American Atheist Magazine Aug 1977

Vol.
19,
No.8
EDITORIAL/Guest
Editorial
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR ...........................
NEWS
ATHEISTS ORGANIZE
Colorado . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ; . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Oregon
Anne Gaylor Files Lawsuit
Unitarians Debate Atheism
Baptists Bar Blacks from Schools
IRS Investigates Ministers
Carter Envoy to Vatican
FEATURE ARTICLES
"Stop Teasing Men"- The Simonson Saga/Speakingfor Women:
Anne Gaylor
August, 1977
2
3
14
4
;6
7
11
12
15
16
The Catholic Schools Teach Dogma, Separatism, Bias/Shibles' Corner:
WarrenShibles
19
Losing The Faith at Larson's Store/Newsday Columnist,
Patrick Owens
27
The Freudian Interpretation of Religion/Neil Kressel

AMERICAN ATHEIST RADIO SERIES
The Salvation Army
ATHEIST BOOK REVIEW
The Bible Handbook for Atheists
POEMS ..............................
28
23
, ........
18
22
Editor-in-Chief/Madalyn Murray O'Hair, Managing Editor/William J. Murray,

Editor/Jon G. Murray, Assistant Editor/R. B. Shirley, Design/Valerie L. Murray,
Circulation/John I..Mays, Non-Residential Staff/Anne Gaylor, WarrenShibles,John
Sontarck, Jo Kotula, Production Coordinators/Cathy Rowell, Ralph Shirley,
Pepi Plowman.
The American Atheist magazine is published monthly by American Atheists, 2210 Hancock
Drive, Austin, Texas, 78756, a non-profit, non-political, tax-exempt, educational organization.
Mailing address: P. O. Box 2117, Austin, Texas, 78768; copyright 0 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
typed, double-spaced and accompanied by a stamped, self-addressed envelope.
THE AMERICAN ATHEIST MAGAZINE

Post Office Box 2117
Austin, Texas 78768
Enter my subscription for one year at $15.00 (two years at $25.00).
NEW
Total Enclosed $.p.
Name
Address
City, State, & Zip
RENEWAL
_
ON THE COVER
Gerald Tholen is the Director of the
Houston-Galveston
(Texas) Chapter of
American Atheists. Assisting him in that
effort is his wife, Gloria, who is just as avid
an Atheist as he.
.
Gerald Tholen was born on January 30,
1929, in Galveston Texas, and "with the
Texas Gulf Coast Marshes in my blood" he
claims to be and is one of our persistent,
thoroughly self-educated, most determined
Directors.
Immediately after high school, and upon
the death of his father, (who was killed in
the historic Texas City Explosion in 1947),
he entered into the family business, a paint
and floorcovering (as well as a quality picture framing) establishment in LaMarque,
Texas, and he has been gaining a reputation
for excellent and fair trade for that firm
since, that is during the last thirty years.
His favorite pastime - duck hunting has led him to be very conscious of the
value of conservation and rationality.
"Sportsmen, by their own desire, must safeguard our country's wildlife and its habitats
or that wildlife will vanish forever." He has,
in this pursuit, become an efficient retriever
trainer who has educated several "duck
dogs" highly regarded by the Coast Salt
Marsh hunters. Duck hunting inspired him
to oil painting of wildlife and two of his
oils, exquisitely detailed and almost photographic in detail, hang in the American
Atheist Center.
Gerald is one of those persons who, if
there is need, will. be found supervising
the activity. He is, for example, currently
the president of Bayou Vista Property
Owners' Association an organization that
supervises community action in the subdivision where his family resides. He is also
a trustee on the committee which secured a
new sanitary sewer system for the community. His current activity has resulted
in successfully reaching an agreement with
the Galveston County Road Dept. for that
entity to accept ownership of the streets in
his suburb. Up to 1977 the streets were
maintained on a privately supported basis.
In his capacity of American Atheist
Chapter Director he has, through earnest
communication, letter, telephone and visit,
managed a precedent-setting breakthrough
of Atheist acceptance in the newsmedia of
his area.
We urge any of you who are resident in
the area of Houston-Galveston to contact
this fine chapter, and its Director, the
address being "American Atheists, HoustonGalveston Chapter, P. O. Box 307, LaMarque, Texas, 77568" and the telephone
number is (713) 935-9531.
The events of the past few weekends have brought me to a

realization that I have not been fully aware of. I am fortunate
enough to live just a short 3% hour drive from the American
Atheist Center at Austin. This geographic advantage has benefitted me greatly since Gloria and I became active with the organization. I have had the reassurance that being close at hand
to the "People who can help you most" gives a person. I might
add that I have not hesitated to make the most of that
fortunate situation. On any number of occasions I have called
on my "second family" (Madalyn, Garth, and Bill) when I
felt the need of advice or reassurance on a particular problem.
I know, of course, that every other Atheist in the country is
equally as close to the Center in the manner of communication
and response because these good people are as close as your
own telephone. What I really meant is that I am lucky enough
to be able to hop in my car and drive up to the Center if I
need books, literature, or a good down to earth discussion
with anyone there. I'm very proud to have the national headquarters of American Atheists in my home state.
I cannot properly find the words to describe to you how
that pride was magnified in June when I drove up in front of
the new Center building. A religious person would have sworn
he was experiencing a miracle. The impressive Spanish Modern
architecture seemed very fitting to an organization dedicated
to spreading intelligence to the world. The clean, modern,
beautiful elegance of the surrounding business neighborhood
completed the setting. I sat there for a moment, a little bewildered at what I was viewing, and began to realize that this
was no miracle - it was the result of many tiring years of work
and effort by Madalyn O'Hair. Friends, this fine lady has given
Atheism a deserving home!
It was then that I began to feel ashamed that I had not been
helping in the past when I, along with every other Atheist in
the country, was needed desperately. Worse yet, I felt the
meagerness of my help since I have become "involved" and
knew that I'd have to triple my efforts in order to justify my
claim to being a part of this organization.
Too little help is
being offered by too few people. We have a fine organization
with very good and up-to-date equipment but I remind you
now what the word "organization"
means - a GROUP of
people dedicated to a common goal. The larger and more cooperative the group, the quicker that goal is achieved. Now,
probably more than ever, is the time for Atheists to lose a
little of their independent
indifference and admit that they
have benefitted by the actions of OTHER Atheists.
Any Atheist in the world IS obligated by his own conscience to do what he can to safeguard his independence from
religious domination.
Especially in this country.
Earlier I
made reference to "People who can help you most" - well,
each one of us is a person who in all fairness can aid those
helpful people and in turn help ourselves.
While working at the new Center and helping to "straighten
up" as best I could I had occasion to talk with Madalyn and
was told of some of the plans she has for programs now being
contemplated
for the near future. There are some very new
and different programs being finalized which will benefit the
organization both in publicity and finances. Proper announcements will be made as soon as these programs are put into
effect. Meanwhile OUR help is needed to continue the business at hand. Make an effort to visit the Center and spend a
little time not only visiting but helping in the mail room or
any other of the many tasks that go on there 12 hours a day.
Also, you can now spend time in the priceless library of
Atheist books as well. Nowhere else in the world will you find
a collection of Atheist works like you will see in Austin. Here
are the volumes and truths that religion in the past failed to
AUGUST, 1977/AMERICAN
ATHEIST
discredit or destroy. Time spent at the Center helping reorganize to a higher point of efficiency will be an education in
itself. And please, try to contribute as much as you can financially. Everyone knows the high costs of doing anything nowadays and the Center has to pay for merchandise and services
just the same as everyone else.
If you've been disillusioned or disappointed by religious
encroachment
in the past I hope you will all realize the point
of the saying "You win some - you lose some". It's true that
at this point in history we're not "winning them all" but
let's remember not too long ago we didn't "win any".
To any-one now who holds the feeling that he or she has to
carefully hide the fact that they are Atheists I can only say
you're only kidding yourself. That part of our "revolution"
has already been won by those who were courageous enough
to openly fight for our rights in a "free" society. Your own
personal emancipation
in your home town depends on your
desire to rid yourself of a!1V further intimidation by your
friends, relatives, and associates. It's time for you to have heart
to heart talks with anyone, anytime and let them know that
you no longer intend to hide in the shadows and that you do
not need any further religious advice or domination. "Letters
to the editor" in your local newspapers commenting on the
irrelevance of religious "guidance" of your community will be
both rewarding and interesting. Perhaps you will find it more
constructive to initiate an Atheist radio or TV series both of
which are available through the national Center. It is equally
important for you to contact your local Chapter and offer
your participation.
Keep in mind, there are NO miracle
workers; there are only people. Your chapter directors need
your support. The Center needs your support. If you do your
part to break the 'enigma of religious mind control now your
children won't have to do so much of your work later.
It seems ironic, indeed, that loyal people who only wish to
further ideals based on reality would be overjoyed to receive
a helpful check for 22.9 dollars when we read of an evangeli
cal supernaturalist
who has at his disposal 22.9 MILLION dollars which he apparently doesn't even need. I think it's time
we put our claim to being RATIONAL into practical use.
How can we expect our frontline people to advertise, acquire,
and publish our materials with noticeable effect in the face of
such overwhelming odds. There are so many projects which we
have all been informed of so many times. These items continue
to wait for financing and can only be actuated by our support.
I am wondering, right now, if any reader of this article has
ever been in a situation that required him to beg for help. Most
of us have probably never been in such a position. Begging is
not something that a person can do with a great deal of self
respect or pride. It leaves a lasting mark on those who unavoidably
must resort to such methods
of existence. I
personally cannot offer you a life after death or a "choice lot
in heaven" - all I have to offer in return for your help is a
pledge to continue to help all Atheist causes in our country.
Madalyn O'Hair doesn't need to make such a pledge because
she has, for years, displayed to all of us that Atheism in Ameri
ca is her life's work. So now I am begging, on behalf of every
sincere Atheist in our country, please lend a hand.
We have a beautiful and efficient National Center, a network of Atheist Chapters, a great deal of national recognition,
and many sincere people eager to make progress. It would
take about ten minutes of your time to sit down and write a
small note of encouragement
to Dr. O'Hair - and don't for
get to include a check for even a small amount to help offset
the costs that are ever present at the Center.
-GERALD
THOLEN
Dear Editor:
I am a recent subscriber to your
monthly magazine. I read the periodi
cal from cover to cover and enjoy
every word.
For many years I have been an admirer of yours and the "cause."
Currently I am an officer in the
United States Army and very much
oppose the chaplaincy program in the
military.
Just recently our division was
assembled together to hear our commander speak about safety on the
highways and within the performance
of military duties. After the talk he
called upon the division chaplain to
offer prayer for safety of military
personnel. We were asked [ordered]
to stand and remove our head gear.
I could not remove my hat but, indeed, I stood and stood tall. I looked
on as the others bowed their heads in
prayer. My action was noticed. My
action is not expected of an officer.
But I just could not do it. I just
wanted to share with you the experience that many military Atheists must
undergo to be accepted wholely into
the military community.
This, of
course, is no isolated incident.
I was "born" a Roman Catholic.
My parents were Catholic, my eldest
sister was a Franciscan Nun for nine
years. At the age of five I was a
"curandera" a healer because of my
first name, Juanita, or John of Saint
Juan (St. John). Upon my first communion at the age of seven I was
asked to kiss the crucifix which I
refused because I did not believe in
Jesus as god.
In 1969 I converted to Judaism.
I believed I needed a religion and
since Jews do not accept Jesus as
Christ this would be perfect for me. I
went to Temple regularly but grew
more and more silent when I had to
call upon god for every human happening. I gulped when I had to extoll
his name. I hesitate in spelling "god"
with a capital "G".
Now, in 1977 I have given up
Judaism and other organized religions.
Before 1969 I proclaimed myself a
nonbeliever in 'god'. I am Atheistic.
I'm not sure I am an Atheist-yet.
I
know there is no god to assist human-
kind. If that is being an Atheist, well,

then I am an Atheist, however, I'd
rather not wear out the label.
I have published poetry in Berkeley
and in New Mexico. I would like to
share some poetry on Atheism with
you in the future.
Thank you for a fine publication
and your book on Atheism: What 011
Earth Is An Atheist.
Juanita M. Sanchez
Ft. Hood, Texas
Dear Juanita:
It was an act of extraordinary
bravery for you to remain standing,
hat on, head erect. I was also a commissioned officer in the WAAC and
the WAC (Women's Army Corps) in
World War II and I know how rough
it is to be an Atheist woman in the
military. We are proud of you and we
salute you.
If your poetry is Atheistic-we'll
publish it in the magazine.
Editor
Dear Editor:
Dan Mitchell, in his letter in the
March 1977 issue, suggested that a section of the magazine be set aside each
month for readers' suggestions as to
arguments which can be used in discussions with religionists. This is an excellent idea, and I herewith volunteer
some observations which I have found
helpful.
First, Dan, you must become pretty
knowledgeable about the Bible. Probably 95% or more of the so-called
professing Christians don't have any
idea what's in the Bible, beyond a few
of the better known things like David
and Goliath, Samson and Delilah,
the 23rd Psalm, the sermon on the
mount, etc. When you ask them why
there are two different versions of
creation, two different accounts of
how David came to the court of King
Saul, two conflicting accounts of the
death of Judas Iscariot, it will likely
slow them down a bit. When you ask
them why a compassionate god would
kill thousands of Israelites in the
desert because they complained about
the food, or why such a god would
kill Uzza for what he did (/ Chronicles
13:9-10), I daresay you will have
them tongue-tied. When you point out

that David was never punished for his
adultery with Bathsheba or his murder
of Uriah, they will say "Oh but he
was. The child died and David's wives
were publicly ravished." I think a
proper rejoinder to that is to inquire
politely. "Is this a new theory of
criminology, to punish a wrongdoer
by harming his loved ones?"
But these trifling inconsistencies are
not the real problem the religionists
have to face. Their thorniest problem,
and the one which has caused the
greatest number of defections from
the church, is the problem of trying to
reconcile the concept of an omnipotent, compassionate god with the
cruelty, injustice, and suffering in the
world. They will say "Oh, you can't
blame god for that. Man has free will,
and he is the cause of the evil," I
reply, "I certainly agree that man has
free will and he is the cause of the
evil, but then what part does god
play?"
This will shut up 95% of them
because they are so accustomed to the
concept of a god that hovers over
us and manages every detail of our
lives. A few will finally say something like, "Well, it's all part of god's
plan, which we just have to accept."
To this I reply, "It's not man's
nature to accept things on faith. It
is man's nature to probe, to search,
to try to find out the why of things,
and the greatest advances in civilization have been made by men and
women who possessed this attribute."
Moreover, apart from the question
of man's free will, there is a lot of
physical evil entirely independent of
it. A Jehovah's Witness asked me
recently, "How can you be an Atheist
when you see about you the beauty
and perfection of the world?"
"Ma'am," I said, "the world is far
from perfect. When god created the
earth, why didn't he do it in such a
way that its crust wouldn't periodically shift about and crack up, killing
and maiming hundreds of thousands of
his innocent creatures?"
No answer.
No .Atheist need feel defensive.
We have the superior position. The
(Continue on page 26.)
AUGUST, 1977/AMERICAN ATHEIST 3
Ilit(~: _N_EW_S ~li\llfr.illft\lli\iti{\'ltililiJlrlllirl

Religious Freedoms
Editorial Page, The Mail Tribune
Some people may have been startled to see a
couple of Mail Tribune stories recently reporting
on a nascent organization of professed Atheists in
the valley.
Atheism is not a popular doctrine in today's
climate of opinion, and a good many nonbelievers
are hesitant to make known their opinions for fear
of social ostracism or economic damage.
But it is our suspicion (borne out to a considerable degree by church membership and attendance
figures) that the largest single religious minority in
the United States today consists of persons with no
church affiliation, and that these individuals range
all the way from convinced Atheists to those who
simply are uninvolved, and include in between
varying degrees of agnosticism, humanism, anticlericalism and apathy.
We also believe that the constitutional and traditional separation of church and state in the United
States works for the benefit of all - not least for
the benefit of the churches, which are free to
practice their own beliefs unhindered by governmental strictures or sanctions.
Freedom of religion includes, obviously, the
right to freedom F ROM religion, and one's right to
believe or not believe what one wishes is indisputable.
The U.S. Constitution is firm in this. Article VI
says, " ... no religious test shall ever be required as
a qualification to any office or public trust under
the United States."
The First Amendment guarantees the free exercise of religion and forbids the enacting of any
law respecting an establishment of religion (that is,
creating a state-sponsored rei igion).
The Oregon Constitution is even more explicit.
Article I, Sections 2,3,4,5,6 and 7 all deal with
varying aspects of freedom of worship, freedom of
religious opinion, forbidding religious qualifications for office, forbidding tax money being spent
for religion, forbidding any religious test for
witnesses or jurors, and providing that oaths or

affirmations shall be administered in a manner
consistent with the conscience of the individual.
Perhaps the recitation of these guaranteed rights
is unnecessary and redundant, but the point isthat
in this country, freedom of conscience is unfet
tered, including the right to preach (if one so
desires) unbelief as well as belief in a supreme
being.
It's a big, diverse country, a pluralistic country,
and making it work properly requires a certain
tolerance for beliefs with which one may disagree,
or even find abhorrent.
That's what freedom is all about.
Atheists Come Out

of The 'Closet,'
Try to Organize in Valley
By STU WATSON
Mai(Tribune Staff Writer
Tired of Sunday school, passing the plate and
Adam and Eve? Fed up to here with tithing,
sermons, an eye for an eye and turn the other
cheek? Have you had it with original sin, confession and the Father, Son and Holy Ghost?
If so, you might wish to consider Atheism.
Touted by its followers as the quickest curefor
a case of religious blahs, Atheism is unique in that
it has no churches, no schools, no Bible, no
preachers and last, but by no means least, no god.
"Is this the Godless group?" an elderly gentl
man asked Tuesday night as he strolled into
Gresham Room of the Ashland Public Library
Several of the some 20 who attended chuckled.
"You'd
be surprised to see we don't h
horns," said Irving S. Thomas, organizer of
meeting.
Valley residents who either espouse the Ath .
philosophy or were curious about its tenets h
been invited to the meeting by members of
American Atheist Association. A brief introducti
by Thomas precipitated dialogue on a number
mutual concerns.
The news which fills one half of the magazine is chosen to demonstrate, month after month, the dead reactionary hand of religion. It dicta
good habits, sexual conduct, family size, it censures cinema, theater, television, even education. It dictates life values and lifestyle. Religion
politics and, always, the most authoritarian and reactionary politics. We editorialize our news to emphasize this thesis. Unlike any other
zine or newspaper in the United States, we are honest enough to admit it.
AUGUST, 1977/AMERICAN ATHEIST - 4
(Atheists Come Out of The 'Closet,' Try to Organize in Valley)
"We've got plenty of Billy Graham's voice

there's about four or five hours of him on TV
this week - but no voice for the opposite philosophy," Thomas said.
'
"Atheism means without theism, which opens a
whole bag of worms because theism means one
thing to one person and another to someoneelse."
He gave his definition of god, as seen by those
who believe in god, as a supreme being with the
ability to listen and care about man and the infinite power to grant man's wishes.
"One of the most central things to theism is
prayer," Thomas said, "where you petition god to
suspendnatural law on your behalf."
But Thomas said he has considered the idea of
an all-caring and all-powerful deity and rejected
the concept of god completely.
"If he cares, what's he doing about it?" Thomas
asked rhetorically. "Why do we have floods and
disasters? The forces of nature are given to us
indiscriminately, sinner and saint.
"What we witness is an absolute disregard for
the plaguesand perils of mankind."
Thomas said a typical reiigion consists of an
ethical package and a theological package. The
ethical package is phrased in different ways by
different reiigions, but essentially involves the concept of the Golden Rule - do unto others as you
would havethem do unto you.
The theological package involves god, gods,
idols, Buddhas, Taos, Krisna, or whatever one
holdsasa supreme being.
"It also includes the heavens, hells, limbo which is a little lean-to to hell - purgatory and
other things like that," Thomas said.
He said most Atheists he has known subscribeto
the ethical package, that is, they try to be law
abiding citizens, don't shoot their neighbor in
hopesthat he won't shoot them.
"But they would dump the theological package
down the drain in its entirety," he said. "They
realizethat it is undiluted guessworkwith no basis
in fact."
One woman described herself as a humanist,
prefering to emphasize human ability to serve
humanneedsrather than turning to a god for solutions.
After a young man offered a list of Atheist
organizationsand noted with regret.that many of
the groups espoused racist or anti-semitic dogma,
a woman said she had been an Atheist since she
wasa child and always had thought Atheists as a
groupwereprogressivein all manner of thought.
"Up until this moment, I had never considered
that there are racist Atheists," she said. "Someone

once asked me what kind of Jew I was and I said
I was an Atheist Jew. So I guessthere can be other
kinds of Atheists too."
Thomas affirmed that Atheism isn't aligned with
any particular economic or social order. "There are
socialist Atheists, Communist Atheists, capitalist
Atheists and even religious Atheists," he said.
A man wearing a clerical collar and terming himself
an Antioch Catholic attended and contributed to
the meeting.
A young, bearded man said religion offers as
much social interaction as it does theology. And he
said he thought there would be a social void if
organized religion didn't exist.
"Isn't it possible to have social groups without
religion though?" a woman asked.
"1 just don't think we should attack religion,
even though the people who believein it may show
poor judgment," the bearded man said. "These
people have needs like everyone elseand if religion
satisfiestheir needs,fine."
Another young man, in response to comments
by another humanist who said she "doesn't worry
about religion," said he had seen the harm that
religion can work on a person.
"1 was raised in a different situation," he said,
"and I've seen so many people messedup by religion, all the guilt and psychic fear trips they imposeon you."
"The reason I'm not a militant Atheist is because I don't like religious people forcing things
down my throat and I don't want to be accusedof
doing the same thing," the first humanist woman
said.
Several persons requested anonymity, noting
that religious employers or friends might suddenly
change their tune and sever economic or social
relationships if they learned of the Atheist affiliation.
Thomas said he felt the "closet" aspect of
Atheism should end, said he believed Atheists had
as much right, to say they were an Atheist as a
Catholic does to say he's a Catholic, and urged the
group to mobilize a public education program.
Another man said political action to counteract
the legislated morality campaign of Anita Bryant
and her followers would be a possible course of
action.
The group agreed to meet next at 7 p.m. on
June 21 at the Lithia Park band shell to resume
their dialogue. And they invited interested persons
of whatever persuasionto attend.
The editorial in The Mail Tribune

as well as the descriptive article
concerning the first meeting of
Atheists in Rogue River Valley was
a result of the following articles and
advertisement to the editor.
-Ed.
destiny; and that his potential for

good and higher development is for
all practical purposesunlimited.
An open meeting on this subject
will be held in the Gresham Room
of the Ashland Public Library at
7:00 p.m. Tuesday, June 7. For
further
information
phone
482-1569.
Mel Hamlin, Ashland
Jackson County Times

LETTERS
Atheist Heritage
To The Editor:
In the U.S.A. the freedom of
religion includes the freedom from
religion. Separation of Church and
State is supposedly an American
ideal, as expressed in our Constitution.
Fourteen years ago the American
Atheist Association was formed by
a group with Madalyn Murray
Q'Hair as president and an office
in Austin, Texas. There had never
been an attempt to organize
Atheists as such before.
There had never been an attempt
to make them proud of their heritage, which includes the mental
attitude that acceptsthe supremacy
of reason and aims at establishing
a system of philosophy and ethics
verifiable by experience, independent of all arbitrary assumptions
of authority or creeds. It declares
that the cosmos is devoid of imminent conscious purpose; that it is
governed by its own inherent,
immutable and impersonal law;
that there is no supernatural interference in human life; that manfinding his resourceswithin himself
-can and must create his own
ATHEISM
****
*
I **"
'*
*
.: LOST *
** IT **
*"*- **
Atheists Plan Session

Persons interested in the subject
of Atheism and the possibility of
action on such subjects as church
taxation and separation of church
and state are invited to attend a
meeting of the American Atheist
Association at 7 p.m. in the
Gresham Room of the Ashland
Public Library.
Meeting organizer, Irving S.
Thomas, Medford, said there are
hundreds of Atheists in the Rogue
Valley, some who maintain ties to
organization religions and hide their
true views and others who openly
espousetheir views.
"This will be an exploratory
meeting to determine if there is
sufficient interest locally to work
together on these issues," Thomas
said.
"There is a large area of other
topics
including treatment of
Atheists in this country, the scope
of Atheism, and what Atheism is
exactly. We feel there should be an
Atheistic voice counteracting some
of the religious garbagethat comes
out."
is the life philosophy of

persons who are free from theism.
you consider yourself an atheist,
we'd like to know you.
We're meetin!1 at the
Ashland Public Ubrary
Gresham Room,
Tues.,June 7th at 7 pm. 779-7409
AUGUST. 1977/AMERICAN
ATHEIST
St. Vincent De P
Postmark Spurs
Lawsuit by
Anne Gaylor
Atheist
Anne Gaylor
suit against
the U.S.
Service for stamping
called a religious me
postcards
she mailed in
May in Madison.
In a complaint fil
Federal Court, Ms. Gay
founder of the Freedom
Religion Foundation,
.
Constitutional
rights are
violated by a postal
tion that says, "Help the
of St. Vincent De Paul
Needy."
She said the gover
supporting
a religious
whose business incl
tions to an anti-abortion
zation.
Ms. Gaylor said her
be free from having
messages placed on her
property and her ri;rt
dom of thought willbe
if the practice contin
Names as defe
Madison
postmaster
Whitmore;
Postmaster
Benjamin Bailar and
Postal Service.
Whitmore said any
tion may petition
Service in Washi
postage cancellation
sage is of national .
related to the
of the people.
If permission is
organization buys a
die for the Postal
more said.
The St. Vincent
ciety was granted
and another cancel
used soon in Mad'
cize a cardio-pul
tation course at
Hospital, he said.
Because so many
made, the Madison
uses each message
a year, he said.
Foundation Attacks
West Virginia Senate for
Religious Arrogance
(Madison, Wisconsin) The Wisconsin based
Freedom From Religion Foundation today attacked the West Virginia Senate for "religious
arrogance" and a "blatantly stupid" violation of
separation of state and church.
The West Virginia Senate overwhelmingly
approved a resolution which said that Jesus may
be shown only as "expressly presented by the Holv '
Bible or by the teachings of Christian theology."
Some state senators had noted that the resolution
violated constitutional guarantees of free speech.
"While many Americans are Christians who
believe in the Biblical portrayal of Jesus, obviously there are many others who are not Christians and do not share these beliefs," said Anne
Gaylor, president of the Wisconsin based group.
"West Virginia is blithely writing off the freedoms
of those who do not accept the divinity or the
historicity of Jesus-who see him as a mythical
figure."
Ms. Gaylor pointed out that the Constitution is
a godless document.
"It was purposely written to be a godless document," she said. "The only references to religion in the Constitution are exclusionary, because
our founding fathers had an abiding distrust
of religion in government."
Ms. Gaylor asked West Virginians who support
freedom of speech to see that this "mischiefmaking religious manifesto" is rescinded.
'READ THE BIBLE'

After reading The Light's editorial, "The Good
Book," I decided to take the advice given and read
the Bible for moral guidance.
First, I read Ex. 12:29-30, where god directs
the killing of the first born of every Egyptian
family. Then, on to 2 Sam. 12:14-18, where god
kills a baby to punish its father for murder. God
further directed the Israelites in 1 Sam. 15:2-3,
to kill all men, women and children in Amalek.
He killed 50,070 men because they looked into
the ark of the Lord, in 1 Sam. 6: 1'9. Since I want
to keep this concise, I will not list all of the acts
and words of god of a similar moral character.
A further moral example is given by Joseph,
who had every intention of killing Mary for being
pregnant prior to living with him until "god" instructed him not to do so.
I agree that everyone should read the Bible so
they will be informed as to just how good a book it
really is.
RALPH B. SHIRLEY
Unitarians Host Lively Debate

on Role of Atheism
Rocky Mountain News
The main characteristic of Unitarians is their
open-mindedness.
So it came as no surprise to those in the congregation of Denver's First Unitarian Church that
they should hear arguments in favor of Atheism
and against the power and privileges of organized
religions - including their own.
Jane Conrad, chairwoman of the American
Atheist Association, explained her organization's
fight to remove the words "under God" from the
Pledge of Allegiance and to prohibit inscribing "in
God we trust" on U.S. coins.
And she demanded that the tax-exempt status
of religious organizations be revoked.
Ms. Conrad and State Rep. John R. McElderry,
R. Lakewood, who stepped down as minister of
the Wheat Ridge United Church or Christ after
his election last year, engaged in a debate that was
described as "cordially heated" by J. J. Albi, cochairman of the Unitarian summer program.
Ms. Conrad declared that the non-rei igious
citizen is persecuted and forced to support religions through their tax dollars.
She charged the public schools with enforcing
religious beliefs by celebrating Christmas and
Easter, and demanded that the two holiday periods
be renamed winter and spring vacations.
But her main complaint was the lack of taxation
of churches and religious property and tax monies
churches receive through various foundations and
grants. She said part of these funds is used to support religious lobbies that continue to shape the
law of the land regardless of the fundamental belief in separation of church and state.
"Religious lobbies are some of the most powerful lobbies there are," Ms. Conrad said. "The drive
against the ERA (Equal Rights Amendment),
abortion and gay rights is testimony to the tyranny
of Christianity. It disturbs me no end that a man
sitting in the Vatican in Rome can dictate policies
AUGUST, 1977/AMERICAN ATHEIST-7
(Unitarians Host Lively Debate on Role of Atheism)
in this country."
McElderry said he agreed that church-operated
businesses and properties outside the church
should be taxed like any other business, but he
favored retaining tax-exempt status for the
churches themselves.
In the case of churches and many educational
institutions, he said, the power to tax is the power
to destroy.
Regarding her arguments about separation of
church and state, McElderry said it may be desirable, in theory, but in practice it is impossible to
divorce American government from Judeo-Christian principles.
McElderry said the checks and balances system
is an example of a governmental mechanism that
evolved out of a religious belief of the depraved
nature of mankind. "This principle is shot through
the Constitution and the laws of every state in
the union."
Some listeners observed that Atheists have become so organized they practically constitute a
religion in themselves.
"The Internal Revenue Service views us as an
educational institution,"
Ms. Conrad replied.
"Atheism is a philosophy of life. If you accept that
attitudes and beliefs are a religion, perhaps we are,
but it is free from theism."
"As Atheists, we do not impose upon you our
particular philosophy. We support one thing: Freedom of conscience. We will go to court with you
to support what you believe, but we do not want
to pay our tax money to support your belief."
lightning Rod Damned

Until Thousands Die
phia home in 1752. There was no widespread

licity about the device until 1753, when Fra
described it for the 10,000 subscribersof
"Poor Richard's Almanack."
In his 18-line account, Franlin said that an
rod, sunk three or four feet in moist earthat
end and rising up to six or eight feet abovea
at the other end, could ground a lightning bolt
prevent damage.
Reaction from clergymen in the United S
and Europe was swift and bitter.
"Year after year," declares one of Frankl
modern biographers, "the New England mini
took up their cudgels to show that Franklin
mistaken himself, and that he had beensacril
to continue his efforts."
The Rev. Thomas Prince of Boston publi
lengthy sermon in 1755 charging that an
quake in Boston that year was the resultof
anger at Americans who erected lightning rods.
"1n Boston are more erected than anywhere
in New England, and Boston seemsto be
dreadfully shaken. Oh, there is no gettingout
the mighty hand of god!" he said.
And, declared another preacher of the day, ,
lightning "is one of the means of punishingthe
of mankind and of warning them from theco
sion of sin, it is impious to prevent its full ex
tion." In Europe, religious authorities blocked
of the devices. In England no church waspro
r----------,
by a lightning rod
nine years after pub!'
tion of Franklin'sdi
ery.
The event that
ed theological minds
folded in 1767, wh
lightning bolt crashed
to the Church of
Nazaro at Brescia,I
wh ich served as a
BENJAMIN
FRANKLIN
h
f
200
Shocked the church
ouse or over
,
pounds of gunpowder,
Ignited by the lightning, the gunpowder
ploded, leveling a sixth of the town and clai
more than 3,000 lives. Defenders of Fr
pointed out that lightning rods would have
vented the catastrophe.
Franklin paid little attention to all the con
versy, which died down around the time
emerged as a key figure in America's move
independence.
L-
By WEBB GARRISON
Outraged clergymen attacked Ben Franklin
for his invention of the lightning rod - until
lightning smashed into a church where gunpowder
was stored, setting off an explosion that killed
more than 3,000 people.
The men of the cloth argued that use of "Franklin's rods" challenged both the Holy Scriptures
and the will of god, causing natural disasters that
were actually divine punishment.
Franklin erected a lightning rod on his Philadel-
----'
Philadelphia, 1767
Ex- Follower Tries to

Change Adherents of
'Faith Healing'
By Judy Fossett
The Daily Oklahoma, Staff Writer
FAY - The wind was blowing and the darkening sky threatened more rain as Keith Sutton
walked slowly through the uncut grass and wildflowers that dot the tiny hillside cemetery near
Fay.
Sutton stopped and pointed to a small tombstone. Written on it was the name of a small boy,
five days old when he died in 1975.
"There's a child who could have survived,"
Sutton said, shaking his head, the frown on his
face reflecting the dark mood of the weather.
Not far away was the grave of another young
boy, this one 10 years old when he died after
being kicked in the stomach by a horse. Sutton
remembers this death. He was there when the boy
was kicked, and he remembers how the young boy
suffered many days without medical treatment
before finally dying.
A 7-year-old girl is buried nearby. She drank
Iyewater her mother used for washing and "I iteralIy starved to death because she couldn't swallow,"
Sutton said.
Everywhere in this small cemetery are the graves
of infants and old men. So many of the women
buried here died in childbirth.
These women and children are the people Sutton calls "the innocent victims." They are the
victims, he says, of the teachings of The Church of
the First Born that prohibit medical care.
Sutton's own headstone is in this cemetery.
Already buried beneath it is his wife, Carolee, who
diedat 43 in March.
She,too, is "an innocent victim."
Sutton says it was her death that prompted him
to tell about his personal ordeals caused by what
he describes as "false teachings" of the church,
particularly the. congregation at Fay, west of
Watonga,to which he once belonged.
Carolee Porter Sutton was 11 years old when
infection began to eat away the bone of her left
hipwherean injury had left a bruise.
Neighbors remember hearing young Carolee
screamingin pain at night as her hip socket slowly
disintegrated,but her parents, devout members of
The Church of the First Born, refused to call a
doctor.
Eventually her condition stabilized and she was
able to walk with crutches until she adjusted to
having a left leg three inches shorter than the right
and a stiff hip joint.
The infection flared up several times during
Mrs. Sutton's life, the last time in March. This
time, although the Suttons had long accepted
medical treatment, it was too late, her husband
said.
She died at the Thomas Hospital.
Keith Sutton didn't know his wife 32 years ago
when the infection, later diagnosed as osteomylitis, began its fatal work although they lived in the
same small community.
But he knows that he, too, refused medical
treatment at that age, as did his parents.
He was reared, as his wife-to-be was, believing
literally the passagein James 5 that states: "Is any
sick among you? Let him call for the elders of the
church and let them pray over him, anointing him
with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer
of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall
raise him up, and if he have committed sins, they
shall be forgiven."
Sutton says he began to change his mind about
the meaning of that passage at 18 when stricken
with acute appendicitis. He drove himself to a hospital where emergency treatment saved his life.
Already he was beginning to question the scripture quoted by church leaders as a prohibition
against medical care.
lilt is the sickness of the soul, not of the flesh,
the Bible is talking about," Sutton said. "People
are dying because of the false teaching that the
Scripture means the prayer of the faithful alone
will cure the sick."
Sutton's belief in the traditional teachings of the
70-member congregation at Fay weakened again
several years later after his marriage and while his
wife was expecting their second child.
At one of the congregation's nightly "purgings,"
Sutton said a self-proclaimed prophet stood,
pointed to Sutton's father and accused him of
stealing.
The prophesy was backed by other "prophets"
of the church, and Sutton's father was faced with
the decision of admitting the theft and asking for
forgiveness in order to remain in the congregation, or to deny the charge and be "separated"
from the church until he repented.
Sutton's father denied the accusation. He left
the congregation and his wife and son followed.
All three became outcasts.
(Southwest Baptist Church Schools to Bar Blacks)
ruling. Justice Potter Stewart noted that the court

withheld judgment as to whether "private sectarian
schools that practice racial discrimination
on religious grounds" may do so legally.
Asked what he would do if a court ordered his
school to accept minorities, Mr. Powell replied,
"I do not know.
"We're not arrogant about it, but we feel that
god teaches the separation of the races," he said.
Mr. Powell said that integration
leads to intermarriage, which has been condemned by god in
the Bible.
He cited the Book of Nehemiah, Chapter 12:23
to the end, which condemned the marriage of Jews
to "strange wives" and the Book of Acts 17: 26
which says "(God) hath made of one blood all
nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the
earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation ... "
Mr. Powell said he interpreted this as meaning
"god has established the bounds to begin

and as a result "to intermarry into other
wrong."
"God seems to tend towards segregati
the feeling is that people ought to be sepa
Mr. Powell said. He admitted that the teachi
Jesus in the Gospels do not mention such
tion, but he said he was sure that Jesus
agree with his stand.
"I'm criticized for that stand," Mr. Powell
but he emphasized that "I believe in equali
everybody. It's not that I'm unkind. I love
people and others. When I was a Iittle boy, I
with them. I have all the love that I could
have toward Black people."
Several Blacks attend h is church although
are not members, he said.
"I do have a burden for the Black peop
they do need to be reached for the Lord,'
Powell said. "We're planning to start a
Sunday School in an area that needs one."
Teacher Awarded Up to
$50,000
in Free Speech Case
Longview, Washington - A high school teacher

here whose contract was non renewed because of
his activities on behalf of the American Civil
Liberties Union has been reinstated with at least
$50,000 in back pay.
National Education Associations DuShane Fund
and the Washington Education Association supported Lawrence S. Wagle in his six-year fight. He
was finally vindicated by the U.S. Court of Appeals
for the Ninth Circuit.
Wagle, who worked for the Longview, Washington, school district from 1962, was terminated on
29 grounds in 1970. These included handing out
materials to students that encouraged lack of
respect for schools and that contained obscene
language (Jerry Farber's "The Student as Nigger,"
handed out to one student at the youth's request),
and for making public statements encouraging
the lack of respect for authority.
In 1965, Wagle was elected chairperson of his
local ACLU chapter, and in this role he criticized
high school practices he said violated separation of
church and state: the school's baccalaureate services, its requirement
that award winners "be
religious,"
and prayers offered at the honor
society's annual banquet. In 1967 he expressed
these views in a letter to a local paper, and was
criticized by his principal. A year later he wrote
the paper explaining the ACLU's position on
marijuana penalties. Citizens circulated a petition
to the board calling upon Wagle to restrain his
public statements.
In April 1970, after eight years of teaching,
Wagle was told his contract would not be renewed.
The teacher convinced a jury in federal court that
his free speech rights had been violated, but the
judge reversed in favor of the board, saying Wagle
had failed to exhaust his administrative remedies.
The Ninth Circuit court reinstated the jury's
verdict, however, finding that Wagle's termination
was "motivated
by the public expression of his
controversial views" and that his competence as
a teacher was not challenged until a year after he
took over leadership of the local ACLU.
The Ninth Circuit also denied the school board's
request for a new trial, saying that the school
board members could be held liable for damages as
individuals without having the trial court decide
whether the officials acted in bad faith.

Bad faith can be establ ished if school officials
deny they based their action on a teacher's public
statements but the jury disbelieves them; the
teacher doesn't have to prove that the officials deliberately set out to violate his rights, the court
said.
Mail Order Ministers Are

IRS Target
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Washington (AP) - Taking a vow of poverty
and giving your income to a church can sometimes
make you rich.
That's what the I nternal Revenue Service ruefully says. But the I RS has drawn up new plans to
crack down on mail-order ministers whose vocation, the government claims, is solely to frustrate
the tax man.
A number of churches will make anyone a
minister for an "offering."
Best known are the
Universal Life Church, in Modesto, Calif., and the
Mother Earth Church in Sacramento, Calif.
A small number of mail order "ministers" take
vows of poverty, turn all possessions and money
over to a tax-exempt church, and attempt to reap
substantial tax advantages.
According to the I RS description of the tax
avoidance plans, the churches return most of the
individual's income for housing, food, clothing and
automobile
maintenance.
Other income is returned for unrestricted use and for "spriritual retreats" in vacation areas.
Ministers who take a vow of poverty do not pay
income tax on money given them by their churches
for "actual living expenses" or income received
solely as agents of the churches.
Kirby Hensley, founder of the Universal Life
Church, acknowledged in an interview that he tells
his ministers how to take advantage of the tax
laws. Hensley, who said he has been fighting the
I RS since he founded his church in 1959, said the
new I RS instructions will not change his actions.
Ted Swenson, head of the Mother Earth Church,
said in an interview that his group plays down the
tax angles of mail-order ministry, but he acknowledged that tax advice was sent to those who ask
for it.
To avoid conflict with the First Amendment,
ATHEIST -13
(Mail Order Ministers Are IRS Target)
the I RS instructions say that an auditor is to drop

his investigation as soon as it is clear that a church
is not involved in a tax avoidance scheme.
The IRS also issued two rulings interpreting laws
that limit tax benefits.
The principal ruling said a person must pay taxes
on income earned in a non-religious job even if all
the income was turned over to a church.
The individual involved would be able to claim
a charitable deduction for giving his income to
the church, the ruling said. But such deductions are
limited to half of each year's income.
The second ruling said payment for work performed by members of a religious order under
contract to an outside firm is taxable income to
the order, thus shutting off another potential route
for tax avoidance.
Colorado Atheists Forming

'Quest for Truth'
By VIRGINIA
CULVER
Denver' Post Religion Editor
Colorado Atheists are organizing, and their

first goal will be to eliminate religious observances
in public schools.
Jane Kathryn Conrad, organizer of Quest for
Truth, said the group will have its first meeting at
2 p.m. Saturday, April 30, in the Brighton area.
[This article was written before the meeting.]
Those interested in attending should call her
at 659-4723.
She said the Colorado group is a part of American Atheists, headed by the country's best-known
Atheist, Madalyn Murray O'Hair.
Mrs. Conrad said having Christmas and Easter
programs in public schools is a violation of the
Constitution which calls for separation of church
and state.
Mrs. Conrad would like to see a winter solstice
holiday observed, which would stress peace,
brotherhood and family closeness, but not the
birth of Christ.
Christian celebrations in schools, found in plays,
parties and songs, are an affront to those children
who aren't Christian and 'an abridgment of their
rights, she said.
. "Kids are forced by peer and society pressure
into a faith that's not their own," she said. Public
AUGUST, 1977/AMERICAN ATHEIST -14
school observances of a particular religious holiday

"are a tremendous injustice" to Jewish and Moslem
children and to those who belong to no religion.
"The average Christian doesn't realize the impact such programs have on young people," said
Mrs. Conrad.
The new Colorado organization will needmoney
for its effort, as well as for the national organiza.
tion and any lawsuits the Atheists file, Mrs.Conrad
said.
They are also trying to raise money for Mrs.
Q'Hair's library, which is quite' extensive, Mrs.
Conrad said.
She calls Mrs. Q'Hair "America's unsung
patriot," who works "Iegally and peacefullyto
that the Constitution is obeyed. A lot of peopl.
misunderstand her, particularly the fundamentalists.
"She is a brilliant woman with great foresi
I would say she has the same intellectual capac'
as an Edison or an Einstein."
In fact Mrs. Conrad believes most Atheists
either better educated or better read than m
people.
She said she doesn't know how many Ath .
are in Colorado or in the country, but said
Q'Hair has a following of 5,000 to 6,000. [We
approximately 50,000 to 60,000 families in
organization.- Ed.]
Mrs. Conrad has been in the organizationfor
year, but has been an Atheist for many y
"1 just didn't give it much thought."
She became interested in the group becau.
Mrs. Q'Hair's work and because she beganto
"the many infringements into personalliberty.
those who are in rei igions are in dangerof I
their rei igious liberty as well as those not
liated," she said.
She estimated that every person in the U
States loses about $200 a year in hiddentaxes
wind up in religious organizations.
These include tax exemptions and "giv
to religious hospitals through higher interest
she said.
She also believes "The Catholic Church
abused its nonprofit status" by such practi
calling on the 48 million Catholics in the
to work against the Supreme Court abortion
Institutions incorporated as nonprofit
aren't to lobby, she said, but churchesdoit
time.
"We're not permitted to lobby because
a nonprofit education corporation. Wewon
late that law," said Mrs. Conrad.
Mrs.
Conrad
was
reared as a Reform Jew,
but
gradually
drifted
from a belief in religion
or in a supernatural being
such as god.
She believes persons in
any religion are "indoctrinated into it, whether
they're Moonies or Presbyterians. "
She will soon publish a
book, called "Pillars of
Religion: Ignorance, Indoctrination and Inadequacies."
. "Any intell igent person who has studied and
JANE CONRAD
who contends there is a
Atheist leader.
god has been brainwashed," she said. Those who reject evolution also
are brainwashed, she contends.
Such "brainwashing stifles their intellectual
growth," she said, adding that many people "die
intellectually the day they get out of school."
Mrs. Conrad, a widow with two married daughters and four grandchildren, earned her bachelor's
degree three years ago in political science from
Metropol itan State College.
She has worked as a secretary, a writer and for
various causes, such as low-cost housing and fairnessin mobile-home laws.
"I'm not a kook," she said. "1 live a nice good,
grandmotherly life. I have not debts, I don't smoke
or drink or run around. I work in my garden. But
I try also to keep up on what's going on around
me."
She beli'eves "there is much more morality in
Atheism than in any religion. The church is the
CARTER
NAMES
ENVOY TO
VATICAN
greatest offender or moral ity."

She also believes that religion has a hold on
people "because people want desperately to
be immortal."
What upsets her most about religious persons "is
that people are postponing life for the life they
think they're going to have in heaven. There is no
evidence of an after Iife.
"We (Atheists) try to treat our fellow man
honorably."
In a booklet she wrote entitled
"The Nonbeliever: Everything You Ought to Know
About Atheism And Didn't Think to Ask," Mrs.
Conrad says Atheists flare dedicated to one thing
above all: quest for truth. They practice love for
humanity. "
She said she doesn't want to force her view on
anyone, but "1 don't want to have religion forced
on
The booklet says the real purpose of life is to
live life to the fullest with consideration for one's
fellow man, procreate to ensure survival of the
species and leave the world somewhat better for
one's having been there.
It also says that ritual procedures of religion
"provide a medium which enables a man to go
through life without using his brains and abilities
to establish his identities, but rather to rely on the
structure established for him by others."
She wrote that prayer is wishful thinking; miracles may result from psychological projection,
expectations, goals, self-hypnosis or auto-suggestion.
She say Christ's resurrection is "folklore"; the
soul is an imaginary invention; angels and devils are
figments of superstitious imaginations.
Mrs. Conrad said many people believe as
Atheists do, but many are afraid to admit publicly
to it, because of fear of losing their jobs or friends.
me."
David M. Walters, a Miami attorney

and Democratic Party aide, has been
appointed by President Carter as his
personal representative to the Vatican.
Walters, 60, is the first Roman
Catholic and the first Southerner to
be a special U.S. envoy to a pope. He
replaces Henry Cabot Lodge, who was
appointed to that position by former
President Richard M. Nixon in 1970.
.i Walters
has spent 27 years in the
field of international
law and has
served as a major fund-raiser for every
Democratic
presidential
candidate
since John F. Kennedy in 1960. He
also has been active, in raising funds
for Catholic agencies. He will visit the

Vatican periodically to discuss international and humanitarian
issues for
Carter.
Walters is chairman of the National
Leukemia Society and a member of
Serra International, an organization
which encourages young persons to
follow religious vocations.
Since Walters will not be a formal
ambassador, Senate confirmation for
the nonpaying post is not required.
President Carter has indicated that he
considers it important to continue
some form of liaison between the
United States and the Vatican.
CS~alttnCf
fA,tomn,'
rilUU 'it ~t()/t
"Stop Teasing Men" -The Simonson Saga

The lead-in on the ten o'clock news one night
in late May of this year brought feminists in Madison, Wisconsin, rushing to their televisions and for
their phones. The announcer said: "Is rape ever
justifiable?"
and as the commercials spun on we
speculated at our house about what could possibly
have happened.
What had happened was that a county judge,
Archie Simonson, ruling on a rape case, had delivered a tirade on the permissive sex atmosphere
in Madison and on women's provocative dress,
asking rhetorically,
"Shall we punish severely a
15 or 16 year old who reacts to it normally?"
Over the strenuous objections of the female prosecuting attorney, who described the rape as "possibly the worst offense in the history of Madison
schools", the judge sentenced the youth, one of
three involved in a gang-rape at a city high school,
to one year of court supervision at home.
Although he was later to say his remarks did not
pertain to the specific rape case before him, the
judge was not even remotely on target, since the
schoolgirl victim was wearing a blouse over a longsleeved turtleneck, jeans and sneakers - hardly
provocative dress.
"He's got to be picketed," we said, and, despite
the late hour, phone calls were made and 12 hours
later, at 10 a.m., about 30 women were outside the
courthouse chanting for Simonson's resignation. A
picture of two of the women was printed in papers
around the world. One was picketing bundled up
in a long trench coat and wool scarf; the other
wore a bikini. Their sign read: "Shall men be our
dress code?"
Representatives
of three women's groups met
with the judge that morning, and the whole
episode might have ended there, but instead of
offering a token apology or backtracking a little,
the judge only demonstrated
more clearly in the
TV-recorded
interview his total lack of understanding of rape and his indifference to his critics.
In the week that followed, he gave press interviews
freely, defending and expanding his views. The
crystallizing
factor for many non-feminists,
in
joining the call for Simonson's scalp, was seeing the
robed judge on television rolling his eyes, licking
his chops, and placing the blame for rape on
women.
Judge Simonson, until he hired a lawyer, had a
great deal to say. Commenting on women's dress
he remarked, "You can walk down State Street in
Madison and see things I used to have to pay a lot
of money to see in Chicago years ago." Camp

ing about women's dress in court, he said: '
come in here without bras, with their nipples
lined and thier skirts up over the cheeks of
butts." Women should dress modestly, he
they should "stop teasing men."
And Madison responded - not just Ii
youthful,
college-age Madison, but conse
Madison as well. The list of organizations
for Judge Simonson's recall or resignation
awe-inspiring, as each new statement from
bench brought a new clamor for his 0
Madison had never agreed so completely OIl
issue before as it did that this judge must go.
White-haired songwriter Malvina Reyn
town for a concert, whipped up a song to
to the tune of "When Johnny Comes M
Home." Pros find it easier to sing than a
but the words themselves are fun.
THE JUDGE SAID by Malvina Reynoldt
The judge said "SCREW 'EM", bo
only human.
They brought it on themselves by
woman.
Like a mountain's there to climb
there to be eaten,
A woman '8 there to rape, to be sh
and beaten.
CHORUS
The judge took his position, the ju.
wouldn't budge,
So we've got out this petition and we
dump the judge.
Now, if you beat
bank,
Simonson will haul you in and throw
clink.
But violate a woman, your equal
The judge will slap you on the
blame on her.
CHORUS
The judge took his position, the .
wouldn't budge,
So we've got out this petition and
screw the judge.
has said,
A woman has to live in fear and cover up her
head.
She has to dress in Purdah and lock herself in
cages,
And this kinky judge in Madison is from the
Middle Ages.
CHORUS
The judge took his position, the judge he
wouldn't budge,
So we've got out this petition and we're going to
dump the judge.
Recall is a weighty word in Wisconsin, since

many remember the enormous effort in the unsuccessful
attempt
to recall Senator
Joseph
McCarthy in the 1950's. No judge had ever been
recalled in Wisconsin; in fact, no judge has been
recalled in the whole country
since 1940.
Feminists, oblivious to the prognosis of failure,
plunged in. Despite Judge Simonson's prediction
that a recall petition effort had only two chances
- "slim and one" - the petitions were printed and
snapped up. Large rallies were held, "Recall Judge
Simonson" buttons blossomed forth, and young
women and men appeared in T-shirts reading:
"React normally. Recall Simonson."
At a second demonstration
at the courthouse,
a huge cardboard effigy of Simonson floated over
the demonstrators.
Titled
"Le Provocateur",
Simonson's effigy was nude except for a black
lace bra. Among the demonstrators was a University of Wisconsin student dressed in a nun-like
costume, carrying a sign, "Is this what you had in
mind, Judge?" Beside her marched a student in a
shapeless, old, plaid bathrobe, her hair in orangejuice can curlers and her teeth blacked out. "Rape
is a crime, not a normal reaction," was the rallying
cry. Feminists were fighting back.
Mail flooded
Madison's
two metropolitan
papers, not only from outraged local citizens, but
from out-of-staters, too. There was more mail in
a shorter time, editors said, than the papers had
received on any other issue.
A partial list of those calling for resignation or
recall shows the widespread outrage.
National Organization for Women
Dane County Board
Madison City Council
Mayor Paul Soglin
Madison Board of Education
The Wisconsin State Journal
Television Station WMTV
The Daily Cardinal, University Student News-
paper
19 University of Wisconsin Law School Faculty
Members
131 teachers and staff members of Madison West
High School
The Minneapolis Tribune
Capitol Chapter of the ACLU
Committee Against Racism
Legal Association of Women
Women's International
League for Peace and
Freedom
Rape Crisis Center
Madison Association of School Principals
Dane County Project on Rape
Commencement
speakers at the University of
Wisconsin
Women's Transit Authority
Northeast Side Community Health Center
Young Socialist Alliance
Dane County Advocates for Battered Women
University of Wisconsin Teaching Assistants
Association
Women Organized for Action
The "Archie Must Go" Coalition
The Dane County Committee to Recall Judge
Simonson, and
over 27,000 private Dane County citizens.
As this is being written (mid-July) the drive for
signatures for the recall election has been successful. Almost 28,000 signatures have been gathered,
with only 21,049 required. After the filing of the
petitions on July 26, if there are no court challenges, Simonson has 10 days to resign. If not, his
name will appear on the ballot in a special election
the first week in September, along with the names
of others who have declared. Although it is technically possible for Simonson to win again if the
anti-Simonson vote is fragmented among too many
candidates, somehow we feminists don't think that
will happen. The first candidate to announce for
Simonson's post is a woman. If elected, and we'll
do our best to see that she is, she will be the first
women elected to a county judgeship in the state.
Regardless of what happens, we feminists believe we have made our point - that sexist remarks
from the bench are made at great, great jeopardy.
If anyone would like up-to-date information on the
recall or would like to help us in our effort to
make history by replacing a flakly, sexist judge
with a capable woman judge, please contact me:
Anne Gaylor, 726 Miami Pass, Madison, Wisconsin,
53711, phone (608) 238-3338.
Atheists, please note: In justifying his light
(Continue on page 32.)
The Bible Handbook

for Atheists
Edited by Foote and Ball
The Board of Directors of American Atheists
recently voted unanimously
to try to bring both
old classics of Atheism and new authors on the
same subject to the reach of the vast American
public. This can only be accomplished
through
mass distribution of inexpensive paperback editions
of the same.
This book "The Bible Handbook for Atheists"
is one of the old classics, available recently only
through a reprint in hardback for $12.00 from
Arno Press, the publishing arm of New York Times
Newspaper.
As one of the five titles we expect to get out this
year, we have chosen this book edited by G. W.
Foote and W. P. Ball, in London, England, and
published there in 1888.
The handbook
was intended to be a weapon
in the hands of non-theists contradicting the fanatical Bible thumpers of the late 19th century in
England. The book has been carefully divided into
five categories:
(1)
(2)
(3)
(4)
(5)
Bible Contradictions,
Bible Absurdities,
Bible Atrocities,
Unfulfilled Prophecies and Broken
Bible Immoralities, Indecencies, and
Obscenities.
It will confound,
confuse and obfu
Bible believer. It is just what it was propose
an effective instrument to destroy, utterly,
"belief" in the Bible. There is no way that th
can propose
answers to these irrefutab
citations.
Someone had suggested to us, via letter,
put out a book titled "God versus God"
how god contradicted
himself constantly.
and Ball beat us to this by almost 100 y
work is so good, so exhaustive, that we
do it all over again.
The sturdy volume is 176 pages, paperba
should buy half a dozen to send to your s
Christian friends.
THE BIBLE HANDBOOK

FOR ATHEISTS
Edited by Foote and Ball
A New American Atheist Press Book
Originally published in England in 1888, The

Bible Handbook was in its 10th edition in that
country in 1953. For the first time an American
edition is available.
Dr. Madalyn Murray O'Hair has written the forward for th is first American edition published by
American Atheist Press. The Bible Handboo

Atheists is a must for every Atheist's library.
a complete guide to the total absurdity of
and new testament.
Paperback, 176 pages
Yes! I want
copies of The Bible Handbook for Atheists at $3.95 per copy. PI
enclosed $
. (Make checks or money order payable to: AMERICAN ATHE
P. O. Box 2117, Austin, Texas, 78768.) Or charge to my:
o VISA
o MASTERCHARGE
Name
No.,
Date Expires
Signature,
'--
AUGUST,
Address,
City
State
7ip,
-L
(Texas state residents
1977/AMERICAN
ATHEIST
- 18
___'"
_
_
please add 5%
SHIBLES' CORNER
~arren shihles
The Catholic Schools Teach Dogma, Separatism, Bias
The church-state issue is not that state is biased
against religion but that religion,
especially
Catholic religion, is prejudiced against all other
beliefs and is not willing to allow them. The
government by allowing church school in place of
public school is thereby supporting such religious
bias and discrimination.
Father Jeremiah
Crowley (excommunicated)
wrote The Parochial School, A Curse to The
Church-A Menace to The Nation in 1904. He said:
1) Parochial schools lead to bigotry. 2) The Catholic Church is protected by public non-sectarian
education. 3) Catholics send children to Catholic
schools out of fear. 4) Catholics try to undermine
public schools and infiltrate them with Catholic
teachers and members of the board. Catholic
schools teach authoritarianism, discrimination, and
separatism. Canon 1374 "Catholic children may
not attend
non-Catholic,
neutral,
or mixed
schools ... " "As for Catholic parents, the Council
calls to mind their duty to entrust their children to
Catholic schools, when and where this is possible,
to support such schools to the extent of their
ability ... " Vatican II. "To this concept of a
Catholic school, all schools dependent
on the
Church must conform as far as possible ... "
Outlines of Vatican II.
Canon 1372 "From childhood, all the faithful
must be reared so that they are taught nothing
contrary to faith and morals, but so that religious
and moral training have the primary place." The
stress is on training when the child is young and
most susceptible to dogma. Canon 1374 "Catholic
children should not frequent non-Catholic, neutral,
or mixed schools, i.e., such as are open also to nonCatholics."
Commentary
1935. If Catholic
children do not qualify for Catholic schools due to
intelligence or emotional immaturity they are sent
to public schools. Catholics can then force their
brightest students into Catholic schools.
Emmett
McLoughlin
(ex-priest)
says that
Catholic schools exist not because of desire or need
but because Canon law and Papal encyclicals force
their existence. Parents have no choice in texts or
say in school teaching. They are forced [on pain of
hell] to send children to Catholic schools and may
be denied absolution if they do not do so. Catholic

parish priests are required by their church to set up
church schools. The school and education for the
Catholic is regarded as a missionary and propaganda tool not a way to promote reason, knowledge, and inquiry. (Third Plenary Council of The
American Catholic 1884) Every priest is expected
to build a parochial school in his parish. Catholic
Spain has no non-sectarian schools.
Catholic Teachers Cannot
Teach Without Bias
It is naive and unrealistic to think that the religious will present merely secular functions without
religious influence and persuasion. Chief Justice
Burger stated that secular schools form part of the
mission of the Catholic Church and its teachers are
under the direct authority of the church "With the
best of intentions such a teacher would find it
hard to make a total separation between secular
teaching and religious doctrine. .. A continuing
State surveillance will inevitably be required."
(Di Censo v. Robinson 1971)
One can no more expect secular education in
Catholic schools than Catholic education may be
dogmatically taught in secular schools. Actually
public schools may discuss the several religions including Catholicism. Justice Black stated, "Sectarian instruction, in which, of course, the State
may not indulge, can take place in a course on
Shakespeare or in one on mathematics ... We deal
not with evil teachers but with zealous ones who
may use any opportunity
to indoctrinate
a
class ... "
Much history can be given the gloss of particular
religion. Lemon v. Kurtzman (l971 Penn.) The
Court made a definitive determination concerning
the basic nature of the parochial school-namely,
"that the religion of the sponsoring church or
Order permeates every subject, that the entire
enterprise is sectarian and that ultimately there can
be no separation of the religious from the secular
elements in the curriculum of the school." (See
especially Di Censo v. Robinson
1971 Rhode
Island) Americans United v. Oakey, Vermont
AUGUST. 1977/AMERICAN
ATHEIST -19
~--------------------------------------------------------------------
THE PARTED FRIENDS

An 'old gray man sat weeping
Where people couldn't see
The tears that rolled down withered cheeks
Forever there - to be
Yet now and then along the way

He'd faltered here and there
Remembering now those wasted hours
That they could never share
He sat beside an earthen mound

Thru early mornings fog
For there below that sullen ground
Lay buried "Champ" - his dog
When death divides two faithful friends

No prayer can ease the pain
Of knowing that those happy years
Cannot be shared again
The thoughts that traveled through his mind

Of happy days they'd known
And al/ the love and faithful traits
His trusting friend had shown
So count each hour and hold it close

Don't let a moment seep
And in the end when your friends gone
Perhaps you may not weep.
-Gerald Tholen
THOUGHTS OUT OF SEASON: HAIL, SATAN!
Of all the divinities, living or dead,
That mankind has worshipped in deepest dread,
The one I shall ever revere the most
Is not the Son, nor the Holy Ghost,
Nor the Father, of whom the Catholics boast
As the One who seduced the Virgin fair
To whom the prelates address each prayer.
No, frankly, the one I most respect
Is Satan, despised by the ssved-elect,
Slaving away in the fiery lakes,
Among bel/owing dragons and hissing snakes,
Torturing souls-for the Lord's mistakes.
He is slandered and cursed in a thousand ways,
While Jehovah listens to songs of praise.
"For what?" you ask. Excuse my slam!
For creating souls that He knew He'd damn,
Ages before He slew the Lamb
(Or, as some say, His only Son),
Then once this Fatherly deed was done,
A few, who believed that Three made One,
Were saved from the Devil's base design
(A part, of course, of that Plan Divine),
By making a gestural, cross-like sign.
Isn't Satan part of the Father's plan
To save a tiny remnant of man?
Didn't he open our very first school
In Eden, by teaching Eve to rule
Human affairs by godlike reason

Instead of intellectual treason?
Didn't Satan teach us always to doubt
The myths and lies that are ever about?
Just what has he done to deserve the shame
That Christians attach to his very name?
Doesn't he stoke the Eternal Fire
Only to satisfy Jahweh's ire?
Think how he toils, always at work
Doing the job the Lord would shirk!
Yet, if Christian appreciation sleeps,
And we deplore the reward he reaps,
The distinguished company he keeps
Is better by far than those pompous crowds
Bouncing around on resilient clouds:
Mcintire, Graham, and all that gang,
Warbling hymns to a harp-string's twang,
Prophets and healers, priests and nuns,
(Types the intellectual shuns),
While down below, in the soot and smoke,
Are Humboldt, Darwin, and Bolingbroke,
Jefferson, Lincoln, good Tom Paine,
Ingersoll, Descartes, and Montaigne,
Haeckel and Bruno, the great Voltaire,
And, yes, Paul Blanshard would be there.
So, why should Old Nick be decried
When Compassion and Reason are on his side?
-MEPHISTOPHELES
EVOLUTION
I have believed, but I have left.

Some of that Stuff seemed not so deft.
Perplexing are the questions of faith and reason,
But finally, for me, they are simply out of season.
I enjoy no more promises, yet feel freed

From the rigidity and emptiness of the l-believe-creed.
God, angel, santa claus, saint and/or elf.
I've found a new guiding light: faith in self
-Paul Christopher Smith
The
Sal vat ion Army

No. 175 - January 3,1972
Hello there,
This is Madalyn Murray O'Hair, American Atheist,
back to talk with you again.
Just one month, when all the bills are paid, don't
you wish that you would have some money left over?
Wouldn't it be wonderful if you could have - oh,
$75.00 - and you didn't need it for one bill.
What if you could put it in some stocks, and wait
for it to bring you a return. If you pick a good stock
it can bring you 5% ... and if you left that $75.00
in that stock for one entire year, you would have
only $3.75 you earned on it.
Well, that's not enough money to tie up $75.00 for
a whole year, is it?
Suppose you had ten times that much ... $750 ...
that's more than most of you earn in a month. And,
you put that in stock and waited a year to get your
earnings on it. You would have only $37.50. That's
not much money either ... not to have $750 invested that you can't touch during all that time.
Well, let's multiply it by 10 again. Suppose you
had $7,500 ... that's more than most of you bring
home in your paychecks in a year. And, you put that
in stock and waited a year to get your earnings on
that. You would get $375.00. Hmmmm ... That
isn't much either. That averages out to about, to exactly, $31.25 a month.
We just have to multiply it by 10 again. Suppose
you had $75,000 and that is more than you would
bring home in your paychecks in ten years. You put
that in stock and wait a year for the earnings and
what do you have? $3,750. Hey! That's a little better.
That is about $300 a month, a little more actually.
Why, you may even be able to live on that ... oops
... no you couldn't because you would need to pay
taxes on it. You might have to pay as much as $75.00
a month taxes on it.
It just takes a lot of money to make money this
way, doesn't it? And, the money has to be invested
where it brings at least a 5% return, and it has to be
money that you don't need because you have to just
let it stay in the stocks, or bonds, in order to earn
money from investments.
Well, in order to be really rich, I wonder how much
one would need to have invested. We already figured

out your take-home pay for a ten year period and
with all of that invested you wouldn't get enough
money to live on from month to month.
O.K. let's multiply it by ten again. That is, 100
years of your take home pay. That would be
$750,000. Almost a million dollars invested would
bring you in $37,500 a month. Hey! That's more like
it! But who can live a hundred years to have that
much money to invest? Well, let's figure it this way.
If a man and a wife both having a take home pay of
$7,500 a year would invest and they had eight
children both having a take home pay of $7,500 a
year and they would all invest this every year for ten
years ... you could make it.
Well, that pretty much puts it out of everyone's
reach doesn't it? We are dealing in fairy tale figures
now. It is always safe for the government, or a big
business to talk about a million dollars or a couple of
million dollars, because these are such big figures that
no one understands them. They are not meaningful
to people.
But, I am playing this game for a reason. We already saw that ten people in one family, earning
$7,500 a year in take home, all of them investing all
of this money for 10 years and never spending a
penny of it, wouldn't
even give them a million
dollars.
So, let's multiply it again by another ten. What!
What kind of game is this? Well, hold on now ...
if we multiply it by ten again, we have $7,500,000.
If this was invested it would bring in, at the 5% rate
again, $375,000.
And, if we multiply the whole thing again by ten
... we would have $75 million dollars. And, if we
invested that, we would have $3,750,000 at the end
of the year. Well, we really are in never never land
now aren't we?
Why the taxes alone on that for any ordinary
group of persons would be $62,500 a month, on just
the earnings ... and the $75 million dollars would
still be sitting there, clear and free.
Well, let me see, I have a statement here from a
certified public accountant firm in New York, that
in one account of The Salvation Army which it had
invested, it had enough money to earn this much $3,592,111 in earned income. That means that The
Salvation Army had at least about $70 to $75 million
dollars it did not need so that it could invest it in
stocks and bonds in just one account. Let's see, that
is as much as 10,000 people who earn and take home
$7,500 a year would have if they had not spent a
penny, even on food, and had invested that money
for a year. That is one account.
I was over at the big shopping center in town
(The Salvation Army)
during Christmas and sawall

the Salvation Army
people with their bells and their iron pots. Everyone
feels that they do a good job with their food for the
needy and with their homes where people can get a
bed for a night. But I see from this same report that
The Salvation Army is a part of most of the "Community Fund" drives. It also gets money from city
and county grants, from the sale of waste paper, rags,
furniture, clothing. And, it also gets money from the
sale of meals and lodgings to those who can afford
to pay.
Why, the sale of those rags and waste paper and the
used furniture and clothing brought in 9Y2 million
dollars in 1970.
And this does not include money that The Salvation Army got from trust investments, or endowment
funds, or just donations, or from the sale of their
publications, or from wills, or from rentals for their
buildings, or from mortgages that they hold, or from
interest on loans which they made.
But, then I realize that I broadcast these programs
from Texas and there is a note here that I shall read.
"The financial statements include all activities
of The Salvation Army in the Eastern Territory
except those of divisions and corps."
Gee whillikers! This means that everything here in
the west and in Texas isn't even accounted for here.
Why this in only a part of the income? Let me read
on:
"The Women's Social Service Institutions and
Booth Memorial Medical Center of Flushing, Long
Island, New York, maintain their own accounting
records and submit financial statements to the
Eastern Territorial Headquarters."
Why, they even have "Territorial"
Headquarters.
Maybe they have one for the North and one for the
South and one for the West. I have to investigate that.
I have one clue here in that a note says that as of
October 1, 1969, the accountability for the operation
of the Evangeline Residences and the Home for the
Aging was transferred from the Eastern Territorial
Headquarters to the Greater New York Unified Command.
Now, we are not supposed to have any involvement
of religion and government in the United States. But
in the case of The Salvation Army it was first incorporated by a special act of the Legislature of the
State of New York, known as Chapter 468 of the
Laws of 1899. This corporation has neither stock, nor
stockholders.
Its purposes are religious, charitable,
educational and missionary. And, if the Constitution

of the United States had been followed, no special act
of the Legislature would have been called for to put
The Salvation Army into existence.
When James Madison was President of the United
States the Protestant Episcopal Church in Alexandria,
Virginia tried to have the United States Congress pass
such a special act to incorporate it. James Madison
returned the Bill to the House of Representatives on
February 21st, 1811 with a Veto. He said simply
that the idea of government incorporating a church
in a bill was an act that "exceeds the righ
authority to which governments are limited by
essential distinction between civil and religious fun
tion." That particular set of Articles of Incorporati
gave the Episcopal Church authority to educate p
children ... and listen what Madison says about tha
He vetoed because "the bill vests in the
incorporated
church an authority to provide fi
the support of the poor and the education of
children of the same, an authority which,
altogether superfluous if the provision is to be
result of pious charity, would be a precedent
giving to religious societies as such a legal
in carrying into effect a public and civil duty."
Actually, I think that you should all write to
Salvation Army. The address is 120 West 14th S
New York, New York and ask The Salvation
to send you a copy of the financial statement
able from that organization.
The American Atheists have had a running
ment with many of The Salvation Army H
Since these operations accept tax funds and
from the Community Chest of every communi
feel that when Atheists are down on their luc
go there, that those Atheists should not be req
to pray for their supper. The Salvation Army
"no prayer - no supper". If it was just a
matter, we would say they were correct in doi
But everyone of those Hostels are tax free,
means that you pay more real estate taxes
they are tax exempt.
And, the income from their investments is
free and here we go back to what we s
with. That extra $75 million that this one J
Office had laying around with nothing to do
earns an income at 5%, - over $3Yz million
year. If you could invest in a little stock, you
be required to pay interest on that stock.
organization such as The Salvation Army
and pay no tax this means that your general
tax which you pay the government goes up.
The Salvation Army has so much money
keep it in five different banks: The Bankers Trust

Co., Chemical Bank, Manufacturers Hanover Trust,
First National City Bank and United States Trust
Co., all of New York.
And everything I am talking about here today
has to do with The Salvation Army operating in the
states of Connecticut,
Massachusetts,
New York,
Rhode Island, Delaware, New Hampshire, Ohio,
Maine, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Vermont, a part of
Kentucky and Puerto Rico. That is: there was that
much excess money in 11 Y2 states of our United
States. These are some populous states, but so are Michigan, Illinois and California.
Everything I have discussed here has only to do
with about 1/5th of the operation of this Big
Business. Yes, I think it is a very good idea if you
write to The Salvation Army at 120 West 14th Street,
New York, New York and ask them for a financial
statement.
There has been a lot of flack throughout
the
United States in respect to Employee's Pension Funds
and I looked with interest at this aspect of The Salvation Army statements
for this section of the
country which I have now, that is to say: the Eastern
Territory.
The employees pay in one-quarter of a million
dollars each year and the fund has so much money in
it already that when .it is invested in a trust fund it
earns $118,798 a year. This means that from the
employees Pension fund alone, there is an enormous
reserve built up and a very considerable income from
the investment.
As I check over the activities of The Salvation
Army through this financial report I find that every
one of those activities is either self-supporting or that
it turns a profit which is channeled somewhere else.
Every single activity has a trust fund associated with
it, and although only the earnings from those trust
funds are given, they are significant. One trust fund
earns $110,695 a year. That means that there is
$2Y4 million dollars somewhere in order to earn that.
Another trust fund earns $118,798 a year, which
means that there is $3 million somewhere invested
to earn that much. Another
trust fund earns
$446,034 which means that there is $8 million in
another trust fund somewhere, one of the five banks
I listed already. It goes on and on ... another trust
earned $105,264,
another trust earned $46,768,
another trust earned $26,095, and another trust
earned $17,581.
This all means that The Salvation Army has a considerable investment in the capitalist system. It is a
part of Big Business and it even goes Big Business one
better, because it is tax free on all of its activities.
I wondered why those iron pots in the shopping
center were so good looking. They cost a mint ...

but then The Salvation Army can afford to spend a
mint on them too.
This informational broadcast is brought to you as
a 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 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 script, write P. O. Box 2117, Austin, Texas.
That zip is 78768. If you want a free copy of this
particular script ask for number 175. The addresssfor
you, again, is 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.
0
In order to pay
off this mortgage
within three years,
which is our goal,
we need $3,888.00
monthly in contributions. Or to pay
off the mortgage in
five years, we need
$2,333.00 monthly
in contributions.
Building
Fund
Barometer
(Letters to The Editor, continued from page 3.)
only things religion has to offer are salvation and

eternal life, and there is not a shred of credible
evidence that either of these things exists. In an
any event we should simply strive to lead the most
worthwhile and upright lives that we can and let
the after life, if any, take care of itself.
David H. Brown
Evergreen, Colorado
Dear Editor:
Thank you for sending me the copy of the magazine American Atheist of March, which I enjoyed
reading.
Regretably I am unable to subscribe the $15 for
an annual subscription as I am an old age pensioner
of 76 existing (not living) on a small state pension.
I would appreciate it if, however, one of your
mem bel's would post to me a copy they have
finished with for which I could afford to pay the
postage ... there is of course no organization here
similar to yours so we are very much alone in this
country ...
W. A. Urquhart
302 Herald Place
Capetown, 800 I
Republic of South Africa
Dear Urquhart:
We are sending you a complimentary
subscription to the magazine and we hope some of our
subscribers can correspond with you too to ease
your loneliness.
Editor
Dear Editor:
I cannot afford a subscription but I am very
much interested in your work - is it possible I
could obtain some back date copies? Is there a
mem ber who would be willing to loan me some
copies? Thank you.

G. Bergman
1306 N. Orleans
Bowling Green, OH. 43402
Dear Bergman:
You neglect to note if you are an Atheist, or I
Christian who is "very much interested" in our
work. Both subscribe to the magazine and will, we
are certain, be in contact with you to send magazines your way.
Dear Editor:
The recent news indication from The Daily
Express of London, England, that Prince Charles
intends to marry a Roman Catholic Princess, Marie
Astrid of Luxembourg is a setback to forward
thinking people in the Western World.
She is to bring her female offspring up under the
Roman Catholic faith and her male offspring up
under the Protestant faith.
It is quite clear that the Church of England'
really strongly Catholic oriented anyway-but sucli1
a marriage will open the door to the hordes 0
Vatican religious propagandists.
As an Atheist, I have written Prince Charles
condemn such a merger. If Prince Edward co
not have his Wallis Warfied Simpson, then Prin
Charles should be denied the flagrant backw
step his marriage will create.
One wonders why the world is so rotten w
the disease of Roman Catholicism flares its u
sickness into the heart of the British Palace.
How can the world get rid of this religi
cancer?
Atheists must continue to do battle.
A. L. Pang
Oakville, On
AMERICAN ATHEIST POST CARDS

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mail. Post cards of the Tabernacle in Salt Lake or some hugh cross in Se
Now is your chance to answer them with an Atheist post card. Yes, a beauti
full color 4" x 5V," picture post card of the American Atheist Center in Au .
These cards are now available from American Atheist Press for 20 cents
(minimum order of five please).
For your full color post cards of the American Atheist Center,
order today from
American Atheist Press

P. O. Box 2117, Austin, Texas 78768
Losing The Faith at Larson's Store

By PATRICK OWENS
Newsday Columnist, Long Island, New York
I found god early in 1941, when I was 11 years
old, and dropped him a couple of years later.
The Japanese put the first small crack in my
faith when they bombed Pearl Harbor. I had gone
up to the little brick parsonage behind the Central
Christian Church in Kalispell, Mont., to ride out
to the hamlet of Ferndale for divine services on
the evening of Dec. 7, 1941. The Rev. C.S. Kleckner, who was pastor of the Central Christian
Church, had baptized me by immersion the previous January and was my spiritual mentor. He was
a large, rather beefy man with a red face and a
rather fervent speaking style. Except for a faint
German accent, he could have impersonated Elmer
Gantry. He preached at Ferndale Sunday nights.
Mrs. Kleckner,
a pale woman who seemed
permanently hushed, put her finger to her lips as
she ushered me into the parsonage. The Rev.
Kleckner sat at the dining room table listening to
a radio. The announcer, a local lad, was reading
the news from Hawaii. More or less by way of
greeting, Pastor Kleckner pounded on the table
with a ham fist and shouted: "We'll fix 'em now,
the dirty sons of guns. "
These were more or less my sentiments, once I
had assimilated the news. But they were shocking
in a man of god. He was giving vent to emotions
I had struggled heroically but unsuccessfully to
repress in myself.
We did go out to Ferndale, and Pastor Kleckner
preached on the perfidy of yellow people, as I
recall. He said the bombing was the rejection of
Christ-our-Lord-and-Savior
by a heathen people
of inferior moral and intellectual capacity.
The war was to alter my life in almost every respect, but it played no further role in my religious
saga. The next thing that shook my faith was that
I was screwed out of the presidency of Junior
Christian Endeavor
for political reasons. Then I
was sick on Easter morning and missed the sunrise
service, which was held on Buffalo Hill next to the
Conrad Memorial Cemetery. No one believed that I
had been sick, I was jestingly charged with malingering.
By then my faith had been shaken by two older
kids, Ted Crail and Dean Johnson. Crail was a
local phenomenon.
He became maybe five foot,
two inches tall before he quit growing but he could
do everything.
He was the second best tennis
player in town. He taught himself touch typing
and was doing sixty words a minute in six months.
It took no more time to become the second best
pool player in town (Bumps Winters was best). He
won the state oratorical contest, sold a story to
the American Legion magazine when he was 17
and one to the Saturday Evening Post when he
was 18. He was a year older than I. Dean Johnson
was a couple of years older still. He was the most
successful actor in the high school and could draw
like an angel. They were both snotty kids and I
probably should have beat them up but they lived
in houses with plumbing and were smart besides. I
was immensely flattered to be tolerated by them,
even if they did always insult me.
We gathered at an unfashionable
place, Mr.
Larson's grocery and soda fountain, and spent
hours wrangling over religion, philosophy
and
everything
else under the sun. Mr. Larson, a
middle-aged man with two loutish sons roughly our
age, was originally my ally in the religious wars.
"Hey Crail, you think you know so much,"
Mr. Larson would jeer. "Who made us if god
didn't?"
"Who made god?" Crail would respond.
Crail had read a biography of Clarence Darrow.
He attacked us with all the arguments Darrow had
used on William Jennings Bryan in the Scopes
trial:
"You believe that all the animals were drowned
in the flood, Mr. Larson?"
"It's in the Bible, young man."
"Even the fish, Mr. Larson?"
My faith vanished under such onslaughts, but
I did not admit this to Crail or Johnson. They were
much too unkind to permit my joining them.
Mr. Larson spoke often of life's mysteries. "Tell
me, Owens, why is it there is no sound in the
woods when you're not there to hear it?" he would
shout. He was a Scandinavian nationalist. "Hey,
Crail, you think you are so smart, who is the
greatest violinist who ever lived?"
"Paderewski,"
Crail would say, baiting Mr.
Larson.
"Hah, you think you are so smart. The greatest
violinist was Ole Bull."
"Never heard of him."
"What, you never heard of Ole Bull? Young
man" (Mr. Larson would here rise to a thunderous
crescendo that was absurd and hilarious because
AUGUST,
1977/AMERICAN
ATHEIST
- 27
(Losing The Faith at Larson's Store)
his voice was a quivering tenor) "your ignorance

astounts [sic] me. "
I was permitted to join Crail and Johnson in
their assaults on the Larson boys, Kermit and
Byron. They were easy targets.
"Hey, Mr. Larson, if you're so smart, how come
it don't run in the family?"
"Whad [sic] you mean?"
"How come Kermit flunked English?"
"Hey, Owens," Mr. Larson said one day, "you
think you are so smart. I god [sic] something to
show you." He flourished an essay in Kermit's
spidery hand. The essay had a big A on it. I struggled with myself, but professional reticence carried
the day. Mr. Larson never learned that I had
written the essay, for 50 cents. Kermit became the
most faithful client of my first literary enterprise.
Mr. Larson remained in the faith, as did his two
sons. Byron became a pharmacist and moved to
Deer Lodge. I don't know what happened to
Kermit.
Ted Crail grew up to become a newspaperman
and then a publicist. He lives in California now and
makes movies opposing cruelty to animals. Dean
Johnson also lives in California. His wife made a lot
of money in real estate and he spends his days in
both profitable and unprofitable
interstices between art and commerce. His stomach bothers him
but he will, I imagine, die happy. And I have navigated the world without the protective raiment of
Christian faith for more than 30 years.
THINK AHEAD!
~
The Eighth Annual American Atheist Convention will be held in San Francisco, California in April of 1978. Contact the convention
coordinator,
John I. Mays, for information
on how you can prepay your expenses with
monthly payments.
We are expecting hundreds of people more
than attended the Chicago '77 convention.
Please contact us early so we will be able to
reserve the correct number of rooms.
For information write to:
John I. Mays, Convention Coordinator
American Atheists
P. O. Box 2117, Austin, Texas 78768
The Freudian
Interpretation
of Religion
I
I
By NEIL KRESSEL
Although many of Sigmund Freud's theories
are no longer accepted by the scientific community, his statement on religion must still be reconciled with modern man's religious thought.
Freud described religion as "the universal obessionalneurosis
of humanity (which) like the obsessional neurosis of children arose out of the
Oedipus complex, out of the relation to the
father." He further pointed out that "If this view
is right, .is to be supposed that a turning-away
from religion is bound to occur with the fatal
inevitability of a process of growth, and that we
find ourselves in the middle of that phase of
development." Therefore, an evaluation of Freud's
psychoanalytical
interpretation
is of the utmost
significance for those who wish to understand the
origins and historical development of religion as
well as for those who are interested in the validity
of its tenets.
If we are to carry our investigation to a successful fruition, our analysis must necessarily touch
upon several disciplines. Freud realized that a
complete understanding of religion could not be
accomplished by means of a purely psychological
approach. In his book, Totem and Taboo, Freud
states,
There are no grounds for fearing that psychoanalysis ... will be tempted to trace the origin
of anything so complicated as religion to a
single source. Only when we can synthesize will
it be possible to arrive at the relative importance
of the part played in the genesis of religion by
the (psychoanalytical) mechanism.
In light of the fact that Freud's psychoanalytical
theory was only one aspect of his thought on religion, it is necessary to determine the underlying
philosophical
and theological framework within
which he was operating.
A flood of methodological objections may be
raised from the outset of any such integration of
philosophy,
theology,
and psychology. Many
psychologists who were contemporaries of Freud
claimed that psychology was an empirical science
b
fi
al
sI
n
b
p
hl
SJ
that had not yet been developed to the degree that

it was able to deal with the question of religion.
Many psychologists today still maintain, to a certain degree, these limitations on the realm of
psychological
study. Erich Fromm, the noted
psychoanalyst, explains the problems clearly.
(Academic psychology) tried to understand
those aspects of man which can be examined in
the laboratory and claimed that conscience,
value judgments, the knowledge of good and evil
are metaphysical concepts, outside the problems
of psychology; it was more often concerned
with insignificant prohlems which fitted into an
alleged scientific method than with devising new
methods to study the significant problems of
man. Psychology thus became a science lacking
its main subject matter, the soul; it was concerned with mechanisms, reaction formations,
instincts but not with the most specifically
human phenomena; love, reason, conscience,
values.
Although the study of the essence of religion is
probably
beyond the confines of present-day
experimental psychology, I believe it to be of such
importance
that it must necessarily be included
within the realm of psychological inquiry. The
scope and size of this article, however, preclude the
possibility of refuting all the objections, arising
from many sources, that have been levied against
the employment of psychology in the evaluation of
religion. It must, therefore, suffice for me to state
that I believe Freud's theory withstands this broad
attack on its general methodology
and that it
should be evaluated with respect to its content.
(Other problems with Freud's method will be
dealt with below.)
Freud's
philosophical
outlook
is essentially
based on the rationalistic
materialism
of the
scientific views current in the late ninteenth century. Erich Fromm aptly describes Freud as "the
last great representative of the Enlightenment, the
first to demonstrate
its limitations."
Freud demonstrated that only through an understanding
of man's passions can he free his reason to function
properly. The philosophical idea regarding reason
as man's guiding light was not new but the explanation of the distorting effects of the passions
shed new light on the problems encountered by
rationalism. Freud's philosophical system can also
be called humanist because, at botton,
moral
principles were determined
by a dedication to
human welfare. Bertrand Russell summarizes the
spirit of this sytem well. He states that "The good
life is one inspired by love and guided by knowledge." Freud's psychoanalytical

theory added a
new dimension to this philosophy by explaining
the origins and psychological bases of religion but
it must necessarily be comprehended as part of the
broader system of humanism and rationalistic
materialism.
The essence of Freud's psychoanalytical
interpretation of religion is contained in four books,
Totem And Taboo, (1913), The Future of An
Illusion, (1927), Civilization And Its Discontents,
(1930),
and Moses And Monotheism, (1939).
While Freud's thought changed in the serverity and
the directness with which he attacked the issue of
religion, the basic direction of his thought remained unchanged between his first and last statements on the topic. Therefore, I will attempt to
provide a well integrated presentation of Freud's
theory without regard to the chronological appearance of his works.
There are five major points in Freud's theory of
religion. First, he explained the origins of religion
as a result of a search for the father figure to guide
man and to diminish his feelings of helplessness.
Second, he explained the existence of conceptions
and seemingly innate impressions of conscience,
guilt, and original sin as a survival of the trubal
neurosis. Third, religion was considered in the
Freudian system to be an insurance of the repression of instincts and, therefore,
a protection
device of civilization. Fourth, Freud thought religion to be an illusion to be understood in contradistinction to a delusion. Fifth, and final, Freud
had independent criteria for the determination of
the validity of ethics. Through an examination of
these five points, one will gain insight into Freud's
theory of religion.
Religion for Freud had its origins in man's helplessness in confronting
the forces of nature. It
arises at an early stage when man cannot yet use
reason to cope with his problems. Freud explains
the first step in dealing with this feeling of helplessness to be the humanization of nature.
Impersonal forces and destinies cannot be approached; they remain eternally remote. But if
the elements have passions that rage as they do
in our own souls, if death itself is not something
spontaneous but the violent act of an evil
Will ... then we can deal by psychical means
with our senseless anxiety ... we can try to adjure (these humanized forces), to appease them
to bribe them, and, by so influencing them, we
may rob them of a part of their power.
(The Freudian Interpretation
of Religion)
Freud says that man has already experienced a

feeling of helplessness. These exists an infantile
prototype, of which this situation is only a continuation. Freud explains this in his book, The Future
of An Illusion.
For once before has one found oneself in a similar state of helpessness: as a small child, in relation to one's parents. One had reason to fear
them, and especially one's father; and yet one
was sure of his protection against the dangers
one knew.
In this search for the father, man creates an illusory figure called god and a method of relating
to him called religion. In both relationships (i.e.,
child-father
and man-god),
one observes the
existence of a figure of superior wisdom and
strength whose love and protection could be won
by obeying commands and by avoiding the transgression of prohibitions. The similarities between
the relationships,
according to Freud, are supportive evidence for his theory.
.
Freud considered religion to be the survival of
a tribal neurosis. In the evolution of human views,
he claimed that there were three stages. The animistic stage in which the belief prevailed that
thinking about an event increased the likelihood of
the occurence of that event. This was followed by
the religious stage during which this omnipotence
of thoughts was transferred to gods or god and,
finally the objective scientific stage during which
the study of probability
becomes central. The
concept of omnipotence of thought survives only,
he claims, in dreams, fairy tales, childhood, and
neurosis. He also points out the similarities between the religious practices of totemism and
the behavior of neurotic patients. Symbolic religious rituals such as the receiving of the mass
are explained as being survival of totemism and the
tribal neurosis. Freud claimed that religious believers were often not subject to particular obesessional neuroses because they accepted a universal
one.
The conceptions of guilt and original sin also
have their roots in man's tribal heritage. Freud
believes that guilt and the need for expiation stem
from an original murder within the tribe. At an
early stage in man's anthropological development,
the custom was for the son, at a certain age, to
leave the tribe to seek a mate. However, in an
attempt to resolve his Oedipus Complex, the son
infringed upon the rules of this exogamous society, remained within the tribe, murdered his
AUGUST. 1977/AMERICAN ATHEIST - 30
father, and took his father's wife. Arising from the

feelings of guilt were the totems and, in order to
prevent future internecine
strife, there existed
societal taboos.
Men, therefore,
find that a
common basis for their religious guilt feelings and
moral taboos is to be found in the original act of
murder in the tribe.
As a prerequisite for the existence of civilization, according to Freud, we must surrender our
instinctual drive for personal and sexual freedom.
The needs of the individual may not be met spontaneously without interfering with the functioning
of society. Religion performs for society the task
of instilling a moral character in individuals although it establishes a concomitant general formula for happiness that may not be universally applicable. This restriction,
imposed by religion, is
harmful to human character because different
people must reconcile their instincts with society
differently. A person may become neurotic if he
cannot handle the amount of frustration that
society and religion impose upon him.
According to Freud, if we turn our attention
to the psychical origins and functions of religion,
we will find that the ideas which are presented as
teachings are not the end results of ' empirical
sense or rational processes. On the contrary, Freud
maintains that religious concepts are "illusions,
fulfillments
of the oldest, strongest, and most
urgent wishes of mankind." While Freud claims
that religious doctrines are illusions, he does not
ci te this in proof of their invalidity. As a result of
their illusory
nature,
religious
doctrines are
insuseptible of proof, whether of their truth or of
their falsity. In The Future of An Illusion, Freud
answers the argument set forth by the American
Pragmatists that if one cannot prove or disprove a
doctrine, one has the right to believe that doctrine.
He says, "Ignorance is ignorance; no right to believe in anything can be derived from it." At this
point, however, the Freudian argument becomes
the argument of the rationalistic materialist school
of philosophy and it is subject to the strengths and
weaknesses of the arguments set forth by that
school.
Freud expresses a further criticism of religion in
his assertion that it gives morality a shaky foundation. As a rationalistic materialist, he believes that
science will inevitably bring about the demise of
religious institutions.
He believes that morality
unlike religion has an independent origin in humanism, i.e., the philosophy that expresses the belief
that the well-being of man is the principle from
which ethics should be derived. Freud's values,
on the other hand, could hardly be called irreli-
gious. They include reason, truth, knowledge,

brotherly love, and the reduction of suffering.
As Erich Fromm points out in his book, Psychoanalysis And Religion, the common tendency to
classify Freudian thought as irreligious is based on
a largely artificial division between religion and
paganism. Religions, in the past, have tended to be
both morally and theologically heterogenous and
a more useful dichotomy could probably be drawn
between those religions with a humanistic outlook
and those with an authoritarian outlook. In this
sense, Freudian theory is somewhat compatible
with many of the world's religious doctrines.
In evaluating the Freudian interpretation
of
religion, several problems should be considered.
For many religious people, the primary flaw in the
theory lies in its inability to account for "genuine"
religious experiences. The existence of such experiences is currently the subject of a considerable
volume of psychological research. The results of
these studies will be significant in any thoughtful evaluation of Freud's theory. For Freud, religious experiences were not genuine but were examples of wish fulfillment. Recent research has
shown that people are more apt to have religious
experiences if they believe in their existence so
Freud's explanation
may be accurate. However,
the religious experience is still a psychologically
undefined and unproven phenomenon.
Also, the
question of the anthropological validity of Freud's
theory of tribal murder remains to be demonstrated by anthropologists.
One may find Freud's theories elucidating with
regard to Western religions they do not account
for the existence of qualitatively different Eastern
faiths. The essential difference between the two
lies in the doctrine of a personal god in the Western
religions
and
the
conceptions
of god as
an all-pervading spirit in Buddhism and Hinduism.
The concept of god as father is clearly found in
Judaism and Christianity and this may have led to
an oversimplification
of religious phenomena in
Freud's theory. Freud's interpretation
of god as
the father figure, at any rate, proves to be untenable in the case of the Eastern religions.
If religious doctrines really are illusions, we must
still determine what bearing this has on their
validity.
Psychologist
and theologian,
Arthur
Guirdham, explains this issue in his book, Christ
And Freud.
We must point out that religion must of necessity employ for its expression the mental and
emotional
attributes
we possess. It needs a
machinery for its manifestation just as bodies
are needed for propagation. The fact that certain well established psychiatric
mechanisms
are utilized in religion does not in any sense
imply that the latter is neither genuine nor
divine. It may be argued here that I am begging
the question and that the psychiatric mechanisms involved in organized religion are essentially abnormal. But there is no clear line of demarcation between the neurotic and the illusory
category we call the normal.
This argument
is essentially
an extension of
Freud's realization that religions are illusions and
not delusions. Freud's psychoanalytical
approach
to religion is not a proof of the invalidity of
religious doctrines.
As has been previously stated, Freud's psychoanalytical theory can only be understood as one
aspect of a broader, multi-faceted philosophy of
religion.
The philosophical
system of which
Freud's theory is a part is that of the rationalistic
materialists. This school maintains that the only
world is the physical world and that reason is the
tool with which one must study the world. Freud
states that "the primacy of reason lies, it is true,
in a distant, distant future but probably not in an
infinitely distant one." Ethics can be derived from
humanism and are thought to be free from any
independent
metaphysical
entity such as god.
Thus, Freud's theory is vulnerable to all attacks
which may be thrust upon this thought system.
For instance, religious believers claim that reason
is not man's major tool with which he may determine the secrets of the cosmos. Their system is
based, on the other hand, on revelation and belief.
Such critics would find the underlying rationalism
of Freud's system inadequate.
Another major philosophical objection to the
Freudian interpretation
of religion is set forth by
those who believe that reason will never attain
hegemony
over the passions. In other words,
Freud's sytem is inextricably linked to his psychological development.
The line of distinction between thought and emotion is artificial. The philosophy of rationalistic materialism is accepted by
many as viable but it is not free from philosophical
problems.
Freud's theory of religion is not the only one to
make use of psychoanalytical methods and it is
interesting as well as didactice to view lung's
theory
in contradistinction
to Freud's. While
C. G. lung and Sigmund Freud were both pioneers in the field of psychoanalysis, their religious backgrounds and attitudes were quite different. lung starts his investigation by stating that
ATHEIST
- 31
(The Freudian Interpretation
of Religion)
his approach is purely psychological. He regards

an idea as psychologically true if it exists in the
psyche. His criterion for objectivity of a concept
is universality, i.e., if a concept is found in in many
people's psyches, it is objective; if it is found in
one person's psyche, it is subjective. lung cites
the presence of religious feelings and religious experiences in many different societies as proof of
their truth. However, I believe that a clear-headed
analysis of his methodological
premise shows it
to be untenable and consequently his conclusion
also rests on shaky grounds. lung's theory is
alluded to primarily for two reasons. First, it shows
that the psychoanalytical approach is an aspect of
a theory of religion and not a theory in itself. The
philosophical and theological structure upon which
the methods are imposed is of paramount signficance. Second, I cite lung's theory as evidence of
the artificiality of the terms religious and irreli-
gious. lung is traditionally thought of as religious

but his theory of ethical relativism is far less compatible
with organized religions, in the final
analysis, than Freud's theory
which has well
defined values.
Any conclusions that may be drawn about the
Freudian psychoanalytical
interpretation
of religion must be based on a clearly defined attitude
toward the philosophy of rationalistic materialism.
If one accepts this philosophy, then Freud's theory
sheds important
new light on the argument by
giving a reasonable explanation for the origins of
Western religion. If you do not accept this philosophy, the Freudian analysis is problematic insofar
as it must be incorporated
into your thought.
Whatever your philosophical starting point, however, by showing religion to be possibly an illusion, Freud added a new dimension to the debate
about the validity of religion.
0
(The Catholic Schools Teach Dogma, Separatism, Bias, continued from page 21.)
Most people are more emotional than rational

and are anti-inquiry. Religion exploits youth by
concentrating
on their irrationality." We are concerned not to abuse children's ideas with stereotyped sex roles but fail to see that religion is brainwashing and repressive of our children. Children
before the age of 18 are required to pledge themselves to religion for life. We put primary, secondary and university education of children in the
hands of a separatist, brainwashing Catholic church
which respects no non-Catholic belief or religion.
Orestes Brownson, a New York Catholic editor,
in 1844 opposed a Catholic educational system:
"The Catholic education ... tends to repress rather
than quicken the life of the pupil, to unfit rather
than prepare him for the active and zealous discharge of his religious or his social duties. .. They
come out ignorant ... "
Mary Perkins Ryan, a Catholic writer in Are
Parochial Schools The Answer? Holt (1963) opposes parochial schools. She states that parents
have no say in school policy, any can be rejected,
that its education is indoctrination
and keeps its
students
uncritical,
immature,
and ignorant.
Church teaching should be separate and eliminate
the secular.
Tax-exemption
should especially not be given
to primary and secondary schools as they impose
fixed dogmatic beliefs on impressionable children.
It was not allowed to make martyrs of children
before full age of legal discretion. Prince v. Mass.
(1944) 321 U.S. 158,88 LEd 645, 645 S. Ct. 438.

We do not allow our young children to learn about
or observe sexual objects yet we force a single religion on them in a brain-wash manner. We do not
even teach philosophy, (or much critical thinking)
yet in primary schools yet Catholicism is thrust on
children in kindergarten and earlier. Children often
say they wouldn't go to church or church schools
but they only go because their parents force them
to go. Non-Catholic
students
are sometimes
required to attend Catholic schools because no
public school is nearby.
0
("Stop Teasing Men" -The Simonson Saga, continued from page 17.)
sentence of the rapist, Simonson repeatedly mentioned the young man's church affiliation. And
we, who are tuned to such things, could not help
but notice that many, many elements of the
Madison community had been heard from, but the
churches were strangely silent. One Baptist congregation
embraced
the Simonson philosophy
publicly and completely, hardly surprising, since
sexism has always been a cornerstone of religion,
especially the fundamentalist
faiths. But even
"liberal"
churches" refrained
from criticizing
Simonson. After all, one must remember, paradise itself was lost because of Temptress Eve.
0
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American Atheist Magazine Aug 1977

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American Atheist Magazine Aug 1977

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Vol.

The Catholic Schools Teach Dogma, Separatism, Bias/Shibles' Corner:

Losing The Faith at Larson's Store/Newsday Columnist,

The Freudian Interpretation of Religion/Neil Kressel

Editor-in-Chief/Madalyn Murray O'Hair, Managing Editor/William J. Murray,

THE AMERICAN ATHEIST MAGAZINE

The events of the past few weekends have brought me to a

kind. If that is being an Atheist, well,

them tongue-tied. When you point out

AUGUST, 1977/AMERICAN ATHEIST 3

Ilit(~: _N_EW_S ~li\llfr.illft\lli\iti{\'ltililiJlrlllirl

witnesses or jurors, and providing that oaths or

Atheists Come Out

AUGUST, 1977/AMERICAN ATHEIST - 4

(Atheists Come Out of The 'Closet,' Try to Organize in Valley)

"We've got plenty of Billy Graham's voice

that there are racist Atheists," she said. "Someone

AUGUST, 1977/AMERICAN ATHEIST - 5

The editorial in The Mail Tribune

destiny; and that his potential for

Jackson County Times

Atheists Plan Session

is the life philosophy of

'READ THE BIBLE'

Unitarians Host Lively Debate

AUGUST, 1977/AMERICAN ATHEIST-7

(Unitarians Host Lively Debate on Role of Atheism)

lightning Rod Damned

phia home in 1752. There was no widespread

AUGUST, 1977/AMERICAN ATHEIST - 8

Ex- Follower Tries to

AUGUST, 1977/AMERICAN ATHEIST - 9

(Southwest Baptist Church Schools to Bar Blacks)

ruling. Justice Potter Stewart noted that the court

"god has established the bounds to begin

in Free Speech Case

Longview, Washington - A high school teacher

whether the officials acted in bad faith.

Mail Order Ministers Are

(Mail Order Ministers Are IRS Target)

the I RS instructions say that an auditor is to drop

Colorado Atheists Forming

Denver' Post Religion Editor

Colorado Atheists are organizing, and their

AUGUST, 1977/AMERICAN ATHEIST -14

school observances of a particular religious holiday

greatest offender or moral ity."

David M. Walters, a Miami attorney

for Catholic agencies. He will visit the

AUGUST, 1977/AMERICAN ATHEIST -15

"Stop Teasing Men" -The Simonson Saga

AUGUST, 1977/AMERICAN ATHEIST 16

of money to see in Chicago years ago." Camp

Recall is a weighty word in Wisconsin, since

AUGUST, 1977/AMERICAN ATHEIST -17

The Bible Handbook

THE BIBLE HANDBOOK

Originally published in England in 1888, The

American Atheist Press. The Bible Handboo

(Texas state residents

be denied absolution if they do not do so. Catholic

THE PARTED FRIENDS

Yet now and then along the way

He sat beside an earthen mound