A Journal of Atheist News and Thought

AMERICAN ATHEIST
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American Atheists
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American Atheist
Volume

43 Number

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Frank R. Zindler
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Page 1

Winter 2004-2005

American Atheist
A Journal

of Atheist News and Thought

AMERICAN ATHEIST

EDITOR'S DESK
Frank R. Zindler
Tsunami Sinners in the Claws of a Loving God
Where were all the gods when the tsunami devastated the
coasts of Indonesia, Thailand, India, Sri Lanka, and Africa last
Christmas? The science of tectonics simply and fully explains the
tragedy. Christian theodicy - the branch of theology that tries to
explain how an infinite and loving god can allow such evil to occur
- cannot logically show such a god to be blameless or morally
respectable.
Of Free Will and Flush Toilets
Frank R. Zindler
Even many Atheists will be horrified to learn that there is no
such thing as 'free' will and that the concept was invented not by
scientists but by theologians seeking to exculpate the Christian
god in the face of human and natural evil.

Cover Art:

Collage by Ann
Zindler shows that decisionmaking in the human nervous
system is no different in principle
from that which takes place in
a flush toilet. Living cybernetic
systems simply are more complicated than those of common
mechanical devices.

Is God a Pedophile?
Margaret Bhatty
Satya Sai Baba's wealth and religious clout is
second only to that of the pope, yet few Americans
are aware of the outrageous crimes this 'god-man'
has committed - and continues to commit.

The Truth Seeker D.M. Bennett: The Nineteenth Century's

Most Controversial Publisher and American Free-Speech
Martyr
Roderick Bradford
Every Atheist should know about America's oldest Atheist
publication, The Truth Seeker, and about the man who founded
it. Bennett's fate serves as a warning to any naif who thinks the
intrusion of religion into government is innocuous or even benign.

Volume 43, No. 1

Page 2

Tsunami Prompts Lawsuit

Gary Sloan
God in the dock? No rationally thinking person can afford to
miss this 'report.'

Winter 2004-2005

American Atheist

BOOK REVIEWS
Privileged Pasture For a Trojan Horse?
Prof. John W.Patterson reviews The Privileged Planet, an excrescence of the Intelligent-Design
creationists G. Gonzalez and J.W. Richards.
Reason's Unreasonable Defender, Faith's Unlikely Friend: A Discussion of Sam Harris' The
End Of Faith.
Prof. David Eller systematically dismantles an ill-conceived defense of reason and critique of
religion.

The Improbability of Gods

Frank R. Zindler reviews Stephen D. Unwin's The Probability of God: A Simple Calculation That
Proves the Ultimate Truth, a book that uses Bayes' Theorem to 'prove' that the Judaeo-Christian-Muslim
god exists. Zindler uses the same theorem to 'prove' that the book was written either as an April Fool'sjoke
or to win a million-dollar Templeton Prize for 'progress' in religion.

Schroder is Robbing the State and Still is Exploiting

Hitler's Concordat
Dr. Armin Zadak
Thanks to an abiding partnership with the Vatican, Hitler
can reach beyond the grave to burden the lives of Atheists
in Germany. Recently, the Roman Catholic Church secured
another concordat, this time with Brandenburg, a particular
German state.

Fuhrers and Followers

William Harwood
As everyone knows, Germany had its Fuhrer
and followed him religiously. The Palestinians and
the Israelis have Fuhrers whom they follow also.
Not to be outdone, America now has its own Fuhrer
- but not everyone is following.

From Serapis To Jesus

Clinton S. Clark
An excerpt from Mr. Clark's book To Water
Instead Of Blood: The Story Of Serapis To Jesus.

ME TOO!
What Would It Take For Me To Believe In God?
Jim Heldberg

Parsippany, New Jersey

Winter 2004-2005

Page 3

Tsuna.mi Sinners in the

CIaws of a Loving God

Fifteen years later, as an evolutionary biologist completing a master's

degree in geology, I had acquired a
larger number of proofs of continental
drift with which to plague my tectonics
professor - who yet in 1967 refused to
accept the notion that continents could
move.
During many of those years I had
also been accumulating evidence that
the Bible not only was a moral monstrosity, but also could not be squared
with any of the sciences - especially
geology. Whereas geology demands an
eons-old earth, the biblical chronicles
imply an earth merely thousands of
years old. Whereas the Bible views
earthquakes as acts of an angry god,
filled with signs and portents, plate
tectonics shows they are the necessary
mechanical consequences of continental plates sliding around, colliding,
fusing together, and breaking apart.
When the recent Christmas tsunami hit the Indian Ocean region and
killed perhaps as many as two hundred
thousand innocent people, I wanted to
ask publicly, "Where was your god?"
- in imitation of Ellen Johnson who
asked the question on television after
the disaster of 9/11. Natural disasters always are a provocation for
Christians who believe that the devil
they worship is actually a 'good' god
- an omniscient and infinitely powerful one at that. As the inevitable consequence of a monstrous plate-boundary
earthquake off the coast of Sumatra,
the tsunami was easily and convincingly explainable. As an event occurring during the watch of a loving god
who carefully catalogs even the falling
of sparrows, however, the tsunami was
a theodicist's
nightmare.
Theodicy

Page 4

Winter 2004-2005

globe map on its pedestal was

the only piece of 'scientific
equipment' to be found in the
two-room school that I attended as a
child growing up in rural Michigan.
Eighth grade was soon to end, but I
was still twelve years old and would
be able to graduate a few days before
turning thirteen. I had been contemplating that globe for two years, noticing how well the continents on the
west side of the Atlantic Ocean seemed
to fit like jig-saw puzzle pieces into
those on the east side. South America,
especially, seemed as though it should
be joined to Africa. I was certain the
continents had once been joined - but
how to prove it?
Awareness of the need for proof
soon led to an experiment. During
the morning recess, instead of going
outside to play, I got some tissue paper
from my teacher, moistened it slightly,
and then plastered it over the Atlantic
side of the globe. By the afternoon
recess, the paper had dried and I was
able to trace on the paper the outlines
of North and South America, Europe
and Africa. Then, I cut out the continents and placed them back onto the
globe so I could slide the pieces around
to check their fit. Sure enough, South
America and Africa fit quite well.
North America and Europe didn't fit
quite so perfectly, but by eighth-grade
standards it was confirmation of my
hypothesis that the continents had
once been joined but now somehow
had drifted apart. From that day to
now, I have been a 'drifter' with respect
to the subject of tectonics.

- accounting for the existence of evil

while simultaneously trying to claim
that the biblical god is 'good' in any
meaningful sense - has never been
an easy assignment. How can an allpowerful, loving god allow evil of any
kind to exist? Ifit is able to abolish evil
but chooses not to do so, it is neither
good nor loving.
Of course, Jehovah's Witnesses
and
many
other
eschatologically
focused groups might easily deflect
the question and quote scriptures
- such as the 'mini-apocalypse' in
Mark 13. The 1611 edition of the King
James Version tells us in Mark 13:8
that "nation shall rise against nation,
and kingdome against kingdome : and
there shalbe earthquakes
in diuers
places, and there shall be famines, and
troubles : these are the beginnings of
sorrowes."
There you have it: it's the beginning of the end of the world! (Let us
not forget that of the nineteen biblical
occurrences of words meaning 'earthquake,' seven are found in Revelation
- which everyone knows is a roadmap to the end of the road.) "And the
Temple of a god was opened in heauen,
and there was seene in his Temple
the Arke of his Testament, and there
were lightnings, and voyces, and thundrings, and an earthquake, and great
haile" [Rev. 11:19]. This clearly is a
prediction of the Bush cabinet meeting
in which the recent federal budget was
being received from "a higher Father."
It really may be the end of the world!
But then, it may only be the end of the
flat earth presupposed by the authors
of Genesis.
Several days after the Indian
Atheist Centre in Vijayawada had sent
American Atheist

its own medical teams with medicines

and potable water to the survivors on
the nearby coast on the Bay of Bengal,
while Atheist counselors were helping
devastated people begin to cope with
their horrific losses, creationist theodicists at the Answers in GENESIS
Web-site were explaining the tsunami
quite simply (or should I say simplemindedly?) as the just result of a sin
that Adam committed some while ago.
On December 30, 2004, Carl
Wieland of the Australian wing of AiG
noted that "Philosophers refer to the
problem of 'natural evil' - people suffering and dying from things that have
no apparent link to 'human evil' - or
even human carelessness. So much
seemingly senseless sorrow and loss,
regardless ofthe cause, inevitably raises the same sorts of questions about a
god, death and suffering as 9/11 did.
Namely, regardless of whether people
or 'natural disasters' are the cause, if
God is all-powerful and loving, why
does He allow it?"
In trying to get his god off the
hook, Wieland concedes that "as the
tectonic plates off Sumatra slipped
past one another and released their
huge amount of pent-up power, this
(and the titanic consequences for so
many) was not something that just
'happened',
independent
of a god.
Just as it is not mere happenstance
when the sparrow falls from the sky
(Matthew 10:29)." Then he makes his
god a greater monster by blaming all
upon the 'rebellion' of Adam.
"But how can one even begin to
give a Christian answer, one with biblical integrity, without taking Genesis
history seriously? That history tells
of the creation of a once-good world,
in which death and suffering are not
'natural' at all, but are intruders. They
'occur because of humanity's rebellion
against its maker (Genesis 3)."
"In Adam's Fall I we sin-ned all,"
I guess. But why should the East
Indians, Thais, Sri Lankans, Somalis,
and Indonesians be blamed for a sin
they did not commit? Why should a
simple fruit-eating exercise committed
by two primates ignorant of the meaning of 'disobedience' carry a curse not
only for all their descendants but for
all of nature as well? And how can one
call Eden a "once-good world," when
Parsippany,

New Jersey

Adam and Eve were supposedly created capable of sin? Logic would require
a "once-good world" to be a world in
which evil not only was absent but
was impossible. But Yahweh, the story
goes, with full foreknowledge of consequences, created humans with 'free
will' - fully aware that they would
use that faculty to bring about not only
their own deaths but the deaths of all
other living things (except, perhaps,
for asexually reproducing microbes
which never die of old age but rather
just multiply by dividing).
Wieland
lets the creationist's
cat out of the bag, however, by tying
theodicy to a need for a very young
earth. Despite the fact that the same

death; questions at the very core of

Christian belief ... " <www.answersinge
nesis.org/docs2004/1230tsunami.asp>
.
So true Christians have to believe
the earth is only a few thousands of
years old because they have to believe
there was no such thing as death before
the first humans. They have to believe
that death was caused by humans, not
Yahweh - even though Yahweh could
quite easily have worked with a different cosmic script than the one found
in Genesis. The deaths of thousands
of children, the creation of countless
orphans, the destruction
of fishing
fleets, villages, industries, and natural
treasures are all 'good' in that they are
compatible with Yahweh's cosmic plan.
They are good simply because Yahweh
is satisfied that things be so.
But we know from Exodus 32:14
that Yahweh is capable of doing evil
as well: "And the LORDrepented of the
euill which he thought to doe vnto his
people." One shudders to think what
Yahweh might do when he is evil if
he allows tsunamis and earthquakes
when he is good. Since 'good' and 'evil'
are no more than the whims of an
unknowable god, mere mortals have
no way to predict what might be good
and what might be bad. Only priests
and preachers can know for sure.

plate tectonics that triggered the tsunami also proves the immense antiquity ofthe geological record, he readily
accepts the former point and ignores
the latter:
"But if fossils formed over millions
of years, which so many Christians
just blithely accept as 'fact', then that
wipes out the Fall as an answer to
evil, especially 'natural evil'. Because
the fossils show the existence of things
like death, bloodshed and suffering. So
if these were there millions of years
ago, they must have been there before
man, and hence before sin. This is the
rock against which old-age compromises inevitably founder. This is also
the reason why the age of things is not
some obscure academic debate that
Christians can put in the 'too-hard-fornow' basket. Because it strikes to the
heart of the hugest questions of all in
relation to the nature of a god, sin, evil,
Winter 2004-2005

Several days after I 'proved' the

theory of continental
drift without
knowledge of Alfred Wegener (the
acknowledged father of continental
drift theory), I received a scholarship
to spend eight years in a German
Lutheran
seminary
in Wisconsin.
Fortunately, I never made use of the
scholarship. For although
I didn't
realize it at the time, eventually
knowledge that continents can move
would lead me inexorably to discover
the errancy of Scripture, to unmask
the Christian scheme of salvation as
a moral monstrosity, and to conclude
that the world was not made for me
- or for humankind itself The 'Rock
of Ages' would be seen to be no more
substantial
than the tissue papierrruiche continents that had so simply
symbolized
the immense
ages of
rocks.
Page 5

OF FREE WILL
AND FLUSH
TOILETS
Frank R. Zindler

ong after they have cast aside

their belief in gods and angels
and fairies, many people still
The most astonishing logical
paradox ever to be cherished by cling tenaciously to a stubborn belief in
one last will-o'-the-wisp - the phantom
man is presented in the circumstance that the theologists, con- offree will. To challenge the doctrine of
vinced that God in his omnipo- free will is to stir up a storm of protest
so intense as to make one think, by
tence had predetermined the fate
comparison, that publicly denying the
of every man, and in his omniexistence of the gods themselves could
science had from the beginning
not
produce a breeze strong enough
of time foreseen that fate, should
to
dislodge
the dew from a lightning
yet hold to the belief that he neverrod
on
a
church
steeple. Many othertheless holds every man responwise rational people think it immoral
sible for his action, rewarding him
either with eternal beatitude or - or at least un-American - to deny
eternal punishment. For theology that people act "freely" when acting
willfully. Although I risk inciting to
the invention of free will to which
disaffection many of the people who
culpability could be assigned only
have expressed admiration for some of
formalized the complete abandonmy previous articles, I must now focus
ment of reason in order to keep the
my 'Probing Mind' upon the question,
system in operation.
"Can will be free?"
Let me answer
the question
- Homer W. Smith,
Man And His Gods straightaway with a firm "no," and
then attempt to support my conclusion.
But to reassure my horrified readers
that at least I was not born
a free-will miscreant, and
Frank
R. Zindler
is
to fix the blame for my
the editor of American
present debauched state, I
Atheist Press. For many
must note that for a year
years he was a profesor so after I had become
sor of biology, psychoan Atheist (at Kalamazoo
biology, and geology at
College), I still defended
Ful ton-Mon tgomery
the idea of free will in
Community
College, a
my disputes with theists
branch of SUNY. This
and Atheists alike. It was
essay, which appeared
only after I had transferred to the University
in American Atheist in
of Michigan that I became
March of 1987. is reprinted from his erstwhile
convinced that the idea of
monthly column "The Probing Mind."
free will was indefensible.
Page 6

Winter 2004-2005

The blame for my fall from grace rests

firmly upon Homer W. Smith, whose
book Man And His Gods [Grosset's
Universal
Library,
1952,
1956]
ranks along with Alfred Jules Ayer's
Language, Truth, and Logic [Dover
Publications, Inc., 1946] as one of the
two most influential books I have ever
read.
Although
Smith
devoted
444
pages to a summary of the evolutionary interaction between philosophy,
religion, and science, he needed only
several paragraphs to dispatch from
my mind forever the notion that will
can be free. I would like to quote the
relevant paragraphs here - and leave
it to my readers to estimate how many
philosopher's clocks have been cleaned
by Smith's lucid logic.
To challenge "free will" was to
challenge the foundations not only
of orthodox theology, but in large
measure of all transcendentalism.
If
human decisions, however directly or
deviously arrived at, were 'determined'
solely by pre-existing knowledge, predilections, predispositions,
emotions,
memories, desires, by any or all of the
multiplicity of mental images afforded
to consciousness
by the external
and internal organs of sense, then
it followed that an individual elects
one course of action in preference to
another, not by 'willful choice,' but
simply because consciousness presents a balance positively weighted on
the side of the selected action. Hence
personal culpability would cease to
exist, divine punishment and reward
would be both monstrous and absurd,
morality would be a convention, sin
would be an arbitrary condemnation,

American Atheist

the grace ofthe church would be superfluous and that institution could better
devote itself to liberal education.
For the naturalists, free will was
a countersense, a verbal contradiction. To 'will' is to choose a course of
action in which more than one course
is potentially presented, and to choose
one course of action as opposed to
another requires not only knowledge of
alternatives, but reason for the choice.
Decision (de + caedere, to cut off) without reference to cause or consequence
of that which is rejected or accepted
could only refer to an act occurring
in a referential vacuum, and if such
could be conceived it could only be
designated as an action issuing from
nothing at all, ab nihilo, from absolute
ignorance. Since willing can never be
free of knowledge of either cause or
consequence, it can never be free at
all. (Man And His Gods, pp. 409-410)

Theoretically, I could end this

article right here, and let Homer
Smith's argument stand by itself But
so much has happened in the realm of
science since 1952 when Smith wrote
the above, and the implications of the
argument are so far-reaching, that I
must expand the discussion.
Before we consider specific problems inherent in the notion that will
can be free (i.e., uncaused or indeterminate), it is worth noting that psychology as a science would be impossible if behavior could occur without
causation. If I may be permitted to
ignore the complex and confusing case
of quantum physics, it can be said
that all of science is a quest seeking to relate effects to their causes.
Psychology would either cease to exist
altogether, or it would be an artificial
discipline dealing with the behavior
of all animal species except Homo
sapiens. What would psychologists
do, if they couldn't seek the causes of
human behavior? Everyone's behavior
would be a case by itself, and psychologists could do no more than catalog the
examples of human behavior which
have been observed.
Let us first pretend that there be
such a thing as free will, and consider
two questions: (1) how could it have
originated? and (2) when would it
operate? Then let us consider the practical meaning of the fact that there is
no such thing as free will.

Parsippany, New Jersey

When Could We Have Gotten

It?

There are few things in science

so well established as the fact that
humans are animals and that they
are related by descent to all the other
species of living things now populating
our planet. Our brains are extremely
similar to those of the great apes
(human DNA, after all, is almost 99
percent identical to that of chimpanzees), and the chemical code by which
the genetic instructions are written
for the making of a person is identical
to that employed for the construction

our robot - is any less determined?

It seems clear, if we compare a
variety of primitive animals with our
insect robot, that free will is not to be
counted as part of their behavioral
repertoire. While we cannot rule it out
absolutely, it is more parsimonious to
suppose their behavior is completely
determined than to postulate the additional factor of free will. Occam's razor,
which advises us not to multiply basic
assumptions beyond necessity, cuts off
most (if not all) of the animal kingdom
from the family tree of free-willed
beings.

Unless will can be partially free, and

thus have evolved by degrees, it is
impossible to conceive how we could
have acquired free will in the course
of evolution.
of the lowliest bacterium. If humans
have evolved from "lower" forms, we
must ask how it came about that our
will is now free.
Either free will is a characteristic
humans share with the rest ofthe animal kingdom, or it arose as an emergent, qualitatively unique characteristic in the course of human evolution.
The former alternative
would
seem to be ruled out, at least in the
case of primitive animals such as jellyfish. Although much still remains to
be learned about the nerve-net which,
along with a number of simple sensory receptors, constitutes the entire
nervous system of these humble creatures, it is too much to suppose that
creatures completely lacking brains
could display anything describable as
free will. While the nerve-net of the
jellyfish is capable of decision-making,
no one could seriously suggest that
jellyfish behavior is any freer or less
determined than a thermostatically
controlled furnace, a hydrostatically
controlled flush toilet, or the behavior
of the hypothetical photophobic insect
robot of Figure 1. Can it seriously be
supposed that the behavior of a real
cockroach - although modifiable by
many more factors than those affecting
Winter 2004-2005

If free will is not a characteristic

shared with the rest of the animal
kingdom, then - if there be such a
thing at all - it must have arisen at
some specific instant in the course
of human evolution. Can it be that
the one percent difference between
human and chimpanzee genes is the
factor giving freedom to the human
will? If, by means of genetic engineering, we could clone the free-will genes
and insert them into the ape genome,
would they confer free will upon the
apes? Would their free will then be
determined by those genes?
Modern humans are connected
to primitive ancestral animals of the
arbitrarily remote past by a finite
series of generations, each of which
differed no more from its parents than
do we from ours. Is it conceivable that
suddenly, say on the 29th of February
ofthe first leap-year after the termination of the third glacial period, a generation was begun which miraculously
had acquired free will - and was thus
completely human - but the members
of this generation sprang from parents
who were animals still enslaved by
causality? Simply to ask the question
is to reject the idea. Unless will can be
partially free, and thus have evolved
Page 7

by degrees, it is impossible to conceive

how we could have acquired free will in
the course of evolution. The notion of
"partially free will," however, seems to
be an oxymoron on par with "approximately even numbers."
Leaving unanswered the question
of how free will could have evolved,
we turn to the problem of how free will
could arise in the course of development
of individual humans. Does the fertilized human egg have free will? Does
the fetus? Since the reader is not likely
to suppose that prenatal humans either
possess or exercise free will, we proceed
to ask if this faculty is acquired at the
'moment' of birth. Does the human newborn appear to be any less an automaton than the robot insect of Figure I?
If it is, in fact, impossible for free
will to be partial, and if we do in fact
have the faculty, there must be some
magic moment when we acquire it, and
we must wonder if all people acquire
it at the same age - in fact, we must
wonder if there might be some people,
arrested in development, who never
acquire the faculty at all. In the case
of two-headed monsters, for instance,
would the two heads acquire free will
simultaneously if one head started out
bigger than the other?
Before giving up our quest for the
beginning of free will in the course of
individual development, we should read
what Hiram Elfenbein, a lamentably
deceased friend of mine, had to say
about the problem.
Only a moment's contemplation
is needed for a mature adult to realize that on coming into the world and
continuing for several months there is
no imaginable situation in which an
infant could or would exercise free will.
Free will, you see, requires its possessor
to know that it has a choice among
alternatives. The infant must therefore be able to count at least to two. It
must also be able to make an intellectual distinction between two ideological
propositions, such as to do or not to do.
Actually, under the religionist's concept
of free will, if the child is responsible for
his sins, it must be able to entertain,
enumerate, and evaluate at least three
separate ideas: (1) to do a certain thing;
(2) not to do it or to do an alternate
thing; and (3) to decide whether the
first two acts are sins or not.

Page 8

At any rate, the question arises:

When is this ability to decide to behave
independently
of any outside force
bestowed on the human being? A clever
defender of this theory could contend
that the power is acquired in later
stages just as the sex urge develops and
manifests itselfin adolescence. But such
an assertion takes for granted that a
person must first undergo physical and
mental development before he achieves
freedom of choice. Consequently, this
means that the individual can exercise
free will only after his mind and body
have been pre-conditioned for it.
Such preparation
of the individual necessarily brings in the outside world as an element of free will,
thereby destroying the contention that
it is an internally isolated decision.

(Organized Religion: The Great Game

of Make-Believe, p. 39. New York, NY:
Philosophical Library, 1968).

When Could We Use It?

Figure 1. A hypothetical 'insect' wired

up in such a way that it will flee from
light and approach food. Light falling,
say, on the left eye will cause excitation
to be transmitted to the ganglia (G)
controlling the legs on the left side of
the body. As a result, the left legs will be
more active than the right legs, and the
insect will 'decide' to turn away from the
light source until the light strikes both
eyes equally from behind and the animal proceeds in a straight line away
from the light. (In the unlucky event
that both eyes are simultaneously overstimulated by a strong light straight
ahead, however, the poor robot will
act just like a moth drawn to a flame
- and for the same reason.) In the case
where the insect comes within range of
food, again somewhere to the left of the
beast, odor molecules will strike the left
antenna more intensely than the right
one. Because of the cross-over design of
the wiring, excitation in the left antenna
will activate the legs on the right side,
and the animal will 'decide' to orient
itself facing the food. With both antennae being stimulated equally, the animal will march with increasing speed
toward the food.

Winter 2004-2005

Leaving as an insoluble riddle the

question of how we might have acquired
'free will,' we proceed to the question of
just when it might be that we exercise
the faculty. Again, Hiram Elfenbein's
observations are helpful:
Where, exactly, is free will at work?
In the formation of the person's ideas?
Or in the action or speech resulting from
the formation of those ideas?
Thus, in its origin, the notion of
free will as being an individual's uncontrolled opportunity to do one thing or
not to do it or to do an alternate thing
is a conception that is inconsistent with
reality and impossible to express. No
person can have an idea - any idea
- that is not connected with and hence
dependent upon his past. Nothing is
separable from its beginning. And nothing "begins" spontaneously in the sense
of having no prior foundation. Every
person acts because in part his preceding career makes that act the next step
in his journey through life, and his decision to take that step is the culmination
of all his previous steps, not to mention
the effect on him of his surroundings.
It is utterly impossible - it is more,
it is incomprehensible - for any person
to decide, for example, that today he will
have for dinner whatever his free will
alone will choose and that he will not
be influenced by anything in existence
or in his past in choosing his menu. Or
stated otherwise, it is inconceivable for
one to think of his "free will" deciding
what he will eat tonight, uninfluenced

American Atheist

Figure 2. The stretch-reflex are, the simplest nerve circuit known. When the
stretch-receptor (A) buried among the muscle fibers (B) is stretched, say, by
the force of gravity pulling downward on the arm, the sensory nerve (8) will
fire. The sensory nerve will carry its excitation to the gray matter (G) in the
spinal cord, where it will pass its excitation directly on to a motor nerve (M).
The motor nerve, running back to the muscle being stretched, will stimulate
muscle fibers to contract, canceling the stretch induced by the force of gravity
and allowing the arm to maintain its position with great precision.
in any way by outer matter or force.
In truth, his own physical existence and his own physical and
mental history, not to speak of the
outer world, will assiduously work
on him and on his choosing despite
his most strenuous efforts to ignore
them. Among other things his hunger,
his palate, his capacity for food are all
parts of his being and his life, as is
his knowledge of food, no matter how
much he wills himself to disregard
them, and they will determine for
him almost everything he selects to
eat. (Organized Religion, pp. 41-42.)

I leave it to my readers to decide

if free will could possibly act at the
stage of formation of a person's ideas.
Can people decide (freely or otherwise) which ideas to generate?
It might be a good idea before
going further
to point out that
although we deny that there can be
such a thing as free, i.e., undetermined, will, we do not deny the fact
that there is such a thing as 'will.'
Unfortunately, the dictionary is not
too helpful in defining this term,
allowing it to indicate both desire,
Parsippany, New Jersey

inclination, or appetite on the one

hand, and choice, or determination
on the other. In the present context,
however, it seems that a critical part
of the meaning of the term involves
decision-making. Desire-induced decision-making might be a useful way to
define the term.
Now the biological roots of both
desire and decision-making are well
understood, and we must digress for
a moment to study them.

A Digression Into Biological

Cybernetics
The nervous systems of humans
and all higher animals are composed
of three subdivisions: sensory receptor cells and sensory neurons, motor
neurons which control the muscles
and glands, and interneurons - cells
which intervene between sensory and
motor neurons and serve as modulators and integrators of behavior. In
the simplest nerve circuit known, the
two-cell stretch-reflex arc (see Fig.
2), interneurons are absent. Causing
the sensory nerve to fire (say, by

Winter 2004-2005

stretching the muscle in which it

is located) results in the firing of a
motor neuron - with the resultant
contraction of the stretched muscle.
As simple as this circuit may be, it
makes it possible to maintain constant tension in a muscle when it
must sustain a weight against the
pull of gravity - as when you hold
an arm out straight at your side. The
two-part
decision-making
system
in Fig. 2 is really no different than
the simple negative feedback loop in
the reservoir of a flush toilet, where
movement of the float shuts off the
water valve that opened when the
toilet was flushed.
By
adding
an
interneuron
(actually, lots of them in most real situations), we can make the firing of the
motor neuron a much less inevitable
consequence of the firing of the sensory nerve (see Fig. 3). For example,
if the motor neuron be connected to
a muscle to be used in food-getting
behavior, we may find that the firing
threshold for the interneuron may be
greatly decreased when blood-sugar
levels are low, and increased when
blood-sugar levels are high (as just
after having eaten a meal). When
interneuron firing thresholds are low,
it will not take very intense firing of
the sensory nerve (say, a nerve stimulated by the smell of food) to fire the
interneuron and, in turn, the motor
nerve which will trigger the food-getting behavior.
If the nerve circuit in question be
in a human brain, many other factors
may increase or decrease the firing
threshold of the interneuron - thus
increasing or decreasing the likelihood of food-getting behavior. For
example, very intense sensory inputs
- say visual and olfactory stimuli
revealing the presence of an "irresistible" culinary delight - may "gang up"
on the interneuron and force it to fire.
Or, memory circuits laid down the
last time the food in question made
the person sick may inhibit the interneuron and prevent it from firing.
Altered levels of circulating hormones
(as in pregnant women, for example,
or diabetics) may alter the likelihood
of interneuronal firing also, and there
are many other factors which will

Page 9

Hormones
(+-)

Salt
Concentrations
(+-)

Temperature
(+-)

Sensory
Inputs (+)

Drugs
(+-)

J.
-

Excitatory neurons in
memory circuits (+)
Inhibitory neurons in
memory circuits (-)

Motor neuron

Figure 3. A hypothetical decision-making nerve circuit containing an interneuron. Even in people who cannot add
two and two, interneurons are busy doing integral calculus. The interneuron shown here, like all interneurons, is busy
integrating excitatory (+J and inhibitory (-J factors. Only when the-grand total of the inputs shown is greater than the
firing threshold for the given cell will the interneuron fire and transmit its excitation to the motor neuron which, in
turn, will transmit the excitation to a muscle. The 'decision' to fire may result from such simple conditions as a sudden
burst of intense inputs from the sensory receptors, or it may result from extremely subtle causes such as increased excitation from memory-circuit neurons. But whether the causes be simple or subtle, all decisions - and the muscle behaviors
resulting from them - are the inevitable mathematical resultant of the factors acting upon the interneuron.
affect the nerve circuit's "decision"
of whether to fire or not. Make no
mistake about it: the nerve circuits of
Figures 2 and 3 are decision-making
systems.
It should not be supposed, however, that nerve cells are a prerequisite
for decision-making. At night, as one
sleeps, the system of endocrine glands
is making countless numbers of decisions: decisions regulating the level
of blood sugar, what to excrete in the
urine, what levels of sex hormones to
maintain in the blood, etc. Nor should
it be supposed that decision-making
requires living cells at all. A flush toilet may be highly adept at "deciding"
when to start and stop refilling the reservoir after it has been "stimulated" by
being flushed. Indeed, decision-making
is a characteristic of a very common
category of machines - the so-called
cybernetic devices. Cybernetic devices
take their name from the Greek word
kybernetes, "governor."
Page 10

The thermostat
in your livingroom is a cybernetic device, and so
is the cruise-control in your car. Like
all cybernetic devices, the function of
these humble decision-makers is to
maintain some condition as close to
constant as possible. In the case of the
thermostat, it is temperature which
is regulated. In the case of the cruise
control, it is the speed of the automobile. In flush toilets, water levels are
regulated.
Every living cell is a cybernetic
device, and every living plant or
animal is a super-cybernetic system
composed of cybernetic subsystems.
In living things, the overall state of
balance resulting from the functioning
of all the cybernetic parts of a body is
known as homeostasis. If we may be
allowed to use a teleological phrase, the
'purpose' of the various systems of the
body is the maintenance of homeostasis
- maintaining all physiological factors
at the levels optimal for survival.
Winter 2004-2005

We have seen in the case of glandular regulation of blood sugar, not

all decision-making in living things
involves overt 'behavior.' As a matter of
fact, there is a hierarchy of cybernetic
systems in the body, which is involved
in the maintenance of homeostasis. It
would appear that the 'natural state'
of mammals is the relatively safe condition of sleeping curled up in a hole
somewhere safely out of the reach
of predators and falling meteorites.
During sleep, the glands can regulate
blood sugar levels by gradually removing glucose from the liver, where it was
stored in the form of insoluble glycogen
after the last meal. If the animal slept
forever, however, there would come a
time when the liver would run out of
stored sugar, and the animal would die
because its cells had become deprived
of fuel.
When glandular regulation is no
longer adequate to maintain homeostasis, the nervous system takes over.
American Atheist

If the sugar stores of the liver are to

be replaced, the animal will have to
wake up, go outside, and rustle up
some breakfast. This will involve overt
behavior including not only locomotion
and food-getting behavior, but a wide
variety of decision-making activities.
Where to hunt? What to hunt for? What
risks to take? To the behavior scientist,
decision-making of this sort is merely
the activity of the highest cybernetic
system, involved in last-ditch efforts
to maintain physiological homeostasis - in this case, maintaining blood
sugar levels at a certain value. (There
may be a higher level still: social systems may sometimes function to regulate behavior in a manner optimizing
the number of individuals capable of
maintaining individual homeostases.)
Nowhere among all these cybernetic systems, from flush toilets to
flexing muscles, do we see any evidence of freedom. Indeed, as we have
seen, animal behavior itself - including decision-making behavior - would
seem to be induced (caused!) by the
growing inadequacy of lower-level systems of regulation.

Back To The Question

Let us now return to the question of just when it is that a person
might use free will. Some years ago,
a man strangled his wife as he was
in bed sleeping beside her. He had had
a nightmare, he said, and when he
thought he had strangled a monster,
he awoke to discover he had killed
his wife. Although the musculature
is normally inhibited during dreaming sleep, it occasionally happens that
people can walk and do other things
while dreaming. Why not wife-killing?
Assuming the story to be true, can
anyone suppose the man was exercising free will when his neuromuscular
system 'decided' to strangle his wife?
In May of 1985, the prestigious
journal Science reported that certain
types of psychiatric disorders are
actually caused by viral infections of
the brain. The study began with an
investigation of Borna disease, a viral
disease of horses and sheep. A form
of encephalitis, it has been known
popularly as 'crazy disease.' When
virus cultures taken from the brains
Parsippany, New Jersey

of diseased horses were injected into

various species of laboratory
animals, these animals too developed
behavioral abnormalities, indicating
that the crazy behavior observed in
horses is indeed caused by the virus in
question.

Is it possible that
religiosity and
religious thinking
are caused by
viruses?

Studies
of human
psychiatric
patients have revealed that some of
those suffering from cyclic depressive illness carry antibodies to Borna
virus, although
no psychiatrically
normal persons have been found who
carry such antibodies. This evidence,
together with a number of other recent
studies, indicates that a substantial
percentage of human mental illness
results from virus infections of the
brain.
For religionists who believe in
demonic possession as the cause of
mental illness, this news will not be
very welcome. After all, Jesus drove
demons, not viruses, out of the crazy
man at Gadara. Demonic possession
as a cause of mental illness was still
a reasonable explanatory option, as
long as psychiatrists couldn't come up
with anything better than Freud's fantasies about toilet training and penis
envy. But increasingly, modern medical science is revealing the biochemical - and now, virulogical - basis
of mental illness. The demonological
interpretation itself can no longer be
considered as anything other than a
form of mental illness. Is it possible
that religiosity and religious thinking
are caused by viruses?
All this is bad news for churches
which preach the existence of free will,
for it shows that a simple virus infection can control a person's behavior
- thus negating any putative free
Winter 2004-2005

will existing prior to infection. In the

Catholic Church, for example, it is
a sin to commit suicide. But what if
patients suffering from Borna virusinduced depression kill themselves?
Can a person whose behavior is controlled by viruses commit a sin? Can
a person whose behavior is partly
controlled by a virus commit a sin?
And what if the pope should contract
a virus that alters his behavior, making him even crazier than he is at the
moment? Would he still be considered
infallible?
Since free will is believed by most
people to be an all-or-nothing commodity, it is amusing to consider when, in
the course of a virus infection, a person
might lose it. Is it when 50 percent of
all brain cells are infected? 75 percent?
99 percent? Or does every last cell in
the brain have to be infected? Or are
there certain 'free will cells' in the
brain, and free will is lost only when
these particular cells are infected?
Although
the
discovery
that
viruses can control human behavior
is certainly a stunning development
in the history of free-will studies, the
most significant scientific discovery
to occur since the 1950s, when Homer
Smith wrote, has been the finding that
it is possible to control animal and
human behavior by physical means
- by implanting electrodes in various
centers of the brain.
In the late 1960s, Jose M. R.
Delgado electrified the world - as
well as experimental animals - when
he stepped into a bull ring, incited a
bull to charge him, and then, when the
fierce animal was soon to toss him with
its horns, pressed a button on a radio
transmitter and stopped the creature
dead in its tracks. Prior to this electrifying demonstration
(I can't get
away from that word!), Delgado had
implanted an electrode in the animal's
brain and a radio receiver in its skull.
By transmitting
a radio stimulus to
the appropriate part of the animal's
brain, Delgado was able to override
and inhibit the expression of the bull's
'intended' behavior. In 1969, when
Delgado published his book Physical
Control of the Mind [Harper & Row],
the question of free will vanished as a
topic of serious scientific debate.
For what could be done with animals has also been done with humans.
Page 11

In 1977, Robert G. Heath, a neuropsychiatrist

at Tulane
University School of Medicine, published a study titled
"Modulation of emotion with a brain pacemaker: Treatment
for intractable psychiatric illness" [J. Nervous and Mental
Disease, Vol. 165: 300-317]. Among the extraordinary cases
reported in that article was the case of a nineteen-year-old
man who had been in and out of mental hospitals since the
age of thirteen. He had slashed his wrists and arms during
numerous episodes of violent behavior, and had tried to kill
his sister. Despite the use of potent antipsychotic drugs, he
still had to be kept in physical restraints much of the time.
All this changed after Heath's colleague, neurosurgeon Raeburn C. Llewellyn, implanted a 'pacemaker' in
the man's brain. Consisting of a radio receiver implanted
under the skin on the upper edge of the man's chest, with
wires running up under the skin at the back of the neck to
connect with electrodes implanted in the vermis region of
the cerebellum at the back of the man's brain, the device
made possible external control of the man's violent behavior.
Writing of the man's improvement at the time the paper
was published, Heath commented,
Psychological tests, including intelligence quotient, have
shown significant improvement, and he is able to cope adequately with the vicissitudes of everyday life. Clinically, the
patient has had a complete remission and requires no medication. He was enlisted in a vocational rehabilitation course and
he is now ready for job placement.

This case is interesting for the questions it raises with

regard to the doctrine of free will. Did the man use free will
when he launched into his fits of violence? Does he use free
will when he now refrains from violence under the influence
of radio stimulation? When it is he himself who presses the
radio transmitter button which shuts down fits of violence
before they erupt, is he exercising free will?
It has long been supposed that the insane do not exercise free will. But what of persons who are temporarily
insane because of drugs such as alcohol or LSD? How many
shots of alcohol, and how many molecules of LSD, does it
take to wipe out free will? If someone were to slip some LSD
into the pope's communion wine, would the pope exercise
free will in formulating his 'infallible' ex cathedra updates
on the bodily assumption into heaven of the Virgin Mary? If
he should proclaim the doctrine that the Blessed Virgin was
rapted into heaven with a full bladder and galloping diarrhea, I would want to know if I have to take him seriously
- especially if I ever find myself outside and a flying lady
in a blue robe invades my airspace.

"No free will?!" I can hear them exclaim. "What happens

to human responsibility? If there is no such thing as free
will, how can we hold others responsible for their acts?"
After having discussed these questions with many
people, I have come to the conclusion that the problem is
not really a question of whether or not we can hold people
'responsible' for their acts, but rather what can we do if
there be no longer any justification
for punishing people
when they do things we dislike. I can see no conceivable
way in which the 'loss' of free will should change our day-today dealings with other people. We will continue to reward
behavior of which we approve, if we wish to increase the
probability of its repetition in the future, and we will not
reward behavior we wish to see extinguished. We will lose,
however, the rationalizations
which allow us to become
angry and hold wrathful grudges against people who annoy us.
We know it is foolish to get angry at a flush toilet when
it misbehaves and won't shut off at the correct point. We
are quite properly embarrassed when we find ourselves
kicking a car which has broken down. So why shouldn't we
be embarrassed when we find ourselves getting emotionally
overwrought because a person has done something to displease or harm us? Is not the remedy the same in the case of
the faithless toilet, the frustrating car, and the misbehaving
person?
When the toilet leaks, we neither hold grudges against
it nor try to punish it: we fix it. If it is the case, as I have
argued, that human beings too are elaborate cybernetic

Toilet
flush trip handle

_--'''''''''_

This is a standartd ball-float toilet

The seat is held in place by posts and
rests on bumpers.
tank lid

tank

_---float

ball

tank
ball

inlet _
tube

The Problem of Personal Responsibility

While the discussion so far has been neither scientifically nor philosophically exhaustive, it seems as though we
have said enough on the subject of free will to convince
most people that there exists no such faculty, and we have
reached the point where the wrath of readers - alluded to
at the beginning - is likely to be kindled.

Page 12

Winter 20042005

seat

American Atheist

If it is the case, as I have argued, that human beings too

are elaborate cybernetic systems, is it not more reasonable to try to 'fix' them than to punish them when they
malfunction?
systems, is it not more reasonable to
try to 'fix' them than to punish them
when they malfunction? A whole array
of tools exists for the repair of misbehaving human systems. These range
from the techniques of applied behaviorist psychology to the brain-implant
techniques mentioned above. When
people do things which are harmful,
they do so for definite physiological
reasons. It should be the task of society
to find ways of repairing behavior, not
punishing it. It is silly to spend more
than one day kicking a flat tire.
To be sure, this will require a
rethinking
of our laws concerning
crime and punishment. It will require
that our 'reformatories' become exactly
what their name has falsely advertised: places where behavior can be
re-formed, i.e., repaired.

Parsippany, New Jersey

To the charge that I am treating

people as 'objects,' I plead guilty. People
are objects; they are highly organized
systems of matter and energy. Far
from this demeaning us or making
us in any way less valuable, it simply
shows what marvelous things 'objects'
can be. In the universe known to me,
I know of no objects as wonderful or
precious as my fellow humans. Their
importance can hardly be diminished
by my suggestion that they should
not be treated in a way that would
be unreasonable even vis-a-vis a flush
toilet.
It remains for us to ask if it not
be contradictory for an Atheist to deny
the existence of free will, yet fight for
social justice and political liberty. Is it
not unwarranted, then, to call for freedom of the press, freedom of religion,

Winter 2004-2005

freedom of speech - and, freedom of

the mind?
The answer once again is "no." It
is not contradictory to pursue political
liberties even though behavior has its
causes. These liberties have nothing
whatever to do with the question of
whether or not behavior is determined.
The liberties which we seek are nothing more than conditions wherein our
decision-making
(free or otherwise)
can benefit from the widest range of
choices possible, conditions wherein
we have the greatest chance of finding
happiness. We do not need free will
to experience love, but we might very
well need liberty to find it.

Page 13

IsGOD
a

Pedophile
S

earching for God? Easy! Simply look for the overfuzzy Afro wig He wears, described by Tom Adair in
The Scotsman (June 18, 2004) as "what looks like
jet-black pubic hair - a mane of Leo Sayer proportions as
if he had poked his tongue into a light socket." That's what
it might appear to an unbeliever. To his devotees, god's hair
is unique, with every strand standing stiffly on end charged
with ojhas or psychic energy. No ordinary hair that. Not a
trace of white either, even at 78 - though it is rumored that
despite His power to heal the sick and resurrect the dead,
god himself suffers from diabetes, heart problems, and other
chronic ailments.
For earthly purposes god's name is Satya Sai Baba. He
was born in a tiny village in South India in 1926 and went
by the name of Satyanarayana Raju. In the best tradition of
prophets and gods, this super-boy from Smallville showed
early promise. Like Hercules as a baby, he also had a deadly
snake invade his crib which he easily destroyed.
In school he 'materialized' pencils and erasers for his
astonished class-fellows. As a boy he loved to dress up as a
girl and appear suddenly in the midst of a group to dance and

Margaret Bhatty was reared

in a Christian missionary family in India. She is a free-lance journalist

and author of books in English for Indian children.
She lives in N agpur. 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 + $2.50 shipping. ISBN
0-910309-42-6.
Stock
#5026).
She receives e-mail at bhattys_
ngp@sancharnet.in.

Page 14

entertain them. At the age of fourteen he assumed Divine

status and took the name of Satya Sai Baba after a man
who had died in 1918. That original Sai Baba was a gentle
Sufi saint and, even though a Muslim, he has more devotees
today among the Hindus than his own community.
Theologically, it is difficult to explain how the soul of a
Muslim could have transmigrated into a Hindu kafir instead
of going straight to its reward in Paradise. But it happened.
And for additional credibility this new incarnation added
the word Satya meaning 'The True.' Over the years SSB has
upgraded Himself, declaring he is an avatar of Shiva, Jesus
Christ, and Kalki who is Vishnu. He claims Jesus knew him
by name because he was a shepherd (!) and his flock all said
"Ba-Ba!" He says of himself "I am everything, everywhere,
omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent, and so whatever
I will instantly happens." (Spirit and Mind by Sandweiss.)
The Baba speaks Telugu and a smattering of English
and Hindustani. For god that's a somewhat limited range.
He is also a school drop-out, having studied only up to
the Fourth Standard. He has successfully resurrected two
alleged corpses declared quite dead before he showed up. He
has telepathic knowledge of everything his devotees do, and
advises scientists, engineers. and doctors in professional
matters. (My Baba and I by Hislop)
He can split himself into several selves to appear to his
devotees miles apart. He has effected 'rescues' of devotees
who have called upon him for help from a long way off. The
souls of deceased devotees all return to take refuge in his
bosom.
He is a clever conjurer, producing sacred ash out of thin
air, and materializing trinkets and jewelry from his wide
sleeves, or from behind the cushions where he sits. Every
year, on the occasion of Mahashivratri, a festival devoted to
the god Shiva, he performs the miracle of Lingodbhavam in
which he regurgitates a crystal dildo, symbolic of the god.
In February, 2004 he went into labour' three times and produced three ofthem in one evening, witnessed by thousands

Winter 2004-2005

American Atheist

of devotees. One year he 'gave birth" to

a solid gold one. He appears to be in
great agony as he retches, drinking
quantities of water to ease the contractions. Seeing how he suffers many concerned devotees have implored him not
to perform this miracle every year at
the cost of his health. As we know, people sometimes die in labor. (He doesn't
regurgitate them any more. When he
retches, one of his slaves offers him
a clean napkin to wipe his mouth in
which the phallus is concealed.)

As

Recently, I was sent two CDs

by my good friend and guru-buster,
Basava Premanand, Convenor of the
Indian branch of CSICOP (Committee
for the Scientific Investigation
of
Claims of the Paranormal). One was
of a documentary shown on Denmark
Television, the other - The Silent
Swami - was made by Tanya Datta of
the BBC who traveled to Puttaparthi
near Bangalore, where the godman
has a huge fortified ashram. It was
telecast first on Channel Two in the

GODMEN GO, HIS OUTFIT IS BIG LEAGUE

INDEED,

BACKED BY BILLIONS IN DOLLARS

- AND 60 MILLION ADHERENTS, RUNNING A

CLOSE SECOND TO THE ROMAN CATHOLIC
CHURCH

IN NUMBERS.

As godmen go, his outfit is big

league indeed, backed by billions in
dollars, with ashrams strung out across
the planet, and 60 million adherents,
running a close second to the Roman
Catholic Church in numbers.
However, tales are now tumbling
out of sexual abuse in private audiences and episodes of pedophilia with
those young boys who take his fancy.
The charges aren't new. Thirty years
ago a simpleton from America by the
name of Tal Brooke found his way to
the Sai Baba's ashram in search oflove
and enlightenment. He found both though not ofthe spiritual sort. Brooke
wrote "Baba embraced me again, pulling me in strongly, his pelvic nudging
stopped. Suddenly a hand unzipped my
fly and went inside. Baba's hips began
to shift while his hand squeezed me.
His breathing became more rapid and
agitated. Baba showed all the signs of
desire."
Brooke fled and wrote of his experiences in a book Lord of the Air. It
never reached Indian readers because
the godman's organization bought up
all the copies coming into the country
and destroyed them. However, today
Websites on the Internet have taken
over and are spreading the word like
wildfire.
Parsippany, New Jersey

UK, and then on the BBC World

Service in Asia in October, which I was
able to see. Both are graphic exposes of
the godman's pedophilic activities with
young boys, most of them children of
his credulous Western devotees.
The sex play is initiated by an
'oil massage.' The godman unzips his
victim's pants and massages his genitals beneath the scrotum, explaining
that this is a Hindu ritual for raising
the kundalini. Tantrics of this system
of meditation believe that the psychic
power of the generative fluid can be
forced upwards through successive
chakras or circles located in the subtle
self, until it hits the roof of the palate

Winter 2004-2005

and the meditator achieves enlightenment. Women can't participate in this

sport because of their ridiculous biology. In any case, the Baba has a strong
aversion to women - except of the
affluent sort.
The most frequent explanation
that devotees have to offer in regard to
the rubbing of the genitals is that it is
a treatment to "balance the energy of
the kundalini." Rick Raines, President
of the South Central Region of the
Sathya Sai Organization in the United
States until January 2000, left the
Organization when a friend told him
that his son had been sexually abused
by the Baba on several occasions. "But
in reality," he clarifies, "it was in addition to the fact that my stepson had
also received the oil treatment in 1989.
I had heard similar stories between
1996 and 1998. I stopped rationalizing
it when I heard about Baba's gratification. And, if it is a ritual why is it never
performed on women?" (Indian Skeptic
magazine 15th August 2004)

Datta's film presents two Americans who reveal they were sexually
abused by SSB when they lived in his
ashram in the early 1970s.
Alaya Rahm and Mark Roche
claim they were subjected to degrading abuse at the hands of the Sai Baba.
Rahm says, "He told me that if I said
anything then my life would be full of
pain and suffering. I became afraid
that if I told my parents, I would lose
them forever. No youngster can handle
that."
It emerged that Rahm's father, Al
Rahm, had also been subjected to the
same abuse, and he had thought it
was 'normal practice' as an 'initiation

Page 15

ceremony.' Mark Roche on his part

expressed a sense of betrayal. "I gave
25 years of my life to Sai Baba, and he
has completely let me down!"
Why is it that
Westerners
(Americans particularly) so easily fall
victim to Indian gurus like the SSB,
turning over their minds to him and
transforming
themselves into zombies? Alaya Rahm's parents say they
were not aware of what was being done
to their son. A photograph was shown
of Alaya as a boy, looking very vulnerable, draped across the smirking
godman's bosom, and flanked by other
Chosen Ones. What did his parents
have to say? These excerpts are from
Tanya Datta's film.
They noticed that their son looked
unhappy when summoned into private
audience with the godman. Marisa
Rahm said: "I would wait until he
would come out and he didn't look
happy to go in and he didn't really
look happy to come out and there was
a suspicion growing in me that, you
know, things were going wrong." When
the two confronted their son, Al Rahm
was surprised to discover "it was so
much more than I knew anything
about. And that he had been forced,
sexually forced and abused by Sai
Baba almost every single interview he
had ever been in."
Devotees who suddenly see the
light and are 'de-toxified' suffer severe
emotional trauma. "It's like everything
went white for me," confessed Marisa
Rahm. "I just - the being which I call
Sai Baba, the living god that I had
taken for years into my private heart,
had been truly abusing my son for so
long. I felt completely betrayed that I
had actually led my son into this, telling my son to trust in this man completely and Sai Baba, the Sai Baba was
a predator and a man who cared only
for himself and for taking precious love
from his devotees and really I can see
now he really didn't care for me. He
wanted my son."
The Rahms took their story to
the international
chairman of the
Organization, Dr. Michael Goldstein.
At first he was shaken and shocked.
He said he hated to think that after
twenty-five years his life had been for
nothing. He decided to go to India and
confront their Guru for the truth! The

Page 16

man commands great respect in the

organization internationally. He also
controls an empire running into billions of dollars. Not surprisingly, he
found the Sai Baba innocent. One clip
in the film showed Goldstein, grandly
dressed in academic regalia, being
awarded an honorary doctorate as
guest of honor at Sai Baba University
in the presence of thousands of zombies. The godman, speaking in Telugu

Ashramkulwant

(Baba's home and rec-center)

through
a translator,
commended
Goldstein for possessing the "three
sacred qualities - discipline, duty and
devotion."
The Baba explained his great love
and compassion for the students of
the school he runs in his ashram. "All
boys are golden," said he. "Therefore
the Bhagwan will protect them at any
time, anywhere. Don't worry, past is
past. Forget the past."
A few Indian boys, sodomized and
sexually abused by the godman, have
dared to speak of their experiences,
aware that they can be quietly eliminated for having done so. There have
been some unexplained murders of
young students on the Ashram premises. Among the people the BBC investigative team met was a woman named
Kamala whose son was enrolled in the
Sai Baba's college. In February 1987
his partially burnt body was found,
near the hostel. The police declared it
was a case of suicide.
The reply made by SSB's officials
to people like the Rahms and Mark
Roche is that they themselves are
homosexuals and that is why they
accuse the Baba of being one also.
Mark Roche said "The odd, perverse,

Winter 2004-2005

ironic, hypocritical thing of it is that

he's the one that is doing the perverse
things but making us feel the guilt
about it. Given normal worldly standards, it's the kind of thing that he
deserves to have his face pummeled to
the ground for."
The Danish TV documentary on
the SSB is titled Seduced by Sai Baba.
First broadcast on January 30, 2002,
it has been screened several times in
Denmark and Norway. It was later
broadcast in Australia on February
12, 2004. It started with a scientific
analysis of the man's 'miracles.' "But
there are much more serious allegations against the Sai Baba, accusations of sexual molestation," said the
commentator. "The guru is known for
daily selecting disciples to take to a socalled interview. These interviews take
place alone in a room with Sai Baba
and are regarded a something of the
highest one can achieve. The accusers say that Sai Baba has molested
his disciples sexually during these
interviews. "It involves young men and
boys, including minors."
One of the victims interviewed by
Danish Radio chose to go by the name
of Sam. Like the Rahms, he and his
family were showered with jewels and
watches. But they are mortally afraid
and wish to remain anonymous, fearing
reprisal. They live in the US Midwest
and this was the first time they had
agreed to give interviews on TV. "We
were shocked when we heard it," said
Sam's father. "Both of us embraced
our son and said, 'That's it! It's over!
It's finished!' And the thing that was
most impactful there, was that when
we said to him 'Why didn't you tell us?'
He said 'The greatest fear that I had
was that my family would choose SB
and I would lose my family'."
The godman also threatened him
saying that if he spoke out he would
be responsible for bringing down the
whole organization.

Sam's descriptions of events are graphic:

One time he had his robe almost completely up and he tried to have anal sex
with me, because he came from behind
me and started climbing up me, you
know, and being that I'm so much taller
than him, in order to keep preventing it

American Atheist

from happening I just stood straight up and didn't allow him

to do anything, you know, and I kind of kept pushing him away
and keep him there until, .. He said ''You don't love me? You
don't love me?" And I would say "No, I love you but I just don't
want to have sexual relations with you!"

For reasons that are not clear, most

photograpohs of Sa; Baba mask his face.
Starting from the age of sixteen, Sam was constantly
abused every time he visited the ashram with his parents.
He was presented solid gold watches by the godman, which
turned out to be plated metal. He was given 21 personal
interviews in a month and a half and other devotees were
deeply resentful of this favoritism. "My feeling, however,
was if you guys only knew what was actually going on back
there you wouldn't even want to be in my shoes because it
was not very funny."
The police in USA, Germany, and France have received
formal charges from ex-disciples. Twenty reports were forwarded to the Indian government in March, 2001. No action
has been taken, and probably no one will move on the matter because the Baba's influence reaches deep into police
departments, among politicians, and the judicial system.
Parsippany, New Jersey

Another young man, Jed Geyerhahn, who lives in

Boston and whose mother is a devotee, was 'initiated' from
the age of six. When he was fifteen he had four 'interviews.'
Talking to students in the Ashram school he discovered the
abuse was an on-going thing. There was nothing edifying
about their experiences with the godman. They were as sordid as the ones to which he was subjected.
Conny Larsen, who now works in southern Poland,
training personnel in social service and prison projects, was
one of the two top leaders of the Sai Baba Organization for
21 years. Larsen was convinced the Sai Baba was a god
and accepted his sexual approaches. But Larsen had a history of sexual abuse as a child in his home from a friend
of his father, and wasn't able to respond to the Almighty's
advances. In the film he described the fellow's penis as
'small - about so large' - finger length. (In the Sai Baba's
early years as a god there was much speculation about his
sexuality. It was rumored that he was a hermaphrodite. At
that time he himself claimed he was an avatar of Shiva and
his consort Sati together - the half-and half)
Larsen only broke away when he saw the treatment
given by the Sai Baba to a Swedish family. In June, 1999
he went to India with a group of devotees from Gothenburg.
Among them was a young boy.
And so this boy was lured into the inner interview room
while his mother sat outside. And then I heard what occurred,
of a sexual nature, in there, because I have myself been behind
the curtain of shame, as I call it today. And it was so audible
that I got embarrassed. And when Baba had gone inside, the
cushion he has for a back support, had fallen forward. I took
care to replace that cushion, for I was sitting just beside it,
like this. And when I was about to put the cushion back, to
my great surprise I saw that in the rear end of the chair and
furthest within the seat, lies gold watches, gold necklaces,
gold rings, and other bits and pieces, which he later-when
the boy had come out-he comes out satisfied and happy and
smacks his lips. And then he sits down and has the impudence to confront the mother who is looking at her boy and
wondering what has happened to him, and asks her "What
do you want?" Then he has the nerve to cheat and do sleightof-hand materialization which I saw with my own eyes when
he took it with his hand behind his back. And not only rape
or seduce the boy in there, but fool the mother and all of us
outside that he could manifest things, when everything had
been lying behind his cushion. And then, so to speak, then the
penny really dropped for me. Just think! My mind said. And
then I understood that I have been deceived spiritually and
physically, the whole world is fooled spiritually and physically.
(Seduced by Sai Baba)

II
When the 'penny dropped' for Conny Larsson, he not
only quit the Satya Sai Baba outfit, he spoke out against
it. "I was threatened that I would be shot when I should go
to Poland," he said. "And now, one has tried a new tactic,
from the Sai movement, and that is to send out messages
about me saying I am a convicted pedophile. They have, so
to speak, turned around the entire problematic and say that
what Sai Baba is guilty of - pedophilia - is what I am guilty
of, I and the other guys who have dared to speak out, it is us

Winter 2004-2005

Page 17

WELCOME TO SAI VARSltA"J

who are pedophiles. And they have sent this announcement

out around the globe. And Sai followers believe it." (Seduced
by Sai Baba Danish TV)
While many Swedish zombies have left the movement,
Danish leaders have rejected the accusations. Thorbje
Meyer, a lecturer in ethics at the Business High School in
Copenhagen, described by Larsson as "the strongest, most
powerful person in the whole of Europe," refused to see the
documentary and sent the producers a letter calling "the
allegations undocumented and untrue."
In India it has proved impossible to get anyone to
investigate the accusations now being made against this
godman. Prominent politicians flock to his ashram for blessings during an election. High government officials from the
President of India down attend his birthday celebrations.
He "materializes" priceless jewelry for people in power, the
media, the police, and members of the judiciary. For the poor
he creates only holy ash.
Page 18

Keen to do some damage-control,

Michael
Goldstein, international President of the Sai Baba
Organization, sent out an e-mail to some of the
inner members. It mistakenly got posted on his
Website and was quickly withdrawn but not before
its contents became public. He warned leaders that
the BBC was contemplating a documentary on the
organization and ifthey appeared at any Sai Centre
with cameras, reporters, and recorders, they should
be firmly turned away - or reported to the appropriate authorities if they refused to comply.
However, word was also coming out on the other
side of the globe, in Latin America. On Sunday,
August 5, 2004, Azul Television on Channel 9 in
Argentina, telecast the first of two documentaries
about the godman. According to a rating report one
million viewers saw the program and the station
was bombarded with abusive calls from Sai Baba
devotees. The films presented people on both sides
of the debate. Enrique Marquez from Buenos Aires,
a well-known magician and an expert in paranormal fraudulence, showed how the godman performs
his so-called "miracles," including the production
of a lingam from his mouth, and the creation of a
seemingly endless flow of sacred ash from an upturned earthen pot.
The second part of the program was telecast
on Azul Television on Sunday, August 12th. 2004.
"Extended
testimonies
were given by Conny
Larsson and Afshin Said Korramshahgol,
with
details of the experiences that caused their 'spiritual devastation.' Sharon Purcell, an ex-devotee
who for 32 years belonged to the Sai Organization
in the United States, said 'My son was not able to
rationalize it and he stopped believing. But I went
on thinking he (Sai Baba) was re-channeling sexual
and spiritual energies. I was so stupid.' Ms. Purcell
decided to leave the cult when she heard the reason
why a friend of hers escaped from India in 1972. 'He
told me that the Baba put his penis in his mouth
and ejaculated'." (The Indian Skeptic 15th August
2004)
Leonard Gutter (49) head of the Sai Baba
Organization in Latin America denounced the accusations
as "absolutely false." He started believing in the godman
twenty years ago. He says the Sai Baba repaired a double
fracture in his nose bone simply by touching it and the bones
healed themselves instantly. He said he had intended to sue
the television company but was dissuaded by the Sai Baba.
An investigation might really have put Gutter's nose out of
joint! The godman is smart. He restricts cameras so that
his sleight-of-hand tricks are not detected. And he refuses
to take legal action against accusers, saying god cannot be
questioned.
"Had I come as a simple human being," says the fellow,
"you would have had no respect for my teachings and you
would have not followed that which is for your own good. So I
came in human form with superhuman powers and wisdom.
This is a human form in which all divine principles, that is,
all forms attributed to a god by man are manifested."

Winter 2004-2005

American Atheist

8aba out for a ride

"The media in India are scared, basically," said Sanal
Edamaruku, President of the Indian Rationalist Association
who appeared in the Danish documentary "Seduced by Sai
Baba." He told of a press conference he held on the eve of
the godman's 70th birthday. "The very next day I found that
my car parts were removed in the morning so that I could
simply have an accident. It could look like a coincidence."

Nair carefully scrutinized the police reports, and found

"lies and inconsistencies" supported later, through an investigation by the Criminal Investigation Department. "Two or
three daggers cannot be a match to roaring guns. So the
story of the police shooting in self-defense is totally baseless," said Nair. He described it as "absolute cold-blooded
murder."
Nair is now seeking to reopen the case, despite considerable resistance from within the judiciary. Said he: "The
killing of the boys was only to buy silence. If the boys were
taken to the court of law, if they were arrested and taken
to the court of law, they would have stated several things,
including why they went to meet Baba."
Premanand, who tried without success to pursue the
case all the way to the Supreme Court, said "The central
government (BJP) stopped the investigation because if the
investigation takes place, a lot of things will come out. One
thing, economic offenses, sex offenses, all these things will
come out."
The top police officers on the case were transferred and
rewarded with senior postings. No witnesses were called, not
even the godman, who should have been the main witness.
Premanand has been relentless in his efforts to unmask
the godman. He bears scars from several savage beatings.
Since he travels a great deal in his anti-superstition
campaigns across the country, he has to be careful about what
he eats and drinks. He has survived four murder attempts.
He lives in Podanur, Coimbatore district, in Kerala. He and

Premanand has survived four murder attempts. He lives

in Podanur, Coimbatore district, in Kerala. He and his
son maintained a centre there and published The Indian
Skeptic. Two years ago, his son was murdered.
In June 1993 the Sai Baba's ashram was rocked by a
sensational incident in the middle ofthe night in which four
young men died. They were known to be close to the godman
and had access to his private chamber where he sleeps on
a bed which looks like an enormous curled up anaconda.
The men were armed with knives. The four attendants in
the apartment tried to prevent them from entering. In the
struggle two of the attendants were killed. The godman
quickly disappeared into a private passageway and raised
an alarm. Heavily armed police arrived.
In the BBC documentary v.P.B. Nair, formerly Home
Secretary of the State government and in charge of the
state police gave this testimony: "So these boys, they ran
and locked themselves up in a room. And then in the hole,
all around a lot of pandemonium and people gathered so the
boys were shivering like rats in that small hole."
The police version of what followed sounded very plausible. They broke open the door and were attacked by the
boys wielding knives. They opened fire in self-defense and
killed them.
Parsippany,

New Jersey

his son maintained a centre there and published The Indian

Skeptic. Two years ago, his son was murdered. He went out
in their jeep and when he failed to return they assumed he
had gone somewhere for the week-end. On Monday morning,
when the office was opened, they found his body, rammed in
a sitting position in a waste-paper basket. It had lacerations
and injuries clearly.proving he had been thrown from the
vehicle and then dragged for some distance.
In June 2004 the up-dated BBC News UK edition
reported Premanand's home had been burgled again, the
third time in just one month. He believes the thieves were
looking for evidence which he has collected against the Sai
Baba for over thirty years.
Though charges of pedophilia have been sent to the
Indian police from abroad, no action has been taken. The
former Prime Minister, Atal Bihari Bajpayee of the Hindu
BJP party, felt moved to issue a special letter on his personal
note paper, refuting the allegations as "wild, reckless and
concocted." While making the documentary Silent Swamy,
BBC's investigative
reporter, Tanya Dutta, met Murli

Winter 2004-2005

Page 19

Manohar Joshi, former Minister for Human Resources

Development in Bajpayee's government - responsible for
introducing astrology, vaastu shastra, and a lot of dis-information into school and college textbooks. Joshi declared that
he supported what Bajpayee said in his letter. He claimed
he knew the Sai Baba very well, and he denounced the BBC
for trying the malign the godman, along with Bajpayee and
other high officials, like Bhagwati, the former Chief Justice
ofthe Supreme Court who is an ardent devotee. Joshi finally
lost his temper and ended up shouting "No! No! No!" at the
top of his voice. He also accused Tanya Dutta of lacking in
courtesy. ''You don't know the meaning of interviewing a
Minister in my capacity, as a Minister of my stature!" he
accused.
All Indian godmen like to claim they have western celebrities who worship them. Even a casual visit to one of their
gatherings by some well-known and curious person assures
them of a spot on the celebrity roster. When Prince Charles
visited India recently, people within the government tried
very hard to include the Sai Baba's Puttaparti Ashram and
Bangalore ashram in his travel itinerary. Tony Blair was to
be roped in too. But the British High Commission in Delhi,
knowing something about the sexual scandals surrounding
the fellow, made sure this didn't happen. Earlier, a question was raised in the House of Commons by a Member of
Parliament "concerning possible risk to the children of UK
citizens visiting the Sai Baba in India."
In September 15, 2000, UNESCO was to sponsor a
conference on education at the Ashram in co-operation with
the Institute of Sai Education (Thailand) and the Flinders
University Institute of International Education (Australia).
It withdrew from the conference citing "widely reported allegations of sexual abuse involving youth and children leveled
at the leader ofthe movement in question, Sathya Sai Baba."
The American Embassy in Delhi has now issued a warning
to its citizens to avoid visiting the state of Andhra Pradesh.
The notice specifically mentions that a noted godman "reportedly indulges in inappropriate sexual behavior with young male
devotees."When contacted by the BBC reporter they confirmed
that they meant the Satya Sai Baba.
N. Innaiah, with whom readers are familiar, has posted
a petition on his Website http://innaiahn.tripod.com
drafted
by Just Seekers after Truth and written by Arthur Klein.
The petition demands an official investigation ofthe Sathya
Sai Baba and his worldwide organization. "The initiators of
the Petition each left the Sathya Sai Baba cult for various
reasons. Some have been active members of the Sathya Sal
Organization for many years, others did not hold office in
the SSO but were devoted followers." It can be found on
www.PETITIONONLINE.com.Itis
because ofthe Internet
that the campaign against god is gathering momentum.
However, it seems unlikely that anyone in this benighted
country will bring the fellow to book. What is needed is
strong international
pressure from outside on behalf of
the rights of children for indicting a pedophile who stands
exposed as an active child abuser.

Page 20

Big Bucks Here, You Bet'cha!

CORRECTION
In our special Autumn 2004 issue devoted
to the story of Frances Farmer, we regret that
we printed an incorrect URL for the article
"Shedding Light On Shadowland," by Jeffrey
M. Kauffman, an author frequently cited by
Conrad Goeringer in his Farmer articles'. Mr.
Kauffman's Web-site contains a lot of information referred to by Mr. Goeringer, and it is important that it be recognized correctly. The correct
URL is <http://hometown.aol.com/jmkauffman/
sheddinglight.html>.

Winter 2004-2005

American Atheist

Vol. 3. No.4 .

THE
TRUTH

O.M.

SEEKER

BENNETT

The Nineteenth

Century's Most
Controversial
Publisher and American
Free-Speech Martyr

RODERICK BRADFORD
We honestly believe Christianity
to be false, to be the greatest sham
in the world, without truth in its
history, without loveliness in its
doctrines, without benefit to the
human race.
-D.M. Bennett

Roderick Bradford is completing a

book-length biography of D.M. Bennett,
which will be made available to readers
of American Atheist as soon as it is
available. He receives e-mail at <rod brad
fordS I@hotmail.com>.

Parsippany, New Jersey

, 'Mr.

Bennett was a deeply

religious man," a close
friend declared at the
dedication of the monument erected
to honor the founder of The Truth
Seeker.
This sounds preposterous considering D.M. Bennett was nineteenthcentury America's most outspoken,
relentless,
and notorious critic of
Christianity. The woman went on to
explain her provocative statement by
quoting Thomas Paine's motto: "To do
good is my religion." Ifthat was Paine's
highest work she asserted, it made it
his religion. "It is in this sense that
Mr. Bennett was a religious man; and
if we measure his religion by the measure of his devotion to his work, he was
a deeply religious man."
DeRobigne
Mortimer
Bennett
(1818-1882) was arguably the most
revered and reviled publisher-editor
during the Gilded Age. In 1873, at the
beginning of the anti-religion campaign in America, Bennett founded
The Truth Seeker and devoted it to
Science, Morals, Freethought,
and
Human Happiness. The editor, like
many of his fellow freethinkers, was a
former devout Christian who retained
a good deal of the religion's moral
spirit. Bennett opposed dogmatic religion and took great pride in debunking the Bible, exposing hypocritical
clergymen, and reminding Americans
that the Government of the United
States was "not in any sense founded
on the Christian religion." He argued

Winter 2004-2005

that Abraham Lincoln and many of the

founding fathers were, like Thomas
Paine, deists or infidels; the most
noteworthy were Benjamin Franklin,
Thomas
Jefferson,
and
George
Washington.
In the nineteenth
century, the
United States was predominantly
orthodox Christian. The Church had
overwhelming power and influenced
or controlled nearly every aspect of
American citizens' lives. Anyone courageous enough to question religion, let
alone criticize in print the ubiquitous
and powerful Christian institutions or
their influential leaders, was regarded
as an enemy of god and/or peculiar.
Opponents of religion were referred to
by a variety of names: atheists, agnostics, infidels, or, as they preferred, liberals or freethinkers, and were often
ostracized or persecuted. There were
still blasphemy laws on the books in
some states, though seldom enforced.
Bennett, however, was arrested after
publishing his "An Open Letter to
Jesus Christ" - the first of three
arrests.
The period from 1776 to the late
nineteenth century was a paradoxical
era in the United States. Americans
boasted about their freedom for all
citizens, but tolerated
slavery. A
country proclaiming law and order,
it often suffered violent mob rule. A
nation proudly hailing its freedom of
speech, it enforced puritanical laws
and
church-sponsored
censorship.
America, however, was also home to a

Page 21

minority of reform-minded citizens trying to enlighten and change the rigid

and intolerant religionist majority still
clinging to archaic superstitions.
Throughout his life (he lived to
be nearly sixty-four), Bennett was
involved with controversial
movements, but it was only in his last
decade that he became a lightning rod
for controversy while publishing The
Truth Seeker. He spent the first half
of his life as a member of the United
Society of Believers in Christ's Second
Appearing, more commonly known as
the Shakers. Bennett W!'lS a ministryappointed journalist
and physician
during the celibate sect's most intense
spiritualistic
period the Era of
Manifestations.
D.M. Bennett's apostasy occurred
during a period of boundless optimism
in America. The concept of progress
inherent in the nation's character
was, in 1846, being superseded by the
aggressive philosophy of "Manifest
Destiny."
Historically,
Manifest
Destiny has traditionally
been presented as an economic and political
i.e., secular proposition; the legend
of struggling pioneers who heroically
fought the enemies of progress to
introduce civilization to savages in
the wilderness.
Manifest
Destiny
was in truth a religious concept. It
asserted that Christians - sanctioned
by their god - had a divine mandate
and a legitimate right to the land.
Manifest Destiny provided incentive
and justification for the nation's westward expansion, massacre of native
Americans, and war with Mexico.
While most Americans were buying
into the arrogant Christian attitude
and spiritual superiority of Manifest
Destiny espoused by politicians, newspapers, and magazines, Bennett was
reading the works of Thomas Paine.
Thomas Paine was an EnglishAmerican
author
whose writings
sparked the American Revolution.
Paine, who died in 1809, a decade before
Bennett was born, was the most widely
read and iconoclastic writer of the late
eighteenth century. The "Apostle of
Freedom" as Paine has been called,
was the first to advocate absolute freedom for the United States. During the
American Revolution, Paine's inspirational Common Sense pamphlet helped

Page 22

win the war. Nevertheless, when Paine

expressed his opposition to slavery and
criticized religion, he found himself
persona non grata in America.
Thomas Paine was lauded for his
Crisis papers, Common Sense, and
Rights of Man books - but his Age of
Reason elicited scorn. TheAge of Reason
alienated America's Christian majority, and they in turn assailed Paine and
disregarded his role in the founding of
the 'United States. Although Paine was
a deist who believed in a god, clergymen labeled him an "outrageous blasphemer" and vilified him incessantly.
Paine was falsely accused of being a
drunkard and unjustly branded an
immoral Atheist. Thomas Paine, the

Winter 20042005

patriotic author-hero, who named the

United States of America, was denied
the right to vote in New Rochelle, New
York, and refused a burial plot in a
Quaker cemetery. Freethinkers continued to honor Thomas Paine and shared
his belief that "any system of religion
that has anything in it that shocks
the mind of a child, cannot be a true
system."
Like Thomas Paine, D.M. Bennett
was misunderstood,
maligned, and
imprisoned for his beliefs or lack
thereof. And like Paine, Bennett
wrote what he thought, and refused
to edit his true feelings. Bennett's
life spanned the greater part of the
nineteenth century and reflected the
young nation's evolutionary character
- a period in America's history of
enormous social, political, and economic change. And, along with the
century, Bennett evolved.
"Without doubting," Charles Darwin
asserted, "there can be no progress."
In the 1870s freethinkers argued that
doubt was the first step to knowledge.
They believed science was the only
acceptable
method
of discovering
truth and that evolution destroyed
the creation hypothesis. Freethinkers
found the universe to be neither moral
nor immoral, and man's morals and
ethics did not arise from a belief in a
Supreme Being or future life; but from
"man's actions towards his fellowman as he advances in the march of
human progress." Freethinkers were
convinced that man's well-being was
best served by rationalism and total
separation of Church and State.
At the same time Bennett began
publishing
The Truth Seeker, free
speech came under attack by Anthony
Comstock, America's
self-appointed
arbiter of morals. Comstock was a
"special agent" of the U.S. Post Office
and secretary and chief vice-hunter
for The New York Society for the
Suppression of Vice, an organization
that was part of the social purity
crusade. A religious zealot, Comstock
waged war on "obscene" books (including some classic works of literature),
freethinking writers, and publishers.
The crusading vice-hunter was unable
and/or
unwilling
to differentiate
between agnosticism and obscenity,
freethought and free love, and arrested

American Atheist

liberal publishers and birth control

advocates
mislabeling
the
latter
"abortionists." Comstock called George
Bernard Shaw an "Irish smut-dealer."
Although Comstock became the laughingstock of America, at the start of his
career he was a serious threat to freedom of speech. Some of the country's
most powerful and pious citizens
backed Comstock, who routinely terrorized his victims and bragged about
driving fifteen people to suicide in his
Christian-sanctioned
mission to ostensibly "save the
young."
There was little protest against the nebulous
Comstock Laws in the
nation's newspapers
and
magazines. Like the politicians, most publishers felt
that opposing the vice hunter and his often ballyhooed
"fight for the young" might
be interpreted as tolerating crime. Censorship and
church hypocrisy, however,
were two of Bennett's favorite subjects. In Comstock
and his ''Vice Society," as
the editor dubbed it, he
found both. While other
periodicals
occasionally
scolded Comstock, Bennett
persistently excoriated and
lampooned "Saint Anthony"
and his wealthy supporters in books, pamphlets,
and countless pages of The

National Liberal League and disparaged members as "long-haired men

and short-haired women."
Organized
freethinkers
III
America were an articulate
and
vociferous
group. Although
there
are no reliable numbers available, it
has been estimated that during the
late nineteenth century there were
approximately thirty to forty thousand
freethinkers and about one hundred
thousand active sympathizers. About a

Truth Seeker.
The Truth Seeker was
the official organ of the
National Liberal League,
an association of freethinkers devoted to complete
separation of church and
state. The Liberal League,
founded
one
hundred
years after the American
Revolution, held its first national
convention in Philadelphia in 1876.
Several distinguished
authors, abolitionists, suffragists,
and scholars
were members of the National Liberal
League. In the late 1870s the NLL
was thriving and on the verge of
realizing the dream of forming a new
political party, the National Liberal
Party. Anthony Comstock detested the
Parsippany, New Jersey

twelfth of the population was opposed

to organized religion. New scientific
and philosophical discoveries, most
importantly Darwin's theory of evolution, were beginning to take hold in
the public consciousness. The latter
part of the nineteenth century was
the Golden Age of Freethought.
The Truth Seeker was not the only
freethought
periodical in the late
Winter 2004-2005

nineteenth century - but it was the

most successful. After Bennett moved
his little prairie monthly from Paris,
Illinois, to New York City in 1874, it
became the most widely read reform
journal in America and subsequently
the world's oldest freethought publication. One of the reasons for The
Truth Seeker's popularity was the
editor's understanding of his subscribers' education level and their desire
for a more accessible, tabloid style
weekly as opposed to the
scholarly
or
"cultured"
(as he called them) liberal periodicals. And while
some of Bennett's harsh
criticism of religion was
objectionable to a few of
the more erudite publishers, his sentiments struck
a chord with the common
man. Bennett argued that
his hero Thomas Paine
was also accused of being
"uncultured."
Opinions about Bennett were diverse. Admirers
referred to him in laudatory terms ranging from
"Freethought Martyr" and
"Nature's
Nobleman"
to
the "American Voltaire."
His opponents expressed
their limitless hate by calling him the "Devil's Own
Advocate." These various
appellations
stimulated
sales of the enterprising
editor's books, tracts, and
periodical. Bennett's hardfought battle for free speech
was praised by liberals and
despised by religionists.
In the 1870s, many
Americans
believed that
one had to be religious,
preferably
Christian,
to be a moral person.
Bennett's religious adversaries linked
freethought to immorality, routinely
defamed him, and labeled him a freelove advocate. Although many freethinkers adopted Thomas Paine's mantra: "My country is the world, and to
do good is my religion," they were often
disparaged in the press and in popular
religious periodicals. The Christian
Union, edited by Lyman Abbott and
Page 23

Henry Ward Beecher, two of America's

most prominent religious leaders, was
an exemplar of Christian publishing. While Bennett was in jail, the
Christian Union publicized a pastor's
editorial that expressed the prevalent
Christian sentiment towards Bennett
and his supporters: "There is a sort of
nervous communication among the
ganglia of vicious Infidelity scattered
through the country that constitutes
them one system - a church of
Antichrist or synagogue of Satan."
The year before his death,
Bennett
traveled
around
the
world exploring different cultures
and
investigated
Buddhism,
Druidism, and Theosophy. Some
of his subscribers were surprised
when he traveled to India to meet
Madame Blavatsky and Colonel
Olcott and joined their mystical
and controversial Theosophical
Society. (There is considerable
evidence that Theosophy was
formed with a mission not only
to revive Western occultism, but
also to oppose Christianity.) The
Bennetts however, were spiritualists most of their lives and
decades before it became the rage
of the Gilded Age. It made perfect
sense for "the truth seeker" as
Bennett was known, to inquire
into new reforms and belief systems; especially Theosophy, whose
motto is: "There is no religion higher
than truth."
Bennett's
publications
were
denounced by religionists and prohibited from the mail and newsstands
long before the phrase "banned in
Boston" was used. He was the first
publisher in the world who reported
immoral and criminal behavior of
Christian clergymen. The exposure of
these "black-collar crimes" was so popular with readers that he published a
compilation called Sinful Saints and
Sensual Shepherds. Bennett was a
prolific and provocative writer who
aggressively promoted his publications with highly controversial lectures and articles like "An Hour with
the Devil," and "Was Christ a Negro?"
During Bennett's year-long, thirtythousand-mile
journey around the
world, a few encounters occurred that
were illustrative of his philosophy and
stature in the freethought movement.
Page 24

While aboard a steamer bound for

Bombay, Bennett and his fellow passengers were harassed by a Christian
missionary, an American ironically
named Bennett whose endless deck
harangues, revival hymns, and loud
glory hallelujahs and 0 Jesuses were
constant and intolerable to everyone
on board, especially the sixty-threeyear-old editor. Bennett declared the
religious zealot "so full and overflow-

Thomas Paine
ing with Jesus as to make himself a
perfect nuisance."
Bennett told his "Jesus-crazy"
namesake that he did not find fault
with his religion, but that no one
trusted
a person who constantly
bragged about their knowledge or
holiness. "We say, be as happy as you
please," he told him, "so long as you
do not infringe upon our rights." Some
of the passengers, aware of Bennett's
notoriety, told him he would probably
make more "converts" than the young
Christian missionary. But the mission
of the editor and his fellow freethinkers was not to make converts; the
goal was to shine the light of reason
on what they perceived as an overwhelmingly religious world filled with
bigotry and superstition.
Bennett's
message, whether addressing a young
missionary, a religious leader, a titan
of industry, or the President of the
Winter 2004-2005

United States, was always essentially

the same - do not infringe on our
rights.
A few months later in Rochester,
New York, Bennett's last stop before
arriving in New York City, the tireless
editor was honored at a summer resort
on the shores ofLake Ontario. That
evening an incident occurred typical
of the response Bennett received from
loyalists across the country. An elderly
farmer arrived too late for the
reception, but located Bennett
in the crowd. "Mr. Bennett, this
is the happiest hour of my life! I
will not detain you," he exclaimed
while vigorously grasping the
editor's hand. "I only wanted to
look into your face and feel the
touch of your hand - a hand
that has made Comstock writhe
and the churches to tremble."
Bennett continued to make
Anthony Comstock squirm and
the churches quiver, up until his
death, only a few months later.
He dictated his last editorial
"Reviving Puritanism" while on
his deathbed and it appeared in
the same Truth Seeker issue that
printed his obituary. The article
was a forceful attack on religious fanatics and their "Sunday
Closing League," that he compared to Comstock's Society for
the Suppression of Vice. "It is
very dangerous to clothe ecclesiastics
with power," he warned. "And this last
move is well calculated to alarm honest men who love liberty and personal
freedom."
D.M. Bennett's contribution to free
speech in America has yet to be recognized. The New York Times minimized
Bennett's free speech advocacy, writing that he had "obtained some notoriety in 1878 by reason of his arrest
upon the charge of sending indecent
publications through the mails ... and
was tried and convicted and served 11
months of his sentence in the penitentiary." The Times, like most "secular"
newspapers in the nineteenth century,
was Christian, conservative, pompous,
and essentially a guardian of repressive Victorian morality.
Bennett's 1879 "obscenity" trial
was unquestionably
a travesty of
justice. "The charge is ostensibly
'obscenity'." Bennett wrote, "but the
American Atheist

real offense is that I presume to utter

sentiments and opinions in opposition to the views entertained by the
Christian
church." (Bennett's
trial
transcript, which he originally published, has been reprinted and is still
studied by law students and legal
scholars.) Bennett was convicted and
imprisoned for mailing Cupid's Yokes,
a prosaic sociological pamphlet written
by Ezra Heywood, a free-love advocate
who also openly criticized Anthony
Comstock. The Hicklin standard for
obscenity was introduced in America
at Bennett's trial. The Hicklin standard, based on a landmark British case
from 1868, was an ambiguous "test"
for obscenity that permitted work to
be judged by introducing only isolated
passages and not the intention of the
author. In the nineteenth century, a
charge of obscenity was considered as
severe and odious as child molestation
in today's culture. The elderly editor's
conviction and imprisonment became
a cause celebre for freethinkers and
freedom of speech proponents. D.M.
Bennett's conviction and appeal denial
was a landmark decision that became
the foundation for obscenity law for
more than half a century.
The Truth Seeker had several illustrious subscribers including Robert
Ingersoll, Mark Twain, and Clarence
Darrow. The editor's 50,000 devoted
readers
held the
former-Shakerturned-freethinker
in such
high
esteem that they named their children
after their hero. They chose Bennett's
surname rather than DeRobigne (pronounced De-Raw-bean) that even he
seldom used. When he was convicted
for sending "obscenity" through the
U.S. mail, tens of thousands of supporters (the largest protest of its kind
in nineteenth-century America) came
to his defense sending money, signing
petitions, and writing personal letters
to President Hayes. After his release
from prison, these "friends" generously
provided funds for his year-long tour
around the world. Their devotion and
generosity continued after his death
when they donated to the impressive
memorial honoring The Defender of
Liberty and its Martyr still standing today in Brooklyn's Green-Wood
Cemetery.

Parsippany,

New Jersey

I was initially surprised that no

one had written a biography about
such an interesting,
controversial,
and influential
nineteenth-century
American. (Several of Bennett's associates have been the subject of biographies.) Further along in my research,
I discovered that Bennett's free-speech
campaign was never fully examined
and most of what was written about
him was based on Anthony Comstock's
biased writings. Comstock's prejudice
towards the editor has been perpetuated for over a century. But with archival material made available recently,
the truth about Bennett's arrests,
conviction, imprisonment, and monumental petition campaign can finally
be revealed. Bennett was aware of his
enemy's hostility, but not to the extent
revealed in the twentieth
century.
Rutherford B. Hayes' personal diaries
shed light on Bennett's unjust conviction and imprisonment (where he
nearly died). The president's diaries
also expose his and his pious wife's
prejudice and admittedly flawed decision not to pardon the editor of The
Truth Seeker.
Anthony Comstock's self-righteous
"fight for the young" battle cry has
often been retooled in America by selfserving "moralists" to fit their agenda.
There have been numerous censorship
campaigns and celebrated obscenity
cases since D.M. Bennett's New York
trial. And if the past is prologue, there
will be more attacks on free speech. "No
Liberals! The morals of children first,"
was one of Comstock's favorite edicts
- an expression that might unfortunately always sound contemporary.
A century after Bennett's death,
the Dictionary of American Biography
described him as "an amalgam of
quack, crank, and idealist," and added:
"The quack and crank are somewhat
excused by the hard conditions of his
early life; the idealist, in spite of faults
of taste and mistakes of judgment,
was for almost a decade an effective
popular spokesman for liberal ideas in
religion and ethics."
The source of the "quack" remark
is Anthony Comstock's highly biased
and often repeated notation in his
arrest blotter. In the late nineteenth
century, reformers like Bennett had

Winter 2004-2005

plenty of issues to be cranky about.

Freethinkers
were in the vanguard
of the women's rights movement and
promoting birth control. They fought
for the separation of church and state,
protested against monopolies, puritanical censorship laws, and "Sunday"
laws that prevented working people
from rightfully enjoying life, liberty,
and the pursuit of happiness. Bennett
was certainly guilty of being an idealist - as was his hero Thomas Paine.
"Biographies are not written by
neutrals," a biographer aptly asserted.
In my biography of D.M. Bennett, I
have given as complete and honest a
portrait of the man as I could; this is
why I chose to include a great many
of his own words. I found Bennett's
"voice" and human frailties made
his story all the more compelling. I
have come to greatly appreciate D.M.
Bennett's courageous struggle against
religious and/or state-sponsored coercion, censorship, and intrusion - a
battle as noble and needed today as it
was over a century ago.
"Mr. D.M. Bennett was a man
wholly extraordinary, and his career
was not less so," James Parton, wrote
a few days after his friend's death. The
famous biographer added:
He was not a perfect character
as he well knew and frankly acknowledged; but his merits, considering all
things, were very great and very rare;
and they were his own while his faults
were due in great measure to the
grossly false and profoundly immoral
religion from which he had the courage and the mental force to escape.
His wonderful labors have made the
escape of others easier than he found
it. He embraced an unpopular cause;
he made it less difficult for others to
do so...

James Parton's heartfelt summation is, in my opinion, an eloquent and

accurate assessment of the nineteenth
century's most controversial publisher,
American Free-Speech Martyr, and
quintessential truth seeker.
Roderick Bradford 2004

Page 25

TSUNAMI

PROMPTS

LAW"SUIT
Reported by Gary Sloan
WASHINGTON, D.C. - Galvanized by a tsunami that
wrought incalculable devastation to villages, homes,
~nd resorts, and claimed more than 160,000 lives when
It swamped the coastlands of southern Asia, a multinational consortium of renegade theists has filed a classaction suit against God. Opening arguments in the case
are provisionally scheduled to begin in early 2006 in an
ad hoc court in the nation's capital. The aim of the suit
according to Barry Dirkowitz, attorney for the plaintiffs'
is twofold: "to compel the defendant to restore all prop~
erty and lives lost in the tsunami, and,secondly, to obtain
a writ of interdiction barring further acts of God." The
plaintiffs, said the attorney, would not seek compensat~ry .damages for their own vicarious suffering while
viewing raw footage of the calamity.
Rev. Harvey Culbert, president of Word Ministries
an interdenominational organization for the promotio~
of Biblical literacy, has criticized the suit. Characterizing
the plaintiffs as "irrational and ill-informed" Culbert
issued the following statement on behalf' of Word
Ministries: "Since God is the Creator of all that exists it
necessarily follows that He has proprietary authority'to
dispose of life, limb, and property in whatsoever manner
He deems fit. Moreover, contrary to the allegation of the
plaintiffs, the tsunami took no innocent lives. 'Innocent
victims' is an oxymoron. Owing to Original Sin, we are
all culpable in the sight of God."
Similar strictures were voiced by Imam Ali al-Badr
and Bishop John Newland, spokesman for the Vatican. In
a prepared statement, Newland said: "While we mourn
the tragic loss of lives and grieve with the grieving, we

Gary Sloan, a retired English

professor and frequent contributor to American Atheist
lives in Ruston, Louisiana. H~
receives e-mail at
<sloangg@bellsouth.net>

Page 26

must recognize that our heavenly Father always transmutes apparent evil into good. They err who doubt His
providential wisdom." Outside a mosque in Jakarta, alBadr said, "Glory be to Allah, the eternal fount of all good
and all ill. The pot doesn't dictate to the potter."
Interviewed in his Washington, D.C. office, Dirkowitz
gave short shrift to the "proprietary-right" defense. He
said it lacks standing in secular courts of law "when
felonious acts have been perpetrated or threatened." He
cited as a relevant precedent the recent case of Dudley
v'.Du~ley. In response to a harassment suit brought by
his WIfe, the court ruled that John Dudley, an inveterate bully, had no legal ground to make good his recurrent threat to drown Mrs. Dudley and their six children
even though the existence of the children was, as Dudley
argued, contingent on his procreative acts. The court
found no merit in Dudley's contention that since he had
brought the children into the world, he "could take them
out." No civilized society, the judge said, could tolerate
such a brute axiom. The court issued a writ of mandamus
enjoining Dudley from all contact, "distant or proximate,"
with the aggrieved wife and children. Dudley was later
~ommitted to a mental institution for the criminally
Insane.
Dirkowitz said the defendant would be tried in
~b~entia. "Giv:n His exalted status," the attorney said,
hIS presence in the courtroom might be unsettling for
all concerned." The attorney questioned "whether habeas
corpus can be applied to an incorporeal litigant."
.
According to Dirkowitz, the plaintiffs do not wish to
circumscribe the legitimate uses of divine power. "God
c~n continue to heal the sick, comfort the weary, bless the
VIrtuous, chasten the wicked, answer prayers, and what
have you. Miracles are fine if salutary. What my clients
seek to interdict are gratuitous exhibitions of indiscriminate mayhem, depredation, rapine, and annihilation."
The attorney said the demands of the plaintiffs
were feasible: "Since God is omnipotent, He can easily
undo the damage done by the tsunami and curb further
catastrophic intrusions into human habitats." Should the
plaintiffs win the case, Dirkowitz added, "they will have
to rely on the defendant's voluntary compliance with the
judicial directives. Enforcement is inconceivable."

Winter 2004-2005

American Atheist

Contacted by phone at a seaside

resort in the Bahamas where He was
vacationing, Merv Bailey, God's attorney, previewed the line the defense
would take.
"While one empathizes with the
outrage of the plaintiffs," said Bailey,
"my client cannot possibly satisfy the
stipulated mode of redress. Contrary to
folklore, He isn't a miracle worker. He
can neither suspend nor modify the laws
of nature. For eons, He tried without
success to do so."
According to Bailey, the universe in
which we live was the first of several
created by His Client: "Having had no
previous experience in this sort of enterprise, our universe, you might say, got
away from Him. When He set the initial
conditions, He neglected to incorporate a
manual override parameter. As a result,
when things began to go awry, He was
unable to intervene in the universe as
it automatically unfolded. Unwittingly,
He had created a monster He couldn't
control."
Bailey said His client had had noble
intentions: "He meant to create a terrestrial world without pain, anxiety,
conflict, and death. In His blueprint,
nature was temperate and tame, devoid
of cataclysmic irruptions, arctic cold,
desert heat, and infertile soil. Humans
were to be a contemplative species
dedicated to the disinterested pursuit of
knowledge, untainted by base passions,
foul imaginings, and savage impulses."
In a second universe, God had
eliminated the flaws of the first. "Cold
comfort to victims of the tsunami, but
the gospel truth nevertheless," Bailey
added.

An Atheist Epic
Madalyn Murray O'Hair
The complete story of how Bible and forced prayers
were removed from the public schools of the United
States.
The founder of American Atheists tells the story of what she
and her two sons endured at the hands of the good Christian
citizens of Baltimore when she liberated for a while the public
schools of America from the grip of the Cold-War theofascists
who gave us "In God We Trust" and "One Nation Under God." Every Atheist and civil libertarian - unless they suffer from hypertension - should read this book, now reprinted for
the first time since 1989.
ISBN 0-910309-89-2

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$18.00

The Jesus the

Jews Never
Knew
Sepher Toldoth Yeshu
and the Quest of the
Historical Jesus in
Jewish Sources
By Frank R. Zindler
If Jesus
of Nazareth
was real, why didn't the
ancient Jews know of him? Search of all ancient
Jewish literature
yields no evidence of any
historical Jesus.
544 pages. Paperback
ISBN 1-57884-916-0

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Winter 2004-2005

Page 27

PRJV'LE~ED

PASTUR..E
FOR.. A
TR..OJAN H a R..SE
John W.Patterson
uthors Guillermo Gonzalez and
Jay W. Richards, skilled and
inspired as they may be, have
produced an enigmatic book whose
theme betrays a controversial, even
anti-scientific,
agenda that is religiously motivated. They belong to the
so-called 'Wedge' or 'Intelligent Design'
movement, and publishing books of
this kind is one way they and others
in the movement work to fulfill Wedge
goals laid out years ago. For more
complete details on these goals and
to gain deeper insight into the many
other undercurrents
at play here, I
highly recommend the recent book,
Creationism's Trojan Horse: The Wedge
of Intelligent
Design,
by Barbara
Forrest and Paul R. Gross (Oxford
University Press, 2004). It reveals,
for example, that the founder and
point man of the 'Intelligent Design'
movement was Phillip E. Johnson,
professor of law at UC, Berkeley, now
retired, and it was he who called it
"The Wedge."
There is no better way to underscore the central issue, here, than to
quote Johnson himself, throwing down
the gauntlet. In the passage below,
Johnson clearly contrasts his theologyladen views, as a 'theistic realist,' with
the purely naturalistic approach of science he so disdains:

Page 28

Methodologicalnaturalism defines
science as the search for the best
naturalistic theories. A theory would
not be naturalistic ifit left something
to be explained by a supernatural
cause. Hence, all events in evolution
(before the evolution of intelligence)
are assumed to be attributable to
unintelligent causes. The question
is not whether life arose by some
combination of chance and chemical laws, but merely how it did so.
The Creator belongs to the realm of
religion, not scientific investigation.
A theistic realist assumes that
the universe and all its creatures
were brought into existence for a
purpose by god. Theistic realists
expect this 'fact' of creation to have
empirical, observable consequences
that are different from the consequences one would observe if the
universe were the product of nonrational causes. God always has the
option of working through regular
secondary mechanisms,
and we
observe such mechanisms frequently.
On the other hand, many important
questions - including the origin of
genetic information and human consciousness - may not be explicable
in terms of unintelligent causes,
just as a computer or book cannot
be explained that way. (Phillip E.
Johnson, Reason in the Balance: The
Case Against Naturalism in Science,
Law and Education, Downers Grove,
IL; Intervarsity Press 1995, pp. 208-9.)

Winter 2004-2005

In
other
words
to
support
Johnson's 'Wedge/Intelligent
Design'
movement, as Gonzales and Richards
do, is to oppose the purely naturalistic
approach that science has been adhering to for more than a century or so.
Briefly put, it amounts to this:
No descriptions or explanations of
documented occurrences or observed
patterns
are permitted
in science
today if they depend in any crucial
way on supernatural
agencies
or
supernatural processes of any kind. In
other words, neither gods nor miracles
nor any other mysteries
rooted in
the supernatural
are taken seriously
in any branch of science these days
- except, of course, as illustrations of
what science is not.

Dr. John W. Patterson

is a
retired professor of engineering
at Iowa State University who has
long been renowned as a debater
defending
science against
creationism
and other forms of
pseudoscience
as well. In addition to many research
papers
published
in refereed journals
of science, Prof Patterson
has
published
essays in American
Atheist and many other skeptical
and freethought periodicals.

American Atheist

Incidentally, supernaturalism and

creationism aren't the only things to
be so harshly rejected by modern day
science. Competent scientists also rule
out all proposed notions that depend in
any crucial way on what experts refer
to as 'perpetual motion' schemes. The
definitions of 'perpetual motion' and
'supernatural'
aren't important here,
but the justifications for rejecting them
so harshly certainly are. Suffice to say
that such justifications - at least in the
empirical sciences - always have to do
with track records, especially when the
records consist of nothing but failure.
More on track records later.
Does The Privileged Planet oppose
the naturalistic exclusivity of modern
science? The book is replete with rhetorical questions that fairly scream for
something beyond nature: something
other than materialism
to explain
how very special earth's tiny corner
of space-time seems to be. Scientists
would disagree, claiming that all we
need is more of the same: more theory
and research - of the purely naturalistic variety, of course - plus a goodly
supply of talented young researchers
interested in competing for future
scientific fame. Wedge supporters
couldn't agree less with scientists.
They would have us abandon all this
naturalistic/materialistic
fiddle-faddle
and look instead for more of the marvelously complex things that fairly
reek of apparent design. Might the

Parsippany, New Jersey

mysterious Agent of Intelligent Design

be the same triune god that Christians
worship? (Maybe you will one day see
the light.)
The
book's
most
persistent
theme is this: wherever the authors
turn,
whatever
correlations
they
find, the result is always the same.
From earth's vantage point, things
always seem wondrously suited for
observing, measuring, and discovering
an improbably wide variety of natural
phenomena. Moreover, the authors
suggest, this remarkable situation was
stable for so long before the advent of
us humans (the only agents capable of
discovering and understanding any of
the information so long in the making)
that maybe it was being accrued with
us in mind all along. And that's only
the half of it! It also dawns on the
authors that this same locale - the
one so marvelously suited for so much
fruitful discovery - has also harbored
a stunning array of long-stable conditions that are highly conducive to
habitation, not only by life in general,
but especially by intelligent life! Oh
my word! Gonzalez and Richards find
this (and more not included here) just
too much for mere chance and natural
law, unless science can bring itself to
revisit some ofthe teleological kinds of
speculation that it had come to reject
so completely over the last two or three
centuries.
To the religiously inclined, as well
as the scientifically challenged, ideas
like these will stir the same burning
passions that the 'Watchmaker' apologetic did when the English theologian
William Paley published it in his
masterful evangelical work, Natural
Theology. That was 1802, over half
a century before Darwin's Origin of
Species. But be advised, the quaint
sketches and charming vignettes in
The Privileged Planet, like those in
Paley's Natural Theology, have been
artfully crafted and will appeal even
to scientifically literate readers, and
even to some who are not theistically
inclined. Not only is the book skillfully
written, it is interesting and informative as well. It was quite up-to-date
when it went to press and its historical sketches seem consistent with the
latest scholarship.

Winter 2004-2005

But presenting facts of history

and findings of science is one thing;
interpreting
them is quite another.
And herein lies the rub. It is in the
areas of interpretation and inference
that the authors go 'round the bend,'
as it were, as astute readers will realize soon enough.
Despite my disagreements with
the authors' veiled creationist agenda,
I applaud Drs. Gonzalez and Richards
for publishing The Privileged Planet.
It should do well at Iowa State
University
(ISU), which has long
been a haven for creationism and
has contributed more than its share
of creationists now working for evangelical ministries nationwide. Space
limits me here, so only a few examples
will have to suffice. After Charles R.
Thaxton earned his Ph.D. in Physical
Chemistry from ISU in the late sixties,
he embarked on a life-long career with
creationist groups worldwide and, like
the authors, is now an active member
of the WedgelIntelligent Design movement. Donald B. DeYoung earned his
Ph.D. in physics from ISU in 1972
and has since authored numerous
creationist articles and books. Unlike
Thaxton, DeYoung subscribes to youngearth creationism, which puts the age
of the universe at no more than 10,000
years. (This is a factor of a million or
so smaller than estimates that bigbang physicists and some Intelligent
Design creationists have settled upon.)
DeYoung has spoken at ISU in recent
years, still advancing the cause of
young-earth creationism. When last
we corresponded, he was still Professor
and Head of Physics at Grace College
and Theological Seminary in Winona
Lake, Indiana. Back in the 1970s,
lSD's dean of engineering (Prof David
R. Boylan, Chemical Engineer) teamed
with two other creationists - the head
of Veterinary Anatomy, Physiology,
and Pharmacology at ISU (Prof. Melvin
Swenson, VAPP) and an associate professor of Bacteriology at ISU (Lloyd
Quinn) - in teaching a popular seminar course (for credit) on young-earth
creationism. By including 'Scientific
Creationism,' in the title, these three
creationists were said to have packed
auditoriums full of ISU students. Fast

Page 29

forward to the present and we find

the lead author of The Privileged
Planet, Dr. Guillermo Gonzalez, also
a creationist (albeit of the ID/Wedge
variety), presently serving on the ISU
faculty in the Department of Physics.
A bit of a digression, the above, but
it explains why I think sales of The
Privileged Planet might be especially
brisk at Iowa State.
By the way, I recommend The
Privileged Planet even to those
opposed to the idea that creationism
is science. It's not easy, even for keen
minds, to fend off the powerful appeal
of well-crafted religious apologetics.
It seems critical judgment is a lost
art these days, but this book provides
excellent material for anyone wanting
to sharpen such skills. I don't begrudge
the forty bucks I spent last spring, but
I got a personally-autographed
copy
and the pleasure of reviewing it.
Finally, I would be remiss to close
without dispelling a myth that many
faith-oriented opponents of modern
science have been known to spread: It
is true, even today, that most scientists
hold to some form of religious belief;
yet despite this bias, science has still
become (I hate to say it) utterly godless in both style and substance. After
all, 'god' is nothing ifnot supernatural
and, as all practicing scientists know
very well, science no longer grants
serious consideration to supernaturalism in any form. This is not the result
of any shadowy atheistic cliques working their wiles in scientific circles. On
the contrary, the paradigm of pure
naturalism came into favor over a
time period when devoutly religious
believers
(e.g., Newton, Maxwell,
Faraday, and Pasteur, to mention but
a few) were not only in the majority,
but were also the most influential
authorities in the scientific community. And being believers, these titans
all harbored visceral biases against
anything atheistic and for the theistic
notion that a god had fashioned our
wondrous universe.
General
understanding,
especially in the life sciences, embraced
the idea that reality was, in some
vague way, a curious blend of natural and supernatural
phenomena
and agencies. However, as more and
more entrenched views of nature were

Page 30

opened to critical scrutiny, and tested

against one another, a surprising
pattern emerged. It was found that,
generally speaking, the less godly the
theory, the better it would fare when
pitted against any god-based alternative. To make a long story short - now
for the track record issue alluded to
earlier - the scientific track record
has been totally one-sided. One by one,
every entrenched theory rooted in any
aspect of supernaturalism
has since
been overthrown and replaced by a
superior atheistic alternative. Worse
yet, the opposite has never occurred:
never has an accepted atheistic
theory been supplanted by a competitor rooted in supernaturalism. Again,
all this occurred under the watchful
eyes of the believing scientists who
were in total charge every step of the
way. (It is because the believers were
in charge, in my view, that the details
of this development have received
so little visibility, but that's another
story for another time.)
Anyway, there
you have it:
Experience shows that totally nonsupernaturalistic
interpretations
of
nature generally always win out over

theistic alternatives. Purely naturalistic interpretations

always exhibit
superior predictive capacity, superior
testability, superior explanatory power
and, most important of all, they carry
none of the mystery-laden vagaries
inherent in all things supernatural.
Should any apparent mysteries
remain, it pays off better if they are
addressed with the purely naturalistic approach of modern science, rather
than positing things like Intelligent
Designers,
Supernatural
Creators
and such, as these things only add
more confusion and mystery to the
mix than they remove.
Bottom line: Supporters of the
Wedge, like other creationists before
them, will never convince competent scientists that supernaturalism
belongs in science. Still, there are
good reasons to study books like The
Privileged Planet. It is important
to keep track of the latest scientifically counterfeit notion, whether it
be Intelligent
Design,
Scientific
Creationism, or any of the other
'Trojan Horses' of present-day pseudoSCIence.

"Are you sure you shouldn't say something about economics?"

Winter 2004-2005

American Atheist

Book Review
"

t
THE END
OF FAITH
SAr~HARRIS
#*U
iiS

'fJ11!li

Reason's Unreasonable Defender,

Faith's Unlikely Friend:
A Discussion of Sam Harris'

The End of Faith

David Eller

the destructiveness, not just politically but intellectually,

of religious faith. He accurately asserts that it is not religious extremism alone that is the problem, nor any specific
religious ideology, but rather the very phenomenon of faith
itself In some nice turns of phrase, he says such things as
"Faith is what credulity becomes when it finally achieves
escape velocity from the constraints of terrestrial discourse
- constraints
like reasonableness,
internal coherence,
civility, and candor" (65) and "Believing strongly, without
evidence, they have kicked themselves loose of the world. It
is therefore in the very nature offaith to serve as an impediment to further inquiry" (45).
Anyone who knows anything about the intellectual
history of Christianity knows that these statements ring
true. The early church fathers were rather explicit in their
views. Tertullian (c. CE 160-c. 230) wrote: "When we come to
believe, we have no desire to believe anything else, for we
begin by believing that there is nothing else which we have
to believe ... I warn people not to seek for anything beyond
what they came to believe, for that was all they needed to
seek for." He continued by claiming that, "In the last resort,
however, it is better for you to remain ignorant, for fear that
you come to know what you should not know .... Let curiosity
give place to faith, and glory to salvation. Let them at least
be no hindrance, or let them keep quiet. To know nothing
against the Rule [of faith] is to know everything." Augustine

here are certain book titles that should be permanently banned, including those that start with 'the end of'
(as well as any of its variations, such as 'the twilight
of,' like the contrary and off-the-mark volume The Twilight
of Atheism by Alister McGrath) and those that start with
'the culture of.' Both of these titles have been done to death,
and frankly they show a lack of imagination that should
alert the potential buyer and reader of such texts. Sam
Harris breaks this rule with his new book; unfortunately,
this is not the only manner in which he displays a lack of
imagination and a dependence on exhausted and bankrupt
themes.
As a rationalist and a non-theist - an overt Atheist, in
fact - I was happy to see Harris' book arrive and receive the
remarkable attention that it has received. Not many treatises on the subject of the negativity of religion get much
publicity in America, especially in these days of religion
ascendant. The comments and reviews by secularists had
been overwhelmingly positive. As I began to read it, I had
high hopes, which were initially supported, then disappointed, and ultimately dashed. I think Harris missed a major
opportunity with this book, and I have not yet decided what
its popularity means as a commentary on the Atheist
community. Perhaps little more than starvation.
Harris' work is actually three books in one - no
Dr. David Eller is an anthromean feat for a text of 227 small-trim pages. The first
pologist residing in Colorado
mini-book considers the general problem of faith as
and the author of the most
an impediment to good decision making. The second
important new title published
focuses on the violence that religion does, with special
by American
Atheist
Press
emphasis on Islam. The third and final turns to a dissince the death of the Murrayquisition on morality and spirituality. In short, the first
O'Hair family. His book is titled
mini-book is useful, even quotable; the second is tired
Natural Atheism (ISBN 1-57884and cliched; and the third is just dead wrong.
920-9) and is available on our

Book 1: What's Wrong with Faith?

The first roughly eighty pages of The End of Faith
are promising. In it Harris makes a strong case for

Parsippany, New Jersey

website
<www.atheists.org>
for $18.00 plus $2.50 S&H.
Professor Eller receives e-mail
at <ellerdavid@onebox.com>.

Winter 2004-2005

Page 31

(c. CE 354-430) after him opined:

"There is another form of temptation,
even more fraught with danger. This
is the disease of curiosity ... It is this
which draws us to try and discover the
secrets of nature, those secrets which
are beyond our understanding, which
can avail us nothing, and which man
should not wish to learn."
Harris makes a good case, for
those who have not already heard it,
that faith is dishonest and mentally
debilitating, depriving us of the very
curiosity and critical attitude that
we need in order to make empirical progress and to sort out the true
from the false. Even worse, he points
out the political or social dangers in
faith, including the "larger set of cultural and intellectual accommodations
we have made to faith itself" (45). In
perhaps his strongest formulation,
he concludes: "Give people divergent,
irreconcilable, and un testable notions
about what happens after death, and
then oblige them to live together with
limited resources. The result is what
we see: an unending cycle of murder
and cease-fire" (26).
This is no doubt true, but it
already presages problems with the
direction he intends to pursue. First
of all, the 'cycle of murder' is only
one - if the most dramatic - of the
troubles with faith, one that he will
stress ad nauseam throughout the
book. To place such stress is to leave
the impression that if religion could
be shorn of its violent side, it would
be okay. However, this goes against
not only everything we rationalists
understand about religion and faith
but also against the mainstream of
Harris' own argument - that faith
is inimical to clear thinking, whether
it is malignant or benign. Also, we see
here for the first time the confused and
indulgent approach to religion itself;
religion or faith is not uniquely about
"what happens after death," and to say
so is to underestimate religion's scope
and hold on the human mind. There is
an awful lot that happens before death
that has the stain of religion on it too.
The most worrisome thing we hear
in the first section is an anticipation
of the spirituality/mysticism
stuff to
come later. Early on Harris claims
that mystical or spiritual experiences

Page 32

"are relatively rare (unnecessarily

so), significant (in that they uncover
genuine facts about the world), and
personally
transformative"
(40). A
complete critique of this position will
appear below, but suffice it to say that
all three claims are suspect at best and
vacuous - and 'faithful' - at worst. This
was my first warning that I was not in
the presence of steady reason.
My other warning was that no
definition or description of reason,
or of faith for that matter, occurs in
this book. This might be excusable
in a 'popular' text which is not going
to be too technical, or perhaps in one
that can assume its audience already
knows all about it. However, his vague
and sloppy use of terms like reason
and reasonableness, let alone faith and
belief and spirituality and mysticism,
makes it clear at least to me that he is
operating with a primitive conception
of all of these notions. This impression
was borne out in full as I proceeded.
Book 2: Violence Again
(and Again)
The middle third of Harris' book
is an extended thesis on the violence
that religion does. To those who do
not know much about the Inquisition
or the Holocaust, there is arguably
some worthwhile information in these
chapters. However, two objections to
this use of valuable print space need
to be made. The first is that the violence-and-religion connection has been
made so many times, and so much
better, elsewhere that Harris' choice
here is a real misstep. It is a cheap
and hackneyed ploy that some lesser
freethinkers
enjoy but that really
proves nothing. James Haught, Karen
Armstrong, Mark Juergensmeyer, and
an army of others have already made
this point, and it was tired and cliched
when they made it. Finally, if the goal
is to shake religionists out of their
dogmatic slumber, then this strategy
is the least likely to obtain results.
They can respond that not all religion
is violent and that not all non-religion
is non-violent - both true and salient
points. Harris almost seems to grasp
this point at moments; he quotes
Rudolf Hess and Will Durant on the
damage done by absolute certainty and
Winter 2004-2005

unquestioning
loyalty, independent
from any religious content. On this
count, Harris would have done well
to read and refer to Eric Hoffer's The
True Believer which likewise makes
the cogent argument that religion is
not the fundamental issue; religion is
only one manifestation (if the purest
manifestation) of humanity's propensity to differentiate into hostile camps,
believe absurd things, and condemn
those who do not belong to the camp
and share the belief.
The second objection is that this
whole branch in Harris' presentation
contradicts the main branch ofthe first
section of the book. There he insisted
that the irrationality of faith was its
main problem and that its violence was
just one undesirable manifestation. In
fact, Jainism and Buddhism (most of
the time) tend to be fairly non-violent,
but they are still just as irrational and
still continue to be, as he phrases it, "a
fathomless sink for human resources
(both financial and attentional)" (149).
A passing treatment of the violence
issue is certainly merited, but to
switch gears so abruptly and place all
the burden on the violence effectively
forgives religion for its 'minor' crimes
against reason.
The book comes in seven chapters,
and far and away the longest is chapter four, "The Problem with Islam,"
weighing in at almost 50 pages (that
is, just under one-quarter of the entire
volume). Again, he provides some
interesting
and headshaking
information about this religion, including
extensive quotes from both the Qur'an
(which he anachronistically calls the
Koran) and the Hadith or traditions
of Muhammad and his successors.
The conclusion that he attempts and
desires to support is that Islam is
unique among religions in its capacity
for violence. Here I think he is being
trendy at best, narrow-minded
at
worst. Surely Islam is a religion of conviction and conflict, although he misunderstands the Muslim concepts of
dar al-Islam and dar al-Harb. The dar
al-Islam is the 'world of submission,'
the 'domain of peace.' It is the realm in
which the true religion and obedience
to the true god reigns and therefore
where righteousness exists. The dar
al-Harb is the 'world of struggle,' the
American Atheist

'domain of conflict.' It is not necessarily a place where open war exists, even
against the domain of Islam. Rather,
it is a realm where life is hard and
everything comes with difficulty due to
its lack of conformity to the righteous
order of god. The people there may even
mean well, but being out of compliance,
things just don't work out well there.
Now, it is true that Islam recognizes the reality, even the virtue,
of struggling against this domain of
godlessness; where truth is not known
or practiced, it should and will be. It is
also well to remember that Islam was
from its first days a political religion
in a way that Christianity was not
until some three
centuries into its
history. As a faith
and
a
politics,
Islam
married
faith and power
from the start, and
it used that power
to advance
that
faith. Christianity
may be overestimated as a religion
of peace, even powerlessness ("blessed are the meek"), but
only by emphasizing its initial condition over its eventual condition. Once
Christianity attained political power,
in the later Roman Empire, the persecutions, forced conversions, Crusades,
and Inquisitions followed quickly. If
there is a 'problem with Islam' (at least
a unique one), it is that the power and
the faith - the 'church' and the 'state'
- were never separated in its case. It
can be said, and I think it is important and accurate to say, that Islam
is what Christianity would be if the
Reformation and the Enlightenment
had not happened in Europe. There is
nothing superior about Christianity
compared to Islam; all the respite we
have in the Western world from the full
fury of religion comes from the dilution
of religion with a strong dose of reason
and 'toleration.'
Harris seems to grant this to a
degree, since he follows up the 50page Islam chapter with a 16-page
Christianity
chapter. However, the
message is made: some religions are
'better' than others (although not more
rational, I would presume), a theme

that he develops, wholly wrong-he adedly, in the final section of the book.
Book 3: In Which Reason
Leaves by the Back Door
I was mildly bored and disappointed by the second mini-book in Harris'
mini-trilogy, but I was only slightly prepared (although in retrospect I should
have seen it coming) for the collapse
of all reason in the third part. Here
Harris, allegedly a major in philosophy,
shows his most sophomoric side in his
complete disregard for reason when it
comes to his pet beliefs and theories,
as well as his penchant to lecture on

duty, demonstrating that the rational

approach to morality is as doomed as
the irrational approach). After fifteen
pages, even he has to admit that there
is more to happiness than morality and
more to morality than happiness (190);
what he does not admit is that the
association of the two is problematic
and faulty. First, happiness is relative;
it makes carnivores happy to eat meat,
although this entails imposing a degree
of suffering on the world (l do not know
if Harris is a vegetarian, but if he is
not, then he is inconsistent if not hypocritical). Even more so, it makes some
Muslims happy to spread the true faith
by jihad, and it makes some Christians
happy to think about
the end of the world
in a fiery apocalypse. Ultimately, to
return to the here
and now, it makes
the 'moral majority'
happy to outlaw gay
marriage,
abortion,
and
contraception,
although these same
things make others
unhappy.
Second, not all if even most of
morality is about happiness. Frankly,
there are a number ofthings that make
us happy (like sex) that are strictly
immoral by certain standards. But the
serious point is that morality is difficult, it is about self-denial and opposing baser instincts and such. In some
cases, morality can be downright austere, even self-mortifying. In a certain
utilitarian sense it might be argued
that even beating yourself with whips
and chains or starving yourself conveys some pleasure, but it is not what
most of us mean or seek as 'happiness.'
And third and finally, religion is not
co-extensive with morality. This is an
approach tried and failed by Stephen
Jay Gould in his Rock of Ages, in which
he attempted to assign science and religion to their respective 'magisteria' of
empirical knowledge and moral truth,
The problem with this partition is
that religion obviously makes empirical claims too (like when and how the
earth or humanity first appeared, or
what kinds of beings exist) and that
morality is not always dependent
on religion (there are philosophical,

It can be said, and I think it is important and accurate to say, that Islam
is what Christianity would be if the
Reformation and the Enlightenment
had not happened in Europe.

Parsippany, New Jersey

subjects that he has no expertise on

and that do not advance his main cause
in any way.
The two major subjects in the
two chapters that comprise this section (other than the short epilogue)
are morality and spirituality. These
are topics that rationalists
should
tread warily in. Morality is a tar pit
that sucks in everything it touches,
and spirituality, as I and others have
argued in these very pages, is a matter that rationalists
should eschew
altogether. But Harris rushes in where
rationalists fear to tread.
Everything that he has to say
about the 'two subjects is wrong.
Starting with morality (in a chapter
whose title is ironically shared with
Michael Shermer's book The Science
of Good and Evil - and just about
as confused), he announces the plan
to establish a rational foundation for
ethics. Of course Kant and others have
already attempted this (and in their
minds no doubt succeeded). What this
leads him to do is to define morality as
the pursuit of happiness and the avoidance of suffering (Kant defined it as

Winter 2004-2005

Page 33

cultural, natural, and even rational

bases for morality). Worst of all, as
Nietzsche told us over a century ago,
there is no such thing as 'moral truth'
at all.
Harris cannot allow that, however, since he explicitly rejects moral
relativism. This is incidental to his
case against faith, but it illustrates
another flaw in his thinking that actually aligns him more closely with the
faithful than the rational. He flatly
pronounces that "most forms of relativism - including moral relativism
- are nonsensical" (178).:This attitude
is understandable because he so completely misunderstands
relativism.
According to him, relativists "believe
that truth is just a matter of consensus" (181) and "believe that all cultural
practices should be respected on their
own terms" (179).
There may be some epistemological or metaphysical relativists who
hold the first position (which is incoherent), but I can tell him as a practicing moral and cultural relativist (a
professional cultural anthropologist)
that moral/cultural relativism neither
does nor can say such a thing. What
moral/cultural relativism says is that
all judgments of good or bad, moral
or immoral, or normal and abnormal,
or valuable or not valuable, are made
in reference to some standard of goods
or morals or norms or values. This is
indisputably true. How do you determine if X or Y behavior is moral or
normal, etc.? You hold it up against
some 'yardstick' of morals or norms
- that is, the judgment of morality or
normality or value is 'relative to' some
set of morals or norms or values. The
only important question is whether
or not there is more than one such
standard or set, and the answer is of
course there is. There are many many
different standards or sets or codes of
morality. Each religion, each culture
has or is one. They may agree on few
or many specifics, but they constitute
discrete moral/norm/value
systems.
Which one of these systems you judge
the behavior against ('relative to')
affects the judgment. Polygamy is bad
in mainstream American society, but it
is good, even ideal, in the vast majority
of societies. Sticking out your tongue is
an insult in America but a greeting in
Page 34

some other societies.

Is polygamy really bad? The
question is as meaningless as asking
whether sticking out your tongue is
really an insult. It is an insult to those
who learn to take it as an insult, and
polygamy is bad to those who learn to
take it as bad. Even further, we must
ask the question, "Bad for what?"
Polygamy might be good for men and
bad for women. It might be good for
having lots of children and for sharing
household labor and bad for keeping
down household expenses or getting
all men married (obviously, if some
men have multiple wives, other men
have none). In fact, the same behavior
or institution can be good for some
men and bad for others, or good for
men in some ways and bad for men
in others. A 'moral' claim like 'X is
good/bad' is meaningless not because
it is false but because it is incomplete;
until you specify the context and criteria, it is simply a sentence fragment. It
is like saying 'X is big' - big compared
to what, 'relative to' what?
Cultural
or moral relativism
does not apply to factual or propositional claims, however, because those
matters are not cultural or moral. A
statement like 'The earth is round' is
propositional and therefore either true
or false. How do you decide which? By
careful observation and equally careful
interpretation
of those observations.
That is, propositional questions are
settled by appealing to external reality.
They are not relative to the viewer or
culture: the earth is not round for you
and flat for me. But moral claims are
not propositional, although they look
suspiciously like propositional ones.
Rather, they are judgments, which
cannot be arrived at by appealing to
external reality. You can hold a sphere
up and compare it to the earth; what
would you hold up for comparing a
moral claim against? The only answer
is one of the multitude of moral systems.
But Harris' confusion allows him
to assert that some religions and
"worldviews" are better than others,
which is what he was apparently planning to do all along. A clear-thinking
rationalist and relativist would have
to ask, or explain, "Better than others
at what, and for whom?" Any criterion
Winter 2004-2005

could do equally well for this purpose,

and each criterion chosen once again
would yield different
judgments.
Missionary monotheisms are better
at converting members than other
religions. Islam is apparently quite
good at getting people to die as martyrs, and fundamentalist Christianity
is quite good at getting people to vote
certain ways. It all depends on what
your goals are - that is, it is relative.
Then finally comes the left-field
defense of spirituality, first introduced
as 'intuition.' However, in order to
make a space for intuition/spirituality,
reason must be demoted and distorted.
Harris maintains that intuition, without ever really defining it, is "the most
basic constituent
of our faculty of
understanding" (183). That would be
false if it made any sense. His conflation of intuition, "brute fact," axiom,
and other non-intuitive things is truly
spellbinding, as is his demonstrated
ignorance of science as method or
body of knowledge. For instance, he
states that scientists never "feel the
slightest temptation to ponder" the
notion of cause, which is absurd: since
the time of Aristotle rationalists have
been pondering cause, and advances
particularly in quantum physics have
opened up the entire idea of causation
to re-examination.
Contrary to what he seems to
think, a fact is not an intuition, an
axiom or principle is not an intuition, and reason is not an intuition.
Incredibly, he even argues that the
only objection to the intuition
of
magical thinking
is "the intuitive
content of rational thinking" (184). I
cannot imagine a more muddled position - except when he suggests that
experimentation and statistical analysis, even logic.itself, are merely intuitive. Why do these forms of thought
'convince at all'? For him, presumably
for no other reason than our faith in
them. But this is to misrepresent reason so thoroughly that it might as well
be religion. Controlled observation
and statistics and logic are valuable
and trustworthy because they can be
demonstrated empirically and conceptually to produce sound conclusions, or
at least to avoid unsound ones. In fact,
they are demonstrations, and demonstration is the very essence of reason:
American Atheist

do not accept as true what cannot be demonstrated, from

evidence and logic, to be true. To think any other way is to
think irrationally.
The damage is done, so spirituality can be imported
happily now. This key concept too is not defined, at least
not consistently. At one point it is "cultivation of happiness
directly" (192), at another point introspection and the study
of consciousness (209). It is synonymous with mysticism, and
as we were forewarned in part one, mysticism/spirituality
is "significant" because it uncovers "genuine facts about the
world." There are two problems with this. One is that a'science' of consciousness, let alone of happiness, does not inform
about the world but at best about the self or the society; I
cannot assume that my experience (especially my altered
experience) of the world really says more about it than it
does about me. That would be akin to saying that, if I take
a psychoactive drug, I am seeing a different aspect of reality, when I am rather seeing the same reality in a different
condition as a receiver or experiencer. This leads us to the
second problem, which is well documented in John Horgan's
Rational Mysticism, a book Harris would have been wise to
read before he made his pronouncements. Horgan, a science
writer, interviewed a wide variety of 'spiritual seekers' from
Huston Smith to Ken Wilber to Stanislov Grof to Michael
Persinger. The one thing he comes away with is that mystical encounters are as different as the people who have them:
some are ineffable while others are highly specific, some are
positive while others are negative, some are profound while
others are trivial. Contrary to what Harris asserted earlier,
they are not even always "personally transformative."
There are a number of other gratuitous and probably
false claims in this chapter, including a defense of dualism,
an attack on pacifism, a denial that consciousness is a brain
function, and a conclusion that mysticism is "rational." Not
only that, but a few things he says now openly contradict
things he has said previously, some of these contradicted
things being the very heart of his book. The most astounding
one, in his broadside against pacifism, is that "I believe we
must accept the fact that violence (or its threat) is often an
ethical necessity" (199). With that his entire house crumbles,
for the first two-thirds of the book were dedicated to a condemnation of religion as a source of violence, and even most
of the final third was a paean to love. But I'm sure many
jihadists, crusaders, terrorists, inquisitors, and gay-bashers
would wholly agree with his last statement and would offer
it themselves as their motivation. By the time he concludes,
on the penultimate page of the text, that "we are the final
judges of what is logical" (226), my despair as a passionate
rationalist was complete.
Conclusion:

One Man's Reason is Another

Religion

Man's

The End of Faith, despite its worn-out title, has some

things to say that are worth hearing; I heartily recommend
that rationalists and Atheists read the first third or even
half and then dispose ofthe rest. Harris' heart is in the right
place, but hearts are not thinking organs. The end of faith is
a good goal, but the retreat from reason that he takes to get
Parsippany, New Jersey

there is wrong and dangerous"':'" even if "the retreat from

reason" is probably a more accurate description of the current historical situation.
Harris gets some things right, so why is it so important
to focus on what he gets wrong? The answer is at once simple
but consequential. His book is ostensibly a plea for clearer
thinking, and it rightly identifies faith as an obstacle to
that process. However, faith is not the only such obstacle,
any more than it is the only inspiration for violence. In an
odd twist, he has overestimated the importance of faith and
underrepresented the nature of reason. A well-meaning but
novice rationalist could and would come away from his or
her reading experience with a tainted conception of reason and no actual guidance on it at all. Harris insists that
mysticism "requires explicit instructions," but it has none;
in fact, my main criticism of mysticism and religion as a
type of knowledge is that they utterly lack methodology and
therefore cannot produce verifiable or confident knowledge.
Reason too requires explicit instructions - humans do not
appear to do it well instinctively - but we do not get any help
with those instructions here. Rather, we get an equation of
reason with intuition. If it feels good, think it? Harris completely fails to appreciate that human 'intuitions' are largely
culturally acquired, but reason, if it is anything, ought to be
cross-culturally valid.
While this book starts out hopefully as a devastating
critique of religion, it ends up not only re-inserting (one particular brand of) faith but also crippling reason in order to
do so. I would encourage readers - and the writer - to apply
the lessons of the first mini-book to the contents of the last
mini-book and to take the middle one with a grain of salt.
While 'spirituality' and 'morality' are feel-good words (unless
someone else's are shoved down your throat), they are not
the grounds for (nor the results of) a rational approach to the
world. Honesty is perhaps the first requirement of critical
thinking, and honesty compels us to admit that 'spirituality'
is no more rational or benign - and no less 'faithful' - than
any other species of religion.

"MAYBE IT'S A VOUCHER TO THE

SCHOOL OF OUR CHOICE?"

Winter 2004-2005

Page 35

The Improbability of Gods

Frank R. Zindler
A review of The Probability of God: A

Simple Calculation That Proves the

Ultimate Truth, by Stephen D. Unwin,
New York: Three Rivers Press, 2003.
hen I was asked to be on a
panel discussion about Dean
Hamer's recent book The God

Gene: How Faith is Hardwired into

Our Genes, I was told that the physi-

cist Dr. Stephen D. Unwin would also

be on the panel. When I was told that
he was the author of The Probability
of God, a book that had created quite
a stir a year earlier, it seemed that I
should break down and buy the book
so I could have some idea how he
might argue during our discussion.
Before I got the paperback book
home to read, I noted the recommendations on the back cover. ''An entertaining exercise in thinking," said
Atheist Michael Shermer. "Peppered
with wry, self-deprecating
humor,"
said the Chicago Sun-Times.
"A
pleasantly breezy account..." said the
Philadelphia Inquirer. According to
the Cleveland Plain Dealer, "One of
the best things about the book is its
humor." The stodgy Salt Lake Tribune
called it "a book that is surprisingly
light-hearted and funny."
Funny? How could this be? How
could a book that uses Bayesian statistics and probability theory to prove
the existence of the Jewish-ChristianMuslim god be funny? What kind of
Christian could joke around while
discussing so serious and sacrosanct a
subject? What kind of Christian would
have a sense of humor anyway? Surely
no fundamentalist or even moderately
conservative believer would. Only the
most liberal of Christians - those
who are closet Unitarians or Agnostics
Page 36

- would possess a sense of humor and

be willing to apply it to so sacred a
project.
Perhaps the book was itself a joke
- a clever scheme to write a bestseller that could rake the shekels in
from the purses of believers. I checked
the copyright page to see if it had been
published on April 1. Alas, the paperback reprint did not give the month of
original publication. How could I tell if
the book was a put-on or was meant to
be taken seriously - say, by Atheists?
I read the book and, somewhat
to my surprise, discovered that the
author had provided the mathematical
tool and method with which I could scientifically answer my question. Using
the Bayesian method Unwin used to
'prove' that there is a 67% probability
that the JCM god exists, I could estimate the probability that his book was
a put-on!
The book is indeed funny. In fact,
it borders on delightful. Long before
I had come to understand
Unwin's
Bayesian method well enough to use
it, I was gathering more and more
evidence that pointed to a marvelous
hoax. One of the most notable features
of the Bayesian method as employed
in this book is its ability to update
or amend probabilities on the basis
of new evidence obtained after initial
probabilities have been estimated.
For example, someone living in
Cleveland might see that the weather
forecast in the newspaper predicted
a 50% chance of rain for the day.
Turning on the TV, it is learned that
it is already raining hard in Toledo to
the west. Using Bayesian procedures,
it might be possible to up the probability of rain for Cleveland to, say, 80%.

Winter 2004-2005

As I followed Unwin's argument

and calculations through the book
and observed how he started with
an initial probability for his god and
then up-dated it in the light of six
additional areas of evidence, I started
marking and noting all the things in
the book that seemed to be evidence
for or against the proposition that The
Probability of God was a spoof of theological reasoning. After finishing the
book, I immediately collated my notes
and underlines and worked them into
a series of Bayesian estimations and
calculations - copying and imitating
as exactly as possible Unwin's procedure.
The evidences I enumerated were
as follows:
(1) Only One God Evaluated
After defining the god he intends
to deal with as the (singular) personal god of Judaism, Christianity,
and Islam, Unwin assumes that that
is the only god he needs to evaluate.
Nowhere does he defend this assumption.
Instead of calculating probabilities for all the gods and goddesses
that singly or collectively have been
worshipped in known times and places
- or telling us why he thinks he is justified in ignoring them - he presents
a beguiling argument that superficially seems to handle the problem.
Now, I suppose a troublemaker
might counter that we should really
layout a spectrum of optional beliefs
about the nature of God, one for each
alternative religious view, and then
attach an equal probability to each
while reserving an equal, residual
probability for the proposition that
God does not exist. So we might begin

American Atheist

with, say, nine versions of God corresponding to various religious perspectives, to each of which we attach a 10
percent probability, with the 10 percent
balance attaching to the proposition
that God does not exist. This is not the
way to go, in my view, for two reasons.
First, the number of alternative sets of
beliefs about the specific nature and
preferences of God is vast, reflecting
alternative faiths, sects within faiths,
and people within sects. Thus one could
easily depress the prior probability of
the no-God proposition to an arbitrarily
small value by simply invoking greater
numbers of God options. In this way,
the single religious perspective of the
world's atheists would be probabilistically swamped through application of
an arbitrary, mathematical
process.
For instance, if we came up with 999
God options, the prior probability of
the no-god proposition would become
a mere 0.1 percent, or 1 in a 1,000. For
that matter, any single religious view
would be swamped also. [pp. 58-59]

Note that instead of considering

nine different gods, he tries to consider
a single god with nine possible different personalities. Now, at first blush, it
looks as though he is doing Atheists a
favor by rejecting a method that probabilistically swamps the Atheistic factor
in the equation. But there is a clever
cheat here. Instead of assigning an
equal probability to the non-existence
of each type of god, he only allots a
probability equal to just one of the god
probabilities - 10%.
If, instead of considering a single
god with nine possible natures, he
had considered nine different gods as
necessary for a meaningful analysis, it
would have been obvious that the nine
gods combined should total only to a
probability of 50% (5.55% each), and
there should be nine corresponding
no-god probabilities also totaling 50%.
Then, as the number of gods considered
increases, the probability of anyone of
them existing becomes vanishingly
small, while the aggregate of no-god
probabilities stays at 50%.
Thus, although it looks as though
Unwin is saving our atheistic necks by
dealing only with a single, hypothetical Judaeo-Christian-Muslim
god, he
actually has planted a rabbit in his
magician's hat - a rabbit that will
pop out later to declare "There's a 67%
probability that a god exists."
Parsippany, New Jersey

Rereading this section of the book

reinforced my impression that the book
was not written with a critical Atheist
audience in mind. Rather, it was
intended for innumerate
Christians
who would be dazzled by the display
of long division needed to solve Bayes'
equation and would not be expected to
criticize the reasoning employed.
In evaluating this first piece of
evidence, I assigned a value of 2 to the
D-term in the Bayes equation - that
is, I decided that the chances are 2-to-1
that this was written to fool Christians
rather than to attempt seriously to
prove the existence of a god.
(2) Coin-flip Initial Probability
Unwin assigns a 50% probability
that his god exists and an equal probability for its non-existence - as though
we were flipping a coin. But what in
the world could lead an unbiased, scientific observer to suppose there is a
50% probability that an entity exists
that cannot be detected by any means
known to science, cannot in fact even
be defined without self-contradictions
(i.e., is logically 'incoherent'), and is
admitted by all to be composed ofnothing?
Here again, I decided that D = 2
- that the chances are 2-to-1 that the
50/50 assumption was intended for
gullible Christians who would think
it generous and fair, rather than for
Atheists who would laugh at the idea.
(3) Counter-sexist

Language

Unwin sometimes avoids sexist

language by substituting counter-sexist language. That is, on a fair number
of occasions he uses "she" as a non-specific pronoun instead of the patriarchal
"he" that good Christians would use or
the gender-indeterminate "they" that I
try to employ. I really can't imagine a
male Christian doing this - even in
jest. The Bible makes it very clear that
"the head of the woman is the man"
and that in all cases the male is the
model for correctness - even in grammar. An Agnostic, however, who knows
he has a fish on the hook already, might
get a real kick out of seeing how much
discomfort that IX8YL will suffer without disgorging the hook.
This might seem to be a small
point, but I think I detect "the claw
Winter 2004-2005

of the lion" here. I assign D = 10 here

- that is, it is one order of magnitude
(ten times) more likely that this was
a spoof than a serious contribution to
"mathematical theology."
(4) Events vs. Existence
Most, if not all, of the examples of
Bayesian inference discussed in this
book involve predicting the probability
of events occurring, the outcomes of
tests or observations, or the matching
of identities. Indeed, classical probability theory deals only with such matters.
Unwin, however, uses these techniques
to try to prove existence - even though
he devotes an entire chapter to the concept of existence but admits he cannot
define the term.
I suspect that I have shed no light
for you on the notion of existence as it
applies to God, but I hope I have at
least cast some shadow on the notion
as it applies to the mundane. I would
conclude that the mystery of existence
is not uniquely associated with the
divine. So whatever was your original
intuition about the meaning of existence - stick with it, as it's probably as
good as any other. [pp.207-209]

Now no scientist would - or could

- accept so slipshod an effort at definition, although once again Christians
might be expected to rejoice in the
news that their unexamined intuitions
concerning so fundamental a concept
is just as good as that of a particle
physicist. Nowhere does Unwin defend
this scientific confusion of categories
- confusing existence with events and
identities - even though he is aware of
such logical problems elsewhere when
he light-heartedly jokes about mixing
apples with the color orange.
The chapter
dealing with the
problem of the meaning of the term
existence
has all the earmarks
of
someone who is "trying to baffle 'em
with bullshit." After dragging readers
through the problem of existence at the
quantum level subject to Heisenberg's
Uncertainty Principle, they are challenged with the problem of the 'existence' of thoughts, Plato's ideal forms,
and
such-like
conundrums.
After
admitting (as above) that he cannot be
sure what the term existence means, he
Page 37

confidently applies it to the god he is

evaluating and asserts he has proven
His existence - even though he can
have no idea of exactly what it is that
he has proved!
Here I think a value of D = 3 is
appropriate: chances are 3-to-1 that we
are witnessing an amusing con-job.
(5) The Falsifiability

Principle

Nowhere in the book does the

author discuss that bedrock principle
of scientific method, the principle of
falsifiability as it relates to scientifically meaningful statements. In science, an hypothesis to be tested must
be falsifiable in principle - that is, one
must at least be able to imagine a way
to test it in such a way that falsification of the hypothesis is an imaginable
outcome of the test.
Consider the statement "The moon
is made of green cheese." Long before
we had rockets to fly to the moon
it was possible to imagine ways to
test the statement. One could imagine examining the spectrum of light
reflected from the moon and comparing it to that of light reflected from a
round of green cheese. If the spectra
did not match, the proposition would
be falsified and the statement would
be considered to be false - false, but
scientifically meaningful because it
could be tested.
But
consider
the
statement
"Undetectable gremlins inhabit the
rings of Saturn." Since by definition
the gremlins are undetectable, there is
no way one can even imagine testing
the claim. Since there is no imaginable
way to. test and possibly falsify the
statement it is scientifically meaningless. It cannot even be false.
It is fair to say that almost all the
statements about the god whose 'existence' is being proved in this book are
scientifically meaningless - they cannot be tested or falsified and thus lie
outside the reach of science in particular and human knowledge in general.
Any serious author seeking to
convince Atheistic scientists of the
existence of his god would at least
attempt, I suggest, to grapple with the
problem of falsifiability and find a way
around it. The fact that Unwin completely ignores the most fundamental
Page 38

principle of science once again tells me

that he is engaging in a prank, not a
serious project.
I assign a value of 2 to D for this
line of evidence.
(6) Fallacy of Synthetic

A Priori

Although Unwin has heard of

the philosopher Immanuel Kant and
has obviously read quite a bit of philosophy, he is significantly silent about
the fundamental problem underlying
his own attempt to use mathematics
to give us new, factual information
about the external world. Like Kant,
he would have us believe that it is possible, merely by employing logic and
reason (deduction), to discover facts
about the world without the need for
observation. Kant distinguished analytical knowledge (knowledge derived
by deduction) from synthetic knowledge (knowledge generally obtained
by experience or induction). But he
also believed there was such a thing
as a synthetic a priori - knowledge
about the world that somehow could
be attained without observation. No
modern philosopher or scientist that
I know of thinks that the concept of a
synthetic a priori is defensible.
Thus, Unwin's effort to use mathematics alone to discover truths about
the world of events and existences is
doomed to failure before ever an equation is solved or a number punched
into a pocket calculator. So why would
he go ahead and pretend to prove a
synthetic a priori if he knows that
Kant's idea has been rejected by nearly
all modern thinkers?
You may find a clue to what I
think the answer is from the fact that
I assign D = 10 to this evidentiary
exhibit.
(7) Light-weight

Arguments

It surely is significant that Unwin

uses only 'evidences' that border on the
silly in support of the existence of the
JCM god. Consider the "evidentiary
area" "The Recognition of Goodness":
Theists would argue that the existence
of goodness is clear evidence of God
since from where else could the innate
recognition of the absolute of goodness
originate? [po78]

Winter 2004-2005

Well, duh ...

Then consider the weighty eVIdence of "Intra-N atural Miracles":
As defined in chapter 6, an intra-natural miracle is a difficult one to spot.
It is an intervention of a god that is
effected through natural means, in the
sense that there is no overt suspension
of natural, physical laws. Perhaps the
ultimate cause of the miracle, God's
action, might be considered external
to nature, but the balance of the
process is not. The remission of an
illness, the safe landing of a plane,
the avoidance of a job layoff might
each, under certain circumstances, be
considered intra-natural miracles, but
then under other circumstances, they
may not. Each is an event that may be
understood in terms of purely natural
phenomena. Therefore, in what sense
can an intra-natural miracle be identified as such? [po116]

It sure beats me! When the deity by

answering a prayer over-rides a boss's
'free will' to prevent someone from
being laid off, is that an intra-natural
miracle? If free will is so important to
this god that he allows evil to remain
in the world for its sake, why would he
be so generous in answering prayers to
"soften her heart," "make him forgive,"
or "lead me not into temptation"?
Try to keep a straight face as
you read what our prankster has to
say about the evidence from religious
experience.
Whether or not such apparently religious experiences can be reconciled
with a godless world, I would surely
not be going out on a limb to conclude
that they are more likely to occur in a
godful one. However, to suggest that a
godful universe is much more likely to
produce this evidence would attribute
insufficient credibility to the skeptical view that my experiences are not
divine in origin but perfectly comprehensible in mundane psychological
terms. Therefore, I will take the less
dogmatic position that the evidence is
only moderately more likely in the case
that Proposition G [that 'God' exists] is
true. Hence, the Divine Indicator is
assigned a value of D = 2 (see Table
D). [pp. 127-128]

I note that Dr. Unwin approves of

'Pascal's Wager' - despite its complete
American Atheist

demolition by every Atheist philosopher of the twentieth century. Pascal's

wager is that it is a better bet to bet
on 'God's' existence than on 'His' nonexistence. Pascal preceded Unwin in
making the mistake of supposing there
was only one god to bet on, instead of
realizing that he had to bet upon the
right god(s) out of the myriad that are
known to have been worshipped by
someone, somewhere, at some time.
Pascal's chances of betting on the right
god or combination of gods was about
as good as my chance of winning the
Ohio State Lottery - on the same day
that I win the New York Lottery and
the Power Ball.
Why would a serious apologist use
such lame arguments and such faulty
'evidence'? I give a value ofD = 2 to the
combination of all of Unwin's evidentiary analyses.
Cranking

the Numbers

Let us now put all my subjective

evaluations into Bayes' formula as it
is recast by Dr. Unwin on page 98. The
formula itself is:
P after

= [Pbefore
[Pbefore

D] +
D + 100% - Pbefore ]
X

where

Pafter

= [0.5

Pbefore is the probability that Unwin's

book is a joke before new evidence has
been factored in;

2] + [0.5 x 2
- 33%]

2] +

+ 100% - 60%]

D is the ratio of the probability that

the new evidence would exist if the
proposition be true divided by the
probability that the new evidence
would exist if the proposition be false.
In this case, it is the 2-to-1 or 10-to-1
odds I have been assigning to indicate
that the book is a joke rather than a
serious proof
Before we can make use of Bayes'
equation, we must assign an initial
probability to our proposition - the
probability Pbefore that I thought reasonable before weighing the various
New Jersey

= 75%.

Proceeding to evidence (3) COUNTERSEXIST

LANGUAGE
where
we
assigned a value of D = 10, substituting in the formula our updated probability becomes:
P after

and

= 60%.

Adding in evidence (2) COIN-FLIP

INITIAL PROBABILITY, where we
also assigned a value D = 2, we have:
P after
[60%
[60% x 2

= 97%.

At this point it seems virtually

certain our hunch was correct. But
we must continue to weigh all the
Bayesian evidence.
Proceeding to evidence (4) EVENTS
EXISTENCE, where D = 3, we get:
P after

Adding in evidence (6) FALLACY

OF SYNTHETIC A PRIORI, where D
= 10, we get:
Pafter

= 99.95%.

Finally, adding in evidence (7)

LIGHT-WEIGHT
ARGUMENTS,
where D = 2, we end up with the grand
final probability
Pfinal =
continue?

Do we

really

need

to

Thus, using the powerful Bayesian

methodology, we started with a proposition that actually seemed mildly
improbable and we have ended up with
a virtual certainty that The Probability
Of God was written as a joke, although
without further Bayesian analysis we
cannot be certain what the purpose of
the joke might have been.

+ 100%

Not a bad improvement in the probability that the book is a joke.

P after is the probability that Unwin's

book is a joke after new evidence has
been factored in;

Parsippany,

lines of evidence. Since my hypothesis

.that Unwin's book is ajoke (or perhaps
something written in hope of winning
a million-dollar Templeton Prize) is
rather cheeky, it seems only fair to
assign an initial probability value
that is actually moderately improbable
(2 times more likely to be false) - a
value of 0.5. (A value of 1.0 would correspond to a 50/50 probability, where
the probability ofthe book being a joke
was exactly equal to the probability
that it was not.) In terms of percentages, this means that the initial probability of my being right is only 33%.
Let us now proceed to update our
probability
by weighing the effect
of evidence (1) ONLY ONE GOD
EVALUATED. We recall that after
weighing that evidence, we assigned
the value D = 2. Substituting that into
the formula, we have:

v.

Conclusion
I realize that few readers will take
seriously my lengthy argument. That
is as it should be, for the real purpose
of this exercise has been a reductio ad
absurdum - reducing the technique
of our self-styled mathematical theologian to an absurdity by showing that
his method is fatally subjective and is
incapable of proving what it seeks to
prove, while at the same time it can
be made to prove too much. There are
lies, damned lies, and statistics - or
rather, Bayesian theory.
If my landlady confronts me with
a bounced check, she will be unimpressed by my argument
that the
funds must surely exist in the. bank
because I used a computer to balance
my account. She will remind me of the
old computer programmers'
adage,
"Garbage In - Garbage Out!" In like
fashion, when either Unwin or I claim
to have proven the existence of something by means of Bayes' Theorem, the
same wisdom applies.

= 99%.

Adding in evidence
(5) THE
FALSIFIABILITY PRINCIPLE, where
D = 2, we get:
P after
99.49%,

Winter 20042005

Page 39

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Page 40

Winter 2004-2005

American Atheist

Schroder Is Robbing the

State
and Still Is Exploiting
Hitler's Concordat
Armin Zadak
Introduction
anyreaders of the American
Atheist magazine know about
the case of the German
Atheist Dr. Peter Nittmann. Although
Dr. Nittmann left the church more
than 25 years ago, the German state,
in breach of the German constitution
which guarantees equal treatment
(Article 3) and religious freedom
(Article4) for all, deducted an enforced
church tax of around $100 a month
from his already meager unemployment benefit when he had become
unemployed after being in work for a
long time, and that for the benefit of
the two major churches in Germany,
who are massively privileged and
immensely rich!
In February 2002, Dr. Nittmann
filed a lawsuit for the return of the
stolen money. The German Atheist

Dr. Armin Zadak was a speaker

at La Cena de le Ceneri ("The
Ash Wednesday Dinner") commemorating the life and death of
the freethought martyr Giordano
Bruno who fell afoul of church
authorities by writing a book with
this title and advocating, among
other heresies, the Copernican
system. Ellen Johnson represented American Atheists at this same
meeting.

Parsippany, New Jersey

organization Bund gegen Anpassung

(Alliance against Conformity - www.
bund-gegen-anpassung.com)
publicized the case worldwide, meaning
that also abroad the general public
discovered for the first time what the
German press had been covering up
for years: millions of unemployed nonchurch members in Germany have had
church tax deducted from their unemployment benefit. The money stolen
in this way, for the benefit of the two
major German churches, already
amounted to billions of dollars; numerous lawsuits filed by isolated victims
had been dismissed without the public
knowing anything about it!
The German state makes use of
the 1933 concordat between Hitler and
the pope in carrying out this shameful
tax theft on the poorest and weakest
of German Atheists - and this concordat.still applies today. In it, the church
received the express guarantee that it
can have its membership fees collected
by the state in the form of a tax, known
as the church tax.
The case of Dr. Nittmann was
reported on at the 2003 National
Convention of the American Atheists
in Chicago by Dr. Ulrike Tietze of
the Alliance against Conformity (see
her talk entitled "Hitler's Legacy:
Plundering German Atheists to Benefit
the Pope" in American Atheist magazine, Summer 2003). Immediately,
many members of the American
Atheists sent protests to the German
judiciary and government - as did
Atheists and free thinkers from every
continent. As a result, the German
Winter 2004-2005

judiciary were no longer able to allow

Dr. Nittmann's explosive lawsuit to
gather dust in a drawer somewhere.
No less than three (!) instances had
dismissed the claim up to the summer
of 2004. After this numbing game of
'instance ping-pong', the case is now
up before the highest German court,
the Federal Constitutional Court
(Bundesverfassungsgericht).
This means that the case has
entered its decisivephase. The German
judiciary are relying on international
protest tiring out due to the length of
time being taken. For this reason we
would ask you to renew the protests
of the American Atheists and support
Dr. Nittmann's case by writing protest
letters to:
Federal Constitutional Court
Bundesverfassungsgericht
Schlossbezirk 3
D-76131 Karlsruhe
Germany
Fax: 0049 721 9101-382
Email: bverfg@bundesverfassungsger
icht.de
Don't forget: File No 1 BvR 952/04,
Case of Dr. Nittmann. Please send
copies to:
Federal Chancellor Mr. Gerhard
Schroder,
Bundeskanzleramt, Willy-Brandt-Str.1,
D-I0557 Berlin, Germany;
Fax: 0049 30 4000-1818,-1819;
E-mail:
bundeskanzlerbundeskanzler.de
Bund gegen Anpassung,
Page 41

Post Box 254, D-79002 Freiburg,

Germany;
Fax:0049 761 502 247;
E-mail:
mail@bund-gegen-anpassung@com
Demand that the validity of the
German constitution be restored, Dr.
Nittmann's claim be sustained, and
all unemployed non-church members
be repaid the money illegally deducted
from their unemployment benefit as
church tax in full!
The international
protests have
already produced their effects: The
German government has meanwhile
abolished the enforced church tax
for unemployed
non-church
members who become unemployed since
1 January 2005! Though on that day
a comprehensive set of laws (called,
for particular reasons, 'Hartz III' and
'Hartz IV') was introduced in Germany
which drastically curtails unemployment benefit and destroys any kind
of social security, the German government, under pressure by Atheists and
freethinkers all over the world, has
abolished on the quiet, in these laws,
the enforced church tax imposed on
unemployed
non-church
members.
But Atheists who became unemployed
before 1 January 2005 continue to be
robbed. And in order to prevent unemployed persons from having a financial
advantage by leaving the church, the
deduction of church tax has even been
abolished
for unemployed
church
members.

The decisive point, however, continues to be: The German Atheists

have been robbed of billions of dollars,
and up to this day not a single cent has
been paid back to them! The German
government now behaves as if nothing
has ever happened and wants to avoid
any compensation
for the victims
- just like most of Hitler's victims
never got compensation. But precisely
the compensation is the point at issue
now!
And there are further sinister
plans in the pipeline: In the process
of its legislation pushing forward the
mass impoverishment,
the German
government
wants to extend the
church tax, which is to be given a
new fantasy name, to all inhabitants
of Germany; church members should
then continue paying their money
directly to the church and Atheists,
Jews, and Muslims to some disguised
church organizations under a different
name. In this way, the state financing
of the church would be made independent of its constantly dwindling membership - a very dangerous plan, for
the whole of Europe and therefore the
whole world.
In the following statement, which
was originally presented as a talk at
the international symposium La Cena

de le Ceneri organized by the Alliance

Against Conformity in February 2004
in Freiburg (Germany), the German
lawyer Dr. Armin Zadak explains the
crucial background to Dr. Nittmann's
case: the scandalous validity of the
Hitler concordat in Germany to this
very day.
Address to the Freiburg
Atheist Meeting

La Cena de le Ceneri
Ladies and gentlemen! My dear
friends!
Now that we have heard various
important and essential lectures on
the centuries of struggle of rationalism
against the forces of obscurity, which
have been fought in all countries over
the world, today it is a great honor for
me to speak to you about some points
that are closely connected to the fact
that we are currently holding our congress in a country that is entangled
in and influenced by the church more
than any other, so much so that you
can truly characterize it as a 'church
state.'
Hitler lost the Second World War.
His shameful deeds are condemned
today, in contrast to the deeds of those
who won their marauding wars and
are still winning them today - those,
in other words, who afterwards write
history. However, in one way Hitler

Pope Pius XI,

who hoped to use Hitler as a defender of the faith against godless communism.
Page 42

Winter 2004-2005

American Atheist

did not lose the war, as one of Hitler's

extraordinarily shameful deeds is taking effect up to the present time and is,
at least in Germany, being concealed
perfectly: the immense privileges and
subsidies he granted the church.
Hitler not only saw to it that in
our times there are hardly any Jews
in Europe and, in doing so, continued
what the Catholic church had been
doing for the last fifteen hundred
years - as he himself explained to the
official representative of the German
episcopate as early as 1933, furthermore expressing that he might be
doing Christianity a very good turn at
the same time - but he also laid the
foundation for the very unique position
the church gained in the Third Reich,
the position that remains unchanged
today and from which all progressive
people in this country are suffering to
this day and, if the church had its way,
they will continue to suffer from to the
end of time.
This foundation is the concordat
Hitler and the then Pope Pius XI signed
as early as the first months of Hitler's
dictatorship, on 20th of July 1933.
In order to understand the extraordinary importance of this fundamental
treaty, first of all one ought to know
that the last concordat between the
German Reich and the pope had been
concluded 500 years before, in the year
1448, between Emperor Frederick III
and pope Nicolas V.This Viennese concordat meant that the pope would be
protected from the growing reformation' and it remained in force until the
year 1806.
Since that time the church had
been striving continuously and with
great pertinacity towards attaining
such a comprehensive and fundamental pact with the state once more. But
it was in vain, for in the period after
the French Revolution and secularization neither the German empire of the
19th century nor any of the governments in the Weimar Republic was
willing to guarantee the church the
privileges they had been repeatedly
claiming through such a contract.
But then, in Germany, the church
got the unique opportunity to sign such
a concordat once again: the pope, since
1922 Pius XI, completely sympathized
with the fascists not only in Germany,
Parsippany, New Jersey

but also with those in all European

countries, as in Russia the revolution had been victorious and the pope
feared nothing more than it spreading to other countries, especially in
Western Europe. As the pope saw it,
the fascists were those who promised
to fight all communists and socialists
as their deadly enemies, which was
exactly the same purpose the pope was
pursuing.

war of extermination against the much

hated Soviet Union. So on 8th of March
1933, the pope declared to the French
ambassador: "Hitler is the only head of
government who not only shares the
pope's own view on Bolshevism, but
also challenges it unmistakably and
with great courage."
This was the reason why the
Catholic church, even before the presidential election of 1932, that means

Cardinal Pacelli (later Pius XII), representing Pope Pius XI,

signs the "Reichs Konkordat" with the government headed
by Chancellor Adolf Hitler, on July 20, 1933, at the Vatican.
From left: German Catholic Centre Party politician and ViceChancellor of Germany, Franz von Papen; Guiseppe Pizzardo;
Pacelli; Alfredo Cardinal Ottaviani; Rudolf Buttmann.
For this reason, the pope not only
supported the military dictatorship
of Pilsudski in Poland, with whom he
signed a concordat as early as 1925,
and later on with Franco in Spain, but
also, and above all, the Italian fascist
movement of Mussolini, who, in recognition of his services in the so-called
Lateran treaties, presented him not
only with the gift of today's 'Vatican
State,' but also, beside numerous other
privileges, the amount of nearly 100
million dollars, a tremendous amount,
which in those days would have been
enough for the capital of a world
bank.
As in the case of Mussolini, the
pope rightly expected Hitler to completely wipe out all left-wing parties
in Germany, which were, as you know,
very strong at this time; and last but
not least he expected Hitler to start a
Winter 2004-2005

before Hitler came to power, spread

masses of leaflets saying: "Catholics,
vote for the devout Catholic Adolf
Hitler!" This was also the reason why
the Catholic Zentrum party, under the
lead of a prelate and intimate confidant of the pope, consented to Hitler's
Enabling Act, when he - despite his
unconstitutional ban of the communist
party - still needed the votes of this
Catholic party to get this Enabling
Act through, which then, as you know,
formed the basis for Hitler's dictatorship.
Hitler,
for his part,
needed
the pontifical aid just as much as
Mussolini had before, and therefore
Hitler wanted the same kind of concordat with the Vatican as Mussolini
had signed. But above all, Hitler
required international acceptance very
urgently, since particularly
abroad
Page 43

there was absolutely no doubt about

his criminal aims and he had already
begun torturing German communists
and democrats in concentration camps
and started the first pogroms against
the Jews.
So both Hitler and Pope Pius XI
pursued the same line of policy.And for
this reason they signed the concordat
between the Vatican and the German
Reich with extraordinary speed - on
20th of July 1933 - a concordat, as you
remember, that the church had been
trying and failing to achieve for 130
years.
This
concordat
was
actually
Hitler's first international treaty. The
church celebrated its signature by
solemn divine services in all churches
over the country, in which in particular
uniformed SS and SA troops took part
with their banners, and Hitler in this
way gained his so urgently required
recognition, both at home and abroad.
Both the official newspaper of the
Nazi-regime, the so-called Volkischer
Beobachter, and the German episcopate
wrote in complete unison - and
quite rightly - that by the concordat

Pope Pius XI
with the Vatican (and now I quote)
"Hitler's and his government's reputations were established and heightened
in a unique way" and that it implied
an "enormous moral strengthening of
the German Reich's National Socialist
government and its prestige."
The extraordinary importance of
this concordat best becomes clear by
the following quotation from the then

Munich cardinal Faulhaber. He said:

"In fact Pope Pius XI has been the
best friend, and at the beginning even
the only friend, of the new empire.
Millions abroad faced the new empire
cautiously and distrustfully at first,
and did not place any confidence in
the new German government until the
concordat had been signed."
Hitler, of course, was also aware
of all this. Therefore his gratitude
to the pope for this decisive support
was tremendous. And in appreciation
of this help Hitler conceded to the
German church privileges that were
unequalled all over the world.
The following points are only the
salient ones of these privileges, laid
down in the concordat:

It was arranged, just to "cultivate good relations" for a permanent

German ambassador to reside at the
Vatican and a permanent representative of the Vatican in the capital of the
German Reich, who would basically be
the "Doyen." That means the principal
and spokesman of all diplomats (final
regulations).

The Brandenburg-Vatican Concordat (2004)

Birgit Linz
To understand the recent concordats ratified between the
Vatican and the states of the former GDR, it is essential to know
that all these concordats explicitly refer to the Hitler-Pius XI concordat and its unchanged validity up to this very day To give you
an idea of the sinister dealings nowadays, I list the main points
of the latest concordat between the Vatican and the state of
Brandenburg, signed in November 2004. One has always to keep
in mind that in Brandenburg only 83,000 people (i.e. 3.2 % of the
population) are members of the Roman Catholic Church!
The state of Brandenburg guaranteed to set up religious
instruction regularly in all public schools, to finance the religious
instruction teachers' education, to put up Catholic theological
faculties at the state universities, and to finance Roman Catholic
schools and high schools.The Catholic Church obtained the right
to run stote ftnanced social institutions, i.e. kindergarten, nursing homes, old people's homes, ete., and the state guaranteed
the right of pastoral care in public hospitals, prisons, and any
establishment of the public authorities. Also, the Catholic Church
obtained the right of "adequate" time of transmission in all public
broadcasting and television companies. The Catholic Church

Page 44

was exempted from any charges or fees and all its organizations
became "corporations of public law," i.e., they obtained the same
status as public institutions. The state of Brandenburg guaranteed to finance the upkeep and preservation of church buildings, clerical monuments, ete. Furthermore the Catholic Church
obtained not only the right to impose all kinds of church taxes
by means of the fiscal authorities, but the state of Brandenburg
signed the obligation to pay a special sum of $1.15 million
annually, first in the year 2004. An authorized representative of
the Roman Catholic Church was appointed to reside in Berlin
in order to guarantee the permanent dialogue and the state's
obligation to ask for consultation concerning all questions that
might touch on interests of the Catholic Church.
All the concordats are constructed in the same manner
and all were signed as 'international treaties' without any public
discussion or parliamentary debate. Now the Catholic Church
regains the privileges that she had to abandon so badly for more
than forty years. But the Hitler Concordat and its shameful validity up to now are one of the indispensable grounds to allow the
smooth restoration of Vatican power in Germany and whole of
Eastern Europe.

Winter 20042005

American Atheist

tion in all public primary schools,

vocational schools, secondary schools
and high schools, and the right to hold
on to and set up new Catholic denominational schools (Article 23).
But the most important thing for
the church - as we know today by its
instructions to its negotiator - was:

The right of the church to raise

church taxes was guaranteed in the
concordat and expressly laid down in
its final regulations (to Article 13).

Signer of the Concordat in

the role of Pope Pius XII
The state guaranteed
the particular protection of the clerics from
personal or official insult (Article 5).
Clergymen's income was exempted
from execution (Article 8).
The false use of clerical clothing
should be punished in the same way as
the abuse of military uniform (Article
10).
All the organizations ofthe church
remained or became so-called corporations of public law, that means they
obtained the same status as public
institutions (Article 13); all their possessions and properties were guaranteed and it was expressly codified that
church buildings should never be permitted to be pulled down (Article 17).
Not only were separate theological
colleges guaranteed, but also Catholic
theological faculties at the state universities (Article 19).
The church obtained the right of
military religious welfare to be practiced by a special army bishop (Article
27) as well as the right of pastoral
care in all hospitals, prisons, and any
establishment of the public authorities
(Article 28).
Of particular importance to the
church were - by the way, as in the
dispute on the French education law
- the guarantee of religious instrucParsippany, New Jersey

I would also like to mention, just

for the sake of completeness, that the
concordat also contained two top-secret
supplementary
agreements
according to the corresponding objectives of
Pius XI and Hitler: one dealt with the
concerted action against Russia, the
other with the military service of the
German clergymen and theologians in
the event of a war.
I am sure you will agree with what
I said before - that Hitler gave the
church privileges that were absolutely
unique. In Germany, incidentally, the
Protestant Church also received such
privileges shortly after, but it was Pope
Pius XI who was the pioneer and pacemaker here.
You should not only keep these
monstrous privileges in mind, but also,
and perhaps even more so, the background against which this concordat
was concluded - it was the thanks
that one of the greatest criminals in
world history, Adolf Hitler, paid to
his greatest promoter, Pope Pius XI
- when I say to you now that this
concordat between Hitler and Pius XI
is still valid in the Federal Republic of
Germany, unchanged, and without any
limitation to this day.
This fact is an absolute scandal for
the German state.
Whereas all the other agreements
concluded by Hitler in the pursuit of
his criminal goals had, of course, been
annulled, the clergy and their political
friends ensured after the overthrow
of the Hitler government that this
agreement, of all the international
contracts made by the Third Reich,
was the only one to remain in effect.
This was even laid down in a hidden
clause and at a hidden place in the
German constitution - in Article 123.
And so in the year 1957, the German
Winter 2004-2005

Constitutional
Court then expressly
decided that the Hitler concordat
should remain valid - and it is valid
right up to today. And let me emphasize it once again: Above all it was the
thanks of one of the greatest criminals
in history to his "best and in the beginning only friend" - as we have heard
in the cardinal's own words.
But now let me return briefly to
the basic question of why the church
has always been so extremely interested in having its rights set down in such
an international treaty, or concordat: if
such a concordat exists, then a state,
even ifthere is a change in the balance
of political power and the majority of
the people wish for separation from
the church, i.e. a secular system, even
then a state would not remove these
church privileges unilaterally without
serious consideration - for it would
always be violating an international
treaty by doing so. So the church especially expects of such a contract that
its privileges are untouchable and will
be in effect forever - just like in the
Bible, according to which a thousand
years are as but a day in the eyes of a
god, as you know.
We are currently experiencing the
consequences of this in Germany. I
would like to mention only one example: while faculties are being closed at
the state universities and costs being
cut because money is supposed to be
so short, the church is contractually
guaranteed
the continued existence
and state financing of its own universities and other theological faculties,
which means there can be no restrictions without the express support of
the church, even though there are only
few students today who want to 'study'
- if you want to call it like that - theology.
But the concordat between Pius XI
and Hitler had, in addition to this general "guarantee for eternity" - there is
no provision for a termination - it had
one very special and outstanding historical significance for the church, and
that to the present day: this is regarding the church tax.
(It is true that the Weimar constitution already contained a right of the
churches to impose tax - by the way,
they have the social democratic party
to thank for this because they voted
with the parties of the Right for the
incorporation of this privilege into the
Page 45

constitution and expressly rejected an

opposing bill from a left wing party,
the DSPD, and the majority required
would not have been achieved without the social democratic
votes.)
However - and this was a considerable
restriction - this right in the Weimar
constitution only applied "in accordance with the laws of the Lander."
(That means the federal states.) So
- even if there were already some
contractual agreements in place in the
Weimar Republic between the Vatican
and individual German federal states
- there were only a few, only three,
to be precise (Bavaria, Prussia, and
Baden). But now, after the concordat
between Hitler and the pope, all these
agreements not only remained intact,
they were also supplemented.
Above and beyond this, however,
all the other German federal states,
that is to say also those that had
not previously had any agreements
with the Vatican, were now included

. according to Article 2 of the concordat.

And most importantly
of all: the
church's right to impose church tax
was guaranteed
without limitation,
this is independently from the laws of
the federal states, which means that
not even any individual state can get
out of the church's stranglehold.
And it is this scandalous legacy
of Hitler's that also means that not a
single political decision can be made
in Germany today against the will and
without the agreement of the church just remember the sinister attempts of
Germany's church-dependent government to ban embryo research across
all Europe for example.
The church's assets in Germany
today are estimated at more than 500
billion euros. With the help of the state
they take in about 9 billion euros a
year in church tax. Additionally, the
state pays them a further 9 billion
euros from the treasury coffers and
also gives them another 10 billion

euros by not collecting taxes and

charges that everyone else (also every
group and association) has to pay. All
in all, this means an annual sum of at
least 28 billion euros.
To a great extent the churches
in Germany have the concordat with
Hitler to thank for the fact that they
are the richest in the world and that
they are getting richer day by day.
Just imagine what useful, sensible
and humane things could be achieved
with such incredible amounts of money
instead!
Ladies and gentlemen, my dear
friends, may this congress make a
contribution towards taking the power
from religion and its sinister organizations - in Germany and all over the
world!
Thank you for your attention.

"Uh, we were sorta hoping for something like, 'live and let live'."

Page 46

Winter 2004-2005

American Atheist

Fuhrers and Followers

William Harwood

t a memorial commemorating the sixtieth anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, German Chancellor
Gerhard Schroder reminded his nation that the
atrocities of the Final Solution cannot be explained away as
an aberration of the demon Hitler. Hitler did not live in a
vacuum. The German people supported him. If history is not
to repeat itself, Schroder warned, future generations must
be aware that there can be no Fuhrer without followers.
Following the atrocity of September 11,2001, thousands
of Muslims rejoiced in the streets, waving banners with
Osama bin Laden's picture and openly expressing admiration for the mass murder of randomly chosen victims whose
only 'crime' was being American. Can one legitimately pretend that bin Laden was an aberration, and that Islam is
basically a force for good, in the face of such evidence to the
contrary?
A recent election in Palestine resulted in a resounding
victory for Hamas, a terrorist organization that promised
assassins an eternity of screwing virgins as a reward for
killing themselves in the process of murdering anybody who
happened to be Jewish. Since this happened at a time when
a new Palestinian leadership was trying to convince the
masses that a peaceful agreement with Israel was their only
hope of obtaining an independent state, the election result
raises a serious question: Were Hamas' murders of civilians
repugnant to the Palestinian people, or did they conform to
the Palestinian concept of how good Muslims are supposed
to behave? The answer is surely that nobody supports mad
dogs except other mad dogs.
But like Fuhrers, terrorists also do not exist in a
vacuum. In 1919 the League of Nations reversed millennia
of precedent by de-recognizing Right of Conquest. Then in

William Harwood is a member of the editorial

board of Free Inquiry, a contributing
editor of
American Rationalist, and editor/translator
of
The Judaeo-Christian
Bible Fully Translated.
He is a resident of Canada's bible belt, also
called the redneck anus of the universe, where a
theofascist majority has been trying for' decades
to make the Fuhrer of the Christian
Taliban
prime minister.
The most recent of his 27
books is Where Is George Washington Now That
America Really Needs Him? (Xlibris, 2004) He
receives e-mail at<wharwood@telus.net>.

Parsippany,

New Jersey

1948 the United Nations made an exception in order to

recognize the part of Palestine conquered by Zionists as the
state of Israel. While that was an injustice, reversing the
recognition ofIsrael after two generations of Jews have been
born there would be an equal injustice. Palestinians deserve
a homeland, and Jews deserve a homeland.
However, in 1967, the state of Israel invaded and
annexed parts of Palestine that the United Nations did
not then and does not now recognize as part of Israel. For
almost forty years Israeli Fuhrers have been retaining territory stolen from the Palestinians, and treating the land's
rightful owners as helots. It is hardly surprising that frustration over the refusal of one Israeli Fuhrer after another
to return their stolen land finally provoked determined
Palestinians into taking whatever action they considered
necessary to end an ongoing injustice. Now, at a time when
the Palestinian authority is persuading Hamas and other
sects to show a little patience, a gang of Zionist fanatics estimated at 100,000 has been parading outside of the Knesset
demanding that the Prime Minister's agreement to return
a portion of the stolen territory be scrapped. Persons who
kill Jews for being Jews are assuredly terrorists. And fanatics who, having driven Palestinians out of their own land,
threaten violence if it is given back, are also terrorists.
Meanwhile in America, after four years of a warmongering Administration that abolished human rights for its
own citizens, repudiated international
law, and instituted
policies that deprived America of the favorable opinion even
of nations that had long been admirers, when the American
people were given the opportunity to tell the world "That
madman in the White House does not speak for us, not
ever again," 51 percent of the voting population of America
instead told the world that the theofascist moron they
legally elected to the office he had previously stolen by a
treasonous coup d'etat did indeed speak for them.
George W. Bush is an American
Fuhrer. And like the German Fuhrer, he
can do nothing without the support of the
masses. So, are the once-friendly nations
that now consider America the greatest
threat to world stability since Hitler justified in equating 'America' with the totalitarian bully in the White House whom
absolute power has corrupted absolutely?
Certainly Bush does not represent the
49 percent who voted against him. But if
Bush is the epitome of absolute evil, then
so are the voters who could have dumped
him and chose not to do so. ~

Winter 20042005

Page 47

FROM SRAPIS

To

JSIJS

An excerpt from To Water Instead of Blood: The Story of Serapis to Jesus

By Clinton S. Clark

eventy years after the destruction

of the First Temple in Jerusalem,
and exile of the Jews to Babylon
by Nebuchadnezzar, Cyrus the King of
Persia is alleged to have said in 515
BCE, "The LORD, the God of heaven, has
given me all the kingdoms of the earth
and he has appointed me to build a
temple for him at Jerusalem in Judah.
Anyone of his people among you, may
his god be with him, and let him go up
to Jerusalem in Judah and build the
temple of the LORD, the God of Israel,
the god who is in Jerusalem. And the
people of any place where survivors
may now be living are to provide him
with silver and gold, with goods and
livestock, and with freewill offerings for
the temple of God in Jerusalem."
The stage was set for greed and
financial exploitation ofthe Jews for the

next 545 years. They became slaves of

their own religion and its Aaronic leaders, for it was the Levite line of Aaron
who would gather the wealth of Israel
and create a slave society of Jewish poor.
Jesus, first High Priest of the Second
Temple and son of Joseph, had cut a
deal with Cyrus, which released the
Jews from their captivity in Babylon; so
in one sense, he had saved the Jews, but
was the eventual cost in human suffering worth it?
Finally, in 130 CE, one hundred
years after Spartacus had demonstrated to Rome and to Israel that the poorer
man would no longer tolerate human
exploitation, an extraordinary
group
of Jews took the lead to save the Jews
from Second Temple greed and financial
exploitation. John ben Zacharias and
Jesus ben Hananyah (when translated
this means 'Jesus, son of merciful and
compassionate God') led the way. They
devised a plan that would replace burnt

Clinton S. Clark is currently studying Liberal

Arts and Cultural Anthropology at Iowa State
University in Ames, Iowa. Former Director of
Website Development for the State of Iowa's
IOWAccess project, he went back to school at the
age of forty-eight after Web development budget
cuts. Clint is also an accomplished composer and
jazz musician with a number of awards, in particular for a piano and music educational site on
the Internet called "Piano on the Net," which has
been featured on the NBC Nightly News. Cultural
Anthropology is his passion and after a research
project which began in 1992, he has written a religion detoxification book called The Gospel Writers,
a draft of which is available to read online at
www.thegospelwriters.com. He receives e-mail at
<clint.clark@mchsi.com>.

Page 48

Winter 2004-2005

offerings and male penis mutilation

(circumcision), known as Jewish Blood
Rites, as a new covenant with the Jewish
god. It was decided that a Rabbinic form
of Judaism, one that practiced deeds of
loving kindness, would replace Jewish
Blood Rites for the atonement of sins. In
other words, Jews could repent for their
sins by loving their neighbor. Jesus and
John were confident that they were on
firm legal ground to initiate this change,
for as it says in Leviticus 19 verse 18:
"Take no revenge and cherish no grudge
against your fellow countrymen. You
shall love your neighbor as yourself I am
the LORD." Or as Paul put it in Galatians
5:14, "For the whole Law is fulfilled in
one word, in the statement, 'You shall
love your neighbor as yourself'."
Rabbi Jesus went on to further
refine Rabbinic
Judaism,
so that
it could be discretely practiced by
Jews and Gentiles; for the practice of
Judaism had been declared illegal by
the Romans. Hadrian had issued an
order that said, "No Jew shall circumcise another; nor shall a person who has
permitted himself to be circumcised be
exempt from the operation of the law.
No slave, freeborn person, or freedman, native or foreigner, shall practice
or submit to this detestable operation.
Whoever is proved to have voluntarily
performed, or submitted to it, shall be
punished with the utmost severity of
the law."
Jesus modified Sabbath Law (working and healing on the Sabbath), fasting,
tithing, dietary food restrictions, baptisms in rivers (instead of in mikvaot)
and other Jewish cultural behaviors,
so that it would outwardly appear to

American Atheist

the Romans that Judaism was not

being practiced, when in fact it was.
As it says in Mark 2:18-19, "John's
disciples and the Pharisees were fasting; and they came and said to Him
[Jesus], "Why do John's disciples and
the disciples of the Pharisees fast, but
Your disciples do not fast?" By way
of implementing these modifications,
he had once again saved the Jews.
Apparently, like the first Jesus mentioned earlier (the first High Priest of
the Second Temple and son of Joseph),
when the practice of Judaism had
been interrupted 'or threatened, and a
great Jewish leader figured out a way
for the Jews to overcome the obstacle
and continue the practice of Judaism,
this great leader was then deemed a
Christ.
Rabbi Jesus, also a great Sage,
supposedly believed that each time
a person was conceived, a spirit-soul
would descend from the Heavens and
inhabit the body. Upon death, this
spirit-soul would ascend back to the
Heavens and rejoin the Jewish god
he referred to as the Holy and Perfect
Mother-Father. He referred to this
spirit-soul, this true self, as a Son of
Man, and accordingly, the Holy and
Perfect Mother-Father
as the first
Perfect Man. Jesus' logic for a spiritsoul existence, probably developed
historically over time in this way:
Through scientific observation,
when the blood of an animal or a person drained out of the body (from a
wound or something similar), the body
became lifeless. However, if someone
were to stop the bleeding, before all
the blood drained out of the body, the
animal or the person remained living.
Therefore, the essence (the animation) oflife must be in the blood of the
body. At Jesus ben Hananyah's time
in history, that certainly would have
been a solid scientific and medical
conclusion.
Later on, by making the additional
observation that man and mammals
had very similar body structures,
especially when compared with other
animals, they must indeed be from
the same maker or divine carpenter.
However, man was able to talk, to
build, to draw, to paint, to sail on the
seas, think great thoughts, and come
up with new ideas. Therefore, man
Parsippany, New Jersey

must be more than animal. The consciousness of man, must logically contain a divine spirit to be able to think,
dream, and do all of these things.
There must certainly be a powerful
and intelligent spirit that inhabits
the body of a man, that is not present
in the body of an animal. At the time,
this also would have been a solid scientific and medical conclusion. How else
could one explain such an observably
large gap between man and animal?

us now? Who will oppose our enemies,

who will refute the claims of the socalled wise men, who are wise only
in their ability to incite cruelty [the
greedy Temple leaders]? He answered
them with a pasuk: 'He said to James,
let us travel and go, and I will accompany you'." Or from the Gospel of
Thomas, verse 12, 'The disciples said
to Jesus, 'We know that you are going
to leave us. Who will be our leader?'
Jesus said to them, 'No matter where

Both the image on the Shroud of Turin and traditional

portrayals of the Christian god Jesus bear an uncanny
resemblance to busts of Serapis.
It would not have occurred to him,
that if humankind's
ability to use
tools to make others tools (physical
and social), and its ability to assign
complex concepts to a vocalized sound,
were to suddenly disappear, humankind would have appeared to be the
same as all other mammalian life on
the planet.
About his death, the Talmud
tractate Hagigah 5b says, "When he
took fatally ill, the sages came to him
frightened and shaken: who will help
Winter 2004-2005

you are, you are to go to James the

Just, for whose sake heaven and earth
came into being'."
One little known fact about Jesus
is that he was ugly. He is said to have
been ugly and partially crippled, thus
he suffered. Jesus was "beauteous, yet
appearing among us as poor and ugly."
He was known as the "Ugly Rabbi"
and he was famous for it. Philosopherphysician Aurelius Cornelius Celsus
in his writing On the True Doctrine,
wrote:
Page 49

Since a divine Spirit inhabited

the body (of Jesus), it must certainly
have been different from that of
other beings, in respect of grandeur,
or beauty, or strength, or voice, or
impressiveness, or persuasiveness. For
it is impossible that He, to whom was
imparted some divine quality beyond
other beings, should not differ from
others; whereas this person did not
differ in any respect from another,
but was, as they report, little, and illfavored, and ignoble.

Later on in history? Origen wrote

a rebuttal to the statement made by
Aurelius Cornelius Celsus that said:
"There are, indeed, admitted to be
recorded some statements respecting
the body of Jesus having been 'illfavored' not, however, 'ignoble,' as has
been stated, nor is there any certain
evidence that he was 'little'."
When we examine the Shroud
of Turin, we find that the image on
the shroud is of a man who is not
crippled, or apparently ugly. Yet those
who found the shroud believed it to be
an image of Jesus. What was it about
the likeness of the man in the image
that led them to believe that this was
Jesus? The image above is a comparison of the shroud image and a bust of
Serapis. The likeness is uncanny. The
man, whose image is on the shroud,
must have greatly resembled Serapis.
Unless they had already 'known'
what Jesus looked like, why insist
that the image on the shroud is Jesus?
Because they had already come to
know that an image of Serapis, was
Jesus. In Hadrian's letter to Servianus
in 134 CE he writes:
The land of Egypt, the praises of
which you have been recounting to me,
my dear Servianus, I have found to be
wholly light-minded,
unstable, and
blown about by every breath of rumor.
There those who worship Serapis are,
in fact, Christians, and those who
call themselves bishops of Christ are,
in fact, devotees of Serapis. There is
no chief of the Jewish synagogue, no
Samaritan,
no Christian
presbyter,
who is not an astrologer, a soothsayer,
or an anointer. Even the Patriarch himself, when he comes to Egypt, is forced
by some to worship Serapis, by others
to worship Christ. They are a folk most
seditious, most deceitful, most given to

Page 50

Injury [most have physical ailments];

but their city is prosperous, rich, and
fruitful, and in it no one is idle. Some
are blowers of glass, others markers
of paper, all are at least weavers of
linen or seem to belong to one craft or
another; the lame have their occupations, the eunuchs [a man who has
been castrated - a monk] have theirs,
the blind have theirs, and not even

the Roman Empire, there were many

healing pools of Serapis that functionally served as a Public Health service
to help prevent the spread of disease
due to poor hygiene. The Romans
were very insistent that citizens bathe
often, especially soldiers. Both bathing
and early Baptism at that time were
done fully nude. In this way, a discrete

those whose hands are crippled are

idle. Their only god is money, and this
the Christians, the Jews, and, in fact,
all nations adore ....

inspection of the body could be made by

one's peers, to visually check for signs
of disease. This known practice probably kept those with a disease out of
a community, since any sign of disease
would be revealed upon disrobing.

Serapis was also displayed at

times with a modius resting on his
head. A modi us was an Egyptian
grain-measuring
cup at the time of
the Ptolemies. When we compare the
shape of the modius to that of the top
leg of the cross behind the head of
Jesus (below) we see that the shape
of the modius is duplicated in this top
leg. However, in Christianity, the idea
of a trinity was important. Notice that
the shape of the modius is reproduced
two more times, suggesting a left and
right leg of a cross behind the head of
Jesus.
Jesus and Serapis had a number
of attributes in common, but the most
noteworthy was healing by way of
immersion in water - what is commonly known as Baptism. Throughout
Winter 2004-2005

The 16th-century Colonna Missal

illustration (below), from John Rylands
Library, Manchester, England, shows
John ben Zacharias (John the Baptist)
as a young man with a peal of wisdom over his head in the Heavens
with angels. The peal of wisdom over
his head is Serapis. Is this to mean
that, according to the 16th-century
Christian Church, John received his
peal of wisdom from Serapis? No.
John received his peal of wisdom from
Jesus. As we can readily see from the
illustration, for at least 1600 years, the
icon of Serapis was used to symbolize
Jesus. The bust of Jesus also appeared
on many Roman coins, including coins
issued by Constantine.
American Atheist

'Jesus' is buried in a tomb outside the small Village of

Buqei'a, (Longitude: E 35 19' OON and Latitude: N 32 58'
00'), very near his school at Peki'in. Peki'in is an ancient
village in the hills of western Galilee, close to Safed, Zippori,
Ptolemais (Akko, Acre) and Bethlehem. The Jews in Peki'in
have lived there continuously, from before the destruction of
the Second Temple, and were never asked by the Romans to
leave with the rest of the Jews during the Diaspora of 70 CEo
The tomb is marked Joshua [Jesus] and Hananyah [merciful
and compassionate god].
~

This is a parody of moronic books about

"The Rapture, " and if you don't like it you
can ...

Kiss My Left Behind

Earl Lee
A parody of the popular genre of "End
Times" novels written by many Christian
authors, including Tim LaHaye, the characters in this book struggle with their own problems and don't have much time to fight the Antichrist (Nickelay
Dubyah, ruler of the former Soviet Republic of Texrectumstan).
Aventine Press (2003) 229 pages, paperback.
ISBN 1-59330-106-5
Stock 5903

$15.00

"So, ignorance is an excuse afterall !"

Parsippany, New Jersey

Winter 2004-2005

Page 51

What Would It Take

For Me To Believe In God?
By Jim Heldberg

(California)

"Me Too!" is a feature

designed
to showcase short essays written
by readers
in response
to topics
recently covered by the American
Atheist or of general
interest
to
the Atheist
community.
Essays
submitted
to "Me Too!" (P.O. Box
5733, Parsippany,
NJ 07054 or
editor@atheists.org)
should be 600800 words long.

t one of those dreary debates about

"The Existence of God," a young
Christian asked me, ''What would it
take for you to believe in god?" He
meant a Christian god, of course, not
all the others. I should have asked him,
"And what would it take for you not
to believe in a god?" But I suspect he
couldn't have answered, and probably
never even thought to ask himself his
own question in reverse.
It's a simple question, and perhaps
it deserves a simple answer. After all,
I've changed my mind before on many
things. Surely I'd be willing to change
my mind on this, if... if... Well, if what?
After more thought, I had the
answer. I'd change my mind if there
were good reasons, with good data. I'm a
realist, a scientist. The answer to "What
would it take for me to believe in a god?"
is: EVIDENCE.
The evidence I want is simple. Here
is a list of the "godly characteristics" of
evidence I'll need. This is an unusual
list, but since I'm answering the question, I get to make the list.

VISIBLE. Christians say their god

is "in the image of man (or woman)."
That's fine, and a big improvement over
being invisible. So, show me the god.
Visibility must be the first piece of evidence.
SEXLESS. Christians say their
god isn't a man or woman, despite their
looks. That's easy to check. If the god
drops its pants for a thorough medical
inspection, and has no sex organs, that's
more good evidence.
IMMORTAL. Christians say their
god is immortal. That's also easy to

Page 52

prove - Superman did it in the movies.

Bullets fired at this god should cause
no damage, and many Christians have
a gun handy. Fire shouldn't harm it,
which can be proved in any kitchen,
fireplace, welding shop, or furnace room.
It won't drown, which can be verified at
any bathtub, beach, or bay. It should
be immune to all diseases, which the
National Center for Disease Control
could prove, very carefully. It should be
immune from death by old age, which
would be hard to verify in one lifetime,
but after it lived 2 lifetimes, or 3, or 10,
that's more evidence.
LANGUAGE SKILLS. Christians
say their god knows all human languages. This would take a while to verify, but
the number of languages is known, so
the god's language skills wouldn't be difficult to prove. Oddly, the Christian god
can't write, so only spoken language can
be used, but that makes it simpler for
interviewers to get the evidence. A good
explanation of why a god with great
language skills is unable to write, and
seldom even speaks, will provide more
evidence.
COMMUNICATION.
Christians
say their god hears, and answers, multiple prayers simultaneously from remote
worldwide locations. To verify this, lock
the naked god in a secret bank vault
without
communication
equipment.
While a large number of people speak
audibly, or pray silently to the god at
the same time in various languages, the
god tells interviewers what the pray-ers
said. When the process is reversed, the
god talks to pray-ers who tell interviewers what the god said. Since the god
can't write, and usually communicates
silently, that would have to be accounted
for in the process. Standardized testing
could confirm that messages sent both
ways were accurately received, contributing to the evidence. Although prayer
communication is commonly thought to
be nearly instantaneous, delays measuring several years have been reported by
Christians. This needs to be explained,
but does not need to be demonstrated as
evidence.
CREATION SKILLS. Christians
say their god can create universes

Winter 2004-2005

and even life. In this area, I'd generously award full credit for only partial
evidence. The god doesn't have to create something splashy, like a galaxy.
Creating another moon around the
earth would be evidence that could be
verified by everyone. Creation of a new
oil field would be very nice, and verified
by geologists. An explanation of how
these creations were achieved would
earn extra credit toward evidence.
ANSWERS. Christians say their
god is all-wise. That's vague, but being
wiser than men is easy to prove. The god
could prove this by giving solid answers
and explanations to major human questions, such as: What happened at the
big bang? What are dark matter and
dark energy? What's inside a black
hole? Can the universe expand forever?
Is there life elsewhere in the universe?
If so, where is it, and what is it like? Is
time travel possible? Is there a unified
field theory? Is there any truth to string
theory? Is the speed of light constant?
What killed the Neanderthals?
Who killed JFK? Does pi ever repeat?
Identify the correct religion, if any, and
close down the rest. Is every prayer
heard, or only prayers repeated often by
large groups? Explain how immaculate
conception and resurrection work. Those
are big questions, but not un-godly large.
Many other questions could be asked,
but these should be sufficient. A god
should get them all right, of course, with
no partial credit for partial answers.
SUMMARY. If the evidence showed
a god passed these tests, I would not
only believe that it existed, I would
probably even consider it a new species. Would I worship this weird new
god-thing? Certainly not, but I might
want it for a pet, so I could learn from
it. Even better, I'd like to be its agent,
and use it to make big money. I would
give the god a better name than "God"
because I wouldn't name a dog "Dog," or
a child "Child." I couldn't be friends with
it, any more than I could be friends with
my cat or computer. Since it could never
reproduce and was doomed to be alone
forever, it might be tempted it to commit suicide, but could it do that? Only it
would know. Should I insure it?

American

Atheist

Examination of the
Prophecies
Part Three of
Thomas Paine's
The Age of Reason

Thomas Paine

Tb~
.Rg~
of

Annotated

by Frank R. Zindler

Reason

The man who coined the name The

United States of America' was also
Examination of the Prophecies
a Bible scholar of prodigious wit
Ediud and AnnOtated by Frank R.Zindte.T
and talent, as seen in this study of
Old Testament passages claimed as prophecies of Jesus by the New
Testament authors.
Part three

xiv + 96 pages. Paperback

by John G. Jackson, with foreword

by Frank R. Zindler
A historical survey of the components of
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before that religion was invented. An excellent starter book on the historicity of Jesus
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an ATHEIST
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The year is 1968. The city is Austin, Texas.

The building is the studios of KTBC radio. On
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~-,. 'O~".
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Madalyn Murray O'Hair continues
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Includes: The Bible
Comically Illustrated (2 vols.), The Bible, by John
Remsburg, The Jefferson Bible, Bible Myths and their
Parallels in Other Religions, by T.W. Doane, and
much more!
Stock #4504

$30.00

To order, please include check (payable to American

Atheists) or credit card payment for the price of the
books plus shipping and handling ($2.50 for the first
title plus $1.00 for each additional title.
Send order to:
American Atheist Press
P.O. Box 5733
Parsippany, NJ 07054-6733
Credit card orders may be faxed to:
(908) 276-7402

The Altar Boy Chronicles

by Tony Pasquarello
The hilarious romp of a logical mind trying to grow up Catholic in Philadelphia's
Little Italy during World War II.
214 pp. Paperback

Stock #5583

S
I
TH6REAT

NFIDEl:

$16.00

The Great Infidels

By Robert G. Ingersoll
foreword by Jon G. Murray
Newly reprinted and reformatted,
Ingersoll's sketches of the lives of
great Freethinkers is one of his most
inspiring works. Includes his amusing
discussion of the fallacy of informal
logic known as the "appeal to the
cemetery."

76 pages, paperback
Stock #5197

ISBN 0-910309-08-6
$7.00

The Jesus Puzzle

WHYIAM NOT
A MUSLIM

Did Christianity Begin With a

Mythical Christ?
by Earl Doherty

By Ibn Warraq

Challenging the existence

of an historical Jesus

A courageous crticicism of the

dark side of Islam

"This is the most compelling argument

ever published in support of the theory
that Jesus never existed as an historical
person. This is a superb book - one that
every Atheist should read and master."
- Frank R. Zindler

Stock #5599

TIn-c

nrnLlC

$14.50 USA

$18.50 Canada

Prometheus Books. 402 pp. Hard cover. ISBN: 0-87975-984-4

THE BIBLE
HANDBOOK

'

rUI T~Dnoor~

"The present work attempts to

sow a drop of doubt in an ocean
of dogmatic certainty by taking
an uncompromising
and critical
look at almost all the fundamental tenets of Islam."

Stock #7011

$25.00

Revised Edition

HOLYBIBL

An Atheist

By W. P. Ball, G. W. Foote, John

Bowden, Richard M. Smith, & others.
Introduction by Jon G. Murray
Foreword by Madalyn O'Hair

'It
~'

Madalyn Murray O'Hair

The complete story of how Bible
and forced prayers were removed
from the public schools of the United
States.

The ultimate defense against

the missionaries on our
doorstep!

/
/

xv + 372 pages. Paperback

Stock # 5008

ISBN 0-910309-264
$17.00

The Jesus the

Jews Never Knew
Sepher Toldoth Yeshu and the Quest
of the Historical Jesus in Jewish
Sources

l"!

The founder of American Atheists tells

the story of what she and her two
sons endured at the hands of the good
Christian citizens of Baltimore when she
liberated for a while the public schools
of America from the grip of the Cold-War theofascists who gave us
"In God We Trust" and "One Nation Under God." Every Atheist and
civil libertarian - unless they suffer from hypertension - should read
this book, now reprinted for the first time since 1989.

Paperback
Stock # 5376

By Frank R. Zindler
If Jesus of Nazareth was real, why
didn't the ancient Jews know of him?
Search of all ancient Jewish literature yields no evidence of any
historical Jesus.

$20.00

Stock # 7026

This is a parody of moronic books about "The

Rapture," and if you don't like it you can ...

Kiss My Left Behind

Earl Lee
A parody of the popular genre of "End
Times" novels written by many Christian
authors, including Tim LaHaye, the characters struggle with their own problems and
don't have much time to fight the Antichrist
(Nickelay Dubyah, ruler of the former
Soviet Republic of Texrectumstan).

Aventine Press (2003) 229 pages, paperback.

Stock 5903

ISBN 1-59330-106-5
$15.00

ISBN 0-910309-89-2

$18.00

NATURAL
ATHEISM
By David Eller

ISBN 1-57884-916-0

544 pages. Paperback

Epic

Everything is here to help those

who already are Atheists better
understand the logic of their lives
and see Atheism's social and political implications. Those who are not
yet Atheists will be helped by this
scientist's common-sense analysis of the so-called 'proofs
of God' to see the irrationality - indeed, the meaninglessness - of god-beliefs. What is belief? What is knowledge?
As Pilate is alleged to have asked, "What is truth?"
Understandable and clear answers to these questions are
in this book.
354 pages. Paperback.
Stock #5902

ISBN 1-57884-920-9
$18.00