American!

theist
Vol. 21, No.7

July, 1979

articles
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
Dr. Madalyn Murray O'Hair
MANAGING EDITOR
Jon Garth Murray
ASSISTANT EDITOR
G. Richard Bozarth
NON-RESIDENTIAL

STAFF

[in alphabetical order

Charles Darwin - Belief in God

Dan Thompson - Thoughts on Life After Death

13

G. Richard Bozarth - Interview with J.C. Superstar

17

Jean Meslier - An Oriental Fable

23

Sarah J. McCarthy - Why Johnny Can't Disobey

24

G. T. Harrison - A Very Brief Synopsis of Paul.

29

Art Jones - Tip of The Anti-Abortion

37

Iceberg

Bill Baird
Angeline Bennett
Wells Culver
Conrad Goeringer
Connie Perazine
Ignatz Sahula-Dyke
Elaine Stansfield
Gerald Tholen

features
Editorial - Qualifications

Our Readers' Opinions -

Atheist News
Bill Baird Wins A Big. One

FilniAReview

our cover.

Elaine Stansfield - Hard Core

Susan B. Anthony

Poems

35
: -.39

The American Atheist magazine is publisheci

monthly
by
American

Atheists,

located

at

2210
Hancock
Drive, Austin,
Texas 78756, a non-profit,
nonpolitical, tax-exempt,
educational organization.
Mailing address:
P.O.

Box

7868.

2117,

Copyright

Society
of
Subscription

Austin,

TX,

1979 by

Separationists,
rates: $20.00

Inc.
per

year.
Manuscripts
submitted
must betyped, double-spaced and
accompanied

by' a stamped,

self-

addressed envelope. The editors

assume
no responsibility
for
unsolicited

Austin,

manuscripts.

Columnists:
Gerald Tholen - Facts and Fantasies of Patriotism

10

G. Richard Bozarth - Colonial Catholicism

11

Ignatz Sahula-Dyke - It's A Bit Too Early to Die

15

Connie Perazino - Whores

1'!1

Roots of Atheism - Susan B. Anthony

20

American Atheist Radio Series

Welts, The Historian and Christianity

32

Book Review
The Ten Commandments

July, 1979

Texas

40

Page

~--------------~

Jon Garth

Murray
~

The position of Atheism as a viable lifestyle alternative is

unique among causes celebres in America. Unique because it is
rooted in a freedom that is the prerequisite of those around
which other causes have grown. That is: freedom of the mind.
A continuing purpose of this journal has been to bring its readership into a full recognition of the importance of the maintenance of that freedom of freedoms.
Unique as this aspect of Atheism may be, however, the
cause surrounding it holds certain similarities in store in terms
of pitfalls for those who espouse it. These pitfalls rest historically upon the shoulders of the cause leadership. Their duty is
to place before society a new concept for expansion of the allowable limits of activity or expression. These notions are opposed, as all change is opposed, initially. The cause leader must
bear the indignity of being for that which the majority is against and must stick that position out to the end result of its
acceptance by the whole. This tenacity must be uncompromising.
If the cause leaders allow any majority dissatisfaction, in
whatever form it may take, to sway them from their position,
they have lost it at that point. Should they give any credence
to the opposition, it would evidence their weakness. Should
they compromise their technique it would evidence weakness.
Should they agree on collateral issues with the opposition; ignoring even for a moment their faulty premise, the cause is
disserviced. Should personal discomfort force the leader into
lessening the pursuit of the ideal, the ideal is lost.
Few have the determination necessary for such a career.
Those who do act alone, act partially out of the lack of dedi'cation in others, but mostly out of a desire not to form a tie
that could hold future interference with the cause as a trump
card. This solitude of purpose is often labeled as dogmatism or
elitism or as undemocratic.
Worst of all is the fact that a great deal of the labeling, negativism and pessimism thrown in the' path of the leader is
thrown by those they lead. This unfortunate fact is caused by
the failure of the followers to understand that any cause leader is pleading a case of first impression to the world. They
stand for what has not been stood for before. They champion
the unchampionable.
Nature itself evidences a system of evolution where the
mutation is the catalyst for the required change to perpetuate
the species. Causes provide that mutation for the evolution of
thought. Cause leaders are the first to evidence the change that
all will come to embrace. Their precocity breeds their opposition. What others fail to understand or find strange they resist,
not realizing the benefits of ideas strange at present but common in the future.
Given then the experimental nature of the beast, cause

Page 2

July 1979

leaders fail as experiments fail. Each failure brings another experiment to determine the cause of that failure and to continue until success is realized. In nature many mutations must
die before the most sturdy remains. Thus successions of leaders are needed to perpetuate the experiment to fruition.
Every cause shares the failing of not recognizing this chain.
A single, fearless, uncompromising leader is a necessity. But,
an irreplaceable one is dangerous. The chain of experimenters
must remain unbroken until the goal is realized. The chain is
only as good, however, as its weakest link.
Each month we encourage our readers to come out of the
closet. That mere act is only the beginning. For those who
come out of the closet today are the potential leaders of tomorrow - leaders needed to maintain the chain with each
link growing fainter until the end disappears into the commonplace.
I am asked many times by religionists what the purpose of
life without god is. I know that purpose now: to strive to meet
the qualifications to become a link in the chain of freedom.
Ina Husted Harper in her analysis of Susan B. Anthony [see
pages 20-22] lays those qualifications out as follows:
"During the fifty years which have wrought a revolution,
just one woman in all the world has given every day of her
time, every dollar of her money, every power of her being, to
secure this result. She was impelled to this work by no personal grievance, but solely through a deep sense of the injustice
which, on every side, she saw perpetrated against her-sex, and
which she determined to combat. Never for one short hour has
the cause of woman been forgotten or put aside for any other
object. Never a single tie has been formed, either of affection
or business, which would interfere with this supreme purpose.
Never a speech has been given, a trip taken, a visit made, a letter written, in all this half-century, that has not been done
directly in the interest of this one object.
"In those years of constant aggression, when every step was
an experiment, there must have -been mistakes, ... Future generations will read [her history] through tears, and will wonder
what manner of people those were who not only permitted
.this wQman to labor for humanity fifty years, almost unaided,
but also compelled her to beg or earn the money with which
to carry on her work. . .. let it be remembered that, ... Miss
Anthony was in advance of public sentiment ... and that the
radicalism which we reject today may be conservatism at
which we will wonder tomorrow."

I challenge you to meet those qualifications. Your freedom

depends on it.

American Atheist

J
J

COeMeMENT
O

R
N
E
R

Dear Madalyn,
cal organization, and a bank account
The last time I received a letter
more to the above list. When you file
to rival that of the United States Govfrom you, you said that a Pennsylsuch a suit, a press conference of forvania chapter of the American Athernment.
eign correspondents should be called.
eists would be formed this past fall.
You begin your argument by statYou should acquaint these reporters
I realize that you were tied up for a
with the history of the American Athing that our fight through the courts is
while with that suit against the Amereists, the problems we face, and the
a "quiet" one. Each case has been atican Atheist by a former employee.
tactics that are used against us. You
tended by as much publicity as it has
But it has now been over three months
should also strongly stress the hypobeen humanly possible to obtain-and
crisy of Carter and his human rights
since the critical date in that action.
that was in wire service reports, in
campaign abroad while Atheists are
I still have not heard any.thing about a
newspapers, and on radio and telestill being persecuted at home (which
Pa. chapter and Iam very disappointed
vision.
is only the truth). This could prove
You accuse us of playing into the
about this.
embarrassing to Carter and may rehands of the religious community beThe main method of fighting for
sult in a speeding up of the courts.
cause they control the court system.
the rights of Atheists that you have
You have a big mouth, use it!
been using has been to quietly file suit,
What other legal recourse do we have?
Usually, when I write, I include a
As Atheists, our only hope is to prove,
then patiently fight that suit through
contribution. This time Iam not doing
with reliance on the United States
every level of court. By doing this, you
so. As I stated previously in this letter,
Constitution, that our rights are being
are playing directly into the hands of
I feel that as long as you are still quietthose who seek to force religion (esdenied.
ly filing law suits, any money that you
It does no good to call a press conpecially christianity) on everybody in
spend on these suits will be wasted. I
ference of foreign correspondents.
the nation. From the court cases you
do not want to see any of my money
They would not come. We have tried
have been involved with and from the
wasted. Once I see that you are startthat. (In addition, we have had intertactics and ridiculous arguments these
ing to fight harder and louder, I promreligious forces are allowed to get
national news coverage a score of
ise that I will resume sending contritimes through ordinary channels.)
away with, it should be obvious to
butions to the American Atheists.
you that these forces have control of
More important, ours is a domestic
Miles E. Calhoun
our court system. By various tricks,
fight, not a foreign one.
Pennsylvania
they are able to force you to waste
As you point out the courts are intime and money fighting these tricks,
fluenced by religion, but so is the
media and every other institution.
thereby slowing the growth of the
Mr. Calhoun,
We agree with you-that Atheists are
American Atheists. At the same time,
In regard to a Pennsylvania chapter,
being persecuted, but one can't go into
they are free to continue spreading
please see our response to Mr. Fernancourt on that alone. We must be specitheir poison without any hindrance.
dez in the letter below.
fic in our complaints and must pick
I feel that it is still possible for you
Your letter totally, however, is a
perfect. example of blaming the victim.
out test cases where we can meet certo beat these forces by the use of the
You are blaming Atheists for their
tain legal requirements to enable us to
court system as you have been doing.
own persecution because they are not
sue. We must fight one law suit at a
However, the suit that you file must
fighting "hard enough" against an intime. We can't demand blanket legisbe one which would command world
stitution that has a 1500 year head
lation to cover the rights of Atheists
attention. We need the eyes of the
start, an unrivaled. grass roots politifor supposedly, we already have them
world on our fight. One suit that could
do this would be to charge the
government with the persecution
WE KNEW IT ALL THE TIME!
of Atheists. Several arguments
you could use are: we are forced
Greetings to All to carry a religious motto (in
Recently, while checking a crossword puzzle word, I came across this item
god we trust) we do not believe
in Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary, 8th Edition, Pub. 1977.
in, the FCC requires all TV staGood definition
tions (the most powerful comStephen Budai
munications medium) to carry
Michigan.
religious programming, the fight
ere-nn
\'kret-l1\
n
[F
cretin,
fro
F
dial.
cretin
Christian.
human
that is now going on in Congress
being.
kind
of
idiot
found
in
the
Alps.
fr.
L
christianus
Christian
1
to bring prayers back to public
:
one
afflicted
with
cretinism;
broadly
:
a
person
with
marked
schools, etc. I am sure that with
mental deficiency - cre-tin-cue \-l1-;)S\ adi
your experience, you could add

Austin, Texas

July 1979

Page 3

COeMeMENT
guaranteed to us in the First Amendment. This makes our fight that much
more difficult, since the judges and the
legal system do not recognize that a
problem exists.
In order to "command world attention" to our cause, as you would like'
us to do, should we take it to the
streets like the blacks, the feminists
and the gays? If we could organize
marches on Washington with Madalyn
Murray 0 'Hair leading the way, would
you march with us? Or would you,
like so many other arm-chair Atheists,
prefer to sit back in quiet (and safe) agreement, and watch, while the rest of
us put our lives on the line against
angry Christians and hostile policemen?
For this is what it all comes down
to in the final analysis.
In your effort to "punish" us by
withholding your contribution until
we do something "useful," you ate
not hurting us+you are ultimately,
and most importantly, hurting American Atheism and that comes in the
end, to your engaging in self-abuse.
Madalyn Murray 0 'Hair

Dear Mrs. O'Hair,

One year ago I decided to join your
organization (the first organization I
have joined in my life) because I understood there was no useful purpose
to fighting alone. After that I have
known the goals and difficulties you
have had in Austin. My main purpose
was to help to spread the idea of freedom from religion. I did not hesitate
to help establish the New York chapter and along the year I supported it
in all the ways I could. Inspite of the
diversity of ideas among the seven persons that keep alive the NY chapter
and the fact that no one is doing full
time work because everyone depends
on his own job, I have become confident of the most of them about their
intention to fight against organized
religion in this country.
I think it is important to send you
the following reflections:
1) In accordance with the fast deterioration of world affairs by the influ-

Page 4

ence of organized religion on them,

the main goal of A.A. must be to
spread and sustain (in every way)
groups such as the New. York chapter.
If you could establish a strong group
of convinced non-believers in Austin
you must understand that another
qualified person can do the same in
other places .
2) The lack of communication between Austin and New York creates
a lack of confidenee among the people here. I can remark that not the
magazine and not the newsletter are
able to change such a situation. It is
necessary to train a travel coordinator
and send him periodically to every
chapter.
3) I am convinced it is primary to improve relations with every group' of
non-believers that exist in this country
and to stop useless quarrels among
them. As an individual and as a nonbeliever my duty is to develop a sense
of brotherhood among all of them. If
there is any future for our cause, this
future will be for all non-believers or
for no one.
4) I understand that the organization
must be helped with money, but' also
by the ability that each member wants
to put to the service of the cause. I
sent two cartoons (about the presence
of Karol Wojtyla in Mexico) and offered to collaborate with more of your
choice and I did not receive any answer until today.
In spite of my above criticism, I am
enclosing my check' to renovate my
membership because I am still confident of your honesty, courage and
total dedication to fight against the religious power.
Your fellow Atheist
. Oscar Fernandez
New York
P. S. As special delegate to the First
International Exhibition of Literature
of Non-Believers, I suppose you agree
with me about the necessity 'to publicize such event, so please, can you
publish the enclosed ad in .the Newsletter and/or the magazine?
[see ad on page

July 1979

Dear Oscar,
I answer you publicly because of
the importance of your letter.
"American Atheists" now has 33
chapters in 22 states and Canada, all in
different stages of development, all
maturing in different growth levels,
with diverse degrees of sophistication
in both outreach and program content.
We desperately need a Chapter Coordinator and we have a good one "on
call. " However, Gerald Tholen, for he
it is, has home and family concerns
and cannot abandon them in another
city while he comes to Austin to work
for a comer in which to sleep and
crumbs from the community kitchen
in the American Atheist Center.
He must have a salary. He must
make an orderly move to Austin. He
would need (air) travel money, lodging
and food (expense) money as he visited chapters. He would need unlimited
access to long distance telephone and
he sh~uld have a secretary here at the
Center to handle the voluminous chapter correspondence.
Over and over and over again, we
fail for lack of funds. We fail to answer
personal mail. We fail to arrange continuing follow-up visits with chapters.
We fail to supply chapters wit!! educational material they need.
We should - and could - be booming if we had funding beyond the mere
subsistance budget with which we survive.
On .paper, and in our heads, we
have fine structured planning for chapter development. It all fails at checkbook level. We demand, we beg, we
cajole, we titulate, we bemuse, we beseech for dollars. We run a book service - for dollars. We operate a lecture
bureau - for dollars. We have a yearly
convention - for dollars ...
but not
enough comes in for the ambitious
programs we want to effectuate.
At the American Atheist Center,
the employees have specific jobs: one
prints; one manages the computer; one
fills book orders, etc. The volume of
work at each position is an overload.
Our routines break down constantly from that overload. Our communi-

American Atheist

cations break down constantly from

that overload. The demands upon the
American Atheist Center are great and
the (monetary and other) ass4tance is
minimal.
You are so righ t in all of your good,
constructive criticism, that we are
pleased to have you as a member. We
cannot, however, implement a one of
your suggestions. It is a vicious circle,
if we had more money we could hire
more staff, which would result in more
outreach, more communication, more
membership, for more impact and
more income - ah! I have come full
circle in the argument.
We want to do everything in your
letter. We can't. It takes all our time
and effort at this phase of our organi-

zational life, just to maintain the minimal steady state 'in which we are.
Right now; survival is success.
Incidentally, although our organization is constantly under attack from
inside and out - we attack only religion. We do not waste our time in internecine warfare.
Bear with us yet a little while. We
are trying. I have personally chewed
out everyone in regard to your cartoons; which I have now found in
these stacks of mail. They are scheduled to be used in either the August or
the September issue of the magazine.
Madalyn Murray O'Hair

ATHEIST "HEX" WORKS

NOBODY'S FAITH PARTNER

American Atheists,
This is to inform you the proselytizationists in this community are
completely organized on military lines.
I don't buy their crap, but the pressure
is relentless.
I am single, aged 64, own my home,
part Crow Indian, and as there are several classes of exploitables - and they
are the very young, the old, Indians,
Atheists, and, around here, Democrats - I fit all classes. For six months
or more they have been exposing me
to their horseshit by using the CB
radio to tip off the various clergy to
meet me at the post office when I
pick up my mail.
No one denomination
seems to
prevail in the intimidation. On this
particular day, I noticed the local
Catholic priest about 100 feet behind
me, and this pissed me off. I whirled
around and cocked my fist and pointed my index finger at him, and he
ducked into the hedge. I went into the
PO, and when I came out, he had disappeared.
Do you know to this day I pick up
my mail in peace. I haven't seen one of
these vermin around since.
Here is my 20 bucks for another
year's subscription.
Owen B. Williams
Indian Country

Dear Mrs. O'Hair,

Somebody must have given my
name and address to the 700 Club, because I have been getting mail from
Pat Robertson. They send me their
magazine and pledge form, in which I
am referred to as his "faith partner."
I answered the last one by returning
his pledge form and telling him to
drop me off his mailing list because I
am not his faith partner!
I understand how you could not
possibly have enough money to run
the business right, but believe me,
even the millionaire churches are in
trouble. Some night I can't sleep, so I
listen to the radio. I hear the churches
crying for help. Some preacher from
Akron, Ohio, said that he knows
Christians who have millions of dollars, but will not help the churches.
Meanwhile, last year, Jim Bakker
from the PTL Club said that god had
been good to them when they were in
their worst financial trouble, because
someone gave the club $6 million with
30 year payments and no interest.
They do have rich members.
I guess the Atheists are mostly middle-of-the-road people and with these
depression times, everybody is so
scared to part with their money because nobody knows what is ahead of
us.
I can't remember in what month I
subscribed to The American Atheist
magazine, but if it is due, I have enclosed $20 to renew it.
I am living in a house close to a
motel that my son and his wife run,

R
N
E

Dear Owen
The name of the game with religion
is always intimidation. Once you stand
up, they are defeated. Keep in there!
Editor

~
In the above two letters we have ex-

Austin, Texas

July 1979

'/

amples of honest, concerned A theists.

One punishes us by refusing to send
the wherewithall we so badly need to
continue. The other chastises us, but is
monetarily supportive.
We cannot fault the one over the
other. We do what we can. We touch
base as we are able. Often, we feel we
may be a (lea attacking an elephant.
On the other hand, the future belongs
to Atheism - and, someone has got to
start somewhere to fight. It may as
well be us, doing what we can, now.
Love us or not, 1jJith us or not, we
are going to do the best we can possibly do with the means we can gather.
That satisfies our consciences.
Madalyn Murray O'Hair
Editor in Chief

and I try to sneak in the units' desks

some Atheist material in the hope
that someone will pick it up' and
read it in the motel.
You are great, Madalyn. It takes
courage to do what you are doing.
Bertha Goodall
Ohio
It takes courage to do what you, are
doing, too, Bertha. Keep up the good
work!
Editor
DIVINE DIVORCE
Dear Madalyn,
Inclosed find my check ($50.00) to
order of "Marsa Legal Fund."
I believe that the coming weeks
will reveal that you have been stunningly successful in the "In God We
Trust" case! The Supreme Court's inaction has divorced god from religion
in the minds of people you could
never hope to reach.
I suggest you "have nothing to
say" on the matter, and busy yourself preparing for filling requests for
Atheist info.
Louis Longo
New York
Louis, old friend,
We feel the same way. If they need
to pretend a religious motto is a patriotic 'one - and they do - then your
thinking is right and everyone is bound
to catch on.
Editor
Page 5

BILL BAIKD
WINS
The religious we have always with
us - and the way becomes more difficult always. Take Bill Baird. He has
struggled long and hard against the
suppressions of the Roman Catholic
Church. He has fought for sex education, for distribution of birth control
information, medications and devices.
He has fought for women's freedom of
choice in respect to abortions, until he
is battered. The United States Supreme Court knows him - and well,
for he has often been before that
body.
Bill Baird has just won another
big one.
On August 2, 1974, the legislature
of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts passed, over the Governor's veto,
an act pertaining to abortions (in
which minors were involved) performed within the state. Before the act was
to go into effect, Bill Baird sued to enjoin the enforcement of it and the
Federal District Court issued a restraining order until the issue could be
litigated.
The law provided that every woman
under 18, who had not been married,
must secure. the consent of both her
parents before receiving an abortion,
and if they refused, she needed to obtain an order of a judge of the superior
court for "good- cause shown" in order
to proceed with her desired abortion.
There was much confusion as to
how that law would operate and the
case has been in litigation for five
years. Duringthat time the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court gave an
authoritative construction as to its
provisions, and the Federal District
Court twice considered the law. The
law was interpreted to say that every
minor desiring an abortion must first

A BIG

seek the consent of both parents, if

both parents refused to give consent,
she must then go to court to obtain
permission, and it was required, both
parents had to be notified of the judicial proceedings. The judge's task was
to decide if the best interests of the
minor would be served by an abortion.
The decision was the judge's - even if
he found that the minor was "capable
of making, and had made, an informed
and reasonable decision to have an
abortion."
The Federal District Court looked
at this and said, substantially, "No
way," declaring the law to be invalid.
The law was held to be unconstitutional. Having all of the tax payers'
money at its disposal, the State of
Massachusetts, naturally, appealed.
The United States Supreme Court
spoke to the case on July 2, 1979. In
an 8 to 1 decision (Justice White dissenting) ti1e court agreed with Bill
Baird and with the lower Federal District Court that this law was, indeed,
unconstitutional.
Justices Powell, Stewart and Rehnquist, joined by Chief Justice Burger,
agreed that the law appeared to say
that no minor, no matter how mature
. and capable of informed decision making, may receive an abortion without
the consent of either both parents or a
superior court judge and that this imposed on the minor an "absolute
third-party veto," which was unconstitutional.
Justice Rehnquist concurred and
noted that beside calling the law
unconstitutional, the court had offered some guidance - and only that.
Therefore he agreed with Justice Powell, who had written the opinion above but only in respect to the law

NEWS

ONE
being unconstitutional.
Justices Stevens, Brennan, Marshall
and Blackmun concurred also in the
result, saying that they were particularly troubled by an absolute veto of a
judge. "It is inherent in the right to
make the abortion decision that the
right may be exercised without public
scrutiny and in defiance of the contrary opinion of the sovereign (state)
or other third parties."
It was a clear and simple win for
Bill Baird and for pregnant minors ..
It was an eight to one win; one of
the .best that the United States Supreme Court can give.
The newspapers speculated,
the
wire services attempted to confuse, the
Massachusetts officials did their interpretation, for there was extraneous
language in the decision, - the "guidance" of which Rehnquis] spoke. But
Stevens put it best. The law had been
declared unconstitutional.
But, the
opinion "went further, and addressed the constitutionality of an abortion
statute that Massachusetts has not enacted, ... " The latter four judges, all
agreeing that the whole thing was unconstitutional, did not join the first
three justices' opinion in respect to
this "guidance" but only that the law
was unconstitutional. They were right.
From that "guidance" will come
confusion for years, and it was not
necessary.
In a prior case [Planned Parenthood
v. Danforth,
428 U.S. 52] the court
had held that a state could not lawfully authorize an absolute parental veto

The news 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.Tt 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.

Page 6

July 1979

American Atheist

over the decision of a minor to terminate her pregnancy. The Baird v. Bellotti case added the need for a state's
consent (through a court, and parental notice of the court action.) So, the
United States Supreme Court now
speculated as to "what if" Baird had
not restrained the law.
It noted, "The need to preserve the
constitutional right and the unique nature of the abortion decision, especially when made by a minor, require a
State to act with particular sensitivity
when it legislates to foster parental involvement in this matter."
Then, in its "guidance" (Ah! the
power of the church!) the court speculated that IF a State decides to require
a minor to obtain one or both parents'
consent to an abortion, it also must
provide to her an alternative procedure
whereby authorization can be obtained.
That issue was not before the court
as Justices Stevens, Brennan, Marshall
and Blackmun pointed out.
This "procedure" the court opined
could be judicial or administrative and
would be an exercise to show that the
pregnant female minor (1) was mature
enough and well enough informed to
make her own decision, in consultation with her physician, independently
of her parents' wishes; or (2) if she was
not able to make the decision independently, the desired abortion would
be in her best interests anyway.
Putting upon the judicial or administrative "procedure"
the necessity
that it "must authorize her act" if satisfied that the minor female "is mature

and well-informed" . . . the "guidance" then concluded that " ...

the
constitutional right to seek an abortion may not be unduly burdened by
state-imposed conditions upon initial
access to court (approval)."
The decision was right and was a
brilliant victory for Bill Baird.
The extraneous and unnecessary
"guidance" remarks of the court will
do two things: (1) confuse lawyers for
years and (2) be a guideline for oppressive state legislatures to fashion
unrealistic laws concerned with the
right to have a pregnancy terminated,
which is - in last resort - a medical
and not a legal problem.
The United States Supreme Court,
composed of old men, from this decision, clearly cannot understand the
fears and emotional trauma of a female under age 18 when she discovers
herself to be pregnant. If she has fanatically religious (or particularly Mormon or Roman Catholic) parents, she
is doomed. She will be forced to conclude a pregnancy.
If she is so immature and so little
informed as to make her own decision.
in respect to termination of the pregnancy, does the court think she will be
mature. enough and well informed enough at age 12 to become a mother
and take care of a child, or at age 13,
or at age 14 or 15? The thesis is absurd.
The case of Planned Parenthood v.
Danforth 428 U.S. 52 was heard in
1976. The legislature of Missouri, from

Next Month:
Los Angeles Chapter, American Atheists, and Don Latimer, its
director, in a win with Los Angeles county over a Christian
cross. '
.
Ohio Chapter, American Atheists, and Richard Scholten, its
director, in a fight with the Roman Catholic Church and the
State of Ohio.

". ,

of the United States -

.
and
.

The incredible assault on the school system, the Supreme

Court and our democracy, by reactionary religious forces, trying to put prayer back into schools and trying to (again!) obtain financing for parocial schools
.
Carter's

new secret weapon: minister in the White

'. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. ..
.

Religious Freedom in Cuba - what does that mean?

Idaho Chapter, American Atheists, and Richard Smith, member, move against religious currency and coins. '
.

Austin, Texas

The House of Representatives

.
prayer
_

Jimmy
House

North Carolina Chapter, American Atheists, and Pat Voswinkel, as she rattles the Christians again over free license plates.

more on the media saturation by religion

Bill, you are going to have another

fight on your liands from Missouri,
and probably another .f.rom Massachusetts and another and another and another. We know you are equal to the
task.

The Senate of the United States - and sex!

and

which the case had come, immediately

was influenced by the powerful Roman Catholic Church in that state to
begin the consideration of another
abortion bill. While Bill Baird was in
the Supreme Court on this one, the
Missouri bill was already out of committee and cleared for House debate.
That bill had been drafted by attorneys for the national Roman Catholic
Right-to-Life movement to conform to
the Danforth decision.
The bill would require consent of
one parent or the order of a juvenile
court, with advance notice to the parents by that court - and she would
need to view a fetus and be informed
of the physical and psychological dangers of abortions and her possible alternatives (adoption).
The ideas are bizarre. What child
wants a juvenile court "sex" record?
As put by the only person objecting to
this bill, Della Hadley (D-Kansas City),
"This is not an informed consent bill.
This is not a bill that provides life. It's
a return to death from illegal abortions."
It is unfortunate that this great victory of Bill Baird, will be - because of
the "guidelines" - used by unscrupulous and/or ultra-religionist legislatures to seek harassing legislation elsewhere.

Don't miss the August issue of American Atheist Magazine. It

will be featuring as a "piece de resistance" a survey of Sex and
Atheism that winds up with an analysis of Larry Flynt, editor
. and publisher of Hustler Magazine. . . . . .
.
.

July 1979

Page 7

BELIEF IN GOD
Charles Darwin
Will Durant wrote that Copernicus' heliocentric astronomy "gave theology the strongest challenge in the history of religion. " This is not true. While an Earth at the center of the universe suited a theology then asserting all things
had been created by a god for the use and benefit of humans, in the end an orbiting Earth had no real effect on the
basic Christian 'message.
The greatest challenge to religion comes from the theory of evolution. By denying the human species began
with a real Adam and Eve, the event of the Original Sin is also denied as an actual historical happening. Without this
event, the life of Jesus Christ has no meaning, for the Christian message is that Christ made a blood sacrifice of himself
to redeem the human species from the corruption brought upon it by the Original Sin.
The theory of evolution is often called Darwinism because Charles Darwin gave the first definitive explanation
of the theory. Born on 12 February, 1809, Darwin at first seemed a hopelessly poor student only interested in collecting animal specimens. His father tried to get him to learn medicine, but he refused to comply. When put into Cambridge
to learn to be a Church of England priest (in the 19th century the priesthood was the career of last resort for those too
stupid or incompetent to succeed at anything else), he would not let his mind be filled with such rubbish.
However, Cambridge changed his life. There Darwin met John Henslow, professor of botany, who recognized
a born naturalist when he saw one. It was Henslow who, in 1831, secured Darwin the billet of naturalist aboard the
HMS Beagle. This voyage to South America and some Pacific islands provided the foundation of knowledge upon which
Darwin constructed the first great explanation of the theory of evolution.
Darwin was an agnostic who rejected the Bible thoroughly. The Old Testament he considered false in its account of creation and repugnant for its bloodthirsty god. The New Testament was no better, and he wrote he could
"hardly see how anyone ought to wish Christianity to be true; for if so, the plain language of the text seems to show
that the men who do not believe, and this would include my Father, Brother and almost all my best friends, will be
everlastingly punished. And this is a damnable doctrine. "
Nevertheless, Darwin did not like to be associated with attacks on religion (he refused to allow Atheist Karl
Marx to dedicate the English edition of Das Kapital to him), and about half-believed the creator-god of the Deists
probably existed. Yet, when it came time to treat belief in god in his The Descent of Man, his integrity as a scholar
stands out. Though he softens the blow with a few mollifying phrases, he leaves no doubt that belief in god evolved
out of primitive fear and- ignorance.
But, let the Father of Evolution speak for himself. ....
There is no evidence that man was aboriginally endowed
with the l)nnobling belief in the existence of an omnipotent
god. On the contrary there is ample evidence, derived not from
hasty travelers, but from men who have long resided with
savages, that numerous races have existed, and stilfexist, who
have no idea of one or more gods, and who have no words in
their languages to express such an idea. The question is of
course wholly distinct from that higher one, whether there
exists a creator and ruler of the universe; and this has been
answered in the affirmative by some of the highest intellects
that have ever existed.
If, however, we include under the term "religion" the belief in unseen or spiritual agencies, the case is wholly different;
for this belief seems to be universal with the less civilized
races. Nor is it difficult to comprehend how it arose. As soon
as the important faculties of the imagination, wonder, and
curiosity, together with some power of reasoning, had become
partially developed, man would naturally crave to understand
what 'was passing around him, and would have vaguely speculated on his own existence. As Mr. M'Lennan has remarked,
"Some explanation of the phenomena of life, a man must
feign for himself, and to judge from the universality of it,
the simplest hypothesis, and the first to occur to men, seems
to have been that natural phenomena are ascribable to the
presence in animals, plants, and things, and in the forces of
.nature, of such spirits prompting to action as men are conscious they themselves possess."
It is also probable, as Mr. Tylor has shown, that dreams
may have first given rise to the notion of spirits; for savages
do not readily distinguish between subjective and objective
impressions. When a savage dreams, the figures which appear

Page 8

July 1979

American Atheist

before him are believed to have come from a distance, and to

stand over him; or "the soul of the dreamer goes out on its
travels, and comes home with a remembrance of what it has
seen." (Tylor, Early History of Mankind, 1865, p. 6) But
until the faculties of imagination, curiosity, reason, etc.,
had been fairly well developed in the mind of man, his dreams
would not have led him to believe in spirits, any more thanin the case of a dog.
The tendency in savages to imagine that natural objects
and agencies are animated by spiritual or living essences, is
perhaps illustrated by a little fact which I once noticed: my
dog, a full-grown and very sensible animal, was lying on the
lawn during a hot and still day; but at a little distance a
slight breeze occasionally moved an open parasol, which would
have been wholly disregarded by the dog had anyone stood
near it. As it was, every time that the parasol slightly moved
the dog growled fiercely and barked. He must, I think, have
reasoned to himself in a rapid and unconscious manner that
movement without any apparent cause indicated the presence
of some strange living agent, and that no stranger had a right
to be on his territory.
The belief in spiritual agencies would easily pass into the
belief in the existence of one or more gods. For savages would
naturally attribute to spirits the same passions, the same love
of vengeance or simplest form of justice, and the same affections which they themselves feel. The Fuegians appear to be in
this respect in an intermediate condition, for when the surgeon
'on board the Beagle shot some young ducklings as specimens
York Minster [one of three Fuegians aboard the ship being returned to Tierra del Fuego after a sojourn in England where
they had been subjected to the "civilizing" influence of a
Christian education, which they all three happily exorcised
from their minds by reverting to "savagery" once back among
their own culture - Editor] declared in the most solemn manner: "Oh, Mr. Bynoe, muchrain, much snow, blow much;"
and this was evidently a retributive punishment for wasting human food. So again he related how, when his brother killed a
"wild man," storms long raged, much rain and snow fell. Yet

we could never discover that the Fuegians believed in what

we should call a god or practiced any religious rites; and
Jemmy Button, with justifiable pride, stoutly maintained
that there was no devil in his land. This latter assertion is
the more remarkable, as with savages the belief in bad spirits
is far more common than that in good ones.
The feeling of religious devotion is a highly complex one,
consisting of love, complete submission to an exalted and
mysterious superior, a strong sense of dependence, fear,
reverence, gratitude, hope for the future, and perhaps other
elements. No being could experience so complex an emotion
until advanced in his intellectual and moral faculties to at
least a moderately high level. Nevertheless, we see some distant approach to this state of mind in the deep love of a dog
'for his master, associated with complete submission, some
fear, and perhaps other feelings. The behavior of a dog when
returning to his master after an absence, and, as I may add,
of a monkey to his beloved keeper, is widely different from
that toward their fellows. In the latter case the transports of
joy appear to be, somewhat less, and the sense of equality is
shown in every action. Prof. Braubachgoes so far as to maintain that a dog looks on his master as on a god.
The same high mental faculties which first led man to believe in unseen spiritual agencies, then in fetichism, polytheism, and ultimately in monotheism, would infallibly lead
him, as long as his reasoning powers remained poorly developed, to various strange superstitions and 'customs. Many
of these are terrible to think of -r-' such as the sacrifice of human beings to a blood-loving god; the trial of innocent persons by the ordeal of poison or fire, witchcraft, etc. - yet
it is well occasionally to reflect on these superstitions, for
they show us what an infinite debt of gratitude we owe to
the improvement of our reason, to science, and to our' accumulated knowledge. As Sir J. Lubbock has well observed,
"it is not too much to say that the horrible dread of unknown
evil hangs like a thick cloud over savage life and embitters
every pleasure." These miserable and indirect consequences of
our highest faculties may be compared with the incidental and
occasional mistakes of the instincts of the lower animals.

"I ask you, has God answered one damn prayer?"

Austin, Texas

July 1979

Page 9

NATURE'S WAY
Gerald Tholen
It seems to be that time of year again when we all must put on our "patriotic hats" and make like great American citizens. Yes, sir, every July
4th we experience this need to recharge our partisan egos with a slice
of proverbial apple pie and a kiss for
"mother" and then watch a good John
Wayne movie.
Time once more to recall all the
heroes who died defending our bastion
of democracy; although, the heroes are
so numerous we bypass their individual names and give a single salute to
them in quantum at national burial
sites. This practice is less strenuous
and not nearly so painful as remembering "Louis" or "John" or "Antonio," the little boys who grew up
next door only to get "chalked-up"
in Vietnam.
As I see it, the anatomy pf patriotism seems to be shaped in this natiori
by an illusionary ideal.- similar to religion so to speak, i.e., John Wayneism. The trouble that I have with this
idea is that I can't be happy ahd satisfied and fulfilled by"a glance. into the
"magic mirror." To delude oneself by
attempting to experience 'an illusionary honorable manifestation on these
festive national holidays is to leave
oneself denied the reality of truth. Instead of making an annual event of
"self-praise," it would be much wiser
to observe an annual day of "self-appraisal."
What have we done over the past
200 years to be auto-classified as a
great nation of people? Certainly we
have amassed a nation of wealth and
plenty the likes of which has rarely
been seen on this planet. No denying
that we fought hard and deliberately
whenever we met adversaries. The inventive genius of certain of our countrymen has surely led the world to better times.
As we celebrate July 4th and
browse our many attributes, shouldn't
we also include our minuses along with
our plusses. Should we leave out some
of our other national "heroes"? What
about our Ku Klux Klan, Son of Sam,
Rev. Jim Jones, Anita Bryant, Phyllis
Schlafly, etc., etc., etc. Aren't they
Americans all? When we seek a glorious recollection of our heritage, aren't

Page 10

FACTS
and

we simply hearing the mirror say,

"Yes, yes, you're the fairest of all?"
As we. proudly hoist our Independence Day flag, why are we blind to
the bloody hand smears that remain

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dians? When we talk of our freedoms,
can we really afford to discuss, at
length, the document guaranteeing
those freedoms? We only give lip.
service to the Constitution. When the
founding fathers prepared that work,
I'm sure that they did not intend to
limit it's benefits to the macho personalities like Mr. Wayne. My conscience tells me that it has to include
women as well - and Blacks - and Indians .; and all people who choose to
love and serve this land - even Atheists.
It seems strange how stereotype' idealism can be accepted as equal value
for reality. Our nation has become obsessed with an abnormal respect for
quantity instead of quality - MajorityRules-Morality Syndrome, I call it.
This idea even etnits an air of acceptability at first sight. When examined more closely, those words
seem to reshape and remold into the
well-worn expression "might makes
right."
If this is to be accepted, then all
minorities and all individuals face
eternal problems. Indeed, this is not
the case. The Constitution was intended to defend the INDIVIDUAL.
If mankind had demonstrated benevolence toward the minorities and the
individual, there would have been no
need for a Constitution and Bill of
Rights .:
People like Paine and Jefferson
realized all too well that human rights
could never become a reality so long
as idealistic patterns bred by religiously inspired mindcontrol demagogues
prevailed. Might is NOT always right!
Neither should might always rule: Intelligence and realistic understanding
must be our. guides regardless of majority whims or passions. This can only
suggest that if the majority of voters
'wish to maintain control of a nation,
as a democracy should provide, they
[Con't. on page 12.]

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A JOYOUS ATHEIST
G. Richard Bozarth

COLONIAL CATHOLICISM
According to Encyclopaedia Britannica's 1978 Book of the
Year, the Roman Catholic Church in America numbers 48.7
million. The RCC has flourished here, becoming the largest
single sect in the country. It has exploited the ridiculous religious tax-exemption laws to become the richest sect in America (with the possible exception of Mormonism). In states like
Texas and Pennsylvania, where gambling' is outlawed, it has
flagrantly violated the law with arrogant impunity by conducting organized gambling operations (bingo). In violation of the
law for tax-exempt organizations, the RCC brazenly (alas, effectively) lobbies everywhere for the parochiaid it desires and
the abortion it wants outlawed.
Clearly, the RCC has found in America a home bountiful
in its blessings.
No one would be more surprised than our founding fathers!
The Catholics came to America (that is, East Coast America) when Maryland was founded in 1632 as a refuge for the
sect. They enjoyed a short period of religious freedom before
losing a part of it by losing the brief Civil War of 1655. 33
years later they lost the rest of it when the Protestant Association won the Revolution of 1689 in Maryland. The result was
anti-Catholic legislation that imposed a poll tax on Irish Catholic immigrant servants, required that children of mixed marriages be reared as Protestants, and imposed a fine for sending
children to Catholic schools abroad.
"Thenceforward to the American Revolution the Roman!
Catholic Church subsisted on a clandestine basis." (Encyclo- i
paedia of American History, edited by Richard B. Morris, p.
821) Rhode Island and Pennsylvania at the beginning of the
18th century allowed Catholics religious and civil rights. By
177 5, though, public Catholic services were allowed only in
Pennsylvania.
Why did the colonists suppress the RCC? For the majority,
the element of revenge was largely to blame. In the 17th and
18th centuries the Catholic persecution of Protestants in Europe wasn't grim history - it was bloody current events! In
America the Protestants had the power to persecute the Catholics, and, as they say in the USMC, pay-back is a bitch! For
the minority, though, the reason transcended mere revenge to
something far more profound.
The anti-Catholic sentiments of the minority, the leaders
of the colonies, found cause for expression with the passage
by the British Parliament of the Quebec Act of 1774. This
was one of the punitive Intolerable Acts that an angry Parliament enacted as retaliation for the Boston Tea Party (16 Dec.,
1773). The purpose of the acts was to coerce Americans to
submit to Parliament like good little colonists.
Siamese Twins
Two features of the Quebec Act were particularly repellent
to Americans. One feature was the closing off of Canada to
American expansion. Britain had gained Canada when France
surrendered it in the Treaty of Paris (1763) that concluded the
Seven Years' War, or French and Indian War, as the Americans
called it. The Americans, who had helped win the war, with

Austin, Texas

blood and materiel, had envisioned Canada as theirs to expand

into. By 1774, the British realized that any further expansion
by the Americans would only make them more powerful and
more obstinate. The Quebec Act was designed to contain the
Americans within their colonies.
The other repellent feature of the Act was that of establishing the Catholic Church in Canada. The RCC was already
there, of course, for the Canadians at that time were largely
Catholics of French descent. In the process of providing a permanent civil government that would command the loyalties of
the Canadians against their southern neighbors, the "Catholics
were granted religious toleration and civil rights; their church's
privileges confirmed." (Encyclopaedia of American History,
p. 98) The creation of a Catholic state next door to America
was most definitely one of the great grievances that led to
the Revolutionary War.
On 14 October, 1774, the Continental Congress adopted
a declaration of colonial rights which also contained a list of
infringements and violations of those rights. One of those
violations listed was the act "for establishing the Roman Catholic religion in the province of Quebec, abolishing the equitable system of English laws, and erecting a tyranny there to
the great danger, from total dissimilarity of religion, laws, and
government of the neighboring British colonies." (Annals of
America, Vol. 2, p. 273) The equation used here (Catholicism
= tyranny) is the secret of understanding our founding fathers'
opinion of the Catholic sect.
On 20 Oct., 1774, Congress decided to retaliate with an Intolerable Act of its own. Britain was economically vulnerable
in her relation to America, so Congress created the Continental
Association, which was dedicated to nonimpostation, nonconsumption, and nonexportation - that is, cessation of all trade
with Britain. One of the reasons given for forming the Association was the Quebec Act, which closed Canada to Americans;
"thus, by the influence of civil principles and ancient prejudices to dispose the inhabitants to act with hostility against
the free Protestant colonies, whenever a wicked Ministry shall
choose to direct them." (A of A, 2, p. 274) It was not believed
that Catholics could be anything but hostile to freedom.
This was stated more precisely in the Congress' "Address to
the People of Great Britain," drafted by John Jay. The address
was intended to explain the colonial cause to the British nati'on. Part of the address was devoted to describing "the progression of the ministerial plan for enslaving us." (A of A, 2,
p. 281) The Quebec Act was mentioned as establishing in
Canada a government whose citizens had been made by their
religion "fit instruments in the hands of power to reduce the
ancient, free, Protestant colonies to the same state of slavery
with themselves." (Ibid.) If Catholicism = tyranny, then it
must also equal slavery, because tyranny and slavery are Siamese twins.
The Door Flung Open
Our founding fathers had a very low opinion of the RCC.
They saw the institution as a tyranny, or the natural supporter

July 1979

Page 11

of tY ~y, totally inimical to the civil liberties they sought by

every mealls short of war for years, and by war when war
proved the 'Only means to win those liberties. They saw the
Catholic flocks as slaves who were the proper instruments in
the hands of a tyrant seeking to suppress the American pursuit
of their civil liberties. The abhorrance our founding fathers
had for the Catholic sect is best expressed by one of them. In
the same address, Jay describes Catholicism as a religion that
has "dispersed impiety, bigotry, persecution, murder, and rebellion through every part of the world." (A of A, 2, p. 281)
Why, then, was the Catholic Church not banished from
America? The desire for this existed, as the 1775 instructions
of Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, to her representatives
proves. These instructions dealt with laws the constituents
desired to have included in a new constitution for the state.
One law they desired was one insuring "the utter exclusion
forever of all and every other (falsely so-called) religion,
whether pagan or papal." (A of A, 2, p. 358)
This was not done when the Bill of Rights was added to
the U.S. Constitution as the first ten amendments. Why? The
answer is obvious. To have banished the Catholic sect from
America would have been an act of tyranny that would have
violated principles our founding fathers held to be more important than their repugnance for Catholicism.
What they did, instead, was to prohibit Congress from making any law that establishes religion, thereby separating religion totally from the state. If Catholicism, or any other religion, could not infiltrate the state, then what fear need anyone
have of it? None.
So, the door was flung open to Catholicism. It was not welcorned readily in America, but the door could not be closed,
The sect grew as Catholic immigrants poured into the country
(for instance, from 200,000 in 1829 to 1.75 million in 1850
due to the Irish exodus after 1845). Its wealth increased. Its
political influence increased. Finally, in 1960, it had overcome
the initial American abhorrance of Catholicism so successfully
a Catholic could win the presidency.
Crush The Infamy
Was the aversion and distrust our founding fathers had for
Catholicism justified? What do you think?
State/church separation is totally anathema to Catholicism,

Nature's Way [continued

and it has sought to corrupt the First Amendment for nearly

the whole of the two centuries it has existed. (An example is
in 1843 the Catholics in New York were laboring to get unconstitutional parochiaid, and haven't stopped yet!)
They have persistently endeavored to compel all Americans
to conform to their peculiar moral code by force of civil law .
Through their National Organization of Decent Literature
they have sought to destroy freedom of the press and speech,
without which there simply is no freedom of anything.
If anyone believes that the US of A and Roman Catholicism
are compatible - believes that the opinion of the first Americans was wrong - believes the loyal Catholic can still be a
patriot of American ideals - attend to the words of Brent
Bozell, who appeared on NBC's Comment! on 25 July, 1971.
At the time of the broadcast, he was coordinator of the
anti-abortion organization called "Accent for Life," in 1966
he had founded a monthly review called "Triumph" that was
dedicated to winning back to the RCC lapsed Catholics, and
in general he had a reputation as a conservative promoter of
strict Catholic orthodoxy. When, during the broadcast (which
the Atheist Center has a transcript of), he spoke about America and the RCC, he declared there is a "chasm between Catholicism and Americanism, between what Catholics believe and
hold sacred and what America corporately believes and holds
sacred."
What is it that America believes and holds sacred? It is the
philosophy of life, government, and morals expressed in the
Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution, and the
Bill of Rights. This philosophy is America. This philosophy
is the object of a true American's patriotism. This philosophy is naturally Atheistic, for it looks neither to a deity nor
a religious institution to give it moral justification or to sustain it.
If Catholics cannot accept the Americanism of these documents, then no way can they be both patriotic citizens of the
US of A and good Catholics. And this is what Bozell has
said.
When Voltaire was Catholicism's worst enemy in the 18th
century, the watchword of his ire was ecrasez Tinfame! Crush
the infamy! It should be the watchword of American Atheist
ire, because, not only is it natural to Atheists, it is a very
American sentiment.

Gerald Tholen
from page 10]

should first come to grips with the inadequacy of their educations and responsibilities.
Perhaps Independence Day should be reserved as a day for
reading that Constitution and Bill of Rights that we boast
about. It is doubtful that many in this country have ever read
those documents. Like the Bible, everyone knows of their
existence, but everyone somehow arrives at his own interpretation of their contents and meanings.
"Patriotism" is defined as an inspired love of one's country.
Inspired love of ANYTHING must incorporate a true concern
with the quality of its existence. In Nazi Germany, to be patriotic, one' had to be blind to the madness of the "New Order."
Should we be equally blind to our own inequities?
I say, let us only be patriotic to that which is pure and
thoughtful-the efforts by those who realize, in truth, the significance of a Constitution which could finally establish the
world's first free nation. Patriotism must evolve from truth!

Page 12

July 1979

American Atheist

Thought 5 on
Life after Death
by

Dan Thompson

You-have all noticed the recent resurgence of mythological trash in the

media. Some of these features, be they
on film or on paper, are good, mindless entertainment. "Star Wars" and
"Close Encounters" fall into this category. They are definitely not quality
science fiction, but they're loads of
fun and the opticals are breathtaking.
Even investigations of UFO's and the
Bermuda Triangle (not "Devil's,
please) are a learning experience if
preconceived notions are cast aside
and you delve into the fascinating
natural phenomena that can be held at
least partially responsible for reports
'in these areas, I will not go into the
scientific details of inversion layers,
jet streams, cesium clock discrepancies
or any of the rest, partially because I
am not an expert in the field, but primarily because that is not the topic of
this piece. (Check the title and you'll
see that I'm right.)
Before I begin airing my views on
the subject in question, let me familiarize you with my qualifications. I am
the 22year-old son of a 76-year-old
agnostic Unitarian-Universalist minister and a 65-year-old tea leaf-reading,
astrologically-inclined United Church
mother with Universalist beliefs.
(Don't bother trying to figure it out;
just take my word for it.) My best
friend and I are apparently the only
Atheists in a county infested with
Mennonites and southern Baptists
(thanks, USA, a hell of a lot for importing them.) Free thought has
always been encouraged by my parents, almost to Ure point of being
mandatory.
I am almost entirely self-taught in
my only true belief-pure science. This
came about because neither my parents nor my teachers knew what the
hell I was talking about when I asked
questions. (My grade six speech on the
activity of ionized gas in aurora bor-

Austin, Texas

ealis displays was given a zero by my

fanatical Baptist teacher because she
said you-know-who made the northern
lights and that was that.) I have also
done a great amount of research into
such things as ghost stories, UFO's,
etc. in an attempt to figure out for
myself what is going on. Which leads
me, at last, to my theory on life after
death.
For some years, I entertained the
notion that some part of the mind was
indestructible and could hang around
this miserable planet after its fleshly
vehicle had bitten the dust. The reason
for this quasi-belief was the access I
had to books dealing with the subject.
I gobbled up "documented" ghost
stories with such rapidity that the
Bookmobile librarian was constantly
digging up volumes in the main branch
and setting them aside for me. One
such book in particular intrigued me.
Entitled "The Search for the Girl With
Blue Eyes," it dealt with the hypnotic
regression-to a past life of a girl whose
"memories" were later substantiated
by physical evidence. To this day, I'm
not entirely sure how they managed to
pull that one off, but at least I'm now
aware of the limitations of hypnosis.
In my younger days, I had believed the
process to be infallible.
I now know that-it is the body, not
the mind, which is immortal. For this,
we may bow our heads in humble
prayer to the First Law of Thermodynamics. In a closed system, energy
can be neither created nor destroyed.
The universe, taken as a whole, is a
closed system. Nothing can enter or
leave. Our bodies, as with all material
objects, are composed of matter,
which is simply an extremely compact
form of energy. Regardless of what
changes befall our physical shells, they
remain in existence in some shape.
With burial, they become soil, and vile
substances in the digestive tracts of
worms, and energy in the form of heat
which results from the decomposition

July 1979

process. If they are cremated, a small

amount is left behind as ashy residue
which will one day become plant food.
The rest goes bounding about the galaxy in the form of photons.
And at the end of the universe,
what then? When gravitational attraction has at last overcome the flight of
the galaxies from one another, there
will begin a slow reconvergence to
some central point. Over a period of
some forty billion years, their acceleration will increase geometrically until
they meet at a velocity approaching
that of light. The force of collision will
be so tremendous that matter will be
compressed to its most compact form
possible. The entire universe will be
smashed into a ball of solid neutronium with a density of four hundred
trillion grams per cubic centimeter
(268.4 million tons per cubic inch).
The heat of compression and gravitation, plus the likelihood of matter/
anti-matter annihilations, would raise
the temperature of the mass to an estimated eighteen billion degrees Fahrenheit. It may even grow so hot that all
matter is transformed into energy, and
a recent theory goes so far as to speculate that the electromagnetic, gravitational, and nuclear forces become as
one. In any event, this blob of neutronium, energy, or both will explode
cataclysmically, spewing out matter
and energy in all directions in a re-creation of the original Big Bang. But the
point is this: even after this ultimate
act of violence, the new universe so
formed will be of the same stuff that
makes up the one we live in. It will
certainly not be in the same form, but
since it cannot be destroyed, it must
remain.
Of course, none of this has been
proven in the laboratory. (Just check
the price of a good universe these days
and try to figure out how many scientists could afford one to play around
with.) It is, however, the best theory
I've run across yet, andif it's good

Page 13

enough for Isaac Asimov, it's good

~ol!gh for me.*
So' your mind may kick the bucket,
but your body will live forever. And
what of these people who return from
clinical death with wondrous tales of
the hereafter? Finally, I'm getting
around to the idea that made me write
this in the first place.
A new movie is making the rounds,
under the title "Beyond and Back." I
haven't seen it, and I don't intend to,
but I know what it has to say. People
from various walks of life who have
died for brief periods of time often,
upon revival, tell of mystical journeys
that their consciousnesses have begun,
only to be rudely dragged back into
the body by inconsiderate medical personnel. Are these people missing on
three cylinders? Maybe, but I think
not. As with most UFO witnesses,
these people saw something. The question is, what? A person who sees a
high-altitude weather balloon through
atmospheric aberrations is not crazy
for reporting a UFO. He's absolutely
right-he saw an Unidentified Flying
Object. If he insisted, on the other
hand, that it was an alien spaceship,
I'd be inclined to run a psychological
profile on him, if not ignore him completely.
So it is with those who believe they
have seen the other side of death.
There are far too many of them, some
highly respected citizens, to dismiss
the concept out of hand. It is my contention that these people did, in fact,
experience something which they interpreted as an after-life. At this point,
Iwould like to stress that this is strictly my own theory, and is not backed
by scientific research or interviews
with the people I am referring to. It is,
if you will, an educated guess on my
part. I think it makes sense, and if
there is any logical reason why it
cannot be so, I would like to be informed of it.
As long as man has existed as a
reasoning creature, he has attempted
to examine and decipher the inner
workings of his mind. In this, he has
been only fractionally successful. I
personally believe that it is nothing
more or less than an electro-chemical
process, the complexities of which I
do not understand, but this is not
essential to my hypothesis.
In the course of searching after the

Page 14

truth about the brain, several astonishing facts have come to light. The
brain, or that part of it known as the
mind, exerts far more control over the
body than was previously considered
possible. For instance, a subject under
hypnosis, when given the suggestion of
extreme heat, may actually develop
blisters, even though there is no contact with anything hot. Also, an extremely effective anesthetic isat times
released within the body to prevent
the pain of injury from killing or incapacitating the victim. New findings
such as these are turning up every day,
which only goes to show that there is
much left to learn. The brain is a fantastically complicated and powerful
structure. That majority of it which
is said to be unused may instead be
working constantly on levels which we
cannot detect, let alone interpret.
With that in mind (no pun intended), is it not possible that a vision of
life after death is. merely another in
the brain's continuing supply of defense mechanisms? Very few people
wish to die, but the fact that they will
is inescapable. Somewhere inside, they
realize this, even though they may not
publicly, or even consciously, admit it.
Indeed, this has at times been put
forth as the characteristic which separates humans from animals.
Since
these people know they will die eventually, they look for another way out.
It may be fear, or it may be only an
extension of the survival instinct, but
something causes them to look beyond
their own demise to seek reassurance
of continuation.
The very ancient humans saw the
sun return in the morning, they saw
seemingly dead vegetation return to
life in the spring, and perhaps the belief in a soul began as an instinctive
knowledge that a life force passed
from one creature to another in the
food chain. So if dead plants and animals, and a supposedly, dead sun,
could come back time after time, why
not man? For Neanderthals, this reasoning wasn't too bad. Unfortunately,
over the centuries it has degenerated
to the point of becoming {eligion and
spiritualism. Belief.in a heaven, or a
wheel of Karma, or a happy hunting
ground predominates. No matter what
their religion, people want to be assured that they will be rewarded for a

July 1979

life well lived. Their mmds are conditioned toward this goal from birth.
And is not the primary purpose of
the brain to keep itself Aliveand happy? I think so. It tells us to eat when
its fuel runs low. It creates signals of
pain to warn itself away from dangerous situations. It regulates its environment through our rate of breathing
and heartbeat and instinct to seek
shelter. Even masochists who submit
lovingly to the whip are, in their own
peculiar way, gaining pleasure. The
rest of us may be content with good
food and entertainment. In short, the
sole purpose of the brain's existence is
to keep itself alive for as long as
possible and then create little .brains to
grow up and carry on. And when the
time comes for it to die, is it not
reasonable to expect the brain to hurl
up its final barrier? What better way
than, in the instant before death, to
create the illusion that it has already
died and found happiness beyond?
Many of us, myself included, have
experienced that ethereal time dilation
that occurs prior to and during an
accident. Events slow so drastically
that every detail stands out vividly,
and you have all the time in the world
to move toward safety. Those who
have approached death without quite
making it claim to have seen their lives
replayed before their eyes. There can
be only one explanation for these
events: an incredible acceleration of
the thought processes wit~4t the mind.
I propose, then, that in the final
fraction of a second before death overtakes it, the mind creates for itself an
hallucinatory paradise. All which it has
wanted for the years past goes into the
fabric of that dream. In the briefest
instant before it ceases to exist, the
brain ensures that its final memory
will be one of happiness. A preview
of eternity is compressed into microseconds, and the blackness that follows has no meaning.
And the people who return from
the dead? They aren't crazy. They are
simply reporting the most vital experience their mind has ever encountered,
and they have no way of knowing that
it was merely an illusion. Death is the
final nothing, but you go out with a
glimpse of forever.
*Isaac Asimov's "Science, Numbers
And I." Mercury Press, Inc. Recommended.

American Atheist

ON OUR WAY
Ignatz Sahula-Dycke
It's A Bit Early to Quit Living
Funny thing, life. So long as it exists it keeps on changing things, always keeping us interested with the
latest answers to the questions we ask
of it. And, for this reason, for as long
as it will endure on this old ship of
space, our Earth, there won't be any
answers that anyone will be able to
call final.
Too, come the day when the final
answer comes along, no one will be
the wiser - nothing alive will exist to
record it, no one around to profit
from it. Spooky, isn't it? But not a
whit more strange than the answers
of the present era - answers as good
as any that life offers, but answers
to which only a very few of us pay
the least attention.
Some of us say that these current
answers are old hat, and that new
ones are in order. Those who say this
are accepted by the others of the
great unthinking multitude as the wise,
and taken for oracles of the day. At
such times as we give them leave to
lead us in commerce, aspirations, and
in our self-government, they more often than not lead us into troubles
which occasionally take decades for
others to unsnarl.
These pseudo-leaders are rarely penalized for their brassy effrontery whenever the troubles they led us into
are at their zenith, at their possible
worst, these rascals give up and depart
for their final reward. Most wiseacres
of this kind, being religiously inclined,
pass from the present into the past,
thinking, before they wax comatose,
that - having repented - their reward
awaits them in the heaven that the
clerics, those rascals far more astute
than any who will complicate our lives
for us, have erstwhile been engaged in
promising them.
Furthermore,
to compound this
confoundedly unexplainable sojourn
we call life, one or another of the
avuncularly disposed survivors will tell
the others - all standing dry-eyed that it's improper to speak ill of the
dead. Is this narrated honestly? If so,
is it tragic, or do you, like me,see it
in garb of hilarious cut, of a material
patched together from a bit of this and
a hank of something else, none of it

Austin, Texas

making good sense?

Which reminds me that some sage,
now long dead, once said it was a good
thing that wise men jotted down the
thoughts they deemed extra sane - because this spared fools of Jesser rank
the trouble of noting them when
they'd much later on, but sooner or
later, come to think of them allover
again, quite by accident as before.
We are, all of us, everyone of us,
wiser beyond any of those from whom
we are descended. That this is true is
very easy to prove. A few examples of
the sterling quality of the foregoing
statement are now in order, to keep it
from sounding like an arrogant boast.
During the past sixty years we've
engaged in two wars of world-wide extent. Both of them were just wars. The
first one we fought to save democracy.
Right? Certainly; we do have a democracy, don't we? The other one that we
won in 1945 we fought to save the
world from Nazism. Right? Of course.
We are inveterate saviours, that's what!
Always' ready to die for, and save
something or other. Because we are
good Christians, that's why.
And later on we assisted someone
in Asia who, we thought, needed being
saved from Communism. And did it
handsomely, forthrightly, honorably,
Harmed nary a hair on any head while
doing it. Noble, that's us all over.
God-Worthy People
At the present time (our Jimmy is
likely to be credited with this) we are
in the throes of establishing a lasting
peace adjacent to the Mediterranean.
Anyone who knows the ropes would
do the same. In much the same way,
most probably.
The trouble before we intruded?
Two nations long at each other's
throats. Solution? A couple or three
billions to each one, half of each sum
in armaments so they'll not any longer
be afraid of each other. We were able
to do this because we are a wealthy
nation that loves peace.
And lest we forget, love of peace
was taught us by our god - the one of
the trinity, that recondite mystery the god whom we most appropriately

July 1979

tell everyone we trust in, stamping it

on all our coinage and imprinting it
on our paper money. We are a good,
noble, god-worthy
people. Right?
Now - some of what's already been
said here was said in part ironically, in
part with tongue in cheek. But don't
blame me for all of it. I paraphrased,
maybe clumsily, what our officialdom
in those days wanted the world to be:
lieve we thought we did. I don't think
the world swallowed it whole. If so,
current events prove that the meaning
between the lines of it hasn't been
everywhere fully digested yet. We can
only hope. What I've mentioned wasn't intended to be a historical review.
As McLuhan said, the medium's the
message. So read on, if able to.
Members of our legislative. branch
of government are hereby to feel
thanked for our exemplary outlook.
All of them are as honest as can be.
No bribery, no hanky panky, first class
Christian moralists every one. Most
every solitary soul of them steady
churchgoers.
Above-board
dealers.
Loyal citizens, too, especially when
some nosybody blabs about them
what amounts to no more than rumor.
After all is said and done, every one
of these legislative savants knows that
honesty is the best policy. The next
few paragraphs will touch upon the
goodness of the electorate, the people
who produce our GNP - the ones for
whom the public servants work after
the de facto workers elect them.
There will not be too much said
here about the many other salutary
matters that are noteworthy at this
time because this column is permitted
to expand on such subjects but some
3,000 words. No more.
We are, as indicated, a sane and
opulent people. Aye, verily. Ours are
untold millions of automobiles and
other conveyances; our airplanes we
estimate not in terms of sum totals,
but by the unceasing screech of the jet
engines that velocitate them. We drive
our autos with exemplary regard for
life, regarding it sacred as any good
Christian would.
As proof of this we will soon have
these conveyances equipped with bags
that during every collision (such as'

Page 15

those which quite accidentally occur

only forty or fifty thousand times per
year: a mere trifle when figured proportionately) will instantly inflate and
protect by cushioning the unfortunate
operators of such accidentally colliding vehicles from injury. Clever!
Right?
Survival of the fittest - or the
daffiest - is the name of the game,
especially now, when not having
babies is deemed most advisable by
those whose counsel we try to follow,
as attest the surveys. It's good that we
are the world's best auto drivers. And
as to flying, the same.
We discuss with others what a miracle flying is. How efficient! Downrightly convenient! Six hours from this
place to that which by rail used to
take two days and a half. So what's an
hour, or maybe two at each end for
reservations and getting to the airport
on time. And now our jet's late - circled above La Guardia for two hours
and had to dump the passengers in
Boston, only port clear, and rail or bus
the passengers to Gotham. And jet-lag
there all that afternoon until two in
the morning. Yes, sir! But that's
weather for you! Still, mister, I wouldn't travel any other way. It's the only
way to go. Right? You bet, right as
rain.
Have you heard? We're in an energy
crunch. Lots of oil around but nuclear
power is the thing. Let's get going erect the plants! Only three or four
billions apiece, energy to burn, life to
enjoy, one better than any on earth anywhere.
What's that again? The Long Shoal
installation went haywire and fallout's
critical twenty miles downwind? Aw,
that's panic talk is all. You say
30,000 will have to be evacuated? All
the hospitals full? That's not what I
heard. The plant's okay. Human error
is the real trouble. Somebody overlooked turning on three safety valves!
NEC's already asked- for a law that'll
post a resident inspector in every single plant. We'll be okay in no time.
Hell's fire! Even computers go wrong.
Old Human Equation
Ever hear of the poor guy to whom
a computer mailed almost 10,000 invoices, each one for $4.85 for a bag of
dried apricots he ordered by mail?
There's the human error allover again.
The trouble's in getting everything
programmed properly, that's all. Sure,
all!
The technology isn't where the
trouble is; it's how these things are

Page 16

run! Believe me, none of this is the

normal thing. What we're dealing with
is the human equation. Emergencies,
wild-cat
strikes,
one-in-a-thousand
cases, exceptional behavior, sudden
discontent, mass hysteria. Would the
governor have appointed a commission of seven to investigate it if it
wasn't?
Sure, I know, 3,000 ex-farm boys
working an assembly line in a new
plant, all striking for a wage adjusted
to last year's increase in the cost of
living is all that the trouble was. Everything's okay over there now. Sure the
cars have to be recalled, compression
washers weren't installed properly. But
no real problem there; just the same
old human equation again is all.
Really? What you're referring to is
a case much like the one I just talked
about. They finally got an eight percent raise to equate for the cost of
living. That the avocados had to be
picked just when they walked out on
the producers was only publicity
malarkey. The three union bosses
said the same thing I'm telling you.
Avocados have been going up and up
for years now. All this is normal this
time of year. Sure, inflation's the
real trouble. Right.
Oh, sure, the teachers? Sure! And
the police during the Mardi Gras; and
in Cleveland; and the firemen in Nashville. Not forgetting the tailors in EI
Paso. Yes, they had to close the plants,
took it on the nose with all those million yards of fabric. Shipped it to a
slacks plant in San Francisco; I forget
just who. But that's business for you.
Free enterprise. Good for the country,
actually.
Well, time's come I terminate this
tirade. It's confusing when heard over
the air on radio and television and
written about in the public prints. One
item, aspect, or dimension we often
overlook but which the commentators
keep us informed about is that reporting is their job. They greatly impoved
that job during the past 25 or 30
years. To those of our country's two
hundred and more millions who were
born before that second world war,
events such as those briefly touched
upon here, in words couched in today's idiom, quite naturally sounds as
though everyone has all of a sudden
gone made as Alice's hatter. "It isn't
the same world any more," I've heard
them say. As the old story goes, it's
the same old world, only different
people are running it now: the new
generations. And, the way I see it,
not handling themselves in it badly
at all, at all. America: Our Country.

July 1979

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-----

American Atheist

RVIEW
WITH JC SUPERSTAR
by G. RICHARD BOZARTH
In June, 1979, the Vatican astounded the world! (Surely
you recall being astounded). Its radio station presented an interview with Jesus. It was made extremely clear the deity's
appearance on Earth is not the much-expected Second Coming
(though several of the local nuns are smiling unusually brightly
following JC's visit for the purpose of the interview, and talk
in strange allusions to eighth and ninth comings). JC Superstar,
it seems, merely wanted to demonstrate his media ratinqs
could be as high as another JC Superstar's (that is, Johnny
Carson).
Many theologians were eagerly anticipating clarification on
many points crucial to human civilization that the bible leaves
vague at best. Some Thomists were hoping to at last find out
how many angels could occupy the head of a pin. More modern theologues hoped to solve the question of what was the
alcoholic content of the wine produced by JC Superstar at
the wedding at Cana.
The deity stuck to liisold material. disappointing many by
this lack of originality. Here is a sample of the broadcast interview:
Q: Have you heard of a young pregnant wom'!n who while

surviving on a dialysis machine because of bad kidneys refused a!1abortion that might save her life?
Superstar: Q woman, great is thy faith (Matthew 15:28).
Q: What would you say to a young heroin addict?
Superstar: Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst
again. He, however, who drinks of the water I will give
him shall never thirst (John 4:13) ..
Many Vatican officials were embarrassed their omniscient
deity didn't know that heroin is most commonly injected and
almost never drank. Also, they felt it unworthy of a god to
cast himself in the image ofa celestial pusher offering a better
high. But, as Cardinal Handjob said, "Let's face it--JC is god.
He can answer any goddamn way he wants to!"
.
The American Atheist has on its payroll a certain Vatican
official who cannot, of course, be named. We renew his subscription to Hustler each year and replace his reels of "Deep
Throat" as they wear out (which is about five times a year!),
and he in turn keeps us informed of what goes on at the Vatican. When we learned from our inside source that the Vatican
had not broadcast the full interview with JC Superstar, we demanded he provide us with a full transcript. This he did.
Proudly, The American Atheist presents to you the purged
portion of the Vatican's interview with JC Superstar.

Austin, Texas

Q: Many people find it difficult to stop sinning. Do you

have any recommendations on how to stop sinning?

Superstar: If your right eye should cause you to sin, tear
it out and throw it away (Matthew 5:29). And if your
right hand should cause you to sin, cut it off and throw
it away (Matthew 5:30).
Q: Uh, yeah. Well, how about how to handle crime in the
street? What should the good Christian do if he is being
beaten by muggers? Can he defend himself?
Superstar: Offer the wicked man no resistance. On the
contrary, if anyone hits you on the right cheek, offer
him the other as well (Matthew 5:39).
Q: The church today is much concerned with the present
condition of the institution of the family. Is it true that
only believing in you will strengthen the family?
Superstar: I have come to set a son against his father, a
daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against
her mother-in-law. A man's enemies will be those of his
own household (Matthew 10:35-36). If any man comes
to me without hating his father, mother, wife, children,
brothers, sisters, yes and his own life too, he cannot be
my disciple (Luke 14:26).
Q: Whew, you're a hard dude! May I ask about the poor?
Superstar: You have the poor with you always (John 12:8).
Q: Well, so far, but don't you think t!;ie poor should strive
to better their condition?
Superstar: I am telling you not to worry about your life
and what you are to eat, nor about your body and how
you are to clothe it (Matthew 6:25). Your heavenly
father knows you need them all. Set your hearts on his
kingdom first, and on his righteousness, and all these
other things will be given you as well (Matthew 6:3233).
Q: Say, that is really great! When and where can the poor
pick up the goods you've promised?
Superstar: You m~st not put the lord your god to the test
(Matthew 4:7)!
Q: Hey, sorry, man! No offense meant. So, moving right
along, you must have observed that numerous evangelical preachers of the opposition faiths, as well as many
clergymen of our true faith, have made quite a killing
in your name. What have you to say to those who have
become millionaires pushing Christianity?
Su.perstar: No one can be the slave of two masters. You
cannot be the slave of both god and money (Matthew
6:24).

July 1979

Page 17

0: That oughta rattle a few collection plates! What would

you tell the clergy and evangelists to do?
Superstar: Provide yourselves with no gold or silver" not
even a few coppers for your purses, with no haversack
for the journey or spare tunic or footwear or a staff
(Matthew 10:9-10).
0: While we're on the subject, there's quite a lot of confusion about who ought to lead the Christians. Some
have said Christianity would be better off without
leaders like the pope or Billy Graham. Do you agree
with this?
Superstar: You know that among the pagans their socalled rulers lord it over them, and their great men make
their authority felt. This is not to happen among you
(Mark 10:42-43).
0: Oh boy, will John Paul II be pissed if I follow this line
of questioning! So, let me ask about divorce. Say a
woman is married to an alcoholic who beats her whenever he's drunk, and she lives in a state of constant fear
without any joy left in her life. Would she be justified
in getting a divorce?

Superstar: What god has united, man must not divide (Mark.
10:9). Everyone who divorces his wife and marries another is guilty of adultery (Luke 16:18).
0: Man, no slack at all! Well, last question. As you know,
the Atheists are growing in numbers and threatening to
actually prevent Christianltv from becoming the state
religion in such countries as the United States. These
Atheists deny you are god, some deny you even exist.
What do you say to that?
Superstar: Bring them here and execute them in my presence (Luke 19:27).

thl
th:

sei
Our inside source at the Vatican reports Pope John Paul II
devoutly desires to obey that last command and wants to put
together a crusade against the American Atheist Center. However, being as the church hasn't organized a crusade in centuries, the instruction manual's whereabouts-is no longer known
to any living person, and until it's found, there seems little
possibility of an actual crusade being organized. John Paul II
is very upset about this and is making the curia learn Polish
as punishment.

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American Atheist

WHORES
Connie Perozlno
Yes, the word means what you think it does, but has another definition as well, a biblical one. I generally use it in less
than flattering reference to someone with whom I've had a
serious difference of opinion and was contemplating a couple
of fellows from a religious group when I checked the dictionary
and discovered the other definition. To whore also means to
worship "false and obscene gods and idols," according to my
Webster's unabridged, and either distinction might be apropos
in the following instance.
Since writing an article, "Atheism and the Church" (see
June's American Atheist magazine), a tempest in a teapot has
been brought aboiling by the two professors from a local Catholic college. Acting in the name of a group called the Catholic
League for Religious and Civil Rights, James G. Ahler and
James F. Reid "decided" my article constituted a "malicious
attack" on organized religion and their subsequent scheme to
punish the newspapers for printing it has left those who put out
the papers feeling nitpicked, harassed and intimidated.
In "Atheism and the Church," I claim organized religion
has a stranglehold on America and insist they begin paying taxes
on all holdings except the church proper; discuss charges
brought against a Catholic organization by a group of Atheists
called the Freedom from Religion Foundation; accuse a theist
newspaper, The Catholic Bulletin, of "practicing religious persecution of the worst kind" in its attempt to publish the names
of doctors, hospitals and clinics performing publicly funded
abortions and describe the "Religious Follies" regularly run on
national TV networks. I close with a quote from-Napoleon,
"How can you have order in a state without religion? For, if
one man is dying from hunger near another who is ill from overeating, he cannot resign himself to the difference unless there is
an authority which declares, 'It is God's will.' Religion is an excellent stuff for keeping people quiet."
Marching sanctimoniously upon the Community Reporter
and the Midway Monitor newspapers (the two St. Paul neighborhood newspapers which ran the article), the censorious vigilantes did what religious pressure groups often do in attempting
to silence sacred cow-kickers. They dogmatically huffed and
puffed, went omnipotently about demanding the editors agree
the article was an "attack," threatened to "go to your advertisers" (they did) and contacted the parish priest of Community
Reporter board chairman Carol Zick, who called asking her to
justify publication of the article.
Both newspapers refused to agree it was an "attack," but
offered the League equal space for rebuttal. Not satisfied, the
persistent professors barked, "stonewalling," the hue and cry
was picked up by a big city newspaper, the Minneapolis Tribune; and in a lengthy article, the Catholic League alienated an
even larger audience.
James G. Ahler, president of the League's chapter, declared the column was not an "expression of opinion" (an
opinion disclaimer was run with the article), but an "attack"
and said he was worried about the "potential for the written
WOldto stimulate ugly emotions."

Austin, TelCas

James F. Reid, chairman of the League's

mmittee for
Justice in the Media, claims the article makes organized religion
seem "ill-willed, prurient, sexist, racist and money grubbing."
Both men said if they were the editors they would send it back
for rewrite, deleting the "attack parts."
Asked by Tribune reporter Ruth Hammond if readers
wouldn't see "an attack" for what it was and maintain their
own opinions, Reid said a minority group like the Catholics
"can not afford to take the chance of assuming the populace
is rational. " He added, "For anyone who has any degree of
prejudice against organized religion, it's a powerful piece."
The professors compare their fight against the expression
of religious bigotry with "similar" fights by Jews and blacks.
Ahler said, "Catholics are terribly underrepresented in prestigious law firms" on the East Coast, in academia because they're
said to be anti-intellectual and in medical schools because of
their stand on abortion. In the South, "The Ku Klux Klan
burned as many crosses on Catholic lawns as on black lawns,"
said Reid.
Since the Tribune article ran on March 3rd, I have been
inundated with calls overwhelmingly in support of my right to
express an unpopular opinion and the newspapers' right, if not
responsibility, to publish controversial topics. My mailbox has
been rife with material from groups and individuals, most of
whom are troubled over separation of church and state and disturbed by continuing setbacks in the courts where freedom of
the press is concerned.
Frankly, I was prepared to drop the entire episode at that
point, perhaps out of misguided sympathy for these inept bunglers whose every pronouncement had me and many of my
Catholic associates, cringing in embarrassment for them. And
the persistent professors had failed miserably in their abortive
attempt to interfere with freedom of the press on a local level.
Good enough, let that be a proper end to it. Then I learned that
the Justice Department had "decided" I must not read a certain
article in a forthcoming issue of my Progressive magazine. I
began to wonder if I wasn't too quietly acquiescing in the matter of the Catholic League versus freedom of the press.
"Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of
speech or of the press:" If those rights are unjustly jeopardized
at the local level and we fail to publicly expose those who
would silence us, what complaint have we if they are finally
successful at the congressional level? "There shall exist a separation of church and state." If that guarantee is jeopardized by
organized religious groups, politically plotting at the local level
to force all to submit to their particular dogma, and we quietly
acquiesce, what complaint have we when their law becomes
the law of the land?
And who are the whores? Are they the Congress, who
timorously go awhoring after the votes of the single-issuites?
Are they the organized religionists, who peddle their electoral
favors to political bidders voting "One Way''? Or are we the
whores, who stand silently aside as our Constitutional rights
are adulterously sold out in exchange for political expediency?

July 1979

Page 19

ts
80
of thets m =:

No man has ever sat down

calmly unbiased to reason
out his religion~an? n~t

ti
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fl

~~n~e~;:7!i~~

Susan B.
Anthony
Susan B. Anthony is, now, much in the news, since a worthless small "dollar" coin (about the size of a standard quarter)
has been minted on behest of machine vending companies
(particularly for cigarette vending machines) which were instrumental in obtaining the new junk coin for increased priced
merchandise (cigarettes at 75 cents-probably going to a dollar
now-a pack out of the machines.)
The coin bears a profile picture of Susan B. Anthony. Although the Equal Rights Amendment has not been passed in
over 100 years, the sop of such a coin was thrown to ERA proponents and to Women's Libbers instead of more substantive
rights.
Under the nose of Susan B. Anthony, on this junk coin, are
the words "In God We Trust." Fortunately for Atheists nowhere on the coin does the identifying name appear.
Meanwhile, a great grand niece, who claims to be a reformed alcoholic for Christ, is stumping the land to proclaim
that faith in God gave Susan B. Anthony the strength for her
work. The niece, a preaching "eucharistic minister" in theRoman Catholic Church wants to see religion playa greater role
in the women's movement and swears to her great aunt's
"abiding faith in God. "
This is blasphemy.
American Atheist sets the record straight.
Susan B. Anthony kept diaries for over 50 years and a set
of scrap books from 1850 forward. She, in collaboration with
Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Matilda Joslyn Gage, wrote the
three volume History of Women's Suffrage. She also accumulated her own journal, Revolution, as well as other women's
rights' magazines, papers and journals.
Persuaded by her friends that she should permit a biography, she consented to the use of the material and to consultation with her. Ida Husted Harper was selected for the work,
which was published as Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony
in three volumes during' the period 1898 to 1908. Ms. Anthony objected to the "eulogies," but her own stamp of approval was on the work, and Mrs. Harper was given access to
over 20,000 letters, the diaries, to all of the above listed and
more.
Daniel Read was one of the expedition against Quebec, led
by General Arnold, in 1775, and of the party commanded by
Ethan Allen atthe capture of Ticonderoga.
Ethan Allen, of course, was one of the first Americans to

Page 20

July 1979

II

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At the Age of 28, From A Daguerreotype

f~

pen a violent attack on Christianity, his Reason, The Only Oracle of Man, being, as he was, a thorough deist-a facfcertainly
not unknown to his command.
Daniel Read served with him, with honor, throughout the
Revolutionary War. When he returned to Massachusetts, he
served in the legislature and other public office. He was an inveterate reader and became known as one of the two persons
in all that section of the country who did not believe in a literal hell. To this man's wife, Susannah, was born Lucy Read,
the mother of Susan B. Anthony.
Daniel Anthony was born "to wealth, influence and the
Quaker religion-and in 1826 when that faith broke over liberal versus conservative doctrines (the divinity of Christ) the
family: followed the liberal camp and became known as Hicksite (after Elias Hicks) Friends.
Lucy was ostensively a "Baptist," influenced by her mother, and after h;r marriage to Daniel Anthony steadfastly refused to join his church, causing some censure for her husband. Susan B. Anthony was born (February 15, 1820) into
the religious controversy concerned with this union. In her
home, in a closet under the stairs, she saw stored the smoking
pipes, the gin and the brandy for visiting Quaker preachers.
Her own experiences with the Quakers were harsh and traumatic. Indeed, her father was "read out of meeting'" for permit-

American Atheist

S
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t<

ting dancing in his home. By the time of his maturity he had

come to believe in "complete personal, mental and spiritual
freedom."

SUSAN B. ANTHONY
At the Age of 32, From A Daguerreotype

Susan's first vocation was that of teacher, which she followed from age 17 to age 28. Her first "cause" fight was to
obtain wages, equivalent to those of a male teacher, for herself. The custom was to pay men four' times the wages of
women for ~xactly the same work.
At age 29 she joined the Daughters of Temperance and became secretary, starting her public speaking toward the evil of
drink, which she had watched so often with Quaker preachers'
In her home. Becoming interested, also, in the anti-slavery issue, she soon abandoned it in 1852, at age 32.
The Quakers divided on the slavery issue and- the entire
family began to attend the Unitarian Church of William Henry
Channing. Through the group of persons she knew there, she
was invited to the first Women's Rights Convention, held in
Seneca Falls, New York in 1848-meeting
Elizabeth Cady
Stanton and beginning an intimate friendship which would
last for about fifty years. Frederick Douglass had also just
brought. his family to Rochester and this friendship also was
to last a lifetime.

Austin, Texas

Susan B. Anthony kept up her temperance work, being

very active in 1851, and in 1852 Elizabeth Cady Stanton be:
came president of the New York Women's State Temperance
Committee, All of these women, who were destined to become
great names in the suffrage fight, became then associated with
Susan and the friendships continued for many years: Ernestine
L. Rose, Lucretia Mott, Lucy Stone, Frances D. Gage, Amelia
Bloomer ... most of whom were open "doubters" on religion.
Throughout this period, however, Susan's was the uplifted
voice and her biographer says of her, " .. Miss Anthony alone
dared say what others only dared think, and thus through all
the years made herself the target of criticism, blame and abuse.
Others escaped through their cowardice; she suffered through
her bravery."
The yearly conventions were highlights, but the 1851 gathering was the first to openly attack Bible interpretations. Naturally Ernestine Rose led the way, refuting that the Bible gave
equality to women and declaring, "Here we claim human
rights and freedom, based upon the laws of humanity, and we
'require no written authority from Moses or Paul, ... "
It was at this point, also, that Susan supported Amelia
Bloomer by her use of the bloomer as dress. In an attempt to
release women from the multitudinous and cumbersome clothing of the day, this fashion had been advanced. Gymnasiums
had been established, athletic sports were being encouraged
and there was the advent of the bicycle. Short dresses were an
acknowledged necessity. The' lesson Susan B. Anthony learned
from the bloomer attempt was one she never forgot. She herself said in regard to it: "I felt the need ofsome such 'garments
because I was obliged to be out every day in all kinds of
weather, and also because I saw women ruined in health by
tight lacing and the weight of their clothing; and I hoped to
help establish the principle of rational dress. I found it a physical comfort but a mental crucifixion. It was an intellectual
slavery; one never could get rid of thinking of herself, and the
important thing is to forget self. The attention of my audience
was fixed upon my clothes instead of my words. I learned the
lesson then that to be successful a person must attempt but
one reform. By urging two, both are injured, as the average
mind can grasp and assimilate but one idea at a time. I have
felt ever since that experience that if I wished my hearers to
consider the suffrage question I must not present the temperance, the religious, the dress, or any other besides, but must
confine myself to suffrage."
And from 1854 she did just that. Keenly aware of other
problems and especially "religion" she nonetheless kept her focus and her fight directly on "suffrage." In April, 1854 she got
back into long skirts and "conventional dress and stayed there.
She saw Ernestine Rose attacked again and again as an Atheist, saw halls refused to her, and Susan determined that no
such open involvement would deter her from her main purpose: female suffrage. She was, of course, right in her strategy.
At this time she was also involved in discussion or life after
death and she wrote in her diary: "The negative had reason on
their side; not an argument could one of us bring, except an
intuitive feeling that we should not cease to exist."
By 1853, with 2000 members, the New York Women's
State Temperance Society was favoring the right of a woman
to be divorced from an habitual drunkard. These were hardly
popular concerns and the excerpts from media of the day are
scathingly critical. Every one of the women was maligned,

July 1979

Page 21

slandered and abused, but it was upon the unmarried Miss

Susan B. Anthony that most of the scorn was heaped.
Several times along the way, Miss Anthony and Mrs. Stanton were forced out of their leadership, often out 'of the organizations they had founded, which then, Mrs. Harper notes:
"passed into the hands of a body of conservative women, who
believed they could accomplish by prayer what these two woo
men knew could never be done except through legislation with
a constituency of women behind it."
It is notable that at this time Horace Greeley }Vaswriting
freely to Susan, advising her that "those who have outgrown
the church" need still be cautious of it. The conventions for
women's activities also soon came to be yearly features and
each one demanded "a modification of the legal and religious
restraints that so long had held (women) in bondage." The
first demands were for women's equal guardianship of their
children and that they (and not their husbands or fathers)
should be entitled to the money they earned.
They petitioned, they lobbied, they demanded, they spoke
in a constant pressing of affirmative action programs.
In 1854, at the National Women's Rights Convention at
Philadelphia, she was charged as an Atheist, but overcoming
objection that she was an Atheist, she declared "that every religion or none should have an equal right on the platform," in
support of Mrs. Rose as president.
Yet, the only grass roots meeting places to which she called
women to meet with them were the churches. Susan had to be
circumspect in what she said and did so that this avenue would
not be closed to her in the fight for women's suffrage. But she
could confide to her diary (September, 1855) that she was
" ... sitting under preaching that I dislike ... " And, when writing to women, she often used the most Atheistic of advice.
"Each of us individually has her own duties to perform and
each of us alone must work out her life problems."
In an era when god references were frequent, her letters,
words and diaries were devoid of the same. Indeed, the conventions became an expression of this secular intent to the
point that Horace Greeley finally wrote to her that " .. .I can
not publish your notices in our news columns .. .for the anti:
Bible... doctrines, which your conventions generally put forth."
By 1856, Miss Anthony and her colleagues turned, also, to
anti-slavery work and her long friendship with William Lloyd
Garrison began. He, himself, repeatedly attacked the churches
in his Liberator, never went to church and was reviled even by
the Unitarian clergy. His children wrote of him; that he had
"quite freed himself from the trammels of orthodoxy."
Watching him, again, Susan wrote in her diary (1857), "anti-slavery prayers ... avail nothing ... " She finally became so discouraged that one letter expressed these sentiments: "What an
infernal set of fools those (women) must be! ... The sooner the
present generation of women dies out, the better. We have idiots
enough in the world now without such women propagating any
more."
Women's rights and anti-slavery lectures and activities consumed her time for many years, but in 1858-59 Susan B. Anthony had a scheme-to set up what she called a "free church"
in Rochester-free from religion.
Felix Adler, later, was to establish the first Ethical Culture
Society in New York City in 1876. (Her idea preceded his by
20 years.)
She was much influenced in this by Theodore Parker's Free
Church in Boston, Massachusetts. He doubted the infallibility of

Page 22

July 1979

~/

the Bible, the possibility of miracles and the exclusive claims of

Christianity. Even the Unitarians denounced him, with the cry
that this "young man must be silenced."
Although she made the effort of renting Corinthian Hall for
such Sunday lectures, Susan's project was abandoned, after one
year, for lack of funds and in her diary, she wrote of one lecturer, "How he unmasked the church hypocrites!" She wanted
desperately to educate the public, but didn't have the wherewithal.
.
By 1860, the collaborative work of Susan B. Anthony and
Elizabeth Cady Stanton was at such a point that no one could
tell who wrote what, not even the ladies themselves. And in the
autobiography of the latter, Eighty Years and More, Reminiscences 1845-1897, she flatly states, "To-day (sic) Miss Anthony
is an agnostic," as she writes of "the most intimate friend I had
had for the past forty-five years,-."
Indefatigably, Miss Anthony arranged courses of lectures,
some through the Lyceum Bureau, especially those of Ralph
Waldo Emerson, who had founded the Lyceum for the purpose
of securing a freedom of speech not permitted in the churches.
Emerson, of course, had replaced God in his thoughts with a

MISS ANTHONY AND MRS. STANTON

Writing The History of Women Suffrage
vague pantheistic over-soul and had completely rejected the idea
of personal immortality.
By 1860, Susan was angry enough to set the annual convention afire as she hammered away at "our so-called enlightened
Christian civilization" and what it did to women. Congratulatory letters to her, stated she " ... must have learned in the
school of a Wollstonecraft ... " referring, of course, to Mary
,Wollst~necraft Godwin, an English Atheist (1759-97), who
founded the feminist movement in Great Britain. And Elizabeth
Cady Stanton's note was that "One word of thanks from a suffering woman outweighs with me the howls of Christendom."
All the while, the diaries were noted with Susan's references
to her reading of Henry Buckle (and his criticisms of Christianity) as well as Charles Darwin. (Who's thoughts on god are in
this issue of the American Atheist magazine. See page 8.)
[to be continued next month]

American Atheist

An

oritnta I
Fablt
by
Jean Meslier

At

a short distance from Bagdad a

dervis, celebrated for his holiness,
passed his days tranquilly in agreeable
solitude. The surrounding inhabitants,
in order to have an interest in his prayers, eagerly brought to him every day
provisions and presents. The holy man
thanked god incessantly for the blessings providence heaped upon him.
, "0 Allah," said he, "how ineffable
is thy tenderness toward thy servants. What have I done to deserve
. the benefactions which thy liberality
loads me with? Oh, monarch of the
skies! Oh, father of nature! What
praises could be worthy to celebrate
thy munificence and thy paternal
cares? 0 Allah, how great are thy
gifts to the children of men!"
Filled with gratitude, our hermit
made a vow to undertake for the seventh time the pilgrimage to Mecca.
The war, which then existed between
the Persians and the Turks, could not
make him defer the execution of his
pious enterprise. Full of confidence in
god, he began his journey; under the
inviolable safeguard of a respected
garb, he passed through without obstacle the enemies' detachments; far
from being molested, he received at
every step marks of veneration from
the soldiers of both sides.
At last, overcome by fatigue, he
found himself obliged to seek a shelter

Austin, Texas

Jean Meslier (1678-1733) was the first great Atheist philosopher to fully state Atheism's arguments against the claims
and theologies of Christianity in particular and religion in general. He was the son of a serge weaver, and became a Roman
Catholic priest. Though too intelligent and rational to remain
a religionist, he continued to serve his poor parish in the capacity of priest, and astounded the parishioners with his morality and sincere efforts tohelp better their lives.
To read his biography is to be convinced that he was at
heart a social worker with a deep, activist concern for tlae common citizens (in Meslier's period of history to be a common
person in France was to live in poverty or close to it). This,
and the nasty fate an openly avowed Athiest would suffer
if he or she lacked the protection of wealth and nobility such
as Helvetius (1715-71) enjoyed, must explain why he lived
a life that can only be described as hypocritical.
Nevertheless, he wrote fully his Atheist philosophy in the
form of a "Last Will and Testament to his parishioners, and to
the world, to be published after his death, the following pages,
entitled Common Sense." However, his master piece is more
familiarly known as Superstition In All Ages.
Meslier wrote in the sharp, clear, vigorous, yet eloquent
Enlightenment Style, of Lbhich Voltaire is the uncontested
master, and which made 18th century France one of the great
ages of literary achievement. At one point he stepped out of
philosophy and into fiction to illustrate a point, and wrote
the delightful fable we offer now.

from the rays of the burning sun. He

found it beneath a fresh group of
palm trees, whose roots were watered
by a limpid rivulet. In this solitary,
place, where the silence was broken
only by the murmuring of the waters
and the singing of the birds, the man
of god found not only an enchanting
retreat,but also a delicious repast. He
had but to extend the hand to gather
dates and other agreeable fruits. The
rivulet could appease his thirst. Very
soon a green plot invited him to take
sweet repose.
Upon waking, he performed the
holy cleansing; and in a transport of
ecstasy, he exclaimed: "0 Allah! How
great is thy goodness to the children of
men!"
Well rested, refreshed, full of life
and gayety, our holy man continued
on his road. It conducted him for
some time through a delightful country, which offered to his sight nothing
but blooming shores and trees filled
with' fruit. Softened by this spectacle,
he worshipped incessantly the rich and
liberal hand of providence, which
was everywhere seen occupied with
the welfare of the human race.
Going a little farther, he came across a few mountains, which were
quite hard to ascend; but having arrived at their summit, a hideous sight
suddenly met his eyes. His soul was

all consternation.
He discovered a
vast plain entirely devastated by the
sword and fire. He looked at it and
found it covered with more than a
hundred thousand corpses, deplorable
remains of a bloody battle which had
taken place a few days previous. Eagles, vultures, ravens, and wolves were
devouring the dead bodies with which
the earth was covered.
This sight plunged our pilgrim into
a sad reverie.
,_
Heaven, by a special favor, had
made him understand the language of
beasts. He heard a wolf, gorged with
human flesh, exclaim in his excessive
joy: "0 Allah! How great is thy
kindness for the children of wolves!
Thy foreseeing wisdom takes care to
send infatuation upon these men who
are so dangerous to us. Through an
effect of thy providence,
which
watches over thy creatures, these, our
destroyers, murder each other, and
thus furnish us with sumptuous
repasts. 0 Allah! How great is thy
goodness to the children of wolves!"

MORAL: It is foolish to see in the

universe only the benefactions
of
heaven, and to believe that this universe was made but for man.

Page 23

July 1979

'.

dis-

why johnny can't 'obev

by Sarah J. McCarthy
Sarah J. Mcikirthy, B.A., Duquesne University, is a former
public school teacher, and is currently employed as a Teaching Assistant in the Department of Psychology at the Uniuersitv of Pittsburgh while engaged in graduate studies.
No one is too concerned about whether Johnny can disobey. There is no furor or frantic calls to the PTA a~ when
it is discovered that he can't read or does poorly on his S.A.T.
scores. Even to consider the question is at first laughable.
Parents and teachers, after all, are systematically working at
developing the virtue of obedience. To my knowledge, no
one as yet has opened a remedial disobedience school for
overly-compliant children, and probably no one ever will. And
that in itself is a major problem.
Patricia Hearst recently said that the mindless state of
obedience which enveloped her at the hands of the Symbionese Liberation Army could happen to anyone. Jumping to a
tentative conclusion from a tip-of-the-iceberg perspective, it
looks as though it already has happened to many, and that
it has required nothing so dramatic as a kidnapping to bring
it about.
Given our experience with various malevolent authority
figures such as Adolph Hitler, Charles Manson, Lt. Calley
and Jim Jones, it is unfortunately no longer surprising that
there are leaders who are capable of wholesale cruelty to the
point of directing mass killings. What remains shocking, however, is that they are so often successful in recruiting followers. There seems to be no shortage of individuals who. will
offer their hearts and minds on a silver platter to feed the
egos of the power-hungry.
This becomes even more disturbing when one ponders the
truism that society's neurotics are often its cultural caricatures, displaying exaggerated manifestations of its collective
neuroses. There are enough examples of obedience of horrendous commands for us to ask if and how a particular culture sows the seeds of dangerous conformity. Fertile fields
for obedience apparently have been cultivated, which evidently require merely charismatic catalysts to germinate into
full-blown cases of terminal follow-the-leader. Were Freud
still aroud, he might diagnose it as a case of widespread latent
Pied-Piperism.
Political platitudes and lip service to the contrary, obedience is highly encouraged in matters petty and profound.
Most recently, Bella Abzug was punished by the White House
for dissent, providing an unmistakable warning to others who
may forget their place on the team. Linda Eaton, an Iowa
firefighter, was suspended from her job and catapulted to
national fame for the radical act of breast-feeding at work.
A dehumanized, compartmentalized society finds little room
for spontaneity and a blatantly natural act like breast-feeding.
It is viewed as a preposterous interruption of the status quo.
Pettiness abounds in our social relationships, insuring compliance through peer pressure and disapproval, and enforced
by economic sanctions at the workplace. A friend of mine,
a construction worker, reported to his job one rainy day
carrying an umbrella. The foreman was outraged by this break
from the norm, and demanded that the guy never again carry
Page 24

July 1979

an umbrella to the construction site, even if it was black,

since it "caused his whole crew to look like a bunch of faggots."
Another friend, though less scandalizingly visible in his
job as a security guard in the wee hours for a multinational
corporation, was caught redhanded playing a harmonica ..
Mercifully, he was given another chance, only to be subsequently fired for not wearing regulation shoes.
Pathological Obedience
Ostensibly, such firings and threats are deemed necessary
to prevent inefficiency and rampant chaos at the workplace.
But if employers were merely concerned about productivity
and efficiency, it certainly is arguable that "yes-people" are.
often less productive and beneficial than "no-people." Harmonicas may even increase efficiency by keeping security
guards sane, alert, and awake by staving off sensory- deprivation. A dripping-wet construction worker .could conceivably
be less productive than a dry one. And the Adidas being worn
by the errant security guard could certainly have contributed
to his fleetness and agility, as opposed to the cumbersome
regulation shoes. The real issues here have nothing to do with
productivity. What is really involved is an irrational fear of the
mildly unusual, a pervasive attitude by authorities that their
subordinates are about to run amok, and behavior control.
These are not insignificant harassments. These little assaults on our freedom prepare us for the big ones. Having long
suspected that a huge iceberg of mindless obedience existed
beneath our cultural surface, I was not particularly surprised
when I heard. that 900 people followed their leader to mass
suicide. For some time we have lived with the realization that
people are capable of killing six million of their fellow citizens
on command. Jonestown took us one step further. People
will kill themselves on command.
In matters ridiculous and sublime, this culture and the
world at large clearly exhibits symptoms of pathological obedience. Each time one of the more sensational incidents occur Jonestown, the My Lai massacre, Nazi Germany, the Manson
murders - we attribute its occurrence to factors unique to
it, trying to deny any similarities to anything close to us,
tossing it about like a philosophical hot potato. We prefer to
view such events as anomalies, isolated in time and space,
associated with faraway jungles, exotic cults, drugged hippies
andoutside agitators. However, as the frequency of such happenings increase, there is the realization that it is relatively
easy to seduce formerly normal people into brainwashed
states of obedience.
Too much energy and time have been spent in trying to understand the alleged compelling traits and mystical powers of
charismatic leaders, and not enough in an attempt to understand the fellow travelers - the obedient ones. We need to
look deeper into those who elected Hitler, and all those followers of Jim Jones who went to Guyana voluntarily. We
must ask how many of us are also inclined toward hyper-obedience. Are we significantly different, capable of resisting
malevolent authority, or have we simply had the good forAmerican Atheist

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tune never to have met Jim Jones?

Social psychologist, Stanley Milgram, in his 1974 Obedience to Authority, is convinced that,
"In growing up, the normal individual has learned to check
the expression of aggressive impulses. But the culture has
failed, almost entirely, in inculcating internal controls
on actions that have their origin in authority. For this
reason, the latter constitutes a far greater danger to human
survi val. "
Vincent Bugliosi, prosecutor of Charles Manson and author
of Helter Skelter, recently commented on the Jonestown suicides,
"Education of the public is the only answer. If young people could be taught what can happen to them - that they
may be zombies a year after talking to that smiling person
who stops them on a city street, they may be prepared."
What an .indictment this is of our educational system and
cultural values.Presumably,
most cult converts have spent
most of their days in our educational system, but what have
they learned if they are, in fact, so vulnerable to the beguiling
smile or evil eye of a Charles Manson? If there is any lesson to
be learned from the obedience-related holocausts, it must be
that we can never underestimate the power of education and
the socialization process.
Contrary to our belief that the survival instinct is prepotent
over all other drives, the Jonestown suicides offer testimony to
the power of cultural indoctrination. Significantly, the greatest
life force at People's Temple came from the children. Acting
on their survival instincts, they went kicking and screaming to
their deaths in an "immature" display of disobedience. The
adults, civilized and educated people that they were, lined up
with stiff upper lips and took their medicine like the men and
women they were trained to be - a training that didn't begin
at Jonestown.

gions. Religions, often nothing more than little cults that grew,
set the stage for the credulity and gullibility required for membership in cults.
A witch hunt is now brewing to exorcise the exotic cults,
but what is the dividing line between a cult and a "legitimate"
religion? Is there a qualitative difference between the actions
of venerated Biblical saints and martyrs and the martyrs of
Jonestown? If the Bible contained a Parable of Guyana, the
churches would regularly extoll it as a courageous act of selfsacrifice. Evidently, saints and martyrs are only palatable when
separated from us by the chasm of a few centuries. To enforce
their beliefs, the major religions use nothing so crass as automatic weapons, of course, but instead resort to automatic sen.tences to eternal damnation.
Unfortunately religion is not the only problem. Our political heroes, too, are viewed through the prisms of our particular socialization process. Were the Japanese heroes of World
War II, the Kamikaze pilots, different in any significant way
from those Americans who went to their deaths in Vietnam
and on Hamburger Hill?
Certainly, there must be an optimal level of obedience and
cooperation in a reasonable society, but obedience, as any
other virtue that is carried to an extreme, may become a vice.
It is obvious that Nazi Germany and Jonestown went too far
on the obedience continuum. In more mundane times and
places, the appropriate level of obedience is more difficult to
ascertain.
We must ask if our society is part of the problem, or part
of the solution, or fully irrelevant to the incidents of overobedience exhibited at Jonestown and My Lai. Reviewing
social psychology's attempts to take oue psychic temperatures
through empirical measurements of our conformity and obedience behavior in experimental situations, our vital signs do
not look good.

Disobedience is the Original Sin.

When something so horrible as Jonestown happens, people
draw metaphors about the nearness of the jungle and the
beast that lurks within us. It seems that a more appropriate
metaphor would be our proximity to an Orwellian civilization with its antiseptic removal of our human rough edges and
"animal" instincts. On close scrutiny, the beast within us looks
suspiciously like a sheep.
Despite our rich literature of freedom, which is in effect a
mere whisper in the corner of our culture, the pervasive value
instilled in our society is obedience to authority. Unquestioning obedience is perceived to be in the best interests of the
schools, churches, families, and political institutions. Nationalism, patriotism and religious ardor are its psychological vehieles.

Religion Only Part Of The Problem

Disobedience is the original sin, as all of the religions have
stated in one way or another. Given the obedience training in
organized religions that claim to possess mystical powers and
extra-rational knowledge, and ext 011 the glories of self-sacrifice, what is so bizarre about the teachings of Jim Jones? But
if we arm our children with the rationality and independent
thought necessary to resist the cultist, can we be sure that our
own creeds and proclamations will meet the criteria of reason?
The spotlight of reason which exposes the charlatan may next
shine on some glaring inconsisten-cies in the "legitimate" reliAustin, Texas

In 1951, Solomon Asch conducted an experiment on conformity, which is similar to obedience behavior in that it subverts one's own will to that of peers or authority. This study,
as reported in the textbook Social Psychology by Freedman,
Sears & Carlsmith , involved college students who were asked
to estimate lines of equal and differing lengths. Some of the
lines were obviously equal, but if subjects heard others before
them unanimously give the wrong answer, they would also
answer incorrectly. Prior to the experiment, Asch reasoned
that people would be rational enough to choose the evidence
of their own eyes over the disagreeing "perceptions" of others.
He was wrong.
When subjects were asked to estimate the length of a line
in the face of others before them having given the obviously
wrong answers, the subjects also gave wrong answers about
35% of the time. Those who went before them were confederates of the experimenter, and were intentionally giving the
wrong answer. Authors Freedman et al., stress,
"It is important to keep the unambiguousness of the situations in mind if we are to understand this phenomenon.
There is a tendency to think that the conforming subjects
are uncertain of the correct choice and therefore are
swayed by the majority: This is not always the case. In
many instances, subjects are quite certain of the correct
choice and, in the absence of group pressure, would choose
correctly 100% of the time. When they conform, they are
conforming despite the fact that they know the correct

July 1979

Page 25

answer."
If 35% of those students conformed to group opinion in
unambiguous matters, in direct contradiction of t~e evidence
of their own eyes, how much more must we fear blind-following in ambiguous circumstances or in circumstances where
there exists a legitimate authority?
In the early '60s, Yale social psychologist Stanley Milgram
devised an experiment to put acts of obedience and disobedience under close scrutiny. Milgram attempted to understand
why thousands of "civilized" people had engaged in .an :xtreme and immoral act - that of the wholesale extermination
of Jews - in the name of obedience. He devised a learning
task in which subjects of the experiment were instructed to
act as teachers. They were told to "shock" learners for their
mistakes.
The learners were actually confederates of the experimenter
and were feigning their reactions. When a mistake was made,
the experimenter would instruct the teacher to administer an
ever-increasing voltage from a shock machine which read "Extreme Danger," "Severe Shock" a.nd "XXX." Alt~ough the
machine was unconnected, the subjects-teachers believed that
they were actually administering shocks. They were themselves'given a real sample shock before the experiment began,
and during the experiment the "victim" writhed and screamed
as if the shocks were felt.
Banality of Evil
Before beginning the series of experiments, Milgram requested his Yale colleagues to estimate how many subjects
would proceed to shock all the way to the presumed lethal end
of the shockboard. Their estimates hovered around one or two
per cent. No one was prepared for the fact that in the first experiment 26 out of 40 subjects obeyed the experimenter's instruction to press the levers that supposedly administered
severely dangerous levels of shock. Milgram regularly obtained
results that showed that 62 to 65 percent of the people would
shock to the end of the board.He tried several variations on the experiment, one of which
was to set up an experimental site outside of Yale University
so as the prestige of the University should not be an inordinate
factor in causing the SUbjects to obey. This manipulation
caused no significant decline in obedient acts! People were as
likely to administer severe shock whether the experiments
occurred in the hallowed halls of Yale or in a three-room store-

This is, perhaps, the most fundamental lesson of our

study: ordinary people, simply doing their jobs, and without any particular hostility on their part, can. become agents in a terrible' destructive process. Moreover, even when
the destructive effects of their work become patently clear,
and they are asked to carry out actions incompatible with
.fundamentalktandards
of morality, relatively few people
have the resources needed to resist authority. A variety
of inhibitions against disobeying authority come into play
and successfully keep the person in his place."
Similarly, Hannah Arendt's 1963 book, Eichmann in Jerusalem contended that Eichmann was not evil incarnate, nor
the particularly sadistic personality that the prosecution at
Nuremburg tried to paint him. Rather, Arendt felt that he was
merely an uninspired bureaucrat who simply did his job.
A lack of compassion was not a particularly salient personality factor in the acts of obedience performed by the followers of Hitler, Jim Jones, or the subjects in the Milgram
experiments. Nazi soldiers were capable of decent human behavior toward their friends and family. Some, too, see an
irony in that Hitler himself was a vegetarian. The People's
Temple members seemed more compassionate and humanitarian than many, and yet they forced their own children to
partake of a fruit drink laced with cyanide.
.
Those shocking the victims in the Milgram experiments exhibited signs of compassion both toward the experimenter and
to the persons they thought were receiving the shocks. In fact,
Milgram finds that "it is a curious thing that a measure of compassion on the part of the subject, an unwillin~es~ to 'hurt' .
the experimenter's feelings, are part of those binding forces
inhibiting disobedience .....
only obedience can preserve the
experimenter's status and dignity."
Pleading Cries Ignored
Compassion toward the victims in these tortuous situations
is ambigious. Milgram's subjects emitted signs of severe physiological tension and internal conflict when instructed to shock.
Presumably, these signs of psychic pain arid tortured indecision were a manifestation of an underlying attitude of compassion for the victim, but it was not sufficient to impel them
to openly break with, and therefore embarrass, the experimenter, even though this experimenter had no real authority
over them.
One of Milgram's subjects expressed thisdilemma succinct-

"I'll go through anything they tell me to do."

front in which the experimenters identified themselves only as
"scientific researchers."
In another variation of the experiment, Milgram found that
aggression, latent or otherwise, was not a significant factor in
causing the teacher-subjects to shock the learners. When the
experimenter left the room and permitted the subjects to
choose the level of shock themselves, almost none administered more than the lowest voltage. Milgram concluded that
obedience, not aggression, was the problem. He states,
"I must conclude th? (Hannah) Arendt's conception of
the banality of evil comes closer to the truth than one
might dare imagine. The ordinary person who shocked the
victim did so out of a sense of obligation - a conception
of his duties as a subject - and not from an peculiarly aggressive tendencies.
Page 26

July 1979

1I

ly: "I'll go through with anything they tell me to do ..... The,.

know more than I do ....
.I know when I was in the ser-vice, (if I was told) 'You go over the hill and we're going to
attack,' we attacked. So I think it's all based on the wa! a
man was brought up ....
.in his background. Well, I faithfully believed the man (whom he thought he had shocked)
was dead until we opened the door. When I saw him, I said,
'Great, this is great.' But it didn'tbother me even to find
that he was dead. I did a job."
The experiments continued through thousands of people,
students and non-students, here and abroad, often demonstrating obedience behavior in 60 to 65 percent of the subjects ..
When the experiments were done in Munich, obedience often
reached 85 percent. Incidentally, Milgram found nosex difAmerican Atheist

... PEER

REBELLION

!EFFECTIVE

WAS

EXPERIMENTAL

UNDERCUTTING

MOST

VARIATION

IN

AUTHORITY.

ferences in obedience behavior. Though his sample of women

shockers was small, he found that their level of obedience
was identical to that of the men; but' they did exhibit more
symptoms of internal conflict.
Milgram concluded that "there is probably nothing the victim can say that will uniformly generate disobedtence," since
it is not the victim who is controlling the shocker's behavior.
Even when one of the experimental variations included a victim who cried out that he had a heart condition, this did not
lead to significantly greater disobedience. In such situations,
the experimenter-authority
figure dominates the subject's
social field, while the pleading cries of the victim are for the
most part ignored.
Milgram found that for disobedience to occur the authority's power had to be somehow undermined, as when the experimenter was not physically present, when his orders came
over the telephone, or when his orders were challenged by another authority. Most importantly, impressive decreases in
obedience occurred when others rebelled, dissented or argued
with the experimenter. When a subject witnessed another subject defying or arguing with the experimenter, 36 out of 40
subjects also rebelled, demonstrating that peer rebellion was
the most effective experimental variation in undercutting
authority.
This social orientation in which the authority dominates
one's psyche is attributed by Milgram to a state of mind which
he terms "the agentic state." A person makes a critical shift
from a relatively automonous state into this agentic state when
she or he enters a hierarchical situation in which "he defines
himself in a manner that renders him open to regulation by
a person of higher status."
Stupor Of Mindless Obedience
The agentic state is a likely explanation for the scenario at
Jonestown, where even the cries of their own children were
not sufficient to dissuade parents from serving the cyanide.
Despite some ambiguity as to how many Jonestown residents
were murdered and how many committed suicide, there remains the fact that these victims had participated in previous
suicide rehearsals. Jim Jones, assured of their loyalty and of
their critical shift into an agentic state, then had the power to
orchestrate the real thing.
The supreme irony. the likes' of which could only be
imagined as appearing in the Tralfamadore Tribune with a
by-line "by Kurt Vonnegut," is the picture of the Guyana
death scene. Bodies are strewn about beneath the throne of
Jones and a banner which proclaimed that those who failed
to learn the lessons of history were doomed to repeat them.
The lessons of Jonestown, and other obedience-related holocausts, are screaming out warnings that we are sinking into
the stupor of mindless obedience. Various social barometers
confirm the warning. Some have suggested that there are
parallels between the White Night suicide rehearsals of People's

Austin, Texas

THE

Temple and our own worldwide mass suicide rehearsals via

our massive stockpiles of nuclear weapons. We submissively
tithe our tax dollars and assume that our leaders will take
care of us.
Rev. John More, father and grandfather of three of the
Jonestown victims, recently stated,

"The death of hundreds and the pain and suffering of hundreds of others is a tragedy. The tragedy will be compounded if we fail to discern our relations to that tragedy. . ...
The forces of life and death - building and destroying were present in People's Temple. Death reigned when there
was no one free enough, or strong enough, or filled with
rage enough, to run and throw his body against a vat of
cyanide, spilling it on the ground. Are there people free
enough and strong enough who will throw themselves against the vat of nuclear stockpiles for the sake of the
world?"
How many of us have made the critical shift into an agentic
state regarding international relations, assuming our leaders
know best, even though they have repeatedly demonstrated
that they do not? Stanley Milgram predicts that "for the man
who sits in front of the button that will release Armageddon,
depressing it will have about the same emotional force as
calling for an elevator .....
evolution has not had a chance to
build inhibitors against such remote forms of aggres~on."
We should recognize that our human nature renders us
somewhat vulnerable. For one thing, our own mortality and
that of our loved ones is an unavoidable fact underlying our
lives. In the face of it, we are powerless; and in our insecurity,
many reach out for sure answers. Few choose to believe,
along with Clarence Darrow, that not only are we not the
captains of our fate, but that we are not even "deckhands on
a rudderless dinghy." Or, as someone else has stated, "There
are no answers. Be brave and face up to it."
Most of us won't face up to it. We want our answers, solutions to our plight, and we want them now. Too often, truth
and rational thought are the first casualties of this desperate
reach for security. We embrace answers from charlatans,
false prophets, charismatic leaders, and assorted demagogues.
Given these realities of our nature, how can we avoid these
authority traps to which 'we are so prone? By what criteria
do we teach our children to distinguish between the charlatan
and the prophet?
Excessive Obedience An Emotional Disorder
It seems that the best armor is the rational mind. We must
insist that all authorities account for themselves, and we need
to be as wary of false prophets as we are of false advertising.
Leaders, political and spiritual, must be subjected to intense
scrutiny, and we must insist that their thought processes and
proclamations measure up to reasonable standards of rational
thought. Above all, we must become skilled in activating our
inner resources toward rebellion and disobedience.

July 1979

Page 27

Freeing ourselves from an advanced agentic state may be

nearly impossible, just as it was too late for the people of
Jonestown to rebel on the day of the mass suicide. As in many
mental health problems, prevention is the best answer, which
brings us back to the question of whether American society is
part of the problem or part of the solution. The power of
socialization can conceivably be harnessed so as to develop individuals who are rational and skeptical, capable of independent -thought, and who can disobey or disagree at the critical
moment. Our society, however, continues to systematically instill exactly the opposite.
The educational system pays considerable lip service to
the development of self-reliance, and places huge emphasis on
lofty concepts of individual differences, while literally reo
quiring children to have permission to go to the bathroom.
Little notice is taken of the legions of overly-obedient children
in the schools, yet, for every overly-disobedient child, there
are probably 20 who are obeying too much. There is little
motivation to encourage the unsqueaky wheels to develop
as noisy, creative, independent thinkers who may become bold
enough to disagree.
Conceivably, we could administer modified Milgram obedience tests in the schools which would detect hyper-obedience,
just as we test for intelligence, visual function, vocational attributes and tuberculosis. When a child was found to be too
obedient, the schools should mobilize against this psychological crippler with the zeal to which they would react to an epidemic of smallpox. In alcoholism and other mental disturbances, the first major step toward a reversal of the pathology
is recognition of the severity of the problem. Obedience
should be added to the list of emotional disturbances requiring therapy. Disobedience schools should be at least as common as military schools and reform schools.
We are a nation committed to political freedom, but we are
so inculcated with cultural baggage and conformist tendencies
that the guarantees of freedom are of little use. It is analogous
to bragging about having no fence around our yard but haying
the dog so well-trained as never to leave. Our leaders seem to
fully .realize how well-trained we are. Richard Nixon, never
one to underestimate the gullibility of the American people,
reached a pinnacle of cynicism when he attempted to explain
away the 18-minute gap on his tapes as having been caused by
a "sinister force." With a nation caught up in the throes of
3,000 religious, cults, assorted "legitimate" religions, and
people lined up for blocks to see The Exorcist, he probably
thought it was worth a try.

turbing powers. There are no constitutional amendments that

can protect us from such prisons, and leaders who benefit
from the obedience are unlikely to alter the socialization process. Solutions will have to come from within each of us. Dr.
Wayne Dyer, in his book, Your Erroneous Zones, discusses our
seemingly desperate need for approval and advises that we
practice seeking disapproval, becoming comfortable with it.
Milgram also advises such practices, since fear of embarrassment and social disapproval are important facets in the inability to disobey.
"Anyone who feels this to be a trivial consideration ought
to carry out the following experiment. Identify a person
.for whom you have genuine respect, preferably someone
older than yourself by at least a generation and who represents an authority in an important life domain
To
understand what it means to breach the etiquette of relations with authority, you need merely present yourself
to the person and in place of his title, whether it be Dr.,
Professor, or Father, address him using his first name, or
perhaps even an appropriate nickname .....
As you approach him, you will experience anxiety and a powerful
inhibition that may well prevent successful completion of
the experiment .....
More than likely, you will not be able
to perform the disrespectful action."
Paradoxically, if we are to gain control of our lives and
minds, we must first acknowledge the degree to which we are
not now in control. We must become reasonable and skeptical.
Reason is no panacea, but at the moment, it is all that we
have. Yet many in our society seem to have the same attitude
about rationality and reason as they do about the poverty
program; i.e., we've tried it and it doesn't work.
Along with worrying about the S.A.T. scores, and whether
Johnny can read, we must begin to seriously question whether
Johnny is capable of disobedience. And the churches and
cults, while retaining their constitutional right to free expression, must be more regularly criticized. The legitimate religions
have been treated as sacred cows. Too often, criticism of them
is met with accusations of religious bigotry {see "Atheist Columnist Angers RCC," June, 1979, p. 6], or the implications
that one is taking candy from a baby or a crutch from a
cripple.
The concept of religious tolerance has been stretched to its
outer limits, implying freedom from criticism and the non-payment of taxes. Neither patriotism nor religion should be justification for the suspension of our reason. And on a personal
level, we must stop equating sanity with conformity, eccen-

REASON ... /S ALL

WE HAVE.

The chains on us are not legal or political, but the invisible

tricity with craziness, and normalcy with numbers. We must
chain of the agentic state. We have all gotten the message
get in touch with our own liberating ludicrousness, and
that it is dangerous and requires exceptional courage to be dif- . practice being harmlessly deviant. We must, in fact, cease to
ferent, T. S. Eliot describes such a situation in The Love Song
use props or other people to affirm our normalcy. With sufficient practice, perhaps, when the need arises, we may have
of J. Alfred Prufrock . He wonders, "Do I dare disturb the uni-:
verse... , .Should I, after tea, and cakes and ices, have the
the strength to force a moment to its crisis.
strength to force the moment to its crisis? .... Do I dare to
eat a peach?"
Harmless Deviance
Our freedom is illusionary when mundane activities such as
harmonica playing, breastfeeding, umbrella-carrying,. and eating peaches in Victorian drawing rooms have such universe-dis-

Page 28

July 1979

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American Atheist

A Verg Brief Sgnopsls of Paul

The Founder of Chr-i8tlanltg
by G. T. Harri son

If I have no right to think, why have I a brain? If I have no such right,

have others who may get together, sign a creed, build a house, put a steeple upon it; a bell in its tower - have they the right to think for me? The
good men and the good women are tired of the whip and lash in the
realm of thought. They are free and they help give liberty to others. Whoever claims any right he is unwilling to accord to his fellow man, is dishonest. Why remain a closed mind and allow yourself to be driven beyond
your capacity? Think about it.
Many scholars attribute Christianity as found in the world today, to St. Paul- not Jesus Christ. Paul claimed to believe himself .divinely chosen to preach Christ to the Gentiles; and in doing so he produced a version of Christianity which shocked the
original Jewish Christians of Jerusalem. Paul termed his version as, "My Gospel." (Rom. 2:16 & 16:25, Gal. 1:6-8,2 Thes. 2:14,
2 Tim. 2:8, etc.)
Jesus, while alive, had plainly instructed his disciples: "Go not into the way of the Gentiles." (Matt.
10:5) "I am not sent, but to the lost sheep of the
house of Israel." (Matt. 15:24) Even James recommended that they leave the Gentiles alone (Acts
15:13 & 19). And there is no record of Peter having
anything to do with Gentiles, except in chapter 10 of
Acts, which is suspect.

Jesus taught the necessity and virtue of circumcision, because it was the sealing in the Israelites'
flesh. of "an everlasting covenant" with god. (Gen.
17:7,10-14, & 19)

Contrary to the instructions and policy of Jesus

while living, Paul contended that "his gospel" was for
all - "all men to be saved." (I Tim. 2:4) And Paul admits that Jesus while alive taught otherwise: "Which
in other ages was not made known unto the sons of
men, as it is now revealed unto his holy apostles and
prophets (not by Jesus, but) by the Spirit, that the
Gentiles shall be fellow heirs. " (Eph. 3:5-6) "Wherefore,l am appointed a preacher, and an apostle, and
a teacher of the Gentiles." (2 Tim. 1:11)
'

Always Jesus emphasized the importance and

necessity for good works and righteousness as most
essential for salvation. "Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works."
(Matt. 5:16) "Except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees,
ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven." (Matt. 5:20) "By their fruits (not by their faith)
ye shall know them." (Matt. 7:16 & 20)
"This people draweth nigh unto me with their
mouth, and honor me with their mouth, and honor
me with their lips (confess him as Paul, Bill Graham
and others say is sufficient - even the devils confessed Jesus was the son of god)." (Matt. 8:29 &
15:8) But Jesus declared: "Not every one that saith
unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom
of heaven, but he that doeth the will of my father
which is in heaven." (Matt. 7:21)
When a. young man came to Jesus personally and
asked, "Good master, what good things shall I do
that I might have eternal life?" (Matt. 19:16); Jesus,
who certainly should have been a better authroity

Austin, Texas

But Paul taught that good works and righteousness

were unnecessary and superfluous. Faith alone was
the essential. "A man is not justified by the works of
the law, but by faith of Jesus Christ." (Gal. 2:16) "If
thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus (as
the devils did in Matt. 8:29) .....
thou shalt be
saved." (Rom. 10:9) "For by grace are ye saved
through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the
gift of god." (Eph. 2:8)

July 1979

1/

But Paul taught that the everlasting covenant with

god could be ignored and that circumcision could be
also ignored, because circumcision was of no efficacy.
"Wheri they saw that the gospel of un circumcision
was committed unto me (Paul)." (Gal. 2:7) "Behold,
I Paul, say unto you, that if ye be circumcised Christ
shall profit you nothing .....
For in Jesus Christ
neither circumcision availeth anything nor uncircumcision." (Gal. 5:2 & 6)

Page 29

than Paul or John, did not say: Believe in me and

thou shalt be saved. Instead, he instructed the youth,
"If thou wilt enter unto life, keep the command.
ments." (Matt. 19:17)

Jesus Christ declared that no mo.ral, h~nest man

can serve two masters at the same time with wholesome results (Matt. 6:24).

; .But Paul said that he could. "I am made all things

to all (kinds) of men, for the gospel's sake." (I Cor.
9:20.23)

As we stated in the beginning, many scholars recognize Paul, not Jesus, as the founder of Christianity as we know it today.
Because of lack of space, only four examples are cited of many that can be quoted.
"If we accept the Pauline authorship of Hebrews in the New Testament, then over half of the New Testament's 27 books
were written by Paul." (The Gospel According to Paul by M. R. De Haan, p. 1)
"Paul, he transformed Christianity from a small Hebrew-sect into a world religion." ("St. Paul, An Apostle to All Men" by
Ernest O. Hauser, Readers Digest, Sept., 1966, p. 147)
"Explain the origin of the religion of Paul,' and you have solved the problem of the origin of Christianity ..... In fact the
influence of Paul upon the entire life of the Church is simply measureless ..... The establishment of Christianity as a world
religion, to almost as great an extent as any great historical movement, can be ascribed to one man, it was the work of Paul.
"Peter's gospel was obviously the original version of the Christian faith, yet it was regarded by Paul as not being suitable
for Gentiles. His own gospel, which he admits was later, and wholly independent of "those who were apostles before me."
(Rom. 16:1) Paul claims by way of contrast, his gospel, to be of divine origin, and specifically intended for Gentiles.
"Paul allegedly believed .....
that he was inspired by god for salvation of the Gentiles, to whom the gospel of the circumcision was both unintelligible and offensive. When the original Jewish Christians at Jerusalem realized the nature of Paul's
teachings, they were shocked and vigorously repudiated it, because for one thing, he had obviated the 'everlasting covenant'
of circumcision. They refused to recognize Paul as an apostle (remember - he had never been an original disciple of Jesus)
and they sent out emissaries to Paul's converts to present their own gospel, as the authentic version of the faith." (The Origin
of Paul's Religion by J. Gresham Machem, p. 45, 7, & 8)
But Paul got into trouble with the law. A period of trials and imprisonment was followed by Paul's being sent to Rome to
be tried by the Emperor. The outcome of that trial is not to be found amongst either Roman or Christian records.
"After his arrest, it seemed that Paul's version of Christianity was fated to disappear, and that the Jerusalem Christians would
keep the movement within the confines of Judaism." ("St. Paul, the Pilot of Christianity," Man, Myth, & Magic, Vol. 16, p.
2152) But the best laid plans of mice and men often go astray. "The Jewish revolt against Rome in 66 A.D., which finally reo
suited in the overthrow of the Jewish Nation and the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D.," (Ibid.) also destroyed the temple,
the Christians, all their records, scriptures, synagogues, etc., and completely wiped out the Jesus-Peter-James-John faction of the
Christian Church.
After 70 A.D., the Gentile Christian factions and branches establlshedby Paul, in foreign countries and away from Jerusalem,
revived and re-established the Christian faith on the basis of "Paul's Gospel" - not that of Jesus-Peter-James-John, That is the
reason why the very first and earliest gospels and New Testament books were written in Greek by Gentiles, and not in Hebrew.
"Although memories of the historical Jesus as the Jewish Messiah were preserved, it was Paul's presentation" and interpretation
"of Jesus" and his mission "as the saviour god" for all mankind, "who died and rose again, that became the foufldation of
orthodox Christianity" today. (Ibid.)
A Partial Record of Paul, the Founder of Christianity, From the Bible
1. Paul was a self-confessed liar. He asks: How could anyone be justified in branding him a sinner, when his lying was done
for the glory of god? "If the truth of god (Paul's version of the gospel) hath more abounded (that is, was successful) through my
lie, why yet am I also judged a sinner?" (Rom. 3:7) 2. He was a hypocrite; whatever the other's philosophy, he pretended too. "I am made all things to all men." (I Cor. 9:
20-23)
3. Paul used guile - cunning, deception, crookedness to make converts. "Being crafty, I caught you with guile." (2 Cor.
12:16)
4. Paul was careless with the truth; and nothing could shame him. "I am set for the defense of the gospel. .... whether in
pretense or in truth .... .in nothing I shall be ashamed." (Phil. 1:17-20)
5. He sought out deluded, credulous people who would readily believe a lie. "God shall send them strong delusions, that
they should believe a lie." (2 Thes. 2:11)
.
6. Just whom did Paul speak for and represent? "That which I speak, I speak not after the lord. " (2 Cor. 11: 17)
7. Is natural man capable of understanding the world and its contents in a natural way? "The natural man (Is there any
other kind?) receiveth not the things of the spirit of god; for they are foolishness unto him; neither can he know them (Why
not?) because they are spiritually discerned (only)." (1 Cor. 2:14)

Page 30

July 1979

American Atheist

But we are told elsewhere that god created man in his own image, with five naturalsenses to discern, understand and know
things - .unknown, unnatural spirituality is not mentioned. Paul says that man, allegedly in the image of god, is inherently corrupt and not capable of tuning in on spiritual messages. If true, is this a defect in god's creation and character? Of course, according to lying, hypocritical, grafting, parasitical, deceiving, foolish, crooked Paul, and other modern religionists, bishops,
evangelists, priests, pastors, elders, popes, etc., they can tune in on the "spiritual messages," for us, but natural man cannot.
This is another of Paul's, and all other religionists', clever tricks of deception to further their ends.
8. Paul was a beggar and a parasite like most of the religionists and preachers who have followed him. He lived off the labors
of others, notwithstanding his boast of earning his living with his own hands (1 Cor. 4:12). Paul's slogan was: "Every man .....
give (money through Paul) ....
.for god loves a cheerful giver." (2 Cor. 9:7) "I (Paul) robbed other churches taking wages of
them to do your service." (2 Cor. 11:8) "Have not we (preachers) power to forebear working?" (1 Cor. 9:6) "Therefore I
thought it necessary to exhort the brethren (Paul's assistants) that they would go before (us) unto you and make up before hand
(that is, take up the collection before Paul arrived) your bounty (contributions) that the same might be ready (when Paul arrived) as a matter of bounty (donations) and not as covetness." (2 Cor. 9:5)
9. Paul believed in and taught slavery. "Let as many servants as are under the yoke (slavery) count their masters worthy of all
honor." (1 Tim. 6:1) "Exhort servants to be obedient unto their own master and please them well in all things." (Titus 2:9 &
Eph.6:5)
10. He believed in witches and warned against them (Gal. 5:20).
11. Paul glorified and revered ignorance and foolishness. "That which I speak, I speak it not after the lord, but as it were,
foolishly," (1 Cor. 11:17) "For Christ sent me ..... to preach the gospel not with wisdom of words." (1 Cor. 1:17) "If any man
among you seemeth to be wise in this world, let him become a fool." (1 Cor. 3:18) "We are fools for Christ's sake." (1 Cor.
4:10) "I (Paul) speak as a fool." (2 Cor. 11:23) "If any man be ignorant, let him be ignorant." (I Cor. 14:38)
12. Paul was difficult to get along with. He quarreled with Mark, and Mark left him (Acts 13:13 & 15:38). Then he hassled
Peter (Gal. 2:11). Next Barnabas, his nearest and dearest friend, could not be along with him (Gal. 2:13 & Acts 15:39). And
Demas had to desert him (2 Tim. 4:10). And he remained apart and independent from the Jerusalem apostles nearly throughout.
13. Finally Paul himself admitteda number of times that the gospel plan, the one now practiced by the Christian world, is a
mystery (Eph. 5:32,6:19, Col. 4:3, & 1 Tim. 3:9 & 16). So there is absolutely no basis in evidence or facts for believing such
scriptures as: "But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whorernongers, and sorcerers, and
idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake with burneth with fire and brimstone." (Rev. 21:8)
So mankind must protect itself against such as Paul and Billy Graham and others like them, here and now, in this life, for god
is nowhere in the picture.
Paul had many other weaknesses, eccentricities, faults and queer ideas and doctrines that I will pursue later. Surely Christianity's founder and founding is not a' wholesome one, nor one of respect, admiration, historical fact, or logic.
,.

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UP A COpy

OF:

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Austin, Texas

OCTOBER
INTERVIEW: MADALYN MURRAY
O'HAIR-Called
the "most
hated
woman in Amenc.," the country'. most
controveni&l atheitt it back in the new. ~
Il.ain u .he launches another broad.ide t
at organized reUgion-a law.uit de.lgnod :
to Itrip the church of their tax exemplion . O'Hair i. not exactly & Itranger to
public condemnation, having .parked
the 1963 Supreme Court decision ban
Ring prayen in public Khooll. Find out if ""~ ~
the yean have mellowed her in this ~ .
fucio.ting
interview by HUSTLER PubHlher Larry Flynt,

July 1979

Page 31

The American Atheist Radio

Wells, The Historian

and Christia nity

Program 103 .... 18 May 70 .... KTBC .... Nacogdoches, TX
Good Evening,
This is Madalyn Murray O'Hair, American Atheist, back to
of his empire, firmly resolved to end these divisions, bending
talk with you again.
towards his interpreters to ask them the meaning of the upH. G. Wells' name is known by everyone. He is a popular
roar.
writer ofhistory and his most famous volumes are titled The
"The views that prevailed at Nicaea are embodied in the
Outline of History.
.
Nicene Creed, a strictly Trinitarian statement, and the EmWell, for years Atheists have been telling me that these
peror sustained the Trinitarian position (three gods in one).
works were and have been censored even more than Gibbon's
But afterwards when Athanasisus bore too hardly upon the
history, about whichI talked last week. Actually every one of
Arians, he had him banished from Alexandria; and when the
Church at Alexandria would have excommunicated Arius, he
these which I have seen is usually a "revised" edition. I can't
obliged it to readmit him to communion.
find out if it is true that there has been censoring under the
name of revision or not. So long as I can't get his original
"A very important thing for us to note is the role played by
this Emperor in the unification and fixation of Christendom. '
works, I may never know. The books were first published in
Not only was the Council of Nicaea assembled by Constantine
1920, but the revised works have been issued since 1949.
the Great, but all the great councils, the two at Constantinople
All my Atheist friends have been telling me to get a copy of
in 381 and 553, Ephesus in 43i and Chalcedon in 451, were
Crux Ansata written by the same author and I would see just
called together by the imperial power. Ib is very manifest that
how he felt about Christianity. I have had a rare book dealer
in much of the history of Christianity at this time the spirit of
searching for this ever since. Today, there is before me, just
Constantine the Great is as evident as or more evident than the
arrived at our American Atheist Center here in Austin, Texas,
spirit of Jesus.
a battered, old, dog eared copy of Crux Ansata. It was printed
"Constantine was a pure autocrat. Autocracy had ousted
in a paperback booklet form many many years ago by a company which is now defunct.
the last traces of constitutional government in the days of
Let me read some of this horrible and suppressed material
Aurelian and Diocletian. To the best of his lights the Emperor
was trying to reconstruct the tottering empire while there was
to you. I am shocked to think something so bland as this, relating back to a period which existed 1500 years ago could
yet time and he worked, according to those lights, without any
ever be censorable. We should be able to look at the beginning
councilors, any-public opinion or any sense of the need of
of anything-even the Christian church-with objectivity. I
such aids and checks.
don't find this to be horrible at all. I feel that it should never
"The idea of stamping out all controversy and division,
have been suppressed and-for you to make your own opinion
stamping out all independent thought, by imposing one dogon it, here it is.
matic creed upon all believers, is an altogether autocratic idea;
"Catholicism as we know it as a definite and formulated beit is the idea of the single-handed man who feels that to get
lief came into existence with the formulation of the Nicene
anything done at all he must be free from opposition and critiCreed (in 325 A.D.). Eusebius (an early church father) gives a
cism. The story of the Church after he had consolidated it becurious account of that strange assemblage at Nicaea, over
comes, therefore, a history of the violent struggles that were
which the Emperor (of Rome) presided although he was not
bound to follow upon his sudden and rough summons to unan, imity, From him the Church acquired that disposition to be
yet a baptised Christian. It was not his first council of the
authoritative and unquestioned, to develop a centralised organChurch, for he had already, in 314 presided over a council
ization and run parallel with the Roman Empire which still .
at ArIes. He sat in the middle of the Council of Nicaea upon a
haunts its mentality.
golden throne, and, as he had little Greek, we must suppose he
"A second great autocrat who presently emphasized the diswas reduced to watching the countenances and gestures of the
tinctly authoritarian character of (Catholic) Christianity was
debaters and listening to their intonations.
Theodosius I, Theodosius the Great (379-395). He handed
"The council was a stormy one. When old Arius rose to
over all the churches to the Trinitarians, forbade the unorth. speak; one Nicholas Myra struck him in the face and afterodox to hold meetings, and overthrew the heathen temples
wards many ran out, thrusting their fingers into their ears in
throughout the empire, and in 390 he caused the great statue
affected horror at the old man's heresies. One is tempted to
of Serapis at Alexandria to be destroyed. Henceforth there was
imagine the great Emperor, deeply anxious for the solidarity

Page 32

July 1979

American Atheist

to be no rivalry, no qualification to the rigid unity of the

Church.
"Christian teaching almost from the outset was a matter of
vehement disputation. The very Gospels are rife with unsettled
arguments; the Epistles are disputations; and the search for
truth intensified divergence ... The violence and intolerance of
the Nicene Council witness to the doctrinal stresses that had
already accumulated in the earlier years and to the 'perplexity
confronting the statesmen who wished to pin these warring
theologians down to some dominating statement in the face of
this theological Babel.
"It is impossible for an intelligent modern student of history not to sympathise with the underlying idea of the papal
court, with the idea of one universal rule of righteousness
keeping the peace of the earth, and not to recognize the many
elements of nobility that entered into the Lateran policy.
Sooner or later mankind must come to one universal peace,
unless our race is to be destroyed by the increasing power of
its own destructive inventions; and that universal peace must
needs take the form of a government, that is to say, a lawsustaining organization, in the best sense of the word religious+a government ruling men through the educated co-ordination of their minds in a common conception of human history and human destiny.
"The Catholic Church was the first clearly conscious attempt to provide such a government in the world. We cannot
too earnestly examine its deficleqcies and inadequacies, for
every lesson we can draw from them is necessarily of the greatest value in forming our ideas of our own international relationships.

We cannot too earnestly

deficiencies

examine

its (the Roman Catholic Church)

and inadequacies.

"But first among the things that confront the student is the
intermittence of the efforts of the Church to establish the
world-City of God. The policy of the Church was not wholeheartedly and continuously set upon that end. Only now and
then some fine personality or some group of fine personalities
dominated it in that direction. The 'fatherhood of God' that
Jesus of Nazareth preached was overlaid almc.t from the beginning by the doctrines and ceremonial traditions of an earlier
(pagan) age, and of an intellectually inferior type. Christianity
early ceased to be purely prophetic and creative. It entangled
itself with archaic traditions of human sacrifice, with Mithraic
blood-cleansing, with priestcraft as ancient as human society
and with elaborate doctrines about the structure of the divinity. The gory entrail-searching for the forefinger of the Etruscan pontifex maximus presently overshadowed the teachings
of Jesus of Nazareth; the mental complexity of the Alexandrian Greek entangled them. In the jangle of these incompatibles the Church, trying desperately to get on with its unifying
task, became dogmatic and resorted to arbitrary authority. .
"Its priests and bishops were more and more men moulded
to creeds and dogmas and set procedures; by the time they became popes they were usually oldish men, habituated to a pol-

Austin, Texas

itic struggle for immediate ends and no longer capable of

world wide views. They had forgotten about the Fatherhood
of God; they wanted to see the power of the Church, which
was their power, dominating men's lives. It was just because
m~y of them probably doubted secretly of the entire soundness of their vast and elaborate doctrinal fabric that they
would brook no discussion of it. They were intolerant of
doubts and questions, not because they were sure of their
faith, but because they were not. The unsatisfied hun-ter of
intelligent men for essential truth seemed to promise nothing
but perpetual divergence.
"As the solidarity and dogmatism of the Church hardened,
it sloughed off and persecuted heretical bodies and individuals
with increasing energy: The credulous, naive and worthy Abbot Guibert of Nogent-sous-Oousy, in his priceless autobiography, gives us the state of affairs in the eleventh century and
reveals how varied and abundant were both the internal and
external revolts against the hardening authoritarianism that
Hildebrand had implemented.
"Abbot Guibert himself is an incipient internal rebel with
criticisms of episcopal and papal corruption that already anticipate the Lollards and Luther, and the stories he tells of devils,
diabolical possession and infidel death-beds, witness to the
wide prevalence of scoffing in Christendom even at that early
time.
" ... The tragedy of the Church is that she put her spiritual
influence to evil ends and abused her freedoms without
measure.
"The pope was the supreme lawgiver of Christendom and
his court at Rome the final and decisive court of appeal. The

Church levied taxes, it had not only vast properties and a great
income from fees, but it imposed a tax of a tenth, the tithe,
upon its subjects. It did not call for this as a pious benefaction;
it demanded it as a right. Steadily more and more of each
nation's property fell into the dead hand of the Church and
paid its tribute to St. Peter. The clergy, on the other hand,
claimed exemption from lay taxation.
"This attempt to trade upon their peculiar prestige and
evade their fair share of the fiscal burdens was certainly one
considerable factor in the growing dissatisfaction with the
clergy. Apart from the question of justice, it was impolitic.
.It made taxes seem ten times more burdensome to those who
hid to pay. It made everyone resent the immunities of the
Church.
"And a still more extravagant and unwise claim made by
the Church was the claim jo the power of dispensation. It did
not interpret right and wro
now; it was above right and
wrong and it could make wrong right and right wrong. The
pope in many instances set aside the laws of the church in
individual cases; he allowed cousins to marry, permitted a man
to have two wives, released men from vows. The Church's
crowning folly in the sixteenth century was the sale of indulgences, whereby the sufferings of the soul in purgatory could

July 1979

Page 33

speculate upon it, or examine and evaluate it in any way.

Only in this procedure will we ever come near to guessing toward the truth.

be commuted for a money payment.

" .. .Ideas of worldly rule, (the City of God) by the spreading and ramifying Church were already prevalent in the fourth
century. Christianity was becoming political. .. The Church
was to be the ruler of the world over all nations, the divinelyled ruling power over a great league of terrestrial states.
" ... as the Barbarian races settled and were made Christian,
the pope began to claim an overlordship ... of their kings. In a
few centuries the pope had become in Latin Catholic theory,
and to a certain extent in practice, the high priest, cerisor,
judge and divine monarch of Christendom; his influence extended far beyond the utmost range of the old empire. For
more than a thousand years this idea ... dominated Europe.
Yet, the history of Europe from the fifth century onward to
the fifteenth is very largely the history of the failure of this
great idea of a divinely ordained and righteous world government to realise itself in practice."
Let me end the quotes of H. G. Wells there. We will be reprinting this book and publishing it later this year. But, there
is nothing in this analysis by Wells that is either horrifying or
in need of suppression. We need to be able to really freely discuss the history of any institution, including that of the
church, and to have historians theorize about that history,

This program is sponsored by the Society of Separationists,

Inc., of P. O. Box 2117, Austin, Texas. It is a non-profit, nonpolitical, educational organization which maintains itself
through your contributions.
We ask your help in retaining this program each week in
your city. Please send a contribution to P. O. Box 2117,
Austin, Texas.
I am pleased to announce that we will very shortly have
available the book which tells about the personal struggle of
myself and my son, William Murray, to remove Bible and
prayer from the public schools of America.
Information as to purchase of the book will be on this
station at a later broadcast.
I will be with you next week, same day of the week, same
time and station. Please help this educational effort of the
Society of Separationists, an organization dedicated to the
complete separation of state and church. Contributions can
be mailed to P. O. Box 2117, Austin, Texas. That zip is
78756.

fJ~~~~"~~~~~~~~)~~~~M~~~)~~~~

I
I
I
I

You have convinced us.

So many of you want to reach Atheists of your opPOsite sex, for reasons 'apparent - companionship,
dating, even marriage - that we are going to offer this
"classified ad" column as a monthly feature.

it:

~
~
~
~

Maybe it was his deep blue eyes, or his good carriage and determined step, or his warn outreach, or
his .very gracious argument - 0hr,
~act tAhaht
~et
come on a long trip to get to t. e mencan t ets
Center and encourage us to do this. But, Lonely
Atheist Number One convinced us of the need for Atheist singles to become Atheist couples.

t:

~
W
~
eagree.
~
We will carry your ad, as you write it, for whatever
~ amount you desire to pay, for as long as you want us
to run it - if your object is romance.

I
I

That is the only thing we desire topromote in this

column.

July 1979

Address your reply to L.A. No.(whatever that~

number may be J. Place your sealed envelope in a let-~
ter and address the letter to the American Atheist~
Center, P. O. Box 2117, Austin, Texas, 78768. We~
will see that all replies are forwarded to the advertiS-!
er. No identities ever revealed; we again protect you
all from any harrassment which comes from your!
home address appearing in our columns.

c-jb

~
L.A. No.1:

Correspondence wanted with single females. Must!

be 100% Atheist; 5' 5" or taller, 135 Ibs. or less;
white female who is free to travel.
American white male, 51 years old ~Iook 4~); 6'~
1" tall, .180 Ibs; non-smoker; very light drlnker.~
Am a pipe ,:",~Ide.rby trade; am an ex-New England- it
er, presently livinq In Houston, Texas. .
~
Write L.A. No.1, ~
c/o American A~heist Center, ~
P. O. Box 2117, Austin, TX 78768

;.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~)~~~~~~)~~
Page 34

American Atheist

HARD

Film
Review

CORE

elaine stansfield
The price of going to the movies is going up (not to mention the transportation to get there), so when one pays $4.50
to see a film one might like to walk out on, it's often a case
of staying to the bitter end and getting one's money's worth.
Hardcore recalls the black bite against Hollywood that pervaded Sweet Smell of Success and Day of the Locust. It is a
film bitter: in its insistence on a totally black mood; here to
decry the porno industry from a religious viewpoint. Who is
there to stand up for the porno industry?
The film is so totally condemnatory that any voyeur or
curiosity seeker can love to hate, with as much sanctimoniousness as he"wishes. The so-called "dregs of humanity" pervade
the movie. It is as distasteful from a seamy-side-of-life viewpoint, as it is (rom a religious viewpoint.
George C. Scott plays a Calvinist born and bred, a well-todo furniture manufacturer living in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
He is shown. in the opening sequences to be a member of a
large, hymn-singing, church-going family typical of the Bible
Belt. Everyone is supposed to generate sweetness and light,
all the good old-fashioned virtues (who stands against family
virtue?), with everything in its place, kids ice-skating, going
to Sunday school, large Thanksgiving gatherings with Scott
carving the turkey.
All these opening sequences are to the accompaniment of a
song called "Precious Memories." While the song is insistent in
extolling this wonderful vision of life, it's hard to escape the
feeling that the director may have intended us to feel its irony
and satire. The point is never made explicit (who dares knock
this lifestyle?), but the film also uses the song under its closing
credits as well. It's country-western, a terrible song.
There are other things that are strange and badly constructed, most notably the failure to. define Scott's relationship with his daughter, which is motivation for all the action
in the movie. There is every indication that he has been a good
father right up to the point when he kisses her and sees her off
on the bus taking the Sunday school kids to a church convention for youth in Bellflower, California. When she turns up
missing, there hils been no reason for the audience to believe
she is a runaway from an unhappy home.
Scott flies to Los Angeles and hires a private detective at
$750 per week. This fellow is a shady character who may, or
may not, be almost a good guy. He does, however, turn up a.
porno film in which the daughter is unmistakable. This is the
only time we see her until the end of the movie. When Scott
blasts away at the detective's failure to find his daughter,
the man replies, "Just give me more time, I'll find her. But
this is a jungle where nobody knows who makes these movies,
nobody knows the actors, the titles of these films change
every week, and they're sold under the counter from hand to
hand."
When three months go by and he still has no further report,
Scott turns his business over to his brother-in-law and flies to
L.A. to investigate himself. When he pays a visit to the detective and catches him playing lover-boy with some girl who may
Austin, Texas

or may not be a runaway, or a porno actress, or just a neighbor

in his apartment complex, Scott fires him and goes out determined to find his daughter himself.
A Man Unbalanced
Scott now gets involved in an improbable series of events
pretending to be an entrepreneur ready to finance porno
movies. He affects Hawaiian shirts, a slick black wig and mustache, and interviews male actors. He is looking for the male
actor pictured with his daughter in a photograph he lifted
from the detective. When he finds him, he scars. him for life
using a large lamp to mete out some old fashioned Old Testament vengeance.,
Nothing Californian escapes the taint of decadence. Even
UCLA is not safe from the sticky tar-brush as one sleazy
"producer," watching a rehearsal in a grubby motel room,
says, "This guy is a great director - UCLA you know."
There is one funny scene (unintentional?) where Scott
persuades one of the girls who recognizes his daughter's picture to go with him to San Diego in search of a guy the daughter had been seen with. (She's a lovely character who acts in
porno or turns to prostitution or takes a job in one of those
rip-off sex encounter outfits as the mood or the need for
money moves her.) While waiting for the plane, she asks h1m
about his religion. She feels qualified to discuss religion with
him because, "I'm into astrology, and Venusianism myself.
You know, Venus, the goddess of love." ".
Scott thinks she's an idiot, then tries to 'explain how much
superior is his own true faith. He begins by explaining to her
the five Principles of his stem Calvinist faith, which are contained in the acronym TULIP. The T stands for the dogma of
Total Depravity of Man. As he explains each letter, it is clear
none of them make anysense at all to anyone but a devout
Calvinist. The sole bit of comedy relief in this grim movie
comes when, after having listened intently to him, she says,
"Wow- and I thought I was fucked up!"
Scott is now portrayed as a mati unbalanced by his anger.
With the adrenalin pumping in an apparently unending stream,
he pummels and brutally assaults just about everyone associated with his daughter's "corruption." His hate-binges are of
mind-boggling Violence. That would be another of the picture's
voyeuristic appeals (not forgetting the movie's subject allows
for justifying the frequent appearance of nude females).
When he finally finds his daughter at the very end of ail
this, she is cowering in a comer of one of the worst of the
sex-shops devoted to bondage and sado-masochism. She takes
one look at him and begs, "Don't hurt me." It is obvious she
is afraid he will continue his binge on her. Yet, she calls him
a few terrible names that make him wince, and now the audiance learns she was fleeing an unhappy home too strict and
unfeeling to give her the shows of affection so important to
children. "You never loved me at all," she accuses Scott, "I
never fit into that life. I just want to stay here where there are

July 1979

~I

Page 35

people who love me." That is the total.substance of her short

speech.
However, when he breaks down into tears and cries, "I do
love you. I just never knew how to say it," this remarkable
statement sways her to the extent that she meekly takes his
hand and smilingly agrees to go home with him. (But cynical
types will doubt if she is ever .allowed to stop regretting her
"sins.") It is an ending that must have been tacked on because
the producer said, "This has cost enough money, we've given
them the whole porno scene, let's wrap this up and get it.out,"
A Disservice
From what one knows about writer-producer Paul Schrader, who once studied for the Christian Reformed priesthood
in Grand Rapids itself, and about Scott, the father of six and
a great fan of Schrader, we gather it was their intent to expose
the situations in which our million runaways a year get themselves into, rather than exposing the stem and religious, but often unloving homes from which they ran. One might note,
however, that in addition to the six children, Scott is now on

his fourth wife. Just the facts, ma'am, no comment.

The biggest concern, I think, is that the people who see
this movie will accept it as all true, will see only black and
white, and will make assumptions about the religious vs. the
non-religious life that are erroneous in the extreme. In showing California city life as totally without virtue or values, it
does a disservice to all of us, and I resent it greatly.
I resent the implication that only religious people have a
leg up to the good life, and that even when wrong, it's so
well intended and so much better than "that other life"
that we'd better hang onto it. I resent the idea that those of
us who are non-religious somehow get lumped in with those
seamy creatures who inhabit the streets of this film.
It's time we made our voice heard in Hollywood. It's
time we told them in no uncertain terms to set the record
straight about who is a good person and who is 'not, and
that religious people are no more secure in their virtue than
Atheists who have carefully and philosophically thought
through their position. It's time we gave them the back of our
hand to this constant implication that religious people have
somehow cornered the market on virtue.

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THAT'S ONE HELL OF A GIMMICK HARRY.

Page 36

July 1979

American Atheist

Tip of The AntiAbortion Iceberg

Art Jones

American Atheist Art Jones served

in the House of Representatives of the
North
Carolina General Assembly
from 1967 to 1971. He served on the
committees
for Manufacturers and
Labor
(vice-chairman),
University
Trustees .(vice-chairman),
Finance,
Highway Safety, Insurance, Local
Government, and Public Utilities. Among other things, he is collaborating
with North Carolina Chapter Director
Pat Voswinkel in putting together a
major statement of protest that "In
God We Trust" was put on the Susan
B. Anthony dollar. It will be issued to
all major Carolina newspapers.
Richard .A. Oppel is editor-in-chief
of the Charlotte Observer, a strong
link in the Knight-Ridder chain of
powerful newspapers. He holds strong
views on a variety of subjects and so
do I. When he writes a column, a feature or an editorial of which I heartily
approve, he gets a "Bravo" letter from
me telling him so. If his stuff is offbase with me, he gets one giving him
hell. Neither of us pulls any punches
with the other.
He and his predecessors know well
that I am a pioneer in the area of "prochoice" for women in the area of abortion,
contraception
and family
planning, since the days of Margaret
Sanger. (The first introduction of a
successful liberalized abortion bill in
this century was my HB-5 bill in the
House of Representativesin the North
Carolina General Assembly in January,
1967.)
When he wrote a splendid feature
against the death penalty following
the gruesome murder of John Spenkelink by the State of Florida, he got a
letter of approval and commendation
from me.
Subsequently, he wrote me as follows: "I find it difficult intellectually
to pass from a position of anti-deathpenalty to one of pro-abortion without grinding gears. Perhaps some day
you can tell me how you do it so
smoothly. "

He didn't realize it, but in writing

he had left himself wide open for my
rebuttal to be the opening wedge for
a larger blast against the paper's favoring stance on "establishment religion,"
including Roman Catholicism. As in
most major-city newspapers, I suspect
his staff is highly defensive when it
comes to running anything detrimental
to traditionally organized religion, especially the Roman Catholic hierarchy. Much appears in the paper's columns that is favorable to them; what
might be unfavorable is blue-pencilled
and seldom sees the light of print.
My reply:
You wrote, Rich Oppel, asking me
how I reconcile my anti-death-penalty
stance with my "pro-abortion"
one.
(The proper word is not "pro-abortion," but "pro-choice": the right of
every woman to "choose" pregnancy,
if she wishes; continuation to term,
if she wishes; or termination, if she
wishes, under legal and medically
safe procedures.)
A. I oppose compulsory murder,
imposed by law, carried out by the
State.
B. I oppose compulsory pregnancy
for poor women, imposed by law, carried out by the state under political
pressure and dictation by a powerful
church.
'I'hat church, a tax-free medieval institution claiming supernatural status,
and operating within our borders as a
sovereign foreign power, seeks to impose, and is imposing, its peculiar
theology in this matter upon all United States citizens.
That theology; written by a celibate
priesthood, and based on myths promulgated in 325 A.D. by relatively ignorant males, now holds (since 1869)
that its god supervises every act of human copulation
(there's a shorter
word). If he notes a male sperm penetrating an ovum, at that instant (not a
second later!), he picks, up a "soul"
from somewhere and "ensouls" the
two joined gametes. Pronto, there exists a "person" within the meaning of
the United States Constitution, with

Austin, Texas

July 1979

all the legal and other rights thereunto

appertaining. Anyone preventing the
full development of this zygote is
deemed a murderer.
The Roman
Catholic hierarchy of the church is
pledged to overturn the Supreme
Court's decision that holds otherwise.
That church's theology holds that
such a "person" was "conceived in
sin," from the "fall of Adam," and
can be "saved" therefrom only by "redemption" by god's little boy whose
mother was screwed by an "angel of
the lord" so as to get him into her virgin womb from wherever in heaven
he grew up. Conceiving such a bastard is called parthenogenesis to describe the thousands of "virgin births"
of "saviors" and "messiahs" in human
history.
"Salvation" (from what, to what?)
is achieved only by rigorous rigmarole
(for a fee, of course) from holy-water
baptism to last rites. Deviates are consigned to either eternal hell-fire or a
term in purgatory to expiate their
"sins," while the brainwashed "bornagains" can forever sit on the right;
hand of god, playing harps or dancing
with 9,900 other angels on the head of
a pin.
A Roman Catholic America
All this theological crap is commanded by a guy from Poland who impresses on his worshippers that his god
understands pig-latin, especially when
he wears a funny pointed hat in front
of TV cameras.
This "vicar of Christ on earth" and
his minions and vassals are directing
the current efforts in Congress to (1)
deny the constitutional rights of poor
women, (2) promote criminal abortions, (3) put a discriminatory law on
the books, (4) overload the taxpayers
with over half-a-billion dollars a year
(HEW estimates) of unnecessary additional welfare expenditures, and (5)
impede the progress of more important legislation.
The campaign is directed by the coordinator
of the Roman Catholic

Page 37

"Right-to-Life" movement of the U.S.

Conference of Roman Catholic Bishops. He was put on the Carter White
House staff and payroll shortly after
Carter's election, by request (by order?) of Jimmy's five-cardinal advisory
committee.
This is only the tip of the iceberg.
There are many more targets in the
overall action-plan to achieve the
eventual goal of a Roman Catholic
America. They include (1) making
this country's
tax resources fully
available for the support of parochial
schools to the deterioration and destruction of the public school system,
(2) the repeal of the First Amendment
of the Constitution, (3) the establishment of Roman Catholicism as the
official state religion (others will be
tolerated under strict controls), and
(4) the bringing of all family institutions under the Canon Law, etc., etc.
This is not fantasy; every word of
the above can be verified in the encyclicals of the several popes of recent
years, the Canon Law, the Catholic
Encyclopedia, etc. The pressures to
these ends are resurgent today in Mexico, Latin America, in Quebec (where
state and church are not separate), in
Poland and other East European countries.
By "out-birthing" non-Catholics in

this country, from a ratio of one tenth

of one percent of the population two
hundred years ago, to 30 percent today and gaining,' Roman Catholics are
.now primed to exercise what politicians call a "30 percent well-organized,
working minority able to control government." Moreover, that well-organized minority, aided by religious fundamentalists and the likes of the Jesse
Helmses of this country, will continue
to exercise influence and exert pressure on the media to keep greatly
needed dissent under wraps.
Paul Blanshard, one of the great
minds of this century, has said, "When
a church enters the arena of controversial social policy (of a state) and atempts to control the judgment of its
own people, and of all other people,
it must be reckoned with as an organ
of political and cultural power. This
is not primarily a religious problem:
it is an institutional
and political
problem."
Additional "dull and tedious" details on request.
As of this writing, Editor Oppel
has yet to be heard from as, to my
views on "erosion of freedom due
to religious intervention in our government."

HOW MUCH DID

YOU
GIVE THE' AMERICAN ATHEIST
CENTER THIS YEAR?
On July 6, 1979, N. Bunker
Hunt of Dallas, announced that he
and 65 others had given $104
million to Campus Crusade for
Christ within it week, as a kick-off
for a $1 billion campaign for a
worldwide evangelical thrust for
the Crusade, which hopes to use
the money to give 2 billion people
"a chance to say yes to Christ."
How much money did you give
the American Atheist Center this
year?
Now is the time
.

~tA~Rt*tA~tA~tA~tA~tA~tA~tA~mitA~t:8iJ::aitA~tA~RililVflitA~tA~J:;;F

"WHO'S WHO" - for ATHEISM

All over the world, the recoqnion is finally coming. As the head
of your American Atheists is honored again and again. This time it is in
Who's Who of American Women,
which adds, now to the former
Who's Who In America, and, of
course, the International
Who's
Who published out of London.
It is extremely important
that
this recognition is given - and althouqh it is first to the individual,
it will, a'so, come to the organization.
The Charles E. Stevens American
Atheist Library and Archives, Inc.,
is a member of the American library Ass'n. - and although the recognition it deserves has not as yet
been given to the prestigeful and
beautiful American Atheist Center,
that also will come into its own.

Page 38

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Julr 1979

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American Atheist

GUILT-EDGED SECURITIES
Remember back when JFK
Wasgunned down that November day
In Dallas? How the preachers said
The crime was not on Oswald's head
Alone- but said that everyone
Had helped Lee Harvey aim the gun.

I DID NOT ASK

I did not ask for anyone's death upon a cross,
nor did my sins drive the nails into his hands,
I do not accept that a god wakes the sun or
causestime to beat mountains to grains of sand,
I do not believe this universe was created
by some all-knowing, omnipotent force,
Nor willI live my life believing that someone
else has patterned my course,

The same was said of Doctor King

(And Bobby was the selfsame thing).
The churches cried "collective guilt!"
Denounced the violence we had built
The country on and said that we
Are all assassinsequally.
And then with Calley you and I
Gunned down babies in My Lai.
And in Guyana we helped Jones
And his henchmen make their bones ...
'Tis odd how right and wrong do wilt
When all are said to share the guilt.

I do not ask for invisible gods or the ones

carved into a visible frightful image,
For others have carved them not understanding
that their creation would cause such carnage.
I do believe what I know and that is the truth
I have come to feel and see,

Jack Kirwan

Of oppression clothed in priestly rags, perpetuating

an old and self-serving dynasty,

REFLECTIONS
(A trinity thereof)
What need have I of god
orhe of me For many are without him
who are not blind.end many
more with him that cannot see.

Of poor beggars dumping dimes into gold" boxes

lighting candles to save their soul,
Of rich officers of the church who chant about
three entities who become one whole,
Of monumental edifices built on blood and
lowly servants praying with their plastic beads,
Of inquisitions and pogroms and wars,
to feed your coffers and satisfy you limitless needs.
Charles McLeroy

"1 am!" goes man's resounding

cry.
"Who gives a fuck?" comes the
Universe's bored reply.

Thank you for the pain we

bear,
Thank you for happiness so
rare.
Of disease, famine, and fear we
sing,.
Thank you, god, for
everything.
Richard Rynen

Austin, Texas

July 1979

1/

Page 39

~J;ce~cej}
ceeftlftl~J!i!\ftlcej}~~
Joseph Lewis

Joseph Lewis, when he issued this book, stated that it cul- to God, however great and costly in the eyes of the world, unminated twenty years of arduous, painstaking research and as . less it is in keeping with the Ten Commandments. "
many years reading and study in religious criticism, anthropoThe import of the idea has not been lost on governments.
logy, sociology and history.
Mussolini issued the Ten Commandments for his Fascist supThe idea of an anthropological analysis of the Ten Com- porters. The Nazis prepared the Ten Commandments for the
mandments occurred to Joseph Lewis when he was unable to
German soldier and Joseph Stalin issued the Ten Commandfind satisfactory answers in any published critiques of Bible ments for the Bolsheviki. But, it spreads to other entities. The
origins.
National Better Business Bureau issued a set of Ten CommandOne by one, one to a chapter, the Commandments are ex- ments Designed To Hold Customer Good Will. The American
amined as tc possible origin, relation to sympathetic magic, Medical Association has issued to physicians of the country a
taboo ideology, mythology and contemporary politics of the suggestion to _~'Givepatients the Ten Commandments of Good
Health." The National Council of Churches issued Ten Comera of origin.
mandments for Social Justice.
This is a massive Atheistic attack on a fundamental religious
With this kind of reverence for the idea of Ten Commandclaim: religion's monopoly on morality. The book turns out to
be 644 pages, hard back, but it is an enormous volume, meas- ments, little had ever been done to investigate them or analyze.
them. They have always, instead, been revered.
uring a labor of love. The pages are high rag content, creme
Joseph Lewis does a magnificent job. He points out first
vellum and they are hand bound into a buckrum cover. In or:
that there are actually two lists: One is found in Chapter 20,
der to circulate it, Lewis originally sold the book for $5.00,
over thirty years ago, back in 1946. It did not sell. He never verses 1 to 17 of the Book of Exodus and this list contains 17
reissued it. We purchased all remaining books in 1974 and we commandments. We find the second in Chapter 5, verses 6 to
have only a small stock left. This will never be reprinted in this
21 of the Book of Deuteronomy.'
quality way again.
Even assuming that there is something which could be callThis book is so well written, and documented, that it has ed "The Ten Commandments" the breakdown of these are sig- .
been used as the basis for eleven of the programs on the Amer- nificant. The first five Commandments do not deal with peoican Atheist Radio Series.
ple in social situations or with justice, love or brotherhood.
What are the Ten Commandments?
They deal with man's so-called relationship to God. In this reWe have been told that the Ten Commandments are an eth- lationship we see that the little tribal Jewish god was conical code of conduct written by 'God' himself. They are divine, cerned with his rival tribal gods and hence made it a Cominfallible and imperishable. So firm is the conviction of those
mandment to "Have no other god before me." The first five
who accept the Ten Commandments as God's divine precepts,
Commandments have punishments attached to them,
that they believe that all the ills and torments with which manThe last five Commandments have to do with man's relakind is plagued are caused by not practicing the tenets of the tionship to man. Here, no punishment is attached, evidencing
Decalogue, as the Ten Commandmen ts are called, as revealed
God's lesser concern for this area of human activity.
After tearing apart all of the Commandments, stripping
by God or Moses.
It has been contended that the Ten Commandments are so them of any fiber of authenticity or human concern, Lewis
all-embracing that in addition to containing God's rules for the pleads that instead of the Ten Commandments we should seek
for and use universal concepts of justice which can be applied
guidance of the human family and its mission while on earth,
they contain also the very foundations upon which are based to all persons equally. He needs to be quoted in part:
"The discovery of the indifference of nature to the moralour laws and governments and without which civilization
would not exist. It is also contended that if the Ten Com- ity of the person subject to its laws is as great an achievement
mandments were universally accepted; all strife, discord, hat- of the human mind as was the discovery of the evolutionary
red, prejudice, misunderstanding and injustice would vanish process of life. The earth will revolve on its axis, the sun will
rise and set, the rains will fall, the seasons will pass according
from the earth. There would be no more deception, dishonesty
or deceit. With the Ten Commandments as our guide, the hu- to their accustomed time, men and women will love, and children will be born, regardless of belief or disbelief in the Bible
man race would live together as one perfect and harmonious
family. Throughout the history of western civilization from or its god, regardless of prayers or sacrifices. The force of gravthe so-called 'time of Christ' forward we find that many things ity acts alike on the good and the -bad; poison kills the purest
have been implicitly believed by the great mass of people, but minded, as well as the most vicious; cold will chill and heat
rarely has anything equalled the absolute faith accorded to the will warm all alike; ... There will be no mark to distinguish between the devout and the infidel. The Atheist and the religious
Ten Commandments. Listen to Martin Luther:
"Thus we have in the Ten Commandments a summary of believer will suffer from the same ills and will enjoy the same
divine instructions, telling us what we have to do to make our fruit. "
whole life pleasing to God, and showing us the true source and
It is a big, long, scholarly and intellectually exciting book,
fountain from and in which all good works must spring and which can give you many points for argument with the reliproceed; so that no work or anything can be good and pleasing gious who seemingly must prosyletize us all.

Page 40

July 1979

American Atheist

lF~lElElDO
OlF lHlE -M~

-.

There
is something new in the United
States:
an organization formed exclusively for

maintains an American Atheist Center of distinction, introduces into the nation's airways the

American Atheists. This national organization

was founded to protect the civil liberties of
Atheists, to speak for them on public issues, to

American Atheist Radio Series, litigates for

Atheists' civil liberties, maintains an Atheist
speakers' bureau across the nation and, generally, is the voice of American Atheism - big
as life, bold and beautiful.

educate the citizens of our country as to the

merits of an Atheist lifestyle, to fight for sep,aration
option

of state and church, to preserve as an

for you the ultimate freedom:
free-

dom of the mind, i.e., freedom

and other superstitions.
AMERICAN ATHEISTS,
most

of the United

comraderie

of other

States,
Atheists,

from religion

with chapters
provides

in

You need not be alone again with your

ideas. Come, broaden your
Membership fee of $15/year

horizon with us.

(single), $25/year

(couple)
brings you a monthly
newsletter
edited by Dr. Madalyn Murray O'Hair.

you the

holds an annual

national convention,
informs you of current
events with a monthly membership Newsletter,

NOTE:
ATHEIST

Subscription
to the AMERICAN
magazine does not include mem-

bership in American Atheists.

redress of grievances . AMENDMENT I Congress shall make

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Motto of her magazine "The Revolution"