GENIAL ATHEISM presents a holistic overview of the nature, history, and allure of both religion and atheism. It answers questions that have long plagued atheists, agnostics, and believers alike, such as: • Why do many believers hate atheists and fear atheism? • Why have religions been so relentless in their attempts to root out and destroy atheism? • Why have religions failed as moralizing forces? • Why do so many believers clutch at magic while they flee from science? • What aspect of human nature accounts for religion’s persistence in the face of the triumphs of reason and the advances of science? Here is a sample. “Our capacity to reason has raised us to rule over the animals, and to understand and manipulate nature, so that we can probe to our cores and soar toward the stars. But the magnificent, powerful conscious mind is only a veneer that yields, even grovels on demand, before the might of the unconscious mind bubbling below. The hidden unconscious, with all its drives and fears, primed by primordial and infantile programming, commands us in so many ways and compels and rivets us to beliefs and opinions that we arrogate to the free will of our intellects or ascribe to some external deity.” Other books by Professor Stan Gedzelman are: 1. The Science and Wonders of the Atmosphere 2. The Soul of All Scenery: A History of the Sky in Art 3. Calculus: Your Royal Road to Genius 4. Sub Ways: Memoir and Reflections of a Professor Turned Substitute Teacher. See www.stanrenaissanceman.com GENIAL ATHEISM Stanley David Gedzelman 14 July 2021 “Thank God there’s no God.” TO LIFE AND TO MY FATHER, MILTON, WHO TAUGHT ME TO READ THE LINES MY MOTHER, RITA, WHO TAUGHT ME TO READ BETWEEN THE LINES TO MY UNCLES, BERT AND JESSE, WHO LOVED TO THINK AND TO LEON WARSHAW WHO AIMED ME TOWARDS WISDOM Stanley David Gedzelman Books Copyright 2021 © Stanley David Gedzelman ISBN 978-0-9911976-3-7 This book can be found on the website www.stanrenaissainceman.com The website contains the four books below plus many other works 1. The Soul of All Scenery: A History of the Sky in Art 2. Calculus: Your Royal Road to Genius 3. Sub Ways: Memoir and Reflections of a Professor Turned Substitute Teacher 4. Genial Atheism Cover Photo: Taken from Michelangelo’s Creation of Adam in the Sistine Chapel and Hubble’s View of Barred Spiral Galaxy NGC 1672. PREFACE Why did I write Genial Atheism (aside from hoping to better understand myself and my fellow humans) and what does the title mean? There are millions of cookbooks, billions of dieting, exercise, and how to succeed books, and trillions of inspirational books extolling the blessings and miracles of faith and religion. Surely then, there is a call for one more of the teeny handful of books on atheism to offer an alternative to religion’s inordinate influence and control over our lives. Each book on Atheism occupies a different niche, its perspective deriving from the author’s expertise and orientation. Genial Atheism is more personal than average. It devotes more time and effort explaining what drives so many of us to believe so ardently in a personal God that no one can see and to blindly join religions that urge and may even demand we give our lives or take the lives of others. It includes more on the history and evolution of religion and atheism, and has the advantage of standing on the shoulders of noble predecessors. Genial Atheism is distinguished by rejecting the assertion by many atheists that reason will free us from the fetters of religion and the dogged belief in phantasms. Our capacity to reason has raised us to rule over the animals, and to understand and manipulate nature, so that we can probe to our cores and soar toward the stars. But our magnificent, powerful conscious mind is only a veneer that yields, even grovels on demand, before the might of the unconscious mind bubbling below. The hidden unconscious, with all its drives and fears primed by primordial and infantile programming, commands us in so many ways and compels and rivets us to beliefs and opinions that we arrogate to the free will of our intellects or ascribe to some external deity. The main delusion conventional believers suffer involves ascribing our inner powers and weaknesses to external beings. First, we ascribe our sense of tranquility, confidence, majesty, and our talents to a God we see as a controlling and too often, threatening or punishing parent. Second, we blame our inner sense of turmoil, fear, and terror, and perhaps our shortcomings to a Satan who tosses and tempts us with uncontrollable drives and desires that lead us to sin but provide our vital lifeblood. Genial atheists know all are subject to the same drives and fears but that they are more curious and have a greater ability and willingness to question than believers. They also know that they have somehow wrested themselves free of the atavistic, misguided and false belief that our inner drives, yearnings, and fears are external and lie outside ourselves. Oh, and what marks a genial atheist? Quite simply, genial atheists welcome you to believe in any God, angel, Satan, devil, and doctrine you want, so long as you do not attempt to impose your beliefs on anyone else (which, of course so many believers can’t resist doing). Then you can rest assured that genial atheists will keep their lack of belief in these phantasms to themselves. What is wonderful about Genial Atheism or any book on Atheism is that no one will force you to read it. But what is more wonderful and even more important, is that no one can prevent you from reading it, at least wherever religion has lost its power as censor. Is Genial Atheism harsh on religion and belief? Genial Atheism is a polemic, no bones about it. But despite the title, its primary advocacy is neither against individual belief in a personal God, which everyone should be entitled to, no matter how absurd and childish, nor against spiritual or religious type sentiments and inspirations, which can be glorious. What Genial Atheism primarily rails against first is the dictatorial mindset of religious or secular tyrants, who would impose their beliefs and dogmas on everyone and suppress, silence, and squash all independent thought and dissent. Their mindset is cogently expressed by Matthew 12:30, “He that is not with me is against me; and he that gathereth not with me scattereth abroad.” I excoriate the first phrase as the calling card of all autocrats, and diagnose the second as an illustration of their unbounded and unwarranted arrogance. Second, Genial Atheism calls out the gullibility, indeed, eagerness of followers, with their collectivist mindset, to carry out the most vicious wishes and demands of their leaders, doctrines, or groups. Any organized power seeks to impose its views on all. That is human nature. The idea of separation of Church and State, written in the diluted version of James Madison’s initial statement of the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States that Congress was able to agree on, expressed a key component of the Founders’ intent to ensure the establishment of a secular democratic Republic, whose people were free to follow any religion, presumably so long as it harms no one else. The fact, however, is that organized religion (and totalitarian states) occupy special niches in the arena of stricture, for controlling and corralling human minds and spirits lies at their cores. In a world of infinite options of things to do and to learn it is insane for anyone to submit to an option whose focus and imperative is to limit or shut off so many good options that life offers. Genial Atheism expresses umbrage at the prerogatives organized religion arrogates to itself, exposing its bogus claims to moral rectitude, how it promulgates stultifying irrational fears, imposes myriad divisive, exclusionary and nonsensical rules and restrictions, and mandates punishments for violations of any of these, which violations it invariably condemns as sins. For years I remained silent in the face of these outrages, but the straw that finally goaded me to write Genial Atheism is a grievance that became clear and strong as our country grew more than ever divided into opposing intransigent camps. We are constructed with clannish tendencies as a matter of simian survival and Paleolithic progress, but I cannot abide blind advocates who embrace a position the moment their team or leader takes it and oppose the identical position the moment the opposing team or leader takes it. They may firmly believe their positions and the ‘facts’ they cherry pick to support them. Their reasoning and rhetoric may sound eloquent and ingenious. But the starting and ending points are always preset. It is a form of self hypnosis, but more than that. Such acolytes may wink at or even participate in murder or holocausts and exterminations committed in the name of the gods or dogmas they believe in. They will allow or execute monstrous crimes so as to protect themselves from their worst inner fears, which they will never acknowledge or recognize, while they make the absurd claim that they are fulfilling the demands of and protecting their omnipotent, omniscient God or leader. If Genial Atheism can ameliorate in any degree this all too inhuman human tendency or condition in one person then, as the saying goes, it will have saved the entire human race. That’s not bad for a start. 14 July 2021 TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER 1.