Education and Free Inquiry A Statement from the Academy of Humanism

Isaac Asimov Antony Flew Paul MacCready Brand Blanshard Stephen Jay Gould Ernest Nagel Vern Bullough Sidney Hook W. V. Quine Francis Crick Donald Johanson Richard Taylor Joseph Fletcher Paul Kurtz Edward O. Wilson Gerald Larue

Sidney Hook Searching China, iIîarxism for and Jesus Human Freedom

COMING SOON: TRE. REALLY REALLY T RUE ACTUAL TOMB

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Also: Press Blackout on Criticism of the Bible • Sobriety Without Superstition • Evangelic Agnosticism • Is Child Abuse a Myth? SUMMER 1985, VOL. 5, NO. 3 ISSN 0272-0701 Contents

3 LETTERS TO THE EDITOR 4 Education and Free Inquiry, A Statement From the Academy of Humanism 5 EDITORIALS 8 ON THE BARRICADES ARTICLES J ESUS IN HISTORY AND MYTH 10 Finding a Common Ground Between Believers and Unbelievers Paul Kurtz 13 Render to Jesus the Things that Are Jesus' Robert S. Alley 18 Jesus in Time and Space Gerald A. Larue

23 Biblical Scorecard: Was Jesus "Pro-Family") Thomas Franczyk 24 An Interview with Sidney Hook on China, Marxism, and Human Freedom 34 Evangelical Agnosticism William Henry Young 37 To Refuse to Be a God: Religious Humanism of the Future Khoren Arisian 41 The Legacy of Voltaire (Part II) Paul Edwards BOOKS 50 Arguing About Old-Time Christianity Antony Flew VIEWPOINTS 51 Child Abuse: Myth or Reality? Vern L. Bullough 52 A Humanist's Lack of Options Sarah Slavin 53 Sobriety Without Superstition James Christopher 56 IN THE NAME OF GOD 58 CLASSIFIED

Editor: Paul Kurtz

Associate Editors: Doris Doyle, Steven L. Mitchell, Lee Nisbet, Gordon Stein

Managing Editor: Andrea Szalanski

Contributing Editors: Lionel Abel, author, critic, SUNY at Buffalo; Paul Beattie, president, Fellowship of Religious Humanists; Jo-Ann Boydston, director, Dewey Center; Laurence Briskman, lecturer, Edinburgh University, Scotland; Vern Bullough, historian, State University of New York College at Buffalo; Albert Ellis, director, Institute for Rational Living; Roy P. Fairfield, social scientist, Union Graduate School; Joseph Fletcher, theologian, University of Virginia Medical School; Antony Flew, philosopher, Reading University, England; Sidney Hook, professor emeritus of philosophy, NYU; Marvin Kohl, philosopher, State University of New York College at Fredonia; Jean Kotkin, executive director, American Ethical Union; Gerald Larue, professor emeritus of archaeology and biblical history, USC; Ronald A. Lindsay, attorney, Washington, D.C.; Ernest Nagel, professor emeritus of philosophy, Columbia University; Howard Radest, director, Ethical Culture Schools; Ralph Raico, associate professor of history, State University College of New York at Buffalo; Robert Rimmer, author; William Ryan, free-lance reporter, novelist; Svetozar Stojanovic, professor of philosophy, University of Belgrade; Thomas Szasz, psychiatrist, Upstate Medical Center, Syracuse; V. M. Tarkunde, Supreme Court Judge, India; Richard Taylor, professor of philosophy, Union College; Sherwin Wine, founder, Society for Humanistic Judaism

Editorial Associates: H. James Birx, James Martin-Diaz, Thomas Flynn, Thomas Franczyk, Marvin Zimmerman

Executive Director of CODESH, Inc.: Jean Millholland Book Review Editor: Victor Gulotta Promotion: Barry L. Karr

Systems Manager: Richard Seymour Typesetting: Paul E. Loynes Layout: Guy Burgstahler Staff. Jacqueline Livingston, Alfreda Pidgeon

FREE INQUIRY (ISSN 0272-0701) is published quarterly by the Council for Democratic and Secular Humanism (CODESH, Inc.), a nonprofit corporation. 3151 Bailey Avenue, Buffalo, NY 14215. Phone (716) 834-2921. Copyright @1985 by CODESH, Inc. Second-class postage paid at Buffalo, New York . National distribution by International Periodicals Distributors, San Diego, California. Subscription rates: $16.50 for one year, $29.00 for two years, $38.00 for three years, $3.75 for single copies. Address subscription orders, changes of address, and advertising to: FREE INQUIRY, Central Park Station, Box 5, Buffalo, NY 14215. Manuscripts, letters and editorial inquiries should be addressed to: The Editor, FREE INQUIRY, Central Park Station, Box 5, Buffalo, N.Y. 14215. All manuscripts should be accompanied by two additional copies and a stamped, addressed envelope. Opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of the editors or publisher.

2 FREE INQUIRY To Our Readers

FREE INQUIRY is pleased to LETTERS TO THE EDITOR announce that its subscribers will now receive the Secular Humanist Bulletin at no extra cost. The Bulletin will be mailed four times a year, between issues of FREE INQUIRY. Church vs. State telling everyone that the convention move- ment is a conspiracy of the Radical Right, I E. O. Wilson As a humanist who supports a limited con- spend half my time trying to reassure stitutional convention to draft a balanced- Radical Right types that it's not a conspiracy E. O. Wilson (FI, Spring 1985) says that budget amendment, I must take exception of "dem debbil" secular humanists. Phyllis one competitive advantage of scientific to Edd Doerr's well-meaning but misin- Schlafly, the conservative anti-ERA cru- materialism over religion is its unity: "No formed comments (Editorials, FI, Spring sader, opposes a convention for just this competing scientific materialisms exist." 1985). Doerr contends that the real (as reason: She thinks that the Edd Doerrs of What can he mean? The Marxist version is opposed to the "proclaimed") purpose of a the world want a convention so they can so different from Wilson's that he regards it convention would be to "hack up the Bill of outlaw private religious practice. as a kind of religion. Epicurus, Hobbes, Rights" and pass amendments to outlaw Hume, Diderot, Comte, Feuerbach, Mill, abortion, require prayer and creationism in Scott D. Palmer Dewey, Russell, Sellers, and Quine all mean the public schools, and establish government Taxpayers' Foundation different things by "science" and "matter"; support for Christianity as an official "state Washington, D.C. as a professor of philosophy I am more religion." With all due respect, that's a lot impressed by their differences than by their of nonsense. The most obvious flaw in unity. If we include theists who reject Doerr's reasoning is that a constitutional The Vatican and Sex "revelation" and maintain the autonomy of convention, limited or not, cannot change both science and ethics, such as Aristotle, the Constitution. Any proposed amendment As an ex-Catholic who left the church fifty Spinoza, Locke, Kant, Peirce, James, and must be ratified by at least thirty-eight states. years ago, I read Robert T. Francoeur's "The Whitehead, the variety is even greater. The Our recent experience with the proposed Vatican's View of Sex: The Inaccurate unity of the scientific outlook, like the unity Equal Rights Amendment shows that rati- Conception" (FI, Spring 1985) with keen of religion, is faith rather than fact. fication is difficult even for amendments that interest. For years, even as a child, 1 have As I see it, "secular humanism" is not a have overwhelming public support. Amend- recognized the church's morbid hangup on philosophy (Which of these would it be?) ments supported by fringe-groups simply sex, and 1 have tried to determine why. My but an attitude within which philosophy, "don't have a prayer." answer follows. science, art, politics, and education can go 1 support unconditional abortion rights As we know, intense pleasure is asso- on without requiring a religious commit- through the second trimester. 1 oppose pub- ciated with the reproductive process. Chris- ment; in which religion is an "optional extra" lic school prayer and have written articles tianity, on the other hand, is vehemently left to the individual. In this sense, funda- debunking both creationism and the excesses anti-pleasure, not only in regard to sex but mentalists are right to see it as a serious of Christian supernaturalism. If there were in virtually all areas of human existence. threat to their position; indeed, the battle is the slightest chance that a limited constitu- Self-imposed torture has made many persons almost over. tional convention could even consider candidates for sainthood. The church—and amendments on these issues, I would oppose 1 include nearly all Christian denominations Richard J. Burke such a convention. However, disinterested in that designation—is powerless to eradicate Oakland University scholars—such as a special study commission the various sources of pleasure, so it does Rochester, Mich. of the American Bar Association—have con- the next best thing: It inculcates guilt by cluded that a convention could be limited association. And, in doing so, it has been E. O. Wilson states that sacred rituals are to the specific subject for which it was called: extremely successful. Pleasure and the pur- cultural universals. As sociologists under- in this case, to draft and submit a balanced- suit thereof, when attended by guilt, becomes stand this term, it refers to phenomena that budget amendment to the states. an instrument for the perpetuation of exist in every culture. If this is what Dr. The ABA commission also pointed out, chronic guilt; chronic guilt reinforces one's Wilson means, his assertion is highly ques- perceptively, that discussions of a constitu- dependence on church and clergy. This tionable, since a few societies seem to have tional convention usually take place with dependence, in turn, provides a never-ending lacked not only ritual but any vestiges of reference to a specific proposed amendment; supply for the collection plate, which, in its religion whatsoever. Lubbock's Origin of hence, those who oppose the amendment turn, provides fuel for the greatest of all Civilization and the Primitive Condition of tend to use scare tactics about a convention human vices, namely, the lust for unbridled Man cites a number of examples, as does as an alternative strategy for stopping the power. The church's morbid preoccupation Robertson's History of America (vol. 4). constitutional reform of which they disap- with sex, then, is political; and organized prove. religion is ultimately just that—politics. John George Talk of a "runaway" convention is not, Central State University by the way, limited to humanists, liberals, F. Mark Davis Edmond, Okla. and religious skeptics. While Edd Doerr is Chico, Calif. (Continued on p. 54)

Summer 1985 3 Those who thoughtfully consider moral choice recognize that moral problems are often highly complex and involve many competing rights and many "goods" and Education and Free Inquiry "bads," and that only an informed and educated mind can make wise decisions. However, to the conservative religion- A Statement from the Academy of Humanism ists, any effort to develop a rational ethical philosophy independent of religious faith, or any attempt to discuss values without reference to the Bible, is considered to be teaching "the religion of secular humanism" and therefore should be prohibited. These critics do not accept freedom of choice. n unprecedented attack on the public to form groups of "concerned citizens." Humanists are surely not opposed to Aschools is now under way in the United These groups distribute materials and letters reform of public schools or to changes in States. This attack endangers the teaching to parents urging them to protest the inclu- curricula. Informed parental participation on of science, the development of critical intelli- sion in school curricula of what they con- the local level should be encouraged, but gence, and the viability of the educational sider to be secular humanist doctrine. To be this differs from the vociferous intimidation process itself. This assault has targeted secu- barred from classroom discussion is a long of teachers and educators by vigilante lar humanism for special condemnation. list of "sensitive" courses and subjects, groups. We deplore the unwarranted intru- Conservative religionists and biblical including moral education, moral dilemmas, sion of the federal government into the fundamentalists consider secular humanism values clarification, human sexuality, organic school curriculum, and we urge Congress to to be the cause of America's alleged moral evolution, nuclear policy, world government, reconsider the two Hatch amendments. Their decline. They blame secular humanism for population control, the roles of males and use could denude the schools of intelligent the climbing divorce rate, the increase in females in society, and so on. content and minimize the effectiveness of teenage pregnancy, the rise in alcohol and We believe that the problems and issues teachers in the all-important task of educat- drug abuse, and many other problems that of contemporary life are inescapable; evasion ing our children. are a concern to all Americans. and ignorance are not avenues to solutions. If American education is to serve the An alarming illustration of this is the We do not believe that any one group has nation's youth as they face the awesome recent enactment of an amendment in 1984 the answers to these or related problems. problems of the future, then all Americans to the Education for Economic Security Act By questioning, seeking alternatives, and must resist every effort by sectarians under by Senator Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) pro- encouraging free inquiry, we have a far any guise to undermine the teaching of sci- hibiting the expenditure of federal funds for better chance of success than by limiting the ence and critical thinking in our schools. the "teaching of secular humanism" in mag- coming generation to the narrow fields of We call upon all teachers, administrators, net schools. The Hatch measure did not pro- study recommended by the critics of secular parents, and concerned citizens to join us in vide a definition of what constitutes "secular humanism. resisting this dangerous assault on public humanism" but left this to the U.S. Depart- There is a vast difference between education. Those who deny free inquiry, not ment of Education, which in turn delegated indoctrinating students into a specific those who would cultivate it, are the real the responsibility to local school boards. faith—or none—and teaching them how to corrupters of our youth. According to the Washington Post (January appraise evidence and weigh arguments 10, 1985), Ed Darrell, spokesman for Sena- carefully, which is the business of education. HUMANIST LAUREATES tor Hatch's Labor and Human Resources If the schoolteachers of America cannot (United States) Committee, said that religious conservatives engage in free inquiry and raise fundamental Isaac Asimov, author define secular humanism as those things that questions in order to develop an appreciation Brand Blanshard, Yale University "get in the way of a Christian education." for science, reason, and critical intelligence, Vern Bullough, State University of New York College at Buffalo Compounding the threat of this legisla- then education becomes merely a mechanical Francis Crick, Salk institute tion is another recent Department of Educa- process of rote learning. Joseph Fletcher, University of Virginia Medical tion rule that implements an amendment All education involves a moral com- School sponsored by Senator Hatch to an education ponent, and teachers therefore are concerned Antony Flew, Bowling Green University Stephen Jay Gould, bill passed by Congress in 1978. This rule with developing moral character, an appre- Harvard University Sidney Hook, Hoover Institution on War, was designed to prohibit psychological and ciation for intellectual honesty and objectiv- Revolution and Peace, Stanford University psychiatric testing without parental approval, ity, and the ability to reflect upon and Donald Johanson, Institute of Human Origins but it has been interpreted to mean that wrestle with moral problems. Throughout Paul Kurtz, State University of New York at federal funds will be denied to schools that the entire history of Western civilization Buffalo Gerald A. Larne, University of Southern Cali- ignore parents' objections to the content of there has been a rich philosophical literature fornia classroom materials. Senator Hatch and focusing on the need to develop a sense of Paul McCready, inventor other critics of secular humanism have said moral responsibility and a capacity for Ernest Nagel, Columbia University that their goal is to remove what they claim autonomous moral choice. Human beings W. V. Quine, Harvard University to be the teaching of the "religion of secular can learn to take a reflective approach to Richard Taylor, Union College humanism" from the public schools. morality, which would include a moderation Edward O. Wilson, Harvard University The critics of secular humanism have of selfish and thoughtless desires and a com- launched a nationwide campaign in an effort passionate concern for the needs of others.

4 FREE INQUIRY the story and "tone it down" for the Sunday edition. She submitted the rewritten story, Editorials and again it was killed by her editor. (For- tunately, other newspapers outside the area carried articles on the conference, including a syndicated story by columnist George Plagns of the Newspaper Enterprise Asso- Press Blackout ciation and two others by religion editor John Dart of the Los Angeles Times.) on Criticism of the Bible This incident illustrates the fact that the media are reluctant to report on matters critical of the Bible. Editors are apprehensive about offending the sensibilities of religious people. Religious commitments are so strongly held that it often becomes difficult at FREE INQUIRY magazine are tence of Jesus and attempted to disentangle to raise any questions about the veracity of W ecommitted to the principle of free- myth from historical fact. a religion without being accused of bigotry dom of inquiry. We are especially interested We were thus surprised that only one or blasphemy. But it is not necessarily anti- in fostering public discussion of subjects that newspaper in the Detroit-Ann Arbor area, Catholic, anti-Christian, or anti-Semitic to are not adequately discussed in the mass the Detroit News, published a story on the probe the foundations of the truth claims of media. It was for this purpose that FREE conference and that the rest of the media in the major denominations, particularly when INQUIRY recently sponsored the conference the area did not report it. Reporters from these religious views can have powerful con- "Jesus in History and Myth." which brought the Detroit Free Press (which prides itself sequences for our political and social life. some twenty-three scholars, scientists, and on being a liberal newspaper) and the Ann No doubt many people find news stories philosophers to the University of Michigan Arbor News spent two days at the confer- about biblical scholarship boring. But the in Ann Arbor to discuss the issue. They came ence. But both papers failed to print stories. point is that there is a vast imbalance in the from prestigious universities in the United One reporter submitted a story to her editor media's coverage of the subject. The market- States. Canada. and Britain and included at the end of the first day of the conference. place is flooded with pro-Bible propaganda. both religious skeptics and liberal Christians It described some of the unconventional Believers have every right to express their and Jews. The conference attempted to bring views about Jesus and the Bible that were points of view, but surely the public also to light knowledge that is well known to expressed at the meeting. The next day the has a right to learn about the findings of biblical scholars, archaeologists, and other reporter was back. 1 asked her whether her scientific and scholarly researchers. Would scientists. According to Professor R. Joseph paper would run the story. She said no, that newspaper editors and other managers Hoffmann of the University of Michigan, that her editor had rejected it because it of the news were less timid about airing this conference was something of an aca- "might offend the little old ladies in Detroit." opinions crtical of the claims of powerful demic first: It objectively debated the exis- She had come back determined to rewrite religious interests.— Paul Kurz

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Summer 1985 5 ment in the case so far has, in fact, been occasioned by this challenge to Dr. Halver- son's opening remarks. Attempting to explain away Dr. Halverson's attacks on nontheists, his attorneys maintained in their Court Test brief to the court that the Senate chaplain was merely attempting "to communicate an affirmative message through prayers" by of Congressional Prayer "identifying sources of national strength in . . . biblical, historical and contemporary references," adding, as an example, a prayer by Dr. Halverson that was "inspired by pub- lic remembrances of the Holocaust." In his reply brief, Dr. Kurtz pointed out that he had no objection to reminding n a previous issue of FREE INQUIRY (Fall willing to share the podium with the Senate legislators of the Holocaust; to the contrary, 1984), we called attention to the practice and House chaplains so that a prayer by he argued, the Holocaust is a perfect exam- of the chaplains of the United States Senate them could follow or precede his own ple of the horrible consequences of religious and House of Representatives of inviting remarks. bigotry and intolerance. What was objec- members of the public to open daily sessions Since the chaplains' decision not to tionable was Dr. Halverson's exploitation of the Senate and House with brief remarks allow Dr. Kurtz the opportunity to parti- of the Holocaust as a means of making a designed to imbue the legislators with a sense cipate in the opening ceremonies was pred- vicious attack on those who do not believe of seriousness and high purpose. In particu- icated on his refusal to pray, it was argua- in God, for in his prayer on the Holocaust lar, the opening remarks of the chaplains bly unconstitutional. Therefore, after consul- (see 129 Congressional Record S 4607 [daily and their guests are often devoted to tation with Washington, D.C., attorney edition of April 14, 1983]) Dr. Halverson reminding the legislators of their moral Ronald A. Lindsay, who agreed to represent suggested that the unspeakable violation of responsibilities. Dr. Kurtz without fee, the decision was made human rights that the Holocaust represents To date, these opening remarks have to file a lawsuit challenging the exclusion of could be attributed to disbelief in God. In all taken the form of prayers. The chaplains nontheists from opening ceremonies. That that prayer, Dr. Halverson, after an allusion have invited individuals from many different, case is now pending before the U.S. District to the Holocaust, stated: "Father in Heaven, and conflicting, religious viewpoints to Court for the District of Columbia, under in a day when Godless forces would deny deliver the opening remarks, but they have the title Kurtz v. Baker, Case No. 84-2919. and destroy human rights, help us to see the never invited a nontheist. However, because (James Baker, the Secretary of the Treasury, futility in struggling to preserve them when the House and Senate chaplaincies are sup- is named as a defendant because, as indi- we deny, privately and publicly, the God ported with public funds, we believe that cated, the chaplaincies are supported by who gave them." the chaplains have an obligation not to dis- public funds.) As Dr. Kurtz emphasized in his reply, criminate in their selection of guest speakers. In the same lawsuit, Dr. Kurtz is also there is no factual basis for associating dis- If their tax-supported pulpits have been requesting the court to enjoin the Senate belief in God with the Holocaust. In fact, in opened up to theists of every conceivable chaplain, the Reverend Richard Halverson, his public speeches Hitler constantly referred sort, why should not a nontheist have the from making disparaging remarks regarding to God and invoked His help. He even por- opportunity, on at least one occasion, to nontheists, or in the alternative to prohibit trayed Nazism as a bulwark against atheism. participate in the opening ceremony? To Dr. Halverson from being compensated with Interestingly, Hitler was also a believer in exclude nontheists from the opening cere- public funds. A review of Dr. Halverson's the propriety of legislative prayer, as wit- mony of the national legislature serves to opening remarks revealed that he has unfor- nessed by the prayers he offered in the perpetuate the mistaken but widely held tunately used these remarks on a number of Reichstag. See Hitler's Speeches, vol. 1, pp. belief that religion is the basis for morality occasions as a vehicle for disparaging those 333-412 (Baynes ed. 1942). Nor was Hitler and that anyone who does not believe in a who do not believe in a deity. Specifically, unique in his theism. The 1939 census for deity is not fit to discuss moral issues. More- he has asserted that those who do not believe Germany revealed that a minuscule 1.5 per- over, the exclusion of nontheists from par- in God do not have any "concern for human cent of the German population identified ticipation in the opening ceremonies, while rights, minorities and ... people." Although themselves as "unbelievers." allowing access to theists of every conceiva- the Supreme Court has upheld the constitu- Dr. Halverson's remarks do serve one ble stripe, unmistakably allies government tionality of legislative chaplaincies, Marsh useful purpose. They reveal how widespread with religion and marks religious skeptics as v. Chambers, 103 S.Ct. 3330 (1983), it has the prejudice against nontheists really is. If second-class citizens. also indicated that there is a limit to what Dr. Halverson had suggested that Catholi- With these considerations in mind, Paul publicly funded legislative chaplains can say, cism or Lutheranism was responsible for the Kurtz, editor of FREE INQUIRY, repeatedly observing that the chaplains cannot exploit Holocaust, his tenure and/ or the public wrote to the House and Senate chaplains their prayer opportunity as a means "to funding of the chaplaincies would have been requesting the opportunity to participate in advance any one, or to disparage any other, terminated by Congress before he arrived at the opening ceremonies as a guest speaker. faith or belief." Through his repeated deni- the last word of his opening remarks. The His requests were rejected on the grounds gration of nontheists, Dr. Halverson appears fact that he apparently feels free to question that he would not offer a prayer during his to have transgressed these judicially imposed the morality of nontheists argues not only remarks. Dr. Kurtz's requests were rejected limits on his remarks. for enjoining him from making such dis- despite the fact that he stated that he was Perhaps the most interesting develop- paraging remarks in the future but also for

6 FREE INQUIRY allowing nontheists to participate in the opening ceremonies. If the chaplains and the legislators would allow nontheists this How Powerful Is Religious opportunity, perhaps this would help to dispel at least some of the prejudice against Broadcasting? religious skeptics. A decision on the case is expected later this year. It should be noted that, in a separate lawsuit, Dr. Kurtz has also chal- ere's a pledge from John and gram guidance for its members, collects and lenged the use of public funds for the «IIBelinda Yeager of Decatur—they're publishes a variety of arcane information printing and binding of the prayers of the pledging fifty dollars a month for the next on religious broadcasting, and holds an Senate and House chaplains (Kurtz v. year so we can buy that 3-tube color tele- annual convention that earlier this year Kennickell, Case No. 84-2918). • vision camera. Praise the lord! Here's Martin attracted President Ronald Reagan, Vice- Williams of Angola, pledging forty dollars President George Bush, Senator Jesse a month. Bless you, Martin, praise the lord! Helms, Congressman Jack Kemp, Phyllis And here's one from Willy and Edna Ellicott Schlafly, Jerry Falwell, Billy Graham, and, of Columbia City, for twenty-five dollars of all people, Senator Ted Kennedy. The . . ." Suddenly the TV preacher's brow fact that a convention of just 4,000 delegates Name the Source furrowed as he scrutinized the slip of paper can draw such a prestigious roster of guest _ again. "Oh, not twenty-five dollars a month. speakers attests to the power and vitality of Just twenty-five dollars. Well, um, God bless religious broadcasting in America—power you, Willy and Edna, but our lord Jesus that is being focused against church-state an you identify the sources of Christ will sure smile wider when you make separation in America and across the world. Cthe following quotations? that twenty-five dollars a month." One presentation at the NRB conven- The speaker was a Midwestern televan- tion described a five-year program conducted Almighty God, dear heavenly gelist viewed by accident in a Fort Wayne, jointly by the Catholic church and the Father. In thy name let us now, in Indiana, hotel room. (The names have been government of Brazil that uses electronic pious spirit, begin our instruction. changed to protect the faithful.) But the media to promote massive efforts to place Enlighten us, teach us all truth, 25 million New Testaments in the hands of strengthen us in all that is good, scene was one that anyone can view almost lead us not into temptation, deliver any night of the week in any U.S. television young Brazilians. The primary staging area us from all evil in order that, as market. Some Americans still hold the for distribution of the texts: the Brazilian good human beings, we may faith- stereotype of religious broadcasters as corn- public schools. fully perform our duties and pone hucksters, preaching hellfire and Make no mistake—there is power in thereby, in time and eternity, be salvation-through-donation to audiences for religious broadcasting. But one still wonders: made truly happy. Amen. a few hundred miles around. But this kind how much? Some signs still indicate that of electronic outreach pales beside the the televangelical community has yet to Secular schools can never be aggressive, organized, well-financed, and attain the political muscle it boasts. One tolerated because such a school has fast-growing televangelists like Jerry Falwell, indicator is the Religious Right's track no religious instruction and a general moral instruction without Pat Robertson, and Jim Bakker, whose record during recent elections. Televangelists a religious foundation is built on reach is nationwide and often worldwide. claimed much of the credit for Reagan's air; consequently, all character As a group, they tend to be pro-Reagan, victories in 1980 and 1984 and for the training and religion must be anti-abortion, pro-creationist, anti-gay, and unseating of a few key liberal senators and derived from faith.... We need vituperatively against the amorphous enemy congressmen. But in fact very few of the believing people. known as "secular humanism." But how lawmakers on the Moral Majority "hit list" powerful are today's religious broadcasters? have thus far lost their reelection bids. This The first quotation is the prayer Do they in fact constitute a monolithic at least reassures us that the televangelists that was required by law to be recited "fourth network," as some conservative do not yet control the votes of a plurality of in secondary schools in Germany in commentators have suggested? the voting electorate. the 1930s. In addition to this daily Let's look at the numbers. There are Another sign that religious broadcasters prayer every student was required to 1,043 predominantly religious radio stations have not yet attained the full stature they take two hours of religious instruction in the United States, of which 233 operate hope for is the continuing willingness of per week. on college campuses. They air some 687 some televangelists to exaggerate their size The second quotation comes not different religious programs, produced by and influence. For instance, the conservative from Jerry Falwell or Ronald Reagan 511 organizations. Ninety-two U.S. television weekly Human Events stated in its February but was a statement made by Adolf stations are owned by religious groups or 16, 1985, edition that Pat Robertson's Chris- Hitler on April 26, 1933, to two program a high density of religious material. tian Broadcasting Network (CBN) airs on Roman Catholic officials, Bishop They disseminate some 1,010 different pro- 4,300 cable TV systems. Yet the authoritative Wilhelm Berning and Vicar General grams, including 66 syndicated ministries, Broadcasting 1984 Yearbook credits Robert- Johannes Steinmann, adviser to the produced by 373 organizations. son with only 2,500 cable systems—along German embassy in Rome, during About 80 percent of the nation's reli- with 162 broadcast stations and 60 radio negotiations leading to the Reich-Holy gious broadcasters belong to the 1,100- outlets. See concordat of 1933.—Edd Doerr member National Religious Broadcasters The real numbers are impressive (NRB). NRB provides technical and pro- (Continued on p. 58)

Summer 1985 7 G. A. Wells, professor at Birkbeck College, University of London; and John Allegro, author of The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Christian Myth. ON THE BARRICADES CSER is an outgrowth of FREE INQUIRY's Religion and Biblical Criticism Research Project. The Project will continue as a subcommittee of CSER and will be News & Views chaired by R. Joseph Hoffmann, associate professor of biblical studies at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. Among its Scientists Form New Committee to evaluate these claims in the light of scien- members are John Priest, professor and to Study Religion tific inquiry." chairman, Department of Religion, Florida CSER will examine the claims of State University; Randel Helms, professor The Academy of Humanism, an interna- Eastern and Western religions and of well- of English, Arizona State University; James tional group of thirty-five scholars and sci- established and newer sects and denomina- Robinson, director, Institute for Antiquity entists, used the "Jesus in History and Myth" tions. The Committee will be interdiscipli- and Christianity, Claremont College; Joseph symposium sponsored by FREE INQUIRY at nary, including specialists in biblical scholar- Fletcher, theologian and Visiting Scholar for the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor ship, archaeology, linguistics, anthropology, Medical Studies at the University of Vir- on April 19 and 20, 1985, to announce the the social sciences, and philosophy. CSER's ginia; Carol Meyers, professor of religion, formation of the "Committee for the Scien- members will also represent different reli- Duke University; Robert Joly, professor of tific Examination of Religion" (CSER). The gious traditions: The only criterion for mem- philosophy, Centre Interdisciplinaire purpose of CSER is to submit religious bership in CSER is a commitment to impar- d'Etudes Philosophiques de l'Universite de claims to careful scientific and scholarly tial scholarship and the use of objective Mons (Belgium); David Noel Freedman, investigation and analysis. "Religious doc- methods of inquiry. professor of Old Testament, University of trines have become highly controversial in CSER's members include Morton Michigan; and Joseph Barnhart, professor recent years, and many religious leaders seek, Smith, professor of history at Columbia of philosophy, North Texas State University. on the basis of their reading of the Bible, to University; Robert Alley, professor of pass moral, social, or political judgments humanities at the University of Richmond; that affect the broader public," said CSER Sidney Hook, senior research fellow at the Protesters Disrupt chairman Gerald A. Larue, professor emeri- Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and FREE INQUIRY Conference tus of biblical history and archaeology at Peace at Stanford University; Vern Bul- the University of Southern California. "They lough, dean of natural sciences at the State More evidence of the current trend to blame even attempt to gain political support for University of New York College at Buffalo; humanists for all society's ills was seen at their own interpretations of the Bible. This Antony Flew, professor of philosophy at the "Jesus in History and Myth" symposium is the first effective body of scientific scholars Reading University in England; Paul Kurtz; at Ann Arbor in April. Members of the

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8 FREE INQUIRY General Revolutionary Union, a group Christian Voice, members of Congress had the National Association of Biology affiliated with Lyndon LaRouche, picketed to vote for guns for Central America but Teachers, and William V. Mayer, professor the conference site and distributed leaflets against federal funds for scientific research, emeritus of biology at the University of that accused humanists of promoting geno- and they had to oppose legal services for Colorado. The study, "A Consumer's Guide cide, white supremacy, bestiality, and the poor and support Senator Jesse Helms's to Biology Textbooks, 1985," published by legalized narcotics, among other things. (See unsuccessful attempt to restrict political People for the American Way, evaluated 18 the photograph on page 8 for a sampling of activism by labor unions. texts being distributed nationally this year their criticisms.) These ratings appear to more accurately by major publishers. reflect the politics rather than the piety of "The quality of biology textbooks has members of Congress. Eighty-one senators declined drastically since the late 1960s," said Liberal Theologian Denied Ministry and representatives got "100-percent Chris- Mr. Moyer. "In recent years publishers have tian" ratings for the 1984 session, of which given in to pressure from the ultrafunda- John Hick, liberal theologian and chairman 80 were Republicans and only one a Demo- mentalists and watered down references to of the Department of Religion at Claremont crat. This explains why Christian Voice evolution and other scientific theories." Graduate School in California, has been flunked Paul Simon, an exemplary family Mr. Moyers said the books reflect the barred from membership in the San Gabriel man, and gave the highest possible score to long-term influence on textbook publishers Presbytery. Dan Crane, who was censured by the House of a Texas rule, repealed last year, that Hick's application to transfer his for his involvement with a teenaged page. restricted the teaching of evolution in biology ministerial status from Great Britain to Cali- texts. fornia was approved in September 1984. But members of the Presbytery who objected to Mormonism or Magic Hick's philosophy of an interfaith global Strange Evidence theology challenged the voting procedure A letter donated to the Church of Jesus and approval of Hick's application was Christ of Latter-day Saints suggests that Defense attorneys for the four young people rescinded. magic was a factor in Joseph Smith's recently convicted in the bombing of three Hick, the author of the book The Myth founding of the Mormon Church. Pensacola, Florida, abortion clinics last of God Incarnate, defended belief in a trans- The letter, now made available to the December attempted to introduce unusual cendent God at FREE INQUIRY'S recent public by church officials, is attributed to evidence in order to obtain an acquittal on "Jesus in History and Myth" symposium at Martin Harris, a "special witness" to the grounds of insanity. Federal District Judge the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. heavenly origins of Mormonism. Written in Roger Vinson refused to allow some of the The Presbytery's decision to bar Hick may 1830 to the editor of the Kirtland, Ohio, items. yet be appealed at the denominational level. Morning and Evening Star, the letter One was a comic book entitled "Rex claimed that Smith at first was kept from Morgan, M.D., Talks About Your Unborn obtaining the golden plates by a "spirit" that Child." Another, a comic book called CODESH Joins Coalition had appeared as a "white salamander." "Dune" (based on the Dino de Laurentis for Religious Liberty The letter is considered by some to cast motion picture and the Frank Herbert doubt on the official version of the founding science-fiction novel), includes a scene in The Council for Democratic and Secular of the church. Others say the authorship of which a fetus in the womb abruptly acquires Humanism (CODESH), publisher of FREE the letter can never be identified with cer- full adult consciousness after its mother con- INQUIRY magazine, has joined the National tainty. Still others suggest that the letter sumes a potent psychogenic drug. Judge Coalition for Public Education and Reli- merely reflects the folk magic of the time. Vinson rejected both, apparently to keep the gious Liberty (PEARL). The organizations Another letter, supposedly written by case focused on the crimes, not the abortion in PEARL, which is based in Washington, Joseph Smith himself, and dated June 18, issue. Judge Vinson also refused to allow D.C., are committed to the defense of public 1925, has apparently disappeared. Addressed testimony by St. Louis University social education and maintaining the separation to Josiah Stowell, who had commissioned psychologist William Brennan. Brennan had of church and state. Its members include Joseph to dig for treasure on his land in told the court he would testify that con- the National Education Association, the Harmony, Pa., the letter advises Stowell on flicting societal attitudes toward abortion American Federation of Teachers, the Union the use of magical techniques to prevent evil could have clouded the defendants' judg- of American Hebrew Congregations, the spirits from disturbing the treasure before ment. Vinson held that the insanity defense Unitarian Universalist Association, and the Smith himself arrived. Research historian requires proof of severe mental defects and Board of Church and Society of the United Brian Metcalfe claims he has "very reliable, that a social psychologist lacks the creden- Methodist Church. first-hand" information that the letter is in tials to address that issue. the possession of the Mormon Church. The defenders did score one point during testimony from a United States Piety or Politics Treasury agent who had played a central Texts Give Short Shrift role in identifying the suspects. During An ultraconservative lobbying group called to Evolution cross-examination of this witness, one Christian Voice recently issued a "report defense attorney accused God of being an card" pn how members of Congress voted Half of the new high-school biology text- "unindicted co-conspirator" in the case. on "key moral/family issues" during 1984. books do not adequately cover evolution and Attorney Patrick Monaghan told the jury The group rated Paul Simon zero and Dan one-sixth do not even mention evolution, that though he did not expect them to con- Crane 100 percent. according to a recent study conducted by done what happened, he would ask them to For a high-scoring report card from Wayne Moyer, former executive director of "understand" it.

Summer 1985 9 are unfamiliar with a field or uncertain of the reliability of its claims, then the wisest course is to suspend judgment and confess agnosticism about those claims. Jesus in History What is the snail population of Lower Moravia? What was the relationship between Socrates and Alcibiades? Does Vitamin E really improve an individual's sex life and and Myth contribute to longevity? Are there planets in other solar systems inhabited by intelligent The following three papers were delivered at the conference on "Jesus in History creatures'? If so, what do they look like? and Myth, "sponsored by FREE INQUIRY and held at the University of Michigan Was Moses an Egyptian? How often was at Ann Arbor April 19 and 20, 1985. "Finding a Common Ground Between Jerry Falwell born? Believers and Unbelievers"was presented by Paul Kurtz at the conference banquet, The answers to many of these questions at which the new Committee for the Scientific Examination of Religion (see page may be hard to determine. Presumably, in 8) was announced. —E Ds. principle, they can be resolved, though there may not be sufficient evidence for us to answer all of them, particularly if they are of a historical nature or beyond present means of observation. If a sensible person Finding a Common Ground does not know how to solve a question, he surely is not entitled to rely on "faith" for Between Believers and Unbelievers the answer but, rather, he should either suspend judgment or, particularly if it is an interesting or even a momentous issue, embark on a course of inquiry to find the answer. Paul Kurtz Similar questions arise in the area of religious beliefs. Unfortunately, it is difficult to adopt the same attitude of caution, because here we are treading on what is con- sidered to be sacred ground, and the normal e are today bombarded on all sides Scotch and Jewish, Black and Polish, standards of inquiry break down. We W by countless attempts to convince us German and French, or any other combina- generally are raised in a social environment to buy certain products, to get us to vote tion. It is now difficult to count on the old where a religious faith prevails; we are usu- for a specific candidate or party, to support verities and traditions to structure beliefs and ally baptized, confirmed, or otherwise ini- a particular cause, to donate to this charity values. People today can easily travel great tiated into the faith of our parents. Religious or that, or to accept a particular set of beliefs distances and be exposed to a wide range of beliefs are a product of inculcation and as true. An overabundance of claims is con- tastes and experiences. They also may indoctrination that begin at birth, continue tinually being unleashed against us. There is change jobs frequently. By means of the during the school years, and manifest them- actually an information overload. How shall electronic media, without even leaving their selves through later rites of passage. Reli- we decide which claims to accept as true or living rooms they may be exposed to a gious beliefs are multifarious and often con- valid, and why? variety of competing cultural systems. tradictory in their claims: one can be a Bud- In earlier societies, beliefs and values For these reasons, the appropriate goal dhist, Muhammadan, Hindu, Jew, Catholic, were somewhat fixed, change was slow, and of education today should be to cultivate an Protestant, Mormon, Seventh-day Adventist, the ordinary individual led a structured exis- inquiring mind that is able to weigh deci- humanist, Scientologist, or theosophist, tence; his place in society was regulated by sions, to learn how to think clearly, to be though perhaps not more than one at the tradition. Today this kind of stability is diffi- reflective. We all have to do this to some .same time. Is one's religious belief a matter cult to achieve, for we liVe in a pluralistic extent in our various occupations; i.e. if we of habit or faith, or does it involve the use world in which there is great diversity of are competently trained in a specialized dis- of rational choice? Should we accept all of opinion and many options in values and cipline like mathematics, physics, business, the beliefs to which we have been indoctri- beliefs. A person who is born in Wallflower, medicine, or plumbing. In areas in which nated? If so, why? Texas, or East Codfish, Connecticut, may we are untrained, we defer to authorities, To question our religious heritage is end up in Detroit, San Francisco, or Tokyo. since we cannot possibly evaluate every claim very difficult, for a person's belief system is He or she may fall in love and marry some- to the truth. We trust an expert opinion, normally a matter of ethnic identity and kin- one with a different ethnic, racial, or reli- but only when we think the judgments ship; one is nurtured in a religious faith that gious background. Children may be the rendered are based upon rationality and contributes to a sense of identity and product of divergent cultural influences: objective criteria of evidence, or when we belonging to a community. It becomes part know that the credentials of the authority and parcel of one's very being; it gives form Paul Kurtz is editor of FREE INQUIRY and undergo constant review by other objective to one's way of life, as does one's language professor of philosophy at the State Uni- inquirers in the field. We should recognize and a particular culture. In America, we let versity of New York at Buffalo. that the things we do not know far out- our children grow up without ever cutting number those we do know. Moreover, if we their "umbiblical" cords. It is not as easy to

10 FREE INQUIRY abandon the roots of one's being as it is to tongued satanists, or, even worse, secular religious liberty and freedom of thought and learn another language or even adapt to humanists! They accuse them of conspiring conscience. Militant believers and dogmatic another culture. Virtually all historic reli- to destroy religion, to tear down society, to atheists are bedfellows in their psychological gions have applied sanctions against dis- do away with the family and, to debauch attitudes. senters and heretics: They were rejected by the young. Any questioning of the faith must Is there a middle ground between the the social group, excommunicated, or even then be stamped out as dangerous, heretical, extreme positions of absolute belief and burned or hanged. Many religions are not and sinful, particularly where a religious absolute rejection? 1 think there is, and 1 content to leave individuals alone; mis- institution has been established to promul- would like to describe it. Let me call it the sionaries constantly recruit, saying, "Accept gate or protect the truth and has a monopoly tentative, open-ended, inquiring approach to Jesus as your savior." "Believe in the latter- of power and uses the state to enforce its religious hypotheses, and let me suggest that day revelations of the Book of Mormon," orthodoxy. Torquemada, Holy Defender of it is represented by two positions. The first and so on. Thus, we are beseeched from all the Faith during the Inquisition, is an is that of the fallible religious believer or sides either to adhere to an old religion or extreme example of this position, though liberal theologian who has not abandoned to convert to a new one. the unthinking and fanatic defenders of all doubt or uncertainty. This approach "Truth" are legion, from Plato's Euthyphro, yearns for a deeper meaning to life; it may hat should be our attitude toward who prosecuted his father for murder be uncertain about whether death is the final Wappraising the truth claims of reli- because the gods dictated it, to today's chapter; but it believes that there are indica- gions? In particular, how do we evaluate Ayatollah Khomeini. tions of a deeper, transcendent reality. It religions based upon alleged historical fact? There are countless generations of does not take the Bible as literally true or 1 wish to identify three states of mind, or believers who have succumbed to this absolute, but reads it metaphorically as an attitudes, that one encounters. My descrip- approach, whose tenets were fixed and expression of human longing for a more tions are as much of degree as of kind. unshakable and who professed undying significant universe. This attitude perhaps The first attitude is that of absolute faith loyalty to the articles of faith. For the truly may be called "latitudinarianism," for its and conviction. This approach accepts the pious ones, faith must be unwavering in spite advocates recognize that other religious dogma of the religion as "The Gospel of challenges; it should prevail no matter traditions may express cognate values or Truth." Opposed to this is the second atti- what critics say. The absolutist is the enemy truths about the human condition. Latitudi- tude, militant atheism, which rejects all reli- of freedom of choice and conscience. There narians are willing to deviate from standard gions out of hand. The third, lying between can be no autonomy and no independence or fixed beliefs or opinions and are receptive two extremes, is a common ground occupied of thought, no lessening of dedication or to and can appreciate a variety of doctrines. by both (a) fallible believers in religious conviction. The true believer is thus into- They accept the principle of tolerance and claims—those possessed of some humility lerant of contrary viewpoints: He fulfills the respect for other opinions as basic to their and indecision—and (b) tentative skeptics model of the authoritarian personality or position. They are committed to freedom of and unbelievers, who, having drawn upon the obedient servant. William James called inquiry and recognize that questions con- scientific inquiry or philosophical analysis, this "faith as tenacity," for the believer clings cerning the historicity of Jesus and the truth express doubts about such claims. to it resolutely even when there is evidence of biblical claims are arguable and open to The first and second attitudes are at to the contrary. different interpretations. They may even opposite ends of the spectrum yet they are Ranged against the true believers are appreciate the need to demythologize part similar in their dogmatic predispositions. The the militant atheists, who adamantly reject or all of the biblical message, though they orthodox fundamentalist approach is auda- the faith as false, stupid, and reactionary. are willing to accept a theistic universe cious and insistent in its declarations. For They consider all religious believers to be and/ or the moral message of the Sermon millennia, this has been true of countless gullible fools and claim that they are given on the Mount. Representatives of this view- believers, and it is still the attitude of the to accepting gross exaggerations and unten- point are diverse: among them William faithful. It is a no-compromise position. God able premises. Historic religious claims, they James, Paul Tillich, and Hans Küng. exists. He has revealed himself to Moses, think, are totally implausible, unbelievable, The second, cognate aspect of this Jesus, Muhammad, Joseph Smith, the disreputable, and controvertible, for they go approach is that of skepticism. Skeptics are Reverend Moon, Mary Baker Eddy, Ellen beyond the bounds of reason. Militant athe- agnostics but first they are seekers of the G. White, or some other prophet, and the ists can find no value at all to any religious truth. They may have not entirely foreclosed truths of one or more of these prophets are beliefs or institutions. They resist any effort the theistic option, though they maintain that to be accepted by true believers if they are to engage in inquiry or debate. Madalyn the burden of proof is upon the believer to be saved from damnation. Murray O'Hair is as arrogant in her rejection and that the believer's arguments are not This is the creed of zealots; it is accepted of religion as is the true believer in his or convincing. They may be nontheist or atheist without question, and it is interpreted as her profession of faith. This form of athe- in this respect, because they think that theism law. The articles of faith and catechisms are ism thus becomes mere dogma. Historically, is unlikely or improbable. However, they taken as final, absolute, infallible, exactly as compared with believers, militant atheists admit that they are unable to "disprove" the revealed and interpreted by priests, ministers, have been comparatively few and powerless, existence of God. They are ever willing to rabbis, mullahs, or other representatives of and it is the naysayers who most often have engage in further debate. official doctrine. This approach demands been persecuted for their want of belief. In Many terms have been used to describe complete certainty and unmistakable convic- the twentieth century, the commisar-atheist those who hold this position. They may be tion. The canons, principles, command- has emerged in the secular Gulag, taking called freethinkers, rationalists, secular ments, or laws are the only true teaching. the works of Marx, Lenin, and Stalin as humanists, nonconformists, dissenters, mini- All other faiths or systems of belief are canonical and refusing to allow them to be mifidians, nullifidians, miscreants, recusants, opposed. True believers condemn unbelievers openly criticized or examined. It is this or just plain backsliders! Their basic as apostates, infidels, Iscariots, double- mind-set that may be all too ready to repress approach is that of the inquiring scientist or

Summer 1985 11

philosopher. As such, they begin as neutral investigators, without a predisposition to believe or not to believe. They seek testable and coherent hypotheses, and a range of evidence to support them. For the skeptic Audiotapes of "Jesus in History the truth of neither the historicity of the resurrection nor the divinity of Jesus has and Myth" Are Now Available been demonstrated; nor the claims of Moses, Muhammad, or other religious prophets. Keep a permanent record of FREE INQUIRY'S annual The real puzzle for many is not whether the conference held on April 19 and 20, 1985, at the Uni- claims to the divinity of Jesus or of the versity of Michigan in Ann Arbor. revelation of the prophets are mythologized but why the myths have been believed so Session #1 88.95 Session #3 $8.95 intently and for so long. What is at issue is "Introduction" Paul Kurtz, "The Apocryphal Jesus, the the psychology of belief. "Jesus in History" Gospel Tradition, and the Now this third attitude of probing, R. Joseph Hoffmann, G. A. Wells, Development of Christology" objective inquiry may be shared by both Morton Smith, George Mendenhall, Gerald Larue, Randel Helms, believer and unbeliever, and in my judgment it is the most defensible in modern society. Paul Beattie, Robert Alley Robert M. Grant, R. Joseph There are certain basic values that it pre- Hoffmann, Rowan Greer supposes: freedom of conscience, fair- Session #2 88.95 mindedness, tolerance, respect for alternative "Historical Problems" Session #4 $8.95 viewpoints, the importance of dialogue, and Vern Bullough, John Allegro, "Theological and Philosophical above all a dedication to the process of David Noel Freedman, John Dart, Implications," Delos B. McKown, inquiry and the quest for truth. Unfortu- Ellis Rivkin, Tikva Antony Flew, Van Harvey, nately, this approach and its underlying Frymer-Kensky John Hick values are bitterly opposed by extremists on both sides. Friday Evening Banquet 86.95—Gerald Larue, Paul Kurtz.

ow I submit that at the present junc- Save 10% by ordering the complete set. Nture of human civilization, given (t) the competition between often irreconcilable Please send me the following tapes: systems of religious belief and (2) the growth - Session #1 88.95 -Session #3 $8.95 of modern science and learning, it is impor- tant that all areas of human endeavor and - Session #2 88.95 -Session #4 88.95 interests, including religion, be submitted to Banquet $6.95 responsible and objective inquiry. One should not seek to foreclose inquiry a priori. Postage and handling $1.50 per tape or $4.50 if three or more sessions are ordered. Freedom of thought and conscience is an essential value, and religious liberty involves Total the right to believe or not to believe. For this approach the Bible, the Koran, the Book OR of Mormon, the Vedas are important docu- Please send me the entire conference set. ments in human civilization and should be Complete Set $38.50 read with a dispassionate analytic approach, as should any other important book. Regret- Postage and handling S5.00 tably, for too long religious books have been Total $43.50 immune to critical scrutiny; and those who have pursued free inquiry with respect to ❑ Cash ❑ Check O Visa/MasterCard: No. Exp. date such documents or questioned them were considered dangerous (as were Spinoza, Bruno, and Galileo). But surely today, in Name pluralistic and democratic societies, the right to knowledge and the free use thereof is a basic human right, and it needs to be Address defended against all those who claim to have a monopoly on truth and moral virtue and who wish to use the power of the state to City State Zip impose their doctrines on others. Believers Return to: and unbelievers of the third kind share a FREE INQUIRY • Central Park Station • Box 5 • Buffalo, NY 14215 common goal, and that is to preserve free- dom of inquiry into religion and ideology against those who may seek to deny it. •

12 FREE INQUIRY

Render to Jesus the Things That Are Jesus' Robert S. Alley he United States today faces highly organized efforts to people in our own country who would, if given the opportunity, establish Jesus as a source supporting a theory of the unilaterally disarm us. TChristian state. The Bible is being used as a text for frontal attacks upon the secular state. This wave of proof- President Reagan, in checking with "a few theologians" just texting is not only a serious challenge to the democratic republic imagine who they might be—could well have heeded the words but also a successor to a long tradition of biblical abuse. Indeed, of a former resident of the White House, Thomas Jefferson, not only have men looked to Jesus for an "ideal of statecraft," written to Charles Clay in 1805: "I not only write nothing on they have found that ideal to be strikingly flexible, depending religion, but rarely permit myself to speak on it, and never but upon the prevailing political climate. in a reasonable society." In Luke 14:31-32, we read: "Or what king going to The most recent foray into this morass was by Secretary encounter another king in war, will not sit down first and take of Education William Bennett on April 16, 1985. He was counsel whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who responding to incisive questioning by Senator Lowell Weicker comes against him with twenty thousand? And if not, while the concerning the appointment of Eileen Gardner as special other is yet a great way off, he sends an embassy and asks assistant on educational philosophy and practice. Senator terms of peace." Weicker noted that Gardner espoused a theistic determinism In 1925, commenting upon these words attributed to Jesus, that insisted that handicapped children earned that condition the eminent scholar C. J. Cadoux wrote in his classic volume since it fit their level of internal spiritual development. Bennett The Early Church and the World, "We are not likely to be insisted that "many of the points she makes are in the very troubled by such a non-committal reference...." Obviously respectable traditions of theological thought" and express "a Professor Cadoux had not anticipated Ronald Reagan as fundamental doctrine of Christian existentialism." The burning national moral mentor and president of the United States. of Michael Servetus by Calvin was undoubtedly based upon "a Speaking to a gathering of business leaders at the White House, respectable tradition in theology." the president referred to that biblical passage when he called What we learn from these absurdities is the degree to for a continued military buildup, saying the Bible story meant which our political leaders take cues from theological mentors that "the Scriptures are on our side." (It should be noted that who have few qualms about the integrity of the text. And they, this quotation is followed by the words, "So therefore, whoever in turn, have a long heritage of such biblical misusage, two of you does not renounce all that he has cannot be my dis- millennia to be precise. It is a continuing effort to turn Jesus ciple.") Challenged in a news conference on the appropriateness into a first-century equivalent of Machiavelli, using long- of such usage of the Bible, Reagan expanded: employed but dubious methods of text interpretation.

I was actually speaking to some clergymen. 1 checked that with he willingness to manipulate Jesus to specific political ends a few theologians, if it was appropriate. Well, what I meant Thas not been confined to the fundamentalist enclave. Rein- about "appropriate," was I interpreting it correctly, was it a hold Niebuhr took his fellow supporters of American involve- warning that you should be prepared and otherwise ask for ment in World War II to task in 1940: peace because you were outnumbered and out—well, now we would say outgunned—on the other side. And they seemed to [ Wej are very foolish if we try to reduce the ethic so that it will think that it was perfectly fitting. It was a caution to those cover and justify our prudential and relative standards and strategies. To do this is to reduce the ethic to a new legalism.

Robert S. Alley is professor From the initial accounts in the Acts, we know that the of humanities at the Uni- institution of the church was concerned with matters of state. versity of Richmond. He is After 70 C.E., as they expanded their influence, Christians a member of Free Inquiry's attracted the direct attention of Roman authorities. As we are Committee for the Scientific well aware, the state became the personification of evil as Examination of Religion. He Christians began to experience the persecutions made famous has edited a forthcoming in our time by Quo Vadis, The Robe, and the recent twelve- book, James Madison on hour NBC drama "A.D.," an event so "impressive" that Religious Liberty, to be pub- Anthony Burgess wrote in TV Guide (Mar. 30-Apr. 5, 1985): lished by Prometheus Books. "But above all, the series should reawaken admiration at the exploits of a handful of tough Jews and Christians who tried

Summer 1985 13 to convert a pagan empire to a sense of love and tolerance. At authority, but they dared not allow free interpretation lest length they succeeded, and a day would come when the emperor institutional strength be undermined. This was particularly a Constantine would march against his enemies under a Christian dilemma for a man like Luther, who needed to demonstrate his banner." Mr. Burgess does not inform us as to whether that ability to speak for the German church. Thus the affirmation Christian banner bore the words "love" and "tolerance." about the deity of Jesus became, for Protestants, a means to In the following centuries the writings of the church fathers systematize the Bible on the ground that it was the Word of are clear evidence of a running struggle with the state. From God revealing the truth about the God/ man. The reformers Justin Martyr to Tertullian to Origen, serious attention is took away with one theory (divine inspiration) what they had devoted to problems created by the Empire. proffered with another (salvation by faith alone). And since, In the third century Decius and in the fourth Diocletian thereby, every word or phrase in the Bible took on God- instituted systematic persecutions. Then came Constantine and ordained meaning requiring appropriate interpreters, it was toleration. possible to spin grotesque theories in the name of God. The Reformation set forth what I would term a bifurcated notion "The Protestant Reformation ... was a gloss supplied of sola scriptura. Martin Luther and his successors never really by intolerant practitioners of religious exclusivism. meant to make the Bible available for individual interpretation; [They] merely recast the Roman Catholic theology they merely wanted a weapon to attack papal authority. In fact, they all relished that authority, merely desiring to exercise of the state into nationalist terms. . . . And the it themselves. An exclusivistic religious claim demanded a anomaly is that today these same `doctors' of the divinely ordained seer. In the twentieth century the legacy of church continue to provide the authoritative Protes- this logic falls on the shoulders of television evangelists who tant biblical interpretations." glibly speak of God's will under the rubric of "the Bible says." It is as if Matthew 16:18-19 had been democratized and made Space constraints require that we move quickly to the available to whoever claimed the keys. sixteenth century. Here we find the emerging nation states of Europe becoming the seedbed for Protestant growth. Then artin Luther constructed a theology to fit political reality. came the Reformation and its identification with the nation M1 make this observation with the full awareness that the states of Renaissance Europe. While Martin Luther was enormous scholarly output of Luther includes profound insights developing a state/church policy that essentially smothered the respecting the Christian faith. Nevertheless, once set on his church's social role. John Calvin was devising the most public course, Luther, standing firm on his principles with the elaborate theocratic system since Ezekiel. Alongside these two full protection of a German prince, became every bit as repres- experiments was the "left wing" of the Reformation, which sive as the papacy he attacked. The proof of this expediency caught the spirit of the age of renaissance and reason respecting lies in his 1525 attack on the peasants. The corruption of his the church/state question. But the powerful juggernauts— moral character is best seen in his convoluted, biblically based Lutherism and Calvinism—failed to be ignited by the spirit attack on the Jews in 1543. that would affect most areas of intellectual inquiry. The com- First let us examine the way in which Luther utilized the monly accepted version of this period of reform makes much Bible, and Jesus in particular, to support his political position of the return to the Bible as authority. A closer examination of on the peasant revolt: "The peasants have taken upon them- the evidence suggests a shattering difference between the selves the burden of three terrible sins against God and man; dominant sixteenth-century reformers and their contemporaries by this they have abundantly merited death in body and soul. in other fields of knowledge. During and following the Renais- In the first place, they have sworn to be true and faithful, sance a new spirit engulfed Western civilization, one that would submissive and obedient, to their rulers, as Christ commands produce enlightened approaches to science, literature, art, when he says, `Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's.' "2 philosophy, and government. The mistake historians have fre- Luther then made this astounding observation: "If anyone quently made is to assume that the Reformation did the same says that I am being uncharitable and unmerciful about this, thing for religion. To be sure, the phrases sound impressive— my reply is: This is not a question of mercy; we are talking of sola scripture, salvation by faith alone—but the reality was far God's word. It is God's will that the king be honored and the different. Neither Calvin nor Luther adhered to the new rebels be destroyed; and he is as merciful as we are."' humanism. He continued: "Therefore, as I wrote then so I write now: The Protestant Reformation in its main course was a gloss Let no one have mercy on the obstinate, hardened, blinded supplied by intolerant practitioners of religious exclusivism. peasants who refuse to listen to reason; but let everyone, as he These reformers merely recast the Roman Catholic theology of is able, strike, hew, stab, and slay ... 'It is better to cut off one the state into nationalist terms. Christian ecclesiologists, member without mercy than to have the whole body perish by obsessed with questions about statecraft, encouraged cultural fire, or by disease' [Matt. 5:29-30]."4 conformity. And the anomaly is that today these same "doctors" When the reformer turned to the Jews some two decades of the church continue to provide the authoritative Protestant later, he employed the identical style of interpretation and biblical interpretations. similar vehement language as he, on that occasion, quoted The problem the reformers confronted was massive. They Jesus in support of genocidal behavior and set forth the fol- had turned the Bible loose to become the single religious lowing program:

14 FREE INQUIRY the state? Or, more to the point, what may they have omitted First, to set fire to their synagogues or schools and to bury and cover with dirt whatever will not burn, so that no man will in their failure to understand? If Jesus was as complex as ever again see a stone or cinder of them. Cullmann suggests, then we certainly need a carefully drawn Second, I advise their houses be razed and destroyed. essay by Jesus to explain his position on church and state. Third, I advise that all their prayer books and Talmudic And, in fact, this is precisely what the church has always writings be taken from them. assumed. It was just this need for authoritative statements on Fourth, I advise that their rabbis be forbidden to teach critical issues that caused the church leadership to establish henceforth on pain of loss of life and limb.5 and rely upon the label "Word of God." This move established immediately that, while complex, the position of God on the issues of the day were contained within a single volume. There John Calvin provided a quieter model of exegetical excess remained only the problem of unlocking the text, first with the in his condemnation of Michael Servetus. In formulating his "keys of the kingdom" and later with the battle cry "Sola scrip- theory on the state Calvin set forth biblical justifications that tura. " By this method snippets of remembered comments are were heavily weighted in favor of the Old Testament. given divine authority, thereby allowing later interpreters to Modern parallels of this type of biblical use are easy to identify the Christian answers to all questions. Van Harvey find. And it would be an error if one assumed that what appears identified a good portion of the problem when he observed to be toying with the text was evidence of biblical ignorance. that orthodox belief "corrodes the delicate machinery of sound Certainly Calvin and Luther were thoroughly versed in the historical judgment."' Bible, knowing its content from Genesis to Revelation. It is not All too often scholars' failure to recognize this conflict has ignorance that is at work here; it is a basic theological style. led to a kind of multiple-choice fundamentalism that merely For instance, listen to Luther as he admonished the eliminates the most noxious forms of dogmatism. In large peasants for daring to contradict his views. "Here I do not measure this is the overwhelming burden that theologians and want to hear or know about mercy, but to be concerned only biblical critics bear in the mainline Christian seminaries today. about what God's word requires. On this basis, my little book They are bombarded with the absolutes of rigid orthodoxy, was and remains right, even though the whole world take absolutes that remain within their own tradition. offense at it."6 Using this device Luther, or any interpreter, On the subject of the state, Jesus' life has been construed may combine a totally irrational presupposition with the most as a God-ordained confrontation between Jesus and the powers carefully reasoned arguments based upon a Bible, the author of darkness. In an effort to give substantial meaning to every of which has confided its meaning to the "man of God." The scene in the closing act, actions of Jesus randomly recalled by "Render to Caesar" remark suddenly develops a rich texture his friends are assigned profound theological meanings. The for such self-identified experts on "what God's word requires." numbing effect of this method is to turn attention from the overwhelming humaneness of the crucified Jesus and supplant cholars often fall prey to this temptation, with the best of it with elaborate theories of atonement, reconciliation, the Smotives. Commenting on the "Render to Caesar" passage, eschaton, justification, and salvation. Oscar Cullmann observed that Jesus' position on the state was Jesus' trial involved him with a secular state and an irre- so complex that all of his disciples distorted his point of view. I ducible minimum of local religio-political leaders. The evidence presume that is why Jesus chose to explain the entire matter in suggests that the state authority accepted a coalition that one sentence! In any event, how could those reporters of Jesus' involved him in a collusion with self-styled religious leaders. messages have been reliable in retelling earlier remarks about The power of such a minority to wield influence was and is

Summer 1985 15 dependent upon two factors: (1) a fanatic dedication to the extensive array of references by Jesus to kings, armies, rulers, translation of dogma into statecraft by that minority; and (2) a laws, and the like serve to remind the reader of the political willingness or eagerness on the part of the state to use religion context in which Jesus operated. Jesus' use of such illustrations to achieve secular goals. may not be used to pinpoint a theory of statecraft. The Gospels The largest problem that I see in the analysis of Jesus and offer no evidence of a philosophy of state on the part of either his views of the state centers on the seeming necessity to find a Jesus or those who remembered his words. If one wishes to consistent philosophy of government that can pass muster in enlist Jesus in support of any form of government, that person every generation. This quest is made necessary by the inherent must appeal not to specific sayings but to a spirit manifest in nature of the God/ man theology. The result is often a frontal the Gospels. attack on human freedom. In our day the tendency to employ the Bible as a basis for Jesus neither had a theory of state nor organized a church. domestic and foreign policy is evident from the words of the And the paucity of evidence concerning Jesus' view of the state president to his congressional supporters and to his theological has provided a vacuum into which interpreters of Romans 13 advisors. Grandly parading Jesus as the authority, the state is have moved with vigor to coopt the state for their God and his encouraged in political directions upon which there is no con- purposes. Generation after generation of Christians has sought sensus among citizens. In the name of Jesus, America is encour- to extrapolate from the Bible support for political systems. The aged to assume the messianic mantle. I think it was Garry popes did it; Luther did it; Calvin did it; the Massachusetts Wills who remarked that he would rather face a herd of angry, Puritans did it; Jerry Falwell does it. But so did Constantine, charging elephants than one dedicated Calvinist armed with Henry I, James I, Frederick, and dozens of other political the word of God. Such messianism is intolerant and arrogant just because it takes such pride in its own sin. Indeed, it is the "In 1985 our secular republic is being accosted by obsession with the "Sin of Eden" that generates a lack of opti- the vigorous descendants of Calvinistic exclusivism, mism regarding action and the state. The church really likes its armed with selected words of Jesus. Denigrating the sin. Rauschenbusch wrote: "If the exponents of the old theology have taught humanity an adequate consciousness of sin, how is humanity of Jesus, these self-styled spokesmen for it that they themselves have been blind and dumb on the master God insist upon belief in an inerrant Bible...." iniquities of human history? During all the ages while they were the theological keepers of the conscience of Christendom, figures. There have been notable exceptions, among them that the peasants in the country and the working class in the cities remarkable theologian of Rhode Island, Roger Williams. were being sucked dry by the parasitic classes of society, and But I retain an optimism. There is a way to approach the war was damning poor humanity.... It is possible to hold the documents that offers promise if it is correct to assert that orthodox doctrine on the devil and not recognize him when we concepts of love, compassion, freedom, justice, and mercy are meet him in a real estate office or at the stock exchange." dominant themes in Jesus' life. (This point holds whether these Social Gospel theologians redefined sin in nondoctrinal concepts be attributed to Jesus or to later thinkers.) With this terms, removing the determinism that is associated with both premise one could ask what type of statecraft could best support Marxism and traditional Christianity. However, the advocates the exercise of these ethical principles. of the Social Gospel, armed with a rational, reasoned optimism, However, I also believe that the bloody persecutions and never neglected the darker side of human nature. Dedicated to wars in the name of Jesus, ignoring all those concepts, were in the hope for human progress, they recognized that the biological large part the result of a totally male-oriented religion. Even explanation of "sin" offered only a bleak human future for the effort to interpret "kingdom" is encumbered with a legacy individuals and states. Rauschenbusch and his contemporaries of male images. We might get some glimmer of understanding chose to think of sin in another dimension: "There is the more of Jesus' sense of just government in his relationship with inducement to teach clearly on the social transmission and women. Male theologians and critics need to examine their perpetuation of sin because the ethical and religious forces can presuppositions in more than a cursory fashion and to believe really do something to check and prevent the transmission of that only radical surgery on theological traditions will suffice. sin along social channels, whereas the biological transmission I rather like Walter Rauschenbusch's assessment. He of original sin, except for the possible influence of eugenics, pointed out the discrepancy between an "aristocratic attitude seems beyond our influence.""' to authority in theology" and the spread of democracy in "modern ethical life."" n 1985 our secular republic is being accosted by the vigorous Idescendents of Calvinistic exclusivism, armed with selected id Jesus offer a pattern of statecraft for future readers? words of Jesus. Denigrating the humanity of Jesus, these self- DOn the basis of the evidence in the Gospels the answer styled spokesmen for God insist upon belief in an inerrant must be negative. In spite of all the efforts by Christian inter- Bible that they alone understand. In their hands, as they touch preters to provide a clue to the meaning of the "Render to political power, the words of Jesus concerning the state, coupled Caesar" utterance, it remains an enigmatic one-liner, probably with Paul's, become a blueprint for international diplomacy best understood as a device to avoid a prolonged, debilitating and domestic dogma. debate. Indeed, most who go on to offer elaborate explanations However, if we are careful in our examination of the ethic admit that this was the likely intention of Jesus. The rather of Jesus, as best we can understand it, it remains an impressive

16 FREE INQUIRY humanism. Jesus' comments, to the extent that there were any Remonstrance as he claimed for true Christianity the high on the state, come from a person basically ignorant of political ground of absolute religious freedom in the civil society. forces, even those of his own time. But if we ask what kind of All the evidence that I have presented, from nearly 2,000 social system would allow justice to roll on like a river and years of history, makes clear that any form of government that righteousness like an ever-flowing stream, then we have a point restricts the mind ends in outrage against the body, both of of reference for making judgments focused on human freedom. which deny the essence of the Jesus ethic. Any tendency toward It is that passion for justice born of love that we see theocracy is a denial of the freedom of will. And, as Williams looming large in the biblical record, particularly in an Amos or notes, any other will than a free one is an abomination to the a Jesus. We may differ over our definition of justice. We may God who he believed offers grace to the believer. Without such differ over our interpretation of Jesus on the subject. We may freedom belief is without meaning. differ over the degree to which Jesus is accurately recorded. But those differences will respond to a rational exploration Notes once we have been freed from the myth of the divine Jesus and the inerrant Bible. We will then be free to allow Jesus to make I. Reinhold Niebuhr, Christianity and Power Politics (New York, 1940), sense, not doctrine. PP. 8-9. Martin Luther "Against the Robbing and Murdering Hordes of Is there, then, a form of government consistent with the 2. Peasants," in Luther's Works, The Christian in Society, vol. 46, ed. by thrust of Jesus' approach to love and justice? Karl Barth was Robert C. Schultz (Philadelphia, 1967), pp. 49-51. of the opinion that "there certainly is an affinity between the 3. Martin Luther, "An Open Letter on the Harsh Book," in Luther's Christian community and the civil communities of free Works, op. cit., pp. 65-66. peoples."" Roger Williams stands as the lone seventeenth- 4. Ibid., pp. 73-74. century prophet who demonstrated how the Gospel message 5. Martin Luther, "0n the Jews and Their Lives," in Luther's Works, op. cit., vol. 47, pp. 268-270. supported only the freedom of religion and conscience. No 6. Martin Luther, "An 0pen Letter on the Harsh Book," in Luther's blueprint from Jesus, to be sure, but there is a wealth of Works, op. cit., p. 66. evidence that the faith espoused in the Bible presumes a free 7. Van Harvey, The Historian and the Believer (New York, 1966), p. conscience. If this be the case, then every effort to establish 119. religion either by church or by state contradicts the Christian 8. Walter Rauschenbusch, A Theology of the Social Gospel (New York: Macmillan, 1917), p. 5. ethic, and any plan to prohibit the free exercise of conscience is 9. Ibid., pp. 34-35. an affront not only to the citizen but to the God of Christianity 10. Ibid., p. 68. as well. James Madison sensed this in his Memorial and 11. Karl Barth, Against the Stream, p. 44. •

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Summer 1985 17 Jesus in Time and Space

Gerald A. Larue

fifty years of the death of Jesus, Christian perhaps Cyrenius is the person whose name is missing.' This writers began efforts to anchor his life in time and would make the Lukan account and the Matthean account Wspace.ithin Paul was dead, and his expectation that Jesus agree and, using the I B.C.E. date for the lunar eclipse, it could would soon return and set up his kingdom had not materialized. be estimated that Jesus was born between 3 and 2 B.C.E. This is Roman soldiers had destroyed the Jewish temple and had wiped a neat theory, but whenever one runs into a series of "per- out the Essene community at Qumran. Masada had fallen after hapses" and "maybes" rising out of lack of evidence, it is time a brilliant assault by the Romans. It was clear that the leaders to become uneasy. These separate and different accounts do of Judaism and its offspring Christianity had to redirect their not provide much help in estimating a date for Jesus' birth. thinking and their missions. Nor does the wondrous star that guided the wise men Paul had paid scant heed to Jesus' life-story in his letters. provide any help. Attempts to interpret what that star might Whether or not he made more of Jesus' biography in his have been are as old as Johannes Kepler's efforts (1603) and preaching cannot be known; nor can we know what stories include everything from triple conjunctions, meteors, fireballs, circulated about Jesus' life among his followers. Sometime after comets, and, in more recent times, alien spaceships.' It must be 70 C.E., the Gospel of Mark was written, and Mark began his admitted that the idea of a hovering star shining above the account with Jesus' baptism by John the Baptizer at the river birthplace is best suited to the spaceship interpretation; but for Jordan. At this time Jesus was already an adult. most of us the star is simply an item of religious fiction and Greater interest in Jesus' biography is apparent in the provides no help in establishing a date for Jesus' birth. gospel, of Matthew and Luke and, because Mark's gospel, Both Matthew and Luke tell us that Jesus was born in which was used as a guide, contained no account of Jesus' Bethlehem, and Matthew relates the birthplace to a statement beginnings, Matthew and Luke filled in those missing years found in the Book of Micah 5:2: "But you, O Bethlehem with separate and conflicting accounts. Matthew claimed that Ephrathah, who are little to be among the clans of Judah, Jesus was born in Bethlehem during the reign of King Herod from you shall come forth one who is to be ruler in Israel, the Great and that the family fled Egypt and returned only whose origin is from old, from ancient days." after Herod was dead. According to the Jewish historian Now this particular passage is one of those added to the Josephus, Herod died following an eclipse of the moon Book of Micah by some unknown writer who lived not in the (Antiquities, XVII, vi). Modern astronomers inform us that eighth century, at the time of the prophet, but in the sixth eclipses visible in Palestine occurred on March 14 in 4 B.C.E. century, during the Jewish exile in Babylon. He looked to the and January 10 in 1 B.C.E. so that, depending upon which restoration of Judah under a Davidic-type king—perhaps one eclipse is meant, Jesus was born either before 4 B.C.E. or before of the descendants of the Hebrew king who had been captive B.C.E.—dates that are not very helpful in fixing Jesus in in Babylon. The prophecy has nothing to do with Jesus, but, in history.' the words of one of my conservative Christian colleagues, "Isn't Luke, also, said that Jesus was born during Herod's reign it wonderful that the Holy Spirit could give the passage one and linked the birth to a worldwide census instigated by Caesar meaning in the sixth century and a whole new meaning in the Augustus (Gaius Octavius) who reigned between 30 B.C.E. and first century!" I call this the "double-bounce" theory of biblical 14 C.E. and at a time when Cyrenius (P. Sulpicius Quirinius) interpretation. My colleague admits that the same passage might was governor of Syria, which was in the years 6 and 7 C.E.. be given another meaning still at a later time by this same Holy The fact that Luke mentions that this was the first census has Spirit. prompted some scholars to suggest that there may have been a But there is a Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, built, second census by this same governor. Perhaps the 6-7 C.E. so we are informed, over the very grotto where Jesus was born. census that we know about is the second census, and perhaps In fact there is a star set in the floor where the baby rested. Cyrenius was governor at an earlier time. There is a gap in the Over the centuries hundreds of thousands of pilgrims have wor- list of governors, and that gap falls between 3 and 2 B.C.E., so shipped at this spot, believing that this was the birthplace. Can they all have been in error? Matthew and Luke disagree on the nature of the birthplace. Gerald A. Larue is emeritus professor of biblical history and Matthew has the wise men visit Jesus in a house, presumably archaeology at the University of Southern California. He is the place where he was born (2:11). There are those who suggest chairman of the newly formed Committee for the Scientific that this visit occurred after Joseph and Mary found suitable Examination of Religion. lodging and that the story in Luke that has the birth occur in a stable is to be preferred (2:7). By the middle of the second

18 FREE INQUIRY "Corresponding tothenarrativeinGospelregardinghis century thebirthplacewasidentifiedasacave—anotunrea- sonable assumption,becausecaveswereandstillareusedto and 160 since Josephcouldnotfindlodginginthatvillagehetookup and themangerincavewherehewaswrappedswaddling (117-138C.E.) thecavewasovershadowedbyaTammuzgrove (Letter 58,toPaulinus3). and thatlamentationsfromTammuzweremadeinthecave house animals.JustinMartyrwrote,sometimebetween150 clothes" from 386to420 birth, thereisshownatBethlehemthecavewherehewasborn, his quartersinacertaincavenearthevillage" that sametime,accordingtoJerome,Jesus'burialplacewas time effortsweremadetodesecratethebirthplace,justasin desecrated bystatuesofJupiterandVenus. was tobethefoundationofpresent-dayChurch fulfillment ofJewishprophecyconcerningtheMessiah. space. Worshippers'needsaremetbecausethroughthissacred time, andtheidentificationofbirthcavesubsequent mother ofKingConstantinetheGreat,dedicatedachurchthat Nativity. Butthereisoneproblem:Mostmodernscholars birth storiesarepiouslegendsdesignedtoportrayJesusasthe believe JesuswasnotborninBethlehembutNazareth.The Trypho, erection ofachurchonthatspotareeffortstolocateJesusin founder ofthereligion. References togovernmentalfiguresservelocateJesusin place theyareenabledtocomeintointimatecontactwiththe said adropofmilkfromMary'sbreastfelltothegroundand the erectionofchurch.Thereisa"milk"grottowhereit efforts toannihilatethemessiahareshown.Ineachlocalea where theverycoffinsofchildrenkilledbyKingHerodinhis magically turnedthelimestonewhite.Thereisanothergrotto priest waitsfortruebelieverswithacollectionbasketathand. (2:13-15). LukestatesthatJesuswascircumcisedand then A the familyreturnedtoNazareth(2:21-39).Therewas a time taken tothetempleinJerusalemforpurificationrites before early asNeanderthaltimes(c. 70,000-35,000B.C.E.),inRoman in Galileeasthesonofacarpenter,Joseph.Researchinto the when thechurchwasabletoshowartifactofcircumcision, Mary, andJesusfledtoEgyptavoidHerod'ssoldiers times therewasonlyasmall, insignificantJewishcolony more recenttimes. history ofNazarethindicatesthat,althoughitwasinhabited as but Ihavebeenunabletodiscoverwhathashappened to itin Summer 1985 there—a villagesosmallthat itwasignoredinthegeographical Therefore theChurchof Annunciationthatcommemorates that shewasto bedivinelyimpregnatedwhen theHolySpirit the placewhere theangelGabrielinformed theVirginMary references recordedinthefirst centuryoftheCommonEra. It was,apparently,abovethissamecavethatHelena, As onemightimagine,thebirthlegendsdidnotstopwith There seemstobenodoubtthatJesusgrewupinNazareth s theJesusstoryprogresses,onceagainMatthewand Luke areinconflict.AccordingtoMatthew,Joseph, (Against Celsus,I, 78). Later,between246and248 C.E., that "whenthechildwasborninBethlehem, C.E. wrote thatfromthetimeofHadrian It isquitepossiblethatinHadrian's 51). Jerome,wholivedinBethlehem C.E., (Dialogue with Origen wrote: fifth century.Alltheotherstructuresassociatedwithlifeof assumed toreferonetrainedintheLaw.Thequestion Jesus inNazaretharealsolate.Perhapstheonlyauthenticrelic centuries. would "comeupon"herand"overshadow"(Luke1:35)isa late structurebuiltintheByzantineperiod,probably History andMyth"conference. Joseph Hoffmann,PaulKurtz,andGeraldLarueatthe"Jesusin of thepastthatmightpossiblybeassociatedwithJesusis'Ain son ofacarpenterhewouldbeapprenticedtothatwork.The accent wasnotwellrespectedinthesophisticatedcirclesof Jerusalem. Somemodernbiographershavesuggestedthathe immediately arises:WheredidJesusgethistraining?Asthe Myriam, time; indeed,thereissomeevidencetosuggestthataGalilean means "master"or"teacher"andwhichhasusuallybeen Jesus gothismaster'sdegreefromtheEsseneuniversityon Galilee wasnotconsideredtobeacenteroflearninginJesus' shores oftheDeadSeaatQumran. by aTibetanmonk.Morerecentlyithasbeensuggestedthat had, perhaps,traveledtoIndiaandsatatthefeetofsome in hismonumental thought isnotnew.Indeed,backin1893,ProfessorH.Graetz, master there.Orperhapshewenttoalamaserybetrained John theBaptizer John's imprisonment,he carried onJohn'swork.Graetz comments: Jesus must,fromtheidiosyncrasies ofhisnature,havebeen life apartfrom theworldanditsvanities.When Johnthe powerfully attractedbytheEssenes, wholedacontemplative Baptist—or more correctlytheEssene—invited alltocome ... ledthesamelifeasEssenes,feduponlocustsandwild camel-hair fastenedwithaleathergirdle...Johndwelt sinners thedeepmoralsignificanceofbaptism. the otherEssenesindesert,vicinityofDeadSea, honey, andworethegarbofprophetsold,acloak presumably inordertobeeverathandteachrepentant In theGospels,Jesusisreferredtoas The ideathatJesusmayhavebeenaffectedbyEssenic Jesus, ofcourse,cametoJohnbebaptized,andafter the onespringfromwhichwaterhasbeenflowingfor History oftheJews (II, 146),wrotethat rabbi, a wordthat 19

Photo by Dan Habib and receive baptism in the Jordan, to repent and prepare for corresponds to Jesus' journey. Perhaps that is unimportant to the Kingdom of Heaven, Jesus hastened to obey the call, and the faith. What does matter is to be in Jersualem, the Holy was baptized by him. Although it cannot be proved that Jesus City, and through some sort of spiritual empathy to come into was formally admitted into the order of the Essenes, much in an affect relationship with the past and with the tradition. I his life and work can only be explained by the supposition that have watched the pilgrims as they come singing down the rough he had adopted their fundamental principles. [p. 150] path from the Mount of Olives to enter the Via Dolorosa. The Jesuit with me commented on the pilgrims' stupidity in believing Professor Graetz suggested that the fundamental principles they were really walking where Jesus walked. I watched their included disdain for wealth, the aversion to marriage, the faces as they passed, waving their palm branches on Palm community of goods, the eschewing of oath-taking, and the Sunday, singing their hymns. Some were the bored faces of performance of miraculous cures, including exorcism of Jerusalemite guides, who made this processional for recom- demons, which, he writes, "were often made by the Essenes, so pense. But there were others who seemed to be transported by to say, in a professional capacity" (p. 151). the experience—solemn, joyous, meditative, involved—and The discovery in 1945 by a Ta'amireh tribesman of what had no desire to deny them that experience. But they need to we now call the Dead Sea Scrolls and the subsequent transla- know the truth—the experience is one thing, but the reality is tion of these scrolls and the excavation of the Essene head- another. Human progress is threatened when the fiction quarters at Qumran have provided scholars with fresh, new becomes more important than the fact. material about the Essenes. Much of what Professor Graetz There is a bit of exposed pavement known as the Litho- wrote in 1893 has been substantiated and new alliances in stratos in an excavation in the church built by the Sisters of thought between the Essenes and the New Testament writers Sion. The stones appear to have been part of the Praetorium have been put forth together with clear evidence of differences. or courtyard of the Antonia—the fortress tower named by What is still lacking is a roster of members, so that there is no King Herod to please Mark Antony. Portions of this same clear-cut proof that Jesus or John the Baptizer had anything to courtyard have been found in excavations under the Convent do with the group. On the other hand, the circumstantial of the Flagellation and the Greek Orthodox Convent, which evidence cannot be dismissed. At this time, the nature of the suggests that the Lithostratos covered an area of some 1,500 relationship must remain sub judice and open to further square meters. It is quite possible that Jesus stood somewhere scholarly study. on this pavement, when he was judged by Pilate. So far it can be said that excavations at any of the sites The Via Dolorosa leads to the Church of the Holy associated with Jesus in the Christian Scriptures have produced Sepulchre, which incorporates both the place of the crucifixion nothing that sheds light upon his life. This is also true when we and Jesus' burial site. The place of the crucifixion was called look at the environs of Jerusalem. Of course the Mount of Golgatha, the place of the skull (Matt. 27:33; Mark 15:22; Olives is still there, virtually peppered with sacred spots. There Luke 23:33; John 19:17), which was located "near the city" are the ruins of the Eleona Church, where Jesus is supposed to (John 19:20), or outside the city (Heb. 13:12). Certainly the have instructed his disciples about the end of the world; there burial ground would be outside of the city walls and probably is the Church of the Lord's Prayer, where Jesus is supposed to the place of execution would be too. have taught his disciples to pray; there is the Mosque of It is recorded that, when Hadrian visited Jerusalem in the Ascension, formerly the Church of the Ascension, marking the second century, he erected a sanctuary to the Roman god spot from which Jesus made his ascension into heaven; there is Jupiter on the site of the Jewish temple, which had remained a the Franciscan chapel Dominus flevit, where Jesus is said to desolate wreckage since the destruction in 70 C.F.. Many see have wept over Jerusalem; there is the Church of Mary Mag- this as a deliberate attempt at desecration—which it may have dalene; the Garden of Gesthemene Church; the Grotto of the been—but it is well known to archaeological researchers that Betrayal, where Judas betrayed Jesus; the Tomb of the Virgin holy places retain their magic and, because a site has been Mary, where her body rested before ascending to heaven; and, sacred to one god, there is no reason why it cannot be trans- finally, the entrance to Jerusalem and the Via Dolorosa—the formed into a holy place for another god. Therefore, whether way of sorrows, or the way of the cross. Hadrian was actually attempting to desecrate a Jewish holy Within the city of Jerusalem, the site of the ancient Jewish place, or whether he was honoring a Roman god on a place temple is obscured by the presence of magnificent Muslim already declared sacred, can be a matter of interpretation. shrines—the Harem es-Sharif—the sacred enclave. We can learn However, Hadrian did bar the Jews from Jerusalem, no doubt nothing of the temple in Jesus' time from this locale, except, in part as a reaction against the revolt of the Jews that had perhaps, that the Western wall, where pious Jews still weep shaken Rome's eastern empire just before he assumed the throne over the destruction of the Temple in 70 C.E. is a testimonial to in 117 C.E. and the Bar-Cochba revolt after he became emperor. the kind of protective walls that once surrounded the temple. He did erect a shrine to Jupiter on the holy mountain Gerazim, The streets that Jesus walked are not the same as those which was sacred to the Samaritans, and he did erect a temple where the faithful Christians today carry wooden crosses, to Venus on Golgotha. There is reason to suspect that at least observe the stations of the cross, and try to ignore the souvenir part of his motivation was humiliation of the Jews and desecra- merchants with their olive-wood artifacts. The streets of Jesus' tion of their holy places. day are ten to fifteen feet below the present walkways, and Perhaps the early Christians did remember the place of there is no way of determining whether the way of the pilgrims the crucifixion. Perhaps Hadrian deliberately built the Venus

20 FREE INQUIRY temple on a place sacred to the Christians, but it was not until Jerusalem became a Christian city, when it was conquered in 325 C.E., that Golgotha became a Christian shrine. By this time Venus had been adored at the site for nearly two hundred years. Now Constantine ordered the Venus shrine destroyed, and during the demolition the tomb of Jesus was discovered. By 335 C.E. the Christian church that forms the foundation for the present-day Church of the Holy Sepulchre was erected on the site of the temple, but only fragments of the Constantine structure remain. But wondrous discoveries associated with the Christian COMING shrine were made. Queen Helena had a dream in which the Soon: hiding place of the cross was disclosed. And sure enough, while workers probed a pit as the queen sat nearby, the three crosses THE were found. At this point, I prefer to let the great American REALL'i writer Mark Twain tell the story as he learned it when he REALLY traveled to Palestine in 1867 and which he published in The TRUE Innocents Abroad in 1869. PCTUAL Here, also, a marble slab marks the place where St. Helena, TOMB the mother of the emperor Constantine, found the crosses about three hundred years after the Crucifixion. According to the legend, this great discovery elicited extravagant demonstrations of joy. But they were of short duration. The question intruded itself: "Which bore the blessed Savior, and which the thieves?" To be in doubt, in so mighty a matter as this—to be uncertain which one to adore—was a grievous misfortune. It turned the public joy to sorrow. But when lived there a holy priest who could not set so simple a trouble as this to rest? One of these soon hit upon a plan that would be a certain test. A noble lady lay very ill in Jerusalem. The wise priests ordered that the same category as the bones of saints and other relics adored three crosses be taken to her bedside one at a time. It was b} naive believers—the category of pious superstition. done. When her eyes fell upon the first one, she uttered a scream that was heard beyond the Damascus Gate, and even upon the Mount of Olives, it was said, and then fell back into here are other relics in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre a deadly swoon. They recovered her and brought in the second Tthat have been associated with Jesus. For example, just cross. Instantly she went into fearful convulsions, and it was inside the entrance is a huge slab of marble known as "the with the greatest difficulty that six strong men could hold her. stone of unction," which is now worn smooth from worshippers, They were afraid, now, to bring in the third cross. They began tears, kisses and caresses. It is supposed to be the slab on to fear they had fallen upon the wrong crosses, and that the which Jesus' body was prepared for burial. There is the "pillar true cross was not with this number at all. However, as the of flagellation"—or at least part of it—which is supposed to be woman seemed likely to die with the convulsions that were the post at which Jesus was scourged. There is a chapel tearing her, they concluded that the third could do no more associated with the Roman soldier whose spear pierced Jesus' than put her out of her misery with a happy dispatch. So they side when he hung on the cross. There are holes to represent brought it, and behold, a miracle! The woman sprang from her bed smiling and joyful, and perfectly restored to health. When the exact places where the crosses stood for the crucifixion. we listen to evidence like this, we can not but believe. We And of course there is the tomb itself. These creations of pious would be ashamed to doubt, and properly, too. Even the very imagination encourage pilgrims to believe blindly and to give part of Jerusalem where this all occurred is there yet. So there willingly to support the shrines. is really no room for doubt. There have been challenges to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. There is the so-called "Garden Tomb," which is Today, fragments of the "true cross" are to be found in located outside the present Turkish walls of Jerusalem. Appar- Roman Catholic churches throughout the world. Just who ently those who accept this place as the actual site of the burial hacked the cross to pieces is not known. Some scholars have disdain the ancient church because it is within the present walls conjectured that wood fragments in the area around the Church of the city. We think we now know the course of the ancient of the Holy Sepulchre were gathered and accepted as fragments walls, and if that tracing is correct then the Church of the Holy of the cross. There has been some estimate that there are enough Sepulchre is definitely outside the walls of ancient Jerusalem fragments to represent several crosses. Although many Roman and in a not improbable place for the burial. The Garden Catholics continue to accept these bits of wood as authentic Tomb is a late discovery and is accepted as authentic only by relics of the cross, modern scholars tend to place them in the the millions who follow the fundamentalist television preachers.

Summer 1985 21 Indeed, I saw two programs during the past Passover-Easter a culturally literate society and to educating students and the celebrations in which television pastors were shown standing in public in the best understanding of the past, I am frustrated by the true tomb—the Garden Tomb. No present-day scholar the number of students who come from liberal churches and attributes any validity to these claims. from good high-schools where modern scientific thought has There have been other discoveries associated with Jesus' been watered down, where the best Bible scholarship is ignored lifetime. A stele bearing the name of Pontius Pilate was found and where faith replaces reason. at Caesarea, and this provides tangible evidence of the presence Jesus is an important figure in Western thought, but the of the procurator in Palestine. A skeleton of a man named Jesus who seems to matter most is the Jesus of religious fiction, Yehohanan, who was crucified about 2,000 years ago, was the so-called Christ of faith. As a symbol, Jesus can inspire the found at Givat Hamivtar in northeastern Jerusalem in 1968. It finest ethical traditions humans have developed, but what must provided interesting details about crucifixion. be kept clear is that we are dealing with a symbol and that the Perhaps the most dramatic claims of an artifact associated historical figure is lost in the mists of time. The Christ of faith with Jesus is the so-called Shroud of Turin. Few readers of the is the creation of religious believers, of clergy and teachers who popular press know that this was only one of several shrouds took a historical figure and clothed it in mythological swaddling purported to be the burial cloth of Jesus that existed during bands just as ancient Egyptians took Osiris, who may indeed the fourteenth century. Few have read the critical reviews; most have been an historical figure, and mythologized him, clothing have read the accounts of those who believe in the authenticity him in the garments of divinity and sanctifying sacred spots of the Turin Shroud and who account for the image with such associated with his fictionalized life. And there are others— imaginative explanations as "bursts of radiant energy" and coin Gilgamesh, Moses, Buddha—who have become divine-humans such terms as radiation scorch.4 Our best investigations have who model and wrestle with the meaning of human existence. demonstrated that the shroud is a fourteenth-century invention There is no problem here. We can enjoy symbolic figures. We and, like the multitude of other relics shown from that same can learn from them. We can draw psychological models from period, was designed to bring pilgrims to specific shrines to them, as Freud did from Oedipus and as Camus has done from enhance the status and financial health of those holy places. Sisyphus. We do not have to insist that they are solidly anchored in history or that the sacred spots associated with have no quarrel with those who utilize sacred space to them have any basis in fact. I renew and deepen their faith. I can appreciate that, since Our problem is twofold. The first part lies in the greed of the establishment of the Church of the Nativity and the Church towns, cities, and churches who seek to bring tourists and of the Holy Sepulchre in the fourth century, millions of Chris- pilgrims to their shrines, men and women who will spend their tians have made pilgrimages to these places and have paid time gawking at places that may have little relation to what homage to their beliefs. And those who go to these churches their guides are telling them, and who will spend money for today are, by their very presence, linked to the thousands of food, housing, travel, artifacts, and souvenirs to enrich the others who over the centuries before have also gone to Beth- guardians of the sacred places. lehem and Jerusalem. But to make a pilgrimage that links one The second part embraces the educated clergy and teachers to a Christian fellowship that extends back through time and in this part of the world, who for whatever reasons—perhaps deepens one's commitment to the highest values of the Christian fear of parishioners, fear of being challenged, fear of faith is quite different from going in the belief that these are controversy—fail to acquaint their parishioners or their students sacred spots physically associated with Jesus. with the best evidence we have of the past. There are, of course, To listen, as I did during the Passover-Easter week, to pressure groups that constantly threaten those who do not fundamentalist preachers advertising their trips to Jerusalem as conform to their interpretation of the past, of the Bible, of they stood before what they claimed was the authentic tomb of Jesus, or of life itself. When we fail to challenge their assump- Jesus—the Garden Tomb—insults my intelligence, encourages tions, when we fail to set forth the best evidence, when we bow naiveté, promotes ignorance, and discards the best results of to these special groups, we fail our highest calling as teachers, conscientious modern scholarship. leaders, and guides in education. To the degree that the church, with its clergy, its teachers We can locate Jesus in a general sort of way in time. Our of clergy, and its membership composed of thinking human dates are not as firm as we would like them to be. We can beings, abandons its rich tradition of higher education, and locate Jesus vaguely in space, but the locales that are now asso- tends to move away from the use of logic, and seems to be ciated with him are questionable. prepared to ignore the best findings of historical and archae- ological research, it denies the validity of the best thinking that Notes the human race has produced through the centuries. It denies philosophy and philosophical logic, it denies history and the I. Gerald A. Larue, "Astronomy and the Star of Bethlehem." Free search for that which really happened, it denies the best research Inquirt•, Winter 1982 / 83, pp. 25 ff. into our past and into the understanding of our past, and it 2. Jack Finegan, Light from the Ancient Past (Princeton: 1959), pp. 256 encourages blind, unthinking, uncritical belief. I am uneasy ff. 3. For a discussion see Larue, op. cit.; David Hughes, The Star of and disgusted with colleagues who become insecure with their Bethlehem (New York: 1979). own research and take the leap of blind faith. 4. Joe Nickell, Inquest on the Shroud of Turin (Prometheus: 1983); As an educator in the humanities, committed to producing "Update on the Shroud of Turin," Free Inquiry, Spring 1985, pp. 10-11. •

22 FREE INQUIRY BIBLICAL SCORECARD

Was Jesus "Pro-Family"? Tom Franczyk

erry Falwell, Tim LaHaye, Pat There are many ways to look at this Naturally, this must be put into J Robertson, Jimmy Swaggart, passage, but it is hardly "pro-family." historical context to be understood— Phyllis Schlafly, Orrin Hatch, Jesse Peter had a mother-in-law (Mark something the Falwellians fail to do. Helms, et al. (henceforth referred to 1:30; Matt. 8:14; Luke 4:38) and, The Parousia is imminent; the escha- as Falwellians for simplicity's sake) unless his wife had died, he must have tological fulfillment is to occur in a have often blamed humanism for the left her to follow Jesus (the Gospels matter of months at most; the "King- decline of the "traditional family." are unclear on this point). Of course dom of God" is at hand (Mark 9:1; They have also indicated that Jesus his leaving would be quite under- 13:30; Matt. 16:28, 24:34; Luke 9:27; would support their "pro-family" standable when considering: 21:32; John NA); and, to paraphrase stance and hop-scotched through the Jesus, who needs marriage or family Bible to make their point. Do the Jesus said, "1 tell you this: there is in heaven? (Matt. 22:30). This point Gospel legends, the only source of no one who has given up home, is lost to most "believers." "Jesus quotes," support the Falwellian brothers or sisters, mother, father [Could the person who said all view of family life? or children, or land, for my sake of this also have been responsible for Although the Old Testament and for the Gospel, who will not the words so often spoken at Christian commandment to "honor your father receive in this age a hundred times weddings? "... But from the begin- and mother" is mentioned (Mark 7:9; as much—houses, brothers and ning of creation, God made them male sisters, mothers and children, and Matt. 15:3), Jesus' mother is not and female. For this reason a man honored in Mark. Her main role is land—and persecutions besides; and in the age to come eternal life." shall leave his father and mother and played in the pre-baptism additions [Mark 10:29-30] be joined to his wife, and the two shall that Matthew and Luke have grafted become one flesh.... What therefore onto the story in Mark. Joseph has a God has joined together, let no man bit part, and the "holy" family's life Another man, one of his disciples, put asunder" (Mark 10:6-9; Matt. together seems unworthy of elabora- said to him, "Lord, let me go and 19:4-7 [RSV]).] tion. The more gnostic Gospel of John bury my father first." Jesus replied, The rest of the New Testament, has very little to say about the family, "Follow me, and leave the dead to consisting mainly of "Paulism," has but does add Jesus' mother to the bury the dead." [Matt. 8:21, Luke much to say about the family. Claim- scene at the cross (John 19:25)—the 9:59] ing Jesus as the divine inspiration, only Gospel to do so. This is what Paul says: the New Testament says about Jesus' "If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, wife relation to his family: and children, brothers and sisters, It is a good thing for a man to even his own life, he cannot be a have nothing to do with women; disciple of mine...." [Luke 14:26] but because there is so much Then his mother and brothers immorality, let each man have his arrived, and remaining outside sent "I have come to set man against own wife and each woman her own a message asking him to come out his father, a daughter against her husband. . . . Better be married to them. A crowd was sitting round mother, a son's wife against her than burn with vain desire. [I Cor. and word was brought to him: mother-in-law; and a man will find 7:1-9] "Your mother and your brothers his enemies under his own roof. No are outside asking for you." He man is worthy of me who cares But that is a topic for a different replied, "Who is my mother? Who more for father or mother than for heading. are my brothers?" And looking me; no man is worthy of me who around at those who were sitting When Falwellians claim that cares for son or daughter. . . ." in the circle about him said, "Here humanists are "anti-family" and can- [Matt. 10:35, Luke 12:51] are my mother and my brothers. not understand that to recognize a Whoever does the will of God is reality is not necessarily to condone my brother, my sister, my mother." or favor it, they should be reminded [Mark 3:31-35; Matt. 12:46-50; Just imagine the hoopla if a humanist where Jesus is alleged to have stood Luke 8:19-21 (NEB)] said this! on this issue. •

Summer 1985 23 An Interview with Sidney Hook China, Marxism, and Human Freedom

The following interview with humanist philosopher Sidney Hook was con- ducted by the editors of the magazine The Chinese Intellectual. Dr. Hook is professor emeritus at New York University and a Senior Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace in Stan- ford, California. His autobiography, Out of Step: A Life in the Twentieth Century, is in preparation. He recently was awarded the Medal of Freedom at the White House. The Chinese Intellectual is a magazine published in China and distributed to the thousands of Chinese students currently enrolled in American universities. It also circulates in other areas of the world.—ED.

TCI: It would be interesting for people to know a little about societies. Many Chinese, when they come to the United States, your personal story—where you were born, where you were are struck by its wealth and the scientific and technological educated, how you became involved in philosophy and the advances. But sometimes they also are struck by the undis- study of Marxism. ciplined behavior of some of its citizens, such as in street crime, Hook: I am currently writing my autobiography, which which they consider unusual. Given that the United States has contains all the relevant information. My parents were Euro- advanced so much technologically, do you think that it has pean. My father came to this country during the administration advanced comparably (or even at all) in moral development? of Grover Cleveland; my mother arrived later. I was born on Hook: From the point of view of the morality of institu- the Lower East Side in New York City. Then we moved to tions, I think the United States has made great advances in Brooklyn, where we lived in a ghetto. I worked my way through several aspects. First, it has widened the basis of consent, or school. My father was a factory worker; he used to leave the the principle of voluntary participation. For example, I remem- house in the morning before we were awake, and he came ber the time when to be a member of a trade union was a very home at night when we were ready to go to bed. He sometimes dangerous kind of affiliation. Today there are free trade-unions worked fourteen hours a day; this was in the dark ages before that are not in any way like the trade unions of the bosses. the First World War. Second, I remember when it was impossible to talk about My story is like that of many others. I lived on a street socialism, communism, and whatnot without being denounced from which some boys became cop-killers and some became and threatened. There were periods in the history of this country judges. Some became very wealthy, and some became ne'er-do- when there was great repression. Today there is more cultural, wells. You can't explain the behavior of human beings merely political, and intellectual freedom than ever existed in the past. by the environment when the environment is common to many Third, I remember when life and the relationships between the persons. Since the differences in reaction to the environment sexes in this country were inhibited in many cruel ways. If a are so great, we must recognize the influence of genetics and young woman was unmarried and had a child, her life was family traditions. I always liked reading. I'm the only one in ruined. Today, there is a greater freedom, a greater tolerance my family to have acquired a college education—probably just of different lifestyles. In all these ways, institutions have made a chance variation explains my avidity for reading. The older I great progress. grow, the more 1 believe in luck and chance as being just as In some other ways they have deteriorated. Where the influential as environment and heredity. By "luck," I do not United States' culture has failed, it has intensified the anarchistic mean that there are uncaused events but that there may be a tendencies within democracy. A democracy, to function prop- conjunction of two causal series of events that cannot be pre- erly, has to be based on a kind of individual self-discipline. dicted on the basis of the knowledge of the antecedent events Today any conception of self-discipline is mistakenly regarded in either series. as a throwback to conservative and reactionary attitudes. There TCI: My next question concerns the United States and is, for example, no sense of responsibility toward public prop- China. I would like to have your reflections on these two erty. You go into the parks and you see individuals breaking

24 FREE INQUIRY off the limbs of trees and committing other acts of vandalism, weapons the ACLU protested that this infringed the pupils' and disregarding ordinary courtesies in relation to other human Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable searches beings. Sometimes the young act like savages. It is not for and seizures. It is the ACLU that is unreasonable. It is for nothing that some of our schools are referred to as jungles. uncivil liberties. Despite the growth of institutional freedom, there has been TCI: You have been emphasizing personal freedom. Do no corresponding growth of inner or moral strength and you think the anarchistic tendency in democracy has something responsibility. This may have a very, very bad effect 'on our to do with the fact that people have carried personal freedom future. I'll put it another way. Even in the old days, there was a to the extreme? sense of community. We didn't have very much to eat when I Hook: Oh yes, very definitely. Of course, you must remem- was young. Life was very hard, but there was a sort of com- ber that we have made institutional progress. I don't know of munal spirit on the street. We knew our next-door neighbors; any nation in the world that inherited the curse of slavery and when people were in distress, their neighbors would often help. has made as much progress in rectifying some of the abuses of Today, although the level of affluence has risen, I don't find racialism as we have. Go to a country like Malaysia, talk to the this sense of community very strong, especially among the Chinese students there, as I have, and you will see how deep young. I can't account for it, although I suspect that my criti- and stubborn ethnic prejudices are. What's going on in places cism of the unmannerly young reflects my age. like India is even worse. Of course it's bad enough here, as the I'm very happy to see the development of liberal attitudes, occurrence of periodic riots attests. But we still recognize that especially in relations between the sexes; but what I have the majority cannot violate and should not violate the rights of observed in respect to the behavior of men toward women very minorities. The great difference between ancient democracy and often makes me ashamed of my gender. Women have a natural modern democracy is that the former was based on a concep- vulnerability that is no longer respected. Some men, too, have tion of democracy as the rule of the people, or simple majority a natural vulnerability that is disregarded in the rush to express rule. When the majority came to power, it often would vote to oneself, to seize what one can for oneself no matter what the confiscate the property, and sometimes the lives, of the consequences for others. I think to some extent the militant minority. Everything was permissible for the majority. And the feminists are responsible for the indifference of many men to result was that ancient democracies ended in anarchy or civil the natural vulnerabilities of women. Men feel absolved of war. As Aristotle said, when people have to choose between anarchy and tyranny, they will always choose tyranny, because anarchy is the rule of a thousand tyrants. It's like having a hundred warlords. If you are given the choice of being subjected to the rule of a hundred warlords or of only one who will give you peace if you pay your taxes, then you will naturally choose the one. Today, we have introduced an institutional basis of free- dom for the minority as well. That's all to the good. But we have failed to develop within the ordinary American the sense of pride and responsibility that should come with living in such a system. There are far too many among the youth of our cities whose behavior is unacceptable. When the law is not present, they rarely say: "We should not do this; this is not the right thing to do; this violates the spirit of democracy." The demo- cratic spirit is not sufficiently expressed in individual behavior. Look at our schools. In some metropolitan high schools, as I mentioned earlier, we sometimes have to search the students to make sure they don't bring firearms into school. Sometimes they attack—violently attack—teachers. Some parents complain that the teachers give the students too much homework or have standards of performance that are too high—and other things of that sort. This is reflected, as you imply, in crime. I was born in and grew up in New York City, but it's no longer their responsibilities. I also find the excesses of freedom deplor- the city I knew. It has become much dirtier and more dan- able. Although I believe in freedom of speech, I don't consider gerous; at nighttime it's a city under siege. In many sections a hard pornography to be a legitimate expression of this right. I woman can't go out alone. I can understand somebody coming regard the American Civil Liberties Union for this and many from Hong Kong or Singapore, where they haven't got the other reasons as a mischievous organization. It regards prac- institutional rights that we have here, observing the record of tically all speech as permissible, even when it endangers national our horrible crime statistics and saying, "Well, what good is all security and incites illegal behavior. Its absolutism is reflected your affluence?" in the fact that in Detroit, where 120 schoolchildren were shot It is a very, very difficult problem. I think it's something in 1984, when the school authorities instituted a search for that those people who admire the United States so much ought

Summer 1985 25 to bear in mind, because there are certain values that other judge people by their achievements and their merit and not by cultures have that should not be imperiled by the extension of their race, sex, religion, or social origins. When the Jews were democracy. I don't know very much about Chinese culture, but discriminated against in the past all they asked for was to be it seems to me that there are certain aspects of Confucianism, judged by one standard. I was already publishing when I was a especially its sense of respect for the vulnerability of age, that graduate student. Seven colleges made inquiries about whether should be preserved. Of course, it can go too far. One can I would take a post with them. Five of them withdrew their venerate age too much, but it is important to preserve its proper offer when they discovered that I was not of Anglo-Saxon place in the human economy. If I were talking to a ruler of an origin. This was in the late 1920s. That prejudice was part of underdeveloped country, I'd say, "Fine, you take our science the normal pressures of the atmosphere of the time, but we and technology, but try to preserve some of the abiding, worth- fought against it. We wanted to be judged by the same while values that you have, which we once had but are rapidly standards as everyone else. We objected to discrimination losing." against blacks and women, too, because we believed they also TCI: Is the loss due to the advances in technology, where ought to be judged by one standard. Today, however, some people become less personal? people say, "Oh you must now discriminate in favor of minori- Hook: That's a good question and a very difficult one. I ties and women." Such persons are in favor of preferential don't know the answer. Some people say, although I disagree hiring, of quota systems. I am still opposed to all forms of with them, that this loss is a consequence of the loss of religion. discrimination—negative or positive. I think I am still a liberal. I don't think so, because there are all kinds of religions. Certain My critics say I'm not, that I'm a conservative or reactionary. religions can be fanatical and fierce in their intolerance. I myself My guess is that most of the people who will tell you that I'm a think that, when you have different religions and conflicting conservative will be found among those who favor the quota beliefs, you cannot unite people on the basis of religion. There system and preferential hiring. During the sixties, when we had something like your "cultural revolution" in our universities, I "Certain religions can be fanatical and fierce in their organized a group called "University Centers for Rational intolerance. I myself think that, when you have Alternatives." We maintained that, if students wanted to protest on political grounds, they had the right to do so, but that did different religions and conflicting beliefs, you cannot not give them a right to politicalize the universities. These unite people on the basis of religion." students wouldn't permit people to speak or to teach who differed with them on Vietnam or on anything else. They is no way of intelligently negotiating differences in religious destroyed the rights of others to teach and learn and hurled dogmas. Perhaps you can unite them on the basis of funda- fire bombs and burning torches into classrooms and libraries. mental principles of ethics. These are very troubling issues, and These students and those whom they have influenced—and many books are being written about them. To me, the decline they are still numerous, although more subdued—naturally in popular morality is registered in the absence of a sense of regard me as a conservative. I am proud to be the object of fair play. This may reflect my personal idiosyncrasy. I've always their opposition. been concerned with fair play, listening to both sides, following TCI: Another reason you are considered a conservative, the rules of the game. This sense of fair play is not rooted in perhaps, is that you are a strong opponent of the totalitarian religion. When I pick up a newspaper and see the bias and system. prejudice in the news stories, it affronts me. If it's a reactionary Hook: Yes, but most of those who regard me as a con- newspaper, the bias is obviously conservative; if it is a liberal servative would say they're opposed to totalitarianism, too. paper the bias is on the other side. Years ago the press was That's not the real reason for their criticism of me. They'll fairer in its news stories. Perhaps I am wrong about this. I never tell you that. They may say that I prepared the way for don't know. Old men always talk about how bad things are totalitarianism, presumably because of my very strong anti- now in contrast to the past. But sometimes they are right. The Communism. That really is the bottom line. I have been known truth—of course we never have the whole truth—has nothing as a strong opponent of communism ever since the Moscow to do with age or youth. frame-up trials—I helped organize the John Dewey Commission TCI: You sound as if you see yourself as a moderate, but that exposed the Moscow Trials—and I've been in every major your reputation in America in general is not that of a moderate. fight against the apologists of Stalinist terror since then. The Most people think of you as on the right. Would you like to simple truth is that these critics of mine who carry on the respond to that? legacy of the "cultural revolutionists" of the sixties, of the New Hook: That's very odd. To be sure, my views on some Left, are themselves totalitarians but will not acknowledge it. things have changed. I hope I have learned something from There is a simple test of whether a person is a genuine liberal experience. But my fundamental ideals, I think, have remained in a political (not economic) sense. If he is liberal, he will be an constant. When people say I was once a radical but I'm no anti-fascist. But he will a!so be an anti-communist. If he says longer a radical, I reply: "Please tell me what views of mine are he is an anti-fascist but refuses to call himself an anti- different now?" Usually people who talk this way are no more communist, if he says there are no enemies to human freedom radical than I am today. Some people are unhappy because I on the left or if he declares that he is "an anti-anti-communist," have come out against the quota system. I was brought up then he is no liberal, no genuine anti-fascist. He may legiti- with the view that, if you're a genuine liberal, then you must mately be called a Red Fascist. A genuine liberal—and I con-

26 FREE INQUIRY sider democratic socialists to be political (not economic) liberals, the much more pronounced reaction against Marxism when it too—is opposed to all varieties of totalitarianism, regardless of was identified with Stalinism by communists in the Soviet their color or of the kind of cultural straitjacket in which they Union and the United States. As Eastman and I observed the imprison free minds. developments in the Soviet Union, we made peace and patched ICI: America has had a long-standing tradition of anti- up our quarrels. Both of us—and I must confess that Eastman pathy to Marxism. How do you relate this tradition to the began even earlier than 1—undertook a systematic campaign particular American experience? The opposition to Marxism against Stalinism. The difference at this point between Eastman by former Marxists like Max Eastman and yourself has been and me is that I linked Stalinism with Leninism, whereas part of this tradition. Do you see this as being in any way Eastman concentrated on the abuses of Stalinism. Later he rooted in the American experience or do you see it simply as jettisoned Lenin and, throwing out the baby with the bathwater, part of an international reaction, say, against Stalinism? Do Marx, too. F. A. Hayek took the place of Marx in his thinking. you see any parallels between your own experience and, say, We differed strongly over Hayek, too, but in a friendlier spirit. those of the French New Philosophers? I am still waiting for serfdom "to descend on the Social Demo- Hook: The opposition to Marxism that you presuppose in cratic welfare state of Europe." This was Hayek's prediction, this question involves two forms. The first form of opposition which Eastman accepted as valid. to Marxism goes back a long way and is rooted in the fact that Beginning with the purges in the Soviet Union, and espe- Marxism was a foreign import from an alien tradition. Its cially the Moscow trials, Marxism was, so to speak, held proponents spoke a language that was quite foreign to the responsible by many sensitive and intelligent persons for these revolutionary idiom of the American experience. Even in the outrages against human reason and human rights. This was days of Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx, they had occasion to made easier by the Stalinists' insistence that they were the only criticize their followers for sectarianism and for not merging real Marxists, or Marxist-Leninists. Since that time, 1 would their movement with the indigenous movements of American say that, in the American academy, when one speaks of protest. When Max Eastman and I were Marxists, we sought Marxism, the tendency is unfortunately to identify it loosely in different ways to overcome this kind of opposition to with Stalinism and communism. This is intensified, first, by the Marxism as a completely foreign ideology by linking it with natural tendency of the Stalinists to characterize themselves as American revolutionary political and philosophical traditions. Marxists in order to escape the odium of terms like communism It is significant that we both were students of John Dewey, and or even Stalinism and, second, by the lack of scholarship and, he, in the name of a form of American pragmatism, was very critical of Marxism as a kind of metaphysics. Astonishingly enough, Max Eastman tried to link the Leninist revision of Marx with what he called an American engineering conception of social change. I, on the contrary, maintained that Marx's early criticism of Feuerbach contained the seeds of pragmatic epistemology, and that Marx and Feuerbach especially had delivered the coup de grâce to metaphysics. I interpreted Marx as a kind of forerunner of pragmatic tendencies most adequately expressed in the democratic philosophy of John Dewey. Interestingly enough, there was an American publicist by the name of English Walling, who had written a book on this subject before World War I. Although many people find it difficult to believe, I never read that book. I discovered it only after I had published Toward the Understanding of Karl Marx. English Walling had intimated that there was a connection between Marxism and pragmatism, but he was rather vague about the specific relationship. When I wrote Toward the Understanding of Karl Marx, some critics, notably Max Eastman, charged that I was reading the ideas of John Dewey into Karl Marx. Subsequently they accused me of reading my own ideas into the philosophy of John Dewey. But Dewey was still alive, and he accepted my interpretation of his doctrines as valid. I must confess that my argument with Max Eastman over Marx and Hegel had its amusing sides. Max Eastman reviewed one of my books on Marx (I think it was From Hegel to Marx) under the title "What Karl Marx Would Have Said if He Had Been a Student of John Dewey's." You must distin- guish between the American negative reaction to Marxism on the basis of its foreign ideology and sectarian vocabulary from

Summer 1985 27 conscientiousness on the part of many American scholars who by which 1 mean, if it were possible for the people who elected found it convenient to throw everything into one pot and the party pledged to introduce socialism, to vote it out or to classify everything under the category of Marxism. So to con- dismiss it and elect another in its stead. From this point of clude, in response to your question one must make a sharp view, it is clear that basic to the existence of a free society is distinction between the reasons for the opposition to Marxism. freedom of choice, to have either socialism or capitalism or In the nineteenth century it was its failure to link up with the anything in between. As I have said many times, in a politically genuine revolutionary American tradition, and after 1917 the free society, the choice is rarely between complete socialism on quite different phenomenon of reaction against Marxism the one hand or complete capitalism on the other, but more or associated with Stalinism. less of socialism or of capitalism. More or less, depending You also ask me: "Do you see any parallels between your upon the experienced consequences of existing institutions. This own experience and, say, those of the French New Philoso- means as was illustrated in the Paris Commune, that what phers?" Now, I should like to say at the outset that a great Marx called "the dictatorship of the proletariat" is not by any historic injustice has been done to American intellectuals. means "the dictatorship of the party." It is at this crucial point During the thirties, the literature clearly showed that we began that Lenin became not the executor of Marx's legacy but its a critique of Stalinism and Leninism, and to some extent even executioner. of Marxism, too, which the French so-called New Philosophers TCI: What do you think about the possibility that people rediscovered only in the sixties and seventies. One could say might use their freedom as well as the democratic process to for them, perhaps, that because of French parochialism and choose a dictator? nationalism they were completely unaware of the existence of Hook: Oh yes, that's another excellent question. It raises a this literature. But if you look at the works of Max Eastman or very old objection to democracy. In fact, there was a German at any of my writings during this period, particularly Reason, philosopher by the name of Leonard Nelson who was a Kantian Social Myths and Democracy, a collection of essays, or the and a socialist. Although a socialist, he rejected democracy. essays of James Burnham, or those in the Partisan Review, or His argument was a very interesting one. He said democracy is Dwight Macdonald's Politics, you will find a much more self-contradictory because in a democracy it would be possible profound analysis of the crisis in Marxist and communist for a majority to vote to abolish democracy. Since he was ideology than in the writings of the new French philosophers. Kantian, for him the test of whether a proposition was good or TCI: In one of your interviews, you stated that "by a free bad was whether it was logically consistent or inconsistent. So society I do not mean a `free-enterprise society' ... it is seriously Leonard Nelson said, "No, we cannot have a democracy because misleading to phrase the issue as the choice between capitalism of the danger that people might abolish it." In consequence, he and socialism in any of their varieties rather than between was expelled from the Social Democratic Party of Germany. democracy and totalitarianism." If I understand this quotation If one is a democrat, what do you do if a majority of correctly, you seem to be suggesting that democracy and social- mankind votes honestly, after fair and free discussion, to abolish ism are not necessarily incompatible. Would you like to tell us democracy? My answer would be that under those circum- what kind of socialism (existing or theoretical) in your view stances 1 would give up my belief in democracy and fight for may be compatible with democracy? Do you think that democ- freedom. You see, from Plato to the present, most of the prin- racy can be established in a society without private ownership ciple opponents of democracy have maintained that a majority or a market economy? of mankind is either too stupid or too vicious to be entrusted Hook: This is an excellent question that would require with self-government and that therefore power must be wielded volumes to answer properly. Actually, I have written at great by an elite of those who know or those who are righteous or length on certain aspects of this question. The first thing for those who are saintlike. People who hold this totalitarian view me to say is that my particular formulation here is directed openly are intellectually honest. Plato made no secret of the against people like Milton Friedman, the American Nobel fact that he didn't believe in democracy. He believed in what economist, and the libertarians, who have defined a free society one might call a "benevolent despotism." But, as I've said on as a free-enterprise society, whereas I maintain that a free several occasions, the trouble with benevolent despotism is that society is one that rests upon the freely given consent of the you can rely more on its despotism than on its benevolence, governed, with respect not only to political forms but to all especially when conflicts of interest arise. I myself firmly believe institutions in society. I maintain that you have a free society in democracy but not in a family with many small children whenever human beings have a choice to determine under what where each one counts for one vote and no more than one; nor kind of economic system they prefer to live. It is quite clear in institutions for the feeble-minded, nor in penitentiaries. that when the English workers and the English masses voted in Let us look, now, at the situation from an empirical aspect. the Labor government in 1945, when they made giant steps Historically, I know of no case in which a people voluntarily toward socialization, they were moving toward a socialist has abandoned a free democratic society for a despotism. Where society that was certainly a free society. It is still a free society, they have an honest choice, they do not vote against democracy. even though these steps have been reversed. In France, after People say, "Oh. what about Hitler? Wasn't he elected by a Mitterand was elected through the political democratic process majority?" The answer is no. Hitler was called to power by on the platform of socialization, the socialism he introduced Hindenburg because Hindenburg's nephew had told him that existed in a free society. A socialist society would remain a free General Schleicher was going to confiscate his East Prussian society if the institutions of political freedom were retained— estates. Hitler arranged to have the Reichstag burned and he

28 FREE INQUIRY outlawed the German communist party. He never really had a Hook: I do not believe that Marx's analysis today is very genuine majority in a fair and free election. What about the helpful in understanding the development of capitalist society. Russian Revolution? This, too, is very interesting. As you know, Capitalist society has developed far beyond the expectations of the February Revolution in Russia in 1917 was the one that Marx, particularly in its ability to overcome its periodic cycles overthrew the czar. After the czar resigned, you had dual power; of bust and boom, depression and prosperity. These occur, but the soviets were established and the intermediate Kerensky the effects are cushioned by political means. Also, capitalist regime proclaimed, "We will determine the kind of government society, instead of converting the majority of the population we will have after we elect the Constituent Assembly." Now, all into workers or proletarians, has diminished the proportion of through 1917 the Bolsheviks under Lenin kept calling for elec- tions to the Constituent Assembly. Kerensky maintained: "lt's not yet time. There are a lot of disorders in the country. We "A totally socialized society has a high totalitarian are still at war. We must wait for peace." The Bolsheviks then potential. Therefore, in the light of history and psy- seized power in October. They held elections for the Constituent chology, we need to encourage plural forms of Assembly in January 1918. They got only 19 percent of the ownership, plural forms of association, so that one vote, and they counted the votes! That was the last time you can survive if it becomes necessary to oppose the had a relatively free election in the Soviet Union, and I don't groups in power." believe you ever have had a free election in China or any other communist country since then. Therefore, although I think it's theoretically possible for a people to abolish its own democracy workers with respect to the total population. There are almost by voting for a man who proclaims: "Vote for me, and this will as many individuals working in service industries—that is to be the last time you ever vote," I don't believe they will. (lt's say, as small-goods salespersons, gas station attendants, store possible for them to do it, but I doubt that they ever have done clerks, radio repairers—as there are actually working in large it or ever actually will). I have enough faith in human beings factories. In strict Marxist terms, the proletariat is not made (because ultimately that's what our faith in democracy rests on) up of the poor, and it is not made up of people who simply to believe that when given a free choice they will know what work for a living; the proletariat is made up of those workers their own interests are better than others. If one doesn't believe who are engaged in heavy centralized industry. These groups that, one can't reasonably be a democrat. are getting smaller and smaller. Marx's economic analysis, I Now, there's one other question that I must go back to: think, was helpful in understanding certain tendencies in the "Do you think that democracy can be established in a society development of capitalism. He saw that there were tendencies without private ownership or a market economy?" Well, as a toward centralization of industry and concentration of capital, purely logical possibility, I agree with Professor Abba Lerner the revolutionary impact of science on technology and industry, that it may be possible, but on the basis of historical evidence, but he did not see many other things that have developed since on the basis of our knowledge of psychology, I doubt whether his time. His predictions of the increasingly severe periodic it is likely. The reason is very obvious: If you don't have a breakdown and final collapse of capitalism simply turned out market economy and you wipe out the rights of property and to be false. What he also overlooked was the rise of what we don't regard private property as a human right among other today call the "welfare state" and the "welfare society." Marx rights, then in effect the government becomes the sole employer. never anticipated that the state, presumably controlled by the Any opposition to the government then makes it impossible capitalist class in the United States, would organize the unor- for you to survive. If the government owns and controls ganized workers, which actually happened in 1933 after the everything—that means a handful of people in power— New Deal was introduced. Nor did Marx anticipate the rise of opposition becomes not only more difficult and dangerous but fascism, a movement that can use the workers as a mass base tantamount to treason in the eyes of the group in power. Where to impose a tyranny over the workers and all other classes as are you going to get the paper to print your criticism? Where well. are you going to get a job to keep body and soul together? Now, as for the second part of your question, regarding That's why it's so difficult in a completely socialized society to the relevance of Marx's theory to understanding socialism. develop any genuine freedom. As I've put it on other occasions, Marx himself said that his theory is only related to capitalism. a socialized society, a totally socialized society, has a high The subtitle of his major book is "A Critique of Capitalism." totalitarian potential. Therefore, in the light of history and When it came to socialism he didn't pay much attention to the psychology, we need to encourage plural forms of ownership, specific form it would take. He wanted to avoid the mistakes plural forms of association, so that one can survive if it becomes of all the other utopian socialists of the nineteenth century, necessary to oppose the groups in power. who spent their time describing a future where everyone would TCI: Many Marxists and non-Marxists tend to share the eat strawberries and cream and would have a beautiful or view that Marx's theory, or Marxism, despite its many prob- handsome spouse. There was one utopian socialist, François lems, is a useful tool for analyzing capitalist society. They often Fourier, who predicted that under socialism science would be disagree, however, about its usefulness in analyzing existing developed to such a point that the sea would be converted into socialist societies. Do you agree with the first proposition and, an ocean of lemonade. In reaction, Marx said, "This is all if so, why? In your opinion, what is the relevance (if any) of nonsense. Let's not talk about the future. The important thing Marx's theory to understanding the existing socialism? is first to overthrow the existing capitalist society." I myself

Summer 1985 29 believe that Marx's work illuminates the period up until the Marxism is partially responsbile for the development of modern First World War, the nineteenth century and the first part of totalitarianism; others, however, not only deny the relationship the twentieth century. But the Bolshevik Revolution and the between Marx's thought and the past and present forms of Chinese Revolution refuted the theory of historical materialism. totalitarianism but also see in Marx's thought a genuine notion Today, if you want to predict history, the mode of political of human freedom and democracy. How do you explain the decision is just as important as, and sometimes more important existence of such widely divergent views? than, the mode of economic production. I defy anyone to Hook: I am firmly convinced that Marx was a fighter for predict the behavior of Israel on the basis of its mode of human freedom and that he envisaged a society in which what economic production alone, or even of China. There are other we call "human rights" would be universally established. I still factors that play a part. The mode of production always plays recall that when I was a boy, before the First World War, a large role, but then the question arises, "How much?" It's a when people asked for a definition of socialism and we heard matter of degree. Even in my youth, I used to argue with socialism defined as government ownership and control of all orthodox Marxists. They would say, "Oh yes, what you assert means of production, distribution, and exchange, we would is true, but in the last analysis the mode of economic production interrupt and correct that definition. "No," we said, "Bismarck is decisive." And I would always reply, "When do you have the might say something like that, but for us socialism is govern- last analysis?" You see, in science you're always dealing with ment ownership and democratic control." As you know, in the proximate causes. There's no such thing as the last analysis. If Communist Manifesto, Marx says the first thing the com- more than one factor is involved, you must be able to measure munists will do when they come to power is to introduce these factors. When someone says, "The mode of economic democracy. At that time political democracy didn't exist for production is the most important thing in the functioning of the workers in Western Europe. However, unfortunately, on society," they are speaking vaguely. Suppose you ask a physi- two or three occasions Marx uses the phrase "dictatorship of cian, "What's the most important factor in the functioning of the proletariat" as characterizing the transitional period from the human body?" He'll say: "What kind of question is that? capitalism to socialism. There is a fundamental ambiguity in That's not a scientific question." It's only when you have a this whole notion of "the dictatorship of the proletariat." It is specific problem—if you ask, "Now, as far as the functioning both a political concept and an economic concept. As I have of the kidneys is concerned, what plays the greater role?"—that interpreted that phrase, which Marx didn't use very often, it you have an intelligent question, one that makes sense. But referred to the economic changes that would be introduced you cannot ask the question "What's the most important factor through political means. You must recall that in 1872 at the by itself?" since you have no way of measuring the importance meeting of the First International at The Hague, Holland, Marx in relation to other factors. You may as well ask: "Which is said explicitly that socialism would be introduced peacefully by more important in walking: the right leg or the left? Which is democratic means in England, the United States, and Holland. more important in chewing: the upper jaw or the lower jaw?" As late as 1896 Friedrich Engels, when asked about the dicta- ICI: Many people believe that Marx's thought and/or torship of the proletariat, said in effect: "Oh, that could take many forms, including the form of a bourgeois republic, a bourgeois parliamentary republic." This was disputed after the RENEW NOW! emergence of Lenin and Leninism. Lenin's contention was that Subscription Rates the dictatorship of the proletariat was only possible through the dictatorship of the minority Communist Party. There isn't One Year $16.50 a line in Marx that justifies the concept of the dictatorship of Two Years $29.00 the party. The dictatorship of the party always turns out to be the dictatorship over the proletariat. Written into the constitu- Three Years $38.00 tion of the Soviet Union and, if I'm not mistaken, China's as well, is the assertion that the leading political group is the Subscription includes the Secular Humanist Bulletin. Communist Party, which is always a minority of the population.

Name So what you have is the transformation of Marx's unfortunate phrase "the dictatorship of the proletariat" into the notion of Address dictatorship of the party, which, itself, through so-called democratic centralism, functions through the dictatorship of City State Zip Code the political committee. That has had a tremendous impact. Today I find myself in a minority among Marxist scholars. Outside U.S.A. add $4.00 for surface mail, $8.00 for airmail. A book has just been published in England entitled Marx and Lenin. The book also raises the question, "Is Lenin responsible for Stalin?" I hold that Lenin built the system that made it Free possible for people like Stalin to arise. Then comes the question: "Is Marx responsible for Lenin?" A man whom I admire very Central Park Station • Box 5 much, Leszek Kolakowski, in his three volumes of Main Cur- Buffalo, New York 14215 rents of Marxism, is rather ambiguous on this point. He sug- gests that there is something in Marx that justifies Lenin,

30 FREE INQUIRY whereas I maintain, and I must confess to being at fault in not the bureaucratic, undemocratic excesses of their society. I realizing this sooner, that there is a fundamental difference explained recently in a similar discussion that, if you want to between Marx and Lenin more important than any of their get a hearing, you must use the language or the vocabulary of agreements. Marx certainly did not believe in the dictatorship the people who are in power. If these intellectuals in Eastern of the Communist Party. That's why he attacked first Blanqui Europe had invoked anyone else's name, let's say, Pope Inno- and then Bakunin. He regarded the belief in the dictatorship of cent or John Stuart Mill, when they talked about freedom, the party as a pathological Russian syndrome born under con- they would be denounced as counterrevolutionaries, imprisoned, spiratorial conditions resulting from the barbarous czarist or shot. But they insisted, "Marx said this." The pundits in the tyranny and smuggled into the Western European working- Marx-Engels Institute of Moscow couldn't deny that this was class movement by romantic and irresponsible revolutionists. the actual language of the early Marx. They had developed TCI: Soviet and Eastern bloc writers have heatedly debated such a fetishistic attitude toward Marx that they didn't have Marx's theory of alienation and humanism over the course of the courage to say, "Oh, well, Marx was not a Marxist when the past three decades. Recently, Chinese writers displayed a he used that language. He could talk vague and sentimental keen interest in this theory as well. In all cases, however, the nonsense about man's true nature, too." But I think if one is exploration of this subject was eventually suppressed by cam- historically accurate then one must say this doctrine of aliena- paigns calling for ideological orthodoxy. Do you find it sig- tion and the importance of it in the philosophy of humanism nificant that this phenomenon of debate and suppression has was not a typically Marxist view. It is Feuerbachian, and on appeared in virtually all socialist countries, and, if so, why? many points, including this one, Feuerbach was more profound Hook: My answer must take complex and various forms. than Marx. For example, when Marx says, "Religion is the I daresay you will be surprised to learn that I believe that opium of the people." he is really echoing Feuerbach. In Feuer- Marx became Marxist only after he abandoned his earlier bach's day it wasn't a disgrace to take opium. It was a medicine, Feuerbachian humanism. Remember that Marx was not born an anodyne. It was the only thing people had to relieve their a Marxist! Marx went through certain stages of intellectual pain. Feuerbach was really implying that under any system development, described in my book From Hegel to Marx, there will be tragedy, heartache, failure, and frustration. Reli- before he formulated the theory of historical materialism. Here gion, for him (he regarded humanism and even atheism as a is where the mature Marx appears. But when he was young religion), serves that function in every society. Marx ridiculed and a follower of Feuerbach, fresh out of his Hegelian this view because he was more optimistic than Feuerbach. He swaddling clothes, he wrote about humanism and about the believed that science would solve not only the problem of alienation of man. Alienation is actually a religious concept economic scarcity but all human problems that arise from it. that goes back to Plotinus, Proclus, and the early church He ignored other human problems. Feuerbach seems to me to fathers. The early notion of alienation is that man, who was be more realistic about most human beings. originally at one with God, by his recalcitrance and resistance Now with respect to your question: Can there be alienation alienates himself from God. Then he progressively works his in a socialist society? If we define alienation as a phenomenon way back to God. Marx dismissed all of this as religious super- in which a human being feels like an outsider in the community, stition. Under the influence of Feuerbach, Marx became a if he cannot find a shared interest with others or a center humanist and wrote about the essence of humanity and the around which to organize his life in such a way that society true nature of man. This conception of man was completely tolerates, even if it does not actively support it, then Feuerbach unhistorical and was later derided by Marx. Alienation during would say that a man or woman can be alienated in any this period meant for Marx the manifold ways in which capi- society. Marx would say that to the degree that human beings talist society prevented human beings from realizing their ori- feel with objective justification that they are alienated in a ginal, essential species nature. Marx rings all the variations on socialist society, to that degree the society falls short of the this theme. After Marx became a Marxist, he abandoned the ideals of socialism. In a socialist society, if and when its citizens concept of alienation, although he occasionally lapsed into the complain about alienation, that is a sure sign that they are use of the term in Capital. In the Communist Manifesto Marx suffering from the lack of democracy. refers to the use of the term alienation by French socialists as Marx was not a philistine. He did not conceive of socialism "intellectual rubbish." as a community of well-fed people whose horizons are defined These early writings of Marx on humanism were not pub- only in terms of physical comfort. He wanted to solve the lished in Marx's lifetime, but only in the early I930s. After the economic problem because he believed that in an economy of Soviet Union imposed its terroristic dictatorship on Eastern generalized scarcity most human beings cannot be free to choose Europe, the intellectuals of those countries who were trying to their own life patterns. In the past, members of the leisured liberate themselves from the tyrannical domination of the Soviet classes could lead free lives, but only at the cost of exploiting Union discovered these writings, in which Marx says that the the productive classes. Marx's ideal was a society in which all essential nature of man is to be free and that we should develop individuals enjoyed moral autonomy, in which all could deter- a truly humanist society in which all are free. And they said, mine the pattern of their own lives, limited only by the necessi- "Look, this is the real Marxism," in order to win a certain ties of nature. independence and freedom from Leninist orthodoxy. They Since this is a gradual process, there are always short- began to talk about the alienation of human beings and the comings and failures. It is natural that individuals would lack of human freedom in society as a means of undermining experience them as alienations. The term is not as important as

Summer 1985 31 rational review of his own findings. For such critical revision is "I am firmly convinced that Marx was a fighter for the hallmark of the scientific outlook as distinct from the theo- human freedom and that he envisaged a society in logical religious outlook. which what we call `human rights' would be univers- TCI: Apropos my question about alienation and human- ally established.... He was committed to democracy ism in socialist countries: In recent years there have been intel- lectuals and scholars in China who are very interested in this as a way of life ... to an equality of concern for all question, that is, the importance of Marx's theory of alienation human beings." in the whole body of his thought. As I remember, Eugene Kamenka said, and I paraphrase, there are many ways to inter- the phenomenon. As I read Marx, it seems to me that he is pret Marx. It would be foolish to say that Marx is ... whatever. committed to democracy as a way of life, that is to say, to an Also, Alvin Gouldner, in his book Two Marxisms. But your equality of concern for all human beings to develop themselves position is very clear: that Marx in his later period abandoned to their full, desirable potential. From this point of view, in a this idea of alienation, and maybe humanism. In that sense, family, school, or economic system in which there is oppression you may be classified among those who believe Marx is scien- and arbitrary decision based only on authority or force, there tific. There are those, however, who believe Marx never aban- certainly would be alienation. Marx, despite himself, was a doned the theory of alienation, even in the third volume of Das utopian because of his expectation that science would produce Kapital. Do you think there is alienation under socialism? more than enough of everything to enable all human beings to Hook: Everything depends on how one defines alienation. find a fulfilling, creative life. He was also a utopian in accepting It is a word of many meanings. Once you define it, it becomes the anarchist illusion that the state would necessarily wither an empirical question, whether it is present or absent, regardless away. But it is obvious that in a world of autonomous indi- of what Marx wrote. In the early manuscripts of Marx, when viduals, in which everyone, so to speak, had the free and unin- he spoke of alienation, he said that man was alienated from his hibited personality of Marx or Engels or Lenin or Mao, there original true nature as a result of commodity production and would be conflicts over power, place, priority, and prestige. the market, and that man would return to his true nature only The state will always be a necessary evil. That is why we must in the socialized economy of the future. That was the early see that it is and remains democratic. Marx. He says in Capital, "Man modifies his nature by reacting ICI: I think it might help the ordinary Chinese reader if against the environment." What is this true nature that man is you clarify what humanism is, in your view, and also whether alienated from? This is a religious conception of man in the you think there is a value in looking at the early works of Garden of Eden who became alienated from God by disobedi- Marx. Also, whether the early Marx, even if he was not a ence and then worked his way back to God. One of the valid Marxist, had something to contribute. things in Marx, from my point of view, is his historical Hook: I've partly answered this. If you dissociate the theory approach to man and society. He doesn't think that man had a of humanism from the language in which Marx wrote about it, true or fixed nature. He defines man in terms of his social and if you say, "Humanism is the belief that all values are relations, in terms of his historical position. related to human experience, and that everything should be Marx would have argued that you can no more derive tested by its effects on human weal and woe," then you have a what a good society should be from the allegedly true nature of univeral world-view of humanism, which is not a class view. If man than you could derive any existing or desirable marriage you take a humanist position, it is incompatible with a class system from the merely biological nature of sex. The latter position, especially if one holds, as the Leninists do, that every may exclude some possibilities but is compatible with quite a doctrine, even in science, has a class implication. When Marx large number of different marriage systems. In the same way, talked about freedom in "The Economic and Philosophical the nature of man, so long as it is not defined to surreptitiously Manuscripts," he was talking about a state of society in which introduce a specific value preference, is compatible with an human beings will not be under any constraints. As I have indefinite number of different social systems, all natural. In already said, it is a sort of utopian view, the secular equivalent Marx's day, as in our own, many who talk about human of life in heaven, where everyone's needs will be gratified com- nature introduce it as an a priori objection to social change pletely and simultaneously. I think that such a view is incom- and reform. In any event the natural is not necessarily the patible with any rationally organized society, which must have desirable. History limits our choices. It does not dictate any. some constraints. Louis Althusser, the French communist As I have said, Marx was much too optimistic in his idea leader, recognized that there was a sharp difference between of what man would accomplish. There is therefore a sharp the early and late Marx. That's the only point on which difference between these two views of Marx on alienation. The Althusser and I agree. He denied there was any use in studying scholar who has written most intelligently about alienation, I Marx's early humanism, and I would disagree with him on think, is Lewis Feuer. He has found that there are seven dif- that. But I find all sorts of intellectual confusion on the part of ferent meanings of alienation in the early Marx. Some people people who want to forget the theories of historical materialism even try to read Freudian concepts into the early writings, and class struggle, and even the theory of surplus value, and another absurdity. It's interesting you mention Eugene combine them with the humanism of Marx's youth. We must Kamenka, who wrote a book on Feuerbach, was concerned not read Marx as if he were a holy text. He proudly claimed to with alienation before Marx, and explained religion in terms of be scientific. He would not have objected to the process of it. You can give it a valid meaning if you believe that man has

32 FREE INQUIRY a true nature from which he can be alienated. On the other easy for us to talk freely. We live in a country where it is more hand, I would say man historically creates his own nature, or customary to criticize authorities than to agree with them. We society creates his nature. It's not likely he'll ever be a god, but must remember, however, that these people's lives are on the he's more than a mere animal. line. They never know when the official doctrine is going to When the Chinese scholars talk about alienation under turn, when they will be arrested even for telling a joke. We socialism, I think that they mean the same thing by it as the cannot with any decency criticize their failure to go further Polish philosophers who discovered the early Marx. What the than they do. I can testify to the fact that when leading intel- Polish philosophers were saying is that, according to Marx, in lectuals of the Soviet Union meet with American intellectuals, a socialist society we're supposed to be free, we're supposed to they always act as apologists for their regime. Most American control our own destinies. How is it that we are hemmed in, intellectuals do not, I am glad to say, act as apologists for the bound, and exploited by party bureaucrats? This is what they American regime to anywhere near the same extent. called alienation. What else did they mean by it? For example, TCI: Have you lectured in Eastern bloc countries, and in the Chinese communist society, when was a person alienated? would you be interested in going to China? A party bureacrat certainly didn't think he was alienated. Nor Hook: Health permitting, I would visit China because I did the man who wanted to become a party bureaucrat. What am very curious about what is going on there. I have high those who spoke or wrote about alienation had in mind, I hopes that it will become more democratic, but it has a very believe, was this: "We had been promised that the quality of long way to go. I would even go to the Soviet Union. Now that our life would improve, that we would have a greater say in I've reached an advanced age, presumably they would not fear determining our own destiny, that there would be more democ- contamination from my ideas. I have been told that I am in racy, more freedom. But it's not here. Therefore, we feel ali- their textbooks as an enemy of mankind, among other reasons enated." What they wanted, I suspect, was a more democratic, because I criticized Engel's Theory of Dialectic in Nature and less oppressive, socialist society that recognized a plurality of his correspondence theory of truth. It's not likely that they institutional forms, a greater freedom of expression in the arts would mind me. I was at the Marx-Engels Institute for the and sciences, and an assurance that they would not be subjected summer of 1929, and I must confess I wasn't aware of what again to the terroristic excesses of the cultural revolution and was going on in the country because I went from my room to the calculated, vindictive punishment visited on them in an the library and back. My knowledge of the language was imper- earlier period when they responded to the invitation to speak fect. Everybody I spoke with was reciting official figures about freely. the Five-Year Plan. Nobody could speak frankly or openly. I TCI: Given that intellectuals in the East and West do was treated as a distinguished bourgeois scholar. I learned a share certain common views and concerns, such as humanism, lesson from that. But I learned it too late, because in 1936 pluralism, and avoidance of nuclear war, and have frequently when Roscoe Pound, the Dean of Harvard Law School, went exchanged views on these matters in the past, how do you to Berlin, I criticized him harshly when he came back and said, evaluate the mutual influence that these exchanges have had? "I was in Berlin. I didn't see a single Jew beaten on the streets." What prospects for this kind of interaction do you see in the As if they would invite him to witness something like that! I future? had forgotten how easy it is for a totalitarian society to isolate Hook: I'm all in favor of exchange between the intellectuals visiting foreigners from the horrible realities of their Gulags. • of the East and West, especially if any of these Eastern intel- lectuals are concerned with the values of humanism, pluralism, Put FREE INQUIRY in Your Will and avoidance of nuclear war. I believe we have a basis of If you are devoted to free thought and human- shared interest. That is the way we overcome differences—to ism, you can help perpetuate the educational goals find some shared interest and on that basis try to expand the of FREE INQUIRY by making a bequest in your will. area of shared interests. Unfortunately, most of the official representatives of intellectuals of socialist countries are dog- May we suggest this format: "I give and matic Marxist-Leninists. In fact, I find that very few of them bequeath to the Council for Democratic and Secular are prepared to admit that Marx was wrong about anything. Humanism (CODESH, Inc.), a nonprofit corporation Even in a country like Yugoslavia, where they have a whole now at 3151 Bailey Ave., Buffalo, NY 14215, for use school of socialist humanists who renounce Stalin every day in in its general fund or for use in publishing FREE the week and every hour in the day, they fear to go any further. INQUIRY, the sum of $ I listened to a lecture a year or two ago by the leading thinker of that humanist-Marxist school. In the question period I said, For further information, please contact Jean "I agree with everything that you have said, but please explain Millholland, executive director. All inquiries will be to me what difference it would make if you substituted Lenin's held in the strictest confidence. name for Stalin in every sentence you uttered." He made some Free stuttering response that no one understood. Subsequently he < ) told another auditor: "I can criticize Stalin and go back to Central Park Station, P.O. Box 5 Yugoslavia, but if I criticize Lenin I couldn't." So you see, there is still too much respect for authority or too much fear Buffalo, New York 14215 for some exchange scholars to speak openly. Of course, it's 716-834-2921

Summer 1985 33 Evangelical Agnosticism

William Henry Young

he Summer 1981 FREE INQUIRY con- one thing in which 1 differed from them. ticism, Religion, and Science: Some Unex- Ttained the article "What is Agnosti- They were quite sure they had attained a amined Implications," in the Spring 1978 certain "gnosis, "—had, more or less suc- cism?" by H. J. Blackham. It dealt primarily Rocky Mountain Review of Language and cessfully, solved the problem of existence; with intimations of agnosticism among skep- Literature, notes: "The new term gave a while I was quite sure I had not, and had tical philosophers before 1869, when Thomas name, and thereby a sort of respectability, Henry Huxley invented the term as a label a pretty strong conviction that the problem was insoluble. And, with Hume and Kant to those who professed ignorance in meta- for his personal approach to religious and on my side, I could not think myself physical and religious matters...." philosophical questions. This article will presumptuous in holding fast by that In spite of its acceptance and the fact provide some history about agnosticism since opinion. . . . So I took thought, and that he invented the term, Huxley rarely used 1869 and will suggest the reasons for the invented what I conceived to be the appro- it during the first twenty years of its exis- introduction of the term evangelical agnosti- priate title of "agnostic." It came into my tence. His lecture in 1870, "On Descartes cism. It will not deal with the relationship head as suggestively antithetic to the 'Discourse Touching the Method of Using between the words agnosticism, skepticism, "gnostic" of church history, who professed One's Reason Rightly and of Seeking Scien- rationalism, and other related terms in the to know so much about the very things of tific Truth,' " does not contain either agnos- which I was ignorant.... To my great freethought tradition. tic or agnosticism, although there were Huxley's account of his invention of the satisfaction the term took; and when the Spectator had stood godfather to it, any several natural points at which either could word agnostic was written in an essay enti- suspicion in the minds of respectable peo- have been introduced. Neither "Administra- tled "Agnosticism" some twenty years after ple, that a knowledge of its parentage tive Nihilism," an 1871 lecture, nor "Mr. he coined the term. At this time he was might have awakened was, of course, com- Darwin's Critics," published in November sixty-four years old and his place in the pletely lulled. 1871, mentions agnosticism, although either Victorian establishment was very secure. He might have been expected to do so. Huxley's was an original and influential member of Considerable controversy has arisen lecture "Science and Culture" speaks of the London School Board, president of the over when Huxley first used the term and humanists several times, but agnostics are Royal Society, and a trustee of the British whether he connected it with the gnostics, not mentioned. Even in Hume, written in Museum. Called "Darwin's Bulldog," Huxley as indicated above, or with the "Unknown 1878, Huxley used the term agnosticism only was renowned for his spirited defense of God" of Acts 17:23. In 1881, R. H. Hutton, once and placed it in quotes to describe "that many scientific ideas that were unpopular for many years the editor of the Spectator, more modern way of thinking, which has with the religious establishment. He wrote: related it to the Unknown God. Apparently been called 'agnosticism,' from its profession Huxley, in 1889, was trying to correct this of an incapacity to discover the indispensable When I reached intellectual maturity and with his recollection. conditions of either positive or negative began to ask myself whether I was an In any event, there seems little doubt knowledge...." However, it is interesting atheist, a theist, or a pantheist; a materi- that "agnostic" was first used in print in the to note that Huxley's 1894 Preface to Hume alist or an idealist; a Christian or a free- January 29, 1870, issue of the Spectator. It includes the identification of Socrates as "the thinker; I found that the more I learned contained an anonymous article, probably first agnostic, the man who so far as the and reflected, the less ready was the answer; until, at last, 1 came to the con- by R. H. Hutton, entitled "Pope Huxley." records of history go, was the first to see clusion that I had neither art nor part Huxley was called an "Agnostic" and an that clear knowledge of what one does not with any of these denominations, except "evangelist" who was "labouring to preach know is just as important as knowing what the last. The one thing in which most of to us all the gospel of suspense of judgment one does know." these good people were agreed was the on all questions, intellectual and moral, on which we have not adequate data for a posi- n the fall of 1883, Charles A. Watts wrote William H. Young is a librarian by profes- tive opinion." Ito Huxley about a publication to be called sion and the founder of the Society of The terms agnostic and agnosticism The Agnostic Annual that Watts was plan- Evangelical Agnostics, which was estab- soon became popular, being used in a variety ning. He asked three questions: "l. Is lished in 1975 and now has 1,000 members. of ways by both advocates and detractors. Agnosticism in accord with modern science? Christopher Clausen, in his article "Agnos- 2. What is its relation to popular theology?

34 FREE INQUIRY 3. Is Agnosticism destined to supplant reli- that every man shoud be able to give a relate agnosticism to the idea of God and gious supernaturalism?" reason for the faith that is in him; it is the do not include the aspects of openminded- Huxley responded, but apparently did principle of Descartes; it is the fundamen- ness and demand for evidence included in not intend that his letter be published. When tal axiom of modern science. Positively the Huxley definition. Most dictionaries say he received a copy of The Agnostic Annual the principle may be expressed: In matters that the agnostic holds that the ultimate from Watts, along with a second letter of the intellect, follow your reason as far cause and essential nature of things are both asking if he wished to make any changes for as it will take you, without regard for any unknowable. On the contrary, Huxley, in other consideration. And negatively: In the second edition, Huxley answered "Agnosticism and Christianity." said, "I do matters of the intellect do not pretend that immediately and with some annoyance at not very much care to speak of anything as conclusions are certain which are not having been listed as a "contributor." Five demonstrated or demonstrable. That 1 take 'unknowable.' " rapid letters with increasing acrimony passed to be the agnostic faith, which if a man between Watts and Huxley. In the end, keep whole and undefiled, he shall not be eanwhile, in England, agnosticism Watts published Huxley's original response ashamed to look the universe in the face, Mwas becoming a popular topic, as in the second edition without Huxley's per- whatever the future may have in store for evidenced by the articles in the first issue of mission. Huxley's answers to the three ques- him. The Agnostic: A Monthly Journal of Liberal tions appeared as the first set of answers in The results of the working out of the Thought, which appeared in 1885. It the second edition, followed by answers of agnostic principle will vary according to included such titles as: "The Confession of individual knowledge and capacity, and varying length by G. M. McC., W. Stewart Agnosticism," "Agnosticism and Dogma- according to the general condition of sci- Ross (Saladin), P. A. Taylor, Charles Watts, ence. That which is unproven today may tism," "The Popular Religious Faith," and F. W. Newman [younger brother of Cardinal be proven by the help of new discoveries "A.D. 2500: Antipodian Agnosticism." Newman], Ignotus, W. B. McTaggart, Ernst tomorrow. . . . The only obligation The Agnostic Annual, founded by Haeckel, W. Sadler (Baldr), James Beal, and accepted is to have the mind always open Charles A. Watts, continued to be published Julian. to conviction. until 1908, when its title was changed to the Whether or not Huxley was justified in Rationalist Press Association Annual, which his objection to being included in The Huxley's article "Agnosticism" appeared in turn became the New Humanist. Articles Agnostic Annual, 1 do not know. It may be in February 1889. Two months later, Robert like "An Agnostic View of Theism and that his main objection was to the fact that Ingersoll reacted to this article with one of Monism," "Reverent Agnosticism," "Scien- Watts had apparently said in the first edition his own, "Professor Huxley and Agnosti- tific Religion," "Agnosticism and Immortal- (I have not been able to find a copy) that cism," in the North American Review. In ity," "The Comfort of Agnosticism," and Huxley "claim[ed] to be the founder of his article Ingersoll generally agreed with "The Contest Between Agnosticism and Agnosticism," whereas Huxley pointed out Huxley, although he regretted that Huxley Theology" abounded. in his second letter to Watts that he, Huxley, was "somewhat severe on the Positive But enthusiasm for agnosticism faded. had "invented the term 'agnostic'—which is Philosophy." Ingersoll's article is possibly his Exactly what happened to agnosticism on a somewhat different proposition." In any most systematic explanation of agnosticism its way into the twentieth century is a story event, the second edition reads, "Professor from his point of view. Later in 1889 and in that still needs to be written. But the fact is Huxley, who claims to be the inventor of March 1890, Ingersoll published a two-part that during the first decades of the twentieth the term Agnostic, ..." article, "Why Am 1 An Agnostic?" in the century, overtly agnostic writings diminished Huxley had apparently made his peace North American Review. However, he did rapidly. Most of what was being written was with The Agnostic Annual by 1892 because not mention agnosticism per se in either part by those opposed to agnosticism. Few people his article "Possibilities and Impossibilities" of this article. Six years later his famous seemed to be speaking out vigorously on was included in that issue. By that time, lecture "Why Am 1 An Agnostic" was pub- behalf of the agnostic faith that Huxley had Huxley's essays on agnosticism had been lished, but again he did not use the term proposed. published in the Nineteenth Century maga- agnostic or agnosticism in the lecture itself. Clarence Darrow did give two lectures, zine under the titles "Agnosticism," "Agnos- Even though he used these terms sparingly, both entitled "Why 1 Am An Agnostic." One ticism: a Rejoinder," and "Agnosticism and Ingersoll became known in America as "the was given at a symposium with a rabbi, a Christianity." The articles, all written during Great Agnostic." Protestant bishop, and a Catholic judge in 1889, provided apologetics, polemics, and Ingersoll was asked about agnosticism Columbus, Ohio, on March 12, 1929. The occasionally irenics for the agnostic faith, as in an interview given to the Philadelphia other took place at Orchestra Hall, Chicago, seen in the following paragraphs from Times, September 25, 1885. The question in 1932. Both were good freethought lec- "Agnosticism." was, "Don't you think the belief of the tures, but neither really described the prin- Agnostic [regarding the existence of a ciples of agnosticism. In the first lecture, If any one had preferred this request to Supreme Being] is more satisfactory to the Darrow said, "the word [agnostic] is gener- me, [to draw up a negative creed] I should believer than that of the Atheist?" Ingersoll ally applied to those who doubt the verity have replied that, if he referred to agnos- replied, "There is no difference. The Agnostic of accepted religious creeds or faiths. Every- tics, they have no creed; and, by the nature is an Atheist. The Atheist is an Agnostic. one is an agnostic as to the beliefs or creeds of the case, cannot have any. Agnosticism, The Agnostic says: 'I do not know, but 1 do they do not accept." In the second lecture, in fact, is not a creed but a method, the not believe there is a God.' The Atheist says he stated, "I am an agnostic. 1 see no pur- essence of which lies in the rigorous appli- the same...." pose in the universe and neither can anyone cation of a single principle. That principle This answer has not been accepted by is of great antiquity; it is as old as who examines it from a scientific stand- Socrates; as old as the writer who said, most lexicographers, who usually see agnos- point." Unfortunately, neither lecture did "Try all things, hold fast by that which is ticism as a third position regarding the much to further an understanding of agnos- good;" it is the foundation of the Refor- God-idea, distinct from theism and atheism. ticism. There was little indication of the need mation, which simply illustrated the axiom Unfortunately, most dictionaries merely for the patient, scientific attitude that had

Summer 1985 35 been expressed by Huxley. Darrow, in con- these questions are respectively: "No .. . historical justification for speaking of an trast, showed himself to be a capable, mili- [but] he is, for practical purposes, at one evangelist in an agnostic context. The word tant iconoclast, following closely in the with the atheists." "An agnostic does not evangel means "good news," and many homiletic and theatrical tradition of his men- accept any 'authority' in the sense in which agnostics feel that agnosticism is the good tor, Robert Ingersoll. religious people do." "ln one sense, no; in news that saves them from being seduced In 1928, Darrow teamed up with another sense, everyone does whatever he into unreasonable conclusions and frees Wallace Rice to prepare an anthology that pleases." "An agnostic regards the Bible them from guilt for having inspected and was published in 1929 under the title Infidels exactly as enlightening clerics regard it." rejected some of their past beliefs. Agnostics, And Heretics: An Agnostic's Anthology. The "What is the meaning of 'the meaning of by word or deed, overtly or covertly, do introduction included an excellent brief life'?" communicate the good news of their agnostic history and commentary on the word Russell's full answer to the question faith. This makes them evangelists of sorts, agnostic, and the anthology included more about science and religion was: although probably only a few would speak than one hundred entries in a broadly free- of themselves as such. In any event, "evan- thought context, but few of them were spe- The answer turns upon what is meant by gelical agnostic" is a lighthearted label to cifically about agnosticism. "religion." If it means merely a system of use in this age, somewhat in the spirit of Bertrand Russell's brief article written ethics, it can be reconciled with science. If Huxley's use of the term agnostic to describe it means a system of dogma, regarded as in 1949 and published in an E. Haldeman- himself to his friends and colleagues at the Julius tract, "Am 1 an Atheist or an unquestionably true, it is incompatible with the scientific spirit, which refuses to Metaphysical Society in 1869. Agnostic? A Plea for Tolerance in the Face An evangelical agnostic need not ring of New Dogmas," is actually more about accept matters of fact without evidence, and holds that complete certainty is hardly doorbells or hand out tracts on street rationalism than agnosticism. When Russell ever attainable. corners. But when confronted by those who actually discussed agnosticism, it was merely are proselytizing their particular religious, in relationship to the God-idea. A second One would think that this article by political, and social positions, being an E. Haldeman-Julius tract, published in 1950, Russell might have created more general evangelical agnostic immediately places one also started with Russell's article. However, interest in agnosticism than it apparently did. on an equal footing with the other evan- it included a rebuttal to the agnostic/atheist On the contrary, by 1959, the Encyclopaedia gelists. portion of Russell's essay that contended that Britannica concluded its article on agnosti- Only time will tell whether or not evan- the "Agnostic is necessarily an Atheist." Both cism by saying, "By the middle of the 20th gelical agnosticism will become as common Russell and his detractor were contributing Century the term agnosticism had practically a label as agnosticism was in the latter part to the idea that agnosticism has to do with ceased to be current as a label used by any- of the nineteenth century. The principles of the God-idea. one to indicate either his creed or his agnosticism can be—and frequently are— Russell's famous Look Magazine article, method, though the adjective was still used advocated without any reference to the word "What Is An Agnostic?" published Novem- to indicate a person's belief that we are agnostic, for they are similar to the prin- ber 3, 1953, helped rescue agnosticism from ignorant on certain matters." The 1964 edi- ciples that govern free inquiry, humanism, the obscurity into which it had fallen. The tion went on to say, "Because of the oppro- rationalism, skepticism, and the scientific article, which was written in a question- brium attaching to it, the term agnosticism method. and-answer format, has been reprinted in had lost favor by the second half of the Evangelical agnosticism is really nothing the subsequent editions of a book edited by 20th Century." new. It is simply a reaffirmation of the prin- Leo Rosten and published under various ciples enunciated by T. H. Huxley a century titles, most recently as Religions in America. t was at about this time that "evangelical ago: It is wrong to say one is certain of the It is probably the most readily available and Iagnosticism" was inadvertently intro- truth of any proposition unless one can pro- widely read statement on the agnostic posi- duced. At first it was used jokingly to iden- duce satisfactory evidence. One's mind tion. tify someone who was enthusiastic about should always be open to conviction, and it Strangely, Rosten omitted the answer agnosticism. Gradually it has come to be is all right, after all, to confess one's igno- Russell sent to Look regarding the basic used to indicate an approach similar to rance about those things that one does not question, "What is an Agnostic?" Look itself Huxley's: emphasizing a ready willingness know. • had edited Russell's answer somewhat and to accept the fact that we live without final used it as a heading to lead into the article: answers to many questions, encouraging a "An agnostic thinks it impossible to know commitment to consider all possible answers MOVING? the truth in matters such as God and the to our questions, and suggesting that it is Make sure FREE INQUIRY future life with which Christianity and other immoral to advocate answers beyond the follows you! religions are concerned. Or, if not impossi- extent of our evidence. Please send us your old mailing label. ble, at least impossible at the present." Clausen noted in a footnote to his pre- New Address Russell's questions in the Look article viously mentioned article, "No one, however, included: "Are agnostics atheists?" "Since has made the more significant point that Name you deny 'God's law; what authority do you agnosticism is itself a positive religious posi- accept as a guide to conduct?" "Does an tion." The term evangelical agnostic suggests Address agnostic do whatever he pleases?" "How does that the principles of agnosticism do provide an agnostic regard the Bible?" "What is the the basis for such a religious position. City meaning of life to the agnostic?" and "Do At first glance, "evangelical" may seem State Zip agnostics think that science and religion are a strange word to be juxtaposed with impossible to reconcile?" "agnosticism." However, as was noted in the P.O. Box 5, Central Park Station The brief highly distilled answers to "Pope Huxley" article of 1870, there is Buffalo, NY 14215

36 FREE INQUIRY

Dietrich in his last years left a traditional theological door slightly ajar—just in case! To rectify this reluctance, I offer a tentative outline of a neoclassical reconstruction of To Refuse to Be a God: liberal religion along humanist lines: 1 also want to suggest what kinds of agendas, prac- Religious Humanism of the Future tical, personal, and philosophical, might be implied by so ambitious an undertaking.

he classical ideal in architecture, art, Tmusic, literature, and even theology is designed to persuade us that life is not The author boldly offers an outline inherently absurd, that while its meaning cannot be given, life can nonetheless be of a religion reconstructed along structured and focused to make sense and humanist lines. be dramatically compelling and emotionally satisfying. We invent rather than merely dis- cover meaning. A late Beethoven composi- tion for a string quartet, one of Stravinsky's austere pieces, or an ancient Greek tragedy, if performed with intensity, accuracy, and conviction, engages the close listener at an Khoren Arisian emotional level precisely because its logic generates an ever intricate weave that draws us deeper into it and keeps the senses—sight and hearing—alert and stretched, and there- popular born-again lyric goes as fol- After World War II some enthusiastic fore continually excited and rewarded. Or, Alows: "I used to worship knowledge/ humanists—when Nazism had been crushed to conjure up an entirely different instance, thought it would set me free, I found Jesus' and international cooperation seemed more consider that rousingly vibrant place in love/ is quite enough for me." Set that viable than ever—predicted that humanism Boston, Massachusetts, Faneuil Hall Mar- ecstatic outburst next to the exhilarating would finally prove itself as the next sensible ketplace, with its robust mix of cafes and rationalist sentiment from Justice Louis step in the evolution of civilization, paral- specialty shops. The building's walkways fan Brandeis's pen in a 1932 legal opinion: "If leling Thomas Jefferson's equally heartfelt out from a unifying base. Those who we would guide by the light of reason, we belief more than a century before that liberal designed this marvelous area did so both to must let our minds be bold." It seems to me religion would flourish in the new demo- preserve the aesthetic frame of historic that when Glen Kaiser, lead singer of the cratic republic he so significantly helped Boston and to adapt the past to serve the heavy-metal gospel band Resurrection, belts launch. The twentieth, however, has turned needs of the present. The past is a spring- out the aforementioned lyric, the last thing out to be neither a humanist nor a Christian board, not an anchor. Faneuil Hall Market- he's recommending is intellectual audacity century, nor is it likely to be an Islamic or a place may be said to be a neoclassical crea- or spiritual self-sufficiency. communist one. It is instead an eclectic and tion. In the early years of the twentieth cen- therefore a continually changing, confusing, The classical ideal, in short, suggests tury the world was deemed to be a fairly conflicted, kaleidoscopic century, a fact that that in the absence of some kind of order understandable place—the age of complex- does not deter many far-right fundamen- rooted in history, in human experience, there ity, irony, absurdity, and contradiction had talists from believing—or professing to is no emergent meaning. The classical ideal yet to dawn. Optimism was the keynote believe—that so-called secular humanism has manifests its perennial appeal and vitality everywhere: Many thought liberalism had been institutionally adopted in pluralistic not through repetition but through being an unlimited future and that democracy America as this country's unspoken central reconceived. In other words, classicism pre- would triumph in the most unlikely of poli- creed and that it's oozing out of every pore supposes a legacy worth taking seriously tical contexts, even China. Christians pre- of the culture. enough to reshape and assumes a rationalist dicted that the twentieth century would In his usual concise manner, Albert foundation. The legacy I recommend we become "the Christian century"; others just Camus once proposed that our task is "to resonate with is that of Greek humanism. as enthusiastically hailed what they hoped learn, to live and to die, and in order to be The old Greeks, as opposed to those would be Christianity's—indeed, religion's— [human], to refuse to be a god." To accept who live in the modern era, were not afraid not so felicitous decline. our finite human nature in its totality, and of ideas. They had an instinctive trust in to invoke this as the ultimate goal of our them, whereas the modern mentality enter- spiritual quest, is nearly impossible for most tains an instinctive suspicion if not disdain Khoren Arisian is the principal minister of religious movements to contemplate, let for them. Anti-intellectualism, however, the First Unitarian Society of Minnesota. alone embrace. There's always the tendency, deserves disdain because it leads to spiritual He has headed educational and leader- the need, to slip back into comforting meta- bankruptcy and the denigration of human training projects in the Ethical Culture physical or theological self-delusion. Liberal worth. I'm going to list five ideas with a movement and is the author of The New religion originally arose to temper that view toward—as I've already intimated—a Wedding and numerous articles. tendency, but it has never gone the whole neoclassical reconstruction of liberal reli- humanist way, and even the great John gious humanism. I'll leave to each reader

Summer 1985 37 the task of fitting the several points into a humanist framework of his or her own, should one be so inclined. As in riding a bicycle, each of us has to incorporate the particulars of our experience into a whole whose organic sum is greater than the number of its parts. 1. Thinking and feeling. 1 don't believe any religion has yet successfully combine& these twin primal experiences in being human, although most religions have tried. Diderot, the great encyclopedist of the French Enlightenment, said he was especially attracted to philosophy that uplifts human- ity. I suppose that, if people were capable of perfection, they would think deeply and feel profoundly at the same time, a very difficult feat for finite beings; so rare and heroic an accomplishment would be com- parable, say, to a move that fuses great visual power with intellectual complexity. Rodin achieved such fusion, I believe, in The Thinker; however clichéd an artistic reference, Rodin sculpted a representation of a human figure in whom thinking and feeling are carnally intertwined and alive. In Shakespeare's King Lear the savagely blinded Gloucester tells the king that he sees the world "feelingly." In eighteenth-century deism feeling was largely obliterated. The outcome was intel- lectual triumph and spiritual aridity, a trun- cated humanism at best. Clearly, philosophy by itself cannot serve as a religion. A religion needs more, it needs spiritual juice—it needs music, metaphorically as well as literally, a state of affairs that does not preclude its being philosophically rigorous or morally defensible. long-standing habit of thinking as one suits us; we are not designed to flourish Hellenic culture at its zenith is instruc- pleased and saying what one felt enabled under dictatorships of any sort. The Greek tive. For a number of generations the great- many of the Greeks to confront the world experience further reminds us that it's actual est of the Greeks demonstrated that thinking with joy, intensity, and directness. To stand free speech that creates democracy. Free and feeling can be intimately bound at life's up for one's rights in society was the very speech and the individual come first, not deepest levels; for them reason included breath of life. Is not this ideal at the heart governmentally enforced human rights. It intellect and feeling, whereas for us they are of our own First Amendment? The Hellenic wasn't Socrates' actions but what he said usually bifurcated. "It used to be said in tribes from the eighth century B.C. onward and refused to retract that got him into antiquity," writes historian C. E. Robinson, tended, moreover, to be feisty and irreverent terminal trouble with the political Pooh-bahs "that the mere sight of Phidias' famous toward tradition. They didn't value servility, of Athens. statue of Olympian Zeus was in itself a as did the centralized monarchies of the day. 2. Freedom. A thirty-five-year-old bus spiritual education." That's exactly how I Modern totalitarianism is fundamentally no driver from East Germany who recently feel when I see the Parthenon. The Greeks' different in spirit from those ancient tyran- emigrated with his family exclaimed: "We're classical buildings are impressive on all nies that had no concept of the individual starting at zero, but we were never happier." counts; even the ruins one sees are inspiring. except as a plaything of the state. Among In one of his many literate, resounding legal Is it any surprise that Plutarch expresses the Greeks, by comparison, a kind of rough opinions, Justice Louis Brandeis echoed amazement that the buildings of Athens democracy consequently prevailed. Pericles' exact words when he asserted that exuded the everlasting breath of life? To study Greek history is to appreciate the enduring secret of happiness is freedom There were gods, to be sure, capricious anew how different we all are and should and that the secret of freedom is courage. and unpredictable, but each had its limited remain as individuals, what dissenting crea- I'd aver that, for a humanist, freedom is the domain; each was an extreme extension of tures we can be, and how morally stupid it most important thing in life—not love, not a specific human trait, need, or emotion. is to let others dictate our views or lifestyles. riches, not reputation. These and other There was no single dominating class of Democratically accepted individual differ- desirable states, it seems to me, follow free- priests, no fixed sacred texts, no overarching ences is what endowed Greek culture with dom. We all know people who are unhappy theism, no unchanging political order. A its uncommon vitality. Homogenization ill because they don't feel free and so don't act

38 FREE INQUIRY

free, be it in their work, their marriages or romantically interested in a playwright, an transcendent moral heroism. Why is a person relationships, or their public activities. They exciting, intellectually appealing man who who commands neither riches nor armies so don't believe they're accepted for what they wants to settle down. Her busy public life unsettling to the Soviet state? Because, 1 are and want to be; in short, their worth is contantly intersects her private life, and the submit, in a country where rigid control is not affirmed. If this is true, they have a tension between the two is intelligently illu- highly prized, Sakharov is a free spirit who choice: They can be assertive on their own minated. Relationships involve too many refuses to allow his actions to be dictated behalf, for their worth is intrinsic, or they compromises for her, and she openly admits by others. He refuses to relinquish his uni- can rebel, break out of their unhappiness. she hates compromises. Sentimental conven- versal right to think and feel for himself; he Nothing confirms our humanity more deci- tion dictates she should squelch her impulses rejects the totalitarian insistence that indi- sively that our inherent power of choice; if and retreat to marriage, but she can't—that's vidual judgment be annihilated in favor of we don't exercise it, in most instances we not where she's at. What a refreshing some arbitrary party line assumed to be the have only ourselves to hold to account. characterization! Her dilemma is honestly ultimate in wisdom, patriotism, and sanity. 3. Self-acceptance. Basic to ethics is presented, not conventionally resolved. Sakharov is thus an apostle of moral uni- every person's inherent right to self-direction. Cagney accepts herself for what she is. The versalism; that is, he transcends mere nation- But this presupposes self-awareness and moral necessity to reject daily pressures to alism, mere patriotism. He is also, because self-possession—in short, moral autonomy. behave out of character requires that we be of his ethical witness, one of the world's What, then, is self-acceptance? irreverent toward conformist expectations. great humanists. A modern humanist reli- Haven't we all noticed, at one time or If we're not irreverent when it counts, we gion, I believe, would unrelentingly advocate another, the way people needlessly belittle won't see clearly. a psychology of self-acceptance and would themselves and their deepest aspirations and As the hour of Socrates' execution develop a raft of programs with that end in how rapidly they retreat in the face of criti- approached, Crito asked him if he had any view. cism? They find it hard to accept themselves, final instructions or wishes to impart. Socra- 4. The question of meaning. At bottom, so they don't stand up for themselves. Not tes replied: Not really, except to reiterate film-maker and comic artist Woody Allen is long ago 1 watched an episode of the tele- what I've always advocated—namely, look as pessimistic as Samuel Beckett. Both seem vision series "Cagney and Lacey." Its heroes to your own welfare, be true to your own to believe that a demon of nothingness are two policewomen, the cop having best instincts and legitimate self-interests, resides in our genes, that as the last peel of become, along with the scientist and the learn how to take care of yourself, be your the onion reveals there is nothing at its bureaucrat, one of this century's compelling own best friend and confidant. center, so also is there in life no central mythic figures. Socrates was not afraid to live, because meaning to uncover; to face this stark exis- One of the two women is married, the he was not afraid to die. Neither is Andrei tential truth is, presumably, to begin to live other is not. The unmarried one, Cagney, is Sakharov, a shining contemporary example authentically. To an extent I'd agree with utterly absorbed in her work. She's also of profound self-acceptance amounting to this baleful assessment. I'd also differ with

Open Court

GOD: PHILOSOPHY AND THE REAL A CRITICAL ENQUIRY ESSAY ON MIRACLES WORLD: AN INTRODUCTION TO Antony Flew David Hume KARL POPPER Bryan Magee Introduction by Antony Flew This straightforward little book is probably the best "No testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, This is the best concise introduction to Popper's introduction to atheism. The author, a distin- unless the testimony be of such a kind that its false- philosophy of Critical Rationalism, by his close guished philosopher, undertakes to "examine the hood would be more miraculous than the fact which friend and confidant. Explains Popper's radical new strongest possible case for belief in God", and does it endeavors to establish." The introduction by Pro- distinction between science and nonscience, his so calmly, fairly, and sensitively. fessor Flew, one of the world's leading authorities on evolutionary theory of knowledge, and his criticisms Hume, appraises Hume's 1748 argument, correcting of Marxism and Fascism. "Here belief argues with unbelief in a fashion at some of its faults, and relates it to present-day once instructive and disturbing."—Theology credulities such as parapsychology.

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Summer 1985 39 most religionists, who hold desperately to which of course leads to all kinds of con- with a new vision. They tended to be the belief that there must be something "out tradictory results. Be that as it may, after uncommonly fearless and irreverent: they there" to give our lives meaning, as if we Immanuel Kant, religion in the West could created new agendas and, eventually, new had to be perpetually dependent spiritual never again be the same. In making super- communities—the new worlds of reference adolescents. This is part and parcel of the naturalism intellectually indefensible, Kant and understanding. In short, they were theological moaning I hear from time to time taught that all one can truly know is this prophetic, ready to charge forward, and pre- that we're missing a "transcendent" dimen- world- and that knowledge starts with experi- pared to forge the consciousness of their sion in our lives, which is ill-disguised ence, a conclusion echoed by Einstein as age. nostalgia for a bygone supernaturalism. well. By grounding religion in the structure It's been said that progress is the most Whether we like it or not, "this is a period of humanity's actual moral life and striving, important underlying notion Western civili- of intellectual destruction," writes a News- Kant gave new credence to the notion of zation has ever evolved. It is an impulse week columnist, "when one era's ideas don't the autonomy of ethics. that ennui and inertia always threaten to fit the experience of the next." Or, as Rein- One of the great contributions made by extinguish. Progress, a driving force for hold Niebuhr otherwise described our pre- Felix Adler, the founding leader of Ethical thousands of years, is what permitted the dicament long before: "We live our lives in Culture, was his restoration of spiritual Middle Ages to give way to the Renaissance various realms of meaning which do not vitality to the ethics of everyday life. He and the Reformation, which allowed the new cohere rationally." I'm not satisfied with thus affirmed the secular by locating the mathematics, science, and philosophy to that; 1 believe that human life can have sacred within it; the sacred becomes a func- liberate the secular from ecclesiastical bond- design and yet remain open to amendment, tion of the secular at its depths where mean- age and laid the basis for modern culture. hence a neoclassical approach. ing is to be mined. Religion perforce No less is progress behind today's burgeon- Just as 1 believe we have no innate ideas becomes ethical religion and therefore is not ing feminist movement. It may also be said so much as we possess the innate structural just a matter of private refinement but, more to be the ultimate propulsive force behind capacity to create ideas, I feel by the same important, is a response to the chief public Beethoven's music, humanity's reach into token that, although there is no given mean- issues of the day. Such is the notion of the outer galaxies, and through Catholic radical- ing in life, we are nonetheless genetically ethical ideal in action: The key issues sur- ism and other Western influences, the seed- wired to seek and shape it; therefore, we are rounding nuclear weapons, for instance, are bed for the Third World's political awaken- driven to seek dignity as well. The question moral, not technical. ing today. I make bold to speculate that the of meaning arises every day of our lives. secular idea of progress has been, since the What's often maddening, Niebuhr intimates, harles Darwin concluded that progress Hebrew prophets, the enduring vehicle of is that fragments of meaning tantalize but Cin organic life depends on the regular prophetic power and idealism in the West. don't satisfy us because they don't cohere. emergence of new genotypes. The social In that remarkable ethical humanist The fact is that a metaphysically guaranteed progress of the humanist movement, which tract, The Wizard of Oz, which is far more meaningful life is no longer a sure thing in far exceeds the institutions that have than a child's fantasy, as Moby Dick is more this complex world, so we had better seek attempted to encapsulate it, needs new ideas, than a rousing whale story, the wizard, to formulate a new foundation. We can new people, new leadership, new groups. unmasked as a little old man who nonethe- design our lives precisely because of the Humanism hasn't developed philosophically less is not lacking in human wisdom, says transcendental nature of the mind that since the 1930s; I've merely mentioned here to the cowardly lion: "You've got plenty of enables us to transpose our experience con- but a few of the many fresh ingredients 1 courage in you already, you don't need me tinuously. The mind is the very source of believe it needs in order to become once to give it to you. All you need is confidence our freedom, dignity, and autonomous pos- more a compelling force. Humanism doesn't in yourself ... no living thing ... is not sibility. It is the mind's proclivity for holistic have to be a spiritual option, but a full afraid when it faces danger.... True courage imagery that helps put bits and pieces of humanism, I submit, would be. A full is in facing danger when you are afraid." meaning into deeper relation to one another. humanism—one that totally ignores the We come, then, full circle, from the Humanism becomes religious when it seeks seduction of theism—comes at you full force, Athenian miracle to the moment. Freedom meaning by placing trust in our relationship like, say, the direct, uncompromising music is the secret of happiness, and the secret of to ourselves, which is holy ground. of Beethoven, or of Bartok, or of Scott happiness is courage. Courage is needed for In short, the possibility of meaning Joplin, or, to suggest artistic parallels, self-acceptance. Self-acceptance is the door resides in each of us, and only free indi- Rodiñ s imposing statue of Balzac, or the to reality, the beginning of change. Great- viduals can attain it. The deeper implication astonishing Hellenic bronze sculpture of ness means a certain boldness, an unwaver- is that one cannot be free and irrational at Poseidon. In each case, despite the presence ing willingness, to face reality. the same time. of incredible intellectual power and control, Today we are afraid and we need true 5. Liberal, or 'free, "religion. If Martha each is no less close to the instinctual in life; courage; all we really need is confidence in Graham defined a new way of body move- in other words, the music of the composers ourselves. We require renewed faith in ment in the world of twentieth-century ballet I've mentioned is an electrifying synthesis of progress, and thus in ourselves—an idea that and accordingly generated a new choreo- intellectual feeling. It's so deeply personal stems from belief in the ineffable worth of graphic vocabulary the better to carry out that it transcends its cultural context and all life on earth. The idea of progress—not and develop stage ideas, then liberal religion, touches the universal. to be confused with compulsory optimism— when it finally emerged in the nineteenth The classical Greeks and Hebrews, the is as integral to humanism's continuing century, defined a new way of looking at first Christians, the first Puritans and evolution as it is to that of Western culture, spiritual and ethical experience. Because it Protestants, the first socialists, the first if not that of the world. May we be worthy was not dogmatic and absolute, it tended to rationalists, the first religious liberals, the of the vibrant legacy by the way we live and be ambiguous in its claims, teaching that first scientific humanists, the first settlers of act in our professional, personal, and insti- one can doubt and believe at the same time, modern Israel—the Sabras—were people tutional lives. •

40 FREE INQUIRY The Legacy of Voltaire Part II

This is the second part of the article on Voltaire in the two-volume Encyclopedia of Unbelief, which will be published later this year by Prometheus Books. It is printed here with the permission of the author and of Dr. Gordon Stein, the editor-in-chief of The Encyclopedia of Unbelief. In addition to writing the article on Voltaire and several other articles for The Encylcopedia of Unbelief, Professor Edwards has also written the Preface.

Paul Edwards

erhaps the most obvious of the many objections to time, legal regulations are prescriptive while scientific laws are Voltaire's arguments is that, if all of them were valid, descriptive. Voltaire's "copy" argument is just as threadbare. they would not establish the existence of a single super- The fact that a copy like a landscape painting or a model of natural intelligence. They would establish a "geometrician," an the solar system is the work of an intelligent being does not "architect," an "actualizer," and a "lawmaker." In our experi- show that the original must also have an intelligent cause. If ence, it is certainly not the case that a person having one of the wind blows bits of paper from a table to the floor and if these skills invariably also possesses the others. Perhaps all somebody paints or photographs the resulting scene, the copy four skills or occupations are rolled into one in the Supreme is the work of an intelligent cause, but the original is not. In Intelligence, but that is not immediately evident and requires to the sense in which "chance" is opposed to design, the original be proved. scene is an instance of chance. Several of Voltaire's arguments are so glaringly invalid Voltaire's argument that intelligent beings can only have that they can be disposed of in a few words. The inference of a been produced by intelligent causes and that hence the Supreme supernatural lawmaker from scientific laws involves a fallacy Being must be intelligent rests on the well-worn principle of the of equivocation. Laws in the sense of legal regulations do indeed scholastics and of Descartes that any attribute of an effect require an intelligent lawmaker, but scientific laws are not laws must already have been present in its cause. If this proposition in the same sense. As has often been pointed out since Voltaire's were true, the amoeba would have to have been a mathema-

Summer 1985 41 tician. But one does not have to go to evolution to realize that true cause of the offspring. All offspring are the work of the the principle is false. Mill gave the example of the liquidity of "eternal manufacturer." Voltaire cannot very well deny that the water and the gaseous character of its components, and there biological parents play some role in the production of their are countless everyday instances concerning parents and chil- children, but they are no more than the "blind instruments" of dren that conflict with the principle. Even if it were true, it still the "eternal manufacturer." Speaking about the "arrangements" would not give Voltaire a Supreme Intelligence as distinct from within his own body, he insists that he is indebted for them to an infinite series of intelligent beings, each the cause of its God and not to his parents. His parents were not his true cause successor. In one place Voltaire declares that an infinite causal since, when producing him, "they certainly did not know what series is impossible, but he gives no reason, and in the present they were doing." Voltaire's position here is in effect quite context he does not even mention the issue. similar, in general outline, to that of reincarnationists who The argument based on the similarities between the watch maintain that the familiar biological processes of conception and biological structures like the eye is not as flimsy, and, in and gestation are not sufficient to bring about a full-fledged fairness to Voltaire, it must be pointed out that a fully adequate human child and to that of Catholic theologians who maintain reply was not possible until Darwin's theory of natural selection that God's infusion of the soul into the newly formed embryo supplied a naturalistic explanation of what Cleanthes in Hume's is an essential element in the production of a human being. Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion called "the curious The objections that Voltaire would probably have advanced adapting of means to ends" in all living things. However, even against the reincarnationists and the Catholic theologians are before Darwin, several weighty objections, some of them fairly equally applicable to his own contention. What evidence, to obvious, could be advanced. In the first place, there is a simple begin with, does he have that natural biological causes are but important distinction that Voltaire does not take into insufficient to produce a complete offspring, eyes included? account. The distinction is between the assertion that something The answer of course is that he has none. He does offer certain is used for a certain purpose and that it was designed for that arguments, but they beg the question. Thus he argues that the purpose. If we come to a cave and find signs of habitation in parent organisms, whether they are animals or human beings, it—beds, cooking utensils, clothes, copies of the Bible and Play- do not possess the capacity to "form" their offspring and then boy we are entitled to affirm that it is used as a dwelling. We concludes that the offspring must have been formed by a super- have no right to infer that it was designed for that purpose. human intelligence. Here, "formation" presumably means plan- This may in fact be the case—the people living in it or some- ning or design followed by "actuation," the way in which a body in the past may have dug the cave. However, it may also watchmaker designs and actuates a watch. It must be granted be a "natural" cave. It may have been produced by purely that in this sense neither human beings nor animals "form" geological causes. Now, it is certainly true that human beings their children. However, Voltaire's conclusion would follow only if it had been shown that formation is the only means of "Voltaire's argument that intelligent beings can only producing offspring. This assumption is not self-evident, and it have been produced by intelligent causes and that is not accepted by the critics of the design argument. Again, as hence the Supreme Being must be intelligent rests on we saw a moment ago, Voltaire writes that parent organisms do not know what they are doing when they produce their the well-worn principle ... that any attribute of an offspring, and he takes this to be evidence that the parents are effect must already have been present in its cause. If not the true cause. But why does ignorance on the part of the this proposition were true, the amoeba would have parents prevent them from being the true cause of their off- to have been a mathematician." spring? We may assume that parent cats are ignorant of the connection between sexual intercourse and pregnancy and that and various animals use their eyes for the purpose of seeing, they know nothing about heredity and embryology. We also but it does not follow that the eyes were designed for this know that they cannot "form" their offspring the way a watch- purpose or, for that matter, that they were designed at all. maker assembles a watch. None of this, however, shows that The argument faces a further objection that is so simple the parent cats are not the true cause of their offspring by and obvious that most people ignore it, feeling that it cannot means of generation. possibly have any relevance. Hume, fortunately, was not There are additional difficulties in any attempt to maintain deterred by the simplicity and obviousness of the objection that the existence of organisms is the result of the joint efforts from seeing its force. Evolution aside, we know how eyes and of the observable, embodied parents and a supernatural, unob- other organs are produced. They are produced by natural servable intelligence. Voltaire's claim that the parents are the reproduction, or what Hume called "generation." Design, so "blind instruments" of the supreme intelligence seems to be far as our observation goes, has nothing to do with it. This perfectly intelligible because we can easily think of situations in commonsense observation leaves, of course, some important which certain things are described as the "instruments" of others questions unanswered. As far as it goes, however, it is absolutely who are regarded as the true or at least as the decisive cause. correct and, among other things, it challenges the design We might say, for example, that Greece's ambassador in theorists to tell us just where and how the alleged designing Washington, D.C., is no more than an instrument of his and "actuating" by the Demiurge takes place. government. If he orally presents a message to the Secretary of Voltaire shows some awareness of this objection and State he is not its true cause, even though he may have chosen answers it by declaring that the biological parents are not the the precise wording. To take a case in which it might be said

42 FREE INQUIRY that the observable agents are merely the instruments of some- body who is not present, let us consider a performance of Don Giovanni. We will assume that the singers, the orchestra, and the staging are superb. It could then hardly be denied that the singers, the orchestra, the director, and the conductor play important roles in bringing about the admirable result; but it would still be true that the main credit belongs to Mozart's score. Without singers, conductor, orchestra, and, for that matter, the opera house, the performance could not have taken place or it could not have been so splendid; and they are certainly not "blind" instruments. Nevertheless, in the end, it is Mozart's score that is the basic and most indispensable factor. Unfortunately, however, neither this nor any other familiar case of "co-causes" provides us with a model on the basis of which we could give content to Voltaire's claim about the co- causation of organisms by their parents and God. We know what it is like for a composer to compose a score and we also know how the score can be made available to a conductor, his orchestra, and the singers so that they can put on a performance of the opera. On the other hand, we do not know what it would be like for a pure intelligence to produce the plan for a new organism. How can a pure intelligence fashion anything like a blueprint? Does such talk have any sense at all? Further- more, even if this question could be satisfactorily answered, there remains the problem of making the plan available to the "instruments," in this case the biological parents. How could hand" of God, as Addison does in his well-known hymn about this be done? What kind of "imprinting" takes place? Where the "divine hand" and as Voltaire himself did in the article and how? We have most emphatically not been given a coherent "God-Gods," in which he refers to the "powerful hand working theory unless we are told not only that an intelligent being continual wonders." makes eyes and ears and whole animals but also, at least in The supporter of the design argument is faced with a outline, how this is done. What this objection amounts to is dilemma, each of whose horns seems to have devastating conse- that the word instrument has a clear sense only when we are quences for his position. If he endows the supernatural arranger dealing with relations between observable entities and processes. with a body, then the arranger could, in principle, "actuate" or It has lost its sense when one of the entities involved is unob- "form" biological structures; but educated Western believers servable. On a few occasions Voltaire himself seemed to recog- find such a position repellent and, what is more, it does seem nize as much. In a famous letter to Mme. du Deffand, which incredible to almost everybody. If, on the other hand, the has been cited as evidence that Voltaire was secretly an atheist, supernatural arranger exists without a body, it is not easy to he speaks approvingly of the opinion of Epicurus and Lucre- see how he could engage in actuating biological structures; and tius that "nothing is more ridiculous than the notion that an it is also not the conclusion that the watchmaker argument unextended being could govern one which is extended," and he would authorize. Teleologists and also some of their critics do adds, referring presumbly to the incarnation of God in Jesus, not see this predicament because they tend to talk in very that "combining what is mortal with what is immortal is some- general terms of "intelligence" rather than "chance" as the cause thing most unsuitable." The same surely applies to any supposed of living things. It must therefore be emphasized that intelli- "blending" of the contributions of the biological parents with gence in general is not an entity that can produce anything. that of the Divinity to the production of an organism. Only intelligent beings can do this, and they need bodies and Voltaire is aware that, if valid, the design argument gives tools and preexisting materials. us an arranger and not a creator; and, since he believes in the Turning to the "cosmic" version of the argument, the first eternity of matter, this fact does not disturb him. He is not thing to note is that in one obvious respect it is much weaker aware, however, that the designer it would give us is one with a than the "biological" form just discussed. In any complete teleo- body who needs his body or whose assistants or subordinates logical argument, we may distinguish two stages. The first con- need their bodies for "actuating" or "forming" structures like sists in identifying something as a teleological system; the second the eye or whole organisms like a cat. If we followed through in showing that it is the kind of teleological system that is best the machine-maker analogy without stopping before it became explained in terms of conscious design. The biological version too uncomfortable, we would end up with something like does at least get to the first stage. For an organ like the eye heavenly factories of parts and heavenly places for assembling may in a broad sense be conceded to be a teleological system. the parts into the finished biological products. The fact that we Here we at least have an end, namely that of seeing, to which need one or more physical heavenly arrangers is occasionally the various internal mechanisms and adjustments seem to be but only dimly realized by believers when they talk about "the directed. Discussions of this topic have been bedeviled by the

Summer 1985 43 ambiguities of such words as "end" and "goal." However, if not laws is just as arbitrary as to suppose that it initially was in a too much is read into this, we may say, following terminology state of pure chaos. Voltaire's confusion on this subject is well used by a number of contemporary writers on biology, that the illustrated in a speech in the "Dialogues Between Posidonius activities of the various parts of the eye are "goal-directed," and Lucretius." "You cannot persuade me," Posidonius tells leaving it an open question whether they are also "goal- Lucretius, that "the universe put itself into the admirable order intended." Now, the first and most basic trouble with the cosmic in which we now find it." Indeed, not; but why should anything version of the argument is that it never gets as far as the first have put the admirable order into the universe? Why cannot stage. To what common end, corresponding to vision, are all this order have always been a feature of the universe? Some the objects in the universe directed? Except for his one regres- contemporary physicists maintain that we cannot extend any sion to pre-Copernican anthropomorphism, when Voltaire told of our laws to the period before the "big bang," which they us that the purpose of the sun is to provide light for human regard as a "singularity." This, too, seems arbitrary, but even if beings on the earth, he himself admitted that there is no answer such a view is accepted it does not show that before the big to this question. Voltaire fudged the issue when he called the bang objects behaved in accordance with other laws. It merely universe an "admirable machine." There is a popular sense in raises such a possibility. which the word machine is by definition something that was It should be pointed out that we do not have any examples designed to serve a certain purpose. Machines in this sense are in our experience of intelligent causes, or for that matter of "contraptions" or "devices." If it were known that the universe anything else, producing the kind of order now under discus- is a machine in this sense, it would indeed follow that it was sion. Experience, therefore, gives us no guidance about the designed for a purpose by an intelligent being. However, we cause of such order, if indeed it has any. If it could really be most emphatically do not know that the universe is a machine demonstrated someday that the order exhibited by the universe in this sense. at an earlier time was different from what it is today, this by This leaves Voltaire with the claim that the order of the world that is described by scientific laws requires an intelligent "In spite of some equivocal and disingenuous passages cause. Such an argument calls for several comments. First of in certain of his later works, there cannot be the all, it has been questioned whether the statement that the . universe is orderly has any content. 1f it did it should be possible slightest doubt that Voltaire believed that death is to describe what a disorderly universe, i.e., a universe that is the end for man no less than for animals.... He not governed by laws, would be like. But, as Leibniz already concedes that he does not possess conclusive proofs saw and as several contemporary philosophers have emphasized, but that 'all probable evidence' goes against immor- this is not possible. This objection is not fatal to Voltaire's tality." argument since he would maintain that it is not order as such but the simple and beautiful order described by Newton's laws itself would be no evidence whatever for an intelligent cause of that shows divine workmanship. The answer to this is twofold. such a change. One cannot help feeling that this entire question First, we have no means of knowing that the simple order was about the causation of the order or lawfulness found in the initially so unlikely that only design would have brought it world is misguided and the result of the deep-seated belief, about. Since the universe occurs only once we cannot say that even on the part of some of those who have explicitly repu- some other, more complex and less beautiful order, or, for that diated it, that the laws discovered by science "regulate" or matter, some simpler and more beautiful order, was more likely. "control" the world the way legal laws frequently do. All we can do is note the order that the universe exhibits. In the second place, we have no reason whatever to suppose that Tocke and the more conservative English deists believed or the order that characterizes the universe at present did not I Jprofessed belief in life after death. On this topic Voltaire always belong to it. On the contrary, we appear to have every sided with the more radical deists. In spite of some equivocal reason to maintain that objects have always behaved in accord- and disingenuous passages in certain of his later works, there ance with the same laws. We do not hesitate to predict that cannot be the slightest doubt that Voltaire believed that death tomorrow or in the next century or millions of years from now is the end for man no less than for animals. He considers both objects will still behave in accordance with the laws of of the main forms of survival—the resurrection of the body mechanics. We also do not hesitate to extrapolate our laws and the survival of the pure, disembodied mind. Discussions of backward to the time of Julius Caesar or the ice age. What the resurrection of the body find Voltaire in an ebullient mood. reason is there to suppose that, if we were to go still further A subject of such gravity must be treated with appropriate back in time, the universe would exhibit different laws or no reverence. He quite properly takes the word resurrection laws at all? Plato and various non-Christian religions, as we literally. God's production of a replica of my body, even if it mentioned earlier, teach that originally the universe was in a ever took place, would not be a resurrection of my body. state of chaos, whatever this might be. Such pronouncements However, once we use the word in its proper sense, it becomes are purely arbitrary. Voltaire did not believe in an original clear that the resurrection of most bodies would not be an easy chaos but seems to have thought that his Demiurge was needed thing, even for God. Both the Egyptians and the Greeks believed to transform the original universe with a different (and presum- in resurrection, but in Egypt the embalmer's first tasks were to ably less admirable) order into its present state. To suppose pierce the skull with a small hook and draw out the brain and that at an earlier time the universe was governed by different to clear the entrails. How, asks Voltaire, "were men to rise

44 FREE INQUIRY again without intestines and without the medullary part by position. All these statements occur in the writings of the 1760s means of which they think?" How were they "to find again the and early 1770s when Voltaire had become alarmed about blood, the lymph and the other humors?" It was even more what the spread of atheism might do to society. One of the difficult to rise among the Greeks, where the corpse was fre- best-known statements occurs in his polemic against Holbach's quently burned. How can you be restored to life if your body System of Nature. Holbach's philosophy is accused of "snatch- has become "a pound of ashes ... mingled with the ashes of ing consolation and hope" from suffering mankind. Voltaire wood, stuffs and spices"? There is the further problem of chil- grants that "philosophy furnishes no proof of a happiness to dren who die in the womb just after receiving their souls. Will come" but insists that it also does not demonstrate the contrary. such a being rise again as an embryo, a child, or an adult? St. He then adds a reflection that sounds strange, coming from Augustine believed that everybody would be resurrected with a somebody who had always made fun of the philosophy of body as it was or would have been at the age of thirty. This is Leibniz, including the latter's theory of monads. "There may be an interesting suggestion that has the merit of simplicity, but it in us an indestructable monad," Voltaire wrote, "which feels invites the question of how a thirty-year-old body could be and thinks, without our knowing anything at all of how that supplied to a child who had died in the womb and who did not monad is made." He then proceeds to argue, in the spirit of go through the intermediary stages to reach the age of thirty. William James's "Will To Believe," that belief in an afterlife Baffling problems are also presented by cannibalism. Some of has a "prodigious advantage" over unbelief. It is "useful," while these, it should be noted, had already puzzled St. Thomas unbelief is "baneful." "We are all swimming in a sea of which Aquinas. Consider the following situation: A soldier from we have never seen the shore." The unbeliever is like a man Brittany, serving in Canada, is short of food and eats an who cries out, "You swim in vain, there is no land"; and with Iroquois whom he had killed the previous day. For two or his cry he "disheartens me and deprives me of all my strength." three months before his death, the Iroquois had been feeding It should be noted that Voltaire himself did not believe that on Jesuits. The soldier consists of Iroquois, Jesuits, and all that there was "land," and yet he was not disheartened in the least he had eaten before. How are all these people going to be and did not lose any of his formidable strength. resurrected? The problem is particularly acute in the case of the The notion of an indestructible monad "inside of us" must Jesuits, who were digested not once but twice. How could even have appealed to Voltaire's imagination. It appeared repeatedly God accomplish this feat? in his writings of this period, each time with new embellish- If we rule out bodily resurrection, the question becomes ments. In one of the "Homilies" that he wrote in the 1760s, whether consciousness by itself can survive. Voltaire's fullest advocating natural religion in opposition to both Christianity serious discussion of this issue occurs in the Traité de Méta- and atheism, he begins by declaring once again that we are physique, the little volume that was not intended to be pub- ignorant of "the principle which thinks in us." It follows that lished in his lifetime. Here, he wrote with complete candor, we cannot be certain that this "unknown principle" will not and he ridicules the notion that thinking and feeling or any survive death. The indestructible monad is now described as a kind of mental life could proceed without the body. "I cannot "hidden flame" and "a particle of divine fire." It is entirely help laughing when I am told that human beings still have "possible" that this divine particle does not die but merely ideas after they have lost their sense organs; I would just as "changes its form" when the body disintegrates. This "possi- readily believe that we could still eat and drink after we have bility" is transformed into a "probability" in the dialogues lost our mouth and stomach." God has connected our capacity between Cu-Su, a wise disciple of Confucius, and the skeptical for thinking with a certain area of the brain, and it is no more Prince Kou, the son of the King of Lou, which are included as possible for thinking to continue without this organ than it is "Chinese Catechism" in the Philosophical Dictionary. A for the song of a bird to continue after its throat has been thought, Prince Kou begins reasonably enough, "cannot be destroyed in death. God could indeed have supplied both regarded as something material." It then should not be so animals and men with an immortal soul, and he could have difficult to believe that God has placed an "immortal and indis- arranged matters in such a way that this immortal soul could soluable principle" inside all of us. Surely this is not impossible. exist independent of the body, just as he could have made But if it is possible, "is it not also highly probable? Can you human beings with two noses and four hands, and with wings reject so noble a system and one which is so necessary to and claws. God could have given us an immortal soul, but all mankind?" David Friedrich Strauss, the great nineteenth- indications are that he did not. "I who know that man did not century German Aufklärer who wrote a highly sympathetic exist yesterday," Voltaire wrote, "should I proclaim that there study of Voltaire's philosophy, loses his temper over this is a part in him which is indestructible? If I deny immortality wretched argument, whose full wretchedness must have been to whatever it is that animates a dog, a parakeet or a thrush, apparent to Voltaire himself. "Somebody who cannot defend how can I attribute immortality to human beings just because immortality in a better way," Strauss wrote, "would edify us we would like it to be so?" Voltaire concedes that he does not more if he openly denied it." In a partial extenuation it should possess conclusive proofs, but "all probable evidence" goes be explained that the wise Cu-Su is at once answered by Prince against immortality. Kou in a most convincing fashion. Although Prince Kou ulti- These were Voltaire's real and considered views on the mately surrenders, most readers are likely to be far more subject, but they were not published by him. In his published impressed by his skeptical arguments, one of which, based on statements Voltaire professes a complete theoretical agnosticism the nature of personal identity, is brilliant and original, than by accompanied by a ringing pragmatic defense of the affirmative the pious declarations of the ostensible victor.

Summer 1985 45 Rejecting belief in life after death is harmful not only Although Voltaire missed no opportunity to denounce the because it "disheartens" people and deprives them of their atomistic materialism of Lucretius as wildly absurd, it is from strength. It is even more damaging by removing one of the Lucretius that he borrowed one idea he seemed to have found most powerful sanctions against vice and crime. A small number particularly consoling. "Why," he asked in the article "Why" in of philosophical unbelievers with a peaceful disposition may the Philosophical Dictionary, "as we are so miserable, have we not need hellfire as a deterrent. The same, however, is not true imagined that not to be is a great ill, when it is clear that it was of the world's rulers, nor unfortunately of most ordinary men not an ill not to be before we were born?" This is straight out and women. "Eternal hell" may be an illusion, we read in the of Lucretius, and Lucretius is also one of the characters in a article "Hell" in the Philosophical Dictionary, "but it is a good discussion concerning immortality in the Dialogues Between thing for your servant, your tailor and even your lawyer to Lucretius and Posidonius, which were mentioned earlier. believe in it." The "fear of men" is not enough. "Shall we give Lucretius here argues for the mortality of the soul on the ourselves up to fatal passions" asks Freind, the sage in The familiar ground that it is so closely tied to the body during life. Sage and the Atheist, one of the fire and brimstone sermons "The effect at last ceases with the cause," he remarks, and "the that occur with increasing frequency in Voltaire's writings of soul vanishes like smoke into air." These are almost the words this period, "and live like brutes, with no other restraint upon of the historical Lucretius. Posidonius, who is the ostensible us than the fear of men, rendered eternally cruel to each other spokesman for Voltaire's philosophy, does not even attempt to by their mutual dread?" A man who fears no divine retribution answer the argument. in the hereafter is going to become a "God to himself," and he Some of the earlier statements about death were taken will sacrifice the whole world to his caprice. A poor and needy from letters to Mme. du Deffand, an exceptionally sensitive atheist "would be a fool if he did not assassinate or steal to get old lady who had become blind. In one of his letters to her, money." If atheism and its companion belief that death is final Voltaire told of a man who compared us with a musical instru- became common, all the bonds of society would be "sundered," ment that cannot produce a sound after it has been broken. "secret crimes" would inundate the world, and "like locusts" This man held it as evidence that human beings had a beginning they would "spread over the earth." One cannot help feeling and an end just like all other animals, like plants and probably that in these and countless similar passages Voltaire expressed everything else in the world. He also taught that our best some deep-seated and largely irrational fear. The facts do not consolation concerning such evils as aging and death consists seem to bear him out at all. It may be granted that, just as in in our knowledge that they are inevitable. This man greatly Voltaire's day, the world is filled with "knaves," with "persons admired the laughing Democritus, and when he became as old addicted to brutality, intoxication and rapine," and generally as Democritus he followed his master in laughing about every- with individuals who are cruel and callous. Experience shows thing. It goes without saying that this man was Voltaire himself. that, within rather severe limits, their destructive impulses can be controlled by secular restraints. Fear of punishment in a n the subject of miracles there can be no doubt where hereafter seems to be totally ineffective. A cruel believer does OVoltaire stood. Miracles are completely at variance with not greatly differ from a cruel unbeliever as far as behavior is what we know about the working of the world. Belief in mira- concerned. The difference lies largely in the kind of rationaliza- cles is also theologically unsound, and it degrades religion into tion that will be offered. a form of magic. The miracles reported throughout history are That the views Voltaire expressed in the Traité de Méta- a mixture of fraud and nonsense. Moreover, the nonsense is pht'sique were his real ones is shown beyond all doubt by not usually innocent, because it is used by priests and rulers to remarks about death made to his friends and in his correspond- keep the common people in ignorance and subjection. Several ence. His true views also frequently appear in his published philosophers, notably the English deists, Bayle, Middleton, and writings when keeping potential evil-doers in check is not one Hume, had written against miracles before Voltaire. Bayle and of his prime concerns. That death is final and that nothing Hume had raised subtle difficulties that Voltaire ignored, but it whatever awaits us afterward is evident both when Voltaire was Voltaire's attack that had the most devastating impact. consoles himself and others by the thought that the absence of Voltaire had a wonderful eye for the absurd, and he also had our consciousness, since it involves no suffering of any kind, is ,vast learning in the history of religions, especially that of not something to be dreaded and when during fits of depression Christianity, which supplied him with an endless stream of he likens man to a prisoner awaiting his death sentence. "When hilarious illustrations. By the 1760s he had perfected his the hour arrives," he wrote in one of these moods, "it becomes tongue-in-cheek style, and it was nowhere used to greater effect clear that we have lived to no purpose, that all reflections are than in his treatment of miracles. After reading Voltaire, an vain and all reasoning ... only wasted words." Such fits of intelligent reader could not help feeling that only an abominably depression were rare, and more commonly Voltaire admonishes credulous fool would believe in anything so ridiculous. us to think about death as little as possible and to get on with Voltaire's various discussions of miracles are deliberately the job of living. People who announce death ceremoniously chaotic. He does not state a general thesis that is to be followed "are the enemies of the human race; we must keep them from by supporting evidence. Instead, case is piled on case, each ever approaching us." "To cease to love and be lovable," he more absurd than the one before, and yet all of them miracles wrote in a short poem addressed to Mme. du Châtelet, "is a at one time widely accepted on the basis of supposedly unim- death unbearable; to cease to live is nothing," and in a letter he peachable evidence. Voltaire's general objections are mentioned repeated that "death is nothing at all—the idea alone is sad." almost as asides, and they are usually accompanied by pious

46 FREE INQUIRY declarations that, although reason may cause philosophers to And yet, Voltaire adds, it has in the course of time come to be spurn miracles, revelation and faith are superior guides. universally disbelieved because nobody has "an interest" in the Philosophers may exalt "the immutability of the Supreme acceptance of its authenticity. Being" and the eternity of his laws, but they are clearly mistaken With relish Voltaire enumerated other miraculous cures, since the histories of most nations are as full of miracles as including that of a blind man by St. Ambrose. Ambrose had natural events. Give me the name of a country where incredible been informed in a dream by St. Gervasius and St. Prostasius prodigies have not been performed, Voltaire wrote, especially where their carcasses were lying. He promptly dug them up at a time when the people could hardly read or write. It might and used the holy relics to cure a blind man in the presence of in fact be laid down as a law that there is an inverse relationship numerous witnesses. This remarkable event occurred in Milan between frequency of miracles and the level of education in and is vouched for by no less an authority than St. Augustine, any given nation. The number of miracles increases as the level who was in the city at the time. In more recent times the kings of education declines, and it decreases as the people become of England, right up until William III, daily performed medical more educated. miracles. William III, finally, refused to continue the practice Voltaire was particularly amused by stories about animals and his successors have followed his example. If England should that could talk. Not only could many animals talk in past ages, "undergo a great revolution" so that the country once again but they could also make the most accurate forecasts of fateful slides into barbarism and ignorance, we may be confident that happenings. No less an authority than Titus Livius reported miracles will again be performed every day. that one day in the marketplace in Rome an ox cried out to Many of the accounts of miracles have an inner lack of the crowds: "Rome, take care of yourself!" Pliny wrote that, logic that makes it quite unnecessary to investigate the supposed when the tyrant Tarquin was driven from the throne, a dog evidence. St. Polycarp's last-minute rescue from the flames is a commented on the event; and Suetonius vouched for the fact case in point. This miracle took place in the second century, that a crow said in Latin of course—"All is well' when Domi- when Polycarp, the Bishop of Smyrna, had been condemned tian was assassinated. A horse by the name of Xante told its by the Romans to be burnt at the stake. Several eyewitnesses master Achilles that he would be killed before Troy. heard a heavenly voice calling out to the bishop, "Courage The gift of speech was also occasionally bestowed on fish. Polycarp! Be strong, show yourself a man!" Polycarp showed The fish Oannes made it a practice to come out of the himself a man, whereupon the flames were diverted from his Euphrates every day to deliver a sermon on its banks. Voltaire body, and a dove, the symbol of the Holy Ghost, flew out of laconically observed that fish did not preach any more in his the midst of the stake. The jubilations of Polycarp's partisans time, although St. Anthony of Padua had preached to the fish. were, however, premature. Almost immediately after his However, that was not a miracle and in any event "such things deliverance from the flames, the luckless bishop had his head happen so rarely nowadays, that most people pay no attention cut off. Philosophers will wonder why the executioner's axe to them." The fish, incidentally, listened attentively to St. was not also deflected. Anthony's admonitions, but after the sermon they all went their merry ways, much as human beings who ignore the advice of their spiritual guides. Among both the Romans and the Christians, many people were miraculously cured of illnesses that did not respond to more natural methods. Perhaps the most impressive and best- attested of these cures were performed in Alexandria in the first century B.C. by the Roman emperor Vespasian, who is otherwise best remembered for building the Colisseum and for banishing the Stoic philosophers from Rome. What is so remarkable about the cures produced by Vespasian is that he himself had not previously been a believer in miracles. During his visit to Alexandria, two men, one blind and the other paralyzed, presented themselves before the emperor, imploring him to restore them to health. Vespasian modestly replied that he possessed no such healing powers. The two unhappy indi- viduals then told the emperor that the god Serapis had appeared to them, announcing that they would be cured by Vespasian. Moved by their plight, the emperor consented to touch both men, but he warned them that success was most improbable. "Favoring his modesty and virtue," Voltaire writes, "the Divinity communicates to Vespasian his power and that instant the blind man sees and the lame one walks." This twin miracle was performed in the presence of innumerable spectators, Roman,

Greek, and Egyptian. It has been preserved in the archives of Voltaire with the philosophes the empire and is mentioned in all contemporary histories.

Summer 1985 47 Another of Voltaire's favorite miracles, which would bring resurrected no less than three people—the daughter of Jairus, a smile even to the face of a modern pope, concerns King the son of the widow of Naim, and Lazarus, who had been Robert, who had been excommunicated by Pope Gregory V dead four days. For Christians these miracles have always been for marrying his godmother, Princess Bertha. After the king "decisive and resplendent" evidence for the divinity of Jesus, was excommunicated, his servants threw his dinner out of the and if the rest of the world had known about them it would window. This disrespectful treatment of the monarch, though surely have been instantly converted to Christianity. Unfortu- strange enough, does not qualify as a miracle. The miraculous nately the rest of the world did not hear about them for at least punishment for the incestuous marriage occurred when Queen two hundred years. This is as amazing as it is regrettable. Bertha was delivered of a goose. "I doubt," Voltaire observed, Neither the historian Josephus nor the scholarly Philo nor any "if in our time the waiters of the King of France would, if he of the Greek or Roman historians of the time mention so were excommunicated, throw his dinner out of the window much as one of these resurrections. What is more, if these and whether the Queen would give birth to a gosling." sensational events had really occurred, we may rest assured that the Jewish magistrates and especially Pontius Pilate would have undertaken the most minute investigations and obtained "On the subject of miracles there can be no doubt the most detailed and authentic depositions. Tiberius had where Voltaire stood. Miracles are completely at ordered all proconsuls, prefects, and governors of provinces to variance with what we know about the working of inform him with exactness of all significant events, and Lazarus as well as the other two beneficiaries of Jesus' supernatural the world. Belief in miracles is also theologically powers would have been interrogated. In the case of Lazarus, unsound, and it degrades religion into a form of Voltaire notes in passing, "not a little curiosity would have magic.... a mixture of fraud and nonsense." been excited" about the fate of his soul during the four days when his body was dead. Suppose that God in our own time should send an ambassador to London and that this ambassa- The Romans did not show much interest in bringing the dor succeeded in raising several men from the dead; would not dead back to life. In other countries and among Christians, everybody be talking about such remarkable occurrences and resurrections have been common. Among the Greeks the resur- would not contemporary histories be filled with descriptions of rections were usually carried out by gods. Hercules, Alcestis, these events and their repercussions? Not only did the world at and Pelops were all brought back by the gods. Pelops had large not hear about these miracles for two hundred years, but been hacked to pieces by his father, and it has not been dis- fully a hundred years had passed before "some obscure indi- closed how the gods put the pieces of his body back together. viduals" showed one another writings that contained any men- Athalide, Mercury's daughter, had the gift of coming back to tion of these events. life at will and repeatedly made use of it. Er, made famous for Voltaire was no admirer of the Jews of the Old Testament later generations by Plato, came back to the world after spend- or, for that matter, of the Jews of any age; but, since the main ing two weeks in hell. Aesculapius, who was chiefly noted for enemy was Christianity and not Judaism, he delighted to point his miraculous treatment of illness, brought Hippolytus back out that the miracles performed by God on behalf of the Jews to life. It should be remembered that the Greek gods were were much more stupendous than any of those performed by physical and that their activities, miraculous or otherwise, could Jesus. Who would not be impressed by such spectacles as the be observed by human beings. In the case of Aesculapius, ten plagues of Egypt, the stopping of the stars in their course Voltaire tells us that "we still have documents containing the over Gibeon and Ajalon, and the sea's opening a passage and names of eyewitnesses." Among Christians, resurrections were suspending its waves so that the Jews could safely go through! accomplished not by gods but by saints. St. Francis Xavier, Compared to divine interventions on such a scale, miracles like one of the founders of the Jesuit order, who was noted for the that of the Gadarene swine or the fig tree or even the admittedly vast number of conversions he achieved on his missionary mind-boggling resurrection of Lazarus after his brain must travels to India and the Far East, was spectacularly successful already have been totally decayed are paltry. Voltaire approv- in this field. While in Japan, between 1549 and 1551, Xavier ingly quoted a heretical writer who compared the difference to resurrected no less than eight bodies. This feat was altogether that between a grand concert and a rustic ditty. Such dangerous remarkable not only because, as Voltaire rightly notes, eight is reflections have "enchanted" not a few Christians who rashly quite a number, but also because Xavier had lost, or else had and audaciously concluded that Judaism and not Christianity never possessed, the gift of tongues, a supernatural gift of a was the true religion. Instead of showing the miracles of Jesus much lower order than that of resurrecting the dead. In his "the respect to which they are entitled," these unfortunate men letters from Japan he complained that he felt like a "mute trusted their deceitful reason and maintained that, if God for statue" since he could not understand or speak the language of many ages worked a train of "astonishing and tremendous the natives. In the case of Xavier's resurrections, it is important miracles" in favor of what He himself had pronounced to be to remember—Voltaire tells us—that they were carried out the true religion, He would not suddenly cause it to become a 15,000 miles from home. Some people, he wryly adds, regard false one. For their own good, and for the good of the world, the expulsion of the Jesuits from France as a much greater most of the admirers of Judaism have carefully concealed their miracle. apostasy from the public, but some misguided priests made no Jesus himself, of course, was no mean resurrectionist. He bones about their preference and openly derided the miracles

48 FREE INQUIRY of the New Testament. Suspending his tongue-in-cheek manner, even this kind of evidence is not sufficient. For the sake of Voltaire relates the case of Nicholas Anthony of Pont-à- being fully verified, it would be desirable that a miracle "should Mousson in Lorraine. He first switched to Calvinism, becoming be performed in the presence of the Academy of Sciences in for a short time a minister in Geneva, and then, not long Paris, or the Royal Society in London, and the Faculty of afterward, was received as a Jew in Venice. He returned to Medicine." This is not an unreasonable demand; for surely, if Geneva and proclaimed to the judges and magistrates as well somebody can really transform water into wine or resurrect a as to the people in the street that the Jewish religion was true, corpse, he should be able to do this regardless of who is in the declaring that there was only one god and that Jesus was an audience. In view of the credulity of many scientists and their impostor. Nicholas Anthony was put in chains and burnt at insufficient experience in detecting fraud, one may fault Voltaire the stake in Geneva on April 20, 1632. for not requiring that the observers should include skeptical The most straightforwardly serious passages in Voltaire's magicians like Houdini or the Amazing Randi. articles on the miracles are concerned with the theological Both before and since Voltaire's time skeptics have properly unsoundness of any such doctrine. Believing in miracles is an raised the question of what different miracles would prove if insult to God. It implies that, like a watchmaker who bungled they really had occurred. It is not at all obvious that they his work, God is required to make repairs in the "immense prove any of the theological assertions of those who champion machine" of the universe. If God is infinitely intelligent, then them. Let us suppose that Jesus really made water into wine he foresaw all the unfortunate events that inspire men to pray and that he really resurrected Lazarus. Such strange per- for the suspension of His laws; and if He too had regarded the formances would no doubt require a revision in some of our events in question as undesirable, He would have fashioned commonsense beliefs and also in certain of our scientific different laws. If it is argued that He failed to foresee the theories, but they would most emphatically not prove the unfortunate events, then He is not infinitely intelligent and existence of a Creator of the universe and they would also not hence "He is no longer God." On the other hand, the request show that Jesus was His son. Voltaire told of a philosopher for a miracle here and there might not be unreasonable when who was asked what he would say if he saw the sun stop, if all addressed to a finite deity of the kind favored by Voltaire the dead came back to life, and if all mountains fell into the himself. For in that case God may not know everything and ocean at the same time. "I would turn Manichean," replied the informing Him of some unintended mishap might be the signal philosopher, "I would say that there is one principle that for rectification. unmakes what the other principle has made." • Also in a serious vein are Voltaire's remarks about the reasons for rejecting the testimony of the witnesses who vouched for the miracles recorded in various holy books. What Voltaire BOOKS FOR HUMANISTS said here resembles Hume's critique, but his challenge was less sweeping and not open to some of the objections leveled at A. FOR ADULTS: RATIONAL LOVE Hume. "In order to believe in a miracle," Voltaire opened one 1978 paperback $7.00 discussion, "it is not enough merely to have seen it." The reason "It is easily the best book on the subject that I have ever read." Albert Ellis. Dir. Institute of Advanced Study in Rational Psychotherapy for this is that even careful observers can be deceived. Many Ph.D., Exec. B. FOR YOUNG HUMANISTS (grades 4-12) and Teacher/Adult Resource "excellent persons" who are in general quite trustworthy "think Books: that they have seen what they have not seen and heard what ETHICS was never said to them." They thus become witnesses of mira- 1978 paperback 80 pages $6.50 An extensive clarification of the uses and misuses of ethical terms. For a cles that did not take place or, if they are suggestible and free description send SASE. Reviews will be sent also. especially if they have a touch of madness, they may even GOOD AND BAD ARE FUNNY THINGS: A RHYMING BOOK. ETHICS become the subjects of miracles, for example, miraculous cures. FOR CHILDREN 1978 paperback 90 pages $6.50 Before paying the slightest attention to such a claim, it is neces- In the style of Dr. Seuss books. sary that "the miracle should have been seen by a great number EMOTION: A CRITICAL ANALYSIS of very sensible people, in sound health, and perfectly disin- 1978 paperback 80 pages $6.50 "The best book of the five whether for children or for young people, may terested in the affair." When "interest mixes with the transac- well be Emotion.". Ed Cell Philosophical Investiations tion," as it almost invariably does in the case of religious TIME: A CRITICAL ANALYSIS believers, "you may consider the whole affair worth nothing." 1978 paperback 80 pages $6.50 "Here Shibles does a good job of confronting the reader with some of the This is so even if a whole nation testifies to the occurrence of unresolved philosophical puzzles about the nature of time." Louis Katzner, the miracle. Above all, the witnesses should have solemnly Teaching Philosophy sworn in writing to what they supposedly witnessed. Voltaire HUMOR: A CRITICAL ANALYSIS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE 1978 paperback 166 pages $10.00 pointed out that in everyday transactions of a very simple "I found them all quite interesting and distinctly rational. I particularly kind, such as the purchase of a house, a marriage contract, or liked Emotion." Albert Ellis a will, we require "minute cautionary formalities" in writing. To order send check and .50 for postage to address below. (40% of proceeds How much more necessary is the execution of such documents will be contributed to this organization.) in order to verify "things naturally impossible on which the The Language Press P. O. Box 342(FI) destiny of the world is to depend." Not one of the miracles Whitewater, WI 53190 described in the Old or the New Testament is supported by U.S.A. anything even remotely approximating such evidence. However,

Summer 1985 49 talk is always of the Brandt Commission with never a mention of the overwhelming Books objections marshaled by, among others, Peter Bauer. So none of these pseudo- enquirers ever notices contrasts between socialist Tanzania—recipient of more doles per capita than any other country—and Arguing About Old-time Christianity several self-reliant, nonsocialist countries, countries that have raised themselves to prosperity by applying the lessons of the first and greatest classic of development economics—An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. Antony Flew The second, still more significant omis- sion is discussion of how the recommenda- tions of these statements relate to the teach- C. S. Lewis and the Search for Rational have been a long-felt need and to commend ing of Jesus as recorded in the Gospels. It Religion, by John Beversluis (Grand Rapids, his publishers for including this volume of is, for instance, taken as obvious that Chris- Mich.: Eerdmans, 1985), xiv + 182 pp., unpersuaded unbelief in a list that is other- tianity and capitalism are incompatible. $9.95. wise overwhelmingly evangelical. Well, maybe they are. But a Bible-believing In The Kindness That Kills, Christian Christian, before accepting this conclusion, The Kindness That Kills, edited by Digby social scientists examine two dozen official would at the very least want first to hear Anderson (London: SPCK, 1984), xii + 170 church statements on political and economic how it is to be reconciled with the Gospel pp., £3.95. issues. These contributors are, it seems, statement that Jesus taught a Parable of the charitably reluctant to make much of the Talents. Why, on so ideal an occasion, did The Intellectuals Speak Out About God, most important finding to emerge from their Jesus fail to draw the desired socialist edited by Roy Varghese (Chicago: Regnery, investigations. For it becomes obvious that, morals—that there must be no privately 1984), xxxiv + 366 pp., $7.95. in the present generation, most of those who profitable investment and that all the means draft these statements are not Christians sin- of production must be collectively owned? Is Man The Measure? by Norman Geisler cerely concerned to discover and to publicize (I had wondered why many of my fellow (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 1983), 201 pp., the true practical implications of that faith, humanists began to object to the intrusion $7.95. but people who, having their own cherished of religion into public life only in reaction policies to promote, want to exploit the against Jerry Falwell and his Moral Major- hat the four books listed have in churches as lobbies for those policies. Such ity. But perhaps they anticipated me in Wcommon is an interest in the religion people are in fact often—perhaps by now, recognizing that most of the—to them— of the New Testament; in Christianity, that usually—no more Christian than the recently more congenial manifestos of the World and is, as opposed to those various synthetic appointed Bishop of Durham. (He had pre- National Councils of Churches merely pre- substitutes nowadays widely marketed under viously dismissed the essential and central tend to be Christian?) the familiar brand name. C. S. Lewis and doctrine of the Resurrection of Jesus bar The Intellectuals Speak Out About God the Search for Rational Religion takes as Joseph in phrases more vulgarly contemp- advertises itself as revealing why "25 of the its motto a claim made by Lewis himself in tuous and offensive than any 1 would myself world's greatest philosophers and scientists Mere Christianity: "1 am not asking anyone be willing to employ in a context so delicate, reject atheism." It has an appropriate to accept Christianity if his best reasoning while since devoting almost all his substantial dedication by a close friend of C. S. Lewis, tells him that the weight of the evidence is rhetorical talents to a general offensive a message from the Vatican, and a Foreword against it." against Margaret Thatcher and her entire by the president of the United States. It is Readers of FREE INQUIRY will probably administration.) divided into three parts: "The Sciences," be as surprised as I was to learn that all the These remarks apply not only to the "Philosophy," and "Apologetics and Theo- Lewis books—both the apologetics and the World Council of Churches—notorious as logy." science fiction—continue to enjoy phe- a sort of UNESCO in clerical collars—but The introducer of the third part of this nomenal sales. John Beversluis, a philoso- also to national organizations of churches, book notes that in recent years professional pher by trade, provides the first systematic and to their members. Even the Roman theologians have been on the defensive, and radical critique of Lewis's case for Catholic church, up to the level of several many having quietly, or not so quietly, Christianity. It only remains, therefore, to councils of bishops, is similarly affected. abandoned much of "the historic Christian congratulate him on meeting what ought to That the drafters of the twenty-four state- faith" (p. 207). Certainly this is not true of ments critiqued in The Kindness That Kills his own team. They boldly and quite were not sincerely trying to discover the unapologetically deploy historical evidence political and economic implications of the for the Resurrection. The philosophers teaching of Jesus is made manifest in two appear no less confident. They, however, are Antony Flew is professor of philosophy at ways. inclined to tell us, without themselves either Reading University in England. He is a First, they are resolved to refuse to reporting or engaging with opposing argu- member of the Secretariat of the Academy attend to any alternative policies promising ments, that the opposition has not impressed of Humanism. to promote their own professed aims. Con- them. Alston, for instance, was asked a cerning third-world poverty, for instance, the question about an article that he clearly had

50 FREE INQUIRY not read. Why should he? But then, instead of admitting the unshameful truth, he covers up: "I can't see," he says, "that it amounts Viewpoints to anything" (p. 150; compare p. 189). It is the scientists who are most con- fident and most aggressive. Between them Child Abuse: Myth or Reality? they point to four obstacles facing those of us wanting to develop a consistently secular and naturalistic world-outlook. These are Vern L. Bullough real enough even though they are presented here in philosophically unsophisticated ways. First is the fact that all the evidence now points to a big bang as the origin of the hough any report of child abuse should neglect are not. Informants are also more universe. This is, of course, consistent with Tbe of concern to all of us, it is impor- likely to report incidents of abuse among not only the sustaining First Cause of the tant to distinguish between media publicity low-income and lower-status people than Five Ways but also a First Cause "in the of alleged child abuse and actual child abuse. they are those among higher-status people. beginning"—the conclusion that Thomas The media imply that child abuse is rampant Since the actual incidence of child abuse himself maintained was not to be proved by and increasing at a rapid rate, when in real- is so difficult to determine statistically, what arguments of natural reason. Next comes ity, by all the indices we can establish, child evidence shows that it is declining? The the Anthropic Principle, "that the physical abuse is declining. evidence has to be circumstantial since past constants must be what we find them to be Several factors account for the con- statistics are not any more valid than those or there could be no intelligent life in the fusion and misperceptions attending the sub- of today. Still, many of the factors that we Universe" (pp. 6-7). In both cases we ought ject of child abuse. Perhaps the most impor- know are correlated with child abuse simply honestly to admit that we ourselves wanted tant is the impact of government funding of no longer exist. The most significant change the discoveries to be different. After that we research in this area. During the 1970s, in has been in the law. Today's parents no can, in order to show that from these facts part as a counterweight to legislation dealing longer have the legal control over their very little if anything can legitimately be with abortion, Congress began to take an children they once did. It was not too long inferred about any hypothetical First Cause, interest in child abuse. Various social agen- ago that the father's word was law, and the draw upon the arsenal of arguments that cies became involved, and some took to courts did not intervene. Hume gave us in the first Enquiry and in public advertising in an attempt to document Even after the law began to change, the Dialogues. child abuse. Radio commercials requesting investigators were slow to follow. Juvenile The other two obstacles are handled information both from the public and from court records in the nineteen twenties, better in Is Man the Measure? This consists the children themselves led to a rapid thirties, and forties, for example, demon- of two parts: The first is an exposition and increase in investigations, and the reported strated that social workers usually dis- the second "An Evaluation of Contemporary incidence of child abuse skyrocketed. counted reports of child abuse, even though Humanism." Geisler's treatments of various Though some incidents of genuine abuse they were widespread, and refused to act famous spokespersons have the salutary were uncovered, many of the calls were mis- upon the complaints of either an adult or a effect of quietly drawing attention to the chievous or malacious. In one case that I child. The prevailing mindset held that the abysmal wretchedness of many of their argu- investigated, a child pointed to his parents family unit was more important than the ments. Feuerbach and Marx, for instance, as child abusers for requiring him to wash individual child, and officials were therefore seem to have assumed that a speculative the family dishes after the evening meal. reluctant to interfere and possibly break up account of the suggested motives for believ- Tied in with the effort to uncover child a family. ing in God or gods constituted a sufficient abuse was the task of determining what con- A second reason for the decline in child refutation of those beliefs. stitutes child abuse. Definitions changed over abuse is that families are smaller than in the The two other natural obstacles to a time and within groups. According to cur- past and a child is more likely to be planned consistent secular naturalism are both pro- rent usage, child abuse includes, but is not and wanted. Yet another reason is that there posed sites for particular creative interven- necessarily confined to, physical abuse, are far more support services for families tions within a universe created "in the begin- sexual abuse, emotional abuse, physical with children than in the past. The courts, ning." These are the origins of life and of neglect, and emotional neglect, all of which the schools, and various agencies are today the major generic differences. Ever since Pasteur terms are subject to interpretation. A parent more likely to intervene. Economically, soci- proved that there is on earth now no natural spanking a child who ran into the street is a ety is better off, and the cases of horrendous generation of living things from the non- child abuser in the eyes of some, even though neglect once reported are encountered far living, we have needed, but not found, at the whack on the seat of the pants is swift more rarely. least an outline account of how, in some and not particularly painful. It is important to point out that when likely past conditions, living cells could have Even the definition of a "battered child," the term child abuse is used, many people evolved from nonliving matter. Ever since perhaps the most extreme example of physi- interpret it as sexual abuse, which is only a Darwin we have needed, but it seems not cal abuse, varies from observer to observer. small part of the larger category. Sexual yet got, a similar sketch of how some major Although a popular term in the 1960s, it abuse of children is also declining since development—that of flight, for instance— has dropped out of medical usage because society is far less willing to tolerate it than could have occurred through natural selec- of its imprecise definition and the risk of in the past. It is also important to remember tion without the hypothesized necessary suc- lawsuit by irate parents. In general, however, that cultural differences play a role. In some cession of small changes at any stage con- cases of physical abuse are likely to be of the cultures that make up the United stituting a ruinous selective disadvantage. • reported, while cases of emotional abuse and States, it is considered acceptable to manip-

Summer 1985 51 ulate a child's genitals to soothe it. Others view this as sexual abuse. It might well be, but we are not agreed as a society on exactly what constitutes sexual abuse. Obviously there are many clearcut cases A Humanist's Lack of Options of child sexual abuse, but there is also a danger, as the cases in Jordan, Minnesota, demonstrate, of charging innocent people with sexually abusing children. It is necessary to remind Americans that the charges that led to the Salem witch trials were made by children of the same ages as those in the Jordan group and that, contrary to the MIN assumptions of the prosecutor in Jordan, children occasionally mix fantasy with reality and television portrayals with actual sexual Sarah Slavin abuse. While it is important that we listen to our children, we also have to be careful not to get caught up in excessive anxiety. Probably the major reason that the October 2, 1983, a drunk driver But I was also concerned by the lack of public seems willing to believe media reports Ønstruck down my nineteen-year-old son, formal options offered to those indifferent of child abuse is the guilt that many have who was then comatose for nearly five to or alienated from organized religion, as over the changing nature of being a parent. months. My son was an honors student in well as to skeptics or those actively opposed Many mothers who work and send their college and had plans to attend law school. to traditional religion. When I telephoned toddlers and preschoolers to nursery schools Today he is totally physically disabled; his the leader of the Ethical Society, to which 1 or day-care centers have tremendous guilt vision is impaired, and he is unable to speak. once belonged and had served as religious feelings. These anxieties are so great that But his intellect is intact. education director, 1 was told that he was when alleged child pornography rings are During the first days, weeks, and then ill. No one followed up my call. Mention of uncovered in day-care centers, parents pub- months of this devastating experience, I my son's situation to two prominent mem- licly flagellate themselves and believe the faced inadequate formal options for dealing bers of the nontheist community prompted worst because they are so ambivalent about with my grief, anger, and fear and with the an immediate response that focused on what they do with their children. We need stress on my family. Why? Because I am a euthanasia, which would have been totally better regulation of workers in day-care nontheist. My children grew up outside inappropriate and would have sacrificed a centers and nursery schools, but this is quite organized religion; and now, as young young, personable, well-loved individual who a different issue from the mass hysteria in adults, two of the three also prefer the non- will someday again become socially produc- the national media about child sexual abuse, theist orientation. tive. and child abuse in general. An acquaintance of years' standing, an Meanwhile 1 read books and wrote In sum, what has been increasing is not Orthodox Jew, suggested that, under the cir- poetry; writing can be self-affirming and lead child abuse but the anxiety level of parents cumstances, "foxhole religion" would be an to new and fruitful ways of viewing the concerning the arrangements they make for acceptable stance for me. But mine is a con- world. 1 consulted social workers and psy- child care. It has created a large market for sidered orientation and did not falter. chotherapists. On the one hand, our experi- media reports of child abuse. Playing upon Countless friends as well as strangers joined ence with social workers was disappointing: these anxieties and fears are the anti- in religious meditation on my son's behalf, How many times did we need to hear, "You feminists who believe they have found new and ours. 1 appreciated the sincerity of these know he will never be the same?" My thera- ammunition to push women back to the efforts and was moved by them, but 1 did pist, on the other hand, set up grieving ses- home and "restore" traditional American not share these individuals' beliefs and was sions with friends, read from the literature, families. Supplying further ammunition are largely excluded from their efforts. and came forth as needed with tangible the ambiguities about what constitutes abuse, Catholic priests came unbidden to the resources. 1 also found organizations and allowing the media to headline almost any hospital room to offer prayer, and we found support networks, such as the National Head aspect. Professionals have added to the their presence intrusive. 1 wondered at their Injury Foundation (NHIF) and Mothers problem because of their greater awareness lack of sensitivity, at the set of unarticulated Against Drunk Drivers (MADD). NHIF of its existence. Child abuse is the media assumptions that required my attention. A arranged for the empathetic father of a head issue of the day and will continue to be priest took up station even at the secular injury victim to visit us at the hospital; and until something else comes to replace it. We rehabilitation institute to which my son was the NHIF newsletter is outstanding. MADD should not, however, be stampeded into moved. My daughters and I insisted that he offered aid in prosecuting the individual who believing that child abuse is increasing, since not be allowed unlimited access to the ward. committed the crime that irrevocably by all the criteria we can use to evaluate it, changed our lives. it is declining. Likewise, when the media My son indicates that he is glad to be turn away from the subject, we should Sarah Slavin is associate professor of poli- alive. His emotional wherewithal is impres- remember that child abuse does indeed exist tical science at the State University of New sive; his motivation, strong; his nontheist and that we must continue to work to elimi- York College at Buffalo. perspective, unchanged. He is a survivor, nate it. • and he has years of fruitful growth and

52 FREE INQUIRY development before him. He can count on interest in organized religion does not free self and therefore renders one's sobriety our participation. We are coping with our individuals of their human needs. conditional. I maintain that, at this point in world and are proud of doing so. Friends and colleagues who responded history, due to humankind's collective scien- Some nontheists might point to the to our understanding of the situation con- tific knowledge and acquired consciousness diffuse influence of secular humanism in tributed to my son's growing independence in the rational, naturalistic sense, reliance many of our choices. I would note its explicit and stature in a manner meaningful to all upon an outside mystical source can be a absence from the scene in a crisis situation. of us..They are mannerly people. dangerous proposition, especially for the If the nontheist community is a com- We have formed our own mannerly alcoholic/addict. Being in the precarious munity, then it must act like one. Denying community. It is largely barren of those who position of possibly having one's bubble that its members suffer will not ease suffering define themselves as secular humanists. It is burst, perhaps in a moment of clarity that or extend comfort, and it will not strengthen equally barren of those who consider them- might reveal new factual information, could nontheism. All that the denial of suffering selves religious. Because 1 define myself in destroy a sandy foundation that is built upon produces is isolation. part as a secular humanist, I can only say superstition. The moral of the story for nontheists that if we who so identify ourselves are to On the other hand, 1 remember a ter- is, it seems to me, that considered options function supportively on behalf of our own rifying moment in my early sobriety, a flash are necessary when tragedy strikes. Lack of in crisis, we have work to do. • thought: "What if this God wants me to drink?" Being wrapped in the swaddling clothes of cult-care can be comforting as long as one doesn't stray from the party line. Such a departure, I hereby attest, can result in powerful peer pressure an automatic reac- tion of the group to maintain its collective Sobriety Without Superstition concepts, no matter how irrational in the light of reason these concepts may be. The relatively small minority of insignificant others—heretics, in whose number I count myself—become expendable when they chal- lenge the group. Although the aforementioned support groups have helped legions of individuals, James Christopher and although the factual effectiveness of these group machinations cannot and should not be denied, secular humanists should not be expendable. I desire human love, support, rudging back to my folding chair, which has been a long and painful process, fraught and warmth; however, the fulfillment of Twas being held by my car keys lying with fear and trembling. For a period of these desires is not a prerequisite to my on the seat—the unwritten, longstanding approximately seventeen years, beginning in sobriety. My sobriety is my priority. traditional way of reserving seats at Alco- my late teens, 1 was a practicing alcoholic. 1 question the value of the individual holics Anonymous meetings—I and another My father also was an alcoholic. An only anonymity position espoused in support anonymous alcoholic collided, causing the child reared in Texas by Baptist parents, 1 groups. Sharing openly my awareness of contents of the styrofoam cup 1 was carrying was carefully taught to fear and to feel guilt. what 1 have recovered from and what a to slosh out. 1 took these teachings to heart and mind. relapse would do to me is a crucial truth, "Oh, God," he said, "H.P. is watching Since April 24, 1978, 1 have been not a shameful secret to be hidden away, over us, isn't He." M, fellow trudger's inter- sober—free from alcohol and all other revealed at closed meetings and discovered pretation of the incident: Because the decaf- mind-altering chemicals. Therefore, thinking, at large only by accident. feinated coffee did not spill onto us but feeling, experiencing life without drugs Certainly marching down a main street instead landed harmlessly on the floor, we'd and without superstition is relatively new to with placards is not what 1 am advocating, been protected and spared from wetness by me. But, just as I will never forget how to but 1 have come to realize that my relative a Higher Power, nicknamed "H.P." If the ride a bicycle, 1 will always have the etchings openness has been an important factor for liquid had drenched us, 1 am reasonably of addiction in my psyche. My only chance personal growth, contributing to a comfort- certain he still would have seen it as "God's for continued survival is the maintenance of able sobriety. will." my personal sobriety. Although there are relatively new, My perspective is that of a secular A well-accepted approach to curing humanistic groups struggling to survive humanist; agnostic. My path to that position addicts is to utilize the substitute addiction within the Alcoholics Anonymous organiza- of reliance upon a mystical power "greater" tion, reliance upon a higher power is "sug- than oneself, and it is part of the program gested" even at these heretical minority James Christopher is national and regional of Alcoholics Anonymous and other support meetings. Perhaps the day will come when advertising manager for Coast Media groups for the treatment of alcoholism and alcoholism and drug-abuse support groups Newspapers. He is also a free-lance writer drug abuse. This approach at worst involves unconditionally welcome any suffering addict and the co-leader of a small secular human- the alcoholic in an oppressive cultist atmos- and help the individual by strengthening ist group in Southern California. phere; at best, it encourages dependence his or her rational consciousness, free from upon something or someone other than one- superstition. •

Summer 1985 53 (Letters, continued from p. 3) organizing force. If such a force is postulated hension that promoter fidei can be translated to be a part of the natural universe, is it not as "devil's advocate." Admittedly, I depend The Spring 1985 issue of FREE INQUIRY was as valid an object of scientific inquiry as solely upon nonparanormal sources for my the best yet, guaranteed to gratify those who any other natural phenomenon? And, more knowledge, but despite this disadvantage I've pray daily for the demise of religion. Having important, why use the term God when always been fairly sure that "devil's advo- said that, let me express my disappointment referring to it? One might with equal justi- cate" translated advocatus diaboli, while with E. O. Wilson's cop-out in the last para- fication refer to the forces of gravitation and promoter fidei translated "defender of the graph of his interview with Jeffrey Saver, electromagnetism as "cosmological angels"! faith." namely, that if the universe had been And how a force inherent in the natural I do not possess the research materials organized on different principles neither we universe (a force whose existence is not even to ascertain which side of the ecclesiastical nor matter could have arisen. For all his established) could be considered by Wilson fence Lambertini straddled during the 1751 erudition, Wilson has simply resorted to to be the "last redoubt of theology" is quite beatification proceedings. However, if tautology. It should not surprise anyone that beyond my understanding. Beloffs Latin is correct and Lambertini was if the universe were different it would be Wilson also reveals that conditions in "defender of the faith," I find it not at all different, and we would not be here to the early universe were just right for the unremarkable that he spoke out in favor of agonize about it. That we exist is not formation of atoms, planets, etc., and that accepting the claims made on Joseph's meaningful per se, considering that such this fact gives us cause to "ponder" presuma- behalf. Such, after all, would only have been meaning can only be validated by reference bly about the need for an organizing force. his job. to an extra-universal axiological framework. This is very reminiscent of the Creationist Indeed, our dilemma is even more argument against evolution's occurring with- Thomas Flynn serious from an ontological point of view. out the asistance of a guiding hand. Wilson Buffalo, N.Y. If it is true, as according to the popular has simply retreated this argument back in "inflationary" hypothesis, that the universe time, giving us nothing better than the old evolved from the random fluctuation of a argument from design, albeit in fancier dress, The Enlightenment quantized bubble in an eleven-dimensional but subject to the same time-honored and de Sitter space, then the existence of parti- damning criticisms. The letter by Lawrence Cranberg, "A Salute cles, atoms, molecules, people, planets, stars, Finally, Wilson's claim (as stated by to Diderot" (FI, Spring 1985), requires a galaxies, etc., is of no particular merit or Saver) that "science will never be able to reply. Under the guise of saluting the significance. Moreover, a de Sitter space disprove the concept of God as creator of Enlightenment we are served a piece of requires an infinite sea of such bubbles, any the universe" is as irresponsible and irra- propaganda that makes the church—of all one of which may, at any pre-moment, move tional a position from a scientist as one things—the standard-bearer of the Enlight- in any qualitative direction or just keep the could imagine. It is no more the province or enment. status quo. The larger reality that embraces responsibility of science to "disprove" the Cranberg's letter makes essentially two our universe, since it is by definition infinite concept of God than to "disprove" the con- points, both dealing with education: in pre-time and pre-space, does not permit cept of the Easter Bunny or any other fanci- 1. The "enormous" role of the church an original cause or prime mover. Exit deo ful notion. What Wilson is demanding from in spreading scientific knowledge and cre- ab argumenta. science is in the final analysis proof that ating the educational base for the world- In the foregoing model, the mathe- something doesn't exist. We expect this kind wide diffusion of technology. matical and physical constants Wilson of silliness from theologians, but not from a 2. The Kremlin's unwillingness to imi- adverts to, though admittedly interesting in reputable scientist. The rational and scien- tate Catherine the Great in her attitude a superficial way, must be arbitrary phe- tific approach, of course, asks for proof of toward education. nomena, perhaps even artifacts of conscious- existence, and when this is lacking the To relate these two statements to each ness. But whether our minds create reality, responsibility for failure falls squarely on other, a relationship not immediately reflect it, or participate in it, the notion of a the shoulders of the original proposition. apparent to this writer, a few postulates on personal divinity in the Judeo-Christian- the subject of education may be in order for Islamic sense, or any sense, is unfounded. Brad Peacock the purpose of this retort. Wilson should not have left the door ajar Montverde, Fla. 1. Education as a means to an ideo- for such superstition—it just encourages the logical end is indoctrination. Neanderthals and postpones the day of 2. Education as a means to teaching liberation he and all of us so ardently await. Parapsychology and Religion professional skills is vocational training. 3. Education as a means of providing Don Bronkema If John Beloff s account of the beatification the intellectual baggage required for the cul- Washington, D.C. of Joseph Copertino ("Science, Religion and tivation of the critical mind and its applica- the Paranormal," FI, Spring 1985) is typical tion to all spheres of human endeavor was of what passes for scholarship in parapsy- the form of education the philosophes The interview with E. O. Wilson was for the chological circles, the discipline's disrepute promulgated. It is, therefore, inappropriate most part very informative and enjoyable. is indeed well earned. Beloff finds it impres- to speak of a new Enlightenment and an The last question to him, however, in addi- sive that even Prosper Lambertini (later old Enlightenment. Either there is enlighten- tion to recalling previous unfortunate state- Pope Benedict XIV), in his role as promoter ment or there ain't. Enlightenment is a frame ments of his position, elicited even more fidei, "duly acknowledged the 'celebrated of mind; it is not time-bound. It goes without obfuscation. Especially peculiar is Wilson's levitations and remarkable flights of this saying that no authoritarian regime, be it affinity for the nebulous terms Cosmological servant of God.' " This is indeed impressive the state or the church, has much use for God and, what is apparently an equivalent, ... if one shares Beloffs ludicrous misappre- this last kind of education. The doctrinal

54 FREE INQUIRY underpinning forming its socio-political base duced "the worldwide diffusion of tech- is a great need to conduct a larger, more leaves no room for free inquiry. No doubt nology and science." Be it that Cranberg statistically meaningful survey to determine the enlightened despots ruling at the time of has in mind "scientific creationism." What- whether our public library systems have been the Enlightenment, Catherine the Great, ever technological advancement may be pillaged or otherwise deprived of materials Frederick the Great of Prussia, et al., loved found there, it has nothing to do with the that present controversial issues clearly and the intellectual stimulus provided by the Enlightenment spelled with either a small or powerfully. lf, as I suspect, public library philosophes and the savants at their courts a capital E. If the new Enlightenment finds collections have been compromised by and certainly shared many of their ideas, its expression in "ecumenism and reconcilia- fanatics intent on preventing the public from not to the point, however, of seeing their tion" (between whom?), then it is difficult to being "infected" with ideas that they consider dictatorial powers questioned. Catherine explain the growing social polarization in harmful, then it is incumbent on those citi- was, of course, a German princess and not this country and the organized ideological zens who understand the true nature and a very peace-loving one at that. She was the intolerance. One cannot help wondering value of freedom of opinion and the product of a cultural and intellectual heritage what chances would Diderot have—presum- importance of access to all arguments to do shared by Diderot, which can hardly be said ing he were alive today—to obtain a visitor's our utmost to reestablish the intellectual of the relationship between Gorbachev and visa from the State Department to lecture integrity of those public library collections. Reagan. Conflicting ideologies do not lend in this country. So much for the "new themselves to the kind of argumentation Enlightenment." Bert P. Tryba required for reaching mutual understanding Boulder, Colo. and agreement. Common interests do, and Henry Darcy so does rational intercourse, actually con- Austin, Tex. sidered by Descartes as being the only means Jehovah's Witnesses of accommodating conflicting viewpoints. Ever-increasing scientific knowledge and its Censorship in Public Libraries I have come to expect certain attributes to application, technology, are present in both be associated with articles presented in FREE the United States and the U.S.S.R. One fails Recently, I conducted a survey of seventeen INQUIRY. I expect them to be informative, to see what role the church has played in public libraries in Illinois, Florida, and unbiased, and rational. The articles about this in either country. Considering the stag- Colorado on the availability of quality pub- Jehovah's Witnesses (FI, Winter 1984/85) gering illiteracy rates and the underdevelop- lications presenting the atheist argument in were disappointing in these respects. One ment in the third world, and that in spite of a clear, concise, and erudite manner accessi- author was obviously hostile to the Wit- the dominant presence of the church for ble to people with high school or college nesses and their beliefs. That would have centuries in many of these countries and in education. My survey and the interviews I been acceptable had you balanced your particular in Latin America, one looks in had with library directors, professors in presentation with an article by someone vain for that "educational base" that pro- social sciences, et al., convinces me that there (Continued on p. 58)

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Bank Number IMaxrerC:a,Jl The first edition of Bartley's great work was the With extreme clarity and amusing irony, Bartley focus of intense interest, and even some embarrass- chronicles the development of this line of thinking I „J r cart Number ment, among theologians and philosophers of in the writings of Tillich, Niehuhr, Barth, religion. In some quarters it was misinterpreted as Bultmann, and others, and identifies the intel- Signature no more than a critique of modem theology. But lectual dishonesty which results. although Bartley mercilessly dissects the irration- Bartley challenges the fashionable "rationalist ex- alist tendencies in twentieth-century Protestant Name cuse for irrationality" by an extension of Popper's thought, his argument has a wider application. Ad Ire. philosophy of science. Although none of our beliefs Modem Protestant theology is only one of many can he justified beyond question, this does not Ciritirire Zip systems which claim that, for logical reasons, reason prevent any belief from being compared with other is limited, that anyone who strives to he rational beliefs, criticized, and sometimes rejected. Mail to: must end up by making a dogmatic, irrational com- brilliantly argued and perceptive book" OPEN COURT mitment, and since one irrational commitment is as —Times Literary Supplement good as any other, the Christian is Justified in PUBLISHING COMPANY making a commitment to Christianity. —"Bartley's radicalism will startle philosophers of many schools." BOX 599 LA SALLE, ILLINOIS 61301 —Renford Bamhrough, New Statesman Attention Order Department For fastest service call, toll free, 800/435-6850 ISBN: 0-87548-4204 Cloth $18.95 (Illinois, 800/892-6831).

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What we do know is that humanism is taught in our schools. We do know our children are the primary target of humanism and globalism's drivel, and that music is one In the Name of God more means of communicating ideas and philosophies. . . . (From a Letter to the Editor of the St. Louis South County Journal)

Nudist Church Handicaps a Blessing? letters in the front of the church: "And these signs shall follow them that believe: In my ... Alert parishioners may notice small [a] Washington—An official in the Education name shall they cast out devils; they shall difference in the church services Ames resi- Department told a Senate hearing she speak with new tongues; They shall take up dent Zevs Cosmos proposes to start: All the believes the handicapped should accept their serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, worshippers will be in the nude. fate and view it as an "opportunity to spir- it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands Cosmos, whose real name is Aesfyza itually grow." . . . on the sick, and they shall recover. ".. . Esyedepeea, hopes to do for Christianity [Eileen] Gardner said that such trage- Despite their apparent abandon to emo- what dancer Sally Rand did for fans. He dies have a divine purpose. "It's not neces- tion during worship two members of the hopes to unveil Iowa's first Nudist Christian sarily a cruel fate, "she said... . church have died using serpents to glorify Church... . She also said that God has a `purpose" the Lord. (Mary Barrineau, for the L.A. Although Oral Roberts may never for- in creating retarded and disabled persons. Times-Washington Post News Service) get to don his jacket and tie before appearing "There is no injustice in the universe," she before his video congregation, Cosmos wrote several years ago. "As unfair as it believes a nudist church is firmly grounded may seem, a person's external circumstances "We Are the World" Is Humanistic in Biblical teaching. do fit his level of inner spiritual develop- Cosmos noted God commanded Isaiah ment. "(Kenneth Eskey, for Scripps Howard Why should a song that encourages people to walk naked and barefoot for three years News Service) to give money to feed the starving people of (Isaiah 20:2, 3). Job ripped off his robe and Africa raise concern among the thinking worshipped God after his wealth and chil- Born-Again About-Face people of our nation? Caring for the poor dren were taken from him (Job 1:20, 21) and hungry is no new matter to the United and Saul stripped down and prophesized New York—In her forthcoming book, "My States—we began that long before it was before Samuel and the other prophets (1 Mother's Keeper," Bette Davis' daughter, "the thing to do."... So why regard "We Samuel 19:23, 24). Barbara Davis Hyman, portrays the actress Are the World" differently? He (Cosmos, not God) hastens to add as a hard-drinking, belligerent neurotic who If one turns a discerning ear to the that God didn't clothe Adam and Eve in encouraged her only natural daughter to lyrics, a message stands out, not only to figleaf string bikinis as punishment for taking experiment with sex when she started dating help feed a starving nation, but a plea is a bite out of the forbidden fruit, but to keep at 13. made to act and think of global rather than them from catching the sniffles.... (Tom Hyman, 38, who joined the Pentecostal national loyalty and concern 'for the salva- Johnson, in the Iowa State Daily) church last year, told People magazine the tion and betterment of mankind." book was "a Christian act, not a betrayal." This view of mankind in a one- Trends in Belief "After I found the Lord I realized there economic, one-world society that "saves was a chance of a miracle in the literal sense itself" through "standing together," stems Over the last six years Emerging Trends has with Mother," she said. "For Mother to from Secular Humanism, whose primary covered a wide variety of topics. Some of change, she has to discover God through goal is "one world religion." the most interesting—and surprising— facing herself in this book. I want her to go This religion believes man is basically findings include the following: to heaven." good and that "Love Thy Neighbor" is —62% of Americans have no doubt that Before they quit speaking, Davis told possible if we want it to be. How they hope Jesus Christ will return to earth someday. Hyman she didn't want to go to heaven if to accomplish this when they encourage peo- —23% of U.S. adults (many of whom Hyman's husband, Jeremy, was going. (UPI) ple to reason out situations apart from regularly attend religious services) believe in absolute truth such as is found in the scrip- astrology... . tures is beyond me. They find God and his —Jesus Christ is fifth on a list of teen- Snake-handling for Jesus eternal truths unnecessary, potentially harm- agers of the greatest persons in history... . ful and confining to humanity... . — Little difference is found in the ethical . . . For the men and women of Wade's While this song could have correctly views and behavior of those who go to Chapel near Cartersville, Ga., bringing made reference to God by telling of Jesus church and those who don't when it comes several rattlers and an occasional copperhead multiplying loaves and fishes to meet the to lying, cheating, pilferage and non- or cobra to Sunday morning worship is not needs of those who followed him, they reporting of theft... . a carefully considered option or a scintil- incorrectly credit God with "turning stones — Nearly half of all U.S. adults believe lating diversion. It is a response to a com- to bread." This was a challenge by Satan to in creationism—that is, that all living crea- mand of Jesus. Jesus, to do Satan's will, as Jesus was fasting tures were brought into being within the last The Bible passage that contains the and praying. Jesus, however, refused the 10,000 years. . . . (Princeton Religion directive, Mark 16:17-18, is posted in big challenge and rebuked Satan... . Research Center's Emerging Trends)

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Summary of major articles: Winter 1980/81 — Vol. I, no. I: Secular Humanist Declaration. Democratic Seer, Richard Kostelanetz. Was Karl Marx a Humanist? articles by Sidney Humanism, Sidney Hook. Humanism: Secular or Religious? Paul Beattie. Hook, Jan Narveson, and Paul Kurtz. Free Thought, Gordon Stein. The Fundamentalist Right, William Ryan. Summer 1983—Special 68-page issue — Vol. 3, no. 3: Religion in American The Moral Majority. Sol Gordon. The Creation/ Evolution Controversy, politics Symposium: Is America a Judeo-Christian Republic? H. James Birx. Moral Education, Robert Hall. Morality Without Religion, Paul Kurtz. The First Amendment and Religious Liberty, Marvin Kohl, Joseph Fletcher. Freedom Is Frightening, Roy P. Fairfield. Sen. Lowell P. Weicker, Jr., Sam J. Ervin, Jr., Leo Pfeffer. The Road to Freedom, Mihajlo Mihajlov. Secular Roots of the American Political System, Henry Steele Commager, Daniel J. Boorstin, Robert Rutland, Spring 1981 — Vol. I, no. 2: The Secular Humanist Declaration: Pro and Richard B. Morris, Michael Novak. The Bible in Politics, Gerald Larue, Con, John Roche, Sidney Hook, Phyllis Schlafly, Gina Allen, Roscoe Robert S. Alley, James M. Robinson. Bibliography for Biblical Study. Drummond, Lee Nisbet, Patrick Buchanan. Paul Kurtz. New England Fall 1983 — Vol. 3, no. 4: The Academy of Humanism. The Future of Puritans and the Moral Majority, George Marshall. The Pope on Sex, Vern Humanism, Paul Kurtz. Humanist Self-Portraits, Bullough. On the Way to Mecca, Thomas Szasz. The Blasphemy Laws, Brand Blanshard, Barbara Wootton, Joseph Fletcher, Sir Raymond Firth, Jean-Claude Pecker. Gordon Stein. The Meaning of Life, Marvin Kohl. Does God Exist? Kai Inter- view with Paul MacCready. A Personal Humanist Manifesto, Nielsen. Prophets of the Procrustean Collective, Antony Flew. The Madrid Vern Bul- lough. The Enduring Humanist Legacy of Greece, Conference, Stephen Fenichell. Natural Aristocracy, Lee Nisbet. Marvin Perry. The Age of Unreason: A Defense of the Rational Enterprise, Thomas Vernon. Apoca- Summer 1981 — Vol. 1, no. 3: Sex Education, Peter Scales Thomas Szasz. lypse Soon, Daniel Cohen. 0n the Sesquicentennial of Robert G. Ingersoll, Moral Education, Howard Radest. Teen-age Pregnancy, Vern Bullough. Frank Smith. The Historicity of Jesus, John Priest, D. R. Oppenheimer, The New Book-Burners, William Ryan. The Moral Majority, Gerald Larue. G. A. Wells. Liberalism, Edward Ericson. Scientific Creationism, Delos McKown. New Winter 1983/84 — Vol. 4, no. I: Interview with B. F. Skinner. Was George Evidence on the Shroud of Turin, Joe Nickell. Agnosticism, H. J. Blackham. 0rwell a Humanist? Antony Flew. Population Control vs. Freedom in Science and Religion, George Tomashevich. Secular Humanism in Israel, China, Vern and Bonnie Bullough. Academic Freedom at Liberty Baptist Isaac Hasson. College, Lynn Ridenhour. Special Feature on the Mormon Church: Joseph Fall 1981 — Vol. I, no. 4: The Thunder of Doom, Edward P Morgan. Smith and the Book of Mormon, George D. Smith; The History of Mor- Secular Humanists: Threat or Menace? Art Buchwald. Financing of the monism and Church Authorities: Interview with Sterling M. McMurrin. Repressive Right, Edward Roeder. Communism and American Intellectuals, Anti-Science: The Irrationalist Vogue of the 1970s, Lewis Feuer. The End Sidney Hook. A Symposium on the Future of Religion, Daniel Bell, Joseph of the Galilean Cease-Fire? James Hansen. Who Really Killed Goliath? Fletcher. William Sims Bainbridge. Paul Kurtz. Resurrection Fictions, Gerald A. Larue. Humanism in Norway: Strategies for Growth, Levi Fragell. Randel Helms. Spring 1984 — Vol. 4, no. 2: Save Our Children from Faith Healers: Chris- Winter 1981/82 — Vol. 2, no. I: The Importance of Critical Discussion, tian Science Practitioners and Legal Protection for Children, Rita Swan; Karl Popper. Freedom and Civilization, Ernest Nagel. Humanism: The Con- Child Abuse and Neglect in Ultra-fundamentalist Cults and Sects, Lowell science of Humanity, Konstantin Kolenda. Secularism in Islam, Nazih N. Streiker. The Foundations of Religious Liberty and Democracy: A Sym- M. Ayubi. Humanism in the 1980s, Paul Beattie. The Effect of Education posium, Carl Henry, Paul Kunz, Father Ernest Fortin, Lee Nisbet. Joseph on Religious Faith, Burnham P Beckwith. Fletcher, Richard Taylor. Biblical Views of Sex: Blessing or Handicap? Jeffrey J. W. Baker. Moral Absolutes and Foreign Policy, Spring 1982 — Vol. 2, no. 2: A Call for the Critical Examination of the Nicholas Capaldi. The Vatican Ambassador, Edd Doerr. A Naturalistic Basis for Morality, Bible and Religion. Interview with Isaac Asimov on Science and the Bible, John Kekes. Humanist Self-Portraits, Matthew les Spetter, Floyd Matson, Paul Kurtz. The Continuing Monkey War, L. Sprague de Camp. The Richard Kostelanetz. Erosion of Evolution, Antony Flew. The Religion of Secular Humanism: A Judicial Myth, Leo Pfeffer. Humanism as an American Heritage, Nicholas Summer 1984—Special 68-page issue — Vol. 4, no. 3: School Prayer, Paul F Gier. The Nativity Legends, Randel Helms. Norman Podhoretz's Neo- Kurtz, Ronald A. Lindsay, Patrick J. Buchanan, Mark Twain. Science vs. Puritanism, Lee Nisbet. Religion in Future Constitutional Conflicts, Delos B. McKown. God and the Professors, Sidney Hook. Armageddon and Biblical Apocalyptic, Paul Summer 1982—Special 72-page issue — Vol. 2, no. 3: A Symposium on Kurtz, Joseph Edward Barnhart, Vern L. Bullough, Randel Helms, Gerald Science, the Bible, and Darwin: The Bible Re-examined, Robert S. Alley, A. Larue, John Priest, James Robinson. Robert S. Alley. Is the U.S. Gerald Larue, John Priest, Randel Helms. Darwin, Evolution, and Crea- Humanist Movement in a State of Collapse? John Dart. tionism, Philip Appleman, William V. Mayer, Charles Cazeau, H. James Fall 1984 — Vol. 4, no. 4: Humanist Author Attacked, Birx, Garrett Hardin, Sol Tax, Antony Flew. Ethics and Religion, Joseph Phyllis Schlafly, Sol Fletcher. Richard Taylor, Kai Nielsen, Paul Beattie. Science and Religion, Gordon. Humanists vs. Christians in Milledgeville, Georgia, Kenneth S. Michael Novak. Joseph L. Blau. Saladin. Suppression and Censorship in the Seventh-Day Adventist Church: Ellen White's Habit, Douglas Hackleman; Who Profits from the Prophet? Fall 1982 — Vol. 2, no. 4: An Interview with Sidney Hook at Eighty, Paul Walter Rea. Keeping the Secrets of the Dead Sea Scrolls, John M. Allegro. Kurtz. Sidney Hook: A Personal Portrait, Nicholas Capaldi. The Religion Health Superstition, Rodger Pirnie Doyle. Humanism in Africa: Paradox and Biblical Criticism Research Project, Gerald Larue. Biblical Criticism and Illusion, Paul Kurtz. Humanism in South Africa, Don Sergeant. and Its Discontents, R. Joseph Hoffmann. Boswell Confronts Hume: An Winter 1984/85 — Vol. 5, no. I: Are American Education Reforms Encounter with the Great infidel, Joy Frieman. Humanism and Politics, Doomed? Delos B. McKown. The Door-to-Door Crusade of the Jehovah's James R. Simpson. Larry Briskman. Humanism and the Politics of Nostal- Witnesses: The Apocalypticism of the Jehovah's Witnesses, gia, Paul Kurtz. Abortion and Morality, Richard Taylor. Lois Randle; The Watchtower: The Truth that Hurts, Laura Lage. Sentiment, Guilt, and Winter 1982/83 — Vol. 3, no. I: 1983—The Year of the Bible. Academic Reason in the Management of Wild Herds, Garrett Hardin. Animal Rights Freedom Under Assault in California, Barry Singer, Nicholas P Hardeman, Re-evaluated, James Simpson. Elmina Slenker: Infidel and Atheist, Edward Vern Bullough. The Play Ethic, Robert Rimmer. Interview with Corliss D. Jervey. Symposium: What Is Humanism?: Humanism Is a Religion, Lamont. Was Jesus a Magician? Morton Smith. Astronomy and the "Star Archie J. Bahm; Humanism Is a Philosophy, Thomas S. Vernon; of Bethlehem," Gerald Larue. Living with Deep Truths in a Divided World, Humanism: An Affirmation of Life, Andre Bacard. Sidney Hook. Anti-Science: The Strange Case of Paul Feyerabend, Martin Spring 1985 — Vol. 5, no. 2: Update on the Shroud of Turin, Joe Nickell. Gardner. The Vatican's View of Sex, Robert T. Francoeur. An Interview with E. 0. Spring 1983 — Vol. 3, no. 2: The Founding Fathers and Religious Liberty, Wilson, Jeffrey Saver. Religion and Parapsychology: Parapsychology: The Robert S. Alley. Madison's Legacy Endangered, Edd Doerr. James Madi- "Spiritual" Science, James E. Alcock; Science, Religion and the Paranormal, son's Dream: A Secular Republic, Robert A. Rutland. The Murder of John Beloff. The Legacy of Voltaire (Part I), Paul Edwards. The Origins of Hypatia of Alexandria, Robert E. Mohar. Hannah Arendt: The Modern Christianity, R. Joseph Hoffmann.

Summer 1985 57 humanists should prefer them to fundamen- BOOKS (Religious Broadcasting, corn'd from p. 7) talists since the Witnesses have no desire to B00KS AT DISC0UNT—and much more. enough. Jim Bakker's PTL Satellite Network have their interpretation of the Bible forced BETTER LIVES is a free forum for the claims 906 cable systems; even Paul Crouch's on the rest of us by legislatures or school exchange of ideas and a discount book cata- Trinity Network is carried on 272 cable boards. log. Send for your free copy today. Better Lives, P.0. Box 569, Cottage Grove, 0R systems and four broadcast stations. 97424. Yet the actual power of religious broad- Joseph A. Arsenault casting remains difficult to gauge. Authori- College Station, Tex. REALITY INSPECT0R. Strange fantasy story tative surveys suggest that the combined about consciousness, chess, computers. $5. John Caris, 56T Westgate, San Francisco, audience for all U.S. religious programs is CA 94127. only about 20 million—contradicting the Praise for FREE INQUIRY claims of some single religious programs to ALTERNATE IDENTITIES. Book $10.00; Dealers Wanted! Discounts to 60%! Book List reach even larger numbers of Americans. A 1 have never seen a magazine come closer to $2 (refundable). TECH-GR0UP, Box 93124, my own particular philosophy, and with such base of 20 million would suggest a cadre of Pasadena, CA 91109. fewer than 10 million devoted viewers and a candor and verve. hard core of perhaps less than a million Come out, come out, all you atheists Used books of libertarian interest. Subjects include atheism, anarchism, Mencken, Rand, whose attitudes and votes are potentially and freethinkers everywhere, before the reli- capitalism. Some first editions. Send stamp gious fanatics, zealots, and born-again molded by religious broadcasters. Yet even to Dunn's Mysteries, 251 Baldwin Ave., that number is about 5 percent of the Christians send us reeling into another Dark Meriden, CT 06450. nation's population. Age. We have so many more weapons on our side that with enough involvement we SECULAR HUMANIST/FREETH0UGHT Based on the facts now confronting us, LITERATURE. 0utstanding material since can surely overcome the simplistic arguments the best strategy for secular humanists would 1968. Modest prices. Free catalog. Inde- seem to be continued vigilance. While it of theists. pendent Publications, Box 162, Park Station, seems unlikely that today's religious broad- Joseph R. Choate III Paterson, NJ 07513. casting establishment has the power to East Brunswick, N.J. AMERICANIZING AMERICA by Frank Rood, restructure America according to its will, $3.00 ppd. There is hope. 611 - 2nd Street, we unquestionably face a richly variegated CLASSIFIED St. Petersburg, FL 33701. and influential adversary, determined to SICK 0F MATERIALISM, waste, and greed? promulgate a philosophy that ultimately RATES Join network developing positive alterna- offends our humanistic views of science, tives. Write: Inquiry, Box 741955, Dallas, TX Per word (single insertion) theology, and the political agenda. Should 75374. 10-word minimum 40 cents the power of religious broadcasting continue 10% discount for placement in 3 con- Used, New books. Variety of subjects. Fifty to grow, as seems likely, the biblical exhor- secutive issues cents for one or more lists, credited to first tation to "know thy enemy" will become Payment for insertion must accom- purchase. Specify subjects. Black Kettle increasingly valuable for secular humanists. pany copy. Books, Deposit, NY 13754. Thomas Flinn All classified ads are accepted at the COMPUTER discretion of the publisher. We are a few free-thinking friends using For additional information and rates Compuserve Easyplex, please join us. ID Nr (Letters, continued from p. 55) for classified display advertising, write: 75216, 2000. FREE INQUIRY EDUCATION Classified Dept. favorably disposed toward the Witnesses. H0ME STUDY COURSE IN EC0N0MICS. You did not. The other article should never Box 5, Central Park Station A 10-lesson study that will throw light on have appeared in a journal that has rational- Buffalo, N.Y. 14215 today's baffling problems. Tuition free — ity as its stated goal. It might well have small charge for materials. Write Henry ASSOCIATIONS been entitled: "Why 1 Don't Like Jehovah's George Institute, 5 E. 44th St., New York, Witnesses"—by a disillusioned former mem- The J0HN ALLEGR0 S0CIETY offers: Intro- NY 10017. duction $1, Synopsis Booklet $4 autographed: ber. H0W CAN I KN0W WHAT T0 BELIEVE? THE CH0SEN PE0PLE $30, Reedville, VA Looking for attractive study program to stim- 1 was one of Jehovah's Witnesses for 22539-0206. three years. 1 left because 1 felt that their ulate children's ethical development'? Search- ing for ethical educational materials that theological system (or any system based on SIX RURAL C0MMUNITIES invites visitors/ members. Sane alternative lifestyles! awaken interest and responsibility in children revelation) could not be supported rationally. Equality. Cooperation. Peace. Self- and youth while deepening insight and I still have friends that are members of the supporting. Write ($1.00 postage): Egali- understanding? For free descriptive order list, sect. The idea that 1 might need to use a tarians, Twin 0aks-FQ45, Louisa, VA 23093. write Education Materials, AMERICAN pseudonym when signing this letter to avoid ETHICAL UNI0N, Dept. F, 2 West 64 Street, Atheist information packet free. AMERICAN reprisals is ludicrous. The authors who New York, NY 10023. ATHEISTS P.0. Box 2117 Austin, TX 78768- refused to give their real names are either 9989. FILMS suffering from paranoia or are deliberately The Case of the Texas Footprints. 27- BERTRAND RUSSELL S0CIETY. Informa- trying to play upon the reader's emotions minute color videotape refuting creationist tion: FI, RD1, Box 409, Coopersburg, PA claims that human footprints exist alongside and prejudice. In addition, the articles that 18036. you published give an inaccurate picture of dinosaur tracks in Cretaccous rocks in Jehovah's Witnesses. The truth is that they "EVANGELICAL AGN0STICISM!" Texas. Rental $40; purchase $120. 0rder Free information and logo. from ISHI Films, P.0. Box 2367, Philadelphia, are neither better nor worse than any of the SEA, Box 515íi, Auberry, CA 93602. e PA 19103. other Christian sects. In fact, rationalists and

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Summer 1985 59 The Academy of Humanism

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

Humanist Laureates: Isaac Asimov, author; Sir Alfred J. Ayer, fellow of Wolfson College, Oxford University; Brand Blanshard, professor emeritus of philosophy, Yale University; Sir Hermann Bondi, professor of applied mathematics, King's College, University of London; Mario Bunge, Frothingham professor of foundations and philosophy of science, McGill University; Bernard Crick, professor of politics, Birkbeck College, University of London; Francis Crick, Nobel Laureate in Physiology, Salk Institute; Joseph Delgado, professor and chairperson in the Department of Neuro- psychiatry, University of Madrid; Milovan Djilas, author, former vice-president of Yugoslavia; Sir Raymond Firth, professor emeritus of anthropology, University of London; Joseph Fletcher, theologian, former professor of medical ethics, University of Virginia Medical School; Stephen Jay Gould, Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University; Albert Hidalgo, president of the Sociedad Asturiana de Filosofiá, Oviedo, Spain; Donald Johanson, Institute of Human Origins; Franco Lombardi, professor of philosophy, University of Rome; Jole Lombardi, organizer of the New University (laic) for the Third Age; Paul MacCready, Kremer Prize winner for aeronautical achievements; Ernest Nagel, professor emeritus of philosophy, Columbia University; Jean-Claude Pecker, professor of astrophysics, College de France, Academie des Sciences; Sir Karl Popper, professor emeritus of logic and scientific method, University of London; W. V. Quine, professor of philosophy, Harvard University; Carl Sagan, astronomer, Cornell University; Andrei Sakharov, physicist, Nobel Peace Prize winner; Thomas Szasz, professor of psychiatry, State University of New York Medical School (Syracuse); V. M. Tarkunde, chairman, Indian Radical Humanist Association; Richard Taylor, professor of philosophy, University of Rochester; G. A. Wells, professor of German, Birkbeck College, University of London; Edward O. Wilson, professor of sociobiology, Harvard University; Lady Barbara Wootton, Deputy Speaker, House of Lords. *Deceased: George O. Abell, George Olincy, Chaim Perelman.

Secretariat: Vern Bullough, dean of natural sciences, State University of New York College at Buffalo; Antony Flew, professor of philosophy, Reading University, (England); Sidney Hook, professor emeritus of philosophy, New York University; Paul Kurtz, professor of philosophy, SUNY at Buffalo, Editor of FREE INQUIRY; Gerald Larue, professor emeritus of archaeology and biblical studies, University of Southern California at Los Angeles. Religion and Biblical Criticism Research Project The Religion and Biblical Criticism Research Project was founded to help disseminate the results of biblical scholarship— studies in comparative religion, folklore, scientific archaeology, and literary analysis. It investigates the claim that the Bible is divinely inspired, the historical evidence for Jesus and other Bible personalities, the role of religious myth, symbol, and ritual, and the possibility of basing morality upon reason and experience instead of biblical doctrine. The Research Project's goals include compiling bibliographies of the best sources of information about the Bible, publishing articles and monographs about different facets of biblical research, and convening seminars and conferences.

Steering Committee: Gerald Larue (Chairman), emeritus professor of biblical history and archaeology, University of Southern California; Robert Alley, professor of humanities, University of Richmond; Randel Helms, professor of English, Arizona State University; R. Joseph Hoffman, associate professor of biblical studies, University of Michigan; Paul Kurtz, professor of philosophy, SUNY at Buffalo; John F. Priest, professor and chairman, Department of Religion, Florida State University; James Robinson, director, Institute for Antiquity and Christianity, Claremont College.

Associates: Michael Arnheim, professor of ancient history, University of Witwatersrand; Paul Beattie, president, Fellowship of Religious Humanists; Fred Berg; H. James Birx, chairman of Anthroplogy/Sociology Department, Canisius College; David B. Buehrens; Joseph Fletcher, theologian, former professor of medical ethics, University of Virginia Medical School; Sidney Hook, professor emeritus of philosophy, New York University; Robert Joly, professor of philosophy, Centre Interdisciplinaire d'Etudes Philosophiques de l'Universite de Mons (Belgium); William V. Mayer, director, Biological Sciences Curriculum Study, University of Colorado; Delos McKown, professor of philosophy, Auburn University; Carol Meyers, professor of religion, Duke University; Lee Nisbet, associate professor of philosophy, Medaille College; George Smith, president, Signature Books; Morton Smith, professor of history, Columbia University; A. T. Steegman, professor of anthropology, State University of New York at Buffalo; Richard Taylor, professor of philosophy, University of Rochester; G. A. Wells, professor of German, Birkbeck College, University of London.