: Yuval Harari Smears Humanism

CELEBRATING REASON AND HUMANITY June/July 2017 Vol. 37 No.4

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17 Saving Speaker Ryan POEM Ten to fifteen days after we receive your order, each recipient will receive an e-mail message announcing that a gift subscription has been entered 57 SOAPBOX . . . and Unshackling the Bern 65 Truth in his or her name. You will be identified as the giver. If you prefer not to be named, check the “I wish to make this gift anonymously” Bogus Heartbeat Bill Logic Edward Tabash Ted Richer box on page 60. The announcement message will contain a new account number that the recipient can use to log in to secularhumanism.org and Stephen Ray Flora create a username and password. Thereafter, the recipient will enjoy full subscriber-level access, including the full contents of each issue of FREE INQUIRY, for the duration of the digital subscription and will be able to access FREE INQUIRY content from any device. Each recipient will receive an e-mail reminder when a new issue is published. * Sorry—it is not possible to convert a current print subscription to digital only. ty’s Polonsky Prize for and TOM FLYNN Originality and the National Library of Editor Thomas W. Flynn EDITORIAL China’s Best Book of the Year Award. Managing Editor Andrea Szalanski Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg Columnists Ophelia Benson, Russell made Sapiens a 2015 selection for his Blackford, Greta Christina, online book club, Bill Gates put it on Edd Doerr, Shadia B. Drury, his 2016 list of “Five Books to Read Faisal Saeed Al Mutar, Gregory Paul This Summer,” and more than one Senior Editors Bill Cooke, , hundred thousand people have taken Edd Doerr, James A. Haught, Smearing Harari’s free online course in English Jim Herrick, Ronald A. based on themes from the book. Lindsay, Taslima Nasrin Humanism In other words, Sapiens is a phe-

Contributing Editors Levi Fragell, nomenon in intellectual publishing, Adolf Grünbaum, notwithstanding that an American- Marvin Kohl, Lee Nisbet Assistant Editors Julia Lavarnway market edition of its English trans- Nicole Scott lation did not appear until 2015. (A s it too soon for an editorial that Literary Editor Cheryl Quimba sequel, Homo Deus: A Brief History of steps back from the perpetual train Permissions Editor Julia Lavarnway Tomorrow, should reach the American wreck of Donald J. Trump’s presi- market before you read these words.) Art Director Christopher S. Fix dency to focus on one of human- Production Paul E. Loynes Sr. But back to Sapiens. It is nothing if Iism’s more, well, perennial discon- not sweeping. Its daunting subtitle, A Center for Inquiry Inc. tents? I call attention to someone in Brief History of Humankind, manages Chair Edward Tabash the public eye—someone who ought to understate the book’s sprawling Board of Directors David Cowan to know better—who denigrates hu- scope. Chapter 1 actually begins with Richard Dawkins Brian Engler manism in ways that are wildly un- the words: “About 13.5 billion years Kendrick Frazier true, yet appears not have made the ago, matter, energy, time and space Barry A. Kosmin slightest effort to ascertain the facts. Y. Sherry Sheng came into being in what is known as J. Anderson Thomson Jr. A reader might think that I’m still the Big Bang.” Leonard Tramiel discussing Trump. But truly, I’m not. I Harari’s goal is nothing less than Honorary: refer to Yuval Noah Harari, an Israeli Rebecca Newberger to explain how everything came to Goldstein history professor and best-selling au- be—the principles that underlie life; Susan Jacoby thor who has presented an extreme how language arose; why H. sapiens Lawrence Krauss and factually untethered critique of came to be the sole surviving repre- Chief Executive Officer humanism in a hugely high-profile sentative of the genus Homo; how and President Robyn E. Blumner book. we got the sciences, economics, and Senior Research Fellow Ronald A. Lindsay If you haven’t heard of Harari, politics—and where we’re headed Director, Campus and you need to. Think of him as Israel’s with them. When filling a canvas this Community Programs Debbie Goddard answer to Malcolm Gladwell, another large, there’s always the temptation Director of Public Engagement Stephanie Guttormson polymath who offers big answers to to spin “just-so stories.” Prominent Vice President for Philanthropy Martina Fern big questions in fast-flowing prose. among those is Harari’s treatment of Director, African Americans But while Gladwell is a journalist, humanism. for Humanism Debbie Goddard Harari is a tenured history professor In chapter 12, “The Law of Reli- Director of Libraries Timothy Binga at the Hebrew University of Jerusa- gion,” Harari devotes nine breathless Communications Director Paul Fidalgo lem. He has an enviable academic pages to humanism—or, as he calls it, Database Manager Jacalyn Mohr record, including four well-regarded “The Worship of Man.” (Yes, really.) Database Administrator Dave Churvis books of military history. The year He begins by introducing a new cat-

Director of Digital 2011 saw the publication in Hebrew egory, “natural-law religions,” which Product and Strategy Matthew Licata of his breakthrough volume, Sapi- includes “liberalism, Communism, Director, Teacher Institute for ens: A Brief History of Humankind. capitalism, nationalism, and Nazism.” Evolutionairy Science Bertha Vazquez A mammoth best-seller in Israel, He offers a decent argument for why Staff Pat Beauchamp, Sapiens was translated into some communism ought to be considered Melissa Braun, Lauren Foster, twenty-six languages and made best- a religion: it teaches “a superhuman Roe Giambrone, Cody seller lists in the United Kingdom, order of natural and immutable Hashman, Nora Hurley, Marc Kriedler, Stef Spain, Slovenia, and Taiwan—not to that should guide human actions.” McGraw, Paul Paulin, mention the Times’s list of Fair enough. I myself have argued Anthony Santa Lucia, Vance Vigrass best-selling science titles. It won the that because it treated dialectical British Friends of Hebrew Universi- materialism and the “inevitable” out-

4 Free Inquiry June / July 2017 secularhumanism.org comes of historical processes as arti- some overwrought Rationalist from the cles of faith, Soviet- communism Victorian era or the Roaring Twenties (which Harari calls “fanatical and mis- who in some obscure tome praised sionary”) merits inclusion among the Glorious Humanity to the exclusion of world religions. “If a religion is a sys- all else. But though I know the free- Free Inquiry (ISSN 0272-0701) is published bimonthly by the Cen- ter for Inquiry in association with the Council for Secular Humanism, tem of human norms and values that thought of those periods fairly well, I P.O. Box 664, Amherst, NY 14226-0664. Phone (716) 636-7571. is founded on belief in a superhuman have no idea who it might be or how Fax (716) 636-1733. Copyright ©2017 by the Center for Inquiry and the Council for Secular Humanism. All rights reserved. No part of this order,” Harari writes, “then Soviet Harari might have linked this person periodical may be reproduced without permission of the publisher. Communism was no less a religion Periodicals postage paid at Buffalo, N.Y., and at additional mailing to a humanist movement that would offices. National distribution by Disticor.Free Inquiry is indexed in than is Islam.” The like could be said begin to gel only in the 1930s. Has Philosophers’ Index. Printed in the United States. Postmaster: Send of Nazism, with its dogmas of Aryan address changes to Free Inquiry, P.O. Box 664, Amherst, NY 14226- Harari done the requisite research? I’ll 0664. Opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of the superiority and the “inevitable” Thou- answer that later. editors or publisher. No one speaks on behalf of the Center for Inquiry sand-Year Reich. Harari’s on thinner or the Council for Secular Humanism unless expressly stated. ice, in my view, when he also places TO SUBSCRIBE OR RENEW liberalism, capitalism, and nationalism Call toll-free 800-458-1366 (have credit card handy). Internet: among the “natural-law religions”; his www.secularhumanism.org. Mail: Free Inquiry, P.O. Box 664, Amherst, NY 14226-0664. case for doing so consists mostly of his Subscription rates: Print: $35.00 for one year, $58.00 for having plunked them onto the same two years, $84.00 for three years. Foreign orders add $10 per year for surface mail (Canada and Mexico); $14 per list with Nazism and communism. “Facebook founder year outside North America. Digital Rates: $18.95 for one We come now to the main event: year, $32.95 for two years, $44.95 for three years. New Mark Zuckerberg subscribers only; existing subscriptions cannot be converted. Harari’s account of “the humanist re- Send U.S. funds drawn on a U.S. bank; American Express, ligions” (yes, they’re plural). Hold on made Sapiens a 2015 Discover, MasterCard, or Visa are preferred. tight: Single issues: $5.95 each. Shipping is by surface mail in U.S. selection for his (included). For single issues outside U.S.: Canada 1–$3.05; Humanist religions worship hu- online book club.” 2–3 $5.25; 4–6 $8.00. Other foreign: 1–$6.30; 2–3 $11.40; manity, or more correctly, Homo 4–6 $17.00. sapiens. Humanism is a belief that CHANGE OF ADDRESS Homo sapiens has a unique and Mail changes to Free Inquiry, ATTN: Change of Address, P.O. sacred nature, which is fundamen- Box 664, Amherst, NY 14226-0664. tally different from the nature of Call Customer Service: 716-636-7571, ext. 200. Harari’s breathtaking, um, expli- all other animals and of all other E-mail: [email protected]. cation of humanism continues. “Hu- phenomena. Humanists believe BACK ISSUES that the unique nature of Homo manism has split into three rival sects Back issues through Vol. 23, No. 3 are $6.95 each. Back sapiens is the most important thing that fight over the exact definition of issues Vol. 23, No. 4 and later are $5.95 each. 20% discount in the world, and it determines the on orders of ten or more. Call 800-458-1366 to order or to ‘humanity.’” Something tells me he’s ask for a complete listing of back issues. meaning of everything that hap- not preparing to chronicle the divi- pens in the universe. The supreme REPRINTS/PERMISSIONS good is the good of Homo sapiens. sion among secular humanists, con- To request permission to use any part of Free Inquiry, write gregational humanists, and religious to Free Inquiry, ATTN: Julia Lavarnway, Permissions Editor, The rest of the world and all other P.O. Box 664, Amherst, NY 14226-0664, or email jlavarn beings exist solely for the benefit of Humanists. Indeed he isn’t: “Today, [email protected] this species. the most important sect is liberal hu- WHERE TO BUY FREE INQUIRY I’m gobsmacked. Or is it dumb- manism, which believes that ‘human- Free Inquiry is available from selected book and magazine sellers nationwide. founded? From what source or sources ity’ is a quality of individual humans, does Harari derive this spectacularly and that the liberty of individuals is ARTICLE SUBMISSIONS Complete submission guidelines can be found on the web at inaccurate caricature of humanism? If therefore sacrosanct.” Then, Harari www.secularhumanism.org/fi/details.html. only because of his stature, let’s take continues, there is “socialist human- Requests for mailed guidelines and article submissions should ism. Socialists believe that ‘humanity’ be addressed to: Article Submissions, ATTN: Tom Flynn, Free a moment to try to unpack how he Inquiry, P.O. Box 664, Amherst, NY 14226-0664. might have come by it. Let’s see: I is collective rather than individualistic. . . . Whereas liberal humanism seeks as LETTERS TO THE EDITOR doubt if any secular humanist would Send submissions to Letters Editor, Free Inquiry, P.O. Box call human nature “sacred.” While much freedom as possible for individ- 664, Amherst, NY 14226-0664 or e-mail aszalanski@center some contemporary religious Human- ual humans, socialist humanism seeks forinquiry.net. For letters intended for publication, please include name, ists might hold humanity sacred, I equality between all humans.” On address (including city and state), and daytime telephone know of none who would indulge in Harari’s view, both liberal and socialist number (for verification purposes only). Letters should be 300 words or fewer and pertain to previous Free Inquiry articles. the colossal speciesism that Harari humanism remain yoked to mono- theism, in that they believe (without The mission of the Council for Secular Humanism is to describes. Quite the contrary—today advocate and defend a nonreligious life stance rooted in humanists of all stripes tend to be ever quite saying so) that freedom science, naturalistic philosophy, and humanist ethics and exquisitely aware of human interde- or equality, respectively, is the ideal to serve and support adherents of that life stance. pendence with, and responsibility for, divinely ordained for human flourish- the biosphere. I’ll concede the possi- ing. “The only humanist sect that has bility that Harari might have unearthed actually broken loose from traditional

secularhumanism.org June / July 2017 Free Inquiry 5 monotheism,” declares Harari, “is evo- dorm-room bull sessions” and Hara- ter 12 contains all the material I have lutionary humanism. . . .” Thinking of ri’s “stimulating but often unsourced quoted, as well as a compact but ex- Richard Dawkins? E. O. Wilson? Even assertions.” Writing for , haustive account of the development P Z Myers? Think again. Evolutionary philosopher Galen Strawson dismissed of all human religions. humanism’s “most famous represen- Harari’s analysis of humanism in three It has just three notes. Save only tatives”—wait for it—“are the Nazis.” words: “This is silly.” for his mostly exhortative chapter 1, it Harari asserts that the “supreme com- If I’d found material like this in is the most thinly sourced chapter in mandment” of evolutionary human- some hectoring religious-Right publi- the book. And what are those three ism “is to protect humankind from cation or on one of ’s con- sources? degenerating into subhumans, and to spiracy-theory websites, it might be • An estimable history of the early encourage its evolution into superhu- unremarkable. But no, the passages I Christian church by scholar W. H. C. mans.” Lest we miss the point, Harari quoted inhabit a lavish tome from an Frend; treats his readers to a Nazi racial pro- estimable American publisher. (Read- • A solid chronicle of Renaissance paganda poster and a 1933 cartoon ers are meant to encounter Sapiens France that apparently informs a sin- of Hitler molding a homoerotic Nietzs- as a publishing event; I’m trying to gle paragraph in the text about the chean superman from clay. remember the last hardback I’ve han- St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre; and And who, you might wonder, em- dled whose text was printed—in three • A Nazi-era, German-language social- bodies this Nazi legacy today? Harari is colors, no less—on such portentously studies textbook for fifth-grade boys. glad you asked. It is technophiles and thick and heavy paper. Oh yes: it was a As to which bedazzled, human- transhumanists: “No one speaks about biography of L. Ron Hubbard from the worshipping speciesist Harari might exterminating lower races or inferior Church of Scientology.) have uncovered in some murky free- people, but many contemplate using thought tract or from whom he might our increasing knowledge of human apiens is a worldwide best-seller by have drawn his seemingly arbitrary biology to create superhumans.” an academic superstar. Many, many S division of humanists into individual- It almost seems petty to object that times more people will absorb Harari’s ists, collectivists, and Nazis succeeded while some humanisms are religious, account of humanism and simply file it by transhumanists, the notes give no secular humanism, at least, is not (see away among “Stuff They Know” than clue. My own suspicion is that the es- yours truly, Ronald A. Lindsay, and will ever read Free Inquiry or ponder teemed professor simply made it up. Nicholas J. Little, “Secular Humanism: the Humanist Manifestos. Make no And apparently, he has stuck to his Not a Religion!” FI, February/March mistake, Yuval Noah Harari is a pro- guns. The Wikipedia page for Harari’s 2015). On an epic scale, Harari pres- lific source of harmful misinformation new book Homo Deus lists five key ents a farrago of unfounded specula- about our movement. components of its central thesis, and tion, sophomoric political theory, and But hold on a moment. Harari is the fourth of them begins: “Human- invective masquerading as an author- a distinguished academic. Surely we ism is a form of religion that worships itative and oh-so confidently written owe him the elementary respect of humankind instead of God.” disparagement of humanism. I’m not reviewing his sources, just in case he We’ve got a lot of work ahead of the first person to say so. Reviewing has located proof that could justify us. Sapiens in the Wall Street Journal, his counterintuitive interpretation of science journalist Charles Mann com- humanism. So let us turn to the Notes Author’s Note: I am indebted to Free plained about the book’s “whiff of section at the back of his book. Chap- Inquiry contributor and supporter Gordon Gamm for bringing Harari’s book to my attention.

Further Reading Harari, Yuval Noah. 2015. Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind. U.S. edition. New York: Harp- erCollins, 2015. See especially pp. 228–36. “Yuval Noah Harari Mann, Charles C. “How Humankind Conquered … has presented an the World.” Wall Street Journal, February 6, 2015. extreme and factually Strawson, Galen. “Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari—review.” untethered critique of Guardian, September 11, 2014. humanism.”

Tom Flynn is the editor of Free Inquiry, the executive director of the Council for Secular Humanism, and the editor of The New Encyclopedia of Unbelief (, 2007).

6 Free Inquiry June / July 2017 secularhumanism.org in an afterlife. They do think of the The importance of the nonpious GREGORY PAUL sun, moon, and stars as some form Hadza cannot be overemphasized—in OP-ED of creation entities, but they do not multiple regards. They are a genet- waste time trying to seek their favor or ically and linguistically very distinct influence their actions. It is particularly people whose ways probably go far pleasing that they have consistently back into the Pleistocene. The possi- snubbed Christian propaganda. The bility that they are the only prehistoric scientific documentation of Hadza ir- people with minimal religiosity is, sta- The Hadza: A religiosity is much better than that tistically, very low. For all we know, lots for the Pirahã, though the latter tribe of Ice Age hunter-gatherers were not People without has received far more attention in the religious. The problem is that there’s atheist community. no way to tell, because if they existed Religion I was stunned, in part because such peoples were not burying their shortly before the National Geo- dead or leaving behind other signs graphic story I had published a major of their nontheism, such as copies of paper in Evolutionary Psychology that Prehistoric Inquiry. 1 “Decades of research concluded that low levels of religiosity What the Hadza definitely do tell hances are you know something are dependent upon superior, modern us is that popular nontheism is not lim- show that the Hadza about the debate over the level societal conditions, while high levels ited to well-run modern societies such have no shamans, med- Cof religiosity of the aboriginal of supernaturalism exist when consid- as those of Sweden, France, Canada, icine men, or priests Pirahã of the basin. (Some erable socioeconomic and physical or the coastal United States. When say the Pirahã have no idea of God or anxiety and fear drive folks to seek the you think about it, that makes histor- and no belief in an the supernatural.) But I’ll bet you don’t aid and comfort of supernatural pow- ical sense. Chinese civilization is the afterlife.” know about the Hadza of Tanzania in ers during earthly life (and hopefully most ancient of all, and it has never east Africa. after). A common hypothesis is that been particularly pious. Can you name One day, I was minding my own archaic proto-religions first appeared the great Chinese god(s), whether in- business, reading the December 2009 among Pleistocene hunter-gatherers, vented or adopted? No. Nor has there National Geographic. It contained an as evidenced by burials going back ever been a well-developed powerful, article on the Hadza, who were un- at least one hundred thousand years influential Sino-priesthood. Sure, the known to me even though they are that indicate a comprehension of, and Chinese have a form of ancestor wor- one of the last few true hunter-gath- anxiety about, death. This supposedly ship, but that is nowhere close to the erer peoples left. For some reason, led to the appearance of shamanistic kind of intense organized religion that they never achieved the fame of the religious leaders and rituals. Yet here has long characterized, say, India—or !Kung bushmen of South Africa, the we have the Hadza, who were not pagan, then Christian, Europe—until Pygmies, or the noncivilized aborigi- even bothering to bury their dead until recent times. nals of the Amazon region. The article pressed to do so in recent times. This The primitive Hadza and the an- got around to describing a nighttime though the Hadza lead tough, hard cient Chinese establish that peoples hunt of a baboon. My eyes began to lives of deep poverty and profound who lead short and brutal lives may yet widen as the piece casually described uncertainty, with high rates of juvenile not be seeking the aid and comfort of how the Hadza have no hunting rituals, and adult mortality. the gods as expressed in serious pop- pre or post. They widened further as the author went on to describe how these remnants of the once-universal “The scientific doc- hunter-gathering lifestyle had very lit- tle in the way of religion. umentation of Hadza Say what?! irreligiosity is much Until then, I had presumed that a better than that for the significant level of some form of religi- osity was universal among nonagricul- Pirahã, though the lat- tural societies. National Geographic ter tribe has received has a reputation for fact checking, but far more attention in being a practicing scientist I went to the technical anthropological litera- the atheist community.” ture to be certain what was up. Sure enough, decades of research show that the Hadza have no shamans, medicine men, or priests and no belief

secularhumanism.org June / July 2017 Free Inquiry 7 ular religiosity. This leaves no doubt revolutions can be seen as (radically that religion is not, repeat not, univer- OPHELIA BENSON incomplete) rejections of bullying as sal to the human condition, as most OP-ED a basic principle of governance. As naively assume it to be. Religion is not Samuel Johnson rudely pointed out, nearly as consistent among humans that was absurd coming from people as language, which most develop- who owned slaves, but that’s reality: mentally normal children pick up with nobody is immune from being a bully little effort—or the making and using to someone. of tools and other material goods Springtime for Much enduring literature is about (what our opposable thumbs make bullying. The Iliad begins with it: Achil- possible), or art, in which all cultures les is in a rage because Agamemnon engage. Bullies has bullied him, high-handedly taking It follows that a host of hypotheses Achilles’s slave woman for himself. Nei- about why religion is popular are de- ther of them pauses to recognize the n March 2017, John Rayne Rivello ficient. If the Hadza and the Chinese enslaved woman as bullied; they brawl was arrested for sending a tweet to have never been deeply religious, over which of them is entitled to bully journalist Kurt Eichenwald that in- then runaway pattern recognition can- I her. This is Johnson’s point: Achilles duced a serious epileptic seizure. He not furnish a consistently compelling and Agamemnon are very indignant force driving supernaturalistic beliefs. was charged with one count of aggra- over what they perceive as injustice to Nor can there be a “God module” vated assault with a deadly weapon, themselves but blind to injustice they that is pushing most people to be- with a hate-crime enhancement. Eich- are committing. lieve. The fear of death cannot be enwald, a Dallas-based journalist who King Lear has bullying at its heart. a persistent driving force. Forming writes for Newsweek and Vanity Fair, Lear at the outset bullies his three power structures via shamanism and said in December 2016 that some- daughters by demanding that they priesthoods is a limited factor too. one had tweeted a flashing animated compete in their expressions of devo- Unlike language, materialism, and art, image at him that had triggered the tion to him. The elder two comply with religion is optional in human societies, seizure. The image included the mes- such blatantly exaggerated claims that which helps explain why it is being sage, “You deserve a seizure for your only a fool could take them seriously, so readily cast off in modern societ- post.” The tweet was sent the same and Lear is that fool. The young- ies—including among the American night Eichenwald had appeared on est daughter pays him the respect of white working class, even as its circum- Tucker Carlson’s show, and a rational reply, expressing affection stances decline. What is true is that the two had argued fiercely about without hyperbole, and his response while bad conditions often produce Donald Trump. is a candidate for the most repellent popular theism, and the latter can We think of bullying as some- display of bullying in all of literature. It’s only thrive in dysfunctional societies, it thing children and adolescents do to a story from fairy tale, but Shakespeare does not always do so. each other, but really it’s pervasive. develops it into something profound. The lack of knowledge among athe- It’s just that we give it more dignified Charles Dickens repeatedly wrung ists, skeptics, and the like about the ir- labels when adults engage in it: class his readers’ hearts with stories of bul- religious Hadza is an example of a re- warfare, the struggle for dominance, lied children, usually orphans; the ap- grettable failure of a community that social stratification, cruelty, torture, palling Murdstones in David Copper- takes pride in being scientifically knowl- oppression. The American and French field make Goneril and Regan look edgeable to keep current about infor- mation critical to the field. This is just one such example. For reasons that have me scratching my skeptical head, there are a whole lot of cases in which atheists remain shockingly ignorant of key facts and analysis. The purpose of “We think of bullying my FI columns and articles will be to as something children shake things up in the field with cover- age of fascinating yet too little appreci- and adolescents do to ated aspects of a/theism. each other, but really it’s pervasive.” Gregory Paul is an independent researcher and ana- lyst. His latest book is The Princeton Field Guide to Dinosaurs (Princeton University Press, 2010). This is his first regular column for Free Inquiry.

8 Free Inquiry June / July 2017 secularhumanism.org like Girl Scouts. Dickens was obsessed Bannon of Breitbart. with the subject, and yet he was a Social-media bullying has been RUSSELL BLACKFORD bully himself. His wife bore ten chil- given the more jolly name “trolling,” OP-ED dren; he blamed her for the pregnan- which is meant to indicate that it’s all cies and eventually ditched her, after a joke—and don’t you have a sense writing disparagingly about her in his of humor? Andrew Marantz wrote a own magazine, Household Words. piece in the New Yorker titled “Troll- Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre starts ing the Press Corps” about a blogger with bullying: the odious rich cousin of named Lucian Wintrich and his debut Momentous orphan Jane seeks her out to bully her at a White House press conference. for reading one of the family’s books. His what? How did that happen? Ma- Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights is rantz explains: Anniversaries a whole symphony of bullying, with Last summer, at a Gays for Trump every character bent on tormenting party at the Republican National very year provides a psychologically Convention, Wintrich met several every other. Mark Twain’s Huckleberry salient anniversary of one or more of the country’s most effective Finn? Packed with bullies—Pap, the huge historical events. The year Grangerfords and the Shepherdsons, right-wing propagandists, includ- E ing Jim Hoft, a fifty-six-year-old 2018, for example, will be the hundredth the Duke and the Dauphin, Colonel blogger who lives in St. Louis. anniversary of the end of World War I, Sherburn, and at the end Tom Sawyer Since 2004, Hoft has run the Gate- and perhaps it will be a time to reflect himself, who keeps Jim locked up so way Pundit, whose posts are often on that war’s cultural meaning and its that he can play out some elaborate picked up by the Drudge Report and distributed widely through vast, continuing consequences. Nothing adventure fantasy. much changes in our lives depending It’s a subject that seems to haunt Facebook. Recent Gateway Pun- dit headlines include “Feral Mus- on whether the Great War ended 99 or us, but at the same time we’re drawn lim Migrants Shout ‘Allah Akbar’, 101 years ago, but the round number to it—we fear it, but we get bored Attack Police in France” and 100 is subjectively significant to us, so without it. It’s a truism of literature, “Breaking: Creepy New Video centennial anniversaries capture media Released of Joe Biden Groping drama, journalism, reality TV—of sto- attention. rytelling in all its forms that conflict is Little Girls.” During the Presiden- tial campaign, the Gateway Pun- what gets people interested; peace dit received more than a million and love are a snooze-fest. I’d like to unique visitors a day, roughly on express snobbish incomprehension at a par with The Weekly Standard. this point and say that I really cannot The two struck up a friendship, for the life of me understand why peo- and Hoft invited Wintrich to write for ple are addicted to watching real or “Nothing much changes . Soon after the fictional characters quarrel, compete, inauguration, the new administration … whether the Great gossip, and jockey for power, but I granted press credentials to Wintrich. War ended 99 or 101 can’t—because I know damn well that Marantz hints at their seriousness of I’m addicted to it too. years ago, but the round purpose: Conflict is not the same as bully- number 100 is subjec- ing, but the two are pretty intimately [Wintrich] reviewed a draft of a tively significant.” connected. Conflict entails a desire to contract formalizing his employ- ment with the Gateway Pundit. In win, and it’s hard to try to win anything a previous version of the contract, without resorting to using some kind he said, “there was a sentence of power advantage; a power advan- about ‘Employee must maintain As this edition of Free Inquiry goes tage always has the potential to feel professional behavior at all times.’ to press, I have occasion to reflect on like bullying to the losing party. The I called Jim and asked, ‘Does two sets of highly consequential events. concept of human rights has given this mean I shouldn’t troll liberals anymore?’ and he went, ‘Oh, we’d (There are others that I could have cho- us a tool that helps us separate legit- better just take that line out.’” sen for comment—the 1917 overthrow imate competition from bullying, but of the Russian Tsar, for one, and the entry meanwhile social media have given us Everyone is taking that line out. of the United States into World War I, for expansive new tools to make bullying another.) easier, safer (for the bully), and more Ophelia Benson edits the Butterflies and Wheels During the northern summer and communitarian. Affinity groups that website. She was formerly associate editor of autumn of 1517, Martin Luther, a profes- can survive for years form around bul- Philosopher’s Magazine and has coauthored sev- sor of moral theology at the University lying campaigns. Some such groups eral books, including The Dictionary of Fashionable of Wittenberg, worked on his famous now have representatives working in Nonsense (2004), Why Truth Matters (2006), and Ninety-Five Theses, in which he attacked the White House—in particular, Steve Does God Hate Women? (2009). the Roman Catholic Church’s practice of

secularhumanism.org June / July 2017 Free Inquiry 9 Imagine a future where science and reason serve as the foundation for our lives.

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Then speak to your trusted financial advisor or attorney. It’s as simple as that. IT’S EASY Call Martina Fern today at1-800-818-7071 x426 for your copy of this valuable information, or e-mail her at [email protected]. There’s no obligation. selling indulgences (remissions of time writing his critique of indulgences. In effect was an open rebellion against spent in Purgatory). It’s often claimed any event, the rise of secular political traditional sources of authority. that Luther posted his completed philosophy produced intellectual re- The deep social rifts of the sixties, document on the door of All Saints’ sources—such as Locke’s treatises on not least over demands for sexual Church in Wittenberg on October 31, government and his Letter Concerning openness and freedom, continue to 1517. The truth about this is murky, Toleration—that still reward serious play out in disputes over abortion but it would have been a common- study. and same-sex marriage. In the United place action with such a document. A more recent chain of events that States, the Christian Right has never He may, indeed, have posted it more greatly altered Western societies was accepted the increasing availability widely on churches in Wittenberg, but the sexual revolution of the 1960s. of abortion that culminated in the again this is unclear. We know that Viewed in retrospect, this was clearly Supreme Court case Roe v. Wade in he sent the Ninety-Five Theses to underway even in the early sixties, but 1973. It remains suspicious even of the Archbishop of Mainz in late 1517, it is often symbolized by the Summer universal access to effective contra- setting in train the events that would of Love in San Francisco in 1967—now ception. Since the sixties and seven- split the Catholic Church. Though he fifty years ago. During the sixties, the ties, other elements have entered the did not see himself as announcing any hegemony of traditional Christian sex- social equation. Among these was unorthodox doctrine—he sought only ual morality was smashed. the AIDS crisis that came to public reform of abuses—Luther soon found attention in 1981 and had its own un- himself denounced for heresy, leading predictable, sometimes contradictory, to his excommunication in 1521. ramifications. Thus, 1517 is usually taken as the Linked to the social revolutions beginning of the Protestant Reforma- of the sixties, church attendance and tion, and this year is its five hundredth profession of Christian belief collapsed anniversary. During the sixteenth cen- across historically Christian countries tury, Christianity splintered into rival with one glaring exception: the United sects, and its theological disputes “1517 is usually taken States. Somehow—and the possible manifested in persecutions and wars explanations are controversial among that raged across Europe through the as the beginning of the sociologists of religion—the United sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Protestant Reformation, States managed to press ahead with They included the French Wars of Re- and this year is its five its own social transformation within an ligion and the horrific Thirty Years War environment that remained largely re- that extended from 1618 to 1648, left hundredth anniversary.” ligious. The impact was quite different millions dead, and desolated much of in Western Europe, where religious the continent. The ambitions of secu- commitment is now relatively rare. In lar dynasts contributed to these wars, France, conspicuous displays of reli- of course, and not all the blame can be gious piety are regarded as socially placed on rival church hierarchs or rival unwelcome, but this reflects France’s interpretations of Christianity. None- Despite the Protestant Reformation peculiar history dating back to the theless, religious leaders and their and all it entailed, the main doctrines French Revolution and beyond to the organizations were deeply implicated of Christianity on sexuality, family for- oppressive Ancien Régime. in the ruination and carnage. mation, and the respective roles of Entire books have been written Modern secularist thought was a men and women survived until re- about such events, their implications, direct reaction to large-scale religious cently in the mores and laws of West- and their ongoing consequences. I’ve violence. It motivated thinkers such as ern countries. By the 1960s, however, offered just the barest sketch of some Thomas Hobbes and John Locke to the Christian ideal of confining sexual- events that helped to tame Christianity rethink the justification and role of the ity to lifelong heterosexual monogamy and its rather miserable moral teach- state, and they produced theories that had become untenable, thanks to a ings, but momentous anniversaries do detached government power from the perfect storm of social and technologi- provoke thought—about where we otherworldly rationalizations that had cal changes. These included the inven- came from as a civilization and where stood almost unchallenged through- tion of the contraceptive pill, but the we are headed in the twenty-first cen- out medieval times. To the extent that Pill can’t be given full credit (or blame) tury. Christianity has since been tamed, for what took place. We should con- and, hence, no longer penetrates all sider, among other things, intensified aspects of social and political life in the urbanization, the increasing availability Russell Blackford is a regular columnist for Free manner of the medieval Church, this of motor vehicles, and changes to the Inquiry. His books include Freedom of Religion and the was a consequence of the Reforma- structure of Western workforces. How- Secular State (2012) and The Mystery of Moral tion that Luther did not foresee when ever exactly we assign the causes, the Authority (2016), both published by Wiley-Blackwell.

secularhumanism.org June / July 2017 Free Inquiry 11 the openness to the sea that made his uge, Plato allied himself with tyrants SHADIA B. DRURY native Athens a prosperous, dynamic, willing to use murder and mayhem, OP-ED and commercial empire. He shrank shock and awe, to establish entirely from Athenian openness to new ideas new modes and orders. and radical critiques of social, moral, Interestingly, the conservatism of and religious orthodoxy. He longed for Bannon, who remains the chief strate- a society of closed borders—closed to gist and senior counselor to President the corrosive influence of outsiders. Donald J. Trump, displays the same He fancied a homogeneous society contradiction and the same fascination Conservatism and steeped in custom, sharing a single with extreme disruption and autocratic religion that could be questioned only power. Like Plato, Bannon longs for a Calamity: From on pain of death. He dreamed of simpler time. He pines for a time when a deluge of mythic proportions that capitalism was confined to the nation Plato to Bannon would provide a few wise men with state. He abhors the global neoliberal the opportunity to start anew—to es- world order. He longs for a time when tablish strict laws that would extinguish capitalism was national—not global— the licentious freedom of Athenian in its orientation. Bannon believes that society. In the absence of a great del- the audacity of Trump is the vehicle that will bring an end to the neoliberal rom Plato to Stephen K. Bannon, world order. This is part of the reason conservatives long for order and that Trump and Bannon do not share Fstability but are spellbound by the the traditional American animus to- idea that only a calamity can provide ward Russia. the opportunity to start anew, to get In his documentary film Generation it right, and to order the world as it Zero (2010), Bannon traced the roots should be according to eternal and im- of the banking meltdown of 2008 to mutable principles. In other words, in “Conservatives become the Woodstock generation, which re- their hearts conservatives yearn for the radical and destructive placed the generation that won World fixed, unchanging order that belongs when they reject the War II and put a man on the moon. In to God or nature, but their actions present in favor of an other words, the discipline, science, often precipitate radical disruptions. and work ethic of the fifties were This is the profound contradiction at imaginary past.” replaced by self-indulgence and the the heart of conservatism. triumph of the pleasure principle in Plato longed for a simpler time. the sixties. The result was the neo- He romanticized the nobility of an liberal greed that led to the banking calamity from which we have yet to agrarian landlocked society away from recover. The banks were bailed out at taxpayers’ expense, but no one in the economic elite was held accountable. Today, the corporate bonuses con- tinue to flow as if nothing happened. Bannon is convinced that the political elite is in cahoots with the economic elite. The result is crony capitalism, where capitalist competition has given way to the establishment of a perma- nent elite of corporate welfare bums. While the elites and the poor live off the largesse of the state, enjoy- ing socialism, the middle classes are squeezed out—hence the anger of the Tea Party. Bannon celebrates Tea Party leaders such as Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann but rejects the Occupy Wall Street movement. Unlike the latter, the Tea Party activists are not socialists at heart. Like Bannon, they

12 Free Inquiry June / July 2017 secularhumanism.org want to restore the pristine purity of is optimistic because he believes that becomes the modus operandi. capitalism. How? By the “deconstruc- calamities invariably give way to a re- Conservatives become radical and tion of the administrative state.” Why? birth—especially when there are fear- destructive not because they love dis- Government bureaucrats are socialist less men at the helm who are willing order and disarray but because they parasites on the body politic; not only to take bold measures that will lead to believe in magic. They believe that are they unproductive, but they ham- the death spiral of the existing order. the destruction of the existing order per the productivity of others by end- will make way for something wonder- less regulations. Radical deregulation ful to emerge, as if by spontaneous is necessary. combustion. They imagine that out of The immigration debate is at the mayhem and destruction, a phoenix heart of the matter. Unskilled illegal im- “Bannon is convinced will rise out of the ashes. In contrast, a migrants take the jobs of native-born genuinely conservative approach must Americans who would rather live on that the political elite proceed piecemeal. It must be slow welfare than do menial work. The is in cahoots with the and gradual. It must identify particular result is the erosion of the work ethic economic elite.” evils and seek reforms that mitigate and the ballooning of “entitlements,” concrete injustices. which are the hallmark of the socialist In rejecting the existing order, be- mentality. lieving in a world of fantasy, and ex- The solution is tax cuts for the pecting the magical transformation of heroic entrepreneurs: their drive, dis- the world, conservatives—ancient and cipline, daring, and imagination will What makes conservatives, who modern—betray the sobriety that gives rebuild the nation. Bannon and Trump long for the stability and order of a conservatism its appeal. Instead of con- live in the imaginary world of Horatio simple life, choose political disruption, taining fervor and fanaticism, they invite Alger’s novels, which explains why tax mayhem, and autocracy? Conserva- chaos and calamity—then, autocracy becomes indispensable. cuts for the rich make sense to them. tives become radical and destructive In truth, the golden age of capitalism when they reject the present in favor in which sobriety and hard work are of an imaginary past. To be genu- rewarded is a fantasy. inely conservative, it is necessary to Shadia B. Drury is professor emerita at the Bannon believes that history is cy- conserve what is good in the existing University of Regina in Canada. Her books include clical—it contains a cycle of birth, de- order. But it is hard to conserve any- Terror and Civilization (Palgrave Macmillan, velopment, decay, degeneration, and thing when all you see is “carnage,” 2004), Aquinas and Modernity (Rowman & death. He thinks that we are at the end as President Trump described America Littlefield, 2008), and The Bleak Political of a cycle that portends a calamity of in his inaugural address. When there is Implications of Socratic Religion (Springer, forth- global proportions. Nevertheless, he nothing good to conserve, destruction coming 2017).

“Bannon believes that the audacity of Trump is the vehicle that will bring an end to the neoliberal world order.”

secularhumanism.org June / July 2017 Free Inquiry 13 family planning programs. they be less likely to send their dollar JANE ROBERTS Perhaps not surprisingly, with con- to 34 Million Friends of the United Na- tempt for Trump running high and con- tions Population Fund (www.34million GUEST OP-ED tempt for a certain kind of god running friends.org), of which I am a cofounder. almost as high in Europe and Canada, I absolutely don’t know the answer. 34 Dutch Development Minister Lilianne Million Friends of UNFPA got its start Ploumen came up with the idea of on July 22, 2002, when then–Secretary a one-day “She Decides” (www.She of State Colin Powell announced that God and Men Decides.com) conference in Brussels. the George W. Bush administration There, several countries—and a few was not going to release congressio- philanthropists including the Bill and nally approved $34 million to UNFPA Behaving Badly Melinda Gates Foundation and an for—trust me—spurious politically anonymous U.S. donor—pledged a (read “religiously”) motivated reasons. total of $190 million to help make up Powell had previously said that UNFPA for what is sure to be a U.S. shortfall in did invaluable work in the world. In funding for reproductive health under my view, Powell sold the women of ccording to the United Na- Trump. Conference host and Belgian the world down the river, an ironic tions Foundation, there have Deputy Premier Alexander De Croo metaphor to use in connection with an Abeen over seven thousand safe said the alliance of nations wanted to African-American man. births—that is, no maternal deaths— make sure that “the purely ideological By October of that year, 34 Million in the huge Zaatari refugee camp in [read “religulous,” with apologies to Friends was percolating around the Jordan for displaced Syrians. Why? Bill Maher] decision of one country country and the U.S. committee, now Well, it’s because the United Nations does not push women and girls back Friends of UNFPA, was sponsoring a Population Fund is there with doctors, into the Dark Ages.” Family of Woman photography exhibit nurses, midwives, and the wherewithal in the lobby of the United Nations for to do the job right. And it offers con- which I, Mavis Leno, Jean Rather (wife traception to new mothers. of Dan), and Donald Trump and oth- The new Trump administration ers were on the honorary committee. waited only forty-eight hours before Imagine that! Trump obviously sup- it promulgated an enhanced Global ported UNFPA then. Gag Rule (GGR), which ostensibly “More countries, But now God-fearing—huh?— prohibited any nongovernmental or- including all of Trump, like Powell before him, will sell ganization (NGO), whether from the America’s traditional his nonexistent soul. UNFPA will be United States or from a foreign coun- allies, contribute to stiffed. I knew that when the religiously try, that has the word abortion in its fanatical Mike Pence (remember, he’s a vocabulary from receiving any U.S. UNFPA than to almost Christian first!) was announced as vice funds. Trump’s GGR obviously also tar- any other United president that Trump was going to go geted the United Nations Population Nations humanitarian along with virulent antiwomen health Fund (UNFPA). Then on April 4, Pres- measures. Anyone knows that the ident Trump invoked the Kemp-Kas- agency.” more contraception/family planning ten amendment to formally defund that is available, the fewer abortions and nonsensically punish UNFPA for there will be. UNFPA’s mandate from supposedly being complicit in Chi- its governing body, which includes na’s past coercive one-child policy. The Trump budget punishes women the United States, is charged with If there ever was a calumny, a bald- both here and around the world. Re- family planning only, not abortion. Of faced lie, this is it. (Congressman Chris productive health and women’s auton- course, the misogynistic politics of Smith from New Jersey is one of the omy in the reproductive health-care Trump throw all facts out the window worst offenders in this regard.) UNFPA area is perhaps the one type of hu- and place the United States to the far has been defunded by all Republican manitarian aid where religion plays an right of the entire world. In fact, more administrations since Ronald Reagan outsized role. “Goddamn-it-to-hell!” as countries, including all of America’s to satisfy believers in a certain god we atheists like to say, even though the traditional allies, contribute to UNFPA whom, they think, abhors abortion phrase is totally nonsensical. But what than to almost any other United Na- and finds contraception very suspect. did I expect? tions humanitarian agency. In 2016, the Obama administration In the February/March 2013 issue My own daughter Annie, who lives authorized $69 million for the agency, of Free Inquiry, in my article “: in Connecticut, might well have died which does not, I repeat, does not The Last Closet,” I asked whether, if if she lived in a “godforsaken” rural carry out or promote abortions in its people knew I was an atheist, would village somewhere. On her due date,

14 Free Inquiry June / July 2017 secularhumanism.org her baby, Valerie, was completely side- riage. What’s not to like? up by about eighty million a year— ways in Annie’s womb and wasn’t And even beyond the purely hu- mostly in climate-challenged, high going to place herself head down for manitarian aspect that is foremost for fertility, and poverty-stricken areas. all the tea in China. A simple C-sec- me, gender equality is the fifth of the Again, what’s not to like about the tion was performed. When I went to UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. United States being a positive force Senegal with UNFPA in 2003, I met for planned parenthood everywhere? two women whose lives were saved UNFPA’s motto is: “Delivering a world by UNFPA doctors performing emer- where every pregnancy is wanted, gency C-sections. UNFPA reduces every childbirth is safe, and every worldwide maternal mortality. young person’s potential is fulfilled.” UNFPA is the largest purchaser What’s not to like indeed? of contraceptives in the world and is, Please glance again at my article’s therefore, able to bargain for the low- title. It’s all there. And do have a look est prices. Population Action Interna- “UNFPA reduces at www.34millionfriends.org, a fifteen- tional’s video Empty-Handed features worldwide maternal year-old grassroots movement asking women telling their stories of heart- Americans to support the adoption of break at their unwanted pregnancies, mortality.” a teeny-tiny foreign policy. The Ameri- all for the lack of contraceptive sup- can people are reaching out to the plies.1 women of the world. Besides supporting safe mother- hood and family planning, UNFPA is also a worldwide champion of policies combatting gender-based violence, You can’t have gender equality without Jane Roberts, a lifelong champion of gender including gender preference for boys; comprehensive reproductive health- equality, is a retired French teacher and tennis unequal access to education; rape; care for all women and girls. But the coach. In 2002, she cofounded 34 Million Friends honor killings; female genital mutila- whole idea of gender equality is chal- of the United Nations Population Fund, a grass- tion; domestic abuse; and child mar- lenged by certain branches of certain roots movement asking millions of people for a religions, not to belabor a point. small contribution to counter the U.S. govern- ment’s defunding of UNFPA and the women of the 1.http://pai.org/videos/empty-handed- One more thing: world population responding-to-the-demand-for-contraceptives/#. now stands at 7.5 billion and is going world it serves.

“What’s not to like about the United States being a positive force for planned parenthood everywhere?”

Children at the Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan.

secularhumanism.org June / July 2017 Free Inquiry 15 low modern existentialists; by Zorba We gain purpose by raising chil- JAMES A. HAUGHT the Greek, whose questions exposed dren, working at a satisfying job, shar- GUEST OP-ED “the perplexity of mankind”; and by ing our life with a fond spouse or lover, multitudes of other earnest seekers relishing the serene joys of nature, and trying to discern what underlies our so on. But those pursuits don’t address existence. the ultimate questions that cannot be The honesty worldview can give answered and never go away. you a sense that you are supporting Historian Gleb Tsipursky of The Purpose-Driven factual reality. It makes you advocate Ohio State University says that trust- science, democracy, and human rights ing one’s own sense of integrity and Lives as the best tools to improve human- belief in the scientific method imparts ity. It gives you a personal identity— value. “We as secular people can use something worth fighting for. science to fill that emptiness deep in Honesty makes us realize there’s no the pit of our stomach that comes from illionaire evangelist Rick War- trustworthy proof that our minds will a lack of a personal sense of meaning ren is correct: Having a pur- continue living after our bodies die. As and purpose,” he wrote. “We can use Mpose-driven life gives people far as we can tell, each person’s psyche science to answer the question: What meaning and goals. But he’s absurd is created by an individual brain—and is the meaning of life for you?” He in claiming that purpose comes from cited studies showing that people with gods and devils, heavens and hells, strong convictions have better health miracles and messiahs, and the like. and more happiness. “Discover your I think the purpose that drives own sense of life purpose and mean- science-minded freethinkers can be ing from a science-based, humanist-in- summed up in a single word: hon- “An honest person formed perspective,” he urged. esty. It’s dishonest to claim to know admits inability to A wag could reply: “My purpose supernatural things that nobody can in life is to feed my cat.” Well, simply know. Honest people want evidence comprehend ultimate ignoring the profound questions is a and don’t embrace magical assertions reality.” legitimate way to cope—but some of without it. Simply to be honest about us can’t stop wondering. We know we beliefs—that’s a powerful motive im- will never find answers, yet we crave parting purpose to skeptics. firm beliefs to keep us struggling on- Sixty years ago, when I was a dies when the brain does. Accepting ward. gawky young news reporter, my men- the coming oblivion requires courage, The only approach that works for tor was a tough city editor who was a but it’s the only honest stance. Wishing me is to repudiate imaginary spirits clone of H. L. Mencken. He sneered at for immortality is self-deception. and support humanistic reality as the hillbilly preachers in our Appalachian When I foresee the abyss, the black- basis of life and society. Battling for Bible Belt. As a naive wisdom-seeker, ness of death ahead, it breeds exis- secular-humanist truths gives you pur- I asked him: “You’re right that all tential gloom, a sense that everything pose, so you have little time to feel this Bible-thumping is silly—but what’s ultimately is meaningless—a bleak gloom about the approaching end— the truth? Why is the universe here? awareness that our struggles soon will and no time to wonder whether every- Why does life exist? Why are we all be forgotten and ignored, like those of thing is meaningless in the long run. doomed to die? What’s the meaning past generations. I’m haunted by the Ever since Ancient Greece, the of everything? What truthful answer Bard’s rant: “All our yesterdays have world’s greatest minds have searched can an honest person give?” lighted fools the way to dusty death. for the purpose of it all—to no avail. He eyed me squarely and replied: Out, out, brief candle! Life’s but a walk- But each secular humanist can acquire “You can say: I don’t know.” ing shadow, a poor player that struts a personal purpose by embracing Bingo. His answer rang a clear bell and frets his hour upon the stage and honesty and the scientific method. We in my mind, and it never left me. It then is heard no more. It is a tale told by can have purpose-driven lives by op- showed me how to be honest in the an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying posing self-proclaimed holy men who face of bewilderment. An honest per- nothing.” write books such as The Purpose- son admits inability to comprehend We are pointlessly floundering, Driven Life. ultimate reality. soon to vanish into the forgotten past. Later, as I studied, I learned that this That’s a dismal summation, and it same conclusion had been reached by rings true. Yet we nonetheless can Ancient Greece’s great Epicurus—and develop purpose-driven lives that hold James A. Haught is editor emeritus of West Virginia’s by Omar Khayyam in his profound the gloom in abeyance while we slog largest newspaper, the Charleston Gazette-Mail, and is Rubaiyat; by Jean-Paul Sartre and fel- onward. a senior editor of Free Inquiry.

16 Free Inquiry June / July 2017 secularhumanism.org EDWARD TABSH apology was made to the atheist com- foundation of the very business world munity for considering labeling a can- that Ryan enthusiastically supports. OP-ED didate an atheist such a horrendous What happened is that the now- accusation. Sanders quickly denied Speaker had to distance himself from being an atheist.2 Earlier in the cam- a prominent atheist thinker in order to paign, he had said that he believed secure his ascendance in the Repub- in God in his own nontraditional man- ner. To the senator, God “means that Saving Speaker all of us are connected, all of life is connected, and that we are all tied Ryan . . . and together.”3 So, in order to fend off a scheme by his own party to destroy “The Democratic Party Unshackling the his campaign by identifying him as establishment is not an atheist, a major presidential candi- innocent when it comes Bern date declared that he views the deity as some kind of impersonal cosmic to prejudice against glue. This does not bode well for the atheists.” cultural and political acceptance of us he Center for Inquiry (CFI) is non- nonbelievers. partisan. If we are often more crit- Just as CFI is nonpartisan, we also lican Party. He was grasping at any- Tical of one major political party don’t take positions on competing thing to justify his new rejection of his than the other, it’s only because one economic theories. For instance, we previous adherence to Rand’s ideas, party is more fervently devoted to don’t support any particular side in the even if he had supported only her eco- creating a theocracy. In today’s political dispute between Ayn Rand’s free-mar- nomic theories. After explaining why climate, Republican presidents seek ket views and those of socialists. How- he is no longer a follower of Rand and to appoint religious right-wing justices ever, we do become involved when her work, Ryan said that if someone to the U.S. Supreme Court. These atheism is under attack, even if such wanted to link him to anybody’s epis- appointments are intended to create denigration of nonbelief occurs in the temology, it should be to the views a new Court majority that will, for the context of a larger debate in which of Thomas Aquinas.5 Moreover, the first time ever, reinterpret the First we take no position. Paul Ryan, the author of the article I am citing to de- Amendment to hold that all branches current Speaker of the House and scribe Ryan’s rejection of Rand’s atheist of government can now openly favor second in line for the presidency after philosophy in favor of Aquinas ends by belief over nonbelief. This will de- the vice president, once viewed Rand writing: “Aquinas was a saint, after all, stroy the currently prevailing doctrine as a main inspiration for his involve- who was said to disdain secular philos- of benevolent government neutrality in ment in politics. However, he later ophy in favor of Christian revelation.”6 which both believers and nonbelievers said that he now rejects her approach In wanting to be philosophically are equal before the law. because, “It’s an atheist philosophy. It identified with Aquinas, Ryan is bind- While Democratic presidents can reduces human interactions down to ing himself to someone who believed be trusted to appoint justices to the mere contracts and it is antithetical to that women were inferior to men, both Court who will preserve the separation my worldview.”4 Since when does a mentally and physically, and should be of church and state—still the most high-ranking conservative, who favors subject to male rule.7 Even if atheism important consideration—the Demo- an unbridled free-enterprise system, were to reduce much of human inter- cratic Party establishment is not in- disdain contracts? Contracts are the actions to mere contracts—which it nocent when it comes to prejudice doesn’t—why would a backward me- against atheists. In last year’s presiden- 2. Kyle Balluck, “Sanders: I Am Not an dieval philosophical view that wrong- tial primaries, the Democratic National Atheist,” July 24, 2016, http://thehill.com/ fully regards women as inferior be Committee seriously contemplated blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/289002- preferable to a contract-based view an attempt to portray Senator Bernie sanders-i-am-not-an-atheist. of human activity? Considering that Sanders as an atheist in order to se- 3. Frances Stead Sellers and John Wagner, a covenant is a contract, why does cure his defeat in various primaries.1 “Why Bernie Sanders Doesn’t Participate in Organized Religion,” January 27, 2016, Ryan, a devout Catholic, disdain a Apologies were made to Sanders. No https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/ contractual foundation for human ac- bernie-sanders-finally-answers-the-god- tivity when he subscribes to a reli- question/2016/01/26/83429390-bfb0-11e5- gion in which “covenant theology” is 1. Sam Biddle, “New Leak: ‘Top DNC Official bcda-62a36b394160_story.html?utm_term=. Wanted to Use Bernie Sanders’s Religious fc48e75bf52c. Beliefs Against Him,’”July 28, 2016, https:// 4. James Rainey, “Paul Ryan Loved Ayn Rand, 5. Ibid. theintercept.com/2016/07/22/new-leak-top- Before He Said He Didn’t,” August 12, 2012, 6. Ibid. dnc-official-wanted-to-use-bernie-sanderss- http://articles.latimes.com/2012/aug/12/ 7. “Thomistic Philosophy Page,” http://www. religious-beliefs-against-him/. news/la-pn-vp-paul-ryan-ayn-rand-20120811. aquinasonline.com/Questions/women.html.

secularhumanism.org June / July 2017 Free Inquiry 17 now dominant? Covenant theology how this would overturn the consti- major religious-Right activists are not insists that God’s covenants with the tutional equality between believers so benevolent. Unlike us, they don’t world are an ongoing process that and nonbelievers. As I wrote in the want government neutrality between runs through both the Old and New CFI amicus brief filed with the U.S. believers and nonbelievers; they want Testaments. It was affirmed as Church Supreme Court in the Pledge of Alle- all branches of government to be able doctrine by Pope Benedict XVI.8 giance case, Elk Grove Unified School to openly favor belief over nonbelief. As the Republican vice presidential District v. Newdow, 542 U.S. 1 (2004), If major political figures said they re- nominee in 2012, Ryan expressed his we church-state separationists would jected someone’s views because those support for returning organized equally oppose rewriting the Pledge views were “a Jewish philosophy,” to public schools,9 without regard to to read: “one nation under no God.” there would be a powerful outcry. Yet, We want the Pledge, and all other there was no discernible protest over government functions, to be neutral Ryan’s rejecting Rand’s ideas because 8. Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, Many Religions,­ One Covenant (San Franciso: Ignatius Press so that believers and nonbelievers she espoused an atheist philosophy. 1999). Ratzinger wrote this book six years alike can enjoy equal ownership of all Further, if we had already achieved before becoming pope. levels of government. Ryan and other a true normalization of atheism, a 9. “Paul Ryan Supports Prayer in Public major presidential candidate such as Schools,” September 6, 2012, http://www. Sanders—who obviously doesn’t be- christianheadlines.com/blog/paul-ryan- supports-prayer-in-public-schools.html. lieve in an all-powerful, all-good, and all-knowing supernatural being that is revealed in sacred texts—wouldn’t have had to use such verbal gymnas- tics in order for his candidacy to sur- “I cherish the moment in May 2012 vive the possibility that his own party when I told President Barack Obama that would accuse him of being an atheist. I was now the first atheist in history to I cherish the moment in May 2012 when I told President Barack Obama be in the presence of my savior.” that I was now the first atheist in history to be in the presence of my savior. His appreciation of my quip is apparent by his laughter (see photo). We need to get to a point where any president of any party would react the same way. We atheists are still the most un- justly despised minority in the United States today. We can be demeaned in ways that would be automatically con- sidered socially unacceptable if di- rected at anyone else who expresses a viewpoint on matters of religion. With an impending new religious Right Su- preme Court majority and the continu- ing widespread hostility toward athe- ism and atheists, we must strive harder than ever to establish full equality for our views and for ourselves—culturally, legally, and politically—in this still reli- giously benighted society.

Edward Tabash is a constitutional lawyer in the Los Angeles area and chair of the board of direc- tors of the Center for Inquiry. He is recognized for his legal expertise pertaining to the separation of church and state. He is also one of the more well-known atheist debaters in the United States.

18 Free Inquiry June / July 2017 secularhumanism.org CFI NEWS CFI Helps Welcome UN Special Rapporteur

n his capacity as chair of the United Nations (UN) NGO Committee on IFreedom of Religion or Belief, Mi- chael De Dora, the Center for Inqui- ry’s Director of Public Policy, recently helped to coordinate a special visit to Washington, D.C., by Ahmed Sha- heed, the newly appointed UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion of Belief.

“The Special Rapporteur is an independent expert appointed by the UN From left to right: the UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion and Belief, Human Rights Council… Ahmed Shaheed; Tina Raminrez, founder and president of Hardwired; Fraez [to] work on the devel- Sanei, legal advisor to the Special Rapporteur; and CFI’s Michael De Dora. opment and implemen- tation of human rights human rights standards, and engage International Religious Freedom. He standards.” in advocacy and public awareness spoke at a public event cosponsored efforts. Shaheed, a career diplomat by CFI at Freedom House, which con- from the Maldives, began his service ducts research and advocacy on de- on November 1, 2016. mocracy, political freedom, and human De Dora helped organize Sha- rights. CFI also collaborated with The Special Rapporteur is an inde- heed’s first visit to the UN in New York Hardwired to arrange meetings with pendent expert appointed by the UN City in October. At that time, arrange- staffs of members of Congress, which Human Rights Council for a maximum ments were made for Shaheed to visit resulted in a meeting with Senator of two three-year terms. This individual Washington from April 3 to 5, 2017. In James Lankford (R-Okla.) and Gary E. is tasked to make formal country visits, addition to visiting CFI’s Office of Pub- Hall, senior director of the White House National Security Council for raise concerns about individual cases lic Policy, Shaheed met with represen- International Organizations and Alli- and systemic issues, deliver annual re- tatives from the International Religious ances. ports to the UN Human Rights Council Freedom Roundtable, the Religious and General Assembly, work on the Freedom Institute, the Pew Research development and implementation of Center, and the U.S. Commission on —Tom Flynn

secularhumanism.org June / July 2017 Free Inquiry 19 LOOKING BACK

35 Years Ago in Free Inquiry

“Only a minority of committed religious people now oppose Darwinism. . . . What is it they oppose? The idea that the age of the earth is vastly greater than 6,000 years? That creation is a continuous process, not confined to one moment in time? That man is kin to the apes? On the surface, these seem to be the principal points of dispute, but I think we should doubt that this is all there is to the story. Whenever a dispute goes on for more than a century, as this one has, we should suspect that the real grounds for the dispute have not been laid bare. . . . As Alan Wood has said, ‘The reason why great intellectual advances often arouse violent opposition . . . is that they do not challenge what everybody is thinking at the time. They challenge ideas which are assumed so unthinkingly that people do not even realize that they are assuming them. The supremely difficult task is bringing this subconscious assumption into consciousness.’” —Garrett Hardin, “Grounded Reason vs. Received Formulas,”Free Inquiry Volume 2, No. 3 (Summer 1982) Editor’s Note: Garrett Hardin (1915–2003) was professor emeritus of human ecology at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and chief executive officer of Environmental Ethics. He is best known for his influential 1968 article “The Tragedy of the Commons.” Hardin and his wife advocated that individuals have the right to choose their own time and manner of death; they died together by suicide in 2003. Hardin was one of fifteen distinguished academics who spoke at “Sci- ence, the Bible, and Darwin,” a conference organized by at the State University of New York at Buffalo, April 16–17, 1982. It was the major commemoration of the centennial of Darwin’s death and also the first confer- ence convened under the auspices of Free Inquiry magazine.

25 Years Ago in Free Inquiry

“My third trip to Russia in the past three years, in March 1992, vividly re- vealed the present chaotic conditions. . . . Religion was everywhere in evi- dence. The beleaguered atheists whom I met complained that the Russian Orthodox church is now a de facto state church. . . . No one can predict the course of history. Whether democracy and the free market in the former Soviet Union will succeed is anyone’s guess. . . . Everywhere there is appre- hension that a right-wing nationalist coup (allied with the old Bolsheviks) may seize power, promising order and stability. They may even attempt to restore Russian hegemony over other republics.” —Paul Kurtz, “Letter from Moscow: Russia in Transition,” Free Inquiry Volume 12, No. 3 (Summer 1992)

Editor’s Note: Under the auspices of Free Inquiry and of the International Humanist and Ethical Union, of which he was then cochair, FI founder Paul Kurtz played a leading role in an international effort to protect humanism and religious skepticism in Russia from the powerful reaction against the legacy of Soviet state atheism. Unfortunately, this effort met with only mod- erate success. The “nightmare scenario” Kurtz foresaw did not unfold as directly as he envisioned, but much of it has taken shape in our time under the leadership of Vladimir Putin.

20 Free Inquiry June / July 2017 secularhumanism.org LETTERS

ROBYN E. BLUMNER: JOIN OUR TRIBE! Intellectuals need to embrace their wants. She is trying to end public threw out the Brotherhood, and responsibility to lead this nation, education by instituting school now they have military rule, which

CELEBRATING REASON AND HUMANITY April/May 2017 Vol. 37 No.3 not lick their wounds and complain vouchers to help parents pay for may be worse than Mubarak’s reign. about how unfair it all is. Many of private schools. Should she suc- We must be very careful about us are tired of panicking and are ceed, we know that most of the whom to accept into this country. actively searching for mutual solu- private schools in view will be re- Michael Farona tions and ways to open a fact-fueled ligiously affiliated. The hard Right Altoona, Florida dialogue. We must step down from will jump at the opportunity to our moral high horse and listen to reinstate racism, sexism, and reli- ISSUES IN TECHNOLOGY AND ETHICS what others actually have to say if gious instruction in the classroom Nanotech | Autonomous Cars | Autonomous Weapons Issues in Technology What Future Do We Want? we’re ever going to move forward. all at state expense. I am a Baby DAVID KOEPSELL | James Hughes | Ryan Jenkins | Patrick Lin | Wendell Wallach and Ethics OPINION by Greta Christina | Shadia B. Drury | Ophelia Benson Boomer. During the 1950s, I at- Russell Blackford |Faisal Saeed Al Mutar |Janet L. Factor | James A. Haught AJ Fortunato

A/M 17 tended a Baptist elementary school $5.95 CDN $5.95 US $5.95 UNRAVELING TRUMP: Peter Boghossian 05 Silver Spring, Maryland Patrick Lin in his article “Autopia: and James A. Lindsay | Gleb Tsipursky in Houston, Texas. I remember

Published by the Center for Inquiry in association 0 74470 74957 8 with the Council for Secular Humanism what it was like. The classes were The Robot Car of Tomorrow May Be on the Right all white, upper middle class if not Just Be Programmed to Hit You” financially well-to-do. The principal (FI, April/May 2017) presents the Side of History openly told the parents that they ethical dilemma of a driverless car Finding Truth in would not admit a nonwhite child. I (or better, its programmers) being The insight of Greta Christina need not mention what they taught forced to choose between swerv- Today’s World (“We Need to Say ‘No!’” FI, April/ us about sex, sexuality, and politics. ing left and hitting a Volvo SUV or May 2017) cannot be overstated. I would not want to afflict a right and hitting a Mini Cooper. His Shadia Drury made some highly The hosts of President Trump are contemporary child with such un- discussion considers only the risks valid points regarding the U.S. attempting to build a political democratic horrors. But having to the occupants of the other cars, media in “Celebrating the Post- monolith across the country much lived through many of them, I can concluding that hitting the Volvo, Truth World” (FI, April/May 2017), the way that Franklin Delano Roo- attest that they can become a re- with its presumably superior crash but she was completely off the sevelt tried to do by “stacking” ality again should we not fight protection, is the better choice. But mark in portraying the Russia in- the U.S. Supreme Court. Trump diligently against the Trump ad- in doing so, he ignores another, vestigation as “partisan.” Not only has most of the state legislatures, ministration. Greta Christina is very perhaps more serious ethical di- is the U.S. intelligence community he has both houses of Congress, farsighted and just as right as rain. lemma, namely should the car favor as a whole investigating Russia’s and he just may have the majority protecting its own occupants over possible interference in our elec- of justices on the High Court in John L. Indo others? If the answer is “yes,” the toral process, but a bipartisan com- just a year or two. He is also trying Houston, Texas car should aim for the Mini Coo- mittee is as well. Russia has also to intimidate the media. This is all per, since the driverless car’s oc- been implicated in attempting to that is needed to create a virtual Ideas for Rational Muslim cupants will likely suffer less harm upset European political systems. fascist state. For in such a cor- by hitting the lighter vehicle. As Why is it so hard to believe that nered situation, who could resist Immigration Lin asks, “Does that sound fair?” his agenda, even though it would the anti-NATO Putin would support, Craig Stephan mean rolling back many of our hard- I agree with the opinion of Faisal and try to influence the elections in Ann Arbor, Michigan favor of, a presidential candidate won civil rights since the 1960s. Saeed Al Mutar (“Toward a Ratio- who has been so critical of NATO? Adding insult to injury, Gover- nal Muslim Immigration Policy,” FI, nor Abbott of Texas is calling for a April/May 2017), but with the fol- A. Baer constitutional convention to amend lowing reservations. How are you When the Abhorrent By E-mail the federal Constitution. This is going to tell the category that po- Becomes Commonplace very serious. With the incessant tential immigrants belong to? This Reacting to New pressure from the religious Right would entail extreme vetting to en- In the April/May 2017 issue of FI, and the promise of many votes, sure they belong to category 4 to 0. Peter Boghossian and James A. President Trump this at the very worst could result It seems to me that the majority of Lindsay (“Is the Unthinkable the in the loss of abortion rights, the Muslims belong to categories 10 to New Acceptable?”) discuss how Re: “Panic and Emptiness,” by loss of same-sex marriage rights, 5, and I offer the following evidence. subjects that were once consid- Ophelia Benson (FI, April/May the loss of separation of church Egypt, which is regarded as a mod- ered beyond the pale have now 2017). I fear Benson has resorted to and state, censorship in the name erate Muslim country, overthrew the become acceptable parlance, if not grabbing for the low-hanging fruit. of national security, and a quick dictator Hosni Mubarak and had the in the general community but cer- The fact that #45 is a lying, narcis- balancing of the federal budget opportunity to elect leaders who tainly in select communities whose sistic simpleton unable to humble that could result in the curtailment would install something like a de- members communicate with like- himself even to the history of his of many social services, possibly mocracy. Who did they elect? The minded individuals and the gen- new position is not news to anyone, including entitlement programs. Muslim Brotherhood (category 8 to eral public through social media. least of all Free Inquiry subscribers There is also the issue of public 7) who shortly after taking control Readers of FI might expect who may have felt marginalized education. We know what Sec- tried to institute Sharia law and put enough to actually vote for him. retary of Education Betsy DeVos restrictions on women. The army (Continued on page 66)

secularhumanism.org June / July 2017 Free Inquiry 21 Blasphemy: In the Eye of the Beholder?

Blasphemy: A Victimless Crime or a Crime in Search of a Victim? Flemming Rose

n the spring of 2015, the Danish center-Left government, Well, I can think of a lot of speech and other things with the backing of some opposition parties, decided to that to my mind will not benefit or enrich the public Ikeep the country’s 150-year-old blasphemy law on the space, but does that justify criminalizing them? books. It did so in spite of the fact that there had not been It is true that book burning provokes the most un- a single conviction for blasphemy since 1946 and against pleasant associations and brings to mind terrible ep- the advice of several nongovernmental organizations and isodes in our history, and it is quite rightly seen as an other civil-society organizations. A proposal to abolish the antidote to civilization. But say your loved ones were blasphemy law had been put forward in 2004, when a killed in a terrorist attack and the terrorists justified group of Muslims wanted to take the Danish Broadcasting their bloody actions with quotations from a holy book. Corporation to court for having shown Theo van Gogh’s Would the burning of such a book not be a quite un- documentary Submission in the aftermath of his killing. derstandable reaction to express your sense of grief and Why did the government opt for this solution? contempt? Leaving this point aside, the Danish government was not entirely honest about the state of affairs. Of course, it did not fear violent reactions to copies of the Bible being burned in public. In fact, in 1997, the Danish evening “The issue driving the government’s news, a Danish Broadcasting Cor- motivation to keep the blasphemy poration program, showed a Danish artist burning a copy of the Bible law was the holy book of a specific while speaking about his coming ex- religion and its prophet, not holy books and hibition at an art gallery in Aarhus, Denmark’s second largest city. No prophets in general.” death threats followed; there were just a few complaints and a call for the prosecutor to initiate a blasphemy charge. The case was dropped three months later, largely on the basis of the artist’s explanation that it was a symbolic act intended to raise public debate about Christianity. In 2006, Making the government’s case, Mette Frederiksen, then the Norwegian comedian Otto Jespersen also burned the minister of justice and current head of the social-demo- a copy of the Bible in the Christian-dominated town of cratic party, claimed it was a preventive measure to secure Aalesund in front of rolling television cameras. When public order in the event of blasphemous outbursts. She asked to repeat his stunt with a copy of the Qur’an, specifically singled out burning the Bible and the Qur’an Jespersen refused, saying that he wanted to live longer as blasphemous acts that keeping the law would make it than another week. In 2004, Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh was possible to punish. “I cannot see how it will strengthen our As noted above, in 1997, Danish public broadcasting murdered for his work on a short film that criticized society or how the public debate would be enriched by had no qualms about an artist burning a copy of the Bible the treatment of women in Islam. legalizing the burning of holy books,” she said. on the news. In 2015, the situation was quite different

22 Free Inquiry June / July 2017 secularhumanism.org when it came to showing a few cartoons of the prophet law in one of the most stable and peaceful liberal democ- Muhammad on a late night news show on the same tele- racies in the world. vision station. I was on the news show Deadline after the In November 2004, a couple of weeks after the killing “Je suis Charlie” day in France, Sunday, January 11, 2015, of the Dutch filmmaker and provocateur Theo van Gogh, following the killing of twelve people at the satirical the Dutch minister of justice, Piet Hein Donner, proposed magazine’s offices a few days earlier, to talk about the a revival of the blasphemy law. The logic seemed to be state of free speech in Europe. The magazine Charlie that if the had had laws criminalizing Van Hebdo’s encounter with the Muslim prophet and his ad- Gogh’s speech about Islam and Muslims, then he would herents started in February 2006 with its republication still be alive. In short, blame the victim and make conces- of the newspaper Jyllands-Posten’s cartoons of Muham- sions to the perpetrators of violence—then everything mad, and so for a few seconds the anchorman showed will be just fine. a page containing the twelve original Muhammad car- This is one approach to the fact that “God is back,” as toons from my book The Tyranny of Silence. It seemed relevant to the topic at hand. Nev- ertheless, immediately after the show, the host received a reprimand from his boss and was later temporarily removed from the show. He was also “Religious fanatics in the Muslim criticized by some colleagues for putting them in danger, though they did not say as much in world now have the power to public. trigger blasphemy charges in So the issue driving the government’s mo- tivation to keep the blasphemy law was the Denmark in order to demonstrate holy book of a specific religion and its prophet, to the outside world that the not holy books and prophets in general. Inter- estingly, the Danish government also justified its government accepts their threats decision to keep the blasphemy law with a refer- and violence as the most serious ence to possible international reactions to blas- phemous speech in Denmark. The result was argument for upholding the that religious fanatics in the Muslim world now rule of law.” have the power to trigger blasphemy charges in Denmark in order to demonstrate to the outside world that the government accepts their threats and violence as the most serious argument for upholding the rule of law. To me this sounds like a very paradoxical understanding of the rule of

two former editors and writers for the Economist put it in a book title a few years ago. It is popular, especially among Western governments and people who are willing to sacri- fice freedom on the altar of diversity, to defend their stand with short-term utilitarian arguments. Another approach was proposed by the Norwegian government when, in the aftermath of the attack on Charlie Hebdo, it decided to repeal its blasphemy law. In promoting the abolition of the law, two members of Parliament said: The attack on the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in January 2015 was an attack on freedom of

In 2004, Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh was murdered for his work on a short film that criticized the treatment of women in Islam.

secularhumanism.org June / July 2017 Free Inquiry 23 the press and freedom of expression. Even though guard for Salman Taseer, the governor of Punjab prov- the blasphemy law in and of itself does not legitimize ince, killed the man he was assigned to protect because violence, it provides support for the point of view that Taseer had spoken out against the blasphemy laws and religious speech and symbols have a right to special protection against other kinds of speech. This embod- defended a Christian woman who was standing trial on ies an unfortunate message, and it is about time that blasphemy charges. Qadri was praised as a hero, even society stood up for free speech in a clear and unequiv- by Pakistani lawyers. He was executed in February 2016. ocal manner, also when it comes to religious issues. With this in mind, one may feel tempted to ask: In fact, several observers have made the point that the Might getting rid of blasphemy laws in the long run severe blasphemy laws in Pakistan serve as an incite- pave the way for nonviolent reactions to blasphemy? ment to violence against blasphemers, not as a legal The Danish and Norwegian reactions to the attacks in instrument to secure the social peace. In Pakistan, as in Paris and Copenhagen at the beginning of 2015 represent several other Muslim-majority countries, blasphemy is a two different approaches to free speech and its limits in capital offense on a par with a terrorist attack killing hun- a globalized world dominated by digital technology and an increasing diversity of religions and cultures. The debate about free speech and its limits can no longer be confined to homogeneous national spaces. The “Public confrontations regarding deeply Danish government’s decision to keep held beliefs are inevitable if society wants its blasphemy law due to threats and violence in countries several thousand to provide equal space for differing kilometers away is a manifestation of this worldviews in a multicultural society.” new world. There may be grave long- term consequences if liberal democracies are willing to compromise fundamental liberties such as freedom of speech in order to manage the forces of globaliza- tion. Critics Paul Cliteur, Tom Herrenberg, dreds of people. That is part of the reason why there are and Bastiaan Rijpkema have written: “In so many extrajudicial killings of blasphemers in Pakistan. an interconnected world, free speech cannot be studied in When the government communicates to the public that the isolation of a single legal order. Terrorists and extrem- blasphemy is more or less as evil as killing hundreds of ists on the other side of the globe force restrictions on the innocent people, it should not come as a surprise that use of free speech by a U.S. citizen, and coerce the U.S. a lot of people are willing to take the law into their own government to intervene.” hands. In 2011, Mumtaz Qadri, who worked as a body- We need a serious debate about free speech in a globalized world in order to avoid ad hoc, short-term deci- sions to calm emotions. I find it logical and natural that the more diverse a society becomes in terms of culture and religion, the more diverse will be the ways in which people express themselves. Public confrontations regarding deeply held beliefs are inevitable if society wants to provide equal space for differing worldviews in a multicultural society. One has to be honest about the fact that diver- sity is difficult and painful if people are serious about their cultural and religious affiliations. Unfortunately, the majority of European politicians believe that cultural and religious diversity should be accompanied by less

Salman Taseer, the governor of Punjab province, was killed by the man assigned to protect him because Taseer had spoken out against blasphemy laws.

24 Free Inquiry June / July 2017 secularhumanism.org BLASPHEMY: IN THE EYE OF THE BEHOLDER?

diversity when it comes to speech. They are convinced This point was reinforced by another case that unfolded that the only way to safeguard the social peace is to at the same time, in which Denmark’s prosecutor general accept new limitations on speech. I suspect that the refused to charge an imam with incitement to hatred. The pressure on free speech in Europe and beyond will grow day before the deadly attacks in Copenhagen in February in the coming years, and in order to understand what is 2015, in which a film director attending an event centered going on, we need historical analysis, perspective, and on blasphemy, art, and free speech and a young Jew deconstruction of the arguments favoring further limita- guarding the synagogue were killed, the imam said: tions on speech. Our Prophet had Jewish neighbors in Al Medina. Did he want closer relations, harmony and dialogue in the man- What Is Blasphemy? ner of the UN and those who want to unite truth and lies? Blasphemy is basically about transgression, about cross- Or did he preach that they had to commit themselves to ing the line between the sacred and the profane in Allah? When they broke their promises and did not ac- ways that are seen as improper in a specific context. cept his call, then you know what he did to them. It says in the Sira that he went to war against the Jews. They were Blasphemy has no consistent and objective meaning in- driven into an abyss of resignation and corruption that dependent of time and space. Definitions cover a wide led them from the level of humans to the level of animals. range of speech depending on religious content, social norms, and power relations. To make the situation even more confusing, a Danish Austin Dacey has identified three broad concepts in citizen was charged with incitement to religious hatred the history of legal regulation of blasphemy in the West. after having burned a copy of the Qur’an in his back- They have been prevalent at different times throughout yard. He filmed the episode and posted it on Facebook history.1 First, there is an ancient con- with the words: “Think about your neighbor; it stinks cept of blasphemy as a direct verbal affront to the divine; second, a medi- eval concept of blasphemy arises as “Multicultural democracies can … a seditious challenge to the sanctity of law, public order, or the common outlaw blasphemy and incitement good; and, third, there is a modern to religious hatred in order to notion of blasphemy as an offense against the sensibilities, rights, or prevent intercommunal strife … dignity of individual believers. a futile exercise. Or they can … The last definition informs current debates about blasphemy and can revoke provisions that protect religion be difficult to separate from incite- and religious symbols.” ment to religious hatred. Recently, this was demonstrated in a court case in Denmark. In 2016, the city court of Elsinore convicted a man of incitement to religious hatred. He had written on his Facebook page: “The ideology of Islam is as despicable and deplorable, when it burns.” oppressive and anti-human as Nazism. The massive I suspect that the lack of consistency and difficulties immigration of Islamists to Denmark is the most destruc- in classifying speech crimes are not confined to Den- tive thing that has happened to Danish society in recent mark. They are part of a general European trend. In a memory. Islam wants to abuse democracy in order to review of the history of Dutch blasphemy law, Cliteur destroy democracy.” and Herrenberg analyzed the situation and identify The court deemed these statements to be insulting and a dilemma confronting Europe’s liberal democracies: degrading to the adherents of Islam, though to some this “What the jihadists of the twenty-first century re-intro- was not seen as an attack on individuals or a group of peo- duced was the implementation of blasphemy laws by ple but as criticism of an ideology. The man was acquitted extrajudicial execution. Europe is still struggling with by an appeals court, but the incident shows that it may be how to respond.” difficult even for professional judges to draw clear lines According to Cliteur and Herrenberg, there are ba- between blasphemy and incitement to religious hatred. sically two ways in which multicultural democracies can react to this new situation. They can, as a sign of “mul- 1. Austin Dacey, The Future of Blasphemy: Speaking of the Sacred in an ticultural etiquette,” outlaw blasphemy and incitement Age of Human Rights (New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2012). to religious hatred in order to prevent intercommunal

secularhumanism.org June / July 2017 Free Inquiry 25 strife, and maybe even terrorist attacks. Cliteur and crimes of communism. Herrenberg rightly see this as a futile exercise. Or they In my opinion, there is a convincing case against the can—as the Netherlands and Norway did—revoke pro- West’s concessions to religious fundamentalism over the visions that protect religion and religious symbols. course of almost four decades. They started in 1980 with Nevertheless, laws against blasphemy or religious in- an almost-forgotten documentary about the execution of a sult are still on the books in several European countries. young Saudi princess and her lover for adultery. Back then This is of course an act of discrimination against non- the Saudi government, with the help of Western govern- believers. It seems to me that blasphemy needs legal ments and oil companies, succeeded in convincing a lot of protection as a matter of equality before the law and as people that broadcasting the documentary would be an a precondition for citizens’ rights to exercise their free- affront to Muslims. My own government and the Danish dom of expression and freedom of conscience. At the Broadcasting Corporation caved in to the intimidation and height of the cartoon crisis back in 2006, many observ- canceled the broadcast of Death of a Princess. The argu- ers, including people of a liberal persuasion, made the claim that ridiculing Islam’s prophet violated Muslims’ ments and intimidation employed then were very similar to right to freedom of religion. Blasphemy was seen as those used during later confrontations: Yes, we have free giving offense to religious sensibilities, and in a time of speech, but speech has to be responsible, and this is irre- sponsible. Why insult other people’s religious feelings? Yes, we have our values, but they have theirs, and it is not up to us to pass any judgment on them. Violence has nothing to do “Blasphemy needs legal protection as a with Islam, and so on and so forth. matter of equality before the law and as a The arguments were repeated after precondition for citizens’ rights to exercise the fatwa against Salman Rushdie in 1989, after the killing of Theo van their freedom of expression and freedom Gogh in 2004, during the cartoon of conscience.” crisis in 2006, and after the killings at Charlie Hebdo and in Copenhagen in 2015. The list goes on and on. Paul Cliteur, Laetitia Houben, and Michelle Slimmen sum it up this way: Instead of upholding and defend- “grievance fundamentalism,” it had to be identified as ing the values European governments have enshrined a criminal offense. Or they interpreted John Stuart Mill’s in their human rights treaties and constitutions, they harm principle as holding that an individual’s freedom give in to the unreasonable demands of dictatorships. In the long run this attitude may prove suicidal, and of speech stops when it is used to hurt other people’s democratic governments should perhaps do some feelings. This nonsense was repeated by serious people soul searching on how to uphold democratic values in who should have known better. To me, it indicated a the future. frightening lack of understanding of the basic principles of a free society. Indeed. A few countries have changed their laws in order to make it clear that they cover both religious and secular Flemming Rose is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute. He is the former foreign affairs sensibilities so that they provide legal recourse to those editor at the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten (Jutlands Post); as the paper’s cul- of secular persuasions as well. That is an improvement, ture editor, he commissioned the famous “Muhammad cartoons” that were published but the danger is that it will trigger further limitations on in 2005 and sparked the international Cartoon Crisis of 2006. (Free Inquiry published speech along the lines of “if you respect my taboo, I will a selection of those cartoons in its April/May 2006 issue.) In 2014, Cato published respect yours.” If it is illegal to mock the Christian faith, his book, The Tyranny of Silence: How One Cartoon Ignited a Global Debate on the it should also be illegal to mock secular ideologies such Future of Free Speech. This article was adapted with permission from Rose’s as Marxism and liberalism. This has been the case with Foreword to The Fall and Rise of Blasphemy Law, edited by Paul Cliteur and Tom memory laws. Laws criminalizing have Herrenberg ( Press, 2016). References in the text not otherwise been followed by laws criminalizing the denial of the attributed refer to other articles in that anthology.

26 Free Inquiry June / July 2017 secularhumanism.org Religious Freedom and Blasphemy Law in a Global Context: The Concept of Religious Defamation Mirjam van Schaik

reedom of religion or belief is incorporated in the ent name in 2011). Based in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, it constitutions of many Western states. A classical claims to represent the universal Ummah, a world com- Fhuman right, it has been adopted in international munity of more than 1.5 billion Muslims. conventions. In general, universal human rights have After the United Nations (UN), the OIC is currently been agreed upon by the international community, the largest intergovernmental organization, with fif- accepted as an international norm, and defined as fun- ty-seven members. It is unique in being a religious damental and authoritative.1 There are various places in the world where strict measures to restrict this fundamental right have been taken. A special status is granted to a particular religion; apostasy is out- “In one severe abuse of freedom lawed under the criminal code, as is blasphemy of religion, religious freedom has been for causing offense to religious feelings. In one severe abuse of freedom of religion, amalgamated with political strategies or religious freedom has been amalgamated with policies of protecting the reputation of political strategies or policies of protecting the reputation of religions against defamation. For religions against defamation.” almost twenty years, the Organization of Is- lamic Cooperation (OIC) has put forward reso- lutions on the issues of “combating defamation of religions” and “combating religious intoler- ance” in the United Nations Commission on Human intergovernmental organization with permanent ob- Rights, in its successor the Human Rights Council, and server status at the UN. This entails that the OIC has in the General Assembly. free access to most UN meetings, a standing invitation The Organization of Islamic Cooperation to participate as an observer in sessions of the General Assembly, and a permanent office at UN headquarters The OIC was formally established as the Organization in New York. of the Islamic Conference in May 1971 (it took its pres- Disputing Universality 1. Article 18 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) states that everyone has the right to freedom of thought, For several decades, the OIC has disputed the uni- conscience, and religion. Although not binding, Article 18 of the versality of the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UNUDHR) is Rights (UDHR) and the human-rights framework that also relevant, for it has influenced many constitutions globally and has functioned as a foundation for several national and international has been built upon it. During a 1981 meeting of the legal documents. General Assembly, a representative of the Islamic Re-

secularhumanism.org June / July 2017 Free Inquiry 27 public of Iran stated that “all rules regarding human mote human rights, the Independent Permanent Human rights must be founded exclusively on principles of Rights Commission (IPHRC). One scholar hailed it as “a divine ethics, and justice must be defined in terms of newfound commitment to human rights issues within the eternal moral principles.” OIC…. A shift away from the Organization’s past cynicism This indicates the core of the OIC’s view: human on human rights.” This view overlooks the fact that, ac- rights are not founded on universal secular principles cording to Section VIII, Paragraph 2 of the action program, but on divine ethics. the establishment of the IPHRC had to be in accordance This sensibility informed the drafting of several Is- with the principles of the Cairo Declaration. The Cairo Dec- lamic human rights documents in the region, such as laration does not even recognize the fundamental human the Universal Islamic Declaration of Human Rights and right of freedom of religion or belief, and it recognizes the Arab Charter on Human Rights. However, these certain other freedoms only when they are in accordance documents did not have the same impact or preva- with Islamic law. lence as the Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in The term human rights in the title of the commission Islam (CDHRI), adopted in 1990. This agreement was does therefore seem to be rather misleading. drafted during the Cairo Islamic Conference of Foreign Three years later, the OIC implemented its current char- Ministers of the OIC. The preamble to the CDHRI de- ter. The charter gives the impression that it is an improve- clares that “fundamental rights and universal freedoms ment over the ten-year program, since it no longer refers in Islam are an integral part of the Islamic religion and to the Cairo Declaration and its notion of Sharia law. The new charter further provides that OIC mem- bers “adhere ... [to their] commitment to the principles of the United Nations Charter, the present Charter and International Law,” and “The core of the OIC’s view: “promote human rights and fundamental free- human rights are not founded doms, good governance, rule of law, democ- racy and accountability in Member States.” on universal secular principles At first glance, this resembles progress. but on divine ethics.” However, the same paragraph states that these commitments need to be in accordance with the constitutional and legal systems of the particular member state. In general, the OIC member states have a strong state religion. Some are theocracies that suppress all reli- gious diversity. This creates religious legitimacy that no one as a matter of principle has the right to sus- for the OIC members to escape their UN human rights pend them in whole or in part or violate or ignore them obligations, even though most of them are signatories in as much as they are binding divine commandments.” to the international human rights treaties and are legally With the Cairo Declaration, the OIC laid down dis- bound by them. tinctive Islamic principles that conflicted with UN human Also relevant is the fact that Article 1 of the new charter rights law, not only restricting fundamental human rights contains a paragraph that defines the OIC’s objective as but subjecting them to superseding Islamic norms. The “to protect and defend the true image of Islam” and “to Cairo Declaration declares that in the member states of the combat defamation of Islam.” OIC, all human rights must be addressed from an Islamic With this addition, the OIC members formally en- perspective and that all rights and freedoms are subject shrined these concepts in their charter, creating legitimacy to Islamic law (Sharia). No right to freedom of religion is for the course they have been sailing over the years, a included, since its Article 10 forbids the practice of—or course that has dominated the Human Rights Council and conversion to—any religion other than Islam. General Assembly since 1999.

The Ten-Year Program and a New Charter The OIC’s Motivations In 2005, the OIC prepared a ten-year action program for What led the OIC to introduce the concept of defamation “the Muslim Ummah to achieve its renaissance.” Several of Islam before the UN Commission on Human Rights scholars described this action as a positive change of (UNCHR) in 1999? At least three developments can be dis- course in the OIC’s human rights policy, citing among other tinguished that contributed to this action. In the first place, things its call to establish an independent body to pro- it is all about upholding the appearance of Islam, that is,

28 Free Inquiry June / July 2017 secularhumanism.org BLASPHEMY: IN THE EYE OF THE BEHOLDER?

the image of Islam in general (this is in line with the view and denigration waged against Islam and its sacred values of Lorenz Langer, a lecturer at the University of Zurich). as well as the desecration of the Islamic places of worship.” The second development involves the consequences of Then the OIC went a step further. It drafted a resolution the fatwa that Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued against titled On Adopting a Unified Stand on the Attack of Islamic Salman Rushdie for writing The Satanic Verses. Third (again Sanctities and Values [emphasis mine], which requested drawing on Langer), it is a response to reprimands that the Secretary-General “to take the necessary measures for several OIC member states received in various UN forums. the drafting of an international convention [emphasis mine] The first development, the idea of defense of the to ensure respect for sanctities and values.” They appealed image of Islam, emerged at the third Islamic Summit Con- to the Secretary-General “to prepare and submit [at] the ference (Mecca, 1981). During this Summit, the members next International Conference of Foreign Ministers a study of the OIC agreed to “develop . . . mass-media and in- on the conclusion of an international legal instrument [em- formation institutions, guided in this effort by the precepts phasis mine].” and teachings of Islam, in order . . . that our nation may be Over the years, the broadening of the OIC’s objec- able to show to the world its true qualities, and refute the tives—from wanting to positively inform about Islam to systematic media campaigns aimed at isolating, misleading, slandering and defaming our na- tion.” In this quotation, the term nation must be understood as Islam in general. In addition, the focus is not solely the image of Islam for Mus- “The Cairo Declaration does not lims, or within the OIC countries, but specifically perception of Islam by non-Muslims worldwide. even recognize the fundamental The OIC pursued this course until Salman human right of freedom of religion Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses was published in 1989. Rushdie’s work was “strongly con- or belief, and it recognizes certain demned” by the OIC; Rushdie was regarded as other freedoms only when they are in an apostate and his work a blasphemous publi- cation. The OIC called for action in a Declaration accordance with Islamic law.” on Joint Islamic Action to Combat Blasphemy against Islam. The goal was no longer merely to create institutions to “inform people about Islam”; now it was time to “take action,” that is, set norms to protect their religion. In this regard, the Dakar Islamic Summit, held two years later, is important. The resulting Dakar Dec- laration obliged member states to “counter individually and collec- tively, any campaign of vilification

The Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) is the largest intergovernmental organization (after the UN), with fifty-seven members representing 1.5 billion Muslims.

secularhumanism.org June / July 2017 Free Inquiry 29 appealing for an international legal instrument to protect contributed to the OIC making an explicit call to combat the religion—was thus influenced by Rushdie’s work. It is defamation of religions. remarkable to see what a novel can lead to. The third development that contributed to the start of The Introduction of Defamation of Religion Before the UN the defamation resolutions in 1999 was the reprimands The OIC introduced the concept of religious defamation individual OIC member states had received in various UN to the UN on April 20, 1999. Pakistan introduced the draft forums. In particular, the reports of the UN Special Rappor- resolution, Defamation of Islam. It focused on negative ste- teurs on Religious Intolerance and its successor, Freedom reotyping and intolerance toward Islam. States were urged of Religion or Belief, were critical. For instance, in 1994 to “take all necessary measures to combat hatred, dis- the annual report of the Special Rapporteur of Religious crimination, intolerance and acts of violence, intimidation Intolerance, Abdelfattah Amor, mentioned that in Saudi and coercion motivated by religious intolerance, including Arabia “the legal system . . . allows flogging, amputation attacks on religious places.” and beheading for the punishment of . . . comments on The representative of Germany responded on behalf religion.” It described other cases where people arrested of the states of the European Union, underlining that “the on charges of blasphemy faced possible execution. Saudi European Union was attached to the principles of toler- Arabia’s response was fierce: it charged that the report ance and freedom of conscience, thought and religion for was filled with “false interpretations of the Islamic religion all,” but was of the opinion that the general structure of and Islamic practices” and called the rapporteur not qual- the proposal was not in balance, since it mentioned only ified “to assess the Islamic religion.” It even questioned the negative stereotyping of Islam. Germany therefore introduced amendments to broaden the scope of “negative stereotyping” to include all reli- gions and changed the title of the resolution to Defamation of Religions. The Pakistani rep- resentative was not pleased with the proposed amendments and stated that “the problem “Growing resentment against faced by Islam was of a very special nature.” the UN by OIC member states He continued that “the amendments submit- ted by Germany were designed to remove eventually contributed to the OIC most of the specific references to Islam con- making an explicit call to combat tained in the draft resolution, but that would defeat the purpose of the text, which was to defamation of religions.” bring a problem relating specifically to that religion to the attention of the international community.” Still, on the next day the parties reached a seeming consensus, drafting a resolution with a general title that included all religions, adopted as Resolution 1999/82, Defamation of Religions. In the resolution, no definition was given of whether this “disturbing disinformation on Islam and the religious defamation. Islamic people” was “a sort of a new ‘crusade’ which is so The Pakistani representative stated that “the OIC familiar in international politicking under the banner of the countries had shown considerable flexibility by agreeing ‘white men’s burden.’” In the same report, Amor criticized to adopt a nonexclusive approach to the issue.” The Ger- Sudan for seriously infringing the right to freedom of reli- man representative stated that although “an agreement gion. Cases were described in which several people were [was] reached [it] should not . . . hide the fact that a high arrested and detained for practicing a religion other than degree of uncertainty remained as to the expediency of Islam. Sudan’s reaction was equivalent to Saudi Arabia’s; the Commission’s continuing to deal with the issue in that the allegations were dismissed as “false” and “absurd.” A way and in that context. . . . While joining the consensus country visit to Pakistan in 1996 also led to a very critical on the draft, [they] wished to make it clear that they did report, in which discriminatory legislation regarding reli- not attach any legal meaning to the term ‘defamation’ as gious minorities and the blasphemy laws with their severe used in the title.” penalties were especially criticized. EU member states clearly realized that adoption of the The reprimands continued to pile up. Growing resent- religious-defamation resolution would have consequences ment against the UN by OIC member states eventually for the normative contours of the human-rights framework.

30 Free Inquiry June / July 2017 secularhumanism.org BLASPHEMY: IN THE EYE OF THE BEHOLDER?

Instead of dismissing the OIC’s line of reasoning, they as- disbanded in 2006, the OIC saw resolutions regarding sumed an accommodating stance, merely remarking that religious defamation passed by its successor, the United the general structure of the resolution was imbalanced and Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC). that it had to be broadened so that all religions would be The concept of defamation of religion achieved high dealt with equally. But this gave the OIC room to maneu- visibility within the UN. The number of references to the ver; thus the concept of religious defamation was intro- concept increased considerably. In its observatory report duced into UN discourse. on Islamophobia in 2009, the OIC felt that it had enough Unfortunately, the EU member states did not foresee authority to state: “It needs to be appreciated that [OIC’s] what impact their accommodating attitude would have in position has over the past decade repeatedly been ob- the coming decade. served to command support by a majority of the UN member states—a support that transcended the confines From Consensus to Majority Vote of the OIC member states. The succession of UNGA and In 2000, Pakistan introduced a resolution on defamation UNHRC resolutions on the defamation of religions makes it of religion. It was adopted by consensus in the UNCHR a standalone concept with international legitimacy.” despite misgivings on the part of Portugal on behalf of the The OIC seemed to argue that the succession of suc- EU. In 2001, Pakistan introduced another resolution, Com- cessful resolutions had created a basis for an international bating Defamation of Religions as a Means to Promote norm criminalizing religious defamation. One must ask: To Human Rights, Social Harmony and Religious and Cultural Diversity. This time the EU took a different stance, emphasizing that the freedoms of expres- sion and religion are fundamental manifestations of tolerance in society and stressing that freedom of expression is the condition sine qua non of civil “EU member states … assumed dialogue. EU member states tried to dissuade the OIC from focusing on the protection of religions, an accommodating stance…. rather than on the human rights of individual ad- But this gave the OIC room herents to these religions. OIC members took no heed. The draft resolu- to maneuver.” tion was adopted by twenty-eight votes in favor to fifteen against, with nine abstentions. With this E/2001/4 resolution, the UNCHR encouraged states “to provide adequate protection against all human rights violations resulting from defamation of religions and to take all possible measures to promote what extent is “succession” seen as a foundation for legally tolerance and respect for all religions.” recognizing an international punitive standard? This can be This course of events would repeat itself in subsequent concisely answered: within international legal theory, suc- years (2002–2005). Resolutions with similar—or more ex- cession is not a justification for adopting an international tensive—content would be adopted by majority vote, that (criminal) standard. majority consisting largely of OIC member states. Still, numerous resolutions had been passed calling for “the enactment or strengthening of domestic frameworks Expansion to the General Assembly and legislation to prevent the defamation of religions,” In the aftermath of the Danish cartoon crisis (2005–2006), emphasizing “the need to effectively combat defamation the concept of religious defamation expanded to an- of all religions” and stressing that “the right to freedom of other, larger UN platform. Yemen, on behalf of the OIC, expression . . . may be subject to limitations as provided by introduced the draft resolution Combatting Defamation law and necessary for . . . respect for religions and beliefs.” of Religions before the UN General Assembly (UNGA). These resolutions called for states to take strict measures EU member states made clear that they would not be on to restrict the freedom of expression. board, for the reasons repeatedly given in previous years in It was not only a call for censorship but an international the UNCHR. But to no avail: religious defamation became call to criminalize blasphemy. a fact in the international community when draft resolution It is remarkable that in none of the resolutions is a defi- A/C.3/60/L.29 was adopted with eighty-eight votes in nition of “religious defamation” given. favor, fifty-two against, and twenty-three abstentions. It must also be questioned whether the concept of In the following years, the OIC continued to achieve defamation of religion is sustainable at all. After all, is not its agenda in various UN forums. After the UNCHR was every religion by its nature the defamation of other reli-

secularhumanism.org June / July 2017 Free Inquiry 31 gions? The representative of Pakistan has to understand concepts included in the resolution present more or less that when he states that Muhammad is the Seal of the the same ambiguity as “defamation of religions,” for ex- Prophets, he is defaming the faith of the Baha’i, for they ample, “derogatory stereotyping,” “negative profiling,” recognize later prophets. And when Christ is seen as the and “stigmatization.” In general, these vague concepts son of God, this is blasphemous from a Jewish perspective. lack both definition and criteria and risk being subject to Accordingly, it seems safe to conclude that religious various interpretations. defamation is an ambiguous concept, its scope wide Disconcertingly, only a few months after the adoption enough to encompass different kinds of chilling effects on of Resolution 16/18, the OIC’s Council of Foreign Minsters the freedoms of religion and expression. With the defama- adopted a new resolution on the topic of combatting def- tion resolutions, the OIC amalgamated freedom of religion amation of religions. with political policies, diminishing its original intent and Clearly, Resolution 16/18 was not the turnaround the scope. And by implicitly undermining its content, and ex- West thought it would be. Why? plicitly undermining its non-distinctive application, the OIC When placed in context, it looks like a mere change in politically derogated religious freedom from its status as a OIC’s tactics. First, it was evident that OIC’s continual rhet- fundamental, universal human right. oric about Western states violating the freedom of expres- sion by failing to ban insults to religion, or to criminalize defamation of religion, was no longer working. Second, the OIC recognized declining interna- tional support for its anti-defamation resolutions, while Western opposition to them remained firm. Last, the OIC may have realized that its hijacking “EU member states … assumed of different UN forums in the pursuit of defama- an accommodating stance…. tion resolutions was damaging its own reputation as world representative of the Ummah, posing a But this gave the OIC room threat that it might no longer be taken seriously by to maneuver.” the Western states as an equal debating partner when discussing human rights in the future.

Conclusion The OIC is using the freedom of religion as the basis for its battle against newly introduced and ambiguous concepts such as negative profiling, Resolution 16/18: Combating Religious Intolerance derogatory stereotyping, and stigmatization of persons The year 2009 brought a noticeable change. A joint pe- based on religion (with an implicit focus on Islam). How- tition was presented, signed by more than two hundred ever, this semantic adjustment has not changed the OIC’s civil-society organizations—including religious, humanist, original stance. It still has the same objectives, only now it and atheist groups—urging UNHRC member states to re- is trying to realize them from a different, more disguised ject that year’s defamation resolution. For the first time, the angle. By using this approach the OIC can continue its ef- forts to politically undercut the universality, status, and combined abstentions and votes against the defamation content of the right to religious freedom. resolutions numbered more than the votes in favor. The same occurred in the UNGA, and there was an even further decline in support in 2010. In 2011 came a seeming turnaround, even a break- through. The OIC introduced into the UNHRC resolution 16/18 on Combating Intolerance, Negative Stereotyping and Stigmatization of, and Discrimination, Incitement to Violence and Violence against Persons Based on Religion Mirjam van Schaik is lecturer and researcher at Leiden University, the Netherlands. or Belief. The resolution was adopted with consensus on She has degrees in law and philosophy, and her main research interests lie in the March 24, 2011, and has since functioned as a guiding fields of legal and political philosophy—more specifically, the freedom of religion, document for discussion within the UN. blasphemy laws, and the separation of church and state. This article is condensed Resolution 16/18 no longer refers explicitly to def- and adapted from a much lengthier and fully annotated essay in The Fall and Rise of amation of religion. It refers to persons, so it seems to Blasphemy Law, edited by Paul Cliteur and Tom Herrenberg (Leiden University protect the individual rather than religions, more in line Press, 2016). with established conceptions of human rights. Yet other

32 Free Inquiry June / July 2017 secularhumanism.org The Catholic Church’s ‘Woman Priest’ Question Thomas Aquinas and Giving Every Woman Her Due

Leah Mickens

n February 2015, the Vatican’s Pontifical Council on Cul- always looked after, conserved, nurtured, sustained, created ture held a conference to discuss pressing issues such as attention, consent and care around the conceived child domestic violence, the objectification of women’s bod- who must develop, be born, and grow. The physicality of I women—which makes the world alive, long-living, able to ies, and the role of women in the contemporary Catholic Church. It was titled “Women’s Culture: Equality and Differ- extend itself—finds in the womb its greatest expression. ence.” Of course, no actual women were invited to partici- Essentially, this statement, written in flowery, mind-numb- pate in the conference (that right was reserved to cardinals ing “Vatican-ese,” says that the uterus is the defining fea- and other high-ranking “princes of the church”), although ture of women. Not their brains—the organ that allows a handful of professional women were allowed to give pre- them to think, feel, and experience the world—but their sentations to the all-male audience, who held the sole au- uteruses. This, however, would explain why the photo of thority to make decisions behind closed doors. The “Wom- that Man Ray sculpture was used; if the uterus is the “great- en’s Culture” conference experienced further controversy est expression” of a woman, she clearly does not need a when an image of a Man Ray sculpture of a bound woman’s head or limbs. torso was used on the meeting’s home web page, which The peculiar spectacle of a committee comprised solely many skeptics interpreted as a not-so veiled metaphor for of ostensibly celibate elderly men discussing women’s the Vatican’s dysfunctional view of women as submissive, issues stems from the hierarchical governance structure baby-making objects. The offending image was eventually of the Catholic Church, which allows only individuals who replaced with a traditional one of the Virgin Mary, which have received holy orders (that is, ordination) to make de- only solidified the Vatican’s inability to see women outside cisions. Since women are barred from holy orders, they are of the Madonna-Whore dichotomy in the minds of many also unable to have any official input on church teachings, progressive Catholics and interested outsiders. whether on women’s issues or anything else. Indeed, the The most obvious problem with the Vatican’s “Women’s question of women priests was dismissed at the end of the Culture” conference was the inability of Catholic women “Outline Document” with a curt sentence reading: “There to make decisions about or even discuss the issues that is no discussion here of women priests, which according to affected them at an event sanctioned by their own church. statistics is not something that women want.” This state- Instead, Italian Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi declared that the ment is demonstrably false, as reliable statistics indicate token women presenters would be “directing the dance,” that a sizable majority of Catholics, especially in the West, while the male participants making the decisions out of are in favor of women priests. For example, a 2014 poll public view would be “leading the dance,” the implication commissioned by the Spanish-language television channel being that the role of men is to pass judgment, while the Univision conducted among twelve thousand Catholics in role of women is to follow male-dictated directions. The twelve countries indicated that a scant 30 percent of Cath- second problem was that the all-male participants began olics in Europe and only 36 percent of American Catholics their work with a handful of patriarchal and essentialist agreed with the Vatican party line on the necessity of main- premises about women and proceeded to work backward taining an all-male priesthood. Even the African nations to justify these views. For example, the “Outline Document examined revealed 20 percent support female ordination, for the Plenary Assembly of the Pontifical Council for Cul- a not-insignificant number given how deeply ingrained pa- ture” stated that: triarchal attitudes are in much of sub-Saharan Africa. Since Generativity turns, without doubt, on the bodies of women. the “Women’s Culture” conference was presumably an It is the female universe that—due to a natural, spontaneous inept attempt by the Catholic hierarchy to understand the predisposition which could be called bio-physiological—has concerns of disaffected Catholic women in developed na-

secularhumanism.org June /July 2017 Free Inquiry 33 tions, the casual dismissal of the women’s-ordination issue it, the late pontiff declared: only illustrates how clueless church leaders are with regard Although the teaching that priestly ordination is to be re- to women’s issues. served to men alone has been preserved by the constant The secular humanist reader may be compelled to ask and universal Tradition of the Church and firmly taught by at this point why the members of the Catholic hierarchy the Magisterium in its more recent documents, at the present refuse to allow women to exercise power and authority in time in some places it is nonetheless considered still open the Catholic Church or why Catholic women are unable to debate, or the Church’s judgment that women are not to to make decisions even at a conference that is specifically be admitted to ordination is considered to have a merely about women’s issues. There are two ways to answer this disciplinary force. question: (1) refer to the quasi-official answer the Catholic Wherefore, in order that all doubt may be removed regard- hierarchy provides on why the Church supposedly cannot ing a matter of great importance, a matter which pertains to ordain women or (2) examine the real reason, which has not the Church’s divine constitution itself, in virtue of my ministry been discussed publicly. of confirming the brethren (cf. Lk 22:32) I declare that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordi- nation on women and that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the Church’s faithful. John Paul II’s primary argument against women’s ordi- nation was the circular insistence that because the Catholic “The all-male participants began their Church had never ordained women in the past, it was un- able to do so in the future. His condemnation of women work with a handful of patriarchal and priests was also rooted in a uniquely Catholic reading of the essentialist premises about women Last Supper, which is interpreted as an ordination ceremony and proceeded to work backward to in which Jesus gave his twelve male disciples—but not the Virgin Mary, Mary Magdalen, or any of Jesus’s other female justify these views.” followers—the sacrament of holy orders. The late pontiff and his conservative supporters have used this reading to indicate that if Jesus had wanted women priests, then surely he would have ordained his mother, considered to be the most blessed, holy, and favored of women accord- ing to Catholic theology. But Jesus didn’t, which means Women’s Ordination and the Challenge to Catholic Orthodoxy that women have not and can never be ordained. Yet, this For most of the Catholic Church’s history, women’s ordina- reasoning is also suspect, since if one accepts the Catholic tion was a non-issue, presumably because it was taken for position that Jesus’s actions during the Last Supper indi- granted that men should be the leaders in society, whether cated that he wanted only male priests, then one must also at home, in the political sphere, or in the Church. This as- assume that Jesus intended to have only Palestinian Jewish sumption meant that a detailed justification for the male men as priests—not Poles, Germans, Argentinians, Ameri- priesthood never developed as it did for other key Catholic cans, Nigerians, or any of the other myriad nationalities of theological concepts such as the Eucharist, the Trinity, or men who staff Catholic churches, cathedrals, and missions the nature of Jesus Christ. An examination of the most around the world. Yet, not being a Palestinian Jewish male important catechisms and textbooks of the pre-Vatican II is not considered to be a deterrent against receiving holy era—The Catechism of the Council of Trent (1566), The orders. Catechism of Saint Pius X (1908), The Baltimore Catechism This kind of circular reasoning is unsatisfying for many (1885), and Ludwig Ott’s magisterial Fundamentals of Cath- Catholics, which explains why the conversation around olic Dogma (1955)—do not even specify that holy orders women priests continues among the laity, even if the are limited to men. For example, in The Catechism of Saint hierarchy insists that the matter is not up for debate. To Pius X, the response to the question “What is necessary understand the real reason behind the Catholic Church’s to enter the ecclesiastical state?” is simply “To enter the ban on women priests, one must examine the Aristotelian ecclesiastical state a divine vocation is necessary before all and Thomistic foundation of Catholic dogma, particularly else,” with no mention of the sex of the potential sacerdotal certain assumptions that have been de-emphasized but not candidate. Hence, when the women’s ordination move- forgotten in the modern era. ment demanded that holy orders be opened to women starting in the late 1960s, Catholic hierarchs had no idea how to react to an issue they had previously never had to Aristotle, Aquinas, and ‘Misbegotten Males’ think about. Within the Catholic Church, the thought of Dominican friar For self-described orthodox Catholics, the discussion Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274), known as “Thomism,” is con- about women’s ordination is closed, as they believe that sidered the “perennial philosophy,” the philosophical basis John Paul II spoke definitively, if not ex cathedra, on the of Catholic dogma and theology, even into the present day. issue in his 1994 apostolic letter, Ordinatio Sacerdotalis. In Thomism is a medieval synthesis of ancient philosophy, par-

34 Free Inquiry June/July 2017 secularhumanism.org ticularly Aristotelianism, and Christian theology into a single Therefore, he famously concluded that “the female is as unified worldview. During the lifetime of Aquinas, the works it were a deformed male,” the imperfect result of nature of Aristotle were considered cutting-edge knowledge; after trying to make the most perfect being (that is, the human all, they had been lost to Western Europe for more than male) and tragically falling short of its intended mark. six hundred years and had only recently begun to trickle Aquinas uncritically adopted the “woman as misbegot- back into Western intellectual life via Latin translations of ten man” view in his Summa Theologica, saying: Arabic translations obtained from Islamic Spain. The first As regards the individual nature, woman is defective and major Christian synthesizer of Aristotelianism was Albertus misbegotten, for the active force in the male seed tends to Magnus of Cologne (1206–1280), a fellow Dominican and the production of a perfect likeness in the masculine sex; bishop, who attempted to combine all known information while the production of woman comes from defect in the from the Christian, Islamic, Jewish, and pagan worlds in his active force or from some material indisposition, or even from voluminous writings, which would span over thirty-eight some external influence; such as that of a south wind, which volumes. Aquinas continued with the synthesizing project is moist, as the Philosopher [Aristotle] observes. On the other hand, as regards human nature in general, woman is not mis- that Magnus started, and his Summa Theologica is the end begotten, but is included in nature’s intention as directed to result. the work of generation. Because Aristotelianism was a departure from the Pla- tonic and Neo-Platonic–inspired theology that had dom- inated Christian theology since the time of Augustine of Hippo (354–430 CE), the Catholic Church initially regarded this new body of knowledge with suspicion, but then whole- “If one accepts the Catholic posi- heartedly accepted it as the definitive account of the way tion that Jesus’s actions during the heaven and earth operated. While Aristotle’s concepts were Last Supper indicated that he wanted more rational than those of the more mystically oriented Plato, most of his observations about biology, physics, only male priests, then one must also astronomy were incorrect; the long-standing assumption assume that that Jesus intended to that Aristotle had figured out how the world worked back have only Palestinian Jewish men in the fourth century BCE would retard scientific inquiry for centuries. Aquinas uncritically accepted Aristotle’s findings as priests—not Poles, Germans, on biology and physics as an accurate description of the Argentinians, Americans, Nigerians, way the universe worked, and therein lies the root of the or any of the other myriad nation- Catholic Church’s “woman problem.” Generation of Animals laid out Aristotle’s theories re- alities of men who staff Catholic garding human and animal reproduction—views that we churches, cathedrals, and missions now know are incorrect but were accepted as true for around the world.” hundreds of years by many leading intellectuals, including Aquinas. Aristotle believed that “heat,” or the masculine principle, was the key to anatomical development and that the more heat a particular animal produced, the more complex it would be. He attributed the physiological and The influence of Aristotle is obvious here, as Aquinas psychological differences between men and women to the not only referenced and recycled the misinformation found supposedly “cooler” nature of women, differences that in Generation of Animals but used it to back up the Chris- were interpreted as weaknesses and flaws in the female tian belief in divine patriarchy. Although Aquinas believed constitution. For example, Aristotle observed that men- that God intended for males and females to exist even in strual blood and semen were similar in that both substances the pre-lapsarian (that is, before the mythical “fall of man”), began production during puberty and declined as people he agreed with Aristotle that men modeled the fullness of grew older. He correctly guessed that both were related to humanity in a way that women could not, which is why the reproduction but incorrectly assumed that the former was first person of the Trinity had to be God the father, why the female equivalent of the latter. Aristotle believed that Jesus had become a man and not a woman, and why only the “cold nature” of women made their bodies unable to men could adequately become “other Christs” during the properly “cook” their “semen,” leading to the discharge mass. Furthermore, Aquinas said that because women are of seemingly large quantities of blood-like fluid and “heat” in a “state of subjection” vis à vis men and lack “the emi- during menstruation and also accounted for the smaller nence of degree” that men possess in mirroring the image stature of the female body. However, Aristotle assumed that of God, it would not be fitting or possible for them to exer- the “natural” and normative form of the human body was cise authority in the church or to signify Christ through the male, meaning that the appearance of a female baby was a sacrament of holy order. sign that the fetus had not received enough “heat” in utero As mentioned earlier, when Aquinas wrote his Summa and, therefore, developed in a less-than-optimal manner. and other works, he assumed that Aristotle’s scientific

secularhumanism.org June /July 2017 Free Inquiry 35 findings were an accurate picture of the way the universe simply an ineffective dodge. The real reason is too embar- worked. Jesuit philosopher Frederick Copleston summed rassing to air in public. up the relationship between Thomism and Aristotelianism by saying: Conclusion If the Catholic Church’s refusal to admit women priests If St. Thomas adopted Aristotelianism, he adopted it primar- seems unjust from a secular humanist perspective, it is ily because he thought it true, not simply because Aristotle worth considering exactly what justice means in the was a great name or because an “unbaptized” Aristotle Thomistic worldview, which is “the perpetual and constant might constitute a grave danger to orthodoxy: a man of St. will to render to each one his right.” Implicit in this definition Thomas’s serious mind, devoted to truth, would certainly not have adopted the system of a pagan philosopher, had he not is that justice is inherently unequal, and what constitutes considered it to be in the main a true system, especially when justice to a peasant or slave may not be justice when the some of the ideas he put forth ran contrary to tradition and person in question is a “prince of the church.” Because the created some scandal and lively opposition. only individuals who are able to have any power in the Vatican are those with holy orders, not allowing women to As long as the religious and secular world agreed that be ordained means that female Catholics will never have Aristotelian science was the best (and only) explanation for any say in how their church is run. Yet, from a Thomistic the workings of the universe, the Thomist synthesis could perspective, it is completely just to exclude women from remain unchallenged. However, once the Enlightenment the Catholic priesthood, because such a lofty office is not and the scientific revolution cast doubt on scholastic phi- what women are due because of their “inferior nature.” losophy and Aristotelian science, the seemingly rational Consequently, the Catholic hierarchy can engage in and empirical basis for Catholic moral and dogmatic theol- absurdist exercises such as February 2015’s assembly on ogy faltered. Indeed, the crux of the Galileo affair was less “Women’s Culture” and pat themselves on the back that about the relative merits of geocentrism vs. heliocentrism “justice” has been done toward Catholic women. than it was about the fact that Galileo’s findings suggested that the Catholic Church’s entire epistemological system was wrong. Further Reading Aquinas, Thomas. The Summa Theologica of St. Thomas Aquinas. http:// www.newadvent.org/summa/. 2008. Aristotle. Generation of Animals. Trans. A.L. Peck. Cambridge, Mass. Bos- ton: Harvard University Press. 2014. Boorstein, Michelle, and Peyton M. Craighill. “Pope Francis Faces Church Divided over Doctrine, Global Poll of Catholics Finds.” Washington Post, February 9, 2014. Catechism of Saint Pius X. http://www.ewtn.com/library/catechsm/piusxcat. “To understand the real reason htm. Copleston, Frederick. A History of Philosophy: Volume II: Medieval Philos- behind the Catholic Church’s ban on ophy. New York: Image Books, 1993. Damplier, W. C. A History of Science and Its Relation to Philosophy and women priests, one must examine the Religion. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1971. John Paul II. “Ordinatio Sacerdolatus.” May 22, 1994. http://w2.vatican.va/ Aristotelian and Thomistic foundation content/john-paul-ii/en/apost_letters/1994/documents/hf_jp- of Catholic dogma.” ii_apl_22051994_ordinatio-sacerdotalis.html. Lang, David P. Why Matter Matters: Philosophical and Scriptural Reflections on the Sacraments. Huntington, Ind.: Our Sunday Visitor, 2002. “Outline Document for the Plenary Assembly of the Pontifical Council for Culture.” February 4–7, 2014. http://www.cultura.va/content/dam/cul- tura/docs/pdf/Traccia_en.pdf. Of course, the Catholic hierarchy of 2017 cannot state Pius X. “Lamentabili Sane.” July 3, 1907, http://papalencyclicals.net/ publicly that the real reason female ordination is forbidden Pius10/p10lamen.htm. is because women are “misbegotten men” who are but an Ruether, Rosemary Radford. “Sexism and Misogyny in the Christian Tradi- tion: Liberating Alternatives.” Buddhist-Christian Studies 34 (2014). imperfect image of the god that men can perfectly mirror. San Martín, Inés. “Vatican Effort to Talk about Women’s Issues Stirs But neither can the hierarchy admit that much of the “An- Controversy.” Crux, February 2, 2014. http://www.cruxnow.com/ gelic Doctor”’s teachings are based on dubious scientific church/2015/02/02/vatican-effort-to-talk-about-womens-issues-stirs- controversy/. concepts that were debunked several hundred years ago— Tuana, Nancy. “The Weaker Seed: The Sexist Bias of Reproductive Theory.” not without causing the entire philosophical and theolog- Hypatia 3, No. 1 (1988). ical basis of Catholicism to collapse. Instead, problematic Yates, Velvet. “Biology Is Destiny: The Deficiencies of Women in Aristotle’s Biology and Politics.” Arethusa 48, No. 1 (2015). teachings from the past are de-emphasized without being entirely disavowed, and newer teachings are promulgated authoritatively as if they were always there. The Catholic Church’s shifting views on usury, liberal democracy, and the Leah Mickens is an independent scholarly researcher who is currently a PhD student status of Jewish people are instructive in this regard. The at Boston University in the Graduate Division of Religion. She has previously con- claims by recent popes that the Catholic Church cannot ducted archival work at major repositories of southern U.S. history. Mickens is a fre- ordain women because it has never done so in the past is quent contributer to Free Inquiry.

36 Free Inquiry June/July 2017 secularhumanism.org The Big Bang Enabled Evolution

Joel Kirschbaum

here is overwhelming objective evidence that the The last few seconds of existence of some supernovas may universe began about 13.8 billion years ago with a have produced heavier atoms such as iron (the core of the Tgigantic explosion that we call the “Big Bang.” The oxygen carrier in hemoglobin), cobalt (the catalytic center Big Bang, after cooling, produced the conditions needed of vitamin B12), and copper (an essential carrier of electrons to start the process of evolution, both on our planet Earth in the metabolism of glucose, fats, and many other biolog- and theoretically on many other planets possessing the ical molecules). We assume that there was some overlap similar mild conditions amenable to life. between the nucleosynthesis of lighter elements by the Big Bang with the nucleosynthesis by supernovae. Even today, Formation of the Chemical Elements as our planet sweeps through space it picks up chemical Necessary for Life as We Know It elements that were ejected into space, along with meteor- In our universe, after the temperature of the Big Bang ites of various sizes. It has been estimated that as much as cooled below about ten billion degrees Kelvin, protons one-quarter of household dust is of extraterrestrial origin. and neutrons formed lightweight chemical elements—ini- This means that we are made of the ashes and cinders tially mainly hydrogen and helium, with trace amounts of of stars spewed into space, since all of the constituents lithium and beryllium, according to some theoreticians’ of present living organisms originated from the initial Big calculations. All stars convert hydrogen to helium, with the Bang and subsequent supernovas. by-products being heat, light, and subatomic radiation. There are an estimated one hundred to two hundred Supernovas produced oxygen, carbon, sulfur, and nitro- billion stars in an average galaxy. This means that based on gen, as well as the higher atomic weight elements such as the approximately five thousand extrasolar planets found chlorine, sulfur, phosphorus, sodium, calcium, potassium, by terrestrial astronomers to date, there are as many as and magnesium. These elements were expelled into space. 100 billion planets in each of the estimated two hundred

secularhumanism.org June /July 2017 Free Inquiry 37 to 1,200 billion galaxies in the known universe. At least an nism found in micro-organisms into cells that later became estimated 1 percent of these planets are assumed to be plants. These organelles are now called “chloroplasts.” hospitable to life as we know it, places where evolution can Humanity should now increase the efficiency of photosyn- occur. thesis by making further genetic modifications to feed the ever-increasing population. The Inevitable Formation Animals use the food synthesized from plants to provide of Small Molecules Is the Prologue to Evolution nutrition and energy, relying on oxygen carried by hemo- How the building blocks of proteins, called “amino acids,” globin to perform metabolic oxidations. Hemoglobin also were formed was the object of study of many researchers. carries away waste carbon dioxide, which is recycled to In 1952, the pioneering experimenters Stanley Miller and plants. Hemoglobin, which contains iron, and chlorophyll, Harold Urey synthesized amino acids by mixing water, which contains magnesium, are two large, complex mole- ammonia, hydrogen, hydrogen sulfide, and methane (the cules that are related to each other because they are based compounds then thought to exist on a primitive, lifeless on modifications of a small, five-atom ring consisting of four Earth) in a sealed flask. The flask was heated to boiling and carbon and one nitrogen atom called “pyrrole.” Four of electric sparks fired between electrodes to simulate light- these rings are joined by one carbon bridge to form larger, ning as the source of energy to initiate chemical reactions. chemically stable rings called “porphyrin.” The nitrogen (Recently, the number of lightning strikes on the planet atoms face each other and bind metals that can catalyze Earth has been estimated at one hundred per second. chemical reactions. Lengths vary, but each bolt contains up to a billion volts.) Digestion in animals breaks down plant and animal Other possible sources of energy are hot springs and the tissues to ready their molecules to be metabolized to car- deep-ocean vents that exist at the boundaries of the tec- bon dioxide and water in a stepwise process involving an interconnected series of metal-porphyrins. The energy from this slow combustion is incorporated into the formation of high-energy phosphate bonds of ATP, the source of energy for life, as mentioned before. ATP allowed the muscles of “It has been estimated that as much the body to evolve to become stronger, for example, en- abling humans to exceed running speeds of a mile in four as one-quarter of household dust is of minutes. extraterrestrial origin.” Animal cells are the beneficiaries of a similar evolution- ary shortcut: the ingestion of once-independent micro-or- ganisms that had already evolved a mechanism to metab- olize food-stuffs. These organelles, named “mitochondria,” are found in almost all animal cells. They even have their own DNA for reproduction independent from that of the tonic plates that comprise Earth’s crust. These vents are host or parent cells. of special interest because many release hydrogen sulfide These similarities between photosynthesis and animal gas. The sulfur in this gas could be incorporated into the es- biological oxidations are no coincidence, because in each sential amino acid methionine, as well as into other known case porphyrins were the building blocks available for biochemicals. Large meteorites composed partly of metals, evolution to utilize. The porphyrin structure is akin to an which could act as catalysts when they struck the Earth, will adjustable wrench in a toolbox. Studies of optical spec- have generated considerable heat on impact that could tra—how molecules absorb or emit different frequencies have lasted long enough to produce amino acids and the of light—prove almost conclusively that magnesium por- precursors of nucleic acids that comprise the genetic code. phyrin complexes exist in deep space. The existence of this (About one hundred different amino acids were found in macromolecule in lifeless space shows how avidly chemical one uncontaminated meteorite.) reactions produce larger, more complex, stable molecules. Evolution should occur on planets with mild temperatures The Large Molecule Porphyrin Was such as we have on our planet Earth, with no need for in- at the Start of Evolution tervention by a divinity. With evolutionary modifications, this key molecule lies at A person might conclude that fairly complex molecules the very heart of the plant and animal kingdoms. Porphy- such as porphyrins have an infinitesimally low probability of rin is found in chlorophyll, where it uses the energy from being formed by fortuitous collisions, but because of the the sun to rip oxygen from carbon dioxide molecules, the many planets that apparently exist and the eons of time waste-product of animals. Photosynthesis simultaneously that have been available for such compounds to form, sta- traps energy from the sun in the form of high-energy bonds tistics suggests that the elements will have combined many in the water-soluble circulating molecule adenosine triphos- different ways. For example, spectra have been found in phate (ATP). Its energy can synthesize complex molecules space corresponding to a complex sixty-carbon compound in plants for growth and reproduction. Evolution took a soccer-ball shaped organic chemical named “Buckminster- giant short-cut by ingesting the photosynthetic mecha- fullerene.” This cage-like molecule was named after the

38 Free Inquiry June/July 2017 secularhumanism.org brilliant architect Buckminster Fuller, who designed homes space flights to examine the liquid water on Saturn’s moon composed of hexagonal plates. Any objective observer Titan to look for evidence of life, since aqueous ammonia would estimate the odds of sixty carbon atoms simultane- has the potential to produce constituents needed for life. ously colliding to form a Buckminsterfullerene (“Buckyball”) Extrapolating to the trillions and trillions of stars in the sphere to be infinitesimally low, except here we’re dealing universe adds further impetus to find extrasolar life. Just with billions of years and billions of cubic light years to as the compositions of some atmospheres on extrasolar allow for these coincidences to occur. Evolution appears to planets can be inferred from spectral studies, perhaps dis- be inevitable. tant, extremely trace elements indicative of contaminants created by civilizations can be untangled from background The Formation of the Genetic Code chemicals. The general cellular route to growth and reproduction is Evolution of the complex human brain, whose signal a path in which deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) produces transmission is also powered by ATP, has created traits such ribonucleic acid (RNA) that, in turn, synthesizes protein. as curiosity. A great example is how humans proved the The structure of nucleotides consists of a sugar attached existence of gravitational waves—caused by the collision of to a phosphate and a nitrogenous base. The interlocking two black holes, each many times larger than our sun—by questions we must answer include how RNA or DNA, which observing infinitesimal changes in the geometry of detec- encode for protein structures that can also reproduce them- tors. Proud traits found in some other species, and thus not selves, first appeared billions of years ago. We know from unique to humanity, are altruism, courage, and voluntary the previously discussed pioneering experiments of Urey and Miller that amino acids could be formed in an atmo- sphere mimicking the low-oxygen conditions hypothesized for early Earth. Subsequent investigators showed that vari- ations of those experiments produced related constituents of RNA and DNA, namely, sugars, purines, and pyrimidines. A key experiment involved replicating the conditions of in- terstellar space close to a star system (to provide radiation energy). Ammonia (as a source of nitrogen), methane (to “About one hundred different provide carbon), and water (for hydrogen and oxygen) were mixed in a vacuum. The final “soup” contained ribose, a amino acids were found in one key constituent of RNA; the sugar sorbitol; and glycerol, a uncontaminated meteorite.” constituent of many fats. Experimenters finding two of the four nucleotides that make up RNA suggest that RNA could have formed spontaneously. Elsewhere, two of the nucleo- tide bases in DNA were found in meteorites. Organic pre- cursors of RNA and DNA were found in interstellar dust and asteroids. The lesser stability of DNA indicates that DNA care for the helpless. Humor and comedy routines are al- may have appeared after RNA. What is important is that most universally enjoyed, even by members of tribes and once life began, evolution was driven by survival of the fit- nations possessing different cultures. The best example test. Gaps in our knowledge will eventually be filled, just as may be slapstick, which evokes almost universal laughter the composition of the “dark” or unknown matter and the without knowledge of the language. Many humans have in nature of the “dark” or unknown energy that is expanding common with rats the trait of showing apparent pleasure our universe will one day be elucidated. when tickled. The myriad successful experiments involving many of Human communication has gone past chirps, grunts, the constituents of the genetic code strongly suggest that and gestures to lengthy stories, novels, and plays. Special there may have been multiple routes to the genetic code examples of creativity include novels, plays, art, and music. we know today. This supposition is based by analogy on the They show us, for example in the gripping, insightful play presently known eight hominid ancestors between human Othello and the emotion-filled opera Otello, that human beings and early primates according to the fossil records, prejudices against others with different skin pigmentation all competing for survival and reproduction. However, all are despicable. A more shameful trait many humans pos- seemed to have shared many genetic sequences. It’s well sess, as we consider the hundreds of millions injured or known that humans and some primates a have about 98.5 killed over the centuries, undergirds the beliefs that one percent of their DNA in common. The banana eaten by particular religious worship of god is the “true” one and chimpanzees and humans alike is about 25 percent similar that nonbelievers must endure torture, massacres, famine, to our DNA. The digestive enzymes worms use to assimi- war, and even death. late discarded banana skins contain long stretches of amino acids similar to human enzymes. This is truly efficient. The genetic code raises, again, the question of life Joel Kirschbaum is a retired chemist who has had more than one hundred articles on other planets. It is important when scheduling future published in reviewed journals.

secularhumanism.org June /July 2017 Free Inquiry 39 Calling All Wimpy Activists

Karen Shragg

am a wimp. I am not brave. I do not go white-water destroys our future. On the plus side, it is the one issue that rafting. I never go on rollercoasters. I always wear my holds the key for success. On the negative side is religious Iseatbelt. I can’t stomach violence on television or in films. dogma that is so far “downstream” that it is no longer serv- I don’t like to watch contact sports. I think that I qualify as ing us. To be fruitful and multiply is a fine mantra when you a super wimp. That is why I am always puzzled by people are at risk for losing your people with one successful virus. who call me “brave” because I work on the overpopulation But in our current state of overpopulation, that doesn’t issue. They mean it as a compliment. They think I am brave make any sense. Only with fewer people can we achieve for telling the full truth about our environmental footprint our goals for a less crowded world with less competition for when it has been so maligned in the past. limited resources. This will translate to more peace; more It’s true that few want to hear that we cannot make wilderness and water will have a better chance to recharge. long-term progress when we are adding over seventy-eight First we have to know our numbers. They vary a bit de- million people to an already seriously overpopulated world. pending on the year, but here they are as of the writing of Many are outright nasty and will not listen to the facts that this essay in the fall of 2016: We are adding approximately are screaming at us through the eyes of starving polar seventy-eight million people a year net gain to our limited bears and children who are scrounging for food scraps. But planet. A sustainable population is less than three billion, that doesn’t mean I am brave. If you were to see a person and we hit 7.4 billion in the beginning of 2016. The United slipping off a cliff, wouldn’t you reach out and try to grab States should be at 150 million people to be sustainable; that person before he or she fell? That is what I am doing. we are now pushing 325 million. I am metaphorically grabbing at that person’s jacket as a The world is a closed system. It is getting no input of any visceral response in order to try to prevent a tragedy. I am resources (aside from sunlight), just a gain of those who use not processing it through my mammalian thinking brain. I up the resources. The world population has doubled in the am responding with my fight-or-flight reptilian brain that past forty-five years. We are now adding 140 people net tells me to hurry and do something in the face of a crisis. gain per minute. Can you imagine adding the population of If we want our dreams for a better world to come true, Chicago and Los Angeles to the planet every month? That we have to recognize the significance of reducing human is exactly what we are doing. This population pressure is numbers, humanely of course. Overpopulation drives de- creating an unsustainable water supply where, for example, struction. It removes possibilities, decimates wildlife, and we are consuming groundwater at three times its rate of

40 Free Inquiry June/July 2017 secularhumanism.org recharge. gain. In my most recent book, I defined “downstream acts” Based on data from the Global Footprint Network, the as things we do to consume fewer resources per person. If Earth can generate renewable resources and absorb our you are busy installing raingardens, shopping for organic waste for only two billion people if those people live at a food with cloth bags, and raising organic vegetables, you European lifestyle and if we don’t care about leaving room are acting downstream. None of these acts is bad, it’s just for wildlife. This figure is also unrealistically high because that it’s very much like cleaning up a beach before the tsu- we need to consider the current state of our diminishing nami hits. “Upstream” is a reference to dealing with a prob- fossil fuels, metals, and minerals. lem at its source. The numbers don’t lie. The resources can We are in global overshoot, unable to produce enough also be measured with great precision. These numbers are resources for the demand of the humans who live here. just as depressing. Our essential nonrenewable resources Living as modern humans do, we have huge footprints. We are in such rapid decline that they drive prices up with their added five billion people in the past eighty years, and they scarcity while demand increases with population. Not too all need food, water, shelter, jobs, and energy. The earth long ago, copper mines were yielding nuggets the size of is exploding in our waste; pollution and climate change small Volkswagen Beetle. Now they get copper dust at a threaten our very existence. Fortunately, thanks to the hard rate of one car load for every five hundred exhumed. work of activists, people and governments know that cli- mate change is a force to deal with, and they recommend divesting in fossil fuels and investing in solar. What they neglect to do is tie it at all to overpopulation. Here is how it makes a real difference. When the public “If we want our dreams for a better discourse focuses on individual behavior change, we hear a statistic such as this: on average, every adult in the United world to come true, we have to rec- States is responsible for giving off 19.8 metric tons of carbon ognize the significance of reducing per year. This compares to only 4.6 metric tons per average human numbers.” Chinese citizen. This is a statistic that shows our excess. But why, then, does China contribute more emissions than the United States? Because its total population is so much larger. China’s nearly 1.5 billion people are responsible for 29.51 percent of the world’s total annual carbon emissions (2015), and the United States with its relatively smaller 324 Suffering, misery, and early death lie in the gap between million accounts for 14.34 percent of the world’s annual car- the supply of our natural resources and the demand for bon emissions (2015). That is a striking fact, and so is this: them. As the demand increases, the supply decreases. the earth counts in total impact. It doesn’t care what each We have two choices. We can create more resources or person does; it cares what everyone does in total. It’s great decrease demand. The trouble with increasing resources, if you decide to grow an organic lawn, but if you live on a like we did during the so-called Green Revolution when fer- pond and your nine neighbors don’t make that choice, it tilizers were introduced to our food industry, is that we also won’t matter to the health of the pond. increase our demand. Because we could feed more people, These critically important population statistics cannot we got more people whom we needed to feed. The only be found on the websites and in the mission statements way out of this treacherous entanglement is to lower the of environmental nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). demand by decreasing our population. It is a very humane Social-justice NGOs should also educate people about solution because, as China found out, the alternative is mass these numbers, because their efforts to bring about a just starvation and untold suffering. and peaceful world are deeply connected to the overpop- The great news in all this is the way overpopulation ex- ulation of our planet. This issue is so ubiquitous and yet so plains our failure to better the world, better than any other under the radar screen that everyone needs to wake up to single factor. Even our ability to govern ourselves is chal- it and find a way to get involved. lenged by overpopulation. At the writing of this essay, our In the documentary Cowspiracy, a great argument was 435 representatives in the U.S. Congress serve 324 million made that animal agriculture is a huge culprit in environ- people. That is 744,827 constituents per congressperson. mental destruction but is being ignored and downright Just one hundred years ago, that number was far lower. shunned by environmental organizations. Ironically, the There were approximately 100 million people in the United producers of this effective film shunned the overpopu- States in 1916, and that means each congressperson on lation issue as the reason driving the demand for huge average had to serve only 230,000 people. Each state gets mega-farms to provide enough food for all the billions of two Senate seats, no matter how much population grows. hungry people. Ever try to reach your senator? I used to be able to, and Our old and tired religious and nationalistic stories now I hardly bother. In my home state of Minnesota, the force us to ignore overpopulation, shun it, deny it—yet it two senators that represented me, when I first voted, had just doesn’t go away; it just gets worse, by a newly revised just less than four million constituents to serve. Now they (upward) number of over ten thousand people per hour net have 5.5 million.

secularhumanism.org June /July 2017 Free Inquiry 41 So how did we get in this overpopulation mess? The We must stop using cough syrup to stop a smoker’s answer is both natural and political. Numbers grow expo- cough; we must stop smoking. nentially. If two people have four children, and those four What will work? What will keep us from growing to children each have four children, the great grandchildren of nine, ten, or eleven billion and beyond? What will keep the original two will have multiplied to sixty-four. We have us from careening out of control off the cliff of collapse? also become more efficient at growing food. We have be- We have to stop reproducing at even modest levels and come healthier as we cure diseases and increase longevity. ratchet reproduction down to a trickle (a one-child aver- Some more devious systems were put in place, historically, age) for at least three to four decades, so we can get a to make it mandatory to have larger families and therefore handle on our resources and create ways to live within simplify recruiting for armies. Some powerful religions the resources that are available to us. Remember, over- play a huge role in demonizing the use of birth control, population is not an overseas issue. The more developed campaigning against abortion, and keeping women away countries are using resources faster than underdeveloped from being in charge of their own bodies. Culturally, big ones. Even those countries with slow growth or no growth families can mean stature or simply the ability to raise crops are overpopulated. How do we get society to agree to better. The efforts to have male children for their favored such a radical approach? How do we get the entrenched role can mean many pregnancies until a boy is born. In the political forces to step aside and allow sanity to prevail? big picture, major corporations see the loss of people as a By working upstream together and telling the full truth loss of revenue. These globally invested companies like to about our absolute need to change course before it is fund environmental groups, but only if they don’t touch this too late. issue. Environmental groups are out to serve their missions We have to stop telling only the consumption side of but also want to stay in business, so they don’t say things the story. We must be vigilant and not let anyone, from that could stop the money flowing. reporters to clergy, from conservationists to politicians, On a personal level, people can become accustomed get away with lying to us. They are lying by telling us that to and desire an unsustainable number of kids. The solu- solar panels will save the day. They are lying to us by say- tion often stated is that if we simply empower women, we ing if you give your money to their nonprofit the rainforest will solve this problem. Yet empowered women are hav- will be saved. They are lying to us when they say that you ing unsustainable numbers of children all over the country can sustainably fish on an overpopulated planet. Will this because they don’t know that overpopulation is under- be an easy ride? It will be as easy as it is to convince a mining our success. They only know the narrative of being morbidly obese person that he or she must hit the salad greener consumers. Many would be stunned to learn that bar and avoid the fries in order to avoid catastrophic ill- they cannot raise three or even two children with organic nesses. Of course this is a long and very difficult road to food and cloth diapers and still be called sustainable, not go down. when each child will leave a carbon legacy of 10,000 tons The good news is that many are doing it already. Many in his or her lifetime on an already overpopulated planet. have shunned their dominant religious stories for ones Our economic system plays a huge role in our over- that will actually serve them. Even though the Catholic population quagmire, for our capitalistic system thrives Church is busy fighting free birth control in terribly over- on growth. We love to grow; we think we need more populated areas such as the Philippines, others have un- people to be there to buy more stuff and increase the derstood for quite some time that societies do so much corporations’ bottom lines. Our armies need more peo- better when numbers are controlled. There is much less ple to defend the country and its efforts to secure more suffering, and solutions can actually have time to work, energy resources. All in all, these scenarios add up to un- when the number of babies per woman drops. Thailand sustainability. We are on the way to rendering our planet was successful in reducing poverty and increasing its GNP lifeless, due to our swollen numbers and the consumption when it implemented a country-wide family planning pro- they drive; the only winners, if any, will be the surviving gram. It wasn’t easy getting this mostly Buddhist popula- cockroaches and scorpions. tion to get used to the idea of condoms, but it finally So what are the solutions? The first thing to do is know happened. Creating soap operas with characters who what won’t work. What won’t work is focusing exclusively brag about their small families is working in Mexico. The on downstream ideas. Let’s say you have a company and solutions are here; they have been here for a long time. it makes carpeting out of old tires. This is a great idea, Reaching for them is the challenge, and it can be done but let’s say your capacity to handle tires is 100,000 a when those of us who are not brave, but are alarmed, join year. That will not put a dent in the need to do something our enlightened, wimpy hands together and work to with our tires. On average there are 16.4 million new car move our society upstream. sales in the United States each year. That is 65.6 million tires that will need to be recycled at some point down the road, so to speak. Recycling is politically acceptable and encouraged, but it is not a solution in an overpopulated Karen Shragg, director of the Wood Lake Nature Center in Minnesota, is an over- world. The effort to recycle also takes fossil fuel, so recy- population activist. She is the author of Move Upstream: A Call to Solve cling creates problems on the way to solving some. Overpopulation ( House, 2015).

42 Free Inquiry June/July 2017 secularhumanism.org The Visions of Julian of Norwich Joe Nickell

ince the fourteenth century, a manuscript called the Revelations of Divine Love—also known as The Shew- Sings of Julian of Norwich—has inspired the religious faithful and intrigued the curious. Its author was a woman, a Christian mystic, about whom little is known, not even her real name. She apparently took her masculine appellation from St. Julian, whose name is given to the parish of Nor- wich, England.1 The text of Revelations of Divine Love is remarkable in at least two ways. First, the “shewings” (showings, revelations, or visions) are said to have come to Julian during an intense illness that took her to the edge of death. Second, she was self-described as “a simple creature that cowed [knew] no letter,” that is, could not read—remarkable if true.

“Since the fourteenth century, a manuscript called the Revelations of Divine Love—also known as The Shewings of Julian of Norwich—has inspired the religious faithful and intrigued the curious.”

Who Was ‘Julian’? Julian’s experiences spanned several days and nights be- ginning on May 8, 1373, in Norwich. She states that she was then “thirty years old and a half.” We can therefore calcu- late her birth as having occurred some time in late 1342. By 1394, a will refers to her as an anchoress, and it would not be surprising if she had become such a well-known figure years before, even prior to the visions.

1. “Julian” could have been a form of “Gillian” (a common woman’s name of the Middle Ages), but that would be quite a coincidence given the name of the parish church.

secularhumanism.org June /July 2017 Free Inquiry 43 Anchoress is the term for a female anchorite, a person son and Barber, such a person is sane and normal but has who has retired into a secluded life for devout contempla- an exceptional ability to fantasize. Among the identifying tion. Because religious options for women were limited, characteristics are susceptibility to hypnosis (suggestion there were more anchoresses than anchorites. By the and role-playing), adopting a fantasy identity, experienc- twelfth century, such a role was officially recognized, and ing imagined sensations as real, receiving messages from its support and regulations began to be codified. Typically, higher beings, and other such traits. the hermit was assigned restricted quarters (say a cell of twelve square feet), perhaps alongside a churchyard wall. The Illness Anchoritism flourished most in the fourteenth century, and It is often repeated that Julian was struck by an illness, “a Julian was one of 214 anchorites in England in that time. bodily sekeness,” she said, that took her to the brink of As to Julian being unable to read, the idiom that she death—so that her curate held a crucifix to her gaze to “cowed no letter” may have been used as a form of mod- comfort her, and her mother, believing her dead, reached esty. Saying she was unlettered may have only meant she to close her eyes. During this illness, she experienced six- was not a very learned person; perhaps she was taught by teen showings. However, I have analyzed her entire statement of 3,431 lines of Middle English text (the language of Chaucer) and concluded that she was not actually ill. Neither, to be sure, was she deliberately feigning such. She did unconsciously will the experience, saying that in her youth she had “de- sired” of God three gifts: knowledge of his Passion (the sufferings of Jesus from after the Last Supper through his “Some early critics simply dismissed crucifixion); the experience of personal bodily sickness, Julian’s showings. . . . From her including such torments “that I should have if I should die writings, Julian would today be . . . except the outpassing of the soull”; and finally, “three wounds” (namely, of “very [true] contrition,” “kinde com- recognized as having a fantasy-prone passion,” and of “willful longing to God”). personality.” By herself having wished for such a bodily affliction, Julian—a classic fantasizer—no doubt induced her own “sekenesse.” The process has the earmarks of so-called self-hypnosis—that is, of auto suggestion and role-playing. She felt herself becoming increasingly ill during three days nuns and could read and write in the vernacular but was un- and, taking holy rites, thought she would not live. When tutored in Latin. Only those given to great leaps of faith and the curate came and set a crucifix before her to comfort legend-making would suggest that Julian became literate her, she fixed her eyes upon it. Soon her sight began to fail at the moment the visions began. and her bedchamber became dark as night except for the Certainly she was capable of writing both a short ac- cross, “wherein I beheld a comon [sic] light.” Thereupon, all count of her experiences and a much longer text penned her pain was suddenly alleviated. The power of suggestion two decades later. The long text—indeed, six times lon- could scarcely be more clearly described. ger—shows her as more self-consciously an author and gives a more fully developed theology. She states that, The Visions during the intervening twenty years, “I had techyng in- At this point, Julian has her first vision. Suddenly, she says, wardly.” she observed Jesus being crowned with thorns, witnessing Julian was still living in 1413, at the age of about seven- “the rede blode trekelyn down fro under the garlande hote ty-one, as noted in the heading of the shorter manuscript, [hot] and freisly [fresh] and ryth [right] plenteously, as it was which reads in part, “There is a visioun schewed by the in the time of His passion that the garlande of thornys was goodenes of god to a devoute woman, and hir name es pressid on His blessid hede.” Keep in mind that at this time Julyan that is recluse atte Norwich and yitt ys onn lyfe” she was actually staring at “the face of the Crucifix,” which (i.e., is still alive). In 1416, the Countess of Suffolk made a simply came alive in her intense imagination. bequest in support of Julian, which is the last known refer- The visions continued, sixteen in all, related in eighty-six ence to her, although an unnamed anchoress—conceivably chapters. While most of the visual showings feature Jesus, her—received bequests at St. Julian’s until 1429). there are secular images, too, such as the often-quoted one Some early critics simply dismissed Julian’s visions. called the “hazel-nut cosmos”: “Also in this,” she writes, Bishop Edward Stillingfleet (1655–1699), for example, “He showed a littil thing, the quantitye of an hesil nutt in called them “fopperies” like the “Fanatick Revelations of the palme of my hand; and it was round as a ball. I lokid distempered brains.” From her writings, as we shall see, Ju- there upon with eye of my understondyng and thowte, lian would today be recognized as having a fantasy-prone What may this be? And it was generally answered thus: It personality. According to an important 1983 study by Wil- is all that is made.” This is a deep insight—but of a kind

44 Free Inquiry June/July 2017 secularhumanism.org a poet or philosopher might recognize—that has simply fully, that all will be shown by “the prechyng and techyng welled up from the depths of her own thoughts. of Holy Church.” Again, her revelations are simply about Julian discusses God, the holy Trinity, and—most of all— those things she has learned or that she applied her own Jesus. She explores such topics as the nature of sin, contri- thinking to. tion, and redemption, “the ghostly [spiritual] shewing” of Jesus’s mother Mary, the Church and its sacraments, the ne- Conclusions cessity of prayer and the manner of praying, the properties Julian was a remarkable figure of her time. Her manuscript, of mercy and grace, how the soul relates to God, and so on. published in 1395, became a small part of the reemergence There is nothing to suggest that Julian’s visions are of the vernacular for literary purposes (helping set us on a anything more than imaginative meditations. They contain modern course). It was also, and more important, the first mostly the dogmas and iconography of the period. For published book in English known to have been written by a example, I was especially struck by how, in the second rev- woman—and a woman of importance as a medieval Chris- elation, Julian discusses the “holy vernicle” as it relates to tian humanist. (In arguing this, Justin Jackson observes in Jesus during his Passion. This was an image known as “Ve- an essay in A Companion to Medieval Christian Humanism ronica’s Veil.” It is not mentioned in the Bible, but according [Brill, 2016] that Julian effectively replaces the old God of to much later legends there was a miraculous self-portrait vengeance with one who became man, offering [in Revela- tion 14] her signature concept: the human person is “knit- ted” to Christ who is a nurturing and sustaining “Mother” guiding by divine love. Julian’s “understonding” is the faculty of reason elevated to see this.) Modern secular hu- manists can find her interesting to study in a variety of ways. Julian’s writing is rather straightforward, and she is care- ful to distinguish between modes of expression, saying, “All this was shewid by thre, that is to say, be bodily sight, by “There is nothing to suggest that word formyd in my understonding, and be ghostly [that is, spiritual] sight.” I would emphasize that she was so sincere Julian’s visions are anything more in what she attempted to relate that we have been able to than imaginative meditations. They see what actually happened to yield her “shewings”: that contain mostly the dogmas and she did not suffer from an illness that took her to the brink of death, as is commonly said of her, but that she instead iconography of the period.” unconsciously directed herself into a semblance of that. She entered an altered state of consciousness wherein she tapped the wellsprings of her imagination and insight. Her profound experience tells us more about herself than even she knew. of Jesus, of which there were many alleged originals, called References the “Edessan Image” or “Mandylion.” The term for these, Bequette, John P., ed. A Companion to Medieval Christian Humanism. vera iconica (Latin for “true images”), became corrupted to Boston: Brill, 2016. Veronica. Hence, there sprang up a pious medieval tale of Crampton, Georgia Ronan, ed. The Shewings of Julian of Norwich. Kalam- how a woman of that name gave Jesus her veil or kerchief azoo, Michigan: Western Michigan University, 1994. (Unless otherwise noted, information about Julian is taken from Crampton’s introduction.) with which to wipe the blood and sweat from his face as Nickell, Joe. Relics of the Christ. Lexington: The University Press of Ken- he struggled with his cross toward crucifixion. The term for tucky, 2007. such an image, a veronica, was in turn corrupted to vernicle ———. The Science of Miracles. Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 2013. Revelations of Divine Love. Accessed at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ in Middle English (as in Chaucer’s “The Pardoner’s Tale,” for Revelations_of_Divine_Love, October 26, 2016. another example). Wilson, Sheryl C., and T. X. Barber. “The Fantasy-Prone Personality: Impli- Julian specifically mentions that the “vernicle of Rome” cations for Understanding Imagery, Hypnosis, and Parapsychological Phenomena.” In Imagery: Current Theory, Research and Application, exhibits various changings of “colour and chere” (as was edited by Anees A. Sheikh. New York: Wiley, 1983. imagined by pilgrims) and she “saw” just such changings of Jesus’s face in the eighth revelation. That her alleged vision should so tally with a bogus, medieval “relic” demonstrates that the source of her revelations is herself. Her other showings are based either on biblical text, teachings of the church, or both. She speaks of “Adams Joe Nickell wrote the dissertation for his PhD in English on literary investiga- synne,” “the blissid Trinite,” “Domys Day,” “Helle and tion. His many books include Looking for a Miracle and The Science of Purgatory, “the Techyng of werkyng of miracles,” “our Lord Miracles. He is senior research fellow for the Committee for Skeptical Jesus uprysen,” and so on and on. She even says, duti- Inquiry.

secularhumanism.org June /July 2017 Free Inquiry 45 One Smartphone, 100 Million Users, and Privatizing Faith Thomas Larson

o far, it’s been a tough start to the new century for Once Google resurrected God, we (or God) gave birth Christians—what with the growth of the New Atheists, to technological fundamentalism, the belief that technol- Sthe Nones (those disaffiliated with mainstream reli- ogy solves all problems, including the problems machines gion, a secularized culture), and a government unsure how create. All things, including religion, are wired into the to define “religious liberty” and “sincerely held religious mainframe. Christians, their numbers fast dwindling, are belief.” And yet the faith shows no signs of succumbing to losing their foundational certainties about biblical literacy the onslaught—not by a long shot. Instead, it’s reprogram- and their veridical church communities to the distracted ming itself with new transmedial wiring and reassigned intemperateness of digital life. roles. Corporate CEOs are the new clergy; social media, Consider: today, the young Christian pilgrim, in need the new church. Global warming is the latest plague of of advice or solace, rarely leafs pages of the Bible. The locusts, requiring God-like intervention to keep it at bay. book, whose gold-foil page edges and nubby lambskin Islam is reverse-engineering the Roman Empire, arriving cover were endlessly palm-cradled by his or her forebears, inside the Trojan horse of Middle-Eastern Muslim refugees. lies untouched on the shelf. Such a person’s faith refresher (I’m not sure to whom I can compare radical jihadists: comes (if it comes) via a device. On one’s phone, one bonks Yahweh? Judas? Gentiles? Centurions?) Pharmaceuticals, the Daily Word App, which offers “365 days of affirma- whether the companies or their pills, are the new sacra- tions” or “guided prayer and meditation music” and—at ments. Technology has become the new liberation theol- one’s preferred speed, time, and degree of commitment— ogy. Google is God. allows one to commune, if briefly, with the literate God.

46 Free Inquiry June/July 2017 secularhumanism.org One is engaged with an experience as glue-and-binding- emergence. The loss of the read and handed book as the free as possible. Such a one spends more time accessing source of Christian authority is a crisis inviting catastrophe. the Word, less time reading it. By 2040, Biblica says, two-thirds of “religious people” will, At topverses.com, all 31,105 Bible verses are re-ranked if present nonreading trends continue, “have no meaning- every hour by search term. For example, such power words ful relationship with the Bible.” Note: not two-thirds of all as grace, patience, or worry appear, and you tap one for people, but religious people! explication. Last time I tried it, the most chosen verse on Despite the claims that twenty-five million Bibles are “encouragement” was from Philippians 2:1—a tad long, sold each year and that 71 percent of Americans self-iden- though it counsels the disheartened during troubled times: tify as Christians, shining the Holy Book on is like claiming Therefore if you have any encouragement from being a political position by not voting: Millennials rarely read the united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any com- Bible or encounter it in church because, for the most part, mon sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compas- they don’t go to church. (Millennials read, but it’s the short- sion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, est versions of whatever they can find.) Online, they’re too having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. distracted by, and committed to, say, Minecraft to dwell, Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to beyond clicks, in the Word. your own interests but each of you to the interests of the This unhanding—akin to an unheeding—of the Bible others. ushers in something far worse for Christians. The loss of Its Bible Rank is #285—like an Amazon sales number, context—church and community, sanctuary and sacred- high up the ladder. ness. The device’s gain is the community’s loss. My sense What’s behind this “innovative” Bible search website, is that without church and community—and with devices other than the usual messianic desire to spread the gospel? replicating or replacing them—the nonliterate and the un- (Other interactive sites include biblegateway.com, whose churched will wander far from the fold. Moreover, they will, search tool displays passages from varying Bible editions without text for schooled conversion and without flesh-and- and translations, and faithcomesbyhearing.com, whose blood sermons for emotional assent, never find the flock’s downloadable audio Bibles come in 912 tongues, all free.) fold or Christ’s body to enter. Such spots channel Christian belief into technology, which, in a sense, is what a Bible or any holy book has always en- abled: a handy, single, portable source where myth, history, story, doctrine, and aphorism calm one’s spiritual anxiety and affirm one’s unwavering certainty. If literate (Christian) readers buy the book’s authorial inerrancy, so much the better. “Corporate CEOs are the For the most part, these twenty-first-century online re- new clergy; social media, ligious libraries are translating the old-handed technology the new church.” to millennials who are already, in effect, virtual electronic masters. Before scribal text, the Word spread by voice alone. (Indeed, voice has never gone out of fashion. Think of the physical aura [to use Walter Benjamin’s term] those Bibles had: dog-eared, pawed, thumbed through, indexed, any Christians blame the loss of religious community underlined, lent, copied, carried, memorized, recited from, Mand substantive faith on this digital transformation of prayed over, pulpit-pounded, sworn an oath on, buried the Bible. One is John Bombaro, senior priest at Grace with, pocketed on D-Day, the Good Book, so help me Lutheran Church in San Diego. He worries that this shift to God.) an online God for Christians is menacingly misguided. (I With the electronic form, all that’s gone. Most down- encountered his antitech argument as an article in Modern loaders use YouVersion Bibles no different from any other Reformation and a video, both titled “The Book That Isn’t app or source. On the Kindle home screen, the Bible is just Really There.”) Bombaro asserts that true Christianity cannot as prominent as The Hunger Games, the latter no doubt as survive without its incarnational being, that is, the seasoned intriguing to read (or watch) as the former, especially to the realms in which Christians place faith: attending church, wor- swipe-apt young. The book now wears a uniform, standard shipping God, singing hymns, enduring sermons, blessing issue and unfelt texture. neighbors, taking sacraments, receiving a pastor’s visit, or Users of digital Bibles may warm to hypertext, but, reading a real book with real pages. like anyone online, they are easily distracted. Proof of this “My concern is this,” Bombaro says in the video. “When comes from Biblica, a Colorado-based institute that studies we become all digital and shift Christianity over into cy- the “crisis of Bible engagement.” Biblica’s estimate is that berspace, the world that’s outside the church—[the world] in the last generation—that is, since 2000—the number that’s saying God is not real—now comes inside the church of “occasional Bible readers” has fallen by 20 percent. and [that nonreality] is reinforced by the very means of the This Biblica attributes to the book’s fade and the screen’s world that says God is not real even here.”

secularhumanism.org June /July 2017 Free Inquiry 47 There seems to be an illogical leap here when Bombaro filmic Word is proved by a flurry of recent Bible epics: The defines cyberspace as unreal and the actual church or his Passion of the Christ, Son of God, Noah, and Exodus: Gods God (his “even here”) as real. But his point is well-taken: if and Kings. Whether blood-laden biopics or effects-crazed cyberspace, or that which is “outside the church,” becomes spectacles, these movies refashion religious myths (their our reality and millennials bring this outside into the church “technological” precursors include medieval and Renais- via their devices, the virtual God may destroy the embod- sance paintings and pilgrim narratives) with celebrity-driven ied deity. (Destroy may be too strong: perhaps it’s just a fantasy, which, like most cinema, ordains what is sensually velvet revolution.) What’s more frightening for him, I wager, more alive than prose narrative. At the same time—and is that the church itself, in all its brick-and-mortar actuality, Bombaro is on the money—such depictions become false must weather the digital storm. All religions must succumb idols, a form of blasphemy: the object of worship replaces to their mediated tools of dissemination—if the next gen- what’s worshipped. eration is to be saved. Keeping the Bible as a sacramental center of Christianity When a technology overtakes a physical assembly, a is essential to Bombaro. But it’s an uphill slog. According to false God steps in. Theologians call it “idolatry”: in this case the 2012 “Bible in American Life” study, of those who had website, app, and iPhone are the venerated objects or, at read the Bible in the preceding year, 31 percent had read least, the beloved objects in hand. Sacraments, rituals, and, it on the Internet and 22 percent on an electronic device. Bombaro notes, “a tangible Bible militate against” these in- That’s more than half of all Bible readers. The study goes vaders. Church space makes God palpable. Its tangibles are on to say that those who employ devices for Bible reading things “we can turn to, feel, handle, and smell, just like the and spiritual development find scant excitement or impas- Christ who walked the streets of Galilee.” Bloodless technol- sioned outlets in such navel-gazing, compared to those ogy further abstracts the holy. Indeed, a religion’s flesh is its who study the Bible in groups, worship with song, and congregation. From where else does its authority derive but receive personal counsel from a pastor. the literal affiliation (butts in pews) of its members? Rebooting religious experience with screens does more than just replace the person-to-person actuality of church. Something much darker is happening—a dethroning of King Text’s reign—and with it, the eclipse of faith.

ere’s an intriguing idea from the “Bible in American Life” Hstudy: “As denominations are losing much of their tra- ditional authority, technology is changing people’s reading “Pharmaceuticals, whether and cognitive habits, and subjective experience is continu- the companies or their pills, ing to eclipse textual authority as the mark of true religion.” Let’s accent subjective. Yes, religious experience (as dis- are the new sacraments.” tinct from sets of belief) is subjective in its felt intimacy. Cell phones and PCs intensify such experience, if not guarantee it. Devices counter the textual authority of the Bible, in par- ticular, and traditional contexts, in general, such as family, church, minister, and congregation. One such pushback Here, I think, is what is core to Bombaro’s fear—that against textual authority is the “spiritual but not religious” religious authority, based in the sanctity of printed text and (SBNR) movement. I’ll believe what I want to, muses the Sunday rituals, is desacralized the more product-mediated access-savvy individual as he or she snubs or sidelines the it becomes. The model for this is the very text that “carries” wishes of an incarnationist such as John Bombaro. What’s the incarnated Word of God, the Bible. Lest we forget, the more, freed from church, the SBNR group is often affiliated Bible as book has always been a product (even if it’s seen with technology as an enabling coconspirator on behalf of as divinely authored): a mythic or fictional object made fact such trust-thyself rapture. by the printing of its collective stories. In this sense, begin- Christianity defines itself as the coming together, under ning in 1455 and ramping up in the nineteenth century, the the auspices of a Bible-based creed, to affirm and practice Bible has itself been a mass-produced, occupying reality that creed. Such coming-together is “the mark of a true re- in the church. To the degree it is worshipped, the term is ligion.” Is this the only mark? Is there a wider notion of reli- bibliolatry: venerating more the book about, and less the gious experience possible, where a technology of personal being of, Jesus Christ. orientation (the PC, mobile computing, the virtual world) Besides, it’s not just a deluge of nifty apps from God opts out of the incarnational community? Could there be and reminder e-mails from Christ that are deconstructing a groupthink about the church’s rituals of incarnation that their incarnational being. Behold the resurgent translation millennials distrust? Anyone might ask: Is the site of the of Bible stories into film, the surest route for religious ide- physical-historical church the only site available for awe ology in our culture. Among the unlikeliest missionaries and mystery, ethical law, and social justice? Does God really these days are Hollywood producers. Their élan for the have something against cyberspace?

48 Free Inquiry June/July 2017 secularhumanism.org Increasingly, those asking these questions and disaffili- Ultimately, the spiritual selfie may be an expression of ating with Bombaro’s idea of a sacramental church are the both disaffiliation—a jilting of church and community, edict nonreligious. Nones discount institutionalized faith; many and evangelicalism—and unaffiliation—no dog in the fight of them think one need only do good deeds and feel com- means no jilting is needed. Bombaro’s community of many passion to be spiritually alive. Compassion need not be has been superseded by a community of one or, better, God-delivered or focused on Christ crucified. Deemphasiz- communities of Ones. “Spirituality” requires no affiliation. ing or removing “proven” sites of faith—text, church, ritual, The spiritual realm parallels the religious; for millennials, doctrine—means that the individual who seeks the spiritual they need not intersect. is on his or her own, as is such seekers’ wont. That, in one Humans accomplish all kinds of things together—public sense, explains the popularity of websites and apps that education, rock ’n’ roll, the Golden Gate Bridge, nanotech- index Christian values: here’s a place for cell-phonically fluid nology, just and unjust laws and governments and enter- Christians or other seeker-sensitive types to congregate prises (from Doctors Without Borders to Monsanto)—even transmedially. rituals of birth, marriage, and death—without compulsorily A smartphone allows you to photograph yourself in a or occasionally attending church, reading the Bible, or self-authenticating context, that is, your geographic posi- communing with God. Be these pursuits of the humanist, tion in the moment—it’s you here, say, with Taylor Swift on no humanist I know wants to turn them into a religion. In- stage behind you, of which the photo verifies your spatial deed, secularists often seek to un-gather flocks, disenable (and temporal) actuality. A person’s spiritual life might be orthodoxy, and crack delusions. But now there is a regath- attended to in the same way. Spatially placed, captured by the dweller, in the moment. Call the site of this moment ering, widely disorganized, as a new concentrically orbiting where the deeply felt, personally transcendent realm is community of Nones. recorded, by and for the individual, “the spiritual selfie.” The person having such a moment is in one’s own phys- ical and psychic space. This realm is one’s spirituality. It’s all one’s own, testified to—more and more, recorded online. It’s certainly not the acoustic hall a church’s space encloses. Moreover, spiritual space need not be defined as the space of geography or history. Rather, it is where you are. With a culture of selfies or self-sites that offer the seeker a place to “Today, the young Christian pilgrim … homestead his or her private being, how easy it is to turn spends more time accessing away from institutional religion and the Bible—or never to deal with either entity at all. How easy to form (no bylaws the word, less time reading it.” required) a community of one.

he irony is, of course, that those searchably comforting TChristian websites that take congregants out of the pub- lic sphere are actually privatizing their users’ experience fur- community of Nones sounds overloaded with irony. ther. By privatizing I don’t mean deepening devotion but, But there is a loose foundation among its un-adhered, rather, feeding self-obsession—all less sticky than the glue A namely, that disaffiliation has a centrifuge: to eschew reli- of a denominational faith. The app-happy young Christian— gion’s institutional stickiness. Disaffiliation, as the new spir- let’s call him “David”—insists that because his relationship itual selfie reminds us, is not a new religion. There are no to God has no grounding in a church, a service, or an actual precepts to share. There is no need to join forces. The tent community, technology can become just as God-enabling as is ginormous. The astronomy club does not have to meet any of those things. Time with his spiritual interests is David’s call. It’s not that he looks at an app and there, like an Uber with the salsa dance troupe. Indeed, all levels of detach- arrival, his soul pops up. It’s that through a magnified self-in- ment from religion and religiosity are available to the non– volvement (not a preacher’s sizzle or a baptismal retreat) he dues-paying None. authenticates his faith. It’s upon him—not upon the rock of And yet there are too many oppositional similarities Saint Peter. Is it any wonder then that so much “time alone” in these like-minded groups of introspective activists to breaks the sacramental bond between David and assembly? ignore. I find the refusal to bowl alone as much a natural I think this spirituality of the individual is nothing like the characteristic of human beings as an as-yet untapped religion of a community. Both, I suspect, have their place, movement whose attachment many None communities, as their ontology. Bombaro says, however, that God is real only eccentric as they are, may feel worth celebrating. Groups when people mass and incarnate God. In other words, a re- such as the spiritual selfies, the spiritual but not religious, ligion must group, must have a body count: “Wherever two those “None and Done,” Parents Without Religion, Sun- or more are gathered in my name, there I am.” Two or more: day Assembly, solstice parties, Harvard Divinity School’s Christianity has, as have all faiths, always preferred more. “Religious Nones,” Christian Atheists, Christian Humanists,

secularhumanism.org June /July 2017 Free Inquiry 49 the Jewish-Buddhist amalgam (the Jewbu), and Alain de filiates are not free from the traditional gel of religion. Inside Botton’s “School for Life.” One common denominator: that gel is a glue or bond that eventually supersedes the those basic fears that freethinkers and the unchurched have original us-versus-them need to organize. At base, religions always contended with in America. Fears of how you’ll be value themselves because their adherents developed a rit- perceived if you declare yourself atheist, agnostic, or unaf- ualized calendar, hierarchical authority, and numerical filiated. You won’t get elected to public office. You’ll likely strength unique to them. To say “we are Muslims” is also to not rise in your corporate environment. Your nay will be say “we are not Jews.” Nonreligious societies of the future perceived as militant, Dawkinsesque. You’ll be judged less may find themselves valuing a similar narrowing of intent. morally fit than your religious counterpart, the Disneyfied We are Nones and you, Fools All, are not. The trick will be “People of Faith.” You’ll be seen as petulant if no traditional to contend that such self-preservation and its centrifugal bullying is primary to the secularist’s original unalterable group fits your feelings. The big objection is less that you’re resolve: freedom from religion. (far) less religious than others or (more) purely nothing in particular. It’s that you’re not a joiner, a believer in. You’re untrustworthy until you’re counted among. I predict a Cambrian explosion of these decentralized, Thomas Larson, staff writer for the San Diego Reader, is the author of three alternative leagues, formed, paradoxically, on a kind of nonfiction books. He teaches in the MFA program at Ashland University in nonreligious religiosity. As strange as it sounds, such disaf- Ohio.

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50 Free Inquiry June/July 2017 secularhumanism.org DOERR'S WAY

Planetary Suicide in Slow Motion Edd Doerr

limate change is a “Chinese land area, is thawing and releasing bon dioxide and methane buildup; hoax,” proclaimed President vast amounts of heat-trapping meth- global warming; sea-level rise; Green- CDonald J. Trump during the ane into the atmosphere, adding to land and Antarctic ice-shelf melt; ocean campaign. On moving into what some the heat-trapping carbon dioxide acidification; coral-reef destruction; wit now calls the “Offal Office,” the spewing into it from increased burn- permafrost thaw; glacier shrinkage; Electoral College–selected president ing of coal, oil, and gas. deforestation; desertification; environ- proceeded to stock his administration • Global temperatures are rising as mental degradation; soil erosion and with climate-change deniers and op- more and more huge chunks of Ant- nutrient loss; biodiversity loss; over- ponents of environmental protection, arctic and Greenland ice break off fishing; overuse of both renewable and as if to say, “We don’t need no stinkin’ and contribute to sea-level rise, while nonrenewable resources; cultivation of Great Lakes cleanup or huffy scientists warming oceans cause water to ex- marginal land; overgrazing; pesticide or fuel standards.” pand, causing further sea-level rise. overuse; fresh-water shortages; radio- That 97 percent of climate scientists This is already noticeable in many active and toxic waste accumulation; concur that climate change and global parts of the world, including the and more. All of these are accompa- warming are real and are anthropo- United States’ mid-Atlantic coast. As nied by increased crowding, socio-po- genic (human-caused)—and that, ac- 40 percent of the world’s population litical instability, and violence. Brooke cording to a recent Gallup poll, 68 lives in coastal areas, there will be Horvath’s review of George M. Wood- percent of Americans agree—seems to population shifts away from coasts, well’s book A World to Live In in the have no effect whatever on Trump and but where will all the people go? December 2016/January 2017 Free In- his administration. Trump wants to pro- Who will be forced back? Who will quiry amplifies this. mote coal mining, though 69 percent pay for the population shifts and all The facts and the science are there of Americans “want to restrict carbon the legal and political and insurance for all to see. But very largely missing emissions from coal plants,” according problems? from even the limited attention paid to the Yale Program on Climate Change • It’s not just coastal areas that are to climate change is much serious Communication (New York Times, affected by climate change. Mexico discussion of what has been driving March 22). Meanwhile, reports keep City, at a mile and a half above sea climate change: human overpopula- piling up for all the literate and TV-view- level and with over twenty-one mil- tion. Human numbers have more than ing world to see about climate-change lion people, is suffering from severe tripled since World War II to well over developments. Here are some recent water shortages and ground sub- seven billion. Were it not for the fifty examples: sidence. This merited a two-page million-plus abortions per year world- report in on • Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, so large wide, and many thousands of maternal February 18. that it is visible from space, is dying deaths and disabilities, world popula- due to increasing worldwide ocean All the scientific evidence is available, tion would today exceed a clearly un- temperatures and acidification. As but it is rarely packaged so that the citi- sustainable ten billion. the New York Times pointed out on zens and voters who need to see it can Scientists and serious writers have March 19, “Coral reefs are found in do so readily. So here, in overly con- been calling attention to the overpop- shallow waters in only 0.2 percent of densed form, is my attempt to present a ulation problem for over half a century. the oceans, yet they support fully a comprehensive picture of human-caused We have the important work of Gar- quarter of all marine life and provide climate change and its various compo- rett Hardin, Paul Ehrlich, Lester Brown, protein for millions of people.” nents and concomitants, together with Al Gore, and many others. Ironically, • Permafrost, which covers one-quar- a connecting of all the dots. however, it was a Republican presi- ter of the Northern Hemisphere’s The dots include atmospheric car- dent, Richard Nixon, who initiated one

secularhumanism.org June/July 2017 Free Inquiry 51 of the most important pieces of work he opposed women’s rights of con- such leading Christian theologians as on this issue, and another Republican science on abortion, promised to have Augustine and Aquinas. The notion is president, Gerald Ford, who oversaw Roe v. Wade overturned, and in Jan- supposedly backed by the Bible, but the completion of that project. In 1974, uary issued an unprecedentedly strin- that is awfully weak support. The Bible Nixon ordered government agencies gent global gag rule blocking U.S. aid actually suggests, in Genesis 1:27 and to produce a study of “Implications of to any organization overseas that has 2:7, that personhood begins with the Worldwide Population Growth for U.S. anything to do with abortion. first breath. This would accord with Security and Overseas Interests.” The In the real world, Americans have a the scientific view that personhood re- National Security Study Memorandum wide spectrum of views on when and quires a functioning brain, which is not (NSSM) 200 report was completed and for what reasons women may have possible until sometime after twen- then signed by Ford and national se- pregnancies terminated, but solid ty-eight to thirty-two weeks of gesta- curity adviser Brent Scowcroft in 1975. majorities of Americans oppose tam- tion. (About 90 percent of abortions Then matters got weird. As soon as pering with Roe v. Wade. In my state are performed by thirteen weeks, 99 Ford signed the NSSM 200 report, it of Maryland in 1992, voters statewide percent by twenty weeks, and the rest was stamped “classified” and buried voted by 62 percent to 38 percent to only for serious medical reasons.) This for nearly twenty years, until it was un- lock Roe v. Wade into state law if the is the view of personhood expressed earthed and published by population Supreme Court’s ruling should be over- by the 167 distinguished scientists, in- scientist Stephen Mumford, who got turned. Meanwhile, Republican legisla- cluding twelve Nobel laureates, one of wind of it from a 1991 issue of the con- whom was DNA co-discoverer Francis servative National Catholic Register. Crick, who signed an amicus curiae Summaries and reviews of the NSSM brief to the Supreme Court in 1988 in 200 report may be accessed in my arti- the case of Webster v. Reproductive cles “The Strange Case of the Missing “Trump wants to pro- Health Services. (Disclosure: I’m the Population Report” and “Population mote coal mining, guy who organized the brief.) Study Finally Published” in the Ameri- Now, as of spring 2017, abortion cans for Religious Liberty journal Voice though 69 percent of rights are under serious attack. All who care for women’s rights and lives must of Reason of Spring 1992 and Summer Americans ‘want to fight back, vote, organize, and work 1994, respectively. The report is avail- restrict carbon emis- with others across the whole religio-po- able online, and it is printed with com- litical spectrum. Among the organiza- mentary in Mumford’s 1994 book The sions from coal plants.’” tions working to defend abortion rights Life and Death of NSSM 200: How the are Planned Parenthood, NARAL Pro- Destruction of Political Will Doomed a Choice America, the American Civil Lib- U.S. Population Policy. erties Union, Catholics for Choice, and To cut to the heart of the matter, tures across the country have worked assorted humanist groups, to name but the NSSM 200 report recommended overtime in recent years to make abor- a few. universal access to contraception and tion and family planning less and less Furthermore, all this is linked to the accessible, particularly for the vast abortion. But the report lay buried white-hot fight over the diversion of numbers of women of limited means until shortly before the 1994 United public funds to church-run and other pri- in “red” states. Nations Cairo population conference, vate schools through vouchers, tax cred- So who is behind the efforts to and most people still are unaware of its, and other gimmicks, led by Trump, deny women freedom of choice on it. Meanwhile, in 1973 the Supreme Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, Vice Court handed down the important Roe abortion? In the Western world, it’s the President Mike Pence, and too many v. Wade ruling upholding the right of leadership of the Catholic Church and Republicans in Congress and state leg- women to choose to terminate prob- the more conservative end of the Prot- islatures. If we lose the battles over lem pregnancies, and an unending estant traditions—leaders who really abortion rights and public education, religio-political conflict got under way. do not speak for majorities of their own we will see tax-supported church Congress passed the Hyde and Helms members, who have abortions at about schools indoctrinating kids against amendments to block federal aid for the same rate as women outside their women’s rights and reproductive choice, domestic abortions and U.S. aid for traditions. In much of Africa and Asia, it leading to serious weakening of efforts abortions overseas. Republican pres- is conservative Muslim leaders. to deal with climate change. We will see idents and politicians have tended to Opposition to women’s reproduc- planetary suicide speed up. oppose free choice on abortion, while tive choice is not only based on cer- Democratic presidents and politicians tain levels of misanthropy, paternalism, have generally come down on the pro- ignorance, and disdain for women’s Edd Doerr is the president of Americans for Religious choice side. rights but also on the unscientific reli- Liberty and a former president of the American Even before he settled into the gious notion that human personhood Humanist Association. He is a columnist and senior “Offal Office,” Trump made clear that starts at conception, a view not held by editor of Free Inquiry.

52 Free Inquiry June/July 2017 secularhumanism.org GREAT MINDS

The Wickedest Man in San Francisco: Ambrose Bierce and Cynicism’s Battling Prime Dale DeBakcsy

mbrose Bierce (1842–1914?) profitably silent until his last days, of the Fourth Estate who could not be was not a man much given to Bierce hammered away with undis- bought or lulled and who would not Afaith, which he famously de- guised scorn at the priests who claimed shrink from speaking his mind out of fined in The Devil’s Dictionary as “Be- absolute knowledge of unknowable deference to tradition or the phantom lief without evidence in what is told by things to charm people into behaving of the public’s swooning fragility. one who speaks without knowledge, inhumanly. Any preacher visiting his Bierce’s cynicism was honestly of things without parallel.” San Franciscan home turf could expect come by. Raised in a loveless religious No, Bierce was not one for blind a blistering write-up in Bierce’s column household, a reader in a community faith or religion of any form, or dogs exposing the ignorance of his sermon of believers, he was at age nineteen or Christmas or marriage. Children he and the venality of his purpose, as in among the first to sign up to fight in didn’t care much for, or railroads or in- this thundering broadside upon the de- the Civil War. He saw service on the tolerance or philosophers . . . or poli- parture of Rev. Dr. Hallelujah Cox: worst of that conflict’s battlefields, ticians, fathers, mothers, magnates, or “[He] has played his farewell en- from the agony of Shiloh to the mas- mayors. It is undetermined whether he gagement, and will appear no more sacre of Chickamauga to the brute- hated telephones more than homeop- before a California audience. In parting force banality of Sherman’s march on athy. He was, however, rather smitten with the Rev. Doctor we cannot with- Atlanta. Serving in General William Ha- with suicide. hold the present slight tribute to his zen’s brigade, which seemed to always For four decades, Bierce’s acid pen equally slight talent. We know of no find itself at the dread center of the attacked anything that smelled of prof- public performer who has had to con- war’s fiercest fighting, he twice carried itable or popular self-deception, from tend against equal natural disadvan- wounded soldiers through enemy fire massive targets such as organized re- tages of personal ignorance and pro- and ended his effective service with a ligion to utterly insignificant ones such fessional incapacity, and the fact that bullet to the head that somehow did as local poets whose only crime was with such heavy odds against him he not penetrate to his brain. He saw first- not writing well. He was Mark Twain has succeeded in getting away without hand what sentiment, patriotism, and without the folksy (if deceptive) exte- incurring actual disgrace is evidence of religion, so easily conjured in ecstatic rior, someone in deadly earnest that indomitable energy upon his part and rivers of exhortation back home, really fear and death were the basic reali- criminal neglect upon our own.” meant in the mangle. ties of the human condition and that Consistency, accuracy, and clarity It would take him twenty years to anybody who promised otherwise de- were Bierce’s great virtues as a thinker start putting his memories of that war served a double barrel of the foulest and writer, a mania to see things as they down on paper, but when he did, he epithets conjurable from yellow jour- are rather than as sentimentality would founded a tradition in American writ- nalism’s deep reserves of spite and wish them. He would not toe a party ing that wound its way through Crane insult. line or spare a feeling if truth would and Hemingway to Heller and Faulks As regards religion, his favorite topic come casualty as a result, and that he of grim, psychologically penetrat- of abuse: where Ingersoll charmed his stayed in journalism as long as he did is ing tales of war and its costs, of men audiences into following him down testament to the public’s appreciation stripped by fear of their humanity and roads of disbelief and Twain remained that here, at least, was one member leading shambling demi-lives after the

secularhumanism.org June/July 2017 Free Inquiry 53 war in payment of other men’s ambi- born of that era’s foulest white-suprem- ties, Bierce found less and less to excite tions. “What I Saw of Shiloh,” “Chick- acist Christianity. He wrote in 1870, him, even to anger. He lost one son to amauga,” “A Horseman in the Sky,” “The dead body of a Chinese woman suicide and a second to loose living, and “A Son of the Gods” are tales was found last Tuesday morning lying trudged through a miserable marriage that numb feeling through their unre- across the sidewalk in a very uncom- that he made absolutely no effort to lenting, analytic depiction of soldiers fortable position. The cause of her improve, and bitterly lost every friend grown indifferent to slaughter, while death could not be accurately ascer- he had ever somehow managed to “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” tained, but as her head was caved in make. His books did not sell, his even- is rightly regarded as one of America’s it is thought by some physicians that tual Collected Works were critically most perfectly told short stories. she died of galloping Christianity of the panned as beautifully bound but hor- Bierce had seen the truth of reli- malignant California type.” rendously edited, and the farce of the gion’s sway over small minds at home As renowned as Bierce was for his Spanish-American War could only strike and of the real cost of patriotic rhetoric journalism, however, we know him somebody who had lived through the during the Civil War, and when at last today as America’s first great war au- Civil War as a depressing signal that he settled in San Francisco to write the thor, as a horror writer who nicely filled America had given itself over com- Town Crier column for a local paper, our thirst for the macabre between pletely to its most mediocre impulses. he had few illusions left to lose. This the death of Poe and the rise of Love- Racked regularly by the asthma that had been the recurring misery of his was the San Francisco that saw men craft, and particularly as the incisive life, alone in life and unchallenged in kidnapped regularly to serve on ves- genius behind The Devil’s Dictionary, sels destined for China, justice doled work, he took it into his mind to disap- out by squads of ax-handle wielding pear to Mexico and made such a good vigilantes, and the political system run job of it that we do not know when or by four railroad magnates of unspeak- where or how he died. able wealth. It had produced Mark Bierce was simply not there one day, leaving a hole in American intellectual Twain and Francis Harte, and now it life for a new voice of conscience that gave the reins over to Bierce, with the could not be enchanted by the whistle open mission to kick at whatever he of optimism or the hosannas of impe- felt needed a kicking. His Town Crier “Bierce’s great virtue rial righteousness. Fortunately, Bierce pieces included shots at religion and … a mania to see things had befriended a young man not long its practitioners peppered with lurid before his disappearance, a writer of tales of patricide, admiring accounts of as they are rather than promise with a willing ear for the ma- suicides honorably conceived and well as sentimentality would cabre and a delight in quashing bunk. carried out, and vicious roastings of wish them.” That lad’s name was H. L. Mencken. San Francisco’s eager but self-deluded He turned out all right. literary lights. Journalists and editors were rou- tinely shot in the streets of San Fran- Further Reading cisco for less, but Bierce, though Ambrose Bierce’s star, once the most tentative of threatened often enough, survived in glimmers on the American literary landscape, has spite of—or perhaps, because of— a collection of cynical and hysterical shone a bit brighter every year since his death, definitions culled from his newspaper and he is at last getting something like the at- his universally spiteful appraisals of tention that is his due. My favorite biography of humankind’s follies. If his thrusts and columns that are as delightfully wicked him is Ambrose Bierce: Alone in Bad Company jabs made only enemies, at least they now as ever they were. None of those by Roy Morris Jr. (Oxford, 1995), which gives his writings were successes in their day, literary abilities full credit and in a style that has had the virtue of playing no favorites, sprinkles of Bierce himself. For Bierce’s works, a decided oddity in a journalistic era victims all of Bierce’s tendency to pad the Library of America edition is a very good col- when writers and editors were regularly his books with run-of-the-mill selec- lection, featuring his war stories, reminiscences, tions from his newspaper columns horror tales, and the complete Devil’s Dictionary, bought and paid for by corporations or though none of his journalism is represented. political elites. filled with attacks on poets nobody He even extended sympathy to the remembered and politicians nobody city’s most universally loathed inhab- knew in the first place. Even the Dictio- itants, the Chinese, whose reputation nary, which ought to have been a sure as a source of willing and cheap labor hit and is now considered a classic of made them a regular target of mob satirical atheism, was mired down by a Dale DeBakcsy is the author of The Cartoon History of brutality. Bierce, almost alone among half-dozen competing products in the Humanism, Volume One (The Humanist Press, 2016). journalists, pilloried the anti-Chinese Bierce style that muddied the waters He is a frequest contributor to the Great Minds column mania that resulted from fear married for the authentic item. and also writes regularly for Philosophy Now, American to a rhetoric of racial dehumanization As he headed into his fifties and six- Atheist Magazine, and .

54 Free Inquiry June/July 2017 secularhumanism.org GREAT MINDS EXCERPT

The Devil’s Dictionary Ambrose Bierce

Abstainer, n. A weak person who yields they ought to be. Hence the custom Faith, n. Belief without evidence in what to the temptation of denying himself a among the Scythians of plucking out a is told by one who speaks without pleasure. A total abstainer is one who cynic’s eyes to improve his vision. knowledge, of things without parallel. abstains from everything but absten- Dejeuner, n. The breakfast of an American tion, and especially from inactivity in the Frankalmoigne, n. The tenure by which who has been in Paris. Variously pro- affairs of others. a religious corporation holds lands on nounced. Adherent, n. A follower who has not yet condition of praying for the soul of obtained all that he expects to get. Elysium, n. An imaginary delightful the donor. In medieval times many of country which the ancients foolishly the wealthiest fraternities obtained their Adore, v.t. To venerate expectantly. believed to be inhabited by the spirits estates in this simple and cheap manner, Apostate, n. A leech who, having pen- of the good. This ridiculous and mis- and once when Henry VIII of England etrated the shell of a turtle only to find chievous fable was swept off the face of sent an officer to confiscate certain that the creature has long been dead, the earth by the early Christians—may vast possessions which a fraternity of deems it expedient to form a new their souls be happy in Heaven! monks held by frankalmoigne, “What!” attachment to a fresh turtle. said the Prior, “would your master stay Embalm, v.t. To cheat vegetation by our benefactor’s soul in Purgatory?” Archbishop, n. An ecclesiastical digni- locking up the gases upon which it “Ay,” said the officer, coldly, “an ye tary one point holier than a bishop. feeds. By embalming their dead and will not pray him thence for naught he must e’en roast.” “But look you, my Cartesian, adj. Relating to Descartes, thereby deranging the natural balance son,” persisted the good man, “this act a famous philosopher, author of the between animal and vegetable life, the hath rank as robbery of God!” “Nay, celebrated dictum, Cogito ergo sum— Egyptians made their once fertile and nay, good father, my master the king whereby he was pleased to suppose he populous country barren and incapa- doth but deliver Him from the manifold demonstrated the reality of human exis- ble of supporting more than a meagre temptations of too great wealth.” tence. The dictum might be improved, crew. The modern metallic burial casket however, thus: Cogito cogito ergo is a step in the same direction, and Grave, n. A place in which the dead are cogito sum—“I think that I think, there- many a dead man who ought now to laid to await the coming of the medical fore I think that I am;” as close an be ornamenting his neighbor’s lawn as student. approach to certainty as any philoso- a tree, or enriching his table as a bunch pher has yet made. of radishes, is doomed to long inutility. Heathen, n. A benighted creature who Christian, n. One who believes that the We shall get him after awhile if we are has the folly to worship something he New Testament is a divinely inspired spared, but in the meantime the violet can see and feel. book admirably suited to the spiritual and rose are languishing for a nibble at needs of his neighbor. One who follows his glutoeus maximus. Heaven, n. A place where the wicked the teachings of Christ in so far as they cease from troubling you with talk of are not inconsistent with a life of sin. Eucharist, n. A sacred feast of the reli- their personal affairs, and the good gious sect of Theophagi. A dispute listen with attention while you expound Consolation, n. The knowledge that a once unhappily arose among the mem- your own. better man is more unfortunate than bers of this sect as to what it was they yourself. ate. In this controversy some five hun- Homeopathy, n. A school of medicine Cynic, n. A blackguard whose faulty dred thousand have already been slain, midway between Allopathy and Christian vision sees things as they are, not as and the question is still unsettled. Science. To the last both the others are

secularhumanism.org June/July 2017 Free Inquiry 55 distinctly inferior, for Christian Science which they are pleased to call “war” Westminster Abbey when dead. He is will cure imaginary diseases, and they and “commerce.” These, also, are the commonly dead. can not. principal industries of the Orient. Railroad, n. The chief of many mechan­ Omen, n. A sign that something will ical devices enabling us to get away Impiety, n. Your irreverence toward my happen if nothing happens. from where we are to where we are no deity. better off. Oppose, v. To assist with obstructions Infralapsarian, n. One who ventures to and objections. Realism, n. The art of depicting nature believe that Adam need not have sinned as it is seen by toads. Orthodox, n. An ox wearing the popular unless he had a mind to—in opposition religious joke. Recreation, n. A particular kind of dejec­ to the Supralapsarians, who hold that tion to relieve a general fatigue. that luckless person’s fall was decreed Ostrich, n. A large bird to which (for from the beginning. Infralapsarians are its sins, doubtless) nature has denied Religion, n. A daughter of Hope and sometimes called Sublapsarians without that hinder toe in which so many pious Fear, explaining to Ignorance the nature material effect upon the importance naturalists have seen a conspicuous of the Unknowable. and lucidity of their views about Adam. evidence of design. The absence of a Revelation, n. A famous book in which good working pair of wings is no defect, St. John the Divine concealed all that Koran, n. A book which the Moham­ for, as has been ingeniously pointed he knew. The revealing is done by the medans foolishly believe to have out, the ostrich does not fly. commentators, who know nothing. been written by divine inspiration, but Overwork, n. A dangerous disorder which Christians know to be a wicked Saint, n. A dead sinner revised and affecting high public functionaries who imposture, contradictory to the Holy edited. want to go fishing. Scriptures. Telephone, n. An invention of the devil Patience, n. A minor form of despair, which abrogates some of the advan­ Logic, n. The art of thinking and rea­ disguised as a virtue. tages of making a disagreeable person soning in strict accordance with the lim­ Piano, n. A parlor utensil for subduing keep his distance. itations and incapacities of the human the impenitent visitor. It is operated by misunderstanding. Theosophy, n. An ancient faith hav­ depressing the keys of the machine and ing all the certitude of religion and all Magnet, n. Something acted upon by the spirits of the audience. the mystery of science. The modern magnetism. Piety, n. Reverence for the Supreme Theosophist holds, with the Buddhists, Magnetism, n. Something acting upon Being, based upon His supposed that we live an incalculable number a magnet. resemblance to man. of times on this earth, in as many sev­ eral bodies, because one life is not Manna, n. A food miraculously given to Pray, v. To ask that the laws of the uni­ long enough for our complete spiri­ the Israelites in the wilderness. When it verse be annulled in behalf of a single tual development; that is, a single life­ was no longer supplied to them they petitioner confessedly unworthy. time does not suffice for us to become settled down and tilled the soil, fertiliz­ Pre-Adamite, n. One of an experimental as wise and good as we choose to ing it, as a rule, with the bodies of the and apparently unsatisfactory race that wish to become. To be absolutely wise original occupants. antedated Creation and lived under and good—that is perfection; and the Mayonnaise, n. One of the sauces which conditions not easily conceived. Melsius Theosophist is so keen-sighted as to serve the French in place of a state believed them to have inhabited “the have observed that everything desir­ religion. Void” and to have been something ous of improvement eventually attains intermediate between fishes and birds. perfection. Less competent observers Meekness, n. Uncommon patience in Little is known of them beyond the fact are disposed to except cats, which planning a revenge that is worth while. that they supplied Cain with a wife and seem neither wiser nor better than they were last year. The greatest and fattest Nihilist, n. A Russian who denies the theologians with a controversy. existence of anything but Tolstoi. The of recent Theosophists was the late Present, n. That part of eternity dividing Madame Blatavsky, who had no cat. leader of the school is Tolstoi. the domain of disappointment from the Worship, n. Homo Creator’s testimony November, n. The eleventh twelfth of a realm of hope. to the sound construction and fine fin­ weariness. Primate, n. The head of a church, espe­ ish of Deus Creatus. A popular form of Occident, n. The part of the world lying cially a State church supported by invol­ abjection, having an element of pride. west (or east) of the Orient. It is largely untary contributions. The Primate of inhabited by Christians, a powerful sub- England is the Archbishop of Canterbury, Editor’s Note: From The Devil’s tribe of the Hypocrites, whose principal an amiable old gentleman, who occu­ Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce (New industries are murder and cheating, pies Lambeth Palace when living and York: Library of America, 2011).

56 Free Inquiry June/July 2017 secularhumanism.org THE HUMANIST SOAPBOX

Bogus Heartbeat Bill Logic Stephen Ray Flora

hroughout the United States, one lover lies on the chest of the other tebrate animals, there are three types antichoice conservatives are in- listening to—feeling—the heartbeat. of muscle: striated muscle (skeletal Ttroducing legislation that would A mother checks on a sleeping sick muscles, the biceps, triceps, and the make abortions illegal as soon as a child and places her hand on his or her like); smooth muscle (blood vessels); “fetal heartbeat is detectable.” An- warm chest and feels the heart beating. and cardiac muscle (the heart). Cardiac tichoice proponents claim a heart- The antichoice conservatives’ tactic is muscle has amazing characteristics. If beat may be detectable as early as to equate a heartbeat with love and individual cardiac cells are removed twenty-two days after conception, a human life. Thus, to remove an embryo from a chicken embryo and placed in a point when many women would not Petri dish, they will pulsate at different even know they are pregnant—a point rates, but shortly the individual cells will when the prenatal tissue is not even migrate together and all the cells will properly referred to as a “fetus” but pulsate at the same rate as the initially is still categorized as an embryo. In fastest pulsating cell in the dish. This is short, heartbeat bills are just the lat- individual cells beating together at the est attempt to outlaw abortion in the same rate, but this is not a heartbeat. It United States. “Heartbeat bills are just is not an unborn, un-hatched chicken; The heartbeat bills have no scientific it is nothing more than a bunch of cells merit or logic, but they do have emo- the latest attempt to in a Petri dish. tional logic that tugs at the heartstrings outlaw abortion in the If a canine heart is suspended in of the scientifically ignorant. Paramed- United States.” nutritious fluid and electrically stimu- ics and doctors check for a pulse or lated—once, not continually—it will heartbeat to see if accident victims are start to beat and continue to beat in- still alive. If cardiopulmonary resusci- definitely. Its beat can be “detected” tation (CPR) can resuscitate the heart, or observed by the naked eye. But it is the patient may be said to be “brought not a “live” animal. It is not a puppy or back to life.” When loved ones die with a detectable heartbeat is to end a dog. It is nothing more than an organ quietly and expectedly, a hospice-care human life. To remove an embryo with in fluid. worker, doctor, or nurse may check for a detectable heartbeat is heartless and Recently, researchers have grown a heartbeat, and when it stops we are loveless. Abortion, they claim, is mur- human cardiac cells is spinach leaves. told our loved one is gone. “Life has der. Anyone can easily see these heart cells left the body.” Emotionally, life, love, Equating a human life with a heart- contracting on YouTube (https://www. and the heartbeat are enmeshed. beat is emotionally powerful but ob- youtube.com/watch?v=6iUrxGo9gZs). During lovemaking, one may feel jectively false. A heartbeat does not One day this science might benefit and one’s heart “pounding.” Afterward, equal a life. In humans and most ver- even save human lives. But this is not

secularhumanism.org June/July 2017 Free Inquiry 57 a human life. It is live cells in spinach as a result of the untenable implications for a product of menstruation. The ac- leaves in a laboratory. of claiming that life begins at concep- tual instance of miscarriage is closer During open-heart surgery, doctors tion, it is worth reviewing those impli- to 40 percent of all pregnancies. Are routinely stop the heart while blood is cations. those who wish to rob women of their temporarily pumped through a heart- Millions of women, including some right to make decisions about their own lung machine. By stopping the heart, antichoice conservative women, have bodies going to test each menstruation these doctors are not committing mur- had in vitro fertilization, where sperm is of every woman to ensure that no early der. Patients do sometimes die when inserted into an egg in the laboratory miscarriage (“murder”) occurred? This the heart has stopped, but barring and then some resulting embryos are is as absurd as the claim that a com- malpractice, the operating doctors are inserted into the woman. Many more plete unique human life begins at the not charged with a crime. Millions of embryos are created than inserted. instant of conception or when a heart- people are now kept alive with artificial The rest are discarded. If life begins at beat is detectable. electrical pacemakers that stimulate the instant of conception, then each It would be nice if science would the heart to beat, but society does not discarded embryo is a murder. Fur- reveal absolutes—heaven, hell; off, on; consider those with pacemakers to be thermore, many embryos are inserted, no life, life. Instead, science seems only artificially alive or anything less than but typically none or only one, two, or to be revealing only complexity and fully alive and capable humans. three successfully implant and result in blurry boundaries that mark the begin- A so-called heartbeat does not pregnancy. The rest dissolve, and the ning of an independent, unique human equal life. It is not even “beating,” as embryonic material is absorbed or ex- life. But science has clearly revealed in when one beats a drum. The sounds pelled. If life begins at the instant of that an embryo or a fetus that makes we hear as a heartbeat—lub dub, lub conception, then every inserted em- internal movements that some may dub—are actually the sounds of the bryo that does not result in a success- misleadingly call a “heartbeat” is tricuspid and mitral valves (lub) and ful pregnancy is also a loss of human clearly not an independent, unique pulmonic and aortic valves (dub) slap- life—murder or at least manslaughter. human life. Instead, it is part of the ping shut. The term heartbeat is itself Similarly, many natural pregnancies woman’s body. Barring an unwanted a misnomer. do not result in live birth. A conserva- spontaneous abortion, it is a woman’s Who knows what the antichoice tive estimate is that 20 percent of all choice what she wants to do with her conservative lobbyist and legislators pregnancies end in spontaneous abor- body. A woman’s body is not the prov- mean by “heartbeat”? Cells pulsating? tion. Thus, if life begins at the instant of ince of angry male religious zealots. Valves closing? The ones proposing the conception, then at least 20 percent of heartbeat bills don’t even know what all women who have ever been preg- they are proposing. The claim that “a nant, knowingly or not, are guilty of, unique human life begins with a de- if not murder, then at least negligent Stephen Ray Flora is in the psychology depart- tectable heartbeat” is as absurd as the manslaughter. Many women who have ment at Youngstown State University in Ohio. He claim that “life begins at the instant of an early miscarriage didn’t even know has taught human sexuality and psychophysiology conception.” But since the heartbeat that they were pregnant. The products and is the author of The Power of Reinforcement movement came about, in part at least, of the miscarriage are often mistaken (State University of New York Press, 2004).

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58 Free Inquiry June/July 2017 secularhumanism.org HUMANISM AT LARGE

Jesus Is a Myth: A Rebuttal to Bill Cooke Mark Cagnetta

don’t believe in the Christian God, January 2017), simply because Cooke, evidence that Yeshua may have existed; the Jewish gods, or any of the man- for whom I have the deepest respect, there were probably hundreds, if not Iifold Pagan gods. I am an atheist. I has resorted to a tactic that I detest: He thousands of street-corner prophets was raised on religious dogma. I was is telling me to believe that Jesus was an heralding Armageddon in those days, forced to attend Sacred Hearts School historical figure. Disregard all the non- but why would we care? The contention for four long years. During my youth, as sense he says—the fact that Jesus was of mythicists is that the biblical Jesus is a reluctant Catholic, I was told what to born to a virgin, killed and reanimated unhistorical. Meanwhile, though Jesus’s believe. I was indoctrinated into a reli- his playmates, cured the blind with spit- identity may not be directly linked to gion by the authoritative figures in my tle, raised the dead; walked on water, any particular pagan god, he clearly life, people I trusted: my parents, nuns, converted water to wine, died for our shares a variety of attributes with a slew priests, relatives, and friends. When I sins, and was raised from the dead him- of imaginary beings whom humankind finally left the Church, I felt a freedom self and then ascended into heaven— unquestionably manufactured. No one that can hardly be explained. because there was a lesser-known believes in the historicity of Romulus, I am not a theologian. I don’t have human being by the name of Yeshua Mithras, Dionysus, or Horus, so why a degree in religion or religious studies. ben Yosef who was the model for the make the exception for a demigod What I do have is a doctorate in orga- savior of the New Testament. Cooke named Jesus? nizational leadership and, more import- himself admits “there are few reliable I’m in a unique position to draw ant, a quarter-century of contending facts about his life,” yet he insists that comparisons between a nonfictional fig- with the reality of life as a police officer this apocalyptic prestidigitator is the ure in history and a protagonist in a fic- in New Hampshire. I have honed, both real Jesus. Yeshua, according to Cooke, tional story. As a police officer, I appar- intentionally and unwittingly, a perverse antagonized the Romans and was there- ently had made quite an impression on sense of pessimism and skepticism. fore crucified, like so many thousand s a teenager named John Pollono, who The “truth” has always been more of others. subsequently left New Hampshire to ful- important to me than most anything To dismiss mythicists—those who fill his dream of becoming a playwright. else. Truth, Sophocles said, makes the deny the existence of Jesus as a histor- One of his first successful plays was Lost best argument; so over the course of ical or religious figure—out of hand is a and Found, which concerned a family time, I tactfully questioned all alleged mistake. Galileo, as I recall, promoted living in Boston. One of the roles in the truths. I arm myself with as much knowl- an Earth that revolved around the sun, play, I learned, was modeled after me. edge as I can retain: I read voraciously; which was so unacceptable at that time “Keith Cagnetta” was a police officer I attend lectures, seminars, and conven- that he was shown the tools of torture played by Darren Capozzi. The fictional tions, and I watch educational television. and forced to recant. Similarly, Alfred Officer Cagnetta was described by Pol- My interests include history, religion, Wegener’s early twentieth-century no- lono as a young cop living in Medford, and science. While I am surely far from tion of continental drift was widely rid- Massachusetts. One reviewer called him being the smartest person around, I iculed and outright rejected. Both were “goofy,” although Pollono’s preferred have groomed my evolutionary gift— eventually proven to be correct. To description was “not a deep thinker.” my brain—to separate fact from fiction, imply that the supernatural and clearly The character Cagnetta was in a despite what I have been told to be- nonexistent character known to us as long-term relationship with a woman lieve. Jesus, the son of God, was based on he did not fully appreciate. Before set- I took umbrage with a recent arti- a real person named “Yeshua” reeks tling down, he was bent on fulfilling his cle by Bill Cooke, titled “Why Secular of desperation. Clearly, they are two hedonistic desires. On the police force, Humanists Should Abandon the Myth separate and distinct persons. We can he was one of the guys, a sycophantic Theory of Jesus” (FI December 2016/ all agree on that, despite indisputable rookie constantly seeking the favor of

secularhumanism.org June/July 2017 Free Inquiry 59 veteran officers. Although I am fun-lov- cording to Ehrman, are sufficient proof handle the tithes. These were typically ing, that is where the comparisons to qualify his contentions of Jesus’s his- married men, because Paul felt they between Keith Cagnetta and me end. toricity. Such evidence would never be were more trustworthy, having families Clearly, he was not an historical figure, entertained in a court of law, so why and roots in the community. despite the fact that I, a living, breath- should we indulge theologians who find So, as Cooke states, the vast major- ing human being, was the model for his it compelling? Not only is hearsay irrel- ity of theologians reject the Christ-Myth character. evant, we all know the consequences theory. These are men who rely on the Jesus had no contemporaries. Con- of the telephone game. Price astutely historicity of Jesus to provide a living for veniently, he couldn’t write. No DNA pointed out that the Jesus-Yeshua com- themselves and their families. This sim- evidence will ever be found to verify his parison could easily be dismissed by ple fact alone provides ample reason to existence, because he was the spawn another, albeit more comical, compari- insinuate an historical Jesus, even if he of the Holy Ghost. Also, opportunely, son: Clark Kent and Superman. Without is real only in the form of an obscure he left no trace of himself behind, be- the Superman persona, Price posited, Jewish prophet who is buried deep in cause he rode a cloud back to his place no one would have cared about Kent, the rubble of biblical scholarship. Ye- of origin, heaven. The New Testament an insignificant reporter for the Daily shua, however, is no more Jesus than I provides fictional accounts of Jesus Planet. Yeshua, meet Mark and Clark! am Keith Cagnetta. The Jesus of the that are peppered with interpolations, Paul was the first to write about Bible, in a world explained by physics, contradictions, errors, and forgeries. Jesus, and his Jesus was mythical. As chemistry, and biology, can only be de- Although they contain some factual the Gospels progress, Jesus morphs scribed as a myth. No amount of coax- tidbits, they are, following suit with the back and forth from a mere human to ing to believe the alternative is neces- Old Testament, mostly drivel. There is a demigod and, finally, to a pagan god- sary. No one can tell me differently. nothing historical at all. like being. It is undeniable that Paul was At a recent debate between best- the founder of Christianity. No one will selling religion scholar Bart Ehrman and ever know what Paul’s intentions were, noted mythicist Robert M. Price, the for- but, to me, a layperson, it is clear that mer intimated that the historical Jesus from the beginning Paul knew there Mark Cagnetta’s previous articles for Free Inquiry was an apocalyptic prophet, sans the were fortunes to be made if his new include “Why I Am Not a Catholic: Sundays with magical powers ascribed to him in the religion succeeded. He fully expected Estelle” (August/September 2014) and “Angel Gospels. He insisted the stories were his followers—his fellow Christians—to Unaware: An Atheist’s Perspepctive on Child Suffering” quasi-factual as they were passed on support his lifestyle. He wrote letters of (June/July 2016). He is a retired police officer with an orally for generations. The Gospels, ac- instruction. He appointed bishops to EdD in organizational leadership.

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60 Free Inquiry June/July 2017 secularhumanism.org REVIEWS

Ernestine Rose: Nineteenth-Century Freethought Firebrand

Wayne L. Trotta

f you are a student of nineteenth-cen- tury freethought or of the early wom- Ien’s rights movement, then you have probably come across the name Ernes- tine Rose more than once and deter- The Rabbi’s Atheist Daughter: Ernestine Rose, International mined to find out more about her. You Feminist Pioneer, by Bonnie S. Anderson (New York, N.Y.: Oxford probably turned to The New Encyclo- University Press, 2016, ISBN 978-0-19-975624-7). pedia of Unbelief and found there a 231 pp. Hardcover, $34.95. highly useful article by Carol Kolmerten that served to further whet your appe- tite for the full-length biography. But no such biography was to be found. Until now, that is. With her new book, The Rabbi’s Atheist Daughter: as Anderson says, the “foundation story The situation was awkward for Ernes- Ernestine Rose, International Feminist of her self-created adult identity as an tyna, to say the least, and she eventu- Pioneer, emerita professor of history advocate for personal independency ally decided it was time for her to leave. at Brooklyn College and the Graduate and women’s equal rights.” She left behind most of her inheritance, Center, CUNY, Bonnie S. Anderson has Like many feminists, Ernestine in taking only what she thought she would filled a long-standing and somewhat her adult life had little to say about need to maintain herself. This seems embarrassing gap in the history of North her mother. Her father, however, was a like a remarkable thing for her to have American civil rights activism. steady presence in her formative years. done, especially since she had fought Born in Poland on January 13, 1810, The rabbi taught his daughter to read hard to keep that money, and, with a Ernestyna Louise Potowska showed re- Hebrew and guided her in the study of new wife and new dowry, her already markable courage from an early age. the Torah, thus providing her with the financially comfortable father would not When she was only sixteen, her father core of an educational curriculum nor- have needed it. The extra money might and mentor, Rabbi Potowski, betrothed mally reserved for sons. But young Er- also have allowed Ernestyna to travel in her to an older man whom she had no nestyna’s independence of mind caused such a way as to avoid some of the well- interest in marrying. Under Polish law, her to question even biblical authority, known dangers facing a woman travel- her failure to honor this engagement and she continued to do so despite her ing alone. It seems that the book could entitled the man to keep the substan- father’s remonstrance that it was not a have said more about this decision, but tial inheritance willed to Ernestyna by little girl’s place to ask questions. By age Anderson lets it pass without comment. her recently deceased mother. So, the fourteen, however, she had decided After settling for a while in Berlin girl hired a sleigh and driver to take her that she could no longer believe things and then Paris, Ernestine (Anderson be- the sixty-five miles to the district capital, she could neither see nor hear and that gins using this form of her name after Kalisz, where she proceeded to success- made no sense to her. From that time Ernestyna left home) journeyed to Lon- fully argue in court that she should not on, she never lost her atheist beliefs. don, where she met her beloved and lose her legacy because of an agree- When Ernestyna was about seven- devoted lifelong partner, William Rose. ment she did not want and had no teen, her father took a new bride who Little is known about Rose (he was not voice in making. This triumph became, was not much older than his daughter. Jewish, despite the name), except that

secularhumanism.org June/July 2017 Free Inquiry 61 he worked as a jeweler and silversmith, ity, so, too, did women’s oppressors. For hy has it taken so long for us to was not highly educated, and shared such sentiments, Anthony was admon- Whave a biography of this impres- and fully supported Ernestine’s athe- ished by one of the movement’s preem- sive, courageous woman? Was it her ism, feminism, and abolitionism. Both inent male figures to remove Ernestine Jewishness, her foreignness, her faith- also became committed to the commu- from all future convention platforms. lessness? In part, it may be because nitarian thought of Robert Owen, the “Did we banish Mrs. Rose?” Anthony Ernestine herself published very little wealthy and benevolent English indus- mused. “No, indeed!” in her lifetime beyond her small book, trialist who taught that the three evils Ernestine was willing to dial it back A Defense of Atheism. She claimed keeping humankind enslaved consisted a bit, however, in order to preserve her that she never spoke from notes, and of private property, religion, and the place in the feminist movement. She no doubt she was quite capable of de- contemporary laws governing marriage considered all religion to be superstition livering ex tempore at will. But neither and divorce. and nothing more, but she reserved ex- is there any doubt that she wrote out In 1833, the Roses emigrated to New pressing such sentiments—mostly—to many of her speeches, at least some of which were collected in 2000 for a York City, where they lived until return- her freethought audiences. In doing PhD thesis. Perhaps modesty played a ing to London in 1869. New York had so, she sacrificed none of her oratorical role. For all her polemical prowess and become a haven for British freethinkers power. At the Worcester Convention in national reputation, Ernestine never re- and was home to a radical Owenite 1850, shortly after passage of the Fugi- quested or accepted a speaker’s fee, group that formed the core of what was tive Slave Act, Ernestine drew the com- known as the Moral Philanthropists So- and, when Anthony asked her for infor- parison between woman’s status and mation about her for Anthony’s History ciety. These nonreligious humanists held that of the runaway slave: “If a woman their meetings at Tammany Hall, where of Woman Suffrage, Ernestine replied is compelled by the tyranny and ill that she had “nothing to refer to” they drew standing-room-only crowds treatment of her husband, to leave him to their debates on religion and soci- and had “never spoken from notes.” . . . the law will deliver her up into his It is hard to explain, though, why she ety. Ernestine’s oratorical skills first be- hands.” The laws, she asserted, “must came evident in these debates, and she would deny her longtime friend, espe- be made equally for both.” soon gained recognition through New cially when she freely gave copies of In truth, for Ernestine, freethought, her speeches to others of her acquain- York’s Owenite publication, the Beacon, women’s rights, and abolitionism were tance. Perhaps not modesty but ego although the paper initially referred to all of a piece. When some of the pious was at work here, moving the orator to her only as “a Polish lady” to protect objected that infidels such as her should craft her legacy as that of a speaker too her from the attacks routinely leveled not be permitted to meddle with the gifted to ever rely on what might be re- at any female freethinker who dared to slavery question, she connected the garded as the nineteenth-century equiv- lecture in public. By 1844, the Boston dots for them, declaring that her infi- alent of the teleprompter. We simply Investigator was praising Ernestine for delity was nothing less than “UNIVER- don’t know, and, once again, Anderson her “extraordinary powers to enchain SAL MENTAL FREEDOM!” (emphasis moves on without comment. the minds of an audience.” Also in that Certainly, the simplest explanation, year, the Roses began organizing a na- in original) and asking, “How can slav- as Anderson notes, is that we just don’t tional convention of freethinkers (soon ery exist with universal mental freedom which wages war upon all oppression?” have the records. Poland was a country dubbed the Infidel Convention) in honor in turmoil at the time of Ernestine’s birth, of Owen, who was then visiting the Naturally, Ernestine endured her share of heckling. At the Hartford con- and most of the recorded data we United States. By mid-century, Ernes- would like to have is missing and, most tine’s oratory on behalf of freethought vention in 1853, some students from a nearby theological seminary disrupted likely, gone forever. Of William’s early and women’s rights had made her more years in London, no records or reminis- her speech with hissing, shouting, famous than Elizabeth Cady Stanton or cences seem to exist. Thus we are left, name-calling, and demands that she Susan B. Anthony. of necessity, with a relatively short biog- go home. To settle things down, the Despite her fame, Ernestine often re- raphy. Still, this is a more than service- gas lights throughout the hall were ex- ferred to herself as a “minority of one.” able telling of the life of a true champion tinguished. But, as a female participant She was many times the only woman on in the history of freethought. While we the dais or the only woman to deliver recalled, when the lights came back might wish that the author would have a speech. She was nearly always both on, there was Ernestine, with a Bible in ventured a bit more speculation here the only foreigner and the only atheist her hands, standing in all her “fearless and there, Ernestine Rose’s story is one featured at a given convention. Most of majesty!” She shook the book in the that needed to be told and deserves to the early abolitionists and feminists were faces of the gallery students, exclaim- be more widely known. Christians, but, if the abolitionists drew ing, “Yes, you are fit representatives of their support from the Bible, Ernestine your book, you illustrate your religion by was there to remind them that so, too, your mobocracy!” She then went on to did the slaveholder. If women’s rights deliver a scathing discourse on religion’s Wayne L. Trotta is a psychologist and frequent advocates found inspiration in Christian- enslavement of the human mind. reviewer for Free Inquiry.

62 Free Inquiry June/July 2017 secularhumanism.org A Powerful Account of Leaving Faith Tom Flynn

ull disclosure: Lewis Vaughn was my immediate predecessor as Feditor of Free Inquiry. Much that defines this magazine took shape on his watch, notably the celebrity op-ed Star Map: A Journey of Faith, Doubt, and Meaning, by Lewis columns. One of my own additions to Vaughn (Farmington, Minn.: Freethought Books, 2017, ISBN the magazine is the department “The 978-0-988-49384-1) 238 pp. Softcover, $20.00. Faith I Left Behind,” in which FI read- ers who grew up traditionally religious share often-painful tales of their jour- neys toward secular humanism. Star Map is what Lewis Vaughn might have written for “The Faith I Left Behind,” albeit at book length. It’s vividly writ- ten—and harrowing. foundly psychologically damaging to Most humanists and atheists under Vaughn was born into a deeply grow up convinced that all humans age forty either grew up without any traditional, back-country fundamental- (most emphatically including oneself) religious identity or in an undemanding ist Baptist family. He grew up literally are depraved and unworthy; that one’s tradition that was easy to leave behind. believing that a preacher “spoke for life is merely a test that most will fail, Among Gen-Xers and Millennials, the God—that he was the dummy through thereby earning eternal torment; that minority consists of individuals who which God, the great ventriloquist, one’s own experiences and thoughts grew up in damaging religious tradi- spoke. And proof that God was doing are never to be trusted, for Truth comes tions. In a cohort in which few individ- the talking was that the dummy would only from Scripture and one’s pastor. uals have direct experience of religion’s get really excited.” The final sentence This book deserves to be widely dark side, it’s easy to underestimate the of that quotation displays the wry read, especially among younger unbe- harm that the more toxic forms of faith humor that Vaughn peppers through- lievers. There’s a very real generational can inflict—perhaps to make light of the out this memoir. It’s needed, because very genuine dangers posed by tradi- young Vaughn grew up terrified: of sin, split between older and younger hu- manists regarding their religious back- tionalist life stances. of hell, of God’s vengeance, of televi- For that reason, I hope plenty of grounds. Readers who send stories to sion and movies, of dancing, of sex, of young unbelievers will discover Star “The Faith I Left Behind” tend to be thinking for himself—most of all, of his Map. It’s hard to imagine a more poign­ age sixty or older. In that age cohort, creeping doubts. He ably documents ant reminder that extremism in religion most humanists and atheists experi- the progression of those doubts as he can be profoundly damaging—but also enced traditionally religious upbring- moved from passionate fundamental- that the handicaps imposed by such a ism through a somewhat bitter agnosti- ings; thinking their way free of that childhood can nonetheless be over- cism to his end point, a poised atheism childhood conditioning was often a come. Even if—as in Lewis Vaughn’s in which he realizes that his search for defining life event. Only a minority in case—a few of the scars never fade. values will be his responsibility alone. this group attained their current views Star Map is one of the most sear- more or less painlessly—because they ing accounts I have read of the abiding grew up in liberal faith traditions or in harm that a literalist, fundamentalist atheist families. Among younger unbe- upbringing can inflict. It can be pro- lievers, the situation seems reversed. Tom Flynn is the editor of Free Inquiry.

secularhumanism.org June/July 2017 Free Inquiry 63 Leaving Religion—for ‘Religion’ Tom Flynn

f you’re going to move to a strange country, it never hurts to learn the Why I Left / Why I Stayed: Conversations on Christianity Between Ilanguage. The failure to do so by an Evangelical Father and His Humanist Son, by Tony Campolo Bart Campolo, who did the moving, and Bart Campolo (San Francisco: HarperOne, an imprint of and his father Tony Campolo, who HarperCollins Publishers, 2017, ISBN 978-0062415370). ought to have known better, seats a 160 pp. Hardcover, $24.99. profound error at the heart of Why I Left / Why I Stayed. It is an otherwise valuable short book. Tony Campolo is a sociologist, a liberal evangelical Baptist pastor, a best-selling author, a social-justice activist, and a onetime spiritual advi- sor to Bill Clinton. He is progressive enough (by Baptist standards) to have Christian believers searching for guid- ituality” and describes his ministry at once been informally tried for her- ance when a family member or close USC as serving “post-Christians” who esy. Bart Campolo is Tony’s son. For friend gives up the faith—as must “missed the music. They missed the decades a near-theological clone of be increasingly common when the hymn sings and potluck dinners. . . . In his father, Bart lost his faith in middle fastest-growing religious orientation is other words, they missed the church.” age. Though now an explicit naturalist “None.” The book’s secondary target On the same page, Bart credits Harvard and nontheist, he retains his commit- is Christians on the brink of abandon- humanist chaplain Greg Epstein’s book ment to ministry, serving as humanist ing their faiths. Even so, humanist and God without God as introducing him chaplain at the University of Southern atheist readers can find much of inter- to “the logic and language of secular California (USC). est in this volume. humanism.” It was on Thanksgiving 2014 that But, oh, that error. Epstein’s 2009 book has many vir- Bart broke the news to his parents Father and son, the Campolos tues, as I said when I reviewed it (FI, that he no longer believed in God. agree on two major things. The first is February/March 2010). But no one An encounter that could have sparked hard to argue with: “Love is the most should regard it as an introduction to recrimination led instead to dialogue excellent way.” This principle, too often secular humanism. Good without God and ultimately to this book. Tony and marginalized in judgmental evangelical launched, pardon the expression, a Bart write alternating chapters, pre- rhetoric, is why the Campolos kept revival of religious Humanism, from senting contrasting views of the issues their lines of communication open. The which soon emerged a third major that divide them and their interpreta- second thing on which they agree, strain of organized humanism: con- tions of one another’s stances. They unfortunately, embodies that profound gregational humanism. Congregational coauthor the closing chapter. error I mentioned. Bart declares that humanism retains a focus on the com- Their breezy style should ring famil- “secular humanism is my religion.” munal life echoing that of a church or iar if one has read any of the brisk Tony, too, describes his son as a secular synagogue congregation but explicitly “uplift” books by, say, Joel Osteen or humanist, yet also as “spiritual but not denies that it is in any meaningful way Rick Warren. It’s clearly aimed first at religious.” Bart writes of “secular spir- religious.

64 Free Inquiry June/July 2017 secularhumanism.org Properly understood, secular human­ and eschews any resort to assent ism stands in contrast to all of this. beyond the evidence. Though he While all humanists share a naturalistic accepts the reality and psychological POEM viewpoint and a conviction that human power of so-called “transcendental” needs and interests are uniquely mor­ experiences, he understands them ally compelling, secular humanists see naturalistically. His testimony, to bor­ their life stance as separated both row an evangelical term, is uncompro­ from dogma and from the currents misingly nonreligious. Truth of congregational life. They are as I conclude that Bart is a not a Ted Richer deeply repelled by ritual and the sub­ religious Humanist but rather a con­ mersion of the individual into a usually gregational humanist. Surely it would 1. unchosen community as they are by not have unduly burdened either him Outside the House of Learning— supernaturalism and calls for blind or his father to say so! faith. Secular humanists neither seek Its mistreatment of secular human­ . . . out ministers nor minister to others in ism aside, the book has many virtues. I said to Sol: a clerical style. They grasp that there Bart’s chapters constitute one of the . . . is no such thing as spirit or “being most powerful accounts one will read what does it mean spiritual.” They see Bart Campolo’s anywhere of how it feels, from both . . . claim that “secular humanism is my the intellectual and emotional per­ religion” as an oxymoron; after all, spectives, to jettison one’s faith and when they say secular humanism not only rejects all embrace life without religion. For their . . . religions but rejects religion itself, cat­ part, Tony’s chapters evince a sincere that Truth goes all over the world egorically. and compassionate effort to under­ Secular humanism can never be a stand Bart’s unbelief, albeit from an 2. religion itself. It is what people who unwaveringly faithful perspective. live without religion do instead. But Tony’s writing also presents Inside the House of Learning— Both Campolos are deeply intel­ some of the weaknesses and contra­ . . . ligent and highly educated. Having dictions that plague liberal evangel­ Sol said to me: icalism. For example, his speculative been motivated to pen a book . . . largely by Bart’s turn to humanism, effort to reconcile the mysteries of the why couldn’t one of them—or at Crucifixion with modern sensitivities it means that Truth worst, some enterprising editor at leads him to combine Kierkegaardian . . . HarperOne—have explored human­ existentialism with Einstein’s theory is driven out of one place ist sources to see what key terms of relativity (yes, really), with pre­ . . . in movement parlance really mean? dictably absurd results. Thanks to a after another (They might have begun with Free time-dilation effect somehow linked . . . Inquiry’s October/November 2013 to Jesus’s divinity, the poor man-god cover feature setting forth the dis­ is always writhing on his cross—eter­ and must wander tinctions between secular humanism, nally available at the most lurid peak . . . religious Humanism, and the then- of his agonies for Tony to dump sins like them new phenomenon of congregational onto, or just for Tony’s contemplation . . . humanism, to which Greg Epstein and before drifting off to the sleep of the I, among others, contributed.) just. In this bizarre, imagined con­ on and on Bart Campolo is simply, thump­ tinuum, it’s always Good Friday (or . . . ingly, not a secular humanist. The Groundhog Day). It’s all quite appall­ all over the world question is whether he should properly ing—but amazingly, it arose out of be considered a religious Humanist Tony’s effort to find a more palatable or a congregational humanist. The way of understanding the Crucifixion fact that Bart claims to have a reli­ than the traditional dogma of sub­ gion (never mind, for now, that the stitutionary atonement, which many Ted Richer teaches at Quincy College. He religion he claims to have is a non­ (Bart among them) find too cruel. is the author of The Writer in the Story and religion) lends preliminary weight to Despite such lacunae, Why I Left / Other Figurations (Apocalypse Press, the proposition that he might be a Why I Stayed is intriguing and in many 2003). His work has appeared in Literary religious Humanist. But he writes at ways worthwhile. What it is not, how­ Imagination, AGNI, Harvard Review, length—and I must say, with pellucid ever, is a book about abandoning Daedalus, and Joining Music with Reason: clarity—about what he now believes. evangelical Christianity for secular 34 Poets, British and American, Oxford His worldview is solidly naturalistic humanism. 2004–2009 (Waywiser, 2010).

secularhumanism.org June/July 2017 Free Inquiry 65 Letters contiuned from p.21 that great emphasis and blame actions by blaming the Israelis factor is the rise of fundamen- When asked if slavery is ac- would be attributed to the political (the modern acceptable synonym talism, especially militant Islam ceptable, the vast majority of peo- Right: to the authors’ credit, they for Jews), the Christian and Mus- and Sharia law with its primitive ple would say of course not, until alluded to the Left but went back lim worlds’ universal scapegoat. views of the relationship between they actually read the Thirteenth to the twentieth-century Hitler/ The modern Left, with its men and women and of world Amendment that specifically abol- Stalin years, with barely mention- role in the destruction of the domination. Another factor is the ished slavery except for people that American economy and political ing what the Left is doing today. Overton Window, prove Harry have been convicted of a crime, True, at least in the last two system: one could make the case Golden’s poignant observation and been duly convicted (emphasis centuries (some of which was re- that anti-Semitism (Maurice Sam- that the trend toward a two-tiered added). This Amendment codified lated by the authors) and espe- uel’s “Great Hate”) is the one society—the disappearing middle slavery in this country for a group cially since the late 1960s, the Left constant in Western civilization. class—aided and abetted by the of human beings that some people cracked the Overton Window with The rise and growth of the role of great wealth and corporate single out as the people they want its relentless war against Israel and alt-right also could be considered influence is leading to a growing the Jewish people—a war in which from the Newtonian perspec- disparity in income between the categorized as slaves. At last count, they engage in some of the most tive as a reaction to the irrational rich and poor. How long will it be we have approximately 2.3 mil- heinous behavior ever demon- components and endemic hate of before the poor will be serving lion people designated as slaves. strated by presumably intelligent modern leftist progressivism—an the needs and wants of the rich? The writers suggest “slavery is and sentient human beings who, abuse of what had been an hon- Sheldon F. Gottlieb a morally reprehensible practice.” I though decrying Hitler, have ad- ored, Left-oriented historical and Boynton Beach, Florida suggest the rise and flourishing of opted some of his same uncivi- political concept, the disrespect the alt-right has some roots in the lized tactics, including irrationality, shown in their need for and under- nurturing of slavery that contin- deliberate lies, distortion, photo standing of religion, and their un- The question “Should slavery have ues today. I like to think someday editing, etc., just to placate the patriotic disrespect for the nation. ended?” and the position of Bog- we will evolve morally beyond the primitive aspects of its ideology. The authors started and ended hossian and Lindsay that avers the need to punish/harm/abuse peo- Today, on college/university their essay with the topic of slavery. question itself surpasses being ple, and prisons will be looked campuses there is the fascism of Yet I was surprised that they missed shocking, unfortunately demon- back on like we look back on the the Left as they deny people the the opportunity to discuss import- strates an example of the igno- buggy whip and inquisitions that we right to hear social-political views ant factors that are functioning to rance that festers in this country as have inflicted on others in the past. different from their own. Weak and reverse the trend to righteousness, it relates to the overwhelming need cowardly administrators, some of justice, and greater freedom and of our citizens to degrade, abuse, Edward King whom are Left sympathizers and favor aspects of slavery. One such and punish other human beings. Monroe, Washington others, irrespective of their political views who should know better, ab- negate their responsibilities as their Left-oriented academics, primar- ily in the arts and social sciences, indoctrinate students into their We invite you to become a subscriber to the ideology rather than inculcate them with important subject mat- Secular Humanist Bulletin ter and, along with their student acolytes, foment violence in the name of their heinous ideology. And, inevitably, they justify these As a subscriber to the Secular Humanist Bulletin you will receive four issues per year. The entertaining and provocative Bulletin keeps you up-to-date on humanist news, issues, and activities and provides a WRITE TO forum for subscribers to share ideas and plans.

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66 Free Inquiry June / July 2017 secularhumanism.org For many, mere atheism (the absence of belief in gods and the supernatural) or (the view that such questions cannot be answered) aren’t enough. It’s liberating to recognize that supernatural beings are human creations … that there’s no such thing as “spirit” or “transcendence”… that people are undesigned, unintended, and responsible for themselves. But what’s next?

Atheism and agnosticism are silent on larger questions of values and meaning. If Meaning in life is not ordained from on high, what small-m meanings can we work out among ourselves? If eternal life is an illusion, how can we make the most of our only lives? As social beings sharing a godless world, how should we coexist?

For the questions that remain unanswered after we’ve cleared our minds of gods and souls and spirits, many atheists, agnostics, skeptics, and freethinkers turn to secular humanism.

Secular. “Pertaining to the world or things not spiritual or sacred.”

Humanism. “Any system of thought or action concerned with the interests or ideals of people … the intellectual and cultural movement … characterized by an emphasis on human interests rather than … religion.” — Webster’s Dictionary

Secular humanism is a comprehensive, nonreligious life stance incorporating:

A naturalistic philosophy

A cosmic outlook rooted in science, and

A consequentialist ethical system in which acts are judged not by their conformance to preselected norms but by their consequences for men and women in the world.

Secular humanism incorporates the Enlightenment principle of individualism, which celebrates emancipating the individual from traditional controls by family, church, and state, increasingly empowering each of us to set the terms of his or her own life.

The Council for Secular Humanism is North America’s leading organization for nonreligious people who seek to live value-rich lives. Free InquIry is its magazine.

Welcome! To learn more, visit http://www.secularhumanism.org

secularhumanism.org June/July 1017 Free Inquiry 67 A program of the Center for Inquiry, Inc.