Atheism in Old Boston Atheist Classics Abner Kneeland

D. M. Bennett G. W.Foote

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American
A Journal

of Atheist

Spring 2002

Atheist

News and Thought

EDITOR'S DESK
Madalyn Murray O'Hair
April 13,1919September, 1995
Frank R. Zindler

AMERICAN ATHEIS

Athe'sm

The Gatekeeper's Computer

Bertrand Forthright
Somebody needs to send Bill
Gates to heaven. Read why.

Correction

14

My Resurrection
George W.Foote
An Atheist classic comes back
to life just in time for Easter.

15

In Old n""tcn
Alh"iot Ga ;"" Abner K...".I"ntl
O. M. S"nnctl
G. \It, F

Cover Art: Six More Weeks

Of Lent, by Ann Zindler.
Inspired by a cartoon by John
Galt (p. 48), the amalgamation
of the Garden Tomb in
Jerusalem, Punxutawney Phil,
and Gabriel (or is it the Tooth
Fairy?) produces an amusing
cocktail blended from several
popular superstitions.

D. M. Bennett: An Unlikely
Free-Speech Hero
20
Roderick Bradford
The founder of The Truth Seeker
comes back to life to be crucified once
again by Anthony Comstock.

The Spirit of Truth

35
Thomas Hurttell
In the 1840s Boston had an 'Infidel'
newspaper, the Boston Investigator,
founded by Abner Kneeland. A fragment from that paper once again
sees the light of day.
Saffronizing India
40
Margaret Bhatty
Our Indian correspondent tells
how India is returning to its 'OldTime Religion'.
Talking Back

Me Too!
On Cloning, Medicine,
Abner Kneeland
27
& Religion
Madalyn Murray O'Hair
Dillard Henderson
As American Atheists holds its 28th
National Convention in Boston, it is well
Easter Quiz
to remember a Free-Thought martyr
Larry Mundinger
who came to grief in that city.
Abner Kneeland & God:
The Roots of a Blaspheme-In
34
In 1985 American Atheists protested
against the Massachusetts blasphemy
law - still on the books - which brought
down an Atheist pioneer in the 19th
century.

43
45

47

Reviews
For the Atheist's Tool Kit
49
Frank Zindler
A review of Earl Doherty's latest
book, Challenging the Verdict.

Volume 40, No.2

Parsippany, New Jersey

Spring 2002

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Editor's Desk

Madalyn Murray O'Hair

April 13, 1919-September,

we approach the eighty-third

anniversary
of the birth of
Madalyn Murray O'Hair, I am
moved to try to total up - for myself at
least - the historical, intellectual, legal,
and human significance of the woman
who, for more than a decade, was virtually a mother to both me and my wife
Ann. It is a daunting task, and I fear I
shall not be satisfied with what I produce
in this first attempt. I expect I shall have
to rework this assessment periodically
for the rest of my life. I confess I am still
too close to be able to attempt an objective assessment of Madalyn the person,
Madalyn the friend. That will have be
deferred to a later time.

debate platform or in the midst of a radio

or television show, she was dazzling.
Although she retained this ability to the
end of her tragic life, during her later
years her cognitive functions were some
times impaired by the brittle form of diabetes that bedeviled the final years of
her career. With blood sugar too high or
too low - I never could decide on which
side the problem lay - problems presented too suddenly could elicit fiery emotional outbursts in which the coolratioci-

Madalyn the Intellectual

During nearly twenty years as a science professor and about as many years
in the field of scientific publishing, I have
had the pleasure of knowing many highly
intelligent women. I even had the good
fortune to marry one of them. So unusual is the environment I have been able to
inhabit, I hardly know of a woman of
merely average intelligence. During the
last forty years I have known a lot ofbrilliant women.
And then, of course, there was
Madalyn - the smartest woman I've ever
known. Her intelligence was analytical,
dissective, and probing, and was often
applied like an x-ray. Most problems,
both in daily life and in law, are presented to us as complex composites which are
composed of a skeleton of facts and hard
data surrounded by a foggy envelope of
misperceptions, preconceptions, presuppositions, irrelevancies, and emotional
color.In its prime, Madalyn's mind could
pierce the fog cover with lightning speed
to reveal the hard core of the problem
facing her. When she did this on the

Frank R. Zindler
Parsippany, New Jersey

nation for which she was famous could

scarcely be found. On a number of occasions she would punch out letters on her
typewriter that utterly devastated their
recipients. At least some of these letters
I am certain she later regretted. But she
could never publicly go back on a decision once made. For someone who, for so
many years, had been able to wield the
scalpel of reason with the self-assurance
and finesse of a neurosurgeon, it must
have been difficult or impossible to admit
even to herself that anything could affect
her ability to reason
objectively.
Fortunately, such lapses were of rare
occurrence. They serve to remind us that
for all her brilliance, Madalyn was subject to the same physicochemical forces
that shape and limit all humanity.
Madalyn was the quintessential
intellectual - that is, a person who takes
Spring 2002

1995

pleasure in exercising the intellect. Like

Aristotle, she took all knowledge as her
province. Coming as late in history as
she did, however, she had a lot more
provinces to master than did Aristotle and all of Aristotle's provinces had
become much bigger. Nevertheless,
Madalyn was a lifelong student who
went after every subject as though it
were a rare or exotic butterfly to be
added to her collection. She read all the
classics. She read all the 'Great Books'.
She read all the philosophers and theologians. She read all the histories. She
studied the sciences. She assembled the
greatest library on Atheism that ever
existed. When she began work on her
never-finished book Jesus Christ Superfraud, she realized that Christ and
Krishna had a lot in common. She needed to know Sanskrit. Not succeeding in
her attempt to obtain a correspondence
course in Sanskrit from the Near
Eastern
Studies
Division of the
University of Chicago, she dived into a
copy of Perry's A Sanskrit Primer that I
sent her. I don't know how far she got in
her study of Sanskrit before the press of
other obligations turned her to other
pursuits.
Music too, was a province Madalyn
sought to subdue. Completely conversant
on all the great classical composers, she
studied their lives as well as their music,
concluding that many of the greatest had
been Atheists - or at least, not Christians. Beethoven, I think, was her
favorite. She clearly could relate to the
story told of Beethoven's death. Beethoven, it is said, was lying comatose
upon his deathbed, unable to speak or
respond to speech. A terrible lightning
storm developed. A sudden barrage of
thunder shook the death chamber, causing Beethoven suddenly to sit up, shake
his fist at the sky with a look of wild
defiance upon his face, and then fall back
dead. Beethoven's remark, "I have seized
Fate by the throat and grapple with
Page 3

him," probably was ever in her consciousness.

But music was not just listening for
Madalyn - at least not in the days before
she was forced to flee from Baltimore.
She could play the piano too. I don't
know how good her playing ever became,
but I know she didn't end her piano studies with Chopsticks. The first time I ever
visited her at home, I noticed a modest
spinet piano in what my grandmother
would have called a sitting-room. I asked
if! might try 'out the instrument and she
told me to go ahead, there were music
books in the piano bench if I needed
them. Opening the bench, I seized upon
Schirmer's edition of the Chopin Etudes.
Turning to my favorite, the so-called
"Revolutionary Etude," I was startled to
see that the pages were dog-eared, thoroughly worn, and had been carefully
annotated in pencil for fingerings. "Who's
been playing the Revolutionary Etude?" I
asked. "Me," she replied, "before the
Baltimore cops broke my wrists when
they attacked us in our home." I was too
stunned by this information to attempt
the piece myself, settling instead upon
the "Moonlight Sonata." How appropriate, I thought later, for Madalyn to have
devoted so much effort on a revolutionary
etude. Symbolism was as important in
Madalyn's life as was breakfast.
Although Madalyn was well-read in
all the philosophers and her Atheism
was firmly grounded in solid philosophical principles, she was not a philosopher
herself - at least not a technical or theoretical philosopher such as Bertrand
Russell or A. J. Ayer. She discovered no
new disproofs of gods that I am aware of,
and wrote very little on epistemology
and the other topics that professional
philosophers like to gnaw upon. (One of
her treasured possessions, however, was
an admiring letter written to her by
Bertrand Russell, arguably the greatest
intellect of the twentieth century.)
Rather, she was an applied philosopher,
attempting to put into practice the eclectic philosophy of materialism or realism
that she had put together in the course of
her voracious reading. She wanted to
make the world reasonable, and tried
until the end to do so. Everything in the
world sorted out so clearly in her mind.
Why couldn't the rest of the world see
things the way they really were? Once
people could be made to see how evil religion is - how they are being conned and
duped by preachers, priests, and gurus surely they must rise up, overthrow their
deceivers, and join her cause.
Page 4

To do that, she had to get the attention of the world. That was not easy,
given the vast amounts of money being
spent to keep people inattentive to voices
of reason. To get the attention of the
world, she often had to apply the principle behind the joke about the Quaker
farmer and the mule. Like the Quaker
who had to hit his mule over the head
with a two-by-four "to get his attention,"
Madalyn often had to be flamboyant and
even somewhat outre. Professional
philosophers never get on television, she
knew. If she was going to get on radio
and television, she would have to be theatrical and more than a bit outrageous.
She launched Phil Donahue's career in
television at the same time she launched
her own.
Madalyn had no respect for anybody's religion, nor did she ever even try
to hide the fact. Religion, according to
her aphorism, had caused more harm
than any other single idea in the history
of humankind. It would be immoral, in
fact, then to pretend that evil so great
might become just another personal preference in a society that wanted to remain
both civilized and free. Religion was the
enemy of freedom, the corrupter of natural human ethics, and the greatest threat
to survival ofHomo sapiens. Religion and
religious modes of thought had to go.
Clearly, that could not be achieved by
force. Only education assisted by completely free speech could attempt it.
Madalyn the educator, the free-speaker
accepted the challenge with relish.
Free speech: that was needed to educate the public about religions and the
illogic of superstition. Madalyn knew
that words can have magical significance
in religion - for example, preachers end
prayers with "In Jesus' Name We Pray"
in order to use the heap-big-medicine of
a 'name of power' to make the prayers
magically come true. She knew that the
commandment "Thou shalt not take the
name of the Lord thy God in vain" was
simply a prohibition against using a
magical word for unauthorized purposes.
She knew that this was the foundation
upon which the concept of blasphemy
was based - as were the anti-blasphemy
laws which seek to nullify the First
Amendment's guarantee of freedom of
speech. Madalyn argued that in the
world of physics and physiology there
were no magical words and 'blasphemy'
was a subjectless crime. Words are
words, nothing more. People who reacted
to certain words as though they were
magical had to be educated. Specifically,
Spring 2002

they had to be desensitized to the religious 'words of power'. "My gawwd!" she
would exclaim, relishing the reactions of
"Christers" as they recoiled from the
mockery of an Atheist demonstrating so
casually the utter triviality of their most
potent word.
Madalyn knew also that the taboo
four-letter words proscribed in ordinary
American speech are anthropologically
no different than the religious words of
power that must not be "taken in vain."
She would point out that Yahweh (the
secret name of the deity which must
never be pronounced, on pain of death) is
a four-letter word in Hebrew. She realized that speech taboos were nothing less
than the intrusion of religious (i.e., illogical) modes of thought into daily life.
Four-letter words were, when you got
down to it, religious. People had to be
desensitized to them also. She delighted
in challenging people to explain the
objective difference between the words
ruck and copulate, and she would point
out that ficken, the German cognate, was
fairly acceptable for use in ordinary
German discourse. Why should it be
wrong to use the word in English but not
in German? Superstition, nothing more.
Unfortunately, Madalyn did not succeed in this educational program. The
scientific and logical bases for her use of
taboo words were ignored. Instead, she is
remembered
as "that foul-mouthed
Atheist." Her desensitization education
program (which she logically extended
into an argument against the concept of
'pornography') was perhaps her greatest
failure in life. But perhaps not entirely.
She did expend great effort to desensitize the nation to the 'A-word'. She used
the words Atheist and Atheism - capitalized, no less - over and over in every possible venue. Before Madalyn, most
Atheists were afraid to use the word
Atheist other than in whispers. Things
are much different now, thanks to
Madalyn, although I can't say the desensitization of society as a whole is yet
complete. Nevertheless, Madalyn made it
much safer - and much more natural- to
call oneself an Atheist.
The Legal Legacy
It has been argued that Madalyn's
great lawsuit, Murray v Curlett (1963)
was of little importance, because school
compulsory religious activities had
already been ruled unconstitutional to
some degree and, besides, others would
have finished off the issue if she hadn't.
American Atheist

Moreover, it is argued, Schempp (whose

name in fact displaced Murray's in the
Supreme Court's amalgamation of two
cases, that of Schempp being filed and
argued later than that of Murray) did
sue to the Supreme Court of the United
States to stop forced religion in the public schools.
While it is true that Murray v
Curlett built upon previous decisions - as
do virtually all cases that come before
the Supreme Court - such arguments
overlook the fact that the issue of forced
prayer and bible reading could not have
been resolved in any significant degree
by virtue of the fact that the Supreme
Court deigned to hear both Murray v.
Curlett and Abington
Township
v.
Schempp. Certainly the court did not
suppose there no longer was an issue!
Indeed, even Murray v Curlett did not
settle the issue for time and eternity. It is
an issue that has been adjudicated again
and again since 1963, and will continue
to be tried until religion finally triumphs
over the Constitution. It is a hydra that
regenerates afresh after every decapitation.
Finally, it must be noted that
Schempp contested only Bible readings
(although prayer was involved there
also), whereas Murray contested both
Bible reading and forced prayer. Indeed,
Murray, not Schempp, is the 'schoolprayer case.' Not only did Murray contest
school prayer, it did so on behalf of
Atheists. Unfortunately, this very fact of
which Atheists are justly proud resulted
in the court spitefully relegating Murray
to a subsidiary role in its published decision, which hardly mentions the Murray
case. Although the full title of the decision is School District of Abington
Township, Pennsylvania, et al., Appellants, v. Edward Lewis Schempp et al.,
William J. Murray III, etc., et al.,
Petitioners, v. John N. Curlett, President,
et al., Individually, and Constituting the
Board of School Commissioners
of
Baltimore City, the case is always
indexed and referred to as Abington
Township v. Schempp - period. Despite
the fact that Murray had docket No. 119
and Schempp was No. 142 (Murray clearly
having priority), and despite the fact
that Murray was broader in its petition,
the Supreme Court of the United States
could not dignify Atheists by granting
them the title of a decision.
Madalyn never forgave the slight.
Despite the judicial smothering of her
case, Madalyn was quick to claim the victory - and all the world responded by
Parsippany, New Jersey

blaming her for the greatest setback to

religion in the twentieth century. The
world ignored Schempp - even though
that was now the official name on the
case - and focused all its wrath on
Madalyn. I cannot even summarize the
history of the persecution that Madalyn
and her family endured in Maryland
after the 17 June 1963 decision, as I wish
to focus upon her legal legacy, not her
career. And exactly what is her legal
legacy?
It is impossible for me to avoid
hyperbole and melodrama in answering
this question, since virtually every First
Amendment religious case before the
Supreme Court since 1963 has either
been enabled by Murray v. Curlett or has
been necessitated by attempts of religionists to nullify it. Since 1963 there
has been a religious monomania in this
country to revoke Murray v. Curlett. This
has extended to numerous proposed
Constitutional Amendments designed to
abolish the freedom from religion that
Madalyn was granted and to repeal the
part of the First Amendment from which
that freedom was won. All the attempts
to sneak creationism into the public
schools, all the prayers at football games,
all the attempts to get vouchers for
parochial schools - all these efforts and
more have, without exception, had
Madalyn's case down deep below the surface as the irritant motivating them. Of
course, this motivation is not always hidden. In fact, literally millions (probably
billions, if one counts all the sermons
preached since 1963) of words have been
written and spoken by religionists about
the case that "kicked God out of the public schools" and about the Atheist who
challenged the hegemony of the clergy in
American secular society. Madalyn was
the catalyst of the culture war now being
waged in America - a war that will
either lead to a scientific and secular
society equipped to prevent impending
ecological collapse due to overpopulation,
or to a theocracy in which the Bill of
Rights will be forgotten and poverty,
starvation, and superstition will rule
amongst a starving remnant population
of Homo nonsapiens.
Was it good that Madalyn's flamboyance stirred up Homo ignoramus and set
loose the hounds of sectarian strife that
continue to howl about me even as I
write? What if she had not focused the
attention of the nation on the issue of
separation of state and church? Would
we have been better off? Couldn't we
have avoided the culture war now raging
Spring 2002

about us, threatening to wreck our secular society altogether? This argument is
being raised even by Atheists with
increasing frequency of late, but I must
forcefully disagree.
"Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty," goes the shibboleth, and it is well to
reflect on why this truism is true. The
enemies of liberty - the churches and the
politicians who are their pets - are untiring and unrelenting. Like. the starfish
attacking a clam, they capitalize on
every concession - moving forward
always to stronger positions. They never
go backwards unless forced to do so. Had
Madalyn not filed her case and publicized it so skillfully, the religionists
would have succeeded in overturning or
rolling over Schempp within a few years
of the decision. Madalyn kept sounding
the alarm, and there were always some
troops aroused enough to file into the
breach, staying the advance of the
theocrats. If Madalyn had not touched off
the culture war, the triumph of religion
would have been won by stealth, and it
would have been won long ago.
Formation of The United Theocratic
States of America would have been relatively complete by now,rather than being
still in the embryonic condition we see in
the Bush experiments in religious imposition.
I warned above that I cannot avoid
hyperbole, and so I can now conclude this
assessment of Madalyn O'Hair by saying
without apology that I think she was the
most important legal figure of the twentieth century - in terms both of the practical impact she had and in terms of the
theoretical implications of her cases. Her
fight was not just about school prayer
and bible reading in schools. It was not
just about the separation of state and
church. Her fight was fundamentally a
fight for liberty, and it was a fight for the
most fundamental ofliberties: the liberty
of the mind.
All her life, Madalyn sought truth,
both in the microcosm and in the macrocosm. The pursuit of truth, however,
depends upon freedom - freedom of
inquiry. Minds that are shackled by
superstition and forced to "reason in
chains" cannot seek truth. Minds that
are free but barred by religious or other
authorities from carrying out investigations cannot seek the truth either.
Madalyn fought against all forces impeding pursuers of truth. She did not win
that war, but she bravely gave her every
erg of effort to the fight. For that I honor
her. For that I remember her.
Page 5

tKe GClte~e~er'5
CottH?ttter
6y Bertrclttcfforthdg6t
Formerly a college librarian, Bertrand Forthright is an amateur
humorist and writer who resides in Windsor, Canada.

his may surprise some of you people and maybe you won't believe this
but I once died. Yes, I swear to God .... oh sorry, that's a habit. I swear
or I declare that I am speaking the truth. I went to those Pearly
Gates and found out they aren't really pearly. They are rusty like most old
gates and have a few barnacles attached. I showed the gatekeeper my J.D.
card because I saw a few people drinking beer inside - only Molson, so I
guess heaven must be north of Canada.
"Sorry, I can't let you in now, Bertrand Forthright," the gatekeeper said
after examining my J.D.
Since I have such a common name, I thought he must be mixing me up
with someone else, so I said, "I'm not my cousin Bertrand the butcher who
leans on the scale. I'm the other Bertrand who has been a very honest
garbage collector all my life. I have been outspoken but never said anything to do injury to a soul - I mean person."
''Yes, I remember reading something about you. Don't remember exactly, but it was something kind of smelly. Did you ever steal anything or commit a crime while collecting garbage?"
There was something I once did that has always bothered me. I figured
they'd eventually banish me if they thought I lied about it.
"Well, uh, Mr. uh ... are you Saint Peter?"
"No, no! That St. Peter stuff is bull crap "Then he whispered, "We're not
allowed to say SRIT in heaven .... They call me G. S. T."

Page 6

Spring 2002

American Atheist

"Mr.G. S. T.- your name's kind of

funny because that stands for 'Goods
and Service Tax' in Canada."
"Actually it's an acronym for my
name, which is Good Samaritan
Tukhas licker. In case you don't
know, that means ass-kisser in
Yiddish. That's how I got this job.
Those New Yorkers have influence
even up here.
''You mean you got close enough
to God to kiss his ass ... uh, I mean
behind?"
"No, no. You can't kiss God's ass.
People go straight to hell for trying
to do that. I kissed the previous
gatekeeper's ass when he got promoted, but I'm sorry I did."
"Seems like a goodjob. You get to
meet a lot of famous people."
"It's a terrible job. I get no rest.
There are people dying all the time,
and when they dropped the atom
bomb, that about drove me nuts.
That proved that those Japanese
weren't all going to hell. So, tell me,
did you ever commit a crime while
collecting garbage?"
"I have to confess something. I
know the commandments say thou
shall not kill, but I killed a rat in the
garbage once. Do you think I can be
forgiven for that? You know rats are
considered kind of an enemy of the
people."
He looked up at the white, pink
and purple clouds and snapped his
fingers.
Suddenly hundreds of bound red
volumes appeared before him.. He
started to leaf through what I guess
was Volume R and probably stopped
at rats.
"Rabbits ...radicals ...rapists ... oh
yes, rats. Rats are okay to kill
because God did not create rats.
They are a creation and ally of the
devil, so it's okay to kill them, but I
still can't let you in now. Your final
departure from Earth isn't in our
print-out yet, and I can't log into
God's computer right now because
it's overloaded. It's been that way for
years because of the tremendous
increase of earth's population. That's
why God can't answer everyone's
prayers and perform miracles until
Parsippany, New Jersey

he gets a bigger, better computer. So

I can't let you in because my computer is down."
I didn't want to go to hell, so I
thought if I suggest he just take my
fingerprints that might solve the
identity problem.
"No, I can't do that. Heaven is
not a place for people who have been
finger-printed. I just can't enter you
while my computer is down. I have
to send you back. Maybe you can
think of a better way to kill yourself
next time."
He snapped his fingers after
which I found myself at the spot
where I was hit by a drunk driving
ninety miles an hour. It was a dark
night, but a light seemed to be shining from me. It was the car's headlight stuck in my abdomen. I pulled
it out and threw it in the first dumpster I saw, so I felt like I was back to
work again.
What that gatekeeper, G. S. T.,
didn't know was that I swiped
Volume B of his history of the world.
I figured it must say something
about the BEGINNING or creation,
currently a very debatable question.
It's so controversial that there have
been at least thirteen letters to the
editor this week in our local newspaper. The argument is whether it
should be permissible to discuss
"creation" or "evolution" in our classrooms. The funny thing is that you
can't discuss either without the
other as they are both about the
same thing ... the beginning of life.
The Inclination to accept a theory as
true depends on whether a person
was born in the mountains of Tibet,
the North American Plains, an
African jungle, or a Mideast desert.
Whether they have been viewing the
world from a mountain top or an
oasis, what to believe is deeply
ingrained in them by their parents.
who got the idea from their parents
and this goes on for generations
after generations. It is evident that
cultures have been divided by mountains, rivers, and deserts, and controversy evolved when man learned
to cross these topographical barriers
and cultures intermingled. That has
Spring 2002

become an even bigger question now

that the Dalai Lama is traveling all
over the world, Mohammed Ali has
become famous, and the Pope flies on
jets and speaks in every language.
Ali doesn't speak as many languages, but he has a big punch.
This controversy provoked me to
rush home to study Volume B which caused me to get hit by a
speeding car again. Because G. S. T.'s
computer was still down, I was sent
back once more. This time I had a
hubcap in my skull instead of a
headlight in my belly. I threw the
hubcap in the next dumpster and
decided never to jay walk again. I
knew that three strikes means
you're out, so if G.S.T.'s computer
was still down, I would never get to
heaven and end up where nobody
wants to go.
I've been diligently studying
Volume B so I know much more
about, creation.
I always wondered if God really
made Eve out of Adam's rib. The
exalted Bible says He made man
from the earth, which makes sense
because He could find all the elements in the earth needed to make a
man. Why then did He not make Eve
from the earth instead of from
Adam's rib - which is primarily calcium and quite small? He could
hardly get a good female breast from
such a small item. It would have
been easier to make Eve from the
earth than it was to make Adam
because He would not have had to
add a penis which most men consider God's greatest gift and work of
art. Obviously, He made Eve first
because it would have taken much
more thought and time than six days
to add that intricate organ. After
resting on the seventh day, God had
the energy and experience to complete a sculpture of His image,
Adam, head to toe plus the penis. It
was this third leg that gave Eve the
ecstasy to motivate her to participate in copulation and procreate. It
is logical to conclude that God had
no reason to make Adam suffer the
surgical pain of having a rib
removed.Also realize that anesthetics
Page 7

were not yet available - not even

band-aids. If He did remove Adam's
rib, wouldn't man have a hollow spot
there? If God cracked Adam's rib to
make Eve, would not man have a
constant pain in the chest? Is it not
true that women are more a pain in
the ass than in the chest? This
should be sufficient argument that it
took more than a rib - the good
earth - to create a voluptuous Eve.
One might argue that it would have
taken longer to sculpture a woman
because they have breasts. Not so!
Women have always been much
smaller than men, so there have
always been much less to them. You
may have also noticed that the early
relatives of Homo sapiens such as
monkeys have very little breasts.
Women's breasts have become bigger
only because of mating selection. I
do not want to use the word evolution because it offends those who
consider "Creation" an absolute
truth. To select a mate should not
offend anyone except perhaps a
priest. Men have preferred bigger
breasts, babies preferred bigger
breasts, and even women will get
implants if what they have does not
satisfy them. In the prehistoric
period, small-breasted women were
sometimes killed by thrown rocks
because they were mistaken for an
enemy male warrior. For protection
against mistaken identity, tinybreasted women wore grapefruits
under their fig leaves. Breasts not
only made a woman more fashionable but safer.
Hmmm... In this Volume B I
swiped from heaven there is something about being Black. Black was
beautiful even before Martin Luther
King said it, because Adam and Eve
were definite black if not brown. If
they were made from the earth,
would they not have been a muddy
brown? Unless they were made from
snowflakes, they could not possibly
have been white. Maybe the Adam
and Eve story is just a snow job. If
all humans are descended from that
couple in the Garden of Eden, would
we not all be black? It is an established scientific fact that pigmentaPage 8

tion, is inherited
and not an
acquired characteristic. Therefore, if
Adam and Eve were not Black, there
could not be any black (really brown)
people on this Earth unless Eve
committed adultery with some
strange species like that snake that
was hanging around their apple
tree. Since Moses had not yet delivered the Ten Commandments to the
Hebrews, adultery would not yet
have been prohibitive for Eve.
However, it would not be fair to
accuse Eve of being unfaithful.
There is no evidence that she ever
had a lover other than Adam. That
does not erase the fact that two
white folks whether in London,
Ohio, or London, England, cannot
produce a brown child. However, it is
possible for Black people to give
birth to children with less pigmentation or even have albino children.
That would explain how white people eventually evolved. This proves
that the first persons on earth,
Adam or Eve, had to be black or
brown.
How could Jesus have learned
religion from his parents if he never
met his father, and his mother apparently did not know the facts of life?
His stepfather, Joseph, was already
so old that he had forgotten what his
parents taught him. What then
could Jesus have believed if he had
not parents to guide him? Maybe he
didn't even believe in himself or ever
obtained manhood. There is no evidence that he ever had a bar mitzvah. All we know is that his Daddy
taught him carpentry. This apprenticeship left him no time to go to a
yeshiva and study for a bar mitzvah.
Even if he did, it would have made
no difference to Romans because
they thought a bar mitzvah was a
place to get drinks. Those Romans
crucified a person who had not yet
reached manhood according to
Jewish law. In Canada, that would
be against the Young Offenders Act.
Worse yet, those Romans probably
used Jesus's own apprentices to do a
good job of nailing him to the cross.
People thought he walked on water?
Actually, those planks nailed to his
Spring 2002

feet helped keep him afloat and

become the world's first water
surfer. Nobody ever thought of that
then because there weren't any good
forensic scientists around in those
days.
In this Volume B I have from
heaven, I found an article on the
word bastard which helped me
understand better how the world
became populated. Some people
think Jesus was the world's most
famous bastard. However, whether
or not that term is applicable to him,
there were thousands of bastards
thousands of years before him.
Every man was a bastard before the
marriage custom was established.
Marriage was started as a convenience. A hungry woman might ask a
hunter for the thigh of the pheasant
he caught, and he might ask what
she would give him for it. She might
offer him her hymen which he found
to be a satisfactory exchange. However, it is not correct to call prostitution the first profession. It is unfair
to call a hungry woman a whore.
They were merely bargain hunters.
It was a thigh for a pie or whatever.
Soon women found preferences
concerning with whom they would
bargain. A woman who liked pheasant wings bargained with men who
hunted pheasants. The woman who
liked frog legs sought good swimmers, and the women who liked lobster preferred the seafaring type.
That is how the practice of monogamy started. That's what any good
anthropologist would conclude, and
the Volume B I swiped from heaven
proves it. It was strictly a matter of
taste. It was easier then because
everything was kosher, but it still is
a matter of taste. Guys who like
matzo ball soup marry Jewish girls
who know how to make it. Guys who
like goulash marry Hungarian. Guys
who like fruits marry another guy.
You can see that there have been
changes by evolution as well as revolution.
I thought about showing Volume
B to a rabbi or priest, but they might
think I was crazy. Also If I exposed it
too much, G.S.T. might try to
American Atheist

retrieve it somehow. He might even

kill me and send me to hell. Maybe I
should take it to a Unitarian church.
Those people are more liberal about
religion and will believe almost anything. But I found out they don't
believe anything. I went to churches
of every denomination and saw hundreds of people praying. so I asked
myself why isn't God listening to
them. Considering all the atrocities
and evil deeds being committed, it is
reasonable to think that some of
their messages are not getting
through. Then I suddenly recalled
that G. S. T. told me that God's computer was overloaded. It was easy for
God to listen when there was only
Adam and Eve. When the world's
population was small, God was all
ears and performed many miracles
for them. Now that the population is
so immense, he can't keep track of
them all. His computer is definitely
overloaded. My thinking is that this
problem cannot be solved until an
expert on computers like Bill Gates
gets to heaven. How can I legally get
Bill Gates to heaven without killing
him? I know the Torah says "Thou
shalt not kill," but would not creating a passage to God in cyberspace
be considered a good deed?
In Hebrew, that is called a mitzvah. If killing a rat is a mitzvah,
sending Bill Gates to heaven to fix
God's computer would also be mitzvah. If God could hear all the messages being sent to him, miracles
would be performed. The homeless
would find themselves living in
mansions with wine in their cellars.
Volcanoes would cease to erupt, and
rivers would never overflow. Maybe
Bill Clinton is the messiah in disguise. Or maybe it's Jerry Seinfeld.
More likely Seinfeld, because he's a
Jew. According to the Talmud, the
messiah would have to be a Jew like
Jesus.
Now the problem is how can I get
Bill Gates to heaven? He may not be
a candidate for Heaven because he is
a capitalist. Capitalists get rich by
exploiting the masses. Is exploiting
the masses not a sin? I'm kind of
naive about politics, but maybe it
Parsippany, New Jersey

depends on whether God is a

Republican or a Democrat. If He is a
socialist, then Gates is definitely out
because a socialist surely won't let
capitalists join His society. Maybe,
the thing I need to do is find Gate's
tax return to see how much if anything he contributed to charity. Even
if Gates wasn't a philanthropist,
G. S. T. might let him in just to get
his computer updated. Also, maybe
you don't need to be perfect to get
into heaven. G. S. T. did admit he's a
tukhas licker, though he works at
the edge which is not exactly inside
- more like purgatory ...
This has been a tiring day for
me. I don't even know how many
hours have passed since I first got
hit by that drunken driver. I'm not
sure if it's been hours or days, but
my eyes were very tired. I'm going to
shut them and see if I can dream up
a scheme to get Bill Gates or a computer expert to heaven.

When I awoke, I was in a strange

bed and a strange room with a cross
on the wall. A nurse stood at the
head of the bed, a priest was on one
side and a rabbi on the other. I knew
he was a rabbi because his fly was
open.
"Shalom," the rabbi said. "I'm
Rabbi O'Brien."
"Benedictum sticktum," or something like that, the priest said.
"Where am I?" I asked.
''You're in St. Joseph's Hospital,"
the nurse replied. "We didn't find
anything that disclosed your religion, so both of our chaplains have
stopped to give you solace. Do you
have a religious preference?"
Religious preference! Oh my, I
wondered now if those Baptists who
said you had to believe in Christ to
.get to heaven were right.
"Right now I'd like to see G.S.T.if
that's possible," I mumbled.
"That stands for 'Goods and
Service Tax' in Canada, so maybe
he's Canadian," the nurse concluded.
"We don't need to worry about your
Medical plan right now, if you have
one."
Spring 2002

Then the rabbi lifted up the end

of my sheet and said, "It looks like
you're not Jewish, so I'll leave you
with Father Goldstein. Bless, you
young man," he said before departing.
"Well, right now I'd like to be
alone with G.8.T. and God if He is
available," I requested.
"He sounds delirious," the nurse
said. "I think we should try to find
his closest relative. Don't you think
so, Father Goldstein?"
"Yes, that sounds like the best
thing to do. Who is your closest kin
and what is your name son?"
"Bertrand Forthright, and Bertrand Forthright!"
"Hmmm. Yes of course. Hmmm.
Nurse, perhaps we should try to
locate someone named Forthright
who might be related to him ... Well,
son, you can find me in the chapel or
call for me if you want to go to confession or want to pray. Keep calm
and just rest right now. God bless."

I don't know how long I was

asleep or if I was asleep, but the next
time I opened my eyes, cousin
Bertrand was peering over me.
"Hello, Bert. Can you see me
okay?"
He always called me Bert, and I
always called him Bertrand. That's
how we knew if we were talking to
each other or ourselves. I answered
his question in the affirmative,
though things were a bit blurry.
"Well I can understand you can't
see too hot. That was a hell of an
accident you had. You sure took a
hard hit, Bert."
"Hell! Don't say Hell to me,
Bertrand. I wasn't in hell. I was in
heaven and I saw white clouds, pink
clouds, and purple clouds. I saw
clouds that looked like giant marshmallows, so don't say Hell to me. I
was in heaven."
"Be calm, Bert, you were in a
hell... I mean terrible accident. Do
you realize you've been in a coma for
three days? We thought you were
dead for awhile. Gee I'm glad you
Page 9

can see me and that you can talk. I

love you Bert. Maybe I never said it
but you're my favorite cousin even
though you're the only cousin I got."
He was my favorite cousin too for
the same reason, but I don't know if
I ever actually loved him before or
now, but he's my closest relative. or
friend at this moment. So maybe I
can share my experience with him.
"Bertrand, you were right. I died.
I really died and went to heaven.
The gatekeeper couldn't let me in
because his computer was down."
Bertrand went into almost hysterical laughter. I wanted to grab
him and put my hand over his
mouth, but I suddenly noticed that
both my hands were in a cast.
"It's true! It's true," I shouted.
"Hah, ah, hah! Boy,I got to hand
it to you. To still have such a great
sense of humor after what you've
been through is remarkable, Bert.
Yes,you deserve a lot of credit."
"I'm not joking, Bertrand, and I
can prove it. Do you see a book somewhere ... Volume B? It must be here
somewhere. Do you see it? It proves
I've been to heaven."
Bertrand
stopped
laughing.
Instead, he gave me the kind of
phony smile - the kind you give
people who you think are crazy.
"Bert ...uh, Bert. I think you need
rest now. I think maybe I should let
you rest awhile. I'll talk to the doctor
here and tell him what you said.
Maybe he'll see that you get the kind
of doctor you need. So see you later."
I closed my eyes again for a
minute ...not sure how long. A nurse
walked in and nudged me. She
placed a tray on my night stand and
asked if! could feed myself. I held up
my hands to show her my fingers
were still nimble.
"This is your lunch,
Mr.
Forthwrong. You've been on intravenous feeding, so maybe don't eat
too fast though you're probably very
hungry. Dr. Shrunk will be here soon
to talk to you about your hallucinations."
As I expected, Cousin Bertrand
probably told them I needed a psychiatrist. I could just about kill him
Page 10

for that, but maybe I shouldn't

blame him.
"By Shrunk, you mean a shrink,
don't you,?" I asked.
''Yes, he's a shrink and Shrunk.
He's a shrink who shrunk and
Shrunk who's a shrink. You'll know
when you see him. Try to eat a little
before he comes," she encouraged me
before leaving. "Looks good, doesn't
it?"
No, it did not look good. What I
saw was smelly carp, lima beans,
cabbage, and Brussels sprouts which
make me flatulent and feel like I'm
in hell. I began to wonder if that is
where I was or on the way. Where
else but purgatory would I find a
priest with a Jewish name, and a
rabbi with an Irish one? I became so
alarmed that I screamed extremely
loud enough to make that cross fall
of off the wall. At that moment, Dr.
Shrunk walked in and stood at the
head of my bed. Yes, he was a shrink
that shrunk. His eyes appeared just
above the bed head, but I could read
his lips when he stood on his tiptoes.
He approached me with the kind of
forced smile one uses in an effort to
gain a person's confidence.
"Mr. Firstwrite, I am glad to hear
that you're in good voice. It is wonderful progress that you are able to
talk now. Your brother, Bertrand,
seems to feel you need help."
"I'm a Forthright, and he's not
my brother. He's my cousin, and if
there's anyone crazy in our family,
it's him. You got to be crazy to be a
butcher. It takes a lot of insanity to
cut the throat of a poor little
chicken.
"I did not say you're crazy. We
don't use that word anymore. What
we talk about is reality - coming
down to earth."
"Well I came down to earth, but
you skeptics won't believe me."
"What to believe is always a
question, Bert. Do you believe yourself? How do you feel about yourself?"
"I feel like getting the hell out of
here. I want to talk to G.S.T.now."
"GST? What's that?" he asked
with a puzzled look on his face.
Spring 2002

"That's the acronym for 'Good

Samaritan Tukhas Licker'. He's the
gatekeeper."
(I realized if I said in heaven,
that would convince him that I'm
crazy and held send me right to the
loony bin.) "He's a gatekeeper who
needs a computer to help him work
his gate. Can you get me out of here
and get me a computer like a
Microsoft Window?"
"I have a Mackintosh, but I'd
expect a down payment or payment
in full."
Just like doctors, I thought always after your money. He did
agree to discharge me and accept my
Visa card if I agreed to make an
appointment to see him in his office
for further treatment. I agreed to
that but was really planning to find
Bill Gates first. I figured Gates has
enough money to build the biggest
space ship in the world, and with his
knowledge and artificial intelligence
he'd find a way to bring a computer
to heaven. I felt sure G.S.T. would
prefer a Window to a Mackintosh.
Then Gates could give God the kind
of computer needed to communicate
with the masses and answer their
prayers.
I already knew some things I'd
ask of God:
1. Bahais, Buddhists, believers
in Brahma and any religion beginning with B in addition to Baptists
be allowed to enter. heaven.
2. All holocaust
deniers be
forced to watch movies of the death
camps for twenty four hours a day.
3. Christians who join Jews for
Jesus synagogues be circumcised so
that all Jews look the same.
4. Moslems with sore backs
should be excused from bowing to
pray. I'm trying to think of something good for every religion, but I'll
let Gates look into that. I figure he
knows how to get into the Internet
for information better than I can.
Even before lying on his couch, I
knew what Dr. Shrunk was going to
tell me. He and Bertrand want to
convince me that I was in a coma
and my trip to heaven was just a
long dream. The 'way to prove them
American Atheist

wrong was to find the Volume B I

swiped from heaven and other evidence that I died twice - like that
hubcap. I searched everywhere but,
could not find Volume B. Perhaps
G.S.T. got a mortal like a computer
programmer on his way to heaven to
pick it up. I'm sure that by this time,
someone with that kind of expertise
must have died.
The alternative was to find that
headlight and hubcap in the city
dump. So I went to get my truck, but
I found out that :the sanitation
department had been on strike for
the entire past. week. I was glad
about that because it would have
been a hell of a job to search for
those items in that big pit. So I went
back to the dumpster where. I threw
that headlight
and thoroughly
searched a week of garbage without
success. I made the same attempt
where I threw the hubcap. I felt a
little guilty for having littered the

street with a week of garbage, but I

was too exhausted to do anything
about that.
As I deliberated while sitting on
a garbage bag, I recalled that
Bertrand told me he tried to find the
car of the hit and run driver because
we might get' money from an insurance company for that. If I died, he
could collect it. That car could have
evidence that I really died - like
parts of my body. For example, an
ear might be on the bumper or my
testicles on a door hinge. The way I
was hit, that, car could be in a junk
yard now just to protect that drunk
hit-and-run driver. In my dying
moments, I caught a glimpse of that
car which I shall never forget. It was
an orange Cadillac with a rack on
the top. I know it had a rack because
I bounced on it. How many orange
Cadillacs with a rack on the top can
there be? I quickly got on the phone,
to find out if any junk yard got a car

with that description on the day I

was killed.
A man at Morgan's Scrap Yard
on Highway 3 told me a car that fits
that description was driven there
that day by a man who was blind in
one eye and smelled from liquor. I
decided to look for it that night with
a flashlight. After walking through
piles of junk, I spotted this orange
Cadillac. It looked exactly the same
except the orange was peeling. What
I saw when I looked through the
windshield almost frightened me to
death. It looked like the devil was
sitting at the steering wheel. More
precisely, he looked like cousin
Bertrand with horns. I turned
around to try every trick I had read
about that might frighten the devil
away. First I crossed myself, then I
said a Sh'mai Yisrael, a prayer a
Jewish roommate of mine used on
the Sabbath and before final exams.
I felt like the devil was still breath-

PUSH

BUTTON
@

FOR SEA
TO PAP.1

Parsippany, New Jersey

Spring 2002

Page 11

ing down my back, so I knelt like a

good Moslem would. Suddenly, a
flashlight hit me in the eye, so I
thought, thank God, and angel has
come to rescue me. A second later I
was surrounded by police and
arrested for attempting to rob a junk
yard of automobile parts.
Thinking I would be charged
with a minor first offense if anything
at all and soon be released, I was not
worried enough to call a lawyer.
They couldn't even charge me with
theft, as I took nothing. I was merely
walking through an automobile
graveyard looking to see if there
were any flowers growing where my
last car was buried. They can't electrocute you for an offense like that,
but I wished I could get back to see
G.S.T.one way or another.
The next morning, a rotund man
in a grey suit with a flower in his
lapel was allowed to enter my cell.
"Hello, Mr. Forthlight.
I'm
Christian B. Frank. The court has
assigned me to represent you. Do
you own any stocks, or interest-earning investments?"
"The name is Forthright ...
Bertrand Forthright, and I wonder if
it would be simple and expedient to
plead guilty to avoid a lot of legal
fees for this minor first-time
offense?"
"Minor offense Mr. Forthsight,
you are being charged with muder!"
"Murder!!!"
"Yes, murder. Your cousin,
Bertrand Forthmight, or whatever,
was found stabbed at the steering
wheel of the car you were trying to
rob. There is evidence of that
because orange peelings were found
on your garment."
"I was only looking for evidence
that I was killed by that car, like,
maybe my kidney was caught on the
logo or my testicles on the antenna.
Why would I kill my cousin who
gave me meat at discount? It's true
that cutlery is a detestable trade.
They lean on the scale and cut the
throats of poor little bunnies, but I
wouldn't kill him for that. He was
pretty honest as butchers go. Why
would I kill my only cousin?
Page 12

"Investigators
have found a
motive. If he died, you would be the
heir to your uncle's fortune, the only
kosher slaughter house within miles.
You are very alive, so you will have
to find better evidence than that.
I put forth the theory that it was
the car owner who killed Bertrand
because Bertrand was there trying
to identify the hit-and-run
car
owner.
This theory was put to death
when it was disclosed that the car
was reported stolen two days before
the accident, so it was an unknown
thief who was driving that car.
"I'm willing to defend you for a
low price because I am a Christian
Scientist who is against capital punishment," Mr. Frank offered.
"Capital punishment? But we
don't live in a capital!"
"Capital punishment means the
death penalty, Mr. Birthright. I urge
you to plead insanity. I believe your
psychiatrist, Dr. Shrunk, will support that contention, and I am not
prepared to argue otherwise."
The last advice G.S.T. gave me
was to be careful about how I get
killed next time. No doubt he meant
I would end up in hell if I died in an
electric chair. That gatekeeper had
good foresight even though his computer was down. I can see the headlines now: "Murderer claims he was
sent from heaven." Well, at least I
will have died having a little fame,
or do they call that infamy?
Fortunately, Christian B. Frank,
with the help of Dr. Shrunk, was
able to convince the jury that I was
quite insane. I was free to go as long
as I remained under the treatment
of Dr. Shrunk.
I quit looking for proof of my trip
to heaven, since G.S.T.did not advise
me to hurry back. So I promptly
started to look for another job, but I
was very careful, of course, not to
jay-walk. I soon learned that exconvicts and the insane are not
desirable as employees. After many
rejections, I managed to get my
garbage truck job back because they
figured you had to be crazy to collect
garbage. It was a good job for exSpring 2002

convicts and nuts.

I really liked driving that dump
truck. It was the kind of vehicle for
which both drivers and pedestrians
had an aversion, so I had the road a
lot to myself. It was a good road until
the old dump got full and we had to
drive to a land fill that was beyond
some hilly hair-pin curves above
some cliffs. I was a good driver, but
one day, it was extremely icy and I
skidded over the cliff and demolished the truck.

I don't know how long I was

unconscious or If I was dead or alive.
This time I woke up in a hospital
room without a cross on the wall. I
wondered if that could mean there is
no Jesus here and I am in hell. I
noticed a spider crawling on the ceiling which convinced me I was not in
heaven. Spiders on the ceiling could
not be in a heavenly place. I presumed that spiders like rats were a
creation of the devil. After all who
likes spiders? When I tried to turn,
the pain left no doubt that I must
have broken some ribs. On a visitor's
chair near me were engraved the
words, property
of Mt. Sinai
Hospital. No doubt this was not a
Catholic hospital, but who knows?
Ambulance drivers don't ask you for
your religious preference when they
pick you up. I hope they never ask
me because the orphan home where
I lived never told me what my parents were. Even G.S.T. didn't ask me
that, so it must not even be important at the pearly gates.
Just when my eyesight seemed
fully recovered, a black woman in a
flowery dress walked in and put a
tray of food on my night stand. It
had lox and bagels and chicken soup
which convinced me that I wasn't in
hell. I asked her if Father Goldstein
was a chaplain at this hospital too.
''You must mean Rabbi Goldstein. Yes there's a Rabbi Goldstein.
I know that because he's my rabbi
too."
Thinking that perhaps I was in
purgatory, I asked her does she
mean she is Jewish, and what cloud
American Atheist

she lives on.

''You are a funny man, but yes
I'm Jewish, and there are dark
clouds and white clouds, but I am
from Ethiopia, so you might think of
that as a dark cloud."
"I guess that means I am still
alive. Am I still really alive?"
''Yes you are, and you're lucky to
be. That hit-and-run driver hit you
very hard and you've been in a coma
for days. They're still trying to find
the car that hit you. So where did
you think your are?"
''You won't believe this, but I've
been to heaven, and I thought you
might be Eve, the first black lady."
"Well, I don't know if we'll ever
see a black First Lady in Washington, but I suppose it's possible Eve
was black. Who knows? I never
thought about that. Well, you're a
funny man, but I think you're ready
to see visitors. There's a man that's
been waiting to see you. I'll bring
him in."
That must be Dr. Shrunk, I
thought as I ate the chicken soup. It
was so good that I could not believe I
was in a hospital - at least not a
Catholic one. When I reached for the
bagel and lox, it turned out to be a
sesame seed bun with red meat.
That bagel I saw before was a
mirage caused by my hunger. You
don't get bagels and lox in a hospital... not even a Jewish one. So I
guess that soup did help bring me to
reality. There must be something
true about chicken soup being a
health food.
I closed my eyes to be sure I
wasn't still in a coma or dreaming.
When I opened them again, there
was Bertrand staring at me. Holy
cow! I thought we must be in purgatory if I'm seeing a dead person. I
screamed so loud that the mezuzah
fell off the ward door frame. It
bounced off the black nurse's head,
but being Jewish she considered it a
stroke ofluck.
"Jesus, Bert, be calm. I know
you're glad to be alive and glad to
see me, but you got to keep calm."
''Yes,I'm glad to see you. What
Parsippany, New Jersey

about Dr. Shrunk? When do I see

him?
"Dr. Shrunk? I don't know anything about a Dr. Shrunk or stunk or
anything like that."
''You mean there's no shrink
Shrunk or no shrunk shrink?"
"Bert, I'm not a shrink and I'm
not shrunk. Can't you see good yet?
It's me, Bertrand, your cousin, your
only cousin."
"Bertrand, you mean it's you
and you're alive? We're both alive?"
"Ofcourse, I'm alive ... Oh, I see.
You wish I was dead so you could
inherit my father's slaughter house.
Is that it?"
That's when I realized this Dr.
Shrunk business was just a dream.
There was no Dr. Shrunk and no
Father Goldstein or Rabbi O'Brien.
There was no orange Cadillac or
devil in the seat. It was all a bad
dream. The Catholic hospital was all
a dream.
"No, Bertrand! I'm glad you're
alive. I'm glad I'm alive. I'm glad
you're my cousin. You're my favorite
cousin. I swear you are. I'm glad
you're my cousin and glad you're
watching over me through this terrible accident."
Bertrand shed a tear and so did
1.Then I asked him to hug me, which
he did.
Bertrand is alive so that must
prove that, as real as it seemed, the
whole Catholic hospital sequence
must have been a dream. The question remains on whether I really
went to heaven while in a coma. It
may be that the goods and service
tax may end in Canada, but I'm not
sure about whether there is a Good
Samaritan Tukhas-licker gatekeeper. Is heaven a dream?
There are a few things I am certain about. I will never jay-walk
again, We are all descended from
two black people, Adam and Eve, if
they ever existed. I'm going to stop
reading letters to the editor about
creation versus evolution. I'm never
going to drive on hair-pin curves. I'm
also convinced that there's no casino
in heaven because there's nothing to
Spring 2002

win up there. I won't know whether

heaven and G.S.T. was only a dream
until the day I die. Maybe I should
see a shrink for even thinking that.
"Do you believe I've been to
heaven?" I asked the black Jewish
nurse. "What do you think?"
"I think you should talk to a
rabbi," she suggested.
Being that it was a Saturday, the
Jewish Sabbath, I could not do that
then. I ran into a Lubavitch rabbi
and asked him if he believed I had
been to heaven. He said "I think
you're mishugah,"
which means
crazy in Yiddish. People who tell me
they believe there's a heaven don't
believe I've been there. Some people
who tell me they don't believe in
Hell tell me to go there. People are so
contradictory. Nobody believes that
the gatekeeper at the Pearly Gates
is a tukhas licker. Why are any of
these things more believable than
the other? I can't prove a thing
unless I find that Volume B. You
always need a good book to prove
anything. Jews have the Torah,
Moslems have the Koran, Mormons
have the Book of Mormon, Eckankar
has Eckankar and hundreds of pamphlets.

The next time I opened my eyes,

the black nurse brought me some
chicken, which I noticed still had the
rectum on it. I questioned her why
this happened at a Jewish hospital,
because the rear end of animals is
not kosher.
"Well, we eat them in Ethiopia,
but maybe Jews in New York are different. I don't understand
them
because a few of them told me they
would like some black ass. I'll go ask
the dietitian about that. Meanwhile
just cut it off if you're keeping
kosher." She walked away shaking
her buttock like she wanted to make
sure I noticed she had one.
Then something strange happened which you probably won't
believe. The rear end of the chicken
began to talk to me. Why is that so
hard to believe? The Torah says an
Page 13

angel spoke to a prophet through an

ass's mouth. Is what comes out of
chicken's ass anymore bull shit than
what comes out of an ass's mouth?
Furthermore, this was a kosher
chicken. It had an important message from an angel for me.
"Bert, when you were sent back
to .earth from heaven, you acquired
the status of a prophet. You have an
obligation to leave a good message
here before you return to heaven.
Can you think of something you
want to leave behind before you
depart?"
Of course, my mind was set
against jay-walking, but I also had a
soft spot for animals. We too frequently see dead foxes, dogs, raccoons, and birds on highways
because they get killed by speeding
cars. I would like to end that - and
drunk driving too, of course.
"Well, chicken, or angel or whoever is talking to me, you make
sense. You can't be just a chicken.
Maybe you're just my conscience.
Anyhow, I'd like to do something
good before I return to heaven, but I
was never for a cause or even a
church. Didn't belong to a church
and none of them ever got me believing enough or interested enough
except for their music. I just can't
believe, for example, that Moses split
the sea. More likely there was a low
tide ... and I can't believe Jesus
walked on water. I think he had
water skis. He should be in the
Guinness Book of Records as the
world's first water skier. Don't know
what I should join.
''You can start a new religion
that gives more protection to
animals, Bert."
"That's a good idea. How about
this? We'll call it ... hmmm. Do Only
Good to Mammals Association. To be
more brief, we can use the acronym,
DOGMA. And to include birds and
the question of jay walking, we can
add the word Jays. Our neon signs
would read, DOGMA for JAYS TEMPLE. How does that sound?"
"DOGMA? It sounds a little like

Page 14

all religions, but it is unique. You

will certainly have a church that
wants to protect animals."
''Yes. And we'll allow dogs and
cats to sit in the pews. And we won't
discriminate about their country of
origin - Germans, Afghans, Siamese,
etc. Yes, but I'm a little concerned
about how I can promote it because
all major religions have a good book,
and I can't even find Volume B."
"First you need to get some disciples like Paul and Brigham Young.
They will help you find words for a
book as you go along."
"How can I find a disciple? How
can I find someone to believe me?"
"May I suggest your cousin,
Bertrand?
He has slaughtered
enough animals to want to atone for
his sins. You should make a good
team because you have been carrying garbage for many years and he
has been making it. You're both
qualified for peddling religion.
That's all I can tell you now. Finish
the chicken and then get some sleep.
You'll come up with some real ideas
when you wake up. Good night."
I was eager to talk to Bertrand
about this but did not expect it to be
easy to sell him on this idea. He did
say be loved Jesus but he never went
to church. He did say he loved animals but was more active in their
death than their life. Maybe I should
try to recruit a veterinarian first.
Actually, as real as this talking
chicken seemed to me, I had to ask
myself if I was not dreaming again.
A talking chicken is hard to believe,
but that new religion business was a
good idea, dream or no dream. It was
meant for me todo.
I did expect Bertrand to visit at
this time, but when I opened my
eyes a rabbi was standing there. I
could tell it was a rabbi this time
because he wore a skullcap and had
long laces hanging out of his jacket.
"Hello, reb Forthnight," he mumbled. "I have some sad news for you.
Do you feel strong enough to hear
it?"
Good God, I thought. Maybe I'm

Spring 2002

dying. Maybe I got cancer or something like that. Why is a rabbi calling me and not a priest or a
Methodist? I was not eager for bad
news, but I told him I was prepared
as I had already been to heaven.
"The bad news, reb, is that your
cousin Bertrand just died from mad
cow disease. Worse yet, he was bankrupt but left you his butcher knife.
Sh'mai Yisrael. I am sure you will
miss him."
''Yes,yes, of course. There's an
important question I wanted to ask
you."
"So ask me. I am a rabbi who
answers many questions."
"Rabbi, I am starting a new religion which maybe you can join. It is
sort of nondenominational and any
animal can be part of it. It's called
DOGMA for JAYS.
"Did you say for Jews?"
"No, forjays. DOGMA for Jays."
"No, I cannot because I have just
joined Jews for Jesus. Mozel tou, and
good-bye. I will see you at the graveyard if you are up to it."
This all saddened me. Bertrand
my favorite cousin and best prospect
for a disciple was gone. In a way I
wished that I had just died. Then I
would definitely and finally know if I
had been to heaven or if heaven was
just a dream. Maybe if G.S.T.'s computer is down again, Bertrand will
come back and confirm this for me or am I still dreaming? Who knows?
Maybe I am still in a coma and this
has all been a dream. So tell me, is
heaven a dream?

CORRECTION
In the Winter 2001-2002 issue
of American Atheist, the article
"Russian
Atheists
Petition
Government" was incorrectly
said to have been translated
into English by Mark Hatlie.
This is incorrect. We regret that
we do not know who the actual
translator was.
American Atheist

MY RESURRECTION
By George William Foote

MY RESURRECTION
mSSING

CHAPTER

QOSPEL.OF
DISCOfTSBBD

MATTHEW
.,. PUBLI8HBD

G. W. FOOTE.

i
t

"
LO!U.lO~.

:B. IOlWllJ\

28

M'OtU1OUf"rBR.8TREIl',E.Q.
18$2.

G. W. Foote was born at Plymouth,

England, Jan. I I, 1850. In September,
1881, he started publication of The
Freethinker. In 1883 he was prosecuted
and imprisoned for the 'crime' of blasphemy, for issuing a Christmas number
of The Freethinker with an illustrated
"Comic Life of Christ:' for which he
served a year in prison, as ordered by
the Roman Catholic judge who sentenced him. Upon leaving the dock, Mr.
Foote addressed
the judge, saying,
"Thank you, my lord; your sentence is
worthy of your creed." In 1885, a much
more circumspect G.w. Foote with coauthor J. M. Wheeler published Sepher
Toldoth Jeshu, The Jewish Life Of Christ, an
English version of a Jewish countergospel in which the section describing
the seduction of Miriam (Mary) was
translated into Latin! The entire book
will be reprinted (with English translation of the Latin) as part of The Jesus
The Jews Never Knew, a book by Frank
Zindler
which will be issued by
American Atheist Press in late spring of
this year.
Parsippany, New Jersey

TARTLE not, reader. The present writer did not die last
Friday, and come to life again
on Sunday morning. No, miracles are
not in his line. He leaves them to
those who have more faith or more
impudence. It is not my own resurrection I am going to relate, but
another person's. It is his resurrection, and properly speaking his history. I merely act as his medium, like
the honest gentlemen who play the
"missing link" at Spiritist seances,
and place their bodily apparatus at
the disposal of disembodied spirits
for a certain time, and an equally
certain consideration.
''Very well," you say, "and who is
this other person?" Gently, reader;
don't be in such a hurry. Did you ever
know a man big with information
unburden himself in the rapid,
unceremonious way you demand?
Respect the function of the storyteller, especially when he is really an
historian. Remember that the delivery of a good story (I don't say this is
one, but we'll assume it is) is as difficult and tender as the birth of a
child. Let us begin at the beginning,
and proceed carefully, as befits this
extraordinary affair.
A short time ago I had occasion
to treat the most remarkable episode
of the story of Christ's crucifixion
and resurrection. He, who was so
often on the cross, finally got on the
cross altogether, a condition in which
he has remained ever since. But .it
was a great trial at first. It made
him cry out with a loud voice and
give up the ghost - temporarily, of
course, for he got it back again soon
after. There was also a great earthquake, which nobody ever heard of
except the Christians; and the veil of
Spring 2002

the Temple was rent in twain from

the top to the bottom, a circumstance
which no Jew ever heard of from
that day to this. But that was not
all: there was a still greater wonder.
According to Matthew, "the graves
were opened; and many bodies of the
saints which slept arose, and came
out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and
appeared unto many."
Now, although I dealt with this
marvel, I felt that I had not exhausted the subject, so I pondered it until
it nearly exhausted me. Researches
afforded me very little relief What
though the Sinaitic and Vatican
manuscripts omit the words "and
came"? What though
Fritsche
explained the words translated
"after his resurrection" as meaning
"after he had raised them"? What
though Alford objected to this as
utterly inadmissible?
All these
things left the matter pretty much
as it stood. Professor Plumptre,
offered a spark of light on the question of who those "saints" were by
"seeing in them those who, believing
in. Jesus, had passed to their rest
before the Crucifixion." But when I
reflected that this learned Professor,
after all, knew exactly as much
about the matter as I, that spark of
light went out, and all was dark
again. Alack and alack! Such are the
difficulties that beset a man who
would "prove all things" in that simple Book which a wayfaring man
though a fool may understand, and
which no wayfaring man except a
fool does understand.
In this mood I read again, after
an interval of some years, the apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus:
an
ancient Scripture, supposed by some
Page 15

learned owls to be the work of

Christ's disciple of that name, by
sharper critics to be a pious forgery,
and by some still more sagacious to
be an honest document once in considerable use by Christians, and
written in much the same way as
other gospels, including our four
canonical ones; that is, by some
unknown person, at an unknown
time, in an unknown place, for the
use of unknown churches, with an
unknown amount of truth, an
unknown quantity of tradition, and
an unknown ratio of invention. Now
the Gospel of Nicodemus is especially full of information on the very
subject of my perplexity. It relates
how, after Christ's resurrection, the
two high priests, Annas and
Caiaphas, were frightened, and proceeded to investigate the matter. In
company with Nicodemus, Joseph
and Gamaliel,
they went to
Arimatheea, where they found
Charinus and Lenthius, two sons of
old Simeon, who had actually been
dead and buried before Jesus, and
raised from their graves simultaneously with him. Being brought to the
Jerusalem synagogue, this astonishing couple of escaped corpses, who
had not yet recovered their speech,
made the sign of the cross with their
fingers on their tongues, and immediately asked for pens, ink and
paper. Each wrote an account of his
resurrection on "two distinct pieces
of paper," and then vanished; and on
examination it turned out that
"what they had wrote [sic] was found
perfectly to agree, the one not containing one letter more or less than
the other." No such instance of
Gospel Harmony ever occurred
before or since. Most inspired historians flatly contradict each other on
essential points, but these two
agreed on the minutest details.
What a pity their documents are not
now extant! Nicodemus states that
Pilate put them "in the public
records of his hall"; but nobody has
ever seen or heard of them since, and
the Lord only knows what has
become of them.
Page 16

According to Charinus
and
Lenthius, when Jesus gave up the
ghost there was a great commotion
in hell, where it appears all the
patriarchs and prophets from Adam
down to John the Baptist were then
residing. Satan and Beelzebub
indulged in mutual recrimination.
Christ entered and put them to
flight, and liberated all their captives, Beelzebub and Satan then had

George William Foote

another round, but the Lord cut it
short, dethroned Satan, put Beelzebub in his place, and, leaving the
poor devils behind, sailed away to
glory with Adam and all his posterity who had been "damned by the
forbidden fruit." Some of them, however, including Charinus and Lenthius, were brought away from
Paradise to the earth again to be
raised up from the dead with Christ.
They were allowed "only three days
from the dead," to celebrate the
Passover, and to "bear testimony for
Christ the Lord."
Nicodemus's long-winded narrative, nine chapters of which I have
stewed down to one paragraph, fits
in with Matthew's brief account,
amplifying and supplementing it in
the most admirable manner. Here
then, I thought, is a good basis to
work from; the matter will now perhaps be cleared up, and my mind
Spring 2002

will obtain rest. Thereupon I walked

out into the quiet night, under the
solemn stars and amid the ghostly
rustle of trees, absorbed in contemplation, inhaling deep breaths, only
occasionally broken by a puff from
my friendly pipe. Suddenly I was
confronted by a strange old man of
venerable aspect. Centuries seemed
to have ploughed their traces on his
features, ancient memories brooded
in the depths of his hollow eyes, his
long white locks and beard were like
the accumulated snows of a thousand winters, and his low sepulchral
voice sounded like faint echoes from
a profound abyss.
"Stranger," he began, "do not be
alarmed; my appearance portends
no evil to you or any being; while to
me this meeting brings the longcraved boon of death, and rest from
the weary burden of earthly existence. For more than eighteen centuries I have roamed this world like
the Wandering Jew of tradition,
waiting for the occasion which has
now come. This roll (here, he placed
it in my hand) contains the true
record of what you are pondering.
You alone of all mortals have been
seized with a burning desire to
explore its depths, and only to such
an one am I permitted to entrust my
long-hoarded treasure. My task is
now ended, And peace visits me after
centuries
of unrest.
Farewell!
Farewell!"
I looked, and he was gone. I
stood alone as before in the quiet
night, under the solemn stars and
amid the ghostly rustle of trees, but
no longer absorbed in contemplation. I was filled with an eager longing to peruse the mysterious roll,
and I strode swiftly home.
When I opened the mysterious
roll I found it an unintelligible document, written in some strange,
uncouth tongue. Closer inspection
convinced me that the characters
were Hebrew; but as I am not a
scholar in that language, I was
obliged to delay the satisfaction of
my curiosity until I could communicate with a friend who had wasted a
American Atheist

good deal of his time on its unprofitable study, so that he had become
an adept in a science which few
understand
and fewer value. I
passed the night in fitful slumbers.
The venerable stranger and his mystic parchment figured constantly in
the panorama of my dreams. They
were like the shifting pieces in a
kaleidoscope, always the same, but
ever assuming fresh forms.
Early in the morning I visited
my friend. He informed me that the
manuscript was indeed written in
Hebrew, but without points. He
therefore concluded that it was very
ancient, and would take a considerable time to decipher. In a few days,
however, he had wormed himself
thoroughly into the text, and
declared his readiness to translate
it. A question then arose whether it
should be translated into Bible
English or into the English of our
own period. Having learnt the general character of the original, I preferred to see it rendered into our
present vernacular; so that the
deceitful glamor [sic] of a consecrated style might be avoided, and the
real facts appear in their naked
verity.
The following is my friend's
translation, with just a few touches
from my own pen, which, he allows,
do no violence to the sense of the
original.
The Obadiah Scroll
My name is Obadiah. I am one of
the saints who rose from their
graves at the Crucifixion, and the
only survivor of the company. I am
doomed to roam the world until I
find the appointed recipient of my
story.
The Gospel of Nicodemus is a
fraud. There is not a word of truth in
it. The whole narrative may easily be
proved fabulous. Charinus and
Lenthius are not Hebrew names.
Some Roman names did creep into
Palestine at that time, but they were
never adopted by strict Jews, least of
all by Levites like Simeon. I became
a follower of Jesus Christ in the first
Parsippany, New Jersey

year of his ministry, which lasted

seven years, and not three, as is generally supposed. Two years later I
died of eating too much Paschal
lamb. I have been informed that the
Messiah was summoned to my bedside, but he came too late, as in the
case of Lazarus; and no such miracle
being performed on me as on that
prime favorite, whose sisters were
also extremely attractive, I was
buried in a little cemetery near
Bethany, which had already been
appropriated to the use of our sect.
My remembrance of the Messiah
is still vivid. I bow with reverence
and humble adoration to the divinity
that abode in him, but I venture to
correct some misapprehensions as to
his humanity. The pictures I have
seen of him in my long wanderings
are all false and flattering. They
bear no resemblance to his form or
features. He and nearly all his disciples were remarkably ill-favored.
Paul, whose mean appearance has
been noted, was the best-looking
person in the early Church. I have
always held that our ugliness was a
proof of the divine wisdom and
power. God chose us for our ill looks,
and designed that his dear son
should be conspicuous for that quality, in order that the Gospel might
owe nothing to man, but all to himself The Messiah was adorable in
the spirit, but repellent in the flesh.
His figure was long and bony, and
his face sharp and small. His eyes
were deep-sunk through much fasting, and the curve of his nose
bespoke him a Jew of Jews. We all
regarded it with patriotic pride as a
true sign of the Messiah.
I remained in my grave for four
years. What happened during that
period, what were my experiences, I
am forbidden to tell. Such awful
secrets must not be revealed to flesh
and blood.
When the earthquake occurred
at the Messiah's crucifixion, my
grave was rent open with many others. Seventy of us, all disciples of
Jesus, and therefore called saints by
Matthew, were ordered to join our
corpses, which were flung out by the
Spring 2002

shock. Some of them were in a very

dilapidated state. I had to dig among
the loose soil for a lost arm with the
one I had retained; and when I
began to walk I found two toes missing on one foot and one on the other.
It required a long and painful search
to complete the set. Some of my companions were in a still worse plight.
Shimei the blind disciple, had only
one leg; and, being unable to discover the other himself, he was obliged
to stand like a roosting fowl until we
could search for his missing limb.
Zambres was nothing but a trunk,
and unable even to move; but we
unearthed his four limbs at last, and
fastened them on. Simeon was a
hand short, and, notwithstanding a
protracted search, it was never discovered. Jonathan, also, never found
his lower jaw, nor could David light
upon his nose; while poor Amos, the
cripple, whose right leg was cut off at
the stump, and whose crutches were
not buried with him, was compelled
to hop on his left leg, until we took
pity on his sad condition and carried
him by turns.
Being all as naked as we were
born, we took refuge as quickly as
possible in an old cave near by,
where we remained for several
hours discussing what we should do
next. By this time we were all very
hungry, and this new want greatly
increased the distress of our situation. About midnight, however, an
old beggar, crept into the cave. We at
once pounced upon him, stripped off
his clothes, and divided his poor supper amongst us. Alas! what was such
a little food among so many! How we
longed for the Messiah to multiply
our provisions! But he was far away,
and we had to rest content with
small crumbs of comfort.
So slight a repast rather sharpened than allayed our hunger, and
our slumbers that night were slight
and unrefreshing. At daybreak we
were all alert. The raw morning air
crept into our hiding-place and
smote upon our unprotected nakedness. Our bodies shivered and our
teeth chattered with the cold. In this
woeful condition we held a general
Page 17

council, at which it was unanimously

decided that I should dress in the
poor beggar's rags and endeavor to
reach the holy city, whence aid might
be procured from our friends.
Accordingly I sallied out in this
pitiful costume. By this time the sun
had risen above the horizon, and the
warmth of its rays, combined with
the effects of my exercise, filled me
with a gentle glow. Every moment,
however, added to my hunger. The
fresh air seemed to sweep through
me, and I felt as hollow as the withered fig-tree which the Messiah once
cursed.
Suddenly as I trudged along the
high road I perceived in front of me
a man leading a fine donkey. There
was something, me thought, familiar
in his lineaments; and when he
replied to my solicitation for alms, I
fancied I remembered his accents,
Thrusting his hand inside his robe,
he drew it out again with an air of
disappointment, and accosted me in
the following strains. "Obadiah, 1
know thee and thy business, and I
am sorry I cannot befriend thee. I
have nothing wherewith to relieve
thy distress. Bat do not despair. God
will send thee succor in due season.
Gladly would I stay to comfort thee,
but I may not. This ass I am leading
is the one the Messiah rode into
Jerusalem a short time ago. Since
then I have watched it carefully, lest
any man should desecrate its back
by riding it again; and I am now
leading it to a certain appointed
place, where it will once more be
mounted by the Messiah, ascend
with him to heaven, and stand with
him for ever at the Father's right
hand. Meanwhile thou must know
that the Messiah has been crucified
by his enemies. He died the very
moment your grave was opened. But
he will rise again from the dead, and
you shall behold him ere he ascendeth through the clouds. You and
your resuscitated brethren must not
go into the holy city until you learn
that the Messiah has risen. You will
then serve as living testimonies to
his glorious resurrection. Farewell,
farewell!"
Page 18

He passed on with the ass, and

was soon out of my sight. But before
he disappeared I knew by an infallible sign that he was the angel
Gabriel, and I bowed myself in
solemn adoration of his eminent
glory.
Soon afterwards
I met a
stranger, of whom I begged an alms.
He gave me from his bag some pieces
of bread and a few olives. Just then
A company of Roman soldiers came
towards us from Jerusalem, and
knowing how prone they were to
play severe jokes on Jewish mendicants, who were generally the refuse
of the population, I hurried away to
rejoin my companions. Before reaching them I found an empty waterskin, which I filled from a spring by
the roadside. Of course they were
delighted to see me. They shared
with me the few provisions I had
brought, although there was not a
mouthful for each; and they sat
awe-stricken, while I related my
encounter with Gabriel.
Early in the afternoon I went out
again, my companions being ravenous, and eager to procure some victuals by hook or by crook. In fact,
they protested that if help did not
soon arrive, they would, despite the
angel's warning and their own nudity, sally out themselves in a body,
and either beg, borrow or steal both
food and clothes. Rebuking their
impiety, I set forth, and on reaching
the nearest gate of the holy city, I
waited under a rock that sheltered
me alike from view and the sun's
heat. Presently a merchant rode out
on an ass, with a small retinue of
mules, bearing merchandise.
He flung me a small coin in passing, which I eagerly picked up. I
entered into a conversation with his
servant who brought up the rear,
walking along with him for some distance. In reply to my cautious
inquiries about the Messiah, he first
shrugged his shoulders, and then
laughed uproariously. "Ah, ah," said
he, "it is that Galilean impostor,
Joshua the son of Joseph, you mean!
Why, my dear fellow,he is as dead as
a door-nail, and was safely buried
Spring 2002

nearly twenty-four hours ago, with

two other thieves in the same batch.
Surely yon don't expect to see him
again! As for his followers, such a
plucky crew were never seen. They
all ran away when he was arrested;
and one of them, a follow called
Cephas, who turned up in court at
the trial, swore like a Samaritan or a
mad leper that he had never known
his master. Of course the officers
knew better, but as they had the
chief culprit, and old Cephas was too
small game, they let the poor devil
go. Since then, neither he nor any of
his rowdy friends have been heard
of.No doubt they are quietly lurking
in some obscure shelter. May the
Lord forgive me for being uncharitable to the fallen, but hang me if
ever I saw such a greasy collection of
highland fanatics. The Galileans
were always a superstitious rabble,
full of blasphemy and sedition.
Joshua the son of Joseph was a trifle
superior to his followers, and many
of us are really sorry, for the young
fellow. His followers egged him on
farther than he might have gone by
himself, and he has paid the penalty
of listening to their mad advice.
Good-bye,my friend; here's a few figs
for you, and may you fare better, and
keep out of mischief."
Thereupon the blasphemous
wretch left me, burning with indignation I dared not express. One
thing, however, was certain. The
Messiah had not yet risen.
An hour or so later I met the disciple of whom this ribald jester had
spoken so slanderously, as I then
thought, although alas! I afterwards
learned, to my great sorrow, that he
had spoken only the truth. Cephas
was walking along in a brown study.
He had scarcely altered since I last
saw him, a few hours before my
death. There was the old squab figure with the short arms and bow
legs; the same bald head and long
grey beard; the unmistakable big
nose, and the deep-set eyes under
the great shaggy brows. Being
unable as yet to reveal my identity, I
mildly begged his charity. "Away,"he
cried, "away! I never denied him,
American Atheist

s'w'help me God. It's a lie, I say, a

lie." Wondering at these strange
words, I repeated my request, in a
tone of voice which perhaps my
hunger and weakness made rather
faint and shrill. "Aha,"he cried, "why
dost thou crow at me? Avaunt thou
shrill feathered biped, or I'll out
crow thee till thou art hoarse.
Cock-a-doodle-doo!"
Surprised at these wild utterances, I tried to calm his agitated
mind; but the more I spoke, the more
poor Cephas indulged in these mad
ejaculations, until at last I left him
with, his face turned towards the
sky, outcrowing his imaginary rival.
With the merchant's small coin I
purchased some bread at Bethany,
which I took with his servant's figs
to our cave. We all sat down to supper, including the beggar. It was a
wretched repast. How we longed
again for the Messiah to multiply
our bread and figs into a good square
meal, with something left over for
the morrow! But our yearnings were
fruitless, and we composed ourselves
for sleep as best we could, with the
taste of food in our mouths and next
to nothing in our stomachs.
For a long time I lay revolving in
my mind the events of the day, until
I noticed a movement among the
sleeping figures around me, and a
form creeping towards the cave's
mouth. The truth flashed upon me at
once; the beggar was trying to
escape. Springing up and bounding
forward like a panther, I seized him;
and as the noise awakened the
whole company, he was soon put in a
safe place at the back of the cave,
where he was guarded all night by
three sentinels.
The next morning I heard an
ominous whispering among a knot of
my companions. Hunger had overcome their humanity, and they were
actually considering the propriety of
making a cannibal repast off the
poor beggar. Horrified at the
thought, I assured them that help
would reach us as Gabriel promised,
and they were pacified. Then I set
forth again to Jerusalem. Just as I
reached the Needle-gate a woman
Parsippany, New Jersey

came running out. As she came nearer I saw it was mad Mary Magdalen
flinging about her arms, while her
long black hair floated in disorder
over her shoulders, she shouted,
"Joy!joy! He is risen! Good news for
Martha and Mary. Joy! joy!" She was
evidently rushing off to Bethany.
Following her with great difficulty,
for by this time I was extremely
weak, I saw her knock at the house
of the two sisters. Lazarus opened
the door.As she repeated her cry,"He
is risen!" I advanced and made
myself
known.
Taking
Mary
Magdalen inside to convey the news
to his sisters, Lazarus followedme to
our cave, where he was joyfully welcomed by the starving company, who
were again contemplating a meal off
the poor beggar. With the assistance
of a few brethren at Bethany,
Lazarus provided us all with food
and raiment; the beggar receiving
back his own rags with a small present of money.
Our next step was to visit
Jerusalem, whither we traveled in
ten companies of seven. That same
evening we saw the Messiah. He
appeared amongst us as we sat
together in a large downstairs room,
after an interview with the eleven
who were assembled in the room
above. He preached to us for three
hours. One by one the company fell
asleep, and even I was at last compelled to nod. When I awoke the
Messiah had vanished, and I never
saw him again. His subsequent
appearances were all made to the
Apostles, who were the only witnesses of his ascension. The five hundred
brethren mentioned by Paul never
existed except in his fertile brain,
which was permanently inflamed by
a severe sunstroke.
Early the next morning I began
to search for my wife. How glad, I
"thought, she will be to see me! How
she will dance with joy! But alas! I
found her married again to myoId
friend Zebedee, with whom she was
living very happily, and I was evidently not wanted. They admitted
that I bore a striking resemblance to
Obadiah, but everybody knew that
Spring 2002

likenesses had occurred before. They

brought witnesses to prove that
Miriam's Obadiah had been properly
buried four years ago, and the
authorities
pronounced me an
impostor. My bigamous wife boxed
my ears when I tried for the last
time "to bring her to reason; and
Zebedee, who caught me attempting
to embrace her, kicked me out of the
house and down the street. From
that day I resolved to leave the infamous couple alone in their sinful
obstinacy; and I consoled myself
with a younger spouse, who always
laughed in my face when I told her of
my death and resurrection. But my
story met with a very different
reception among the brethren,
although our stiff-necked fellow citizens would not credit a single word
of it. I was a marked man in the
early Church for many years, until,
when my resuscitated companions
were all dead again, and a new generation had arisen who knew me
not, I was treated with general
incredulity, and became a laughing-stock to the whole body of the
faithful. Since then I have wandered
about, century after century, awaiting the day when my story will find
its proper recipient, and I shall be
released from the trammels of a
miserable existence. Surely the
Messiah will assign me a large
province in his heavenly kingdom.
Great have been my sufferings and
great should be my reward. Sometimes, however, I fancy that distant
past is all a dream. My brain swims,
the world reels, and I seem a phantom among phantoms, all whirling
in a meaningless dance through
everlasting time and space. But
memory says "No! that distant past
was a fact as thou art; and thy testimony to the Messiah shall yet be a
world's wonder, a flaming beacon of
conviction over the weltering seas of
unbelief." So I stand firm again,
looking steadfastly for the end.
Amen!

Page 19

By Roderick Bradford

"Now, gentlemen, this case is not

entitled
'Anthony
Comstock
against D. M. Bennett'; this case
is not entitled 'The Society for
the Suppression of Vice against
D. M. Bennett.' It is the United
States against D. M. Bennett, and
the United States is one great
society for the suppression
of
vice."
- From the Prosecuting Attorney's Plea
The United States v. D. M. Bennett
March 20, 1879

a\~

nthony

Comstock, America's

If1foremost vice hunter, was eager

!! to get on with the trial that the
New York Sun predicted would be
"one of the most important of the
day." Equally anxious was his archenemy, free-thinking editor D. M.
Bennett, who defiantly sold a controversial pamphlet to challenge the
puritanical obscenity laws inspired
by the crusading Comstock.
Roderick Bradford is a freelance
writer who resides in San Diego.
He has contributed articles to The
Truth Seeker and served as historical editor on the 125th Anniversary
issue in 1998. Presently he is completing a book entitled The Truth
Seeker: The Biography of D. M.
Bennett, The Nineteenth Century's
Most Controversial Publisher and
First Amendment Martyr.
Page 20

D. M. Bennett, 1818-1882.
About the time he started
publishing The Truth Seeker.
(circa 1873)
Both men thrived on controversy
and had been at each other's throats
for years. And both likely sensed that
the outcome of their 1879 legal
battle would dramatically affect
American civil liberties and the
nation's cultural course.
Comstock, a 35-year-old former
traveling salesman and fanatically
religious reformer, led The New York
Society for the Suppression of Vice
and was backed by some of the
wealthiest, most powerful and pious
men in America, including Samuel
Spring 2002

Colgate, the soap magnate. Appointed

a "special agent" of the U. S. Post
Office, Comstock waged war on
"obscene" books (including some
classic works of literature) and the
writings of freethinkers like Bennett.
Bennett, 60, whom opponents
called "the devil's own advocate," was
the notorious founder of The Truth
Seeker, a New York weekly promoting science, labor reform, women's
rights, birth control, and the taxation of church property, or, as
Comstock declared, "most horrible &
obscene blasphemies."
Although it was a pamphlet,
Cupid's Yokes - mainly a critique of
the marriage institution - that landed Bennett in court, he believed his
"persecution" was for publishing his
radical journal The Truth Seeker.
Bennett's supporters included publishers, physicians, authors, abolitionists and lecturers including
Colonel Robert G. Ingersoll, the
famous orator.
Comstock,
whom
Bennett
likened to a "witch hunter" and the
Spanish inquisitor Torquemada, had
pursued the agnostic publisher for
years. Bennett was first arrested in
1877 by Comstock for selling his
heretical An Open Letter to Jesus
Christ and a scientific treatise How
Do Marsupials
Propagate
Their
Kind? Comstock's contempt for "the
truth seeker" and disregard for the
First Amendment is confirmed in the
Vice Society arrest blotter. "He is
everything vile in Blasphemy &
Infidelism." [sic] Comstock wrote,
"His [Bennett's] idea of liberty is to
American Atheist

do and say as he pleases without

regard to the rights, morals, or liberties of others."
The charges were dismissed
after Ingersoll, a leader in the
freethought movement, intervened
on Bennett's behalf. Ingersoll, a distinguished
attorney,
sent
the
"obscene"material to the Postmaster
General and let it be known that if
the prosecution continued, he would
defend the publisher's case all the
way to the Supreme Court. Comstock
detested "The Great Agnostic" as
Ingersoll was known, and deeply
resented his popularity. The vice
hunter considered the famous orator
blasphemy personified and defined
all freethinkers as "smut-dealers"
and "ex-convicts."
Comstock, a massive intimidating figure known to manhandle
opponents, continued to closely monitor Bennett's activities and reportedly threatened the elderly publisher and his printers. The young vice
hunter, according to Bennett, continued to pursue him "like a bloodhound."
DeRobigne Mortimer Bennett, or
"Dr. Bennett" as his friends and
employees affectionately called him,
was an unlikely free-speech proponent who began his publishing
career late in life. He and his wife
were former prominent members of
the United Society of Believers in
Christ's
Second Appearing,
or
Parsippany, New Jersey

Shakers, as they were commonly

known. Bennett had been the strict
religious sect's ministry-appointed
journalist and community physician.
After his apostasy from the Shakers,
he pursued several business ventures, which included drugstores and

Anthony Comstock, 1844-1915,

at the beginning of his
vice-hunting career.
(circa 1873)
lucrative line of Dr. Bennett's Family
Medicines.
Anthony Comstock was part of
the social purity crusade that coincided and clashed with the rise of the
Spring 2002

freethought movement. During the

late 19th century, the United States
was overwhelmingly religious; however, there existed a small but outspoken group of organized opponents
of orthodox Christianity known by a
variety of names, including atheists,
agnostics, deists, infidels, liberals
and freethinkers. In 1876 they united and formed The National Liberal
League - an organization devoted to
separation of church and state.
Bennett was a vice president and
The Truth Seeker was the League's
organ. Comstock, the self-described
"weeder in God's garden" loathed the
flourishing organization and disparaged members as "long haired men
and short-haired women."
Bennett and Comstock had been
on a collision course since 1873 when
they each began their opposing "crusades." Inspired by Thomas Paine,
Bennett founded The Truth Seeker
as an alternative to the country's
Christian-dominated
press. That
same year, Comstock, a member of
the YMCA, founded The New York
Society for the Suppression of Vice,
America's version of an organization
that originated in London and prosecuted the English freethinkers
Charles Bradlaugh
and Annie
Besant for publishing a birth control
pamphlet. Comstock acted as secretary and chief vice hunter while
Samuel Colgate served as president.
Colgate, America's most prominent
Page 21

Colonel Robert G. Ingersoll

(circa 1879)
Baptist, along with other wealthy
Christian laymen, gave Comstock
carte blanche when it came to his
"fight for the young."
Although
America
rebelled
against the mother country a century
earlier, it remained subservient to
puritanical English laws regarding
sex and obscenity. With blessings
from New York's ministers, Christian laymen, and financial support
from Colgate and the YMCA,
Comstock made frequent trips to
Washington where he lobbied members of Congress to induce them into
believing that America's youth were
at great moral risk. With dogged
determination and a satchel full of
lewd pictures and devices, he convinced his fellow Republicans that
the children of America were receiving such material in their mailboxes.
Subsequently, on March 3, 1873,
a series of acts was recklessly passed
by a Republican majority in the closing hours of the 42nd Congress while
the House was in a state of confusion
and some members reportedly were
under the influence of alcohol. Two
Page 22

hundred and sixty acts were

ite subjects. In Comstock's crusade
passed without inquiry or he found both. The publisher devoted
pages of his weekly to defrocking
consideration of merit and
"Saint Anthony" and ridiculing his
were summarily signed into
"Vice Society." In his book The
law by President
Grant.
Champions of the Church; Their
Violators of these nebulous
"Comstock Laws," as they
Crimes and Persecutions, Bennett
were christened, could be included a provocative chapter entipunished by fines of $5,000 tled "Anthony Comstock, His Career
and imprisoned at hard labor
of Cruelty and Crime."
for ten years.
Bennett routinely ridiculed The
Comstock first waged war
New York Suppression
of Vice
on publishers of "obscene" litSociety's activities and other licenerature who he believed were
tious escapades by "men of God" in a
poisoning
the
minds
of weekly column. These articles
America's children. Unable to became so popular with The Truth
differentiate between agnostiSeeker subscribers that he eventually
cism and obscenity, free
published a compilation entitled
thought
and
free-love,
Sinful Saints and Sensual ShepComstock often targeted lib- herds. Some of these "Saints" and
eral publishers and birth-con"Shepherds"
were
Comstock's
trol advocates - whom he
supporters.
labeled abortionists.
The irrepressible editor didn't
There was little protest
limit himself to taunting Comstock,
against the Comstock Laws in
but also attacked the Suppression of
the nation's newspapers and
Vice Society president - Samuel
magazines. Like
the politicians,
most publishers
felt that opposing the
vice hunter and his
"fight for the young"
crusade might be construed as tolerating
crime. While a few liberal or "freethought"
publications chronicled
Comstock's activities,
none were as aggressive and unrelenting as
D. M. Bennett, who
began attacking
the
vice hunter after his
friends and fellow publishers were arrested,
convicted and jailed.
While other periodicals
occasionally
scolded
Comstock, Bennett persistently lampooned the
pious crusader
and
excoriated him weekly
in the pages of The
Truth Seeker.
"The Trinity"
Censorship
and
D. M. Bennett, Josephine Tilton, W. S. Bell,
church hypocrisy were
author and freethought lecturer (1879)
two of Bennett's favorSpring 2002

American Atheist

Colgate. Bennett's 8,000 word "Open as a harmless "dry dissertation" not

er was put on trial for "Depositing
Letter to Samuel Colgate" was a "calculated to inflame the passions of Prohibited Matter in the Mail." If
scathing indictment ofthe soap manthe young."
convicted, the former Shaker-turnedufacturer, charging him with surrepOn December 10, 1878, Bennett
freethinker faced a possible $5,000
titiously publishing illegal birth con- was arrested for mailing Cupid's
fine and ten-year prison sentence.
trol information. Bennett's exposure
Yokes to a party (Comstock using a The "Prohibited Matter" was Cupid's
of Colgate's hypocrisy caused free- false name) in upstate New York. If Yokes, the scholarly 23-page pamthinkers throughout America to boy- Comstock had "written like a man"
phlet critical of marriage
and
cott Colgate's products .-----------------------------,
Anthony
Comstock.
for years.
The popular fifteenIt came as no surcent pamphlet called
prise when Bennett
Comstock a "religious
was arrested again in
monomaniac."
1878 while attending
The trial, held in the
the New York State
Lower
Manhattan
Freethinkers' convenQR,
United States Circuit
tion at Watkins Glen.
Court,
attracted
a
He was arrested for
number of famous peoselling Cupid's Yokes,
ple. "Scattered through
along with two others
the crowd of longincluding
Josephine
An Essay to Consider ~omeMoral and Pkysiologicu.l
haired
men
and
Tilton, labor reformer
Ptuues of
'strong-minded' women
and sister-in-law of the
were a number of wellpamphlet's imprisoned
known persons who
author Ezra Heywood.
LOVE AND MARRIAGE,
have been summoned
Although
the
local/as
witnesses for the
authorities
filed the
TVlierein is
defense," The Tribune
charges, Bennett beAsserted the Natural Bight and .Neces8ity 0/
reported. The reformlieved Comstock instihostile New York Times
gated the arrest. In a
declared "all of whom
publicity stunt,
the
SEXUAL 8ELFGOVEItl\W''T.
are more or less identiarrested trio posed for a
fied as disciples of the
picture post card faceBY
school of 'free thought'."
tiously sold as "The
E. H. HEYWOOD.
Standing
behind
Trinity." Although the
AVrIIon o. "11.1.,. caea, '""mn. UlIUTT," "fO.,.. O. wur.," ''to r..uo&.un.~
Bennett was a diverse
nu,"
case never went to trial,
muuu.
group of distinguished
his free-speech cam- r
reformers and National
paign got recognition I
Liberal League lumiand support from some
naries who ardently
of the famous attendees
TWENTIETH 'rnOUSAND.
shared the defendant's
including
Frederick
free speech advocacy.
Douglass, Matilda JoseThey included veteran
lyn Gage, and Elizabeth
abolitionist
Elizur
Cady Stanton.
PRlliCETON, .MASS.:
Wright, birth control
Emboldened by the
CO-OPERATlVE PUBLISHING CO.
pioneer Dr. E. B. Foote,
1877.
second arrest and pubJr.,
and
Andrew
licity, Bennett returned
Jackson
Davis, the
to Manhattan and confamous
clairvoyant
tinued
his
campaign
against
or walked into The Truth Seeker
known as the "Poughkeepsie Seer."
Comstock's "American Inquisition."
offices to buy the pamphlet, Bennett
Ezra Heywood, the author of Cupid's
In addition to procuring thousands
admitted, "he would have been
Yokes, was also present in the courtof signatures for the total repeal of served just as well."
room. Only a year earlier the radical
the Comstock Laws, he blatantly
After three years and as many
free-love advocate had been convictadvertised and openly sold Cupid's
arrests, D. M. Bennett was eager to
ed on identical charges and sent to
Yokes. Bennett believed that as an
have his hard fought "liberty of the
prison. Heywood received a pardon
American citizen he had the right to press" advocacy put to the test. On from President Hayes, ostensibly
sell the pamphlet which he described March 18, 1879, the elderly publishbecause of the author's poor health

C1JPID'S YOKES:

The Binding Forces of Conjugal Life,

HtlIJI QOOP Of

UP

HW".

lI(t'tnOla

O'. PI4US,"

0TB.Ia

Parsippany, New Jersey

Spring 2002

Page 23

and large number of citizens seeking

Bennett supporter who submitted a ent Cupid's Yokes as a "philosophical
his release.
petition to Congress for the repeal of treatise" that was openly sold was
The defendant was encouraged
the Comstock Laws. It was widely
disallowed. The court also blocked
by the number of devoted friends in
supported and presented a forceful their plan to use popular books
attendance, but concerned by the
and articulate argument.
including classic literature
and
D. M. Bennett took the stand in
presiding judge and influential men
employ the old freethought argusitting in the courtroom providing
his own defense, but the Judge stiment of comparing alleged obscene
"moral" support for the prosecution.
fled every effort made by his attorpassages in Cupid's Yokes with secIt was, after all, in Judge
tions from the Bible to contest
Benedict's court that Comstock
the charges against Bennett.
often bragged he "never failed."
However,
Wakeman
was
The jury might not have been
allowed to read a passage of
familiar with Bennett's scholarly
Cupid's Yokes that he believed
supporters, but they surely recexplained Comstock's excessive
ognized Anthony Comstock and
zeal. The excerpt was a letter
his powerful patrons, including
written by Comstock at the
Colgate. Comstock's fellow
beginning of his vice-hunting
moralist,
Reverend
Joseph
career. In his own hand, on
Cook, the famous religious lecJanuary 18, 1873, the young
turer, sat in plain view of the
crusader boasted: "There were
jury reading the defendant's
four publishers on the 2nd of
incendiary pamphlet, An Open
last March; to-day three of these
Letter to Jesus Christ.
are in their graves, and it is
Prosecuting the governcharged by their friends that I
WORRIED THEM TO DEATH. BE
ment's case was William P.
THAT AS IT MAY, I AM SURE
Fiero, a 36-year-old political
THAT
THE WORLD IS BETTER
aspirant and Shakespeare afiOFF
WITHOUT
THEM."
cionado. Fiero, who claimed to
The
prosecution
called only
have lost sleep after hearing a
one
witness,
Anthony
Comstock,
passage of Cupid's Yokes read
who
testified
he
sent
the semialoud in
the
courtroom,
literate
letter
using
a
fictitious
informed the jury that the pamname
(his
usual
modus
operanphlet had already been declared
di)
requesting
Cupid's
Yokes
"obscene, lewd, lascivious, and
and
received
the
pamphlet
in
dangerous" by 23 "good men" of
the
mail.
But
under
an
intense
the Grand Jury. Fiero defended
cross-examination
he denied
his "friend" Anthony Comstock,
ever
threatening
Bennett
or his
and believed his own Christianprinters.
The
vice-hunter
was
sanctioned marriage was under
evasive
when
asked
if
he
knew
attack
by Heywood
and
where the defendant's place of
Bennett. "Let the Freelovers of
business was, even though,
the country embrace their
Wakeman reminded Comstock,
ideas," he declared, "let them, if
he had arrested Bennett there a
they like, roll vice as a sweet
year before. "If he had that book
morsel under their tongue; we
in his possession at his place of
spit it out of our mouths to-day,
Roderick
Bradford
at
the
D.M.
Bennett
business,"
the attorney asked,
once and forever."
monument
in
Green-Wood
Cemetery,
"hadn't
you
authority, under
Bennett's attorney, Abram
Brooklyn,
New
York.
Bennett
just
can't
your
state
statute,
to have
Wakeman, was the former New
get
away
from
those
darn
Christians!
taken
steps
for
its
seizure?"
The
York Postmaster, friend of
question
was
objected
to
and
Abraham Lincoln, and close
sustained.
However,
Wakeman
was
confidant of Mary Todd Lincoln.
ney to elicit his motive for selling the
eventually able to argue the imporJoining him at the defense table was
pamphlet. The defense team called
tant
point that Comstock should
his brother Thaddeus Burr Wake- several character witnesses includhave
acted properly and used the
man, a skilled attorney and Presiing Heywood, in an attempt to show
state
statute,
wherein the maximum
dent of the National Liberal League.
the author's intentions for writing
punishment
would
not have exceeded
T. B. Wakeman was a staunch
the pamphlet. The strategy to presPage 24

Spring 2002

American Atheist

two years of imprisonment and a

$100 fine.
Nevertheless, on March 21, 1879,
Bennett was pronounced guilty, fined
$300 and sentenced to 13 months of
hard labor at Albany Penitentiary,
one ofthe country's harshest prisons.
A one-year sentence would have
allowed the elderly editor to remain
incarcerated in New York City where
friends and family could visit. "There
was malice in that thirteen months,"
his acting editor declared.
The prosecuting attorney's
courtroom style and condescending remarks toward the
defendant and defense witnesses angered Bennett's supporters. But the defendant took
the verdict in stride hoping to
eventually win on appeal. He
described
the
prosecuting
attorney's dramatics as "gush
and mush more fitted to the
stage of the Bowery Theatre
than a United States court of
justice."
The four-day "standing
room only" trial was covered in
the nation's press and became
a cause celebre. "If the daily
reports of the New York Herald
were anything like the truth,"
one reporter opined "the whole
proceeding was a farce, and the
case one of clear persecution.
The trial was characterized by
the same spirit that ruled in
the case of the Government
against Susan B. Anthony for offering to vote, and was like nearly all
endeavors to enforce cruel laws
against individual liberty and the
freedom of conscience. Talk about
justice in a court of law!"
Both men craved notoriety and
knew the value of media attention.
Immediately after the trial, Bennett
held a news conference and wellpublicized indignation meetings followed. Comstock's crime-fighting
escapades made good copy and he
was a popular figure. Despite some
negative press, his legend grew during the trial. The day after testifying,
he was involved in an arrest that
was colorfully reported in the New
Parsippany, New Jersey

York Times. Sensational accounts of

Comstock's "heroic" efforts often
appeared in the Times and appeared
to be written by the vice-hunter himself. These "news reports" convinced
at least one historian that the New
York Times "served as a mouthpiece
for Comstock and the Vice Society."
On May 15, 1879, the conviction
against Bennett was upheld and the
landmark
decision subsequently
became the foundation for obscenity
law for the next half-century. Under

D.M. Bennet, 1881

the English Hicklin formula, (Queen
v. Hicklin) obscenity was determined
if the material tended to "deprave
and corrupt those whose minds are
open to such immoral influences."
The Hicklin standard permitted
work to be judged by introducing
only isolated passages and not the
intention of the author. The ambiguous Hicklin formula worried most
justice-loving Americans - but not
Comstock. In his book, Frauds
Exposed, he wrote, "If this law is
good enough for Great Britain and
the United States of America, it
ought to be good enough for a handful of mongrels calling themselves
Liberals."
Spring 2002

A petition with over 200,000

names (including Shakers) was sent
to President Hayes asking for a pardon. Although it was the largest petition campaign of the 19th century, it
failed to convince the
Chief
Executive. Also ignored was a personal letter from Robert Ingersoll,
expressing his concerns about keeping the "old man" in prison. An
anguished Mrs. Bennett traveled to
Washington with petitions bearing
30,000 additional names, and, while
in tears, pleaded with the president whom she reported
"seemed touched."
After hearing of the monumental pardon efforts, Comstock orchestrated
his own
campaign and persuaded religious leaders and Sunday
school children to sign petitions. Comstock also mysteriously obtained some "love letters" written by Bennett to a
woman, and publicly condemned the prisoner as a "lecherous adulterer."
But it was the First Lady
who had the most influence.
Mrs. Hayes, a devout Christian,
known as Lemonade Lucy
because of her refusal to serve
alcohol in the White House,
implored her husband to deny
Bennett's petition.
During a private meeting
in prison with the Attorney
General's
Acting
Commissioner, Bennett learned of his fate.
The Commissioner admitted that
every man connected with the government pronounced his imprisonment a "gross outrage" and was in
favor of his pardon except the president. "The fact is the church is too
strong for you" he told the prisoner
"that influence has secured the cooperation of the president, and it is too
strong for you."
According to his diary, Hayes
never thought Cupid's Yokes should
have been considered illegal. As
early as 1878, during the Heywood
pardon appeal, Hayes acknowledged
in writing that the pamphlet was not
"lascivious, lewd, or corrupting in the
Page 25

The New York Society for the

Suppression of Vice seal.
criminal sense." But he received a lot
of criticism from the country's religionists over his Heywood pardon so the politician in the White House
decided it would be more expedient
to deny a pardon for Bennett.
Decades later, the former president
confessed in his diary that he made
the wrong decision and that the
Cupid's Yokes was not "obscene."
Bennett served his sentence and
nearly died from the harsh prison
conditions and the stigma attached
to selling "obscenity." Upon his
release
from
the
Albany
Penitentiary, Bennett's followers
held a reception for their "martyr" at
Chickering Hall. Soon after, the
embattled editor took a journey
around the world and was given a
hero's welcome in numerous countries. He chronicled his travels in a
collection of irreverent articles in a
book called An Infidel Abroad.
D. M. Bennett died on December
6, 1882, only a few months after
returning home. Two years later, his
friends
erected
a monument
inscribed with the publisher's philosophical principles and the proclamation: "When The Innocent Is
Convicted,
The
Court
Is
Condemned."
Comstock, on the other hand,
was not a worldly man. In his opinion, "dirty" postcards came from
cities like Berlin, Paris, and Rome.
Page 26

At the turn of the century, America's

self-appointed arbiter of morals
reported he had dutifully destroyed
73,608 pounds of "obscene" books.
Comstock didn't read books, someone
remarked; he weighed them.
During the twentieth century,
Comstock became a favorite subject
for cartoonists. But his victims found
little humor in his exploits. The vice
hunter often boasted that he locked
up enough "criminals" to fill a passenger train of 61 coaches - all of
which he believed were going
straight to hell. And although he
stopped bragging of driving fifteen
people to suicide early in his career,
he caused many more deaths including that of Ezra Heywood, who died
after contracting tuberculosis in
prison.

Anthony Comstock died on July

21, 1915, soon after returning home
from the International
Purity
Congress at the San Francisco
Exposition, where he served as an
appointed delegate by President
Wilson. He was proclaimed "a soldier
of righteousness" at his funeral.
Anthony Comstock's crusade has
been mostly forgotten, but his name
lives on in infamy and is synonymous with bigoted censorship.
Although The Truth Seeker publication continued, D. M. Bennett is
remembered only to a few and to
those who wander into Brooklyn's
Greenwood Cemetery and view a
monument to "The Defender of
Liberty and its Martyr."

In a cartoon from The Masses of September, 1915,Anthony

Comstock is represented as saying to the Judge:

"Your Honor, this woman gave birth to

a naked child!"

Spring 2002

American Atheist

ABNER KNEELAND
By Madalyn Murray O'Hair
[Reprinted from American Atheist, Vol. 23, No.2 & No.3, Feb. & March, 1981]

his Judaism, never was accepted into

nsearching out Atheist materithe ranks of the Atheist hero class.
al a curious pattern develops
Yet, as one reads the lucid, logiwithin the discipline of Athecal and totally radical (i.e., going to
ism. One finds that certain Atheist
the root of the issue) ideas of these
leaders are held in very low esteem.
men and women, it is apparent that
Often they are ignored in compila- these were our (Atheism's) great
tion histories or brushed aside with
founding fathers, the Masters.
a contemptuous off-hand remark.
Pages of accolades, for example, are
given to Thomas Huxley, "peer of the
realm," who did more to harm
Atheism than anyone in his century
(the 19th) while D. M. Bennett, who
did more good, is almost completely
ignored.
Women have had hard shrift. If
they are not verbally abused, their
accomplishments are denigrated.
Often they are unmentioned.
The law of evolution works,
reflecting (even in Atheism) the cultural values of the milieu in which
developing Atheism found itself.
Dogged always by the idea that it
must be "respectable," Atheists dealt
unkindly with their most honest,
most brave; those who practiced
intellectual
integrity.
Chapman
Cohen, about whom we know almost
nothing (except that he was conAnd so it is with Abner Kneetemptuously called a Jew by one land, who was a lifelong friend and
"prestigious" freethought chronicler)
cohort of Dr. Charles Knowlton, lately
is one case in point. When the writreported in "Roots of Atheism"
ings and contributions to society of (American Atheist, Oct., Nov., Dec.,
these men and women are sought . 1980; Jan., 1981) Apparently each
out, they are found to be brilliant
and everyone of our great men and
expositors of the Atheist genre of women were not only 1,000 years in
free thought.
advance of the theists but, literally,
Joseph McCabe, who could not
hundreds of years in advance of the
overcome his Catholicism completely, Atheists of their day. The fearful, the
was
internationally
respected.
timid, trailed along in the wake of
Joseph Lewis, who completely shed
their words and deeds, as they cut a

Parsippany, New Jersey

Spring 2002

wide swath of shock in their cultural

place and time.
Always their "followers" preferred the safety of association with
some branch of the church (Unitarianism, after it became respectable)
or the churches' intellectual whores,
the philosophers of all ages. To be
honest, to be open, to couch one's
Atheism in clear terms brought upon
these leaders the onus of nonacceptance. Atheists of all ages, before
ours, opted for the esoteric, the language which would obfuscate, pseudo-intellectualism.
It is, therefore, with considerable
pleasure that we set the record
straight. We eschew the company of
the famous Huxleys and instead
embrace the real, but relatively
unknown, fighters who were the
ones who got us, in the final analysis,
from there to here.
Abner Kneeland is one of these.
He was born April 7, 1774 in
Gardner, Massachusetts, the fourth
child
of a veteran
of the
Revolutionary Army, Timothy Kneeland (an Irishman) and Martha
(Stone), his wife. His youth was
spent on his father's farm and his
formal education was obtained in the
common schools of the community.
He went one term to the Chesterfield
(New Hampshire) Academy. He then
joined his brother doing carpenter
work in Vermont. There he also
taught school. In April, 1797, just
age 23, he married the first of what
was to be four wives. This first, by
whom he had four children (including one set of twins) was Waitstill
Armsbee.
Page 27

Curiously, he did not join the

Baptist Church until 1801, being
twenty-seven years old when he was
"dipped."He then began to preach in
July of 1802, although he continued
with carpentry until 1803. In the
interim his relationship with the
Baptists was brief He separated
from the denomination over the doctrine of "restitution of things." Plans
had been made by the New England
Baptists to try him for heresy, but
this was reduced to an admonition to
him.
Following a summer's illness
(1802) he visited a sister whose husband was a Universalist. There he
was requested to preach several discourses, which he did in an outspoken manner, fully showing his rupture with the fundamentalism of the
Baptist churches of his era.
The news of his manner of
preaching reached an adjacent town,
Alstead. The committee of the Universalist Society then requested him
to speak and after two Sunday sermons he was invited to attend on the
church. At that time, money for
preaching was raised by a town tax
and divided between the Universalists and the Congregationalists.
The Universalists had put forth
their profession of faith to avoid compulsory taxation to support orthodox
Congregationalism. However, in this
case, the preacher was so good that
when the Universalist's portion had
been expended, the Congregationalists engaged Kneeland to preach
their portion. Before the money ran
out, a town meeting was called and
by vote he was invited to settle as
minister of the town. He accepted,
but his ordination was postponed
since no meeting-house existed.
However,he was licensed as a minister at a Universalist convention held
in New Hampshire in 1803. His actual ordination was given on October
30th, 1805 and the famous Rev.
Hosea Ballou preached the sermon
and gave "the right hand of fellowship"to him.
His first wife died in 1806 III
February and he married again III
June the same year, this time to
Page 28

Lucinda Moriah Mason. This marriage produced four more children.

Kneeland was elected to the legislature while preaching at Langdon
during 1810 and 1811. He served in
Langdon as a preacher nearly seven
years. It was during this time that he
became interested
in spelling
reform, especially the elimination of
silent letters. In 1807 he published A
Brief Sketch of a New System of
Orthography. He later prepared a
number of reformed spelling text
books. He was one of our nation's
first orthographic reformers. At this
time he even proposed a new alphabet with a distinct letter for each element of the human voice. One of his
publications in this period was A
Child's First Book. He also published
a "defining" spelling book of 200
pages. His second wife died in childbirth in 1812. The following year he
married a wealthy widow,Mrs. Eliza
Osborn. Later he was asked to serve
in Charlestown, Mass., and a Universalist Church was erected specifically for his use. He remained there
for three years (1812- 1815). During
his tenure there he opened a dry
goods store in Salem, near Boston.
His church biographer notes that,
"About this period his mind was seriously exercised in regard to the
divine authenticity of the scriptures." He made these doubts known
to the Rev. Hosea Ballou, which
resulted in a friendly correspondence, which was later printed
(1816) in book form. Each man wrote
ten letters and the publication was
issued under the title, A Series of
Letters
in Defence
of Divine
Revelation. (The American Atheist
Library and Archives has not been
able to locate a copy of this book.)
This exchange allayed for a time
the doubts Kneeland had entertained and he returned (in 1816) to a
Universalist ministry in Whitestown, New York. One year later he
transferred to Philadelphia where
the Callowhill St. Universalist
Church was built under his direction. He remained at this church for
seven years, devoting most of his
time to publications. He edited the
Spring 2002

Christian Messenger from 1819 to

1821, the Philadelphia Universalist
Magazine and Christian Messenger
from 1821 to 1823 and the Gazetteer
in 1824. (Again, although actively
attempting to locate these magazines, the American Atheist Center
has been unsuccessful). The experience would prove to be invaluable
later. He also published in 1824 a
volume of Universalist sermons,
Lectures of the Doctrine of Universal
Salvation,
which was popular
enough to go to a second edition.
During this period he also debated
with a Presbyterian clergyman on
"universal salvation" and published
the argument in book form (a
duodecimo of nearly 400 pages)
about the beginnings of Christianity.
His curiosity was insatiable, and
at age about 45 he taught himself
Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. In 1822
he published his own translation of
the New Testament
in double
columns, in Greek and English, A
Greek and English Testament with
Notes.
In 1825 Kneeland moved to New
York where he became pastor of the
Prince Street Universalist Society of
New York but later moved to a dissenting group, the Second Universalist Society.There, he continued
his magazine work, editing The Olive
Branch
and in 1828 the Olive
Branch
and Christian
Inquirer,
which he described as devoted to
"free inquiry, pure morality and
rational Christianity."
It was while he was in New York
that Kneeland became acquainted
with Robert Dale Owen and Frances
Wright D'Arusmont. His sermons
reached such a point that The
Universalist refused longer to recognize him as an accredited preacher
and after some crimination, in May,
1829, he suspended himself from the
church. Apparently his friend and
possible counselor, Hosea Ballau,
convinced him that this was the
least troublesome way in which to
proceed.
The announcement of voluntary
withdrawal reflected a troubled but
conscientious attitude:
American Atheist

WHEREAS, the circumstances

which have attended my ministry in
New York, and which has resulted
from my labors in that place, are
such as to produce a dissatisfaction
in the minds of many, and to induce
a belief that I am not what I profess
to be, a real believer and defender of
the Christian religion; and
WHEREAS, this dissatisfaction
and belief concerning me have
become considerably extensive in
other religions among Universalists, it is my desire that all associations and individual brethren of the
order would allow me to suspend
myself as to the fellowship of the
order until I shall be able to give
entire satisfaction that the cause of
the world's Redeemer - of God, of
truth, and righteousness - is the
cause in which I am laboring and to
which my talents are devoted.
Wishing you success, brethren, in
all that is good, I subscribe myself,
yours, affectionately in the land of
peace.
(signed) Abner Kneeland

He was then 55 years old.

Before leaving New York, in the
fall of 1829, he gave a series of lectures in Broadway Hall on Christian
evidences. These discourses were
also published in a book, A Review of
the Evidences of Christianity, 1829.
Later, he was to write that it was
while at North Hartford, NY,that he
had read, for the first time, the
works of Dr. Joseph Priestly. He
averred that in reading Disquisition
on Matter and Spirit, he became a
Materialist in every and in the
strictest sense of the word. In writing of the experience he said, "Here
the scepticism of the editor began,
and so far as we know, to this cause,
and this cause only, which gradually
continued in spite of all his efforts to
prevent it, the whole fabric of
Christian evidence was completely
demolished in his mind, without
leaving even a wreck behind." (More
on Priestley in another issue of this
magazine at a future date.)
The American Atheist Library
and Archives contains a photocopy of
a holograph letter written
by
Parsippany, New Jersey

Kneeland on March 31, 1830 to the

Rev. W. 1. Reese of Portland, Maine,
which, while repudiating the title
"Atheist," defines accurately the
stance of Atheism. It reads:
New York
March 31st 1830
Friend Reese,
Yours enclosing seven dollars, is
just received, and as you expected
cost me 56 cts postage, but still I
was glad to receive it, though if I
had not, I should have imputed it to
inability, and not to so base a principle as a supposition that it could
be right to wrong a heretic.
You mistake me, or else the
meaning of the term, if you think
me an Atheist. I am no more an
Atheist than I am a Theist. But as I
affirm and deny nothing in relation
to the subject and think it all vanity
and folly either to affirm or deny
without evidence (and here I conceive we have none, no not even the
shadow of evidence). I do not see
any more propriety in calling me an
Atheist than there would be in calling me a theist. I understand an
Atheist to be one who denies the
existence of god, and a theist or
deist, one who affirms, or at least
believes in the existence of god. I am
neither one nor the other; but
acknowledge my total ignorance in
relation to the subject. I have tried,
and tried very hard, to gain some
knowledge about it, but have gained
none. I know as much about the
bible, and of what it contains, as I
ever expect to know; but the bible
gives me no knowledge of god. At
this, perhaps you will "smile" again.
Be it so, I will allow you to smile at
my ignorance, so that it is not the
smile of contempt. I can assure you,
notwithstanding
the term god is
found occasionally in my hymns; I
could very well dispense with the
term; for truly, I can attach no other
idea to it than that of a creation of
the imagination - a sort of poetic
license, as Jewish god, Christian
god, Pagan god, Calvinistic [?J god,
Arminian god, etc. etc. No one, I
think, can rationally support that
we attach the idea of Being to the
Spring 2002

abstract virtues, wisdom, love, truth,

etc. although we may celebrate them
in poetry as so many gods. They
have no meaning for us, whatever,
only as they relate to man. In this
sense, they mean something; but as
gods they mean nothing. But were
the ignorance of ancient times to
return, then, perhaps, ancient customs may return with them; or we
may [have] others as bad. But, after
all, I have not been able to discover
anything like "confusion in language, or embarrassment
of belief,"
however my language may have
appeared to others, and unless they
can make that confusion, etc.
appear, it will, perhaps be harmless.
You seem to wish to see "a fair
and candid statement of what" I "do
believe." To which I have no kind of
objection, as my creed is very short.
I believe, then, from the best evidence I have been able to obtain
that all that exists now, as to the
identity of matter, ever did exist,
and ever will; that is, in some state,
form or condition, is constantly and
mutually changing, some very slow,
others more rapidly. The change of
all, is not always perceivable by us;
yet, there is reason to believe, that
one law, if law it may be called, pervades the whole. When and how
man and other animals first came
into being, I do not pretend to know,
neither do I form any opinion; at
least, any further than this, as he
grows now, something like a vegetable, in the womb of his mother at
first, so, for ought I know, he might
have grown originally in the womb
of the earth, or elements in the same
way. If it be asked, Why does not the
earth produce animals now; it may
be answered, for the same reason
that women do not have children
after a certain age - she is too old to
have children now! All this is conjecture - we know nothing about it;
neither as I conceive, is it a matter
of the least concern, of the least consequence to us. So may the earth be
ultimately destroyed, from some
cause or other, but that is no concern of mine whatever. I know of no
relation, obligation, duty or responsibility to any being or beings in
this universe except to myself and
others of my own species. I do not
think it right to be cruel, even to
other animals, but I do not stand in
Page 29

the same relation to them as I do to

man. They would confer on me no
benefit, voluntarily, unless they were
first domesticated by men for that
purpose. My own interest, which is
happiness, consists in endeavoring
to make others as happy as I can, as
well as myself On my own account,
it is of no consequences whatever
whether I live long or die shortly;
all I want, is to be happy while I
live: but on the account of others, I
wish to live as long as I can be useful to them, in any manner or form,
for I anticipate their happiness even
after I am dead, and this idea adds
to my happiness now. I form no idea
of a hereafter any more than I do of
a heretofore. This world existed
before my birth; but what was that
to me? So it will exist after I am
dead, and what is that to me?
It will be nothing to me then;
but I now wish that they (the inhabitants) should then be happy. Thus I
have informed you, as explicitly as I
can, and in perfect candor, my present impressions from all that I
know or have reason to believe.
I extend my views no farther. Of
superhuman beings, or invisible
worlds, I know nothing, except it
may be these worlds, similar perhaps to our own, which are too distant to be seen by us; but if they are
inhabited, our world must be as
invisible to them as theirs is to us.
continue to preach as long as you
can believe; but when you can no
longer believe, perhaps you will find
it expedient to do as I have done.
Continue to lecture for the good of
your species in this world without
any regard to another. At all events
I am your well wisher,
,

Abner Kneeland

Meanwhile, Frances Wright had

founded "The First Society of Free
Enquirers" in Boston Massachusetts
in 1829. In 1830 Kneeland went
there to be the resident lecturer replacing a previous lecturer by' the
name of Jennings. It was in that
same year that he became associated
with Dr. Charles Knowlton, a neighbor. When Dr. Knowlton wrote the
first medical birth control handbook
Page 30

distributed in the United States , he

was arrested and imprisoned for it.
Kneeland immediately attempted to
come to his rescue reporting the trial
extensively in a publication he had
started in 1831, the Boston Investigator. When William Lloyd Garrison
came to the city and sought in vain
for a church or hall in which to speak
upon slavery, and was about to resort
to the Commons, Abner Kneeland
(and his friends) offered Garrison
the use of the Julien Hall in which
they held their lectures, then under
their control. Garrison's antislavery
lectures were delivered there. An
irate proprietor turned them all out
so that they were forced to move to
the Federal Street Theatre.
Although commentators relate
that the "next few years were filled
with turmoil," the allusion is lost
since no facts are known. However,
the December 20th, 1833, issue of
the Boston Investigator
contained
three articles and severe consequences for Kneeland. Two of the
articles were reprinted from the Free
Inquirer of New York City. The first
of these dealt with the subject of the
virgin birth, "and contained a quotation from Voltaire so indelicate that
four successive judges protected four
different juries from the embarrassment of listening to it. "The second
was an irreverent ridicule of prayer.
The third was a statement of the editor, as follows:
1. Universalists believe in a god
which I do not; [so Kneeland had
written] but believe that their god,
with all his moral attributes is
nothing more than a chimera of
their own imagination.
2. Universalists believe in Christ
which I do not; but believe that the
whole story concerning him is as
much a fable and fiction, as that of
the god Prometheus ...
3. Universalists believe in miracles, which I do not; but believe that
every pretension to them can either
be accounted for on natural principles or else is to be attributed to
mere trick and imposture.
4. Universalists believe in the resurrection of the dead, immortality
and eternal life, which I do not; but
Spring 2002

believe that all life is material, that

death is an eternal extinction of life
to the individual who possesses it,
and that no individual life was ever
or ever will be eternal.

Abner Kneeland may not have

known it when he made his opinion
known that day but he was transgressing not alone the laws of god,
but of man. On July 3, 1782, 51
years prior, the legislature of the
State of Massachusetts had passed
"An Act against Blasphemy." The
substance of the law was explicit: "If
any person shall willfully blaspheme
the holy name of God, by denying,
cursing, or contumeliously reproaching God, his creation, government or
final judging of the world, or by cursing or reproaching Jesus Christ or
the Holy Ghost, or by cursing or contumeliously reproaching the Holy
Word of God, that is, the canonical
scriptures as contained in the books
of the Old and New Testaments or
by exposing them or any part of
them to contempt or ridicule, which
books are as follows: [lists all books
of the bible]; every person so offending shall be punished by imprisonment not exceeding twelve months,
by sitting in the pillory, by whipping,
or by sitting on the gallows, with a
rope about the neck, or binding to
the good behavior, at the discretion
of the Supreme Judicial Court before
whom the conviction may be according to the aggravation
of the
offense."
Kneeland was indicted, arrested
and brought to trial in the Municipal Court of Boston within weeks.
Immediately the prosecuting attorney linked him to "Fanny Wright,
Robert Dale Owen and Dr. Charles
Knowlton." The argument to the jury
was aimed at all.
Kneeland, who was legally
responsible for the contents of the
journal, did the best he could to
escape the ancient law and its inhuman punishment. His attorney first
challenged the constitutionality of
the law under which Kneeland had
been indicted; second, denied Kneeland's responsibility for the two
American Atheist

articles printed from the New York

Inquirer and third, attempted to construe the meaning of Kneeland's own
words so that blasphemy could not
be inferred.
The judge, in his charge to the
jury, reminded them that he was a
deacon in the (Universalist) Brattle
Street Church, declared the law to be
constitutional, brushed aside any
but the most obvious meaning of
blasphemous words and admonished
of the grave social consequences of
unpunished blasphemy, He philosophized, quoting Erskine,
Of all human beings, he says,
the poor stand most in need of the
consolation of religion, and the country has the deepest stake in their
enjoying it, not only from the protection which it owes them, but because
no man can be expected to be faithful to the authority of man, who
revolts against the government of
god.

The jury brought in a verdict of

guilty, the judge pronounced sentence of three months in jail, and
Kneeland promptly appealed to the
Supreme Court.
In the meantime, in 1834, Kneeland married again, this time Dolly
L. Rice with whom he fathered four
more children. All twelve children of
these four marriages were delivered
by Kneeland
himself by the
"Thomsonian system" [now being
researched).
On May 28th, 1834, the second
trial ended with the jury not being
able to come to a verdict, by an
eleven to one vote.
The state tried again, and the
third trial was had in November,
1835, when he was again convicted.
Kneeland then moved for a new trial
which was had in March, 1836. This
was also appealed but in the Massachusetts Supreme Court, in 1838, he
was sentenced to serve sixty days in
jail. Kneeland was then 64 years old.
Along the way, he had dispensed
with an attorney and delivered
speeches in his own defense in 1834
and again in 1836 before the
Supreme Court.
Parsippany, New Jersey

The final 39-page decision issued

in April, 1838 (four and one-half
years after the offense) is a justification for the continued use of the blasphemy law. The court had difficulty
since it had full knowledge that this
was a curtailment of freedom of the
press, freedom of speech and freedom of conscience. Therefore one of
the conclusions reached was to
"intent" and "manner" of Kneeland.
The intent was "bad," the manner
was "calculated to give just offense"
and, in all, his remarks were malicious falsehoods, and obscene or profane publications. Yet, the court also
held that the statute under which he
had been indicted was "... not
intended to prohibit the fullest
inquiry and freest discussion for all
honest and fair purposes
" included among which was not " to prevent the simple and sincere avowal
of disbelief in the existence and
attributes of a supreme, intelligent
being, upon suitable and proper occasions."
When measured against the
16th article of the Massachusetts
Declaration
of Rights,
which
declared that the liberty of the press
ought not to be restrained, the
statute under which Kneeland was
prosecuted was found not to be
repugnant to freedom of the press.
Kneeland had argued as best as
he could. He did not want to go to
jail. His plea had been, "I had not
occasion to deny that there was a
god; I believe that the whole universe is nature, and that god and
nature are synonymous terms. I
believe in a god that embraces all
power, wisdom, justice and goodness.
Everything is god. I am not an atheist, but a pantheist."
It did not work because he really
did not believe what he was forced to
say to stay out of jail. His prosecutors knew him well. For the court
noted it was the "said" and not the
"unsaid" which it could seize upon:
"... the enjoyment of concealed opinions cannot be restrained by human
institutions." But Frances Wright
had already spoken to the issue with
her query, "Who can speak for
Spring 2002

human freedom when the mind is in

chains?" A closet Atheist unable, or
so cowed as to be unwilling, to speak
openly had - really - no right to an
opinion at all. Actually, when the
court arrived at the central issue of
the case, all was apparent. "The discussion, in decent language, of all the
other subjects mentioned in the
statute, is left open; but the denial of
god, whether in decent language or
otherwise, is prohibited." The judges
went on to define blasphemy as "consisting in speaking evil of the Deity
with an impious purpose to derogate
from the divine majesty, and to alienate the minds of others from the love
and reverence of God."
The court called upon legal opinions and cited the constitutions of
New Hampshire, Vermont, Maine
and New York as prohibiting blasphemy. Kneeland must go to jail.
The imposition of the sentence
aroused protest throughout
the
state. Editorial writers fell back
upon the warehouse of Puritan intolerance to vilify the judges and the
law. It was to no avail. A petition for
pardon was drawn up by no less a
person
than
William
Ellery
Channing, pleading that the honor of
the state required the pardon. It was
signed by William Lloyd Garrison,
Ralph Waldo Emerson, and about
170 other prominent persons and
ministers. Kneeland was in the common jail from which he could see the
Bunker Hill Monument.
With all the letter-writing, petitioning, visitors, the sixty days were
accomplished on 12th August, 1838,
and Abner Kneeland was released
from jail. His crime: expressing
frankly his religious beliefs.
Kneeland was disheartened and
disappointed. He still believed in the
Philosophical Creed he had composed four years prior to this time.
He had used it during the trial and
reaffirmed it after his release.
ABNER KNEELAND'S
Code Of Morals
THEOREM 1. Human happiness is the grand and ultimate
Page 31

object of man; hence whatever

tends to increase the amount of
human happiness, on the whole,
taking into consideration all its
bearings, and all its consequences,
is good in a moral sense, and ought
to be performed, independent of
law, fashion or custom, and there
should be no law to prohibit it. But
whatever tends to diminish the
quantum of human happiness, on
the whole, in the same sense as
above, is evil in a moral sense, and
ought to be avoided, even were
there no law, fashion or custom
against it.
THEOREM II. Whatever is congenial to nature, in all living
beings, tends to health and happiness; but the excess of every thing,
whether in eating, drinking, or any
other gratification, is injurious and
should be avoided; and the neglect
of what nature requires may be
equally injurious, and should be
neglected.
But the better to understand
these abstract Moral Principles, the
following Rules are proposed. They
are fundamental, and should, never
be lost sight of in principle, or
departed from in practice. They
constitute, with the Philosophical
Creed, the Religion of Free
Enquirers.
1. Truth is most sacred of any
thing in the Universe: and children
should be ever taught, both by precept and example, to speak the
truth, and nothing but the truth, on
all occasions; and from which they
should never swerve in future life.

time the promise is made, of having

the means to fulfill it.
5. All contracts are of a civil
nature; mankind are incapable of
making any other; and they should
be considered sacred and binding
on the parties as long as the contract lasts.
6. The parties making a contract, should be authorized to dissolve it by mutual consent; but if
the parties cannot agree, a third
party may be called in, the judiciary, if necessary, not to perpetuate
the contract, but to say on what
conditions it shall be dissolved.
7. The marriage contract should
not be an exception to the foregoing
rules; 'for how can two walk together, except they are agreed?' But no
marriage contract should be disannulled without reasons to the satisfaction of disinterested persons who
may be the referees, subject to an
appeal if necessary; and all provisions be made for the children, in
case there be any, that the laws
provide for, and of which the property of the parties admit.
8. All debts should be considered as debts of HONOR, and
promptly paid as such; which if any
fail to do, they should not be trusted; and those who do trust them
should suffer or abide the consequences without troubling others
therewith. But let it be understood,
if a man does not pay his honest
debts when he has the means, it is
a crime, and should be punished as
such. See article 11.

3. Benevolence and Charity are

beautiful ornaments, and adorn the
human character; hence, these
moral virtues should be constantly
kept on view.

9. Societies should all be based

upon these principles, and every
member, during his or her membership, should conform strictly to the
rules of the society; and in case of
failure should be liable to be
expelled from the society; and, if
necessary for the public good,
should be publicly advertised, as a
warning to others.

4. No one should promise without the means and the intention of

fulfilling what is promised; and if
the promise is to be fulfilled at a
future time, there should be at least
a reasonable expectation at the

10. All parents should maintain

and properly educate their children,
and should not extend their number beyond a fair prospect and
probability of their being able to do
so; but should they neglect to do it,

2. Justice and equity should be

observed in all the transactions of
man; and never be designedly
departed from in any instance.

Page 32

Spring 2002

having the means, they should be

liable to be fined to that amount,
and to have their children taken
from them; for no children should
be neglected, much less suffered to
grow up either in wretchedness or
in ignorance.
Were these rules to be perfectly
observed and all that is implied in
them strictly regarded, there would
be no occasion for any criminal
laws: but owing to the frailty of
man, they may be violated, and
therefore it is necessary,
11. To have laws to prevent
trespasses and frauds of every
kind; to protect the weak against
the strong; to protect the upright
dealer against the swindler; to protect virtue of every grade and
name, against the inroads and ravages of every species of vice. In
these laws, therefore, there should
be included (and no matter how
severe the penalty,) laws against
seduction, and all violations of the
marriage contract, which, of all contracts or moral rules, should be
held the most sacred.
These are the moral rules and
principles which should never be
lost sight of in practice, or in the
making of civil laws. And how far
soever similar rules and regulations
may be extended, all should partake of the same spirit, and be built
upon these fundamental principles.

Kneeland's
next intellectual
adventure was the embracing of the
idea of an Atheist colony. Kneeland
was well acquainted with Frances
Wright's Tennessee Neshoba and
Robert Dale Owen's Indiana New
Harmony colonies and decided to,
himself, establish one. The free-soil
Territory of Iowa had just been
established by Act of Congress.
Based on the old Frances Wright
group, "First Society of Free
Enquirers," he established a hope
and reached out to physically
acquire an extensive tract of land in
Van Buren County, two miles south
of Farmington, on the bank of the
Des Moines River. The community
was named Salubria, while still only
in existence on paper and dedicated
American Atheist

to both rationalism and the worship

of nature.
The entire enterprise was carried on through the pages of the
Investigator. A levy of $10 was made
upon each member of the Society,
The founders of the new Salubria
group declared, "No minister shall
ever come to this community to air
his superstitions."
In May, 1839, Kneeland and
his wife and three children
arrived in Ft. Madison, Iowa. He
and his stepson built a comfortable two story house in Salubria.
In December, 1841, he finally
obtained a government patent
for the land. His friends assembled at this home, his books were
shipped there.
Salubria did not prosper.
Kneeland ran for the territorial
legislature on his own Free
Thought ticket in 1840, but
failed in his bid. He first took to
the lecture platform and then to
school teaching
in Helena,
Arkansas. His financial difficulties caused him to offer some personal property for sale, including
his private library of 200 books.
For some time, perhaps more
than a year, he sent letters back
to the Investigator for publication. Meantime, with his fourth
wife still bearing
children,
Kneeland was engaged in much
physical labor. He helped to build
his house, hoed the garden,
worked in the hay field.
He died at his home in
Salubria on August 27, 1844, at
the age of 70.
Salubria never took root. The
few who came had their descendants absorbed by religious
groups in adjacent communities.
In fact, Kneeland's own daughter
Susan became a devout member
of the Congregational Church
and a granddaughter presided
over a Sabbath School in a
chapel built on half an acre of
ground donated by a descendant
of a free thinker.

Meanwhile,
Kneeland
had
turned the Investigator
over to
Josiah P. Mendum, as publisher, with
Horace Seaver as editor. It survived
for over forty more years. Established in 1830, it was a central focus
for the publication of Freethought
literature until July 30, 1904, when
it finally "suspended publication" forever.

There never was, again, a trial

for blasphemy in Massachusetts
although the legislature of that state
reaffirmed the validity of the law in
1979. Abner Kneeland paid a high
price for the frankness he used in
expressing his opinions. His story
adds to the rich heritage ofAmerican
Atheism.

"Hey, what of the fetus is gay?"

Parsippany, New Jersey

Spring 2002

Page 33

ABNER KNEELAND AND GOD

The Roots of a Blaspheme-In
[Reprinted

from, American Atheist, Vol. 27, No. 10, October, 1985]

n December 20,1833, over one

hundred and fifty years ago,
Abner Kneeland, an Atheist,
was indicted under St. 1782, c, 8 of the
Massachusetts code. The indictment
alleged that Kneeland unlawfully and
wickedly composed, printed, and published in a newspaper
called the
Boston Investigator, of which he was
the editor and publisher, a certain
scandalous, impious, obscene, blasphemous, and profane libel, in which he
"did willfully blaspheme the holy
name of God, by denying and contumeliously
reproaching
God, his
Creation, government, and final judging of the world, and by reproaching
Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost, and
contumeliously reproaching the holy
word of God."
The disgusting, scandalous, profane, vile, and blasphemous words of
Abner Kneeland were then set out in
full, to wit:
1. Universalists believe in a god which
I do not; but believe that their god, with
all his moral attributes
(aside from
nature itself) is nothing more than a
mere chimera of their own imagination.
2. Universalists
believe in Christ,
which I do not; but believe that the whole
story concerning him is as much a fable
and a fiction as that of the god
Prometheus, the tragedy of whose death
is said to have been acted on the stage in
the theater at Athens, five hundred years
before the Christian era.
3. Universalists believe in miracles,
which I do not; but believe that every
pretension to them can be accounted for
on natural principles, or else is to be
attributed to mere trick and imposture.
4. Universalists believe in the resurrection of the dead, in immortality and
eternal life, which I do not; but believe
that all life is mortal, that death is an
eternal extinction of life to the individual
who possesses it, and that no individual
life is, ever was, or ever will be eternal.

Kneeland was found guilty as

charged and sentenced to imprisonment for three months in the common
Page 34

gaol. From this judgment he appealed

to the Supreme Judicial Court and in
the November, 1835, term was tried
and again convicted. Kneeland then
asked for a new trial which was
argued on March 8, 1836. He was
again found guilty and this time sentenced to sixty days in jail - which he
served.
Despite several attempts to have
the law erased from the books, it still
stands, as Criminal Statute 272; 36
Blasphemy and reads as follows:
Whoever willfully blasphemes the holy
name of God by denying, cursing or contumeliously reproaching God, his creation, government or final judging of the
world, or by cursing or contumeliously
reproaching Jesus Christ or the Holy
Ghost, or by cursing or contumeliously
reproaching or exposing to contempt and
ridicule, the holy word of God contained
in the holy scriptures shall be punished
by imprisonment in jail for not more
than one year or by a fine of not more
than three hundred dollars, and may also
be bound to good behavior.

On July 4th, 1985, the Massachusetts Bay Chapter of American

Atheists
decided
to
hold
a
"Blaspheme-In" in front of the State
Capitol Building in Boston, Massachusetts. Distinctly confronting the statutory provision, a typical sign read:
"There is no god. There are only liars
who say there is, and fools who believe
them." Nothing could have been more
explicit as an example of contumelious
blasphemy. The turnout was excellent
for this god-ridden state, and so was
the level of enthusiasm among those
who participated. Not alone did the
picketing Atheists assert again their
rights to free speech and peaceable
assembly but they, by their activity,
protested the continual attempts by
the
religionists
to subvert
the
Constitution of the United States or
replace it with religious strictures.
Although some Atheists were discouraged or dissuaded from attendance because of Boston's legendary
Spring 2002

bad driving conditions, or the looming

threat of potential arrest since the
Blasphemy Statute is in full force and
effect, all such fears turned out to be
largely unfounded. The traffic was
light and the Capitol police were very
helpful - one of them even seemed to
support what the picketers
were
attempting.
The oldest picket on the line was
Ida Spiegel, age ninety. And to fly in
the face ofthe lie that as one gets older
one gets more religion, she was
attended by John Solo, age seventyseven, and Arthur D'Angelo, age seventy-four!
As thousands of Bostonians drove
or walked by on this special holiday for
the country, many took pictures, some
stopped to talk - and the religious crazies were also in evidence. As the latter kept assaulting pedestrians with
religious junk-literature,
the police
needed to intervene to instruct them
to desist from making nuisances of
themselves by their obnoxious proselytizing efforts.
The
Connecticut
Chapter
of
American Atheists sent representatives, and Larry Carter, with his
daughter Courtney, drove over 1,300
miles from Des Moines, Iowa to be a
part of the endeavor.
The news in Massachusetts that
night did not cover any event in the
state dealing with the Constitution,
the Bill of Rights, or the Declaration of
Independence, so it was axiomatic that
it would not report on this group
which was demonstrating
for the
Independence of the American Mind
from the Shackles of Religion.
In our day and age, that is simply
exercising too much "independence"
even
on the
Fourth
of July.
Nonetheless it was an invigorating
and interesting afternoon for those on
the picket line and an educational display for all those who saw them and,
came to have an understanding that
American Atheism is alive and well in
Massachusetts.
American Atheist

THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH:

BEING AN EXPOSITION OF INFIDELITY,
OR RELIGIOUS UNBELIEF
BY THOMAS HERTTELL
[Reprinted from the Boston Investigator, the newspaper founded by Abner Kneeland,
Vol.XIV,No. 30, "Of the Common Era, 1844, Of the Nation, 69."]
"The Prophets prophesy falsely,
and the Priests bear rule by
their means, and my people love
to have it so."-[Jeremiah
v., 31]
INTRODUCTION

ll mankind, as far as they

have been traced through he
pages of history, the tales of
tradition, and the legends of the
numerous or numberless Gods which
are now believed to exist or have
been disclaimed and exploded, have
been at all times, more or less,
engaged in the matter or superstitions called religion. No subject probably has more occupied the human
mind;-none
on which so much
human
thought
has
been
bestowed;- none perhaps on which
so much has been said,-so much
written and so much done;-none on
which so great a variety of opinions
have been entertained,-so
many
systems formed, and such a contrariety of doctrines have been advanced,
propagated, believed and exploded;-none with which has been associated so much folly,falsehood, fable
and fiction, or which has engendered
so much ill will, hostility, intolerance, persecution, crime and misery
among the human race, as that
called religion, by whatever name,
form or shape it has been exhibited,
or by whatever means it has been
imposed on the ignorance, credulity
and superstition of mankind, and
equally true is it, that there are no
Parsippany, New Jersey

opinions, on any subject, on which

the human mind has been exercised,
of which he is so tenacious as of
those on religion; - none to which he
would adhere with more pertinacity,
defend with more zeal, or for the
maintenance of which he would
make greater sacrifices. On no other
subject will mankind imbibe such
visionary notions,-adopt
so many
absurdities,-entertain
so great
inconsistencies,-conform
to so
much and such senseless mummery,-practise such wild extravagancies, and become the subjects, the
dupes or victims of such extreme
delusion. Under the influence of religion, or of any superstition bearing
the name of religion, man will not
only become heedless of the dictates
of human reason, - renounce the
exercise of his intellectual faculties,-disclaim the use of his understanding, and disregard the evidence
of his senses, - but he will exult in
the merit of the sacrifice of all these,
and deem it the highest evidence of
religious virtue to preserve his religious faith, in direct opposition to
the plain and palpable laws or principles of nature, logical reasoning
and known truth; and will even disregard the obligations of moral rectitude, when deemed necessary for the
support and propagation of the religious doctrines and dogmata which
he has been taught in his childhood
to believe and reverence as a supernatural revelation of the only true
religion by the only true God!
Spring 2002

All this would be unaccountable

and wonderful, if we did not know
that the opinions of mankind are
involuntary, rather than willful, and
that their religious creeds depend
more on circumstances over which
they have no control, than on their
own reflection, study, investigation,
judgment or choice. Indeed, all existing religions are but fashionable
superstitions;
and all exploded
superstitions are religions out of
fashion. All religions and superstitions have a common origin. Neither,
in reality, ever had being as a
SCIENCE; and both are the offspring
of ignorance, credulity, king and
priestcraft; and depend more on the
age of the world - the time when
man's infant life began-the parents
by whom he was begotten, created
and made, and the people among and
by whom he was reared, bred and
educated, than on any or all other
circumstances which influence his
religious creed.
But in truth, other than superstition, there is no such thing as religion as a SCIENCE. Existing as well
as exploded religions, are all alike
based on the assumption (not knowledge) that man knows the source or
cause of the existence of the universe, or the Being, Architect, or
Power which created and sustains it.
Man not being possessed of the truth
on that subject, his religion is reared
not on his knowledge, but on his
ignorance of the source and organization of matter, life and mind; and
Page 35

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all systems of religion or- superstition

reared on such assumed, fallacious
and visionary promises, are mere
speculative hypotheses, without any
known truth to sustain them; and
hence are a fraud on mankind as
obvious and great as its error,-as
extensive as the belief of its truth,
and as mischievous as the moral
debasement and misery which it has
caused to the human race.
However numerous the systems
of religion which now prevail in the
world;-however innumerable those
which have been exploded for their
errors, superstitions, falsehood and
evil tendency; - however different
the latter may have been from each
other and from those now in beingi=
however inconsistent each may be in
its doctrines; - however different the
character of their Gods, - there are
some features which seem to be common to them all-some points on
which, if they do not perfectly harmonize, they exhibit a striking similitude. Each sect holds that there is
such a thing or science as religion.
That there is, though many false, one
only true religion. While each sect
regards all others as false, it claims
its own particular system, exclusively, as the only true religion-the
word and work of the only true God,
by whom it was revealed to its belieoers by supernatural
means; and
proved by miracles, which in their
turn are testified to exclusively by
the advocates of each system respectively,who deem themselves the only
true believers and special favorites of
Heaven, and who regard all the rest
of mankind as ignorant heathen,
wicked infidels and enemies to the
Page 36

WEDNESDAY,

NOVliMJ3ER

27. 1844.

WJfOLENO.

706_

.. ~
... .,.,--.,.;;
.. ~.. ;,;;;--,.,...
'""'--~~~~~~==.:~=~~~~~~~;;;:;;:;;;;;;~-.

true God, whose "grace abounds," or

whose favors and blessings are dispensed, exclusively on those who
hate his enemies. The creed is also
common to all sects of revelationists,
that belief in their respective doctrines and dogmata, or the mysteries
of their revealed religion, is indispensable to the peace and happiness of
mankind here and hereafter; - and
that without such true faith, - the
knowledge and practice of morality, - the strict adhesion to the principles ofjustice , and the constant performance of the works of benevolence
and good will to all animal creation,
can avail little or nothing, as proof of
the possession of true religious faith,
or as the means or the merit of the
temporal or eternal felicity of the
human race!!
All religious sects will readily
admit the truth and justice of the
foregoing remarks as applicable to
all religions and superstitions; each
sect excepting their own and only
true religion as exclusively exempted
from merited
reproach.
Even
Christians
will all or generally
accede to the truth of the preceding
statements as attaching to all sects
and religions but their own. But if
their own books contain a true
record of their faith, and are allowed
to be sufficient authority to prove it,
Christians, by their own showing,
have no just claim to any exemption
from the foregoing general and merited animadversion. For certain it is,
that a religion, which, by its own confession, has subjected man to the
influence of a "lying spirit," [1 Kings
xxii., 22,23] and misled him to invent
and propagate "willful falsehood,"
Spring 2002

that the "glory of God might

abound," [Romans iii., 7] -a religion
that has subjected man to "a strong
delusion," "that he should believe a
lie," that he might therefor "be
damned" to hell torments to all eternity "for not believing the truth" [2
Thess. ii., 11 and 12]-a religion
which (like its imputed author) came
not to send peace, [Matt. x., 34, 35]
but division, [Luke xii., 51-53] fire
[Luke xii., 49] and sword [Matt. x.,
34] on the earth-a religion that has
"set man at variance with his father,
and the daughter against the mother, and the daughter-in-law against
the mother-in-law," and made "a
man's foes those of his own household" [Matt. x., 34,35, 36, and Luke
xii., 53]-a religion which requires of
its believers that they "hate father,
mother, wife, children, brethren, and
sisters" [Luke xiv., 26, and Matt. x.,
37]-a religion by the influence and
sanction of which religious wars
have been waged, religious inquisitions established, numerous "infernal machines" or instruments of
human torture, bloodshed and death
have teen invented and used to persecute and destroy mankind-a religion which, in its operation and
progress, eschewed the knowledge
and culture of the arts and sciences;
anathematized learning and literature; forbids man "to eat of the fruit
of the tree of knowledge";-in
order
to keep him in ignorance of ''good
and evil";-caused
the foundations
of human rights and happiness to be
broken up; the "temple" of political
and religious liberty to be "rent in
twain," and intellectual "darkness to
prevail" (not hours only, but) during
American Atheist

many centuries, and in every country, when and where

its power and "evil spirit" of intolerance and persecution
were dominant and uncontrolled;-I repeat, that a religion containing the doctrines before quoted, and in accordance therewith, operating to produce the horrible consequences just noted, has no just claim to preeminence
above its predecessors or contemporaries, for its truth,
divine origin, or its tendency to improve the moral condition or happiness of the human race.
Nor can the moral precepts which are (extracted from
Pagan systems of religion, and) sparingly sprinkled and
mixed with those of an adverse character in the
Christian Bible, relieve the Christian religion from the
force of the foregoing animadversion. Doctrines and precepts so heterogeneous and opposite in their character,
may go to prove the certainty and magnitude of the
errors of the system of religion in which both are found,
and prove the futility of its pretensions to divine origin;
but are no evidence of its truth or moral influence; inasmuch as in its practical operation, when in the possession and exercise of unrestrained human power and

"I figure if God wanted me to be a good

He'd make me a good person:'
Parsippany, New Jersey

influence, its worst doctrines were carried out, its true

character developed, and its evil tendency illustrated, by
a total disregard on the part of its advocates, teachers
and professors, of its moral precepts of charity, forbearance, good will to men, and the principles of equal rights
and reciprocal justice;-and in truth, also, by the ignorance, fanaticism and human debasement and misery
which accompanied its establishment,
followed its
progress and marked its way in blood, war and devastation; and in fine, by the destruction of more millions of
human victims sacrificed at the shrine of its "evil spirit"
of intolerance and persecution, during the "dark ages" of
unrestrained ecclesiastic power, than fell by the combined curses of plague, pestilence, and famine.
Nor can the subsequent altered and reformed state of
religion, nor the yet more improved doctrines and practice of the Christian church at the present day, entirely
rescue it from a participation in the truth, that it has
been, in a greater or less degree, at all times since its
legal establishment associated with and inspired and
moved by an "evil spirit" of fanaticism, intolerance and
persecution.
The reformation in the Christian Church
was not the effect of any moral influence in
the dominant faith and practice, or of the voluntary exercise of the power of the Church
militant, in aid of its own improvement. On
the contrary, it was Infidelity, that is, unbelief in its doctrines and dogmas, and opposition to the secular power of the established
or dominant church which ultimated in its
present altered and partially improved "faith
and practice." It was unbelief in the divine
origin and infallibility
of the dominant
church; unbelief of its doctrines, dogmata
and superstitions; - a want of faith in the
piety, humanity and integrity of its ministers
and advocates, which excited resistance to its
despotic power, evil spirit and immoral influence; it was Infidelity to reigning ecclesiastical power, and successful opposition to the
dominant and despotic influence of the
Christian Church in "the dark ages," which
led to the revival ofletters;-to
the renewed
pursuit of literature;-to
the cultivation of
the Arts and Sciences;-to
the increased
knowledge of the rights and power of man
and to the consequent intellectual and moral
improvement and melioration of the condition of the Christian world.
Faith in all the mysteries and doctrines of
all revealed religions respectively, is the most
prominent trait of character common to
them all. Faith, independent of reason or
investigation, is the primary and vital prinperson,
ciple-the very life and soul of all supernatural, revealed religion. Without such faith,

Spring 2002

Page 37

such religion could not have being,

believers, adherents, devotees or
influence. Though Christians believe
that such "faith is the gift ofthe God"
[Ephe. ii., 8] they worship, and hence
needs no human reasoning or investigation to produce it; yet "man has
sought out many inventions,"
[Ecclesiastes vii., 29] by which he
has been enabled to discover and put
in practice other ways and means by
which to create true religious faith
independent of the "gift of God" or
the aid of human reason or investigation.
CHAPTER I.
IGNORANCE
THE MOTHER OF DEVOTION
It is often said that "ignorance is
the mother of devotion:"but whether
that be true or not, it is well understood that ignorance is the parent of
credulity, and that superstition is a
natural and lineal descendant of the
same stock: and it is equally clear
that this unholy trinity is the material by which bigotry, intolerance,
and persecution
are produced
through the auxiliary instrumentality of priest craft; the power and influence of all which, when incorporated
with the political institutions of
mankind, constitute the "union of
church and state," by which both the
government and the people are rendered subservient to the cupidity
and ambition of clerical and political
oppressors.
When the ignorant, the credulous and the timid could be persuaded or commanded to profess belief in
the religious dogmata of the militant
church, they were deemed to have
religious faith. When by such means
they could be induced to acknowledge the church to be infallible, and
the opinions of the priests no less
so-that
"Kings reign by Divine
appointment"-that
they "could do
no wrong"-that their vilest acts of
cruelty and despotism were works of
clemency and mercy,and that the life
and reign of the ruling Tyrant were
the greatest public blessings conPage 38

ferred by God on man, they were

estimated as true religious believers
and good and loyal subjects!
Other and more forcible arguments were employed to oblige honest infidels to repent and to convert
them to the true faith in the dominant religious and political creeds.
The sword, the fire and the faggot,
the chains and the dungeon, the rack
and the wheel, the cross, the gibbet,
the gallows, and other equally pious
and persuasive means were used to
induce unenlightened and perverse
infidels to profess the true faith and
to become quiet subjects and orthodox hypocrites. In perfect harmony
with all which, and with a view to
stifle the voice of instruction - to
repress the spirit of inquiry-to
avert free discussion - to smother
the light oftruth-to prevent the diffusion of knowledge-to drown the
murmur of complaint-to alarm the
fears of the timid - to excite the passions of the ignorant-to infuriate
the zeal of the religious bigot, and
hence to prevent exposures of error,
falsehood and peculation, as inconsistent with justice as with the
rights and interests of the people;
the senseless "hue and cry" of blasphemy, infidelity, heresy, &c., has
always been raised by kings, priests,
and their coadjutors, as the watchwords of "danger to their craft," and
as a signal for proscription and persecution of all [who hold] the practice of morality-justice
and kindness to all animal creation-as more
essential to their happiness than
adherence to sanctimonious forms
and ceremonies, invented by the
priests, enforced by the civil government, and performed for the benefit
ofthe authors and managers who get
them up, superintend their exhibition and take a part in the impious
farce!
Thus it is, that the doctrine of
the sovereignty of kings, and the
divinity and infallibility of priests,
are derived from the ignorance,
credulity and superstition of the people; and the power and influence of
kings and priests depend on the stability of the foundation on which the
Spring 2002

superstructure was raised. The people must be kept in ignorance, or the

government (political and ecclesiastical) founded on the ignorance,
credulity and superstition of the people, cannot stand. Destroy both, and
superstition will become extinct. In
the absence of which unholy trinity,
priestcraft would be thrown out of
employ for want of materials to work
with: bigotry, intolerance and persecution could no more be brought into
the field to sustain the religion of
"church and state": the bond of their
union would become "a rope of sand":
the foundations of their government
would be broken up: the race of kings
would become extinct, and priestcraft be no more forever.
Kings, priests and their coadjutors are well aware of all those
truths. They know that "in the day
that [the people] eat of the fruit of
the tree of knowledge," [Gen. ii., 9]
"their eyes will be open," [lb. iii., 5,
22] and they will discover the source
of the misery which they suffer-the
wrongs which have been heaped
upon them, and comprehend the
rights to which they are entitled.
Kings and priests know,that to allow
equal education and free discussion
uncontrolled by ecclesiastical power
and influence, would be to teach the
people their own rights and their
own power, and betray the weakness
of their oppressors. They know that
when the people learn whence come
the evils which afflict them-what
their remedy is, and how to apply it,
the dark dominion of ignorance,
credulity and superstition, with
their concomitants, bigotry, intolerance and persecution, will give place
to the rising empire of human reason;- the bloody sceptre of usurped
and despotic power will yield to the
sovereignty of the people; and political governments recognizing the
equal rights of man, will rise on the
ruins of the diabolical league of
church and state-tend to meliorate
the condition of all nations and
advance the happiness of the whole
human race.
It is therefore necessary to the
existence and duration of the power
American Atheist

and emoluments of the recipients

and consumers of the tythes and
taxes, that the people should be kept
in ignorance of every thing which
may tend to expose the vile machinery by which they have too long been
held in base subserviency to the
interests of those who manage it.
And kings and priests act consistently
with a view to their own exclusive
interests, when they array the combined power and influence of "church
and state," in opposition to every
measure of reform which would
endanger their power or diminish
their reverence, derived from the toil
and sweat of an enslaved and
oppressed people. It is also in perfect
keeping with their common purpose,

when they inculcate and enforce the

doctrines of "tacit obedience and
non-resistance" to the measures of a
government, political and ecclesiastical, which cannot bear investigation,
and the policy of which is to avoid it;
and they act in perfect harmony with
the objects of a union of church and
state powers, when they decry
human reason and proscribe the use
of it in all cases where it would tend
to expose the injustice of their measures or the fallacy of their doctrines
and dogmata, political or religious.
In like manner they operate in the
line of their vocation, when they
require a blind and stupid faith in all
their opinions and superstitions,
however unsupported by reason or

opposed to the clearest dictates of

common sense: in strict concert with
all which, are all those measures, all
those doctrines, and all that hostility,
slander, denunciation and proscription which tend to repress the moral
courage of the people and to prevent
the exercise of the rights of opinion
and free discussion, without which
mankind cannot hope to improve
their mind nor better their condition.
[It is clear that there was a lot more
of this article than what we have
been able to reprint here. Sadly, the
pages of the newspaper on which this
article was continued seem not to
have been microfilmed.]

nAC~

C.R~A1l0NI~

Nor

fv OLliT.

(],PoIo"I,.

"Urn. maybe you better

Parsippany, New Jersey

wait here. Bruno . . "

Spring 2002

Page 39

saffrontztnq India
By Margaret Bhatty

T. H. Macaulay must be spinning in his grave. The

ghost of the eminent Victorian still haunts the corridors
of our top elitist schools and colleges. Hindu revivalists
are now bent on exorcising it. Readers may know Thomas
Babington Macaulay (1800-1849) better from his poetry,
particularly his Lays of Ancient Rome. He was also a historian and essayist. A prodigious reader as a child, he
astonished his elders with his precocious vocabulary.
Once, when scalded by spilt coffee,he answered
the anxious inquiries of his hostess with
"Thank you, madam, the agony is abated."He was four years old.At seven he
was working on a "Compendium of
Universal History from the Creation
to Modern Times"; an epic on the
fortunes of his family; a number of
hymns, and other projects. He was
educated at Trinity College where
he fulfilled his early promise of
brilliance. Sydney Smith, the clergyman, referred to him as "a book
in breeches." In 1830 he entered
Parliament. Four years later he
was offered a seat on the new
supreme council of India. Once
here he became virtual Director of
European Education, and also drew
up the Indian criminal code.
Every English administrator posted out to India
came convinced he had a mission to civilize the "natives." .
r-----------------,
Historian
J. D.
Margaret Bhatty comes from a Cunningham
Christian missionary family in wrote: "The wellbeing of India's
India. She is a free-lance journalist
miland author of books in English for industrious
lions
is
now
linked
Indian
children. She lives in
Nagpur. For many years a colum- with the foremost
nist for American Atheist, she is the nation ofthe West,
author of the AAP book An Atheist and the represenof the
Reports From India, which is avail- tatives
Judean
faith
and
able from American Atheists ($9.00,
Roman
polity
will
ISBN 0-910309-42-6, Stock #5026)
'---' long wage a war of
Page 40

principles with the speculative Brahmin, the authoritative Mullah, and the hardy believing Sikh."
There were different schools of thought prevailing
among decision-makers
for India of which the
Evangelicals were one. They believed only Christianity
could pull this pagan country out of the morass of deep
and dark superstition. The resistance of the "natives" to
this civilizing benefit was taken as proof of the outer
darkness in which they existed.
Macaulay was an Evangelical. He saw education as a
surer means of reforming the Indians than the use of
coercive laws - "for only through access to God's revealed
word could the Indians be raised out of
darkness
and
idolatry."
The
Evangelicals scored a major victory
through the Charter Act of 1813. The
East India Company, which progressed from a mercantile organization to becoming overlords of vast
areas of the sub-continent, never
interfered with Indian religious
practices. But by this Act the
country was thrown open to missionaries, and a Bishop was
appointed at Calcutta with the
whole of the sub-continent comprising his see. Also, a large sum
was to be granted annually for education.
Macaulay's "Education Minute" of 1835 clearly stated the British government's objective was to promote the
study of English, so that Indians could become conversant with European literature and science. In a letter to
his father in 1836 he predicted that in thirty years' time
there would be no idolaters left in the Bengali middleclasses. The promotion of English as the lingua franca
pleased the mercantile community who were keen to see
British goods replace Indian products. Macaulay was
sure that Indians with an English education would also
demand European institutions which would benefit them
- as well as the self-interest of British commerce.
The expectation was that the conversion ofthe upper
classes would lead to a conversion of the masses. Instead,
Macaulay's system created an elite class which in time

Spring 2002

American Atheist

was alienated from its mainstream roots. Among Hindus,

the Brahmins took advantage of English education.
Muslims resisted it until the uprising of 1857, after
which they began to see some advantage in it.
"Anglicization"became a route to a good government job
in the hierarchy of a vast bureaucracy. Regrettably, this
idea is still with us today.
Lord Curzon (1859-1925), who was one of our more
enlightened viceroys from 1898-1905, deplored the bias
which now characterized higher education. "Ever since
the cold breath of Macaulay's rhetoric passed over the
field of Indian languages and textbooks," he said, "the
elementary education of the people in their own
tongues has shriveled and pined."
He was astonished by Indian universities with
their complete absence of "a history, a tradition, a genus loci, a tutorial staff of their
own."By making English a key to government employ,a good memory had been
made the real criterion of a students'
worth, and examinations the passport
to a coveted B. A. degree.
The British on their part felt more
sure of their place in India with a sense
of mission. They had supreme contempt for Indian culture. Indian literature
was dismissed as pagan trash and Indian science as superstition.
Macaulay's attitude
towards things Indian was a reflection of the
Evangelical view. He sneered at medical doctrines
which "would disgrace an English farrier. Astronomy
which would move laughter in girls at an English
boarding school. History abounding with kings thirty feet
high, and reigns thirty thousand years long - and
Geography, made up of seas of treacle and seas of butter."
Fortunately, there were serious Western scholars
representing the Oriental point of view, who sat down
and translated Indian texts for the edification of
Europeans. From earliest times, ideas from India had
traveled west in mathematics, philosophy, and much else.
Macaulay's efforts to nullify one of the most ancient
civilizations gave Hindus a great sense of inferiority.
Today we have a Hindu revivalist political party, the
Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP), in control of a coalition of
smaller parties in the central government. Murli
Manohar Joshi, Minister for Human Resources, is bent
on reversing all that Macaulay's system propagated. This
seems laudable except that we are now confronted by a
dilemma: In reviving past glories, researchers preparing
textbooks are opening windows onto the Past and not the
Future. We are retreating into the very darkness the
Evangelicals deplored. Astrology has been revived and
introduced into our Universities, along with Vaastu
Shastra (the magical use of space in everyday living) and
courses in Vedic rites and rituals. The searching out of
nuggets of supposed wisdom in Vedictexts has nothing to
do with modern knowledge. It has everything to do with
Parsippany, New Jersey

atavistic nationalism. We now have proponents of

"Indian" science entrusted with preparing textbooks ideologically correct but not necessarily factually credible.
Scientists are being advised to learn Sanskrit to discover the marvels of our ancient sciences. Samskrita
Bharati, an educational organization inspired by the
right-wing RSS from which the BJP government draws
its cadres, has prepared CDs and textbooks to promote
this "Indian" science. Students will be able to explore "the
richness of Indian Science in comparison with Western
Science."
We are told that Ancient Hindu rishis discovered all
knowledge through intuition. The Hindus were not
only concerned with rites and rituals, as Western
historians implied. They had taken up basic questions of the principles of astronomy, fundamental particles, the origins of the universe, applied psychiatry and psychology.
There are about 44 known ancient and
medieval texts on technical subjects
like Chemistry alone. Other
subjects being promoted by
the
RSS are
"Indian"
Physics, Botany, Metallurgy,
Medicine, and Surgery as
practiced in ancient India. We are now
constantly reminded that if India hadn't
invented the zero there would be no computer
science.
In the middle of last year a book was released
here in my hometown of Nagpur by K. S. Sudershan,
supremo of the RSS. He criticized those who think "West
is best" and that ancient Indian knowledge had no scientific foundation. "This is mental slavery which the
British injected into our minds through their education
policy.The British tried to make Indians forget their glorious past." ... "We should first throw out the very
impression that Western knowledge is supreme. It is the
Britishers who made us part with our ancient Indian
knowledge. This demoralized us and made us mental
slaves. The time has come to explain and exhibit our
great heritage to the world in the new terminology of science."
The book released by the RSS chief was in the form
of a chart. It is based on computer science written by a
Jain monk in 680 CE! The origin ofthis CD is traced back
to a rishi. The 2,500 year old matrix 27x27 contains all
the sciences and languages of the world. The original
matrix was decoded just fifty years ago. Among the topics are all the science there ever was - Medicine,
Mathematics, Chemistry, Atomic Science, Metallurgy,
Biology, Geology, etc. There are also 718 languages.
Countless slokas appear in Kanada, reading from left to
right, but in Sanskrit and Prakrit when read from top to
bottom. Using different "sequences" even more languages
emerge.

Spring 2002

Page 41

One Sanskrit scholar who was at the function where

the book was released described it as a "wonder for software engineers." ... "This book is the software solution
for communication channels," said he. "Just write selected letters and numbers in the form of the matrix and
transmit a decoding program along with it - this is how
it functions." He called it a challenge to the field of IT. It
is indeed a challenge for even the most credulous among us.
The disturbing part is that it is now men of this mentality who are producing new sciences, new syllabuses,
and new concepts. The RSS has members of its
cadre appointed to all governmental bodies
concerned with history, archeology, science,
value education, and concepts of morality. At a three-day camp held here last
April in the RSS headquarters, a book
went on sale to participants. It
extolled the virtues of siddhi - magical principles - to beget sons,
obtain money, converse with souls,
gain divine power and vision, prove
the existence of ghosts, make oneself lighter than air (levitation is a
Vedic science which the Maharishi
practices), enter into other people's
bodies, and much else.
In December 2000 the present
government unveiled its National
Curriculum Framework which stated
that the scope of social studies would be
reduced and the quantum of religious and
value education increased. This was to be implemented by the National Council for Educational
Research and Training (NCERT) through brand new
textbooks for schools and colleges.A few months later the
University Grants Commission introduced degrees in
VedicAstrology and Vedic Math.
Secularists who have opposed the recent developments are branded as "unpatriotic." A spokesman of the
Maharashtra BJP said, "These people have an in-built
hatred for everything Indian - be it Astrology,Vedic studies, or Sanskrit." At a seminar of secular-minded scholars held in Delhi last August the eminent historian K. N.
Panikkar deplored the imposition of Hindu concepts and
beliefs, along with a range of patently false facts. He saw
the emergence of "a communal history" promoted by the
government "to create an alternate social consciousness
of the Past and historically establish a Hindu nation,"
Panikkar claimed the NCERT's curriculum was aimed at
creating a Hindu national identity which could have serious long term social and political implications.
Myths are now becoming historical facts. The Indian
Council of Historical Research (ICHR) has sanctioned
Rs. 1.5 million to an archeologist to map the course of a
mythical river, Saraswati, because it was on its banks
that the Aryan race supposedly evolved - not, as Western
scholars claim, outside India in the Mesopotamian valley.
Page 42

The Aryans were here from the very beginning. The

belief that they were "foreigners" who conquered India is
another example of how Western scholars have denigrated Indians. Hindus of narrower mind frequently accuse
Muslims and Christian of being "outsiders," but the
newest research about Aryan culture on a non-existent
river will prove Hinduism has essentially Indian roots.
Other faked facts claim all of humankind originated
in India, through Ramapithecus found in the Himalayas;
the Taj Mahal and all the remarkable buildings left us by
the Moghuls, were actually built by Hindus, and
Dravidian languages, as spoken by the original people of the sub-continent before the
Aryans arrived, have no real roots here
at all .
One of the outspoken critics at
the Delhi meet of secularists was
Irfan Habib, an eminent historian
and former Chairman of the ICHR.
He declared that the efforts of the
RSS to communalize
history
brought it close to Nazi ethnocentric ideology. He questioned the
claim of the RSS that during "the
period between 5000 BC and 2000
BC Indian civilization gave a basis of
all sciences and knowledge to the
world."
In school texts the destruction of
Hindu temples by Muslims justifies the
demolition of mosques. Heroes from ancient
myths are now presented as people who actually
existed. But ifRama was a real person, we have problems
with Ravana - king of Sri Lanka - a demon king who
sported twelve heads, and Hanuman who has a monkey's
head, along with other mythical beings in the
Ramayana.
The saffronization of India goes on apace. It could
have serious implications for us as a nation entering the
21st century, with young minds contaminated by atavistic nationalism and xenophobia, without the ability to
think rationally or critically - all factors which typify
fundamentalism. In trying to correct anomalies of the
system imposed on us by men like Macaulay, we could
instead create a rational, tolerant multireligious society
prepared to take the country forward. This way I fear we
are going to return to Macaulay's kings thirty feet high,
reigns thirty thousand years long, with seas of treacle,
and seas of butter.

Spring 2002

American Atheist

Talking Back
In an earlier issue of American
Atheist we announced that we
were going to resume publication of the department "Talking
Back," a column in which our
readers and members could
share their responses to common challenges offered by theists. Fifty-three commonly used
"arguments" were printed to
start things off. Responses have
begun to be received, and we are
pleased to print some of them
here. If you would like to join in,
e-mail contributions can be sent
to <editor@atheists.org>.
Hard
copy can be sent to: Talking
Back, American Atheist Press,
PO Box 5733, Parsippany, NJ
07054.

Challenge #12. "Atheism is

a negative position."
When people are willing to think
seriously,honestly, and candidly they
will find themselves appalled by a
society that places a premium on
accepting propositions that have no
basis in fact. Everywhere, the majority are choosing the practice of closing their minds to questioning while
relying on hearsay as evidence.
Religious people accept theistic doctrine and brag about the strength of
their ability to believe against all
evidence to the contrary. This lazy
thinking practice is then promoted
in other disciplines with negative
results.
We have every right to call their
errors into question, yet it is the religious community that attempts to
frame Atheists as negative, because
they fear those who ask the very
questions they should have examined in their own minds! The religious people are the negatives who
fear any loss of faith and promote
the phobias of theology.
What are we? Simple, thinking
human beings who use their reason,
Parsippany, New Jersey

knowledge, and findings of fact to

negotiate their own paths. We will
have no one calling us negative while
we try our best to progress through
life from one milestone of accomplishment to the next. We are scientific, we are realists, we are "scientific realists" in the largest sense of the
term.
-John Miller

Challenge #13 "Show me

where the Atheist hospitals
and orphanages are."
Youhave a point there! Our society is so unfairly dominated by religion that, as an institution, Atheism
is suppressed - marginalized, almost
an underground, despite representing a very substantial segment of the
population.
To illustrate, a white supremacist might just as reasonably have
once said, "Show me a Fortune 500
corporation
run
by
AfricanAmericans," or a sexist male might
say, "Why don't we have a woman
president?" The answer is: Be
patient, we're getting there!
One thing's for sure. Once there
IS an O'Hair Memorial Medical
Center or a Secularist Community
Home for Children, its management
will not discriminate
against
Christians, because Atheism is fundamentally just!
As an outspoken non-Christian
registered nurse at a Baptist hospital, I was a victim of favoritism and
prejudice for years, which mistreatment finally culminated in persecution that relentlessly undermined
my performance and forced me out.
Their pious bigotry so hardened
their hearts that they didn't mind
punishing my young son (whom I
permit to go to church, by the way),
'depriving him of health coverage
and putting us on unemployment
and food stamps.
Substituting the tenets of misleading religion for a conscience is
essentially sociopathic.
-Noel Singleton, RN, Texas
Spring 2002

Challenge # 34. "If you don't

believe in god, why are you
fighting against him?"
I'm not fighting against "god."
I'm fighting for the right to disbelieve, free from social ostracism and
governmentally
imposed consequences for unbelief and against the
preferential treatment toward religion. I also hope to educate others
about why Atheism is the best position one can take.
-Donald Brawley, Nevada

Challenge #48. "What would

you put in religion's place?"
If I am correct and religion is a
false idea, it has no need of replacement. If someone is cured of an irrational phobia or hypochondria, these
don't need replacement. The same
holds true for religion.
-Donald Brawley, Nevada

Challenge # 53. "What's stopping you from killing someone?"

I have no particular desire to kill
anyone and even if I did, I don't
think I have a right to do so. Does
this question mean that the religious
are full of the desire to kill, rape, or
molest children, but only refrain
from doing so because of the fear of
hell? If so stay away from me,
because if you overcome that fear I
don't want to be anywhere near you.
-Donald Brawley, Nevada

Some of the 53
Challenges for
"Talking Back"
2. Prove there isn't a god.
7. Atheism is a religion.
S. You have faith and beliefs just
like religious people: you have faith
in Darwin.
9. How does it hurt you to have "In
God We Trust" on your money?
Page 43

10. How does it hurt you to have

prayers in the schools? You can just
not pray when everyone else is praying.
15. If you would accept Jesus Christ
into your heart, your whole life
would be fine.
16. God bless you! (In reply to a
sneeze)
17. Where will you go when you die?
20. America is a Christian nation.
21. There's no "separation of state
and
church"
in
the
First
Amendment.
22. If you're right about god, when
we both die we both just die. But if
I'm right, then when I die I go to
heaven and you go to hell. So why
not believe in god, just in case?
25. I'll pray for you.

26. How can you have any ethics if

you don't believe in god?
31. You'll burn in hell!
32. Jesus died for you.
34. If you don't believe in god, why
are you fighting against him?
36. What is the purpose of our existence, if there is no god?
37. The founding fathers believed in
god and founded this nation on
Christianity.
38. The Ten Commandments are the
foundation of the legal system of this
country.
39. Jesus loves you.
41. What's wrong with having a
moment of silence in the public
schools?
42. Isn't it only fair to teach both theories of the origin of life in the public

MAtJY PEOPLE rODA YARE

ATHEI~T~ BCAUSE TI-lEIR PADS

MA~'f PEOPLE. TODA'/ IrRE

ATHEISTS ~
THEIR DADS
WERE RELIGIOUS!

WErlE. ATI1Et~T$.

Page 44

schools: creation science and evolution theory?

43. Well, I'm an agnostic because you
can't prove there is no god.
44. Atheism is a dogmatic position;
agnosticism is not.
45. If you reject god, do you worship
the devil?
48. What would you put in religion's
place?
50. There are no Atheists in foxholes.
51. What about near-death experiences? Aren't they evidence of an
after-life?
55. If the Bible is so faulty, how do
you explain the Hebrew Bible code?

Spring 2002

American Atheist

ME TOO!

ON CLONING, MEDICINE,
AND RELIGION
By Dillard Henderson (Michigan)
"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 070546733) should be 600-800 words
long.

believe cloning is a good idea.

Cloning is in our future whether
the church wants it or not. After
all, the church has always been against
medical innovation and progress, and
cloning falls into that category. There
has always been a conflict between science and religion, and there always
will be. There is no reason not to clone
very bright people - e.g., scientists,
doctors, etc. Many new innovations
could be had if we had many more of
the right people working on them.
Here are a few examples of how the
church has stood in the way of medical
progress.
Contraceptives were impossible to
obtain in the early part of the 20th
century. Margaret Sanger, an RN,
worked long and hard for many years
with the support of but few others to
bring the availability of birth control to
the United States, against the severe
opposition of many churches and religious leaders - especially the leaders
of the Catholic Church.
She began her crusade in 1914 and
was jailed eight times due to her
efforts, "... Catholics protesting her at
every city, sometimes successful in
halting her lectures or getting her
Parsippany, New Jersey

arrested."! Before Margaret Sanger's

efforts, many women had too many
children and died during child birth.
My grandmother had her tenth baby
February 12, 1918. My uncle lived but
my grandmother died. Also children
were brought into poor families which
could not afford them. "By 1931, when
she (Margaret Sanger) wrote My Fight
For Birth Control, there were fifty
birth control clinics in the United
States and another fifty in Europe."2
Some churches are still against birth
control, but that does not keep science
from marching on. On January 22,
1973 the United States Supreine court
legalized abortion in Roe v Wade.
Before abortion was made legal, many
women died in back alley "clinics"
seeking an abortion. Many women
tried to perform abortions on themselves and died. Many religious groups
today would roll back the pages of history to outlaw abortion if they could.
To quote Herb Silverman, a Doctor
in higher mathematics and a wellknown freethinker: "Now that we once
again have concerns about smallpox,
this might be a good time to remind
people of the controversy surrounding
the discovery of its prevention."
"Timothy Dwight, President of Yale
from 1795 to 1817, preached passionately against the newly developing
medical invention called vaccination."
Dwight said: "If God had decreed from
all eternity that a certain person
should die of smallpox, it would be a
frightful sin to avoid and annul that
decree by the trick of vaccination."
Herb continues: "This quote can be
found on page 7 of Why Christianity
Must Change or Die, by Bishop Spong,
and certainly reflects the conflict
Spring 2002

between science and religion." Now a

quote from Robert G. Ingersoll, nineteenth century attorney and philosopher, about the same Timothy Dwight,
president of Yale: "The Church never
wanted disease to be absolutely under
the control of man. Timothy Dwight,
president of Yale College, preached a
sermon against vaccination. His idea
was that if god had decreed that
through
all eternity
certain
men
should die of small pox, it was a frightful sin to endeavor to prevent it; that
plagues and pestilence were instruments in the hands of god with which
to gain the love and worship of
mankind; to find the cure for the disease was to take the punishment from
the Church." 3
Doctors don't believe in needless
suffering, but the Catholic Church
apparently does, since it is very much
against assisted suicide. They want to
get the last six months of agony out of
a patient if at all possible. Mother
Teresa said: "I think it is very beautiful
for the poor to accept their lot ... the
world is being much helped by the suffering of the poor people."4 Note that
when Mother Teresa needed help to
reduce suffering she went to Mayo
Clinic.
As late as 1753, according to religionists, inoculation was the work of
Satan. Forty five years later, in 1798,
the clergy and physicians formed the
"Anti-Vaccination Society." The name
of the organization speaks for itself
They thought vaccination was a trick
of Satan and against God's will.
About 1302, Pope Boniface VIII
declared all surgical procedures to be
the work of Satan. The shedding of
human blood was in direct violation of
Page 45

God's law.
The Bible teaches that illness is
punishment for sin. In 2002 many religionists and religions still believe this.
After all, it says this in the Bible in
several places. In that book of misogyny and hate, look in Deuteronomy
28:27, it says that getting a case of
hemorrhoids is a punishment for sin.
Also see I Samuel 5:9-12: The Philistines are "smitten with emorods"
(hemorrhoids) as punishment for stealing the ark. If illness is punishment for
sin, why are we able to create effective
new and innovative medicines?
Bertrand Russell said: "I say quite
deliberately that the Christian religion, as organized in its churches, has
been and still is the principal enemy of
moral progress in the world."5 1 believe
an attempt to hold up the progress of
medicine is morally wrong; therefore
the church is not a moral institution.
The Bible practices weird medicine. See I Kings 1: 1-4: A Virgin is prescribed as medicine for a sick old man.
How many sick old men could USE a
virgin? Perhaps Viagra would help. I'm
sure sex can cure illnesses!
The Bible practices weird medical
procedures:
See
Luke
2:21:
Eight-day-old Jesus is circumcised.
Sixty-three years ago, when I was
nine years old, my tonsils were
removed. Ether was the anesthesia
they used. Your nose and mouth were
covered and you breathed ether until
you went to sleep. This was a crude
procedure. Many got sick from the
ether. "It was Queen Victoria who was
the first (prominent) women to ask her
doctor to administer chloroform to her
during childbirth."6 When ether was
discovered, the clergy preached long
and hard against its use. After all, if
God meant for you to suffer, why
should a doctor use ether to overrule
God's will? This was brought out when
ether was used to aid women in pain
during child birth. Since Eve was the
transgressor and led Adam astray in
the garden, God ordained that her punishment for this transgression was to
forever have pain during child birth. I
quote from the bible: "I will greatly
multiply thy sorrow in thy conception;
in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children." (Genesis 3:16) Women have
ALWAYS been the "heavy" in all of the

Page 46

world religions that I am aware of

When life insurance first came out
In the 1800s, the clergy was against it.
They thought that no one had the right
to have life insurance. Life insurance
was not provided for in the Bible and
life and death was God's business and
no business of men. I quote from
Robert Ingersoll: "Didn't they even try
to put down life insurance by saying it
was sinful to bet on the time God has
given you to live?"?
Cloning is just being explored, but
it is here to stay. Rationalists, Atheists,
Agnostics, Humanists and others have
had to drag the church screaming and
kicking into every new century with its
medical innovations, and they will continue to do so. If the religious zealots
outlaw cloning in this country, it will
be developed in Europe. My wife and I
went to Europe for five weeks and visited twelve countries. I saw a lot less
religion in Europe than in the US. In
England only three to four percent of
the people attend church. It is said
that in Italy many men drive their
wives to church and sit in their cars
listening
to
the
radio.
Most
Scandinavian countries have very low
church attendance. I'm glad that much
of the world is more rational than we
in this country.
OF COURSE the church is against
cloning today. What would you expect?
They
were
against
Benjamin

--

Franklin's lightning rod. When the

lightening rod was first used it was
thought to evade God's will. "Every
freedom won for women, large or
small, from women wearing bloomers
to riding bicycles to not wearing bonnets in church, to being permitted to
attend universities and enter professions, to vote and to own property, was
opposed by the churches."8 This is
another story and will be left for
another time.

Works Cited
1 Gaylor, Annie

Laurie. Women
Without Superstition: No
Gods - No Masters. Madison,
Wisconsin: Freedom From
Religion Foundation, Inc.
1997, p. 403.
2 Gaylor, op. cit., p. 405.
3 Ingersoll, Col. R. G. Col. R. G.
Ingersoll's 44 LecturesComplete. Published for the
trade. circa 1900. His lecture on
"Ghosts," p. 9.
4 Free Inquiry quarterly. Winter
issue 97/98. p. 33.
5 Russell, Bertrand. Why I Am Not
A Christian. New York: Simon &
Schuster, 1957.
6 Poe, Charlotte. "Progress In
Childbirth" Paper, 1971.
7 Ingersoll, op. cit., his lecture on
"Human Rights." p. 5.

--

Spring 2002

American Atheist

(From Quiz Master Larry Mundinger)

1. There first came to the tomb on Sunday morning

a. one woman (John 20:1)
b. two women (Matt. 28:1)
c. three women (Mark 16:1)
d. more than three women (Luke 23:55-56;
24:1,10)

(Matt. 28:8-9)
b. Just outside the tomb (John 20:11-14)
c. in Galilee - some 80 miles (130 Km) north of
Jerusalem (Mark 16:6-7)
d. on the road to Emmaus - 7 Miles (11 Km) west
of Jerusalem (Luke 24:13-15)
e. we are not told where (Mark 16:9; 1 Cor. 15:4-5)

2. She (they) came

a. while it was still dark (Matt. 28:1; John 20:1)
b. after the sun had risen (Mark 16:2)
3. The woman (women) came to the tomb
a. to anoint the body of Jesus with spices
(Mark 16:1-2; Luke 24:1)
b. Just to look at it (Matt. 28:1; John 20:1)

10. The disciples were to see Jesus first

a. in Galilee (Mark 16:7; Matt. 28:7,10,16)
b. in Jerusalem (Mark 16:14; Luke 24:33,36;
John 20:19; Acts 1:4)
11. the disciples were told that they would
meet the risen Jesus in Galilee
a. by the women, who had been told by an
angel of the Lord, then by Jesus him
self after the resurrection
(Matt. 28:7-10; Mark 16:7)
b. by Jesus himself, before the crucifixion
(Mark 26:32)

4. The women had obtained the spices

a. on Friday before sunset (Luke 23:5456; 24:1)
a. after sunset on Saturday (Mark 16:1)
5. The first visitor(s) was/were greeted by
a. an angel (Matt. 28:2-5)
b. a young man (Mark 16:5)
c. two men (Luke 24:4)
d. no one (John 20:1-2)

12. The risen Jesus

a. wanted to be touched (John 20:27)
b. did not want to be touched (John
20:17)
c. did not mind being touched (Matt.
28:9-10)

6. The greeter(s)
a. was sitting on the stone outside the
tomb (Matt 28:2)
b. was sitting inside the tomb (Mark 16:5)
c. were standing inside the tomb (Luke 24:3-4)

13. Jesus ascended to Heaven

a. the same day that he was resurrected
(Mark 16:9,19; Luke 24:13,28-36,50-51)
b. forty days after the resurrection (Acts 1:3,9)
c. we are not told that he ascended to Heaven at
all (Matt. 28:10, 16-20; John 21:25; the original
Gospel of Mark ends at 16:8)

7. After finding the tomb empty, the woman/women

a. ran to tell the disciples (Matt. 28:7-8; Mark
16:10; Luke 24:9; John 20:2)
b. ran away and said nothing to anyone (Mark
16:8)
8. The risen Jesus first appeared to
a. Mary Magdalene alone (John 20:14; Mark 16:9)
b. Cleopas and another disciple (Luke 24:13,15,18)
c. Mary Magdalene and the other Mary (Matt.
28:1,9)
d. Cephas (Peter) alone (1 Cor. 15:4-5; Luke 24:34)
9. Jesus first appeared
a. somewhere between the tomb and Jerusalem
Parsippany, New Jersey

14. The disciples received the Holy Spirit

a. 50 days after the resurrection (Acts 1:3,9)
b. in the evening of the same day as the
resurrection (John 20:19-22)
15. The risen Jesus
a. was recognized by those who saw him
(Matt. 28:9; Mark 16:9-10)
b. was not always recognizable (Mark 16:12;
Luke 24:15-16,31,36-37; John 20:14-15)

Spring 2002

Page 47

16. The risen Jesus

a. was physical (Matt. 28:9; Luke 24:41-43;
John 20:27)
b. was not physical (Mark 16:9,12,14;
Luke 24:15-16,31,36-37; John 20:19,26;
1 Cor. 15:5-8)
17. The risen Jesus was seen by the disciples
a. presumably only once (Matt. 28:16-17)
b. first by two of them, later by all eleven
(Mark 16:12-14; Luke 24:13-15,33,36-51)

c. three times (John 20:19,26; 21:1,14)

d. many times (Acts 1:3)
18. When Jesus appeared to the disciples
a. there were eleven of them (Matt. 28:16-17;
Luke 24:33,36)
b. twelve of them (1 Cor. 15:5)
(This Quiz originally appeared in electronic
format on AACHAT.)

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Page 48

Spring 2002

WEEkS

"

American Atheist

REVIEWS

For the Atheist's

Tool Kit
A review of Challenging the Verdict: A Cross-Examination of Lee Strobel's "The Case For Christ,"
by Earl Doherty [Ottawa, Canada: Age of Reason Publications, 2001] Challenging the Verdict sells
for $12.95 in the U.S. and for $16.95 in Canada. It can be ordered from www.AgeOf Reason.org

By Frank R. Zindler
arl Doherty is no stranger to
readers of American Atheist,
being the author of the sixpart analysis and review of Atheist
American Vardis Fisher's heroic
series of novels, THETESTAMENTOF
MAN.Many readers will know him
also as the author of The Jesus
Puzzle: Did Christianity Begin With
A Mythical Christ? (This book is still
available
for
US$14.50
from
American Atheist Press.) The many
readers who have enjoyed his previous work will be pleased to learn
that Doherty has moved out from the
sometimes esoteric world of historical Jesus scholarship into the roughand-tumble
world of counterChristian apologetics. Challenging
the Verdict is a withering refutation
of Lee Strobel's 1998 apologetic
hatchet-job The Case For Christ: A
Journalist's Personal Investigation of
the Evidence for Jesus.
I myself met Lee Strobel back in
1993 when I debated William Lane
Craig at the Willow Creek Community Church, a megabucks megachurch outside Chicago. Strobel was
the organizer of the debate, and I
had a number of conversations with
him at the time. I really couldn't
decide if he actually believed the
evangelical line of nonsense he was
pushing or whether he simply had
found a tried-and-true way to collect
golden eggs from gullible geese. I

Parsippany,NewJersey

still haven't been able to make up

my mind.
In my debate with Craig I made
much of the fact (as I think I can
demonstrate) that there was no
place called Nazareth during the
first centuries BCE and CE, and that
no remains of buildings datable to
that period have ever been found at
the place now called Nazareth. What
becomes of Jesus of Nazareth ifthere
was no Nazareth? When Strobel
wrote The Case For Christ, he adroitly took parts of my argument - carefully leaving out the most important
parts - and fed them to an 'expert' in
biblical archaeology who, with only a
little hand-waving, was able to
'prove' that Nazareth was a tiny village that did in fact exist at the time
in question. I have had no real
opportunity to reply to Strobel, and
except for a critique by Jeffery J.
Lowder
on Internet
Infidels,
Strobel's book has gone largely
unchallenged - until now. Readers
will understand that I am really
quite delighted to learn that Earl
Doherty has written a book-length
refutation of Strobel's book of snares
for the unwary.
Strobel's book attempts to present "The Case For Christ" as one
would analyze and deliver a legal
case to a judge and jury. Doherty
turns the simile into a metaphor and
writes as though he is presenting a
transcript of a trial in which he has
cross-examined both Strobel and his
Spring 2002

'expert witnesses'. In just 264 pages,

Doherty blows Strobel's U-boat out
of the water. But more importantly,
he presents Atheist readers with a
compendium of evidences against all
the major arguments
used by
Christian apologists today. It is
much more than just a refutation of
Strobel - it is a convincing disproof
of evangelical Christianity altogether.
Reading the Gospels
into the Epistles
One of the general
points
Doherty makes that is fundamental
for scientific criticism of the New
Testament is that the Gospels reflect
a different religion than do the
Epistles - at least the earlier
Epistles. This difference is not seen
by most Christians because they
read the Epistles with preconceptions of the Gospel stories and, viceversa, read the heavenly Christ of
the Epistles into the Jesus of the
Gospels:
Ironically,ladies and gentlemen
ofthe jury,we have been reading the
content of one set of documentsinto
another for almost 19 centuries, and
in both directions. Not onlyhave the
assumptions of the Gospel story
been read into Paul and the other
epistle writers, we have also been
reading the elevated Christologyof
the epistles, somethingthey applied
only to a heavenly figure, into the
Gospels.The portrayal of Jesus in
Page 49

Mark and the other synoptics comes

nowhere near the exalted Son of the
epistles. Indeed, it is sometimes
pointed out that Mark's Messiah
Jesus is scarcely divine, certainly
not overtly so. He is not the Logos or
cosmic Son the epistle writers present, the emanation and image of God
involved in the process of creation.
None of these features are
present in Mark's Jesus, and
the synoptic soteriology is
primitive. Their concept of
atonement is scarcely above
that developed in 4 Maccabees: that the righteous
martyr's suffering and death
will be considered by God to
have a redemptive efficacy
on all Israel. The Markan
Jesus is essentially a personification of the preacher of
the kingdom, taking on the
identification of Messiah,
and with a relatively modest
overlay
of
the
cultic
redeemer. This is an example
of a true case of religious
syncretism.
Thus, except to some
extent in the later John, the
high Christology claimed for
Jesus of Nazareth by Mr.
Strobel and William Lane
Craig is really not present in
the Gospels. The Jesus they
are defending in this court is
a composite one, the result of
joining Mark and Paul. The
first Gospel integrated features of the Galilean kingdom movement with those of
the
divine
Christ
cult
preached by Paul, two distinct religious expressions on
the first century scene before
they
were
artificially
brought together by the
writer of Mark. In the second
century, the growing Christian
Church would complete this integration and direct it toward new
heights, and the Western world
inherited that composite product. [p,
104]

Strobel employs one of the

favorite arguments of apologists
these days to try to establish the reliability of the passion stories in the
gospels. This argument usually runs
something like "If the stories about
Page 50

the crucifixion and the empty tomb

were made-up fictions, people who
were witnesses to the facts would
have challenged the stories to set the
record straight; but that didn't happen, so the stories must be true."
Doherty refutes this argument in
several places, including his cross-

died, when there were still living

witnesses to what Jesus the historical figure was really like," [140] simply evaporates. If there was no historical figure, then early Christianity becomes a faith movement
which had developed its own mythical savior god, based on Jewish traditions and expectations, and drawing from pagan mystery
concepts. There would have
been no living witnesses to
a man who had not existed,
and thus no one to object. In
fact, there would have been
none of the points you mention to object to, since no one
before the Gospels was
making claims about a man
being God's son or rising
from his earthly tomb. [p,
103]

Further refutation of
this argument is presented
in the cross-examination of
Craig L. Blomberg, professor of New Testament at
Denver Seminary, a rather
unknown institution:

1~liOIof

lee_s
'111I _

CIItst"

examination of Dr. Ben Witherington

III, of Asbury Theological Seminary
in Kentucky:
... the claim that very early evidence shows that Jesus of Nazareth
was almost immediately raised to
the level of divine Son of God cannot
be demonstrated without reading
the Gospels into the early record.
Your objections, Dr. Witherington,
that "all this stuff" could not have
been "conjured up out of thin air
within twenty years after Jesus
Spring 2002

Finally, Mr. Strobel

offered this test to determine the Gospels' reliability: "Were others present
who would have contradicted or corrected the gospels if
they had been distorted or
false?" You answered, Dr.
Blomberg, and I quote:
"Many people had reasons
for wanting to discredit this
movement and would have
done so if they could have
simply told history better."
But if the Gospels were
not written until after 70, as
most scholars judge-and so
far you have not tendered
much in the way of evidence to dispute that-I submitted earlier that,
in view of the upheavals of the time,
few would have been available who
could have so protested. And it's a bit
naive to imagine some kind of network of watchdog groups, keeping a
close eye on those mischievous
Christians and writing "No, the
Christians are wrong here!" Or to
imagine that such a protest would
have been heeded.
As for challenging the Gospels'
inconsistencies and contradictions,
American Atheist

well, such a state of affairs would

have come about only after the later
Gospels were written. Besides, these
things are equally evident today, and
voices of protest have regularly been
raised. How much heeding of those
protests has been done by believers
in our own time?
[Blomberg] "Could this Christian movement have taken root right
there in Jerusalem-in the very area
where Jesus had done much of his
ministry, had been crucified, buried
and resurrected-if
people who
knew him were aware that the disciples were exaggerating or distorting the things that he did?"
[Blomberg] "We have a picture of
what was initially a very vulnerable
and fragile movement that was
being subjected to persecution. If
critics could have attacked it on the
basis that it was full of falsehoods or
distortions, they would have. But
that's exactly what we don't see."
Well, I would say to both of you
that what we don't see is any comment on Christianity at all. Ifno one
seems even aware of Jesus' existence
during the first century, it is not surprising that we find no protest
against the Gospel story. We don't
even find that story in the epistles,
much less any sign that their writers have to deal with objections to
Christian doctrine about declaring a
human man to be God or resurrected
from his grave. [pp. 35-36]

Doherty refutes this argument

yet again later in the book and incorporates it into an explanatory theory
with which to understand the origin
of Christianity:
Perhaps a half century after
Paul formulated his gospel "according to the scriptures," an imaginative writer whose name we don't
know, in a community we're not sure
where, combined the traditions
about the Galilean kingdom preaching movement he was a part of, one
that had developed some idea of a
teaching founder whom Paul shows
no knowledge of, with an allegorical
rendering of the spiritual Christ
myth placed in the same earthly setting. He joined the two traditions
together to create a composite Jesus
of Nazareth who had preached in
Galilee and then gone to Jerusalem
Parsippany, New Jersey

where he was tried and crucified, to

rise from his tomb as a Savior figure.
Details of this composite creation,
later known as the Gospel of Mark,
were taken from scripture, and characters and settings were borrowed or
invented to further the story.
He probably didn't intend the
passion tale to be taken as history, so
no one objected, even if anyone who
might have known one way or the
other was still around. This was not
a legendary development of some
earlier, more mundane event. It was,
at least in its passion dimension,
entirely invention. Other writers in
other communities came into contact
with the story and decided to rework
it for their own purposes. Within a
generation or so, that evolving story
began to be regarded as history, as
the words and deeds of a real man,
the spiritual Christ come to earth in
human form. The mystery cults were
left behind and Christianity gained
a real advantage over them. It now
had a flesh and blood god who had
recently been among humanity
itself There was still some difference of opinion to be worked out,
whether that flesh and blood was
real or only an illusion, as the
Gnostics claimed, but Western religion formed around this new synthesis and midrashic creation, this new
misconception, and never looked
back. [po184]

One ofthe most important theses

Doherty develops in his rebuttal of
the favorite Christian argument that
Jesus was the fulfillment of a bunch
of Old Testament prophecies is the
realization that the gospel stories especially the passion tales - are
midrash,
not history. Doherty
explains midrash as follows:
Midrash was a traditional
Jewish method of interpreting and
applying the scriptures to create
new guides for behavior, to produce
new readings of the old texts, to
illustrate new meanings and spiritual truths. Often it was done through
a retelling of ancient biblical tales
set in contemporary circumstances.
The new tales thus created were fictional, allegorical, not history. [Note
67, p. 248]

Spring 2002

The fact that much of the gospel

story is actually midrash explains
the otherwise inexplicable fact that
when one checks up on the actual
Old Testament passages alleged to
be prophecies of Jesus, it is discovered that not one of them can be
proved to refer to a period so late as
the time Jesus is supposed to have
lived, let alone be proved to refer to
Jesus specifically.* Rather, it is clear
that the evangelists went snooping
through the Old Testament (mostly
in its Greek version, the so-called
Septuagint) looking for passages
that could be believed to be oracles of
the Messiah, the Suffering Servant,
or whatever personage or office they
had in mind, to learn what he must
have done and to understand what
he must have been like. Doherty
rejects the claim that the passion
story is the fulfillment of prophecy
and introduces the concept of
midrash to explain the data:
This 'atomistic' treatment of
scripture, this lifting out of individual verses and even phrases with no
thought to their context, is a practice
indulged in by religious interpreters
of past and present ages. It has been
exposed for what it is by modern
scholarship and been replaced by
proper historical
and scientific
investigation of those texts. Mr.
Lapides' "epiphany" in finding Jesus
in the Jewish scriptures has long
since been discredited.
Pierced hands and feet in Psalm
22:15? Perhaps in the Septuagint,
which early Christians almost universally used, but not in the Hebrew
original. The latter has been translated "hacked off, or mauled - the
Hebrew has 'like a lion' - my hands
and my feet." Micah 5:2 foretelling
Jesus' birth in Bethlehem? Rather, it
foretold the birthplace of a future
governor for Israel whose roots were
ancient and who would rule in
*Long ago, Thomas Paine, in his Age of
Reason, Part Three: Examination of the
Prophecies conclusively demonstrated
the irrelevance of the Old Testament
'prophecies'. The book is annotated by
Frank Zindler and may be obtained from
American Atheist Press for $12.00 (product #5575).
Page 51

peace. Nothing in this passage suggests a divine figure, much less a

universal Savior or the Son of God.
It is virtually certain that Matthew
and Luke set their birth stories for
Jesus
in Bethlehem
precisely
because of this 'prophecy' in Micah.
Here we have the secret to
understanding the extensive links
between the Gospel story and a wide
assortment of scriptural passages.
One wonders if it has crossed Mr.
Strobel's mind, or the minds of other
conservative apologists, that those
links exist because the evangelists
constructed their story by drawing
on scriptural
elements, in the
process known as midrash. This
would be the better explanation for
why those prophetic elements are so
fragmented, so scattered throughout
the writings, so incompatible in the
use made of them with their actual
Old Testament contexts.
Thus Psalm 22:18, "they divide
my garments among them, and for
my raiment they cast lots," is a
graphic element of the crucifixion
scene, not because it prophesied
such an event, but because Mark
took the verse and worked it into his
story. The Psalms are a set of poems
written at various times under various circumstances in post-Exilic
Israel. Their authors are hardly to
be regarded as burying cryptic
prophecies of minute future details
of Jesus' life within these intimate
expressions penned in response to
personal experiences and current
affairs. Many of them express some
kind of distress and sense of persecution, including betrayal. Passages
like Psalm 41:9 "Even the friend
whom I trusted, who ate at my table,
has lifted up his heel against me," or
Psalm 109:2-3, "For wicked men
heap calumnies upon me; they have
lied to my face and ringed me round
with words of hate," provided some
of the inspiration for Mark's creation of the figure of the betrayer
Judas, or his picture of the Jewish
leaders conspiring against Jesus
and producing false witnesses. [pp.
134-135]

Defenders of the faith love to

argue that the true text of the New
Testament is virtually certain due to
the enormous number of manuscripts surviving from antiquity. To
Page 52

turn the knife in the wound, they

usually point out that the texts of
other ancient writers, such as
Tacitus and the Greek satirists, survive in only a few copies. Doherty
disposes of this argument in fine
fashion in his cross-examination of
Bruce Metzger - the only genuine
scholar in Strobel's panel of'experts':

is not surprismg that the textual

witness of many ancient works ofliterature survives by the merest
thread. But I will suggest that it is
not multiplicity per se which is the
important factor here, or even any
comparison at all with other ancient
writings, it is how closely we can
arrive at the original text of these
Christian documents. [pp. 37-38]

Now, Dr. Metzger, Mr. Strobel

asked you how we can have any confidence that the New Testament we
have today bears any resemblance
whatsoever to what was originally
written?
[Metzger] "What the New
Testament has in its favor, especially
when compared with other ancient
writings, is the unprecedented multiplicity of copies that have survived."
Well, multiplicity may be an
asset, but it's also understandable.
Christianity was a new and vital
movement that continued to grow,
whereas the ancient culture which it
supplanted and even actively sought
to destroy was on its way out.
Considering that the survival of
ancient manuscripts was dependent
upon Christian copyists, and that
many ancient works were deliberately burned by the Christians, that
disparity hardly proves anything. It

There are many, many arguments in Challenging the Verdict

that are really excellent and would
be reproduced here if there were
space. Unfortunately, a book review
can only note the most impressive
points of a book and alert readers to
books they need to read or avoid.
With respect to the book in question,
I wish to tell readers that it is a
must-have for the tool kit of every
Atheist. This is especially true for
Atheists who dislike spending time
on Bible studies. Doherty has done
all the necessary studies - lots of
studies - and has boiled down his
findings to the most palatable form
one is likely to find. For one-stop
shopping in the area of Bible studies
and New Testament 'evidences',
Challenging the Verdict is the book
to buy.

"Tell them that the meek. will inherit the earth

that should quiet them clown!"
Spring 2002

American Atheist

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