AMERICAN ATHEIST

Summer 1999

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AMERICA.N ATHEISTS
NATIONAL
CONVENTION

Featuring presentations given at the

25th National Convention of American Atheists!

$5.95

American Atheists Inc.

is a nonprofit, nonpolitical, educational organization dedicated to the
complete and absolute separation of
state and church, accepting the
explanation of Thomas Jefferson
that the First Amendment to the
Constitution of the United States
was meant to create a "wall of separation" between state and church.
American Atheists is organized
to stimulate and promote freedom of thought and inquiry concerning religious beliefs, creeds,
dogmas, tenets, rituals, and practices;
to collect and disseminate
information, data, and literature on
all religions and promote a more
thorough understanding of them,
their origins, and their histories;
to advocate, labor for, and promote in all lawful ways the complete and absolute separation of
state and church;
to advocate, labor for, and promote in all lawful ways the establishment and maintenance of a
thoroughly secular system of education available to all;
to encourage the development
and public acceptance of a humane

ethical system stressing the mutual

sympathy, understanding, and interdependence of all people and the
corresponding responsibility of each
individual in relation to society;
to develop and propagate a
social philosophy in which humankind is central and must itself be
the source of strength, progress,
and ideals for the well-being and
happiness of humanity;
to promote the study of the
arts and sciences and of all problems affecting the maintenance,
perpetuation, and enrichment of
human (and other) life; and
to engage in such social, educational, legal, and cultural activity
as will be useful and beneficial to
members of American Atheists and
to society as a whole.
Atheism involves the mental
attitude which unreservedly accepts the supremacy of reason and
aims at establishing a life-style and
ethical outlook verifiable by experience and the scientific method, independent of all arbitrary assumptions of authority and creeds. An
Atheist is free of belief in supernatural entities of all kinds.

Materialism declares that the

cosmos is devoid of immanent conscious purpose; that it is governed
by its own inherent, immutable,
and impersonal laws; that there is
no supernatural
interference in
human life; that humankind - finding their resources within themselves - can and must create their
own destiny. Materialism restores
dignity and intellectual integrity to
humanity. It teaches that we must
prize our life on earth and strive
always to improve it. It holds that
humans are capable of creating a
social system based on reason and
justice. Materialism's "faith" is in
humankind and their ability to
transform the world culture by
their own efforts. This is a commitment which is in its very essence
life-asserting.
It considers the
struggle for progress as a moral
obligation that is impossible without noble ideas that inspire us to
bold, creative works. Materialism
holds that our potential for good
and more fulfilling cultural development is, for all practical purposes,
unlimited.

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American Atheist on-line edition: www.americanatheist.org

Summer 1999

American Atheist
A Journal

of Atheist

News and Thought

Editor's Desk
Religion and Violence
Frank R. Zindler

The 25th American Atheists

National Convention
Ellen Johnson

AMERICAN ATHEIST

The Garlic Necklace

34
Ron Barrier
Doubt is the "garlic necklace"
for warding off the vampires of
ignorance.
4

Atheist Youth, Atheist Families,

and Atheism's First Family
8
American Atheists 1999
National Convention
welcoming address by
American Atheists President
Ellen Johnson
Fighting the Religious Reich
Pamela L. Sumners
13
The Dark Ages are contemporary, not past, as this witty
Alabama lawyer clearly shows.

Featuring presentations given at the

25th National Convention of American Atheists!

Cover art: Tom Sullivan depicts

the violent phantasmagoria of the
religious world inside of which the
25th National
Convention
of
American Atheists provided an
island of sanity and reason.

The Dangers of
Private School Vouchers
18
Dolores T. Corona
An educator refutes the
seductive arguments for
supporting religious schools
with tax money.
Helping Children Deal with
Unfairness in the World
22
Catharine MacLaren
How not to take a bad
situation and make it worse!

Volume 37, No.3

Parsippany, New Jersey

Summer 1999

Why is Religiosity so Hard

to Cure?
24
Frank R. Zindler
An evolutionary, genetic bias
makes 'em do it!
Victory to the Children:
Ending Circumcision
in the Next Century
29
Marilyn Fayre Milos and
Norman Cohen
An R.N. and the son of a rabbi
weigh in against what is truly
"the most unkindest cut of all."

The Balkin Crisis: Fault-line

of Civilizations
Conrad Goeringer
Religion considered as a
tectonic force cleaving the
continent of Europe.

38

The Story
Behind The
. Altar Boy
Chronicles
42
Tony
Pasquarello
Its not what
you're
probably
.thinking.
Thinking the Unthinkable
46
Margaret Bhatty
Our correspondent from India
returns to our pages after a
long absence.
Religion and Politics
49
Robert J. Englehart
A psychologist explains why
religion and politics are a
natural - but dangerous combination

Page 1

American
Atheist
Volume 37 Number

Membership Application for

American Atheists Inc.
3

EDITOR / MANAGING Ef'ITOR

. Frank R. Zindler
ASSOCIATE EDITOR
Ann E. Zindler
CONTRIBUTING EDITOR
Conrad F. Goeringer
BUSINESS MANAGER
Ellen Johnson
The American Atheist is published by
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Printed in the USA, 1999 by American
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Reproduction in whole or in part without
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Page 2

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Summer 1999

American Atheist

Editor's Desk

A:s

ter the devastating massacre at Columbine High

chool in Littleton, Colorado, Newt Gingrich told a group
of Republican women that it and
the
horrendous
situation
in
Kosovo was due to thirty-five
years of "liberalism," the elimination of school prayer, and the
expulsion of "the Creator" from
public school classrooms. According to the Washington Times,
"The former speaker said one of
the biggest mistakes was taking
prayer and God out of the classrooms." The implication was that
Madalyn
Murray
O'Hair was
responsible for the shootings by
virtue of her Supreme Court triumph, Murray v Curlett, that was
intended to abolish forced prayer
and Bible reading from America's
public schools.
The truth of the matter, of
course, is that there appears to be
much more religion in the public
schools today than there was in
1963 when the U.S. Supreme
Court handed down its muchmaligned ruling. The Court's ruling is widely flaunted, and the
"wall of separation" crumbles progressively as organized religion
captures more and more time and
space in our schools. Moreover, all
but one of the various school
shooters have been certified to be

Frank R. Zindler
Parsippany, New Jersey

believers of one sort or another

who attended religious services.
And then, there are the endless
polls, emanating from religious
polsters such as George Gallup,
that claim that church attendance
and religious belief are at an alltime high in American history.
Is it possible that that violence
in the world is due to too much
religion rather than too little?
A simple glance at Northern
Ireland, Kosovo, Bosnia, Palestine, the Philippines, Indonesia,
Sub-Saharan Africa, or Kashmir
shows the religious soil from
which the fruits of violence spring
and are sustained.
Why should all religions lead
to war and violence whenever they
gain any degree of power? The
answer is simple. Because all religions are false or untestable, they
cannot - unlike science - appeal to
any external standard as a test of
the truth of their claims. When a
scientist claims the earth is round,
there
are many observations
which can be performed to test the
claim. But when religionists claim
their god is one (Allah), or triune
(as Big Daddy, Junior, and The
Spook), how can their claims be
. tested? There is no way to appeal
to facts to support such nonsense.
Either people accept such claims
willingly, through weakness of
intellect or because of emotional
disturbance,
or they must be
forced to accept them. Only force
Summer 1999

will work, when facts are absent.

This is rendered quite insidious by
the ready rationalizations
that
come to mind in the heads of religious tyrants. The silly sillogism
goes something like this:
"To me has been revealed
absolute truth. This truth is necessary for salvation of every soul.
You do not believe what has been
revealed to me. Therefore, you will
go to hell after you die, unless you
come to believe in my gospel before
you die. You refuse to believe my
gospel. Because I love you as a
human being, I don't want you to
go to hell. I love you so much, I
want to help you get to heaven. It
pains me to have to hurt you and
torture you now, but if that is
what it takes to make you see the
light and be saved, so be it. A few
electrical shocks to the genitals
today are nothing compared to an
eternity of soldering irons in your
ears. Besides, your soul is more
important
than your body. I'm
forcing you only because you
refuse to save yourself."
All religion, I think, if believed
strongly enough, must inevitably
lead to war and misery. While
Atheism does not automatically
bring peace to the world, at least it
eliminates one major pretext for
violence.

Page 3

The 25th
American Atheists
National Convention
By American Atheists President Ellen Johnson

"A

merican Atheists held its twenty-fifth annual national convention on April 2, 3, and 4, 1999,
in Piscataway, New Jersey. The last
time the convention was in New Jersey
was in 1986.
I have been attending American
Atheist's conventions since 1979 and
have attended about a dozen, and I must
say that this one was probably my
favorite. It was pure enjoyment from
beginning to end. The Embassy Suites
Hotel provided just the right ambiance,
with its lush indoor gardens, ponds, and
cozy intimacy.
The variety of speakers insured
that there was something of interest for
everyone. Additionally, the atmosphere
was positively charged with the presence of some of our members' children for whom we provided a chaperoned
crafts-room/play-room adjacent to our
book and registration
room. Kasey
Barrier
(wife of American Atheists
National
Media
Spokesman
Ron
Barrier) did a wonderful job of watching
the children. The theme of the convention was "Supporting Our Atheist Youth
and Families," and so it was quite fitting
to have Atheist children among us. We

Page 4

hope that our conventioneers will continue bringing their children to our conventions in the future - because they
are our future.

New Jersey State Director David

Silverman opened the convention by
introducing me. If you haven't visited
his website (http://www.hdiweb.coml
atheism), please do so. David is a dynamo in New Jersey and we are proud of
him and his many accomplishments
here.
In the course of introducing me as
American Atheists President, David had
everyone on their feet and promising
that they would be more active politically on behalf of Atheist civil liberties and
separation of state and church. I then
spoke about the
assault on our
children in the
public
schools
and what needs
to be done about
it. (My speech is
available on the
internet
at
www.atheists.org and is
reprinted
on
page 9 of this
magazine.)

Summer 1999

Over the next two days we were

treated to the wit and wisdom of some
really fine speakers.
Dolores Corona of the New Jersey
Education Association addressed the
myriad problems and legal difficulties of
private school vouchers which will drain
money from the secular public schools
and funnel it into the private (religious)
school system. (Reprinted on page 18)
Tony Pasquarello,
emeritus professor of philosophy (The Ohio State
University) and a professional pianist,
boasts a repertoire of over five thousand
works of the jazz, pop, and classical literature. Tony brings our conventions to
life every year with his beautiful piano
playing. His convention talk was about
his new book, The Altar Boy Chronicles,
available from American Atheists. The
book is an amusing and insightful look
into the life a boy growing up Catholic in
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, during the
1940s. (Reprinted here on page 42)

Bill Baird, called the father of the

abortion-rights
movement by United
Press International- having been in the
forefront of it for the past 35 years returned to speak at our convention
after too long an absence, and it was
good to have him back amongst us
again.
American Atheist

Bill was the plaintiff in the Supreme Court cases of Baird v Eisenstadt,
the 1972 case that liberalized birth control laws and Baird v Belotti I and II
'which enabled minors to obtain abortions without parental veto. Bill is the
FIRST and only non-lawyer in American
history with three US Supreme Court
victories. He has been arrested ten
times and sent to jail twice for his work
on behalf of the rights of teenagers, the
legalization of abortion and birth control,
and the right to privacy.

Charles Terrano, our new Youth

Outreach Director spoke on some of the
difficulties of being an Atheist youth in
America today and what it was like for
him growing up in the Catholic religion.
Catharine MacLaren spoke on
"Tools and Advice for the Atheist Family
Coping with Isolation and Harassment."
Catharine is a Fellow with the Albert
Ellis Institute For Rational Emotive
Behavior Therapy in New York. She has
worked extensively with families and
adolescents in crisis. She gave us some
useful suggestions for helping our children to deal with discrimination.
(Reprinted here on page 22)
American Atheist Press Editor,
Frank Zindler discussed the evolutionary biological context of religious behavior and ways to counteract it. (Reprinted
here on page 24) Frank was a teacher
and professor of biology, psychobiology,
and geology for twenty years. He is currently a linguist and editor of biochemical literature for a scientific publishing
society in Ohio. Long a columnist and
contributor to the American Atheist
magazine, he has served as editor of the
American Atheist Press since 1995.
American Atheists on-line news
Editor, Conrad Goeringer explored
some of the folklore and history of our
American Atheists new home New
Parsippany, New Jersey

Jersey in a speech titled "Jerseyana for

Atheists." In another speech he gave us
an insightful understanding of the religiosity behind the crisis in the Balkans.
(Reprinted here on page 38)
Marilyn Milos and Norman
Cohen of the National Organization of
Circumcision
Information
Resource
Centers (NOCIRC) discussed the unnecessary practice of routine infant circumcision. (Reprinted here on page 29)
Marilyn has organized and coordinated
five international symposia on sexual
mutilation, to bring together international experts to present a multidisciplinary body of research on this humanrights issue. She is a contributor to the
Encyclopedia of Childbearing: Critical
Perspectives (Oryx Press, 1993), Human
Sexuality, An Encyclopedia
(Garland
Publishing, 1994) and Trust Your Body!
Trust Your Baby! Childbirth Wisdom
and Cesarean Prevention (Bergin & B
Garvey, 1995). She has also produced a
series of educational pamphlets and is
the editor of The NOCIRC Annual
Report. Marilyn is also the recipient of
the Maureen Ricke Award from the
California Nurses' Association "for her
dedication and unwavering commitment
to righting a wrong" and "for her work
on behalf of children to raise public consciousness about America's most unnecessary surgery."
Norman has been the Director of
NOCIRC of Michigan since its founding
in 1994. He appeared in the 1996 awardwinning documentary on circumcision,
"Whose Body, Whose Rights!" In addition to running one of the most active
NOCIRC chapters in the nation, he also
operates his own computer-consulting
business. Norman has a unique perspective on circumcision, having grown up in

a conservative Jewish household as the

son of a rabbi. He now is an Atheist and
spends his time as an anti-circumcision
activist educating a new generation for
the well-being of all children.
Alabama attorney Pamela Sumners talked
about "Fighting
the
Religious Reich: Tales from Alabama."
(Reprinted here on page 13) Pamela is a
constitutional attorney who has been
involved in important state-church separation cases, including that of Alabama
Judge Roy Moore who opened jury
assemblies with Christian prayer, and
the case of Governor Fob James, who
proclaimed that the Bill of Rights does
not apply to the states. Pamela not only
possesses brilliant legal acumen but a
rapier wit and sardonic sense of humor
as well. She was a delight to hear.
American Atheists Treasurer Dick
Hogan and his son Richard gave an
insightful talk on "Religious Rape - A
Prison Problem You Never Hear About."
Dick Hogan II's brief experience in the
Texas penal system (for boating while
intoxicated) was filled with organized
prayer, religious singing, and Biblereading. His Atheism was personally
"treated" in prison with talking-intongues and an exorcism! He handled
the experience with the love and support
of his family - who visited him often and through his charming sense of
humor. The Hogans insisted on, and got,
a secular alternative to the religious
twelve-step
program
of Alcoholics
Anonymous for Dick. We are grateful to
both men for sharing their experience
with us.
American Atheists National Media
Spokesman and The Atheist Viewpoint
cable show co-host and producer, Ron
Barrier gave a talk titled "The Garlic

Dick Hogan II and his Atheist-of-the-Year

Summer 1999

father
Page 5

Necklace: Positive Atheism

in a
Negative World." (Reprinted here on
page 34) Ron argued that Atheism is a
positive concept and that religion proves
the point.
James Randi, a professional magician, renowned for his ex,'uses and
demonstrations of "psychic surgery,"
gave a rousing presentation on critical
thinking and the ease with which people
can be deceived.

American
Atheists
National
Outreach Director Neal Cary conducted a very important workshop for turning armchair Atheists into Activists.

19, 1887, in Morristown, NJ. (The

speech is available on audio and video
tape from the American Atheist Press.)
On Sunday afternoon we traveled to
our new office building at 225 Cristiani
Street, in Cranford, New Jersey for the
dedication of our new office building.
Your new American Atheist Center (see
photograph below) is a modern, single
story 9,660 sq. ft. building with plenty of
parking and easy access to major highways. The interior contains ample office
space with plenty of windows for comfortable natural as well as artificial
light, a kitchen, and a marvelous conference room with a video-viewing capability. The back section of the building will
be converted into a modern library to
house the Charles E. Stevens American
Atheist Library & Archives.
Television and print media were
there to cover the event. Everyone
leisurely strolled about the building and
enjoyed a catered lunch served in the
new conference room. Champagne was
poured as I thanked all the members
and supporters who made it all possible.
I unveiled the various plaques that will
hang in the building containing all the
names and some pictures of the many,
many contributors responding to the
development-fund appeal letter from
Dick Hogan. Your generosity brought us
$38 thousand to help us move to New
Jersey, set up a temporary location, and
then to purchase the new building and
move into it. Thank-you all! Your generosity will be forever memorialized at
the building.

William Boyd Francis delighted

us with his portrayal, in period costume,
of Colonel Robert Ingersoll's defense of
C. B. Reynolds, who was arrested in
Boonton, NJ, on a charge of "blasphemy," in 1886. The trial occurred on May

Ten-year-old
Steven
Zindler,
grandson of Ann and Frank Zindler,
proudly helped me cut the ceremonial
ribbon for the opening. I hope that those
of you who were unable to attend the
dedication will make the time to come

William Boyd Francis

Steven Zindler and Grandma

and see the new American Atheist
Center.
On Saturday evening American
Atheists held its twenty-fifth annual
members' banquet and awards dinner.
This is the part of the convention which
is both exciting and gratifying for me.
This is when we recognize the work and
achievements of some of the many people who have done outstanding work for
American Atheists, and the cause of separation of state and church. The following awards were presented:
Dick Hogan - Atheist of the Year
Caroline Gilman - Lifetime of Service
Award
Liz Burcin - Civil Rights Award
Carletta Sims - State Director of the
Year
Dale Hicks - Member of the Year
Carl Silverman - Defending the Wall
Award
Bill Baird - Lifetime Achievement
Award
Randall Gorman - Volunteer of the
Year
Ed.Gauci - Outreach Award
Neal Cary - Distinguished Service
Award
Gil Lawrence
- First Amendment
Award
David Silverman - Atheist Activist of
the Year
John Obst - Certificate of Appreciation
Chris Prokop - Certificate of Appreciation
As American Atheists has done for
most of the past twenty-five conventions, we will be holding the year-2000
event on Easter weekend. Next year we
will be in San Francisco, so please mark
your calendar. See you there!

Page 6

Summer 1999

American Atheist

Atheist Youth, Atheist Families,

and Atheism's First Family
American Atheists 1999 National Convention welcoming address
by American Atheists President Ellen Johnson

appy Vernal Equinox and good

morning! Thank you, David
Silverman, for that energizing
introduction. We are all very proud of
the wonderful things you are doing here
as American Atheists State Director for
New Jersey.
My name is Ellen Johnson and I am
the president of American Atheists. It
is my great pleasure to welcome you to
the twenty-fifth national convention of
American Atheists.
I want to take this time to introduce
to you our officers and members of the
board of directors, state-directors,
assorted volunteers, and staff.
When I call your name please stand
for a moment. If you will, please refrain
from all applause in a~ effort to save
time.
Ronald Barrier: Ron is our secretary, member of the board of directors,
producer and co-host with me, of The
Atheist Viewpoint, our cable-access TV
show, and he is our national media
spokesman.
Dick Hogan: Dick is our treasurer,
and member of the board of directors.
Conrad Goeringer: Conrad is a
member of the board of directors and
the editor of the on-line American
Atheists News.
Neal Cary: Neal is a member of the
board of directors and our national outreach director.
Margie Wait: Margie is on the
board of directors and is our Internet
representative and American Atheist's
on-line discussion group moderator.
Dave Kong: Dave is on the board of
directors and our state director for
California.
Noel Scott: Noel is on the board of
directors.
Henry Morgan: Henry is on the
board of directors and the state director
for Michigan.
Page 7

American Atheists President

Ellen Johnson
Frank Zindler: Frank is on the
board of directors and is the editor of the
American Atheist Press.
Ann Zindler: Ann is a member of
the board of directors and is the associate editor of the American Atheist
Press.
Chris Allen: Chris is a member of
the board of directors and is the state
director for Utah.
Richard Andrews: Rich is on the
board of directors.
Karen Sundberg: Karen is the
newest member of the board of directors.
The rest of our state directors are:
Pennsylvania,
Liz Burcin; Texas,
Randall Gorman; Tennessee, Carlie
Sims; Florida, Greg McDowell; Idaho,
Susan Harrington;
Illinois, Arlene
Holloman; Maryland, John Obst; New
Mexico, Barbara
Reiland;
North
Carolina, Wayne Aiken; Washington,
DC, Chris Prokop; Arizona, Monty
Gaither; New Jersey, David Silverman;
Massachusetts, Gil Lawrence; Kathleen
Summer 1999

Johnson is head of the Military

Association of Atheists and Freethinkers.
I also want to introduce Jim
Heldberg, who is our affiliation director,
and Charles Terrano, who is our youth
outreach director.
Thank you all!
All of these people are part of our
American Atheists family, which is also
what I want to talk to you about today:
Atheist youth and families in America and one such family in particular.
But first, as a parent, I am dutybound to share an anecdote with you
about my son Max, who is now ten years
old. Since it is Easter weekend, I
thought I would give you his explanation for what Easter is, given when he
was six years old. When he was six he
explained Easter to me this way, "A guy
got shot and they buried him and he
rose up and they call him the Easter
Bunny."
I am a second-generation Atheist.
When my two sisters and I grew up here
in New Jersey we were not taught to be
religious. Everything that my parents
said and did reflected an Atheistic
approach to life. I don't know if my parents would have called themselves
Atheists back then. They just had
absolutely no interest in, or use for, religion. My sisters and I grew up in the
late fifties and sixties, and back then I
don't think that anyone taught their
children to be Atheist per se, because
back then one didn't know much about
Atheism, just like homosexuals back
then didn't talk openly about homosexuality. These were things that didn't have
a name back then; but I knew from my
earliest recollections that I was an
Atheist and my Atheism is something
that I hold very dear to my heart. It has
enriched my life and made me a better
person - which is probably why I have
Page 7

spent the last twenty years of my life

working to "share the good word or good
news of Atheism" - to put a twist on a
typical religious phrase. Although my
parents are home and not here today, I
want to say how deeply grateful I am to
them for the Atheist approach to life
that they instilled in me. For those of
you who rear your children as Atheists,
I know that someday they will thank
you for it as well. It is one of the greatest gifts you can give to them.
Now some of you have had a religious upbringing, and some of you had
an Atheistic upbringing. Most of you
have had the former, in which it took
years of struggle to find your way out. In
some cases it was very painful and agonizing, but you did it.
-From cradle to grave, religious
superstition pervades our lives - and it
is not by accident, my friends. And in
some cases, when the end of your life
comes, your religious family, who have
hated your Atheism, will see to it that
your friends think that you accepted
Jesus as your personal savior as you lay
dying; and don't think that it doesn't
happen. But then, I am sure that many
an Atheist has unwittingly "accepted
Jesus," while under heavy doses ofmorphine and totally blitzed. To the religious relative that's good enough. Let
me tell you of the most recent example
of this, involving one of our life members, Leslie G. Cook.
Leslie was born on February 11,
1945, and died on July 11, 1998. Leslie
was a generous donor to American
Atheists and never once was there any
indication that he was anything but a
lifelong Atheist. The fact of the matter
is, the incidence of Atheists becoming
religious is about as frequent as that of
homosexuals going straight. Last month
we received a letter from his family
which said in part "Several churches in
many states were praying for Les.
Countless individuals were praying,
some for many years. Even strangers,
who were told of Les's struggle, stopped
their day to pray for him. Amazing stories like this could be told by many.
There was a great outpouring of love
toward Les everywhere he went. God
used every prayer, and every good thing
that was done, in some way to save this
soul He loved. Surely, God did complete
a work in Leslie. On June 10th, 1998 the
pastor said that Les no longer displayed
any hostility toward God. Then Les
prayed
with him, the following
prayer ... "
Page 8

Of course the prayer included wanting Christ to come into his heart, blah,
blah, blah. Unfortunately, god didn't see
fit to keep Les alive, but that's another
issue.
Well, the family made sure that I
received this letter. Leslie was probably
on morphine when this happened. Don't
think it won't happen to you if you have
religious relatives who have pestered
you all your life. We have heard of these
things before.
The Public Schools
Every week I hear from young people who are struggling with their
nascent Atheism. Not only are they up
against religious families and friends,
but they also have to deal with religiosity in their schools as well, and not just
in the parochial schools. I am talking
about the public schools. Our public
schools are a battleground in which our
children are the spoils of the religious
right. Over the past thirty years the
majority of state-church
separation
cases have been concerned with the public schools. Why? Because of the emptypew syndrome. Attendance at church
has never been over 50% of the
American population. America's families just do not care enough to take their
children to church. So where are the
religious supremacists going to recruit
new customers for their product? If
Mohammed won't come to the mountain, then the mountain has to come to
Mohammed. They are going after our
children where they are away from their
parents - in the public schools.
In 1963 in the Supreme Court decision of Murray u Curlett, the founder of
American Atheists, Madalyn Murray
O'Hair, won her case to have organized
prayers and mandatory Bible recitation
stopped in the nation's public schools.
Unfortunately, Christians in America
have less regard for the United States
Supreme Court than they do for their
god. There has been organized praying
in the public schools ever since 1963,
and almost every year since has seen
legislative attempts to overturn Murray
u Curlett.
Another reason for this assault on
the public schools is that Christian children are being exposed to ideas that
threaten their religious notions about
the world - things such as sex education
and evolution. A non-profit group and
some Colorado lawmakers are complaining that government-funded schools are
detrimental to students' religious values.
Summer 1999

One thing is clear: the saturation of

the schools with religion does not
emanate from the students themselves,
as they would like you to think.
"Student initiated" is never that. If you
scratch the surface, you find that a local
church is always involved in attempts
by students to orchestrate prayers and
worship services in the public schools.
Incredibly, prayer advocates really
thought that the concept of "student-in itiated" and sometimes "student-led" was
their ace in the hole. They really
thought that an unconstitutional activity could magically be made constitutional as long as students decided to engage
in the activity. Well, hey, I can't wait to
see their reaction when "student-initiated" marijuana smoking is proposed.
High school students cannot determine
what is constitutional and what is not.
It is that simple.
The notion of student-initiated or
student-led prayer consists of simply
replacing the minister or school administrator with a student, resulting in the
exact same situation as prior to Murray
u Curlett - organized religious services,
including prayers, songs, and scriptural
readings occurring in the schools.
"Solemnization"
Now the prayer advocates want you to
swallow the idea that it was students
who have created the following justification for organized prayer in schools: it's
called "solemnization." It is claimed that
students alone created the concept,
which they define as "a way for them to
formalize and dignify school events and
activities without stepping on anyone's
religious convictions." Do you really buy
the idea that high school students' main
concern is formality and dignity at
school events - the very same students
who go to schools with rings in their
tongues and lips?
Oh puhleeeze.
Solemnization is twenty-five dollar term
probably dreamed up at some rightwing religious think-tank in Colorado
Springs and peddled via newsletters to
churches around the country.
When it comes to dignity, it sometimes seems like religious students
show less of it than their fellow Atheist
students. When was the last time you
heard of Atheist students going up to
religious students and telling them they
were going to be punished for their religiosity? When was the last time that an
Atheist student shunned fellow religious students merely because they
were religious?
American Atheist

"Christian Athletes"
Groups of Christian Athletes have
been known to form gauntlets at the
entranceways of the public schools, so
that all the students have to pass by
them as they are urged to "accept Jesus
Christ as yourpersonal savior" etc., etc.
You all know the drill. The Fellowship of
Christian Athletes is a national organization that runs sports camps all over
the country. Since the Federal Equal
Access Act was passed by Congress, the
FCA now has bases of operations right
in the public schools. For what? For
RECRUITMENT.
Let me tell you about what was
happening in 1996 in Texas. There, a
group of high school athletes and parents won an agreement from the school
board of a small town near Austin to
separate religious activities and sports.
Part of the problem had involved the
posting of prayers on lockers and religious music being piped into the locker
rooms. The Athletic director was leading
prayer sessions before and after games,
and the athletes were under pressure to
attend meetings of the FCA (Fellowship
of Christian Athletes) whose activities
were even promoted on the school district's stationary.
In addition, two
speakers had been invited to the school
on separate occasions to lead the athletes in prayer, discuss religion with
them, and ask for a show of hands from
those who were Christian.
Last January in Florida, the FCAs,
in a high school skit, read Bible verses
and sang a song with the refrain "the
only hope for America is Jesus." School
officials determined that the play was
inappropriate and offensive to Jewish
students and apologized over the school
public address system. Incredibly, a
Christian Legal group called "Liberty
Counsel" had the audacity to sue the
school, claiming that it made the participating Christian students feel like they
did something wrong, when, they
claimed, it was the fellowship's teachersponsor who was really to blame. The
hypocrisy here is that the Fellowship of
Christian Athletes recruits and trains
students to do exactly what they did,
and then they have the gall to blame the
school for not knowing any better. This
is one of many examples where exuberant prayer enthusiasts do not have the
self-control to do what is right. They
need secular society to step in and tell
them to behave appropriately.

Parsippany, New Jersey

Chorus Problems
If an Atheist student wants to sing
in the school choir, you've got another
problem. Jewish and Atheist students
have been complaining about the overabundance of Christian worship songs
for years - to no avail. In Salt Lake City,
Utah, a Jewish girl named Rachel
Bauchman, lost her case against Utah's
West High School, when the United
States Supreme Court let stand the
10th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling
upholding dismissal of her lawsuit concerned with the Christian songs that the
students were required to sing "praising
Jesus as the Lord, Savior, and King."
The choir teacher added some Jewish
songs but Rachel was still uncomfortable with the religious songs. The choir
teacher suggested that she sit in the
library during practice and he would
give her an "A" anyway. (Does the
phrase "separate but equal" ring a bell?)
Additionally, non-Mormon choir members objected to organized field trips in
which the students were asked to witness about Jesus Christ and sing
Mormon devotionals.
Rachel Bauchman's situation is one
familiar to American Atheists. From
New York to California, public school
choirs are making students sing hymns
of praise
to Jesus.
In Rachel
Bauchman's school they were also
scheduling performances at churches.
Some public schools even have gospel
choirs. Jeremy Kraut, a Jewish student
from Long Island also objected to the
selection of songs in his choir, and so did
the Bazydlo family, who are Atheists in
Upstate New York. In both cases the
schools have ignored them for years,
and so the practice will continue.
Secret-Ballot Approach
One of the more innovative
approaches to undermining the First
Amendment Establishment Clause visa-vis the public schools has recently
come out of Texas - big surprise there and in Austin of all places. The Santa Fe
School District had a policy of allowing
graduation ceremony prayers if, by
secret ballot, graduating seniors choose
to allow a benediction and prayers.
Once again, public school students are
being allowed to determine what is and
what is not constitutional. It seems that
some public schools are offering students internships
as ministers and
judges.

Summer 1999

See You At The Pole

Another example of religious advertising in the public schools involves the
"See You At The Pole" exhibitions. See
You At The Pole originated at the Texas
Baptist Convention in 1990. On the
third Wednesday of every September,
Christian students gather around the
school flag pole before school - to do
what? To be seen and heard by people
entering the building and passing by. Of
course. This event would never occur in
their churches or in their homes where
they would not be seen by anyone. God
requires a metal pole, and the participants require an audience.
Last September, a fifteen year old
Christian student at Ross High School
in Fremont, Ohio, wrote to me saying
that "See You At The Pole Allows
Christians to try and witness to their
classmates and teachers, as well as an
occasional passer-by." The symbolism of
marrying the American flag to Christian
prayer is not lost on American Atheists.
Maybe the pole worshippers should go
inside instead and read the United
States Constitution.
A young Christian wrote to us wondering what was the harm in the See
You At The Pole events. I'd like to read
Ron Barrier's response because it was,
as always, right on the money.
He replied in part: "Children should be
able to go to school confident and
relaxed - not filled with fears, irrationalities, and dependencies."
Prayer is an act of submission.
Prayer promotes dependency on
invisible things. Prayer removes
from the individual the capacity to
act on :hislher own volition. As
Atheists we teach our children to be
resourceful, independent, and we
try to cultivate critical thinking in
our children. Is it reasonable to
assume that we, as humans, need
or desire assistance from beings
that are essentially non-human,
invisible, and incomprehensible?
No. SYATP is a uniquely Christian
event disguised as a free-speech
exercise having the express purpose
of being seen by others. This is also
an attempt to impose a Christiannation atmosphere on small children. There is no sincerity in such a
display, and its very nature insults
other creeds and nonbelievers who
attend the same schools. I went to a
Catholic school and we never had to

Page 9

gather around thirty-foot pieces of

steel tubing to pray. I believe that
SYATP's main purpose is to exploit
the already extant peer pressure
that is in the schools for the express
purpose of "putting on a show" to
the rest of the students. If churches
really cared about the spiritual
well-being of their children, then
they should provide enough guidance that children should be able to
go to school confident and relaxed not filled with fears, irrationalities
. and dependencies .... Just like other
school prayer fiascoes, this is
designed to coerce students into
accommodating and accepting, if
not in participating, in what I interpret to be a conjuring experience. I
do not accept and totally reject the
efficacy of prayer and the concept
that ancient, dead, invisible beings
have to be continually massaged in
order for humanity to find its way
through this magnificent universe,
or even, just to have meaning in
life.
James Dotson of the Baptist Press
calls the events "student-led." They may
be student-led but they are outsideorganized. Consider this, they are coordinated by the North American Mission
Board and the National Network of
Youth Ministries. These Christian
groups are actively using students to
recruit and proselytize in the public
schools.
Bible Clubs
Under the Federal Equal Access
Act, students are permitted to form religious clubs if non-curriculum related
secular student groups are permitted in
a high school. There are now over
10,000 student religious or Bible study
groups operating in public schools. We
see no reason why students should not
enjoy this right of free speech, whether
it involves religious expression and
study, or some other area, from chess to
politics; yet the nature of these Bible
and prayer clubs is cause for concern.
First-hand observation and additional
anecdotal evidence reveals that these
are not student "clubs" in the traditional sense. Rather, they consist of religious ritual, scriptural readings, songs,
prayers and similar activities usually
reserved for the church setting. In
effect, these clubs become satellites of
the local church for proselytizing and
recruitment in the schools - a fact that
Page 10

should give pause to civil libertarians

and parents everywhere.
One of our members related the following events that took place at her Oak
Ridge High School in Conroe, Texas:
A new club called "The Cross"
held their meetings in the French
teacher's room Fridays at 4:30
where they would discuss scripture
and the teacher would offer her
interpretations. They would also
meet during lunch in the Latin
teacher's
room - he was an
ordained minister. Christian clubs
are allowed free use of the public
address system and they are
allowed to post flyers and posters
around the building. I have been
handed several flyers encouraging
me to be "saved by Jesus" or to
attend a Christian punk rock show
where, it is rumored, bouncers prevent you from leaving until you
stand on stage and claim to have
been "saved."
Other attempts at proselytizing occur
when such religious clubs hold their
meeting in school lobbies, lunchrooms,
and hallways - venues not normally
used by other student clubs when
attending to their special interests.
What else is going on in and
at the public schools?
In 1998, in Montgomery, Alabama,
a bus driver told a boy to take part in
Bible readings on the way to school or
find another way to get there. In 1995,
the Magna Elementary School showed
the film "Where Jesus Walked," which
obviously included religious doctrine.
In New York, a teacher was recently dismissed for leading her sixth-grade
students in prayer and healing services.
She gave students who did not wish to
engage in this activity the option of
spending time on a classroom computer
instead, but her actions were nevertheless highly inappropriate.
In Dunn, North Carolina, Laurey
and Rick Wyble received harassing
phone calls were called communists,
and were driven from their home for
protesting sectarian Bible classes in
their son's public elementary school.
And here is some of the mail that I
receive from our young Atheists.
Peter H. writes, "My mother and
classmates have literally shunned me
for my Atheist beliefs and I won't give
up. I keep on saying you can't go poof
Summer 1999

and make a planet, but no one cares. I'll

never give up, but I could use a little
help."
From Ken H.: "There is a situation
at my son's PUBLIC school. He is in
first grade. His music teacher has the
kids singing songs regarding god. I visited the principal and complained, and
the principal seemed very concerned
and reassured me that it would be
looked into and that it would be
stopped. It hasn't. That was about six
months ago, and my son tells me that
the teacher also 'talks' about god. What
should be my next step?"
From John: "Hi, I have a question
regarding a teacher in my school. I am
an 18 year old senior in a small town in
the Bible belt of central Pennsylvania. I
am openly Atheist whenever it comes up
in conversation, or religious issues are
discussed. There is a 10th grade biology
teacher in my school that teaches creationism, and I was wondering if this is
illegal and how much trouble he could
get in, if any at all. He gives out worksheets, has a test I believe (I didn't have
them, I know students that did), etc. He
also teaches evolution, but openly discusses his opinion of it. He also fails to
teach genetics, which is a part of the
curriculum. (The other 10th grade biology teachers do teach it.) The teacher is
real nice, outgoing, friendly, and most
people around here agree with creationism, so no one has really complained. I
was wondering if you know the legal
facts about this teaching creationism in
my public high school. Thanks."
Another one: "Hi, I'm a seventeen
year old Atheist who lives in a conservative fundamentalist den in northern
Pennsylvania. I just found this website,
and I must say that it opened my eyes to
the extent of hypocrisy inherent in our
society. I go to a school where the fundamentalists are a veritable cult. I was
constantly harassed and told I was
damned by people I considered my
friends. It is refreshing to know that I
am not the [only] one who finds their
tactics both ridiculous and slightly
amusing. Thank-you for that."
The situation has gotten so out of
control in the public schools that on
August 21, 1998, I addressed the United
States Commission on Civil Rights and
urged them to do something. I told them
that in order for our children to be free
from religion in the schools and the
attendant harassment that comes with
it, some changes needed to be made in
America. The Establishment
Clause
American Atheist

does not protect Atheist's rights to be

free from religion - why? Because it can
be ignored. There are no penalties, save
a slap on the wrist from a court and a
cease and desist order, but the religious
just move on to the next town and the
next law to be ignored. They have the
political clout and the money to do it.
Since Congress has enacted laws,
with significant penalties, against sexual harassment - it needs to enact similar legislation, with penalties, protecting all students
against religious
harassment and discrimination in our
schools.
In addition, Atheists must be included as a protected group in the Federal
Civil Rights Act.
Atheist Parents
I think that it is the Atheist parents
and guardians who are going to make
these changes happen in America. Many
of you have had the luxury of hiding
your Atheism all your lives because it
didn't affect anyone but you. Today, we
have a generation of Atheist parents
like myself who refuse to stand by as
their children come up against religion.
When you mess with our children you
are asking for a fight. So I look to you to
protect our future
generation
of
Atheists. I have felt so strongly about
the needs of young Atheists that I chose
"Supporting Our Atheist Youth and
Families" as this year's theme. Over the
next two days, our speakers will help us
to better understand what our youth are
up against and what we can do about it.
. In the future American Atheists will
be expanding our outreach to our families. Later today you will hear from our
first Youth Outreach Director. In the
future we will publish books and articles for the family. There is a need for
this, and more and American Atheists
will be there, with you, to meet the challenge.
The Murray-O'Hair Family
I must take a few minutes to talk
about three people who were like family
to me. Of course, I am talking about the
Murray-O'Hairs.
So much has been
written about them, my dear friends, in
the past three years - mostly negative that I think that it is necessary to
remind ourselves of the people we knew
instead of who the press wants us to
think they were. I knew them for eighteen years before they disappeared.
Many of our new members are unfamiliar with who they were, other than the
Parsippany, New Jersey

fact that they disappeared with some

money. So I want to remind everyone
just who this first family of Atheism is.
Madalyn O'Hair's credentials are
given in many issues of Who's Who in
America, Who's Who in the World, Who's
Who in Religion, The World's Who's Who
of Women, The International Who's Who
of Intellectuals,
Dictionary of International Biography, International Who's
Who in Community Service, Notable
Americans, and in Personalities of the
South. Radcliffe College and Harvard
University placed her name in the
National Women's History Week in
March 1982.
Madalyn O'Hair has lectured at
every major university in the United
States over the past thirty years.
Madalyn O'Hair has served, as a wellknown Atheist, on the board of directors
of the ACLU of Hawaii, which group she
founded, and on the national board of
directors of the American Humanist
Association. She is an honorably discharged veteran of the Army of the
United States, having served as a commissioned officer in combat zones as a
cryptographic security analyst with the
Signal Corps, detached
from the
Women's Army Corps for special assignment,
at
the
Supreme
Allied
Headquarters
in Africa, Italy, and
France, the European
Theater
of
Operations in World War II during the
periods 1943-1946.
Madalyn-O'Hair,
her son Jon
Murray, and her daughter
Robin
Murray-O'Hair have been honored, by
invitation, to speak at Atheist meetings
in England,
France,
Switzerland,
Norway,
Germany,
Austria,
the
U.S.S.R., Iran, Italy, Australia, New
Zealand, India, and China, as well as
many universities in Canada.
Madalyn O'Hair founded the first
American Atheist Library and Archives
to collect, preserve, and utilize Atheist
history and publications. This library is
internationally known, with an extraordinary collection valued at $3 million.
Madalyn
O'Hair
founded
the
American Atheist Radio Series in 1980
as the first regularly scheduled Atheist
broadcasts ever to be made in the
United States. It was broadcast over
123 stations for a dozen years. She
founded the American Atheist Forum in
1980, the first regularly scheduled television broadcasts ever to be produced,
directed, and broadcast by Atheists.
Madalyn O'Hair founded the first
network of Atheist chapters ever estabSummer 1999

lished in the United States. She founded

the United World Atheists, which banded together Atheist groups in the world.
She also founded the system of WAM or
World Atheist Meets. American Atheist
conventions have had Atheist speakers
from England, Finland, West Germany,
Austria, India, Israel, Australia, and
New Zealand, so that American Atheists
could be educated as to what goes on in
the world with Atheism.
She founded the American Atheist
Press, which publishes Atheist books
and an Atheist magazine. She established a method of production of the first
audio and video cassettes of Atheist
materials ever produced in the world.
Madalyn O'Hair originated the
American Atheist annual conventions.
Would that she could be here for the
twenty-fifth! We must drink a toast to
her tomorrow night.
She promoted the celebration of
four natural holidays (Vernal Equinox,
Autumnal Equinox, Winter Solstice,
and Summer Solstice) in order to
emphasize that there are rhythmical,
natural events that transcend religious,
geographical, and national boundaries
and unite all humans under natural
laws. She aided in the origination of a
new Atheist symbol.
Besides the original Murray v
Curlett case, she has been involved in at
least thirty major suits having to do
with state/church separation, many of
which reached the US Supreme Court
level. Chief among those cases were
challenges to the payment of chaplains
with taxpayer funds in the federal
Congress,
and state constitutions'
impediments to Atheists holding elected
or
appointed
offices
in
Texas,
Mississippi, Arkansas, North Carolina,
South
Carolina,
Tennessee,
and
Pennsylvania.
She also began the
attempts to require public libraries to
receive and display Atheist literature; to
obtain tax exemption for Atheist educa- _
tional institutions; to obtain a classification for "Atheism" in the library systems
of the nation; to stop prayers in government at city, county, state, and federal
levels; to include Atheist symbols on
headstones in federal memorial cemeteries; to terminate
discrimination
against Atheists in employment; to stop
"oath taking" for witnesses, jurors, and
judges in courts or for government
employment; to stop "belief in god"
requirements
for passports; and to
enable Atheists to adopt children.

Page 11

It was difficult' for her to accomplish

what she, did, particularly in the early
years - as Jon Murray once related in
1986. He said, "As a woman she has
never, been fully accepted in the traditional male role of a cause organization
leader. It is indeed unfortunate that
Atheists, who pride themselves on their
liberal attitudes,
would allow the
specter of sexism to retard the progress
of their chief spokesperson, but such has
been the case." Jon continued, "Dr.
O'Hair always accepted that the Atheist
cause must live beyond the individual.
For this reason she has always emphasized the importance of an organization
of Atheists with a variety of spokespersons. Being familiar with the history of
previous Atheist groups, she knew that
all too often an organization died with
its founder. Wishing to avoid this pattern, she encouraged the formation and
growth of a sustaining trust fund for
American Atheists in the hopes that its
financial base would be secure regard-

Page 12

less of its leadership. But she also realized that there must be a continuation of
leadership.
With all that in mind, on April 19,
1986, at the members' banquet at the
Sixteenth Annual National Convention
of American Atheists, Dr. O'Hair
announced that she was stepping aside
from the presidency of American
Atheists and its affiliates. At the same
time, she introduced new leadership
which she hoped would, with its youth,
"lead American Atheists into the next
century."
That was the year that I was elected to the board of directors.
Madalyn O'Hair spent her adult life
working for the cause, and we all owe
her a debt of gratitude that we can
never repay. Let's not forget our friends,
for they are the reason that we are here
today.
If time permitted I would talk about
Jon Murray and Robin Murray-O'Hair
and all of their contributions and accom-

Summer 1999

plishments to the cause as well. But

make no mistake about it, whether it is
a member like Leslie Cook, or our leaders like the Murray-O'Hairs, I will not
stand by and allow the families or the
media to trash their memories. And I
would do the same for all of you because
we are family.
Finally, Herman Harris mailed me
this beautiful mug with Atheist pansies
on it, that he bought a long time ago to
give to Madalyn. He wants me to have it
since I am here and she is not. Well,
thank-you Herman that is very kind of
you; but I still think that I will see my
friends again. and I will continue to
think so until I have evidence to the contrary. So if it's all right with you
Herman, I will put it back into the box
and save it for her, so that you might,
hopefully, be able to give it to her yourself one day.
Thank-you.

American Atheist

Fighting the
Religious Reich
Pamela L. Sumners

This speech was presented at the 25th

National
Convention
of American
Atheists, in Piscataway, New Jersey.
Ms. Sumners is a constitutional attorney
who has been involved in some of the
most important state-church separation
cases in recent history. These included
the case involving Judge Roy Moore's
practice of opening jury assembly with
Christian prayer and displaying the Ten
Commandments
behind his dais, and
the case of Michael Chandler v Fob
James, et al., in which Alabama's fourth
school-prayer statute was struck down
as unconstitutional
and Alabama
Governor Fob James proclaimed that
the Bill of Rights does not apply to the
State of Alabama.
s advertised, I do come from the
sovereign state of Alabama. In
order to get my passport to be
here today, I had to promise the
Alabama secretary of state that I wouldnot meet with anybody who understands the constitution. So if you'd just

Parsippany, New Jersey

pretend to be the New Jersey clavern of

the school-prayer coalition, I'd be appreciative.
If you still associate Alabama with
what you remember from the 1960s,
there is a reason for that. Our license
plates still proclaim "Heart of Dixie,"
although to those of us in the trenches,
Alabama often feels more like the heart,
spleen, and entrails of Dixie. Lest you
think my metaphor strained, I do live in
a place where a federal judge has actually written an injunction forbidding
male employees of a chicken-processing
plant from simulating sex acts with
chicken parts in the workplace.
We are the land that time forgot.
We are the only state in the union
where a governor in the late 1990s
would threaten to call out the National
Guard, plus the Auburn and Alabama
football teams, to aid in defiance of a
lawful court order. Our governor did
just that, in the case involving "praying
judge" Roy Moore.
So in Alabama, we have our local
peculiarities. But Alabama is more than
mere local color. When you think of
what your communities would look like
if the Religious Reich succeeds in its
efforts to impeach federal judges who
don't tow its line, or what your community would be like with a school-prayer
amendment
to the United States
Constitution, think of the Alabama I
speak of today. Although Fob James is
no longer our governor, I should share
with you some things about him so that
you'll understand what happens when
the Religious Reich finds the kind of
willing chancellor it found in Governor
James.
So I'll share with you some littleknown facts about the governor against
whom I litigated these cases for four
years. Fob James' actual name is
Forrest H. James. Forrest, as in Nathan
Bedford, and Gump. Forrest H. James
Summer 1999

proclaimed in a school-prayer case in

1984, during a previous term as governor, that the bill of rights does not apply
to the states. The United States
Supreme Court begged to disagree in
the landmark Wallace v. Jaffree case.
Undeterred by the iron fist of precedent
that had roundhouse walloped him in
Jaffree, Forrest H. James proclaimed in
1997, in another school-prayer case,
that the bill of rights does not apply to
the states. (If at first you don't secede,
try, try again.) His legal argument did
not improve with age, but his petition to
the supreme court did contain some
unparalleled rhetorical gems. Among
them:
The court does not accept limitations on its own power, and has
become an engine of "cunning, ambitious and unprincipled" people.
The court has told lies about the
constitution from the bench.
Justice O'Connor legislates from
the bench on the basis of her "agnostic" beliefs.
The court, through its Roe v. Wade
decision, has taken the people,
"blindfolded and against their will,"
"forthrightly into hell."
Justice John Marshall was wrong
in his assumption that the justices
would have integrity and be honest;
instead, they are despots and selfpromoters.
The court has unconstitutionally
pursued its favored social agendas in
a "fraudulent" manner.
And - my favorite - the statement
that "other constitutional
officials
throughout government owe no deference to the decisions of this court."
Page 13

This last
statement
I have
denounced as treasonous, inasmuch as
it advocates subversion of an independent branch of government. Small wonder that Forrest Gump's petition was
reprinted on the web sites of militia
groups that likewise believe the courts
are illegitimate. Small wonder that the
Supreme Court dismissed the
petition without comment, proving that in fact life is not always
like a box of chocolates, that you
sometimes know exactly what
you will get. In his earlier musings on federal court jurisdiction,
the governor had described the
justices as lawless, constitutional prostitutes, unaccountable,
unelected, deceitful know-nothings - and vowed an appeal of his latest
school-prayer case to them.
Besides in his briefs, the first place
that Nathan Bedford Forrest Gump
J ames went to proclaim that the bill of
rights does not apply to the states and
that federal judges are out of control
was Scottsboro, Alabama. This was a
nice venue for the Guvnah, considering
that those words emanated from an
area historically known for Ku Klux
Klan activity, snake-handling, and of
course a shameful episode in American
history. Eight young black men would
have died in prison for a rape they did
not commit, tried by an all-white jury,
given a drunk for a lawyer - were it not
for the Bill of Rights and nine out-ofcontrol federal judges. Federal judges
had better be out of control - out of the
control of Alabama governors'.
But this behavior was par for the
course for a governor who, while he
cloaked himself in the mantle of religious piety, appointed but one African
American to his cabinet and refused to
fire an appointee who not only used the
N-word, but also used his office to audit
the tax returns of black members of the
legislature. The governor apparently
experienced no cognitive dissonance
between racist attitudes and his avowed
conservative Christian values.
While the governor was busily
referring to the jurisprudence of John C.
Calhoun in his speeches and court filings, complaining about unelected,
imperial federal judges and their manifest inferiority to state-court judges, he
was simultaneously threatening
the
impeachment of any state-court judge
who ruled against the "praying judge" in
the case then pending in the Alabama
supreme court. Again, the governor
experienced no cognitive dissonance.
Page 14

But what would we expect from a

man who, among his first acts of office,
ordered removal of garden statuary at
the governor's mansion because his wife
thought the Chinese Foo dogs were
"graven images"? The man who allowed
the Christian coalition a telephone line
that rang directly into the governor's

Forrest Gump's palliative for our

abysmal public schools was prayer and
a good butt-whipping. I don't know
about butt-whippings, but prayer we
have in abundance.
In Alabama, our public schools do
every day what the Supreme Court has
said they may not do since 1962. School
officials lead prayer, school officials designate students to lead
prayer. School officials blatantly
disregard any law concerning
establishment
of religion that
does not suit them. In the words
of one school superintendent,
"when the United States Court of
Appeals opens up a branch office
in Lawrence county, then I'll listen to what it has to say." Dekalb
county school board members tell the
local newspaper that those who don't
like school-sponsored prayer should go
back where they came from, because
this is a Christian nation.
Simply put, Forrest Gump had good
raw material to work with when he
undertook to whip up the kind of religious division that George Wallace once
whipped up with race. He created an
environment in which no one wanted to
be "out-prayered"
any more than
Wallace's rivals wanted to be "outsegged." And for his trouble, he became
the darling of the religious right,
attracting Ralph Reed to his reelection
campaign and gaining the endorsements of Focus On The Family, the
Christian Coalition, Eagle Forum, Jerry
Falwell, and D. James Kennedy. And he
had the support of self-designated, ordinary conservative Christians in a racebaiting, religion-baiting runoff for the
republican nomination.
Forrest Gump had good raw material to work with in the wiregrass of Pike
County, where a school principal told a
Jewish child named Paul Herring that
since his parents wouldn't save his soul,
she would, and he would be a Christian.
And from here, Paul Herring was told
that he could not wear his star of David
because it was a "gang symbol," and
from there, Paul Herring and his brother David were forbidden to wear religious clothing on the occasion of prime
minister Rabin's assassination. When
they did anyway, their schoolmates
played
"keep
away" with
their
yarmulkes, and David had to retrieve
his from the trash dumpster at day's
end.
A Pike County vice principal decided that Paul's punishment for disrupting class would be to write a two-page
American Atheist

Thus began the "big fat

sissy monkey" debate of
1998 - kind of a lowbrow
Scopes trial.
office? Governor James was memorably
photographed at a state school board
meeting imitating a monkey to dramatize his opposition to teaching evolution.
(This monkey business turned up in the
1998 reelection campaign, when his
challenger in a runoff observed, sensibly
enough, that a governor acting like a
monkey was an image problem for the
state. The governor responded that at
least he wasn't a fat monkey, and the
governor's wife then opined that at least
the- governor wasn't a "sissy monkey."
Thus began the "big fat sissy monkey"
debate of 1998 - kind of a lowbrow
Scopes trial.) Well, stupid is as stupid
does.
I tell you about our now-defunct
governor because, while he was colorful,
he is unique only in style, not in substance. He is the legacy of redneckism,
the very personification of the "my child
beat up your honor student" mentality.
Governor Gump is just a recent entry in
a procession of Alabama governors who
continued a campaign to keep our people civically and functionally illiterate.
My state has suffered forty years of governors who kept the "goober" in gubernatorial and whose combined efforts
recently earned Alabama the only Dgrade in the nation in a survey of state
governments. For most of the last forty
years, we have had George Wallace and
Fob James, with a brief intermission for
a Primitive Baptist preacher (and that's
a denomination, not a judgment) who
was thrown out of office after a felony
conviction. We can't even thank God for
Mississippi anymore. Forrest James'
legacy is merely a new veneer on the
same old bigotry and politics of distraction, using religion as a tool to divide
and divert us.
Summer 1999

essay on the topic, "Why Jesus loves

me." The school superintendent, seeking
to explain this act of petty oppression,
wrote to Paul's parents that the vice
principal had meant only "Why Jesus
loves me" "as a great prophet and
teacher."
A Pike County elementary school
teacher decided that Paul's class would
have a "Happy Birthday Jesus" party in
December, complete with cake and ice
cream, and that if Paul didn't want to
participate, he could stand in the hallway like a discipline case as the party
proceeded. Another teacher decided to
shove David's head down for an "in
Jesus' name" prayer at a school assembly. The school board explained that the
shoving was done gently, and that the
intent was only to make David show
respect and tolerance toward other religions, not to make him goose-step
toward the prevailing religious orthodoxy. A Pike County school principal
decided not to punish, even to the extent
of a lecture, the student who drew a
swastika on one of the Herring children's crayon boxes. A school official
later decided that all the Herring children could choose between being part of
campus assemblies
that
included
Christian prayers, or sit in study hall
with the other discipline cases.
A Pike County school principal
decided to devote an entire assembly to
a fundamentalist evangelist's message
that those who had not accepted Jesus
Christ were going to burn in hell. Sarah
Herring, then eleven years old, did leave
the assembly but was taunted by her
classmates for leaving.
The Pike County school board
decided that the Gideons should be
admittedto the classrooms to distribute
New Testaments. Sarah Herring was
offered the option of going to the hallway during the Gideons' presentation,
like the other discipline cases. Sarah did
go to the hallway, to classmates' taunts
that, being Jewish, she was too stupid to
be able to read the Bible anyway. But
even in the hallway, Sarah says, a
Gideon accosted her with a New
Testament, asking her what she was
afraid of.
Unpunished, undeterred, without
so much as a lecture on tolerance, the
Herring boys' schoolmates tried with
some regularity to beat the hell out of
them. Even when one perpetrator who
jumped David from behind confessed
that he tried to break David's arm
because he was Jewish, a principal who
Parsippany, New Jersey

regularly conducted disciplinary conferences with references to the Bible could

not summon the will to punish the
aggressor. Unpunished,
undeterred,
uneducated in the rudiments of tolerance, schoolmates regularly drew antiSemitic' graffiti and cartoons, crude
depictions
of the holocaust
and
swastikas, in the bathrooms, on paper
taped to the lockers, on the boys' book
bags and schoolbooks. Schoolmates
crept up behind the boys in the lunchroom to trace swastikas on their jackets.
Paul's schoolmates jumped him in the
bathroom on a day when he wore the
Star of David.
The children were routinely taunted with observations that could have
been manufactured by the anthropologist for the Klan: Jews only bathe once a
week, Jews smell different, Jews aren't
like us. A bus driver who could hear one
of the Herring children responding to
profane jibes with profanity of his own
seemed curiously unable to hear the
unrepeatable taunt that provoked the
response.
The children's parents complained
for five years of Pike County's promotion of the Christian religion in its
schools and of the harassment of the
children. In response to a final, frantic
letter of complaint from the parents
asking when "the open bigotry" would
end, the school superintendent wrote
back that he wanted to resolve the family's complaints "within the liberties
provided by our Lord." The family asked
a local lawyer for help, only to be told
that he didn't believe they had a case
"the good people of Troy, Alabama could
get behind."
The day I filed the lawsuit, not one
compassionate conservative Christian
member of the Pike County Bar
Association called to express concern.
Not one compassionate conservative
Christian minister in Pike County
called. Indeed, the first condemnation of
Pike County came from the unexpected
source of Fob James, who publicly stated that if one-tenth of what I wrote in
the complaint was true, it was intolerable. When the next day's headlines
blared that Fob James agreed with the
ACLU, he demanded a retraction.
Fob James understood that school
sponsorship of religious activity is
wrong in Pike County, while maintaining that it was fine in Dekalb county to
the north, without experiencing any
cognitive dissonance. But the constitutionality of a practice cannot depend on
Summer 1999

the religious affiliation of the complaining party; Jews do not have one Bill of
Rights and Baptists another. My clients
in Pike County understood very well
that their case was a constitutional case
first, and a "Jewish" case second. They
understood that they had everything in
common with a Baptist in Dekalb county, Michael Chandler, who didn't think
school officials should be sponsoring
religious activity and who challenged
the entire state government to stop it.
In 1993, the legislature obviously
thought that God needed a little shove
from the state, and Alabama enacted its
fourth school-prayer statute. The 1993
statute provided that school officials
must permit "voluntary, nonsectarian,
nonproselytizing,
student-initiated"
prayer at all compulsory and noncompulsory school events. The legislature
explained that it sought only to accommodate free-speech and free-exercise
rights to seize the school intercoms and
take advantage of captive classmates,
. and that it didn't mean to establish religion.
The school board of Dekalb county,
Alabama, decided that the statute
authorized practices identical to those
in Pike County - including teacher-led
prayers and devotionals in the 'Classroom. These practices were outlawed in
1963. Needless to say, as in Pike
County, all of the prayers were "in
Jesus' name, amen" prayers.
The faithful in Dekalb county are
earnest. On an occasion when Michael
Chandler, assistant principal at a high
school in Dekalb county and father of a
student in the school system, forbid
classroom access to the Gideons, they
stood on the sidewalk and hurled their
New Testaments through school-bus
windows, striking a child on the lip. On
those occasions when the Gideons did
commandeer the classrooms - which
was every other time they wanted to Hindu students and Jehovah's witnesses were invited to excuse themselves
into the hallway like other discipline
cases.
The Dekalb county school board
apparently decided that students would
be better off being excused from class for
baccalaureate practice than with enduring a math lesson. Bible club members
could be excused from class for religious
assemblies sponsored by the club, and
students who did not wish to attend
could report to study hall like the other
discipline cases. Evangelists could commandeer the captive student audience
Page 15

to denounce those who oppose schoolsponsored prayer as "the enemy," and to

discuss AIDS and abortion from a decidedly Christian fundamentalist perspective - all purportedly in the context of
a "drug awareness"
lecture.
But
Planned Parenthood was not invited to
darken the door. Evangelists used the
bully pulpit of a school assembly to
recruit students for revival meetings. A
teacher enclosed a flier advertising an
evangelistic crusade with students'
report cards.
When Michael Chandler
complained about teacher-led prayer in his
son's classroom, the principal looked
him square in the eye and said that he
wasn't worried about where he was
going after death, but Mr. Chandler
should be. Only after years of fruitless
complaining did Michael Chandler take
the school board to court.
And when he did, and won, and won
with female lead counsel against an
army of Religious Reich male lawyers,
all hell broke loose. Judge Ira De Ment
struck the school-prayer statute as
facially unconstitutional and reserved
ruling on the manner in which Dekalb
County had applied the statute. After
the statute was struck, for a period of
months, 175 of 200 students in the
lunchroom waited for Jesse Chandler to
enter and then, on the count of three,
recited the Lord's Prayer en masse. As
his father Michael Chandler says, "real
Christian."
Dekalb County, despite a written
agreement with me that was filed with
the court, continued to do everything it
had done before the lawsuit was filed.
Finally, seven months after the statute
was struck, with constitutional violations still heaping up and defiance in
the air, Dekalb County filed a motion
with the court asking how it should
answer a school principal who wondered
whether a federal judge had authority
over prayer in the public schools. Six
days later, Judge De Ment answered the
question with a 17-page injunction that
carefully laid out religious activities
that school officials may not sponsor
versus the rights students have to independently pray and proselytize. He
backed it up with 62 pages of factual
findings detailing violation after violation of decades of law.
The sky fell on Alabama. The shock
troops of the Religious Reich, at least
those not already conscripted, rushed
in, ostensibly to defend the free-speech
rights of schoolchildren - as if Pat
Page 16

Robertson cares. Forrest Gump promptly denounced Judge De Ment for his lack
of intestinal fortitude, shallow character, mean-spiritedness,
and judicial
activism. A congressman investigated
impeachment possibilities. Senator sessions denounced the ruling and began to
ask judicial nominees, "are you now, or
have you ever been, a member of the
ACLUT A state legislator threatened
that Judge De Ment could resign or be
impeached. Finally, D. James Kennedy
shopped Capitol Hill for a sponsor for
articles of impeachment.
Judge De Ment was lampooned
with a court jester award by the combined forces ofSchlafley and Bauer. The
governor rushed to sympathize withstudents who staged walk-outs in protest of
the injunction but neglected to return to
class, and offered to pray at any school
that invited him. In Dekalb county,
where citizens will not vote to increase
their taxes to fund their schools, bumper
stickers for God were printed and, in
one night, $15,000 was raised for the
school-prayer fight. Legislation was
introduced to force constitutional litigants to sue in state court in hopes of
fixing those pointy-head federal judges.
The attorney general hired the
ACLJ, founded by the Christian
Coalition, to appeal. The ACLJ promptly sought to collect a boatload of money,
sending out direct-mail pieces claiming
that Judge De Ment's injunction forbid
students from quietly reading their
Bibles in study hall. The ACLJ wrote a
brief claiming that the injunction forbid
parents in the bleachers from privately
praying for an injured football player
and forbid students from discussing
Mother Theresa. Despite express protections for student
(as opposed to
Gideons') distribution of religious materials, the ACLJ persisted in spreading
the delusion that the injunction forbid
students from handing out fliers for
their church youth group.
Only a knuckle-dragging
moron
could really believe the incredible constructions put on the injunction by the
Reich's distortionists, but my adversaries could not raise a dime to fight our
alleged cultural war if they told the
truth.
I simply cannot describe to you the
hysteria that descended upon the state
of Alabama in an election year when
Forrest Gump and his attorney general
needed to get reelected. The governor
issued what I call his "motel room manifesto" from Dothan, Alabama, in DeeSummer 1999

ember, implying that Grinch De Ment

had stolen Christmas, and students
could no longer sing Christmas carols at
assemblies. We dined on this particular
can of constitutional
who-hash for
weeks. From October 29 to January 29,
when the Birmingham abortion clinic
was bombed, the case of Chandler v.
James dominated the front and editorial pages of every major newspaper in
the state. Citizens could not believe that
it WIl.S unconstitutional to pray over the
intercom during class, because it had
always been done in Alabama schools. It
had been done for so long that we actually believed our constitutional violations were the law.
Naturally,
our leading aspiring
theocrat could not resist injecting himself into the proceedings. Enter "praying
judge" Roy Moore of Etowah county.
"Judge," you may know, is the state
judge who refused to surround his Ten
Commandments plaque, which literally
looms over the judicial bench, with other
historical documents so as to make his
display constitutional.
Judge also
invites Christian clergy to lead sectarian prayers while jurors are under summons in the courtroom.
In an attempt to explain why no
rabbi has ever offered the prayer, he
offered into evidence the church listings
from the yellow pages, proving that it's
hard to find a good synagogue when
you're dialing C for church. Judge, in
whose honor a rally on the capitol steps
was held, locally known as "Godstock
'97," at which the attorney general
declared that he became a lawyer to
stop the "un-American Civil Liberties
Union." Judge, who told the press that
no Muslim or Buddhist would ever offer
the prayer in "his" courtroom, because
they do not acknowledge God. Judge,
whose minions set up a web site offering
Ten Commandments plaques suitable
for hanging in any public building for
$149.95 and selling copies of that
inscrutable instrument known as his
legal brieffor $10. Judge, who as a guest
on the radio show of a Christian Identity
preacher stated that, from what little he
knew of the group's teachings, he agreed
with it. (These teachings include that
Jews are literally the spawn of a mating
between Eve and the serpent, and that
black people are subhuman "mud people." You may remember Christian
Identity from Centennial Park, from a
gay nightclub in Atlanta, and from the
abortion clinic in Birmingham. But I
will credit Judge Moore's protestation
American Atheist

that he knows little.) Judge, who says

that the ACLU is a "branch" of secular
humanism, as are Marxists, homosexuals, and atheists. It's a seamless web,
this vast left-wing cultural conspiracy.
Judge, for reasons clear only to
Judge, decided to enjoin the enforcement of Judge De Ment's injunction in
Etowah county, Alabama. Apparently,
Judge is ignorant of the supremacy
clause of the federal constitution, or he
merely likes to make page 1 of the New
York Times. Or, as befits Alabama
politicians, perhaps he is indifferent to
the supremacy clause. Following Judge
Moore's intrusion. into a case far
removed from his jurisdiction, his erstwhile spokesman let few days pass without calling for Judge De Ment's
impeachment, denouncing Judge De
Ment as my puppet, and generally insinuating that the judge was stupid, crazy,
corrupt, or all three.
It is tempting to tell you only these
war stories involving the Alabama crusades. In this way I keep my sense of
humor and avoid turning into the tiresome zealot or Grundy that is so prevalent in the ranks of my adversaries. But
if I did so I would far overstay my welcome without saying the one thing I
want most to say: That right-wing
adults have started these battles on the
backs of children. And in the course of
fighting the alleged ebb and creep of secular humanism, they have made some
children into outsiders in the only body
politic known to them: the schoolhouse.
And that is morally as well as constitutionally wrong.
And it would be wrong, it would dishonor my clients, if I did not tell you
that these families who dare to tell
school officials to take their grubby
mitts off their children's religious training have suffered. Mike chandler gets
an injunction, but he has been passed
over for promotion to principal four
times because of what a school board
member admitted was "this religion
thing." His wife Barbara goes into a
drug store where the family has
shopped for twenty-five years and sees a
school-prayer petition taped to the
counter. Barbara retired last spring
after twenty years of teaching Dekalb
county first graders
because the
ostracism at work was so palpable. The
Herring family gets a consent decree,
but Paul's mother is spit on in the parking lot at the mall and other parents
pull their daughters out of Sarah's
brownie troop.
Parsippany, New Jersey

These acts I have described are the

acts of self-professed
conservative
Christians. And I am not anti Christian
or anti-religious.
I am in fact a
Christian who simply does not believe
that God needs a state-sponsored amplification device to get his point across. I
simply rebel against those among my
brethren
who have forgotten that
Baptists
once paid taxes to the
Episcopalians in this country. I simply
believe that no one except the inquisitors
ever
expects
the
Spanish
Inquisition, and that the human race
need only be taught once that the marriage of altar and throne degrades the
altar and destroys the throne. Yet we
replay the Inquisition all over our globe.
And in the state of Alabama, I am
regarded as a radical when I have stood
only for the founders' intent that
America not relive the days of Europe's
religious persecutions, when I know of
no more conservative principle than
telling the government what it may not
do to its citizens in matters of conscience.
But we now live in a culture in
which self-appointed moral censors
push an agenda of state-enforced solicitude for other people's souls and moral
choices. I know, because I live in
Alabama, that it is a small step from
"compassionate conservatism" or "conservative Christianity" closely identified
with government to full-fledged repression of those who are different from the
compassionate conservative.
The self-parodying Fob James has
ridden off into the sunset, taking my
best comic material with him. But he
left us with his Trojan horse, the attorney general he appointed, this man
hires the legal arm of the Christian
coalition to defend school prayer, busts
Barnes & Noble for pornography that
his office procured from the store,
thinks it's his business whether four
women in Huntsville buy vibrators,
thinks the Ten Commandments plaque
is just interior decorating, defends laws
that exclude gays from legal protections
in a state in which a gay man's funeral
pyre is a bunch of old tires on which his
lynchers placed him, who wants to
appoint anti-abortion lawyers to represent fetuses whenever a girl applies for
a judge's permission to have an abortion. And this man has perpetrated a
great fraud on us, with the complicity of
a largely sleepy press that has allowed
him to sculpt his own image: They
naively took his word for it that he was
Summer 1999

a moderate when his sole tendency

toward moderation is not being Fob.
And that, my friends, is exemplary
of the Big Lie that far-right propagandists push so well - they're not religious
bigots, they're just free-expression advocates; they're not proselytizing in the
schoolhouse door, they're just resisting
hostility toward religion; they're not
self-righteous Grundies and busybodies,
they're just concerned about a culture of
relativism; they're not gay bashers,
they're just "family values" advocates;
they're not against human rights,
they're just for surging into local communities that have human rights laws
to defend "home rule" (because after all,
Alaskans and Hawaiians can't know
what's best for themselves without guidance); they don't hate the sinner, only
the sin; they're not advocating violence
when they speak of staff at abortion
clinics as accomplices to murder, they're
just defending the unborn; they're not
anti-black, anti-woman, any-anything,
they're just against "special rights";
they don't despise the rule of law, just
"activist" judges - meaning the judges
who resist them.
I don't believe them. I believe the
only difference between Fob James and
our attorney general is if you'd rather
listen to Pat Robertson or Ralph Reed.
It's the same scary message, just played
at a different volume. And that message, that Big Lie, is being played to a
wider audience than Alabama.
The Religious Reich is constitutionally illiterate, so it spreads the myth
that the First Amendment is a tool of
majority rule. We Alabamians know all
about majority rule; forty years ago we
flapped our gums about it while denying
black people the vote. I was born about
the time that Bull Connor unleashed
the dogs of his war on civil rights in the
city where he did it, so trust me when I
tell you: bigotry by a whole lot of people
is still bigotry.
So finally, to all those wearers of
"what would Jesus do" bracelets, I have
the answer to that question. He would
follow his own counsel of not praying on
street corners like the hypocrites who
love to be seen of men, and he would
overturn the tables of all those moneychangers in the temple raking in directmail dollars with their lies and their distorted gospel of intolerance.

Page 17

The Dangers

of
Private School Vouchers
Dolores T. Corona

This speech was presented at the 25th

National Convention of American Atheists, in Piscataway, New Jersey. Since
1985, Ms. Corona has been Director of
Government
Relations
for the New
Jersey Educational Association, her academic background being in the fields of
mathematics and education. She is a
member of the National Association of
Legislative and Political Specialists for
Education,
and the National
Staff
Association of Education Associations.
She has served as Chair of the Subcommittee of Legislative Juvenile Justice
Task Force, and is active in the Women's
Political Caucus.

t'snice to see all of you. I don't know

if you read the Star Ledger this
morning, but your picture is in there
with a nice article about the convention
that you're having. So I had an opportunity to read all about you before I came
this morning. Thanks again. Let me
thank you also for being a part of the
Community
Advocates
for Public
Education. I'm going to speak a little bit
about that, but I wanted to extend my
thanks to you before I went into my

Page 18

remarks. You know, I do a lot of public

speaking, but I always get a little apprehensive about microphones. I think I
have a fetish about that, because so
often when I get up to a microphone the
mike is not working or it's static. Just
last week, let me share a story with you,
just last week I was speaking, and sure
enough something went wrong with the
microphone and so I saw this gentleman
with overalls coming up with a screw
driver. The host of the evening just kind
of pushed me aside and this gentleman
started to fool around with the microphone, and then he looked at the audience and he said "ladies and gentlemen
I think there's a screw missing in our
speaker." So you can understand why I
get a little apprehensive when I look at
a microphone.
Let me tell you what I'm going to do
this morning. I'm going to talk a few
minutes about the background of private school vouchers in New Jersey and
what happened here. But I also want to
share with you what I think the motivation of private school voucher proponents really is, and I would like to give
you statements about why we think private school vouchers are so offensive to
our children and to public education.
And I also would like to take a look at
what public schools are doing today.
And then of course if there's time, and I
hope there will be, that we'll talk with
you and maybe you may have questions
you would like to ask of me.
Let me start by not being coy and
saying right off the bat why we think
private school vouchers are bad. Let me
tell why the NJEA, 155,000 of our members, and 2.4 million members of the
National Education Association believe
that private school vouchers are bad;
but first let me tell you what we stand
for.
We do stand for rigorous standards
for children in public schools. You know
Summer 1999

there's a movement across this nation

for what we called Core Curriculum
Content Standards for our schools, and
we want that. We want high standards
for children and we want high standards for teachers too. In New Jersey as
across the nation, you're seeing a movement toward a mandated professional
development program for teachers, and
just last year that was approved in New
Jersey. We're going to see in the next
year teachers being compelled to have
mandated professional development so
they keep up with their profession over
the years. And we supported that. And
we will work very closely to provide a lot
of programs for teachers so that they
keep up with the trends. We also are
very much for parental involvement in
education. We think that's been one of
the problems. That some of our parents
have turned their backs on their children, and we need to get meaningful
parental involvement in public education. We also need to make sure that we
keep providing the resources for public
education - and not just for regular education. We have children with special
needs, we have special-education children. We have gifted and talented children. We have bilingual children. You
know and I know that you can walk into
a classroom in New Jersey and you can
hear fifteen different languages in that
one classroom. We've got to provide for
those children. So we have to have
enough resources so that we can pay
attention to the needs of these children.
Research has shown that small
classes really make the difference. We
cannot continue to have thirty and thirty-five children in a classroom and
expect teachers to look at the individual
needs of those children and be able to
respond to those needs. So we've got to
be able to look at smaller class size, and
we support that. And we're seeing in
NJ, and we're seeing across the nation
American Atheist

at least a movement toward that.

Because of the dollars now that are
going into our urban districts, we're
going to see some reasonable class sizes
- particularly for those early grades.
When you're teaching kindergarten, and
first grade, and second grade you can't
have twenty-five or thirty kids in those
classrooms. And now we'll be looking at
numbers like fifteen - very reasonable.
The other thing, is we need safe
school buildings. We certainly need
modern technology in those buildings.
We have seen across this nation, and
right here in New Jersey, buildings that
are a hundred years old. We can't allow
our children to continue to go to buildings like that - especially in this modern
age of technology. Certainly, President

ing dollars to other institutions and not

the public schools.
So let me look at the background in
New Jersey. Back in March of 1994, we
held the first meeting of what we called
Community
Advocates
for Public
Education (CAPE ), which I will refer to.
That meeting occurred because there
was a threat to public education here in
New Jersey. Many organizations, fortytwo of them, came together - organizations that you recognize: certainly the
education groups, American Atheists,
the ACLU. We had parent groups, we
had NOW, we had NJ Citizen Action,
People for the American Way. It was
certainly a meaningful group of organizations, and we formed what I call
CAPE.

is that it was one-sided, and we had to

make sure that we were going to counter
Mayor Bret Schundler's arguments for
private-school vouchers.
And so CAPE held all kinds of
forums - public forums. We had editorial board meetings and, by the way, we
did gain support from some major newspapers in this state: the Bergen Record,
the Asbury Park Press. We held all
kinds of meetings. In fact we had a rally
in Jersey City. As a result, attempts at
getting private school voucher legislation introduced in the legislature failed.
The Governor formed a commission to
look into private school vouchers, and
she made the chair of that commission a
very highly respected former governor,
Tom King, who is an education leader.

What might be a problem is all these private agendas that are designed
to shift dollars from those public schools ... and shift those dollars into
private schools and religious schools. They want ... to dismantle the
public education system.
Clinton has put forth modernization
bills for school modernization. Our own
senator in this state has sponsored a
school modernization proposal, at the
federal level, to put dollars into the
states so that they can build buildings.
Here in New Jersey, our governor will
be coming forth with a piece of legislation in the next month that will talk
about some dollars for rehabilitation of
our schools - and certainly for new construction.
So, we're a little optimistic about
that. Those are the things that we stand
for.
Let me get to what I think some of
the problems are, all right? Now, while I
laid out all of those issues, some people
may look at me and say that's unattainable, I don't believe that. I don't believe
that the things that I have mentioned
are unattainable for our children. What
might be a problem is all these private
agendas that are designed to shift dollars from those public schools so we can
do that, and shift those dollars into private schools and religious schools. They
want, certainly many of them, to dismantle the public education system. So
we have to get this agenda going in the
right direction and not divert our intention from improving public education.
What we must do is take a serious look
at these private agendas that are shiftParsippany, New Jersey

Here in New Jersey the threat to

public education was private-school
vouchers. The reason why that' was a
threat was because it became a campaign issue in Governor Whitman's
campaign. She was pushing privateschool vouchers. She was doing so
because she made a commitment to the
mayor of Jersey City, Bret Schundler.
Bret Schundler is an avid advocate of
private-school vouchers and He had dollars behind him here in New Jersey
from the Christian Coalition, the CATO
Institute, and the Heritage Foundation.
He had dollars backing him, and so he
was the leading advocate and he got the
governor to put forth the concept of private-school vouchers in her campaign.
That scared the heck out of us. And
that's why we have worked to help to
form that CAPE coalition. He was saying, and he was playing it very smart,
"Let me try an experiment in Jersey
City."
What was happening, and what we
saw, was the legislators who were really
. against private-school vouchers were
beginning to be seduced by that. We
were hearing legislators saying "well
maybe an experiment would be OK.
Let's see what happens in Jersey City."
And that was making us very very
apprehensive. It was starting to become
a public issue. And what was happening
Summer 1999

And it just so happened that about ten

or twelve of those fourteen or fifteen
commission members were opponents of
private-school vouchers. But that commission came out with a report that supported the school vouchers. However,
because we had done such a good job in
the state with the legislature, the legislature paid little attention to that
report; and to this day I can say to you
that this current legislature in New
Jersey is not going to look at privateschool vouchers. The leaders of both
houses, assemblyman Jack Collins and
President Don Di Francesco, are not private-school voucher supporters, and
we're safe for the time being. But let us
not rest; let me go on and talk about
what the supporters of private school
vouchers are saying.
Many supporters of private school
vouchers, I believe are not really interested in school reform. I think many of
them are committed to breaking down
the constitutional
barrier between
church and state. I think that's the
motivation of many. I think others have
a nearly obsessive belief in the virtues of
privatization. There are those who just
want to privatize everything. They want
things to go out to the market place, and
therefore they see that that's a way to
get privatization - through privateschool vouchers. Others believe - and
Page 19

make no mistake ~bout this - others

believe that we should dismantle the
public education system. They want it
destroyed in favor of a more strict choice
program which I believe will lead certainly to a more elitist type of program.
And, in many other cases of privateschool proponents, the motivation is not
educational, it's more ideological.
For a number of years now privateschool voucher proponents have been
saying that private schools do a better
job of educating children than public
schools. They claim that private school
students receive an education which is
superior to that of children that attend
public schools. They also maintain that
private schools better meet the needs of
minority and disadvantaged children.
Let me say this to you: there is little or
no supporting evidence for any of those
claims. The evidence for private school
superiority is extremely slim. Research
has consistently shown that these differences between private and public
schools are insignificant and are primarily a function of the differences in
the students' backgrounds and family
characteristics. Make no mistake about
this: the strongest predictor of student
academic success is family structure including parents' level of education and
family income.
Another case that the proponents of
private school vouchers put forth: they
say that entrepreneurs will rush in and
create all of these wonderful, innovative, creative schools, and that competition, competition, will make the public
schools do better. Contrary to what
those advocates say, again, there is little evidence that free-market competition is going to make public schools
improve. Let me say this: education is a
public good, it's not a consumable private good. Children and education
should not be subjected to market theories. We're not talking about a bottomline profit here, we're talking about children who have special needs. We should
not be viewing our children's education
with an attitude of market-place theory.
In fact, I believe that if we were to
do that, what we would be doing is exacerbating fragmentation of education.
And when I say fragmentation, I mean
fragmentation
along racial, ethnic,
class, and cultural lines. I don't know
how you avoid that if we go to a marketplace education for our children.
Government must have the capacity to
intervene and insure that public goals
are kept in the forefront - just as they
Page 20

did years ago in the matter of racial segregation.

Let's look closely now at why we
think private school vouchers should be
opposed. Private school vouchers are
costly. Yet you have some people saying
"Oh no, we'll save a lot of money if we go
to private-school vouchers." That's not
true. Vouchers would drain funds from
the public schools, and we would have
two systems. We would still have to support the public schools and we would
have give dollars to private-school
attendees. And just providing vouchers
for those kids who are already in private
schools would be very costly. Let me give
you an idea of what I'm talking about.
In California - luckily they opposed
a state voucher system - the proposed
voucher scheme would have cost two billion dollars even before the first child
changed schools. Because there were
children already in the private schools
and before you did anything you had to
make sure you gave those kids a private
school voucher. In Colorado - again they
were defeated on the ballot - that would
have cost 350 million dollars before any
kid changed school. And here in New
Jersey, if we gave just a one-thousanddollar voucher we would be talking
about 200 million dollars before any kid
changed from a public school to a private school. That's just for those kids
who are already in private schools.
Looking nationally at this, and looking
at a $3500 voucher, we would be talking
about over twenty billion dollars before
any kid changed from a public school to
a private school. And if you add transportation and all of that, which we give
to our public school kids, we're talking
fifty billion dollars. Private-school
vouchers are costly.
Private-school voucher proponents
argue that there's a choice that you as a
parent would have, a wonderful choice,
if we went to private school vouchers.
That's not so, because vouchers don't
mean choice to the parent, they mean
choice to the private school. Those private schools are not under the same regulations as public schools, so those private schools could say "I don't want you,
you're not of my religion. You're not of
my ethnic group; you're not intelligent
enough, You're disabled, and I don't
want to take disabled kids." So the
choice would not be left to the parent,
the choice would be left to the private
school. Remember, they have a limited
amount of vacancies; there are not going
to be enough spots in those private
Summer 1999

schools. In short, those private schools

would do what we call "cherry picking."
Or creaming, creaming the best kids
from the public schools.
The truth of the matter is, I don't
think we could give a voucher that
would cover the cost for poor families.
What if you gave a $3000, or a $3500
private school voucher to a poor family?
You still have to worry about transportation and all of those things. So
what would happen? These private
schools would raise their tuition. And
these kids still wouldn't get into a private school. So you're not really helping
the poor kids, you're not helping them at
all. You're again helping those that have
more dollars than our poor kids.
Besides,
private
schools are not
equipped to teach all types of students.
A federal survey showed only 30 % of
the private schools offered programs for
disabled children. Only 10% offered any
vocational or technical programs, and
less than 60% offered remedial programs for our children. Public schools
have to do all of that. They can't turn
kids away, they've got to accept every
kid. You know, it may be true that
vouchers may allow some students to
escape schools in crisis. But they'll do
nothing to provide quality education for
all kids. And schools losing their
strongest students and their most active
parents to private schools will be
drained not only of desperately needed
funds, but also of important human
resources.
I don't know if some of you recognize the name of Linda Darling
Hammond, who is an educator at
Columbia University. She noted that
vouchers would be making "an adjustment in the allocation of educational
opportunity for a very small number of
children and still condemning a large
number of children to poorly funded
inadequate schools." She called vouchers "a smoke screen to avoid tackling
the real equity issues in education."
Let me get to another reason why
we oppose vouchers, which has great
significance for you. The US Constitution's church-state
separation provisions prohibit government from subsidizing sectarian education either directly
or indirectly. As a result, federal and
state courts have repeatedly struck
down schemes designed to put tax dollars into religious schools. We've seen
some of those in Puerto Rico, Ohio,
Pennsylvania, Vermont, and Maine.

American Atheist

Sectarian
schools by the way
Court upholding the constitutionality of
And now to my second point. For
account for 85% of the private schools in
a program in Milwaukee that provides
those people who talk about choice: peothe United States. Private schools are
ple do have a choice in quality educaprivate-school vouchers to both private
mostly religious schools. Among the
and religious schools. Now, for its not
tion. We're looking at what we call magadvantages that private schools curtaking that case, Milwaukee is expandnet schools. In some districts we are
rently have, including selective admisputting out magnet schools which are
ing its program, and it is going to prosion policies, are a smaller bureaucracy
sort oflike theme schools. Montclair has
vide private-school vouchers to religious
and lower salaries for teachers. But
had theme schools and magnet schools
schools. They could have as many as
even if you went with a private-school
15,000 children in their private-school
for a long time. Patterson now is going
voucher program, what might happen voucher program. That was not a good
to set up five academies. We've see
I don't understand
alternative
educawhy private schools
tion. We've seen techLooking nationally at this, we would be talking about nical schools for our
would want this program - is that after a
children. There is
over twenty billion dollars before any kid changed
while, you know what
some voluntary interhappens when govdistrict choice. A coufrom a public school to a private school. And if you
ernment starts givingple of districts are
add transportation and all of that, which we give to
money: all of a sudgetting together and
den they start regusaying. "Look let us
our public school kids, we're talking fifty billion
lating.
And
who
talk about an interdollars. Private-school vouchers are costly.
knows? Our private
district choice proschools may, in due
gram." We see now
time, be under the
schools collaborating
same regulations as public schools. And
court decision for the opponents of priwith colleges. We had Montclair College
you know what? They'll have the same
defmitely working with some of our
vate-school vouchers. What we're also
problems that public schools have. John
seeing - not only because of that case,
school systems and our students are
Scott, who was a senator in the state of
going between the college and the high
but because these proponents are makNew Jersey, was a strict Roman
school. So we're seeing progress, and I
ing some inroads doing it state-by-state
Catholic. He was reared in the Catholic
- are voucher plans now popping up in
think we can continue to see more choice
schools and he sends his children to
for our students - and polls are showing
states like Texas, Arizona, and Florida.
Catholic schools - yet he was a leading
You heard Mayor Juliani in New York
this: When parents are asked about
talking about private-school vouchers;
opponent of private-school vouchers. His
whether they want to go to privateconcern was that he didn't want any
school vouchers, what we're finding is
and while it's quiet now, I'm not so sure
that it's going to be quiet for long. New
regulations for the Catholic schools and
that they don't mind putting more dollars into schools. What they're saying is
Mexico is looking at private-school
he was fearful that if money went into
the Catholic schools, that's precisely
vouchers, so is Pennsylvania. We have
that they would rather use those dollars
what government would do. So he was
to reform the current public education
to be on our guard. We cannot say
there's nothing happening. We've got to
one of our advocates and helped the
system, rather than starting another
keep fighting private school vouchers.
CAPE coalition to oppose private-school
system like private school vouchers,
And finally, let me close by putting
vouchers.
charter schools, etc., etc. So I think we
forth two further arguments and quotThe religious right and the broader
have to listen to those folks
And let me wind up by quoting from
ing our own secretary of education,
conservative movement are the impetus
Secretary Riley as I mentioned. Here's
Richard Riley. Let me say this to you,
behind private-school vouchers and
what he says, what I've been trying to
US education is improving. There's an
they're also the impetus for demanding
increase in students taking math,
choice in public education. They have
say to you today.
"Herein lies the power of the
physics, chemistry, biology; there's an
been funneling a great deal of money
into many groups who are fighting for
American system of education. It is
increase in what we call advancedplacement courses. There are long-term
private-school vouchers. In fact they
truly poetic. The common school, the
had a strategy, a while back, that they
concept upon which our public school
improvements in student achievement
system was built, teaches children
in math and science. Dropout rates have
would go to the federal level and they
would fight for private school vouchers
important lessons about both the comdecreased since 1982 by 25% for
monalty and the diversity of American
Caucasian students and by 34% for our
thinking that they could get a bill
minority students. And we have some
through the congress that would allow
culture. These questions are conveyed,
not only through what is taught in the
real success stories in education reform.
private school vouchers. They were not
classroom but by the very experience of
Not only here in New Jersey, we've seen
successful at that. And so their strategy
attending school with a diverse mix of
has changed and what they're doing
them across this nation in places like
students. The common school has made
Cincinnati and Memphis, San Antonio,
now is taking it on a state-by-state
quality public education and hard work
Kentucky, and Chicago. In New York's
basis. And let me say this to you: I'm
the open door to American success and
Harlem area we see a wonderful educaconcerned, because I believe that they
good citizenship, and the American way
tion reform program. We do what works;
are making some inroads.
public schools work. And we need to proVoucher supporters got a boost last
of achievement and freedom."
vide our schools with the kind of reform
November when the US Supreme Court
that will make them better.
let stand a ruling by Wisconsin's High
Parsippany, New Jersey

Summer 1999

Page 21

Helping Children Deal with Unfairness in the World

How not to take a bad situation and make it worse!
Catharine Maclaren
I

et aside specific time to talk with

your child or children about
being different in the area of religion. Have they had any problems? I
work with adults who didn't celebrate any religious holidays in their
homes when they were children and
are furious - not because of that, but
because the reasons were never
explained to them and they felt very
different and isolated.
II
ry not to label the problematic
peers, adults, or teachers -as
'jerks'. You can rate their behavior,
but you want to separate people
from their behavior and traits.
What I mean by that is that we as
individuals are made up of a million
different things we say or do, and no
one of them defines you or me
entirely as a person. If you want to
promote self-acceptance in your
child, you have to emphasize that
people are not their acts. Nor are
they entirely the things that people
call them. I hear parents all the
time say 'Good girl' or 'Bad girl' and
I cringe because what they're really
saying is that there are behaviors
that can define them as entirely
good or entirely bad. Praise or punish the behavior, not the entire person.

T
Ms. MacLaren (M.S.W., CEAP) is a
Fellow with the Albert Ellis
Institute For Rational Emotive
Behavior Therapy in New York,
where she is Training Coordinator
and Staff Therapist. She has worked
extensively with families and adolescents in crisis. She is also the
coauthor, with Dr. Albert Ellis, of
the manual Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy: A Therapist's Guide
(1998).

Ms. MacLaren's lecture was actually

a detailed expansion of ten basic
points. In lieu of reprinting her
entire lecture, we offer her succinct
summary of those basic points.

Page 22

III
llow your children to express
.
their experiences in a 'safe'
environment by maintaining and
practicing emotional self-management (see sidebar). Many children
may not want to upset their parents
(especially if they have experienced
extremely negative reactions before

Summer 1999

from them) so they will keep information to themselves. This can lead
to their feeling isolated and even
worse.
IV
ry not to jump in and rescue
them unless they ask or you
check it out with them first. I have
seen more children alienated by
well-intentioned parents over the
years. I know that it's difficult to not
to take matters into your own hands
and help (maybe by going into the
school or calling another child's parents) but SOMETIMES you'll be
providing more help and support by
allowing your child to handle it.

elling your child just to ignore

his or her tormentors is not an
elegant solution unless you address
the emotional and psychological
components. It may work to extinguish the behavior or sometimes it
may exacerbate it - but either way
you'll want to make sure that your
child hasn't internalized any messages like, 'There's something
wrong with me for being different'.
VI
elp your child to de-catastrophize actual or future situations. Kids and teens can be very
all-or-none in their thinking (actually adults can be too). No matter
what, it is usually not the end of the
world and it's probably not the
worst possible thing that could ever
happen to you.

VII
emind your children over and
over again that "no one can
make them feel inferior without

American Atheist

their consent" (Eleanor Roosevelt)

and the old saying - "sticks and
stones may break my bones, but
names can never hurt me {unless I
let them) ...."

EMOTIONAL SELF-MANAGEMENT

VIII
elp your child, depending on
his or her age, to develop an
emotional vocabulary. I've had
forty-year old clients come in,
describe a situation, and then say
they felt 'bad'. When I ask them to
define bad they don't know what I
mean. Well, is it bad-anxious, baddepressed, bad-angry? It is important in that it gives you more information to be able to help them. It's
also true that when children can
verbalize their upset, they have a
greater chance of being able to
process and reconcile it.

IX
ckowledge to your child that
.l"l.he/she may be singled out not
only for having Atheist views but
for other things and practice handling actual or possible situations
with your child. What if this happened? What could you tell yourself? What could you do? Some parents worry that they'll needlessly
upset their child, so they avoid
doing it and hope for the best. If you
approach it in a problem-solving
way, then it will also normalize it
for them if it does happen; and if it
doesn't then they will be able to use
the skills of emotional self-management in other unfair situations.

Ten Ways to Help your Child

Deal with Unfair Behavior

ccept your own limitations as a

parent - there is only so much
you can do. The best thing you can
do is provide a solid base that your
child has an opportunity to model
and internalize and, ultimately,
take into the world.

Parsippany, New Jersey

Summer 1999

Page 23

WHY IS RELIGIOSITY
SO HARD TO CURE?
by Frank R. Zindler
This lecture was presented at
the 25th National Convention of
American Atheists in Piscataway,
NJ, on Friday, April 2.
Mr. Zindler for twenty years
was a teacher and professor of biology, psychobiology,
and geology.
Currently he works as a linguist
and editor of biochemical literature
for a scientific publishing society in
Ohio. Long a columnist and contributor to the American Atheist
magazine, he has served as editor of
American Atheist Press since the
yet-unexplained
1995 disappearance of Robin Murray-O'Hair, the
previous editor.

A:n

we are gathered here today in

pursuit of reason and the ratioal understanding of our world,
our world once again is in the throes of
a most un-reasonable activity - war. For
as far back as we have records, our kind
has resorted to large-scale violence with
such alarming regularity that one might
think that warfare is a species-specific
characteristic of Homo sapiens. As is the
case with practically every war our kind
has fought in the past, the Balkan War
with which we presently are concerned
is deeply entangled in religious disputes. While not too many wars of the
past have involved the three-way odium
theologicum seen in the present war with
Sunni
Muslims,
Orthodox
Catholics, and Roman Catholics mutually anathematizing and killing each
other - it is no exaggeration to say that
the vast majority of the wars of the past
were justified and validated by religion,
if not outright provoked by it. It is nearly impossible to wage war without the
approval of the pet gods of the belligerents.
Page 24

If religion is so central to the successful waging of war - it hardly seems

to be a debatable point - it would seem
obvious that if we were to eliminate religion we would remove the emotional
and "moral" impetus for war. While it
would be unrealistic to suppose that
that would eliminate war altogether, it
would certainly make war much harder
to initiate and maintain. Peace would
become the norm of human existence,
not the exception. Without the talismanic Gott mit uns on our belt buckles,
we would have to think twice before
marching off to fight the benighted infidels. (Actually, the twice is not the
important part here: that we would
have to think at all is the novelty.)
Shortly after I had become an
Atheist, at the ripe old age of eighteen, I
discovered the religious roots of war and
I thought I could do something about
it. * I would become the successor to
Mahatma Gandhi. I would succeed in
bringing peace to the world - by eradicating religion. Without a doubt, I
would win the Nobel Peace Prize.
Summer 1999

Toward that noblelN obel end, I set

out to prepare myself. I studied everything that seemed relevant to the task
of slaying the dragon of superstition. I
studied dead languages in which scriptures had been written, and I studied all
the science from astronomy to zoology
alphabetically and from particle physics
to psychology conceptually. I was out to
get the goods on religion. I would learn
to detect every lie, deceit, and fraud perpetrated by religion. I would learn how
the world's scriptures had been concocted. I would identify the flaws in religious logic (or whatever that passes for
it), and I would master all the "proofs" of
the existence of gods and refute them. I
sought to demolish the logical and evidentiary
foundations
of religion.
Certainly, after accomplishing that,
religion should crumble and disappear.
After several years I completed
most of my course of study and went out
to save the world by converting everyone to Atheism. While I did have considerable success and made a good many
converts, I ran into problems. I found
scientists who accepted evolution and
most of the rest of science, but were
deeply impressed by the "evidence" for
biblical prophecy. I found biblical scholars who harbored no illusions about the
Bible being "inspired,"
but were

* I realized that because external validation

such as is available to settle scientific disputes is
unavailable for use in religious disputes, religion
must inevitably lead to violence. When two scientists argue about a point, they do not have to
fight. They can appeal to nature itself - in the
field or laboratory - to decide which of them is
correct. When religionists quarrel over the
demographics of heaven, however, there is no
external authority to which they can appeal.
Having neither reason nor evidence, they can
only try to force each other to yield to their assertions. The more ridiculous the idea being
advanced, the greater the amount of force that
will be required to establish it in the hostile
world of reality.
American Atheist

impressed by arguments of certain creationists and felt a god was needed to

create rainbows, roses, and motherly
love.
To some extent, such problems were
successfully overcome by the obvious
procedures: teaching some basic evolutionary biology to Bible scholars and
explaining the evolutionary history of
the scriptures and the completely
human dimensions of "prophecy" to scientists. Yet many people remained
unconvinced by my best efforts. There
was nothing I could explain or demonstrate that would make them abandon
their religious illusions or delusions.
Why don't they give up?
Why doesn't everyone give up religion when you present all the logic and
evidence - utterly conclusive evidence against it? Why do many people remain
unconvinced after all your argumentational ICBMs have exploded every
citadel of myth?
One might naturally suppose that
low intelligence is the main cause of
religiosity. After all, thinking is so much
harder than believing - hence the great
preponderance of believers over thinkers in all ages and cultures. But what
can one say when members of that small
coterie we identify as thinkers are also
believers? Low intelligence is not necessarily the problem.
Consider a recent experience I had
on the Internet. One morning I received
an extremely insulting e-mail message
from a creationist who had read something that I had written about creationism on the American Atheists Webpage. A months-long exchange of messages ensued in which we argued creation versus evolution at every level of
evidence imaginable. To the end, the
man remained steadfast in his belief
that the universe is only several thousand years old and that I was a professional deceiver.
It turned out that my anonymous
antagonist holds a Ph.D. in biochemistry from Boston University and is
engaged in very sophisticated biochemical research of great relevance to cancer
studies and other areas of medicine.
Why could such an obviously intelligent
person not be made to see something so
obvious as the great antiquity of the
earth? There was a clue.
Early on in our dispute, the creationist had made the claim that there
were no errors or contradictions in the
Bible. Immediately, I shot back with two
Parsippany, New Jersey

passages that were so obviously contradictory that I thought there could be no

further argument:
II Kings 24:8 And J ehoiachin
was eighteen years old when he
began to reign, and he reigned in
Jerusalem three months.
II Chron 36:9 J ehoiachin was
eight years old when he began to
reign, and he reigned three months
and ten days in Jerusalem.
Imagine my consternation when I
received an invective-filled reply that
denied outright my contention that
Kings and Chronicles could not both be
true. To make my consternation even
greater was the fact that he did not
deign to try to explain away "the
appearance of contradiction" (as most
Bible apologists would express it) in the
two passages. There was no contradiction between those passages! Period.
Clearly, he was not able to see what was
so obvious to me. Clear also was the fact
that there was a perceptual problem
involved.
Was he mentally ill? To be sure,
religious ideation and behavior of any
sort can be considered forms of mental
illness. But if there is no impediment
created in attending to one's daily needs
or body functions, and if the religious
thinking doesn't interfere with one's
ability to earn a living - if the distortion
of religious mentation doesn't spill over
into the practical domain of life - it
seems a bit too much to write off occasional fits of religious delusion as mental illness. As far as I have been able to
determine, my antagonist gets along
just fine in the laboratory workplace
and knows when it is appropriate to
wear a bathing suit.
Certainly his condition was not as
serious as that of the people who tell me,
"I know God is real because He speaks
to me." And even most of the people who
affirm such nonsense are not mentally
ill in any serious sense of the term.
Under questioning, most of them will
admit they aren't really hearing voices.
Rather, thoughts that spring up unbidden in their minds seem so unlike their
ordinary mental fare that they think the
thoughts come from outside themselves.
In both the creationist and the persons
who can't recognize their own thoughts
when they think them, we face the problem of subjective experiences and distorted perceptions so compelling that
they are able to overcome all external
Summer 1999

sensory evidence that might oppose

them.
Why should the human brain so
easily slip into such disordered function? How could natural selection allow
such widespread deficiency to survive indeed, thrive - in a species? We must
try to learn the answer.
Religion

as a species-specific
behavior
Long ago, Charles Darwin wrote a
book called The Expression
of the
Emotions in Man and Animals, in which
he explored the evolutionary roots of
psychology. Laughing, crying, smiling,
and many other human behaviors were
seen to be found in all races and cultures. Moreover, the roots of these
behaviors could be traced in apes and
other "lower animals." Like the human
body, human behavior was seen to have
evolved from a prehuman condition.
Behavioral traits, like anatomical ones,
could be species-specific and could be
used to define a biological species. This
being the case, it seems obvious that
these behaviors must be genetically conditioned: the behaviors result from the
"wiring" and physiological functioning of
the brain, and these in turn result from
the expression - to the extent the environment permits it - of the instructional messages inhering in the human
genome.
If religiosity be a species-specific
character for Homo sapiens as a whole
(and not just a secondary sex characteristic of the human female, as G. B. Shaw
once quipped), there must be an
anatomical and physiological basis for it
in the human brain.
Evidence for a neural basis for religion has been available for a long time.
We have known for a long time that
entheogenic* drugs can cause people to
have religious experiences, sacred hallucinations, and other "awesome" sensations. The peyote cactus (which contains
mescalin) is used by Native Americans
in their religious rites to induce a sacred
psychosis, and the fungal drugs psilocybin and amanitin may have been used
as entheogens in the ancient Near East.
The Atheist Dead Sea Scrolls scholar,
John Allegro, once wrote a book called
The Sacred Mushroom And The Cross.
In that book, he traced the Near
Eastern experience with the poisonous,
hallucinogenic
mushroom Amanita

* entheogenic, imparting a god experience

(Gk. en = in or into; theo = god; gen = create,
produce)
Page 25

muscaria back to ancient Sumer and

made a reasonable case for the argument that resonances of "magic mushroom" experiences could even be detected in the New Testament.
The implications ofthis are obvious.
If molecules of certain drugs are able to
make us have religious experiences,
there has to be circuitry in our brains
that is being activated or inhibited by
those molecules - and that circuitry is at
least indirectly a product of genetics.
Further support for a neural basis
for religion comes from the fact that
there are atheogenic
as well as
entheogenic drugs. In at least some psychoses characterized by extreme religious delusions, antipsychotic drugs can
dispel the religious delirium. Can anyone doubt that, in exorcising the gods
from such patients, the drugs are acting
on particular neuronal receptors and
affecting neuronal firing? Is it too much
to hope that someday that a drug cure
will be available for religious addiction?
Won't it be a great world when a doctor
can say, "Take two Thorazines and call
me in a month if you still feel the urge to
tithe."
We must remember too that temporallobe epilepsy (TLE) is often accompanied by hyperreligiosity, and it is likely
that St. Paul - arguably the creator of
Christianity - suffered from epilepsy of
some kind. Dr. Vilayanur Ramachandran, director of the Center for Brain
and Cognition at the University of
California, has studied TLE patients
and has found that their Galvanic Skin
Responses
are
disproportionately
aroused by presentation of religious
words. The word Jesus will make their
palms will sweat as much as those of
normal people do when presented by
sexual terms. Once again it appears that
brain processes (and pathological ones
at that!) are the cause of religious experience. For good measure, the argument
would seem to be settled by recent
experiments that demonstrate
that
"religious experiences," "numinous perceptions," and the like can be triggered
by electrical stimulation of certain parts
of the brain.
Before trying to discern what the
"normal" function of the brain's "god circuitry" might be, we must note one final
clue. Religious experiences since ancient
times often have been associated with
trance induced by hypnotic phenomena
such as dancing, chanting, and other
factors that increase suggestibility.

Page 26

If, as now seems indisputable, there

are parts of the brain that mediate religious experiences and are the cause of
our delusions of divine communion, we
must ask why they exist. What is their
normal function? Why would a hardnosed process such as natural selection
have produced such structures? I believe
that the answers to these questions are
to be found in the solution to a larger
puzzle: why, if religion is veridically
false, would natural selection have
allowed it not only to survive but thrive?
The evolutionary background
In order to discover the "normal"
functioning of the "god module" of the
brain, we will have to investigate the
evolutionary dimensions of three intimately interrelated phenomena: religion, hypnosis, and music.
While the particular details of religion are transmitted verbally by culture
- our substitute for instinct - I submit
that the religiosity of Homo sapiens can
be considered to some extent instinctual.
That there could be such a thing as a
religious instinct becomes plausible, I
think, when we consider the implications of the fact that we evolved as a
social species, not a solitary species. We
evolved as social animals - herd animals. We evolved as wolves, not foxes.
In the evolution of big-brained
social species there must arise a conflict
between the desire for autonomy - self
gratification - and the group need for
integration and subservience. In many
social species, autonomy and separation
from the group produces anxiety. A lost
sheep is not a happy animal, and many
Christians separated from their congregations, priests, and pastors* experience
profound Angst. (This is why excommunication and shunning can be so devastating to certain people.) It appears to be
one of the functions of religion that it
allows people to "escape from freedom,"
as the psychiatrist Erich Fromm once
put it. When We do what our priests tell
us to do, we avoid the anxiety that
comes from having to make our own
decisions - anxiety that arises from
painful knowledge of our own inadequacies and proneness to make mistakes.
Religion serves as a vehicle for discharging anxiety by connecting isolated individuals to the group and making them
feel as though somehow the power of the
entire group flows through them. In
doing so, I shall argue, religion employs
*pastors, from Lat. pastores, 'shepherds'

Summer 1999

the neuronal circuitry evolved in prehuman social animals for non-verbal communication within the group.
Group Selection
In the evolution of social species,
natural selection can act at the group
level as well as at the individual level.
This means in practice that groups can
compete with each other and entire gene
pools can be selected (preserved) or
extincted, depending upon the overall
"fitness" of the groups in competition.
Extermination of the genetic opposition
is the object of this evolutionary process.
Genocide has a long history - or perhaps
we should say prehistory. The sociological concepts of in-group and out-group
are useful for understanding the dynamics of this sort of social evolution.
For a particular in-group to prevail
over the various out-groups with which
it competes for resources, high-level
intragroup cooperation and coordination
are required. There is need for cohesion
of the individuals comprising the group
so it can behave as an integrated superorganism. For maximal effectiveness in
warfare it is necessary that an entire
group of soldiers be able to act and function as though it were a single well-coordinated individual.
Fundamental to successful cooperation and coordination is communication.
But how is communication effected
before the origin of language? How, for
example, do wildebeest know when it is
time to stampede? Unless the entire
herd stampedes in unison, the herd will
be vulnerable - and a "stampede of one"
would almost certainly be fatal to the
individual charging into a pride of lions.
What is it that brings about the necessary ego dissolution and fusion of each
individual with the "spirit of the herd"?
Hypnosis
While chemical signaling such as
release of pheromones, physical signals
such as raising the tailor other displays,
and auditory signals such as snorts, bellows, cries, and the like may be
employed to enlist cooperation, for success they all require that the recipient
animals be "suggestible" - i.e., able to
internalize the signal received, make it
their own "state of mind," and pass it on.
Communication at this level is largely
the transfer of emotions throughout the
members of a group. Emotions must be
as contagious' as yawning and scratching of itches.

American Atheist

It is generally accepted that suggestion and suggestibility are at the root of

hypnosis. Hypnosis and hypnotizability,
I would argue, are relics of the communication system that functioned in the
preverbal human herd. I know of nothing that can equal hypnosis in the ease
with which it can change affect whether the change involve laughing,
crying, exhilaration, or insensitivity to
pain. In all these changes in affect, perceptions are of necessity altered. Sour
lemons are perceived as sweet oranges,
lighted cigarettes are perceived as lotion
applicators, and the smoke of incense is
perceived as angel spirits hovering in
the air.
Hypnosis also is able to induce religious experiences ranging from the simple feeling of one-ness with the universe
to fulminating hallucinations of heavenly voices issuing commandments. Add
to this the fact that trance (in the form
of chanting and fasting-conditioned
prayer and meditation, the altered consciousness of people who think a faithhealer has cured them, etc.) is an important component of many religions, and
we have a clue as to why religion
evolved. Religion evolved as a means of
inducing and channeling hypnosis originally to increase group cohesion
and to weld weak individuals into
mighty superorganisms ready to go out
and exterminate the genetic competition. Religion originated as a~ effective
catalyst of effective warfare by being a
conduit for the flow of bellicose sugges-'
tions. Because hypnosis can function at
a preverbal level it can evade the radar
of the rational mind. It can produce warriors that know no fear despite the most
fearful of circumstances. It can create
the bright illusion of a better world on
another plane - an illusion so powerful
that warriors will not hesitate to fight
for it no matter how frightful the real
world.
There should be no perception of
paradox in the fact that religion and war
go together so frequently. The facilitation of war was the raison d'etre for religion in the first place!
To get back to the subject of this
talk, let us ask once again why religiosity is so hard to cure. Why are religious
perceptions so hard to change? A clue
can be found in the intimate association
of hypnosis with religion and the tenacity with which hypnosis-implanted perceptions can be maintained despite
external evidence. Religious perceptions
are, I believe, hypnotically implanted.
Parsippany, New Jersey

Just how pertinaciously hypnotic

beliefs may be held can be seen in an
experiment I carried out many years ago
when I was actively pursuing research
in the area of experimental hypnosis. In
one of my experiments I hypnotized a
man who happened to be wearing
leather dress-boots. He was a very good
subject, and so I decided to explore the
puzzle of post-hypnotic suggestions. I
gave him the post-hypnotic suggestion
that several minutes after awakening he
would "discover" that he had put his
boots on the wrong feet. I awakened him
and we talked for a few minutes.
Suddenly, he looked in startlement at
his feet, as though he were feeling discomfort if not outright pain. With
alacrity, he pulled off his boots and then
put them back on: the right boot on the
left foot, the left boot on the right foot.
For ten or fifteen minutes he talked
with me, completely unaware of his
absurd condition. Only when he got up
to walk - and nearly broke his neck trying to walk on the carpet - did he suddenly realize that his boots were on the
wrong feet. This experiment was neatly
analogous to a case of tent-meeting hypnosis I once witnessed. In that case, a
woman with severe arthritis was hypnotized by a faith-healer to believe her
arthritis had been cured. Although she
had come into the tent with crutches,
after receiving the divine zap she commenced to run around the tent full tiltjoints snapping, cracking, and complaining, but no pain was felt by the poor
creature being exploited by the preachers presiding over the show. Unlike the
fellow in boots, however, it is doubtful
that the woman ever did realize that she
had not really been cured at all - even
though she had to be carried home from
the meeting. I would bet that the next
morning she thought that Satan had
brought back her disease.
The tenacity with which hypnosisimplanted perceptions are held despite
the evidence of the physical senses gives
us some understanding of why religious
perceptions are so hard to change.
Religious mentation, like post-hypnotic
suggestion, navigates below the radar of

Consider the preverbal quality of the

automaton-like way in which meaningless
religious phrases may be repeated by the
hopelessly religious. How many could give a
meaningful explanation of exactly what they
mean by "Jesus is Lord," "God loves you," or
"my relationship with Jesus"? Consider also
the frequent use of interjections such as hallelujah or amen - words that have very little
semantic value.

Summer 1999

reality. It is to a large degree preverbal,* and thus immune to that quintessentially verbal process we call logic.
Putting It All Together
As we have already noted, in dealing with religious experiences we are
faced with the problem of subjective
experiences so compelling they are able
to overcome all external sensory experience. Both electrical stimulation experiments and personal reports often indicate that during religious experiences
there is a break-down of the ego and the
boundaries of the self, creating a sense
of at-one-ness. The subject feels at one
with the cosmos, one with the human
race. Subjects report the sense of receiving ineffable wisdom or knowledge,
knowledge that cannot be expressed in
words.
While it is possible that speech-processing parts ofthe brain are involved in
religious experiences, I suspect that the
core brain functions involved are those
associated with non-verbal communication - the brain elements that allow
herd animals to communicate and perceive the intentions
of the herd.
Emotions are contagious, and the neuronal circuitry underlying that fact is
probably involved in religious experiences as well.
As I have already suggested, the
evolutionary function of religion has
been to increase in-group cohesion in
order to enhance competition with outgroups: Israelites vs. Jebusites vs.
Hivites, or Catholic Croatians vs.
Orthodox Serbs vs. Muslim Bosnians. It
provides a means for reduction of anxiety caused by autonomy, by allowing
dissolution of self and absorption into
the collective mind - the collection of
preverbal and verbal messages active in
the environment in which the religious
activity is being carried out.
This primary function of religion is
most effective when effected hypnotically. By providing a focused means for
induction of trance, religion facilitates
the imposition of the will of a group (or
its leaders!) upon its individual members. It does this by means of hypnotic
preaching, rhythmic singing, dancing,
clapping, monotonous chanting,
or
drumming - and gives us a clue to the
evolutionary "purpose" of music. Almost
certainly, rhythm antedates melody. We
began as drumming ruffed grouse and
evolved into warblers only late in the
story. Why? Because persistent rhythms
are useful in inducing trance. Brain
Page 27

electrical rhythms change as states of

consciousness change, and there may be
a connection here with the use of music
to induce altered states of consciousness. This would appear to explain the
use of drumming and dancing among
many Amerindians before they went out
to war. Music was the portal through
which the warriors entered a world that
knew no fear, a world without anxiety.
Thus, music evolved as a means of
inducing hypnotic trance.
Hypnotic susceptibility, although
older than the human species itself, was
elaborated by natural selection as a
means of increasing intragroup cohesion
and as a .means of' producing highly
ordered, efficient competitive behavior
at the intergroup level. As cultural
transmission
of learned
behavior
replaced genetic transmission of instinctive behavior, religion emerged as the
system deciding the ends for which hypnosis would be applied. The actual
mythical content of the individual religions probably did not make much difference. Zeus and Yahweh and Baal are
all imaginary, and there is no obvious
reason to recommend one over another.
However, the structure of the cultural
organizations behind the various deities
was of great importance. It is obvious
that the wizards who pulled the strings
in the temple of Yahweh had a much
more effective way of running the land
of Oz than did those who hid behind the
curtains in the temples of Zeus and
Baal!
One Last Time - Why is
religiosity so hard to cure?
Analogous to hypnosis, religion distorts perceptions, rendering them resistant to correction. Often, strong emotions must be evoked before the spell
can be broken: it is like using ice-water
to awaken a hypnotized person. The
neural circuitry of religion is intimately
intertwined with that which distinguishes us as herd animals, as a social
species. Surgical attempts to remove the
harmful, religious components of this
circuitry are quite naturally resisted as though they were attempts to deprive
people of their group identity. Loss of
religion produces more autonomy, but
this again can increase anxiety levels.
Illusions that reduce anxiety will not be
given up easily. Not withstanding all I
have said here today, fear remains the
soil in which the roots of religion feed.
Unless better means are made available
for reducing fear, religion will continue
to feed upon our neuroplasm.
Page 28

The meaning for Atheists

Why are Atheists so hard to organize? If 8-12% of the population is de
facto Atheist, where are they? Why
aren't they joining us? At the same time,
many of the Atheists who do join us
want more social events, more interpersonal interaction opportunities. Are
there two kinds of Atheists? I suggest
there are: Inherent
Atheists
and
Converted Atheists.
Inherent
Atheists (Type A) are
those in whom religious indoctrination
never worked very well in the first
place. Are these Atheists persons in
whom the genetic and neurological
underpinnings for social animals have
loosened up somehow? Are these persons by nature less gregarious, more
reserved, and less subject to emotional
contagion? Are these the quintessential
introverts?
Converted Atheists (Type B) are
those who early in life were quite religious, but due (perhaps) to some highly
emotional experience were able to let
the weight of evidence against religion
finally "get through" to them. Are these
the Atheists who take pleasure in being
with other Atheists, the ones who want
more luncheons, conventions, etc.? Do
they still have the regular-issue underpinnings for social animals? Are these
the quintessential extroverts?
If I be correct in this hypothesis,
Atheist organizations will need to employ different approaches to recruit
these two different types of Atheists.
Type-A Atheists must be drawn to
us by arguments that they can relate to
their own well-being. They must be
helped to see that although there is no
god, there are lots and lots of devils out
there who, if not opposed, will be taking
away their freedoms and impacting
their pocketbooks and personal comfort.
The emotional as well as logical impact
of such recruitment must be sufficient to
overcome their normal reticence to join
groups of any.kind. They must come to
see joining us as an act of self-defense.
Type-B Atheists - that is, those who
have already become Atheists - will normally be quite willing to join us. They
do, however, need to know we exist and
how to get in touch with us. Well-managed publicity and getting our magazine
and newsletter into public and college
libraries can bring them in.
Type-B individuals who are still in
churches will need to be exposed to
arguments that are not only logically
and scientifically solid, but deliver an
Summer 1999

emotional wallop as well. There has to

be a component that can break through
the normal perceptual barrier that protects the religion centers of their brains.
The argumentational
equivalent of
buckets of ice-water - or the pinching of
boots finally seen to be on the wrong feet
- has to be created. The spell must be
broken. This may require flamboyant or
even outrageous ploys, such as when
(on television) I challenged the national
secretary of the so-called Moral Majority
to demonstrate his faith by eating the
poisoned peanuts that I offered him
(Mark 16:18) or castrating himself
(Matt. '19:12) with the rusty Boy Scout
knife I was willing to supply.
The need to find a cure for religiosity is pressing. The world cannot survive
much longer if problem-solvers' minds
are clouded by the opium of religion. We
must perceive reality as accurately as
Heisenberg's uncertainty principle will
allow! We cannot afford illusions. The
games our species is playing with us and
with our environment are of life-anddeath importance.
We Atheists must do all in our
power to brew the wake-up potion that
will clear the minds of our fellow men
and women. We must revoke the evolutionary curse that nature laid upon us
when it created religion as the mediating agency for the most complicated
form of sociality life on our planet has
known. We must break the evil spell
that religion has cast upon the castles of
our minds and upon the towers of our
thoughts. We must do everything in our
power to free the thought-prisoners of
our planet.
Not only is this an ethical necessity,
it is a practical necessity as well. We
who, by whatever means it came about,
have freed our own minds, cannot forever remain free when all about us not
only are not free but are busy forging in their ecclesiastical dungeons - chains
with which once again they can confine
our minds.
It is too great a job for Batman and
Robin - too much even for Superman.
But it is the job American Atheists has
taken on. It has given its solemn
promise that it shall work ceaselessly
and with all its energy resources to
bring about the liberation of the human
mind, to free religion's prisoners, and to
find cures for all the varieties of that
most deadly disease, religiosity.

American Atheist

Victory to the Children:

Ending Circumcision
in the Next Century
Part I
By Marilyn Fayre Milos, R.N.

he American Academy of Pediatrics announced on 1 March 1999

that it does not recommend routine infant circumcision. Without compelling medical benefits, then, routine
circumcision is nothing more than a
social-cultural custom.
Ethical physicians will uphold the
first tenet of medical practice - "First,
do no harm" - but some physicians will
continue to act as "agents" of this custom - and continue to profit from it. It is
essential, therefore, to understand how
genital cutting began in the US, how
and why it has been perpetuated here,
and why the birthright of all human
beings to keep their sex organs intact
must be respected and protected.
The genital cutting of children is
gruesome and horrifying. No one knows
for sure why anyone started cutting
other people's genitals. The origins of
genital cutting are rooted in culture and
religion. Researchers agree that it began
in Africa, where it is still performed as a
puberty rite and religious ritual. Forced
and coerced genital cutting is an especially violent means of control and domination - and itself marks a society as
violent.
The circumcision of a newborn violates maternal instinct and impairs
infant bonding. Mother is disempowered, and baby is primally wounded.
Circumcision encodes the infant brain
with pain associated with a part of the
body meant to experience pleasure. The
baby becomes both victim and potential
victimizer, and the cycle of violence perpetuates itself from one generation to
the next.

Marilyn Fayre Milos

Norman Cohen

This speech was presented at the

25th National Convention of American
Atheists, in Piscataway, New Jersey. Ms.
Milos is co-founder and director of
NOCIRC (the National Organization of
Circumcision
Information
Resource
Centers). She has organized and coordinated five international symposia on sexual mutilation to bring together international experts to present a multidisciplinary body of research on this humanrights issue. She is a contributor to the
Encyclopedia of Childbearing: Critical
Perspectivestfiryx Press, 1993), Human
Sexuality, An Encyclopedia (Garland
Publishing, 1994), and is the author of
numerous other articles and pamphlets.

Mr. Cohen has been the Director of

NOCIRC of Michigan since its founding
in 1994. He appeared on the 1996
award-winning documentary on circumcision, "Whose Body, Whose Rights?" He
has a unique perspective on circumcision, having grown up in a conservative
Jewish household as the son of a rabbi.
Now an Atheist, when he is not operating
his own computer-consulting
business,
he spends his time as an anti-circumcision activist educating a new generation
for the well-being of children.

Parsippany, New Jersey

Summer 1999

Page 29

Physicians began circumcising male

children - and adults when they couldin England in the mid-1800s, after two
Frenchmen introduced their "Degenerative Theory of Disease," which claimed
that everyone is born with a finite
amount of energy. Over-expenditure of
that energy, they said, leads to debility
and susceptibility to disease. This idea
dovetailed with the strictness of behavior and the gravity of "spilling the seed"
in puritanical
Victorian
England.
Masturbation was blamed as the obvious cause of degeneration. Attempts to
prevent this "self-abuse" included physical restraint, corporal punishment, and
blistering the urethra with a cauterizing
instrument called a bougie ("Don't let
the boogie man get you!"). Soon after
England
began circumcising
male
minors, the US followed its lead.
Near the turn of the century, the
Germ Theory of Disease was introduced,
and suddenly the already maligned foreskin was further demonized as harboring germs. Hygiene became the new pretext for excising foreskins. From then
on, medical pretexts for circumcision
corresponded to the dreaded diseases of
the time: the penile cancer scare of the
'30s, the cervical cancer scare of the '50s,
and the sexually transmitted diseases
that came with the sexual revolution in
the '60s. Today, of course, we know that
penile cancer is a very rare disease of
elderly men with poor hygiene and a history of smoking cigarettes and consuming alcohol. Cervical cancer is a sexually
transmitted disease caused by a virus.
Sexually transmitted
diseases
are
spread by risky behaviors, not normal
parts of the body.
By the end of World War II, most
babies were born in hospitals, and the
pretexts to circumcise - coupled with
insurance coverage - made the intact
penis a rarity among American males.
In the early '60s people began questioning and challenging the sexual mores
and other aspects of earlier eras, including medicine. Many women wanted a
more holistic lifestyle, recognized birth
as a normal process, and chose to have
their babies at home. Many of these
babies were kept intact.
With the "medical reasons" for circumcision debunked and the circumcision rate declining in the '70s, other pretexts for circumcision emerged: "He
won't look like his father," "He'll look
different from the other boys," "He'll feel
different in the locker room." These
arguments were never used, of course,
Page 30

when circumcision was adopted and circumcised babies had intact fathers and
grandfathers. They were just more reasons given to perpetuate circumcision.
During the 1980s, a new pretext for
circumcision was found: prevention of
urinary tract infections. Even though
both girls and circumcised boys get urinary tract infections (easily treated with
antibiotics), perpetrators argued that
without circumcision, increasing numbers of males would end up on dialysis
machines from kidney failure. They
ignored the fact that 85% of the males in
the world are not circumcised and are
not on dialysis machines.
Sexually
transmitted
diseases
again became a pretext for circumcision
during the 1990s, and perpetrators now
added the most dreaded disease of all:
AIDS. Perhaps no pretext for routine
circumcision reveals the irrationality of
the circumcision mind set more than the
claim that circumcision confers protection against AIDS. The US has one of
the highest male circumcision rates and
one of the highest HIV infection rates in
the world. Some, however, still use this
argument. I recently received a letter
from a health worker in Senegal trying
to get help for males in the Luos tribe,
who are being beaten and circumcised
by force because ofthe faulty AIDS studies of Canadian researchers. Why are
these researchers not spending their
grant money on education? Safe behavior, not amputation, protects against
sexually transmitted diseases, including
HIV infection.
There will always be "researchers"
with personal agendas trying to market
their biased opinions. Adults, at least,
have a choice and a chance to protect
themselves. Millions of children in the
world, including most male children in
the US, don't.
Circumcision has never been a
health issue. Circumcision is a human
rights issue. What can we do to bring
this torture and mutilation of children
to an end?
We can educate. This is a difficult
task because we are trying to legitimize
the normal penis in a sexually
repressed, foreskin-phobic society. It is
more difficult still because our message
is one many people don't want to hear.
What man wants to hear - or have anyone else hear - that he was tortured and
mutilated and that the protective and
most erogenous part of his penis was cut
off when he was too young to protect
himself? What mother wants to hear
Summer 1999

that her precious baby suffered needlessly? What doctor wants to admit he
has blood on his hands? The truth about
circumcision is not easy to hear. Yet, as
Gandhi said, "If we are to have real
peace, we must begin with the children."
Our message is urgent and of supreme
importance!
In response to doctors who refuse to
stop circumcising, there is now an international group of lawyers, Attorneys for
the Rights of the Child (ARC), who are
suing doctors and hospitals on behalf of
children. As ARC founder J. Steven
Svoboda said, "The medical profession,
which has perpetuated this tragic disfigurement of baby boys' genitals, will be
challenged by an organization of legal
professionals
they cannot afford to
ignore."
Female genital mutilation has been
outlawed in the United States. That law
is unconstitutional because of its gender
bias. It must be extended to protect
males as well. Although some argue that
female and male genital mutilation are
not the same, who is harmed or suffers
more is not the issue. Any cut into the
healthy normal tissue of a child or nonconsenting adult violates that person's
human rights, regardless of gender or
the severity of the wound.
We are the generation that has
begun to recognize, acknowledge, and
document the harm circumcision does
and to proclaim circumcision without
consent of the circumcised to be what it
really is: an intolerable violation of
human rights - an awareness growing
worldwide. We are the generation that
is bringing this harmful, misguided custom to an end. We are the generation
that is making America whole again.

Part II
By Norman Cohen
I'd like to share a little bit of what
I've learned about circumcision. I'd like
to educate people about it, show why it's
important to Atheists as well, and
explain why I believe that circumcision
is truly on its way out. I was an Atheist
at seventeen. I was raised in a conservative Jewish home - my father is a rabbi
- so I got religion pretty much shoved
down my throat. I sat in the library
when I was seventeen, I was thinking
about god, and I realized that god does
not exist. However, it was another ten
years before I realized anything had
American Atheist

been done to my penis - something that

had harmed me. This was a real shocker. It took me ten years to find out about
circumcision. I had a scar on my penis,
and I didn't know what it was or why.
I was told that circumcision was a
good thing, that the Jews had invented
it - which is not true. That it prevents
cervical cancer, which is not true. And
that this was a gift that the Jews had
given Americans - because after all,
now everybody has been circumcised.
All of that is baloney. Circumcision was
not invented by the Jews, it was invented by the Egyptians about six thousand
years ago. A number of different groups
all over the world practice circumcision
and it is a barbaric tradition that has
been going on for six thousand years.
The practice of circumcision, although it
was rooted in religion and as we will see
in sexuality, it did not stay there. It
mutated into what it is today in North
America, where it is a custom that has
somehow transcended religion and even
those that give up religion. They never
seem to question circumcision.
So there's some powerful forces at
work here that I think we all need to
look at. When I got involved in this
movement, I said ''Well, I don't have
much time and I don't think there's
much I can do, but I'll spend one hour a
week talking to parents about circumcision and then we'll see where it goes." It
became important to me, because as I
learned more and talked more, I realized that circumcision gave a lot of symbolic meaning to and understanding of
my own childhood. I began to see that so
many things were done to me "for my
own good," and that was repeated over
and over again: "it was done for your
own good." I realize now it was not done
for my good. Circumcision is rooted in
the power and control that we now call
religion. It transcends religion. It is
patriarchal; the male elders of the tribe
impose their will on the helpless babies
and boys as part of a ritual, and a variety of reasons are given as to why these
boys need to be circumcised. But in the
end it is the patriarchal power structure
inflicting its will upon these helpless
boys.
You have to understand that before
you can control a person's mind, say
through religion, you have to control his
or her sexuality. You must control sexuality, because it is one of the most independent and powerful of all human
experiences. You must control sexuality
if you're going to control minds. We see
Parsippany, New Jersey

this in all of the fascist regimes of this

century; they have a long history of
oppressing sexuality, of persecuting
homosexuals. What happens with circumcision is that once a boy suffers this
barbaric act, it continues into the next
generation. The victim then becomes the
perpetrator, and he says things like,
"well if it was good enough for me ... " or
"this is what was done to me," or "this
has been done for thousands of years, so
this must be OK." Religious origins
become sort of hidden in this personal
mythology and belief about the body.
Religion has literally mutilated the
individual, literally sculpting his body
into what that religion thinks his body
should look like. It virtually crushes his
spirit. Marilyn tells about a little baby
struggling on the circumcision board
struggling to be free - which was impossible - and having to endure this incredible pain. (Up until recently, no anesthesia was given for infant circumcision.) So what is going through that
boy's mind when this is happening?
What kind ofloss of trust is this boy suffering? How can he ever really trust
that his care givers are going to take
good care of him? These are things that
men as adults do not want to face - that
they were harmed when they were most
helpless. This is a learned helplessness
that contributes to a variety of things
such as a powerful belief in god and religion, drug abuse, and other post-traumatic stress illnesses. You see, we need
to keep god not only out of the public
schools and off of the lawn at city hall:
we need to keep him away from baby
boys' penises.
Circumcision is rooted in religion.
Don't be fooled by modern medical
mythology, because that's not where it
began. We have to understand that and that the separation of church and
state is not enough in this case to protect baby boys. This ritual has superseded religion with a new priesthood the medical priesthood. We're beginning
the 21st century now with anesthetized
mutilations in our nation's hospitals at
the cultural whims of parents. The parents can just say "Do it Doctor," and the
doctor will do it. He will remove what in
an adult man will be fifteen square inches of flesh - this is done by a doctor, at
the whim of the parents. On the other
hand, as Marilyn pointed out, in 1996
female genital mutilation was declared
a felony in this country. The slightest
cut of girls' genitals is against the law.
My hope and expectations are that
Summer 1999

sometime soon a young Jewish angry

man will stand up in a court room and
confront his mohel and he will say, ''You
harmed me; you violated my civil
rights." This is what it is going to take.
Right now we're still in sort of an academic stage, where we're discussing
human-rights
implications
and the
damage that's done to a boy's penis. But
until we can turn this into an interpersonal and intergenerational
conflict
where the young can confront those that
have perpetrated this crime, we're not
going to end it. We're in the process
though of creating the understanding
and the type of society that can win such
a lawsuit, because we have to help people understand first, that babies are
human beings, that they have rights,
that they are not property of their parents, they're not religious objects.
Parents are simply trustees. They've
been given this child to care and nurture
until adulthood. We need to welcome
them in peace.
Why is all this important
for
Atheists? Why should you care about
circumcision and ending circumcision?
Because a child becomes a victim of his
parents religious delusions, whether
that's circumcision or going to church
every week or belief in god. In some
ways they are victimized by their parents' beliefs - in circumcision quite literally physically victimized. As a victim
they are compelled to repeat it. So this
victimization-perpetration cycle continues from generation to generation. It
has a powerful psychological draw that's
very difficult to break. A man so fears
what has been done to him as a child
that he ends up repeating it on his own
son. Unless he's able to confront what
was done to him, unless he is able to recognize the physical harm that was done
through the circumcision, he will end up
doing it on his son. And this tragically is
the case all too often. In fact, in Jewish
tradition, the Jewish father, by attending his son's circumcision, is asking to
give confirmation and acceptance of
what was done to him those many years
ago. So, it's a generational cycle that we
have to break. The suffering of children
raised in religious homes - where out of
fear they're taught to betray themselves, doubt their self-worth, and are
forced to give up their human rights as
people - is a concern to Atheists.
I believe that if you change childhood you can change the future. Religion in the past has played both the role
of victimizer of children and a rescuer.
Page 31

Children are raised in dysfunctional

religious homes and then grow up to be
dysfunctional adults who cling to religion. If we can break this cycle, we will
do a great deal of good to promote
Atheism.
Alice Miller is a Swiss psychiatrist
who has written a number of books on
what we do to children "for their own
good." In fact, that's a title of one of her
own books. And she has studied the history of childhood in Europe and understands that it was the childhood practices of Europe that led to the Holocaust:
the belief that you could not question
your parents, that your parents were
always right. That what ever they did to
you, it was for your own good. Every
beating that you received was for your
own good. This cycle could lead to the
adult Nazis marching the Jews and others into concentration
camps and
gassing them without feeling.
We now, today, are finally learning
though to treat children as independent
human beings and thinkers. Children
are finally going to be able to question
authority and be able to truly confront
themselves as independent and separate from their parents, and be able to
lead lives where they can make choices
that are different from their parents.
I believe that if you change childhood, you will get more Atheists. If you
want a child to grow up believing in god,
you just have to spank him all the time,
teach him that he is nothing, that he has
no value, let him cry himself to sleep at
night, in his own room, and teach him
that others know better for him than he
knows for himself. You'll have a child
grow up believing in god. This is damaging to the child, because it damages his
capacity to think critically. He learned
that he is helpless to change his destiny,
and that he cannot challenge the status
quo. On the other hand, if you rear children with nurturing and acceptance and
you let them express their own power as
individuals - maybe this belief can prosper.
It's helpful to think of circumcision
as a social disease or social virus. A disease is a destructive process on an organ
that has a specific cause and specific
symptoms; and circumcision certainly
fits that definition. It attacks the penis,
it removes one third of the skin system
of the penis, it desensitizes the glans of
the penis, removes thousands of nerve
endings, and interferes with the natural
mechanics of sexual intercourse.

Page 32

We have to look now in different

places where these irrational beliefs
such as circumcision can still be cleverly
hidden. And this is because, like a disease, this virus has mutated and it has
gone from being a religious belief to a socalled medical belief. And we need to
look in areas such as medicine and sexuality to find where it's really hiding.
This is what I call the unholy alliance
which started as a religious belief in the
last century and became a medical
belief. The medical doctors - religious
doctors - looked at their Bible and
looked at the Jewish populations and
they said "Circumcision must be a good
thing; it's in my Bible, there must be a
valid reason for it." They were under a
lot of pressure to come up with a rational reason to continue this process. The
Jews of a hundred and fifty years ago
wanted to eliminate circumcision in the
reformed movement, and there was a
great deal of debate about this. It was
the Jewish doctors that came forward
and said, "No don't eliminate it, because
there are hygiene benefits to circumcising and, after all, our women are not
getting cervical cancer, and after all our
women are not getting syphilis; so it
must be the circumcision." Well, all of
this was based on flawed studies and a
lot of fudged data.
This is an unholy alliance that continues today. Doctors are very comfortable with the role of playing god. They
are very comfortable in mixing their
personal beliefs about good and evil with
their medical prescriptions. Doctors cannot control us unless we are ill.
Therefore, doctors define illnesses for
us. If they want the foreskin to be
removed, they'll find a reason to remove
it. This needs to be challenged with a
great deal of skepticism. The promotion
of circumcision as a medical procedure
in this country actually protects the religious communities that practice circumcision, both the Jews and the Moslems.
By keeping circumcision as a potential
medical benefit, the Jews do not have to
feel challenged. And it legitimizes and
protects the religious ritual which continues. I might add that there are a
number of Jewish doctors today that are
the biggest proponents of circumcision
for so-called medical reasons. So it
escapes the legal and scientific scrutiny
by being protected by the medical community.
We saw this with the recent
announcement
of the
American
Academy of Pediatrics that said that it
Summer 1999

is legitimate for parents to consider religious and ethnic reasons for circumcising. Thomas Szasz, the famous psychiatrist, asks, "Well, why is male genital
mutilation legal?" It is legal because it
imitates preventative medicine. Why
does it imitate preventative medicine?
Because otherwise it would have to be
illegal. So for conscious reasons doctors
continue to promote this practice, and
they mix their religious beliefs with
their medicine. In addition, the epidemiologists - the people that study the
spread of disease - also mix their religion with their medicine. They design
flawed studies that say "going to church
once a week makes you healthier." They
design studies that show that prayer
helps you heal. All of this is nonsense.
What they do is, they skew the data.
They pick the groups that will give them
the most favorable results, and they
design very poor studies that are well
publicized and that are not challenged
by the media.
We as Atheists need to reclaim the
moral high ground from the deists. We
have the high moral values when it
comes to raising our children.
The
priest, the rabbi, the doctor does not
speak with moral authority when it
comes to raising children. We need to
expose religion as the enemy of children
- the device that has created a great
deal of fear in children, of shame, of
guilt about their bodies. And, in the case
of circumcision, actual physical harm.
I've been asked many times by people whom I've tried to educate about circumcision, "Well, what do you say to
religious parents? What do you say to
Jewish parents who want to circumcise?" The classic response I give is
''Your religion ends where a child's flesh
begins."
Freedom of religion for the child?
This is the most wide-spread physical
abuse faced by children in this country
for religious reasons! In the courts, in
such religious-abuse cases, generally
children are protected. It's getting the
society to understand that in fact this is
harmful - that is where our challenge
lies. As Atheists we can weaken religion's grip on our sexuality. Religion
claims our bodies and our sexuality, not
just our minds. It has given us a great
deal of shame about our bodies and it
takes a great deal of effort in this culture to throw off that shame, whether
you were raised in a strict religious family or not.

American Atheist

Circumcision started in sexuality.

It's important to understand the power
that was needed to control the sexuality
of the boys in the tribe. It had to come
from the elders; they wanted to crush
the individual by crushing his sexuality.
That is what happened in the process of
circumcision. We need to break the
unholy alliance that exists today
between the medical community and the
religious community by rejecting the
shame and guilt surrounding our bodies
and our sexuality that has been passed
I on to us by countless older generations.
Finally, I want to address another
issue quickly. That is anti-Semitism.
Constantly this is raised when I talk to
Jews about circumcision. They say,
"well you must be anti-Semitic." So does
Dr. Laura Schlesinger; that's what she
says on her radio show. But what we're
talking about are moral and medical
decisions - that's not an anti-Semitic
plot. So I say save the anti-Semite labeling for the anti-Semites. This is about
caring for children; this is about the

harm that children and men are suffering as a result of their circumcision (and
I might add the mothers and the wives
that love these people as well). Many
fundamentalist Christians are actually
circumcised, for religious reasons, in
this country because Jesus was circumcised. So the Jews in this country are
circumcised; in addition there are 800
million Moslems around the world who
are circumcised. So this is not an antiSemitic plot.
Furthermore,
I don't care if a
Jewish man as an adult invites all his
closest friends and relatives over to his
house, strips naked, lies on the kitchen
table, drinks a little Manischewitz wine,
and has his foreskin cut off.
I believe that circumcision is truly
on the way out. We're an important link
in this chain of change - converting the
guilt, the shame, and patriarchal power
into something that's better for children.
We can end six thousand years of ritual
abuse in the next century. Circumcision
is in direct conflict with our modern

understanding of the rights of children.

We're working now in a newborn nursery to educate parents. We're working to
educate them about the damage that
was done to their penises, and the lack
of sensitivity that results. Soon we will
also be in the courts protecting the
rights of children. Circumcision is going
to fall - from divine to disgrace. The socalled sacred is now being exposed as
the profane. This conflict between the
ancient and modern is no less significant than Galileo's conflict with the
Catholic Church or the conflict over
prayer in public schools. It took a hundred years in this country for circumcision to go from 10% to 85%. So in the
next hundred years I believe it will go
back to 0%. We are on a train of history;
there is no stopping this train. Once you
understand what is to be done, there is
no stopping. Circumcision will end in
the next hundred years and give victory
to the children.

GEO.&USH, EX-PItEZ/ JESSE VENTURA, MN GOV.

\'1 DON'T KNOW THAT

ATHEISTS SHOULD BE

\\THERE ARE PEOPLEOUTTHERE

WHO ARE A'THE\STS WHO

CONSIOEREO AS tIT'ZENS .. DON'" BELlEVe AT ALL

u.

THIS IS ONE NAT\ON ,HEV ARE C\Tl%ENS OF MM,.

UNDER GOO!' (8-27~8~ ANO I MA\le TO ttespeCT THAT.
Parsippany, New Jersey

Summer 1999

Page 33

The Garlic Necklace

by

A speech given at the American

Atheists National Convention, on 3April
1999, at Piscataway, NJ. Mr. Barrier is
the National Media Coordinator and
Spokesman for American Atheists and
serves as Secretary of American Atheists
Inc. and its related corporations. He also
is the creator and producer of The
Atheist Viewpoint, American Atheists'
public-access television program which
he co-hosts with Ellen Johnson. He has
represented Atheism in debates and
interviews on both radio and television
and has been heard by local, national,
and international audiences.
'm overwhelmed that American
Atheists has asked me to address
you and share my thoughts about
Atheism with you. I am also humbled
that I have the privilege of sharing this
podium with those whom I consider to
be far more intellectually developed
than myself. I'm not a lawyer, philosopher, or author. I don't even have a college degree. I work with truckers, warehouse people, longshoreman - the salt of
the earth. I'm just a simple guy who
happens to be an Atheist - and I'm
damn proud of that one fact.
I used to be a Christian - and for
that I apologize.

Page 34

Ronald Barrier

Looking back, I remember that

when anyone discovered the profound
and potentially life-altering realization
that religion was "iffy" at best, one really didn't know where to turn or who to
talk to, in order to explore these doubts
and reservations.
I was a Christian for over thirtyfive years, with periodic lapses not just
in attendance, but also in my ability to
swallow it all and keep it down.
As I reached forty, I began to realize that I was attending church services
and going to Bible-study classes for no
apparent reason. Church services were
becoming increasingly incomprehensible, bordering on insanity. As for the
Bible studies, I disrupted the classes by
asking intelligent, rational questions which ultimately were rejected by the
rest of the study group. It slowly
dawned on me that I was what was usually called "an unbeliever."
From a Christian standpoint, to be
an unbeliever is synonymous with being
a heretic - and that spelled trouble. In
Catholic elementary school, I was indoctrinated to avoid unbelievers, heretics,
Jews, and Protestants. Remember, this
is the 1950s. "Muslim" was still confused with a type of cloth. And Atheists
were Satanists and/or communists of
the lowest form.
But my cousins were Protestants,
and I had both Protestant and Jewish
friends. And it was a question of loyalty
- either to the paranoid fantasies of
nuns and priests, or to my family and
friends. Even for a young man eight
years old this was a no-brainer. From
then on I began to cast a skeptical eye at
religion - both its institutions, its clergy, and its doctrines. But I continued to
go.
Then there was C-SPAN, the 24hour-a-day, all-politics TV station.
It was one day in 1993, while channel-surfing in my den, I locked on to CSPAN and was introduced to Madalyn
Murray O'Hair and American Atheists.
Here was something I could grab
onto. Here were people who were willing
Summer 1999

to talk about and question the very

same things that I was questioning.
Her discussion of an Atheist in
American society was so accurate, so
"right-on-the- money," that it was actually the very first time that I identified
with the word Atheist in a positive manner.
After listening to her speech, I realized two things: (1) There were others
out there who had the same doubts I
did, and; (2) My ability, my freedom to
think and reason became more precious
than "saving" my imaginary "soul."
And anyway - save it from what? If
I have, and you have, what is called a
soul, that is, in my interpretation, the
essence of not only who I am, but of who
each and everyone of us are individually, then the only things I had to protect
it from was fear and ignorance.
Speaking of "souls" and "immortality - here's a test you can ask a believing
friend (or adversary):
If a Christian talks to you about
immortality, ask how come immortality
only appears to begin at birth. Then
watch the jaw drop and the eyes glaze
over. If they are so sure they are going
to retain enough of their personality in
an afterlife to be self-conscious of the
fact that they are in an afterlife, how
come we have no recollection of prebirth existence?
How can immortality consist of a
"hereafter" when there is no evidence
that there was ever a "herebefore?"
Immortality must consist of both the
"hereafter" and the "herebefore" or else
there is no immortality.
As the last vestiges of religious
infection dissipated in the cleansing
light of reason, I also discovered some
very disturbing information. The very
same disturbing information that young
people would encounter, if they had no
loving, thinking, parents.
I went to the dictionary to look up
Atheist, and discovered to my horror,
exactly what every person, especially
every young person, will find when looking up the word Atheist.
American Atheist

Dictionary Definitions
ATHEISM - 1. The belief that there
is no God. 2. The disbelief in the
existence of God. 3. Godlessness in
life or conduct
ATHEIST - 1. One who denies or
disbelieves in the existence of God.
ATHEISTIC - 1. Of or pertaining to
atheism or atheists. 2. Given to
atheism; godless.
GODLESS - 1. Ungodly; atheistical; wicked. See synonyms under
profane
PROFANE - 1. To treat (something
sacred) with irreverence or abuse;
desecrate; pollute. 2: To put to an
unworthy or degrading use; debase.
Synonyms: blasphemous, godless,
impious, irreligious, sacrilegious,
secular, temporal, unconsecrated,
ungodly,
unhallowed,
unholy,
un sanctified, wicked, worldly.
All of the above meanings are from
the FUNK & WAGNALL'S Comprehensive International Dictionary of
the English Language (1977).
Other definitions
ATHEISM - Denial of or disbelief in
the existence of God. (Webster's New
Riverside Desk Dictionary - Home
and Office Edition 1988)
From the Catechism of the Catholic
Church: ATHEISM - "One of the
most serious problems of our time"
(1994, para. 2123).
From God itself: "The fool hath said
in his heart, There is no God: they
are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that
doeth good." (Psalms 14.1)
In every instance, in every case, you
hear that Atheism is a negative position.
When believers
encounter
an
Atheist, they avert their eyes, speak in
hushed tones, and imagine all sorts of
horrible deeds we must be planning to
unleash on an unsuspecting
public.
Believers understand Atheism in much
the same manner that giraffes understand VCR's.
I'm not going to go into a bunch of
what I think are silly, defensive arguments against Atheism, since every
argument - yes, every argument - I have
read has been developed by a theist. In
other words, believers - who know nothing of Atheism - have managed to convince other believers, and sadly some
Atheists, I might add, that Atheism is
negative.

Parsippany, New Jersey

Now how can one possibly understand Atheism while intellectually

existing in a world of demons, gods,
angels, or whatever? It is impossible for
a person soaked in other-worldly visions
and voices to even begin to comprehend
how reality is unfolding before us.
Not only that: Some, if not many,
clergymen have even denied that
Atheists exist. Meanwhile, we are left to
wonder, if we really care, how we can
exist when those "in the know" say we
don't. You've heard the arguments:
"There are no Atheist in foxholes."
Probably the most famous.
"You're a believer (or a Christian)
but you don't know it."
"Where did we come from?"
"Where do you get your morals?"
"Don't you believe in anything?"
"Atheism is a religion."
Somehow we have been placed into
the position of having to defend why we
do not accept claims based on faith that is, belief without evidence.
It doesn't matter what invisible
thing you believe in, as long as it is:
(1) Invisible
(2) Incomprehensible
(3) Irrational
What I mean by this is that religious folks have reached an unwritten
agreement that they are really quite
similar, in spite of their conflicting fantasies, and that Atheists are different
and up to no good.
The more fantastic your claim
(along with money and political clout),
the more acceptable you become to the
larger religious community.
If, on the other hand, you thrive in
a reality which is more important, far
more awe-inspiring, fascinating, and
uplifting than anything humans can
concoct - you have a character flaw, a
moral-failure. You are not to be trusted.
Everything is your fault.
What theologians have done is concoct a veil of negativity surrounding
what amounts to little more than a simple disagreement with their insupportable position. And, I might add, that
simple disagreement is over the virtue
of honesty.
Atheism is actually one of the most
moral, one of the most honest disciplines
around - note that I said discipline, not
religion or philosophy, because our ability to reason, and the application of critical-thinking techniques would completely collapse ifit weren't for a scrupulous, at times even painful, adherence to
honesty in the examination of evidence.
Summer 1999

As I had pointed out one time to

Frank Zindler, our editor and science
advisor, this is one reason why scientists are so often hoodwinked by creationists: scientists just don't anticipate
deliberate dishonesty.
I don't like to define Atheist or
Atheism because I feel that every individual has to reach this position through
a variety of steps that are unique to
each one of us. Atheism is not for everyone. It's not easy and it's not comfortable. Atheism is an acquired taste - a
fine wine. Atheism is an irritant. Just as
an irritant causes an oyster to produce a
pearl, Atheism is the irritant that prods
the human mind to greater knowledge,
greater understanding,
and greater
progress.
However, for myself, I define an
Atheist as "A person whose values and
ethics are firmly rooted in an everexpanding reality. A person who prefers
to know rather than believe."
On the other side of the coin, my
Christian indoctrination qualifies me to
give you my meaning of Theism. Theism
is "intellectual submission to the idea
that invisible, non-human life forms are
responsible for, monitor, and ultimately
are responsible for our fate."
My definition of Theology is this:
"The art of making up stories for things
we haven't found out yet, or may never
find out about, and the making of arguments that these things we have not
found out about are in control, and will
punish us if we don't agree with the babble of theologians
and give them
money."
This so-called 'art' has, over the
years - through oppression, submission,
violence and overall brutality - developed into an industrial-strength
corporate vacuum cleaner of consciences and
cash.
And while I'm on theology - why are
Atheists involved in "god" debates?
What is this obsession with trying to
match wits with a theist? What wits are
there to match? Why would we even
want our wits compared to the wits of a
theist? I do not understand the fascination Atheists have with this activity
when ultimately it is a fruitless exercise.
We enter such debates facing two major
obstacles.
(1) There is nothing you can say to
change the mind of the theist.
So-called "God" debates almost
invariably boil down to "witnessing"
exhibitions, and they are staged for the
Page 35

amusement of smug Christians who

view us as nothing more than lost sheep
in need of their version of hope. For lack
of an argument they appeal to the emotions. It is simply proven over and over
again, each and every Sunday, that
emotional appeals can stir an audience
to have ecstatic, subjective experiences
over such things as chants, visions, and
devotion to inanimate wafers. All of this
because they have a deep and abiding
personal relationship, personal mind
you, with a two-thousand-year-old
myth. And you expect them to listen to
reason? How can you argue with that?
You can't.
2) The debate only exists in the
mind of the theist.
The theist needs this debate to reaffirm
his
own
tenuous
beliefs.
Apparently they are still not sure and
need us to help them debase themselves.
On the other hand, as an Atheist, I fail
to see the need to reaffirm reality at
every opportunity. We all know that
there are things we have not seen and
things we have not comprehended. So
what? Life is about learning. Could you
imagine how dreadfully boring it would
be if we knew everything - even to the
point of knowing we could not possibly
get to know, understand, and experience
anything else?
What would be our point then?
There could be no progress. No exponential growth. Not even linear growth. We
would be less functional than rust.
There are many things that are invisible
to us, both physically and intellectually,
and there are things that may very well
remain hidden from human curiosity for
the entirety of our existence.
Richard Feynman put it quite simply when he said that we are standing
on the threshold of an ever-expanding
sphere of ignorance. That admission
alone is a major step toward knowledge
and wisdom.
There are also many things that are
incomprehensible for us humans - but
that doesn't mean we throw our hands
up into the air and say "It must be God,"
followed by a round of applause, pats on
the back. and collective agreement that
the mysteries of the universe have been
solved. Now kindly pass the collection
plate and I'll see you next week.
Let me share with you the words of
an Atheist Hero, Charles Bradlaugh, a
19th century freethinker and British
politician who defied the common practice of taking an oath to a deity as a
requirement for public office.
Page 36

He said, in his 1876 book, The

Freethinker's Text Book, "The Atheist
does not assert no god, but he says 'I
know not what you mean by God. I am
without the idea of God; the word God to
me is a sound conveying no clear or distinct affirmation. I do not deny God,
because I cannot deny that of which I
have no conception, and the conception
of which by its affirmer is so imperfect
that he is unable to define it for me."
As I have briefly illustrated, theists
and theologians have unilaterally set
themselves up as experts on Atheism.
How could anyone be an expert on
anything, but yet believe that virgins
give birth (by the way, how can anyone
who believes in a virgin birth state
unequivocally and with a straight face
that sexual abstinence is 100% effective?), the dead rise and stroll about,
water can be changed to wine on the
molecular level by a mere wink or a nod,
snakes can chat, and, most importantly
- and I am truly awed by this - that an
entire civilization of invisible, selfaware non-human beings, are in control
of the whole shebang?
Not just a god mind you, but an
entire city of beings. Angels, saints, devils, demons, cherubs, golden cities, lakes
of fire, this, that, and the other thing.
Hell, they even have a Dictionary of
Angels,
I'm surprised
that
Rand
McNally hasn't contracted with the
Vatican to publish a thorough streetindexed map of Heaven complete with
"points-of-interest" and "eternity tips."
These are your experts on Atheism.
And we have let them get away with it.
Therefore, I submit the following:
Theists discussing Atheism. is akin
to baboons discussing nanotechnology.
Their arguments are senseless and
amount to nothing more than personal
attacks.
Any argument
based on
Atheism as a negative concept is
groundless and serves merely as a
defense mechanism used to justify religiously inspired abandonment of personal responsibility and the comforting
flight from reason that grips mankind.
What exactly is negative about
Atheism?
There is nothing at all negative
about Atheism other than it deprives
religious institutions of cash and renders their intellectual positions senseless. There is nothing negative about
doubt, skepticism, asking questions,
and demanding satisfactory answers - if
there are such answers to be found. If
not, we keep asking, probing, inquiring.
Summer 1999

It is when we don't doubt, we aren't

skeptical, we don't ask questions - when
we merely accept - that is when we get
burnt. That is where you are in a position to be taken to the intellectual (and
often times financial) dry-cleaners.
Why should the Atheist settle for
anything less than what was demanded
by the New Testament Thomas, who
refused to believe that the Christian
messiah had risen from the grave unless
he had empirical evidence? In the story,
the Christ appeared to him and allowed
Thomas to place his hands in the messiah's wounds. Thomas became convinced.
Recently an article appeared in my
local paper about how (I love this term)
"people of faith" deal with doubt. I read
the article and jotted down a few notes
to share with you.
Webster's defines doubt as "uncertainty of belief or opinion; specif.: the
subjective state of being uncertain of the
truth of a statement or the reality of an
event as a result of incomplete knowledge or evidence." (Sounds like Atheism,
doesn't it?)
To the Atheist, doubt is not a problem, but instead a valuable tool. In fact,
within the sphere of freethought, which
encompasses
Atheists,
Agnostics,
Humanists,
Rationalists,
even some
Unitarians, doubt is extolled for its
virtues. For it is by virtue of doubt, or
skepticism, that falsehoods, no matter
how widely held they may be, are, ideally, ferreted out and eventually abandoned.
In reality, believers unwittingly
practice Atheism all the time.
We are all skeptical to some degree
or another about many claims. We doubt
the assertions of advertisers, of salesmen, of politicians, of preachers, and so
on. That is, upon hearing certain claims
being made, we generally like to know
more about the product, claim, or proposal. We have doubts. They need to be
addressed.
If it weren't for critical scientific
inquiry (which, in my opinion is the
basis of sound Atheist thought), the
potential environmental hazards of CFC
(chloroflourocarbons) production would
not have been discovered. Our archeological heritage may never have been
known to the extent it is. We would still
believe that mental illness is the product of demons. We may never have
known we revolved around the sun.
DNA would continue to be three random, meaningless letters.

American Atheist

To the Atheist, doubt is a vital tool

- a blade to be polished and honed, to
cut away the chaff so that what is left is
the real wheat. I present Atheism as a
crucible in which impurities are burned
away leaving a pure substance - that
substance
being
objective
truth.
Whether or not we are comfortable with
that truth is irrelevant. Atheism, skepticism, doubt - they all have a proven
track record of progress.
The newspaper article, "Doubt,"
began with the sidebar, "People troubled by a lack of faith have to recognize
they are not alone, and be willing to
tackle the problem head on."
If we recall that FAITH can be
defined as "Belief without evidence," the
sidebar can easily be reinterpreted to
read: "People troubled by an inability to
blindly accept insupportable,
if not
downright fantastic, claims have a serious problem which must be addressed
immediately."
In other words, if you find that the
suggested evidence to support a given
claim is so woefully inadequate that you
would have to literally be dishonest
with yourself to accept it, then something is wrong - not with the claim, but
with you. This is backwards.
In the article, replete with quotes
and questionable "help aids," one can
only conclude that to the religious mind,
doubt is a "problem" which people are
"troubled" by - a symbol of loneliness,
or, as a Catholic priest quoted in the
article stated, "I'm not happy with
myself when I'm doubting ...." He also
broadly assumes that "people who are
doubting often have ignored God in
their daily lives."
To him, or anyone else for that matter, I willingly submit an almost limitless list of contributions to society made
by those who have successfully "ignored
God in their daily lives." Neither were
these individuals "troubled" by their
doubt.
A pastor of a Seventh Day Adventist Church says in the article, "Faith
causes you to have to disprove or disbelieve things you see, hear, and touch."
This statement alone is so overwhelmingly shocking and incomprehensible as to leave the Atheist speechless.
How do you ignore something you
see, hear, and touch? Observational
claims (those we see, hear, and can
touch) make up a vast majority of our
verifiable knowledge, and to deny what
is patently obvious, and natural is to
purposely distort reality. Unless one has
a vested interest in promoting a distortParsippany, New Jersey

ed reality, no good can come from such

an approach.
Should the claims of faith be
exempt from the same scrutiny we
would apply to any and all other claims?
To the Atheist, the answer is no.
Promoters of faith would have it differently.
The most predatory position on
doubt is that of a Rev. Carlos Ortiz, a
pastor of a Christian Assembly church,
who in the article said that, when he is
approached by a doubter, he looks for
character flaws, personality disorders,
or chronic worrying. In other words,
something to exploit.
Here's another sick quote by another sick minister: "You have to examine
your own lifestyle to pinpoint the cause
of doubt." Did it occur to either gentleman that maybe it is the religious
claims themselves that are the cause of
the doubt, not the doubter? Could it be
that the smorgasbord of miracles and
magical happenings stated in the Bible
are, in fact, unbelievable and utterly
fantastic - not because of some deficiency on behalf of the individual, but
because of a deficiency in the narratives
themselves?
The religious approach is guilt by
dis-association. In other words, if you
don't believe this stuff you have the
problem, not the stuff. This deadly mind
game employed by faith peddlers is
designed to put the believer on the
defensive, by having the adherents
blame themselves simply because of a
failure to be convinced.
The skeptical - and in my opinion
far healthier - approach is sound reasoning and free inquiry, not subtle
implication of moral decay, or wasting
thirty minutes a day meditating until
you convince yourself that a certain
something that simply cannot happen did.
And convince yourself you must do.
And that is where "The Garlic Necklace"
of Atheism comes into play.
For millennia, religion has had a
choke hold on The Unknown and made
it something to fear - a place were gods
and demons existed. Religion has played
mankind for a bunch of fools in some
cosmic morality play, the stage of which
is beyond our view. But as Atheists we
know this is not only most probably
false, but also the product of the fearful,
predatory, primitive and supernaturally
hopped-up minds of faith salesmen.
To the religionist, The Unknown is
filled with fear and shadows. To the
Atheist, The Unknown is our playSummer 1999

ground. The Unknown is what living is

all about. It is what we accomplish that
gives meaning to life - not submission
and docility.
The Theist wants to "be delivered."
The Atheist wants to "deliver the
goods."
To the Theist, life is being on trial.
To the Atheist, life is a series of events.
The Theist needs to know what to
think. The Atheist wants to know how to
think.
The Theist seeks conformity and
assimilation. The Atheist seeks knowledge and marvels at nature's diversity.
Religion's search for gods has hampered mankind's
search for itself.
Religion has our heads so far into the
clouds that we can't see each other.
Religion has lost sight of reality.
Religion has lost sight of life.
So where do we go from here?
Is doubt something to be cherished
and practiced, or is it to be muted and
excised in such a way so as to never
resurface?
Should doubt be a source of awe,
wonder, and unending interest? Or is it
an emotional albatross, a road to unhappiness, anxiety, or worse, a character
defect - some sort of moral misgiving, a
pathway to damnation? This is the fundamental difference over the approach
to doubt as embraced in the religious
world as opposed to the Atheist world:
Doubt as a problem vs. Doubt as "the
garlic necklace," designed to ward off
the demons or vampires of ignorance.
If the unknown is to be known, then
it is the Atheist who will find out about
it. If the unknown is to be known, then
I put my money on Atheism.
To Religion I say: gods, demons,
fear, ignorance, and threats are all in
the offering.
To American Atheists I say: you are
the best we have to offer. Thank you.

I suggest that the anthropomorphic god-idea is not a

harmless infirmity of human
thought, but a very noxious
fallacy,which is largely responsible for the calamities the
world is at present enduring.
-William Archer
"Theology and War"
Page 37

THE BALKAN CRISIS:

FAULT-LINE OF CIVILIZATIONS
by

Conrad Goeringer is Editor of the

on-line AANEWS service, Contributing
Editor of American Atheist, and principal writer for American
Atheist
Newsletter. He has been a featured
speaker at our National Conventions,
Regional Atheist Meets, and other
organizational functions for over twenty
years. This speech was presented at the
25th National Convention of American
Atheists on 3 April 1999.

eare now moving into the second week of military strikes in

Kosovo. There is increasing
talk of the possibility of using ground
forces, and I think that by most
informed accounts there appears to be
little prospect to an immediate resolution of the conflict that is taking place
over there. There are a couple reasons
why I want to talk about the Balkans,
especially to this audience.
The first is that what is going on in
Kosovo now represents a conflict in one
of the major geopolitical fault-lines in
the world today. This is a region where
three of the planet's great civilizations
collide - Western Christianity, Eastern
Orthodoxy, and Islam. Every so often in
the news reports we hear about a country named Macedonia, and most people
think of Alexander the Great who came
from Macedonia. Coincidentally that
country is close to where three geological tectonic plates meet (Asia, Africa
and Europe), and I ask that you try to
think in a similar fashion when I say
that along with the geological fault
lines, there are these deep-running fault
lines of a different sort that separate
these "civilizations."
Two years ago when we met in
Washington, DC for the Defending The
Wall Conference, I spoke on the work of
a man named Samuel P. Huntington, a
political scientist, who had recently

Page 38

Conrad Goeringer

written a book called The Clash Of

Civilizations
And The Remaking
Of
World Order (Simon & Shuster, 1996).
In the broadest outline, what Huntington was saying is that with the "fall of
communism" in our lifetime, we have
seen the end of a bipolar world, where
politics basically revolved around a coldwar confrontation between the East and
West.
This bipolar conflict is being
replaced by a multipolar conflict, where
instead of dynamics involving secular
ideologies and nation states, confrontations between what Huntington terms
"civilizations" become the way of defining and understanding what is going on.
In other words, the world is being reconfigured. There is a "clash of civilizations," and in this brave new world secular ideologies or power ideologies no
longer play the central role they once
did. Instead, forces such as language,
ethnicity, ancestry, religion, and tribalism begin to assert themselves again as
factors in how groupings of people
define and perceive themselves in relation to others.
In the future, like it or not, as we
enter this new phase of history, religion
is likely to play more of a role in what is
going on in the world than it has over
the past half-century or so. Now, none of
this is to say that ethnicity, and religion
and ancestry weren't important factors
during the cold war. They were. Religion
played an integral role in the confrontation between East and West. But what
Huntington and others argue, is that
these traditional factors will play even
more of a role as we move into the 21st
century.
.
I think this has profound implications for Atheists and secularists in general. I think that we are seeing a religious resurgence throughout the world,
not so much perhaps in the United
States, but certainly in the countries of
the former Soviet Union where
Summer 1999

Orthodoxy has once again started to

thrive and become an organizing force.
Along with militant Islam we have various Hindu and even Buddhist groups
that in other "civilizations" are asserting themselves not only in the quest for
political power, but in a wider battle
which they perceive to be against the
incursions of western enlightenment
influence and modernity in general.
So, using this model of civilizations,
we have in the Balkans an enormous
fault line where Orthodoxy, western
Christianity, and Islam collide. This is
something that has been taking place
for nearly a thousand years. When you
read the history of the area, of the invasions and retreats and the conflicts, you
see why this particular part of the world
is so tempestuous and unstable.
A second reason why I wanted to
talk about the Balkan situation was
because it is a geopolitical powder keg.
This is the region where in 1908 the
Catholic Hapsburgs formally annexed
Bosnia, where in 1914 a Serb assassin
named
Gavrilo Princip
shot the
Archduke Ferdinand - thus igniting the
events leading to World War I. Here we
are at the opposite end of the century,
and some of the same cultural, ethnic,
and religious forces are at work, and the
western powers are again involved.
Let me make a series of observations about the Balkans and about the
Balkan crisis which will hopefully convey to you some of the flavor of this
"clash of civilizations," and some of the
religious and cultural factors which
underlie what is taking place there now.
We cannot understand
what is
going on especially in Serbia without
appreciating the role that ethnicity and
Orthodox religious belief has played
there during the past thousand or so
years. Christianity divided in 1054 over
the question of ecclesiastical authority
and which church councils would be recognized. Two centers of power emerged:
American Atheist

one in Rome, the other in Constantinople. The term "Orthodox" is taken

from the Greek, meaning "right-believing," implying a claim of apostolic truth
with doctrinal consistency.
Orthodoxy was taken to much of the
Slavonic world by the Byzantine missionaries Sts. Cyril and Methodius. The
Bulgarians
converted in 864, the
Russians in 988 after the Russian
Prince Vladimir journeyed to the Hagia
Sophia or Church of the Holy Wisdom,
that magnificent temple located in
Constantinople.
The Ottoman Turks conquered
Byzantium (or Constantin pole) in 1453,
and they recognized the patriarch of
that city as the spokesman for the entire
Christian population under their control. Over the years, the different
branches of Orthodoxy would break off
their allegiances to a particular patriarchy, which was fine because, unlike
western Christianity, Orthodoxy relied
on the authority of church councils,
rather than have a unified center and
papal figure, as the western church did.
In this part of the world, and I
would say that this primarily applies to
that group which we might label
"Slavic," Orthodoxy was fused with ethnic identity - later even with national
identity, language, customs, symbols
and a particular view of history and the
world. If you want to understand Russia
for instance (which is certainly one of
the centers of Orthodoxy), you have to
think of terms such as "nationality,"
"Orthodoxy" and "autocracy."
The first is this ethnic identification
as Slavic, and in the literature and
mythos of the slavophiles, there is a
sense that "God has saved a special mission for the Slavs," that after a period of
suffering they will redeem the world. I
recommend a book by Nicholas Berdyaev called The Icon And The Axe if
you want to understand this further.
There is the sense within Orthodoxy,
that the Slavs are united by that faith,
by its iconography and ritual. There is a
yearning for autocracy, the strong man
on horseback; strong leaders; stern leaders; ruthless leaders even - and their
job is to strengthen the Slavic fatherland, and guard it from the incursions of
the corrupt West.
You have to remember that when
the Enlightenment
took place, its
impact in the East, in places like Russia
and down in the Balkans, was minimal.
All of the enlightenment ideas about the
political rights of the individual, the priParsippany, New Jersey

macy of reason over religious superstition, the notion of limiting autocracy in

favor of some form of republicanism, the
sense of looking at human history and
trying to find a direction, a so-called
philosophy of progress, a lot of these
notions were simply alien to the
Orthodox world. In the Orthodox world,
especially the Balkans, a different mind
set has prevailed, and it is one based on
long-standing ethnic rivalries, ancestral
feuds, religious ties and suffering. The
outside world became a profane and suspect realm.
Here's what Robert Kaplan, an editor for the Atlantic Monthly said about
this in his thoughtful book from 1993
titled Balkan
Ghosts, A Journey
Through History. He's talking about
some of the differences between the
Croats and the Serbs, and he writes:
Religion in this case is no mean
thing. Because Catholicism arose in
the West and Orthodoxy in the
East, the difference between them
is greater than that between, say,
Catholicism and Protestantism, or
even Catholicism and Judaism.
Let me give you a fairly recent historical example of these differences, and
this involves what happened during and
in the days leading up to World War II,
and that was the establishment of an
Independent
Catholic State in the
region we know as Croatia. Croatia is
sandwiched between Serbia to the east,
Slovenia to the northwest, Hungary to
the north, and the Adriatic to the west.
The old Catholic Habsburg empire lies
to the north. To the west and south, you
have the Orthodox areas like presentday Serbia and Kosovo, which is a name
we are getting to know all too well.
The Croats were a Slavic tribe, but
they were also the first to free themselves from the domination of Byzantium in 924. The country was later occupied by the Ottomans. They also fell
under the influence of the Catholic kingdom of Hungary, and it was really this
long-standing loathing and fear of the
East which was manifested by either
Orthodoxy or the Ottoman Empire that
became part of the Croat consciousness.
They willingly welcomed whatever
influence and protection the Vatican
could provide.
There arose in Croatia a movement
known as the Ustashe ('insurrectionists') that had the goal of creating an
authoritarian Catholic state and elimiSummer 1999

nating any Serbian and Orthodox influences. When the Nazis marched into
Croatia in April of 1941, they installed
the Ustashe leader Ante Pavelic - and
at this point, accounts of what happen
divide sharply. If you believe the
Serbian historiography, and I suspect
that there really is considerable evidence for this, somewhere around
600,000 Serbs, Jews, Gypsies and other
citizens of Yugoslavia were exterminated as part of a systematic campaign of
ethnic and religious cleansing. At the
center of this story is the controversial
Roman Catholic Archbishop Alojzije
Stepinac, who was a vehement backer of
the Ustashe. Stepinac led demonstrations in support of the Pavelic regime,
he supported an extremely authoritarian social agenda (for instance, there
were even demonstrations in the streets
against mixed-sex bathing), there was
legislation against public profanity, and
Stepinac became the official chaplain to
the Ustashe. We know, too, that Roman
Catholic priests swore an Ustashe oath
on behalf of the "triumph of Christ and
Croatia,"
Under the Ustashe a reign of terror
ensued. Hundreds of Orthodox churches
and seminaries were demolished, and
the brutality and vigor with which
pogroms and ethnic cleansing campaigns were carried out astonished even
the Germans. People were thrown alive
into burning pits, ears were cut off as
part of an elaborate torture ritual.
Twenty-two extermination camps were
established, and the most notorious of
these was at Jasenovac, Robert Kaplan
recalled:
An ethnic Serb I met on the train
told me:" The Croatian fascists did
not have gas chambers at Jasenovac. They had only knives and mallets with which to commit mass
murder against the Serbs. The
slaughter was chaotic, nobody bothered to keep count. So here we are,
decades behind Poland. There,
Jews and Catholics battle over significance. Here, Croats and Serbs
still argue over numbers ..."
The Catholic genocide against
Jews, Orthodox, and others was not confined to the Independent
State of
Croatia. In Romania, that country was
nominally controlled by the fascist "Iron
Guard" movement. Kaplan provides us
with a chilling account of one mass-murder carried out by a group calling itself
Page 39

the Legion of the' Archangel Michael,

who rounded up hundreds oflocal Jews
and in one night of chilling blood-letting
killed and dismembered them in an
abbatoir.
Something else needs to be said
about Archbishop Stepinac. Stepinac
originally welcomed the Ustashe and its
leader, Pavelic. He arranged for a private audience of Ustashi Youth to meet
Pope Pius XII at the Vatican on February 6, 1942. Stepinac had declared,
All in all, Croats and Serbs are of
two worlds, northpole (sic) and
south pole (sic), neyer will they be
able to get together unless by a miracle of God. The schism (Eastern
Orthodoxy) is the greatest curse in
Europe,
almost
greater
than
Protestantism. Here there is no
moral (sic), no principles, no truth,
no justice, no honesty ...
Stepinac's role in history is a subject that continued to divide historians,
and there is considerable debate over
his involvement in the Croat-UstashiCatholic genocide. But there is some
evidence that as the "ethnic cleansing"
and brutality intensified, it was even
too much for Stepinac. In May, 1943 the
Axis powers demanded that the Vatican
remove him from his post. By then, of
course, the whole direction of the war
was beginning to shift in favor of the
allies. After the collapse of the Reich,
Stepinac was arrested by the new
Yugoslav government and put on trial;
he was transmogrified into a heroic figure in the battle against "godless communism," and died while under house
arrest in 1960.
Last year, during a visit to Croatia,
Pope John Paul beatified Stepinac - this
is the step before canonization and
sainthood.
Now, after all of this, we enter the
very brief period known as Titoism
when all of these bubbling ethnic and
religious hatreds were not eliminated as
much as they were driven underground.
Josip Broz Tito, a communist insurgent,
led much of the left resistance to the
Nazis, and after the war he emerged as
head of the Yugoslav government when
it was declared in 1953. Tito's unique
brand of communism was dubbed "positive neutralism," and during the Tito
period most of the separatist ambitions
of the different ethnic and religious
movements were violently suppressed.
He died in 1980, and by the time the
Page 40

Soviet Union began to disintegrate a

process of - what else? - "Balkanization" took place. Out of the former
Yugoslavia arose Slovenia (June, 1991),
Bosnia-Herzegovina
(March, 1992),
Macedonia (November, 1991) and,
again, Croatia in June of 1991. In
Croatia, Franjo Tudman became president; Tudman had gone on record as
denying that any holocaust against the
Jews or Serbs had ever occurred. The
Croat army and paramilitary
units
began another round of ethnic cleansing; 40,000 Serbs became refugees, as
many as 15,000 may have been killed.
And through it all, in January, 1992 the
Vatican became the first of the world's
"governments" to recognize the Catholic
regime in Croatia.
Again, in this whole Balkan
tragedy. what you believe in terms of
numbers and events identifies, at least
for the participants, which "side" you
are on. But I think that claims that
upwards of 500,000 Serbs were evicted
and driven from their homes may have
a basis in truth.
There is one more character in this
drama I have to discuss before winding
this up, and this is Slobodan Milosevic;
he is the key to understanding what is
taking place now in Kosovo. He has
been elevated to the status of a demonic
figure in the west, and again, this may
well have a basis in fact. But as I wrote
last week in an AANEWS
dispatch,
"Milosevic is actually the articulation of
profound Serbian fears, traditions and
aspirations which resonate throughout
Yugoslavia and, indeed, the wider community of Slavs and Orthodox adherents ..."
.
Throughout most of his life, Milosevic was known as a doctrinaire communist who was at home in the
labyrinths of the party apparatus. He
was the protege of Ivan Stambolic, the
Serb minister who took over in the
midst of the post-Tito fragmentation.
And fate smiled on Milosevic when he
was sent to calm a popular uprising that
was taking place in the Kosovo administrative capitol of Prist in a in April, 1987.
This was an event that transformed
Milosevic - probably as a person, but
. certainly as a symbol of revitalized
Serbian nationalism and resistance.
Throughout the summer of 1987, he
was on the road speaking to wildly
enthusiastic crowds of Serbs who had
seen the demographics of Kosovo shift
profoundly as Muslim Albanians poured
into the area. There arose a whole subSummer 1999

version mythology in the Serb communities in and around Kosovo that

Muslims were deliberately breeding
large families so that they could take
over. Kosovo had been granted considerable autonomy toward the end of Tito's
reign, Serb uprisings and protests were
by some accounts violently put down by
the Kosovo provincial government, and
to the Serbs Slobodan Milosovic
emerged as a nationalist hero who was
going to keep Kosovo for the Serbs.
Now, I don't think that Milosevic is
Orthodox. He's probably not, his wife is
a Marxist academic, he lives in Tito's
old palace (so he fits the profile of a
Balkan autocrat), but he obviously
knows about the cultural collision that
is taking place in that area, and how
religious belief and history fit together.
His father had wanted to study for the
Orthodox priesthood, but Slobodan
Milosevic was reared by his mother, an
orthodox Communist.
In March, 1998, Milosevic ordered
the arrest of ethnic Albanian leaders in
Kosovo, and on June 28, he traveled to
an important monument and symbol in
this story, and that is the battlefield of
Gazimestan, which is also Kossovo
Polje, the "Field of Black Birds." This
was where the Ottoman Turks defeated
the Serb armies on June 28, 1389, and it
is a "sacred place," a mythic power center in the Serb consciousness. That battle basically closed one of the glorious
chapters in Serbian history, this was
the reign of Stefan Dushan, the name a
form of the term dusha meaning 'soul'.
For his time, he was an enlightened
ruler who sanctioned religious freedom
and even trial by jury. The Serbian
empire was at its peak, comprising present day Bosnia-Herzegovina, Montenegro, Albania, Macedonia, part of northern Greece and Bulgaria. Kaplan and
other have noted that Dushan's armies
were strong enough to have possibly
seized Constantinople had it not been
for a diversionary foray against Catholic
Hungary. Dushan died suddenly in
1355; the Turks were already across the
Bosphorus. This was the twilight of the
so-called Nemanjic kings. The Turks
were on the march for the next few
decades, and in 1389 came that decisive
battle which configured the Balkans for
the next five centuries.
Another symbol of Serbian tradition and coherence, along with this location, the "field of black birds" of Kossovo
Polje, are the monasteries
of the
Orthodox Church, most of which are
American Atheist

centuries old. There are five prominent

monasteries in Kosovo, and as I noted in
the AANEWS dispatch, "they serve as
icons of this cultural resistance to the
outside world."
In the November 10, 1997 edition of
the New York Times, Christopher
Hedges wrote what I think is one of the
most penetrating observations made
about this part of the world and thus the
Balkan crisis. He observed: "The many
attempts to eradicate the Serbian
Orthodox Church have produced a theology that glorifies warrior priests,
makes a cult of suffering, and sees in
nearly every outsider a heretic plotting
to destroy the Serbian people."
He quoted a monk who declared,
"The Serbs must accept that they will
always be hounded by their enemies ...
this is because Orthodox believers know
the truth, because God forces all believers to suffer for the faith."
So let me summarize with a few
points:
First, we are now in a "brave new
world" where increasingly the ancient
calls ofethnicity, language, religion, and
familial roots assert themselves in a
multipolar world. This is a world not
just of nation states and corporations,

but of "civilizations." And in the

Balkans, we find one of the great fault
lines in the collision and conflict of these
civilizations - western Christianity,
Orthodoxy, and Islam.
Secondly, I think that Americans
especially are an a-historical people in a
sense. Our history is very young.
Writers like Frederick Turner observed
that our national character has been
shaped by the idea of a frontier, of the
new, of the not-yet-built. That is why, in
part, we simply have no comparable
frame of reference. For us a building
that is two or even three centuries old is
a historical treasure. In the Balkans,
that time frame is relatively young. We
are driven by symbols associated with
popular culture, by notions such as
upward social mobility, the quest for
material consumption (and I applaud
this, I think this is far preferable to a lot
of alternatives), but we loose sight of the
fact that in much of the world, especially in the Balkans, there is an entirely
different world view or Weltanshauung.
We fail to appreciate the fact that
beneath the veneer of popular culture television, the Internet, the global marketplace - there are profound and deep
cultural divides and historical differ-

ences, part of an "older world" that

while dormant at times, often bubbles
up or even explodes from beneath the
surface of the social fabric.
Is there anything that we can do
about this?
It behooves us as Atheists, secularists, and especially as Americans to
realize that what is happening in the
Balkans today is the result of profound
historical forces. We may not be able as
a society to do much about these, at
least in the short run. And I have to
stand here today before you and tell you
that I don't have an answer to what is
taking place over there. I can only have
a hope, and that is that perhaps in our
lifetime, the forces of globalization and
secularism and what I like to think of as
the "late wave of the European enlightenment" manage to reach the far shores
of the Adriatic and wash over the
Balkans. I can only place my hope in a
generation of youth who, with enough
education and enough exposure to the
outside world and their neighbors, can
start the long overdue task of breaking
free from the centuries of tradition,
mythic fantasy, and religious hatred
that threaten to divide and destroy
them and the rest of the world.

'\YOU WILL FINO ALl. JESUS STORY BOOKS

IN THE ReWRITTEN SUN MVTH seCTION."
Parsippany, New Jersey

Summer 1999

Page 41

The Story Behind

The Altar Boy Chronicles
Tony Pasquarello

Mr. Pasquarello is an emeritus professor

of philosophy
(The
Ohio
State
University) and a professional pianist,
boasting a repertoire of over five thousand works of the jazz, pop, and classical literature. His quasi-autobiographical The Altar Boy Chronicles has just
been published by the Gustav Broukal
Press, an imprint of AAP. A book-signing session followed this lecture, as eager
conventioneers purchased copies of the
book.

hank you so much. I think I'd be a

bit more comfortable playing the
piano for you. But, I'll try. It's
been fifteen years since I retired. So I'm
not used to public speaking.
There's so much activist energy
here that I hope I can claim the privilege
of old age and say that they also serve
who only sit and write. I want to thank
Ellen and the board of directors for
inviting me, and many thanks to Frank
Page 42

and Ann Zindler for all the work they

did in bringing my book to fruition, and
for their faith in me. It is a great honor
and privilege to address and stand
before the same organization which
many truly distinguished writers and
thinkers have addressed; and, of course,
it is a great privilege to be published by
the American Atheist Press and its
alter-imprint,
the Gustav Broukal
Press, because they have published so
much of value in the annals of the freethought press.
I do not write easily, I do not
research easily. I stand in awe and am
humbled by those who do. I am forest
green with envy of those who do. I am
amazed at the spirit of inquiry and the
ability to accomplish Herculean tasks
from people like Frank Zindler and
Conrad Goeringer. I count myself as
incredibly lucky to be here among their
company - where would our organization be without these authentic polymaths?
The Altar Boy Chronicles began
about fifteen years ago when I conceived
the idea of two or three simple, mostly
autobiographical stories, short stories,
in the humorous fashion, some of the
absurdities and outrageous hilarities of
my early Catholic days. I distinctly
remember chatting with Robin and
Madalyn at the 1984 convention in
Lexington Kentucky. They were enthusiastic when I told them of my plans to
send the stories for possible publication
in the American Atheist. That journal
had already published two of my articles. One was a long study of the nonrelation between religion and morality
'entitled "Religion And Morality: The
Odd Couple." The other title was on
"Avoiding That Last Visit," a timely
warning to all secularists that unless
they take specific steps to avoid it, they
will probably at best be visiting a church
and receive a nice Christian funeral serSummer 1999

vice and a good Christian burial.

Madalyn told me at that time how much
she had appreciated my message. I hope
that she did avoid a good Christian burial, if indeed she is dead. At that time I
had written the chapter "The VD Kid"
as a stand-alone story. As chapters multiplied, the book format seemed much
more appropriate and it seemed to be an
attainable
goal. Subsequent events,
some quite surprising, interfered with
the development of the book. I had three
chapters complete, then put it aside for
a long time, then I did three or four
more chapters and then it lay untouched
for seven or eight years. Finally I made
extensive revisions and additions in
1997 and added a preface, last chapter,
and postscript in 1998 when I was
assured that our organization would be
interested in publication.
In the meantime three of the chapters appeared in the American Atheist
magazine - or journal as I like to call it.
I hope some of you enjoyed some of
them, and will want to read more. As for
signing, I am so delighted to be the published author of a book, that it goes
without saying that I would be overjoyed, I would be deliriously happy to
autograph copies of my book. I am still
basking in the afterglow of Robert
Baker's asking me to sign his copy of my
"Proving Negatives" article. Robert
Baker's the famed skeptical psychologist at the University of Kentucky, and
he is the author of the classic work on
hypnotism; he's written a dozen books
and hundreds of papers. I'm still thankful and a bit amazed that he asked me
for my autograph.
Of course I will sign any where any
time. Please interrupt me in mid-sip at
cocktail hour, mid-sleep in my room,
mid-spoon at dinner, in mid-song at the
piano, or even in mid-stream in the
men's room. None of these would be an
intrusion. Any autographing would repAmerican Atheist

resent a book sale, and any future funds

for the important work of our organization.
Why the Gustav Broukal Press, you
may wonder; why not the American
Atheist Press? The answer is simple. We
decided, and I hoped, that the book
might have a wider appeal and a broader potential
than just the small
freethought segment of the population.
I've often believed personally that the
entire population of Philadelphia can be
our clientele. If so, we have an easy
choice - rather than have someone take
the book from the shelves, see the
Atheist Press imprint, and fling it across
the room before the contact could produce a skin rash, we would rather have
someone leaf through the book, perhaps
purchase it and absorb the Atheist message from having read it.
So long as the generalized public
perception of Atheism is so negative and
their current perception is such an ignorant muddle, it is prudential to be discrete - but forthright - in our use of the
term. That is to say, be open and
unafraid to call ourselves Atheists on
any and all occasions where it is appropriate, but not open Sam's Atheist grocery store and wonder why there are no
patrons. Sad to say, the public probably
thinks that we are here today to finalize
our plans to vandalize churches, stone
stained-glass
windows, and violate
nuns. They're not quite sure whether
we're Communists, Nazis, Heaven's
Gate cultists, Satanists, Muslim terrorists, or Jews, and many believe that
we're all six.
Of course, the down side to a limited prudential use of the term Atheist is
that the day when it is considered just
another normal term of classification
like senior citizen or Republican. Well
perhaps not that. Just a normal term of
classification without heavy emotive
overtones. That day is postponed. Each
day Atheists must make judicious decisions as to when, how, and to whom to
open the closet door. There's no point in
telling a bartender "a very dry martini,
and I'm an Atheist."
The term Atheist can't be used more
frequently until it is normalized. But it
can't be normalized until it is used more
frequently. This is our burdensome version of the old paradox wherein you
can't get A without B, but you can't get
B without A. It's the familiar job experience paradox: you can't get ajob without
experience and you can't get experience
without a job. Of course, it's also the
Parsippany, New Jersey

familiar paper towel in the restroom dry

hands paradox, you can't dry your hands
without a paper towel, but you can't get
a paper towel without having dry hands,
because when your hands are wet they
rip the towel before you get the entire
towel. And there's the famous lost spectacles and seeing paradox. You can't
find your glasses without having your
glasses. The fact is that we do find our
glasses, and we do dry our hands, and
we get jobs; and this shows that these
are pseudo-paradoxes.
Likewise the Atheist paradox is
solved pragmatically and sensibly: mention it where it is natural or concordant
or critical to securing our civil rights, or
fruitful to our cause. My book states in
no uncertain terms in at least six places
that I am an Atheist. But yet potential
readers learn that from reading the
book, not from glancing at the cover.
For those of us whose Atheism is
pretty much public knowledge in our
communities, we have experienced the
repercussions of that publicity. We have
received the hate mail, the barely literate rantings and ravings. We have born
the economic consequences of being out
of the closet - in my case the loss of various piano engagements - but we have
also received the quiet, but totally supportive letters of physicians, attorneys,
and other prominent community figures
who encourage us to persevere, but who
for obvious reasons cannot advertise
their Atheism. Nevertheless there are
some groups who can be a bit bolder in
proclaiming their unbelief with little
danger of economic sanctions. For example, the lucky Senior Citizens: it is
unlikely, at least for now, that Social
Security checks to Atheists would be
abrogated. Those teaching in educational institutions with a strong commitment to academic freedom can also
openly embrace Atheism, without losing
their jobs.
But there is another group that we
might overlook. The group relatively
immune from any serious consequences
in taking unusual stances. In the perspective of older generations all they do
is take unusual stances. I refer of
course, to our youth - the theme of this
convention. It's most unlikely that loving parents, even Christians, would
withhold feedings from a free-thinking
fourteen-year-old. Any different position
adopted by teens will probably be
excused as normal rebelliousness and
hormonal energy so characteristic of
youth. Remember that traditionally it
Summer 1999

was young people who had the courage

and freshness of vision before getting
bogged down by societal conventions
and political correctness. It was young
people who "told it like it was," in asserting that the Emperor had no clothes. In
contemporary terms our youth should
boldly proclaim that the pope and all
varieties of prelates are sartorially challenged.
I would say to young Atheists or
potential Atheists, "Welcome. Remember that it is perfectly natural to reject
the supernatural in the modern condition. Our primitive ancestors, however,
resorted to the supernatural. It was natural for them, because they lacked scientific causal explanations for a variety
of phenomena - dreams and the figures
seen in dreams, particularly those clan
members who had recently been a saber
tooth's meal, but seemed very much
alive and kicking in last evening's nightmare. They could only cower before the
raw power of lightening and thunder,
floods, and fires and anthropomorphize
them or the unseen forces behind them.
They could not explain why a field was
fertile one season and fallow the next.
They could not explain these things.
And so they resorted to, they invented
the supernatural. But the point is, we
can, science can explain all these and so
much more. Poor supernatural, there's
nothing left for it to do. It's unemployed
and justly so."
Not that the concept of the supernatural
makes any sense at all.
Madalyn, by the way has written about
this very effectively. Consider this fascinating question. Assume you travel to
another planet, another star, another
galaxy. What would have to happen,
what would you have to encounter, to
make you exclaim, "Wow, this is supernatural!" It's very difficult to answer
that question.
That is essentially the story behind
The Altar Boy Chronicles. I'm afraid it
isn't very exciting, and it's certainly not
supernatural. I hope that you are not
misled by the partial title "The Story
Behind The Altar." If we stop there you
might have problems thinking it was
going to be a National Enquirer type
expose a la Boccaccio or the Marquis de
Sade. I have and say quite explicitly in
the book that I have no scandalous tales
of debauchery, depraved priests, or
deprived nuns. From my perspective,
nothing was going on behind the altar.
What was taking place at the altar was
scandalous enough. Adult men - no
Page 43

women - imbibing real blood and gnawing on real human flesh. For they are
doctrinally committed to believing that
those are precisely the substances they
are ingesting!
Then there was all that bowing and
scraping and kneeling and prostrating

And that's what the book is about.

To learn that, you'll have to read the
book. However, since it is Good Friday ...
(I have a very close friend, Tim Berra, a
very very well-known evolutionist, and
author of one of the major books against
creationism. Whenever I say it's Good

This is the paradox of worship. Any

being that commands, demands, or desires
worship is thereby proven unworthy of
worship.
and groveling - unworthy of a free
human being. What is worship anyway?
Is there any more there than the echoes
of those same primitive ancestors' fears
intending to placate forces beyond their
comprehension? In contemplating both
the music, the light, the personality of
Johannes Brahms, the composer, I experienced a religious - if I may use that
term - a religious sense of awe and reverence as deep as any experience I have
ever had. Others have similar feelings
for starry nights, ocean vistas, Darwin,
DaVinci, Newton, Galilee, VanGogh,
Einstein, or Shakespeare. One of my
fantasies - one of the few that can be
mentioned in public - one of my fantasies is that Brahms is resurrected and
I am to be his companion. What would I
do? I would ask him what he really
thought of Wagner and Bruckner. I
would ask him ifhe could play Liszt's Bminor sonata. I would ask if he had any
plans at all for a fifth symphony, and
what it might sound like. But I would
not be crawling at his feet. Nor would I
be kissing his cigar butts. If I may paraphrase Groucho Marx, I wouldn't worship any being who needs my worship.
(Laughter & applause) This is the paradox of worship. Any being that commands, demands, or desires worship is
thereby proven unworthy of worship.
This was the moral dramatized so
well on so many Star Trek episodes. The
crew often encountered gods or godlike
beings, but the moment those beings
insisted on being worshipped, it was
clear to Kirk and Spock that they didn't
deserve to be worshipped. This study of
worship is one of about fifty papers that
I have in process. I have discussed what
was behind the altar, and told you nothing. And what was behind the Altar Boy
Chronicles? Only one permutation is
left, the story behind the altar boy.
Page 44

Friday, he says "it's good every day.")

(laughter & applause) .
However, since it is Good Friday I
thought I'd close by reading those passages from the book that are especially
appropriate for this special day.
The idea was to cause pain, as much
of it as was conceivable and bearable for
a befuddled ten or twelve-year-old. I certainly hadn't yet mastered all the subtleties of Catholic theology at that age,
but I had observed one paramount tenet
of Church teaching: Pain is Good. It is
very, very good. Any pain could be
"offered" to Jesus and suffered "in His
Name." Though merely infinitesimal imitations of his agonies on the Cross, they
were still noted and deeply appreciated
by the bloody, thorn-wrapped
Sacred
Heart.
Our nuns and priests had made certain that we understood that Christ's
death was no ordinary, humdrum expiration. Surely not. Crucifixion, they told us,
was the most horrific, excruciating kind
of death, especially when inclusive of the
entire scenario - the Via Dolorosa,
Christ's painful walk to Golgotha carrying
this monster cross. (Which had definitely
not been sanded smooth.) Then there
were all the other indignities and insults
memorialized in The Stations of The
Cross.
We were encouraged to meditate
. upon each separate
incident
and
empathize to the utmost. Imagine your
side being pierced with a spear and
watching your last remaining vital fluids
gush out. What could it be like to be
wearing a circlet of pain, thorns penetrating the complete circumference of one's
Summer 1999

skull? Or being given a sponge full of vinegar when you wanted some water? (I
could never see why that was so bad; the
only salad dressing we ever used was
vinegar and oil. And that tasted pretty
darned good to me.)
To be truthful, I always felt that the
Stations were really padded. There was
enough pain there for seven or eight
Stations, but definitely not fourteen! No
way. Consider, the very first one is just
that Christ is condemned to death. Now
that would certainly cause mental anguish
or distress, perhaps severe depression,
but not really much pain. Then, there
were three "falls" thrown in; again, while
they couldn't have been pleasant, they
certainly weren't excruciating.
Gradually, as the war wore on, [the
Second World War], I even came to
doubt - we all did - that the Crucifixion
was the zenith of possible agony, as it had
always been portrayed. There were just
too many rumors, half-whispered, dimlycomprehended
tales of Nazi and Jap
atrocities. At least some of those
unspeakable horrors seemed to be a bit
worse than crucifixion. I dare say that,
once having been assigned the task, an
active, though not necessarily fiendish
imagination, could come up with scores
of sorrier ways to die. Hell, all you've got
to do is extend the duration of the torture segment and you've got something
worse. A week-long crucifixion - a few
nails a day - has to be worse. So does
slow roasting. On a spit. Or flaying. Or
any of the dastardly refinements that Vlad,
the original Dracula, contributed to the
fine art of impaling. Subsequently, as I
acquired the complete, forbidden writings of the Marquis de Sade, I realized that
he detailed a far worse torture every few
pages!
Please. I do so hate to be misinterpreted. Some staunch believers, on reading this, will report that a blasphemous
lunatic is claiming that crucifixion is a
piece of cake.
I'm saying no such thing. For the
record, crucifixion is an exceedingly nasty
business. I simply question how it stacks
up to the "Carrie" cases screamed by the
headlines almost daily - "Girl chained to
bedpost for six years by fundamentalist
parents, found dead by authorities."

American Atheist

At the time, however, crucifixion was

considered the worst. We had to imagine
it, concentrate on it, dwell upon every
gory detail. Oh, if only we could bring that
pain upon us; draw it over our heads and
wrap ourselves in blood, slime, thorns
and splinters, knowing that the worse it
felt, the better for us it was.

And then a few pages later I talk

about this season, Lent and this
very time of year, Good Friday, and
finally, Easter Sunday:
Add to this, interminable Lent itself
and the twelve-hour fasts before receiving Holy Communion, and huge chunks of
the year became meatless; And since I
was a holy altar boy, serving Mass and
probably taking Communion at each, two
or three times a week, I was, in fact, doing
all that fasting and abstaining. Who would
dream of sending the God-Wafer down
the gullet to slosh about in a meatball
chyme? What level of severity could that
sin have been? Probably way beyond mortal.
The only conceivable
sin more
heinous would have been eating meat on
Good Friday. Naturally, we turned that
into another opportunity for a deliberately torturous self-denial. Every Good
Friday, well into the evening, we were up
to our elbows in ham and ham fat.
literally. Every Italian family had to make
these special Easter "pies" consisting of
rice, ham, eggs, and raisins, in a really
thick, unpleasant shell. Although a big fan
of all the individual ingredients, except
the dough, Italians managed to combine
them to make something dry and tasteless, something considerably less than the
sum of the parts.
We had to labor over these baked
hams, separating the meat from the fat,
then carefully dicing and shredding it. And
you dare not taste even one micro-strand
of that beautiful, moist ham; you dare not,
even accidentally, touch your glistening
fingers to your lips - the fat counted as
meat. Just breathing that fleshy atmosphere, heavy with carnal droplets, must
have been a venial sin, at least.
They baked dozens of those leaden
pies on Good Friday so that they'd be
ready for noon on Holy Saturday, the offi-

Parsippany, NewJersey

cial end of Lent. I suppose some learned

church theologians had long ago worked
.out Jesus' out-of-body, post-mortem itinerary, though some points were still a bit
murky. He is crucified at Noon on Good
Friday; [about ten minutes from now]
expires at 3 P.M.the same day; and rises
from the tomb on Easter Sunday morning. But Lent is over at noon on Holy
Saturday?
Well, the explanation seemed to be
that by Saturday, Jesus - his spirit that is was definitely
already
in Heaven.
Therefore, we could start celebrating.
Obviously, the Supreme Being would not
want to remain embodied in that horribly
abused corpse a moment longer than
necessary. Besides, he had a few odd jobs
to get done before returning for the
Resurrection. First, he visited the various
nether regions like limbo and Purgatory
and emptied them; immediately released
the millions of prisoners there, and gave
them all Heavenly passes, which they
could use right away without waiting for
Holy Saturday. (Maybe the supernatural
realm was not operating on earth time.)
At any event, the redemptive power
of the Sacrifice on the Cross was so
enormous that it posted instant and complete bond for countless millions of souls.

But if those credits were so profuse, why

weren't they sufficient to release the
souls in Hell, too? At least, the poor sonsof-bitches who had tasted one sliver of
ham on a Friday. But, perhaps that wasn't
a sin in those B.C. days; maybe there wasn't a pre-Christian Hell.Yet, there just had
to be because Cain and Delilah and all the
Pharaohs had to be suffering somewhere.
Anyway, this Jesus-Spirit and his
legions of shock-parolees
then went
straight to Paradise. He assured the gatekeeper (it couldn't have been St. Peter; he
was still living) that their passes were
quite genuine and everything was in
order. Then, it was off to the throne room
to see his Father and (Brother?) the Holy
Ghost,
and
calm their
anxieties.
Everything had gone well, according to
the eternal plan.AII things considered, he
was in good shape. The next time he
returned, he'd bring his body. For now
though, let the party begin! And celebrate
they did until early Easter morning, when
Jesus apologized for being a party-pooper, but he simply had to leave in time to
reunite with his body and rise from the
dead, thereby
founding the Roman
Catholic Church.

(['heAltar !J0ll ehronicles

Did someone really set a pornographic stainedglass panel in a window of a Philadelphia Italian
Catholic church? Or did a preadolescent surge of
hormones merely make it seem so? Can you really get syphilis off a toilet seat? How can a really
good Catholic boy be thinking of sex all the time,
yet have as his personal hero that zany third
member of the Trinity - the Holy Ghost? Can a
child who is both brilliant and artistically gifted
grow up Catholic - and stay Catholic all the way?
Tony Pasquarello has written an affectionate
and often hilarious memoir on what it was like to
grow up in a Catholic Little Italy during World
War II. The head-on collision of inscrutable dogmas with a mind that is reflexively logical is an
immensely amusing spectacle. Add to this the
bewildering perplexity of pubertal transformation going on in the midst ofthe most sexually repressed culture since Victoria's
England - and you have a book you will want to order from American Atheists
right away. (ISBN 1-57884-953-5 )

Summer 1999

Page 45

Thinking the Unthinkable

Margaret Bhatty

Margaret Bhatty comes from a Christian

missionary family. She is a free-lance
journalist
and author of books in
English for Indian children. She lives in
Nagpur, India. For many years a columnist for American Atheist, she is the
author of the AAP -book An Atheist
Reports From India, which is available
from American Atheists ($9.00, ISBN 0910309-42-6, Cat. No. 5026).

hen Bertrand
Russell was
asked to describe his vision of
the 21st century he ruled it out
as an impossible question. "I do not
know at all," he declared. But he had
severe misgivings about the future of
humankind, and he spoke out on the
single topic which absorbed the closing
years of his life as a pacifist and Atheist
- nuclear war,
"I do think that once the knowledge
of nuclear capabilities becomes general
there will always be the threat of
nuclear war. The nuclear peril represents a danger which is likely to last as
long as governments possess nuclear
weapons, and perhaps longer if such
destructive objects get into private
hands." (italics mine)
In the final volume of his autobiography he sounded downright pessimistic: "Like Cassandra, I am doomed
to prophecy evil and not be believed. Her
promises came true; I desperately hope
that mine will not."
Russell, Einstein, and other intellectuals of their time were convinced
that debates on human survival in a
perilous age of nuclear weapons should
be conducted only by "rational adversaries with a sense of history, and a
compassion for the continued existence
of the species Man."
"Rational adversaries" presupposes
national and world leaders inspired by
reason and common sense. What
appalled right-minded citizens on this
sub-continent was the rabid display
which followed nuclear tests in India
and then in Pakistan. The nuclear
threat was given a deadly sectarian
color: Islamic green against Hindu saf-

Page 46

fron. A Hindu Bomb was answered by a

Muslim Bomb.
Both explosions were hailed as significant religious events. The Indian
test was carried out on a site in the
desert of Rajasthan where, in 1974,
Indira Gandhi presided over an earlier
test to bolster her shaking political
career as prime minister. That was
Pokhran I. Now we have Pokhran II,
with a test carried out by a government
led by a right-wing Hindu party, the
Bharatya Janta Party (BJP), to try to
establish its credibility as the government destined to take us into the 21st
century - saffron banners flying. This
government is out of office as I write,
defeated by one vote! We are to go for
another general election. The wobbly
character of our governments is evident
from the fact that we have had four
prime ministers in five years, heading
different coalitions. The scenario is not
much different in Pakistan, where the
Prime Minister has been targeted often
by assassins. If the growing nuclear
arsenal in both countries were to fall
into lunatic hands, it could lead to a
global catastrophe.
In May of 1998, India Today, a leading newsmagazine, described the BJP's
nuclear test thus:
By afternoon the wind had fallen
silent over Pokhran. At 3:45 p.m.
the timer detonated the three
devices. Around 200 to 300 meters
deep in the earth, the heat generated was equivalent to a million
degrees centigrade - as hot as temperatures on the sun. Instantly,
rocks weighing around a thousand
tons, a mini-mountain
underground, vaporized... shock waves
from the blast began to lift a mound
of earth the size of a football field by
several meters. One scientist, on
seeing it, said: "I can now believe
stories of Lord Krishna lifting a
hill."
Allah in his turn took a hand, in the
nuclear test in Pakistan which followed
soon after. Zealots there were sure of it.
Summer 1999

There is a popular belief among Hindus

that people of ancient India already
knew nuclear weapons and some were
used in the Mahabharata with spectacular effect. So we had come full circle.
Lumpen elements like the Vishwa
Hindu Parishad, Bajrang Dal and other
extreme outfits danced in the streets
and celebrated Pokhran II as if it was a
remarkable achievement, brought about
overnight by a Hindu government after
only a few weeks in office. They trekked
out to the site and launched a campaign
to raise a monument close to the test
site. Others were to carry quantities of
this sacredly radioactive sand across the
country to distribute among the devout.
The jingoism was so blatant that even
our political leaders were red in the face.
What appeared like a successful policy
statement at home, appalled everyone
abroad. The VHP etc. were asked to tone
down the chauvinism somewhat. But
the euphoria remained.
That anyone should think fit to
raise a monument to a weapon of mass
destruction is horrendous. Among the
first to arrive here after the test was a
delegation of Japanese. The Indian government was not interested in what
they had to say. They were able to meet
and address smaller gatherings of worried citizens who were as appalled as
they were.
Mahatma Gandhi is not so popular
around here nowadays. We have a vocal
lobby denouncing him for having sold us
out to Pakistan by agreeing to partition
this ancient Hindu land. The man who
assassinated him is a hero to a large section of zealots. The truth is that non-violence and pacifism has never been used
as a state policy even by ancient rulers.
Pillars and monuments were raised to
the victorious, and the greatest king was
a conquering one who ravaged and laid
waste his opponents' kingdoms, even
destroying their gods and temples to
carry off their loot.
Nirad Chaudhuri, the Indian scholar who not so long ago launched his latest work in London, written at the age of
a hundred, once wrote a book about us
Indians called The Continent of Circe. It
American Atheist

was not popular with his fellow countrymen. In a chapter headed "Janus and
His Two Faces" Chaudhuri examined
the puzzling dichotomy evident among
Indians over a wide spectrum: a great
respect for tradition and stability on one
hand, and an uncontrolled bent for disunity and disruption on the other. He
further listed megalomania against selfabasement; xenophobia against xenolatry; anarchic individualism against
authoritarianism;
militarism against
pacifism; violence against non-violence;
possessiveness about property against
carelessness; courage against extreme
cowardice; and cleverness against
extreme stupidity. "
Thus, even while claiming reverence for sages and ascetics, it is the warrior-king who fires the public imagination. He is seen as a saint because he
does not shrink from shedding blood in
a righteous war. And all wars we fight
are righteous - it's the enemy who is
diabolic. Pakistan is demonized in all
our films.
In the Bhagavad Gita the hero
Arjuna is engaged in a war which
involves spilling the blood of his kinsmen. As a Kshatriya, a member of the
warrior caste, he suffers misgiving. The
god Krishna, acting as his charioteer,
urges him to do his duty rather than
worry about the morality of his action:
"Looking to your own duty, thou
shouldst not tremble, for there is nothing more welcome to the Kshatriya than
a righteous war. The Kshatriya who
obtains such a fight unsought, like an
open door to heaven, should be happy. If
however, you will not carryon
this
righteous war, then, having cast away
your own duty and your honor, you will
incur sin."
Myths, legends, and early historical
accounts abound with feats of arms,
ruthlessness and cruelty in destroying
enemies. Where all else failed, guile and
chicanery were used.
The inability of Hindu kings to
unite made this sub-continent easy prey
for marauders entering through the
northern passes. A Moghul empire was
founded by Babur in Delhi in 1526.
After the Moghuls came the British.
Today, as in Ireland and the Balkans,
tribal memory plays havoc in twentieth
century politics. Implacable hatred still
infects Hindus and Muslims. Muslim
heroes are villains to the Hindus, and
vice versa. Inwardly, fanaticism has not
yielded an inch - despite centuries of
shared historical experience and ties of
culture, language, and geography.
Parsippany, New Jersey

The BJP's emergence as the leader

of a coalition resulted in all the most
serious defects of national character
being paraded openly as "patriotism"
and nationalism. Muslim Indians, who
are early converts from Hinduism, were
told to go to Pakistan. Christians,
attacked and persecuted, were told to go
back to England, as though they had
arrived here with the British!
The BJP's election slogan was "One
Nation - One Culture," suggesting it
would be the best thing for all the sheep
to now return to the fold again. Tribals
turned Christian are being "brought
home" with rituals meant to purify
them.
Given this kind of mind-set, the
detonation of a nuclear device is a
frightening thing. The government followed up the blast with test-firing missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads. Agni I and Agni II were
answered by Pakistan with Ghauri I
and II, and so on - all serial killers,
primed and numbered.
In two bitterly confronting countries, who has his finger on the nuclear
button? Is there any system in place to
prevent an accidental war, or some stupid error like mistaking a flock of
migrating geese on radar as a flight of
missiles? If our scientists are to be
believed, war has now become obsolete!
The concept of 'Mutually Assured
Destruction' (MAD) protects us completely. Neither Pakistan nor China will
ever dare attack us because they know
we in our turn can destroy them utterly.
We are now busy stock-piling. There is
even talk of selling some of our arsenal
to "friendly" nations.
To me one of the most obscene spectacles on national television was of scientists, gleeful and self-congratulatory,
enjoying their hour of glory. The father
of the Hindu Bomb is a Muslim - a fact
which right-wing Hindus point out as
proof of their own secularism.
There has been some protest by
other scientists, but the media have
played it down. Nobody wanted to
appear "unpatriotic." Euphoria infected
all. In a letter to the editor of The Times
of India, one NRI wrote from America
that nuclear bombs would make India
strong, "so let us make more and more
bombs." An NRI is a Non-Resident
Indian who has voted against his motherland with his feet, to make a good life
for himself in a Christian country, while
funding Hindu outfits here to promote
agendas which are destroying us as a
viable civilized society. Hindu revivalist
Summer 1999

organizations get enormous amounts of

money from fellow-believers abroad.
In 1961 Bertrand Russell wrote: "It
is despairing to observe how high-placed
men, who in other respects are not
devoid of intelligence, can believe, both
in the East and West, that peace can be
preserved by one's own side being
always stronger than the other side. It
may well be that the next year will end
with the stronger still possessing the Hbombs, but neither side possessing live
human beings."
With IRBMs like Agni I and Agni II
countered by Pakistan's Ghauri I and
Ghauri II and the more modest
Shaheen, we are into an arms race on
the sub-continent. But if MAD saved the
West from a nuclear holocaust, there is
no guarantee it will work here. Our
politicians are light-weight and selfserving, destabilizing successive governments, horse-trading and buying
and selling votes. The Westminster parliamentary system we have is in shambles. It no longer works. Pakistan on its
part is in dire economic distress. The
influence of the army looms over every
politician appointed as prime minister.
The army not only has a medieval mindset regarding religion, it is deeply
involved in the arms and narcotic trade.
Islamic militant outfits are generously
funded,
trained
and directed
by
Pakistan in Kashmir. Every day we
read of Hindu villagers massacred, or
soldiers on either side of the firing lines
being shot dead. We are involved in an
ongoing holy war which started fifty
years ago and shows no sign of ending.
One
optimistic
commentator
claimed that India must survive a
nuclear conflict for two good reasons.
One, area-wise we have a wider range to
locate our nuclear weapons so that
many more would survive a first-strike
attack. Two, matching population person for person with Pakistan, we have a
greater number and will still have
enough to carry on after every Pakistani
is wiped out!
The
abysmal
ignorance
that
inspired Hindu goons to collect radioactive sand from the nuclear test site to
distribute as prasad (puja offering) to
all patriots, also infects our administration. Shortly after Pokhran II we read of
two sensational arrests made by the
police of men carrying uranium in shopping bags. Sent to a laboratory for
analysis, the stuff turned out to be
rosin. There is no program in place to
educate the public about disaster management, civil defense, fires, radiation
Page 47

hazards, and much else. In October

1998, the Chairman of our Atomic
Energy Commission, Dr R. Chid ambaram, addressed the Bombay Rotary
Club on "The Indian Nuclear Scene." He
said war is now obsolete. MAD has
made it so.
Another highly-placed scientist of
the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre,
Bombay, in an interview with a newspaper in April, 1998, was a little more
helpful. In the event of a nuclear attack,
said he, we should take the same precautions as are taken in nuclear plants
when accidents occur. We should take
iodine pills, stay in-doors, preferably in
basements, use only stored food and
water, and avoid milk. Infants should be
given powdered milk. All this - in the
space of two minutes, the time taken for
us to know that a Pakistani nuclear missile, guided by Allah himself, is on its
way.
How safe is our own stockpile of
nuclear weapons from our own stupidities? We read of dreadful leakages, and
genetic damage in villagers and live-

stock around our nuclear power plants.

Water in deep wells is contaminated,
and villagers around Pokhran have reason to worry. Accidents could occur
while carrying missiles from one site to
another because of carelessness. Then
there is the lax security and the everpresent threat of mercenaries and religious fanatics in our midst, triggering
off bombs in crowded places.
Islamic fanatics will gladly lay
down their lives for their cause not only
in Pakistan, but among the militantminded in our own Muslim population.
But the short success of the right-wing
BJP party at the Centre has brought
hundreds of Hindu loonies out of the
woodwork. Crusades in the West now
have a different connotation from the
bloody wars of medieval times waged
against the Infidels. Here we have
dharm yudhs and jihads which still
bring psychopaths out into our streets,
brandishing axes and swords, or worse,
state-of-the-art weapons. When people
start hearing voices directing them, we
reckon they need psychiatric help. But

zealots who launch jihads and dharm

yudhs are allowed to move about among
us. They are "morally inspired." Deity
has never had any respect for "no firstuse clauses" nor even comprehended
"minimum deterrence."
"Men never do evil so completely
and cheerfully," wrote Pascal, "as when
they do it from religious conviction."
The infliction of suffering and cruelty
with "good conscience" has always been
the delight of moralists and religious
fanatics. They rationalize their most
insensate behavior, and are convinced
they have direct access to heaven even
as suicide-bombers. What is the likelihood of Allah whispering into the ears of
the faithful in Pakistan? Or the devout
here thinking
to re-enact another
Mahabharata? Ifthe world is appalled it
is because it sees now, armed with
weapons of extinction, two cultures
engulfed by implacable hatred and goaded on by a fractured sense of history.
Our "mutually assured destruction" will
happen eyeball to eyeball.

~.~~.~

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Page 48

we

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Summer 1999

American Atheist

Religion and Politics

By Robert J. Englehart, Ph.D.

Dr. Englehart is a psychologist

resides in Oklahoma.

who

eligion and politics: two things

I'm told we should never discuss
- and I'm about to discuss not
only both, but in the same breath. Why
would I do that? Well, there is an insidious relationship between the two, and
while the connection between religion
and politics might be obvious to most,
it's completely new to me. So I thought
perhaps there are others who are in the
dark as I was some time ago. This article is for them.
I remember as a teenager asking
my father what was the difference
between the Democrats and Republicans, and his answer has haunted me
ever since. The difference, he explained,
was that the Democrats are for the average person and the Republicans are for
big business. Now, that is perhaps a
simplistic answer, probably because
Dad was not very political, but it produced in me a concern that has only
recently been laid to rest almost forty
years after it was raised. That concern
is this: How could any political ideology
put large corporations ahead of the
average person? This was an idea that
was completely foreign to me. And while
I too am not very political, I never
attempted to answer that question, but
have, in the intervening years, added
other issues to my concerns regarding
the Republican party. Specifically, I
added the following questions:
(1) How could any rational person
be against issues that are so obviously
right for the country at this time things like gun-control, environmental
issues, funding of art, universal healthcare, patient's bill-of-rights, freedom to
burn the flag, and choice regarding
abortion?
(2) How could any rational person
be in favor of issues that are so obviously wrong for the country at this time -

Parsippany, New Jersey

things like organized school prayer,

prejudice against gays and other outgroups, wild conspiracy theories, more
military spending, and many more?
While these questions were stewing
on the back-burner of my adult mind
another issue emerged in the Reagan
era as strongly related to the Republicans - Christianity*. And this brought
up a whole new set of issues that are
closely related to the Republican agenda. The question then became, How
could Christians and Republicans, who
so righteously profess being the nation's
moral guide, be on the wrong side of so
many moral issues? In my somewhat
immature, culturally-limited,
young
mind I was under the belief that
Christianity was the saving-grace of the
entire world. Imagine my confusion!
Christianity was supposed to save the
world, but at the same time those who
were involved in it were against these
very basic political issues that I saw as
fundamentally correct for all humanity.
It wasn't until I became a psychologist
and began to understand the human
mind that I finally answered these
questions.
Social psychologists point out that
for every issue there are three mental
components. The first two correspond to
the two major divisions of the human
brain - the emotional part and the intellectual part, respectively. This is the
same distinction between heart and
head poets have made for centuries.

* In my own recent research (not yet published)

I found a correlation between religiosity and
conservative attitudes that are in the range of
0.60. Also, while I refer to Christianity throughout, it is primarily conservative, fundamentalist
Protestantism that has the most powerful influence on political ideology. And, it should be
noted that there are degrees of religiosity,
degrees to which the Bible guides behavior, and
that at all points along the continuum distortion
of reality occurs as a result of one's religion.
Even the most innocuous prayers assume that
there is someone to hear them who can influence the outcome of world events.
Summer 1999

The fundamental element of an

issue is the affective component, or how
one feels about the issue. This is an
emotional evaluation of the issue; it is
not arrived at through rational processes but is based on the combination of
biology and experience. And, of course,
personal experiences are the best
teacher, producing in the person a sense
of "truth" and "reality" that is very
resistant to logical argument. This component is the original element of the
issue, the one upon which the other two
are based. More of a feeling than anything else, it sensitizes the person
regarding the issue, producing biases in
the direction of the emotion. If we use
abortion as an example, the affective
component is what one feels, for or
against, the issue of abortion.
Second, there is a cognitive component to every issue; this is what one
"knows" about the issue. This is language-based and conscious in nature
and potentially more rational than the
affective component. Continuing with
the abortion example, this is what you
would tell another person about why
you are for or against it. That is, this is
the intellectual rationale for your emotional position on the issue.
There is another characteristic of
the cognitive component: the acquisition
of information is generally driven by the
affective component. That is, we tend to
acquire information for the cognitive
component that supports our affective
component and reject conflicting information. So the affective component biases our knowledge of the issue, thereby
distorting our understanding of it. In
fact, issues in which people have an
emotional investment are more likely to
produce distortions
of reality: the
stronger the emotion, the greater the
distortion. This type of distortion led to
O.J.'s acquittal on the first trial- all the
evidence in the world that he killed
those two people would not have convinced the jury of his guilt. Said another
Page 49

way, only when there is no emotional

involvement in an issue can a person
understand reality with a minimum of
distortion. This is, in fact, the most basic
precept behind scientific investigation;
science dramatically reduces the effect
of cognitive distortion that is ,;0 evident
in the normal functioning of the emotion-laden human brain.
The third component is the behavioral component, or what one does
regarding the issue. Like the cognitive
component, it is driven by the emotional
evaluation of the issue, the affective
component. If you are against abortions,
then you probably will avoid one if you
were to find yourself pregnant. But if
your affective component is pro-abortion, then your behavior may well
include an abortion.
In the communication of ideas, the
affective component goes a long way
toward the understanding of the information exchanged. If, for example, the
affective component is shared by the
participants in a discussion, the amount
of information that needs to be passed
between them is dramatically reduced
because each knows the underlying
implicit core of the stated messages.
What this allows is a discussion that is
abbreviated, deficient in content and
lacking logic, because the participants
intuitively understand each other and
need only vague and superficial reference to the issue in the conversation.
This is an absolutely delightful experience and can result in each having a
good time in the discussion because deep
communication is felt by each while neither has adhered to the facts or dealt
with logic or rational processes. The
banter goes back and forth with nothing
of substance being said - the participants believing that they have just
solved the world's problems. This phenomenon can be observed in psychic
readings, astrological charts, religious
services, and conservative talk-shows.
In everyday conversation the expression, "I know where you're coming
from," indicates recognition of similarities between the participants' affective
components. This is also the same
process that is behind a person finding a
"soul-mate" ti.e., perceived sharing of
affective components), and the abbreviated conversational patterns of identical
twins. The twins are not reading each
others' mind as so many believe, they
merely share many of their affective
components,

Page 50

The problem with this process is

that a person with an affective component that differs from that of the participants in a conversation, or with no emotional involvement in the issue, finds
the conversation hollow, irrational, and
lacking objectivity. These people (Rush
Limbaugh calls them pin-heads) who
want to discuss the facts of the issue
can't - because the facts are never mentioned, or when the facts are mentioned
they are rejected out-of-hand. This
process is also behind the often strained
conversational patterns between men
and women, teens and parents, religious
and non-religious, and Republicans and
Democrats.
The insidious relationship between
the Republicans and Christianity that I
mentioned earlier boils down to a connection between affect and cognition of
this group that results in inevitable distortions of reality. The affective component is provided by one's religious conviction and the cognitive component is
the resultant
conservative political
views. One need not be a strong, devout,
or fundamentalist Christian; one needs
only to have internalized the affective
messages of the Christian culture. Once
that has occurred, in childhood, the
affective component (Christianity) then
generalizes to a wide array of issues,
depending on it's strength. After all,
religion is - as religious people will tell
you - strictly a matter of the heart. One
must believe without logical analysis,
for religion will fail any intellectual
examination.
"God is love", they say, and incidentally, "Love is blind." Just as "Love is
blind" refers to the love-struck teen's
inability to be cognizant of her lover's
real personality (everyone in the world
can see that he is a jerk but her), so too
does the god-emotion distort the perception of the real world in ways that are
completely unknown to the believer.
This has been true from the Puritans
who were kicked out of Europe for their
radical agendas to today's Republicans
who, to one degree or another, have
affective components that contain emotional religious beliefs.
A more concrete example of reli. gious distortion of reality comes from a
Christian family in Macon, Georgia. The
son kills two people, then confesses to
the father who turns him in to the
police. Based primarily on Dad's testimony, the son is convicted. Now, how
does Dad explain all this? Because there
is such a great need to feel good about
Summer 1999

what we do, the reality of the situation

must be distorted in a way that absolves
both father and son of all responsibility.
First, the son said "Something had
taken over me" to cause him to do this
horrible thing - presumably the Devil.
And, the father believes that God was
testing his faith and that two people are
dead, not because of anything for which
the son is responsible, but because it
was a function of God's plan and some
good will come of it.
In the eighties there was a rash of
indictments and many convictions of
innocent people for the 'crime of sexual
molestation of children. In every case
the prosecutor was encumbered by religious emotional motivations and saw
"them" as driven by the devil and the
children's testimony as the truth - in
spite of many outrageous claims that
ran counter to the evidence. And, since
the main world-model in this country
has a Christian base, it was not too difficult to convince the jury of the guilt of
those who were charged with the crime
(recall from above the conversational
patterns of people who share affective
components).
Every issue that the Republicans
promote can be similarly explained by
the presence of Christian emotions.

The Affective Components

of Christianity
"God's country"
Many Republican views can be
explained by the distorted connection
between the origins of the United States
and Christianity. The connection is this:
The U.S. was founded on Christian values and therefore was sanctioned by
God himself. The expression "God's
country" is not only taken literally but is
believed to be immutable. Institutional
phrases such as "In God We Trust,"
"One nation, under God," "certain
inalienable rights," and others contribute to the perceived connection. In
fact, the Constitution is seen as a sacred
document that is akin to the Bible and
just as the Bible can not be changed and
contains the truth of the world, so to is
the Constitution inerrant and ultimately correct.
"Us and Them"
A major contribution to political
ideology from Christianity can be seen
in the distinction this group feels
between "us and them." While this tenAmerican Atheist

dency to categorize people in this way is

normal and contributes to competition
and patriotism, the "us and them" distinction made by this group is a cardinal
element of their world model and a
major contributor to their interpretation
of reality. Certainly, if you believe that
you are one of God's people and that it is
your choice to be one of God's people,
then the logical extension of that notion
is that others who do not think exactly
like you are inferior, depraved, sick, sinners, and so on. The "us" is the chosen
few and the "them" is everyone else
against whom the "us" must defend or,
better, convert to be like "us." Since
these people see our national borders
not as man-made but divine, the people
within the borders (with more than a
few exceptions) are "God's people," and
people from outside the borders are certainly not God's people.
There are many groups within our
borders that are part of the "them" as
well. Conservative Christians wage a
constant cultural war with the "evil liberal left" in this country. This includes
gays, the women's movement, anti-gun
factions, and Democrats, whom they
often refer to as godless heathens, as
well as Jews, the federal government,
Atheists, and others.
In addition, Conservatives and
Republicans, because of their "us and
them" orientation, neither see themselves as a part of the larger world nor
do they feel responsible for any elements of the larger world. On the contrary, they see themselves as distinctly
separate from and superior to all others.
These feelings of grandiosity and separateness lead to the paranoid idea that
"them" is out to get "us." The examples
are many and include David Koresh and
Jim Jones who isolated themselves from
society at large because their religion
was assumed to position them above the
rest of the world. While these two examples are the extreme, the difference
between them and the majority of conservatives is in the degree to which this
paranoia motivates behavior. To the
majority of conservatives, the evil forces
are present and real; but the effect on
their own behavior is more subtle than
it was on Koresh and Jones.
Free Will
There is a third emotional issue
that is diametrically opposed to all the
research and common sense in the
world: free will. This is the idea that a
person has total freedom or equal opporParsippany; New Jersey

tunity to choose any option in an issue;

that people's conduct is not determined
by physical forces but is totally under
the control of the conscious self. This
idea stems from the presumed existence
of a soul that is completely separate and
autonomous from the brain. That is, all
that one is, is simply a matter of personal choice and not a function of how
the brain operates. Mental illnesses and
addictions are seen as nothing more
than a product of a weak-will; all a person with depression has to do is "snap
out of it" or a schizophrenic has only to
"get a hold of himself' to be healed.
If free will were the explanation for
human behavior, a Ph.D. in Psychology
could be earned in only twenty minutes
and there would be no need for psychologists - which, by the way, this group
believes to be true. But, if all one had to
do to have certain characteristics was to
choose to have those characteristics,
wouldn't we all be perfect? The human
brain and it's processes are infinitely.
more complex than what the simplistic
notion of free-will would indicate.
So what political issues then are a
product of these major emotional distortions?

The Cognitive
Components of the
Republican Party
Helping others: The conservative
argument that the Federal Government
shouldn't help its citizens is based on
"us and them," and the notion that all
have free will and are thus responsible
for their own problems and don't
deserve to be helped. The difference
between the "us" and "them" is primarily the choices, with "us" making the correct choices. and "them" making the
wrong choices. In other words, if only
"they" thought like "us" then "they"
wouldn't be gay, poor, without health
care, in jail, an addict, pregnant ...
World membership: Only a person
who is without the intellectual constraints produced by the emotion of
Christianity is able to feel as an integral
part of the world, both as a member of
humanity and as a part of nature. It is
this mental freedom that provides people with a world-model that includes
greater sensitivity to humanity and
nature, allowing for concerns for conservation of natural resources and the
helping of others when in need.

Summer 1999

Anti-foreigner:
One can readily
see how the combination of "God's
Country" and "us and them" are behind
the Republican's anti-everything-foreign sentiments, including their stands
on immigration, communism, Japanese
cars, NAFTA, the United Nations,
increased military spending, etc., that
are so indicative of the Republican
party. Given this attitude, try to imagine the United States accomplishing
anything close to what the countries of
the European Economic .community
have done. After countless local battles,
two world wars, and hundreds of years
of national animosity, these countries
have agreed to dispense with their
national monitory systems in favor of
one form of currency.
Flag-burning: Conservatives see
the flag as a sacred symbol. Thus, burning or otherwise "desecrating" the flag is
akin to taking the Lord's name in vain;
it is profane and blasphemous and must
not be allowed. These, by the way, are
the same people who want to keep the
government out of peoples' lives, but
want burning the flag made illegal.
Gun-Control: If the Constitution is
sacred, then what it says must be the
truth and is not subject to interpretation. Hence, the right to bear arms is
seen as a necessity, and any attempt at
limiting that concept is seen as a direct
attack
on Christianity
itself. In
November of 1996, on Public TV, a man
who was being interviewed about guns
made the shocking statement that "It's
anti-Christian
and Anti-American to
NOT have a gun."
No other issue is better at disclosing distortions of reality than guns. For
example, when confronted with the
argument that their handguns would
never hold up against the government's
tanks and B52s, they seem completely
incapable of comprehending such logic.
Their ability to rationally analyze this
argument and see its validity, thus rendering their own argument useless, has
apparently been shut down in favor of a
non-rational argument that erroneously
connects the constitution with handguns and reality.
Charlton Heston, current president
of the NRA, was told by Bill Maher of
Politically Incorrect, "Just admit that
you love guns"; and Heston said, while
leaning toward Maher with smug
expression on his face "I love the constitution of this country." Thus, he was
saying that the need for guns is because
the constitution says there is a need for
guns.
Page 51

Personal
Freedoms: Like the
Puritans of years ago, today's conservatives tend to see any law as an attempt
to restrict their religious freedom
unless, of course, the law is directed
toward furthering the expansion of their
own views and/or restricting the views
of others. For example, there is a judge
in Alabama who is fighting to keep a
copy of the Ten Commandments displayed in his courtroom, and the
Governor is supporting him, while at the
same time conservatives want no laws
furthering basic rights for homosexuals
and other out-groups.
Federal Government: the Republicans hate the Federal government and
want to reduce its power (especially the
Supreme Court) because they see it as
diluting their influence. They stress
states rights because they have the most
power and can exert the most control at
the local level. Thus this notion is
indicative of the parochial attitude that
is, and always has been, Christianity.
The capitalistic
economic system: The Republican movement to keep
government out of the economy and big
business reflects the Christian view that
capitalism, since the country was founded on it, is a God-given economic system
and shouldn't be interfered with by
humans. This also ties into the belief
that there is no shame in being rich,
despite the Biblical claim that "The
meek shall inherit the earth." Not only
are you entitled to be rich, since you are
one of the chosen, because there is a god
who loves you, he will actually help you
become rich. This is also a contributor to
their reluctance to provide any aid for
the less fortunate in the society. After
all, if you were like "us" you wouldn't be
in need.
The war on drugs: Here's an interesting point. The typical Republican
approach to the war on drugs is to
reduce the supply; but in capitalism,
their sacred economic system, the correct approach is to affect the demand
and the supply will follow. So, in legitimate businesses conservatives want few
controls (which incidentally allows for
numerous abuses), so that they are free
to follow the market. In the war on
drugs, however, they want to arrest the
pushers, and stop the influx of drugs
across the borders. Whichis more effective? Clearly, the demand approach is limiting the supply simply increases the
price, making it more lucrative to sell
drugs. But the notion of free will has so
distorted the judgment of conservatives
Page 52

that they believe that if people are on

drugs, it is because they choose to be on
drugs. Thus, this view totally denies any
possibility of brain dysfunction, either
organic or as a result of early learning,
and the addictive qualities of the drug.
The result is that conservatives don't
see the need for psychological or medical
help; all the addict needs to do is
change.
Abortion: The connection between
Christianity and the Republican party
regarding the issue of abortion may be
obvious, but I shall discuss it to deepen
the reader's understanding
of the
affect/intellect interaction. Unlike the
majority of people, conservative Christians endow the organism with a soul at
the point of conception. The concept of a
soul has yet to be objectively defined to
me, and until it is I will never be able to
counter this view; so let me make an
assumption. The assumption is that the
soul is one's humanhood, that is, by
virtue of being a human, you have a
soul. So, at point of conception, when
you were a single cell no bigger than the
point of a pin, you were a soul-possessing human, and the only entity that had
a right to take your life was God. In
other words, the viability of this single
cell takes precedent over the woman's
right to control her own destiny. But,
what happens to the concept of a soul,
one's humanness, when the death penalty is considered? Well, this group,
because of the concept of free-will, and
the idea that one chooses to be a criminal instead of a Christian, assumes that
the criminal is worthless and deserves
not to live. The exception of course lies
in the ability of the condemned to save
their own souls by repenting and accepting the Christian faith.
Conspiracy theories: Conspiracy
theories, such as were behind McCarthy's 1950s search for communists,
reflect the anti-American, anti-Christian, "us-versus-them"
paranoia
of
Christians and Republicans. Also, the
JFK assassination, and more recently,
the TWA Flight 800 incident, the bombing in Oklahoma City, the introduction
of crack in the ghettos to wipe out the
underclass, Vince Foster, and a multitude of others, seem to survive despite
evidence to the contrary. In a sense, it's
a very simplistic (although the assumed
conspiracies are often very complex
themselves) explanation of the unexplainable that is a quite natural offshoot
of a chaotic world. I explain the connection in this way: the brain organization
Summer 1999

that reduces critical analysis and produces the belief in Christian doctrine is
the same brain organization that results
in the person seeing conspiracies in
every ambiguous situation, especially if
the federal government is involved.
After all, isn't God the source of the
world's greatest conspiracy? He knows
all, and He even controls our lives and
world events and He never has to
explain anything. He has this big plan
and keeps all mortals in the dark. God
sure works in mysterious ways.
Well, there you have it, my view of
the relationship between religion and
politics - a far cry from that of my
teenage years. Undoubtedly there are
more political views that stem from
Christian dogma than were named here,
but I believe I made my point. However,
that point brings up a whole new set of
questions: if the very basis of conservative political views is Christian doctrine,
then are their views any less valid than
the views of others? Can we say that
because these issues are decided on the
emotional content of Christianity and
not on the rational, logical content of
intellect, that they are somehow inferior
to those made after first weighing all the
facts? And what about separation of
church and state, if they are so intrinsically linked in the mind? Stay tuned ...

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Amendment I
Congress shall make no law respecting an
establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free
exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of
speech, or of the press; or the right of the people
peaceably to assemble, and to petition the
Government for a redress of
grievances.

Wherever there are walls I shall inscribe this eternal

accusation against Christianity upon them - I can
write in letters which make even the blind see ...
I call Christianity the ONE great curse, the ONE
great intrinsic depravity, the ONE great instinct
for revenge for which no expedient is sufficiently
poisonous, secret, subterranean, PETTY - I call
it the ONE immortal blemish of mankind ... And
one calculates TIME from the DIES NEFASTUS
[unlucky day] on which this fatality arose - from
the FIRST day of Christianity! WHY NOT
RATHER FROM HIS LAST? - FROM TODAY? Revaluation of all values!
-

Friedrich Nietzsche