TOM FLYNN: The Trouble with Stay

CELEBRATING REASON AND HUMANITY April/May 2014 Vol. 34 No.3

EASTER: WHAT REALLY HAPPENED? David K. Clark | The Vanishing of the Christ

RONALD A. LINDSAY on the Hobby Lobby Case Why Is Creationism So Persistent? Lorraine Hansberry Appreciated The Faith I Left Behind, Part 2

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Shadia B. Drury | Arthur L. Caplan Published by the Council Ophelia Benson | Greta Christina for Secular Humanism

April/May 2014 Vol. 34 No. 3

CELEBRATING REASON AND HUMANITY

Easter: What Really Happened?

16 Introduction 28 Why I Am Not a Member . . . of Anything Tom Flynn Robert F. Allen

17 Betting on Jesus: 30 Leaving Unholy Mother Church The Vanishing of the Christ William F. Nolan David K. Clark 31 Why Is Creationism So Persistent? The Faith I Left Behind, Part 2 Lawrence Wood

24 Why I Am Not a 38 Faith: A Disappearing Concept Fundamentalist Christian Mark Rubinstein Celeste Rorem 60 New Laureates Elected to 26 Why I Am Not a Muslim The Academy of Humanism Kylie Sturgess

EDITORIAL LETTERS REVIEWS 4 To What Extent Should We 12 56 Stay: A History of Suicide and Accommodate Religious Beliefs? the Philosophies Against It Ronald A. Lindsay DEPARTMENTS by Jennifer Michael Hecht Reviewed by Tom Flynn 46 Church-State Update OP-EDS School Rankings and Vouchers: 7 Dead Is Dead Connecting the Dots 61 Just Babies: The Origins of Arthur L. Caplan Edd Doerr Good and Evil by Paul Bloom 8 What Would Happen If 48 Great Minds Reviewed by Wayne L. Trotta We All Came Out? Lorraine Hansberry: Writing in Greta Christina the Light of Reason 63 The Public School Advantage: Becca Challman 9 Is Democracy a Threat to Liberty? Why Public Schools Outperform Shadia B. Drury Private Schools 50 Applied Ethics by Christopher A. Lubienski What’s the Appeal of Christian Ethics? and Sarah Theule Lubienski 11 Share, Yes; Force, No William R. Creasy Ophelia Benson Reviewed by Edd Doerr 54 Humanism at Large POEM My Invisible Friends by Katharine Merow OBITUARY Dennis E. Erickson 55 Joe Levee, Supporter and Former 64 Modern Mortuary Science Board Member Editor Thomas W. Flynn Associate Editor Lauren Becker Managing Editor Andrea Szalanski Ronald A Lindsay Editorial

Columnists Ophelia Benson, Russell Blackford, Arthur L. Caplan, Greta Christina, Edd Doerr, Shadia B. Drury, Nat Hentoff, Tibor R. Machan, Mark Rubinstein

Senior Editors Bill Cooke, Richard Dawkins, Edd Doerr, James A. Haught, Jim Herrick, Gerald A. Larue, Ronald A. Lindsay, Taslima Nasrin Contributing Editors Roy P. Fairfield, Charles Faulkner, Levi Fragell, Adolf Grünbaum, Marvin Kohl, Lee Nisbet To What Extent Should We Assistant Editors Julia Lavarnway Sean Lachut Accommodate Religious Beliefs? Permissions Editor Julia Lavarnway Art Director Christopher S. Fix

Production Paul E. Loynes Sr.

Chair Edward Tabash Board of Directors R. Elisabeth Cornwell ending before the Supreme Court den supposedly violates the Religious Kendrick Frazier at the time of this writing are two Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA). RFRA, Barry A. Kosmin Hector Sierra cases that raise some fundamen- enacted in 1993, prohibits the federal Jonathan Tobert tal questions regarding the rela- government from substantially bur- Leonard Tramiel P tionship between the government and dening a person’s exercise of religion Judith Walker Lawrence Krauss (Honorary) religion in a secular state. The court’s absent a compelling interest.* decisions in Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby One very interesting issue presented Chief Executive Officer Ronald A. Lindsay Stores and Conestoga Wood Specialties by these cases is whether for-profit Executive Director Thomas W. Flynn v. Sebelius, which will likely be issued corporations can be regarded as pos- Associate Director Lauren Becker by the end of June, may indicate the sessing religious beliefs. The notion of Director, Campus and extent to which religious beliefs can be a for-profit corporation being entitled Community Programs (CFI) Debbie Goddard used as a basis for avoiding compliance to the free exercise of religion is a pecu- Director, Secular Organizations with government policy. liar one, to say the least. A corporation Jim Christopher for Sobriety In these two cases, for-profit cor- doesn’t engage in religious practices, Director, African Americans for Humanism Debbie Goddard porations are challenging the federal as these are usually understood. A cor- regulation that requires employers poration doesn’t pray, receive the sac- Director of Development (CFI) Alan Kinniburgh to provide contraceptive services to raments, or participate in worship ser- Director of Libraries (CFI) Timothy Binga their employees via their health-care vices. Does a commercial corporation even have a soul that can be saved? Communications Director Paul Fidalgo plans. The regulation in question was issued by the Department of Health Recognizing the right of a for-profit Database Manager (CFI) Jacalyn Mohr and Human Services (HHS) as part of corporation to claim a religious iden- Webmaster Matthew Licata its implementation of the Affordable tity would work a revolution in First Staff Pat Beauchamp, Ed Beck, Care Act (a.k.a. Obamacare). The cor- Amendment jurisprudence. However, Melissa Braun, Shirley Brown, Eric Chinchón, porations allege that this regulation I’m actually more concerned about the Roe Giambrone, burdens their religious beliefs because Jason Gross, Paul Paulin, *Note that as originally enacted, RFRA also Anthony Santa Lucia, the individual corporate owners (in applied to state and local governments. Diane Tobin, both cases, the principal shareholders) However, in City of Boerne v. Flores, 521 U.S. Vance Vigrass 507 (1997), the Supreme Court ruled that object on religious grounds to at least Executive Director Emerita Jean Millholland RFRA was unconstitutional as applied to some forms of contraception. This bur- state and local governments.

4 Free Inquiry April/May 2014 secularhumanism.org FREE INQUIRY (ISSN 0272-0701) is published bimonthly by other, underlying issue in these cases, invoke religion as grounds for declin- the Council for Secular Humanism, a nonprofit educational namely, whether any entity, includ- ing to assist gay clients? (These examples corporation, P.O. Box 664, Amherst, NY 14226-0664. Phone (716) 636-7571. Fax (716) 636-1733. Copyright ©2014 by ing religiously affiliated nonprofits, reflect actual cases.) the Council for Secular Humanism. All rights reserved. No part has a right to be exempt from pro- The classic example of a religious of this periodical may be reproduced without permission of the publisher. Periodicals postage paid at Buffalo, N.Y., and viding government-mandated insur- exemption—and for a long time the at additional mailing offices. 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Sebelius confronted eventually. . . . may indicate the BACK ISSUES Before discussing the merits of the Back issues through Vol. 23, No. 3 are $6.95 each. Back issues extent to which religious beliefs Vol. 23, No. 4 and later are $5.95 each. 20% discount on religious-exemption claim in the context can be used as a basis for orders of 10 or more. Call 800-458-1366 to order or to ask for of the contraceptive mandate litigation, a complete listing of back issues. let me step back a moment and ask: avoiding compliance with REPRINTS/PERMISSIONS Why should we recognize any exemp- To request permission to use any part of FREE INQUIRY, write to government policy.” FREE INQUIRY, ATTN: Julia Lavarnway, Permissions Editor, P.O. tions from general legal obligations on Box 664, Amherst, NY 14226-0664. religious grounds? Is there something WHERE TO BUY FREE INQUIRY special about religious belief that requires FREE INQUIRY is available from selected book and magazine the religious to be exempt from rules and going to refuse to fight. Of course, the sellers nationwide. regulations they find objectionable? Note government could send the objector ARTICLE SUBMISSIONS that I am not suggesting that the govern- to prison, but that also seems point- Complete submission guidelines can be found on the web at www.secularhumanism.org/fi/details.html. ment can specifically try to suppress reli- less. What the government has done Requests for mailed guidelines and article submissions should gious beliefs and practices through legis- instead is to require the objector to per- be addressed to: Article Submissions, ATTN: Tom Flynn, FREE lation or other government action. I’m a form alternative service either in a non- INQUIRY, P.O. Box 664, Amherst, NY 14226-0664. firm believer in freedom of conscience. 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Can a long-haul truck driver refuse This, of course, was the issue confronted advocate and defend a nonreligious life stance rooted in science, naturalistic philosophy, and humanist ethics to work with a female partner because by the Supreme Court in a couple of and to serve and support adherents of that life stance. doing so would violate his religious cases during the Vietnam War. In the beliefs? Can a nurse refuse to participate case that most squarely raised the in certain medical procedures, such as issue of the right of a nonreligious per- organ transplants, because of religious son to claim conscientious-objector sta- scruples? Can a state-employed counselor tus, Welsh v. United States, 398 U.S. 333

secularhumanism.org April/May 2014 Free Inquiry 5 (1970), the court ruled that a person is generally did not fare well in the courts lenging the contraceptive mandate. entitled to an exemption as a conscien- if there was any indication that grant- Although what constitutes a “substan- tious objector if the person objects to ing the exemption might cause harm tial burden” on one’s religious beliefs is war based on moral or ethical beliefs that to others. not clearly defined under the statute, have “the strength of traditional religious However, the Supreme Court’s deci- unfortunately courts have been inter- convictions.” In his concurring opinion, sion in Employment Division v. Smith, preting the term broadly. That said, in Justice John Marshall Harlan argued that 494 U.S. 872 (1990), which was decided my view, the HHS mandate cannot plau- any other outcome would have violated under the free exercise clause, caused sibly be regarded as placing a substan- the establishment clause. a backlash. In this case, the Supreme tial burden on anyone’s exercise of reli- Claims for religious exemptions out- Court upheld the denial of unemploy- gion. The regulation does not require side the context of compulsory military ment compensation benefits to two anyone to use contraception, obtain service began to proliferate after the Native Americans who had been fired contraception, or even distribute con- passage of Title VII of the 1964 Civil after smoking peyote as a part of a traception to coworkers or employees. Rights Act, which prohibited employ- religious ceremony. Many regarded this For nonprofit employers who present ment discrimination based on religion. as an unjustifiably harsh result because a religious objection, there is not even Some employees claimed, for example, it was unclear what harm would be the requirement to fund the health that they were entitled to be absent caused by granting benefits to these insurance that provides the contracep- discharged workers. The congressional tive coverage. What those employers response was RFRA, which perhaps, in objecting to the mandate are effec- a roundabout way, proves the maxim tively complaining about is not being that hard cases make bad law. able to control the conduct of their Leaving RFRA aside for the moment, employees, some of whom may choose “One very interesting issue when should we accommodate reli- to use contraception. However, being presented by these cases is gious beliefs? When it makes no sig- denied the ability to control the con- nificant difference to anyone else. In duct of others such that they conform whether for-profit corporations other words, religious exemptions from to one’s own religious beliefs does not can be regarded as possessing general rules and regulations should be constitute a burden on a person’s exer- religious beliefs.” limited to self-regarding behavior. To cise of religion. If employers prevail paraphrase Thomas Jefferson, it neither on their challenge to the contracep- picks my pocket nor breaks my leg if a tive mandate, they would be permitted Jewish student wants to be absent for to use their religion to deprive their Rosh Hashanah, if a Muslim clerk at employees of benefits these employees CVS wears a hijab, or if a Hindu prisoner would otherwise be legally entitled to. from work on the day of their Sabaath, insists on a beef-free meal. I don’t care. Any interpretation of RFRA that allows whether that be Saturday, Sunday, or Any cost to others from such accom- it to be used as a vehicle for imposing some other day. However, the courts modations is de minimis. I do think someone’s religious views on others found that there was no duty to accom- nonreligious individuals should be able and causing them harm would result in modate the religious beliefs of employ- to insist on comparable rights if they a palpable clash between RFRA and the ees unless doing so did not burden assert some plausible moral basis for establishment clause. others. their claim, such as a commitment to Accommodation of religious beliefs In Sherbert v. Verner, 374 U.S. 398 being a vegan, but other than this qual- cannot be distorted into the privileging (1963), the Supreme Court did hold ification, I take no issue with accommo- of religious beliefs—not without under- that it violated the free exercise clause dation of religious practices that are mining the core principles of a secular to deny a Seventh-day Adventist unem- truly self-regarding. state. ployment benefits because she refused This brings us back to to work on Saturday, but in this case the contraceptive man- granting the exemption did not work date litigation and the Ronald A. Lindsay is president and CEO of the Center for Inquiry any hardship on others. Note that the interpretation of RFRA. and the Council for Secular Human­ism. Along with Edward Tabash court did not rule that the employer One must concede that and Nicholas Little, he wrote the amicus curiae brief submitted had to rehire the worker, only that she the wording of RFRA is on behalf of the Center for Inquiry in the consolidated cases of could collect unemployment. Religious vague enough to pro- Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby Stores and Conestoga Wood Specialties claims for exemptions from rules and vide at least superficial v. Sebelius. regulations that applied to everyone support to those chal-

6 Free Inquiry April/May 2014 secularhumanism.org Arthur L. Caplan OP-ED

Dead Is Dead

hirteen-year-old Jahi McMath prime minister who was kept alive in a None of these statutes says who is to died on December 12, 2013, at vegetative state for eight years before pay the bill for continuing care post- TChildren’s Hospital & Research he died, no one recovers from brain death, but it is hugely unlikely that Center Oakland in California. Months death. Take away the machines, and insurance companies or government later, she was still on a ventilator at breathing stops. Keep the machines programs would do so. an undisclosed location. Her parents going for a person who is brain dead, No one, least of all loving parents, refused to accept her death. They and, while the heart may beat for a easily accepts the death of a family insisted on praying for a miracle. What time, the body goes into slow, inev- member. If such decisions are left to was done to her corpse was wrong, itable, physiological deterioration in family members, our intensive care but a bigger issue is the threat her case which digestion fails, skin breaks down, units will fill with bodies on machines poses to the legal status of brain death, hormone regulation fails, and the body the rational and moral use of health- loses control of temperature and blood care worker skills, and the burden it pressure, as well as the ability to uri- may create on expensive health-care nate and defecate. resources. To keep Jahi’s body on machines Jahi suffered from sleep apnea, was ethically wrong because a defini- likely due to her obesity. Her parents tive diagnosis of brain death is legally had taken the girl to Children’s Hospital recognized as death. Maintaining a Oakland for surgery to remove her ton- corpse by artificial means is only slow- “Medicine cannot do anything sils to help open her airway. Things ing the inevitable decay and putrefac- for patients diagnosed went tragically wrong, although exactly tion of bodily remains. as brain dead.” why or how is not known since no Despite the legal recognition of autopsy was performed. Jahi suffered brain death as death in every state, complications after surgery, including a two states allow religious beliefs to heart attack and hemorrhaging in her take precedence over medical exper- brain. Experts in neurology at Children’s tise. In response to the objection of Hospital Oakland—and an outside neu- some Orthodox Jews to the use of rological expert from Stanford who neurological criteria in diagnosing was asked to perform an independent death, a 1987 New York regulation assessment by a court—determined requires hospitals to have procedures surrounded by those hoping, and that brain death had occurred. They for the “reasonable accommodation” sometimes praying, that maybe death knew with certainty that Jahi met the of patients’ religious or moral objec- has not occurred. criteria for brain death because they tions to the standards used to deter- It is wrong for health-care providers to were well aware of the sequence of mine death. And in 1991, New Jersey treat someone who is dead. It is wrong for events that had led to her massive brain enacted a statute that recognizes both lawyers to ask judges to overrule medical injury. “traditional cardio-respiratory criteria” expertise when it is doctors—not jurists— Medicine cannot do anything for and “modern neurological criteria” for who know when death occurs according patients diagnosed as brain dead. death. This law prohibits a physician to medical and legal consensus. It is bad Unlike those in a coma or in a per- from declaring brain death and stop- public policy and likely unconstitutional manent vegetative state, such as Terri ping care when the doctor “has reason Schiavo, a Florida woman whose par- to believe” that “a declaration would to allow those who invoke religious rea- ents fought unsuccessfully with her violate the personal religious beliefs of sons to override the law and medical husband about whether to keep her the individual,” according to the New consensus. alive, or Ariel Sharon, the former Israeli Jersey Office of the Attorney General. (Continued on page 42)

secularhumanism.org April/May 2014 Free Inquiry 7 Greta Christina OP-ED

What Would Happen If We All Came Out?

hat would happen if we all This isn’t an idle question for me. I’ve to think that atheists have no morality came out? What would hap- recently published a book on this topic: when they know us and see how much Wpen if every atheist, humanist, Coming Out Atheist: How to Do It, How we care about doing the right thing, agnostic, freethinker, and every nonbe- to Help Each Other, and Why. Based on or to think that we have no meaning liever of every stripe went public about over four hundred coming-out stories or joy to our lives when they know us the fact that we don’t believe in any as well as my own observations and and see how passionate we are. I’ll gods? experiences, the book is a nuts-and- go out on a limb and say that it’ll also I know that’s a wildly ambitious bolts guide to telling the people in put a serious dent in religious belief goal. It’s also unrealistic: many people your life that you don’t believe in God. itself: religion relies on social consent really and truly can’t be completely It’s got strategies and philosophies on to perpetuate itself, and as more peo- open about their nonbelief without coming out to family members, friends, ple realize that nonbelief is an option, risking their jobs, homes, support sys- coworkers, and spouses. It’s for peo- more of them will recognize that belief tems, children, and in some cases their ple coming out in conservative and is insupportable and will let it go. (If safety. So let’s dial it back a notch. progressive communities, in the U.S. you talk to a bunch of atheists and ask What would happen if every nonbe- military, on the Internet, in theocracies why they left religion, you’ll see that liever told one person—just one—that both overt and de facto; for students “meeting other atheists” or “hearing we don’t believe in any gods? and parents and people who are deal- about atheism” is often an important ing with other sorts of marginalization; part of the process.) And as those peo- and more. In addition to the guidance ple let religion go, more people in their on coming out, the book has an entire lives will start to question it . . . and so “What would happen if every section on how to help and support on, and so on, and so on. Coming out other atheists in coming out. nonbeliever told one person— atheist has a snowball effect—and that A huge part of the reason that I snowball has the potential to turn into wrote the book is that I can’t stop just one—that we don’t believe an avalanche. thinking about how powerful it would in any gods?” Coming out to at least one more be if every one of us took just one step person would also radically transform out of the atheist closet. I think it would our own lives, for most of us anyway. be transformative.­ I think it would rad- In the overwhelming majority of the ically change the international conver- hundreds of coming-out stories that I What would happen if those of us sation about atheism—and for that collected for my book, people said that who are fairly closeted about our non- matter, about religion. It would put a they were happier after they’d done it. belief came out to one person in our serious dent in the bigotry nonbelievers Even if it had been a rough road—even lives—our mother, our brother, our best face: research consistently shows that if these people had been met with tears friend? What would happen if those of people’s bigotry against a group goes and recriminations, fear and hostility, us who’ve told some people about our down when they know a person in that bigotry, and sometimes outright alien- nonbelief but not others came out to group (or, as in the case of invisible ation—they still felt better after doing just one more person—our cousin, our minorities such as LGBT people or athe- it, and they still thought it was the coworker, our neighbor? What would ists, when they know that they know a right decision. I literally read only one— happen if those of us who are already person in that group). So when people count ’em, one—story from an atheist pretty open about our nonbelief came know that they know an atheist, it’ll be who had come out and regretted it. For out to one more person who doesn’t harder for them to hate or fear us. already know—our bank manager, our It would put a serious dent in the almost everyone, it changed their lives favorite barista, the person sitting next myths and misunderstandings people for the better. to us at the airport? have about us: it’ll be harder for people (Continued on page 42)

8 Free Inquiry April/May 2014 secularhumanism.org Shadia B. Drury OP-ED

Is Democracy a Threat to Liberty?

e live in an age that is in love a race in which the most outstanding Smith’s Wealth of Nations succeeded with democracy. Democracy is succeed. In this way, inequality is justi- in undermining the mercantilist system Wconsidered the gold standard of fied by the fairness of the race. of monopolistic privileges in favor of political order, rationality, prosperity, The goals of liberalism do not depend the capitalist system of unhampered and well-being. We are willing to fight on political participation in the public individual competition. In this way, eco- wars for it; we are willing to die and sphere. Liberalism asks only that the indi- nomic liberalism was wedded to politi- kill for it. We see no harm in imposing vidual be left alone to live his or her life cal liberalism and continues to be the it on others by force—as if, after we without government interference in pri- hallmark of the liberal democracies of throw pearls to swine, the swine will vate affairs. This sort of political liberty the West even after the rise of capitalist eventually come to appreciate their is quite compatible with, for example, oligopolies diminished the free play of value and display their deepest grat- constitutional monarchy. It does not individual competition in the economy. itude. The trouble is that our love for require democratic self-government. So, in imposing democracy on nations democracy is replete with confusions After all, democracy is not the rule of hungry for liberty, the United States has and even subterfuge. It is my conten- each individual over himself or her- in fact offered only a decayed version of tion that democracy is beloved either self but the rule of individuals by the economic liberalism, and the corporate because it is confused with other things collective, which generally means the or for nefarious reasons that display majority. The freedom of individuals the defects inherent in democratic pol- will therefore depend on the character itics. In what follows, I will attempt to of the collective. In this way, individual “. . . Democracy is beloved untangle democracy from other con- liberty will be at the mercy of the will of either because it is confused cepts with which is it often confused, the majority. especially political and economic liber- In the seventeenth century, John with other things or for nefarious alism, and examine at least one nefar- Locke’s Second Treatise of Government reasons that display the defects ious reason why it is as beloved by articulated the liberal tradition in terms of inherent in democratic politics.” American social conservatives as it is by the natural rights to life, liberty, and prop- Muslim extremists. In this way, we will erty. Locke argued that the sole purpose know if it is something worth dying and of government was to secure these rights. killing for. His ideas were the basis of England’s culture and obscenely wealthy oligarchs In the history of the West, democracy Glorious Revolution (1688), the American that go with it. In so doing, it betrays and liberalism belong to two different, Revolution (1776), and the French both liberalism and democracy. even antithetical, traditions. The demo- Revolution (1789). All these were liberal In the nineteenth century, John cratic tradition is concerned primarily with revolutions intended to replace the arbi- Stuart Mill extended the political liber- collective self-determination, whereas trariness of absolute sovereignty with the ties to be enjoyed by citizens in a liberal the liberal tradition is concerned primar- rule of law, which would guarantee the society to include freedom of thought, ily with individual freedom. Democracy basic rights of a civil society (that is, civil has its roots in the ancient Athenian liberties). This meant that government speech, and lifestyle. This meant not city-state, or polis; it is defined by a could not arbitrarily arrest or imprison a only freedom of religion but also free- penchant for equality (among those person without charge or trial or engage dom from religion, including the free- fortunate enough to be citizens of the in extra-judicial killing. Ironically, such dom to criticize religion and to live polis) and a corresponding antipathy uncivil conduct has become the hallmark as one pleases as long as one does to oligarchic rule. In contrast, liberalism of American interference in the affairs of not harm others. Interestingly, Mill felt is not particularly egalitarian, except other countries, despite America’s paean compelled to defend liberty in a dem- when it comes to equality of opportu- to Lockean liberalism. ocratic age. He rightly feared that the nity. But on the whole, it regards life as In the eighteenth century, Adam (Continued on page 43)

secularhumanism.org April/May 2014 Free Inquiry 9 Take action with us.

You can help promote science, reason, and secular values. Imagine a world where religion and pseudoscience do not influence public policy—a world where religion no longer enjoys a privileged position. The Center for Inquiry is working toward these goals and educating the public to use reason, science, and secular values rather than religion and pseudoscience to establish public policy. The Center for Inquiry advances its mission through advocacy, education, and outreach programs. No other organizations advance science and secularism on as many fronts as CFI and its affiliates, the Council for Secular Humanism and the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry.

Donate today. When you make a donation to CFI, you become a member of a worldwide movement of humanists, skeptics, atheists, and freethinkers—all working together to promote the secular worldview and give voice to your values. Our major goals include: n Protecting the rights of nonbelievers n Advocating for science-based medicine n Sustaining and expanding the secular movement Make your most generous gift today, or request information on planned giving or making a bequest. To receive a brochure elaborating on what we are doing to achieve our important goals and how you can help, please complete and return the attached card or contact us at: Center for Inquiry Development Office PO Box 741 Amherst, NY 14226 1.800.818.7071 [email protected] www.centerforinquiry.net/donate Ophelia Benson OP-ED

Share, Yes; Force, No

s religion a public or private thing? Councillor Gerry O’Reilly rightly called about displaying the Jesus and Mo car- Is it general or particular? Universal the action “censorship” and added, toons in locations where they might Ior personal? Like rights and laws or “This is clearly an example of certain “offend” someone. When the BBC art and literature? Do its obligations councillors forcing their religious views asked them to be on the show, it also and taboos apply to everyone or only onto everyone else in the constituency. asked them to wear their Jesus and Mo to people who choose to be bound by What the councillors are basically say- T-shirts, which they did, and in the last them? ing is that they can dictate what type of few minutes of the broadcast the mod- The answers depend on who does the dramas people can view.” Fortunately, erator set off an exchange between the answering, of course. Catholic bishops the council reversed the cancellation T-shirt–wearing atheists and two heav- will answer one way, and secular activists a few days later, but the inclination to ily veiled women sitting next to them will answer another. treat religious views as public and law- who had just been defending gender That’s how it is, but I don’t think it’s like was there. segregation. “I support your right to how it should be. It seems to me that There’s the high-school teacher wear your veils, personally,” Moos told clerics and even the most ardent of described by one of the plaintiffs in them. “Do you support my right to believers ought to be able to grasp that the American Civil Liberties Union’s wear whatever I want to?” Obligingly, their haram and halal, forbidden and case Lane v. Sabine Parish School Board, they said a very firm “No” and went on permitted, should not be imposed on who included on a science test a fill-in- to talk the usual guff about cartoons everyone. the-blank question: “ISN’T IT AMAZING threatening their religion. I have strong favorites in literature, WHAT THE ____ HAS MADE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! music, food, landscapes, cities—many !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” The “correct” answer was things—but I don’t feel any need to “Lord,” and the teacher belittled the force them on everyone. Share, yes, but plaintiff’s son in front of the class for “. . . Clerics and even the most force, no. Notice how normal and rou- not knowing the answer. ardent of believers ought to be able tine that is. Professionals in the relevant And there are the many people who fields take the same approach. They like want to punish Maajid Nawaz, a British to grasp that their haram and halal, to share their work, but they don’t try former radical Islamist turned liberal forbidden and permitted, should not to make it mandatory. Muslim, for daring to say on social be imposed on everyone.” To be fair, most religious profession- media that he is not offended by an als and consumers also follow that pat- image from the satirical cartoon Jesus tern. My Seattle neighborhood is packed and Mo. The back story here is that the with churches—small ones on side BBC television discussion show The Big streets tucked in among the houses—but Questions asked, in an episode broad- That’s when Nawaz broke in to say, nobody bangs on my door or pounces on cast January 12, 2014. “Should human “I’m a Muslim and that T-shirt doesn’t me as I walk past to demand that I join rights always outweigh religious rights?” threaten me whatsoever. It doesn’t and pay tithes, any more than the one (That’s another version of the questions I threaten my God, it doesn’t threaten tiny bookstore does. started this article with). Nawaz was one my faith, it doesn’t threaten the Qur’an, That’s good; that’s as it should be; of the panelists. Two others were Chris it does not threaten any aspect of my but it’s not the norm everywhere. There Moos and Abhishek Phadnis, students religion. I do not feel threatened by are the town councillors of Newtown­ at the London School of Economics those gentlemen wearing that T-shirt.” abbey in Northern Ireland who can- and officers of the student Atheist, There was a round of applause. celed a production by the Reduced Secularist, and Humanist Society. Moos That’s the context in which, a few Shakespeare Company titled The Bible: and Phadnis had been in the news for days later, Nawaz posted an image The Complete Word of God (Abridged), protesting religiously inspired gender from the cartoon on Twitter—an image which had been scheduled to run segregation at university events, and in which Jesus says “Hey,” and Mo says for two nights. Dissenting Sinn Féin over conflicts with their student union (Continued on page 43)

secularhumanism.org April/May 2014 Free Inquiry 11 LETTERS

massive transfer of taxpayer funds liberals,” we have failed at our mis- Christina’s ideological imperatives? to religious institutions. sion. Yes, believe it or not, there are Initially, as dictated by radical femi- I am one of those humanists nontheists who are social and/or nism, we would have to take part in who reject the notion that “we political conservatives who do not a nasty ongoing project to discredit have failed at our mission” unless feel welcome at many nontheist and purge the “old white male” we turn our focus from these gatherings. Nontheism and secular patriarchy. Take comfort there if concerns to the various social jus- humanism are not the same thing, you would. Richard Dawkins, Sam tice issues that Christina lists. Yes, and I myself have been told that Harris, Lawrence Krauss, Michael we should not insult, threaten, “most secular humanists are liber- Shermer, and others have already or treat condescendingly people als,” which is precisely why I explic- beaten a hasty retreat from some for who they are at our meet- itly do not identify with secular “marginalized” forums leaving a ings or online forums. That’s a humanism. Indeed, every time my toxic niche for Atheism+ advocates. no-brainer. And perhaps we could subscription to Free Inquiry comes Clearly it is not possible to arrange to have the now ubiqui- up for renewal, it is a struggle as replace intellectual leaders with tous sign-language interpreters at to whether I will do so due to the political leaders without sac- our gatherings. severe left-wing bias of the maga- rificing intellectual credibility However, I did not become zine. It is only because occasionally founded on science and reason. a part of the atheist/human- there are articles, comments, and Political leadership will inevita- Atheism and Social ist movement to devote myself op-eds that I appreciate that I can bly empower troubled people Justice to combating grievances over bring myself to spend the money. obsessed by personal vendet- “sexism, racism, classism, ageism, Paul Bartlett tas and ideologies from which I completely agree with Greta trans­phobia, disability issues, and Vienna, Virginia self-serving mandates and griev- Christina’s thesis in “Why Social more.” There are already many ances extinguish any glimmer of Justice Is Essential for Atheism” national and international groups dissent. (FI, February/March 2014). How­ out there that are devoted to Jim Valentine Every organization has its bad ever, it seems to me that she focusing on these matters, and I Woodland Hills, California could more easily achieve her am a member of some of them: actors, but to take Greta Chris­tina’s goal of harmonizing atheism e.g., the ACLU, People for the litany of vile accusations at face with social justice by starting at American Way, and NARAL. I value is to renounce the Center for the other end—that is, by join- am also a member of Handgun Inquiry as a morally corrupt organi- We atheists who remain skep- ing organizations such as the Control and the Civil War zation whose conferences license a tical of the political progressiv- American Civil Liberties Union and Preservation Trust. However, I do forum for bigots and misogynists. ism proffered under the label of Uni­tarian Universalism, whose not feel that gun control and We in the community know that social justice often find that the primary mission is social justice. preservation of Civil War battle- secular humanists demonstrably definition of the term is quite In my opinion, it’s much easier fields are “atheist stuff.” Nor do welcome new members regardless vague; after all, isn’t justice inher- to demonstrate that atheism is a I believe that any of these orga- of race, gender, ethnicity, educa- ently social? Thankfully, in her consequence of concerns about nizations have ever declared, or tion, socioeconomic status, sexual recent article, Greta Christina social justice than the other way should declare, to their members orientation, disability, or any other provides us with a good work- around. that unless they became more contingent characteristic. ing definition via the many vivid Recognizing legal efforts to examples she includes. Benito Franqui open to matters concerning athe- protect the rights of nonbelievers One wonders though, in a Orange, California ists or humanists “we have failed at our mission.” These groups have and educational efforts to pro- world of scarce resources, are limited resources and are properly mote critical thinking along with interpreters and babysitters the focused on the core issues over the principles and practices of free most effective use of our money If Greta Christina is correct in her which they were founded. I can inquiry compatible with civil soci- and time? In a nation with belief that “atheist stuff” such as only hope that the various atheist ety, our institutions have remained approximately 10.8 million ille- “church-state separation, atheist and humanist organizations, with basically intellectual in nature for gal immigrants, are we to remain visibility, anti-atheist bigotry, and much smaller memberships and good reason. Our “leaders”—such silent about the effects on econ- discrimination, etc.” fall under the fewer financial resources, have as they are—men and women omy and carrying capacity? In category of “issues that primarily the same attitude. alike are public intellectuals: pro- discussions with high-school concern white, middle-class, mid- Dennis Middlebrooks fessional scientists, philosophers, graduates or dropouts, are we to dle-aged, college educated cis­ scholars, educators, and writers ignore the evidence about edu- Brooklyn, New York gendered men,” then the atheist/ whose curricula vitae and com- cation levels and religiosity? And humanist movement is indeed in mand of language, evidence, and in a diverse nation with complex serious trouble. I was under the argument on behalf of atheism and challenging minority group impression that these were the Greta Christina makes some out- and naturalism have engaged a histories, is it an indictment of core issues of the freethought standing points. However, I noticed far- wider audience than we could our fellow atheists that we don’t movement worldwide, although I one group, small though it may be, heretofore imagine. map proportionally onto the would add to the list the fierce who was left out. When nonthe- But why not reimagine secular racial breakdown of the general attacks on public education, mod- ists who are social and/or political humanism as an activist organiza- population? ern science, and women’s repro- conservatives do not feel welcome tion working on multiple missions I’ve always understood the ductive freedom, along with the because they are told “atheists are of “social justice” consistent with atheist movement to be about a

12 Free Inquiry April/May 2014 secularhumanism.org shared lack of belief in god(s), not The people calling themselves reminded me of a wit’s observa- similar accounts of who we left about creating a miniature heaven “liberal” invented “political cor- tion I read years ago. A doctor of religious beliefs. on Earth among the nonbeliev- rectness,” which in my opinion is theology is someone who knows There is another category of ers. Honestly, I wish Christina luck; nothing but fascism by default. everything there is to know about religious-avoiding people I would because if human history is any Community censors go around something that is unknowable. like to know about—the so-called indication, such an agenda has a thumping their Bibles in peoples’ Mike Hogan Nones. When asked what church low probability of success. faces. But if I were to make a movie Castle Rock, Colorado they belong to, their answer is Gabriel J. Gardner explicitly portraying everything one “None.” Some may be “eggshell” Duluth, Minnesota finds in the Old Testament, I would Christians who pretend to be reli- probably be arrested for obscenity. gious while really they give the Some antiabortion groups consider Leaving Faith matter very little thought. They the advocacy of abortion rights are busy with what they consider In “Why I Am Not an Agnostic” “hate speech against the fetus.” more important things. Freedom of Speech (FI, February/March 2014), Bar­ The practical truth is we do not If asked by a survey if they In his otherwise excellent arti- bara Smoker seems to have stayed always have unconditional free believe in God, their answer is cle, “Upstream, Downstream: on the fence with the label of speech. Sometimes we have to no doubt “yes” because it is the Liber­alism, Direct Harm, and Hate “agnostic” because of her “years fight for it. Assuredly, were all opin- popular reply. In public meet- FI of mental turmoil . . . to rid [her- Speech” ( , February/March 2014), ions popular, the First Amendment ings if there is prayer or other self] of [her] childhood theistic Russell Blackford is vague on the would never have been necessary. religious activity the eggshell indoctrination.” What the church distinction between saying and It is often said that free speech Christians know the drill—when calls “teaching” too often ends doing that is the crux of free is for political expression only. But to bow their heads, close their up with the child in an uncon- speech. Along with that there is eyes, and keep quiet. At funerals indeed, in this age of mass media scious terrified state in which the issue of venue. Saying some- they know when to kneel. and information implosion, there he or she cannot even think an thing in a letter to the editor is Eggshell religious believers, is virtually no topic that cannot atheistic thought let alone say simply saying something. Carrying which include Muslims and all become political. The age of insular it. Eternal damnation is feared, a sign in front of the premises other followers of all other belief expression is over. John Stuart Mill’s which is what makes this child of someone you disagree with systems, are leading society out formula for censoring speech that abuse. edges toward doing. Doing so as causes rather than directs harm of religious beliefs. But they are Augustus F. Kinzel, MD part of a large and threatening sounds good in principle, but it is not in a position (yet) to admit it. crowd is much more, not just hard to enforce, notwithstanding Canaan, New York Jim Sanders saying something. Also, advo- the diverse opinions in our complex Flagstaff, Arizona cating that someone else should society. do something is more than just The proverbial man who yelled When I was a boy, I was sent to expressing an idea. While the “Fire!” in a movie theater when Sunday school and then church. In the late 1930s, while still in high distinction is not clear-cut and there was none was exercising free Later, I lived with people who school, I read a number of “for- requires judgment, it makes it speech. But he was also commit- took me to Sunday school, church bidden books” in order to form possible to substantially narrow ting a public fraud, which may have (right after Sunday school), and an opinion about their validity. the debate about what is pro- caused a panic in which people also Wednesday-night prayer Darwin’s Origin of Species came tected speech and what is not. might have been hurt. In a case meetings at someone’s house. in first and The Book of Mormon Vic Arnold like this, he could be subject to When I moved away, I no lon- last. When I got to the part of public censure. He was definitely ger attended any religious cer- Westerly, Rhode Island the Book of Mormon where the offending the well-being of others. emonies. I now live between angel demanded return of the But most cases where free speech Gainesville and Ocala, Florida. In two golden tablets from which comes into question are not so the yellow pages of three phone The First Amendment promises Joseph Smith had obtained the clear. directories that cover this area, I free speech to all American citi- text, I stopped reading. The We may rest assured, that in found listings for 960 churches of zens. Yet what we practice in this dimensions of the solid gold tab- this time of smart phones, cable 127 denominations. I have been respect sometimes belies what lets had been mentioned, from television, Internet, and virtual real- published in the local newspaper we say. In 1963 Mark Twain’s which I calculated that the tab- ity, we shall be obliged to rede- over fifty times in the last eight Huckleberry Finn was stricken from lets weighed about 1,200 pounds fine the meaning and limits of free years, mostly concerning my my school library because it was each. No mention had been made speech. Otherwise, the same digi- atheist viewpoint. I have asked said to agitate for racial integra- of problems in transporting them tal electronic genius that brings us why, even in this small area of the tion. A few years later, black civil or needing a magnifying glass to globe, my fellow citizens cannot unlimited information on any topic read the text. The book utterly rights groups objected to the same agree on one religion. imaginable can bring us effective ceased to be credible to me. (As book because it used the noto- This issue of FI was very grat- censorship as well. The latter is a a double-check on my six-de- rious N word. When I was in col- ifying in that I found so many control strategy used in China and cades-old estimate, I got 24 x lege, the works of Rudyard Kipling intelligent articles confirming my some Muslim countries at this time. 36 x 2 inches as a possible size were struck from English literature nonbelief. The comradeship was John L. Indo of a 1,200-pound slab of gold— studies because he was said to be . . . almost Christianlike. praising racism and British imperi- Houston, Texas water weighs 62.43 pounds per Jerry Jenkins alism. Some feminist organizations cubic foot and gold is 19.3 times claim that some men’s magazines Micanopy, Florida heavier than water.) defame women. This may be true, Honest Theology I recently obtained a copy of the but actually, there is probably more Book of Mormon copyright 1961. misogyny being promoted from James A. Haught’s “Theology and The “Why I Am Not a . . .” essays At the end of the Introduction the pulpits of Christian fundamen- Honesty” (FI, February/March 2014) in the February/March 2014 issue there was the following brief para- talist churches than from the scores was an entertaining piece on the- of Free Inquiry were instructive. of porn shops in New York City. ology and the study thereof. It Many of us, I believe, could write (Continued on page 65)

secularhumanism.org April/May 2014 Free Inquiry 13 ADVERTISEMENT

In previous issues I have presented examples of cases against Christianity which I am confident will more effectively arouse the attention ad interest of those on the weak end of the faith curve than longer more sophisticated efforts. They are short, in plain language, and use the Bible, tenets of the faith and common sense to prove the case. I hope secular humanists will see the value, organize and use the most promising print media to take cases like this to the public. Here is another. CHRISTIANITY STANDS ON FOUR PILLARS OF EVIL EACH DENIES JESUS AND THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT AND THUS REVEALS THE WORK OF MEN

The Christian religion starts by adopting the most belief that Jesus — God! — would really teach obscene sin against justice and fairness within irreconcilable paths to salvation. But It is unmistak- imagination: able evidence that the whole religion is man-made.

1. Condemning the whole human race yet to be This particular religion started — as all did — with born for the so-called original sin of Adam and ignorant, credulous men trying to make sense of Eve! This outrage against our concepts of de- the horrors of life, suffering and early, miserable cency is followed by three more, which are death. It was shaped and added to over centuries even worse: by a priesthood of pretenders — devising elements to intimidate the masses and elevate their impor- 2. Eternal punishment — imagine, suffering for- tance as needed interpreters and intermediaries. ever! — for those of us who do not repent of In short, a product of human cultural evolution — our imputed sin — the one actually committed all man made. by Adam and Eve. This explains the absurdities, barbarities, contra- 3. We must repent by truly believing — even if we dictions, cruelties and impossibilities with which it honestly cannot with the evidence we have — is riddled. That it has been so successful despite that Jesus died to atone for the sin imputed to its incoherence is evidence of the human fear of us. death and desire for answers that very clever theologians have been able to exploit. Through 4. Demanding that true belief even from those prodigies of contortion they have been able to who never heard of Jesus! “explain” these indefensible features and create a popularly understood and loved religion of utmost This is diametrically opposite to Jesus' many un- kindness; all this despite the enlightenment, conditional promises of salvation for those loving scholarly historical findings, and the real discover- God and doing good works! It is completely out-of- ies of the true through science. joint with the definition of God as a perfectly just, merciful and loving Father who cares for us — the The Epitome of Injustice — Punishing The God that untold millions know in their hearts and Innocent For The Sins of Others worship. We have seen it recently and it still goes on. In But the absolute requirement for belief to escape Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, North Korea and eternal punishment is also ascribed to Jesus in the other tyrannies today — it was/is standard to visit Bible; he is wholly different from the Jesus who enslavement, torture and murder on the innocent through the centuries has captivated generations wives, children, parents and other relatives of one with the astonishingly generous and forgiving com- deemed an "enemy of state". mands in the Sermon on the Mount. It is beyond

14 Free Inquiry April/May 2014 secularhumanism.org ADVERTISEMENT

On a moral level, this is exactly the same as The Epitome of Cruelty — Forced Belief Even imposing mortal Original Sin on all mankind yet For Those Who Heard Nothing to be born, not for what they did but for the disobedience of the mythical Adam and Eve. And what of those who have never heard a word of Jesus? Here is what the Athanasian Creed, still The Epitome of Mercilessness — Eternal accepted in the Roman Catholic Church, says to Suffering With No Hope of Reprieve them:

To consign any of His creation to eternal suffering Whosoever will be saved, before all things it is without hope of reprieve is clearly the polar necessary that he hold the Catholic Faith. Which opposite of what we would expect from a loving, Faith except everyone do keep whole and unde- merciful and, above all, forgiving Father. No finite filed, without doubt he shall perish everlastingly. sins could, on any scale of justice or on any understanding of mercy, merit infinite suffering. It is not enough to believe in Jesus as your savior! It is the very definition of disproportionate. You must bow to the Roman Catholic Church! Other Christian denominations and sects too nu- The Epitome of Unfairness — Forced Belief merous to mention are no less cruel in demanding Even For Those Who Have Heard Little belief where it is impossible.

How can one be forced to truly believe anything? All of this might just be possible. It just could be Belief can only flow from an honest and unforced the way things are. But all civilized people in the evaluation of the evidence. world today, freed from fear, would see it as the work of an evil and malignant tyrant. Beyond that, does not true belief depend on the quantity and quality of the evidence one has? But all of this is quite impossible from a loving, There were some who are said to have seen the just and merciful Father. Unless those words, so miracles of Jesus performed. Are their reasons for constantly used in Christianity to obfuscate the believing in Jesus to be equated to those of a Jew bitter essentials, do not mean what we understand today? He only knows what men have told him, in them to mean; then we are taken in by fraudulent writing and orally; and all of that is based on 2000 deception. years of hearsay. Further, all of it is vehemently denied by his parents, fellow Jews and their inter- These pillars of evil are the foundation upon pretation of Holy Scripture which was theirs 2600 which Christianity rests. It is the work of the years before Christians appropriated it for its priesthood-of-those-pretending-to-know — the prestige and venerableness. Those Christians only beneficiaries of these blatant contradictions. searched it for bits and pieces, foretelling nothing when read in context, but which they would claim were prophecies of Jesus, his virgin mother, and the new covenant.

BY THEIR FRUITS YOU SHALL KNOW THEM. Matthew 7:16

This ad was paid for by a great admirer of Robert Ingersoll, who used common sense and the tenets of Christianity, fully revealed and explained to such devastating effect in the last third of the 19th C. If you don't know him well, please visit theingersolltimes.com website where you can read his words and learn about him in an easy to read newspaper format. If you have comments send them to me at [email protected].

secularhumanism.org April/May 2014 Free Inquiry 15 Easter: What Really Happened?

Introduction

Tom Flynn

poiler alert: We’ll probably never really know what hap- freethinkers believe. Yet the fact remains that we live in a cul- pened on Easter. To do that, we’d have to solve a host ture heavily saturated—and even more profoundly historically Sof prior mysteries, beginning with the greatest conun- influenced—by religion. Many of us hail from religious back- drum of all: Who was Jesus? Did Jesus even exist, or was he grounds whose abandonment was a pivotal event in our lives merely a mythical figure around whom lore accumulated (see our series “The Faith I Left Behind,” which continues in this as Christianity grew? That’s a radical position but not one issue). The creed with the most adherents in this country and without its scholarly adherents, from Bruno Bauer in the nine- the most profound influence on American life is Christianity, teenth century through John M. Robertson, William Benjamin of course—and the claim that Christianity’s founder defeated Smith, Arthur Drews, and George A. Wells in the twentieth to death is absolutely central to the Christian message as its most (among others) Earl Doherty, Richard Carrier, and Robert M. devoted adherents still understand it. For all those reasons, I Price today. (In recent years, Wells has retreated somewhat think it makes sense for secular people to retain an interest in how Christianity arose and how its teachings were shaped. First, if Christianity’s development can be accounted for entirely historically, then that is powerful evidence “Indeed, few outside the more conservative Christian against claims that it displays marks of supernatu- churches still hold out for a Jesus who was literally ral authorship. Second, and for many of us equally half man and half god, performed miracles, important, a well-formed view of how Christianity came to be enables those of us who left it to better and physically rose from the dead.” articulate—to others but also to ourselves—what it is that we abandoned and why we did so. Finally, I for one find something inherently fascinating in this question: If Christianity is not true, how on earth did it manage to assume so central a role in the unfolding from the mythicist stance of his earlier writings; see his “Is of the West? What does it tell us about human beings that a There Independent Confirmation of What the Gospels Say lie—or to put it more charitably, an utter error—accrued such of Jesus?,” FI, August/September 2011.) More mainstream power? is the view currently championed by, among many others, So as we enter another spring season, Free Inquiry is Bart Ehrman, which concedes the existence of a historical pleased to present a new scholarly perspective on what might Jesus but views him as an apocalyptic preacher—a rather have happened on Easter morning. On the view of philoso- unremarkable figure in a Judea squirming beneath the Roman pher David K. Clark, the core question is less what happened boot—to whose memory later admirers attached a dog’s on Easter morning than what early Christians must have con- breakfast of messianic characteristics. Indeed, few outside the vinced themselves happened on Easter morning. No mythi- more conservative Christian churches still hold out for a Jesus cist, in “Betting on Jesus: The Vanishing of the Christ,” Clark who was literally half man and half god, performed miracles, offers a fresh view of a Jesus who duly existed but whose story and physically rose from the dead. ended conclusively on the cross. One could ask, of course, why secular humanists should care. I’m known for dismissing Christmas as “not the birth- Tom Flynn is the editor of Free Inquiry and the executive director of day of anyone I know.” Surely Easter is not the resurrection the Council for Secular Humaninsm. day of anyone in whom atheists, agnostics, humanists, or

16 Free Inquiry April/May 2014 secularhumanism.org Betting on Jesus: The Vanishing of the Christ David K. Clark

The Wager So, what could stem the tide of doubt? In the clear absence ou have almost certainly contemplated your own version, of anything such as full-fledged rational proofs for or against however informally, of Pascal’s classical wager. Nearly every- the existence of a loving God, what could illuminate the con- Yone has. The wager is a no-brainer, isn’t it? How can you lose troversy in such a way that you could see the truth for your- by going with God? Betting on God—we are informed—ensures self? Is there anything—any empirical discovery—that might your future throughout eternity if you are right. And if you are decisively tip the scale in one direction rather than another? wrong, what’s the real difference? There must be something! Your salvation—your personal ful- Seventy years?! fillment and that of those whom you love—is at stake. Failing to bet on God risks everything, not just for a few But how exactly could your doubts be resolved by an years, but forever and ever! Take God and run; it seems like appeal to evidence? Is such evidence even possible, and if so, a win-win. is it available? That’s the classical “wisdom,” but it is rather easy to see My answer is an unequivocal “Yes” to both questions. that such wisdom misses the crucial point. It is not merely that the recommendation is unsettlingly mercenary. It is worse, for if this life, this world, is indeed “everything there is,” then our time here is far too precious to be frittered away chasing down trumped-up versions of nonexistent alternatives. Indeed, “If we dedicate our lives to a fairy tale, to bet on God may well be to have insulted we will have thereby wasted our only chance and spurned the best that reality has to to achieve a full and meaningful life. . . .” offer—the beauty of the world, the unique and special qualities of our loved ones, our noblest personal aspirations, our best sense of what reality offers us—by relegating our efforts and attentions toward an other- worldly fantasy. If we dedicate our lives to a fairy tale, we will The Thesis have thereby wasted our only chance to achieve a full and The thesis of this article is: we can know that Jesus was not meaningful life—one of which we can stand proud. And, if the resurrected Son of God. More precisely, it is not difficult we sell out—if our insecurities are converted into fear and to establish—utilizing nothing more than the Gospels them- trembling before a God we do not even know exists—then selves—that Jesus was not resurrected; the corollary is that we will have surrendered our integrity. This is not how you we know that Jesus was not the son of God. Betting on Jesus want to die; it is not how you want to live. Or is it? to save us is a clear mistake. Is there some way to cut to the chase—some way to know Paul himself framed the challenge crisply enough: “[I]f whether God really will be there for us in the end? When Christ has not been raised, then our proclamation has been in one is attempting to decide what to believe, then integrity vain and your faith has been in vain. . . . If for this life only we demands that one be on the prowl for evidence. And so with have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.” everything at stake, we need to know what conclusion the Paul is surely correct about that much. Without the resurrec- evidence demands from a responsible and honest person. tion of Jesus, there is no reason to believe that he was the son

secularhumanism.org April/May 2014 Free Inquiry 17 of God and thus no reason to suppose that he will return to However, it is now time to emphasize that the approach resurrect the faithful on That Great Day. Indeed, without the taken in this article is completely independent from and resurrection, faith is futile and “in vain.” has absolutely nothing to do with the above controversies. While Paul is among the first of his time to parade the Engagement with them will not bring us closer to achieving importance of the resurrection, he is certainly not the last. our aim. And let us not lose sight of it. The question before The resurrection is also afforded preeminent status by the us is whether there is decisive evidence against the resurrec- Gospels, which are designed to engineer the realization that tion—and, hence, the divinity—of Jesus. the event of the resurrection is, well, gospel. Nevertheless, Upon completion of this task, be assured that a final salvo these very writings serve instead to reveal the exact opposite. will yet arrive from those who would seek to restore the While the controversy is one that has now raged for over Gospel accounts of a literal resurrection as if straight from two millennia, it is astounding to realize that it is the Gospels the annals of history. But by then, it will also be clear that this themselves that shatter the very cornerstone of faith for tactic cannot succeed. And so, we will shortly know exactly which they stand guard. why no success will be forthcoming from appeals to history. How is it, then, that we will be brought to see that the Returning to the original question, we will see that the Gospel accounts of the resurrection are stripped of all credi- fatal weakness of the Gospel message lies at the very heart of bility? Here the reader must be cautioned. the passion narrative itself. The Gospels themselves provide the means of exposing the deception that lurks within them. Inside the Gospels In order that we might more fully appreciate this point, let us engage in a thought experiment—one “. . . It is not difficult to establish—utilizing nothing in which our imaginations journey to a much earlier more than the Gospels themselves—that Jesus was time, when we are part of a conquered people living not resurrected; the corollary is that we know that around the Palestinian territories just east of the Mediterranean Sea. Most of us are Jewish, but not Jesus was not the son of God.” all. We each belong to a larger, diverse culture. Most of us share some common features; we are likely very poor as well as illiterate. Life is difficult; we are often at odds with the established powers within our own religion; we grouse about how they exploit us and are otherwise insensitive to us. We find ways to make do. Options. For those who have sought to oppose the authen- Some of the women have become prostitutes, the men crim- ticity of the resurrection, options have been appallingly few. inals. Many among us are diseased. There are small joys, but Bultmannians (supporters of Rudolf Bultmann’s theories)— life is typically tedious, often grueling, and devoid of hope. seeking to reinvest the Gospels with credibility—relegate the We are without good ideas about how to improve either our status of the resurrection to that of mere myth building. This society or our individual lives. And then there are the Romans. is of course intolerable to mainstream Christians—whether God, how we hate the Romans. They are, so often, unbeliev- they be Catholic, evangelical, or fundamentalist. It undercuts ably cruel; the crucifixion of troublemakers, of dissidents—or Paul’s message of salvation by stripping Jesus of divinity. of anyone they might care to so target—is a way of life for Meanwhile, non-Christians typically grasp at one of two them. Their soldiers make sport of us, their government taxes remaining reeds. Either Jesus swooned and was prematurely us, and from this persecution there seems no respite. removed from the cross, only to have been later sighted walk- Still, we have dreamed, and occasionally dare to dream ing about and perhaps preparing for a quiet life with Mary of again, of a “redeemer,” of someone who will rise and van- Magdelena. Or, it is alleged that the disciples perpetrated a quish our enemies, quash Roman authority, remedy internal grave-robbing hoax. John Dominic Crossan has decisively mar- injustices, deliver the Promised Land into our hands once ginalized these already desperate attacks. The Romans, able again, and simply, well, transform the world. While we have practitioners of their craft, afforded no burial rites to dissident long ceased to bother to actually exchange expressions of troublemakers. Jesus, if crucified, certainly never made if off the such hope, scattered thoughts remain. But mostly these ideas cross alive and was surely routinely burned along with the rot- just seem surreal; such change cannot really happen—at least ting piles of other corpses that had met the same fate. No burial; not naturally. What would it really take? Our own stories, hence, no resurrection. reaching far back into our tradition, seem to provide the only

18 Free Inquiry April/May 2014 secularhumanism.org Easter: What Really Happened?

answer. We know it would require divine intervention—an sins. But, they also seem to respect and even fear him. You’ve act of God Himself—something like the arrival of the prom- heard also that he seems to speak directly to God, using a very ised Jewish Messiah. intimate form of address—Abba—“father.” Who is this man? It would take a miracle. There is something else. It is obvious that as Jesus nears Even though we barely dare to hope, of late we are becom- Jerusalem, the disciples are becoming increasingly agitated. ing increasingly aware that something rather extraordinary is They are worried. Heedless of the disciples’ warnings, Jesus apparently occurring—right in our midst. You’ve heard talk has spoken openly about what awaits him. He is predicting of some itinerant, Jesus?, son of ?, brother of? You think that his betrayal, his death, and his resurrection—on the third day he is actually—if you’ve got it right—moving about the coun- after his death! tryside speaking, of all things, about the “Kingdom of God”?! What this could mean is barely fathomable. Not only are Evidently, he has been doing this now for some time and is some arguing about whether resurrection is even possible, attracting crowds. Various people seem to know about him. others are struggling to grasp this new idea of a Messiah— There is talk of great miracles—of healing, of feeding, of com- one that does not fit the wineskins of old. The disciples them- muning openly with God. His wisdom appears refreshingly at selves seem incapable of coping; they instead prefer to hush odds with that of the Jewish leadership and seems to harbor up discussion or change the subject. They apparently remain a renewed authenticity. You feel the lure and are compelled to learn more and judge for yourself. When you do, you hear him speak; you finally catch a clear view of the man; you watch him interact with others. He is eating, drink- ing, sharing, and partaking—and exhorting “. . . It is the Gospels themselves that shatter others to do the same. He is earnest and the very cornerstone of faith. . . .” intense, yet he enjoys people; he teaches without pretense; his insightful sincerity immediately exudes trustworthiness. In his presence, religious and social distinctions fall away. And as he speaks of the Kingdom, his eloquence is unparalleled. He is a commanding presence. unclear about why Jesus would need to die—as do you. Yet And now, perhaps, he even looks you directly in the eye. Jesus has promised not only his death but his resurrection. It is a stunning moment. Others are affected in a similar way. Jesus makes a triumphant arrival in Jerusalem; almost imme- People sometimes clamor—and act foolishly—just to touch diately, there is a confrontation in the Temple. Thereafter, he him, as if his very clothing embodied healing power. And departs. But you do not have long to wait—only a matter of while his stories of the Kingdom are strange and provocative, a few hours—before the definitive crisis emerges. Soon, too they are delivered with a clear sense of authority. Uncertain soon, you will hear Jesus’s own response to his challengers. He as to their precise meaning, you do not doubt that they are will return to judge the world! And with this announcement, full of promise about God’s Kingdom and of your place in it. you then see the deep anger within the establishment pow- And, if Jesus is right, you do have a place in it—or at least, ers; you know that if Jesus can be taken at his word, your very you could have if you so chose. You are mesmerized. You are salvation depends upon such a resurrection. hooked. You want in! You are alternatively filled with exhilaration, confusion, You have begun to think of him in messianic terms—but and dread. Jesus is seized by the Jewish ruling body, beaten, in a very unexpected and enigmatic way. There is a buzz; turned over to the Romans, and is ordered to die by crucifix- you struggle with the very ideas that seem too fantastic to ion. It is an ugly, brutal scene; while a few clamor around the fathom with a clear mind. For perhaps this is a different sort base of the cross, all you can do is to watch helplessly from of Messiah than the one for which you had once yearned. a suitable distance. Finally you turn away, struck dumb with Some are apparently suggesting that Jesus is not just any anguish and disbelief. Hordes witness his death. Sick at heart, messianic son of God but the literal son of God! You’ve heard you slowly trudge away. the disciples speak of him in just this way. You know that Meanwhile, what you do not realize is that someone has he has sometimes invoked God himself as he performs his arranged to have Jesus buried in his private tomb. A small miracles. The religious authorities are furious and accuse him group of women follow to see where the body is located; of blasphemy—of usurping the role of God as he forgives they leave, intending to return so as to properly anoint it for

secularhumanism.org April/May 2014 Free Inquiry 19 burial. And it is then, upon that return, that the truth begins The Emergence of ‘the Messiah’ to dawn upon an unsuspecting world. Jesus is not there; he For some, the impact of this realization will be considerable. is gone—resurrected—just as he had proclaimed. The disci- The blockbuster result is hard-hitting, not just because it ples must be alerted so that they can meet with Jesus as he may come as a stunning surprise (as it will to many) but also planned. The world must be informed. Jesus has risen. because the conclusion is, really, so painfully obvious. How Initial Assessment could anyone, indeed, everyone, miss this? The very notion of the heralded Resurrection Day without the requisite audience Is this story believable—even on its own terms? Does the basic is silly! account of the resurrection itself rise to any acceptable level That the populace was taken in there should be no doubt. of credibility? However, if the fraud stands out in such clear relief, we need To see that the answer is clearly “No,” we must first weed to ask how anyone was ever misled. For those within the out all troubling and question-begging assumptions. So, throes of deeply entrenched beliefs, the entire charade must we will not begin by assuming that God does not exist or be unmasked. Otherwise, the result that has just been won assume that resurrections are impossible. Most of all, we will will be squandered as true believers will insist that they have not assume that miracles are impossible. Indeed, we should been victimized by some unspecifiable cheap trick. So it is only grant all these possibilities; none of them is germane to our once we understand how this challenge is to be met that the assessment. In order to conduct our evaluation, we need only issue can confidently be laid to rest by all who have the cour- to entertain exactly one question: At the time Jesus was to rise age to work through it. up from the dead, exactly where was everyone? So the question requires an answer; and there is an answer! The first step of providing it requires that we clearly grasp the desperation that faced Jesus’s followers upon his death. For from that very instant— unless something dramatically changed—the hour “The question before us is whether there is of the parable was over. And it was within just this decisive evidence against the resurrection—and, crisis-charged moment that the solution began to hence, the divinity—of Jesus.” take shape. The resurrection-based construal of the life and death of Jesus lay right there in front of the followers, needing only the ingenuity of Mark’s later (post-Pauline) “passion narrative” to deliver it. Accordingly, it would then become crucial for the At just that magic moment, the one where the most early Christian writers that they sell, promote, the idea that stunning of all miracles was to have occurred, the one in Jesus was the literal son of God. Why? How do we know that which the new Kingdom was to be inaugurated—the one the Gospel writers were intent upon presenting Jesus as the that would include you and lead to the vanquishing of your literal son of God, even if they had to fabricate stories to do enemies, transforming your world—where were the people? so? Where were you? Where were the Pharisees, the Romans, The short answer to this question then is that, otherwise, and all of those whose futures were thought to be at stake Jesus was simply dead. Dead! Hence, Jesus was neither a mes- in the outcome? It is obvious that the prospect of such an siah nor was he the vehicle of anyone’s future salvation. For event would raise the excitement level off the charts. This is some, this was not an option. The significance of Jesus had a dream come true for ticket scalpers, but instead . . . there to be salvaged—there had to be a way. How could the last was no one. No one at all. Why? The answer is that the very be first, and the first be last—how could the most downtrod- idea of the resurrection of Jesus had not occurred to anyone. den and apparently forsaken of peoples, God’s own chosen No one, absolutely no one, anticipated any such event—not people, become recipients of the kingdom of which Jesus so even you. Otherwise, you would have been there—along with eloquently spoke—the Kingdom of God—if Jesus was left a everyone else. mere rotting corpse? His inspiration, the hope that invigo- Therefore, the claim that Jesus was going to be resur- rated those who knew him, had to be restored—somehow. rected was simply not a part of his teaching. If it had been, From here, we do not know the details. In truth, we can Resurrection Day would have been well attended. The very never know them. But it is not difficult to fathom and then writings that were designed to legitimate the idea of a resur- confirm the outlines. Thus we can be assured that the search rected Jesus are an obvious hoax. for a satisfactory answer to this quandary led, soon enough,

20 Free Inquiry April/May 2014 secularhumanism.org Easter: What Really Happened?

to an appeal to what the people knew best—their tradition. do know from Paul’s writings—the earliest we have from the Our tradition. The script by which Jesus was to emerge as Gospel times (the writing of the canonical Gospels ranged the Messiah was hardly arbitrary and was in fact within their from ten to forty years following Paul’s death)—that people hands—the storied tradition—right down to being buried in did reason in precisely this way. We know, in particular, that a rich man’s tomb. Paul himself came to accept a very similar rationale, one in Think! Hadn’t Hosea told us of God’s love for us, informing which God’s own son was sacrificed for our sins. us that God will marry us just as he instructed Hosea to marry But outside the cult, this was not an easy case to make. his whore? And hadn’t Isaiah told us that God’s magnificent For as those dissenters addressed by Paul would make clear, suffering servant (a conquered Israel) would need to suffer the Pauline account faced an intractable problem. It simply and die and in so doing bear the iniquities of us all? These presupposed, and dogmatically proclaimed, precisely what same stories confirm that God would raise his servant on it needed to demonstrate. How did Paul know that Jesus was the third day—the longest period before a body begins to the literal son of God? decompose. The resurrection narrative has already begun to Paul’s answer? Another timeworn appeal to revelation. take shape. Paul’s own account—in conflict with the secondhand ver- It is crucially augmented by the many well-known stories sions from Acts—offers no details. While Paul’s passion and about sacrifice—beginning with Cain, then on to Noah and resourceful—even if inventive—argumentation was instru- then Abraham and the other patriarchs. Indeed, we know mental in the early years, the struggling early Christian cult that the entire culture of the temple had developed around the practice of ritualis- tic sacrifice. It is precisely these underlying stories that are also laced with tales of atonement—practices wherein one would “He is eating, drinking, sharing, and partaking—and exhorting give of his best in order to shield and others to do the same. He is earnest and intense protect loved ones (just as Job prayed and sacrificed for his children) who might . . . . He is a commanding presence.” have neglected their duties of piety. The transgressions of those we care about most may be atoned for through acts of sacrifice. Perhaps, then, that was the answer? Someone—yes, some- that resulted was placed in serious jeopardy by Paul’s death. one—God himself! was making atonement on our behalf. Absent the energy provided by Paul’s spirited claims about He was sacrificing his best for the transgressions of those revelation, the Paladin of Christian theology seemed doomed prostitutes whom he loved. Us—Israel; he really does love us! to wither away like the now-proverbial fig that Jesus himself Israel does not then have to die. Rather, it was Jesus who is had been said to curse. served up as Israel’s sacrificial servant—the Lamb of God. This Everything was at stake, including the integrity of the of course would mean that if Jesus was also to be our Savior— divine promise itself—the promise that God would reward the Messiah—he would certainly be a son of God. Any king and protect his followers. Could promises about salvation be would be; Psalms 2 assures us of that. But Jesus—as God’s revitalized? special gift to us—would not be just any king, one son of Marketing the Messiah. Enter Mark. Writing perhaps as God among others; Jesus would have to be the literal son of early as 70 CE—almost a decade after the death of Paul—this God. Only then could he serve as an offering of God’s best—a earliest of Gospel writers (as history has confirmed) was more sacrificial atonement for our shortcomings. But then—as our than equal to the challenge. At a time when the world was Messiah—having been stricken with the transgressions of brimming with apocalyptic thinkers, world-shakers, wisdom our people, he would also have to be resurrected. He would teachers, and healers, Mark understood all too clearly that have to be raised from the dead—on the third day, just as the if the Jesus movement was to prosper, Jesus would have to prophets had proclaimed—and then return to us as our Christ stand out against this background. The strategy for doing and Savior. Yes, that must be it! so is one that Mark signals early. And so, in chapter 1, and in It is not long before some will claim to have sighted him. distinction from the renowned John the Baptist, Jesus is first Jesus was dead but now is risen; Christ is born. recognized and then endorsed by God himself. Moreover, as Reenergizing Paul. So now we too can recognize the very Burton L. Mack and others have argued, Mark was not con- script from which the Gospel accounts were lifted. And we tent with having the miracles allegedly performed by Jesus

secularhumanism.org April/May 2014 Free Inquiry 21 place Jesus in the company of a line of earlier prophets—such a quick end to any further influence. The Jesus movement as Elijah, for whom the heavens also opened or Moses, who will be over. But if Jesus answers courageously—and of all had performed similar feats of controlling the waters (at the the Gospel writers, it is Mark and Mark alone who, in leading Red Sea) and of providing food and drink for huge numbers the way, sees the importance of having Jesus give a clear and of people (in the desert). Jesus would do these things too, but emphatic affirmative answer—Jesus then falls prey to the that wouldn’t be enough. charge of blasphemy. Because conviction of blasphemy car- Mark takes license with the available stories and conveys ries the death penalty under Mosaic law, Jesus’s fate is quickly them as episodic accounts of a cosmic battle in which Jesus sealed. So when Jesus not only declares that he is the son of exorcised demons, wrestled with Satan, and experienced God and goes on to say that he will return and sit on the right the weakness of, yet prevailed against, human frailty. It is hand of the throne of God—effectively, to judge them—accu- precisely this shift—from wisdom to magic—that the Gospel sations turn to rage. writers were intent upon exercising, and faith was the vehicle Here, the Gospel writers seize the moment to underwrite by which the magic was to arrive. the Pauline rationale as to why salvation is now available But Mark is also careful to present Jesus as a very charis- to the Gentiles. It is the Jews who, Paul has told us in 1 matic figure. People warm to him, and he to them, on a very Thessalonians, “killed the lord Jesus.” And so in Mark’s Gospel direct and personal level. They respond to his typically quiet scenes of betrayal and scandalous brutality, we know exactly yet intriguing presence and wallow in his elegant and biting why the Gentiles are in and the Jews are out. Both Matthew indictments of the Jewish leadership—one that is laced with and John will later further embellish this moment. But it is Mark’s Gospel that will first etch out the details of a bitter and unbearable agony. Condemned to death, all will soon see not only how he suffers but howfalsely Jesus “At just that magic moment, the one where the most has been accused and convicted. Meanwhile, stunning of all miracles was to have occurred, the one in we can only helplessly witness the horror which the new Kingdom was to be inaugurated that now unfolds. The condemned, suffer- ing martyr is scorned, stripped, beaten, and . . . where were the people?” driven through the streets by soldiers until he is finally stretched out—nails cruelly bit- ing into tender flesh—upon the cross. It is only then that the true agony begins. Even extravagance, insensitivity, and hypocrisy. They are spell- today, with scores of millions having flocked to see The bound and filled with hope upon hearing his message and Passion of the Christ, it is difficult to imagine a more powerful witnessing Jesus’s concern for them. They sense his agony as drama. he nears Jerusalem, and they fear for him—and themselves. Mark never loses touch with his objective. When we see The fate of both the divine and the human appear deeply, but this charismatic and gentle figure betrayed, castigated, humil- precariously, intertwined. iated, and tortured because of alleged blasphemy, we no lon- And so the stage is set for the ultimate miracle. Under ger wonder whether he is the son of God. We want him to be Mark’s skillful orchestration, the picture snaps into focus pre- the son of God; justice demands it! We will have him on the cisely when this sympathetic and heroic figure is betrayed—by cross only as a martyr, and we want him vindicated. And as someone close, someone who ought to have been apprecia- his vindication is our salvation, we need him on the cross, and tive, devoted, and trustworthy. When fingered, Jesus gathers we need him there as the son of God. Vicarious crucifixion is his courage, steps forth, and not only identifies himself but revelation enough for us. also gently curtails the outbreak of violence with first a word, So, in the aftermath of the crucifixion, we no longer really then a healing gesture. A sense of Jesus’s greatness rushes care that the Jews are excluded. Mark has displaced the to the fore. It is here that the imaginative power of Mark’s urgency of that issue. We are readied for a “deeper” sense of approach begins its crescendo. Rough treatment is followed justice. Thus when Matthew later tells us that the very cities by sharp interrogation from accusers whose questions are of the killers of Christ are to be laid to waste, and thereafter designed to spring an ingenious trap. There is really only adorns Mark’s characterization of a Jewish crowd by turning one issue that is pertinent now that Jesus is in custody and them into rabid mobs filling the streets, then the scales of jus- unprotected. tice have been transformed into a reckoning. It all feels right; Asked directly whether he is the son of God, any denial it “feels like . . . victory” (Apocalypse Now). The inclusion/ seems to expose Jesus as a cowardly fraud and thereby brings exclusion problem can be laid to rest.

22 Free Inquiry April/May 2014 secularhumanism.org Easter: What Really Happened?

Only grace remains. How sweet will be the resurrection! it didn’t. Hence, Mark had few options. The one thing he But no one comes. could not sell was a major miracle story in which all the Jews, And so, as we have seen, the story is hollow at the core. Romans, other Gentiles, Joseph of Arimathea, family, and dis- While it is not difficult to grasp how the deception was ciples were actually present. orchestrated, it nonetheless collapses under its own weight. Mark’s only alternative then was to market a Messiah And once the narrative is distanced from its emotional impact, through the back door, through a story that deprived the key we also do not need to debate the formidable challenges of miracle scene of the very witnesses it required. That his effort theology and morality left in its train. The resurrection-based was a success is a tribute to his genius. That we see through it narrative has zero plausibility. The bulk of those who were is our responsibility. either followers or enemies of Jesus would have certainly Jesus? Still, there may well have been a historical Jesus who clamored to witness the ultimate phase of the drama. They distinguished himself with a message about human salvation did not; there was not a thought nor a whisper. Therefore, through his parabolic talk about the Kingdom of God. If so, then to see what these parables have to say when freed from we know that Mark’s story is a fabrication. It never happened. their theological trappings may bring us closer both to the Conclusions inspirational message of the historical Jesus and to a viable— Christ? Might Jesus still have been the son of God? We now and perhaps secular—notion of the salvific life. If such an know there is absolutely no reason to think so. Mark’s story— attempt is successful, then something of Jesus will have been crafted for the very purpose of providing us with the best saved. But Christ has vanished. And he shall not return; he was never here. evidence for so believing through the account of the greatest miracle—simply fails to deliver. What other options did Mark have for marketing the David K. Clark teaches philosophy at the University of Montana. He is the author of two books: Empirical Meaning and the Generative Ground of Messiah? Could he have written a more believable story—a Morality (Lexington Books, 2003) and Mile High Redemption: Evangelical story with all the requisite witnesses of something truly Christianity and a Child’s Quest for Truth (CreateSpace, 2012), as well as unique and utterly miraculous? No. This is not a story he various articles on metaphysics and the philosophy of religion. could sell—unless it had happened that way. Everyone knew

secularhumanism.org April/May 2014 Free Inquiry 23 The Faith I Left Behind, Part 2 In the pages that follow, we present three more statements of nonbelief—and an explanation of a stance against “membership” in any “group.” The first articles in this series were published in the February/March 2014 reeF Inquiry. There’s more to come in the June/July and the August/September issues.—The Editors Why I Am Not a Fundamentalist Christian Celeste Rorem

y transition into the folds of Southern fundamentalist His simple gesture stunned me. I had learned that Jesus Christianity began, as I’m sure many such transitions was the answer to every emotional wound, the innate need Mdo, with a dramatic life event that prompted new of all souls without which no person could ever be truly at reflections about life and its meaning: the early death of my peace. Yet in one moment, I saw that this man’s kindness father and the subsequent unraveling of what remained of and dignity demonstrated an inner peace that existed inde- my family. pendently of a relationship with God. Despite his questions After a parade of relatives and foster homes, I finally found about life, he had no desperate, secret longing for spiritual a permanent home at the tender age of thirteen. My foster fulfillment. He was human, but he was fine. He did not need parents were kind and quirky, loving and stable. They were my message. a perfect fit for me. On the cusp of despair, I embraced their I was humbled—and challenged. Could I be wrong? What began as a spark of realization turned into a full-fledged mission to examine my faith at the deep- est possible level. Over the next year, I participated in religious Internet chat rooms, dialoguing with mem- bers of every faith to see if any of them could satisfy “. . . In one moment, I saw that this man’s kindness my need for immutable proof in the accuracy of my and dignity demonstrated an inner peace that beliefs. When my theological questions backed believ- existed independently of a relationship with God.” ers into a corner, they merely encouraged me to put aside my doubts and have faith—an answer I was no longer willing to swallow without question. Ethically, I could only relinquish my beliefs if a genuine flaw in the logic of theism could be found, yet the few nonbeliev- ers I encountered raved with a malicious immaturity, lifestyle—and the deep faith in Christ that went along with it. and I could not take them seriously. The Christian faith became a beacon of desperately needed I eventually stumbled upon Thomas Paine’s Age of Reason, sanity and strength during the mandatory monthly visits written in 1796. His rational, systematic deconstruction of the home to my shattered family. Bible was exactly what I was looking for. In part 2, chapter 1, Five years later, I struck up a friendship with a “backslid- “The Old Testament,” Paine revealed the misinterpretation den” Catholic whose questions of faith I was eager to answer. of the prophecy of the virgin birth of Christ. He explains that At one point during our many long discussions, I lashed out the book of Isaiah depicted a time when Syria and Israel had at him, and I am ashamed to admit that I was judgmental and allied to besiege King Ahaz of Judah. As they marched upon rude—far from Christ-like. Yet he handled the affront with the capital city, Jerusalem, King Ahaz and his subjects pan- grace and maturity, neither defending himself nor apologiz- icked. The resident prophet, Isaiah, stepped forth to reassure ing for what I labeled as his ethical and spiritual shortcomings. his king that the invading forces would not overcome their

24 Free Inquiry April/May 2014 secularhumanism.org city. He even encouraged Ahaz to request a specific sign in The prophecy of the virgin birth of the Messiah serves as the order to confirm the divination. Humbly, Ahaz declined. but primary foundation for contemporary Protestant Christianity. Isaiah presented him with one, the words of which many of With it thus convincingly deconstructed, I was free. us know: “Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: the After more living (and reading), my beliefs have evolved virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him from a generic deism, past a brief flirtation with feminist Immanuel. He will be eating curds and honey when he knows paganism, and finally into an atheistic secular humanism. enough to reject the wrong and choose the right, for before Although these and other differences caused an as-yet-un- the boy knows enough to reject the wrong and choose the repaired rift between my dear foster parents and me—they right, the land of the two kings you dread will be laid waste” (Isaiah 7:14–16). When understood within the context in which he spoke, it becomes obvious that Isaiah was implying that by the time a child con- ceived at that moment was old enough to begin eating solid foods and to demonstrate “I was humbled—and challenged. early signs of reasoning, the present political turmoil would be resolved. Could I be wrong?” Furthermore, the Hebrew word almah translated into Greek as virgin does not always mean “virgin,” as does the word bethulah. Rather, it is a generic term for a young woman of marriageable age, much as the antiquated term maid implies a young female and not a literal house- have refused contact with me for ten years—I am more at keeper. Almah is used elsewhere to mean “girl” or “maiden” peace and secure in my beliefs than I ever have been before. and is translated as such, occurring (as noted on a Christian- In secular humanism, I have found the concrete rationality I apologist website!) “in Genesis 24:43 (‘maiden’); Exodus 2:8 so craved, as well as practical and humane answers for the (‘girl’); Psalm 68:25 (‘maidens’); Proverbs 30:19 (‘maiden’); many questions of life. Its benevolent, socially oriented tenets Song of Songs 1:3 (‘maidens’); 6:8 (‘virgins’).” In any case, inspired me to enter the field of nursing, and my growing stating that “a virgin shall conceive” is far from implying a passion for the deep interrogation of faith and other cul- miracle: it is quite obvious how to make a virgin conceive, and turally ingrained assumptions have prompted me to pursue nothing indicates that she will be a virgin after this occurs. graduate study in multicultural literature. As it happens, Isaiah’s prophecy was entirely wrong. Ahaz I am grateful for publications such as Free Inquiry, which and his people were butchered and Jerusalem plundered. It allow me to connect with other like-minded individuals across may be further noted that in 2 Chronicles 28:1–5, this same the globe and to continue my growth as a humanist and a defeat of Ahaz was attributed to divine punishment for sac- human. As I continue to learn, question, and explore what it rificing children and making idols to Baal, behavior for which means to live my human life, it is my fervent hope that all he was “delivered . . . into the hands of the king of Aram. . . . those who have the courage to question their deepest beliefs He was also given into the hands of the king of Israel, who do so without fear, for the evolution of the mind and—dare I inflicted heavy casualties on him.” say it, perhaps only metaphorically—the spirit is an experi- Is it possible that God told one prophet that defeat would ence well worth the journey. absolutely not occur and another that he permitted it because References the king was wicked? That seems unlikely. Paine thus concluded that Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry. “Isaiah 7:14, in Hebrew means maiden, not virgin. Therefore, it is not a prophecy. Christian it is upon the barefaced perversion of this story that the book Apologetics and Research Ministry.” CARM - Christian Apologetics of Matthew, and the impudence and sordid interest of priests and Research Ministry. Accessed March 22, 2013. in later times, have founded a theory, which they call the Paine, Thomas. The Age of Reason. Amherst, Buffalo, NY: Prometheus gospel; and have applied this story to signify the person they Books, 1984. call Jesus Christ; begotten, they say, by a ghost, whom they call holy, on the body of a woman engaged in marriage, and afterwards married, whom they call a virgin, seven hundred Celeste Rorem, RN, BSN, holds an MA in Multicultural and Transnational years after this foolish story was told; a theory which, speaking Literature from East Carolina University. She is currently pursuing a for myself, I hesitate not to believe, and to say, is as fabulous second graduate degree in history. She lives in central Texas with her and as false as God is true. dog, Franklin.

secularhumanism.org April/May 2014 Free Inquiry 25 Why I Am Not a Muslim Kylie Sturgess

“Miss, in one month, I could make you Muslim.” It was this playground that had filled up with local boys —a female Muslim refugee student, speaking to her playing basketball one summer holiday break when I came in non-Muslim teacher to photocopy some lesson plans in preparation for the start of the school year. Workmen were fixing a roof on one of the uda was eighteen, married, and pregnant. She had classrooms, and they had told the local boys that they could to sit sideways at her desk in order to accommodate use the courts while they worked. The women in the main Hher rapidly developing body as we worked on a basic office of my school had locked their doors in fear of these Social Studies lesson about Australian economics. It wasn’t invading young strangers. I had to knock several times on unusual for her and other members of my all-female class to windows and peek through the mail-slot in order for them to suggest that I change my faith in order to get a man. They buzz me in. Fearfully, they asked if I could phone the police to seemed bemused by my choice to be a teacher and not be married by my mid-twenties. For them, while practicing their convince them to hurry and escort the unwelcome interlopers English skills by doing oral reports about their future careers off the courts. When I went out to tell the boys that they were as lawyers, doctors, and interior designers, there appeared in fact on private property and the workmen had no right to no contradiction whatsoever between their plans for future allow them to use the playground without the permission studies and their expectations of giving birth to two children of the school, they laughed at my mandatory work uniform before the age of twenty and living with their husband’s hijab and told me in no uncertain terms what they thought large extended family. of Muslims. What would an Anglo-Australian girl like me know about They used the same words that would be sprayed in paint life anyway? I could hardly get through the first ten names of on the buildings and car park of the school, curses that would Allah that we were being taught, slowly, at every Thursday be yelled at the school buses that travelled through the suburbs to take our students to one of two branches of the school. After 2001, the name of the school was taken off the sides of the buses due to concerns that aggression would escalate. “It was becoming difficult to see evidence for a god But this was before September 11, 2001. I was when a student drew images of death and destruction teaching basic English skills to a teenage class she herself had witnessed.” that would fluctuate in numbers, depending on who dropped out in order to have children or moved to another city (usually due to their par- ents finding work elsewhere in the country but occasionally because of racist attitudes among staff meeting. (Our high teacher-turnover meant that we the locals). This was a private school, one that prided itself would have to start over every month or so to make sure every- on providing a place for new immigrants and had some state one was on the same page. I myself would leave the Islamic funding; often the children were refugees and had serious College in Perth, Western Australia, after two years remem- baggage of their own to add to the usual problems of fit- bering only a handful of them.) My students had unshakable ting in and finding friends. Many of these young people had faith in the Qur’an, in their parents’ taste in suitors for their experienced war and poverty firsthand. It led me to question daughters, and in the reality that one either got busy settling whether I should continue attending an introduction-to-Ca- down as a Good Muslim Woman or was gossiped about as an tholicism course I was taking at the local parish after being embarrassment to her numerous cousins on the playground urged by friends to consider getting in touch with my “spiri- that they shared with primary-school students. tual side.” It was becoming difficult to see evidence for a god

26 Free Inquiry April/May 2014 secularhumanism.org The Faith I Left Behind, Part 2

when a student drew images of death and destruction she of the outer suburbs, we were warned, and it was difficult to herself had witnessed. explain why groupthink and peer pressure was a bad thing, My class not only comprised young Muslim women; there when our students watched music videos that glamorized were Bosnians, Somalians, Iranians—all striving to be main- rap groups and were criticized for not integrating themselves stream Australians as best they could. They seized on copies into Australian society. of Vogue and Rolling Stone every time we visited the local Eventually Huda left the school, never to return to her library, shrieking loudly when reading gossip magazines that education, while her sisters would get extra books from the featured pictures of their favorite television show, JAG—a library to take home for the new child in the family. Soon favorite because occasionally a character (usually the villain of they would be showing me their new engagement rings, the episode) would speak in Arabic. But they would only take then wedding rings, then be sitting sideways at their desks in out books from the children’s section—anything with colorful pictures and basic English that they could read to the younger members of their family while practicing their language skills. Working our way slowly through the syllabus “. . . Attending an end-of-year dinner meant dealing with Australian books such as Fat Chance meant even more cultural puzzles and questions as to with office areas segregated by sex for prayers, why the main character Lisa would aspire to be and we had to wait until all the men a model, want to be judged on her appearance, were served before getting plates of our own.” suffer an eating disorder, and or even want to get a boyfriend when that was clearly the busi- ness of her father, not her. As you can imagine, it became rather difficult to explain what was so great about young Australian womanhood with occasional questionable examples like Lisa’s. class as they urged me to let them set me up on a date with My being an Australian of non-Muslim background was their third cousin who had just arrived from Saudi Arabia or less of a big deal to the other staff members. But attending to learn more than just the first few names for Allah in the an end-of-year dinner meant dealing with office areas segre- Asma al-Husna . . . just because it was what a good Muslim gated by sex for prayers, and we had to wait until all the men girl should do. were served before getting plates of our own. Quite a few Over the years, the girls in my class worked on their gram- of the staff had spouses who also worked at the school, and mar, peeked at the pictures in the gossip magazines, and hid they would then enroll their own children, leading to an odd their Walkmans containing tapes of their brothers’ rap music incestuous situation where everyone knew everything about albums under their robes. Then they boarded the school bus everyone—and made strangers an amusing addition to years that would take them home, to help raise the younger mem- of shared school history. Would I ever consider becoming bers of their family—and they would cry during the holidays Muslim in order to possibly advance to head of a depart- because they could not do something new or see their world ment? Perhaps I should enroll in the Diploma of Religious changing to become anything different. While my life was in Studies program at the local university in order to better no way perfect by comparison, I knew that becoming a understand all faiths. (My Catholic classes were becoming so Muslim wasn’t for me. unappealing.) But I couldn’t question any fathers who visited the school, and I should let the male staff members sort out any issues with course content, as it really wasn’t my place to ask questions. Kylie Sturgess is from Western Australia. She has taught philosophy and But I did keep having questions about what was involved English and has traveled the world as a social media coordinator and in being a Muslim, particularly after I came across brochures presenter at science and skeptic conferences. Twice she has served as stating how the Qur’an supported developments in science the master of ceremonies for the Global Atheist Convention. She blogs via various oddly strained interpretations of hadiths. I won- about feminism, critical thinking, secularism, and more at Token Skeptic dered why fights would erupt on the playground between on the Patheos atheist network. members of different racial groups, despite their all being of the same faith. Students could be lured to join gangs in some

secularhumanism.org April/May 2014 Free Inquiry 27 Why I Am Not a Member . . . of Anything Robert F. Allen

do not like to “belong” in any way that requires member- a Catholic (I burned that membership card long ago), but I’ve ship—whether the group in question would have someone always left “atheist” labeling to others—I simply want to be far Ilike me as a member or not. The reason may be some psy- more than I want to be something. My decision on how I want chological condition I lack the expertise to identify, but I don’t to spend my existence is inspired by the boorish rambling and care (feel free to have at it yourself). I stretch the frame of bawdy Romanticism of Henry Miller, who reveled in his marginal “membership” in all directions, from refusing frequent-cus- status as a citizen of the world that he often despised. “Stay put tomer cards that earn discounts, to emotional fusion with and watch the world go round,” Henry wrote from his well- a sports team, to surrendering my body parts, fluids, or the earned seclusion in Big Sur, inspired by the hummingbird. Even whole flabby package in exchange for undying loyalty. You’re as a child, stillness let me watch everyone march by until the not reading the words of a poorly clothed sociopath who ignorant parade ended. But this is the twenty-first century, when one cannot sit unmolested for long. In November 2007, I received a chain e-mail order- ing parents to boycott the film adaptation of The Golden Compass so as not to inspire children to “I do not like to ‘belong’ in any way that requires mem- read the trilogy of books called His Dark Materials bership . . . from refusing frequent-customer cards that by Philip Pullman. I was, at the time, fully ignorant earn discounts, to emotional fusion with a sports team, of the books, the film, and Pullman. The e-missive exists in many forms; it was inspired by Bill Donohue, to surrendering my body parts. . . .” president of the Catholic League—of whom I also had never heard, nor had I heard of the league for which he plays. I received the e-mail from many close friends and family. I was outraged at the idea of the masses boycotting a book (and to a lesser extent, a lives beneath the floor with only a single bulb powered by movie) without reading it simply because they were ordered a pirated extension cord (although I am trying). I do support to do so. Far worse was that suddenly, through membership causes and organizations, and I contribute to society with my alone, atheists and Pullman (and I) were now brute Philistines time, money, and effort—in each case, with as much individu- marauding among the children of believers, many of whom ality and anonymity as possible. I just get screwed up tight at are members of my family. The incongruous association any sappy talk of identity through allegiance, whether or not between fiction, atheism, and evil was made flesh in the I agree with the issue at hand. cliché hurled by every religious supremacist: “We’re under The most ludicrous demands of membership are made by attack!” My family was under attack, and I was among those religions, but membership itself is a form of currency exchanged goose-stepping across their front lawns. everywhere, and it requires degrees of credulity. I’ve always been Scandals, hypocrisy, and dogma aside, I was furious at the a cynic and loudmouth about group behavior, even while I was idea that it is dangerous for children to engage with any story

28 Free Inquiry April/May 2014 secularhumanism.org The Faith I Left Behind, Part 2

in print, apart from the special effects and famous faces in friends, one of whom claimed to be an atheist yet believed in the films made from them. But the affronted saw “Catholic” The Secret. Her one supernatural belief led to an argument and “atheism” and then themselves in the middle of a war on over pseudoscience regarding my children that ended our a baptismal team they didn’t even pick for themselves. This friendship because I wasn’t being “courteous” to her point of familiar invocation of fear and self-victimization was received view. Our membership as friends should have compelled me by people whom I knew well, and some were aware of my to hold my tongue, she thought. Some claim that God is dead nonbelief. But they were told that this book was written by when he is only ailing due to a lapsed membership. I contin- an atheist so it must be bad, and they clicked “Send.” They ued on alone, no longer a vassal—or a vessel—for anyone. were frightened and likely meant no offense, so I forgave The “Why I Am Not a . . .” essays published in Free Inquiry without a word. However, to condemn a book during the declare what one is not, but the question, “What are you firestorm of revelations of abuse within the church angered then?” always follows. I could flap my hands and say, “I’m me right down to the ground, so I looked up on Facebook a hummingbird!” (and be consigned to living under the the players unknown to me who had forwarded the e-mail. floor a lot sooner). The world is filled with people constantly The symbols of membership abounded in profile pictures of yammering at you about what they are, and they are usually people with red, white, and blue; cowboy hats; bleeding Jesuses; photos of Ronald Reagan; weep- ing Marys; and Tea-Party yellow. These were the sort of people who bathed in membership and demanded it of their friends. The character Lyra “. . . I simply want to be far more in His Dark Materials is precisely what the Catholic Church and all membership organizations fear than I want to be something.” above all else: someone with the wherewithal to stand up and shake her fist at the sacristy and spit on the ground in front of those with authority who try to command her participation on their cheating team. Real overlords fear this sort of scenario being illuminated in fiction, and the cassock of membership gets agreeing to a largely inaccurate profile. To say in our current wrapped more tightly. society that I’m a recovered Catholic or an atheist instantly Until this e-mail arrived, I was vaguely and sympatheti- puts a numbered jersey on my back, despite the fact that cally “not religious but spiritual” but had long finished with I’m not the least bit interested in playing the game. But in Catholic trappings and belief in any sort of intervening deity. the strictest sense, contained within the Latin prefix a-, an I didn’t even know what a secular humanist was until I came “a-theist” is indeed what I am. But I am an amorphous and emergent one, so don’t expect me to go about shouting it in across Center for Inquiry videos on the Blasphemy Challenge, the street. I’ll stand with any card-carrying members of any in which subjects denounce the Holy Spirit on camera. When group when a single fight is worthwhile. Just don’t tell me I considered denying the Holy Spirit aloud even while alone that I must or that I’m expected by precedent at the next new in my own home, I was reluctant. I was still horribly indoc- protest. trinated without even knowing it (although I should have My walk from credulity was a lengthy trek out of social known, having been raised Catholic and with a depressive structures that use membership to entrap us, and I’m now on Irish disposition from my mother and austerity values from an open road to somewhere rather than away. I am not a mem- my unconverted Lutheran father). I was a thirty-four-year-old ber, simply because I don’t always care enough to attend the child standing outside the church but still well within the long meetings or compete in the debates—but I ultimately don’t care shadow of its spire. I eventually denied the Holy Spirit aloud if there is a god or not, because, regardless, I simply am. but not on camera—that would be too much like pledging membership—although I am grateful to those of you who did so. Robert F. Allen lives in the Philadelphia suburbs where he is editor, I began stripping away from my daily life every indulgence president, and chair of absolutely nothing. He writes, brews beer, reads, in or irrational belief in superstition. I now vocally despise and plays traditional music for no reason other than to entertain himself Jenny McCarthy and won’t suffer those who don’t “believe in” and others—but mostly himself. the Apollo moon landing. This didn’t go over well with some

secularhumanism.org April/May 2014 Free Inquiry 29 Leaving Unholy Mother Church William F. Nolan

y family is Irish. I was baptized by an Irish Catholic with my father (who was considered a lapsed Catholic). Sadly, priest in Kansas City, Missouri, and later served as she agreed to this inhuman proposal. Man altar boy at St. Vincent’s church in that same city. I was lucky to escape the clutches of Holy Mother Church, During grade school and high school, I had only Benedictine but my own sex life was totally ruined by the church. As a nuns as my teachers. As a good Catholic boy, I never missed young man, I was brainwashed into believing that all forms Mass on Sunday. of sex outside of a sanctified marriage bed would send me to All that has long since changed. I am now an ex-Catholic hell. By the time I left the church, the damage had been done. turned anti-Catholic. There are many good people, men and Fear and guilt are powerful weapons, and the church is expert women, faithfully serving Holy Mother Church, but the basic in using them to control its flock. To even think about sex is labeled a sin! The church is masterful in twisting natural human behavior into cause for damnation. As for a “loving God,” if he is so loving, why did he allow the Holocaust? What about hurricanes and earthquakes that claim thousands of innocent lives? What about the starving children of Africa and the “I am now an ex-Catholic turned anti-Catholic.” crippling poverty of India? I have heard the sole survivor of an airplane crash claim that “God spared me.” Why him? Wasn’t God supposed to care about all the other passengers? And what about Europe’s Black Death and the endless horrors of the afore- mentioned Inquisition? Why would a loving God allow such horrible suffering? structure itself is corrupt. The church seeks power and money I could go on, but I’ve made my position clear. I’m more as its primary goals, as it has always done, and it employs guilt than an ex-Catholic; I’m an ardent anti-Catholic. Holy Mother and fear as weapons to maintain its global control. Church should be ashamed. The world of Holy Mother Church is dark indeed: five hun- dred years of the Spanish Inquisition . . . providing an escape route for Nazi war criminals following World War II . . . hiding and protecting its many pederast priests by moving them from one diocese to another. The list goes on. Let’s not forget Pope Calixtus III and William F. Nolan is the coauthor of the science-fiction novel Logan’s Pope Alexander VI, both born of the infamous Borgia family Run (with George Clayton Johnson, 1967) and the author of many accused of adultery, theft, bribery, incest, and murder! other works of science fiction, fantasy, and horror. This essay is When my mother wanted to receive Holy Communion, she reprinted with permission from The American Rationalist, March/ was told by her local parish priest that she could not receive April 2013. the sacraments until she agreed to give up all sexual contact

30 Free Inquiry April/May 2014 secularhumanism.org Why Is Creationism So Persistent? Lawrence Wood

t was mid-April, 1543. In a darkened room in Frauenburg, and God guided this process; 3) Human beings have evolved Poland, the renowned polymath, astronomer, and monk over millions of years from other forms of life, but God had INicolaus Copernicus lay dying. A few weeks previously, no part in this process.” Over eighteen years, between 40 and Copernicus’s confidant and only pupil, Georg Rheticus, had 53 percent of the respondents—an average of 45 percent— sent a copy of Copernicus’s final treatise, De revolutionibus accepted the first statement, while approximately 43 percent orbium coelstium, or On the Revolutions of the Celestial accepted the second. Just 12 percent accepted the third. Spheres, to a printer in Nuremberg. It was published just Although Gallup does not label the three options, the first before Copernicus died on May 24. It would become his most statement clearly represents creationism, while the second influential work. represents intelligent design (ID), a variant of creationism. Copernicus had delayed publication of De revolutionibus The third statement represents evolution, which sadly only 12 because it contained a startling discovery. Copernicus’s astro- percent accept. nomical observations at his Frauenburg observatory had led him to the inescapable conclusion that the Sun’s apparent motion around the Earth is an illusion caused by the Earth’s rotation—in reality, the Earth revolves around the Sun. More important, the Sun, not the Earth, occupies the center of the universe. “After almost five hundred years of scientific Hence, Copernicus’s discovery challenged the ancient advancement, approximately half of the and revered religious belief that Earth and its human inhabitants occupied the center of the universe. American public still accepts creationism.” Displacing humanity from its cherished central posi- tion would most certainly subject Copernicus to the wrath of the powerful Catholic Church and its fear- some Inquisition. For a scientist, the uniformity of the responses from 1982 Copernicus’s caution was prescient, as the church cracked to 2010 is a bit discouraging. After almost five hundred down viciously on followers of his “heretical” theory—the years of scientific advancement, approximately half of the monk Bruno was burned at the stake, and the esteemed American public still accepts creationism. Of particular con- Galileo was forced to renounce his belief. Still, “the genie was cern is that a major feature of creationism is opposition to out of the bottle,” and many consider Copernicus’s discovery evolution and particularly the teaching of evolution in public as marking the beginning of modern science. schools. Later successors to Copernicus’s heretical discovery would Most Americans would probably concur with the fol- demonstrate unequivocally that Earth is approximately 4.5 lowing definition of creationism, based upon the Christian billion years old and was created by a slow accumulation of material over millions of years, much to the discomfiture of religion: creationism is the religious belief that humanity, life, literal readers of Genesis. Earth, and the universe are the creation of (an undetectable) Biblical creationism remains dismayingly popular. Eleven supernatural being, most often the Abrahamic god described Gallup Polls taken between 1982 and 2010 found that ancient in the (Christian) Bible. But creationist beliefs are not exclu- religious beliefs, including creationism, remain widely held by sive to Christianity. They are found in many of the world’s average Americans. Gallup’s question ran as follows: “Which religions. Though Christianity and Judaism are truly separate of the following statements comes closest to your views religions, they share the Book of Genesis, the basis of both on the origin and development of human beings? 1) God religions’ creationist beliefs. Creationism also abounds in the created human beings pretty much in their present form at Muslim culture, which follows the Islamic religion, founded one time within the last 10,000 years or so; 2) Human beings on the Qur’an. In a two-part Free Inquiry interview published have evolved over millions of years from other forms of life in 2012, Professor Johan Braeckman illustrated both the per-

secularhumanism.org April/May 2014 Free Inquiry 31 sistence of Islamic creationism and its extent.* Hinduism, perhaps the world’s oldest living religion, dis- The picture of Muslim creationism Braeckman painted is plays a stark contrast to Christian and Muslim creationism. of a relatively unstructured belief system, based partly on Hinduism includes a range of viewpoints about the origin of Muslim rejection of Western science, particularly evolution, life, creationism, and evolution. Accounts of the emergence and partly on “a brand of Muslim creationism coming from of life within the universe vary in description, but classically a man called Harun Yahya.” Yahya is the author of a book the Trimurti (English: “three forms”) captures the essence of called The Atlas of Creationism. the concept of creationism in Hinduism. On this view, the uni- verse was created by the god Brahma, maintained for some The book contains thousands of pictures of fossils. It says, “Well, if you look at these two pictures of the fossil and the unknown period by the god Vishnu, and then destroyed by contemporary organism, you’re going to see no difference, the god Shiva. This cycle has occurred an uncountable num- so evolution just didn’t happen.” . . . What Muslim creationism ber of times already. is all about is that there has been no such thing as evolution, At the opposite end of the creationism spectrum lies period. . . . [In addition] there are lines or parts in the Qur’an that Buddhism. Gautama Buddha explicitly denied that the uni- make it possible for Muslims to accept that the Earth and verse had its start in the act of a creator deity. He refused to life is really old, that Allah created life and the universe endorse any views on creation and stated that questions on a long time ago . . . they [definitely reject] Young Earth the origin of the world are worthless. The nonadherence to Creationism . . . the huge majority doesn’t believe that evo- the notion of an omnipotent creator deity or a prime mover lution is in the Qur’an . . . they feel . . . that Allah created man in the form he is now. is seen by many as a key distinction between Buddhism and other religions. There is no specific story about the creation of the universe in Buddhism. Finally, Native American religions had a large component of creationism, as described by “Creationism is the religious belief that humanity, Jeremiah Curtin in Native American Creation Myths: “The physical universe was for the life, the Earth, and the universe are the creation of [Native American] myth makers of the old time (an undetectable) supernatural being, most often referring to in America the same in principle that it is for the Abrahamic god described in the (Christian) Bible.” us today, the visible result and expression of unseen power and qualities.” In general, New World belief systems belong to a widespread system known as “animism,” discussed below. In view of the considerable diversity of cre- ation beliefs, creationism itself is clearly a universal belief Regarding the extent of Muslim creationism, Braeckman system that meets the apparently deeply felt human need stated that “As far as I can tell, the majority of Muslim peo- for an explanation of ourselves and our surroundings. The ple worldwide are now really in line with creationism. Some diversity leaves us with only one possible area of agreement surveys confirm this: in Saudi Arabia, for instance, over 90 among the various creationist beliefs—a modified version of percent are creationists. In Turkey, which is a secular country the Christian creationism definition given earlier: creationism with great universities, it is over 60 percent. Creationism is is the religious belief that humanity, life, the Earth, and the also influential in migrant communities coming from north- universe are the creation of (an undetectable) supernatural ern Africa and Turkey and living in Europe [furthermore] Most being. This definition of a generalized creationism raises two Muslim people in Indonesia are creationists.” questions: How did the belief in an undetectable supernatu- He also discussed the difficulty in combating Islamic cre- ral creator develop? And who developed the concepts that ationism: “There are a few examples of Muslim people who were assembled into the book of Genesis and other creation- have spoken up for evolution, but it hasn’t worked out well ist texts, such as the Hindu Vedas? for them. For instance, one London-based imam said he The answers to these two questions will lead to the answer accepted evolutionary theory, and he got death threats. So to the fundamental question posed by this article: With all it’s tough, and there’s not going to be a solution within one the scientific progress over the last five hundred years, why is generation.” [For more on Yahya and Islamic creationism, see the belief in creationism so persistent? Stefiano Bigliardi, “Harun Yahya’s Islamic Creationism: What It In response, allow me to offer two novel conjectures: Is and Isn’t,” Skeptical Inquirer, January/February 2014. —Eds.] 1. Creationism’s origin is key to understanding why it is so *Chris Mooney, “The Rise of Islamic Creationism.” “Leading Questions,” persistent. Free Inquiry, August/September 2012 and October/November 2012. 2. Creationism’s origin can be traced to the time when the

32 Free Inquiry April/May 2014 secularhumanism.org human mind had evolved sufficiently to attempt an expla- sonable estimate for this time in this excerpt from his recent nation of ourselves and our surroundings. book, Masters of the Planet:

While it is obviously not possible to determine exactly when The secret to the particular kind of success our species enjoys the mind had evolved enough to exhibit this ability, an today lies in the very unusual way in which our brains handle information and it is becoming increasingly clear that the estimate adequate for our purposes can be made. It is now acquisition of this uniquely modern ability was an abrupt and understood that the mind is the product of electrochemi- recent event. Although it is in Africa that we find the earliest cal interactions among the billions of neurons in the brain. stirrings of the modern mind, the vagaries of the record are Accordingly, my conjecture also rests on the assumption that such that it is only when we contemplate the astonishing cave art of Ice Age Europe that we encounter the first evidence the mind evolved in concert with the brain’s physical devel- of human beings who not only thought as we do, but who opment. left behind an overwhelmingly powerful body of evidence The brain is the skull’s principal occupant, and modern to prove it [such as the Lascaux and Chauvet caves]. The raw paleoarcheologists have successfully assembled numerous power and sophistication of this ancient art is somehow mag- nified by the knowledge that its painters lived in an unthink- measurements of skull sizes—and therefore, brain sizes— ably remote epoch of modern human history. For, despite from various members of our family, the Hominidae. These their brilliance in color and concept, these extraordinary works measurements inform the chart shown below, which displays were the product of hunter-gatherers who lived around the the increase in brain size from A. afarensis, one of the earliest peak of the last Ice Age, between about 35 Ka and 10 Ka. members of our family, to modern humans. For the purpose of this article, I will use 30 Ka ago (“Ka” stands for one thousand years) as the approximate time when the mind had finally achieved the ability to develop an explanation of ourselves and our surroundings; moreover, I doubt that humans were any less curious then than now, and today we are certainly extremely curious. Accordingly, as soon as the ability had evolved, humans must have attempted to gain an explanation of themselves and their surroundings. Unfortunately, five illusions, not understood as illusions 30 Ka ago, completely misled early humans in their first attempts to construct such an explanation. Those illusions are:

1. The apparently solid Earth: an illusion produced by the human eye’s inability to “see” the atomic structure of mat- ter. 2. The apparent motion of the Sun, Moon, planets, and stars around the Earth: an illusion produced by the Earth’s rota- tion, something undetectable unless one knows how and where to look. 3. The apparent same size and closeness of the Sun and Moon: an illusion produced by one’s inability to judge distances Figure 1. Increase in brain size over time. beyond a few feet without a reference to known objects. For example, a car more distant than another appears to be farther away because it “appears” smaller. We know, of course, that the smaller size is an illusion because cars As the chart illustrates, brain size has increased almost cannot shrink. However, when observing objects such as linearly; moreover, mental ability (as evidenced by, say, the Sun and Moon, we have no proper reference. continuing improvement in toolmaking) has also increased 4. Earth’s apparently unchanging physical features: an illu- linearly. This affirms the conjecture that the mind developed sion produced by the glacial pace of the physical processes in concert with the brain. The chart also reveals that modern that shape them when compared with human lifetimes. humans arrived on the scene approximately two hundred Two such processes are plate tectonics, which makes thousand years ago. mountains, and erosion, which tears them down. These Clearly, explanatory ability must have developed sometime processes operate over vast time intervals; hence, their after modern humans appeared. The noted curator of the action is imperceptible, even over centuries. Spitzer Hall of Human Origins, Ian Tattersall, provided a rea- 5. Earth’s apparently unchanging animal and plant struc-

secularhumanism.org April/May 2014 Free Inquiry 33 tures: an illusion produced by biological processes that moreover, another ancient belief—animism, currently extant modify animal and plant structures, principally evolution. and widespread—also has many of the elements of my postu- The process of evolution likewise operates over vast time lated thirty-thousand-year-old belief system. intervals, and thus its action is also imperceptible within The first Westerner to discover and articulate animism human lifetimes. was the British anthropologist Sir Edward Bennet Tylor. Tylor “borrowed” the term animism, derived from anima, Latin for Misinterpretation of the illusions described above appar- the soul, from the German chemist and physician Georg Ernst ently led the first investigators to the incorrect conclusion Stahl (1659–1734), who once “hypothesized that all matter that we live on a very young, unchanging “world” at the had a vital force, or a soul of sorts.” center of a relatively small universe that revolves around us. Following advice to spend time in warmer climes, Tylor left This belief/conclusion that the world is very young but clearly England in 1855 and traveled to Mexico and Central America, inhabited by many types of plants and animals raised the where he conducted in-depth studies of the many “primitive” obvious question: How could all we observe been created, cultures he encountered. When he returned, never to leave especially in an apparently very short time? England again, Tylor continued to study the customs and As mentioned above, the humans of 30 Ka ago were beliefs of tribal communities, both existing and prehistoric, mostly hunter-gatherers. Everything they had—clothing, based on published archaeological finds. His exhaustive weapons, cooking tools, and so on—they either made them- studies led to the 1874 publication of his most influential selves or obtained from their surroundings. Because they had work, Primitive Culture, an exceedingly thorough study of created everything they had, the only plausible explanation human civilization that contains his explanation of animism. for the creation of all the things they could observe was that In particular, Tylor considered animism to be the first phase beings similar to themselves but with vastly greater powers in the development of religions; however, archaeology had had created everything in a remarkably short time. In order not developed sufficiently for Tylor to determine the origin to account for rainfall, the growth of plants and animals, of animism. Animism is not, as some have purported, a type of religion in itself. Rather, it is a belief similar to shamanism, or to the polytheism that is found in several religions such as Shinto, Serer, Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Pantheism, paganism, and the Inuit religions. Can we assume that animism had a single ori- “. . . Creationist beliefs are not exclusive to Christianity. gin? Tylor thought so, and it is at least provocative that a contemporary New Age website offers They are found in many of the world’s religions.” the following: “Animistic gods are often immor- talized by mythology explaining the creation of fire, wind, water, man, animals, and other natural earthly things. Although specific animistic beliefs vary widely, similarities between the characteris- tics of gods and goddesses and rituals practiced by animistic societies exist.”* Such similarities would be easily explained if there were a com- and other phenomena, it followed that these beings had the mon origin. ability to control anything they wished. Finally, because these Further support for my conjectures is provided by Scottish beings could not be observed doing things like making it rain, anthropologist Sir James George Frazer (1854–1941), often they also had the power to remain invisible. considered one of the founding fathers of modern anthro- This belief in extraordinarily powerful, undetectable super- pology. Fraser averred that human belief progressed through natural beings has apparently been passed down through three stages: primitive magic which is replaced by religion and the centuries; today we term these beings either spirits or is in turn replaced by science. gods. Accordingly, a succinct conjecture of the explanation of Thus, logic strongly suggests that the belief in a supernat- ourselves and our surroundings that arose 30 Ka ago is that ural creator developed approximately thirty thousand years all-powerful but undetectable supernatural spirits or gods ago, based upon incorrect explanations of those five misinter- created everything in a short time, then exerted control as preted illusions. This postulated belief from long ago and cre- ationism as we know it today are so similar as to suggest that needed. creationism is the modern form of that ancient belief system. Furthermore, the similarity between creationism and the omparison of the conjectured 30 Ka belief system with Ccreationism reveals a close resemblance between them; *Accessed at www.starlark.com/animism, September 15, 2012.

34 Free Inquiry April/May 2014 secularhumanism.org creation-related portion of religious beliefs establishes reli- clearly the creator of the universe would have known about gion as a thirty-thousand-year-old belief system, one whose the moons and microbes, plus a great deal more. Hence, there explanations are, unfortunately, incorrect. For example, the are not many “Answers in Genesis,” as one website claims it Earth is not six thousand years old and was not created in six offers. days, as claimed in the Christian Bible. The divergence in details among the various religions most o again, with all the scientific advances,why does creation- logically reflects the ingenuity of the human mind to devise Sism persist? With regard to this question, I will address answers to exceedingly difficult questions when one “mind” the answer principally from the Christian viewpoint, which is geographically separated from other minds. is more familiar to most readers. However, considering the Having established the origin of religion as basically due great similarities among the various religions, the reasons for to misinterpretation of illusions that led to incorrect expla- creationism’s persistence in other religions would logically be nations of ourselves and our surroundings, we can now show similar. that the science originated as a reaction to these incorrect Attempts to disprove Christian creationism have been gen- religious explanations, an approach I’ve never seen employed. erally and conspicuously unsuccessful. For example, the Pacific Beginning about 2,500 years ago, a few astute observ- Division of the American Association for the Advancement ers, primarily Greek philosophers, equipped with improved of Science devoted its entire 1985 meeting to the subject observational techniques, began to realize that the ancient “Evolutionists Confront Creationists.” The proceedings totally and revered but erroneous religious explanations conflicted discredited the creationist concept, but as the Gallup poll with their improved observations. Soon they began to for- discussed earlier reveals, the meeting appears to have had mulate more correct explanations. One Greek philosopher, little impact on creationism’s persistence. No surprise, as few Aristarchus, correctly deduced the essentials of the heliocen- creationists are aware of meetings like this, pay attention to tric solar system. Unfortunately, the discoveries of the early them, or would believe their conclusions if they did. Greeks were submerged under numerous conquests and lost Presentations of mountains of evidence have likewise until about five hundred years ago, when investigators such been unsuccessful. Books by evolution experts, such as as Copernicus rediscovered the conflict between scientific observations and religious beliefs. Slowly, through perseverance, dedication, astute observations, and inspired interpretations, some of our species’ most brilliant investigators eventually formulated proper explanations of “. . . Native American religions had a large the ancient illusions. For example, astronomy and astrophysics resolved the illusion that all celestial component of creationism. . . .” objects orbited the Earth, while quantum mechan- ics resolved the solid-Earth illusion. Eventually all five illusions were resolved, accumulating into the body of knowledge we now call “science.” Of particular interest to the creationism-per- sistence issue, two optical instruments invented about fifty Richard Dawkins’s The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence years after the publication of De revolutionibus deserve for Evolution and Mark Isaak’s The Counter-Creationism mention. The first was the microscope, developed ca. 1590 Handbook, have been well received. However, as with by Dutch fabric merchant Anton van Leeuwenhoek, which attempts to disprove creationism, there is no evidence that enabled the observation of objects too small for the unaided these volumes have had much impact, because creation- human eye. The second was the telescope, developed ca. ists—as explained below in the brief biographical sketch of 1608 by the Dutch spectacle-makers Zacharias Janssen and his Stephen Godfrey—probably don’t read these kinds of books; son Hans. This enabled the observation of objects too distant moreover, if they did, it is well known that creationists cher- for the human eye—beginning with four of Jupiter’s moons, ry-pick the evidence and invent canards such as “Evolution which exacerbated Galileo’s precarious position with the violates the second law of Thermodynamics.” Inquisition even as it initiated the field of astronomy. One of the intriguing puzzles regarding creationism’s The development of these two instruments significantly persistence is the number of scientists who profess a belief in undermines the veracity of any sacred book, because microbes God. One of the more notable is Francis Collins, director of the and the moons of Jupiter could not have been known to the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Dr. Collins states, “I am a sacred text writers; hence, they are not mentioned in Genesis, scientist and a believer, and I find no conflict between those the Qur’an, or any other sacred text. This seems strange, world views. As a believer, I see DNA . . . as God’s language because these books are considered the “Word of God,” and and . . . a reflection of God’s plan.”

secularhumanism.org April/May 2014 Free Inquiry 35 Another reason for the apparent inability of science to evolution.” Godfrey finished his education in graduate school, counter creationism appears to be America’s ambivalence majoring in paleontology. As Couzin explains, toward science. Americans seem to have a considerable . . . In 1989, [Godfrey moved to] Drumheller, Alberta, dubbed respect for science but, oddly, seldom agree with science’s the “dinosaur capital of the world” because of its diversity of findings. For example, as disclosed by the Gallup polls, rela- fossils. Godfrey often drove southeast to Dinosaur Provincial tively few accept evolution as the explanation for human ori- Park, passing through a landscape of sediments laid atop one another: deposits from freshwater and terrestrial environ- gins; moreover, about 60 percent of Americans believe there ments in one, marine organisms and mollusks in another, and is an autism-vaccination link. Numerous epidemics of totally a third that mimicked the first, a mix of fossils from fresh water preventable diseases such as whooping cough attest to the and land. “These animals were living here in this same place, danger of the latter irrational belief. but they couldn’t have all been there at the same time,” he Thus, numerous attempts have been made to thwart cre- says, a fact that was irreconcilable with flood geology. It was then that “the rest of the young-Earth creationist ideas kind ationism, but all have had little impact—why? The answer, of exploded.” . . . unfortunately, is rather straightforward and is incorporated Godfrey ran through bitterness, anger, and disappoint- in a boast supposedly attributed to a Jesuit priest: “Give me ment about having been deceived for so many years. He the child till the age of seven and I will show you the man.” sought out creationists and confronted them. In short, any indoctrination along the line of creationism that How did Godfrey’s family respond to his changed beliefs? is begun early and reinforced regularly can last a lifetime. For Christopher Smith, Godfrey’s brother-in-law [remarked], “I do many, creationist indoctrination begins in the cradle. After all, remember a discussion [of evolution] one year at Christmas; a child’s first teachers are its parents, and if the parents have the tone quickly turned angry,” Smith says. Godfrey’s father strong religious convictions that include creationist beliefs, eventually asked that he [Godfrey] stop mentioning evolution, they will impart these beliefs to their children. Because as the topic was too upsetting to the family, who believe that their afterlife depends on embracing creationism. . . . child-rearing is broadly similar in all cultures, this indoctrina- Like many creationists-turned-evolutionists, Godfrey is tion would appear to account for the persistence of creation- conflicted about how, and how forcefully, to press his case. In ism in other religions. 2005, he and his brother-in-law Smith published Paradigms on Regarding reinforcement, creationist indoctrination is Pilgrimage, a book describing their own transition and making supported by: religious practices at home, such as daily the case for evolution. His father prayed that it would not be published, and Godfrey did not send his parents a copy. He prayers and study of sacred texts; attendance at church and thought his book would change minds among creationists Sunday school where Genesis is the textbook; such social but isn’t sure it has. cues as, in the United States, the motto “In God We Trust” Summarizing, Godfrey’s biography provides three reveal- on all our money and the phrase “under God” in the Pledge ing insights into creationism and the possible transition from of Allegiance; highway billboards with messages such as creationist to evolutionist. “Puzzled? God has Answers” and “In Despair? Jesus Is Your Hope”; and everyday conversations in which people make 1. It demonstrates that it is possible, under the proper cir- statements such as “I thank God for providing something cumstances, for a devout creationist to become an ardent apparently miraculous.” evolutionist. Thus, early creationist indoctrination, regularly reinforced, 2. It is an example of the extreme difficulty associated with appears to explain its persistence. However, there is another making that change. Godfrey’s transformation from cre- aspect of religious belief that also contributes to creation- ationist to evolutionist entailed agonizing reappraisals of ism’s persistence: the belief in the afterlife, which all religions deeply held beliefs when faced with incontrovertible evi- seem to incorporate in some form. dence of creationism’s wrongness. Such reappraisals can The powerful influence of the belief in the afterlife com- lead one to abandon creationism for evolution, if one is pounds the difficulty of moving from creationism to accep- able to deal with the considerable emotional penalty one tance of evolution. This is superbly recounted in an article pays after taking that fateful step, including loss of ties to in Science magazine (February 22, 2008) titled “Crossing family and friends. the Divide.” Writer Jennifer Couzin encapsulates the life of 3. It shows the connection between creationism and the belief Stephen Godfrey, who was raised as a devout creationist but in the afterlife, spotlighted when the text notes that “their eventually became an ardent evolutionist. I have selected the [Godfrey’s family’s] afterlife depends on embracing creation- most pertinent excerpts from Couzin’s article to capture the ism.” essence of Godfrey’s story and, in particular, to emphasize his So we come to the overriding question: Can creationism transition from creationist to evolutionist. ever be eliminated, or at least successfully confronted? Before Godfrey was raised in a fundamentalist household with all you answer, consider the following features of creationism. the features of creationist indoctrination listed above. He was Creationism is a thirty-thousand-year-old belief system that: very bright and eventually entered college “still convinced that scientists were engaged in a vast conspiracy to promote • is well entrenched and well supported, especially by reli-

36 Free Inquiry April/May 2014 secularhumanism.org gious parents and religious organizations; they know and what creationism teaches. People like these • is simple to understand, as opposed to science; succeed in abandoning creationist beliefs; creationism is vul- • answers basic questions (Q. How was everything created? A. nerable after all. Education sufficient to overcome the initial “In the beginning . . .”); indoctrination can be effective. In fact, it can trigger awak- • provides considerable comfort—a “warm-fuzzy feeling” for enings that are quite emotional; witness this short Facebook those who believe, a feeling “difficult to part with”; post from a new convert to atheism, which echoes Stephen • is not deterred by direct confrontations and presentations of Godfrey’s experience: “I’VE BEEN LIED TO ALL THESE YEARS!!! mountains of evidence; and NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.” • is very difficult to leave, as demonstrated by Stephen Godfrey’s The elimination of creationism might be possible, but as painful transition. suggested above, it will be difficult.

To all of these features, add the all-important belief in an afterlife. No wonder creationism persists! Still, the presence of atheistic and secular organizations such as the Center for Inquiry—which appear to be growing, Lawrence Wood is a retired engineer and physicist who now writes on albeit slowly—offers hope. As a member of a local atheist the history of science. He is the author of Evolution and the Future of Mankind (iUniverse.com, 2010). He presented a paper on “Confronting organization, I have counseled members who have recently the Anti-Evolution attack on Public Education” at the 2007 meeting “come out” from religion, including many who held creation- of the American Association for the Advancement of Science Pacific ist beliefs. They generally have sufficient understanding of the Division. true origin of the Earth to detect the conflict between what

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secularhumanism.org April/May 2014 Free Inquiry 37 Faith: A Disappearing Concept Mark Rubinstein

f you and I disagree about a theorem in mathematics, we arguments from comfort set aside. might check our derivations together or consult a textbook. Faith came into its own with the invention of Christianity. IIf we question the existence of the Golden Gate Bridge, we The word faith (in its sense of “having faith”) essentially does can take a trip to San Francisco and see if it is there. Doctrines not appear in the Hebrew Bible, but appears, on average, justified by religious faith are qualitatively different. Crucial once per page of the New Testament (254 times). Jesus can aspects of faith claims take place where we can’t see them or will heal only those who have faith. And those who believe (God, heaven, hell, the soul, the irrecoverable past, or the but never see Jesus will be rewarded even more than those uncharted future). If it were practical to rely upon textbooks, who have witnessed his miracles. Pauline Christianity takes check a chain of deduction, or simply observe, these claims this even further, elevating faith, along with hope and charity, would long ago have been converted into refuted false- to a virtue. But what does it really mean to believe something hoods or verified truths. Forestalling this, opposing forces are “on faith”? What Faith Is Not “Faith” can mean “trust,” in the sense of decid- ing to rely upon something without implying “. . .Opposing forces are encamped on twin peaks separated belief, but that is not the kind of faith I am dis- cussing here. The faith at issue here is not the by an epistemological divide, with observation and reason on faith that, say, your father will recover from one side and revelation and faith on the other—a conflict an illness. People often say this, but what they commonly abridged to ‘reason versus faith.’” usually mean is that they hope their fathers will recover. The faith that I find intriguing is not the faith that is consciously pretending but rather the faith of certainty (or more generally, the faith that moves one closer to 100 percent belief). encamped on twin peaks separated by an epistemological I have often heard the argument that one cannot escape divide, with observation and reason on one side and revela- faith. To conclude from observation that a chair exists, it is tion and faith on the other—a conflict commonly abridged to claimed, also requires faith. This is an example of a popular “reason versus faith.” rhetorical trick in which a misleading conclusion follows In a typical interchange with a believer, we eventually get from taking a word out of its normal context and using it around to faith. Imagine that we reach a point where the in another seductively related but inappropriate way. The believer honestly admits that he or she doesn’t have enough proper response is to reject the expanded context, because evidence to fully support his or her beliefs—then draws out it trivializes the useful distinction between faith and reason. the big gun of faith, intending to silence all opposition. At I believe that I am now typing on a laptop computer. Am first he or she justifies faith by reference to the reassurance I taking that “on faith?” No, I believe that because, through it offers in the face of death, the psychological need for the senses of seeing, feeling, and hearing, that is what I am certainty or closure, escape from existential loneliness and experiencing. People usually reserve the phrase “on faith” isolation, and so forth. But I am not interested in what the to refer to something that is not sensually experienced. Is believer chooses to think to make him- or herself feel better. my confidence that something that has not yet happened, Instead, I ask in what way beliefs based on religious faith are such as that the sun will rise tomorrow, based on faith? No; true. Faith is fundamentally the “last defense”—the residuum it is based on deduction used to derive scientific theories of after all evidence has been examined and found wanting, all cause and effect and on induction from my past experience,

38 Free Inquiry April/May 2014 secularhumanism.org because on every day that I can remember the sun has risen. from the hypotheses to observation. If the postulates taken When you say you accept the truth of the Bible on faith or on faith lead to any conclusion that is contradicted by obser- that you believe in God or Jesus on faith, I think you mean vation, then at least one of the postulates must be rejected. something else—you mean that you are not using only obser- But even this special sense is not what is meant by taking vation, deduction, or induction to reach your belief. something on faith, because faith is construed to be beyond Here is a related common confusion. Some argue that the reach of reason. Nonetheless, faith usually is constructed science, no less than religion, must be taken on faith. To on top of but not implied by a supporting structure of obser- quote physicist Paul Davies: “Science has its own faith-based vation and reason. system. All science proceeds from the assumption that nature Probability is ordered in a rational and intelligible way.… Clearly, then, both religion and science are founded on faith—namely, on Some argue that you must decide issues of faith one way or belief in the existence of something outside the universe, like the other. In its 1997 Catechism, the Roman Catholic Church an unexplained God or an unexplained set of physical laws” declares that “faith is certain.” But a person who understands (“Taking Science on Faith,” New York Times, November 24, probability knows this is not true. I believe that such black- and-white thinking, mistaken as it is, fosters religious faith. 2007). Unsurprisingly, religious thinkers from Augustine to C. S. There are two problems with this statement. First, science Lewis have denied the usefulness of probabilistic thinking, at does not presume that nature is rational and intelligible. least with respect to matters of faith. From our limited human Rather, science, by noticing regularity in nature, provides evidence that nature is rational and intel- ligible. Second, we see the word faith here, but Davies gives it an uninteresting and almost tauto- logical meaning. Given the current state of knowl- edge, it is obvious that we do not know how all the “Faith is fundamentally the ‘last defense’—the residuum laws of physics got there, and it could even be that after all evidence has been examined and found wanting, the laws do not apply in all parts of the universe all arguments from comfort set aside.” or at all times. The danger of saying that science and religion are both “faith-based” misleadingly suggests that their standards of knowledge are the same and that once faith creeps in (as it must, Davies argues) then faith is justifiably used to support beliefs not based on observation and reason. The perspective, uncertainty is all around us, but we are not at interesting issue surrounding faith, it seems to me, is whether its mercy because we can use probability to measure it. For or not there is a source of reliable knowledge apart from example, we can say that from our limited personal perspec- observation and reason. tive, there is a fifty-fifty probability a coin will land tails; for Another source of confusion comes when one argues something else, such as the existence of God, the probability that you take the facts your teacher tells you about gravity, of an outcome might be ninety-ten. And that probability ancient Greece, Virginia Woolf, and so forth, on faith. But this estimate can matter greatly, because it will affect our choices. is, again, not interesting. Taking facts of this sort on faith is a Probability is one way we humans can measure the degree practical necessity, because you do not have time to investi- of our ignorance, and it is sheer foolishness to give up such a gate everything. When you believe claims based on this type useful tool of logic. The sound basis behind the use of proba- of authority, (1) you know that observation and reason have bility does not exempt religion. been used to determine them, and (2) you know the experts Until the seventeenth century, when the groundwork for agree. The faith-based “truths” of religion fail both tests. probability theory was laid, philosophical discourse com- There is yet another confusion about the meaning of faith monly excluded the middle ground. A proposition was either that should be sorted out. Conclusions based on deduction, true or false; it was not probably true or false. The failure to such as theorems in geometry, proceed from unproven develop such an important extension of logic was maintained postulates. If these postulates cannot be directly verified by by circular feedback: the misunderstanding of the usefulness observation, then they are in this special sense taken on faith. of personal probability abetted the growth of religion, and Although many systems of deduction cannot dispense with religion in turn delayed the development of probabilistic faith in this sense as a starting point, this does not mean that thinking. this kind of faith can dispense with reason. In fact, it can be The historical evidence for a measured skepticism is over- tested by reason. First, we scan the hypotheses looking for whelming. Many things that were once universally believed internal contradiction. Second, we can compare deductions to be certain have turned out to be false. Saying that you are

secularhumanism.org April/May 2014 Free Inquiry 39 certain means that there is literally nothing you could learn true understanding—is also treacherous. History and psy- in the future that would change your mind. Surely, such a chology have amply demonstrated that people can convince position is too extreme. Modern skepticism advises us to themselves of almost anything that cannot be easily rejected qualify all assertive statements with personal probabilities. by the senses. Billions of people end up believing inconsis- We can refine probabilities by gathering more evidence or tent ideas, each with 100 percent certainty, which they have giving something more thought—and the methods of statis- reached by faith. tics have been developed over the last four centuries for this Just as faith must precede understanding, Augustine also purpose—but we can never reach 0 percent or 100 percent thought that before faith must come grace—a gift from God certainty. The modern skeptic will, without apology, qualify given only to the few. The rest of us don’t make the grade. his or her metaphysical statements with probability, remain If, for whatever reason, God has not chosen you for grace, open to new evidence, and school himself to live cheerfully then you cannot accept Jesus into your life. It is as if there is with this uncertainty. a sixth sense believers have that you lack. You can observe and reason all you like; you will never find the truth. That is What Faith Aspires to Be the reason, believers will tell you, that despite your cogent Now that we have dispensed with what religious faith isn’t, arguments, they understand but you never will. For me, this let us look at what religious faith aspires to be. Faith, as is kind of argument, as important as it is to Christian theology, relevant here, is confined to knowledge, understanding, or strikes below the belt. Believers claim that by birth they are increased conviction that is not gained by observation or immensely superior to you because they get to be saved and you can’t be. The argument from grace to faith to under- standing cannot be completely refuted (or verified): that is why some theologians like the argument, but that is also why they are not playing fair. There is also a second way that lack of faith can lead “When you say you accept the truth of the to your undoing. God may have set up the test of wor- Bible on faith . . . I think you mean . . . that you thiness this way. He has purposely made it impossible for are not using only observation, deduction, observation and reason alone to discern him. He is only interested in saving those who prove the depth of their or induction to reach your belief.” commitment to him by taking a “leap of faith.” To be worthy of eternal life, you must first be put to the test. In effect, you must first prove your loyalty to the king by risking your life in battle. So if a Christian believes that the probability is 99 percent that Jesus rose from the dead but 1 percent that reason. Although faith can be supported by reason, faith is he did not, his or her soul is in peril. Believers cannot afford the distance between what can be verified by observation to doubt because doubt itself can lead to their undoing. and reason and what you say you believe. If you say you take Doubt is a particularly frightening and entrapping form of scripture “on faith,” that is what you mean. sin. Compared to murder, adultery, and theft—which one There are two circumstances where faith could conceivably can simply not commit—doubt is something that cannot be make sense. As Augustine contended and experienced in his completely prevented; God, who continuously monitors us, own life, men live their lives half-blinded and enfeebled by will catch us even if we have the slightest doubt for a second. sin; faith is the surgery that clears their vision and allows them There is another way Protestants who believe in Calvin’s to see the truth. Some Christians compare faith to a wedding doctrine of predestination are trapped. These Christians des- in which the bride commits herself 100 percent to her hus- perately need to know if they are predestined, but they are band. Clearly, if you are only an 80 percenter, your marriage predestined if and only if they have no doubt about it! They may not be satisfactory. A good friend of mine, from his own are thus caught in the web of “Satan’s trap,” where in strug- experience, assures me that if only I followed Augustine’s gling to break free they are the more enmeshed. advice and gave myself over to Christ, I would understand If God requires 100 percent commitment for salvation, why he must be our Savior. But am I not, then, entitled to then you will need a “leap of faith” to hurdle any doubt you believe that it is not I who lack his experience but rather have and grasp certainty. Pascal formalized this argument he who lacks mine? The believer’s argument for faith from for believing in God in his famous wager. Of course, we personal experience is weak and idiosyncratic. Moreover, the now understand that Pascal’s reasoning is seriously flawed, Augustinian notion—that 100 percent faith must precede because it depends on his particular enumeration of the

40 Free Inquiry April/May 2014 secularhumanism.org possible. For example, he fails to allow for the reasonable man’s blasphemy. As Voltaire concisely put it: “There are no possibility that if God exists (because no human has enough sects in geometry.” But truth based on faith has a million information to conclude this is true), believers may be sent to clashing guises. hell while courageous doubters, who have the correct opin- Martin Luther compared the absence of faith to someone ion given the information available, may go to heaven. who must cross the sea but never takes the voyage because he or she does not trust the ship. So he or she is never saved, What Faith Is having metaphorically never left the shore. A better analogy You may think that you “have faith”—that you believe to a compares the absence of faith to someone who wants to high probability not fully justifiable by observation or rea- cross the sea and must select a vessel for the passage, but son—but that is not credible. You can choose to believe any only one of the many available is sufficiently seaworthy to one of millions of things that contradict the Bible; so if your arrive safely at the destination. Unfortunately, with a limited choice to believe the Bible has no reason—it is only one of knowledge of ship construction, one has no way of knowing faith—why do you not believe one of those other things in which ship to take. In this case, as frustrating as it might be, the same way? That is the crucial question to test if your faith is one will probably be better off staying home. As Sam Harris truly faith: if you answer with an argument based on observa- aptly puts it in The Moral Landscape, “Faith, if it is ever right tion or reason, then your belief is not a matter of faith. In that about anything, is right by accident.” case, put your gun back in the holster, and let’s talk about it. In the end, there is nothing left for faith to be. All that But if you say there is no basis in observation or reason, then I remains is the grin of the disappearing Cheshire cat. So the continue to ask: What justifies your belief? assertion that you believe something on faith is essentially Why not take “on faith” a number of other alternatives? without meaning—by using that phrase you are self-decep- Why not believe that our world is actually another world’s tively evading a deeper insight into your motivation: you penal colony or vacation paradise? Perhaps we are tourists must have a reason. So I conclude that faith serves as the last reborn on Earth with memories temporarily erased, believing defense that shields you from introspection. In the end, the big that we will die when actually “death” is the return trip home. gun of faith has no real bullets. Better to follow the advice of Possibly, our universe is an early, failed experiment by a young Isaiah (1:18): “Come now, and let us reason together, saith God who has abandoned it and gone on to create better the Lord.” ones. Or, God is what the universe will gradually mature to become. Or, perhaps instead, as I imagine you sometimes must feel, our Earth is another world’s lunatic asylum. Why Mark Rubinstein is a professor of finance at the University of California not believe one of the many science-fiction speculations by at Berkeley. Beginning with the June/July issue, he will be a regular such visionaries as the late Arthur C. Clarke? Faith makes an 14 columnist for FREE INQUIRY. anarchyIMAG ofIN E.epistemology, INVESTIGAT becauseE. ILLU MIoneNA man’sTE. faith is another

IMAGINE. INVESTIGATE. ILLUMINATE. 14 You don’t have to be an expert. August 3–9 Camp Seven Hills | Holland, NY Ages 7–16 YOU DON’T EVEN Ever wonder how to tell bad science from good? Or what it takes to become a paranormal investigator? Ever think about starting your own freethought group or organizing a philosophical debate? These may seem like jobs for the pros, but with the right HAVE TO BE resources and experiences, you don’t have to be an expert to Do-It-Yourself. You don’t even have to be a grown-up. Early-bird registration discount expires on April 30! For more information visit www.campinquiry.org A GROWN-UP. or call (202) 629-2403 ext. 200.

secularhumanism.org April/May 2014 Free Inquiry 41 Greta Christina What Would Happen If We All Came Out? continued from p. 8

Coming out would do more to help by something that runs counter to the the same thing. (In fact, atheists have us find one another than almost any standard social narratives, but it’s per- something going for us that LGBTs other organizing strategy we could fectly obvious once you start to think don’t have: telling people you’re gay come up with. When I was doing my about it. Coming out helps us find one doesn’t make them gay, but telling research, one of the themes that kept other—and that makes it possible to people you’re an atheist can and does coming up was atheists gearing up build communities and organize polit- help people become atheists.) their courage to tell people that they ical campaigns. It makes it possible to I get that it’s hard. I’m not asking were atheists—and having the people get the word out to even more people anyone to do anything that would seri- in their lives respond with a relieved that religion isn’t the only option—and ously screw up their lives. If coming out and delighted, “Me, too!” I was aston- to create safe places to land for even as an atheist would mean risking your ished at how often this happened. I more people as they continue to let job, your home, your support system, suppose I shouldn’t have been—I’ve that option go. And finding each other your children, or your safety, I’m not when we come out happens a lot. going to ask you to do it. If you’re in any doubt about the But for those of us who can do it, power of coming out, look at the his- coming out about our atheism is one of tory of the LGBT community. When the most powerful actions we can take. “I can’t stop thinking about how I was born, LGBT people were being It’s personally powerful. It’s politically powerful it would be if every one locked up in mental institutions. Today, powerful. Coming out is what’s going of us took just one step out of we’re getting married. We were able to make it safer for other atheists—the to make that change—and the thou- ones who really can’t come out without the atheist closet.” sands of other changes we’ve made, in it seriously screwing up their lives. If laws and media and in the hearts and every one of us who can do it comes minds of millions—when we started out about our atheism to one person— to come out. It was hard, especially in just one person who doesn’t already the early days, when the laws and the know—it could change the world. been reading the same statistics every- media and the hearts and minds were one else has about how many nonbe- even harder on us than they are now. lievers there are and how those num- But each time a gay person bers are on the rise, so it stands to told someone, “I’m gay,” it Greta Christina blogs at Greta Christina’s Blog. Her new reason that coming out as an atheist chipped away at that hatred book, Coming Out Atheist: How to Do It, How to Help would result in a “Me, too!” a fair and fear and ignorance. Each Each Other, and Why, is available in print, ebook, and amount of the time. It still took me by time an atheist tells someone, audiobook from Pitchstone Publishing. surprise—the way you can be surprised “I’m an atheist,” it’s doing

Arthur L. Caplan Dead Is Dead continued from p. 7

Accommodating a grieving family futile and violates their ethical duty in a hellish limbo of denial and uncer- by continuing to care for a corpse can not to abuse dead bodies. The prospect tainty as to when autopsies or organ be the humane thing to do. It is easier that more beds might be occupied by donation ought to begin. At the same to see the deceased in the intensive the dead surrounded by families armed time, it leaves society facing a huge care unit (ICU) than the morgue. And with court orders demanding “accom- potential bill for providing futile care sometimes it takes time for family and modation” and waiting for miracles for idiosyncratic religious reasons when friends to gather when death occurs. would add stress to already overstressed there are so many other vital health- But accommodation must be limited hospitals. care needs going unmet. to hours or days and not be subject to Americans seem to view death as third-party veto for religious reasons. only one option. But the desire It is not cheap to occupy a bed in to respect the feelings of fami- Arthur L. Caplan is the Drs. William F. and Virginia the ICU—it costs as much as $10,000 lies ought not to lead us to blur Connolly Mitty Professor of Bioethics at New York per day. Also, doctors and nurses don’t the line between life and University and director of the Division of Medical Ethics at want to treat the dead because it’s death. To do so leaves families New York University Langone Medical Center.

42 Free Inquiry April/May 2014 secularhumanism.org Ophelia Benson Share, Yes; Force, No continued from p. 11

“How ya doin?” Nawaz commented, one person but all people. The ques- But the rules and taboos of Islam do “This is not offensive & I’m sure God is tion-claim is often followed up with: not apply to everyone. As far as I’m greater than to feel threatened by it.” “We Muslims love the Prophet much concerned, they don’t apply to anyone Very good. Lovely. If you’re going more than our parents or children or who doesn’t choose to let them, but to have a god, for crying out loud have spouses.” It always makes me despair at any rate they certainly don’t apply one that’s not a petty, vain, spiteful in its blindness to important differ- to people who aren’t Muslim. We are tyrant. ences. A long-dead historical figure is allowed to draw stick-figures and label But no, that won’t do. The jobs pro- not the same as a living person and is them “Mo.” What Islam forbids is nei- gram for petty, vain, spiteful tyrants not in the same relationship to living ther here nor there. kicked into gear as indignant onlookers people as their loved ones are. It’s not The sad thing is that Nawaz’s cheer- fell all over themselves to reject and useful or wise to transfer the protec- ful statement looked at first (to me at rebuke any suggestion that Muslims tive love people have for those close least) like a chance to start a trend the aren’t required to have a meltdown at to them to a public figure who is also other way—toward a more relaxed, every joke or cartoon or criticism. a very demanding, detailed, intrusive open, liberal public face for Muslims in I’ve been following the backlash lawgiver. It was never a good idea to Britain. Nawaz is a parliamentary candi- closely, because religious tantrums over think of Stalin as Uncle Joe, and it’s not date for the Liberal Democrats and per- criticism both interest and worry me. a good idea to think of Muhammad as haps his way of thinking could spread. Two much-recycled claims are partic- Mother Mo. Given how the quarrel has played ularly good examples of treating per- The other pseudo-argument is: out so far, though, that doesn’t seem sonal beliefs as if they were laws bind- “Islam forbids making images of the likely. ing on everyone. prophet.” That one, surprisingly, is The first is usually formed as a ques- made by reporters as well tion: “How would you like it if some- as by Outraged Believers. Ophelia Benson is the editor of the website Butterflies and one did a cartoon of someone in your It is usually presented as if Wheels. Her books include Does God Hate Women? (with family?” The claim is that a cartoon of it applied to everyone, and Jeremy Stangroom, Continuum, 2009), The Dictionary of a man who has been dead for fourteen therefore Outraged Believers Fashionable­ Nonsense (Souvenir, 2004), and Why Truth centuries is equivalent to a cartoon of have a legitimate grievance Matters (Continuum, 2006). your family member—“you” being not if such images are published.

Shadia B. Drury Is Democracy a Threat to Liberty? continued from p. 9 tyranny of the majority would threaten took center stage with the passing of conservatism as it does to democracy. liberty. the notoriously ambiguous Mann Act It is therefore no wonder that social It took almost a century before Mill’s (1910). conservatives of every stripe have such liberal ideas were made historically As articulated by Mill, freedom of enthusiasm for democracy, especially manifest. But eventually, Mill’s ideas lifestyle was intended to defend excep- when the numbers are on their side. were echoed in the Report of England’s tional and eccentric individuals from This is as true for American conserva- Wolfenden Committee (1957), which the debilitating conformity that society tives as for the Muslim Brotherhood. led to the decriminalization of homo- requires. Liberalism was not a manifesto Social conservatives are interested in sexuality and prostitution between for the defense of vice. Nevertheless, the private morality of individuals; consenting adults (1967). In the United liberty requires tolerance for private they believe that it is the business of States, “sodomy laws” were first abol- vices, because the state has no business the state to enforce it—by democratic ished in Illinois in 1962; other states imposing a private morality on individ- means, of course. The latter have the followed, but many Southern states uals. But liberalism has never defended effect of bestowing a certain legiti- clung to their legal prohibitions until madams, pimps, pornographers, and macy and even modernity on these the Supreme Court struck them down other entrepreneurs who live off the age-old religious repressions. In this in 2003. Prostitution was another mat- vices of others. way, democracy is the handmaid of ter. Brothels were rampant throughout Mill’s demand for individual liberty social conservatism and its religious the United States in the nineteenth was a dramatic blow to the idea that despotism. In Iraq, there was more indi- century, but toward the end of the laws should reflect the morality of soci- vidual freedom (especially for women) century concerns for public morality ety, an idea that belongs as much to under the dictatorship of Saddam

secularhumanism.org April/May 2014 Free Inquiry 43 Hussein than under the democratic Pateman rightly suspected that the indi- ism. Their efforts to export Western liberal government installed by the United vidual championed by liberalism was a democracy have therefore ended in States. By the same token, the democ- privileged male individual. This had the catastrophe in one country after another. ratized Afghanistan has passed shock- effect of leaving underprivileged males They wrongly assumed that by replacing ingly repressive laws, especially against behind and relegating women to the tyranny with electoral politics, they women. In Egypt, the electoral success private realm beyond the protection of would give birth to friendly governments of the Muslim Brotherhood brought the law. Accordingly, radical democratic sharing the same values (and enemies) as such repressive laws that the country thinkers such as Chantal Mouffe defend themselves. It came as a surprise to them opted to return to military dictatorship the equal liberty of all citizens, includ- when the Iraqi government they had one year later. ing women, gays, and transgenders. So installed with so much blood and trea- So, does democracy threaten liberty? understood, democracy is an ethos that sure allied itself with America’s nemesis Absolutely. Is reconciliation between the requires citizens to treat one another in the region, Iran. In 2006, when the two impossible? Not exactly. Despite with respect as free and equal subjects. Palestinians elected Hamas in a free and the tension between the liberal and the This deep integration of liberalism and fair election, the United States and Israel democratic traditions, they have nev- democracy in the West remains a work in refused to accept the outcome because ertheless become closely integrated in progress. Nevertheless, it has taken root they confused democracy with the affir- the history of the West, so much so that sufficiently to create a unique state of mation of their own values. I believe that we think of them as a single entity—lib- affairs that cannot be easily transferred the conceptual disentangling of democ- eral democracy. But it behooves us to or reproduced overnight in societies with racy from political and economic liberal- recognize that their amalgamation has very different circumstances and history. ism is necessary if American foreign pol- taken over three hundred years. In the The tragedy of American foreign icy is to be rescued from its current state process, both liberalism and democracy policy since the end of the Cold War has of colossal ineptitude. were beneficiaries of their deep integra- been the failure of American policy tion. Liberalism prevented democracy makers—Democrats and from deteriorating into mob rule by Republicans—to recognize Shadia B. Drury is Canada Research Chair at the University of insisting on the rule of law and the pro- the tension between lib- Regina in Canada. She is the author of several books, including tection of minorities. At the same time, erty and democracy. They Terror and Civilization: Christianity, Politics, and the Western the egalitarian proclivities of democracy have mistakenly assumed Psyche (Palgrave Macmillan, 2004) and Aquinas and Modernity made liberalism more inclusive and less that democracy will auto- (Rowman & Littlefield, 2008). She is currently working on two aristocratic. In the twentieth century, matically yield both politi- books, Socratic Mischief and Chauvinism of the West. feminist philosophers such as Carole cal and economic liberal-

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44 Free Inquiry April/May 2014 secularhumanism.org THE IMMORALITY OF ATONEMENT THE IDEA THAT GOD WANTS BLOOD [Underlining and bracketed supplied] ROBERT G. INGERSOLL – 1861

According to the prevailing Christian belief, the Christian religion the greater the atonement. There was always a certain ratio rests upon the doctrine of the atonement. If this doctrine is with- between the value of the animal and the enormity of the sin. out foundation, if it is repugnant to justice and mercy, the fabric The most minute directions were given about the killing of these falls. [As St. Paul said of the Resurrection, so with Atonement, if animals, and about the sprinkling of their blood. Every priest it did not happen "your faith is in vain."] became a butcher, and every sanctuary a slaughter-house.

We are told that the first man committed a crime for which all his Nothing could be more utterly shocking to a refined and loving posterity are responsible—in other words, that we are ac- soul. Nothing could have been better calculated to harden the countable, and can be justly punished for a sin we never heart than this continual shedding of innocent blood. This terrible in fact committed. This absurdity was the father of system is supposed to have culminated in the sacrifice of Christ. another, namely, that a man can be rewarded for a good His blood took the place of all other. It is necessary to shed no action done by another. more. The law at last is satisfied, satiated, surfeited. The idea that God wants blood is at the bottom of the atonement, and God, according to the modern theologians, made a law, with the rests upon the most fearful savagery. How can sin be transferred penalty of eternal death for its infraction. All men, they say, have from men to animals, and how can the shedding of the blood of broken that law. In the economy of heaven, this law had to be animals atone for the sins of men? vindicated. This could be done by damning the whole human race. [Bear in mind, God means the Trinity: Father-Jesus- The church says that the sinner is in debt to God, and that the Holy Spirit.] obligation is discharged by the Savior. The best that can possibly be said of such a transaction is, that the debt is transferred, not Through what is known as the atonement, the salvation of a few paid. The truth is, that a sinner is in debt to the person he has was made possible. [The theologians] insist that the law—what- injured. If a man injures his neighbor, it is not enough for him to ever that is—demanded the extreme penalty, that justice called get the forgiveness of God, but he must have the forgiveness of for its victims, and that even mercy ceased to plead. Under these his neighbor. If a man puts his hand in the fire and God forgives circumstances, God, by allowing [Jesus] to suffer, satisfactorily him, his hand will smart exactly the same. You must, after all, settled with the law, and allowed a few of the guilty to escape. reap what you sow. No god can give you wheat when you sow The law was satisfied with this arrangement. tares, and no devil can give you tares when you sow wheat.

To carry out this scheme, God was born as a babe into this There are in nature neither rewards nor punishments—there are world. “He grew in stature and increased in knowledge.” At the consequences. The life of Christ is worth its example, its moral age of thirty-three, after having lived a life filled with kindness, force, its heroism of benevolence. To make innocence suffer is charity and nobility, after having practiced every virtue, he was the greatest sin; how then is it possible to make the suffering of sacrificed as an atonement for man. It is claimed that he actually the innocent a justification for the criminal? took our place, and bore our sins and our guilt; that in this way the justice of God was satisfied, and that the blood of Christ was Why should a man be willing to let the innocent suffer for him? an atonement, an expiation, for the sins of all who might believe Does not the willingness show that he is utterly unworthy of the on him. sacrifice?

Under the Mosaic dispensation, there was no remission of sin ex- Certainly, no man would be fit for heaven who would consent cept through the shedding of blood. If a man committed certain that an innocent person should suffer for his sin. What would we sins, he must bring to the priest a lamb, a bullock, a goat, or a think of a man who would allow another to die for a crime that pair of turtle-doves. The priest would lay his hands upon the ani- he himself had committed? mal, and the sin of the man would be transferred. Then the ani- mal would be killed in the place of the real sinner, and the blood What would we think of a law that allowed the innocent to take thus shed and sprinkled upon the altar would be an atonement. the place of the guilty? Is it possible to vindicate a just law by in- In this way Jehovah was satisfied. flicting punishment on the innocent? Would not that be a second violation instead of a vindication? The greater the crime, the greater the sacrifice—the more blood,

This space was paid for by an Ingersoll admirer; treat yourself to the brilliant language and common sense that mesmerized 19th C audiences all over the country by visiting www.theingersolltimes.com You will find all of his work, short and long biographies and much more in a highly readable newspaper format. Please look. If you like it, tell your friends; if you don’t, please tell me how to improve it: [email protected] Church-State Update

School Rankings and Vouchers: Connecting the Dots Edd Doerr

uch has been made of the global cation and its Republican-led diversion thirty-eighth in math and thirty-sixth school rankings released in Dec­ of public funds to charter and private in reading. So much for Svensk school Member 2013. They were based schools. Incidentally, Massachusetts vot- vouchers! (Sweden’s poverty rate is on the performance of fifteen-year-olds ers rejected measures to divert public less than one-third that of the United on math and reading in the Program funds to private schools in referendum States and the country is much more for International Student Assessment elections in 1982 and 1986 by margins of homogeneous than the United States.) (PISA), published in Education Week. 62 percent to 38 percent and 70 percent Then there is Chile, where the brutal Out of sixty-five countries, the United to 30 percent, the latter being the per- Pinochet military dictatorship installed States ranked thirty-sixth in math and centage of opposition to school vouchers the Milton Friedman school-voucher twenty-fourth in reading. Shanghai registered in the 2013 Gallup/PDK poll. plan after the 1973 coup. Where does and Hong Kong in China, Singapore, Florida voters in 2012 rejected vouchers Chile stand in the PISA ratings? It is Taiwan, South Korea, and Japan were by 55 percent to 45 percent. fifty-first in math and forty-seventh in the leaders in both categories, though Why didn’t the U.S. rank higher in reading. (In Chile’s presidential run- some suspect “fudging” by the Chinese. PISA? Part of the explanation is that a off election on December 15, 2013, far larger percentage of U.S. kids are the Socialist candidate whomped the poor in comparison with those in other Conservative candidate 62 percent to rich countries. According to UNICEF, 38 percent. Winner Michelle Bachelet in 2011, 23.1 percent of U.S. kids sev- evidently triumphed because she enteen years old and under lived in favors reducing the income/wealth “Why didn’t the U.S. rank higher households with incomes below 50 divide exacerbated by the Pinochet dic- in PISA? Part of the explanation percent of the national median. Only tatorship.) is that a far larger percentage Romania had a higher poverty rate. Now let’s turn to Indiana, the state in Here are comparative figures for some which I taught many years ago. There, of U.S. kids are poor in other countries: Sweden, 7.3 percent; recent Republican governors and leg- comparison with those Norway, 6.6 percent; Denmark, 6.3 islatures have been diverting public in other rich countries.” percent; the Netherlands, 5.9 percent; funds to church-run and other private Finland, 3.6 percent. In between were schools through vouchers (upheld by Canada, 14 percent; Germany, 9.4 per- the state supreme court in apparent cent; and the United Kingdom, 10 per- indifference to Article 1, sections 4 and cent. 6 of the state’s constitution). Charter Now let’s compare the U.S. ranking schools are riding high, but state school Only three U.S. states were involved with those of a couple of countries that superintendent Tony Bennett was in the PISA assessment: Massachusetts, have been praised by some for their ousted by voters in 2012 in favor of a Connecticut, and Florida. The first two school-voucher plans. Beginning in the Democrat and public-school teacher, placed somewhat above the overall U.S. 1990s, Swedish parents were given Glenda Ritz (now under attack by ranking in math and sixth and eleventh in vouchers for their children to attend Republican Governor Mike Pence). The reading, while Florida placed well below private schools, including those oper- unlamented Bennett had helped the the U.S. ranking in both—due, surely, to ated for profit. Sweden’s PISA rank- Cristel House Academy charter school the state’s underfunding of public edu- ing? It was behind the United States at get a phony “A” state rating in 2012,

46 Free Inquiry April/May 2014 secularhumanism.org which led to his departure as Florida evening out the school experience for in prayer”; Church of the Redeemer education commissioner in 2013. How all students.) Montgomery County pub- Christian School employs a curriculum do Hoosier schools stack up? According lic schools’ average annual per-student with “a solid base in the Bible.” And on to researcher Steve Hinnefeld, the spending is $13,607, but consider the and on and on. (My thanks to my col- state’s elementary public schools’ average per-student spending figures league Al Menendez at Americans for median “growth score” for 2012–2013 for the county’s private schools: Episcopal, Religious Liberty for pulling together is at the fifty-first percentile in math and $27,865; Quaker, $26,698; secular, $24,450; this material.) the fiftieth in English. For the private Catholic, $23,531; Jewish, $19,478; Can and should our public schools schools that reported growth scores, Protestant/Evangelical, $11,441. be improved? Of course, but we have which were mostly church-run, median Do these private schools attract reli- to stop the powerful pseudo-reform scores were at the forty-sixth percentile gious diversity in their student bodies? and privatization drives discussed in my in English and fortieth in math. For Should they receive public subsidies December 2013/January 2014 FI col- charter schools, median scores were extracted from taxpayers of all persua- umn. And we have to adopt the wise, at the forty-sixth percentile in English sions through vouchers or tax credits? tested reforms recommended by Diane and a measly thirty-sixth in math. For Let’s see how they advertise themselves Ravitch in her book Reign of Error: The the Cristel House Academy favored by in local media. Montrose Christian School Hoax of the Privatization Movement Bennett, the scores were twenty-fifth “provides Christ-centered education and the Danger to America’s Public in math and twenty-third in English. for the glory of the Savior”; B’nai Israel Schools. In January, The Nation maga- And all this despite the advantages zine rated Ravitch’s book as the “most of selectivity enjoyed by private and valuable book” of 2013. charter schools in comparison to public schools, which must accept all comers. Hinnefeld also notes that many of Indiana’s voucher-aided schools “use Edd Doerr is the president of Americans for Religious Liberty and the author of numerous articles and textbooks that infuse Christian funda- “. . . In 2011, 23.1 percent of mentalism with far-right politics and books. anti-government extremism. A number U.S. kids seventeen years old of the schools say on their websites and under lived in households that their curriculum is based on mate- with incomes below 50 percent rials from the A Beka or Bob Jones publishing companies, which espouse of the national median. Only a narrow form of religion that some Romania had a higher poverty describe as ‘Christian supremacist’ rate.” and take positions well outside the Christian mainstream.” The A Beka and Bob Jones textbooks are widely used in private conservative Christian schools throughout the country. My colleague Al Menendez exposed these two pub- lishers in his book Visions of Reality: What Fundamentalist Schools Teach School provides a “warm, nurturing (Prometheus Books, 1993). Jewish-oriented environment in which While we are comparing schools, it children grow and thrive Jewishly”; is interesting to look at the schools in Covenant Life School believes in “educat- rather well-off Montgomery County, ing students who will think biblically and Maryland, just north of Washington, live passionately for Christ”; the Muslim D.C., whose public-school system is Community School presents “an educa- rated one of the best in the nation by tional philosophy that is deeply rooted in Education Week. (Note: Maryland has the Qur’an”; Mary of Nazareth Catholic only twenty-four school districts, cotermi- School emphasizes a program “rooted nous with counties, compared to such in the faith and teachings of the Roman states as Pennsylvania with over five hun- Catholic Church, as professed in the dred districts and Texas with over 1,200; Creed, celebrated in the sacraments, Maryland’s setup is more conducive to lived in Christian virtue, and affirmed

secularhumanism.org April/May 2014 Free Inquiry 47 Great Minds

Lorraine Hansberry: Writing in the Light of Reason Becca Challman

We don’t need mysticism to exalt laws in court. Eight-year-old Hansberry man. Man exalts himself by his experienced raw hatred firsthand when achievements . . . and his power to a member of what she called a “shriek- reason. ing racist mob” hurled a brick through —Lorraine Hansberry the window of their home. It flew past Editor’s note: Pardon the inadvertent sex- her and lodged in the wall. ism in what follows. Lorraine Hansberry The Illinois courts evicted the Hans­ and her biographers followed the prac- berrys from that house, but her father tice of her time when referring to human- took the fight to federal court. His even- kind as “man.” tual Supreme Court victory came at a high price and had little effect in the orraine Hansberry (1930–1965) was short term. However, the Hansberrys a believer. She believed in art and took comfort in knowing they were not Lthat activism and art were inextri- alone in their fight to alter the fab- cably linked. She believed in education ric of society. Paul Robeson, Langston Hughes, W. E. B. Du Bois, Duke Ellington, and that ignorance was the “prime, and many other visitors provided sup- ancient, and persistent enemy of man.” port, solace, and intellectual stimulation She believed in beauty, goodness, truth, Lorraine Hansberry to the family. Influenced by her parents and love; but most of all, she believed in and the artists who respected them, humanism. Hansberry grew into a compassionate In her first public address as a writer, “. . . Man might just do what the radical writer. She began her career in in 1959, she illustrated what that belief Harlem, writing for and then editing meant: apes never will—impose the reason for life on life.’” Paul Robeson’s newspaper, Freedom. In Man is unique in the universe, the 1953, she married songwriter Robert only creature who has in fact the —Lorraine Hansberry Nemiroff. He wrote a hit, thus allowing power to transform the universe. the fledgling playwright to pursue her Therefore, it did not seem unthink- able to me that man might just do passion full-time. what the apes never will—impose Soon, Hansberry inscribed her pro­ the reason for life on life. That is vocative prose on the pages of American Hansberry died of cancer at the age of what I said to my friend. I wish to live theater history with her first play, A because life has within it that which thirty-four. She was born to educated Raisin in the Sun (1959). It made her is so good, that which is beautiful middle-class parents in a South Side and that which is love. Therefore, the youngest playwright, and the first Chicago ghetto, where blacks were since I have known all of these black playwright, to win the New York things, I have found them to be forced to live regardless of income, due Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Play reason enough and—I wish to live. to restrictive covenants. Her father, a of the Year. Her celebrated, now-classic Moreover, because this is so, I wish realtor and community activist, moved drama sheds light on the lives of a black others to live for generations. his family to a hostile, predominately South Side Chicago family whose mem- January 12, 2014, marks forty-nine white neighborhood so that he could bers struggle to achieve their disparate years since playwright and activist challenge the discriminatory housing dreams.

48 Free Inquiry April/May 2014 secularhumanism.org Hansberry’s voice of reason reso- same way about homosexuals; gentiles in the name of race or religion, both nates in the character of Beneatha, an about Jews; whites about blacks; haves devices that, though fraudulent, are atheist and feminist who is determined about have-nots. And then, always, very dangerous: “A man who has a to become a doctor. When her mother comes the reckoning—whether the sword run through him because intones that she will only do so if God Bible says so or not. . . .” he will not become a Moslem or a is willing, Beneatha responds, “Mama, In her second play, The Sign in Sidney Christian—who is lynched in Zatembe you don’t understand. It’s all a matter Brustein’s Window (1964), a Jewish or Mississippi because he is black—is of ideas, and God is just one idea I don’t intellectual struggles to renew mean- suffering the utter reality of that device accept. . . . I get tired of Him getting credit ing in his life. His loss of faith in the of conquest. And it is pointless to pre- for all the things the human race achieves causes he once fought for forces him to tend it doesn’t exist—merely because it through its own stubborn effort. There reexamine his values. Hansberry biog- is a lie!” Later, when Tshembe’s brother simply is no blasted God—there is only rapher Anne Cheney writes, “Sidney Abioseh, a Catholic priest, touts the man and it is he who makes miracles!” . . . searches for self-reliance and inner possibility of a black man becoming a Her mother slaps her and forces her to strength so that he may use this power bishop, Tshembe chastises him, saying repeat the phrase, “In my mother’s house, to improve society.” that “it will mean only the swinging there is still God,” and exits. The digni- jeweled kettle of incense of another fied Beneatha declares “All the tyranny cult–which kept the watch fires of our in the world will never put a God in the oppressors for three centuries!” heavens!” Les Blancs juxtaposes traditional Beneatha echoes her then twenty- African religious ceremonies with Catho­ eight-year-old creator’s views on reli- lic rituals. Tshembe dons a great gar- gion. In 1961, Hansberry told radio host ment of animal skins, while his brother Studs Terkel, “I have great confidence Abioseh wears the heavy robes of a about what she represents. She doesn’t “Eight-year-old Hansberry Catholic priest. For this scene, Hansberry’s have a word in the play that I don’t experienced raw hatred first- stage direction reads: “the two barbaric agree with still, today.” religious cries play one against the other In an audio interview with Patricia hand when a member of what in vigorous and desperate counterpoint.” Marx, Hansberry explained that Beneatha she called a ‘shrieking racist Carter writes, “This is consistent with represented progress as a member of the mob’ hurled a brick through the Hansberry’s skeptical view of nearly all younger generation: “Her less dependent religions and her strong preference for attitude on providence is a triumph.” window of their home.” rational humanism.” When Marx asked about the strength In Hansberry’s one-act play What Use Beneatha’s mother found in faith, Are Flowers?, an intellectual-turned-her- Hansberry responded, “I don’t attack mit comes out of self-imposed exile to people who are religious at all, as you check on society’s progress. He encoun- can tell from the play; I rather admire this ters five pre-lingual children, survivors of human quality to make our own crutches a nuclear catastrophe, and prepares them as long as we need them. The only thing to rebuild civilization. Nemiroff described I am saying is that once we can walk, you the play as “a dialogue on the value and know—then drop them.” Hansberry’s philosophy rings out in purpose of life, which constituted the In his book Hansberry’s Drama, Steven Sidney’s advice to a gay friend, “If you core of her writing.” Carter writes, “Hansberry regarded don’t like the sex laws, attack ’em, I The hermit teaches the children how the crutch of Christianity from a dual think they’re silly. You wanna get up to make and use tools, how to com- perspective—as a prop for holding up a petition? I’ll sign one.” Cheney con- municate, how to create art, and how weakness and as a club for battering cludes, “In The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s to treat each other with dignity. Finally, assailants.” Window then, Lorraine Hansberry he teaches them about death by telling Hansberry used her art to defend pleads for maturity and commitment them the truth: “I shall be glad enough blacks, feminists, gays, humanists, and in sexuality and creativity—whatever to merge, atom for atom, with the earth socialists at a time when American soci- form each may take.” again. . . . I will stay there forever. For ety was just waking up to the notion of Hansberry deplored the damaging always. Well you’ve seen other things equality; and she refused to allow her role religion plays in race relations and die! The birds, the fish we eat. They don’t hearers to go back to sleep. She wrote colonialism. In her third play, Les Blancs, come back! Nothing comes back!” in an unpublished letter, “Men continue produced posthumously in 1970, the Carter concludes, “As with the qualities to misinterpret the second-rate status of protagonist Tshembe Matoseh, a reluc- of beauty, goodness, and love, Hansberry woman as implying a privileged status tant revolutionary, explains that for defended reason and truth for the value for themselves; heterosexuals think the centuries men have been conquering they give to life.”

secularhumanism.org April/May 2014 Free Inquiry 49 n 1963, Hansberry was diagnosed with cancer, she did not revert to religios- Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1984. Ipancreatic cancer. She approached her ity. In his tribute essay Sweet Lorraine, Leone, B. and Szumski, B., eds. Readings on A Raisin in the Sun. San Diego, CA: illness and impending death with ratio- her friend and author James Baldwin Greenhaven Press, Inc., 2001. wrote, “I saw Lorraine in her hospital nalism and dignity. Cheney notes, “But Nemiroff, Robert, ed. To Be Young, Gifted, for this remarkable woman cancer was a bed, as she was dying. She tried to and Black: Lorraine Hansberry in Her Own matter of nature in imperfection, imply- speak, she couldn’t. She did not seem Words. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, ing, as always, work for man to do. It was frightened or sad, only exasperated Inc., 1969. Hansberry, Lorraine. A Raisin in the Sun, The an enemy, but a palpable one with shape that her body no longer obeyed her; she smiled and waved.” Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window. New and effect and source; and if it existed it York: Vintage Books, Random House, 1995. After nearly half a century, Hansberry’s­ could be destroyed. . . . There was one Hansberry, Lorraine. Les Blancs: The Collected work remains radiant, “For all of it” wrote thing, she felt, which would prove equal Last Plays of Lorraine Hansberry. New York: Baldwin, “was suffused with the light Random House, 1972. to its relentless ravages and that was the which was Lorraine.” Tripp, Janet. The Importance of Lorraine genius of man. Not his mysticism, but Hansberry. California: Lucent Books, 1998. man with tubes and slides and the stub- Further Reading born human notion that the stars are very Carter, Steven R. Hansberry’s Drama: Becca Challman is a former journalist and television news much within our reach.” Commitment­ amid Complexity. Urbana and Chicago: University producer on the education beat. She now freelances from When Hansberry discovered that of Illinois Press, 1991. her home in Delaware. medical science was not yet equal to Cheney, Anne. Lorraine Hansberry.

Applied Ethics

What’s the Appeal of Christian Ethics? William R. Creasy

n a cover story in Newsweek, “The Sullivan is a believing Christian, but he well. Is there anything about it that Forgotten Jesus” (April 9, 2012), is clearly trying to reach a moderate deserves respect, advocacy, and pub- IAndrew Sullivan advocated that peo- middle ground in discussing Christianity. lication in a national news magazine? ple should follow Christian ethics. He In his article, he criticized the religious Sullivan gave the heroic examples proposed the Jefferson Bible (formal Right and the “prosperity” sects of of Jesus and Francis of Assisi. These title: The Life and Morals of Jesus of Christians (those who think Jesus will men gave up material possessions, Nazareth) as a model. The Jefferson make believers wealthy and prosper- were celibate, and relied on faith in Bible was edited by Thomas Jefferson ous). He also disparaged religious peo- God (at least, according to tradition or to consist of the moral teachings of the ple who try to mix religion and poli- the mythical accounts). Sullivan wrote, New Testament without the miracle tics. Sullivan wrote: “When politics is “A modern person would see such a stories. Sullivan also argued for paying necessary, the kind of Christianity I am man [Francis] as crazy, and there were attention to the ethical teachings of describing seeks always to translate reli- many at the time who thought so too.” Jesus and editing out the supernatu- gious truths into reasoned, secular argu- Clearly, there aren’t many people, ralism. ments that can appeal to those of other ancient or modern, who want to emu- Christian ethics still receives a lot of faiths and none at all.” late this lifestyle. Those people who respect from Americans, even among non­ But the Christian ethics that Sullivan are forced to live this way, such as the theists who reject the rest of the religion. advocates needs informed criticism as homeless poor, are often perceived as

50 Free Inquiry April/May 2014 secularhumanism.org

PB Free Inquiry April/May 2014 secularhumanism.org unfortunates who can’t afford to buy It is hard to fit Jesus and Francis into give those who harm you; give up all the things they want, rather than as this category, though. What particular material wealth, . . . and give up power fortunate people who have the oppor- benefit did they bring to a group, and over others, because power . . . requires tunity to live without wants and posses- how did they benefit in return? What the threat of violence, and violence is sions. But the ideal survives to this day. gain did they get? According to the incompatible with the total acceptance For example, see Mary Johnson’s book modern tradition, Jesus and Francis dis- and love of all other human beings that An Unquenchable Thirst, about Mother avowed the obvious social benefits of is at the sacred heart of Jesus’ teach- Teresa and her order, the Missionaries their activities by giving up possessions ing.” (Sullivan also included love of of Charity. and by being celibate. They didn’t get God in this passage, which I edited out So why do Christians insist that Jesus anything for their efforts except the because it is obviously overtly super- and Francis are admirable? Let’s give respect of a small group of followers. natural.) The disavowal of all material Sullivan the benefit of the doubt that he But why are they still honored today, wealth or earthly power indicates that is expressing sincere admiration, rather instead of being perceived as equiva- to Sullivan, the natural world has to be than justifying the lifestyles of Jesus and lent to homeless people? Of course, the Francis. (We shouldn’t forget, though, historical truth of their actions could be that some of this admiration is likely from very different from the tradition. But the influence of two thousand years of modern admiration depends on the Christian propaganda. This is the propa- modern perception of their actions, ganda, after all, that made crucifixion rather than on historical truth that may sound like a good thing.) But perhaps not be known to modern people. Is there anything about there are deeper reasons for the per- Perhaps the key distinction is that sistent admiration. Jesus and Francis confronted ultimate even Andrew Sullivan’s In the same issue of Newsweek, problems of life and death. They didn’t well-mannered Christianity E. O. Wilson wrote an article about claim primarily that they sought to stop that deserves respect, the importance of group identity. (See evil people or improve living condi- also his book, The Social Conquest of tions. Instead, the goal of Jesus’s life, advocacy, and publication in a the Earth, on this subject.) Humans, as according to the doctrine that may national news magazine? social primates, have innate admiration have developed after his death, was for people who selflessly try to ben- to defeat death itself. In the face of efit the group at their own expense. this goal, an earthly reward is tempo- Individual group members often bene- rary and futile. The only worthwhile fit from leaders who make an effort to rewards come in the supernatural help their group. Of course, the lead- afterlife. Given this Christian premise ers also gain benefits for themselves: that supernatural rewards are the ones respect, subservience from others, and that matter, there is some logic in the considered as less important than the attention from the opposite sex. Their fact that their ethics is based on super- rewards of the supernatural one that selflessness is not really selfless; rather, natural rewards that supercede natu- comes after death. it is a strategy for gaining advantage. ral ones. Jesus’s reward for his selfless This presumption must be rejected This kind of admirable person isn’t lim- work for the group, by this logic, was by secular people, because of the ited to social or religious leaders. A to become the king of the afterworld. immense evidence that it is inconsistent leader in battle who acts courageously But Jefferson’s (and Sullivan’s) ideas with the way that we understand the and kills enemies is a hero to the group. of Christianity attempt to edit out the world to work. There is no objective evi- Even a fictional crime fighter such as supernatural miracles to remove the dence of supernatural rewards. Thus, Sherlock Holmes, Batman, or Miss supernatural basis of the religion. This we have to deal with natural laws and Marple is admirable in the sense of approach doesn’t work for this kind of their implications. benefitting society by eliminating evil ethics. Christian ethics is still based on A better framework for humanistic people. Other members of the group supernatural rewards. Those rewards ethics is to attempt to find a balance understand the strategy and can evalu- are still implicitly included in the rules between competing needs. We need ate whether the leaders are asking for of ethics. They can’t be removed by some power and control to get things too much in return for their help. For ignoring the explicit miracles. that we need to live. But hoarding too example, are they being bullies? Are Sullivan gives paraphrases of ethical much power for oneself can hurt other they being greedy? commands: “Love your enemy and for- people if it keeps them from fulfilling

secularhumanism.org April/May 2014 Free Inquiry 51 their needs. It can also destroy the extreme choices for their conduct. The a homeless shelter that wouldn’t exist environment, which will hurt everyone first option is that they can attempt otherwise. Buses of church-goers went in the future. to behave in a perfect, Christlike way, to Louisiana to rebuild houses after The problem with Christian ethics knowing that the effort is futile. This Hurricane Katrina. Some people gain psy- is that its ideal of denying material attempt can make them difficult for chological benefit from such an extraor- needs ignores the imperative to find others to deal with. Like the Jehovah’s dinary effort. a balanced way to live in the natu- Witnesses who come around to knock But the flip side is guilt caused by ral world. Perhaps such ethics can be on doors, it’s hard to know whether the inability to be perfect. Many former suited to conditions in which everyone they will be insulted or hurt by even believers have lost faith because they has to live at subsistence income lev- offhanded comments. Their personalty felt guilty after failing to meet unre- els or to life in a communal tribe. In depends on having enough willpower alistic expectations about themselves such cases, no one has much power to control all their impulses.They act and were disappointed that they didn’t and all rewards are temporary. But like they have a hair-trigger, so that get a reward for trying to be good. the approach is a poor fit for modern some failure to have perfect behavior But these problems can be counter- urban life. Some Christian sayings are will make them feel inadequate. balanced by the social interaction and practical, such as “Do unto others as The other extreme is to disregard fellowship that comes from working you would have them do unto you,” a all Christian ethical instructions and with other people to accomplish a wor- principle that existed in various forms assume that each true Christian will be thy goal. forgiven before he or she dies. This is As a psychological benefit, there- almost like having no definite ethics fore, the ideal ethics seems to give at all. It implies the repugnant conclu- mixed results at best. Humanists should sion that Hitler could be in heaven if encourage philanthropic behavior. But he confessed his sins before he died, it isn’t clear that naturalistic motiva- “. . . Leaders who make an effort while his Jewish victims receive eternal tions to help others can be as strong to help their group . . . also gain punishment. at motivating some people as super- Fortunately for an orderly society, natural rewards or guilt and fear of benefits for themselves: respect, most Christians tend to ignore these punishment. It may remain a matter of subservience from others, logical extremes. They act with the choice whether an individual finds the and attention from the opposite pragmatic, humanistic ethics that is benefit of belief to be worth the effort necessary for routine social function- for a particular issue. sex. Their selflessness is not ing, even if they may give lip service to Two examples for comparing Chris­ really selfless. . . .” the ideals. They generally realize that tianity to secular humanism can illustrate science works based on natural laws further. The first example is the idea of and not on miracles, and they accept reciprocity. Reciprocity is the general idea the benefits of science (although some that people actively help people with make exceptions for some subject whom they interact on a regular basis on material, such as the creationist attack the assumption that the others will be on evolution). helpful to them in turn at a future time. before Christianity. Perhaps someone However, there are ideals from It is routine for most people to be can edit statements like this into a Christianity that have seeped into nice, or show reciprocity, to other peo- list of statements of naturalistic eth- Western culture. Christianity has had ple whom they see on a daily or weekly ics from the Bible, something such as remarkable longevity in Western coun- basis. Family members or close friends Jefferson tried to do for miracles. tries. Are there principles that are ben- usually get the best treatment. These Most of Christian ethics has unreal- eficial, either to society or to a person’s actions are usually automatic and don’t istic, unachievable idealism based on psychological well-being, that have take much thought. As people deal perfect supernatural rewards and per- helped it to continue? Can humanists with strangers, the decision about fect justice. Christian doctrine itself says accept the benefits without believing in whether to help becomes difficult. that everyone is an imperfect sinner the supernatural afterlife? People tend to be solicitous to strang- who can’t keep the Commandments. ers whom they may never see again if Perhaps this extreme idealism is another he effort to do good deeds, accord- the others are in serious need and there aspect that Sullivan finds admirable. Ting to Christian ideals, may produce isn’t a major risk associated with the The doctrine of extreme idealism some good results that wouldn’t happen assistance. But this depends on culture. gives Christians two logical and equally otherwise. A church group may open There is no reciprocal relationship that

52 Free Inquiry April/May 2014 secularhumanism.org ensures that being nice to one stranger understand it. However, this idea has could happen to the human race. But will lead to a different stranger being always conflicted with the concept we can and do rely on our own reason nice in return. of free will that is needed to explain and abilities to try to foresee problems Christian doctrine has a response human sin, and there is no resolution and prevent them. We may still fail, to the problem. It says that people to that conflict. For the purposes of but we have no excuse not to try. As a should always be nice to others, be rationalizing mistakes or natural disas- result, humanists don’t look to the end they strange or familiar, as in the Good ters, or even just of explaining away of the world but to continued improve- Samaritan parable. Even if the others luck or coincidences, everything that ment in human life. Human actions never reciprocate, the good deed will happens is “supposed to happen.” The can be successful. Our fate is in our benefit the doer in the afterlife. Of supernatural plan means that one and hands, and we must work together to course, if the other person is a Christian, all are doing what they are supposed to our mutual benefit. If actions improve it is assumed that he or she will be nice. be doing with their lives. human existence, they are meaningful So Christians argue that this ideal nice- in that sense. ness has improved life and advanced Neil deGrasse Tyson gave an elo- civilization over the centuries. Non- quent defense of the manned space Christians argue that Christians have program in these terms in a March been tribal, formed sects that went 15, 2012, appearance on C-SPAN. He to war with each other and can be as argued that the space program would selfish as anyone else, implying that the “Jesus’s reward for his selfless confer economic benefits and defense advantages, so it would have mean- ideal hasn’t been followed. work for the group, by this logic, Humanism has a different response. ing in that sense. A humanist finds Humanists assert that people should was to become the king that meaning from this kind of human be nice to others because we are all of the afterworld.” advancement is more fulfilling and human beings. This is a weaker argu- satisfying than the completion of an ment than the Christian doctrine, in the unknown supernatural plan that is out sense that we all know other people of our hands. From these examples, Christian doc- who are nice and deserve to be treated trine gives mixed results. It can make well, but we also know people who will reciprocity an ideal to be pursued with- take advantage of a favor without any out thinking, but at the cost of guilty intention of being nice in return. Being The idea of God’s will can be used to feelings when one can’t bring oneself nice without any chance of reciprocity say that Christians enjoy a psychologi- to “turn the other cheek.” It can provide is a waste of effort. Ultimately, each cal benefit of having less anxiety about reassurance that actions have meaning person has to decide whether another mistakes or future bad consequences. in the grand scheme of the universe, person is trustworthy and worth help- They argue that if something bad hap- but at the expense of fatalism. ing. The need to make a judgment pens, God wants it to happen. The But overall, the ideal system of Chris­ invalidates, to some degree, the princi- disadvantage of this way of thinking is tianity is based on belief in supernatural- ple that we are all humans who equally fatalism. If every event is predestined, ism, which is difficult to justify rationally. deserve benefits. why strive to make improvements? The humanist approach, based on So in this case, the idea of an after- Why bother trying to avoid mistakes observable reality, is better. It depends life impacts Christian ethics by making or prevent disasters? Indeed, the tra- on demonstrable benefits of real an ideal of being nice logically possible ditional doctrine is that the world will human actions, which are stable over without an expectation of reciproc- end in an inevitable apocalypse that is long-term history. It makes interactions entirely the work of God. ity. The ethics doesn’t work without a between humans to be based on The approach of humanism can be belief in the supernatural, because the mutual understanding rather than grim but not fatalistic. Natural laws imply humanistic alternative is weaker and unverifiable faith. more cautious. that death and disaster could happen at The second example is the problem any time, anywhere, without consider- of the meaning of life (or of particular ation of human needs, and actions). Christian doctrine states that there is no guarantee that the William R. Creasy is a past president and current board events are predestined by a supernat- consequences could be in any member of the Washington Area Secular Humanists ural, omniscient God. The assumption way beneficial. Many species (WASH). A version of this article was published in WASH­ is that God’s plan makes each event have lived on Earth and have line, the newsletter of WASH. meaningful, even if humans don’t gone extinct, and the same

secularhumanism.org April/May 2014 Free Inquiry 53 Humanism at Large

My Invisible Friends Dennis E. Erickson

have an invisible friend. However, I sun is an average-size star, so picture in hellfire and brimstone. Others to am not crazy or delusional, as some trillions and trillions of suns lighting be stoned to death include adulter- Imight expect. As a matter of fact, Earth. Creating the Moon to light the ers, homosexuals, blasphemers, and you, the nonbelievers in my imaginary night sky might possibly have been people who work on the Sabbath. He friend, may well be the ones who are redundant. commands us to cast into exile those crazy. My friend created the mountains, who eat blood, those who have skin My friend tells me to love my neigh- rivers, oceans, and all that lives; how- diseases, and those who have sex with bor as myself. He also tells me to stone ever, more than 98 percent of all living their wives when they are menstru- people to death for minor offenses things that have ever lived are now ating. These seem to be only possible such as working on the Sabbath. My extinct. His grand design had a few minor character flaws, but who am I friend, or at least one third of him, died other flaws, including human embryos to judge? on the cross for the sins of Adam and producing tails, gill sacs, and a full coat My friend created Adam and Eve Eve, but he also tells us the child is not of apelike hair; urinary tracts in men who immediately sinned. They begot responsible for the sins of the father. that run directly through the prostate Cain and Abel, Cain slew Abel, and No mixed message there. gland; and obstetric fistula rupture in shortly thereafter, 99.9999 percent of women—but let’s not be picayune. all life on Earth was drowned because The book of love, the New Testament, of sin or something or other. Yet my “My friend, or at least one says that my friend lived on this planet friend is considered perfect. Given how third of him, died on the cross for about thirty-three years. His more his creations turned out, one might ask: for the sins of Adam and Eve, notable accomplishments during this Perfect in what sense? period were walking on water, multiply- Then there is my friend’s friend, but he also tells us the child is ing fish, turning water into wine, curing Moses, who received the Ten (or so) not responsible for the sins of a leper or two, bringing a few dead Commandments directly from my the father. No mixed message people back to life, dying on the cross friend, twice!! (The first set reportedly (as did thousands of others), preaching broke, possibly due to shoddy work- there.” love and forgiveness, and demanding manship. The second set is missing in decency and charity toward the poor action, nowhere to be found.) Moses led and disabled. the Israelites out of Egypt and killed or My friend claims to be kind, merciful, During his time on Earth, he traveled had killed tens of thousands of innocent and forgiving. However, he supposedly in about a three-hundred-mile radius men, women, children, and animals and flooded Earth, causing the death of all through the Middle East, missing other condoned the rape of young virgins as living things except for one family and populations, including in the Americas, booty of war and plunder. two or so of each species. Throughout China, Europe, India, Japan, and Africa. My friend instructs us on how to the Old Testament, he killed or mur- Camels and mules can carry even an keep slaves, sacrifice animals, and deal dered tens of thousands of innocent all-powerful, all-knowing friend only with mildew. He tells us the penalties men, women, children, and animals. so far. My friend created all animals for having false gods, but he does not My friend made two powerful and then made their primary diet each instruct us on how to deal with arguably lights: the brighter one to rule the day other; however, he knows when even a more important topics, such as how to and the other to rule the night. He also sparrow poops—or poopeths. cure or eliminate cancer. Perhaps this is made the stars to help light the night My friend may perhaps be a tri- merely an oversight. sky, about three hundred sextillion of fle on the jealous side, as he tends Nevertheless, my invisible friend gives them. (That’s a three followed by twen- to become upset if you have other me inner peace and comfort, answers ty-one zeros, or three trillion times one invisible friends—“upset” in the sense my prayers, and gives meaning to my hundred billion.) So evidently he is not that the punishment is death by ston- life. I believe without evidence because keen on conservation of energy. Our ing, followed by spending all eternity I have faith.

54 Free Inquiry April/May 2014 secularhumanism.org have another invisible friend who helps sand years old; that the elements are in him based on faith; does not condemn Iincrease the yield of crops to help feed earth, air, fire, and water; that stars are you to an eternity in hell if you have the world’s hungry; who designs land, points of light in the dome of the sky; other friends; has found ways to deal water, and air machines to move us and that the Sun is not a star. We would with mildew without employing two quickly to any place on the planet; who still have walking and riding animals birds, a stick of cedar wood, a piece of warns us of approaching disasters such as the only modes of transportation; red yarn, and a branch from a hyssop as tsunamis, tornadoes, floods, hurri- beliefs in sun-, moon-, rain-, lightning- plant; and believes that you can be good canes, and volcanic eruptions; who and on and on gods; and no books or for goodness’s sake, not because of the makes medicines to cure illnesses and magazines. We would still believe that reward of heaven or the fear of hellfire relieve pain; makes artificial limbs for bad weather is the result of mankind’s and brimstone. amputees (miracles don’t work on sins; that sacrificing humans or animals This friend is the same in all countries amputees, even to help beatify a pope); to the gods is acceptable and helps of the world because he represents performs heart and liver transplants to obtain desired results such as rain, provable and proven truths in mathe- that save many lives; makes devices a successful hunt, or a good harvest; matics, engineering, medicine, and in to instantly communicate worldwide; that a proper ceremony with appro- the sciences—with no room for myths, increases the quality and longevity of priate garb (sometimes including a tall fairy tales, goblins, witches, devils, and life; designs climate-controlled build- pointy hat and a staff), with official rants demons—and, in most cases, no room ings; and invents and makes machines and gyrations and pomp and ceremony, for personal gods who tuck you into bed for practically every use imaginable to can change a future event; that witches at night. help enhance the quality of our lives. exist, cause such things as disease and Without my friend, we would still be thunder, and must be put living in caves with life expectancies of to death—after confiscating Dennis Erickson had a career in the chemical industry before thirty-five years of misery. We would still their property and wealth, he retired. Among other pursuits, he now enjoys creative believe that Earth is flat and the center of course. writing—particularly satirizing religion and the Bible. He is of the universe; that the Sun revolves My other invisible friend the author of God, Man, and Moses (Amazon, 2013). around it; that Earth is about six thou- does not insist that you believe­

Obituary Joe Levee, Supporter and Former Board Member

oseph Raymond Levee, a dedi- fossil deposit, Levee and FIG launched cated supporter of the Council for a community-wide campaign that suc- JSecular Humanism and its sup- cessfully prompted Ham to change loca- porting organization, the Center for tions for his museum. Inquiry, died at the age of eighty-seven In 1996, FIG founded the first sum- on February 1, 2014. Levee first became mer camp specifically tailored to children involved with the Council in 1991, when of nontheistic parents, Camp Quest, on he gave a sizable donation to the ini- which CFI’s own Camp Inquiry is based. tiative to expand the office space of Levee and his wife ran the camp store for the headquarters in Amherst, New York. Camp Quest’s inaugural season. Later that year, Levee founded a local Joe Levee served for many years as a secular group in Cincinnati, Ohio, called board member of CODESH (which later the Free Inquiry Group (FIG). He served became the Council for Secular Human­ as president and in other capacities for ism) and later a part of the Center for Joe Levee 1926–2014 FIG for many years. FIG would go on to Inquiry. He served as treasurer for the become one of CFI’s most active and liferation of religious symbols during the Center for Inquiry corporations until he innovative affiliated groups. It earned winter holiday season. When Answers in stepped down in 2006. Levee is survived national attention in the media when Genesis’s Ken Ham wanted to build his by his wife, Barbara. it erected a physical representation thirty-million-dollar Creation Museum of Jefferson’s “Wall of Separation” in opposite the entrance to Kentucky’s —Julia Lavarnway , downtown Cincinnati to protest the pro- state park that houses the state’s richest Free Inquiry Assistant Editor

secularhumanism.org April/May 2014 Free Inquiry 55 Reviews

Less Secular Than It Seems Tom Flynn

Suicide is the emergency cord we want to be able to pull when we do not want to wait until the train stops at the station. —Thomas Szasz, Stay: A History of Suicide and the Philosophies Against It, by Fatal Freedom (1999) Jennifer Michael Hecht (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, n 2003, poet-historian Jennifer Michael 2013, ISBN 978-0-300-18608-6). 280 pp. Hardcover, $26.00. Hecht gave us The End of the Soul and IDoubt: A History, two vastly insight- ful accounts of modern atheism’s emergence from the Enlightenment. Hecht has made another great splash with Stay: A History of Suicide and the Philosophies Against It. The book statements of fact? Is this just how .012 they can be said to have been recom- engendered ample commentary, even percent of our fellow Americans elect to mending” it. a December tribute on The New York die each year? Hume in particular introduced the Times op-ed page (tellingly, delivered by Hecht says no. “I’m issuing a rule,” she game-changing concept that our lives house communitarian David Brooks). Stay writes passionately. “You are not allowed belong to us, not to king, church, or deity: urges secular readers to discard vague convictions that suicide is okay because— to kill yourself . . . [y]ou have to stay.” “Has not every one . . . the free disposal well, because the churches are against it. Okay, we know where the book’s title of his own life?” he wrote. “And may he Instead, Hecht puts forward naturalistic comes from. not lawfully employ that power with arguments that she hopes will embolden An able intellectual historian, Hecht which nature has endowed him?” freethinkers to stand beside believers in traces the development of Western think- Post-Christian thinking followed Hume’s battling what she views as the scourge ing on suicide. (In what follows, I blend lead. Here’s Robert Ingersoll: “The old idea of suicide. material from the book with additions was that God made us and placed us here The voluntary deaths of two friends from my own research.) Self-annihilation for a purpose and that it was our duty to triggered Hecht’s aching focus on this had many defenders in the ancient world; remain until he called us. The world is out- subject. (Does anyone write on suicide Roman law allowed free men to kill them- growing this absurdity.” objectively, that is, without first being selves for multiple reasons including tae- Here’s philosopher John Donnelly, driven to it by the loss of someone close? dium vitae, roughly “having had enough editor of a 1998 pro-and-con anthology Thanks for asking. It was my mother, in of life.” After briefly lauding martyrs’ sui- on suicide: “Contemporary public senti- 1995, with pills.) cides, Christianity firmly forbade the act. ment seems to be catching up with the Hecht paints a stark statistical picture. By Augustine’s time, theology depicted long-standing view of many philosophers More than thirty thousand Americans men’s souls as God’s property, therefore that suicide can sometimes be the quintes- died by suicide in each of the last twenty his alone to dispose of. sential free, rational act.” years—38,364 in 2010, the last year for With the Enlightenment, Western And here’s the late psychiatric icon- which Centers for Disease Control data thought reopened the question of sui- oclast (and longtime member of the was available. Suicide now kills more cide. Hecht wishes it hadn’t: “The En­­ International Academy of Humanism) people than car crashes; it “is among lightenment enhanced the value of the Thomas Szasz: “Following Hume, I believe Americans’ top ten causes of death, and self above that of community and tradi- . . . that we have just as much right and for adults under forty-five, it is among tion and made of each man an indepen- responsibility to regulate how we die as the top three.” We are meant to view dent being.” Wait—these are bad things? we have to regulate how we live.” these statistics as inherently tragic. Or “[B]oth Hume and d’Holbach sometimes In the interest of fairness, I should should we understand them as simple advocated suicide so vociferously that quote one other humanist commentator:

56 Free Inquiry April/May 2014 secularhumanism.org “One archaic yoke remains: the convic- suicide as pathological”—along with the standing of a 2005 suicide. A coroner’s tion that whoever owns your life, it’s not related certainty that suicide is always inquest had ruled the death of Oxford you. Hence suicide remains under that a problem, never a solution. She leans student Alice McGovern a suicide, sug- umbra of social denunciation from which heavily on both as she proceeds. gesting that her act was rational. An ini- divorce—or, say, marrying outside your The first contention: Because of fol- tial story in The Guardian simply reported social class—has but recently emerged. low-on effects, suicide is better under- the inquest’s finding, quoting a suicide The prohibition of suicide may be the last stood as delayed homicide. Successful sui- note in which McGovern wrote, “Life of the ancien régime’s curbs on self-de- cide makes others’ self-destruction more is simply not for me” (Shades of tae- termination.” Yep, that was me; I’m one likely, in Hecht’s view mooting defenses dium vitae!), accompanied by testimony of those suicide-friendly secular thinkers from self-ownership: “Whether you call from acquaintances that she had shown whose mind Hecht hopes to change. it contagion, suicidal clusters, or sociocul- no signs of mental disorder before her In my case, it didn’t work. Make no tural modeling . . . suicide causes more death. The forces of revision lost no time. mistake, Stay is compellingly written—I suicide, both among those who knew The very next day, an analysis in The Times don’t think Hecht is capable of writing the person and among the strangers of London reinterpreted McGovern’s other than marvelously—so why couldn’t who somehow identified with the victim. story, musing darkly (if without evidence) her book change my views? Stay has If suicide has a pernicious influence on that “there probably was an underlying, multiple difficulties, but its fatal prob- others, then staying alive has the oppo- if undetected, pathology at work.” The lem is straightforward: while many natu- site influence: it helps keep people alive.” article repeatedly impugned McGovern’s ralistic thinkers have offered arguments The second contention: The would-be sanity based on nothing more than the against suicide, and Hecht marshals them suicide who refrains from self-destruction certainty that any successful suicide sim- skillfully—who knew that apostle of lib- has a future self who will one day be ply must be mentally ill. “There would erty, John Stuart Mill, thought people grateful for that forbearance. This may seem to be a certain resistance … to the lacked the right to end their lives?—the be Hecht’s most audacious claim: “[T]he most powerful naturalistic arguments suicidal person owes something to … a about suicide uphold its licitness. Period. future self who might feel better and be Candidly, Humean self-ownership alone grateful that the person he or she once “Stay urges secular readers to is almost impossible to trump. was fought through the terrible times to discard vague convictions that Hecht is sorely aware that the most make it to something better.” formidable case against suicide requires For reasons I’ll explain below, I’m suicide is okay because—well, a supernatural subtext: “[O]ur culture’s unconvinced. Hecht’s precondition that because the churches are only systematic argument against suicide suicide is always pathological implies too against it.” is about God.” She fights back as best she much; her explicit contentions, however can, offering one important precondition artfully presented, confirm too little. Let’s and two principal contentions. examine each in turn. The precondition: Suicide must always be thought of as pathological, never as Suicide Is Pathology. Or Is It? idea that suicide could be in any way a rational choice. “[T]his book is chiefly The stigma now attached to suicide rationally or freely chosen,” Marsh wrote about despair suicide, rather than what functions largely by disparaging the understatedly. “The notion of a ‘volun- might be called end-of-life manage- act as invariably pathological and those tary death,’ of one not determined … ment,” Hecht writes. For her, mental ill- considering suicide as mentally ill, by mental illness or abnormalities in the ness and terminal physical illness exhaust hence subject to the casual deprivation personality of the individual in question, the possible motivations for taking one’s of their liberty. That stigma has been cannot be countenanced.” life, leaving no conceptual room for sui- so powerful for so long that it’s hard With such powerful skewing forces cide as a rational act: “it is an intellectual to measure how high the prevalence in play, it seems inevitable that a disturb- and moral mistake,” she insists, “to see of pathology among suicides actually is ing number of rational suicides may be the idea of suicide as an open choice that (more on this below). misportrayed as acts of madness. The each of us is free to make.” Today, suicide-as-pathology ortho- canonical statistic that 90 percent of sui- Hecht’s stance, then, excludes indi- doxy bends both the language men- cides are mentally ill, bandied about so viduals who make clear-eyed decisions tal-health professionals use to talk confidently by authorities such as psy- to end their lives in response to calami- about suicide and the language jour- chiatrist Kay Redfield Jamison, may be ties whose aftermath they prefer not to nalists use to report on it. Many media exaggerated. experience—the pullers of the Szaszian outlets have explicit guidelines (often Even if it isn’t, it paints a disconcerting cord. Excluded also are those who con- drafted by suicide-prevention organiza- picture. Suppose 90 percent of suicides template life, find it wanting, and resolve tions) dictating that suicide always be are mentally ill. That means that 10 per- to return a gift they never asked for. presented as an act of madness. In a dis- cent of those who kill themselves do so Hecht fully embraces what scholar Ian turbing account, Marsh chronicled how rationally. Presumably a similar percent- Marsh termed the “insistence on reading this orthodoxy reversed public under- age of those whose suicide attempts fail

secularhumanism.org April/May 2014 Free Inquiry 57 are rational also—yet they are bundled seems absurd, and in most cases it Without short-changing the capri- with the mentally ill and (let’s not mince should, let’s consider another view. ciousness of life—and here, Hecht surveys words) effectively enslaved, compelled to What Hecht’s data actually seems an impressive roster of philosophers— continue living lives they yearn to aban- to show is that knowing a suicide— she still ends up suggesting that if we don for no better reason than that oth- whether intimately or just as a name can just bull through our “terrible times,” ers think that best for them. And Hecht in the paper—is statistically associated something better awaits. Contrast that to seems to think such people do not exist! with a rise in the likelihood that one will pro-suicide advocate M. A. Quest’s wry Shouldn’t secular individuals press for attempt or commit suicide oneself. That’s realism: “[C]onditions could just as likely society to better respect the autonomy of reasonable enough. But expressing the get worse. We do not know what lies would-be suicides—even if that means situation that way lifts much of the moral ahead.” accepting more suicides among the men- burden from the prospective suicide. If A On reflection, neither of Hecht’s prin- tally ill—in order to avoid so blatantly vio- suicides now and B, who knew A, suicides cipal contentions is as strong as it first lating the autonomy of rational people? later, then if B was rational, B’s suicide will appeared. English jurist William Blackstone memo- have been the consequence of a new, rably declared, “It is better that ten guilty free choice on B’s part. If B was mentally It Gets Worse persons escape than that one innocent ill, it will have been the consequence of “Consider the terrible aftermath of a com- suffer.” Shouldn’t we extend that prin- B’s mental illness. Either way, the argu- pleted suicide,” Hecht writes: “. . . While ciple to suicide, recognizing that in this ment that A is profoundly responsible for ending the pain, and existence of one context the “innocents” are the rational B’s suicide is undercut. person, it creates profound grief in those 10 percent (or however many there really The people around me are not auto­ left behind.” Because Hecht so sternly are) who get mislabeled “mentally ill” mata. If I end my life and others opt to opposes suicide, she never lets herself and deprived of their liberty just because do likewise, those suicides will be their wonder what the future might hold if they wish to die? choices, their decisions to abandon lives self-killing became more widely accepted. On this point Szasz is characteristically that were as thoroughly theirs to dispose That’s a huge omission, because most blunt. “Killing oneself is a decision, not a of as my life was mine. At least, that’s that now makes suicide dark and ghastly disease,” he writes. “Dying voluntarily is how it seems to me. proceeds from its stigma, not from the a choice intrinsic to human existence.” act itself. Hecht’s case that suicide can never be Hecht’s Future-Self Contention Quest captures matters perfectly: “The rational remains, in my view, unproven. Hecht notes that many who attempt sui- problems now associated with suicide are cide go on to lead full lives; some express due mainly to negative societal attitudes relief that their previous attempts at and the consequent need to be surrep- self-annihilation failed. From this she titious, [to] use crude, unsophisticated “I’m one of those concludes that anyone considering sui- methods, in unsavory circumstances with- suicide-friendly secular thinkers cide should think again, out of respect out discussion or any sympathetic sup- for the potential desires of his or her port and then leaving behind a gruesome whose mind Hecht hopes to potential future self. mess for others to clean up.” Surely that change. In my case, For all the surface audacity of this was the case with my mother’s suicide, it didn’t work.” contention—I admit that when I first which (as I’ve written before) was rational read it, my reaction was “Wow, I never enough but became a shocking and bru- thought of that!”—I was frankly surprised tal thing solely because she needed to go at how quickly it deflated under closer about her final project furtively. examination. What a slender reed is this In 1919, French physician Charles Hecht’s Delayed-Homicide Contention notion that someone considering suicide Binet-Sanglé published a book proposing What can we say of Hecht’s contention should assign great weight to how his or the creation of thanatoria, public facili- that each suicide is a delayed homicide? her future self might feel about it. Isn’t ties where people could end their lives Well, it’s seriously overstated. Hecht this the very future self whose develop- openly, by humane methods, among implies that anyone who suicides should ment a person considering suicide is on surroundings of their choosing, in the reasonably expect to be emulated and the cusp of extinguishing? Isn’t any debt company of family members and friends. should bear primary moral responsibility I might imagine owing to my future self The proposal never went anywhere. Yet for any resulting deaths. That formula- dwarfed by the present stakes when I how much more compassionate that tion grants to the person considering ponder whether to pull the plug on that would have been than today’s stark cul- suicide a grandiose level of power. And self right now? Does the amount I owe ture of repression that condemns those what a patronizing view of emulators, my future self vary depending on how seeking self-deliverance to dismal, soli- who apparently so lack agency that just long and/or happy my future will be? If tary expeditions to the medicine cabinet, knowing about someone else’s suicide so, of what use is this principle, since that tall bridge, closed garage, rooftop, knife can compel them to mimic it. If that is something none of us can know? drawer, or gun locker.

58 Free Inquiry April/May 2014 secularhumanism.org If wider acceptance of suicide would Hecht the poet gets in Hecht the think- almost quasi-religious pleading—albeit benefit would-be suicides, it might be er’s way. One saw this occasionally in her one that’s not about God and stands equally beneficial for survivors. First, what generally excellent history The End of the completely outside Christian tradition. a boon it would be if fewer survivors had Soul. Objecting to, say, some philosophe’s What does it tell us that a thinker of to be surprised by discovering loved ones stark materialism, she could express dis- Hecht’s undeniable firepower devoted who had secretively destroyed them- approval in a romantic/poetic register such energy to this project and, in my selves in horrific ways! Hecht’s book is that verged on a denial of naturalism. view, failed? I wonder whether she may built on sympathy for survivors, yet she In Stay, Hecht’s language vaults fur- have, however accidentally, demon- never envisions how much of the rest ther yet. Here, she is striving to ground strated that it’s not possible to construct of the horror suicide holds for those left would-be suicides’ sense of debt to their a comprehensive case against suicide behind stems from the stigma alone. future selves: “Either the universe is a entirely within a naturalistic system. In Who knows, in a more suicide-toler- cold dead place with a little growth of order to craft an intellectually, morally, ant society—dare I say it, a healthier soci- sentient but atomized beings each all by and emotionally conclusive argument ety?— suicide might come to be seen by him- or herself trying to generate mean- proscribing suicide, sooner or later one survivors as just another way to die, and ing, or we are in a universe that is alive might have to reach outside of natural- one of the more satisfactory ways at that. with a growth of sentient beings whose ism and into the “woo,” pulling back a Viewed clearheadedly, dying by one’s members have made a pact with each handful of poetic tropes about God or own hand might still seem less agreeable other to persevere.” than, say, dying abruptly in one’s sleep Thoroughgoing naturalists know at a ripe but healthy old age. But I think which of these scenarios is more nearly most would find a loved one’s calculated true. It’s the first one, in all its Russellian suicide preferable to a lingering death iciness. (Ironically, with this brief passage after years of pain and debility or a sud- Hecht the poet has given us one of the “If wider acceptance of suicide den accident or illness that tears one most succinct and accurate summations would benefit would-be suicides, from life without any chance to prepare. of the human condition I’ve read. She has it might be equally beneficial for Each of us must die of something, the same talent that Walter Kaufmann after all, and there’s an affirming element ascribed to Nietzsche for “inventing bet- survivors. First, what a boon it of empowerment in choosing the time, ter slogans and epigrams for hostile posi- would be if fewer survivors place, and method rather than surren- tions than . . . opponents could devise.”) had to be surprised by discover- dering to happenstance. Unfortunately, The second scenario—the one where the Hecht’s unyielding disapproval of suicide universe is alive? Read it narrowly and it’s ing loved ones who had leaves no place for such a concept. a strained metaphor; read broadly, it’s a secretively destroyed them- Hecht declares that “there is no tri- lamentable plunge into mysticism. selves in horrific ways!” umph in having argued people into the Or consider this astounding flight grave.” But I disagree; it is a triumph for of rhetoric from the book’s penultimate human rights, if admittedly a bittersweet chapter: “The twin insight is that, first, one, when we learn to respect others’ you have a responsibility not to kill your- freedom so completely that we respect self; and second, the rest of us—and even their freedom to delete themselves you yourself—owe you our thanks and souls or faith or a living universe. One from life. respect. We are indebted to each other gets to pick one’s favorites; Hecht has and the debt is a kind of faith—a beau- proven that the task can be completed At Last, the Worst tiful, difficult, strange faith. We believe without invoking God or souls. But per- Stay portrays suicide as inherently bad each other into being.” haps one just can’t form a clinching case and harmful to society. Religious conser- A secular book that must appeal to against suicide without making some vatives have said the same about every- faith has lost its way. But perhaps Stay move that strict naturalists would con- thing from miscegenation to abortion could not have done otherwise. Despite sider illegitimate. to divorce; they’re still saying it about Hecht’s prodigious efforts to gather every Here’s a debate question for the phi- same-sex marriage. The similarity is not naturalistic argument against suicide, the losophers reading this: After Stay, can we coincidental. In her antisuicide jeremiad, secular worldview as a whole leans so say with confidence that earnest natural- Hecht is more conservative than she overwhelmingly in favor of the right to ists are obliged to adopt a Humean posi- knows. The interesting question is: Why suicide that not even the collected cav- tion on suicide? I’m thinking the answer doesn’t she know it? ilings of Montaigne, Mill, Freud, Cioran, may be yes. The answer may lie in the sheer and dozens of their peers can prevail After saying all of that, I hope you breadth of her interests. Hecht is a poet against it. Instead of a compelling case will read Stay. Even if it has failed, it’s and a historian; her oeuvre heroically against suicide that is wholly secular or that important. But after you’ve finished, spans C. P. Snow’s divide. Sometimes naturalistic, Hecht has forged a quirky, you might want to rebalance your brain

secularhumanism.org April/May 2014 Free Inquiry 59 with something by Szasz—or, if you can Further Reading edited by C. Rosenberg and J. Golden. New find a copy, Quest’s searing little book Donnelly, John, ed., Suicide: Right or Wrong? Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, Deathrights. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 1998. 1997. Flynn, Tom. The Final Freedom: Suicide and the Marsh, Ian. Suicide: Foucault, History and Truth. Secularists should campaign to end ‘New Prohibitionists.’” Free Inquiry, Spring Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University suicide’s stigma, not stand beside the 2003. Press, 2010. Flynn, Tom. “If You Want Something Done religious heaping more opprobrium onto Quest, M. A. Deathrights: In Defense of Suicide. Right . . .” Secular Humanist Bulletin, Fall the act itself. I give the last word to twen- 1995. My account of my mother’s suicide. Baltimore: PublishAmerica, 2007. tieth-century humanist ethicist Joseph Yes, it was rational. Quest, M. A. “On My Own Terms.” Free Inquiry Fletcher: “The full circle is being drawn. In Jamison, Kay Redfield. Night Falls Fast: October/November 2007. classical times suicide was a tragic Understanding Suicide. New York: Knopf, Szasz, Thomas. Suicide Prohibition: The Shame 1999. An accessible presentation of the of Medicine. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse option…. Then for centuries it was a sin. orthodox view. University Press, 2011. Then it became a crime. Then a sickness. MacDonald, Michael. “The Medicalization of Szasz, Thomas. Fatal Freedom: The Ethics and Soon it will become a choice again. Suicide in England: Laymen, Physicians, and Cultural Change, 1500–1870.” In Politics of Suicide. Westport, CT: Praeger, Suicide is the signature of freedom.” Framing Disease: Studied in Cultural History, 1999.

New Laureates Elected to the Academy of Humanism

The International Academy of Human­ism, a program of the Council for Secular Humanism, was established to recognize distinguished humanists and to disseminate humanistic ideals and beliefs. The members (1) are devoted to free inquiry in all fields of human endeavor, (2) are committed to a scientific outlook and the use of the scientific method in acquiring knowledge, and (3) uphold humanist ethical values and principles. The Academy’s goals include furthering respect for human rights, freedom, and the dignity of the individual; tol- erance 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. Recently, ten new members were elected to the Academy.

Russell Blackford is an Australian witchcraft accusations in Africa. He was A Universe from Nothing and The Physics writer (fiction and nonfiction), philoso- appointed a research fellow of the James of Star Trek. pher, critic, and columnist for Free Inquiry Randi Educational Foundation in 2012. Maryam Namazie is an Iranian-born magazine. His work often deals with Susan Jacoby is an American author human rights activist and commentator issues involving science, technology, athe- who focuses on atheist and secular who fights for secular ideals, refugee ism, transhumanism, and bioethics. concerns. Her 2008 book, The Age of rights, and people who have left Islam. Maryanne Garry is a psychology pro- American Unreason, was a New York Carolyn Porco is an American plan- fessor and deputy dean on the Faculty of Times best seller, and her most recent etary scientist known for her work on Graduate Research at Victoria University book, The Great Agnostic: Robert Ingersoll in New Zealand. Her work focuses on and American Freethought, has received the Voyager missions to the outer solar memory, memory distortions, and how much critical acclaim. She is a frequent system in the 1980s. She currently leads memory relates to the legal process, espe- contributor to Free Inquiry. the imaging science team on the Cassini cially eyewitness testimony and “recov- Philip Kitcher is a British philoso- mission in orbit around Saturn. She has ered” memories. pher who specializes in the philosophy coauthored over one hundred scientific A. C. Grayling is a British philosopher of biology, mathematics, and literature. papers on planetary science and appears and the author of more than thirty books He is a well-known scholar of Immanuel regularly on various media outlets bring- on topics relating to skepticism, human- Kant and argues for what he calls “Good ing attention to the fields of astronomy ist philosophy, ethics, and epistemol- Science” and against creationism and and planetary science. ogy. He is often referred to as the “Fifth other pseudoscience. Wendy Kaminer is an American law- Horseman of New Atheism” and appears Lawrence Krauss is an American the- yer, a former Guggenheim fellow, and the often on media outlets arguing for athe- oretical physicist and cosmologist who is writer of several books on social issues, ism and philosophy. the Foundation Professor of the School Leo Igwe is a Nigerian human rights of Earth and Space Exploration at Arizona including A Fearful Freedom: Women’s advocate, humanist, and former Western/ State University. He is also the director of Flight From Equality. Kaminer is also a South African representative to the Inter­ the school’s Origins Project. Krauss is an former columnist for Free Inquiry. national Humanist and Ethical Union. He advocate for science in the public sphere —Sean Lachut, documents and campaigns against child as well as the author of books including Free Inquiry Assistant Editor

60 Free Inquiry April/May 2014 secularhumanism.org When We Learn Right and Wrong Wayne L. Trotta

n the late 1980s, as a Massachusetts IInstitute of Technology graduate stu- dent in psychology, Paul Bloom teamed up with Steven Pinker to write a ground- breaking article on the evolution of lan- Just Babies: The Origins of Good and Evil, by Paul Bloom, (New guage, “Natural Selection and Natural York: Crown Publishers, 2013, ISBN Hardcover, 978-0-307- Language.” The idea of language as 88684-2; e-book, 978-0-30788686-6) 274 pp. Hardcover, an evolved capacity had been inher- $26.00. ent in Noam Chomsky’s hypothesized Language Acquisition Device, but where Chomsky had reservations, Pinker and Bloom dove in headfirst and, in the pro- cess, established language evolution as a valid branch of study. body’s demise. The alternative idea that Bloom went on to Yale University to the “psyche is what the brain does” is study language acquisition in children, but so counterintuitive that common sense he has also had a long-standing interest won’t even consider it. As Bloom put it in in moral psychology. His latest book, Just “Just Babies: The Origin his 2004 book, Descartes’ Baby, the belief Babies: The Origins of Good and Evil, is a com- of Good and Evil, is a com- in a physical basis for thought, despite the pendium of recent research demonstrating empirical evidence in its favor, remains that babies as young as three months of pendium of recent research “very much a minority viewpoint.” age possess capacities that appear to be the demonstrating that babies as Widespread belief in God, then, may be rudiments of what Thomas Jefferson and young as three months of age understood as an accidental offshoot of Adam Smith would have called a “moral possess capacities that appear the fact that we humans are natural-born sense.” In other words, we are born Cartesians. with a basic understanding of right and to be the rudiments of what In Just Babies, Bloom reviews a num- wrong. Contrary to Genesis 8:21 (“the Thomas Jefferson and Adam ber of the so-called “looking-time” stud- imagination of man’s heart is evil from Smith would have called ies that have shown, for example, that his youth”), we seem to be possessed of babies will look look longer at unex- moral universals from the moment of a ‘moral sense.’” pected events and quickly become bored birth, and while some aspects of morality and look away from depictions of busi- such as prohibitions against slavery and ness as usual. For instance, in the first sexism are clearly learned, even these are stage of one such experiment, babies are ultimately rooted in our biological moral shown an animation of a red ball trying endowment. to climb a hill, while a yellow square as dualistic entities. Common sense, and I first became acquainted with Bloom’s helps it up the hill or a green triangle work through an essay of his titled “Is a quick personal survey, reveals us to hinders its progress. In the second phase God an Accident?,” which was originally ourselves as physical bodies housing a of this experiment, the animations will published in The Atlantic and was later nonmaterial entity that we come to refer show the red ball approaching either selected to appear in the 2006 edition to as the “psyche,” “spirit,” “soul,” or even the yellow square or the green triangle, of The Best American Science Writing. In the “self.” It is a short leap from this view and babies nine to twelve months of age that article, Bloom floated his hypothesis of things to the profoundly comforting will look longer when the ball unexpect- that God-belief is a by-product of our nat- notion that the soul is not limited by the edly approaches the previously hindering ural human tendency to view ourselves body and, indeed, may live on after the green triangle.

secularhumanism.org April/May 2014 Free Inquiry 61 According to Bloom, these babies are kids seldom show unprompted kindness to learn language, experience and envi- making bona fide social judgments and, toward strangers. ronmental influences could accomplish before the age of two, will be able to So what explains our deeply held little. But without those effects at a crit- take their social acumen to a yet more-so- higher moral values such as freedom of ical period in individual development, phisticated level. For example, suppose conscience and sexual and racial equality the language organ would atrophy from that fifteenth-month-old babies are per- and our willingness to make sacrifices disuse. This seems to be the case with the mitted to watch an adult as he or she for others whom we may never meet? “wild” children who are reared without views an object being placed in a par- Political commentator Dinesh D’Souza language exposure; when subsequently ticular box. The babies then continue to and geneticist Francis Collins view such immersed in a language-rich environ- observe as the now-blindfolded adult is behavior as inconsistent with natural ment, they are able to acquire a simple unable to see the object being moved to selection because it confers no repro- vocabulary, but they remain oblivious to another box. These babies later on expect ductive advantage and may even take the rules of grammar and syntax. So it the adult to look for the object in the one out of the gene pool altogether. As is with morality. Without the biological original box, an amazing display for fif- conservative Christians, the only explana- moral endowment, societal and cultural teen-month-olds of what is called “theory tion they can offer is that altruism toward influences would be hopeless, but with- of mind.” Even at this early age, babies strangers is evidence of God’s workings out those influences, our moral potential are able to make inferences as to what in the human soul. And, as Bloom points would remain just that—potential—real- another person knows and doesn’t know out, they are not waxing metaphorical ized only barely if at all. so as to make a prediction about how here; they mean this in the most literal Paul Bloom is the Brooks and Suzanne that person will subsequently behave. sense. Ragen Professor of Psychology at Yale Knowing that other people have minds If D’Souza and Collins are right, then University.­ He is not only one of our pre- and thoughts like their own clears the because motives depend on brains, God’s mier psychological scientists, he is also a way for the human infant’s development handiwork should be discoverable as a gifted writer and teacher. He writes in a of empathy, a basic characteristic of the brain alteration occurring sometime breezy, personable style while bringing moral individual. after the human line split from that of instant clarity to studies with the most other primates. The study of our altruistic convoluted methodologies and contra- motives, therefore, could lead to neuro- dictory findings, and he does this with logical proof of God’s existence. However, brevity and a great, often self-effacing the view that higher altruism represents sense of humor. When observing, for an evolutionary contradiction fails to example, that people can be self-cen- “We create the environments take into account the fact that natural tered even while responding to anoth- selection cares nothing about the future er’s distress, Bloom tells the story of a that can transform an only and is reactive only to present moment lunch date with his wife and research partially moral baby into a very variables. It is entirely compatible with colleague, Karen Wynn. When Karen moral adult.” —Paul Bloom natural selection that evolved altruistic mentioned how thirsty she was, Bloom behavior could be triggered today by writes, “I politely handed over my beer. contingencies having no biological pay- She looked at me. After a moment, I off whatsoever. Bloom gives the example figured it out. She hates beer. I like beer.” here of lust, a trait that seems clearly to So, yes, it seems that Bloom is the kind of have evolved to promote reproductive evolutionary psychologist that anyone, behavior. But, as a result of lust, a fair except for his wife, would want to have Beyond a moral sense and a capacity amount of human seed gets spilled in the a beer with. for empathy, evolution has also equipped course of behavior that is reproductively Bloom’s latest book is fascinating our species with a rudimentary sense of irrelevant. Would D’Souza and Collins because it stands right at the intersection fairness (that resources should be divided want to say that masturbation, for exam- at which ethical philosophy and psycho- equally) and of justice (that the bad ple, is an evolutionary conundrum and, as logical science cross. To what extent sci- should be punished, the good rewarded). such, a proof of divine intervention? ence can guide us in determining right This sounds like the complete moral tool But if neither biology nor God fully from wrong is a hotly debated issue, but kit, but Bloom is quick to point out that explain our most moral of moral prin- Just Babies makes it clear that the science our “innate goodness is limited.” Thomas ciples, what does? Bloom’s answer: we of moral psychology can legitimately Hobbes had it right when he argued that, do. “We create the environments that promise a more thorough understanding left to ourselves, we human beings would can transform an only partially moral of who we are as moral beings. quickly descend into an existence dom- baby into a very moral adult.” Perhaps inated by wickedness and self-interest. the best analogy here is to Indeed, Bloom reviews a sizeable litera- language. Without the evo- Wayne L.Trotta is a psychologist and freelance writer. ture showing that, before the age of four, lutionarily endowed capacity

62 Free Inquiry April/May 2014 secularhumanism.org An Education on Education Edd Doerr

or half a century now, we have seen Funrelenting attacks on our American public schools coupled with endless The Public School Advantage: Why Public Schools drives to privatize education, mainly Outperform Private Schools, by Christopher A. through the diversion of public funds to Lubienski and Sarah Theule Lubienski (Chicago: private schools by means of all sorts of University of Chicago Press, 2013, ISBN-13: 978-0- voucher and tax-code voucher (tax credit) 226-08891-4). 276 pp. Softcover, $18.00. schemes. The two main forces driving this privatization movement (now that vouchers as a gimmick to avoid pub- lic-school racial desegregation has faded into history) are presumably “secular” market theorists such as Milton Friedman and John Chubb and Terry Moe and reli- gious and conservative groups such as ground and most likely to reflect what the American Enterprise Institute, the actually goes on in the schools. Heritage Foundation, the Cato Institute, The data sets for these analyses are Students First (led by pseudo-reformer broken down into six categories: public Michelle Rhee), the Walton (Walmart) schools (not including charters), Catholic Family Foundation, and others. schools, Lutheran schools, conservative Christian schools, other private schools, In The Public School Advantage: “. . . People have bought into the Why Public Schools Outperform Private and charters. The authors note that Schools, Christopher and Sarah Lubienski, myth that our public schools are Catholic school enrollment is shrink- both professors of education at the largely failing—all but the one ing, while conservative Christian (i.e., University of Illinois, allow the voucheriz- they are most familiar with, the Protestant) schools are not only grow- ers and marketizers ample opportunity ing but are by all measures the worst to push their worn thesis that private one serving their own child.” schools. The authors also make the point schools are better than public schools, a that public (non-charter) schools are view that has influenced public opinion the most likely to have the best-trained to a degree. This is seen in the results of teachers and the most-advanced meth- the annual Gallup/Phi Delta Kappa polls ods for teaching. And all this despite the of public opinion on education issues underfunding, inequitable funding, and over the past four decades. When these et al. more than enough time to expound shrinking funding of public schools. The authors make their case without polls ask respondents to give a letter their thesis, wham!, the authors lower grade to public schools nationally, the any mention of the sectarian indoctri- the boom. Through statistical analyses grade is rather low. When asked about national nature of the vast majority of of mountains of data from the huge the schools in their community, the private schools or of the half-century databases of the National Assessment of grades are higher. And when asked to of twenty-seven referenda on diverting Educational Progress (NAEP) and High grade the public school attended by their public funds to private schools, in which School and Beyond (HSB), they show oldest child, the portion of schools that voters from California to Massachusetts receive A and B grades is up to about 80 that the seeming superiority of private and Florida to Alaska voted against such percent. What this seems to mean is that schools is due to the demographics of misuse of public funds by an average people have bought into the myth that their student bodies, which on average two to one margin. The nature of faith- our public schools are largely failing—all serve children of higher socioeconomic based schools has been amply explored but the one they are most familiar with, status. The analysis is based on math in my 2000 book, Catholic Schools: the one serving their own child. scores, which are the least likely to be The Facts (Humanist Press), Albert After giving Friedman, Chubb, Moe, influenced by family and social back- Menendez’s 1993 book, Visions of Reality:

secularhumanism.org April/May 2014 Free Inquiry 63 What Fundamentalist Schools Teach Count ’em: those are twen- Poem (Prometheus Books), and elsewhere. ty-eight separate categories of faith- At this point, let me mention the based schools, some of which are undated (but probably released in actually more complex. Now imag- December 2013) twenty-nine-page ine what happens if these schools document, Religious Schools in are supported by public funds Modern Mortuary America: A Proud History and Perilous extracted by government from tax- Future. This is a pro-voucher propa- payers of thousands of different Science ganda piece put out by the American shades of belief or nonbelief, not Center for School Choice and its to mention the immense variety of Katharine Merow proliferating, supposedly secular, charter schools not under the con- I waited calmly—when I died— trol of locally elected school boards. Hands clasped on breathless Chest. “. . . The seeming superiority Anyone with even a tiny scrap of I slowed my Mind—shut fast my Eyes— of private schools is due to intelligence can see that vouchers are And longed for wakeless Rest. a surefire formula for fragmenting the demographics of their our school population—indeed our I thought about Earth’s warm Caress, student bodies, which on whole population—into smaller or The sweet Release of Rot: average serve higher socio- larger religious, ideological, ethnic, To slowly seep into the Ground, class, linguistic, ability level, disability economic status children.” level fiefdoms. Think of the social My former Form—forgot. disruption. Think of the actual dollar I waited for the Hordes of Worms costs of the fragmentation. Think of That would my Self disperse, the traffic nightmares of fleets of newly created Commission on Faith- yellow school buses hauling kids to all And spread me out o’er all the World Based Schools. Its most useful feature these different schools, few of whose That I in Life travers’d. is its chart, “K–12 Faith-Based Student attendance areas are coterminous with public-school districts (as, for I hoped to feed a Buttercup, Enrollment: 2001 and 2009–10.” Here are the figures for 2009 to 2010, example, in Pennsylvania). Enrich a bitter Yew, the most recent available: Assembly Marketizers and voucherizers That I might reach no Heaven grand, of God, 57,520; Baptist, 289,582; preach about the value of compe- But tour this Orb—anew. Brethren, 9,091; Calvinist (Christian tition in education. But does any- Reformed), 26,691; Christian (unspec- one living in the real world really Excited now, I sent up Shoots ified, presumably fundamentalist), think that the various kinds of schools Toward where the Sun had shined, 697,358; Church of God, 13,744; listed above, by the people who push But found my Movement checked—alas— Episcopal, 119,746; Evangelical vouchers, actually compete against In Body—Box—confined. Lutheran, 23,383; Friends, 22,205; each other? These twenty-eight-plus Greek Orthodox, 4,768; Islamic, sectarian school categories appeal to And then I knew what was my Fate: 32,646; Jewish, 221,178; Missouri quite different sets of parents. An Eyesore e’er to be, Synod Lutheran, 179,525; Mennonite,­ The Lubienskis’ book, Diane By ’Balmer’s Art a Blemish made, 20,384; Methodist, 35,933; Other, Ravitch’s 2013 Reign of Error: The Hoax of the Privatization Movement As now—eternally— 26,729; Other Lutheran, 6,596; Pente­ costal, 16,924; Presbyterian, 55,449; and the Danger to America’s Public Roman Catholic, 2,314,397; Seventh- Schools, and Michael Fabricant and day Adventist, 64,720; and Wisconsin Michelle Fine’s 2012 Charter Schools Synod Lutheran, 36,988. (The fol- and the Corporate Makeover of Public lowing were excluded because fig- Schools: What’s at Stake are the three ures are possibly unreliable: African most important books on the crucial Katharine Merow lives, works, and bike commutes Methodist Episcopal, Amish, Church matter of education to appear in in the nation’s capital. She has a perhaps off-put- many years. ting habit of questioning her friends about what of God in Christ, Church of the Nazarene, Disciples they want to happen to their bodies after they die. Edd Doerr is president of Americans for Religious Liberty and of Christ, Latter-day a former teacher in public and private schools. Saints.)

64 Free Inquiry April/May 2014 secularhumanism.org Letters continued from p. 13 graph: “About this edition: Some sions. Highlighted here, aside from No Free Will was authoritative and lucid. Never­ minor errors in the text have been Christian apologetics’ loose defini- theless, two nits merit picking. First, perpetuated in past editions of tion of “evidence,” is the Achilles’ Dale DeBakcsy’s conclusions in Stenger states that the Higgs mech- the Book of Mormon. This edition heel of the entire discipline; namely, “The End of Atonement: Law anism gives fundamental particles contains corrections that seem they are putting limits or condi- Without Free Will” (FI, February/ their mass by collisions with Higgs appropriate to bring the material tions on their conclusion-making March 2014) have “no meaning” bosons. In contrast, Lisa Randall into conformity with the publica- in an effort to remain ‘doctrinally where secular humanism is con- says (Higgs Discovery and other tion manuscripts and early edi- correct’”! This is anathema to the cerned “and shouldn’t inform our books) that the Higgs field fills the particle-free vacuum with “weak tions edited by the Prophet Joseph principles of historical investiga- approach toward you” as a secu- Smith.” charge,” not to be confused with tion and may, were it not for a lar humanist. After all, you are This modern copy of the Book electric charge. The interaction moral and intellectual responsi- just a “bag of chemical reactions” of Mormon contains a 250-page doing something that makes cer- with this weak charge provides a bility to hold all arguments to the concordance (labeled “Index”) tain other people uncomfortable. fundamental particle’s mass. rules of reason, remove further which I searched thoroughly with- Secular humanism seen in this Second, Stenger reports that apologetic argument from schol- out finding the dimensions of tab- light is just an inefficient waste of Lederman and Hill defend basic arly consideration. This liability lets. I despaired of tracking down energy. Further, how can there science using an old anecdote an edition of sixty or more years is compounded even further as be intention if there is no choice, involving Faraday and a British ago to obtain the dimensions the apologist is often unwilling so how can you even choose to government official, Chancellor of actually recorded there. When I or doctrinally unable to admit be a secular humanist if you had the Exchequer William Gladstone. showed the quoted paragraph to a probabilistic nature to his/ the misfortune to be born an This story has been repeated many to a librarian and told her that I her arguments and conclusions evangelical Christian? times and is instructive no mat- stood by my recollection of the as is implicit in any scientific the- And what is with the name of ter what its historicity. However, dimensions and my memory of the ory (Science Wars: What Scientists this magazine, Free Inquiry, and the official could not have been calculation of 1,200 pounds per Know and How They Know It, by its main theme this issue of “The Gladstone. As L. Pearce Williams tablet, she insisted on obtaining Steven A. Goldman, The Teaching Faith I Left Behind?” Are the edi- explains (Michael Faraday: A Bio­ a copy of the Book of Mormon of Co., 2006). I view these flaws as tors and writers suffering from graphy), Faraday’s lab was visited appropriate age. She found a copy sufficient to bring down most “willful self-deception?” And, by by Prime Minister Robert Peel in the dated 1920 with some difficulty. religious doctrines and to expose the way, how can self-deception early 1830s, shortly after the inven- The book noted that the copyright Christian apologetics for what it be “willful” if we have no free tion of the dynamo. This device is now an icon of industry that pow- was renewed in 1948. This edition is not—namely, a means to con- will? It seems to me that to be ers the world. Then, it was crude, states that the golden plates were vey sound scientific and historical true to his argument, DeBakcsy 6 x 8 inches and the thickness of puny, and unimpressive. Peel asked assertions. Robinson has made a needs to eliminate anything in common tin, with no mention of his language having to do with what use it was. Faraday replied: strong contribution in confront- the number of them. volition, but how can he do this “I know not, but I wager one day ing this error. An older edition is yet to be without free will? your government will tax it.” That obtained. We are left with (1) my Dale Cochrane Proving that free will is or came to pass, but only after Peel recollection from about 1938 when Tecumseh, Michigan isn’t is a matter of “reason.” How and Faraday were dead. Gladstone I was fifteen, (2) a 1961 edition of can we develop the rules and did not become Chancellor of the the Book of Mormon containing principles of reason without Exchequer until 1852, long after the no mention of the dimensions, (3) free will? Were they an innate alleged incident. the minuscule dimensions men- Religious Invasions option within our brain from the The story’s point, that basic tioned in the 1948 edition, which I’ve just finished a very pleasurable very beginning, or did we invent science is vital, is stressed by Stenger. Einstein was not schem- mentions common tin, quite likely reading of Reynold Spector’s article them? ing to make a bundle selling not Joseph Smith’s very words—tin on the early history of Christianity I am not sure why it is so cans were not available for food global positioning systems when and about Portugal’s efforts to important to prove or disprove the preservation until long after 1830. existence of free will. I either have he developed special and general convert Japan to Catholicism it or I don’t, but I am going to con- relativity. Yet, those mainstays of John A. Frantz (“Invasive Religion: Effects on tinue to be me either way. It is obvi- fundamental science are both Madison, Wisconsin Society,” FI, February/March 2014). ous to me that DeBakcsy believes required to make functional the His writing is lucid and without a there is no free will, and that is GPS in every auto today. trace of pedantry. But what I found going to color his methodology. It Al Holzer most refreshing is that, in only a Christian Rationality is not good science to “know” your St. Louis, Missouri little more than four pages of clear conclusion before all the data is in. Ian Hayward Robinson, in the last prose, he explains what often David A. Sahr sentence of his essay, “Exploring takes a thick and heavy book the Limits of Christian Rationality” Boone, Iowa for the slow metabolism of my Victor J. Stenger responds: (FI, February/March 2014) declares, sluggish brain to finally digest! “The quintessential Christian intel- With thoughtful consideration, For very quantum field there is a lectual activity is not reasoning corresponding particle called the he attentively guides his readers The God Particle but rationalization.” He bases this “quantum” of the field. The pho- though a non-torturous path of on the Christian apologists’ reli- Victor Stenger’s review of Be­yond ton is the quantum of the electro- understanding. ance on selecting only evidence the God Particle by Leon Lederman magnetic field, so that field can be or arguments (masquerading as David Quintero and Christopher Hill (“On to Pro­ thought of as a field of photon par- evidence) in support of pre-conclu- Monrovia, California ject X,” FI, February/March 2014) ticles. Similarly, the Higgs particle is

secularhumanism.org April/May 2014 Free Inquiry 65 Letters the quantum of the Higgs field, and Worldview, inspired reviewer [space] missions ever get the only good Earth is a god- so that field can be thought of as a Daniel M. Kane to go back and off the ground is still very less Earth.” I believe nothing of field of Higgs particles. My descrip- reread Origin of Species. After all much in the air, as they the sort. What I do believe, and tion of particles gaining mass (iner- challenging concepts and sub- remain contingent on state plainly in the book, is that tia) by being slowed by collisions tle shades of meaning are often both the shifting sands of the scientific process has proven with Higgs particles is intended to made clearer the second time politics and a shared reluc- to be the most open, direct, and give some idea of how the mech- around, and no book, in my opin- tance to forego short-term dependable way there is to tell anism works for people without ion, is more worthy of the effort benefits for long-term truth from fiction, and that this is PhDs in quantum field theory. You than Darwin’s classic tome. gains. So long as there is essential from a moral perspec- might note that it is basically the In that same spirit I kindly poverty, social turmoil, and tive because “in order to have a same metaphor that was used by invite Kane to revisit my book as threats to the global envi- true sense of right and wrong many CERN physicists when, after well since his review (“In Praise ronment, expenditures of one must first know what is true.” the discovery announcement, they of the Science-Guided Life,” FI, this sort will continue to Whether our world is governed were bombarded by questions December 2013/January 2014) be viewed as extravagance by a doting deity of a collection from the media asking how the contained several statements that by a great many people. of disinterested forces is not the Higgs gave mass to particles. I found rather puzzling. Nowhere And quite frankly, with so issue. Either way we should do do I suggest, for instance, that much heavy lifting left to our level best to learn the truth “no discovery in science is inher- do on this planet it is easy and then act accordingly in order Erratum ently easy to comprehend or to see where diverting bil- to improve the human condition accept.” Indeed, one need only lions of dollars in the search for ourselves and our posterity. In “the Jesusification of Popular cite the first law of thermody- for others like it might be This, to me, is what makes for a Culture” by Stephen Van Eck (FI, namics or the germ theory of dis- a hard sell. The millions of good and meaningful life. And February/March 2014), Stephen ease to refute this assertion. Nor Americans who are living this is why I maintain that “sci- Sondheim is given as the com- do I “ignore the economic con- in poverty and lack access entific rationality and critical to basic healthcare certainly poser of Godspell. It is Stephen siderations that affect funding thinking are not only good for for [space exploration] and other have every right to ques- Schwartz.—The Editors our physical well-being but also research.” Consider the following tion the propriety of such good for the soul—and essen- passage, one of over a dozen seemingly extravagant tial to our achieving the kind of A Review of a Review instances in the book where I dis- spending. global stewardship worthy of our cuss funding, budgets, and other I was pleased to learn that my Most disconcerting of all, how­­ spiritual aspirations.” monetary matters: book, The Way of Science: Finding ever, was Kane’s assertion that Dennis R. Trumble, PhD Truth and Meaning in a Scientific . . . Whether any of these I have somehow “decided that Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

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