Spring 1987 Vol. 7, No. 2 Personal Paths to Humanism

B. F. Skinner Albert Ellis Gina Allen

Steve Allen E. O. Wilson Paul MacCready

A New Affirmative Statement of Humanism Paul Kurtz

Plus The Expanding Friendship Center Movement • Secular Sobriety Centers The Constitution as a Secular Document • The Psychology of the Bible-Believer The Biblical Arguments for Slavery • The `Escape Goat' of Christianity Belief and Unbelief in Germany • Reincarnation • More on Faith-Healing Free %nv ry SPRING 1987, VOL. 7, NO. 2 ISSN 0272-0701 Contents 3 LETTERS TO THE EDITOR 58 IN THE NAME OF GOD 10 ON THE BARRICADES 62 CLASSIFIED

4 EDITORIALS The Affirmations of Humanism Paul Kurtz / The U.S. Constitution Vern Bullough / Friendship Center Report Robert Basil / Can a Secular Humanist Coexist in Alcoholics Anonymous? Robert Meyer / Secular Sobriety Groups James Christopher / Our Godless Supermarkets Arthur Hoppe I Vatican Sexology John Money PERSONAL PATHS TO HUMANISM 12 What Religion Means to Me B. F. Skinner 13 Biology's Spiritual Products E. O. Wilson 16 Meeting Human Minds Steve Allen 19 The Night I Saw the Light Gina Allen 20 An Evolutionary Perspective Paul MacCready 21 Testament of a Humanist Albert Ellis ARTICLES 22 Psychology of the Bible-Believer Edmund D. Cohen 28 Biblical Arguments for Slavery Morton Smith 32 The `Escape Goat' of Christianity Delos B. McKown 35 Free Thought and Humanism in Germany Renate Bauer 38 The Case Against Reincarnation (Part 3) Paul Edwards CSER's FAITH-HEALING PROJECT UPDATE 50 The Happy Hunters David Alexander 52 An Encounter with Pastor David Epley Kate Ware Ankenbrandt BOOKS 53 Lesbianism in the Convent Bonnie Bullough VIEWPOINTS 54 Secular Is Good Betty McCollister 54 'New Age' Gurus: Shirley MacLaine, J. Z. Knight, and Co. Robert Basil 56 Are Secular Humanists Evil9 Tom Franczyk 56 Thomas Paine, Revolutionary Humanist Thomas S. Vernon

Editor: Paul Kurtz Associate Editors: Doris Doyle, Steven L. Mitchell, Lee Nisbet, Gordon Stein Managing Editor: Andrea Szalanski Assistant Editor: Robert Basil

Contributing Editors: Lionel Abel, author, critic; Robert S. Alley, professor of humanities, University of Richmond; Paul Beattie, president, Fellowship of Religious Humanists; Jo-Ann Boydston, director, Dewey Center; Vern Bullough, historian, State University of New York College at Buffalo; Paul Edwards, professor of philosophy, Brooklyn College; Albert Ellis, director, Institute for Rational Living; Roy P. Fairfield, social scientist, Union Graduate School; Joseph Fletcher, theologian, University of Virginia Medical School; Antony Flew, philosopher, Reading University, England; R. Joseph Hoffmann, chairman, Department of Philosophy and Religion, Hartwick College, Oneonta, N.Y.; Sidney Hook, professor emeritus of philosophy, NYU; Marvin Kohl, philosopher, State University of New York College at Fredonia; Jean Kotkin, executive director, American Ethical Union; Gerald Larue, professor emeritus of archaeology and biblical history, USC; Ronald A. Lindsay, attorney, Washington, D.C.; Delos B. McKown, professor of philosophy, Auburn University; Howard Radest, director, Ethical Culture Schools; Robert Rimmer, author; Svetozar Stojanovic, professor of philosophy, University of Belgrade; Thomas Szasz, psychiatrist, Upstate Medical Center, Syracuse; V. M. Tarkunde, Supreme Court Judge, India; Richard Taylor, professor of philosophy, Union College; Sherwin Wine, founder, Society for Humanistic Judaism

Editorial Associates: James Martin-Diaz, Thomas Flynn, Thomas Franczyk

Executive Director of CODESH, Inc.: Jean Millholland Book Reviews: Victor Culotta Associate Director of Public Relations: Barry L. Karr

Systems Manager: Richard Seymour Typesetting: Paul E. Loynes Layout: Alain Kugel Audio Technician: Vance Vigrass

Staff: Norman Forney, Steven Karr, Jacqueline Livingston, Valerie Marvin, Alfreda Pidgeon

FREE INQUIRY (ISSN 0272-0701) is published quarterly by the Council for Democratic and Secular Humanism (CODESH, Inc.), a nonprofit corporation, 3159 Bailey Avenue, Buffalo, NY 14215. Phone (716) 834-2921. Copyright ©1987 by CODESH, Inc. Second-class postage paid at Buffalo, New York, and at additional mailing offices. National distribution by International Periodicals Distributors, San Diego, California. Subscription rates: $18.00 for one year, $32.00 for two years, $42.00 for three years, $3.75 for single copies. Address subscription orders, changes of address, and advertising to: FREE INQUIRY, Box 5, Buffalo, NY 14215-0005. Manuscripts, letters, and editorial inquiries should be addressed to: The Editor, FREE INQUIRY, Box 5, Buffalo, NY 14215-0005. All manuscripts should be accompanied by two additional copies and a stamped, self-addressed envelope. Opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of the editors or publisher. their children to school, and in particular, does the government have a right to force parents to subject their children to various LETTERS TO THE EDITOR influences of which the parents do not ap- prove? In my book, the answer is a resound- ing no, because the forced intrusion of the government into such intimate family mat- Education Battles in Alabama As a humanist, I am happy to try to make ters as the rearing of children is a significant and Tennessee it worthwhile. As a realist, I am not very step along the road to totalitarianism, irre- optimistic that we can succeed. spective of how well meaning or enlightened Corliss Lamont's article, "Naturalistic Big Brother—or, in this case, Big Teacher— Humanism" (FI, Winter 1986/87), was accu- F. Norman Higgs may be. Indeed, in this context, let us not rate but a bit misleading. Sullivan County, Bay City, Mich. forget the words of Thoreau, who declared Tennessee, where I live, abuts Hawkins that, should he see someone coming toward County, where the infamous textbook trial him who wished to do him a good turn, he would involving Vickie Frost was held. All but one Fundamentalist parents condemn fairy tales run for his life. person with whom I have spoken has been like "Goldilocks," "Jack and Jill," and "The Oh, you say, but we only want to teach furious with Frost and the presiding judge. Wizard of or as being destructive to the the students Science and Truth—surely there The case has opened a can of worms and thinking and morals of our young people. could be no harm in that! But you forget will further impair an already deficient After coming out of one of the most one thing, as J. B. R. Yant has so aptly school system, and will probably have ill fanatical sects of fundamentalism, I'm here stated, "Truth is a matter of opinion." effects for others throughout the country. to tell you that there is nothing more Most parents are resentful that their children destructive to the morals and well-being of John Bryant will not receive an in-depth education in the our young people than the Bible. At one South Pasadena, Fla. arts because of the elimination of `objection- time I had a book called My Book of Bible able" material from the curriculum for all Stories, which was a book printed especially students. The entire fiasco appears to be an for youngsters. A picture accompanied each On Creationism attempt to introduce religion into the school story. There were pictures of Cain killing system via the "back door," in defiance of Abel, the Flood, in which people were My husband and I have been reading your the Supreme Court. scratching and clawing at the Ark as they magazine for about a year, feeling comforta- drowned, Sodom being destroyed by fire, bly distant in our academic and professional William P. Templeton, M.D. Abraham trying to cut Isaac's throat, Jonah environment from creationists and other Kingsport, Tenn. being swallowed by a fish, King Solomon Bible-mad deviants. However, a distressing holding a baby by his heels and threatening episode recently revealed to me the extent to cut him in half, Samson pulling down of their grasp. As Paul Kurtz reports in "The New Inquisi- the temple on himself and everyone else I am a classicist and a member of the tion in the Schools" (FI, Winter 1986/87),, (blind because his eyes had been poked out American Philosophical Association, which the resurgence of fundamentalism in spite by his enemies), the Egyptians drowning in held its annual meeting in San Antonio last of overwhelming scientific evidence render- the Red Sea, the Israelites slaughtering the December in conjunction with the Archae- ing its basis as untenable is a very puzzling Canaanites, and on and on, finally ending ological Institute of America. Although I phenomenon. One explanation may be found with the typical picture of Christ dying on a am not an archaeologist, I attended an AIA in the notion that the mind is a separate, torture stake for our sins because God session titled "Time and Chronology: Con- independent entity from the brain. It's diffi- needed a human sacrifice for atonement. No trasting Views of Creationists and Evolu- cult to accept that the mind is a function of matter how it is presented, the fact is that tionists." The title alone, indicating with the the brain, especially since it rules out the the Bible simply is not suitable reading word evolutionist that a doctrine or point idea of immortality. In addition, increas- material for young people, or people of any of view was to be discussed, rather than a ingly, scientific evidence has reduced the cos- age for that matter. discipline or science, lowered my respect for mic significance of the individual to zero. this otherwise excellent professional organi- Significance being very important to happi- Gaila Noble zation. The speakers were father and son, ness, it is not too surprising that human Phoenix, Ariz. H. M. and J. D. Morris, of the Institute for beings grasp any straw promising more than Creation Research (a leap of the imagination temporal life on earth. —what is there to research?). What really In fact, as a humanist, I have felt like a As a long-time humanist and atheist, I have bothered me was not the content of their child who has learned there is no Santa observed with interest your fervor in de- presentation but the fact that they were Claus but is reluctant to disillusion younger nouncing the recent court decision upholding getting free credentials by addressing such a children who still believe. Ignorance may the right of religious fundamentalists to for- group. not be bliss, but it may be better than noth- bid public schools to expose their children It was mind-boggling—not only to me, ing for those who bear tremendous burdens to books that offend their beliefs. What I who was aware of his inaccuracies and ex- in life and do not have the fortitude to accept find most interesting is that you are totally pected (thanks to FREE INQUIRY) fiddling the grim fact that this life is all we have. I ignoring—or are ignorant of—the real issue with the observed facts, but to people who myself am not persuaded that we can con- in this controversy. came away overwhelmed by the pace and vince our believing fellow citizens that, if It is simply this: Does the government the tone of the presentation. I talked to one this life is all there is, it is worth the effort. have an ethical right to force parents to send (Continued on p. 60)

Spring 1987 3 Editorials

The Affirmations of Humanism: A Statement of Principles and Values

e have been on the barricades in emerge on the frontiers of knowledge and immeasurably to the betterment of human Wrecent years, defending the secular social change. The puzzles created by ex- life on this planet. outlook and the values of a free society panding medical technology and biogenetic • We believe that an open and pluralistic from unrelenting attack by a bewildering engineering can hardly be resolved by quot- society assures freedom and opportunity for alliance of biblical fundamentalists and ing biblical clichés from an earlier epoch in the greatest number of people and that ultraconservatives. Indeed some of our human history. Although there is no one democracy is the best guarantee of protecting readers have criticized FREE INQUIRY for humanist position on many of the issues in human rights from authoritarian elites and being too defensive. We therefore feel it is medical ethics, there are rational methods repressive majorities. time to restate our belief that humanism for examining them, of tolerantly consider- • We are committed to the principle of provides a constructive, benevolent alterna- ing opposing arguments. Humanist debate, the separation of church and state and tive to absolutistic theologies that subvert unlike religious debate, is open-ended. actively resist efforts to impose dogma or confidence in the power of human reason, Humanism does not provide absolute ideology by political power. good will toward those with different beliefs answers, but is a method of discovery and a • We cultivate the arts of negotiation or cultures, and the ability to build a more means of constructive dialogue. The evolu- and compromise as a means of resolving dif- peaceful and prosperous world. tion of scientific understanding illustrates ferences and achieving mutual understand- Humanism is not a dogma, nor is it a this clearly. For example, when in the early ing. The resort to force and violence is creed. It is an outlook, a method, a stance days of this century Einstein's physics chal- anti-humanistic. that affirms our attachment to nature and lenged Newton's, there were no pickets, no • We focus on what we can do to make life. Its roots go back to classical times: condemnations, no battles. Neither dogma the world a better place in which to live. Many of the values we cherish—democracy, nor religiosity could resolve what scien- We are concerned with securing justice and freedom of speech, the scientific method, and tifically obtained evidence and a mutually fairness in society and with eliminating dis- economic progress—were sired by human- acceptable formulation of the problem could; crimination and intolerance. istic thought, which rebelled against the similarly for all other fields of inquiry in the • We believe in supporting the disadvan- divine right of kings, oppressive cultural rule social and biological sciences, and in prob- taged and the handicapped so that they will by chosen elites, and the occult obscurantism lems of values where hypotheses are con- better be able to help themselves. that the churches passed off as knowledge sidered and tested by reason and evidence. • We attempt to transcend divisive paro- of the cosmos. The now-almost-limitless chial loyalties based on race, religion, horizon of our world was achieved by the n spite of the tentative and constantly nationality, creed, class, or ethnicity, and rationality and courage of our humanistic I expanding character of humanism, we strive to work together for the common good predecessors. do have a set of principles and values, which of humanity. Although we appreciate the While those who oppose free thought it would be well to reaffirm at this time: rich diversity of nations and cultures, we have unfairly maligned secular humanists, • We are committed to the application recognize that we are all part of the world attributing to them a doctrinaire set of be- of reason and science to the understanding community. liefs, history has shown that the humanist of the universe and to the solving of human • We are captivated by the beauty of agenda is complex and continually evolving. problems. nature. We want to protect and enhance the What is perhaps most notable about human- • We deplore efforts to denigrate human earth, to preserve it for future generations, ism is that it seeks to reconcile the ever- intelligence, to seek to explain the world in end to avoid inflicting needless suffering on more-perplexing riddles of our modern supernatural terms, and to look outside other species. world by a process of rational inquiry. Tra- nature for salvation. • We believe in enjoying life here and ditional theologies have shown themselves • We believe that scientific discovery and now and in developing our creative talents to be incapable of solving the problems that technology, if used wisely, can contribute to their fullest. We also believe that living

4 FREE INQUIRY the good life means developing moderation, principles and values are not God-given but cosmos. temperance, and the ability to prudently are tested by their consequences in human • We are skeptical of untested claims to balance our needs, desires, commitments, life. knowledge, but we are open to novel ideas and values. • We are deeply concerned with the and seek new departures in our thinking. • We believe in the cultivation of moral moral education of our children. We want • We affirm humanism as a realistic excellence. It is our conviction that it is them to be wholesome, loving, and responsi- alternative to theologies of despair and ide- possible to achieve a joyous and happy life ble human beings. We want them to reach ologies of violence. This life need not be a for ourselves and our fellow human beings their highest potential as individuals, to tragic vale of tears devoid of meaning and and to improve the conditions of human make wise judgments, to have control over hope. Humanism is a source of rich personal life for the benefit of all. their lives, to function as productive citizens significance and of genuine satisfaction in • We respect the right to privacy. Mature in society, to expand their horizons of learn- service to others. Humanism is progressive, adults should be allowed to fulfill their ing, and to be sensitive to needs of others. adventurous, outgoing, creative, and exu- aspirations, to express their sexual prefer- We want to nourish their ability to reason berant. ences, to exercise reproductive freedom, to and be compassionate. • We believe in optimism rather than have access to comprehensive and informed • We are engaged by the arts no less pessimism, hope rather than despair, learn- health-care, and to die with dignity—in than by the sciences. Poetry, music, drama, ing in the place of dogma, truth instead of short, to live as free persons, so long as they and the fine arts are a source of heightened ignorance, joy rather than guilt or sin, toler- do not infringe on the rights of others. awareness and significant enrichment. ance in the place of fear, love instead of • We believe in the common moral de- • We are citizens of the universe, im- hatred, compassion over selfishness, beauty cencies: altruism, integrity, honesty, truthful- pressed by the great adventures in modern instead of ugliness, and reason rather than ness, responsibility. Humanist ethics is science. As we probe into the nature of sub- blind faith or irrationality. amenable to critical, rational guidance. atomic particles, evolving life forms, and As humanists we believe in the fullest There are normative standards that we dis- distant galaxies, we are excited by the possi- realization of the best and noblest that we cover in working and living together. Moral bilities of discoveries still to be made in the are capable of as human beings.—Paul Kunz

ones resulted in those provisions that led to The U.S. Constitution the counting of a slave as three-fifths of a person. It took a civil war to rectify this evil, but without such a compromise the Two Hundred Years of Secular Thinking Constitution would probably not have been accepted. Another negotiation assured that all states, regardless of the size of their to "make no law respecting an establishment populations, would have fair representation We, the People of the United States, in of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise in Congress. order to form a more perfect Union, thereof." Although the framers of the Constitution establish justice, ensure domestic tranquil- The framers of the Constitution, who could not anticipate the technological and ity, provide for the common defense, pro- economic changes of the nineteenth and mote the general welfare, and secure the included George Washington, Alexander blessings of liberty to ourselves and our Hamilton, Benjamin Franklin, and James twentieth centuries that led to a world quite posterity do ordain and establish this Madison, recognized the potential for good unlike the one in which they lived, wrote, Constitution for the United States of that exists in all of us, but followed their and worked, their genius was to make pro- America. rational skepticism by incorporating safe- visions for what they could not know. So guards to prevent any of us from gaining when Attorney General Edwin Meese looks his year, Americans are celebrating the too much power. They established guidelines to the "intentions" of these great men as a Ttwo-hundredth anniversary of one of and principles but had confidence that future way of sponsoring reactionary policies that the greatest secular-humanist documents of generations would be able to work out threaten our most basic rights, he violates all time—the U.S. Constitution. Written in details through local statutes and congres- the Constitution's spirit in a profound and 1787, adopted in 1789, and amended by the sional legislation. And in order to ensure shameful way. Bill of Rights in 1791, it represents much that the legislative and executive branches To be sure, the most serious threat to that is the best in humanist thinking. could not abuse their authority, they estab- this skeptical, pragmatic triumph of human The Constitution is nontheistic in that it lished the judiciary as an equal branch of reason comes from the same kind of absolu- assumes that men and women can solve their government and opened the door for the tist and doctrinaire groups the framers re- problems without the assistance of divine practice of "judicial review," which has al- belled against—and they now threaten the intervention. It prescribes that legislative, lowed the Supreme Court to strike down very existence of secular humanism as well. executive, and judicial office-holders "be unconstitutional laws. We can gain comfort, perhaps, from the fact bound by oath or affirmation to support The very process of drafting the Con- that in the past most such groups have either this Constitution," but makes explicit that stitution emphasized the humanist virtues disappeared or given way to a kind of this oath is to a human community, not to of negotiation and compromise rather than grudging tolerance for the views of others. any higher power: "No religious test shall adherence to dogmatic or eternal authority, Let us hope that this will happen again. But ever be required as a qualification to any a fact well documented by James Madison's in the meantime we must emphasize the office or public trust under the United Debates in the Federal Convention of 1787. secular-humanist elements of the Constitu- States," a promise that was extended by the Inevitably, some compromises were more tion whenever and wherever we can.— Vern First Amendment, which enjciins Congress successful than others. The most notorious Bullough

Spring 1987 5 These new centers should and will pose a fresh agenda that's wholly independent of Friendship Center Report the tug-of-wars demagogues thrive on. Most vital, and exciting, will be the elaboration of the secular-humanist alterna- tives—in morality, politics, sexuality, and education. "We don't promise everlasting Robert Basil life, or heaven, or the certainty of unchang- ing truth," said one Buffalo Friendship Center member at the inaugural meeting. REE INQUIRY has received hundreds of functions, and debates. "It's really important "And it would be dishonest to say that Fqueries regarding the founding of that we take our case to the public, rationally presenting replacements as immediately at- secular-humanist Friendship Centers— and tolerantly," says McVeigh, "affirming tractive or satisfying will be an easy thing to regional groups devoted to fellowship and that we have taken a strong stand on what do. But it is, ultimately, an experiment that free thought—as outlined in past issues of we profess. This gives people encourage- will work." this magazine by Bob Wisne, Vern Bullough, ment." Meeting now in a local Unitarian In Buffalo, the group has taken on a and Tom Flynn. facility, members of Albany's Friendship political focus. In November, members "I truly believe that we are at a historic Center envision purchasing their own build- helped fight and reverse a local school-board juncture," says FREE INQUIRY contributing ing, perhaps even setting up a radio station ban on a social-studies book that had been editor Vern Bullough. "We are taking a sig- there. "But we are beginning small, and we're deemed godless. And on January 29 they nificant step forward in creating an entirely going step by step," he says. "We are trying convened their first full-scale public meeting new conception of the humanist movement to avoid big meetings in empty halls, or with an invigorating symposium celebrating in the United States—indeed, in the world." going for the large numbers just to look Thomas Painé s birthday. The Buffalo cen- What is a secular-humanist Friendship good. Our interest is in attracting the kind ter, in addition to scheduling dinners, pic- Center? "They can be study groups that of people, diverse as they are, who read and nics, and entertainment nights, is building a bring the best critical scholarship to the talk about the issues discussed in FREE reading room and a radio-TV resource scrutiny of claims of religions, mystics, and INQUIRY." center. "We are especially enthusiastic about the Bible," Bullough notes. "Or they might A married couple from Tullahoma, bringing young people in," says local chair- have open public meetings with speakers on Tennessee, concurs. "Our hope," they write, man Keith Randolph, who spoke at the topics of special interest to humanists. Some "is that in joining this kind of organization Buffalo opening. "It's important to have might want to be more aggressive in re- we would have the opportunity to make functions that include the whole family." sponding to faith-healers and ultraconserva- friends who have the same values we do. Also in the works is a referral service that tive evangelists and to attacks on the We live deep in the Bible Belt, alone with will assist members in locating secular separation of church and state, or they might our critical natures, and that's made it very social-service counselors. go directly to the media in attempting to get difficult to have true friends here." And a In Los Angeles, James Christopher has the secular-humanist viewpoint aired. And, woman from Massachusetts observes, "It is founded a Secular Sobriety Group, an op- just as important, these centers can have a very frustrating to be the only one in a group tion for those who have been turned off by key role in replacing traditional churches. who has rejected the intolerably undemo- the theistic doctrines of Alcoholics Anony- What people most want is a sense of com- cratic, autocratic, and misogynistic institu- mous. (See his article on page 7.) This munity with like-minded individuals." tions of the present day. So I'm anxious to venture has found quick success, and many According to Hugh McVeigh, who is enlarge my circle of friends to include those others are planning to adapt Christopher's now forming a center in the Albany, New who don't believe in any sacred hierarchy model to groups in their own areas. York, area: "People are happy and amazed or rigid dogmas. The many holidays and To be sure, the speed with which human- that so many groups are starting up. For as rites of passage that are wonderful and warm ist centers are taking off is not really surprising. long as I've been a part of the freethought would be so much more meaningful to me For a long time, nonreligious people have movement, people all over the country have if I could share them with others who find been eagerly looking for a place to gather told me, '1 feel that I'm all alone, living on the religious domination of such holidays with others of like mind. As one FREE an island surrounded by intolerant, single- distasteful." INQUIRY reader puts it: "Our longterm goals mindedly religious people.' But in fact," says Friendship Centers will be an essential can best be served by unifying our too-often McVeigh, "they are almost never really alternative to such institutions, and will pro- solitary efforts." alone. Because when you check the mailing vide a forum for inquiry into issues not being FREE INQUIRY will serve as a clearing- list of a magazine like FREE INQUIRY you discussed elsewhere. All too often we permit house, putting potential Friendship Center most often find at least two or three people those we oppose to set the terms of the members in touch with one another. Our staff living within the same zip-code area." debate, or allow the media to reduce our is in the process of assembling a packet of The Albany group is planning a variety thinking to the level of some crude cartoon. materials for those who are organizing cen- of activities, including cable television ap- That is not to say that we should let up on ters. It will include lists of local FREE pearances, booths at fairs, parties, children's the fundamentalists, the faith-healers, the INQUIRY subscribers, news from other cen- cynical prophets, the creationists, or the ters, and a handbook specifically written to Robert Basil, FREE INQUIRY's assistant powerful and wealthy religious institutions, help founders plan meetings, deal with the editor, is the Friendship Center National because politically they remain much too media, locate speakers, publish a newsletter, Coordinator. influential. But rhetorically they are empty. devise a budget—or just get the ball We've won those arguments convincingly. rolling. •

6 FREE INQUIRY Can a Secular Humanist Coexist in While AA is nominally nonreligious and open to all, we know all too well how a Alcoholics Anonymous? religious majority can step on the nonreli- gious minority's toes with impunity. This attitude, I believe, is responsible for several Robert Meyer hundred thousand prospective members being "turned off" to AA, many of whom will never find the sober life they desperately 66M name is Bob, and I'm an alco- humanist alcoholics are presented with a seek. holic." That is how 1 introduced dilemma because (1) AA has a religious However, let's not throw the baby out myself at Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. orientation, and (2) all recovering alcoholics with the bathwater; rather, let's make AA Having had nearly ten years of sobriety with need some type of support group to maintain live up to its own tenets. I know that the AA's help, it was with some trepidation that sobriety. changes I would like to see in AA will I quit attending meetings six months ago. One solution to this dilemma is to ven- probably not happen in this century or in My problem was with AA's religious ture off in a new direction, abandoning the my lifetime. But the same could be said of orientation. When I first joined AA, I was AA network. This tack is not very practical, the secular-humanist movement. So, as a assured that it was a "spiritual," not a reli- especially for those of us who do not live in practical matter, to survive the necessary gious, program. I wasn't totally convinced a metropolitan area. regimen of AA meetings, I will try to re- by that claim; but, with no other alternatives The other alternative is to work within member the positive aspects of AA's "reli- at the time, I suppressed my antireligious the AA system to change it. Admittedly, gion": beliefs in order to go along with the AA this will be an uphill battle. Some things 1. AA does not promote belief in sin, program. Any port in a storm, right? I'm planning to do: (1) attend AA meetings heaven, and hell. Naturally, 1 was ecstatic to discover FREE again, but (2) not participate in the Lord's 2. AA does not require a belief in any INQUIRY last year and find out that 1 have Prayer at the close of meetings, (3) express specific "Higher Power" (HP). AA groups really been a closet secular humanist all my desire for religious neutrality in meetings, encourage newcomers who have a problem along. Two of its recent articles—James (4) write articles for the Grapevine (AA's with "God" to use the group of sober AA Christopher's "Sobriety Without Supersti- publication), and (5) convene a secular members as their "HP." So, it is possible tion" (Summer 1985) and Donald G. Sim- humanist meeting. for an agnostic to swallow most of the AA mermacher s "A Humanist Alternative to It is indeed improper for AA to have program. Alcoholics Anonymous" (Spring 1986)— any religious orientation, for the following 3. Most religions overtly incorporate helped relieve my feelings of solitude in the preamble/disclaimer is read at most meet- guilt and fear in their doctrine in order to battle for freedom from religion at AA ings: "AA is not allied with any sect, denom- control their followers' behavior. In contrast, meetings. These articles argued that secular ination, political organization or institution, AA tries to eliminate guilt and fear from does not wish to engage in any controversy, the alcoholic's life. neither endorses nor opposes any causes." 4. AA espouses many humanistic values Robert Meyer lives in South Lake Tahoe, Also read is AA's Third Tradition: "The only and promotes the belief that continued California. requirement for AA membership is the desire sobriety depends on one's own human ef- to stop drinking." forts. •

provide such a defense. His defense must Secular Sobriety Groups: come from a Higher Power." In addition, AA's understanding of alcoholism itself is damagingly out of date. Clinical studies have A Thriving Alternative established that there is no such thing as an "alcoholic personality." Alcohol is "selec- tively addictive"—nonalcoholics don't have James Christopher a patent on willpower, they simply do not become physiologically addicted to the drug. Yet AA's Big Book reflects none of these its inception in 1935, Alcoholics pantheists, atheists, and freethinkers who new scientific findings and continues to SinceAnonymous (AA) has helped legions cannot in honest conscience accept AA's depict alcoholics as childish personalities and of individuals recover from alcoholism. But concept of an intervening God or "Higher emotional cripples. By pinning the blame there are between ten and fifteen million Power" in their lives. on the alcoholic's flimsy spiritual spine, AA alcoholics in the United States, according to To be sure, AA does claim to welcome tends to increase his or her feelings of guilt its own statistics, who don't attend AA for membership anyone with a desire to stop and shame. meetings. No doubt many of these are skep- drinking, but its Big Book puts an insur- Newly sober alcoholics, who are hanging tics, agnostics, secular humanists, deists, mountable philosophical obstacle in the way onto their fragile lives as tightly as they can, of many. "The alcoholic," it reads, "at certain may be ready to consider any philosophy or James Christopher is currently at work on times has no effective mental defense against religion, no matter how debasing, incorrect, the first drink. Except in a few rare cases, a book called Sobriety for Heretics. or personally unsavory it is. I call this the neither he nor any other human being can "grateful syndrome." For instance, I came

Spring 1987 7 to my position of unbelief gradually, as a and light snacks, printing, and mailing. others offer their full names, telephone num- sober alcoholic. But I was too timid—indeed, The Secular Sobriety Group (SSG) has bers, and even business cards. too terrified—to challenge the group, lest I been publicized in a number of area news- Although we welcome all alcoholics to lose my precious sobriety. papers and on local radio stations—at no our meetings, our approach is especially Today AA officially recognizes agnostics charge because of our nonprofit, grass-roots attractive to the nonreligious. and atheists—after many years of passionate status. The response has been most gratify- Lives are being saved, extended, made campaigning by its nonreligious membership ing: We have been receiving an average of fruitful. There are no gods or goblins at our —in controversial meetings called "We two telephone calls a day. The callers range meetings. No belief in a "Higher Power" or Agnostics." Although the Lord's Prayer has from recovering alcoholics (and their family adherence to any party line is required for been deleted, these liberal gatherings are, in members) to humanist therapists inquiring sobriety. Our bond is a human one, natural reality, good old AA meetings, loaded with on behalf of alcoholic clients, all in search but not supernatural, and so is our health religion, superstition, and mysticism. of an alternative approach to AA and other and success. We value free thought over So where can secular alcoholics go for religious alcohol-and-drug-addiction support mind-control and over mindlessness. Yet group support without sacrificing their in- groups. most of all we celebrate and support all tegrity and conviction? Alcoholics attending our group meetings alcoholics in achieving and maintaining In Los Angeles, in November 1986, I cover a hroad spectrum, from the newly sobriety, regardless of their belief or non- convened a Secular Sobriety Group. We rely sober to those of us who have been sober belief. on rational intelligence and human emotions for many years. Members include carpenters, As a sober alcoholic since April 24, 1978, and have shown by the success we've had so social workers, actors, office clerks, athletes, this is all quite exciting to me. far that one need not be mystical to be nurses, and schoolteachers. We are keeping We now have a box for queries from merry, or go from grog to God in order to the structure of our meetings loose and FREE INQUIRY readers: refuse a drink. dogma-free. We simply stress the life-and- We've been meeting in a local Parks and death necessity of alcoholics' staying sober, SSG Recreation facility every Monday evening and we encourage one another to cultivate P.0. Box 15781 at eight o'clock. Our gatherings there are an internal freedom from alcohol and other North Hollywood, CA 91615-5781 informal; to provide a relaxed atmosphere, mind-altering drugs—no matter what hap- they're lit by candles. We have neither dues pens in our lives that might contribute to a Or you may call SSG at 818-980-8851. • nor fees and ask only for small donations to relapse. help defray the costs of room rental, coffee Some of our members prefer anonymity;

about you. Can you imagine any place in Our Godless Supermarkets the land where his absence is more keenly felt? Godless souls fighting over empty carts, shoving their way down aisles, ripping off Arthur Hoppe more plastic vegetable bags than they plan to use.... You would never see such an unruly mob scene in any decent church." was in the middle of aisle 9, rattling a to provide a moment of silent prayer—or "That's true," I had to admit. I box of puppy biscuits in either hand to meditation, if you prefer—in our nation's "And if you feel that they are all pos- determine which was the fullest, when I supermarkets," he said. "It would be purely sessed by devils in here," he pressed on, noticed a middle-aged couple staring at me. voluntary, of course." "think how they act in the parking lot." "You wanted a box?" I asked, offering "I don't know," I said. "If everyone were "Animals," I was forced to agree. "They them the one that rattled loudest. standing around with their heads bowed, I'd act like animals." "We were hoping you might join us here feel pretty conspicuous banging about be- He nodded. "I sometimes doubt that even by the relish and pickles in a moment of hind my cart in vegetables, looking for the Our Lord could make Christians out of silent prayer," said the man, who was wear- last good tomato." supermarket shoppers." ing a clerical collar. The man frowned. "I don't think you I left the good couple singing "Throw "I prayed at the office," I said nervously. understand," he said. "It is crucial to the Out the Lifeline" as other shoppers gave "We felt that you might be searching for survival of our great nation that we get God aisle 9 a wide berth. And rightly so. Despite something, brother," said the woman, who back into the supermarkets." all those convincing arguments, you'd never wore black bombazine. "Who threw him out?" I asked. catch me praying in a supermarket. The "Well," I said, "I was wondering where He glanced over his shoulder. "The secu- concept's ridiculous. Let's confine prayer to I'd find the kitty litter." lar humanists," he said sotto voce. "They the churches, I say, where God can see that "I was speaking of Divine Grace, have gained control of the Supreme Court we're all behaving properly. brother," she said. and are attempting to sap the moral fiber of "That'll be $59.22," said the clerk, inter- "I'm not sure," I said, "but I don't think our nation's shoppers by keeping God out rupting my reverie. that's in aisle 9." of Safeway, Lucky, Alpha Beta, and Piggly I told him to toss in a lottery ticket. "Surely you will join us in our crusade Wiggly." "Dear God," I muttered as I scratched the "To tell the truth, I didn't know he was back, "make it enough to pay for the Arthur Hoppe is a columnist for the San missing," I said. "Maybe if you put him on groceries." • Francisco Chronicle. a milk carton...." Copyright 1986 Chronicle Publishing Company. Reprinted by per- "Not missing?" he demanded. "Look mission of the author.

8 FREE INQUIRY ment was, in essence, moral treatment, not Vatican Sexology too different from psychiatric talk therapy. It did not succeed. In the very recent period, therefore, following the precedent established in 1966 at the Johns Hopkins Hospital (Money, 1970), psychotherapy for priestly sex offenders has been augmented with anti- John Money androgenic hormonal therapy with medroxy- progesterone acetate. In resorting to hormonal therapy for otally without fanfare, and quite pos- lack of erotic attraction to women may pass priestly sex offenders, the church has in fact sibly without the knowledge of fore- for moral purity. For those who are not T admitted that its own time-honored moral sight, American Catholicism has precipitated only homosexual but also, as pedophiles, procedures and penances for the control of a revision of the Vatican position on sex. attracted to young boys, their vocation as human sexual behavior are insufficient. It is No longer will sex be exclusively in the priests camouflages this attraction and any necessary to resort also to a medical pro- province of moral theology, penance, and sexual interaction that may ensue. atonement. It will also be in the province of In the Middle Ages, all people were held cedure. By calling on medicine, the church biomedical theory, diagnosis, and treatment. accountable to the church for their sexual has relinquished some of its own absolute Momentous in its implications, this change proclivities and behavior. The church had authority. The thin edge of the wedge has has been brought about by priests with the total jurisdiction, even to the point of burn- been inserted. The church may never be able paraphilic syndrome of pedophilia (Money, ing people alive at the stake. It is this former to claim absolute authority in sexual matters 1968) who have been charged as child power of total jurisdiction, carried over to again. molesters under the jurisdiction of the secu- the twentieth century, that has allowed the lar law of the state, not the canon law of church to act as if independent of the secular References the church. law in dealing with the sexual transgressions Just as the church has long known that of its own priesthood. In the case of pedo- Berry, J. 1985. "The Tragedy of Gilbert Gauthe." the priesthood has its fair share of the prob- philia, regional policies have differed. Public Lafayette, La., Times. Part I, May 23, pp. pp. 18-28; Part 2, May 30, pp. 16-25; Part 3, lem of alcoholism, so also has it known of disclosures in the recent, celebrated case of June 13, pp. 26-33. Father Gilbert Gauthe in Louisiana (Berry, the sexological, not to mention various psy- Money, J. 1986. Lovemaps: Clinical Concepts of chiatric, problems in the priesthood. It has 1985) revealed that the hierarchy had been Sexual' Erotic Health and Pathology, Para- also known that the ecclesiastical policy of dealing with pedophilia as a sin requiring philia, and Gender Transposition in Child- celibacy in the priesthood, whereas it may repentance, forgiveness, and transferral of hood, Adolescence, and Maturity. New York: the offender to another parish. Irvington. prevent marriage, does not guarantee sexual . 1970. "Use of an Androgen-Depleting abstinence. By contrast, it may be conducive Elsewhere, some offenders were referred Hormone in the Treatment of Male Sex Of- to the sexual transgressions of fornication to regional psychiatric centers run by the fenders." Journal of Sex Research, and adultery, not only heterosexually, but church for the priesthood. There the treat- 6:165-172. • also homosexually. Moreover, like any other institution that prohibits or prevents ordinary heterosexual relationships, the church not only encourages homosexual expression but also becomes a CONFUSION FROM AFRICA magnet for youths who enter the priesthood having already recognized their sexual status HERE'S YOUR CHANCE TO ACHIEVE as homophiles, in some instances as homo- A MORAL VICTORY.,, .. A50U5H CONrRACaPTION! philic pedophiles attracted exclusively to younger boys. These future priests become seminarians partly in the belief that they will, through religion, gain control over the very sexual desires that they resist or fight against. Eventually, however, they find that theology, prayer, and penance do not have the answer. On the contrary, the sex- segregated order of the church offers a haven to those who are homosexual, where their

John Money, M. D., is a professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and the Department of Pediatrics at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and Hospital. He is the author of Venuses Penuses (Prometheus, 1986).

Spring 1987 9 ON THE BARRICADES Worldwide Belief in God How do the various citizens of the world News and Views rank the importance of God in their lives? The residents of Malta place the greatest importance upon God, while those of Sweden place the least. Those are the findings of the European Value Systems Group, which has surveyed FREE INQUIRY in the Media Sakharov Freed the citizens of twenty-four nations since 1981. Responses were ranked on a ten-point FREE INQUIRY continues to receive extensive Andrei Sakharov, a member of the Academy scale. press coverage. Members of the editorial of Humanism, has been freed from his exile After Malta, with a rating of 9.58, the staff have been widely interviewed, especially in Gorki. He is continuing to defend civil countries whose citizens placed high impor- for stories on the increasing popularity of liberties, the right of Soviet citizens to emi- tance on God were Mexico (8.98), Chile belief in reincarnation and trance-channeling grate, and the need to guard against the (8.61), South Africa (whites, 8.55, and (or "The Shirley MacLaine Syndrome," as possibility of nuclear warfare. blacks, 8.45), and the United States (8.21). one witty staffer put it), faith-healing, and The countries following the top five were, secular humanism—topics on which the in decreasing order on the scale: the Repub- magazine has taken strong, informed stands. Canada's High Court lic of Ireland, Northern Ireland, Canada, The Associated Press, the Copley News to Rule on Abortion Italy, Iceland, Spain, Australia, Finland, Service, ABC Radio Press, and National Belgium, Great Britain, West Germany, Public Radio have distributed syndicated The Supreme Court of Canada expects to South Korea, Norway, and the Netherlands. stories, and live radio interviews have been issue a decision this summer on whether cur- The five countries whose residents placed broadcast on the Ed Busch Show in Dallas, rent government restrictions on abortion are the least amount of importance on God were Texas, and twenty-four other cities, and on in accordance with the country's new Charter Hungary (4.84), Japan (4.83), France (4.72), radio stations in Toronto, Calgary, Chicago, of Rights and Freedoms. Denmark (4.47), and Sweden (3.99). Denver, Binghamton, St. Louis, and Minne- In 1969, then—Prime Minister Pierre Tru- apolis/St. Paul. Among the newspapers and deau lifted the country's ban on contracep- magazines that have used FREE INQUIRY as tive information and devices and made Traditional Religious Belief a source or quoted from it are the Detroit abortion legal under certain conditions. An on the Decline in Britain News, Toronto Star, Cleveland Plain Dealer, abortion could only be performed in an Memphis Commercial Appeal, U.S. News accredited hospital, and then only after three The last five years have seen a drop in tradi- and World Report, and Ladies Home doctors agreed that the mother's life or tional religious beliefs among the British, Journal. The current issue of Atlantic health would be endangered if her pregnancy according to a poll by Social Surveys, Ltd. Monthly quotes from the book Women and were to continue. The survey found that, between 1981 and Prostitution, coauthored by FREE INQUIRY Since then, the most controversial figure 1986, the proportion of the population who contributing editor Vern Bullough and his in the abortion debate in Canada has been believe in a personal God declined from 36 wife Bonnie Bullough, in its cover article Dr. Henry Morgentaler. He was one of the percent to 31 percent, and that those who "Heterosexuals and AIDS." first Canadian doctors to perform vasecto- believe that Jesus Christ was the son of God mies, insert intrauterine devices, and provide fell from 52 percent to 48 percent. Fewer contraceptive pills to unmarried women. In today than five years ago believe the Bible 1973, he drew attention to the safety and to be essential to the Christian church efficacy of clinical abortions by publicizing —63 percent compared with 68 percent in IHEU News his successful performance of more than five 1981. thousand abortions. The British remain largely unchanged in The International Humanist and Ethical Morgentaler has been arrested several their skepticism about the existence of the Union (IHEU) has recommended that new times. After the first arrest, he was acquitted devil, hell, and reincarnation. humanist organizations be established by a jury, but the government continued to worldwide. At present there are fifty-nine press charges and he was imprisoned. After such organizations in twenty countries. his release, he was twice more brought to New Church-State Entanglements IHEU's goal is to establish eighty in thirty trial on new charges, and was acquitted by Threaten Public Schools countries by 1990. the jury in each case. After his third jury The next meeting of the IHEU World acquittal, the province of Quebec decided In 1985 the Supreme Court banned the use Congress will be held in Buffalo, New York, to ignore the law and to de facto legalize of public funds to provide remedial educa- in 1988. free-standing abortion clinics. tion for students of parochial schools. How- IHEU also has established an Endow- Morgentaler then opened a clinic in ever, some officials are now attempting to ment Fund with the intention of raising Toronto, where he has been arrested twice. find a way around that ruling. $500,000 to benefit world humanism. Con- The first time, he was cleared by a jury, but For example, the New York School tributions and bequests should be sent to an appeals court declared the verdict invalid Board has proposed to rent space for re- the IHEU Fund, Ouderkhof 11, 3512 EH and ordered a new trial. It is on these cases medial classes at "neutral" sites, at least some Utrecht, the Netherlands. that the Supreme Court will rule. of which have turned out to be religious

10 FREE INQUIRY

institutions. It is also planning to buy mobile School-Prayer Advocate Found Robertson reportedly worked with North units for these classes, which would benefit Guilty of Racketeering to raise funds for the Nicaraguan rebels religious schools. known as the "Contras." Robertson has re- At least the New York Board's most Mobile, Alabama, school board president ferred to North on "The 700 Club" as "a absurd approach to circumventing the ruling Dan Alexander, Jr., who received national born-again Christian." Says North: "I'm has come to an end. At the beginning of the attention for his support of school prayer grateful for the support of my Lord and my school year last fall, parents of special edu- and other religious activities in the public Christian friends." cation students at P.S. 16 in Brooklyn were schools, has been found guilty of eleven told that their children would be transferred counts of racketeering and extortion. He was Oral Roberts's Plea for Life to other schools in the city. It was discovered accused of receiving up to $500,000 in kick- that the public school students were being backs from construction companies and It's safe to say that God will spare Oral relocated to make room for 400 girls from others with whom he did business while Roberts's life. Roberts may even be success- the nearby Beth Rachel School who could serving on the school board. ful in obtaining the funds he wants to back no longer receive publicly funded remedial Alexander, who is also an attorney, has his worldwide medical missionary outreach help at their own school. been sentenced to twelve years in federal program. But he may also be getting a lot But the parents of the girls did not seem prison. He founded the Washington, D.C.- more than he bargained for—in unfavorable to appreciate the great lengths that the board based group Save Our Schools and is the public opinion and the refusal of some sta- had gone to to help their children. They author of the book Who's Ruining Our tions to continue to broadcast his programs. insisted that the girls, members of the strict Schools? In January, Roberts began claiming that Hassidic branch of Orthodox Judaism, be if $8 million were not raised for his mis- kept separate from the non-Jewish children, Does `Contragate' Have sionary program by March, God would take especially the boys. The board then ordered Religious Angle? his life. His approach to fund-raising has the construction of a wall between their drawn criticism from both believers and classrooms and the rest of the school. What do Tim LaHaye, Pat Robertson, and nonbelievers and prompted stations in The "solution" enraged the parents of Lt. Col. Oliver North have in common? They Washington, D.C., and Dallas to drop his the non-Jewish students; they objected to are all members of the Council for National program and stations in other cities to moni- the apartheid-like conditions that were being Policy, a group founded in 1981 to plan tor it. It has also made him the subject of created at the school. Racial tensions be- political strategies and raise funds for right- several Doonesbury comic strips. Even evan- tween the Jews and the Hispanic community, wing causes. gelist Jimmy Swaggart has questioned from which most of the student body came, Both Tim LaHaye and Pat Robertson whether God would really work in this way. were also exacerbated. are past presidents of the organization. The Perhaps the claims of faith-healer As the case started to move through the group's goal, LaHaye has said, is to make Roberts, who a few years ago reported seeing courts, the New York Board relented, and its members' "shared values" dominant in a 900-foot-tall Jesus, have finally gone too the wall came down. But it hasn't given up: domestic and foreign policy. far. It is now researching other ways to provide the girls with remedial education. NI. THIS IS ORAL RoßERTS. a IF You DON'T WANT TIE LORD Americans Have More Faith in the To TAKE ME NOME, CALL TITS Military Than in the Church i-goo NUMBER To MAKE YOUR GENERouS CONTRIBurlon4. For the first time since the Gallup organiza- tion started asking the question in 1973, Americans say that they have more faith in the military than in organized religion. The latest poll was conducted by the NoW SOME. PEOPLE DAVE. Princeton Religious Research Center. Ac- BEEN NlGNLY CRITICAL of ME cording to its findings, the percentage of Americans reporting a great deal of confi- FOR USING TNIS TACTIC dence in the church dropped from 66 percent TO RAISE MONLY _ in 1985 to 57 percent in 1986. At the same time, confidence in the military rose 2 per- cent, to 63 percent. Church leaders expressed shock and sur- prise over their drop in standing, and said that it could be explained by the church's So IF Yo) Do increasing activism on social issues and the WANT THE LORD TO actions of such religious leaders as Jerry TAKE. ME NOME, CALL Falwell and Oral Roberts. DAis O!NER I-Soo NUMBER Americans still ranked the military and To MAKE YOUR the church ahead of the Supreme Court, 6ENERoUs CONTRIBUTION banks, public schools, Congress, newspapers, Wow I ALM1oST, i organized labor, big business, and television. WEUT con. IT

Spring 1987 11 Personal Paths to Humanism

Religious believers have often claimed that a person cannot lead a good, moral life or contribute benevolently to society without the ethical anchors of sacred ritual and institutional dogma. Yet countless humanists lead exemplary moral lives without church attendance or prayer. We have invited several distinguished humanists to share reflections on their personal lives with FREE INQUIRY readers. We will be bringing additional statements to you in the next issue.—Ens.

What Religion Means to Me

B. F. Skinner

grew up in a moderately religious cul- how hard they are to remember. Usually, as

ture. For many years I went to a Pres- I walk, I put the business of the day into I n byterian Sunday school, where a sympathetic some kind of order. and liberal teacher took six of us boys 1 commune with myself again in the hnso

Jo

through lessons supplied by the church, most afternoon while listening to music—the four S. of them, as I remember it, on the Penta- Bs (Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, and Bruck- her teuch. When I was in high school, a watch I top

ner), Mahler, Wagner—in a word, the is had lost was returned to me in what seemed hr Romantics. C I do not read while listening, a miraculous way, and I thought God had but I think about my work; and 1 always by spoken to me. 1 soon lost my faith, however, have a notebook at hand, because that is to though I was rather troubled about it for a Pho when fresh ideas most often make their Like many people, I wonder about number of years. In college I attended com- appearance. When I am at my desk I practice things. How did the world begin? Unfor- pulsory morning Chapel, where our pro- a kind of Zen, as I understand it, putting tunately, we are not in a very good position fessors took turns reading passages from the myself into the best possible condition for to say. We live on one of the smaller planets Bible, especially the parables. Possibly that saying things. Writing is a process of dis- of a small sun in one of the smaller of explains why, at eighty-two, I lead a kind of covery. The paper I complete has almost no millions of galaxies, and it is remarkable religious life. resemblance to the paper I start to write. I that we have made as much sense of the Every day I take communion—not in a learn what I have to say. available facts as we have. We have yet to church with God but with myself in a Science, not religion, has taught me my find many answers, but what we have found Thoreauvian community of one. I do so for most useful values, among them intellectual is more credible than the hypothesis that forty minutes while walking to my office. honesty. It is better to go without answers the world is the handiwork of a creator. At one time I carried a pocket edition of than to accept those that merely resolve How did the creator begin? Shakespeare's sonnets and memorized some puzzlement. I like Bertrand Russell's reply How did living things come into exis- of them as I walked. Occasionally I still to Pascal's wager. Pascal argued that the tence? We are on better ground in answering recite one to myself, always astonished at consequences of believing in God were so that question. Current molecular theories of immense that only a fool would not believe; the origin of life seem to me more plausible B. F. Skinner is professor emeritus of psy- but, said Russell, suppose God values in- than any of those said to have been revealed chology at Harvard University and the tellectual honesty above all else and that he to us by a god. Scientists may someday con- world's leading behavioral psychologist. His has given us shoddy evidence of His exis- struct groups of molecules that will repro- works include the controversial Walden tence and is planning to damn to hell all duce themselves; and, if the molecules do so Two. those who believe in Him only for the sake after undergoing variation, they could evolve of the glittering prizes. into living things.

12 FREE INQUIRY What is man? Here, closer to my own is a sign of grace. What happens, happens, power to intervene in supernatural rewards field, I am less likely to agree with scholarly and we should accept it, no matter how and punishments is the kind of power that or scientific accounts. I believe the human inscrutable the reasons. (Nor do I curse God corrupts, and it is no accident that religion species is distinguished by one thing: through or ask God to curse others for me when I today is so often associated with terrorism an extraordinary step in evolution, its vocal have suffered.) and repression. Even in relatively peaceful musculature came under operant control. I marvel at the intricacy of nature. I look America, religious organizations are trying How that led to language, self-observation, at a tall tree and try to imagine how one to suppress knowledge in our schools, en- and self-management is too long a story to cell at the tip of the topmost leaf could have courage the birth of unwanted children, be told here, and it is not a fully satisfying found its way there. I see the orioles in our impose their beliefs upon others through answer; but I think it is better than saying garden returning each spring from a round political action, and in many other ways that man was created in the image of a trip of thousands of miles and wonder how interfere in peaceful, informed living. creating god. it is possible. Nature is marvelous but not, I I accept the fact that like all living things I often wish I could pray. I want to help think, miraculous. We began to learn more I shall soon cease to exist. For a time, some people, especially those I love. When I my- about it as soon as we stopped regarding it of the genes I have carried will be replicated self cannot help, I wish it were possible to as the work of a god. in my children, and something of me will call upon someone who could. As a child I Religious faiths have been responsible for survive in the books I have written and in called upon my parents, but I no longer beautiful architecture, music, painting, the help I have given other people. Death believe that I can call upon a god as father sculpture, prose, and poetry. They have held does not trouble me. I have no fear of super- (or mother). people together in durable communities. At natural punishments, of course, nor could I I often wish I could say thank you for times they have helped people behave well enjoy an eternal life in which there would good fortune, as I was taught to do as a toward one another and manage their own be nothing left for me to do, the task of child; but I do not believe that good fortune lives more successfully. But the claimed living having been accomplished. •

the preacher, the exegesis (lightened with a Biology's Spiritual Products funny anecdote or two), and then the cli- mactic moment toward which the service had been pointed all along—conversion. With all standing and the choir singing, the E. O. Wilson preacher called for those yet to be saved to come forward down the aisles to declare for Christ. As our faces were lifted and tears y beliefs, by which I mean my view I loved the power of the evangelical songs filled our eyes, the preacher intoned the Mof how the world works from the and services. I can still remember the se- hymn's counterpoint in a soft-breaking top down, originated from an unusual blend quence of events of that remarkable day: chant: "Won't you come? Jesus is calling. of religious and scientific experience. I was opening hymns by the choir, followed by Won't you come?" raised as a fundamentalist Baptist in Ala- prayers, the reading of a biblical passage by It so happened that I was listening to a bama and Florida during the thirties and forties. At fifteen, I accepted Jesus Christ and was officially born again at a baptismal service by being tipped backward under the water. I remember vividly the moment 1 decided on this action. It came, as it has for so many others before and after me, at a revival meeting. A tenor was singing a deeply moving hymn, the back-country equivalent of Haydn and cathedral organs:

Were you there, when they crucified my Lord? Were you there, when they nailed him to the cross? Oh, sometimes it causes me to tremble ... tremble ...

E. O. Wilson is Frank B. Baird, Jr., Pro- fessor of Science at Harvard University and the author of numerous articles and books, including On Human Nature (1978), Socio- biology: The New Synthesis (1975) and The Insect Societies (1971).

Spring 1987 l:t second call at the same time. Partly because toward, but not impressed by, those who cells, is able to perform more than fifty very I was an only child, introverted by nature, claim to draw strength from sources outside different instinctive acts, from the building growing up in small towns close to the humanity. I believe religion and ideology of waxen combs to communication by the woods and shoreline, 1 developed an intense are products of the mind and that they can performance of waggle dances. It can also early interest in biology. I was thrilled by be profitably studied as such. In fact, they memorize the location of five different flower the teeming life around me, by frogs, snakes, are best understood as material phenomena. beds and the hours of the day in which each fish, and the seemingly endless variety of What have we to lose? Who can reasonably bed comes into fullest bloom. If an insect plants and insects in the southern habitats. fault humanity for displaying intellectual can accomplish that much with a brain the By the time I entered the University of courage, or doubt that the best in human size of a sugar grain, it should not be Alabama at the age of seventeen, I was a beings is yet to come? Let us see how high thought scandalous that human beings can devoted entomologist with a large personal we can fly before the sun melts the wax in speak, dream, and experience soaring emo- collection of insects, dreaming of a life in our wings. tions without divine instructions. science. Very soon I encountered the formal Humanism is in the spirit of Prometheus, Of course most people, even if they disciplines of genetics and evolutionary who raised human beings from the animals accept a material basis of the mind, still theory. I came upon a hard truth: 1 saw and tried to set them free. Mysticism and think that the brain could not have arisen that all I had learned and hoped to accom- piety could appropriately take as their on its own. They make an assumption older plish in natural history studies made sense patroness Pandora, who merely transferred than philosophy itself, that a product of high only from the vantage of scientific material- what the gods chose to offer. Scientific quality implies a craftsman of equal or ism. Very little of it could be fitted into the humanism implies that the material content higher quality. Thus the mere existence of a fundamentalist view of the world in which 1 of a human being is awesome in its own human being implies the existence of God. had been indoctrinated. right. Consider the genetic content of a single But the whole thrust of modern biology When an overheated vessel is plunged cell. If the DNA in the forty-six chromo- points in the opposite direction. So far as into cold water, it will crack or be tempered. somes were to be fully stretched out, it would can be determined, life consists of the action I felt I had to choose the path of scientific reach about a meter, half the height of a tall of molecules (immensely complex molecules, materialism to make sense of the real world man. But the material would be invisible, to be sure) and is obedient to the same laws as it now appeared to me in vivid detail. I because the double helix of DNA is a of physics and chemistry that govern the chose to learn as a scientist, but I never super-thin giant molecule. If the double helix nonliving world. Once the genetic code and forgot the power of religion. I never lost were now enlarged until it were as thick as operational proteins are put in place within respect for the sincere feelings of my fellow a favorable environment, tissues and organs southerners, however different from my own. "[My] natural history studies made assemble themselves. Evolution proceeds for Not long ago 1 attended a small service given sense only from the vantage of scien- the most part by natural selection, a blind at Harvard University by Martin Luther tific materialism. Very little of it but creative process that directs change King, Sr., months before his final illness. As could be fitted into the fundamen- millions of times faster than any conceivable the sermon and spirituals rolled me back talist view of the world in which I randomization of molecules. The history of forty years, the tears returned. Somehow the the earth has spanned enough time-4.5 had been indoctrinated." allegiance seemed compatible with the in- billion years—for simple organisms to origi- tellect. a piece of wrapping string, and hence easily nate from nonliving molecules and to pro- Today, I would call myself a scientific seen by the naked eye, it would stretch over liferate into the higher manifestations of life, humanist, someone who believes in humility a thousand miles—say, from New York to including the thousand miles of genetic in- toward other people but not toward the some point past Kansas City. By walking formation, the one-pound brain, and the gods. (Religionists are for the most part from one end to the other, reading off fifty passionate religious faiths that define the oriented the other way around.) A scientific or so nucleotides to the inch, you could human species. humanist in turn is someone who suggests acquire roughly one billion bits of informa- Humanity came this way alone. Evolving that everything in the universe has a material tion, whereas one bit is the amount needed populations of pre-humans diverged from basis. And that means everything, including to know whether a tossed coin comes up the line leading to chimpanzees (with whom the mind and all its spiritual products. 1 heads or tails. If that much information were we still hold about 98 percent of genes in think it probable that mankind evolved then translated into English prose (two bits common) five to ten million years ago and without external direction. We are responsi- to a letter) and printed in letters as large as commenced the steep climb to its present ble to ourselves alone, and this condition those on this page, the script would just state two million years ago. We know few imposes on us both more personal freedom about fill all fifteen editions of the details of the final ascent, and we have only and a heavier obligation toward one another Encyclo- paedia begun to study the interaction between gene- and life on earth than is usual for systems Britannica published since 1768. That is merely the blueprint. One of the tics and culture that powered it. Neverthe- relying on divine guidance. I also believe final products built from the molecular in- less, from what is understood of the general that the only way we will ever really find structions is the human brain, by far the principles of evolution, two million years out about our place in nature is through most verifiably complex structure in the was time enough to produce the complex scientific research. It will not resemble the universe. It comprises about 100 billion architecture that differentiates the human creation myths of traditional religions. neurons, each of which makes hundreds of brain from that of the animal. A natural Rash words, you might say, arrogant. thousands of connections with other creation of humanity is more plausible than The ancient Greeks called it hubris, a neurons. The microscopic anatomy and a supernatural creation. punishable affront to the gods, but I think computing power of this organ has scarcely The autonomous origin of mankind is that we ought to push science and the phi- been mapped. The honeybee, a creature the linchpin of scientific humanism. Yet most losophy of materialism to their limit and one-millionth our size and with a brain com- scientists have tacitly agreed to stand clear not worry about the gods. I am respectful posed of a relatively modest million nerve of the subject. In particular they avoid the

14 FREE INQUIRY most interesting of all human traits: religion. came a saint by promoting Hinduism. who believe otherwise. Like the 1493 papal decree that divided the The idea that something outside our Every person constructs his life around world into Spanish and Portuguese domin- brain is in charge of human destiny is emo- a belief system. Mine has led me increasingly ions, they accept a line of inquiry that places tionally rewarding and worked marvelously to environmentalism, which I try to promote religion on one side and science on the other. well during the heyday of tribes and chief- by means of writing, by service on commit- They do so because the linchpin of religion doms, when communal self-delusion gave a tees and boards devoted to environmental is feeling. How rewarding it is to suspend competitive advantage over other cultures. issues, and, as much as an introverted per- further doubt, to belong to something The need today, if the humanist explanation sonality allows, by activism on behalf of greater than the self, larger than humanity! is correct, is to understand the material particular threatened species and habitats. How tempting it is not to scrutinize those origin of the religious drive and direct it My attention has turned increasingly to the feelings too closely! back to humanity without losing its ability moist forests of the tropics, where the great There is a strong counterargument to the to give power and joy to the human mind. majority of the ten million or more species separation of science and religion. Whether At the close of On Human Nature (1978) I live. Because these remarkable habitats are or not it is correct makes, quite literally, all suggested that the Promethean spirit of sci- being reduced at the rate of about one per- the difference in the world. It goes as fol- ence can liberate man by giving him a more cent a year, thousands and possibly even lows: Religion presides over consecration, secure knowledge of his own meaning. millions of species could be lost during the adult initiation, marriage, and the other rites My interest in the objective study of next half-century. Each species is a wonder of passage, and sees you through the dark human nature was aroused in a roundabout unto itself, worthy of a lifetime of study hours. Faith is woven from powerful emo- way. Since my greatest ambition was to be and contemplation. The native fauna and tions and is virtually built into the emotive an entomologist, I began my career by flora of each country are part of its national centers of the brain. It promotes strength, specializing in the biology of ants. While an heritage, as important as its art and history. survival, the ability to put DNA into the undergraduate at the University of Alabama, I am convinced that they will come to be next generation. The DNA thus favored I conducted some successful research on valued far more by our descendants than prescribes brains capable of such faith. Reli- these insects. As a result 1 was invited to they are by us and that we will someday be gion is ultimately a product of evolution by enter the doctoral program at Harvard in blessed for every species we save as we pass natural selection. Above all, these feelings 1951. 1 joined the faculty in 1956 and have through the current bottleneck of environ- bind us to family and to the tribe. They been there ever since. Over the years, my mental impoverishment. gain added power by being sacralized, in studies expanded to include the social life of It is further true that the chief problems other words reinforced by a supposed divine all kinds of insects, which 1 set out to explain of the developing countries are ultimately power presiding over the welfare of the tribe. by means of modern genetic and evolu- biological in origin. Overpopulation, disease, Our brains are programmed to this extent: tionary biology. In 1971, I published The soil depletion, and habitat destruction are Morality is unconsciously shaped to create Insect Societies, the first book in my "socio- at the base of their tumultuous political and new rationalizations for the consecration of biology trilogy." I then began a still broader social change. These difficulties cannot be the group, the proselytizing role of altruism, survey of the entire animal kingdom, pro- solved merely by industrialization or a and the defense of territory. Human be- ducing Sociobiology: The New Synthesis in change in ideology. A better existence can havior, including the capacities for emotional 1975. The central purpose of the new dis- only come from crops sowed on the land response that drive and guide it, is the cir- cipline, to which this work contributed, was and a redemption of the environment. cuitous route by which human genetic to explain all forms of social behavior as Hence, I feel doubly committed to help save material has been and will be kept intact. the outcome of biological evolution. My these threatened tropical environments. We are religious to survive; we surrender to book met with good reviews and grew into I suppose that my life illustrates the the tribe and its sacred rites in a gamble for that relative rarity, an academic best-seller. observation by Albert Camus that a man's both personal and genetic immortality. It also received a good deal of criticism and work is nothing but "the slow trek to re- In reaching this position (tentatively: it has been the focus of continuing controversy discover, through the detours of art, those is after all only a theory), 1 have departed ever since, because I suggested that much of two or three great and simple images in from most other humanists in stressing that human behavior is under the control of whose presence his heart first opened." The the predisposition to religious belief is the genes. I argued that the core of human confluence of my concerns has become the most complex and powerful drive in the nature, including not only the ability to study of life in all its manifestations, from human mind, an innate and possibly irre- create language and culture but also our the evolution and preservation of organic placeable part of human nature. But this drives and the predisposition to learn certain diversity to the origin of human nature. I does not mean that any particular religious ideas, is prescribed by genes that were am convinced that to act on these beliefs, to code enjoys a divine sanction. Not all who assembled in stepwise fashion over millions pursue humanism through a search for claim such a sanction go so far as to assert of years. In On Human Nature, I explored material knowledge with due respect for the that their religion is superior. But there are the consequences of this updated version of beliefs and feelings of others, is a decent those who do, and they press their belief materialism for religion and moral reason- way to conduct a life. • with self-righteous fanaticism. Ayatollah ing. Khomeini, for example, recommended kill- Yeats once said that to quarrel with ing infidels as "a surgical operation com- yourself produces poetry; to quarrel with E. O. Wilson's article and the following one by manded by God" and religious (actually others, rhetoric. For more than thirty years Steve Allen are adapted with permission from tribal) war as "a blessing for the world." I have struggled inwardly to explain evolu- the book Courage of Conviction, edited by Philip This form of bigotry normally comes in tion by natural selection, which I consider L. Berman of the Center for the Study of Con- softer forms with an aim to protect co- demonstrably true and the only rational temporary Belief. It is published in hardcover by tribalists, proselytize unbelievers, and en- explanation for the diversity of life on earth. Dodd, Mead, and Company and in paperback courage conformity. No Christian ever be- I have tried to avoid quarreling with those by Ballantine Books.

Spring 1987 15 Another common error in thinking about morality concerns the timeless question of whether there is an all-knowing, all-loving, Meeting Human Minds all-powerful god. This, of course, is the inconsistent triad referred to in philosophy. Affirm any one, and it holds that one or the other divine attributes is false or limited. Steve Allen The question itself, obviously, has never been resolved to the satisfaction of the world jury, nor is it the case that only virtuous people uch of my professional and private justice in better balance. This means, in part, believe in the deity and only sinful indi- Mactivity during the past thirty-five that insofar as we are able to control our viduals do not. Most of the world's crimes years has been motivated by the awareness— actions, we ought never to harm another are committed by people who accept the dim at first, but coming gradually into being, which conforms to Cardinal New- existence of God. But some, the faith of sharper focus—that there is no natural jus- man's definition of a gentleman. their childhood having been weakened, as- tice in the universe. There is justice in the It is easy enough to recommend ideals, sume that, if there is no personal, conscious conduct of our affairs, though not nearly whether of modern or ancient creation, but God, there is no particular reason for per- enough of it; but, such as it is, it is all created some of us, observing that ideals are rarely sisting in our efforts to lead moral lives. by human beings. achieved, proceed to the error of considering Dostoevsky, for example, believed that To state this truth in even simpler terms, them worthless. Such an error is greatly if there is no God then anything is permitted. life is unfair. I first felt this in a personal harmful. True North cannot be reached He was mistaken. The debate on the point sense, because I enjoyed far more than my either, since it is an abstraction; but it is of need not be continued in the abstract, for proper share of good fortune. My health enormous importance, as all the world's we have evidence of two of the largest socie- has been generally good, my fellow creatures travelers can attest. Even though we shall ties of all time—those of the Soviet Union have, for the most part, treated me very never be perfectly virtuous, we should still and China—that are officially atheistic. kindly, my work has been generously re- strive to be more virtuous. Even though we Despite their widespread assumption of the ceived, and I have been well compensated can never be perfectly courageous, we should nonexistence of a personal God, we observe for my efforts. But all about me there are strive to be more so. Even though we cannot that it is simply not the case that everything thousands I see—and distant millions I shall be faultlessly compassionate, we should per- is permitted in these two nations. But the never see—who enjoy no such luck. Some severe as far on the road to that ideal as our truth goes farther than that, for, in fact, are doomed physically at the moment of moral frailties permit. much less is permitted than in societies that conception by genetic accident. Others are injured while in the womb. Still others are crippled while undergoing the process of birth. Millions more are struck by injury, disease, or death while still young. And, always, all about us are the poor, the very old, the ill, the brain-damaged, the insane, the blind, the hungry, the countless hordes who suffer in places where the heat is crush- ing or the cold painful. Much of their suf- fering is caused by no human agency, though humans, by such institutionalized forms of cruelty as war and terror, add greatly to it. 1 consider it foolish to believe that such tragedies are imposed by a vengeful deity. Such beliefs are an insult to God, rather than a way of paying proper respect to Him. And, if portions of the more ancient Scrip- tures assert—as they do—that God is bent on bloody revenge and violence, so much the worse for the Scriptures. But, if all this is so, then every human is obliged to oppose it. Every one of us is absolutely required to do what pitiably little we, as individuals, can to set the scales of

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Steve Allen is a television humorist, author, 41 "4"11141. and song writer. He has created and hosted numerous television programs, including the Meeting of Minds.

16 FREE INQUIRY are free and largely democratic. and contradictions. This is as true in religion called the ultimate TV talk-show, whose In any event, if there is a God, holding as it is in politics, and is self-evident to all guests were luminaries like Thomas Aquinas, all power, then He can certainly do a great except fanatics and the naive. St. Augustine, Martin Luther, Socrates, deal to increase virtue and diminish suffering As for the fanatics, whose number is Plato, Aristotle, Francis Bacon, Adam in the world. But, if there is no God, or His legion in our time, we might be advised to Smith, Mohandas Gandhi, Susan B. power is limited, then the entire task is up leave them to heaven. They will not, unfor- Anthony, Florence Nightingale, and Thomas to human beings. And, even if God does tunately, do us the same courtesy. They Jefferson. Such individuals' ideas and labors exist, it should be clear by now, after hun- attack us and one another, and, whatever have greatly influenced our world. I thought dreds of thousands of years, that he is quite their protestations to peaceful intent, the that by expressing their views in conversa- content to leave the necessary work of im- bloody record of history makes clear that tional form I could provide an example of provement to his human agents. The deity they are easily disposed to resort to the the sort of rational and informed dialogue has never yet miraculously introduced into sword. that is in lamentably short supply in the the human drama a hospital, orphanage, My own belief in God, then, is just modern world, except among scholars. Even convent, church, synagogue, temple, cancer that—a matter of belief, not of knowledge. though these visitors from the past were mis- research institute, or any other helpful social My respect for Jesus Christ arises from the guided in many of their views—as in the institution. He leaves that to the more com- fact that he seems to have been the most cases of Karl Marx, Machiavelli, the Mar- passionate of his creatures. May their tribe virtuous inhabitant of Planet Earth. But even quis de Sade, and Attila the Hun—I felt it increase! well-educated Christians are frustrated in was necessary to become familiar with their I believe in mystery, not in any dark- their thirst for certainty about the beloved teachings simply because they are still so shadows-and-incense way, but as a matter figure of Jesus because of the undeniable influential in the world. of fact. The world seems to me absolutely ambiguity of the scriptural record. Such Because I had long argued that our based on mystery. The three most important ambiguity is not apparent to children or society should undertake a formal commit- philosophical questions—those concerning fanatics, but every recognized Bible scholar ment to reason and nurture a respect for God, Time, and Space—remain questions, is perfectly aware of it. Some Christians, wisdom rather than attaching so much credit which is to say no answer to them has ever alas, resort to formal lying to obscure such to blind belief, I wrote and produced a been proposed that convinces all interested reality. record album for children called How to parties. Each has, or seems to have, aspects Think (distributed by the Gifted Children of either-or-ness. The difficulty arises from "Man was not, after all, put on this Newsletter), as well as the thinking game the fact that these three pairs of alternatives, earth primarily to buy philosophical Strange Bedfellows (with educator Robert the six individual answers, are essentially merchandise before examining it, just Allen). I hoped, by those practical examples, as preposterous, so much so that it is easy to as he was not put here to turn out think of objections to them. well as a good many lectures and published For example, if there is no God, then we hit record albums, or to be utterly articles, to suggest the primacy of intellect are left with the profound puzzle of how the irresistible to the opposite sex, to use and the moral sense. Man was not, after all, fantastically massive and intricate machinery cocaine, or to wear the tightest possi- put on this earth primarily to buy philo- of the universe came to exist. But if there is ble jeans." sophical merchandise before examining it, a God, a thousand and one troubling ques- just as he was not put here to turn out hit tions at once present themselves, since the But, if we are forever doomed to a state record albums, or to be utterly irresistible vale of tears we live in is hardly consistent of less-than-perfect knowledge, if many of to the opposite sex, to use cocaine, or to with the premise of an all-loving, all- our beliefs are, in fact, only assumptions, wear the tightest possible jeans. knowing, all-wise creator with his eye on none of this justifies a resort to either From lecture platforms and in personal every sparrow. In reality, all sparrows suffer anarchy or apathy. Just as we say, in the contacts, and even in speaking on television, and die. The creatures of nature survive context of modern science, that it is not I have taken every opportunity to defend largely by eating one another alive. necessary to reinvent the wheel, it is equally rationality and to discourage the idea that it As for Time, either it began one morning, not necessary to reinvent or rediscover the can be achieved with a minimum of effort. say, at 9:27—which is obviously ridiculous— classic ideals. The greatest minds of the ages We should not be deluded that all that or it never began, which appears equally have concentrated their attention on such is needed is a return to good old-fashioned ridiculous. questions. The tragedy is that most of us go common sense. While no one would deny As for Space, either one can go out to to our graves without ever having been ex- the shortage of common sense, we need more the end of it—which is absurd—or it has no posed, however fleetingly, to the wisdom of than that. end, which is equally absurd. the philosophers, saints, and seers around 1 have tried to be specific in encouraging It is possible to do what millions have whose heads at least some helpful illumina- respect for reason, by pointing out, for done, with varying degrees of satisfaction: tion has shone. example, the crucial difference between con- accept one prepackaged philosophy or Having said all this, I should certainly clusive and consistent evidence. Consistent another and try to live by its precepts. A not want to give the impression that I am evidence argues only that we are still on the few individuals, over the centuries, have led an especially virtuous individual. I am, in right track. Conclusive evidence shows we edifying and productive lives by such means. fact, more impressed by my failings, igno- have reached the terminal of that particular But all the saints who ever lived could con- rance, and sins than my pitiably few moral track. vene in one meeting hall of modest dimen- achievements. I can, nevertheless, refer to a I have also attempted to arouse educa- sions. And no philosophy, sadly, has all the few instances when I have practiced what I tors and parents to add a fourth "R" to our answers. No matter how assured we may be preached. One was the creation of the formal process of early education. The four about certain aspects of our belief, there are twenty-four programs of the Meeting of would be reading, 'riting, 'rithmetic, and always painful inconsistencies, exceptions, Minds television series, which a critic has reasoning. It might be objected that you

Spring 1987 17 cannot introduce a six-year-old child to log- whelmingly Christian. Nor must we forget to type, work machinery, pull teeth, maim, ical thinking of a subtle and sophisticated that the Germans at that time were the best- and kill—to perform a remarkable variety nature. Indeed you cannot. By the same educated people in Europe. Despite their of manual and intellectual tasks. But for token you cannot introduce a six-year-old frequent church attendance, scholarly marriage and love, a complex, troublesome, child to calculus or advanced geometry. But studies, and interest in the arts, they suc- and perplexing business for all its rewards, no one ever uses that fact to argue that we cumbed to the appeal of hatred disguised as we prepare them practically not at all. ought not introduce young children to arith- patriotism. This did not happen because they 1 am hardly the first to recommend metic. were German; it happened because they were formal courses to ready young people for As I argued in Beloved Son, a book human. the roles of husband, wife, father, and about my son Brian and the subject of reli- It can hardly be argued that such sadistic mother. But preparing fifteen-year-old boys gious communes and cults, one result of policies and acts were the result of either and girls for marriage is starting at least ten proper early instruction in the methods of education or religious indoctrination, but years too late. Better late than never, as- rational thought will be to make sudden they certainly were the result of the wrong suredly, but the sooner we can get such mindless conversions—to anything—less kind of religious and secular instruction. courses into our schools and churches, the likely. Brian now realizes this and has, after Since we Christians have slaughtered one better. eleven years, left the sect he was associated another regularly for the last two thousand I would not presume to suggest the speci- with. The problem is that once the untrained years, it can hardly be historically surprising fic content of such instruction. Specialists mind has made a formal commitment to a that we would slaughter the Jews; and, in- know what should be taught, and they have religious philosophy—and it does not matter deed, Hitler could at least claim that he did already perceived the wisdom of demanding whether that philosophy is generally reason- not invent such an outrage. A philosophy is the support of the church, legislators, and able and high-minded or utterly bizarre and necessary within which reason and religion educators. irrational—the powers of reason are surpris- This will require the preparation of suit- ingly ineffective in changing the believer's able texts. If a four- or five-year-old can be mind. We must acknowledge that the factual "From lecture platforms and in per- taught to read "See the dog. See the dog record is inconsistent with a significant part sonal contacts, and even in speaking chase the ball. See the ball bounce," why of religious belief, though not with morality. on television, I have taken every could he not learn reading and loving at the If we arbitrarily limit our historical research same time, from a book that would say: to the past five hundred years and examine opportunity to defend rationality and to discourage the idea that it can be "See the dog playing with the little boy. See the particulars of every factual argument that the dog lick the boy's face. The dog loves pitted the church against science, we find achieved with a minimum of effort." the boy. The boy loves the dog. See the boy that science has represented the more rea- run with his father. The mother gives the sonable and correct side of the debate. Con- boy a new toy and hugs him because she sider the pope's recent apology to Galileo. reinforce each other and in which not merely loves him"? But formal instruction in the techniques nominal belief—in either God or science— Human nature has grounds for hope, of reason, beginning at the kindergarten would suffice, but in which the results of because love, in a sense, is inexhaustible. I level, is only half the solution, because the belief are emphasized. This, by logical neces- expressed this insight once, years ago, in a inability to reason is only half the problem. sity, leads to an emphasis on practice, which poem. The other half is the deterioration of the is to say, morality. That this is quite difficult American family, the soil from which each to work out, I know from personal experi- new generation grows. I recommend that ence; and again I do not lecture my fellow God is love, you said. 0r God is electricity. from the same early point our schools, humans from any position of moral super- I do not know what God is. All I hope churches, and other social institutions pro- iority. Is that He knows what I am. Electric vide instruction on personal human relation- I believe that we cannot, in any event, force can be both measured and ships. They ought to teach how to love as learn about love in isolation, as we might diminished. well as how to reason. Just as there are take up other studies in solitude. Almost all Love cannot, at least not in that way. millions who do not think very well, so there religions preach that love is the supreme When the first child was born, I loved it. are millions who do not love well. They may virtue. A few spiritual leaders, perceiving But when the second child was born I constitute the majority. that we are all gifted at loving what pleases found I loved I believe it is not merely enough to us, teach that the highest, most edifying Not half as much but just as much. And when the third arrived, he, too, preach formally the supremacy of love, as forms of love, which might ultimately save the Christian and other religious traditions received full share. So love's a magic the world, involve our regard for those it is force that have done for thousands of years. Such difficult to love, some of whom are our Knows no laws, a well without a bottom, abstract recommendations accomplish noth- enemies. a purse that's never empty. Use your ing. Indeed, they may achieve the opposite We have assumed that the ability to love own cliché of their purpose in that those who hear such is naturally nurtured in the home, and the Just so you get the point. lessons may nod in philosophical agreement, home continues to be the ideal place for assume that our acquiescence automatically teaching it. But the American home, I repeat, And one point more remains to make: puts us on the side of the angels, and then is now a partly failed institution. that like leave our churches and lecture halls only to It is tragic that we train young people The other faculties, the physical, The musical, the social, and the rest, resume our spiteful or vengeful activities. for practically everything except the two Love swells in action. Will sets it aflame; We must never forget that the monstrous most difficult assignments they will ever face: It grows in height, direction, depth, and atrocities committed by the Germans under marriage and parenthood. We train them in kind. Hitler were perpetrated by a populace over- reading, mathematics, science; we train them It is the wise and wholly just investment. •

18 FREE INQUIRY He wasn't "good" because he believed in a god but because he wanted to be an ath- The Night I Saw the Light lete. Slowly it dawned on me that I hadn't been "good" because I believed in a god but

71111111111 JOINIElt because I loved my family and friends, en- joyed my studies and my music, and wanted Gina Allen to prepare myself for all life's possibilities. I have never, ever regretted the night I saw the light. I shall be ever grateful to the first saw the light one night when I was and heaven and hell. young athlete who gave me that Little Blue I sixteen years old. It was initially a very I have since learned that this attitude is Book (and to the publishers of Little Blue small light—the beam from the flashlight not unusual among many who appear to be Books). I have stopped being personally that enabled me to read under the bedcovers religious. They are less concerned with their furious with the Christian religion that when I was supposed to be sleeping. That own spirituality than with the conduct of duped me as a child, but I continue to be night I was reading a Little Blue Book that others. They see themselves as superior, able alarmed at religion when it hurts people, had been given to me by my boyfriend. It to understand their religion as mythology stunts their growth, and practices sexism and was Percy Bysshe Shelley's The Necessity of and still conduct their lives morally. But they racism. Atheism. don't think the ordinary person can do that, When I visit my family I go to church I usually say that until the moment I so they count on religion to keep the masses with them. I cringe through the Apostles' opened the book I was a very religious young under control. Indeed, throughout history Creed. How narrow and restrictive• it is! I woman, but I suppose 1 had actually been such "superior" men have used religion to cringe through the hymns, too. I'm a pacifist, outgrowing my religion for a while. For one regulate their slaves and subjugate women. so "Onward Christian Soldiers" is repugnant. thing, my boyfriend, a freethinker, had been In my first heady release from religion I And "Amazing Grace"—which asks God "to giving me books like this and had been too thought it was the only thing that had save a wretch like me"—shows how destruc- making me defend my religious beliefs— kept me "good." My life would change: 1 tive religion can be of self-esteem. It spreads which I had difficulty doing to his satisfac- could sin. As a teenager, for me the three guilt instead of joy. It denies nature and tion, and my own. great sins were smoking, drinking, and pre- closes minds to scientific knowledge. So I was prepared for Shelley and his marital sex. So except for an annual journey back to atheism even though I didn't know it. And, I told my boyfriend that I had seen the my roots in family and the Presbyterian as I read, the light got brighter and brighter. light. He was glad. He said he thought I church, I have not returned to religion, nor Not from the flashlight I was reading with was too intelligent to stay caught up in reli- have I missed it. My associates since the but from my mind absorbing what I read. gion forever. Then I told him that we could night I saw the light have been people with Shelley's logic shattered, in one memorable sin together. We could drink, and smoke, whom I share common interests and goals, night, all the Sunday school lessons, Bible and have sex. He looked at me as if I were people trying to make this world better, not studies, and sermons I had been exposed to crazy. I could do those things if I wished, hoping for heaven. Like Abou Ben Adhem, for years. he said, but he was in training. As captain in Leigh Hunt's wise poem, they are moral My first reaction was fury, a fury so of the high-school football team, a star because they love this earth and those with strong that I risked confronting my father basketball player, and a Golden Gloves whom they share it. I trust they can say the the next morning at breakfast. "You can't boxer, he was always in training. same about me. • possibly believe all that god stuff! Do you?" I demanded. "You're an intelligent, educated man. God is as much a hoax as Santa Claus and not nearly as much fun. And only kids believe in Santa." His response made me even angrier. This pillar of the religious community, this trustee of the local Presbyterian church, this man who supported the church financially and attended services every Sunday told me calmly that no, he didn't believe what the church taught. But he did believe that with- out the church there would be no morality in the world. Children learned right and wrong in the church, and adults lived

righteous lives because they believed in God

Eby Eby

Gina Allen is the author of several books e ic

and articles for adults and juveniles, includ- r Mau

ing the best-seller Intimacy, which she co-

by by

authored with Clement Martin. She is a to

humanist counselor in San Francisco. Pho

Spring 1987 19 vanced) "species related to all other living things. They comprehend the history of life and its genetic diversity, and they also un- derstand something about how the human An Evolutionary Perspective mind works, how we derive our belief systems, and how our potent brains inevit- ably include some mental blinders. They are responsible, caring citizens, because they are part of the human race and society, not because of the system of threats and rewards Paul MacCready associated with many religions. These people are usually both atheists and humanists: atheists—using the definition that they find no reason to believe in miracles in being without theistic assumptions; and humanists in their feelings that, with no miracles to n an interview published in the Fall 1983 companionship, passion, humor, touching, help or threaten mankind, responsibility falls issue of FREE INQUIRY, I summarized and hope. We are both selfish and altru- I on their own shoulders. They have the broad my thoughts about life and religion. Now, istic. We sometimes think rationally, but starting perspective needed when contem- more than three years later, after much we are all loaded with mental constraints and contradictory thought processes. We plating the big questions of the meaning of additional thought and discussion, and some are products of both our culture and our life, origins, and the future of the individual new involvement in paleontology and biolo- genetic inheritance. We are human. and humankind. People who see no connec- gy, I find that the concepts enunciated then tion between human beings and the history still ring true. At birth, everyone (and every animal) is and complexity of the natural world, or who naked and has no belief in mystical things. do not understand how our development and ... I think of people as delightful evolu- As adults, we humans have acquired the tionary products of the clumping of parti- skills depend so strongly on the circum- cles in our solar system. Thus mankind trappings of our particular culture; in the stances of our upbringing, have too narrow represents a magnificent random experi- United States this generally means we wear a starting point to derive reasonable answers ment with no goal. clothes and believe in miracles. The clothes to these big questions. As we became truly human, with the evolved from our physical needs, such as The long-term survival of religions shows ability to wonder and communicate about being protected from the elements and hav- that they meet many human needs and the bigger issues of the cosmos and our ing pockets, and from nonphysical factors, desires. They can provide people with role in it, our perceptions and perspectives such as embellishing our appearance and authority, ritual, belonging, tradition, (which were effectively adapted to yield feeling guilt about nakedness. The belief in mystery, a forum for thinking about the simple evolutionary survival rather than mystical things is prevalent especially be- meaning of life and appreciating life's gifts, illuminate truth) proved very limited for cause it is associated with well-organized handling the bigger issues. We operated and, in some cases, a belief in eternal life. under the slogan "If I don't understand it, religions that offer many benefits and be- But people versed in evolution and the scien- it's a miracle," and we developed a con- cause the process of science in illuminating tific method understand that humans are ceited view of mankind's importance. This reality is not widely understood. characterized by being adaptable, social conceit mostly took the form of assuming I know many people who happily live creatures, generally poor at sorting out fact that the universe was started with humans their lives without the rubber crutch of a from fiction, swayed by custom and author- in mind, that some superior intellect was belief in miracles (although some tend to ity. Those people who fit the atheist/ human- concerned with the well-being of the whole waffle about the cause of the "big bang" ist label thus recognize the benefits of reli- human race as well as the well-being of fifteen billion years ago). They accept the gion, and its inevitability, but do not confuse the individual in the present and hereafter, general principles of genetic evolution, plate these benefits and wide acceptance with truth and that good works and good wars were tectonics, and cosmology, and consequently the special province of people who believe or integrity. in mystical things. picture the human race as merely one (ad- Advancing technology and population Some people—humanists—do not share this conceit, and yet are delighted with the human race, warts and all. They recognize that we have intellects far be- yond our ability to appreciate them. We are complex creatures, with instincts, emo- tions, and reasoning all jumbled together. We have nonmaterial needs, such as love,

Paul MacCready, scientist, lecturer, and businessman, is best known as the father of human powered flight. His Gossamer Con- dor is now at the Smithsonian's Air and Space Museum in Washington, D. C. He is a member of the Academy of Humanism.

20 FREE INQUIRY pressures are forcing us to confront new velopments in artificial intelligence, robotics, within the framework of a world in the midst questions about life. Should we use expen- and organ substitution blur the dividing line of the scientific revolution and a country sive and extraordinary means to prolong the between what is natural and what is tech- and culture where freedom of inquiry is lives of terminally ill patients? Are selected nological? The main religions are based on generally welcomed. The underlying theme test-tube babies to be welcomed? Should a simpler past and a narrow view of the of my beliefs is that we and our institutions information from amniocentesis be used in world and its inhabitants, and in my opinion are evolutionary products, in the process of the termination of pregnancies of defective cannot provide the realistic insights needed developing, constrained by our cultural and embryos? Should we encourage procreation to help us find answers. I am more comfort- genetic heritage. We are searching for where starvation awaits the children? Should able having unreligious people, rather than answers to big questions, and that search is resources be devoted to saving whales and theists, deal with new ethical questions. a delight. We are lucky to be here. • other species? How do we respond as de- My present personal beliefs have arisen

do not practice a formal religion but who definitely lead exemplary (and often truly Testament of a Humanist outstanding) lives. 1 also, of course, know hundreds of theists who have been happy helping themselves and others; but my (per- haps biased) impression is that the happiest Albert Ellis and most productive people I know are much more frequently in the nontheistic than the theistic class. o I personally participate in theistic "The Case Against Religiosity": Lack of religious worship, prayer, and Dreligious commitments, prayer, devo- ceremony has affected my life very favorably tion, or ceremony? Definitely not! I believe It is my contention that pietistic theists —by giving me much more time than I exactly as much in religious commitment— and religionists—virtually all people im- otherwise would have had to be committed and the prayer, devotion, and ritual that bued with intense religiosity and fanati- to other, quite worldly pursuits. Including cism—are emotionally disturbed: usually normally accompany it—as I do in commit- personal pleasure! neurotic but sometimes psychotic. For ment to Santa Claus and my fairy god- 1 consider life meaningful even though I they strongly and rigidly believe in the mother. My life is so joyously replete with reject the idea of a theistic being, because I devotion (but not devoutness) to psychology, same kinds of profound irrationalities, absolutistic musts, and unconditional make sure that I always give it real meaning. psychotherapy, sexology, marriage and necessities in which seriously disturbed I agree with Jean-Paul Sartre that, in them- family relations, writing, composing rational people powerfully believe. When, more- selves, life and the universe are meaningless humorous songs, teaching, supervising, over, they employ the logico-empirical and absurd—have no intrinsic meaning or directing a nonprofit therapeutic institute, methods of science, and when they fully value whatsoever. Only humans and our personal loves and friendships, and many accept (while often distinctly disliking and humanism create personal and world signifi- other active interests that I would be pretty actively trying to change) reality, they are cance. stupid to waste any of my valuable time able to surrender their devoutness and to My life, 1 fully intend, will be highly become significantly less disturbed. In- devoting myself to religious ceremonies or meaningful till the day I die, because I am deed, 1 hypothesize, the more scientific, praying to mythical gods. determined to always make it so. How? In I can safely say that I respect many peo- openminded, and straight-thinking about themselves, about others, and about the many ways. But mainly by being as kind as ple, things, and ideas—but I am highly aller- world people are, the less neurotically they 1 can be to others—and, notably, to my- gic to worshiping anything, even my own will think, feel, and behave. This is my self! • creation, rational-emotive therapy (RET). 1 major hypothesis about the relationship am strongly committed to its theory and between absolutistic religious belief (reli- practice, but I sincerely hope I'm not .a giosity) and mental health. The evidence reverent, "musturbatory" RETer! I distinctly that I have found, clinically and experi- prefer my system of therapy to other systems mentally, in support of this hypothesis (as and clearly want it to prevail. But I never well as the evidence falsifying the hypothe- think of it as a dogma that has to succeed. sis that devout religiosity is significantly To be sure, as a psychotherapist and correlated with and probably causative of good mental health) seems to be most theorist I have come to think that excessive impressive. reverence and worship lead to unhealthy mental states. As I wrote in an essay called Since 1 have been intimately involved with more than ten thousand psychotherapy clients over the past forty-three years, and since I have taught, supervised, lectured, and Albert Ellis is Executive Director of the given RET workshops to about a quarter of Institute for Rational-Emotive Therapy in a million more students of psychology and New York City. He is the author of fifty self-help procedures, I have an exceptionally books and more than five hundred articles wide acquaintanceship with "normal" and on psychotherapy and sex, love, and marital "disturbed" individuals. Of these many peo- relations. ple, I know literally thousands who do not believe in God or the supernatural and who

Spring 1987 21 The Psychology of the Bible-Believer

Dr. Cohen, a former born-again Christian, reflects on the internal mind of the Bible-believer and why he believes.

Edmund D. Cohen

o social scientist ever predicted that a conservative many of the aims of psychologists as a special-interest lobby. I Christian resurgence would be so far along, and show had easily ripped apart and discarded the various recognized Nno sign of abatement, in the 1980s. The resurgence schools and psychotherapeutic systems. Existential psycho- goes deeper, and is socially even more significant, than one therapy and Jungian Analytical Psychology were the only ones might gather from observing television preachers and the effects in which I had lingered. I did a postdoctoral winter with of religion in politics as they unfold in the mass media each Jungians in Zürich, and wrote a book, working out some of day. What drives the resurgence? How is it that the relatively my ambivalence about that experience.' The Gestalt psycholo- enlightened condition of American society in our time does not gists—the real ones, from pre-Hitler Germany, not the Cali- seem to work to prevent such a thing? In the coming years, will fornia pop-psychologists who stole the earlier contributors' we be confronted with burgeoning numbers of articulate, socio- terminology in the sixties—and the post-World War II holists, economically advantaged fundamentalists with ultraconservative such as Arthur Koestler and Michael Polanyi, had also been social and political views? Can we confidently predict that the among my intellectual mainstays. But the absence of a convinc- resurgence will follow the analogy of a pendulum sweep and ing or scientifically reputable therapeutic application of any of abate before going too far? those ideas discouraged me profoundly. Facing what seemed I claim that the root cause of the present conservative the prospect of a career restricted to the sidelines of life, I Christian resurgence, as well as the original rise of New Testa- returned to school, studied law, and became a general-practice ment Christianity and the continual bitter conflicts over Chris- attorney. tianity down through the centuries, is psychological. Using the The Jungian idea that a personal religious quest is the best that twentieth-century depth psychology has to offer as it highest human motive still exerted a powerful influence on me, has not been used before, I claim to have unraveled those and friendships with liberal clergy espousing Tillich's theology— causes. Underlying what appears to be a hodgepodge of im- which is based on Jung—had left me with the idea that there plausible history and murky half-philosophy is an indoctrina- was some benign, ineffable wisdom in the Bible that I wanted tion strategy superbly designed to play upon universal human to get into more deeply someday. I had read everything of any psychological vulnerabilities. Its conception is brilliant, and the consequence in the social-science study of religion. When I craftsmanship of its execution is unsurpassed. The believer is came among genuine Bible-believers during my time in the right when he says he is in touch with an aspect of the Bible legal profession, I sensed something psychologically powerful that is well ordered, compelling, and wholly different from and seemingly salutary taking place that had neither been pene- what the academic student of the Bible perceives. Indeed, when trated nor correctly described by the psychologists who had we lay too great a stress on the inconsistencies and loose ends written about religion—not even William James. that come out when we scrutinize the supposedly didactic I gather that nothing more solid than the supposition that content of the Bible, we end up having to conclude that the some expert could explain away the unexpected psychological Bible has had its stupendous history by accident. effects one observes among devout, conservative Christians pro- Some explanation of my personal background is needed to tects many mainstream people from getting drawn in. Knowing show how I came by this discovery. I had been a psychology that no intellectual resource available to me validly refuted it, I professor—but an alienated one. I did not fit in well with the got drawn in. Nothing prepared me for the sticky matter that mellow mental-health subculture, and I could not share very being under the biblical indoctrination became. For me, the collapse of that indoctrination and the seminal insight for my Edmund D. Cohen has been a psychology professor and a book The Mind of the Bible-Believer (Prometheus Books, practicing attorney. He is the author of C. G. Jung and the 1986) were one and the same process. The indoctrination is so Scientific Attitude and the just-published Mind of the Bible- powerful that I suspect it is rare for someone who is heavily Believer (Prometheus, 1986), from which this articles is adapted. indoctrinated to come out, and that those who do come out are only partially indoctrinated or their indoctrination, merci-

22 FREE INQUIRY fully, has included some key features departing from the New Testament authors' design. Now, much of what I have to say will fly in the face of the expectations of those who have been exposed to Christianity in liberal "mainline" houses of worship or in academic settings. There, one sees the Bible through successive layers of secular philosophical gloss that have been put on it over the centuries.

In hindsight, we can see that those layers of gloss were means 01986 01986 of coping with the Bible's harder teaching, either to make the

teaching serve political purposes different from those of the hironna hironna

original authors or to make the teaching less unpleasant and C

disagreeable for the thoughtful person coping with it personally. n Ro

The present-day fundamentalist sees himself as stripping away by

n n io the "mere human traditions" to get at the real and vital biblical t teaching. I know that I will cause proponents of liberal "main- tra line" Christianity no little anguish by demonstrating that the Illus new conservative Christians are better Bible pupils than they gave rise to later Christianity with other groups that lacked are and that a biblically authentic viewpoint is, if anything, cohesion and died out is fruitful here.' The original Christian even more retrograde than what we hear being advocated by group was ethnically Jewish, and the New Testament furnishes contemporary right-wing evangelicals. a sanitized rendition of dissension between a group wanting to How could such a sophisticated manipulation have been preserve all of the rules and rituals of Judaism—thus putting developed, if the New Testament is that? And why? We know large obstacles in the way of conversion that few non-Jews that the earliest Christians were a Jewish group, caught up in would overcome—and a smaller faction headed by Paul, who the immensely oppressive and violent situation in Israel in the advocated a very much reduced set of sacramental requirements years leading up to and following the destruction of the second and emphasized instead a transformed inward state of mind temple in 70 C.E. If one tries to imagine what it would be like that the believer was to cultivate.' The actual history to which to live, decade after decade, in surroundings as thoroughly this corresponds is a much longer struggle between the devastated as the battle zones of recent wars, one begins to Jerusalem church and the Roman church, wherein the Roman appreciate what the inhabitants of first-century Israel had to church eventually prevailed. While those two orthodoxies were endure. If Jewish intellectuals pursued the learning of Greco- struggling with each other, there were elite, heterodox gnostic Roman civilization, they met with disapproval from other Jews. sects, probably with some of their roots in the Essene move- For Jews, there were neither traditions nor institutions fostering ment, with various renditions of Jesus' teaching that proponents honest, didactic learning for learning's sake. Among the Jews, of Paulinism found subversive and that the later church institu- learning existed only to serve religion, and religion was inextric- tionalizing Paulinism declared heretical. able from Jewish civic and nationalistic concerns. The dismal, Devout commentators have traditionally used rather narrow chronic thwarting of Jewish civic strivings by Rome was made doctrinal definitions to distinguish gnostic from orthodox all the more bitter by the way it confuted Jewish claims to Christianity. Most often, one hears that the Gnostics thought God's special favor. It is perfectly plausible that such an extreme the physical world to be totally permeated with evil, while the situation could stimulate an outpouring of genius and resource- orthodox believed that permeation to be less than total. I reject fulness, to the end that some alienated Jews could assemble a the traditional definitions and suspect that the devout commen- tightly knit, supportive network of alienated Jews and various tators have been motivated by the desire not to have some non-Jews around them. By a process resembling nothing so religious ideas and practices they found agreeable fall within much as the field testing of new consumer products in our own the category of gnostic practices condemned by Paul. Compar- day, they could identify and incorporate those religious doc- ing the orthodox canon with the heretical gnostic writings— trines and practices that would best foster group solidarity in since the Nag Hamadi find, it has even been possible to study the midst of chaos and treachery. If that is what happened, some gnostic writings with which church fathers have had no then we should hasten to emphasize that it would be entirely intervening opportunity to tamper—I noticed a fundamental unfair to hold the authors of that manipulation responsible for distinction in psychological style: The Gnostics were preoccu- its continuing to work too well after the circumstances that pied with looking inward, with finding the divine spark in each called it into being had gone away, or for the way that the human that furnishes each individual's own private revelation Jewish origin of the new religion would make the Jewish people of the godly. The New Testament and the orthodox Christians the object of so much scorn on the part of the non-Jews upon obeying it harp incessantly on their total distrust of the human whom the religion was imposed. mind as a means to truth. Directing one's actions by an intui- What kind of religious practices and doctrines did they find tive, individualistic sense of conscience is strictly for unbelievers best manipulated an ethnically mixed bunch, welding it into a so far as orthodox believers are concerned. What the unbeliever reliable, unswervingly loyal social structure? Historical compar- experiences as conscientious self-direction, the orthodox believer ison of the first- and second-century groups that endured and explains away as God, for his own purposes, jerking the unbe-

Spring 1987 23 to these styles as mind-games of the first kind and mind-games "The root cause of the present conservative Chris- of the second kind, respectively. tian resurgence, as well as the original rise of The obvious next question of what constitutes whole, healthy psychological functioning—how people function when New Testament Christianity and the continual they are relatively free of the pitfalls of these mind-games—is bitter conflicts over Christianity down through pivotal in my analysis of the Bible manipulation. Looking back the centuries, is psychological. ... Underlying at all the psychology I had studied, two contributions, saying what appears to be a hodgepodge of implausible roughly the same thing in different terms, stood out as retaining their validity. Both have their origins in Kantian philosophy. history and murky half-philosophy is an indoc- The first was the Gestalt psychologists' notion that organisms trination strategy superbly designed to play upon are innately prestructured to segregate figures from grounds, universal human psychological vulnerabilities." all perception and cognition being examples of the figure/ ground differentiation (and re-differentiation) at work. The second was Jung's notion that human knowledge arises from lievers' marionette strings unseen.° For the believer, the intern- the projection of the innate structuring he called the archet ypes alization of Scripture, and the thoughtful, deliberate application and the withdrawal and reorganization of the projection. With- of its rules to all his choices as life presents him with them, is out going into the technical details—the aspect of this topic of what constitutes conscience. The orthodox Christian is to expel most lasting interest to me personally—the key is that healthy thoughts and feelings that disagree with the doctrine and inter- human adaptation involves the constant interplay of our in- fere with his being of one mind with the fold. That, ultimately, nately prestructured, enormously intricate, and in some ways is the transformed inward state of mind Paul was driving at. very inflexible psychological apparatus to come to terms with These two psychological styles of religious practice are our environment. That environment consists not only of the diametrically opposed to each other. To do one rules out doing physical habitat but also of the intellectual and feeling realms the other fully. But they are about equal in the extent to which we communicate to and share with others. In contrast, the they require excess and unbalance in the mental life of the mind-game of the first kind involves too great an emphasis on individual devotee. The pure Gnostic looks inward to the point the fantasy our psychological equipment produces when it is of introverted escapism from the surrounding world. The ortho- detached from, or insufficiently stimulated by, the realm of the dox Christian expends much of his energy keeping down the nonfantastic. And the mind-game of the second kind involves spontaneous thoughts, feelings, and intuitions that would dis- too great an emphasis on a socially shared indoctrination, so credit his doctrinally defined Weltanschauung were he to allow that the normal, healthy processes of reorganizing our Gestalten himself to entertain them in mind. The peacefulness, the mien come to be declared sinful and forbidden. of euphoric calm, the confidence and sense of invulnerability in Besides being the common denominator of the two kinds of the face of danger exhibited by the Bible-believer, so impressive psychology whose influence on my thinking had been most to the uncomprehending observer, are ultimately due to the durable, the idea of relatedness in one's phenomenal world believer's practiced knack for evacuating those thoughts and turned out on reflection to be just what the Bible authors most emotions from his mind that he deems inconvenient to enter- pervasively pitted themselves against. What the Bible hints at tain. As I became more deeply indoctrinated, I knew that I was but never explicitly says is that the essence of sin boils down to following a program that broke the cardinal rule of modern having an open-minded viewpoint that changes under the influ- psychology: i.e., conscious insight is beneficial and repression ence of experience. Nearly every healthy impulse a person has or dissociation in dealing with life's conflicts is generally un- gets tied in with what is forbidden, taboo, of bad conscience. healthy. Having never really seen convincing evidence that In this pervasive tendency, the Bible authors betray a tacit psychology could put a person's thoughts and feelings on the psychological understanding that is downright breathtaking, right track, I was willing to have an open mind regarding a superior to the most sophisticated modern one. But their pur- program that focused one's attention away from oneself and pose, we must remember, was not didactic: Their statements onto a doctrine claimed to be the ultimate ideal. In hindsight, about human psychology—particularly those pertaining to the it was not so unreasonable a thing for me to do, given my state doctrine of original sin—are manipulative, and they mislead of knowledge at the time. But now, after having tried it both the Bible student as to what the Bible authors actually under- ways, I can conclude that in one's inner life insight is better stood. than evasion. For all their faults, the early psychologists were One of the ways I became able to discern those superbly on the right track in that respect after all. camouflaged but psychologically active features of the Bible The two psychological styles of early Christianity suggest was to compare and contrast implicit and explicit psychological two basic types of disturbed psychological functioning. Make statements made or suggested in it. When I found something them a little more pronounced, and the gnostic, detached-from- that modern psychology—or, for that matter, the common sense reality style corresponds to the mental disorders traditionally of the Bible authors' own day—would know is false, I could classified as the psychoses. The orthodox Christian style, forcing find a manipulative strategem at work. Two other indirect what does not go along with its doctrine into the unconscious indicators that could easily be spotted helped me identify what and increasing the degree of adversity between the conscious to scrutinize more closely. When the New Testament plays up mind and the unconscious, corresponds to the neuroses. I refer an issue that is minor or absent in the Old Testament, a manip-

24 FREE INQUIRY ulative strategem can be found working. Also, when the New Testament's mode of expression betrays defensiveness or "We have a conservative Christian resurgence on embarrassment—too much hyperbole, too much abuse heaped our hands today because the older, mellow main- on the wicked, too many rhetorical questions in lieu of direct line religious bodies got too weak and the oppor- statements, etc.—something psychologically interesting always tunity was made for upstarts to rehabilitate and proves to be at hand. The analysis I conducted along these lines led to a longer deploy the psychological technology that makes book than I would have preferred. What follows states its Christianity strong.... This time, we can psy- conclusions without the opportunity to show how those con- chologically understand what is happening and clusions were reached. While the assessment of the value of my mount a direct attack, puncturing the believers' analysis is for others to make, there are some positive claims I make for it, and I stand ready to defend them in any forum: I illusions with insight." claim to have taken into account more scriptural information— figurative as well as literal, symbolic as well as explicit, indirect sin-cursed, wicked little mind unable to apprehend the truth. If as well as direct—than any devout biblical theologian has ever what the unbeliever has to say seems cogent, that only goes to been able to do. Where the devout theologian must argue with prove how wily Satan is and how perilously easily the believer's the biblical language and obscure some of its harder implica- residual unredeemed "fleshly" nature can lead him astray if he tions to arrive at a result he can humanly tolerate, I could and deviates from the straight and narrow. did follow the Bible's implications all the way to their absurd The discrediting of the natural world—ultimately, inveigling end. Also, I claim to have tendentiously neglected nothing that the believer into distrusting the evidence of his senses and would militate against any of the positions I take. disparaging his own logic and judgment—is a subtly crafted The manipulative devices around which the New Testament piece of business, and possibly the one about which outsiders is constructed can be grouped into seven categories: are most often misinformed. While the fringe "hyperfaith" Device 1: The benign, attractive image of the Bible. Since movement within conservative Christianity—with its phony the relatively recent Anglo-American tradition of Christian faith-healing, false promises of prosperity through prayer, and church involvement, and even militancy, in ameliorating social illusory or contrived signs, wonders, and miracles—is particu- ills is one to which we are heirs, it is easy for us to believe that larly conspicuous in the media, it is not typical of contemporary social justice and mercy are the essence of the Bible—and to conservative Christianity and certainly is not in the ascend- accuse the new conservative Christians, with their startlingly ancy.' It would be a huge mistake to underestimate the con- retrograde social views, of falsifying that message. The New servative Christians, stereotyping them as so gullible and unin- Testament does furnish the lovely story of the good Samaritan telligent as to go around believing things that fly in the face of ministering unselfishly to a crime victim, and of Jesus preaching everyday experience. about the release of captives, the clothing of the naked, and the The entire topic of faith, and quite a lot of superbly crafted healing of the sick. But those images occupy only a very small Bible language pertaining to it, would be reduced to surplusage proportion of the biblical text and they turn out to pertain if the Bible's validity were provable or disprovable by natural exclusively to a life other than earthly life, when one really events. While it does commit itself to the occurrence of im- studies them and becomes steeped in them. While the pastors plausible events in the distant past or indefinite future, the of our early experience did well to cultivate superficiality in believer is given promises for the present that can seem to be studying the Bible, if one studies it deeply the lovely images confirmed in any situation. If things go well, that is because "I turn out to be there only for bait, so that the proselyte can be am come that they might have life, and . . . have it more drawn in and then switched to more abstruse and somber abundantly."6 But if they go badly, it is "in the world ye shall preoccupations. The come-on's cosmetic appearance of gentle- have tribulation...."' The handful of promises that do fly in ness and generosity belies what's in store for the proselyte to the face of reality, dealing with such matters as moving moun- authentic New Testament religion. tains and trees by the power of prayer, healing the sick by Device 2: Discrediting "the world." After drawing in the laying hands on them, and being unscathed by poisonous prospective Bible-believer with impressions that are misleadingly serpent bites, the believer learns to understand as hyperbole, as attractive, the next step is to insulate him from opposing influ- spiritual instruction imparted in symbolism and allegory. The ences. The Bible does that in a way far more subtle than the believer is weaned away from looking for information pertinent sequestration and internal censorship obvious in many cults to the religion's teachings in mundane events, and one loses and religions: It lays down a convoluted network of rationaliza- interest in them, emotionally disinvests from them. Real life tions discrediting the believer's impressions received from the becomes one big nondisprovable hypothesis. Whatever happens, natural environment and from people who are not in the fold. that it does proves it is God's will. The rationalization for closing one's mind to those who Device 3: Logocide. Key terms in human experience are disagree with the doctrine is simply an argumentum ad horn- given meanings by the Bible that clash confusingly with our inem. God has blinded the unbelievers' eyes and closed their ordinary comprehension of them. The affected words are put ears to the "truth," or intentionally permitted Satan to do so. out of commission as vehicles for articulate thought—in other Whatever the unbeliever may say, it is only the product of a words, killed. The believer who distrusts lexicons and commen-

Spring 1987 25 taries produced by mere human minds lets the Bible be its own There are some particularly absurd passages that I would specu- lexicon and commentary. So some surprising things emerge. late were used as credulity tests in the early church: If the "Truth" ends up exclusively meaning the doctrine in the New candidate for inner-circle membership would swallow the test Testament, and what few oblique references there are to episte- passage without caviling, the church father examining him knew mology are disparaging.' "Love" (for which the New Testament he could be trusted and would perhaps appoint him as a authors coined their own new word, agape) comes out as deacon. 10 spiritually assisted self-discipline in carrying out the rules the Device 5: Dissociation induction. This device takes us most Bible lays down; it ceases to have anything to do with affection deeply into unfamiliar depth-psychological territory; the treat- or emotion. Such terms as wise, just, and righteous are reduced ment of it in my book is a book-length affair in itself. The to code words for salvation status and become detached from whole New Testament really serves to suggest that the saved their normal, ethical connotations. Life, death, light, darkness, person's mental life should be fragmented and divided, a theme sin, and faith have meanings that cannot be explained without imparted by its symbolism and its many intellectual inconsisten- an involved depth-psychology analysis. The biblical vocabulary cies and paradoxes. is designed partly to produce tacit understandings of some The ultimate aim of the indoctrination is to get the believer things the believer is purposely kept unable to articulate, and to keep his conscious mind restricted to the biblically prescribed partly to maintain a well-controlled chronic condition of con- devotional program of stereotyped thoughts and muted feelings fusion, which the believer is encouraged to mistake for pro- and repress all else into the unconscious. Yes, I am saying that fundity, proof of his finite, little mind's inability to grasp the Bible indoctrination is the prototype of neurosis and that immense ideas. the same sort of short-term symptomatic relief coupled with Device 4: Assaulting integrity. As the indoctrination longer-term ill effects misunderstood and misinterpreted by the deepens, the believer is deliberately confronted by invitations person experiencing them, as are experienced in neurosis, to suspend his most humanly sound and decent reactions. He are the inevitable results of authentic biblical indoctrination. becomes inured—psychically numbed—to accepting what he Ultimately, to be out of touch with the unconscious is to have should reject as intellectually absurd and ethically wrong. On "faith," and to be in touch with it is to "sin." In my book 1 an intellectual level, the most basic of these invitations deals have succeeded, without twisting, in accounting for all the perti- with belief. Since the Bible does not require belief of anything nent biblical information in propounding this position. Notice that is disprovable in the present, belief in the face of contrary how the story of Jesus walking on the Sea of Galilee, and Peter facts is never an issue. What is an issue is the more subtle, sinking into the water when he fails to screen out his own elusive matter of believing that for which the psychologically thoughts and emotions and keep his eyes on Jesus," emerges necessary raw materials of belief or disbelief are not present. as the central New Testament paradigm. If one has "faith," The believer works to convince himself that he believes what then an unnatural barrier keeps one separated from one's own he is psychologically in a position neither to believe nor dis- unconscious, tendentiously mischaracterized as an ominous sea believe. He represses the honest, natural reaction of unbelief— in which to drown. as distinguished from disbelief—in such a situation. What Device 6: Bridge burning. Additional teachings are designed results is an erosion of the individual's critical judgment, at to make this inner fragmentation and division stable. By making least where the religion and its teachers are involved. the entertainment of some thoughts taboo, straight thought is A parallel process goes on at the level of feeling and con- prevented, and the believer has to do some straight thinking, science. An obvious example is the communion ritual—the contrary to what he has been taught, in order to extricate only sacrament the Bible contemplates the believer will recur- himself from the semantic labyrinth of the biblical indoctrina- rently undergo. One is to rhapsodize about how wonderful and tion. But to reach the point where he could give himself per- holy it is to eat Christ's flesh and drink his blood. It violates mission to do such thinking, a believer would have to have the rules of the mind-game to notice that the ceremony amounts already gone ahead and done some straight thinking before- to cannibalism, which a person with intact sensibilities ought hand. The Bible's passages about blasphemy against the Holy to find revolting. We can see the muted symptoms of this Spirit are the most potent examples of this device. implication troubling the mind in the old theological debate Device 7: Holy terror. Having been given assurance through over transubstantiation versus consubstantiation. "Device 1" that the fear of Hell is not what Christianity is all The same process is at work in the redemptive atonement. about, the deeply indoctrinated believer will predictably fail to God seems somehow unable to forgive his elect's "sins" as he notice that, while every other issue in his indoctrination has would like; so, to get out of punishing those whom he does not taken on some unexpected abstruse meaning, the issue of the want to punish, he punishes the only sentient being in the terrors of Hell indeed remains what it first seemed to be. Since universe who is totally undeserving of such punishment: himself the matter is nondisprovable—one cannot affirmatively prove in human form. The idea of deflecting moral responsibility to a that no such terror awaits him who spurns the biblical program scapegoat is elevated to the status of divine wisdom, when —it can dominate even a very bright mind if that mind is really the idea is nothing but malicious absurdity, with a power- swamped with the other devices. ful undertone of sadism and masochism. The individual learns Combine these devices synergistically, and the result is a to ignore the promptings of his own conscience and do what mind divided against itself, with pent-up tensions and frustra- he is told to do, "heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men."9 tions ready to find vicious expression. What the new conserva-

26 FREE INQUIRY tive pastors have found out is that if one uses the devices as the message to make it more agreeable, and the struggle of ration- New Testament authors set them up—eliminating the gloss ality and common sense against it was hard and slow. This that has made the older church bodies weak—one can make time, we can psychologically understand what is happening those new conservative churches thrive and grow. and mount a direct attack, puncturing the believers' illusions What really are the social problems presented by the con- with insight. servative Christian resurgence? I am most interested in the individual mental-health effects. From my own observations Notes and what few usable studies there are in the professional litera- 1. C. G. Jung and the Scientific Attitude (New York: Philosophical ture, it is clear to me that biblical indoctrination figures in Library, 1975). Paperback ed., Littlefield Adams & Co., Totowa, N.J., 1976. phobias, particularly agoraphobia, and in depression. I am 2. My use of history is confined to identifying psychologically remark- able trends in historical events. In no sense do I engage in psycho-history: 1 confident that mental-health professionals will be able to use do not attempt to ascertain missing facts by applying social-science theory to what I have learned to benefit their patients, with improvement known facts. in some cases clear enough to document easily. 3. Acts 15:1-35; Gal. 2. I see the danger posed by the Religious Right much dif- 4. Rom. 2:14-15. 5. The most conspicuous "hyperfaith" evangelist is Pat Robertson, who ferently than other commentators do. The current manifesta- has built a narrow but loyal and generous support-base of about three- tions of religion in politics, with its characteristic "premillennial" quarters of a million persons strong through his "700 Club" television show eschatology and the notion that conservative Christians will and related CBN cable network. Currently, he is touting himself heavily as an aspirant to the presidency of the United States. In the premature Michigan take dominion over the secular state and dispossess all others primary in August 1986, Robertson was able to get about as many delegates in the name of Christ, is not biblical. So much of what I have elected as the front runner, Vice President George Bush. He accomplished seen among conservative Christians reflects their sincerity about this by swamping the proceedings with a relatively small number of well organized volunteers. The exit polls showed that he does have significant making life and conduct more Bible-authentic that I do not support—about 10 percent of the Republican voters in Michigan—but that think the likes of Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson will make conservative Christians preferred Vice-President Bush to Robertson by more much further headway. However, the Bible is not compatible than two to one. With a theology that the general public finds pixilated, that most of the Religious Right does not share, and at which very many in the with our political and legal institutions. The Bible is preoccupied Religious Right take offense, Robertson will split the conservative religious with the obligations of those over whom masters are placed to vote. Where Jerry Falwell smoothed over the theological differences among obey their masters. Injustice in this world is to be submitted to groups comfortable in his Moral Majority, Robertson exacerbates those differences. While Robertson may reach the 1988 Republican convention meekly. Only where dissemination of the Gospel is interfered with enough votes to force the rest to pay attention to him, he will attract with does the Bible permit its believers to disobey those who few votes from outside that "hyperfaith" fringe. He will have only a fraction are in authority, and then only with the dubious blessing of of the support that the most unifying possible Religious Right candidate could muster. martyrdom in view. The Bible's jaundiced view of human nature 6. John 10:10. is entirely inconsistent with the modern desire to give the maxi- 7. John 16:33. mum latitude for individual autonomy. In deference to the 8. 1 am aware of only three New Testament references to epistemological questions: John 18:37-38; Acts 5:3-5; and Titus 1:12. liberal religious bodies, we have forgotten how it was that 9. Colossians 3:23. those who were most devout and Bible-oriented in Revolu- 10. Two examples of biblical passages for which no nonabsurd accounting tionary times found that the Bible counseled them to obey the can be made without distorting the language are Luke 16:1-13 and 18:1-8. I1. Matt. 14:22-33. • governing authorities and pay exorbitant taxes without com- plaint. The colonial American Bible-believers were Tories! In ©1986 by Edmund Cohen the mid-nineteenth century, those who followed the Bible's lead were forced to come to the conclusion that slavery was a godly and proper institution. Some very devout people, including John Brown, Harriet Tubman, and Sojourner Truth needed to Announcing have hallucinatory visions or voices countermanding the Word before they could give themselves permission to be abolitionists. FREE INQUIRY'S Because the Bible says man will exercise dominion over the earth until Jesus returns in the Apocalypse, and believers are to Sixth Annual Conference consider that return imminent and conduct themselves accord- ingly at all times, the intellectually consistent Bible-believer Friday and Saturday would have no interest in ecology or conservation. And on and on, ad nauseam. As a provider of answers for today's public- September 11 and 12, 1987 policy problems, the Bible is a complete disaster, loading up American University public discussion of civic questions with abstruse pseudo-issues. In sum, we have a conservative Christian resurgence on our Washington, D.C. hands today because the older, mellow mainline religious bodies Details of the conference and registration got too weak and the opportunity was made for upstarts to rehabilitate and deploy the psychological technology that makes forms will be published in the next issue Christianity strong. Earlier centuries could deal with the stulti- of FREE INQUIRY. fying power of the Bible only by subtly falsifying its bleak

Spring 1987 27 Biblical Arguments for Slavery

In the article below, Morton Smith shows how the Bible condones and justifies slavery. It has been adapted from a paper originally given at FREE INQUIRY s "Ethics in Conflict" conference, held at the University of Richmond last fall.

Morton Smith

suppose we all agree that slavery is repulsive. Although has descended from these three boys, Noah's curse destined we can grant that some people need a lot of direction, or approximately a third of mankind to be enslaved to the others. I want strong figures to rely on, we reject the notion that The translators of the Authorized Version were a bit em- one person should actually own another as one might own an barrassed by Noah's curse. Saint Jerome (340?-420), who knew animal or a piece of furniture. Such a relationship, we would Hebrew, had translated it accurately, servus servorum, but the say, denies the essential dignity, the basic humanity of a human Greek translation (pais oiketes) did not follow the Hebrew being. Slavery is not only an outrage to the slave, but a disgrace exactly, so the Englishmen compromised and rendered the to the owner, in that it reveals his lack of moral feeling. phrase as "servant of servants." Let me comment on the sense This attitude, however, is comparatively new. It is the conse- of the Hebrew text. quence not only of the Union Army's victory in the Civil War, Biblical Hebrew is poor in words expressing social relation- which broke the power of the Confederacy, but also of a ships. It uses one term, 'eyed, for any kind of servant, from a century-long campaign of moral education and social and poli- king's minister (as in 2 Kings 25:8) to a nomad's slave (Gen. tical organization that culminated in that war and by means of 12:16). The primary sense, however, is "slave"; the other senses it succeeded in changing both the laws and the public opinion are metaphorical, as is the use in contemporary polite address that permitted slavery. when a speaker refers to himself as "your slave." (Here, as Among the reasons that made the campaign so long and so above, English usage replaced "slave" by "servant," so even up difficult was the fact that slavery is not only permitted but to World War II old-fashioned Englishmen went on signing actually ordained by the Bible. The first biblical mention of it, themselves, "Your humble and obedient servant.") The words in fact, prescribes it for a whole third of mankind, the des- for "female slave" were similarly ambiguous.' In order to deter- cendants of Ham, the son of Noah. mine the sense of these words in any particular case one must You may remember the story told in Genesis 6-9. Noah always consider the context. Likewise, to understand the actual was the only man God liked well enough to save from the conditions of slaves throughout the centuries in which the bib- flood (Gen. 6:8, 13 f.). After the flood, however, Noah took to lical books were written, one must look at the contexts of all drink and lay drunk and naked in his tent. His son Ham saw those passages in which these words refer to slaves. him there and told his brothers, Shem and Japeth. They took a Such tasks are much too long for this article. So, let me cloak, walked backward into their father's tent, and covered take only one early, famous example—the story of Abraham, him without looking at him. When Noah woke up he learned Sarah, and Hagar—which shows how an Israelite author of that Ham had tattled on him, so he cursed Ham's descendants the tenth or ninth century B.C.E. thought his pious hero would in the person of his son, Canaan: "Let him be a slave of slaves" treat a slave girl (Gen. 16:1-16; 21:8-21). As everybody knows, (Gen. 9:18-27). Since biblical legend proposes that all mankind Abraham and his half-sister Sarah had long lived in, shall we say, "half-incestuous marriage." Sarah, however, was childless. Morton Smith is emeritus She had some property of her own, including some slave girls, professor of ancient history and she decided to give one of them to Abraham so he could and special lecturer in reli- have children from her former property. She thought this gion at Columbia University. would, as she put it, "build her up" (16:2). Her choice was an He is the author of The Egyptian girl, Hagar, whom she may have bought while visiting Secret Gospel and Jesus the Egypt some ten years before. Abraham was well on in years,' Magician. but of course no one asked the girl whether she would enjoy this coupling. Sarah simply put the proposition to Abraham,

28 FREE INQUIRY he agreed, she gave him Hagar, and Hagar conceived. But then Hagar became contemptuous of Sarah, who complained to her husband. So Abraham said, in effect, "I give her back to you. Do as you like with her."' Sarah treated Hagar so badly that she ran away, but when she got out into the desert she saw an angel who advised her to go back, take her medicine, and keep her place. After all, she had Abraham's child in her, so she could not be treated too badly; indeed, the child might grow up to avenge her. (It is remarkable how often visions give basically sensible advice.) She obeyed and had the child—a boy, who was called Ishmael—and then, some thirteen years later, Sarah had a son. No sooner was Sarah's son weaned than she saw Ishmael as a possible competitor for a share of Abraham's property. She then pressed Abraham to drive Hagar and Ishmael out of the camp. At first he refused "because of his son" (nothing is said of any concern about Hagar, 21:11), but another prudent angel advised him to do as Sarah de- manded. Hence, big-hearted Abraham sent away a slave who had been in the family for more than twenty years. With a parting gift of some bread and a jug of water so large that she had to carry it on her shoulder (21:14), Hagar and her son were cast into the desert on foot. This story indicates clearly the social status of what the Authorized Version politely called Sarah's "handmaid." The proper term is slave, and the social practices that the Bible of shoes (Amos 2:6—but prophetic rhetoric, then as now, is never criticizes are those of chattel slavery. Hagar was simply a not wholly trustworthy). Similarly, thieves who could not pay piece of property, to be used as needed and thrown out when for what they had stolen were enslaved (Exod. 22:2). Finally, needed no longer. an owner could breed slaves from his own stock. The Bible Strong's Exhaustive Concordance indicates that the Author- says, "If [an Israelite slave's] master gives him [a slave woman ized Version uses "slave" only twice, and the Revised Version as] a wife and she bears him sons or daughters, the wife and only twice more, but there are hundreds of uses of Greek and her children shall belong to the master." If the Israelite slave is Hebrew words that mean "slave."5 Stories like that of Hagar set free, "he shall go out by himself' (Exod. 21:4). In the same and Ishmael illustrate this vividly, but necessarily deal with way, any other property a slave might acquire belonged to his particular cases. Biblical laws give a better picture of general master. For instance, after David became king he gave the son practices. of Jonathan, his former lover, all that remained of Saul's According to the Bible, slaves could be acquired by capture property, including one of Saul's slaves who was named Ziba. in war (e.g., Deut. 20:10 ff.), or purchased from slave dealers Ziba had fifteen sons and twenty slaves of his own, so all these, and resident aliens. The author of Leviticus so much preferred and he himself, became slaves of Jonathan's son (2 Sam. this latter method of acquisition that he made the use of it a 9:1-10). positive commandment (25:44 ff.): "From the gentiles who are The extent of the master's property rights is perhaps best round about you, from them you shall buy male and female shown by the law on manslaughter. If two free men fight and slaves, and also from the descendants of the natives who are one kills the other during the fight, the winner is also to be living with you, from them you shall buy, and from their killed; but, if the loser survives for a day or two and gets up descendants . . . and [the slaves purchased] shall be your and walks about, the winner need pay him only for his loss of [permanent] possessions; you shall bequeath them to your time. On the other hand, if a man beats his slave so that the children after you as a permanent possession forever; you shall slave dies during the beating, the law prescribes only that the use them as slaves" (my italics). slave "shall be avenged" (Exod. 21:20)—the vengeance is not While prescribing this treatment for gentiles, Leviticus dis- specified—and (the text goes on) "if [the slave] survives for a couraged the purchase of Israelite slaves, but he did not prohibit day or two he shall not be avenged, for he is his [master's] it. The context of the passage just cited, and many other texts, property," literally "his money" (Exod. 21:21). makes it clear that there were poor men willing to sell off their On all these matters the texts are reasonably clear. Conse- children, or even to sell themselves, into slavery; and even quently, if we take the Old Testament literally, we must admit, Israelites and their children might be purchased, though their as one American preacher put it in 1857, that "slavery is of condition after purchase was mitigated by some special laws God."6 (Exod. 21; Deut. 15; Num. 25). Defaulting debtors also could I suppose a number of Christians will have gone along be seized by creditors and sold into slavery (2 Kings 4:1; Neh. complacently with the preceding discussion. After all, hasn't 5:1-5)—sometimes, reportedly, for as little as the price of a pair the Mosaic law been "fulfilled," and somehow invalidated, by

Spring 1987 29 Jesus? Should we not read the Old Testament with a combina- Temple owned slaves; the High Priests owned slaves (one of tion of profound respect and profound indifference? Something them lost an ear in Jesus' arrest); all of the rich and almost all like this may have been the position of Paul. Luckily, however, of the middle class owned slaves. So far as we are told, Jesus we need not discuss that question. For the sake of the argument, never attacked this practice. He took the state of affairs for we can concede their point, throw out the Old Testament and granted and shaped his parables accordingly. As Jesus presents its embarrassing laws, and consider only what the New Testa- things, the main problem for the slaves is not to get free, but to ment has to say about slavery. win their masters' praise.10 There seem to have been slave revolts What the New Testament has to say, it says in Greek, and in Palestine and Jordan in Jesus' youth (Josephus, Bellum therefore fairly clearly, because the Greek word for "slave," 2:55-65); a miracle-working leader of such a revolt would have doulos, has little of the ambiguity of the Hebrew 'ved. So far attracted a large following. If Jesus had denounced slavery or as I know, until Christians got control of the Roman empire, promised liberation, we should almost certainly have heard of doulos was never used of a king's minister, nor by a free man his doing so. We hear nothing, so the most likely supposition is in self-depreciation, except in translations of Near-Eastern texts that he said nothing. (The silence cannot plausibly be explained (among them, the Old Testament') and in speaking of enslave- by supposing that he kept the teaching secret, or that his fol- ment to the gods." When otherwise used in reference to free lowers suppressed it. We know that he and they used secrecy men it is pejorative, indicating subjugation, usually moral or and suppression about both his claim to be King of the Jews political—a "slave" of the passions, a "subject" of the Persian and his magical practices. Nevertheless, reports of both King, etc. While slaves and free men can both be referred to as Messianic claims and magical rites have come down to us.") "servants," "helpers," and so on, the difference of legal status Had there been any considerable teaching or significant action remains sharp. When a free servant is called a doulos the about the liberation of slaves, reports of that would have speaker is either abusing him or mistaken.° This clarity has reached us, too. The issue was a hot one. been completely obscured in the Authorized and Revised Also, if he had advocated liberation his followers would versions of the New Testament, which commonly translate probably have followed his teaching. But the Gospels and Acts doulos by "servant" or the like, as part of their practice of say nothing of it, and Paul, our earliest Christian writer, not whitewashing the Word of God. only tolerates slavery but orders Christians to continue it. He Once these facts are clear, we can see that Jesus lived in a has the notion, perhaps from Jesus' magical practices, that all world where slavery was common. There were innumerable those baptized "into Jesus" are united with their Savior, so that slaves of the emperor and of the Roman state; the Jerusalem "in" Him "there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female, but all ... are one in Messiah Jesus" (Gal. 3:28; cf. Rom. 10:12; 1 Cor. 7:22, 12:13; Col. 3:11). However, Paul Good-looking sturdy holders recognizes that this internal union does not obliterate differences to protect your copies of social position in the outside world. Although he thinks these differences relatively unimportant, he insists that they of FREE INQUIRY. continue. Of slavery in particular he says, "If you, as a slave, Holders are available in either red, yel- were called [by God to become a Christian], don't worry [about low, blue, green or black vinyl with gold your slavery], but if you can also become a free man, you had better.... [As a general rule, however], let each man remain ornamentation and convenient slots for in that [social position] in which he was called" (1 Cor. 7:21, labels on the front and the back. 24). Each container holds 20 issues (5 years) of FREE INQUIRY. What this meant in practice was shown when one of the $6.95 each, plus $1.50 for postage and handling slaves of Philemon, a convert, ran away, came to Paul, and was converted by him. This conversion put Paul in a tight spot. To conceal a runaway slave was legally a theft,'2 and the Please send me holders in red penalties were severe. So he sent the slave back to Philemon yellow blue green black with a letter asking him as a favor to keep the slave "forever, no longer [as] a slave, but ... [as] a beloved brother." The Total S letter concludes, "Confident of your obedience, I have written ❑ Enclosed is my check or money order you, knowing that you will do even more than I say. And at Charge my ❑ Visa ❑ MasterCard the same time prepare accommodations for me, for I hope [to Card # Exp visit you soon]." This was a gentle way of telling Philemon that Paul intended to check up on the slave's status. The whole

Name letter, in fact, is wonderfully kind and careful, and this increases the significance of what it carefully does not say. It does not Street say, "Christians are not allowed to own one another as slaves; City State Zip therefore, by conversion, your slave has become free of you." FREE INQUIRY, Box 5, Buffalo, NY 14215-0005 On the contrary, it recognizes the validity of Philemon's owner- 3,87 ship of the slave and hopes that he will continue to own (Greek,

30 FREE INQUIRY apechein) him forever. But it asks him, please, as a special see 2 Sam. 14:7-19. favor, to treat this slave as a brother." Of course Philemon's 3. The Bible makes him eighty-five (Gen. 16:16), an unusually gifted ownership and treatment of his other slaves, particularly those man. 4. This is the legal significance of the Hebrew, "Behold, your slave girl who are pagans, are not questioned. Neither is slavery as an is in your hand" (Gen. 16:6). institution; its validity is implicitly recognized. 5. J. Strong, The Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible (Madison, N.J., If there was any doubt about the meaning of the letter to 1894). Philemon, it would be settled by the letter to the Colossians- 6. F. Ross, Slavery Ordained of God (Philadelphia, 1857), p. 5. if only we were sure that Colossians was genuine. But, even if 7. This includes texts that are virtually translations, e.g., Josephus, Antiquities 2:70. it is not, it would certainly be the earliest, closest, and most 8. E.g., Luke 1:38, and numerous pagan uses. When Paul describes perceptive imitation and interpretation of Paul. After laying himself as a slave of the Corinthians "for Jesus' sake" (2 Cor. 4:5) the down the Pauline rule that "in Christ" "there is neither Greek enslavement is clearly to Jesus. So, too, Matt. 20:27, etc. Notice that the nor Jew ... barbarian, Scythian, slave [or] free man" (3:11), free, hired laborers who receive pay are not "slaves" but "workers," Matt. Colossians goes on to give rules of behavior for people in 10:10; 20:1-8; James 5:4; etc. 9. Similarly, Paul's description of a child as "no different from a slave" different social positions: wives, husbands, children, parents, is deliberately contemptuous of pre-Christian Judaism (Gal. 4:1). and "slaves," who are to "be obedient in all things to your civil 10. Matt. 10:25, a good slave should do as his master; 18:23-35; 24:45-50; [Greek, kata sarka] masters, not with pretended obedience like 25:14-30; Mark 13:34-36; Luke 7:2-10; 12:42-47; 17:7-10; 19:12-26; John those trying to please men, but sincerely, fearing the Lord... . 13:If.; 15:14-17. You serve the Lord Messiah and any cheater will get what [he I I. See M. Smith, Jesus the Magician (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1981). deserves]" (3:22-25). Whether or not the master is Christian is 12. A. Berger, Encyclopedic Dictionary of Roman Law (Philadelphia, not asked. It is simply that as owner he is, by civil law, in the 1953), p. 705. place of God-though the text goes on to warn owners that 13. Paul probably had in mind, but significantly did not cite, the passage they must be just and even-handed in dealing with their slaves, of Leviticus quoted above, which distinguishes sharply between gentiles, who knowing that they themselves have a master in heaven (4:1). are to be enslaved, and "your brother," the Israelite, who, even if enslaved, is to be treated kindly. This picture of the entire world as a great Roman estate in 14. 1 Tim. 6:12; Eph. 6:5-8; Titus 2:9-10. which all the inhabitants are slaves of God was not peculiarly 15. Amusing examples of attempts to explain away the biblical facts will Christian. Even before the church won legal acceptance the be found in A. Barnes, An Inquiry into the Scriptural Views of Slavery (New emperors were beginning to take the title "master" (dominus) York, 1857), passim; J. Blanchard and N. Rice, A Debate on Slavery (Cin- as proper for the head of the household and owner of the cinnati and New York, 1846), pp. 248-419; and R. Sunderland, Anti-Slavery Manual (New York, 1837), chaps. 7-9. • slaves. However, the triumph of Christianity did much to strengthen the trend, and, among the elements of Christianity, Paul's habitual designation of himself as "Paul, the slave of F1ree' Christ" (Rom. 1:1; Gal. 1:10; Phil. 1:1; imitated in Titus 1:1, a quarterly etc.) was particularly influential. This loathsome belief, that man is properly a slave, obviously invites rhetorical develop- devoted to the ideals of ment; hence we go back at once to the simpler question, What does the New Testament say about actual slavery? secularism and freedom Colossians was often imitated, so the New Testament con- We invite you to subscribe tains a number of generally recognized, pseudo-Pauline for- geries, and three of these, Ephesians, 1 Timothy, and Titus, Cl 1 year $18.00 contain passages on slavery to the same effect as the one we ❑ 2 years $32.00 have just seen.14 Of these, 1 Timothy is the most interesting, Cl 3 years $42.00 because it particularly enjoins Christian slaves to obey Christian Subscription includes the Secular Humanist Bulletin masters; they are "not to treat them contemptuously just be- cause they are brothers [in Christ]" (1 Tim. 6:2). ❑ New ❑ Check or money ❑ With all these clear passages, there is no reasonable doubt Renew order enclosed that the New Testament, like the Old, not only tolerated chattel ❑ Visa D MasterCard slavery (the form prevalent in the Greco-Roman world of Paul's Acct. # Exp. Date time), but perpetuated it by making the slaves' obedience to their masters a religious duty. This biblical morality was one of Name the great handicaps that the emancipation movement in this (print clearly) country had to overcome.15 That it was overcome, and that Street revulsion to slavery is now in this country almost universal, is City Zip one of our great national accomplishments. State Outside U.S. add $4.00 for surface mail, $8.00 for airmail. Notes (U.S. funds on U.S. bank). FREE INQUIRY Box 5 • Buffalo, New York 14215-0005 1. Cf. the papal servus servorum Dei ("a slave of the slaves of God"). Tele: 716-834-2921 2. Shiphah and 'amah. For the use of the former polite self-depreciation

Spring 1987 31

The `Escape Goat' of Christianity

-LAMM. ariMIN AMER,

Delos B. McKown

nce upon a time not so long ago I turned on my have delivered a lengthy sermon. In any case Acts says that, television set to see the evening news. Unaware that when he was finished, some ridiculed him and others proposed 0my watch was fast, I tuned in on the closing moments to hear him again (v. 32), but that he left them abruptly (v. 33). of a know-your-Bible program. Three Jesuitical Protestant Why should Paul have left peremptorily? A fraction of an preachers were trying to prove from Scripture alone that the audience is better than none. Moreover, his Mars Hill per- Lord Jesus never took a drop of anything alcoholic. What a formance was supposed to have made some converts (v. 34). dazzling display of biblical interpretation that was! Then, hop- Why not try again? What the author of Acts did not find ing to teach one last object lesson for the day, the moderator edifying were the conditions and circumstances of the ridicule said something to the effect that there are lots of sinners nowa- Paul suffered, how mortifying it was, how long it lasted, how days who like to blame their sins and shortcomings on alcohol; well he bore up under it. Did he, perhaps, depart the Areopagus lots of sinners try to avoid personal responsibility by making at once, refusing to speak again, because he was too humiliated strong drink take the blame. "Yes, my friends," he said, "they to face another intellectual mauling of the sort he almost cer- just make liquor into their `escape goat.' " tainly received? One thing is sure: Paul would not have received That simple, charming, mixed-up way of putting things ridicule gladly. kept me merry for quite a while, during which I mused on The Stoics present that day would have been as grave as whether or not there might have been in biblical times a scape- Paul morally and much more perspicacious logically. After all, goat that, just before the sins of the people were placed on its next to Aristotle, the Stoic school made the greatest contribu- head, broke free and bolted into the wilderness—a real "escape tions to the young discipline of logic. Most likely they raked goat." Later, in less merry moments, it dawned on me that Paul over the coals for every inconsistency and for every Christianity has an "escape goat" built into its very heart, an unwarranted assumption in his sermon. As for the Epicureans, "escape goat" ready to bolt into a special kind of wilderness well, they must have been even more galling to him. No matter whenever the situation requires. Let me explain. how zealous he was to proclaim his gospel, they would have In Acts 17:15, St. Paul arrives in Athens. Upon seeing the been equally zealous to neutralize and counteract its super- city's many images and idols, he suffers spiritual paroxysms. stitions. They would have pointed out that no god made the So sorely vexed is our saint that, unbidden, he protests the universe, that the world is composed of atoms in motion in situation in the synagogue and also in the open market. While space, that life is but a temporary product of atoms cohering at haranguing people out of doors he is overheard by certain particular levels of complexity, and that death occurs irrevoca- philosophers, Epicureans and Stoics, who wonder what this bly whenever the atoms of a living body cease to cohere and spermologos (this seed-picker, this prattler) is trying to say. So, fall apart. In retrospect, the vexations Paul experienced upon they lead him to the Areopagus (to Mars Hill) and invite him arriving in Athens must have been as pin pricks compared with to speak his piece. the philosophical afflictions he suffered just before his abrupt Acts 17:22-31 proposes to tell us what Paul said. Perhaps descent from Mars Hill and speedy departure from Athens for he did say some or all of the things reported therein, but surely Corinth. there must have been much more. It taxes our credulity too much to think that he limited himself to the contents of ten e may safely assume that those afflictions preoccupied short verses. Given what we know about him from his letters WPaul for what may have seemed to him an unbearably and given a ready-made audience of unbelievers, he must surely long time. In any case, by the time he wrote what we now have as 1 Corinthians, he had discovered the perfect way to deal Delos B. McKown is professor of philosophy and head of the with Stoics and Epicureans, with assorted rationalists, and with department at Auburn University. He is the author of the intellectuals of every sort. In doing so, he gave Christianity its "escape goat." novel With Faith and Fury (Prometheus) and a member of FREE INQUIRY's Committee for the Scientific Examination of First Corinthians 1:18-31 and 3:18-20 tell the tale with a little help from Colossians 2:8. In 1 Corinthians 1:18, Paul announces Religion. that the word of the cross, no doubt the same word he pro-

32 FREE INQUIRY that there is any deity to be found. "Christianity has an `escape goat' built into its But why is the Christian message inherently moronic, and very heart, an `escape goat' ready to bolt into a why should God have chosen this vehicle to save believers? Verse 22 says that Jews seek a sign and that Greeks seek special kind of wilderness whenever the situation wisdom; but, says Paul (v. 23), "We preach Christ crucified, a requires it." stumbling-block to Jews and folly to Gentiles." Since Jesus did not succeed in the expected ways, militarily and politically, i.e., claimed on Mars Hill, is a message that strikes people in two since he neither delivered his people from Roman bondage nor sharply contrasting ways. To those who, like himself (by his restored their national fortunes but died a most un-Messianic own admission), are being saved, it is the power of God; to death, he gave no sign to the Jews that he was the true those who, like the pagan philosophers, are presumably perish- Messiah. Thus, appropriately, they rejected him. Yet, if Paul is ing, it is absurd, foolish, and inane. The Greek word used is right, he is much, much more. No wonder the Jews took this moría, from which we derive "moronic." Literally, then, the to be theological foolishness. As for the Greeks who seek word of the cross is a moronic message. wisdom, i.e., as for the learned, literate, and logical of the In verse 19, with little regard for the original context or its Hellenistic world, what Paul was preaching was fabulous, relevance, Paul quotes Isaiah (29:14) to the effect that God will foolish, and unintelligible. Doubtless the Stoics and Epicureans destroy the wisdom of the wise. Then in verse 20 he asks where apprised him of this in no uncertain terms during his unhappy the wise, the scribes, and the debaters of the age are. In short, visit to Mars Hill. where are the learned, the literate, and the logical? Daring But now (v. 25) he exults in how the foolishness of God is these folk to show their faces, as it were, he asks rhetorically, wiser than the wisdom of men. More important, by extension "Has not God made moronic the wisdom of the world?" The to himself, he also exults in how the moronic message he answer is presumably a resounding yes. preached on Mars Hill transcends the worldly wisdom of those In verse 21, he promulgates a dogma as pernicious as it is who, to all appearances, had shown him up as a babbler. Thus historically significant. Since in the wisdom of God (to which does Paul exonerate himself for his lame performance. Con- Paul, of course, is privy) the world did not know God through tinuing in this vein, he notes (v. 27) that God chose what is wisdom, i.e., through empirical knowledge and rationality, it moronic so as to shame the worldly. Thus does Paul's deity get pleased God to save those who believed the moronic message the last laugh. It seems (v. 29) that the great God of the whole of the cross. Put differently, it was a part of God's sagacious universe is sorely offended whenever humans, especially, per- plan to see to it that no human would ever find Him through haps, those of the greatest intellectual attainments, boast in his empirical experience or logical argumentation. Paul is at least presence, if, indeed, they ever do. To humble these wise fools, partly right about this. Nobody has. Indeed, nobody has shown whose souls are at risk, God chose something incoherent, the

Spring 1987 33 foolishness of the cross, and then made belief in it requisite to with ideas, Christian theologians deal with the facts of God, salvation. How clever of God! just as scientists deal with the facts of nature. Moreover, he Should any of the worldly wise catch intimations of this announced that Christianity is neither sub-rational nor irra- and fear for their souls, Paul leaves instructions. In 1 Corin- tional, but supra-rational. As such no mere human epistemology thians 3:18 he says, "If any among you thinks that he is wise in can ever encompass the truths of God. How frequently Chris- this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise." Yes, tians have exercised their "escape goat"! let us stultify ourselves and become moronic. Let us repudiate And in more ways than one. Take the doctrine of the our science, our logic, our philosophy, and simply fear God, trinity, for example. Here is a doctrine that says that the deity which, of course, is the beginning of wisdom, biblically speak- consists of one perfect spiritual substance subsisting on three ing. Let us with childish, uncritical minds also believe in Christ distinct, coeval, and co-equal hypostases (let the reader under- crucified, exactly as Paul tells the tale, that we may live forever stand). One of these, the Father, is not created or begotten and in heavenly bliss. does not proceed. Another, the Son, is not made or created but Paul, however, is still not finished with philosophers. In 1 is begotten (not physically, of course, but analogically, sym- Corinthians 3:19 he warns them that God will catch them in bolically) and does not proceed. The remaining hypostasis, the their craftiness, knowing (v. 20) that their thoughts are useless Holy Ghost, is not made and is not begotten but proceeds to aid them. Even if God were not lying in wait to catch the from the Father and the Son in double procession. Since the worldly wise, philosophy, just by itself, jeopardizes the soul. In single procession of one hypostasis from another is lamentably Colossians 2:8 Paul cautions his readers lest they be preyed unclear, double procession is really mind-boggling. But here upon by it and its vain deceits. the "escape goat" shows that it can get away with magic. This theological thicket of unintelligibility ceases to be just that and hat a marvelous "escape goat"! It let Paul preach as becomes an "adorable mystery." However, should the devotees Wdivine truth whatever the vagaries of his own unbridled, of another religion produce an "adorable mystery" antithetical subjective experiences warranted. Henceforth, nobody could to Christianity, Christians can become quite hard-headed, very daunt or humble him. Nobody could make him put up or shut critical, and ever so concerned about factuality in matters of up according to the normal standards of logic, learning, or faith. No other religion, it seems, can have an "escape goat," or ordinary experience. He simply did not have to play by the a proper one at least. accepted rules. If heathen intellectuals disagreed with him, it Just as his "escape goat" of divine foolishness let Paul, was because they were perishing and had not the wit to know henceforth, encounter his intellectual betters undaunted, so it, whereas he was being saved, according to his own subjec- many a foolish, uninformed preacher nowadays can mount a tivity. Moreover, if his fellow Christians disagreed with him (as pulpit and proceed to set the world straight. What the Bible some did strenuously), it was because they were false apostles does not supply explicitly, the preacher can spin out of his or (2 Cor. 11:13), not he. His gospel came straight from Jesus her own insides—out of faith, feelings, and figments of (Gal. 1:12); their deceits, from Satan (2 Cor. 11:15). In short, imagination—as did Paul. Paul's unrestrained folly was God's own foolishness; his Thus we can learn what God would have America do in moronic message, God's. How, then, could he go wrong? He Taiwan or El Salvador. We can find out which elected officials could not, but everybody else could. How like Lenin! should be targeted for defeat and which candidates enjoy God's Since our saint's letters became scriptural to Christians, favor. We can be assured that venereal herpes is God's express Paul's "escape goat" became carte blanche to subsequent judgment on promiscuous sexuality and that AIDS is his generations. To be sure, some Christians have had more respect modern punishment for homosexuals, now that capital punish- for worldly wisdom than others, and at various times and ment is no longer exacted as Leviticus 20:13 prescribes. We can places theology has been more rather than less philosophical. discern in the Equal Rights Amendment a satanic plot to sub- Even logic has been honored now and again, though always vert God's will for women. Similarly, the theory of evolution is kept on a tight leash. Nevertheless, whenever Christians have a diabolical scheme to seduce schoolchildren from faith in bib- faced a logic superior to their own, whenever they have been lical inerrancy. Nuclear disarmament, of course, would frustrate confronted by disagreeable facts or by what to them is a dan- God's plans for Armageddon and the end time, when the ele- gerous philosophy, they have always had their "escape goat," ments will melt with fervent (nuclear?) heat (2 Peter 3:10), and legitimized by St. Paul and ever ready to dash to safety in a so on and on endlessly. How omnicompetent that "escape goat" theological thicket of unintelligibility. really is! Thus, Tertullian could say of the resurrection, "It is certain, We who reject the notion that human intelligence is con- because it is impossible." Luther could announce, "Reason is temptible to God, to a deity who lies in wait to shame it, have the greatest enemy that faith has," and execrate it as the "Devil's our work cut out for us. At this juncture in our national life, Whore." Kierkegaard could wallow in pious paradox in book with a president who thinks the Bible has all the answers, with after book and accept on faith alone the ultimate paradox, the so-called scientific creationists doing their bit to wreck science doctrine of the incarnation, God become man, the eternal education in public schools, with legions of Falwellians afflicting become temporal, the infinite, finite, and ever-living deity, dead the country with their divine foolishness, it is time to do all we on the cross. In our time, Karl Barth could say serenely (as I can to prevent the "escape goat" of Christianity from getting once heard him say) that, whereas philosophers merely deal away. •

34 FREE INQUIRY Free Thought and Humanism

logre Dresdei .-1••~' in Germany orn • ¡•~,~, Fra kfurtS A Nu?emberg rGERMANYY Mul Ich(•

Renate Bauer Translated by Brian Kelly

apere aude! Courageously use your common sense!" Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels—who, starting from a critique This saying from Immanuel Kant's essay "What Is of Feuerbach, formulated their own political theory with prac- SEnlightenment?" quite precisely marks the official be- tical conclusions and thereby went far beyond the demand for ginning of free thought in Germany. Kant's demand for the freedom of thought—but also the free-religionist groups that critical application of reason was especially inspiring to writers began to appear around the middle of the nineteenth century. and other educated people. It is interesting to note that Kant Friedrich Nietzsche, whose "God is dead" philosophy still spoke not of the right to think for oneself but rather of the provokes discussion today, can be named as the third philoso- courage that this endeavor required, and later of the duty to pher of German free thought, although his influence upon free- use one's reason. For many people, even today, freedom of thinking and free-religionist groups is harder to determine than thought seems not so much a right or a necessity as a test of that of Feuerbach. courage not frequently submitted to. Nevertheless, Kant's strict Besides the philosophers, the other historical figures whose systematism in philosophy and ethics proved itself ineffective. advocacy of human autonomy found expression in highly quot- It failed to stimulate people to oppose their respective state able formulations were Goethe and Schiller. Goethe's pantheism religions (Protestantism in Prussia, Catholicism in Bavaria, with added a unique coloring to the development of new religious the rest of Germany divided between the two) with freethinking and freethinking movements. One must also not forget Gotthold organizations of their own. An additional factor was Kant's Lessing, whose humanism and advocacy of religious tolerance defense of the traditional belief in God. Although he rejected had widespread influence. the classic proofs of God's existence, he substituted his own, the so-called moral proof. A shortened and usually corrupted rom the references above to important figures who formu- version of this argument is still gladly employed by the theolo- Flated concepts for a true freedom of thought, much can be gians in their disputes with atheists and people of other faiths, inferred regarding the spiritual climate in the German-speaking although it is ill suited to this purpose. states during the first part of the nineteenth century. This By contrast, Ludwig Feuerbach's materialist philosophy had climate was characterized by a mood of rebellion against the a substantially greater influence about fifty years later upon the authoritarian state and Germany's political fragmentation. The formation of freethinking and free-religionist groups. His philo- ideas and events of the French Revolution contributed sub- sophical analyses of religion, where he portrayed the various stantially to this climate, and its excesses were not enough to concepts of divinity as projections of man's self-ideal and called extirpate the impression that civil freedom was possible. After for the founding of a new nature-religion, influenced not only 1815 the "Restoration," another word for the restrengthening of authoritarian government in the German states, increased Renate Bauer has studied political pressure and led to intensified persecution of political psychology and philosophy dissenters. Added to this were the effects of the industrial in West Germany and the revolution, which so worsened the economic situation of the United States. She is head lower middle-class, farmers, and workers that tens of thousands of the Freireligioese Landes- sought a brighter future through emigration. gemeinde Pfalz in Ludwig- Thus during this period many social tensions coincided with shafen. the citizens' desire for political freedom and self-determination; for the abolishment of restrictive intra-German borders and the

Spring 1987 35 In Germany itself, the German League of Free-Religionist "It seems to me better to offer positive help in the Congregations (Der Bund Freireligiöser Gemeinden Deutsch- search for personal meaning; to create a sense of lands, or the BFGD) was formed in 1859 out of the surviving community and establish forums for discussion .. . German-Catholic and independent Protestant congregations and was later joined by newly revived congregations. humanism is a vibrant way of life that can be pursued The congregations began to divorce themselves more and independently of apathy or Christian dogma." more from Christian ideas and rites. The period up through the founding by Bismarck of the German national state proved creation of a unified nation-state; for freedom in religion from to be a difficult one for the congregations. The flame that had the traditional Christian churches, which assiduously aided the been lit in 1848 had been thoroughly put out; and, with the authorities in repressing the citizens; and not least of all for disappearance of the liberal-democratic movement in politics, financial security and a share in economic prosperity. all freethinking and free-religionist ideas and their proponents Because of the structure of the state, opportunities to effect appeared threatened. political change were practically nonexistent. The system sup- Alongside the independent congregations, the German ported a high degree of activity by informants and encouraged workers' movement came into being and gradually grew in denunciation. Indeed, among the best sources for current re- strength. It was influenced by the ideas of Feuerbach, Marx, search into the origin and development of the free religious and Engels, which determined its atheistic posture. movement are the carefully organized and preserved reports of As a result of Bismarck's battle with the Catholic church, informants. It is therefore not surprising that liberal aspirations there was greater freedom to espouse other religious views. At at first expressed themselves in the seemingly unpolitical found- the same time a ban on the political activity of workers' groups ing of independent religious congregations, a somewhat natural caused them to seek other forms of activity, particularly in but nevertheless extremely controversial area. The immediate educational and free-thought organizations. In 1881 these historical impetus for this movement was the exhibition in the organizations joined together in the League of German Free- cathedral at Trier of the so-called Holy Coat of Trèves. Many thinkers (Deutscher Freidenkerbund). During the last decade liberal-minded people who had been influenced by Enlighten- of the nineteenth century, and also after World War 1, this ment thought experienced this homage to superstition as a movement picked up extraordinary momentum. Its communal violation of reason. An open letter against this display by a celebrations of life, youth, and marriage resembled the social Catholic assistant priest named Johannes Ronge, written on structures of the existing independent religious congregations. October 1, 1844, found wide assent, and led, beginning in 1845, Coalitions of congregations, free-thought groups, and the to the formation of numerous "German Catholic" congrega- German League of Monists were formed in many localities. tions. These congregations rejected all notions of priestly medi- ation between man and God, declared reason to be the highest n 1906 the League of Monists, proposed by Professor Ernst arbiter, even in religion, and stressed the right of the individual I Haeckel, was founded. Its goal was the propagation of a to his own religious convictions as well as the necessity of a scientifically based world-view, a goal that it achieved in the new ethic and a new human togetherness based on the early freethinkers' movement and in the independent religious Christian concept of a community of love. congregations. It also attracted many interested outsiders. In 1841 a group of liberal ministers calling themselves Less organizationally strong but no less intrinsically signifi- "Friends of Light" joined together and made similar demands cant was the idea of "ethical culture." This idea, which was within the Protestant camp. promulgated in German-speaking countries in a magazine of The struggle for legal recognition of these new congregations the same name published by Rudolf Penzig starting in 1893, only contributed to the already growing and widespread polit- had as its goal the pedagogical and sociopolitical mediation of ical tension. This tension exploded in the Revolution of 1848, an autonomous ethical system. which led to the calling of a national constituent assembly in All these organizations received their strongest support the church of St. Paul at Frankfurt. Leading dissident German during the Weimar period (1918-1933). It was estimated at the Catholics and Protestant Friends of Light participated actively time that around 700,000 people belonged to these groups, and in these political events. This was not surprising since, in the a national steering committee was founded to coordinate their programs of the free congregations, religious, political, and efforts. Concurrently the freethinkers and free-religionists com- social demands were quite closely interwoven. In 1849 the bined into the People's League for Spiritual Freedom (der revolution was put down and numerous German Catholic Volksbund far Geistesfreiheit). There was, however, some divi- congregations were banned. Robert Blum, one of the intellectual siveness. Congregations in southwestern Germany set up a leaders of the revolution and an organizer of the free-religionist separate organization with the stated purpose of more faithfully movement, had been shot to death in Vienna in 1848. Leading preserving the free-religionist element. thinkers like Johannes Ronge had to go into exile. Karl Schurz, The freethinkers also experienced a split. Both the socialistic a brother-in-law of Ronge's, and Friedrich Hecker, a leader of and (somewhat later) the even more strongly Marxist-oriented the revolution in Baden, fled to the United States. Many others proletarian freethinkers broke away from the more middle- went with them, so that starting in 1852 free-religionist congre- class freethinkers' group, the League of German Freethinkers. gations were founded on American soil, most notably in Wis- These fights over direction substantially weakened the move- consin. ment as a whole. Often it seemed that the only thing uniting

36 FREE INQUIRY the disparate groups was their advocacy of cremation. the strength of the Christian churches, which were granted favored status by the occupying powers. The churches were, fter their underhanded seizure of power, the Nazis banned after all, the only institutions that had emerged from the col- Anot only their political opponents but also freethinking lapse of the Nazi empire unscathed. By contrast, the banned organizations. For the most part individual congregations and BFGD and all democratic political parties had to start over their sub-organizations were affected first, and only later the again from scratch. Civil administrators were suspect because national groups. In 1935 the People's League for Spiritual of their authoritarian training. The Cold War of the 1950s not Freedom, which in 1933 had changed its name back to "The only put a strain on international relations but also spawned a German League of Free-Religionist Congregations" (BFGD), general fear of communism within West Germany itself. This was banned. Its managing director at the time, Carl Peter, took its toll on the work of the free-religionist congregations, succeeded in founding a "front" group as a means of maintain- which had after all been banned by the Nazis as supposed ing some contact between the members and congregations. A "cover organizations" for Marxists. Members of free-religionist few congregations, primarily in southwest Germany, that had organizations had to contend with the prospect of exclusion already split off from the BFGD, were unaffected by the ban. from the teaching professions and the civil service. A compli- At the same time there arose separately numerous anti- cating factor was that in most regions church-run schools had clerical "leagues" and "movements" of a nationalist-racist been established, and consequently all teachers were required character. These groups hoped for broad-based support from to be Christian. In recent years, though, BFGD members have the Nazis, whose racist and authoritarian ideas were carried won equal employment rights in this field. over into the realm of religion and cosmology. The strongest The opposition of the BFGD to the rearmament of the and most "liberal" of these organizations was the German Faith Federal Republic, and to atomic weaponry in particular, also Movement (Deutsche Gldubensbewegung) led by Professor made it unpopular during the conservative period of the Cold Jakob W. Hauer. The free-religionist organizations at first War. As a result, almost all congregations have experienced an sought cover within this movement in order to continue their ongoing drop in membership since their refounding, which was own activities in safety. However, the attempt failed. The free- carried out largely by members who had been active before religionists were unwilling to sacrifice their democratic com- 1933. This trend continues today largely unchanged. munal structure to Hauer's and the Nazis' "Führer principle." Meanwhile, the established churches, especially the Protes- They were also unwilling to introduce the National Socialist's tant ones, have been losing members at the rate of more than racist rhetoric into their constitutions. 100,000 a year, although approximately 90 percent of the popu- All these nationalistically oriented "free" organizations soon lation is still organized into one or the other of the two tradi- realized that, ironically, the new government was not at all tional Christian churches. In addition, fundamentalist Christian eager to do battle with the Christian churches. On the contrary, sects are springing up, as well as other, primarily East Asian- the Nazis made great concessions, particularly to the Catholic oriented religious communities. church. By contrast, the older organizations are struggling to sur- vive. Attempts to spark enthusiasm for free thought or a t the end of World War II and of the Nazi regime, the humanistic outlook among portions of the so-called intelli- Apreviously banned independent congregations began to gentsia have met with no success. The reasons for this would reorganize everywhere, supported by Carl Peter, who worked require careful investigation. In the meantime, we must rely on toward a refounding and revitalizing of the BFGD. But this educated guesses. Some groups devote a large part of their was made difficult by the partition of Germany into zones of energies to attacking the church and Christian doctrine. This occupation. The large congregations in what is now Polish does not appear to me to be a very promising approach. Reli- territory, for instance, were permanently lost. As a result of the gious beliefs are for most people not based on reasoning, but growing tensions between the Eastern and Western powers, rather on the formation of habits and on emotional experiences; two separate organizations, with headquarters in Ludwigshafen often they constitute the core of a person's identity, the possible (West) and Leipzig (East), had to be established. The East destruction of which can be perceived as very threatening. So it German half of the BFGD exists currently only on paper. seems to me better to offer positive help in the search for The middle-class League of Freethinkers never reorganized; personal meaning; to create a sense of community and establish today a single group exists in Berlin, in addition to a group forums for discussion; and to make clear that humanism is a that is essentially a descendant of the earlier proletarian vibrant way of life that can be pursued independently of apathy (Marxist) branch. Nor has the League of Monists ever regained or Christian dogma and yet include a recognition of religion's its old strength. positive elements. The attempts by the BFGD to achieve equal One new development has been the founding of the Reli- recognition within and by the state are beginning to bear fruit, gious Society of German Unitarians, like the BFGD a legal and the organization is now being greeted by many young public corporation. This group, which arose out of the Reli- West Germans as a helpful ethical alternative. gious Society of Free Alzey Protestants, has a monistic world- The free-religionists have already survived the hardest times view with heavy religious overtones. At the moment it suffers of crisis, banishment, and persecution. Why should they now from strong internal conflicts between a liberal, humanistic run aground, in an era of overabundance? This is a time when wing and a right wing characterizable as nationalist-racist. humanistic ideas and values are more urgently needed than The postwar reconstruction was substantially hindered by ever. •

Spring 1987 37 The Case Against Reincarnation Part 3

Paul Edwards

unatic theories may be divided into those that are dreary garded as the foremost astral theorist, is a "non-physical," and those that are fun. Heidegger's assorted pronounce- "second" body that is the " `double' or duplicate of the physical Jments about death, if taken literally, are prominent body" ("Out-of-the-Body Experiences and Survival," in J. D. specimens of the former. One of the most enjoyable examples Pearce-Higgins and G. S. Whitby, eds., Life, Death, and Psy- of the latter is the theory of the astral body, to which I briefly chical Research, p. 67). The more primitive and philosophically referred in Part 2. When we turn to what I call the "inter- illiterate believers frequently identify it with consciousness or regnum" problem—the question of how a person subsists in the soul, but this is clearly absurd since consciousness and the the interval between death in one regular body and birth in a soul (regardless of whether these are treated as the same thing) new one—it will become clear that invoking the astral body is do not possess size, shape, and location the way the duplicate a natural and by no means illogical move. Professor Geddes of our physical body would have to do. Dr. Crookall realizes MacGregor, who as a professional philosopher has a much that the astral theory must seem "incredible to `common sense' better grasp of questions relating to personal identity than other people," but this only means that they are unfamiliar with the reincarnationists, is ready to champion the astral body in spite extensive evidence in its favor. of its "occult" associations. Most forms of reincarnationism are indissolubly linked to the astral body, as their protagonists Bilocations and OBEs readily admit, and I will try to show that this by itself is a sufficient reason for rejecting them. Reading about the astral his evidence is twofold. In the first place, "innumerable body has given me so much pleasure that I would like to be Tmen, women and children have ... had the experience of able to say something kind about it. Unfortunately I cannot leaving their [regular] bodies temporarily and eventually re- oblige: on examination the theory turns out to be just as hope- entering them." The subjects of these experiences frequently lessly absurd as it seems at first sight to all sane people. observe the second body, of whose existence they are not con- What is the astral body and why should anybody believe in scious most of the time, since in waking life "it is normally 'in its existence except that it helps the cause of reincarnation? gear' with the physical." Dr. Crookall is here referring to out- The astral body, in the words of the late Dr. Robert Crookall, of-body experiences (OBEs) or what he and others tenden- who until his recent much-lamented death was generally re- tiously call "astral projections." The other evidence consists of the less frequent cases in which the astral body has become Paul Edwards teaches philosophy at Brooklyn College and the "exteriorized" and has actually been observed by other people. New School for Social Research. He is the editor-in-chief of The latter of these phenomena are familiar to all students of The Encyclopedia of Philosophy and the author and editor of the history of Christianity. It has been reported of numerous numerous books and articles. He contributed the articles on saints that they were seen in two places at the same time. Thus A. J. Ayer, Logical Positivism and Unbelief Wilhelm Reich, St. Anthony of Padua, whose sermon to the fishes has been and Voltaire and wrote the Foreword to the recently published immortalized in one of Gustav Mahler's most delightful songs, Encyclopedia of Unbelief (Prometheus 1986). His Heidegger's knelt to pray on Holy Thursday of 1226 in the Church of St. und der Tod, which contains a critical discussion of Heidegger's Pierre du Queyrrix at Limoges and at that very moment ap- views on death and "Being," was published in Germany in peared at the other end of the town at another service. Sister 1985. Professor Edwards was awarded the Butler Silver Medal Maria Coronel de Agreda, a seventeenth-century Spanish nun for Outstanding Contributions to Philosophy by Columbia who modestly doubted her own gifts, had telepathic powers, University in 1979. was able to levitate, and underwent no less than five hundred bilocations. Just as saints and other members of religious orders

38 FREE INQUIRY no longer levitate, so they also have not engaged in bilocations also traveled on the City of Limerick. As for Mrs. Wilmot, the in more recent centuries, but several secular cases have been details of her supposed corroboration all come from Mr. reported during the past one hundred and fifty years. One Wilmot. She reported merely that she had had a "dream" that that is often mentioned in the literature of occultism concerns left her with a vivid sense the next day of having visited her Mme. Sagée, a schoolteacher in nineteenth-century France. husband. She at no stag&asserted that she remembered flying Soon after her appointment, according to Dr. Crookall's ac- over the ocean to the City of Limerick or that she recalled, in a count, rumors circulated that she had been seen far from the dream or otherwise, walking into his stateroom and kissing classroom where she was engaged in teaching. On one occasion him. Equally important, she at no time claimed to be aware of when she was writing on the blackboard, Dr. Crookall writes, peculiar features of the berths in the stateroom. Since she knew "all the girls saw not only her physical body but also her about the dangerous storm and since another steamship had `double' which made the same gestures" (op. cit., pp. 67-68). been reported lost, she was understandably anxious about her Perhaps the most distressing event occurred when she was help- husband, and this seems to be a perfectly natural explanation ing to dress one of the girls, standing behind her. The girl for the dream she did report. It should be added that the happened to glance in the mirror and saw not one but two Wilmot case is generally regarded as the best-supported case Mme. Sagées. She promptly fainted. After numerous com- on record of a bilocation as well as an OBE in which a person plaints by parents the school authorities dismissed the unfor- could accurately perceive objects at a great distance from his tunate teacher. No information is available on whether she had physical body. (Susan Blackmore's discussions are found in engaged in acts of bilocation before her arrival at the school "Are Out-of-Body Experiences Evidence for Survival?" Ana- or whether she continued in such acts after her dismissal. biosis, December 1983, and in a letter in the same journal, The most famous and, in the opinion of some, the best- 1984, pp. 169-171.) documented case of bilocation, which no champion of the astral Bilocations are a myth, but OBEs are very real and there is body ever fails to mention, is that of Mr. and Mrs. Wilmot. not the slightest reason why a person who rejects the theory of There is not enough space to relate the details of this case, but the astral body should deny their reality. The term out-of-body the following broad outline may suffice for our purposes. It experience has been simply and clearly defined by Blackmore concerns an alleged event on the City of Limerick, a steamship as referring to "an experience in which one seems to perceive that sailed from Liverpool to New York on October 3, 1863. A the world from a location outside the physical body" (Beyond severe storm lasting for nine days began on October 4. Mrs. the Body, p. 1). There is surely no question that many people Wilmot, at the family home in Connecticut, was acutely and in many countries at many different times have had such ex- justifiably worried about her husband's safety. On the eighth periences. These experiences have certain common features: the day of the storm Mr. Wilmot dreamed that his wife had entered individual can travel at enormous speed, he can penetrate his stateroom in a nightgown, lowered her head, gently kissed material objects like walls, roofs, and human bodies as if these him, and had then withdrawn. A Mr. Tait, who shared Mr. were not there, and he is not noticed by others. The last does Wilmot's stateroom, reported the next morning that he had not of course apply to bilocations, but I am disregarding these observed a lady entering the room, hesitating for a moment, here. Certain further characteristics asserted to belong to all then walking up to Mr. Wilmot's berth and gently kissing him. OBEs, both by Dr. Crookall and other astral theorists, are not When Mr. Wilmot returned to Connecticut his wife at once in fact universal. The most important of these is the observation mentioned her visit and she reported noticing unusual features by a person of his second or duplicate body. Celia Green in her of the berths in the stateroom of the City of Limerick. The book Out-of-Body Experiences reports many cases in which details of the case, supported by various documents, were pub- the person perceived himself as a blob or globe, a flare or a lished in the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, point of light, or in which he simply "looks" at his original vol. 7 (1891), and they have ever since been cited as evidence body and has no sense of possessing another one in the place for the existence of an astral body. The independent corrobora- from which he is looking. Some astral travelers have reported tion of three witnesses, only one of whom (Mr. Wilmot) had seeing an extremely elastic silver cord connecting the astral any interest in psychical phenomena, was too remarkable to be body to the sleeping physical body. It is also the belief of many explained in any other way. Professor C. D. Broad, who did astral theorists that, if the silver cord or "astral cable" is broken, not believe in the astral body, nevertheless called it a "very the person must die. When a person dies, the cord breaks and strange story" and took it seriously enough to devote several this enables the astral body to leave for other regions. The pages to it in his Lectures on Psychical Research. Susan Black- supposed universality of the observation of the silver cord more has gone to the trouble of studying the original documents during OBEs has frequently been cited as conclusive evidence in the archives of the Society for Psychical Research. After one that they cannot be hallucinations. For this reason it should be reads the results of her investigation the case looks a great deal emphasized that many reports of OBEs are on record without less impressive than it did when reported by Dr. Crookall or mention of a silver cord or, for that matter, any connecting even by Professor Broad. What made the case so impressive link. Dr. Kübler-Ross, one of the outstanding astral travelers was the apparent corroboration of Mr. Wilmot's dream by the of our time, has not once reported seeing such a cord. If she testimony from Mr. Tait and from Mrs. Wilmot. Mr. Tait was should read about it, things might of course become different. dead by the time the case was written up twenty-seven years Many of Celia Green's subjects do not report such a cord, and after the event occurred, and his corroboration is available no astral cable appears in many of the OBEs reported in other only in a letter from Miss Wilmot, Mr. Wilmot's sister, who cultures.

Spring 1987 39 one of the leading psychic explorers in the New York City area. From all the thousands of cases with which Dr. Crookall was familiar, he picked an OBE by William Gerhardi as "per- haps the most complete and convincing on record." It should be explained parenthetically that very many of Dr. Crookall's correspondents were persons with little education, but Gerhardi (1896-1977) was a well-educated and talented novelist whose works received high praise from outstanding literary figures like H. G. Wells and Bernard Shaw, among others. In 1934 he published a thinly disguised autobiography with the title Resur- rection, in which he described his astral adventures. In the interview with Martin Ebon, Dr. Crookall produced extensive quotations from this book for which there is no space here. In the article cited earlier he offers the following summary:

Gerhardi used his released "double" as an instrument of the Soul—he used it to see, to will, to reason, etc. He set himself to accumulate proof that he was really freed from his physical body, in a non-physical body, and that it was no dream. He said "what evidence, what more evidence?" He went about noting which windows were shut, etc., matters that he could check when he re-entered his body. This he did and then thought, "We have a duplicate body, all there and ready to use, the almost-indistinguishable double of the physical body. It seems that, for the first stage of survival at least, we already have a body neatly folded away in our physical bodies, always at hand in case of death, or for special use." [p. 70]

Needless confusion has been produced by an ambiguous Dr. Crookall concurs with Gerhardi's reasoning. "If a man can use of the phrase "astral projection." In one innocent sense it leave his physical body temporarily and continue to exist as a self-conscious being," he told Martin Ebon, "the fact would just means the same as OBE, and in this sense a person who denies the existence of the astral body does not deny the exis- prove a strong presumption that eventually when he comes to tence of astral projections—he objects to one particular ex- leave his physical body, i.e., to die, he will then also continue planation or interpretation of astral projections. Often, how- to exist as a self-conscious being in that second body" ever, the term has been used to refer to the separation of the (M. Ebon, ed., The Evidence for Life After Death, p. 116). astral from the physical body, and of course in this sense, but only in this sense, an opponent of an astral body must deny the An Astral Grand Tour of the Next World reality of astral projections. Charles P. Tart, a California psy- chologist, who is a warm friend of the astral body although he he most obvious objection to believing in the astral double has never flatly asserted its existence, evidently has some diffi- Tis that, aside from bilocations, which are difficult to take culty in stating the position of skeptics. "The current physical seriously, there is not the slightest observational evidence for science belief system," he writes, "defines such experiences as its existence: nobody has observed it with his senses and no meaningless and not at all as indicating the existence of any scientific instrument has ever detected it. This is indeed a valid kind of soul." To this Tart adds the reflection that "the physical objection, but I think that there are more basic considerations world view is neither psychologically satisfying nor scientifically that justify us not only in not believing in the astral body but sound." The former of these defects is presumably the result of in rejecting it. To explain these considerations and to show the its leading to "only one conclusion: death is the end for each of full absurdity of the astral theory I would like to present the us" ("Out-of-Body Experiences," in J. White, ed., Psychic case of Dr. George Ritchie, a Virginia psychiatrist, whose astral Explorations, pp. 353-354). I do not believe that Tart really trip in December 1943 has frequently been hailed as one of the means "physical science," for physics has nothing to say, one great events in astral history. Tributes to Dr. Ritchie's epoch- way or another, about OBEs or about the astral body. What making experience have come from many quarters. Thus Dr. he presumably means is the philosophy of empiricism, which Raymond Moody, who dedicated his best-selling Life After has often been espoused by physicists and other scientists. The Life to "George Ritchie, M.D. and, through him, to the One appropriate comment is that an empiricist would emphatically whom he suggested," has called Dr. Ritchie's astral adventure not deny the reality of OBEs. He would question whether they, "incredible," "fantastic," and "startling," and he credits his own or anything else, provide sufficient evidence for the astral body. research into "post-mortem" experiences to his meeting in 1965 Dr. Crookall, the aforementioned doyen of astral theorists, with this remarkable "clinical professor of psychiatry at the was interviewed a few years before his death by Martin Ebon, School of Medicine ... who had been dead, not just once but

40 FREE INQUIRY on two occasions about ten minutes apart." (Dr. Ritchie has reached the town of Vicksburg, he descended to the ground, never been a clinical professor of psychiatry, and he was "dead" but discovered, much to his astonishment, that he was unable once and not twice, but it sounds better the way Moody puts to touch any objects. He tried to start a conversation with a it.) Canon Pearce-Higgins, coeditor of the abovementioned man but was ignored. He then tapped the man's shoulder but Life, Death, and Psychical Research, takes a special interest in his fingers went right through him. George realized that it was those who have been to the Beyond—who, in the words of the pointless to proceed to Richmond and he therefore decided to seventeenth-century metaphysical poet Henry Vaughan, have return to the hospital. After a series of harrowing experiences "peeped into glory"—speaks of Dr. Ritchie in glowing terms as in the course of which he tried to talk to nurses, orderlies, one such peeper. His "most remarkable projection," his X-ray technicians, and physicians, but was never once noticed "round-the-astral-world trip," was an experience of "immense by any of them, he finally found the small isolation room in range" and can be described as nothing less than "apoca- which he had "died." He was acutely puzzled when he saw his lyptic." own dead body lying in bed and realized that he had two It is regrettable that I do not have the space to offer here bodies looking exactly alike: more than a very brief summary of this apocalyptic event. In December 1943 George Ritchie was a private in the U.S. Army, I could see this body lying there on the bed but 1 was the being stationed at Camp Barkeley in Texas. Because of the shortage that was, in every way, shape and form, just as big as the one of physicians it was arranged that George would be released on the bed. [Quoted from Dr. Ritchie's "I Found Life Beyond from his Army duties to take an accelerated degree at the Death," Fate, December 1970, p. 45.] Medical College of Virginia in his hometown of Richmond. He was supposed to catch a train to Richmond on December 20, Before long, an intensely luminous being made of nothing but but a few days earlier he became ill with pneumonia. During light appeared, and George at once realized that he was in the the night of December 20 his temperature was 106.5, and he presence of Jesus, the Son of God. Dr. Ritchie makes it clear collapsed while his chest was being X-rayed. Early in the that this Jesus was no "weakling" or "sissy," but on the contrary morning the physician on duty, getting no pulse, respiration, or "the most totally male Being" he had ever met. During a blood pressure, pronounced George dead and asked the ward momentous conversation about the "point" of life, which was boy to prepare George's body for the morgue. A few minutes carried on in thoughts rather than in words, George began to later the ward boy begged the physician to make an attempt to fall in love with Jesus. All the familiar symptoms of an amatory resuscitate George. This he did by injecting adrenalin into attachment were present. George realized that he "did not want George's heart muscle, and George gradually came back to life. to leave Him-1 knew that 1 never wanted to be without Him George remained on the critical list for five days but eventually again" (Fate, p. 47). When, finally, George returned to life on made a complete recovery. the earth he was heartbroken and felt and acted like a lover George Ritchie himself has always been totally convinced who had been separated from his beloved. Writing twenty years that his resuscitation was the result of divine intervention. In a after the fateful meeting with Jesus he remarks: notarized statement several years after the event, Dr. Donald Francy, the commanding officer at Camp Barkeley, stated: The cry in my heart that moment has been the cry of my life ever since: Christ, show me Yourself again. [Quoted from Dr. Private George G. Ritchie's ... virtual call from death and Ritchie's contribution to J. E. Weiss, ed., The Vestibule, p. return to vigorous health has to be explained in terms of other 67.] than natural means. [Quoted from Dr. Ritchie's book Return From Tomorrow, to be abbreviated as RFT, p. 81.] The rest of the story concerns the fascinating grand tour of the next world that so greatly impressed Canon Pearce-Higgins In an interview in the Toronto Star in October 1970 Dr. Ritchie and Dr. Moody. Here at last a human being could see for proudly displayed this testimonial and observed with becoming himself what hell and heaven were like. Dr. Ritchie is after all modesty that he could still not "fully fathom" why he of all a psychiatrist who can tell delusions from veridical experiences, people was "chosen to return to life." Canon Pearce-Higgins observes, and we have Dr. Ritchie's During the time when he was thought to be dead, Dr. own unqualified assurance that he saw the real thing. The Ritchie says that he remembers undergoing a succession of hellish regions came first. George witnessed the dreadful tortures remarkable encounters. After lapsing into unconsciousness, he suffered by suicides, alcoholics, violently angry types, and sexual found himself sitting at the edge of his bed and looking with perverts. It must be emphasized that all these dead people had distaste at a body closely resembling his own. George was still lost their regular bodies and were now living in their astral intent on catching the train to Richmond. He therefore pro- doubles. What is more, their punishments were intimately con- ceeded to put on his uniform and leave the hospital. In the nected with the "lack of solidity" of their astral housing. The corridor he met a sergeant who was carrying a tray with medical violent types, for example, appeared to be "writhing, punching, instruments. George told him to watch out since they were and gouging" and they were obviously out for blood. Yet, since about to collide. The next moment the sergeant went right they "had no substance," there never were any injuries and the through George without either of them feeling anything. Before frustration was unbearable. The same was true of the sexual he knew it, George was outside the hospital flying at great perverts, who were "tied up in all kinds of lewd relationships" speed in the direction of Richmond. At one stage, when he and performing "sexual abuses in feverish pantomime." Per-

Spring 1987 41 versions that George had never dreamed of "were being vainly attempted all around." The attempts were of course vain since Astral Tribulations none of these beings could make physical contact. There is a striking similarity between some of Dr. Ritchie's recollections ntertainment has not been my main reason for telling this and Dante's descriptions in the Inferno. I have no doubt that Etale of exploration and love. I have told it because it will this similarity is wholly accidental, unless, of course, Dante's enable me to explain more clearly than I could in general terms astral body also paid a visit to the next world. what is wrong with the astral theory. I will begin with some The heavenly spheres were much less exciting. In one area questions about George's uniform. It will be remembered that George was shown "astro-laboratories" in which scientists who at the beginning of his "post-mortem" journey George's astral wore "loose-floating hooded cloaks" appeared to be engaged in body put on his uniform. This was his regular U.S. Army some "vast experiment." Later George was introduced to a uniform. George reports no difficulty of any kind in putting on realm inhabited by composers, painters, and inventors. The the uniform. He was wearing this uniform when an orderly music was of extreme complexity and George realized that with a tray of medical instruments went right through him. He "Bach was only the beginning," an opinion that would be en- was wearing it when he descended from the sky into a street at dorsed by many earthbound music lovers. Although the astro- Vicksburg to start a conversation with a stranger, and he was scientists and the astro-artists seemed extremely serene and still wearing it during his search for his original body after his totally devoted to their work, something was clearly missing return to Camp Barkeley. There is also no suggestion that from their lives. What was missing, George realized, was the George disrobed after the arrival of Jesus, and we may assume love of Jesus. They were indeed single-mindedly pursuing the that he was wearing his uniform throughout the tour of the truth, but this very pursuit seemed to distract them "from the hereafter. The last stage of the trip is shrouded in obscurity, Truth Himself . . . standing in their midst" (RFT, p. 71). but it seems clear that George was in no position to remove his Finally, George saw "infinitely far off' a city of light. This was uniform. However, neither the physician nor the orderly re- the highest region and in fact it was Heaven. It was populated ported that George was wearing his uniform when they began by beings who had truly been saved and who were composed, their resuscitation attempt. So far as I know, the uniform was like Jesus, of nothing but light. These "radiant beings," George not missing, and it was on the same chair or hangers on which reasoned, were former inhabitants of the earth who, unlike the it had been placed when George was taken to the X-ray room. suicides, the alcoholics, and the perverts, and also unlike the It should be noted in passing that Dr. Ritchie never explained selfless scholars, "had indeed kept Jesus [as] the focus of their how the uniform was transferred from his astral body to its lives." They had "looked for Him in everything," and they had original location. done this "so well and so closely that they had been changed Several things about this account make no sense. To begin into His very likeness" (ibid., pp. 72-73). All of a sudden, for with, an astral body could never wear a regular uniform. It reasons we shall never know, two of these radiant beings lacks the solidity to keep any kind of clothing in place. If "hurled themselves across that infinity with the speed of light" George had succeeded in getting a grip on the clothes (which toward the location occupied by George and Jesus, but, dis- by his own astral assumptions is impossible), they would have proving Einstein's special theory of relativity, George and Jesus fallen to the floor. Let us suppose, however, that he somehow "drew away still faster." This was effectively the end of the worked the miracle of clothing his astral body in a regular grand tour. Suddenly the travelers were back in the hospital uniform. In that case the uniform would not have been invisible room in Texas. Jesus intimated to George that he must resume to others, and it could also not have been penetrated as if it his life on earth. George was desperate and begged Jesus not to occupied no space. The sergeant with the tray of instruments leave him, but Jesus would not relent. He did however make could not have failed to witness the remarkable spectacle of a George's reentry into his physical body as painless as possible uniform walking toward him without a man inside. He would by "spiritually anesthetizing" his "psychic being." George then also most surely have collided with the uniform if he had tried lost consciousness and he knew nothing more until he woke up to walk through the space it occupied. The same applies to the again on the morning of December 24. man whom George tapped on the shoulder in Vicksburg and In fairness to George and Jesus, I should observe that this to all the people he met after his return to the hospital—the brief summary does not adequately convey the majestic sweep soldiers, nurses, orderlies, and the X-ray technician. Such a of this extraordinary visit to the hereafter. The brevity of my remarkable sight—of a uniform without a man, walking, flying, account, however, is not the only reason the reader will not be and descending to the road—would surely have been reported fully informed about this stupendous event. Dr. Ritchie himself by those who saw it, but to the best of my knowledge no such has insisted in several places that, apparently on divine orders, reports were ever filed. To be invisible and to avoid collision he has not been permitted to reveal all that happened. We can with the orderly, George would have had to wear an astral only pray that before long the supernatural prohibition will be uniform. I have been assured by the Department of Defense lifted and that the entire story will at last be given to the world. that the U.S. Army does not supply such uniforms to its Perhaps a joint appeal by President Reagan and General Secre- soldiers. tary Gorbachev on behalf of the human race would persuade George Ritchie's uniform is of course merely one instance Dr. Ritchie to open up. If that fails we could always ask Dr. of the general problem of astral attire. I am not aware of a Goldberg to intercede. I am confident that neither Dr. Ritchie single case of bilocation in which an astral double was observed nor the Deity could resist his imprecations. without clothes. When St. Anthony of Padua preached in two

42 FREE INQUIRY different churches in Limoges at the same time he was wearing The problem of astral clothes, though tricky, is not the his usual clerical robes during both sermons. As for Mme. worst difficulty facing astral believers. Another has to do with Sagée, the nineteenth-century French bilocationist, she surely the known dependence of memories on the brain. George shocked her students sufficiently by appearing in two places Ritchie's astral body is supposed to have made the grand tour without being naked in either one of her apparitions. Mrs. while his regular body was out of action. Memory traces of the Wilmot's visit to her ailing husband greatly shocked the prudish experiences during this trip were produced in the astral brain Mr. Tait, the occupant of the upper berth, but he did not and not in George's regular brain. They could not have been assert that she came in the nude. On the contrary, all parties produced in the regular brain since the regular body was not in agreed that she was wearing her nightgown. In some reports of the various places visited during the trip. However, it is the "private" OBEs, in which the traveler's astral body is not pub- George Ritchie with the regular body who, ever since he awoke licly observable, the double was naked, but in most of them it from unconsciousness on December 24, 1943, has claimed to did wear garments just like those worn by regular bodies. Now, remember the events that took place during the visit to the the clothes worn by astral doubles cannot be ordinary clothes next world. How could the appropriate memory traces have for the reasons already explained. The only alternative seems been produced in George's regular brain? Do astral brains by to be that they are astral clothes, but where are astral clothes some kind of sympathetic magic produce duplicate traces in manufactured and how do they suddenly appear on the scene regular brains upon "reentry"? If they do not, the astral theorist when a bilocation or a private OBE occurs? is condemned to the view that here, but not in the case of any In one of his most intriguing books, The Next World— other genuine memories, the person can remember the events And the Next, given to this world in 1966, Dr. Crookall has without appropriate memory traces in the brain. Even if there brought together the opinions of astral scholars on this topic. is an astral brain with memory traces, clearly nobody has or The book incidentally also deals at length with the fascinating can have the slightest evidence that they produce duplicate questions of the precise location of "Hades" (the next world) traces in the regular brain at the moment of reentry. The altern- and of "Paradise" (the world after the next world). Dr. Crookall ative that here and only here a person can remember without reports a number of cases in which the astral body was indeed memory traces in the brain goes against everything we know naked but invariably became mysteriously clothed when the about the physiologically necessary conditions for memories. person felt embarrassed. This does not suggest to him that we The difficulty seems fatal either way. This objection may not are dealing with dreamlike experiences but rather that the laws faze astral theorists who, along with other occultists and also of the astral world differ from those of the familiar physical more respectable believers in survival, seriously believe in what universe. In any event, the great majority of astral bodies wear clothes that look just like those worn by their physical counter- parts. Dr. Crookall favors the view of the anonymous author Help Further the Cause of Life Beyond the Grave, a work published in London in 1876 that appears to be based on unimpeachable messages from the of Humanism. Beyond. This anonymous author wrote that "there is a spiritual Please remember FREE INQUIRY in your will. duplicate to every physical object," and Dr. Crookall is quick to point out that "if this is the case our clothes possess etheric Won't you consider making a provision in your will (astral) doubles that are invisible to the physical eye" (p. 38). for FREE INQUIRY and the Council for Democratic and Substantially the same position has been advocated by the Secular Humanism? This will ensure vital support early theosophist leaders Annie Besant and Charles Leadbeater, for the defense and development of humanism. who maintain that, although the astral world is richer than the Although humanists do not believe in immortal- ity, they know that the good work they do will sur- ordinary physical world in that it contains many objects that vive them. By leaving a percentage of your estate to do not correspond to anything in the physical world, the astral FREE INQUIRY (CODESH, INC.), you will be furthering world does contain an accurate copy of every regular physical the ideals of humanism. object. This is an ingenious theory, but when its implications We would be happy to work with you and your are worked out it may perhaps seem slightly farfetched. It attorney in the development of a will or estate plan would mean that every time somebody produces something, he that meets your wishes. also produces an astral copy of that thing. A carpenter who Besides a will, there are many other possibilities, such as living trusts and charitable gift annuities builds a set of bookshelves is really building two sets—the from which you receive an annual income from the regular one he sells to his customer and an astral copy he sells transfer of property now. Or you might make a con- to nobody. And the same of course applies to everything. A tingent bequest, by which FREE INQUIRY (CODESH, dentist, for example, who fills a tooth is really filling the tooth INC.) will receive a gift only if your primary bene- he thinks he is filling as well as its astral duplicate, and when I ficiaries do not survive you. am writing these lines I am really writing them twice at the For more information, contact Paul Kurtz, Editor same time. This is too much. I would rather believe that all Of FREE INQUIRY. astral bodies are always naked and that we are deluding our- selves when we observe them clothed. If it were not needed for P.O. Box 5 • Central Park Station Buffalo, New York 14215 • 716-834-2921 reincarnation one might almost be tempted to give up the All inquiries will be held in the strictest confidence. astral body.

Spring 1987 43

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(A 20% discount will be given on orders of 5 or more copies of the same issue; 40% on orders of 10 or more.) FREE INQUIRY Summary of Major Articles Winter 1980/81, Vol. 1, no. 1— Secular Humanist Declaration. Democratic and Its Discontents, R. Joseph Hoffmann. Boswell Confronts Hume: An Humanism, Sidney Hook. Humanism: Secular or Religious? Paul Beanie. Encounter with the Great Infidel, Joy Frieman. Humanism and Politics, Free Thought, Gordon Stein. The Fundamentalist Right, William Ryan. James Simpson, Larry Briskman. Humanism and the Politics of Nostalgia, The Moral Majority, Sol Gordon. The Creation/ Evolution Controversy, Paul Kurtz. Abortion and Morality, Richard Taylor. $3.50 H. James Birx. Moral Education, Robert Hall. Morality Without Religion, Winter 1982/83, Vol. 3, no. 1 — 1983—The Year of the Bible. Academic Marvin Kohl, Joseph Fletcher. Freedom Is Frightening, Roy Fairfield. The Freedom Under Assault in California, Barry Singer, Nicholas Hardeman, Road to Freedom, Mihajlo Mihajlov. $3.50 Vern Bullough. The Play Ethic, Robert Rimmer. Interview with Corliss Spring 1981, Vol. 1, no. 2 — The Secular Humanist Declaration: Pro and Lamont. Was Jesus a Magician? Morton Smith. Astronomy and the "Star Con, John Roche, Sidney Hook, Phyllis Schlafly, Gina Allen, Roscoe of Bethlehem," Gerald Larue. Living with Deep Truths in a Divided World, Drummond, Lee Nisbet, Patrick Buchanan, Paul Kurtz. New England Sidney Hook. Anti-Science: The Strange Case of Paul Feyerabend, Martin Puritans and the Moral Majority, George Marshall. The Pope on Sex, Vern Gardner. $3.50 Bullough. 0n the Way to Mecca, Thomas Szasz. The Blasphemy Laws, Spring 1983, Vol. 3, no. 2 — The Founding Fathers and Religious Liberty, Gordon Stein. The Meaning of Life, Marvin Kohl. Does God Exist? Kai Robert Alley. Madison's Legacy Endangered, Edd Doerr. James Madison's Nielsen. Prophets of the Procrustean Collective, Antony Flew. The Madrid Dream: A Secular Republic, Robert Rutland. The Murder of Hypatia of Conference, Stephen Fenichell. Natural Aristocracy, Lee Nisbet. $3.50 Alexandria, Robert Mohar. Hannah Arendt: The Modern Seer, Richard Summer 1981, Vol. 1, no. 3 — Sex Education, Peter Scales, Thomas Szasz. Kostelanetz. Was Karl Marx a Humanist? articles by Sidney Hook, Jan Moral Education, Howard Radest. Teen-age Pregnancy, Vern Bullough. Narveson, and Paul Kurtz. $3.50 The New Book-Burners, William Ryan. The Moral Majority, Gerald Larue. Summer 1983, Vol. 3, no. 3 (special issue) — Religion in American Politics Liberalism, Edward Ericson. Scientific Creationism, Delos McKown. New Symposium: Is America a Judeo-Christian Republic? Paul Kurtz. The First Evidence on the Shroud of Turin, Joe Nickell. Agnosticism, H. J. Blackham. Amendment and Religious Liberty, Sen. Lowell Weicker, Sam Ervin, Leo Science and Religion, George Tomashevich. Secular Humanism in Israel, Pfeffer. Secular Roots of the American Political System, Henry Steele Com- Isaac Hasson. $3.50 mager, Daniel Boorstin, Robert Rutland, Richard Morris, Michael Novak. Fall 1981, Vol. 1, no. 4 — The Thunder of Doom, Edward Morgan. Secular The Bible in Politics, Gerald Larue, Robert Alley, James Robinson. Bibli- Humanists: Threat or Menace? Art Buchwald. Financing of the Repressive ography for Biblical Study. $5.00 Right, Edward Roeder. Communism and American Intellectuals, Sidney Fall 1983, Vol. 3, no. 4 — The Academy of Humanism. The Future of Hook. A Symposium on the Future of Religion, Daniel Bell, Joseph Humanism, Paul Kurtz. Humanist Self-Portraits, Brand Blanshard, Barbara Fletcher, William Sims Bainbridge, Paul Kurtz. Resurrection Fictions, Wootton, Joseph Fletcher, Sir Raymond Firth, Jean-Claude Pecker. Inter- Randel Helms. $3.50 view with Paul MacCready. A Personal Humanist Manifesto, Vern Bul- Winter 1981/82, Vol. 2, no. 1 — The Importance of Critical Discussion, lough. The Enduring Humanist Legacy of Greece, Marvin Perry. The Age Karl Popper. Freedom and Civilization, Ernest Nagel. Humanism: The Con- of Unreason, Thomas Vernon. Apocalypse Soon, Daniel Cohen. 0n the science of Humanity, Konstantin Kolenda. Secularism in Islam, Nazih Sesquicentennial of Robert Ingersoll, Frank Smith. The Historicity of Jesus, N. M. Ayubi. Humanism in the 1980s, Paul Beanie. The Effect of Education John Priest, D. R. Oppenheimer, G. A. Wells. $3.50 on Religious Faith, Burnham Beckwith. $3.50 Winter 1983/84, Vol. 4, no. 1 — Interview with B. F. Skinner. Was George Spring 1982, Vol. 2, no. 2 — A Call for the Critical Examination of the Orwell a Humanist? Antony Flew. Population Control vs. Freedom in Bible and Religion. Interview with Isaac Asimov on Science and the Bible, China, Vern and Bonnie Bullough. Academic Freedom at Liberty Baptist Paul Kurtz. The Continuing Monkey War, L. Sprague de Camp. The College, Lynn Ridenhour. The Mormon Church: Joseph Smith and the Erosion of Evolution, Antony Flew. The Religion of Secular Humanism: A Book of Mormon, George Smith; The History of Mormonism and Church Judicial Myth, Leo Pfeffer. Humanism as an American Heritage, Nicholas Authorities: Interview with Sterling M. McMurrin. Anti-Science: The Irra- Gier. The Nativity Legends, Randel Helms. Norman Podhoretz's Neo- tionalist Vogue of the 1970s, Lewis Feuer. The End of the Galilean Cease- Puritanism, Lee Nisbet. $3.50 Fire? James Hansen. Who Really Killed Goliath? Gerald Larue. Humanism Summer 1982 Vol. 2, no. 3 (special issue) — A Symposium on Science, the in Norway: Strategies for Growth, Levi Fragell. $3.50 Bible, and Darwin: The Bible Re-examined, Robert Alley, Gerald Larue, Spring 1984, Vol. 4, no. 2 — Christian Science Practitioners and Legal John Priest, Randel Helms. Darwin, Evolution, and Creationism, Philip Protection for Children. Rita Swan; Child Abuse and Neglect in Ultrafunda- Appleman, William Mayer, Charles Cazeau, H. James Birx, Garrett Hardin, mentalist Cults and Sects, Lowell Streiker. The Foundations of Religious Sol Tax, Antony Flew. Ethics and Religion, Joseph Fletcher, Richard Taylor. Liberty and Democracy: A Symposium, Carl Henry. Paul Kurtz, Father Kai Nielsen, Paul Beattie. Science and Religion, Michael Novak, Joseph Ernest Fortin, Lee Nisbet. Joseph Fletcher, Richard Taylor. Biblical Views Blau. $5.00 of Sex: Blessing or Handicap? Jeffrey J. W. Baker. Moral Absolutes and Fall 1982, Vol. 2, no. 4 — An Interview with Sidney Hook at Eighty, Paul Foreign Policy, Nicholas Capaldi. The Vatican Ambassador, Edd Doerr. A Kurtz. Sidney Hook: A Personal Portrait, Nicholas Capaldi. The Religion Naturalistic Basis for Morality, John Kekes. Humanist Self-Portraits, and Biblical Criticism Research Project, Gerald Larue. 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Summer 1984, Vol. 4, no. 3 (special issue) - School Prayer, Paul Kurtz, Interview with Adolf Grünbaum. Homer Duncan's Crusade Against Secular Ronald Lindsay, Patrick Buchanan, Mark Twain. Science vs. Religion in Humanism, Paul Kurtz. Should a Humanist Celebrate Christmas? Thomas Future Constitutional Conflicts, Delos McKown. God and the Professors, Flynn. 0n Being a Pedestrian, Robert Wisne. $3.75 Sidney Hook. Armageddon and Biblical Apocalyptic, Paul Kurtz, Joseph Spring 1986, Vol. 6, no. 2 (special issue) - Faith-Healing: Miracle or Edward Barnhart, Vern Bullough, Ronde! Helms, Gerald Larue, John Priest, Fraud? The Need for Investigation, Paul Kunz; "Be Healed in the Name of James Robinson, Robert Alley. Is the U.S. Humanist Movement in a State God!" James Randi; A Medical Anthropologist's View of American of Collapse? John Dart. $5.00 Shamans, Philip Singer; On the Relative Sincerity of Faith-Healers, Joseph Fall 1984, Vol. 4, no. 4 - Humanist Author Attacked, Phyllis Schlafly, Sol Barnhart; Does Faith-Healing Work? Paul Kunz. God Helps Those Who Gordon. Humanists vs. Christians in Milledgeville, Georgia, Kenneth Sala- Help Themselves, Thomas Flynn. The Effect of Intelligence on U.S. Reli- din. Suppression and Censorship in the Seventh-Day Adventist Church: gious Faith, Burnham Beckwith. $3.75 Ellen White's Habit, Douglas Hackleman; Who Profits from the Prophet? Summer 1986, Vol. 6, no. 3 - The Shocking Truth About Faith-Healing: Walter Rea. Keeping the Secrets of the Dead Sea Scrolls, John Allegro. Deceit in the Name of God: What Can Be Done? Paul Kurtz; Peter Popoff Health Superstition, Rodger Pirnie Doyle. Humanism in Africa: Paradox Reaches Heaven Via 39.17 Megahertz, James Randi; Peter Popoff: Miracle and Illusion, Paul Kurtz. Humanism in South Africa, Don Sergeant. $3.75 Worker or Scam Artist? Steven Schafersman; Behind the Scenes with Peter Winter 1984/85, Vol. 5, no. 1 - Are American Educational Reforms Popoff, Robert Steiner; W. V. Grant's Faith-Healing Act Revisited. Paul Doomed? Delos McKown. The Door-to-Door Crusade of the Jehovah's Kunz. Further Reflections on Ernest Angley, William McMahon, James Witnesses: The Apocalypticism of the Jehovah's Witnesses, Lois Randle; Griffis. Salvation for Sale: An Insider's View of Pat Robertson's Organiza- The Watchtower, Laura Lage. Sentiment, Guilt, and Reason in the Manage- tion, Gerard Straub. Belief and Unbelief Worldwide: Religious Skepticism ment of Wild Herds, Garrett Hardin. Animal Rights Re-evaluated, James in Latin America, Jorge Gracia; Science, Technology, and Ideology in the Simpson. Elmina Slenker: Infidel and Atheist, Edward Jervey. Symposium: Hispanic World, Mario Bunge; Religious Belief in Contemporary Indian Humanism Is a Religion, Archie Bahm; Humanism Is a Philosophy, Thomas Society, M. P. Rege; Humanism in Modern India: An Interview with V. M. Vernon; Humanism: An Affirmation of Life, Andre Bacard. $3.75 Tarkunde, Tariq Ismail. The Revolt Against the Lightning Rod, Al Seckel, Spring 1985, Vol. 5, no. 2 - Update on the Shroud of Turin, Joe Nickell. John Edwards. $3.75 The Vatican's View of Sex, Robert Francoeur. An Interview with E. O. Fall 1986, Vol. 6, no. 4 - Humanist Centers: New Secular Humanist Wilson, Jeffrey Saver. Religion and Parapsychology: Parapsychology: The Centers, Paul Kurtz; The Need for Friendship Centers, Vern Bullough; "Spiritual" Science, James Alcock; Science, Religion and the Paranormal, Toward New Humanist Organizations, Bob Wisne. The Evidence Against John Beloff. The Legacy of Voltaire (Part I), Paul Edwards. The 0rigins of Reincarnation: Are Past-Life Regressions Evidence for Reincarnation? Christianity, R. Joseph Hoffmann. $3.75 Melvin Harris; The Case Against Reincarnation (Part 1), Paul Edwards. Summer 1985, Vol. 5, no. 3 - Finding Common Ground Between Believers Protestantism, Catholicism, and Unbelief in Present-Day France, Jean and Unbelievers, Paul Kurtz. Render Unto Jesus the Things That Are Boussinesq. More on Faith-Healing: CSER's Investigation, Gerald Larue; Jesus', Robert Alley. Jesus in Time and Space, Gerald Larue. Interview An Answer to Peter Popoff, James Randi; Popoffs TV Empire Declines, with Sidney Hook on China, Marxism, and Human Freedom. Evangelical David Alexander; Richard Roberts's Healing Crusade, Henry Gordon. Is Agnosticism, William Henry Young. To Refuse to Be a God, Khoren Secular Humanism a Religion? A Response to My Critics, Paul Beattie; Arisian. The Legacy of Voltaire (Part II), Paul Edwards. $3.75 Diminishing Returns, Joseph Fletcher; On Definition-Mongering, Paul Fall 1985, Vol. 5, no. 4 - Two Forms of Humanistic Psychology, Albert Kurtz. $3.75 Ellis. Psychoanalysis: Science or Pseudoscience? Grünbaum on Freud, Frank Winter 1986/87, Vol. 7, no. 1 - The New Inquisition in the Schools, Paul Sulloway; Philosophy of Science and Psychoanalysis, Michael Ruse; The Kurtz. Naturalistic Humanism, Corliss Lamont. God and Morality, Sidney Death Knell of Psychoanalysis, H. J. Eysenck; Looking Backward, Lee Hook. Secular Humanist Center Founded, Tom Flynn. FREE INQUIRY's Nisbet. Jesus in History and Myth: New Testament Scholarship and Chris- Fifth Annual Conference. Anti-Abortion and Religion, Betty tian Belief, Van Harvey; A Liberal Christian View, John Hick. The Winter McCollister. A Positive Humanist Statement on Sexual Morality, Robert Solstice and the 0rigins of Christmas, Lee Carter. $3.75 Francoeur. The Growth of Fundamentalism Worldwide: A Humanist Winter 1985/86, Vol. 6, no. 1 - Symposium: Is Secular Humanism a Response, Paul Kunz. Unbelief in the Netherlands, Rob Tielman. Dutch Religion? The Religion of Secular Humanism, Paul Beanie; Residual Reli- Humanism, G. C. Soeters. Belief and Unbelief in Mexico, Mario Mendez- gion, Joseph Fletcher; Pluralistic Humanism, Sidney Hook; 0n the Misuse Acosta. How the Old Testament Was Written, Gerald Larue. The Case of Language, Paul Kurtz. The Habit of Reason, Brand Blanshard. An Against Reincarnation (Part 2), Paul Edwards. $3.75 Secular Humanist Bulletin The Secular Humanist Bulletin is published quarterly and is free with a subscription to FREE INQUIRY. Copies can be purchased in bulk (five issues per order) for $2.50 plus $1.00 postage and handling.

February 1985, Vol. 1, no. 1 - With articles on the new Secular Humanist May 1986, Vol. 2, no. 2 - FREE INQUIRY's Faith-Healing Probe; Alabama Bulletin; the Hatch Amendment; Helms and CBS; Pastoral Malpractice; E Parents Sue Over Secular Humanism in Schools; Media Hype and the Pluribus Unum; and Is Morality Inevitable? Brookings "Church-State Book"; Education Department Hits Religious May 1985, Vol. 1, no. 2 - FREE INQUIRY's "Jesus in History and Myth" Neutrality of Textbooks; Canadian Catholic School Battle; Exorcism; List conference and its new Committee for the Scientific Examination of Reli- of the "Damned." gion; the Attack on Public Education; Wisconsin Freethinkers; Lincoln and August 1986, Vol. 2, no. 3 - Media Notes F1's Faith-Healing Exposé; Reagan on the Bible; and the Age of Unreason. Reagan Conservatizes Supreme Court; Krol Blasts Humanism; IRS Rules August 1985, Vol. I, no. 3 - The Supreme Court and Religious Freedom; Favor Churches; Alabama Public School Suit; Faith-healers for President; More on Public Education; the Legal Status of Priests; Christian Rock; and Delinquent "700 Club"; Circumcision Coverage Dropped; Pastor Distri- Christian and Muslim Fundamentalists. butes Snuff Tape; Catholics Return to Mystery. November 1985, Vol. I no. 4 - "Parochiaid" Ruling; Hurricane Elena; February 1987, Vol. 3, no: 1 - Remembering Thomas Paine; Buffalo Pornography; Right to Die; Anticlerical Persecution in West Germany; Inaugurates First Secular Humanist Center; Vatican Crackdown Tops Reli- Gorbachev; St. Jude; the Christian Nation Debate; and Battles over Atheism gious News in '86; Public Education: The Assault Continues; The Religions in Virginia. of Congress; Belief in the U.S.A.; Papal Visit Costs Down Under; Pope to January 1986, Vol. 2, no. 1 Prayer Printing and the U.S. Senate; Hatch's Visit U.S. in 1987; Church Tax Status to Be Tried; Turin Shroud to Get Anti-Humanism Law; Helms's Anti-Witchcraft Law; Falwell Slipping; Test; 0ral Roberts; Florida Church-State Suit; Holiday Season Suits; Student Spies; Pat Robertson for President?; and Postal Service Issues Religious Repression in Israel; Satan Sued; Minister Gets "Sweetheart" Religious Stamp. Justice, Priest Exposes Santa Claus. Issues of the Secular Humanist Bulletin also contain "The Secular Humorist, " "Biblical Scorecard, " "Education Update, "and "Faith-Healing Update." FREE INQUIRY • Box 5 • Buffalo, NY 14215-0005 • Tel.: 716-834-2921 they call "extra-cerebral" memory. In the section in which I astral believers. It would undermine the position not only of discuss the dependence of consciousness on the brain I will those who believe that there is an astral body that will survive explain why all such talk should be dismissed as absurd, but as the bearer of our consciousness but also of anybody who only if it is not absurd could there be a reply to the difficulty merely believes in the astral double regardless of its use for just mentioned. survival purposes. But let us for the sake of argument grant The next problem for the astral believer is that of syn- that all of us possess an astral body. There are two reasons for chronization between the regular and the astral body, not just supposing that it cannot help the cause of survival. The first is between the two brains. It will be remembered that the astral the evidence we have that our consciousness depends for its body is supposed to be an exact duplicate of the regular body. existence on the regular body and especially the regular brain If the astral body leaves the regular body of a boy aged ten, it and not on any other body or brain. I will discuss this in a will look just like the boy looks then; if it leaves the body of later section. The second reason I will spell out now. Astral the same person at the age of eighty, it will look like the philosophy teaches that, except for its "lack of solidity," the regular body at the age of eighty. The astral bodies of men will astral body is an exact double of the regular one. Without this look like the regular bodies of men and the astral bodies of assumption the theory would not explain the facts or alleged women like the regular bodies of women. If a boxer has just facts of bilocation. However, if the astral body is an exact been punched in the face resulting in a flattened nose and the duplicate of the regular body it must die along with the regular loss of three front teeth, his astral body will show the same body. This entirely reasonable conclusion seems to have escaped flattened nose and the same gap in his mouth. If the boxer all astral theorists. If the secular body died as the result of a retires and eats a great deal so that he becomes enormously fat, brain tumor or as the result of being shot through the heart, his astral body too will be enormous. If a woman in her prime, the astral brain and the astral heart must have been similarly with soft and unblemished skin, were to take an astral trip, the injured. It is evident that if a person is to survive death he will skin of her astral body would be soft and fresh. However, if need some other vehicle. the same woman were to take a trip many years later when her skin has become parched and wrinkled, this would also be true of her astral double. Astral believers prefer to state their theory The Dependence of Consciousness on the Brain in very general terms and usually flinch when such specific consequences are derived from it, but there is no doubt at all now come to what seems to me the most important argu- that these and similar statements about the appearance of astral Iment against survival after death in all its most familiar doubles are really implied by the theory. forms. I am in the habit of calling it "the body-mind dependence Now, the question that at once arises is how this exact argument." The argument is already found in Lucretius, who synchronization is achieved. Except when it is released for a stated the basic idea long before anything was known about journey the astral body resides inside the regular body. How- the connection between consciousness and the brain: ever, the exact state of the regular body at any given time is very largely the result of its movements and of influences upon The understanding is begotten along with the body, and grows it coming from its environment. To secure the synchronization together with it, and along with it comes to old age. For as required by astral theory we will have to postulate that cor- children totter with feeble and tender body, so a weak judge- ment of mind goes with it. Then when their years are ripe and responding to every physical act and movement there occurs their strength hardened, greater is their sense and increased an astral act and movement: Corresponding to every ordinary their force of mind. Afterward, when now the body is shattered breath, every normal meal, every physical exertion, every con- by the stern strength of time, and the frame has sunk with its versation, every sexual act, every injury, there must occur a force dulled, then the reason is maimed, the tongue raves, the corresponding astral process. Surely no sane person can believe mind stumbles, all things give way and fail at once. And so it that this happens. One would think that while it is safely is natural that all the nature of the mind should also be dis- "tucked" away inside the regular body, the astral body cannot solved, even as is smoke, into the high breezes of the air; do anything at all. But this is not all. One of the key proposi- inasmuch as we see that it is born with the body, grows with it, tions of astral theory that we have met on several occasions and, as I have shown, at the same time becomes weary and makes most of the external influences on the astral body quite worn with age. [De Rerum Natura, trans. by Cyril Bailey, impossible. I am referring to all events in the person's life Oxford, 1910, pp. 120-121] involving physical contact. According to the believer, the astral body cannot touch or be touched by another body, physical or The argument is found in Pomponazzi, Voltaire (who pretended astral. When our prize fighter had his nose flattened and three to but did not in fact believe in immortality), Hume, Russell, of his teeth knocked out, the corresponding damage to his Ayer, and numerous contemporary philosophers. It is stated astral body was not possible. Similarly, insofar as eating in- very effectively, with specific reference to the dependence of volves physical contact between various parts of the body and conscious states on the brain, by J. J. C. Smart in the article the food consumed, it cannot have an astral counterpart, and on "Religion and Science" in The Encyclopedia of Philosophy. there is no way of explaining how the astral body becomes To allow reincarnationism to get off the ground I am through- enormous if the regular body overeats. out these articles assuming dualism. Smart maintains that The astral tribulations I have so far explained would show mental states are identical with brain states and is thus not a that there cannot be a second body of the kind asserted by dualist, but he endorses the body-mind dependence argument

46 FREE INQUIRY as valid within a dualistic framework: foundation. If my mind is finished when my brain dies, then it cannot transmigrate to any other body. Similarly, if God Even if some form of philosophical dualism is accepted and created a duplicate of my body containing a duplicate of my the mind is thought of as something over and above the body, brain, my mind would not be able to make use of it since it the empirical evidence in favor of an invariable correlation stopped existing with the death of my original body. between mental states and brain states is extremely strong: that Not only reincarnationist believers in survival therefore have is, the mind may be thought of as in some sense distinct from a stake in rebutting this argument. I am familiar with a great the body but also as fundamentally dependent upon physical many such rebuttals, but all the more significant ones can be states. Without oxygen or under the influence of anesthetics or soporific drugs, we rapidly lose consciousness. Moreover, the reduced to two. Before looking at these rejoinders I would like quality of our consciousness can be influenced in spectacular to consider two concrete cases of body-mind dependence. These ways by appropriate drugs or by mechanical stimulation of will help to bring out the full force of the argument. The first is different areas of the brain. In the face of all the evidence that Alzheimer's disease, a dreadful affliction that ruins the last is being accumulated by modern research in neurology, it is years of a sizable percentage of the world's population. Almost hard to believe that after the dissolution of the brain there everybody above the age of thirty has known some elderly could be any thought or conscious experience whatever. [vol. relative or friend afflicted with this illness. I can therefore 7, p. 161] be brief in my description of what happens to Alzheimer patients. In the early stages the person misses appointments, he I will add one other recent formulation, which states the argu- constantly loses and mislays objects, and he frequently cannot ment simply and forcefully and is based on the most recent recall events in the recent past. As the illness progresses he can evidence from neurology. "What we call 'the mind,' " writes no longer read or write and his speech tends to be incoherent. Colin McGinn, In nursing homes Alzheimer patients commonly watch tele- vision, but there is no evidence that they understand what is is in fact made up of a great number of sub-capacities, and happening on the screen. The decline in intellectual function is each of these depends upon the functioning of the brain. generally accompanied by severe emotional symptoms, such as extreme irritability and violent reactions to persons in the Now, the facts of neurology environment, as well as hallucinations and paranoid fears. In the final stages the patient is totally confused, frequently incon- compellingly demonstrate ... that everything about the mind, tinent, and quite unable to recognize anybody, including the from the sensory-motor periphery to the inner sense of self, is closest relatives and friends. At present Alzheimer's is incurable minutely controlled by the brain: if your brain lacks certain and, unlike in the case of Parkinson's disease, there are no chemicals or gets locally damaged, your mind is apt to fall apart at the seams.... If parts of the mind depend for their known means of slowing down the deterioration. It is also as existence upon parts of the brain, then the whole of the mind yet a mystery why Alzheimer's strikes certain individuals while must so depend too. Hence the soul dies with the brain, which sparing the majority of old people. However, a great deal is is to say it is mortal. [London Review of Books, January 23, known about what goes on in the brains of Alzheimer patients. 1986, pp. 24-25] Alois Alzheimer, the neurologist after whom the disease is named, found in 1906 that the cerebral cortex and the hip- It should be emphasized that this argument does not start pocampus of his patients contained twisted tangles and fila- from the premise that after a person is dead he never again acts ments as well as abnormal neurites known as "neuritic" or in the world. A correspondent in the London Review replied to "senile plaques." It has since been determined that the density McGinn by observing that we do not need his or the neuro- of these abnormal components is directly proportional to the pathologist's "assistance to learn that all behavior stops at severity of the disorder. Autopsies have shown that Alzheimer death." Similarly, John Stuart Mill in his chapter on "Immor- victims have a vastly reduced level of an enzyme called "choline tality" in Three Essays on Religion thought the argument acetyltransferase," which is needed for producing the neuro- inconclusive on the ground that the absence of any acts by an transmitter acetylcholine. Although the reduced level of the individual after his death is as consistent with the view that he enzyme and the neurotransmitter appear in the cortex, the will "recommence" his existence "elsewhere" as it is with the origin of the trouble lies in another region of the brain, the assumption that he has been extinguished forever. Such re- nucleus basalis, which is situated just above the place where the marks are due to a misunderstanding. The body-mind depen- optic nerves meet and cross. Autopsies have revealed a dramatic dence argument is based on the observed dependence of our loss of neurons from the nucleus basalis in Alzheimer victims, mental states and processes and not only our behavior on the and this explains why so little of the enzyme is manufactured body and the brain. in their brains. It should be noted that, if valid, the argument does not The information just summarized has been culled from merely rule out the survival of human beings as disembodied articles about Alzheimer's that have appeared in magazines minds. It equally tells against reincarnation and also against and popular science monthlies in recent years. The authors of the view that the mind will go on existing in conjunction with a these articles are evidently not concerned with the question of resurrection replica. This is so because it concludes that my survival after death, but they invariably use such phrases as mind depends on my brain. It does not merely support the less "destruction of the mind" in describing what happens to the specific conclusion that my mind needs some brain as its victims. In an article in Science 84 entitled "The Clouded

Spring 1987 47 Mind," the author, Michael Shodell, speaks of Alzheimer's as may wipe out certain of a person's memories: "an illness that destroys the mind, leaving the body behind as a grim reminder of the person who once was there." Similarly, STEVENSON: Well, it's possible that what is affected is his the cover story in Newsweek for December 3, 1984, which con- ability to express memories that he may still have. tained many heart-rending illustrations and listed some of the TAYLOR: But are your suggesting, in fact, that memories famous men and women who are suffering from Alzheimer's, themselves are in some way non-physically bound up, and was entitled "A Slow Death of the Mind." I think that these can be stored in a non-physical manner? descriptions are entirely appropriate: A person who can no STEVENSON: Yes, I'm suggesting there might be a non- physical process of storage. longer read or write, whose memory has largely disappeared, TAYLOR: What does that mean? Non-physical storage of whose speech is incoherent, and who is totally indifferent to his what? environment has in effect lost all or most of what we normally STEVENSON: The potentiality for the reproduction of an call his mind. The relevance of this to our discussion is obvious. image memory. While still alive, an Alzheimer patient's brain is severely TAYLOR: But information itself involves energy. Is there such damaged and most of his mind has disappeared. After his a thing as non-physical energy? death his brain is not merely damaged but completely destroyed. STEVENSON: I think there may be, yes. It is surely logical to conclude that now his mind is also gone. TAYLOR: How can you define it? Non-physical energy, to It seems preposterous to assert that, when the brain is com- me, is a complete contradiction in terms. I can't understand pletely destroyed, the mind suddenly returns intact, with its how on earth you could ever conceive of such a quantity. emotional and intellectual capacities, including its memory, STEVENSON: Well, it might be in some dimension of which restored. How does the complete destruction of the brain bring we are just beginning to form crude ideas, through the about a cure that has so far totally eluded medical science? study of what we parapsychologists call paranormal phe- The same obviously applies to people in irreversible comas. nomena. We are making an assumption of some kind of Karen Ann Quinlan lay in a coma for over ten years before she process that is not, and maybe cannot be, understood in finally died. The damage to her brain had made her, in the terms of current physical concepts. That is a jump, a gap, I phrase used by the newspapers, nothing more than a "vegeta- freely admit. ble." Her E.E.G. was flat; she was unable to speak or write; visits by her foster parents did not register the slightest response. I will return to Stevenson's "jumps" later on, though I A more recent widely publicized case was that of the great should observe in passing that the "dimension" of which he American tenor Jan Peerce. Peerce had amazed the musical was "just beginning to form crude ideas" turns out to be nothing public by singing right into his seventies with only a slight other than the astral plane or a close cousin thereof. Right now decline in his vocal powers. In the end, however, he was felled I would like to show that the rejoinder under discussion is by two severe strokes, and he spent the last year of his life in hopelessly inadequate. By retrodictive extrapolation to cases an irreversible coma. Relatives and friends could get no re- like Alzheimer patients or people in comas one can see that the sponse of any kind. Peerce died in December 1984, and Karen alternative it proposes to the annihilation theory is absurd. Let Ann Quinlan in June 1985. Did the total destruction of the us consider the behavior of Alzheimer patients in the later bodies of these individuals suddenly bring back their emotional stages of their affliction. The more specific the case, the clearer and intellectual capacities? If so, where were these during the the implications of the rival views will appear. The mother of a intervening periods? close friend of mine, Mrs. D., recently died from Alzheimer's The first of the two rejoinders I will consider does not after suffering from the disease for about eight years. Mrs. D. dispute the manifold dependence of mental functions on brain was a prosperous lady from Virginia, the widow of a banker. processes. It is claimed, however, that these facts are not incon- In her pre-Alzheimer days she was a courteous and well- sistent with survival. They are indeed compatible with the view behaved person, and she had of course no difficulty recognizing that the mind is annihilated at death, but they are also compati- her daughter or any of her other relatives or friends. I do not ble with the very different position that the mind continues to know what her feelings were about paralyzed people, but my exist but has lost its "instrument" for manifesting itself in the guess is that she pitied them and certainly had no wish to beat world and hence for communicating with people who are still them up. As her illness progressed she was put into a nursing alive. Variants of this argument are found in numerous home run by nuns who were renowned for their gentle and Protestant theologians of the early decades of the twentieth compassionate ways. She shared a room with an older lady century, in Catholic writers and also in a number of purely who was paralyzed. For the first year or so Mrs. D. did not secular philosophers like James, Schiller, and McTaggart. become violent. Then she started hitting the nurses. At about In the 1976 BBC program on the Ryall case, Ian Stevenson the time when she could no longer recognize her daughter, she used precisely this rejoinder in response to his two critics, Pro- beat up the paralyzed lady on two or three occasions. From fessors John Cohen and John Taylor. It is his contention that then on she had to be confined to the "seventh floor," which brain damage, no matter how severe, does not destroy a per- was reserved for violent and exceptionally difficult patients. son's memories since they may continue to exist in another Let us now see what the survival theorists would have to say "dimension." I quoted part of their exchanges at the end of about Mrs. D.'s behavior. It should be remembered that on Part 1. Here are some of the other highlights bearing on our this view Mrs. D., after her death, will exist with her mind topic. Stevenson is replying to the contention that brain damage intact and will only lack the means of communicating with

48 FREE INQUIRY people on earth. This view implies that throughout her affliction there is no reason to suppose that it exists. Hume's theory that with Alzheimer's Mrs. D.'s mind was intact. She recognized human minds are nothing but "bundles of impressions and her daughter but had lost her ability to express this recognition. ideas" is seriously inadequate. Each of us, at least while he is She had no wish to beat up an inoffensive paralyzed old sane, has a sense of his self, more specifically, a sense of himself woman. On the contrary, "inside" she was the same considerate as continuing the same person from moment to moment. How- person as before the onset of the illness. It is simply that her ever, what this consists in is not the totally unchanging and brain disease prevented her from acting in accordance with her metaphysical entity that Hume rightly rebelled against. It is a true emotions. I must insist that these are the implications of sense of continuity in certain bodily sensations (especially of the theory that the mind survives the death of the brain and our limbs and certain muscle groups) and of our various tastes, that the brain is only an instrument for communication. Surely opinions, and habits—more generally of our emotional and these consequences are absurd: The facts are that Mrs. D. no intellectual dispositions. These, together with our bodies, make longer recognized her daughter and that she no longer had any us the kinds of persons we are. Although our emotional and compassionate feelings about paralyzed old women. At any intellectual dispositions are subject to change, they are, unlike rate, we have the same grounds for saying this as we do in any our moods and sensations, relatively stable. If this is what is number of undisputed cases in which people do not suffer from meant by "soul," there is no reason to deny that we have a Alzheimer's and fail to recognize other human beings or fail to soul; but the soul in this sense is just as dependent on the body feel compassion. and the brain as any particular sensations, feelings, and The guards in Argentine dungeons who tortured and killed thoughts. liberals had no compassion for their victims, and neither of I already briefly explained the second objection in the course did the Nazis who rounded up and then shot Jews in discussion of Tertullian's argument. If there were such a thing Poland and elsewhere. We have exactly the same kind of as a metaphysical soul, it would not be what anybody means evidence for concluding that Mrs. D., who probably did feel by "I." The great seventeenth-century philosopher Pierre compassion for paralyzed people before she suffered from Gassendi, who was both a Catholic priest and an atomistic Alzheimer's, no longer felt compassion when beating up her materialist, professed to believe in such a soul. He also believed paralyzed roommate. As for memories, all of us sometimes that insanity was a brain disease. Since the soul or reason cannot place a familiar tune or remember the name of a person (Gassendi preferred the latter word) did not depend on the we know well; and in such cases it makes good sense to say body, he concluded quite consistently that the soul or reason that the memories are still there. Even when the name never remained sane even when the individual had become insane. comes back there is a suspicion that the memory may not have Gassendi's consistency led to a reductio ad absurdum of his been lost: It is entirely possible that one could bring it back position. If I go mad and if at the same time my soul remains under hypnosis. However, the memory loss in Alzheimer's is sane then my soul is not me. • totally different, and the same of course applies to people in irreversible comas. It is surely fantastic to maintain that during The fourth and final part of this series will discuss the status of his last months Jan Peerce did recognize his wife and children a person between incarnations (What is he? and Where is he?) and simply could not express his recognition. If anybody makes and it will show why Ian Stevenson's much-touted cases of such a claim it can only be for ulterior metaphysical reasons child memories of earlier lives have no evidential value.—E DS. and not because it is supported by the slightest evidence. The second rejoinder is similar to one we already discussed briefly in connection with Tertullian's argument. It is sometimes confusingly amalgamated with the first rejoinder, but it is a distinct argument and should be evaluated on its own. It in- Moving? volves a distinction between the mind, which is identical with the phenomenal or empirical self, and another nonphysical Make sure FREE INQUIRY entity to which various labels have been applied and which is the metaphysical soul of our earlier discussion. It is argued follows you! that, although the mind may indeed so closely depend on the Please attach old mailing label here body that it must cease with the body's death, the same is not true of the soul. The soul is the "I" that "owns" both the body (Include number in upper right-hand corner.) and the mind. I am five feet seven inches tall, I weigh one hundred and fifty pounds, I have blue eyes and brown hair; New Address but I also have certain sensations and feelings and thoughts. I have various physical skills, and I also possess certain emotional Name and intellectual dispositions. It is this underlying "I"—the sub- Address ject of both the body and the mind—that has not been shown to require a body for its existence. City State Zip There are two objections to this rejoinder, each of them FREE INQUIRY P.O. Box 5 • Buffalo, NY 14215-0005 fatal. In the first place, although the way we speak in certain Tele.: 716-834-2921 contexts suggests an underlying subject of both body and mind,

Spring 1987 49 was unable to supply figures for the elec- tronic media. The most unique, and I believe the most CSER's Faith-Healing Update dangerous, feature, of this ministry is the recruitment of members of local churches. The Happy Hunters Approximately 1,500 had been "trained" as faith-healers in a two-day seminar before David Alexander describes an encounter with faith-healers Charles and Frances Hunter. the "healing explosion" took place. Included in this group was the majority of the forty- five to fifty local ministers who had been contacted in advance. The Hunters said that they do not charge David Alexander for the training of these healers. They seemed very proud of this and anxious to make it known; however, their handout specifies the r. Gerald Larue, chairman of the Center filled rapidly. I was impressed by the qualifications needed to be part of a healing DCommittee for the Scientific Exami- number of people who had been drawn to team, and if you read it closely you will see nation of Religion (CSER), recently asked this meeting, since the Hunters do not have how Hunter Ministries may make a profit me to accompany a reporter from the a regular television program. Peter Popoff, from these sessions. Orange County Register to a meeting con- at the height of his popularity, was able to ducted by Charles and Francis Hunter of attract about 2,500 people to a meeting held I. Have a hunger to heal the sick and Hunter Ministries, Kingwood, Texas. This in the same facility. The final count of this do the works of Jesus. event, held in the Anaheim Convention audience was more than twice that, almost 2. Read the book To Heal The Sick Center, across the street from Disneyland, 6,000, with about 180 of them in wheelchairs. [written by the Hunters, of course]. was called a "Healing Explosion" by the (The Hunters keep a separate count of those 3. Watch the twelve-hour videotape "How to Heal The Sick," or listen to the Hunters. In their multimedia advertisements who come in wheelchairs.) audiotapes. they prominently stated that "thousands will Upbeat gospel music played on the sound 4. Attend as many of the live training system, and occasionally some people would be healed." I was to represent CSER's view- sessions as possible scheduled immediately point on faith-healing. get up and dance in jubilation. That the before the Healing Explosion. I advised the reporter that we might not crowd was ready for an afternoon of reli- 5. Important: All healing team appli- see the Hunters using overt trickery. 1 told gious experience and "miracles" was evi- cations must reach our Texas office no him that we were likely to see a large number denced by the rousing response to a simple later than two weeks before the Healing of completely sincere people participating in microphone check done by a group of gospel Explosion. what can best be described as a religious singers. psychodrama, a participatory divine theater Because I accompanied a reporter, I was The Hunters sell their videotape (two six- that supplies its audience with strong emo- able to participate in the briefing given to hour cassettes) for $150; a set of twelve tional rewards for the willing suspension of him by one of the Hunter Ministries media audiotapes for $36; and the book To Heal critical analysis. Our observations proved people, Naida Grana, and later in an inter- the Sick for $5 each ($35 for boxes of ten this to be the case. view with the Hunters themselves. It was and $198 for case lots of eighty). Accompanying us to the meeting was clear that the Hunter Ministries is a Frances Hunter claimed sales of nine Shawn Carlson, a particle physicist from the thorough and well-disciplined organization. million copies of all their book titles, cur- Lawrence Berkeley Labs. Shawn is a highly Virtually every possible problem was antici- rently numbering thirty-two. She described trained and intelligent observer, and his pated and prepared for. The secret of its her books as "Thirty-two of the best books insights proved invaluable in this investiga- success is meticulous preparation. Months in the world. Only the Bible is better." She tion. in advance of a meeting a huge mailing is was also pleased to announce to the crowd About two thousand people were waiting made to churches within a 200-mile radius that one of their titles was being considered outside the Center when we arrived. While of the meeting site. Four months before the for a movie venture by a "spirit-filled Jew." most of them appeared quite healthy, there meeting a team from headquarters visits the She proudly announced that the people were a number using canes, walkers, and churches in the area. Presentations are made chosen to play Charles and Frances were wheelchairs. Among the latter group were a to as many ministers and church leaders as none other than themselves. few who were so severely handicapped that possible. The Hunters actively solicit the The Hunters project an image of down- they required constant attention. One young participation and support of as many de- home folksiness, and of being sincerely com- girl was identified as having a brain tumor, nominations as possible. The majority of the mitted to what they are doing. Frances and other children were obviously victims audience at the meeting I attended seemed proudly points out that Charles completely of Down's Syndrome. Many of those waiting to be fundamentalists and charismatics. The rebuilt her heart, liver, and pancreas. During had traveled many miles and had waited staffs efforts are doubly impressive con- the interview the Hunters went on for several several hours. sidering that the Hunters conduct one of minutes talking about the "miracles" they When the doors opened the Convention these meetings every month. had seen in various parts of the world, which Beyond the recruitment of local churches, they said were direct results of their ministry Hunter Ministries also advertises heavily on and training of faith-healers. They estimated David Alexander is a member of CSER's radio and television, and in the print media. that about 50 percent of those attending their Faith-Healing Investigation Project. Naida estimated the print advertising budget service would be healed. for the Anaheim meeting at $20,000. She They also stated that the annual gross

50 FREE INQUIRY income of their ministry was in excess of you teach yourself. You are told by your herniated discs. Frances rapidly got Davis one million dollars. They put the cost for peers, the church, and the Bible—if you offstage. the Anaheim "explosion" at $100,000. As accept it literally—that the Holy Ghost spake It was then that Davis told me he was Charles is a certified public accountant, I in another tongue; and you become con- still in pain and that Frances had argued assume these figures are correct. vinced that it is the ultimate expression of that his pain came from the Devil and that When asked if they were ordained by a the spirit flowing." According to Marjoe, he was denying what God wanted to do for specific church, Charles responded in the speaking in tongues is something that must him. While talking with Davis I saw the negative and was corrected immediately by be actively acquired and practiced. It is man with the three herniated discs—who had Frances, who stated that they had been human, not spiritual, in origin. demonstrated his "healing" by bending over "ordained by God." They also said that they After the lesson in tongues, Charles con- and touching his toes—leaning against some each received a salary of $1,000 a month. ducted a lesson in healing. He brought three chairs and looking as if he had been hit by (They may also receive a living allowance people up from the audience with health a truck; his face registered great pain. and expense account from Hunter Mini- problems and several others who had gone A man who had brought his wife for stries, a common practice in the religious through the training. It is important to note healing was contacted by this writer one community.) that onstage with Charles and Frances were week after the service. I was told that the As if the claims about Frances's rebuilt a number of people. Two were identified as woman had cancer, had slipped into a coma, heart, liver, and pancreas weren't fantastic doctors: one a chiropractor and the other a and was not expected to live much longer. enough, Charles claimed that there had been medical doctor formerly associated with 1 also contacted Beverly Thacker, of a "possible resurrection" that morning. A Johns Hopkins. They had been pointed out Fresno, California, who was incorrectly re- man had collapsed and the people at the to us by Naida Granna as "spirit-filled ported in the newspaper account of the scene could find no pulse. The man was Christians," and during the speaking in meeting as having suffered a paralyzing revived by the "faith-healers" attending him, tongues they were as active as anyone else. stroke six months before but had left the before the doctor arrived. They were also supposed to have partici- meeting pushing her husband in her wheel- During the service, the crowd was told pated in a panel discussion at the end of the chair. Mr. Thacker informed me that his to "make out your checks to the Happy training of the faith-healers. wife had suffered from a brain tumor, not a Hunters. You'll smile when you write it and First up for healing was Michael Davis, stroke. She had been operated on in March you'll smile when you get it back from the who stated he had lower back problems. 1986 and, though she could walk with assist- bank." Charles conducted a lesson in speak- This was "confirmed" in a very cursory ance and a cane, had not completely re- ing in tongues. Speaking in tongues, or examination by the attendant chiropractor, gained her sense of balance. Although Mr. glossolalia, is part of the belief system of who pronounced several vertebrae "out." Thacker commented that his wife's balance charismatics who are generally grouped Charles seated Mr. Davis in a chair, an- was much better since the meeting, it had under the denominations of Four Square, nounced that one leg was a half-inch shorter not been the miracle that was announced. Full Gospel, Assembly of God, Pentecostal, than the other, and then "lengthened" it. She could walk before she entered the and Church of God in Christ. Charismatics Unfortunately for the Hunters, Davis was auditorium. also believe in the various "gifts of the not the deep believer who usually attends In all fairness to the Hunters, it should Spirit," which include the calling out of the these meetings. He was asked how he felt, be noted that they emphasized that people sick and divine healing. and he replied that he felt a little better but should continue their medication no matter It was explained to the two to three still had pain. Charles worked on him some how good they felt and should check with thousand people who came forward to crowd more and tried to get him to say he was just their doctors when they returned home. around the stage that speaking in tongues is sore and not in pain. Davis insisted he still "Healed" people were given cards to have a special way of talking directly to God. had pain. Charles immediately handed him their doctors fill out and send in. It was a Charles said that humans cannot understand over to Frances, who began to work on him wonderful gimmick that gave an appearance it and that the Devil hates it. During the further upstage, away from the audience, of their healings' being legitimate. • lesson he repeatedly told the crowd not to while Charles went on to a man with three think about what they were doing or trying to say. He specifically said that, if they ques- tioned the speaking in tongues, these were thoughts planted by the Devil. Charles's claims about his ability to speak in tongues were almost as imaginative as those regarding his healing work. He related that once, during an appearance on Pat Robertson's "700 Club," he began speaking in tongues in perfect Hebrew, which was confirmed by a Jewish woman who hap- pened to be on the show. What was perhaps most fantastic about this part of the meeting was Charles Hunter's ability to completely control the "Holy Spirit," to start and stop the crowd's glossolalia on command. Marjoe Gortner, the former child evan- gelist turned actor, has stated, "Tongues is something you learn. It is a releasing that

Spring 1987 51 "Dr. Jesus." I said I would and admitted to believing that Jesus could heal me. He then said that Jesus would do so. He gave me another of the white cotton hand- An Encounter with kerchiefs, told me to put it over my heart when I slept, and promised that "you'll sleep Pastor David Epley better than you have for years." He placed his hand on my head, but I decided not to fall back as if "slain by the Holy Spirit," because no one was positioned to catch me. During the service, Pastor Epley an- nounced the gift of a handkerchief to one healee and then, holding it up by one edge (after wiping it in his "spiritual sweat"), said Kate Ware Ankenbrandt that he wished "the magician Randi" had been here to see that no trickery was in- volved but "just the power of Jesus." "You everal weeks before Pastor David a woman with a "growth" in her "lower can see," he added, "I'm not wearing a hear- SEpley's scheduled healing service in stomach," which the pastor later diagnosed ing aid or anything like that." It was appar- Detroit—at 2:30 P.M., August 3, 1986, in the as a hernia. During this time the pastor used ently clear to the audience that Epley was Henry and Edsel Ford Auditorium—Pro- several men's handkerchiefs as healing referring to James Randi's exposure of Peter fessor Philip Singer sent me a photocopy of devices, often first using the handkerchief Popoff (see FI, Summer 1986); my students a telegram he had received from Pastor to mop his face and thus become imbued said that several people near them talked Epley inviting him to the meeting and with "spiritual sweat." with one another about Popoffs trickery. promising a "miracle." After brief explana- (The biblical reference for using hand- The reaction of my students who were tions to my World Religions class and my kerchiefs to cure illness was given as Acts reluctant to help expose Epley points to what Introductory Cultural Anthropology class 19:11-12, on Pastor Epley's television pro- 1 privately call "the Holy Ghost'll gitcha" about the research reported in FREE INQUIRY gram, broadcast in Detroit on Channel 62 phenomenon, the superstitious core of fear (Spring and Summer issues, 1986) on similar on August 10, 1986: "And God wrought present in many individuals that allows tele- alleged faith-healers, 1 announced the meet- special miracles by the hands of Paul: So vision evangelists like Epley to gather in ing and suggested that students attend and that from his body were brought unto the millions of dollars from a credulous public. pretend to have a disease to see whether the sick handkerchiefs or aprons, and the Several students said that I should be afraid Holy Spirit would detect the pretense. Al- diseases departed from them, and the evil because "God might punish you by really though no one agreed to participate in this spirits went out of them.") giving you the disease you claim to have." way, two of the anthropology students were Pastor Epley then called me out. Like Although 1 pointed out to them that God's present at the meeting, which was profes- many other faith-healers, he claims to hve alleged justice might more appropriately give sionally videotaped by Pastor Epley's crew God-given "word of knowledge" about such a disease to Pastor Epley if, as I for national television. patients' names, diseases, and other personal suspected, he turned out to be a fraud, they Entering the auditorium about an hour data. When I had come to the front of the were not convinced. early, I was warmly greeted by a young black center stage just below where he stood, he The financial aspect of Pastor Epley's man on Epley's staff, who asked if 1 had gestured for me to stop and said I'd had an operation is worth mentioning. Before his come for a healing. 1 said yes, and when he "enlarged heart" for about ten years. Detroit appearance on August 3, many asked what my problem was I said, "Heart I nodded in affirmation (an untruth). pieces of mail came from him to Professor trouble." (Nothing has ever been wrong with He said he wanted to call me "Kathe- Singer, each asking with great urgency for a my heart.) He then asked my name and I rine," and added "but that's not quite right." contribution of money. Two letters that said, "Kate," the name I ordinarily go by. After 1 said I'd been baptized Katherine but came immediately before the service included He told me to sit in the side section (stage was not usually called that, he called me, envelopes for offerings to be brought and left) if I wanted healing. 1 did so, sitting in correctly, "Kate," the name I had told his given in person. One of these letters suggests the fourth row next to a nicely dressed black staffer. He then asked whether 1 was under an offering of twenty-five dollars be put in woman in the aisle seat, who identified her- a doctor's care for my heart condition. When the envelope, but adds: self as a Catholic. My students were two 1 said no, he said that I'd taken various rows behind, each with a tape recorder. medications for it in the past. The cost of the rent at the [Henry and] The program began with five or six 1 said 1 had (another untruth). Edsel Ford Auditorium in Detroit is "healings," including one of a woman with He added that I had thought the condi- thousands of dollars, and I have asked a long-unresolved court case against General tion was cured, but it kept coming back. God to speak to my closest friends and partners about a gift of $100.00. Just write Motors, which Pastor Epley promised would Again I lied. the amount of your gift on the outside of be settled within thirty days, and another of How many doctors, he asked, had I con- the envelope so I will be able to see your sulted about it in the past ten years? Kate Ware Ankenbrandt teaches humanities love. I said three (an untruth). and anthropology at Oakland Community He then asked whether I was willing to College, Auburn Hills, Michigan. The cost of the Ford Auditorium for a go to a fourth. People nearby murmured, Sunday afternoon religious service is actually

52 FREE INQUIRY eighteen hundred dollars. This letter—on four-color stationery with a picture of Pastor Epley in the center of the letterhead—ended with a promise: Books

Brother Philip, one dear, sweet lady who made a real sacrifice to bring $25.00 to the meeting received a $250,000 (A Lesbianism in the Convent QUARTER OF A MILLION D0LLARS) miracle within seven days. I want to pray that God will return your gift 0NE HUN- DRED TIMES. Don't deny yourself this opportunity to be blessed in person by Bonnie Bullough your loving Pastor.

The most urgent communication was printed Immodest Acts: The Life of a Lesbian Nun tion, the climate of opinion about Sister on legal-size yellow-lined paper with a rub- in Renaissance Italy (New York: Oxford Benedetta had deteriorated. Her leadership ber band taped onto the front. It features a University Press, 1986), 514.95. was questioned by the nuns, and Sister powerful demand for money, using the image Bartolomea testified that the visions had of the rubber band: ased upon a document found in the actually included erotic acts. Sister Benedetta BState Archives in Florence, Immodest said that sometimes the angel Splenditello HURRY AND D0 THIS RIGHT N0W! Acts: The Life of a Lesbian Nun in Renais- had suggested these acts. Although the I had to write this letter before 1 let myself sance Italy, by Judith C. Brown, is the story documents became more sparse after the be talked out of it. N0 MATTER H0W of a seventeenth-century nun, Sister Bene- investigation. Brown concludes that Sister FOOLISH THIS MAY SEEM . . detta Carlini, who served as Abbess of the Benedetta was found guilty of immodest acts DON'T LET THE DEVIL STOP YOU FROM BEING BLESSED FINAN- Theatine Convent of Pescia. It is a remark- and was imprisoned in the convent for the CIALLY! SPIRITUALLY! AND IN able narrative, because Sister Benedetta was last thirty-five years of her life. YOUR BODY! accused of lesbianism in an era when the This record of a seventeenth-century HERE IS WHAT I SAW ... only acknowledged female sexual activity event is remarkable, not so much as docu- ... IN THE SPIRIT 1 SAW A TIGHT was heterosexual. mentation of one nun's possible fall by the BAND AR0UND YOUR WALLET! Sister Benedetta was sent to the convent wayside, but for its clear and thorough IT WAS ACTUALLY BOUND BY THE by her well-to-do parents at the age of nine. description of lesbian activity in earlier DEVIL ... AND Y0U C0ULDN'T DO She was a dedicated young nun, who fol- times. • ANYTHING ABOUT IT!!! lowed in the path of the great mystics of the ... I SAW A BAND AROUND Y0UR past as she accepted deprivations and self- WRISTS . . . HINDERING Y0U . . . BINDING Y0U . . . KEEPING Y0U inflicted pain and was rewarded with visions. FROM D0ING WHAT YOU WANT T0 She became Abbess at the age of thirty, Coming in future issues of which was considered young for that time. DO . . . AND BEING WHAT YOU FREE INQUIRY: WANT TO BE! Her visions became more dramatic and per- sonal. She enacted a special marriage cere- Thus, it seems that because of these mony in the convent uniting her with Jesus, "Personal Paths to mailings many in Pastor Epley's Detroit and following that ceremony her finger be- Humanism" congregation came prepared to contribute came discolored as if a ring were there. as much as they could afford. There were Angels spoke to the sisters through her body. Joseph Fletcher many requests for offerings during the Sister Benedetta was investigated by Antony Flew service. church authorities twice. During the first Anne Gaylor In the part of the auditorium where my investigation, her companion, Sister Barto- students and I sat were a woman with an lomea Crivelli, who was at her side during Ashley Montagu obvious humpback, a woman with a walker her visions, testified to their authenticity. It (and others) (who made her way laboriously to the front was claimed in one episode that Sister Bene- of the auditorium when Epley called for detta's body "opened up" and that her heart donations), a man in a wheelchair, and a was replaced by the heart of Jesus. At other "A Positive Humanist blind woman with a group of other people times she allegedly was visited by an angel Sexual Morality" who had obvious physical problems. None by the name of Splenditello, who gave her of these was called out for healing, unless special instructions. Although the ecclesi- Albert Ellis Pastor Epley somehow dealt with them dur- astical authorities were somewhat dubious Lester Kirkendall ing the crowded and confused final lineup. about these miracles, they finally concluded The blind woman's group had started to they were of divine origin and did not stem Plus: leave after a couple of hours, because their from the devil. driver wouldn't wait. Epley told the group However, at a later date, when the An Investigation of the New leader that they should stay, promising to authorities returned for a second investiga- Independent Christian Schools take the money out of his own pocket for a taxi if their ride left without them. I don't Bonnie Bullough is dean of the School of Belief and Unbelief in Japan, know whether he had to come through, but Nursing at the State University of New York Canada, and the Middle East no healings were offered to anyone in this at Buffalo. group. •

Spring 1987 53 probable miscegenation of ultraconservative Viewpoints Catholics with ultraradical fundamentalists against "the religion of secular humanism," a purely imaginary construct that they now imagine as the source of all evil. Regarded at first with pity and laughter, as the product Secular Is Good of a lunatic fringe, the campaign against secular humanism has reached alarming dimensions. Promoted assiduously by Christianity's most visible and vocal seg- ment, well organized and richly funded, millions of gullible, God-fearing Americans Betty McCollister have joined the battle. Our task is to explain that our way of thinking affirms life; that secular humanists oseph Campbell, the well-known author Indeed, who would have thought that in try to be ethical, idealistic, and compas- Jand critic, wrote these words in the the 1980s even intelligent people would be sionate; that we think life on this planet is 1970s: asking, "Can a person lead a good life and potentially good; that we cherish the First contribute benevolently to society without Amendment, the unique and glorious under- One would never have thought, when 1 benefit of religion, Bible, or clergy?" pinning of our national freedom; and that was a student back in the twenties, that in Although this question should be absurd we are no more eager to inflict our philoso- the seventies there would be intelligent in our supposedly enlightened country with phy on others than to have others inflict people still wishing to hear and think its high educational level, and a secular their religion on us. about religion. We were all perfectly sure in those days that the world was through country at that, it is in fact dismayingly Our task is to emphasize that America is with religion. Science and reason were now pertinent. not a Christian nation. It is a secular nation, in command. People most certainly can lead good lives with secular laws—and secular is good. It's and contribute benevolently to society with- good for religion, which has flourished here out religion, Bible, pr clergy. Millions of as it never has at any other time or in any By the 1940s Campbell and his fellow people do, and a large proportion of them other place. It's good for individual intel- optimists would know all too well that sci- are secular humanists. One significant con- lectual freedom and vital for intellectual ence and reason, far from being in com- tribution secular humanists can make, and integrity. Our task is to point out that the mand, are pitiably fragile defenses against must, is to answer the slanders of self- Christian Right's strenuous attempts to humanity's capacity for visceral dementia. righteous evangelists who in their ignorance prove that the Founding Fathers were Nazi Germany's frenzied eruption into and folly, confusing their personal prejudices Christians miss the point completely. The national insanity, paranoia, and sadism, fol- with God's laws, deny that virtue is possible Founding Fathers, deists and theists and lowed by rather similar displays in other without superstition. We can and must whatever, wrote laws that protect every reli- nations in subsequent decades, proved this respond to the virulent attacks that have gion from infringement by any other or by conclusively. But Campbell could hardly made secular a dirty word and secular the state, and at the same time protect free- have foreseen the alarming expansion of humanism a protean catchall for the Chris- thinkers from coercion. religious fanaticism in the world today. tian Right's mixture of hates and fears. Having answered our question with an For what began as an assault by funda- unqualified yes, we secular humanists should Betty McCollister is a regular contributor mentalist Protestants on evolution has take every opportunity to explain this to all to FREE INQUIRY. evolved into a hysterical battle by an im- Americans—and to all the world •

although they didn't explain why so many 'New Age' Gurus highly educated and intelligent people, even scientific and artistic geniuses, continued to believe. And, more important, his definition Shirley MacLaine, J. Z. Knight, and Co. of "belief' was so narrow that his results could be misleading. Christian "faith," or "belief," cannot be confused with religious Robert Basil, Assistant Editor of FREE INQUIRY experience. Beckwith focused on beliefs in Christian religious dogma (the Creation, a personal God) and the membership in Chris- hen FREE INQUIRY author Burnham "Future American and European opinion tian denominations. The incidence of spe- WP. Beckwith reported that intelligence polls will continue to show almost steady cifically non-Christian religious experiences and disbelief were positively correlated, he declines in belief in a personal God and in was never measured. concluded that, as the world's population each major dogma of the Christian In a major survey reported in the Febru- enlightened itself in terms of education and churches," he wrote. "The amount of reli- ary issue of American Health magazine, technology, it would begin to be released gious faith tends to vary inversely and ap- belief in reincarnation, clairvoyance, and from the domination of religious institutions preciably with intelligence." various out-of-body experiences—important (see Winter 1981/82 and Spring 1986 issues). Beckwith's conclusions were impressive, elements of various Eastern and "New Age"

54 FREE INQUIRY philosophies—was measured and was found Rose and David Doss confirmed Greeley's tific method altogether, so many New Age to be growing. Sociologist and priest Andrew findings. Most of Knight/ Ramtha's fol- and modern mystical movements claim to Greeley, working with a team of University lowers, they said, were highly educated and accommodate science even as they penetrate of Chicago researchers, discovered that financially successful. This point was clearly spiritual spheres. To be sure, uniting Western "nearly half of American adults (42 percent) meant to astonish: From what the ABC clips mysticism with the Eastern pantheistic tradi- now believe they have been in contact with showed of Ramtha in action, Knight is tions can be an ingenious affair. For the someone who died"—up from 25 percent clearly a charlatan, a psychotic, or some of sheer volume of systematization of the occult eleven years ago. Says Greeley, "If these both. Ramtha's language (how did he learn worlds and their astral and etheric beings, experiences were signs of mental illness, our English?), swollen by portentous construc- the writings of Madame Blavatsky, Alice numbers would show that the country is tions and vacuous self-help clichés, makes Bailey, G. I. Gurdjieff, and Rudolf Steiner going nuts. ... People who've tasted the Knight a dead giveaway. are bewildering. (Of Steiner especially there paranormal, whether they've accepted it in- But why would the highly educated fall has not been nearly enough serious academic tellectually or not, are anything but religious for such an obvious fake? The answer that examination.) Their philosophies offer the nuts or psychiatric cases. They are, for the immediately suggests itself is troubling. The aroma of science—its edifices of information, most part, ordinary Americans, somewhat technological revolution apparently has its savory combination of cooperative effort above the norm in education and somewhat failed to invest the lives of those who benefit and solitary study—and the hope for un- less than average in religious involvement." financially the most from it with an experi- ending life that science seems to have What we are seeing suggests a kind of ence of personal meaning. Many, even some crushed. neo-Reformation, for these religious con- at the very highest levels of science and tech- Claims made by New Age propagandists cepts are wholly contrary to traditional nology, don't feel defined by their success; are sometimes harder to refute than those, Christian teachings. Reincarnation, for they feel amorphous, nothing more than a say, of dishonest faith-healers or funda- example, flies in the face of Christianity's variable in the scientific method. This dis- mentalists who would repeal the First "Final Judgment," just as karma—the doc- illusionment is consistent with Werner Amendment; and it is important to remem- trine that says you get what you deserve—is Heisenberg's 1932 warning that "every scien- ber that flamboyant tricksters like "Ramtha" in opposition to Christian "grace," which tific advance" is bought at the price "of are merely straw men. That they are making says that sometimes you don't. And, what's renouncing the aim of bringing the phe- a lot of money from gullible, troubled people most significant, New Age ideas militate nomena of nature to our thinking in an makes their claims highly suspect, and we against religious institutions and hierarchies immediate and living way." need to call them to account. But to equate as such—in the same way Quakerism and FREE INQUIRY has made a lot of hay by the frauds with the movement itself would other "inner light" Protestant sects did in criticizing the inadequacies of religious, be a gross error; New Agers generally spurn the past. superstitious, and paranormal systems of the oratory of would-be leaders, they have In other words, the "reformed" impulse belief; we've shown how dangerous it is when built no powerful churches, and they tend bypasses the approved mediators between people trade their ordinary way of knowing not to seek political power. the self and religious insight—whether that for a blind belief in what they hope to be Nonetheless, our next great debate may mediator be the pope, the magesterium, or true. Often this qualification will be added: well be with these New Agers. The humanist even sacred texts. Indeed, this impulse is a Those methods of knowing are inadequate side must offer positive alternatives as well skeptical one—which we associate with for the rest of us, because (to paraphrase as rigorous critique. Because 42 percent is a higher education and intelligence—in the Thomas Paine) what's revelation to you is lot. • sense that it doubts dogmatic authority. New just hearsay to me. The scientific method of Age precepts tend to be in the American corroboration, replicative testing, trust- grain, appealing to a sense of individualism worthy instrumentation, and revisable hy- and private mystical resources that have been potheses has shown itself to be the most espoused in this country since the time of reliable way of knowing the world. But here Emerson and Thoreau. Says J. Z. Knight, we run into the undeniable fact that we are who claims to be the "trance channel" for trying to convince people who are not as "Ramtha," a 35,000-year-old warrior from concerned with watertight epistemology as the sunken city of Atlantis: "Ramtha teaches we are. While science can so effectively con- about the love of God in us, that we are trol what's outside of us, unfortunately we empowered to make the decisions for our- cannot so confidently say that it quenches selves." Shirley MacLaine, an admirer of the emotional yearning inside many people. Knight, whose book and television special, For some, science is a process to partici- "Out on a Limb," have given New Age pate in and enjoy; we can measure ourselves philosophies their widest exposure yet, adds, by its triumphs. This is roughly the position "These are individual approaches to life. of E. O. Wilson, Isaac Asimov, and Carl There's nobody heading this up." (USA Sagan, for whom the world's material Weekend, Jan. 9-11, 1987). MacLaine is progress maps their own spiritual progress. doing it, that's for sure, and in an especially But it is perhaps too much to expect that all American way, founding spiritual seminars men and women make the world's meaning around the country—at $300 a person, "$100 their own, especially at a time when the for mind, $100 for body, $100 for spirit," specialization of our economy prevents any "There it is again ... a feeling that in a past she says. such transfer. life I was someone named Shirley Maclaine." When ABC-TV's newsmagazine, "20/20," Still, for those raised in the Western Copyright 1987, Universal Press Syndicate. Reprinted with did a piece on J. Z. Knight, newsmen Judd tradition, it is difficult to abandon the scien- permission. All rights reserved.

Spring 1987 55 god with the number who don't believe. If the argument stated above is valid, one Are Secular Humanists Evil? would expect nonbelievers to constitute a vastly inordinate proportion when compared with their relative numbers in society as a whole. A study published in the Sociology and Tom Franczyk Research Journal (May-June 1949) found that 0.5 percent of 85,000 convicts polled were nonbelievers. There is no reason to he classic but unfounded argument In one editorial that crossed my desk, a believe that this dated study is not valid Tagainst secular humanism, nonbelief in clergyman claimed that "a godless system of today. Since 85 percent of today's convicts the supernatural, and atheism states that education ... will only enhance to create a are listed as Christians or Jews, according there can be no morality or goodness with- generation of monsters and criminals in the to some surveys, the other 15 percent must out belief and faith in one god or another society." The fundamentalists, the orthodox, include members of all other religions, un- and that ethics can only have a meaningful and even religious "liberals" generally concur affiliated theists, and nonbelievers. (Any basis in religion. (I use a definition of reli- with that sentiment, although all would not information on the breakdown of this IS gion that includes belief in God or some other choose the same language. Yet no evidence— percent would be greatly appreciated.) It is supernatural concept.) We hear these asser- that is, real evidence and not conjecture—is generally accepted that nonbelievers consti- tions from American pulpits, we read them offered to support their assumptions. Could tute at least 7 percent of the population in in the op-ed pages, and even the presi- it be just wishful thinking on their part? Is the United States. It would seem apparent dent of the United States repeats them more all of this name-calling employed because that secular humanists are not crowding our often than we care to hear. Humanists have religion would have no purpose, other than prisons. been called "evil," "pernicious," "the new social, unless these allegations were valid? Those who take the Bible literally should barbarians," and some things I won't repeat I will not argue here why I consider know where good and evil—morality and here; and these accusations are spread morality based on nonbelief more solid than immorality—come from: "I make peace and nationwide. morality based on God or why taking re- create evil: I the Lord do all these things" sponsibility for one's actions is better than (Isaiah 45:7 [KJV]). It is absurd for them to shrugging it off on a deity. But there is a Tom Franczyk is coeditor of the blame secular humanists for all that they Secular way to check this with some degree of vera- Humanist Bulletin. perceive as wrong with the world. If one city: Compare the number of felons confined arbitrarily equates evil with nonbelief, there in our penal institutions who believe in a is no sense in further rational discussion. •

son, was one of conciliation. In his journal, Thomas Paine, Revolutionary however, Paine was urging not only separa- tion from England, but also the abolition of Humanist slavery in America. Encouraged by Paine, Jefferson made abolition a part of the Declaration of Independence, but political considerations forced its deletion. Thomas S. Vernon In 1776, Paine issued a series of pamph- lets entitled Common Sense, which became the manifesto of the War of Independence. his year marks the 250th anniversary tivity. "Infidelity," he wrote, "does not con- In December 1776, when the fortunes of Tof the birth of Thomas Paine, one of sist in believing, or in disbelieving; it consists American troops were at a low ebb, he pub- the American Revolution's greatest heroes. in professing to believe what [one] does not lished his rousing collection of essays, The A century after his death Paine was scurri- believe." Crisis, whose opening lines have justly re- lously defamed by Theodore Roosevelt as a Born in 1737 in the small town of Thet- mained famous. "These are the times that "filthy little atheist"; but Paine was not an ford, England, of Quaker parents, Paine try men's souls," he wrote. "The summer atheist, nor, to the best of my knowledge, lived on the borderline of poverty for most soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this were his personal habits unclean. His wri- of his life. In London he was befriended by crisis, shrink from the service of their coun- tings certainly do show a strongly anticlerical Benjamin Franklin, whose laudatory letter try; but he that stands it now deserves the point-of-view, and Christian leaders of his of recommendation helped Paine get estab- love and thanks of man and woman. Tyran- day condemned him as an infidel. Today, lished when he came to America in 1774. ny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we we might view Paine as a humanist, perhaps He took up residence in Philadelphia and have this consolation with us, that the harder even a secular humanist, whose passion for soon became editor of Pennsylvania Maga- the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. freedom of thought and inquiry, even in the zine. He was perhaps the first to begin agi- What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too face of malicious attacks, still serves as a tating for America's independence from lightly: it is dearness only that gives every model of political courage and moral sensi- England. Even after the battles of Concord, thing its value." It was an immense morale- Lexington, and Bunker Hill, the prevailing builder, and Washington, who read it to his Thomas S. Vernon is emeritus professor of policy of colonial leaders, including George troops, personally expressed his appreciation philosophy at the University of Arkansas. Washington, Franklin, and Thomas Jeffer- to Paine.

56 FREE INQUIRY After the War of Independence Paine A deist, like Voltaire and Jefferson, Paine also divinely inspired, a view that is difficult turned his attention for a while to engineer- can be seen as a typical product of the to defend rationally, to say the least. "Had ing, and worked out a design for a bridge Enlightenment. Near the beginning of The they voted differently," writes Paine, "all the with a longer span than any previously con- Age of Reason he summarizes his credo this people since calling themselves Christians, structed. He displayed his model in France way: "I believe in one God, and no more; had believed otherwise—for the belief of the and then in England, where he soon became and I hope for happiness beyond this life." one comes from the vote of the other." involved in political affairs. Responding to Paine's primary target is the orthodox To the idea that the Bible might contain Edmund Burke's monarchist Reflections on Christian view that the Bible is the "re- much that is of value to historians, Paine the Revolution in France, Paine wrote The vealed" word of God. He questions the very has no objection. But he disagrees in the Rights of Man, which became the model notion of revelation: strongest terms with the notion that it can for the Declaration of the Rights of Man, be regarded as a source of moral instruction issued by the French Nationalist Assembly Revelation is necessarily limited to the first coming from God, since so much of it is in 1789. Its principles were embodied also communication—after that it is only an morally repulsive in the extreme. in the Bill of Rights, added to the American account of something which that person Constitution in 1791. In England, however, says was a revelation made to him; and though he may find himself obliged to Whenever we read the obscene stories, the The Rights of Man incensed William Pitt believe it, it cannot be incumbent on me voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and and other conservative leaders, and Paine to believe it in the same manner; for it torturous executions, the unrelenting vin- came to be regarded as a dangerous agitator. was not a revelation made to me, and 1 dictiveness, with which more than half the Paine's good friend, the poet William Blake, have only his word for it that it was made Bible is filled, it would be more consistent warned him of his impending arrest, and to him. that we called it the word of a demon, Paine fled to Calais just three hours ahead than the word of God. It is a history of of the arrival of warrant officers. This argument subverts not only the author- wickedness, that has served to corrupt and Already an honorary French citizen, ity of Christian institutions but also the brutalize mankind; and, for my part, I sincerely detest it, as 1 detest everything Paine was elected to the Assembly. A claims of Judaism, Islam, Zoroastrianism, that is cruel.... What can be greater blas- moderate, he was one of the few who voted and any other religion that claims to be a phemy than to ascribe the wickedness of against the execution of the ex-king Louis revealed religion—as distinct from a philo- man to the orders of the Almighty? XVI in 1793. For this, he was thrown into sophical, or rational, religion, like Stoicism, prison, where he remained, somehow escap- for example. ing the guillotine, until the Reign of Terror Paine points out that the closing of the He recalls hearing, when he was about seven came to an end. Both the American minister Jewish and Christian biblical canons (i.e., or eight years old, a sermon on "redemption to France (Gouverneur Morris) and Presi- the decision as to what writings were to be by the death of the Son of God." After the dent Washington refused to make any effort officially regarded as inspired, and the bar- service, he was deeply troubled by the to secure his release; this was finally ac- ring of the addition of any further writings thought that people would believe God to complished by Morris's successor, James to the corpus) was a political action. So in be so wicked. Since that time, he writes, he Monroe. For a time Paine continued to be order to believe that the Bible, and the Bible has come to the firm belief "that any system active in French political affairs. But the alone, contains the Word of God revealed of religion that has anything in it that shocks military dictatorship established by Napo- in its entirety, one must believe that the the mind of a child, cannot be a true leon was not to his liking, and he returned canon-closing "Church - Mythologists" were system." • to America in 1802. Paine had become persona non grata to members of the American power structure, with the exception of Jefferson. The Federa- Gift subscriptions to FREE INQUIRY lists managed to secure his disenfranchise- ment on the grounds that he was not an Give a subscription to FREE INQUIRY to relatives, friends, American. He continued to live in New and your library. York, however, where he died in 1809, a man without a country. "He had faults, like Please enter a one-year gift subscription at $18.00 for: other men," wrote Bertrand Russell in "The Fate of Thomas Paine." "But it was for his Name virtues that he was hated and successfully calumniated." Address Paine's religious views are expounded in The Age of Reason. In 1793, with a presenti- City State Zip ment of what was coming, he wrote the first part, completing it just six hours before his Additional gifts of FREE INQUIRY can be purchased at a 30% discount on the regular arrest, and managed to deliver the manu- subscription price. (Please use a separate sheet.) script to a friend on his way to prison. In Total $ ❑ Check or money order enclosed writing it he had to rely entirely on his well- Charge my ❑ VISA ❑ MasterCard Exp stocked memory, having available no refer- ence books, not even a copy of the Bible. ❑ Please send a gift card in my name. The second part, completed in October 1795, Return to: FREE INQUIRY, Box 5, Buffalo, NY 14215-0005 was written under more favorable conditions 716-834-2921 after his release from prison.

Spring 1987 57 1983. Why? Part of the answer is in `fran- chise" operations, which pre-package license requests to the Federal Communications IN THE NAME OF GOD Commission (FCC) and provide canned pro- gramming for locals who offer little more than a local name and address to justify their community services. A request by one The Perfect Gift `Murph' Surfaces as a Preacher university-based and secular station to in- vestigate the 'franchisers" is gathering dust Washington (Reuters)—The White House Orlando, Fla.—Jack "Murph the Surf" at the FCC. (The FCC appears unalarmed confirmed that President Reagan had sent a Murphy is taking up preaching and going by the evangelical assault on public radio.) signed Bible to Iranian leaders... . on the campus lecture circuit to share the ... (In These Times) [White House spokesman Larry] Speakes insights he gained from spending 21 years said the Bible, with Mr. Reagan's signature in prison for murder and jewel thefts. Flat-Earthers Get a Boost and the date of Oct. 3, 1986, under a hand- The former surfing champ said he plans written quotation, had been given by Ameri- a lay prison ministry, will go on the campus Phoenix, Ariz.—Teachers should not try to can emissaries to an intermediary in Frank- lecture circuit at $2,500 an engagement, and dissuade students who want to believe the furt to be passed on to Iranian leaders. hopes to sell his paintings... . world is flat, Gov. Evan Mecham's educa- "It was a gesture to indicate that those Asked how he will respond to those who tional lobbyist told lawmakers. who were there were truly representing the may doubt his religious conversion, Murphy Former state Rep. Jim Cooper testified President, and that the President, too, was said, "I say the same thing (Watergate figure) before the House Education Committee on a man of God," he said... . Chuck Colson said when he came out of a bill that would require schools to teach Mr. Speakes said the handwritten pass- prison just watch me. " (AP) evolution as a theory, not as a fact. age in the Bible, from Galatians, had been Cooper said teachers should not disagree suggested to Mr. Reagan by Vice Adm. John Dialing Down to Jesus with students who want to believe in the M. Poindexter, then the national security biblical theory of creationism instead of adviser... . The odds are increasing that when you dial evolution as the origin of humans. According to Mr. Speakes, the sending down to public radio (FM 88 to 92) you'll Rep. Peter Goudinoff asked Cooper what of a signed Bible had been suggested by reach a prayer or a sermon. Since 1978, reli- should happen if a student told his geogra- Colonel North "because there had been dis- gious groups—mostly evangelical and often phy teacher that his parents said the world cussions about the common religious heri- self-consciously conservative politically— is flat. tage that existed between Moslem and account for the majority of all noncommer- "If that student wants to say the world Christian and Jewish religions." cial applications. And, the most recent report is flat, the teacher doesn't have the right to The handwritten quotation read: "And from the National Federation of Community try to prove otherwise," Cooper said. "The the Scripture, foreseeing that God would Broadcasters (NFCB) shows, applications for schools don't have any business telling peo- justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the public radio licenses have skyrocketed since ple what to believe. " (AP) gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, 'All the nations shall be blessed in you. ' Galatians 3:8. Ronald Reagan. Oct. 3, 1986." . . . (New York Times)

Jesus Is 'True Leader' of Philippines

Jesus Christ is the "true leader of the Filipino A POS5I511 COMPROMISE nation," said Philippines President Corazon FROM THE WAR ON Aquino at a national prayer breakfast on December 11. Addressing a group of cabinet 5LCULAR HUMANISM ministers, businessmen and others, Aquino— NOR BiBLUG who has been criticized for allying her SCHOOLS... government too closely with the Catholic Church—said the God of "victory and free- dom" never fails to answer the prayers of the Filipino people, especially in times of crisis." Former American astronaut Gen. Charles M. Duke also spoke at the breakfast. He said that as Aquino spoke, "I felt the pres- ence of God, a new spirit in the Philippines." People all over the world are praying for Aquino and for the Philippines, said Duke. (Church & State)

58 FREE INQUIRY FREE INQUIRY Conferences on Audio and Video Tape NOW AVAILABLE! "ETHICS IN CONFLICT: BIBLICAL VS. SECULAR MORALITY" University of Richmond, Richmond, Virginia October 31 and November 1, 1986 Session #1—$8.95—"Welcome," Paul Kurtz. "The Session #3—$8.95—"Religion vs. Secular Morality," Origins and Impact of Biblical Ethics," Gerald A. Vern L. Bullough, Richard Rubinstein, Lewis S. Hall. Larue, Theodor Gaster, John F. Priest, Frank Eakin. Feuer, Joseph E. Barnhart, James Session #4—$8.95—"Religion and Morals," Paul Session #2—$8.95—"Biblical and Contemporary Kurtz, Joseph Blau, Richard Taylor, Joseph Fletcher. Views of Morality," R. Joseph Hoffmann, Morton Banquet—$6.95—"Faith-Healing: How It Is Done," Smith, Ellis Rivkin, Robert S. Alley. James Randi. Complete set $39.00 (10% savings). New: FREE INQUIRY's Richmond conference on video tape. Complete set $89.00 (Postpaid) VHS and Beta Also available on audio tape only: "Jesus in History and Myth" "Armageddon and Biblical Apocalyptic: "Religion in American Politics" University of Michigan Are We Living in the Last Days?" National Press Club Ann Arbor Campus University of Southern California Washington, D.C. April 19 and 20, 1985 Los Angeles Campus March 16, 1983 Complete set $39.00 February 27, 1984 Complete set $26.50 Complete set $19.00

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FREE INQUIRY • Box 5 • Buffalo, NY 14215-0005 • Tele.: 716-834-2921 Cont ä. from p. 3) (Letters, My guess is that Richard Roberts was not Pornography report ("The Emperor's New archaeologist who was foggy enough to ac- kindly disposed toward FREE INQuIRY's Fall Pornography Report," FI, cept the creationists' terms of debate and Winter 1986/87) 1986 edition. (See "Richard Roberts's Heal- is marred by the concluding paragraph. His felt they deserved equal time for their "sci- ing Crusade," by Henry Gordon.) Therefore personal condemnation of those who avail ence." I have written the president of the he called upon the God of Glitches to punish themselves of pornographic materials is AIA to register my complaint. I am sure the you. Sure enough, right on your cover, un- astonishingly similar to the commission's AIA was entranced by the same equal-time derneath the excellent cartoon-rendering of position. I was sorely disappointed that he argument that may get creationism into the Richard, is this slug line: "Faith-healer did not question some of the ludicrous and schools in Alabama. Robert Roberts" (my emphasis). Now, are fatuous statements in the report. What this you still in doubt about the power of evan- article cries out for is Oscar Wilde's merciless Elinor S. Wright gelicals? ridicule of the pomposity and hypocrisy of Lynnfield, Mass. the commission's members. I can still hear Sol Panitz Oscar scornfully cry out: "... Better one Investigation of Faith-Healing Boca Raton, Fla. unnatural vice than thirty unnatural virtues!"

Congratulations on your efforts to expose Editor's Note: Oops—our mistake. E. L. Richards faith-healers as the charlatans they are. You Water Mill, N.Y. are having a visible effect. On his program televised on Saturday, August 30, Peter The Humanist Press Popoff quoted and misquoted from the Oral Roberts, Please Note Spring 1986 issue of FREE INQUIRY. After The passing of a loved one is always a time The excellent cartoon that appeared on the noting the attacks being made on him by of sorrow, but how tragic it is when the cover of the Winter 1986/87 FREE INQUIRY "the magician" (James Randi), Popoff pro- passing might have been avoided. How depicts Rodin's "The Thinker" with the cap- ceeded to quote out of context from FREE dreadful will be the lives of those who sat tion, "Don't look now, boy, it's a secular INQUIRY in support of his claim that the there—doing nothing—when just a little humanist." It appeared originally in the secular humanists are out to tear down all clerical effort on their parts would have October 1986 issue of The Churchman. The "Bible-believing Christians." He said FREE saved the loved one's life. cartoon is representative of the editorial INQUIRY had called Oral Roberts "a liar and policy of The Churchman; it is as secular a a manipulator of human beings in their most I am taking you into the inner circle of God's confidence by telling you that He has journal as you'll find among the so-called vulnerable moments." (See the Spring 1986 religious journals. It is becoming known as issue, p. 24, for the proper context.) He said informed me of His intention to knock off my husband, Mac Emery, unless I receive The Human Quest and is regarded as com- FREE INQUIRY has declared that Pat plementary to FREE INQUIRY. Despite the Robertson's "entire '700 Club's' faith-healing at least $859.40 by Thursday of next week. Mac, like a true sacrificial lamb, knows Episcopal church's founding of the magazine procedure is a charade" but didn't mention in 1804 (Thomas Jefferson probably threw that Robertson and Ben Kinchlow are per- nothing of this divine plan, so I ask that you make out your checks to me personally. it aside as being too churchly and "respect- forming "cold readings" (p. 34). He also able," as historians put it), it has for many noted that Ernest Angley has been attacked. Any nice, friendly notes sent along for Mac will be relayed to him in an inconspicuous decades under the guidance of Guy Emery Even the literalists' Catholic brethren are Shipler (editor, 1922-1968) taken a human- not safe from the secular humanists, he said, manner. Thank you for your continuing support. istic stand on social and political issues. In because FREE INQUIRY has stated that there fact, it deals more forthrightly with the "have not been any totally neutral investiga- Linda Emery, President moral facet in politics and foreign policy tions in which controlled studies of the than does the "official" humanistic press. Lourdes pilgrims have been conducted" (p. Linda Emery Ministries Boise, Idaho A year's trial subscription for $8.00, sent 33), Popoff deduced that "no investigations to 1074 23rd Ave., No., St. Petersburg, FL will satisfy the secular humanists." 33704, would yield a surprisingly rich source Later in the program, Popoff healed an After reading the letter, Mac strongly sug- of secular thinking. A recent piece in The elderly gentleman with a heart condition. gested that I consult with God and see if Churchman, "Why I Am a Secular Human- After the man had run up and down the some mistake might not have been made. I ist," by a Baptist clergyman, Dr. W. W. Fin- floor in front of the audience (to prove that am happy to inform you that following lator of Raleigh, North Carolina, deals he had been made "every whit whole") about, oh, a half hour of prayer and suppli- forthrightly with the subject. "If anyone calls Popoff pointed to his own head and asked cation, Mac was granted a divine reprieve. me a secular humanist I will reward him him, "Do you see anything in this ear? Any- Thank you for your contributions, al- with blessings," he wrote. "In the U.S. Con- thing in this one?" The man said no, but of though 1 must say that the human life stitution religion is mentioned twice and both course on this particular program Popoff doesn't seem to be worth much these days. times negatively. As a Baptist believing pro- didn't call anyone by name, either. foundly in church-state separation, how I Popoff must obviously consider Randi s Linda Emery love this." His statements are typical of the activities a real threat. Otherwise, why would rewards of reading this iconoclastic maga- he defend himself publicly against a maga- The Attorney General's zine. zine that few of his followers have ever read? Pornography Report Edna Ruth Johnson, Editor Oscar E. Gunther William F. Ryan's otherwise excellent review The Churchman Philadelphia, Pa. of the Attorney General's Commission on St. Petersburg, Fla.

60 FREE INQUIRY More on Secularism dently existing spirit entities. God, in par- gion. It is important, I believe, to stop giving ticular, is regarded as an "illusion by an creationists this kind of ammunition. The article "Is Secularism Neutral?" by illusion," in Stephen J. Gould's pungent None of this is to say that it is prudent Richard J. Burke (FI, Fall 1986) correctly phrase (the latter illusion is that the "mind" to define humanism as a religion (another points out that "ethics requires no theo- is independent of matter). issue altogether), only that, as far as the logical assumptions" and that "theists are That McKown is listed as a professor of creation/evolution controversy is concerned, no more law-abiding or altruistic than athe- philosophy at Auburn University makes his the religious status of humanism is not ists." Yet in the editorial "Court Rules on misstatement even more inexcusable. Please, germane. FREE INQUIRY Lawsuits" (FI, Summer 1986) Professor McKown, do not confuse philo- Senate Chaplain Halverson is quoted as sophical materialism with the Kantian ag- Kenneth E. Nahigian saying that the "Godless would deny and nosticism that so smugly and uncritically Sacramento, Calif. destroy human rights" and that the "liberties reigns in the pages of FREE INQUIRY, where of a nation cannot be secure when belief in it yet remains possible for the fraudulence God is abandoned." of faith-healing to be a cover-page "shocking Latin American Sciencephilia In the almost five decades since I first truth." became aware of these kinds of unfounded Mario Bunge's article "Science, Technology, generalizations, I have never seen any con- J. C. Duffield and Ideology in the Hispanic World" (FI, certed effort to deal with them. At most, a Kansas City, Mo. Summer 1986) is an illuminating and pro- few individuals write to newspapers or make vocative essay that hits right on the mark responses that are too scattered to gain Delos B. McKown replies: the problem of a nonscientific Latin Amer- publicity. It seems to me that an organized, ica. However, it could have been balanced well-educated group, preferably one con- To reject or deny the figments of the pope's better by dealing a little more with countries nected with a university, should be set up to imagination is not to reject or deny any cor- other than Argentina. Besides the members make public statements to correct misinfor- responding realities known to exist. In such of the Argentine Generation of May, other mation that is publicly presented. Such a cases, there is nothing to reject or deny. Hispanic American republics have had group need not argue for rights for nonthe- flowerings, however brief, of scientific in- terest. In Mexico the Científicos (Scientists) ists—and certainly should not make deroga- Reader to Reader tory statements about theists—but should hoped to use positivistic methods and theo- simply present facts. For example, when ries to improve the economy, political struc- President Reagan says, "There can be no I must reply to a point raised by Kent ture, and nature of the Mexican nation. democracy without God," it would be easy Harker in the Letters to the Editor (FI, Unfortunately, without having any scientific to put out a paragraph on the history of Winter 1986/87). In his concern over crea- tradition to fall back on, they failed to democracy, including its rise under polythe- tionists' attacks on public science education, understand the basic tenets of positivism, ism, its nonoccurrence in medieval times, he has fallen prey to a subtle fallacy that which were not meant to be used to impose and its reappearance contemporaneously creationists wish to propagate. Mr. Harker repressive order on the people even if it was with the decline of religion in the Age of fears that if we call humanism a religion, "for their own good." They did not under- Enlightenment. and state evolution as a tenet of it, then stand that Darwin's "survival of the fittest" In time, such a group as I have proposed evolution becomes, unconditionally, a reli- was not intended to be used to control the might be seen by the general public as similar gious doctrine. This is simply untrue. As a masses. Notwithstanding the defects, scien- to those groups that monitor products for counterexample, consider murder. Many con- tific thought was alive and well in the period consumers. Your Faith-Healing Investigation servative Christians profess murder is wrong immediately before the Mexican Revolution. Project seems already to have obtained that because God condemns it. Are laws against In Cuba, the introducer of positivism, kind of support. murder therefore religious? Do they violate Enrique José Varona y Pera (1849-1933), First Amendment guarantees? admired Comte, distrusted metaphysics, and fought for the development of a scientific Elaine B. Oxman No, obviously. And why? There is a spirit of research. In Puerto Rico, Eugenio North Hills, Pa. crucial distinction between propositions that are believed for religious reasons and pro- María de Hostos (1839-1903) held a posi- positions that are believed only for religious tivistic view of religion, proposing that Papal Pronouncements reasons. Laws against murder have a basis Protestantism is further along the evolu- apart from religious dogma. The status of tionary scale than Catholicism. (He probably I rubbed my eyes in disbelief when I read murder within a religion has absolutely no never imagined the shape that Protestant Delos B. McKown's "Papal Pronounce- bearing on this. And evolution, just so, has fundamentalism would take in the United ments" (FI, Fall 1986), which criticized the a scientific basis quite outside of humanism. States in the 1980s.) As a positivist, Hostos pope for misconstruing "the relationships of So where is the problem? believed that people of a scientific mentality assorted atheists to the figments of his own A problem occurs only when Mr. Harker could live more morally than those who lived faith." McKown denies that "it can be shown and other well-meaning humanists cede by a religious morality. that philosophical materialists 'exclude' God ground that should not be ceded. Funda- Perhaps the greatest Latin American from anything ... or 'reject' God understood mentalists want an easy way to bring evolu- scientist was the Peruvian Manuel González as something objectively real and regnant tionary science down to the level of creation- Prada (1844-1918), who believed that sci- over the universe." It is precisely philosoph- ism; they want to evade the whole issue of ence, not Catholic dogma, should provide ical materialism—and philosophical materi- scientific integrity. We permit this when we the method for national education. Prada, alism alone—that explicitly "excludes" the tacitly agree that a proposition is religious if who demythified the concepts of Christian- reality and truth of all allegedly indepen- someone, somewhere, makes it part of a reli- ity, proposed, as did Hostos, a Comtean

Spring 1987 61 biologic morality. Prada proposed that the "I regard Joseph McCabe as the most learned man alive today differences between men and women as de- ... no one can very well question his scholarship." fined by Christianity were hogwash, and that women should go on strike against the —Dr. Harry Elmer Barnes (1933) church. But González Prada was not just a noted educator-humanist theorist, for from 1870 to 1871, he confined himself on a farm in the Mala valley in his An insightful historical analysis of chemistry laboratory, where he conducted experiments on Yucca seeds and some deriv- atives of starch. The Catholic Church and Finally, there were two disciples of González Prada who deserve mention. The first, José Carlos Mariátegui (1895-1930), a the Sex Problem scientific radicalist, proposed a faith in a THE STUPIDITY, FUTILITY, AND INSOLENCE OF ITS ETHIC socioeconomic doctrine instead of a faith in Catholicism. The other Pradian disciple is By JOSEPH McCABE none other than Victor Raul Haya de la Torre (1895-1979), a student of Albert Ein- paper $4.00 ppd. (USA). NJ add 6% tax. stein's theories of relativity. From these studies, Haya de la Torre put forth a theory on historical space and time that contributed INDEPENDENT PUBLICATIONS to the philosophy of history and to the P.O. Box 162, Park Station thread of thought that was to become Paterson, N.J. 07513 Aprismo (a movement that proposed the elevation of the indigenous American to the level of those of European heritage—an elevation that would be in accordance with the true nature of nature). Although Varona y Pera, Hostos, Gon- zález Prada, Mariátegui, Haya de la Torre, and those mentioned by Professor Bunge do not constitute a true scientific tradition YOU DON'T HAVE TO BE in Latin America, they, and others, provide the foundation for a future Latin American RELIGIOUS TO BE JEWISH. scientific tradition.

Thomas Robert Ward THERE IS MORE THAN Department of Modern and ONE JEWISH TRADITION. Classical Languages University of Connecticut Judaism is more than a religion. It is a four thousand year old Storrs, Conn. culture. It has a secular dimension, a secular history, secular roots. Einstein and Freud are as much a part of it as Abraham and Moses. Throughout Jewish history there has been a non- CLASSIFIED establishment pragmatic humanistic tradition alongside the official one. Most Jews. without knowing it, embrace it. You too CLASSIFIED may be part of this secular Jewish tradition. RATES

Rabbi Sherwin Wine, founder of Per word (single insertion) the Society for Humanistic Judaism. 10-word minimum 70 cents 10% discount for placement in 3 con- boldly presents this tradition secutive issues. in his new book Payment for insertion must accom- JUDAISM BEYOND GOD. pany copy. All classified ads are accepted at the Send $15.00 for each copy of discretion of the publisher. JUDAISM BEYOND GOD to: For additional information and rates Society for Humanistic Judaism for classified display advertising, write: 28611 West Twelve Mile Road, Dept. Fl FREE INQUIRY Farmington Hills, Michigan 48018 Box 5, Central Park Station (313) 478-7610 Buffalo, N.Y. 14215-0005 s

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63 Spring 1987 The Academy of Humanism The Academy of Humanism was established to recognize distinguished humanists and disseminate humanistic ideals and beliefs. The members of the Academy, listed below, are nontheists who are (1) devoted to free inquiry in all fields of human endeavor, (2) committed to a scientific outlook and the use of the scientific method in acquiring knowledge, and (3) upholders of humanist ethical values and principles. The Academy's goals include furthering respect for human rights and freedom and the dignity of the individual, tolerance of various viewpoints and willingness to compromise, commitment to social justice, a universalistic perspective that transcends national, ethnic, religious, sexual, and racial barriers, and belief in a free and open pluralistic and democratic society.

Humanist Laureates: Isaac Asimov, author; Sir Alfred J. Ayer, fellow of Wolfson College, Oxford University; Brand Blanshard, Sterling Professor Emeritus of Philosophy, Yale University; Sir Hermann Bondi, professor of applied mathematics, King's College, University of London; Bonnie Bullough, dean of nursing, State University of New York at Buffalo; Mario Bunge, Frothingham Professor of Foundations and Philosophy of Science, McGill University; Bernard Crick, professor of politics, Birkbeck College, University of London; Francis Crick, Nobel Laureate in Physiology, Salk Institute; Joseph Delgado, professor and chairperson in the Department of Neuropsychiatry, University of Madrid; Milovan Djilas, author, former vice-president of Yugoslavia; Jean Dommanget, director of the Royal Observatory of Belgium; Sir Raymond Firth, professor emeritus of anthropology, University of London; Joseph Fletcher, theologian, professor emeritus of medical ethics, University of Virginia Medical School; Yves Galifret, professor of physiology at the Sorbonne and director of l'Union Rationaliste; John Galtung, professor of sociology, University of Oslo; Stephen Jay Gould, Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University; Adolf Grünbaum, professor of philosophy, University of Pittsburgh; Alberto Hidalgo, president of the Sociedad Asturiana de Filosofia, 0viedo, Spain; Donald Johanson, Institute of Human 0rigins; Lawrence Kohlberg, professor of psychology, Harvard University; Franco Lombardi, professor of philosophy, University of Rome; Jolé Lombardi, organizer of the New University (laic) for the Third Age; André Lwolf, Nobel Laureate in Physiology and professor of science, College de France; Paul MacCready, Kremer Prize winner for aeronautical achievements; John Passmore, professor of philosophy, Australian National University; Jean-Claude Pecker, professor of astrophysics, College de France, Academie des Sciences; Wardell Baxter Pomeroy, psychotherapist and author; Sir Karl Popper, professor emeritus of logic and scientific method, University of London; W. V. Quine, professor of philosophy, Harvard University; Max Rood, professor of law and former Minister of Justice in Holland; Carl Sagan, astronomer, Cornell University; Andrei Sakharov, physicist, Nobel Peace Prize winner; Svetozar Stojanovic, professor of philosophy, University of Belgrade; Thomas Szasz, professor of psychiatry, State University of New York Medical School (Syracuse); V. M. Tarkunde, chairman, Indian Radical Humanist Association; Richard Taylor, professor of philosophy, Union College; G. A. Wells, professor of German, Birkbeck College, University of London; Edward O. Wilson, professor of sociobiology, Harvard University; Lady Barbara Wootton, former Deputy Speaker, House of Lords. Deceased: George 0. Abell, Ernest Nagel, George 0lincy, Chaim Perelman.

Secretariat: Vern Bullough, dean of natural and social sciences, State University of New York College at Buffalo; Antony Flew, professor of philosophy, Reading University, (England); Sidney Hook, professor emeritus of philosophy, New York University; Paul Kurtz, professor of philosophy, State University of New York at Buffalo, editor of FREE INQUIRY; Gerald Larue, professor emeritus of archaeology and biblical studies, University of Southern California at Los Angeles. Executive Director: Steven L. Mitchell. Committee for the Scientific Examination of Religion (CSER) The Committee for the Scientific Examination of Religion was developed to examine the claims of Eastern and Western religions and of well- established and newer sects and denominations in the light of scientific inquiry. The Committee is interdisciplinary, including specialists in biblical scholarship, archaeology, linguistics, anthropology, the social sciences, and philosophy who represent differing secular and religious traditions. Committee members are dedicated to impartial scholarship and the use of objective methods of inquiry.

Gerald Larue (Chairman), professor emeritus of archaeology and biblical studies, University of Southern California at Los Angeles; John Allegro, former lecturer in Near Eastern and 0ld Testament Studies, University of Manchester (England); Robert S. Alley, professor of humanities, University of Richmond; Michael Arnheim, professor of ancient history, University of Witwatersrand (South Africa); Joseph Barnhart, professor of philosophy, North Texas State University; Paul Beattie, president, Fellowship of Religious Humanists; H. James Birx, chairman of Anthropology/ Sociology Department, Canisius College; Vern Bullough, dean of natural and social sciences, State University of New York College at Buffalo; Joseph Fletcher, theologian, professor emeritus of medical ethics, University of Virginia Medical School; Antony Flew, professor of philosophy, Reading University (England); Van Harvey, professor of religion, Stanford University; Sidney Hook, professor emeritus of philosophy, New York University; Paul Kurtz, professor of philosophy, State University of New York at Buffalo; William V. Mayer, director, Biological Sciences Curriculum Study, University of Colorado; Delos McKown, professor of philosophy, Auburn University; Lee Nisbet, associate professor of philosophy, Medaille College; George Smith, president, Signature Books; A. T. Steegman, professor of anthropology, State University of New York at Buffalo; G. A. Wells, professor of German, Birkbeck College, University of London (England); Steven L. Mitchell (ex officio).

Biblical Criticism Research Project (CSER Subcommittee) The Biblical Criticism Research Project (Subcommittee) was founded to help disseminate the results of biblical scholarship—studies in comparative religion, folklore, scientific archaeology, and literary analysis. It investigates the claim that the Bible is divinely inspired; the historical evidence for Jesus and other Bible personalities; the role of religious myth, symbol, and ritual; and the possibility of basing morality upon reason and experience instead of biblical doctrine. The Research Project's goals include compiling bibliographies of the best sources of information about the Bible, publishing articles and monographs about different facets of biblical research, and convening seminars and conferences. R. Joseph Hoffmann (Chairman), assistant professor of New Testament studies, University of Michigan; David Noel Freedman, professor of 0ld Testament, University of Michigan at Ann Arbor; Randel Helms, professor of English, Arizona State University; Robert Joly, professor of philosophy, Centre Interdisciplinaire d'Etudes Philosophiques de l'Universite de Mons (Belgium); Carol Meyers, professor of religion, Duke University; James Robinson, director, Institute for Antiquity and Christianity, Claremont College; John F. Priest, professor and chairman, Department of Religion, Florida State University; Morton Smith, professor of history, Columbia University.

Faith-Healing Investigation Project (CSER Subcommittee) David Alexander, Southern California Skeptics; Robert S. Alley, professor of humanities, University of Richmond; Luis W. Alvarez, professor emeritus of physics, University of California; Stephen Barrett, M.D., consumer health advocate; Dr. Bonnie Bullough, R.N. dean, School of Nursing, SUNY at Buffalo; Dr. Joseph Fletcher, professor emeritus of medical ethics, Univerity of Virginia Medical School; William Jarvis, chairman, Department of Public Health Science, School of Allied Health Professionals, Loma Linda University, California; Richard H. Lange, M.D., chief of nuclear medicine, Schenectady, N.Y.; Gary Posner, M.D., St. Petersburg, Florida; Wallace L Sampson, M.D., Stanford University; Al Seckel, Executive Director, Southern California Skeptics; Robert Steiner, Chairman, Occult Committee, Society of American Magicians; Dr. Rita Swan, President, Children's Health Care Is a Legal Duty, Sioux City, Iowa. Coordinating Council: Joseph Barnhart, Paul Kurtz, Gerald Larue, and James Randi, conjurer and principal investigator of the Project.