of the voice, and an impressive laying of
his hand on my arm: "Look here; there's one thing in this
world which isn't ever cheap. That's a coffin. There's one
thing in this world which a person don't ever try to jew you
down on. That's a coffin. There's one thing in this world
which a person don't sav-I'H look around a little, and if I
find I can't do better I'll come back and take it. That's a
coffin.
There's
one thing in this world which a person
won't take in pine if he can go walnut; and won't take in
walnut if he can go mahogany; and won't take in mahogany
if he can go an iron casket with silver door-plate
and bronze
handles. That's a coffin. And there's one thing in this world
which you don't have to worry around after a person to
get him to pay for. And that's a coffin. Undertaking?
-why it's the dead-surest
business
in Christendom,
and
the nobbiest.
"Why, just look at it. A rich man won't have anything
but the very best; and you can just pile it on, too--pile it
on and sock it to him--he won't ever holler. And you take
in a poor man, and if you work him right he'll bust himself on
a single lay-out. Or especially a woman. F'r instance; Mrs. 0'
Flaherty
comes in,--widow,--wiping
her eyes and kind of
moaning. Unhandkerchiefs
one eye, bats it around tearfully
over the stock; says:
" 'And fhat might ye ask for that wan?'
"'Thirty-nine
dollars, madam,' says I.
" 'It's a foine big price, sure, but Pat shall be buried like
a gintleman,
as he was, if I have to work me fingers off for
it. I'll have that wan, sor.'
" 'Yes, madam,'
says I. 'and it is a very good one, too;
not costly, to be sure, but in this life we must cut our garment to our clothes, as the saying is.' And as she starts out,
I heave in, kind of casually. 'This one with the white satin
lining is a beauty,
but I am afraid--well,
sixty-five dollars
is a rather--rather--but
no matter.
I felt obliged to say to
Mrs. O'Shaughnessy--'
" 'D'ye mane to soy that Bridget O'Shaughnessy
bought
the mate to that joo-ul box to ship that dhrunken
divil to
Purgatory in?'
" 'Yes, madam.'
" 'Then Pat shall go to heaven in the twin to it, if it takes
the last rap the O'Flahertys
can raise; and moind you, stick.
on some extras, too, and I'll give ye another dollar.'
"And as I lay in with the livery stables, of course I don't
forget to mention that Mrs. O'Shaughnessy
hired fifty-four
dollars' worth of hacks and flung as much style into Dennis'
funeral as if he had been a duke or an assassin. And of course
she sails in and goes to O'Shaughnessy
about four hacks
and an omnibus better. That used to be, but that's all played
now; that is, in this particular
town. The Irish got to piling
up hacks so, on their funerals, that a funeral left them ragged
and hungry for two years afterward;
so the priest pitched
in and broke it all up. He don't allow them to have but two
hacks now, and sometimes only one."
"WelL" said I. "If you are so light-hearted
and jolly in
ordinary times, what must you be in an epidemic?"
He shook his head.
"No, you're off, there. We don't like to see an epidemic.
An epidemic don't pay. Well, of course I don't mean that,
exactly; but it dori't pay in proportion
to the regular thing.
Don't it occur to you why?"
"No.
"Think."
"I can't imagine. What is it?"
"It's just two things."
II

"Well, what are they?"

"One's Embamming."
"And what's the other?"
"Ice.
"How is that?"
"Well, in ordinary
times, a person dies, and we lay him
up in ice; one day, two days, maybe three, to wait for friends
to come. Takes a lot of it-melts fast. We charge jewelry rates
for the ice, and war prices for attendance.
Well, don't you
know, when there's an epidemic, they rush 'em to the cemetery the minute the breath's
out. No market for ice in an
epidemic. Same with Embamming.
You take a family that's
able to embam, and you've got a soft thing. You can mention
sixteen different
ways to do it,--though
there ain't only one
or two ways, when you come down to the bottom facts of
it,--and they'll take the highest-priced
way, every time. It's
human nature--human
nature in grief. It don't reason, you
see. Time being, it don't care a d----n. All it wants is physical immortality
for deceased,
and they're
willing to pay
for it. All you've got to do is to just be ca'm and stack it
up--they'll
stand the racket. Why, man, you can take a defunct that you couldn't give away; and get your embamming
traps around you and go to work; and in a couple of hours
he is worth
a cool six hundred--that's
what he's worth.
There ain't anything equal to it but trading rats for di'monds
in time of famine. Well, don't
you see, when there's an
epidemic,
people don't
wait to embam.
No, indeed they
don't; and it hurts the business like hellth, as we say--hurts
it like hell-th, health, see?--our little joke in the trade. Well,
I must be going. Give me a call whenever
you need any-I mean, when you're going by, some time."
In his joyful high spirits, he did the exaggerating
himself, if any had been done. I have not enlarged on him.
With the above brief references
to inhumation,
let us
leave the subject.
As for me, I hope to be cremated.
I
made that remark to my pastor once, who said, with what
he seemed to think was an impressive manner:
"I wou Idn 't worry about that, if I had your chances."
Much he knew about it-the family all so opposed to it.
II

Ziggy

=
GoD CReATl!DMeJUSTSO
~e c.oULD HAVe ANOTHeR.
-rA'" t>eDUCTioN I,

SOMeTiMes ;

LfGOrn ~lliJ[1
Just A Case
Of Bad Breath
I have a well-developed imagination, which probably is why
most of my literary endeavors
are science fiction, and why until about six years ago most of
my reading was science fiction.
(I altered my reading habits
necessarily when I realized I
was terribly
lacking in intellectual
excellence.
Now
my
main reading activities are history,
philosophy,
theology,
and science.)
One aspect of my active
imagination
is that
sometimes
dream
with
such
a
sharp imitation
of reality that
I wake up as confused as I
would
be if magically transferred to a different
planet.
I actually
go through
several
seconds absolutely
befuddled
that I could be torn from such
"reality."
Then it passes, and
I am only amazed at the ability of my mind to produce
such incredible fictions.
My
grandfather
died
in
1972, and sometimes he appears in my nocturnal dramas
with a presence as real seeming
as when we were together when
he was alive. When I wake up
and "Iose"
him again, I feel
some of the sadness I felt when
he died just as I feel sadness
whenever I have waking memories of him. He was a good
human
being, well
worth
a
tribute of sadness.
I know today
my dreams
are
not
other-world
experiences,
but
only
fictions
created like I create fictions
on paper; the only difference
is I have no conscious control
over my dreams. I also know
my
grandfather
has
never
visited me during my waking
memories.
The
memories
I
recall when
awake are the
materials used to give me my
grandfather
in
my
dreams.
I know
this because I'm a

Page 22

By G Richard Bozarth
member of 20th century A.D.
civil ization.
But what if I was a member of
20,000
B.C. savagery? What
would
my dreams about my
dead grandfather
mean to me
then? All I could conclude is
that somehow
I managed to
travel to the land where my
dead grandfather went after he
died. I would
know he lives
after death because I saw him,
recognized him, and spoke with
him. I would know it was me
who went there because I was
aware of myself
there,
just
like I am aware of myself when
I'm awake.
What of me went? "1" went.
I would
know this. But my
body didn't
go. It remained,
as anyone
who
was awake
where
I was sleeping could
tell me. But "1" still went.
And
I saw my grandfather,
whom
I helped
bury,
so I
know
h is body did not go
anywhere, either, after death.
But
"1" went, and his "1"
met me!
What, then, is the "1" that
went?
The conclusion
could
not possibly be the one I came
to as a 20th centu ry A. D.
human.
The only
conclusion
possible to me as a 20,000
B.C. human
is that concept
we call "soul."
That is, I live
in my body the way I live
in my
hut
or cave-within.
part
of,
but not necessarily
permanently,
and capable of
departure and return.
The soul would also be an
excellent
box
in which
to
stuff
all the perplexing
phenomena
of
human
mental
life:
memory,
intelligence,
emotions,
desires,
dreams,
and
all
the
complex
capabilities
we
humans
possess.
As William James observed in

"The Principles of Psychology":

"The
most natural
and consequently
the earliest way of
unifying
the
material
was,
first, to classify it as well as
might
be, and, secondly,
to
affiliate
the
diverse
mental
modes
thus
found,
upon
a
simple entity, the personal soul,
of wh ich they are taken to be
so many
facultative
manifestations."
What is this soul, this simple
entity that can go to the land
of the dead and have talks with
dead grandfathers?
"The basic
connotation
of soul in ancient
and primitive societies was life.
Soul is -the life of the body.
Life,
breath,
and movement
come from the soul. At death
the soul leaves the body, and
all
bodily
processes cease."
(Encyclopedia
Britannica,
Micropedia,
Vol. 9, pg. 363)
Life
and movement
sound
reasonable-but
breath!
Certainly.
To the 20,000
B.C.
human
one
thing
could
be
positively
proven:
the
living
breathe,
the
dead
don't.
Certainly
breath,
then,
is
the most logical candidate for
the
position
of
the
soul.
(Blood was another candidate,
but had a hard campaign because one
can die without
losing
a
drop
of
blood.)
Certain
primitive
peoples
have considered there are two
dangers one must guard against
to prevent soul loss: when one
sleeps (grandpa
might
desire
one's
company
permanently)
and when one sneezes or yawns.
To say "god bless you" to a
person who sneezes is a charm
to prevent soul loss.
Sout as breath is a common
feature of the three societies
(Hebrew,
Greek, Roman) that
our civilization
in the West
has its roots
in. In "Count
Chesterfield's
Ears,"
Voltaire

American

Atheist

informs us: "Among the Greeks

they
said: respiration
is the
soul.
This
respiration
is a
breath. The Lati ns translated
the word breath by "spiritus";
whence
the word
that
corresponds to 'spirit'
among almost all modern nations."
Two hundred years has not
altered Voltaire's conclusion. In
"The Subtlest Difference"("Fantasy & Science Fiction,"
Oct.
77), Isaac Asimov writes, "The
word 'breath' would be 'ruakh'
in Hebrew, and that is usually
translated as 'spirit.'
It seems
a great stretch from
'breath'
to 'spirit,'
but that is not so
at all. The two words are literally
the
same. The
Latin
'spirare'
means 'to
breathe,'
and 'spiritus'
is 'a breath.'
The
Greek
word
'pneuma,'
which
means
'breath,'
is
also used to refer to 'spirit.'
And the word 'ghost' is derived
from
an old
English
word meaning 'breath.' "
So,
when
one
knows
th is, then reads in Acts that
at
Pentecost
the
apostles
"were
all
filled
with
the
holy spirit"
(2:4), one wonders if god used Scope or
Listerine
before
he
administered artificial respiration.
Now one might think that
humanity has arrived at a common understanding
about the
nature of the soul, being as
the ancients seemed reasonably
certain that breath was soul.
Not even close! Humans are
thinking beings. It is what we
do best. Give thinking
beings
a concept like the soul, and
even if they all start at a common point
(soul is breath),
by the time it takes to write
a book, nothing is left common
between them except the original term--sou I.
If you
study
the ancient
Hebrews and Greeks, you will
learn that the body and soul
are so thoroughly
one that,
although the soul survives the
body, it leads a pale, attenuated,
empty,
shadowy
existence
in
"sheol"
(Hebrew) or "hades"

Austin, Texas

(Greek). If, however, you become a student of Plato or

Plotinus,
you
will
learn
the soul is a pure and eternal
element that leads a pale, attenuated existence in the body,
attaining full perfect glory only
after death.
The
Orphics,
Hindus,
and
Buddhists
will
say that's
a
no-no unless you agree that
prior to the death that attains
perfection,
the soul has gone
through a series of reincarnations
that is escaped only by finally
attaining moral, intellectual, or
spiritual perfection. If you don't
like that, you can try the Talmudic Jews and Christians, who
teach that on the final day
all souls will be reunited with
the earthly
bodies they
had
inhabited
in life.
Talk with
a shaman
or
a spiritualist
medium,
and you'll
discover

death
isn't
at all necessary
to allow the soul to exit the
body--it
can do it
in life,
and even do
errands!
(But
would
it go to the market
for
you
on a rainy
day?)
Islam
isn't
satisfied
with
one soul--it must have three!
They teach that humans have
inside them
an animal soul,
a rational soul, and a pertinent
soul.
What
began
so
simply
(soul
is breath)
has become
a
confusion.
One
suspects
theology
is
hyperventilating,
and in an endeavor to ease
its stress, one might
try
another
question.
Where does
the soul reside in the body?
If we have this entity
in us,
it must be somewhere.
Where? The soul has been
"located
in the heart, blood,
liver,
or almost
any
bodily

Internationally known Indian Atheist GORA was a lecturer and headed

the botany departments of several universities in Sri Lanka and India prior
to his death at age 68 in 1975. Along with Dr. Madalyn O'Heir, he organized
the first World Atheist Conference in 1972 at the Atheist Centre in
Vijayawada, India.
The following insightful experience is from GORA's book entitled "1
Learn," which is a compilation of articles he wrote for the monthly magazine he edited called "The Atheist."

Illd Habits Die Hard

A sturdy, stalwart gentlemen

rushed into my hut where I was engaged
in reading a book. He burst out with the question,
"Where is GORA?"
He bore distinct
marks and symbols
of orthodox
religious faith. Evidently he was prepared for physical combat if it was necessary.
"Why?" I asked.
"I hear he is an atheist. Sheer stupidity!
I want to argue with him and
cure him of his foolishness."
He talked rapidly in excitement.
I was very cool. Mildly I replied, "I am GORA. I admit defeat. Please
sit down."
"You are GORA!"
he exclaimed.
"You look meek. It seems you are
a militant atheist and you argue about atheism."
"Please sit down," I repeated.
He sat down. Half the battle was over.
I enquired
of his history and interests.
He was not a religious priest.
But he was a believer in a religious denomination.
He vehemently
refuted
all other denominations.
He did not take to his denomination
in adult
life after deliberation.
He W3S born to parents belonging to that denomination and was nurtured
in it. He observed the rituals of his denomination
with scrupulous
care. It seemed reasonable to him that he would have been
equally fanatical with another faith which he derided now, if he were born
and nurtured in that.
I, too, was born to parents of religious faith and was tutored in it. But
I opened my mind, scanned the traditional
ways and have taken to atheism
deliberately.
We spent an hour together.
I presented
him with some literature
on
atheism.
I have never met him again. Evidently
he started thinking on a
different line. Old habits die hard. Yet an open mind is the sure cure.

Page 23

part
or function."
(Encyclopedia
Britannica,
Micropedia,
Vol.
9, pg. 363) Oh, great!
Confusion
again.
Nobody
knows,
but
everybody
is
guessing,
and
passing
their
guesses off
as divine
truth.
When theologians
discuss the
soul,
the seeker after
truth
ends up asking with Voltaire,
"What
have they
not said?"
The obvious
conclusion
is
that the theologians
wouldn't
know a soul even if we had
one.
Particu larly
today,
because
no
theologian
would
dare suggest the original
concept, that
soul is breath,
is
true.
We know
what
breath
is now,
and there's
nothing
mystical
about
a lungful
of
gasses or the chemical
reactions of hemoglobin.
Deprived
of
breath
(and
blood,
the
other
candidate
which
has
had a loyal following
in its
day),
where
does that
leave
those
who
desire
to
still
have a soul?
They
still
have
mental
phenomena:
dreams,
memory,
intelligence, emotions,
instincts,
and so on. What was once
simply breath or blood is now
mind.
In "The
Principles
of
Human
Knowledge,"
George
Berkeley
redefines
the word
spirit, originally meaning breath,
as "only
that
which
thinks,
wills,
and
perceives."
And
this
thinking,
willing,
perceiving
entity
is eternal,
just
about
the only
thing
theologians will
agree on about
the soul.
If it is eternal,
then
the
soul
must
be
independent
of the flesh, which
is very
finite
and
mortal.
This
is
why breath failed so miserably
in its original job as our soul.
If the flesh is altered, the soul
cannot be altered. If intelligence,
memory, dreams, emotions are
altered
or
lost
by
material
happenings
to
our
material
bodies,
the
only
conclusion
is that the mental phenomena
now claimed as soul is actually
only biochemistry.
rs
thinking,
willing,
and

Page 24

perceiving
independent
of our
bodies?
Berkeley
thought
so,
but then LSD didn't
exist in
the 18th
century.
LSD, and
any number of drugs, all radically
effect
thinking,
willing,
perceiving.
Yet, these are only
chemicals. For instance, opiates
(morphine
and related drugs)
have their effect because they
imitate
internally
produced
opiates,
eventually
replacing
them because the presence of,
say, morph ine causes the brain
to have no need to produce its
own opiates. One chemical that
is involved
is the neurotransmitter
enkephalin,
which
mediates "the integration of sensory
information
having to do with
pain and emotional
behavior."
("Opiate
Receptors And Internal Opiates"
by Solomon
H.
Snyder, "Scientific
American,"
March 1977)
Did
you
catch
that
last?
Emotional
behavior, one of the
properties supposedly safe within
the realm of the eternal, metaphysical soul, now is not only
altered by drugs taken, but is
the product of drugs produced
by the brain. Is the soul enkephalin? (Is it morphine,
which
works in the brain as an unhealthy mimicry of enkephalin?
Maybe. I knew dopers in the
Marine
Corps
who
acted as
if dope was their soul.)
The fact is, all the mental
phenomena
the
theologians
would like to attribute
to this
eternal, immaterial entity called
soul are products
of human
biochemistry,
which
is why
alien drugs can screw up our
minds, and if abused enough,
permanently
alter the personal ity of the abuser.
You
want
further
proof.
Okay.
I managed with
my
diabolical
scholarship
to unite
our emotions
with
chemicals.
Shall I give a shot at memory?
Memory
is certainly
essential
to the soul, for if the soul is
our personal identity,
it must
carry
off
our memory
when
it leaves the body.
Who we
are is stored in our memory,
because' if we lose all ou r

memory
through
some
accident,
we can't
even recall
our name, let alone who we
are. Because the soul is immaterial,
necessarily
memory
would
also have to 'be.
If
the
soul
carted
off
some
physical
piece
of
the
body
containing
the
memory,
the
missing
chunk
would
have
been
missed
by
now
considering
all the thousands
of
corpses
scientists
have
dissected
in the
last
two
or
three hundred years.
I n the 1972 Britannica Yearbook
Of
Science
And
The
Future,
there is a report
on
an
experiment
by
Georges
Ungar of the Baylor
College
of Medicine.
He took
4,000
rats and made them fear the
dark
by zapping
them
with
electrical
shocks
.each
time
they took refuge in the dark.
From
these
terrorized
rats,
he isolated
a chemical,
and
injected
it
into
mice
in .1
microgram
(millionth
of
a
gram)
quantities.
This
infinitesimal
amount
of chemical
changed
normally
darkness-preferring
mice
to
darkness-fearing
mice.
The
chemical
was a peptide
fifteen
amino
acids
long.
In
other
words,
the
rats
had
learned to fear the dark, and
the memory of the experiences
producing
that fear was coded
by their
brains using the 20
amino acids like we use the 26
letters of the alphabet to code
our thoughts on paper.
If one desires to cling to
a soul, then one, I suppose,
must say that Dr. Ungar has
interpreted
the
phenomena
wrong.
Actually,
the
-souls
of the rats possessed the mice
like the demons
Jesus exorcised
possessed
a herd
of
Gadarene
pigs
(or
was
it
Gerasene
pigs?
Mark
and
Matthew
disagree
on
whose
pigs it was.) The souls of the
rats,
lurking
immaterially
in
the
microgram
injections,
took over the mice and made
them
afraid
of
the
dark.
That
is, if
rats have souls.

American Atheist

That question is argued, too,

just like the afterlife
fate of
the soul.
Memory is biochemical and
the amino acid memory codes
are probably
stored in Nissl
bodies, which
are located in
the neurons. These are protein-producing
bodies
with
large numbers
of
ribosomes
packed
in
their
convoluted
membranous
networks.
Ribosomes are granular structures
consisting
of
protein
and
ribonucleic
acid--RNA.
And
RNA is a peptide-a
chain of
amino acids.
That's
memory.
Like
our
emotional
responses, memory
is a product of our biochemistry.
And we-the "1" that is our
personal identity
as an individual entity--are
the product
of our memories. This is not
new knowledge. Two centuries
ago, in "Memory's Adventure,"
Voltaire
very accurately
concluded:
"Without
the senses
there is no memory, and without memory there is no mind."
What Voltaire
was incapable
of adding is what we of the
20th century can add: mind
is biochem ical.
Soul started out as breath
way back when and gradually
became mind.
Now the evidence is coming in that the
soul isn't
mind,
either.
So,
what is it?
Let's
go back to 20,000
B.C. where
we have some
imaginative
person
dream ing
shockingly
real dreams that
contain
persons
known
to
be dead. An explanation
is
necessary, and an explanation
was found.
In this context,
the soul is a stroke of genius.
It is the best possible answer
to
explain
the
phenomena
experienced
with
all
the
evidence a 20,000 B.C. human
could
accumulate,
which
is
to say almost none. How could
our perplexed
and probably
frightened dreamer know about
memory,
RNA,
Nissl bodies,
enkephalin,
and opiate receptors? Or oxygen and hemoglobin
and alveoli?

We of
the
20th
century
A.D. do know. Are we, with
all our
knowledge,
to cling
to a. concept
that was the
product
of
ignorance,
confusion, and fear in the minds
of savages? The answer given
by
religionists
is yes. They
insist on a soul they can only
imagine as existing, but cannot even agree on! They called
it breath once, but had to
give it up as too nonsensical.
They call it mind now, but
science is proving
that it is
as nonsensical to call it mind
as it is to call it breath.
Perhaps the
real question
to ask is, do we need sou I
at all? William James was one
of the first modern scientists
to say no. "Twentieth-century
philosophers and scientists have
generally followed James' lead,
holding that man and certainly
other beings are understandable
without
any recourse to the
notion of soul." (Encyclopedia
Britannica, Micropedia, Vol. 9,
pg. 363)
And Atheism
says
no, because it is indecent and
mentally
unhealthy
to believe
irrationally
a
20,000
B.C.
religious answer to a question
that
can
be
satisfactorily
answered by 20th century A.D.
science.

Notice

Join the Fun

By the Bay

for Writers

In order to standardize
the pages of this magazine
with regard to spelling,
punctuation
and
word
usage, the editors have
decided to abide in all
cases by the rules set
forth
in
The
UPI
Stylebook.
It is requested that those submitting manuscripts for
possible publication
in
The
American
Atheist
use the same guide in
order to speed up the
editorial process.
The Editor

The Eighth Annual American

Atheist Convention will be held
in San Francisco, California from
April 7th through the 10th. This
once-a-year opportunity
to rub
elbows with
America's
other
freethinkers
is an offer
you
won't want to miss out on. For
information write:
John I. Mays,
Convention Coordinator
American Atheists
P.O. Box 2117
Austin, TX 78768

REFLECTIONS
voltaire e. heywrood
Rooting for the Cannibals
There were cannibals munchin'
On a missionary luncheon ...
The above practice was among others from the
"good old days" according to the personable devil
in the musical "Damn Yankees." Actually, very few
instances of "missionary munching" are documented.
(I suppose it is universal that all great chefs keep their
recipes secret.) Besides, in most "primitive"
tribes,
cannibal appetites were satisfied generally without
the delicacy of missionary "white meat."
Customarily,
many tribes in South America and
Africa feasted solely on their prisoners of war.
This was an added insult to one's enemies. (Many
tribes who were not cannibalistic
initially,
picked
up the habit to retaliate against already cannibalistic societies.) The practice of feasting on the human
victims of tribal war is well documented
by missionaries and other Western visitors.
Tribes such
as the Tupinamba
of Brazil and the Dani of New
Guinea are prime examples.
In another
instance, cannibalism
has been attributed
to the Ovimbundu
(Mbundu)
of Angola.
Tribe members reportedly
restricted
their
flesheating tastes to ceremonially
sacrificing
slaves at
the coronation
of a new ruler. Similarly,
ritualistic
cannibalism
was also found in Nigeria, but only
during victory ceremonies, at which time the flesh
from the heads of the vanquished was consumed.
The most fascinating
account of "commercial
cannibalism"
comes from the north of the Congo,
the horne territory
of the Fan (Fang) tribe. This
enterprising
group was .reported to have engaged
in extensive trade in human flesh. After capturing
their victims, the tribe members would fatten them
for market. No clear records of the nature of the
buyers survive.
What is this preoccupation
I have with cannibalism ... ? It seems I have never quite recovered
from a student teacher's
reply when I casually
inquired of his parents.
"My
parents were missionaries
eaten by cannibals," he repl ied.
When I realized he was serious (What a great
line that could be for a put onl). I expressed my
sympathy
and
promptly
dropped
the
subject
entirely.
Now two years later, as I reflect upon
his answer, I say, "More power to the cannibals!"
As I researched the few instances of missionary
munching,
along with
non-carnivorous
murders,
I discovered more atrocities against the "munchers"
than I could find against the "munchees."
(Many

Page 26

of these missionary acts were directed against noncann ibal istic tribes, as well.) Wh ich is the greater
transgression, to eat a few dead enemies or to disrupt whole civilizations
with preposterous,
uncompromising, impractical dogma?
Historically,
the worst missionary encroachment
of Christian
morality
was contrary
to the open
sexuality
characteristic
of the tribal
system. All
that was physically
natural was now condemned
or limited by foreign standards. Practices, such as
female circumcision
in Kikuyu
and royal sodomy
in Buganda, created national issues and bloodshed
due to the missionaries'
interference,
uncompromising sexual attitudes
and Victorian
restrictions.
It might surprise many people that numerically
the missionaries had very little success at converting
the 120 million
blacks of pre-World War"
Africa.
Only slightly
over two minion Protestants and almost five million
Catholics were counted in 1938.
It was not the number of conversions, but the turmoil these few conversions
created that caused
difficult
situations.
Too
often
families,
tribes,
or regions were divided
along Christian
vs. nonChristian
lines, as well as along the subdivisions
of Catholic and Protestant
lines. Once black converts adhered to Christian ethics, they no longer
were accepted by the conventional
society. As a
result. more black Christians were slaughtered by
their black brethren
than missionaries
were ever
gnawed upon by cannibals!
As an example of Christian
conversion
of the
black populace
stirring
up fratricidal
tendencies,
an account is given by the missionaries themselves
of an incident in Buganda, which is now. Uganda.
The Kabaka,
influenced
by various practices of
the Arabs, brutally
beat a page who refused to
engage in sodomy
as a result of his conversion
to Christianity.
The interferences
of a Protestant
missionary
in this situation
led to spearings, beheadings, castrations,
hackings and massburnings
of over forty other Christian pages.
The good that the missionaries did as a whole
was confined
to secular nature. Men like livingstone
fought
slave
trading
and
others
like
Schweitzer
brought
basic health care. Still others
brought
touches of education
to men who later
became
influential
in their
respective
nations.
(Most
of
these
leaders
accepted
Christianity
temporarily
to gain access to the hidden message
under Portuguese
influence.
It is now hard to
rationalize
how the Jesuits could possibly believe
they were helping the natives by assigning them to

American

Atheist

plantation owners. Surely, these Jesuits did educate

some Africans and mulattoes for minor positions
in the Portuguese bu reaucracy, but incredibly, they
also actively assisted in selling black Africans into
slavery! They mistakenly maintained that the African
could gain dignity,
skills, and valuable religious
exposure by laboring for these Christian landowners.
Yet, the greatest single missionary crime of all,
of course, was imposition, as well-intentioned soldiers
of the Lord brought the good word to the heathens.
In so doing, the advent of Christianity brought with
it the greater horrors of imperial ism and exploitation by those who accompanied the clerics or
followed the inroads they had made.
By the early 19th century, numerous Christian
missionary societies, mostly of Protestant affiliation,
were establ ished to combat slave trade by evangelizing and educating the populace of various African
territories.
By the mid-19th
century, the British
particularly,
were required to enforce abolitionist
abuses with patrols and even brutal attacks on uncooperative slavers.
Religious altruism had opened the way for increased foreign intervention
and imperialism.
By
the end of the 19th century, since qu in ine had reduced fever deaths and enabled exploration
of
the interior,
increased numbers of officials, missionaries and traders now ventured into the once
forbidden
hinterland,
easily vulnerable to commercial, social and territorial exploitation.
Even though the missionaries as a whole are
rightfully
credited with bringing at least fragments
of education and medical assistance to millions
of illiterate and unhealthy individuals, particularly
in Africa, they were, at the same time, bringing
false, inapplicable
facts of Christianity
and, indirectly I suppose, the disease of white supremacy.
Although
the strong missionary lobby eventually
helped to formulate
European opinion
against
slave trading, at the same time the missionaries
were seeking to enslave the minds of their charges
with the involuntary
servitude of religious indoctrination and Victorian morality.
Actually,
the effect of the missionaries on the
African nations was merely superficial in regard to
the absorption
of Christianity.
Most chieftains
retained the ancestral shrines of their traditional
religions. Islam, with its more pertinent message
to the black man, also prevented the successful
conversion
of the majority.
Likewise, in most
villages, . the witch doctors still flourished as the
natives sought their aid in matters, such as love
interests, matters in which Christianity
had little
practicality.
Similarly,
it was this very morality, personified
particu larly by the Prostestant sects, that created
the greatest schism between the two competing
lifestyles. Weddings had to be proper. The bride
had to dance with the groom instead of openly

submitting to his advances in public. The restraint

of Christian morality
was contrary
to the open
sexual ity characteristic
of the tribal system. All
that was physically
natural was now condemned
or limited by foreign standards. Practices, such as
female circumcision
in Kikuyu and royal sodomy
in Buganda, created national issues and bloodshed
due to the missionaries' interference,
uncompromising sexual attitudes and Victorian
restrictions.
It might surprise many people that numerically
the missionaries had very little success at converting the 120 million blacks of pre-World War II
Africa. Only slightly over two million Protestants
and almost five million Catholics were counted in
1938. It was not the number of conversions, but
the turmoil
these few conversions created that
caused difficult
situations.
Too often
families,
tribes, or regions were divided along Christian vs.
non-Christian Iines, as well as along the subdivisions
of Catholic and Protestant lines. Once black converts
adhered to Christian ethics, they no longer were
accepted by the conventional society. As a result,
more black Christians were slaughtered by their
black brethren than missionaries were ever gnawed
upon by cannibals!
As an example of Christian conversion of the
black populace stirring up fratricidal
tendencies,
an account is given by the missionaries themselves
of an incident in Buganda, which is now Uganda.
The Kabaka, influenced
by various practices of
the Arabs, brutally
beat a page who refused to
engage in sodomy as a result of his conversion to
Christianity.
The
interferences
of a Protestant
missionary in this situation led to spearings, beheadings, castrations, hackings and mass burnings
of over forty other Christian pages.
The good that the missionaries did as a whole
was confined to secular nature. Men like Livingstone fought slave trading and others like Schweitzer

II DON'T

BeCAUSe

PUBLtCrze OUR A FFAt R

IT \S UNCONSTITUTIONAL!"
Page 27

Austin, Texas

~/

brought
basic health care. Still others brought
touches of education
to men who later became
influential
in their respective nations. (Most of
these leaders accepted
Christianity
temporarily
to gain access to the hidden message of the missionaries, that of improvement through education.)
Unfortunately,
as most of these men fought their
own cultural identities, they not only rejected the
white supremacy, Western superiority,
and imperialism of Christianity,
they also came to mistrust
the white men in general. The missionaries, had
convinced
them
that their
heritage, principals,
customs and ideals were unsatisfactory.
As adults
these men rejected this premise and white inter-

HARVARD

'Rock 'N' Roll

A Cause Of
Pregnancy' .
After the early demise ot
Elvis Presley, the "Chicago Tribune" published the fol/owing
delightful little vignette:

ference along with it.

Can you imagine the confusion the missionaries
caused? It is a wonder that all the Africans exposed
to Christianity
are not cannibals. First they went
into cannibal country and told the natives not to
eat human flesh, a practice which for the most part
was at least nutritionally
and ecologically
sound.
Then they turned around and preached to cannibal
and non-cannibal
alike, "Take,
eat, this is my
body ... " (Transubstantiation
of the communion
bread was considered by many sects to be the actual
molecular modification
of the bread of the flesh
of Christ.) In retrospect, is it not too bad that there
were so few missionary munchers after all?

>

HONORS

ATHEIST

The letter reproduced below was received in mid-January

and acted upon immediately since it is rare indeed that so signal
an honor is bestowed upon an "infamous"
Atheist. It is hoped
that the future generations of law students of both genders will
be reminded by Dr. O'Hair's photo portrait that in the United
States it is still possible to march to the beat of a different drum
and have a fulfilling
and useful life as well. Perhaps some of
them will even decide to serve the cause to which this lady
lawyer has devoted her life!
HARVARD
CAMBRIDGE'

There is at least one person

who isn't mourning the death of
singer Elvis Presley. He's the
Rev. Charlie Boykin,
of Tallahassee, Fla., who once burned
rock 'n' roll records because
he thinks they are associated
with teen-age girls getting pregnant.
The minister said he was
"relieved"
that Presley would
no longer be performing.
"His
death was not mourned by me
personally,"
the minister said.
"He professed to be rei igious-making
albums
of
religious
music--but his life. . . did not
portray Christian characteristics.
It's not personal against him,
but it's a relief to know he'll
no longer be performing
his
music on stage."
The Rev. Mr. Boykin, a
Baptist
youth
director,
said
--are you
ready
for
this?-he has statistics showing that
most
children
born
out
of
wedlock
are
conceived
by
couples listening to rock 'n'
roll.

LAW

SCHOOL
USETfS

. 0'2138

MASS.o\CH

January 11, 197~

. e
M a'Hair, Esqu~r
Madalyn
'1 creek Blvd.
4203.sch~~
7B756
Aust~n,
a'Ha~r:
' planning a
Dear Ms.
d LaW school ~s
trating on
know, Harva~
' April conce~
s of
AS you mays of activit~es ~~pe to have p~~tu~ewith the
week-long ser~ew
By then, we on the wallS a onArt
~omen in theme~ iawyers to haniaces compr~se our
prominent wOmen lawyers whose
hundred~ of
, handsome
collect~on.
,'11
be d~splayed ~nvisual collecto_portra~ts w~ of the permanen
them in cateThe phoill become part lanning to hang dministrators
~i~e~fa~~~:s~~~0~~ac~1t~~~e~~~ul~0;~~~~r~~
ii:~n~~tt~~~y
gor~es: ) ~hese portra~~s males as welldt~hat they are
and so on.
d nts but t e,
the laW an
the female shtUt~ry of women ~ntnt role today.
is a i s
'ly
impor a
d b
ther~
increas~ng
and woul
e
play~ng an
uch to include youhed photo~raph
We would ~ike :e~~~d
teful ~f yo
most gra st one you have
(the large , t
since ~t
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American Atheist

Page 28

Ihe Amtritan Athtist Radio Stri es

MARK TWAIN, AMERICAN ATHEIST
Program248
KTBC Radio

8June 1973 ventured to disapprove of the war and cast a doubt

Austin, Texas upon its righteousness straightway got such a stern
and angry warning that for their personal safety's
sake they quickly shrank out of sight and offended
no more in that way.

Hello there,
This is Madalyn Mays O'Hair, American
ist, back to talk with you again.

Athe-

Samuel Langhorne
Clemens was an Atheist
and this caused no little anxiety to those who
found him to be the foremost humorist of our
nation. In his writings, he was Mark Twain and
every youth has read his books "Tom Sawyer,"
"Huckleberry
Finn," "A Connecticut Yankee in King
Arthur's Court" and many others.
He died in 1910. For some time his sonin-law, Albert
Paine, administered
the "literary
productions"
of Mark -Twain, and in 1915 Mr.
Paine permitted the publication
of a small paper
titled "The War Prayer" which Mark Twain had
dictated in 1905. The Atheist community
immediately
seized upon this prayer and obtained
permission to publish and distribute
it in bulk.
We have many copies of the short prayer
in our American Atheist
Library,
but that was
exerpted
from
a slightly
larger essay. Now, I
have that essay at hand as well as the right to
reproduce
it here for your ears on this broadcast. Let's go.
"It
was a time
of great and exalting
excitement.
The country
was up in arms, the
war was on, in every breast burned the holy
fire of patriotism;
the drums were beating, the
bands playing,
the
toy
pistols
popping,
the
bunched
firecrackers
hissing
and
spluttering;
on every hand and far down the receding and
fading spread of roofs and balconies a fluttering
wilderness of flags flashed in the sun; daily the
young volunteers marched down the wide avenue
gay and fine in their new uniforms,
the proud
fathers and mothers and sisters and sweethearts
cheering them with voices choked with
happy
emotion
as they swung by; nightly the packed
mass meetings listened, panting, to patriot oratory
which stirred the deepest deeps of their hearts,
and they
interrupted
at briefest intervals with
cyclones of applause, the tears running down their
cheeks the while;
in the churches the pastors
preached devotion to flag and country, and invoked
the God of Battles, beseeching His aid in our good
cause in outpourings
of fervid eloquence which
moved every listener. It was indeed a glad and
gracious time, and the half dozen rash spirits who

"Sunday
morning carne-next
day the battalions would leave for the front; the church was
filled; the volunteers were there, their young faces
al ight with
martial dreams-visions
of the stern
advance, the gathering
momentum,
the rushing
charge, the flashing sabers, the flight of the foe,
the tumult,
the enveloping smoke, the fierce pursuit, the surrender!
Then home from the war,
bronzed
heroes, welcomed,
adored,
submerged
in golden seas of glory! With the volunteers sat
their
dear ones, proud,
happy, and envied by
the neighbors and friends who had no sons and
brothers to send forth
to the field of honor,
there to win for the flag, or, failing, die the
noblest of noble deaths. The service proceeded;
a war chapter from the Old Testament was read;
the first prayer was said; it was followed
by an
organ burst that shook the building,
and with
one impulse the house rose, with flowing
eyes
and beating hearts, and poured
out that tremendous invocation

God the ell-terrible!

Thou who ordainest,
Thunder thy clarion and lightning thy sword!
Then came the "long" prayer. None could remember the like of it for passionate pleading and moving
and beautiful
language. The burden of its supplication was, that an ever-merciful
and benignant
Father of us all would watch over our noble
young soldiers,' and aid, comfort,
and encourage
them in their patriotic
work; bless them, shield
them in the day of battle and the hour of peril,
bear them in His mighty hand, make them strong
and confident,
invincible
in the bloody
onset;
help them to crush the foe, grant to them and
to their
flag and country
imperishable
honor
and gloryAn aged stranger entered and moved with
slow and noiseless step up the main aisle, his
eyes fixed upon the minister, his long body clothed
in a robe that reached to h is feet, h is head bare,
his white hair descending in a frothy cataract to
his shoulders, his seamy face unnaturally
pale,
pale even to ghastliness. With all eyes following
him and wondering, he made his silent way; without pausing, he ascended to the preacher's side
and stood
there
waiting.
With
shut lids the
preacher, unconscious of his presence, continued
his moving prayer, and at last finished
it with

Page 29

Austin, Texas

~/

the
words,
uttered
in fervent
appeal,
"Bless
our arms, grant us the victory. 0 Lord our God,
Father and Protector of our land and flag!"
The stranger touched his arm, motioned him to
step aside which the startled minister did and took his
place. During some moments he surveyed the spellbound audience with solemn eyes, in which burned
an uncanny light; then in a deep voice he said:
"1 come from the Throne--bearing a message
from Almighty
God!" The words smote the house
with a shock; if the stranger perceived it he gave no
attention. "He has heard the prayer of His servant
your shepherd, and will grant it if such shall be your
desire after I, His messenger, shall have explained to
you its import-- that is to say, its full import. For it is
like unto many of the prayers of men, in that it asks
for more than he who utters it is aware of-except he
pause and think.
"God's
servant and yours has prayed his
prayer. Has he paused and taken thought? Is it one
prayer? No, it is two--one uttered, the other not. Both
have reached the ear of Him Who heareth all supplications, the spoken and the unspoken. Ponder this
--keep it in mind. If you would beseech a blessing
upon yourself,
beware! lest without
intent you
invoke a curse upon a neighbor at the same time.
If you pray for the blessing of rain upon your
crop which needs it, by that act you are possibly
praying for a curse upon some neighbor's crop
which may not need rain and can be injured by
it.
"You
have heard your
servant's prayer-the uttered part of it. I am commissioned
of
God to put into words the other part of it-- that
part which the pastor-- and also you in your hearts
--fervently
prayed silently.
And
ignorantly
and
unthinkingly?
God
grant
that
it
was
so!
You heard these words: 'Grant us the victory,
o Lord our God!' That is sufficient. The
whole of the uttered
prayer
is compact
into
those
pregnant
words.
Elaborations
were not
necessary. When you have prayed for victory
you have prayed for many unmentioned
results
which
follow
victory--must
follow
it,
cannot
help but
follow
it. Upon the listening
spirit
of God fell
also the unspoken
part of the
prayer.
He commandeth
me to put
it into
words. Listen!
o Lord our Father, our young patriots,
idols of our hearts, go forth to battle-be Thou
near them! With them-in spirit-we also go forth
from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides
to smite the foe. 0 Lord our God, help us to
tear their soldiers to bloody
shreds with our
shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with
the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to
drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks
of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to
lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane
of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to

turn them out roofless with their little children

to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated
land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the
sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter,
broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee
for the refuge of the grave and denied it-tor our
sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes,
blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage,
make heavy their steps, water their way with
their tears, stain the white snow with the blood
of their wounded feet! We ask it, in the spirit of
love, of Him who is the Source of Love, and who
is the ever-faithful
refuge and friend of all that
are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and
contrite hearts. Amen.
"(After
a pause.) "Ye have prayed it; if
ye still desire it, speak! The messenger of the
Most High waits."
"It
was believed afterward
that the man
was a lunatic,
because there was no sense in
what he said."
There was a long fight over the publication
of some of the rest of Mark Twain's works, and
I have stories about that to tell you one day. But,
finally
in 1939 permission was given to publish
a small collection
of his works under the title
"Letters from Earth." You can purchase this now
at your local book seller, or obtain it in your
local library. Actually
the book is a composition
of some anti-religious
writings of Twain and the
so-called Letters take up only 55 pages of the
volume. The Letters which are being written and
sent from
Earth to Heaven--hence the title
of
the book--"Letters
From Earth"--are letters written
by Satan reporting to the archangels Gabriel and
Michael on the happenings of the inhabitants of
earth. You will find the letters to be hilarious.
No better review of the book could be given
than a small excerpt from one letter which the
Office of the Recording Angel, Department
of
Petitions, finally sends to Earth. The letter is ad:
dressed to Abner Scofield and Mark Twain uses
th is again to attack the concept of prayer.
Abner Scofield, in this instance, was a "coal
dealer" in Buffalo, New York. By command, the
Office of the Recording Angel writes, in part.
"As regards your prayers, for the week ending
the 19th, I have the honor to report as follows:
1. For weather to advance hard coal 15 cents a
ton. Granted.
2. For influx of laborers to reduce wages 10 percent. Granted.
3. For a break in rival soft-coal prices. Granted.
4. For a visitation upon the man, or upon the
family of the man, who has set up a competing
retail
coal-yard
in
Rochester.
Granted,
as
follows:
diphtheria,
2, 1 fatal; scarlet fever, 1,
to result in deafness and imbecility.
Note. This
prayer
should
have been directed
against this
subordinate's
principals,
the N.Y.
Central R.R.
Co.
.

American

Page 30

Atheist

8. To increase December profits of $22,230 to

$45,000
for
January,
and perpetuate
a proportionate
monthly
increase thereafter--"wh ich
will satisfy you." The prayer granted; the added
remark accepted with reservations.
9. For cyclone, to destroy the works and fill
up the mine' of the North
Pennsylvania
Co.
Note: Cyclones are not kept in stock in the
winter
season. A reliable article
of fire-damp
can be furnished upon application.
Especial note is made of the above list,
they being of particular
moment.
The 298 remaining supplications classifiable under the head
of Special Providences, Schedule A, for week
ending 19th, are granted in a body, except that
3 of the 32 cases requiring immediate death have
been modified to incurable disease.
This
completes
the
week's
invoice
of
petitions known to this office under the technical
designation of Secret Suppl ications of the Heart,
and which, for a reason which may suggest itself,
always receive our first and especial attention.

Slowly
building
up to a climax,
Mark
Twain finally finds the coal dealer to be a rather
typical Christian and he designates him as "the
meanest white man that ever lived on the face
of the earth!"
...
this categorization
stemming
from an analysis of his prayers.
Try reading these works of Mark Twain.
Remember
that
title
" Letters
From
Earth"-and do try to get it at your library or bookstore.
I will have more on Mark Twain at a later date.
This informational
broadcast is brought to
you as a public service by the Society of Separationis ts, Inc., a non-profit,
non-political,
tax exempt, educational organization
dedicated to the
complete separation of state and church.
This
series of American Atheist
Radio programs is
continued through listener generosity. The Society
of Separationists, Inc. predicates its philosophy
on American Atheism. For more information,
or
for a free copy of the script of this program, write
to P. O. Box 2117, Austin, Texas. That zip is 78768.

[The editorial comment which follows was delivered by publisher

Ralph Ginsberg over CBS' Channel
2 television station in New York
in reply to an opinion expressed
by that station regarding a proposal
to legalize silent meditation in New
Jersey's public schools.
While declaring itself to be in
opposition to any such proposal,

An
Atheist
Responds

Austin, Texas

the station's editorial nevertheless

attempted
to warm up to its
Christian audience by
endorsing
prayer to a god as being a worthy
endeavor and by praising students
who wanted to pray as admirable.
It is in reply to those two dubious
points that Mr. Ginsburg requested
and was granted equal time to express the Atheist viewpoint.l

In a recent broadcast
in respect to silent meditation
in New Jersey public
schools, the editorial opinion of this station was given as opposing that exercise
-and I believe correctly so.
But in those remarks, prayer was represented
as having a worthy purpose and
--shockingly--the
statement
was made that if kids wanted to pray then such was
admirable.
The Atheist position is au contraire and I have asked for and received equal
time to state our position.
Prayer is not only philosophically
wrong, but morally and ethically harmful
and detrimental
to children.
It is an exercise in self-abasement,
unscientific
and a denial of the objective reality of nature and human life.
The idea that a god exists somewhere
and that a child must supplicate
that
imagined god through prayer builds into the child both fear and anxiety, while
it strips from the child any self-confidence,
any reliance on reason and science
for meeting life's demands. A child has task enough in understanding
life without
complicating
his or her mentality
with impossible, irrational theories which can't
explain natural phenomena.
To burden a child with a dependence
on a non-existent
god, to tell him or
her to rely on vague outside sources of help in life, is to handicap that child who
should instead be taught beginning self-reliance
and an objective understanding
of the world. It is better to teach the child the facts of life than to fill its mind
with weird fantasies and idiocies.
The notion that the world is governed by natural laws which may be modified or suspended
at any time as one reaches to an intervening
god with prayer
is not alone bizarre but does active mischief in human life.
.
Prayer has no worthy purpose,
it is simply an exercise in self-deceit.
It is
not admirable for adults to pray and it does irreparable harm to train a child in
wrong principles--in this case to inculcate faith and belief in nothing.

Page 31

By Edmund Bojarski

Jesus Son Of Man

The founder and publisher
of "Der Spiegel," Germany's
equivalent
of America's
"Time," has just published an English translation
of his German best seller, "Jesus Son Of
Man." The translator,
Hugh Young, has achieved that great
desideratum
of translation,
he has made his hand in the
book invisible.
This volume is introduced
by a brief but graceful preface by Gore Vidal, who quotes
Diderot's
Enlightenment
stunner that "Never has any other religion been so fecund
in crime as Christianity;
from the murder of Abel to the
agony of Caleb, there is not a line of its history that has
not been bloody ...
the abominable
cross has caused blood
to flow on every side." Vidal ends his preface by noting
that if Rudolf Augstein were a citizen of certain countries,
he would undoubtedly
be tucked
away into some con
venient
booby
hatch
for
"psychiatric
rehabilitation"
because he questions
the absolute truth of history,
"a.k.a.
God/Jesus"
and its priests in their various guises. We might
add from bitter personal
experience
that were he to live
in certain other countries
and be sans the wealth, prestige
and power he has, he would be unable to find a publisher
of any kind for a book even so slightly tainted with Atheism
as is "Jesus Son Of Man."
Vidal concludes
with the typically
Vidalian
comment
that "Jesus Son Of Man" is "a highly useful and informative record of continuing
human folly."
We agree wholeheartedly
and recommend
the book to any Atheist who
needs to reinforce
his individually
arrived at conclusions
that the entire
Christ
legend obviously
belongs
in the
annals
of mythology
rather
than
taking
up space
as
pseudo-history.
Born a Roman
Catholic
and indoctrinated
in Jesuit
educational
institutions,
Augstein grew up in the strictest
Christian orthodoxy.
As an adult, however, his observation
and study made him an agnostic, and then as he approached
the age of fifty, he began to take an intense interest in the
figure of Jesus.
His research
in Christology
resulted
in a book which
became
overnight
perhaps
the most explosively
controversial work on religion since Hans Kung's famous investigation into papal infallibility.
The thrust
of this book is not that Augstein does not
believe any more, since Agnosticism
and Atheism are becoining much more commonplace
the world over as science
and technology
push back the frontiers of ignorance. What
does, however, bring down upon the author's head the wrath
of orthodox
Christians is that Augstein claims that an overwhelming
number
of Christian
biblical scholars no longer
believe Jesus was divine or that the Gospels are authentic
history.
Augstein further claims that the churches withhold information from the people because they want to keep their
power, and without a divine and historically
provable Jesus,
Christianity
has no supernatural
claims. "Scientific
research:'
he says, "is in agreement
that we can't prove the historical
existence of Jesus of Nazareth."
The Gospels are flatly not
historical documents.
Almost all the scholars agree that none
of the evangelists knew Jesus and they don't know who the
evangelists
themselves
were, thereby
making the Gospels
anonymous.
The earl iest document
relating to Jesus is one

of Paul's Epistles, and it is known that Paul did not know

Jesus and was not even very interested
in his pre-resurrection
personage.
The most famous actual historical
account is by Flavius
Josephus, a Jewish historian writing more than half a century
after the fact. Josephus
goes into minute detail. about the
reign of Herod but fails to say a word about the slaughter
of the Holy Innocents. Nor does the ancient historian bother
to note the mere bagatelle of the rising of the dead who
(according to the Gospels) appeared to many in the city of
Jerusalem,
a happening
which might have had a bit more
impact in most other cities, the author suggests.
.
The book touched
upon an exposed nerve in the consciousness of the German reading public and was attacked
and condemned
on many sides. Despite the rage and hostility
(historically
usual when the shadow
of doubt
flits
across the face of faith) "Jesus Son Of Man" provoked,
it
was widely read and quickly
became a major best seller
because even Augstein's
most severe critics had to admit
that it was an entirely sincere inquiry and the author had
done his homework
thoroughly.
One Christian critic carps
that the book is provincial
because religion is backward
in Germany,
that Augstein is not scholarly
enough in that
he used primarily
German
sources without
consulting
the
French and English studies,
was not immersed enough in
the ethos of the Roman-Mediterranean
1st century,
and
that he did not hunt hard enough for evidence which would
disagree with his thesis.
Theologians,
in their anxiety
to discredit
this honest
modern
iook at the Jesus story say there is nothing
new
in the book, and Augstein openly states that most of what
he writes has been known for a century or two, but these
astonishing
ideas have been kept as "trade secrets"
among
the theologians,
aided and abetted
by the churches
in
keeping the layman ignorant
of their somewhat
less than
exact knowledge.
The refusal to enlighten
the common
folk enqenders .
the author's severest criticism of the churches.
He says that
Jesus never thought
of himself as a savior, and despite the
fact that the churches
concur sub rosa, they continue
to
teach their outdated
notions to justify their existence.
Auqstein feels that because of this double dealing, the churches
must be precluded
from trying to exert any political
or
social power whatsoever.
Augstein says that he is only "probing
how the Christian
church dares appeal to a Jesus who never existed, to teachings he never taught, to mandates
he never issued, and to a
claim that he was God's son, which he never presumed for
himself."
The U.S. edition
of the book closes with an impartial
critique in the form of an afterword by David Noel Freedman.
Priced at $12.95
this English language version of Rudolf
Augstein's
famous
"Jesus
Menschensohn"
under the title
"Jesus Son Of Man" will make a very welcome addition to
the permanent
library of any reader interested
in pondering
the imponderable
of the historical existence of Jesus Christ.
Should the book whet his appetite for further Christological
excavations,
the copious
bibliography
and notes appended
to this book will serve as a road guide for the rest of his
days.

American

Page 32

~/

Atheist

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r ""