SPRING 1982 VOL. 2 NO. 2 $3.50

A Call for the Critical Examination of the Interview with Bible and Isaac Asimov We are confronted today with a situa- tion of imbalance. Tens of millions of people are exposed daily to exhorta- On and the Bible tions about religion and the Bible. Fundamentalist preachers and mission- aries claim that the Bible's teachings are L. Sprague de Camp literally true, divinely inspired, and the ultimate source of human salvation. In this, the centenary year of the The Continuing death of Charles , the issue of whether scientific inquiry or biblical revelation should serve as the basis of Monkey War knowledge and of political and ethical conduct is as controversial and relevant as it was in Darwin's day. Countless millions of individuals in Leo Pfeffer modern society are largely indifferent to the claims of the fundamentalists. They reject the claims of biblical The Supreme Court religion as superstituous and irrelevant to their interests. They believe in the and Secular secularization of society and the use of scientific methods of inquiry. Commit- ted to tolerance, they hold that religion should be a private matter rather than a public one and that one can live an Antony Flew ethical life without being a devout believer. The Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish sects that abound in America The Erosion of Evolution have deep ethnic roots. Supported by ties of kinship and tradition, in- dividuals born into these often accept them without much thought. It is often a question of birth, Neo-Puritanism" by not conviction; of ceremony, not com- "Norman Podhoretz's mitment. Lee Nisbet, "Nativity Legends" by Randel Religious extremists are not con- tent to leave the rest of us alone. They Helms, and "Reds" reviewed by Hal Crow- feel compelled to save and they condemn unbelievers as "sinners." For- ther. Also Vern Bullough, Corliss , merly this message was heard only from Dora , Tibor Machan, and Bette the pulpits of private churches. Today the situation is radically altered: Elec- Chambers. (continued on back cover)

ISSN 0272-0701 SPRING 1982 VOL. 2 NO. 2

Contents About This Issue

EDITORIAL This issue of FREE INQUIRY commemor- 1 A Call for the Critical Examination of the Bible and Religion ates the centennial of the death of Charles 3 LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Darwin (April 19, 1882). Darwin was one On Bette Chambers, Bart Clennon of the world's greatest scientists and a major . figure in biology. He, more than ARTICLES anyone, advanced the universal recogni- 6 An Interview with Isaac Asimov on Science and the Bible tion of evolution. Although we can 12 The Continuing Monkey War L. Sprague de Camp disagree with Darwin about how evolu- 17 Three Cheers for the Creationists! A.J. Mattill, Jr. tion occurred—and science has gone 19 The Erosion of Evolution: A Treason beyond Darwin's explanation of the of the Intellectuals Amont' Flew mechanisms—this does not deny the 24 The Religion of : A Judicial Myth .... Leo Pfeffer preponderance of evidence now available 27 Humanism as an American Heritage Nicholas F. Gier in favor of the evolutionary hypothesis. 30 The Nativity Legends Randel Helms To mark Darwin's death, FREE IN- 37 A Commentary on Norman Podhoretz's QUIRY will sponsor a symposium on

Neo-Puritanism Lee Nisbet "Science, the Bible, and Darwin" at the POETRY State University of New York at Buffalo on April 16-17. The purpose of the 23 The Stranger, the Beloved M.L. Rosenthal conference is not only to discuss Darwin's COUNTERPOINT influence but also to stress the need for 42 Teen-age Pregnancy Vern Bullough wider dissemination of the results of 43 My Attitude Toward the Soviet Union Corliss Lamont scholarly and scientific examination of BOOKS biblical doctrine. The interview with 40 Marxist Humanism George V. Tomashevich Isaac Asimov in this issue and the articles FILM by L. Sprague de Camp, Antony Flew, 41 "Reds" Hal Crowther Rande! Helms, and A.J. Matill, Jr., are 45 CLASSIFIED related to this general theme. 46 ON THE BARRICADES Also of special interest in this issue is "The Religion of Secular Humanism: A Judicial Myth" by Leo Pfeffer, the noted attorney specializing in issues concerning the separation of church and state.—E D.

FREE INQUIRY (ISSN 0272-0701) is pub- lished by The Council for Democratic Editor: and Secular Humanism (CODESH, Inc.), a non-profit corporation, 1203 Kensington Associate Editors: Gordon Stein; Lee Nisbet Avenue, Buffalo, N.Y. 14215. Phone (716) Contributing Editors: 834-2921. Lionel Abel, author, critic, SUNY at Buffalo; Paul Beattie, president, Fellowship of Religious Postmaster: Permission to mail at second- Humanists; Jo-Ann Boydston, director, Dewey Center; Laurence Briskman, lecturer, Edinburgh postage rates is pending at Buffalo, University, Scotland; Hal Crowther, film reviewer; Albert Ellis, director, Institute for Rational N.Y. Copyright ® 1982 by The Council for Living; Roy P. Fairfield, social scientist, Union Graduate School; Joseph Fletcher, theologian, Democratic and Secular Humanism. University of Virginia Medical School; Antony Flew, , Reading University, England; Subscription rates: $14.00 for one year, Sally M. Gall, critic and independent scholar; , professor emeritus of , NYU; $25.00 for two years, $32.00 for three Marvin Kohl, philosopher, State University College at Fredonia; Jean Kotkin, executive director, years, $3.50 for single copies. Address American Ethical Union; Ernest Nagel, professor emeritus of philosophy, Columbia University; subscription orders, change of addresses, Cable Neuhaus, correspondent; Howard Radest, director, Ethical Culture Schools; Robert Rimmer, and advertising to: FREE INQUIRY, Box author; M.L. Rosenthal, professor of English, New York University; William Ryan, free-lance 5, Central Park Station, Buffalo, N.Y. reporter, novelist; Svetozar Stojanovic, professor of philosophy, University of Belgrade; Thomas 14215. Szasz, psychiatrist, Upstate Medical Center, Syracuse; V.M. Tarkunde, Supreme Court Judge, Manuscripts, letters, and editorial inquiries India; Richard Taylor, professor of philosophy, University of Rochester; Sherwin Wine, founder, should be addressed to: The Editor, FREE Society for Humanistic Judaism INQUIRY, Box 5, Central Park Station, Buffalo, N.Y. 14215. All manuscripts Editorial Associates: H. James Birx; Marvin Bloom; Vern Bullough; James Martin; Steven L. should be accompanied by three additional Mitchell; George Tomashevich; Marvin Zimmerman copies and a SASE. (Poems should be submitted in duplicate to the Poetry Executive Director (CODESH): Jean Millholland; Managing Editor: Richard Seymour; Copy Editor, with a SASE for return). 0pinions Editor: Doris Doyle; Editorial Staff: Victor Gulotta; Barry Karr; Marianne Karr; J. Quentin Koren; expressed do not necessarily reflect the Lynette Nisbet; Art Director: Gregory Lyde Vigrass views of the editors or publisher. 1

2 Basic Humanist Beliefs LETTERS TO THE EDITOR There are many reasons for the fact that there are millions of Americans who hold humanist values while those who call themselves humanists can be numbered only in the thousands. But two of these reasons, I believe, are that humanists are often asso- A Message from Andrei Sakharov people like Quinsenberry and his "clients"? ciated with an indifference to fundamental moral principles and with a propensity for We are deeply grateful to everyone who Richard Taylor unthinking liberalism on all political issues. supported us in these hard times—to the University of Rochester You are therefore to be commended for statesmen, to the religious leaders and public Rochester, New York publishing the articles by Konstantin Ko- personalities, to the scientists and journal- lenda and Paul H. Beattie (Winter 1980-81). ists, to our dear ones and friends, to those Kolenda argues convincingly that "the whom we know and to those whom we do Dearth of Scholarly inherently problematic nature" of moral not know. There were so many—it is Bible Criticism questions does not mean that the answers impossible to name them all. are subjective or relative, but only that It was a struggle not only for the life and Let me first congratulate Randel Helms on moral decisions must take into account "all happiness of our children, not only for my his penetrating article on the doctrine of the existing moral claims." The weakness of honor and dignity, but also for the right of (Fall 1981). A col- traditional moralists is not that their deci- every human being to be free and happy, for league of mine currently teaching a course sions are absolute but that they are partial, the right to live in accordance with one's on Western religions found it quite accurate insofar as the a priori rules often fail to take ideals and beliefs, and in the final count—it and scholarly (although a bit too polite into account all of the relevant conditons. was a struggle for all prisoners of conscience. about Matthew's motivation). To the extent that humanists do so, their It is quite a relief from the unscholarly, moral decisions are stronger—that is, their Andrei Sakharov narrow, and unimaginative ones winning the decisions can hold up in real situations— Gorky Hospital and hearts of the unwary, the than the dogmatic decisions that are based U.S. S. R. uneducated, and the gullible. Many modern on a priori rules and are often inadequate to Christian devotees long since have given up the complexities of human experience. "Truth" on the "700 Club" any attempt to justify their beliefs by Beattie's article is equally important recourse to the traditional arguments of because it distinguishes the basic humanist At first I could not believe that Larry theologians (the ontological, c9smological, beliefs from those about which humanists Quinsenberry's letter (Winter 1981-82) says and even the design arguments). Instead, will inevitably differ. It is only the basic what it does. It seemed to be saying that they look to the Bible itself to "prove" their commitments, including "the scientific since truth is not falsehood, then let us, in the basic religious beliefs. They use the "evi- method and ... the democratic process" of name of truth, assert the false, then praise it dences" from , from personal testi- arriving at truth that humanists should as truth! But I read it again and found that monies (so prevalent on TV), from the advocate. Political commitments, issues this is, astonishingly, what it says! continued existence of the (despite the about which humanists may well differ, Quisenberry says he knew that his opposition from science and humanism), should be pursued in political organizations. documentary on humanism was a tissue of but mostly from prophecies that have been I agree with Beattie (as well as with distortions but justifies this on the ground verified either from New Testament writings Kolenda) not because our political commit- that he was paid to "produce a product in or from contemporary world events. The ments are less important than our general accordance with the client's request," the credulity of the uncritical and committed religious or philosophical principles (the client in this case being some self-styled to these irrational kinds of evidence political may be more important at any group of "Christians"(his quotation marks). and arguments is almost unbelievable. particular moment) but because humanism Okay—we are accustomed to that kind Those of us teaching in the areas of makes its appeal as a religion or as an of from pitchmen and hucksters. philosophy and/ or religion should, perhaps, alternative to traditional religions, not as an But then he turns around and endorses that spend more time studying and analyzing the umbrella group for assorted liberal causes. kind of cynicism as "truth," now to be arguments used today to convince Chris- One of the serious faults of some of the equated with "the Bible and the teachings of tians (and non-Christians as well)' of the fundamental Christian groups, such as the Jesus." I wonder whether he has ever heard truth of their faith. Moral Majority, is that they act as a political the expression, "You shall know the truth, I have been spending much time group in the name of religion. Humanists and the truth shall set you free," or whether reading through some of this Christian should not be guilty of the same kind of he knows who said that. Or will he, like his literature but—apart from Helms's article— confusions. clients, pull plain falsehoods and distortions I have not been able to find very many from thin air and baptise these as "truth"? careful and scholarly articles attacking this Lawrence W. Hyman It is one thing to fabricate distortions. new mode of . Brooklyn College-CUNY But when someone does this and admits it, Brooklyn, New York has he any business talking about "truth"? Paul O. Ricci Would not Jesus, whom this cynical huck- Cypress College (Letters continued on page 4) ster pretends to follow, sweep the floor with Cypress, California

Spring 1982 3 (Letters continued, from page 3) discover how two creationist organizations classify themselves on U.S. Post Office Form 3624. In order to acquire a special nonprofit On Creationism bulk third-class mailing permit an applicant organization must identify what type of organization it is. It is given eight choices— religious, educational, scientific, etc. One of the creationist groups 1 chose is the grandaddy of creationist propaganda Creationists' Credentials "D.R.E." He claims he received his M.A. units, the Moody Institute of Science from "Sequoia University" in 1972. 1 was located in Whittier, Calif., which oddly "Scientific creationists," or "creation unable to locate a Sequoia University chooses to classify itself on Form 3624 as a scientists," are often assumed to have anywhere, but did find a Sequoia College in religious organization rather than as a scientific degrees. However, few creationists Visalia, California. This is a two-year scientific one. One would that a have advanced scientific training in biology, college, offering only associate degrees, with scientific organization would classify itself and, so far, I have been unable to find a no record of ever having a student by the as a scientific organization. single one trained extensively in evolution- name of Kelly Segraves. In Who's Who in The other group I chose for examina- ary biology or paleontology. Moreover, at the West, Segraves claims his D.Sc. is tion is the Creation Science Research Center least three persons in leadership positions in honorary, granted by Christian University of San Diego. It plays the semantic new- prominent creationist groups have question- in 1972. An extensive computer search speak very well by calling itself a research able academic credentials. showed only one university with this name— organization engaged in scientific creation- Dr. Richard Bliss, on the staff of the in Jakarta, Indonesia. Segraves' D.R.E. has ism. However, its Postmaster communicates Institute for Creation Research(ICR) in San not been extensively explored, since having to me that it holds a bulk third-class mailing Diego, by far the most influential creationist a doctorate in religious education would not permit as a religious organization. Alas, for organization, claims a doctorate in educa- justify the claim of being a scientist. the creationists ignorance is knowledge and tion. He wrote his doctoral thesis on the However, a computer search produced no religion is science. But what can you expect "two-model" teaching of origins to high- doctoral dissertation listed for Segraves. from people who think man's first and worst school biology students in Racine, Wiscon- Finally, another creationist luminary, sin was knowledge. sin. Bliss claims that his degree was granted Dr. Clifford Burdick, also of CSRC, claims Enclosed are copies of the replies from by the University of Sarasota, Sarasota, to have a Ph.D. from the University of the Postmasters of Whittier and San Diego. Florida. This is a nonaccredited institution, Physical , Phoenix, Arizona. The noted by the Atlanta Journal, April 27, State of Arizona Board of Regents never Bart Clennon 1979, to be "a school founded in 1974... The heard of such an institution, nor is such a Brindisi University is not accredited, has no campus, school listed in any Phoenix telephone A.P.O., New York and specializes in graduate degrees. The only directory, going back to 1975. A computer time students spend at the school is during search for Burdick's dissertation availed vacations from their regular jobs." Lovejoy 's nothing. He claims to be a geologist .. . Dear Mr. Clennon: In compliance with your request dated College Catalog, 1981, corroborates this. ICR and CSRC publish many texts that This is particularly significant considering August 26, 1981, the following informa- would be mandated upon public school tion is provided: Creation Science Re- Bliss's co-authorship of an updated version science departments should a creationist bill search Center, 6709 Convoy Court, San of Origins—Two Models—Evolution/ be passed and meet the test of constitution- Diego, California 82111, holds a bulk Creation, a book approved for use in public ality. third-class rates permit at this office and is schools in districts where creationism is authorized to mail at the special rates as a required when evolution is taught. Bette Chambers Religious organization. Curiously, it was Dr. Morris (a Executive Director Sincerely, hydraulics engineer), the director of ICR, American Humanist Association Margaret Sellers who attacked "Dr." Kelly Segraves, the Amherst, New York MSC Manager/ Postmaster director of the Creation Science Research Center of San Diego: "Mr. Segraves does Creation-Science Groups Dear Mr. Clennon, not have a bona fide scientific degree, has Identified as Religious I have received approval this date from our Regional Counsel to provide you copies of done no scientific research, and published the enclosed forms regarding Moody no scientific papers. However, he lectures During the past few years I have been Institute of Science. widely as 'Dr.' Segraves, and is believed by reading and listening to the claims of various The form marked #1 is the application many people to be an authentic scientist. creation-science groups who loudly state made by the Moody Institute of Science in The potential in this situation for bringing that they are in fact science organizations January, 1966. They received approval on the entire creationist movement into disre- and not religious organizations. Everyone January 13, 1966 to mail as a non-profit pute is a matter of grave concern [italics knows this is a semantic sham to cover the organization, "Religious". added]" (undated memorandum, with a legislative lobbying of these pressure groups. Sincerely, cover-letter dated July-August 1975). The true nature of the creationists is Benny R. Broussard Postmaster In 1975, Segraves listed himself on easily determined without dealing with their Whittier, CA 90605 CSRC letterhead as "M.A., D.Sc."In 1981, anemic sophistry and semantic obfuscation. he dropped the "D.Sc." and now lists I used the Freedom of Information Act to (Letters continued on page 5)

4 (Letters continued from page 4) lying intellect) come from statements of private individual as an autonomous, inde- certain human feelings. pendent, and freely choosing being, by Thinking and Feeling That extraordinary living organism, the means of the coercive expropriation of all human being, who has somehow evolved, privately held property and means of My attention has been drawn to a comment comprises all the faculties of intellect, production, as a necessary feature of a by Sidney Hook in (FI, Summer 1981) on my imagination, and feeling within itself, inter- mature, emancipated human community. alleged support for Stalin. I am not, nor acting constantly with the environment. One might, of course, foolishly wish to have I ever been, a defender of Stalin, nor, in Behaviorists are nothing more than mech- square circles and have both liberty and fact, were very large numbers of the Russian anists, seeking to train people as they would universal state-control over property, but it people themselves. If I had believed in any circus animals. Observation shows that just won't wash. Which is exactly why dictatorship, I should not have signed the birds and animals (within their capacity of Nielsen's point about and demo= Secular Humanist Declaration. But, like brain, or otherwise) also show signs of cracy is off the wall. most thoughtful people in the West, I did conscious thought. When Kai Nielsen speaks about the consider that our statesmen were foolish and The true mystery is life, the energy that USSR, he speaks of "societies that call short-sighted in their refusal in 1917 to animates all things living. In time we shall themselves 'socialistic.' " But with no recognize revolutionary Russia. By that understand better its origins and achieve- hesitation Nielsen identifies Africa folly they sowed the wind, of which now the ments, whether existent or potential. and Chile as capitalist. Yet even by Marx's whole world reaps the whirlwind. What I ask of humanism is something own characterization these latter societies May I, though with no pretensions to more than intellectual scientific statements; fail to be capitalist because the freedom of being a philosopher, comment on the I want people to believe in the dignity of men the individual in the bourgeois sense of that correspondence between Skinner and Pop- and women and their independence of , term is not legally honored there. No doubt, per in the same issue. To me it resembles the to see the actions of individuals and societies in some societies—Chile, Yugoslavia, Hung- dilemma of the medieval schoolmen who as essentially creative, not, as they have ary, South Africa—the rulers possess the were puzzled as to whether an "idea" or a been, destructive of the abundant life of the legal authority to confiscate all property but concept was as "real" as the blocks of stone planet that we share. Above all, our first choose not to do so. This is merely to put the with which, aided by Greek geometry concern should be the survival of our citizenry on a longer leash, as it were, not to manuals, they were building their cathe- species, that it may not destroy itself but offer them anything like individual freedom drals. increase, not in numbers, but in knowledge, or the official protection of their capitalistic, For us, during the past three centuries, beauty, and wisdom so that it may take good bourgeois human rights. (The Cartesian dualism has been the major care of the rest. isn't much different.) influence. Skinner looks at material bodies A closer look at Nielsen's writings and infers purpose, and plans, as physical Dora Russell shows that he is trying to discredit capitalism states; Popper, from within, reasons and Cornwall, England and put socialism in the best possible light, deliberates and then acts upon the material one that omits all of its real horrors. I ask, world. But why does he find it so hard to Dora Russell is the widow of Bertrand then, Is Antony Flew's characterization of interpret the action of the mind upon matter, Russell. She was one of the "witnesses" in Nielsen as someone who, logically speaking, an action that seems to me one of the most Warren Beatty's. film "Reds, " reviewed in must take the Muscovite Communist line disastrous features of our mechanical in- this issue.—E D. really so off the wall? As someone who grew dustrial epoch. up in Stalinist Hungary during the Korean The impact of values is more complex War and other East-West conflicts, I can and subtle, in that it involves feeling rather Comment on the testify to finding in Nielsen's words a very than a clear-cut intellectual purpose or Flew-Nielsen Exchange familiar line. Perhaps•he does not desire any decision. of the horrors that are implicit in pure The Greek intellect invented, in Professor Kai Nielsen has managed to write socialism as a distinctive political alterna- mathematics, one of the most powerful a letter (FI, Fall 1981) in which he condemns tive; nevertheless the words he speaks carry a instruments and languages of modern sci- Antony Flew for Red-baiting, anoints meaning that is inescapable. And I think ence, but I do not consider that they as a "libertarian" socialist, Antony Flew did not wish to assume that dissociated it from matter. The trouble arose and asserts, without even a hint at the Nielsen does not understand what he is from a confusion of the intellect with the evidence, that "there is no good reason why saying. Surely we must mean what we say. , and of the mathematicians' definition socialist societies cannot be democratic."... of infinity with the mystic's concept of Nielsen confuses a philosophically ser- Tibor R. Machan eternity. The true culprits were, in fact, the ious ad hominem charge like "Your views Senior Fellow religious ascetics. They turned their backs support horrid political measures" with a The Reason Foundation on organic life when they taught that the gratuitous smear like "You are a Commie." Santa Barbara, California natural world and its promptings were evil. It is the former that Antony Flew produced, Their split between the soul and the body has not the latter. Next, Nielsen produces a flat- The "" been emulated by the intellectuals in their out contradiction in terms—i.e., "libertarian separation of reason and the passions. socialist"—to make possible accepting I'm sorry to hear that Robert Jastrow has Hence men are always inclined to consider Noam Chomsky's escape from the fact of his been failing to live up to his responsibilities that what they think is superior to what they political incoherencies. A libertarian holds as a scientist ("Jastrow and Genesis," FI, may feel. The Secular Humanist Declara- individual liberty from the coercion of Winter 1981-82), because one of his astron- tion, based as it is on scientific intellect, is others and their groups as the highest social omy texts is probably the best I've seen. deficient in contributions that (even under- value. A socialist holds the destruction of the (Letters continued on page 44)

Spring 1982 5 Isaac Asimov is the author of more than two hundred books. A noted skeptic, he was the first subscriber to FREE INQUIRY. Asimov was interviewed by Paul Kurtz in his penthouse apartment overlooking .—EDS. An Interview with Isaac Asimov On Science and the Bible

Kurtz: In your view is the Bible widely known and intelligently have taken the Bible seriously and have submitted it to critical read today? analysis. Would you agree that, although free inquiry concern- Asimov: It is undoubtedly widely known. It is probably ing the Bible goes on in scholarly journals, and perhaps in owned by more people than any other book. As to how widely university classes and in some books, the public hears mostly it is read one cannot be certain. I suppose it is read very widely pro-religious propaganda—such as from the pulpits of the in the sense that people just look at the words and read it electronic church, from religious publications, and from the mechanically. How many people actually think about the daily press—and very rarely any kind of questioning or probing words they read, I'm not at all certain. They can go to a house of of biblical claims? worship and hear verses read without thinking about what the Asimov: I imagine that the large majority of the popula- words mean. Undoubtedly millions of people do. tion, in the United States at least, either accepts every word of Kurtz: There used to be something called the Higher the Bible as it is written or gives it very little thought and would Biblical Criticism. What has happened to that? be shocked to hear anyone doubt that the Bible is correct in Asimov: I am constantly hearing, from people who accept every way. So when someone says something that sounds as the Bible more or less literally, that the Higher Criticism has though he assumes that the Bible was written by human been outmoded and discredited, but I don't believe that at all. beings—fallible human beings who were wrong in this respect This is just something that people say who insist on clinging to or that—he can rely on being vilified by large numbers of the literal truth of the Bible. The Higher Criticism, which in the people who are essentially ignorant of the facts, and not many nineteenth century, for example, tried to show that the first few people care to subject themselves to this. books of the Bible contained several strains that could be Kurtz: Do you take the Bible primarily as a human identified and separated, I think is as valid today as it ever was. document or do you think it was divinely inspired? Fundamentally, there is a J-document and a P-document in the Asimov: The Bible is a human document. Much of it is early chapters of Genesis and an E-document later on. 1 have great poetry, and much of it consists of the earliest reasonable no doubt that as one continues to investigate these things one history that survives. Samuel I and II antedate Herodotus by constantly learns and raises new questions. several centuries. A great deal of the Bible may contain Kurtz: But by and large the public does not know much successful ethical teachings, but the rest is at best allegory and about this skeptical, critical interpretation of the Bible. Would at worst myth and legend. Frankly, I don't think that anything you say that is so? is divinely inspired. I think everything that human beings Asimov: Yes. Just as by and large the public doesn't know possess of intelligent origin is humanly inspired, with no about any of the disputes that there have been about quantum exceptions. theory. The public knows only what it reads in the newspapers Kurtz: Earlier you said that the Bible contained fallible and sees on television, and this is all extremely superficial. writings. What would some of these be? Kurtz: One thing that I am struck by is that today in Asimov: In my opinion, the biblical account of the America we really don't have a free market of ideas in regard to creation of the and of the earth and humanity is wrong religion and the Bible. You are an outstanding exception. You in almost every respect. I believe that those cases where it can be

6 p od Ígf Bible, the earth itself existed from the beginning, whereas the stars, sun, and moon were created on the fourth day. Kurtz: Yes, so they have it backwards. Asimov: They have that backwards, and they have plant life being created before the sun. All the evidence we have indicates that this is not so. The Bible says that every plant, and every animal, was created after its own kind, which would indicate that species have been as they are now from the very beginning and have never changed. Despite what the creation- ists say, the fossil record, as well 'as very subtle biochemical evidence, geological evidence, and all sorts of other evidence, indicates that species have changed, that there has been a long evolutionary process that has lasted over three billion years. Kurtz: It's not simply biology that they are questioning, but geology, astronomy, and the whole basis of the physical sciences. Asimov: If we insist on the Bible's being literally true, then we must abandon the scientific method totally and completely. There's no way that we can at the same time try to discover the truth by means of observation and reason and also accept the Bible as true. So what is at stake in this debate between evolution Photo by J.R. Martin Kurtz: and creationism is not simply the principle of evolution in "The Bible is a human document ... Frankly, I don't regard to living things but the whole status of the sciences think that anything is divinely inspired. I think themselves? everything that human beings possess of intelligent Asimov: That is what I believe. But I have letters from origin is humanly inspired, with no exceptions." creationists who say that they don't deny the scientific method, that they are just trying to examine the inconsistencies in the argued that the Bible is not wrong are, if not trivial, then evidence presented by the evolutionists. However, that is not coincidental. And I think that the account of a worldwide what should be the chief job of the creationists.' What they flood, as opposed, say, to a flood limited to the Tigris- should do is present positive evidence in favor of creationism, Euphrates region, is certainly wrong. which is something they never do. They confine themselves to Kurtz: The creationists think that there is evidence for the pointing out inconsistencies in the evolutionary view, not flood. hesitating to create those inconsistencies by distortion and, in Asimov: The creationists think there is evidence for every my opinion, in some cases by outright fraud. Then they say that word in the Bible. 1 think all of the accounts of human beings they have "proved" that evolutionary theory is false, and living before the flood, such as Adam and Eve and Cain and therefore creationism is correct. Abel, are at best very dim memories of ancient Sumerian rulers; Kurtz: Of course you don't deny that how evolution occurs and even the stories about Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob I rather is not fully or finally formulated. think are vague legends. Asimov: Certainly there are many arguments over the Kurtz: Based on oral tradition? mechanism of evolution, but our knowledge about the evolu- Asimov: Yes, and with all the distortions that oral tionary process is much greater than it was in Darwin's day. traditions sometimes undergo. The present view of evolution is far more subtle and wide- Kurtz: In your book In the Beginning, you say that ranging than Darwin's was or could have been. But it still is not creation is a myth. Why do you think it is scientifically false? firmly and finally settled. There remain many arguments over What are some of the points? the exact mechanism of evolution, and furthermore there are Asimov: Well, all of the scientific evidence we have seems many scientists who are dissatisfied with some aspects of to indicate that the universe is billions of years old. But there is evolution that most other scientists accept. There are always no indication whatsoever of that in the Bible if it is interpreted minority views among scientists in every respect, but virtually literally rather than allegorically. Creationists insist on inter- no scientist denies the fact of evolution. It is as though we were preting it literally. According to the information we have, the all arguing about just exactly what makes a car go even though earth is billions of years younger than the universe. nobody denies that cars go. Kurtz: It is four and a half billion years old. Kurtz: What about the metaphorical interpretations? Asimov: The earth is, and the universe is possibly fifteen When I was growing up, the general view was that we should billion years old. The universe may have existed ten billion accept creationism and that it is not incompatible with years before the earth, but according to the biblical evolution but is to be interpreted metaphorically or allegori- of creation the earth, the sun, the moon, and the stars were all cally in terms of stages. created at the same time. As a matter of fact, according to the Asimov: There is always that temptation. I am perfectly

Spring 1982 7 Asimov: Well, if you trace the word firmament back to its original meaning, it is a thin, beaten layer of metal. It is like the top you put on a platter in a restaurant. It is like the lid of a dish. The earth is a dish and the firmament comes down upon it on all sides. It is a material object that separates things. There are waters above the firmament and waters below. In fact, in the book of Revelations, which was written about A.D. 100, centuries after Genesis was written, the writer describes the firmament as folding up like a scroll. It was still viewed as a thin metal plate. But we know as surely as we can know anything at all that there is no firmament up there—there's no thin metal layer—there's only an atmosphere, and beyond it a vacuum, an empty space, except where there are planets, stars, and other objects. The blueness of it is an illusion due to the scattering of light, and the blackness of night is due to the absence of any light that we can see, and so on. Kurtz: In a metaphorical interpretation, how would you interpret "the waters above and the waters below' Does that make any sense? Asimov: Not to me. Obviously the people who first wrote about the waters above the firmament were thinking of rain. The rain supposedly came down through the windows in the Photo br J. R. Martin firmament. There were little holes, as in a shower head, and the rain drizzled through. I don't blame them for not understand- "If we insist on the Bible's being literally true, then ing. I don't criticize the ancients for not knowing what we we must abandon the scientific method totally and know. It took centuries to work up this knowledge, and the completely." ancients contributed their share. They were every bit as intelligent as we are and every bit as much seekers after the willing, for instance, to interpret the Bible allegorically and to truth. I'm willing to admit that. But the fact is that they didn't speak of the days of creation as representing eons of indefinite know as much as we know now. length. Clarence Darrow badgered William Jennings Bryan Kurtz: They were limited by the prevailing scientific and into admitting that the days could have been very long. This philosophical views of the day. horrified Bryan's followers, as it would horrify creationsts Asimov: And by the little that had been learned up to that today. You can say that the entire first chapter of Genesis is a time. So this seemed a logical explanation of the rain. They magnificent poem representing a view of creation as transcend- didn't know the nature of the evaporation from the ocean. They ing the silly humanoid gods of the Babylonians and presenting didn't understand what the clouds really were and that is why a great abstract deity who by his word alone brings the universe they spoke of the waters above the firmament and below, but into existence. You can compare this with the big bang. You there is no reason that we should speak of it that way. can say that said "Let there be light" and that then there Kurtz: If you take Genesis metaphorically, you can believe was the big bang; and one could then follow with all sorts of in the theory of evolution as the big bang and also that parallels and similarities if one wished. I have no objection to everything evolved, so this need not be a threat to science that. necessarily? Kurtz: But aren't the stages wrong, even if it is interpreted Asimov: No, if you are willing to say that the universe metaphorically? You said earlier that, according to the Bible, began fifteen billion years ago—the exact number of billions of God created the earth before the heavenly bodies. years is under despute—as a tiny object that expanded rapidly Asimov: Yes. Some of the stages are wrong. But you could and dropped in temperature, and all the other things that say that, when the Bible says "In the beginning God created the scientists believe happened, then you can say that God created heaven and the earth," what was really meant was the universe. it, and the laws of nature that controlled it, and that he then sat We could say that, at the time the first chapter of Genesis was back and watched it develop. I would be content to have people written, when people spoke of the earth they meant everything say that. Frankly, I don't believe it, but there's no way one can there was. But as our vision and perspective expanded we saw disprove it. that what was really meant was the universe. Thus, if necessary, Kurtz: You don't believe it? You don't think there is we can modify the words. But the creationists won't do this; sufficient evidence that there was a cosmic egg that shattered they insist on the literal interpretation of the creation story. and that God created this cosmic egg? When it says "earth" they want it to mean earth; when it says on Asimov: I believe there's enough evidence for us to think the first "day" they want it to mean a twenty-four-hour day. that a big bang took place. But there is no evidence whatsoever Kurtz: When the Bible says, "And God made the firma- to suppose that a superhuman being said, "Let it be." However, ment," what does it mean? Isn't that odd? neither is there any evidence against it; so, if a person feels

8 comfortable believing that, I am willing to have him believe it. Kurtz: As an article of faith? Asimov: Yes, as an article of faith. I have articles of faith, too. I have an article of faith that says the universe makes sense. Now there's no way you can prove that the universe makes sense, but there is just no fun in living in the universe if it doesn't make sense. Kurtz: The universe is intelligible because you can formu- late hypotheses and make predictions and there are regular- ities. Asimov: Yes, and my is that no matter how far we go we will always find that the universe makes sense. We will never get to the point where it suddenly stops making sense. But that is just an assumption on my part.

Kurtz: Religion then postulates and brings in God.

in in t

Asimov: Except it tends to retreat. At the very start you Mar

had rain gods and sun gods. You had a god for every single R.

natural phenomenon. Nothing took place without some minor J. h h

deity personally arranging it. In the Middle Ages some people to ho thought the planets revolved around the earth because there P were angels pushing them, because they didn't know about the "I am an atheist, out and out. It took me a long time Galilean notion that the planets didn't require a constant impetus to keep moving. Well, if people want to accept a God to say it. I've been an atheist for years and years, but as initiating the big bang, let them. But the creationists won't do somehow I felt it was intellectually unrespectable to that. say one was an atheist, because it assumed Kurtz: Are you fearful that this development of a literal knowledge that one didn't have." interpretation of the Bible is anti-science and can undermine rationality in this country and in the rest of the world? study the political process all we want. We can examine the Asimov: I don't believe it can actually stop sensible people reasoning behind Communism, Fascism, and Nazism. We can from thinking sensibly, but it can create a situation whereby consider the Ku Klux Klan and what they believe. There is there are laws against allowing sensible people to think sensibly nothing that we should not be able to examine. in the open. Right now the fight is over creation and evolution. Kurtz: And your examination of the Bible indicates that it In the long run, in any fight between evolutionists and is contradicted in many places by modern science? creationists, evolution will win as long as human beings have Asimov: Yes. Now this does not automatically mean that sense. But there are laws now in Louisiana and Arkansas, and science is correct and the Bible is wrong, although I think it is. other legislatures are considering similar laws. People should examine it. One thing we cannot do is to say Kurtz: It was struck down in Arkansas. without examination that the Bible is right. Asimov: Fortunately! But wherever the law exists, school Kurtz: Isaac, how would you describe your own position? teachers must teach creationism if they mention evolution. This Agnostic, atheist, rationalist, humanist? is a dreadful precedent. In the United States a state can say: Asimov: I am an atheist, out and out. It took me a long "This is scientific. This is what you must teach in science." time to say it. I've been an atheist for years and years, but Whereas in many nations that have had an established somehow I felt it was intellectually unrespectable to say one church—nations we may have looked upon as backward—they was an atheist, because it assumed knowledge that one didn't nevertheless understood that within the subsystem of science it have. Somehow it was better to say one was a humanist or an is science that decides what is scientific. It is scientists who agnostic. I finally decided that I'm a creature of emotion as well make the decision. It is in the scientific marketplace that ideas as of reason. Emotionally I am an atheist. I don't have the win or lose. If they want to teach religion, they can teach it evidence to prove that God doesn't exist, but I so strongly outside of science, and they can say that all of science is wicked suspect he doesn't that I don't want to waste my time. and atheistic. But to force their way into science and to dictate Kurtz: But the burden of proof is upon the person who what scientists must declare science to be destroys the meaning claims God exists. You don't believe in Santa Claus, but you of all of science. It is an absolutely impossible situation and can't disprove his existence. The burden of proof is upon those scientists should not permit it without a fight to the very end. who maintain the claim. Kurtz: I fully share your concern. What about religion Asimov: Yes. In any case, I am an atheist. itself? Should religion be a subject for free inquiry? Should Kurtz: You have no doubt reflected a good deal on this. examination of the Bible be openly discussed in American Can people live without the God myth, without religion? You society? don't need it presumably. Does man need it? Asimov: I don't see why not. I think nothing is sacred, at Asimov: Well individual human beings may. There's a least in a country that considers itself intellectually free. We can certain comfort, I suppose, in thinking that you will be with all

Spring 1982 9 of your loved ones again after death, that death is not the end, independent religious support for moral choice? that you'll live in some kind of never-never land with great Asimov: Yes. If a group of people are living together in a happiness. Maybe some people even get a great deal of comfort community where there is a lot of lying and stealing going on, it out of knowing that all the people they don't like are going to go is an unpleasant way to live. But if everyone tells the truth and is straight to hell. These are all comforts. Personally, they don't honest and thoughtful of his neighbor, it is a good way to live. comfort me. I'm not interested in having anyone suffer You don't need to go any further than that. eternally in hell, because I don't believe that any crime is so Kurtz: Is there one value that you have always felt is the nearly infinite in magnitude as to deserve infinite punishment. I most important—one moral principle? feel that I couldn't bring myself to condemn anyone to eternal Asimov: I am scrupulously honest, financially speaking, punishment. I am opposed to punishment. but I have never really had a serious temptation to be Kurtz: The height of wickedness, is it not? otherwise. I long for a temptation so that I can prove to myself Asimov: Yes. I feel if I can't do it, then God, who that I am really scrupulously honest, you see. presumably is a much more noble being than I am, could Kurtz: I thought you were going to say that you were certainly not do it. Furthermore, I can't help but believe that committed to truth and knowledge! eternal happiness would eventually be boring. I cannot grasp Asimov: When I think of being committed to truth and the notion of eternal anything. My own way of thinking is that knowledge, that seems to be such a natural sort of thing. How after death there is nothingness. Nothingness is the only thing can anyone be anything else? I give myself no credit for that. I that I think is worth accepting. don't see how it is possible to be tempted away from it, and if Kurtz: Do you think that one can lead a moral life, that life you can't be tempted away from it then there is no point in even is meaningful, and that one can be just and noble without a considering it a virtue. It is like saying that it is a virtue to belief in God? breathe. But when I think of truth, I wonder about telling those Asimov: Well, as easily as with a belief in God. I don't feel little social lies we tell for our own convenience, such as telling that people who believe in God will automatically be noble, but someone you have another appointment when you don't want neither do I think they will automatically be wicked. I don't to go out some evening. I don't have much occasion to do that, think those who don't believe in God will be automatically but I guess I am as prone to it as almost anyone is. Although I noble or automatically wicked either. I think this is a choice for am apt to call someone up and say, "Gee, I meant to call you every human being, and frankly I think that perhaps if you yesterday but I forgot." I probably shouldn't say that. I should don't believe in God this puts a greater strain on you, in the say that I was busy all day long. sense that you have to live up to your own feelings of . Kurtz: These are not great moral dilemmas. Have you But, if you do believe in God, you also believe in forgiveness. never been tested or challenged morally? You are a man of There is no one to forgive me. great courage, but perhaps you are old enough that you don't Kurtz: No escape hatch. have to worry. Asimov: That's right. If I do something wrong, I have to Asimov: There's no such thing as not having to worry. I face myself and I may not be able to figure out a way of suppose that if people wanted to make a big fuss about my forgiving myself. But, if you believe in God, there are usually it could conceivably reflect itself in the sales of my rituals whereby you may express contrition and be forgiven, books so that my economic security would suffer. I figure, what and so on. So it seems to me that many people can feel free to the hell! There is a certain amount of insistence inside me to sin and repent afterwards. I don't. In my way of life, there may prevent me from bartering my feelings, opinions, or views for be repentance but it doesn't make up for the sin. the sake of a few extra dollars. Kurtz: Of course a lot of people who are humanists say Kurtz: So you have the courage of your convictions? that, if ethics is based upon either fear of God or love of God Asimov: I suppose so, or it may be just a desire to avoid the and his punishment and reward, then one is not really ethical, unpleasantness of shame! Unfortunately, many people define that ethics must grow out of human experience. wickedness not according to what a person does but according Asimov: Well, I said the same thing in an argument about to what a person . So an atheist who lives an upright what I called the Reagan doctrine. Early in what I already and noble life, let us say, is nevertheless considered wicked. consider his disastrous administration, Reagan said that one Indeed, a religious believer might argue that an upright and couldn't believe anything the Soviets said because they didn't noble atheist is far more wicked than an atheist who happens to believe in God. In my view, maybe you can't believe anything be a murderer or a crook. the Soviets say, but not for that reason. If you are ethical only Kurtz: Is this because the atheist lacks faith in God, and because you believe in God, you are buying your ticket to that is considered to be the ultimate "sin"? heaven or trying to tear up your ticket to hell. In either case, Asimov: Yes. The atheist who is a murderer or a crook you are just being a shrewd profiteer, nothing else. The idea of gives a bad example for atheism and persuades everyone else being ethical is to be ethical for no reason except that that is the not to be atheistic. But a noble and upright atheist, so the way to be if you want the world to run smoothly. I think that believer fears, causes people to doubt the by people who say virtue is its own reward or honesty is the best the mere fact that a person who does not believe in God can still policy have the right idea. be upright and noble. Religious believers might argue that way, Kurtz: Are you suggesting that is autonomous, but I think that is a horrible perversion of thought and of that you learn by living and that one doesn't need an morality. •

10 SCIENCE, THE BIBLE AND DARWIN

An International Symposium on Science, Religion, and Ethics to mark the centennial of Charles Darwin's Death

April 16-17, 1982

at the State University of New York at Buffalo (Amherst Campus) John Lord O'Brian Hall, Room 104

Friday, April 16 10:00 A.M.-12:30 P.M.: "Charles Darwin and His Influence" Philip Appleman Professor of English, Indiana University-Bloomington Sol Tax Professor of Anthropology, University of Chicago H. James Birx Professor of Anthropology, Canisius College, Buffalo

2:00-5:00 P.M.: "The Bible Re-examined: A Scholarly Critique" Gerald Larue Emeritus Professor of Archaeology and Biblical History, USC-LA John Priest Professor of Religion, Florida State University-Tallahassee Randel Helms Associate Professor of Bible Studies, Arizona State University Robert Alley Professor of Humanities, University of Richmond 6:30 P.M. (Banquet) "Science and Religion": Joseph Blau, Professor of Religion, Columbia 8:30 P.M. "Magic and Religion": James Randi ("The Amazing Randi")

Saturday, April 17 9:30 A.M.-12:30 P.M.: "Ethics and Religion" Richard Taylor Professor of Philosophy, University of Rochester Joseph Fletcher Theologian and Professor of Medical Ethics, University of Virginia Lee Nisbet Associate Professor of Philosophy, Medaille College Paul Beattie Minister, All Souls Unitarian Church, Indianapolis Kai Nielsen Professor of Philosophy, University of Calgary, Canada

2:00 P.M.-5:00 P.M.: "Darwin, Evolution, and Creationism" Garrett Hardin Emeritus Professor of Biology, University of California-Santa Barbara William Mayer Professor of Biology, University of Colorado-Boulder Charles Cazeau Associate Professor of Geology, SUNY-Buffalo Antony Flew Professor of Philosophy, , England

(open to the public) For more details of this symposium, contact FREE INQUIRY, 716-834-2921, 1203 Kensington Avenue, Buffalo, NY 14215

Spring 1982 11 The recent Arkansas "creation science" case is only one of a long series of legal battles in defense of evolution. L. Sprague de Camp graphically describes some of the other cases, including the Scopes trial of 1925 and the 1965 Epperson case in Arkansas heard by the Supreme Court in 1968, which he attended.—ED. The Continuing Monkey War

L. Sprague de Camp

The young assistant attorney general for Arkansas, Don the verb "teach." This might mean "to teach as true, to Langston, sounded embarrassed. The case, he told the indoctrinate or proselytize." Or it might mean merely "to Supreme Court, began under a previous administration, and it mention or describe in class," without saying whether the was his task to see it through. teacher agreed with the doctrine. Chief Justice Earl Warren asked: "What was the Moreover, continued Eugene Warren, Arkansas used a significance of that?" standard biology text, Otto and Towle's Modern Biology, "I was just giving you background, Your Honor," replied which had evolutionary sections on the development of life and Langston. the origin of man. This placed teachers in a strange position. "I thought you were telling us your administration doesn't Some told their pupils: "It is illegal to read this next chapter," like the statute." knowing that this was a sure way to get pupils to study the "I am not here prepared to say that, Your Honor." material. If the law were broadly construed, it would even be "It might not be too late, you know," smiled Chief Justice illegal to refer pupils to a standard dictionary or encyclopedia, Warren. all of which have articles on evolution. Langston went on to argue the State's side of Epperson v. Now it was Langston's turn to address the Court, and the Arkansas. The case began in 1965, when Susan Epperson, a austere justices saw fit to have a little fun with him. Chief pretty young red-haired biology teacher in Little Rock Central Justice Warren asked if a state might outlaw the mention of High School, filed suit in the Pulaski County Chancery Court. geometry. She sought to have the Rotenberry Act, Arkansas' "monkey Justice Marshall asked: "Since your Supreme Court has law," declared unconstitutional. Patterned on the more famous disposed of the lower court's opinion in two sentences, would Butler Act of Tennessee, the Rotenberry Act forbade teaching, you object to us disposing of that one in one sentence?" in public schools and colleges, "the theory or doctrine that Justice Stewart added: "What if Arkansas would forbid mankind ascended or descended from a lower order of animals the theory that the world is round?" and it shall be unlawful for any teacher, textbook commission, With a fiendish grin, Justice Douglas put in: "How about or other authority ... to select textbooks ... or use in any such sex? Does Arkansas have any prohibitions on teaching in the institutions a textbook that teaches the doctrine" in question. field of sex?" Mrs. Epperson was backed by the Arkansas Educational Smiles and discreet laughter spread around the court- Association and represented by attorney .Eugene R. Warren. room, where Mrs. Epperson sat with her husband, an Air Force The chancellor, Murray O. Reed, found the law uncon- mathematician. The hearing was over in half an hour. stitutional on the ground that it infringed on the teachers' The Epperson case was a late battle in a dwindling war of freedom of speech. The state appealed. In a two-sentence ideas, which has raged and sputtered in the United States for opinion, the Arkansas Supreme Court reversed Judge Reed, over a century. In the 1870s, American Protestant leaders be- holding the law a legitimate exercise of the legislature's power came aware of two disturbing developments. One was the fact to control the curriculum. Lawyer Warren in turn appealed. that European scholars were scrutinizing the Bible more closely Now, on October 16, 1968, the Supreme Court of the United than ever before. They had concluded that it was not, as States was hearing the arguments. Christians had long assumed, a book dictated by God and Eugene Warren had already asserted that the law was therefore infallibly true. It was, instead, a disorderly anthology unconstitutionally vague because it did not define the scope of of ancient myths, legends, history, law, philosophy, sermons, poems, fiction, and some outright forgeries. They pointed out, among other things, that Genesis contains not one Creation L. Sprague de Camp is the author of more than thirty books story but two different and mutually inconsistent ones, on science and science. fiction, including The Ragged Edge of clumsily spliced together, and that there are likewise two Science (1981). divergent stories of Noah's Flood.

12 six in all, the "Five Points" became famous and were set forth, with variations, on later occasions. Since the first point, the inerrancy of the Bible, demanded literal belief in the Creation myth of Genesis, it brought the Bible into collision with Darwinism. In 1907 millionaire brothers, Lyman and Milton Stewart, founded the Los Angeles Bible Institute. Then they chose a committee to codify the tenets of the faithful. The result was a dozen pamphlets, issued in 1910 as The Fundamentals. Circulated by the Stewarts' generosity, these pamphlets set forth the committee's version of the Five Points and furnished the basis for the Fundamentalist movement, which grew during the next few years. The First World War distracted American minds from ; but as soon as it ended, the Fundamentalists sprang back into action. When the Eighteenth Amendment was adopted, the Fundamentalists, flushed with triumph, sighted upon their next target: the ape in man's family tree. Leaders The other development was the spread of Charles included William Bell Riley of the First Baptist Church of Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection, which Minneapolis; John Roach Straton of the Calvary Baptist included the idea that man had descended from some apelike or Church of New York; John Franklin Norris, a gun-toting monkeylike primate. The general concept of evolution had preacher of Forth Worth; Aimee Semple McPherson of the been the subject of occasional speculation at least from the time Angelus Temple of Los Angeles; and William Jennings Bryan of Anaximandros in the sixth century B.C. (1860-1925), lawyer, politician, orator, reformer, Sunday- In his Origin of Species of 1859, Darwin not only school teacher, lecturer, journalist, editor, anti-liquor crus- presented a mass of evidence indicating the evolution of all ader, real-estate promoter, lobbyist, thrice-defeated candidate living things but also advanced a convincing explanation of for president, one-time U.S. secretary of state, and prominent why evolution took place. His concept of natural selection — Presbyterian layman. the "survival of the fittest" — is Darwinism in the strictest Bryan was an upright, virtuous, kindly, likable, eloquent, sense. magnetic, and majestically wrong-headed man. Not unin- Since Origin appeared on the eve of the American Civil telligent, he was wholly superficial, with unshakable faith in War, it had little popular impact for a decade in the United slogans as solutions to problems, and unable to grasp any idea States, although it gained quick acceptance from most that conflicted with his preconceived convictions. In 1921 he scientists. Then an uneasy awareness of these novelties aroused moved from Nebraska to Florida. For several years he lobbied the churches. Some divines accepted them; others rejected for Latin American governments seeking loans, sold real estate them with repugnance. he had bought near Miami, lectured on the Chautauqua circuit, At yearly Bible conferences, conservative leaders and supported the Fundamentalist cause. inveighed against the menace of liberalism at home and Like other Adamist leaders, Bryan wrote, lectured, and destructive biblical criticism abroad. They fiercely pursued appeared before legislatures to urge bills to ban the teaching of those whom they accused of corrupting the minds of the people evolution. Probably the greatest American orator of all time, by the new teachings. Some preachers lost their pulpits and he was much more moderate and reasonable than some of his some professors their chairs in consequence. The most followers, who wanted to forbid evolutionary beliefs on of celebrated victim was the geologist Alexander Winchell, who death by crucifixion or burning. Bryan was satisfied to have was dismissed from Vanderbilt University for telling his legislatures pass simple anti-evolutionary resolutions, without students they were descended from pre-Adamite organisms. penalties. In private, he showed himself less than dogmatically Late in the century, an annual gathering of orthodox sure of his Adamism, remarking to younger associates in the Protestants, the Niagara Bible Conference, listened to speeches Scopes case: "Now, you boys will probably live to see whether and issued publications. In 1895, this conference put forth a or not evolution is true. I won't." statement reducing Christian doctrine to five essential points: In public he hid these doubts for the sake of presenting a 1. The inerrancy or infallibility of the Bible. united front with other Fundamentalists. In the early 1920s, 2. The divinity of Jesus Christ. under Fundamentalist urging, several monkey bills were 3. The virgin birth of Jesus Christ. narrowly beaten in state legislatures. In 1923 Oklahoma passed 4. The substitutionary atonement of Christ — the an act against evolutionary textbooks, but it was repealed doctrine that Jesus' self-sacrifice freed men from the sin three years later. inherited from Adam. In 1925, the farmer-legislator John Washington Butler 5. The physical resurrection of Christ and his eventual introduced into Tennessee's House of Representatives an anti- Second Coming. evolutionary bill that passed without debate — 75 to 5. Many Although the last point combines two doctrines, making non-Fundamentalists voted for it to curry Fundamentalist

Spring 1982 13 votes or to do Butler a favor, expecting the Senate to kill the John T. Raulston, a Fundamentalist, tried to run a fair trial. bill. Pursuing the same , the Senate passed the bill This proved difficult, because of the circus atmosphere and expecting the governor to veto it. At first dismayed, Governor because the judge himself was more than a little bewildered. Peay, under pressure from his fellow Baptists, signed it on Normally fair-minded, Raulston, while competent in his usual March 21, 1925. He issued a rambling, contradictory statement bootlegging and homicide cases, was unqualified to conduct a asserting that "nobody believes that it is going to be an active trial involving such profound philosophical issues. He soon statute." He was mistaken. succumbed to a lust for publicity. On May 4, the Chattanooga Daily Times reported that The first three days were devoted to the choice of the jury the American Civil Liberties Union would finance the defense and to pre-trial maneuvers. There were endless arguments over of a case to test the constitutionality of the Butler Act. The the motion to quash the indictment and over the propriety of afternoon of the fifth, an argument arose in Robinson's Drug Raulston's opening each session with prayer. On Wednesday, Store in the small town of Dayton, in southeastern Tennessee. July 15, the trial proper got under way. A series of schoolboy The disputants were Walter White, superintendent of the Rhea witnesses for the State (carefully coached by Darrow) testified County schools; Sue K. Hicks, a young lawyer (male, despite that Scopes had taught them evolution. the name); and George W. Rappleyea, a young New Yorker The defense had persuaded a dozen scholars and scientists and manager of a bankrupt local coal company. Rappleyea, to come to Dayton as expert witnesses for the defense. Most one of the few evolutionists in town, opposed the law. White were comparatively young and obscure. The older and more and Hicks, although not convinced Fundamentalists, favored eminent savants invited, by and large, begged off, alleging it. pressure of work or plans for foreign travel. Some of their Why not, suggested Rappleyea, have the proposed test reasons were probably genuine; in other cases, they may have case right here? It would put Dayton on the map! He appealed been pretexts to cloak fear of loss of dignity. to White: "Well, we will make it a sporting proposition. As it is, However, when the defense proposed to call these the law is not enforced. If you win, it will be enforced. If I win, witnesses to prove that evolution was a well-established fact the law will be repealed. We're game, aren't we?" and that it did not necessarily conflict with a liberal, allegorical He soon won over Hicks and White. For a sacrificial victim reading of the Bible, the prosecution objected. A day was spent they chose their friend John Thomas Scopes, a 24-year-old on the question, with the jury absent. There were eloquent science teacher in the Dayton High School. Scopes — speeches by Byran and Stewart and a super-eloquent one by unmarried, modest, and popular — was the obvious candidate. Malone, which brought an ovation even from those who He had been teaching evolution not only because he believed in disagreed with him. it but also because the official biology textbook affirmed it. The defense lawyers, especially Darrow, made good Summoned to the drugstore, Scopes was talked into impressions. At first the Daytonians looked warily at these accepting his role in the drama. Rappleyea wired the ACLU lawyers from afar as dangerous but ended by esteeming about his plan. Receiving a favorable reply next day, he swore them as men of charm, character, and wisdom. Not so for H. L. out a warrant against Scopes. Mencken. His dispatches to the Baltimore Sun describing the For attorneys, Scopes retained an ex judge, John L. locals as "gaping primates" and "anthropoid rabble" so Godsey, and a gifted but eccentric professor of law, John enraged the townsfolk that Mencken narrowly escaped a coat Randolph Neal. Hicks wrote Bryan, offering him a place on the of tar and feathers. prosecution. When Bryan accepted, Clarence Darrow, Raulston ruled out the scientific witnesses as irrevelant. America's best-known defense attorney and a noted agnostic, Darrow lost his temper and insulted the judge, who cited him offered his services and those of his friend Dudley Field for contempt. Next day, Darrow apologized and was forgiven. Malone, a New York divorce lawyer. They were joined on the For the record, Hays, again without the jury, read a summary defense by Arthur Garfield Hays, attorney for the ACLU. of what the defense experts would have said had they been Several more attorneys joined one side or the other, while allowed to speak. Godsey, fearing for his reputation, dropped out. The On the afternoon of the twentieth, fearing for the safety of prosecution finally included Bryan's son, W. J. Bryan, Jr., and the picturesquely ugly old courthouse building, Raulston A. T. Stewart, attorney general for the Eighteenth Circuit. The moved the trial out on the courthouse lawn. There the defense volunteers on both sides served without pay. played its trump card. The trial did indeed put Dayton on the map. It received Hays said: "The defense desires to call Mr. Bryan as a enormous publicity. Over a hundred journalists arrived, witness . . . including two Britons and the celebrated gadfly H. L. The judge goggled, and Bryan's palm-leaf fan froze in his Mencken. A swarm of evangelists, cultists, eccentrics, fanatics, hand. The other prosecution lawyers jumped up shouting. It and demented persons descended on Dayton, converting that was unheard of, they protested, to call an attorney in a case as a neat, quiet, conventional, orderly, humdrum little town into a witness in that same case. But the defense persisted. Raulston madder tea party than Lewis Carroll ever imagined. A white- put it up to Bryan, who agreed to testify if he might in turn whiskered prophet announced himself as John the Baptist the examine the defense attorneys. Third. Showmen appeared with tame chimpanzees that they For an hour and a half, Darrow mercilessly grilled Bryan tried to rent to the litigants to lend zip to their arguments. about the Bible, the history of civilization, and the origin of In blistering heat, the trial began on July 10, 1925. Judge man. Did the whale swallow Jonah? Had Joshua stopped the

14 earth from spinning? Was the earth created in 4004 B.c.? What In Meridian, Mississippi, the high-school superintendent about civilizations known to be older than that? Did the fishes held a public bonfire of evolutionary pages torn from survive the Flood? What did Bryan know about and textbooks. William Bell Riley joyfully cried: "Within twelve ? Did linguistics support the biblical story of the months, every state in the Union will be thoroughly organized." Confusion of Tongues? Did God really fear that the builders of Many evolutionists feared he might be right and that a new the Tower of Babel would use it to invade Heaven? Bryan Dark Age was on its way. In Mississippi, a bill like the Butler sweated, hedged, and evaded but time and again was forced to Act became law in February 1926. admit his ignorance of subjects on which he had pontificated. The following May, Darrow and his colleagues appeared Darrow ground on. Where did Cain get his wife? How old in Nashville, Tennessee, to argue their appeal. The verdict was was the earth? How could there have been "days" of creation announced on January 15, 1927. Of the five justices, one before there was any sun? To the dismay of the Funda- disqualified himself, one held the Butler Act unconstitutional mentalists, Darrow trapped Bryan into admitting that the for vagueness, one held it valid but not violated, and the earth might be millions of years old. remaining two, while making no secret of their dislike of the Finally, how did the Serpent walk before God com- law, found it constitutional and violated. manded it to go on its belly? Did it hop along on its tail? The crowd guffawed. "Adam, Eve, and the Serpent will, I suspect, still Bryan rose, shaking his fists and screaming: "The only have their believers far into the twenty-first century. purpose of Mr. Darrow here is to slur at the Bible ..." After all, we still have flat-earthians who insist that Darrow roared back; the spectators were excited almost to flights into outer space are a hoax." the verge of a riot. With a terrific smash of his gavel, Raulston adjourned the court. That night, District Attorney Stewart told Normally the opinion of these last two would have a resentful Bryan that he might not examine Darrow; the trial prevailed. But alas for George Rappleyea's grand design! The had been enough of a circus already. court also held that Raulston had blundered in levying the fine, On the morning of the twenty-first, Raulston expunged because the Tennessee constitution ordained that fines over the Darrow-Bryan debate from the record and called in the $50 must be assessed by a jury. The court seized upon this jury. In his closing address, Darrow hinted that he wanted a technicality to remand the case to the lower court and advise verdict of guilty, to make possible an appeal. The jury obliged, District Attorney Stewart to nol-pros it. "We see nothing to be and Raulston ordered Scopes to pay a fine of $100.. gained," quoth the court, "by prolonging the life of this bizarre The gathering broke up. The lawyers, the journalists, the case." Stewart complied, leaving the law intact and Scopes spectators, the evangelists, the showmen, the concessionaires, unpunished. and the eccentrics streamed away, leaving the Daytonians to Through 1926 and 1927, Adamists continued to bustle and wonder whether the publicity they had obtained was the kind shout, to resolve and exhort. Yet it transpired that something they wanted. Scopes became a graduate student at the ailed the anti-evolutionary movement. The steam had gone out University of Chicago and went on to a quiet but honorable of it. Of the monkey bills presented to state legislatures during career as a petroleum geologist. After the trial, he privately this time, only Mississippi's passed. The rest failed, some by confessed that he had never actually taught the evolutionary maneuvers that forestalled a vote. Delaware's monkey bill of lesson for which he was convicted. He had been too busy that 1927 was referred to the Committee on Fish, Game, and day coaching the football team. Oysters, where it died a quiet death. Many legislators disliked William Jennings Bryan temporarily remained in Dayton. monkey bills but did not wish to vote openly against them for Although he seemed in good health and spirits, five days after fear of losing support at the next election. the trial he quietly died during an afternoon nap. The exact The crusaders won a few local victories. Here and there cause was never learned. He was an elderly diabetic who they persuaded local school officials to ban the teaching of cheated on his diet and ate voraciously. Darrow's inquisition, evolution or to sack some unlucky pedagogue. They also together with the infernal heat, had doubtless worn him down. intimidated many textbook publishers into omitting evolution The defense filed its appeal. The ACLU was riven by a from biology texts or skimming over the subject with vague conflict between those who disapproved of Darrow's tactics platitudes. and wanted to oust him and those who wished him to stay with In 1927, a monkey bill was introduced into the Arkansas the case. House of Representatives by A. L. Rotenberry and backed by The months after the Monkey Trial saw a surge of anti- the Reverend Ben M. Bogard's American Anti-Evolution evolutionary activity. Many bills were introduced into state Association, an organization open to all save "Negroes and legislatures. A host of anti-evolutionary societies blossomed: persons of African descent, Atheists, Infidels, Agnostics, such the Bible Crusaders, the Bryan Bible League, the World persons as hold to the theory of Evolution, habitual drunkards, Christian Fundamentals Association, the Supreme Kingdom, profane swearers, despoilers of the domestic life of others, the Defenders of the Christian Faith, and two weirdly desecrators of the Lord's Day and those who would depreciate misnamed groups — the Research Science Bureau and the feminine virtue by vulgarly discussing sex relationship." When American Science Foundation. They talked of an anti- the bill failed to pass, Bogard got enough signatures to put the evolutionary amendment to the U.S. Constitution — an idea question on the ballot for a referendum the following year. with which Bryan had also toyed. Charles , president of the American Association for

Spring 1982 15 the Advancement of Atheism, campaigned against the sentiment slowly dwindled as millions of Americans learned proposal by handing out inflammatory anti-religious literature about geological ages and prehistoric life. Books, articles, and on the streets of Little Rock. For this, Smith was jailed under a movies helped to spread this knowledge. Several attempts were mildewed blasphemy statute. His antics probably made more made to repeal Tennessee's Butler Act, each try coming closer votes for the Rotenberry bill than against it, for it passed the to success than the last. In May 1967 the law was repealed. referendum by 108,991 to 63,406. Mississippi's was repealed in April 1972. Still, the assault on evolution continued to weaken. One Dayton may be called the Gettysburg of the Monkey War, by one, the Adamist leagues vanished. Gerald B. Winrod kept remembering that the Civil War continued for nearly two years his Defenders of the Christian Faith alive longer than the rest after Gettysburg. So the Monkey War has sputtered on, with by reviling the Jews in the way that was bringing success to the Adamists rallying and occasionally winning local victories, Hitler. but on the whole losing ground. Several factors hastened the wane of the Adamist crusade. Evolution is still not presented over much of the nation. One was the rise of opposition. Writers, teachers, scientists, Some states have local-option provisions by which a and other intellectuals had been frightened into giving their Fundamentalist school district may use nonevolutionary time to writing, lecturing, and appearing before legislatures to textbooks. Even where Fundamentalist pressure is minor, oppose monkey laws, or paying the costs of those who did. evolution is still often not taught. Curricula are crowded. Many Another factor was boredom. Since many crusaders were high-school students hate to learn anything at all and resist the only semi-literate, the endless repetition of their limited stock of learning process. Textbook publishers often skip evolution in ideas, crudely phrased and easily contradicted, wearied many biology texts rather than risk loss of sales in Adamist areas. of those to whom they were addressed. And timid teachers prefer to dodge the subject rather than risk The death of Bryan, although it gave the movement a stirring up the smallest minority of noisy Adamists. martyr, robbed it of a widely known and respected leader. Most These conditions tend to perpetuate themselves, because of the surviving leaders were too individualistic, egotistical, pupils grow up without hearing, save vaguely and dispar- quarrelsome, and personally ambitious to cooperate. The agingly, about evolution. They reach maturity believing movement also suffered from the personal shortcomings of in Adam, Eve, and the Serpent. Then, when the subject of some of these leaders, such as E. Y. , a crook and evolution comes up, in fear of having their fixed opinions racketeer eventually convicted of mail fraud. In 1926 the disturbed, they close their minds like so many startled clams Fundamentalist congressman John W. Langley was jailed for snapping shut their shells. stealing liquor from government warehouses. One university coed was reported as saying of a professor: In the same year, Aimee Semple McPherson vanished "When he began to lecture on evolution, I just sat back and from a California beach and was given up for drowned. On laughed. I wasn't going to believe any of that stuff." June 24, she reappeared in Mexico with a tale of being Many such know-nothings in their turn become teachers, kidnapped by the hirelings of her enemies: gamblers, dope parents, and school-board members. Thus ignorance, like a peddlers, and evolutionists. It transpired that she had merely. precious heirloom, is passed down to the third and fourth been enjoying a holiday from Christian austerity with her generation. former radio operator, Kenneth G. Ormiston, in a love nest at On November 12, 1968, Justice Fortas delivered the Carmel-by-the-Sea. opinion of the Supreme Court in the case of Epperson v. J. Frank Norris, the gunman-preacher of Forth Worth, Arkansas. The majority held that, since the purpose of the departed even further from Christian ideals. In 1926 he began a Rotenberry Act was plainly to forbid any teaching that violent campaign against the Roman Catholic church. When a gainsaid the Fundamentalist view of Genesis, the act did, in Catholic named Cripps went unarmed to his office to effect, establish a religious doctrine. This is forbidden under the complain, Norris shot and killed him. The following January, First and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution. with the support of the Grand Dragon of the local Klan, Norris "It is clear that fundamentalist sectarian conviction was and is was acquitted on grounds of self-defense. the law's reason for existence." Therefore the law was Although legally indecisive, the Scopes trial had some unconstitutional, and "the judgment of the Supreme Court of effect. Darrow's manhandling of poor Bryan made many Arkansas is reversed." politicians wary of supporting anti-evolutionism, not for love of Three justices filed concurring opinions. Justice Harlan science but for fear of ridicule. agreed with the majority but objected to some of their By 1929 the anti-evolutionary crusade . seemed to have peripheral discussion. Justice Black thought the law should withered. America still had millions of Fundamentalists and a have been struck down solely for vagueness. Justice Stewart host of preachers to stir them up; but the zest had gone. No thought the essential point was that the state not only forbade more monkey bills passed, although Adamist forces were the teaching of a subject but also levied criminal penalties strong enough to defeat attempts to repeal those already against the violator. That, he said, violated freedom of speech. enacted. Public interest drifted to more pressing matters: the More recently, encouraged by the nation's swing toward stockmarket crash, the Depression, repeal of Prohibition, the political , Adamist forces have tried a new tactic. rise of Fascism and Japanese imperialism, and the prelimin- They promote laws not forbidding the teaching of evolution aries to the Second World War. but requiring the teaching of the creation myth of Genesis, During the subsequent half-century, anti-evolutionary transparently disguised as "creation science," alongside it.

16 Laws to this end were unsuccessfully pushed in California in reapportionment reform, ending the over-representation of 1973 and in Iowa in 1979. In California a civil suit by a rural areas in legislatures; and the never-ending advance of Fundamentalist resulted in a waffling decision by the judge, science. But Adam, Eve, and the Serpent will, I suspect, still who demanded that evolution be presented only as a "theory" have their believers far into the twenty-first century. After all, and not as a "fact." (This distinction, of which much has been we still have flat-earthians who insist that flights into outer made — by Ronald Reagan among others — is unreal. space are a hoax. Everybody considers his own convictions "facts"; to a flat- However advanced thinkers deplore the fact, reactions earthian, the world's flatness is a "fact" and its roundness a like those of the Adamists to evolution are normal. Any new mere "theory.") doctrine that conflicts with well-established beliefs evokes A bill requiring the teaching of creationism was declared violent opposition, no matter how weighty the evidence or unconstitutional by a federal judge in Tennessee in 1975. cogent the arguments in its favor. At the same time, such Undaunted, creationists pushed through a similar law in conservatism serves a useful purpose. It helps to weed out the Arkansas in March 1981; this law was declared unconstitu- host of beguiling new ideas that constantly spring up but turn tional by District Court Judge William Overton on January 5. out to be wrong. The closing skirmishes of the Monkey War will doubtless Considering the record of mankind in such doctrinal go on for many decades. Adamist influence will continue to struggles, the American Monkey War seems comparatively shrink, because of long-term influences against it: the humane. After all, nobody has been burned at the stake. urbanization of the American people; the Supreme Court's Yet! •

Three Cheers for the Creationists! For the Services They Are Rendering to the Cause of Rational Religion

A. J. Mattill, Jr.

Lest creationists think that rationalists are being hypercritical ages, since plants require insect pollination for their continued of creationism, let us give three cheers to the creationists for the survival." services they are rendering to the cause of rational religion. Many Christians have taken the dishonest way of length- Cheer Number One goes to the creationists for serving ening the days into millions of years, but the creationists make rational religion by demonstrating beautifully that we must it clear that such an approach is nothing but a makeshift that is take the creation stories of Genesis at face value. Accordingly, unacceptable biblically and scientifically. Creationists thus there is only one way to understand the "days" of Genesis 1:1- present us with a clear-cut "either-or": "The Genesis record is 2:4, and that is as literal twenty-four-hour days, not as stubbornly intransigent and will not accommodate the stand- geological eras. Creationists list twenty or more contradictions ard system of geological ages. A decision must be made for one that arise between science and Scripture if the days are taken as or the other—one cannot logically accept both."2 geological eras instead of ordinary days. This "veritable morass And the creationists have also shown irrefutably that of contradictions" includes such ones as (a) "Genesis says that those liberal and neo-orthodox Christians who regard the plant life, even in such advanced form as the fruit tree, was creation stories as myths or allegories are undermining the rest made one 'day' before the sun and stars, but this would have of Scripture, for if there was no Adam there was no fall; and if been impossible if the day were really an aeon, as plants must there was no fall there was no hell; and if there was no hell there have sunlight"; (b) "The Bible says that there was no rain on the was no need of Jesus as Second Adam and Incarnate Savior, earth up at least to the time of man's appearance (Gen. 2:5); crucified and risen. As a result, the whole biblical system of geology says rains have existed since the earth first cooled"; (c) salvation collapses. "The Bible says plants appeared on the third day and insects The creationists likewise correctly maintain that, if the only on the sixth; this would be impossible if the days were biblical stories of the beginning of the world are myths, then the stories of the virginal conception and of the end of the world may be myths too. And once any of us get on this mythological A.J. Mattill, Jr., is a Unitarian minister in Tuscaloosa, slide we cannot logically stop sliding until we hit the bottom at Alabama, and the author of A Religious Odyssey; Luke and or atheism.3 the Last Things; and Jesus and the Last Things (forthcoming). Evolution thus becomes the most potent weapon for destroying the Christian faith. "One cannot believe the Bible

Spring 1982 17 and be an evolutionist, or be an evolutionist and believe the from Adam to Abraham is about two thousand years. Since Bible. "4 Abraham lived about 2000 B.C., Adam was created about 4000 Creationists deserve Cheer Number Two for serving B.C. Archbishop Ussher of the seventeenth century calculated rational religion by effectively eliminating the idea of "theistic that creation took place in 4004 B.C. Then Dr. John Lightfoot, evolution," or the liberal Christian view that evolution is God's one of the most learned seventeenth-century scholars, studied way of creation. Creationists rightly insist that evolution is the matter more profoundly and concluded that creation was inconsistent with a God of love. God is too benevolent and too performed by the Trinity on 23 October 4004 B.C., at 9:00 A.M., kind to use billions of years of untold cruelty and wastefulness 45th meridian time. as his method of creation. He is too intelligent to plan it that Although modern creationists, following Ussher and way, and he is powerful enough to accomplish it in a better Lightfoot, rely solely upon the biblical data as the only proper way.5 method of determining the date of creation, the contemporary Creationists insist that liberal Christians face "the massive creationists are rather imprecise about the exact time of problem of why God chose to use five billion years of chance creation, generally claiming only that it took place less than ten variations, natural selection, geologic upheavals, storm, dis- thousand years ago. But even such a "young universe" is several ease, extinctions, struggle, suffering and death as an inscrut- thousand years older than the universe of Genesis. Hence the able prelude to His creation of man right at the very tail-end of creationists do not uphold the accuracy of the Bible after all, geologic time. 'God is not the author of confusion.' Yet He is for if God wrote the Bible, as creationists claim, then God said to have surveyed the whole monstrous spectacle and should have been exact and not a few thousand years off. pronounced it all 'very good' (Genesis 1:31)."6 "Away with your To stretch the chronology of Genesis a bit, creationists are silly drivel about theistic evolution!'" willing to admit that there are mini-gaps in the genealogies of Unfortunately, the creationists are blind to the fact that Genesis that total several thousand years, but there are no they also serve a cruel God who created this cold-blooded maxi-gaps to extend the age of the earth to millions of years. system where life feeds on life, where the strong destroy the But why, if God directly dictated the genealogical lists to weak, and where it is either kill or be killed, eat or be eaten. If Moses,12 should there be any gaps at all? the creationists trace such a harsh system to the fall rather than Three cheers, then, for the creationists, for they have to the original creation, then they must admit that it was hardly cleared the air of all dodges, escapes, and evasions made by just for God to curse all people and all animals for all time for Christians who adopt nonliteral interpretations of Genesis and what two human beings did at the beginning of time. who hold that evolution is God's method of creation. By thus Moreover, the creationists worship a God who is not only showing that no compromise is possible between the Bible and cruel but dishonest. He created Adam to look as if he had an evolution, the creationists have reduced all of the complexities umbilical cord. He created light waves to look as if they were of the creation-evolution problem to one simple question: Is coming from the sun or from old galaxies. He created Genesis correct in saying that God created the world in six organisms to look as if they were missing links. And he created twenty-four-hour days? Not many thinking people will have everything to look as if it were old, even though it was brand difficulty answering that question. new.8 Three cheers for the creationists, for they have refuted The creationists' God is also an uninformed God, who, their own case by demonstrating that the Bible is not inerrant in according to Genesis, knows only about our sun and moon and its chronology of the cosmos, which means, on their own the stars but knows nothing about other suns or moons or admission, that the Bible is not inspired at all. galaxies or quasars or black holes familiar to modern astronomers. Notes And the creationists' God is a bit too human, for 'he changed his mind and became sorry that he created people and I. Henry M. Morris, Biblical and Modern Science (Grand beasts and decided to destroy all but a sample of them in a Rapids, Mich.: Baker Book House, 1979), pp. 59-62; Morris, Scientific worldwide flood, only to start the whole bloody process once Creationism (San Diego, Calif.: Creation-Life Publishers, 1974), pp. 227-228. more (Gen. 6:5-7). Thus the creationists intentionally show the 2. Morris, Scientific Creationism, p. 228. 3. A. J. Mattill, Jr., "The Bible and the Battle of Faith," Perspectives in unacceptability of the liberal Christians' God of evolution and Religious Studies 5 (Spring 1978), 54-58. in so doing they unintentionally reveal the brutality of their 4. Homer Duncan, Evolution: The Incredible Hoax (Lubbock, Tex.: own God of creation.9 Missionary Crusader, 1978), p. 89. The creationists get Cheer Number Three for serving 5. Duncan, Incredible Hoax, pp. 79-80. rational religion by proving that the Bible is not inerrant. Yet 6. Morris, Scientific Creationism, pp. 219, 229. 7. Duncan, Incredible Hoax, p. 90. the desire to vindicate the Bible as God's inerrant Word is the 8. Robert Price, "The Return of the Navel, the `0mphalos' Argument in major reason for all of their studies and writings. If the Bible Contemporary Creationism," Creation/Evolution, no. 2 (Fall 1980), 26-33. "contains scientific fallacies, it could not have been given by 9. For the delight creationists take in the savage and deadly mechanisms inspiration. "10 of certain animals, see Duncan, Incredible Hoax, pp. 81-87. When I asked The creationists admit that the problem of relating biblical Duncan how an Almighty God of love could create such ferocious fighters, he chronology to geological chronology is their "most serious replied, "I have no answer" (letter of 27 January 1981). 10. Duncan, Incredible Hoax, p. 90. problem."11 And it is precisely at this point that biblical 11. Morris, Biblical Cosmology, p. 22. inerrancy founders. According to Genesis 5 and 11, the period 12. Morris, Scientific Creationism, p. 249. •

18 The Erosion of Evolution A Treason of the Intellectuals

Antony Flew

FREE INQUIRY has noted with alarm the growing campaign if lines, defending science and enlightenment. not altogether to eject evolutionary biology from America's public schools then at least to secure equal time for biblical I creationism. Although I have seen no signs of any similar The first mistake to avoid is any straightforward identification offensive mounted here in Britain by our far smaller minority of either Darwinism or neo-Darwinism with evolutionism, of fundamentalist Christians, complaints have recently been without prefix or suffix. There have been other theories of the voiced both in Nature and New Scientist about exhibitions in mechanism of evolution, and may be more. So someone who the great national Natural History Museum in South Kensing- succeeded in refuting either of these, or any single one of their ton, . It appears that that section of the museum staff— possible alternatives, would not necessarily and by the same all, by the way, civil servants—whose job it is to arrange token have disproved evolution. That to which any theory of displays for the public have been misbehaving, first, by the evolution of species must be opposed is their special arranging exhibits in terms of a new-fangled theory of cladis- creation, supernaturally by ad hoc divine agency. What the tics—a method of classification that attempts to establish the followers of Lamarck, for instance, urged against Darwin and temporal sequence of "branching" within a family of species on the Darwinians was not any doctrine of special creation but, its evolutionary tree—and, second, by issuing background rather, an alternative or additional mechanism of evolution— materials that sell Darwin and Darwinism very short indeed. evolution, that is, through the inheritance of acquired charac- In the first case, the objection of the correspondent critics teristics. was not primarily to cladistics as such, but rather to an abuse of I cannot myself claim fully to understand recent specula- the resources of a state institution to present, to all the innocent tions about cladism and/or—still more formidable—punctu- and predominantly youthful laypersons who throng the public ated equilibria. We can, however, all be quite sure that at least galleries, and as if it were already the established consensus of its or their rather prominent Marxist adherents are not rooting everyone best qualified to judge, what is still apparently very for special creation as opposed to evolution. Against Darwin much a minority view. Cladistic theory, like all such other bold their point is, rather, that, while he defended "the canon of conjectures, must be submitted by its supporters to the `Natura non facit saltum,' which every addition to our know- judgment of their scientific peers, who may or may not succeed ledge tends to make more strictly correct,"2 they themselves are in refuting it before the inquisitional court of experience. committed to the contrary contention that both Nature and It is the second case that has an importance extending humanity sometimes take—in the unforgotten words of their beyond British shores. For this selling short was based on own lost leader, Chairman Mao—"a great leap forward." Such various misconceptions that have in recent years and in many theoreticians are, therefore, in their own new way following a different countries achieved a growing popularity among both suggestion made in a recent evolutionary survey: "Even within scientists and . Anyone hoping to break the the staid horse family, which seems as a whole to be progressing current creationist offensive needs to take the measure of these rather steadily through the Tertiary, close examination shows misconceptions, which are likely to encourage, even if they did the rates varying considerably. More broadly, evolution com- not originally constitute, a treason of the intellectuals.' They monly seems to proceed in spurts and pauses in an apparently certainly did not arise first among the protagonists of an erratic way."3 Stephen Jay Gould, professor of biology, oldtime religion, although they are bound sooner or later to be geology, and the history of science at Harvard, while mention- adopted by them too. But their real importance is in demoraliz- ing in an aside that he had "learned his Marxism literally at his ing so many of those who ought to be at our sides in the front daddy's knee," was thus careful to call his article "Punctuated Equilibria: The Tempo and Mode of Evolution Reconsid- Antony Flew is professor of philosophy at the University of ered."4 Presumably Gould would acknowledge a responsibility Reading in England. A prolific writer, his most recent book is The Politics of Procrustes. sooner or later to indicate some natural mechanism capable of producing these apparently erratic spurts and pauses—the

Spring 1982 19 biological analogue, as it were, of the irreversible seizure of denies that the survivors survive at random, while maintaining absolute social power by the elite of a Marxist-Leninist party. that they have some kind of competitive edge over the Failure to appreciate the difference between the thesis that nonsurvivors. species evolved and accounts of the mechanisms of that Further, it is not merely careless but plumb preposterous evolution has misled some historians to underestimate the to tell us that something that "is the inevitable logical enormous personal contribution of Charles Darwin. For if, as conequence of a set of premises" thereby becomes "a matter of do so many, including some paid to know better, you make the logic, not science." To appreciate the point of this antithesis mistake of identifying Darwinism with that more fundamental between logic and science we need to recall one of the gnomic , then you will in very short order find yourself apothegms of , as rendered in the author- wondering why Darwin alone should be given credit for first ized version of his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus: "But all maintaining something that had in fact been suggested or propositions of logic say the same thing. That is, nothing.'? asserted by multifarious predecessors both ancient and mod- Such logical propositions are, in Humean terms, those that ern. But, of course, Darwin's true claim to stand among the state or purport to state only "the relations of ideas"; whereas great discoverers does not rest upon the false contention that he science is understood to include nothing but propositions of the was the first to deny doctrines of special creation. It is indeed other basic sort—those stating or purporting to state "matters not hard to dig up many anticipations of all the other key ideas of fact and real existence."8 The former sort are, if true, in his theorizing—natural selection, struggle for existence, necessarily and tautologically true and, if false, self-contra- survival of the fittest, and so on. Darwin's actual innovation dictory; whereas the contradictories of propositions of the was to bring it, or, rather, them, all together into a tight latter sort are never self-contradictory, even when these deductive scheme, a scheme in which—proceeding from vari- propositions themselves happen to be true. ous very general and quite undeniable statements of the facts of Once these explanations and distinctions are understood, reproductive multiplication, finitude of resources, occasional it becomes easy to put a finger on what is going wrong. The variation, and so on—he demonstrates that through natural unstated and hence unquestioned false assumption is that all selection at least some evolution must occur. It was the valid demonstrative arguments must proceed from tautologi- development of this demonstrative theoretical scheme, indicat- cally true conclusions. There are two errors here, errors ing a mighty natural mechanism of evolution, combined with peculiarly discreditable in presenters and interpreters of scien- and supported by his fabulous accumulation of observations tific work. One is to assume that both the premises and the from The Voyage of the and after, that transformed all conclusions of an argument have to be true if that argument is those previous sporadic and largely unsupported speculations to be demonstratively valid. The other is to assume that such into the young yet immensely promising science of evolution- arguments can only proceed from tautologically true premises ary biology.5 to tautologically true premises. What makes these errors in professional presenters of scientific work so peculiarly inept is II that the essentially hypothetico-deductive procedures of sci- ence would become altogether impossible if either assumption The second now common and dangerous mistake is to urge that were true. For these procedures involve, indeed they are, the Darwin's theoretical scheme, perhaps precisely because it is deducing of consequences that would or will obtain if the deductively compulsive, consists in nothing but tautologies. I hypothesis under discussion were to be, or is, true; with always have seen this point put in the journal Philosophy, and that too the very live possibility of discovering that the consequence by a professional colleague and contemporary. But charity, actually does not obtain, and of thereby discrediting the peer group loyalties, and the pull of topicality all draw me to hypothesis from which it was validly derived. Plainly, all this direct my present attack at the anonymous compilers of the would be impossible if there could not be valid deductions from "Origin of Species" exhibit in the Natural History Museum in premises and to conclusions that purported to state, but which London.6 "The Survival of the Fittest," they said, "is an empty were in the discovered not truly to state, "matters of fact phrase; it is a play on words. For this reason, many critics feel and real existence." that not only is the idea of evolution unscientific, but the idea of natural selection also. There's no point in asking whether or not III we should believe in the idea of natural selection, because it is the inevitable logical conequence of a set of premises." And The third common and dangerous mistake was also committed again: "The idea of evolution by natural selection is a matter of by our Natural History Museum exhibitors. They took it that logic, not science, and it follows that the concept of evolution no theory, and no proposition describable as theoretical, can be by natural selection is not, strictly speaking, scientific." either known to be, or even with overwhelmingly good reason The pretended sophistication of both these two statements believed to be, true. In one brochure, which typically presents is just plain wrong. Since the criterion of fitness to survive cladism as if it were already the consensus of the experts, they is in this case actual survival, the assertion that the fittest do in wrote: "Biologists try to reconstruct the course of evolution fact survive is certainly not to be construed, as we all know that from the characteristics of living animals and plants from too often it has been construed, as a guarantee that in the fossils, which give a time scale to the story. If the theory of natural order all is for the best. But from this it does not at all evolution is true ..." follow that that assertion is tautological. It is not. For clearly it This drew a suitably magisterial rebuke from the editor of

20 Nature: "Can it be that the managers of the museum which is tion of cases in which thises are or have been thats is it possible the nearest thing to a citadel of Darwinism have lost their validly to deduce any such open general proposition. nerve, not to mention their good sense? Or is it that somebody (3) It is always conceivable that, however well a theory has calculated that the museum will increase its annual intake fits all the facts available up to some given point in time, later of visitors by enticing in scoffing creationists? ... Nobody discoveries may prove to be inconsistent with that old and well- disputes that, in the public presentation of science, it is proper tried but not after all true theory. Nevertheless they may whenever appropriate to say that disputed matters are in perhaps be explicable in terms of some new and more doubt. But is the theory of evolution still an open question comprehensive theory, the truth of which would be incompati- among serious biologists? And, if not, what purpose except ble with the truth of its predecessor. The illustration always general confusion can be served by these weasel words?"9 This given is the replacement of by Einstein. editorial was later shown to have been the more necessary when Certainly we do here have three authentic insights. The no less a person than the then president of the Royal Society, question is whether they really do carry the skeptical entail- himself a grandson of Thomas Henry , intervened to ments that nowadays demoralize so many who should be reproach Nature for having opened its columns to the previous fighting on the side of science. Surely the first should be seen as correspondence on what is and is not going on in the museum, showing only, yet importantly, that there is something and why. inherently and essentially creative about scientific theory The associated film-clips contain phrases indicating some construction. We could not make all our scientists redundant, of the reasoning behind the conclusion which I hold to be and replace them by wholly biddable electronic computers, as mistaken: "If we accept that evolution has taken place, though human computers have been, or are being, so replaced! obviously we must keep an open mind on it ...'; "We can't prove that the idea is true, only that it has not yet been proved "It is a mistake to identify ... either Darwinism or false"; and "It may one day be replaced by a better theory, but neo-Darwinism with evolutionism ... There have until then ..." been other theories of the mechanism of evolution, Part of the story is that we have a general temptation to and there may be more." assume that anything discribed as a theory is thereby discredi- ted as `nothing but a theory', or 'a mere theory'; rather as most The second simply is not a demonstration that there people are willing to move without further reason given from cannot be overwhelmingly good and sufficient evidence for the saying that something is a difference of degree to saying that it truth of open general propositions, and of the theories by which must therefore be a mere difference of degree, and hence these may be implied. If this required conclusion is to be unimportant. (They are so willing notwithstanding that most if proved, then we shall need to be given other and different not all the humanly most important differences—riches or arguments. What has been demonstrated is only, to repeat, that poverty, age or youth, sanity or insanity, a free society or one in no conjunction of singular propositions can entail another which everything not forbidden is compulsory—are in the proposition that is open and general. obvious understanding differences of degree. They are, that is The third point, although it too is one that may "prove to say, differences such that one extreme is joined to the other useful, by exciting curiosity, and destroying that implicit faith by a spectrum of successive actual or possible almost undis- and security, which is the bane of all reasoning and free tinguishable resembling cases.'°) About these general tempta- inquiry," n still does not begin to show that the theories thus tions, all that can and must be said here and now is that no one overturned cannot have been more or less close approxima- has any business to make either move without offering some tions to the truth. That this is often actually so is surely warrant; and none was offered in the film-clips. sufficiently established by contemplation of the fact that The other part of the story is that the physicists and engineers continue to employ Newton in most of has provided what are thought to be the required warrants. the spheres where he celebrated his triumphs, except in so far as There are several cruxes. (1) Nothing that is to serve as an they have need of some greater degree of precision than was explanation of why these particular things happen, and why ever required by predecessors before Einstein. various others do not, can be formally deduced from the Let us conclude section III with some exercise material conjunction of the statements that this happens, and that drawn from a letter written by scientists working "at the British happens, and that happens, and so on. The reason that such a Museum [Natural History]," a letter written in an attempt to deduction is impossible is simple yet sufficient. It is that all that rebut the previously quoted rebuke from the editor of Nature: can be formally deduced from any conjunction of propositions "How is it that a journal such as yours that is devoted to science must be part or the sum of the content of that conjunction. Yet and its practice can advocate that theory be presented as fact? to offer either part or sum as an explanation is to be met by the This is the stuff of prejudice, not science, and as scientists our decisive objection that you have done no more than redescribe basic concern is to keep an open mind on the unknowable. the phenomena that you undertook to explain. Surely it should not be otherwise? You suggest that most of us (2) There is that Humean demonstration that Hume's would rather lose our right hands than begin a sentence with successors were to label the Problem of Induction. Any theory the phrase `If the theory of evolution is true ...' Are we to take it in science is bound either to contain or to imply open general that evolution is a fact, proven to the limits of scientific rigour? propositions of the form `Any this is (or must be) that'. But If that is the inference then we must disagree most strongly. We from no conjunction of propositions recording our accumula- have no absolute proof of the theory of evolution. What we do

Spring 1982 21 have is overwhelming circumstantial evidence in favour of it IV and as yet no better alternative. But the theory of evolution would be abandoned tomorrow if a better theory appeared."12 The fourth and final misconception ripe for exploding is the Had these writers distinguished between, on the one hand, notion that evolutionary theses are, because unfalsifiable, not evolution as opposed to special creation, and, on the other truly scientific. This was at one time put about by Sir Karl hand, accounts of the mechanism or mechanisms producing Popper himself. It is, nevertheless, false; and he has since, I am that evolution, then, even as organization men defending their delighted to say, recanted.13 Well before even the original organization, they scarcely could have brought themselves to German language publication of Popper's Logik der For- refuse to stand up for the former as a known truth. "If this is not schung, J. B. S. was in his popular scientific essays known," one wants to ask, "what is?" boasting that evolutionary biology as a whole would be knock- I suspect that their answer would be, at least on so official down refuted if a human skeleton were to be discovered in a an occasion, "Nothing," or, at any rate, "As near as makes coal measure. More recently a leading Canadian philosopher precious little matter, nothing." For they go on to express of biology, Michael Ruse, has developed this theme. He takes philosophical scruples most unbecoming to their scientific issue particularly with the insinuation that Darwin's original cloth: "We have no absolute proof of the theory of evolution. theoretical scheme was a structure of tautologies. What we do have is overwhelming circumstantial evidence ..." The struggle for existence, or, as contemporary Darwini- Now what is it that, allegedly, we have not got? Is it more of the ans emphasize, the struggle to reproduce, certainly is an same; with the possibility that another fifty or hundred years of observed fact. Not all organisms that are born or hatched can strenuous and fruitful research will leave something "proven to or do survive to reproduce. If, as some radical egalitarians the limits of scientific rigour"? If so, then that is as may be. My might wish, all were sexlessly identical, living for exactly the suspicion, however, is that what they have in mind when they same length of time, and producing only one similarly identical lament the lack of "absolute proof" is not just overwhelmingly offspring at the same point in the life cycle, then there would be good and sufficient evidence, but rather the sort of demonstra- no struggle, no natural selection, and no evolution. So, clearly, tion that has been demonstrated to be impossible. Darwinism would be false on all counts. But in fact it is not. Suppose that instead we insist upon applying more Again, as we have already seen, the claim that the appropriate and less unattainable standards of evidence and survivors to reproduce survive to reproduce, thanks to their proof. Then we shall have to ask, with the editor of Nature, possessing some competitive edge over the nonsurvivors, is whether any of these scientist signatories believes for one equally clearly an in principle falsifiable claim about "matters moment that there is even the slightest probability that either of fact and real existence." Indeed, supporters of the conten- some individual genius or some high-powered research-team tious notion of genetic drift maintain that at some times and in will succeed in refuting all previous theories of the evolutionary some places it in fact is false. origin of species, rearranging and reinterpreting all the current- Yet again, there is the claim that selection is systematic— ly available evidence to provide comparably persuasive sup- what one gets in one situation will be what one gets in other port for the dogma of special creation. This performance would relevantly similar situations. Thus, when we find one species of of course constitute an immeasurably more radical transforma- arctic animal with a white coat, we put this down to adaptation tion than that brought about by the entire generation of to snowy terrain, because this has been found to hold with Einstein. For there could be no question of making any other species. If we found that there were no such regularities, evolutionary theory out to have been an approximation to a then we should have to think again about Darwinism. But there special creation story! are, and so we do not. Suppose next that we limit attention to alternative So this gives three points at which Darwinian theory accounts of the mechanisms of evolution. Then we still have to transcends the tautological. In addition, we have the facts and press a similar if slightly weaker challenge. Surely no one claims of genetics, which no one pretends to find tautological. familiar with the field believes that there is any live possibility Conceivably it all could have been false—as the radicals seem of anyone showing that none of the mechanisms provided for in to want to make out that, with respect to our most favored neo-Darwinian theory have operated or are operating. What species, it is. Cows could have given birth to cabbages, and many very well may believe is that there are one or two further mutations could have been all or typically favorable. But as it is pieces in the jigsaw puzzle still to be discovered, as well perhaps they do not, and are not. And the fact that these claims are in as some rearrangements to be made as regards the relative fact, though not in principle, unfalsifiable is not a reason for importance and the interconnections of what is already to repudiating them as disreputably unscientific. We cannot, hand. No doubt it is true that, "if a better theory appeared," surely, altogether discount the possibility that they might then neo-Darwinian theory "would be abandoned"; if not actually be, as they are, true. perhaps tomorrow, then eventually and after some years and many troubles. But to make this egregiously iffy concession is Notes by no means the same thing as allowing that neo-Darwinism in I. In the original French the title of Julian Benda's 1926 book was La fact now possesses only the extremely modest cognitive status Trahison des Clercs. It is, or was, available in an American paperback edition (New York: Norton, 1969). of that sort of so far unexamined but not wholly implausible 2. C. Darwin, The Origin of Species (Harmondsworth and Baltimore: suggestion about which the reasonable man paradigmatically Penguin, 1968), p. 445. This Pelican Classic is a reprint of the first edition. The preserves an open mind. Latin translates, freely, "Nature does not take leaps."

22 3. G. G. Simpson, The Meaning of Evolution (New Haven: Yale Univ. 8. An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, IV (i). Press, 1976), p. 103. 9. Vol. 289, February 26, 1981, p. 735. 4. (With Niles Eldridge) Paleobiologv 3, no. 3 (Spring 1977). 10. See, for instance, my Thinking Straight (Buffalo: Prometheus, 1976). 5. I have developed this account of the nature of the achievement in A 11. Hume, loc. cit., IV (i). Rational Animal (0xford: Clarendon, 1978), Chapter 1, "The Darwinian 12. Nature, vol. 290, March 12, 1981, p. 82. Framework." 13. A letter in New Scientist, vol. 87, p. 611 (1980); and compare letters in 6. The quotations in the text are all borrowed from an article by Barry Science, vol. 212, April 17 and May 22, 1981, pp. 281 and 873. Cox in Nature for July 4, 1981, p. 373. The offending material has since, 14. "Darwin's Theory: An exercise in science," in New Scientist for June apparently and none too soon, been withdrawn. 25, 1981. Compare his The (London: Hutchinson, 7. Translated by C. K. 0gden (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Toulmer, 1973). • 1922), Section 5.43, p. 121.

Ordinarily the poems FREE INQUIRY publishes will be making their first appearance in print, but occasional exceptions will be made if circumstances warrant. Such is the case with "The Stranger, the Beloved, "one of the new poems in M. L. Rosenthal's recently published Poems 1964-1980 ( ©Oxford University Press, 1981). It is a particularly .fine example of Rosenthal's politically and humanistically oriented vein. Hallucinatory vet springing directly out of turbulent Spanish history, "The Stranger, the Beloved" reflects all the terrors and confusions and hopes of a sensibility nightmarishly alert to the possibility of revolutionary change. Is some new. freedom, new terror, or terrible salvation coming down the road, and is it seeking me out personally? Whatever the answer, the poem suggests that a staunch openness to the, future counts— tremendously — in human terms. —ED.

The Stranger, the Beloved

1 2

4 A.M., Barcelona, stark awake. So too it must be with the waiting dead. This narrow street all silent. I'll take my quiet place, lest one should come Even the smells, silent. All the clamoring ruck, thinking to find me, and find me gone. laughter slopping over windowsills, trucks revving, Let me be watchful. Still. Catalan caterwauling: dead. Thick- A weathered slab of stone. Part of a wall. dark milk-murky pre-dawn. Let dogs, drunks, drabs use me as they will. The air here's not to breathe. 1 alone, awake, Let me hold, steadfast, the narrowest space. self-terrorist, visiting owl, keep watch. Hard ring of footsteps down the obscene cobbles! In fear, at dawn, 1 am yet the welcomer. From afar, afar When you come with banners, thunder, returning, in the wash of streets and years! my shadowed eyes will open on the centuries. You will ride the surging sea of masks. Down gutted street between storefront shutters You will not see my granite-gray welcomer's smile. (washboard altars where gaunt laundresses pray) No matter. hoofbeats of the arriver, thunder of terror, We are touched awake forever. army of one! No doorway to shrink in. Bursts into view — M. L. Rosenthal bag swung from shoulder, one beard with dark glasses towards me, past, away. And day breaks on the deconsecrated world.

M. L. Rosenthal, poet, critic, and professor of English at New York University, has published five books of poetry.

Spring 1982 23 The Religion of Secular Humanism A Judicial Myth

Leo Pfeffer

Every calling has a lexicon that makes little or no sense to the a Ship, or a Captain or a Commodore of a Band or Army of noninitiated. Neither religion nor law is an exception. Roman men." Nevertheless, by the beginning of the eighteenth century, Catholic clergy can be secular or religious, but to the outsider even Rhode Island had adopted the pattern prevailing among all are religious and none are secular—else they would not be the other colonies and had enacted a law that limited eligibility priests. Lawyers speak of "irrebuttable presumptions," even for public offices to Protestants. though to the nonlawyer that which cannot be rebutted is a As time went on, the states became more multi-religious fact, not a presumption. and the oath progressed from Protestantism to Christianity These are words of art, and no doubt are useful or perhaps and ultimately to belief in God. Typical of these was Article 37 even indispensable to the trade or profession that uses them. of the Maryland Constitution, which provided that "no When, however, a court, and particularly the Supreme Court religious test ought ever to be required as a qualification for any of the United States, uses a term in a sense that even to other office of profit or trust in this State, other than a declaration of courts and to lawyers generally seems self-contradictory, the belief in the existence of God." unanticipated consequences may turn out to be quite harmful. It was not until 1961 that the United States Supreme Court This, I suggest, may be the case in respect to the term "Secular had occasion to pass on the validity of these provisions under Humanism," used by the Supreme Court in the 1961 decision in the federal constitution. Roy Torcaso, a resident of Maryland, the case of Torcaso v. Watkins. had been appointed to the office of notary public by the Research indicates that in the United States courts, the governor of Maryland, but was refused a commission to serve term does not appear in any judicial opinion prior to that because he would not take an oath or declare that he believed in decision. Beginning in 1776 our states adopted written consti- the existence of God. He then brought suit to compel the tutions as independent political entities. These set forth the issuance of the commission on the ground that the state's powers and duties of the executive, legislative, and judicial requirement that he declare this belief violated the First branches and prescribed the qualification for election or Amendment, which bans laws respecting an establishment of appointment to governmental offices. Basically these were the religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, and the same as those later to be set forth in the U.S. Constitution Fourteenth Amendment, which had on numerous occasions adopted in 1787, with however, one major difference that is been interpreted by the Supreme Court as making the provi- relevant to this essay. sions of the First Amendment applicable against the states. The closing words of the Constitution provide that "no Unsuccessful in the Maryland state courts, he appealed to the religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any United States Supreme Court. office or public trust under the United States." On its face this In a unanimous decision the Court upheld Torcaso's seems to apply only to federal offices, leaving states free to contentions and declared the Maryland religious oath require- decide for themselves whether to impose a religious test, ment to be unconstitutional. While the language of the opinion manifested by an oath of belief in God or Jesus Christ or the is not precise as to the exact basis of its decision, it seems Trinity, in respect to state offices, and indeed at the time the reasonably clear that the Court relied on both clauses in Constitution was drafted and adopted, most of the states did relation to religion in the Amendment, the one forbidding impose some religious qualifications for holding public office. establishment of religion and the other banning laws prohibit- In Rhode Island, Roger Williams had argued the irrelevancy of ing its free exercise. a religious test and urged that to limit civil magistrates to The relevancy of the establishment clause guaranteeing church members was like permitting only church members to the separation of church and state is qujte obvious, but since assume "the office of a Doctor of Physic, a Master or a Pilot of Roy Torcaso was an avowed atheist, the same is not true in respect to the free exercise guarantee since Torcaso was not Leo Pfeffer is a noted attorney in church-state affairs. He is a demanding any right to exercise religion. However, this special counsel to the . invocation of the free exercise clause was not unprecedented. In

24 F,rnee Induúy "It would be ironic if Justice Black's characterization of Secular Humanism as a religion should become the instrument that seriously weakens, if it does not completely demolish, the wall that separates church and state."

a case decided in 1943, West Virginia Board of Education v. United States characterized "Secular Humanism" as a "reli- Barnette, the Court had ruled that the clause guaranteeing gion." freedom of speech encompasses as well freedom of nonspeech, The Constitution secures the free exercise of religion and and accordingly Jehovah's Witnesses pupils could not be forbids laws respecting its establishment but does not under- expelled from public school for refusal to pledge allegiance to take to define what is meant by the term "religion." In 1890, the the flag of the United States. The fact that to the noninitiated Supreme Court did essay a definition in the case of Davis v. the concept that speech encompasses silence, which is its direct Beason. "The term `religion,' " the Court said, "has reference to opposite, might appear to be strange, yet it must be recognized one's views of his relations to his Creator, and to the that the Court's linguistic legerdemain in that case represented obligations they impose of reverence to His being and charac- a great step forward in the protection of individual rights. ter, and of obedience to His will." The Court reached what it Our concern in this essay, however, is not a question of considered the quite logical conclusion that since the Creator whether the guarantee of the free exercise of religion encom- would obviously not have sanctioned, much less commanded, passes the practice or promulgation of atheism, but rather the polygamous marriages, what called itself the Church of Jesus Court's definition of "Secular Humanism" and its implications Christ of Latter Day Saints was obviously not a religion, and in respect to the ban on religious establishment. In their brief to hence Mormons were not within the protection secured by the the Supreme Court, counsel for Torcaso noted that the Court First Amendment to the free exercise of "religion." had previously interpreted that ban to encompass not only laws If the Court could spell out its definition of "religion," so preferring some religions over others, but no less those also could Congress, and it too exercised the privilege within preferring any or all religions over nonreligion or even anti- accepted conventional or majoritarian limitations. And like the religion. It was really the latter that was relevant in the case, but Court, Congress was not eager to expand the definition to cautious lawyers generally present all reasonable arguments in encompass unfavored or unconventional commitments. In support of their case, even if not entirely relevant. It is for this 1948, Congress amended the Selective Service Act to limit the reason that Torcaso's brief argued: privilege of exemption from military service for conscientious objection by defining religion as belief in a "Supreme Being," The requirement of a belief in the existence of God prefers some religions over others, specifically theistic religions over and excluding those whose objection to war was based on those which are non-theistic. "essentially political, sociological or philosophical views or a It is frequently assumed that all religions are founded upon merely personal code." a belief in the existence of a or at least some The constitutional issue was presented to the Supreme "God" no matter how that term is defined. This is not so. So Court in cases involving three draftees each of whom was great a religion as the Buddhist religion with over 150 million denied exemption by his local draft board because he did not adherents throughout the world including the United States believe in God or a Supreme Being within the common (World Almanac, 1959, p. 715) is not founded upon a belief in understanding of those terms. One of the draftees refused to the existence of God. Rhys-Davis, "Buddhism," in Religious answer "yes" or "no" to the question as to his belief in a Systems of the World, p. 142; Spielberg, Living Religions of the Supreme Being but asserted that his " or disbelief in World, p. 247; Alabaster, The Wheel of the Law, p. xxxvii. the existence of God" did "not necessarily mean lack of faith in The Amendment, the brief concluded, "protects the anything whatsoever"; that his was a "belief in and devotion to Buddhists, Ethical Culturist and other non-theists no less than goodness and virtue for their own sakes, and a religious faith in the Protestant, the Roman Catholics and Jew." a purely ethical creed." He cited such personages as Plato, This paragraph of the brief is reflected in the following , and Spinoza for support of his ethical belief in extract from the Supreme Court's opinion, set forth as footnote intellectual and moral integrity "without belief in God, except in the remotest sense." Another of the draftees defined religion as the "sum and Among religions in this country which do not teach what essence of one's basic attitudes to the fundamental problems of would generally be considered a belief in the existence of God human existence"; he said that there was a relationship to are Buddhism, , Ethical Culture, Secular Humanism Godness in two directions, "vertically towards Godness direct- and others. (See Washington Ethical Society v. District of ly," and "horizontally towards Godness through Mankind and Columbia, 249 F. 2d 127; Fellowship of Humanity v. County of the World," and he accepted the latter. Alameda, 153 C.A. 2d 673, 315 P. 2d 394; II Encyclopaedia of The third draftee quoted with approval the Reverend John the Social Sciences 293; 4 Encyclopaedia Britannica (1957 ed.) Haynes 's definition of religion as "the consciousness of 325-327; 21 ed., at 797; Archer, Men Live By (2d ed. revised by Purinton), 120-138, 254-313; 1961 World Almanac some power manifest in nature which helps man in the ordering 695, 712; Year Book of American Churches for 1961, at 29, 47.) of his life in harmony with its demands ... [It] is the supreme expression of human nature; it is man thinking his highest, As previously noted, this is the first time a court of law in the feeling his deepest, and living his best."

Spring 1982 25 Unanimously the Supreme Court held that all three Supreme Court refused to hear the students' appeal. But what draftees did indeed believe in a "Supreme Being" in the sense appears to be a directly contrary result was reached by the intended by Congress. By using that term rather than "God" Supreme Court just about the same time in the case of Widmar Congress indicated its intent not to limit the exemption to v. Vincent. There the Court held it unconstitutional for persons believing in an anthropomorphic deity but intended to Missouri state authorities to deny students the right to use a include all who possess "a sincere and meaningful belief which college student-center building for prayer and worship services occupies in the life of its possessor a place parallel to that filled while it allowed such use for secular purposes, such as political, by the God of those admittedly qualifying for the exemption." cultural, educational, and recreational events. The obvious Accordingly, all three draftees were entitled to exemption as difference between these two cases is that one involved college religious objectors. students and the other high school students, who, presumably, One can express some doubt that this was what Congress are more vulnerable to sectarian pressures and hence require intended or that it wanted to exempt such young men as the more stringent constitutional protection. Nevertheless, a rea- three draftees involved in these cases. Nevertheless, by reading sonable interpretation of the decision can be cast in the terms of this intent into the minds of the congressmen who enacted the Secular Humanism as a religion: if college premises can be used law, the Court was able to avoid passing upon the challenge for Secular Humanism, so too can they be used for Christian that the law was unconstitutional since it granted a privilege to prayer or instruction. religious conscience which it denied to secular conscience, A case that most starkly presents the issue relating to the thereby preferring religion over nonreligion. What, in effect, religiosity of Secular Humanism involves the question of the Court did in this case ( United States v. Seeger) was what it evolution in the public school curriculum. In the past, at least had done four years earlier in Torcaso v. Watkins, that is, it two legislative attempts, one in Tennessee and the other in made a religion out of secular humanism, a term that quite Arkansas, were made to forbid the teaching of evolution in the clearly characterizes what motivated the three draftees. public schools. In the first of these, the famous Scopes case of Civil libertarians were quite naturally gratified with the 1925, a state court upheld a law enacted by the Tennessee decision in the Seeger case, as they were with that in Torcaso. legislature that prohibited instruction contrary to the explana- But for all things there is a price, and for the equalization of tion of creation as set forth in the book of Genesis. In the secular humanism and religion a price must be paid. Champ- second, Epperson v. Arkansas (1968), the United States ions of prayer and religious instruction in the public schools Supreme Court ruled that the Arkansas anti-evolution law and of governmental financing of religious schools were not violated the First Amendment's mandate of the separation of long in recognizing the implications of the Court's decisions in church and state. these cases. We all know that what the public schools teach is Not long after the Epperson decision was handed down, a "Secular Humanism," and if that religion may be taught there, suit was started in a federal court in Texas for an injunction so too may other religions, such as Protestantism, Catholicism, against the teaching of evolution on the ground that it and Judaism, among others. This is dictated not only by the amounted to the support of the "Religion of Secularism" and Constitution but also by the concept of equal-time fairness. thus violated the same establishment clause that barred Genesis Indeed, these protagonists go even further. The First in the Epperson case. Amendment forbids preferential treatment of some religions This proved unsuccessful, as did another law suit, brought over others, and if the government finances the teaching of by the National Foundation for Fairness in Education and Secular Humanism in the public schools, as of course it does, it National Bible Knowledge, Inc., which sought either an must accord the same treatment to other religious instruction injunction against the federally funded Smithsonian Institute in both public and private schools. Logic might dictate that the from explaining and advocating the theory of evolution on the remedy for the unconstitutional teaching of the religion of ground that it supported the "religion of Secular Humanism," Secular Humanism in the public school is the termination of or a judgment requiring the Institute to give equal treatment to the practice, but since this is patently impractical, the appro- the Genesis account of creation. priate remedy is to accord equal treatment to the more Actually the Constitution does not bar entrance of Genesis conventional religions. or any other part of the Bible into public school classrooms. On a number of occasions, this argument was presented to Teaching the Bible as literature or the Missa Solemnis as music the courts, and was uniformly rejected. Take, for example, the or the Last Supper as art is perfectly permissible so long as they recently decided case of Brandon v. Board of Education. New are taught with secular objectiveness and considered as the York law does not allow public school premises to be used for works of man rather than the word of God. prayer, and accordingly the authorities in the community of This, however, is not what the anti-evolutionists want; on Guilderland rejected a request by a group of high school the contrary, they would oppose any teaching that Genesis students that they be allowed to use a classroom for congrega- might be only literature, as are the works of Homer or Dante. tional prayer in the half-hour just before regular classes begin. (In this respect, they would undoubtedly be right, since the Since, they argued, such use was permitted for purposes other First Amendment commands neutrality rather than hostility in than prayer—purposes that might well be called Secular respect to religion.) What they do want is that creationism in Humanist—they had a constitutional right to equal treatment the teaching of science be as acceptable as is Darwinism. And for prayer. while they would undoubtedly prefer the literal Genesis The lower federal courts rejected this argument and the version, many of them realize that the best they can get is what

26 has become, known as Scientific Creationism, or, as in Arkan- somewhat later of life. sas, Creation Science. The act defined itself as the "Balance Treatment for Arkansas' Act 590, known as the creation-science law, did Creation-Science and Evolution-Science Act." It justified itself not require public schools to teach either creation-science or by a legislative finding that only evolution-science was being evolution-science, but provided only that if one is taught so presented to the pupils and that this constituted preferential must the other be. In an obvious effort to avoid attack under treatment of the religion of Secular Humanism above those the no-establishment clause, it required that if taught, both faiths predicated on the sanctity of Genesis, a preference that must be limited to scientific evidence and neither may include violates the First Amendment's guarantee of equality among any religious instruction or references to religious writings. It all religions. also forbid discrimination against pupils for choosing one or Arkansas' Act 590 was declared unconstitutional by the other in whole or in part. Federal District Judge William Overton on January 5. It is "Creation-science" was defined to include scientific evi- fairly certain that the case will be appealed, ultimately to the dence that indicates (1) sudden creation of the universe and life Supreme Court. That tribunal may well then be called upon to on it from nothing, (2) the insufficiency of mutation and adjudge whether Secular Humanism is a religion, entitled to natural selection, (3) changes only within fixed limits of equal but not preferential treatment in the public schools. originally created kinds of plants and animals, (4) the separate was the author of the Court's opinion in Torcaso v. ancestry of man and apes, (5) an explanation of the earth's Watkins. With the possible exception of William O. Douglas, geology by catastrophism, including the occurrence of a no member of the Court was more consistently committed to worldwide flood, and (6) a relatively recent inception of the the mandate of church-state separation. It would be ironic if earth and living things. Justice Black's characterization of Secular Humanism as a "Evolution science" was defined as scientific evidence for religion should become the instrument that seriously weakens, evolution, and included six separate but equal concepts, such if it does not completely demolish, the wall that separates as emergence of man from a common ancestor with apes and church and state. • inception several billions of years ago of the earth and Humanism as an American Heritage

Nicholas F. Gier One of the many disturbing allegations of the Religious Right is human destiny and serves as a cosmic support of human that humanism is a subversive religion that is being taught in ideals."' our public schools. The critics say that this instruction should Until the twentieth century, American judges would have be banned as a violation of the constitutional separation of accepted Hook's definition of religion for purposes of church and state. It may well be that humanism is our civil interpreting the First Amendment. But, since 1931, primarily religion; but that is hardly subversive, because humanism is an because of the suits of conscientious objectors, American essential part of our American heritage. courts have expanded their definition of religion along the lines Since made famous his definition of religion of Tillich's. Indeed, a footnote in the Supreme Court decision as one's "ultimate concern," there has been a tendency to define in Torcaso v. Watkins (1961) suggests that, since religion no religion in this broad way. The advantage of defining religion longer necessarily includes a belief in God, "secular humanism" this way is the recognition that practically every world-view could be called a religion.2 makes certain value assumptions about human beings and the This of course does not constitute an official Court ruling universe they live in. The disadvantage is that it forces us to call on this question. In fact, in U.S. v. Seeger(1965) the Supreme communism, fascism, and capitalism "religions," which does Court defined religion as all sincere beliefs "based upon a seem to stretch considerably the meaning of the term. power or being, or upon a faith, to which all else is subordinate Humanists themselves reject this broad concept of or upon which all else is ultimately dependent." It is not at all religion. Sidney Hook prefers that he not "be converted to clear whether secular humanism falls under this formulation; religion by definition," and insists that religion means "the faith but, if it does, we'll have to call capitalism a religion as well. in the existence of some supernatural power which governs Which definition shall we accept? The anti-humanists do have a point that humanism, like traditional religions, does involve itself in morality and other value judgments. Nicholas F. Gier is professor o fphilosoph i' at the Universit y of Furthermore, there is no question that basic humanistic values Idaho. are part of our public school education. I will argue, however,

Spring 1982 27 that there is a very good reason for this. atrocious attributes of Calvin."6 The Secular Humanist Declaration has been a direct cause Other founding fathers, like John Jay, Patrick Henry, and of vigorous reaction by the Religious Right. The section Samuel , had much more conservative views about entitled "" is the most controversial and Christianity, but they too agreed to put personal religious views has caused the most comment in conservative editorials.3 aside and to establish a secular state free from all religious There are many humanists who believe in God, and they doctrine. They all finally supported Jefferson's idea of a real must be included in a broader humanistic position. These "wall" between church and state.' In Virginia, Jefferson and religious or "theistic" humanists are equally concerned about Madison strongly opposed state support for any teaching of the the dangers of the Moral Majority and its irrational attack on Christian religion. They also objected to wording that made humanism. Secular humanists who exclude theistic humanists Christ "the Holy Author of our religion" because of the explicit are being just as exclusivistic as fundamentalists who presume exclusion of non-Christians.8 While he was president, Jefferson to speak as the only "true" Christians. refused to give official sanction to what he considered to be the It is significant that the rebirth of Greek humanism was religious implications of Thanksgiving Day. During his instigated by Christian Renaissance thinkers. The basic presidency, Madison objected to state-sponsored chaplains philosophy of this humanism was clearly revealed in Desiderius and to the exemption of churches from taxation.9 ' debate with Martin Luther in 1524. Erasmus believed The most striking proof of our founding fathers' belief in a in , but Luther, stressing the absolute sovereignty of secular state was the Treaty of Tripoli, which begins: "As the God, did not. Luther charged that we have been "seduced by government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the flattering doctrine of free will" and that we "live and act not the Christian religion ..."10 President Washington negotiated as we will, but as God wills. In God's presence the will ceases to this treaty, the Senate ratified it without any recorded debate, exist."4 Erasmus also rejected the idea of original sin, but and President Adams signed it. The claim that Washington Luther (and Calvin) insisted on utter human depravity and declared that Americans did not have a king because Christ was warned that human autonomy was the original sin. In addition, king is as fictitious as the cherry tree story. II Erasmus stressed the use of reason, but Luther called reason a On the basis of the humanism of Erasmus and the "Whore." founding fathers, we can now state the basic principles of The development of modern humanism went hand in hand humanism. Humanists believe that human beings have with the rise of what I call "." Our word intrinsic value and dignity. They believe that human beings are "liberal" comes from the Latin adjective liberalis, which means autonomous centers of value with free will and moral "pertaining to a free person." In feudal times a free person had responsibility. They hold that all persons have inalienable to be born from noble stock, and the liberi were then contrasted rights, including those of free expression and inquiry. They also with the servi, the feudal serfs. Classical liberals challenged this use reason, not divine revelation, as the guide for moral action distinction and declared that all human beings, whatever their and education. social status, were from the same universal noble stock. These beliefs are those upon which our founding fathers Classical liberals viewed individuals as self legislative built this nation. The fundamental principles of humanism turn beings, moral agents who, by the use of reason, decided for out to be the principles of our state, not of any particular themselves how their lives were to be fashioned and led. church. To ban the teaching of humanism in public schools Classical liberals challenged the authority of governments and would be to effectively ban the teaching of basic American churches to interfere unnecessarily in individual lives. These values. The taught in civics classes would first liberals were responsible for the basic freedoms that all have to be rejected as "humanistic" religion. The idea of free- Western people now enjoy — religious, intellectual, economic market capitalism is yet another contribution of classical and political. It is important to realize that the contemporary liberalism and humanism. debate between liberals and conservatives is an in-house debate The right-wing critics who say that humanism is leftist and within classical liberalism itself. communist don't know what they are talking about. Many Our founding fathers were definitely part of this liberal, good humanists in the right-wing American Libertarian Party humanistic tradition. In a famous letter to his nephew, Thomas would respond indignantly to such charges. A local right-wing Jefferson gives the following advice: "Fix reason firmly in her preacher told me that knows that he explicitly seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question rejected the idea of human autonomy. Many conservative with boldness even the existence of God."5 All the founding Christians unwittingly agree with Marx on this point. fathers retained a belief in God, but Jefferson, Adams, An evangelical acquaintance of mine read the ten points of Washington, Paine, and Franklin rejected major Christian the Secular Humanist Declaration and had to concede that he doctrines, including original sin, the deity of Christ, the Trinity, was 70 percent humanist. That is, he rejected only three of the and so on. ten: ethics based on reason, religious skepticism, and evolution. The famous Jefferson-Adams correspondence is filled Support for basic humanist ideals is manifested in even the with references to their common reading of the Greeks and the most conservative Christians. Even John Calvin called himself humanistic philosophers of the Enlightenment. It is also replete a humanist, although this must be interpreted, especially in with criticisms of orthodox Christianity, especially Calvinism. view of his doctrine of human nature, as support for the In one letter Jefferson said that "it would be more pardonable humanities rather than for humanism as I have defined it. to believe in no God at all, than to blaspheme Him by the This leads us to question whether or not my evangelical

28 Tina Inv ii~ friend is really 70 percent humanist. He is not when he describes being taught in the schools, then there would be a constitution- his small Christian school as a "boot camp" where students will al issue, but I doubt that the Religious Right can really prove be armed with absolute truths for their future battles in a pagan these charges. world. The Religious Right believes in indoctrination, not free A survey of most teachers would reveal that a majority of inquiry. These evangelicals cannot accept free and open them are orthodox believers, and there is no sign in the polls inquiry, for they feel there is really nothing new to inquire that orthodoxy is on the wane (quite the opposite!). The about. The truths that count are already found in the Bible. The founding fathers' desire for a secular state did not exclude the so-called "creation scientists" at the Institute for Creation possibility and of a religious society. Nevertheless, Research do not disguise their real motives: to prove the Bible reason, not revealation, must rule in the classroom, while true and to win converts to Jesus Christ. religious instruction and worship belong in the church and Robert S. Alley of the University of Richmond, who calls home. himself a Christian humanist, is convinced that the Religious In their legal article about the establishment of secular Right is out to destroy academic freedom and free inquiry. humanism as a religion (see note 2), John Whitehead and John "They want to control thought," Alley says, "and they would, if Conlan claim that the of the founding fathers was they could, undermine the rights and privileges of the rest of "biblical" and that they excluded only sectarian us."'z religion, not general Christianity. I have shown that they are In his Revolt Against the Faithful (1969) Alley interpreted incorrect on both of these points. They are probably right that Jesus as an ethical humanist and claimed that the disciples and humanism has been established as a civil religion. No people on early Church had deified him. The Moral Majority thought this earth could set up a successful form of government without was devilish heresy and whipped up a campaign against Alley. laying down some general principles, and I have shown how Even though the University of Richmond had severed its ties absurd it would be to eliminate the teaching of our basic with the Baptist Church, Alley was forced to resign his position political philosophy. as chairman of religious studies because of this pressure and the Whitehead and Conlan contend that it is the humanists university's president then made him professor of humanities. who are out of step with the founding fathers. I have shown, to It is really ironic that Jefferson, the founder of the the contrary, that just the reverse is true. With their negative University of Virginia, also made Jesus an ethical humanist in view of human nature and rights, many on the Religious Right his famous "Jeffersonian Bible." (Rumors were spread during - are not even part of the modern age. Their view of human the election of 1800 that if Jefferson were elected he would nature, for example, is certainly not reflected in the economic confiscate all Bibles and issue his own version instead.) policies of the Reagan Administration. During the 1960s a Jefferson was so keen on the idea of a secular education that he popular slogan against the Vietnam protestors was "America: explicitly excluded the study of religion from the proposed Love it or Leave it." I don't see any reason that we can't use the curriculum for the University of Virginia. same phrase today against the Moral Majority. Images of slavery and submission abound in Christian fundamentalist literature. Drawing on biblical passages, Notes particularly from Paul's letters, evangelical writers like I. V. I. Sidney Hook, "The Grounds We Stand On: Democratic Humanism," Packer contend that "freedom is found only in subjection to FREE INQUIRY (Winter 1980-81), p. 8-I0. God and His truth ... Man becomes free only in -service 2. I am indebted to John W. Whitehead and John Conlan for this to Jesus Christ."13 Such a position completely undermines information. See their "The Establishment of the Religion of Secular human dignity and value and the humanist ideal of personal Humanism and Its First Amendment Implications," Texas Tech Lam Review autonomy. For a classical liberal and humanist, any type of 10:1 (1978), pp. 1-66. 3. The Secular Humanist Declaration was drafted by Paul Kurtz and was slavery, even bond-service to God, is an abomination. published in FREE INQUIRY (Winter 1980-81), pp. 3-6. Harold Brown, professor of theology at Trinity Evangel- 4. The "Weimarausgabe" of Luther's Works, vol. 7, p. 145. ical Divinity School, has declared that only God has rights, not 5. A. A. Limpscomb, ed., The Writings of (Washington, human individuals. But Thomas Jefferson wrote that we have 1903), vol. 6, p. 258. For more on the religious views of these founding fathers God-given inalienable rights, i.e., they cannot be taken away — see my "Religious Liberalism and the Founding Fathers" in Tiro Centuries of Philosophy in America, ed. by Peter Caws (Blackwell, 1980), pp. 22-45. they are truly our own and no one else's. It is important to note 6. Ibid., 15, p. 425. that Jefferson's God was Nature's God, not the God of revealed 7. A letter to a group of Baptists in Danbury, Connecticut, in 1802, quoted religion. The God of theistic humanism does not demand in Whitehead and Conlan, p. 4. 1 disagree with Whitehead and Conlan's "soft" slavish obedience, but respects the freedom and moral interpretation of Jefferson's "wall." 1 believe he meant it very strictly. autonomy of his creatures. Fór evangelicals, however, man is 8. See Cushing Strout, The Neu Heavens and the New Earth (New York, 1974), p. 88. impotent and evil, and autonomous acts are an offense to God. 9. Ibid., p. 97. Jeremiah Denton, the arch-conservative senator from 10. Hunter Miller, ed., Treaties and Other International Acts of the United Alabama, charges that secular humanism is "un-American and States of America (Washington, 1931), vol. 2, pp. 349-85. unconstitutional." I have shown that humanism is as American 11. Washington was probably the least religious of all the founding fathers. George Washington and Religion (Dallas, as apple pie and that the constitution was written (without any See Paul F. Boller's superb study 1963). mention of God or morality) by religious humanists. But 12. Quoted in Humanities Report (September 1981), p. 8. American humanism must be secular because of Jefferson's 13. I. V. Packer, Fundamentalism and the Word of God (Erdmans, 1958), wall between church and state. If atheism or liberal religion is p. 143. e

Spring 1982 29 The Nativity Legends

"The Virgin Birth originated in the widespread pagan belief in the divine conception upon various virgins of a number of mythic heroes and famous persons in the ancient world, such as Plato, Randel Helms Alexander, Perseus, Asclepius, and the Dioscuri."

When the Christian Gospels were composed in the last third of carved in praise of "The Emperor Caesar, son of God [theou- the first century, soteriological myth was already common in hvios], god Augustus."3 Around 30 s.c., Horace, writing as a the Graeco-Roman world. Such stories characteristically lackey of the court, composed an ode in honor of Augustus, involved a heavenly being who becomes incarnate as a man (or hailing him as an incarnation of the god Mercury and outlining a divine human fathered by a god), enters our realm to perform the typical pattern of soteriological biography: saving acts, and then returns to heaven. In Greek, the lingua franca of the Mediterranean world, such a figure was called a Which of the Gods now shall the people summon "savior" (soter) and the story of his coming was gdod news, a To prop Rome's reeling sovereignty? .. . "gospel" (euangelion). The soter was not uncommonly called Whom shall Jupiter appoint "son of God" (theou hvios), and his birth was cause for As instrument of our atonement? .. . rejoicing and the revision of the calendar. Thus, not long before ... thou [Mercury], winged boy of gentle Maia. the birth of Jesus of Nazareth, the Provincial Assembly of Asia Put on the mortal shape of a young Roman; Minor passed a resolution in honor of Caesar Augustus. It Descend and, well contented to be known As Caesar's avenger, read: Stay gladly and long with Romulus' people, Whereas the Providence which has guided our whole existence Delay thy homeward, skybound journey.' and which has shown such care and liberality, has brought our life to the peak of perfection in giving to us Augustus Caesar... Descent from heaven, incarnation, birth as son of a god, who, being sent to us and to our descendants as a savior [sorer], atoning acts (including the restoration of a sovereignty), has put an end to war and has set all things in order; and ascension to heaven—a gospel indeed; the authors of .our whereas, having become visible [phaneis, i.e., now that a God Christian Gospels did not have far to seek for the model of their has become visible] ...; and whereas, finally that the birthday of soteriological tale, and the birth of our Savior has been the God [viz., Caesar Augustus] has been for the whole world depicted with the same kind of mythology, in the Nativity the beginning of the gospel (euangelion) concerning him, stories of Matthew and Luke. therefore, let all reckon a new era beginning from the date of his birth.] Two of the four canonical Gospels—Matthew and Luke— give accounts of the conception and birth of Jesus. John tells us At about the same time, a stone was being carved for the only of the Incarnation—that the Logos "became flesh"—while marketplace in Priene; it read "the birthday of the god Mark says nothing at all about Jesus until his baptism as a man [Augustus] was for the world the beginning of euangelion."2 of perhaps thirty; either Mark and John know nothing about Not many leagues away in Pergamum another stone was being Jesus' background and birth, or they regard them as unre- markable. Certainly Mark, the earliest Gospel (c. A.D. 70) knows nothing of the Annunciation or the Virgin Birth. It is Rande! Helms is an associate professor at Arizona State clear from 3:20-21 that in Mark's view the conception of Jesus University, where he teaches courses in the Bible as literature. was accompanied by no angelic announcement to Mary that He has published two books on the.fantasy.iction of J. R. R. her son was to be (in Luke's words) "Son of the Most High" and Tolkien and is now working on a study of the fictional aspects possessor of the "throne of David" (Luke 1:32 NEB). of the four Gospels. According to Mark, after Jesus has openly declared himself

30 Son of Man (a heavenly being, according to Daniel 7:13), his manuscript in the Vatican library reads "Jacob begat Joseph, family on hearing of this "set out to take charge of him. 'He is and Joseph begat Jesus."6 out of his mind,' they said." Surely Jesus' mother and brothers Like Matthew, Luke traces the genealogy of Joseph back (so identified in Mark 3:31) would not, if Mark's Mary had to David and beyond. But, whereas Matthew has it that Joseph been told by the angel Gabriel that her son would be Messiah, was son of Jacob, son of Matthan, son of Eleazar (Matt. 1:14- have regarded Jesus' acts as signs of insanity. 15), Luke tells us that Joseph was "son of Heli, son of Matthat, But Mark's ignorance of Jesus' conception, birth, and son of Levi" (Luke 3:23). The difference, to say the least, is background was no hindrance to the first-century Christian remarkable; the two genealogies in fact diverge after David (c. imagination. Very early among Jewish Christians the need was 1000 B.C.) and do not meet again until Joseph. It is obvious that felt to define Jesus' ancestry. Most Jews looked for a Messiah another Christian group, separate from the one supplying descended from David, but Mark has Jesus explicitly deny that Matthew's list but feeling an equal need for a Messiah he is "David's son" and was almost certainly correct in doing descended from David, has compiled its own genealogy, as so, for Jesus was a Galileean and of a different nationality from imaginary as Matthew's in its last third. And the same problem the Judean David. Mark, Gentile like his Christian community appears here as in Matthew's genealogy: it traces the Davidic (thought by most New Testament scholars to be Rome), had no ancestry of the man who, Luke insists, is not Jesus' father need of a Davidic Christ: anyway, and thus is rendered pointless. Moreover, according to Luke's genealogy (3:23-31) there Jesus went on to say, as he taught in the temple, "How can the are forty-one generations between David and Jesus; according teachers of the law maintain that the Messiah is 'Son of David'?" David himself said [in Psalm 110], when inspired by the Holy , to Matthew's, there are but twenty-seven. Part of the difference "The Lord said to my Lord, 'Sit at my right hand until I put your comes from Matthew's remarkably careless treatment of the enemies under your feet,' David himself calls him 'Lord'; how can he list of names he appropriated. The genealogy that came to also be David's son?" [Mark 12:35-37 NEB] Matthew was based in part upon the second and third chapters of I Chronicles, which lists eighteen generations from David to This passage looks very much like an early Christian polemical Jechoniah; Matthew uses only fourteen of the names, dropping attempt, using a rather quibbling construction of a Psalm, to Ahaziah, Joash, Amaziah, and Jehoiakim. Matthew does this justify Jesus' messiahship despite his admitted lack of because he thinks not in terms of what actually happened but in relationship to David. But many first-century Jewish terms of what can be shown as fulifillment of a prophetic Christians did feel a need for a Davidic Messiah, and at least pattern: in fact the saying "This was to fulfill what the Lord two separate groups responded by producing Davidic declared through the prophet" occurs fourteen times in the genealogies for Jesus, both to a considerable extent imaginary Gospel of Matthew. After writing his altered list of names, and each largely inconsistent with the other. One of each was Matthew declares: later appropriated by Matthew and Luke and repeated with There were thus fourteen generations in all from Abraham to minor but necessary changes in their Gospels. Each genealogy David, fourteen from David until the deportation to Babylon, uses the Old Testament as its source of names until it stops and fourteen from the deportation until the Messiah. [Matt. supplying them or until the supposed messianic line diverges 1.17 NEB] from the biblical; after that point Christian imaginations supplied two different lists of ancestors for Jesus. That is, he had counted fourteen names from Abraham to Matthew's genealogy traces, through the paternal line, the David, and he thought he counted fourteen from Jechoniah to ancestors of Joseph to show that Jesus Christ is "son of David" Jesus; this must mean something, he decided, a prophetic (1:1). This is not so surprising until Matthew goes on to insist pattern. But there weren't, he found, fourteen names from that Joseph is not really Jesus' father: "It is by the David to Jechoniah, there were eighteen; so Matthew took the that she has conceived this child" (1:20). Why, to show that simple expedient of changing Joram into the father of Azariah Jesus is "son of David," trace the ancestry of a man who is not (though he was in fact the great-great-grandfather) and Josiah his father? The obvious answer is that the list of names was into the father of Jechoniah (though he was in fact his constructed not by the author of Matthew but by earlier Jewish grandfather). But Matthew could have been spared all this Christians who did believe in all sincerity that Jesus had a trouble if he had more carefully counted the names in the third human father; such Jewish Christians were likely the forebears group when he was proposing the pattern; it has in fact only of the group known in the second century as the Ebionites, to thirteen names, not fourteen. The pattern was illusory in the whom the Davidic ancestry of the Messiah was essential and first place. who believed, according to the second-century Christian Justin Fourteen was a significant number to Matthew because he Martyr, that Jesus was "the son of Joseph and Mary according thought, as did one of his favorite Old Testament sources, the to the ordinary course of human generation."5 Certain ancient author of the Book of Daniel, in terms of divine arithmetic. manuscripts of Matthew give some credence to this view. For, Daniel had predicted that there would be a period of seventy whereas the received text of Matt. 1:16 (dating from the fourth weeks of years from the end of the Babylonian Exile until the century) reads "Jacob begat Joseph, the husband of Mary, who coming of the Messiah (Dan. 9:24-27). Knowing this, bore Jesus," the Sinaitic Syriac version, dating from the early Matthew's numerical imagination clicked; not only will there fifth century, has it that "Jacob begat Joseph. Joseph, to whom be a certain number of weeks of years until the Christ, there will was betrothed the virgin Mary, begat Jesus." Another ancient be a certain number of weeks of generations too. Fourteen

Spring 1982 31 equals two "weeks" of generations. Three two-week periods Virgin Birth is based, he says, "upon predictions set forth by the (14+14+14) equal six "weeks" of pre-Christian generations in blessed prophets."8 Obviously Justin's view won out among the royal line of Israel; thus, with Jesus begins the seventh, the Christians—another way of saying that Jewish Christianity "Sabbath" week of Jewish monarchical history—the Kingdom, virtually ceased to exist soon after the first century. The earliest restored under Christ. Matthew included a genealogy not statement in Christian literature of Justin's belief in the because he was really interested in the ancestry of Jesus— prophetic prediction of the Virgin Birth stands in the Gospel of presumably he had the wits to grasp the pointlessness of tracing Matthew (c. A.D. 80-100) and is based on a rather odd the genealogy of Joseph, who his own narrative denies is Jesus' misunderstanding of Isaiah 7:14 in the Septuagint Greek father—but because he was interested in the pattern, the translation of the Old Testament, the version used by most prophetic "fulfillment," even if he had to juggle the numbers to writers of the New Testament. Matthew writes that Joseph, get that fulfillment. having learned of Mary's pregnancy after their betrothal, Thus we have a fascinating picture of four separate decided to have "the marriage contract set aside quietly" Christian communities in the first century. Two of them, who (Matthew was apparently unaware that this was not possible were Jewish Christian, were determined to have a Messiah with under Jewish law; the process had to be legal and public). Davidic ancestry and constructed genealogies to prove it, never However: dreaming that Jesus could be thought of as having no human father. The two others, though interested in the possibility of [An] angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream. "Joseph son Jesus' royal ancestry, were apparently content to do without it of David," said the angel, "do not be afraid to take Mary home except in the merely legal sense (the legal but not actual father with you as your wife. It is by the Holy Spirit that she has was Davidic). Far more important to them was what the title conceived this child. She will bear a son; and you shall give him "Son of God" meant, and for them it implied actual divine the name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins." All this happened in order to fulfil what the Lord declared through paternity. Out of these latter two communities came our the prophet: "The virgin will conceive and bear a son, and he Gospels of Matthew and Luke. shall be called Emmanuel," a name which means "God is with Jews, and thus Jewish Christians, never had recounted us." [Matt. 1:20-23] myths of divine paternity of kings; their myths were "adoptionist." According to the second Psalm, the "Lord's The Septuagint, from which Matthew quotes, uses, at decree" addressed to each new king of Judah was that "you are Isaiah 7:14, parthenos (physical virgin) for the Hebrew almah my son ... this day I have become your father." Jews had (young woman) and uses the future tense, "will conceive," always read this in the obvious sense: on the day of his though Hebrew has no future tense as such; modern English anointing, every Hebrew king became as a "son" to Yahweh. translations are probably more accurate in reading (as does the This notion goes back at least to the time of Solomon, when New English Bible) "A young woman is with child." We can Yahweh was reported to have said that "I will be his father and scarcely blame the author of Matthew for being misguided by he will be my son"(II Sam. 7:14). Actual divine paternity was of his translation (though Jews frequently ridiculed early course not the issue here; there had already been a good deal of Christians for their dependence on the often inaccurate fuss over Solomon's father's (David's) affair with Bathsheba, Septuagint rather than the Hebrew), but we can certainly fault Solomon's mother. But Gentile Christians of the first century, him for reading Isaiah 7:14 quite without reference to its who came into the new religion directly from paganism and context—an interpretive method used by many in his time and already infected with myths about licentious deities, had a ours, but a foolish one nonetheless. Any sensible reading of much different understanding of what divine paternity meant. Isaiah, Chapter 7, reveals that it concerns the Syro-Israelite Plutarch speaks for the entire ancient pagan world when he crisis of 734 B.C. (the history of the episode appears in I Kings writes, in Convivial Disputations, that "the fact of the 16:1-20). Isaiah's land of Judah has been invaded by Pekah, intercourse of a male god with mortal women is conceded by king of Israel, and Rezin, king of Syria. Isaiah approaches all,"7 though he admits that such relations might be spiritual Judah's king Ahaz to assure him that the invasion will not not carnal. Mythology like this came with converted pagans succeed, and makes a prediction: into Christianity, and by the middle of the first century A young woman is with child, and she will bear a son, and will Joseph's paternity of Jesus was being replaced by God's all over call him Immanuel. By the time that he has learnt to reject evil the Gentile Christian world. and choose good, he will be eating curds and honey; before that Of course the new myth was not accepted everywhere. child has learnt to reject evil and choose good, desolation will Jewish Christians, especially, regarded it as a pagan intrusion come upon the land before whose two kings you cower now. into their religion. In his Dialogue with the Jew Trypho, Justin [Isa. 7:14-16 NEB] Martyr concedes that some of his co-religionists rejected the divine fathering and Virgin Birth of Jesus because they Isaiah refers obviously not to the circumstances of the child's sounded too much like pagan myth. (Justin mentions the myth conception but to his state a few months or years hence, before of Danae, impregnated by Zeus.) "It is quite true that some the age of reason; before that time comes, says Isaiah, the people of our kind acknowledge him to be Christ, but at the invaders' lands will be desolate. Actually, it was another same time declare him to have been a man of men. I, however, thirteen years before Israel was conquered by Assyria (721 cannot agree with them, and will not do so, even if the majority B.C.); Isaiah was only approximately correct. (of Christians) insist on this opinion." Justin's belief in the It is clear, however, that though the mistranslated and

32 misunderstood passage in Isaiah was Matthew's biblical justifi- importance of Bethlehem as the birthplace of David and his cation for the Virgin Birth, it was not the source of the belief dynasty: (indeed, Luke presents the Virgin Birth without reference to Isaiah); the doctrine originated in the widespread pagan belief You, Bethlehem in Ephrathah, small as you are to be among Judah's clans, out of you shall come forth a governor for Israel, in the divine conception upon various virgins of a number of one whose roots are far back in the past, in days gone by. mythic heroes and famous persons in the ancient world, such as [Micah 5:2] Plato, Alexander, Perseus, Asclepius, and the Dioscuri. Diogenes Laertius' story, in his biography of Plato, about That is, the one who restores the dynasty will have the same Apollo's fathering of the philosopher upon Periktione, with its roots, be of the same ancestry, as David of Bethlehem. account of a dream granted by the god to the woman's Prophesying, it would appear, during the Babylonian exile, husband, may in fact have been a source of Matthew's closely Micah (or actually a sixth-century interpolator whose words similar story: were included in the book of the eighth-century prophet) hoped for the restoration of the Judean monarchy, destroyed in 586 Ariston [the putative father of Plato] ... had a vision in which B.C. Only Christians have traditionally read this passage in Apollo appeared to him, and in consequence guarded her pure Micah as prediction of a future birthplace rather than as a of the relations of wedlock until she brought forth Plato.° description of the origins of the Davidic dynasty; we do not see Matthew writes that Joseph, having been similarly informed in multitudes of Jewish faithful eagerly eyeing the village of his dream, "had no intercourse with her until her son was born" Bethlehem for the birth of the Messiah: remember the Jews' (Matt. 1:25). rejection of Jesus in John 7:27: " ... we know where this man Luke gives us a different myth about the conception of comes from, but when the Messiah appears, no one is to know Jesus, in which the Annunciation that the Messiah is to be fathered by God, not Joseph, is made to Mary rather than to "Luke got his facts wrong. Who could imagine the her betrothed. But Luke's account contains a strange anomaly: efficient Romans requiring millions in the Empire ... the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a town in Galilee called to journey hundreds of miles to the villages of Nazareth, with a message for a girl betrothed to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David; the girl's name was Mary ... Then the angel said millennium-old ancestors merely to sign a tax to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary, for God has been gracious to you; you form?" shall conceive and bear a son, and you shall give him the name Jesus. He will be great; he will bear the title "Son of the Most High"; the Lord God where he comes from." But since some first-century Christians will give him the throne of his ancestor David, and he will be king over Israel forever; his reign shall never end.""How can this be," said Mary, did read Micah 5:2 as a prediction of the birthplace of Jesus, it "since I know not a man?" [Luke 1:26-33 NEB] became necessary to explain why he grew up in Nazareth, in another country, rather than Bethlehem. At least two different Mary's question is very puzzling: Why should a woman about and mutually exclusive narratives explaining this were to marry wonder at the notion that she will soon conceive? produced; one appears in Matthew, the other in Luke. "How can this be, since I know not a man?" was not part of the Matthew has it that Mary and Joseph lived in Bethlehem when Annunciation legend Luke appropriated; it was added, to Jesus was born, and continued here for about two years, fleeing stress the divine conception, either by Luke or by a later hand, then to Egypt; they returned to Palestine only after Herod's for the story Luke inherited clearly assumed that Joseph was death but, for fear of Herod's son, did not resettle in Jesus' father. Note its careful stress that Mary is "betrothed to a Bethlehem, moving rather to another country, Galilee, finding man named Joseph, a descendant of David," as prelude to the a new home in Nazareth. But Luke has it that Mary and angel's declaration that Jesus will possess "the throne of his apparently Joseph lived in Nazareth, traveling to Bethlehem ancestor David." In this same chapter of Luke we learn that just before Jesus' birth to register for a tax census. They left Mary, like her kinswoman Elizabeth, comes from a Levitical Bethlehem forty days later to visit the temple in Jerusalem for rather than a Davidic family; the royal ancestry had to be the required ritual of the first-born, returning then to their Joseph's. And clearly the stressing of Joseph's Davidic lineage hometown of Nazareth. Examination of these two irrecon- in chapter one relates directly to the Davidic genealogy of cilable accounts will give us a good picture of the creative im- Joseph in chapter three; David is Jesus' ancestor because he is aginations of Luke and Matthew and their Christian sources. Joseph's ancestor: Luke's inherited account can mean nothing In most of Matthew's Gospel, the major source of else. Embarrassed by the story's clear implicit denial of the information is the Gospel of Mark (606 of Mark's 661 verses Virgin Birth notion, Luke or a later Christian inserted Mary's appear in Matthew, .either word for word or with deliberate odd question, but the clumsy interpolation makes hash of changes). But of course Mark says nothing about Jesus' birth. Jesus' royal ancestry. When one favorite source fails him, Matthew inventively turns In due course, Jesus was born, growing up in Nazareth of to another—this time to the Old Testament, read with a Galilee, a different nationality from the Judean inhabitants of particular interpretive slant—and to oral tradition about Jesus, Jerusalem and its near neighbor Bethlehem. After Jesus' death, combining the two in a noticeably uneasy way. We must those of his followers interested in finding proof of his remember that for the Christian generation that produced our Messiahship in the Old Testament set about re-interpreting in Gospels, the Bible consisted only of what Christians now call Christian fashion a verse in the prophet Micah about the the Old Testament, and a particular version thereof, the Greek

Spring 1982 33 Septuagint. But before they wrote the New Testament, Chris- tians created another entirely new book, the burned, and that Magi began to cry out as the day was breaking: Old Testament; by "Asia's deadly curse was born last night."" a remarkably audacious and creative fiat of interpretation, Christians turned the Septuagint into a book about Jesus. When the eastern ruler Tiradates, whom Pliny calls a "magus," Meanings it had held for generations of Jews, its historical and came to pay homage to Nero, "He had brought magi with poetic content especially, ceased to exist, and it became a book him."12 Approaching the Caesar, "he knelt upon the ground, not about the past but about its own future. Of course other and with arms crossed called him master and did obeisance," groups, such as the Qumran sect, also read the Bible in an writes Dio Cassius.13 In Matthew, when the Magi entered the oracular fashion, but Christians specialized in this technique, presence of Jesus, they "bowed" to the ground in homage to finding oracles about Jesus of Narareth. If a passage in the him" (Matt. 2:11). And not only Nero and Jesus received such Septuagint could be read as a prediction of an event in the life honors; Suetonius writes in his Life of Augustus that, when of Jesus, then the event must have happened. Thus, if Micah young Octavius Caesar was born, "Publius Nigidius Figulus were understood to mean that Messiah was to be born in the astrologer, hearing at what hour the child had been Bethlehem, then Jesus must have been born there, no matter delivered, cried out, 'The ruler of the world is now born.' what his hometown really was. Everyone believes this tale." In the same section of this work, But as it happens, the Bethlehem birth story, dependent Suetonius adds that when Augustus entered the house of upon the Christian interpretation of Micah, and the Magi-and- Theogenes the astrologer, the man "rose and flung himself at star legend, dependent upon Hellenistic and Jewish oral his feet."14 tradition, fit together very uneasily. The story of the Magi The story of the Slaughter of the Innocents has an equally ("astrologers" is a more meaningful translation) has it that "the complex origin. Again, Suetonius writes: star which they had seen at its rising went ahead of them until it stopped above the place where the child lay" (Matt. 2:9). But According to Julius Marathus, a public portent warned the Matthew must connect this with his separate fiction of the Roman people some months before Augustus' birth that Nature Bethlehem birth, so he has the Magi go to Jerusalem, "asking was making ready to provide them with a king; and this caused `where is the child who is born king of Jews? We observed the the Senate such consternation that they issued a decree which rising of his star, and we have come to pay him homage.' King forbade the rearing of any male child for a whole year." Herod was greatly perturbed when he heard of this," because of course he regarded himself as king of the Jews. In answer to the Likewise Herod "gave orders for the massacre of all children in question of the Magi, Matthew has the "chief priests and Bethlehem and its neighbourhood, of the age of two years or lawyers of the Jewish people" inform them that "Messiah is to less" (Matt. 2:16). Matthew gives us a strangely irrevelant be born" in Bethlehem, quoting Micah 5:2. But then the star passage in Jeremiah as an oracle about the event: "So were the proceeds to guide the Magi directly to the spot where Jesus lay. words spoken through the prophet Jeremiah fulfilled: 'A voice They did not need to go to Jerusalem to ask anybody; but was heard in Rama [a village several miles north of Jerusalem, Matthew must relate his two separate stories. and far from Bethlehem], wailing and loud laments; it was If the birth at Bethlehem is required by Micah 5:2, whence Rachel weeping for her children, and refusing all consolation, the star and the Magi, the Slaughter of the Innocents, and the because they were no more" (Matt. 2:17-18). Matthew Flight into Egypt? We are dealing here with a rich mixture of possessed the legend and found the oracle. But note the Jewish legends, both Jewish and Graeco-Roman. The legend of the Midrash on the story of the birth of Abraham: star probably grew up in a Christian community influenced by the second century B.C. Jewish apocryphal book The Testa- On the night when [Abraham] was born, Terah's friends, ment of the Twelve Patriarchs, which contains a supposed among whom were councilors and soothsayers of Nimrod, were oracle of Levi that referred in the author's intention to John feasting in his house, and on leaving late at night they observed Hyrcanus, the second-century B.C. Maccabean priest: a star which swallowed up four other stars ... They forthwith hastened to Nimrod and said, "Of a certainty a lad has been Then shall the Lord raise up a new priest, born who is destined to conquer this world and the next." And to him all the words of the Lord shall be revealed; On learning that Nimrod wanted to kill Abraham, his father And he shall execute a righteous judgement upon the earth for a multitude of days. "Terah then went home and hid his son in a cave for three And his star shall rise in heaven as a king.10 years."16 This Jewish legend, which is of course amazingly similar to Matthew's account, is a fictional embellishment, as is Thus "Where is the child who is born king of the Jews? We Matthew's story, of the Genesis and Exodus legends of the observed the rising of his star" (Matt. 2:2). But the Testament births of Abraham and Moses as enlarged by combination with of Levi mentions no Magi; these formed a floating and well the story of Balaam in the Book of Numbers—indeed, there are nigh universal part of legends about the births of, and homage direct verbal echoes of the latter two in Matthew's Gospel. to, Kings and heroes. As Cicero says of the birth of Alexander Balaam, like the stargazers in the Jewish and Christian the Great in De Divinatione: birth-legends, is from Mesopotamia, "from the east" (the phrases in Num. 22:7 LXX and Matt. 2:1 are identical—ap Everybody knows that on the same night in which Olympias anatolon). A well-known astrologer and diviner of omens, he was delivered of Alexander the temple of Diana at Ephesus was has been summoned by Balak, king of Moab, who fears the

34 F11;ee In cT üy Israelites, recent intruders into his realm. In this, as in all the So Joseph arose, "took mother and child with him, and stories descended from it, the king and astrologers consult came to the land of Israel"(Matt. 2:21), as Moses "took his wife together concerning the newcomers into the realm, who and children, mounted them on an ass and set out" (Ex. 4:20). threaten the ruler (Balak, Nimrod, Herod). And in all the But Matthew now faces another problem, raised by his earlier stories, the astrologers point to a special star, symbol of the solution to the original difficulty of the Nazareth upbringing arrival of the new force (Israel, Abraham, Jesus). Says Balaam: despite a Bethlehem birth. Though Matthew had Mary and "... a star shall rise [anatelei astron] out of Jacob, a man shall Joseph living in Bethlehem for two years after Jesus' birth, he spring out of Israel, and shall crush the princes of Moab" obviously cannot continue to allow them to live there; how can (Num. 24:17 LXX). The astrologers in Matthew likewise point he bring them to Nazareth? Matthew provides a forgetful to a star: "... we observed the rising of his star"(ton asiera en to angel, who must appear twice to Joseph. The first time, the anatole—Matt. 2:2). "angel of the Lord" merely informs Joseph, as I have said, that Now the source the story of the king (Nimrod, Herod) who since those "who threatened the child's life are dead," he may wants to kill the infant leader of Israel (Abraham, Jesus) shifts take the Holy Family back "to the land of Israel." But the angel to the account of Moses in Exodus, the classic biblical legend of has forgotten to warn Joseph that Judea is still too dangerous the wicked king (Pharaoh) who wants to slay the new leader of for them: Israel (Moses). Indeed the story of Moses in the Septuagint Hearing, however, that Archelaus had succeeeded his father provided Matthew with a direct verbal source for his story of Herod as king of Judea, [Joseph] was afraid to go there. And the flight into Egypt. As Pharaoh wants to kill Moses, who then being warned by a dream, he withdrew to the region of Galilee; flees the country, so Herod wants to kill Jesus, who is then there he settled in a town called Nazareth. [Matt. 2:22-23] carried away by his parents. After a period of hiding for the hero in both stories, the wicked king dies:

And the Lord said unto Moses in Midian, Go, depart into "The Bethlehem birth story, dependent upon the Egypt, for all that sought thy life are dead [tethnekasi gar Christian interpretation of Micah, and the Magi- pontes. hoi zetountes sou ten psvchen—Ex. 4:19 LXX]. and-star legend fit together uneasily. We are dealing here with a rich mixture of legends, both When Herod died, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt, saying, Rise, take the child and his Jewish and Graeco-Roman." mother, and go to the land of Israel for those who sought the child's life are dead [tethnekasin gar hoi zetountes ten psvchen tou paidiou—Matt. 2:20].

Of course Moses flees, from Egypt, to Midian, while the Holy Family flees to Egypt, through Midian. Why did Matthew not, to make the parallel exact, have his characters escape likewise to Midian, in the Sinai Peninsula? The answer of course relates to Matthew's way of reading another passage in the Old Testament:

This was to fulfil what the Lord had spoken by the prophet: "Out of Egypt have I called my son." [Matt. 2:15] If God said he called his son out of Egypt, then to Egypt he must have gone. As the stories of Moses and Balaam had supplied the star, the basis for Herod's wrath, and the Holy Family's flight, so Hosea 11:1 was found as the "prediction" of where they would flee and thence return:

When Israel was a child I loved him, and out of Egypt 1 called my son. The more I called them, the more they went from me; they kept sacrificing to the Baals, and burning incense to idols. Hosea's cry of outrage against Israel's stubborn idolatry despite Yahweh's loving concern and his saving act of the But it isn't only the angel who has been forgetful; Matthew Exodus was pulled out of its context by early Christians, who himself has apparently forgotten, if he ever knew, that another turned one line of a complaint about the present and the past son of Herod, namely Antipas, was also in control of the into a prediction of the distant future. province of Galilee; by Matthew's criterion that province ought

Spring 1982 35 to be as dangerous as Judea. Still, to Nazareth must he go, for The ox knows its owner, and the ass his master's manger "This was to fulfil the words spoken through the prophets: 'He [phatnen]; but Israel does not know me, and the people has not shall be called a Nazarene" ' (Matt. 2:23). Unfortunately, there regarded me. is no such passage in all the Old Testament; Matthew had apparently only vaguely heard that such a verse was in the Bethlehem had "no room" for its Savior, Israel did not know "prophets" and, since he really needed to get the Holy Family him; only the lowly ox and ass first saw his glory. But it was a from the supposed birthplace to the known hometown, he kingly role granted him from the first, for though Luke has no reported the fulfillment but left the biblical reference Magi or gifts, as in Matthew's legend, he relates Jesus, through unspecified. his swaddling, to Solomon himself, who wrote according to Like Matthew, Luke faced the same problem of the apocryphal Book of Wisdom: reconciling known Nazarene upbringing with supposed Bethlehem birth. His solution, however, was entirely different, when I was born ... I was nursed in swaddling clothes, and that and even less convincing; whereas Matthew has the Holy with care. For there is no other king that had any other Family living in Bethlehem at the time of the Birth and beginning of birth. [Wisdom: 7:3-4 LXX] traveling later to Nazareth, Luke has them living in Nazareth and traveling to Bethlehem in the very last stages of Mary's Swaddled and placed in a manger, Jesus now fulfills these pregnancy: "predictions." That a manger or sheep-crib was a proper place for the new prince of Israel to be laid Luke felt certain, In those days a decree was issued by the Emperor Augustus for a for had not the Lord said to David: registration to be made throughout the Roman world. This was the first registration of its kind; it took place when Quirinius was governor of Syria. For this purpose everyone made his way I took thee from the stables of the sheep, that thou shouldest be to his own town; and so Joseph went up to Judaea from the a prince over my people, over Israel. [II Samuel (II Kings) 7:8 town of Nazareth in Galilee, to register at the city of David, LXX] called Bethlehem, because he was of the house of David by descent; and with him went Mary who was betrothed to him. Thus for Luke, as for Matthew, the circumstances and She was expecting a child, and while they were there the time place of Jesus' birth were not mere historical accidents; they came for her baby to be born. [Luke 2:1-6]. were part of the prophetic "sign" of his royalty. As the angel says to the shepherds: Though Luke dates the birth of Jesus in the "days of Herod king of Judaea" (Luke 1:5), who died in 4 B.C., he wants the Today in the city of David a deliverer [soler] has been born to journey from Galilee to Bethlehem to occur in response to a you, Christ the Lord. And this is a sign for you, you will find a census when "Quirinius was governor of Syria." But as baby wrapped in his swaddling clothes, in a manger. [Luke 2:11- historians know, "The one and only census conducted while 12 NEB] Quirinius was legate in Syria affected only Judaea, not Galilee, Notes and took place in A.D. 6-7, a good ten years after the death of Herod the Great." t7 In his anxiety to relate the Galilean I. David R. Cartlidge and David L. Dungan, Documents for the upbringing with the supposed Bethlehem birth, Luke got his Study of the Gospels (Cleveland: Collins, 1980), p.13. 2. Frances Young, "Two Roots or a Tangled Mass," in John Hick, facts wrong. Indeed, the anxiety has involved him in some real ed., The Myth of God Incarnate (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1977), p. absurdities, like the needless ninety-mile journey of a woman in 99. the last days of pregnancy—for it was Davidic Joseph who 3. Ibid., p. 98. supposedly had to be registered in the ancestral village, not the 4. Cartlidge and Dungan, p. 18. Levitical Mary. Worse yet, Luke has been forced to contrive a 5. F. C. Conybeare, The Origins of Christianity (Evanston, Ill.: University Books, 1958), p. 206. universal dislocation for a simple tax registration: Who could 6. Ibid., p.I88. imagine the efficient Romans requiring millions in the Empire 7. Plutarch, Convivial Disputations, viii, 1, 2, quoted in to journey hundreds of miles to the villages of millennium-old Conybeare, Ibid. ancestors merely to sign a tax form? Needless to say, no such 8. Conybeare, p. 180. event ever happened in the history of the Roman Empire. But 9. Diogenes Laertius, Lives and Opinions of the Eminent Philosophers, quoted in Conybeare, p. 195. Micah 5:2 must be fulfilled; such thinking underlies Luke's 10. Testament of Levi, 18:3. narrative as much as Matthew's. 1 I. Cicero, De Divinatione, 1:23, 47, quoted in the Encyclopedia Biblica, III, 3351. She was expecting a child, and while they were there, the time 12. Pliny, Natural History, 30, 16, cited in the Encyclopedia came for her baby to be born, and she gave birth to a son, her Biblica, III, 3351. first-born. She wrapped him in his swaddling clothes, and laid 13. Dio Cassius, Roman History, 63, 2 trans. Earnest Carey him in a manger [phatnen], because there was no room for them (London: Heinemann, 1914). to lodge in the house. [Luke 2:6-7 NEB] 14. Suetonius, The Deified Augustus, 94, trans. J. C. Rolfe (London: Heinemann, 1914). Luke's community, like Matthew's, scoured the Old Testament 15. Ibid. for references that could be interpreted as predictions of Jesus. 16. Jewish Encyclopedia (New York: Ktav, N.D.), 1, 86. 17. Raymond E. Brown, The Birth of the Messiah (New York: The manger they found in Isaiah 1:3 of the Septuagint: Doubleday, 1977), p. 413. •

36 A Commentary on Norman Podhoretz's Neo-Puritanism

Lee Nisbet

Commentary, the waspish journal of the American Jewish the issues mentioned above. He is also interested in morality. It Committee, has earned its reputation as one of America's appears that he has decided what traits constitute virtues and leading journals of opinion. Editor Norman Podhoretz and the now hires writers to argue that these traits can only be magazine's distinguished contributors write cogent articles on developed through a "traditionalist" approach to living. Be- such diverse topics as foreign policy, politics, economics, and cause religion is a necessary ingredient of this approach, his social issues, as well as criticism of literature and the arts. writers argue, tradition is the mortal enemy of "" in Commentary's essays and polemics have been demon- general, and of "secular humanism" in particular. strably influential among policy makers and politicians, right Podhoretz's traditionalism, or neo-Puritanism, as I shall up to the level of the presidency. Ronald Reagan, an avid call it, has been a dismal failure in dealing with moral issues. reader of the magazine, reported that his selection of Jeane The reasons behind this failure may constitute the Achilles' heel Kirkpatrick as Ambassador to the United Nations was largely of neo-conservativism. based on her Commentary article on the role of human rights in Whether an article deals with religion, ethics, having foreign policy. Podhoretz's son-in-law now administers that babies, feminists, sex education, or even films, Podhoretz's policy for the U.S. government. editorial line boldly asserts itself. For example, Joseph Adelson Podhoretz's efforts in the area of foreign policy analysis in "What's Happened to the Schools?" (Commentary, March are especially noteworthy. Commentary, perhaps more than 1981), explains that the public schools have been unsuccessful any other publication, helped to convince the public of the utter in resisting pressure from both special interest groups and the failure of the Carter Administration either to comprehend or to courts to institute dubious educational programs in part effectively deal with the Soviet political, economic, and because we, the general public, suffer from the "inability to military threat. Whether the issue is Afghanistan, Nicaragua, develop or sustain a coherent idea of ourselves and of our own arms control, European neutralism, or the meaning of the essential values" (p. 38). Modernism, the arch-enemy, is the Vietnam experience, Podhoretz and his writers are deservedly source of our weakness. Adelson explains: influential. It is also likely that the shift of important members of the Far more than any other institution in American society, the American intelligentsia to "neo-conservatism" has been aided schools have become an arena for the struggle between the values of traditionalism and of modernity. Among the values of and abetted by Commentary's frequently well-written, well- traditionalism are: merit, accomplishment, competition, and argued essays. Its "Letters from Readers" column is filled with success; self-restraint, self-discipline, and the postponement of lengthy and outraged responses from the high and mighty in gratification; the stability of the family; and a belief in certain government, politics, and arts and letters to Commentary's moral universals. The modernist ethos scorns the pursuit of stinging criticisms of liberalism. Moreover, the New Republic success; is egalitarian and redistributionist in emphasis; tol- and other traditionally liberal magazines are now echoing erates or encourages sensual gratification; values self-expres- Commentary's point of view on many issues. sion as against self-restraint; accepts alternative or deviant Podhoretz's polemical concerns, however, extend beyond forms of the family; and emphasizes ethical ." [p. 39]

Adelson succinctly presents the values and virtues of Pod- horetz's neo-Puritanism. Religion and tradition are to serve as Lee Nisbet, an associate editor of FREE INQUIRY, is associate support for these virtues. This ethic of self-restraint, self- professor of philosophy at Medaille College. discipline, postponement of gratification, success, and soon, is

Spring 1982 37 portrayed as locked in a fateful struggle with the forces of sion." She concludes her piece with this generalization. darkness—the ideology of "modernism"—a kind of nihilistic relativism encouraging self-gratification, sensuality, uninhibit- Dissatisfaction is the common condition of the young women I ed self-expression, and topped off by a radical egalitarianism. work with, and, I venture to say, of their counterparts That this perspective is dear to Editor Podhoretz is everywhere ... [their] view of motherhood not as an alternative substantiated by the fact that whenever moral issues are but simply as another attainment, like a promotion or a larger discussed in Commentary they are discussed in terms of the list office, is satisfactory to neither mother nor child. [p. 62-63] of virtues and vices presented by Adelson. Terry Eastland, in his article "In Defense of Religious Now, what does one make of these calls for self-restraint America" ( Commentary, June 1981), bemoans the fact that the supported by tradition and religion-based ? "old imperative of `America the Beautiful'—confirm thy soul in What does one make of all the gloomy characterizations of a self-control" has apparently fallen out of favor among the self-indulgent populace seduced by sensuality and surely educated. He claims that the "distinction between liberty and headed for ruin unless they restrain themselves? It sounds not license transmitted to us by the old Protestant culture has faded only gloomy but also rather familiar, and ignorant and almost completely among the educated classes ... Administra- irrational. tors (for example) now run their campuses as if there is no God, Ethical inquiry began 2,500 years ago with the realization since virtually everything is permitted" (p. 43). In his view it is that appeals to tradition and to the gods were insufficient to difficult for human beings to practice the virtue of self-restraint serve as a rational basis for determining what one ought to do. without a belief in God. Eastland also suggests that "if our The ancient Greeks understood, as Plato's dialogues show, that morality is not engrafted upon Protestant Christianity, it will nihilistic relativism is inadequate as an ethical principle. be engrafted on something else ... It would no doubt look very Podhoretz's journal characterizes moral issues as if there much like what the Supreme Court alluded to in its Torcaso were only two modes of conduct—and of judging conduct: self- ruling—the religion of `secular humanism.' God save us from restraint supported by tradition and religion, and self-indul- that" (p. 45). gent . However, thought and human conduct have William J. Bennett's article, "Getting Ethics" (Commen- gone beyond the knee-jerk maxims of either "restrain yourself" tary, December 1980), characterizes such approaches to ethics or "if it feels good do it." The claim that only these choices are as values-clarification as nothing more than a corrupting available signifies either dreadful ignorance or willful decep- relativism, especially where youth is concerned. "To encourage tion on the part of Podhoretz and his writers. They fail to students ... to a bold questioning of childhood beliefs, parental acknowledge that intelligence might make a difference in the dictates or traditional notions of right and wrong hardly choices we make. warrants a medal for valor, since such questioning is entirely Whether tradition (which tradition?) or religion (which routine to them—it has been their constant diet since birth, religion?) supports a particular choice is not decisive to an with what dubious effects we are now witnessing"(p. 64). There intelligent person. Whether a choice constitutes restraint or is no suggestion in Bennett's article that there are any indulgence is also not decisive. What counts is what the choice approaches to ethical problems other than either that of leads to for ourselves and others. Is the choice being made in upholding traditions or its historical opponent, relativism. such a way to better enable us to make wise choices in the Murray Friedman, in "A New Direction for American future? Does the choice satisfy the demands that brought forth Jews" (Commentary, December 1981), warns that many the necessity of choosing in the first place? Was the choice in Jewish groups are wrong in viewing the Moral Majority and accord with our character? Did we understand the alternatives? others who want to put religion into the schools as an Was our decision freely made? These are some of the important important threat to Judaism. The real enemy, he says, is the ethical questions and conditions that surround any choice. "New Paganism," but the "secular tilt" of Jews today prevents These are the very issues that are left untouched by Commen- them from seeing that the "breakdown of the orderly norms of tary's writers. Instead, they make vague appeals for belief in our society constitute, in fact, a far more serious threat to the moral absolutes. For example, Adelson warns: "If you are Jewish community" than does the issue of religion in the going to teach children to be virtuous ... you must yourself schools. possess a strong sense of right or wrong, and cannot in one Naomi Munson, in "Having Babies Again"(Commentarv, silent part of your mind feel that there are no moral absolutes" April 1981), discovers and excoriates "the new pregnancy." She (p. 40). derides the young women in her office: What happens when the "absolutes" conflict? Some These ladies of liberty, my office mates, have had their share of criteria other than absolutes must be utilized to choose between cocaine and caviar; they've shot the rapids in a canoe and roller- moral injunctions. How about intelligence? Commentary's boogied till 5 A.M.; they've done the Caribbean and the thinkers talk about the importance of "religion," yet they Aegean; they've kept clean for Gene and dressed for roundly denounce the leftist orientation of the National success; they've tried the new sexuality and the new Council of Churches and Catholic liberation theology. Hitler celibacy. Now they are "into" pregnancy. [p. 60] never renounced his Catholicism, Stalin was a seminarian, and often murderers are described as having strong religious Munson characterizes these women as sad, empty creatures backgrounds. Is there any to suggest that a who view pregnancy as merely another form of "self-expres- wise and generous character is more likely to be engendered by

38 religious upbringing? If there is, Commentary's writers don't produce it. But is there an element of truth in Podhoretz's call for self- restraint? Impulse and appetite are far more powerful than mere thoughts of what should be done. Sound judgment and O strong character are the outcome of habits developed through Free o disciplined action. Restraint of immediate impulses is absolute- ly essential if one is to survive, much less find happiness. "Self- restraint," however, conceived of as a virtue and as an end in itself, is as destructive as "self-expression" so conceived. Self- restraint for its own sake leads merely to frustration and WE INVITE YOU obsessive fascination with what is being denied. The essential mistake of Podhoretz's neo-Puritanism is to make virtues TO SUBSCRIBE separate ends in themselves, hence giving them an isolated, negative, or restrictive quality. As John Dewey observed, "The supposition that virtues are separated from one another leads, when it is acted upon, to that narrowing and hardening of Subscription Rates action that induces many persons to conceive of all morality as negative and restrictive. When, for example, an independent One Year $14.00 thing is made of temperance and self-control it becomes mere inhibition, a sour contraint"(Dewey, Theory of the Moral Life, Two Years $25.00 1908). Because Podhoretz makes ends out of virtues, his ap- proach, as Commentary's articles on moral issues bear out, Three Years $32.00 becomes a dour, restrictive neo-Puritanism, which historically and ironically encourages the development of the very traits he Single Issue $3.50 abhors. As Dewey notes, "There is not much danger in most circles in modern society that the ascetic principle will be taken ■ Payment Enclosed seriously. There is, however, a real danger that it will affect the teaching of morals in some quarters to such a degree as to • Bill Me throw those taught over to the opposite extreme, and thus instigate them to take up with the doctrine that all inhibition is dangerous, and that every impulse should be `expressed' and every desire indulged" (Dewey, Theory of the Moral Life, 1908). Here then is the Achilles' heel of Podhoretz's neo-conser- vativism. When he forsakes the approach that makes his Name journal important, intelligent investigation of issues through critical inquiry for an ideology based on restrictive tradition and religion, he forsakes the only kind of inhibition that is Street positive and attractive—thinking. All thought requires the delay of desire until that desire is inspected for its desirability. Thinking restricts desire not for the sake of restrictiveness but City State Zip for the sake of greater power. Hence the "restraint" of thinking has a positive, natural quality, rather than a constrained, negative, frustrating feel. Puritanism lost favor because it denied its subjects too much. Podhoretz's neo-Puritanism will fail for the same reason. In sum, the belief that if one is self-disciplined one cannot be sensuous, or that if one exercises restraint one cannot be Add $2.00 in Canada joyfully self-expressive, or that if one doesn't believe in moral Add $3.00 outside U.S.A. absolutes one can't be moral, is contradicted by intelligence and experience. Moreover, if Podhoretz and his fellow thinkers identify neo-conservativism with a dogmatic neo-Puritanism, Wil :IM:t111 3oe_y r the former will ultimately flounder with the latter. When we Box 5, Central Park Station find unattractive and unintelligent nay-saying such as this, we Buffalo, New York 14215 know its bête noire—a counterculture—will not be far be- hind. •

Spring 1982 39 system of workers' and social self-manage- ment that would unite market competition with democratic social planning and direc- tion." Marxist Humanism With due respect for Stojanovic's high intelligence, obvious sincerity, and unques- tioned good will, I must confess that, while I can foresee, under certain conditions, con- siderable overall improvements and major George V. Tomashevich advances in personal freedom for the Yugo- slays, I find it exceedingly difficult to imagine a genuine socialist democracy In Search of Democracy in Socialism: sciences, ."laws describe only average statis- within a system devoid of the very concept, History and Party Consciousness, by Sveto- tical tendencies" and that in the realm of let alone the institution, of loyal opposition. zar Stojanovic, translated by Gerson S. Sher current history nothing is inevitable or Nevertheless, to Stojanovic, and not only to (Buffalo, N.Y.: , 1981), guaranteed, not even the survival of man- him, democratic socialism remains an $16.95. kind, let alone its continued "progress" and ethically desirable possibility and a the "necessity" of socialism. worthwhile social goal. Svetozar Stojanovic is an internationally Politically, the most tantalizing chapter Morally, the most moving and convinc- recognized Marxist humanist and a leading is the author's hopeful discussion of the ing part of this book is the Serbian member of the Praxis group of dissident opportunities for socialist democratization philosopher's treatment of the dignity of the philosophers recently removed from the in Yugoslavia. Among the difficulties and revolutionary in the ethics of humanistic University of Belgrade and known as the obstacles that remain to be overcome in his reciprocity. Here, it is quite evident that Belgrade Eight. This book is a thorough country, Professor Stojanovic identifies a Stojanovic is not only a distinguished critique of Marxist theory and practice definitely Stalinist dimension that remains professor of ethics but also a man of everywhere but especially in Eastern Europe residual even within Yugoslavia's anti- exceptional ethical sensitivity. and against the background of the Yugoslav Stalinism itself. While proudly pointing A painstaking Marxist humanist ex- experience. out all of Socialist Yugoslavia's undeniable egesis of the classics of Marxism (still treated Concise and condensed, tightly argued accomplishments in virtually every sphere of by too many as if they were scriptures of a and economically articulate, often highly socio-economic and cultural development new religion or works of actual hagi- abstract and delicately subtle in its points since the Second World War, the author, ography), Stojanovic's trenchant critique and locutions, In Search of Democracy in with exemplary honesty and considerable deftly cuts through the ossified dogmas and Socialism is an elegant volume that may daring, analyzes also its glaring political sclerotic cliches of Stalinism as well as require a modicum of concentration even shortcomings. through less orthodox, unorthodox, and from philosophically experienced and so- Especially valuable is his blunt differ- frankly "revisionist" interpretations of this phisticated readers. Yet, because it is excel- entiation between real and formal self- nearly all-inclusive and quasi-scholastic lently written and beautifully and faithfully management and his candid admission that philosophy. translated, it reads very smoothly and well. "genuinely political questions are tacitly A meticulously documented and wholly The book is divided into three parts reserved for the organization of the LCY admirable piece of mature and erudite ("Marxism and Historical Action," "Au- [League of Yugoslav Communists], particu- critical scholarship, this book may contri- thoritarian and Democratic Communism," larly its leadership." In the light of this bute to the process of dedogmatization and and "On the Destruction of Communist simple fact, all arguments as to whether the demythologizing everywhere. Such a de- Dignity and on the Ethics of the Revolu- present Yugoslav system is or is not a one- velopment would be especially welcome in tionary") and contains a brief Author's Note party system seem to amount to semantic that part of the world in which Marxism is and an informative and insightful Foreword acrobatics, political sophistry, and a waste an officially sanctioned and protected, if not by Gerson S. Sher. of time. the only permitted, world-view. Moreover, Epistemologically the most interesting In Stojanovic's own words, "In the and perhaps beyond its author's intentions, chapter is, in my opinion, the one dealing Party true elections do not exist and this work may also contribute to an eventual with the contradiction between strict and virtually without exception there is one process of global "demarxification." By this tempered implicit in the am- candidate for each major position." Under I certainly do not mean the destruction and biguities and inconsistencies found in the such conditions it is, of course, ridiculous elimination of all traces of Marx's pervasive, writings of Marx and Engels that make their even to speak of the rights of the minority. powerful, and often useful intellectual influ- theory of history susceptible to misunder- Consequently, Stojanovic stresses the need ence, but merely the critically respectful standings and distortion. This chapter in- for creating "defenses and counterbalances" consignment of his philosophy to its proper cludes Professor Stojanovic's observation to the political monopoly of individual place (among others) in the history of major that, even in a good part of the natural Marxists. and he states without hesitation social doctrines of the nineteenth and that "no further democratization is possible twentieth centuries. This implies, in agree- ... so long as democracy in the Party is still ment with Stojanovic himself, going beyond George V. Tomashevich is professor of in its infancy." To avoid the negative Marx, which, of course, does not mean anthropology at the State University Col- consequences of both authoritarian statism without Marx. lege at Buffalo, the translator of major phil- and classical economic liberalism, the au- In one of his inspired aphorisms, sophical works, and the author of numerous thor sees the possibility of a genuinely Nietzsche wisely cautions: "Whoever battles scholarly articles, monographs, and reviews. democratic socialism in "an all-embracing with monsters had better see that it does not

40

turn him into a monster. And if you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back Film into you." In that respect, no less than in his earlier Between Ideals and Reality (1973), Stojanovic comes out of this difficult "Reds" venture with flying colors. Apparently almost unscathed by his unceasing battle with "monsters" and unshaken by his long gazing into a dizzying abyss, he demon- strates again that he is a decent and civilized human being not only of rare Hal Crowther courage and integrity but also of a Dra Ii ing Grego,• Vigrass penetrating critical intellect. Almost hr completely emancipated from the labyrin- Damned by the political right and beatified distrusted private property and private thine ideological nightmare with which he by the liberal critical establishment, Warren ambition and looked to Marx and Lenin for deals, he analyzes and unravels it with the Beatty's Reds attracted more attention of all the hope of the world. Looking back dexterity and precision of a surgeon. kinds than any other American film released through the moral wreckage that the Cult of I wish to stress that my reference to the in 1981. Joe McCarthy's descendants sug- Self has made of this culture, it seems as entire philosophical farrago of Marxism gested that it was bankrolled by the Kremlin. remote and innocent as the Age of Pericles. (and especially Stalinism) as an ideological Paramount compares it to Dr. Zhivago and Reds recaptures that innocence, and it nightmare is not an expression of personal Gone with the Wind and bills it as "the most recaptures the excitement that the Russian arbitrariness or anti-socialist bias, but of acclaimed motion picture of our time." experiment generated for thinkers and utter intellectual exasperation and emotion- I don't think most reasonable audiences idealists in every country. al exhaustion from too many instances of will find it either subversive or sublime. By For that I recommend it. It should be an pseudo-dialectical double-talk in the various any Communist standard its politics are education and perhaps even an inspiration writings cited and properly criticized by the reactionary. The Bolshevik revolution takes for a generation sadly lacking in both. But author. a back seat to a bohemian love story. it's hardly a masterpiece. I think Beatty's While reading this challenging and Beatty's hero, John Reed, the most com- politics survive his counter-revolutionary absorbing work, I could not resist the mitted American communist of his day, ego better than does his filmcraft. recurrent impression that no one has a makes an apocryphal speech at the end of Reds' most successful innovation is the monopoly on either socialism or democracy, the film defending the dignity of the series of interviews with the aging "witness- that, despite all its impressive aspects, individual against the collective. In the early, es"—including Henry Miller, Dora Russell, Marxism obviously limps on the ethical leg, optimistic hours of the Bolshevik experi- and George Jessel—who recall John Reed and that, at least as interpreted and applied ment, American sympathizers like Reed and and Louise Bryant and the politics of their thus far, it is, alas, not a viable alternative to Emma Goldman are given insights into its day. For me, these documentary interrup- the admittedly imperfect capitalist societies future failures that all too few American tions, with the camera loving their ruined of the Western world. Besides, the prevalent socialists achieved before the Spanish Civil faces as it does, are the heart and integrity of tendency of most Marxist-Leninists to treat War. The film is saturated with the person- the film. They give Reds an authority very the values, institutions, and processes of so- ality and prejudices of Warren Beatty, its rare in the screen's historical fiction. They called bourgeois democracy with supercili- producer, director, screenwriter, and prin- make an important point, that history is ous condescension, cynical opportunism, cipal performer. Through the eyes of John only as clear as the memories of a few and contempt, represents the most danger- Reed, or of almost any of the historical survivors—not very clear, for the most part, ous flaw, if not the Achilles' heel, of their characters Beatty recreates, Reds is an and confused by willful omissions and entire system. Such a retrogressive attitude artifact of the liberal mainstream, bourgeois contradictory interpretations. They also free implies a lack of appreciation of authentic and sentimental in the extreme. Warren Beatty to make his own interpreta- heroes of earlier revolutions and fighters for But Reds wasn't intended for distribu- tions with a clearer conscience. human freedom from earlier centuries. It is tion in the Soviet Union. Its commercial The result is a lopsided three-hour wasteful of human effort, disrespectful release in this country at this reactionary monster of a movie, distinctly Hollywood in toward the past, and in total disregard of moment is an act of courage that we spite of itself but pulled out of shape more by elementary human rights and freedoms shouldn't belittle. In the face of a red-baiting ambition and enthusiasm than by any already achieved, conducive to the tyranny White House and a whole new Cold War, it cynical commercial instincts. Beatty's tre- of a dictator over a committee, of that glorifies the only American buried in the mendous commitment is contagious and his committee over a party, of that party over a Kremlin, an obscure figure either vilified or years of research are evident. But the social class, and, in the name of that class but tactfully forgotten by most historians. It collective intelligence that John Reed be- not necessarily in its interest, over the rest of resurrects, along with John Reed, an era lieved in and that makes great films possible society. Needless to say, this stricture does when "the best and the brightest" and the has been blunted by Beatty's passion to do it not apply to Professor Stojanovic but to the most privileged young Americans were for the ages and to do it all himself. phenomenon he rightly criticizes. idealists and altruists. There was a time not His own role, for instance, is so swollen This important and valuable book long ago when most of our intellectuals that Reds doesn't really show us life on the should be read by all who are seriously pre-war American Left in any depth. It is, Hal Crowther, critic, columnist, and screen- instead, a psychological study of John Reed, interested in the far-reaching philosophical Spectator, in Raleigh, writer, is editor of the radical martyr. It's natural, considering the and socio-political impact of Marxism on North Carolina. the modern world. • subject matter, that Reds should be corn-

Spring 1982 41 pared to Dr. Zhivago. Besides the revolu- tionary backdrop, there's the saintly, char- ismatic innocent at the center of the story, Counterpoint trapped in a tragic love affair. But from Dr. Zhivago I distinctly remember the support- ing performances of Rod Steiger, Alec Guinness, Tom Courtenay, Ralph Richard- Teen-age Pregnancy son, et al. Three years from now no one recalling Reds will picture anyone except Beatty and Dianne Keaton as Louise Bryant, the dentist's wife who followed John Reed to the ends of the earth. Somewhere in the editing Edward Herrmann lost every- Vern Bullough thing of substance from his performance as Max Eastman, the radical editor whose history is at least as fascinating as Reed's. I have a hard time in responding to the for a time but ultimately failed. Confronted Paul Servino was buried, too. Maureen attack by Sol Gordon and Jane Gilgun on with this failure the church turned to Stapleton, with all her skills, barely salvages my article concerning the myths of teen-age picturing a loving, compassionate mother of her role of anarchist Emma Goldman from pregnancy. Sol Gordon is a dedicated sex God who could intercede for them and who the same fate. Jack Nicholson gives an inter- educator who has been rather viciously was susceptible to all kinds of pleas. I would esting interpretation of Eugene O'Neill — attacked by members of the Moral Majority rather adopt something closer to the letter some would say long on Jack and short on and similar groups. Perhaps in responding than to the former. To exaggerate as Gordon Gene—but his role is almost irrelevant to the to them he has developed a kind of and Gilgun do in their ad hominem reply main narrative. All the script requires is sophomoric debating skill that obscures the and to state statistics in the worst possible someone to commit adultery with Louise. basic facts. form, when the same data can be compared Beatty doesn't dwarf all these tough Teen-age pregnancy proportionately is in other ways to give a more positive picture, pros with raw talent. He's a better actor than down since 1960. Teen-age births are also as I did, is to use the hell-fire and damnation Omar Sharif, but not drastically better. The down. The evidence for this is overwhelming tactics. Unfortunately, it has also played difference is that he was in charge. and I do not know of any researcher who right into the hands of the Moral Majority, This love story is less melting and far would disagree. For example, Gordon and who blame secular humanists for all the ills more cerebral than Zhivago and Lara's. As Gilgun quote Vinovskis, whose article "An of society. Moreover, such scare tactics have many critics noted, it's more balanced by `Epidemic' of Adolescent Pregnancy? Some been responsible for the so-called chastity feminist enlightenment. Beatty and Keaton Historical Considerations," appeared in the legislation that I deplore and I believe are irresistible in their own ways, consid- Journal of Family History, 6 (1981), 205-30, Gordon does also. He, however, is in part to derably more winsome, I expect, than their after my piece in FREE INQUIRY. Vinovskis's blame for such misguided efforts. historical models. But the worst part of article makes the same point mine did, that What we as secular humanists should Beatty's decision to focus so tightly on the teen-age pregnancy is down. Vinovskis, emphasize is that we are winning the battle love story is some very banal storytelling moreover, emphasizes the political dangers against teen-age pregnancy, something I that stayed in the film—presumably at the of not pointing out this fact. Gordon and tried to say. Teen-age sexuality is a fact of expense of other roles. There are moments Gilgun also quote the recent publication of biological existence, although some people of domestic cuteness better left to Lucy and the Guttmacher Institute, Teenage Preg- involved with teen-agers seem to forget this. Desi, intended to humanize these ideologues nancy: The Problem That Hasn't Gone It is not teen-age pregnancy that should be but ultimately cheapening them instead. Away (1981), which was also published after our concern but the way society deals with All the beauty and emotion that Reds my article appeared and which indirectly teen-age sexuality and the changing mar- achieves can't obscure a long series of these admits that its earlier publication, Epidemic riage patterns. There are a lot of reasons that peculiar choices, most of them in the of Teenage Pregnancy, was statistically teen-agers get pregnant, and these have been direction of a one-man show. The only misleading, a point Vinovskis also makes. I listed in the research with which I am well admission that Beatty didn't do everything agree with Gordon and Gilgun that there is a acquainted. The reasons I gave are widely himself is the unusually prominent place in rise among younger teen-agers of both accepted, although the base reason they get the credits for the much-acclaimed editor pregnancies and childbirth; but, while sta- pregnant is because they engage in sexual Dede Allen. The film editor's job is to create tistically the rise is very great, the total intercourse. I should add also that many get a coherent story out of a vast bulk of raw numbers involved are not very large. pregnant and keep their children because material, in this case a bulk almost too vast The basic problem with the approach of our society rewards them, in spite of its to imagine. But it's the director—especially Gordon and Gilgun is their tactics, with formal denunciations, through Aid to De- if he's also the producer, writer and star— which I and others disagree. The medieval pendent Children and other such programs. who tells the editor what that story ought to Christian church tried several ways to get Teen-agers, however, are using contracep- be. people to conform to Christian practice; one tives in ever increasing numbers (a good Beatty comes close enough to a memo- was to frighten them by painting dire thing), but they are not always using the rable, distinguished motion picture to make pictures of hell and damnation. It worked most effective contraceptives (something we me regret that he didn't come closer. In his can deal with). When they get pregnant, they years on this project he learned a lot about no longer feel forced to get married (a good Vern Bullough is president of the Society for communists, but he didn't learn a lot from . thing), but too many still get pregnant (not the Scientific Study of Sex. them. • so good). Some of the new contraceptives,

42 Fiee In%I. such as the sponge diaphragm, may help, but of teen-age pregnancy, which have been emperor has no clothes might be painful to the problem will remain. Sol Gordon and I seized upon by the mass media to paint an those who persist in believing that he does, probably agree on this. unrealistic picture of teen-agers. Its latest but I think it is a good thing. In short, if Sol As a humanist I resent the misleading publication is much better but it too Gordon cannot recognize his friends any- statistics of the Guttmacher Institute in its emphasizes the negative rather than the more, he is in deep trouble, and so is the • earlier publication portraying an epidemic positive. To point out that sometimes the whole field of sex education.

White House. Is it any wonder that Sidney Hook has been called "the intellectuals' Joe My Attitude Toward the Soviet Union McCarthy"? Finally, Hook castigates me for not protesting against the Soviet Government's treatment of dissidents in more recent years. I must admit that, as I struggled through the Corliss Lamont seventies to my present age of almost 80, I became a bit tired and less inclined to make I am bored stiff by Sidney Hook's long- ship and condemns as a scoundrel anyone public pronouncements on controversial winded, two-page letter in FREE INQUIRY who finds something good in Soviet society. issues. My last press statement about the (Winter 1981) attacking me a second time He has a strange, pathological obsession Soviet Union was a letter published by the on December 3, 1970, and for my attitude toward the Soviet Union and about me and apparently wishes to ruin my New York Times its critics, centering around an Open Letter reputation by citing my alleged mistakes apparently overlooked by nonscholar signed by some 400 Americans, including concerning the Soviet Union. Well, I frankly Hook. Here is the letter, headed "Rights myself, more than 40 years ago in September confess to having made errors of judgment Denied in USSR": It is welcome news for all supporters 1939. This document pointed out ten basic about the USSR and other nations as well. of civil liberties that three prominent differences between Soviet Socialism and Who hasn't? Soviet physicists have formed a committee totalitarian Fascism and was designed to However, to judge Americans primarily for human rights to defend free speech and in terms of their views on foreign affairs is show that "there exists a sound and other freedoms in the Soviet Union. (News unjustified, yet constantly resorted to by permanent basis" in mutual aims "for story, Nov. 16.) Lovers of freedom will cooperation between the USA and the enemies of the Soviet regime. Ever since the wish this committee ail success. USSR on behalf of world peace." I believe great Russian Revolution of 1917 this has Unfortunately, over the past few years that the Open Letter helped encourage the been a most unfortunate divisive factor the Soviet authorities have repeatedly sent American people to welcome and assist the among U.S. radicals and liberals. Hook dissenters to labor camps for criticizing Soviet Union when a little more than two pretends that the chief interest in my life has some aspect of Government policy. years later the United States became its ally been the Soviet Union and never mentions Among the most recent victims are Revolt I. Pimenov, Leningrad mathematician, in World War II. Hook's exaggerated objec- my other main interests, such as the sentenced to five years; and Andrei A. tions to one sentence in the Open Letter that philosophy of Humanism, the conservation Amalrik, author of "Will the Soviet Union of Nature, civil liberties, and international he deliberately misinterpreted are too trivial Survive Until 1984?," sentenced to three peace. During the past two decades I have to refute once more. years. Professor Hook assails me bitterly in become less and less concerned about the Now, 53 years after the great Russian his second letter for having initially defend- USSR. Revolution of 1917, it is high time for the ed the Moscow Trials of 1936-38, although I But what about Hook himself, who is so Soviet Government to permit the full later repudiated that position and denounc- fond of vilifying others? This is the man who freedom of expression that is guaranteed in ed "Stalin's terrible tyranny." I have con- in his 1953 book, Heresy, Yes—But Con- the noteworthy Soviet Constitution of stantly deplored the lack of civil liberties and spiracy, No, claimed that Communists 1936. Article 125 states: "In conformity with the interests of the working people, democracy in the USSR. But 1 have praised should not have the protection of the Bill of and in order to strengthen the socialist the Soviets for their achievements in other Rights because they were in conspiracy to system, the citizens of the USSR are subvert the government and the Constitu- fields, such as socio-economic planning, guaranteed by law: freedom of speech; tion. This volume provided an intellectual social services, the liberation of women, freedom of the press; freedom of assembly, medicine, free education, science, space basis for the wild anti-Communist witch- including the holding of mass meetings; technology, and their massive role in the hunt and the worst ravages of McCarthyism. freedom of street processions and demon- defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II. I In the same year Hook's American Commit- strations." still regard the Soviet Union with "critical tee for Cultural Freedom outrageously 1 speak as an American who for many sympathy," as I do many other countries. smeared the Emergency Civil Liberties years has been sympathetic toward the Hook, on the other hand, when discuss- Committee as "a Communist front." This is• many splendid achievements of the Soviet Union and as one who has consistently ing the Soviet Union, concentrates almost the man, too, who supported the shameful worked for American-Soviet cooperation entirely on its lamentable political dictator- U.S. military aggression in Vietnam, who in and understanding. And 1 urge that the 1970 advised Richard Nixon on how to quell Soviet Government free all individuals the nationwide unrest among college and A well-known humanist, Corliss Lamont is sentenced for mere dissent and make university students over the Vietnam War, the author of Yes to Life (Horizon Press, genuine efforts to establish the democratic and who ignominiously paid a complimen- 1981). rights promised in the Soviet Constitution. tary visit to this corrupt president in the •

43 Spring 1982 (Letters continued. from page 5) methodology. It is a great way to learn hypothesized to exist, is within the purview Actually the "Big Bang" theory is arbitrary language symbols or how to read, of science, and any idea, whether secular or irrelevant to questions concerning the truth but an unsound method of logical reasoning. religious in origin, is subject to rational of the Bible, the existence of God, or the criticism. credibility of religion. It can be true while the Ronald E. Mohar The cord of culture—which binds past, others are wrong. The Bible is filled with a Syracuse, New York present, and future—is memory; as Bell hodge-podge of many things—from pieces says. But we do not dishonor the memory of of Hammurabi's Code to elements of "The Return of the Sacred?" our ancestors when we acknowledge that and Mesopota- they were mistaken about the shape of the mian creation myths. There is even a Daniel Bell's essay, "The Return of the earth or the existence of God. And we do not distorted version of a standard Middle- Sacred?" (FI, Fall 1981) is stimulating and honor ourselves, or our children, by clinging Eastern myth not very different from the insightful, yet his analysis and outlook are so to old myths that offer bogus answers to story of Cyrus the Great. Some parts can be limited and incomplete as to vitiate his existential questions. true while other parts are false, and nothing conclusion. Bell's central argument is that assures that assertions are, if true, true for religion provides "coherent answers to the Leslie E. Ballentine the right reasons. core existential questions that confront Dept. of Physics Just any old argument with a true every human group" and that a secular Simon Fraser University conclusion does not either constitute logical- culture somehow is incapable of satisfying Vancouver, British Columbia ly sound reasoning or assure the truth of the these human needs. Bell's view of a culture premises with logical certainty. My dog's devoid of religion is expressed through a Pro-Freedom for Whom? name is Ivan, John Kennedy was the first quotation from Max Weber: "With the President of the United States; therefore my progress of science and technology . . . Edward Roeder's article "Business Financ- name is Ronald Mohar proves very little. reality has become dreary, flat and utilitar- ing of the Repressive Right"(FI, Fall 1981), Assume that Big Bang is true and therefore ian, leaving a great void in the souls of men." was indeed illuminating. However, before I the Bible is close in that respect. It does not This view is so myopic and constricted would be able to accept his conclusions, I follow that the Bible is right for the correct that I would have thought no educated would have to make a closer inspection of reason, nor does it follow that God caused person could take it seriously. It totally his evidence in light of his particular political the Bang, since there are many possibilities. ignores art, which brightens the aesthetic leaning .. But Big Bang in itself proves little if the side of life in religious and secular societies He interprets a vote to facilitate en- universe cycles. That in turn depends upon alike. It ignores the stimulation and nourish- forcement of laws against housing discrim- the amount of mass in the universe, and the ment of the intellect by science in secular ination as pro-freedom. Pro-freedom for fact that we cannot account for enough mass society. (Weber's statement, read logically whom? He certainly is not concerned with to assure a retracting process does not prove rather than literally, does not speak of such aspects of such laws that would violate that it does not exist. New mass is always "science," but only of the unanalyzed unit the property-owner's right to rent to whom- being discovered. "science-and-technology," which in the ever he wishes. Should not the owner of such But the worst flaw in attempts to prove mouth of someone lacking scientific literacy property have the freedom of renting to either the existence of God or the accuracy means merely "utilitarian industrial tech- whomever he wishes? Or is his freedom (and of religion via such arguments amounts to nology. ") right) to be sacrificed for the renter's essentially the same flaw from which most of Bell's frequent references to Marx and "freedom"? .. . the so-called proofs of God suffer. Attempts Hegel suggest that he regards them as the to infer from consequent to antecedent prime philosophical representatives of sec- Raymond E. Miller directly amount to a logically fallacious ularism. This is far from true. While Marx West Chicago, Illinois process called "affirming the consequent," retains some relevance in political economy, e.g., all dogs are mammals, Fido is a Hegel is hardly read except by professional A Humanist Classic mammal, so Fido is a dog; if it is raining, philosophers who wish to subject their then there are clouds; there are clouds, so it students to the same training exercises they In your Spring 1981 issue, you listed books is raining. This kind of reasoning is the themselves received. For the atheistic an- which were rated as highest in value for reason that the argument from design does swers to existential questions one may read humanist use. I couldn't help but notice you not work, and the reason that the truth of , Chapman Cohen, and omitted the one I would have recommended. Big Bang assures nothing. Charles Bradlaugh. In short, Bell's bleak My choice is Reason and Belief by Big Bang is insufficient to prove very vision of a nonreligious culture is derived by Brand Blanshard, who I consider to be the much and also fails as a necessary condition the crude device of ignoring all that is best— most distinguished living proponent of for the proof of God, the accuracy of the art, science, and philosophy—in the secular rationalist philosophy. This book delineates Bible, and the rest. If true, the theory would culture. the place of reason in religion; that, in only appeal to superstition—that is big- What are the "coherent answers" that religion, reasonableness should rule. I feel otry—because the respective truths would religion provides? If Bell would give us some this book is more salient than are his other be coincidental. That is the very essence of examples we would be better able to debate two works you did mention. Blanshhrd is superstition. his claim. Many of the traditional religious persuasive in his argument, so lucid, so Readers might find it interesting to "answers" are not only incoherent but readable, and uncompromisingly honest. He consult B. F. Skinner's "'Superstition' in the demonstrably false. Bell claims that "Cul- is truly an original thinker. Pigeon" in Journal of Experimental Psyc- ture [religion] is a different realm from hology (General), April 1948, pp. 168-72, to nature [science]" (bracketed words added). Arthur W. Lindholm understand the erroneous nature of such But in fact anything that exists, or is Terre Haute, Indiana 44 aims akrute "The Tyranny of God." New, vital abridg- THE FEMINIST BOOK CLUB exists to ment of 1921 atheist masterpiece by Joseph serve the literary tastes of feminists and CLASSIFIED Lewis. $4.00. Rates progressive thinkers. Send for our free book list. 268 Oak Drive, Coraopolis, PA 15108. Per word (single insertion) "Our Animal Heritage and Savage Mind." 10-word minimum .40 cents Reprint of compelling 1921 secularist disser- SECULAR HUMANIST, FREE- tation by James Harvey Robinson. Paper 10% discount for placement in 3 con- THOUGHT LITERATURE. Outstanding secutive issues $3.00. material since 1968. Free catalogue. Box numbers available $1.00 INDEPENDENT PUBLICATIONS, Box Payment for insertion must accom- INDEPENDENT PUBLICATIONS, Box 162, Paterson, NJ 07543-0162. pany copy. 162, Paterson, NJ 07543-0162. (We pay postage if both are ordered, otherwise add For additional information and rates HOW CAN I KNOW $1.00. NJ add 5% tax.) for classified display advertising, WHAT TO BELIEVE? write: Professional writing, editing, research. M & Looking for attractive study pro- FREE INQUIRY T Associates, Box 8366, Chicago, IL 60680. gram to stimulate children's Classified Dept. (312) 327-2582. ethical development? Searching Box 5, Central Park Station for ethical educational materi- Buffalo, N.Y. 14215 RUSSELL SOCIETY. Infor- BERTRAND als that awaken interest and mation: FI, RD1, Box 409, Coopersburg, responsibility in children and PA 18036. youth while deepening insight JESUS WAS A HYPOCRITE! Get the "THE MORAL MAJORITY IS NEITH- and understanding? For free facts. Convince your friends. $1.00 Crusade ER" Buttons, Bumperstickers $1.00, $3/ descriptive order list, write Publications, C-33/300b, Redmond, WA five, $35/100. Donnelly/Colt, Box 271-FI, Educational Materials, AMERI- 98052. New Vernon, NJ 07976. CAN ETHICAL UNION, Dept. F, 2 West 64 Street, NYC 10023 HUMANIST CALENDAR BRINGS YOU FREE SAMPLE: Read the muckraking enjoyable reminders of dates of interest, by political newsletter Washington is talking BEYOND MONOGAMY, open relation- mail every month. $6 per year. HUMAN- about. 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Spring 1982 45 Creationists Seek Ban on Some Texts

A Christian lobby is gearing up for a massive ON THE BARRICADES statewide effort to rid public schools of textbooks it believes violate a state policy regulating the way evolution is taught to California school pupils. Organizers of the campaign are claiming that scores of science textbooks are not in compliance with the state Education Code, which they say calls for a balanced treatment of both creation and evolution in the classroom. Judge Overturns Arkansas world; (4) Its conclusions are tentative, i.e., The lobby, known as the Creation Law On Creationism are not necessarily the final word; and (5) it Creed Committee, contends that evolution is falsifiable. is being taught as fact, not theory. The Little Rock, Ark., Jan. 5 (A. P.)—A Federal Creation science ... fails to meet these Christian community argues that is a district judge today overturned the Ar- essential characteristics. First [it] asserts violation of the rights of Christian pupils in kansas law requiring "balanced"class-room sudden creation "from nothing." Such a public schools. Lobby organizers say they treatment for the theories of evolution and concept is not science because it depends will review science textbooks and send "creation science." upon supernatural intervention which is not hundreds of monitors into classrooms in In stopping the state from carrying out guided by . It is not explanatory many of the state's 1,100 school districts to the law, Arkansas Act 590, Judge William by reference to natural law, is not testable determine whether classroom teachers are Ray Overton of the United States District and is not , falsifiable... . violating the policy. Court declared in a 38-page opinion that The creationist writers concede that any "We are no longer going to sit quiet/) "creation science" has no scientific merit or kind of Genesis flood depends upon on the sidelines while our children's religious educational value. supernatural intervention. A worldwide beliefs are violated by the teaching of He ruled: "Since creation science is not flood as an explanation of the world's evolution as fact and by the ridiculing of science, the conclusion is inescapable that geology is not the product of natural law, creation theories," said the Rev. Robert the only real effect of Act 590 is the nor can its occurrence be explained by Grant, one of the organizers. advancement of religion." natural law. "When evolution is taught as fact rather "It is simply and purely an effort to "Relatively recent inception" has no than theory, and creationist theories are introduce the biblical version of creation scientific meaning. It can only he given ignored or discounted, that amounts to a info the public school curricula," he said. meaning by reference to creationist writings direct attack on personal religious beliefs." Since this would violate the Constitution's which place the age at between 6,000 and "We want this indoctrination of guarantees of separation of church and 20,000 rears because of the genealogy of the students to stop — period," said Nell state, he said, the act therefore must be Old Testament. Such a reasoning process is Segraves of Tierrasanta, who is administra- barred from execution. (Reginald Stuart, in not the product of natural law; nor is it tor of the local Creation Science Research , Jan. 6, 1982) tentative. [There are] individuals and groups Center and is involved in the statewide who work independently in such varied lobby. (John Gilmore, in the San Diego Excerpts from Decision by fields as biology, paleontology, geology and Evening Tribune, Nov. 23, 1981) astronomy. Their work is published and Judge William Overton on subject to review and testing by their peers Public Would Teach Both Arkansas' Creation-Science Law Evolution and Creationism The creationists' methods do not take The evidence establishes that the definition data, weigh it against the opposing scientific New York (A P) — Three of four Americans of "creation-science"has as its unmentioned data. Instead, they take the literal wording believe that both the scientific theory of reference the first I1 chapters of the Book of of the Book of Genesis and attempt to find evolution and the biblical theory of creation Genesis. Among the man) creation epics in scientific support for it... . should be taught in public schools, human history, the account of sudden The court would never criticize or according to the latest - creation from nothing, or creatio ex nihilo, discredit any person's testimony based on NBC News polL .. . and subsequent destruction of the world by his or her religious beliefs. While anybody is In the poll, 1,598 adults were .flood is unique to Genesis. The concepts are free to approach a scientific inquiry in any telephoned in a nationwide scientific the literal. fundamentalists' views of Genesis. fashion they choose, they cannot properly random sampling Oct. 25-26. describe the methodology used as scientific, In response to the question, "Do you The essential characteristics of science if they start with a conclusion and refuse to think public schools should teach only the are: (I) It is guided by natural law; (2) It has change it regardless of the evidence scientific theory of evolution, only the to be explanatory by reference to natural developed during the course of the in- biblical theory of creation, or should schools law; (3) It is testable against the empirical vestigation. (New York Times, Jan. 6, 1982) offer both theories?" 76 percent said public

46 YLIGG schools should teach both theories. That's because there is no health textbook reserved for those who live in obedience to Eight percent said only the scientific this year. His rules. theory, 10 percent said only the biblical Last fall, the Alden school board voted Obviously, a right, to be valid, must be theory and 6 percent were unsure. (Buffalo to forbid the use of the textbook "Health" by one that is consistent with God's laws. The Courier Express) John LaPlace in high school health classes Christian must be vert' careful that he does after parents objected to its sections on not condone sin by supporting a false right. Jerry Falwell's Xmas masturbation and homosexuality. The Homosexual activity, for example, is clearly Eve Message books were pulled from the classrooms and sinful, as is abortion; a Christian cannot returned to the publisher, Prentice-Hall support gay rights" or "abortion rights." We are still $500,000 in debt.... 1 sincerely Inc., who refunded the cost. Sadly, many Christians do not accept believe that Moral Majority is making a As a result, Alden health teachers have Biblical authority and therefore become difference in America. We've won some been teaching without a textbook since last quite perplexed as they try to deal with these great victories for morality in 1981. And November. The teachers have permission to issues. The Human Rights proclamation 1982 should be our greatest year. The select another book, but so far they haven't should not confuse that person who has a pornographers, abortionists, drug pushers, found another that they feel would be high view of Biblical authority and who has secular humanists, and other enemies of acceptable to both the teachers and the committed himself to the simple message of traditional American moral values are community. the Scriptures... . aware we are hurting financially ... and are And the controversy over sex education The Human Rights Declaration, thus, hoping we will go out of business. We must in Alden seems to have disappeared with the the human rights movement, is based upon a survive! The, future of America's children is disappearance of the disputed textbook. secular humanistic belief system that at stake . . .(Jerry Falwell, in a Moral "At the present time the health teachers assumes man to possess inherent goodness Majority fund-raising letter, Dec. 24, 1981) have opted not to order a textbook," and dignity. This belief system is not Principal William Tupay Jr. said. (Buf- afrrmed by Scripture... . National Council of Churches falo Courier Express) Secular humanism and its Declaration Head Attacks Jerry Falwell of Human Rights is a Utopian dream, an Anti-Humanists Warned empty shell, unworthy of man's commit- Cleveland, Nov. 6 — Bishop James of Bad Words ment. But it is Satan's trap for those Armstrong of Indiana, the newly elected who desire ho Lord. . . . (William S. president of the National Council of To help parents and voters identify the evil Anderson, in the Christian Citizen, Nov. Churches, has touched off considerable "Humanistic Programs" in schools and 1981) controversy with his outspoken liberal social communities the National Congress for views. At the same time, he has shown Educational Excellence has compiled a list Washington Humanists to Honor remarkable ability to retain the support of a of 300 words and phrases to watch for. The Early Woman Scientist broad spectrum of church people... . bad words include: academic freedom, A clue to his leadership style can be analysis, citizenship, democracy, racism and The Board of Directors of the Humanist found in a recent message attacking the values. (Washington CRAP Report, Nov. Association of the National Capital Area policies and views of the Rev. Jerry Falwell, 1981) (HA NCA) has voted to give the 1982 World the television evangelist. In a letter sent to Humanist Award to Hvpatia, one of the the 1,500 Methodist clergy in Indiana, the Christianity and Human Rights Western world's earliest woman scientist Bishop raised two "strenuous objections" to and philosopher, and a victim of Christian Mr. Falwell and his organization, Moral We have heard the term human rights often fanaticism. Majority. in the last ten rears. We Christians feel that As reported in Carl 's "Cosmos," "One," the Bishop wrote of Mr. we, of all people, should be committed to Hvpatia was the last scientist to work in the Falwell, "he is not Biblical. Two, his sexism human rights; and ret many of us are uneasy famous Alexandria Library. But because her and rigid legalism dehumanize the very with the way the term has been used... . work and philosophy were identified with persons for whom Christ lived and died." ... In the garden of Eden ... God paganism, she was murdered by a Christian He says he believes strongly that the announced the .first Declaration of Human mob in 415. The same zealots destroyed the mainstream Protestant and orthodox Rights: "You are free to eat, from any tree in Library itself afew years later .. .(Humanist churches that form the council must go the garden." God offered man the real Association of the National Capital Area beyond simply assailing the fundamentalist possibility of abundant life. This freedom — Newsletter, Jan. 1982) activist movement; they must respond to these rights — had limits: "But you must not many of the same moral issues raised by eat from the tree of knowledge of good and Moral Majority, but from their own evil"(Genesis 2:16-17). In the very beginning To our readers: perspective. (Kenneth Briggs, in the New God revealed the relationship between rights Free Inquiry welcomes the submission of York Times, Nov. 9, 1981) and the limitation of rights. He gave rights, but he also imposed rules. Man could only clippings for "On the Barricades." We pay $5.00 for each item used. Sex Study Is Bookless enjoy these rights as long as he remained obedient to God's rules... . THE EDITORS Parents of Alden, N.Y., High School It appears that basic human rights have Free Inquiry students can't complain about the health but one Source — the God of Abraham, Box 5, Central Park Station textbook their children are using this year. Isaac and Jacob. And these rights are Buffalo, NY 14215

Spring 1982 47

P,rtrcn' Prm, iz .p..11 Mpoit d SM' PO. (continued from front cover) forms of neo-orthodoxy that have rein- alleged revelations of Muhammad, tronic churches invade virtually every troduced outdated religious and meta- Joseph Smith, Mary Baker Eddy, the home in the land. Fundamentalist re- physical principles by means of the Reverend Moon, and other self-pro- ligion may become a powerful political ambiguous use of language and the claimed prophets? force. It disputes the validity of science, assertion that men and women can live 5. Are reinterpretations of ancient and especially the theory of evolution; it adequate lives only if they immerse their myths, symbols, and rituals necessary questions the right to abortion; it seeks uncertainties in ancient myths, symbols, for people who are attempting to live to limit sex education and to abridge the and rituals. This new obscurantism is sane, healthy, constructive lives, or are freedom to read; it is intent on tearing perpetuated by mainline theological these claims the result of nostalgic down the wall between church and scholars who seldom have their views yearnings for the absolutism of the past? state. In effect, it is undermining tradi- scrutinized or challenged. The public is 6. Is it not possible to develop an tional American freedom. thus led to believe that the claims of authentic and responsible morality What should be the response of religion are more genuine than is the based on human reason and experience skeptics, liberal religionists, and all free case. rather than on dogmatic biblical doc- thinking people who question this a- We submit that it is time this trines? genda? Science and free thought have imbalance be redressed and the claims We believe that it is time for the been attacked by religion in the past and of the Bible be responsibly examined American public to hear the dissenting have managed to survive, even flourish. and that the results be disseminated to scientific and philosophical point of Should fundamentalist religion be the public. With this in mind, we pro- view. We propose that this alternative taken seriously? We believe that the pose that the following questions be view be fully aired and debated as an proper mode of response is to appeal to discussed: antidote to unthinking biblical authori- the good sense of the American people, 1. Is the Bible divinely inspired tariansim. to defend freedom of religion, including and are the events so described miracu- Paul Kurtz, Editor of FREE INQUIRY the freedom not to believe, and to lous, or is it full of inconsistencies and Paul Beattie, President, Fellowship defend pluralism and the right to dissent falsehoods? of Religious Humanists in a free society. 2. Do biblical accounts of creation Sidney Hook, Emeritus Professor of We submit, however, that it is stand up when compared with the scien- Philosophy, NYU necessary to go one step further and tific theories of evolution? Joseph Fletcher, Professor of Medi- question the validity of the Bible, 3. Are the claims of the historical cal Ethics, University of Virginia openly and publicly. There is a rich life of Jesus and his divinity open to Medical School tradition in biblical scholarship, which question? Gerald Larue, Emeritus Professor includes studies in comparative reli- 4. If the so-called revelations of of Archaeology and Biblical gion, folklore, archaeology, and literary the Old and New Testaments are to be History, USC-Los Angeles analysis. These disciplines have scru- taken as special sources of truth, why Richard Taylor, Professor of Phi- tinized the claims of the Bible (whether not also take seriously the more recent losophy, University of Rochester interpreted literally or metaphorically) and the methods used to compile the biblical record have been laid bare. The Bible has literary value and it may indeed be a source of moral inspiration, but it is, in the last analysis, a human document, a product of an ancient, pre- scientific people. It is full of contradic- tions and inconsistencies, and its world- view is confuted by modern science and philosophy. Unfortunately, although these criticisms have been discussed in serious philosophical and theological journals, the public is largely unaware of them. An entire generation of college students has been denied the benefit of free inquiry concerning religion. The powerful rational analysis of religion that developed from the eighteenth cen- tury through the first two decades of the twentieth has been dissipated by various