AMERICAN ATHEIST

Autumn 1998

AJoumal of Atheist News and Thought

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We SUPPort

Murray v CUrl(

American Atheists Convention Issue Breaching the Wall Finding the Balance
in Religious Liberty Legislation Medical Neglect on Religious Grounds
Inconsistency of Theism Non-Therapeutic Touch The V.D. Kid

American Atheists Inc.

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Materialism declares that the

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life-asserting.
It considers the
struggle for progress as a moral
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Autumn 1998

Alllerican Atheist
A Journal of Atheist News and Thought

ALSO ...
Editor's Desk
.Scientists and Religion
Frank R. Zindler

FROM THE
24th CONVENTION OF
AMERICAN ATHEISTS:
AMERICAN ATHEIST

Presidential Welcoming Speech

Ellen Johnson
A Photographic Report of
the Convention

Civil in Seattle
Ellen Johnson testifies before
the US Commission on Civil
Rights.

27

Touched by a Feeling - and

High on Believing
34
Keven Courcey
A registered nurse exorcises the
"spirits" of "Therapeutic Touch."

Breaching The Wall

11
Conrad F. Goeringer
The religious campaign for special
rights.

Amerlcm
Alteists
O:n\.OEl'tia1:rsa...
ECmchirg the WIIIl 't FirrlIn;I the Balan:::>e
inReligialsLi.bert:yle;lis1M.irnMrliaUNagl<tt~R~QcC<.ltlds
lrl:rrsistHLyot'lhilim
y Nm--~cTw:h
'!reV.O.!'1:l

Cover art: Tom Sullivan captures

the American Atheists presence at
the US Supreme Court, commemorating the 35th anniversary
of
Murray v Curlett - the case that
outlawed forced prayer in the public schools.

Volume 36, No.4

Austin, Texas

Finding the Balance in

Religious Liberty
Legislation .
18
Marci Hamilton
Mini-RFRAs, RLPAs, and other
threats to the "wall."
The Children We Abandon:
Medical Neglect on
Religious Grounds
20
Rita Swan
The shocking practice of killing
kids by prayer overdose.

The V.D. Kid

Tony Pasquarello
More from The Altar Boy
Chronicles on the anguish of
growing up Catholic ..

41

The Inconsistency of Theism

Andrew Moroz

45

Spirit, Soul, and Mind

Frank R. Zindler

48

Letters to the Editor

51

Members of the Boards of Directors of the American Atheistsrelated corporations pose for a photograph in Washington.

Autumn 1998

Page 1

American Atheist
Volume 36 Number

Membership Application for

American Atheists Inc.

EDITOR / MANAGING EDITOR

Frank R. Zindler
ASSOCIATE EDITOR
Ann E. Zindler
CONTRIBUTING EDITOR
Conrad F. Goeringer
PRODUCTION MANAGER
Spike Tyson
BUSINESS MANAGER
Ellen Johnson
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Page 2

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Autumn 1998

American Atheist

Editor's Desk

Scientists ad Relilion
ack in 1914, a sociologist by
the name of James Leuba
surveyed scientists and found
that 58% ofthem expressed doubt or
disbelief in the existence of a god.
Twenty years later, he found this
number had increased to 67%. Many
years later, in 1996, researchers
Edward Larson and Larry Witham
repeated Leuba's survey and found
60.7% of scientists expressing disbelief or doubt. This lack of improvement since 1914 (in fact, a slight
worsening of the situation since
1934) has been a cause of consternation among Atheists, for it began to
appear as though approximately
40% of humans - regardless of education - were condemned to live
lives of religious dementia.
What the modern researchers
did not repeat, however, was
Leuba's sub-study of "greater scientists" - men and women whose
achievements in scientific discovery
had placed them in a rather clearly
defined echelon above other scientists. In 1914, Leuba found that 70%
of greater scientists disbelieved, as
compared to 58% of ordinary scientists. By 1934, disbelief among
greater scientists had risen to 85%,
while it had risen only to 67%
among lesser scientists.
Now, Larson
and. Witham
(Nature, Vol. 394, No. 6691, 23 July
1998, p. 313) surveyed members of
the National Academy of Sciences
and found that among these greater
scientists only 7% believed in a personal god. Biological scientists had

Frank R. Zindler
Austin, Texas

the lowest level of belief in a personal god - 5.5% as compared to 7.5%

among physicists and astronomers.
This certainly is good news. It
demonstrates once again that gods
rule only the unknown. For those
whose minds dwell in the largest
sphere of knowledge, the need for a
god is smallest. Indeed, the observed
absence of gods from that which is
known makes even smaller the likelihood that such a specter lurks in
the unknown that yet remains making rejection of the supernatural even more necessary.
Alas, not everybody lives a life of
knowledge and discovery. Politicians, for example. When news of
the Larson-Witham survey reached
the popular media, Rep. James
Traficant (D-OH) seemed to loosen a
hinge or two. On 3 August 1998 he
took the floor to enter a 60-second
diatribe into the Congressional
Record. Unaware that the study
referred only to greater scientists,
Traficant told the Speaker and the
House that "a new report says only
7% of scientists believe in God. That
is right." Continuing his rant, he
declared that "the reason they gave
was that the scientists are 'super
smart' ... Most of these absent-minded professors cannot find the toilet.
Mr. Speaker, I have one question for
these wise guys to constipate over:
How can SOME-thingcome from NOthing? And while they digest that,
Mr. Speaker, let us tell it like it is.
Put these super-cerebral master
debaters in some foxhole with
bombs bursting all around them,
and I guarantee they will not be
praying to Frankenstein. Beam me
up here. My colleagues, all the eduAutumn 1998

cation in the world is worthless

without God and a little bit of common sense ... "
After Traficant's 'embarrassing
outburst
of anti-intellectuality,
American Atheists President Ellen
Johnson chided him in a press
release: "If science and rational
inquiry are so antithetical to Mr.
Traficant's 'sensitivities', he should
be true to his beliefs and abandon
technology altogether. It's unfortunate that an elected official would
denigrate and belittle the discipline
that provides him with telephones,
FAXes, computers, his limousine
and its fuel - even the very light
bulbs that illuminate his office.
[Thomas Alva Edison, after all, was
an Atheist!] The next time he needs
to communicate
with someone
instantaneously, maybe he should
pray instead of spending taxpayer
dollars on the latest technology
invented by those same 'master
debaters'. If scientists were so stupid, as he claims, he wouldn't be so
dependent upon the results of their
'super smart' efforts."
While it is a fallacy of informal
logic to appeal to authority in order
to support a philosophy such as
Atheism (or any other), it is nevertheless gratifying to be able to point
out that the smartest people in
America agree with American Atheists in its central claim that there is
no evidence adequate to support
god-belief. It is further gratifying to
have the eminent men and women
of the National Academy of Science.s
for role-models as we struggle to live
lives of reason in an unreasonable
world.
Page 3

Presidentia{ Wekomin8 Syeecfi

0yenin8 tfie ~merican ~tfieists
24tfil}{ationa{ Convention
Given in Washington, DC
By President Ellen Johnson
Friday, June 12, 1998

ood morning! On behalf of

the board of directors and
staff of American Atheists I
want to welcome you all to the 24th
National' Convention of American
Atheists. It has been a great pleasure to have talked with so many of
you already, and I look forward to
meeting the rest of you - especially
the many new members in our organization who are here today. It's
also a special honor to again be
meeting so many of our Life Members. I am very pleased that so
many of you are here today.
We have a very exciting convention planned. Weare honored and
fortunate to have so many distinguished speakers, such as Dr.
William Provine, Dr. Marci Hamilton, Dr. Rita Swan, and James Monroe from the Secular Organization
for Sobriety. It is a most impressive
lineup. We have a stimulating
debate scheduled with our National
Media Spokesman, Ron Barrier, and
Mr. Steve McFarland from the
Christian Legal Society who has
been so gracious in agreeing to come
to our convention as well.
Ladies and gentleman, this convention is a first for both me and for
this organization. Three years ago,
there were plenty of doubts that
American Atheists would even survive, let along grow. The fact that
I'm standing here today, the fact
that you are here as well, is all evidence that we must be doing something right!
Page 4

It has been a rough three years.

But before I spend a few minutes
trying to recap some of what we
have done in that time, I want to
talk about the situation involving
the Murray-O'Hair family, and
what it means for this organization.
It has been - and will continue
to be - the policy of American
Atheists to speak the truth on all
matters, and on this one in particular. As the president of this organization, I'm in the hot seat. I, along
with the Officers and the Board of
Directors of American Atheists have
the responsibility not only for the
fiduciary integrity of this organization, but for conveying to you, the
members, the truth.
We have also made it a policy to
convey this information to you
through
the American
Atheist
Newsletter. We have been scrupulously careful to report only the
facts that we knew at the time. In
many cases, we even had our attorneys review these reports for accuracy.
Let me very briefly layout some
essentials for you.
Firstly, we do not know the
whereabouts of the Murray-O'Hair
family.
Secondly, I - contrary to what
has been suggested (unfairly, I
might add) - had nothing to do with
the-disappearance of the family, and
I think that each and every Board
Member can stand before you or
anyone and say the same.
Thirdly, we have taken prudent
action to safeguard the assets of
American Atheists, and we are
involved in active litigation to recovAutumn 1998

er monies which were taken from

this organization. This includes, but
is not limited to, filing claims
against the estate of Jon Murray.
We have reported on this and related events in the membership
newsletter and will continue to do
so. We are being very careful to
make no statement or take any
action which could jeopardize that
process.
Fourthly, we will continue to
implement the kinds of organizational and fiduciary changes in this
organization that will guard against
possible abuses in the future.
Finally, there is the matter of
the claims and innuendoes which
have appeared in some media
accounts or have been made by
other individuals and groups. I just
don't know where to begin with
some of this; it's very frustrating on
a personal level. There have been
claims that certain officers of
American Atheists could have been
involved in kidnapping or murdering the O'Hairs. There have been
suggestions that I (or some other
officer) was involved in bank fraud
because I happen to live in New
Jersey and a certain bank account
was there. It goes on and on. We
have tried to deal calmly and factually with most of these claims. In
fact, if you take the time, go back
through your newsletters, you'll see
what I' mean. So, some of these
claims are factually untrue. Some
are the result of poor reporting;
there was one story, for instance,
that Robin Murray-O'Hair's credit
card was used after the disappearance. It was never true. In fact I
American Atheist

heard one report that Madalyn had

gone to Cuba for dermatologic treatments because she couldn't wear
wool! Why that would be a problem
in Texas is beyond me.
It was also interesting to hear a
"private detective" on television
describe Jon Murray's cellular
phone bill. The genius couldn't even
determine that the phone calls he
claimed Jon was making to me were
actually calls that I made to Jon. Of
course I was calling Jon: we were
planning the New York picketing of
the pope.
We cannot control what the
media, or anyone else, choose to say.
But I want you to know that our
first and foremost obligation as officers of this organization is to tell
you, the membership, the facts as
we know them in a truthful, forthright fashion. We have done that,
and we will continue to do so.
I cannot and will not ask for
your trust. It might shock some of
you to hear me saying that, but I
really cannot do that. All we can ask
from you is an opportunity to earn
that trust. Much of what we are
doing takes a lot of time. Much of
what we are doing takes a lot of
time. Much of what we are doing
proceeds according to schedules
imposed by courts and attorneys.
We are doing our best, and we will
continue to try.
Our greatest challenge was in
"jump-starting" this organization
and preserving American Atheists
following the disappearance of the
Murray O'Hair family. So many
people helped in that effort. Frank
and Ann Zindler stepped forward to
take over the awesome responsibility of editing and producing the
American Atheist Newsletter and
the American Atheist magazine, as
well as the business of American
Atheist Press. Orin Tyson, whom we
all affectionately refer to as "Spike,"
went back into the American
Atheists Headquarters in Austin
and got that operation up and running again - from scratch. Spike has
practically lived in that building
ever since!
Austin, Texas

Ron Barrier stepped forward to

be our National Media Spokesman.
As with many of us, this has been
"on-the-job training" for him, and he
has represented us so effectively in
the national media!
Another challenge we have
faced has been the urgent task of reinventing and energizing this organization. We realized that if
American Atheists were to survive,
we had to start doing some things
differently. We had to adopt our
own style, we had to start reaching
out. Neal Cary stepped forward to
become our National Outreach
Director, and today we have
American Atheists Directors in over
a dozen states. We have members of
our Volunteer's Network allover
the country. Our goal, by the end of
next year, is to have Directors in
every state of this country, giving us
eyes, ears, and a presence in capitals everywhere. That's a full-time
job for Neal, and we thank him for
his efforts.
Already, that effort is producing
some truly amazing results. In just
the last few months, American
Atheists has conducted demonstrations in Michigan, Texas, Ohio,
California, and elsewhere. We have
become the only national organization that we know of that is speaking out against the Religious
Freedom Restoration Act and the
Religious Liberty Protection Act. In
New Jersey, our new State Director,
David Silverman went on television
with public service announcements
against the RFRA in that state. In
California, Dave Kong just issued a
written statement to the State
Senate Judiciary Committee, and
we think that both of' these
Directors may end up giving live
testimony. This is a breakthrough
for Atheists and for this organization. This is the kind of work that
.we are trying to train people for and
encourage them in.
One of our newer members, Jim
Heldberg, heads up an extremely
important activity on behalf of our
organization,
and
that's
the
American Atheists Affiliation ProAutumn 1998

gram. It is another example of how

we are working to "reinvent" this
group by reaching out, by becoming
more inclusive.
We want to thank as many of
you as we can at the Awards
Banquet, but let me take this opportunityto say to so many of you: we
couldn't have done this without
your support!
And what you have done and
made possible is just incredible! As
a functioning organization, American Atheists is back. Let me just
share with you a few of the things
we have been doing.
Every month you receive a copy
of our newsletter, or maybe you subscribe to the magazine. Those are
essential components in our organization. In addition, if you're on line,
you know that we have made an
incredible amount of progress in
using that new medium. Margie
Wait came all the way from Colorado. Margie is our State Director
there but she also works as our
Internet
Representative.
Thank
you, Margie, for helping us to reach
so many new people, particularly
younger people.
Last October, we held our
"Defending the Wall - No Submission" conference here in Washington, and later picketed the "solemn
assembly" of Promise Keepers. We
are here in the same city for our
National Convention. And this symbolizes a new and very important
direction for American Atheists.
One of our major goals is to build a
civil rights movement on behalf of
Atheists and to get Atheists actively and explicitly more involved in
the important debate over statechurch separation in this country!
No Atheist, freethought, or rationalist group has ever had the audacity
to do that!
Our objective is to establish
what we call our "beachhead on the
Potomac," by building a full-time,
trained,
professional
presence
inside the Beltway, here in our
nation's capital! We took one small
step in that direction last year when
we walked into the House Judiciary
Page 5

Subcommittee on the Constitution which was debating the Religious

Freedom Amendment. We have
taken another step by appointing
Chris Prokop as our Washington,
DC, Regional Director, and Mr.
Robert Zauner as our National
Legislative Affairs Director. I can
proudly say that your organization
for the first time has at least' a presence in Washington,DC. This is a
learning process for us, we're new,
we're "wet behind the ears," but we
have made a start.
On May 4 - thanks to the efforts
of Rob Sherman - Ron Barrier, Bob
Zauner and I had a meeting with
the Office of Public Liaison for the
White House. At that meeting I told
Ms. Maureen Shea and Mr. William
Marshall that American Atheists
wanted a "seat at the table" when
the White House was formulating
policy on issues that affect the
Atheist population in America. That
was a very important meeting for
American Atheists and for Atheists
in America.
We continue, as our resources
permit, to litigate in the arena for
First Amendment rights and statechurch separation. We continue to
challenge violations of the First
Amendment where we encounter
them as our resources permit. Our
biggest case right now involves the
Mt. Davidson cross in San Francisco.The city is trying to dispose of
this l07-foot high Christian monument by selling off a sliver of real
estate on which the cross sits, in the
middle of a public park. Our California Director, Dave Kong has pursued that case along with another
plaintiff, Ray Romano. I might add
that the other groups which originally challenged the Mt. Davidson
cross have now signed-off, and it
seems that only AMERICAN ATHEISTS is willing to at least try to stop
the government from doing by indirectmeans what it knows it cannot
do by direct means.
Another project we are involved
in is the relocation of the national
office from Austin, Texas, to New
Jersey. We are very excited about
Page 6

this move which, if all goes as

planned, will be underway very
soon. This move will give us many
things, but one great advantage is
that we will be closer to the center of
media and -political action. I can't
stress the importance
of that
enough as American Atheists moves
into the future. In addition, it will
provide us with a substantial pool of
both professional and volunteer help
to draw upon. It will also house the
Charles E. Stevens American Atheist Library and Archives, which we
intend to continue building as the
foremost collection of Atheist books,
manuscripts, and other materials of
its kind in the nation - possibly in
the world.
Many of you have noticed a new
style ofleadership, something which
we speak of as a new organizational
culture. We will continue to reach
out, to build bridges, to be inclusive
of those groups and individuals who
honestly seek us as allies and comrades. You'll also hear this over and
over: it is the official policy of American Atheists to not respond to personal attacks which are made on
this organization. And we also know
that working with others is a twoway street. Not everyone agrees
with American Atheists all of the
time, and that's fine. But what we
ask, in fact, what we demand is that
cooperation with anybody - another
group, other individuals - must be
predicated on mutual respect, not
only for those things we can agree
on but concerning our differences as
well.
Finally, there is a new tradition
which I would begin today, at this
convention. The theme of this year's
gathering is to honor the 35th
Anniversary of the MURRAY v
CURLETT case. We honor that case
as a preeminent statement not only
on behalf of the First Amendment,
but 'as having been the first explicit
case of its kind which spoke out for
the civil rights of Atheists. It was
brought to end forced prayer and
bible-verse recitation in the public
schools of Baltimore. But it also
declared,
openly and proudly,
Autumn 1998

"YOUR
PETITIONERS
ARE
ATHEISTS ..." We honor
the
courage, and we honor the principle
behind it, which saw that case
through the US Supreme Court and
into the history books. That case
stands, proudly, and on its own merits.
With that said, let me inaugurate this "new tradition." We consider this convention to be a new beginning, but one with an eye to the history of this organization. And it is
my intention never to disavow that
history. I will open this and subsequent American Atheists conventions using this principle, and I hope
that when the time comes to pass it
on, my successors in the years to
come will use it well. I think that we
need to see this as a symbol of our
continuity and our very rich history.
And I think that we should also consider it a symbol of our optimism
about the future of this organization. So, I now- declare this 24th
National Convention of American
Atheists open.

Another CD ROM From

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

American Atheists 24th

National Convention
B

y all accounts, the 24th

National
Convention
of
American Atheists was a
smashing success. In attendance
was a mixture of young and old,
international
guests, black and
white, long-time members and
many new faces at the Hyatt
Regency in Washington DC on June
12, 13, & 14. With the able support
staff from the GHQ in town a day
early to set things up, everything
was ready to go on Friday morning.
With the excellent work of Ed
Gauci and Conrad Goeringer, the
American Atheists convention was
carried on the World-Wide Web,
with inclusion of photos and summaries of each session. You can

check it out by clicking

the
CONVENTION
icon at our magazine
web site www. americanatheist.org
C-SPAN cameras
were in place and filming as American Atheists President
Ellen
Johnson gave an opening speech that high-

Steven

T. McFarland,

Director

of the Center for Law and

Religious
Freedom, debates
American

Atheists

Media Spokesman

on the question:
Freedom

National

Ronald

Barrier

"Is a Religious
Amendment

Necessary?"

Professor

pernicious

~ ....
American

Atheists

Ellen Johnson

giving

President
her wel-

coming speech opening the 24th

National Convention
of American
Atheists,
Austin, Texas

in Washington,

DC.

William

Provine

that "free will" is a

impossibility
and a

explaining
biological

precept

as well.

lighted the accomplishments of the

organization over the past three
years, commented on the disappearance of the Murray-O'Hair family,
and outlined future plans for the
organization. (The full text of the
speech is reprinted on page 4.)
Autumn 1998

Ms. Johnson introduced the first

speaker of the convention, Dr. William Provine, an evolutionary biologist of Cornell University .. Dr.
Provine gave a spirited talk on "free
will," Atheism, and evolutionary
biology. Some of you may have seen
the speech when it aired on CSPAN. (The text of Prof. Provine's
lecture will be published in the
Winter 1998-1999 issue ofAmerican
Atheist.)
Next, American Atheists board
member Richard Andrews spoke on
his favorite Atheist author, Vardis
Fisher. His speech also was aired on
C-SPAN.
Following that - and closing out
the morning session - American
Atheists invited Steve McFarland of
the Christian Legal Society to a
Page 7

debate with American Atheists

National
Spokesman
Ronald
Barrier. That debate also aired on
C-SPAN. CBN taped the debate as
well. As expected, Ron acquitted
himself - and us - extremely well.
We are very satisfied and proud of
his performance.
With the rain holding off until

late in the afternoon, everyone got

some fresh air and went over to the
front of the United States Supreme
Court building to celebrate the 35th
Anniversary of the case that ended
forced prayer and bible reading in

American
Anniversary

the public schools: Murray v Curlett. Ellen Johnson

read from
Madalyn O'Hair's own written reminiscences of the case 35 years ago
and her analysis of the issue of
prayer. Ms. Johnson then discussed

Atheists
celebrate
the 35th
of Murray v Curlett
with an

informational
picket at the place
case was decided - the United
Supreme
Court.

Page 8

Autumn 1998

where the
States

American Atheist

delighted everyone with his beautiful piano playing. His arrangements

and improvisations
were really
marvelous.
On Saturday the hotel doubled
the size of our hall to accommodate
the overflow of people. Interestingly, people from another convention at the hotel were filtering in to
our convention to sit and listen for a
while.
Frank Zindler started the day
off for us with a fascinating talk on
the "Prospects of Physical Immortality" and offered current scientific
evidence for such a possibility, some
American
Editor

Atheist

Frank Zindler

Press
discusses

"The Prospects
of Physical
Immortality.
"

~iii,~,
Atheists

Some American

"lifers"

enjoy

the first

course

of the

annual banquet. Top left: Professional

pianist and philosophy
professor
Tony Pasquarello
plays host at a cocktail party
welcoming

current efforts to overturn the 1963

Supreme Court case by means of
the Religious Freedom Amendment
to the US Constitution.
With handouts describing why
American Atheists was commemorating Murray v Curlett and why it
should be supported, the conventioneers went over to the House
Congressional Office Buildings and
delivered leaflets to hundreds of
members
of Congress.
Many
Atheists took the time to chat with
the staff and remind them that
Atheists vote too.
That evening the Life Members
gathered at a local restaurant for
dinner and then went back to the
hotel to join everyone else at a cocktail reception where American
Atheist member Tony Pasquarello
Austin, Texas

the members.

of which he had predicted ten years

ago. (The text of the speech will be
available in the Winter 1998-1999
issue of American Atheist).
Neal Cary, the National Outreach Director of American Atheists
gave everyone useful information
on how to be effective politically.
Everyone was provided with a manual for American Atheists political
activism.
American Atheist News Editor
Conrad
Goeringer
spoke
on
"Breaching The Wall: The Religious

Legal Scholar Professor

Marci Hamilton unmasking

1iIt_.-

Neal Cary shows he's an

Atheist
activator
as well as

an Atheist

activist.

Autumn 1998

latest threat
separation:
Liberty

the

to state-church
the Religious

Protection

Act.
Page 9

Campaign for Special Rights.". (The

full text of his speech is printed on
page 11.) He was followed by Dr.
Marci Hamilton, Law Professor at
the Benjamin Cardozo School of
Law, who spoke on the Religious
Freedom Restoration Act - which
she so recently had helped to overthrow by arguing against it before
the US Supreme Court .- and
informed us all of the newest piece
of special-rights legislation called
the Religious Liberty Protection Act
- which is even worse than RFRA.
(The text of her lecture is printed on
page 19.)
Attorney

James

reveals

Monroe

the failure

religious
Programs"

"Twelve-Step
in treatment

addictions
secular

Jim Heldberg
Certificate of Appreciation
Margie Wait
Distinguished Service Award
Dave Kong
Defending "The Wall" Award
David Silverman
State Director of The Year
Reynold Bourquin
Lifetime of Service Award
William Provine
The Advancement of Atheism
Academics Award
John Messina
Certificate of Recognition
Ronald Barrier
Outreach Award
Dick Hogan
Honorable Service Award

and notes
alternatives

of
of
the

available.

Dr. Rita
deaths

Swan

details

of children

failure

killed

the
by

of prayer.

Dr. Rita Swan gave a very moving and heart-breaking talk on the
horrors of "The Medical Neglect of
Children on Religious Grounds,"
detailing the efforts of the. Christian
Science Church in particular to keep
what Atheists call "child sacrifice"
legal. (The text of Dr. Swan's lecture
is printed on page 22.) She was followed by James Monroe, an Atheist
attorney and representative for the
Secular Organization for Sobriety,
who spoke on the importance of nontheistic alternatives to "faith-based"
recovery programs, and examined
recent court decisions involving
prisoners' rights concerning religion-based therapies.
Page 10

Ellen Johnson and Ron Barrier

taped an episode of their cable TV
show The Atheist Viewpoint and
injected a little humor into the afternoon session with a look at the funnier side of religion, which they call
ed "Soup to Nuts."
In the evening, after a cocktail
reception and dinner, Ellen Johnson
gave out the American Atheist
Awards for 1998. The recipients are,
in no particular order,
Frank Zindler
Atheist of the Year
Jerald Lasky
Freedom of Speech Award
The Bazydlo Family
Valor Award
Randall Gorman
Outstanding Member of The Year
Wayne Aiken
Honorable Service Award
Ed Gauci
Volunteer of The Year
Jim Senyszyn
Atheist Activist of the Year
Ann E. Zindler
Certificate of Recognition
Henry Schmuck
Lifetime Achievement Award
Autumn 1998

in

Congratulations to all the award

recipients and many thanks!
Afterwards, Neal Cary and Tony
Pasquarello entertained the convention with a cello and piano concert
that was truly magnificent - receiving a standing ovation from the
guests.
To round off the evening, everyone joined to sing Christmas Carols
set to Atheist lyrics, as Ellen Johnson video-taped it for the Solstice
episode of The Atheist Viewpoint.
On Sunday, everyone gathered
for Sunday brunch to enjoy another
meal together and say their goodbyes until the next get-together,
which will be the picketing of the
pope in St. Louis, Missouri, on
January 26 and 27 of 1999, followed
by the 25th National Convention of
American Atheists around Easter,
in New Jersey at the site of the new
home of American Atheists. See you
there!

American Atheist

Breaching The Wall

The Religious Campaign
For Special Rights
By Conrad F. Goeringer

ile preparing for today, I

happened to run across the
transcript of the talk I
delivered at the 22d National
Convention of American Atheists
which we held in Austin, Texas,
back in 1992. It was titled "Atheist
Rights and Religion's Wrongs." The
premise was this, and I'll quote:
"With fundamentalist
movements gaining power in both the
East and West, a basic freedom the right to criticize religion - is
under concerted attack."

It struck me that the major

points from that talk are strikingly
relevant to today's subject of The
Religious Campaign For Special
Rights.
I raised three concerns, the first
of which involved the case of novelist Salman Rushdie. You may recall
that in 1989, Rushdie was condemned and sentenced to death
under a fatwaissued
by Ayatollah
Khomeini, supposedly for blaspheming the prophet Mohammed and
insulting Islam in the pages of his
novel The Satanic Verses. What was
so unexpected about the 'Rushdie
incident was its global dimensions.
There were riots and demonstrations throughout the Moslem world.
But more significant, I think, was
the silence and even the agreement
of many figures in the West, especially religious leaders, who joined
in the condemnation of Rushdie and
declined to take a stand in defense
Austin, Texas

of free expression. If you go back

and examine the record, some of the
statements issued by L'Osservatore
Romano, Cardinal John O'Connor of
New York, Cardinal, Jean-Marie
Lustiger in Paris, Jewish leaders,
Protestant leaders - a shocking
number' remained silent over the
important civil liberties dimensions
of the Rushdie case or, to varying
degrees, joined in the condemnation. The attitude was, I think, best
summed up by Cardinal DeCourtnay of Lyon, France, who said that
The Satanic Verses constituted "an
insult to religion."
My second point was that
throughout the West - and particularly in the United States - we were
seeing a relentless assault on some
basic civil liberties, particularly
freedom of expression. I discussed
the situation in Universities across
the country where there was a dangerous proliferation of so-called
"codes of conduct," which, in part. at
least, were meant to deal with something described as "hateful speech."
The origin ofthe codes actually went
back a quarter-century when they
were squashing student opposition
to the war in Vietnam. That debate
over so-called ''hateful speech" has
metastasized to include things like
the Internet which has become a
bug-a-boo for groups all over the
political spectrum who find some-,
thing they wish to ban - whether it's
images of naked people, or off-shore
gambling, or Web sites that take an
extreme (and in a lot of cases, I'll
admit, thoroughly disgusting and
Autumn 1998

unenlightened) political stance.

The third point was about the
concept that we find increasingly in
religious movements across the
world - that their values and institutions are under attack by a pervasive secular culture. I cited one
example ofthis, a letter to the editor
in a local newspaper which was
responding to an editorial that had
defended state-church separation.
The writer claimed that in twentieth-century America religious persons "were being forced to practice
their faith behind closed doors." You
might be familiar with the Book of
Matthew. 5:5-6 where it says that
prayer does belong in a closet where
the door should be shut! But Ralph
Reed, who until recently was the
executive director of the Christian
Coalition, raised this type of rhetorical bluster to a political art form. If
you look at the press releases or
other materials coming from groups
like Christian Coalition, you would
think that religious people in
America today lived in some kind of
an Orwellian nightmare where the
Atheist Police were raiding their
churches, burning their bibles, and
preventing kids from praying - at
gun point.
So where are we, six years later?
As a start, I think that issues
having to do with the role of religious belief in society and the related questions about state-church separation and civil liberties remain
front and center. This is really what
the culture wars are all about - that
tension between church and state,
Page 11

or more fundamentally between religious ideologies and secular society.

And here in the United States, we
continually hear the claim that this
country was founded upon Christianity, or the Bible, and is the
result of a quest for something
called "religious liberty," that was
sought by groups coming here in
order to practice their religion. But
we know from history that claims
such as that tell only part of the full
story. We know, for
instance, that in 1610in Virginia, the new
world's first Sunday
blue laws were passed,
and that if you didn't
attend long and dreary
hours of church services on Sunday, you
could be deprived of
to
food, or whipped, or
even put death. We
know that colonies also
had so-called "established churches," that were frequently supported by tax money. In
some cases, if you wanted to exercise basic rights, such as owning
land or holding an office, you had to
be a member of that church. After
the American Revolution, one of the
first and most controversial steps
taken was the disestablishment of
these official churches. In June of
1776, the Declaration of Rights in
Virginia was drafted by Madison
(quite an improvement over the
Sunday blue laws!). A decade later
there was Thomas Jefferson's Act
for Establishing Religious Freedom.
When you go back and examine
the primary source records of that
period, especially newspapers or
writings by theologians or sermons,
you really come to appreciate the
hostility of many religious groups at
that time not just to disestablishment, but to this whole concept that
there should be separation between
the church and state. If you want to
understand the roots of that hostility, though, you have to go back even
further to Augustine in the 5th century where he frames the concept of
the "City of God'" and the "City of

Man." Augustine was a Manicheean

in his youth, so he saw the universe
as a stage for a titanic struggle
between light and darkness absolute good and absolute evil.
When he became a Christian,
Augustine just carried the kernel of
that over to his new belief system; it
was man and his works who were
besotted with the stain of original
sin. Keep in mind that Martin
Luther and John Calvin were heavi-

institutions. Religious movements

are actively seeking protection and
special status from government.
This quest for special rights emanates from the heightened confrontation between secularism, the
notion of civil institutions, and religious agendas.

Global culture conflict

Now, hearing this you're probably thinking, "but it's always been
this way; in the West
especially, the church
and the state have
always been antagonists, and in the East,
the notion of a separation
between
the
throne and the pulpit
(or the caliphate and
the minaret) has hardly ever existed!" And
you'd be right. But
today, this confrontation is, I submit, more
poignant, more pronounced, and
more accentuated, more dramatic,
and the stakes higher than ever - at
least in recent history. If you need a
quick example, just look at what is
happening in the region of the
Subcontinent and the Middle East,
where you have the geopolitical
faultlines dividing some of the most
energized religious cultures of the
modern era, with literally billions of
people. Start at the India-Pakistan
border: on one side you've got the
cradle of Hinduism, on the other the
northern advances of the Sunni
Muslim tendency. In Pakistan, you
have that country's intelligence service funneling support to the
Taliban regime in Afghanistan, (In
fact, Taliban originated in the network of refugee camps within
Pakistan.) You've got another flash
point in Kashmir. That is being contested by Pakistan and India, and
Pakistan- has been funding a ruthless Islamic group called Harakat-ul
Ansar. What's funny here - sort of
funny, is that there's now a phenomenon called "blowback," because
those groups like the Taliban and
the Harakat-ul Ansar are now plot-

"This sense within the religious community that their values and doctrines
are under attack by the wider, secular
culture is resulting in a determined
effort
achieve special rights for their
beliefs and their institutions. "

Page 12

ly influenced by Augustine's writings, so by the time Christianity

reached the New World, this
ambivalence or suspicion or outright
hostility toward secular society and
its institutions
was deeply ingrained.
The reason for this segue into
history is to illustrate what I consider to be almost axiomatic when you
talk about religion in the West,
especially in the United States. Religious movements have traditionally
been hostile, anxious, or ambivalent
in their relationship with secular
culture and enterprise, science, and
the thing we refer to as modernity.
Religion embraces the "City of God,"
and even within most of the liberal
and mainstream
denominations
today, there remains considerable
tension over the relationship of that
city with the "City of Man."
The main point I want to illustrate today is that increasingly, this
sense within the religious community that their values and doctrines
are under attack by the wider, secular culture is resulting in a determined effort to achieve special
rights for their beliefs and their
Autumn 1998

American Atheist

ting a revolution in Pakistan, to

make that country more Islamically
correct! Next to Pakistan is Iran, the
largest concentration
of Shi'ite
Muslims. There, what we call "the
culture wars" define every aspect of
existence. Go north from Afghanistan and you encounter the collision
between insurgent Islamic minorities, with the stronghold of Orthodox civilization. Turn eastward and
you've got Sinic/Buddhist/Confucian
civilizations; go West and encounter
Christianity.
And :wherever you
turn, you encounter not only religious ideologies which go hand-inhand with proliferating tribal and
ethnic-based movements you've got
the proliferation
of high-tech,
nuclear, chemical and biological
weaponry. We're no longer talking
about religious and political fanatics
that are sallying forth to fight a
jihad or some other version of holy
war mounted on camels or horses.
We're dealing with missiles and airborne platform delivery systems.

How's that for a recipe with which to

cook up Armageddon?
In the 1980s the confrontation
that defmed the politics of the middle part of century - roughly 1921
onward - shifted dramatically. In
that period, three major ideologies
competed for control of the global
political stage. Now, in retrospect,
we know that religion played an
active role in all of that, especially
the antagonism involving the Soviet
Union and the Western Block. That
confrontation was often cast in
terms of Christianity versus godless
ideology, belief in god versus allegiance to the state. But there were
also important secular dimensions
as well including
control of
resources, and the ability to define a
predominant system of economic
arrangements.
That previous global alignment
was marked primarily by a confrontation between East and West.
Now it is a more complex, convoluted, and in many respects more dan-

gerous arrangement. It is one in

which very elemental forces - language, ethnicity, and religious affiliation - play increasingly predominant roles. Where the cold war
evolved into an arranged system of
detente and co-existence, the fmal
decade of this century is marked
instead by a proliferation of national entities, the fragmenting of former states, a dizzying redrawing of
national borders, and the identification of blocks of humanity according
to religious, ethnic, and linguistic
allegiances. If you want to invest in
a real growth industry, put your
money' in firms like Rand McNally,
a company that makes maps.
A point I'm trying to make here
is that the incredible political energizing of fundamentalist and evangelical groups in this country is part
of something global. It's not a conspiracy, but it's rooted in a number
of causal factors you find all over the
world today. It's rooted in the reaction to modernity. It's rooted in a

CHRI STIAN PERSECUlloN.

Austin, Texas

Autumn 1998

Page 13

backlash, if you will, against globalization - and that globalization for

good or bad is very secular. It's very
worldly; it's very unspiritual and
very consumerist oriented. Any time
you have those sorts of social and
cultural dislocations, you can expect
backlash, and there are going to be
people and groups who build an
agenda on going back to what they
think of as traditional ways ofliving
and thinking. That's why all ofthese
movements - whether you're talking
about Hindu nationalism, Islamic
militancy, or Christian fundamentalism - are all focused on a sort of
nostalgia for an imaginary past.
They're preoccupied with this vision
of a golden past and the task of
avoiding the kind of future that they
see the world moving towards.
Spend in church!
This is a future which they fear
is secular. It is a world where people
are for the most part preoccupied
with the immediacies of life - the
acquisition of material wealth, a
focus on the worldly. As an aside
here, I remember several years ago
reading in religious magazines and
news columns sermons
being
preached about the evils of the Mall
of America, which has become sort
of a metaphor with certain people
about everything that's wrong with
modern society - this supposed
indulgence in the pursuit of commodities. Now I'm not saying that
the Mall of America is good, but I
remember thinking, well, what's the
motivation here? What's really
being said? What's the deep text of
this criticism, .and I kept getting
back to the idea that what religious
leaders are saying is that you should
really be spending you time and
your money in church, rather than
the Mall of America, or doing something else.
The high point of Christian
experience was the Medieeval Era,
and you detect in a lot of religious
writings today this nostalgic yearning for that period when "there was
a place for everyone, and everyone
had their place," Just contrast the
Page 14

social structure of the MediaevalEra

with the world today - in fact the
world that has existed since the
period of the Enlightenment.
Especially today, in a lot of countries, this is a world that is being
birthed by global trade, communications, pluralism, the interpenetration of cultural influences, the erosion of traditional
boundaries
(whether they're ideological, or
political, or geographical). It's especially the changing role of women.
These are the 'sorts of centripetal
forces that are acting to bind the
world together. The reaction against
that is what theorists like Samuel
Huntington are talking about: a
counter-trend of movements based
on nationality, language, ethnicityand especially religious belief which challenges and confronts this
globalist emergence.
The Freedom from Religious
Persecution Act
But you should be aware of one
other thing in connection with this
idea of global trends. This country
has taken two significant steps in
"globalizing" religious belief and
linking it to the foreign policy agenda of our government. The first was
the recognition by the US government of the Vatican as an official
diplomatic entity. This occurred
during the Reagan era, and there
was no cover-up here; it was pretty
blatant. One reason for this was to
plug into the Vatican's network of
intelligence assets and agents of
influence in the Eastern Block; the
US funneled millions of dollars into
groups like Solidarity, the trade
union in Poland, through the Roman
Catholic Church. The great irony in
this is that the Church in that part
of the world has made every effort to
replace the Communist governments as the leading menace with
respect to rights for women, freedom
of expression, and other liberties.
The second step toward globalizing
religion is the "Freedom From
Religious Persecution Act." Now I
don't think that most us want to see
government anywhere, and that
Autumn 1998

includes the United States, violating

a policy of neutrality toward religious expression. If religious people
want to worship or proselytize on
their time and dollar, that's up to
them. Personally, I don't think that
governments anywhere should be
establishing state churches or persecuting believers.
But I also don't want to see governments persecuting working people, when they try to organize a
union, or women, or sexual minorities, or journalists, or political dissidents - and that's one of the problem with FFRPA. It's narrow, it's
restrictive; it subordinates a robust
notion of human rights to a very
narrow range. I'm very suspicious
when Pat Robertson suddenly starts
talking about human rights and foreign
policy,
considering
the
abysmal, shabby record he has on
this question. This was the guy who
barged down a river in Zaire on the
yacht belonging to the dictator
Mobutu Sese Seko. This is the man
who set up a corporation and got
special economic concessions on
lumber and diamond mining (so
much for free trade and competitive
enterprise, right!?), and this is the
guy who has supported some of the
most ruthless death-squad movements and some of the most dictatorial regimes in Latin America.
When it comes to "schmoozing with
dictators," he's just as bad Louis
Farrakhan.
But the effect ofFFRPA is to put
the US government in the business
of monitoring religious tolerance,
and it sends the message that this
government is going to go out of its
way and make a special effort to
intervene in cases of religious persecution. Again, I don't want to see
anyone persecuted because of religious belief1I also don't want to see
anyone persecuted who happens to
criticize' religious belief, which is
what Salman Rushdie did, which is
what a number of activists particularly in the Middle East are doing
today. What about them?
This act probably would actually
threaten religious practice; it can
American Atheist

very easily play into the hands of

extreme religious movements. They
can point to this act and say "here's
more cultural interference from
America..." And these are just a couple of reasons why. the State
Department is concerned about this
legislation, and why a lot of legitimate human rights movements are
a bit leery. It may be well intentioned, but it's bad law - it's not
inclusive enough. Human rights are
not the exclusive ptovince of people
who want to go to church.
The 10/40 window
Why is this suddenly a big,
burning issue - especially with the
religious right? A lot of different
groups support the FFRPA and for
varying reasons, but a substantial

cultures. With the religious marketplace pretty much tapped out in the
United States and Europe - well,
this is open territory. As globalism
has an impact in these cultures, particularly the Islamic nations, the
same thing is starting to occur in
those countries and has occurred
here, that's the challenge of religious pluralism.
There's
another
expression
which is used also: "praying through
the window." This window is a bigger version of the 10/40 window; it
includes, for instance, the former
Soviet Union - what a plum! Look at
what the Orthodox Church is
demanding there: special status as
the official religion of Russia. A lot
of foreign religious groups have
been pouring substantial resources
into extending their
outreach there. So,
part of understanding
this hoopla about "foreign religious persecution" involves seeing this as a religious
turf-war, as the confrontation
between
established, traditional, indigenous religions (like Islam)
with other religious groups, especially the more aggressive ones usually Pentecostal and Evangelical
groups, or New-Age sects. Many
Christians in this country feel a
mandate to evangelize as many people as possible in anticipation of the
Second Coming, which they believe
(quite seriously) is very soon. There
is a staggering array of projects now
underway: the "AD 2000 Cities Network," "Mobilizing Global Prayer,"
and "Praying :Through The Window." These are - on a global scale the cultural equivalents of the
"March for Jesus" or "See You at the
Pole."

" ====================

Human rights are not the

exclusive province of people
who want to go to church.

========================== "
amount of support is coming from
religious movements that have an
eschatological vision or doctrines
about the immanent end of the
world. A shocking number of these
people really believe that the events
foretold in works like the Book of
Revelation or Daniel will be coming
to fruition - if not in the year 2000,
certainly within "a generation," or
their lifetime. That's why so much of
the thrust of the Freedom From
Religious Persecution Act has to do
with something called the 10/40
Window. This isn't your year-end
tax statement; this isn't about getting money back; it's about sending
money in to people like Pat
Robertson.
The 10/40 window refers to that
latitudinal belt or zone around the
world which is comprised mostly of
non-Christian
nations. This is
where you find the bulk of Muslims,
a good number of Buddhists and
animists and indigenous religious
Austin, Texas

The peril here at home

I want to confine the balance of
my remaining remarks to the situation here in the United States,
because that's where this organizing
is concentrating its efforts. But
there is one consequence, one "blow
Autumn 1998

back" if you will for this country.

The globalization of religious groups
and ideologies - along with the
increasingly aggressive and active
role played by religious movements
seeking to reconfigure the world
into the next century - threatens to
have a very dangerous impact on
this country. It threatens the right
to criticize or question, let alone
mock, religious ideology.
I've suggested here that globally
and in our own society many religious movements and ideologies are
at war with secularism. One example of this is the vote a couple of
weeks 'ago on the Religious Freedom
Amendment. This was the first vote
of its kind since 1971. All those
school prayer amendments over the
25 years never made it out of the
House Judiciary Committee. But
this one - which is a constitutional
amendment'<- it cleared 16-11, and
then went on to win a majority on
the floor of the House! What was it224-203? The only thing stopping it
was the need for a 2/3 majority.
Thank the Founders!! And the next
day after the vote, all of the groups
like the ACLU and People for the
American Way,it was a slap-on-theback-fest. Somebody said, "well,
they were 66 votes short!"
Hello! What's wrong with this
picture?
Ten years ago, during the waning days of the Reagan administration, anything like the RFA wouldn't have come anywhere as close to
passage. Fifteen years ago, it was
unheard of. Twenty, twenty-five
years ago, it would have been sheer
fantasy. If you want to understand
how sophisticated the religious right
in particular has become, if you
want to see how far they have come,
I recommend that you look at the
effort behind the Religious Freedom
Amendment, or pick up William
Martin's book With God On Our
Side. That will give you an appreciation of how the political and cultural landscape in this country has
changed.
Part of what energized support
for the Religious Freedom AmendPage 15

ment was that the groups backing it

are redefining political discourse. If
you listened to the debate on the
House floor, or tuned in the talkradio programs or comment shows,
or if you pick up the publications
that so many groups like the
Christian Coalition put out, there is
an incessant stream hammering
away at certain kinds of assumptions.
They include:
Religion is under attack.
Religious "people of faith" are
being actively persecuted and
prohibited from exercising their
rights.
"Religious people in the United
States are being forced to practice their faith behind closed
doors" - a slogan started by
Ralph Reed.
Religion is being insulted.
Religion is being "pushed out of
the public square," or it's being
"pushed out of the schools."
"Families" are under attack.
"The rights of parents are under
attack."
Here are some spin-off claims and these are almost direct quotes:
Homosexuality is being forced on
the American people.
We are becoming "addicted" (boy,
what a buzz-word!) to gambling,
pornography, violence, certain
kinds of music, or the Internet.
These highly emotive claims are
rapidly defming much of the political debate in America today, and
they're part of a wider kind of "subversion mythos" not unlike the coldwar hysteria about Communist subversion during the fifties. And this
serves a very distinct social-political
agenda. When you can convince a .
group of people that their beliefs are
under active attack, you've taken
the first step not only in mastering
the art of demagoguery, but in mobilizing them for certain political
goals. Whether it's a Promise
Keepers revival,or
a March for
Page 16

Jesus, or something said on the floor

of the US Congress, this view is
becoming surprisingly widespread.
This is what you see in
Alabama, which is becoming a culture-war
battleground.
In our
newsletter, magazine, and Web site,
we've been covering the case of
Judge Moore, who displays the Ten
Commandments in his courtroom,
and the related issue of school
prayer. Abuses of the First Amendment have gotten so bad that Judge
Ira DeMent of the Federal district
court has had to issue repeated
warnings in DeKalb country; he had
to order four hundred teachers to go
through "training" in what is and
what is not appropriate and constitutional religious expression in the
schools.
The Alabama case has been
cited by religious groups like
Christian Coalition. It's been talked
about on Capitol Hill. There's such a
furor that the Clinton Administration is as much on the defensive

Drive around
there
play

on the steps
and count

and temples

Special rights
The fall-out from this "subversion" theory rhetoric is that increasingly, religious movements want
special protection, special rights,
and special privileges from the government. And they're become more
blatant in demanding it. Let me give
you some examples of these special
rights.
Let us start with the RFA. The
demand that religious exercise be
included as a part of the official

your community,

is a manger

house,

pen to think that if students want to

pass out literature,
or publish
.underground newspapers, or put up
Web sites, that's up to them. But in
Salt Lake City, when a gay-support
group wanted to have a club, you
had Senator Orrin Hatch - who as I
understand it was an Equal Access
Act kinda' guy - going on record saying "well, when we passed this act,
we were talking about Bible clubs,
not gay-support groups ..."

scene

or menorah

of a city

hall

the number

that don't

over the religion-in-schools issue as

it is over Ken Starr and Monica
Lewinsky! The Department of Education can't issue guidelines fast
enough! Down in Alabama, Judge
DeMent's guidelines have been just
plain ignored in some school districts.
When you see religious groups
on the offensive talking about their
rights supposedly being violated, it's
very often a profound case of selective indignation. Chris Allen from
Utah can tell us about this. You
know when they passed the Equal
Access Act, the goal was to give religious groups and bible-study clubs
the same footing as all of the other
clubs in public schools. And as a
First Amendment voluptuary, I hapAutumn 1998

especially

if
dis-

or court-

of churches

have displays

up.

school day or at official school events

is a call for a "special right." I don't
care whether the prayer is led by a
teacher, or an administrator, a student, or a student selected by a
majority vote. It doesn't matter
whether it's a verse from the Koran,
or the Bible, or the Satanic Bible. It
doesn't matter whether the invocation is by a minister, or a priest, or a
rabbi, or a witch, or a local Scientologist. There are 350,000 churches, mosques, temples, chapels and
other places of worship in this country where religious people can go.
They can meet in private homes,
they can rent auditoriums. RFA is
about public profession of prayer.
It's about being seen; it's about trying to establish as deeply as possiAmerican Atheist

ble, the symbolic identification of

faith with the institutions of government. Come Christmas or Hanukkah, drive around your community,
especially if there is a manger scene
or menorah display on the steps of a
city hall or courthouse, and count
the number of churches and temples
that don't have displays up, or have
plenty of room for more displays
than they already have!
Of further
concern is the
demand that religious or so-called
"faith-based" groups become the
. objects of public largesse. Even suggesting this openly fifteen or twenty
years ago would have been a formula for political exile. Now religious
groups have been at the public
trough for years. Since the late
1970s, they have aggressively
moved into the field of social services. They operate hospitals, rescue-missions, housing. We recently
did a story about Detroit, where the
Department of Housing and Urban
Development went out of its way out of its way! - to encourage and
help churches to apply for $2.7 billion in grants. That's to build more
low-income public housing, and to
set up neighborhood crime-control
programs. Now theoretically, all of
this is supposed to be done in a secular way. So that theoretically, if
you're an Atheist, and you go out
and look for low-cost public housing,
you cannot be discriminated against
on the basis of your religion or lack
of religion. Even with those guidelines, programs like that are enormous moneymakers for churches
because they charge administrative
fees; it's a business. Ifwe're going to
have public housing, why isn't the
government acting directly?
In that RFA vote on Thursday,
June 4, the taboo of openly' suggesting that religious proselytizing be
funded with taxpayer money was
broken. This proposal was seriously
considered on the floor of so august
a body as the House of Representatives, and 224 of our highest elected
official thought it was a good idea!
But what did we hear in the debate
over the RFA? Speaker after speakAustin, Texas

er got up and talked about guns, and

violence; and drugs, and pregnant
teenagers, then talked about how
students who wanted to read from a
bible were being persecuted. Then,
under the guise of saving the society
from itself, they propose that we put
faith-based social programs on the
public payroll. There's not even the
pretense here of secularism. Of
course, we should add to this that
indirectly, we're already funding
organized religion through a system
of tax perks. I think it was about 20
or 25 years ago, when a very incomplete study that American Atheists
did, came to the conclusion that
each American was paying something like $87 more per year in
taxes because the churches didn't
pay anything. Gil Lawrence, who's
our New England Regional Director,
last year found out that the churches in his area had to be taken to
court just so they'd pay their
garbage-pickup fee!
Another demand for special
rights is something that is even
more dangerous to my thinking
than the RFA - and this is the
Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
You're probably familiar with the
background on this, and we're privileged to have the attorney who successfully challenged the RFRA in
front of the US Supreme Court with
us for this convention. The legal
implications of this act are staggering, but I want you to look at a couple of things in connection with it.
First, RFRA has united a wider
range of different religious sects
than any other issue I can think of
in recent years. Representatives
from so many groups and denominations have signed on to this, it is just
staggering: Roman Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Hindus, Muslims,
the American Humanist Association, New-Age groups like the
Mystic Temple of Light, Native
American religious groups. When it
comes to demanding a special status
in a predominantly secular culture,
the doctrinal differences about salvation or gods or redemption quickly take a back seat. Moreover, I
Autumn 1998

think it is a bad omen when we see

groups that generally are our allies
signing on to this agenda.
The second thing about the
RFRA is that whatever problems it
seeks to address, it ends up being
bad law. In fact, it's terrible law. It's
discriminatory law, because it creates a dual-system of justice - one
for churches, another for private
individuals and secular enterprises.
Justice John Paul Stevens said it
best in his opinion in the Boerne
case when he wrote this about the
Religious Freedom Restoration Act:
If the historic landmark on a hill in
Boerne happened to be a museum
or an art gallery ownedby an atheist, it would not be eligible for an
exemptionfrom the city ordinances
that forbid an enlargement of the
structure. Becausethe landmark is
ownedby the CatholicChurch, it is
claimed that RFRAgives its owner
a federal statutory entitlement to
an exemptionfrom a generally neutral civil law. Whether the Church
would actually prevail under the
statute or not, the statute has provided the Church with a legal
weapon that no atheist or agnostic
can obtain. This governmentpreference for religion,as opposedto irreligion, is forbidden by the First
Amendment.
Postmodern Sabbatarianism
Another area where religious
groups are seeking special rights
involves a truly incredible development - the rise of what we might
call "Postmodern Sabbatarianism."
From the earliest days of European
settlement, there have been laws
which attempted to ban or restrict
activities other than religious exercise. Earlier, I mentioned the New
World's first Sunday Blue Law.
These laws generally fell by the
wayside beginning in the 1900s; we
still have certain regulations that
apply mostly to liquor establishments. But lately, religious groups
have been complaining that they
are, in effect, getting too much competition on Sundays from nonchurch events.
Cardinal O'Connor has recently
Page 17

denounced Sunday baseball and games that are held on

Good Friday or other holy days. In Massachusetts, the
State Council of Churches sent letters to 1,700 member
groups asking that they become active in pressuring
government and civic groups to avoid activities like
sporting events or parades that might interfere with
religious services.
Now just imagine if a group of store owners even
hinted at laws which, restricted private religious services! This reminds me of a case several years ago, when
some local religious activists began picketing some adult
bookstores and strip joints. An ordinance was proposed
in front of the city council. The local American Atheists
group got involved, and one of our members stood up in
front of a packed council meeting, argued against the
ordinance and closed his remarks by looking at one of
the local ministers who was in attendance, and said,
''Yeah, Reverend, some of these businesses may be pretty seedy. But unlike you, at least they're paying taxes."
I think that we are going to see more pressure for
special rights in this area. In a press release that we put
out about the situation in Massachusetts, we said that
this was just another response to "empty pew syndrome." It was interesting that just as the Council of
Churches was announcing this "warm and fuzzy" bluelaw initiative, there was an article in the Boston Globe
about how the Roman Catholic Church was facing a
financial crisis and planned to shut down sixty parish
churches in Boston.
The final area I want to discuss in connection with
"special rights" for organized religion goes back to my
initial remarks. I am very, very concerned that as we
enter some kind of global civilization, with all of its
stresses and fault lines, the assertive role being played
by different religious movements is going to blow back
on us. And by this I mean that the efforts being made by
American Christian religious groups for the most part to
incorporate religion as an element is US foreign policy,
is going to have a heavy and unexpected price. I was
very concerned, watching the Salman Rushdie incident
in 1989, about the shocking numbers of religious, and
political and even public opinion figures, who on some
level, suggested that it was wrong, or should be some
kind of crime,or that there should be some kind of punishment, regarding those who criticize or insult religious
movements and groups. In England, for instance, there
was a surprising amount of support for having religious
groups like the Muslims included under the protection of
the blasphemy laws. And rest assured, if you happen to
think that these laws aren't enforced now, I think that
Muslim groups and some other religions would do everything they could to put teeth in them.
We carried a story in the American Atheist
Newsletter recently about a bill in the New York
Legislature that proposes to penalize insulting remarks
or criticism of religious groups. The problem of course is
the First Amendment, but I think that we are going to
Page 18

see more discussion in this area, about perhaps making

criticism of religion or certain types of criticism a "hate
crime." If our government is going to demand that other
countries open their doors to our missionary groups, or
the Vatican, there is going to be a price. And just as they
have sought special status under the Religious Freedom
Restoration Act, I can see many different religious
groups closing ranks, burying their superficial differences, and seeking some kind of legislation in this area.
In closing, I have to tell you that I remain the eternal optimist, though. The Bill of Rights has stood us
quite well for over two centuries, and perhaps there is
something to the claim that, thanks to technology, it is
becoming harder, not easier, to muzzle opinions and
what people have to say. But I'm also reminded, as I look
at the cultural and political changes taking place today,
of what Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote - it is
something that applies to Atheist and believer alike:
"IF THERE IS ANY principle of the Constitution
that more imperatively calls for attachment than any
other, it is the principle of free thought - not free
thought for those who agree with us, but freedom for
the thought we hate."

SNAPSHOTS

~--

Autumn 1998

__

~l~Ht~

by Jason love

Before becoming the legend that he is todaV,

Nostradamus first enjoved a pretty good living
at the tracks. .
American Atheist

Finding the Balance

in Religious Liberty
Legislation
.

Marci A. Hamilton
Let me tell you a story. In some
ways, this is the most fascinating
story in politics today,' even though
it is largely ignored by the press.
This is a story of power and religion
and civil liberty. This story might
contain some legalisms, but I will
try to keep them to a minimum.

Dr. Hamilton is Professor of Law

at Benjamin Cardozo School of
Law in New York. As lead attorney
in the historic case of Boerne v.
Flores, she argued (before the
United States Supreme Court)
that Congress may not restore
"religious freedom"
once the
Supreme Court has eliminated it.
The Supreme Court had earlier
ruled that religionists must obey
general laws like the rest of us.
Austin, Texas

The goal of the Constitution is to

set a pragmatic balance of power
between social centers of power, for
the Framers feared abuses of power
from all centers of society, including
religion. Finding the right balance is
the difficult task posed by the
Constitution.
Until 1990, religious belief frankly, any belief - was absolutely
protected. The government simply
cannot coerce citizens to believe
anything. That is a bright-line rule.
At the same time, religious conduct
was governed depending on its context. Sometimes, the compelling
interest test was used, especially if
the believer was subjected to individualized discrimination. But at
other times, a lesser standard was
used. For example, prisons needed
only to prove a legitimate penological interest in regulations that burdened prisoners' religious conduct.
Moreover, no religious interests
seemed to be capable of trumping
the federal government's interests.
In the states, a rough balance of
power was erected. Sometimes religion won the cases involving religious conduct (as opposed to belief),
More often, the government won.
In June of 1990, the Supreme
Court considered the case of
Employment Division v Smith. In
that case, state-paid drug counselors were fired for using peyote, an
illegal narcotic. The general rule in
Oregon was as follows: if you use a
narcotic, you can be fired. If you are
fired for illegal activity, you lose
your unemployment benefits. The
counselors contended that they
could not be denied such benefits
Autumn 1998

because they used peyote in a

Native American Church service
and their religious activities were
protected under the Free Exercise
Clause of the Constitution. The
Supreme Court disagreed. Because
counselors were subjected to a generally applicable, neutral law - a
law that did not target or discriminate against religious believers they could be fired and denied
unemployment compensation despite the law's incidental burden on
their religious conduct.
Although the Constitution did
not require the state of Oregon to
accommodate the drug counselors,
the Court suggested that the legislature could accommodate religious
conduct. In any event, the Court certainly did not rule out accommodation. The Court also made clear that
governments could not discriminate
against religions or religion, a principle that was vindicated in the
more recent animal sacrifice case,
Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye,
Inc. v City of Hialeah. Through the
legislative process, the public could
weigh the costs and benefits of
particular exemptions. That way,
society would have the benefit of
considering the pros and cons of permitting some to trump general laws,
and religion would receive more
than adequate protection;
Following the Court's guidance
after the peyote case, Congress and
a number of states created exemptions for peyote use by the Native
American Church. One would have
thought that would be the end of the
matter. Accommodation had been
achieved, and notably, it had been
Page 19

The second factor that has premous Congress. In 1997, I had the
privilege to challenge the Act in the
vented the states from blindly
adopting state RFRAs has been the
Supreme Court. Big surprise: the
Act was held unconstitutional on
slow awakening of those groups
most harmed by thes~ one-size-fitsfederalism and separation of powers
all laws. The following need to be
grounds.
Despite that ruling, some bebrought into the discussion if the
lieve.the Act remains constitutional
right balance of power is to be
if applied to federachieved: likely victims of discrimination
by religious landlords and
al
law.
Moreover,
"In effect, RFRA attempted to reverse
employers, likely victims of child
many states are
the Supreme Court, teke over the First considering "mini- abuse and neglect at the hands of
certain religious sects, likely vicand
Amendment, and overtake federal, state, RFRAs,"
members of Contims of spousal abuse, pediatricians,
and local governance."
gress have introchild advocates, municipal and
duced a new procounty governments, zoning boards,
historical
and cultural preservation
posal to achieve the same goal as
sound as though the end was near.
RFRA (trumping Smith). The new
groups, prisons, religious groups
Of course, the peyote decision was
federal proposal is the Religious
that are willing to admit that there
not, in fact, significantly different
is no religious interest in trumping
Liberty Protection Act (RLPA).
from prior law. Despite this fact, it
every law, and the Agnostics and
RFRA, RLPA, and the state reliengendered a political climate ripe
gious liberty bills are all unconstituAtheists who cannot benefit from
for religions to engage in legislative
tional. Each attempts to use simple
the special privileges religion
cherry-picking. As a believer in God
legislation to achieve constitutional
receives from the law. When these
and in man's fallibility, I now view
ends, and each blindly privileges
groups are silent because they are
the decision as the prelude to a
religion over all other social interuninformed, legislators labor under
story about the human institutions
the delusion that anything they do
at the heart of religion.
ests.
for religion is good for society - and
Two factors have slowed such
The Coalition for the Free
legislation in the states. The most
good for their next election. But
Exercise of Religion, which contains
when these interests are heard, the
important antidote to such legislaapproximately eighty religious and
bills' legislative sponsors have
civil liberty groups but excludes,
tion is the simple fact that the compelling-interestlleast-restrictivetaken a tempered approach. This
notably, the Roman Catholic
means test establishes a new stanhappened in Maryland, and it led to
Church, lobbied for the Religious
dard for general regulations bursignificant amendments in CaliforFreedom Restoration Act (RFRA),
dening religious conduct. Their supnia and Illinois.
which was supposed to "fix" the
porters try to sell this brand of reliThe battle is not easy. Despite
Smith decision by legislatively overgious liberty legislation as an old,
the harm to minors, victims of disriding it. RFRA required federal
comfortable shoe.
and state governments' to justify
That is mislead- "The Coalition has pledged that it will
burdens on religious conduct by
ing. The Court
proving a compelling interest that is
itself said, when accept no amendments to its proposals,
furthered by the most narrowly-taiinvalidating
lored means, even if the law is genespecially if such amendments affect the
RFRA, that it had
erally applicable and neutral as to
ability of religious employers and landnot "employed"
religion. This is the strictest stanthe least-restricdard in constitutional law. Not only
lords to discriminate. Legislators are urged
tive-means test,
did government have to show that
not to hold hearings where these interests
and in Smith, the
the law was passed for a compelling
Court accurately can speak, and to treat these interests as
interest, but also that it was the
stated that it had second-rate when compared to religious
least restrictive means as applied to
"abstained"
from
the particular religious believer. In
needs."
the
compellingeffect, RFRA attempted to reverse
interest test in
the Supreme Court, take over the
man y cas e s. Maryland legiscrimination, and Atheists,
the
First Amendment, and overtake
lation stopped cold when legislators
national ACLU is full-bore behind
federal, state, and local governance.
understood this fact. Unfortunately,
the federal and state RFRAs.
It was passed with a minimum of
other state legislatures have not
Moreover, the Coalition has pledged
constitutional analysis and virtualbeen as well-informed.
that it will accept no amendments
ly no fact-finding by a nearly unani-

achieved for a minority religion. As

we all know now, this was just the
beginning. Various scholars and
religious leaders were extremely
agitated about Smith and charged
that the Court had "given up" on
freedom of religion. In the press and
in academic articles, they made it

Page 20

Autumn 1998

American Atheist

to its proposals, especially if such

amendments affect the ability of
religious employers and landlords to
discriminate. Legislators are urged
not to hold hearings where these
interests can speak, and to treat
these interests as second-rate when
compared to religious needs. It is
not enough for these interests to
speak. They must also persuade.
The moral of the story is that
any organized body can amass great
power. Power has its propulsive
propensities. A superpower with a
real head of steam was created
when religious groups joined together under the umbrella of the
Coalition for the Free. Exercise of
Religion. They have energy and
resources and have pledged, with
the aid of the Rutherford Institute,

to introduce state religious liberty

bills in all fifty states.
I will leave you with the wisdom
of the Framers. They attempted to
craft a social scheme governed by a
Constitution that divided power
within the society, because all concentrations of power are potentially
tyrannical. The Framers believed
our elected representatives must
rise above the petty-interest-group
battle to determine the public's
interest. Every interest was to be
examined in the light of the public's
needs - even religion.
There was no discussion at the
Constitutional Convention of religious liberty per se. The Framers
felt fairly sanguine, because they
believed that religious sects naturally would remain distinct, and

therefore, religion would not become

a monolithic source of power. Every
time religion came up in the
debates, which was not very often,
the concern was expressed that religion is just as capable as other social
institutions
of overstepping
its
bounda:ries.
The key to understanding the
American Constitution is to understand that it is intended to define
and limit power. The following
quote by one of the Framers, Rufus
King, expresses this concern when it
is applied to religion rather eloquently: "If the clergy combine, they
will have their influence on Government." This statement is amazingly
prescient at this time in our history.

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Austin, Texas

Autumn 1998

James Ericson
Page 21

The Children We Abandon:

Medical Neglect
On Religious Grounds
y husband and I were
reared as Christian Scientists. In 1977 we lost our
only son, Matthew, because of relying on Christian Science instead of
going to a doctor when he contracted
meningitis. We left the church
immediately after his death and
today belong to the Methodist
Church. We have become nationally
known for our opposition to medical
neglect of children on religious
grounds and to laws offering a religious exemption from child healthcare requirements.
The April issue of Pediatrics has
an article by pediatrician Seth Asser
and me reviewing deaths of children
after medical care was withheld on
religious grounds. ("Child fatalities
from religion-motivated
medical
neglect," Pediatrics, 101, April 1998:
625-9) Of 172 US child fatalities
between 1975 and 1995, we found
that 140 were from conditions for
which survival rates with medical
care would have exceeded 90%. We
believe that the majority of deaths
due to religion-based
medical
neglect do not come to our attention.
More than twenty sects have
caused deaths of children in the past
two decades because of their opposition to medical care. Several are
small fellowships that spring up
around a charismatic leader, while
others, such as the Church of the
First Born, are 300 years old.
The Jehovah's Witnesses, with
millions of members, are the largest
denomination with a religious objection to medical care. Fortunately,
today, their only objection is to blood
transfusions.

Dr. Swan holds a Ph.D. in English from Vanderbilt University,

and is the president of CHILD
(Children's Healthcare Is a Legal
Duty), Inc., an educational membership organization dedicated to
the promotion of the legal rights
of children in the area of medical
care, The major focus of CHILD
has been the problem of medical
neglect based on religious grounds. .
A former Christian Scientist, Dr.
Swan for many years now has testified before both state and federal
legislative bodies concerning the
dangers of religious law primarily
due to the lobbying efforts of the
Christian Science Church.

Rita Swan
Page 22

Autumn 1998

The Christian Science church

will not disclose membership figures, but we believe it has fewer
than 100,000 members. It is the
largest denomination that objects to
virtually all forms of medical care.
It also does virtually all the lobbyingfor religious exemptions. The
church maintains a salaried lobbyist
in every state and can quickly organize hundreds of calls, letters, and
visits with legislators. Its membership is mainly Republican. Members
are generally well educated on
everything except health and the
body. Today there are five Christian
Science Congressmen.
Religious Exemptions from
preventive and
diagnostic measures
Forty-eight states have religious
exemptions from immunizations.
Mississippi and West Virginia are
the only states that require all children to be immunized without
exception for religious belief. As you
would expect, many outbreaks of
vaccine-preventable disease have
occurred in groups claiming the religious exemption.
There have been four large-scale
outbreaks of measles since 1995 at
the Principia schools for Christian
Scientists in the St. Louis area.
Three young people died of complications from measles in the 1985
epidemic: In 1994 Christian Science
youth at Principia started a measles
outbreak that spread to more than
200 children, including many outside of their religious community. It
was the nation's largest measles
outbreak since 1992 and cost St.
American Atheist

Louis County more than $100,000.

tuberculosis after having exposed
gious exemptions in the civil code by
In 1982, Debra Kupsch, age
hundreds of children to the disease.
making them an eligibility requirenine, contracted diphtheria at a
She had submitted an affidavit
ment for federal money. SimultaneChristian Science camp in Colorado
swearing to be free of infectious disous state-by-state lobbying by the
and then traveled on a bus with
ease in lieu of a required chest xChristian Science Church got many
many other unvaccinated children
ray. A Christian Science practitionexemptions extended into the crimito Wisconsin where she died. It cost
er had charged $65 a month to treat
nal code.
the state of Wisconsin about
her for "living congestion and overThe actual reach of the religious
$20,000 to track down all the chilactivity."
exemptions varies widely. It defidren and adults she had come in
California, Colorado, Michigan,
nitely would not be accurate to say
contact with and test them.
Minnesota, and Ohio statutes offer
that all these states allow parents to
In 1972, there was an epidemic
religious exemptions from physical
withhold lifesaving medical care
of polio at a Christian Science
examinations of school children.
from children. The laws reflect the
boarding school in Connecticut.
Connecticut has a religious exempcontortions and ambiguities of
Eleven children were left paralyzed.
tion from hearing tests for newmodel language provided by the
The epidemic was not discovered by
borns.
Feds. Some of the exemptions prohealth authorities until twenty days
California, Colorado, Massachuvide absolute immunity to criminal
after the first student had becomeill
setts, Michigan, Minnesota, and
charges for parents who withhold
with the disease.
Ohio have statutes excusing stumedical care on religious grounds,
In 1985, a child with a religious
dents with religious objections from
while other exemption laws probaexemption
from
bly protect only the
immunizations was
right to pray for a
the index patient for
C I~ . C I d M
h
M h!
healing.
a measles outbreak
a norma, 0 ora 0, assac usetts, IC Igan,
Furthermore few
that spread to 137 Minnesota, and Ohio have statutes excusing students states have reli~ous
persons at the Black- with relieious objections from studying about disease ex.emptions to all crifeet Indian Reserva-
0
0
mmal charges that
tion near Glacier Na- In school.
"
might be filed for
tional Park.
medical neglect. In
In February and
fifty cases in several
March, 1991, Philadelphia had 492
studying about disease in school. A
states since 1982, prosecutors have
cases of measles and six deaths
current project of the Christian
filed criminal charges f~r religionamong children of the Faith TaberScience church is getting religious
based medical neglect; in the majornacle Congregation and the First
exemptions from screening children
ity of the cases they have won conCentury Gospel Church. Both
for lead poisoning. Delaware,
victions that have not been overchurches shun immunizations.
Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, New
turned on appeal.
The majority of states have reliJersey, and Rhode Island have
There are, however, six states
gious exemptions from metabolic
recently acquired such exemptions.
that have a religious defense to a
testing of newborns. Such tests
homicide or manslaughter charge:
detect disorders that will cause
Religious Exemptions from
Oregon, West Virginia, Delaware,
mental retardation and other handmedical care of sick children
Ohio, Iowa, and Arkansas. Legisicaps unless they are treated.
Perhaps even more damaging
lators in general do not have the
Sometimes the treatment is simply
than the religious exemptions from
fine sense of Atheists and civilliberdietary control until the child's body
preventive and diagnostic measures
tarians for the value ofreligion-neuis able to metabolize protein.
are laws that appear to allow partrallaws. Such laws have a dignity,
Iowa, Minnesota, Colorado, and
ents to withhold medical care when
majesty, and fairness that enhances
Michigan have religious exemptions
the child is actually sick. Today 41
society's respect for public institufrom prophylactic eyedrops for newstates have religious exemptions
tions. All too frequently, however;
borns. The eyedrops prevent blindfrom child abuse and neglect
legislators make laws that punish
ness of infants who have been
Charges in the civil code, and 31
religions they don't like and reward
infected with venereal diseases carhave religious exemptions in the
ones they do like or ones with lobbyried by their mothers.
criminal code. Most of these laws
ists pestering them.
California has a religious
came into state codes because of a
Missouri Code 568.050(3), for
exemption from tuberculosis testing
tragically misguided federal policy
example, states that "[elndangering
of public school teachers. In Van
in place between 1975 and 1983.
the welfare of a child in the second
Nuys, California, in 1954, school
During that time the federal governdegree is a class A misdemeanor
teacher Cora Sutherland died of
ment coerced states to enact reliunless the offense is committed as

"===========================

Austin, Texas

Autumn 1998

Page 23

--.-.. ----.--------.
~ -.--.,----~.--..~... -

--_ .._._--

~.---- -~~----.

--_.

---

to a charge of violating ...this section

part of a ritual or ceremony, in
who beat their children as a relithat the child or dependent person
gious practice, the state passed a
which case the crime is a class D
was under care or treatment solely
law allowing parents to withhold
felony."
by spiritual means pursuant to the
"Ritual or ceremony" is defined
lifesaving medical care as a relireligious beliefs or practices of the
gious practice.
in Missouri Code 556.061(26) as "an
child or person or the parent or
act or series of acts performed by
In 1995 Delaware enacted a religuardian of the child or person."
two or more persons as part of an
gious defense to first- and secondThese laws grant complete
degree murder by abuse or neglect.
established or prescribed pattern of
Del. Code Anno. Title 11, section
immunity from all these criminal
activity."
charges regardless of what the parThus, the same harm' to the
1103(b). Oregon has laws offering
ent or guardian is doing to the child.
religious immunity from charges of
child is either a misdemeanor or a
Parents may be torturing, beating,
first- and second-degree criminal
felony depending on whether a rituor sexually molesting the child, and
al or ceremony occurs. Missouri law
mistreatment,
nonsupport, firstall they have to prove is that they
adds an extra penalty if a religious
and second-degree manslaughter,
provided the child with spiritual
and murder by abuse. Oregon
ritual is involved!
treatment because of their religious
Most of the time, though, legisRevised Statutes 163.206 provides
beliefs - and the charges of
lators are busy giving privileges to
that "charges of criminal mistreatmanslaughter, murder by abuse,
religions they perceive as respectment, first and second degree, do
criminal mistreatment, or nonsupable and powerful. As I mentioned
not apply ... (4) To a person who provides
an
elderly
or
dependent
perport
must be dismissed.
earlier, six states have religious
Religious
immunity to the three
son with
spiritual
treatment
defenses to manslaughter or homithrough
prayer
from
a
duly
accredithomicide
charges
was passed in
cide charges. Arkansas Code Ann. 510-101(a)(9)is a religious defense to
1995 and 1997 with the support of
ed practitioner of spiritual treatcapital murder. One person may get
ment as provided in ORS 124.095, in
the Oregon District Attorneys
lieu of medical treatment, in accorAssociation.
the death penalty for murdering a
dance with the tenets and practices
child; charges must be dropped
of a recognized church or religious
against another because he or she
"Alternative Medicine"
Another development in recent
denomination of which the elderly
"relied solely on spiritual treatment
years that concerns us is the intense
person or the parent or guardian of
through prayer" instead of medical
publicity given to so-called alternacare. West Virginia Code at 61-8D-2
the dependent person is a member
tive medicine and the mind-body
or an adherent; or (5) To a duly
and 4 states flatly that criminal
accredited practitioner of spiritual
connection. The media have been in
charges for murdering or neglecting
almost a feeding frenzy on these topa child "shall not apply to any partreatment
as provided in ORS
ics. It makes you wonder ifthe main
124.095."
ent, guardian or custodian who fails
purpose of the media is to expand
Oregon's nonsupport statute
or refuses, or allows another person
calls prayer medical care: "In a prosconsumerism.
to fail or refuse, to supply a child
It started with an article in the
under the care, custody or control of
ecution for failure to provide necesNew England Journal of Medicine
such parent, guardian or custodian
sary and proper medical attention,
stating that one-third
with necessary medof the public has tried
ical care, when such
In a prosecution for failure to provide necessary
some form of alternamedical care conflicts
and proper medical attention, it is a defense that tive
medicine. That
with the tenets and
the medical attention was provided by treatment
gave the media a
practices of a recogrationale for giving
nized religious denoby p~ayer through spiritual means alone ...
massive publicity to
mination or order of
ORS 163.555(2)(b)
it. Several medical
which such parent,
doctors have written
guardian or custodian
best-selling books promoting alteris an adherent or member."
it is a defense that the medical
native medicine, including religious
attention was provided by treatWhat is truly astonishing is that
faith: Deepak Chopra, Andrew Weil,
West Virginia enacted the homicide
ment by prayer through spiritual
Larry Dossey, and Herbert Benson.
means alone ..." ORS 163.555(2)(b)
and criminal child neglect statutes
ORS 165.118(3), 163.125(3), and
Herbert Benson's latest book,
in response to public outcry about a
163.115(4) give religious immunity
Timeless Healing: the Power and
child in a religious commune who
Biology of Belief, contends that
to charges of murder by abuse and
was beaten to death on the advice of
humans are quote "wired for God,"
the group leader. So, at the same
to first- and second-degree manthat we are chemically and biologitime West Virginia was enacting
slaughter with the following sentence:
"It
is
an
affirmative
defense
cally programmed to believe in, a
stiffer penalties against parents
Page 24

Autumn 1998

American Atheist

god, and therefore faith activates

bodily processes that prevent and
heal disease. Benson's conferences
on Spirituality and Healing in Medicine have received massive publicity. Often the coverage is completely
uncritical and shows no understanding of the scientific method. A
journalist has told me with a
straight face that Atheists do not
recover from sickness.
Early this year the American
Academy of Pediatrics published a
second policy statement calling for
the repeal of religious exemption
laws so that all children will have
equal rights to medical care. The Christian Science church
responded by calling
the pediatricians out
of step with the culture:

be a legal substitute for medical

care. Ninety-nine percent of doctors
may believe in the healing power of
prayer, but they do not believe that
diabetic children should be deprived
of insulin. Effective alternatives do
not exist for the standard medical
treatments for all diseases. How
broad is. the experience of parents
who think religious healing is the
most effective treatment?
How
much information do they have on
the disease their child has now? The
Christian Science church believes
that knowledge of disease causes
disease. They seek exemptions for

media presenting emotional blackmail in defense of the most fraudulent kinds of quackery, there are
cultural forces that want us to
return to the chaos of the nineteenth century when health care
was not regulated, when there were
twenty different systems for treating disease all competing in a laissez faire marketplace and government had the attitude oflet the consumer beware.

Church-care as Medical Care

The Christian Science church wants
to be both a health-care system and
a religion. It uses some
of the terminology of
medical science, callThe Christian Science church believes that
ing its faith healers
practitioners, its prayknowledge of disease causes disease. Obtaining a
ers treatments,
and
medical diagnosis violates their theology. So how
those for whom they
can they make 'intelligent choices' among alterna- pray their patients.
The practitioners send
tive and conventional treatments when they don't bills
for their prayers,
even know what disease their child has?
and the church has

"-========================

The
American
Academy of Pediatrics'
new policy seems out
of sync with society's
growing acknowledgment of the effectiveness of prayer. Harvard Medical School has instituted
symposiums on spirituality and
healing. A recent survey of 269 doctors indicates 99% believe in the
healing power of prayer ... The public knows effective alternatives to
conventional medicines exist, and
people have the right to make intelligent choices among those treatments for themselves and their
families.
Isn't it time to stop talking of
children as "property" and allow
them the right to be healed through
the treatment their families have
found most effective... ? Religious
accommodation puts a brake on
aggressive zeal that would want all
children placed under one healthcare system - a monopoly that
aborts freedom of choice. Christian
Science and traditional medicine
should exist amicably. Mutual
respect for what both offer can
make that possible."

==============================================~

To me, the fallacies in this line

of argument are transparent. The
church is not asking for the right to
pray; it is asking for its methods to
Austin, Texas

their children from studying about

disease at school. Obtaining a medical diagnosis violates their theology. So how can they make "intelligent choices"among alternative and
conventional treatments when they
don't even know what disease their
child has?
Are those who call for repeal of
religious exemptions being narrowminded? Requiring parents to bring
sick children to a doctor does not
outlaw prayer. Every doctor I've
ever met is happy for his or her
patients to be prayed for. It is
instead the faith-healing sects that
insist you cannot have both God and
a doctor. The alternative medicine
bandwagon can be dangerous.
Alternative medicine ought to be
called unproven methods instead of
being hailed as a revolutionary new
kind of medicine.
With the low level of understanding of science today, with powerfullegislators trying to tear down
the Food and Drug Administration's
regulatory powers, with some of the
Autumn 1998

persuaded some forty

insurance companies
to pay" the bills for the prayers.
Charge often range between $20
and $50 a day for a prayer. The
practitioners are allowed to sign
sick leave and disability statements
even though they have no training
in diagnosis and their theology
holds that disease is unreal.
The church also has people
called nurses, who are not statelicensed and do little that resembles
medical nursing. The Christian
Science nurses cannot take a pulse,
use a fever thermometer, give oxygen, or even a back rub. They will
not apply heat or use ice to relieve
inflammation. They have no training in recognizing contagious diseases.
They do feed patients and wash
them, but their primary function is
to encourage them or their parents
to believe that Christian Science is
healing them. They read church literature and sing hymns to them.
Both Medicare arid Medicaid have
paid for Christian Science nursing
since 1965.
Page 25

When the Child-Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA)

was being reauthorized, we saw the
church use those reimbursements as
an argument for putting the religious exemption into CAPTA. The
federal government is paying for
Christian Science health care, so of
course parents should be allowed to
use it for their children, the church
claimed to Congress. We challenged
the Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements in court. We filed a taxpayers' suit. In 1996 a federal court
ruled the statutes and regulations
mandating
the reimbursements
unconstitutional. But the Christian
Science church went to Congress
and persuaded them that the only
problem was that the statutes men, tioned Christian Science by name.
In 1997, Senator Orrin Hatch
added an amendment which mandated Medicare and Medicaid payments for, quote, "religious nonmedical health care" and exempting
its providers from the hundreds of
restrictions and standards associated with medical health care to the
budget bill. There was no debate or
discussion on the Senate floor or in
the House.
We filed a second lawsuit challenging the new statutes the day
after they were signed into law by
the President. Senator Ted Kennedy
has filed an amicus in support of the
Christian Science church! .
The Human Cost
Christian Science nurses have
been retained to attend sick children and have sat taking. notes as
the children suffered and died, but
have not called for medical care nor
recommended that the parents
obtain it. Elizabeth Ashley King, a
twelve-year-old who died of bone
cancer in Phoenix, Arizona, was out
of public school for seven months.
The school knew she was a
Christian Scientist, but allowed a
home-study program to be set up for
her. When the case was finally
reported to Child Protection Services and she was examined by a
doctor, the tumor on her leg was
Page 26

more than forty inches in circumference and her genitalia were partially rotted away from lying in her own
excrement. Because the disease was
by then terminal and because the
girl herself said she wanted to stay
with Christian Science, the state
allowed her to be placed in one of
those Christian Science nursing
homes that receive Medicare and
Medicaid money. This was done over
the protest of her treating' physician, who said she was experiencing
one of the worst kinds of pain known
to mankind.
She' spent the last three weeks
of her life in the nursing home. Of
course, she received no sedatives
because the Christian Science religion opposes drugs. The nursing
home records show 71 calls made to
the Christian Science practitioner in
those three weeks for more prayer
treatments
for Ashley's pain.
Indeed, that is the only thing the
church's nurses will do about pain is
call a Christian Science practitioner
for prayer. One nurse reminded this
little girl of the lateness of the hour
and that other patients were sleeping. Another nurse wrote in her
notes that the tumor disappeared
one day.
This is the kind of care that
Congress has taxpayers paying for.
In suburban
Minneapolis,
eleven-year-old Ian Lundman died
of untreated diabetes. A Christian
Science nurse sat by his bedside for
over five hours while he lay in a diabetic coma. Her notes show that she
observed his facial spasms, vomiting, eyes rolled back, labored
breathing, and urination, but her
concept of care was to give him
drops of water through a straw,
wash his body, and place a sandwich
bag and washcloth around his scrotum. She was asked in court what
kind of training she had received
specific to the care of children. The
only thing she could think of was
that she had been taught to cut
sandwiches in interesting shapes.
A wrongful death suit was
brought by Ian's father, who was
divorced from the boy's Christian
Autumn 1998

Science mother and was not told his

son was seriously ill. In 1993 a jury
awarded him $14 million, later
reduced by the courts to $1.5 million.
Mr. Lundman has yet to collect
a penny of the judgment. But the
principle has been established that
tort liability is possible against
Christian Science nurses and faith
healers.
The novelist John Dos Pass os
said our only hope as a society lies in
the fragile web of understanding of
one person for the pain of another.
Unfortunately, our society's ability
to imagine the pain experienced by
children is tenuous. Too many people in positions of power are willing
for these children to be second-class
citizens. For some it's a numbers
game. Medical doctor Larry Dossey
says they are too few in number to
disturb his contention that "prayer
is good medicine." But isn't our form
of government supposed to protect
individual rights? The religiousexemption laws deprive one class of
children of the rights and privileges
enjoyed by others.
How many are too few? We have
reported on 172 documented faith
deaths of US children between 1975
and 1995. Our work was a catalyst
for the Oregon media to uncover the
Followers of Christ, a congregation
near Portland that rejects medical
care. The Oregonian reported on
June 7 that 78 children have been
buried since 1955 in the church
cemetery. The most recent case was
that of Bo Phillips, age eleven, who
died in February of untreated diabetes.
For decades public officials have
swept these deaths under the rug.
The new Clackamas County prosecutor would like to act, but says she
is unable to file criminal charges
against the parents because of
Oregon's .religious immunity laws.
We did not know of any of the
Followers of Christ deaths when we
did our research. We suspect that
even today we only know about the
tip of the iceberg.
American Atheist

Civil in Seattle
American Atheists voices concerns before
the US Civil Rights Commission
By Ellen Johnson
President, American Atheists
n Friday, August 21, I had
the honor of representing the
members and supporters of
American Atheists
before the
United States Commission on Civil
Rights during its forum on "Schools
and Religion," held in Seattle,
Washington. In our continuing
efforts to bring Atheist influence to
bear on the policies of our government, I was proud to represent
American Atheists at the Seattle
forum. With the expert help of
Conrad Goeringer, Ron Barrier, and
Frank Zindler, we had drafted a
statement
of concern for the
Commission - titled "Unconstitutional Religious Expression in the
Public Schools" - and I was able to
present the handsome document to
the commissioners. (That statement
was reprinted in the August, 1998
issue of the American
Atheist
Newsletter and is also available on
the Internet at: http://www.athe
ists.org/schoolhouse.seattle.html)
The US Commission on Civil
Rights is a bipartisan, fact-finding
agency established by Congress to
study and collect information, to
appraise the laws and policies of the
United States, and to serve as a
national clearinghouse for information, all pertaining to discrimination
or denials of the equal protection of
the laws based on race, color, religion, sex, age, disability, or national
origin, or in the administration of
justice.
The Commission is also required by law to submit reports to
the President and Congress at such
times as the Commission, the
Congress, or the President shall

Austin, Texas

deem desirable. In furtherance of its

statutory obligations, the Commission conducted a briefing in Seattle,
Washington, as part of its on-going
project entitled
"Schools and
Religion." The Commission is composed of eight members, four of
whom are appointed by the President and four by the Congress. Not
more than four members may at any
one time be of the same political
party.
. The Congressionally
appointed Commissioners are:
Mary Frances Berry (Chairperson) - the Geraldine R. Segal
Professor of American Social
Thought and Professor of History,
University of Pennsylvania. Political Affiliation: Independent.
Cruz Reynoso (Vice Chairperson) - Professor of Law, University
of California at Los Angeles. Political Affiliation: Democrat.
Carl S. Anderson - Vice President for Public Policy, Knights of
Columbus; Dean, Vice-President,
and Professor of Family Law, North
American Campus, Pontifical John
Paul II Institute for Studies on
Marriage and Family Law, Washington, DC. Political Affiliation:
Republican.
Russell G. Redenbaugh (not
present) - Partner and Director,
Cooke & Bieler, Inc. Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania. Political Affiliation:
Independent.
The Presidentially
appoint.
ed Commissioners are:
Robert P. George - Associate
Professor of Politics, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey.
Political Affiliation: Independent.
A. Leon Higginbotham,
Jr.
(not present) - Public Service
Professor of Jurisprudence, Harvard
Autumn 1998

University. Political Affiliation:

Democrat.
Constance
Horner - Guest
Scholar, Brookings Institution,
Washington, DC. Political Affiliation: Republican.
Yvonne Y. Lee - Yvonne Lee
Consultants, San Francisco, California. Political Affiliation: Democrat.
I was invited to speak on the
panel titled "Equal Access, Individual Student's
and Teacher's
Rights." I was joined on the panel by
Douglas
K. Vande
Griend,
Director, Western Center for Law
and Religious Freedom, and by
Forrest
Turpen,
Executive
Director, Christian Educators Association International.
On the panel prior to mine,
there was a representative from the
American Civil Liberties Union, an
attorney for the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction, and
an attorney from a law firm that
takes cases for the conservative
Rutherford Institute.
After listening to that panel testify, I got the impression that the
Commissioners must be totally confused about what to do concerning
religious expression in the public
schools. The lawyer who worked
with the Rutherford Institute, Theo
Vander Wel, recited the usual
examples of classes, exercises, reading materials, and activities that his
religious clients found objectionable.
In essence, he was also arguing for
freedom from religion, because his
clients objected to yoga, (considered
Buddhism), celebrations of the
Japanese New Year (which he
equated with the religion of
Shintoism), and a reading course
where students are invited to pretend to cast spells (which he equatPage 27

ed with the Wiccan religion), The

examples were vague enough that
the ACLU attorney couldn't adequately clarify for the commissioners whether or not any of it was
appropriate in the public schools.

going to burn in hell, that she was

really lying about her Atheism, and
a school official told her that "This is
a Christian nation, so deal with it."
In New York, a teacher named
Mildred Rosario was recently dis-

"
Most American towns have more houses of worship
than schools, providing ample opportunity for people
to address their gods, without having to hold religious
rituals in the public schools.

wanted to form a club. Senator

Orrin Hatch declared that the purpose of the Equal Access Act was not
to permit the establishment
of
"those sorts of clubs," only religious
clubs. The "equal" in Equal Access
needs strengthening.
Another controversy involves
the "nature" of bible/prayer clubs
themselves. We have received firsthand reports that these are not
"clubs" in the traditional
sense.
Rather, they often consist of religious rituals, scriptural readings,
songs, prayers and similar activities
usually reserved for the church setting. In effect, these so-called clubs
have become satellites of the local
churches for proselytizing
and
recruitment in the schools.
Other attempts at blind-side
proselytizing occur when such religious clubs hold their meetings in
school lobbies, lunchrooms, and
hallways - where everyone must
hear and see their religious services.
In Paducah, Kentucky, Christian
athletes form front-door gauntlets
exhorting all passers-by to accept
Jesus.
Most American towns have more
houses of worship than schools, providing ample opportunity for people
to address their gods, without having to hold religious rituals in the
public schools.
In summation, our experience has
shown to us that the Establishment
Clause of the First Amendment does
not prevent religious adherents
from harassing Atheists and those
of minority religions or from holding
religious rituals in the public
schools. The First Amendment is
simply ignored - because it can be.
Teachers, principals and school
boards cannot be relied upon to protect all students' rights, because
they are all too often the cause of
the problem. Therefore, we think
the following needs to be done.
Just as there are laws, with penalties for sexual harassment, so too we
need laws to protect Atheists from
the constant unwanted harassment
and threats of violence from religious adherents.

~~~~~~~~~~"

Come with me into the hearing

room and follow along as I present
my brief speech on the issue of the
need for civil recognition of Atheist
rights, and then witness some of the
question-and-answer session that
followed the testimonies given by
my panel. We were each allowed to
make a five-minute presentation
prior to the question-and-answer
session.

My Opening Statement
As President
of American
Atheists, I would like briefly to tell
you about some of the concerns we
have as an organization about certain kinds of religious expression in
our public schools.
My organization receives a troubling amount of reports from people
all across the country who are having their rights to freedom of conscience and privacy violated by religious students and school officials.
Too many Atheist students, as well
as students of minority religions,
are in a battle to defend their right
to be free from religion in the public
schools. Let me give you a few examples.
Since 1993, Cori Bazydlo, an
Atheist student from Collins, New
York, has been the target of religious abuse because of her Atheism ..
She joined the school chorus but has
refused to participate in the singing
of the majority of the songs - which
are hymns of praise to the Christian
savior - because it violates her right
to freedom of conscience. She was
told by fellow students that she was
Page 28

missed for leading her sixth-grade

students in prayer and Pentecostal
witnessing, saying, "God sent Jesus,
our Savior, to die for us," and that
"he came to save all the human
race:"
In the Aledo, Texas, Elementary
School, one of the second-grade
teachers was forcing her students to
pray by putting their hands together and showing them how to do it.
The grandfather of an Atheist student in the class had to intervene to
stop it.
In DeKalb County, Alabama,
the situation was so bad - involving
unconstitutional student religious
expression over the school public
address system, in class rooms and
at athletic events - that courtappointed monitors and video cameras had to be installed in the
schools because Christian school administrators would not obey the
laws of the land.
Commissioners, this is all part
of the dirty little secret in our
schools today, and these examples
only skim the surface of the amount
and types of reports that we receive.
Regarding the Equal Access Act,
while it is well-intentioned, it does
not adequately protect either free
speech or the rights of non-religious
students.
The existing remedy,
which is to terminate all student
clubs if some groups are not allowed
by the school, denies the free-speech
rights of all the students and is a
poor solution. In Utah, the Equal
Access Act was supported until a
gay-straight alliance support group
Autumn 1998

American Atheist

Putting Atheist and Jewish children's hands

together and pushing their heads down for Christian
prayer is as much meant to demean and humiliate
them as is the unwanted fondling of a woman's body
meant to demean and humiliate her.
The United States Commission on Civil Rights
needs to include the category of Atheism, as distinct
from religion, in the Federal Civil Rights Act. It's hard
to believe that our government has not yet seen fit to
recognize that Atheists have civil rights too.
Additionally, the Federal Equal Access Act needs to be
strengthened with penalties for non-compliance,
instead of just denying all students the right to form
clubs. We suggest that these changes are necessary for
that part of our population which does not know how to
behave appropriately - to bring them into compliance
with the laws that apply to everyone else.
The Questions and Discussion
(This is taken directly from a recording I made of
the hearing. I will edit for brevity. Space constraints do
not permit me to recount all the dialogue between the
commissioners and my fellow panelists.)
Commissioner Berry: Commissioners do you have
any questions that you would like to ask the panelists?
Commissioner Reynoso: I do. Ms. Johnson do you
find in the reports that come to you that most of these
incidents are idiosyncratic to the teachers, or to the
schools, or do you find that it is school-wide, countywide, or state-wide? How do you analyze the types of
complaints that your organization gets?
Ellen Johnson: It's a variety. For instance if you were
holding these hearings in the south in Alabama or in
Tennessee you would find that it is system-wide. In the
example of Cori Bazydlo it is the school system. She
can't get help from anyone. They simply ignore her and
before you know it, the school year has ended. The
Bazydlos are people who are living on one salary. They
can't afford to go through a legal procedure to help
Corio
In Aledo, Texas, before I came here yesterday, I got
that example that I read in my opening remarks and it
was just the teacher who was telling the secondgraders to put their hands together to pray. It was just
the teacher. And the principal was very helpful in stopping it.! But it certainly is pervasive.
Commissioner Reynoso; And is it just your observation that sometimes public rituals in public schools
that have or may have an intimidating effect on folks
who share your beliefs? And on the other hand, we
heard the stories about the new effort at accommodation which perhaps accommodates those students who
want to have a public ritual. How do you think, from a
1 Dick

Hogan, our Texas state director and grandfather of the child,

reports that the teacher is ignoring the principal and continuing to
make the children pray.

Austin,Texas

Give me your tired. your poor. the wretched

refuse

of your teeming shore - provided they have

been baptized in the name of
The Father.

Autumn 1998

and of The Son, and of The Holy Ghost.

Page 29

civil rights point of view, we ought

to comeout on that in terms ofmaking recommendations? That seems
to me a little bit of an insoluble issue
here.
Ellen Johnson: The problem that I
see is that it is less acceptable to
accommodate an Atheist in our society today than it is to accommodate
a religious person. To religious people, we tend to say, "Oh yes, of
course, whatever you say. We're
so sorry, what can we do to help'
you?" But not to Atheists. We're
not accepted in our society. It is
very hard for children of Atheist
parents to say something, and it
is very hard for Atheist parents.
You have to identify yourself as
an Atheist to the school board.
Your children's friends will find out,
not that we are ashamed to be
Atheists, but we get treated the way
homosexuals get treated today very badly. And so, oftentimes people don't complain and the problems
occur.
Commissioner Reynoso: The definition that you use of an Atheist is
simply a person who doesn't believe
in a god?
Ellen Johnson: Generally, yes.
[This was followed by a confusing
discussion about Christian teachers
who are forced to join a teachers
union and object to how the union
uses their money.]
Commissioner Berry: When you
were talking Ms. Johnson it seems
that in your testimoriy that you
thought that school administrators,
teachers, the system were not sympathetic to the needs of Atheist children There were a number of problems. Is that correct?
Ellen Johnson: Yes, that's correct.'
Commissioner Berry: How does'
that accord with the views of those
who believe that school administrators and teachers are unsympathetic to those who have religious views
and who are therefore making rules
and policies and are going about trying to prevent children from expressing religion? Jfyou heard those
arguments you would think well
gee... !:garbled].

Ellen Johnson: It's a very valid

point. And that's what was running
through my mind sitting here. I am
very happy that I am here to tell you
that there is another side of the
story. And I have been involved in
that discussion for many years.
With all due respect to the people
who have testified, it is incumbent
upon you to carefully analyze the
anecdotal evidence that is given to

Brokaw rather than Ralph Reed?

Ellen Johnson: No, you should
investigate Tom Brokaw's Nightly
News report. You should call and get
both sides. Talk to the parents, talk
to the police. Tom Brokaw's reporter
talked to the police because the
story alleged that a boy was taken
away in a paddy wagon. I can read it
to you. The police and the principal
said it didn't happen. Jay Seculow
was quoted too. No, as an
Atheist I say examine everything people tell you, of course.
Commissioner George: Mr.
Vande Griend, one of the issues
we've been exploring in these
"hearingS
and briefings is the
question of the extent to which
the problems of discrimination
and abuse of religious freedom in
the schools are problems of education, and the extent to which they
are problems of animus. And of
course it is very difficult to get the
kinds of hard datathat we need, and
we don't have the resources to do all
the exploration that would be
required, as Ms. Johnson points out,
to track down all the anecdotes ourselves, But it's still very helpful to
have the impressions of people like
yourself who have major roles in so
much ofthe litigation that's gone on.
And you have noted that the educating of counsel is very important - a
missing element in all of this.
Could you comment on this question
of the extent to which the problem is
one of education - whether of school
districts themselves or their counsel
- and the extent to which it is hostility or animus to religious practice,
or faith, or belief, or for that matter
unbelief.
Douglas
Vande Griend: My
impression is that not much of it is
animus, that usually - when we get
cases - we don't litigate. I mean for
everyone that we litigate, we don't
litigate nine. And once you get past
the teacher, then the school district
superintendent or principal or whatever generally acts quite evenhandedly. We really don't often encounter
problems there. Animus is a little
bit more present when it comes to

,:..===================
As an Atheist, I say

examine everything people

II
te YOU.

Page 30

you. You must get evidence for these

examples, because often times - and
I am not speaking about anyone in
this room - the evidence that has
been given for abuses is often exaggerated. Tom Brokaw's Nightly
News program examined one of
these cases and I have the transcript from the show (holding up
transcript) and they found out that
Ralph Reed from the Christian
Coalition was disingenuous about a
story that he was telling about one
school situation. And we find that a
case involving a woman named
Brittaney Kaye Settle, while it was
solved many years ago, the
Christian Coalition is still talking
about Brittaney Kaye Settle. That
was an example that was distorted,
but the other side of that is that
oftentimes these stories that are
given are things that are settled
very quickly. Oftentimes these
administrators didn't know what to
do, they had a knee-jerk reaction
that you can't do this, you can't do
that, and once they told these people
that they had every right to do this
or wear this, the problems we find
are resolved. But there are exampIes where I guess, and I am not
familiar with them, where maybe
there are egregious violations.
Commissioner George: Is there
any reason in principle Ms. Johnson, why we should believe Tom
Autumn 1998

American Atheist

teachers. Not often too much animus, just they have a strongly held
perspective. They haven't looked at
it from other perspectives, and I
would probably agree with Ms.
Johnson. I could easily see where
you get to certain parts ofthis country where Christianity is culturalized - say in the south - you would
have Christians doing things where
I would oppose that. There is almost
the flip side of that in the pacific
northwest. There is an unchurched
area. There is an area where
Christianity is not culturalized. It's
out here. And when - I'm originally
from the Midwest - and when I
moved out here I assumed when I
started doing this that I would get
antagonistic responses from the
schools. And I'll be real honest, I
didn't. What I encountered was they
didn't know. I expected the animus.
That was real interesting to me,
because I had expected the other
way...
Commissioner
George: Let me
ask you to comment on the views...
on a proposal... on an issue of
Constitutional law. A number of
commentators,
Richard
John
Neuhaus [unclear) and many others
[not clear) ... the two religion clauses
could be in conflict with each other.
Although it has traditionally been
interpreted that way ... [unclear) the
free-exercise clause is trumped by
the establishment clause. However
there is only one religious clause one religion clause - with a single

purpose that is served by both

dimensions, and that is protection of
religious freedom. That non-establishment is a means to the end, the
end being the protection of religious
freedom. Now those making this
argument say that its upshot, practically in places like the schools, is
that we should have the maximum
accommodation of religious exercise
to the point at which accommodation facilitates denial of religious
freedom to others - so that there
should be no independent content to
establishment considerations ignoring the protection of free exercise.
Now some people claim they detect
the Supreme Court moving in this
direction [unclear). But in any
event, whether the court is moving
in that direction or not, do you think
there is any merit in that way of
looking at the constitutional problem as it is presented to the schools?
Douglas Vande Griend: I do.
That's how I do think of it. You have
to express things in legal terms that
are acceptable, because that's what
the court ...
Commissioner George: But as a
comprehensive way of looking at it?
Douglas
VandeGriend:
That's
exactly how I look at it. Like I
always notice that you'll have some
folk, and I had this in an Oregon
appellate court, once, where they
said "Wellfreedom from religion has
to be as equal a right as freedom of
religion," and I thought that was
nonsense, because that is sort of a

matter-antimatter .: One's got to

weigh. I think that you look at it in
terms of "everyone has a religious
perspective," and I tend to look at
religious. .. I mean,' I think that
Atheists have a "religious" perspective. I define religion functionally. It
is your set of pre-rational assumptions through which you look at
everything and decide what's true,
false, meaningful, right, wrong. It is
the core. It is sort of like the conscientious objector cases where
William Douglas ... where I thought
an excellent opinion, where even
these conscientious objectors didn't
come 'from a traditional religion.
They had these core beliefs the
essence of... [both are talking over
one another) I think he's wrong.
Everybody has a religious perspective. You know we call things Scotch
Tape, but they're really transparent
tape. We Xerox things, but it's really a photocopy. And I think when we
say religion it goes back... to say
Mormon we get into the name-brand
thing ...
Commissioner
George: I think
Ms. Johnson's got a shot at this.
Atheism is in fact not a religion?
Ellen Johnson: Atheism is not a
religion Commissioner.
Commissioner George: Is it religion functionally even if it's not a
religion dogmatically? Is it religion
functionally as Mr. Vande Griend
would go?
Ellen Johnson: Atheism is not ....
We do not have belief systems. We

The First Amendment Right of Freedom From Religion

ncreasingly, the judicial tradition that finds a guarantee of freedom
IAmendment
is under assault by Christian revisionist historians and

religion as well as a freedom of religion in the First

apologists. Unfortunately, not even the justices who
founded this tradition have appealed to the simple language of the First Amendment itself to justify this now-beleaguered freedom.
The Establishment Clause of that amendment says plainly and clearly, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion."Grammarians,
take note! The word religion is not modified or qualified in any way. There is no indefinite
article. It does not say "0 religion." It is not just prohibiting the establishment of a particular religion: it is forbidding the elevation of religion over non-religion. It bars the elevation of religion pure and simple. Had the authors intended - as Christian
revisionists claim - only to prevent the establishment of Anglicanism, say, they would have had to use more narrow language.
The Establishment Clause would end with "an establishment of 0 religion." Instead, the broadest possible language was used,
language that clearly prevents governmental preference of religion over non-religion.
By denying religion the trump, has not the Constitution granted non-religion a freedom? A freedom from religion?
from

Austin,Texas

Autumn 1998

Page 31

do not rely on faith. .We do not

accept that there are miracles, heavens, hells, devils, etc. or a supreme
being or supernatural existence or
invisible beings and things like that.
... Weare simply people who live
without a reference to a supreme
being. I really object to being
defined by religious people as to who
I am.
.
Commissioner George: Well you
can't be a believer in god and be an
Atheist?

concept of freedom from religion

rather than ... Just so I understand,
is there anything in your concept of
freedom from religion beyond religious freedom? It would be the case
that if such content ... if there was a
right, for example, not to be subjected to proselytism. Do you believe
that there is a right not to be subjected to proselytism?
Ellen Johnson: Legally, I don't
think that we have that right yet. I
think that we should be included as

Ellen Johnson: On the basis of my

Atheist philosophy, is that what
you're saying?
Commissioner George: No, I want
to know what the content of the protection is. You have the right to
believe or not believe anything you
want. Everybody's got that right,
that's included in the concept of
freedom of religion. Now it's not, you
need more there to protect you. I
want to know what the more is. I
can understand what it is. Is it the

"To say that Atheism is a form of religion is like

saying that health is a type of disease. II
-Madalyn Murray O'Hair
Ellen Johnson: Correct. Correct.
Commissioner George: Now there
is content to the view. There are
some things that are excluded. If
somebody wants to join your organization and they are a believer they
don't belong there.
Ellen Johnson: That's right.
Commissioner George: So in that
way it's like a church. That's true of
religions.
Ellen Johnson: Well, if you want to
split hairs, Commissioner; but it
doesn't make us a religion.
Commissioner George: Let me
ask you this. You've advocated a
position of freedom from religion.
Let me ask you ifthere's any content
to the perception of freedom from
religion that is not simply religious
freedom? Is there any content to it?
There would be content to it if it
included not simply the freedom not
to believe but the freedom not to be
subjected to religious speech by others.
Ellen Johnson: Freedom from religion benefits everyone. Religious
people as well as non-religious people. This gentleman here cannot be
free to practice his religion ifhe cannot be free from the imposition of
others' religions upon him.
Commissioner George: I am trying
to understand the meaning of your
Page 32

a category of people who have civil

rights in this country. I think that
would go a long way in protecting
our desire not to be proselytized
Commissioner George: But you
have freedom of religion like everybody else has right?
Ellen Johnson: But we're not religious.
Commissioner George: Okay so
you want the laws to be changed to
have something else that's not there
in the law now. What is the content
of that something else? Is it the freedom not to be proselytized?
Ellen Johnson: Yes, but first you
have to be a group of citizens that is
recognized as having civil rights by
virtue of the fact that you are an
Atheist. That being an Atheist
means, just like being a religious
person, or being a person of a specific gender, that you have certain
rights.
Commissioner George: You cannot discriminate
on the basis
of
. Now fill in what
you want the law to say.
Elien Johnson: Atheism
Commissioner George: Now we're
going to have Catholicism, uh
.
Ellen Johnson: You have "religion."
Commissioner George: Now give
me the content.
Autumn 1998

right not to have my door knocked

on?
Ellen Johnson: I am asking for the
right not to be harassed. It is the
same as sexual harassment, Commissioner, where someone is trying
to humiliate and demean you and to
hurt you. If you can envision what
sexual harassment is, you can envision what religious harassment is to
Atheist children and adults in the
workplace.
Commissioner George: So if there
is a Catholic or a Lutheran or a Jew
who has some right against being
harassed that you don't have under
current law?
Ellen Johnson: That's right. In
Wyckoff, New Jersey, a few years
ago, the town officials erected a
creche and a menorah and tried to
justify both by calling it a "public
forum." I said okay, I'd like to erect
a Winter Solstice display because I
am an Atheist. They tried everything to stop me but couldn't legally
if they were going to stick by their
"public forum" argument. The sign
was erected but it was stolen. In
order for me to file a "bias crime"
report, I had to do so by claiming
that my rights as a "religious" person were violated even though I am
an Atheist - even though it was only
a religious person who would have
American Atheist

committed the crime; There was no

category of protection for Atheists. I
could only be protected if I lied and
said I was religious, which was no
protection for me.
Commissioner George: You had
to say you weren't an Atheist.
Ellen Johnson: That's right
Commissioner George: Your right
to believe or not believe ...
Ellen Johnson: But you have to be
religious to take that. You have to
identify yourself as' a religious person to take that.
And the other thing that I wanted to say about religious exercises in
the schools is that there are 350,000
churches, mosques and. temples and
houses of worship in America. There
are more churches than schools in
most of the communities in America. Why there is this great cry to
have religious services in the public
schools when there is only so much
time for academic studies is troubling. I don't know what is so special
about the hours between nine to
three.
Commissioner Berry: Let's let
Commissioner Horner ask a few
questions because I know you have
to leave.
Commissioner Horner: As I listen
to you talk about the student who
was, the Atheist who was distressed
at the preponderance of music that
was at the school concert that was
Christian or had religious language
to it, this is a subject we can talk a
long time on so I'll just make a very
quick question. Would it be your
ideal outcome that there would be
no religious content to the music
performed in the schools, or are you
seeking some kind of balance
between religion and non-religion?
Ellen Johnson: The majority of
songs, in this case, were 'religious
hymns of praise to Jesus. That was
troublesome for the student. There
was also a Jewish boy, Jeremy
Kraut in Long Island, and there was
of course Rachel Bauchman in Utah.
There are lot's of these cases it
seems.s In the first case, the student
wanted an alternative and there
Austin, Texas

was none. It was a graded class. The

school would riot accommodate her ...
Commissioner Horner: We have
had 2,000 years of musical and
artistic ... and our cultural and literary traditions based on Christianity
and Christian ideas and so on. And
I .guess the thing that concerns me
about your point of view is that if we
relinquish or diminish the amount
of religious or cultural arts, you are
destroying the cultural artifacts of
our civilization. Some people would
like to do that and start over with
something else and they.have tried
several times in this century with a
great blood bath. I don't want to see
that happen. I am concerned that
what you're looking for, what might
be fair-minded on the surface, might
also destroy civilization that pro-

"
Oh no. We'll eliminate
all religious songs before
we'll allow another religion's
songs to be sung.

=================-, ,

tects other religious groups.

Ellen Johnson: You can address
that by asking, "Would you allow
other religions' songs to be sung?"
All too often the answer is, "Oh no.
We'll eliminate all religious songs
before we'll allow another religion's
songs to be sung." Oftentimes when
you ask for equal access you will see
there isn't equality as far as school
boards ...
Commissioner Horner: If you are
looking for the highest quality
music experience in our civilization,
there aren't too many non-religious
pieces of music ... If you're looking
for the highest quality you are going
to get a preponderance of music that
is religiously infused music.
Ellen Johnson: There are plenty of
non-religious holiday songs, and I
don't think that is the basis for the
choosing of the songs. I think those
songs are chosen because it's
Christmas music for Christians.
2Mr. Vander Wel stated that these instances
were rare.

Autumn 1998

You don't hear Jewish songs. Again,

if you ask for equal time for an
Atheist to sing a Solstice song you
are not going to get it.
But I think that also the fact
that with Cori, when she opted out,
she was identified and isolated
because she was an Atheist. Against
the Supreme Court's dictates.f she
was "required to profess or not profess a belief in a Supreme Being."
She was made to do it. That is a
problem for Atheist children. Once
you don't pray or get involved in
something you identify yourself.
Commissioner
Horner: Aren't
Atheists taught, as a young Christian is taught, to be staunch in the
faith and make a public declaration
of their faith and education of others
with respect to their position?
Ellen Johnson: But they are often
harassed because the Atheist position is not the same as a religious
position. It is still not acceptable.
They are going to be hurt, and there
are going to be problems just as with
the gay children if they are outed.
And I am asking the Commission,
please help our children. Cori's
brother has stomach aches. He has
stress. He has anxiety. He is in the
same school as Corio Please help.
Help our children, Commissioners.
Let's accommodate everybody, but
don't forget that there are people
who are Atheists, and Atheists are
treated like homosexuals in our
society. Let's not have them be beaten-up and harassed and abused.
How can we protect them too?
Commissioner Berry: I want to
thank you and I want to thank our
panel because our time is up.

3 Everson v. Board of Education of Ewing

Twp. 1747. Mr. Justice Black in the majority
opinion ....The "establishment
of religion"
clause of the First Amendment means at
least this: Neither a state nor the Federal
Government can set up a church. Neither can
pass laws which aid one religion, aid all religions, or prefer one religion over another.
Neither can force nor influence a person to go
to or to remain away from church against his
will or force him to profess a belief or disbelief in any religion .....

Page 33

TOUCHED BY ff FEELING
ffND HIGH ON BELIEVING
By Kevin Courcey, RN

he woman lying in the bed is in

pain. She is just back from
major abdominal surgery, and
her nurse is working to make her
more comfortable. Just then, another staff member comes in the room
and announces that she will use
Therapeutic Touch to relieve the
patient's pain. She waits a moment,
then begins moving her hands in the
air above the patient's body. She
makes numerous passes over the
patient, and the patient finally
reports that she is feeling more comfortable.
Distracted by the dramatic,
sweeping gestures going on over her
body, the patient did not notice that
her nurse had just increased the
rate of her i.v. pain medication; she
assumes the arm waving staffmember must be responsible for the
relief she now feels. And another
believer in the power of Therapeutic
Touch has just been created.
This scenario is happening now
in a hospital near you. Over 100,000
people have been taught Therapeutic Touch (TT) in the past 20
years, including nearly 50,000 nurses and other health care professionals. Practitioners have been aggressive in demanding respect for their
"art." They have founded TT associations, lobbied for TT insurance coverage, have established training .
centers in more than 100 colleges
and universities, and have even convinced the North American Nursing
Diagnosis Association to include
"Energy Field Disturbance" as an
official nursing diagnosis, for which
TT is the primary intervention."
Page 34

What scientific principles underlie this practice? Does it really

work? Why has TT received such
overwhelming official support from
professional nursing organizations?
.What is it?
Therapeutic Touch was developed in the early 1970s as a system
of healing by Delores Krieger, RN, a
professor of nursing. Krieger and cofounder Dora Kunz have stated that
the human body is kept alive and
vital by a force called prana (a
Sanskrit term meaning "vital force")
and that this energy flows around
and through the body, channeled by
the chakras, a series of non-physical
energy centers in the body. While
the original protocol was based on
actual physical touch.s subsequent
"research" showed that similar
results could be obtained without
physical touch.f Current practice is
based on the assumption that the
physical body is surrounded by an
energy field which can be detected,
assessed, and manipulated by a
trained practitioner. An imbalance
in this "energy field" results in illness or pain, which can fortunately
be treated by the TT practitioner.s- 5
Imbalances are "felt" using the
hands, and are described variously
as a sensation of tingling, pressure,
pulling, temperature
variations,
energy "spikes," etc.
A TT session begins with the
practitioner centering. This initial
step is considered to be similar to a
brief period of meditation, where the
Therapeutic
Touch Practitioner
(TTP) focuses "internally" and conAutumn 1998

centrates on the intent to heal. The

second phase is assessment, where
TTPs sweep their hands 2-4 inches
over the patient's entire body in an
attempt to detect energy imbalances
in the patient's Human Energy
Field (HEF). The third phase is
called unruffling. During this phase
the TTP uses circular sweeping
motions to decongest accumulated
energy, and either redistribute it to
areas of lower energy, or rid the
HEF of the excess energy by sweeping it down the body and off at the
feet, shaking the excess off the
hands (a motion similar to shaking
water off the fingers) at the foot of
the bed or table. If an area seems
particularly imbalanced, the TTP
uses a technique called modulation
in an attempt to correct the problem. Some TTPs view this step as
channeling a healing, universal
energy that flows through them to
their patient. And others believe
they are simply redirecting the
patient's own energies. Others feel
they are transferring their own subtle energy to the patient.
Testimonials abound for this
practice, and TTPs eagerly discuss
anecdotal evidence supporting the
efficacy of their treatment. Published TT literature already claims
remarkable success. Indeed its promoters describe it as virtually a universal .cure; from the mundane
"comforting the dying" and "increased relaxation," to the highly
speculative "remedies thyroid imbalances," "breaks fevers," "relieves
acute pain," and even ''brings some
dead back to life."6
American Atheist

The Roots of
Therapeutic Touch
"They shall lay hands on the sick,
and they shall recover." - Mark
16:18
Even though Krieger had published . her .views previously in
Human Dimensions
(1972) and
Psychoenergetic Systems (1974), it
was the article in the American
Journal of Nursing (AJN) that catapulted her to fame and fortune.
While some Christians saw biblical
roots to Krieger's approach, and considered her study's publication in
the American Journal of Nursing
official permission to. bring their
religious faith openly into patient
care, others recognized and embraced the practice's Eastern mystical roots. The concept of prana is
taken from Hinduism, and Krieger
admitted that prana was "at the
base of the human energy transfer
in the healing act."?
Skeptics remarked on similarities to the teachings of Anton
Mesmer, the 18th century hypnotist
and theorizer of "animal magnetism." Mesmer believed that a "subtle magnetic fluid" exists in the body
and needs to be controlled or
expelled in order for healing to
occur. He and his followers believed
that obstacles to the free flow of this
fluid caused illness, and that skilled
healers or "sensitives" could remove
these obstructions by making passes
over the patient's body with their
hands. Dora Kunz, TT's co-founder
and President of the religious
Theosophical Society of America,
claimed to be just such a "fifth-generation sensitive."
Of course, some professional
nurses did object to Krieger's article.
In a letter to the editor in' a subsequent issue of the AJN, nursing
instructors from the University of
Washington noted numerous flaws
in Krieger's study. They complained
that Krieger gave no indication of
how patients were assigned to her
groups, and they wondered why
there was such an uneven distribution of patients in the therapy group
Austin, Texas

(19) and the control group (9), and

whether other treatments or .conditions might have influenced the
results, such as medication use,
dietary changes, menstrual cycles,
transfusions, etc. They criticized
AJN for publishing such a study
without a critique, charging the
article was dangerously misleading,
and reminded readers that the energy field Krieger was postulating had
never been shown to exist.f
Noting that much of the critical
response to her studies centered
around the vaguely religious concept of prana, Krieger switched to a
seemingly more scientific concept
pioneered by nursing
theorist
Martha Rogers - that of the Human
Energy Field. Rogers postulated
that humans not only have an energy field, but that they are an energy
field, and that this energy field is
constantly interacting with the
energy of its environment. From
this she derived theories about the
non-linearity of time, how clairvoyance and telepathy occur, and how
physical contact is unnecessary" for
the transfer of energies. This led to
a doctoral dissertation by Janet
Quinn in 1982, which "proved" that
therapeutic touch need not .use
physical contact in order to produce
results.f The non-touch version has
been the standard ever since.
Individuals in high places
Some explanations for the phenomenal growth of TT have been
less than favorable. Dr. William
Jarvis, president of the National
Council Against Health Fraud, stated: "1 see therapeutic touch as a
form of faith healing that has captured the imagination of a few nurses who happen to be in pretty powerful positions of influence within
the nursing profession."?
Jarvis has a point. The fact that
respected nursing professors and
nursing journals were endorsing TT
gave it an instant legitimacy it did
not deserve. Krieger was a Professor
Emeritus at New York University's
Division of Nursing. Martha Rogers
was a well respected nursing theoAutumn 1998

rist and Dean of Nursing at NYU.

Janet Quinn, who studied at NYU,
would go on to become Associate
Professor of Nursing at the University of Colorado. Jean Watson, Distinguished Professor of Nursing at
Colorado, also a supporter of TT,
would go on to head the National
League for Nursing, the board that
accredits nursing schools.
Many feel the psychological climate was also conducive to the
spread of TT. Nurses, primarily
women, have long felt under-appreciated in the medical profession - a
profession whose focus of attention
and a:doration is riveted on the
(mostly male) MDs. TT gave nurses
a way to feel they were participating
more directly in the "healing" of the
patient, rather than just passively
carrying out doctors' orders. The
nurse now has secret mystical powers which the doctors do not possess.
They are now the shamans, the
healers. Carla Selby, a member of
the Rocky Mountain Skeptics who
would later challenge the University
of Colorado's Healing Touch program, observed, "I'm all for nurses
getting out from under the thumbs
of doctors. But this is exactly the
wrong thing to do." 9
Follow the money
Unfortunately, TT has meant
big money for some, making it difficult to challenge. Over 100,000 people have been trained in : TT.
Considering that the cost of a basic
TT certification training is frequently in the $250-300 range, this
amounts to a multimillion-dollar
industry. According to the official
"Energy Field Disturbance" nursing
diagnosis, one should only perform
TT if one has had a minimum of 12
hours of instruction and been certified. The protocol goes on to note
that TT trainees should be supervised by a nurse who has a master's
degree in nursing and has had 30
hours of instruction in TT theory,
and 30 hours of supervised TT practice.l? Bills for such advanced training can cost thousands of dollars.
With these criteria officially in
Page 35

place, the TT training. mill should

remain profitable for a long time.
In Colorado, a local. skeptics
group challenged the University of
Colorado to justify its nursing program's Healing Touch (HT) training. Despite clearly negative findings (the report stated that "To date,
there is not a sufficient body of data,
both in quality and quantity, to
establish TT as a unique and efficacious healing modality") the review
board voted to allow the school of
nursing to continue its Healing
Touch focus. The report itself gives
us a clue as to the justification for
this decision: "TT is potentially a
source of considerable income.
Training in TT is not complex and
arduous and the practice of TT does
not require a large investment in
equipment or personnel."ll Indeed,
Quinn's Healing Touch training
brings in a substantial amount of
money for the nursing school. A set
of three HT video tapes featuring
Quinn sells for $675. Healing Touch
classes cost $225 each for the first
three levels, and then $325 each for
the next two levels.P
But training is not the only cash
cow associated with TT. Recently,
over half a million dollars of public
tax money has been spent on
Therapeutic Touch research. The
National Institutes of Health has
given $150,000 in grants, the
Department of Health and Human
Services granted $200,000, and
most recently the Department of
Defense granted $355,000 to the
University of Alabama at Birmingham - all for studies of TT. The
study at UAB; to be conducted on
bum patients, was billed as being
the study which would finally settle
the question as to the effectiveness
ofTT.
The Critics Grow Louder
"One unerring mark of the love of
truth is not entertaining any proposition with greater assurance than
the proofs it is built upon will warrant."
-John Locke, 1690
Page 36

A growing chorus of dissent has,

in the past four to five years, fmally
found its voice. In November 1994,
TIME magazine featured an article
which articulated the concerns of
the skeptics. The author of the article scoffed at the research that had
been done on TT, noting that, "As
proof of TT's efficacy, they cite 'scientific' reports in such obscure journals as Subtle Energies and Psychoenergetic Systems, as well as stories
in popular
magazines."
Vern
Bullough, a retired professor of
nursing at the State University of
New York was quoted as saying,
"None of the research demonstrated
that there's any effect, and many of
the conclusions are subjective."13
It was also in 1994 that Linda
Rosa, RN, Chair of the Questionable
Nursing Practices Taskforce of the
National Council Against Health
Fraud, compiled a thorough review
of the TT literature. Presented in
her lBO-page Survey of Therapeutic
Touch "Research," the report presents virtually every study done on
TT along with analyses of the
results and the methodological
flaws in the studies.
.
In the report we learn, for example, that when the original "healing"
studies were done on plants, there
were no controls for heat from the
healer's hands which naturally
increased enzyme production in the
plants, and caused them to grow
faster. When appropriate controls
were instituted, the healer's effect
vanished. Krieger's early research
studied a healer's powers applied to
people, and for some rather obtuse
reason she decided to measure the
subject's hemoglobin levels before
and after TT. She claimed to find
increased hemoglobin following TT.
Practitioners still excitedly talk
about these studies as if they were a
scientific breakthrough. But even
TT researcher (and former Krieger
student) Terese C. Meehan later
admitted that "Methodologicalproblems preclude scientific support for
an increase in hemoglobin values.
Subsequent studies have found no
significant relationship between TT
Autumn 1998

and increased hemoglobin values or

transcutaneous oxygen blood gas
pressure."14
Perhaps the most cited of the TT
studies is one done by Wirth in
1990. Wirth inflicted volunteers
with a full-thickness dermal wound
(upper arm area) and then applied
TT to half the group and no intervention to the other half. The interventions were done behind a screen
so the subjects would not be able to
tell which group they were in. The
results were remarkable for TT. By
day 16, all of the wounds treated
with TT had completely healed,
while none of the control group's
wounds had.
This study provided TT proponents with the data they needed to
claim near miraculous healing
power for TT. But true science is
not built on one study, and Wirth
continued what would be a series of
five trials on this experiment. After
the fifth attempt to replicate his
original results, Wirth noted:
"The results of the experiments
indicated significance for the treatment group in the initial 2 studies
in the series, and non- and reversesignificant results for the control
group in the remaining 3 experiments ... Although the 5 studies represent a seminal research effort
within the field of complementary
healing, the overall results of the
series are inconclusive in establishing the efficacy of the treatment
interventions examined. "15

Proponents of TT often only

quote the first study, which seemed
quite promising. Critics have noted
that in that first study, subjects in
the treatment group were wounded
and treated on a different day than
the control group, introducing the
possibility of non-uniform wound
depth between the groups.
When another pro- TT article
appeared in the AJN in April 1995,
claiming supportive evidence from a
recent study, the author of the study
wrote to the journal in protest. "The
effects of TT on pain are unclear and
replication
studies are needed
American Atheist

before any conclusions can be

drawn," she stated. ''There is no convincing evidence that TT promotes
relaxation and decreases anxiety
beyond a placebo effect," she continued. "Other claims about outcomes
are, in fact, speculation."16
By .1996; nurses began calling
the bluff of practitioners of TT.
Reading one glowing article after
another on TT in their professional
journals, one group of Emergency
and Operating Room nurses in
Philadelphia invited a TTP into
their ER for a demonstration. The
practitioner, who had studied with
Dolores Krieger, explained how she
could feel a person's energy through
clothes, a chair, or even a cast. She
stated she could tell the difference
between the energy of animate vs.
inanimate objects, or between a
child and an adult.
The nurses then suggested a
demonstration of this claimed ability. They would have the healer
assess the energy patterns of several individuals, including an elderly
man with heart disease and two
healthy girls. From these, she would
pick the individual she felt most
sure of being able to identify. The
nurses would then cover up one of
the test subjects with blankets, and
the healer would have to identify
whether it was the subject she had
chosen. She declined. She did recommend that they all take her introductory course ($125) so they could
learn to do it themselves. They
declined. I?
The VAB Burn Study
Crashes and Burns
The Department
of Defense
grant of $355,000 to the University
of Alabama at Birmingham for the
study of TT on burn patients was to
be "the first real scientific evidence
there is for Therapeutic Touch,"
according to the primary researcher
Joan Turner. Aside from illustrating
a potentially problematic researcher
bias, this is an accurate assessment
of the TT research to date. Despite
over 20 years of research, this would
have been the first real evidence.
Austin, Texas

The study was designed to show the

effectiveness of TT on pain relief
and the prevention of infections for
hospitalized burn patients, with the
secondary goal of arriving at a working TT protocol for use in the army ..
The study tested TT against mock
TT in which nurses mimicked the
movements of "real" TT.
The results, as usual, were
mixed. When using one pain measurement scale, the TT group
seemed to have less pain; however
another scale showed no statistical
difference between the groups.
Turner reported that when pain was

But the truly astounding aspect

of this study is that it was approved
at all. One would assume that the
Department of Defense has actual
scientists working for them who
would have reviewed the literature
prior to approving this study. If they
had, they would have found Janet
Quinn's 1989 study, which attempted to prove that TT was not merely
a placebo or relaxation effect caused
by the relationship of focused attention between the client and the TTP,
but an actual physical energy transfer process, independent of the more
superficial aspects of the interac-

"

The infection rate, one of the most serious

problems of burn treatment was found to be
three times higher in the TTgroup than in the
mock TTgroup. Oddly, this fact was left out of
the final official report.
"
measured on day three, subjects in
the TT group showed a slightly better outcome. Contrary to this assertion, and possibly a better indicator
of relative pain relief, the TT group
actually used slightly more pain
medication than the sham control
group. And the infection rate, one of
the most serious problems of burn
treatment, was found to be three
times higher in the TT group than in
the mock TT group. Oddly, this fact
was left out of the final official
report.
This was a dismal failure for the
TT proponents. On most measures,
no significant differences were
found between the group receiving
"real" TT and the group receiving
"mock" TT. In the researcher's own
words:
"The greatest lesson learned from
this process is that the inclusion of
a true control group in addition to a
sham and treatment
group is
required because a strong placebo
effect occurs from the special attention given to patients in the 'sham'
treatment." 18 [emphasis mine]
Autumn 1998

tion. To prove this, Quinn eliminated eye contact with the patients
given TT. In her own tersely worded
conclusion, Quinn states
"The theorem that eye and facial
contact between TT practitioners
and subjects should not be necessary to produce the effect of anxiety
reduction was deduced from the
Rogerian conceptual system and
tested: This theorem was not supported."19
If TT alone wouldn't even work
with simple anxiety, how could DOD
scientists have thought this would
work on the severe intractable pain
of burn patients?
Hadn't they
reviewed Wirth's studies on dermal
regeneration, noting that TT had
shown positive results in only two of
the five trials, and in others the control group actually did better than
the TT group? Was this really an
appropriate use of tax dollars?
The Final Straw
It was also in 1996 that Linda
Rosa's daughter, Emily, was preparing her fourth grade science fair
Page 37

entry. She was working on an exhibit with M&Ms that would illustrate
the probability of picking out a certain color when one reached blindly
into a bowl and plucked one. While
she was working out the details, she
noticed her mom watching a video
on Therapeutic Touch. Emily said,
"I wonder ifthey can really do that?"
Suddenly her science fair project
took a different form. After discussing several different possibilities with her mom, Emily decided
that instead of having volunteers
reach in and grab an M&M, she
would invite Therapeutic Touch
"healers" to reach through her
screen and see if they could detect
which of their hands Emily was
holding her hand over. She designed
and constructed the screen herself,
tested it out on a few school buddies,
and then made further modifications to ensure the screen would
insulate her from her subjects. She
was ready.
James Randi, the famous magician and skeptic, has a standing
offer of over ten thousand dollars to
anyone who can reliably detect an
energy field. Despite publicly offering the challenge to Delores Krieger
and the other 100,000 people who
claim to have this ability, Randi has
only had one person make the
attempt - and she failed. Unlike
Randi, however, Emily was able to
recruit 21 experienced TT practitioners for her experiment!
The TTPs were allowed to "feel"
Emily's hands prior to the test, and
choose which one they felt the
strongest energy radiating from.
With the TTP seated behind the
screen, Emily then placed her hand
over one of the TTP's hands. After
20 trials, these experienced TTPs some of whom had even published
articles on TT - could only sense
Emily's hand correctly 44% of the
time. By chance alone, they should
have guessed correctly 50% of the
time. Clearly, they were not sensing
any energy field except in their
minds.

The results of this study were

published this year in the prestigious Journal of the American
Medical Association (JAMA). Anticipating criticism about the author's
age, JAMA editor George Lundberg
stated for the record: "Age doesn't
matter. All we care about is good science. This was good science." With
that, Emily became the youngest
author to be published in the journal.
The Response from TT
Practitioners
"I do hope it's an April fool's
joke," stated Delores Krieger when
informed that the official report of
Emily Rosa's research was to be
published in JAMA on April 1st.
She attacked Emily, saying she
"completely misunderstood what the
nature of basic research is." Big talk
coming from someone who has never
been published in a peer-reviewed
journal of the stature of JAMA.
Editor George Lundberg said the

journal's statisticians thought the

study was well done. "They were
amazed by its simplicity and by the
clarity of its results," he said.2o
Janet Quinn's Healing Touch
program in Colorado had an immediate response also. Researcher
Cynthia
Poznanski
Hutchison
admitted that for the first several
years of her practice of TT touch,
she could not sense anyone's energy
field. But she kept on practicing
anyway. She attempted to justify
what would otherwise be called
medical fraud by saying that "Being
able to sense another person's energy is an aid in guiding one's treatment, but it is not an essential
ingredient."21
TT practitioner and instructor
Marilee Tolin agrees, and expands
the definition even further. Tolin
says that practitioners rely on more
than just touch to sense the human
energy field. They also use "the
sense of intuition and even a sense
of sight."20 Suddenly, the world of

Ann E. Zindlsr
Page 38

Autumn 1998

American Atheist

Therapeutic Touch has shifted

gears.
Conclusions
There is a theory that says that
the concept of a god started out as
an explanation of a wide variety of
otherwise inexplicable natural phenomena. Known as the "God of the
Gaps" theory, it posits that we use
the concept of a god almost as a
place holder to explain that which
we currently cannot explain. At one
time, for example, thunder and
lightning were thought to be the
activities of a god, but we now know
that they are the result of differing
electrical charges coming in contact
with each other. As our knowledge
increases, and we are better able to
understand the world around us,
the conceptual territory inhabited
by "god" shrinks, or shifts to another arena where we are still "in the
dark."
Therapeutic Touch practitioners
would like to keep us in the dark
when it comes to TT. They are
attempting to shift their god into a
new realm where we cannot test it.
They had been content up until now
to base their practice on the ability
to detect and manipulate
the
''human energy field." This was supposed to be a simple technique that
anyone could learn, and involved
the transfer and balancing of actual
physical energy. But then James
Randi and Emily Rosa came by and
showed us that we can test this
claim about their practice. The practitioners tested were unable to
detect that which they had formerly
claimed not only to be detecting, but
also assessing,manipulating,
and
correcting. So they are now shifting
the paradigm into an area they hope
we cannot test: the healer's intentionality, and the use of intuition as
a diagnostic tool. In their attempt to
create a non-disprovable theory of
TT, they have instead created a religion. They have used their positions
ofpower in the nursing profession to
spread their religion, and have
craftily used the political dynamics
of the late 20th century to stage
their holy war in a post-modernist
Austin, Texas

feminist arena rather than in the

verifiable arena of science. Like a
fundamentalist religion, they have
created a disdain for science and

"
Therapeutic
Touch
practitioners would like to
keep us in the dark when it
comes to TT.

===================-"

rationalism, and have betrayed the

basic tenets of nursing.
In a speech heralding the formation of Colorado's Center for Human
Caring, soon to be a hotbed of
Therapeutic Touch training, former
Dean of Nursing Jean Watson, now
the director of the center, waxed
philosophic, stating that this was
"part of the universe turning, ushering in one of the seasonal ancient
calendar revolutions ... appeasing
the gods and goddesses of the universe ... this leave-taking from the
Age of Pisces, after 2,000 years of
the Mayan calendar, takes us away
from the destruction, the violence,
the technological, industrialized
war, and power into spirit-filled cosmology... commercial and machine
entropy are being scattered to the
universe and being replaced by
guardians, angels in fact, of esthetic
mystic and spiritual unification, of
human and planetary evolution."22
Shockingly, the speaker of this
cosmic religious drivel was promptly
elected President of the National
League of Nursing.
When "healers" make claims,
when questionable treatments are
offered as reliable, we should investigate. And if the claims do not hold
up, we should make our data available to the public. This is especially
true in the medical arena.
It is estimated that over a billion dollars a year is spent on cancer
quackery alone. I don't particularly
care if Jean Watson believes the
absurd statements she made above;
but I do care that she is re-directing
the field of nursing away from sciAutumn 1998

ence, and away from reliable

research. When cancer patients are
faced with the difficult decision of
choosing chemotherapy or surgery
to treat their cancers, I worry that
they may think back to their last
hospital stay when a Watson/Quinn/
Krieger acolyte performed TT on
them, explaining that it is a noninvasive technique that has been
shown to cure a variety of ills. Might
they not then seek out a ''healer''
rather than a treatment which is
known to be effective? Might this
not prove fatal?
Carl Sagan worried that "especially as the Millennium edges nearer, pseudoscience and superstition
will seem year by year more tempting, the siren song of unreason more
sonorous and attractive."23 I agree
wholeheartedly. We must be a voice
for reason. We must shine the light
of science into the darkness of
superstition. We must expose pseudo science for the con that it is. As
Marilyn Oberst accurately noted in
an editorial on TT in Research in
Nursing
and Health,
"At the
moment we seem to have at least
one naked emperor, and I think it's
time for the reputable scientists
among [us] to say so - loudly,
repeatedly, and in public."24
At the core of Atheism is skepticism. We do not accept beliefs simply because they are widely held,
but prefer evidence and a rational
examination of the facts over blind
faith. As skeptics, we must continue
to confront the absurd on all fronts.
This is a positive aspect of Atheism
that is often overlooked. We can
occasionally get bogged down in esoteric religious criticism or debate
that seems to make very little difference to the vast majority of our
fellow citizens. But by applying our
skepticism, a little rational thinking, and the scientific method to
real-world issues, we can be models
of the positive aspects of Atheism.
We can make a difference in our
communities.

Page 39

REFERENCES
1. Rosa, Linda et al. "A Close Look at
Therapeutic Touch." Journal of the
American Medical Association, April
1, 1998 via website at http://www.
ama-assn.org/publicljournals/jama
2. Krieger,
Delores.
"Therapeutic
Touch." American
Journal
of
Nursing, May 1975.
3. Quinn, Janet. An Investigation of
the Effects of Therapeutic Touch
Done Without Physical Contact on
State Anxiety of Hospitalized Cardiovascular Patients [dissertation].
New York: New York University;
1982.
4. Krieger, D. "The relationship
of
touch, with intent to help or to heal,
to subjects' in-vivo hemoglobin values: a study in personalized interaction." In: Proceedings of the Ninth
ANA Nurses Research Conference;
1973.
5. Karagulla S., and Kunz, D. The
Chakras and the Human Energy
Field: Correlations between Medical
Science and Clairvoyant Observation.
Theosophical
Publishing
House; 1989.
6. Rosa, Linda et al. "A Close Look at
Therapeutic Touch, Table 1. Claims
made for Therapeutic
Touch."
JAMA as above.
7. Krieger, D. The Therapeutic Touch.
Prentice-Hall, 1979.
8. Various authors.
Letters section,
American
Journal
of Nursing,
August 1975
9. Jaroff, Leon. "A No-Touch Therapy."
TIME, November 21,1994.
10. Kelley, Helen and Ludwig, Gail.
-"Energy Field Disturbance."
The
Nursing Diagnosis Handbook, a
Guide to planning Care, 1995.
11. Claman, Henry N., Chair, Committee on Therapeutic Touch. University of Colorado Report on Touch
Therapy.
University of Colorado
Health Sciences Center, Department
of Medicine, 1994.
12 Healing Touch Registration form.
From the website at http://www.
healingtouch.net
13. Jaroff. As above.
14 Meehan,
M.T.C.
"Therapeutic
Touch." In: Bulechek & Mcflloskey,
eds. Nursing Interventions: Essential Nursing treatments. 1992. Pp
201-212.
15 Wirth, D.P. "Complementary healing intervention and dermal wound
re-epithelialization:
An overview."
Page 40

International
Journal of Psychosomatics, 42:48-53. 1995.
16. Meehan, Therese C. Letters, American Journal of Nursing, July 1995.
17. Glickman, Robert, and Janet Burns.
"If therapeutic touch works, prove
it!" RN Magazine, December 1996.
18. Turner, JG.
Therapeutic Touch
Study Final Progress Report. 1996.
19. Quinn, J. "Therapeutic Touch as
energy exchange: Replication and
extension" [abstract]. 1989.
20. Kolata, Gina. "Research: Her simple
test discredits a common alternative
treatment." New York Times. April
1,1998.

SNAPSHOTS

21. Poznanski
Hutchison,
Cynthia.
Official Response from Healing
Touch International
as posted on
their web site.
22. Watson, Jean. As quoted in Rosa,
Linda: "Hand to Hand Combat:
What happens when a skeptical
nurse takes on pseudo-nursing."
Skeptic, 1994.
23. Sagan, Carl. The Demon-Haunted
World: Science as a Candle in the
Dark. Ballantine. 1996.
24. Oberst, Marilyn T. "Our Naked
Emperor" (editorial).
Research in
Nursing and Health, February 1995.

bV Jason love

"':":"

.,Mom! God salesman at the door ... "

Autumn 1998

American Atheist

TheV.D.Kid
I
,.,?
.

. .,::)

.........

('w.

.---

Tony Pasquarello is an
emeritus professor of
philosophy at The Ohio State
University, Mansfield, a
professional musician, and
philatelist. Major articles by
him on the philosophy of religion have appeared in Free
Inquiry, The Skeptical Inquirer,
and American Atheist. "The
V.D. Kid" is excerpted from his
quasi-autobiographical
book
The Altar Boy Chronicles,
which is expected to be published by The Gustav Broukal
Press early next year.

Tony Pasquarello
Austin, Texas

From The Altar Boy Chronicles

"Mom,

I think I have
syphilis."
My poor
mother. That grossly
tactless announcement must have
hit her with something like the
impact of myocardial infarction. But
I thought that the moment was
right, and I'd certainly thought
about it for a long, long time. It had
been gnawing its way through the
worm-holes of my consciousness for
months, and I could think of little
else. The voice in my cranium kept
repeating - "I'm dying. I'm dying.
And besides, I'm going blind." No
doubt remained in my mind. I had
read and re-read all the dictionary
definitions, and I'd researched all
the related words to which they
referred me (See ''Venereal''). I'd
acquired quite a vocabulary in the
terminology of sexual pathology.
For sure, I had it all right, and I had
to do something or I'd expire soon in
the ignominy of a painful, shameful
affliction.
I was a sophomore or junior at
Southeast
Catholic Boys High
School. It was a sweltering Saturday afternoon in early September:
Labor Day weekend, in fact.'
Saturday was confession day. I'd
just returned from the weekly ritual
at the Epiphany Church. I'd chosen
the easiest of the Father- confessors
on duty that day - (that was perfectly allowable by the rules; everyone picked the priest with the most
congenial confessional manner) and I'd recited what had long since
become a standardized list of stock
sins appurtenant to an adolescent
male.
"I was disrespectful to my parents three times." This was a great,
great filler, and added so much subAutumn 1998

stance, as well as variety, to the list

of transgressions.
Without that
padding, the whole damned confession would have been about sex.
Naturally, it was a safe bet that
there had been at least three occasions during the week when I'd been
slow in responding to parental commands, or had "sassed" my mother,
or had refused to eat the anchovies
on the pizza. "Disrespect to parents"
was a nice open category, covering
all of these. 1 guess you could think
of it as the "bran" of the confessional, contributing much needed bulk,
and helping to flush out the other
sins.
"I had impure thoughts nine
times." This meant that I had
thought about naked girls. Of
course, 1 thought about naked girls
all the time, but there was a kind of
unwritten
code, a gentlemen's
agreement, if you will, that you did
not go past ten on any sin. After all,
what would, what could the good
father say if you confessed that
you'd had impure thoughts one-hundred and eighty-seven times last
week? He'd probably assume that
after years of perversion, some infamous sex maniac had decided to
repent and confess all. So, you did
not go beyond ten. But, you couldn't
use ten either! It was too round, too
patent, too obviously fabricated.
Suppose that from the darkness
beyond the confessional window, a
voice like that of the Grand Inquisitor were to ask - "Are you really
sure it was ten, my son?" That
would have been Trauma City!
Consequently; nine was the right
number, nice and odd, as close to
the maximum as you could get. And,
in all honesty, it was closer to the
Page 41

truth than any other permissible

digit.
"I looked at bad pictures five
times." This included not only the
few nudes in the photography magazines I bought, but also, the girdle,
bra, stocking, and assorted undie
ads in my aunts' Ladies Home
Journal. And, oh yes, the glimpses
at a calendar hanging in a certain
barber shop I passed en route to
school. (From what I've already
written, I will leave it to the reader
to figure out how I arrived at five.)
At times, rather than create a separate category for dirty books, I
lumped literary filth in with the
"bad pictures." Howmuch hard-core
written porno could we come across?
Not nearly as much as undie ads.
So, that sin was relatively infrequent. (Once, one of the guys in
class showed up with one page torn
from the Autobiography of Frank
Harris. How gingerly that precious
document was passed from hand to
anxious hand, and how those young
jaws dropped as we tasted those forbidden words.)
"I did bad things four times." By
a kind of mutual understanding, we
all knew what this meant. It meant
that I had masturbated a lot, a
whole lot. But four was the only
number that would fly. Five is
awfully close to six, and that's only
one away from seven, and that's once-a-day! Unless you've had a
daily double. Barring that, seven
was still unthinkable, because it
would have meant that you had
masturbated today, or you had masturbated on the same day you last
went to confession, hence, couldn't
even stay in a state of grace for a
few hours! Four means that you
haven't gone completely insane; you
are judicious enough to give it a day
off. An every-other-day sinner is not
so bad.
And that was it; that was the
list. Saturday after Saturday. Year
after year. How I wished that I had
some more interesting, even juicier,
revelations for my confessor. But
what could they be? Hopefully, prior
to each confession, I went through
Page 42

the obligatory check-list of the Ten

Commandments, but I simply could
not come up with a single novel and
exciting sin. After all, how many
murders could a naive teenager
have committed in one week? How
much adultery? As for the more esoteric sins, I hardly understood what
they meant, let alone committed
them. I certainly hadn't had false
gods before me. Or had I? Later, I
would come to understand that this
had something to do with making
"graven images," but since I didn't
know what they were either, that
didn't help much. And I felt sure
that I hadn't coveted my neighbors'
goods or wives, even though I had a
poor grasp of what "coveting" was.
As for my neighbors' wives, they all
seemed to be about the same as the
only "wife" I had any acquaintance
with - my own mother. And I certainly didn't covet her.
Well, whatever the fateful combination of circumstances - maybe
the confessor was extra kind that
day and gave me an even milder
penance than the usual "...three
'Hail Marys' and make a good act of
contrition." Maybe I felt an overpowering urge to be cleansed physically as well as spiritually. Maybe
my mother appeared to be unusually receptive, or happy, or sympathetic on that torpid afternoon.
Whatever, I decided to get the whole
thing off my chest. I was too young
to die.
"Mom, I think I have syphilis."
You see, we had this gigantic (it
must have been five inches thick)
dictionary. It was the only really big
book in the house, and for several
years now, I had been engaged in
the ubiquitous adolescent research
project - looking up every "dirty"
word in the English language. I'd
begun with ''breast'' and "mammary" and the like, progressed to
"penis," "vagina," "womb,"testicles,"
"clitoris," and had been, for some
time then, into advanced research in
sexual
pathology.
"Venereal,"
"syphilitic," "spirochete," "chancre"
- those strange words rang through
my consciousness like the tolling of
Autumn 1998

our parish funeral bell. Unquestionably, I had it. How often I'd
stared at the small, hard, whitish
growth, about a quarter the size of a
grain of rice, just under the skin, or
sometimes protruding through, on
the underside of my... uh ... peepee, or wee-wee, or God knows
whatever I used to call the damned
thing. (Wait! It just came back to
me. The Three Aunts had taught me
that the proper way to refer to "it"
was as my "Little Fella.") The "chancre" had been there for months, ominous, silent, unchanging. It just sat
there, quite painlessly, but all too
obvious. And it wouldn't go away.
(Once, I popped the whole thing out,
like a little sesame seed, and kept it
in a small pill bottle filled with rubbing alcohol. Eventually I threw it
out because it did nothing. It didn't
explode or change into a pulsating
green slime, or grow to become "The
Chancre That Ate Philadelphia.") I
was nearly out -of my mind with
apprehension. Muddled, ignorant,
naive, I didn't know how my
syphilitic chancre was related to my
frequent masturbation, nor whether
this curse was God's punishment for
sin. All I knew was, I had to do
something.
The time seemed propitious.
Fresh and forgiven from confession,
I would make a clean breast of the
whole sordid business. Besides, my
father wouldn't be home for a solid
twenty-four hours. He'd arrive, fat
and fatigued, in the mellow hours of
a late Sunday afternoon. And he'd
be too tired and too sanctified to
holler. So the big revelation now, to
Mom, would give her a whole day to
recover, and to plan her strategy.
How would she tell her husband
that their first-born son was ravaged by a terminal social disease?
Dad was away at his yearly
weekend retreat. Now, you may be
thinking that I didn't know what a
retreat was, and thought that he
was at some military camp specializing in retrograde maneuvers and
the study of Napoleon. I wasn't a
complete imbecile; I knew what a
retreat was. We'd had several in
American Atheist

high school; and even in grammar

school,where they were called "missions." Or was it "novenas"? (No, I
think only women made novenas.)
At any rate, you did a great deal of
praying of various assorted species rosaries, ejaculations, masses, aspirations, etc. Supposedly, a retreat
was a time for taking stock of one's
life, for meditation and reflection.
For us, it meant that classes were
often canceled, and we had a lot
more time to think about naked
girls. We didn't know that we were
supposedto be probirig the profundities of the existential condition - be
anxious over Angst.
As I recall, I much preferred the
grammar-school retreats when we
got an opportunity to leave the drab
environs of our classrooms to visit
the pleasant-smelling,
fairyland
atmosphere of the church. There, an
endless array of altars, statues,
alcoves, windows, paintings, carvings, stations, provided a panorama
of muted, Disneyland amusement.
Addto these the lingering aromas of
flowers, beeswax, and incense, and
it was easy to see why the church
was infinitely preferable to the
Buchenwald confines of the Epiphany Grammar School. A visiting
missionary often conducted the
retreats, adding to the intrigue with
his tales of exotic places and heathen peoples.
However, for me and for all of
us, the real come-on was always the
promise of a Plenary Indulgence.
This, we understood, was a personal
authorization, from the Holy Father
himself, to forgive fully, completely,
and without reservation, not only all
the sins of those who had faithfully
made the retreat (and contributed to
the Society for the Propagation of
the Faith), but also, all the purgatory time relative to those sins. (This
was an abstruse point of Vatican
theology which I never could sort
out. Even though your sins were
really forgiven in confession, they
really weren't. And you still had to
do time in purgatory. Most peculiar.) I often recall wishing for an
instant death after receiving that
Austin, Texas

plenipotentiary blessing. Imagine a straight shot to Heaven. Do not

pass "go." Never a whiff of any
scorching. And probably a mere formality of a judgment. That was the
allure of the retreat - the missionary, and the not-too-subtle implication that he had met, really met,
spoken with, and kissed the ring of
our Italian Pope. Then the Pope had
probably ordered the missionary to
go directly to the Epiphany Parish
in South Philadelphia, U.S.A., and
offer this super-blessing to all the
nice Italians there and to whomever
else was kneeling around. Surely,
the Pope had a listing of all the
Catholics in the world. Quite likely,
he had a dossier on each one. Maybe
- it was just possible - he had
specifically instructed... "and be
sure to bless that little altar boy,
Anthony Joseph Pasquarello, and
tell him I forgive him for all that
masturbating he's been doing."
But our paltry retreats and missions must have been as nothing
compared to my father's elaborate
extravaganza. It involved, for him,
an almost enchanted change of
locale - from cement, to things that
were green and growing. Every
Labor Day weekend, he and a group
of cronies swerved their way to an
idyllic spot in Malvern, Pennsylvania. Actually, it was not too far
from Philadelphia; but to hear his
accounts, it was some sort of
Shangri-La. He was always so proud
to be a "Man of Malvern," and later
an Associate Captain - which meant
that he had recruited other retreatants. I always believed that he was
prouder of that cheap little plaque
they had given him than of any of
his accomplishments as violinist,
violist, or businessman. I'm convinced that it was that yearly
Oz-like contrast with the brick and
concrete landscape of South Philadelphia which so entrapped him.
The typical syndrome: urbanite discovers tree! And all those city boys
fell for it. They loved it. My God, I
bet they thought they were really
"getting back to nature." They
thought they were "roughing it" but
Autumn 1998

in a somewhat civilized, genteel

manner appropriate to urbanites.
They actually had to make the
Stations of the Cross by strolling
along a lovely path in the woods.
What hardship!
But it wasn't all rough and
tough and unreasonable hikes. Each
year, when my dad returned, he
always talked about how the guys
had tanked up on the way up and
the way back, and - naughty,
naughty - had even smuggled some
booze into their monastic rooms.
What impressed him was not the
liquor itself, but having a little
clean,. good-natured fun at the
expense of the solemn ecclesiastical
authorities. Why that should have
seemed memorable to him, I'll never
know, because my dad was not a fun
person - and he was definitely not a
drinker. I knew these things from as
early as I could remember. His business associates used to bring him
these marvelous bottles of Old
Granddad, Southern Comfort, and
Old Taylor on holidays and birthdays, and he never took a sip. As
years passed, all those unopened
containers of superb potions accumulated on a shelf in our basement
rec-room closet. In those days, I
couldn't fathom why anyone would
want them either. It's possible that
my Dad drank an occasional beer or
wine - I do remember that at times,
he had a glass of "Dago Red"
(Chianti or Zinfandel) with pasta but I'm quite sure that I now drink
more in one week than he ever did
in his whole life.
Then, there was the food. It was
easy to see that that, not the spiritual or alcoholic aspects, had the
biggest impact, as it always does on
Italian-Americans. Heritage comes
through again. Our family had
never made much of breakfast. And
never made much of a breakfast,
either. We hardly ever had any.
Throughout my childhood, all I can
recall of that forgettable meal is a
long gray line of bowls of Cream of
Wheat
or
Mother's
Oats.
Occasionally, they would urge me to
try this quivering, gelatinous blob
Page 43

they called a soft-boiled egg, but

throwing up a few times put an end
to that.
My hunch is that the same
breakfast revelation which happened to me gradually over a lifetime, happened to my dad in one
wallop at Malvern, and made him a
lifelong devotee. I'd bet my piano on
it. Dad had encountered the incredible, bounteous, cornucopian, gargantuan, groaning, Great American
Buffet Brunch. The Retreat Masters
knew how to implement the religious version of an old cliche - the
way to a man's soul is through his
stomach. Can't you just see those
nuns unloading tray after joyous
tray of scrambled eggs, pancakes,
waffles, sausages, ham, bacon, fresh
fruits, pastries, butter and cheese,
maybe even good old Philadelphia
scrapple. And coffee, real coffee.
(Something which, to my recollection, no Italian family could ever
make.) And if that was breakfast,
the mind boggles in attempting to
imagine what dinner must have
been. Those staunch defenders of
the faith, those Men of Malvern
must have thought they had died
and gone to Heaven. At any rate, the
foodwas always Dad's primary topic
when he returned, and I counted on
that. I counted on his getting back
high and happy, too contented to
complain, too satiated to strangle me.
So I announced my diseased
state to my mother. That gave her
plenty of time to plan her presentation to her spiritually rejuvenated
spouse. Full of good food and good
counseling (On Being a Pal to Your
Kids), he just couldn't kill me in
those circumstances, could he?
Well, for once, I had everything
figured correctly. Mom took it hard;
but real well, all things considered.
Maybe she didn't know what
syphilis was. She said that she'd tell
dad when he got home, and she
must have because, shortly after his
return, he told me that we had an
appointment to see our family doctor the next morning. (In case you
missed it, there's a clue here that
my story is not set in the present
Page 44

era. Imagine (1) calling your doctor

at home on a Sunday evening; (2)
getting to speak directly to him; and
(3) getting an appointment for the
next morning! Were there really
such times?)
Well, when my father delivered
that announcement calmly - no
scene, no smashing, no shouting - I
resumed breathing. Was it possible?
Had I gotten away scot-free?
Not quite. We'd all retired for
the night. I was lying in bed, praying, half-relieved at having unburdened myself and escaped so easily,
half-apprehensive over what the
morning's medical examination
would reveal. Suddenly, the stillness of the night was broken by my
father's voice, coming from behind
my parent's closed bedroom door all
the way to my back bedroom.
"Anthony, come in here."
That's what he said. But considering my mental state, it might as
well have been "Abandon all hope ye
who enter here," or "Depart from me
ye accursed into the everlasting
fires ... " My stomach hit the roof of
my mouth, my legs turned to Jell-a,
but somehow I managed to crawl
those fifty feet to my doom.
''Yes, dad?"
It was pitch black. I'd groped my
way into their bedroom and was
standing somewhere at the foot of
the bed, awaiting God knows what.
And then, my father asked - The
Question.
"Did you ... put something ...
somewhere ... on anybody?"
I can't vouch for the accuracy.
Maybe it was
"Did you ... put anything ... anywhere ... on somebody?"
Whatever it was, and despite
what you might call a certain lack of
specificity, I kind of knew what he
meant, given my pathetic state of
ignorance. Neither my father nor
my mother had ever broached the
subject of sex or tried to explain
anything
about it. Not even
euphemistically by referring to
birds and bees, flowers and trees.
Since there are no birds, bees, flowers, or trees in South Philadelphia,
Autumn 1998

they could hardly have served as

didactic devices. Dear Dad. That
was the best he could do. I understood. He dare not mention forbidden anatomical terms, let alone use
common expressions, "street talk,"
or vulgarities.
Well, I swore by every saint in
the litany, especially Saint Anthony
and Saint Joseph - Dad too was
Anthony Joseph - that I was completely blameless. And of course, I
was. It didn't really matter what the
question was because, since I hadn't
done anything at all, it followed a
fortiori that I hadn't done whatever
it was he was referring to. I was fifteen or sixteen or seventeen but I'd
never had a date, never kissed a
girl, never danced, never played
"post-office," never even held hands.
Under the circumstances, I had
good reason to feel self-righteous.
How could I have put anything,
somewhere, on anybody?
And my father knew these
things as well as I. Perhaps that's
why - thankfully - he dropped that
midnight inquisition fairly quickly.
Shaken, but secure in my unsullied
virtue, I returned to my bed. Oh, I
had syphilis all right, but logic dictated only one possible source. I was
one of those wildly improbable
exceptions: I had caught it from a
toilet seat!
Everything thereafter was anticlimactic. We must have been in the
doctor's office all of five minutes.
With a smile on his face, the doctor
examined
my "chancre"
and
declared it to be a harmless sort of
subcutaneous pimple. It would go
away and I had nothing to worry
about. (It went away but returned
again, often. However, he was correct about its harmlessness. Since
I'm still here fifty years later, it
must not have been terminal.) He
pronounced me cured. The weight
lifted from my shoulders was
unimaginable. For the next week, I
floated about the altar as I performed my sacred duties, purified in
body and spirit, once again worthy
to be in such proximity to the Lord
of Hosts.
American Atheist

I think about those times now.

As a good determinist, I can't really
blame my folks. They were just
doing their thing. They too were
actors in this excruciating play. But
I do resent the fear and trembling,
the months of apprehension, the
guilt, the unhealthy self-examinations and self-recriminations, the
sleepless nights. I resent the
destruction
of a young mind,
swollen with worry and theological
detritus. I resent. the fact that I
knew more about Sacraments than
about sex, and much more about the
Body of Christ than about my own.
So if there is to be blame, I blame
the institution responsible for that
climate of dreadful ignorance and
sin-centered morality - our most
holy Roman (Italian)
Catholic
Church.
Thanks a lot, Holy Father.
No wait! I can't resist.
Make that - Chancs a lot.
Venereally Yours,
A Victim

New Title From

American Atheist Press
Canadian

CHRISTIAN
FUNDAMENTALISM

author

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Christian
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borrow

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upon A Journey
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Austin, Texas

$14.95

The Inconsistency
of Theism
By Andrew

Moroz

glance at the 1998 World

Almanac reveals that over
2.5 billion people (46 percent
of the world) are either Atheists or
non-believers - a stark difference
from North America, where only
seven percent- are Atheists or nonbelievers. The Atheist position is
perhaps founded on a principle of
truth - a wish to believe only on evidence rather than on faith. As the
British
philosopher
Bertrand
Russell satirically exclaimed:
I wish to propose for the reader's favourable consideration a doctrine which may, I fear, appear
wildly paradoxical and subversive.
The doctrine in question is this:
that it is undesirable to believe a
proposition when there is no ground
whatever for supposing it true.2

While the notions of God are

countless, in this essay the focus
will be on the Christian god,
described in the following way by
John Hick: "God is the unique infinite personal Spirit who has created
out of nothing everything other than
himself; he is eternal and uncreated; omnipotent and omniscient; and
his attitude towards his human
creatures, whom he has made for
eventual fellowship with himself, is
one of grace and love."3 There has
probably been more written on the
subject of religion than on any
Andrew Moroz is currently
a
Senior at Memorial High School
in Madison, Wisconsin. Formerly
a Jew, he "converted" to Atheism
.several years ago after a thoughtprovoking philosophy class. He
aspires
to be a professional
philosopher and hopes to attend
Princeton University.
Autumn 1998

other, hence not even a representative portion can be addressed here.

However, several important incongruities within the concept of a god
will be revealed.
God-talk in general has long
been questioned by philosophers.
David Hume, for instance, maintained that the only legitimate
propositions are those of matters of
fact and those of the relations of
ideas; that is, what we would today
call synthetic a posteriori and analytic a priori propositions. In a wellknown passage in the Enquiry he
declares:
Ifwe take in our hands any volume; of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance; let us ask,
Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number?
No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matters of
fact and existence? No. Commit it
then to the flames, for it can contain
nothing but sophistry and illusion.s

Since when one talks about a god

one neither uses logic (as in mathematics) nor utilizes the usual senses
(as in science), Hume felt that those
volumes ought to be cast to the fire.
There is a more specific problem
regarding god-talk: it seems that
words mean different things when
applied to the Christian god than
when applied to anything else.
When we claim that a mother loves
her children, it is because she takes
care of them, feeds them, plays with
them, educates them, talks to them
in a pleasant voice, and so on. If the
same mother were to plot her children's death, poison their food,
abandon them, and burn their
house down, we would no longer say
that she loves her children. A person who maintained that she still
Page 45

loves her children would properly be

advised to read the dictionary more
often. And yet, theists claim their
god loves his creatures no matter
how many people are hurt and die
due to floods, earthquakes, tornadoes, and the like. Perhaps theists
ought to change the attributes of
their god.
.
Many theists claim that argumentation to either prove or disprove their god's existence is
reproachable. The concern is formulated as follows by Paul Tillich:

differing concepts of god number as

many as the stars, hence the reasonable conclusion denies the possibility of prayer revealing anything
besides one's own ideas. Religious
experience, to the rational person, is
nothing more than an inward look
at one's conscience.
One paradox inherent in the
god-concept is brought forth by the
juxtaposition of a god being all good
and the presence of evil. It was perhaps first stated by Epicurus (341271 BC):

[T]he question of the existence

of God can be neither asked nor
answered. If asked, it is a question
about that which by its very nature
is above existence, and therefore
the answer - whether negative or
affirmative - implicitly denies the
nature of God. It is as atheistic to
affirm the existence of God as it is
to deny it. God is being-itself, not a
being.f

God either wishes to take away

evil, and is unable, or He is able,
and unwilling; or He is neither willing nor able, or He is both willing
and able. If He is willing and is
unable, He is feeble, which is not in
accordance with the character of
God; if He is able and unwilling, He
is envious [malicious], which is
equally at variance with God; if He
is neither willing nor able, He is
both envious and feeble, and therefore not God; if He is both willing
and able, which alone is suitable to
God, from what source then are
evils? or why does He not remove
them?"

So what is left for one to base

faith on? Many people claim religious experience as such a light to
truth. Let us test this proposition.
On our world, does the use of LSD
provide a window into an additional
part of reality otherwise undetectable? If it did, we would immediately know because all LSD users'
accounts would corroborate one
another. That is, all "trips" would
depict the same place. On our world,
LSD is clearly not a gateway into an
additional part of reality because (1)
most accounts of LSD experience
are incoherent, and (2) those that
are coherent tell of no remotely similar places. Religious experience
could hypothetically be a gateway
into a super-reality. In that case, all
religious experiences would be of
the same thing - the same god or
gods, the same angels or lack thereof, and so on. Specifically, people of
different cultures would report the
same gods. After all, if a god exists
in a part of reality accessible by
prayer, then all people that pray
will be shown him, no matter where
they are located on the -planet. On
our world, as was mentioned before,
Page 46

The common answer is that the

deity is both willing and able, but
free will was deemed more important, and, because of it, we humans
freely choose to do evil. Let us examine this concept of free will. In order
for a being to have free will, he must
be able to choose among several
choices, and act on any of those
choices. If a person could not possibly do other than a certain action,
we say he did the action without will
- without free will. Now the
Christian god -certainly knows the
future, for he knows all- he is omniscient. The question can now be
posed: Are not humans constrained
to the specific set of actions their
god knows they will perform? Do
humans have any possibility of acting otherwise? The answer to both
questions, according to the Christian definition of god, is no. It seems
that the entire concept of free will is
incompatible with an omniscient
god. And if one holds that one acts
Autumn 1998

freely, he is thereby denouncing the

Christian concept of god.
For the sake of the next argument, we can assume that free will
and god are not incompatible. As
they are defined, good and evil are
diametrical opposites; good is construed as necessarily opposing evil.
Why wouldn't a god that was allgood and loving of his creatures
make the world such that all people
freely chose to do good? The reply is
that a free action cannot be brought
about. That statement does have
some sense to it. But let's look at
"creation."
When the
god of
Christian
theology created
the
world, he did so fully consciously.
That is, he did not just throw the
pieces of the universe together randomly. Rather,
he deliberately
assembled it. Before the world was
created, this god was aware of how
it would turn out. He knew that
today there would be so many good
and bad people inhabiting the planet, for he knows all, and today there
are exactly as many good and bad
people as he knew there would be.
Because this god is supposed actually to have brought about the universe which contains certain exact
free actions done by certain people
as anticipated by him, he, in some
sense, brought about certain free
actions.
God could have created the
world such that today there would
be one less bad person and one more
good person, could he not? All he
would need to do is (1) consider a
creation plan, as he did before, but
one slightly altered to the point
where he would (2) anticipate, as he
did before, that the altered creation
plan would result in one more good
person and one less bad person, and
(3) create the universe. Steps one
and two could be repeated until all
people were made good, and if the
original creation plan left us with
free will, so would this one, because
the steps are identical.
What are the theist's options?
His denial of free will is unthinkable, since the whole of Christian
morality would subsequently crumAmerican Atheist

ble (after all, if a human had no control over his actions, he certainly
can't be held responsible for them).
So the theist's only possibility is to
acknowledge that his god is not allgood,or he is not omniscient, or he is
not omnipotent. In any case, the
Christian god is shown to not exist.
A theist can, of course, pose objections. Let's consider two of them.
Evil is necessary for good to
exist, he may say. So what happens
if one evil person is plucked off the
face of the earth without a trace,
and nothing else changes? Does the
concept of good no longer exist? Of
course not. And after another evil
person is plucked, and then another,
and another?
Goodness
still
remains. This can continue until
there are no evil persons left. It
seems that the label, or lack thereof,
of an action does not change its
worth. After all, say someone rescues another from drowning. If
there are no evil persons around,
the action is not good? Such a notion
is most absurd.
The second objection, which is
much more reasonable than the
first, involves a god that does not
know the future. The future, they
say, has not happened yet, so it is
not only logical that their god does
not know it, but also it is not a
threat to his omniscience, since it is
onlypossible to know what is. While
the reasoning is clear, there are
many accounts in the Bible of the
deity revealing the future, so according to the Bible itself, a god who
knows the future is not illogical. The
Gnostic who still maintained that
his god was unaware of the future
should be pressed to explain his
entire disregard of, for instance, the
last book of the Bible, Revelation.
Two final pleas of the 'religious
apologist must be considered. He
may claim that I have been too forward in my assertions; that I cannot
claim his god does not exist - only
that some aspects of some definition
are inconsistent. This reasoning is
fallacious, however. For example, if
I were to insist the presence of a triangle with four sides on the dark
Austin, Texas

side of the moon, the moment I show

that a triangle cannot possibly have
four sides by definition (that is, the
idea is shown to be self-contradictory), I will have demonstrated the
impossibility of the existence of any
entities that fit said description anywhere, including the dark side ofthe
moon. Likewise, the contradictions
entailed in the god-description rule
out the possibility of the existence of
a god that fits the Christian definition.
Second, he will assert that I do
not know his god only because I do
not seek him, and his glory would be
revealed to me should I only "open
my heart." To these remarks I only
say that it is a truly horrendous
doing, a case of devious sophistry
and mischief, to try to convince
someone of the presence of a truly
illogical being such as Christians
make their god out to be. Furthermore, if at one point I did succumb
to their art, and the belief brought
me comfort, I should ask myself the
following question. If I were to live
in constant belief of the square triangle, and such a belief brought
comfort to my life, of what value
should my life be once I die? Would
it truly not be a disgrace to the abilities that nature has so generously
afforded humans? The ability to reason distinguishes us from other animals; we have a chance to explore
the universe, to learn the wonders of
nature through science and yet,
some surrender willfully to the callings of their animal self to be emotive and not think.
There are those among us who
turn away from philosophy, who
declare the art tedious and without
return. However, it seems to me
that one is puerile to base final
knowledge on anything except philosophy - the only human endeavor
that seeks to avoid assumptions.
And if through logical argument and
rational debate the impossibility of
a god is revealed, however much our
sentiment of nostalgia calls for a
divine caretaker to walk our world,
the falsehood must be cast off so we
may enjoy the ultimate freedom that
Autumn 1998

only truth can bring. Remember,

''Ye shall know the truth, and the
truth shall make you free."?

REFERENCES
1

5
6

Robert Farnighetti, ed., The World

Almanac and Book of Facts: 1998
(Mahwah: K-III Reference Corporation, 1997), 654.
Bertrand Russell, Sceptical Essays
(London: Routledge, 1977), 1I.
Paul Edwards, ed., The Existence of
God, (New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1964), 2.
David Hume, Enquiries Concerning
Human Understanding
and Concerning the Principle of Morals, ed. P.
H. Nidditch (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1975), 165.
Quoted in The Existence of God, 2.
Quoted by Michael
Martin
in
Atheism: A Philosophical Justification, (Philadelphia: Temple University Press; 1990), 334.
John 8:32

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an

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Page 47

SPIRIT~SOUL~AND MIND
By Frank R. Zindler
Whenever I peruse a dictionary,
I am struck by the amazing number
of words which refer to nothing at
all in the real world. Many of the
words are obviously fabulous: leprechaun, unicorn, gremlin, Philosopher's Stone, Zeus, elf, Fountain of
Youth, ghost, etc. Others, though
referring equally to- non-existent
things, are less obviously fabulous:
The Mean Sun, The Average Citizen,
vital force, spirit, soul, and - in at
least some of its accepted meanings
-mind.
Why the human species has
invented so many words which refer
to nothing in reality is a most
interesting question for scientific
investigation, and probably would
require a complete book to elucidate
properly. In this article I shall only
attempt to deal with a few such
words, specifically, the words spirit, soul, and mind.
It is a striking fact that nearly
all languages ofthe world, extinct as
well as extant, have - or have had
- words which could be rendered as
'spirit' or 'soul' in English. At first
glance, it would seem that this is a
good argument in favor of the real
existence of souls and spirits. For,
would it not be improbable that so
many different peoples and languages could be mistaken? If many
different unrelated languages have
independently invented words for
soul, is that not a good reason to
believe they did so because there
really is such a thing?
I think not. The first clue to the
solution of this puzzle comes from
etymology, the study of word origins.
While the origin of the English
word soul is obscure, the word
almost certainly had its origin in a
An earlier version of this essay
appeared in February of 1985, in Mr.
Zindler's American Atheist column
"The Probing Mind."
Page 48

word which meant 'breath' or 'wind'

or 'air', or something like that. The
word spirit - generally a synonym
for soul - comes from the Latin
spiritus, and clearly meant 'breath'
originally. Spiritual and respiratory
both derive from the same root!
Moreover, if we check in the
Greek and Hebrew bibles to see
which words are translated as 'soul',
etc., in the King James Version, we
will find many whose literal meaning is 'breath' or 'wind'. For example, the Hebrew word neshamah (literally meaning 'breath') is twice
rendered as 'spirit', once as 'soul'.
The Hebrew-Aramaic word ruach
(lit., 'wind') is rendered 240 times as
'spirit', six times as 'mind.' The word
nephesh (lit., 'breath') is rendered
'soul' 428 times, 'mind' 15 times,
'ghost' twice, and 'life' 119 times.
Turning to the Greek Bible, we find
pneuma (lit., 'breath') rendered as
'ghost' 91 times (including the rendering 'Holy Ghost'), 292 times as
'spirit'. The reader will recognize the
same root in the word pneumonia, a
word referring to a disease of the
organs of breath. And finally, in this
somewhat pedantic parade ofwords,
we may note the important word
psyche. As expected, its literal
meaning is 'breath.' As we might
have guessed, it is rendered as 'soul'
58 times, 'mind' three times, and
'life' 40 times.
The fact that nearly all words
now meaning 'soul', 'spirit', 'life',
etc., trace their origins to words
meaning 'breath' or 'wind' leads me
to conclude that the derived meanings were an outgrowth of the
inability of primitive people to solve
a basic biological puzzle, namely,
what constitutes the difference
between a live body and a dead one?
To the ancient authors of the
Bible - men who still thought they
were living on a flat earth beneath a
solid sky (firmament) - the solution
seemed deceptively simple: living
things breathe, dead things do not.
Autumn 1998

At first, only animals (from Latin

anima, meaning 'breath' or 'breeze'
originally) were considered fully
alive. The case of plants was viewed
with confusion for a long time. Some
authorities considered them live,
others did not. The ancients did not
realize that 'souls' were really only a
gaseous mixture of nitrogen and
oxygen, contaminated with varying
amounts of water vapor, carbon
dioxide, noble gases, and - depending upon what one ate and whether
or not one brushed after every meal
- varying amounts of aromatic substances!
In the Genesis Creation Myth,
the animating power of breath is
clearly depicted. God, after having
molded Adam from the dust, has to
breathe into him the breath of life in
order for him to become a living
soul. Breath is life.
The manner in which breath
became equated with life is not difficult to discern. A person newly dead,
say, of a heart attack, anatomically
is not much different from what he
was like before he died. He still has
five fingers per hand, a tongue in his
mouth, a brain in his head, and a
heart in his breast. The ancients,
unconscious of the microcosmic
fever of chemical marriages and
divorces that we call metabolism,
could see only one obvious difference: the lack of breath of the dead.
When a man expired
(lit.,
'breathed out'), his spirit (lit.,
'breath') left his body, and he died.
When a man sneezed, his spirit was
forcefully ejected from his body, and
one had to say "God bless you" or
make a magical gesture, such as the
sign of the cross, very quickly,
before evil spirits could come to take
over the- momentarily spiritually
vacant carcass. Demonic "possession" was the result, quite simply, of
inhaling one or more of the evil
breaths thought to hover in the air
around us. For early Christians, the
Devil's breath was everywhere.
American Atheist

Of course,not all possession was

necessarily
evil. People could
become "inspired" - that is, the
breath of a god could take over their
bodies to deliver words of wisdom or
apocalyptic admonitions. Indeed,
the origin of the Christian church
itself was thought to have originated in an act of mass possession by
the Holy Ghost ("Holy Breath" in
the Greek text!). In Acts 4:31 we
read that when the Apostles and
others "had ended their prayer, the
building where they were assembled
rocked, and all were filled with the
Holy Spirit [breath] and spoke the
word of God with boldness." (Given
the close association of,words with
breath - thought to be life itself - is
it any wonder that religions of all
kinds have always focused on the
magical significance of words?)
Lest anyone still think the link
between breath and the foundations
of Christianity be doubtful, attention is drawn to the tale running
through John 20:22. Jesus has come
back to visit the Disciples to tell
them that he is sending them out to
forgive or not forgive the sins of the
world. "Then he [Jesus] breathed on
them, saying, 'Receive the Holy
Spirit!' " Right from the beginning,
Christianity was based upon warm
breath - which in time became hot
air.
Modern biologists, unlike the
ancient makers of myths, know that
all the phenomena of living systems
can be reduced to physical and
chemical terms. They have no evidence of any 'vital force' or mystical
spirit -'- and no need to seek for
such. They recognize the fully alive
body and the newly dead body to be
but two arbitrary points along a continuum of decreasing organization.
So much for spirit, soul, and
ghost. Originally denoting breath
or wind, they are words which have
acquired a host of m:ystical connotations
as
pre scientific
people
attempted to account for the difference between life and death. But
what of the word mind? Does it
refer to anything real? Or is it, too, a
fabulous entity?
Austin, Texas

Unlike the analysis of spirit and

soul, the analysis of mind is not at
all simple. This is so largely through
the grammatical accident that in all
the European languages, ancient as
well as modern, the word mind is a
noun.
, We tend to think of nouns as
substantive:
table,
chair,
and
plumb-bob are all nouns, and all are
substantial. There are many words,
however, which though grammatically nouns, are not at all substantial. Words like beauty, truth, and
velocity would be examples. Unfortunately, our thinking tends to be
hedged around by the grammar and
hidden assumptions of the language
with which we think. And so it happens again and again that abstract
nouns come to be thought of as representing things just as substantial
as those represented by common
nouns. And thus we have the basic
confusion necessary to found philosophical systems such as Plato's whose perfect triangularity exists in
triangle-heaven, and so on.
Because mind was a noun, it
was conceived to be a thing. Because
it was thought to be a thing, it was
thought to have existence apart
from the brain. Because it has independent existence, it was thought
capable of survival after the death of
the body. And millions thought that
to be good reason to invest millions
in that greatest of all businesses,
religion.
Neurobiological studies show all
these ideas to be quite worthless.
Mind is a process, a dynamic relation, and not a thing. If we change
the processes of the brain, we
change the mind. The psychedelic
drugs have taught us that fact, if
nothing else. The history of western
philosophy and religion, as well as
science, would have been quite different if the word mind had developed as a verb instead of as a noun.
To wonder where the mind goes
after the brain decays is as silly as
asking where the 70-miles-per-hour
have gone after a speeding auto has
crashed into a tree. Just as the relative motion of an auto can be altered
Autumn 1998

only within certain limits and still

represent the process called "speeding," so too we can alter the functioning of the brain only so much
before the process called "mind" or
"thinking" becomes altered out of
existence.
Now that scientists recognize
mind as a process rather than a
thing, they are making rapid
advances in understanding the specific brain dynamics that correspond
to the various subjective states collectively known as mind. Certain
drugs are known, for example, that
affect certain neural paths and centers in the brain to produce the psychic state known as euphoria.
Others affect other circuits and produce depression or sleep. We can
implant electrodes in the brain and
cause the subject to ''hear'' bells and
symphonies that aren't "there" at
all. We can be made to "see" figures
and lights without using our eyes at
all, by stimulating the visual cortex
at the back of the brain. We can
cause to appear the emotions of
rage, sexuality, sorrow, religious
awe, etc., by altering the dynamic
functions of the brain in appropriate
ways. We are beginning to understand how neural circuits compete
with each other to give us the illusion of "free will." Indeed, we are on
the verge of being able to write
equations relating the physicochemical states of the nervous system
with the subjective, mental states
described by psychologists and other
mystics. In short, we are learning to
study subjective states objectively.
Whether or not we shall be any
more responsible in the application
of this new knowledge than we were
in the application of fire, dynamite,
and atomic energy remains to be
seen. Even the un-average person
plays ill the part of Prometheus.
Unless we, collectively the new
Prometheus, judge wisely what to do
with our new psychobiological powers, like Prometheus we may find
ourselves chained to rocks, our
vitals torn by eagles. Or worse.

Page 49

POETRY
On Viewing the Night Sky
from a Hilltop

From the forests

Of men's minds;

Unadulterated, unrestrained
In all their horror and aweAlmost beyond the breadth
Of human reasonKnows them
But does not fear them,
Nor feel a stranger under them.

Blake
May have bowed
To unreasoning bliss
In all its falseness;
But the true soul
Who stands to the skies
And bares his brain
To the sore truths
Of time and space:
He sees the empty spaces
Between the stars

Godless skies
Need not be bleak,
Nor strange to man:
Wordsworth
May have decried
The fading of faeries

For he also views

The wonder that ensues
From those same spheres aboveKnows them and, in knowing, loves.

Brian Sheppard

Requiem

The Picture of God

R.I.P., the only words I see before my eyes.

Upon the white ash stones engraved in sacred
runes,
Words of praise and fact for the dehumanized.

I know a woman who has a picture of God.

It's not by Michaelangelo
Or anyone else of any importance,
But it is pasted to the dull wall in her home.

I stare across the garden of death

Mesmerized, held motionless by the loss.
Anxiety and fear steal my breath.

She tells me that she hangs something over it

When people come to call.
She's ashamed of that,
But she doesn't want to look like a fanatic.

Is it the end or has it just begun?

What lies beyond this threshold
Where the yin and yang are now undone'?

I will not visit her at home.

I do not want to see her God, dishtowel-covered,
Or, if too early, I might see it all undraped
And giggle uncontrollably.

I say rest in peace, flesh and bone.

You fought a war with time and lost;
All you had, all you knew, is now unknown.

I would not like that to be the case.

At any rate,
It amuses me to know
That I know a woman who has a picture of God.

So here I stand and sing to you

A solemn chant you cannot hear:
No heaven or hell, Corpse; the end is you.
The end is here.

Constance R. Hale

C.M.Andrus

It ain't necessarily

so

When I was little, I was told

that God, a bearded man, quite old,
had made the world in seven days:
the earth, the moon, the sun's warm
rays.
Except, it seems, that he forgot
(while busy with an awful lot)
to make a woman, fair-haired, curled
to join the man in this new world.
I thought, how strange, why did he not
create her first, pregnant with tot
and save himself that awkward
business
to use man's rib to make a mistress.

Page 50

And what about that famous apple

that made Eve with her conscience
grapple?
Because, it seems, that once she ate
there would be love, plus sex and hate.
But how, I ask, did God envision
that man would live by his decision
to go forth and to populate
not knowing how to copulate?
It does seem odd, as they relate,
for God to want to castigate
those two for learning how to try
to go forth and to multiply.
And if, as people told me then,
he made all men to look like him,
how come the white men, red, and black
skinny, tall, and short or fat?
Autumn 1998

That story, sworn by some as true

(though they, admittedly are few)
does seem a bit contrived, at best,
so please forgive my little jest.
It's never bothered me to think
that there might be a real link
between man and the world of monkeys
(at least we didn't come from donkeys).
Remember Gershwin, who put it to
song
(and who's to say he could be wrong?):
It ain't necessarily so;
the things you're liable
to read in the bible,
they ain't necessarily so.
Paul Garrison
American Atheist

LETTERS
I

"Letters to the Editor" should be

either questions or comments of general concern to Atheists or to the
Atheist community.
Submissions
should be brief and to the point.
Space limitations allow that each
letter should be three hundred words
or, preferably, fewer. Please confine
your letters to a single issue only.
Mail them to:
American Atheist
P.O. Box 140195
Austin, TX 78714-0195

Coins, Calendar Eras, and

Dating
Reading the Spring '98 issue of
American Atheist, page 52, where
you refer to near-zero dates (e.g.,
"Josephus, b. 37 CE" and "Tacitus, b.
55 CE"), I was once more troubled by
the underlying fact that in those
times then-current historians could
not have known that they were living in the Common Era. As of that
time period, word of a fictional JC,
which is commonly alleged to be the
reason for changing the time scale,
probably had not yet spread to any
perceptible extent. I still feel uneasy
not knowing how and when the CEspecification, presumably replacing
Hebrew calendar dating, began to
take effect. What was the scenario?
I used to embrace the after-thefact Dionysius-and-the-Founding of
Rome story, but recently was startled by an In Search of History program on "The Roman Legions."
There was the story of the Roman
field commander Varus and his
legions being ambushed about the
year 9 AD, according to the narrator,
in a German forest by troops led by
the Roman-trained German officer
Arminius. The site was visited "several years later" by elements of the
German army which buried the
Austin,Texas

bones and otherwise cleaned up the

site, but no record has ever been
found of its exact location.
Then, in 1987, an archeologist
with a metal detector found "many"
Roman coins: "none of the coins
were dated later than 9 AD" (pictures
shown). Also found at the site were
many battle artifacts, more or less
authenticating that site as the location of that tragic ambush. The narrator did not give the archeologist's
name nor did he state where the
coins currently reside.
Back to my question of how, in
the year 9 CE, did they know to date
their coins 9 CE rather than the
equivalent year from the Roman calendar? If the historians who tell this
story are correct, it would be perhaps the only known occasion in
which the Romans or anyone else of
that eratook cognizance of your and
my favorite mythical cult figure. No
one wrote about the alleged JC until
70 or more years after the alleged
life, and in those days there was no
11 PM TV News on which he could
show his face in those times. As far
as we know, the Bcl AD notation did
not come into use until what would
now be the year 533 CEo
What does the Editor make of
this?
Frank Smerke
Santa Monica, CA
The Editor Replies
You are completely correct in
your main point, uiz., there certainly were no coins found in Germany
bearing the date "9 AD." In fact, it is
unlikely that the coins bore dates of
any kind. Augustus minted lots of
coins commemorating events, but I
am unaware of any bearing dates either in the AUC (ab urbe condita,
"from the founding of the city" of
Rome) system or in a system relating to a regnal year of the emperor.
As you correctly note, the system of
reckoning dates AD (anno domini,
"in the year of Our Lord") or BC
("before Christ," in English) was not
used until the sixth century, when a
Autumn 1998

monk named Dionysius Exiguus

("Dennis the Short") belatedly tried
to figure out when Jesus had been
born - in order to create a dating
system based upon Christ instead of
the City of Rome. Unfortunately,
even ignoring the impossibility of
calculating the birthdate
of an
imaginary person, Dionysius made
a number of errors in totaling up the
reigns of emperors. As an amusing
result, believers in the historicity of
JC have had to conclude that Jesus
was born four years before Christ i.e., in 4 BC!
For the sake of readers who may
be puzzled by the terms "CE" and
"BCE," it should be noted that these
are entirely modern conventions
adopted to avoid paying homage to
the Christian deity - whether historical or not. CE means "common
era," and is the equivalent of AD. BCE
means "before the common era," and
is the equivalent of BC.
Getting back to the In Search of
History program, it would seem that
the writers were simply guilty of
using sloppy language. Instead of
saying "none of the coins has been
dated by scholars to have been minted after the year 9 AD," they used
language that could be interpreted
to mean that coins employing the
ec! AD system of dating had been
found. We may expect that a number of Christian apologists will seize
upon this program as "proof' that
even the Romans in Germany had
known of Jesus and honored him on
coins- before he even had entered
Middle Schooll

Astral Interpretation
Jesus Myth

of the

Best wishes always on the

Atheistic work you do! I wish to
comment on a couple of things
brought rip in the Summer '98 issue,
in your article "Did Jesus Exist?"
Herbert Aitner (Jesus - God,
Man or Myth?; p. 106) notes that
"James, who is called the brother of
Jesus who was called the Christ, is
just as barefaced a forgery [in
Page 51

Josephus] as the other passage. In

any case, this death is put seven
years before the death of James the
Just." I say James the Just is none
but Jacobus the Just, or Jacchus/
Bacchus who is, as Bootes, near the
Scales of Justice (Libra)!
As to the footnote about a political struggle by men, with Jesus
speaking badly to his mother, I say
this again is an astral myth about
the Sun leaving Virgo, hence: "Who
is my mother?," etc.
The part where- G. A. Wells
shows that "only men could obtain
divorce" is again an astral allusion.
Example: Adultery (i.e., evil or
crime) is defined by "if a woman
divorces (leaves) her husband and
marries another, she commits adultery." I believe this relates to a situation such as we see with
Andromeda: a spring (good) sign
sets at fall, and her opposites (hence
paranatellon) Virgo and Bootes rise
at fall (evil). She's not with Perseus,
hence the evil.
Lastly, you stated ''We have not
proved that Jesus did not exist." But
you did, simply because the only
Jesus originally known to us is the
miracle-working fantastical bugger
who was an exact copy of older
myths! "Jesus"
never existed.
Remove the mythical and nothing
remains.
James B. Pullen, Jr.
Jacksonville, FL

Twelve Disciples and More

The hypothesis that the Twelve
Disciples [Autumn 1997] are an
invention crafted by the authors of
the New Testament, an invention
which was designed to appeal to
potential pagan converts who had a
fondness for the twelve signs of the
Zodiac seems plausible. After all,
many of the traditions and rituals of
the Roman Catholic Church are
apparent adaptations of previously
established Roman, Imperial, and
pagan institutions and. practices.
For instance, the altar comes from
Page 52

the throne ofthe Emperor, and nuns

are very much like the Roman vestal
virgins.
And yet, it is very unlikely that
Christianity per se was entirely the
invention of the authors of the New
Testament. It is more likely that the
origins of Christianity derive from
controversies within Judaism itself,
which controversies were merely
utilized by said authors of the NT
for their own purposes. Surely the
"genesis" of Christianity, as it were,
comes from someone or some group
of people from among the Jews who,
during that era a generation previous to the gospels, were profoundly
freaked out about Roman rule and
Hellenistic influences which they
felt were "corrupting" the purity of
the indigenous local culture. (Maybe
at least one of these people just happened to be named Jesus? Who
knows?)
As for the Romans: similar to
the "New Agers" of today, many
Romans at the time of the gospels
were intrigued by - and experimenting with - exotic foreign religions.
Christianity was just one among
many of these exotic foreign religions - at first. Why was Christianity the one religion which ultimately prevailed? Perhaps the topdown, monotheistic authoritarianism of the one single angry
Christian/Jewish god of "righteous"
wrath more closely resembled the
Imperial Roman model already
established in the despotism of the
declining Roman state in a way the
traditional Roman pagan pantheon
never could - and therefore proved
to be a more useful tool in lending
divine legitimacy to a Roman state
now desperately struggling for its
very existence? Is it a coincidence
that the Dark Age, feudal, castledwelling tyrant as well as his
Christian god were both called
"Lord"? No!
The creation of the United
States of America was a landmark
event in world history only because
it was the ultimate flowering of a
democratic philosophy that had
originated in ancient classical Greek
Autumn 1998

culture and had been "rediscovered"

by the 18th century European
Enlightenment. Pardon me if I vigorously dispute the relevance of the
supernatural scriptural scribblings
of ancient Middle Eastern nomadic
tribal savages from the Stone Age in
regard to this major triumph of reason and human liberty (more or less)
over centuries and centuries of the
long, dark, Medieeval night of dogmatic faith, feudal oppression, warfare, and savage brutality. That triumph was symbolized by the creation and existence of the United
States. It was a "new world." (But
it's getting older.)
Terry D. Lipscomb
Ft. Worth, TX
Science and Religion
Many, like M. D. Gose [Spring
1998], are confused about the basis
of the scientific enterprise; even
astronomers exclaim at the "footprints 0' god" appearing in their
astral photos.
A local divine correctly stated
the Principle of Philosophic Materialism, which is the basis of Science,
but pages later he bemoaned the
dearth of reference to god in scientific papers (if only the benighted
writers would say, "god done it,"
then evolution would be OK) - earlier scientific writers peppered their
papers with reference to god and his
marvels.
If they don't like Philosophic
Materialism - and even many scientists are coy and fey about it - then
they should enter a temple to mediate and pray.
Richard Kilty
Bulli, NSW, Australia
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CHILDREN OF GOD

THE WORKS OF
ROBERT G. INGERSOLL

Children
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BANK OF WISDOM CD-ROM

All the writings of America's

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Fisher's book will help the reader
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Vardis
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Amendment I
Congress shall make no law respecting an
establishment
of religion, or prohibiting the free
exercise thereof; or abridging the feedom of
speech, or of the press; or the right of the people
peaceably
Government

to assemble,

and to petition the

for a redress of grievances.