April 1990

A Journa I 0f Atheist News and Thought

~~~

A LOOK BACK
AT THE
ATHEIST
GOVERNOR

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Alerican Atheist

A Journal

of Atheist

News and Thought

American Atheist

April 1990

Editor's Desk
R. Murray-O'Hair

Director's Briefcase
Jon G. Murray

The task of "Marketing Atheism" often meets with difficulties from members of both the Atheist and the religious communities.

Ask AA
Cover art and design by
Greg Anderson.

The Probing Mind

Frank R. Zindler

36

Scientific research is easy - even

without a laboratory - if one has
found the answer in the Bible before
one starts and if one's goal is simply
"Reversing Science."

Poetry

44

American Atheist Radio Series

Madalyn O'Hair

45

10

A donation to any church, whether

fringe or mainstream, results in a tax
savings to religious Americans. But
those in favor of state/church separation have tried to end this favoritism at
least twice.

The Case of Dr. Theissen

Fritz Erik Hoevels

12

West Germany could serve as a model

for allEurope by granting reproductive
rights to women. But the government
instead seems to want to return to the
"good old days" of Hitler, when performing an abortion was punishable
by death.

Roots of Atheism
Madalyn O'Hair

20

"The Hon. Atheist Governor: Culbert

L. Olson" used the values he had
learned as a nonbeliever to govern the
state of California during one of the
most difficult periods in its history.

Masters of Atheism
Culbert L. Olson

Is the religion of Jesus built upon love

and good? Hardly. A little investigation of J.e. and his representatives
quickly finds the "Christian Religion's
Foundation - Hell."

29
Me Too

The governor gives his blunt opinion

of the usefulness of religion and outlines the principles of "Secularism and
Social Progress."

Talking Back
Volume 32, No.4

Austin, Texas

48

Do most Atheists support abortion

rights simply as a knee-jerk reaction
to religion's anti-choice stance? "The
Right of Choice" is defined and examined.

35

When a Christian yells, "You'llburn in

hell," some Atheists are tempted to
fire back, "Coppertone, Anyone?"
April 1990

Letters to the Editor

50

Classified Advertisements

52
Page 1

Allerican Atheist
Editor
R. Murray-O'Hair
Editor Emeritus
Dr. Madalyn O'Hair
Managing Editor
Jon G. Murray
Poetry
Angeline Bennett
Non-Resident Staff
Margaret Bhatty
Victoria Branden
Merrill Holste
Arthur Frederick Ide
John G. Jackson
Frank R. Zindler

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April 1990

American Atheist

Editor's Desk

The courage
of his convictions
n 1961, Culbert Levy Olson wrote
[] that "The voice of freedom from
superstitions, myths, dogmas and
doctrines upon which such religious
activities are based, is seldom, if ever,
heard, and its words, when voiced, are
seldom, if ever, printed in the daily
press." Olson knew from personal experience the weight of censorship which
comes to bear upon Atheism in the United States. As a former governor of California, well-known Democratic party
leader, and distinguished lawyer, when
he became outspoken as an Atheist, he
never expected to be censored. He
assumed he would receive the same
courtesy and coverage for his opinions
on religion as he had for his positions on
politics. Yet he soon found himself
"uninvited" to speaking engagements
and ignored on the one topic he increasingly felt was of utmost importance.
The situation has improved little in
the nearly three decades since Governor Olson's observation. Atheists are indeed now seen in the national media,
but only under conditions designed to
negate the value of their presence. On
talk shows, hosts play "devil's advocate" and bear bait representatives of
American Atheists. On call-in shows,
hostile callers put them on the defensive, asking abusive questions under the
"benevolent neutrality" of a religious
host. The newspapers and magazines
are rarely any friendlier, as copy editors
and reporters, attuned to the demands
of a Christian culture, strew misquotations in their copy as ifthey were Johnny
Appleseeds for Judeo-Christianity. At
times, it seems that even the photo editors are against organized Atheists, as
unflattering photos are more often than
not selected. Ad hominem attacks are
standard operating procedure in the
mass media's treatment of Atheists:
their intelligence, education, hair, clothing, and personal relationships are
attacked instead of the issues.

R. Murray-O'Hair
Austin, Texas

And what of the issues? Representatives of American Atheists are rarely, if

ever, given the chance in the media to
approach them. An Atheist enters the
television station ready to discuss the
school prayer controversy, only to have
the program host concentrate on the
question of "Why do you hate god?"
In such formats, so heavily weighted
against representatives of American
Atheists, it is impossible to present a
cohesive and positive account of Atheist concerns. It is the opposing team's
ballpark, and the rules change whenever it seems that the Atheist team
might make a score.
Because of the media's engrained
hostility, which is the result of a selfperpetuating cultural conditioning and
not an intelligent conspiracy, American
Atheists has sought over the last two
decades to develop its own media - in
which it, so to speak, owns the ballpark.
To this end, it first established a magazine and a newsletter, in which the
deeds and ideas of Atheists could be
published without condemnation, subtle
or otherwise. During the late 1960s and
early 1970s, American Atheists sponsored a weekly radio series so that
Americans might have the chance to
hear what an Atheist had to say. (The
contents of this ground-breaking radio
series may still be read in the pages of
this magazine.) In 1980,American Atheists first entered the video age by producing its own weekly news forum. By
1990 this program was regularly scheduled on 110 cable-access television
channels across the United States.
Governor Olson would have been delighted. During his life (he died in 1%2),
he had only been able to discuss his
Atheistic views on a local (Los Angeles)
talk show - and that fewer than a half
dozen times. To have Atheist views on
current and historical topics broadcast
weekly, on so many cable stations,
might have been beyond his hopes.
Governor Olson made many contributions to the Atheist and state/church
separation movements, and these are
April 1990

chronicled in this month's "Roots of

Atheism" article. Perhaps the most important one he made was his willingness
to proclaim his lack of religion in a decade during which Judeo-Christianity
was legislated into our national definition of patriotism. It is to this day more
comfortable for Atheists to "pass," to
pretend that they do not differ from the
religious, than to admit their disagreement with theism. For a political figure
of Olson's stature to risk the loss of
social acceptance, which in our society
is dependent upon a public performance
of religious customs, if not a private
agreement with religious ideas, was an
act of courage and principle.
I cannot help but wonder, however,
how Olson would react if he could see
how the struggle for the liberation of the
human mind has progressed. Atheists of
his generation often spoke of the human
race being emancipated from religion by
science. One senses from reading the
freethought literature of his times that
no one thought it possible that the world
could remain religious much longer: it
seemed clear that superstition must
soon wither in the clear, strong light of
scientific knowledge.
Sadly, it has not. In our world today,
test-tube babies are commonplace and
the mysteries of our genes are quickly
being solved. But still religionists of all
stripes thank their gods for the appearance of newborn babes. Satellites put in
orbit by the work of man, not the hand
of a god, warn of hurricanes before they
have even developed. Yet a presidential
candidate can still claim he averted such
a storm by prayer and not be laughed
out of the running. Despite all the obvious benefits of the rejection of superstition, our species is increasingly turning
to it again and embracing religious reactionism, as this magazine often documents. Perhaps what is needed to turn
the tide is not science but more persons
of Olson's courage, willing to put aside
personal benefit to speak out for the ultimate freedom: the emancipation of the
world from the bondage of religion. ~
Page 3

Director's Briejcase

Marketing Atheism

standing policy of the American

Atheist organization has been to
attempt to expose as large a segment of the nation's population as possible to the life-styleof Atheism. In keeping with that policy, the organization
attempts to place the "Award" (Atheist)
in view at public events such as state
fairs, county fairs, street fairs, in shopping
malls, at flea markets, and on college or
university campuses whenever possible. This public marketing of the Atheist
point of view has been in the form of
table or booth displays of literature and
books all generally of topic matter which
is in dissent to religion in general and
most often Judeo-Christianity in particular.
As an aside, we are often chided for
the fact that most of the material produced by the American Atheist Press
(publishing wing of the American Atheist
Library and Archives) is critical of
Judeo-Christianity and very little if any
of the material is critical of Muhammadanism, Buddhism, Shintoism, or the
other belief systems of the Near or Far
East. That observation is correct and it
is so because the principal Atheist authors to whom we have access are
American and European and they naturally write about and against the belief
systems most prevalent or powerful in
their particular geographical areas. The
American Atheist Press is very desirous
of publishing material of a critical and
analytical nature on these other belief
systems, particularly regarding Muhammadanism. If any Atheist reading this
journal knows of a source for material in
dissent to any of the Eastern religions,
please contact this author.
One area of particular concern to the
American Atheist Press has long been
the public library system of the United
States. It has always seemed to this
author that the object of a library, especially a public one, was to collect and
display material on a variety of subjects
for the edification of the patrons served
by that institution. A library should literally be a knowledge repository. In that
~

Getting the word out

often turns into the
chore of overcoming
the fears of closet
Atheists, especially
those in public libraries.

A graduate of the University of Texas

at Austin and a second generation
Atheist, Mr. Murray is a proponent of
"aggressive Atheism." He is an
anchorman on the "American Atheist
Forum" and the president of American
Atheists.

Jon G. Murra.y
Page 4

April 1990

regard I feel that it is incumbent on any

public library to have material available
in its collection on both sides of each
presentation of opinion which it chooses
to make available to its patrons. An ex
ample would be books on the CivilWar.
If a library has writings concerning the
causes and effects of the Civil War in its
collection, those writings should reflect
both the Union and Confederate sides
of that conflict. Any library patron who
wanted to read about the Civil War
should be able to look at the reasons
that both sides had for engaging in the
conflict. The same is true for the American Revolution. This only makes good
common sense, to present both sides of
an issue and allow the reader to decide.

Dissent? What dissent?

Such an open-minded approach to
the stocking of a library has been, however, uncommon in this country. The
tendency of librarians and library boards
has been to collect and display only that
material which placates the majority
viewpoint. This is particularly so in regard to politics, religion, and minorities.
It is, in fact, rather difficult to find any
material in most libraries on the British
point of view concerning the rebellion of
the "colonists," to which we refer as our
American Revolution. It is even more
difficult, for example, to find an explication of the political concept of communism from the point of view of a committed communist. This circumstance is
quite evident when it comes to material
in dissent to religion. I have made a habit
of trying to visit public libraries around
the country as I travel, as I often do,
from state to state. When I drop into a
given public library, I go to the subject
card catalog and look under the heading
of "Atheism" or "Atheist" to see what I
can find. In the vast majority of cases I
find a small selection of books authored
by theologians, mostly of the Jesuit
order. When I retrieve one or more of
them from the shelf for examination,
they are books which state, from a religionist's point of view,why Atheism is an
American Atheist

1
I

damn little chance.

I am not saying that all librarians are
prone to censorship - just most of
them. To any Atheist librarians receiving
this journal, my apologies, but my personal experience over a number of
years has led me to this conclusion. I
The library
think that many librarians, particularly
acquisitions process
There is very little, if any, material those in charge of small town or rural
available in most public libraries which is systems collections, become at some
written by Atheists explicating the life- point "protective" of the communities in
style of Atheism. The same point can be which they must live and work. It is from
made about the political concept of the perspective of "protecting" those
communism to which I referred earlier. communities against "radical" ideas that
A reader can find a wealth of informa- might foster any change in the prevailing
tion about the "failings" of the commu- life-style, that some librarians become
censors. Any community only has access
nist system and why any adherent
thereto is among the most loathsome of to that material which those in charge of
individuals, but just try to find a rational a library or library system serving that
explanation of communism written by community choose to give them access.
one of its founders or adherents who It would take some convincing eviproudly supports the concept. These dence, beyond that of which I have perwritings do exist, just as do writings by sonal knowledge, to demonstrate to me
Atheists about Atheism. The libraries that most librarians are indeed in favor
simply choose not to carry them for one of airing opposing viewpoints when it
of two reasons. Either they don't know comes to the topic matter of religion.
that the materials exist for the procurement thereof, or they do know of their Protectionism
existence and simply don't desire to give in the library system
What I see happening in this country
public airing to an unpopular point of
view. It is my contention that the latter is an infiltration of persons of the "protectionist" mind-set into the group of
is by far the most prevalent case.
One must keep in mind that some- those responsible for library acquisione, or a group of persons, must decide tions. This is very similar to the phenomwhich books to buy to add to any li- enon going on in the public schools at
brary's collection and which books to the moment. Many school boards around
eventually weed out of the same collec- the country are being taken over by
tion. If the decision-making individual is deeply religious board members who
personally religious, or the administra- feel that it is their "Christian" duty to
tive body is dominated by that mind-set, provide a wholesome atmosphere of
it is not hard to imagine why obtaining piety for the children of their district. In
works in dissent to religion would not be order to do so, they must "protect" the
a priority concern. The same goes for children from the influence of such
material on either side of the major polit- wicked concepts as science (evolution),
ical or social issues of our century. If history (the true history of the church),
those in charge of acquisitions in a pub- and alternative political perspectives.
lic library or library system are of a "pro- (That is, anything other than straight
life" bent with regard to the issue of Democratic or Republican party line is
abortion, what chance do you imagine "Communism" with a capital C and is
materials from "pro-choice" authors
therefore banned. A good example is
have of getting into the collection over that the public school system of the enwhich such persons have control? Very tire great state of Texas operates under
intellectually unsound philosophical
position. In short, most of the material
I can find filed under "Atheism" is books
written by theists saying why they feel
that Atheists are essentially crazy.

Austin, Texas

April 1990

a state board provision that no criticism

of our "democratic" political system can
be taught.}
This atmosphere of protectionism
has been around for a long time in the
United States, with particular emphasis
on "the youth" of the nation but also
extending to the general population.
The YMCA and YWCA were founded
on the principle of protecting rural
youthes from the evils of city life. I find
this to be a strange concept because
that from which we are being protected,
presumably for our own good, is ideas.
I grew up in a home with complete freedom of discussion and thought. Any
topic was fair game. It is always the underlying justification for what should
rightly and plainly be called censorship,
that it is for the "good" of the persons
being deprived of access to materials.
Those who make the decisions that
materials expressing a particular idea be
banned or made so inaccessible that
only the most diehard purveyors of intellectual freedom could find them, do
so assuming that such persons of intellectual perseverance are but a minuscule proportion of our population. Most
of the time they are right. We all know
that for the most part one must lead a
horse to water to get him to drink, and
most of the general public must have
their faces literally rubbed in any idea
new or radical to them to even get them
to notice it. Given this preoccupation of
the tenders of the majority viewpoint to
protect the public against selected concepts without asking them if they desire
said protection, or without even letting
them know what they are being protected against, it has been an uphill
struggle for many cause groups throughout history to make their minority opinions heard.
Atheists for centuries have been trying to place their material before the
public and thus the public libraries have
been a primary target. If material in
dissent to religion could only be placed
where average citizens could obtain it,
then the next battle could be engaged,
Page 5

which is the struggle to get them to

show up at their neighborhood libraries
to read what has been proffered to
them. The latter obstacle can only be attempted after first clearing the former.
The Atheist community in this country
has never been able to even accomplish
this first step, of placing its point of view,
in print, in repositories where the common man could access it. This is one of
the reasons why Atheist organizers became expert pamphleteers and stumpers,
a desire to get the word out somehow.
Such tactics are, however, increasingly
archaic.
I remain in this entire regard deeply
concerned about not only public libraries but the libraries of all levels of educational institutions. How can young
people formulate attitudes and opinions
which they willlikelycarry with them for
most of the rest of their lives, when they
have access to limited and one-sided information on which to base those concepts? It is, therefore, imperative that
Atheists continue their struggle to get
their point of view into both public and
educational institution libraries.
It is in that regard that the American
Atheist Press has tried to do two things
over the years. We desire first to reprint
those works of historical importance to
the formation of the ideological base of
modern Atheism, and second to print
new material generated by contemporary Atheist authors who can find no
outlet for their writings in the major,
competitive, commercial trade publishing industry. While trying to meet these
two objectives, we also constantly keep
in the back of our minds the need to
keep the term Atheist up front, so that
the material we produce cannot be filed
or categorized where no one seeking information in dissent to religion could
find it. To do so, some of our books
sound like the titles to television sequels. For example, What on Earth Is an
Atheist!, An Atheist Speaks, All About
Atheists, Why I Am an Atheist, Essays
of an American Atheist, etc. Some of
these books almost sound like they
Page 6

should be followed by such titles as An

Atheist at the Beach, An Atheist Visits
Grandma, and so on. It is, however, prudent to do as has been done in the selection of titles because an all-too-common ploy of the religious is to hide Atheist materials in any collection under the
heading of "religion" or "sociology."

American Atheists and the

American Library Association
Well, in order to try to do something
about the lack of material about the
Atheist life-stylein libraries, authored by
the person who is one, the American
Atheist Press has done what no other
Atheist press before it has had the foresight to do. It has taken its materials
directly to libraries through displays
thereof at the annual conferences of the
American Library Association (ALA).
At each and every annual conference of
the ALA there is an exhibit area provided
for publishers and companies offering
services or equipment to libraries to display their wares. These ALA conferences are large affairs, with attendance
being in excess of ten thousand persons,
with usually five thousand or more exhibiting companies. The exhibit area is
normally in a large civic or other hall big
enough to accommodate five thousand
or more booths. Space is provided each
year for both booth and tabletop-type
displays.
In the early going, American Atheist
Press opted for one of the tabletop-type
displays chiefly for monetary reasons.
The first two ALA conferences at which
it exhibited were both held in Chicago.
American Atheist Press next exhibited
at ALA conferences held in New York
and then in San Francisco. The most recent ALA conference was held again in
Chicago (ALA headquarters), that being the association's 109th annual conference. The first two times that American Atheist Press exhibited, it did so in
the small press tabletop section. The
press then obtained a professionally
produced booth display portable backdrop so that it could expand to renting
April 1990

booth space beginning with the New

York City ALA conference. That portable display proudly sported the legend,
complete with graphic artwork, "Atheists . . . they're not just for closets
anymore."
At the most recent ALA conference
held in Chicago the total attendance
was 19,868,with 6,615of those being exhibitors. * There were 1,393booth spaces
in the exhibit hall and places for ninetysix tabletop displays. The exhibit hours
covered essentially four full days, a Saturday through a Tuesday. American
Atheist Press drew booth number 1276
in the veritable sea of exhibitors. During
each of those four days one or more of
three representatives staffed the American Atheist Press booth, which consisted
of the custom portable display backdrop and two skirted tables for display
of sample books and other publications.
We had handouts and catalogs as well as
sample copies of this journal available as
promotional giveaways, and we even
had ballpoint pens made up with the
name, address, and telephone number
of the press thereon.
This was the fifth time that the American Atheist Press had participated as
an exhibitor at an annual ALA conference. Last year, for the first time by any
Atheist press, the American Atheist
Press had a booth at the Moscow International Book Fair in the Soviet Union.
Plans are now being formalized for the
American Atheist Press to have a booth
at the Frankfurt International Book Fair
in West Germany, in the fall of this year.
These international excursions are undertaken for the same reason as the
domestic ALA exhibits, to advertise the
existence of an Atheist press and to
proffer to librarians and book retailers
alike an array of material in dissent to
religion from the Atheist viewpoint.

*Memo from Barb Macikas, director of

Conference Services to ALA exhibitors at
the 1990 ALA Annual Conference.
American Atheist

~.

i~'~

",In

NO" JUS-T

FOR CLOSETS
ANYMOR.E

J;

Measuring success
Before I turn to some personal impressions with which I came away from
this year's participation as an ALA exhibitor, I want to make the point that the
exhibit was a success in overall terms in
that it achieved the objective of making
many librarians aware, many for the first
time, that there was an outlet from
which they could obtain material both
written and produced by Atheists. That,
in and of itself, I consider to have been
an invaluable service to the causes of
Atheism and free speech. I also need to
say that at past exhibits there has been
a fair amount of interest on the part of
the various librarians who passed by our
table or booth display. I could not characterize the interest level as "poor" or as
"good" at any of those past exhibits, but
merely just "fair" as a way of expressing
a medium, rather than high or low
degree. I must say that this year's exhibit was no exception to that past experience. If the amount of material given
away is any count of interest, I could estimate that about three hundred each of
sample issues of this journal and American Atheist Press catalogs were taken
by persons stopping at our booth. In
addition, some one thousand ballpoint
pens bearing the press name and address
were taken from the display. I am contented with that degree of interest level,
taking into consideration that we were
in competition for the attention of over
ten thousand persons with more than a
thousand other displays.
Now, on to my personal reactions. I
do not intend, by the way, to impute the
following observations to my fellow
booth tenders. They most certainly may
have seen things differently.

Sneaking a peek
The reactions to our booth varied
from one extreme to the other as one
would anticipate. Most of the librarians
wandering up and down the long rows of
booths simply passed us by with just a
furtive glance. We did catch their attention but they wanted to take a quick
Austin, Texas

This type was obviously

too good for the likes
of us heathen booth tenders,
and wanted us to know it.

look without revealing to their peers

that they may have any interest. It was
the kind of look that one might see
someone give to the window display of
an adult book shop. The interest is
there, but society's propriety precludes
doing any more than just rolling the eyes
quickly in the general direction of the
attraction. In reality, the glancers would
like to drop in to bury their faces in a
sordid tabloid but refrain for fear of
being discovered in the act, at least by
someone they know. Some of the looks
we received were accompanied by that
type of smirk which generally indicates
an amusement, presumably at the sight
of an Atheist press. "How funny or odd
that there would be a press dedicated to
the publication of material against religion," was the thought behind each of
those facial expressions. Then there
were the series of disgusted looks, as if
the expresser had just seen something
that had turned his stomach. This was
an expression of aversion, some more
acute than others. Some appeared as if
they had just seen an apparition of a
dead relative, while others seemed to be
filled with amazement that such an
entity as an Atheist could even exist. On
occasion, though, there came a thumbsup sign or a pronounced wink, to indicate an expression of "keep up the good
work" or "glad to see you here." We did
also garner the occasional starers, who
would stand transfixed, motionless, and
mute, before our booth for from a few
seconds to as long as a few moments.
This would happen most often when
one of us was talking to someone else
who had stopped at the display. After
staring for a period of time, they would
rejoin the troop of spectators circulating
up and down the aisles of the exhibit
hall, almost like a duck in a shooting
gallery, still silent and pensive. Another
type of passerby was the gigglers, sometimes alone but usually coming in pairs,
who would give out anywhere from a
chortle to a guffaw at the sight of our
booth. Last but not least were the raised
nose, snobbish, prissy passersby. This
April 1990

type was obviously too good for the

likes of us heathen booth tenders, and
wanted us to know it.
In addition to what we could surmise
and obviously glean from the array of
physiognomies passing before us, there
were those who actually did stop and
speak. Sometimes they did so of their
own volition and in other instances with
a bit of prompting from our side of the
aisle. The favorite tactic was to come
forth with a line like "It's OK, we don't
bite!" or "Come on, have a look, it won't
hurt!" to entice, and to actuate any
interest or curiosity.
Of those who did talk to us there were
a variety of opinions expressed. A repeated theme was that the questioners
perceived an Atheist to be one who
"denied God," and that therefore they
could not see why a press was needed
to produce material beyond that simple
expression of denial of that which everyone else knew was existent. The notion
that "God is in his heaven and all is well,"
and that an Atheist is just a poor deluded
soul who refuses to acknowledge that
fact, is a common one but not a notion
that I expected to find from librarians. It
was nigh onto impossible to convince,
and try we did, persons of this frame of
mind that we did not acknowledge their
leading premise that there was a "god"
in which one would have the option of
believing or disbelieving. Coupled with
the misconception of an Atheist as simply a "God denier" was often the perception of Atheism as a "negative" philosophy. The question was often asked
of us, "Why do you just knock religion
and God, don't you have anything positive to say?" Atheists have many positive ideas and opinions, just not about
religion. It is difficult indeed, if not rationally impossible, to be able to say something positive about a belief system that
one does not share and that one feels is
ludicrous at best and dangerous at least.
It is projected by the religionist, that the
negative scrutiny of his belief system by
the Atheist represents the sum total of
the analytical ability of the scrutinizer.
Page 7

"Why do you have to be so direct and insulting

toward religious people?" they would ask me.
"You can be nice and respect religious beliefs
and still disagree at the same time!"
Just because I have nothing "good" to
say about religion does not mean that I
cannot have many good things to say
about a variety of other things. The religionist wants respect for his belief system so desperately that he is ready to
jump to the conclusion that one who
does not respect his beliefs is just a terminally "negative" person.

Fools for Atheism

I also got the impression from the way
in which many of the librarians looked at
the titles of the books and booklets we
had on display, and from assorted comments, that they viewed our selection of
material as matter not to be taken seriously. It was as though we were publishers exclusively of satire, or perhaps
comic books. I had the distinct feeling
that many of the persons thumbing
through our display items felt that the
content of the books, which they had
not read, would be trivial or sophomoric
in presentation or humorous in style.
The title Women, Food and Sex in History, for example, drew a lot of attention,
but the initialassumption was that it was
not the serious or scholarly work that it
indeed is. The feeling tone that I had
from the way that many of the librarians
approached our material was that they
thought it was all a joke, something for
the idle curiosity seeker but not to be
taken seriously. They were trivializing
the Atheist point of view.
I can try to explain it in another way.
If you were to be browsing through a
library shelf and you saw a title on
Mesozoic cycads, that might catch your
eye and you may want to read it out of
curiosity and then say to yourself, "Well,
that's nice, how interesting, but not
what I would call important 'need to
know' day-to-day type information."
The subject of Mesozoic cycads is interesting and perhaps even intellectually
stimulating, but to most people it is so
only in passing as a kind of trivial pursuit. To a paleontologist such a book
would have genuine technical value, but
to most others it would be simply ranPage 8

domly informative, for the "I didn't

know that" category of things learned,
only to be too soon forgotten. It would
hardly be a book which may initiate
thinking that might lead the reader to a
change in life-styleor create the spark of
doubt that may lead to an abandonment
of a belief system. It is in the way that the
average layman might view a book of
particular scientific specialty, that the
librarians seemed to view the titles we
had on display from American Atheist
Press. It was as if the persons stopping
at our booth had each repeated to me,
out loud, the sentence, "Well, that sure
is interesting, yup, but who the hell
would want to read about denying God
and on top of that who the hell would be
fool enough to believe that way?"
Perhaps I am just too sensitive, but it
is hard to overlook a situation in which
one cannot help feeling that one is being
laughed at, even though that laughter is
not external. What made it even more
difficult was the fact that I knew what
the contents of the books were. Unzipped: The Popes Bare All was another
title that drew many stares and smiles,
but what the book points out is not
either funny or trivial. The popes have
been billedthroughout history as arbiters
of human morality, yet many of them
would hit the sack with almost anything
that moved, male or female, as the author, Dr. Arthur Frederick Ide, points
out. I don't know how to overcome the
factor of Atheists and Atheism not being
taken seriously, particularly by a subset
of the population who are readers.
There is genuine merit in what we have
to say, as Atheists, if we can just get the
reader past the "A word" and into the
meat of our arguments.

Apologize for thinking?

This leads me into another area of
controversy that came up with more
than one librarian. "Why do you have to
be so direct and insulting toward religious people?" they would ask me. "You
can be nice and respect religious beliefs
and still disagree at the same time!" I
April 1990

was told. My reaction to that approach

was simple and the same in every repeat
performance. What the questioners
really wanted was for the Atheist to
come on as apologetic, at all times, for
not being able to "accept the reality" of
the religionist's god. They want us to say
something like, "Oh, I'm so sorry ifI may
offend anyone with what I am about to
say, but I just can't bring myself to believe in god. Please forgive me for having this opinion." That is a far cry from
the position of American Atheist Press,
which is to turn the tables on that kind
of tone to say, "Look, any intelligent
person knows that god is make-believe
and if you think that there is a god you
must be just plain stupid or just misinformed." Religionists don't like to hear
that kind of talk because they have
always been in a majority position within
the culture from which they have been
able to demand, and almost always get,
respect for their belief systems no matter how obviously absurd. If other Atheists want to take the tack in life of being
either consistently apologetic about
their position or hypocritically apologetic, that is, to apologize for their Atheist stance on the surface in order to
avoid the "Aword" and perhaps sneak
up behind the religionist in an argumentative sense, that is fine by me, but this
Atheist is content with delivering my
stance on belief systems upfront. I think
that in the long run it can be seen that
either the consistent or hypocritical
apologist Atheist has not gained any
further ground against the theist majority than the up-front, aggressive Atheist,
so why not be of the latter category?
If the foregoing descriptions sound all
too negative, that is not to say that we
did not have a number of librarians who
seemed genuinely interested and expressed pleasure at seeing such a press
as ours in the exhibit area. We did have
our share of them. True, their interest
and enthusiasm to add previously
unheard-of material to their collection
was welcome, but it also was often accompanied by the disclaimer that they
American Atheist

So many Atheists are

intellectually supportive of an Atheist movement,
but they feel that they dare not reveal themselves.
were personally religious but believed in
freedom of speech.

Atheist librarians:
living in fear
Out of all of the reactions and commentary received while staffing the
American Atheist Press booth at this
year's ALA conference, I am most disheartened by those coming from professed Atheists and agnostics. I can understand the position of the many religionists who gave me a hard time. I expected that. What I did not anticipate
was the extent of the fear of the Atheist
and agnostic librarians. Let me explain.
Every now and then a librarian would
stop by the booth and say, "Hey, great
to see you here. I am an Atheist myself"
and then go on to say that he worked in
a library or library system in which he
felt that he could not possibly ever reveal his Atheism. Iwas told by some that
if they even took an American Atheist
Press pen and it was found in the pen
and pencil cup on their desks they
thought they might lose their jobs, such
was the sentiment as regards the value
of religion in the communities in which
they worked.
Atheist librarians told me that they
would give anything to be able to suggest that the institutions for which they
worked subscribe to this journal or
acquire some American Atheist Press
titles, but that they dare not for fear of
reprisals. "After all," one would say, "I
am a reasonable person and I have to
eat and I have kids to support. I can't
just throw my livelihood away by letting
it be known that I am an Atheist. I have
to play it cool." This sort of rationale for
self-censorship came from librarians
from rural and urban institutions alike.
I encountered the same kind of fear that
I had found last year when I tried to get
American Atheist members in Indiana
to agree to be interviewed by a major
newspaper. So many Atheists are intellectually supportive of an Atheist movement, but they feel that they dare not
reveal themselves. This is heartbreakAustin, Texas

ing! It made me profoundly sad to think

that with all my effort I could not help
these poor persons who were literally
imprisoned by the reality of the prejudice of others coupled with their own
fears. Once they stepped out of the
privacy of their own dwelling, and onto
the public street and then to their places
of work, they could not express their
ideas openly. They could only be themselves within the confines of their dwelling places, and even there, only if they
were careful as to who might be listening.
This part of my experience at the
ALA exhibit, the discovery of Atheists
within the nation's library system who
could only come and whisper to me at
a display booth that they too were one
of like mind but could not dare to have
it known publicly, was the kind of sobering realization that borders dangerously
close to moving me to violence. To see
someone as a prisoner in their own culture makes me want to go out and find
a priest or minister and throw him to the
ground and shout at him that how dare
he create an atmosphere in society in
which anyone who disagrees with the
dogma that he spews from the pulpit has
to live in fear, day in and day out. It is a
frustrating situation to say the least.

libraries around the country, and put up

our first tabletop display at the first ALA
conference at which we exhibited, there
were only about two to three hundred
libraries which we knew had any material written by Atheists in their collections. That count is now up to over one
thousand. We have, actually, come a
long way in a short amount of time.
You can help too. The next time that
you make a trip to your local public or
educational institution library, check the
card catalog under the subject heading
of Atheism and see if any of American
Atheist Press's books are listed. If not,
go and find out who is in charge of
acquisitions and ask why the library
does not have any books about Atheism
written by Atheists and advise where it
can obtain them. Just send us the name
of the library, the person to whom you
spoke, and the complete address and
we will be happy to send a catalog and
a sample of this journal to any librarian.
We often hear the excuse from libraries
that they do not have any Atheist materials because no one ever asks for them.
So ask, and perhaps we will get some
results. In the meantime this Atheist will
keep on exhibiting and keep on talking
and keep on being proud to be an Atheist for all of those who feel they cannot
do likewise for now. ~

Progress made
To sum it all up, these little forays into
library land not alone make me a more
convinced Atheist but give me more for
which to fight. Imust see to it, somehow,
that Atheist thought is available in the
nation's library system and that the outlook of society is changed as regards
Atheists so that those still in hiding can
be set free. These trips to the ALA conference exhibits are costly and timeconsuming but are well worth it in terms
of exposure. If we keep coming back,
year after year, demonstrating that we
won't give up, that we are not scared,
and that we stand proud of our Atheism
and its heritage, we may sooner or later
start to gain some acceptance. When
we first started out trying to contact
April 1990

A debater's he/per

The Bible Handbook

by G. W. Foote & W. P. Ball
Do you not know what to say to the
Christian friend who keeps telling you
about the certainties of the Bible? Help
has arrived! This clearly referenced
book will put the very words of the
Bible at your fingertips and enable you
to defend yourself from theists' simple
arguments. Never again will you be
unable to refute Christians. Paperback.
372 pages. $10.50 ppd. Stock #5008.
A.A.P.,P.O.Box
140195, Austin,TX
78714-0195.(Texas
residents add 8
percent sales tax.)

Page 9

Ask A.A.

Where are the women?

In "Letters to the Editor," readers give

their opinions, ideas, and information.
But in "Ask A.A.," American Atheists
answers questions regarding its
policies, positions, and customs, as
well as queries of factual and historical
situations. Please address your
questions to "Ask A.A.," P. O. Box
140195, Austin, TX 78714-0195.

Page 10

Why are most Atheists male? It seems

that since most religions are male dominated and act like only men are created
equal, and also much of the Bible does
the same, women would be turned off
by all that and many would turn to Atheism.

technologies which could give humans

indefinitely long life spans? Do you endorse the goal of conquering death
through technology? I have in mind
such things as cryonics, Eric Drexler's
cellrepair machines, and Hans Moravec's
scenario of "downloading" the human
mind into robots.

Andrew Ralph Cosetta, Jr.

California

Mark Edward Potts

Oklahoma

A major function of religion during

the past twenty thousand years has
been to make the female of the Homo
sapiens species (of the primate order)
sexually subservient to the male. In
order to have sexual satisfaction for
each male of the species no matter
what kind of a wimp he was, it was necessary to culturally condition the female
to sexual subservience upon the demand of the male. Thus was societal
pair-bonding created instead of the natural sexual activity found in allother primate groups. Possession of the female
by the male, her indoctrination and
psychological conditioning has paid off
for the male of the species.
Most women do not even know of
their acculturation. When the instructions are so massive, such an inherent
part of the mores of existing societies
that it is impossible to sort out what is
natural and what is induced, women
don't stand a chance.
Atheism needs to strengthen its voice
and its educational outreach. It will only
then be winning women one by one. Actually the situation looks quite bleak, as
you yourself have noticed.

At least half a dozen of the American

Atheist conventions have featured "Life
Extension" speakers. Over the years
selected books on the subject (usually
authored by Atheists) have been offered
through the American Atheist Press.
Many Atheists have become convinced of the possible success of cryonics
and have left both money and wills to
have their bodies frozen for revitalization futuristically.
The Vatican has had an extraordinary
interest in the idea of overcoming death
through technology to keep a pope of its
choice alive.
American Atheists supports scientific research. When a "breakthrough"
point is reached and the consequences
of that are to be felt by the human society, an evaluation of the situation will be
made and a position taken. There is no
need now to project into the future of
fantasy ideas; that is to say that American Atheists keeps abreast of the experiments and outreach in this area of
scientific experimentation and does not
see a critical time of choice in the immediate future.

Taxy-turvy
Life everlasting - as a robot?
On the inside cover of the magazine
you state that one of American Atheists'
purposes is "to promote the study of the
arts and sciences and of all problems
affecting the maintenance, perpetuation, and enrichment of human (and
other) life."
Given this principle, what is American Atheists' position on foreseeable
April 1990

In preparing my 1989 income tax returns, a question regarding the appropriateness of deductibility of contributions to religious organizations came to
mind.
Are you aware of any court challenges to the Internal Revenue Code,
which allows deductions on Schedule A,
Form 1040 Individual Income Tax Returns, for contributions to religious orAmerican Atheist

The "Chicago 47,"members of American

Atheists who staged the first picketing
of a pope in 1979in Chicago, made the
government support of religion through
the taxation process part of their
protest.

ganizations? It would seem to be an indirect subsidy of religion by the United

States Treasury Department. Needless
to say, a large majority of the states also
allow deductions for donations to religious organizations in computing taxable income. Have there been any challenges in state courts regarding state
allowance of religious donations?
Regardless of the court positions, if
any courts have taken any, this policy
expressed in tax law seems to be a violation of the United States Constitution
regarding separation of church and
state.
If you could direct me to some nonlegal source for an answer to this question, I would be appreciative. If your
organization has a position on this topic,
I would also like to read it. I am not a
lawyer and do not have the ability to
research this topic.
James F_Cavender
Arizona
Last year religious organizations received $53 billion- much of it deducted
from the tax liability of individuals who
used Schedule A, with their Form 1040,
to take the deductions. The balance
was gifts from corporations and foundations to religious organizations and
institutions. An additional $61 billion
went to "health, education, and human
services," many of which were religious
(gifts to religious colleges, schools,
child-care facilities, religious hospitals,
and other religious institutions, eic.).
When a religious person, earning the
same salary as do you, can save on his
tax bill by deducting from the gross on
which he must pay tax whatever money
he wants to give to religion, and because of that - he pays less tax, that
is inequitable. Feeling that it was also
unconstitutional, two different Atheists
have tried to sue the Treasury Department of the United States to stop the
practice. One was a retired admiral in
the navy (Vowles v, IRS, 1980) and the
other was the (now) president of AmerAustin, Texas

your electric company gives a "gift" to

a religious foundation in your area instead of reducing your electric rates
you are shouldering the burden of the
"gift" by paying higher rates. This happens all the time, all over the United
States, as corporations of every kind
take "off the top" of their gross profits
the gifts that they give to religion - and
then pay taxes on the residue amount.
One of the reasons that they are all
heavily into advertising is that they may
ican Atheists (Tucker, Murray, et al. v. also deduct advertising costs from the
IRS, 1982). The former was filed in gross income before they begin to calCalifornia, the latter in Texas. In both culate their tax bills.
American Atheists - for years instances the federal courts ruled that
individualtaxpayers did not have "stand- has attempted to challenge this in all
ing to sue" over the issue. This is a stan- ways. It filed a suit to force religious ordard way to throw out of court cases ganizations to pay ad valorem tax on
which the federal judiciary does not their real estate holdings and filed an
amicus curiae brief in another such suit.
want to hear.
You are, of course, right. It is an in- It is currently involved in a third such
direct subsidy of religion by the United legal effort. It filed a suit to force reliStates. In order to fight these subsidies gious organizations to pay income tax
and to maintain the right to sue, a group on profits from their businesses which
must have numbers and money. Both are unrelated to religion. The problem is
give political punch, which is - in the that - relatively speaking - American
ultimate analysis - what influences our Atheists is a small organization and
court system, our government, and our does not have hundreds of thousands of
dollars to pursue such suits.
elected and appointed officials.
Like it or not: As an Atheist you can't
Atheists have never learned this lesson. They have never united to fight do a damn thing but grin and bear it,
together against the repressive mea- supporting religion every inch down the
sures which all religions take against all line. You pay more sales taxes because
of humankind. They have never united all religious institutions pay none. You
to fight together to stop the subsidiza- pay more income tax because all relition of religion by government. For over gious institutions pay none. You pay
two hundred years of Atheist history in more real estate tax because all relithe United States, we find that allAthe- gious institutions pay none. You pay
ists have ever managed to do was to more tax on every gallon of gasoline
cringe in their closets and bicker one you use because all religious institutions
with the other over whether or not they pay no federal tax on the gasoline they
should directly confront religion or if use. You pay a high Social Security tax
they should learn to love religion and because retired nuns and priests receive
live with it.
Social Security although they have
. The above two legal cases were con- never paid into the Social Security
cerned with individuals complaining of funds.
The lesson is an easy one for every
inequitable treatment, as taxpayers,
under the Fourteenth Amendment as Atheist: Come out of the closet and
well as under the First Amendment to unite to fight religion - head on. And
that is the only way that anything is ever
the Constitution of the United States.
But there is a worse situation: When going to be accomplished. Je
April 1990

Page 11

One of the issues to be settled during

the reunification of the two Germanys
will be the reconciliation of their two
different abortion laws: East Germany
has permitted abortions while West
Germany still prosecutes physicians
who perform them. In light of this upcoming controversy,
the current persecution of one West German doctor is
particularly compelling.
The following article by Dr. Fritz Erik
Hoeuels, founder of the West German
Atheist group, Bunte Liste Freiburg,
details the history of reproductive rights
in Germany as well as the current situation. It first appeared in the Ketzerbriefe, no. 17 (November 1989) published by Ahriman Verlag of Freiburg.

Original introduction
Originally the following article was to
be published, as is, in a Swiss periodical
critical of the Health Service. The periodical had asked the Bunte Liste Freiburg to write it and that explains some
of its otherwise not understandable
peculiarities. When the editors received
the article, they did not care to print it.
Well, West Germany is everywhere,
and therefore anyone wanting to read it
must, as so often, turn to the Keizerbrieje. 1

year ago the Bunte Liste Freiburg

reported in this same [Swiss] journal about the trial against the
gynecologist Dr. Horst Theissen from
Memmingen/Bavaria, who had been
accused in court on the base of Section
218 of the West German Penal Code
(prohibition of abortion), and the Bunte
Liste asked the populace to protest
these proceedings. In May of 1989, after
a trial, the court announced its sentence: two and a half years imprisonment and a professional ban of three
years for Dr. Theissen. This shows once
more that the Federal Republic of Germany is bringing up the rear among
European nations, at least as far as the
human right of self-determination is
concerned or, as our constitution likes
to call it, the basic right of "developing
and displaying his or her fullpersonality"
belonging to every citizen." That such a

lInformation from and about heretics.

2In German: Grundrecht "auf die freie
Entfaltung der Personlichkeit."

Fritz Erik Hoeve/s

Page 12

April 1990

American Atheist

Awarding the Cross of Motherhood

(1941).

sentence, reminiscent of the fifties and

of former German Chancellor Adenauer
and of Franco's Spain, is possible in an
allegedly democratic, even "progressive" country, raises a question. Of
what, strictly speaking, did the "reform,"
i.e., the softening of Section 218 praised in this country at immense propaganda costs - consist?
This Section 218 of the West German
Penal Code, derived from the Reich of
the Kaiser, was to be abolished in the
Weimar Republic on the basis of a
plebiscite - at that time possible also in
this territory - that was initiated and
supported by the Communist Party of
Germany, but the obstruction practiced
by all other political parties resulted in
its remaining alive. The Hitler government kept it up enthusiastically and
sharpened it. The Adenauer government accepted it gratefully and only reduced the punishment - Hitler had
added the death penalty to it - until it
finallywas equivalent to the standard of
the more liberal surrounding countries
(Italy, East Germany, the Netherlands,
and the like) in 1974. This was despite
the continued resistance of the Social
Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), in
particular from this party's Minister of
Justice G. Jahn and its leader Willy
Brandt. The liberalization was, actually,
only because of the pressure of a mass
movement which did not lose its strength
over the years. Also, the Social Democratic party suffered large-scale losses in
regional elections, which could have
been related to the abortion issue. The
liberalized penalties were, however, repealed in substance after only some
months in existence. This will be discussed later. On the basis of the prohibition against abortion, Dr. Theissen
was not alone prosecuted and persecuted - but condemned.
In connection with the judgement
against Dr. Theissen, the press, and not
only that of West Germany, creates the
impression this severe persecution, that
cannot be overlooked, is the kind of
thing that can only happen in the provAustin, Texas

ince of a particularly reactionary government consisting of both die-hards

and backwoodsmen.' a kind of event
caused by exaggerated federalism and
only possible as a running amok of some
relics out of the Stone Age who cannot
be stopped by the central government
and who lead their lives, murky and unfortunately uncontrollable, in some corner of an otherwise enlightened and
humanely administered liberal industrial
country.
This judgement is terrible especially in the way it came about; it
is measureless in its severity; and,
as it is, unthinkable in any other
land of the Republic." (Stern, 11
May 1989).5
By phrases and slogans such as this,
a totally incorrect picture is drawn. Regarding the relationship of West German parties one to another as well as
the relationship between central government and province governments in
the Federal Republic of Germany, there
is no rivalry but merely a division of
labour.

~I.e., in Bavaria.
4West Germany is divided into ten so-called
Lander (lands).
5The Stern is one of the leading, maybe the
leading magazine of West Germany. Any
well-read person, other than those who read
the tabloids, takes notice of what this paper
writes.
April 1990

West Germany, in its role as the most

reliable U.S. watchdog on the European
continent, does not conceal its dominance or its will to dominate all of the
other countries of the European Community. As neighbors of this powerful
industrial country, the Swiss have all too
many reasons to keep themselves informed about what is going on in this
European key state - hence, the request
for the Bunte Liste to write an article on
the abortion issue in West Germany.
Switzerland also has its own legal prohibition of abortion, a lamentable condition in the field of Swiss law, the same
as found in its northern neighbors - the
financial base of which is strong and
thus influences Switzerland. What Swiss
would think his country could remain a
repressive island in Europe - with its
humiliating psychiatric hurdle-races for
women who want to have an abortion ifits southern and its northern neighbors
had made up their minds on this wretched
question of abortion and had introduced
a humane and correct solution based
upon a reasonable time limitation for
abortion? It is, therefore, necessary to
take a closer look at the history of West
German legislation concerning abortion, a legislation of which Dr. Theissen
- in a spectacular and exemplary way
- is to become a victim now.
The struggle against the prohibition
of abortion in our century basically consists of two phases. It is not necessary
to go back further than the 1900s, since
prior to this century abortions could be
performed only in an unreliable, dangerPage 13

By an increasingly lenient handling of existing prohibitions against abortion

and even legal reforms in the most liberal and progressive European
countries, the pregnancy trap - the net of iron inescapableness suddenly had holes in it for the victims.
ous, and difficult manner because of the
insufficiencies of medical knowledge.
When in connection
with the breakdown of monarchies after World War I
the social liberation movements in all
industrial countries found more and
more supporters worldwide, the prohibition of abortion still was above all - a
sword of Damocles hanging, by means
of the threat of pregnancy, over sexual
activity and sexual self-determination in
general, due to the unreliability and the
aesthetic wretchedness
of the contraceptives that could be had at that time.
The struggle for the right of abortion
and the possibility to obtain and make
use of contraceptives (which, in spite of
all said above, were more than blessed)
had a commonly acknowledged importance in sexual politics: friend and foe
on this issue felt the same way."
The only relevant groups that supported this struggle in the German
Reich of that time, the so-called Weimar
Republic, and in the countries bordering
on it were Hirschfeld's "World League
for Sexual Reform" and the Communist
Party of Germany. It was successful
only in the young Soviet Union under
Lenin and Trotsky; Stalin's reign, which
soon began, put a quick end to this
short-lived
success.
(Who wants to
know details of this history, will find
them in the second part of Wilhelm
Reich's The Sexual Revolution - a
book worth reading for a long time into

the future, I fear.")

In all other countries, democrats and
communists (of course, always excluding Social Democrats)
- in Switzerland, for example, Fritz Brupbacher were fighting from a position through
which they could not win. Always it was
the Social Democrats who constantly
frustrated bills and plebiscites of this
kind brought about by the Communist
Party of Germany - plebiscites being
still possible in the Weimar Republic,
the freest state that ever existed on German soil (as in Switzerland and today's
Italy, but in contrast with West and East
Germany). The suppressive activities of
the Social Democrats were organized
and carried out wherever and whenever
they could obtain a majority vote." Hitler's dictatorship put an end to all these
confrontations and possible steps ahead.
The second phase in the struggle
against the prohibition
of abortion
started with hesitation worldwide and
after a long interruption. The invention
of an anti-pregnancy pill eventually fulfilled the wish expressed so pathetically
by the young Freud (see footnote 6).
This brought about a standard of equality of the sexes in all levels of society as
well as the humanization of sexual life.
It stopped in part the tendency for some

7Wilhelm Reich, The Sexual Revolution

(New York: Farrar, Strauss & Giroux,
1974).

6"lt cannot be argued that Malthusian acts

become necessities in a marriage at some
time, and in theory it would be one of the
greatest triumphs of mankind, one of the
most clearly felt liberations from the hard
reign of nature under which our race has to
live if man succeeded in raising the responsible act of begetting children onto the level
of a voluntary and deliberate act and to cut
it from the bond with necessary fulfillmentof
a natural need" (S. Freud, Collected Works,
vol. 1, p. 507 [German edition; translated
into English by the translator of this article]).
This statement came as early as in the year
1898!

Page 14

8For the details of this parliamentary and

juridical trench fighting, see Petra Schneider:
Weg mit dem Paragraphen 218t - Die
Massenbewegung gegen das Abtreibungsverbot in der Weimarer Republik, Materialistische Wissenschaft 18, Oberbaumverlag,
Berlin 1975 (Off with Section 218t - The
Mass Movement against the prohibition of
abortion in the Weimar Republic, Materialist
Science 18, Oberbaumverlag [publishing
house], Berlin 1975; in all probability there is
no publication of this book in the English
language.) The book is not easy to read
because of its Euro-Maoist style in long
parts, but the reader cannot afford to ignore
it, because of the information it provides.
April 1990

women to claim a life annuity in marriage based on pregnancies and it moved

many from simple prostitution to a common experience of sexual pleasure between individuals who were equal in
their place in society and in their sensitivities. The sexual liberation made so
much progress that it resulted in conditions such as had not existed for thousands of years (if we can trust certain
theorists about prehistoric
times) or
never at all. Under these circumstances
the prohibition of abortion began to lose
its function as an important means of
sexual suppression; it became a thirdrate measure, auxiliary, obsolete. Its
victims now were, apart from rare accidents, only individuals already harmed
by neurosis or their border position in
society. Thus, by an increasingly lenient
handling of existing prohibitions against
abortion and even legal reforms in the
most liberal and progressive European
countries, the pregnancy trap - the net
of iron inescapableness
- suddenly had
holes in it for the victims, however
harmed they already were.
"Abortion tourism" to England, then
to Holland became popular; under the
conditions of legality, the benevolent influence of competition in market economy was quickly felt. The customers of
Dutch abortion clinics in that time lost
their position of poor beggars asking for
a favor and received friendly and polite
treatment.
In addition, gynecologists
suddenly invented - in astonishingly
short time - a painless and harmless
way of terminating pregnancies (the socalled suction curettage abortion). This
challenged the unison preaching by professors of gynecology of the medical
necessity of curettage, the scraping or
scooping of the fetus out of the uterus.
That so-called curettage
came to be
known for what it was: a pseudo-scientific
procedure
concocted
for cryptopunishment reasons and in the service
of religious and patriarchal
ideology.
Church and reaction started trembling.
And indeed: in the country of the
pope the chains lost their strength. For
American Atheist

Below: Demonstration against Section

218(1975).On the posters you can read,
"My belly belongs to me" (center left)
and "Sexual pleasure without a burden"
(center right). (Photo from Spiegel, 24
March 1975).

not unlike Switzerland, but contrary to

our state, Italy is a democratic country;
it knows neither party bans nor breaches
of the constitution nor a 5 percent proviso.? but plebiscites. The idea and practice of plebiscites was, used by the radicalliberal party Partito Radicale (PR) of
Italy, founded shortly before. This party,
acting on its own, successfully struggled
for probably its greatest historical
achievement - after the analogous
compelling of the divorce act - namely
the introduction of the legalization of the
first trimester abortions in the southern
pillar of the European Community. It is
remarkable that the so-called Communist Party of Italy (PCI), in its lackey-like
urge to be on friendly terms with the
Vatican, stood in the Partito Radicale's
way in exactly the same fashion as
Germany's Social Democrats had obstructed the politics of the Communist
Party of Germany (KPD) decades ago.
Although the PR at this time could
scarcely get more than 7 percent of the
votes and although it was supported
only by some unimportant left splinter
groups, the plebiscite became a great
success - and a lasting defeat for the
church. (The church had, of course, left
nothing undone to influence the referendum in its favor, and years later it did all
it could in order to make it invalid by a
counterreferendum.) For the first time
reaction had lost an important battle in
a large European country traditionally
strongly influenced by it - first trimester
abortions or the time limit solution, i.e.,
the most reasonable and most humane
regulation of the problem of pregnancy,
threatened to become European standard. Everybody's eyes turned to Bonn,
Europe's first violin, even if it had the
American pawnbroker's bailiff's seal on
it. Which melody would it play?
At this point in time, the eyes of the

91n West Germany every party that is

elected by less than 5 percent of the voters
is not allowed to send representatives to
parliaments. This is different in Italy.
Austin, Texas

world, and in particular of Europe, had

already turned to the FRG for other
reasons. After a long phase of traditionally conservative governments, Nobel
Peace Prize winner Brandt had come
into the leading position of the West
German state. (He was to get this distinction of the Nobel Peace Prize, which
made him a colleague of Mother Teresa
and of Henry Kissinger, the American
secretary of state out of the time of the
Vietnam War, shortly after he had come

to his office, for his achievements in the

service of the American politics of
detente ordered at that time, the socalled Eastern treaties.) With Brandt
someone had become West German
chancellor who was regarded as a person of particular integrity, even as a person friendly towards democracy in wide
circles of the world.
But soon Brandt embarrassed his
observers: as the chairman of a conference of governments of the lands!"
which form the Federal Republic - his
party had already started a successful
experiment in the city of Hamburg,
being a land of its own and traditionally
governed by the Social Democrats he initiated, on January 28, 1972, the
IOSeefootnote 4.
April 1990

breach of several articles of the West

German constitution (in particular Article 3, sections 3 and 5 and Article 33,
sections 2 and 3), in order to be able to
more mercilessly persecute Communists and the new left parties that had
come into being in the course of the students' movement. (It was, not by chance,
that his party again, the Social Democrats in the parliament of North-RhineWestphalia, led by Herr Farthmann, in
August of 1989 openly called for ordering the political secret police known as
"protection force of the constitution"!'
to influence the results of elections (see Badische Zeitung from August 9,
1989). West Germany has played a negative leading part in Western Europe
because of the passage in its constitution
which allows the banning of political
parties by the Supreme Court. But the
constitution does not give local governments or low-ranking courts the power
to systematically persecute members of
non-banned parties. Now, however, the
country enriched its neighbors' languages by the new foreign word Berufsverbot, as Tsarism had given our and
many other languages the words knout
and pogrom.
The more and more repressive policy
of Brandt's government, his determined
support of the Portuguese counterrevolution, and the gradual removal of civil
rights unachieved by any former West
German government in his, and that
means in our, country, so much darkened
the image of the celebrated Nobel Peace
Prize winner and idealist honestly wrestling with himself and others - an image
needed again and again for other purposes - that Brandt resigned his office
under a pretext.
There was a feeling of schizophrenia
towards the Federal Republic in Europe

liThe West German political secret police

calls itself in literal translation "protection
force of the constitution,"in German "Verfassungsschutz." Best greetings from George
Orwell.
Page 15

After dissociating themselves from their own bill in a battle of speeches

lasting for hours, full of pathos, pitifully distressed, moistened by crocodile
tears and abounding in "feelings of responsibility," the representatives of
the government parties voted for exactly this bill.
at this moment of history. The country
of the great Nobel Peace Prize winner
- didn't one expect reforms in society,
even steps ahead to freedom - and
didn't one on the other hand see the
most disgraceful persecutions of Communists since Hitler, the most merciless
gradual removal of civilrights under the
pretext of the search for terrorists?
Europeans' eyes began squinting when
they were directed on Germany: with
pathetic enthusiasm the one eye looked
upwards to the unhappy spotless idealist at the top, who obviously did not
know what all he was signing, speaking,
and ordering, but the other one rather very gloomy and full of fear looked at a half-totalitarian structure
producing rather uncanny feelings, a
structure that was brewing in the heart
of Europe. And all knew or had at least
an idea that their domestic fate would be
decided in the country of the Berufsverbote: West Germany, the more powerful
of the two German post -war states, had
become the model for Europe. Already
the Italians called the gradual removal of
civil rights, beginning in their country
and being far more harmless, germanizzazione. Especially after the change of
chancellors, vexation at the Modell
Deutschland made itself felt.
The SPD government took up the
ball. In the first German election campaign after the war that saw all leading
parties try to win voters by variants of
the national flag, the SPD additionally
used the slogan: "Modell Deutschland. "
The SPD was not exaggerating: In all
questions, if it be civil rights or the prohibition of abortion, the Federal Republic of Germany had become the model
for Western Europe. As such, it could
have been possible for that country to
stabilize a furtherance of the human
right of self-determination outside its
territory, at least in West Europe, for
centuries. On the other hand, it was
possible for it to thoroughly slow down
such a progressive stance. Ifit could not
immediately turn the wheel back to the
conditions of before, it was possible to
Page 16

determine a boundary from which as a

starting-point it would be possible to go
ahead and destroy the right of selfdetermination at a more "favorable"
point of time. This point of time has now
arrived; it is marked by the case of
Theissen.
Well, what was the reaction in West
Germany when the courageous PR had
won its important victory of human selfdetermination at the Italian abortion
front? Everybody's eyes were intently
directed upon the "Modell Deutschland."
Inside of that there was an echo. After
the Stern had successfully started the
attack upon Section 218 by a large-scale
campaign of self-accusations of prominents and when early feminist groups
energetically kept this struggle alive by
well-aimed demonstrations in the streets
and other means, the Italian success
was the signal for the KBW12- a Maoist
organization at that time rather important with nearly twenty thousand members willingto make real sacrifices - to
open a campaign with the slogan "Plebiscite against Section 218." This slogan
was a very sticky one because it constructed a connection between the
abolishment (or at least a softening of
the prohibition against abortion) and a
reform of the constitution (which was,
of course, desirable in itself). This provoked superfluous side-issues. But it
should not be forgotten that it brought
into being the largest, most important
demonstrations against Section 218
that were ever to be seen in post-war
Europe. At the same time the Eastern
neighbor, the German Democratic Republic, startled out of its sleep by the
Italian example, reformed its legislation
concerning abortion and introduced a
clear legalization of first trimester
abortions. By the way, this brought
about the first controversial debate and
vote that had ever occurred in East

12KBWis the Communist League of West

Germany.
April 1990

Germany since its foundation in the

Volkskammer (people's chamber), its
parliament.
Thus the SPD-government was put
under pressure from all sides - and
particularly as feminist groups, traditionally getting more attention from the
media than any other opposition movements, directly fought the SPD minister
of justice of the Federal Republic, Gerhard Jahn. Jahn, of course, is the most
profiled in print and the most fanatical
supporter of Section 218. The women
thus directly fought the government
party that needed to rely on its popularity and its "image as reformers."
As for the reform of punishment in
the case of ending a pregnancy, it
must be said that there is a misunderstanding spread among wide
parts of society. Firstly a bill on
this is not in existence; secondly it
is not at all planned in the Ministry
of Justice of the Federal Government to allow the interruption of
pregnancy up to the third month.
What our bill will look like cannot
be said at the present time ... We
still are in the phase of intensive
discussion in which experts as well
as churches willtake part.
Minister of Justice Jahn (SPD)
1970

... But the care for a good partners'

relationship with the churches
must on the other hand not be
neglected particularly when the
state has to decide about problems
as difficultas the reform of Section
218.

St. Willy Brandt

March 20, 1972
Evidence on the relationship between
wire-puller and lackey doing the job,
here in the issue of Section 218.
It only seemed to be a question of
time for the attention of the public to be
directed to the sacrosanct monument
Brandt, and then the important psychoAmerican Atheist

logical condition of the historic mission

of Social Democratic work in government would have been endangered. The
situation seemed to be pregnant: a high
percentage of voters, up to that time
dazzled by the "image of reform," had
lost the feeling - so-necessary for the
working of our parliamentary machine
- of a difference between the Social
Democratic Party of Germany and the
Christian Democratic Union and had
not gone to the polling stations in three
regional elections following each other,
elections after campaigns in which the
struggle for and against Section 218 had
played a central role_Consequently, the
government party which, after all, had
not done its historic homework, suffered losses_
Under these circumstances, old party
tactician Wehner overcame Brandt's resistance against every kind of reform of
the prohibition of abortion - a resistance that he had vociferouslyannounced
in public for years. Some days later this
resulted in the, it won't be exaggerated
to say, strangest division the parliament
of Bonn, perhaps ever any parliament,
has seen in its halls. After dissociating
themselves from their own billin a battle
of speeches lasting for hours, full of
pathos, pitifully distressed, moistened
by crocodile tears and abounding in
"feelings of responsibility," the representatives of the government parties
voted for exactly this bill. Not a single
voice was heard that openly supported
the three-month (first trimester) solution. Not a single member of the House
cut down to size the arrogance of the
church - an organization that tramples
upon the right of self-determination for
all, not only of women. Nobody in the
whole parliament had made the right to
one's own belly the focal theme which it
is in this debate. No man nor woman
had insisted upon the fact that it is evident by itself that a cell system, capable
neither of life nor of consciousness, being in its self-structure far below every
rat born or every cow for slaughter, that
such a cell system must not be a pretext
Austin, Texas

to meddle in the lives of real and not

merely potential individuals. What happened after this strange division?
In order to answer this question, we
must go a bit back into history as well as
over some borders in geography. In
classically democratic countries like

Switzerland or Italy, the sovereignty of

the people is the highest principle, i.e.,
the articulate will of the majority of the
populations of these countries is the
highest authority, exactly as in ancient
Athens. Against a decision of the people
there is no antidemocratic emergency
brake. We Germans haven't had the
right of plebiscite since Hitler and, as in
most partly democratic countries, the
antidemocratic brake is the Supreme
Court (the so-called BVG). Whoever
follows this court's activities, soon loses
his naive opinion that there is any connection whatsoever between the court's
decisions and the constitution. The
crudest example of this was the court's
decision on the so-called" examining the
consciences" of conscientious objectors
some years ago. No attentive observer
will be able to doubt the above realization. Let's cut it short: Before the division on abortion in the parliament one of
the posts in the BVG-Chamber competent for the Section 218 issue had become vacant and this under such circumstances that the new post would be filled
by a representative of the coalition government - according to a complicated,
traditional process. With the new appointment, the governing party would
April 1990

have a majority in this division of the

BVG (the decisions of the BVG-divisions
are made beyond recall and by a simple
majority only).
Miraculously the government did not
- for the first and so far last time in the
history of the FRG - insist upon its
right otherwise so jealously cared for
and defended in tough spirit. Let us
never forget that in the matter of selfdetermination the European standard
was at stake, for as Germany went on
the issue so would the rest of Western
Europe. And now that hare-andhedgehog game13 began by which dust
should be thrown in the eye of the
national and international public. Just as
now in the Theissen case: a "deeply
reactionary" land," this time BadenWurttemberg, then the domain of the
notorious Nazi judge Filbinger, took the
role of the bogeyman as had been
agreed upon and submitted the law to
the Supreme Court immediately after
the parliament's division. The court was
to decide if the law was in accordance
with the constitution (only parliamentary parties, lands and, on certain conditions, high authorities are allowed to
submit a law to the Supreme Court for
this purpose). The three-month solution
never became a valid law; in February
1975, that is, after a few months, the
Supreme Court cancelled it under the
pretext that it was contradictory to the
constitutional
article which says,
"Everybody has the right to life." It can
hardly be argued that the personal
pronoun "everybody" cited in the constitution was intended to mean only
individuals capable of having a personality. As for the juridical form, it is
enough to know that the same Supreme

13Inan old German fairy tale a hedgehog

wins a race against a hare who does not see
that at the end of the way he does not meet
the hedgehog but rather the hedgehog's
wife. After covering the distance several
times the hare breaks down and dies.
14See footnote 4.
Page 17

In [German] feminist circles, incidentally,

at the present time
the mainstream is distinctly in favor of adherence
to prohibition of abortion.
Court shortly before did not declare West German legislation, there began a
tough wrestling for the implementing
invalid the so-called "Eastern Treaties"
ordered by the United States of America, statutes concerning the question of
exactly when the conditions of a permistreaties which are really contradictory
to the West German constitution be- sion for abortion are fulfilled.The implecause this constitution explicitly says menting regulations allow the different
. that treaties of this kind are not allowed provinces plenty of rope, and give them
to be made before the annexation of the possibility to take a "hardliner's"
East Germany by its more aggressive role in the play. First there is the introduction of compulsory "counseling"
neighbor.
A law that permitted abortions under with and "advice" to pregnant women
certain conditions was now not to be who wish to have an abortion. This
contrary to the said constitutional arti- "counsel" and "advice" is mostly given
cle - you never know what an oracle de facto into clerical hands. Its essence
must be compared with, let's say, the
will tell. Otherwise the antidemocratic
emergency brake in Karlsruhe would compulsory attendance at conversion
have radically lost its reputation and sermons that the unhappy Jewish inthereby its psychological capital. The habitants of Italy (the State of the
people were, at least, to believe - if Church) had to attend periodically
they didn't uncritically worship it - our before Garibaldi's victory. IS It finally
highest court would decide "first one ends with the prohibition of an ambulant
way and then another," and not accord- abortion even if all the degrading and
ing to predictable rules that one would bullying conditions have been fulfilled.It
look for in the constitution in vain. Well, was precisely because of one of these
this time the court had decided "this additional rules, which restore the de
way" once again. It perpetuated the leg- facto situation of "no way out of the
acy of a comparatively elastic approval prohibition of abortion" in West Gerof abortions under certain conditions, many and which of course are intended
to legally effectuate "no way," that Dr.
that is, an unclear and unreasonable
"solution" (instead of the clear and rea- Theissen has now been sentenced in
sonable three-month solution) was court.
Persons who have knowledge of this
chosen. This preserved the make-up of
the Janus-face from Karlsruhe as wellas field were easily able to predict this
the reform face of the Brandt govern- development of things. Let's not go
ment. Because of the complete arbi- through the tiring and confusing painttrariness in handling the principal item ing of the turns of the thumbscrews
of the "reform ruin" as it was called even after the Karlsruhe horse trade. Let's
at that time, namely the "condition of not enter the labyrinth of intricate
the social situation" in determining ap- regional differences. It is enough to
provals of abortions, there was a time know that the forces of the classic Right,
bomb ticking in the West German, and the church and its thousand organizaso also the European, cellar, a time tional offshoots in the leading position,
bomb that now exploded under Dr. never have rested in the struggle to win
Theissen.
The wording of social distress, of
course, allows a liberal handling of the
lSGiuseppe Garibaldi (1807-82), Italian
law - the way Britain had attracted
guerrilla general whose revolutionary exploits
"abortion tourism" twenty years before. against the French defenders of Rome in
But it also allows a complete prosecu1848-49 and in 1867 made him a national
tion of every abortion as the Memmingen hero and led to the confining of the pope and
(the case at hand) kick-off indicates. Of the papal states to the Vatican, the Lateran,
course, immediately after the change of and Castel Gandolfo, as of May 13, 187l.
Page 18

April 1990

back the territory that once was occupied

by the counterforces. At the same time,
on the other side after the disappearance of the small Maoist parties there
were only scattered feminist circles
without a central commando. In those
feminist circles, incidentally, at the
present time the mainstream is distinctly in favour of adherence to prohibition
of abortion, a discussion in which they,
not without a certain spiciness, make
use of the eugenic condition as their
road of invasion - as well as the Hamburg magazine Stern as a reliable support. Meanwhile, in the not classically
right big parties one can at best observe
remarks of ambiguity and solicitous
hypocrisy, apart from that calculated
falling back at the described front.
If the put-up job goes on as it was
planned, the next steps will look as
follows: reduction of punishment of Dr.
Theissen by the Bundesgerichtshof16
but confirmation of the judgement in its
substance; after that a wave of fear and
terror among all doctors with the result
that the "condition of social distress"
will completely disappear, i.e., happy
and final return to the conditions of the
Adenauer government and by this an
end of the Bavarian hide-and-seek in
favor of a "Bavarian" solution for the
whole Federal Republic. A drying up of
the liberal way-outs in foreign countries
will result. In Italy this development
started a long time ago, particularly
since the PR has completely lost its
image of freedom, its aggressiveness
and efficiency. The final result will be
what was so long awaited: Modell
Deutschland takes over Europe.
But this does not have to happen.
Even the maneuver pretending to be a
reform that, after all, gave a breathing
space by the means of "the social condition" under which abortion was allowed,
was forced out of the hands of a perfectly

160ne of the highest West German courts,

under the Bundesverfassungsgericht
(Supreme Court).
American Atheist

unwilling government intending to do

something quite different, by the pressure of a persistent mass. The Theissen
plan need not be a success either if foreign countries interfere. The West German government will still sensitively
react upon everything that shows its
continuity with the preceding system of
government of Hitler. Ifother Europeans
make intelligent and strong use of this
fact, ifthey closely look at the picture in
this article showing the award of a Cross
of Motherhood, if they draw their political and analytical conclusions from that,
and if they - in this sense - become
active by means of polite, but distinct
letters to the West German embassies,
and later, as soon as that has become
necessary, to the Bundesgerichtshof
(BGH), then the infamous plan need not
reach its goal. Who, as a Swiss citizen,"
thinks the injustice practiced by courts
and other organs of the state of his
neighbor country is no concern of his in
his neutral and democratic island, may
remember the Roman proverb:
T ua res agitur, murus si proximus ardet. (It's your affair if your
neighbor's house is burning.)

Afternote
The article was written before the
reduction of the degree of punishment
for Dr. Theissen by the next higher
court. Would it be wrong to admire a bit
the correctness of our forecasts and to
ask oneself what, not necessarily the
Holy Ghost, makes them possible for
us? 3t

Dial A Minister Dial A Pastor Dial A Prayer -

DIAL-AN-ATHEIST
The telephone listings below are the various services where you may
listen to short comments on state/church separation issues and viewpoints originated by the Atheist community.
Anchorage, Alaska
Phoenix, Arizona
Tucson, Arizona
San Diego, California
San Francisco, California
Sonoma County, California
South Bay (San Jose), California
God Speaks

Greater DC
Cocoa, Florida
Denver, Colorado
Southern Florida
Tampa, Florida
Atlanta, Georgia
Northern Illinois
Dial-a-Gay-Atheist

Detroit, Michigan
Minneapolis/St.
Paul, Minnesota
Northern New Jersey
Keene, New Hampshire
New York, New York
Dial-a-Gay-Atheist

To the reader of the English language

edition of this article: Only the footnotes
6 and 8 are part of the original German
language text. All other footnotes were
added particularly for the English language edition by the translator authorized by the author.

Columbus, Ohio
Findlay (Toledo), Ohio
Mansfield, Ohio
Portland, Oregon
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
DIAL-THE-ATHEIST
Austin, Texas
Dallas, Texas
Ft. Worth, Texas
Houston, Texas

17This article was written for a Swiss journal.

Salt Lake City, Utah

Seattle, Washington

Translator's note

Dial-a-Gay-Atheist

Austin, Texas

April 1990

(907)
(602)
(602)
(619)
(415)
(707)
(408)
(408)
(703)
(407)
(303)
(305)
(813)
(404)
(708)
(708)
(313)
(612)
(201)
(603)

344-3086
273-1336
623-3861
660-6663
647-8481
792-2207
377-8485
257-1486
280-4321
631-0127
252-0711
474-6728
677-7731
662-6606
506-9200
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272-1981
776-6163
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352-0116

(718)
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899-1737
294-0300
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533-1620

(512) 458-5731
(214) 824-5800
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(713) 776-3309
(713) 880-4242
(801) 364-4939
(206) 859-4668
Page 19

Roots of Atheism

The Hon. Atheist Governor:

Culbert L. Olson

ttl
A Californian
successfully combined
his Atheism and a
political career.

Atheism has long, underground

tentacles which reach deep into human
history. This feature in the American
Atheist uncovers them through the
lives of many of our spokesmen and
women and restores to you a sense of
the precious heritage they fought to
bequeath to our times.

Madalyn Q'Hair
Page 20

ulbert Levy Olson was born on

November 7, 1876, in Fillmore,
Utah, of Western pioneer parents, Daniel and Delilah (King) Olson,
and was a descendent of one of the
signers of the U.S. Constitution. His
early youth was spent on a farm in Utah.
He was the second of two boys, his elder brother being Emmet Olson. He was
apparently reared in the Church of
Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormon), although all of his references to
that church were oblique.
Typical of the "aside" remarks he
made concerned with Mormonism was
a story he related about his first experience of disbelief. But, referring to his
mother, it seemed impossible for him to
associate the word Mormon even with
her.
I was born in a small country
town. The entire community belonged to one religion and church,
which controlled the educational,
cultural and civic affairs of the
community. Any apostate was
looked upon as having fallen by
the wayside by the influence of the
"Devil." It may be that I was naturally a skeptic, for, notwithstanding the religious influence of my
early youth, I did not join in the
emotion that other children seemed
to enjoy in their emotional response to the passionate sermons
of the church teachers who told of
revelation from God and the appearance of an angel to the prophet,
seer, revelator and founder of the
church. Reason forced me to conclude that the founder was a bold,
ambitious imposter whose revelations did not make sense. My conclusion was not reached easily because of my desire to conform
with the religion of my Mother
whom Idearly loved - the kindest,
most humane and self-sacrificing
person I have ever known.
In a 1961interview with Paul Coats, a
April 1990

popular Los Angeles television personality, his reply to a query concerned with
his religion was that his mother "followed the beliefs of her ancestors."
At about age ten he refused, in his
school environment, to participate with
other children in their fancy of seeing
angels.
Well, it was a Mormon school
and the principal in his sermons to
the children would arouse emotionalism and the children would
become so emotional that they
would declare they saw angels. Of
course I did not see any angels and
therefore did not join in the emotionalism stirred up by the preacher.
I was called into the principal's office by him. He said that he noticed
that I didn't participate in the spirit
of the occasion. I told him that I
didn't see angels and I didn't believe
that the other children did.
In his short recountings of this period
of his life, he referred to his older brother, Emmet, who "shared his disbelief'
and who, in fact, "became an Atheist
himself." His father he described as
"certainly ... not orthodox in religion,
and ... not very much dedicated to religious activities." His other siblings
"were not orthodox."
At age fourteen, in 1891, he went to
work as a telegrapher. Subsequently, he
attended the Brigham Young University
at Provo, Utah (1890-91 and 1893-95),
from which he graduated at age nineteen. At age twenty he became associate city editor of the Daily Ogden Standard (1895-97).In the following year he
had the opportunity to move to Washington, D. c., as a newspaper correspondent and congressional secretary.
While he was in Washington, D.C., doing secretarial work for congressional
members, he learned that Robert G.
Ingersoll was going to speak on a Sunday evening and he attended the lecture. He recalled the experience in this
way:
American Atheist

A November 3, 1938, advertisement in the San Francisco Chronicle

(below) emphasized Olson's support for "such progressive measures
as 'increased old-age (cash) pensions, the Central Valley project, utility co-operatives,' " while quoting Time magazine as describing his
opponent, Governor Frank Merriam, as "an arch political trimmer,
paying harmless lip service to the Townsend Plan." These issues
proved important to California voters. Olson, shown here two days
after his victory on November 8, was the first Democrat elected to
the governorship of California in forty years.

he was to live for the next

thirty-nine years. Once
there he became active in
the Democratic party, particularly supporting the
candidacy of Franklin
Delano Roosevelt. Through
this work, he attained a
high ranking post in the
Democratic party. He was
During the years he spent at the a leader not alone in Californational capital he studied law (1897-99 nia state but in national
and 1900-1901)at Columbian Law School Democratic policies. A
(now George Washington University), strong "New Dealer," he
and later (1899-1900)at the University of supported all of the liberal,
Michigan. He graduated from Columbi- even progressive, politics
an with an LL.B. degree in 1901.At that of the Roosevelt regime.
time he returned to Utah, was admitted He subsequently ran for
to the Utah Bar in 1901,and entered the and in 1934was elected as a state senator for the district of Los Angeles, in
practice of law in Salt Lake City.
There he met and later married on which office he remained until 1938.As
October 21, 1905,Miss Kate Jeremy. Of a senator, he fought through the passage
that union, there were three sons: Rich- of the Olson Oil Bill,which "marked the
ard Culbert, and twins John Weber and first instance in California history of the
Dean Jeremy. Richard followed his oil monopoly losing its control over oil
father in taking up the profession of law. legislation." He subsequently supported
In describing his wife's attitude toward the government suits against the oil
religion, his statement was extremely monopoly for oil royalties.
short:
With the personal endorsement of
I had felt so much alone in my
disbeliefs. I didn't believe in any of
the religions and I had come to the
point where I didn't believe in the
existence of a God. When I heard
Ingersoll's bold and reasonable address, I felt that I wasn't quite
alone and there must be many
others who were disbelievers too.

Well,I can't say that she was entirely an Atheist. She was a Mormon as was her family.I knew that
she was aware of my disbelief and
she was not critical of it. She was
not a church attendant. She was
what Iwould call a freethinker who
didn't take religious beliefs seriously.

I just told the member of the

Supreme Court [of California]
who came to swear me in as governor that there was no use to ask
me to say "So help me God" because God couldn't help me at all,
and that there isn't any such person, and I will have to just say "I
will affirm."

Olson was elected as senator to the

state legislature of Utah in 1916 and
served as chairman of the Senatorial
Judiciary Committee until 1920.In that
state he sponsored acts relating to politicalreform, education, equitable taxation, social services, and fair legislation
regarding labor and industry. He remained in office four years.
In 1920, Olson moved to California
where he bought a home, at 506 S. Mariposa Avenue in Los Angeles, in which
Austin, Texas

Franklin Delano Roosevelt, he ran for

the office of governor of California with
central issues of public power development, the Workmen's Compensation
Act, old age pensions, and compulsory
health insurance. This consistently carried forward his championship of social
justice and the rights of the working
people. He was the first Democrat over
a period of forty-four years to occupy
the governor's chair in California.
After his election in November 1938,
he did not take the full oath of office in
1939since he refused to utter the words,
"So help me God." Asked how he managed to avoid the oath, he patiently
explained:

He did, however, take the office of

governor and served until 1943. The
most controversial aspect of his entire
career was his pardon of Tom Mooney.
This radical labor leader, revered by the
labor groups in the world, had been conApril 1990

Page 21

For over two decades, the nation had

argued over whether labor leader Tom
Mooney had been unfairly imprisoned
for the bombing of a Preparedness Day
parade in San Francisco on July 22, 1916
(right). Olson made it known that he
would pardon Mooney as soon as he was
in the governor's office.

NOW FOR THE TWO MILLION MARK

G~'",..."- '''''1

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TomMooneyMoldersDefeIse c.ithe
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JOHN MOOIttY,

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cry er
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the ;::.i.

tion existed among the migrant farm workers of California. In 1939a subcommit"
tee of the U.S. Senate Committee on Education and
Labor, under its chairman,

Robert M. LaFollette, Jr. of

s.Wisconsin, visited California
.eee or n
to investigate violations of
the workers' civil liberties.
:no;:,~F.NrH ~.~,.~<
.'~~,~~~~
';(;/~
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::'~::d
Governor Olson gave a mov'T0I\f
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~.""..
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r
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-rNCJ.:Jrr
ing, compassionate statement
1.400.000
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~ ~ .
';;~~Dt~~t;HEU to the committee which de"'Nt: 2.o6~ CIF/CU -~
tailed how this socially disad,000 At~ 'TIOty
.
~RI(
vantaged class had frequently
\~,;.t
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had their civillibertiesviolated
C'~'-'. (,:,.-.',
and documenting their "miserable living and working
conditions" as well as their
victed of a bombing which occurred in "appalling low earnings."
San Francisco on Preparedness Day in
Yet, through all of this, rather than
1916.He had been sentenced to life im- bleating that he was moved by his Chrisprisonment. After Olson's election he tian charity, Olson, on any occasion that
was petitioned by the labor movement
he was asked, openly avowed what he
to pardon Mooney who had spent twenty- termed, at that time, his "secularism."
two years in jail.After a long study of the He had a specific definition of the word.
legal record of the case, he became convinced of Mooney's innocence and unSecularism is defined as follows:
"Supreme or exclusive attention
dertook what no governor before him,
to the affairs of this life;specifically
in any state of the Union, would have
an ethical system founded on nattouched. Olson absolved Mooney of all
ural morality which seeks the deguilt and unconditionally pardoned him
velopment of the physical, moral,
in a ceremony in Sacramento on Januand intellectual nature of man to
ary 7,1939. Subsequently, in October of
the highest possible point as the
the same year, he also commuted the
immediate duty apart from theism
sentence of Warren Billings, who had
been convicted with Thomas Mooney.
or religion and choosing as the
Some of the worst poverty in the namethod of procedure the promo-

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Page 22

''''0'
RUEDY.'
,1 l' hd 11
d tb' cQuntry
<;1" :-c!II!'{';~l'id

{'~.

~'.-: Xr:..>;:1:-:":. "~

by

Although he was circumspect as to

public statements on religion during his
political career, after the conclusion of
his term as governor of the state of California, he slowly began to make known
a central idea which he held: "God is a
myth." A typical reply which he made to
a query about whether or not he had
read the Bible is typical of the man:

P~l"'J:.H'Y 1$

Col.

When

rer.':~dy.

tion of human improvement

material means."

1,.,';k1t:p; in "U"~ h:;nc:l.

This
d!!r~.,t~"':~::r..ir'I;':V

April 1990

I don't see how anybody can

read the Bible and believe it's the
word of God, or believe that it is
anything but a barbarous story of
a barbaric people who were so ignorant that they lived terrible
lives. The Bible itself is the most
obscene book that was ever published.
When queried as to whether or not
his Atheism was an impediment in his
career, he simply stated that his stand
on religion was not an issue in the campaign or during his term of office. Any
Atheist, however, knew what his position was. For example, in a public address in April of 1941,at the laying of the
cornerstone of a neuro-psychiatric institute in San Francisco, he made the following statement:
[W]e no longer talk about the
divine purpose of the various organs of the human body in an atAmerican Atheist

tempt to make it appear to be a

logical and rational piece of construction.
He was not cautious, however, about
his stance on the need for complete and
absolute separation of state and church.
He also came to be highly critical of the
theopolitics of the Roman Catholic
church.
At the time he was governor there
were two bills which passed the legislature of California, both of which were for
the assistance of the parochial school
systems in that state which were, at the
time, predominantly Roman Catholic.
The first was a bill which provided
free transportation to students of [Roman] Catholic schools on public school
busses running between points of their
regular course. He had instinctively
sought to deny this aid, but in later recounting the circumstances of his signing the billwhich had been passed by the
California legislature he related:
What I wish to do now is to revert to the political activities and
influence of the [Roman] Catholic
Church under its priesthood direction in our secular government
of California.
Who in public life now or heretofore has not felt that pressure of
that influence?
I dare say everyone in a legislative or executive office of the state
or local governments have something to do in connection with the
purposes of the [Roman] Catholic
Church in secular affairs even to
some extent at least members of
the Judiciary, and the Boards of
Education. I dare say this because
both as a member of the California
Legislature and as Governor of
the State, I have encountered that
pressure backed by reference to
the political power of the Church
and its large membership whose
concentrated separatist action
may decide an election in favor of
Austin, Texas

one who yields to such pressure.

Frankly,as Governor, I once yielded
to that pressure for signing instead
of vetoing a bill which provided
free transportation to students of
[Roman] Catholic schools ....
The second of these California laws
provided for "released time." This was a
system whereby school activity was
stopped during the day, with the Protestant children held in the schools doing
nothing, while the Roman Catholic children were "released" for a stipulated
"time" to go to their churches to study
parochial catechismal lessons. Olson
opposed this, feeling that all the children
should spend such "time studying the
educational programs of the public
schools" and he vetoed the bill.
He continued to be acutely aware of
and disturbed by the political power
wielded by the churches and noted in a
proposed address:
California established a secular
state government in Section 30
Article IV of our Constitution, forbidding the passage of any law
"Granting anything to or in aid of
any religious sect, church, creed
or sectarian purpose, or help to
support or sustain any school, university, hospital or other institution controlled by any religious
creed, church or sectarian denomination whatever." However, as
you may well know, provisions of
our Federal and State government
constitutions have been violated
by Congress and by state legislatures in this and other states,
sometimes supported by a majority vote of citizens; and, it seems to
me, we must realize that these
constitutional violations are caused
by religious influence and the
political power of priesthoods and
their churches, which influence
has reached the stage of threatening to convert our secular government into religious governments
April 1990

controlled by churches, or by one

church if one church develops
more political power than others.
If this occurs, the traditional fights
between church denominations
for power and privileges, as in
Colonial days, will be revived. In
fact, such a conflict is already proceeding.
His wife, Kate Jeremy Olson, died
during Olson's term as chief executive of
the state of California.
He was defeated in his bid for a second term, as he related it to Robert H.
Scott, another active California Atheist,
"because of the active hostility of a certain privately owned power corporation
and the Roman Catholic Church in
California. "
Throughout his political career, both
as a state senator in two different states
and as the governor of California, he
repeatedly emphasized several lessons
of politics and religion. The first was that
religion had failed as a moral force, in
collective society and for individual persons:
Our present state of affairs has
been reached after centuries of
the predominant power and influence of religious superstition and
god-worship. Organized religions,
led by church priesthoods, claim
leadership of the people's minds
and thoughts by virtue of divine
authority ....
It is certain that organized religion and prayers to their almighty
deity have not been the means of
saving humanity from want or
from wars, a large proportion of
which have been wars for power
between conflicting religious dogmas. Nor have the principles of
morality taught as a part of religious doctrine, become prevalent
by that method. Witness the extent of selfishness, greed, opportunism, hypocrisy, and crime which
now permeates our society.
Page 23

Gov. Olson playfully crossed his fingers

as he cast his ballot during the polling
for his own reelection as governor on
November 3, 1942.He later said that he
lost that election "because of the active
hostility of a certain privately owned
power corporation and the Roman Catholic Church in California."

Secondly, he hammered away on the

need for education generally and also
specifically against religion:
[W]e know that social progress
advances, is retarded, or retrogrades depending upon the extent
of the education and political intelligence of the electorate.
It is obvious that the primary
condition retarding social progress
is a lack of educational qualifications for intelligent political action
on the part of the great majority of
the people who are benefited by
social progress.
His evaluations of politicians of the

Eisenhower, in his home-coming

speech at Abilene, Kansas, after
sanctioning the admonition that
"the fear of God is the beginning of
all wisdom," said, with reference
to a break in the weather allowing
the allied invasion of Europe to
proceed "with losses far below
what we anticipated," "if there
were nothing else in my life to
prove the existence of an almighty
God, that did."
I see little difference in the inanity of that statement of General
Eisenhower's and a declaration by
a fundamentalist church leader in
Chicago that he knows the world
is flat because the Bible says so.

reaches into every powerful business enterprise.

All this is to the point that the
secular purposes of a government.
"of and by and for the people" are
hampered, and social progress is
obstructed and retarded by superstitious faiths and organized religions ....
It is in the temporal affairs of
mankind, not in the delusions of
religious faiths, that man's actual
well being and happiness on this
earth is attainable.
After the expiration of his term of office as governor, he actively campaigned
against the adoption of the phrase "In
God We Trust" as the official motto of
California. Questioned why he would do
this, when he was "obviously ... against
fanaticism of any type," and subsequent1yasked, "How can you feel that such a
motto is harmful?" He responded,
Such a motto is untrue. We
don't trust in God .... The harm
is that it is a violation of the First
Amendment to the Constitution
of the United States to pass any
act respecting religion.
The act, of course, failed, and Olson
explained the final aspect of his campaign against the motto and the response to his campaign.

day, who utilized religion as a recourse

to voter acceptance, were telling:

He blamed many of the evils of society

directly on the churches:

Sometimes competing candidates let the people know during

elections that they completely depend on God for their thinking and
guidance. For instance, General

Church hierarchies are represented on boards of directors of

big business corporations interested in financial,not social "gains,"
and the influence of their leaders

Page 24

April 1990

I had a wonderful response.

And, furthermore, I want to say
that when that act passed the
lower house of the legislature
unanimously and then went to the
Senate committee, I went before
the committee and gave my reasons for opposing it, saying that
the motto is not true and that God
is a myth anyhow. A majority of
the committee, which were [Roman] Catholics, recommended a
"Do pass," but the Senate rejected
it by a majority vote. The campaign
accomplished that much.
American

Atheist

During his association with United Secularists of America, an Atheist organization, Gov. Olson wrote a number of
articles on separation of state and
church for its journal, the Progressive
World. He was also deeply concerned
with the management of the organization after he assumed its presidency in

HON. CULBERT L. OLSON

ACCEPTS PRESIDENCY OF
UNITED SECULARISTS OF
AMERICA

1957.

In the mid-1950sthere was an attempt

in the California legislature to exempt
parochial schools from ad valorem (real
estate) tax. The matter finally was
accepted for review by the Supreme
Court of the State of California in the
case of Lundberg v. County of Alameda,
City of Oakland. The Roman Catholic
Welfare Corporation of San Francisco
had been accepted as an intervener in
the case. Olson, acting on his own behalf, filed an amicus curiae brief with
that court asking for a rehearing of its
decision favorable to the church. At
issue was Section 30, Article IV of the
Constitution of California which forbade any act
... granting anything to or in aid
of any religious sect, church,
creed or sectarian purpose, or
help to support or sustain any
school, college, university, hospital or other institution controlled
by any religious creed, church or
sectarian domination ...
To get around this provision the court
had held that this law "does not expressly mention tax exemptions"; that, in any
event it was. superseded by a subsequent law which exempts property
"used exclusively for religious purposes,
hospitals, or charitable purposes"; and
that the parochial schools should, therefore, be tax exempt as they fellunder the
"charitable purposes" test and not under the "school" test.
He fumed,
The next step of the [Roman]
Catholic Church is to be for direct
grants for the support of its schools
in our state budget, relying on this
decision for constitutional authority - and why not? There is no difference in indirect and direct financial aid. Each accomplishes
the same purpose.
Olson's brief reflected his fury at the
decision. He accused the court of havAustin, Texas

Hete f,lUnw~Mr. ()1~1n'~k;te' et :J'~epl

i1?"..:ees :tm new r.rc~';};;nl 01 our (o!"~:.nll<lb!!'!..
We nee ~ur~ it .....nl!X read ,.."b the ~1;::.f(:S'
~a,h,bctj,," ::.,..all our f~<l,j~;!;,

ing "a manifest desire, not to say anxiety, to follow the contention of the
[Roman] Catholic Church" that it
should be totally tax exempt on all of
its institutions.
Naturally, Olson would
gravitate to whatever
existing Atheist, freethought, or secular organizations there were in the
nation. He finally settled on
membership in and an activist role with the United
Secularists of America and
accepted the presidency of
that organization in the fall
of 1957.He was elected by
the board of directors and
remained as president until
the time of his death in
1%2. During those years he
devoted his full time, and
considerable financial aid,
to the organization.
He was much involved with some
vicious in-fighting which occurred in
1957 between various factions of the
secularist, freethought, and Atheist organizations in the country. He was particularly concerned that one of the organizations could at least found a headquarters building from which to operate. He spent personal time, effort, and
money attempting to save a building
fund which had been started, to raise
additional funds, and to see that the persons causing the strife would be appropriately verbally chastised.
His affiliation with United Secularists
of America does not, of course, appear
in any of the reference works on governors. The only mentions of organizational membership in such compendiums are that he was a member of the
Phi Delta Phi, of the Democrat Club,
and he was the president (ex-officio) of
the Board of Regents of the University
of California.
Olson did, however, continue to identify himself as a "Secularist" even in his
writings for the Progressive World magazine, which was the officialorgan of the

PROGRESSIVE
* WORLD *
lHf

OfAO

LET'S SEE lHf

fRAUD

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United Secularists of America. In one

instance, in March 1959, he described
himself as "a consistent agnostic."
Later, when directly queried by Associated Press concerned with his ideas in
respect to religion, he simply said to the
reporter, "I am an Atheist." And, in a
television interview in January 1%1, he
discussed his Atheism openly. He was at
that time eighty-five years old. When
questioned on the program about a
"fear of death" he replied, "I am not
afraid of death."
There is only one recorded instance
when Olson's commitment to state/
church separation caused some consternation in other quarters. This was
when the Commonwealth Club of California cancelled his May 15, 1959, address because he wanted to speak on
the subject of "The Problem of Separation of Church and State." At that point
it had been sixteen years since his term
as governor expired and the club desired a speech related to those sixteen
years. Club officials were apparently
aghast when he delivered the title of his
proposed speech to them and immediPage 25

California farm workers were notoriously

underpaid, and their strikes for better
wages were met with violence. Olson
felt that the plight of these workers was
perhaps the most acute problem he had
inherited from the prior administration.
In 1939,he strongly urged a subcommittee
of the Senate Committee on Education
and Labor to help end the economic and
political abuse of these workers.

ately declined to hear him.

The prepared message was very
straightforward, an example of it being
the following:
No God has ever shown himself.
The thousands of Gods that man
has worshipped are myths born of
his fears and his imaginations.
How any informed man, who thinks
about it today, can accept and
cower to the weird imaginations of
"Saints" past or present, upon the
representation that they speak for
a personal God, or a God of any
description, I cannot understand.

was so Baptist-dominated
that he designated himself as
one of the "Other Americans." He caustically noted
that Pat Brown was an Atheist until he desired to run for
public office, at which time
he joined the Roman Catholic church. He opposed the
nomination of Al Smith and
later John E Kennedy to the
office of the presidency. He
related that when Al Smith
bolted the Democratic party
in 1932 and organized the socalled "Liberty League," a
feature of the convention of
that group in Chicago was a
special Roman Catholic Mass
performed for Smith. He
was quite critical that Joseph
Kennedy had established a
foundation from which he
had funneled $2,609,000 to
the Boston Roman Catholic
archdiocese. He noted with
chagrin that a new appointee
to the Supreme Court, Justice William
Brennan, was a Roman Catholic. He
wrote critically of opinions delivered by
the Supreme Court, especially that of
Zorach v. Clausen (343 U.S. 306, 72
S.Ct. 679, % L.Ed. 954 [1952]) which
approved the released time program in
the public schools. He pointed out that:

Nearly every candidate for the

Democratic Party nomination for
the Presidency since the turn of
the century has chosen a [Roman]
Catholic for his campaign manager, and, if nominated, has usually
retained him as chairman of the
Democratic National Committee.
There has not been a non Catholic
in that position since Al Smith selected the [Roman] Catholic millionaire, John J. Raskob, as chairman in 1928.
He decried that:
Priests are employed as chaplains for religious exhortations to
the military forces of the Army and
Navy, and to open the sessions of
legislative bodies by prayer to
God, and so do the national conventions of the major political parties for nominating candidates for
the presidency and vice-presidency. And we have a President now
who opened his inaugural address
with his prayer to God and his
hand on the Bible. Laws enacted
have required the words "Under
God" to be included in our allegiance to the American flag, and
the words "In God We Trust" on
the coins, currency and postage
stamps issued by the United States.

Olson was completely politicized and

understood well the state/church issues
of the nation. He was on top of everything. He attended the first meeting of
the group which designated itself as
"Protestants
and Other Americans
United for Separation of State and
Church" and immediately saw that it
Page 26

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April 1990

American

Atheist

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We have laws, federal and state,

subsidizing churches by way of
tax exemptions of billionsof dollars
in value of church properties and
all church purposes as they grow
and grow into big businesses, and
send out their missionaries allover
the world to indoctrinate inhabitants to become believers and donators. They patronize and are
supported by most of the press,
which publishes their sermons
reaching millions of readers.
Members of Congress and State
Legislators - religionists or not
- do not dare to oppose the political power of religious influence
for fear of losing re-election to
office. Any bill which contains the
word "God" is almost sure to be
passed.

But to deny the possibility of miracles

was "to deny God's omnipotence, and
by implication, his very existence." The
Protestant author, in dealing with the
miracle of virgin birth denied an intent to
"mystify the believer" and Olson was
cryptically cynical of the claim.
It may be that the virgin birth
was not "intended to mystify" the
believer, but we feel that [the author's] effort to explain it is sufficiently mystifying to make up for
it.

Olson also spoke to the concept of

miracles. In 1958, with more and more
doubt arising as to the miracles performed in the Bible, two theologians,
one Roman Catholic and one Protestant, published each their separate
books attempting a subtle distinction in
order to save the concept of miracles.
They drew, Olson noted,

His son, Richard Culbert Olson, predeceased him, dying on January 26,
1961.A graduate of Harvard Law School,
he had served as his father's secretary
during the time that Olson was governor
and later practiced law with his father.
He, as his father, was an Atheist and was
a member of the board of directors of
the United Secularist Society.
Olson himself died on April 13, 1962,
after several months of failing health
complicated by an attack of pneumonia.
He was eighty-five years old at the time
of his death. Although Olson was unable
to properly identify himself as an Atheist because of his desire to pursue a
political career, he did carry into that
career the basic value systems of Atheism and through his application of those
value systems in the political arena did
much to ameliorate the hard conditions
of human lifewhich have come from the
imposition of Judeo-Christian irrationalities on our culture.
On August 10, 1952,delivering an address to the convention dinner of the
United Secularists of America, he had
indicated what he felt were the duties of
government. If American Atheists is to
develop a political party it may well be
that the "duties" should be a central
core of its platform.

... a distinction between believing in the principle that miracles

can happen and believing that any
particular miracle did take place.

The scientific approach to . . .

problems ... must invoke searching
analysis and apply direct action to
the solution of all social problems.

Olson was eighty-four years old in

1961when he was questioned about religion having promoted social progress.
His answer was critical:
I wouldn't say that religion has
promoted the social progress of
mankind. I say that it has been a
detriment to the progress of civilization, and I would also say this:
that the emancipation of the mind
from religious superstition is as essential to the progress of civilization as is emancipation from physical slavery.

Austin, Texas

April 1990

Social problems are created by

economic maladjustments, poverty in the midst of plenty, mass unemployment occurring when war
or preparation for war is not providing fullemployment; continued
concentration of the wealth and
control of the national economy in
the hands of a small percentage of
the population opposing every
effort of government to interpose
controls for economic stabilization and for the general welfare.
To my way of thinking, it is the
social responsibility of government in promoting the general
welfare, to exercise controls of stabilization of the national economy;
to plan and provide for fullemployment when private industry fails;
to prevent business cycles which
result in industrial depressions; to
provide for ways and means of
making available to all the people
health protection, and the utmost
in educational services; to protect
the national resources against
wasteful exploitation for private
greed; to plan and carry forward
huge projects in the great river
valleys of the country for flood
control, reclamation, and conservation of water resources, harnessing the water power and providing and making available to the
people hydro-electric power at
reasonable cost; to protect civil
rights and enforce social justice in
industrial relations regardless of
race or creed and, I might add, to
require the federal licenses of
radio and television circuits to
grant secularists equal rights with
churches to discuss religious subjects over the air....
The political cry that such progress will lead to dictatorship and
regimentation is pure demagoguery. Socially minded citizens, and
certainly all secularists, in our constitutional democratic-republican
form of government will be the
Page 27

first to protect the rights of man in

our American democracy as social
progress develops through democratic processes and constitutional
means.
Although Olson was not as openly
Atheistic as many of us now would have
desired him to be, one must recall the
cultural climate of the United States
during the period from post World War
Ithrough post World War II.As an Atheist he was, before anything else, a realist
and he recognized the damage that his
outspoken endorsement of Atheism
might bring to the political ends he
hoped to, and did, obtain.
His complete inner commitment to
Atheism, his repugnance of JudeoChristianity, and its Bible was made
clear:
I attended and heard sermons
in other churches in quest of some
light that would at last lead me to
believe in a God. I witnessed revival meetings and heard idiotic harangues of charlatans such as Billy
Graham is now, and street scenes
of Holy Rollers and Holy Jumpers.
Allthe sermons and religious ceremonies, Protestant and [Roman]
Catholic, that I heard and witnessed
left me with the thought that they
all represented blind faith with
emotionalism interpreted as a
Holy Spirit. I was not converted.
On the contrary, I was confirmed
in my advance toward secularism.
I read the Bible (called the Word of
God) in both the Old and New Testament. I could not, and do not
yet, understand how any reasoning
person could read the Bible's absurdities without classifying them
as a monotonous exposition of
ignorance and primitive barbarism. The relating of cruelties, massacres and wars in the name of
God, and the vile sexual lewdness
related in the Bible make it the
most obscene publication ever
Page 28

published. Icould never understand

why either educated persons, or
any person who thinks and reasons, could regard the Christ
story as anything but a myth ....
Those clinging to the idea of a
spirit world believe that the mind
of man is a vague, spiritual something, not derived from his brain;
but to me this is a most unnatural,
strained, and unreasonable assumption ....
What protection have Godworshipping and God-fearing people ever received from their God
against either natural or manmade evils? The answer is - absolutely none.
References

Biography Index, September 1961

August 1964, p. 443.
Biography Index, September 1964 August 1967,p. 503.
"Commonwealth Club not Permitted to
Hear Ex-Governor Olson's Speech."
Progressive World, May 1959.
"Culbert L. Olson." Progressive World,
April 1959.
"Ex-Governor Olson Speaks for Humanism." Progressive World, January
1951.
"Governor Olson Again Interviewed On
Popular TV Program." Progressive
World, February 1961.
Obituaries on File, vol. 7, 1979,p. 446.
Olson, Culbert L. "My Trip to Europe."
Progressive World, April, May, and
June, 1956.
___
"Hon. Culbert L. Olson Opposes Tax Exemption for Parochial
Schools." Progressive World, August
1956.
___
. "Address of the Hon. Culbert
L. Olson to the 1956Annual Convention of the United Secularists of
America." Progressive World,October
1956.
____
. "A Personal Letter." Progressive World, January 1957.
____
"Church and State." Progressive World, February 1957.
April 1990

____
. "The P.O.A.U. Conference."
Progressive World, May 1957.
___
. "Hon. Culbert L. Olson Accepts Presidency of United Secularists of America." Progressive World,
October 1957.
____
. "Dissensions in Secularist
Organizations" and "The Tirade of
Fred P.Wortman." Progressive World,
February 1958.
___
"They Tackle the Problem of
Miracles." Progressive World, April
1958.
____
. "Will American Democracy
Elect A [Roman] Catholic President?" Progressive World, November
1957.
___
. "Why Not A [Roman] Catholic President? An Answer." Progressive World, January 1959.
____
"The Problem of Separation
of Church and State." Progressive
World, May 1959.
____
"Secularism and Social Progress." Progressive World, October
1952,October 1961.
Olson, Richard C. "Will We Be Good,
for Goodness Sake?" Progressive
World, November 1958.
____
"Let's Set Forth Our Secularist
Faith." Progressive World, March
1959.
Orr, Hugh Robert. "In Memoriam,
Richard Culbert Olson." Progressive
World, March 1961.
___
""Culbert L. Olson, A Courageous Progressive." Progressive World,
June 1962.
Scott, Robert H. "A Tribute to Culbert
L. Olson." Progressive World, June
1962.
Who's Who in America, vol. 23, 19441945, p. 1598.
The Case Against Religion by
Albert Ellis presents a psychotherapist's view of religion. 57 pp. Product
#5096. $5.00 postpaid. VAjMC accepted. A.A.P., P. O. Box 140195,
Austin, TX 78714-0195. Telephone
orders: (512) 467-9525

American

Atheist

Masters of Atheism

Secularism
and social progress

A California politician
presents the .argument
against mixing religion
and government.

Culbert L. Olson (1876-1962), governor of California from 1939 to

1943, delivered the following address at the convention of the United Secularists of America on August
10, 1952. Mr. Olson served as the
president of United Secularists of
America from 1957 until his death.
The address is reprinted from the
October 1952 issue of the Progressive
World.
hen men come to understand,
as secularists do, and as science
establishes the fact to be, that
man is simply a superior animal produced by natural evolutionary processes, they should be free from superstition
and fear regarding the unknown. Common sense, in the light of all the cumulative scientific knowledge now available, tells us that the idea of the existence of a god concerned in the behavior
of the human animal on this tiny planet
is a superstitious fallacy; that no god or
any messenger from such an inconceivable entity ever appeared to Moses,
Christ, Mohammed, Joseph Smith, or
any other man who has posed as the secretly selected vicegerent of an almighty
God to lead and direct the conduct of
mankind on this earth. It has been a long
time since any church priesthood has
had the temerity to declare new celestial
revelations in support of a continued
claim to such authority. This indicates
slow evolutionary progress in the life of
churches: But it is too slow in the social
progress of mankind. Secularists are
concerned in promoting social progress
and they regard freedom of the mind
from fear and superstitions as essential
to the advancement of social progress.
During man's struggle for existence,
freethinkers, scientists, secularists,
church dissenters, heretics, apostates,
infidels, and deists have sparked and
spearheaded movements in behalf of
the rights of man and social justice.
Jefferson, Paine, Franklin, and Lincoln
were such men.
I would like to here review the devel-

Atheism has a long, proud history of

publishing and speechmaking. Unfortunately, however, much of that history
is inaccessible to modern readers, surviving only in rare booklets, books, and
pamphlets housed in scattered libraries and private collections. The American Atheist attempts to make some of
that literature more available to modern Atheists by reprinting essays by
yesterday's "Masters of Atheism."
These reprints are produced courtesy
of the Charles E. Stevens American
Atheist Library and Archives, Inc.

Culbert L. Olson
Austin, Texas

April 1990

opment of free thought, including church

suppression of social progress, but it
would involve too long a discourse for
this occasion.
Civilized and semi-civilized humans
are social beings. Mankind has survived
under one form or another of tribal or
social organization and government feudalistic, ecclesiastical, tyrannical, autocratic, democratic - since the dawn
of civilization. Yet man is not yet sufficiently civilized to prevent increasingly
viciouswars with more and more destructive instrumentalities, which now could
destroy all vestiges of civilization so far
attained.
Our present state of affairs has been
reached after centuries of the predominant power and influence of religious superstition and god worship. Organized
religions, led by church priesthoods,
claiming leadership of the peoples'
minds and thoughts by virtue of divine
authority, have the minds of men.
If rationalism instead of religion secularism instead of sectarianism had been the guiding light and influence
in the evolutionary development of civilization, perhaps the people of this world
would not be engaged in the barbaric
conflicts we are witnessing in this generation. It is reasonable to conclude that
if all the energies and sustenance of the
peoples of this earth, which have been
consumed in the construction
of
mosques, temples, and cathedrals for
religious prayers, rites, and superstitious activities in perpetuation of faith in
the worship of imaginary divinities, and
the enrichment of the church hierarchies
and their privileged classes; - If these
energies had been devoted to rational
education for man's material needs, social welfare, happiness, and cultural enlightenment, civilization would be so far
advanced beyond its present stage, that
the inhumanity of war would long since
become a thing of the past.
Ifthe minds and energies of huge populations of the earth had not been absorbed, generation after generation,
century after century, in the futility of
Page 29

Before he took the governor's oath of

office in 1939,Olson told the member of
the California Supreme Court sent to
swear him that it would be useless to tell
him to say "So help me God" because
"there isn't any such person."

religious devotion, to the neglect of

realistic planning for their material and
cultural wellbeing, is it not reasonable to
conclude that by this time there would
not be vast populations in such abject
poverty and ignorance as to be led into
war or into subjugation and slavery by
any communist, fascist, or ecclesiastic
dictatorship seeking world domination?
Confining our discourse to the role of
secularists in our own American societies with government established and
ruled through democratic processes,
provisions for universal suffrage and
constitutional guarantees of fundamental freedoms, we know that social progress advances, is retarded, or retrogrades depending upon the extent of the
education and political intelligence of
the electorate.
The politically intelligent do not include the greater portion of those who
vote for this or that political party or
candidate for office. Far from it. The majority are swayed to the right or left by
a variety of current influences. They are
influenced by economic conditions, by
propaganda (too often false and misleading), and by emotional adherence to
false issues, by traditional prejudices
and by church influence.
It is obvious that the primary condition retarding social progress is a lack of
educational qualifications for intelligent
Page 30

political action on the part of the great

lJlajority of the people who are benefited
.by social progress.
Where do we look for the causes
which disqualify?There may be numbers
of contributing causes, including the inadequacies of our public school systems, but it seems to me that a major
cause is that religion, beginning in the
home, so occupies the mind and attention of the larger part of the population
in contemplation of a better life after
death that civic education is neglected
and too many people are not at all concerned in qualifying themselves to vote
with an understanding of political issues
involving their welfare here and now.
After all, ifGod and the Church are their
inspiration and guide and "God's willbe
done" in the temporal affairs of this life
as well as in the heavenly life God has
waiting for them hereafter, why should
they bother their minds about social
problems and issues during their ephemeral existence on earth?
Moreover, people observe that their
government officials from president to
constable invoke divine guidance and
blessing, as do their legislative bodies.
The prayers, speeches and platforms of
the predominant political party conventions call on God for guidance, which
seems necessary to the faithful.
Sometimes competing candidates let
April 1990

the people know during elections that

they completely depend on God for
their thinking and guidance. For instance, General Eisenhower, in his
homecoming speech at Abilene, Kansas,
after sanctioning the admonition that
"the fear of God is the beginning of all
wisdom," said, with reference to a break
in the weather allowing the allied invasion of Europe to proceed "with losses
far below what we anticipated," "if there
were nothing else in my lifeto prove the
existence of an almighty God, that did."
I see little difference in the inanity of
that statement of General Eisenhower's
and a recent declaration by a fundamentalist church leader in Chicago that he
knows the world is flat because the Bible
says so.
If there was a secularist in the General's audience at Abilene, he would have
asked, if not aloud: "Why in the name of
humanity has almighty God permitted
this horrible war and all its human
slaughter and cruelties," which Eisenhower witnessed? And a secularist
would also have asked: "Where had almighty God been keeping himself during the human massacres, including
those perpetuated in the name of God
and Jesus Christ?" And: "Where is almighty God now that humanity is about
to be thrown into the vortex of the worst
and cruelest of all wars?"
It seems difficult for ordinary common sense to budge a superstitious
mind. Persistence in religious superstition is called "faith" because it cannot be
called "reason." What perplexes me is
that, allowing for all hypocrisy for political or business reasons in dealing with
the faithful, there are men and women
with formal educations enabling them to
discuss temporal subjects intelligently
and ably, who actually count themselves
among the faithful, some even becoming a part of the clergy or priesthood. It
seems to me they do not dare to give up
what their education tells them is false
and fraudulent. They seemingly separate and compartmentalize their early
religious indoctrinations in order to hold
American Atheist

Below: Culbert L. Olson became increasingly frustrated with Dwight D.

Eisenhower's determination to drag his
god into the politics of the nation and
found his superstition
particularly
appalling.

on to their effete beliefs in church myths

and dogmas.
And there are occasionally liberal and
socially progressive scholars, who,
though not orthodox religionists, reach
into the refinements of theological scholasticism to hold on to.beliefs in a divine
power of some inexplicable nature. But
usually such men are deists - not Bible,
Church and God believers. On the other hand, it is reasonably certain that
there are untold millions of American
Citizens who are not imbued with religious superstition. They see no sense in
church doctrines, but they keep their

free thinking to themselves because of

the prevalence and customary acceptance of religious rites and church doings as established institutions, the
foundations of which it would be unpopular to openly contradict or oppose.
This psychological condition of the collective public mind, so important to the
maintenance of the power and growth
of the churches, is aided, as I have said,
by customary prayers, benedictions
and religious observances in temporal
affairs, in civiland state affairs, and even
in the military on the field of battle where
Austin, Texas

chaplains confer the blessings of God on

the boys before they face the fire of battle, and administer the church's last rites
as they suffer and die.
When the people's presidents, governors, legislators and political party conventions declare their dependence upon God for their guidance, surely the uninformed wanderer in intellectual darkness is encouraged to do the same,
while unbelievers assent to the procession by maintaining silence.
Then consider the social prestige, the
political power, and financial strength,
not only of the Vatican empire, but also
of the large Protestant churches and
their big business techniques in the collection of funds; their influence over the
press, radio and television; their expensive newspaper advertising; and the
concomitant columns of news releases
of sermons and reports of church activities. There is nothing else to read about
in relation to religion except church services, appeals for funds, the dedications
of new temples, cathedrals and chapels,
and conflicts between the churches in
their appeals for memberships and contributions.
The voice of freedom from superstitions, myths, dogmas and doctrines upon which such religious activities are
based, is seldom, if ever, heard, and its
words, when voiced, are seldom, ifever,
printed in the daily press.
Then there is the element of mob psychology, built up for religious services,
stirred by emotional harangue of charlatans and blatant fanatical evangelists,
denouncing sin and calling on their listeners to wash their sins away by "coming to God." They are supported by the
orthodox churches and publicly complimented by government officials. Even
hysterical, inarticulate jabber about
God and the Judgment Day, preceding
the calling for contributions, is heard repeatedly over the radio. But time has
been denied by broadcasting systems
for the intellectual address of an Atheist,
in deference to church opposition to
such freedom of speech on the subject"
April 1990

of religion.
Secularists have always led in the
fight for complete freedom of speech,
assembly and public expression, and all
other civil liberties incorporated in our
constitutional Bill of Rights. Secularists
would defend the right of religionists to
pray, preach and publicly propagate
their faith, as well as their opposition to
secularism, just as vigorously as they
are endeavoring to protect the equal
rights of secularists to speak their mind
against the intolerant opposition and influence of religionists, and as vigorously as they oppose unconstitutional encroachments of religion into our public
schools.
Since the life and sustenance of the
churches are born and live by the propagation of superstitious beliefs, religionists do not want those superstitions
dissipated by reason.
If secularists were to succeed in displacing superstition with reason, and
spiritual falsehood with cultural achievement, the calamitous result to church
organizations would be the loss of their
"tithes and offerings," without which
they would disintegrate. The exploitation of superstition is their stock in trade
of organized religion.
While reaching out for more and
more supporters and more and more
contributions from the faithful, and devising every possible fund-raising method with which to grow stronger, the older and larger churches have grown into
unbelievably rich and powerful financial
institutions.
Church receipts from contributions
are not only used to build magnificent
and awe-inspiring edifices for religious
ceremonies and to build schools to
spread the faith among the young, but
also for capital investment in profit
gains.
We all know that churches are owners of vast empires of property which
they insist should be exempted from
taxation. Church hierarchies are represented on boards of directors of big business corporations interested in finanPage 31

Culbert L. Olson, still a California state

senator, is shown here with his wife and
family on his thirty-third wedding anniversary on November 2, 1938. His wife,
Kate Jeremy Olson, died shortly after he
took over the governorship of California.

cial, not social "gains," and the influence

of their leaders reaches into every powerful business enterprise.
The more financially prosperous
churches become affiliated with and are
influenced by antisocial elements in our
society and these influences are generally used against social progress.
Allthis is to the point that the secular
purposes of a government "of and by
and for the people" is hampered, and
social progress is obstructed and retarded by superstitious faiths and organized religions, even though individual
members of priesthood and clergy are
sometimes found supporting specific
measures for social progress.
Thanks to the pioneering of free
thinkers and courageous advocates of
the rights of man, our government is
constitutionally a secularist government
concerned only in temporal affairs, to
the exclusion of any participation in it by
organized religion.
It is in the temporal affairs of mankind,
not in the delusions of faith in a spirituPage 32

allife, that man's actual well being and

happiness on this earth is attainable. It
seems obvious, therefore, that the
meaning of social progress, and questions as to what governmental policies
and measures will promote that progress, should be better understood and
determined by minds devoted to secular
affairs than by minds chiefly devoted to
the perpetuation of religious faiths and
church activities. I say chiefly devoted
to religion because I do not wish to imply that there are not social-minded men
and women who belong to some church,
formally at least. We have such a person
in our present president of the United
States [Truman].
It is the collective thinking and political action of a majority of the electorate
that spells social progress or reaction.
Such thinking can be neither clear nor
entirely realistic in its resolution of real
life problems when clouded by superstition. People indoctrinated to depend
on prayer and divine intervention tend
to depend upon such intervention instead
April 1990

of their own self-reliant thinking and

personal efforts to better the economic
and social welfare of themselves and
their fellow men.
Civic leaders who depend on God for
wisdom can hardly be expected to derive their wisdom from science or from
the more profound philosophical interpretations of scientific discoveries when
reflecting on the human problems they
undertake to resolve. Minds conditioned
by superstition are not directed toward
the accomplishment of progressive political action for the material well being
and cultural advancement of the people
inasmuch as the advancement must destroy the institutions founded on superstition.
I am sure that we here are convinced
that secularism is the only true foundation on which to build a socially progressive government. We need make no pretensions of great wisdom in respect to
policies and measures best calculated to
further social progress. But those of us
who have had experience in politics naturally have convictions on the political
implications of organized religion.
Thinking people would agree that
social progress means, generally speaking, the gradual advancement of human
welfare toward greater physical, moral,
and cultural enjoyment of life. To accomplish this improvement, poverty
and disease must be eliminated. This
presupposes the education of the people in all the realities of life - an education scientifically planned, organized,
and conducted to produce future individuals who are more competent to live a
useful life. Such education is the hope
for intelligent citizenship with a deep
sense of moral responsibility; A citizenship which does not allow for a financial
aristocracy created and maintained by
privileged exploitations of the human,
and physical resources of the country. It
means economic justice and the equality of all persons in the exercise of their
civil rights and in their industrial employment. It means recognition and protection of the rights of workers to orgaAmerican

Atheist

Olson (seated) and his three sons, Richard Culbert Olson, John Weber Olson,
and Dean Jeremy Olson (left to right)
look over congratulatory wires in their
home after Olson's election in 1938.
Richard, a lawyer, served as his father's
secretary during his governorship and
later joined him on the board of United
Secularists of America, an Atheist organization.

nize and act collectively to secure their

legitimate share of their production, and
minimum basic income for all workers,
assuring a decent standard of living,
housing, and social security with provision for old-age retirement.
Progress toward these and other progressive objectives can be made only in
the secular, civil life of a people. It is
opposed by organized religion. An exhibition of that opposition was angrily expressed by Bishop Berggrav of the
Lutheran church at a meeting of 2000
delegates drawn from 24 countries to an
assembly of the Lutheran World Federation at Hanover, Germany, to consider
Christianity's common dangers from
secularism, and the participation in a
worldwide ecumenical movement of all
Christian churches to combat those
dangers. This pronouncement of Bishop
Berggrav was received with loud applause by the robed delegates assembled. He said:
The State we see today attempts
to take the place of God by substituting welfare for faith.... Here is
a State that, even when it cloaks itself in the garments of democracy,
is blasphemous. It assumes for itself the rights of God and is therefore our mortal enemy. It need not
develop in this direction provided
the Church and individual Christians exert a positive and helpful
influence ....
Be a leaven; be a
salt; if need be, a dangerous salt.
Secular education of the youth and
adult population, unconfused by church
propaganda, is an indispensable prerequisite to the accomplishment of these
moral measures. A truly free secular education would slowly undermine religious superstition, and thus destroy the
foundation of all churches. This explains
the militant church policy for the propagation of church schools and the ever
present and continuing church invasion
of the public school system with orthodox teachings. The [Roman] Catholic
Austin, Texas

Church historically was openly in control of the state, but now maintains its
controls through effective political action. That church has always been and
always willbe in politics, whether under
a Fascist, Nazi, or a Republican form of
government. It boldly requests the selection of men and women for governmental and judicial offices because they
are [Roman] Catholics and the church
wants their interests represented.

While there are undoubtedly Protestant churches that do not so obviously

disregard the principle of strict separation of church and state, all church leadership considers it important that religious rites and teachings be observed in
temporal affairs. They seek and obtain
released time for religious teaching as a
part of the curriculum in our public
schools.
Religion is based on faith, but it pur-

The oldest church is the most flagrant

violator of our constitutional policy
which separates church and state. The
[Roman] Catholic Church's efforts to
infiltrate the public school system with
[Roman] Catholic school boards and
teachers and to secure government
subsidiaries for its parochial schools,
and its efforts to exempt all of its huge
and extensive church properties and investments from taxation demonstrates
most notably what I have been saying.
The Mormon church follows the same
pattern and exercises a powerful political influence.

ports to be an accurate record of spiritual truths, whereas it is a purposeful

moral interpretation of man's relation to
his fellow men and fellow animals.
No religion is to be found in the laboratories of science. In the field of science the world and this nation in particular have made wonderful progress for
the benefit of mankind. But scientific
discovery can only be realized and justified when it leads to social betterment
and when it leads to world peace.
It is in the field of sociology and political economy that we have primarily to
deal with the deadening influence of re-

April 1990

Page 33

In our own decade, a president has said

that Atheists are not fit for citizenship.
Another president, Franklin Delano
Roosevelt, seems to have gotten along
famously with at least one Atheist:
California Governor Culbert Olson, a
fellow New Dealer. They are shown here
during a 1942 meeting in Long Beach,
before an inspection of a war production
site.

ligion and its archaic dogmas, and

this explains to a large extent why
social gains are so far behind scientific and industrial progress.
Religion, as it has evolved in this
world, has not by its preachments
and practices eliminated crime nor
found the solution for crime. The
"thou shalt nots" of the "Ten Commandments," which have prevailed
since the pre-Christian era of Moses
under Judaism, have not stopped
crime. Crime has kept pace with
population growth until at the present time one new crime is committed in less than every 18 seconds;
and the criminal age is growing ever
younger. Crime is now bisexual in
nature and involves women in increasing numbers - mothers,
daughters, guardians and teachers.
If some sound moral axioms,
which are sound despite the superstition which enshrouds them, are to be
made to operate in society, rather than
in isolated instances where they may
function as a personal deterrent to
wrong conduct, a new approach to the
social problem of crime is obviously
needed and long overdue.
Immorality results from an individual's failure to learn to come to grips
successfully with reality.Religious education for dependence upon a supernatural power, has failed to equip man to
know that he must face lifehonestly and
live in true self-reliance.
When learning is substituted for the
mysticism of religion, then crime, immorality, and antisocial behavior willbe
found to be prohibitive to one's individual security and happiness in society.
The scientific approach to the problem of ethics must invoke searching
analysis and apply direct action to the
solution of all social problems.
Social problems are created by economic maladjustments, poverty in the
midst of plenty, mass unemployment
occurring when war or preparation of
war is not providing full employment;
continued concentration of the wealth
Page 34

UPI/Bettmann

and control of the national economy in

the hands of a small percentage of the
population opposing every effort of government to interpose controls for the
economic stabilization ABD for the general welfare.
To my way of thinking, it is the social
responsibility of government in promoting the general welfare, to exercise controls for stabilization of the national economy; to plan and provide for full employment when private industry fails; to
prevent business cycles which result in
industrial depressions; to plan and provide for ways and means of making
available to all the people health protection, and the utmost in educational
services; to protect the national resources against wasteful exploitation for private greed; to plan and carry forward
huge projects in the great river valleys of
the country for flood control, reclamation, and conservation of water resources,
harnessing the water power and providing and making available to the people
hydroelectric power at reasonable cost;
to protect civilrights and enforce social
justice in industrial relations regardless
of race or creed and, I might add, to require the federal licences of radio and
April 1990

television circuits to grant secularists equal rights with churches to

discuss religious subjects over the
air.
Social progress in the directions
I have mentioned has been made
during the past twenty years against
the bitter opposition of reactionaries who designate (as such antisocial minds have always designated every measure for social progress since the establishment of the
public school system) as creeping
socialism. And so it may be; but it
is creeping forward, not backward;
upward, not downward. There has
never been and cannot be a socially
progressive policy adopted or successfully implemented, including
measures now fully approved, accepted and established, which does
not stem from a socialistic philoso-

phy.
The political cry that such progress
will lead to dictatorship and regimentation is pure demagoguery. Social minded citizens, and certainly all secularists,
in our constitutional democratic republican form of government will be the first
to protect the rights of man in our American democracy as social progress develops through democratic processes
and constitutional means.
Social progress is our best insurance
that no dictatorship from either the left,
the right, or middle, willever be permitted to develop within these United
States. Our democratic system will endure. Efforts of secularists and all freethinkers to dispel the religious superstitions which blind so many millions of
good, sincere, moral and upright citizens to the realities of lifeare calculated
to stimulate social progress. I think
these efforts should be implemented by
active support of all socially progressive
policies and measures in civic life as a
part of a constructive program for increasing interest and participation in the
activities of Rationalist and Humanist
societies as well as all Secularist organizations.OO
American

Atheist

 Talking Back

Coppertone, anyone?

What does one answer

to the announcement:
You'll burn in hell!

John N. Maguire Ill, of South Carolina, retorts:

This is the lowest frequency dimension you can go. Due to our ignorance,
we have created hell for many people. It
is used for a fear trick to control and
hypnotize the people.
Stephen H. Frey, a retired engineer
and born-again Atheist, answers:
"Burning" in an imaginary hell would
be no worse or different than freezing in
an imaginary heaven.
Gipson Arnold, assistant director of
the Houston Chapter of American
Atheists, replies:
Hell is a product of a sick mind. The
only people who are going to experience
hell are those people who believe in it.
Jim Hepburn, a writer and member
of American Atheists, explains:
If that's true, then I'll see you there.
Anthony Scarlata, an Illinois student, responds:
How, in reason's name, can a person
feel pain, feel anything, sense anything if
they possess no nerves or the organs to
receive a signal? How can a person think
"period" if they don't have a brain to
hold their mind together?
The devil can have my soul (whatever
the heck that is), because I am not going anyplace.

So you're having a hard time dealing

with the religious zanies who bug you
with what you feel are stupid
questions? Talk back. Send the question you hate most and American
Atheists will provide scholarly, tart, humorous, short, belligerent, or funpoking answers. Get into the verbal
fray; it's time to "talk back" to religion.

Austin, Texas

Tracy McLellan, who hails from Illinois, replies:

Even when I was a believer in god, I
found the concepts of "devil" and "hell"
absurd. Now that I've become an apostate, I find both "devil" and "god" equally ridiculous - and the worst kind of
lies.

type of person who said it, how it was

said, and most importantly what kind of
a mood I am in!
1. I hope so! At least I can get some
red hot ass!
2. Why, thank you. That's very Christian of you.
3. At least I won't need as much ice as
you! You see it says in Isa. 30:26 "... the
light of the moon shall be as the light of
the sun, and the light of the sun shall be
sevenfold, as the light of seven days."
Therefore heaven receives forty-nine
times more light than Earth.
In Rev. 21:8it says "... the lake which
burneth with fire and brimstone."
Using the Stefan-Boltzmann fourthpower law, we can calculate that the
temperature of heaven is at least 525
degrees centigrade. And we know that
hell's maximum temperature is 445 degrees centigrade because sulphur (brimstone) boils at 445 degrees centigrade.
Therefore heaven is at least 80 degrees
hotter than hell!
Let's face it, hell is just a lot of papal
bull.
Ralph B. Shirley, a retired attorney, retorts:
Since there is no god, I don't have to
worry about a god sending me to hell.
But you should worry, because your
savior Jesus Christ said in Matt. 22:14
that "many are called, but few are
chosen." Therefore, you have a much
greater chance of going to the bible hell
than you have of going to the bible
heaven.

Spike Tyson, a southwest Atheist,

replies:
I have three ideal answers for the
(supposedly) very good Christian who
mouths those words, and I normally
choose which one depending on the
April 1990

Page 35

The Probing

Mind

Reversing science

Creation "Scientists":
determined not to be
out-dumbed by anyone.

All things in the universe were

created by God in the six days of
special creation described in Gen.
1:1-2:3. The creation account is accepted as factual, historical, and
perspicuous, and is thus foundational to the understanding of
every fact and phenomenon in the
created universe. Theories of
origins and development which involve "evolution" in any form are
thus recognized as false and sterile
intellectually.
- Creationist declaration of belief
Institute for Creation Research
cience is the art of formulating and
testing explanatory hypotheses to
account for the features and phenomena of the world. The hypotheses
examined must in principle be capable
of being tested. This limits science to
natural forces and processes, since
supernatural processes are outside the
realm of testability. (If they could be
tested, they would automatically be reduced to the status of natural processes.) When observations and tests
turn out contrary to expectation, hypotheses must either be corrected or rejected, or it must be shown that the
anomalous results are themselves in
error or involve factors not fully included in the hypothesis being tested. I Sci-

Formerly a professor of biology and

geology, Frank R. Zindler is now a science writer. He is a member of the
American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American
Chemical Society, and the American
Schools of Oriental Research. He is
the director of the Central Ohio Chapter of American Atheists.

Frank R. Zindler
Page 36

IAn example of unincluded factors causing

an essentially correct hypothesis to be "falsified" is seen in the case when Newtonian
celestial mechanics was used to predict the
orbit of the planet Uranus. Although Newtonian methods had predicted the orbits of
all the other planets beautifully, their predictions for Uranus were consistently off the
mark. Instead of abandoning or making
drastic revisions in Newtonian mechanics, it
was predicted that an unincluded factor an unknown planet - was causing the
departures of Uranus from its calculated
orbit. Predictions of where such a planet
would have to be to produce the observed
distortions of Uranus' orbit led to the discovery of the planet Neptune.
April 1990

ence is a self-correcting, self-improving

system.
Science seeks to explain the unknown
in terms of the known (or at least, in
. terms of the better known). Thus, Benjamin Franklin explained lightning in
terms of electricity, a parlor-trick phenomenon with which he and his friends
had had considerable acquaintance.
Previously, lightning had been explained
to be a consequence of the wrath of
Thor, Zeus, or Yahweh: the unknown
had been explained in terms of the even
less known (the principle of ignotum per
ignotius).
Science also utilizes the principle of
parsimony known as Occam's Razor:
entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter
necessitatem - entities (basic assumptions) should not be multiplied beyond
necessity. Thus, evolutionary biology
accounts for the adaptive features of
plants and animals simply in terms of
mutation and natural selection. It does
not add superfluous factors such as
supernatural design, purpose, or intelligent direction: mutation and selection
are all that is necessary.

Dissenters from science

Not everyone, however, agrees with
me as to what science is, or how it
should be done. There is a vocal group
of Christian fundamentalists
which
claims that science is not at all what I
have described. Styling themselves
"creation scientists," they have banded
together into several organizations devoted to finding ways to get the public
schools to teach theo-biology instead of
real biology. They pretend to be practicing a form of science which probes the
origins of humans and the natural world.
Curiously, the "science" practiced by
these would-be scientists is done exactly
backwards from the way science is done
by all other scientists in the world.
Whereas real scientists do not know
for certain how an experiment will turn
out until it is performed, and cannot be
sure what they will find in nature until
they have looked, creation "scientists"
American Atheist

Unlike other institutes of scientific research,

the ICR already "knows" everything
about the world
that is really important.
think they can start their "research"
with the conclusions desired, then look
for possible supporting evidence almost as an afterthought.
A glaring example of this reversal of
the scientific method can be seen in the
parody of science practiced at the Institute for Creation Research (lCR), an organization spun off from Tim LaHaye's
Christian Heritage College (sponsored
by Scott Memorial Baptist Church) and
headquartered (or is it tail-quartered?)
in a suburb of San Diego, California.
The ICR is home to such creationist debaters as John and Henry Morris, Duane
Gish, and a number of lesser luminaries.2 Like other creationists, ICR "scientists" have to sign a declaration of belief,3 in which they promise, in effect,
what they will find if ever they should
happen to do an experiment or carry
out any observations of nature.
Although the 1985-1987 Graduate
School Catalog: Institute for Creation
Research declares that research (as the
name of the organization implies) is a
major part of the ICR's "Purpose and
Objectives," in fact hardly anything resembling research has ever been done
by the ICR. The real purpose of the ICR
is to bring about the destruction of science education in the United States.
Toward this end, the ICR produces creationist propaganda to be used for the
dumbing-down of science education:
The writing activities of the Institute are particularly aimed at
preparing suitable textbooks and
other literature for use in schools
2"Luminaries" is an inappropriate word.
How can persons dedicated to the spreading
of darkness be luminaries? Perhaps they
should be called tenebrosities.
3Anexample of such a declaration, required
when ICR was still a part of Christian Heritage College, is quoted at the beginning of
this article. Nowadays, ICR staff have to
agree to the much more detailed "Tenets of
Scientific and Biblical Creationism" discussed below.
Austin, Texas

and colleges, both public and

Christian .... The teaching materials are all developed within the
integrating framework of scientific
creationism. The goal is to produce
such materials in all fields and at all
grade levels, so that the entire educational process can be carried
out within the framework of the
scientific creationist Biblicalworldview in Christian schools and on a
purely scientific "two-model" basis
in public schools."
The economic motive behind the
ICR's efforts to get states to adopt
equal-time rules requiring creationism
to be taught along with evolutionary
biology in public schools is quite obvious. Being one of the few sources of socalled "two-model" textbooks, the ICR
would make a bundle if even a single
state surrendered to the benighted legions of Creationdom.

What the ICR "knows"

Unlike other institutes of scientific research, the ICR already "knows" everything about the world that is really important. Before the ICR ever existed,
Dr. [Henry] Morris ... was asked
to organize the appropriate departments and curricula, all with
strong emphasis ... on Christian
evidences, the scientific integrity
of the Bible, and the foundational
priority of creationism and fullBiblical authority in every field.>
Given the "foundational priority of
creationism and full Biblical authority in
every field," we see that ICR "scientists"
have an advantage over all others they can resort to revelation as a source
of information about the world. The ICR

41985-1987Graduate School Catalog: Institute for Creation Research (Santee, California), p. 8.

sIbid., p. 9.
April 1990

catalog tells us that

The Institute for Creation Research bases its educational philosophy on the foundational truth
of a personal Creator-God and
His authoritative and unique revelation of truth in the Bible, both
Old and New Testaments. . . .
More explicitly, the administration
and faculty of ICR are committed
to the tenets of both scientific creationism and Biblical creationism
as formulated below. A clear distinction is drawn between scientific
creationism and Biblical creationism but it is the position of the Institute that the two are compatible
and that allgenuine facts of science
support the Bible.... 6
In addition to a firm commitment
to creationism and to full Biblical
inerrancy and authority, the ICR
Graduate School is committed to
traditional education and to high
standards of academic excellence. 7
Given the scientific "revelations"
found in the Bible, ICR astronomers
should be able to know that the sun,
moon, and stars are embedded in a "firmament," without having to look through
a telescope." ICR ornithologists can
know that there are four-legged birds?
and feathered bats-? without having to
6Ibid., p. 12.
7Ibid., p. 15.
8"And God said, Let there be a firmament in
the midst of the waters, and let it divide the
waters from the waters" (Gen. 1:6); "And
God made two great lights; the greater light
to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the
night; he made the stars also. And God set
them in the firmament of the heaven to give
light upon the earth" (Gen. 1:16-17).
9"All fowls that creep, going upon all four,
shall be an abomination to you" (Lev. 11:20).
lOBatsmust have feathers because they are
birds, according to Lev. 11:13-19: "And these
are they which ye shall have in abomination
among the fowls ... the stork, ... and the
lapwing, and the bat."
Page 37

A study of the history of creationism and the fight to outlaw the teaching of
evolution in the public schools shows quite clearly that the attempt
to distinguish between "scientific" and "biblical" forms of creationism
is actually an attempt to deceive the public and the courts.
do any fieldwork. Without bothering to
go to the zoo, ICR mammalogists can
know that rabbits chew the cud!' and
camels lack cloven hooves.v ICR physiologists do not need to do expensive
biochemical experiments to elucidate
the mechanisms of life; since they already "know" that it is blood or breath's
that makes something alive. (Given the
need of "living things" to have either
blood or breath, ICR botanists admittedly have little advantage over heathen
botanists - if it is an actual ICR assumption that plants and bacteria are
alive!) The geologists at ICR know that
all the sedimentary rocks were laid
down in the single year of Noah's Flood,
and thus have no need of all the expensive and time-consuming analytical pro
cedures and equipment used by stratigraphers, sedimentary petrologists, and
paleontologists. If ICR should ever
acquire any psychologists, they would
know that they have to bypass the brain
and go to the heart if they want to study
the organ of grief, and go to the kidneys"
if they want to study the seat of conscience.
Thanks to the Old Testament revelation that the universe was created
around 4004 B.C.E. (Before Common

ll"And the hare, because he cheweth the

cud, but divideth not the hoof; he is unclean
unto you" (Lev. 11:6).
12"... the camel, because he cheweth the
cud, but divideth not the hoof; he is unclean
unto you" (Lev. 11:4).
13Blood vs. breath: "But flesh with the life
thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye
not eat" (Gen. 9:4) versus "And the LORD
God formed man of the dust of the ground,
and breathed into his nostrils the breath of
life; and man became a living soul" (Gen.
2:7).
14''Thus my heart was grieved, and I was
pricked in my reins [kidneys]" (Ps. 73:21).
ICR psychologists surely would notice also
that the word brain does not appear even
once in the entire Bible. What better proof
than that, that the brain is of no use or significance to a creation "scientist"?
Page 38

Era), in ICR's "Master's program in

Astro/Geophysics ... the focus is on the
young age of the cosmos.t'> With help
from the revelations in Genesis, chapters 6-9, ICR's
Master's program in Geology distinctively emphasized= [sic] catastrophism in its many areas of application, especially the catastrophic processes which characterized
Noah's Flood.!?
Because of revelations in both the Old
and New Testaments, "The Master's
program in Biology treats the nature
and origin of the living state as a reflection of scientific design and God's purpose." Exactly which bit of revealed
truth accounts for the fact that "The
Master's program in Science Education
trains students in the skill of information
transfer for creation theory and science"
is unclear, however. On the one hand,
this would appear to be grounded in the
Book of Revelation's account of the unleashing of hostilities between Gag and
Magog18 - a clear prophecy of warfare
between public and parochial schools, if
ever I saw one. On the other hand, contemplation of ICR graduates out spreading "the word" in public schools quickly
leads one's thoughts to the prophecy in
the Book of Revelation'? describing the
release of the angels carrying the seven
last plagues!

Two types of creationism?

We have just seen that the ICR seeks
to distinguish between two types of
1SlCR Catalog, p. 30.
16Thepast tense appears to be a typographic
error, since catastrophism is still being emphasized by ICR at this very minute. Readers
will be interested to note that one of the
careers listed as being suitable for graduates
of the geology program is "writer or lecturer
in para-church apologetics ministry."
17lCR Catalog, p. 33.
18Rev.20:8.
19Rev.15:6-7.
April 1990

creationism: "scientific" and "biblical."

The distinction is, of course, specious,
and the ICR Catalog even admits "that
the two are compatible and that all genuine facts of science support the Bible."
A moment's reflection suffices to make
it clear that all creationism is biblical or at least religious - and no creationism can be scientific. Why, then, ifthese
conclusions be correct, do creationists
pretend there is a difference?
A study of the history of creationism
and the fight to outlaw the teaching of
evolution in the public schools shows
quite clearly that the attempt to distinguish between "scientific" and "biblical"
forms of creationism is actually an
attempt to deceive the public and the
courts. When the courts ruled creationism-inspired antievolution laws unconstitutional, creationists had to develop a
different strategy in order to protect
their pet delusion. If they could offer
both creationism and evolutionary biology in the public schools, the resulting
confusion would be more than adequate
to prevent evolutionary theory from being understood to any significant degree,
and the seeds of creationism thus sown
could then be sprouted and fostered in
fundamentalist Sunday schools.
It did not take long, however, for creationists to realize that a biology syllabus mentioning Adam and Eve, Satan
and original sin, Noah's Ark, and the
other mythological foundation stones of
creationist belief would never pass constitutional muster. After all, the so-called
"Tenets of Biblical Creationism'"? commence with a confession of the triune
nature of the godhead (which "exists in
three Persons, each of whom participated in the work of creation") and culminate in a warning to those who reject
Jesus: "Those who reject Him, however, or who neglect to believe on Him
... must ultimately be consigned to the
everlasting fire prepared for the devil
and his angels."
20lCR Catalog, pp. 14-15.
American Atheist

And so it was necessary to sanitize

the tenets of the creationist religion; the
tenets had to be made to look less obviously religious. Where possible, the
vocabulary of science had to be employed in order to create the illusion that
what is being promoted is simply an alternative type of science - a constitutionallypermissible type of science.
The ICR Catalog says, on page 12,
that
ICR maintains that scientific creationism should be taught along
with the scientific aspects of evolutionism in tax-supported institutions, and that both scientific and
Biblical creationism should be
taught in Christian schools.
Thus the fraud of "scientific creationism" has come to be.

Where's the science?

It is extremely rare for a creationist
debater explicitly to state the claims of
"creation science." Almost always, an
attack on evolutionary theory is launched
instead, and most creationists take care
to prevent their opponents from attracting any attention to the nonsensical
claims of creationism. The reason for
this is simple: "scientific creationism" is
religion, and the creationists know it.
They know that even a casual examination of their would-be scientific system
would convince practically anybody
that there is no science in "creation
.
"
science.
The science writer Robert Schadewald, a veteran creationist-watcher and
defender of science education, has observed that this need to deflect critical
inquiry away from the preposterosities
of creationist claims usually leads to exchanges logically equivalent to the following:
Evolutionist: "Tellme something about
the claims of creationism."
Creationist: "Evolution sucks."
Evolutionist: "That's rather negative,
Austin, Texas

don't you think? Can't you tell me

something positive about creation.
?"
Ism.

Creationist:
sucks!"

"Evolution

positively

One would imagine that creationists

must have frequent nightmares, in
which their debate opponents point out
that Charles Darwin and Alfred Wallace,
independently and on opposite sides of
the world, discovered the principle of
natural selection - a rather strong indication that the principle does in fact reflect something real in nature. What
shivers must shake their frames when
they dream of evolutionists challenging
them to imagine the implausibility of the
creationism equivalent: two people,
who had never read the Bible and had
never been culturally brainwashed with
biblicalmythology, independently studying the world of nature and then both
concluding that the world was less than
six thousand years old and had been
miraculously created in six days, that
birds have been here longer than rep-

tiles, that green plants are older than the

sun, and that all the world's humans are
descended from a family of eight White
people who beached an oceanlinersized boat on the top of a seventeenthousand-foot-high volcano - in Turkey.
Oh, yes: and they beached their boat in
the year 2348 B.C.E.
In view of the preceding, it is extremely important to find that the ICR actually lists the tenets of "scientific creationism" - as well as the tenets of "biblical
creationism" - in its 1985-1987Graduate School Catalog (see sidebar). Even
a brief examination of these "tenets" will
suffice to show their religious nature
and to demonstrate their incompatibility with the principles of genuine scientific procedures.
The problems begin with the first tenet, which maintains the universe "was
supernaturally created by a transcendent personal Creator." The incorporation of supernatural causes automatically places creationism beyond the
bounds of science: real science can only
deal with natural causes. And what is to

:::..::.:...........................

.~

--- -----

- --

----/'-~~--

~\

"In fift4 thousand qeors, there willbe people who willnot be able to believe that
we ever existed - .. '

April 1990

Page 39

Tenets of Scientific Creationism

Reprinted from pages 12 and 13 of the 1985-1987
Graduate School Catalog: Institute for Creation
Research.
1. The physical universe of space, time, matter and energy has not always existed, but was supernaturally
created by a transcendent personal Creator who alone
has existed from eternity.
2. The phenomenon of biological life did not develop by
natural processes from inanimate systems but was specially and supernaturally created by the Creator.
3. Each of the major kinds of plants and animals was created functionally complete from the beginning and did
not evolve from some other kind of organism. Changes
in basic kinds since their first creation are limited to
"horizontal" changes (variations) within the kinds, or
"downward" changes (e.g., harmful mutations, extinctions).
4. The first human beings did not evolve from an animal
ancestry, but were specially created in fully human form
from the start. Furthermore, the "spiritual" nature of
man (self-image, moral consciousness, abstract reasoning, language, will,religious nature, etc.) is itself a super, naturally created entity distinct from mere biological life.
5. The record of earth history, as preserved in the earth's
crust, especially in the rocks and fossil deposits, is primarily a record of catastrophic intensities of natural processes, operating largely within uniform natural laws,
rather than one of gradualism and relatively uniform process rates. There are many scientific evidences for a relatively recent creation of the earth and the universe, in
addition to strong scientific evidence that most of the
earth's fossiliferous sedimentary rocks were formed in
an even more recent global hydraulic cataclysm.
6. Processes today operate primarily within fixed natural
laws and relatively uniform process rates but, since these
were themselves originally created and are daily maintained by their Creator, there is always the possibility of
miraculous intervention in these laws or processes by
their Creator. Evidences for such intervention should be
be done with a transcendent personality? If it is transcendent, how can we
even know we are dealing with a personality? By definition, transcendent things
are beyond the physical universe. What
science can presume to deal with things
beyond the physical universe? How
could a real scientist even know there
are such things - science being limited
in its scope to things that can be
detected?
Page 40

scrutinized critically, however, because there must be

clear and adequate reason for any such action on the
part of the Creator.
7. The universe and life have somehow been impaired
since the completion of creation, so that imperfections
in structure, disease, aging, extinctions and other such
phenomena are the result of "negative" changes in properties and processes occurring in an originally-perfect
created order.
8. Since the universe and its primary components were
created perfect for their purposes in the beginning by a
competent and volitional Creator, and since the Creator
does remain active in this now-decaying creation, there
do exist ultimate purposes and meanings in the universe.
Teleological considerations, therefore, are appropriate in
scientific studies whenever they are consistent with the
actual data of observation, and it is reasonable to assume
that the creation presently awaits the consummation of
the Creator's purpose.
9. Although people are finite and scientific data concerning origins are always circumstantial and incomplete, the
human mind (ifopen to the possibility of creation) is able
to explore the manifestations of the Creator rationally
and scientifically, and to reach an intelligent decision regarding one's place in the Creator's plan.
According to the January 12,1990, report of the visitation committee sent by the California State Department of Education, Private Postsecondary Education Division, to evaluate ICR's graduate program in August of
1989,unamendable bylaws of the ICR require each faculty member's annual reaffirmation of belief in these
tenets as a condition for continued employment. In its
scathing critique of the ICR, the committee observes
(page 47) that "Inasmuch as these beliefs or tenets directly overlap the areas of presumed free scientific investigation of the faculty, the issues of scientific integrity and
unfettered intellectual inquiry would have arisen of necessity, had the low quality of the graduate programs not
made those issues superfluous. "

The supernatural rears its unscientific head in the second tenet too: life did
not arise naturally, but was "specially
and supernaturally created by the Creator." How could a real scientist know
this supernatural act was "special"
rather than routine? How would one go
bout gathering evidence? How could
one know (scientifically!) that there was
but one supernatural creator? Why not
four? Why not a transcendent commitApril 1990

tee of beings belonging to five flavors,

six sexes, and seven species?
Tenet number four also requires supernatural acts to account for the socalled "spiritual" nature of humanity.
Curiously, the enumerated components
of this spiritual nature - self-image,
moral consciousness, abstract reasoning, language, will, religious nature are all things commonly studied by
anthropology and psychology without
American Atheist

any need for supernatural causes.

It should be noted that the fourth
tenet additionally claims that "the first
human beings did not evolve from an
animal ancestry, but were specially
created in fully human form from the
start." Reminding ourselves that this is
a statement of a conclusion which, in
real science, could be stated only after
a great amount of research had been
done, we can only wonder why the fossil
record exhibits so many forms that
appear to link modern humans to arbitrarily primitive primate relatives.
Although the fourth tenet relies upon
supernatural causes, it nevertheless
comes close to being a statement testable
by scientific means - if one is willingto
add to it a few more theological assumptions. If one assumes that the god of the
Christians is "good" and is not a deceiver
- assumptions even most creationists
should be willing to make - then it
would seem the fourth tenet is falsified
by the facts of nature. Who but a deceiver would create humans independently
of all other forms of life, but then seed
the earth with fossils which appear to
connect Homo sapiens smoothly to the
lineage of the apes?
But more than just the fossil record
implies either evolution or divine deception: the evidence from comparative
biochemistry is unequivocal. Human
genes are nearly 99 percent identical to
those of the chimpanzee, and more than
98 percent identical to those of gorillas.
Moreover, a comparison of the chromosome structures of apes and humans
shows that these nearly identical sets of
genetic instructions also are packaged
in the chromosomes in nearly identical
fashion. Who but a deceiver would create unrelated organisms with such a
false appearance of genetic relationship?
But this isn't all. There is yet a third
level of genetic evidence that links apes
to humans - unless, of course, everything is the result of a diabolical deceiver.
Humans, chimpanzees, and gorillas are
known to share not only genes, but
Austin, Texas

pseudogenes as well! Pseudogenes are

the ultimate in vestigial organs. They are
genes which occupy space on the chromosomes, are replicated whenever cells
reproduce, and are identical to working
genes in all but one feature: they lack a
DNA control sequence which allows
them to be "switched on" to cause specific proteins to be produced. One can
easily understand how a genetic defect
(loss of a small stretch of DNA) in a distant ancestor might be carried on by

many different descendant lineages. But

what is one to say about the goodness
and honesty of a deity that gives useless
genetic baggage - let alone the same
useless baggage - to apes and Anabaptists alike?
While the tenets examined thus far
are more than sufficient to show that
"scientific creationism" has nothing in
common with real science, the sixth
tenet is downright perspicuous (to use
the term beloved at ICR) in its depiction

\'1

1i-\INK. '1DU SHOULD &. t\\OQE.

EXY'LlC\T H9ZE IN S\~p ,wa. \\
April 1990

Page 41

Since the tenets of creationism are threatened by all sciences,

there is a strong effort on the part of creationists
to reverse the progress of everything
from astronomy to zoology.
of a system light-years away from anything legitimately called science. It clearly claims that the laws of nature continue to operate from moment to moment
only because a god continuously makes
them do so. It points out, however, that
"there is always the possibility of miraculous intervention in these laws or
processes by their Creator," and then
goes on to make the theological assertion that
evidences for such intervention
should be scrutinized critically,
however, because there must be
clear and adequate reason for any
such action on the part of the
Creator.
There is a famous cartoon by Sidney
Harris which shows two scientists at a
blackboard. The left and right sides of
the board contain complicated, Einsteinian mathematical symbols. At the
center of the board, however,. is the notation "then a miracle occurs." The cartoon would seem to be a lifelike depiction of the workday at ICR. Of course,
the caption under the cartoon makes it
clear that the blackboard is not at the
ICR. One of the scientists in the cartoon
advises the other, "I think you should be
more explicit here in step two." At the
ICR, in the unlikely event that such a
criticism should ever be raised in the
first place, the "scientist" who invoked
the miracle would simply cite a "clear
and adequate reason" for the miracle
required. And that would be that.
Just such a "clear and adequate reason" for a miracle arose not long ago, in
the midst of a debate I was having with
Duane Gish, the ICR's superstar debater, on a radio station in Columbus,
Ohio. Since Gish held that the universe
is only a few thousand years old, a caller
pointed out that we can see stars and
galaxies millions of light-years away meaning that the light we see has been
travelling for millions of years. About to
have his aces trumped by a fact of science, Gish simply replied that god could
Page 42

easily have created the light already en

route, and that the light we see never
actually came from a star!
Gish scored no points on this occasion, however, because I pointed out
that the ability to resort to miracles
whenever needed to save one's "theory"
makes creationism a game played without rules. Real scientists are required to
play by the rules without exception.
Creationists follow the rules of science
only so long as it is expedient. Then they
resort to miracles. But resorting to miracles is not offering an explanation: it is
asserting that no real explanation exists." Whenever creationists resort to
miracles, they are admitting that their
system cannot account for the facts of
nature; it cannot explain the world.

Institute for What Research?

According to the ICR Catalog's entry
titled "Purpose and Objectives," the
ICR
has the specific purposes of education, research and publication in
the broad fields of scientific and
Biblical creationism. Research
studies are conducted on projects
involving the relation of scientific
phenomena to the facts of Creation, the Flood, and other important historical events as recorded
both in the Bible and in the phenomena of nature.22
The notion that research is done at
the ICR is found also in the "History"
part of the catalog, which opines that
this is the first time a significant
body of scientists and their support team have come together on
a full-time basis to do research,
.writing and teaching in scientific

am indebted to Robert Schadewald for

being the first to explain this point with great
clarity.
22ICR Catalog, p. 8.
211

April 1990

Biblical creationism.
added.] .

[Emphasis

The facts of the matter are quite different.

The report of the committee that
visited the ICR in August of 1989revealed
that no research is done there, nor does
it appear possible for research to be
done. Although the ICR claims to be a
graduate institute capable of granting
Master's degrees in Astro/Geophysics,
Biology, Geology, and Science Education, it is actually a four-room gradschool. Each department is allotted one
room, approximately fivehundred square
feet in area, in which both lectures and
laboratories are conducted. Just as
there is a "nature area" at the back of
Miss Alice's kindergarten, where the
children can learn about hamsters, turties, and pet rocks, so too at the back of
each of the ICR rooms there is a laboratory nook.
The committee's report states that
the Biology laboratory contains a
small amount of equipment of the
sort found in a very modestly
equipped high school. There is no
equipment of any sort for carrying
out experiments in biochemistry
or molecular biology ... ICR offers
no opportunity for training in modern experimental biology, and this
deficiency inevitably will impact
the ability of ICR graduates to
function later as teachers.P
The "laboratory" for the Astro/Geophysics department apparently has no
equipment presently functioning, although one of the two professors is
building a radiocarbon dating apparatus. The visiting committee doubts,

23CaliforniaState Department of Education,

Private Postsecondary Education Division,
January 12, 1990, Report of Visitation of the
Institute For Creation Research, August 7, 8,
9, 10, 1989. p. 28.
American Atheist

So long as students obtain a satisfactory understanding of any science,

creationism is in danger hence the creationist attempts
to censor all the sciences taught in the public schools.
however, that it will be up and running
in the foreseeable future.
The lack of laboratory facilities highlights not only the fact that no actual research is done at ICR, but also the fact
that the creationist philosophy renders
research unnecessary: everything of importance has already been revealed in
the Bible. Experimentation or observation is resorted to only when it is needed
to "prove" that what the Bible claimed
millennia ago is actually true.
Given the lack of laboratory facilities,
it is not surprising to learn that almost
none of the seventeen MS theses so far
accepted by ICR involve any actual original investigations of nature. According
to the visiting committee,
Nearly all of these theses were
works of advocacy rather than investigation. They set out, not to
find out something, but to prove
something - one or another of
the creationist tenets.>
Evaluating the Astro/Geophysics
theses produced by ICR graduates, the
committee noted that
. . . the earlier Astro/Geophysics
theses are unscientific, improperly supervised, cavalier concerning
scientific method, and unacceptable at any comparable scientific
institution. All had been accepted
as valid pieces of research by the
ICR faculty, including persons presumably having professional expertise in the subiects."

thesis finallywas finished,a new professor

- the person most qualified to evaluate
the thesis - refused to sign it.
Nevertheless, it was accepted
officially over the signatures of
only two faculty members rather
than three .... When questioned
on this issue, the Dean responded
that he was embarrassed by the
thesis but felt that he had to approve it out of courtesy to Prof.
Barnes and consideration of the
time and effort that the student
had put into it. These good intentions placed the official seal of
approval of ICR, and the reputation that goes with that approval,
on nonscientific work. They led to
conferral of the ICR MS degree in
Astro/Geophysics upon a man
who is not a competent scientist,
and sent him into the public arena
with this certification."
So much for the graduates. What of
the faculty of the ICR? What earthshaking research are they producing?
Once again, let us see a bit of the visiting committee's report:
.
The Institute for Creation Research, by its very name, implies
that it is the site of original scientific research, yet not one of the resident faculty members can be said
to have an active, ongoing research program. In fact, those faculty who did have research programs prior to arrival at ICR seem
to have dropped out of research
entirely since their arrival. 27

The committee report goes on to discuss a scandal surrounding an exceptionallyincompetent MS thesis in Astro/
Geophysics, telling how the "research"
had been begun with the assistance of a
professor who had retired before the
student could finish his thesis. When the

The report of the committee that examined the ICR in August of 1989- and
recommended that its license to grant
graduate degrees in science be revoked
- strongly corroborates my thesis that

24Ibid.,p. 35.
25Ibid.,p. 40.

26Ibid.,p. 42.
27Ibid.,p. 21.

Austin, Texas

April 1990

creationism is science in reverse. We

have seen that creation "scientists"
start with desired conclusions. It is clear
that a person who already possesses
"the answer" before doing any work is
not likelyto have much motivation to do
the work.
There is, however, a more insidious
sense in which the creationists at the
ICR and elsewhere are reversing science. Since the tenets of creationism
are threatened by all sciences, there is
a strong effort on the part of creationists
to reverse the progress of everything
from astronomy to zoology. So long as
students obtain a satisfactory understanding of any science, creationism is
in danger - hence the creationist attempts to censor all the sciences taught
in the public schools.
We must hope that fewer and fewer
Americans willbe deceived by the fraudulent claims of professional creationists,
and we must work to get the word out
that practicing creationism is not practicingscience - it is reversing science.~

Where there's a will,

there's a way
Atheists who approve of the work of
American Atheists and desire to contribute to its continuance after their
deaths, can include American Atheists
or the American Atheist Library in their
wills.Both corporations are tax-exempt.
For information regarding the best way
to ensure that your intentions are
carried out, please contact:
American Atheist GHQ
7215 Cameron Rd.
Austin, Texas 78752-2973
(512) 458-1244
American Atheists wants and needs
your help. The only way that a cause organization can succeed in our nation is
to be funded. Only Atheists can help do
that, since money is never going to
come to American Atheists from government or any source other than our
own. Keep your name alive in a legacy
to Atheism.
Page 43

Poetry

Fatigue

So, what else is left,

Save human reason;
Educated minds,
Liberated from pseudoscientific superstition
To save us from the wrath and blood lust
Of the gods?
In this credo,
I place my cautious, ever questioning trust.

I'm tired;
So goddamned sick and tired
Of being sick;
Of staring into
The blank, black
Hollow eyes of death.

Drusilla Davis

Each new medical crisis

Reopens old scars
Never erased memories;
Unexorcised ghosts
Of previous brushes with extinction
To start the roller coaster anew.

Some First Amendment confusion

I chased a man into a bar
To talk to him of Jesus
When out the window near my car
(Double-parked beside the bar)
A p'liceman stood in midday breezes.

I'm tired;
So goddamned sick and tired
Of priests' and prelates' pious sermons
To have faith and pray;
Of holistic gurus
Who say it's all a matter
Of mind over matter;
That if I'lljust "think positive,"
And have the right attitude,
All willbe wellBut, if I don't;
If sometimes I let go
To negative feelings,
Like anger or depression,
I'm my own worst enemy;
Bringing misery upon myself.

I left the man upon his stool

And ran outside to talk fast.
I'm a preacher, but no fool.
Money's first, that's a rule For all we say it's last.
I said: "Hey Mr. P'liceman,
This ticket I won't pay.
I'm trying to win a soul to God Oops! He got away.
I know that this looks funny sir,
But I'm sure that you'll agree
That to save a soul
It's legal to break
A law or two, or three."

I'm damned by religion;

Blamed by "new age,"
Whoever makes the call,
Seems it's all my fault.

And now it seems that I'm in jail

For slugging that cop yesterday.
God doesn't want to pay my bail.
(And I think that my cellmate is gay.)

I'm tired;
So goddamned sick and tired;
Years ago,
I ceased my futile prayers and pleas
To all unhearing, unseeing,
Uncaring, hollow, nonexistent,
Man-created deities.

My trial willbe in a week or so,

When I expect to be excused
From paying a fine before I go,
Or doing more time because, you know,
My God would hardly be amused.
David W. Sims

Nor do I care
to place my faith
In crystals, mantras,
Meditation;
Magic potions or macrobiotics.

Page 44

April 1990

American Atheist

American Atheist Radio Series

Christian religion's
foundation - hell
ave you ever thought about how
important hell is to the Christian
religion? Actually the foundation
of the entire Christian religion is this particular doctrine of hell. On this structure
the rest of the beliefs have been reared.
In the interest of what is called salvation, Christianity threatens most of
mankind with everlasting damnation in
hell. If there is no hell into which men
and women are to be damned, there can
be no salvation - and no need of salvation.
This Christian doctrine of hell has
been preached for some sixteen hundred years and no human being can
even conceive of the appalling measure
of suffering it has caused. While fashionable and liberal clergymen relegate it to
the back room - not mentioning it that
often - it is still the stock in trade of the
religion. Evangelicals, whose success
depends upon stimulating fear - sometimes terror - in the minds of their
hearers, use it freely. But the concept of
salvation offered by the liberals is a
hollow sham unless that salvation is
from something, and when you scratch
a liberal clergyman in depth, you find an
evangelical underneath him.
Now, if there is going to be a hell, in
the mind of a religious man, there must
be someone to preside over it. The current surge of interest in demonology is
therefore a natural phenomenon. When
the theologians were battered with the
"God is Dead" cry of the I%Os, they
countered by resurrecting the devil.
Exorcism of the devil from persons is
now a fashionable pastime. When the
concept is accepted by enough of the
population, god can also be resurrected
and put back in his place.
To prove that there is a hell, it would
be necessary to prove two things: (1)
there is a god, and (2) he created hell.
This is rather an awesome idea. The
chief concern for god, given by believers, is that he cares for human beings.
Yet the concept of hell is so sadistic that
this god must have had a very strange
idea of justice - and ordinary decency

Theologians of all times

and stripes agree:
Christianity without a
hell isn't worth a damn.

When the first installment of a

regularly scheduled, fifteen-minute,
weekly American Atheist radio series
on KLBJ radio (a station in Austin,
Texas, owned by then-President
Lyndon Baines Johnson) hit the
airwaves on June 3, 1968, the nation
was shocked. The programs had to be
submitted weeks in advance and were
heavily censored. The regular production of the series ended in September
1m7, when no further funding was
available.
The following is the text of "American
Atheist Radio Series" program No. 333,
first broadcast on February 22, lmS.

Madalyn O'Hair
Austin, Texas

April 1990

- to design a scheme whereby he

would fashion dungeons of flaming torture destined to be the home of myriads
of his children. A place to torment the
people he created for all eternity. This
awful fate intended for almost all of mankind, is a scheme whereby a few persons can be "saved," we know not for
what reason. In order to effectuate this,
god kills his own son. It is a scheme of
incredible cruelty.
To say one believes in the Bible and
that one rejects hell is impossible. The
Old Testament speaks of hell obliquely
in several passages. With Jesus Christ,
it is brought into fullexistence. This man
of love is, in fact, consumed with the
idea.
Matt. 5:22: "shall be in danger of hell
fire."
Matt. 5:30: "thy whole body should be
cast into hell."
Matt. 13:42: "shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and
gnashing of teeth."
Matt. 13:49-50:"So shall it be at the end
of the world: the angels shall ... sever
the wicked from among the just, and
shall cast them into the furnace of
fire."
Matt. 18:9:"rather than having two eyes
to be cast into hell fire."
Matt. 23:15:"ye make him twofold more
the child of hell."
Matt. 23:33: "how can ye escape the
damnation of hell?"
Matt. 25:41:"Depart from me, ye cursed,
into the everlasting fire."
Mark 9:45: "to be cast into hell, into the
fire that never shall be quenched."
Mark 16:16: "he that believeth not shall
be damned."
Luke 12:5: "hath power to cast into
hell."
Luke 10:15: "And thou ...
shalt be
thrust down to hell." .
Luke 16:23: "in hell he lift up his eyes,
being in torments."
Luke 16:24: "I am tormented in this
flame."
Rev. 14:10-11:"and he shall be tormentPage 45

The Pis tis Sophia, a Christian

gnostic writing, records Jesus as
claiming that the "outer darkness"
or hell is a huge dragon which is
divided into "twelve dungeons of
horrible torment." This German
woodcut, made during the Reformation, apparently reflects this
view of hell.

','

ed with fire and brimstone ...

and the smoke of their torment
ascendeth up for ever and
ever."
Rev. 19:20: "These both were
cast alive into a lake of fire
burning with brimstone."
Rev. 20:15: "whosoever was not
found written in the book of
life was cast into the lake of
fire."
Rev. 21:8: "the unbelieving . . .
shall have their part in the lake
that burneth with fire and
brimstone."
James 3:6: "the tongue ... and it
is set on fire of hell."
In Rev. 14:10-11a complete picture is
given,
The same shall drink of the wine
of the wrath of God, which is
poured out without mixture into
the cup of his anger; and he shall
be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy
angels, and in the presence of the
Lamb: and the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and
ever; and they have no rest day
nor night.
and in Rev. 21:8:
But the fearful, and unbelieving,
and the abominable, and murderers, and fornicators, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars,
shall have their part in the lake
that burneth with fire and brimstone; which is the second death.
Let's stop a minute to look at that.
Who is going to burn? First, the fearful
- have you ever been fearful? Then
come the unbelievers. Well, I scoff at
this, but what about the fornicators?
Without fornication the race dies out.
Just about everyone in the world fornicates. How many people do you know
who went through life being virgins?
Page 46

Then, of course, all the liars burn. Have

you ever lied?
There are great theologians of all ages
upon which the churches depend to impress people with the need to accept
Jesus Christ as a savior. Let's look at
some of these, too.
Here they are - all.
Clement, second century, wrote,
"Nothing shall deliver us from eternal
punishment if we should disobey His
commands."
St. Theophilus, second century, had
too much to say for me to quote it all but
generally preached that there would be
wrath and tribulation in this world and in
the other everlasting fire for the "unbelievers and despisers."
Tertullian, about the same time, rhapsodized on what he called "Christian
Joys and Spectacles," and tells how he
willlaugh and rejoice at the sights he will
behold at the Day of Judgment - kings
and persecutors, philosophers and their
disciples, poets, actors and wrestlers, all
burning and "melting amid insulting
fires." From the contemplation of the
grand prospect, he says, the Christian
can experience greater joys than are
afforded by the circus or the theatre.
St. Chrysostom, whom the Church
called the "golden mouthed," described
hell as " a sea of fire ... having waves
of fire
a great abyss of most intolerApril 1990

able flame."
St. Augustine in the next century wrote: "That hell, that lake
of fire and brimstone shall be
real, and the fire corporeal, burning both men and devils, the one
in flesh, the other in air.... Christ
has spoken it."
St. Fulgentius, in the sixth century, taught that "little children
who have begun to live in their
mothers' womb, and have there
died, or who, having just been
born, have passed away from the
world without the sacrament of
holy baptism ... must be punished by the eternal torture of undying fire," this because these
children, though they have not themselves sinned, have "drawn with them
the condemnation of original sin by their
carnal conception and nativity."
Now, many Protestants say that this
is all a Roman Catholic idea, but let us
turn to John Calvin to hear about hell:
Forever harassed with a dreadful
tempest, they shall feel themselves
torn asunder by an angry God and
transfixed and penetrated by mortal stings, terrified by the thunderbolts of God and broken by the
weight of his hand, so that to sink
into any gulf would be more tolerable than to stand for a moment in
these terrors. Even infants bring
their damnation with them.
It was an American Atheist who finallyconfronted the Church and denounced
the doctrine of hell. Robert Ingersoll,
about the time of the Civil War in the
United States, declared this to be a
"fanged and frightful dogma that souls
were made to feed the eternal hunger of
a God's revenge. This dogma," he said,
is the disgrace and degradation of
the Christian world. It has furrowed the cheeks of the good and
tender with tears. It is the most ignorant, the most infamous, the
American Atheist

This fourteenth-century representation

of hell appears on the main entrance of
the cathedral at Bourges, France. Over
the centuries, Christian literature has
provided such luridly detailed descriptions of hell as to make the most lunatic
sadist blush.

most absurd idea that ever found

lodging in the brain of man .... All
the meanness, all the revenge, all
the selfishness, all the cruelty, all
the hatred, all the infamy of which
the heart of man is capable, grew,
blossomed and bore fruit in this
one word - Hell. That word brutalizes the New Testament, changes
the Sermon on the Mount to hypocrisy and cant, and pollutes and
hardens the very heart of Christ.
Yet he noted,
Take out this fearful, fiendish,
heartless lie - compared with
which all other lies are true - and
the great arch of orthodox religion
crumbling falls.
This is true.
The Church has clung to the doctrine
of hell with the instinct of self preservetion. In that dogma, however despicable, cruel, and insane, the church saw
the only justification of her existence. In
the doctrine of hell, every feature of
Christianity finds its origin and support.
The doctrine of atonement rests
upon the belief in hell. If there is no hell,
Christ did not die to save us. If there is
no hell, there is no incarnation. If there
is no hell, there can be no last judgment.
Ifthere is no last judgment, there willbe
no resurrection. Every supposed reason for the existence of the Christian
religion rests on hell.
The whole absurd system - as convoluted as it is - that a god had himself
put to death, by man, to save mankind
from punishments in hell which he himself invented, comes only from the concept of hell. Take hell away and Christianity disappears.
If Christianity disappears, we are left
with the Old Testament alone. Here the
doctrine of hell is not developed. The
few references to such a place are not
expanded upon, and they are not a part
of the theology. Moses mentioned hell
once, in Deut. 32:22. In the story about
Austin, Texas

Jeshurun (Deut. 32: 19-23), who forsook

god and whose people sacrificed to
devils, the following is noted:
And when the Lord saw it, he
abhorred them, because of the
provoking of his sons, and of his
daughters.
And he said, I will hide my face
from them, Iwillsee what their end
shall be; for they are a very forward
generation, children in whom is no
faith.
They have moved me to jealousy
with that which is not God; they
have provoked me to anger with
their vanities: and I willmove them
to jealousy with those which are
not a people; I will provoke them
to anger with a foolish nation.
For a fire is kindled in mine anger, and shall burn unto the lowest
hell, and shall consume the earth
with her increase, and set on fire
the foundations of the mountains.
I willheap mischiefs upon them;
I will spend mine arrows upon
them.
That was another kind, loving god
talking.
St. Thomas Aquinas was the greatest
theologian of all times according to
theologians. Listen then to Summa
Theologica, Third Part, Supplement,
Quaestio XCIV, Art. 1,2,3.
We proceed to the First Article:
Objection I. It would seem that
April 1990

the blessed in heaven will not see

the sufferings of the damned ....
I answer that Nothing should be
denied to the blessed which belongs to the perfection of their beatitude .... Consequently, in order
that the happiness of saints may
be more delightful and that they
may give to God more copious
thanks for it, they are permitted
perfectly to behold the sufferings
of the damned ....
We proceed thus to the Second
Article:
Objection I. It would seem that
the blessed must pity the sufferings of the damned.
Reply to Objection I. The saints
cannot wish this for the damned,
since this would be contrary to
Divine Justice.
We proceed thus to the Third
Article:
Objection I. It would seem that
the blessed do not rejoice in the
punishment of the damned.
I answer that ... the saints will
rejoice in the punishment of the
damned, for they will see in this
the order of Divine Justice and
their own escape which will fill
them with joy.
We are to accept loving saints in heaven, delighting in the torture of people in
hell, even children fresh out of the
womb. It's a jolly religion.
No wonder that Abraham Lincoln
said of this,
My earlier views of the unsoundness of the Christian scheme of
salvation and the human origin of
the Scriptures have become clearer
and stronger with advancing years
and I see no reason for thinking I
shall ever change them. * ~

* John E. Remsburg, Six Historic Americans

(New York: The Truth Seeker Company,
1906), p. 292.
Page 47

MeToD

The right of choice

Il

To make an
ethical decision on
the subject of abortion
it is necessary to
understand what a
fetus isand what it is not.

"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 140195,Austin, TX 78714-0195)
should be 650 to 1500 words.

Page 48

read Jack Wilson's letter "An antichoice Atheist" (American Atheist,

February 1990, p. 50) and would, as
he requested, like to offer a different
perspective.
I agree with him that the legality of
abortion depends entirely on determining on the basis of objective, empirical
evidence, the approximate time during
gestation at which a developing human
embryo or fetus can realistically be defined as a 'living human infant'. At that
time abortion would be infanticide,
which, if we wish to maintain an organized society, is rightly illegal. Prior to
that time, however, abortion should be
subject to legislation only if It violated
the rights or welfare of others or had a
detrimental, destructive impact on the
security or general welfare of society.
Otherwise it would be a matter of private morals and conscience not subject
to legislation in a free society.
The determination of the time during
gestation from conception to delivery at
which a 'living human infant' comes into
existence requires definitions of the
words 'life' and 'human being' that are
based on objective, empirical evidence
and logical reasoning.
The deceptive arguments and definitions presented by the anti-choice advocates, who are led and financed primarily by the Roman Catholic hierarchy,
can be very misleading if they are not
logically analyzed.
Wilson seems to have accepted one
of those deceptive arguments. That hypothesis maintains that since a zygote (a
fertilized ovum) possesses forty-six
chromosomes and the requisite six billion or so human genes, it is a complete
'living human being'. The problem with
this definition is apparent when we
consider that first, a zygote possesses
the characteristics of a human cell, but
not those of a 'living human infant' and
second, that until radical decomposition
begins, a human corpse possesses millions of individual cells each containing
forty-six chromosomes and billions of
human genes, but it is obviously not a
April 1990

'living human being'. In other words, we

must be careful with phenomena which,
while they are 'human', are not consequently properly defined as 'livinghuman
beings'.
Nor does the presence of an embryonic 'heartbeat' define the beginning of
'life' or a 'living human infant', for the
heart is composed of individual cells,
many of which pulsate alone in solution
in a petri dish. Besides, plants have no
heartbeat but they are 'alive'; so a heartbeat does not define 'life'.
Neither does the presence of brain
waves define the existence of a 'living
human infant', for fetal brain waves
compare to infant brain waves as a fiftyvolt battery compares to a two hundred
and twenty-volt generator.
Nor does the presence of embryonic
extremities or organs constitute a 'living
infant', for such are rudimentary and
not true human organs or extremities.
An embryo also possesses a tail and
gills, but that does not make it a living
dog or fish. Again the point to remember is that until about the twenty-sixth
week of gestation, the developing entity
in the woman's uterus possesses the
characteristics of a human zygote, embryo, or fetus but not those of a 'living
human being'. Here we see the deceptiveness of another silly anti-choice argument, i.e., "What is in a pregnant
woman's uterus? It's not a frog or a
turnip"; no, it is a zygote, embryo, or
fetus, but is not, as yet, a 'baby'.
But when can it be properly defined
as a living human infant? When it possesses the characteristics properly definable as 'living' and 'human being', of
course.
The only definition of 'life' that is
based on objective, empirical evidence
is: a group of functional abilities including nutrition, replication, growth, adaptation, and the ability to arrange matter
in a self-beneficial manner, i.e., metabolism. An inanimate phenomenon may
possess one or two of these characteristics, but not all of them. Only a phenomenon which independently possesAmerican Atheist

ses all of these functions can properly be

referred to as 'living'. 'Life' is defined by
these functions; 'death' is the cessation
of these functions beyond the possibility
of their resumption.
Neither a zygote, an embryo, nor a
twenty-four-week fetus independently
possesses the functional abilities which
we call 'life'. Those functions are carried
on for it by the pregnant woman through
the placenta and the umbilical cord. The
embryo, meanwhile, is developing these
functional abilities; i.e., it is developing
'life'. Thus, what begins at conception is
not 'life' nor a 'living human being', but
the beginning of the development of 'life'
and a 'livinghuman being'. This development ceases if the zygote or embryo is
removed from the life developmental
processes of the uterus, and no 'living
human being' results. Abortion does not
'kill' a 'living human infant'; it interrupts
the development of a living human infant. Conception is the beginning of the
development of a living human being;
infancy is the beginning or first stage of
a living human being's development to
adulthood.
All species are distinguished from
each other by their physical characteristics and by their abilities. The physical
characteristics of human beings, infants, children and adults, including
relative brain size and complexity, are
too well known to need repeating. Suffice it to say that if you were to describe
a living human being to an alien you
would not describe a human cell nor an
embryo which, as yet, does not possess
such characteristics. You might define
them as stages in the development of a
livinghuman being, but only that.
Development of a livinghuman infant
is complete at about the twenty-sixth
week of gestation. At that time the fetus
possesses the physical characteristics
of a human infant and independently
possesses the functional abilities called
life. In other words it is a viable infant,
which means that it can exist separately
from any physical connection to any
other living organism.
Austin, Texas

Of course all infants require lifesupportive care and sometimes lifesustaining medications or the benefits of
life-support technology. But the very
name of these measures, which are
often required for adults as well, defines
their purpose; that is 'life support'. They
support existing 'life'. All such methods
are ineffective when applied to a single
cell, an embryo, or twenty-week fetus
outside the uterus, because there is, as
yet, no 'life' to support.
And even ifscientists one day develop
an apparatus in which fertilization and
complete gestation can take place, the

OF COURSE1

process would, until the twenty-sixth

week, be life developmental, not life
supportive.
So, since abortion is not murder, does
not violate the rights or welfare of others, and its impact on society is more
beneficial than harmful, it is a matter of
personal conscience and should not be
subject to legislation. Freedom of choice
is simple justice. Religious leaders must
not be permitted to define 'science' nor
to dictate private moral decisions.

yO\.) &f\LL

- Joe Bauer
Pennsylvania

14A\)~ THE:

RJ6H-T TO C\.{OOSE. . l::lTH~ l\-\E

TEN ~ TH e- TWENTY DOllAR

-PONAT\oN ...
April 1990

Page 49

Letters to the Editor

Well, that's simple

The simplest answer to a question is
the one most likely to be correct. Thus
I amplify February's "Talking Back"
column:
Why don't you believe in god?
I am sane.
Douglas Campbell
Ohio

but the point is this - what was Jesus'

sacrifice (provided you believe his existence)? He came to earth for thirty-odd
years (a vacation?), spent some time
with some prostitutes, spread the word
(a business trip?), and then went back to
heaven. I heartily recommend this retort for anyone who is as frequently pestered by religious nuts as I am. It has
evoked tears, rage, and one convert
(thus far),

What's so special about J.c.?

:~;"A~~n:~bIe
J

nyto

n.

"Letters to the Editor" should be either questions or comments of general

concern to Atheists or to the Atheist
community. Submissions should be
brief and to the point. Space
limitations allow that each letter
should be three hundred words or,
preferably, less. Please confine your
letters to a single issue only. Mail them
to: American Atheist, P. O. Box
140195, Austin, TX 78714-0195.

Page 50

I am a student at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a member of American Atheists since September of 1989_My reason for writing this
letter is to share an experience of mine
which should prove amusing and informational for other Atheists living in the
"bible belt." Our campus is plagued by
religious zealots. On Quad Day (when
student groups set up booths for recruitment on the quadrangle) I was amazed
to find, at an institute of higher learning,
no fewer than twenty-seven religious
groups!
The real story involves a local preacher
who makes weekly visits to the Quad to
spread his message. As it goes, I was
listening to this lunatic and he happened
to take a break. Some people heckle
him, but I usually just listen and pass out
the "God Theories Mislead People"
pamphlet. Today, however, I had some
mysterious urge to attack this man's
faith. I sat next to him and began to ask
about the biblical recommendations for
slavery as per the "Ask AA" column in
the January 1990 issue of the American
Atheist. He didn't anger immediately,
but somehow his reply led to the usual
"Jesus died for you" and a question
struck my mind - "So what?"
Before I could catch myself, I asked
him - "What's so great about Jesus'
sacrificing his life for anyone? Look
where he's at now. I think just about
anyone would hang by the wrists on a
cross for six hours to later ascend into
paradise." At this he became violent,
and I took my leave.
The story is amusing to some degree,
April 1990

Thomas Abel
Illinois

Correspondence
from a born-againer
In January's article entitled "Planning
the Good Fight," Jon Murray wrote of
the "born-again" movement. I consider
myself born-again, yet agree with your
descriptions of the Christian movement.
You see, I have recently been introduced to the American Atheist magazine through a new Atheist friend. This
magazine has helped to change my life.
No longer do I search in vain for god's
guidance but rather rely upon my own
levelheadedness to solve my problems.
Being a fence-sitter for years, I have
asked many questions about the atrocities the so-called loving god has bestowed upon mankind, the "heroes" of
the Bible who, in my opinion, were nothing but murderous heathens, and the
discrepancies in the events described
within the Bible. I wanted to be a Christian - hence insuring eternal life!Could
anyone, even a minister, answer my
questions? No! I was told "there are just
some things we are not meant to understand." (Well, then, why were they written in the first place?)
I was told to pray to god for guidance
upon reading the Bible. I did. The more
I read it, the more I realized it was just
a fairy tale. (Although I don't think this
fairy tale, with all its vulgarity, is fit for
any child to read!)
Since then, I've read many books and
articles supporting both sides of the
debate. It's true the more educated a
American Atheist

person is - the more apt they are to

reject religion. I thank you for the very
important role you played .
Born-again? Yes! This is a term we,
too, can use. Free at last! Free at last!

.:
~~

~~

S.G.
Pennsylvania

'1"~'

\~

George Bush: Atheophobic?

A new word
Has anyone yet coined the word
Atheophobia, and if not, is this the
proper combination of the relevant
words to describe "the fear of Atheists
or Atheism"? I haven't seen this word in
any literature that I have read.
David Earl Knight
Virginia

Bereshith?
While browsing in a junk store recently, I managed to pick up a few interesting books which, of course, will be
donated to the Charles E. Stevens
American Atheist Library and Archives,
Inc. One of the books I picked up is
titled "Scripture Readings" - subtitled
"Exodus." The book was printed in the
year 1854 and on the first page of
chapter one was a particular sentence
which caught my eye (quote in part):
"The book of Genesis is called by every
Jew to this day and was called by the
Jews previous to the birth of our Lord
Bereshith Bara."
I am predominantly unable to agree
with Bible thumpers but in this instance
I find myself in complete agreement that

the book of Exodus is, as are all other

religious writings, a lot of Shith. However, if I were to call it "Bereshith," I
don't think my fellow Americans would
understand my terminology as we Americans usually precede our disagreement
by preceding the word Shith with reference to the male of the bovine species.
Therefore since shith is shith regardless
of whether one credits it to the species
ursa or male bovine, it certainly applies
to any Bible or religious tract. Nuff said.
Reynold D. Bourquin, Director
Pittsburgh Chapter
American Atheists

Condition - disgruntled
I generally enjoy reading American
Atheist. It is informative and entertaining, if sometimes a little strident. However, I was disappointed with the February 1990 issue.
I don't have any problem with American Atheist publishing fiction, but I
found "The Turn of the Wheel" by
Marion Stein particularly inappropriate.
I didn't care for the anti-American, anticapitalist, environmentalist propaganda

with which it was laden, but that is not

my primary objection to the story. I tolerate the socialist tendencies frequently
found in American Atheist because of
the good work it does in expounding the
Atheist cause. And that was what I
found really disappointing about Ms.
Stein's story. It was not anti-theist. Certainly the characters received no aid
from their "god." What Atheist would
expect otherwise. But they also did not
learn from their suffering. At the end of
the story they are still mired in superstition. There is no growth, no progress.
So it is just a depressing little story about
the failure of faith to function, and as
such a waste of paper.
I was also disappointed in Dr. O'Hair's
answer to the question "Why don't you
believe in God?" Please understand that
I agree with all her remarks about the
harm that religion has done. It is my
opinion that religion has delayed the development of civilization by thousands
of years. But that is an argument against
religion, not against the existence of
god. Whether or not the effects of something are harmful does nothing to prove
or disprove the existence of that thing.
The other arguments on the same page
were more to the point. Belief in god is
a superstition unsupported by evidence
or rational thought. Application of
Occam's Razor is sufficient. Is god necessary to the functioning of the universe?
No! Therefore, he does not exist.
Dan Thompson
Alabama

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Publications
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Shahjahan's commandeering (and not erecting) the Hindu Temple built 500 years earlier,
turning it into a mausoleum. None asked,
"How can death of one wife overwhelm a
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the Tajmahal, a fact that Indian government,
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Copernicus' discovery. Watch for fun when
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April 1990

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American Atheist

suggested

American Atheist
introductory reading list
.Literature on Atheism is very hard to find in most public
and university libraries in the United States - and most of
the time when you do find a book catalogued under the
word Atheism it is a work against the Atheist position.
Therefore we suggest the following publications which are
available from American Atheist Press as an introduction
into the multifaceted areas of Atheism and state/ church separation. To achieve the best understanding of thought in
these areas the featured publications should be read in the
order listed. These by no means represent our entire collection of Atheist and separationist materials.
l. All the Questions You Ever Wanted to Ask American
Atheists with All of the Answers by Jon Murray and
Madalyn O'Hair. Paperback. 248 pp. #5356
$9.00
2. The Case Against Religion: A Psychotherapist
by Dr. Albert Ellis. Stapled. 57 pp. #5096

View
$4.00

3. What on Earth Is an Atheist! by Madalyn O'Hair.

Paperback. 288 pp. #5412
$8.00
4. An Atheist Speaks by Madalyn O'Hair. Paperback. 321
pp. #5098
$8.00
5. All about Atheists by Madalyn O'Hair. Paperback. 407
pp. #5097
$8.00
6. Ingersoll the Magnificent by Joseph Lewis. Paperback.
342 pp. #5216
$10.00
7. Essays on American Atheism, vol. I by Jon G. Murray.
Paperback. 349 pp. #5349
$10.00
8. Essays on American Atheism, vol. II by Jon G. Murray. Paperback. 284 pp. #5350
$10.00
9. Essays in Freethinking, vol. I by Chapman Cohen.
Paperback. 229 pp. #5052
$9.00
10. Essays in Freethinking, vol. II by Chapman Cohen.
Paperback. 240 pp. #5056
$9.00
11. Life Story of Auguste Comte by F. J. Gould. Paperback. 179 pp. #5132
$6.50

Greatest Liars by Joseph McCabe. Paperback. 176 pp. #5524

$6.50

12. History's

13. Atheist Truth vs. Religion s Ghosts by Col. Robert G.

Ingersoll. Stapled. 57 pp. #5156
$4.00
14. Some Reasons I Am a Freethinker by Robert G. Ingersoll. Stapled. 37 pp. #5184
$4.00
15. Our Constitution - The Way It Was by Madalyn
O'Hair. Stapled. 70 pp. #5400
$4.00
16. Religion and Marx by Rick B. A. Wise. Paperback. 267
pp. #5521
$12.00
17. Fourteen Leading Cases on Education, Religion, and
Financing Schools. Paperback. 273 pp. #5500
. $5.00
18. Sex Mythology by Sha Rocco.
#5440 ..__
....._..__
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Stapled.

55 pp.
$4.00

19. Women and Atheism, The Ultimate Liberation by

Madalyn O'Hair. Stapled. 21 pp. #5420 _._._.
$3.50
20. Christianity Before Christ by John G. Jackson. Paperback. 238 pp. #5200
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__ _ _ _ $9.00
21. The Bible Handbook (All the contradictions, absurdi-

ties, and atrocities from the Bible) by G.W. Foote, W.P.

Ball, John Bowden, and Richard M. Smith. Paperback.
372 pp. #5008 .. .
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$9.00
22. The X-Rated Bible by Ben Edward Akerley. Paper-

back. 428 pp. #5000

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$10.00

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0",

"'Cong'ressshall make no law

r~~Recting an establishrnenf'of-rellgfb~,or prohibiting the free exercise
thereof; or abridging the freedom of
I%speech,or of the press; or the r,ight
of the people peaceably to assernble, and'to petltion the government
mWfor
a redress-of grievances.

"It is in the temporal affairs of mankind, not in

the delusions of religious faiths, that man's actual
well being and happiness on this earth is attainable. "
- Culbert L. Olson
"Secularism and Social Progress"
Progressive World, October 1961