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Defending the Wall Between Church & State

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Defending the Wall Between Church & State THE INTERNATIONAL SECULAR HUMANIST MAGAZINE Spring 1996 Vol.16, No.2 DO WE NEED GOD TO BE MORAL? PAUL KURTZ debates JOHN FRAME MARTIN GARDNER Adventist Flimflams CHRISTOPHER DURANG The Lost Encyclical DEFENDING THE WALL BETWEEN CHURCH & STATE SPRING 1996, VOL. 16, NO. 2 ISSN 0272-0701 Contents !ree 3 LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Editor: Paul Kurtz Executive Editor: Timothy J. Madigan 4 DO WE NEED GOD TO BE MORAL? Managing Editor: Andrea Szalanski Senior Editors: Vern Bullough, Thomas W. Flynn, 4 Without a Supreme Being, Everything Is Permitted John M. Frame R. Joseph Hoffmann, Gerald Larue, Gordon Stein 6 Rebuttal Paul Kurtz Contributing Editors: 5 The Common Moral Decencies Don't Depend on Faith Paul Kurtz Robert S. Alley, Joe E. Barnhart, David Berman, H. James Birx, Jo Ann Boydston, Bonnie Bullough, 7 Rebuttal John M. Frame Paul Edwards, Albert Ellis, Roy P. Fairfield, Charles W. Faulkner, Antony Flew, Levi Fragell, Adolf 8 RELIGION IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS Grünbaum, Marvin Kohl, Jean Kotkin, Thelma Lavine, Tibor Machan, Ronald A. Lindsay, Michael 8 Introduction Andrea Szalanski Martin, Delos B. McKown, Lee Nisbet, John Novak, 9 Church and State: A Humanist View Vern L. Bullough Skipp Porteous, Howard Radest, Robert Rimmer, Michael Rockier, Svetozar Stojanovic, Thomas Szasz, V. M. Tarkunde, Richard Taylor, Rob Tielman POINT Associate Editors: 12 The Case for Affirmative Secularism Thomas W. Flynn Molleen Matsumura, Lois Porter COUNTERPOINT Editorial Associates: Doris Doyle, Thomas Franczyk, Roger Greeley, 20 Religious and Philosophical Freedom for Everybody: James Martin-Diaz, Steven L. Mitchell, Warren A Reply to Tom Flynn Rob Boston Allen Smith Cartoonist: Don Addis 21 Church-State Separation: The 1996 Elections CODESH. Inc.: and Beyond Edward Tabash Chairman: Paul Kurtz Chief Operating Officer: Timothy J. Madigan 23 Thinking `About' Religion: The Need for Freethought Executive Director: Matt Cherry in the Curriculum John B. Massen Chief Development Officer: James Kimberly Public Relations Director: Norm R. Allen, Jr. President, Academy of Humanism: Paul Kurtz POINT Executive Director, Secular Organizations for 24 The Libertarian Curriculum for Public Education Joe Barnhart Sobriety: James Christopher COUNTERPOINT Chief Data Officer: Richard Seymour Fulfillment Manager: Michael Cione 26 The Privatization of Education: Typesetting: Paul E. Loynes, Sr. Can Public Education Survive? Michael J. Rockler Graphic Designer: Jacqueline Cooke Audio Technician: Vance Vigrass 30 VIEWPOINTS Staff. 30 Irish Democracy Continues Its Advance, Dick Spicer / Notes from the Editor, Georgeia Locurcio, Anthony Nigro, Etienne Ríos, Ranjit Sandhu Paul Kurtz I Missionaries Invade Public Schools, Skipp Porteous Executive Director Emeritus: Jean Millholland 36 The Incredible Flimflams of Margaret Rowen, Part 1: FREE INQUIRY (ISSN 0272-0701) is published quarterly by the Council for Democratic and Secular Humanism Seventh-day Adventist and the Second Coming Martin Gardner (CODESH, Inc.), a nonprofit corporation, 3965 Rensch 41 Strange Bedfellows: Mormon Polygamy and Road, Amherst, NY 14228-2713. Phone (716) 636-7571. Fax (716) 636-1733. Copyright ©1996 by CODESH, Inc. Baptist History George D. Smith Second-class postage paid at Amherst, N.Y., and at addi- tional mailing offices. National distribution by 46 The Lost Encyclical against Penicillin Christopher Durang International Periodicals Distributors, Solana Beach, California. FREE INQUIRY is available from University 47 Beat the Odds Dan Olincy Microfilms and is indexed in Philosophers' Index. 50 Paul Edwards on Nietzsche, Freud, and Reich Warren Allen Smith Printed in the United States. 51 Humanism and Human Malleability Timothy J. Madigan Subscription rates: $28.50 for one year, $47.50 for two years, $64.50 for three years. $6.95 for single issues. Address subscription orders, changes of address, and 52 NEWS AND VIEWS advertising to FREE INQUIRY, P.O. Box 664, Amherst, NY 14226-0664. 53 REVIEWS Manuscripts, letters, and editorial inquiries should be Shepherds Are for Sheep, Nada Mangialetti / Poking Fun at New addressed to The Editor, FREE INQUIRY, P.O. Box 664, Amherst, NY 14226-0664. Editorial submissions must Testament Absurdities, Farrell Till / Sex and Sensibility, Wendy McElroy l be on disk (PC: 3-1/2" or 5-1/4"; Mac: 3-1/2" only) and Snake Handling, Joe Nickell / Physics and Consciousness, H. James Birx l accompanied by a double-spaced hardcopy and a What a Tangled Web We Weave, John Schumaker stamped, self-addressed envelope. Acceptable file for- mats include any PC or Mac word processor, RTF, and ASCII. Opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the 65 IN THE NAME OF GOD views of the editors or publisher. Postmaster: Send address changes to FREE INQUIRY, P.O. Box 664, Cover art by Bruce Adams Amherst, NY 14226-0664. ignore that streetwise saying that "Candy's dandy but liquor's quicker," Letters to the Editor which is itself a form of scoffing at the "refined" people's approach to solving a human-relations problem, which would often take millennia to solve in the usual Humanism and Tolerance understanding. Albert Lyngzeidetson academic fashion. Mark Twain would not ("The Threat to the Atheists' Good Life," have scoffed at scoffing, nor would Robert The primary problem with George H. FI, Winter 1995/96) urges us to cease Ingersoll have done so. Shriver's ("New Fundamentalist Intoler- being timid and defensive. I am pulled ance and the Southern Baptist Conven- both ways. Can we combine these views Charles M. Selby tion," FI, Winter 1995/96) well-inten- constructively? Christmas Valley, Ore. tioned exposé of what he calls the I take strong exception to one of "neo-Fundamentalists" in the Southern Lyngzeidetson's views. The Christian Baptist Convention is that he couches his Right is by no means un-Christian or Further Comments criticism in intellectual arguments. Funda- unbiblical. Quite the contrary. In bigotry on Consciousness mentalists are by their very nature univer- and certainty it stands four-square in the sally and all-inclusively anti-intellectual tradition of historic Christianity. The his- Adam Carley ("Consciousness, Math, and, therefore, immune to such criticism. tory, as distinguished from Sunday School and Aristotle") and Daniel Dennett As an employee of the Southern Baptist apologetics, is a history of active hatred of ("Interview: A Conversation with Daniel Convention for seventeen years during the heretics, dissenters, Jews and heathens, a Dennett," FI, Fall 1995) believe con- 1960s and 1970s, I had an up-close and pervasive subordination of women, and a sciousness is an illusion. The definition personal look at the development of fun- lust for congenial relations with the polit- of illusion presupposes that you can cor- damentalism in the SBC. The experience ically and economically powerful. rectly perceive reality but sometimes was very much like watching the slow, misinterpret sensory evidence. How can inexorable growth of a melanoma as it Laurence G. Wolf they know consciousness is an illusion burrowed deeper and deeper into the body Cincinnati, Ohio unless they first know what the true real- politic. I can tell you from personal expe- ity is and that consciousness doesn't rience that these fundamentalists— match it? By what means did they come whether they be "neo" is arguable—are The statement by Phillips Stevens, Jr. that to this conclusion? Certainly not by and always have been an incurable cancer. "Such ideas ... [religion] are not going to using their own conscious minds which No amount of reason, rhetoric, or threat be changed by scoffing at them" seems to are illusions. will have the slightest effect on their fly in the face of another universal human Reductionists say that the conscious determination to re-fashion traditional belief—that ridicule and scoffing are quite mind equals nothing but the brain. But the pluralistic Christianity into a Borg-like effective instruments for bringing about non-conscious parts of the mind also equal bloc comprised of mindless, intolerant, changes in human behavior! In addition, nothing but the brain. So conscious mind and dispiteous individuals. The fact is, his opinion that "religious beliefs answer equals non-conscious mind, a denial that they feed on and draw strength from argu- some questions that science cannot answer there's a difference. But the whole purpose ment and criticism. The only logical ..." is a distortion of the meaning of the of researching the mind is to explain what human action to take, the instant one real- word answer: a lie is not the same as an that difference is, not deny it. izes that one has encountered a black hole answer. His statement about magic not Reductionism will succeed when it can of hatred and intolerance otherwise being irrational is a distortion of the mean- describe the difference between the con- known as a fundamentalist Christian, is to ing of the word, also, because magic rests scious and the non-conscious in terms of turn around and walk as far away as one upon fallacious assumptions. I doubt neurons. Reductionism fails when it elim- can get, watching your back every step of whether people's "sensory perception sys- inates and denies the difference. Roger the way. tems have been modified by the expecta- Bissell puts it this way: tions generated by such cultural knowledge John C. Stevens of the mechanisms of the world... "That Mental processes are not merely noth- seems Lamarckian to me. At most, such ing but physical brain processes, but Fort Worth, Tex. rather physical brain processes of a cer- people's interpretations of what they per- tain kind, distinguished from all other ceive may be modified, and their misinter- physical brain processes by virtue of Unanimity eludes us and that is probably pretations can later be corrected by appro- their introspectable, mental aspect. as it should be. Phillips Stevens, Jr., priate re-education, including "scoffing." Since this mental aspect is a real aspect Thus, it seems to me that, although re- of those brain processes, it provides a ("Dealing with Religious Beliefs: Some valid basis for making the distinction, a Suggestions from Anthropology," FI, education based strictly upon the presen- basis derived from reality.
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