Académique Documents
Professionnel Documents
Culture Documents
ISRAEL'S
ROOTS
RELIGIOUS
TROUBLES
OF ATHEISM
THE CHOSEN
FEW
HOLY BALONEY
$1.25
A Journal Of
Atheist News
And Thought
July, 1978
RICAN ATHEISTS
"Aims and Purposes"
te freedom of thought and inquiry concerning religious
tenets, rituals and practices.
ate information, data and literature on all religions and
h understanding of them, their origins and histories.
nd promote in all lawful ways, the complete and absolute
church; and the establishment and maintenance of a
m of education available to all.
pment and public acceptance of a humane ethical system,
pathy, understanding and interdependence of all people
esponsibility of each, individually, in relation to society.
e a social philosophy in which man is the central figure who
e of strength, progress and ideals for the well-being and
the arts and sciences and of all problems affecting the
ion and enrichment of human (and other) life.
I, educational, legal and cultural activity as will be useful
rs of American Atheists and to society as a whole.
"Definitions"
osophy (Weltanschauung) of persons who are free from
n the ancient Greek philosophy of Materialism.
be defined as the mental attitude which unreservedly
f reason and aims at establishing a system of philosophy
experience, independent of all arbitrary assumptions of
y declares that the cosmos is devoid of immanent congoverned by its own inherent, immutable and impersonal
rnatural interference in human life; that man-finding his
an and must create his own destiny; and that his potenevelopment is for all practical purposes unlimited.
EDITORIAL
READER COMMENT
NEWS
State-Church Collusion Nets $9 Mil.
I RS: Churches Should Pay
Religious IssuesTrouble Israel.
FEATURE ARTICLES
Testament Of The Holy Garble
The Atheist Letters - 1
Praise The Load!
The Cure-All Box
The Chosen Few
Report FrornTheCountrv Of The Blind
Roots Of Atheism: Charles Bradlaugh
AMERICAN ATHEIST RADIO SERIES
History of Materialism: Epicurus
ATHEIST BOOK REVIEW
Deceptions & Myths Of The Bible
July, 1978
2
3
5
6
7
9
11
13
14
17
27
30
25
35
RENEWAL
Name
Address
City, State, & Zip
Austin, Texas
Ju1Y,1978
......
ON THE COVER
Building
Membership
There is no shortage
of instances
of the violation of
the establishment
clause of the First Amendment
to the
Constitution
of the United States. We have no trouble finding
violations which will keep us busy in attempts to rectify the
injustices
for many years to come. These assaults on our
Constitution
are being carried out on the federal, state and
local government
levels by those very officials who have sworn
to uphold the U.S. Constitution.
Of course, it is very easy for government
officials and
their attorneys to claim that by their interpretation,
they are
not violating the Constitution.
No matter how flagrant the
violation, they can always find some reason, no matter how
absurd, which they claim keeps their action within constitutional bounds.
For example, the government claims that the motto on our
coins and currency,
"In God We Trust", has nothing to do
with religion. They claim that this motto is "patriotic."
I
could believe "idiotic," but not patriotic. Now all they have to
do is find some equally zany judges to agree with them.
Other intrusions of religion into the affairs of government
include the use of state and federal funds to construct religious
school buildings, to pay chaplains to dole out superstitious
religion in the armed forces and in prisons, the requirement
of
religious oaths, the use of prayers or invocations
at public
meetings, the encouragement
by the FCC of scores of hours of
superstitious
religious broadcasts on radio and television, and
religious displays on public property.
Other violations
by the government
include allowing a
religious, tax-exempt
organization
to lobby and take other
concerted
actions to influence legislation dealing with moral
and financial matters they are interested
in: i.e. to secure
anti-abortion
and parochial
school aid through
state and
federal funding, even though such lobbying is in violation of
the Internal Revenue Code for non-profit organizations.
The problems are easy to spot, but finding Atheists who
are willing to join an organization
for the purpose of enforcing
the U.S. Constitution
is a slow and laborious process. We hope
that all of our chapters and members will make every possible
effort to obtain new members as well as subscribers
to this
magazine. It is only through the cooperation
of a fairly large
membership
and the contributions
from those members that
the organization
can do the groundwork
and file suits to halt
the violation of constitutional
provisions. We also encourage
members to take legal action individually to halt violations of
state-church
separtaion which they find locally.
Our chapters are urged to have a continuing
program for
increasing membership.
A few chapters have taken aggressive
action in this regard. One of the methods used has been the
placing of classified or small display ads in their local newspapers to notify those who would like to have information
about Atheism
or state-church
separation
matters
to contact the local chapter or write to the national office.
When one or more members wish to organize a chapter,
the national office will reproduce the letter of notification
of
Page 2
July,
1978
the meeting and send it to all of the names on our active and
inactive lists if they live within a reasonable
distance of the
meeting site. Some members may wish to join a particular
chapter even though they Iive too far away to attend any of
its meetings. Through correspondence,
such members can keep
in close contact with their chapter and join in a cooperative
effort to correct state-church
infractions
within their state.
These letters giving notification
of an organizing
meeting
usually produce many new members from our list of inactive Atheists in a certain area and provide the new chapter
with a good start.
Members of some chapters
have made arrangements
to
appear on radio and television
tal k shows to express the
Atheist viewpoint. They have been careful to give the address
of either the local chapter or the national office and many new
members have been acquired as a result, in addition. to the
educational
value of the views expressed on these shows.
Another effective means of increasing membership,
while
educating
the public, is to provide sample copies of The
American Atheist magazine to one or more public libraries in
your city. A library will usually order a subscription
after they
have seen the magazine.
As Atheism
is introduced
to the
public via the magazine, many readers become members as
they wish to play an active roll in' furthering
the constitutional principle of state-church
separation.
One of the most popular methods of educating the public
and attracting
new members for our organization
is the distribution of leaflets or folders which explain the Atheist philosophy and/or are quite uncomplimentary,
to say the least, of
religious ideas. Several different
types of folders can be obtained from the national office. These may be casually left
behind in various business establishments
or public buildings
that you visit. This I find to be a very effective, easy and
unobtrusive method of distribution.
Of course, the obtaining of members and funds is just the
beginning.
Suggestions
pertaining
to the operation
of the
chapter in working for the complete
separation
of state and
church wi II be provided by the national office and the mem bers
have always provided many new ideas of their own. In the past,
a few chapters have taken very aggressive action to curb the intrusion of religion into governmental
functions and agencies.
Should religious organizations
ever succeed in becoming
an integral part of our government,
it will result in the erosion
of our basic freedoms and the end of our republic. Dictatorship has always been the result when the state and the church
have joined together. Don't let it happen to our country.
Ralph B. Shirley
GUEST EDITOR
The American
Atheist
COeMeMENT
N
E
R
Good Riddance
Dear Editor,
Robert Edson Russell's article in
your May issue entitled "Has Religion
a Future?" was an excellent analysis of
the state of religious belief in America
today. You are to be congratulated for
printing it.
When he writes, in conclusion to his
article, that "what the future holds exactly, we don't know, but we do know
that it holds something new" Russell
hits the nail on the head. Certainly we
are witnessing the birth of a new era in
which the doctrines of rational science
are finally beginning to overshadow
the old-fashioned superstitions of oldtime religion.
Religion has served its purpose: we
are the inheritors of various codes of
ethics and moral teachings which guide
us (in the Western world, at least) in
our daily lives. Today, however, we
can separate the ethical codes of religion from the antiquated theological
beliefs that can only be called folkloristic superstitions.
From here on out, science takes
over, forever seeking new truths until
someday we truly understand the reality of this fantastic universe. Russell's
article has given me hope.
Rebecca Armstrong
Washington, D.C.
Welcome Aboard!
Dear Editor,
Thanks for the "Insider's Newsletter." I subscribe to the magazine and
have made contributions but, .did not
plan to become a "member" of the
American Atheists. The Newsletter has
changed my mind.
You struck me right on top of my
head "humanist"
"freethinker"
etc
"Chi~ken!" is m~re like it.
'
.
Now I am determined to express
my thinking when opportunities come.
First, a magazine subscription to our
public library. I have been frustrated
there often.
Next, a brief letter to WRCB, our
local television station.
I am no longer going to hide the
books and magazines when relatives and
friends visit! If this raises eyebrows,
good. I think I can handle it.
Mary A. Bobone
(no address given)
P.S. This is a start, anyway.
Austin,
Texas
Appeasing
Christian
Crackpots
Dear Editor,
I ~as very happy to read the May editorial by Patricia Voswinkel in support of
the Murray-O'Hairs. It think charges of them being too rough are absolute nonsense.
To my way of thinking, it is the duty of Atheists to make their case known in
the strongest possible terms. This the Murray-O'Hairs have done. To do less would
be to fail their cause rather than to keep faith with it.
Of course, I still remain one of those "religionists" at this time but I can assure
you that my views have greatly changed since I began reading Ath~ist literature. In
short, I have been helped.
Another thing that one might consider is that by trying to get the "Old Dragon"
to ease up, you are simply appeasing the Christian crackpots. It's about like asking a
soldier .to go to war without his gun -he might be fool enough to go, but his chances
of survival are not very good.
In conclusion, I would like to state that I have found nothing offensive in either
your magazine or the Atheist literature. The word that would best describe it is
"informative." I do find your magazine lacking in humor sometimes, but Michael
Straczynski sure took care of that - his "Being God is Rough" [May issue] was the
greatest satireI've seen ina long time. Was also glad to see Dr. O'Hair take out after
some of the nonsense concerning "God's Chosen People" [April issue].
Rev. John B. Denson
St. Augustine, Fla.
Mr. Denson,
Thank you for complimenting the Voswinkel, Straczynski and O'Hair articles.
Glad to hear that your educating yourself in Atheist literature has to some
extent "helped" you. We know that all Christians need help (though we don'tfeel
obligated to convert them) in that their religious beliefs are a form of mental
disease which mankind should have outgrown centuries ago. The fact that you are a
minister makes you doubly in need of help, so, keep at it.
We agree that our magazine needs more humor. Commercial artists do not come
cheaply and as a "cause" organization our budget is limited to the point that we
have several areas of improvement which await the day when Atheists are as generous with their giving as are the Christians supporting the well-heeled Elmer Gantrys
who are the subject of our center-fold story this month on page 17: "The Chosen
Few."
Our columnists are devoted enough to the cause of an American "revolution
~etw~en the ears" that they donate their appreciated writing talents gratis. We
likewise would welcome talented Atheist cartoonists who would consider publication of their work in The American Atheist reward enough.
The Editors
July, 1978
Page 3
Dear Editor,
I had to write to congratulate you on the May issue of The American Atheist
magazine. Ordinarily the magazine gets a little better each month, this time you
jumped by about a year and a half. Keep up the good work!
I also wanted to respond to a letter to the editor in that issue. In it a woman
states that she is leaving American Atheists because of her recent marriage to "a
believer." Personally I cannot think of a worse reason (if reason ever enters the area
of religion). One's religion is supposed to reflect one's beliefs about the structure of
the universe and Man's place in it both physically and "spiritually" (whatever that
is). What could be more ludicrous as to suppose that all that can change at will?
It shows religion to be a human invention and immune from reality by reducing
it to the level of a pair of shoes which can .be changed with each new outfit. Actually,
religion should be reduced even further but one would expect that even a religionist
could see the ridiculousness of such a thing. If religion is supposed to be absolute
and eternal, it sure is strange how a person can believe first one way and then
another on command.
In closing I want to report on an action I took on behalf of American Atheism
recently. In the December issue of the newsletter you asked members to place ads
for the magazine in trade publications. I wrote the Postal Record, published by the
National Association of Letter Carriers, concerning just such a matter. I also protested the feature, "Monthly Scripture," which that journal carries as being inappropiate and discriminatory; but they refused to discontinue it or to address themselves
to printing our ad. They claim that "Monthly Scripture" is a "popular" feature. I
have yet to reply but plan to point out that sport scores, recipes, and nude women
may also be popular but are equally out of place in a union magazine and will insist
that they respond in some way to our ad. I will keep you informed.
Dan A. Mitchell
Dear Editor,
"Nature's God Should Be Prosecuted" [April issue] was outstanding in
its inane contrast with your other excellent articles in April's issue of The
American Atheist magazine. To refer
to the natural forces of the world in
anthropomorphic terms, even in a poor
attempt at jest, is too silly for words.
The damage spring floods do, which
A.R. Swinnerton blames "Mother Nature" for, is due to the stupidity of
man, not the devilry of Mother Nature. Swinnerton charges M.N. has
given us less land that we need. All the
land in the universe wouldn't be enough
to accomodate the insatiable needs of
the spawning human fish whose universe and greedy farming and forestry
practices have denuded the land and
caused most of the world's deserts and
floods. Yet man doggedly resides in
the path of these and then whines to
"god" when he gets washed out.
Because nature sometimes dishes out
disaster with her otherwise benevolent
and bounteous cuisine is no license to
be childish and irresponsible in our
treatment of the Good Earth.
Harry Nelson
Anchorage, Alaska
A Grand Atheist
I am a foreign-born American citizen who has chosen the USA as my home
where I am now residing and I shall die here. I am an old grandmother now, but age
has nothing to do with what I am going to say.
I had always considered myselfa Christian as I was raised in the Lutheran church
and was taught to pray and read the Bible often. As we Atheists know only too well,
my prayers did no good at all. I have been a widow longer than I was married and
had three children to raise with no help from a god. I had lost faith in a god and was
too busy caring for my children to be concerned with such witchcraft.
Some "born again" Christians said that I must go to church, pray, and give money to the church in order to be saved. "Saved from what?" I asked, but they had
no answer. I didn't know what I was since I was not Christian and I knew I wasn't
pagan. So what am I then?
I started to look around and behold, the whole world was full of freethinkers like
myself! When I found out about American Atheists, I joined and the very first
literature I received made me very happy. I felt I had found some real friends.
There are not sufficient words in my adopted English vocabulary for me to adequately express my joy to be free of all supernaturalism concerning gods and the
Jesus myth.
A new chapter in my life finds me living with my "born again" daughter who recently married a Baptist minister who moved right in with us. Can you picture the
setting: under the same roof in the left corner we have a preacher and in the right
corner we have the grandmother sponsored by American Atheists. Want to make
any bets between god and the devil?
Nothing has happened yet, but he is trying to convert me and he usually gets to
the mailbox before me, so I hope my copy of The American Atheist gets through.
"Granny from Missouri"
(Bertha Goodall)
Columbia, MO
Dear Bertha,
You are beautiful!!! We at American Atheists salute you and want you to know
that we are always in your corner. You are a shining example of the "hardy cactus"
type of Atheist who flowers in an environment made arid and harmful to human life
by religious pesticides.
.
Please keep in touch and let us know if your copies of The American Atheist are
getting through to you.
[EDITOR'S NOTE: readers interested in sending words of encouragement to
Bertha may to so by addressing them to us at P.O. Box 2117, Austin, TX 78768.]
Page 4
July, 1978
Bertha Goodall
Dear Friends,
I am an Atheist and I am confined
to prison in Ohio. I am one of many
men serving time here who has no
family, friends or outside help. I
would very much like to correspond
with other Atheists. I am in dire
need of friends and I wish to relieve
my frustrated and depressed state of
mind. I promise to answer all letters
I might receive.
GIVE ME A CHANCE.
Gus George Owens, Jr.
P.O. Box 45699-138775
Lucasville, OH 45699
The American
Atheist
tlll[~_N_EW:_S"--,JlliI1l111!'' illllltitilll''tllllllt\11111'
State/Chureh Collusion
Nets Marquette S9Mil.
Catholic-run Marquette University' in Milwaukee is an embarrassing example for advocates of state-church separation
with regard to the necessity for immediate and well-financed
litigation when such parochial institutions begin to demand
public funds in support of the propagation of their religious
ideologies.
Initially, this nation's religious-based parochial schools (of
which 91.8% are Roman Catholic) sought mere toleration of
their presence in the community, even at their own financial
expense. Once established, however, the next logical step characteristic of the Catholic modus operandi was to undermine
its rivals (the public schools) by having all taxpayers support
the religious indoctrination
of Catholic children through
acquisition of federal, state and local funding for parochial
schools.
Since the early 1960s, under federal and city-funded
"urban renewal" programs, 60 acres of prime city land were
bought up for $12 million and resold to Marquette for $3
million. The $9 million difference was paid two-thirds by the
federal government and one-third by the city of Milwaukee.
Those opposed to such practices on grounds of helping an
independent, Catholic university never took the Marquette
case to court.
"In its best sense, what we have today at Marquette is a
wonderful example of cooperation between an independent
university and city and federal governments," boasted S.J.
Helfer, Marquette's Director of Planning and Construction. Helfer is a 1945 Marquette engineering graduate.
Marquette administrators recognized in the early 1960s that
an avalanche of students, the post-World War II babies, would
soon hit campus, and that their university was not prepared.
The obvious solution to expand Marquette's facilities so as to
reap the benefits of the college-age baby boom was followed
by the question of how to acquire the necessary land, not to
go bankrupt in the process, and try to plan ahead 25 to 30
years.
The immediate and characteristic solution to the Catholic
school's need was to have those very non-Catholic citizens who
least benefit from the university's presence pay for the improvements. Unfortunately for the constitutional provision of
state-church separation, no one ever took the Marquette case
to court.
Incredibly, administrators at Marquette are now concerned
as to whether the university can maintain its "independent
status" with so much government involvement. In an editorial
in the university's alumni magazine, Marquette Today, an
age-old trait of all religions' wanting public benefits without
being responsible to the public was evident:
"Marquette owes it to its students to seek legitimate
support wherever it can be found - and the various levels
The news which fills one half of the magazine is chosen to demonstrate, month after month, the dead reactionary hand of religion. It dictatd
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 magazine or newspaper in the United States, we are honest enough to admit it.
Austin,
July, 1978
Texas
~/
Page 5
Page 6
world."
As you might have expected, the
churches are not about to voluntarily open their books to public scrutiny and are falling back on their "sacred cow" status in our society so as
to thwart growing efforts to make
them accountable.
Dean M. Kelley, author of a book,
Why Churches Should Not Be Taxed,
has argued that religion is entitled to
special civil treatment because it "performs a special function within society."
Among the objections churches
have to the IRS proposal is that they
feel the government is presuming to
define the mission of the church.
Lurie has stated the government has
had no intention of forming such a
"0
State fire officials in Iowa have ordered a Roman Catholic church in the town of Garryowen to remove electric door
locks it had installed to keep parishoners from leaving mass
early. The local priest reportedly would trip a switch at the altar
to lock the exits as mass began, and then would unlock the
doors only at the end of the service. Complaints were filed after
four or five churchgoers attempted to slip out of the services
early, only to find the doors locked. They were forced to return
to their pews. Fire marshals ordered the automatic locks removed,
saying they illegally blocked a potential emergency exit.
I.
1-------------------------1
July, 1978
The American
Atheist
Austin,
Texas
Does a Jew who believes that Jesus is the messiah have the right to become an Israeli citizen under that
country's law of return?
That question is pending _before Israel's High .Court as a result of a peti-
MORMON CHURCH
COLLICT. BILLION.
The Mormon Church makes more than $1 billion a year from tithes contributions ,and business income, and in total assets ranks among the nation's top 50 corporations.
An Associated Press study, based on available public and church records interviews and statistics, reveals that among the church's holdings are at least 65 acres
of do,wntown Salt Lake City, including a $50-million shopping mall under construction; a 36-sh?ry apartment building in New York; a village in Hawaii; a 260acre ranch near DIsney World in Florida and $18.3-million worth of stock in Times
Mirror, the company which publishes The Los Angeles Times.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, as the Mormon Church is
formally known, gets approximately $550 million annually from contributions and
the 10% tithe asked of each of its 3.4 million members. Business income is about
$500 million annually, not counting rental of buildings and apartments real estate
transactions, interest and dividends from investments and royalties to the Mormon
Tabernacle Choir, whose members are not paid.
Total church income is more than $1 billion a year, the study estimates.
Among the church's recent capital additions are a $15-million temple near Washington and a $33-million office tower in Salt Lake City.
Church officials refused to confirm or deny the AP figures.
~sked ~o comm~nt on the study, the president of the church replied, "It was
determmed that contmued publication of expenditures was not desirable. As for
income, Idon't think the public needs to have that information."
July, 1978
Page 7
Sinful
Priest
Let Off
Easy
Page 8
Priest Guido John Carich, the former fund-raiser for the Pallottine Fathers of
Baltimore, pleaded guilty in May to one of the 60 counts of misappropiating funds
and one count of obstructing justice which had been brought against him by the
state of Maryland.
When Carich was indicted last January, he declared his innocence and denounced
the "state's unfounded and reckless allegations against me." In a statement filed
with the court before sentencing, he acknowledged that he was involved in almost
all of the transactions specified in the indictment. The state of Maryland dropped
the 59 other charges involved in the original allegations that the priest had misappropiated $2.2 million and the obstruction of justice charge.
Criminal Court Judge David Ross, accepting the results of lengthy plea bargaining negotiations, suspended the imposition of sentence for the 58-year-old
priest and put him on supervised probation for 18 months. The judge ordered Carich to work for one year in the state prison system at assignments to be established
by the Division of Correction, subject to the approval of the court.
Carich had streamlined mail order fund-raising to a fine art in the name of overseas charities. But an audit ordered by the Baltimore Roman Catholic archdiocese
showed that although $20 million was raised in an 18-month period ending in December, 1975, less than 3 percent of the money was sent overseas. Much of it was
invested in land and tourist facilities in Maryland and in Florida. And $54,000 of it
was loaned to suspended Maryland Gov. Marvin Mandel so he could divorce his first
wife, Barbara, and for medical bills incurred by his second wife, Jeanne.
The extended plea-bargaining and the slap on the wrist sentence were seen as the
only way for Carich and his superiors to keep the public and the people who answered his appeals for funds for the poor from seeing in a court trial exactly what
did happen to the millions upon millions of dollars they contributed in the name
of charity.
July, 1978
II
The American
Atheist
Testament
Holy
Of The
Garblt
By Erik van Kerstetter
Then it was that Solokiah, son of Amanh and the destined
prophet of the Eternal One, went forth into the great desert in
the land of Zhebb, there to witness his holy vision.
On the third day I looked to the east, and Lo! from the
midst of a huge swirling cloud did the Messengers of our Lord
descend from Heaven.
The cloud of Heaven's Children was glorious to behold.
Both in sight and awful sound did the mighty cloud smite the
earth.
And suddenly, amidst an even greater blast of flash and
fury, the holy sign came to rest upon earth's unworthy dust.
But the thundering did cease, as did the trembling of
ground and sky, and also, as I beheld, the glory of the cloud
dimmed and vanished. And there remained in its place a miraculous altar to the Eternal One.
And my astonished eyes beheld a great wonder. For the altar yawned open and from its fearsome innards there emerged
the Messengers of the Lord, two in number.
And I, Solokiah, trembling and sore afraid, did fall to the
ground in terror.
"You and me both. Well, III check out the power pack."
They stood tall and fair and wore not the beards of mortal
"Pass that wrench, will you, Commander? Has he done anything yet?"
"Nothing. Probably won't, either. But you can't trust them.
I've seen them act shy and retiring as hell one moment and the
next they're lowering you into a stew!"
"Yeah. "
"It's their primative mentality, you know. I don't think
we'll ever understand it, no matter how many expeditions they
send."
"Ouch! "
"What's wrong?"
"Oh, it's this damn splice. The pressure popped it open and
it snapped my finger."
"Pretty sloppy maintenance, huh?"
"Unbelievable!"
"Well, clean it up and we'll get out of here. I feel like somebody's lunch parked in the open like this."
And the Messengers attended to the altar of the Lord, laying sacrifices round and about its holy form. And they praised
its beauty and power, this in the name of the Eternal One.
Then, seeing that I trembled before their glory, the Messengers of the Lord said unto me, Fear not, for we bring glad tidings from afar.
And the Messenger said to me, We come from Heaven, seeking thee, so that the Lord's work will surely be done on earth.
And I bowed low, saying, Master, I am but bone and dust,
and unworthy of your holy audience.
And the Children of Heaven grew hot with anger, and they
did fume and rant, and breathe fire unto themselves and spew
forth a smoke most loathsome!
And I cried out and pressed my face to the ground.
Then the Messenger said unto me, Thou shalt surely dwell
in the House of the Eternal One, for He has seen your righteousness, and would take unto Himself His loving children.
And I wept tears of great joy.
And they took from me bread and wine, and the blessed
fruit of the Ritual which the Lord delivered unto the prophet
Maalatem.
July, 1978
are these?"
"Well, well! Those are the damn nuts that grow in the other
quadrant - the one Delta mission screwed-up. Those inhabitants ate them, too."
"The toxic ones, you mean?"
"Damn right! Tell this guy to layoff these things. There's a
cumulative effect that wipes out their entire hormonal equilibrium."
"How the hell am I going to say that, sir?"
"With charm and wit."
"Huh?"
"I don't give a lavender crap how you do it, Pilot! Make
funny faces and point a lot! Just do it!"
"Damn it! We've got to clear out some of this junk! Look
at this: an old flight plan from the Beta mission! What the hell
is it doing in here?"
"Beats me, Commander. Hand it over and I'll pitch it out
the door."
Then, with a mighty blast of trumpets, the altar of the Lord
rose on a tail of blinding glory and ascended into the firmament. And the Children of Heaven were once again in their
proper kingdom.
Yet, before their leaving, the Messengers did entrust to me
their Most Holy scripture. And I fell upon my knees and gave
thanks. And at the dawn I took it to the priests at Borkobah,
where it rests to this day.
But it is the pleasure of the Eternal One that no man should
know the meaning of the Holy Text, lest the understanding defile His mysterious intent.
Truly, this is the Lord's way. It is the message of the prophets of old when they spoke unto man, saying, "Verily, there
are some things we're just not supposed to know!"
So be it.
Atheist
A JOYOUS ATHEIST
g. riehard bozarth
The Atheist Letters - Part 1
Vacaville, California, is not a hotbed of liberal thought. The
passionate controversies here are growth vs. no growth and
YRE (year round education). I once thought our town newspaper, The Reporter, would publish a letter from an Atheist
only after the canonization of Madalyn Murray O'Hair. This
did not inspire my muse even though there were now and then
provoking reasons to challenge the religionistic nonsense that
is to be found in any newspaper in any city in this country.
Receiving my first issue of The American Atheist fired me up.
About the same time The Reporter published two extremely
provoking pieces. One was a newsstory in which it was reported
that our then mayor had vowed to use all his political power to
keep out of Vacaville two films, "The Passover Plot" and "The
Many Faces Of Jesus," because they are "blasphemous," one
of them supposedly depicting Jesus as gay. The other piece
was a letter from a 13-year-old "born again Christian" applauding the mayor's stand.
Inspired by The American Atheist, and outraged at the idea
of religious censorship going unchallenged, I wrote a letter to
the editor. Surprise! It was published. Even more surprising,
The Reporter permitted me to debate with the religionists of
Vacaville in its Letters Section from 20 March 77 to 27 April 77.
I offer the results of this debate as an example of what Atheists
can expect from religionists when they are confined to reasoning rather than shouting or physical violence.
One note. Quoting only sentences from the religionists' letters is being fair because I restricted my arguments to replying
only to specific statements. This was necessary due to the limi-'
tations of length I had to work with. If I kept my letters short
enough, they were not cut. To do this I had to aim my arguments at what definite targets I could find. '
To protect the world from such immoral ideas as the earth orbiting the sun, Christianity persecuted Galileo until he said, "I
abjure, curse, and detest the said errors and heresies." This is
what mankind gains when Christianity obtains the power to
dictate which ideas are moral and which are immoral.
Where would America be today if the Mayor Carrolls, who
are always to be found, had had from the start control over
what ideas were fit for American consideration? We'd be
where all nations that are excessively controlled by religion are
today - in the Third World, poor and pitiful, but wealthy, I
suppose, in what Mayor Carroll considers moral purity.
One need only look at Sharon McGee's letter in the 13 March
issue of The Reporter to realize the salubrious benefits of Christianity. How can it be called good to so blacken the outlook of
a 13-year-old girl that she would write a line of dismal, sick pessimism describing the world as rotten from their sins? One
wonders what sort of adult this poor, cynical little girl is going
to be. A good Christian, I'm sure, but a pathetic psychological
cripple longing only to die.
I am not now and never have been in need of a bigot like
Mayor Carroll to protect me from any idea that can be filmed
or printed. No American, if they are truly American, needs
such protection. Even less does someone who is not a Christian
need to have his or her basic freedoms destroyed in order to
prevent him or her from seeing a mere man, one Jesus Christ,
get a little bad PRo
The Charges
The Charge
I. Humans are nothing without Christ and god.
Priest Ryan
The Answer
I am an Atheist.
From that statement it should be easy to deduce that I do
not consider immoral any movie depicting Jesus Christ as a
homosexual or any other type of sexual. The worst these
movies that have Mayor Carroll so outraged can be is artistically
tasteless. Since when has tastelessness been a threat to this or
any other nation?
What is a threat is bigots like Mayor Carroll and their mindless supporters like Sharon McGee who would return us to
Christian tyranny rather than preserve the freedom from it we
have won after much effort. Look to the Constitution and
there try to discover where any of the Founding Fathers felt it
necessary to shackle the healthy spirit of a free America with
the chains Mayor Carroll would like to see us wear. In the 18th
century the men who gave us our Constitution did not feel
America needed moral overlords to decide for citizens of all
philosophies and theologies what was immoral. Today in the
20th century America has proven by her supremacy in nearly
all apsects of human endeavor that not having moral overlords
to restrain our proud, creative spirit has been our nation's
greatest virtue.
Look to history for the benefits of religious control of life.
Austin,
Texas
July, 1978
Page 1 J
We humans should stand proud in the glory of our intelligence and humanity. We should be moral because morality is
the finest tribute we can pay to our humanness. It takes pride
to be strong. It takes strength to be moral. Nothing is the most
humble, weakest thing I can think of. How can a nothing be
moral?
The Priest Ryans who have led their flocks all these centuries, piously degenerating them into nothings, have done great
harm to humanity. They still do it today. It is a lie. Every human can be something if they get off their praying knees and
stand up.
The Charges
1. "It takes a real man or woman to realize that there is a
supreme being, one greater than they are, who created the universe, and woo created their souls, giving them life and the intelligence that you take for granted."
2. "Pride is a weakness. It is the mother of all sin."
Priest Shipman
The Answer
First, what is Atheism? "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," according to the American
Atheists. Atheism is a philosophy, which means it must be sustained by reason, and reason requires the fuel of enlightened
education.
Religionism is a theology, needing only faith to sustain it,
and faith requires only ignorant superstition to fuel it. I'm not
calling Christians ignorant. Priests Shipman and Ryan did not
write ignorant letters. Their Saints Aquinas, Augustine, and
Paul were not ignorant. However, even a casual student of history knows religion has flourished best when illiteracy flourished best. Today the Catholic Church is strongest in those
countries where education is weakest.
Education does not make us free, but it gives us the opportunity to be free. Had Voltaire and the 18th century philosophes been left illiterate, they never would have broken the
Catholic Church's stranglehold on French politics and life. In
tribute to these supremely educated men, Will and Ariel Durant
wrote in Vol. 9 of The Story of Civilization, "Because of those
men we, here and now, can write without fear, though not
without reproach." Thanks to those well educated nonChristians, Priest Shipman can only threaten me with a mythical hell and not a very real Inquisition.
To turn to pride. What, I have to ask, has humility accomplished? I have read The Lives of the Great Composers by
Harold C. Schonberg and discovered scarcely a humble soul
among them, but aren't we grateful for the product of their
pride? The Bicentennial year inspired me to read about the
Founding Fathers and none of them were humble. Look what
their pride achieved!
It is another Christian lie that pride "is the mother of all
sin." Pride is the mother of all achievement. Pride is a realistic
evaluation of one's strengths and weaknesses; taking pleasure
in the strengths and exploiting them. Also, it is a healthy
awareness of one's weaknesses and a striving to overcome them.
To persistently denounce pride is, to keep the metaphor
straight, a spiritual hysterectomy. Whoever believes such a lie
has no way to overcome their weaknesses except through an
ugly fear of hell and a not much prettier greed of heaven. The
products of fear and greed are always bad.
Priest Shipman must be meaning arrogance. Arrogance is a
pope assuming the Catholic Church is the only form of Christianity or religion that has a right to exist and waging long
wars to satisfy such arrogance. Arrogance is the statement of
the Vatican's Secretariat for Christian Unity following the recent Anglican ordination of women priests: "It, was a pity that
the congregation did not see fit to consult us. In future discussions with Anglicans, a lot will depend upon the nature of the
arguments used. It will certainly hinder mutual recognition of
ministers." (Time, 7 Feb. 77) That is arrogance. A lot of sin
Page 12
July, 1978
~J
Austin,
Texas
Praise
The Load!
By John C. Yietcos
Dr. Uriah Flotsam, the Millard Fillmore Professor of Systematic Theology and Applied Agriculture, is now working on
a new analysis of the troublesome problem of the origins of
Chris tianity .
"Mistakes, mistakes, mistakes! This whole Christianity business is due to grievous error on the part of my medieval brethren! They didn't know what they were talking about, but I
do!"
.
According to Dr. Flotsam, early church figures misunderstood the origins of their religion. They invented tales in keeping with their misunderstanding.
"This religion started out among agrarian peasants, many of
whom were nomadic wanderers. They didn't know who caused
all the good and bad things they experienced, so they invented
a god to worship. This was some ambiguous deity named
Fahdair, the god of rainfall. They almost went schizo, first
asking Fahdair to make it rain and then asking him to make it
stop.
"Of course, rain without sunshine following was rather
dreary, so the farmers prayed also to the sun. The nomadic
element also sang praises to their domesticated ruminants, the
lowly goats. Thus was originally born the chant, "Praise
Fahdair, Sun and Holy Goats!"
"Oh, other gods were constructed, too. When Fahdair and
Sun worked well together to create bountiful harvests, the
farmers' would pile the produce on their wagons, shouting,
"Praise the Load!" And one of the more commonly named
deities was the god of the End of Things, the god Amen.
"Sooner or later," continued Flotsam, "some clowns told
everybody else that Fahdair had appointed them to be High
Priests in their respective areas. Nobody else had ever seen or
heard from Fahdair, so it was tough for them to dispute the
High Priests' claims.
"Some of the priests played upon latent cannibalistic tendencies of the people by telling them that the sun had once
been a man, but now was in the heavens, and that some day
everybody could go into the heavens - if only they would
share in the left-over body and blood of the sun. Of course,
the only place the people could get the body and blood was
from the friendly neighborhood church, administered by the
High Priest. I guess nobody ever stopped to ask whose freezer
the body and blood had been stored in, since people didn't
have freezers then. They were still waiting for somebody to
shock them with news of electricity in the air, called lightning."
Professor Flotsam's eyes looked moist as he continued. "As
time passed, the later generations forgot the humble agricultural beginnings of their faith. Still, reminders abound. Today
children are sent to Sunday school classes because the priests
feel the kids aren't ready for initiation into the tribe yet they still have to learn more secrets. Choirs are the vestiges of
large bands of warriors and vestal virgins, assembled for nuptial
contracts. Easter happens to be at just the right time for the
spring planting season. Oh, the comparisons are just too numerous and tedious to mention."
Flotsam, a recognized authority on the religious significance
of manure, went back to his agricultural research. His forthcoming book, From Compost to Christianity, promises to be a
fertile field for serious students.
July, 1978
Page 13
Cure
The !
Henry found the machine by accident. He was a meek accountant plodding along in a dreary electronics firm,
and saddled with a coarse, domineering wife. To escape his unhappiness,
he'd become a film buff. One Saturday
afternoon, enthusiastic over an Ingmar
Bergman preview, he arrived at the
Greenwich Village theatre an hour early
and decided to wander around, sightseeing.
On a narrow sidestreet off Bleeker,
in the cluttered window of Abraham's
Curio Shop, there glittered an odd,
metallic cube. Henry paused to examine it, shading his eyes from the sun's
glare. Wide as a shoebox, the cube had
a green knob, and above that a small
printed card that read FRONT. Sprouting from the top, like antennas, were
two levers - the left painted silver; the
right, gold. Impetuously, he stepped
inside the musty shop crammed with
exotic wares, reminiscent
of the
biblical Middle East.
Hearing the doorbell tinkle, a swarthy young man in skull cap of many
colors emerged leisurely from the rear,
threading his way among tambourines,
frolicking camels, and kissing shepherds.
All
By
Box
Bernadette
Miller
Page 14
July, 1978
The American
Atheist
wouldn't
discover it, since she never
cleaned the closets. "Oh, I threw out
the eyesore,"
he explained later, and
planned on making requests gradually
to avoid aggravating his sensitive benefactor.
Austin,
Texas
a machine
can't
eat
* Despite my superb gifts, you insult me with heretical notions. Therefore, pull the silver lever to learn the
penalty. **
"No! Why should
and suffer for it?"
himself,
July, 1978
* More
**
Page 15
Marxianity &
Christianism
By James Erickson
It was early evening and Red Brown was passing out Trotskyist leaflets in front of a meeting hall. They were supplied
by the local branch of the Socialist Workers Party to which he
belonged. Out of the corner of his eye he noticed Tess Truebeliever walking toward him. Tess's mission in life seemed to
be the passing out of Christian tracts in her spare time. They
were supplied by the local church of a fundamentalist sect
,to which she belonged.
"I am working this side of the street," quipped Red.
She ignored the implication of his remark and parrot-like
said, "Christ died for our sins."
"But Trotsky died for a better society so you wouldn't
need religion as a crutch," he retorted.
That was the way the conversations always went between
Red and Tess. There seemed to be no basis for a serious
discussion because their beliefs had nothing in common.
But maybe Red and Tess were not so far apart after all.
There has been speculation, but no proof, that we may have a
religious gene. Because of it many people in the 20th century
become Marxists instead of Christians. But both are genetically
coded toward the personal need to believe in something deeply
so as too add meaning to their lives. Maybe a switch in the
early environments of each would have made a TrotskyistMarxist out of Tess and a religious fanatic out of Red.
Eric Hoffer has pointed out the similarities of all mass
movements, but he claimed that people joined them because of personal frustrations. For the purpose of this short
article it will be assumed that the religious gene is the key. Of
course, a defense of a genetic supposition would require an
article by itself.
The first similarity between Christianity and Marxism is the
splitting up of each into various sects. When the Protestants
Page 16
July, 1978
divided from the Catholics long ago, they kept right on dividing amoeba-like until today it is hard to figure out how many
sects there really are.
The Marxists haven't been around as long but they are all
split up, too. There is the pro-Soviet faction, as well as the
Trotskyists, the Maoists and those who claim independence.
Each tendency, with the possible exception of the pro-Soviet
faction, is hopelessly divided into parties and provisional
parties. Like the Christian groups, each claims exclusive
possession of the "truth" and the correct way to implement it.
Both belief systems advocate hard work and sacrifice in the
present for a glorious future. The difference is that Christianity promises it the day after the funeral, and the Marxists promise it in this world. The catch is that Marxism warns that the
faithful must spend a lifetime of struggle without being
rewarded either. The alleged benefits of the cooperative commonwealth of the future will probably come after the present
Marxists are also dead.
Christianity claims that all people are equal in the eyes of
"god." The equality theme is also part of the ideological framework of Marxism. So today we read of both Christians and
Marxists supporting liberation movements in such places as
Africa.
Christianity is anti-intellectual and has persecuted indivdualists and thinkers throughout its history. Marxism likewise
discourages individualists. Freethinkers are thought to be disruptive to the party and are often unceremoniously expelled.
Both ideologies tend to make people brutal. The medieval
tortures of the Spanish Inquisition were matched by the
wholesale executions of dissidents in the USSR during the
1930s.
Atheist
GarnerTed Armstrong
While TV channel-hopping late in the
evening, you're likely to see the flinty
features of Garner Ted Armstrong. Or
sometimes it's his father, Herbert W.
Armstrong, beaming like an angelic
bank president. The Armstrongs run the
Worldwide Church of God, and Poppa
is grinning for good reason: The Armstrong organization, with a relatively
small congregation of 100,000, is one of
the richest single churches in America
today, grossing over $60 million annually, tax free.
The church operates out of a palatial
estate in Pasadena, California-complete with granite walls and onyx columns. It's furnished in Mortuary Chic,
which makes sense, since Pasadena is an
open-air funeral home. Rich and doddering widows are great prey, and the
Armstrongs know how to stalk them.
Herbert W., the founder and brains of
the operation, is the one who relaxes the
audience. He acts as if the universe were
just a long commencement ceremony at
which he is quite pleased to be the
keynote speaker. Garner Ted, on the
ether hand, seems grim and troubled.
While prophesying that the end of the
world is near, the younger Armstrong
stares intently from the screen, his jaw
set at an angle that ladies, young or old,
can't resist.
Back in April 1972, Garner Ted Armstrong was abruptly dropped from TV,
radio and promotional
appearances.
Wild rumors to the effect that he "was
guilty of all manner of things, with adultery leading the list" (according to
Esquire) began circulating,
and the
church was noticeably reluctant to issue
a denial regarding the matter.
Although he has been back on the airwaves since July 1972-after
speculation that church income had dropped 40
percent when he was removed-these
stories persist. I asked a church spokesPage 18
July, 1978
but Hargis-a
married man with four
children-found
boys divine. Four
youths, who provided times and locations, admitted having had sex with the
reverend. The sexual encounters took
place at Hargis's Tulsa office, at his farm
in the Ozarks and-most ironic of allduring tours of the American Christian
College's All-American Kids choir.
His trysts might have remained secret
except for a tearful wedding-night scene
involving two members of his sect.
Before the newlyweds consummated
their marriage, the wife had a confession
for her husband: She'd lost her virginity
to Hargis.
"Gosh darn," her husband probably
answered, "so did I." Together the
deflowered couple decided to make
their story public, and Hargis's downfall
was imminent.
At first Hargis confessed to college
officials, attributing his bisexuality to
"genes and chromosomes" -strange
language for a fundamentalist Christian
who scoffs at evolution.
He said, "I have made more than my
share of mistakes. I'm not proud of
them. Even the Apostle Paul said,
'Christ died to save sinners, of whom I
am chief.'''
If there was a hint of a boast in this
Chief of Sinners statement, it soon
vanished along with the apology itself.
For Hargis reversed his original stance,
proclaimed his innocence and blamed
"liberals and Communists"
for the
charges against him.
I interviewed a former close associate
of Hargis-who,
like my source in the
Armstrong case, requested anonymityand the evangelist himself. My informant described the scene when Hargis
was confronted by the accusations.
"He admitted it and blamed the
whole thing on his parents. He asked if
we could do him one favor, considering
his service to Christianity-allow
him to
say he was retiring due to a heart condition. That was a total fake.
"He cast a spell over those children.
One of them described it as 'hypnotic.'
And it's left terrible scars on them. The
male and female who got married are
divorced. The rest had their faith in men
of God completely shaken.
"Worst of all, he (Hargis) justified his
activities by claiming that David and
Jonathan were lovers, based on the
Bible." (This belief is shared by some
gay churchgoers in various denominations.] "He's going to have to answer to
Christ for that."
Hargis himself, in the course of a rambling conversation with me, dismissed
the charges as "old business."
"I go on and on," he said, his voice
suddenly weak and testy. "That was
July, 1978
Texas
Oral Roberts
"Expect a Miracle" is Granville Oral
Roberts's favorite motto, and no wonder. His life seems full of miracles, all
leading to fame and fortune.
Roberts first dedicated his life to God
and good works when, at 17, he was
miraculously cured of tuberculosis and
stuttering. He immediately joined the
Pentecostal Holiness Church and gospelled throughout the Midwest for the
next 11 years.
Something must have been wrong,
since he eventually settled for a paltry
$55-a-week pastorate in Enid, Oklahoma. When he saw that the best-known
preachers were, faith healers, Roberts
had another miracle: He found he could
heal by laying his hands on the sickly,
infirm, misbegotten
and uneducated
people of the Midwest.
By the late 1940s, Roberts was teaching the way of the Lord over two radio
stations, and the sheaves and souls
started rolling in. Understanding
the
magic of electronics, he'd exhort his
listeners to fondle their radios in order
to find God. In 1948, Roberts incorporated himself as Healing Waters, Inc.,
and by 1955 the religious corporation
Page 20
was being flooded by 3 million "miracles" in the form of U.S. Treasury notes.
No doubt it had also been a miracle to
be promoted into the national limelight
by L. E. "Pete" White, whose publicrelations savvy also made Billy James
Hargis a household name.
Roberts was praying, healing, and
saving souls on hundreds of television
and radio stations weekly. But long
before this, in the late '50s, he was able
to purchase a 280-acre ranch and a 12passenger plane, in addition to building
a seven-story headquarters for the Oral
Roberts Evangelistic Association, Inc.,
the organization to which all "love offerings" are sent.
During the latter part of the '50s,
when several religious organizations and
the American Medical Association denounced faith healing, Oral Roberts
curtailed the practice. Perhaps the death
of a diabetic who stopped taking her insulin shots after attending one of his
"extravaganzas"
helped convince the
evangelist to drop out of the "medical"
profession and concentrate on building
his Oral Roberts University, near Tulsa.
Shortly after the school was completed, Roberts had another of his welltimed revelations: He realized that he
wanted to become a member of a traditionally middle-class religion, so he
joined the Methodist Church. Perhaps
this revelation had something to do with
his renounced Pentecostal faith, which
teaches that true Christians live a simple
life unhampered by worldly goods.
Ironically, when he changed denominations, Roberts's revenue eventually
dropped by 20 percent. With an annual
operating budget of $17 million, that
decrease no doubt hurt the till, but once
again divine intervention saved him. He
wrote and published A Daily Guide to
Miracles and Successful Living Througli
Seed-Faith (the most successful of his
approximately
50 books to date) and
another miracle occurred: the money
tree blossomed.
Roberts currently reigns as president
of his spic-and-span university, where
students cannot drink or dance. In addition, the males have to wear shirts and
ties, the females dresses. Furthermore,
anyone who voices opposition to university policies-the
right of college students nationwide-is
asked to leave.
Even the admission
requirements
have a strange kink-overweight
applicants are routinely rejected. As one student pointed out, "You feel that God is
here," and it appears that Roberts's God
of the '70s allows only perfect people to
rub shoulders with Him.
Reportedly, Roberts's salary as the
school's head is about $25,000, a relatively meager income for a university
July, 1978
president. But Roberts has no complaints. Why should he? His life has
been chock-full of miracles.
Besides the multimillion-dollar
income of his association, Roberts was a
board member of the National Bank of
Tulsa and is now a board member of the
Oklahoma
Natural Gas Company, a
director of the Tulsa Chamber of Commerce, and was given the greatest honor
possible: playing golf at the exclusive
Southern Hills Country Club in Tulsa.
And that's not too bad for a man of God.
L. Ron Hubbard
Calling Scientology a religion is tricky
to begin with. It is electrolysis for the
mind. Its method, involving machines
similar to lie detectors, is to erase all
negative
experiences - "engrams"from the minds of followers. If you've
ever had a Scientologist approach you in
a bus terminal, you'll notice that a lot of
other cerebral material seems to have
been erased as well.
Scientology, which has 15 million
followers worldwide, is the brainchild of
a rich hermit named L. Ron Hubbard. A
hack science-fiction writer in the '40s,
even then he knew his true calling.
Addressing a writers' conference in
1949, he announced: "Writing for a penny a word is ridiculous. If a man really
wanted to make a million dollars, the
best way would be for him to start his
own religion." Hubbard soon started to
fulfill his own prophecy. Indeed, Scientology now grosses about $1.4 million
per week.
Hubbard started off strong. In 1950
he published
a best-selling
book,
Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental
Health. But, unable to follow up on the
book's success, he traded quack science
for religion, and proclaimed the birth of
Scientology by founding his first church
in Washington, D.C., in 1959.
Like all good evangelists, he first had
to pinpoint his target group-in
this
The American
Atheist
Billy Graham
Austin,
Texas
July, 1978
Reverend Ike
Reverend Ike-real
name, Frederick J.
Eikerenkoetter II - is probably too slick
to ever be humiliated like his unlucky
white brethren. His slickness comes not
only from those $700 suits, ruby rings
the size of chicken hearts, and wavy,
processed
hair - his slickness comes
from within.
The first time I set foot in Hollywood,
so help me God, the first person I saw on
the street was Reverend Ike. He looked
pretty, in a queenlike way, and he was
followed by a slender young male valet
who kept whispering into his ear. I stood
marveling as they passed me. Ike definitely had his moves down.
Even on TV, Ike's style is openly flirtatious, based on a deep belief in his
own charm. In person you can see the
permanent smirk imprinted on his face.
He looks like the quick-witted little kid
who's just conned Grandma into whipping his brother instead of him.
Thus, it's no wonder those old black
cleaning women mail him the pitiful few
dollars they make scrubbing suburban
floors. Reverend Ike is shamelessly open
about putting the bite on poor blacks:
"Don't give change," he says. "When I
hear change in the plate it makes me
nervous in the service. And you at
home-I
know you've got a little money
wrapped in a sock somewhere, that
you've been saving for an emergency.
This is an emergency! Send it in!" And
send it in they do, at the rate of about
$15 million per year.
Ike, who applies modern banking
principles to his gospel, has come up
with something called the "Blessing
Plan." Under this plan the church memPage 21
You might think that all these evangelists have glutted the God market by
now. Far from it. You don't even need
a figurehead like Moon or Armstrong
to run a money-making religious campaign. A group called the Campus Crusade for Christ proves that with good
public-relations men, the Lord can
work wonders without any specific
leaders here on earth.
Perhaps you've seen one of its billboards or bumper stickers, and not even
realized it. The billboards show a
goofy-looking guy with a blissed-out
smile and wearing a leisure suit. In giant
letters are the words I FOUND IT,
plus a telephone number.
Naturally, you're intrigued - found
what? A new erogenous zone? A tax
loophole for blue-collar workers?
Of course, "it" turns out to be God.
This ad campaign has been amazing.
Devised by Bruce Cook, a former adman for Coca-Cola, it helped the crusade gross a cool $29 million one year.
The crusade has 6,000 full-time staff
members and a payroll of at least $2
million.
These figures don't even include
profits from the lucrative San Bernadino bookstore sales of such material
as cookbooks by Graham Kerr - TV's
former "Galloping Gourmet," who is
now making omelettes for Christ and
selling The New Seasoning (Fleming H.
Revell Company). Using a media blitz,
the Campus Crusade made 10,000 converts to Christ in Sacramento, California, in a single month. Its goal is to get
back into the fold all fallen-away
Christians.
The rise of this movement, and the
Page 22
\
\
o
"But, if you're an Atheist ...
July, 1978
The American
Atheist
ON OUR WAY
ignatz sahula-dyeke
Christianist Face-Saving: Anti-Semitism
Dear Perturbed:
Your recent
letter concerning
Jew-hating was so good it warrants the
addition of a few observations of my
own that to an extent explain what I
think this kind of anti-Semitism
presently represents.
To me, it has never been anything
but factual evidence of the inadequacy,
subnormality, and general inferiority
that addiction to a viciously minddemeaning and joy-destroying fantasy
generates in most so-called Christians.
This fantasy is a dysgenic stew made
up of the basically Babylonian idea of
worshipping only one "god," of the
Jewish-Essene idea of a Messiah, of
Saul's (Paul's) preachings, and the later concoctions invented or added to
it all by the Nicene, Roman, and other
clerical councils and meetings after
the year 325. It's a melange that only
a perverted sense of smell and taste
can enable anyone to swallow without
utter revulsion.
As you've said, most Christians subconsciously resent and hate Jews for
having foisted Christianity on them.
But, remember that the Christians of
today aren't any longer forced to believe what they believe. So, for as long
as there'll remain any Christians, so
will there be anti-Semitism. As for me,
since Christians won't depart from
their beliefs, they deserve what they've
been made into by it: fair game for the
clerics and all those who profit from
keeping Christianity alive.
Those who profit from the existence of Christianism also control our
education. Hence today's education
steers clear of telling the people that
their obtuse "faith" traces back some
5,000-6,000 years to the time when
the Jews uiere slaves in Nebuchadnezzar's Babylon. The Jews of course
know this, but due to the remissness
of our education the Christians don't.
They think their religion is different
from Judaism; they don't know that
for the most part the two are practically alike.
The Jewish belief in but one socalled "god" probably originated as
the result of old Nebu's desire to keep
his slaves from wasting time kowtowing
to the multiplicity of Babylon's earlier
"gods. " My theory is that Nebu's Jewish slaves, after they were forced to
worship only one god, kept on whittling and shaping the one-god idea
which, after they escaped from Babylon to Egypt, was in much the form of
Austin,
Texas
July, 1978
1/
Page 23
long before 1776, that any nation proclaiming it was protected by ''god''
was as good as admitting that it
couldn't survive, that it was a makeshift. Their good judgment was confirmed by the series of revolutions
against ''god-directed'' governments
that took place in Europe beginning
with the French Revolution in 1789.
Giving up the ''god'' guff was what
our American beginnings were all
about. The tea in Boston Harbor was
REVIVAL
Yours,
Ignatz Sahula-Dycke
**
**
**
**
**
*
**
**
*****************
A very great philosopher once said:
"Death in itself is the Heaven."
Yes!
Death in itself is the Heaven!
The suffering is the Hell!
]OR]ANNA
BOB LEE
Page 24
*
*
**
**
*
MEEKS
CHURCH SPIRES
Phallic symbols reaching toward
An unknown, distant seer
Erected in frail hope, they stand
A testament to fear.
ANGELINE BENNETT
July. 1978
27 March 76
Austin, Texas
Hello there,
This is Madalyn Mays O'Hair, American Atheist, back to
talk with you again.
Back in 1873, a German scholar by the name of Frederick
Albert Lange attempted to write a history of Materialism and I
have been agonizing through it here for several weeks. The
difficulty is that everyone who ever wrote on Materialism has
been so biased against it that there is almost no chance at all to
find out what the actual history of it was, who was really
involved and what those persons really had to say.
For example, Epicurus is one of our primitive Materialists.
His father was said to have been a poor schoolmaster of Athens
who became a colonist at Samos. There, Epikuros (Lange's
spelling) was born toward the end of the year 342 B.C. or at
the beginning of 341. In hi's fourteenth year, the story is given
that he was studying Hesiod's Cosmogony at school and finding that everything was explained to arise from chaos, he cried
out and asked "Whence, then, came chaos?" When his teacher
had no reply young Epikuros began to philosophize for himself.
Indeed, he was self-taught. The most important ideas which
he incorporated in his system were - individually - already
known. His general education is said to have been deficient. He
joined himself to none of the then prevailing schools, but studied the writings of Demokritos.
Greece was in a state of decline. Alexander the Great had
died suddenly at Babylon and freedom was being suppressed
by Antipater. Amidst the confusion, Epikuros taught in different cities, only returning to Athens in the maturity of his years.
He never filled any public office. He never came into conflict
with religion. He sedulously honored the gods with all conventional observances, without pretending to a belief concerning
them which he did not really feel.
Of death, he said that so long as we are, there is as yet no
death; but as soon as death comes, then we exist no more.
Our fear of death is not caused by our dread of non-existence;
what makes us regard it with such terror is the fact that we involuntarily combine with the idea of nothingness; an idea of
life, that is the notion of feeling this nothingness; we imagine
that a dead man is conscious, that the soul continues to exist
and to feel. If only we could succeed in wholly separating the
idea of life from its opposite, and bravely relinquish all
thought of immortality, death would lose its terrors. We
should say to ourselves: Death is not an evil; neither for him
who is dead, for he has no feeling; nor for the living, for him
death does not yet exist. As long as we are alive, death does
not exist for us, and when death appears we no longer exist.
Hence we can never come in contact with death; we never feel
its icy touch, which we dread so much.
Epikuros wrote 300 books, but the believers in gods saw to
it that not one was preserved. Only fragments quoted by other
authors remain. According to Epikuros, the great evil that afflicts mankind is fear; fear of the gods, and fear of death. To
get rid of these fears was the ultimate aim of his ethics. He believed in making science to be the servant of life.
Epikuros taught the atomic theory of Demokritus. He held
that matter was the positive principle of all things, in opposition to Plato's teaching that matter is non-being. Epikuros
held that matter is composed of innumerable uncreated and indestructible atoms in perpetual motion. The creation or destruction of the world was out of the question. Atoms, space
Austin, Texas
Epicurus
and weight, that is, mechanical causes, were sufficient to explain the world, and he scoffed at the idea of final causes.
He taught that the laws of nature were to be discovered by
actual observation of facts. To abandon observation is to depart from facts and to land in the region of idle fantasies. He
taught that the moon might get its light from the sun. He also
believed in explaining things in household words instead of
confounding ideas by strange-sounding technical terminology. He rejected the Greek dialectis. His own logic was distinctly sensorial and empirical.
All the virtues are derived by Epikuros from wisdom,
which teaches us that man cannot be happy unless he is
wise, noble and just; and, conversely, that man cannot be
wise, noble and just, without being really happy. Thus, the
whole object of the explanation of nature is to free us from
fear and anxiety.
In his maturity, when he returned to Athens, he bought
a garden there, where he dwelt with his disciples. It is said
to have born as an inscription, Stranger, here will it be well
with thee: here pleasure is the highest good. He lived with his
fellows temperately and simply, in harmonious effort, in heartfelt friendship, as a united family. By his will he bequeathed
the garden to his school, which for a long time still had its center there.
According to Epikuros the ultimate basis of all knowledge
is sensible perception. This in itself is always true; only
through its relation to an object does an error arise. If a madman sees a dragon, this perception, as such, is not deceptive:
he does perceive the picture of a dragon, and no reason and no
law of thought can alter the fact. But, if he believes that this
dragon he "sees" will devour him, there he is wrong. The error
lies in the referring of the perception to an objective fact. It is
an error of the same kind as when a scientific man, after the
most sober inquiry, incorrectly explains some celestial phenomenon. The perception is true, the reference to an assumed
cause is false.
Religious
Fantasies
July, 1978
Page 25
TA~EA
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Page 26
July,
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The American
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J. Michael Straczynski
On January 30, 1978, despite much disbelief and confusion,
I founded and received on-campus status for San Diego State
University's very first - and probably last - Atheist Student
Union (ASU), of which I am currently the president.
En route to creating the ASU - which now numbers well
over 30 members and is growing every day - a number of Keystone Kops-type obstacles had to be overcome, from diametrically opposed on-campus religious groups to dumbfounded
administrators and secretaries chock-full of such neat lines as
"You wanna start a what? Here? For who?" Another handy line
was the question - delivered honestly and with sincere curiosity - "Is that legal?"
Yep. It's in the Bill of Rights. I have still not ceased being
aware of how many people are yet unaware of that fact.
One main difficulty to overcome in creating the ASU and,
most importantly, receiving on-campus status, was gathering
enough initial signatures on a petition. Sandwiched in among
the radical religionists who couldn't begin to understand how
a person could dare be an Atheist, were those who signed and
a disturbingly large proportion of people who said, in effect,
"I believe in what you're doing, but I won't sign any piece of
paper, or give you my name. If it gets on my transcript that
I'm an Atheist, it could really mess up my career."
That's more than simply sad. It's very much in the neighborhood of downright frightening.
But now that the problems have all been overcome, it is
heartening to see the response among university students. It
seems like the moment you come out and admit "I'm an
Atheist," they ALL come out of the woodwork. It's just that
no one wants to be first to admit it, primarily because of the
stigma that seems to be contextually attached to Atheism.
Overall, however, the response has been rather positive. The
most frequently heard comment at our open-air headquarters/
handout table is "Well, it's about time."
(The second time we went out, we found our little stand
directly between a number of representatives from TM and the
Campus Crusade people, a situation which, at the time, I termed
an Atheist Sandwich: Two slices of fruitcake and a ham in the
middle.)
But opposition has not ceased. If anything, it has redoubled.
July, 1978
Page 27
Page 28
July, 1978
The American
Atheist
Addenda:
The Board of Education Follies
On April 4, 1978, as indicated by the first part of this report, I went before the Board of Education, representing the
Chula Vista City School District, and put forth my case on
the Bible as a book in need of the same sort of treatment given
Whistle in the Graveyard, i.e., restriction to older children exclusively. I went in as one citizen, armed with a complaint
against the entire established order of things.
I put forth my views in the clearest, most concise manner
that I could, arguing rationally for an investigation into the
matter. At the present time, they are investigating the issue of
initiating an investigation. It would seem, though, that there is
no way to avoid one, now that it has been brought out into
the view of the public.
In the process, however, the train of events have proceeded
with all the decorum and restraint on the part of the media of
a Barnum & Bailey exposition.
"I don't care who he is. Get him out, he's starting to stink."
Austin, Texas
July, 1978
Page 29
Roots of Atheism
Charles Bradlaugh/English
Atheist
* * * .:,.Charles
Bradlaugh/English
Atheist
,.:..
* *
Charles Bradlaugh/English
"The Great Question of the day. Can they get him out?"
From the cartoon in Vanity Fair.
Charles Bradlaugh the "Iconoclast" was no less active in
political than in anti-theological work. His predominant passion was always the legal rectification of law, and the legal redress of illegality. When he chose to use methods of force, it
was always with the law on his side.
One of his earliest efforts in Northampton, which he first
visited in 1859 and whose representative to Parliament he
would later be elected in 1880, was to do battle with a clergyman who had been selling his parishoners' goods for church
rates. Opposition which ordinary leaders found uncomfortable
found in Charles Bradlaugh a fighter who would not be deterred by the inhibitions of an effete society.
For the best part of his public life he was battling the government on one point or another. By legal resistance he reformed the law as to the evidence of unbelievers; by legal resistance he broke down the embargo laid on cheap journals by
the enforcement of heavy sureties against the publication of
blasphemy and sedition. Above all it will not readily be forgotten how he vindicated the right of a constituency to return the representative of its choice, and the right of an Atheist to sit in the English Parliament.
Bradlaugh was soundly beaten in his first attempt at election in Northampton in 1868. As an avowed Atheist he was
the target of intense vilification by those whose inability to
best him in open debate and rational discourse left them no al-
Page 30
July, 1978
Atheist
Charles Bradlaugh/English
Atheist
* * * *
Charles Bradlaugh/English
Atheist
x ,f Charles Bradlaugh/English
Atheist
* * * *
Charles Bradlaugh/English
Atheist
les Bradlaugh/English
Atheist
les Bradlaugh/English
Atheist
* *
.;+
Austin, Texas
July, 1978
Page 31
ESSENCE
OF
PARLIAMENT.
Page 32
July, 1978
By Force
Time and time again during the next six years Bradlaugh
presented himself to be sworn in so as to assume the duties of
the seat to which he had been elected. On 3 April 1881 occurred the incident with the 10 policemen. He was seized while
trying to enter the House and he, resisting, was forcibly
ejected after a struggle. The Times described the incident thusly: "In the passage leading out to the yard Mr. Bradlaugh's
coat was torn down on the right side; his waistcoat was also
pulled upon, and otherwise his toilet was much disarranged.
The members flocked down the stairs on the heels of the struggling party, but no pause was made until Mr. Bradlaugh was
placed outside the precincts and in Palace Yard."
Bradlaugh suffered the rupture of the small muscles of both
his arms; erysipelas ensued; and by medical advice he went to
the country to recover health and strength.
During this six-year struggle for his civil rights, Bradlaugh
was allowed to address the assembled parliamentarians on four
occasions. He waxed eloquently in these four orations as he
tried to reason with men the majority of whom were yet devotees of. irrational religious dogma which demanded of believers and non believers alike that all must bend their knee or
suffer the consequences: a deprivation of civil rights.
Some of Bradlaugh's reasoning goes thusly:
" ... Of the gentlemen who are now about to measure themselves against the rights of the constituencies of England, I
ask, what justification have they for that measurement?
They have said that I thrust my opinions on the House. I
hold here, Sir, the evidence of Sir Thomas Erskine May [the
House Sorgeant-at-Arms], and I can find no word of any
opinion of mine thrust upon the House at all. I have read it may be that the reports misrepresent - that the cry of
"Atheist" has been raised from that side. (Pointing to the
Opposition side.) No word of all mine before the Committee
put in any terms those theological or anti-theological opinions in evidence before the House. I am no more ashamed
of my own opinions, which I did not choose - opinions into which I have grown - than any member of this House is
ashamed of his; and much as I value the right to sit here,
and much as I believe that the justice of this House will accord it to me before the struggle is finished, I would rather
relinquish it forever than it should be thought that by any
shadow of hypocrisy I had tried to gain a feigned entrance
here by pretending to be what I am not. (Cheers, and cries
of "Order.")
" ... What has been alleged against me? Politics? Are views
on politics urged as a reason why a member should not sit
here? Pamphlets have been read: I won't say with accuracy,
"Kicked Out."
By
Charles
Bradlaugh
Austin, Texas
July, 1978
Page 33
Jon
Inurray
The Enemy Among Us
When one reviews the histories of
Europe and the United States seeking an
overview of the slow but steady movement to free the human mind from religious bondage, he finds a litany of defunct groups and dead heroes scattered
among the many and varied battlefields of this relentless campaign.
Each of these heroes, during their
glory days, brief in terms of history's
records but long and often agonizing at
the moment, led those they could persuade in grand skirmishes against oppressive regimes of every shape and form.
The battle won or the retreat sounded,
they went again and again to war, determined to reach that ultimate goal that
still awaits tantalizingly down the road
like Jason's golden fleece. But as in the
case of those ancient Greeks who sought
the fleece, sleeping dragons lay awaiting
the column on their march.
These reptilian foes are of many different shapes, sizes and 'colors, yet are
mostly recognizable. But some are sly
and hide themselves as if surrounded by
a fog so that they may appear to be
marching within the ranks of the liberators. They are misunderstood (or rather
they breed misunderstanding) in the
ranks of the freedom-fighters who trustingly direct their attention to other surroundings - ever cautious for ambushes
from without but unaware of treachery
from within their own ranks.
Such misunderstandings within the
ranks come in strange shapes. Some confuse motives, making the stragglers of
the column drop off unbeknown to
those ahead. Some confuse the meaning
of the goal which the struggle seeks to
gain. Some ignore the rhythm of the
drummer so that the column loses step
and gives ground to the enemy. Some
confuse the goal with others. The most
dangerous of all these serpents though is
the one who confuses the identity of
their own army as a whole.
The crowds of liberated minds along
the way see the troops less clearly and
become discouraging to troops in need
of support. The bearers of sustenance
for the weary troops are unable to locate the column to deliver their burdens
where they are needed.
What was once an army of liberation
is now only a scattering of individuals
chanting the battlecry alone, their heads
peaking out of the fog here and there like
blades of grass in fields of snow. The
battle anthem has been silenced for the
lookers-on, for the emphasis is now on
one head here or there and not on the
Page 34
union of all.
Times have not changed that much in
these many years, for as we fight today
for that freedom of the mind, hanging
on the tree of liberty as the fleece of
Jason's day hung on a lonely branch far
from. reach, the dragon of misunderstanding weaves its path among us. We
are seen as personalities rather than the
army we are. Mercenary soldiers whose
thoughts are strengthened by the memories of those of brave heart who went
before them are now stranded, awaiting
the supplies needed on the front. Only
with adequate support can the war
continue. If the lines of supply are cut
the army will perish.
Mercenaries
We are your mercenaries, hired by
those who care to be liberated but who
have not the taste for the battle required
to gain the victory. We are willing to
taste the bitterness of the front day
after day, but only as long as we know
that the lines of supply will be kept
open with more than just minimal
rations for many battles yet to come.
A comforting word is always welcome, but' in the face of any foe another
round of ammunition is always more
fortifying. Keep the supply lines open.
Dig deeper into the raw materials where
.:rACK FROST
July, 1978
it
GOO
Three of a Kind"
SANTA CLAUS
The American
Atheist
m[k m@WD@W
By
Lloyd
Deceptions s Myths
Of The Bible
Graham
Austin,
Texas
July, 1978
Page 35
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