VOL. 144 WORLD’S OLDEST FREETHOUGHT PUBLICATION SEPT.–DEC. 2017 FOUNDED BY D.M. BENNETT IN 1873

the inquisi ion blasphemy is not racism the christian fallacy the bible and rape dinosaur follies the jesus myth

ADAM GOPNIK JOYCE ARTHUR CHRIS FINAN JAMES HAUGHT PAUL McGRANE VALERIE TARICO PAUL KRASSNER Worse than all other mean acts

are those performed by hypocrites contents under the cloak of purity and virtue. BLASPHEMY IS NOT RACISM 4 –D.M. Bennett JOYCE ARTHUR

WHAT THE BIBLE TEACHES ABOUT RAPE AND RAPE BABIES 10 VALERIE TARICO

OFFICIAL EMBLEM OF THE SPANISH INQUISITION; TRANSLATION: PSALM 73. ARISE, O GOD, TO DEFEND YOUR CAUSE. THE INQUISITION 14 JAMES A. HAUGHT DEAR READER, The Tribunal of the Holy Office of the Inquisition has been Macdonald writes: Christianity stands convicted of the CHRISTIAN FALLACY: the real truth mythologized by generations of artists, writers, and film- most infamous cruelty towards its opponents and its own ABOUT JESUS AND EARLY makers. Catholic apologists, however, have downplayed dissenters, and it is impossible that a religion responsible CHRISTIANITY 20 the church’s role in the centuries-long institution, often for such deeds, the inspiring and instigating power which PAUL McGRANE blaming the torture and burning of heretics on “secular” moved human beings to such revolting blood-thirstiness, officials. The actual number of victims and deaths will can be a true system. HISTORIC MEANS OF GRACE 26 probably never be determined. But the sadistic spirit of The Inquisition is also the subject of The New Yorker EUGENE M. MACDONALD the Inquisition will undoubtedly last forever. magazine contributor Adam Gopnik and West Virginia In the nineteenth century, D.M. Bennett recognized newspaper editor James A. Haught. THE SPANISH INQUISITION and challenged the inquisitorial inclination in the British author Paul McGrane introduces us to his revisited 30 censorship crusade of Anthony Comstock and new book The Christian Fallacy, which provides ADAM GOPNIK his Christian-sponsored New York Society a paradigm for the foundation of Christianity for the Suppression of Vice. The editor of and, according to his publisher, presents AA WIDENS THE GATEWAY FOR 40 the Truth Seeker condemned Comstock’s the “truth” about Jesus “that is stranger ATHEISTS AND AGNOSTICS grim work in print as “The American In- than you ever imagined.” CHRISTOPHER M. FINAN quisition.” It drove several victims to sui- We present an excerpt from our D.M. cide and probably hastened D.M. Ben- Bennett biography about the editor’s close THE JESUS MYTH 44 nett’s death. friendship with Stephen Pearl Andrews, DAVID FITZGERALD AND VALERIE TARICO Nearly a century and a half after D.M. the prolific anarchist author and speech- Bennett’s imprisonment, some inquisition writer for the first woman to run for president. DINOSAUR FOLLIES 48 scholars see a similarity in our ubiquitous sur- Counterculture icon Paul Krassner satirizes last PAUL KRASSNER veillance society and the “enhanced” interrogation year’s retrograde Republican presidential candidates’ This page D.M. BENNETT MONUMENT GREEN-WOOD CEMETERY techniques inflicted on alleged enemy combatants at anti-abortion platform. Canadian pro-choice activist THE PANTARCH 52 BROOKLYN, NEW YORK Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay, and secret “black sites” Joyce Arthur defines the difference between blasphemy RODERICK BRADFORD around the world. and racism. Seattle psychologist Valerie Tarico takes on Cover “COURT OF THE INQUISITION” PAINTING BY the Bible’s promotion of rape and exposes the Jesus myth In this issue, we revisit the Roman Catholic church’s VICTOR MANZANO Y MEJORADA golden age of atrocity. Historic Means of Grace is about with author David Fitzgerald. (1831–1865) a visit to an exhibition of instruments of torture, held in In an exclusive excerpt from his latest book Drunks, New York City. The piece is presumably written by Truth Chris Finan writes about the founding of Alcoholics Seeker editor Eugene Macdonald, who published A Short Anonymous and acknowledges the significant role played History of the Inquisition. In the preface of the 1907 book, by atheists and agnostics. TS – RodeRick BRadfoRd

Editor and Publisher Roderick Bradford Creative Director and Designer Francesca M. Smith

RodeRick BRadfoRd | P.o. Box 178213 | San diego, califoRnia 92177 Visit our website www.thetruthseeker.net The Truth Seeker publication and TheTruthSeeker.net website are funded by the James Hervey Johnson Charitable Educational Trust. Copyright ©2017 Roderick Bradford Blasphemy is not Racism One of our key freedoms is the ability to use the tools of reason and science – as well as satire – to question traditional institutions and ideologies, including religion.

Preface: I’m an atheist who firmly believes that religion is false and mostly harmful. I escaped from a Christian fundamentalist childhood, and that was my “oppression.” I spent many subsequent years researching, criticizing, and attacking Christianity, including the Bible, the Jesus story, and vari- ous doctrines. Does this mean I’m bigoted against Christians? Of course not. I was one myself. Many of my family members and a few friends are Christians, and I love them. Criticizing ideas is not bigotry. The following article calls out Islamic terrorism as primarily a product of Islamic religious doctrine. It’s over a year old, but I’ve been too afraid to pub- lish it. My past public comments on this topic have resulted in accusations of bigotry and racism — from my feminist and progressive “allies.” However, recent encouragement to publish this has come from friends, former Mus- lims I’ve met, and from reading articles by other atheists, and reformist and ex-Muslims. Just today, Armin Navabi, an ex-Muslim and founder of Atheist Republic, gave me further encouragement, and I thank him. This piece was originally written for my former monthly column at Rabble.ca in Jan 2015, a “progressive” political news site. They rejected it — the only sub- mission from me they ever rejected. (They did eventually publish a different ar- By Joyce Arthur ticle that mostly avoided mentioning Islamic terrorism.) This draft represents a revised version that tried to answer their objections, which they still rejected. The final paragraph was just added today.

| 4 | THETRUTHSEEKER.net September - December 2017 | 5 | In the aftermath of the January 7, The French It seems the critics of Charlie Hebdo the various reasons individual wom- … it seems that main victims of radical Islam, by far, 2015 Paris massacre of staff at the were confusing satire of religion with en wear these garments today, their are other Muslims. A 2013 Pew Forum magazine Charlie Hebdo, many people magazine’s humour racism. But Islam is not a race — it’s a origin is patriarchal and their jus- many people don’t poll found that most Muslims don’t on the left slammed the publication for religion. Muslims are not a race either. tification comes from Islamic - doc support terrorism, but that substan- its “racist cartoons,” while few explained was frequently They are part of a religious community trine. The burka and niqab were understand the tial minorities in some countries DO how they arrived at that conclusion. The coarse and not and belong to every nationality and eth- designed to hide women so that difference, so they support it, while significant numbers French magazine’s humour was fre- nic group imaginable, including white men wouldn’t be tempted by their — majorities in many countries — be- quently coarse and not necessarily fun- necessarily funny. westerners. If Muslims are associated sexuality — especially non-Mus- equate criticism of lieve in the imposition of Sharia law ny. But that’s not a crime, it’s just part But that’s not a with Arabs, that’s a western bias (and lim men or foreign invaders. The Islam with bigotry and the death penalty for apostasy. of free speech. probably a racist one). The majority intended effect of these garments Christians and Jews have certainly I absorbed a great deal of media com- crime, it’s just part of Muslims actually live in South and is not only to invisibilize women, against Muslims and been guilty of terrible atrocities in the mentary on the tragedy, and it became of free speech. Southeast Asia, while only 20 per cent but also to put the onus on women call it “Islamophobia.” name of their faith too. But in the case clear that the intent and context of many live in the Middle East and North Afri- for controlling both their own and of Judaism, the worst of it occurred of the Charlie Hebdo cartoons were lost on people unfamil- ca. Silencing critiques of Islam with accusations of rac- men’s sexual behavior, and to send the message that over 2000 years ago (or at least was bragged about in an iar with French politics. The cartoons usually have mul- ism is itself racist, because it holds Muslims to a lower women are valued primarily for their modesty — which extensive catalogue — read the Old Testament book of tiple layers and meanings, combining two or three differ- standard than the rest of us — it defines them by their means that Islam is defining women by their sexuality Joshua if you can stomach it), while the Enlightenment ent issues at once. For example, the magazine frequently religion as if they can’t help themselves, and it assumes from a male perspective. These are factual observations put an end to most Christian violence like the Crusades skewers the racism and xenophobia of France’s right-wing that all Muslims are the same. It fails to acknowledge that have nothing to do with judging individual Muslim and the Inquisition. Yes, modern Israel is guilty of vio- party, the National Front, often taking the satire to absurd their diversity and humanity, and it abandons oppressed women for their choices, which are usually not about lence against Palestinians on the basis of religious enti- lengths such as equating the party with Boko Haram. and persecuted groups within the Muslim world, such as kowtowing to men. tlement, some “pro-life” Christians have been bombing In fact, Charlie Hebdo is a left-wing, atheist magazine liberals, atheists, gays, and women. I see a clear divide between blasphemy and bigotry. abortion clinics and assassinating doctors for several de- that often satirizes religion through the lens of French pol- On a feminist listserv, I once critiqued the Muslim Blasphemy is a type of dissent or criticism against a god cades now, and you can find recent examples of Buddhist itics. It frequently targets Christianity and Judaism too, burka (full body cover) and niqab (face cover) as symbols or religious doctrine, practice, or leader. Bigotry (or hate and Hindu terrorism too. But it’s Islamic fundamental- not just Islam. Its satire of Islam focuses mostly on Mo- of religious oppression of women and their sexuality. To speech) disparages people based on an immutable or ism that is in global ascendancy right now. hammed, Islamic clerics, practices such as the Islamic op- my astonishment, I was roundly attacked as “racist.” But shared-group characteristic — colour, race, origin, gen- The Institute on Economics and Peace found that: pression of women, and Islamic terrorists — not Muslims I have always supported the right of all women to wear der, sexual orientation, disability, age, family or marital “Religion as a driving ideology for terrorism has dramati- in general. whatever they want for whatever reason. Regardless of status, and religion. Yet, it seems that many people don’t cally increased since 2000.” And almost all of it is perpe- understand the difference, so they equate criticism of Is- trated by Islamic terrorists. In 2013, over 60% of terrorist lam with bigotry against Muslims and call it “Islamopho- incidents occurred in just five Muslim countries: Iraq, bia.” That’s alarming, because it’s quickly starting to re- Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nigeria, and Syria. Those same semble the right-wing definition of anti-Semitism — any countries experienced 82% of global deaths due to terror- criticism of Israeli government policies. ism, and four Islamist groups were responsible for 66% Of course, anti-religious satire occurs in a political of those deaths in 2013: Al Qaeda and its affiliates, Boko and cultural context. But the reality today is that Islam Haram in Nigeria, the Islamic State, and the Taliban. An- has a strong radical minority that is engaged in a bellig- other 21% of global terrorism deaths were caused by an erent campaign that explicitly uses religious doctrine to assortment of other mostly Islamic groups. Further, out justify violence. For example, despite all the western com- of nine organizations responsible for the most suicide at- mentary about how the various sins of the French gov- tacks from 2000 to 2013, eight are Islamic (the ninth was ernment and society were to blame for the Charlie Hebdo Tamil Tigers) and the worst incidents all took place from shootings, the only reason that the terrorists themselves 2008 onwards. gave for killing the cartoonists, as well as Al Qaeda which Religiously-motivated terrorism is only a subset of all claimed responsibility, was to “avenge the Prophet.” If the terrorism, and one could argue that the United States and killers were angry at the French government for oppress- other western powers are guilty of political, state-spon- ing Muslims for example, they could have targeted people sored terrorism. But there’s a difference in intent, with in the government or even just the innocent public. But western countries generally trying to avoid harming civil- they didn’t — they specifically targeted cartoonists who ians, while Islamic terrorists make a point of it. Terrorism made fun of their religion. experts consider the phenomenon of “global terrorism” We’re in a clash of ideologies. The liberal western tra- to be a recent one associated primarily with Al Qaeda dition of freedom of speech (however tarnished) is anath- and the Islamic State, whose main goal is existential and ema to fundamentalist Islam. To make matters worse, religious — to impose Islam on the world through armed dissent is impossible within an Islamic state, since re- conflict. Those adhering to radical Islam take literally the ligion and politics are inextricably wed, and blasphemy scriptural references that glorify military jihad (as op- and apostasy are punishable by death. Which means the posed to spiritual jihad). As a result, they commit ex-

| 6 | THETRUTHSEEKER.net September - December 2017 | 7 | treme, attention-grabbing violence to avenge real or per- types of terrorists, according to terrorism expert Bruce lievers to believe whatever they want, but we are under am Harris is a philosopher and atheist who has ceived wrongs. However, their objective is not primarily Hoffman: S no obligation to respect their actual beliefs, especially extensively criticized religion, primarily Christianity and to retaliate against political wrongs, but to exploit those [R]eligious terrorist violence inevitably assumes when they inspire violent acts among a subset of believ- Islam, and the bad behaviours that dogmatic belief can in order to establish a global Islamic Caliphate. Factors a transcendent purpose and therefore becomes a ers. It should be remembered that Christianity and Is- lead to. Harris has a response to “…liberal apologists such as the foreign policy and military imperialism of the sacramental or divine duty… Religion, moreover, lam in particular are proselytizing and conquering reli- who have been saying that their behavior [of the Islamic U.S. and other western countries, and the social exclu- functions as a legitimizing force, sanctioning if not gions. When some of its adherents try to convert others State] has nothing to do with Islam. Rather, we’re told sion and discrimination experienced by immigrant Mus- encouraging wide scale violence against an almost or impose their religion on whole populations, they have that burning people alive in cages, crucifying children, lims in many countries, are no doubt contributing factors open-ended category of opponents. Thus religious placed their views in a public forum and we have every and butchering journalists and aid workers is an ordi- to terrorism. terrorist violence becomes…a morally justified, di- right — a crucial obligation even — to examine and cri- nary human response to political and economic instabil- But those on the Left tend not to look past that. Be- vinely instigated expedient toward the attainment tique what they believe. ity. Even representatives of our own State Department cause even when Islamic terrorists cite political factors of the terrorists’ ultimate ends. This is a direct Western liberals should respond to religious terrorism assert this. I can’t imagine how comically out of touch for their deadly deeds, they almost always cite the de- reflection of the fact that terrorists motivated by a by strongly defending our modern secular societies and with reality we appear from the side of the jihadis.” fense of their religion too, or the Prophet Mohammed, or religious imperative do not seek to appeal to any the democratic and Enlightenment values they are based Harris has also said: “Religions differ, and their specif- their vision of a global Islam. Most oppressed people do constituency but themselves and the changes they on. For example, our immediate response to the Charlie ic differences matter. And the truth is that Islam has doc- not “martyr” themselves in suicide attacks unless they’ve seek…are only to benefit themselves. The religious Hebdo shootings should have been an act of defiant sol- trines regarding jihad, martyrdom, apostasy, etc., that been promised 72 virgins in heaven. And it’s hard to mo- terrorist moreover sees himself as an outsider from idarity — the mass reprinting of the cartoons by media pose a special problem to the civilized world at this mo- bilize terrorist armies without a potent ideology to attract the society that he both abhors and rejects and this around the world. Instead, we mostly impugned the car- ment in history. We deny this at our peril.” Unfortunate- and hold them. After all, there are many non-violent ways sense of alienation enables him to contemplate — toons, the victims, and our own governments. ly, Harris has been widely misinterpreted and unjustly to address political grievances that the vast majority of and undertake — far more destructive and bloodier One of our key freedoms is the ability to use the tools attacked as “racist” (including by Greenwald) for his crit- citizens in the modern world now opt for. But that’s often types of terrorist operations than his secular coun- of reason and science — as well as satire — to question icism of Islamic doctrines and their violent consequences not the case for religious extremists. Radical Muslims in terpart. traditional institutions and ideologies, including religion. (which, again, are mostly inflicted on “errant” Muslims). particular draw inspiration for violence from belief in lit- Journalist Glenn Greenwald wrote this 2013 piece It’s essential to preserving human rights and freedoms, He has voiced his frustration thusly: eral readings of the Koran and hadith doctrines, as well claiming that Islamic terrorism is motivated by political which many fundamentalists and right-wing people as religious/political indoctrination by radical Islamists concerns and not Islam. I spent several hours research- In any conversation on this topic, one must contin- ceaselessly try to destroy. The critique of any religion and or at Al Qaeda camps such as in Pakistan. ing his claims and found that of the seven examples he ually deploy a firewall of caveats and concessions to its fruits is not “racist” or “Islamophobic.” Further, terrorists motivated by religion choose to car- cites, religious reasons were the primary stated motiva- irrelevancy: Of course, U.S. foreign policy has prob- We must defend the right to blasphemy, not criminal- ry out particularly brutal types of retaliation that arise tion in the first case, and were equal or key underlying lems. Yes, we really must get off oil. No, I did not ize it, or silence ourselves out of fear or misplaced politi- directly from their fervent religious beliefs. This makes motivations in the other six. (I’m happy to share my re- support the war in Iraq. Sure, I’ve read Chomsky. cal correctness. Because doing so means excusing terror- religious terrorists much more dangerous than other search with anyone interested.) No doubt, the Bible contains equally terrible passag- ism, and ignoring injustice in Muslim countries. It means es. Yes, I heard about that abortion clinic bombing abandoning women and oppressed minorities who live in 1984. No, I’m sorry to say that Hitler and Stalin there, most of whom can’t speak out for fear of their lives. were not motivated by atheism. The Tamil Tigers? Of I’ve personally heard brave people like Armin Navibi, Ali course, I’ve heard of them. Now can we honestly talk A. Rizvi, Maryam Namazie, and Taslima Nasrin — former about the link between belief and behavior? Muslims who used to live in such countries — ask west- This is a deeply complex issue with no easy answers. erners to please stand up for Muslims and rebut the “re- For example, blasphemy and dissent against religion can gressive leftists.” That’s a term coined by liberal Muslim sometimes be mixed with bigotry against its adherents, Maajid Nawaz for people on the left who refuse to call out and may be hard to pull apart. Some religious believers Islam even though it’s a primary motive for terrorism and take slights against their faith very personally, so perhaps oppression, mostly against people in Muslim countries. one could argue that a devout person’s religious faith is a So I’m speaking up now. Because it’s not my comfortable reflection of their personal identity, and that criticisms of life at stake, it’s theirs. TS their beliefs cross the line into personal attacks. But that can’t be our legal yardstick. The bad reaction of some Reprinted with permission from the author. Joyce Arthur religious believers to critiques of what they hold sacred is is the founder and Executive Director of Canada’s national actually a reflection of their own doubts and insecurities. pro-choice group, the Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada (ARCC). Before founding ARCC in 2005, she ran the Pro- We are not obligated to treat Islam with kid gloves to Choice Action Network in British Columbia for 10 years avoid offending Muslims, or out of fear of being labelled and edited the national newsletter Pro-Choice Press, which “Islamophobic” (which is a false term, akin to being called she began in 1995. Arthur has written hundreds of articles “anti-Semitic” for criticizing the Israeli government). If we on abortion and other political and social justice issues. As stay silent out of fear of instigating more terrorism, then a media spokesperson and international speaker, she has we’re allowing fundamentalist religion to destroy our pro- spoken at dozens of venues in Canada and internationally, gressive values of free speech and critical inquiry. given hundreds of media interviews, and appeared in sever- To be clear, we must respect the right of religious be- al documentaries.

| 8 | THETRUTHSEEKER.net September - December 2017 | 9 | rape happens without God’s active con- ion from the biblical record broadly but WHAT THE BIBLE TEACHES ABOUT sent, which is why Christian ministers so most specifically from the words of Paul’s often end up making pronouncements in In the letter to Timothy: “Women will be saved which they blame one hated minority or Bible, as in through childbearing–if they continue in RAPE AND another (like atheists or gays) for natural Hollywood, faith, love and holiness with propriety” (1 disasters like Hurricane Sandy, and why women exist Tm. 2:15). so many Christians get caught up in Pros- largely as Virtually all Bible books, like almost all perity gospel or blaming victims for their Hollywood movies, fail to pass the Bechdel RAPE BABIES props in own misfortune. It must all be God’s will Test: Are there two named female charac- at work, which leads to some interesting plotlines ters who talk with each other about any- hypotheses about who deserves what. about male thing other than men? In the Bible, as in Conservative Christianity harbors deeply conflicted beliefs about rape. On the one The Bible never teaches that women protagonists. Hollywood, women exist largely as props in hand, a raped woman is a ruined woman. Stories about Christian martyrs abound should have a choice about sex. The Bible plot lines about male protagonists. Biblical with women who chose to die “pure” rather than submit to unwanted sex. On the other makes a clear distinction between forcible plot lines are even more homogenous than stranger rape and other forms of nonconsensual sex, Hollywood, however, in that the vast preponderance of hand, the Religious Right has a sordid history of ignoring, trivializing, defending and condemning the former while sanctioning the latter in females exist simply for the purpose of producing male even practicing sexual assault. many, many circumstances. The fact that conservative offspring. It all starts with Eve, who, after she defies Yah- Christians—or politicians who are pandering to a Con- weh and eats from the Tree of Knowledge, is punished servative Christian base—keep fumbling with these dis- thus: “I will make your pains in childbearing very severe; by Valerie Tarico tinctions is no accident. According to the commands of with painful labor you will give birth to children. Your Yahweh, a man can give his daughters in marriage, keep desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you” A lawsuit filed in January 2017 against the world’s til he is eight days old, having clearly survived the high concubines, have sex with his wife’s servants, or claim (Gen. 3:16). After Eve’s curse, we encounter Abraham’s largest Baptist college—Baylor University in Waco, Tex- mortality peri-natal period. For centuries the Catholic a desirable war captive as his own sexual property after wife Sarah and the slave girl Hagar who Sarah sends to as—alleges that 31 football players committed 52 rapes Church believed that “ensoulment” occurred and a fetus a series of rituals to purify her. In no case, including in “lie with” her husband when she herself cannot conceive. between 2011 and 2014, including gang rapes, all while became a person at the time of quickening or first move- the New Testament, is the woman’s consent required for Then come the pathetic deflowered daughters of Lot who school authorities looked away. The ugly details of Bay- ment, sometime during the second trimester. sexual contact. get him drunk and have sex with him so they can fulfill lor’s rape culture fill a recent documentary book, Violat- However, if we take the viewpoint of biblical literalists Male female relationships in the Bible are determined their purpose. Then come the archetypal bitch sisters Ra- ed. During recent U.S. elections, Republican comments and treat the Good Book as if it were authored by a single by a property ethic. In the Ten Commandments, the pro- chel and Leah who compete over Jacob’s bed and pump about rape, many explicitly driven by Christian belief and perfect, unchanging Deity, then a man is on solid ground hibition against coveting a neighbor’s wife is part of a out the twelve tribes of Israel with the help of a few man- intended to justify opposition to abortion, swelled to fill a thinking that rape babies are part of God’s intentions. broader prohibition against coveting property that be- drake roots. The New Testament leads with the story of multi-page “Rape Advisory Chart” and included the idea Consider the following Bible teachings: longs to another man: “You shall not covet your neigh- Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist who is barren that babies conceived from rape are blessings from God. God made everything, good and evil, including rape. bor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or in her old age until an angel promises her the best thing Conservative Christianity’s failure to achieve moral If the Bible is taken in aggregate as a unified whole, it his manservant or maidservant, his ox or donkey, or any- that can happen to a woman. Her unborn son leaps in clarity about rape comes straight from the chattel culture explicitly teaches that God created evil. Consider verses thing that belongs to your neighbor” (Exodus 20:17NIV). her womb when the pregnant Mary comes into her house, of the Iron Age by way of the Bible, and the perspective like the following: Under Levitical law, men have legal rights that guard prompting one of the most repeated songs of joy in the against theft and property damage, including damage to whole Bible, the Magnificat (Luke 1:40-55). And then, of that God intends rape babies and that such pregnancies I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, women. Coerced sex is considered wrong only when it course, there is the Virgin Mary herself. They are made to should be allowed to run their course is absolutely bib- and create evil: I the LORD do all these things. (Isaiah occurs outside of the contractual agreements men have do it. It is as God intended. lical. To understand why Christian conservatives have 45:7, KJV) backed themselves into such a dark corner, one has to un- with each other. In such cases, the punishments for rape In the Bible, children are counted as assets belonging Shall a trumpet be blown in the city, and the people derstand the actual contents of the “Good Book” and the have to do not with compassion or trauma to the woman to men. Children, like women, in the Bible are treated not be afraid? Shall there be evil in a city, and the moral bind that biblical literalism imposes on believers. herself but with honor, tribal purity, and a sense that a primarily according to a property ethic. In the Old Tes- LORD hath not done it? (Amos 3:6, KJV) I am not going to argue here that the Bible teaches used woman is damaged goods. A rapist can be forced, tament stories of Jepthah’s daughter and the sacrifice that life begins at conception. It doesn’t. The Bible writ- Out of the mouth of the most High proceedeth not evil essentially, to buy his victim. By contrast, a woman who of Isaac, scholars glimpse a residual of child sacrifice in ers had no concept of conception, and no Bible writer and good? (Lamentations 3:38) voluntarily gives up her purity may be killed because she the early Hebrew religion. This in turn leads to the New values the life of a fetus on par with the life of an in- Modern translations variously replace the word “evil” has transformed herself from a family asset to a liability. Testament notion of God giving his only begotten son as a fant or an older child. Levitical law prescribes a fine for here with disaster or calamity, but most people experi- God’s purpose for women in the Bible is childbear- sacrifice—all of which make sense only when we think of a man who accidentally triggers a miscarriage. It is not encing disaster (and many ethical philosophers) would ing. Martin Luther, who brought us the concept of “sola children as property which a father can dispose of as he the same as the penalty for manslaughter. Therapeutic define them synonymously. Furthermore, according to scritura” meaning Christianity based solely on the au- pleases. When Yahweh is pleased with men he multiplies abortion is never mentioned, nor is the status of the fetus the Bible, God did not merely put the universe in mo- thority of the Bible, had this to say: “Women should re- their flocks and their offspring. When he is displeased, he that spontaneously aborts. One Old Testament poet does tion, creation the initial conditions for evil. He is a sus- main at home, sit still, keep house and bear and bring up may kill their firstborn sons, as he does to the Egyptians state that God knows us while we are developing in the taining presence in everything that exists or occurs: “He children. If a woman grows weary and, at last, dies from in the Moses story. When Yahweh and Satan agree to womb, but another says he knows us even before. Under is before all things, and by him all things consist.” (Co- childbearing, it matters not. Let her die from bearing; she play out their cosmic competition in the life of Job, Satan Jewish law, a newborn isn’t circumcised and blessed un- lossians 1:17). In this perspective, no calamity including is there to do it.” He drew his scripturally informed opin- tests Job’s loyalty to Yahweh by taking away is riches

| 10 | THETRUTHSEEKER.net September - December 2017 | 11 | including his livestock, children and wives, and Yahweh slaves can be sent by their mistresses to bear proxy ba- the Bible to the point that it doesn’t condone In a world where what’s done is done, later replaces them with new ones. bies, virgin war captives can be claimed as wives, widows rape requires that we deny much of what we accepting a rape pregnancy and falling There is no sense, ever, in the Bible, that a woman can be forced to submit to humping by their brothers- know about human history and biology. in love with the resulting child is an un- might prefer a choice about having a child; that wise in-law until they produce sons. Presumably any of these If we are ever going to move on from Iron The Bible is mitigated good. Seeing all pregnancy as parents might think about when is best to bring another women can be laid at any time, at a man’s discretion, Age conflicts, it is imperative that people un- loaded with God-intended and all childbirth as a bless- child into their family or how many children they can much as is the case in parts of Afghanistan or analogous derstand the Bible in its own context, not divinely ing from a loving heavenly father helps to nurture; or even less that bringing a child into the world Iron Age tribal cultures today. In such a world, a signif- as a literally perfect prescription for how sanctioned make this possible. But we live in a world should be an matter of thoughtful and mutual decision icant portion of babies conceived will be the product of we should live today but as a record of our rape babies. where we have far more knowledge and making. The only Bible story in which someone declines non-consensual sex. In other words, rape. very imperfect ancestors struggling to live choices than did our Iron Age ancestors. to produce a child is the one about Onan refusing to fa- Christians who like to retroactively sanitize the Bibli- in community with each other, instinctively And with knowledge and choices comes re- ther a son for his deceased brother. He spills his seed on cal record because they insist that it is the literally per- seeking patterns that worked within a given ecological sponsibility. We now have the ability to stop a rape from the ground instead, and God kills him for it. Whether the fect word of God often sanitize it quite literally. They want and technological context to create a stable, functional developing into a pregnancy or an early pregnancy from widow wanted the seed inside her plays no part in the to think of these women as willing participants in sexu- society in which men, women, and children could thrive. developing into a person. Consequently, we also have a re- account whatsoever. al unions with benevolent, high status patriarchs. What As we now know, many traditional gender scripts and sponsibility in this situation to activate such moral virtues The Bible is loaded with divinely sanctioned rape slave girl wouldn’t want one? In reality we are talking sexual rules once served to ensure that men could invest as compassion, forethought, discernment, and, where babies. The Bible both depicts and scripts a world in about forced sex with primitive desert tribesmen whose their energy in their own genetic offspring. The saying, appropriate, action—just as our ancestors had a moral which women have no choice about who they are given cleansing rituals mostly focused on their hands and feet “mama’s baby, papa’s maybe” reflects the reality that responsibility to employ these same virtues in situations to. Daughters can be given in marriage or sold outright, rather than their genitals, armpits or teeth. Airbrushing humans are only partially monogamous, that both men where they were equally empowered. As the popular Se- and women have reason to cheat, and that at the lev- renity Prayer reminds us, what we should do depends in part on what we can do: Grant me the serenity to accept SARAH, HAGAR, AND ABRAHAM BY MATTHIAS STOMER, 1600-1652 el of evolutionary biology males gain advantage if they can control the sexual behavior of females in whose off- the things I cannot change; courage to change the things spring they will then invest their time and energy. The I can; and wisdom to know the difference. As conditions Abrahamic virginity code, which evolved before the time change, our responsibilities change. The kind of resigna- of contraception and paternity tests, ensured a greater tion or submission that once enabled women and children degree of confidence that men were in fact raising their to flourish may now be a barrier to flourishing; a virtue own children. A woman who bled on her wedding night applied wrongly, out of time, can become a vice. was unlikely to be carrying another man’s sperm or fetus This is where many devout conservatives have gone or to have formed an emotional bond that would result in wrong. They have elevated a virtue, devotion, in this case an ongoing extramarital liaison. By increasing male con- devotion to a sacred text and tradition, to the point that fidence that the offspring of their wives were their own, it appears a vice to everyone but those who are caught in the virginity code may have increased the investment of their retrogressive thought spiral. The consequences are men in pregnant women and dependent children, help- there for all to see: Instead of pointing the way toward ing both to survive in a harsh desert environment where wisdom—humility, prudence, discernment, kindness, producing food was hard work. insight, knowledge, and effectiveness—their devotion to The harshness of this environment and human frailty the traditional subjugation of woman under man under within it probably contributed to the mentality that so Church under God (as embodied in a Golden Calf known plagues many Abrahamic adherents. From the time we as the Bible), simply makes them cruel. humans have first been able to understand our plight The Bible is a fascinating and sometimes beautiful as suffering, mortal creatures we have struggled to tran- window into man’s search for meaning, but it is an ugly scend it. But much of life’s hardship cannot be transcend- idol. And until it is given its proper place among the re- ed; it must simply be endured. In the time before modern cords of humanity’s adolescence, it will continue to sanc- science this was even more true than it is today. Con- tify misogyny, forced pregnancy and suffering. TS sequently all of the world’s great religions cultivate ac- ceptance or resignation as a virtue. Islam literally means submission. Buddhism centers itself on the absence of Valerie Tarico is a psychologist and writer in Seattle, desire, on “living into” what is. Christianity teaches that Washington. She is the author of Trusting Doubt: A For- God’s actions are not for us to question. “Trust in the mer Evangelical Looks at Old Beliefs in a New Light and Lord with all your heart and lean not unto your own un- Deas and Other Imaginings, and the founder of www. derstanding.” “The Lord works in mysterious ways.” Sub- WisdomCommons.org. Her articles about religion, re- mit, accept, don’t question. In all cases, submission has productive health, and the role of women in society have a hierarchy: men are to submit themselves to the will of been featured at sites including AlterNet, Salon, the God or to the divine flow; women are to submit both to Huffington Post, Grist, and Jezebel. the will of God and to the will of men. Subscribe at ValerieTarico.com.

| 12 | THETRUTHSEEKER.net September - December 2017 | 13 | lay preachers fled to Germany and Ita- Efforts to stamp out heresy led to the establishment ly, where they frequently were caught of the Holy Inquisition, one of mankind’s supreme hor- and burned. Some hid in caves. In 1487, rors. In the early 1200s, local bishops were empowered THE INQUISITION Pope Innocent VIII declared an armed to identify, try, and punish heretics. When the bishops crusade against Waldensians in the Sa- proved ineffective, traveling papal inquisitors, usually voy region of France. Dominican priests, were sent from Rome to conduct the Also condemned were the Amalri- purge. cans. French theologian Amalric of Bena Pope Innocent IV authorized torture in 1252, and the preached that all people are potential- Inquisition chambers became places of terror. Accused ly divine, and that church rites aren’t heretics were seized and locked in cells, unable to see needed. After his death in the 1200s, his their families, unable to know the names of their accus- followers were burned alive as heretics, ers. If they didn’t confess quickly, unspeakable cruelties and his body was dug up and burned. began. Swiss historian Walter Nigg recounted: A similar fate befell the Apostolic “The thumbscrew was usually the first to be ap- Brethren, who preached and sang in plied. The fingers were placed in clamps and the public. Leader Gerhard Segarelli was screws turned until the blood spurted out and burned as a heretic in 1300. His succes- the bones were crushed. The defendant might be By James A. Haught sor, Dolcino, led survivors into fortified placed on the iron torture chair, the sea of which places to withstand attacks and wage consisted of sharpened iron nails that could be counterattacks. Troops of the bishop of heated red-hot from below. There were the so- Milan overran their fort and killed nearly all of them. Dol- called ‘boots’ which were employed to crush the Christians killed Muslims in the Crusades. Christians killed Jews in many cino was burned in 1307. shinbones. Another favorite torture was dislocation of the limbs on the rack or the wheel on which the In 1318 a group of Celestine or “Spiritual” Franciscan heretic, bound hand and foot, was drawn up and massacres. Meanwhile, another dimension was added: Christians began monks were burned because they refused to abandon down while the body was weighted with stones. killing fellow Christians as “heretics.” the primitive simplicity of Franciscan garb and manners. “So that the torturers would not be disturbed by Others executed as heretics were Beghards and Beguines, the shrieking of the victim, his mouth was stuffed who lived in Christian communes, and the Brothers of the with cloth. Three- and four-hour sessions of tor- uring the first millennium of the church, execution es leaders, but the sect continued growing. The Third Free Spirit, a mystical order of monks. The Knights Tem- ture were nothing unusual. During the procedure, Dfor doctrinal deviation was rare. In A.D. 385 at Trier, Ger- Lateran Council in 1179 proclaimed a military crusade plar, religious warriors of an order that originated in the the instruments were frequently sprinkled with many, bishops put to death Priscillian and his followers against them, but it was a minor expedition with little Crusades, were accused in France in 1307 of spitting on holy water.” for doubting the Trinity and the Resurrection. At Alex- success. crucifixes and worshiping the devil. They were subject- andria in 415, the great woman scientist Hypatia, head In 1208, Pope Innocent III declared a major crusade to The victim was required not only to confess that ed to extreme torture, which killed some of them; others of the Alexandria library, was beaten to death by monks destroy the Albigenses. Some 20,000 knights and peas- he was a heretic, but also to accuse his children, wife, “confessed.” About and other followers of St. Cyril, who viewed her science ants answered the call, forming an army that scourged friends and others as fellow heretics, so that they might 70 were burned at much as the church later viewed Galileo’s. At Constan- southern France, smashing towns where the belief was be subjected to the same process. Minor offenders and the stake. tinople around 550, the Byzantine Emperor Justinian strong. When the besieged city of Beziers fell, soldiers those who confessed immediately received lighter sen- Killing here- killed multitudes of non-conformists to impose Christian asked papal legate Arnald Amalric (or Arnaud Amaury) tences. Serious heretics who repented were given life im- tics was endorsed orthodoxy. Otherwise, heresy was a minor issue. how they could distinguish the infidel from the faithful prisonment and their possessions were confiscated. Oth- by popes and After the turn of the millennium, a few prosecutions among the captives. He commanded: “Kill them all. God ers were led to the stake in a procession and church saints. They quot- occurred. King Robert the Pious burned 13 heretics at will know his own.” Thousands were slaughtered — many ceremony called the “auto-da-fé” (act of faith). A papal ed Old Testament Orleans in 1022. At Goslar, Germany, a community of first blinded, mutilated, dragged behind horses or used statute of 1231 decreed burning as the standard penal- mandates such Christians —deviants whose beliefs made them unwilling for target practice. The legate reported to the pope: “God’s ty. The actual executions were performed by civil officers, as “He who blas- to kill chickens—were convicted of heresy and hanged in wrath has raged in wondrous wise against the city.” not priests, as a way of preserving the church’s sanctity. phemes the name 1051. In 1141, priest Peter Abelard was sentenced to life This was the beginning of numerous “internal cru- Some inquisitors cut terrible swaths. Robert le Bourge of the Lord shall imprisonment because he listed church contradictions in sades” against nonconforming Christians and rebellious sent 183 to the stake in a single week. Bernard Gui con- be put to death.” a book titled “Yes and No.” lords. victed 930—confiscating the property of all 930, send- St. Thomas Aqui- Then, in the 1200s, a storm of heretic-hunting burst Another group targeted for extermination were ing 307 to prison, and burning 42. Conrad of Marburg nas declared: “If upon Europe. The first victims were the Albigenses, or the Waldensians, followers of Peter Waldo of Lyon, lay burned every suspect who claimed innocence. He met his coiners and other Cathari, centered around Albi, France. They doubted the preachers who sermonized in the streets. The church malefactors are biblical account of Creation, considered Jesus an angel decreed that only priests could preach, and command- justly doomed to instead of a god, rejected transubstantiation (belief that ed them to cease. They persisted. The Waldensians had death, much more the wine and host wafer miraculously become the actu- been excommunicated as heretics at the Council of Vero- Opposite TORTURE SESSION DURING THE SPANISH INQUISITION may heretics be al blood and flesh of Jesus during communion), and de- na in 1184, and the Albigensian crusade was directed at justly slain.” Left OFFICIAL EMBLEM OF THE SPANISH INQUISITION. manded strict celibacy. Bishops executed a few Albigens- them as well. Executions ensued for five centuries. The INSCRIPTION: PSALM 73: ARISE, O GOD, TO DEFEND YOUR CAUSE.

| 14 | THETRUTHSEEKER.net September - December 2017 | 15 | Similar hordes led by priests Volkmar and Gottschalk through on June 3, 1098, and slaughtered inhabitants. MARBLE BAS-RELIEF OF POPE INNOCENT lll WHICH ALONG likewise massacred Jews of Prague and Regensburg, Ba- Then an arriving Muslim army encircled Antioch and WITH 23 OTHER “GREAT HISTORICAL LAWGIVERS” HANGS varia. Occasionally, victims were given a last-minute op- besieged the former besiegers. The Franks were near OVER THE GALLERY DOORS OF THE HOUSE CHAMBER OF THE portunity, at swordpoint, to save their lives by converting starvation when one Peter Bartholomew announced U.S. CAPITOL. to Christianity. that a saint had appeared to him in a vision and dis- As the various peasant armies moved through Chris- closed that the lance that pierced Christ’s side at the tian Hungary, Yugoslavia, and Bulgaria, they pillaged the crucifixion was buried beneath a Christian church in auto-da-fé processions contained as many as 1,500 “pen- countryside for food, provoking battles with local peoples Antioch. The Holy Lance was dug up and became a mi- itents” at a time. The Inquisition was brought by Span- and armies. In one clash, Peter the Hermit’s army killed raculous relic inspiring the crusaders to ferocity. They iards to the American colonies, to punish Indians who 4,000 Christian residents of Zemun, Yugoslavia, then stormed out of the city in a fanatical onslaught that sent reverted to native religions. A total of 879 heresy trials burned nearby Belgrade. In turn, thousands of crusaders the Muslim soldiers fleeing in panic, abandoning their were recorded in Mexico in the late 1500s. died in confused fighting in Bulgaria. Only a fraction of camp—and their wives. Chronicler Fulcher of Chartres The horror persisted until modern times. The Span- the peasant mobs finally reached Muslim Turkey, where proudly recorded: “When their women were found in the ish Inquisition was suppressed by Joseph Bonaparte in they soon were exterminated by Turkish armies. tents, the Franks did nothing evil to them except pierce 1808, restored by Ferdinand VII in 1814, suppressed Organized regiments of Christian knights followed the their bellies with their lances.” again in 1820, and finally eradicated in 1834. rabble, bringing profes- Lord Acton, himself a Catholic, wrote in the late sionalism to the Crusade. 1800s: “The principle of the Inquisition was murder- Accompanying bishops ous…. The popes were not only murderers in the great blessed their atrocities. style, but they also made murder a legal basis of the The advancing legions Christian Church and a condition of salvation.” decapitated Muslims and carried the heads as tro- THE CRUSADES phies. During three sieg- Through the haze of legend, the Crusades are remem- es—at Nicea, Antioch, and bered as a romantic quest by noble knights wearing Tyre—crusaders catapult- crimson crosses. In reality, the Crusades were a sick- ed Muslim heads into the surrounded cities to de- downfall when he accused a count of riding on a crab in ening nightmare of slaughter, rape, looting, and chaos— moralize defenders. After a a diabolical rite, whereupon an archbishop declared the mixed with belief in magic. The crusaders killed nearly victory on the Syrian coast charge groundless and Conrad was murdered, presum- as many Christians and Jews as they did Muslims, their near Antioch, Frankish ably by agents of the count. intended target. crusaders brought 500 Historically, the Inquisition is divided into three Pope Urban II launched the First Crusade in 1095 to heads back to camp. Three phases: the medieval extermination of heretics; the Span- wrest the Holy Land from infidels. “Deus Vult” (God wills hundred of them were put ish Inquisition in the 1400s; and the Roman Inquisition, it) became the rallying cry. Around Europe, masses of on stakes before the city to which began after the Reformation. zealots swarmed into mob-type armies led by charismatic torment defenders atop the In Spain, thousands of Jews had converted to Chris- priests. Tens of thousands followed an unwashed priest, walls. Chronicler-priests tianity to escape death in recurring Christian massa- Peter the Hermit, who displayed a letter he said was writ- recorded that a crusader cres. So, too, had some Muslims. They were, however, ten to him by God and delivered to him by Jesus as his bishop called the impaled suspected of being insincere converts clandestinely prac- credentials for leadership. Other thousands followed a heads a joyful specta- ticing their old religion. In 1478 the pope authorized King priest called Walter the Penniless. cle for the people of God. Ferdinand and Queen Isabella to revive the Inquisition to In the Rhine Valley of Germany, one throng of crusad- The other 200 heads were hung “secret Jews” and their Muslim counterparts. Do- ers followed a goose they thought had been enchanted by catapulted into Antioch. minican friar Tomas de Torquemada was appointed in- God to be their guide. This group joined the army of Emich Inside, Muslims decapi- quisitor general. Thousands upon thousands of scream- of Leisingen, a leader who said a cross miraculously had tated Antioch’s Christian ing victims were tortured, and at least 2,000 were burned. appeared on his chest as a holy sign. Emich’s multitude residents and catapulted The Roman period began in 1542 when Pope Paul III decided that, before marching 2,000 miles to kill God’s their heads outward in a sought to eradicate Protestant influences in Italy. Under enemies in Israel, their first religious duty was to slay grotesque crossfire. The Pope Paul IV, this inquisition was a reign of terror, killing “the infidels among us,” the Jews of Mainz, Worms, and crusaders finally broke many “heretics” on mere suspicion. Its victims includ- other German cities. They swept in unstoppable waves ed scientist-philosopher Giordano Bruno, who espoused through Jewish quarters, chopping and burning thou- Copernicus’s theory that planets orbit the sun. He was sands of defenseless men, women, and children. Many burned at the stake in 1600 in Rome. Jews, trapped and doomed in barricaded quarters, tear- MASSACRE OF THE WALDENSIANS OF MÉRINDOL The Inquisition blighted many lands for centuries. In fully killed their children and themselves before the mob IN 1545 BY GUSTAVE DORÉ Portugal, records recount that 184 were burned alive and broke in. (1832-1883)

| 16 | THETRUTHSEEKER.net September - December 2017 | 17 | (Whether the Holy Lance was The victim was the death of a pagan, because thereby genuine or a planted fake wasn’t Christ himself is glorified.” questioned by the crusade’s chron- required not only In the Fourth Crusade, the armies icler-priests. Christendom was ob- to confess that he became diverted and sacked the sessed with finding and worshiping Christian cities of Constantinople and sacred relics, alleged evidence from was a heretic, but Zara. The Children’s Crusade in 1212 Bible stories. Fragments of “the true was a tragedy based on the mistak- cross,” pieces of saints’ bodies, still also to accuse his en belief that God would empower wet tears shed by Jesus, barbs from children, wife, friends innocent Christian tots to overwhelm the Crown of Thorns, Mary’s under- Muslim armies. Most of the children garments—such were treasured in and others as fellow perished without reaching the Holy jeweled cases in every major church. Land. A ruler of Saxony proudly possessed heretics, so that they Finally, it all came to an end in 17,000 relics, including a branch from might be subjected to 1291 when Muslims recaptured the Moses’s burning bush and a feather last Christian stronghold, Acre, and from the wings of the Angel Gabriel. the same process. slaughtered its garrison in retaliation Canterbury Cathedral displayed part for Richard’s massacre a century ear- of the clay left over after God fashioned Adam. Historian lier. The Holy Land was back in Muslim hands. Two cen- Charles Mackay said Spanish churches had six or seven turies of death and destruction had been for nothing. thighbones of the Virgin Mary, and others had enough of Subsequent popes attempted to rouse armies for fur- St. Peter’s toenails to fill a sack. Voltaire noted that six ther crusades, but few legions responded. A final spasm sacred foreskins were snipped from Jesus at his circum- occurred three centuries later, after Muslims had cap- cision; later researchers counted fifteen.) tured Constantinople. Pope Pius V decreed a crusade, Marching on to Jerusalem, the crusaders soon topped and Christian kings supplied a naval armada command- the walls and “purified” the symbolic city by slaughtering ed by Don Juan of Austria. French historian Henry Dan- virtually every resident. Jews who took shelter in their iel-Rops recounted: synagogue were burned alive. Corpses were piled in the On October 7, 1571, Christ’s warriors, chanting the streets. Chronicler Raymond of Aguilers recorded: psalms, gave battle in the Gulf of Lepanto. It was a terri- Wonderful things were to be seen. Numbers of ble engagement, full of surprises and anxiety. Don Juan the Saracens were beheaded…. Others were shot himself stood on the prow of his flagship, holding a cru- with arrows, or forced to jump from the towers; cifix. When evening fell over the glorious bay, the smoke others were tortured for several days, then burned of burning Turkish galleys spread a reek of timber and in flames. In the streets were seen piles of heads corpses. The entire enemy fleet had been destroyed or and hands and feet. One rode about everywhere captured, and aboard the Marquesa a wounded soldier amid the corpses of men and horses…. named Miguel de Cervantes, whose arm had been shat- In the temple of Solomon, the horses waded in tered in the fight, joined in theTe Deum. TS blood up to their knees, nay, up to the bridle. It was a just and marvelous judgment of God, that this place should be filled with the blood of the un- Excerpt from Holy Horrors: An Illustrated History of Re- believers. ligious Murder and Madness, by James A. Haught (Pro- During the subsequent two centuries, Muslim recap- metheus Books, 2002). Copyright © James A. Haught, tures of portions of the Holy Land caused seven other 2002. Reprinted with permission from the author. Christian crusades. Most of these expeditions began, as James A. Haught is editor emeritus of the Charleston the first had, with massacres of Jews at home. (West Virginia) Gazette-Mail and a senior editor of Free In the Third Crusade, after Richard the Lion-Hearted Inquiry. He is also the author of numerous books and captured Acre in 1191, he ordered 3,000 captives—many articles; his most recent book is Religion is Dying: Soar- of them women and children—taken outside the city and ing Secularism in America and the West (Gustav Broukal massacred. The corpses were cut open in a search for Press, 2010). Haught has won 21 national news writing swallowed gems. Bishops intoned blessings. Chronicler awards and thirty of his columns have been distributed Ambroise wrote: “They were slaughtered every one. For by national syndicates. He is in Who’s Who in Ameri- this be the Creator blessed!” Infidel lives were of no con- ca, Who’s Who in the World, Contemporary Authors, and sequence. As St. Bernard of Clairvaux had declared in 2000 Outstanding Intellectuals of the 21st Century. His launching the Second Crusade: “The Christian glories in website is haught.net.

| 18 | THETRUTHSEEKER.net September - December 2017 | 19 | tual existence as a historical figure. This book is written a wholly new and original understanding of how Chris- from such a point of view. I believe, along with very many tianity came about. Christianity as we know it emerged Paul McGrane has a First Class Degree in 5 English Literature from Ulster University and people, that every part of the traditional story of Jesus gradually from the ferment of messianic and apocalyptic a Doctorate from Oxford University. He is now is historically suspect. But for me, this purely negative Jewish religious sects that arose in the near East in the retired from a successful business career, both assertion is not enough. The recent profusion of books first century of the Christian era. It was originally a Jew- as an entrepreneur, and at board level in com- attacking Christianity do little or nothing to explain how, ish sect, differing from the others only in its distinctive be- panies including Guinness Brewing and Pruden- nevertheless, the story of Jesus, enshrined in a religion liefs about ‘Jesus Christ’. The original Jewish adherents tial UK. He is married with three adult children, called Christianity, came to dominate Western civilisa- of the sect were accepted by other Jews as Jewish, and and two grandchildren, and divides his time tion for 2000 years. The Gospels may be fiction—and I continued to participate in the Jewish way of life. Many equally between homes in rural Norfolk and shall argue that they are—but their writers claimed to be attempts have been made to identify the original Chris- Spain. https://reddoorpublishing.com conveying truth. Were they liars, or perhaps deluded, or tian sect with other sects known from that time, partic- were they themselves misled? What was really going on in ularly (following the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in the first half of the first century ad? It is to questions like the mid-twentieth century) with the Essene sect that is fact that in an age of scepticism and falling church these that this book seeks to find answers. believed by a majority of scholars to be the source of most attendance, people are as fascinated as ever by Christianity is a religion founded on assertions about of those documents. But there is no reason why any such the story of Jesus and the origins of Christiani- historical events in the first century ad. But these asser- identification should turn out to be true—there were so ty. The sceptical interest has also been fuelled in tions are largely without supporting evidence from out- many versions of Judaism at this time, the Christian sect more recent times by the overt decision by certain side the Bible and, in places, conflict with what we do could in principle be distinct and separate from all the atheist writers and thinkers—people like Rich- know about what was actually happening at the time. others of which we have knowledge. To avoid prejudging ard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris This will surprise many. Christians are often taught by this, or any other issue that will be the subject of this and Daniel Dennett—to come out of the closet their leaders that their faith is supported by the findings book, I have called the sect with which we are here con- and proclaim not just the case for atheism, but of historians and archaeologists, and the media often run cerned the ‘Jesus Movement’, because it was belief in the the proposition that mankind and civilisation stories about new ‘evidence’—new archaeological finds, specialness of Jesus that set it apart from its rivals. would be better off if we abandoned belief in new manuscripts—that seem to bear out the historical The new paradigm set out in The Christian Fallacy the supernatural entirely. For Western civilisa- truth of the Bible. But in all the key essentials, the idea provides a revised chronology for events in the first half of tion, based on Christianity since Constantine that the story of Christianity has any basis in histori- the first century ad; identifies who the key players really adopted it for the Roman Empire, the issue cal fact is misguided and wrong. For this reason, there were at the time, including the historical figure of Jesus of belief in God is inextricably bound up with is a plethora of theories to compete with the tradition- himself; and shows how the religion we call Christiani- the parallel issue of belief in Christianity. al Christian account, and an increasing supply of titles ty evolved from competing understandings of what the Surely then there can be nothing new to that offer alternative views—that for example, Jesus was Jesus Movement was all about. Most important of all, I 2 3 say after over two millennia of Christian be- a revolutionary, or a pagan philosopher, or even a mag- believe it provides an account of people and events that is 4 lief, biblical interpretation, and theological ic mushroom. But the fact that Jesus can (arguably) not just intellectually plausible but also psychologically enquiry? I have the temerity to think there be demonstrated plausibly to be so many very different satisfying. So many other theories of who Jesus was fail is. The majority of books about Christianity things surely points to the truth: the stories about him in that crucial test—they rely upon an acceptance that peo- are of course written by committed Christians of the Bible are drawn from and influenced by most if not all ple would have behaved in a way that seems implausible one variety or another—that is, their authors subscribe of these different versions and more, and that his com- in the real world of the first, or indeed any, century. Of to the belief that Jesus was the ‘Son of God’, the divine posite nature results from fictional mythmaking rather course, it is hard—verging on impossible—for us today intersecting with the human in a unique event of eter- than historical reality. As I shall show, the Jesus of the to recreate for ourselves the mindset of a Jew or Gentile Introduction nal significance to mankind. Whatever they have to say Gospels was invented by early Christian writers to give living in first-century Palestine under Roman occupation. about Jesus in particular is written out of the paradigm flesh-and-blood reality to a heavenly figure about whom But these were human beings nonetheless, and their be- I Techniques and Approach promulgated by the Christian church: that Jesus was a they knew next to nothing. liefs, motivations and actions should be broadly compre- You may ask why we need yet another book about Chris- Jew, born at or around the beginning of the Christian Very few books offer a comprehensive and satisfying hensible to us; any interpretation of what happened then tianity. After all, the British Library main catalogue lists Era; that he began his ministry at about thirty years of answer to the question: ‘Who exactly was Jesus and how needs to convince by an overall coherence, consistency nearly 20,000 volumes with ‘Jesus’ in the title and this age by being recognised and baptised by John the Bap- does that relate to what Christians came to believe after and, at the end of the day, a simple likelihood that this is must just scrape the surface of books that have Jesus tist; that he was crucified three years after that, but that his death?’ In this book I have set out to do just that. I what actually happened. and the Christian religion as their subject. Indeed, in re- his new religion was spread to the Gentiles (non-Jewish will develop in the following pages a new paradigm—a The new paradigm is also based on real research and cent decades,1 the number of books appearing has in- people) by his followers, chief of whom were Peter and new framework for understanding the origins of Chris- mainstream sources and materials. It is emphatically not creased exponentially, and is now supported by an av- Paul. However, for the last two centuries, an increasing tianity—that broadly accepts the validity of many of the based on esoteric ideas, or some spectacular new dis- alanche of self-publication and internet-based interest proportion of writers about Jesus have taken, to some various competing theories about Jesus, but which tran- covery of documents, inscriptions or archaeological arte- groups, all pursuing the subject of Christian belief from degree, a sceptical stance—sceptical certainly about his scends them and takes the argument a step further into facts. It does not require the reader to become an expert every conceivable angle. This is powerful testimony to the divine status, but more recently, sceptical about his ac- 2There are a multitude of works taking this line—notably Eisenman’s James, the Brother of Jesus. 3Notably T. Freke and P. Gandy, The Jesus Mysteries. 1 Particularly following publication of Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion. For full details of this and all works referred to in footnotes, please 4Notoriously, John Allegro’s The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross. see the Select Bibliography at the end of this book. 5i.e. relating to the ‘End of Days’.

| 20 | THETRUTHSEEKER.net September - December 2017 | 21 | on the Dead Sea Scrolls or, indeed, on the Bible as a cations, correspondences and harmonisations that just I do not start from this perspective, which requires follow any prescribed code of conduct. In fact, Paul does whole. It does not rely on arcane formulae, numerological multiply the assumptions. a step of faith I see no reason to take. Just because the seem to say that faith in Jesus is the only thing neces- calculations, celestial observations, parallels with other I have also been guided by an early Victorian poet who Bible (or to be more precise, the Christian Church, based sary for salvation—that there is nothing that man can do religions or esoteric associations with other cults. Nor is had an unwavering commitment to the human critical on one or two of the individual documents that comprise to affect things. This point—the dichotomy between the it the result of divine revelation, prophetic dreaming or faculty, and faced up to where that led—the existential the Bible) claims to represent the Word of God is no rea- ‘works’ of man, and ‘faith’ in Jesus alone—became very deep psychological probing. As one might expect from a crisis of faith that he and his generation were the first son to accept that it does so. The world is full of oth- rapidly the key point of theological debate for the early writer whose training is in literary criticism, it is sim- really to experience. Matthew Arnold provides the quota- er holy texts making similar claims, so why believe just Church; it was more than any other, the issue on which ply based on detailed and, in some cases, radical critical tion at the start of this book: this one?7 By not making that step of faith, one is free to the Reformation turned. And so it remains to this day. re-examination of just a few key texts, trying to put aside Not deep the poet sees, but wide.6 seek explanations, unfettered by a need to find unerring The implications of salvation by faith alone are various: two millennia of interpretation founded on expectations consistency or conformity with other sources of historical 1 If man can have no effect on his future eternal fate by I am no poet but I do think that the truth about the real of divinely inspired harmony and coherence. The texts knowledge. And so, what the Christian Church regards his own efforts, what is the implication for individual roots of Christianity lies not in esoteric theories or new in question are some parts of the writings of the Jewish as seeking the truth through harmonisation of inconsis- free will? A God who is omniscient must have known discoveries, but in seeing the wood for the trees: no single historian Josephus, the apostle Paul’s letters, the proph- tencies, and explication of errors, I regard as so much at the beginning of time who would be ‘saved’ and element of my solution can be ‘proved’ beyond a shadow ecies of Zechariah in the Old Testament, and the Book of special pleading for what in my opinion is the long lost who wouldn’t be; in some sense8 at least therefore, of a doubt, but taken as a whole, the paradigm offered Revelation and the Acts of the Apostles in the New Testa- cause of ‘scriptural inerrancy’. What the Church regards He must have ‘predestined’ some people to eternal in the following pages provides a better overall fit with ment. That’s it. Of course, I shall in passing draw much as fulfilled prophecy from the Old Testament, I regard damnation about which they could do nothing at all. what we know than any other. The reason why there are more widely on the Bible and other texts, but these are all as New Testament fictionalising based on texts wrenched Acceptance of this idea characterises many extreme so many books about Jesus is because the evidence is incidental to my core argument. I think the answer has out of context. Christian apologists have had two millen- Protestant sects to this day. For them, salvation from been staring us in the face all along. To find it, we just so contradictory. Focus on any specific issue, and the nia in which to smooth away all the difficulties, and the this terrible fate lies in strict adherence to their own need to sweep aside 2000 years of credulous, uncritical scope for ‘deep’ disagreement is endless. But accept for faith of millions today, if not based purely on faith in the theological interpretation of the Bible. the moment that the new paradigm is correct, and it will interpretation; read the key texts afresh with an eye to teachings of one church or another, is based on these ex- 2 A less extreme view of the matter is that free will does become apparent how it manages to be ‘wide’ enough to who wrote them and with what agenda; and then ask planations. For me, this is all incredible at best and dis- exist, but ‘predestination’ is also somehow true. C. S. encompass all the more limited theories, and to provide ourselves what is the most likely explanation for it all. honest at worst. I am not alone of course. As I will show Lewis called this an ‘antinomy’. The reconciliation of a contextual framework in which they all then find their In judging likelihoods, I have been often guided by in this book, there have been many scholars over the past this antinomy is beyond our human understanding, natural place. This new paradigm is the basis on which I two very straightforward ideas. The first is the relatively couple of centuries at least who, looking at the evidence but we can trust that God has it all sorted out. This invite the reader to judge this book. simple philosophical concept of Occam’s Razor. There are with an open mind and a rational outlook, have reached somewhat muddled compromise characterises most many different versions and expressions of this principle, a similar sceptical view. Most such sceptical scholars are mainstream Protestant groups, including, for exam- but in essence, it states that among competing hypoth- II Jesus and Paul reasonably united in the belief that whoever and what- ple, the Anglican Church. eses, the hypothesis with the least assumptions is prob- The subjects of this book have preoccupied me (on and ever Jesus was (or wasn’t), he did not actually found the 3 The Catholic Church as a whole, however, has never ably the right one. It cautions us that whenever we find off) for the last forty years. Who exactly was the historical religion we know today as Christianity. really accepted predestination, at least without severe ‘multiplied entities’ to explain something, the chances Jesus? What did he believe and teach? How does this Opinions vary widely about exactly what Jesus taught, qualification. It solves the problem through a range of rise that the explanation is false. I am not suggesting that relate to the actions and teachings of the early disciples but it does seem very clear that early Christianity, as an ideas—notably the existence of purgatory where sins the Razor is infallible, nor am I denying that judgments and apostles who together laid the foundations for Chris- organised religion, was founded not by Jesus but after can be expiated over time, and an ordained priest- about what is simple and what is complex will have a tian belief as we know it today? For me, the traditional his death by others, based particularly on the writings of hood who mediate between man’s sinful behaviour considerable degree of subjectivity. But all other things Christian answers to these questions are unsustainable; the apostle Paul. Paul’s theology seems to have originated and the provision of God’s mercy made possible by being equal, it is a matter of common observation that if the Christian narrative, as set out in the Bible and sub- with visions he claimed to have had, initially at the time the sacrifice of Jesus. These ideas are not to be found an explanation of something requires one to believe a lot sequently mediated by Church doctrines, is simply unbe- of his conversion and on an unknown number of occa- in Paul’s writings (or, arguably, anywhere else in the of unlikely things, it will probably turn out to be wrong. lievable. I say this, not because of the supernatural ele- sions subsequently. These led him to believe that some- Bible) but were developed over the first few centuries Any multiplication of entities probably indicates falsity. ments, although many readers may feel this is enough, one he calls ‘Jesus’, or ‘the Lord’, has become a human ad, and are the reason why Paul’s theology is less As we shall see, the New Testament is full of such multi- but because even putting rational scepticism to one sacrifice acceptable to God for the remission of the sins prominent in Catholic dogma than in Protestant. plicities of events and people. The same names turn up side, the Bible itself is too full of internal inconsistencies (i.e. ‘salvation’) of all those that believe in him. It is a mat- 4 For others, the key point is that Jesus has freed man- again and again; the same incidents seem to be recount- (which we shall look at later) to be accepted as in any real ter of theological debate as to the degree to which Paul kind from all external ‘laws’ and man is therefore now ed twice; the same phrases recur. It is a central argu- sense, the ‘Word of God’. This is hardly a new perception. saw Jesus as divine and how this divinity related to God: free to live according to his conscience—or the in- ment of this book that these multiplying entities disguise, Theologians have wrestled with all the inconsistencies the doctrine of the Holy Trinity—God the Father, God the ternal guidance of God within the individual believ- either by intention or accident, a much simpler reality since the earliest days of the Church. However, in doing Son, and God the Holy Spirit (or Holy Ghost)—was devel- er. This manifested itself from the beginning in the which has been obscured by the creation of layers of nar- so, they have been constrained by their belief in what is oped by the Church over succeeding centuries. But Paul plethora of ‘Gnostic’ sects that arose and flourished rative that conveniently ‘explain’ some very inconvenient known as ‘scriptural inerrancy’—the upfront conviction taught that the remission of sins of all believers was free- from the second century ad onwards. We shall look facts. On this basis of course, the traditional Christian that as the Word of God, Scripture is infallible and there- ly available to all that placed their faith in Jesus, Jew and more closely at these later. In the modern era, the interpretation fails Occam’s test because it makes the fore by definition cannot be mistaken, inaccurate or con- Gentile alike and that, as a result, God was offering a new Quaker movement is probably the best example of biggest assumption of all: that there is a God and that tradictory. God is perfect and therefore, His Holy Word covenant with mankind that replaced the need for man to this line of thinking. the Bible is His Word. But the Razor also works against must be perfect, too. If Scripture appears imperfect, the a whole range of other paradigms that require identifi- mistake derives from man’s imperfect understanding. 7Indeed, I could make the same claim of infallibility for The Christian Fallacy—but that of course would be ludicrous... 8 The degree to which God’s foreknowledge implies predestination was the key issue between Lutheran Churches and Calvinist Reformed 6 From ‘Resignation’, 1849. Churches, but such distinctions between extreme Protestant sects need not concern us here.

| 22 | THETRUTHSEEKER.net September - December 2017 | 23 | We shall see that this ‘faith/work’ dichotomy has its roots with similar questions about Paul—who he was and what human, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that Paul was ever possible identify for each text who wrote it and, more in the more parochial concerns of the early Jesus Move- he taught. dishonest; that he knew his religion to be nonsense (be- important, why—identify that is, what political, personal ment, but Paul’s interpretation of it lies at the heart of all Those who, like me, reject the standard Christian nar- cause everyone told him it was) but promulgated it nev- and religious biases influenced the original writer and, these later developments in Christianity. It is an extraor- rative broadly take one of two views about Jesus himself. ertheless. And this leads then to the inevitable idea that equally important, may also have influenced subsequent dinary fact that if one is looking for a clear statement of One view, and probably the most prevalent among those his motives must have been material—either power or editors—we can never assume that what we read today Christian theology on this matter—or indeed any other— who have no active Christian faith but have never delved money, or both. is precisely what the original author or authors wrote. one would be hard put to find it in any of the Gospel ac- into the evidence, is that Jesus was an historical person, However, there is also a second view about Jesus, prob- In my view this requires careful textual study, but also a counts of Jesus’ life. It was Paul who developed the theolo- but that he was not the ‘Son of God’. In this view, Jesus ably less popular but growing in its adherents as ratio- broad grasp of historical context. There is so much in the gy of Christianity in his letters to various early Churches, is seen as variously, a Teacher, a Prophet, a ‘Good Man’, nal enquiry into scriptural texts continues, and as more written record that is inconsistent and contradictory that and it is to Paul that theologians look for answers to the a Rebel, a Revolutionary, a Pharisaic Rabbi, an earth- ancient texts are discovered, that far from being a mortal unless one stands back to see the whole picture, one can key issues of Christianity as an organised religion. This ly Messiah. There are many scholarly and popular ac- man, Jesus in fact never actually existed. In this view, Je- too easily be drawn into seductive error. The history of is downplayed to some extent by all versions of Christi- counts of Jesus that champion one or another of these sus was a mythical character, a Jewish equivalent to the post-Reformation, sectarian Christianity shows how easy anity, although especially by the Catholic Church, which pictures of him. On this view, the Christian religion as we many other gods of the ancient world who were said to it is to go down that path. The smallest textual ambiguity likes to explain away those of Paul’s teachings that seem now know it was created after Jesus’ death by the apos- have died and been reborn, for the benefit of nature and can lead to schism and eventually a proliferation of sects, to contradict Church teachings. Paul is more prominent tle Paul, from personal ‘visions’ and ‘transports’ that he mankind. This mythical view has the advantage of exon- each conveniently overlooking the interpretation that in Protestant theology; in many ways, Paul was rediscov- experienced over a number of years, which he combined erating Paul. It implies that Paul was essentially honest other sects regard as fundamental. We must examine the ered by the leaders of the Reformation. Nevertheless, he with Old Testament passages, and ideas from classical about the visions he saw and what he came to believe as a relevant details and then step back and grasp the whole. is still traditionally regarded by ‘reformed’ churches as philosophy and the various Mystery Religions popular in result; he may have been delusional or even psychotic, but Given the inconsistencies and ambiguities, no overall in- simply explaining and promulgating what Jesus original- the Roman Empire at the time. in matters of faith, when he said he ‘did not lie’, he was be- terpretation will fit every detail. But some will feel more ly taught. And if this book is to grapple with the puzzle of A major problem for me with all these sceptical ‘Je- ing truthful to his subjective experience, and no one could reasonable, coherent and likely than others. the historical Jesus, it must inevitably therefore also deal sus as mortal man’ theories is that they fly in the face challenge or question his right to that experience. This book will offer a new paradigm for the founda- of human psychology. They require that In this book I shall argue that there was an histor- tion of Christianity. It will trace how longstanding Jew- Paul should have promulgated the idea ical figure called Jesus, but he lived so long before the ish ideas about God and His interactions with humanity of Jesus as Son of God, against over- Christian era that early Christians felt themselves able underwent unparalleled distortion during the upheavals whelming evidence that he wasn’t. The to make up stories about him. And I shall show how the in Palestine in the first century ad, to emerge unrecognis- Gospels mention Jesus having brothers demonisation of Paul in some quarters results from an able as the Christian religion. Jewish concepts of the his- and sisters. The Catholic Church re- erroneous chronology of events, combined with a result- toric role of the Jewish people as the priestly nation to the gards these as ‘cousins’, which seems ing confusion between Paul and a character called Simon world somehow emerged as a religion in which the Jews to me to be a classic piece of ‘harmon- Magus. Many people regard books such as this as point- had no role at all. Related beliefs about how the world isation’. But even accepting this, Paul less. Ironically, this view can be held by both sceptics would end, and the prophetic and messianic figures that undoubtedly knew and met with mem- and traditional believers alike. On the one hand, believers would herald those events, emerged as the novel concept bers of Jesus’ family and others that argue that it is all beside the point. Whoever or whatever of a Son of God whose death redeems the world. And I would have known Jesus from child- Jesus was is unimportant; it is the Jesus of faith that shall argue that we can trace almost exactly how this hood. He must have explained to them matters—the Jesus that teaches us how to live and gives happened from texts that survive from those times—not his visions of Jesus as Son of God, who us the promise of everlasting life. Yet Christianity makes obscure, recently discovered manuscripts of ambiguous died for the remission of the sins of all the unique claim that Jesus was not only God but that meaning, but mainstream texts that survive in the very that believe in Him. I just cannot con- he walked amongst us and died a grisly death for us. Bibles that adorn bookshelves in virtually every home in ceive the circumstances in which this It is founded on this historical claim, and must surely Western civilisation. would not have led to derision from therefore be open to rational, historical enquiry. On the The problem is that it is very hard indeed to read people who knew the mortal Jesus well. other hand, sceptics who take the extreme view, argue those texts outside the dominant Christian paradigm. How could Paul have sustained his own that we can never know the truth of these things, they The simplest words trip us up. We see words and phras- self-belief, let alone convince others, in all happened so long ago, and the evidence we have is es like ‘Christ’, ‘Lord’ or ‘Lamb of God’ and we interpret the face of such firsthand denial?9 If Je- so fragmentary, contradictory and compromised by bias their meanings in ways that the Jews who wrote them sus lived and had family and friends in and forgery, that it is useless to try. Yet, in my view, the would find extraordinarily perverse. As we shall also see, the first century, and if he was a mere Bible is actually full of clues to the puzzle of the histori- those Jews were themselves capable of bizarre and per- cal Jesus. Those clues alone can never produce historical verse interpretations of their own, and their propensity certainty but we can search for a hypothesis that best fits to do so perhaps created the environment within which THE PREACHING OF SAINT PAUL AT EPHESUS, BY EUSTACHE LE SUEUR, 1649 the evidence and clues that we have. later Christian distortions became possible. But if we can To do this we need to treat all the evidence on an step outside the dominant Christian paradigm and look equal basis. Each document (irrespective of whether it on these texts with fresh eyes and an unbiased, rational 9 I am reminded of the wonderful scene in Monty Python’s Life of Brian in which Brian’s mother, has been sanctioned as part of the Bible or not) must be perspective, we shall see that, quite amazingly, the his- exasperated by the crowds clamouring after examined in the same way, using basic textual critical torical truth can be recovered, and that truth will indeed her son, declaims from her balcony: ‘He’s not techniques. In particular, this means that we must wher- set us free. TS the Messiah; he’s just a very naughty boy!’

| 24 | THETRUTHSEEKER.net September - December 2017 | 25 | | 26 | THETRUTHSEEKER.net September - December 2017 | 27 | | 28 | THETRUTHSEEKER.net September - December 2017 | 29 | The Inquisition is as deeply rooted in modernity THE SPANISH INQUISITION as the scientific tradition it opposed. REVISITED

By Adam Gopnik

“ In God’s Jury: The Inquisition and the Making of the print is everywhere: the Gestapo, the K.G.B., the Stasi. Well, I didn’t expect a kind of Spanish Inquisition,” the mild-mannered Modern World (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt), Cullen Mur- Even our own Guantánamo-making apparatus—more Englishman grumbles at a woman’s questioning—and then the door phy tries to find out why people once did expect the Span- than twelve hundred government organizations focus on opens and in rush Michael Palin, Terry Gilliam, and Terry Jones, wear- ish Inquisition, and if the inquisitors have vanished or national-security concerns, Murphy tells us—has a fore- merely changed clothes. He believes that the Inquisition, bear in Torquemada and the men in the red hats. ing blood-red cardinal’s robes and waxed mustaches and golden crosses. far from being a “medieval” relic, is an institution as deep- Is the Inquisition still alive? Murphy, as in his book “Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!” Palin an- surprise. And ruthless efficiency. Our three weapons are ly rooted in modernity as the scientific tradition that it “Are We Rome?,” asks a question that is, in a way, too large nounces with ominous self-satisfaction, eyes bright be- fear and surprise and ruthless efficiency, and an almost opposed. Its fanaticism, its implicit totalitarianism (with to be answered. Yet this roominess is also the book’s vir- neath a broad-brimmed hat, as the Monty Python sketch fanatical devotion to the Pope. Our four—no! Amongst inquisitors investigating every crevice of its victims’ lives, tue. The-little-thing-that-did-that-big-thing pop history continues, only to get caught up in the difficulties of enu- our weaponry are such elements as fear and—I’ll come from how they cooked chicken to how they made love), its usually tries to squeeze enough juice from a tiny subject merating the things one does expect from the Spanish in again.”) The joke, of course, is that the Spanish Inqui- sheer bureaucratic brutality—in short, its surprise, fear, to make a book. Murphy, by contrast, takes a great big Inquisition. (“Our chief weapon is surprise—surprise and sition as a byword for cruel tyranny looks absurd in a ruthless efficiency, and fanatical devotion to the Pope— subject and tries to walk right around it. If you’re worn fear. Fear and surprise. Our two weapons are fear and modern setting. make it central to who we are and what we do. Its thumb- out or confused by the end, at least you’ve seen a lot.

| 30 | THETRUTHSEEKER.net September - December 2017 | 31 | Murphy’s tone is calm, even good-humored, but he can fear so acute that it helped paralyze Spanish thought on and rituals while secretly remaining Jews, is rian, to find out how it really was,” he says vibrate to the victims’ preserved cries for mercy, which the brink of the modern age, and led to the breakdown of a myth, invented by the Inquisition for its own to Murphy—but this seems like the Freud- While the Inquisition he reproduces from transcripts that the Inquisition kept. Spanish intellectual life. While the Inquisition was most evil ends and taken up, much later, by the ian case where what the patient denies is the The good ghost of Garry Wills’s historical writing haunts notorious and most effective in Spain, it spread through- Jews, in the hope that it would make their an- was most notorious place to dig. The lesson Netanyahu obvious- his pages—the same kind of open-ended, casually erudite out Europe, taking hold in Italy, for instance, long enough cestors seem less fearful and more resistant. and most effective ly takes, and teaches, from his study can be inquiry scrutinized at length and from a liberal-Catholic to burn up Bruno and shut up Galileo. Netanyahu’s revisionism is, in certain in Spain, it spread summed up in three words: assimilation is point of view. He makes a grand and scary tour of inquis- As Murphy learns, however, professional scholars ways, limited: his mordant point is not so throughout Europe, impossible. Anti-Semitism is too deeply im- itorial moments, racing back and forth in history from now tell the story very differently. By consensus, histori- much that the Inquisition doesn’t deserve its planted in Gentile cultures to be assuaged taking hold in Torquemada to Dick Cheney, and from Guantánamo to ans have come to reject the idea of a more or less unitary reputation for cruelty as that its victims don’t by softening or even renouncing your iden- Rome; we are there when Giordano Bruno is burned to Inquisition, as it was traced by the Philadelphia histori- deserve theirs for moral courage. In reality, he Italy, for instance, tity as a Jew. The acquiescent Jewish hope death, on the orders of Cardinal Bellarmine, and then an Henry Charles Lea, a century ago: rather, there were argues, the fifteenth-century Jews who con- long enough to burn that if you stop eating kosher they will stop are asked to compare our own readiness to torture when many inquisitions, started and stopped in various plac- verted tried to stay that way, and to practice up Bruno and eating you is an illusion. There were no “hid- what we fear threatens us. es under independent authority and without any single the new faith of their neighbors as best they den Jews,” any more than there were secrets shut up Galileo. Murphy’s point, entirely convincing, is that Cheney’s program or control. Murphy goes to visit the two most could. The myth was invented by the perse- of the Elders of Zion. It didn’t matter. The “one per cent doctrine”—if there’s any chance that ter- important revisionists. The first is a memorable figure by cutors out of frustration with their inability to dispossess Spanish Catholics didn’t have any real interest in sav- rorists might get their hands on weapons of mass de- any standard: the elder Netanyahu, Bibi’s now hundred- the Jews as a class. If they sneakily made themselves ing the Jews’ souls; they just wanted their houses and struction, we have an obligation to do what-ever we have and-one-year-old father, Benzion, who, over years of re- over into Christians in order to keep money and position, their money. The implicit contemporary corollary is that to do to make sure that they haven’t—is ancient and all search, has established, at least to his own satisfaction, then they must have been cheating all along, being Jews. Arabs have no real interest in peace or accommodation too easily universalized. Torturers always do their work that the idea of a flourishing clandestine community of Netanyahu denies that he has any end in mind save with the Jews in Israel, except as strictly controlled and with regret, and out of last-ditch necessity, certain that Iberian Marranos, who paid lip service to Christian rites disinterested historical inquiry—“I write only as a histo- fearful second-class citizens. (The truth of Netanyahu’s the existence of their country or their church or their val- ues depends on it. No one burns people alive by halves. If you believe that you know the truth of the cosmos or of history, then the crime of causing pain to one person does seem trivial compared with the risk of permitting the death or damnation of thousands. We had no choice is what the Grand Inquisitor announces in Dostoyevsky. We know the cruellest of fanatics by their exceptionally clear consciences. Generations of students were taught that the Span- ish Inquisition was a permanent office of the Church in the Iberian peninsula, particularly active in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Using torture and fear, inquis- itors forced confessions from suspected heretics and hidden Jews—conversos who continued the clandestine practice of their former faith. Once discovered, they were marched through autos-da-fé: grand penitential parades, which often culminated in a public burning. The arche- typal inquisitor was, supposedly, Tomás de Torquemada, the fifteenth-century “hammer of heretics,” who looked for crypto-Jews and crypto-Muslims under every paella pan and helped push forward the decree that expelled all the Jews from Spain, in 1492. (He’s the guy the Python people are pretending to be like when they come rushing in.) The Inquisition’s omnipresence created a climate of

Opening page THE INQUISITION TRIBUNAL, FRANCISCO GOYA 1812-1819. DEPICTION OF AN AUTO-DA-FÉ, OR SPANISH “ACT OF FAITH” BY AN INQUI- SITION TRIBUNAL INSIDE A CHURCH. THE FOUR ACCUSED ARE WEARING POINTED DUNCE CAPS AND DRESSED IN SAMBENITOS WHICH DESCRIBE THEIR CRIMES.

Right GALILEO BEFORE THE HOLY OFFICE, JOSEPH-NICOLAS ROBERT-FLEURY (1797–1890)

| 32 | THETRUTHSEEKER.net September - December 2017 | 33 | view of the Inquisition is much debated. There does seem suspected crypto-Jews and seems to have found them.) backwardness in science and education; after out of existence as easily as the Spanish to be evidence that Marrano practices persisted: the In- The revisionism that Murphy finds in the work of an- all, Cervantes thrived while the Inquisition “by the mid-1530s, Inquisition. (In fact, Europeans had con- quisition, after all, went so far as to look for recipes from other leading historian of the Inquisition, Henry Kamen, did. Besides, the anti-Catholic inquisition, stant contact with Greek and Roman styles the Inquisition, under a Brit now resident in Barcelona, is at once more ac- in seemingly “progressive” England, was just right through the Middle Ages, and the fif- ademically orthodox and more unsettling. In a much as violent, though it preferred to tear Jesu- heavy Dominican teenth-century Italian way of seeing antiq- praised 1997 study, Kamen meticulously takes its alive on a scaffold rather than burn them influence, had ef- uity was more Catholicminded and anachro- apart the acts of the inquisitors in Spain, turn to bits. There were a lot of other reasons, fectively enforced nistic than its predecessors had been.) by turn and torture by torture. And yet he economic and linguistic, that Spain became silence on humanist History helps us to understand reality by concludes by saying, basically, Well, a backwater for so long. Where, for obvious disassembling the big nouns into the small scholarship as part of sure, they burned people alive and reasons, most twentieth century accounts acts that make them up. But if history ig- tortured people and organized of the Inquisition focus on the persecution its campaign to turn nores its responsibility to the big nouns it nightmarish parades where of the Jews, older accounts make more, for Spain into a fortress isn’t doing its job. That there were not weekly people were forced to wear de- equally obvious reasons, of the persecution of against heresy.” autos-da-fé in sixteenth-century Spain does grading uniforms—but they did Protestants. (It’s certainly true that you can’t not alter our horror that there were any at all, it differently and less often than see the Inquisition outside the context of the Reforma- much less that they were so effectively institutionalized. you might think. The sequen- tion, which really did present an existential threat to the Their purpose was to frighten and terrorize; the mark tial inquisitions had different Roman Catholic Church. The inquisitors weren’t crazy to of their success is that they did not need to happen ev- degrees of severity, authority, think that they had mortal enemies out there.) ery day. That the Inquisition did not often burn men and bureaucratic power. The alive for thinking the wrong thoughts does not alter the inquisitors themselves, even at K amen’s book represents the academic orthodoxy on truth that it burned men alive for thinking the wrong their worst, didn’t burn people the subject now. Indeed, the British historian Helen Raw- thoughts—that it raised the casual cruelty of previous alive: they handed them over lings, in her 2006 study “The Spanish Inquisition,” meets intolerance to a theatricalized black Mass. to the civil executioners to do Kamen’s work and raises him. She doesn’t whitewash her And then history written without sufficient imagina- it. Though they tortured peo- subject. She explains that Spain in the early sixteenth tion risks a failure of basic human empathy. We some- ple, they didn’t do it any more century was an especially thriving spot for Erasmians, times think that the historical imagination is the gift of than the secular guys did, and followers of the great humanist Erasmus; the Holy Of- seeing past—seeing past the surface squalors of an era there was usually a doctor fice made sure that all the prominent humanists “chose to the larger truths. Really, history is all about seeing in, around. The full-scale autos- to leave Spain rather than fall victims to the campaign looking hard at things to bring them back to life as they da-fé that Voltaire satirizes and to discredit their tolerant tradition,” such that “by the were, while still making them part of life as it is. If you Goya draws were expensive and mid-1530s, the Inquisition, under heavy Dominican in- can’t imagine the horror of being burned alive, then you therefore relatively rare, and, in fluence, had effectively enforced silence on humanist haven’t, so to speak, lived. Murphy, to his credit, makes any case, were essentially over scholarship as part of its campaign to turn Spain into a us feel not just what it was to see the Inquisition at work by the time Goya and Voltaire fortress against heresy.” Yet she ends with this chillingly but what it was to suffer from it. We learn, for instance, were describing them. condescending sentence: “While the Inquisition will never that it was considered a special favor and mercy to sup- What’s more, Kamen argues, be totally divorced from the dark image that surrounds ply a heretic, about to be set alight, with a bag of gun- the Spain of the Inquisition was its activities nor its excesses condoned, recent research powder to tie around his neck so that he would die from essentially pre-modern: the has enabled us to draw a more balanced picture of the the explosion before he died from the flames. Holy Office, as the Inquisition nature and ambit of the authority it exercised.” It sounds Reading the revisionist histories, one is often startled was properly called, depend- a bit like the self-congratulation of a cancer-ward patient by the introduction of shocking material that fails suf- ed less on an omnipresent po- for best tumor. Like a lot of modern academic historians, ficiently to shock the author. Rawlings remarks blandly lice than on a pervasive system Kamen and Rawlings risk turning history into all nuance that, before the expulsion of the Jews from Spain, “there of informers. This meant that and no news. were obvious anomalies between the position of Jews pretty much everyone was im- The pursuit of scholarly rigor too easily leads histori- and of Jewish converts in Spanish society that had to plicated—that the Spanish In- ans to erase any signs of the historical imagination from be resolved,” and then reproduces a “test of purity of quisition was more Spanish their work. What is the historical imagination? It’s sim- blood,” right out of the Nuremberg laws. (Applicants are than Inquisition. Nor could ply the ability to see small and think big. Just thinking to swear that they are “without any stain or taint of Jew- the Inquisition alone have con- big leads you to Spenglerian melodrama and fantasy; just ish, Moorish, or Converso origins.”) Is it anachronistic, demned Spain to centuries of seeing small makes you miss history altogether while in the sense of imputing modern feelings to ancient acts, seeming to study it. After all, any significant change in to be sickened by such things? Well, not if one imagines human consciousness can be dissolved if you break it asking the threatened conversos how they felt about it. down into its individual parts, which are bound to seem Pain is pain in any period. SAINT DOMINIC PRESIDING OVER AUTO- contradictory or many-sided—you can dissolve anything Murphy quotes another historian of the period, Ea- DA-FÉ, C. 1493-1499, PEDRO BERREGUEUTE by dissolving it. The Italian Renaissance can be argued mon Duffy, of Cambridge, announcing that he doesn’t (1450–1504)

| 34 | THETRUTHSEEKER.net September - December 2017 | 35 | find the cruelties of the inquisitions particular- a Vatican meeting, “Not sorry. Sorry is easy. . stantly returned to burning heretics. After reading Mur- abroad. He was the magazine’s art critic from 1987-1995, ly shocking: “That was then, and this is now. Of The Inquisition . . I want to hear the Catholic Church—I want phy’s accounts of so many bodies tortured and so many and the Paris correspondent from 1995-2000. From 2000 course, these things are outrageous if they’re to hear the pope—say he is ashamed.”) In the lives ended, one ought, I suppose, to feel guilty about to 2005, he wrote a journal about New York life. His books, has become a considered in the abstract. But human beings end, you come to feel that the real continuity is laughing at the old Python sketch, but it’s hard not to ranging from essay collections about Paris and food to chil- dren’s novels, include Paris to the Moon, The King in the don’t live in the abstract. They live in the par- byword for cruelty so pervasive that it needs no tradition to feed it; feel a little giddy watching it. How did we become this Window, Through the Children’s Gate: A Home in New York, combined with ticular.” Well, they do. Murphy reproduces the people torture other people everywhere for any free to laugh at fanaticism? That for a moment or two the Angels and Ages: A short Book About Darwin, Lincoln, and transcript of a “heretic” under torture, made by state power reason at hand. The real issue is why and when humanists seem to have it—that we don’t really expect Modern Life, The Tale Comes First: Family, France, and the the recording secretary: and superstition they ever stop. the Inquisition to barge into our living rooms—is a fragile Meaning of Food, and Winter: Five Windows on the Season. On being given these [turns of the rack] he And here a little bit of self-congratulation triumph of a painful, difficult, ongoing education in En- Gopnik has three National Magazine awards, for essays and because it was. for criticism, and also the George Polk Award for Magazine said first, “Oh, God!” and then, “There’s no seems in order. Murphy nears his conclusion lightenment values. Bloody miracle, really. TS Reporting. In March of 2013, Gopnik was awarded the med- mercy”: after the turns he was admonished, with a glance at our own Torquemada, J. Edgar al of Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters. He lectures and said, “I don’t know what to say, Oh dear God!” Hoover, who was as scary an inquisitorial type as could widely, and, in 2011, delivered the Canadian Broadcasting Then three more turns of the cord were ordered to be exist, and who would surely have tortured and executed AdAm Gopnik, a staff writer, has been contributing to The Corporation’s Massey Lectures. given, and after two of them he said, “Oh God, oh God, the Communists he imagined besieging America (and for New Yorker since 1986. He is the author of The Table Comes there’s no mercy, oh God help me, help me!” the same good reason the Inquisitor always has: Dr. King First. During his tenure at the magazine, he has written fic- This article originally appeared in The New Yorker magazine tion, humor, book reviews, profiles, and reported pieces from and is reprinted with permission. The point of an inquisition is to reduce its victims did have suspected Communists near him), if he had to abstractions, and abandoning the effort to call had the chance. But he didn’t have the chance. Mostly, their pain back to particular life is a true trahison des Hoover lost, and what made him lose was the persistence THE INQUISITION, JOAQUIN PINTO (1840–1906) clercs. of traditions and laws of civil liberties. That those liber- A historical imagination, of the kind that can bring ties can be diminished at a remote terrorist threat does such suffering back to life, is essential to Goya’s genius. not alter the reality that they are well enough established The painter knew that, even if the Inquisition and its so that people at least notice when they’re threatened. hideous rituals were becoming archaic, their presence Not a few of us feel that Ginzburgian shame when we had maimed the imagination of his civilization and his find out what we’ve done from fear. country: the knowledge that a man could be forced into a What makes a civilization lose the inquisitional ten- tall cap and robe and reduced to an object to be mocked, dency? The truth seems to be that abundance helps— that he could be tortured in the name of the God he im- the more goods there are, the more purely symbolic the portuned for help, was now part of the inexpugnable bad struggles over them tend to become—but the idea of de- conscience of his civilization. Spain, as Kamen argues, cency matters most. The values of tolerance are one of made the Inquisition—and then the Inquisition unmade the most difficult lessons to impart, not because people Spain. The national iconography isn’t what you’re proud are naturally cruel but because power is naturally fear- to look at but what you can’t help seeing, even if you ful. We’re slow learners. The Inquisition has become a close your eyes. (Especially if you close your eyes.) Goya byword for cruelty combined with state power and su- could not have seen or made those images without know- perstition because it was. Monty Python could take it as ing his nation’s historical nightmare, any more than an a figure of fun because Enlightenment ideals of tolerance American can look at lynching photographs—or, for that and decency make us feel safe from it. matter, at pictures of the hooded man on the box at Abu After Monty Python ended, Terry Jones (who not only Ghraib, a found Goya if ever there was one—without un- appeared as one of the inquisitors but directed the Py- derstanding that he is implicated in it. We did that are thon films) went back to his original work as a medie- the words we hear inside, even if we didn’t do it recently, valist, and co-wrote a book about the mysterious death or personally. The historical imagination, like Giordano of Geoffrey Chaucer. One can debate its conspiratorial Bruno’s cosmology, includes a plurality of worlds, but it point—that Richard II was, despite Shakespeare, a very sees that what happens in each of them has weight. good king and Henry IV a very bad one, who may have had Chaucer murdered. But it’s wonderfully eloquent Recognizing that the Inquisition is really a set of in- in its ability to make the ideological battlefield of four- quisitions complicates but doesn’t curb Murphy’s in- teenthcentury England come alive in modern terms. dignation. He presses on with his search for the Inqui- Jones and his collaborators posit not a war between sition’s contemporary heirs, even after the experts tell faith and doubt but a kind of permanent war between him that there’s no specific essence to inherit. He visits the common-sense humanism represented by Chaucer Guantánamo, travels to museums of torture in Spain, and, later, Erasmus, both of whom worked within an en- and broods on Cardinal Ratzinger’s ambiguous repudia- tirely Catholic context, and the intolerant fanaticism of tions of the Holy Inquisition. (He quotes the great Italian their enemies: when Chaucer’s patron Richard II fell and historian of the Inquisition Carlo Ginzburg crying out at Chaucer was silenced, the evil Archbishop Arundel in-

| 36 | THETRUTHSEEKER.net September - December 2017 | 37 | | 38 | THETRUTHSEEKER.net May - August 2017 | 39 | 10. Continued to take personal was short-lived. At that moment, he that “some of this stuff sounds pret- AA Widens the Gateway for Atheists and Agnostics inventory and when we were received a visit from a group member, ty good.” But he did not withdraw wrong promptly admitted it. Horace C., and a new man who had his major objection. “Bill, you’ve got By christopher m. finan 11. Sought through prayer and been sober for only three months. to tone it down. It’s too stiff,” he said. Bill Wilson Was Worried. in the fall of 1938, he had started Writing “hoW it Works,” the fifth chapter of Alco- meditation to improve our con- Wilson read them his work and wait- “The average alcoholic just won’t buy holics Anonymous: The sTory of how more ThAn one hundred men hAve recovered from Alcoholism. the chapter tact with God, praying only for ed for applause. He was shocked by it the way it stands.” Wilson respond- Would Be the most consequential part of the Book. “....[a]t this point We Would have to tell hoW our program knowledge of His will for us and their response: ed with a strenuous defense, insist- for recovery from alcoholism re- them with the 12 apostles. the power to carry that out. [Horace] and his friend reacted ing on the importance of every word. The debate went on for hours. Finally, ally worked,” Wilson said. The Feeling greatly relieved now, 12. Having had a spiritual experi- violently. “Why twelve steps?” I commenced to reread the Wilson’s wife, Lois, appeared and sug- “program” would be the steps ence as the result of this course they demanded. “You’ve got draft. gested they take a coffee break, which that Wilson and his friends had of action, we tried to carry this too much God in these steps; you will scare people away.” ended the discussion for the night.iv taken to get sober. But Wil- Here is Wilson’s first draft of the message to others, especially And, “What do you mean by The debate over the twelve steps son was dreading the reaction 12 steps: alcoholics, and to practice these getting those drunks ‘down on grew during the following weeks. of the other members of the 1. We admitted we were power- principles in all our affairs.ii their knees’ when they ask to Horace and his friend were right: group. “The hassling over the less over alcohol—that our “I was greatly pleased with what I have all their shortcomings re- four chapters already finished Wilson had talked about God a lot. lives had become unmanage- iii moved?” And, “Who wants all had written,” Wilson said. God was mentioned frequently in had really been terrific. I was able. their shortcomings removed, exhausted. On many a day I felt For the moment, he allowed him- the chapters that he had already 2. Come to believe that God anyhow?” like throwing the book out the self to believe that he had described written. While Akron members were could restore us to sanity. window,” he said.i a program that was unassailable, if Seeing the disappointment in Wil- generally supportive, the issue di- 3. Made a decision to turn our Wilson, Dr. Bob Smith, and not God-given. Wilson’s happiness son’s face, Horace acknowledged vided the New Yorkers into three wills and our lives over to the other early members of the the care and direction of group had already developed a WATSON HESTON CARTOON ON FRONT PAGE OF THE TRUTH SEEKER, AUGUST 17, 1889 God. “word of mouth program” that was based on four spiritual 4. Made a searching and fear- practices of the Protestant van- less moral inventory of our- gelicals who belonged to the selves. Oxford Group: making a “moral 5. Admitted to God, to our- inventory” of their sins or de- selves, and to another hu- fects; sharing these shortcom- man being the exact nature ings with another person; mak- of our wrongs. ing restitution to all those who 6. Were entirely willing that God they had harmed, and praying remove all these defects of to God for the power to practice character. these precepts. relaxed and asked for guidance.” 7. Humbly on our knees asked Him As Wilson lay in bed with a pen- With a speed that was aston- to remove these shortcomings— cil and a pad of paper, these steps ishing, considering my jangling holding nothing back. did not seem detailed enough. They emotions, I completed the first 8. Made a complete list of all per- would have to provide guidance to draft. It took perhaps a half an sons we had harmed, and became people in places where there were no hour. The words kept right on willing to make amends to them sober alcoholics to advise them. The coming. When I reached a stop- all. steps would also need to be unequiv- ping point, I numbered the new ocal. “There must not be a single steps. They added up to 12. 9. Made direct amends to such loophole through which the rational- Somehow this number seemed people wherever possible, except izing alcoholic could wiggle out,” Wil- significant. Without any special when to do so would injure them son said. “Finally, I started to write. I rhyme or reason I connected or others.

Editor’s Note: Alcoholics Anonymous struggled in the beginning. Three years after its founding, there were just 100 members. The only meetings were held in Akron and Brooklyn. The group didn’t even have a name. There were also conflicts over the future of the organization, including the role of religion in its program of recovery. In the following excerpt from the new book, Drunks: An American History (Beacon Press), Christopher Finan describes the conflict over religion during the writing of Alcoholics Anonymous, and the compromise over the wording of the Twelve Steps that made it easier for atheists and agnostics to join AA.

| 40 | THETRUTHSEEKER.net September - December 2017 | 41 | groups that Wilson later identified One of the things most talked scribe God as a “Power greater as “conservatives,” “liberals,” and about...among us is religious than ourselves.” In Steps Three “radicals.” Fitz M., the son of a min- experience. I believe this is and Eleven we inserted the ister, wanted to go even further in incomprehensible to most peo- words “God as we understood identifying the group as religious. ple. Simple and meaning [sic] Him.” From Step Seven we de- leted the expression “on our He believed that the book should words to us—but meaningless to most of the people that we knees.” And, as a lead-in sen- declare its allegiance to Christian are trying to get this over to.... tence to all the steps we wrote principles, “using Biblical terms I am fearfully afraid that we these words: “Here are the and expressions to make this clear,” are emphasizing religious ex- steps we took which are sug- Wilson said. The liberals had no ob- perience when that is actually gested as a Program of Recov- jection to the use of the word “God” something that follows. ery.” A.A.’s Twelve Steps were throughout the book, but they were to be suggestions only. Wilson was shocked. “What Henry, adamantly opposed to identifying Jimmy, and company wanted was a While the change made by alter- their movement with a particular psychological book which would lure ing a few words appears superficial religion. In their view, the religious the alcoholic in. Once in, the pros- at first glance, Wilson later acknowl- missions that had attempted to save pect could take God or leave him edged that the radicals had secured alcoholics by converting them had alone,” he said.vi their major objective. “They had failed because the drunks were un- The debate continued into 1939. widened our gateway so that all who willing to accept their beliefs.v Shortly before the book was sent to suffer might pass through regard- Wilson described the third group the printer, Parkhurst pushed his ar- less of their belief or lack of belief,” as “our radical left wing.” At least gument one last time. He had been he said.vii TS one member, James Burwell, was an sharing his Newark office with -Wil outspoken atheist. The others were son. It was where Wilson had dictat- either agnostics or believers who Excerpted from Drunks: An Amer- ed most of the book to a secretary, nevertheless opposed any mention ican History by Christopher M. Fi- Ruth Houck. Houck and Fitz, the of God. Henry Parkhurst was a mem- nan (Beacon Press, 2017). Reprint- minister’s son, were present in the ber of this group. A super salesman, ed with permission from Beacon office when Parkhurst again insist- he had been among the first to see Press. http://www.beacon.org ed on changes in the twelve steps, the importance of the book and had something Wilson had been refusing developed the fundraising plan that christopher m. finan is the author to consider. “He argued, he begged, would make its publication possible. of From the Palmer Raids to the Pa- he threatened,” Wilson said. “He was He was also one of the first to ex- triot Act: A History of the Fight for positive we would scare off alcohol- press the view that religion should Free Speech in America and Alfred E. ics by the thousands when they read be downplayed. In part, this was Smith: The Happy Warrior. He is the those Twelve Steps.” Houck, who was an expression of his own religious executive director of National Coali- not an alcoholic, was the easiest to doubts. But it was also a question tion Against Censorship and former persuade. Then, Fitz began to soften. of marketing. In a memo about director of American Booksellers for Finally, Wilson agreed to make sev- “sales promotion, possibilities,” he Free Expression, a program of the eral changes: expressed concern about alienating American Booksellers Association. the customers: In Step Two we decided to de- He lives in Brooklyn, New York.

NOTES: i Alcoholics Anonymous, “Pass It On”: The Story of Bill Wilson and How the A.A. Message Reached the World (New York: Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, 1984), 131. ii Ibid, 198-199. A disclaimer from A.A.: “The Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions are reprinted with permission of Alcoholics Anon- ymous World Services, Inc. (‘A.A.W.S.’) Permission to reprint the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions does not mean that A.A.W.S has reviewed or approved the content of this publication, or that A.A. necessarily agrees with the views expressed herein.” iii Alcoholic Anonymous, Alcoholics Anonymous Comes of Age: A Brief History of A.A. (New York: Alcoholics Anonymous World Ser- vices, 1957), 161, 162; “Pass It On,” 198. iv Alcoholics Anonyous Comes of Age, 162. v Ibid. vi Mitchell K., The Story of Clarence H. Snyder and the Early Days of Alcoholics Anonymous in Cleveland, Ohio (Washingtonville, NY: A.A Big Book Study Group, 1999), 39; Alcoholics Anonymous Comes of Age, 163. vii Alcoholics Anonymous Comes of Age, 167.

| 42 | THETRUTHSEEKER.net September - December 2017 | 43 | 2. The Gospels were THE not written by Evidence eyewitnesses. JESUS MYTH Every bit of our ostensibly bi- about Jesus ographical information for Je- Before the European Enlightenment, virtually sus comes from just four texts— all New Testament experts assumed that hand- is weaker the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Though most ed-down stories about Jesus were first recorded than you Christians assume that associ- by eye witnesses and were largely biographical. ates of Jesus wrote these texts, might no objective biblical scholars That is no longer the case. think so. None of the four gos- Assuming that the Jesus stories had their think. pels claims to be written by eye- witnesses, and all were original- beginnings in one single person rather than a ly anonymous. Only later were composite of several—or even in mythology it- they attributed to men named self—he probably was a wandering Jewish in the stories themselves. While the four gospels were teacher in Roman-occupied Judea who offended traditionally held to be four the authorities and was executed. Beyond that, independent accounts, textu- al analysis suggests that they any knowledge about the figure at the center of all actually are adaptations of the Christian religion is remarkably open to de- the earliest gospel, Mark. Each has been edited and expanded bate (and vigorously debated among relevant upon, repeatedly, by unknown scholars). editors. It is worth noting that Most people Mark features the most fallible, Where was Jesus born? Did he actually have human, no-frills Jesus—and, twelve disciples? Do we know with certainty any- would be more importantly, may be an allegory. thing he said or did? shocked All of the gospels contain As antiquities scholarship improves, it becomes to learn how little is anachronisms and errors that increasingly clear that the origins of Christianity are show they were written long actually known about Jesus. after the events they describe, controversial, convoluted, and not very coherent. and most likely far from the set- ting of their stories. Even more troubling, they don’t just have minor nitpicky contradictions; 1. THE MORE WE KNOW THE LESS WE KNOW was an even earlier, even cruder attempt to purge the Christianity and its founder, we are faced instead with a they have basic, even crucial, contradictions. FOR SURE. Good Book of obvious mythology.) cacophony of conflicting opinions. This is precisely what After centuries in which the gospel stories about Je- In the two centuries that have passed since Jefferson happens when people faced with ambiguous and contra- 3. The Gospels are not corroborated sus were taken as gospel truth, the Enlightenment gave began clipping, scores of biblical historians—including dictory information cannot bring themselves to say, we by outside historians. birth to a new breed of biblical historians. Most people modern scholars armed with the tools of archeology, an- don’t know. Despite generations of apologists insisting Jesus is have heard that Thomas Jefferson secretly took a pair of thropology and linguistics—have tried repeatedly to iden- This scholastic mess has been an open secret in bibli- vouched for by plenty of historical sources like Tacitus or scissors to the Bible, keeping only the parts he thought tify “the historical Jesus” and have failed. The more cal history circles for decades. Over forty years ago, pro- Suetonius, none of these hold up to close inspection. The were historical. His version of the New Testament is still scholars study the roots of Christianity, the more con- fessors like Robin S. Barbour and Cambridge’s Morna most commonly-cited of these is the Testimonium Flavi- available today. Jefferson’s snipping was a crude early at- fused and uncertain our knowledge becomes. Currently, Hooker were complaining about the naïve assumptions anum, a disputed passage in the writings of ancient his- tempt to address a problem recognized by many educated we have a plethora of contradictory versions of Jesus—an underlying the criteria biblical scholars used to gauge the men of his time: It had become clear that any histories itinerant preacher, a zealot, an apocalyptic prophet, an “authentic” elements of the Jesus stories. Today, even the Bible might contain had been garbled by myth. (One Essene heretic, a Roman sympathizer, and many more— Christian historians complain the problem is no better; By Valerie Tarico and daVid FiTzgerald might argue that the Protestant Reformation’s rejection each with a different scholar to confidently tout theirs as most recently Anthony Le Donne and Chris Keith in the This story was co-authored with David of the books of the Bible that they called “apocrypha,” the only real one. Instead of a convergent view of early 2012 book Jesus, Criteria, and the Demise of Authenticity. Fitzgerald, author of Jesus: Mything in Action.

| 44 | THETRUTHSEEKER.net September - December 2017 | 45 | torian Flavius Josephus, written around Thomas Jefferson Paul (and even his authentic letters have Keeping Options Open That is because either way, the Christ at the heart the years 93/94, generations after the been re-edited). of Christianity is a figure woven from the fabric of my- secretly took a pair University of Sheffield’s Philip Davies—who believes that presumed time of Jesus. Today historians Christianity probably began with a single Jesus, ac- thology. The stories that bear his name draw on ancient overwhelmingly recognize this odd Jesus of scissors to the 5. Christian martyrs are not knowledges that the evidence is fragile and problematic. templates imbedded in the Hebrew religion and those of passage is a forgery. (For one thing, no one Bible, keeping only proof (if they even were Davies argues that the only way the field of New Testa- the surrounding region. They were handed down by word but the suspected forger ever quotes it— real). ment studies can maintain any academic respectability is of mouth in a cultural context filled with magical beings the parts he thought for 500 years!) But defenders of Christian- Generations of Christian apologists by acknowledging the possibility that Jesus didn’t exist. and miracles. Demons caused epilepsy. Burnt offerings ity are loathe to give it up, and supporters were historical. have pointed to the existence of Christian He further notes this wouldn’t generate any controversy made it rain. Medical cures included mandrakes and dove now argue it is only a partial forgery. martyrs as proof their religion is true, ask- in most fields of ancient history, but that New Testament blood. Angels and ghosts appeared to people in dreams. Either way, as New Testament scholar Bart Ehrman ing “Who would die for a lie?” The short answer, of course, studies is not a normal case. Gods and other supernatural beings abounded and not points out, the Testimonium Flavanium merely repeats that all too many true believers have died in the service of Brandon University’s Kurt Noll goes even further and infrequently crossed over from their world to ours. common Christian beliefs of the late first century, and falsehoods they passionately believed to be true—and not lays out a case that the question doesn’t matter: Whether Who, in the midst of all of this, was Jesus? We may even if it were 100% genuine would provide no evidence just Christians. The obvious existence of Muslim jihadis the original Jesus was real or mythological is irrelevant to never know. TS about where those beliefs came from. This same applies has made this argument less common in recent years. the religion that was founded in his name. to other secular references to Jesus—they definitely at- But who says that the Christian stories of widespread test to the existence of Christians and recount Christian martyrdom themselves were real? The Book of Acts re- Reprinted with permission. beliefs at the time, but offer no independent record of a cords only two martyr accounts, and secular scholars Valerie Tarico is a psychologist doubt that the book contains much if any actual history. historical Jesus. and writer in Seattle, Wash- The remaining Christian martyr tales first appeared cen- In sum, while well-established historic figures like ington. She is the author of turies later. Historian Candida Moss’ 2014 book The Myth Alexander the Great are supported by multiple lines of Trusting Doubt: A Former Evan- of Persecution gives a revealing look at how early Christian evidence, in the case of Jesus we have only one line of gelical Looks at Old Beliefs in a fathers fabricated virtually the entire tradition of Christian evidence: the writings of believers involved in spreading New Light and Deas and Other martyrdom—a fact that was, ironically enough, largely un- the fledgling religion. Imaginings, and the founder covered and debunked by later Christian scholars. 4. Early Christian scriptures weren’t of www.WisdomCommons.org. the same as ours. 6. No other way to explain the Her articles about religion, re- productive health, and the role At the time Christianity emerged, gospels were a common existence of Christianity? of women in society have been religious literary genre, each promoting a different ver- Most people, Christians and outsiders alike, find it featured at sites including Al- sion or set of sacred stories. For example, as legends of difficult to imagine how Christianity could have arisen if terNet, Salon, the Huffington Jesus sprang up, they began to include “infancy gospels.” our Bible stories aren’t true. Beyond a doubt, Christianity Post, Grist, and Jezebel. Sub- As historian Robert M. Price notes, just as Superman could not have arisen if people in the first century hadn’t scribe at ValerieTarico.com. comics spun off into stories of young Superboy in Small- believed them to be true. But the stories themselves? ville, Christians wrote stories of young Jesus in Nazareth Best-selling New Testament scholar Bart Ehrman daVid FiTzgerald is an using his divine powers to bring clay birds to life or pee- believes that the biblical stories about Jesus had their award-winning historical re- vishly strike his playmates dead. kernel in the person of a single itinerant preacher, as searcher and the author of Early Christians didn’t agree on which texts were sa- do most New Testament scholars. Historian Richard Car- Nailed: Ten Christian Myths cred, and those included in our New Testament were select- rier and David Fitzgerald (co-author of this article) take That Show Jesus Never Existed ed to elevate one competing form of Christianity, that of the an opposing position—that the original kernel was a set at All and the Complete Here- Roman Church over others. (Note that the Roman Church of ancient mythic tropes to which unsuspecting believers tic’s Guide to Western Religion also proclaimed itself “catholic” meaning universal.) added historical details. Ehrman and Carrier may be on series. His latest book is Jesus: Our two oldest complete New Testament collections, opposite sides of this debate, but both agree on one im- Mything in Action. Codex Siniaticus and Codex Vaticanus only go back to portant fact: the only thing needed to explain the rise of the beginning of the fourth century. To make matters Christianity is the belief fostered by the rival Christian worse, their books differ from each other—and from our preachers of the first century. Opening Page THE JEFFERSON BIBLE bibles. We have books they don’t have; they have books Witchcraft, bigfoot, the idea that an American presi- we don’t have, like the Shepherd of Hermas and the Gos- dent was born in Kenya, golden tablets revealed to a 19th pel of Barnabas. century huckster by the Angel Moroni … we all know that In addition to gospels, the New Testament includes false ideas can be sticky—that they can spread from per- another religious literary genre—the epistle or letter. son to person, getting elaborated along the way until they Some of our familiar New Testament epistles like 1 Peter, become virtually impossible to eradicate. The beginnings 2 Peter and Jude were rejected as forgeries even in an- of Christianity may be shrouded in mystery, but the viral cient times; today scholars identify almost all of the New spread of passionately-held false ideas is becoming better Testament books as forgeries except for six attributed to understood by the year.

| 46 | THETRUTHSEEKER.net September - December 2017 | 47 | MARCO RUBIO: Although he defends his stance against it is the duty of our government to protect this life,” he abortion without exceptions for rape or when a mother’s says. ”I will always vote for any and all legislation that life is in danger, he supported such exceptions when he would end abortion or lead us in the direction of ending cosponsored the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection abortion.” He is often referred to as a staunch libertarian, Act in 2013, which aimed to ban late-stage abortions. but his positions on reproductive rights don’t allign with TED CRUZ: He vehemently opposes abortion. On his the Libertarian Party, whose official platform states, “We Facebook page, he called Roe vs. Wade a “dark anniver- believe that government should be kept out of the matter, THE leaving the question to each person for their conscien- sary.” He has supported bans on taxpayer money fund- ing abortions and a Texas law that would require doc- tious consideration.” tors performing abortions to have admitting privileges at CHRIS CHRISTIE: The governor of New Jersey describes DINOSAUR nearby hospital. This was ruled unconstitutional, but is himself as pro-life, a sudden switch from his passion- currently being appealed. JEB BUSH: He insists, “My re- ate pro-choice position when in 1995 he heard the fetal cord as a pro-life governor is not in dispute.” He wants to heartbeat of his unborn daughter. However, his critics FOLLIES ban most abortions after 20 weeks. In 1994, then a can- said Christie was pandering to the right wing of his party didate for governor, Bush wrote that sodomy should not with an eye toward garnering their support in a future Irony lives. By be a protected Constitutional right, even though sodomy campaign for national office. We’ll never know. The so-called pro-life move- Paul Krassner —oral sex or anal intercourse—couldn’t result in preg- MIKE HUCKABEE This governor worked on Arkansas’s ment was the motivation nancy, and so an abortion wouldn’t be possible. Unborn Child Amendment, which requires the state to of the man who murdered CARLY FIORINA: She has served as the head of Good360 do whatever it legally can to protect the life of a fetus. “I three people and wounded since 2012. In 2013, the organization, which provides would love to see us have in this country what I helped charities with goods from businesses, donated $18,022 lead in Arkansas,” he said, and in 2007 he proclaimed nine with an assault-style in goods to the Arizona affiliate of the National Network that the federal government should outlaw abortion. He rifle at a Planned Parent- of Abortion Funds, which calls abortion “a fundamental insists that the Supreme Court should have no power to hood clinic in Colorado Springs. He had a history of praising previous attacks on abor- human right” and provides financial assistance to wom- determine what constitutes a person—essentially an ar- en seeking abortions. Nevertheless, Fiorina continues to gument to overturn Roe vs, Wade, the historic 1973 deci- tion providers. According to an anonymous family member or friend who spoke to the stress her support for overturning the Supreme Court sion which ruled that a fetus is not a person, and that the New York Times, the killer said that anti-abortion terrorists were doing “God’s work” ruling that legalized abortion. Hypocrisy lives! decision to abort belongs to a woman. Huckabee asserts, “I think the next president ought to invoke the 5th and and praised as “heroes” members of the Army of God, a group that has claimed respon- JOHN KASICH: Although the Ohio governor is an- ti-choice except in cases of rape, incest or when the life 14th Amendments to the Constitution to stop abortion sibility for these kinds of attacks in the past. of the mother is in danger, he signed a bill including a in the country.” The 5th guarantees American citizens provision that prohibits state-funded rape crisis coun- “due process” in criminal trials, and the 14th prohibits According to the National Abortion Federation (NAF), there Things seem to be going backward. Last year, The Di- selors from referring women to abortion services. Also, the government from depriving any person of life, liberty have been eight murders of abortion providers over the nosaur Follies—better known as the Republican presi- women seeking abortions there are now required to pay or property without due process of law. Yes, Huckabee past 38 years, and that anti-abortion activists have per- dential debates—where the candidates pimp themselves for and be given a medically unnecessary ultrasound, prays that a fetus should be as officially considered a petrated more than 60,000 recorded instances of harass- so blatantly that they have finally turned themselves in- plus physicians are required to read a script about the person as a corporation already is. ment, intimidation and violence against them, “including side out. Most despicable is the way they all sucked up to “fetal heartbeat” to any woman seeking the procedure. murder, shootings, arson, bombings, chemical and acid their fanatical anti-choice constituents… So much for the recent Republican presidential debates. Those who fail to do so could be prosecuted. Kasich re- attacks, bio-terrorism threats and other forms of violence.” Todd Akin originally launched their bizarre anti-abor- defines a fetus as “developing from the moment of con- When abortion was illegal and I ran an underground DONALD TRUMP: “I’m pro-life,” he now says, after many tion movement in 2012. The Missouri Senate candidate ception” rather than when a fertilized egg implants in referral service, I thought it would never be legalized in years of supporting his prochoice position. He reeks with who, when he infamously remarked, referring to concep- the uterus. Most fertilized eggs leave the body before my lifetime. And then, after Roe vs Wade, I thought abor- pandering. Moreover, he thinks that doctors and the tion during a rape, “If it’s a legitimate rape, the female implanting, meaning that many women who weren’t ac- tion would never be illegal again. So in 2016, it was dis- women they abort should both be punished. body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down,” he tually pregnant are now considered to be have been car- heartening to see the right-wing religious conservative BEN CARSON: He insists that he’s a fierce opponent of jumped the proverbial shark. And when Indiana Senate rying a “fetus” in Ohio. movement that supposedly wanted to keep government abortion, but he has referred women to doctors who per- candidate Richard Mourdock declared that he opposes out of our lives, while simultaneously promulgating com- form abortions, and he was a trustee of a foundation RAND PAUL: He claims to be “100 percent pro-life,” and aborting pregnancies conceived by a rapist because “It pulsory transvaginal probes in the process of trying to that gave hundreds of thousands of dollars to Planned has received a perfect score from the National Right to is something that God intended to happen. I think that re-criminalize reproduction rights in my lifetime. Parenthood. Life Committee. “I believe life begins at conception and even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape,

| 48 | THETRUTHSEEKER.net September - December 2017 | 49 | that it is something that God intended to happen,” he jumped the sperm whale. No professional comedian had the imagination to come up with such tragicomic sa- tirical concepts as those. The funniest thing is that neither Akin nor Mourdock was try- ing to be funny. They were simply being their ignorant selves, a pair of religious fa- natics who worship a micro- managing deity that made them legitimate assholes in the first place. The good news is that they both were defeat- ed on Election Day. TS

Paul Krassner published The Realist (1958-2001), but when People magazine la- beled him “father of the un- derground press,” he imme- diately demanded a paterni- ty test. And when Life mag- azine published a favorable article about him, the FBI sent a poison-pen letter to the editor calling Krassner “a raving, unconfined nut.” George Carlin responded, “The FBI was right. This man is dangerous — and funny; and necessary.” While abortion was illegal, Krassner ran an under- ground referral service, and as an antiwar activist, he became a co-founder of the Yippies (Youth International Party). Krassner’s one-per- son show won an award from the L.A. Weekly. He received an ACLU (Upton Sinclair) Award for dedication of the writers organization PEN honored him with their to freedom of expression. At the Cannabis Cup in Am- Lifetime Achievement Award. “I’m very happy to receive sterdam, he was inducted into the Counterculture Hall this award,” he concluded in his acceptance speech, of Fame — “my ambition,” he claims, “since I was three “and even happier that it wasn’t posthumous.” Paul years old.” He’s won awards from Playboy, the Feminist Krassner’s latest book is an irreverent coffee book, The Party Media Workshop, and in 2010 the Oakland branch Realist Cartoons collection. paulkrassner.com

| 50 | THETRUTHSEEKER.net September - December 2017 | 51 | The Pantarch D.M. Bennett visits Stephen Pearl Andrews,“the Pantarch” — the eccentric philosopher who formulated his own new world order Excerpt from D.M. Bennett: The Truth Seeker By Roderick Bradford which he called Pantarchy. Prometheus Books, 2006

After publishing the Truth Seeker in Paris, Illinois for only industries of nations, and why should it not be also for pro- a few months, the Bennetts decided to relocate. The couple gressive and advanced ideas?” considered moving to Terre Haute, Indiana where the paper In late 1873, D.M. Bennett traveled alone to New York to was first printed and contemplated returning to Cincinnati investigate the city. At the time, there were five hundred and Lousville where they had previously lived. Chicago, To- newspapers published in New York. Woodhull and Claflin’s ledo, and St. Louis were also discussed. But after giving con- Weekly, however, was the only periodical considered close siderable thought to each location, they determined that New to being a “freethought” publication. “The harvest is truly York City was the place. After all, in D.M. Bennett’s judg- great,” Bennett’s business sense told him, “but the labors are ment: “It is the metropolis of our country. The great center few.” And since he and Mary were natives of the Empire State, and headquarters for trade, commerce, interchange for the it seemed to them a little like “returning home.”

| 52 | THETRUTHSEEKER.net September - December 2017 | 53 | The first person Bennett visited in New York was Ste- would, ironically, be used against D.M. Bennett for mail- Stephen Pearl Andrews’ search for a universal en- friend Stephen Pearl Andrews. phen Pearl Andrews (1812–1886). An individualist anar- ing a free-love pamphlet.) ergy would be more accepted in the twentieth than the The day before D.M. Bennett was scheduled to em- chist, dynamic reformer, and abolitionist, Andrews was During D.M. Bennett’s visit to New York in 1873, he nineteenth century. The philosophy that evolved from his bark on his trip around the world in 1881, the edi- in the vanguard of the emancipation of slaves in America. stayed and did his writing at the home of Stephen Pearl Universology was called Integralism, a concept that was tor visited Andrews and expressed his appreciation for As early as 1843 the agitator traveled to England to enlist Andrews. When the reformer was asked years later why beyond the intellectual grasp of most people in the nine- his work. Although Andrews was an author and had the aid of the British Anti-slavery Society. He hoped to Bennett came to see him, he responded: teenth-century. “In applying the law of metaphor to mind countless articles published in Woodhull and Claflin’s raise money to pay for the slaves in Texas and envisioned Well, the only reason was that for thirty-five or forty and matter,” his biographer asserted, “he crossed almost Weekly, his writing never appeared in the Truth Seeker. the Republic of Texas as a free state. years past in New York, I have been in a certain sense by instinct a boundary that is today being laboriously Bennett apologized for not publishing his writing in the Stephen Pearl Andrews brought shorthand to Ameri- a sort of rallying point for radicals and enthusiasts and crossed by the formulas of nuclear physicists.” Andrews Truth Seeker over the years and admitted that he found ca and published the first translation in America of Karl cranky people of all sorts; my house has always been “might have found a larger niche in a world familiar with it a bit too scholarly for him and his readers. “We are Marx’s Communist Manifesto in Woodhull and Claflin’s a sort of cross between a hotel and a university and, Einstein’s work on relativity and the atomic researches a plain people, we understand common language and Weekly. “Other men were known as factors in reforms,” somehow or other, I have been known not only in this of nuclear physicists. In such a world his metaphysical common ideas, and we don’t understand much else,” the Truth Seeker reported; “Andrews was the reform itself.” country, but abroad, so that pretty much everybody of vaporizing might have taken on more substance.” Truth he confessed. Andrews was a brilliant philosopher, pioneer sociol- the so-called cranky type that arrived in New York found Seeker editor George Macdonald declared that “Univer- The two men discussed the future and D.M. Bennett ogist, lawyer, doctor, and a master in Latin, Greek, and out where Stephen Pearl Andrews lived, and generally sology had more contacts with the common mind than talked about his goals in the world. The visit lasted two or Sanskrit. Three decades earlier he was recognized as the reported pretty early. Einstein’s theory of relativity.” three hours and Andrews recollected that the editor lin-

Andrews tried to explain the downside of a move to Manhattan with Andrews was a brilliant philosopher, pioneer sociologist, lawyer, two and a half million people and 470 churches. doctor, and a master in Latin, Greek, and Sanskrit. best Chinese scholar outside of China. D.M. Bennett admittedly never fully understood gered and seemed reluctant to leave. “There was a sort of During Bennett’s two-week stay in New York, Andrews Andrews was also a free-love advocate and a utopian his philosophy. But since Einstein predicted that his . . . foreboding,” he recalled, “as though in a high degree explained the downside of a move to Manhattan with two romantic whose Long Island community, Modern Times, theory of relativity would never be comprehended by of probability, he should never return—never complete and a half million people and 470 churches: was possibly the first of its kind in America. In the nine- more than twelve living persons, it is not surprising his journey; and there was a tenderness and real heart- teenth century, the free-love movement did not encour- My spiritual sight wasn’t sufficiently open to see in that that the editor of the Truth Seeker could not compre- felt friendliness manifested toward me, personally, that I age promiscuity but promoted a different sexual morali- plain countryman the qualities that made D.M. Bennett hend the highly complex theories developed by his had no knowledge of before.” TS ty. Free lovers believed marriage was similar to slavery or what he proved to be subsequently; and while he con- prostitution and advocated commitment based on indi- sulted me, while he told me what he came here for, and vidual choice and love, not on legal restraints. what he intended to do, I think I said quite as much to His popularity since the 1850s was due mainly to his discourage him as to encourage him. I painted the dif- illustrious three-way debate in the pages of the New York ficulties. I had known hundreds of instances of similar Tribune with Horace Greeley and Henry James Sr., the earnest and honest efforts to start this and that and the preeminent theological writer. The subject of their pub- other enterprise in behalf of reform, almost all of which licized discourse was free love, a lifestyle that Andrews had sunk into nonentity; and I didn’t sense in Mr. Ben- championed and reportedly discussed at length with his nett any special power that was going to make him the protégée, Victoria Woodhull––the first woman to run for exception. I had to learn subsequently, by experience, President of the United States. what, if I had had more intuition, I might have known A provocative feminist firebrand and independent then. candidate from the Equal Rights Party, Woodhull dra- Andrews––or the Pantarch as he was known––creat- matically announced her candidacy for president in 1870 ed the “Constitution or Organic Basis of the Pantarchy” only a few weeks after publishing the first issue of her which he defined as “a new spiritual Government for the and her sister’s Woodhull and Claflin’s Weekly. Victoria world including a new Church” formulated to carry out Woodhull’s speechwriter and philosophical guru was Ste- “the laws of Order and Harmony in the Universe.” The phen Pearl Andrews. eccentric philosopher asserted that there was a science In 1872, two years before the Bennetts moved to New of language, as precise as mathematics or chemistry. York, Woodhull was arrested by anti-obscenity crusader By applying this science which he termed Universology, Anthony Comstock for exposing an adulterous affair of Andrews devised his own scientific universal language America’s most famous minister, Henry Ward Beecher. that he named Alwato (a language that preceded Espe- STEPHEN PEARL ANDREWS (top) Woodhull’s acquittal on the obscenity charge prompted ranto). “I have made it the business of my life to study D.M. BENNETT (1818–1882), Comstock to push for more comprehensive legislation social laws,” he wrote. “I see now a new age beginning VICTORIA CLAFLIN WOODHULL (1838–1927) which passed a year later. (In 1879, the Comstock Law to appear.”

| 54 | THETRUTHSEEKER.net September - December 2017 | 55 | “ For anyone interested in the birth, growth, D.M. Bennett Pardon Campaign and development of grassroots secularism in D.M. BENNETT (1818-1882) was pronounced guilty for violating the Comstock Law in New York on March the United States—and the 21, 1879. “The trial of Dr. Bennett for sending obscene matter through the mails is one of the most important leading lights of American of the day,” declared The New York Sun. The judge’s ruling, a Washington Capitol newspaper reporter opined, atheism long before Sam “surpassed anything of the sort since Pontius Pilate, and would make it dangerous to mail a Bible or a copy of Harris or Madalyn Murray Shakespeare to anyone.” O’Hair—this book is an On June 5, 1879, the editor of The Truth Seeker was fined $300 and confinement at hard labor for absolute must.” thirteen months to be executed in the Albany Penitentiary. (A twelve-month sentence would have allowed the 60-year- — Phil Zuckerman, Los Angeles old writer to remain incarcerated in New York City where friends and family could have visited.) “There was malice in that Review of Books thirteen-month sentence,” wrote future Truth Seeker editor George Macdonald. The judge also denied D.M. Bennett’s request to have the sentence deferred until the Supreme Court could hear the case. “ A lively, informative study.” D.M. Bennett was imprisoned for mailing Cupid’s Yokes, a polemical pamphlet written by free-love advocate Ezra Heywood — Timothy Larsen, which promoted women’s rights and criticized Anthony Comstock and puritanical obscenity law. As an American citizen–– Christianity Today and a passionate opponent of censorship––Bennett believed that he had the right to challenge the ill-defined Comstock Law and sell the pamphlet. “ This is a fresh, lively, D.M. Bennett’s conviction and imprisonment became a cause célèbre for freethinkers and free-speech advocates. Authors, discerning account of abolitionists, physicians, reformers, scientists and suffragists supported Bennett’s fight for freedom of the press. A petition popular freethought. with more than 200,000 names—the largest petition campaign of the 19th century––was sent to President Rutherford B. Schmidt shows how resilient Hayes asking for a pardon for the elderly editor. and resourceful have been D.M. Bennett languished in the Albany Penitentiary where, despite suffering from the stigma attached to selling alleged the minority of Americans “obscenity” and near death from harsh prison conditions, the First Lady who was lobbying her “Ruddy” in the White who publicly refuse belief in he managed to write numerous unrepentant letters House. Lucy Hayes––a devout Methodist known to God. Amid vehement efforts published in The Truth Seeker and later compiled have considerable influence over her husband— by the religious majority to in a book. received advice from her pastor and a long petition suppress them, these hated Robert G. Ingersoll––The Great Agnostic— from Sunday school students opposing a pardon. ‘village atheists’ managed tried to persuade his fellow Republican to pardon “There is great heat on both sides of the question,” to expand gradually the the gravely ill editor. The eminent attorney Hayes wrote in his diary. “The religious world are borders of acceptable provided the president with a list of New York against the pardon, the unbelievers are for it.” spiritual orientations. booksellers who openly sold the ubiquitous The author of Cupid’s Yokes, Ezra Heywood, who Schmidt’s fascinating pamphlet. According to his presidential diary, had also been convicted and imprisoned, received subjects are popular writers Hayes was already aware that Cupid’s Yokes was a pardon from Hayes, yet the president refused to and cartoonists, not the sold “by the thousand” at bookstores. pardon a man who merely sold it. scientists and philosophers On his annual spring visit to observe prison On March 27, 1892—a decade after D.M. that dominate our standard conditions at Albany Penitentiary, the Attorney Bennett’s death—Hayes confessed in his diary: secularization narrative.” General’s Acting Commissioner, C.K. Chase, “I was never satisfied, as I would wish with the — David A. Hollinger, University informed Bennett that Attorney General Devens, correctness of the result to which I came chiefly in of California, Berkeley and every man that was prominently connected deference to the courts. ‘Cupid’s Yokes’ was a free- with the government had pronounced his love pamphlet of bad principles, and in bad taste, imprisonment a “gross outrage.” Chase added, but Colonel Ingersoll had abundant reason for his “Yes, that is just the way it is; every man I know argument that it was not, in the legal sense, ‘an of connected with the government is in favor of obscene publication.’” your liberation, except the president, and him We firmly believe that, after 138 years, D.M. alone. The fact is, Bennett, the church is too Bennett deserves to be unequivocally exonerated strong for you; that influence has secured the for mailing a pamphlet which he did not write cooperation of the president, and it is too and was not obscene. We are asking New strong for you.” York Governor Andrew M. Cuomo to grant Chase was correct, “every man” was a posthumous pardon to D.M. Bennett: in favor of Bennett’s liberation. But not The Defender of Liberty and its Martyr.

Cloth $35.00 When the innocent is convicted, The court is condemned. | 56 | THETRUTHSEEKER.net September - December 2017 | 57 | See our e-books at DMBennettPardon.com press.princeton.edu AmericanAmerican FreethoughtFreethought DocumentaryDocumentary SeriesSeries AAVAILABLEVA ILA BLE ONON DDVDV D AANDN D BBLU-RAYLU- R AY Eugene M. Macdonald TheThe four-partfour-part miniseriesminiseries probingprobing America’sAmerica’s atheist,atheist, freethought,freethought, andand humanisthumanist heritageheritage fromfrom thethe AmericanAmerican RevolutionRevolution toto thethe 1930s.1930s. ProducedProduced byby RoderickRoderick BradfordBradford inin associationassociation withwith thethe CouncilCouncil 1855–1909 forfor SecularSecular Humanism.Humanism. TomTom Flynn,Flynn, ExecutiveExecutive Producer.Producer. FundingFunding providedprovided byby thethe JamesJames HerveyHervey JohnsonJohnson CharitableCharitable EducationalEducational TrustTrust andand thethe CenterCenter forfor Inquiry.Inquiry. In 1875, Eugene Macdonald began contributing articles FourFour DVDsDVDs (223(223 minutes)minutes) $39.99$39.99 andand $49.99$49.99 forfor Blu-Ray.Blu-Ray. to the Truth Seeker and other freethought publications. SendSend checkcheck oror moneymoney orderorder toto RRoderickoderick BBradford,radford, P.P.O.O. BBoxox 178213,178213, SanSan Diego,Diego, CACA 9217792177 One evening while Eugene’s mother and D.M. Bennett oror paypay withwith toto [email protected]@gmail.com were walking together to a Liberal League meeting, Mrs. www.AmericanFreethought.TVwww.AmericanFreethought.TV Macdonald asked the editor if he thought her son’s recently “Rod“Rod Bradford’sBradford’s filmfilm onon thethe developmentdevelopment ofof thethe AmericanAmerican FreethoughtFreethought movementmovement andand ThomasThomas Paine’sPaine’s published article in the Boston Investigator was “pretty good.” seminal role is a comprehensive, accurate, and illuminating work, masterfully told.” seminal role is a comprehensive, accurate, and illuminating work, masterfully told.” “Excellent, excellent!” he exclaimed. “I tell you, my mantle will fall –– GGaryary BBertonerton,, SSecretaryecretary ofof thethe tthomahomaSS PPaineaine nnationalational hhiiSStoricaltorical aaSSSSociationociation wwwwww..thomathomaSPSPaineaine..ororGG on worthy shoulders.” Eugene Montague Macdonald was born in Chelsea, Maine, on February 4, 1855. Unlike D.M. Bennett, who had a religious background, Eugene and his brother George were second-generation freethinkers. Their D.M.D.M. BBennett:ennett: TheThe TruthTruth SeekerSeeker mother, Asenath Chase Macdonald, was an enlightened Civil War widow and one of America’s first trained TTHEHE BIOGRBIOGRAPHYAPHY OOFF TTHEHE FFOUNDEROUNDER OOFF TTHEHE TTRUTHRUTH SSEEKEREEKER nurses. After her husband’s death during the Civil War, Mrs. Macdonald’s main concern was choosing a vocation DEROBIGNEDEROBIGNE MORTIMERMORTIMER BENNETTBENNETT (1818-1882)(1818-1882) waswas nineteenth-centurynineteenth-century America’sAmerica’s mostmost blasphemousblasphemous for her sons. She knew and admired Horace Greeley, the famous editor of the New York Tribune. Hoping the publisherpublisher andand free-speechfree-speech martyr.martyr. BasedBased onon originaloriginal sourcessources andand extensivelyextensively researched,researched, thisthis in-depthin-depth bibi-- same for Eugene, she decided to place him (at the age of thirteen) in a printing office “almost against his will,” ographyography offersoffers aa fascinatingfascinating glimpseglimpse intointo thethe turbulentturbulent GildedGilded Age.Age. BradfordBradford followsfollows Bennett’sBennett’s evolutionevolution fromfrom aa devoutdevout membermember ofof thethe ShakerShaker religiousreligious sectsect toto anan outspokenoutspoken “infidel”“infidel” duringduring thethe dawndawn ofof thethe culcul-- she later recalled. tureture warswars inin America.America. HeHe chronicleschronicles thethe circumstancescircumstances thatthat ledled toto Bennett’sBennett’s historicallyhistorically significantsignificant NewNew Eugene served his apprenticeship in New York and worked on a newspaper in Keene, New Hampshire. At the YorkYork obscenityobscenity trial,trial, hishis unjustunjust imprisonment,imprisonment, andand thethe monumentalmonumental petitionpetition campaigncampaign forfor aa pardonpardon thatthat age of eighteen, Eugene moved permanently to New York City. With the help of his mother, he leased a printing wentwent allall thethe wayway toto thethe WhiteWhite House.House. TheThe cogentcogent voicevoice ofof thethe TruthTruth SeekerSeeker andand itsits preeminentpreeminent positionposition inin office in lower Manhattan. D.M. Bennett hired Macdonald to print the January 1874 issue of theTruth Seeker. thethe flourishingflourishing freethoughtfreethought movementmovement isis revealedrevealed alongalong withwith Bennett’sBennett’s associationassociation withwith authors,authors, aboliaboli-- Macdonald’s office at 335 Broadway (corner of West Broadway and Worth Street) became the publication’s first tionists,tionists, birth-controlbirth-control pioneers,pioneers, suffragists,suffragists, andand spiritualists.spiritualists. home in New York. “Roderick“Roderick BradfordBradford reintroducesreintroduces aa significantsignificant nineteenth-centurynineteenth-century reformerreformer whomwhom mainstreammainstream historianshistorians havehave unfairlyunfairly neglected.neglected. D.M.D.M. Mrs. Macdonald became concerned after learning that her son used his credit to buy the type needed to print BennettBennett waswas thethe mostmost influentialinfluential liberalliberal publisherpublisher duringduring America’sAmerica’s GoldenGolden AgeAge ofof Freethought.Freethought. DisplayingDisplaying aa masterfulmasterful commandcommand ofof thethe Bennett’s freethought journal. She thought Mr. Bennett “might be an honest man, or he might not,” since they historicalhistorical material,material, BradfordBradford deftlydeftly rescuesrescues thethe memorymemory ofof D.M.D.M. Bennett,Bennett, trulytruly anan AmericanAmerican nonenone ofof usus shouldshould forget.”forget.” had previous experience with both kinds. Her first impression of the editor, whom she found sitting with bag —— ttomom fflynnlynn,, eeditorditor,, FFreeree IInqunquIIryry mamaGGazineazine andand TThehe nnewew eencyclopedncyclopedIIaa ooFF uunbelnbelIIeeFF and baggage in their office beside the stove with an unshaven face, unkempt hair, and unpolished shoes, was that he looked more like an elderly farmer and “the furthest possible from a literary man.” D.M.D.M. Bennett:Bennett: TheThe TruthTruth SeekerSeeker.. Hardcover,Hardcover, 412412 pages.pages. $30.00$30.00 (Signed(Signed byby authorauthor uponupon request.)request.) SendSend checkcheck oror moneymoney orderorder toto Her anxiety vanished as soon as Eugene introduced them to each other. “One glance at his kindly, genial RRoderickoderick BBradford,radford, P.P.O.O. BBoxox 178213,178213, SanSan Diego,Diego, CA.CA. 9217792177 oror paypay withwith toto [email protected]@gmail.com face, which spoke so plainly the native goodness of the man, a load was lifted from my heart.” The widow was impressed with Bennett’s “unimpeachable honesty” and “unwavering fidelity” to his own convictions. Her first Subscribe to The Truth Seeker thought was: “My boy has found a father.” She later characterized her first impressions as almost prophetic Subscribe to The Truth Seeker because the two became more like “an elder and a younger brother.” pleasant atmosphere of “Sheol.” According to the Christian Bible, many respectable people who have been squirming in Hell D.M.D.M. Bennett: Bennett: The The Truth Truth Seeker Seeker pleasant atmosphere of “Sheol.” According to the Christian Bible, many respectable people who have been squirming in Hell TheThe biography biography of of the the founder founder of of The The Truth Truth Seeker Seeker Less than a year after D.M. Bennett’s death, Mary Wicks Bennett sold the Truth Seeker to Eugene who had ol ounded by ennett in anuary After suffering in the flames of Hell, Thomas Paine—and other historical figures—are portrayed enjoying the V .142 F d.M. b 1873 J 2015 ol ounded by ennett in anuary After suffering in the flames of Hell, Thomas Paine—and other historical figures—are portrayed enjoying the V .142 F d.M. b 1873 J 2015 DeroBIGne MorTIMer BenneTT (1818-1882) was nine- DeroBIGne MorTIMer BenneTT (1818-1882) was nine- teenth-century America’s most controversial publisher and WORLD’SWORLD’S OLDEST OLDEST FREETHOUGHT FREETHOUGHT PUBLICATION PUBLICATION

teenth-century America’s most controversial publisher and Illustration from Puck magazine, 1885. Joseph Ferdinand Keppler, artist. Library of Congress. WORLD’S OLDEST FREETHOUGHT PUBLICATION free-speech martyr. Bennett founded the New York free- Illustration from Puck magazine, 1885. Joseph Ferdinand Keppler, artist. Library of Congress. AMAMERICA’SERICA’S F FORGOTTENORGOTTEN F FOUNDINGOUND ING FAT FATHERHER VOLUMEVOLUME 142 142 FOUNDED FOUNDED BY BY D.M. D.M. BENNETT BENNETT IN IN 1873 1873 MAY MAY 2015 2015 WORLD’S OLDEST FREETHOUGHT PUBLICATION free-speech martyr. Bennett founded the New York free- Vol.143 Founded by d.M. bennett in 1873 May–august 2016 Vol.143 Founded by d.M. bennett in 1873 May–august 2016 thoughtthought periodical periodical The The Truth Truth Seeker Seeker in in 1873; 1873; his his publications publications werewere censored censored and and prohibited prohibited from from newsstands newsstands long long before before thethe expression expression “banned “banned in in Boston” Boston” was was heard. heard. Bennett’s Bennett’s been like a son to the childless couple. In 1888, Eugene learned firsthand of the powerful alliance between opposition to dogmatic religion and puritanical obscenity will be transferred to the pleasant watering-place known as “Sheol.”

opposition to dogmatic religion and puritanical obscenity will be transferred to the pleasant watering-place known as “Sheol.” lawslaws infuriated infuriated Anthony Anthony Comstock, Comstock, the the U.S. U.S. Post Post Of Offi ce’sfi ce’s “special“special agent” agent” and and self-proclaimed self-proclaimed “weeder “weeder in in God’s God’s gar- gar- den.”den.” Based Based on on original original sources sources and and extensively extensively researched, researched, thisthis in-depth in-depth yet yet accessible accessible biography biography of of D.M. D.M. Bennett Bennett offers offers I am resolved to be a fascinating glimpse into the secular movement during the I am resolved to be a fascinating glimpse into the secular movement during the GildedGilded Age. Age. Roderick Roderick Bradford Bradford follows follows Bennett’s Bennett’s evolution evolution from a devout Shaker to an unremitting skeptic and Ameri- church and state when he was denied the right to vote because of his refusal to swear on the Bible. from a devout Shaker to an unremitting skeptic and Ameri- ca’sca’s most most iconoclastic iconoclastic publisher. publisher. He He chronicles chronicles the the circum- circum- stancesstances that that led led to to Bennett’s Bennett’s historically historically signi signifi cantfi cant New New a good cItIzen. York City obscenity trial, his imprisonment in the Albany a good cItIzen. York City obscenity trial, his imprisonment in the Albany

Penitentiary, and the monumental petition campaign for a “Sheol” Penitentiary, and the monumental petition campaign for a “Sheol” pardonpardon that that went went all all the the way way to to the the White White House. House. Bradford Bradford examinesexamines Bennett’s Bennett’s prominent prominent role role in in the the National National Liber- Liber- al alLeague League and and his his association association with with leading leading suffragists, suffragists, spir- spir- I wIll speak Eugene was with the Truth Seeker for 35 years; its editor for a quarter of a century. Macdonald––whose itualists, birth-control advocates, and the founders of the I wIll speak itualists, birth-control advocates, and the founders of the TheosophicalTheosophical Society Society in in India. India.

“Roderick“Roderick Bradford Bradford reintroduces reintroduces a significanta significant nineteenth-century nineteenth-century reformer reformer whom whom mainstream mainstream historians historians have have unfairly unfairly neglected.neglected. D.M. D.M. Bennett Bennett was was the the most most influential influential liberal liberal publisher publisher during during America’s America’s Golden Golden Age Age of ofFreethought. Freethought. Even Even IInn defensedefense ofof llIIbertyberty.. more important, through his dogged opposition to morals campaigner Anthony Comstock—and the high price he even- more important, through his dogged opposition to morals campaigner Anthony Comstock—and the high price he even- tuallytually paid paid for for it—Bennett it—Bennett mounted mounted a heroica heroic defense defense of offreedom freedom of ofexpression, expression, in inthe the process process helping helping to toshape shape twenti- twenti- hobby was sailing––masterfully steered the Truth Seeker through freethought’s Golden Age and into the 20th eth-centuryeth-century free free speech speech standards standards in inways ways that that few few appreciate appreciate today. today. Displaying Displaying a masterfula masterful command command of ofthe the historical historical THOMAS PAINE material, Bradford deftly rescues the memory of D.M. Bennett, truly an THOMAS PAINE material, Bradford deftly rescues the memory of D.M. Bennett, truly an J a n ua r y 29, 1737 – J u n e 8, 1809 American none of us should forget.” J a n ua r y 29, 1737 – J u n e 8, 1809 I wIll speak the truth, American none of us should forget.” I wIll speak the truth, — tom flynn, Editor, Free Inquiry magazine and — tom flynn, Editor, Free Inquiry magazine and TheThe New New Encyclopedia Encyclopedia of ofUnbelief Unbelief ExecutiveExecutive Producer, Producer, American American Freethought Freethought andand II wwIIllll prprIIntnt IItt.. century. D.M.D.M. Bennett: Bennett: The The Truth Truth Seeker Seeker. Hardcover,. Hardcover, 412 412 pages. pages. ISBN:ISBN: 1-59102-430-7. 1-59102-430-7. $30.00 $30.00 (Signed (Signed by by author author upon upon request.) request.) STST –d.m. bennett SendSend check check or ormoney money order order to toThe The Truth Truth Seeker, Seeker, 141141 A ANNIVERSARYNNIVERSARY I ISSUESSUE –d.m. bennett P.O.P.O. Box Box 178213, 178213, San San Diego, Diego, CA. CA. 92177 92177. . SeptemberSeptember 2014 2014 After learning that he had tuberculosis in 1908, Eugene left his brother George in charge of the Truth Seeker and moved to Sullivan county New York to “take the cure.” TheThe TruthTruth SeekerSeeker isis aa triannualtriannual magazinemagazine publishedpublished inin January,January, May,May, andand September.September. Macdonald spent the summer living in a tent and eating fresh eggs, milk, fruit, and vegetables; a diet that YYearlyearly subscriptionsubscription forfor 33 printprint issuesissues isis $34.95$34.95 whichwhich includesincludes accessaccess toto digitaldigital onlineonline along with the mountain air and sunshine was believed to restore health. At the age of 54, however, Eugene editionseditions and and to the the four-hour four-hour American American Freethought Freethought film film series series ($49.99 ($49.99 value). value). Macdonald died in his wife’s arms on February 26, 1909. It is fitting that D.M. Bennett’s protegé and theTruth SendSend checkcheck oror moneymoney orderorder toto RRoderickoderick BBradford,radford, P.P.O.O. BBoxox 178213,178213, SanSan Diego,Diego, CACA 92177.92177. Seeker editor who devoted his entire adult life promoting freethought and fighting for civil liberties died in a oror paypay withwith toto [email protected]@gmail.com village called –– Liberty. www.thetruthseeker.netwww.thetruthseeker.net | 58 | THETRUTHSEEKER.net | 58 | THETRUTHSEEKER.net