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DAVID GOLDFIELD Evangelical Origins of the Civil War

CELEBRATING REASON AND HUMANITY February/March 2012 Vol. 32 No.2

BRIDGING THE GULF At Last, Measures Secularity

EASTER EXPLAINED | CIRCUMCISION CRITIQUED TRIES TO BECOME A CHRISTIAN, ONE MORE TIME

ARTHUR CAPLAN | P Z MYERS | JAMES HAUGHT | NAT HENTOFF

03 ’s

FINAL COLUMN Published by the Council for 7725274 74957 FI Feb March 12 _FI 12/28/11 3:39 PM Page 2

We are committed to the application of reason and science We believe in the cultivation of moral excellence. to the understanding of the universe and to the solving We respect the right to privacy. Mature adults should be of human problems. allowed to fulfill their aspirations, to express their sexual We deplore efforts to denigrate human intelligence, preferences, to exercise reproductive freedom, to have to seek to explain the world in supernatural terms, access to comprehensive and informed health care, and to look outside nature for salvation. and to die with dignity.

We believe that scientific discovery and technology We believe in the common moral decencies: altruism, can contribute to the betterment of human life. integrity, honesty, truthfulness, responsibility. Humanist is amenable to critical, rational guidance. There are normative We believe in an open and pluralistic society and that standards that we discover together. Moral principles are democracy is the best guarantee of protecting human rights tested by their consequences. from authoritarian elites and repressive majorities. We are deeply concerned with the moral education We are committed to the principle of the of our children. We want to nourish reason and compassion. separation of church and state. We are engaged by the arts no less than by the sciences. We cultivate the arts of negotiation and compromise as a means of resolving differences and achieving mutual We are citizens of the universe and are excited by understanding. discoveries still to be made in the cosmos.

We are concerned with securing justice and fairness We are skeptical of untested claims to knowledge, in society and with eliminating discrimination and we are open to novel ideas and seek new and intolerance. departures in our thinking.

We believe in supporting the disadvantaged and the We affirm humanism as a realistic alternative to disabled so that they will be able to help themselves. theologies of despair and ideologies of violence and as a source of rich per sonal significance and genuine satisfaction We attempt to transcend divisive parochial loyalties based in the service to others. on race, , gender, nationality, creed, class, sexual orientation, or ethnicity and strive to work together for We believe in optimism rather than pessimism, hope rather the common good of humanity. than despair, learning in the place of dogma, truth instead of ignorance, joy rather than guilt or sin, tolerance in the place We want to protect and enhance Earth, to preserve of fear, love instead of hatred, compassion over selfishness, it for future generations, and to avoid inflicting needless beauty instead of ugliness, and reason rather than blind suffering on other species. faith or irrationality.

We believe in enjoying life here and now and in We believe in the fullest realization of the best and noblest developing our creative talents to their fullest. that we are capable of as human beings.

*by

For a parchment copy of this page, suitable for framing, please send $4.95 to , P.O. Box 664, Amherst, New York 14226-0664 FI Feb March 12 _FI 12/28/11 3:40 PM Page 3

February/March 2012 Vol. 32 No. 2

31 The Evangelical Origins of the American Civil War David Goldfield

CELEBRATING REASON AND HUMANITY 35 Easter Explained What the Sacrificial Death of the Son Tells Us about the Father Peter W. Sperlich

16 Bridging the Gulf: At Last, 38 Pascal’s Wager Social Science Measures Secularity Adam Nehr Introduction FORUM 17 The Social Science of Secularity 39 Atheists for Jesus? Frank L. Pasquale A Caution from the Epistemology of Ethics Daniel C. Maguire 24 Who Are These Doubters Anyway? A Look Back at the Demographics of Unbelief 41 Cranks, Behinds, and God Tom Flynn Lawrence Rifkin

42 Tom Flynn Responds to Daniel Maguire and Lawrence Rifkin

EDITORIAL 14 Creeping Secular Humanism 53 Faith and Reason 4 Excrement Eventuates! James A. Haught Snip the Snip Tom Flynn Edan Tasca 15 Remembrances of an Enduring People LEADING QUESTIONS P Z Myers 57 Humanism at Large Mark Twain Tries—Again—to 7 From Faith to Critical Thinking Become a Christian A Conversation with Lee Salisbury DEPARTMENTS 47 Church-State Update Joel Welty LETTERS Personhood and Human Rights Edd Doerr REVIEWS 11 60 Darwin the Writer 48 Great Minds by George Levine OP-EDS of Reviewed by Lauren Becker James H. Dee 8 Goodbye to a Fine, Fierce Friend 61 Faith No More: Why People Andrea Szalanski 50 It’s Only Natural Reject Religion Domesticated Religion and Democracy by Phil Zuckerman 9 In Defense of John Shook Reviewed by Ryan T. Cragun Christopher Hitchens 51 God on Trial POEMS 12 The Vatican, Stem-Cell Research, Malevolent Design by Ted Richer and Me Ron Cordero 63 At the Astapovo Station Arthur Caplan Excreta 13 Obama’s Growing Torture Record Churches Nat Hentoff FI Feb March 12 _FI 12/28/11 3:40 PM Page 4

Editorial Staff

Editor Thomas W. Flynn Associate Editors John R. Shook, Lauren Becker Tom Flynn Editorial Managing Editor Andrea Szalanski Columnists Arthur Caplan, Richard Dawkins, Edd Doerr, Shadia B. Drury, Nat Hentoff, Christopher Hitchens, Tibor R. Machan, Excrement Eventuates! P Z Myers, Tom Rees, Katrina Voss Senior Editors Bill Cooke, Richard Dawkins, Edd Doerr, James A. Haught, Jim Herrick, Gerald A. Larue, Ronald A. Lindsay, If a solar storm should burn off the won’t belabor matters here. Suffice it to say Taslima Nasrin peculiar damp that clings to this that when we employ “spirit” talk, we planet, this would be a very small Contributing Editors Roy P. Fairfield, Charles encourage our hearers to suspect that we Faulkner, Levi Fragell, change—no change at all in cosmic Adolf Grünbaum, Marvin terms, which are apparently based on are insecure in our naturalism. Kohl, Thelma Lavine, averages. The universe is lifeless now Why does this matter? In part, it matters Lee Nisbet, J.J.C. Smart, and will be lifeless then, so negligible because apologists for religion and mysti- Thomas Szasz is our presence in it. cism doggedly insist that human beings Ethics Editor Elliot D. Cohen —Marilynne Robinson, can’t endure life without clinging to some Literary Editor David Park Musella “Night Thoughts of a Assistant Editors Julia Lavarnway Baffled Humanist,” The vestige of the metaphysical, the transcen- Julia Burke Nation, November 28, 2011 dental, the mystical—you know, woo-woo. Permissions Editor Julia Lavarnway When our language suggests that we can’t Art Director Christopher S. Fix he most resolute secular humanists endure it either, we buttress their position. Production Paul E. Loynes Sr. are not merely nontheistic and hu - That’s regrettable because the argument T mane but also committed to a sternly that real is, in effect, psychologically Council for Secular Humanism naturalistic view of the universe. Sadly, some impossible can be hugely powerful among Chair Richard K. Schroeder of us also tend to shoot ourself in the foot. “fence-sitters”: individuals nurturing real Board of Directors Kendrick Frazier Here’s what I mean: imagine conversing doubts about their former religious convic- Dan Kelleher Barry Kosmin with an average American, by whom I mean tions but fearful of what forsaking faith Angie McAllister someone fondly attached to some form of completely might entail. Richard K. Schroeder what James “The Amazing” Randi so delec- Allow me to speak from personal expe- Edward Tabash Jonathan Tobert tably termed “woo-woo.” Imagine that rience: misgivings of exactly this sort cost Leonard Tramiel individual objecting that your naturalism me at least two of the seven lonely years I (Honorary) seems cold and arid. Now imagine yourself spent thinking my way out of the Roman Chief Executive Officer Ronald A. Lindsay fending off that critique by assuring your Catholicism of my childhood and into (even- Executive Director Thomas W. Flynn conversational partner that naturalists are tually) a frank and settled atheism. “Gee,” I Director, Campus and Community Programs (CFI) Lauren Becker still fine folks: while we may not believe in used to wonder, “can people live without Director, Secular Organizations God, we stare into the night sky and feel religion, without mysticism, without cosmic for Sobriety Jim Christopher as much “awe and reverence” as anyone meaning, without any of it?” I’d been told Director, African for Humanism Debbie Goddard else. The truth is, imagine yourself saying, so often that people couldn’t that I thought Acting Director of Planning “We’re spiritual, too.” it might be true. and Development (CFI) Jason Gross Director of Libraries (CFI) Timothy Binga Congratulations. You have just imag- And sure enough, just when I’d begin Communications Director Michelle Blackley ined shooting yourself in the foot. to think that living without woo-woo was Legal Director (CFI) Steven Fox This inclination (strategy is way too possible after all, along would come Database Manager (CFI) Jacalyn Mohr strong a word) to reassure mainstream peo- someone like Carl Sagan with some decla- Staff Pat Beauchamp, Ed Beck, Melissa Braun, Shirley ple that we naturalists are more like them ration along the line of “A religion old or Brown, Cheryl Catania, than they think can bear strange fruit. I’ve new, that stressed the magnificence of the Eric Chinchón, Matt Cravatta, Roe Giambrone, written before on the problems that arise universe as revealed by modern science, Leah Gordon, Jason Gross, when naturalists resort to the language of might be able to draw forth reserves of Adam Isaak, Lisa Nolan, reverence and awe hardly tapped by the Paul Paulin, Anthony spirit and spirituality (see, for example, Santa Lucia, John Sullivan, “Taken in the Wrong Spirit,” FREE INQUIRY, conventional faiths. Sooner or later, such a Vance Vigrass April/May 2009 and “When Words Won’t religion will emerge” (Pale Blue Dot). Why Executive Director Emerita Jean Millholland Die: A Dispiriting Proposal,” FI, Summer should someone like Sagan want a new 2002). Having beaten this drum so often, I religion? Why not imagine a future with-

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out religion? Dejectedly, I’d conclude that going further, let’s try to define more pre- if not even a famous scientist could dis- cisely what such sound bites of dime-store pense with spiritual security blankets, “spirituality” really signify. Sometimes their maybe the apologists were right.* apparent meaning is literal, spirit serving as FREE INQUIRY (ISSN 0272-0701) is published bimonthly by Or consider two statements by tower- the label for an alleged metaphysical sub- the Council for Secular Humanism, a nonprofit educational ing giants of physics, neither of them con- stance that somehow transcends time and , P.O. Box 664, Amherst, NY 14226-0664. Phone (716) 636-7571. Fax (716) 636-1733. Copyright ©2012 by ventionally theistic: ’s quip space, the stuff that ghosts and souls are the Council for Secular Humanism. All rights reserved. No that “God does not play dice with the uni- imagined to be made of. (When we natu- part of this periodical may be reproduced without permission of the publisher. Periodicals postage paid at Buffalo, N.Y., and verse” and Stephen Hawking’s claim that ralists speak defensively about how “spiri- at additional mailing offices. National distribution by Disticor. should physics develop a so-called theory tual” we are, we risk our hearers walking FREE INQUIRY is indexed in Philosophers’ Index. Printed in the . Postmaster: Send address changes to FREE of everything, we will “truly know the away convinced they’ve heard us make INQUIRY, P.O. Box 664, Amherst, NY 14226-0664. Opinions mind of God.” Naturalists know that in fools of ourselves by admitting that we expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of the editors or publisher. No one speaks on behalf of the Council for each quotation “God” is meant meta - believe in ghosts.) Secular Humanism unless expressly stated. phorically. Unfortunately, most Amer icans But if we dig a little deeper, when we TO SUBSCRIBE OR RENEW see these passages as proof that the two examine what more sophisticated natural- Call TOLL-FREE 800-458-1366 (have credit card handy). smartest human beings whose names they ists may mean when they resort to “spiri- Fax credit-card order to 716-636-1733. recognize embrace a metaphysics indistin- tual” language, I think it most often boils Internet: www.secularhumanism.org. guishable from that propounded by Rick down to a sense of cosmic meaning—a Mail: FREE INQUIRY, P.O. Box 664, Amherst, NY 14226-0664. Warren. How many men and women who feeling of anchoring significance that Subscription rates: $35.00 for one year, $58.00 for two years, $84.00 for three years. Foreign orders add $10 per might otherwise complete their reaches deeper than the everyday world of year for surface mail. Foreign orders send U.S. funds drawn odyssey to the welcoming shores of secular cause, effect, and experiment. Often it on a U.S. bank; American Express, Discover, MasterCard, or Visa are preferred. humanism instead sigh, “If Einstein and shades into a sense that the cosmos reflects Single issues: $5.95 each. Shipping is by surface mail in Hawking are still theists, who do I think I a unifying design, a sense of having been U.S. (included). Single issues outside U.S.: Canada 1–$2.07; am?”and just give up? intended that ties everything together. 2–3 $4.81; 4–6 $7.00. Other foreign: 1–$4.60; 2–3 $10.56; 4–6 $13.95. Make no mistake, these offhand state- (Fine-tuning arguments, anyone?) ments in which famous nontheists sound But if we are thoroughgoing natural- CHANGE OF ADDRESS Mail changes to FREE INQUIRY, ATTN: Change of Address, like believers—in God, in religion generally, ists, we know that this, too, is just woo- P.O. Box 664, Amherst, NY 14226-0664. or simply in “spirit”—can do real damage. woo. We know there is no plan; there’s no Call Customer Service: 716-636-7571, ext. 302. But what can we do about it? Before underlying design, no such thing as cosmic E-mail: [email protected].

Meaning with a capital M (see my “The Big BACK ISSUES *Creative anachronism disclosure: My own M,” FI, June/July 2007). Here’s a radical Back issues through Vol. 23, No. 3 are $6.95 each. Back odyssey to atheism occurred in the 1970s, and issues Vol. 23, No. 4 and later are $5.95 each. 20% discount Sagan didn’t become a household name until idea: We should say so! What we mean on orders of 10 or more. Call 800-458-1366 to order or to Cosmos aired in 1980. Pale Blue Dot wasn’t when we choose our words matters less ask for a complete listing of back issues. published until 1994. The quoted passage is, than what others understand when they REPRINTS/PERMISSIONS however, typical of spiritual-sounding utter- hear them. It’s when we try to shade our To request permission to use any part of FREE INQUIRY, write ances that make famous atheists sound like to FREE INQUIRY, ATTN: Julia Lavarnway, Permissions Editor, believers. In my own case, it was spiritual- language in order to sound naturalistic P.O. Box 664, Amherst, NY 14226-0664. sounding remarks by Isaac Asimov and E. O. without sounding too naturalistic that the Wilson that obstructed my progress toward WHERE TO BUY FREE INQUIRY danger of shooting ourself in the foot is FREE INQUIRY is available from selected book and magazine atheism. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to run greatest. sellers nationwide. down those quotations. The abundantly attested Sagan quote used here is a fitting I think it pays to resist that inclination to ARTICLE SUBMISSIONS stand-in for them; also, I have been told by indi- reassure others that we’re more like them Complete submission guidelines can be found on the web at www.secularhumanism.org/fi/details.html. viduals who cast off their faith in later decades than they think. In this situation it’s more Requests for mailed guidelines and article submissions should that spiritual-sounding Sagan quotes, particu- important to stress how different we are, larly the one cited here, raised questions in their be addressed to: Article Submissions, ATTN: Tom Flynn, FREE INQUIRY, P.O. Box 664, Amherst, NY 14226-0664. minds as to whether Sagan was a true atheist thereby demonstrating that, contrary to role model in just the way I describe. what our conversation partner may have LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Send submissions to Letters Editor, FREE INQUIRY, P.O. Box 664, Amherst, NY 14226-0664 or e-mail aszalanski@center forinquiry.net. Way back in FREE INQUIRY’s Spring 1991 issue, founding editor Paul Kurtz published For letters intended for publication, please include name, address (including city and state), and daytime telephone num- “A Short Guide to Comparative ,” an anonymous humor item that recast ber (for verification purposes only). Letters should be 300 words “shit happens” as it might be expressed in various religious traditions (“Zen: What or fewer and pertain to previous FREE INQUIRY articles. is the sound of shit happening?” “Judaism: Why does this shit always happen to The mission of the Council for Secular Humanism is to advo- US?”). To his dismay, the result was a small deluge of reader mail complaining cate and defend a nonreligious life stance rooted in science, naturalistic philosophy, and humanist ethics and to serve and about the item’s “undignified” language accompanied by the largest number of support adherents of that life stance. subscription cancellations the magazine has ever received in connection with a sin- gle article. Think of this editorial as my effort to gauge whether today’s FI readers are prepared to be more open-minded when casual profanity is used for a reason.

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heard from the Sunday pulpit, a wholly dis- thin film of life clings to some otherwise evasion. Yes, it’s only shit happening. “spirited” naturalism lies within the scope unremarkable speck of rock, doing its lonely That’s genuinely our view, yet we do not of ordinary human possibility. Even if it best to poach energy from its parent star succumb to nihilism. We sleep soundly means sounding harsh, we need to say it and perform its fabulous party stunt of, each night; we love those close to us with forthrightly; to the degree that we are thor- however locally, turning back entropy. aching intensity; we laugh and make oughgoing naturalists, we’re not “spiritual Pretty cool, huh? music and art and revel in exuberance. You too.” Whenever possible, we should leave I think it’s appropriate to view this don’t have to be “spiritual”—or believe in no doubt that when we claim to live with- spectacle, as Sagan said, with awe. I think design that isn’t there or in Meaning that out religion, without mysticism, without it’s an enormous mistake to view it, isn’t there either—in order to have all these “spirit” or any sense of the sacred, we’re as Sagan also said, with reverence. Rev- riches in your life. And we’re the proof of claiming precisely to live without that erence to whom? For what? Nobody that! bedrock sense of deeper meaning. And we planned it, nobody designed it; it’s not the Each time you make that clear, it’s up aren’t just saying so; we really live that way, cosmos bringing forth life so that it can to you whether to drive the final conclu- taking life as it comes, accepting its foun- contemplate its own wonders and sing a sion home or let your hearers make the dational absurdity, and conceding that our happy tune—it’s just (here it comes!) shit connection for themselves: If I live this presence in this universe fulfills no plan and that happened. The most we can say of it way, you can too. reflects no entity’s intent. Most of all, we while remaining true to our naturalism is, This is why it matters whether so many strive to resist that all-too-human tendency “Isn’t it fascinating—can’t we learn a lot secular humanists will go on shooting our- to read patterns into events that actually from it—that this particular shit happened self in the foot—or whether more of us just happen. in just this way?” will forthrightly represent what is true I’m reminded of a bumper-sticker senti- Now let’s peer into the proverbial elec- about us, however unsettling others may ment ubiquitous twenty or thirty years ago: tron microscope. (Pretend it’s a really, find it at first. As long as average Amer - “Shit Happens.” When it was trendy, it con- really good one that doesn’t interfere with icans don’t understand that many secular veyed a superficial fatalism. Now that it’s out biological function and renders motion in humanists genuinely, honestly live in a of favor, maybe committed naturalists real time.) Watch the double helix of DNA world without design, without transcen- should revive it in order to convey our deep split and re-form—perhaps the grandest dent meaning, without woo-woo, they mindfulness that far from being the predes- mystery of all, the process by which one will never feel challenged in their naïve tined unfurling of some cosmic plan, life is life be comes two. Now let’s focus on a certainty that no one can live that way. just, well, a series of events. (Follow ing human blood sample, marveling as the Con versely, once an average American Elbert Hubbard, I could call life “just one immune system identifies and efficiently absorbs the realization that some of us damned thing after another,” except that destroys some invading bacillus. Again, awe really do live that way, then the path will there’s no one to do the damning.) In all may be an appropriate response (“Isn’t it open for them to realize: “If they can live its crude colloquial vigor, maybe “Shit breathtaking how this shit happens?”). that way, then maybe someday I could live Happens” can help us capture just how mat- Reverence is not. No matter how breathtak- that way.” ter-of-factly, how foundationally, we ing it may seem to our wondering yet lim- If you’re like many secular humanists, embrace the naturalistic view and all it ited human understanding, it’s still just you may invest a good deal of time implies. more shit happening, nothing more. encouraging the people you converse How might we recast some common And that’s the point: there is nothing with to embark on their own voyages scientific abuses of spiritual language into more. Instead of shooting ourself in the away from woo-woo. Let’s help them, not words that express our naturalism without foot trying to sidestep that cold reality, we unintentionally hinder them. compromising—without tossing a lifeline naturalists should make it Tom Flynn is the editor of FREE INQUIRY, the executive director to woo-woo? inarguably clear to others that of the Council for Secular Humanism, and the editor of the Here’s a thought exercise: let’s make like this is just the way we see Encyclopedia of Nonbelief (Prometheus Books, 2007). Carl Sagan, tilt our heads back, and con- things, deeply and without template the glories of the night sky. (Pretend you’re somewhere really, really dark. Okay, now pretend you’re somewhere FREE INQUIRY Welcomes New Columnists really dark, and you’re outside.) Mag - Wendy Kaminer, a featured op-ed columnist since 2000, begins a one-year sabbat- nificent, isn’t it—the sheer immensity, the ical with this issue. In our next issue, we will introduce a new featured columnist, layered billions of light-years filled with gas the celebrated atheist blogger Greta Christina. Philosopher Ophelia Benson, coauthor and dust and energy and dark matter of books in cluding Why Truth Matters and editor of the influential website Butterflies (whatever that is)? Stars blaze in their reful- and Wheels, has been an occasional columnist; she will assume a full four-column-per- gent glory, in every size and color, living out year schedule starting with our next issue. Also joining the lineup of columnists will every stellar life span that physics permits. be the Australian writer, philosopher, and critic Russell Blackford. Look for his pre- mier column in a future issue. And ever so infrequently—whether it hap- pens once or a billion times, it’s still an inex- —THE EDITORS pressibly tiny component of the whole—a

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Leading Questions

From Faith to Critical Thinking A Conversation with Lee Salisbury

Lee Salisbury was at one time an up-and- apartment buildings and making presenta- PRICE: What do you make of this stuff coming charismatic Christian pastor, even tions. So I had that kind of thinking in my now? a healer! How did he wind up actively background—that you had to provide evi- SALISBURY: Well, certain things are psy- involved in the ranks of Minnesota Atheists? dence and that it had to be reasonable and chological, but I can’t explain everything. I Often, successful Christian activists logical. don’t think we had a success rate that was simply cannot allow themselves to enter- I had a profound born-again experi- any better than if you had gone to a doc- tain doubts as to the worthiness of their ence back in October 1970. Eventually I tor. You know what happens when people enterprise, but Salisbury had a yearning got involved with a church as a business get enthused about things they want to for critical thought. He left his church and manager. I left real estate. That church believe. They’ll believe whether the results turned instead to a new gospel, that of had a two-year Bible school for young are quite real or not. intellectual honesty and responsibility for people, and they asked me to teach. I did PRICE: You mentioned how evidence one’s own beliefs. Salisbury founded a that for four years. That was pretty much was important to you. How did you turn number of Critical Thinking Club chapters my religious education—teaching every around and think better of your faith and in the Minneapolis, Minnesota, area and is day, counseling young people, and con- see through it? also involved with Minnesota Atheists. ducting home meetings. Finally I began a SALISBURY: I had the church for ten Below, Robert Price, research fellow at new church on the east side of St. Paul. years. By 1986, my sons were getting the Institute and professor PRICE: How did you build up the mem- ready for college, and I decided it was time of theology and scriptural studies at bership? Colemon Theological Seminary, talks with SALISBURY: We were very aggres- Salisbury about how he made this astonish- sive—we passed out tracts and got ing transition. To hear the interview in its people to talk to their friends and entirety, please visit pointofinquiry.org.—EDS. neighbors. Back then there was a lot of excitement in the charismatic “I stumbled across a book that ROBERT PRICE: You were once a successful movement. minister, although not of a conventional PRICE: You actually had “heal- was written in the 1800s by Kersey church. Would you describe your congre- ings” oc cur, didn’t you? Graves, The Bible of Bibles. gation, its beliefs, and your approach? SALISBURY: Oh yes, we did. We As I began to go through it, I began to SALISBURY: We were a product of the used to have people sit in an upright 1970s charismatic movement, and so we chair and they’d stick their legs out, realize my faith just can’t be true.” were into the gifts of the spirit, speaking and I’d check to see if their legs in tongues, praying for healing, prophecy, were the same length. We’d pray. I word of knowledge, and those kind of didn’t want to cheat. I didn’t want things. We started from scratch and grew to help anybody move his or her leg to a congregation of probably four hun- or anything like that. If one leg was dred or so—people from all walks of life. short maybe a quarter of an inch or a half- to take a sabbatical leave. So I got away It could have been a big megachurch if I inch, sure enough that leg would come from church life and got back into real had just had my wits about me. I would be out. We’d come at it in the name of Jesus estate. And I began to ponder the things I driving around in a Mercedes today and and that leg would grow out. had taught, what I believed, and what I have a private Learjet. One young man had curvature of the understood the Bible to say. Certain things PRICE: Did you study for the ministry? spine and the X-rays confirmed that—at didn’t quite line up like they should. In the SALISBURY: My background is in com- least that’s what I was told. He came for- back of my mind for years I had this ques- mercial real estate. I had several years expe- ward for one Sunday, and I prayed tion about the Nativity. In Matthew, the rience in doing real estate deals, exercising over him. His mother came up to me the threat of Herod is there, and so the very critical thinking skills in terms of analyzing, next week and said the doctor had done say, a shopping center or warehouse or X-rays and he was all healed. (Continued on page 43)

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Tribute

Goodbye to a Fine, Fierce Friend Andrea Szalanski

hristopher Hitchens first ap peared who no one else would help. Hitchens said In one of his first op-eds, he reported on a in the pages of FREE INQUIRY in Fall he considered withholding his most shock- debate he had with William Donohue, then C1996 as the subject of an interview— ing discovery, that “has said head of the Catholic League, and found him rather lengthy at six pages—that focused that the suffering of the poor is something a “bilious thug.” In 2001 he noted that on his investigation of Mother Teresa, that very beautiful and the world is being very in the final days of icon of religious sacrifice. His book The much helped by the nobility of this example Madalyn Mur ray O’Hair “had something of Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in of misery and suffering.” However, when the cultish about it.” He castigated Western Theory and Practice (Verso) had come out she fell ill, “she checks herself into some of liberals and leftists for not rallying to criti- the year before. His goal was to examine the costliest and finest clinics in the West.” cize Islam when feared for her operation in India and her motives, his life because of the fatwas issued against scrutiny that he thought the media, espe- him by Muslim clerics or when Islamic ter- cially in the United States, was reluctant to rorists attacked the United States on apply to her and other religious figures. September 11, 2001. His findings? Her “care facilities are His career as a book author, journalist, grotesquely simple: rudimentary, unscien- essayist, and speaker on religion, , tific, miles behind any modern conception and for various publications, of what medical science is supposed to websites, and other forums is well known. do. ... Very rightly it is said that she tends In 2007, with the publication of his book to the dying, because if you were doing : How Religion Poisons anything but dying she hasn’t really got Everything (Twelve/Hatchette), Hitchens much to offer.” joined , Richard Dawkins, Hitchens found that the spartan medi- and in the ranks of the “new cine Mother Teresa practiced was not due atheists” who were helping to explain and to lack of money. A former staffer told him popularize unbelief to the public. there had been $50 million in one bank In life, Hitchens received numerous account alone when she worked for the awards, including being voted one of the nun. The sisters were told they couldn’t top in the United States in use the money to help the neighborhoods 2005. He had just recently had Asteroid in which they lived, so what was the 57901 named after him. The tributes since money used for? Mother Teresa had his death are evidence of the respect and opened convents and nunneries in 120 Christopher Hitchens visited the Center for admiration many others in his profession countries: “The money simply has been Inquiry in Amherst, New York, and spoke at CFI events around the country on several occasions. had for him. He died on December 15, used for the greater glory of her order and 2011, at the age of sixty-two. He had been the building of dogmatic religious institu- In that same interview Hitchens com- under treatment for esophageal cancer for tions,” Hitchens said. mented on religion, “I am an atheist. I’m some time, and the complications from that If the spending of the funds was sus- not neutral to it, I’m hostile to it. I think it disease claimed him. He was unique, inde- pect, so was their origin. Hitchens found is positively a bad idea, not just a false fatigable, and a pleasure to work with— that Mother Teresa had no qualms about one. And I mean not just organized reli- right up to the end. Our national discourse associating with a Caribbean dictator or gion, but religious belief itself.” will be the poorer for his absence. His final an American banking criminal if it got her Hitchens became a regular columnist for column for FREE INQUIRY follows. support. FREE INQUIRY in 2000, and he Andrea Szalanski is the managing editor of FREE INQUIRY. Still, she ministered to the poor sick continued to pull no punches.

8 FREE INQUIRY FEBRUARY/MARCH 2012 secularhumanism.org FI Feb March 12 _FI 12/29/11 10:02 AM Page 9

Christopher Hitchens OP-ED

In Defense of Richard Dawkins

f you haven’t read it, you will almost are the other professors? Why is the acad- recently there was an attempted “gotcha” certainly have seen it: the critique of emy being so cowardly in failing to stick up when he showed reluctance to have a pub- IProfessor Richard Dawkins that arraigns for the teaching and the free inquiry on lic exchange with the Protestant fundamen- him for being too “strident” in his con- which it lives? I don’t think that Professor talist . This time the cho- frontations with his critics. According to Dawkins should be left to do this impor- rus turned sarcastic and pseudo-ironic— this line of attack, Dawkins has no business tant work all by himself. “Dawkins declines debate, etc.”—as if this stepping outside the academy to become a In doing so at all, of course, he comes time they wanted him to be more strident “public intellectual” and even less right to from a potentially great tradition. In the rather than less. It’s not as if Craig is a biol- raise his voice when he chooses to do so. famous nineteenth-century debate with ogist or has any other sort of serious cre- Implied in this rather hypocritical attack is Bishop Wilberforce, or “Soapy Sam,” in dential, but he does like to claim “credibil- the no less hypocritical hint that Dawkins which the theory of evolution was tried and ity” by taking on great names. Dawkins is might be better received if he were more found sound in the Oxford school, it was usually willing to accommodate debates polite and attract a better class of audience Thomas Huxley who emerged if he used more of the blessed restraint and as “Darwin’s bulldog.” It wasn’t reserve that is every Englishman’s birthright to be ex pected that the mild “I ... am a self-taught amateur writer and which he obviously possesses in such and retiring heaping measure. would or could appear each who quite enjoys getting a bit scruffy in I think that Dawkins would be quite time to defend evolution by debates with those who think that Earth right to refuse the oily invitation that is natural selection, but at least was designed with them in mind. Dawkins, contained in this offer, and I hope that he there was someone upon continues to do so. I say this while having whom he could rely, and the on the other hand, has spent decades of actually found his manners to be quite evidence is that Huxley was his life refining and deepening the unusually polite and even quiet, especially very happy to undertake the teaching of biology.... Why should he when one considers the context of this dis- task. My view now would be cussion. I, for example, am a self-taught that that was all very well for sit still and see a valued and precious amateur writer who quite enjoys getting a the nineteenth century, when discipline being insulted, even bit scruffy in debates with those who think the struggle was to expand threatened with not being taught?” that Earth was designed with them in and deepen the circle of scien- mind. Dawkins, on the other hand, has tific knowledge. But now that spent decades of his life refining and deep- the discipline is clearly estab- ening the teaching of evolutionary biol- lished, it should not require a full professor with the “other side.” But he had serious ogy—a revolutionary subject that is only to justify his right to be teaching it! misgivings about the premise of this one just beginning to disclose its still-more rev- Instead, he and others should be getting because Craig had set out an especially olutionary, and healing and educational, on with important projects. Yet just today hard and brutal defense of the genocide of properties and aspects. Why should he sit I spoke to some biologists who work the Amalekites. In general, we of the “Four still and see a valued and precious disci- closely with the National Institutes of Horseman” faction avoid direct engage- pline being insulted, even threatened with Health and are regularly forced to waste ment with Holocaust deniers, lest the idea not being taught? It’s no exaggeration to time in red-herring discussions about the of denial become insidiously more accept- say that in some parts of the modern ethics of using existing stem cells. Alas, in able. And, cloaked as it is in biblical rheto- world, real efforts are being made to stifle testimony be fore Congress, they are ric, Craig’s defense of the exterminationist evolutionary biology and to impose the forced to be polite and understated, lest view expressed in the Pentateuch is as close teaching—under various disguises of dif- they meet with the wrath of God. to denial as makes damn little difference. fering ingenuity—of creationism. In which This is why I suppose people lay traps case the real question ought to be: Where for Dawkins, trying to catch him out. Most (Continued on page 43)

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“It is error only, and not truth, that shrinks from inquiry.” – You are invited to join the Center for Inquiry to Act, Combat, and Promote…

Since 1976, three remarkable organizations have been in the forefront of efforts to promote and defend critical thinking and freedom of inquiry. The Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (founded in 1976), the Council for Secular Humanism (1980), Center for Inquiry and the For thirty years, the Council for Secular Humanism has advocated for a nontheistic worldview (1991) have advocated, based on reason, education, and compassion in place of fear or unquestioning religious belief. championed, and, when necessary, defended the freedom to inquire … while Your Help Is a Necessity! ACT, COMBAT, and PROMOTE demonstrating how the fruits We are currently focused on three of objective inquiry can be Each year, magazine goals central to our core objectives: used to understand reality, subscriptions fund a smaller refute false beliefs, and percentage of this work, even Act to end the stigma achieve results that benefit as the need for activism attached to being humanity. increases and the population nonreligious. we serve grows. In many ways, our organiza- Combat religion’s tions have been ahead of More than ever, CFI and its privileges and its influence on public policy. their time. Now, they are affiliates depend on the truly 3 For Tomorrow. generosity of our supporters Promote science-based Through education, advocacy, both to fund daily operations skepticism and critical thinking. publishing, legal activism, and to build capital and its network of regional for the future. Make your most generous gift branches, CFI and its affiliate today . . . or request information

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Letters

erly, meals for the poor, and more. a clarion call to join battle with religion. • In many small towns, or cities in the That said, it would be helpful to have an in - Bible Belt, the local church is often where crease in the number of nonbelievers, you will find the most influential people. especially in the United States, as this If your livelihood re quires making lots of would likely reduce the influence of reli- contacts, finding the biggest and wealth- gion on public policy and help eliminate iest church is a good place to start. the stigma that is still attached to being a • In these places, the church may be nonbeliever. the only place to go for some form of To William Barrett: I have no substan- entertainment and general sociability. tive disagreement with his points. The • Adopting some belief structure in an institutional strength and pervasiveness of organized church is a lot easier than religion do provide it with significant acquiring a rational worldview. The latter advantages. requires some study, and most people To George G. Ardell: Indeed, we may don’t have the training or the patience. have different understandings of the word One can hardly appreciate any opera, evidence, as he points out. To me, evidence old master painting, Shakespeare, or tending to refute the claim that x exists Bach’s music unless you have a reasonable includes: (1) facts that establish that x is knowledge of biblical stories. There’s no not needed to explain any phenomena; (2) Religion’s Attractions adequate nonsectarian substitute for this, facts indicating that x is an anomaly and other than some college courses on rela- does not fit in with the rest of our under- Ronald A. Lindsay (”Religion’s Attractions, tive religions. standing of the universe; and (3) the Humanism’s Challenge,” FI, December William Barrett absence of facts suggesting the existence of 2011/January 2012) seems to think that San Jose, California x. A personal god is not needed to ex plain humanists have a responsibility to subvert anything; such an entity is an immaterial religion: to combat beliefs on both an intel- being who appears to stand outside the lectual and emotional level. But in what Ronald Lindsay did a wonderful job of eluci- laws of physics while simultaneously inter- arena is this battle for hearts and minds to dating most of the concerns and questions I acting with the natural world; and there are take place? Why this competition? Do I have been struggling with regarding reli- no facts suggesting the existence of a per- detect, if not missionary zeal, then a bit of gion. However, he included two statements sonal god. By “personal god” I mean what “spread-the-word” evangelizing? that raised a big question for me. He wrote, has traditionally been understood by that A London bus advertising campaign “The evidence against the existence of a term: that is, a being who thinks and wills featuring the slogan “There probably is no personal deity is overwhelming. Any one and has an ongoing relationship with god; stop worrying and enjoy your life” who thinks to the contrary just hasn’t humans and responds to them as a person probably did more to disconcert much received the news.” I am an in tensely curi- would. The evidence against the existence motivated reason (fantasies, etc.) than all ous agnostic. I want to receive the “news” of a personal god is, in my estimation, sim- of the recent books that have promoted and see the evidence. But I hope the evi- ilar in strength to the evidence against the atheism as rational and scientific. The dence isn’t just the lack of evidence for the existence of ghosts. Of course, there are buses going about their business provided existence of a deity. Perhaps my problem is people who believe in ghosts: but they just a nonconfrontational “arena,” and the just with the word evidence. If Lindsay had haven’t received the news. use of the word probably implied that the said “arguments” rather than “evidence,” thesis was not an edict but was nonthreat- I would agree completely and without ening and also scientific in that it wasn’t question. Solving Overpopulation proclaiming “case closed.” George G. Ardell Re Tom Flynn’s “A Discussion Long Over- Jerome Bronk South Charleston, West Virginia due” (FI, December 2011/January 2012): San Francisco, California Ronald A. Lindsay replies: overpopulation cannot be dealt with by any country alone, even the United States. It is To Jerome Bronk: Actually, my position and must be dealt with as a global issue. Ronald Lindsay’s editorial was splendid, regarding the religious is that we should Overpopu lation is the common denomina- but he overlooked most of contemporary not make converting them a priority. I have tor of all other problems the human family religion’s main attractions. stated this in previous editorials. My edito- is facing now: climate change, militarization • Many large churches provide vital rial was more a consideration of the prob- and war, global poverty, ecological deterio- services to their communities in the form lems facing humanism as it tries to estab- of hospitals, child care, homes for the eld- lish itself as an alternative to religion than (Continued on page 37)

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Arthur L. Caplan OP-ED

The Vatican, Stem-Cell Research, and Me

ust before this past Thanksgiving, I Church leaders have made it clear time company, Neostem, which has been in the spent three days inside Vatican City at and again that they oppose the destruc- adult stem-cell business for years. Ja very unusual conference. The topic tion of embryos as a way to get stem cells. Neostem is an international bio- was stem-cell research, a subject of fierce It does not matter where the embryos pharmaceutical company with aggres- political and moral debate because some come from; even if they are obtained from sively marketed adult stem-cell operations forms of stem-cell research involve human unwanted embryos at fertility clinics, as I in the United States, a network of adult embryos or, potentially, cloned human suggested a decade ago, the church says stem-cell therapeutic providers in China, embryos. they must not be used. and a 51 percent ownership interest in a So what was I, a known proponent of That stance leaves the Roman Catholic Chinese generic pharmaceutical manufac- embryonic stem-cell research, doing inside hierarchy in a tough ethical spot. The turing company. The company has been the Vatican walls? The Pontifical Academy church wants to find cures for a long list of criticized for its highly optimistic pitches for had convened a meeting to awful diseases, but prelates face the exhorting people to bank, at significant examine “ethical” ways to do such re - prospect of a possible cure coming from cost, their own bone marrow or, for new search. And while I do not agree with the ongoing embryonic stem-cell research that moms, cord blood. The benefit of such is taking place in many nations and banking is somewhat overstated in the some states in the United States. company’s advertisements. And those That would force the church to take connections to China, given a of a position on the of the problems with the integrity of clinical trials “. . . Just as I had presumed, desperately ill using any such cure and the safety of drugs made there, also the topic of embryonic stem-cell on themselves or of parents using it are reasons for concern. Still, despite these research was not going to get any on their desperately ill children. That warning flags, the church chose Neostem is a dilemma the is as something of a partner to push adult attention other than condemnation. understandably eager to avoid. stem-cell research forward. This was a meeting to extol A major point of the meeting The Roman Catholic Church is trying adult stem-cell research.” this past November was to make it to steer an emerging area of science— clear to the world that the Vatican stem-cell medicine—in a particular direc- recognizes the need to find cures. tion using its opposition to embryo The meeting was called to illustrate research as an ethical rudder. By throwing a possible way forward via what its ethical might and even its money into church about the immorality of embryonic the church has been convinced is the the debate about where to get stem cells stem-cell research, I do agree that pursu- promising path of adult stem cells—which and how best to study them—and prais- ing other forms of stem-cell research is are found in various organs and tissues of ing the work of scientists and companies absolutely worthwhile. So, leaving be hind the adult human body. These cells, the that follow the church’s position—the a cell-phone number lest I should wind up Vatican thinks, hold the moral and scien- church is telling scientists and investors to in a dank medieval dungeon, off to Rome tific answer to the challenge of finding focus only on stem-cell work that does not I went. possible cures without resorting to embry- involve embryos. I need not have worried. I could not onic stem-cell research. Do men in red caps and clerical collars have been treated more kindly nor given a Efforts to transplant naturally occur- know best about how scientists should better forum to say whatever I wanted. ring adult stem cells or to tweak them into seek to find cures for terminal and disabling But, just as I had presumed, the topic of more powerful states to fix what ails you diseases? I don’t think so, and not simply embryonic stem-cell research was not are, in the view of the Vatican, worthy of because I am a proponent of embryonic going to get any attention other than con- enthusiastic support—so much so that at stem-cell research. In my view, the Vatican’s demnation. This was a meeting to extol the meeting, high-ranking church leaders adult stem-cell research. explicitly endorsed the efforts of a small (Continued on page 44)

12 FREE INQUIRY FEBRUARY/MARCH 2012 secularhumanism.org FI Feb March 12 _FI 12/29/11 10:02 AM Page 13

Nat Hentoff OP-ED

Obama’s Growing Torture Record

hen he was not yet president, exceptions, Democrats in Congress have never, ever participated in the torture, Barack Obama insisted: “To build a also remained loyally silent. Nor am I aware “but should have known about it.” As far Wbetter free world, we must first of any significant follow-up to this grim as I know, there are no blind CIA agents. behave in ways that reflect the decency disclosure of Washington’s complicity with Here we get deeper into Obama’s and aspirations of the American people. the Afghan government in horrors there. accountability for torture, although no one This means ending the practice of shipping Even though the following was in the here is officially trying to hold him account- away prisoners in the dead of night to be October 30, 2011, Washington Post, how able. reminds us of— tortured in far-off countries” (foreign many of you have seen it? The headline as if the great majority of Americans ever affairs.com, Summer 2007). He was refer- was “U.S. Had Advance Warning of Abuse knew about it in the first place—“the Leahy ring to the Central Intelli gence Agency at Afghan Prisons, Officials Say.” Long be- Amendment” that “prohibits the United (CIA)-directed “extraordinary renditions” fore the United Nations disclosed what it States from funding units of foreign security that, during the Bush administration, did describes as “systematic torture” in deten- forces when there is credible evidence they indeed send terrorism suspects to coun- tion centers (a familiar euphemism) run by have committed human rights abuses.” tries known for torturing prisoners. The Afghan intelligence agencies, leading offi- But our official lying gets worse: CIA told the foreign interrogators what cials at the Obama State Department, the “American officials denied that they had sort of information to extract and how to CIA, and our military “received multiple ignored credible warnings of detainee go about it: by any means necessary. (That warnings” about abuses at such Afghan abuse and said that whenever such an was also the standard in the CIA’s own interrogation centers including secret prisons.) Depart ment 124 in Kabul, where President Obama did not follow through the torture of up to forty-two ter- on his pledge. re - rorism suspects has been so “During all the widely covered debates ported (August 24, 2009): “The Obama appalling that “one detainee told among Republican presidential administration will continue the Bush the UN that it has earned another administration’s [renditions] but pledges to name: ‘People call it Hell.’” aspirants, I have neither seen closely monitor [the prisoners’] treatment to President Obama receives nor heard any comments on Obama’s ensure that they are not tortured.” daily intelligence briefings up his continuation of Bush-Cheney As I and other reporters, here and chain of command. Was he abroad, have documented, the monitor- shielded from the fact that, torture policies.” ing has been illusory. (See my column, despite these warnings about “Mr. President: We Are Still Torturing?,” what was going on at these cato.org, July 16, 2009.) In addition to the Afghan-run prisons—to which renditions (my column “U.S. ‘Black Hole’ other countries stopped sending Prison in Afghanistan,” wnd.com, July 26, their detainees—we went right on doing allegation was raised, they took action.” 2011), “some . . . ‘detainees’ have been the following (again, quoting from the Added the second-ranking American killed during ‘coercive interrogations’ at a Post story): “U.S. Special Operations commander in Afghanistan, Lt. General principal U.S. prison [at Bagram Airbase, troops delivered detainees to Department Curtis M. Scaparrotti: “Anyplace that Afghanistan] inmates call ‘the black hole” 124.” And (get this), “CIA officials regu- we’ve had a concern in the past, we’ve (BBC News, April 15, 2010). larly visited the facility, which was rebuilt taken the appropriate steps, and we’re During all the widely covered debates last year with American money.” Just taking the appropriate steps now.” I’ve among Republican presidential aspirants, I while the president was trying so earnestly seen no evidence of that. have neither seen nor heard any com- to curb U.S. deficits? And dig this: these American officials ments on Obama’s continuation of Bush- If you can believe Afghan officials, Cheney torture policies. And with limited they maintain that those CIA visitors (Continued on page 44)

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James A. Haught OP-ED

Creeping Secular Humanism

ew people notice, but a profound as in gory past epochs. “It is easy to forget in past years. In credibly, no national armies shift is discernible in history and cur- how dangerous life used to be, how deeply are still fighting one another; all of today’s Frent trends. Secular humanist val- brutality was once woven into the fabric of wars are civil wars. ... Today’s successes in ues—rooted in improving people’s lives daily existence,” Pinker wrote in The Better building peace have grown out of decades without supernaturalism—are gaining Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has of effort and sacrifice by people working ground, decade after decade, century Declined. through international organizations, hu - after century. They’re becoming the stan- He begins his seven-hundred-page man itarian aid agencies and popular move- dard of civilization, overcoming past ugli- book by recounting horrors once com- ments around the world. At the center of ness. Evidence confirms that wars are monplace, such as massacres, rapes, sacri- this drama is the United Nations and its 60- diminishing, democracy is spreading, dic- fices, and slavery. The Old Testament out- year experiment in peacekeeping—over- tatorships are fading, health is improving, lines 1.2 million violent deaths, he esti- whelmingly supported by American public human rights are spreading, personal bru- mates. In the Middle Ages, torture and opinion.” tality is lessening, illiteracy is retreating, cruelty were rampant in the Inquisition Mack says have changed so longevity is increasing—the list goes on. and in punishments by kings. Reviewing that war no longer seems heroic or a These hopeful changes may be over- Pinker’s book, Cambridge scholar David source of national pride. “Wars of colonial Runciman wrote: “It is hard conquest would be unthinkable today,” “Secular humanist values—rooted in not to be occasionally struck he writes and adds: “Two seismic political dumb by just how horrible shifts, the demise of colonialism and the improving people’s lives without people used to be. The image end of the Cold War, removed major supernaturalism—are gaining ground, I can’t get out of my head is sources of tension and conflict from the decade after decade, century of a hollow brass cow used international system. The percentage of for roasting people alive. Its countries with democratic governments after century.” mouth was left open so that doubled be tween 1950 and 2008, from their screams would sound 29 percent to 58 percent. Since democra- looked amid torments in the daily news, of like the cow was mooing, adding to the cies almost never go to war against each which there are plenty: Suicide terror amusement of onlookers.” other, there have been progressively fewer attacks massacre defenseless people. Pinker calculates that the ratio of people countries around the world likely to fight Tornados, tsunamis, earthquakes, and killed by warfare was 500 per 100,000 in each other. ... High-intensity wars, those floods inflict tragedy. Perhaps twenty mil- ancient times. It dropped to 60 per 100,000 that kill at least 1,000 people a year, have lion Americans are jobless, and fallout during the violent twentieth century, and declined by 78 percent since 1988.” from the Great Recession hurts the world. now it’s a mere three-tenths of a person per In Better Angels, Pinker goes beyond Overpopulation causes pollution and 100,000. That’s more than a thousandfold warfare to outline other trends away from global warming. Millions of young women decrease in war deaths per capita. brutality and bigotry and toward tolerance in less-developed nations are subjugated His war finding is corroborated by two and nurture—the goals of secular human- or forced into prostitution. Inequality other new books: Winning the War on War ism. He notes: between rich and poor keeps worsening. by American University Professor Joshua • Murder in Europe has declined from Nonetheless, human life is getting bet- Goldstein and Human Security Report nearly 100 people per 100,000 in medieval ter. First, consider the ultimate madness, 2009–2010 by Andrew Mack of Simon times to about one per 100,000 today. war. Bloodshed from conflicts has de creased Fraser University in Canada. Gold stein’s • Rape in the United States has fallen 80 amazingly over the centuries, according to book declares: “Despite all the hand-wring- percent since 1973. Lynchings, which once three new books by major university schol- ing, fearmongering and bad-news head- averaged 150 per year, have ceased. ars. Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker says lines, peace is on the rise. Fewer wars are • The world had fewer than twenty democ- that war deaths as a percentage of popula- starting, more are ending, and those that tion are only one-thousandth as bad today remain are smaller and more localized than (Continued on page 44)

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P Z Myers OP-ED

Remembrances of an Enduring People

ne of the tragedies of humanity is past, but they illuminate human prehistory sight of their homes, and catching large that we’re all mortal—every one of in ways that light up my imagination and pelagic fish such as tuna and sharks and Ous, and everyone we know and love, make me want to tell our ancestors that navigating home again. To do this, they will someday die. Our forebears, to whom we haven’t forgotten everything. had to have a sophisticated maritime tech- we owe our existence, are all gone or The first is a garbage heap in a cave in nology: hooks and lines or nets, some kind going. Another aspect of this great East Timor in the Malay Archipelago, re - of reliable seagoing vessel, knowledge of tragedy is the transience of our knowl- cently excavated by Sue O’Connor and her the sea and seafaring, and most impor- edge: not only will we die but memory of colleagues. It’s a 42,000-year-old garbage tant, a culture that preserved the tradi- us will steadily fade over time; as we look heap left by the people who, 50,000 years tions and social cohesion that allowed this back on our history, it gets dimmer and ago, began a slow southern migration from occupation to flourish. dimmer and farther and farther back. We Southeast Asia through the island chain And they needed one more thing: get only a brief moment in the spotlight and finally ended up colonizing Australia. It courage. Deep-sea fishing is not the be fore time moves on and darkness swal- was one of humanity’s great lows us up. adventures, striking out from a lub- Look back to our ancestors even a berly mainland to explore exotic hundred years ago, and what do we have? tropical oceans. On this one island, Perhaps a few sepia-toned photographs, a in this one cave, in this garbage keepsake, a few old stories, a tombstone. heap, these people left unprepos- Go back five hundred years—you’re lucky sessing traces of their everyday life: “. . . This tool kit wasn’t something to find a brief mention in a church registry. fish bones. Piles and piles of fish essential for survival.... After a thousand years, perhaps there will bones. be reference to a connection to a people You might be surprised at what This was a luxury. It was art to or a region but probably little more. Far - you can learn digging through satisfy a creative urge or to fill ther still, we have at best a vague aware- someone’s trash. In this case, scien- a social role—it was something ness of a milling humanity, their lives tists rummaged through the gar - remote and their concerns foreign to us. bage in excruciating detail, count- sublimely human. I just wish The roots of our species are almost entirely ing and sorting every bone and we knew more about what lost to us—reduced to old bones and working out precisely what species was being created.” stone tools—and it’s often hard to find a each one belonged to—all part of personal connection to chipped pebbles or the meticulous rigor that’s part of a weathered femurs. Who were the people scientist’s standard operating proce- behind these bones and artifacts? What dure. And that’s how they found a were their lives like, what troubled them, small surprise: tuna. what made them happy? About half the fish bones in But then, every once in a while, a this old midden were from deep-water fish province of the casual dabbler; these fish- spark lights up the ancient darkness. The such as tuna—fish that you aren’t going ermen had skills and fortitude and were spotlight doesn’t sweep back—it never to catch by standing on the shore or wad- engaged in a practice that is hazardous goes back—but there’s just a glimmering ing into the shallows. These are fish that and remarkably unconventional for a pri- that says nothing more than “We were require real commitment and skill to catch: mate. These were individuals in a complex here. We were human. We were like you.” the tuna bones tell us that these people, culture, like our modern fisherfolk—ex - Two such discoveries have been re - over 40,000 years ago, were routinely cept, of course, that they are now going ported very recently in Science. They’re going to the sea in craft of some sort (no (Continued on page 46) small things, fragmentary debris from our trace of their remains), cruising out of

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Bridging the Gulf: At Last, Social Science Measures Secularity

Introduction

Tom Flynn

y any measure, the period since the mid-twentieth century claim any religious identity has doubled since 1990. In the mid- has been a golden age for both the science of sociology and , “new atheist” writing and activism achieved a prominence Bthe discipline (or business) of opinion polling. Never before in the worlds of publishing and popular discourse never before have so many Americans been surveyed, measured, and com- seen. From mere doubters to “out” atheists, unbelievers enjoyed pared on so many indices and by so many specialists. heightened visibility in numbers that could not be ignored. Still, across the age of surveys, men and women who live with- For all these reasons, it is gratifying to see that at long last, the out religion have had reason to feel neglected. Data on those who gulf between secular Americans and their indifferently secular did not believe in God or did not go to church existed, but there homeland is being bridged at all levels of the social sciences. From wasn’t a great deal of it. Of greater concern, most of it had been atheists and humanists to self-declared “seculars” and the “spiri- collected as “bycatch” in studies designed primarily to measure the tual but not religious,” Americans who have opted out of the tra- behavior of religious believers. Atheism, secularity, unchurched- ditional religious establishment are finally being treated as legiti- ness—when these things were measured, it was usually in the con- mate subjects of survey research. In this feature section, independent scholar Frank L. Pasquale chronicles exciting new devel- opments in the sociology of secularity. I follow up “It is gratifying to see that at long last, the gulf between with a historical survey of unbelief as viewed through the lenses of sociology and surveys from secular Americans and their indifferently secular homeland the mid-twentieth century to the present. Readers is being bridged at all levels of the social sciences.” are invited to consult the online version of these articles on www.secularhumanism.org, which include annotations withheld from the printed versions of these essays for reasons of space. Like hands straining to reach across a chasm, text of the study of belief in God or church membership. Irreligion America’s nonbelief communities, its academic community, and its was treated as deviance, often explicitly so. Moreover, by lumping survey-research community are stretching closer to each other. all nonbelievers into a category such as the perennial “Other,” a The prospect of understanding the social phenomena of unbelief, group that was internally diverse was often treated as though it including secular humanism, in unprecedented detail is one of the were far more homogeneous. reasons ours is an extraordinary time to live without religion. Nonbelievers had reason to feel that they stood apart from society, separated by some vast gulf, with their remoteness cutting them off from the sort of matter-of-fact attention sociologists and pollsters lavished on people of faith. This was a situation that could Tom Flynn is the editor of FREE INQUIRY and the executive director of the Council not continue indefinitely. The number of Americans who decline to for Secular Humanism.

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Bridging the Gulf: At Last, Social Science Measures Secularity

The Social Science of Secularity

Frank L. Pasquale

omething novel happened during this century’s first decade: as then. It had more to do with the preoccupations of social sci- Social scientists (re)discovered the nonreligious. Call it “reach- entists at the time and what immediately ensued. Sing critical mass” or a “tipping point,” but suddenly quite a few In much of Western Europe, Christianity’s salience and societal researchers in quite a few places began to focus their attention grip quietly continued to wane. But in the United States, the six- directly on the nonreligious—not just as a foil for better understand- ties’ sensibility and significant Supreme Court rulings on religious ing the religious but as a subject of inquiry in their own right. expression and abortion triggered an increasingly public and polit- There have, of course, been studies in the past few decades of ically active Christian conservatism. Confidence in straight-line the phenomenon of religious doubt and populations with labels secularization faltered. such as “nones” (those who profess no named religious affiliation By the 1990s, however, data sources like the American Reli- or identity), “apostates” (an unfortunate term for those who exit gious Identification Survey (ARIS) and the General Social Sur vey or abandon religion), the “unchurched,” and the “unreligious,” (GSS) detected a sudden increase—from about 7 to 14 percent— among others. But apart from a few notable exceptions, much of in Americans who declined to identify themselves as members of this work has aimed to learn why religion was failing these people named religions. The louder and more politically involved the reli- rather than learning who they are, how they think, how diverse gious right had become, it seems, the more some people—espe- they are, what they do, and why. cially the young—were backing away from formal, public, or pri- Four decades ago, “unbelief” and “irreligion” were briefly ex - vate religious identification. plored as coherent fields of study, but these ini- tiatives were regrettably short-lived. The focus on unbelief was an initiative of—mirabile “. . . Suddenly quite a few researchers dictu—the Vatican! The Baby Boom generation was experimenting with various beliefs—and in quite a few places began to focus their attention with unbelief. It seemed to most social scientists directly on the nonreligious—not just as a foil for at the time that the Enlightenment vision of reli- better understanding the religious but as a gion’s decline was well under way, at least in the Euro-American sphere. Secularization was top subject of inquiry in their own right.” of mind. “Responding to the challenge of unbelief and religious indifference” and drawing “lost sheep . . . back into As the new century began, dramatic acts of religion-related the fold” were on the minds of congregants at the Second Vatican terrorism convulsed the country and the world. Soon thereafter Council in the early 1960s. By decade’s end, many of the world’s came the gallop of “new atheist horsemen” straddling the foremost sociologists of religion gathered—at the behest of who took broad, strident issue with religious beliefs, Vatican’s Secretariat for Non-believers—for a conference in Rome behavior, and institutions. to consider “the culture of unbelief.” This failed, however, to con- Social scientists were not immune to these developments. geal into a coherent field of study. As the proceedings published Signs of activity began building around the turn of the century, in 1971 make clear, conferees were mired in uncertainty about but by mid-decade the proverbial rubber hit the road. Papers and definitions of “unbelief” and how to study it. special sessions concerning irreligion and the nonreligious began More important, 1971 also saw the publication of British soci- to appear increasingly at professional meetings such as the Society ologist Colin Campbell’s groundbreaking Toward a Sociology of for the Scientific Study of Religion. An Institute for the Study of Irreligion—a cogent and richly detailed outline for a new field of in Society and Culture was established in 2005 by Barry study. Despite a brief flurry of activity, the sociology of irreligion Kosmin and Ariela Keysar, authors of the ARIS studies. In the same ultimately proved to be, as one observer later put it, “stillborn.” year, William Bainbridge published an article titled “Atheism” This had nothing to do with the importance of such a field or the using data from an Internet survey gathered in 2001. Bruce Huns - quality of Campbell’s work, which is as timely and insightful now berger and Bob Altemeyer published Atheists: A Groundbreaking

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Study of America’s Nonbelievers (2006) based on data gathered 2005 and early 2006, it became apparent that there was “a earlier in the decade. (They had already devoted the better part of marked absence of research.” Similarly, Cragun’s “initial interest another book to “amazing apostates” in 1997.) Benson Saler and came from [his] own experience, but then as [his] attention turned Charles Ziegler speculated about biological bases for atheism to the literature, it became apparent that this was a neglected (2006). Penny Edgell and her colleagues focused attention on atti- area of study in the social science of religion.” Moreover, “the tudes toward atheists in the United States (2006). An article first closest you could find was research looking at why people leave drafted in 2005 on the empirical study and neglect of unbelief and religion and it was all done by religious scholars who framed such irreligion became an entry in the New Encyclopedia of Unbelief behavior as deviance. I didn’t feel like I was being deviant in my (2007). Also in 2007, a paper by Richard Cimino and Christopher own life by pursuing what made sense and was seemingly Smith—originally presented at a professional meeting in 2003— rational. So, I figured it was time for someone who was sympa- explored shifts in strategy among freethinkers in the United thetic to nonreligion to step into the fray and contribute.” States. Intellectual historian Charles Taylor was concluding that Hammer had “learned about stigma, prejudice, and discrimi- ours is—in several distinct senses—A Secular Age (2007), while nation in the context of racial/ethnic and LGBT minority experi- Phil Zucker man was gathering data in Denmark for a book on ence.” But two seminal studies published in 2006—one by Penny Society without God (published in 2008). This barely skims the Edgell and her colleagues on attitudes toward atheists in the surface, and since mid-decade the pace has only increased. United States and Hunsberger and Altemeyer’s study of atheists themselves—prompted him to “begin wondering about how findings regarding the nature and impact of discrimination might apply to secular individuals.” “The focus on ‘unbelief’ was an initiative Hwang was confronted by a wave of research and of— —the Vatican!” practical emphasis on “spirituality” and religion in mirabile dictu medicine while completing a postdoc in physical med- icine and rehabilitation. This prompted interest in “atheists with disabilities—a neglected minority in reli- gion and rehabilitation research.” The new social scientific focus on the nonreligious is exempli- Since atheism, nonreligiosity, and the like have been somewhat fied by two innovative organizations—the Nonreligion and controversial subjects both within and outside mainstream social Secularity Research Network (NSRN, the “Network”) and the science, the wisdom (or potential drawbacks) of such a profes- Center for Atheist Research (CAR, the “Center”). The Network sional focus may have been a concern. Perspectives on this issue was spearheaded by Lois Lee, a doctoral student in sociology at seem to reflect a shift in prevailing attitudes in social science but the University of Cambridge () in 2008 (with also differences between the United States and Europe (or at least Stephen Bullivant, Nicholas Gibson, and Stacey Gutkowski becom- the United Kingdom). Hammer and Cragun reported greater initial ing codirectors soon after). The Center, established in 2009, is a concern than Lee, who said that she hadn’t “any particular con- collaboration among three young scholars: Ryan Cragun, an assis- cerns about choosing this area of study. ... There are some clear tant professor of sociology at the University of Tampa; Joe differences in U.S. and European work, which follows from the very Hammer, a doctoral student in counseling psychology at Iowa different status that nonreligious people occupy in these two set- State University; and Karen Hwang, who received her doctorate in tings. My feeling is that, in general, social scientific work in the U.S. counseling psychology at Rutgers University. tends to give nonreligion a minority status and concepts of Each provided insights into this emerging field for this article ‘deviance’ seem to play a much greater role. I think this is less com- through a series of e-mail exchanges and some of their work, both mon in the U.K. and in Europe, where nonreligion accounts for published and unpublished. much larger shares of the population and the majority in many places.” By contrast, both Cragun and Hammer “absolutely” felt NSRN and CAR that “this has been a concern.” Both consulted academic mentors As Lee, Cragun, Hammer, and Hwang approached professional early on to test the waters. Their advisors did not, however, dis- academic careers mid-decade, each began to explore what was courage such a choice. Instead, as Hammer’s advisor suggested, known—based on systematic research—about nonreligious or “make sure whatever research you conduct and publish is address- secular people. Reviews of the research literature yielded the same ing an important societal issue; if secularity fills the bill, go for it.” conclusion: surprisingly little. And some of what they found was Although both NSRN and CAR are “going for it,” they are disconcerting. doing so in different ways. NSRN is, as its name indicates, a net- Lee was interested in modernity, with a focus on nonreligion work of scholars across the globe, academic disciplines, and the and the secular, but when she began working in the area in late religious-secular spectrum who share professional interest in sys-

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Bridging the Gulf: At Last, Social Science Measures Secularity

tematic research on secularity and the nonreligious. Its aims are “to Current Issues and Research in the Field share and disseminate social scientific research on nonreligion and What has been most impressive about this nascent field for Lee is secularity; to facilitate new research by enabling researchers to be “the enormous diversity of approaches researchers are now taking in touch with one another across disciplines, nations, and other toward the study of nonreligion and secularity.” In one of NSRN’s boundaries; and foster opportunities for collaboration.” To these early workshops in Cambridge, twenty scholars reported on ends, said Lee, “the bulk of NSRN activity involves three things: research being done in Egypt, , India, Israel, Germany, (1) email lists which provide a way for scholars to keep in touch Scotland, the United States, and other countries. In addition to with one another and key events in the field; (2) the website survey and interview research with nonreligious people, subjects (http://www.nsrn.net), which makes much of that research cen- included critiques of religion and ideology by professional comics, trally available, both to researchers and non-academic users; and secular visions of apocalypse, the meaning and roles of religious (3) organized events which include face-to-face conferences, meth- festivals in secular contexts, the role of the Internet in secularism, ods workshops, an annual lecture series, and virtual conferencing.” and religious or secular themes in museums and material culture. NSRN “is growing with perceived demand, and this shows no sign “The social sciences,” said Cragun, Hammer, and Hwang in a joint of abating. Further projects are being developed all the time and statement, “have only just started to examine the lived experience include building an online resource for teachers of nonreligion of nonreligious individuals, so the questions are legion.” research, an online archive of primary data, and an interactive bib- What are some of the most salient issues and research ques- liography of relevant research.” tions at the present time? Aims at the Center are similar but place greater emphasis on direct research by the prin- cipals. Its objectives are to “draw attention to the importance of the social scientific study of secular individuals, inform the public about “The new social scientific focus on the nonreligious is research, communicate and collaborate with exemplified by two innovative organizations—the other colleagues, assist individuals and organi- zations interested in this field, and provide Nonreligion and Secularity Research Network ... and the opportunities for people around the world to Center for Atheist Research.” participate in research studies through the Internet [http://atheistresearch.org].” Research projects currently under way include: studies of the health and well-being of nonreligious women; comparison of health data between secular and religious Accurate description, categorization, and terminology. One of people; development of a cross-culturally valid self-report measure the most pressing challenges facing the social scientific study of of secularity; a nationally (U.S.) representative survey of rates and nonreligion or secularity is honing the tools of the trade—words— types of discrimination reported by secular individuals; and a study of relationships between discrimination and reported well-being. to validly and reliably describe secularity and its distinguishable While the Center’s name suggests a focus on atheism, as its forms. The field has inherited some problematic terminology from aims and research activities indicate, the scope is broader than this. scholarship on religion—whose aim, after all, was not to elucidate Atheist was used in the Center’s name, Hammer noted, because it the nature and types of secularity. As Cragun, Hammer, and Hwang is “more recognizable to the public. If ‘secularity’ were more widely said jointly, “Much of the early research that mentions the nonreli- recognized and understood, we would have preferred to go with gious has included nonreligious individuals as a comparison group, that.” This has been a consideration at NSRN as well. Said Lee: “For a statistical outlier, or an afterthought. Rarely has the aim of most many, the term atheism has become so laden with connotations of existing research been to explore the lives, experiences, and charac- activism, if not militantism, that it was, especially a few years ago, teristics of the nonreligious.” As a result, terminology used to refer often difficult to engage the interest of scholars. The perception to the nonreligious in the social science of religion has often been was that we were a mouthpiece for some New Atheist agenda. We ambiguous, imprecise, and even—as Cragun and Hammer point have thus taken great pains to distance ourselves from any philo- out in an article on this issue (2011)—“biased and derogatory.” sophical, theological, or popular discussions and to emphasize our (Consider, for example, the use of “religious defectors,” “desert- fundamentally social scientific agenda.” ers,” or “dropouts” for those who exit or abandon religion). Lee, A scholarly focus is of utmost concern for both groups. This too, notes that there has been no “comprehensive and centralized said, there are some differences in perspective and focus that treatment of the core terminology. ... The result is language that is reflect the cultural contexts in which they are based. used inconsistently, imprecisely, and often illogically.”

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This issue is not merely semantic. It concerns accurate and con- than those who were unsure or who believe “sometimes.” (The sistent description of distinguishable degrees or types of secularity. disbelievers, by the way, were members of the Center for Inquiry This applies to some of the most prevalent terms used in everyday [CFI].) The same patterns have been reported in studies stretching speech. As Colin Campbell pointed out forty years ago, “words like back at least half a century (if you look for them!) concerning ‘atheist’, ‘agnostic’, ‘free-thinker’, ‘humanist’, ‘infidel’, ‘pagan’, issues ranging from alcoholism, anxiety, and to ‘rationalist’ and ‘secularist’ are all dangerous ones for the social sci- independence of moral judgment, paranormal beliefs, prejudice, entist who is not aware of their ambiguity.” More recently, Stephen , and xenophobia. Curiously little has been made of this Bullivant concluded, based on a survey of Oxford University stu- pattern—until now. When distinguishable degrees or types of reli- dents’ understanding of prevalent terms, that “respondents did giosity and nonreligiosity are conflated, resulting findings misrep- not understand the terms ‘atheist’ and ‘agnostic’ in any uniform resent all of them, and such patterns are obscured. manner. Thus questions must be raised as to the usefulness of This is not to suggest that all data indicate such a pattern or unqualified ‘atheist’ or ‘agnostic’ options in surveys. At the very that this applies to all “strongly” or “resolutely” religious and non- least, researchers must not simply assume that participants inter- religious people. There are finer distinctions to be made among types of secular or nonreligious convictions, just as there are among religious ones. Frank Barron demonstrated a half-century ago that there are differences between what he called “enlight- “Research projects currently under way [at CAR] ened” and “fundamentalist” believers and unbelievers—all of whom may be strong or res- include: studies of the health and well-being of olute in their convictions. There are many more nonreligious women; comparison of health data such distinctions to be explored in the content between secular and religious people; development of people’s worldviews and the ways these are held. This will require much greater care, consis- of a cross-culturally valid self-reporting measure tency, and discipline in methodologies and the of secularity; a nationally (U.S.) representative ways terms are used to describe and categorize survey of rates and types of discrimination reported distinguishable forms of secularity. Cragun and Hammer (2011) have recom- by secular individuals; and a study of relationships mended more neutral and precisely defined between discrimination and reported well-being.” terms to begin to rectify the problem (like reli- gious “exiting” rather than “apostasy”). Similarly, Lee has led an effort to develop a shared glossary of key terms for the field. Under her leadership, NSRN recently held a vir- pret these terms in any single, specific way.” tual conference to consider a working glossary and the need for Data on self-described or publicly avowed atheists, for ex - greater accuracy and consistency in the ways nonreligious phe- ample, are sometimes mistakenly generalized to a much broader nomena are described, categorized, and labeled. population of “atheists”—used to mean nonreligious people in Secularity/religiosity and health. The diversity of both religious general. Findings on “nones”—a category that includes privately and nonreligious worldviews and ways of living raises questions religious and explicitly nonreligious people—are conflated with about broad comparisons between these two mega-categories. those who are resolutely or thoroughly nonreligious. This has hap- Lee suggested that “we have to be cautious about broad-brush pened quite often, as Hwang, Hammer, and Cragun point out in assessments of the nonreligious. There really is a large diversity of an article on the study of religiosity and health (2011). Moreover, outlooks—many more than the naturalist/atheist viewpoint many it is problematic for a very important reason. of us immediately associate with nonreligion. The differences When greater care has been taken to compare resolutely reli- between nonreligion and religion are much more subtle than they gious or nonreligious people with those “in between,” an intrigu- have often been considered to be. The idea that there is some- ing pattern has repeatedly emerged. The resolutely religious and thing fundamentally and obviously different about religious and nonreligious are similar to one another but different from the nonreligious people is, I think, unhelpful. Old questions like ‘Are undecideds or “weakly” religious. One example of this phenome- religious people more healthy than nonreligious people?’ seem to non was reported in the pages of FREE INQUIRY in 2000. Franz me highly problematic.” Buggle and his colleagues found that “determined” atheists and Nevertheless, a great deal of research (in medicine, psychol- Christians both reported less depression than “lukewarm Chris - ogy, and the study of religion) continues to focus on broad com- tians.” More recently, Luke Galen (another FI contributor) and Jim parisons of the physical and mental health of religious and nonre- Kloet (2011a) found that strong believers and disbelievers in God ligious people. Cragun, Hammer, and Hwang noted that many were higher in reported life satisfaction and emotional stability scholars of religion and spirituality have been marshalling empiri-

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cal evidence in support of the position that being nonreligious is a United States reported discrimination—double the rate among liability to one’s physical, emotional, and existential health. Some “nones.” In another study of a self-selected (nonrandom) sample research suggests that atheists tend to experience more psycho- of 682 self-described atheists in the United States, 97 percent logical problems and are generally less happy than religious peo- reported slander or harassment; 93 percent reported coercion or ple. proselytizing; 56 percent experienced rejection or exclusion (by They join Richard Sloan and others in observing that findings family, friends, or others); 16 percent were denied employment, from this research are arguably “overstated and controversial” due housing, or courteous service at area businesses; and 14 percent to “inconsistencies in defining terms like ‘religious’, ‘spiritual’, and experienced property damage, physical threats, or physical assault ‘atheist’; failure to consider confounding variables; drawing con- due to their atheism. More representative and rigorous studies of clusions about causation from correlation; and investigator bias.” annoyance, anxiety, and stress resulting from such experiences, This said, it is hardly surprising that some health benefits are and their relationship with various health measures, are now associated with various features and forms of religion. After all, under way at the Center. It will, of course, be important to com- religious ideas and related institutions are human creations purpo- pare findings in the United States with those in countries where sively fashioned, in part, to address human needs. While the rap- discrimination against atheists is not as strong. idly growing mass of data undeniably indicates such benefits, the results are often subtle, com- plex, or inconsistent. More over, it is not entirely clear whether, or to what extent, health find- ings (that survive methodological and interpre- “Data on self-described or publicly avowed atheists tive scrutiny) are attributable to belief, personal ... are sometimes mistakenly generalized behavior, or social belonging and group involve- ment. When social activity and demographic to a much broader population of ‘atheists’ factors are controlled among resolutely nonreli- —used to mean nonreligious people in general.” gious and religious samples, there is some evi- dence that differences in health or related per- sonality characteristics disappear, as in a recent study by Luke Galen and Jim Kloet (2011b). Shared convictions and active social engagement are, of course, Critical reevaluations of data on the relationship between reli- equally available to secular people. Again, it may be more impor- giosity or secularity and health, subjective well-being, and quality tant to ask about the health-promoting correlates and conse- of life have begun to appear from other quarters. The purportedly quences of particular approaches to secular (or religious) world- deleterious effects of secularity have been challenged, for example, views and lifestyles. This is being considered, for example, by by analyses of country statistics (by Gregory S. Paul), psychological Christopher Peterson, Martin Seligman, and others in the study of findings (by Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi), and data from throughout “positive psychology” or the “psychology of character.” the social sciences (by Phil Zuckerman, 2009). Zuckerman’s rich As Hwang, Hammer, and Cragun point out (2011), it is fre- description of the quality of life in Denmark—a country substan- quently assumed that any benefits associated with aspects or tially “without God” (2008)—has also contributed importantly to forms of religiosity involve an equivalent disadvantage for secular the issue. Studies such as these—and more direct and detailed individuals. This is, however, the result of a fixed-sum conception scrutiny of the “varieties of secular experience”—are raising the of religiosity and secularity rather than a necessary, logical, or ante on another of the big, abiding questions: Exactly how secular empirically accurate reflection of reality. It also reflects, to some (or religious) are things getting, in what ways, and where? extent, an assumption of the pathological character of secularity. Secularization or pluralization of worldviews? The view from Since truly nonreligious control groups and types have been Europe continues to differ from that in the United States. Lee re- noticeably absent in much of this research, comparatively little is minds us that known about adaptive or beneficial health-related behaviors and ... In the U.K. and Europe, nonreligion accounts for much strategies among affirmatively or resolutely secular people. This is larger shares of the population and the majority in many particularly true, as Galen and Kloet point out, regarding those places. There, debates are much more constrained by a bias who are affiliated with organizations on the basis of secular towards the secular (that is, being without religion in general) philosophies (2011b). and this diverts attention from the very real and substantive Hammer, Cragun, Hwang, and Smith have pursued yet nonreligious positions that exist and shape society. Such posi- tions emerge most forcefully when religion intervenes on the another aspect of this question—the degree to which discrimina- nonreligious person’s life in some way, but otherwise go hardly tion may play a part in findings (that survive appropriate method- noticed. Billig’s notion of “banal nationalism” is instructive ological controls) of lower self-reported physical or mental health here. In Europe, social scientists need to attend to the possibil- among the nonreligious. Based on data from the nationally repre- ities and impacts of “banal nonreligion” that may be quietly sentative ARIS, they point out that 41 percent of atheists in the interwoven into social life. Of course, these tacit forms of non-

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religion are important in the U.S. as well, but I think there are Looking Forward definite differences between the most pressing issues for social scientists working with nonreligion in the U.S. and U.K. This barely touches on the questions and research now being pur- sued. Lois Lee and Stephen Bullivant sounded this multidisciplinary While there has been some increase in affirmative atheism and call in a recent issue of New Scientist: irreligion within the past decade, numbers remain comparatively What we need now is a scientific study not of the theistic, but small in the United States (9 percent atheists and agnostics in the the atheistic mind. ... Psychologically, we need to know how 2010 GSS). The bigger story may be a broader movement toward the self functions without theistic belief, and how our emo- “soft” rather than “hard” forms of secularity (Kosmin, 2007). tional resources might be altered by its absence. Anthro - NSRN codirector Stacey Gutkowski stressed in an e-mail exchange pologically, we need to understand how people without reli- that “the sheer diversity of what makes up the grey area between gion make sense of their lives, how they find meaning, and how non-theistic systems of thought are embedded in, and so-called nonreligious and religious orientations. I think there is a shape, the different cultures in which they are present. great deal of work to be done on challenging the Western-centric Sociologically, we need to know how these alternative mean- focus to the study of nonreligion, to look at non-‘culturally ing-making systems are shared between societies, how they unite or divide us, and whether non-religious groups contain pro-social elements commonly associated with religion itself.

As suggested in my opening comments, what is happening now seems substantially dif- “ ... This time the social scientific study of secularity ferent from what transpired forty years ago. and the nonreligious is—at long last—coalescing Colin Campbell was by no means completely into a coherent and enduring field of inquiry.” alone when he broke ground on a sociology of irreligion. Susan Budd was studying secularist organizations in England, and N. J. Demerath offered a brief “prolegomena” to the study of irreligion together with substantive contribu- tions to it, for example. But it was Demerath Christian’ secularities. ... Religion is, after all, a Western con- who also later observed that as a coherent field of inquiry, the struct—how is this implicated in our study of nonreligion and sec- endeavor was effectively stillborn. We are just now picking up ularity?. . . The NSRN is planning a working day on this topic.” where Campbell and a handful of colleagues began some four Religious “nones” (who name no religious identity in surveys) decades ago. are—in the Euro-American sphere—numerically much greater than This time the scope of activity and the numbers are different. those who are affirmatively atheistic, irreligious, or secular. The Thanks, in part, to the Internet (and NSRN), more researchers in “nones” category, of course, includes the latter as well as religious more disciplines in more far-flung locations have been drawn to undecideds, seekers, “liminals,” and the unaffiliated religious. It the subject and into productive contact with one another (much may be closer to the mark to speak of the “individualization,” as secularists themselves have been). The designation of ours as “pluralization,” or “syncretization” (mixing) of worldviews rather “a secular age” by Charles Taylor—and his analysis of several than “secularization,” even in Europe and the United States. In a distinguishable kinds of secularity—has, if anything, lent an added narrow sense, secularization—as the erosion of the formal, cul- degree of urgency and scholarly gravitas to the endeavor. tural, and institutional dominance of Christianity—has unarguably Attention-getting controversy triggered by the “new atheist been happening in much of Europe. But what has taken its place, horsemen”—Richard Dawkins, Daniel C. Dennett, Sam Harris, and in the main, is a range of worldviews that do not fit comfortably in Christopher Hitchens—has been both subject and stimulus for either strictly “religious” or “nonreligious” categories. While there scholarly analysis and data gathering. has been some growth in numbers of what Barry Kosmin calls Phil Zuckerman and his colleagues recently succeeded in “hard” seculars, both in Europe and the United States, greater establishing a Secular Studies field at Pitzer College in the United numbers and growth are found in “soft” seculars, the “spiritual States—a development that has attracted both popular and schol- but not religious,” or what David Voas has called “fuzzy fidelity.” arly attention. Several universities in Europe have increasingly The social science studies of secularity and religion each have been attending to the study of secularism, humanism, atheism, their primary purviews at either end of the spectrum, but each will and related subjects for some time. And the emergence of initia- increasingly need to direct attention to the vast and apparently tives like NSRN and CAR indicates that a new generation of social growing mass of “seculous,” “religular,” or “fuzzy” types in scientists is determined to contribute substantially to our under- between. As Lee said, the sheer variety of secular outlooks and standing of such phenomena. approaches to studying them “give rise to more questions than Prediction is always risky business, but these and other devel- answers, which shows the vitality of the enterprise.” opments suggest that this time the social scientific study of secu-

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larity and the nonreligious is—at long last—coalescing into a Study of America’s Nonbelievers. Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books. coherent and enduring field of inquiry. Hwang, K. 2008. “Atheists with Disabilities: A Neglected Minority in Reli- gion and Rehabilitation Research.” Journal of Religion, Disability & Health 12: 86–92. References Hwang, K., J.H. Hammer, and R.T. Cragun. 2011. “Extending Religion- Altemeyer, B, and B. Hunsberger, 1997. Amazing Conversions: Why Some Health Research to Nontheistic Minorities: Issues and Concerns.” Turn to Faith and Others Abandon Religion. Amherst, N.Y.: Prome - Journal of Religion and Health 50(3):608–22. theus Books. Kosmin, B.A. 2007. “Contemporary Secularity and Secularism.” In Secu - Amarasingam, A., ed. 2010. Religion and the : A Critical larity and Secularism: Contemporary International Perspectives, edited Appraisal. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill. by B.A. Kosmin and A. Keysar. Hartford, Conn.: Institute for the Study Bainbridge, W.S. 2005. Atheism. Interdisciplinary Journal of Re search on of Secularism in Society and Culture, Trinity College, pp. 1–13. Avail - Religion, 1 (Article 2). Available at http://www.religjournal.com. able at http://prog.trincoll.edu/ISSSC/Book/Intro.pdf. Barron, F. 1963. Creativity and Psychological Health: Origins of Personal Kosmin, B.A., and A. Keysar. 2006. Religion in a Free Market: Religious and Vitality and Creative Freedom. New York: D. Van Norstrand. Chapter Non-religious Americans. Ithaca, N.Y.: Paramount Market Publishing. 12. The Crisis in Belief, pp. 147–59. Lee, L., and S. Bullivant. 2010. “Where Do Atheists Come From?” New Beit-Hallahmi, B. 2007. “Atheists: A Psychological Profile.” In The Cam - Scien tist 205(2750): 26–27 bridge Companion to ATHEISM, edited by M. Martin. New York: Cam - Lim, C., C. A. MacGregor, and R. D. Putnam. 2010. “Secular and Liminal: bridge University Press, pp. 300–13. Discovering Heterogeneity among Religious Nones.” Journal for the Budd, S. 1967. “ Societies: The Consequences of a Diffuse Scientific Study of Religion 49(4): 596–618. Belief System.” In Patterns of Sectarianism: Organ ization and Ideology Pasquale, F.L. 2010. “A Portrait of Secular Group Affiliates.” In Atheism in Social and Religious Movements, edited by B.R. Wilson. London: and Secularity, edited by P. Zuckerman. Santa Barbara, Calif.: Praeger, Heineman, pp. 377–405. pp. 43–87. Buggle, F., D. Bister, G. Nohe, W. Schneider, and K. Uhmann. 2000. “Are Pasquale, F.L. 2010. “An Assessment of the Role of Early Parental Loss in Atheists More Depressed than Religious People? A New Study Tells the the Adoption of Atheism or Irreligion.” Archive for the Psychology of Tale.” FREE INQUIRY 20(4): 50–54. Religion 32(3): 377–98. Bullivant, S. 2008. “Research Note: Sociology and the Study of Atheism.” Pasquale, F.L. 2007. “Unbelief and Irreligion, Empirical Study and Neglect Journal of Contemporary Religion 23(3): 363–68. of.” In The New Encyclopedia of Unbelief, edited by T. Flynn. Amherst, Campbell, C. 1971. Toward a Sociology of Irreligion. New York: Herder N.Y: Prometheus Books, pp. 760–66. and Herder. Paul, G. S. 2005. “Cross-national Correlations of Quantifiable Societal Caporale, R., and A. Grumelli, eds. 1971. The Culture of Unbelief. Health with Popular Religiosity and Secularism in the Prosperous Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press. Democracies: A First Look.” Journal of Religion and Society 7. Avail - Cimino, R., and C. Smith. 2007. “Secular Humanism and Atheism Beyond able at http://www.creighton.edu/JRS/. Progressive Secularism.” Sociology of Religion 68(4): 407–24. Peterson, C., and M.E. Seligman. 2004. Character Strengths and Virtues: Corveleyn, J., and D. Hutsebaut, eds. 1994. Belief and Unbelief: Psychological A Handbook and Classification. Oxford, U.K.: Oxford Uni versity Press. Perspectives. Amsterdam: Rodopi. Saler, B. and C. A. Ziegler. 2006. “Atheism and the Apotheosis of Agency.” Cotter, C.R. 2010. Qualitative Methods (NSRN Methods for Nonreligion Temeno, 42(2): 7–41. and Secularity Series). Cambridge, U.K., University of Cambridge. Smith, J. M. 2011. “Becoming an Atheist in America: Constructing Identity Available at http://nsrn.net/events/events-reports/. and Meaning from the Rejection of Theism.” Sociology of Religion, Cragun, R.T., and J. H. Hammer. 2011. “One Person’s Apostate is Another 72(2): 215-37. Person’s Convert: What Terminology Tells Us about Pro-Religious Sloan, R. P. 2006. Blind Faith: The Unholy Alliance of Religion and Medi- Hegemony in the Sociology of Religion.” Humanity and Society 35: cine. New York: St. Martin’s Press. 159–75. Taylor, C. 2007. A Secular Age. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press. Cragun, R., B. Kosmin, A. Keysar, J.H. Hammer, and M. Nielsen. 2012. Voas, David. 2009. “The Rise and Fall of Fuzzy Fidelity in Europe.” “On the Receiving End: Discrimination Toward the Non-religious.” European Sociological Review 25(2): 155–68. Journal of Contemporary Religion 27(1):105–27. Zuckerman, P. 2011. Faith No More: Why People Reject Religion. New Davenport, T.H. 1991. Virtuous Pagans: Unreligious People in America. York: Oxford University Press. New York: Garland. Zuckerman, P. 2009. “Atheism, Secularity, and Well-being: How the Find ings Demerath, N.J. III. 1969. “Program and Prolegomena for a Sociology of of Social Science Counter Negative Stereotypes and Assumptions.” Irreligion.” In Actes de la X Conference Internationale: Types, Dimen- Sociology Compass, 3: 949–71. sions, et Mesure de la Religiosité. Rome: Conference Inter nationale de Zuckerman, P. 2008. Society without God: What the Least Religious Sociologie Religieuse, pp. 159–75. Nations Can Tell Us about Contentment. New York: New York Uni - Edgell, P., J. Gerteis, and D. Hartmann. 2006. “Atheists as ‘Other’: Moral versity Press. Boundaries and Cultural Membership in American Society.” American Zuckerman, P., ed. 2010. Atheism and Secularity. Santa Barbara, Calif.: Sociological Review 71: 211–34. Praeger. Galen, L.W. 2009. “Profiles of the Godless: Results from a Survey of the Nonreligious.” FREE INQUIRY 29(5): 41–45. Galen, L.W., and J. Kloet. 2011a. “Mental Well-being in the Religious and the Non-religious: Evidence for a Curvilinear Relationship.” Mental Health, Religion, & Culture 14: 673–89. Galen, L.W., and J. Kloet. 2011b. “Personality and Social Integration Frank L. Pasquale, PhD, is a cultural anthropologist studying individual and Factors Distinguishing Non-religious from Religious Groups: The institutional forms of secularity in the United States. He is a research asso- Importance of Controlling for Attendance and Demographics.” Archive for the Psychology of Religion 33: 205–28. ciate with the Institute for the Study of Secularism in Society and Culture Hammer, J.H., R.T. Cragun, K. Hwang, and J.M. Smith. (Manuscript under (Trinity College, Hartford, Connecticut). His work has appeared in the Archive review.) “Forms, Frequency, and Correlates of Perceived Anti-atheist for the Psychology of Religion, Atheism and Secularity (Praeger, 2010); Discrimination.” Hout, M., and C.S. Fischer. 2002. “Why More Americans Have No Secularity & Secularism (ISSSC, 2007); The New Encyclopedia of Unbelief Religious Preference: Politics and Generations.” American Sociological (Prometheus Books, 2007); and elsewhere. Review 67: 165–90. Hunsberger, B., and B. Altemeyer. 2006. Atheists: A Groundbreaking

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Who Are These Doubters Anyway? A Look Back at the Demographics of Unbelief

Tom Flynn

e seem to be poised on the threshold of a bright new era a blip on the cultural radar scope that’s too small to keep in focus? in which nonreligious Americans will be properly studied by If we form that large of a community, it stands to reason that keep- Wthe social sciences. What better time to review what we ing track of our numbers is important, just as it’s important to keep know about the various flavors of religious nonaffiliation and non- count of religious Americans in their many creeds and denomina- belief? And what better time to review the facts and fallacies that tions. So let’s take a chronological tour and see what the numbers have shaped American assumptions regarding irreligion in the past? have and haven’t shown about belief and unbelief in America. First, how many of us are there? Writing in FREE INQUIRY In 1993, the philosopher and religion researcher William B. William - Belief in God: What Do the Numbers Show? son estimated the total population belonging to atheist or human- Here’s an obvious place to start. How many Americans do—and ist organizations or subscribing to “movement” publications at don’t—believe in God? And where does this data come from? 178,000. As minorities go, that’s vanishingly small. And if you listen Data on God-belief do not come from the United States to the religious Right, it’s about what you’d expect: a marginal Census. The Census has never asked whether people believed in fringe of village-atheist misfits whose concerns are hopelessly God, and it stopped collecting data about denominational affilia- remote from the American mainstream. But maybe counting mem- tion after the 1930 Census. The logic back then was that for the bership cards and subscriptions isn’t the best way to gauge the size Census to collect information about religious identification would of our movement. If we take the whole spectrum of nonbelievers— improperly entangle church and state. (The bureaucrats figured from hard-bitten atheists to those self-described “religious human- this out for themselves without anyone having to sue them! Ah, ists” who nonetheless hold no transcendental beliefs—what do the those were the days.) numbers show? So it’s important to remember that when we’re talking about It depends on when you look. Sixty or seventy years ago, just how many Americans believe in God—or go to which church— 2 percent of Americans would confide to pollsters that they had we’re dependent on the private sector, for-profit and nonprofit, no religious preference. By 1990, that figure had risen to about 8 for our data. percent. For belief in God, the great granddaddy of all data sources is Today the number claiming no religious preference (nonreli- the Gallup Poll. We’ve all seen the figures endlessly repeated in the gionists, popularly referred to as the “nones”) stands at 16 per- media: “Surveys show more than 90 percent of Americans believe cent. Let’s see: as I write there are about 313,000,000 Americans. in God, a figure that’s held steady since the 1940s.” Well, not The Catholic Church counts babies and children, so we should exactly. The Gallup Organization asked Americans “Do you believe too, just to keep the comparisons even. So that’s roughly in God?” on at least six occasions between November 1944 and 50,080,000 American men, women, and children who live outside August 1967. In 1976, Gallup changed the question, asking not of conventional religion. whether respondents believed in God but whether they believed in Now, are these people all atheists? Of course not. Some would “God or a universal spirit.” Broadening the question in this way say they’re not religious but they are spiritual—whatever that perhaps served to keep the number of reported believers stable, means. But the most important recent study suggests that we sec- even though their notions of God had grown more diverse. ular humanists and atheists and agnostics and freethinkers make Interestingly, in May 2011 Gallup tested the old “Do you believe in up about two-thirds of all those people unaffiliated with any reli- God?” question for the first time in forty-four years. The last time gious body (more on this later). Gallup posed that question, in August 1967, 98 percent of respon- In terms of the larger culture, of course, we’re still a minority. dents reported believing in God. In May 2011, only 92 percent said Still, there are more people like us today than ever before. the same. Hmm—no wonder they changed the question. Religiously unaffiliated Americans are today more numerous than University of Cincinnati demographer George Bishop has shown Hispanic Americans or African Americans . . . more numerous that when surveys probe God-belief in greater detail, the results are than the estimated gay and lesbian population . . . more than very different. At a 1999 symposium convened by FREE INQUIRY at the seven times as numerous as American . . . more than fifteen New York Academy of Sciences, he reported on three tests in which times as numerous as religiously active American Jews! the Gallup Organization offered more options beyond the tradi- How marginal are we, then? Can fifty million people form only tional “Do you believe, answer yes or no.” Given more choices, 8 to

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Bridging the Gulf: At Last, Social Science Measures Secularity

10 percent of respondents said “Don’t really think there is a God,” of one’s belief in it) had declined sharply across all specialties since “Don’t really know what to think,” or “Don’t know.” the 1916 study. When the evangelical-owned Barna Group offered even wider One year later, Larson and Witham were back, advising Nature options in a 1994 poll, a mere 67 percent embraced traditional that they had replicated one of Leuba’s other studies—a survey of theism. Ten percent said God was “a state of higher consciousness elite American scientists. In 1916 and again in 1933, Leuba had that people can reach.” Eight percent called God “the total real- surveyed 400 so-called “greater” scientists, using as his source a ization of personal human potential.” Three percent proclaimed contemporary reference work titled (warning: sexism alert) that “everyone is God,” while 8 percent professed ignorance. American Men of Science. For some reason this work is no longer To sum up, when polls say that x number of Americans believe published, so Larson and Witham constructed their sample of elite in God, read the fine print. The numbers can vary, depending who scientists by polling 517 members of the National Academy of is asking and what is being asked. Sciences. The results were stunning. Where Larson and Witham’s previous study had shown that Unbelief among Scientists the level of unbelief among scientists in general had remained sta- The media have an insatiable appetite for news about religious ble since 1916, their new study suggested that unbelief had made belief and unbelief among scientists. This seemingly arcane statis- huge strides among elite scientists. ’s top scientists were tic strikes a chord because fundamentalists hope to scare people far more atheistic than their less-accomplished peers. At the same away from Darwin by showing that atheism is so prevalent among time, top scientists were much, much more atheistic than their scientists—while secular humanists hope to show what a smart predecessors had been in Leuba’s studies. option unbelief must be by showing that athe- ism is so prevalent among scientists. The measurement of belief and unbelief among scientists began with pioneer sociolo- gist James H. Leuba (1868 –1946). He grew up “Let’s see: as I write there are about in Switzerland, where his experience of the 313,000,000 Americans. The Catholic Church counts stern Calvinism in power there led him to athe- babies and children, so we should too, just to keep ism—and to lifelong curiosity about religion. He moved to the United States as a graduate the comparisons even. So that’s roughly 50,080,000 student and stayed for life. From 1898 to 1933, American men, women, and children who live Leuba was a professor of psychology at Bryn outside of conventional religion.” Mawr College. In a famous 1916 study, Leuba surveyed the religious opinions of one thousand biolo- gists, mathematicians, astronomers, and physi- cists. He attracted enormous attention with the then-scandalous finding that only about 40 percent of American scientists believed in God or an afterlife. Leuba repeated the survey in 1933, obtain- ing similar results. In April of 1997, University of Georgia science historian Edward J. Larson and Washington Times reporter Larry Witham 1914 announced in a letter to Nature that they had replicated Leuba’s 30 (James H. Leuba) 1916 and 1933 studies. Restricting themselves to a sample of one

thousand scientists in the same narrow selection of specialties 25 Leuba had chosen, Larson and Witham also administered exactly

the same now-archaic questionnaire in order to maximize inter- 20 1933 comparability between Leuba’s data and their own. (James H. Leuba) What did they find? As in 1916 and 1933, about 40 percent 15 1998 of responding scientists believed in God or an afterlife. A media (Edward J. Larson frenzy ensued, most of the headlines celebrating that scientists 10 and Larry Witham) were no more atheistic in 1996 than they had been eighty years before. More interesting phenomena lurked among the details. In 5 1916 and 1933, professors of biology were the least likely to believe; by 1996, physics and astronomy had replaced them as the 0 most skeptical specialties. Also, though belief in human immortal- 27.7 percent 15 percent 7 percent Figure 1. Belief in God Among Top American Scientists. ity had not changed, reported desire for immortality (independent

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In 1914, Leuba found that 27.7 percent of elite scientists had ence as “none.” That was equivalent at the time to twenty-four a personal belief in God. By 1933, that figure had fallen to just 15 million Americans. This data made nonreligionists the nation’s sec- percent. For Larson and Witham in 1998, only 7 percent of top ond-largest life-stance group, outnumbering members of any sin- scientists had a personal belief in God. By the way, this statistic is gle sect or denomination except Roman Catholics. the source for that endless repeated sound-bite claim that only 7 In 2001, the Graduate Center of the City University of New percent of top scientists believe in God. (See figure 1.) York published its second American Religious Identification Survey, Though they were mere letters to the editor, not research ARIS 2001. ARIS 2001 closely replicated the 1990 ARIS study, per- papers, Larson and Witham’s two communiqués to Nature pro- mitting detailed study of how religious identifications had foundly shaped later about science and religion. changed over eleven years. The 2001 study found that the “no religious preference” population had jumped from 8 to 14 per- The Rise of the Nones cent—almost double. That result received widespread attention— Another term often heard in demographic discussions of unbelief and the “rise of the Nones” emerged as a topic for research and

is Nones. “Nones” are people who, when asked by pollsters what punditry alike. religion they prefer, answer “none of the above.” This term seems Interestingly, these results came as no surprise to some social to have been first used in 1987 in an article in Public Opinion scientists. For some time the General Social Survey (GSS), the vast Quarterly in which researcher Norvall Glenn reported that so- “everything survey” of U.S. residents conducted since 1972 by the

called Nones had increased from 2 percent of the population in University of Chicago’s National Opinion Research Center, had the 1950s to 7 or 8 percent in 1984. been reporting a sharp increase in the number of respondents In 1990, the Graduate Center of the City University of New reporting no religious affiliation. But it was ARIS 2001 that pack- York published its American Religious Identification Survey, or aged its own finding on this subject in a way that commanded ARIS. ARIS would grow into a series of surveys that provide some national attention. of our most reliable data for changes in patterns of religious belief By this time, a debate was in full swing over what the “rise of over time. The inaugural ARIS attracted press attention for its the Nones” meant. If 14 percent of Americans were Nones, did provocative findings about the sizes of the Jewish, Muslim, and that mean they were all—or mostly—atheists and humanists? unaffiliated communities. Its 1990 finding that Nones were 8 per- In a 2003 FREE INQUIRY article (his last published article before cent of the population echoed Glenn’s figure for 1984. his death), the eminent sociologist Otis Dudley Duncan argued It was in 2000 that researchers began to realize that the num- that as many as 60 percent of the Nones were probably denomi- ber of Americans claiming no religious affiliation was skyrocket- nation shoppers or eclectic spiritual seekers. Don’t make too much ing. In that year a survey by the Scripps Howard News Service and of the “rise of the Nones,” Duncan warned: the actual number of the Ohio University E. W. Scripps School of Journalism reported atheists, agnostics, and other “hard seculars” might not be grow- that 11.24 percent of U.S. adults reported their religious prefer- ing that much, or at all. That objection would remain unanswered—for about a year. In 2004, a major survey cosponsored by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life altered the demographic landscape. The Fourth National Survey of Religion and Politics was conducted in the

spring of 2004. The survey was directed by John C. Green, a politi-

3.2% 7.5% cal scientist at the University of Akron and director of the university’s

Atheists and Agnostics Secular Ray C. Bliss Institute of Applied Politics. For convenience (and recog- nizing that these two words are seldom used together in secular humanist publications), I will refer to this study as Pew-Bliss. Pew-Bliss was the first major study to peg the Nones—a group it called the “unaffiliated”—at a new high. It found that the Nones had reached 16 percent of the general population, equiva-

lent to that famous fifty million Americans. Even more important,

Pew-Bliss gave us our first detailed information about the demo- 5.3% Believers graphic composition of the Nones. Otis Dudley Duncan’s specula- (Spiritual but not tive question on this subject could at last be answered. Religiously affiliated) Pew-Bliss found that the unaffiliated 16 percent are made up of 3.2 percent atheists and agnostics, 7.5 percent seculars, and 5.3 percent believers (all figures refer to percentages of the entire population). (See figure 2.) “Believers” label themselves as “spiri- Figure 2. Composition of 16 percent of Americans, an all-time high, who declared themselves unnaffiliated with any religion tual but not religious”; Green defined them as “people with no (Pew-Bliss Fourth National Survey of Religion and Politics, 2004). religious affiliation who nonetheless believe in God or the soul.” Atheists, agnostics, and seculars combined outnumbered believ- Combine the 3.2 percent atheists and agnostics and the 7.5 per- ers (10.7% – 5.3%).

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cent seculars and that’s 10.7 percent atheists, agnostics, and sec- • Sixteen percent believed in a critical god who monitors world ulars to 5.3 percent believers. Duncan’s hypothesis that the Nones affairs with a judging eye but never intervenes—no miracles, no are mostly believers stood refuted; Pew-Bliss had established that thunderbolts of judgment. among the Nones, non believers outnumbered believers roughly • Twenty-four percent believed in a distant god, essentially the two to one. aloof god of deism.

Is Religiosity Declining Generationally? The Baylor study should have made news for finding that only a third of Americans hold the picture of God that fundamentalist A 2006 telephone survey by the Pew Foundation focusing on eight- evangelical Christians would consider “correct.” But are its find- een- to twenty-five-year-olds—the so-called Generation Next— ings even reliable? While the Baylor researchers described their found strong secularizing trends and suggested that the coming study as the most extensive survey on American religion ever pub- generation may be the least pious seen so far. Twenty percent of lished, a scan of its notes reveals that it is actually based on just Gen Nexters described themselves as Nones—compared to 16 per- 1,721 respondents, some obtained by telephone and some by cent in the population as a whole. (By comparison, only 10 percent mail. That’s a modest-sized sample, and the mixture of survey of eighteen- to twenty-five-year-olds self-identified as Nones in the methods makes precise data analysis difficult. Moreover, the ques- late 1980s.) Nexters accept that humans and other living things tionnaire was written with such an overt evangelical-Christian bias evolved over time by nearly two to one, in marked contrast to their that it likely discouraged many atheists and non-Christian believ- elders who, regrettably, split fifty-fifty on this question. ers who received it from completing it. Small wonder that it found These findings harmonize with others that show American smaller numbers of atheists and of devout non-Christians than religiosity declining with each succeeding generation. While indi- other studies, and so much the worse for its claim that one in viduals can grow less religious over the course of their lives—many three Americans is “born again.” who read this magazine have done just that—this phenomenon is Writing in FREE INQUIRY, a prominent religion scholar called the less statistically significant than the tendency for each subsequent Baylor study “deficient in uncountable ways” and “all but use- generation to exhibit lower piety than its predecessors. This was less.” As evidence, consider this astonishing factoid: the study confirmed by a 2007 survey by the Barna Group, which found that found that 86.5 percent of evangelical Protestants have “no each progressively younger cohort of the population has more doubt that God exists,” which would imply that 13.5 percent of “no-faiths” (self-described atheists and agnostics)—and we’re not evangelical Protestants do have doubt that God exists. Make of talking about a subtle effect. No-faiths are more than three times that what you will. more common among eighteen- to twenty-two-year-olds than But we hadn’t heard the last from Stark and his Baylor col- they are among people aged sixty-one and over. leagues. In 2008 they released another Templeton-funded study, As the generational torch passes, it is not unreasonable to this time seeking to refute the idea that the number of American hope that America’s anomalous levels of public piety will sink nonreligionists was increasing. closer to those seen in Europe and elsewhere in the developed world (though more on that below).

Some Dubious Numbers The demography of religion has given rise to its share of question- able data. September 2006 saw the release of a provocative but 8% badly flawed study from Baylor University’s Baylor Institute for Other Americans Studies of Religion. To give you an idea what to expect, know that 24% Baylor is the world’s largest Baptist university; that the study Believers was partly funded by the highly pro-religious John Templeton 16% in a Distant God Believers

Foundation; and that one of its directors was Rodney Stark, in a Critical God famous for his erroneous proclamation of the death of seculariza- tion. Baylor researchers took joy in reporting that one in three Americans was a born-again evangelical and that almost 92 per- cent of its respondents reported belief in God. Let’s analyze the second claim first. That 92 percent figure turns out to be a com- 23% 8 Believers 31% posite, combining four groups holding distinctively different con- in a Benevolent God Believers in an ceptions of God (see figure 3): Authoritarian God • Thirty-one percent believed in an authoritarian god who is

engaged in world affairs and angry at humanity’s sins. Figure 3. Composition of 92 percent of believers in God • Twenty-three percent believed in a benevolent god who is less reported by the Baylor Institute for Studies of Religion in 2006. likely to judge but has nonetheless given us absolute standards of The suspect study also found one in three Americans was a right and wrong. born-again evangelical.

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Yes, you read that correctly. Though numerous other studies ARIS Rides Again have been unanimous in documenting sharp growth in both the In March 2009, the third American Religious Identification Study unaffiliated population and the overtly nonreligious population appeared—ARIS 2008—this time from Trinity College’s Institute since the 1990s, disagreeing only as to exact percentages, the 2008 for the Study of Secularism in Society and Culture, still helmed by Baylor study would seek to prove that the idea that the nonreligious demographers Barry Kosmin and Ariela Keysar. Though it didn’t population is increasing was all a silly mistake. For example, it main- have the “blockbuster” impact of ARIS 2001, ARIS 2008 still tained that America’s atheist population has remained essentially offered provocative findings: “The challenge to Christianity in the unchanged at about 4 percent from 1944 through 2007. U.S. does not come from other religions,” it found, “but rather Independent scholar Gregory S. Paul analyzed the 2008 study from a rejection of all forms of organized religion,” a trend of in a lengthy report released early in 2009 by the Council for which more will be said later. Secular Humanism. Paul described numerous alleged errors and Based on their responses to questions about God, if not on the instances of bias in the Baylor group’s interpretation of its data. labels they chose to describe themselves, an astonishing 24 per- For example, the Baylor group published one chart, its Table 52, cent of ARIS 2008 respondents were effectively atheists, agnos- purporting to show that 4 percent of Americans did not believe in tics, or deists. This closely tracks another finding, that an arresting God in 1944 and the same number disbelieved in 2007. In between, 27 percent of Americans do not expect a religious funeral when the chart showed data points from 1947, 1964, 1994, 2005, and they die. 2007 in which the number of atheists never dipped below 3 percent and never went above 6 percent—the latter result being a 1947 The Trouble with Self-Reporting Gallup result that the Baylor researchers were willing to dismiss as Religion surveys almost invariably count church attendance, usu- an outlier. Paul wrote at length about the process by which he ally by asking respondents whether they attended a service last believed this most counterintuitive result had been generated. First, Sunday. Almost invariably, 40 percent of Americans say they did. 4 percent is an unusually high number for self-described atheists in (The figure is even higher among Roman Catholics.) How reliable the 1940s; 2 percent is the usual number for this period. Sure is such self-reporting? Back in 1992, Kirk C. Hadaway, a sociolo- enough, in 1944 Gallup indeed found 2 percent of respondents gist employed by the United Church of Christ, had his suspicions. who self-identified as atheists. But according to Paul, another 2 For one thing, the reported level of church-going would probably percent had declined to answer; the Baylor group simply assumed exceed the capacity of the nation’s churches! without evidence that all the respondents who didn’t answer were Hadaway adopted an audacious research strategy. He assem- atheists, and added them to the 2 percent of avowed atheists to bled an army of researchers large enough to barge into every get the 4 percent result. Protestant church in Ashtabula County, Ohio, one fine Sunday and Though polls including questions about belief in God were count noses at every single service. Based on this unprecedented conducted frequently after 1944, only three more twentieth-cen- direct count, only 20 percent of adult church members were there, tury results were included: from 1947 (three years later), 1964 about half the number Gallup would predict. A companion count (seventeen years later), and 1994 (thirty years later). Why these in selected Catholic churches revealed a slightly higher percent- specific data points, and why such idiosyncratic spacing between age—still exactly half the percentage of Catholics that regularly them? Paul speculated that these particular data points may have report having attended mass in the past week. been chosen in preference to others that less well supported the It’s not Gallup’s fault; when you ask people whether they went Baylor group’s thesis that the rate of atheism has been constant to church last Sunday, lots of them lie—presumably in order to over time. The suspicion of cherry picking is difficult to resist. look like better Christians. In a landmark 1993 paper, Hadaway Finally, two twenty-first-century data points are provided: one and fellow researchers Peggy Long Marler and Mark Chaves from 2005, eleven years after its immediate predecessor, and announced that church-going was “probably one-half what 2007, just two years later than its predecessor. These are both everyone thinks it is.” On a typical Sunday, researchers now esti- drawn from Baylor studies and show atheism still floating at 4 per- mate that only 20 to 25 percent of Americans darken the door- cent. However, the Baylor data measures only self-described athe- way of a church. ists. Agnostics and “seculars” (respondents who didn’t choose a label but who, based on lifestyle questions, effectively lived with- Secularization: Are Reports of Its Death Exaggerated? out religion) were not included. Neither were respondents who This brings us to one of the most controversial principles in reli- declined to answer, even though including “no answer” respon- gious demographics: the so-called secularization hypothesis. This dents was precisely how the Baylor team had arrived at their fig- is the theory, originally formalized by the nineteenth-century soci- ure of 4 percent atheists for 1944! ologist Max Weber, that religion should diminish in influence as Paul’s lengthy study for the Council alleged multiple weak- education, prosperity, and public understanding of science spread. nesses in the 2008 Baylor study; space permits me to describe only Since the 1970s, it has been fashionable for mainstream demog- one here. At the very least, there seems to be ample grounds to raphers to pronounce the secularization hypothesis a failure, at dispute the accuracy of Baylor’s 2008 religion study. least as regards the United States. The aforementioned Rodney

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Bridging the Gulf: At Last, Social Science Measures Secularity

Stark did so with gusto in a 1999 paper titled “Secularization, in history. No major religion is expanding its share of the global R.I.P.,” which was adapted into a chapter of his 2000 book Acts population by conversion in any circumstances. ... Disbelief in the of Faith coauthored with Roger Finke. I criticized “death-of-secu- supernatural alone is able to achieve extraordinary rates of growth larization theory” in a retrospective 2007 FREE INQUIRY op-ed, not- by voluntary conversion.” This conclusion would be echoed by the ing that since 2000, both internationally and even across the previously discussed ARIS 2008. United States, signs are growing that the process of secularization is proceeding after all. I noted the rapid rise in nonreligionist Why Is America So Different? Americans, flattening growth trends among evangelical and fun- Even so, the phenomenon called American exceptionalism must damentalist Christian churches across the United States, and signs be accounted for. Though religiosity is not ballooning in American that America’s fast-growing Hispanic population is beginning to life as widely supposed, public piety is nonetheless far more wide- surrender to the “secularizing tug of American life.” spread in America than in Europe, Canada, or Australia. In fact, Independent scholars Gregory Paul and Phil Zuckerman have the United States is the only first-world country that displays high examined the state of secularization today . Paul is the levels of religiosity seen otherwise only in third-world countries. author of two FREE INQUIRY cover stories, the mammoth entry on Why might this be? The well-known demographers Pippa “Demography of Unbelief” in the New Encyclopedia of Unbelief, Norris and Ronald Inglehart offered a hypothesis with distinctly and the previously mentioned critique of the 2008 Baylor religion political overtones. In their landmark 2004 book Sacred and study. Zuckerman, now at Pitzer College, is author of Society Secular they hypothesized that first-world countries other than without God (2008), which profiles life in highly secularized Nor- the United States differ from American society in having such way and Scandinavia, and Faith No More, a collection of inter- attributes as stronger handgun control, a rehabilitative approach views with largely American apostates. to incarceration, vigorous sex education, and until quite recently, In a sweeping online survey article, Paul and Zuckerman provided a stunning demon- stration that despite reverses—among them, the rise in American in the final quarter of the twentieth century—secular- “. . . 86.5 percent of evangelical Protestants ization is actually alive and well. have ‘no doubt that God exists,’ which would imply Among their findings: contrary to what you that 13.5 percent of evangelical Protestants might have heard, the world religions are not enjoying conspicuous growth spurts (with one do have doubt that God exists.” exception). Christians made up about a third of the global population in 1900, and they still do today. Hindus are static at one-seventh despite strong population growth in India. shrunk by a quarter in the twentieth century and is predicted to greater leisure time and a much stronger social safety net. Largely shrink by about as much in the next fifty years. Only Islam has protected against misfortunes that might upend a comfortable gained ground, moving from one-eighth to one-fifth of the global middle-class life, citizens of first-world countries other than the population in the twentieth century. By 2050, it is projected that United States may well have felt that they could afford to dispense one human in four will be a Muslim. But conversion has little to with the dubious protections that religion provides. do with it; Islam is growing solely because of very high birthrates In contrast, American life is significantly more uncertain, par- across the Muslim world. ticularly (but far from solely) as regards the risk of bankruptcy in “What scheme of thought did soar in the twentieth century?” the event of a catastrophic illness whose costs exceed an individ- Paul and Zuckerman asked. It was (choose a label) “secularity,” ual’s or family’s insurance coverage, coupled with the fact that “atheism,” or “irreligion,” which during the century ballooned by once an American becomes poor, the resources available for relief a few hundredfold while the great world religions were stagnant. are far more limited than in other first-world countries. Agreeing Viewed even from the perspective of the fastest-growing sects, with Norris and Inglehart, Paul and Zuckerman declared it unsur- the explosion of secularity is still unprecedented, dwarfing the prising that so many Americans “look to friendly forces from the Mormons’ climb to twelve million during the century and even the beyond to protect them from the pitfalls of a risky American life, growth of Pentecostalist Protestantism from nearly nothing to half and if that fails, to compensate with a blissful eternal existence.” a billion. Moreover, secularity has made its spectacular gains I suspect that Paul and Zuckerman are right in suspecting that almost entirely through the mechanism of adult choice. No faith Norris and Inglehart are right—and that American exceptionalism or sect has grown as rapidly by conversion alone. Doubters like us as regards popular piety is largely explainable as a result of the seem to be piling on the numbers as millions of men and women other ways in which American society diverges from social prac- worldwide examine and reject the religions of their childhoods. tices that until quite recently were typical across most other first- Paul and Zuckerman call it “the first emergence of mass apostasy world nations.

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Whatever your own political orientation may be, the data gen- almost no agnostics among a multistate sample of prisoners. In uinely seem to show that if, as a people, Americans took better 1936, three Franciscan priests who were also prison chaplains re - care of each other, they might feel less need for a caregiver in the leased a book titled Crime and Religion. They noted sadly that clouds—and presumably become more like their counterparts “Convicts as a class seem to be the most religious people in the elsewhere in the first world. country. ... Therefore, what use religion?” It also suggests that if Norris and Inglehart’s hypothesis is cor- The most recent work in this area is apparently a body of sur- rect, the rest of the first world may be due for a tragic resurgence veys mailed to prisoners in 1961 by ex-priest and bombastic radio of popular piety. In the wake of the global financial crisis, other commentator Emmett McLoughlin. McLoughlin found that first-world nations are adopting austerity programs that fray social Roman Catholics were drastically overrepresented in the prison safety nets—perhaps reintroducing levels of risk to life in Europe, population . . . and unbelievers were drastically underrepresented. Canada, and Australia like those previously common only in the It’s all summed up—along with the best summary of prior religion- United States. In that event, citizens of formerly highly secularized in-prison studies in print, from which the previous items in the first-world nations may begin to display a heightened demand for series were drawn—in McLoughlin’s cranky 1962 book Crime and “invisible means of support.” Immorality in the Catholic Church. And there the data ends. After McLoughlin’s widely publicized report, wardens apparently added direct-mail surveys to the list of things rou- tinely screened out of prisoners’ incoming mail. In the half-century since, no prison I know of has “After a few decades, during which many permitted researchers to catalogue inmates’ reli- researchers had given up on the secularization gious affiliations. No such data has been kept by any department of corrections—or if kept, no hypothesis, it seems clearly to be coming true such data has been released. across most of the developed world.” In the so-called freest country in the world, there’s been a fifty-year embargo on information about the religious status of prisoners—and it’s worked. Perhaps officials know that the pattern hasn’t changed and that—even allowing for the pressures for inmates to affect religious conver- sions in order to obtain privileges and seek parole—the overwhelm- Religion Behind Bars: The Great Cover-up? ing overrepresentation of religious believers among the prison pop- I’ve saved the best digression for last. I am often asked what num- ulation would stingingly disprove the notion that belief fosters bers show about the prison population. If believers are correct that morality. morality is impossible without religion, then our prisons and jails should be overflowing with atheists. First impressions would sug- Conclusion gest the opposite—namely, that jails and prisons are awash in With that, we’re roughly up to date and ready to move into a future zealous believers at a rate far outstripping the general popula- in which a growing number of social scientists will be mea suring sec- tion—in which case religion’s boast as a guarantor of morality ularity, nonreligiosity, and overt unbelief as phenomena in their own might seem questionable. But what do the numbers tell us? Not right. After a few decades, during which many researchers had given much, it turns out, because hard numbers are amazingly hard to up on the secularization hypothesis, it seems clearly to be coming come by. I suspect this is because from the believers’ point of view, true across most of the developed world. Even in the anomalously the numbers are really, really bad. pious United States, such phenomena as the rise of the Nones and The perceptive reader will notice the dates of the studies I am the unprecedented irreligiosity of Generation Next give hope that the about to cite and, perhaps, begin to form an opinion about where religious-Right high tide that saturated U.S. culture and politics for so the problem may lie. long is beginning now to ebb. In his 1895 book, The Criminal, pioneer psychologist Havelock In the meantime, “people like us” are wise to follow closely Ellis reported that “It seems extremely rare to find intelligently irre- what pollsters and social scientists have to tell us about nonreli- ligious men in prison.” Writing in 1928, criminologists Max D. giosity and unbelief—both for the valuable information their work Schlapp and Edward E. Smith said that only one-tenth of 1 percent can offer, and in order to help keep them honest! of convicts had had no religious training. At around the same time,

University of Pittsburgh psychologist W.T. Root found that less than Tom Flynn is the editor of FREE INQUIRY and the executive director of the Council one-third of 1 percent of those executed at Sing Sing Prison were for Secular Humanism. nonreligious. A study by the researchers Steiner and Swancara found

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The Evangelical Origins of the American Civil War

David Goldfield

ur nation’s commemoration of the 150th anniversary of the ballot box. The violence took its toll. Gradually, the bonds of the Civil War presents an opportunity to reflect on the Union fell away: the national church polities, the national political Omeaning of that war and what we can learn from its awful parties, and the moderate politicians disappeared. carnage. Most historians today would agree that slavery caused Evangelicals never composed a majority of the population, but the Civil War. No slavery, no war. That interpretation is not wrong, their organization, wealth, use of technology and the media, and but it is incomplete. access to politicians—especially in the Republican Party, founded in Slavery existed in America for two hundred and fifty years prior the mid-1850s—enabled them to infiltrate and influence the polit- to the Civil War. The intriguing question is why suddenly, in 1861, ical process. What was troubling about this religious immersion the nation broke apart because of it. Although slavery had been a was the blindness of its self-righteousness, its certitude, and its lack contentious issue from the framing of the Constitution forward, of humility to understand that those who disagree are not mortal politicians were always able to hammer out a compromise in the sinners and those who subscribe to your views are not saints. name of preserving the Union. In 1861, they could not. Why not? I argue in my book America Aflame: How the Civil War Created a Nation (Bloomsbury, 2011) that the political system disintegrated because of “Although slavery had been a contentious issue the infusion of evangelical Christianity into the political process. Religion eroded the center of from the framing of the Constitution forward, American politics and pushed our leaders to the politicians were always able to hammer out a extremes; for how do you compromise with sin? compromise in the name of preserving the Union. Our political system depends upon compromise and moderation. Elevating political issues into In 1861, they could not. Why not?” moral causes, however, renders compromise and moderation much more difficult. It is good, of course, to be righteous against slavery. I am not asserting that the death and destruction of the Civil War outweighed the he two greatest crusades of mid-nineteenth-century evangeli- good of abolition but rather that there may have been other Tcals were against Catholics and slaveholders. Most Americans means to achieve that noble end. In fact, the United States was viewed our system of government as a fragile experiment. No the only country that required a civil war in order to abolish slav- other nation in the world was governed by the consent of the ery. The elevation of political issues into moral causes poisoned the governed. The failure of the revolutions of 1848 in Europe only democratic process. Just as evangelicals did not distinguish raised Americans’ vigilance against threats to the democratic between the Catholic Church and Catholic immigrants, so they process. The advance of the Roman Catholic Church in the form did not separate the sin of slavery from the slaveholder. In a cru- of more than a million Irish Catholic immigrants menaced both sade, the enemy is the infidel; eventually, both sides viewed one individual liberty and the republican experiment, evangelicals another as apostates to God and the Constitution. believed. Slaveholders, as despotic as the Roman hierarchy, threat- The political system could not contain the passions stoked by ened to pollute the golden West with their black bondsmen and the infusion of evangelical Christianity into the political process. obstruct the national government with their selfish priorities. Alien Westward expansion, sectarian conflict, and above all slavery cultures and nations intruded on the edges of settlement—Native assumed moral dimensions that confounded political solutions. Americans and Mexicans foremost—thwarting national destiny. Violence became an acceptable alternative to dealing with moral These were the fears of white Protestant Americans, especially in threats because it worked. It put the Catholics in their proper the North. place. It worked against the Native Americans and against the America Aflame opens with the destruction of the Ursuline Mexicans. And it worked against the slaveholders. Antebellum convent in Charlestown, Massachusetts, by a Protestant mob in America was a turbulent place—in cities, on the frontier, and at August 1834. The episode exposed the deep and growing resent-

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ment against the Catholic Church and its adherents, particularly The West encapsulated antebellum Americans’ hopes and anxieties. among Protestant workingmen. It also highlighted the tolerance It held a special place in American culture as a region of renewal. It for violence as a tactic to intimidate or eliminate groups or institu- was our geographic version of religious rebirth. The West was the tions perceived as threatening to prevailing religious and political place Americans could start over and the nation could fulfill its des- ideals. The passions that fueled the convent fire would nearly tiny as a democratic, Protestant beacon to inspire other peoples and immolate the nation in a ruinous civil war. nations. By conquering a continent with their people and ideals, The anti-Catholic and antislavery movements shared some of Americans would conquer the world. John L. O’Sullivan, a Harvard- the same personnel, rhetoric, and tactics. Lyman Beecher, a New educated journalist, gave a name to this vision: “manifest destiny.” England evangelical minister, moved his family to Cincinnati to Fulfilling that destiny meant removing (or eliminating) those save the West from the Catholic Church. His daughters Harriet who stood in the way. The Mexican War was not a religious war; and Catharine and his son Henry Ward would become prominent it was a conflict over territory. Even so, the Catholicism of the in the antislavery movement. Aided by technological innovations Mexicans was not a minor detail. Nor was the evangelical convic- in printing, both anti-Catholic and antislavery advocates saturated tion that the conflict was justified as part of God’s plan. The Plains the country with their literature. They employed similar apocalyp- Indian Wars, which began in 1854 and would flare sporadically tic rhetoric to energize faithful followers to action against both of over the next two decades, were not a religious controversy either. these threats to the nation and God. They, too, were a territorial conflict, but Americans also justified Both the anti-Catholic and antislavery movements flourished them in religious terms by denigrating the pagan “savages” who during a national religious revival known as the Second Great were poor stewards of God’s creation and stood in the way of Awakening. This Awakening saved souls and spawned numerous America’s divine mission. reform movements but also indulged in bigotry and self-righteous- Religious fervor entered political campaigns with unprece- dented vigor beginning with the 1844 presi- dential race. From then on, political parties paraded their religious bona fides and attacked opponents as infidels. The cam- paigns themselves came to resemble religious “Evangelicals never composed a majority of the revivals as much as political exercises. Religion was not only an issue itself; it permeated population, but their organization, wealth, other issues of the day, especially slavery. use of technology and the media, and access Given the importance of both evangelical to politicians ... enabled them to infiltrate and religion and the West during the 1840s, the exclusion of slaveholders from that promised influence the political process. What was troubling land—first broached by David Wilmot, a about this religious immersion was the blindness Democratic congressman from Pennsylvania, in of its self-righteousness.... ” 1846—was guaranteed to raise howls in the South. The issue of slavery had already unrav- eled the evangelical family by sundering the Methodists and Baptists along sectional lines. Now the disintegration of the nation no longer seemed far-fetched. ness. In the North, it veered toward a general reform of society as Although the Compromise of 1850, which resulted in the a prelude for the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. Evangelical admission of California as a free state and the enactment of the Protestantism in the South was more concerned with individual Fugitive Slave Law, postponed a national reckoning over slavery, conversion, and its adherents looked with alarm on the mixture of the rhetoric of some of the debaters assumed an ominous mes- religion and politics brewing toxic potions in the North. Nor did sianic tone. Defending his opposition to the fugitive slave provi- Southerners join with Northern evangelicals in the excoriation of sion of the compromise, Senator William H. Seward of New York their Catholic and immigrant populations. declared, “There is a higher law than the Constitution.” In a For all of its concern about reforming society, the Northern nation of laws, when political leaders advocate working outside version of evangelical Christianity only rarely promoted the notion those boundaries—especially when invoking the deity as an of racial equality. The expansion of white male suffrage occurred authority—only trouble can follow. Abraham Lincoln urged, “Let alongside the spread of evangelical Protestantism. At the same every American, every lover of liberty . . . swear by the blood of time, restrictions against free blacks in the North increased. A few the Revolution never to violate in the least particular the laws of states banned free blacks from entering altogether. That white the country, and never to tolerate their violation by others. ... and black liberty moved in opposite directions seemed to affirm Reverence for the laws [should be] the political religion of the the belief of white Southerners that the existence of slavery for nation.” He said that in 1838. blacks guaranteed freedom for whites. Political parties disintegrated in the 1850s and new organiza- The energy unleashed by the Second Great Awakening affected tions formed, including an anti-Catholic party, the Know America’s westward movement, which began in earnest after 1840. Nothings, and a sectional antislavery party, the Republicans. By

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1856, these two parties and the evangelical causes they espoused Sea of War.” And God was ready; foretelling Julia Ward Howe’s merged. The Democrats, the remaining national party, became famous lines, “that awful wine-press of the Wrath of Almighty increasingly dysfunctional in its Northern and Southern wings. The God” would come down from the heavens and bury the South. political center eroded, and the extremists on both sides captured the debate. he war buried 620,000 men. Millions more mourned the loss Reality fled. Northerners perceived Slave Power conspiracies Tof husbands, fathers, and sons. And many of the men who sur- infesting every issue, where none in fact existed. Southerners per- vived came home maimed in mind and body. The war transformed ceived Northerners as intent on subjugating them while simultane- these men and their families. Although periodic religious revivals ously instigating a race war, though few in the North had any such visited both camps, especially the Confederates during the last designs. A religious revival among middle-class urban men during a year of the war, the messianic tenor of correspondence from both serious economic downturn over the winter of 1857–1858 only sides subsided. The randomness of death regardless of piety and added a sense of foreboding that something cataclysmic was afoot. the general horror of the war transformed the soldiers’ faith. They The religious absolutism of both sides prepared them to settle still believed, of course, but often without the certitude and self- the conflict violently. When war finally came in April 1861, righteousness that marked evangelical Christian perceptions on Northern and Southern evangelicals rejoiced. In the North, war the eve of the war. The advancing perception was that, rather had become a magic elixir to speed America’s millennial march, no than the personal, interventionist God of evangelical Christianity, longer the destroyer of lives or the waster of lands. New England the war confirmed a Supreme Being who was more detached and theologian Orestes Brownson likened the war to a “thunderstorm more inscrutable. Soldiers maintained their personal piety as they that purifies the moral and political atmosphere.” grew increasingly skeptical of God’s role in the war. Like their Northern counterparts, Southerners reveled in the prospect of war. “Thank God the war is open,” a grateful South Carolina Governor Francis Pickens declared. The war promised a spiri- tual rebirth. Virginia governor Henry A. Wise exulted, “I rejoice in this war. ... It is a war of purification. You want war, fire, blood to purify “The randomness of death regardless you; and the Lord of Hosts has demanded that you of piety and the general horror of the war should walk through fire and blood.” Americans were children of the Second Great transformed the soldiers’ faith. They still believed, Awakening. They had grown up believing in an of course, but often without the certitude omnipresent God who touched their lives and and self-righteousness that marked evangelical guided their country’s destiny. He would take sides in the coming battle. In protecting their Christian perceptions on the eve of the war.” Revolutionary ideals, Northerners would preserve God’s plan to extend democracy and Christianity across an unbroken continent and around the world. Southerners welcomed a war to create a nation more perfect in its fealty to God than the one they left. By the time of Abraham Lincoln’s second inaugural in March The war was a religious conflict for many evangelicals, a con- 1865, the result of the war was not in doubt. His brief inaugural test to save both souls and nations. A Louisiana woman wrote to speech was a remarkable effort, a combination sermon and intro- her bishop, “We are fighting the Battle of the Cross against the spective rumination, not the triumphal declaration the assembled Modern Barbarians who would rob a Christian people of Country, expected. The president talked about the limits of man, the Liberty, and life.” Northern evangelicals believed that Southerners, inscrutability of God, and the nature of forgiveness—views that chal- like the Indians and Mexicans, wallowed in a “heathenish condi- lenged prevailing evangelical Protestant beliefs. The speech was a tion.” One minister rejoiced, “What a wide field will soon be clarion call notifying the faithful that the war had thrashed the infal- opened for Christian labor.” libility of evangelical Protestantism, its belief that mankind could per- Harriet Beecher Stowe believed she was witnessing the fect itself, its confidence in the approaching millennium, and its unfolding of the Book of Revelation. The Civil War was a millen- hubristic affirmation that it was possible to know God and his inten- nial war, she and many fellow evangelicals believed, “the last tions. If any specific event of the war buried the Second Great struggle for liberty” that would precede the coming of the Lord. Awakening, it was Abraham Lincoln’s second inaugural address. “God’s just wrath shall be wreaked on a giant wrong.” Her Evangelical Christianity did not disappear after the war. Rather, brother, Henry Ward Beecher, related the familiar story of Exodus it was increasingly secular, a function of the prevailing postwar to his congregation: how Moses led the children of Israel out of culture rather than the other way around. Dwight L. Moody Egypt to the Red Sea, and how the sea parted and allowed the packed his revivals with the simple message of eternal salvation Chosen People to escape while burying their pursuers. “And now and banned politics from his pulpit. He offered little in the way of our turn has come,” he exclaimed. “Right before us lies the Red theological exegesis. Most of his “sermons” took the form of sec-

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ular stories sprinkled with treacly aphorisms much more than bib- they tacked on a crusade against alcohol, as it reinforced their anti- lical texts. As the Wild West and minstrel shows made caricatures immigrant base and added a nice alliterative quality to their cam- of Indians and blacks, Moody succeeded in making religion a paigns against “Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion.” African Amer - spectacle. Many of his middle- and upper-class congregants came icans and Native Americans were in their science-ordained places. to see a show and to be part of an event. It was comfort religion, The nation was now secure and indivisible. part of the culture of affluence and prosperity, a turn taken to its The “new birth of freedom” Lincoln promised as the reward ultimate by Russell Conwell, whose sermon “Acres of Diamonds” for so much sacrifice proved elusive. The carnage did not translate unabashedly preached the gospel of money. The sermon stayed in into a universal application of the Declaration of Independence. print for over a century. When evangelicals ventured to influence The fates of the Indians, the African Americans, and the Chinese public policy, such as their periodic attempts to impose a Christian during and after the Reconstruction era testified to that serious amendment on the Constitution or to legislate against Catholic shortcoming. Yet the folly of the second generation in exposing influence in the public schools, their efforts fell flat. Their great the great experiment of self-government to a bloody civil war had crusade became alcohol. Personal behavior rather than national the redeeming feature of preserving the founding ideals for sin became their focus. another day. Gradually, the excluded gender, races, and religions Evangelical Protestantism became culture-bound in the South would find inclusion, even if incompletely. as well, though in a quite different form. “Redemption” retained I believe that the political system established by the Founders its born-again connotation, but in the South after the Civil War, it would have been resilient and resourceful enough to accommodate was indelibly connected to the restoration of white supremacy. our great diversity sooner without the tragedy of a civil war and the Religion became a prop of the Lost Cause for whites. For blacks, religious zeal that fueled it. Of course, that is impossible to know. We evangelical Christianity became their community. The focus was do know that the transformative nature of the Civil War did not less on the hereafter than on the here and now. include liberty, equality, and justice for all. Lincoln’s vision would wait The second generation of Americans had succeeded in elimi- at least a century, and it is still a work in progress. nating or neutralizing the threats the nation confronted beginning in the 1830s—Catholics, slaveholders, Mexicans, and Native Amer - icans. Republicans still worried about the Catholics, but they would David Goldfield is Robert Lee Bailey Professor of History at the University not think of burning convents to get their points across. They res- of North Carolina, Charlotte, and the author, most recently, of America urrected the slaveholder every four years as a reminder of the trea- Aflame: How the Civil War Created a Nation (Bloomsbury Press, 2011). son, though he was more a mascot than an imminent threat. And

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Easter Explained What the Sacrificial Death of the Son Tells Us about the Father Peter W. Sperlich

ven a minimal acquaintance with religious assertions and dispute between Athananius and Arius) and is by no means over. theological dicta makes one tiresomely familiar with claims Catholicism presents an even more vexing problem. It is diffi- Eaffirming the truth and logic of a given faith. The faith in cult to deny that Mary has quasi-goddess status in the Catholic question may be specific (Catholic) or general (Christianity), but Church. She is the “Mother of God” and, like Jesus, is free from the assertion is always that the faith is true and logical. The truth the stain of original sin. Mary is vastly more venerated than the of a faith cannot be tested directly; one simply believes it or not. father or the son, not to mention the Holy Ghost. Add to this the The logic of the creed, however, is subject to scrutiny. Assuming church’s innumerable saints (each with specialized powers and the common and ordinary meaning of that term, it is certainly responsibilities), and the sacred assembly resembles nothing so possible to show whether or not different elements of the creed much as the polytheistic array of Hinduism. cohere logically. If the faith does not survive the test of logic, it is In the beginning of this discussion, however, it will be assumed not likely that it is true by the most common meaning of this term that all Christian creeds are truly monotheistic. Only in the last sec- because a true statement cannot be self-contradictory. tion will doubts have to be considered. Various aspects of the foundational dogma of Christianity (the Easter story) do not form a logically coherent con- struct. God is said to have sacrificed his son in order to save the world. The key question is what the sac- “. . . We are confronted with a God who rifice of the son reveals about the father. To set the stage for this investigation, a number of issues begot a son, whom he knew would be require prior attention: the veracity of Christian killed and that he would be grieved. monotheism, the origins of evil, and the problem of Then why did he allow the killing to take place?” divine cruelty.

Monotheism Monotheism is a Hebrew invention—unless it was Egyptian, orig- inating with the Pharaoh Akhenaten and his single god, Aten. We The First Problem: Monotheism and Evil do know that the ancient Hebrews were not consistently monothe- The problem of the origin of evil is a burden shared by all ists but worshipped a variety of gods. And polytheism did not only monotheistic religions. Polytheism avoids the issue by having a exist prior to Moses’s reception of the Ten Commandments but con- divine division of labor. Some gods are responsible for the “good” tinued long thereafter, much to the despair of such prophets as things, and other gods are responsible for the “bad” things that Elijah, Isaiah, Hosea, and Amos. Even the com mandment that happen. The monotheistic God, of course, is uniformly presented “you shall have no other gods before me” buttresses polytheism. as omnibenevolent and omnipotent, as well as omniscient and It does not say that there are no other gods but only that, among omnipresent. However, when the only acknowledged force in the the Hebrews—God’s people—these gods should not rank above universe is characterized as that of a benevolent omnipotence, it Yahweh. Joshua assumed the existence of other gods when he becomes difficult to explain the existence of evil. The “solution” is spoke to the assembled tribes at Shechem (Joshua: 24:15). And commonly found in the invention of Satan. Yet, given monotheis- Psalm 82 begins by declaring that “God takes his place in the tic omnipotence, Satan must also be a creation of God (the high- court of heaven to pronounce judgment among the gods.” est of the angels) and under the control of God. He has power and Today Judaism, Christianity, and Islam proclaim a single god, dominion only as far as Yahweh permits. the supreme ruler of the universe. This god is said to be the sole If Satan were to be understood as a self-sufficient and auton- creator of the universe and all of its laws. There is no doubt about omous force arising independently of God’s creation, he would the monotheism of contemporary Judaism and Islam. Christianity need to be granted the status of a (another) god—which would presents a more complicated picture because of the dogma of the return matters to polytheism. This is the chief dilemma for all Trinity. It is part of the doctrine, at least since Nicea, that three is monotheisms, and even after thousands of years of trying to resolve one, but to non-Christians and even some Christians, this appears the predicament, monotheistic apologists have not yet found a solu- to be no more than a glib pretense. The Qur’an is highly skeptical tion. Not, to be sure, because they were not clever enough but of the concept and asks repeatedly why God would need a son. because the dilemma cannot be resolved—or rather, because it can The post-Babylonian Jews also could not imagine that God had a be resolved by denying God’s benevolence (about which more son. And the dispute among Christians about the nature of the later), which is neither a feasible nor a welcome denial. Trinity has a long history (one remembers Tertullian, as well as the The problem of evil has been an eternal affliction of monothe-

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ism. It has been endlessly debated and argued. There is little new not let the Hebrews go—but it was God who first had made him that can be added to this discourse; it can only be noted. Chris - stubborn (Exodus 10:20). And then there is the torment inflicted tianity, however, has another problem that, similar to the problem on specific, innocent individuals: consider the fate of the truly of evil, cannot be resolved—at least not (as with evil) without dis- blameless Canaan, who was cursed and condemned to be a slave solving the very monotheistic foundations of the faith. This problem (with God’s approval) because his father, Ham, had seen his grand- is grounded in the Easter narrative: “God so loved the world that he father, Noah, naked (Genesis 9:20–27). While the punishment gave his only begotten son, that everyone who has faith in him may does not seem to fit the “crime,” it is, most astonishingly, not even not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). The phrase “only applied to the actual offender. Finally, if there ever was an innocent begotten” serves to indicate the magnitude of God’s love: he sacri- man made to suffer the most grievous torments simply because it ficed not only a beloved son but the only one. At the human level, pleased God (on suggestion of Satan), it was Job (Book of Job). it can be seen that a father who gives his only son makes a greater The actuality of willful divine cruelty, however much it may dis- sacrifice than a father who has several other sons—except that the turb us, cannot be dismissed. In consequence, the doctrine of analogy does not fit. A god who managed to get himself one son divine benevolence is very much thrown into doubt. But rejecting surely can get himself any number of other ones. the doctrine of divine benevolence is not the only possible solution God, it should be noticed, did not seek to save “the world” by to the predicament of Easter cruelty. The other alternative is to dis- sacrificing his son but only that part of the world that believed in miss supremacist monotheism. the son—a mere fragment of the world, then as now. Associated with the problem of the sacrificial death is the problem of divine The Third Problem: Easter and Supremacy cruelty. Cruelty will be considered first. The Scriptures provide evidence for God’s unhappiness at the death of the “beloved Son” (Matthew 17:5; Mark 1:11). It can The Second Problem: Easter and Cruelty well be said that God grieved. At the crucifixion, God gave evi- Easter, the sacrificial death of the son of God, is a problem specific dence of his distress in a number of ways. Most famously, a three- to Christianity. The key question is whether God was somehow hour darkness fell over the land (Matthew 27:45), the curtain of compelled to sacrifice his son or whether he did so freely, by his the temple was torn, the earth shook, rocks split, and graves own volition. It may seem strange to imagine that God would opened (Matthew 27:50–51). The Roman soldiers (and the want to kill his son without necessity as an act of willfulness. But Christians to come) took these signs to mean that they had indeed given Yahweh’s record of vengeful punishment and excessive cru- crucified the son of God and that God was unhappy about it elty, often beyond any discernible necessity and justification, such (Matthew 27:54). a killing would not seem to be outside his repertoire. (Surely So we are confronted with a God who begot a son whom he divinely ordained killing of a son by the father is not that unusual; knew would be killed and that he would be grieved. Then why did just ask Abraham and Isaac [Genesis 22]). he allow the killing to take place? The first answer is because he The Old Testament provides much evidence in this respect. wanted to save the world. But this is not sufficient. The sole and There is the destruction of innocents in toto, such as the total omnipotent ruler of the universe could have found other means destruction of the various tribes inhabiting the “promised land,” for mankind’s salvation—for example, simply saying “I forgive including the people of Sihon and the Amorites. Men, women, and your sins.” What needed to be forgiven, apparently, were not indi- children were slaughtered without exception—sometimes even the vidual sins but (at least, following the teachings of Saint cattle were killed (Deuteronomy 3:33–36; Joshua 11:7–9). There is Augustine) the original sin inherited from Adam by all his descen- the torture of innocents by association because they were part of dants—something all the easier, it would seem, to forgive. That he a group that contained (at least one) guilty person. Surely, not all did not make use of such much more benign alternatives suggest of the people of Sodom and Gomorrah were equally guilty. A large the presence and intervention of an external entity. number of them must have been entirely blameless (at least the At this point we must ask the question: What power com- women and children) of whatever transgression it was of which the pelled God to save the world by sacrificing his son? To ask this is men of Sodom were guilty (Genesis 19). The obviously innocent to ask about authorities above and beyond Yahweh. The answer people of Egypt had to endure the cruel torments of the ten to this question will tell us much about the nature of Yahweh. plagues because of the stubbornness of the pharaoh, who would What, then, does the sacrifice of the son reveal about the sta- tus of the father? In other words, if the sacrificial death of Christ was not simply a volitional act on the part of God but the necessary Is God Above Human Judgment? and required payment for the salvation of mankind to be made by a grieving father, then the question becomes: who decided that It is possible to take the position (and many do) that what men could be saved only by the sacrifice of God’s son? A truly God does is justified by definition. This rules out any possi- omnipotent God who wanted to forgive sins and spare men eternal ble criticism of divine actions by mere human beings. But if damnation surely had alternative means by which to accomplish human beings are entitled to comment on divine conduct at this. If Yahweh himself made the rule regarding what had to be all (and nearly all believe this to be legitimate), then such done to save mankind, any rule could have been adopted, includ- commentary cannot be limited to praising kindhearted and ing, as noted, a simple declaration of forgiveness. beneficial deeds but must also include commentary on cruel The origins of the sacrificial ordinance must be found outside and hurtful acts. of and apart from Yahweh. There had to be a yet greater power

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extrapolations show that the conventional Easter story of the lov- Theology and Contradiction ing God and of the sacrificial death of his son is incompatible with other tenets of the Christian faith, namely, Yahwist monotheism and omnipotence. Depending on which theologians are willing to Religious devotees are famously able to hold simultaneously as true the most obviously contradictory positions. If the give up—monotheism or goodness—Yahweh’s benevolence can contradiction is at all acknowledged, it is reinterpreted as a also be thrown into doubt. Christian apologists will, of course, find “test” from God to identify his true disciples. Of course, excuses. But these Easter apologies will be as unsuccessful as the there also is the Tertullian “solution”: credo quia absurdum attempts to reconcile a benevolent God and the existence of evil. (however, to be fair to Tertullian, possibly a misquotation). The Easter story does not logically cohere with various other If the notion of a test proves to be too outrageous, there is tenets of the Christian faith—which calls into doubt its truth and the ultimate pretense that mere human beings simply can- the validity of that faith. not understand God. This may well be, but it raises the Religion, it must be admitted, does not belong to the domain question of the usefulness and legitimacy of theology. of rational thought but to the realm of myth, fiction, fantasy, and wishful thinking. Religious doctrines, as such, are not facts and that could compel this price. This line of thought, however, has cannot be verified or disproven as such. They can, however, be two infelicitous consequences for Christian monotheism and for very much doubted when they do not form a logically coherent the standing of Yahweh. First, it would follow that there is another whole. Religious discourse is by its nature mystical and metaphys- force (another God) in the universe. No more monotheism. ical. Clerics are forever talking about the truth and the logic of Second, it would follow that Yahweh is not the most powerful their faiths. They cannot be prevented from doing this, but at least being in the universe. There is someone/something else that can their claims should be met with the laughter they deserve. force Yahweh to do things that are not of his own will. No more Religion may have a function and a place in society, but it is not omnipotence. to foster truth and logic.

Conclusion

The reader will have noticed that this essay has not sought to chal- Peter W. Sperlich is emeritus professor of political science at the Uni - lenge any particular religious doctrines. It has simply extrapolated versity of California at Berkeley. from the scriptural record and noted the resulting dissonances. The

Letters continued from p. 11

ration, extinction of many species, etc. Earth persons per square mile vs. 83 for the lose donations. The Center for Inquiry has been overpopulated since at least the United States). Should we try to make the always supports the scientifically correct 1970s. There is a need for a true global gov- United States a low-population ecological position, and overpopulation is as signifi- ernment as the only way to deal with global paradise at the cost of overpopulation and cant a threat to this planet as climate problems. squalor in other countries? change is. Secular humanists should make David E. Christensen I would emphasize the word human addressing overpopulation a high priority. Carbondale, Illinois that is contained in the term secular Jim Notestine humanist. Our concern should be with all Tucson, Arizona humanity, not a small part of it. “Secular Tom Flynn commits the error of looking at nationalism” is not the solution. overpopulation issues as national problems Bill Mosley Tom Flynn should be ashamed of himself. If rather than as global ones. The environ- Washington, D.C. not, FREE INQUIRY should be ashamed of him. ment does not stop at the border, and In his op-ed, Flynn takes a jingoistic, nation- slamming the doors to immigration will alistic position that clearly violates one of only shift the population problem else- Kudos to Tom Flynn and Edd Doerr (in the principles stated in the “Affirmations of where. In fact, among countries that Church-State Update, same issue) for Humanism” that is printed on the inside should be able to absorb more people, the tackling the overpopulation issue. As a front cover of many issues. That statement United States would be near the top of the Sierra Club member for more than forty reads in part, “We attempt to transcend list. According to United Nations data, U.S. years and a founding member of the parochial loyalties based on . . . nationality population density ranks only 179th Center for Biological Diversity, I stand with ... and strive to work together for the among the world’s 241 countries and the latter on overpopulation. Sierra Club common good of humanity.” dependencies. Mexico, the biggest source leaders dropped the overpopulation issue Flynn favors reductions in immigration of immigrants, has a population density as did most of the mainstream environ- nearly twice that of the United States (148 mental organizations so they wouldn’t (Continued on page 59)

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Pascal’s Wager

Adam Nehr

Let us weigh the gain and the loss in wagering that God is. ... The core precept of Pascal’s Wager is that life is a test of If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing. ... human beings administered by God, a test in which the easiest Wager, then, without hesitation that He is. way to score a passing grade is to believe without question. At —Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) least, that’s how most people interpret the Wager. But when we accept that precept, we accept a presumption that the test is he religious frequently use Pascal’s Wager as a tool to try to about belief. What if the test is actually about intellect? convert nonbelievers. On the surface, at least, it appears Pascal apparently never considered that there could be an T irrefutable: How can you argue with a guaranteed upside gain antithesis to his Wager, and that will be its undoing. In fact, the and zero downside risk? Given those odds, isn’t belief the only simplest explanation for the existence of so many contradictions rational path? (Leave aside, for now, the question of which religion’s in religious texts (assuming a god actually exists) is that they are god we are to bet on; for Pascal the only choices were Catholic there to test whether—or when—reason has supplanted supersti- Christianity or atheism. For the sake of the argument I’m about to tion in the mind of the common person. If the texts were com- offer, let us accept that framework.) pletely logical and rational, then there would be no reason to Actually, arguing with Pascal’s notion is easy, given that an question them. Thus, if the absurdities have a rational function, antithesis to it is available that makes just as much sense as the they must be there to detect when people notice that they are Wager itself. Fair warning: to pursue this idea effectively, we will absurd. be required to give some rhetorical ground—temporarily, at If we first stipulate that God created the universe as an exper- least—so the debate can begin. Staunch nonbelievers may blanch iment of some sort, then this follows simply and logically. All the at the idea of forming an argument that starts with a presumption contradictions that dot the world’s scriptures receive a rational that god exists. Further, we will have to examine some religious explanation—one that also passes the test of Occam’s razor. For texts and make some assumptions about them that may also be this imagined god to test the intellect of his creations with absurd uncomfortable for skeptics. But believe me, in this case it will all texts would be the simplest and most rational explanation of an be worthwhile. overall scenario that includes (1) people with minds, (2) a god who created them, and (3) self- contradictory divine texts. “Actually, arguing with Pascal’s notion is easy, Of course, nonbelievers may hesitate to given that an antithesis to it is available that makes advance this argument because it starts with the just as much sense as the Wager itself.” presumption that God not only exists but also inspired religious texts with a purpose in mind. Still, it’s a powerful argument when contending with believers on the issue of Pascal’s Wager. Now let’s add one more idea to the mix. We have all been The conclusion to be drawn from all of this is simple: if a god exposed to religious texts and questioned the reasons for their exists and is testing us, it is just as likely that the test is about intel- obvious inconsistencies. The Bible, the Qur’an, the Torah—name lect as it is that the test is about belief. If the former is the case, then the scripture of your choice: each has numerous internal contra- nonbelievers are closer to divine approval than anyone on Earth! dictions. (Of course they all contradict each other as well.) Armed with this argument we, the rational, can offer believers Believers look past the contradictions in some passages yet take the idea that even if God exists, naïve belief in him would actually others verbatim and defend them with obsessive fervor. This adds displease him. Yes, we must start the argument by conceding that another layer of contradiction in and of itself. Believers often pre- God might exist. But by the end of our argument, God’s presence sume that these multiple, layered contradictions can be over- becomes irrelevant. In the end, the presumption of God is ren- looked or explained away as “God’s will.” To nonbelievers, of dered moot, and the seeming safety of penitence is brought to course, those same contradictions add proof for allegations that par with the supposed danger of skepticism—and vice versa—all the texts are merely ancient anecdotes written by mere mortals. In for the price of a temporary concession to superstition. the end, even the pious will agree that the texts contain some obscure and hard-to-understand passages, which gives us the starting point for the rest of our argument. Adam Nehr recently retired from the Space Shuttle program, where he With the understandings that (1) for the sake of argument, was a camera system designer and high-speed imaging specialist. He God exists, and (2) the religious passages are written with has also enjoyed a long career in commercial and fine art imaging. His entrained contradictions, we can now take on Pascal with reason 2004 show “Issues and Icons” challenged religious and political beliefs. and logic.

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Atheists for Jesus? Forum A Caution from the Epistemology of Ethics

Daniel C. Maguire

ords are like people; they can get kidnapped. Religion is world.” wrote that before Christianity became the one of those words. In our part of the world, right-wing state religion and lost its subversive power, it undermined “all the Wconservatives have commandeered the words religion, foundations of the state” and the presuppositions of empire. faith, and belief to connote that these words bind one to the idea The moral yield of those traditions still fills modern “secular” of a personal deity who talks and even writes books and thus acts minds, dominates their assumptions, and guides their ethics. The as a surrogate for reason and free inquiry. This usage has further secular humanists who called themselves “atheists for Niebuhr” creedal demands; it insists that we go on living after dying. If we understood this. Reinhold Niebuhr was a theologian and a semi- behave, we will meet the deity in happy circumstances in an after- nary professor who trained students for church ministry. However, life; unhappy postmortem punishment is the fate of miscreants. his insights into human behavior and political dynamics tran- Those who don’t accept this imaginative construction are not scended his own religious interpretations and metaphors. “Atheists “people of faith” and are therefore “faithless,” with all the nega- for Jesus” or “atheists for the Buddha” would make good sense, tive codings therein contained. They are practitioners of “unbe- because both Jesus and the Buddha (or those who constructed lief,” also very negatively coded in our culture. Truly, there is much their literary identities) were moral geniuses who pioneered, in the various constructions of religion that reasonable people can among other things, the idea of nonviolent resistance as ultimately choke on and deny. more efficacious than kill power, an insight that has never been more relevant in our time, when scientifically developed kill-power Putting Religion in the Dock has become ever more unmanageable and counterproductive. Let us admit that under the banner of “religion,” there is a clear veer toward the weird. No area of literature produces the fantasti- Sacred and Faith Are Not Dirty Words—Neither Is Atheism cal images that “religious” literature does. We go from lofty Jupiter Secular humanism, in order to disassociate itself with certain reli- to Kali the enigmatic Hindu goddess to Jesus the nonviolent revo- gious holdings, suffers losses in understanding homo moralis. My lutionary who was gradually divinized; we move from sexy gods book Ethics: A Complete Method for Moral Choice is not written for who create with masturbation or intercourse to gods who create theists or nontheists as such; it is written for human beings seeking chastely with a simple word. There are the extravagant gods of to plumb the meaning and possibilities of life in this privileged cor- Sumer and the rambunctiously misbehaving gods of Olympus. ner of the universe. As such it speaks to Thomas Aquinas as much as There are gods who specialize in agriculture, fertility, or war. The to Jean Paul Sartre. dramatis personae divinae are endless. The gods grew with us. Sartre’s atheist credentials are in good order. A story is told of When we learned to write, they did too, writing on blocks of stone him late in his career. He met two former students with their at Sinai or by sending angels with names like Gabriel and Moroni three-month-old baby. At this point in his life, Sartre’s work was to compose books or to uncover hidden tablets filled with script. being read in almost any language with print. That had to be more On top of that there are divinized planets, mountains, and rivers, than satisfying. Yet when Sartre took the smiling baby into his as well as angels, virgin births, resurrections from the dead, and arms, he felt that if one took all his work and weighed it against ascensions straight into the heavens without ever going into orbit. the value of the preciousness he was holding, his work would Those who see religion as the mind gone mad have plenty of weigh almost as nothing in comparison. The term sanctity of life— grist for their critiquing mills. the basis of all law—comes to mind. To call something “sacred” is the highest compliment in our But That Is Not the Whole Story . . . lexicon. The term is effectively the superlative of precious. It Those churning and evolving cultural upheavals that we call the describes experiences where preciousness reaches into ineffability “world religions” have also purveyed some of the foundational and the peaking of awe. Medievals called this kind of knowledge moral convictions of modern secular culture. Not all god-talk is “mystical.” Secular humanists need not be skittish about the mischievous. Religion is a mixed bag. Those who pride themselves word. It has the same Greek root as mystery, from mueo, to lie on secular purity would blush to know the moral intelligence that hidden. It referred to our deepest loves and most profound value proceeded from religious traditions and became common ethical experiences. It relates to what I define as “religion.” and democratic currency. When the early Hebrews de-divinized Religion, I submit, is a response to the sacred, however that royalty, they sowed seeds for democratic Bills of Rights. Hannah experience is explained. It need not be explained by positing a per- Arendt said that with all the serious modern criticism of traditional sonal deity as the necessary grounding of that valuation. Nor does beliefs and concepts, “the modern world never even thought of it entail by its nature the notion that when you are dead, you are, challenging the fundamental reversal” on human rights that contrary to all appearances, still quite alive. Sartre’s experience Judaism and Christianity has brought into “the dying ancient was, in this sense, religious. It was also—brace yourselves—an act

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of belief, that form of knowledge that Aquinas said exists in they really are, and of existence in general.” genere affectionis, in the realm of affection. Sartre’s ecstatic There are many meanings of belief, faith, and religion that do appreciation of the signal beauty of that child was not the result not fall prey to the hypothetical assumptions and verbal piracy of of a syllogism or the product of a dry reasoning process. It was a conservative religionists. Professor of Chinese religions Chun-Fang clear example of what the medievals called cognitio affectiva, Yu states that in the Chinese religions of Buddhism, Taoism, and affective knowledge. It was something he knew believingly, and Confucianism, “there is no God transcendent and separate from that is no oxymoron. Pace the Founding Fathers, the truths they the world and there is no heaven outside of the universe to which proclaimed were not “self-evident,” or all the geniuses of prior human beings would want to go for refuge*.”As professor Hsiao- history would not have missed out on them. Lan Hu notes, the Chinese languages do not even have a word Knowledge is awareness, and much of our awareness is affec- that parallels the English word religion. What Buddhism, Taoism, tively experienced even before it can be voiced in words. Moral and Confucianism do have, however, is a profound experience of knowledge is particularly situated in the affections before it moves the sacred and an ethical payload that that experience spawns. on to logic and debate, which indeed it must. John Dewey, no rav- They are not examples of ‘unbelief”; they are classics in the art of ing theist, put it this way: “Affection, from intense love to mild cherishing life and examples of belief in life’s stunning possibilities. favor, is an ingredient in all operative knowledge, all full appre- “What’s in a name?” (or in a word) asks Shakespeare in Romeo hension of the good.” It is the animating mold, he said, of all and Juliet. A lot. An Encyclopedia of Unbelief is at a disadvantage. It moral knowing. defines itself negatively. It cries out for a subtitle because omnis negatio in affirmatione fundatur—every negation is rooted in some affirmation. It is important to know what you are for in order to know what you “Words are like people; they can get kidnapped. are against. To assume an identity as an unbeliever Religion is one of those words.” is to allow yourself to be defined by your adver- saries: those idiosyncratic religionists. Secular humanists who may have a better claim to being the “silent majority” might be more suc- I am not alone in my usage of terms like religion, faith, and cessful in their causes if their positive beliefs, their faiths, were sacred. These terms are not everywhere demeaned or sidelined. more in evidence. Secular humanism has the advantage of hon- (In fact, there is no one who considers nothing sacred.) As histo- esty. It does not pretend that a hypothesis is a fact, but it stumbles rian Daniel Pals says, religious ideas, usually not understood as over its own purity if it banishes a crucial aspect of human moral such, “affect our literature, philosophy, history, politics, psychol- intelligence. ogy, and indeed almost every realm of modern thought.” Realistic social theory cannot ignore power, and the fact is that *As Professor Morton Smith writes, in the ancient world from which nothing so stirs the human will, for good or for ill, as the tincture Judaism was born there was not even a “general term for religion.” The closest thing to it was a term meaning philosophy of life. of the sacred. As John Henry Newman said, people who will not stir for a conclusion will die for a dogma. Small wonder then that Suggested Reading thirty-four renowned scientists led by Carl Sagan and Hans Bethe Arendt, Hannah. 1959. The Human Condition. Garden City, N.Y.: Double day. Chun-Fang Yu. 2000. “Chinese Religions on Population, Consumption, and in their “Open Letter to the Religious Community” urged religions Ecology.” In Visions of a New Earth: Religious Perspectives on Population, to attend to the plight of the planet. “Efforts to safeguard and Consumption, and Ecology, edited by Harold Coward and Daniel C. cherish the environment need to be infused with a vision of the Maguire. Albany: State University of New York Press. Dewey, John, and James H. Tufts. 1932. Ethics, rev. ed. New York: Henry Holt. sacred. ... Problems of such magnitude, and solutions demand- Hsiao Lan Hu. 2007. “Rectification of the Four Teachings in Chinese Culture,” ing so broad a perspective must be recognized from the outset as In Violence Against Women in Contemporary World Religion: Roots and having a religious as well as a scientific dimension.” Cures, edited by Daniel C. Maguire and Sa’diyya Shaikh. Cleveland: Pilgrim Press. Maguire, Daniel C. 2010. Ethics: A Complete Method for Moral Choice. Excommunicating Belief Minneapolis: Fortress Press. Secular humanists, in divorcing themselves from fundamentalist Marx, Karl, and Friedrich Engels. 1958. Marx and Engels: Selected Words in Two Volumes Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House. religious excesses, marry into a false ethical methodology. Forget Pals, Daniel L. 1996. Seven Theories of Religion. New York: Oxford Uni versity deities and an afterlife and the fundamentalist pursuit of oracular Press. magical knowledge, knowledge that can with no evidence refute Sagan, Carl, Hans Bethe, et al. 1990. “An Open Letter to the Religious Community.” Available from the National Religious Partnership for the Darwin and trump the rest of science. Forget all that for a moment Environment, 1047 Amsterdam Ave, New York, NY 10025. and think ethics, which Schopenhauer called the supreme chal- Schopenhauer, Arthur. 1915. The Basis of Morality, 2nd ed. London: George lenge to the human mind. Ethics involves belief and, yes, faith in Allen & Unwin. Smith, Morton. 1956. “Palestinian Judaism in the First Century.” In Israel: Its human perception of the good; it involves mystically deep cogni- Role in Civilization, edited by David Moshe. New York: Jewish Theological tive encounters with human and terrestrial good. Ethics is born Seminary of America. where poetry is born, and secular humanists don’t want to leave that behind. As Schopenhauer put it, “The metaphysics of nature, Daniel C. Maguire is professor of ethics and religion at Marquette University. His the metaphysics of morals, and the metaphysics of the beautiful most recent book is Ethics: A Complete Method for Moral Choice (Fortress Press, mutually presuppose each other, and only when taken as con- 2010). nected together do they complete the explanation of things as

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Cranks, Behinds, and God Forum

Lawrence Rifkin

y son plays on a vintage baseball team. They play by unsupportable beliefs: concepts such as human perfectibility, the 1861 rules, use 1860s language, wear 1860s uniforms, belief that world communism would usher in a utopia of fairness Mand sell soda pop and Cracker Jack. It is what they call a and prosperity, and the belief that humans are on the cusp of an “gentleman’s game.” There is only one umpire, and he is asked inevitable evolution to a higher form. Flynn then writes (in personal for decisions only when the players cannot agree. The umpire will correspondence): “But if a true believer is going to form a firm con- occasionally ask the “cranks” (fans) for their opinion on a close viction that his or her chosen idea will come true . . . even though call. “Huzzah!” and a tip of one’s cap means “Hooray!” In this there’s no way it can in the natural world . . . what does that leave? setting, my son is the “behind” (catcher). Yep, the supernatural. Not necessarily a specific acceptance of Now imagine one of the vintage players playing for a modern ghosts or gods, but an acceptance of some causality transcending team but using language from the vintage game. If he yelled the ordinary natural world.” Flynn then goes on from this under- “daisy cutter!” he would not be communicating effectively, either standing of the supernatural to discusses what types of beliefs, in with his teammates or his opponents. (A daisy cutter, for the practice, effectively can be considered “religious”: “Whether the uninitiated, is a ground ball.) true believer expects people to be happy giving according to their Words can have multiple meanings, and language changes ability and taking according to their need, or expects pigs to make over time. This makes it all the more important to define and like Cessnas, the only way to justify faith in it is to believe in some- agree on terms up front, before the game or the conversation. thing that bleeds outside the ordinary domain of nature. To me, And there is no arena in which this is more necessary than in con- that makes such beliefs effectively religious.” sidering words like supernatural, sacred, humanism, and the like. Without explicit defi- nitional clarification, words used in secular humanist and religious discourse may not be as clear as is assumed. I am reminded of the “Many steadfast naturalists are committed to Steven Wright joke: “I went to a restaurant avoiding words that have even the slightest that serves ‘breakfast at any time.’ So I ordered French toast during the Renaissance.” connotation of the immaterial or improvable. God. Spiritual. Religious. Without commu- But even these critics are at their most lucid when they nicative clarity, concepts like these can end up clarify precisely what it is that is being rejected.” being like “breakfast at any time.” Participants can talk past one another. You believe (or don’t believe) in God. Which God? Pat Robertson’s? Spinoza’s? The Pastafarians’? You are (or are not) religious. What religion? Uni tarian Universalism? Southern While Flynn’s felicitous talent for composition is splendid, I Baptism? Buddhism? argue that this understanding of the words supernatural and reli- Many steadfast naturalists are committed to avoiding words gious is too diffuse. I suggest that the supernatural be understood that have even the slightest connotation of the immaterial or as an immaterial nonphysical entity or realm that is somehow able improvable. But even these critics are at their most lucid when to interact with material nature. I argue that faith in the immate- they clarify precisely what it is that is being rejected. On the other rial is a distinct type of claim warranting its own definition and hand, those who feel that words like spiritual or God can be analysis. Such a faith should not be conflated by definition with understood naturalistically walk in a minefield of potential misun- other unsupportable beliefs. By my reasoning, “optimists who derstanding, which becomes even more hazardous if the precise maintain that human beings are perfectible or will eventually cre- metaphorical intent of the usage is not explicitly laid out up front. ate Utopia” are not an example of a supernatural or religious con- In a recent correspondence with FREE INQUIRY Editor Tom Flynn, cept. They are just wrong. I had the experience of teammates debating the meaning of key The point here is not to argue which definition is better or terms on the playing field (it is unsettled which of us was vintage). more accurate. The point is a call, for the sake of communicative The exchange emphasized for me the importance of not assum- clarity, to be explicit and up front about one’s specific meaning ing another’s meaning. It’s not just about the definitions. The ideas when discussing contestable concepts such as supernatural, spiri- themselves are often fascinating and worth grappling over. tual, and the like. The burden is hardly on one side. Those of reli- For example, Flynn has an intriguing take on the definition of gious faith are rarely explicit and often absurdly disparate in the supernatural. Here is his logic. He first lists several examples of meanings they attach to the words they use. In order to have any

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chance for meaningful discourse, religious advocates also need to listening to my roommate and I delve into some discussion that specify precisely what they mean by spirit and soul, and soon. ended up being a linguistic rather than a substantive difference. (I If the meaning of a particular word were unambiguous and ac - must have convinced the sleeping girlfriend I wasn’t that boring cepted by all, then explicit clarification would not be necessary. though, because a few years later she accepted my marriage pro- Unfortunately, depending on the circumstances, definitions are often posal.) Her exceptional and valued intelligence is of a more practi- essential to avoid misunderstandings. Especially when it comes to cal type. While I may strive to think and communicate clearly about complex and important concepts such as God. Or behinds. terms like cranks and daisy cutter, without my wife I’d probably get While it might not always seem like a whole lot of fun to have lost driving to the game and risk missing the event entirely. In vin- to define terms, it is necessary if we hope to play the game well tage baseball, and in life, clarity of language is essential. But that’s and communicate effectively. I remember wonderful late-night col- just the groundwork. It’s the game that counts. lege “bull” sessions (which weren’t bull at all) with my roommate. After hours of discussion, it would often end up that our differ- ences were reducible to variations in how we were using words. Lawrence Rifkin, a physician and writer, has been published by the National While the process helped clarify our thoughts, such discussions are Academy of Sciences and in Medical Economics and other humanist publications. not for all tastes. I remember my girlfriend once literally fell asleep

Tom Flynn Responds to Daniel Maguire and Lawrence Rifkin

ost of what I have to say in response to these two articles make much of an impression! To say it more seriously: I think it’s is in my editorial starting on page 4 of this issue. Oddly, essential to a thoroughgoing naturalism to deny that such a qual- Mthat editorial didn’t begin as a conscious rejoinder to these ity as sacredness exists. Not only are there people who consider articles; only after I’d written it did I realize how it related to them. nothing sacred, but in my opinion encouraging the formation of Still, I agree with Lawrence Rifkin on one thing: it’s indispens- more such people is an important part of the secular humanist mis- able to define our terms, but after that it’s the game (or the sion. And as for ethics—it is a central secular humanist contention debate) that matters. I suspect Rifkin would not agree with me that men and women of goodwill who observe the world with open that one objective of that game should be to demonstrate the eyes and check one another’s work can work out at least the broad possibility of living wholly without spirit, without larger meanings, strokes of an ethics that supports human flourishing without any- without even the possibility of the sacred, thereby aiding believers thing more than reason and common sense. If doing ethics really to recognize that people can live rich, exuberant lives that way. requires “mystically deep cognitive encounters” as Maguire sug- gests, then I would submit that all is lost after all! We have a choice. We can blur the meanings of “Not only are there people who consider nothing words so that terms like faith and sacred can still con- note something critical moderns needn’t feel sacred, but in my opinion encouraging the formation ashamed of. Or (if I may quote Rifkin), we can hold of more such people is an important part of the that “clarity of language is essential” and recognize secular humanist mission.” that for committed naturalists, there are indeed con- cepts associated with religion that are outmoded and harmful. Maguire is correct in noting that they are powerful. But so is mustard gas. If the nature of these As for Dan Maguire, I’m less inclined than he is to praise reli- concepts is such that their power cannot be used for good (or can gions for purveying humane values they did nothing to develop. scarcely ever be so used), it is only prudent to set them aside. No How much credit does an institution deserve for recognizing the matter how highly faith, the sacred, and similar notions may have value of something it steals? (Would we think less of the church if been regarded by past generations, I think contemporary secular it stole secular innovations that were not valuable?) And as I’ve met humanists are well justified in having no use for them. Maguire on at least one occasion, I’m puzzled by his assertion that What do you think? Please send your comments to Letters, “there is no one who considers nothing sacred.” Maybe I didn’t FREE INQUIRY, P. O. Box 664, Amherst NY 14226-0664.

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Leading Questions From Faith to Critical Thinking A Conversation with Lee Salisbury continued from p. 7

night Jesus is born Joseph obeys an angel of Bibles. As I began to go through it, I was a parking space. Now my license plate and the family flees to Egypt. And yet in began to realize my faith just can’t be true. says “Zeus-01.” I’m his number one disci- the Book of Luke, Jesus is born and the I asked myself, “What am I doing?” ple. I get a lot of laughs out of that. family waits for Mary’s rites of purification— Eventually I had to say to myself, “I’m sorry, PRICE: This reminds me of the time Oral for forty days! One Gospel has Joseph and I just don’t see any evidence for God.” Roberts said. “Our God is a great god. He Mary and Jesus in Bethlehem and Egypt, PRICE: By the way, I heard a rumor that can even find parking spaces.” He’s a little and the other has them in Jerusalem and you are a Zeus worshipper. slow on the uptake in feeding starving chil- Nazareth. You can’t be in two different SALISBURY: Absolutely. When my wife places at the same time. Maybe Jesus and I visited Barcelona, Spain, several years dren in Somalia, but those parking spaces could—he was God. But not Joseph and ago, we were trying to find a parking space. for born-again Christians—he’s great at Mary. I just started saying “Zeus! In the name of that. I stumbled across a book that was writ- the Mighty God!” and behold, we drove SALISBURY: Amen, brother. God’s got to ten in the 1800s by Kersey Graves, The Bible right up to the front of a museum and there look out for the Christians.

Christopher Hitchens In Defense of Richard Dawkins continued from p. 9

Indeed, as I try to point out, it is consider- nic murder out of holy books. It is moreover, whether Craig is invited to disown mass ably more like Holocaust affirmation. The in the current highly charged situation in murder from the platform, or as a condition whole project of extirpation is approved, Palestine, fantastically irresponsible. Israeli of taking part, I don’t much care. But I do right down to the slaughter of the settler zealotry is financed and encouraged think I know who the demagogue is in this Amalekite children, on the grounds that a to an important degree by American situation and who is the honest professional place is reserved for them in heaven. They Christian evangelicals: if they seem to be attempting to make the best use of his time just happened to be born in the wrong advocating or excusing genocide it helps in the interests of scholarship. At least two place (and to the wrong people) to be able lower the threshold at which these horrors cheers for stridency! to accommodate God’s children. can be introduced and dis- So here again I find myself unreservedly cussed. Such a thing seems Christopher Hitchens authored Arguably (Twelve, Hachette Book seconding some “stridency” by Pro fessor to me to call for unequivo- Group, 2011) a collection of essays and reviews, as well as numer- Dawkins. It is disgusting to preach mass eth- cal condemnation. As to ous other books and essays.

A Center for Inquiry Conference Friday, May 18 – Sunday, May 20, 2012 Crystal City Marriott at Reagan National Airport Arlington, Virgina

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Arthur L. Caplan The Vatican, Stem-Cell Research, and Me continued from p. 12

earnest desire to offer hope without com- had equity in the work being discussed. but one example, one Italian bishop talked promising a core moral stance about The church, if this conference is any about an alliance he had created with a sci- embryo destruction led it to show way too indication, is not very good yet at separat- entist to procure fetal stem cells from the much enthusiasm about adult stem-cell ing the wheat from the biomedical chaff brains of spontaneously aborted fetuses when it comes to adult stem-cell claims. In born in Italy in order to pursue treatments research at this meeting. Time and again, its enthusiasm to remain a leading voice on for neurological diseases. No one chal- speaker after speaker gave presentations how to help the hundreds and hundreds of lenged this idea. Yet the idea is horren- on studies with very small samples of sub- millions of people worldwide suffering mis- dously bad, both because it is very hard to jects or with no real long-term follow-up. erably from chronic and incurable diseases, control the quality of such cells and To be blunt, some of the reports had noth- the Vatican showed it can be dangerously because the chance of their being abnor- ing but the backing of a tiny handful of susceptible to hyperbolic claims of cures mal or infected with nasty microbes or very optimistic scientists, some of whom involving non-embryonic stem cells. To give necrotic material is significant.

Nat Hentoff Obama’s Growing Torture Record continued from p. 13

engaged in righteous denying, citing as an all else regarding the CIA. Gitmo proceedings. Davis also publicly example of their taking remedial action Here we come to the most stunning criticized growing Washington interfer- that “General David H. Petraeus, the for- Obama administration abdication of re - ence in the operation of the military mis- mer top commander (in Afghanistan), sponsibility for torture and other war crimes. sions. He went on to be the executive ordered a halt to detainee transfers to I regularly click on the University of director and counsel of the nongovern- Afghan intelligence and police custody in Pittsburgh website’s “Jurist” link for a wide mental Crimes of War Education Project in Kandahar, Afghanistan, in July.” range of remarkably penetrating legal analy- Washington, where he works to “enhance So why are CIA officials still regularly ses. On November 5, it ran: “Combat global public awareness of international visiting the dreaded Department 124 (aka Immunity and the Death of Anwar-al- humanitarian law [and] highlight viola- “Hell”)? If they’re not torturing anyone, Awlaqi,” by Morris Davis of Howard tions of the laws of war” while also teach- what are they doing there? For one thing, University School of Law. ing at Howard University. they’re not stopping the torture. As for It was Davis, then chief prosecutor of What Davis carefully documented has, General Petraeus, he took off his army the Guantanamo military commissions, of this writing, been largely ignored in the uniform as soon as President Obama who in 2007 shocked the Bush adminis- media, by the current presidential cam- appointed him our present director of the tration (and me) by resigning that globally paigners, and by Congress. I am trying to CIA. As the boss there now, whatever controversial command to the spread this vital exposé of the rampant reservations Petraeus may have about Bush administration’s allowing the use of illegality of ongoing CIA activities (ap - unlawful CIA activities are classified, like evidence extracted by torture in those proved by Obama) as widely as possible.

James Haught Creeping Secular Humanism continued from p. 14

racies in 1946. Now there are almost one the United Nations, the Smithsonian Plenty of distressing problems remain. hundred. The number of totalitarian re - Institution, and others. Look ing back over The Millennium report summarizes: “The gimes has dropped from almost ninety in the past quarter-century, it notes that aver- world is getting richer, healthier, better edu- 1976 to about twenty-five now. age life expectancy around the planet cated, more peaceful and better connected, climbed from sixty-four years in the mid- and people are living longer, yet half the Pinker says the overall transition to a 1980s to sixty-eight today—and that infant world is potentially unstable. Food prices are more humane world is “maybe the most worldwide fell from 70 deaths per rising, water tables are falling, corruption important thing that has ever happened in 100,000 population to 40 today, dropping and organized crime are increasing, environ- human history.” The near-disappearance of almost by half. The ratio of people living on mental viability for our life support is dimin- slavery is a shining example. The end of less than $1.25 per day declined from 43 ishing, debt and economic insecurity are South Africa’s apartheid is another. percent of humanity to just 23 percent now, increasing, climate change continues, and Meanwhile, a new report, 2011 State of another drop of nearly half. The number of the gap between the rich and poor contin- the Future, was released by the Millennium wars dropped from thirty-seven in the mid- ues to widen dangerously.” Project, a worldwide study group created by 1980s to twenty-six today. The report adds that “90 percent of 950

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Adult stem-cell research holds promise quick buck off of the desperate. the wrong side of some overheated claims for treating many diseases. But the Vatican It remains to be seen how this effort about the efficacy of adult stem-cell needs to realize that it has its own ethical by the Vatican will play out. Many re - research in its zeal to nudge research pitfalls, including a lack of adequate inter- searchers, patient advocacy groups, and along that path. When religious or ideo- national regulatory oversight, companies companies pursuing embryonic and logical values are in play, extreme caution rushing to hype their work to attract cloned stem-cell research in the United is in order about what is the best way for investment, the outsourcing of trials to States, Britain, Singapore, China, Korea, science to advance. and elsewhere will pay no attention to the places where protection for human sub- church’s message that adult jects interests is iffy, an absence of stan- stem-cell work is the most prom- dardized registries to evaluate short- and Arthur L. Caplan is the Sidney D. Caplan Professor of ising avenue to pursue. It may be long-term claims of cure, and more than a Bioethics and the director of the Center for Bioethics at the that the Vatican finds itself on few outright shysters looking to make a University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.

Davis concentrates on the Obama-CIA who kill in the course of armed conflict, given moment diminishes us and our com- killer drone program, but his analysis also provided that they comply with the law of mitment to abide by the proper rule of applies to other CIA involvements with the war.” But the CIA, a civilian agency, does law. That is a failure in leadership.” military—from “extraordinary renditions” not have that combatant immunity. Will this failure of both presidential and of terror suspects to be tortured in other Davis continues: “A primary objective congressional leadership be raised during nations to their presence in Department of the law of war is to limit the effects of the 2012 presidential and congressional 124 in Afghanistan. His main finding is war, particularly the effects on civilians campaigns? If I had a farm, I wouldn’t bet that in a number of its collaborations with and civilian objects. A fundamental law of it on this happening. the military, the CIA violates the law of war principles is distinction, which man- war “because it is a civilian institution, dates uniform and other dis- lacking combat immunity.” tinctive markings to clearly Nat Hentoff is a Uclick (Universal) syndicated columnist, a senior That’s why Petraeus no longer wears denote combatants. The fellow at the Cato Institute, and the author of, among other his military uniform. Davis explains that U.S. undermines the law of books, Living the Bill of Rights (University of California Press, “generally, the deliberate killing of war by blurring the intended 1999) and The War on the Bill of Rights and the Gathering another human being is considered mur- bright line separating com- Resistance (Seven Stories Press, 2004). His latest book is At the der unless some legal justification provides batants from civilians. The Jazz Band Ball: Sixty Years on the Jazz Scene (University of immunity. The law of war does just that by ability to bend the law to California Press, 2010). extending immunity to lawful combatants what we want it to be at any

natural disasters in 2010 were weather- Reducing violence and improving lions, homosexuality was decriminalized, and related and fit climate change models. human rights requires many struggles— a stride toward universal health insurance for These disasters killed 295,000 people and mostly led by liberal reformers who defeat all Americans occurred. cost approximately $130 billion.” Envi - conservative resistance. Look back over the The values of secular humanism, from ronmentalist Bill McKibben forecasts worse past century in America, and a pattern is curbing war to improving everyday life, tragedy as global warming escalates. obvious. Women gained the right to vote, slowly are dominating most of the world, Bottom line: Despite a multitude of couples won the right to practice birth although nearly everyone is too busy and afflictions, life for humans keeps improving. control, Social Security and other New Deal distracted to notice. Gradually, humane values—rights spurred “safety net” reforms bolstered by the Enlightenment—are fixed ever families, black Americans James A. Haught is the author of numerous articles and books, tighter into civilization. (Is it mere coinci- gradually at tained legal equal- including his latest, Fading Faith: The Rise of the Secular Age (Gustav Broukal Press, 2010). He is the editor of the Charleston dence that religion is fading dramatically in ity, Medi care and Medi caid Gazette in West Virginia. the West as human betterment in creases?) brought health security to mil-

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P Z Myers Remembrances of an Enduring People continued from p. 15

out to the sea with engines, radar, steel this tool kit wasn’t something essential for that occurred just two thousand years ago, hooks, or mass-produced nets. You have survival, for hunting or gathering, for along with the claimed manifestation of the to admire our ancestors. work. This was a luxury. It was art to sat- all-powerful creator of the universe in The second discovery is older still and isfy a creative urge or to fill a social role— human form at that time. There’s a kind of in yet another cave. Christopher Henshil - it was something sublimely human. I just childish provincialism to the idea that w ood and his colleagues, excavating a wish we knew more about what was humankind’s purpose on Earth has only 100,000-year-old cave in South Africa, being created. been clarified and revealed in relatively uncovered something odd. It was a bowl- I love the idea that these people were recent history; it belittles our deeper history shaped abalone shell with a rounded painting themselves. Modern people— up to that moment, with many millennia of stone nestled in it and various other small and the people who left their paint kit in gods and myths as well as common prag- stones scattered around it. The shell con- that cave were anatomically modern matic day-to-day living, all carried out obliv- tained traces of a red compound that Homo sapiens—decorate themselves liber- ious to the modern gods and myths so when analyzed was found to be made of ally, painting themselves for war and for many people unquestioningly consider crushed bone that was once rich in fat and romance, adding color to clothing and essential to our nature and our destiny. marrow, bits of charcoal, and ochre. tools, elaborating bodies and personal Jesus and Muhammad, the Torah and The abalone shell and stone were an objects, having fun and adding drama. It’s the Bible, the silly little rituals that form ancient mortar and pestle; the contents a product of self-awareness. the furniture of religion—all of those are were pigments and binders and the thin Perhaps you’ve heard of the mirror test, ephemeral, trivial, superficial. They are the a common experiment to test animals for quaint particulars of people who’ve lost self-awareness. Put a mark on an animal’s sight of the deeper human universals. face without its knowing, and then show it We’ve lost much of our history to the attri- a mirror; does it recognize that the face in tion of time, but science does give us the mirror is its own and therefore that it glimpses of our distant ancestors that fill has been marked? It’s easily done, and only me with far more pride than anything the a few animals can pass it: apes, dolphins, twisted circumlocutions of an absurd the- “Painting and decorating elephants, magpies, and humans. What ology can. I see hardworking fishers pad- ourselves is not just a people do goes beyond the mirror test. dling boldly out to sea, confident in their trivial vanity but a signifier They actually mark their own faces inten- strength and ingenuity, using tools honed tionally to make themselves look different by generations of craftsmanship to do bat- of intense awareness because they are aware of others’ percep- tle with great fish in the alien empty world of self and community.” tion of them—it is consciously provocative of the open ocean. I see whole peoples and a sign of deeply social behavior. setting off on voyages into the unknown Painting and decorating ourselves is not just to explore and settle new lands. I see cre- a trivial vanity but a signifier of intense ative people carefully mixing earth and awareness of self and community. These bone, charcoal and oils, using formulas people at the dawn of humanity were joy- handed down from generation to genera- fully practicing it, putting considerable tion to make bright and stark colors. I see effort and skill into the technological pro- happy laughing men and women painting flat stones around it scoops and applicator duction of paints. We had art from our very their world with deft hands, stamping sticks. This collection of fitted stones and beginnings. their mark on themselves and illuminating shells was an artisan’s sophisticated tool Our ancestors were creating art all that they see with new beauty. kit for making paints. We have a trace of 100,000 years ago. It’s a beautiful thought. Those are our ancestors. They are us. the artist but, unfortunately, no sign of the It’s also a mind-expanding thought. That’s what matters. art: there are no surviving cave paintings Consider your typical Christian zealot who, on this site. In all likelihood what was even if he or she accepts that painted was clothing and faces and bod- Earth and our species are very P Z Myers is an associate professor of biology at the Unniversity ies, all even more impermanent on the old, regards the most impor- of Minnesota, Morris. He is the author of the science blog scale of millennia. tant event in all of our history Pharyngula. Here’s the wonderful thing about it: to be a set of putative miracles

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Church-State Update

Personhood and Human Rights Edd Doerr

n November 8, 2011, Mississip pians ment and size. Our nearest relatives in the sons are “created in the image of God,” voted 58 percent to 42 percent to animal kingdom, the great apes (bonobos, which has to do not with flesh and blood Oreject a proposed state constitutional chimpanzees, gorillas, orangutans), have and DNA but rather with the capacity for amendment intended to establish legal brains in the 400 to 500 cc range, about consciousness and “will,” however de fined. “personhood” at the moment of fertiliza- one-third the size in our species. They The Old Testament word for person is tion or implantation. The amendment, sup- have been found, to a degree, capable of nefesh, which has to do with breathing. ported by leaders of both political parties in learning human sign language and com- Jewish tradition has it that personhood this most religious of all states, was aimed puter language, using tools, demonstrat- begins at birth. at outlawing all abortions and several types ing altruism, and doing many of the things The antichoice movement is all about of contraception. It would, of course, have we can do. Humanist ethicist Peter Singer the subordination of women to men run afoul of Roe v. Wade, although misog- and a number of scientists founded the (something almost universal among reli- Great Ape Project (see his 1993 book of ynist antichoice activists are hoping the gious conservatives); the subordination of 2012 elections will give them a president that title) to promote the idea that these science and medicine to theology; the who might fill the Supreme Court with anti- animals are enough like us that they consolidation of political power in the choice justices. should be extended some of the human hands of conservatives opposed to church- Personhood activists are not deterred rights we claim for ourselves. state separation; and obliviousness to the by this trouncing or two similar defeats in deleterious effects of overpopulation on Colorado. They are pushing for person- the future of civilization. hood amendments in Florida, Georgia, Let’s look at what science has to say Michigan, Montana, Ohio, South Dakota, about personhood. Isaac Asimov summed and Wisconsin and also pushing GOP presidential aspirants to support a national up the obvious when he noted that we “To deny or inhibit the personhood constitutional amendment. can either replace or do without just about We need to explore what is meant by right of each and every woman anything in our bodies—arms, legs, “personhood.” This question arises in (of whatever age) to follow hearts, lungs, kidneys, eyes, hearing, speech—anything but the cerebral cortex. three contexts: When does personhood her own conscience in deciding end legally and/or medically? When does When it goes, personhood goes. personhood arise historically? And the what to do about a problem The bottom line is that women are really hot question today: when does the pregnancy, however defined, persons. Their lives, their health, their val- ues, their perceptions are paramount. To personhood of individuals begin? is to violate her most precious Although cessation of breathing and deny or inhibit the right of each and every blood circulation was long regarded as the and fundamental rights.” woman (of whatever age) to follow her death or the end of personhood (immor- own conscience in deciding what to do tality and reincarnation are beyond the about a problem pregnancy, however scope of this column), modern science has defined, is to violate her most precious been able to keep people alive on heart/ and fundamental rights. No woman lung machines. The legal end of person- should be forced by any level of govern- hood today means brain death or a per- ment to continue a pregnancy to term or sistent vegetative state. Now we come to the matter of human to abort one. fertilized eggs, blastocysts, embryos and When did human personhood begin In this crucial election year, the leaders fetuses. The idea of the antichoicers that historically? The answer is obscured by the of one of our political parties want to these are persons is fairly novel. It is not mists of evolutionary history and the fog impose their misogynistic views on our found in the Bible, Aristotle, Thomas of semantics. Carl Sagan explored this whole society. We, men and women, must Aquinas, or much of anywhere else until matter in his 1977 book, The Dragons of not let this happen. Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of the nineteenth century. Indeed, Human Intelligence, and came to the ten- the idea that pre-viable fetuses Edd Doerr is president of Americans for Religious Liberty tative conclusion that what we call human are persons clashes with the and a past president of the American Humanist Association. personhood is related to brain develop- Judeo-Christian notion that per-

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Great Minds

Critias of Athens James H. Dee

ritias? In the Great Minds series? split 280 to 220; Socrates says in Plato’s work was chosen for performance at the Have we run out of really great Apologia (the Greek word for “defense City Dionysia festival each year were Cminds already? Who was this guy speech”) that a switch of thirty votes required to present tetralogies (three Critias anyway? (And how do you pro- would have resulted in acquittal. (In tragedies and a comic, mildly obscene nounce his name?) Athenian courts, a tie vote went to the satyr play), so that their complete output The last question is the easiest to accused.) The jurymen would have been would have come in multiples of four. answer. There are two choices in pronoun- overwhelmingly pro-democracy, but we There is evidence that Aeschylus wrote ciation: to Amer icanize or to pseudo- cannot know how many of the 280 were about 88 plays, Sophocles 132, and Hellenize. The Americanized form, used influenced by Socrates’s supposed position Euripides 92, of which we have, respec- even by professional classicists, is “KRIT- as “mentor” to the much-hated enemy of tively, six (plus the probably spurious ee-us,” and that’s good enough for all but their government. It’s worth noting that Prometheus), seven, and nineteen—and the most pedantic sorts. The pseudo- nearly half of those citizens, in spite of the almost nothing of the hundreds of other Hellenizing approach would result in “Krit- prosecution’s arguments and their own plays presented in the fifth century alone. EE-ahs”; I say “pseudo-“ because the sec- prejudices, concluded that Socrates was (Imagine having only two or three of ond i has a printed “acute” accent in clas- not “guilty as charged.” Shakespeare’s plays!) sical Greek, which was a “pitch” and not From the standpoint of modern secu- So the survival of that one passage, by a “stress” accent, so it’s not a sound we lar humanism, Critias’s importance comes means of an extended quotation in a sin- can authentically duplicate today. from his writings—or, to be more precise, gle late-classical author (Sextus Empiricus, Now for the bigger issues. Who was from one remarkable passage in a “satyr- second century C.E.), is a rare and fortu- Critias, and why does he belong in this play” titled Sisyphus. Ancient sources tell nate circumstance. The original Greek series? Readers who have studied Greek us that Critias wrote considerable quanti- lines, apparently spoken by the title-char- philosophy may recall that Critias was, in ties of prose and verse; all that remains is acter Sisyphus, are composed in iambic some sense, a pupil or follower of a few fragments (usually brief quotations trimeter, the normal dialogue mode of Socrates—a relationship that may have in later authors) of hexameters, elegiac tragedy, but the text has a number of had fatal consequences for both men. In couplets, and tragedies—an anemic clumsy expressions and repetitions that a political history, Critias played a signifi- twenty widely spaced pages in the stan- more skillful writer would have avoided. cant—and baleful—role. As the nominal dard English translation.* My translation is an excellent example of leader of the oligarchic “Thirty Tyrants” This is, by the way, typical of the loss- the “painfully literal” ap proach and makes who overthrew the Athenian democracy to-survival ratio for the whole of classical no attempt to cover up the aforemen- in 404 B.C.E., he presided over a brutal Greek literature; the extant corpus com- tioned inadequacies. (Sextus wrote that he purge of his opponents and was killed in prises some eighty million words, but that had skipped a few lines before quoting battle the following year when the surviv- represents only a tiny percentage of liter- the last two.) ing democrats struck back. Rightly or ary texts written in Greek from the days of There was a time when the life of wrongly, many Athenians believed that Homeric epic (the 700s B.C.E.) to the end humans was disordered Critias had learned his aristocratic con- of antiquity (about 500 C.E.). For example, and bestial and subject to raw tempt for majority rule from some of the three dramatic playwrights whose violence, Socrates’s teachings. when there was no reward for the good Critias’s violent career and his associa- *Rosamond Kent Sprague, ed., The Older and no punishment for the wicked. tion with Socrates were almost certainly Sophists (Columbia: Univ. of South Carolina And then, it seems to me, humans significant if unspoken factors in the Press, 1972), pp. 249–70. In the Encyclo - set up laws famous trial of 399. Under the terms of pedia of Unbelief edited by Gordon Stein as punishers, so that justice would (Prometheus Books, 1985), Angelo Juffras’s the first “amnesty” in Western history be the ruler article, “Ancient World, Unbelief in the,” of everyone equally and would (created in 403 to forestall a cycle of re- devotes exactly one word to Critias, simply enslave criminal arrogance; venge) the indictment against Socrates naming him in a brief list of attested Greek anyone who committed a crime could not make explicit reference to his atheists. In The New Encyclo pedia of would be penalized. alleged connection with the leader of Unbelief, edited by Tom Flynn and pub- But then, because the laws pre- lished in 2007, the corresponding article by “The Thirty”—but everyone knew about vented them Hector Avalos has an entire paragraph on from doing things by violence in it. The votes of the five-hundred-member Critias and translates the central part of the public, jury that convicted Socrates apparently Sisyphus fragment. they did them in secret, and that’s

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the origin of the concept of the divine in a uncontrollable urges for wine and sex, when, it seems to me, completely secular way. Earlier, pre- formed (naturally enough) the chorus of some man of ingenious and wise intellect Socratic philosophers had criticized some satyr plays, which seem to have focused on invented for mankind the fear of aspects of traditional religious beliefs: making rather crude fun of the solemn fig- the gods, so that Xenophanes (ca. 570–ca. 478) attacked ures seen in the tragedies. In spite of its evi- there would be a source of terror Homer and Hesiod for portraying the dently provocative thesis, the passage did for the wicked, Olympian gods as doing things that would not become notorious for later genera- if they did or said or thought up anything in secret. be immoral in human society, and he also tions—as already noted, only one ancient At that point he introduced the remarked that if horses and cows could source preserves the whole text and only concept of the divine, draw, they would depict their gods as one other quotes even a part of it. saying, “There is a spirit that enjoys horses and cows, clearly a criticism of But it is striking nonetheless to see a eternal life, anthropomorphic thinking. But he also fairly fully developed theory that contra- hearing and seeing in its mind, and thinking, expressed belief in a single god who was dicts one of the most fundamental beliefs and paying attention to these things far superior to mere mortals. Similarly, of the ancient world, the existence of gods and having a godlike nature, Anaxagoras (ca. 500–428) stated that the prior to and independent of human beings. which hears everything that is said Sun, a divinity for most Greeks, was only In later centuries, the Greek philosopher among humans an extremely hot and incandescent stone; and his admirer the Roman poet and is able to see everything that is done. around 437 he was charged in an reaffirmed and expanded the If you plan anything evil in silence, Athenian court with impiety and had to materialist worldview. The Augustan poet it will not escape the gods, for they flee, never to return. Ovid created a notorious line, etched in a have But the speaker here goes much far- cynicism that parallels what we have seen the highest power of thought.” ther, invoking a sociological and quasi- in Sisyphus’s speech: Expedit esse deos, et, Saying these words, he introduced the most pleasant of moral purpose for inventing the gods ut expedit, esse putemus (“It’s convenient teachings, (intimidating the otherwise criminally that there be gods, and, inasmuch as it’s covering up the truth with a false inclined into behaving themselves) and convenient, let’s believe they exist,” Ars story. attributing that invention to an anonymous Amatoria, 1.637). He said that the gods live in a place “culture-hero,” employing a rhetorical Openly expressed hard-core atheism where the mere mention of it would device in classical literature called the prô- was extremely rare in classical antiquity; frighten people, tos heuretês (first discoverer). There is a par- there are not even ten well-attested cases a place where he knew that both adoxical element as well: Sisyphus is across a millennium in both Greece and terrors famous for perpetually rolling a huge rock Rome. So it’s a little disconcerting to find and benefits come for the wretched up a hill, an eternal punishment imposed by that someone like Critias, who might life of humans, namely, from the revolving skies the very gods whose existence he denies in seem congenial to modern secularists in above, where they could see this passage! This seems like a gesture typ- that regard, could be so hostile to other lightning and terrifying crashes of ical of the Sophist era in late fifth-century values that most of us find just as impor- thunder Athens; Euripides, in his Herakles (ca. 420s), tant and compelling. Whatever their views and the starry form of the heavens, has that title character vigorously reject the on religion, both Socrates and his primary the beautiful handiwork of Time, that ingenious craftsman, idea that gods have humanlike desires— student Plato, like Critias, seem to have from which the brilliant mass of the although in the standard myths, he himself been proponents of a kind of aristocratic Sun goes forth is the product of Zeus’s unblushing lust for individualism and outspoken opponents and moist rainshowers come down Alcmena. In both cases, the most important of anything associated with “the masses.” upon the earth. aspect of the character’s speech may not be Nonetheless, although Critias may not This man set those sorts of fears all around humans, what happens in the rest of the play but the have been a “Great Mind” in the usual and through those fears he set the simple fact that such sentiments were sense of the phrase, we should acknowl- divine spirit uttered at all—in the Theater of Dionysus edge his status as one of the few ancient with his story in a fine dwelling- during one of the most significant religious pioneers of forthright skeptical thinking place and a suitable domain, festivals of the year, an example of the and a forerunner of modern atheism. And and he wiped out lawlessness by means of his laws. . .. remarkable level of parrhesia (free speech) that is no small honor, then or now. And I think that’s how someone first that Athenians allowed themselves. persuaded Unfortunately, there is no mortals to believe that the race of evidence for the larger context James H. Dee, author of nine books in classical scholarship, gods exists. of this speech, which, it should retired from the University of Illinois at Chicago in 1999. He The speech is worth quoting in its be emphasized, occurs in a has since written for FREE INQUIRy and Secular Humanist entirety because it shows, perhaps for the type of drama not known for Bulletin and has published numerous op-eds (many overtly first time in the recorded history of West- seriousness. Satyrs, depicted as secular humanist) in the Austin American-Statesman. ern civilization, an attempt to ac count for uncivilized “wild men” with

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It’s Only Natural

Domesticated Religion and Democracy John Shook

eligion promises a rewarding rela- believers in a domesticated religion: that they have supernatural cognitive tionship with some supreme reality. powers, that they know the one true reli- 1. Believers describe their religious views as RNeither naturalism nor democracy gion that is best for all, and that they’ve their “beliefs”—implicitly admitting the does that. How can religion function in a got a righteous recipe for the perfect gov- psychological reality that people can’t have democracy? ernment to rule over everyone. If domesti- certain knowledge. Yet they stay religious Only religion hijacks one’s cognitive cated religion gets too friendly with the by wielding their beliefs with excessive centers. Having committed to religious wild religion still inhabiting these lands, confidence: their beliefs are at least as wor- promises, people feel certain about the democracy is doomed. thy as any other belief out there. spiritual rewards. Religious people love certainty and detest doubt about their 2. Believers who justify their religious commitment, whether that doubt be views as “very good for them” are implic- itly using the humanist standard that peo- internal or coming from other people. John Shook is director of education and That is why religious people go to any ple deserve worldviews that benefit them. senior research fellow at the Center for lengths to silence or banish (or worse) any Yet they self-righteously assume that their Inquiry and associate fellow at the Center for dissenters, heretics, or atheists. Religions religion is best for everyone. Neurotechnology Studies, Potomac Institute are intrinsically totalitarian—given the 3. Believers defend their religious views as for Policy Studies. This article first appeared opportunity, they will erect governments their “right”—implicitly applying the demo - on Free Thinking, the Center for Inquiry’s demanding conformity to religious edicts. cratic principle that people can’t be forced blog (www.centerforinquiry.net/blogs). to surrender their consciences. Yet they stay religious by frequently complaining when their religion can’t get even more rights.

Domesticated religion exists only be - cause some believers admit that their “Many religious people have brains don’t have any supernatural powers little clue how their religion to know things that others cannot, and they admit that they are better off with a would destroy democracy democratic and secular government that if it could.” does not favor religion. For its part, democracy endures because people understand that they are smarter united than divided by faith or creed. Democracy stands because people grasp that compromise is sometimes nec- essary—even compromise regarding one’s Many religious people would deny deepest commitments. Democracy sur- such statements. They would protest, vives only when religion has been domes- claiming that they do not feel anxious or ticated, and democracy is strengthened as defensive about their religion, that they religious commitment devolves into have no problem tolerating dissent, that fidelity to the humanistic ethos. they would never approve religious gov- Yes, many religious people have little ernment, and that their religion is the clue how their religion would destroy friendliest and most pleasant worldview democracy if it could. Perhaps we should around. Those people are practitioners of keep them in the dark. Perhaps we should “domesticated” religion—a kind of reli- make sure that domesticated religion stays gion that can exist only under civilized, sci- committed to democracy and to secular entific, and democratic conditions. Here is government. Wild religions flourish in our how you can tell that you are dealing with midst. Too many faithful are convinced

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God on Trial

Malevolent Design Ron Cordero

ind intelligent design in nature and might be the result of intelligent planning. Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, a what—rejoice? A better reaction The reason, of course, is that a suffi- number of designers could have taken Fmight be despair. Those betting with ciently intelligent superdesigner (or design part. In twenty-first-century terms, one Kierke gaardian fervor that order in nature team) could have designed minimal parti- could say that several planners may have is the result of intelligent design should be cles in such a way that they would in due collaborated on design specifications for very, very careful: getting what they want time produce precisely the desired results. the quarks—or that dark matter was cre- could be awful. Why bother to create minerals, vegeta- ated by one deity while visible matter was The amazing order evident in the uni- bles, and animals ex nihilo when they can created by another. verse can, of course, be seen as the result be produced by creating just the right sort of unplanned interactions among material of building blocks and waiting a few bil- particles in empty space. Incredible intrica- lion years for the intended (and inevitable) cies in nature do not have to be taken as results to appear? You make the quarks “A sufficiently intelligent products of intelligent design—like Paley’s like this, and in thirteen or fourteen billion superdesigner (or design team) famous watch on the heath. The idea of an years they self-assemble into snowflakes, could have designed minimal ateleological universe has been abroad at orchids, and swans! least since Democritus and Leucippus, and According to this scenario, evolution particles in such a way that they their notion of minimal particles interacting occurs by design. Whoever designed the would in due time produce in empty space is not too far from what minimal particles had a plan to create life- precisely the desired results. many physicists hold today. We can inter- forms and proceeded to carry it out. pret the beauty of snowflakes and mineral Suppose, by analogy, that you decide to Why bother to create minerals, crystals as the result of particles moving make a soufflé. After you mix the ingredi- vegetables, and animals into arrangements dictated by their own ents and put them into the oven, no one ex nihilo when they can physical properties and the properties of can say that the soufflé that comes out their environments. And when a pathogenic was not planned by you—even though be produced by creating microorganism mutates and be comes you did not personally control the interac- just the right sort of immune to previously effective antibiotics, tion of the ingredients during the baking building blocks and waiting we can think of that as the regrettable, process. You knew the batter was going to unguided result of minimal particles in em - rise because of the properties of the ingre- a few billion years for pty space interacting in the only way physi- dients you chose and the environment you the intended (and inevitable) cally possible. created in the oven. results to appear?” Yet we have to admit that the order in When we assume in this way that nature—even though achieved through nature consists of minimal particles inter- the interaction of physical bits in empty acting in empty space, we must admit at space—might also be the result of intelli- least two possible scenarios—the universe Second, if the order we find in nature gent design. Even evolution could have was planned or the universe was not is the result of design, it is quite possible been planned, though it is common to planned. The order in nature may well that the party or parties who did the think of evolution and intelligent design as have developed without the help of intel- designing have long since passed out of mutually exclusive alternatives. Those who ligent design, but we cannot exclude the existence—as Hume has Philo intimate. assert the development of living forms possibility that it was planned. Where there is design, there must have through the process of evolution usually Now suppose we take the position that been at least one designer; but that party deny any intelligent control for the intelligent design was involved in the fram- need not still be around. If we find a watch process. But the possibility of intelligent ing of the cosmos. What sort of de signer on the heath, we can reasonably conclude design is not automatically excluded when can we say it might have been? It certainly that someone designed it; but as for the universe is thought of as developing does not have to have been the kind whether that party still exists, we may have through the interaction of particles in a described in Western-religion metaphysics. nothing to go on from the watch itself. void—a point raised by Alan Plantinga First of all, if there is intelligent design Thus it is indeed possible for us to see some time ago. Even if crystals and orchids in the natural universe, it does not have to nature as full of design—so long as we do and swans evolved through minimal-parti- have been the work of a single designer. not assume that the order came from a sin- cle interaction, we have to admit that they As Hume has Philo point out in his gle designer or from a designer who still

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exists. But after admitting this we must go ples are in order, and they are extremely for one of the sexes? Might the pain be a further and ask what—if anything—the easy to find. punishment for some disobedience on the order in nature suggests about the charac- Take, to begin, the variola virus—the part of a remote ancestor—as suggested ter and intellect of the possible designer(s). microbe that produces smallpox. If it was in Genesis 3? It might, conceivably, but What sort of person or persons could have designed, it was designed specifically to then the designer could only be regarded produced the universe we inhabit? target human beings, inflicting wide- as incredibly unfair. To begin with, the complexity of the spread suffering and damage without Another troubling aspect of reality de- order in the universe definitely indicates regard to innocence or guilt. In the early serves special attention, being nothing less great intelligence and ability. To design 1950s an estimated fifty million cases of than a prominent part of human nature— minimal particles in just the right way to smallpox were occurring each year. From a our innate propensity for intraspecific vio- produce the life-forms we have now could human perspective, the world is unques- lence. Considered dispassionately, our not have been an easy task. The de - tionably a better place since the disease species is remarkable for its self-directed signer(s) could definitely not have gotten was eradicated from “wild” (nonlabora- viciousness. Other vertebrates also attack swans and orchids right without tremen- tory) environments in 1979. If some intel- and kill members of their own species: dous ability. ligent being was responsible for its exis- grizzly bears do it occasionally, capuchin tence on this planet, that being simply monkeys do it frequently enough for it to cannot be seen as benevolent. be a leading cause of death among them, Before proceeding to other examples, red wolves do it in defense of their terri- it is important to note that the problem tory, and Florida panthers do it. But “Now suppose we take posed by such cases is not how to recon- humans are undeniably outstanding in the position that intelligent cile the existence of apparent evil in the their use of intraspecific lethal force. world with the existence of a deity thought Any examination of human history or design was involved in the of as having certain properties. Rather, the any consideration of current events reveals framing of the cosmos. question is how it is most reasonable to an innately violence-prone species in What sort of designer can conceive the designer or designers if we action. Fighting and killing other members take nature to exhibit design. We are not of our species is so common in human we say it might have been? trying to solve the “problem of evil”; we relations that it is routinely taken for It certainly does not have are trying to determine what kind of granted. Though we continually endeavor to have been the kind designer there must have been if there is in to reduce intraspecific violence, we are fact design in nature. hardly surprised when it continues. We described in Western-religion In addition to smallpox, it is easy to find have become accustomed to the “contin- metaphysics.” other examples of disease-producing uation of policy by other means,” to use organisms indicative of malevolent intent if von Clausewitz’s euphemistic characteriza- interpreted as products of intelligent de - tion of war, and we are inured to acts of sign. There is the Ebola virus, the Spanish incredible cruelty. Just as we expect wolves flu virus that killed fifty million people in to attack sheep, we expect humans to So there may have been one or more 1918, and the malaria-causing parasite that attack humans, agreeing with Hobbes’s designers who may or may not still exist is still responsible for over a million deaths remark that “Homo homini lupus.”* but who must be conceived of as highly each year. Any designer who arranged to We are so close to this aspect of reality intelligent and knowledgeable. Can we go have these pathogens in the world would that it is hard to see. But consider how we further? Does the order in the universe, if have had to have been extremely bright, compare to species that lack this bent. What taken to be the result of design, permit us extremely powerful, and extremely evil. would we think if flocks of robins, returning to conclude something more about the To be sure, disease-producing organ- north in the spring, began attacking each designer or designers? I believe it does, isms are not the only anti-personnel land other, filling the air with battle shrieks, and but that something more turns out to be mines on the heath. There are other littering our lawns with bloodied feathers? something highly unsettling. aspects of reality that must be seen in the Looking objectively at the universe, we same light if nature is viewed as the prod- *Hobbes actually contends that the saying have to admit that it includes not only uct of design. Consider the painful nature applies to cities of men, rather than to men objects of wonder, such as snowflakes and of the process of childbirth. Surely a as individuals. De cive: The Latin Version, crit- ical edition by Howard Warrender (Oxford: benevolent and competent designer could swans, but also some things that are really Clarendon Press, 1983) 73. The phrase goes troubling. There are parts of nature that in have made the process pleasurable. The back at least to the Roman comedic play- fact seem much more like anti-personnel fact that it is so often so painful, together wright Plautus, c. 254–184 B.C.E., who does land mines on the heath than watches. with the supposition of intelligent design, include a qualification: men are wolves to We find things that, if taken to be the can only point to a misogynic designer. other men when they do not know them— ”lupus est homo homini, non homo, quom Why should the production of new product of intelligent design, can only be qualis sit non novit” (Asinaria, act 2, scene 4, seen as evidence of malevolence. Exam - humans so routinely involve such suffering verse 495).

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Or suppose elephants began to hunt each a highly malevolent designer is of course Natural Religion. 1947. Edited by Norman other down, one herd trying to exterminate terrifying. Optimists will hope that there Kemp Smith. New York: Bobbs-Merrill Library of Liberal Arts. another—or at least to kill enough mem- was no designer at all, and that the hu- Lorenz, Konrad. 1955. “Über das Töten von bers of the other herd to force the survivors man-unfriendly aspects of nature are the Artgenossen.” Jahrbuch des Max-Planck- to yield to the will of the attackers? We unplanned results of the insouciant and Gellschaft. Paley, William. Natural Theology, or, Evidences might be embarrassed to find elephants unguided interaction of mindless particles of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity, behaving so much like ourselves. in the void. Collected from the Appearances of Nature. Examples such as these abound. But 1802. London: R. Faulder. Further Reading Plantinga, Alvin. Warrant and Proper Function. the obvious conclusion is that what is 1993. Oxford: Oxford University Press. unreasonable to suppose is not that “Evolution and Its Rivals.” 2011. Synthèse 178.2, January. nature had a designer but that it had a Von Clausewitz, Carl. On War. benevolent designer. If we see intelligent 1984. Edited and translated by Ron Cordero is professor of philosophy at the University of design in nature, we absolutely have to Michael Howard and Peter Paret. Princeton: Princeton Uni - Wisconsin–Oshkosh. His work focuses on ethics, logic, and see malevolence. versity Press. social philosophy. The prospect of living in a world with Hume, David. Dialogues Concerning

Faith and Reason

Snip the Snip Edan Tasca

icture the moment of gorgeous constitute some kind of assault and would metic, and religious. Examining these jus- relief when labor is finally over and result in the doctor’s incarceration. I trust tifications shows them, and their sum, to Pyour doctor hands you your healthy you’ve figured out that I’m not really talk- be inadequate. baby boy. He has everything in the right ing about the removal of one of the small- place: ten, ten, two, and one. Then imag- est of fingers. I’m talking about the Pseudo-Medical ine that the doctor asks if you’d like to removal of a much more delicate and Reports on circumcision rates in the United have one of your son’s pinky fingers unique part of the body: the prepuce, or States vary, but the rates seem to be drop- removed. foreskin, which is often cut from a boy’s ping in recent decades, perhaps as a reac- Confused, you ask why anyone would penis for reasons very much like those tion to important questions about whether consider such a thing. He explains that offered above. I’m talking, of course, there are any good reasons—or even just many parents find that it’s much more about routine infant male circumcision. one—for the practice. In 1971, the Amer - convenient to remove the pinky when the When confronted with the prospect of ican Academy of Pediatrics deemed that child is very young, so that the boy won’t committing an irrevocable procedure like there is “no absolute medical indication for remember the trauma and pain of the pro- the removal of an infant’s body part, we cedure. You ask for clarification: “Why have to ask ourselves whether there exists would parents do it at all?” a worthwhile benefit. Is there a reason The doctor informs you that some good enough to outweigh the costs, people do it for religious reasons and which include pain and trauma for the some out of a sense of tradition. Others infant, a chance of complications, or the do it for hygienic reasons (kids can accu- alteration of the way the penis functions mulate a lot of gunk under that tiny nail!). by removing a useful part of it? If we can “Alas, if there never Some doctors recommend that the finger find no such reason, the practice should had been [ritual blood sacrifice] be removed so that its skin cells can’t be dropped altogether. we would never have become cancerous and its bone can’t suf- In San Francisco, routine male circum- fer a fracture. You stare and wait to be cision was recently challenged. A petition heard of routine circumcision, enlightened by a sound reason to remove garnered more than enough signatures to and we wouldn’t even this delicate part of your boy’s anatomy. put a ban of the practice to a vote in be having this debate.” But the doctor has run out of reasons. He November 2011. Unfortunately, the refer- can see you’re not interested so he leaves endum was blocked by court action. The you alone. arguments against the ban and in favor of It’s obvious that removing a baby’s circumcision tend to fall into one of four pinky finger is unconscionable. It would categories: pseudo-medical, hygienic, cos-

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routine circumcision” and that it is “not correct in identifying a pattern, they per- unable to erase that lingering doubt. essential to the child’s current well-being.” tain to Africa, not to the West. HIV envi- What if you don’t have your baby circum- Similarly, neither the American Medical ronments in Africa and the West are not cised and he contracts HIV? Perspective is Association nor the American Col lege of similar. HIV in Africa is an epidemic, spread everything. Humanity doesn’t take orders Obstetricians and Gynecolo gists recom- mostly by unprotected heterosexual sex. In from the very unlikely. Auto accidents and mends the practice. In fact, the list of the the West, HIV infection is extremely rare- plane crashes kill a tiny number of people; world’s major medical organizations that and spread mostly by needle-sharing and we still drive and fly. Cranes have col- officially do not recommend routine cir- homosexual anal sex. lapsed and scaffolds fallen; we still build. cumcision is so long that reproducing it Third, why would we treat infant Women die—very regularly—from breast here would be impractical. males as if they’re adults? Babies are not cancer. We would never routinely preemp- However, despite the stance of the sexually active and don’t need to be pro- tively remove breasts. experts that there is no health-related rea- tected from HIV. Further, such micro-considerations exist son to circumcise, you might have heard UTIs and cancer. Even less convincingly, on the other side of the issue as well. For one or two pseudo-medical arguments in some have argued that circumcision is justi- example, there are men pressing lawsuits favor of the practice. fiable as a preventive measure against uri- against the parents and doctors who cir- nary tract infections (UTIs) and even against cumcised them without their consent. As penile cancer. UTIs are rare, they tend not another example, sometimes circumcisions to be serious, and when they do occur sim- go wrong—sometimes horribly wrong, ple antibiotics are an effective treatment. sometimes causing permanent damage, Statistically, to prevent one UTI, we have to sometimes requiring full penile amputa- “. . . It would be absurd circumcise approximately one hundred tion. The chance of some kind of complica- boys. That’s drastic, considering circumci- tion from circumcision (say, the relatively to routinely, preemptively sions themselves can cause complications benign problem of excessive bleeding) is remove a foreskin to prevent such as excessive bleeding and infections actually higher than the risk of contracting a cancer whose incidence ... (and, in very rare cases, much worse). penile cancer or HIV.* Cancer, of course, is much more seri- Finally, these pseudo-medical justifica- is 1 in 100,000 when we ous, but the American Cancer Society tions are not the reasons male circumci- don’t routinely, preemptively states that “most researchers now believe sion came into being centuries ago, and remove breasts to prevent [studies suggesting lower penile cancer they aren’t the reason it is a common prac- rates among circumcised men] were flawed tice today. These are ad hoc rationaliza- a cancer whose incidence because they failed to consider other risk tions to justify a practice that exists for is a very serious 1 in 8.” factors, such as smoking, personal hygiene, nonmedical reasons. and the number of sexual partners.” Even if these studies were impreg- Hygienic nable, however, it would be absurd to rou- By the nineteenth century, the medical tinely, preemptively remove a foreskin to establishment had adopted the position prevent a cancer whose incidence, accord- that circumcision was a hygienic procedure, ing to the American Cancer Society, is 1 in which seems to be one of today’s leading 100,000 when we don’t routinely, preemp- justifications for the procedure. The fore- HIV. In what would be circumcision’s tively remove breasts to prevent a cancer skin has glands that produce a substance biggest boost of support in ages, the whose incidence is a very serious 1 in 8. called smegma. If allowed to accumulate, Centers for Disease Control and Preven- Better safe than sorry? You might be the substance, not unlike sweat in armpits tion (CDC) is considering recommending the surgery as a routine procedure to *According to a summary of the research rates don’t take into ac count the difference between (1) the heterosexual population reduce the spread of HIV. It would base from the Canadian Paediatric Society, the rate (lower rates), (2) homo- and bisexual popula- this recommendation on three studies— of some kind of complication from circumci- tions, in particular gay men (higher rates), and sion can vary widely. The authors state that run in Uganda, Kenya, and South Africa— (3) needle-sharing populations (higher rates). “the rates of complications reported in sev- that have shown a lower incidence of HIV The CDC suggests that homosexual men, nee- eral large case series are low, from 0.2 percent in circumcised men when compared with dle-sharers, and those accidentally injured by a to 0.6 percent. However, published rates stray needle account for a huge percentage of intact men. range as widely as 0.06 percent to 55 per- First, there have also been studies, infections. That tells us that the HIV rate is even cent. Williams and Kapila have suggested that lower than 0.5 percent/0.2 percent for the including at least one in Kenya, that sug- a realistic rate is between 2 percent and 10 adult population the infant is most likely to join gest there is no difference in HIV rates percent.” This is in contrast to the prevalence (heterosexual and nondrug-sharing). There is between circumcised and intact males. of HIV infection in the general population of no realistic comparison to be made between Further, circumcision rates in Europe are adults aged fifteen to forty-nine, which is 0.5 either circumcision complications or HIV rates lower than they are in North America, and percent in North America and 0.2 percent in and penile cancer, whose incidence, according Western Europe, much lower than the 2 per- to the American Cancer Society, is 1 in yet the rate of HIV in Europe is also lower. cent and 10 percent for circumcision compli- 100,000 (0.001 percent), accounting for less Second, even if the African studies are cations suggested above. Further, those HIV than 1 percent of cancer cases.

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and wax in ears, can create an unpleasant tine circumcision, and we wouldn’t even be to reason that there exists some kind of tac- odor and result in discomfort. having this debate.) Second, the monothe- tile advantage from that protective hood This might seem a good reason for cir- istic religions’ argument is self-contradic- and those millions of extra nerve endings. cumcision until we remember that these tory. We have to assume that if our The prepuce, then, is not akin to an potential problems are easily avoided with designer weren’t a fan of male foreskins, he appendix, an extra finger or toe, an ear- the kind of cleaning we all do every day. A would be intelligent enough to cease pro- lobe, or a tail. And even if it were, (1) we pinky finger will also re quire some cleaning viding us with them. Simply put, if we’re do continue to find out more about the under the nail to keep gunk from accumu- created in God’s image, there should be no appendix, spleen, and gall bladder, and (2) lating. Surely mere convenience doesn’t reason to make this adjustment. we don’t remove the appendix, for exam- warrant the removal of a useful part of the Third, circumcision was for a time rec- ple, until a pressing need arises. Once the male body. And a girl’s genitals present ommended as a way to discourage the original foreskin is gone, it’s gone forever. many of these same problems (they can perceived sin of masturbation (as it still is Foreskin restoration, whether surgical or develop cancer and infections; they produce for girls in some parts of the world). The otherwise, can be expensive and risky and smegma). But not only do we not circum- missing foreskin was thought to signifi- cannot re-create the natural foreskin that cise baby girls, we recoil at the thought. cantly lower sexual sensitivity, a possibility was removed. we certainly want to avoid. Finally, there’s Cosmetic the essential matter of keeping religion Some parents worry that an intact foreskin and government separate. As we do with might create cosmetic stress for the baby girls, society should protect every child—that perhaps he’ll feel strange not part of the infant male body with no reli- looking like the other boys in the locker gious exceptions. “We have to assume that room or not looking like his father. Social So the prognosis for the health-benefit conformity is rarely if ever a sufficient jus- argument isn’t good; we’ve washed away if our designer weren’t a tification (imagine an argument that gay the hygiene argument; the cosmetic argu- fan of male foreskins, couples shouldn’t be allowed to raise a ment is shallow; and the argument from he would be intelligent family lest the children get teased). In any religion is self-defeating. Maybe you’re case, as circumcision falls out of favor, an thinking, “Alright, there’s no Holy Grail enough to cease providing intact penis won’t be rare. reason. But all those considerations, when us with them. Simply put, As for a boy not looking like his father, combined, certainly amount to one gen- if we’re created in God’s there are many other ways in which his eral, overriding reason, no?” appearance will differ. For varying signifi- No. When we add zero to zero, we’re image, there should be cant amounts of time he’ll be much left with zero. When we multiply zero a no reason to make shorter, likely thinner, and without facial billion times, we’re still left with zero. this adjustment.” hair. There might also be static differences, such as eye and hair color and maybe The Useful Prepuce handedness. And what of adopted boys “But it’s just a piece of skin,” you might say. from, say, Africa or Asia? They might look “What’s the big deal? It’s not like a breast, drastically different from their fathers. which provides nourishment for babies, or None of these superficial differences is a pinky finger, which helps us grip objects.” something we worry will significantly per- Even if it were nothing more than a If you’re not convinced that there’s no turb a child. useless flap of skin, we shouldn’t remove it, valid reason to circumcise your son, you for the same reason we shouldn’t re move probably don’t see a comparison to pinky- Religious our boy’s earlobe. The penis has evolved in finger removal. The problem here is again We owe the advent of circumcision to reli- such a way as to develop this useful body simply one of perspective: one about what gion. There is debate about its exact ori- part. The prepuce covers the tip of the we are and aren’t used to. Circumcision gins, but the practice dates as far back as penis, preventing the drying and calcifying, has been with us, relatively unquestioned, ancient Egypt, where it seems to have been and, perhaps, lowered sensitivity experi- for so long that we’re accustomed to it. a less severe form of ritual blood sacrifice. enced by circumcised men. During inter- The removal of a pinky finger, however, is Instead of killing a valuable member of your course, the prepuce serves as a tubelike new and strange and offensive. How likely livestock or even a fellow human, it would wrap, providing a built-in lubricantlike coat- is it that the CDC, for example, would con- do to offer the gods part of an infant’s gen- ing that allows for what’s known as sexual sider recommending the routine surgical itals. Later, the monotheistic religions gliding, which, it has been argued, helps to removal of part of a baby’s penis for dubi- adopted the practice in varying ways, often lessen the effects of vaginal dryness and ous reasons if we weren’t already accus- as a rite of passage, in which form it which might be responsible for a particular tomed to the practice? I would guess that remains with us today. kind of sensation for the male. Debate con- it’s less likely than an unthinkable recom- First, there’s obviously no longer a call tinues about whether intercourse is actually mendation of routine mastectomies. for blood sacrifice. (Alas, if there never had more enjoyable for intact men than their Most telling is our disgust toward been, we would never have heard of rou- circumcised counterparts, but it does stand female circumcision. This is an honest reac-

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tion that reveals our tolerance of male cir- Second, we are fortunate to be able to cumcision to be dishonest. What we’re used play it safe, meet in the middle, and have to has obscured our perspective and it to some degree both ways. If you keep ADVERTISE IN clouded our judgment. Considering the sim- it simple and leave your boy intact, he will ilarities between the relatively unquestioned grow into a mature adult, able to freely practice of circumcision and its pinky-finger weigh the pros and cons, and then choose counterpart (including pain and whatever for himself whether he wants to have his other trauma is inflicted on the infant), it is foreskin removed. alarming that we don’t ask important ques- I can anticipate the counterargument tions often and loudly enough, and, worse, here: this is not playing it safe, not meet- that our doctors, whom we rely on for ing in the middle, and not having it both On a trial basis, advice in these matters, aren’t stressing ways, because it’s extremely unlikely— Free InquIry will accept often enough that there are not worthy rea- unthinkable, even—that a young man sons for the infant penis to be the only body would see a good reason to have part of selected display advertising part exempt from protection under the law. his penis cut off. (minimum one-quarter page) Exactly. And what does that tell us? from individuals, Occam’s Razor organizations, and publishers. To close, I offer two quick and final points. References First, you’ve likely heard of the philosophical Http://www.cps.ca/english/statements/FN/fn 96-01.htm#COMPLICATIONS%20OF principle known as Occam’s razor, which is percent20CIRCUMCISION. For rates and other the idea that the simplest theory or para- Http://www.avert.org/worldstats.htm (scroll information, please write digm is best. In other words, don’t compli- down to the Regional Statistics table). Http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml Tom Flynn, editor, cate things unless there’s a good reason. /rr5402a1.htm#tab1. Occam’s razor, ironically enough, tells us to Http://www.cancer.org/cancer/penilecancer/ Free InquIry, P.O. Box 664 drop the razorlike tool and cease cutting off detailedguide/penile-cancer-key-statistics. Amherst ny 14226-0664 the foreskin—to leave our baby boy the way or e-mail he was when he came out of the Edan Tasca is a Toronto-based writer and editor. [email protected]. womb.

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Humanism at Large

Mark Twain Tries—Again—to Become a Christian Joel Welty

’m Mark Twain. Those of you who may ous master and protected Jim against such fervent religion. Now, in the twenty-first have heard of me probably know that I mischief. century, the residents have had another Iwas buried in 1910, and not prema- It hurts me to confess this, but I sneaked hundred years to enable the full effects of turely. I can’t blame them; I was dead. books out of the house to share with Jim. religion to flower. I must buy a newspaper You may be wondering why this old We laboriously crept through those books to check this out. Palestine must surely be man has come back to life. Oh, I know I’m page by page, puzzling out words. Oh, I the one place in the world filled with good- supposed to wait until Jesus’s second com- knew well enough I was breaking Missouri will, overflowing with tenderness among all ing. But some of us have been waiting law and committing a sin of awesome and mutual understanding and admiration two thousand years and are getting fret- dimensions. That was part of the appeal for for each other’s views. Well, perhaps I can ful. I admit I got a bit twitchy myself, a nine-year-old sinner. Every clergyman in just assume that is so without bothering thinking about all the times in my life Hannibal would tell you, if you asked, that about getting the details. when I failed to make the grade as a enslaving a Negro was to confer upon him Christian. Would I, in fact, be one of the or her the blessings of civilization, of hen the trip to the Holy Land failed to ones called up in all the dust and the rush- Christianity, of eternal life. The loss of free- Whelp me make the grade into Chris - ing crowds and the shouting and weep- dom and heavy lifelong labor meant little tianity, I dropped the whole project as a ing? Or would I be among that sorry lot when counted against such profit. hopeless goal. But then I met and married left behind as Jesus’s parade moved up The war came. In my life, there was Olivia Langdon, my dearest Livy. How can I into heaven without me? only one war deserving that awesome explain what Livy means to me? We loved Thinking over my misspent life, I figured designation—it was so extravagantly each other without reservation. But that I’d better see if I could get my case re-adju- bloody, so impressively expensive, so thor- doesn’t say the half of it. We depended on dicated and worm my way into Jesus’s pro- oughly destructive. Always immoderate in each other for everything and focused our cession. Besides, my dear wife, Livy, insisted our practice of murder, we Americans lives upon each other. I try again to become a Christian. I’d do any- were enthusiastically so when confronting thing to please her, even if it means becom- one another. So, the war came the way ing a Christian at last. tornadoes, floods, and plagues come— without re straint. In spite of the scriptural began my years on the sinful path to hell urgings of Hannibal clergymen, I was “Oh, I knew well enough Ias a young child. I made friends with a reluctant to join the battle. I went west. boy named Jim. Don’t know if he had a Mining towns in the West were rough, I was breaking Missouri law and last name. Never asked. Together, we impolite places, with thieving, cheating, committing a sin of tramped through the woods and swam in and other recreations. I decided they were the Mississippi River. Jim and I loved stories no place for a Presbyterian, so I quit being awesome dimensions. and told each other the grandest lies. We one, adding one more sin to my private list. That was part of the appeal shared sandwiches on an island and man- Later, contrary to the opinions of my bet- for a nine-year-old sinner.” aged to get back to our homes just before ters in Hannibal, I discovered God was on daybreak. You may not think, here in the the side of the North. Northern theology twenty-first century, that this was particu- was more persuasive than Southern. It was larly deserving of an eternity spent sizzling prudent of God to be on the side of the in hell, but in the nineteenth century it more numerous, better-armed infantry, for was. I’ll explain it so you can get a firm reasons best known only to himself. Livy made me read the Bible, but unfor- grasp on the nature of my sinful ways. Being averse to real work, I soon began tunately that just created more doubt. I had Jim was black, a slave, owned by Mr. to write to earn an occasional dollar. I was expected that Christianity would approve of Henning, the superintendent of the lucky enough to be hired by a newspaper the way Livy’s love had resurrected my soul. Sunday school to which I was sentenced. to accompany a group of pilgrims to the I expected Christianity would support my Jim was not permitted to go to school, Holy Land. Such a sanctified crusade would love. Wrong! In reading Jesus’s words, I real- lucky fellow. And he was forbidden to surely help absolve me of my childhood ized that once again I had failed a religious learn reading and writing, because there sins. I found that the Holy Land was not the test. Matthew 10:34–37 reported Jesus’s was no telling what fool ideas he might happy, peaceful, loving environment I ex- words about family: “I have come to set a pick up if he did. Mr. Henning was a virtu- pected of a place that blossomed with such man against his father, and a daughter

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against her mother, and a daughter-in-law ents, desert my home and wife, and aban- to friendship, but there is no friendship against her mother-in-law; and a man’s don my children. He promised me a hun- that can carry the freight that marriage foes will be those of his own household. dredfold payoff if I did, a pretty usurious does. Marriage is an intimate companion- He who loves father or mother more than rate. Exactly what would I get in re turn? A ship. It is our comprehension of another’s me is not worthy of me; and he who loves hundred parents? A hundred wives? A hun- mind, our delight in serving another per- son or daughter more than me is not wor- dred children? The thought is exhausting. I son who delights in serving you. Marriage thy of me. ...” was satisfied with the parents, wife, and is growth and becoming and blooming I was stunned. Love that dead fanatic children I had already, thank you. And I and fulfilling yourself in fulfilling your part- more than I loved my Livy? More than I hoped to be with them in heaven. ner’s development. Marriage is life. Paul loved my parents? More than I loved my But searching further, I found that no missed the whole point of marriage. Paul very own progeny? How could that man one is married in heaven. As Luke reports was ignorant of life. require this of me? Once again, Christianity Jesus’s words (Luke 20:34, 35): “The sons Augustine was just as bad. He reports demanded more of me than I could give. I of this age marry and are given in mar- that when he first reached puberty and loved no one more than my family. riage; but those who are accounted wor- found himself attracted to the female half thy to attain to that age and to the resur- of our species, he did not glory in his growth rection from the dead neither marry nor to maturity. He did not take pride that he are given in marriage.” was blossoming into manhood. He did not I preferred Livy over heaven any time. look forward to achieving a man’s full rela- “Mining towns in the What kind of place is this Jesus’s heaven, tionship with a lifetime partner. No, he West were rough, impolite lacking this most important aspect of life? whined about his “concupiscence”—what Why is Jesus so hostile toward marriage a word!—and he felt ashamed at becoming places, with thieving, and family? mature. He yearned to return to that state cheating, and other But there is, Jesus says, a simple, sure of childhood in which one feels no ripened recreations. I decided path to heaven, if that’s what one wants. sexual longings with a supernatural parent His exact words are reported by Matthew who would relieve him of all necessity for they were no place for (Matt. 19:12): “. . . There are eunuchs decision making or for any of the responsi- a Presbyterian, so I quit who have made themselves eunuchs for bilities of the prime of life. Augustine took a being one....” the sake of the kingdom of heaven. He mistress for a while and had a child with her. who is able to receive this, let him receive Instead of building a caring, tenderly affec- it.” Good grief! He suggests a man take a tionate, and appreciative life with her, he razor to his own testicles and slice them dumped her and took her child away from off to be sure of being accepted into her. This is a Christian saint? Augustine’s I searched the Bible further, hopefully. heaven. Why does castration guarantee of Christian life seems to have been What was Jesus’s attitude toward his own admission? But I notice that Jesus did not the life of a six-year-old lad—irresponsible family? I was aghast to discover Matthew’s do this to himself. It was a case of do as I and immature. Pitiful. report (Matt. 12: 46–50): “While he was say, not as I do. still speaking to the people, behold, his All this bizarre advice about sexual ivy wants me to become a Christian, mother and his brothers stood outside, matters made me lose my calm. I searched Land I look at the Christian ideal: you asking to speak to him. But he replied to through Paul’s letters to see if somehow must be what they call “innocent,” by the man who told him, ‘Who is my Jesus’s words have been reinterpreted, which they mean ignorant of what life is mother, and who are my brothers?’ And somehow softened, so a marriage and a all about. You must be dedicated to God stretching out his hand toward his disci- family like mine could be tolerated. Alas, or you make no decisions yourself but ples, he said, ‘Here are my mother and my no. Paul said, in Corinthians 7:8–9: “To instead merely find out what God intends brothers! For whoever does the will of my the unmarried and the widows I say that it for you—or, at least, what those who Father in heaven is my brother, and sister, is well for them to remain single as I do. claim to speak for God say he intends for and mother.” How rude! Why didn’t he But if they cannot exercise self-control, you. You must avoid love for another adult just say he would be with them when he they should marry. For it is better to marry person and instead love someone who finished work? than to be aflame with passion.” died two thousand years ago and wait for I wasn’t satisfied and searched for more. Better to marry than burn? Good to his return. You must avoid sex, unless you Perhaps later on Jesus would show love for abide single, as Paul did? Since he had not just can’t help yourself. his family? No! Matthew went on (Matt. married, he could not appreciate what This enforced immaturity, this “gift” of 19:28–29): “And everyone who has left marriage can do for a real human. He celibacy, has produced some strange perver- houses or brothers or sisters or father or seemed to think marriage was good for sions in those who claim to practice it. mother or children or lands, for my name’s nothing but to scratch one’s sexual itch. Priests and nuns sworn to celibacy in a sake, will receive a hundredfold, and inherit That is not all there is to marriage. solemn covenant with their god have, in eternal life.” Marriage offers so much more than sex, as fact, sex partners. Some of these priestly sex So, Jesus wanted me to neglect my par- good as that is. Some compare marriage partners are willing adults and they consent

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gladly. Okay. But marriage would satisfy bet- must not tell anyone what is being done to question next summer, when I don’t have ter than these mere bounces in the hay. them by their priests or ministers—not even anything else to do anyway. What bothers me—No!—what dis- their parents—lest these raped children At any rate, I have tried, again, to be - tresses me, infuriates me, enrages me commit the sin of spreading rumors. come a Christian, as Livy required of me. I beyond endurance are those self-congratu- These clergymen spend a great deal of see I failed to make the grade. Again. lating “celibates” who force children of the time telling the rest of us that an intimate Oh, Livy, Livy, why did you ask me to be ages of fourteen, thirteen, twelve, and even knowledge of God guarantees a moral a Christian? We love each other; we love younger into involuntary servitude as their life, and they accuse me that my denial of our children, and they love us. We respect sex slaves. They keep these children handy such a god leads me inevitably to immoral our neighbors in this world, and they re - and docile by threatening them with hellfire behavior. I have not yet been able to recon- spect us. Mostly. Isn’t that enough? in order to rape them repeatedly whenever cile this view with the wide- they find they have an odd moment to spread sex-crimes of so many Joel Welty is president of the Great Lakes Humanist Society. spare. Then they tell these children they godly priests. I’ll work on this

Letters continued from p. 37

into the United States because we may the heavy lifting. (If my critics are right that valve, masking the urgency to address lack sufficient room and/or resources to global government is the only answer, then domestic causes of high birthrates. If the support our population. This is an all may already be lost.) For that reason, I population crisis continues to deepen, the extremely narrow and selfish point of argue that no country should quail from need may well become apparent for numer- view. How does it benefit the “common addressing its own population issues just ous countries to tighten or close their bor- good of humanity”? because the measures it contemplates are ders so that domestic responses (as noted What about the rest of the world? I not worldwide in scope. above, the only ones likely to be richly have no doubt that population is a problem. If some brilliant American (or European, resourced) will have maximum op portunity But, the solution is not to seal the United or Indonesian, or Ghanaian) science team to succeed. States off. The humanistic approach to the could manage to solve the whole world’s Now let’s ponder the nightmare sce- overall issue of population would be for the problems at a stroke, great—but I’m not nario. Suppose that efforts to control popu- United States to welcome some of the holding my breath for that either. For that lation growth fail in every other country. world’s tired, hungry and poor to our reason I argue that the most important Suppose that only an America with closed shores—something like the message we’re contribution America can make to the borders manages to maintain remotely live- so proud of on the Statue of Liberty. global crisis is to get a handle on its domes- able conditions and a functioning scientific Dan Brown tic population issues. Why? First, if America culture. (I understand that the environment DeWitt, Michigan fails to control its own population, that is truly global, and that in such a scenario alone will guarantee that no global solution the “remotely liveable” conditions obtaining Tom Flynn responds: can be reached. (That’s not jingoism, just within the United States would be pretty realism about the giant shadow America horrible.) Nonetheless, it might remain pos- David E. Christensen, Bill Mosley, and Dan casts in this world: if every country but the sible that surviving American institutions Brown are correct that overpopulation is a United States solves a problem, the world- find a way to reclaim the planet following global problem. But we “strive to work wide problem is not solved.) In addition, the tragic but, on this scenario, inevitable together for the common good of human- were America to achieve zero population die-offs elsewhere. This is, of course, a ity” in a world where—let’s face it—there growth, whether by closing its borders or deplorable future that no one should wish is no reasonable prospect of a functioning through other means, its example might for; the best that can be said for it is that it’s world government on any timescale suffi- inspire other countries with objectively preferable to the future where all countries cient to address the current crisis. If this more severe population problems to attack including the United States are so ravaged global problem is going to be addressed at their own domestic situations with height- by overpopulation that they can no longer all, whether we like it or not it will be ad - ened vigor. respond to the crisis. (One could substitute dressed piecemeal, with country after Additionally, consider that transna- any other technologically ad vanced nation country tackling its own domestic popula- tional migration complicates population for the United States in this paragraph; a tion issues. Transnational actors can supply woes not only in zero- or low-growth Soylent Green hell-world where only moral suasion and in some cases funding countries, whose otherwise-sufficient re - England, or Russia, or Korea manages to for specific projects, but given the scale of sources may be overwhelmed by immi- keep the lights on is preferable to a future in this problem, any solution is going to re - grants, but also in countries suffering run- which no nation does.) quire that national governments whose sov- away growth. In those countries, high out- (Continued on page 64) ereignties end at their borders do much of migration can furnish a pernicious safety

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Reviews

Darwin, In His Own Words Lauren Becker

n odd thing happens when one sits down to read a book about Darwin’s A skill as a writer. After only a few pages, there is a strong desire to put down Darwin the Writer, by George Levine (New York: Oxford the book about Darwin and go pick up a University Press, 2011, ISBN 978-0-19-960843-0) 244 pp. book written by Darwin. This is the first Cloth, $35.00. great benefit of George Levine’s Darwin the Writer, and it solves one of the prob- lems Levine laments early in the book: if more people would actually read what Darwin wrote, they would have much less trouble accepting his Theory of Evolution. There are hundreds of books about evolu- overnight. Ever mindful of this shock and those struggling to accept evolution; it’s tion—wonderful, modern books with to help ease its effect, Darwin intentionally very instructive for those struggling to helpful pictures and graphs and better sci- bundled his science writing with some teach it and talk about it with the public. ence, too. Why would reading Darwin’s good, empathetic therapy. Levine explains it Levine’s experience as an English professor original books be better than reading best: “Darwin becomes a narrator of his and literary critic makes him the ideal per- these? scientific argument, who knows what son to dissect Darwin’s writing and figure The difficulty in grasping evolution has it feels like to encounter the sometimes out how it works. He shows us convincingly always been less about the science and overwhelming facts and ideas he describes, why it’s important to pay close attention more about the implications of Darwin’s who has experienced what readers, con- not just to what Darwin said about evolu- “dangerous idea.” For many, many peo- fronted by these facts and ideas, will be tion but how he said it. ple, Darwin’s discovery that life is the thinking and feeling, and who seeks ways One of Levine’s main goals is to help product of random mutation and natural to lead them through their doubts and his reader “recognize that the words selection is too much to bear. For them to reluctance, as he had moved himself, to his Darwin used count, and that the ‘mean- accept that human life is not guided by own exhilarating sense of the world newly ing’ of his work inheres as much in the some cosmic or religious purpose makes perceived.” nuances of feeling, the affirmation of an life too much to bear. If people read only about Darwin’s idea engaged self, and the texture of his argu- Many books about the science of evo- and never read Darwin’s account of it, they ments as in the ideas that have done so lution do nothing to solve this crisis, but miss all the benefits that come from his much to open up the world of organic life, Darwin’s own books do. Darwin was the experience. Levine again: “. . . The world, and ourselves. ...” It’s not clear that this first person to understand evolution by flattened into a generalization about nature was his intention, but Levine’s analysis of natural selection, so he was arguably the red in tooth and claw . . . is utterly inade- Darwin’s skillful writing creates a helpful first person to struggle with its implica- quate to the nature Darwin offers us blueprint for modern writers looking for tions. The consequences of his discovery through his language. . . . His meticulous better ways to communicate challenging caused him great anguish, and in the and yet imaginative prose presents a world ideas. same way that his experience on the that is too beautiful, too complex, too laden For example, Darwin was a natural Beagle gave him deep insight into the sci- with meaning to justify the usual bleak storyteller. His understanding of the natu- ence of evolution, his grappling with this inferences from the theory. ...” For those ral world was based on the “stories” he anguish gave him deep insight into the cri- for whom the reality of evolution cuts too could read in the rocks, fossils, birds, and sis that evolution would cause for oth- deeply, there can be hope. The promise of beetles he found, and his writing is often ers—and how best to work through it. Darwin is that the world we live in is made a retelling of his observations. People are Darwin had decades to adapt his more livable and meaningful because of his naturally more receptive to stories than world view to match his growing under- masterful description of it—but the key is to plain statements of fact, so by conveying standing of natural adaptation, but he actually read his descriptions. his discoveries through stories and anec- knew his Origin of the Species would ask There is a another advantage to Levine’s dotes, Darwin made it easier for his read- readers to adjust their worldview virtually book: Darwin’s writing isn’t just helpful for ers to grasp his new ideas.

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Levine also emphasizes another of relate them to something familiar and Levine spends part of the book exploring Darwin’s rhetorical tools: his tendency to closer to home. Using numerous exam- how several authors of the Victorian era enter the text personally and then bring ples, Levine shows how Darwin’s style of incorporated Darwin’s ideas into their own the reader along with him. On his Beagle writing transferred this insight to his read- writing. He has written full books on this voyage around the world, Darwin experi- ers and helped his audience to grasp subject, and the reader is encouraged to enced wondrous things that most of his extraordinary discoveries by seeing in pursue those for such literary discussions. readers could never hope to witness them- them some of the ordinary processes with These chapters seem out of place in a book selves, yet those experiences were the which they were already familiar. The sig- about Darwin’s writing, but the digression foundation of Darwin’s understanding of nificant side effect of this technique was is more than made up for with the inclu- nature and how it worked. As Levine that ordinary things now had a connection sion of an outstanding bibliography—a writes, “Darwin’s language had to do the to the extraordinary, and all of a sudden a truly valuable list of books about Darwin, work of experience.” Darwin, the narrator, world at the brink of losing its meaning his theory, and its extrascientific connec- expresses his emotions and even shares now revealed meaning in every detail. tions, including websites where the com- moments of skepticism with the reader. In Darwin the Writer, Levine does an plete correspondence and works of Darwin He was able to “anticipate and share the excellent job of doing what most books may be found. readers’ feelings,” and this became “part about Darwin do not. He demonstrates of the argument itself.” Darwin became a that people struggling with more reliable source by making an effort evolution would do well to Lauren Becker, vice president and director of outreach for the to relate to his reader instead of just dis- read Darwin himself and Center for Inquiry, is also a science and nature interpreter who pensing his new ideas about nature. shows that people struggling has taught at museums, parks, and planetariums around the Just as it is easier for readers to under- to explain evolution could country. Known for her commentaries on CFI’s radio show and stand Darwin if they can relate to him, it profit from explaining it as podcast, , she is an experienced environmental was easier for Darwin to understand natu- Darwin did. But there is much activist and advocate for science and literacy. ral phenomena if he could find a way to more to Darwin the Writer.

Apostasy Assessed Ryan T. Cragun

istorically, those most interested in the reasons people leave religion Hhave been the religious. Those who have already left typically aren’t concerned with why people leave; they’re just glad Faith No More: Why People Reject Religion, by Phil Zuckerman (New for the company. But the religious want to York: Oxford University Press, 2012, ISBN 978-0-19-974001-7) 224 know what they can to do stem the tide. pp. Cloth, $24.95. Much of the research examining the reasons for people leaving religion has been under- taken either on the behalf of religions or by religious scholars with the aim of helping religions reduce exiting. This can be seen in the way that those who have left are charac- terized and the terminology used to describe sample, while not random or representative, those whose apostasy is “shallow” or them: they are called “apostates,” “un - is very diverse. The inter viewees are a mix- “deep”; and (3) those whose apostasy churched,” “dropouts,” and “defectors.” ture of races, ethnicities, ages, occupations, is “mild” or “transformative.” The first di - Faith No More, by Phil Zuckerman, pro- and levels of education and include former mension is fairly straightforward, but the vides a very nice change of perspective. Mormons, Muslims, Pente costals, and Pres- second is possibly a little judgmental. It While the author does use the word apos- byterians, among others. refers to how secular people become as a tate to label the individuals he interviews, he The book is divided into ten substantive result of their apostasy. If their apostasy is is clearly sympathetic to religious exiting. As chapters and an introduction and a conclu- “shallow,” they have rejected institutional the title suggests, his goal is to understand sion. The introduction briefly discusses some religion but retain some supernatural beliefs why people reject religion. To do so, he of the previous research on the reasons peo- or ritualistic practices. If their apostasy is interviewed eighty-seven people using ple leave religion and introduces a new “deep,” then they have completely rejected snowball sampling. He recorded most of the typology of apostasy. Zuckerman suggests religion and spirituality. interviews, which were then transcribed. that apostates fall into three categories: (1) The third category is a little confusing. They feature prominently in the book. The those who leave “early” or “late” in life; (2) It refers to the degree of movement along

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a religiosity/secularity continuum. If apos- when people meet and become familiar research into a single volume that will tates were not very religious before they with people outside of their religion who serve as the standard reference going for- left religion and are not very secular after- are good and decent. Particularly for ward. ward, then they are “mild” apostates. If, members of exclusive religions, this can I believe Zuckerman’s conclusion as to however, they were very religious before lead to doubts about the benefits of their the causes of apostasy is probably the they left and are very secular after, then religion. most accurate conclusion to date: people their apostasy was “transformative.” The The seventh chapter is rather unique. It do not typically leave religions for any one typology, then, is a 2 x 2 x 2, resulting in focuses on two interviewees who do not fit single reason but for a combination of some potentially odd combinations. For the typical mold of apostates: they are sociological reasons and other factors, instance, could you have an “early” and female, not affluent, relatively uneducated including their social networks and poten- “shallow” but “transformative” apostate? (or were when they left religion), and have tially psychological proclivities. Zuckerman Since the latter two categories draw upon suffered serious hardships. Statistically, if also, quite accurately, notes that the rea- the de gree of secularity post-apostasy, anyone is likely to be religious, it is people sons given do not guarantee that some- they can potentially be contradictory. like them. Yet both women have given up one will leave religion; they only increase The typology also seems to offer insuf- religion. Both met men who were not reli- the odds of doing so. While it would be ficient options. If you leave religion in your gious but were positive influences in their nice to know by how much these factors mid-thirties and were very religious but lives, leading them to question their reli- increase the odds of someone leaving reli- become only mildly secular, what would gious beliefs. They are used to illustrate the gion, Zuckerman’s qualitative data cannot that be? As is the case with many typolo- influence of acquaintances and significant answer that question. Future research gies, it is probably better to consider it a others on religiosity. should attempt to quantify these factors. guide for thinking about apostate trajec- Chapter 8, while informative and well I began this review by noting that it has tories than for actually categorizing apos- written, seems out of place. Rather than historically been the religious who are tates. Even so, it is somewhat problematic. discuss reasons people leave religion, it interested in why people leave religions That may be why there is virtually no men- strives to describe what apostates are like because they want to stop the flow of peo- tion of the typology throughout the rest of to show that they are moral, happy, ple out the door. I’m guessing that lots of the book. decent people. The next chapter returns to pastors and social scientists working for The ten chapters that follow are pri- examining the reasons people leave reli- religions will read Faith No More carefully, marily focused on reasons people leave gion and notes that parental influence can hoping to glean more insights as to how to religions, and they draw upon the inter- be a major contributor. Many apostates stop the exodus. But given this examina- views. The first and second chapters sug- have a parent who is either not religious or tion of the factors that push people out, I gest that some people leave religion less religious, and that increases their odds don’t think religious leaders can do much. because they find the religion incredible, of leaving religion. I also think it’s time secular activists take in the sense that it literally is not credible. Chapter 10 provides a list of the nine a careful look at this research. If they are Among other beliefs, they reject the fear most prominent sociological reasons that interested in increasing apostasy rates, Faith of hell and Satan that had bothered them people leave religions, but their order does No More provides some actionable sugges- much of their lives. That was the case for not correspond with the chapters in which tions. While secular activists shouldn’t wish the two brothers interviewed whose they are discussed. And the second reason misfortune on anyone, they should be- mother claimed to be able to perform given for people leaving religion—educa- come more open about their nonbelief. exorcisms. The third chapter details how tion, particularly in college—is not the pri- That doesn’t necessarily mean buying more misfortune can lead some people to reject mary focus of any particular chapter but is space on billboards but rather getting to religion. The fourth, which features two instead mentioned in several places. The know people who are religious. Knowing former Mor mon individuals, highlights main focus of chapter 2, which argues and respecting a nonbeliever increases one’s how a religion’s involvement with political that people leave because they do not find odds of exiting. Secular activists can also issues can alienate its members. The fifth their religion’s beliefs credible, is not emphasize religious malfeasance. A DVD chapter examines religion’s regulation of included at all on this list. mail campaign detailing religious immorality sex and sexuality and how it can cause While my discussion of the book to may be effective, especially if it is specific to psychological harm and overwhelming this point has been rather critical, I con- the local area religions. Maybe secular guilt, leading people to reject religion. sider most of these criticisms very minor. activists should consider advertisements Chapter 6 covers two factors that can Faith No More is a very good book—well suggesting sex is better outside of religion. drive people out of a religion. The first is written and engaging. Zuckerman gener- Try this on a billboard: “God Isn’t Watching: religious malfeasance. This is often ally uses his interviews to good effect, Masturbate Without The Guilt.” dubbed “hypocrisy” and refers to the creating sympathetic individuals who extensive immorality observable within are simultaneously believable and useful in illustrating the religions, which can be difficult to recon- Ryan T. Cragun is assistant professor of sociology at the Uni - topical themes he wants to cile with the claim that religions make versity of Tampa and a research associate at the Center for emphasize. The book also people better. The second factor claimed Atheist Research. to motivate religious exiting may occur combines the findings of prior

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Ted Richer Poems

At the Astapovo Excreta Churches Station soon She took me to her old church: shit To see its architecture. No God. I am dead She said I would be impressed. . . . spring too should die “Why?” I said. No God sees. when “The church is small in its . . . I am dead largeness,” she said. No God sees the truth. . . . But still a church, I thought...... soon No God sees the truth, but waits. Outside. . . . shit Inside— So who? I am dead The largeness of the church . . . summer and fall too should die oppressed me. So who sees? when “The church oppresses me,” I said. . . . I am dead “The believers like it,” she said. So who sees the truth? ...... “I don’t,” I said. soon So who sees the truth, but waits? “You don’t matter,” she said. shit ...... I am dead No one. She took me to her new church: . . . winter too should die To see its architecture. No one sees. when She said I would be impressed. . . . I am dead “Why?” I said. No one sees the truth. . . . “The church is large in its . . . and smallness,” she said. No one sees the truth, but waits. shit But still a church, I thought. . . . you . . . No one, Tolstoy. too Outside. . . . Inside— No one. The smallness of the church depressed me. “The church depresses me,” I said. “The believers like it,” she said. “I won’t,” I said. “You won’t matter,” she said.

Ted Richer teaches at the Massa chusetts College of Art and Design in Boston. He is the author of The Writer in the Story and Other Figurations (Apocalypse Press, 2003).

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Letters continued from p. 59

Finally, I note that very intelligent peo- false or bogus alternatives. At least one of The Problem of Evil ple have been sounding the alarm about the age-old philosophical questions is overpopulation as a global issue since the whether reductive materialism can ac count Shadia Drury’s evaluation of the evils of 1950s. If some robust entity capable of for moral choices, as well as whether the historic Christianity are right on the mark mounting a truly global response were human mind is an emergent natural faculty (“The Problem of Evil, Part 2,” FI, Decem - going to arise, it’s had ample time to do so. It is noteworthy, also, that I invoked no the- ber 2011/January 2012). With the excep- None has. So even if country-by-country ological apparatuses in my column, not tion of the Galileo incident, the papacy responses are much inferior, they seem to indeed anywhere else where I discuss these has yet to apologize. Moreover, the apolo- be the only tools we possess. Let’s quit issues (in my book Initiative-Human Agency getics of C.S. Lewis are simple-minded waiting for perfection and put them to and Society, 2000). and show a greater callousness to human work! suffering that even the most tyrannical of popes and bishops. No atrocities have ever Congratulations on securing P Z Myers as been so brutal as those said to have had Comment on Commentary a contributor (“The Evolution Elevator the sanction of God. When the alleged Pitch,” FI, December/2011/January 2012). ultimate moral consciousness is a sadistic Columnist Tibor Machan is, sadly, consis- He is definitely a great addition to the maniac, not much can be said for the tently disappointing in his level of com- already great lineup. morals of us finite earthlings. mentary. In the December 2011/January Dan McPeek Much to the chagrin of a lot of preach- 2012 issue, his contribution “What Is a Sun City, Arizona ers, the moral teachings of Christianity stem Sound Atheism?” is a farrago of under- far more from the teaching of ancient Plato done philosophizing. Does the mind exist? than from actual New Testament scripts. What a foolish question. And is Religion and Rights Plato’s moral precepts were nothing more hardly the only, let alone best, authority to than bloodless abstractions. His notion of verify that minds do, indeed, exist. The Wendy Kaminer’s “New Theocrats vs. ‘New the ideal society was nothing more than a question is whether minds arise out of Atheists’” (FI, December 2011/January human termite hill where everyone knew material causes entirely or whether souls 2012) was outstanding. However, I disagree their places, followed the leader, and asked or other theological apparatuses need to with her statement: “. . . a cultural prefer- no questions. In a situation like this, good- be wheeled in to explain them. ence for religious belief . . . doesn’t neces- will and empathy for others would probably Is ethics part of human life? Another sarily entail substantive deprivation of be in short supply. The church fathers of the question unworthy of your fine publica- rights.” In actual practice, our cultural pref- middle ages were quick to follow suit. tion. Machan seems to understands little erence for religious belief has contributed Moral ideas that are so abstract soon of materialism if he believes that, by deny- greatly to a deprivation of these rights, in - loose sight of actual human suffering. It is ing ultimate free will, it also denies that cluding (1) the right to choose euthanasia not surprising, therefore, that they quickly we have effective moral choice, which is for oneself; (2) the right for scientists to fully become instruments of oppression. to say, the ability to learn from our own experiment with stem cells; (3) the right to John L. Indo experiences and from the social cues, have as little pollution and global warming , rules, and strictures provided by others. as possible (this right was largely taken Burkhard R. Braun away by religious opposition to birth con- San Rafael, California trol); and (4) the right for homosexuals and rationalists to live in an environment of Enhancements: Transforming Tibor Machan replies: nondiscrimination. Humankind Ben Coke Disappointing one reader surely doesn’t The December 2011/January 2012 issue of Salt Lake City, Utah make one disappointing! I never asked FREE INQUIRY raised intriguing issues about whether the mind exists. I mentioned Ayn the possibilities, promises, and perils of cog- Wendy Kaminer replies: Rand only to give an example of a natural- nitive and moral enhancements (“Trans - ist and atheist who held we have minds Not all religious people oppose stem-cell forming Humanisty: Fantasy? Dream? and free will. And contrary to Braun’s research, gay rights, or assisted suicide, Night mare?”). It is clear that the cognitive claim, the question is not “whether minds among other contested practices (and not sciences are weaving a sufficiently coherent arise out of material causes entirely or all opposition to these practices is reli- web of understanding of an embodied whether souls or other theological appara- gious). In other words, religious belief human cognition that processes related tuses need to be wheeled in to explain doesn’t necessarily entail substantive dep- mental representations of facts, feelings, them.” Here we have a perfect example of rivation of rights. emotions, evaluations, goals, and behavior

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(including moral be havior) in ways that are Introduction and his counterarguments to Human history is already replete with en- becoming quite predictable. This ability to three “representative” arguments against hancements, mainly extracorporeal (com- explain and predict creates technological enhancements, a caveat arose when I read puters, eyeglasses, tools) but also encopo- opportunities to remedy cognitive dysfunc- his response to the second objection: “that real. A major advancement of homo sapiens tions, enhance normal cognitive operations, ... namely our sense of achievement will be is the ability to use and create tools in a and to exploit or manipulate cognitive ten- undermined or destroyed” through the use much more sophisticated way than other dencies for economic and political gain. of enhancements. He calls those arguments species. New technology always causes soci- This situation warrants an increased that assert that “the shortcuts provided by etal concerns. Technology is like a genie (or appreciation for the moral aspects of indi- enhancements will not only cheapen and pandora). Once out, it will run its course and vidual responsibility for the formation and trivialize our accomplishments but will also either be adopted as a norm or eventually maintenance of one’s own beliefs. This be - sever the connection between ourselves and rejected or supplanted. The fact that tech- lief ethic can be viewed as a complement to our accomplishments” un convincing. He nology is unlikely to solve our social prob- the classic work ethic, updated to help us argues from “historical evidence” and lems is no reason to restrict it. Society meet current and future challenges in own- specifically mentions several examples (air- evolves just like humans. ing, protecting, and honing our own beliefs. planes, micro waves, and computers) that David Olifant A properly conceived belief ethic can well while enhancing our lives have not led to Houston, Texas serve both the individual and a successful, any “discernable loss of our sense of modern, open society. A belief ethic places achievement or any perceptible dulling of Russell Blackford skillfully describes the a burden on individuals to be skeptical of our drive or ambition.” He goes on to men- debilitation, pain, and depression the aging the truth-claims of others and to place trust tion the chef who uses a blender still taking in the testimony of others only when they process inflicts on our species (“Enhance - pride in preparing a delicious meal or a sur- have earned a reputation for thinking qual- ment Anxiety,” FI, December 2011/January geon, utilizing an array of instruments and ity and intellectual honesty. A sound belief 2012). He writes “it seems perverse to com- machines, taking pride in a successful oper- ethic requires maintaining a high standard plain . . . [about] removing the process, or ation. He writes that “changing the means in one’s own thinking behavior and applying drastically slowing it down.” Obviously. Yet by which we accomplish a goal does not that standard when evaluating the moral what are the demographic consequences eliminate the goal.” character of others. Developing and nurtur- that would follow from “drastically” But, keeping with the “external en - ing a belief ethic depends on minimum lev- extending youthful lifespans? hancements” Lindsay speaks about in the els of understanding of how our own brains The United Nations projects a medium above examples, there seems to be a quali- work and how to use them to achieve the scenario for world population increasing to tative difference in the situation of someone best results. One consequence of the kind 9.2 billion people by 2050, upticking to a like musician Colin Stetson. The man is a vir- of belief ethic I envision is that it must suc- stable population of 10 billion by 2100. If by tuoso of “extended technique” in playing cessfully defeat, or isolate, current cultural then we could double average life the saxophone, most notably the rare and “faith in faith” as a reliable means of belief expectancy from the current 80 years to 160 formation. unwieldy bass saxophone. It is particularly years, we would necessarily cut mortality What kinds of cognitive enhancements the means of production of the sounds rates in half. Even if we simultaneously might lead to more moral brains or increase Stetson makes with his unenhanced saxo- achieved replacement fertility of 2.1 children the value one places on believing true things phone that makes all the difference in its per woman, we would still have to confront rather than false things? Who knows? reception and appreciation, and it does monstrous population growth not because Mothers bond with their newborn babies seem to have something to do with the of birthrates but because of prolonged sur- via a good dose of the neurotransmitter sense of “authenticity” that Lindsay dis- vival. In one exercise, the 2.1 replacement oxytocin. A technologically artful ap plication misses. I have played his music for other (zero) growth rate adjusted with reduced of oxytocin may bond dogs to squirrels, musicians, and their eyes brightened in awe. mortality and calculated against the stable Sunnis to Shiites, Christians to atheists, lib- There does indeed seem to be something base of 10 billion for 180 years with thirty- ertarians to socialists, and, perhaps, brain said for someone who disciplines himself to year intervals between generations would owners to truth and reason. be able to become such a master when the yield a “new” stable population of about 48 Karl Kiefer sounds themselves can all be fairly easily billion by 2280. The possibility that global Centennial, Colorado made and edited together with the “tech- fertility might fall below replacement level— nological enhancement” of the modern say to about 1.85 children per woman— recording studio. would only slow the inevitable process. While I found myself generally agreeing Frank Jude Boccio Because the enhancement model assumes with the major thrust of Ronald Lindsay’s Tucson, Arizona ever rising longevity, mortality rates would

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Letters

shrink over time to near zero while popula- tudes of human interactions. This necessar- fully correct my medical colleague in his def- tion would expand infinitely. Immortality ily implies community, politics, and the pur- inition of tachyphylaxis, which he defined as could be the death of us yet. suit of personal values. That we should dare “the ability of former ad dicts to become Jim Valentine see the matter otherwise reduces us to a readdicted extraordinarily prompt ly.” The Woodland Hills, California morass of chaotic and meaningless data. actual meaning is the (sometimes) rapid I have absolutely nothing against the desensitization to the effect of a substance Russell Blackford replies: genetic enhancement of human beings on a person taking it. Thus, its effectiveness providing that we get our heads on wears off more quickly than desired or ex - I’m not sure that we’re in much disagree- straight. If we are going to enhance our pected. This is kin to his definition but not ment. I agree that there are scenarios where genes and our brain processes, we must be quite an identical twin. life extension would produce ever-increas- able to answer the question: enhance for Sixty years in practice is monumental. My ing populations. If it led to increases in fer- what and why? We must be able to face hat is off to you, sir. tility rates, as is possible if women had many our conclusions with confidence and pur- Stephen Goldberger, MD more youthful years in which to reproduce, pose—hopefully, humanist purpose. Other - Farmville, Virginia it would put an end to current hopes that wise, our attempts at human genetic global population will stabilize and even enhancement may well become a tool in begin to decline. Even if population stabi- the hands of a totalitarian state. John Frantz replies: lized, it might do so at a very high figure, Once genetic enhancement is imple- well above the planet’s carrying capacity. To Alan Harris: Lactose intolerance does mented, it will mo st likely completely However, all this depends on such variables not occur until long after weaning; the “humbug” the Creationists once and for as the degree of life extension that might benefit of not having a occurs all. It will mean in effect that everything prove practical, the speed at which fertility immediately. does not bring forth after its own kind and rates continue to decline in the near future, To Stephan Goldberger: I concede the that we can be as much our own creator and the rate and pattern of technological point about the definition of tachyphylaxis. as a product of cosmic magic. This will diffusion. However, the context was prompt toleration assuredly shake up a lot of people existen- All that said, my aim was not to show of otherwise toxic doses. Goldberger and I tially and no doubt provoke intense politi- that radical enhancement would produce have no significant disagreement. I accept cal and philosophical reaction. Hence, it no problems. Very likely it would produce his congratulation about my longevity as at would behoove us to cultivate values and genuine problems that people of reason least partly due to my making many good a self-image appropriate to a new age of could recognize. Whether those sorts of decisions. human genetic enhancement. problems would be solvable remains to be John L. Indo seen. But we should be careful to identify Houston, Texas conservative biases in our thinking, such as I discussed in my article. Even if, con- WRITE TO trary to the final sentences of the article, we can’t solve certain crucial problems Evolutionary Biology and must renounce certain technologies, that might be a tragic outcome. It’s better John A. Frantz’s article “Evolutionary Biol - to be open about this than to fool our- ogy for Everyone” (FI, December 2011/ Send submissions to selves with talk of, for example, being January 2012) contains some interesting Andrea Szalanski, Letters Editor, somehow, paradoxically, diminished if we observations, most of which make com- FREE INQUIRY, manage to hang on longer to our physical pelling sense. But I would suggest that lac- P.O. Box 664, Amherst, and cognitive capacities. tose intolerance, rather than sweetness, is NY 14226-0664. the most important factor in weaning. A Fax: (716) 636-1733. curious addendum, also in the vein of evo- E-mail: [email protected] To many, the prospect of human genetic lutionary biology, is that in regions where In letters intended for enhancement either by direct manipulation animals suitable for milk production were publication, please include name, of the genome or through the use of drugs domesticated, humans have adapted to ad dress, city and state, zip code, smacks of ’s Brave New tolerate lactose into adulthood, because and daytime phone number World. Some will even associate it with the that became more important for survival. (for verification purposes only). Nazi eugenics program of World War II. It is Alan Harris understandable that conscientious people La Cañada, California Letters should be 300 words or fewer would express due apprehension over the and pertain to previous issue. Unless we become hermits, we will I thoroughly enjoyed Dr. Frantz’s essay on FREE INQUIRY articles. still have to deal with the flux and vicissi- evolutionary biology. I would like to respect-

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International The Academy is composed of nontheists who are: (1) devoted to the principle of free inquiry in all fields of human endeavor; (2) committed to the scientific outlook and Academy of Humanism the use of reason and the scientific method in acquiring knowledge about nature; Académie Internationale d’Humanisme and (3) upholders of humanist ethical values and principles.

HUMANIST LAUREATES Jürgen Habermas, professor of philosophy, Diagnos tic & Therapeutic Center of Athens S.A. 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Wells, professor of German, Birkbeck (USA) Steven Pinker, Harvard Col. Prof. and College, University of London (UK) Adolf Grünbaum, Andrew Mellon Professor of Johnstone Family Prof. in Department of Edward O. Wilson, Pellegrino University Philos ophy of Science, University of Psychology, Harvard University (USA) Professor, Museum of Comparative Zoology, Pittsburgh (USA) Dennis Razis, medical oncologist, “Hygeia” Harvard University (USA)