This Issue:

The Effects of Religious Cults on the

Health of Their Converts

MERICAN
lHEISf

First Hand Report on Religious

Brainwashing and Its Effect

$1.25

A Journal Of
Atheist News
And Thought

May 1977

Vol. 19, No.5

Vol. 19, No.5

EDITORIAL/Guest Editorial
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
NEWS
Investigating The Effects of Rei igious Cults
Did Christ Start This Way?
Now-Rev. Moon's Free Ad Service
Religion in Textbooks; The Good News and The Bad News
,
Religious Units Save $3 Million in Local Taxes. .
. . . . . .
FEATURE ARTICLES
The Failure of Christianity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . .
Open Letter to Closet Atheist Physicians, Part One .
The Moron Mentality. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . .
Was Jesus A Horse Thief? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ..
The Greatest Crime in History. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
.
An Imaginary Conversation in Plato's Academy
AMERICAN ATHEIST RADIO SERIES
A List of Practices of The Roman Catholic Church,
None of Which is Bible-Supported
POEMS
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May 1977

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EditorinChief/Madalyn Murray O'Hair, Editor/Jon

G. Murray, Managing Editor/
William J. Murray, DesignNalerie
L. Murray, Cover Artist/Jo Kotula, Circulation/
John I. Mays, Non-Resident Staff/Anne Gaylor, Warren Shibles, Mort Lewis, John
Sontarck, Production Coordinators/Dolores
Riordan, Ralph Shirley.
The American Atheist magazine is published monthly by American Atheists, 4408 Medical
lukway, Austin, Texas, 78756, non-profit, non-political, tax-exempt, educational organization. Mailingaddress: P. O. Box 2117, Austin, Texas, 78768; copyright C> 1977 by Society of
Separationists,Inc.; Subscription rates: $15.00 per year; $25.00 for two years. Manuscripts:
the editors assume no responsibility for unsolicited manuscripts. All manuscripts must be
t;yped,double-spacedand accompanied by a stamped, self-addressed envelope.

THE AMERICAN ATHEIST MAGAZINE

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ON THE COVER
Jo Kotula, American-Atheist-of-The-Year
1976, is a dapper, distinguished-looking
gentleman, with soft gray hair, a face reflecting a life richly lived, and soft expressive hands which mold and interpret the
words he delivers.
Hardly anyone would see in him other
than the success story of America, where
the poor, hard-working,
self-educated,
struggling painter becomes the suave, debonair, casual and warm artist-extraordinaire.
But, behind that ascot, so jauntily worn
with the tweed and leather jacket, is a
sharply analytical, severely judging theophilosophic critic of our times.
His determination to bring the good
cause of Atheism to the attention of the
citizens of the United States has been remarkable. He has spent time, effort, money,
and of his abilities-which are enormous.
Together with Paul Marsa he is developing
a Chapter of American Atheists in the state
of New Jersey. His own commitment is
such that he inspires others to the same kind
of involvement.
Living in a wildly beautiful and secluded
part of New Jersey, in a home which was
designed by himself and his wife, he
commits himself now only to his painting
and to the American Atheist cause. Landscape and the human figure, formerly only
an adjunct to his illustrative work, has now
become a major preoccupation. He has
studied, through travel in Mexico, Cuba,
Puerto Rico, Rome, Egypt, and Europe to
develop a distinctively fluid style and technique in both watercolors, oils, and acrylics,
gouaches of unusual sensitivity.
His rich, sensitive, interpretation
of
Thomas Jefferson is in the entrance hall of
the American Atheist Center. His other
paintings have hung in many exhibition
halls throughout the United States. His
original aircraft subject paintings are now
collectors items.
We are honored and proud to have Jo
Kotula as an associate. Those of you in
New Jersey may have the opportunity to
work with him too. We suggest that you
contact Jo at:
Buttermilk Bridge Road
Asbury, New Jersey 08802
Phone (201) 689-6053

JOKOTULA
Those of us who labor in the cause of freedom of the Mind,
of respect for and understanding
of the First Amendment
and
its transcendant
values, must constantly
take stock, reassess
our position relative to the Believer Establishment.
Among the
clear gains made in the last several decades, surely the most
fascinating, and most gratifying, must be the pressing interest
shown by the churches in dialogue with unbelievers ... doubt
ers, skeptics,
Atheists,
with those of us who continue
to
challenge
the churches'
claim to custodianship
of moral
authority.
Father Ignace Lepp, a professor at the Institute of Psychosynthesis in Paris, wrote recently in Commonweal,
"Confronted by unbelievers whose superior morality is without question,
the Christian
of today is often inclined to practice
that
'annexation'
which perhaps irritates Atheists even more than
the charge of their flight from morality which Christians used
before". Believers' claims to custodianship
are well known, but
the readiness of those in high places to sit with the doubters
must surely give hope to those who have struggled against the
usurpation
of power and influence by ecclesiastical establishments.
Fr. Lepp writes, "for too long the (Catholic) church has
spoken and acted as if all humanity
formed part of its fold
... how many of us find ourselves every day among men and
women who declare that they do not belong to any church
nor worship a supernatural
being, and that they are Atheists?
And I am not thinking here primarily of countries in which
Atheism is the official idealogy, ... it is rather the millions
upon millions of unbelievers who live in the 'free world' that I
have in mind."
Pope Paul himself wrote, in Ecclesiam Suam, "Atheists, we
find, sometimes notivated by noble sentiments,
repelled by the
mediocrity
and selfishness of so many contemporary
social
milieux ... " such language is quite new in the church.
Fr. Lepp continues,
"present-day
Atheism, at least in the
developed countries of Christian civilization,
is distinguished
from the Atheism of other times, other civilizations, primarily
by its extraordinary
extent.
It is no longer the stance of a
few individuals who have broken their bond with society not
the privilege of a minority which, as in the 18th century, considered itself particularly
'enlightened'.
"Atheism has become the lot, if not of the majority of our
contemporaries,
at least of a very high proportion
of them,
and it tends to become the common norm of human society.
Moreover, present-day
Atheism declares itself to be not only
the denial of a specific religion but of all gods; it claims that
man and the universe have absolute autonomy.
It holds all
religious belief to be the enemy of reason, which is implicitly
viewed as the sole criterion of truth".
One may reflect
on the great schismatic
rents in the
religious fabric which occurred in the 16th century-shook
the
church to its foundations.
Subsequent
attempts
to restrict
learning, to frustrate
scientific
investigation,
have had their
momentary
chilling effect. Galileo, at age 70, was threatened
with torture by the Holy Office, for supporting the theses of
Kepler and Copernicus,
daring to suggest that the Earth was
not the hub of the universe. Darwin followed in his search for
man's origins, and brought on himself ridicule by the clerics
and praise by the few uncorrupted
by religion's shackles.

MAY, 1977/AMERICAN

ATHEIST

After
Darwin
published
his startling
discoveries,
Robert Ingersoll's persistent energy, unassai lable logic and
ceptive eloquence
attracted
hundreds
of thousands to
lectures.
In the ensuing decades, the church doors c
open a little more, as free education
became accessible to
masses of people. Resistance
has not ceased, of course,
though the window raised by John XXIII may explain
of the more notable defections
in the ranks. Charles D
Great Britain's leading Catholic theologian,
upon leaving
church, spoke of the "climax of revulsion" that led to
action, and outlined the reasons behind his rejection of
"increasingly
disreputable
workings of the Vatican and
'unfree and inhuman system'
under its control".
He
tinued:
"One who claims to be the moral leader of man'
should not tell lies. To say, as did the pope, that the te .
authority
of the church was not in a state of doubt on
issue of birth control was to deny a plain fact".
"A dishonest evasion of truth is not excused by the
to save the authority of the Holy See" ... and to declare
out qualification
that the existing prohibition
of contrace
still applies until further notice shows a bureaucratic in
tivitv to people and their suffering all the more inexc
when one considers
how much of that suffering has
caused by the failure of the official church as a moral gu'
due to its authoritarian
structure and suppression of free
munication
and discussion.
"I have struggled to conform. I have had to remove a
tain of ecclesiastical
rubble in order to produce a few'
plants of creative thought ... the institutional
church is
stantly crushing and damaging people. More and more it
become
for me a vast, impersonal,
unfree, and inhu
system".
As if to substantiate
the charges of Charles Davis,
occurred an incident in one of the great religious colleges
New York. Fr. Peter O'Reilly was among the dozen te
fired by St. John's University. He spoke to some two hun
members of the New Jersey Civil Liberties Union, cautioni
"You feel that because Roman Catholic schools are priv
that you should respect their right to teach what they pie
BUT you should be concerned,
as civil libertarians, as A
cans, anxious
about democratic
principles,
of 'govern
of the people, by the people, for the people' ... you
take heed of what is taught in Roman Catholic schools, who
are training teachers,
lawyers, and judges, inculcating i
inimical and foreign to the principles underlying our A
can Constitutional
Government!"
Then the statements
of other professors who left St.
... "One is hired almost on the basis of a guarantee he
never have an original
idea ... intellectual
concentra'
camp ... treat knowledge
as though locked in a vault, to
brought out to the student on demand ... conspiracy be
faculty and parent, to deny the student an education ..
shall never teach in a Roman Catholic school again'"
Rosemary
Lauer was one of several of the faculty to ex
these opinions
to the New York Times and the TV n
media.
One may observe, then, a mass of accumulating evid
from religious sources, "from the horse's mouth", evid
culled from Europe,
from Latin America and the Uni

ditorial
States, a body of proof that the significant advances in human
lllderstanding have been made by individuals outside the
nligio-political corpus. From that body itself, the number of
distinguished defectors is legion. Loyalty to the "faith" holds
tome to the ranks, but even from these, one gains substantive
formation on the attrition of the believer institution.
A
.notable example: Fr. Andrew Greeley, late in 1976, refers to
1he pope's stand on birth control as a "catastrophe",
costing
church in the U.S. one billion, seven hundred millions of
liars in contributions, and creating a "lack of credibility" in
lie matter of sexual morals, from which the church would be
recovering.
Another interesting concession comes from the grandson of
'dent Woodrow Wilson, pastor of a Washington,
D.C.
pal church. He said, before the recent presidential
ion, "we must elect a man of skill, integrity, experience
a good public servant ... he may, or may not believe in
; I could respect him, even if he didn't!"
In the face of concession on so broad a scale, it must
asked, then, how the unbeliever, the questioner,
the
e, the A-theist, came to accept a posture of defense, of
, "The Infidel" was Ingersoll's term for himself. It
not have born a negative connotation, when the magnit orator declaimed the great truths ... that centuries
n Christianity, in India, mental hospitals were an esIshed fact, whereas in the Christian West, the obscurantism
nligion permitted the chaining of the mentally ill, in
s, and physical torture, beatings, to "exorcise" devils.
scienceof astronomy was well-developed, centuries before
ultimate obscenity, the Inquisition,
tried Galileo for

"
On close examination, one finds that spokesmen

of the
rs" institution of religion do not use the term
lst" with the degree of opprobrium many church-free
uals apply to themselves!The true beliefs of Atheists,
capacities for reason, their humanity, are diluted and beby the cowardice of the historians, of academia, and
by the profit-motivated communications media.
must, as emancipated people, assert the positive, prove aspects of our position, and without resort to myth or
carry our message of the supremacy of reason and
verfiable by experience, independent of all arbitrary as'ons of authority or creeds.
materialist philosophy, that is, the supremacy of
, declares that the cosmos is devoid of immanent
purpose; that it is governed by its own inherent,
Ie and impersonal law; that there is no supernatural
nee in human life; that man-finding
his resources
himself-can and must create his own destiny; and that
tial for good and higher development
is for all
I purposes unlimited.

f""

.,.

Presentation of the
American-Atheist-of-The-Year Award to Jo Kotula
Seventh Annual National
American Atheist Convention
Chicago, Illinois/April, 1977
The award was presented by
Dr. Madalyn Murray O'Hair, President
Jo Kotula was brought over to the United States, an infant of just
nine months, by parents, one of whom had a healthy dislike for the two
institutions which he said had denied him an education: the Church and
the Czar. For the latter, his father had fought the Japanese, in 1904,
ending up a prisoner first in Japan, later in .the logging camps of
Canada .
At age fifteen, and without formal training, Jo began earning his
living in art (Yes, he was a high school dropout, although it was not
called that back when Jo was fifteen!). At nineteen, working in San
Antonio, Texas, he met Charline Kirkpatrick, whose mother's honest
philosophy of living did not include false religious posturing. Jo and
Charline had a brood of five children. Starting in Texas, flourishing
further in New York, the mecca of artists, Jo soon was a very wellknown commercial artist. You have seen his paintings on the covers of
Saturday Evening Post, Popular Science, Liberty, Newsweek and-in
addition-he has been seen in many of the nation's advertising pictures.
Jo was fascinated with airplanes. He soon knew more about them
than the people who made them and he soon began to paint that which
he loved so much. If you ever put together a model airplane, somewhere along the line you saw some of Jo's work-that perfect plane
floating in the air, toward which you were striving as you struggled with
the parts. For thirty-five years he painted the covers for Model Airplane
News. Jo flew a number of types of airplanes himself. His interest in
safety features inspired him to design several small planes, and curiously, earned him a place in history. The Insurance Institute for Hi-Way
Safety wrote him last May that in their search for the earliest record of
invention of the AIRBAG, they found his drawings were made back in
1941 ... even though General Motors does not like the prospect,
having spent $90 million in it, the Secretary of Transportation, Brock
Adams thinks it would save 8,000 lives a year, and should be in every
car. We doubt that the Atheist who invented it (but did not patent the
ideal) will receive either remuneration or recognition.
After a long career in art, with few opportunities to explore philosophically, he found himself totally persuaded by his wife's (Charline)
cynicism concerning religion and this led him to a series of protests,
involving state-church issues. He best remembers being scathed by a
New Jersey Monsignor after he had publically proclaimed in a Letter to
The Editor that Thomas Jefferson advised his nephew, Peter Carr, that
he could avow a disbelief in god. Jo, of course, was right and the
Monsignor was wrong, but the reactions of the community brought him
a sort of notoriety for which he had not bargained. However, it did
make him many new friends and solidified his antipathies toward a
believer establishment that he felt was becoming increasingly a threat to
freedom.
Then, of course, next in line of events was his discovery of Madalyn
Murray and her fight. Communications were established when she was
in Hawaii, and his commitment to the cause of Atheism became a
lifestyle.
Two years ago, when American Atheists decided to try to reissue
the American Atheist magazine, it was Jo Kotula who came to the
rescue. He had designed our stationary, envelopes, Solstice cards, and
convention material. Now, in earnest he began to work with the magazine. You have all seen it change, develop, become more beautiful. In
1976, indeed, Jo and Charline made the long trip from New Jersey to
Texas to assist as they could. Jo stayed up many nights to see that the
magazine would be attractive enough to put on any newsstand. We
think that he has done his job well, and, for this devotion to duty, we
are very happy to present Jo Kotula this American-Atheist-of-The-Year
Award.

MAY, 1977/AMERICAN ATHEIST - 3

SUBJECT: Silent Meditation

in Michigan schools
(February
issue of The
American Atheist, pg. 15) .
Dear Editor,
Even though the Silent Meditation
Amendment
was passed into Law by
the Michigan
Legislators,
it is worthless.
When Rep. James F. Smith introduced the Amendment,
he was a lame
duck and the Amendment
was passed
as a courtesy.
The original
Amendment was changed to read that it will
not be effective
until the Supreme
Court renders a decision as to its Constitutionality.
The Michigan Supreme
Court will not render such a decision
because the Court must be petitioned
for a decision
between
the time the
Bill was passed
and
the
date
it
becomes
effective.
Since the date it
became effective
was the moment
it
was signed into law, the people supporting the Amendment
did not have
time to petition the Court. Therefore,
the
Silent
Meditation
Amendment
is worthless.
Senator" Jack Faxon (Chair, Education) has just introduced
Senate Bill
170 which will delete completely the
Silent
Meditation
Amendment
from
the Michigan School Code Law.
Joe Simone
Mason, Michigan
Dear Joe,
Glad to hear it. We are passing on
the word by publishing your letter.
Editor
Dear Editor,
I have nothing but praise and deep
respect for the book written
by Miss
Phyllis Graham
entitled,
"The Jesus
Hoax".
It is unfortunate
that this scholarly
work could not be placed side by side
with every Bible placed in hotel rooms
by the Gideon Society. But it is only
the churches that have the millions of
money to distribute
their vile, and insideous propaganda.
But, if this were
possible,
I believe this Christian
insanity might die out even in this century.
An interesting
point brought out by
Miss Graham was the callous disrespect
of Jesus towards
his parents when he

MAY, 1977/AMERICAN ATHEIST - 4

ran away at the age of twelve; his

parents looked three days for him and
were greatly
upset.
He was finally
found talking with the high priests at
the Temple, and in reply to his parents
he said that "he was looking after his
Father's business".
(Luke 2:49)
I feel quite
strongly
that if his
real father
Joseph
had given this
megalomaniac
a hard quick kick in the
ass at the time it might have saved the
world from centuries
of total horror
and agony.
E. J. Keeler
Windsor, Ontario
Dear E. J.,
We wish we could place a copy of
this fine work in every hotel room too.
Unfortunately,
American A theist Press
has sold out of the last existing 100
copies. The publisher in England has
ceased business and no reprint is now
planned.
Editor
Dear Editor,
I was most anxious to write this
letter to you after having discovered
the writings
of Robert
G. Ingersoll.
I have been seeing his name in the
American Atheist magazine
and was
curious to read some of his works so
I got two of his books
from our
library. I started reading The Gods last
night and finished the whole thing in
one evening.
I am about to start on
his lectures this morning.
What
power
of
thought
and
incisiveness!
What
command
of
language and style! For sheer artistry
with words, I have to rank him with
my favorite
author
Ambrose
Bierce.
One may think that he taught the skill
of low keyed but scathing wit to Mark
Twain.
I am truly excited
at having
found this good and great mind.
I have a religionist
friend who has
expressed curiosity about Atheism and
I have been wondering
what writings
I could introduce
her to to adequately
explain the Atheist position and philosophy. Now I know whom I shall introduce
her to and I am sure she will
be in good hands.
Allow me to digress for one moment and posit a question.
Why do
you not mention
also the two works

of Twain, The War Prayer and Letters

From The Earth as background readings for the searching and the cornmitted
Atheist?
They are both excellent works and urge one to question
and doubt.
The War Prayer is not
listed in any anthology
I have ever
seen of Twain's writings but may be
available
at college
bookstores
for
that is where I first found it.
Again, I thank you for leading me
to Ingersoll.
Samuel E. Lane
Pittsburgh,
Pennsylvania
Dear Samuel,
We are aware that many Chrisitian
controlled
organizations
refuse to
allow the public to have knowledge of
lnqersoll's and Twain's greatest works.
Why not rewrite your letter and send
it off to your local papers.
Editor
Dear Editor,
I would like to say I am pleased
with my first copy of the American
Atheist.
Keep up the good work.
Other Atheists have told me how alone
and persecuted
they sometimes
feel.
While I do not have this feeling I
certainly
understand
what my friends
mean. Your magazine
can be a real
help.
My father has been a firm Atheist
all his life. A few days ago he was on
his knees nailing flooring.
Those stiff
arthritic
joints were getting sore and
when he finished
he stood up with a
lot of effort
and pain. Rubbing his
sore knees he exclaimed,
"You can't
tell me I was meant for prayer! Knees
like these would make you an Atheist
even if you were a religious fanatic!"
(I thought it was kind of amusing.)
Good
luck to all of you and I
promise to try and get more subscribers for you. I like the name American
Atheists better than Separationists.
W. Callahan
Wynndel, B.C., Canada
Thanks for the antidote

Callahan!
Editor

(yIe encourage you to express your ideas,

criticize, etc., in this section. Please write:
P. O. Box 2117, Austin, Texas, 78768.)

newspresented in these
ns, which fills approx iIyone half of the magazine,
n to demonstrateto you,
after month, that the
reactionaryhand of religion
ys on you. It dictates how
tax you pay, what food
lilt and when, with whom
havesexual relations, how
where, when and what
if you will have children
ow many, what you read
lays,cinemaand television
may see and what you
or should not believe
life.
19ionis politics and, althemostauthoritarian and
ry politics.
itorialize our news to
ie this thesis.Unlike any
zine or newspaper in
States,we are honest
to admitit.

E
UTHAN
RITY
laying on hands, evan-

thryn Kuhlman was also

up treasures worth
, according to a final
court's inventory of
healer's
estate.
included
an
car dealer, two sisters,
w and 20 employes,
for the foundation
The estate included
home, $94,000 in
187,350 in Pittsburgh
1,000 in valuable
well as other furnisha Russian sable coat
coat worth a total
he also had $500 in
coins
apparently
collection containKuhlman's professed
cure, most of her
debts resulted from
before dying a year

NEWS
Investigating The Effects of
Religious Cults on The Health
And Welfare of Their Converts
The American Atheist frequently reports on the activities of
various religious cults such as that of Rev. Moon's. This is done
primarily to warn our readers of the dangers of religious groups
that utilize brainwashing to 'educate' their followers. Even the
child of an Atheist family can fall prey to some of their
techniques.
We are very lucky to have obtained the following testimony of
John G. Clark, Jr., M.D. before a special committee of the
Vermont Senate. Dr. Clark is Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at
both Harvard Medical School and the Massachusetts General
Hospital.
The following is Dr. Clark's official statement.
In this statement to the committee established by the Vermont
Legislature, I intend to present substantive conclusions drawn
from 2% years of research on the effects of membership in some
religious cults on personal health of their converts. My conclusions
are rather grim: The health hazards are extreme! Though I will
talk primarily of the absolute dangers to mental health and personal development, I must also as a physician draw attention to
equally serious, often life threatening, dangers to physical health.
I will state that coercive persuasion and thought reform
techniques are effectively practiced on naive, uninformed subjects
with disastrous health consequences. I will try to give enough information to indicate my reasons for further inquiries as well as
review of applicable legal processes.
From the specific data gathered during the time of my investigations a rather accurate natural history of involvement in the
cults can be now adequately described. In doing this I believe I
can adequately demonstrate why I think here are major health
hazards as well as many other social concerns directly caused by
activities of the particular cults which we try to define as destructive. The destructive cults are numerous and include the very well
known ones such as Hare Krishna, The Unification Church, The
Scientologists, and the Divine Light Mission, all of whom are
utilizing the same basic techniques. The fact that I use the
word techniques indicates that these investigations have delineated
a series of technical aspects to these questions which need to be
understood and can be explained.
All of the groups that we are talking about have living leaders
who are demonstrably wealthy. The beliefs of all these cults are
absolutists and non-tolerant of other systems of beliefs. Their
systems of governance are totalitarian. A requirement of membership is to obey absolutely without questioning. Their interest in
the individual's development within the cult towards some kind of

MAY, 1977/AMERICAN ATHEIST 5

satisfactory
individual's
adult
personality is by their doctrines,
very low or nonexistent. It is
clear that almost all of them
emphasize money making in one
form or another, although a few
seem to be very much involved in
demeaning or self denigrating
activities and rituals. Most of
them that I have studied possess
a good deal of property and
money which
is under the
discretionary
control
of the
individual leaders.
Most of the cults of concern
consider themselves purely religious; some others appear to be
more political. One of the most
important of the common properties of such cults is the
presence of a leader who, in one
way or another, claims special
powers or may even allow
himself to be thought of as the
Messiah. Such leaders do have
special personal qualities including a unique world view and a
special willingness to effect drastic changes in the thinking and
behavior of followers.
It appears that the techniques
utilized by these cults are very
similar overall although each one
uses its own peculiar style. It
would appear obvious that all of
these cults have worked out
ways of gaining access to susceptible individuals' in order to
have survived to any degree.
Those who succumb to the
enlisting efforts seem to be
divided into two rather distinct
groups. The first is composed of
the "seekers", of whom we all
know, popularly though incorrectly thought to constitute the
entire population of susceptible
people. They are schizophrenic,
chronically so, or border-line
personalities. It is quite clear that
the existence of emotional or
personality problems is a reason
for becoming involved in the
cults and that most mental
health
professionals
consider
only this reason at present. These
inductees involved themselves in
order to feel better because they
are excessively uncomfortable

MAY, 1977/AMERICAN ATHEIST - 6

with the outside world and

themselves.
Such
motivated
versions are "restitutive", in that
the "seekers" are trying to
restore themselves to some
semblance of comfort in a fresh,
though false, reality. We also see
this attempt at restitution in the
development of the so-called
secondary symptoms of schizophrenia and other forms of
mental illness as the attempt of a
troubled or damaged mind to put
together a new, simplified mental
world and style of reasoning in
order to compensate for the
terrible
awareness (or
near
awareness) of personal vulnerability. Approximately
58% of
inductees were found to be in
this first group from my studies.
The remaining 42% of the
examined sample, however, were
not ill or damaged in the sense I
have mentioned before. That is,
they were found to be apparently normal, developing young
people who were going through
the usual crises of development
on the way to becoming adults,
who, for any of a number of
reasons, had fallen into the trap
laid by the cults and had been
taken in. On examination they
were strong growing students on
the average who were facing the
normal pains of separation from
their families, the normal depressions therefrom, the new,
clear, slightly feverish view of the
complexity
of outer reality
which is a part of early college
life. I think of their joining the
cult as being "adaptive"; that is,
they are presented with certain
problems by the cult and adapt
themselves to it by psychic,
social and physiological processes
which are not in themselves as
pathological as those involved in
the "restitutive" conversions. In
some ways it is th is more
healthy, "adaptive" group that is
most alarming to the observer.
From a clinician's point of
view the first or restitutive group
under the influence of cult
indoctrination
and practices is
very much at risk. In many ways

it can be very easily shown

long experience within the
tal health field how very
more damaged they may
by being given a thoughtdi
by a group that conforms
prior tendency to this
thinking disability. Theirch
of ever developing a good
tionship to outer reality
becoming autonomous i
uals must, perforce, di .
with the passageof time.I
reminded of the chronic
phrenics of some years
whose psychotic style of
ing became totally instituf
ized when placed in the
wards of hospitals for sucha
enough time that they ulti
Iy could no longer think
effectively. The healthier
group, though theoretically
totally vulnerable, is more
to identify with; their pro
may be especially revealing
will try to explain.
These people tend to be
intact, idealistic, believing
lies with some religious
ground. Often they hadnot
made any of the major
toward independence, a
left home at the appropriate
believing they were read
freedom. When this belief
seriously challenged in this
new world by their first
backs or by any real crisis
became covertly depressed,
enhancing their susceptibir
the processesof conversion.
For individuals in this
vulnerability to be conv
series of circumstances,
niques and events must
bring about the complete
jugation of mind and
which I am attempting to
cribe. The first event isthe
ing of access to thesepo
converts wh ich is raised
high art by all of the su
cults. Some even have
manuals describing where
proach prospects, exactly
types of initial pressure
on each of them and
odds are that they will

in number of converts
given amount of preswell applied. The general
of manners of this
addsto the easeof access.
sucha prospecthas agreed
igatethe rather simple
'tions expressed by the
tativesof the cult he or
broughtinto the next and
sophisticatedactivities of
versionprocess.From the
tensegroup pressure,lecies,falseuse of facilities
ther inter-personal presunexpected by
the
I are brought to bear.
chantingand a constant
of the kinds of rhetoric
catchthe young idealistic
are constantly in play.
is this that individuals
undersuchpressureand
tible tend to enter a
f narrowed attention,
8

Smith

especially as they are more and

more deprived of their ordinary
frames of reference and of sleep.
This state must be described as
a trance. From that time there is
a relative or complete loss of
control of one's own mind and
actions which is then placed into
the hands of the group or of individuals who have the direct
contact
with
the individual
inductee. This induction period
has also been described as
"coercive persuasion".
Once this state of passive,
narrowed attention and willingness to be influenced is achieved,
the true work of conversion (or
of thought reform) begins in
earnest. This is always a program
of unbelievable intensity! During
this, all of the cults step up their
idealogical reform pressures by
increased group pressure, change
of diet, and the introduction of

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MAY, 1977/AMERICAN ATHEIST-7

up all familiar
and loved past
objects - parents, sibl ings, home,
city, etc. - and they are physically and emotionally
moved to
as foreign an environment
as is
possible to imagine.
Thus, it
becomes. increasingly
hard for
them to reconstruct
in imagination
what
one
has once
experienced
some time in the
past. Reality becomes the present and includes in it elements
of supernatural,
magical, terrifying thought
which
has been
expressed constantly
all around.
There is no base left for reality
testing.
Perhaps as important
a factor
as any is that the base of each
individual's
language which has
been part of the mind and the
body function
from the very
early stages, is slowly and deliberately changed. All words of
any emotional
importance
have
had
some
shifting
of
their
meaning to an oversimplified,
special sort of related definition.
Each person is given more and
more tasks to learn, to study to
grasp, and has less time to believe that the past ever existed.
By this time the indoctrination
has defined parents as being infected by satan's influence and
parenthood
is reinvested in the
leaders of the cults. The urge to
go home has been replaced by
the
need
for
the
absolute
authority
of the cult and its
leaders and at the same time the
value of education and the need
to go to school has disappeared
from consciousness,
this much
radical change of attitudes, loyalties and thinking style can occur
and regularly does occur within
a few days to a few weeks.
From this time the problem of
maintenance of the state of mind
is apparently rather simple. Leaving the old familiar
life setting
and renouncing it for a new communal theology, the accepting of
a new family with new definitions of love and the denouncing of natural parents leads an
individual to think all bridges to
the past are closed and that a

MAY, 1977/AMERICAN ATHEIST - 8

very brave move into a new

world has, indeed, been made.
In some cults
members
are
taught
intensive
chanting
and
meditating
procedures which in
case of any attack
on their
beliefs can cover up all possible
thoughts and doubts. Others can
apparently
reenter a trance state
with a narrowed consciousness of
reality
the first moment
that
somebody
questions
or challenges their
beliefs. They are
then promoted to the next steps
or stages in their cults usually
as proselytizers,
money raisers
or
in
some
cases garbage
collectors.
I n my opin ion, the last stage
of this process in both adaptive
and restitutive
groups probably
may evolve after four to seven
years. This would be "acculturation" and would be irreversible.
This stage may be compared to
that of the untreated person with
a schizophrenic
illness who slides
without
proper help into a kind
of personal degredation which, if
unchallenged
or untreated
in
time finally
becomes acculturated and permanent.
Anyone
trying to nudge a person from
this acquired style of thinking
and behavior as we in the mental
health field know very well is
going to feel that
he is the
natural
enemy
of
his own
patient. In my opinion, I repeat,
by acculturation
this new style
of thinking
may become irreversible.
Before this final
state cult
members seem to experience two
forms of personality: the original
and the imposed. The original
is complex, full of love relationships, expectations
and hopes
and, especially,
rich language.
This richness of language is that
which
parents
suddenly
miss
when they first see their thought
reformed children. Their reaction
is appropriately
panic!
They
recognize and correctly
identify
terrifying,
sudden, unacceptable
changes in the style of language
and the style of relating as well
as a narrowing
and thinning

down of the thought p

Formally
bright, flu
creative individuals are
incapable, of the use of'
metaphor and they spea
smaller
carefully
vocabulary
with clich
stereotyped ideas. They
pear to have great d
using abstractions in thei
or arguments. They do
except in cliches and
forms. Almost all ofthe
emotion-laden
language
are shifted to new
Parents notice this long
professionals
because
not need cumbersome a
rate tools to analyze I
patterns. Their memories
tu ition are sufficient.
The evidence for what
shift in personality, who
be what we call in
"depersonal ization" co
several kinds of ob
The first is that, despite
pearance to very ex
clinicians
of flagrant a
sical
schizophrenia in
converts
the induced
state being discussed
respond to the most
antipsychotic
drugs or
the
methods
of t
customarily
applied by
health professionals to
effective th inking. Thus
relatively
helpless to
thinking
processes
under the current interp
of the laws we cannot
physical control for long
to bring about the con
therapies
which
m"
effective
in reestablish
original personality sty
way it was done with the
war prisoners. On the 0
antipsychotic
medicines
effective
in
treating
psychosis in these same
though not affecting the
conversion.
The second and ra
pelling piece of evide
the thought
reformed
dramatically
altered
process of deprogrammi

which, though I cannot legally advise

it as a therapy
under most circumstances, a great deal is known. The
deprograming
process as it is now
practiced effects, in a large number of
cases, a fairly rapid return
to the
old organization
of mind, a "repersonalization" and brings back with it the
old language
skills and memories,
original personal relationship
patterns
and of course
the old problems.
Furthermore,
it is regularly observed
that for some time after deprogramming the affected individuals are very
vulnerable
for about
a year and,
especially during the first few weeks to
two months,
they
feel themselves
aware of, and close to, two different
mental worlds. Their strong impulses
to return to the cult are controlled by
logical reasoning
processes
and the
great fear of someone taking control
of their minds from the outside once
again. During
this time a former
convert can quickly
be recaptured
either by a fleeting
impulse or by
entering a trance state through a key
word or piece of music or by chanting or by a team from the cult. In
general, however, after a return to an
original state of mind the individual's
problems begin to seem like ordinary
health problems.
Most of them are
depressed depleted
people reminding
one very much of the status of patients who have recently
recovered
from acute psychosis who are able to
feel that for the first time in their
lives they had lost a clear sense of
reality and of control.
They feel
ashamed of what they have done and
the pain they have inflicted, are very
scared and for a while unable to
manage their
lives effectively.
To
remain within the strict mental and
social confines of the cult experience
for even a short time is disastrous
for some who have become psychotic
or have committed suicide. Continuing
membership appears to invite a deeper
acceptance of the controlled
state of
mind and, in my opinion, leads to the
gradual
degredation
of
ordinary
thought processes necessary to cope
with highly differentiated
and ambiguous external life problems of the
future. In this state after some time
the intellect appears to lose a great
many LQ. points; the capacity to form
flexible human relationships
or real
intimacy is impaired and all reality
testing functions are difficult to mobilize so that judgement
is poor. An
individual with even moderate
prior
psychological disability is likely to be

set back considerably

and permanently
in his or her maturation
to adulthood and will certainly be impaired in
the ability and capacity to deal with
the real world's
opportunities
and
dangers. The loss of educational
and
occupational
experiences
will confirm
these
losses
beyond
any
doubts.
This is the rough picture of the
phenomenon
of thought
reform
as
practiced by present day cults and the
natural history of this process and its
effects
on the involved
individuals.
Though
incomplete,
it is based on
the examination
of 27 subjects at all
stages
of involvement
in six different
cults
as well as interviews
with
many
more
interested
and
informed
observers.
I believe
the
overall
outline
is sound
though,
of
course,
incomplete.
The
fact
of a personality shift in my opinion is
established.
The fact that this is a
phenomenon
basically
unfamiliar
to
the mental
health
profession
I am
certain of. The fact that our ordinary
methods
of treatment
don't work is
also clear as are the frightening hazards
to the process of personal growth and
mental health.
In this paper I have tried to describe the phenomenon
of involvement
of young people in destructive
cults.
The problems of special vulnerability

to conversion were described and two

major
groups
of susceptibles
were
identified.
A natural history of access,
induction
by coercive persuasion,
the
process of thought and attitude reform
and the maintenance
of conversion
were described, An opinion that a permanent
state
of acculturation
was
likely to occur after a number of years
was expressed.
The rapidity of these
catastrophic
changes were emphasized
as well as many of their qualities
and these were related
to mental
health and maturational
concerns.
Specific
and important
problems
such as suicide, depression,
psychotic
reactions and psychosomatic
disorders
are most serious and deserve another
discussion
and much
more study.
It is also clear that the multiple,
serious and often bizarre problems of
physical
illness
need
careful
and
official
attention.
Both the mental
health and physical health problems
presented by the activities of the cults
should be investigated
in much greater
detail by official agencies.
I believe
that they merit active interest of such
constitutive
authorities
as this Legislative body who I trust can see some
of the great implications
of all that
has been discussed and will be further
revealed in these hearings.

DID CHRIST START THIS WAY?

-orWhose BirthdayWili We Celebrate
in 2000 years?
In the preceeding article Dr. Clark outlined the dangers of religious brainwashing. Dana Gosney, a reporter for the Redwood City Tribune in California has more of a first hand account. Dana Gosney's experience at Rev.
Moon's "Internationalldeal
City Ranch" is horrifying.
REDWOOD CITY (AP)-A chilled and nearly sleepless night was brought
to an abrupt end as a boot thundered
onto the wooden plank floor.
It was 6:30 Saturday morning, and the children of the International
Ideal
City Ranch were squirming to life in the freezing coast air.
Moonies and their new recruits were scattered about on the floor of a converted chicken coop, some still sputtering
and snoring as I made my way to
one of three tiny doorways.
What had been billed by my hosts as "the best weekend of your life"
was beginning to unfold. I was the recruit butterfly leaving its cocoon, hungry
for nourishment.
Later I would find the "nourishment"
consuming me inch
by inch.
Johan Shahi, the man whose invitation led me here, slipped up behind me
as I stood drinking in the scenic beauty. He was to be my "spiritual partner"
and would not leave my side for as long as I remained on the 700-acre ranch.

MAY, 1977/AMERICAN

ATHEIST - 9

Guitar strings strummed a greeting as nearly 400

young Moonies and their 40 new recruits began to
sing and sway arm-in-arm to "You Are My Sunshine." The voices were full of life.
I found myself caught up in the group singing.
There was a sense of power and energy that seemed
to have its roots in youth itself. The average age of
my companions was about 23.
Then came exercises, held in two gigantic circles,
one within the other. They consisted of the standard high school gym class warm ups with a taste
of yoga thrown in for good measure.
This was the beginning of a regimentation that
would, in its own special way, make military basic
training seem like child's play.
The ranch rules seemed easy enough to follow.
There was to be no smoking, no drugs and no
drinking of alcoholic beverages.
A fourth rule seemed at first to be as innocent as
the other three. We were asked to leave our "negativity"
at the main gate, with the understanding
that if we decided to leave, we could pick it up
again on the way out.
"Negativity,"
as described to us, in a vague concept that encompasses hate, fear, anger, anxiety
and skepticism. It also is used to discourage any
critical questioning by recruits. That would be
"negative. "
When our group went to a breakfast of granola,
fruit and orange juice, I was introduced to an
other emotional little game called "sharing."
It
would be played with absolute regularity and
require that we "share" personal, religious, economic, educational
and family backgrounds with
other members.
A fter the sharing and singing at breakfast, one
of the childlike Moonies called for a "Chooch"
chant, which seems to hold a mystical power that
pulses through the Moon community.
"Choo-choo-choo,
choo-choo-choo,
yeah, yeapow" the Moonies thundered.
On to lecture -an introduction
to the series of
five lectures that are the framework for the Unification Church. "The Divine Principles," repeated
with scientific regu laritv, are the basis for all discussion and the justification for any activity.
Our chicken coop, affectionately
known as the
"Chicken Palace," became the center of activity
for more than 400 young people. A chorus of
"God Bless America" shook every board of the
"palace."
Jeremiah, my group leader, was left on stage to
relate the community's goals and the need to:
- -Open your hearts to the collective of god's
children.
-Do away with skepticism and learn to trust.
-Do away with internal conflicts that, by their
nature, produced worldwide conflict.
-Do anything that the "creation"
(a yet-to-

MAY, 1977/AMERICAN ATHEIST - 10

be-mentioned god or leadership figure) deemed

necessary for the preservation of the collective
being.
Each new round of ideas brought howls and
screeches from those around me. Some had the
presentation
memorized and were mouthing the
words along with the speaker. Others were muttering, "Yes, father," over and over again.
The rhythm of the morning was quickening, and
my own careful detachment seemed less secure. I
was caught in a whirlpool of very logical and convincing pronouncements, only occasionally surfacing for air of reality.
I could see that the principles were headed
toward the justification
and glorification
of and
blind obedience to Moon, but those principles
made unnerving sense.
I was 150 miles from home, on a ranch isolated
from the outside world, faced with a threatening
new definition
of truth and without
a way to
check my bearings in relation to these force- fed
concepts.
I wanted to be alone for a few minutes to collect
my thought, but it was explained that self-reflec
tion could have no value in the collective body.
One had to open with the "brothers and sisters" of
the ranch.
No matter what each new recruit might be
doing, a young Moonie would be there to hold our
hands or put an arm around us. They were
constantly asking for our thoughts about the day,
weekends or lectures. Even as we went to the bathroom,
there was someone there, asking and
discussing.
After
lunch
came
the
every-after-noon
dodge-ball game that provided physical activity
between the second and third lectures. Then, after
a short sharing period of reflection on the worldly
meaning and fulfillment
of the "game," we went
back to the lecture.
During the last meal of the day-vegetables and
a "New Age Big Mac" (soy-burgers)-there
was
much more discussion of the day's activities.
Then, after several hours of self-generated entetainment, the group headed for sleep.
Sunday proved a repetition
of Saturday-Iec
tures, discussions and games, all in the same order
as the day before. As the day progressed, the ac
tivities became far more intense.
I was pulled away from the afternoon dodgeball game by Johan, who led me off into the trees
to plead with me to stay for another five daysto
"Iearn the true meaning of life and the Universe."
There was more talk of leadership, but still in
very vague terms-no
mention of Moon, just of
father image, and no reference to the Unifi
tion Church.
I could wait no longer and asked Johan to
through the jungle of vagueness. Who was

leadership that had been sprinkled through all

of the lectures?
Johan hesitated, stumbled and fought with the
idea of telling me the answer I sought. Finally,
after a long silence, he said the group believes in
the teaching of Rev. Sun Myung Moon.
He was quick in following up with the same
sort of logic that had been used over and over in
the lectures-the world is afraid of a new leader;
Moon is not a bad person as the press would have
you believe, he is simply another Jesus Christ, a
new messiah who is being persecuted by those who
do not understand.
It was now 3 in the afternoon, and I was sure of
only one thing-I wanted out. My stomach continued to churn, and the confusion inside me continued to build.
There was nothing physically to restrict me from
leaving camp, but I sheepishly asked permission to
leave. Permission was denied.
It's important to understand that the thing that
held me was psychological in nature. I had lost
touch with the physical reality of being able to
jump the fence at any time.
Forty minutes later, Johan and I emerged from
the wooded area a few feet from the "Chicken
Palace." My decision to leave was unchanged, but
the Moonies clearly had not abandoned their determination to hold me. They had placed my sleeping bag in a spot that was impossible to reach
without alerting the entire camp that I was trying
to leave.
After threading through a maze of young faces,
each pleading, I reached my bag and turned to ask
Johan for the use of the phone, as we had agreed
earlier. I then was told that the telephone didn't
work, that it never had and, in fact, that it had
never been hooked up.
If I needed further reason to flee the ranch, it
came a minute later when I spotted a fellow
recruit, Neil, as he lay weeping and near hysteria at
Jeremiah's feet.
Neil seemed too weak and emotionally shattered
to leavethe grasp of Moon's "heavenly children."
It is several hundred yards from the "Chicken
Palace" to the main gate, and Jeremiah suggested
that the whole congregation walk with me on my
Journey from the ranch. But, as it turned out, only
Johan trailed along to unlock the gate and give me
my freedom.
It was 6:30 p.m., 3% hours after I had first
askedto be released.
Two steps beyond the gate, I experienced the
sensation of falling and reached out to steady myself. My stomach, after churning for several hours,
finally forced its contents from my mouth.
I had been on a voyage to the Land of Oz and
hadjust been slammed back into reality.

Now- Rev.Moon's
Free Ad Service
By William Claiborne
The Washington Post ,
NEW YORK-The Rev.
Sun Myung Moon's new
daily newspaper, the News
World, has been on sale
only a short time and in
what might be interpreted
as a miracle, its broadsheet
pages already are crowded
with seemingly lucrative
advertisements.
There are full-page advertisements from a big
Dodge dealer, and halfpage ads from a bus line,
ads from a B.F. Goodrich
tire dealer, and attractive
layouts from fashionable
Manhattan clothing stores.
"It's been very exciting.
The advertisers are responding very quickly,"
said
Thomas
Pearson,
promotion director of the
News World.
It's little wonder that
the advertisers respond so
quickly, judging from a
survey by the Washington Post of merchants
whose ads appeared in
several issues recently.
Most of the merchants
said they did not pay for
the advertisements. A few,
in incredulous tones, said
they didn't even know
their wares or services
were being advertised in
Moon's
Unification
Church newspaper.
In fact, most of the
businessmen queried said
they had not known that
the News World was connected with Moon and his
followers because there is
no mention of the Unification Church in the newspaper.
Some of the merchants
said they would attempt
to force the News World
to remove the ads, which

in most cases were simply

taken from other publications and reproduced.
"We don't back anything like that (the Unification Church). They're
going to have to take the
ad out,"
said Joseph
Luzan, a representative of
a B. F. Goodrich Tire Co.
outlet in Long Island City.
Luzan said the News
World apparently obtained
the advertising copy from
a local weekly and reproduced it "without
our
authorization."
Robert Walker, an official of the Allied Bus
Corp., said his firm's halfpage ad ran in News World
without
his permission,
and that, when he called
the newspaper, "they said,
'It's on us. That's okay.'''
"These guys are determined
to make this
newspaper a success," said
Walker, who speculated
that his ad was reproduced
from the copy he had sent
to several weeklies.
Walker said he has been
doing business with the
Unification
Church for
several years, providing
charter
bus service to
rallies and other events
sponsored by Moon. But,
he said, he has no plans to
pay for any ads in the
paper.
Paul Winston, co-manager of Chipp Custom
Tailors in Manhattan, recalled a young man stopped in and "made the
proverbial offer you can't
refuse."
The deal was that News
World would run Chipp's
half-page ad for a week
at half the standard rate

MAY, 1917/AMERICAN ATHEIST -11

for one day, and then

"take the total cost in
trade."
Winston said he agreed,
adding "If your paper
wants to give me a halfpage at that rate, I'll take
it. "
Some of the advertisers
who said they. paid for
ads seemed to have some
association with the Unification Church, the South
Korean sect that blends
Christianity, Eastern rei igion and ardent anti-communism, with Moon as the
self-proclaimed messiah.
A proprietor of the SoKo clothing store (presumably shorthand for South
Korea)
asked
testily,
"What is your motive for
asking these questions?"
He refused to discuss the
ads.
The
paper
carries

numerous ads for Oriental

restaurants, and products
from Asia, such as Korean
ginseng tea.
Most of the merchants
who said they paid for ads
acknowledge having a business relationship with the
Unification Church, such
as a Fifth Ave. flag manufacturer who said the sect
"is a good customer" and
complained he had been
receiving
"nasty
calls"
from critics of Moon's
sect.
Some
critics
have
charged the newspaper
with attempting to proselytize its readers under
the deception of being a
standard news publication
unaffiliated with any religion.
The News World is a
typographically clean, fullcolor
24-page morning

paper that bills itself as

"New York's oldest color
newspaper." On its nameplate, it carries the motto:
"Lasting success depends
on truth, beauty and love."
But nowhere in the
paper is there any mention
of the Unification Church
or of Moon. The masthead
lists a post office box
number, an agate type box
on the second page names
the publishers as News
World
Communication,
Inc., at 481 8th Ave.
That address is the old
New Yorker Hotel, valued
at $11 million, which the
Unification Church purchased as a headquarters
and residence for members.
David Jensen,
news
editor, denied the paper
plans to be "religious oriented," saying it would

strive to become like the

Christian Science Monitor,

which
he
said
"was
founded by a controversial
religious leader of her day
who is now respected."
He was referring to Mary
Baker Eddy, founder of
Christian Science.

Richard Herzog, director of the national advertising office of the Federal

Trade Commission, said
the practice of publishing
unsolicited ads is "suspect," but that since he
knows of no precedent, he
is uncertain about the Ie
gality.
Jensen said the News
World will be "completely
autonomous"
from the
Unification Church, but
added, "we don't want to
give attention to the bad
elements of our society."

RELIGION IN TEXTBOOKS
The Good News and The Bad News
TheGoodNews
Biblical Text on Creation Banned
INDIANAPOLIS {AP)-It is unconstitutional
for
public schools to use a ninth-grade biology textbook
that promotes the biblical theory of creation and says,
"There is no way to support the doctrine of evolution,"
a judge has ruled.
Marion Superior Court Judge Michael Dugan said
recently the book, "Biology: A Search for Order in
Complexity,"
is clearly one-sided and violates constitutional provisions on separation of church and state.
"The prospect of biology teachers and students alike
forced to answer and respond to continued demand for
correct fundamentalist Christian doctrines has no place
in the public schools," Dugan said.
He ordered the Indiana textbook commission to
remove the book from the list of state-approved classroom books. Two state school systems use the book
exculsively and five others use it with other texts.
His ruling came in a suit brought by the Indiana Civil
Liberties Union on behalf of the parents of two students
using the book.
"Atheism didn't have anything to do with it," said
Robert Hendren, one of the parents. "l'rn not an
Atheist. People say, 'You must be against religion: I
say, 'Which religion are you referring to?' I just say I
want my son, a straight-A student, to be taught from a
9?od book with professional teachers."

MAY, 1971/AMERICAN ATHEIST - 12

~---------------------The superintendent of one school system that uses

the text called the case "a Scopes trial in reverse."
Tennessee teacher John Scopes was convicted in the
1920's of breaking a state law against teaching evolution.
An aide of Harold Negley, Indiana school superintendent, said the book will remain in use at least until
the next textbook commission meeting, which has yet
to be scheduled.
Irving Fink, attorney for the parents, said the book,
published by Zondervan Publishing House of Grand
Rapids, Mich., has been adopted or is being considered
for use in Texas, Arkansas, Tennessee and California.
The book includes the statement that "a primary
purpose of science should be to learn about God's handiwork." One section states:
"Each new discovery in biology gives us reason to
believe that plants and animals did not just happen, or
evolve. They were designed and created by a Mind far
wiser than our own. There is no way to support the
doctrine of evolution."
.
One section of the teachers' guide asks whether
Alexander Fleming's discovery of penicillin in 1928 was
the result of chance or training. The correct answer,
the guide says, is that "it was 'chance' (under the direction of god's providence) which allowed the penicillin
spores to get into the culture dishes of bacteria."
(continued, The Bad News, pg. 13.)

TheBadNews
Bible Story to Be Used in
Biology Textbook in Dallas
A biology textbook which proclaims "the power and
wisdom of god can be clearly seen in nature" and includes the biblical account of creation along with the
theory of evolution may be used in the Dallas high
schools.
Although the state Board of Education failed to approve the textbook, "A Search for Order in Complexity," for use in state schools, Dallas School Board President Bill Hunter said he saw nothing wrong with the
city's using it.
"There are two main theories of creation of man
and the universe-that of Darwin and the special creation
as set forth in the first chapter of Genesis," Hunter said.
"Giving only the Darwin version is not a balanced presentation. "
While one would think that a man reaching the position of president of a school board would be intelligent
and educated, Hunter leaves room for doubt in the
minds of the rational when he stated:
"We used the state committee's recommendations
on textbooks but we can make our own choice of classroom resource material," Hunter said. "We are not
going to replace the textbooks now being used. We are
just providing teachers and students with' a resource to

D~MSAlt

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llE.~~1

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~~

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looks like Brother Brown has gone over the wail!"

~---------------------balance out the presentation."

We can only imagine what Hunter would do if he
could locate a geography textbook that presented a
'balanced presentation' of the sun revolving around the
earth.
Evolution Gets Torn
out of Textbooks'
Milton Freewater, Oregon school board appears to
have the same type mentality as the school board of
Dallas, Texas, only worse. Rather than have two sides of
the story in a textbook they simply tear out the one
they disagree with.
The evolutionary theory had been torn from the
pages of the books but was ordered restored in response
to a threat from the American Civil Liberties Union.
The legal issue was whether state-approved textbooks
could be altered.
'
The pages dealing with the evolutionary theory of
man had been torn from the texts, leaving Adam and
Eve to explain where man came from. The ACLU had
given the district until to restore the material on evolution or face a lawsuit.
.
Local religious leaders were unhappy with the return
of the evolutionary theory which conflicts with their
Sunday school "educational" programs.

Scientists Use New

Techniques to Disprove
Creation Fables
BERKELEY
(AP}-The
secrets of the universe are
being probed by University of
California scientists with the
aid of high-flying U-2 spy
planes.
The UC researchers are
trying to discover whether
or not the universe rotates,
how galaxies condensed and
where our galaxy, the Milky
Way, is headed in space.
"Every culture ... has its
stories of creation, myths
and fables of how the world
started," says Richard Muller,
a UC astrophysicist.
"Our
civilization may be the first
one to get the true story."
Since
October,
project
scien tists have sent one of
two exmilitary spy planes,
now used for research by
the National Aeronautics and
Space Administration, into the
night sky four times.
Mounted behind the cockpit are a pair of horn-shaped
radio receivers. As the pilots
soar to 65,000 feet in the thin
icy-cold air, the receivers are
tuned to the faint microwave
signals given off by the uni-

verse since it was born.

As more and more missions are flown, the group
will look for subtle changes in
the strength of the signal as it
emanates from different parts
of deep space.
"When you study this
radiation,
you are literally
looking at the early universe," said Geoffrey Burgidge, a UC San Diego astronomer. "These waves started as
light emitted by material at a
point now about 17 billion
light-years away."
Measurements so far show
the radiation to be almost the
same in all directions. But
astronomers say that when
they measure it at finer levels
of accuracy, some slight differences will be found.
They believe that the signal
will be slightly stronger in the
direction the earth is moving
through space. Other changes
may reveal whether the universe was already breaking up
into clumps of matter, which
later formed into galaxies,
when only one million years
old.

MAY, 1977/AMERICAN ATHEIST -13

Religious Units Sa
$3 Million in Local Tt.
The following is quoted from a story in
Observer, This report is on the church wealth
county, in one state of the United States.
Churches and other religious organizationsin
County own more than $232 million in tax
buildings and equipment, according to the
itemizing of tax-exempt property, releasedr
If Charlotte and the county taxed this prop
bring in more than $3 million a year.
The county alone would get more than $1.8ml
The exact amount the city would get hasn't
Robert P. Alexander, county tax supervisor,says
thirds of the religious tax-exempt property is in
at current city tax rates it would bring m
million. Hence, the more-than-$3 million estima
Exempting some property from taxes incr
rate for every other piece of property if govern
'collect a set amount.
By North Carolina law, properties usedfor
gious instruction and other religious purposesare
Tax exemptions for religious property stretch
Testament days when, according to the Book
Joseph exempted priests' land and revenuesfro
When America became a haven for people
freedom and the founding fathers wanted to
way, they specified in the First Amendmentto
tion that Congress would not make lawsgoverni
Alexander says he believes reiigious groups
property taxes, but he knows of no pushto get
"While churches receive special privilegesfrom
there will be no true separation of church and
Alexander, himself an officer of Mulberry
Church, which owns almost $500,000 in
property.
"Churches are always under some obligation
long as they receive tax-exempt status," hesaid.'
difficult for most churches to pay taxes, but 1
we'll ever be able to say we're completely fr
state) as long as we receive these specialbenefits."
Figures Alexander released Monday showth
more than $952 million in tax-exempt property
ligious property, that includes hospitals, colleges
sities, cemeteries, historical property, the qua
table and fraternal organizations, nonprofit
waste facilities, pollution control devices,priv
schools and part of the value of property' own
people with incomes under $7,500.
In addition to congregations, some of the bi
property owners in the "county and their hold'
Catholic Diocese of Charlotte, $5.1 million; M
for the Aged, $8.8 million; Presbyterian Home
$5.7 million; United House of Prayer, $1.6 mil
of God state headquarters, $1.5 million; andSal
$2.7 million.

~m m !E!!mm~*.,~[::l;o::~~~mit
MAY, 1977/AMERICAN ATHEIST - 14

The real-estate appraisals are

as of Jan. 1, 1975. Estimates
of the value of personal property
of these groups - furniture,
kitchen equipment and other
furnishings - are more recent.
The property
of
Trinity
Broadcasting Systems Inc., which
operates the PTL Television
Network, is not exempt from
county property taxes, although
it has applied for exemption.
Religious tax exemptions may
not be a big issue in Mecklenburg County, but some have
questioned them for years, and
a handful of churches around the
nation have voluntarily
paid
municipal fees for fire, police
and sanitation services. Alexander said he did not know of
religious groups in Mecklenburg
that do.

" The

Religious Empire,"

published in 1976, says rei igious tax-exempt property in the

United States totals more than
$150 billion - more than half of
all private tax-exempt property.
The authors, Dr. Martin A.
Larson and the Rev. C. Stanley
Lowell,
editor
emeritus
of
"Church and State" magazine,
said exemptions for religious
property
seemed reasonable
when churches were modest
buildings at country crossroads.
"The imposition of even a small
levy might then have pushed
the tiny struggling congregation
over the brink into insolvency," they wrote.
But now, they say, these
exemptions have helped churches
grow into "huge business entities... " Has the "rel igious
empire" grown too large, they
ask,and is it fair for all citizens
to pick up the tab for the
churches'municipal services?
The eight-year research for the
book was sponsored by a foundation affiliated with Americans
United for the Separation of
Churchand State.

Jeff Carter wants life

not 'that open'
WASHINGTON
(UPI)- Jeff
Carter, 24, says he is only visiting
the White House and would not
want to become President like
his father, because "I just don't
want my life to be that open."
The family's small hometown
of Plains, Ga., has been ruined
by Jimmy Carter's fame, the
President's youngest son said in
an interview.
"We didn't realize it was going
to be turned into a honky tonk
place," he said. "I don't go to
Plains anymore. It's crummy.
Grandmother, Miss Lillian, can't
even walk down the street anymore."
Jeff, who lives at the White
House with his wife, Annette,
24, also said he is not as religious
as his father and "rarely goes to
church."
He was hesitant to discuss his
views in that area, because "people are real sensitive about religion," and after past remarks he
"got a lot of mail."
Sitting in the White House
Map Room in blue jeans, Jeff
said life in the executive mansion "is like living in a museum. "
"I can see how people get
tired of living here," he said.
"Everything you do people know

about. I treat it just like any

other house. Mom and dad live
here. I'm just visiting."
As .for going into politics
himself, or seeking the presidency someday, Jeff said, "I just
don't want my life to be that
open."
Jeff said criticism of Carter's
sons and daughters-in-law living
in the White House is not justified: "I just ignore it."
"We pay for our food, laundry
and stationery," he said.
He and his wife have explored
most of the mansion, but "when
we tried to go to the bomb
shelter, we were told it was
classified," he said.
Jeff, a senior maJonng in
geography at George Washington
University, said he studies hard
and is trying to make all A's.
l-Je and his wife are photography buffs. Jeff uses a camera
given him by the President for
a children's book about the
White House being prepared by
press Secretary Jody Powell's
wife, Nan, and other staff members'
wives.
Jeff's
pictures
feature 9-year-old Amy sitting on
her father's desk in the oval
office; Amy, with her cat, and
other such scenes.

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MAY, 1977/AMERICAN ATHEIST -15

~~~of

The Failure
Christianity~~~
EMMA GOLDMAN

EDITOR'S NOTE: The writings of Emma Goldman on Atheism have been an inspiration to those who are
rational and courageous for several generations. She lived and died an Atheist. We recently located one of her
essays in a past issue of an Indian publication,
The Age of Atheism. We believe it aptly portrays Christianity
today even though written over a half century ago.

Poisoners and counterfeiters of ideas, in their

attempt to obscure the line between truth and
falsehood, find a valuable ally in the conservatism
of language. Conceptions and words that have long
ago lost their original meaning continue through
centuries to dominate mankind. Especially is this
true if these conceptions have become commonplace, if they have been instilled in our very being,
from infancy, as great and irrefutable verities.
The average mind is easily content with inherited
and acquired things, or with the dicta of parents
and teachers, because it is much easier to imitate
than to create.
Our age has given birth to two intellectual
giants, who have undertaken to transvalue the dead
social and moral values of the past, especially
those
contained
in
Christianity.
Friedrich
Nietzsche and Max Stirner have hurled blow upon
blow against the portals of Christianity, because
they saw in it a pernicious slave morality, the
denial of life, the destroyer of all the elements
that make for strength and character. True,
Nietzsche has opposed the slave-morality idea inherent in Christianity
in behalf of a master
morality for a privileged few. But I venture to suggest that his master idea had nothing to do with
the vulgarity of station, caste, or wealth. Rather
did it mean the masterful in human possibilities,
the masterful in man that would help him to overcome old traditions and worn-out values, so that
he may learn to become the creator of new and
beautiful things.
Both Nietzsche and Stirner saw in Christianity
the leveler of the human race, the breaker of man's
will to dare and to do. They saw in every movement built
on Christian morality
and ethics
attempts not at the emancipation from slavery,
but for the perpetuation thereof. Hence they opposed these movements with might and main.
Whether I do or do not entirely agree with these
iconoclasts, I believe, with them, that Christianity
is most admirably adapted to the training of slaves,
to the perpetuation of a slave society; in short, to

the very conditions confronting us today. Indeed,

never could society have degenerated to its present
appalling stage, if not for the assistance of Christianity. The rulers of the earth have realized long
ago what potent poison inheres in the Christian
religion. That is the reason they foster it; that is
why they leave nothing undone to instill it into the
blood of the people. They know only too we"
that the subtleness of the Christian teachings is a
more powerful protection
against rebellion and
discontent than the club or the gun.
No doubt I will be told that, though religion is
a poison and institutionalized
Christianity
the
greatest enemy of progress and freedom, there is
some good in Christianity "itself." What about the
teachings of Christ and early Christianity, I may be
asked; do they not stand for the spirit of humanity, for right and justice?
It is precisely this oft-repeated contention that
induced me to choose this subject, to enable me to
demonstrate that the abuses of Christianity, like
the abuses of government, are conditioned in the
thing itself, and are not to be charged to the representatives of the creed. Christ and his teachings
are the embodiment of submission, of inertia, of
the denial of life; hence responsible for the things
done in their name.
I am not interested in the theological Christ.
Brilliant minds like Bauer, Strauss, Renan, Thomas
Paine, and others, refuted that myth long ago. I
am even ready to admit that the theological Christ
is not half and the same as the ethical and social
Christ. In proportion as science takes the place of
blind faith, theology loses its hold. But the ethical
and poetical
Christmyth
has so thoroughly
saturated our lives that even some of the most advanced minds find itdifficult
to emancipate themselves from its yoke. They have rid themselves of
the letter, but have retained the spirit; yet it is
the spirit which is back of all the crimes and
horrors committed by orthodox Christianity. The
Fathers of the Church can well afford to preach
the gospel of Christ. It contains nothing dangerous

--.-MAY, 1977/AMERICAN

ATHEIST - 16

to the regime of authority and wealth; it stands

for self-denial and self-abnegation, for penance and
regret, and is absolutely inert in the face of every
indignity, every outrage imposed upon mankind.
Here I must revert to the counterfeiters of ideas
and words. So many otherwise earnest haters of
slavery and injustice confuse, in a most distressing
manner, the teachings of Christ with the great
struggles for social and economic emancipation.
The two are irrevocably and forever opposed to
each other. The one necessitates courage, daring
defiance, and strength. The other preaches the
gospel of non-resistance, of slavish acquiescence in
the will of others; it is the complete disregard of
character and self-reliance and therefore destructive of liberty and well-being.
Whoever sincerely aims at a radical change in
society, whoever strives to free humanity from the
scourge of dependence and misery, must turn his
back on Christianity,
on the old as well as the
present form of the same.
Everywhere and always, since its very inception,
Christianity has turned the Earth into a vale of
tears; always it has made of life a weak, diseased
thing, always it has instilled fear in man, turning
him into a dual being, whose life energies are spent
in the struggle between body and soul. In decrying
the body as something evil, the flesh as the tempter
of everything that is sinful, man has mutilated his
being in the vain attempt to keep his soul pure,
while his body rotted away from the injuries and
tortures inflicted upon it.
The Christian religion and morality extol the
glory of the Hereafter, and therefore remain indifferent to the horrors of the earth. I ndeed, the idea
of self-denial and of all that makes for pain and
sorrow are its test of human worth, its passport to
the entry into heaven.
The poor are to own heaven, and the rich will
go to hell. That may account for the desperate
efforts of the rich to make hay while the sun
shines to get as much out of the earth as they can:
to wallow in wealth and superfluity,
to tighten
their iron hold on the blessed slaves, to rob them
of their birthright, to degrade and outrage them
every minute of the day. Who can blame the rich
if they revenge themselves on the poor, for now is
their time, and the merciful Christian god alone
knows how ably and completely the rich are doing
it.
And the poor? They ding to the promise of the
Christian heaven, as the home for old age, the sanitarium for crippled bodies and weak minds. They
endure and submit, they suffer and wait, until

every bit of self-respect has been knocked out of

them, until their bodies become emaciated and
withered, and their spirit broken from the wait,
the weary endless wait for the Christian heaven.
Christ made his appearance as the leader of the
people, the redeemer of the Jews from Roman
dominion; but the moment he began his work, he
proved that he had no interest in the world in the
pressing immediate needs of the poor and the
disinherited of his time. What he preached was a
sentimental mysticism, obscure and confused ideas
lacking originality and vigor.
When the Jews, according to the gospels, withdrew from Jesus, when they turned him over to
the cross, they may have been bitterly disappointed in him who promised them so much and gave
them so little. He promised joy and bliss in another
world, while the people were starving, suffering,
and enduring before his very eyes.
It may also be that the sympathy of the
Romans, especially of Pilate, was given Christ
because they regarded him as perfectly harmless
to their power and sway. The philosopher Pilate
may have considered Christ's "eternal truths" as
pretty anemic and lifeless, compared to the array
of strength and force they attempted to combat.
The Romans, strong and unflinching as they were,
must have laughed in their sleeves over the man
who talked repentance and patience, instead of
calling to arms against the despoilers and oppressors of his people.
The public career of Christ begins with the
edict, "Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at
hand."
Why
repent, why regret, in the face of
something that was supposed to bring deliverance?
Had not the people suffered and endured enough;
had they not earned their right to deliverance by
their suffering? Take the Sermon on the Mount,
for instance. What is it but a eulogy on submission
to fate, to the inevitability of things?
"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the
Kingdom of Heaven." Heaven must be an awfully
dull place if only the poor in spirit live there. How
can anything creative, anything vital, useful, and
beautiful come from the poor in spirit? The idea
conveyed in the Sermon on the Mount is the
greatest indictment against the teachings of Christ,
because it seems in the poverty of mind and body
a virtue, _and because it sees to maintain this
virtue by 'reward and punishment. Every intelligent
being realizes that our worst curse is the poverty of
the spirit; that it is productive of a" evil and
misery, of a" the injustice and crime in the world.

MAY, 1977/AMERICAN

ATHEIST-17

Everyone knows that nothing good ever came or

can come of the poor in spirit; surely never liberty,
justice, or equality.
"Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the
earth." What a preposterous notion! What incentive to slavery, inactivity,
and parasitism! Besides,
it is not true that the meek can inherit anything.
Just because humanity has been meek, the earth
has been stolen from it.
Meekness has been the whip which capitalism
and governments have used to force man into dependency, into his slave position. The most faithful
servants of the State, of wealth, of special privilege,
could not preach a more convenient gospel than
did Christ, the "redeemer" of the people.
"Blessed are they that hunger and thirst for
righteousness, for they shall be filled." But did not
Christ exclude the possibility
of righteousness
when he said, "The poor ye have always with
you?"
But then, Christ was great on dicta, no
matter if they were utterly opposed to each other.
This is nowhere demonstrated
so strikingly
as
in his command, "Render to Caesar the things that
are Caesar's and to god the things that are god's".
The interpreters claim that Christ had to make
these concessions to the powers of his time. If that
be true, this single compromise was sufficient to
prove, down to this very day, a most ruthless
weapon in the hands of the oppressor, a fearful
lash and relentless tax-gatherer, to the impoverishment, the enslavement, and the degradation
of
the very people for whom Christ is supposed to
have died. And when we are assured that "Blessed
are they that hunger and thirst for righteousness,
for they shall be filled,"
are we told how? Christ
never takes the trouble to explain that. Righteousness does not come from the stars, nor because
Christ willed it so. Righteousness grows out of
liberty, of social and economic opportunity
and
equality. But how can the meek, the poor in spirit,
ever establish such a state of affairs?
"Blessed are ye when men shall revile you and
persecute you, and say all manner of evil against
you falsely, for my sake. Rejoice, and be exceedingly glad: for great is your reward in heaven."
The reward in heaven is the perpetual bait, a
bait that has caught man in an iron net, a straitjacket which does not let him expand or grow.
All pioneers of truth have been, and still are,
reviled; they have been, and still are, persecuted.
But did they ask humanity to pay the price? Did
they seek to bribe mankind to accept their ideas?
They knew too well that he who accepts a truth
because of the bribe, will soon barter away to a
higher bidder.
Good and bad, punishment and reward, sin and
penance, heaven and hell, as the moving spirit of
the Christ-gospel, have been the stumbling-block
in
the world's work. It contains everything in the way

MAY, 1977/AMERICAN ATHEIST -18

of orders and commands, but entirely I

very things we need most.
The worker who knows the cause of hi
who understands the make-up of our in
social and industrial system can do more
self and his kind than Christ and the foil
Christ have ever done for humanity;
more than meek patience, ignorance, a
mission have done.
How much more ennobling, how much
beneficial, is the extreme individualism of
and Nietzsche than the sick-room atm
the Christian faith. If they repudiate altrui
evil, it is because of the example contai
Christianity,
which set a premium on
and inertia, gave birth to all manner of
disorders that are to be cured with the pl1
of love and sympathy.
Proud and self-reliant characters prefer h
such sickening artificial love. Not because
reward does a free spirit take his stand for
truth,
nor has such a one ever been
because of fear of punishment.
"Think
not that I come to destroy the
the prophets, I come not to destroy, but to
Precisely Christ was a reformer, ever
patch up, to fulfill, to carryon the old
things; never to destroy and rebuild. That
count for the fellow-feeling all reformers
him.
Indeed, the whole history of the State,
ism, and the Church proves that these h
petuated themselves because of the idea "
not to destroy the law." This is the
authority
and oppression. Naturally so, for
Christ praise poverty as a virtue; did he
pagate non-resistance
to evil? Why sh
poverty and evil continue to rule the world?
Much as I am opposed to every religion
I think
them an imposition
upon, and
against, reason and progress, I' yet feel
other religion has done so much harm
helped so much in the enslavement of man
religion of Christ.
Witness Christ before his accusers. What
dignity,
what lack of faith in himself and
own ideas! So weak and helpless was this'
that he requires the whole human family to
him, unto all eternity,
because he has "
them".
Redemption
through the cross
than damnation,
because of the effect it
the human soul, fettering and paralyzing
the weight of the burden implaced th
death of Christ.
Thousands of martyrs have perished, yet
any of them have proved so helpless as
Christian god. Thousands have gone to th
with greater fortitude,
with more cou
deeper faith in their ideas than the Naza

did they expect eternal gratitude

from their fellow men becauseof
what they endured for them.
Compared with Socrates and
Bruno, with the great martyrs of
Russia, with the Chicago Anarchists, Francisco Ferrer, and
unnumbered others, Christ cuts a
poor figure indeed. Compared
with
the
delicate,
frail
Spiridonova who underwent the
most terrible tortures, the most
horrible
indignities,
without
losing faith in herself or her
cause, Jesus is a veritable
nonentity. They stood their
ground and faced their executioners with unflinching determination, and though they, too,

died for the people, they asked

nothing in return for their great
sacrifice.
Verily, we need redemption
from the slavery, the deadening
weakness, and the humiliating
dependency of Christian morality.
The teachings of Christ and of
his followers have failed because
they lacked the vitality to lift the
burdens from the shoulders of
the human race; they havefailed
becausethe very essenceof that
doctrine is contrary to the spirit
of life, exposed to the manifestations of nature, to the strength
and beauty of passion.
Never can Christianity, under

Poems
THE CASE OF THE ATHEIST
From the process of birth we are given the gift of
life for which we had no part.
As a young child we try to fulfill our wishes and desires giving others little thought with little heart.
As we mature we become aware of others, their
accomplishment, hope and desire.
We come to realize that we are not equal in appearance and intellect and start to admire
Those who are able to contribute something everlasting to culture and society,
Not realizing that the gifted few is not only what
makes life worthwhile and not of high priority.
It is what we do in our everyday life and in our
association with others and such.
I, as an Atheist, not believing in organized religion
go through life without the aid of a crutch.
I do not believe in heaven or hell or organized religion
or any institution of that sort.
I do believe in kindness to my fellow man, and for
this I have aimed and fought.
If all of us would cooperate, hear and help our fellow
man in our stride,
We can develop our character and personality, for
only in this can we take pride.
For we all are loners put on this earth for a limited
time, and should try to understand,
That all we have is just you and I and this world, so
aim to give a helping hand.
When the day comes that I am to leave this world, for
death is a reality,
I will have accomplished a little something if I am
remembered as one who thought of her fellow man and
gave some of her vitality,
So others could be made a little happier, a little more
comfortable with a smile Of} their face,
For in doing this I have become happier, less lonely,
and this being the philosophy of an Atheist, I now
close my case.

MARION MISHELOW

whatever mask it may appear-be

it New Liberalism, Spiritualism,
Christian Science, New Thought,
or a thousand and one other
forms of hysteria and neurasthenia-bring
us relief from the
terrible pressure of conditions,
the weight of poverty, the
horrors of our iniquitous system.
Christianity is the conspiracy of
ignorance against reason, of
darkness against Iight, of submission and slavery against independence and freedom; of the
denial of strength and beauty,
against the affirmation of the
joy and glory of life.

"When theists and religionists try to convert the

intelligent person, their efforts resemble the' efforts
(or attempts) of a mad psychiatrist trying to make
a happy heterosexual into a homosexual. It just
goes against nature!"

ORVILLE W. LOUTON, JR.

Mysticists are apostles of the absurd.
The greatness of the absurd lies in its incoherence.
The proof of the absurd lies in its inhumanity.
Therefore, the apostles of the absurd, in their
incoherence, accept humanity as the irrational,
and the absurd as rational.
The absurd then, is in direct opposition to reason.
Engaging reason to prove the absurd, dispels the
absurd.
When the absurd is dispelled by reasoning, the apostles
redeem it with hope.
Hope then becomes the transcendental kingdom of
the absurd, and only death can dispel hope.
Ad-infinitum.
In the silent void of the grave, there is no room for
hope.

LORETTA BATEY
MADALYN'S BENEDICTION
Our Mother, who art in Austin, Heathen be thy
name. May thy property expand and thy will be
practiced, throughout the world as it is in America.
Give us this day our monthly Newsletter, and forgive
us our arguments, as we forgive those who argue with
us. And lead us not into religion, but deliver us from
evil. For thine is the Morality, and the Wisdom, and
the Truth, for as long as there is Freedom. Very
well ...

JOHN RUSH
All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish,
Christian or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize
power and profit.

THOMAS PAINE
MAY, 1971/AMERICAN ATHEIST -19

RODGER L. BUCK, M.D.

Open Letter to Closet Atheist Physicians,

Part One
During the Seventh Annual National American
Atheist Convention Madalyn told of a physician
who came to her stating he had been an A theist
most of his life. However, he had kept it a secret
for fear of jeopardizing his practice. He wanted
Madalyn to hurry up and make the social atmospheresafe for him to come out of the closet.
It is for this physician and others like him that
I am writing this letter. It will be a brief autobiographical account of the past 5 yearsin the life
of an A theist physician.
In April of 1972 I opened my office as a general
practioner in a small town (population
3,000) in
south central I ndiana. Prior to then I had spent
25 years as a general and orthopedic surgeon. This
reversal from the usual trend toward specialization
was primarily
due to my desire to be close to a
lake I had acquired, so that I might spend more
time fishing and completing my research and writing on fish management.
I had been an open Atheist for about 20 years
before the move. The area I had chosen to practice
was as rabid "Bible Belt" as any place in the south.
There was not one known Atheist in the county.
Furthermore,
the Ku Klux Klan is quite active in
this area.
It was my plan to hide my Atheism for the first
two years, and then openly declare my true position. By that time the people would have evaluated
me on the basis of the quality of my practice, my
concern for mankind, and my efforts to assist the
community
through a number of local organizations (i.e., Senior Citizens, Mental Health, etc.).
All proceeded according to plan for about a
year and a half. At that point I had become
thoroughly
disgusted with the quality of education
in the county.
Rather than continuing
to write
letters to the editor about this I decided to act
instead of just write. I ran for the county school
board.
There were 4 of us running for the single board
vacancy. After a series of public forums in which
we appeared together to state our positions and to
answer audience questions
I was the probative
favorite to win.
Twenty-four
hours before the election someone
passed the word that I was an Atheist. I received
calls from community
leaders asking if this were
true. My answer was yes, I am an Atheist and am

MAY, 1977/AMERICAN ATHEIST - 20

therefore committed
to helping my fellow
kind. The reporter who covered the polls
me after the election to tell me that hund
voters decided at the last minute not to vo
me because of my Atheism. I came in
about 200 votes behind the winner.
Since that time my Atheism has been out i
open and I have had published a numberofl
to the editor of our local paper arguing for
separation of state and church and answering
and grossly
inaccurate
letters written
Madalyn and her work.
How has all this affected my life and
practice since I left my temporary closet? I
always had a waiting list of families who
be included in my practice. Almost all of the
munity
leaders are patients of mine, as
number of ministers and their families. Each
I have a friendly,
relaxed lunch with a cliq
attorneys,
bankers, and other businessmen
devoutly
active in their churches). I must
however, that I seldom get invited to their
except for large special-occasion parties.
doesn't bother me. I do my socializing in
diana
University
community
20 miles
I have heard of several second-hand re
patients who said something to the effect that
hate to pay good Christian money to an A
but he's a good doctor.
No one has tried to proselytize me. I
directly try to convert them. Indirectly, ho
attempt to show by example what an Ath
really all about. I seldom miss an opportuni
discuss the unfair exclusion of taxing ch
owned property, industries, etc. I know of n
I have converted to Atheism, but if a refe
were held today to tax the churches I bell
would easily pass.
These and many other experiences have led
to the following conclusions:
1) No Atheist physician need fear coming
of the closet if he practices good medicine, is
passionate, and genuinely
concerned about
patients.
2) It is far safer for an independent, pro
person to declare his Atheism than it is
salaried employee.
3) The best way a physician can demon
positive aspects of Atheism is by example
counter-productive,
angry proselytizing.

NO. 22-A LIST OF PRACTICES OF

THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH,
NONE OF WHICH IS BIBLE-SUPPORTED

October 28,1968

Good Evening. This is Madalyn Murray O'Hair,

American Atheist, back to talk with you again.
Last week I attempted
to present to you the
Society of Separationists, with the aims, purposes and
goals which it has, and with some history of the
society and a definition of its general activities and
membership.
There are seven purposes or aims for the Society
of Separationists and I talked about two of them last
week. The first of them was to promote freedom of
thought
and inquiry concerning
religious belief,
creeds, dogmas, tenets and rituals and practices.
The second was to collect and disseminate information, data, education and literature on all religions
and to promote, through a thorough understanding of
them, their origins and histories. We come to these
in various ways, most frequently
in the public
libraries and university libraries, but once in a while
through other means.
While I was on a trip to Salt Lake City I came upon
a great granddaughter of the founder of the Mormon
Church and she has provided me with an enormous
amount of material in relation to the history of that
church. And, so it goes. You will be hearing about all
of these things in the series of radio broadcasts which
we have now. I plan to give you certain examples of
what we do find later in this broadcast.
The third aim of our society is to advocate, labor
for and promote, in all lawful ways, the complete
separation of church and state and the establishment
and maintenance of a thoroughly secular system of
education available to all. I want to emphasize that
we stand for doing this in all lawful ways. We mean
by this that we have had our windows broken, but we
don't go and break church windows. We have been
beaten by Christians, but we have yet to beat up a
minister, a rabbi, a priest or a nun. We have had terrible economic reprisals taken against us, but we
don't advocate that an economic blockade be put on
the H.E.B. stores (for instance) simply because much
of their profit goes to religion. We have an emphasis
on all lawful ways. We work in all lawful ways, open
and above board. We do this because I am an attorney
and I recognize
the importance
of the legal
framework of our society and attempting to try to
operate within that framework. I say "attempting to
operate within that framework" because we cannot,

as Atheists, get a fair shake in any court of the land,

and we know it. Just as a Negro has been traditionally
unable to get justice in any southern court, an Atheist
has been traditionally
barred from any justice in a
Christian court. We know this. We have experienced
it. We have seen biased and prejudiced courts work
against us, even here in Texas, our home base.
The fourth aim of our society is to encourage the
development and the public acceptance of a humane
ethical system stressing the mutual sympathy, mutual
understanding
and mutual
independence
of all
people, and the corresponding responsibility of each,
individually, in relation to society. You are listening
to me tonight, because you want a better society in
which to live and the Society of Separationists believes that you and I can have this and share it with
everyone through the use of reason.
Our fifth aim is to develop and propagate a social
philosophy in which man is the central figure who
alone must be the source of strength and progress
through ideals for the well being and happiness of
humanity. We mean by that that we don't rely on
gods or angels or prayers, but that I expect you to
do something to improve our society and I intend
to do something to improve society myself. We are
the central figures and from us comes the strength,
the idealism and the push for progress which will
bring the well being and happiness we all desire for all
of humanity.
The sixth aim of our society is to promote the
study of the arts and sciences and the study of all
problems affecting the maintenance,
perpetuation
and enrichment of human life. We hope some day to
establish our own university toward this end and we
hope this will come through the generosity of persons
who are interested
in these programs for the
supremacy of reason.
The seventh aim of the society is to engage in such
social, educational,
legal and cultural activities as
will be useful and beneficial to the members of this
Society of Separationists and to society as a whole. .
The freethought
community has many organizations in it other than ours. We meet annually and we
often meet month to month or quarterly. As I go
from city to city to speak at universities or on television, we have so-called inner meetings of our groups
at homes, or hotels or public meeting halls.
I have much sympathy for the cry of the Negro
people that "Black is beautiful," for as I meet more
and more Atheists everywhere I have a strong realization, and flowing from this a sense of conviction,
that Atheism is the avant garde of our new and more
beautiful society which is in its birth throes right
now.
We are confident that if persons rule their lives,
and if society is built upon reason, that the primary
objective of our founding fathers will be met when
we can have the greatest good for the greatest

MAY, 1977/AMERICAN

ATHEIST - 21

number, and actual liberty and justice for all.

Tonight I want to go back to the first aim of our
society which is to promote freedom of thought and
to scrutinize religious beliefs, creeds, dogmas, tenets,
religious practices and rituals.
I have a list of so-called heresies and human traditions which have been adopted and incorporated into
the body of beliefs of the Roman Catholic Church
and which are presented as having been derived from
the holy Bible and having been a part of the church
practice from the beginning of the Christian era.
Nothing is further from the truth. Let me give you a
few dates. I am going to list just a few tonight, and
we can get into the why's and wherefore's at a later
time in our discussions.
Of all the human inventions taught and practiced
by the Roman Catholic Church which are contrary to
the Bible, the most ancient are the prayers for the
dead and the sign of the cross. These are mentioned
nowhere in the Bible at all, and it is estimated by
Bible scholars that they began about the year 310.
Wax candles were introduced in churches ca. 320
A.D. Veneration of angels and dead saints began
about 375 A.D. The mass, as a daily celebration, was
adopted in 394 A.D. The worship of Mary, the
mother of Jesus, and the use of the term "mother
of god" as applied to her, originated in the Council
of Ephesus in 431 A.D.
Priests began to dress differently from the laity,
that is, people like you and I, in the year 500. The
doctrine
of purgatory
was first established
by
Gregory the Great about the year 593, and every
Christian who died before that time did not even
know about it and presumably never went there on
his way to heaven or hell.
The Latin language as the language of prayer and
worship was also imposed by Pope Gregory First in
the year ca. 600. It is generally understood that
Jesus Christ (if he indeed ever existed) spoke in one
of the dialects of the Aramaic tongue. The practice
of prayers directed to Mary or to other dead saints
began in the Roman Catholic Church about the year
600. I can find no Biblical citation directing prayers
to be made to her or to any dead saint.
Most Protestants believe that the title of Pope, or
universal bishop, was first given to the Bishop of
Rome by the wicked emperor of Phocas in the year
610. This he did in spite of Bishop Ciriacus of Constantinople, who had just excommunicated
him for
his having caused the assassination of his predecessor,
emperor Mauritius. Gregory I, then Bishop of Rome,
refused the title, but his successor, Boniface III, assumed the title of Pope.
I certainly cannot find any appointment by Jesus
Christ of Peter to head up any such organization as
the Roman Catholic Church. What I do find is that
Jesus Christ had twelve apostles and he specifically
directed them to preach only to Jews, and not to
gentiles. His specific directions, in Matthew 10:5-6

MAY, 1977/AMERICAN ATHEIST - 22

are, "These twelve, Jesus sent forth and commanded

them saying, 'Go not into the way of the Gentiles
... but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of
Israel.'" End quote of Jesus and the Bible.
The kissing of the pope's feet began in the year
709. Worship of the cross, of images and relics was
authorized in 788. Holy water, mixed with a pinch
of salt and blessed by the priest was authorized in .
the year 850. The veneration of St. Joseph began in
the year 890. The baptism of bells was instituted by
Pope John XIV in 965. Canonization of dead saints
was a first of Pope John XV in 995. Fasting of Fridays and during Lent was imposed in the year 998.
The mass was developed gradually as a sacrifice, but
attendance
was not made obligatory
until the
eleventh century, at least one thousand years after
Christ.
Many Roman Catholic priests now want to get
married, and indeed they were able to do so for many
years, for the celibacy of the priesthood was decreed
by Pope Hildebrand, Boniface VII, in the year 1079.
The rosary, or prayer beads, was introduced by Peter
the Hermit in the year 1090. Confession of sins to the
priest at least once a year was instituted by Pope
Innocent III in the Lateran Council in the year 1215.
The doctrine of the seven sacraments was affirmed
in the year 1439. The immaculate conception of the
Virgin Mary was proclaimed by Pope Pius IX in the
year 1854. We now see the spectacle of the pope
today attempting
to make women accept motherhood when they want to limit their families by the
use of birth control methods, instruments and pills.
The pope says that the women must listen to him
because his word is the infallible interpretation
of the
will of god. Pope Pius IX proclaimed this dogma of
papal infallibility only in the year 1870, about one
hundred years ago and almost nineteen hundred years
after Jesus Christ is supposed to have died. It is no
wonder that the Roman Catholic lay woman
is
questioning today. She wonders why anyone should
attempt to tell her how many children she must have
when the cost of rearing children is so great. She
wonders when birth control pills are very readily
available and very inexpensive why she cannot use
this method to control the size of her family. She
questions not only this decision of the pope, but the
very idea of his infallibility which is so new in human
history.
We will get back to all of these ideas and see why
they were made church dogma. The "why" is always
the most interesting.
This informational broadcast is brought to you asa
public service by American Atheists, a non-profit,
non-political, tax-exempt, educational organization
dedicated to the complete and absolute separation of
state and church. This series of the American Atheist
Radio Programs is continued through listener generosity. American Atheists predicates its philosophy on
materialism. For more information, or for a free copy

of this particular script, write

P. O. Box 2117, Austin, Texas.
That zip is 78768. Ask for
program number 22. We now
also have a monthly magazine
titled the American Atheist. For
information
write to P. O.
Box 2117, Austin, Texas, and
that zip is 78768.
I will be with you again, next
week, same day of the week,
same time, same station. Until
then, I do thank you for
listening-goodbye for now.
Notepapers from
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Special wholesale
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SUMI-E STUDIO

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Fellow
Atheist
Realtors
Let's exchange referrals
and referral fees.

AREA CODE (213)248-8640

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2722 FOOTHILL BLVD.
LA CRESCENTA,
CALIFORNIA 91214

The Moron Mentality

I-------by

Mort Lewis------I

A rather weird and perplexing mental quirk exists in some

humans: Great numbers of men seem to be able to hold diametrically opposed-totally
opposite-ideas in their minds simultaneously, which is a remarkable feat in itself, but such men apparently can accomplish this near miracle without the slightest
mental strain or apparent concern with the obvious incongruity
of their actions. All religionists seem to have this ability to some
degree and the Roman Catholics seem to possessit in a remarkable degree e.g. cheap prints of the Sacred Heart, the Virgin Mary
and Christ on the Cross can be observed on the walls of the
Catholic prostitute's room. Apparently the prostitute doesn't
find anything untoward in such a ringing clash of opposing values.
An old book (The Age of Arsenic by W. Branch Johnson) relates the close business and personal relationship between and
among witches, Catholic priests and many members of the nobility
of France during the reign of Louis XIV. Mr. Johnson's book was
published in Great Britain in the early part of the twentieth
century and points up this strange human mental ability (or
dysfunction) with gruesome clarity.
The trial ended in Paris, France in the year 1680. The trail had
begun two years earlier and centered around a woman named
Catherine Montvoisin commonly known as La Voisin and her
frequent associate the Abb{ Guibourg, a Roman Catholic priest.
La Voisin was a woman with a wonderful ability to judge the faces
and other physical reactions of people. In her youth, she made
her living reading palms, casting horoscopes and delivering prophecies. Persons of all ranks, from butchers' wives to grand court
ladies were secretly admitted to her apartment. As she grew older,
she sank deeper and deeper into every form of vileness. She admitted that, "Some women asked if they would not soon become
widows because they wished to marry someone else. Almost all
asked this and came to me for no other reasons." La Voisin began
concocting various poisons and administering them to those whose
demise would please her clientele the most. She allowed her clients
to believe that La Voisin's witchcraft alone was responsible for the
death of the unwanted husbands. La Voisin believed completely
in the efficacy of the Black Massesat wh ich she assisted as server.
She was a convinced believer in the Devil and all of his works as
was Louis XIV himself. Like Louis, she was at the same time a
devout Catholic in all that pertained to regular attendance at
Mass.
It is a curious but well attested fact that, before La Voisin
would proceed to more extreme measures, she invariably sent her
clients to recite certain prayers to Saint "Rabboni" at a chapel
dedicated to Saint Ursula. In short, La Voisin always gave god his
chance to assist her in murder; then she gave the Devil his turn
and helped him out with her poisons when he didn't act with any
more dispatch than god had.
La Voisin trafficked in poisons of all sorts. She pandered to
the licentiousness of the age. She performed, or caused to be
performed, abortions numbering in the many thousands. She confessed to having personally murdered 2,500 infants. She was guilty
of the grossest blasphemy and of the filthiest conduct in the per-

MAY, 1917/AMERICAN ATHEIST - 23

formance of Black Masses.Her close associatewas the

Roman Catholic priest, the Abbl Guibourg. The
French prosecutor, de la Reynie, wrote of Guibourg
at the time, "He is familiar with every form of
villainy. He is guilty of a large number of horrible
crimes and is suspected of complicity in many
others." Father Guibourg was about seventy years of
ageat the time and was described as being of bloated
appearance with a face covered by a network of
tiny blue veins. He had travelled widely, occupied the
post of almoner to more than one member of the
nobility and servedseveralParischurches as sacristan.
He also served the parish church at Vanves, France.
Father Guibourg would poison (or cause to be
poisoned) anyone-in high place or low-for a price.
He once provided a client with a recipe containing
arsenic, sublimate and verdigris. He told the client
where the various ingredients could be obtained and
offered her a note addressedto a priest who owned
an illegal still. The priest would-for a price-distill
the poison in rosewater and spirits of wine and give
Father Guibourg's client a flask full.
Father Guibourg had sevenchildren by one of hims
many mistresses. He murdered five of them shortly
after birth for sacrifice at the ceremony of the Black
Mass.
It was from the number of Black Masseshe had
said, and the noble rank of the women who had
sought him out for that purpose, that Guibourg
derived his greatest authority among the witches. The
witches believed implicitly in the efficacy of a
Christian priest as mediator between themselvesand
Satan to whom, of course, the Black Mass was addressed.The objective of the Black Masswas to contact the prince of darknessand convince him to grant
a favor or guarantee a certain course of events. In
order to propitiate the Devil, a ritual had been
evolved-a ritual filled with repulsive and obscene
details i.e. the altar was composed of the nude body
of a woman. She lie with arms outstretched, holding
a black candle made of human fat in each hand.
Similar candles were ranged around her. The celebrant, attired in full canonicals or in canonicals embroidered with cabalistic symbols, was assistedby a
server usually female and usually naked. The form of
the Masswas usually contained in a manuscript book
bound in human skin. The contents of the book
consisted of a complete reversal, in senseaswell as in
order, of the holy office. The incense used gave off
a repulsive odor; the aspergillum sprinkled foul water
or urine. The host, black or red in color and triangular in shape, was soiled with mud. In place of the
usual wine, there was a concoction that burned the
tongue like fire. At the moment of the offertory, an
infant (which had always been baptised) was brought
forward. Its throat was pierced with a knife or other
sharp instrument. The w.arm blood poured into the
chalice resting upon the belly of the human altar and
over the altar itself. The priest would then have inter-

MAY, 1977/AMERICAN ATHEIST - 24

course with the woman serving as altar. The dead or

dying child was thrown aside to be buried, or thrown
into a furnace to be burned. Sometimes the entrails
of the baby would be removed and distilled, either to
draw auguries from them or, as it was supposed, to
titillate the Devil's nostrils with a gratifying scent.
La Lepere, an associate of La Voisin" told at .her
trial of a "high ecclesiastical dignitary" who had
approached her with a request to perform an abortion
on a girl that he had seduced. The witch was quite
within the sanctity of the Church, the "holy" man
declared, in thus savingthe honor of women to whom
such "accidents" happened. The incident cannot be
considered inherently improbable. The Cardinal de
Rety, the Bishop of Narbonne and certain other
French prelates were well known for their lax
morality. Many priests kept concubines, but there
were a certain number who lent themselvesand their
office almost completely to the practices demanded
of them by the [female] diviners and witches. Not
only were they willing to celebrate the Black Mass,
but they also offered children to the Devil, made
pacts with the Devil and recited incantations to the
Devil. All were proficient in the art of the poisoner
and in the filthy intricacies of witchcraft. Among the
lessguilty of the wretched priests may be counted the
Abb{ Bouchot who, while spiritual director of a
convent, debauched the nuns, and the AbblOliver,
who set up a Satanic altar in a brothel.
The imprisonment or civil conviction of a priest
did not constitute a bar to the continued occupation
of his "sacred" office. The Abbl Cotton had been
sent to the Bastille. When he was released,he immediately returned to officiating at Black Masses,to
making pacts with the Devil and, of course, to abortion and poisoning. The Abb{ Cotton was a schoolmaster. Another priest concerned in the teaching of
children, the Abb~ Lepreux, was convicted of dedicating infants to the Devil, of consecrating snakes for
foul purposes and, of course, of poisoning. The Abbl
Tournet said Black Masses upon the body of his
servant and upon the body of a girl whom he had seduced, in order to avoid the consequencesof his lust.
The Abb{ Rebours is described as also performing
Masseswith the same intent. The Abb~ Davot, who
was known as a confirmed drunkard, baptised stillborn children so that their bodies might be used in
the preparation of poisons. The Abb~ Deshayes,not
content with the heavy fees he received from
performing impious Masses,was a clever counterfeiter. The Abb~ Malescot shared with the midwife,
La Callet, the profits of her abortions and acted asa
sort of tout on her behalf. The Abb~ Seysson was a
confederate of the magician and poisoner, Blessis.
Fre~ Gabriel said Massesin the house of La Voisin
upon children's cauls (the membrane enclosing a
fetus). A child's caul, as well as the afterbirth, was
believed to serve as a kind of spiritual appendage
whereby the Devil might conveniently seize the

owner.
What are we to think, then, of the mental makeup
of the religious individuals who would take part in
such gross, idiotic ceremonies?What strange contortions and gyrations of the mind must have obtained
in order to allow such persons-such "untermensch"
as the German's would call them-to enter the priesthood ostensibly to dedicate their lives to serving some
good and gracious qod and, simultaneously engagein

such beastial activities.

Is it, then, a function of ignorance or a function
of madness that some human minds can contain,
simultaneously, such totally contradictory and conflicting data and be aware of no contradiction at all
-or is it, simply, that there is no deed so foul or so
putrid that it won't be done, or no lie so grossthat it
won't be spoken in order to temporarily satisfy the
insatiable greedof some men?

Speaking for women:

ANNE GAYLOR

Was Jesus A Horse Thief?

The one-room country school

I attended when I was a little girl
was not at all fussy about what
age you were when you started,
so I got to start first grade when
I was four. Consequently,
I
learned to read at an early age,
I loved to read, and I read everything I could put my hands on.
Since country schools in the
1930's were very poor, there
were not all that many books
available. Our school library, unlike school libraries today, was
not a room, or even an alcove.
It was a piece of furniture-an
old oak bookcase whose glass
doors had been broken
ou t
years before. It held only about
90 books for the children in our
eight grades, and, of course, it
did not take too long for a
hungry, growing reader to go
through them. Soon, I was reading the adult books at home,
including some memorably bad
turn-of-the-century
novels. Occasionally, in desperation, I even
read my father's
agricultural
journals. But one book available
to me that I could never read
because it repelled me so was the
Bible. I tried it, I dipped in here
and there. But it did not seem
to make much sense, and far
from impressing me or comforting me, it frightened and dismayed me.
At the time I decided that the
Bible, unlike those turn-of-thecentury
novels,
really
was
supposed to be an adult book,
and that I might appreciate it

more when I was older. About

that time I got a card at the
Andrew Carnegie library in town,
and my problems of what to
read were ended. There I found
shelves and shelves of books,
and I could choose what pleased
me. (Thank you, Andrew Carnegie.)
Except to check an occasional
verse or Biblical allusion, I did
not read the Bible again until I
was a college student, and parts
of both the Old and New Testament were required reading for a
literature course. I decided then
that it made more sense than
when it had frightened me as
a child, but I was still un convinced of its merit. I thought
some of the prose quite stately
and some of the poetic images
very lovely, but the content and
teachings
still
troubled
me.
Unlike so many books that drew
me back, I definitely did not
want to return to the Bible.
Again, I decided the problem
was my own immaturity, that in
a few years I might understand
what all of the excitement was
about. After all, at age 19 you
are inclined to accept professorial
judgment
without
question. If they and all those
clergymen thought it great literature and immortal
truth, the
fault was probably mine.
Busy with children, career,
causes, and always with a good
supply of delightful books on my
night table, I had no occasion to
read the Bible again until I found

myself
disagreeing
with
an
acquaintance
about the respect
due Jesus. There was a ferocious
flap in the 1960's brought on by
the Beatles' rather innocuous
remark
that they were now
"more
popular
than
Jesus".
Widely circulated,
the famous
quotation caused a huge uproar
in this country, with hundreds of
boycotts
of Beatles music by
disc jockeys, passionate denunciations from pulpits, and a rash
of bonfires of Beatles records
and sheet music, especially in the
south.
My friend, a churchy
type, argued that he did not
like to see anyone's religion belittled, adding that whatever one
thought of the divinity of Jesus,
surely he was a wise and admirable man.
Somehow I didn't remember
Jesus that way! And so, it was
back to the Bible. And this is
what I found.
1. Jesus believed in "demons".
Jesus believed that "demons"
caused illness, both mental and
physical illness. The New Testamen t swims in this. Jesus spoke
not a word about germs, bacteria, viruses, contagion and the
importance of sanitation. He did
not know about these things;
he believed "demons"
to be
responsible for sickness.
2. Jesus unnecessarily
killed
anjmals, i.e., pigs. For the most
part a pig is a very gentle and
intelligent
animal, and clean,
given the chance. (Most pigs
are penned in small spaces where

MAY, 1977/AMERICAN ATHEIST - 25

they have no chance to be clean.)

A pig can be a delightful pet,
affectionate, and as companionable as a dog. Yet, Jesus, who
had the power to still the seas
and calm the winds, chose to
drive "demons" from people into
pigs. In one report (Mark 5: 13)
2,000 pigs whom the "unclean
spirits" had entered "ran violently down a steep place into
the sea". One can only wonder
at Jesus' irrationality. With his
supernatural powers, why not
drive the "demons" directly into
the sea, and spare 2,000 pigs?
3. Jesus told the people he
spoke to that the world would
end in their lifetime. Obviously,
this was a rather serious error,
and must have caused a great
deal of unnecessary fear and
apprehension.
4. Jesus believed in and promoted the idea of everlasting
punishment,
even for offenses
such as calling someone a fool
(Matthew 5 :22). Most wise and
kind persons do not believe in
hell; they do not accept the idea
of a creator who punishes the
objects of his creation.
5. Jesus had an uneasy vanity.
He frequently became quite vindictive if people did not believe
him. A wise person would understand that there was cause for
questioning.
6. Jesus destroyed a fig tree

out of peevishness. With a disciple, he carne upon a fig tree that

had no fruit, for the very good
reason that it was not the season
for figs. Finding no figs, Jesus
caused the tree to shrivel and die,
thereby assuring no future figs
for hungry persons.
7. Jesus was a horse thief.
And it carne to pass, when
he was corne nigh to Bethphage and Bethany, at the
mount called the mount of
Olives, he sent two of his
disciples,
Saying, Go ye into the
village over against you; in the
which at your entering ye shall
find a colt tied, whereon yet
never man sat; loose him, and
bring him hither.
And if any man ask you,
Why do ye loose him? thus
shall ye say unto him, Because
the Lord hath need of him.
(Luke 19:29-31).
These verses can not help but
give a thoughtful person pause.
Why was it that someone with
the magical powers of Jesus
would choose to put his disciples at risk to steal a horse for
him; here was someone with the
supernatural
ability to feed a
multitude with a bit of bread
and fish, yet he could not

manage to slip that horse's rope

and get it to trot past him.
Horses were very valuable in
those days, even young horses
"not yet rid by man". Stealing
horses was a very dangerous
pastime. The horse belonged to
someone; it was tied.
His unwitting disciples, who
could not have been unmindful
for Jesus' preaching a day or two
earlier that it was wrong to steal
(Luke 18: 20) did as they were
told and survived a challenge.
So, in fact, Jesus was a horse
thief. In a sense, he was worse
than a horse thief, because he
made others do his stealing for
him.

*****
Anyone who really believesin
the Bible has a serious problemthat person is either very ignorant or very disturbed. Yet
George Gallup tells us (October,
1976) that 38 per cent of the
people in this country say that
they believe the Bible is "literally true, word for word."
With the upsurge in fundamentalism in this country, a
renewed
belief in witches,
demons and devils, and a prest.
dent who may very well be one
of the 38%, we, who think
freely, have our work cut out f
us.

SPECIAL OFFER TO READERS OF THE AMERICAN ATHEIST

In this month's issue of the American Atheist the article
"A List of Practices of the Roman Catholic Church,
None of Which is Bible-Supported"
was taken directly
from Dr. Q'Hair's book What On Earth Is An Atheist.
Each chapter is a transcript of an actual 15-minute radio
broadcast made by Dr. Q'Hair.

Now available in paperback this work normally sellsfor

$4.95. To the readers of the American Atheist from now
until June 30th, 1977, we offer this informative book
for $3.00 regardless of the number ordered. Buy a copy
for yourself or donate copies to your local library.

Due to the nature of this offer no charge cards please.

Send check or money order for the number of copies desired at only $3.00 per copy to:
AMERICAN ATHEIST PRESS
Post Office Box 2117
Austin, Texas 78768

MAY, 1977/AMERICAN

ATHEIST

- 26

The Greatest Crime in All History

___________________
Most people are aware of the burning alive
of heretics during the Middle Ages by the Roman
Catholic Church, but they are not too familiar
with the type of sentences imposed by the Inquisitors on those who escaped the stake. A work not
read too much today written by Dr. Henry Charles
Lea, American historian, in the latter part of the
last centu ry, made a thorough research of the Inquisition' and produced A History of the Inquisition in eight volumes. Best known among his many
works was Superstition and Force, printed in 1866.
Dr. Lea wrote direct from the original source, and
taught American historians that this method was
the only way in which history should be written.

E.J. Keeler
heavily chained.
Penance Record Of Bernard Gui
Delivered to the secular arm and
burned alive

.40

Bones exhumed and burned

67

Imprisoned
Bones exhumed of those who would
have been imprisoned

300

Condemned to wear crosses

Condemned to perform pilgrimages

138
16

Banished to Holy Land

Pope Gregory IX instigated the Inquisition
in 1233 when he commissioned certain Dominicans
to investigate heresy in the South of France as
practiced by the Albigenses, a relgious sect who
were not Christians at all. They held the coexistence of two principles, good and evil, represented
by god and the evil one. They were extremely ascetic, bound to absolute chasitv, and abstaining
from all flesh, including milk and cheese. They
held their clergy in high regard. One of their most
curious habits was the practice of suicide. When
an inquisitor arrived at a district, a month of grace
was allowed to all who wished to confess to heresy
and to recant; these were given a Iight sentence
which was intended to confirm their faith. Persons
who were accused of heresy who had not abjured
were brought to trial. It would appear that the
most efficacious procedure to convince the Holy
Officials that they were true Catholics was to tattle tales and rumors on their enemies, as well as
their friends. And this procedure was encouraged
by the bishops, and the priests, in their Sunday sermons, with the promise, (which was never kept),
that no charges would be made to the accuser.
The inquisition was a gradual built-up organization of evolution with the mutual reaction of the
social forces. The Inquisition remained in force for
close to six centuries, until it was finally abolished
in Spain in 1820.
Dr. Lea has given the sentences of one inquisitor by the name of Bernard Gui which is contained in the official register, and his operations
from 1308 to 1322. The most frequent penance
was life imprisonment, and this meant that the
heretic rotted in a damp, rat-infested dungeon for
the rest of his life on a diet of bread and water
alone, and he, or she, were unable to ever leave
their dungeon, and their legs, and arms were

21

Fugitives
Condemnation of the Talmud

36
1

Houses of the heretics destroyed

16

Total

636

One of the earl iest acts of Pope Innocent III,

as temporal prince and head of the Christian
Church, was to address a decretal to his subjects in
Viterbo, in which he says: "In the lands subject to
our temporal jurisdiction we order the property
of heretics to be confiscated; in other lands we
command this to be done by the temporal princes
and powers, who, if they show themselves negligent therein, shall be compelled to do it by ecclesiastical censures. Nor shall the property of heretics
who withdraw from heresy revert to them, unless
some one pleases to take pity on them. For as, according to the legal sanctions, in addition to capital
punishment, the property of those guilty of majestas is confiscated, and life simply is allowed to
their children through mercy alone, so much the
more should those who wander from the faith and
offend the son of god be cut off from Christ and
be despoiled of their temporal goods, since it is a
far greater crime to assail spiritual than temporal
majesty."
It is difficult to make a statement in regard
to the entire length of the Inquisition due to
changes of the laws by different popes, and kings
in different countries. Thus, in the confiscation of
the entire property ofthe heretic, if he met his fate
either by the stake, or imprisonment, confiscation
was automatically part of the sentence, and one
third went to the State, one third to the Holy
See, and one third to the inquisitor. However, prosecution of the heretic soon became as much a specMAY, 1977/AMERICAN ATHEIST 27

ulation of profit as faith. Bishop of Silva, writing

in 1335, bitterly reproaches those of his brethern
who act as inquisitors with their abuse of the funds
accru ing to the Holy Office; the Inqu isitors monopolized the whole and spent it on themselves and
enriched their kindred at their pleasure.
The penitential pilgrimages of the Inqu isition was a most severe punishment. The cases in
which they were employed may be estimated by
the sentence passed by Bernard Gui, an inquisitor,
in 1332 on three culprits whose only offense was
that, some fifteen or twenty years before, they had
seen Waldensian teachers in their father's houses
without knowing what they were. The penitents
were required to perform seventeen of the minor
pilgrimages reaching from Bordeaux to Vienne,
bringing back, as usual, from each shrine testimonial letters of the visit.
At the inception of the Inquisition the pilgrimage universally ordered for men was that to
Palestine, as a crusader. Indeed, the legate, Cardinal
Romano, commanded this for all who were suspected of heresy. It seems to have been felt that
the best use to which a heretic could be put, if he
wishes to escape the fagot, was to make him aid in
the defense of the Holy Land-a service of infinite
hardship and peril. The penance of having to wear
crosses is usually accompanied with a fine of five
to ten florins of pure gold, payable to the Inquisition to defray the expenses of the trial. In addition
to the penances imposed they also had the obligation of maintaining a priest, or a poor man, for a
term of years, or for life.
The bitter, vitriolic hatred, that the hierarchy of the church held for the crime of heresy,
whether great, or small, followed the unfortunate
victim to his, or her, grave. Death afforded no immunity from the jurisdiction of the Inquisition and
in no ways abated its energy of prosecution. In
1329, for instance, the Inquisition of Carcassonne
ordered the exhumation and cremation of the
bones of seven persons declared to have died in
heresy for not fulfilling the penance injoined on
them, which of course carried with it the confiscation of their property and the subjection of their
descendents to the usual disabilities.
The Inquisitor had a wide field to choose
from: every man, woman, or child over seven years
of age, rich or poor, could be brought to trial if
even the slightest suspicion were reported about
them. Suspicion alone was tantamount to guilt,
and as a result of this, many good Catholics either
suffered the euto-de-te, or life imprisonment. A
wealthy man, and a good Catholic, gave a party in
his home to some of his friends. He was also proud

MAY, 1977/AMERICAN ATHEIST - 28

of the fine wine he made, and, as they talked and

drank his cheer, he proudly boasted that his wine
was so delicious that even Christ himself would en
joy it. A few days later he was summoned to appear at the dread office of the inquisitor for trial.
The inquisitors continued to enrich themselvesand
the people to suffer untold miseries. A singlewit
ness swore to sixty-six casesof extortion, andina
partial list of them which had been preservedthe
sums exacted vary from twenty-five to seventeen
hundred gold florins, showing how unlimited were
the profits which tempted the unscrupulous. As
for usury, which was punishable by death, Alvaro
Pelayo tells us that bishops of Tuscany usedchurch
funds, but the inquisitor did not meddle with the
prelates.
In France the Council of Toulouse, in 1229,
decreed that any house in which a heretic was
found was to be destroyed, and this was giventhe
force of the secular law by Count Raymond in
1234. After the building was razed to the ground,
the site, or the land, was accursed, and it wasto remain for ever a receptacle for filth and unfit for
human habitation; yet the materials could be employed for pious uses unless they were orderedto
be burned by the inquisitor who had renderedthe
sentence. At a different time, the housesweregiven to the church.
In the full Excommunicamus of Gregory IX,
in 1229, all who after arrest were converted to the
faith through fear of death were ordered to be incarcerated for life, thus to perform appropriate
penance, but the caution was added that they be
prevented from corruption of others. There were
no exceptions. The council of Narbonne, in 1244,
specifically declared that, except when specialin
dulgence could be procured from the Holy See,no
husband was to be spared on account of his wife,
or wife on account of her husband, or parentsin
consideration of helpless children; neither sickness
nor old age could claim mitigation. Everyone who
did not come forward within the time of graceand
confess and denounce his acquaintances was liable
to this penance, which in all caseswas to be lifelong; but the prevalence of heresy in Languedoc
was so great, and the terror of activities of the inquisitors grew so strong, that those who had allowed the allotted period to elapseflocked in, beg
ging for reconciliation, in such multitudes that the
good bishops declared not only that funds for the
support of such crowds of prisoners be lacking,but
even that it would be impossible to find stonesand
mortor sufficient to build prisons for them. The lnquisitors were then instructed to delay incarceration in these cases, unless impenitence, relapse,or
flight, is to be apprehended, until the pleasureof
the pope can be learned. But the pope Innocent

IV was not disposed to leniency. Some of these

heretics were burned, and others were imprisoned
for life, chained and with only bread and water.
Positively no one could escape the iron hand that
ruled from Rome.
The converted heretic was sentenced with
one of the lighter penances, such as wearing the
yellow crosses. These were sewn on the penitent's
coat both at the front and the back. Though this
penance was regarded as merciful in comparison
with imprisonment, it was not easily endurable, as
we can readily understand the sharp penalties required to enforce it. The unfortunate penitent was
exposed to the ridicule and derision of all he, or
she, met, and was heavily handicapped in every effort to earn a living. In the earlier times, the cross
bearers were so numerous that their presence in
Palestine was dreaded, for making the pilgrimage to
Palestine was also part of their penance. No one
wanted to talk, or to transact business, with anyone wearing the yellow crosses. In many cases,
especially in later years of the Inquisition, penitents must wear the crosses for the duration of
their lives. This meant that they were cast out of
society for all time. When one considers that they
were unable to find employment to earn a living,
instead of a Iight penalty, it was a most severeone.
Lea mentions one old man past ninety years old.
He had been found only talking with heretics. He
had to wear the crosses and travel on a pilgrimage.
There is no record whether he ever made it.
One Sunday morning after Mass, a man perhaps having more courage of his convictions than
earthly wisdom, talked with a group of friends outside the church. He was of the opinion, he said,
that the bread and wine of the communion only

represented the blood and body of Christ, but not

actually were, as taught by the doctrine of the
church. He was immediately seized and thrust into
a dungeon. Three days later, he was taken to the
market place where a large assemblage of people
gathered; he was then stripped of most of his clothing and placed under a large copper caultron. Large
rats, starved for the purpose, were placed in beside
him. Red hot coals were then heaped on top of the
upturned bottom of the copper cauldron. The rats,
frantically scurrying to get away from the heat,
gnawed holes in the man's stomach, and so he died,
proving that it was the actual blood and body of
Christ that was partaken at the Communion.
The Jews were persecuted by the Christians
relentlessly. In W. H. Prescott's History of The
Good Catholics, Ferdinand and Isabel/a, he mentions that in one day alone Isabella burnt alive two
hundred Jews, for they could not accept the doctrine that Christ was the son of god.
Should Protestants find any comfort that
their religion was better than the Catholic, because
they did not take part in the Inquisition, they are
gravely mistaken. Although the Inquisition did not
enter Britain, although the Popes sent many letters there asking the kings to adopt it, the Protestant religion sent many thousands of innocent women to the stake, and flames to be burnt ....
slowly, in order that god's command be carried out
in Exodus 22: 18, which says, "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live."
There is only one good religion but it may
require one thousand years before this sad world
will develop it, and that religion is REASON.

One out of every four of your neighbors, friends, business associates, acquaintances and relatives are Atheists. They
don't know where to go to fortify their beliefs. They are worried to say out-loud what they believe.
You can help them. You can give them hope. You can assure them that they are not alone.
We have three brochures (and more coming up) which you can use to enclose with your gas and light bills when you
return them, to send into the bank with your mortgage payment, to leave at the motel the next time you travel.
Atheists are everywhere-they
may be opening mail at the utility company, or at the telephone company. They may be
the next occupants of the room in the motel.
Give them a break: tell them that there is an organization working for them. Go to the library and put one of the
brochures in some of the books on the racks, in the magazines in the reading room. Offer them to your Unitarian
Church for their display table.
If you will do this-we will send you 50 copies of any of the following three for $1.00, postage paid.
(1) What on Earth Is An Atheist!

In the mode of a questionnaire that makes the reader evaluate where he stands on many major issues.
(2) Spiritual Guide to Gracious Living

The disgusting, obscene, irrational, atrocious parts of the Bible.

(3) A Few Bible Contradictions
Excerpts of god against god as he utters one admonition in one book of the Bible and refutes that, or
rejects it in another.
Send $1.00 today for each 50 copies of the pamphlet of your choice to
AMERICAN ATHEISTS, P. O. Box 2117, Austin, Texas 78768
Texas state residents add 5% tax.

MAY, 1977/AMERICAN ATHEIST - 29

_An Imaginary Conversation inPlato's Academy_

......-.

----I

Esther Mattson

Descartes: A perfect being must really exist,

because perfection implies being; therefore, god,
being perfect, must exist.

ness nor reason, it follows that life can have no

purpose, but this does not mean that man cannot
make his own life purposeful.

Plato: Ahh, that is an intriguing idea. On its

surface it appears logical, but we must reason further.

Famous Literary Author: An eternal life

without resurrection of the body would bore me.
What good is life without its physical enjoyments,
martinis and cigarettes and coffee? I mix an excellent martini.

Greek Student: What great minds, yet what

strange conclusions.

Atheist:

Such slight of hand reasoning

proves nothing. One has only to observe the world,
to live in it daily, to conclude that no Heavenly father exists. This is a world in which all living things
can exist only at the expense of other living things,
a very cruel arrangement. A beneficient creator
would never have designed such a world.

Pythagoras: Perhaps we could solve this

problem through a mathematical equation.
Greek Soldier: It is obvious that the gods are
not concerned with the affairs of us ordinary mortals. Last week I implored their aid in battle against
the Persians, but they paid me no heed. All my
men were slain, only I escaped.
Christian: Our god is much concerned with
our activities. He punishes us for wrongdoing and
rewards us for following his laws. Through his son,
Jesus, and his disciples, he has made his laws
known to us. Our reward will be eternal life.
Socrates: I have long pondered the question
of immortality, but tomorrow I am to know at
last, for I will drink the hemlock.
Atheist to Christian: In what form will you
live this eternal life? In that of a spirit? Does this
spirit have substance? Does it require food and
drink? If it has substance, it must have sustenance
and must conform to all the laws of nature. If it
has no substance, how can it feel? How can it enjoy? If it has no substance, it cannot exist.
Sir Isaac Newton: Such a spirit sounds to me
very much like a perpetual motion machine. It defies the second law of thermodynamics.
Christian: What then do Atheists believe to
be the purpose of life, if not to please god, in order
to obtain the gift of eternal life?
Atheist: Since nature has neither consciousMAY, 1977/AMERICAN ATHEIST - 30

Christian: But Sir, you are a materialist. Yesterday, as I stood in the forest near the sea,observing the shimmer of the sun upon the water, I felt
a spiritual presence that filled my very soul. It is
through experiences such as this that I know of
god's existence.
Author: But such experiences as you describe have material origins. Many writers acknowledge that some of the most beautiful passagesin
their books are due to their poor digestion. However, I am too much convinced of the diversity of
human nature to believe that others should regard
these matters as I do. No doubt absolute truths
exist, but all men shall forever interpret them
through their own special idiosyncrosies. Let the
beauty of life be this: that each man shall live in
conformity with his own nature.
Plato: What would be the consequenceof
such a philosophy in the pursuit of my perfect
State? The perfect State demands that each individual sacrifice his own desires for the sake of the
common good, and in this way all men benefit.
Author: Such thinking is alien to me, but
upon consideration, it appears logical that pursuit
of individual desires if at variance with the common good would soon cause a collapse of society.
It is a moral question not easily resolved.
Christian: Only god can resolve such questions. We must look to him for answers.
Greek Student:

Where can we find god?

Christian: God is everywhere. He seesall,

hears all, and knows all. He exists throughout space
and beyond, in unoccupied space.
Sir Issac Newton: There is no such thing!
Christian: No such thing as what?
Sir Issac Newton:

Unoccupied

space! If

space is nothing more than an arrangement of matter, as theorized by the great Dr. Einstein, it follows that if all matter were removed there would
be no space, there would be nothing. The universe
is only an arrangement of matter; therefore, beyond the universe, there is nothing! Unoccupied
space is a contradiction in terms. Space is only
space if it is occupied by matter.

Plato: How can there be nothing?

Greek Student: I am delighted that you have
clarified this point for me. To find the answer to
the question of what lies beyond space I have investigated all of the words of the greatest scientific genuises who have ever lived, only to discover
that they themselves were confused on th is point,
but your explanation makes perfect sense.
Pythagoras: But can it be proved through a
mathematical equation?
Christian: What has all this to do with god?
Sir Isaac Newton: Scientific language has the
merit of exactitude, each word means the same
thing to every scientist. The religious cannot agree
on the meaning of their words because they have
no fundamental facts upon which to agree.
Christian: Pythagoras, I do tire of your obsession with mathematics.

Pythagoras: Mathematics have success with

their methods, the religious have none with theirs.
Atheist to Christian: What place do animals
have in the Kingdom of Heaven?
Christian: All who do not believe in him will
be denied a place in Heaven.
Sioux Warrior: We Indians do not regard
ourselves as above the other animals, the beaver,
the fox, the buffalo. Life has been too rigorous,
too dangerous, too fleeting for us to bel ieve ourselvesexalted.
Euripides: Friends, tomorrow hails the opening of my new play, and I urge you all to attend.
In it I address myself to many questions: Is warfare a natural state for mankind, is slavery wrong,
are women equal?
Cherokee Indian Chief: We Indians do not
concern ourselves with such abstractions as the
rights and wrongs of slavery. We are men of action,
not given to long and ponderous thought. We have
not time for that. Some of us have now acquired

much land on which we raise cotton, and we need

black slaves to tend the fields for us. We have always made slavesof our captives.

Christian: It is clear that the religion of the

Indians does not conduce morality.
Atheist: If Clergymen have a special knowledge of morality, as they claim to, why is it that
they were not the first in line to oppose slavery?
Gray Fox, Pawnee Orator: The white man
has taken our land and killed our buffalo, but he
is not content with that. He now wants to force his
religion upon us. The white man says that his religion is true and ours is false. If this is so then why
do not all white men believe the same way? He
says that his religion is written in a book. All can
read the book, so why do not all agree? Did the
Great Spirit not trouble himself to make his meaning clear to his children? He says that his religion
is intended for us as well as for them. If this is
so, why did the Great Spirit give my forefathers
knowledge of our religion instead of his?
Plato: I am uncertain about the morality
of slavery, but to me it is obvious that a woman
is nothing but an inferior man.
Socrates: Where is your proof of this? Ahh,
you are not my pupil to come to so facile a conclusion. Yesterday at the gymnasium I observed a
young girl engaged in strenuous gymnastics. It
appeared to me that a woman's talents are in no
way inferior to that of a man's. However, those
who hold that men and women are not equal do
have a point. Two things that are different cannot
be equal, in the way that a triangle cannot be equal
to a square, or a trapezoid equal to a circle. Certainly a horse cannot be equal to a dog, or a tree
equal to a flower. I theorize that unless two things
or more are identical, they cannot be equal.
Pythagoras: To our feeble senses it does appear that the horse and the dog are greatly dissimilar and therefore cannot be equal, but I am not
sure that such is true of the square and the circle.
I am presently at work in an attempt to square
the circle but have not yet succeeded. If I succeed
we can then examine the proof to see what truth
it offers us about the equality of the sexes.
Feminist: What nonsense.
Author: Words, words, words. I am a writer
and every writer learns early in his trade never to
trust words.
Plato: But how can we be sure, that the right
MAY, 1977/AMERICAN ATHEIST - 31

words, spoken to the right man, at the right time in

his life will not have an eternal effect for the good?

ated especially for him.' Does he not behave much

more like the product of casual forces?

Feminist: We women need words to express our feelings so as to win people to our side,
but we did not arrive at our desire for equality
because of words, but because of our suffering.
Humanity learns understanding through suffering, through hard experience, through endless
trial and error.

Christian: But he is not a true Christian, he

does not follow Christ's teachings.

Atheist: But never through religion. The way

to knowledge is long and arduous, but it would be
simple and straightforward if there were truly a
concerned god to show us the way.
Euripides: Women must truly suffer, for
they raise sons, to whom they devote all of their
love and energies, only to have them die in battle.
Sioux Warrior: War is inevitable. We attempted to live in peace in the marshlands of Minnesota, but our enemies would not allow it. They
attacked and killed our warriors and made slaves
of our women and children. Then we moved to
the Plains, and made them our Empire. Now all
men dread to enter, for we show them no mercy,
as they showed none to us.
Christian: It is clear that these Indians are
sorely in need of Christian teaching.
20th Century U. S. Citizen: But is war
inevitable for all? We are a strong nation insulated
from Europe by an ocean, and with weak neighbors to the north and south of us who pose no
threat. In spite of this we have been involved in
many unpopular wars. In my opinion the problem
is that the discretionary power for war rests not
with the people but with their elected representatives. Only the people directly should have the legal right to declare war, and their government's
role should be advisory only.
Former American President: We democratic
leaders would never deceive the people. Our reasons for conscripting our young men for war have
always been of the highest moral order, and we
have done so only when our national survival has
been at stake. Nevertheless, we bel ieve it necessary
to subvert the right of free speech and freedom of
assembly during such times, lest dissenters convert
others to their views. We believe in our First
Amendment freedoms, but there are times when
we know best what is right for the people.
Atheist: Hear how devious is his reasoning,
this Christian who claims that the universe was ereMAY, 1977/AMERICAN ATHEIST - 32

Atheist: Ha! The usual Christian disclaimer!

American Housewife: My physician is a devout Baptist who attempts to convert everyone in
sight to his views. As I was in his office last week
for treatment of a minor ailment he suddenly
pointed to a plant near his window and demanded
of me, "Who made that plant? Who made you?
What is your purpose in life?" I ignored his questions and countered that he would not attempt a
cure of my ailment on the basis of the kind of
knowledge he considers sufficient for his belief
in god. That silenced him for a moment, but he
soon began again. I hope I am well, soon, for his
manner makes me very uncomfortable.
Geometry Student: I have had a similar experience with my geometry teacher. He insists that
the study of geometry is important if for no other
reason than that it teaches its students how to
th ink, yet he believes the existence of god is incontrovertible. He demands proof for his geometric
theorems but none for the existence of god and he
sees no inconsistency in this. Has his study of
geometry taught him how to think? He is living
proof of the falsity of th is theory, wh ich is a favorite of every teacher of mathematics.
Activist: What good are such endless discussions as to the nature of truth and of right and
wrong and of freedom and of god? We could better
serve mankind by putting this time to use in pursuit of a clean and reliable source of energy, to
provide mankind with the fuel he needs to insure
his good health and freedom from want.
Aristotle: Who knows that these discussions
might not some day give birth to the solution of
the perfect fuel?
Atheist: What man will attempt to find his
own solutions if he believes that god will intervene
in his behalf?
Plato: I have made the search for truth my
life's work, because I believe that all mankind, as
I do, longs for such knowledge. Mankind desires
to know and to understand, about himself, about
the meaning of life, so that he may order his life
and thoughts accordingly, so as to be at peace with
himself.

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