The Shocking Truth About Faith-Healing
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Summer 1986 Vol. 6, No. 3 $3.75 The Shocking Truth About Faith-Healing How Peter Popoff uses secret radio transmissions to receive "messages from heaven." by James Randi and Paul Kurtz, Steven Schafersman, Robert Steiner, William McMahon and James Griffis on PETER POPOFF, W. V. GRANT, DAVID PAUL, AND ERNEST ANGLEY Also: Gerard T. Straub: An Inside View of Pat Robertson's Organization Belief and Unbelief Worldwide Plus: B. F. Skinner on Pope John Paul II SUMMER 1986, VOL. 6, NO. 3 ISSN 0272-0701 Contents 3 LETTERS TO THE EDITOR 26 EDITORIALS 61 IN THE NAME OF GOD 24 ON THE BARRICADES 28 BIBLICAL SCORECARD SPECIAL FEATURE: THE SHOCKING TRUTH ABOUT FAITH-HEALING 5 Deceit in the Name of God: What Can Be Done? Paul Kurtz 6 Peter Popoff Reaches Heaven Via 39.17 Megahertz James Randi 8 Peter Popoff: Miracle Worker or Scam Artist7 Steven Schafersman 10 Behind the Scenes with Peter Popoff Robert A. Steiner 12 W. V. Grant's Faith-Healing Act Revisited Paul Kurtz 15 Further Reflections on Ernest Angley William E. McMahon and James B. Griffis 18 Salvation for Sale: An Inside View of Pat Robertson's Organization Gerard T. Straub BELIEF AND UNBELIEF WORLDWIDE 30 Religipus Skepticism in Latin America Jorge J. E. Gracia 36 Science, Technology and Ideology in the Hispanic World Mario Bunge 41 Religious Belief in Contemporary Indian Society M. P. Rege 49 Humanism in Modern India: An Interview with V. M. Tarkunde Tariq Ismail 54 The Revolt Against the Lightning Rod Al Seckel and John Edwards VIEWPOINTS 56 Vatican Eyes Tighter Control of Catholic Colleges Thomas Flynn 56 A Dangerous Precedent Marjorie Reiley Maguire 57 Sleeping in Peace B. F. Skinner BOOKS 59 Defending Humanist Ethics Konstantin Kolenda 59 A Mormon University Vern L. Bullough 62 CLASSIFIED Editor: Paul Kurtz Associate Editors: Doris Doyle, Steven L. Mitchell, Lee Nisbet, Gordon Stein Managing Editor: Andrea Szalanski Contributing Editors: Lionel Abel, author, critic; Robert S. Alley, professor of humanities, University of Richmond; Paul Beattie, president, Fellowship of Religious Humanists; Jo-Ann Boydston, director, Dewey Center; Laurence Briskman, lecturer, Edinburgh University, Scotland; Vern Bullough, historian, State University of New York College at Buffalo; Paul Edwards, professor of philosophy, Brooklyn College; Albert Ellis, director, Institute for Rational Living; Roy P. Fairfield, social scientist, Union Graduate School; Joseph Fletcher, theologian, University of Virginia Medical School; Antony Flew, philosopher, Reading University, England; R. Joseph Hoffmann, associate professor of biblical studies, University of Michigan; Sidney Hook, professor emeritus of philosophy, NYU; Marvin Kohl, philosopher, State University of New York College at Fredonia; Jean Kotkin, executive director, American Ethical Union; Gerald Larue, professor emeritus of archaeology and biblical history, USC; Ronald A. Lindsay, attorney, Washington, D.C.; Howard Radest, director, Ethical Culture Schools; Ralph Raico, associate professor of history, State University of New York College at Buffalo; Robert Rimmer, author; William Ryan, free-lance reporter, novelist; Svetozar Stojanovic, professor of philosophy, University of Belgrade; Thomas Szasz, psychiatrist, Upstate Medical Center, Syracuse; V. M. Tarkunde, Supreme Court Judge, India; Richard Taylor, professor of philosophy, Union College; Sherwin Wine, founder, Society for Humanistic Judaism Editorial Associates: H. James Birx, James Martin-Diaz, Thomas Flynn, Thomas Franczyk, Lewis M. Spunt, Marvin Zimmerman Executive Director of CODESH, Inc.: Jean Millholland Book Reviews: Victor Gulotta Promotion: Barry L. Karr Cartoonist: Tom Toles Systems Manager: Richard Seymour Typesetting: Paul E. Loynes Layout: Alain Kugel Audio Technician: Vance Vigrass Staff. Stephanie Doyle, Jacqueline Livingston, Valerie Marvin, Alfreda Pidgeon FREE INQUIRY (ISSN 0272-0701) is published quarterly by the Council for Democratic and Secular Humanism (CODESH, Inc.), a nonprofit corporation, 3151 Bailey Avenue, Buffalo, NY 14215. Phone (716) 834-2921. Copyright 01986 by CODESH, Inc. Second-class postage paid at Buffalo, New York, and at additional mailing offices. National distribution by International Periodicals Distributors, San Diego, California. Subscription rates: $18.00 for one year, $32.00 for two years, $42.00 for three years, $3.75 for single copies. Address subscription orders, changes of address, and advertising to: FREE INQUIRY, Box 5, Buffalo, NY 14215-0005. Manuscripts, letters and editorial inquiries should be addressed to: The Editor, FREE INQUIRY, Box 5, Buffalo, N.Y. 14215-0005. All manuscripts should be accompanied by two additional copies and a stamped, addressed envelope. Opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of the editors or publisher. I told them I did not believe every word of the Bible. My brother-in-law has informed me that all my problems are due to the fact LETTERS TO THE EDITOR that I do not believe the Christ story. When I told a pastor of a Presbyterian church that I had Unitarian leanings, he advised me not to tell the other church ladies. To my sur- Faith-Healing a great deal of controversy in the Christian prise, the next Sunday this pastor announced community, since it apparently does not have from the pulpit that Unitarians were My aunt, a victim of cancer while in her the guts to do this kind of detective work in possessed by the devil! 30s, halted radiation treatment in favor of exposing their "brothers and sisters of Now I am reluctant to tell anybody my "treatment" from Kathryn Kuhlman. She Christ." religious beliefs. Do we really have freedom died, of course, but that wasn't the worst of religion in America? part. She died in deep guilt and despair, Timothy W. Grogan because she was told that if she wasn't cured Cleveland, Ohio Ruth Gnesin it would be because of her "lack of faith." Madison, Wis. Although I'm wary of tampering with the My mother died of a stroke after seeking First Amendment rights of these witch "treatment," over a period of three or four doctors, I'm grateful that organizations like Christian Science yours choose to exercise their First Amend- years, from five different More on Homer Duncan ment rights by exposing the physical and practitioners, all of whom she paid to pray for her. She knew she had high blood pres- emotional wreckage these shamans cause. I have been astonished to see considerable sure, yet nothing medical was ever tried to space in FREE INQUIRY devoted to so totally Dan Hagen, Editor bring it down. obscure a person as Homer Duncan Times-Courier One night she died. Her teen-aged son— ("Homer Duncan's Crusade Against Secular Mattoon, Ill. me—who found her on the living-room floor Humanism," FI, Winter 1985/86). Like the the next morning, had been kept so ignorant other participants in the Darwin conference of medicine and health by his careful, of a few years ago, I began getting letters I attended a W. V. Grant service on Monday, Christian Science upbringing that he thought from him that I promptly filed in the nearest April 7, 1986. As an Anglican pre-seminarian his mother was asleep (never having even wastebasket after reading the first paragraph, student and a religious humanist, I found heard the word "stroke") and did not even which was usually to the effect that 1 risked Grant's claims of miracles absurd. Miracles try to arouse her for several hours. the loss of eternal life if I did not embrace do not occur regularly. The theological and the views set forth in his letter. Surely the philosophical definition of what constitutes Glen Rice wastebasket is where such rantings belong, a miracle in the Roman Catholic, Anglican, Davis, Calif. and the appropriate response to them would and other main-line Christian denominations be laughter, not rejoinder. There are millions is that miracles are supernatural in origin of people like Homer Duncan, who think and transcend the laws of nature. If an event that merely reading in some old or venerable occurs regularly, it is not a miracle, but a book is reason enough for believing it. On natural event. To be considered a miracle, it that basis they assert that at some time in The Spring FREE INQUIRY is a dandy! We history a man was swallowed by a fish, that must be demonstrated that the event has need more exposés of these church hucksters not occurred previously in human history. another built a ship capable of housing every who lie to the viewers on TV all the time. I Thus Grant's claims of constant miracles is species of animal on the earth, that still just got a satellite receiver and am amazed contradictory to the phenomena's true another was able to make the sun stop at the amount of lies and absurdities that essence. merely by command, that another was born infest the channels, voiced by preachers who I am a diabetic. I was called out to be of a virgin and rose from the dead, and so cater to ignorance, gullibility, and supersti- healed, but when I visited my physician two on, to numberless idiocies. If they are tion. Keep up the good work and publish weeks later, he found no evidence that I Mormons they believe that the American more about these legalized robbers. had been cured. Indians came to this continent in boats from I was just debating last month about Israel, since that, too, is written. If they are renewing my membership and I finally did, Richard Allwood Muslims they believe things no less absurd, and am 1 glad. St. John Fisher College because they are written somewhere. These Rochester, N.Y. people have no conception of evidence or Jean Bertolette even of ordinary intelligence—something Yucca Valley, Calif. which Homer Duncan admits, in his own As a former "born-again Christian" I saw case, when he writes that he sees no dif- many examples of faith-healing during my ference between ascribing an opinion to tenure with the charismatic movement.