American Atheist Magazine First Quarter 2013

American Atheists
American Atheist
A JOURNAL OF ATHEIST NEWS AND THOUGHT
ATHEISTS.ORG
FIRST QUARTER 2013
Freeing your mind from religion and theism is not the end of the story.
Its only the beginning.
Members of The Clergy Project know that letting go of god was the easy part. The real challenges come when you have to tell spouses, children, and extended family. Couple this with the harsh reality of finding a job in the secular world, when all youve ever done is Gods work. The Clergy Project, managed and operated by member volunteers, exists to help overcome these challenges. But you dont need to be a member to make a difference today. The Job Board links members with employers looking for excellent interpersonal and program management skills. If you are looking to hire, write to us at jobs@mail. clergyproject.org. The Therapist Project, operated by Recovering From Religion, helps members find professional emotional support from qualified psychologists, therapists, and counselors committed to a secular approach. If youd like to be on the list of providers, go to SecularTherapy.org. Hardship and Education Grants help members transition to secular life. To make a contribution online, go to ClergyProject.org and see How Can I Contribute? right on the home page. Send a contribution by mail to: The Clergy Project c/o Freedom From Religion Foundation PO Box 750 Madison, WI 53701 The Clergy Project c/o The Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science US 2776 South Arlington Mill Drive Box 815 Arlington, VA 22206 Contact us at press@mail.clergyproject.org
AMERICAN ATHEIST
A Journal of Atheist News and Thought
1st Quarter 2013

Vol. 51, No.1
ISSN 0516-9623 (Print) ISSN 1935-8369 (Online) EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Pamela Whissel mageditor@atheists.org LAYOUT AND GRAPHICS EDITOR Rick Wingrove rwingrove@atheists.org Copy editor and Proofreader Karen Reilly AMERICAN ATHEIST PRESS MANAGING EDITOR Frank R. Zindler editor@atheists.org Published by American Atheists, Inc. Mailing Address: P.O. Box 158 Cranford NJ 07016 Phone: 908.276.7300 FAX: 908.276.7402 www.atheists.org 2013 American Atheists Inc.
All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission is prohibited. American Atheist is indexed in the Alternative Press Index. American Atheist magazine is given free of cost to members of American Atheists as an incident of their membership. Annual Individual Membership with subscription for one year of American Atheist print magazine: $35. Online version only: $20. Couple/Family Membership with optional print magazine: $35. Sign up at www. atheists.org/aam. Discounts available for multiple year subscriptions: 10% for two years, 20% for three or more years. Additional postage fees for foreign addresses: Canada and Mexico: add $10/year. All other countries: add $30/year. Discounts for libraries and institutions: 50% on all magazine subscriptions and book purchases. 1st QUARTER 2013
Photo by John Welte

Above: Times Square view from in front of American Atheists billboard Cover and centerfold: American Atheists billboard in Times Square Photos by Michael Dorian
In This Issue
6 10 12 14 16 19 20 23 24 26 28 30 32 33 38 40 46
Seth Andrews is Deconverted | Pamela Whissel Through the Catholic Encyclopedia | Michael B. Paulkovich Ages of Atheism: Part Two | James Luce The Power of Coming Out | J.T. Eberhard Gods Work: Opus Dei and the Knights of Malta | W.E. Gutman Voices of Reason Rally: Jamila Bey David Petraeus, Spiritual Fitness Guru | Paul Loebe American Atheists Sues the IRS Times Square Billboard Science Interview: Dr. William Irons | Ce Atkins Gods Non-Existence Makes Sense | Phil Torres Size Counts | Rick Wingrove Paul Kurtz Remembered | Ed Buckner Religion and Grief | David G. McAfee Ten Commandments Removed from 0BLMBOE Zoo| Larry Hicok American Atheists Goes Green In Memoriam: Conrad Goeringer | Frank Zindler
www.atheists.org | AMERICAN ATHEIST | 3
Letter from the
Editor
ne year ago I began my letter with Ding dong the Hitch is dead. Christopher Hitchens had just died, and I knew that we had lost the equivalent of an army in the fight for church/state separation and civil rights for nonbelievers. Several readers told me that even though they had never met him, they felt like they lost a friend because a voice they had listened to (dare I say religiously?) was gone. Hitchens was reliably brilliant and Ding dong the Hitch is dead was my own mediocre nod to his unmatched ability with word play. He was also brilliantly reliable. That epitaph was a warning bell as well because the big shoes that need filling are the words that will go unsaid unless we all ask, What would Hitchens say? I actually cannot answer that question with much confidence. For starters, anything that occurred to me would never be worded as well. What I can be confident about, however, are the new voices that have graced these pages over the past year and that will continue to be a part of this magazine. Take Teresa MacBain, for example. When Hitchens died, she was still the pastor of a Methodist church in Florida. At the end of March she came out as an Atheist at our national convention and a few months later became American Atheists public relations director. When I introduced her in the last issue, I said that if she hadnt come along, American Atheists would have had to invent her. But I said that in jest because American Atheists isnt an organization that needs to invent beings who seem too good to be true. Real people, with real stories, and faith in reason, are more than enough. I had no idea how right I was until I heard from Paul Loebe. Hes the new Marine liaison under Military Director Justin Griffith. His column on being an Atheist in the military (hes currently deployed) debuts on page 20 and will be a regular feature. Like Teresa, he was still in the closet a year ago, but unlike her, he had no idea there were other Atheistsanywhere. Hell be talking about that in a future column. I also had the pleasure this past year of working with Seth Andrews. As I was compiling the Reason Rally issue, I came across his video of the event on TheThinkingAtheist.com. I was blown away by how he captured the mood of that day, and he generously allowed me to transcribe some of that video for the magazine. Im pleased to feature his coming-out story on page 6. Because of the others before them who made the brave decision to come out, Teresa, Paul, and Seth all found a community at the other side of the closet door. But despite the fellowship and support they found and rightfully deserve, leaving their respective religions has come at a price for each of them. And because they paid that price, other people, who would still be in the closet if it werent for hearing these stories, will finally leave their closets. It was also one year ago that American Atheist was sold in bookstores for the first time. There had never been a magazine with the word Atheist in the title on a store shelf in this country until then. And now that there is, it doesnt stay there for long. Its now selling out nationwide. Its my hope that after reading this issue, Atheists still in the closet understand that they dont have to stay there for long either. Pamela Whissel mageditor@atheists.org
4 | AMERICAN ATHEIST | www.atheists.org
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On August 20, American Atheists unveiled a logo to commemorate the 50th anniversary of its founding by Madalyn Murray OHair. The design was chosen through a competition judged by select staff members. Participants were challenged to address specific design elements, including use of the original American Atheists logo, while incorporating a forwardlooking stance as the organization moves ahead into the next fifty years and beyond. The winner, Carbon Red Designs, will receive $250 and an official introduction by President David Silverman during the convention.
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From Christian Broadcaster to Thinking Atheist
Seth Andrews is Deconverted

by Pamela Whissel
klahoma, according to Seth Andrews, is known for two things: tornadoes and churches, and the tornadoes are easier to escape. Born into a family of six children, he was raised by devoutly religious parents who lived and taught a literal Bible. It was a life packed with religious discussion and debatebut never questions or doubts. In his new book, Deconverted: A Journey from Religion to Reason, he talks about those first doubts and takes readers on a deeply personal journey of coming out. He has shared much of that journey on his website, TheThinkingAtheist. com, which he created as his response to his own childhood indoctrination, the overwhelming wave of religious messages in our society, and the countless throngs who make ridiculous claims and dismiss skeptical voices with warnings of eternal torture. One of the missions of American Atheist is to be a handbook of how to come out as a nonbeliever, how to show someone else the way out, and how to live with the Atheist stigma while working to eliminate it from public life. Seths story is a valuable page in the handbook.
Seth Andrews
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When you refer to your childhood indoctrination, it makes me think of an extremely fundamentalist upbringing. Was that the case? My father came from a conservative Lutheran background, but left that denomination to embrace a worldview that, if I had to pin it down, was probably closest to Baptist. My mother was the product of the Pentecostal church, right down to the belief in speaking in tongues. It was an unusual union, but it gave me an almost equal taste of both cultures, and their strong opinions were often fodder for spirited debate. How did they decide which church to attend as a family? We attended church, but not as a family, and not regularly. My father suffers from a profound hearing loss, so attending church as a family meant he would sit for 90 minutes without being able to hear a word of the sermon. My parents also had a thick religious vocabulary, so trips to church often digressed into a forensic examination of the pastors message. So you were essentially home-churched? My siblings and I were still encouraged to attend somewhere, and if we didnt do that, the alternative was a potpourri of Sunday morning television preachers from Robert Schuller to Kenneth Copeland to the local pastor at Boston Avenue Methodist Church in Tulsa. It was a hodge-podge of doctrine, but my parents were usually close by, ready to correct any false or disputable teachings coming out of the TV.
grade, they enrolled me at Temple Christian School in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma. It was a tiny private institutionwith institution being a very appropriate word. The dress code dictated dress slacks for the boys and homemade dresses for the girls. The only acceptable colors were red, white and blue. We
were taught scripture as fact, right alongside history, math, and science. That place was literally a biosphere, as it was completely insulated from the outside world.
When did the doubt begin? Not until adulthood. You see, while I was outwardly encouraged to ask questions, if any answers fell outside the narrow confines of scripture, those answers were immediately discarded as false teachings. Doubt was a sin, or at the very least, the whisperings of Satan in your ear. We were often told the story of Doubting Thomas in John 20, with Thomas doubts being, of course, a poor example to follow. I was raised to shrug and say Father knows best if something didnt make sense. I once heard a conference leader suggest that believers should literally blink away doubts, because blinking interrupts any train of thought conflicting with Gods Word. The idea of a godless universe was unthinkable. The first real seeds of doubt were planted in my own life after the 1997 death of Christian songwriter Rich Mullins. As the host of a religious morning show on KXOJ-FM in Tulsa, I was charged one day to inform our listeners that Mullins had been tossed out of his Jeep and horribly killed on the highway by an oncoming truck. As I spoke words of comfort to our listeners and callers, I struggled to reconcile the notion that the God of Matthew 10, the one who considered us worth more than many sparrows, would design or abide the taking of Mullins earthly life in such a pointless, gruesome manner. Why would God propel Rich Mullins into the spotlight merely to plunge millions of fans into mourning and leave his family and friends to grieve over a closed casket? And would the funeral even have been necessary if Rich had only been wearing his
I was glued to the monitor as Christopher Hitchens fearlessly skewered the god I had been trained never to question.
What about school? I was pulled from public school after third grade because I came home one day that year and shared with my parents what I had learned about Neanderthal man. So for fourth
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From the fifth grade through my junior year of high school, I attended Eastwood Baptist School, a less stuffy, more mainstream private school, and when it closed in 1985, I finished high school back in the biosphere.
seatbelt? How did you come to be a Christian broadcaster? I wanted to work in the field of Contemporary Christian Music (CCM), so in 1990, I
It took years for me to gain the courage to even challenge the Bible stories of my youth.
applied for an announcer position at KXOJ and quickly advanced from part-time and weekends to be their morning show host. I was with them for a decade and then joined Clear Channels Tulsa radio line-up for a few years. I wanted to work in that field because I loved the music, artists, the culture, and the idea that as a broadcaster, I was helping Christ reach people. their pulpits due to all manner of afflictions, political posturing, and the occasional scandal. I watched people, largely uneducated about their own holy book, gladly shell out a portion of their hard-earned income in exchange for promises of blessings and favors from above. I saw firsthand how churches operate as marketing machines, striving to emulate the most attractive elements of secular pop culture in order to increase their attendance, income, and influence. Ultimately, I observed that human beings were doing all of the work, invoking God but obviously functioning in the cause-andeffect world of human problems and human solutions. These people were adorning their efforts in flowery speech, inspiring songs, and long-winded prayers, but the window dressing didnt mask the fact that they were doing all of the heavy lifting. God wasnt their co-pilot. God wasnt even in the vehicle. I eventually stumbled onto a YouTube video of Christopher Hitchens. I was glued to the monitor as he fearlessly skewered the god I had been trained never to question. I had never seen an approach like his, and as lightning never struck him from above, I found myself emboldened to start asking some questions on my own. For the first time in my life, I read the Bible objectively and without a filter. It was like seeing scripture for the first time; the inconsistencies, the bloodshed, and the whole gruesome and contradictory mess left me with a host of questions.
Did you do anything with that doubt at first? Not at first. The second major event didnt happen until September 11, 2001. I have an entire chapter devoted to that day in my book, but suffice it to say that my increasingly Whom did you approach with these questions suspicious mind was assaulted by the empty and what kind of response did you get? god-speak surrounding the stories of the I decided to present these questions fallen towers, the dead and wounded, and the to the experts in my own circle, but the assertions that the carnage was merely Gods ridiculous, lazy, and often offensive answers way of chastising a rebellious nation. I looked I received only drove me further from belief. at the death and debris, and I didnt see God The apologists charged to defend Gods Word anywhere. actually propelled me toward and After 9/11 had rattled my ultimately into apostasy. Every Seth Andrews and Tim Buckholtz at Reason Rally religious cage, my faith went into religious charge would become a kind of muted, dormant phase. an opportunity for me to vet their The pinging of doubt in the back of information, to verify their claims my head had amplified into a fullagainst legitimate science and on siren, but I compartmentalized history, and invariably, the claims my questions and kept them in of Christianity vaporized under the a kind of mental storage. Doubt white-hot light of scrutiny. was always there, but I focused on Certainly, they had passion. other things. Theyd attempt to bring me back It was a cop-out, really. into the safety of the fold with I was speaking the words of the entire arsenal of apologist Christianity, but I didnt attend weaponry. They claimed that the church or pray because it seemed scientific community was merely ridiculous. I addressed all topics a tool of Satan. They presented about spirituality with a kind of equations which proved that all nebulous, general attitude: Sure, manner of animals could indeed fit the doctrines dont make sense, but inside Noahs ark. They sent links surely God is real. Now lets talk about everything from the Shroud about something else. of Turin to Hitler, to articles about the geologic column and What brought the full-on siren out sermons about prophecy. And, of of mental storage? course, when all else failed, they Because of my insiders proclaimed that Christianity is real perspective on the churches because they once had a personal I served as a broadcaster and experience. producer, I witnessed conflicting Honestly, it took years for me to sermons within denominations. gain the courage to even challenge I saw pastors forced to surrender the Bible stories of my youth. I
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compare it to a hospital patient coming out of a long-term coma. In the movies, the protagonist wakes up from a deep sleep, immediately hops out of bed, grabs the girl, and saves the day. Of course, in real life, this is ludicrous. Emergence from a coma takes days, even weeks, with the patient often only marginally conscious and very disoriented. This is what emerging from religion is like for many. Achieving true lucidity often takes a lot of time and, in many cases, some real assistance from others until you have the strength to stand on your own. When did you eventually feel that strength? As my doubts came to critical mass, I didnt jump out and exclaim, Hey! This is all crap! I strategized that it might be best to start with questions, and I started at the topwith my parents. Obviously, after a volley of emails, they got wise to the very real struggle I was going through and immediately went into rescue mode. I didnt say the word Atheist to them until late 2008, but they probably saw the train coming. What was their reaction? Of course, they wereand continue to beheartbroken. I completely understand how difficult it must be for a parent to spend so much time and so many resources in a genuine attempt to protect a beloved child from hell. My parents sacrificed so much to keep me immersed in the faith; to see me take such a drastic and public stand against those values has strained our relationship for years. Even when religion isnt mentioned at all, its the elephant in the room. It often seems like the words unspoken are louder than the small talk that masks them. Youve also sacrificed a great deal in order to be true to yourself. I havent sacrificed much compared to so many in this world, but my apostasy has made the last few years a real gauntlet of difficult situations. It makes my own heart ache to know what my parents are going through, but I dont blame myself for their pain. I blame the superstition that has convinced my mother and father that their beloved son is destined for an eternal torture chamber designed firsthand by the very god they give allegiance to. I blame the culture of insulation that kept me from even hearing about Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Dan Barker, Sam Harris, Jerry Coyne, Donald Prothero, and so many others. That culture delayed my true introduction to science for decades. I blame the happy-clappy
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institutions of ignorance that diminish this life and program its patrons to spend their entire existence working to achieve mansions and pearly gates in the sky. Did you ever doubt your own doubt? I struggled with the fear of hell for a few years, quietly asking myself, What if I get this one wrong? Think about the consequences! Fortunately, as I continued to emerge from my coma, and as I continued to educate myself about the obviously man-made notion of hell, those fears waned, and now I feel a sense of total liberation. My search for the truth continues daily, and Ive always said that, if Jesus proves himself tomorrow, Ill issue a public apology and refocus my efforts on Christs behalf. But Im not holding my breath, and as science has provided the only truly satisfactory answers in my newly-freed mind, I cant imagine ever crawling back into the religious cocoon.
to the table, to produce compelling videos and present solid information in a way that was also entertaining. As a professional audio and video producer, I lamented the dearth of quality in the atheism-related materials I so often encountered online. There were a few gems among the coals, but mostly, the sites I visited were overwhelming text-fests that, in my opinion, simply werent going get the attention of many people. Its unpopular in some Atheist circles to assert that our materials would reach more people if they were sometimes made a little cooler, punctuated with the features used all the time in television and films. Some resources will be thick and text-driven by necessity, but Im convinced that many others could use a facelift. We should be presenting the most palatable message possible to our media-savvy audience. Im just a humble video producer in a vast ocean of them, but I thought I might be able to have at least a subtle impact. The impact has been more than subtle. I think youve nailed it. The Thinking Atheist (TTA) videos remain popular on YouTube. The weekly radio podcast audience is growing, with more than 310,000 downloads in November, a 400% increase from the previous year. And Im hearing a tremendous number of stories from TTA users about their own journeys toward reason. Free-thinkers are rallying together, challenging each other, supporting one another and becoming a greater force for reason every single day here in the United States. Religion remains on the offensive, but the resistance is growing. What made you decide to write Deconverted? Ive been asked a lot if I would ever tell my story in detail, in book form. In an age when so many people are out there hawking their wares, I initially resisted, but Ive come to the conclusion that my story can encourage those who are currently navigating the hard road out of religion and can educate lifelong believers about how the church operates. I also talk a lot about my tenure in Christian music, a topic which seems to fascinate people. Deconverted essentially walks the reader from deep inside the religious bubble to a behindthe-scenes look at The Thinking Atheist. Im tremendously proud of it. If it helps just one person to embrace doubt, to entertain curiosity, to gain courage and to perhaps, one day, find freedom from superstition, well thats what its all about.
Continued p. 35 www.atheists.org | AMERICAN ATHEIST | 9
I once heard a conference leader suggest that believers should literally blink away doubts. God wasnt their co-pilot. God wasnt even in the vehicle.
How did you come to establish The Thinking Atheist? I was motivated to start the website [TheThinkingAtheist.com] for two main reasons. One was to compensate for the physical isolation I felt in living Oklahoma, surrounded by Christianity. I wanted to connect online with other non-believers. The other reason was to share some of the information that I had found helpful in the hope of making the journey out of superstition easier for others. I wanted to try and bring something fresh
Through the Catholic Encyclopedia

by Michael Paulkovich
with a
Red Pen
has had an enormous impact on the world. In this series Michael Paulkovich examines dogmas, myths, and DOGMA WATCH Religion religious notions, past and present, that are of interest.
he tales from Christendom abound with supposed miracles. I know that in writing for a magazine such as this - and at the risk of using a counterintuitive metaphor - I am preaching to the choir. Miracles are products of fiction, artifacts of gullible minds. Personally, the only miracle I believe in is the white creamy whip I sometimes mix with tuna.
If you happen upon a reference to the Catholic Encyclopedia, take note that there are two of them, quite unrelated. The original multi-volume work (1907-1912) is impressive, reliable, and surprisingly honest regarding Christian atrocities throughout the ages. The 1986 edition, from Thomas Nelson Publishers (CE-TN) calls itself Revised and Updated but is unaffiliated with the original and, as such, is one lame volume full of
My guess is that Eden is located very near Jacks beanstalk.

The original source we have for the Christian miracles is, of course, the Bible, a wholly unreliable text with regard to all epistemology, not to mention morality. Bible facts do not fit with history, logic, archeology, or physics.
superstition and pseudo-science. The stated aspiration found in the Introduction to the CE-TN is to bring a rich reward in the harvest of truth which never changes. Let us indeed harvest some truths that never change.
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Superstition One could accurately call the Christian Bible The Big Book of Superstitions and Myths. I offer the following as proof. Illness. It is your own fault if you get sick, claims Jesus. You have sinned, and you deserve it ( John 5:11-14). The Bible also says illness comes from something or someone called the devil, who instills your body with medical maladies (Acts 10:38). Magical Animal Encounters. The Old Testament cure for snakebites is a Festivus-type pole that the victim merely need look upon (Num 21:9). It might be a surprise that Jesus agrees ( John 3:14). Let us not forget about a talking snake, talking donkey, talking shrubbery, and Jonah living in a giant fish - for three days, mind you. Prayers. They can change future events, including granting selfish desires (e.g. Mt 9:38; Mt 21:22) and cause instantaneous supernatural incidents that all can witness (e.g. 2 Chr 7:1, 2 Chr 32:20-21). Angels, Holy Water, Exorcism, Devils, Miracles, Crossing Oneself. All of these concepts that pervade the good book and other pious piffle fall under the rickety umbrella of mythos. The modern yet adamantine CE-TN propagates much of this superstitious arcana and utter nonsense without evidence or apology. Supernatural Spirits. The CE-TN claims that a guardian angel is an angelic representative and unseen companion of every person on earth, then cites several New Testament verses in supposed support
familiar, it may be because you have read the ancient Mithraic texts.1,2 It is more likely you have heard another similar phrase, slightly altered by Christian writers, since John 6:54 is unapologetically stolen from the much earlier Mithraic Mysteries. Catholic authorities in the thirteenth century finally created an even more mystical and magical interpretation of the act of communion by inventing transubstantiation during the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215.3 In this act of hocus-pocus, Christians are taught to believe that the wine and bread physically, molecularly, and supernaturally transform into the body and blood of Jesus. Sounds pretty much like cannibalism to me. Another fascinating note regarding communion: Pope Gregory I (c. 540 604 CE) accused Jews of being Christ killers over many centuries, and Christian leaders claimed that Jews stab communion wafers to kill Christ.4 Based on those papal lies, Christian laymen felt obligated to retaliate by killing thousands of Jews. From the 12th to the 15th century, Jews were regularly converted to Christianity by force and under threat of execution. 5, 6 Exorcism. Under this superstitious rite, devils are expelled from possessed persons. Exorcism is administered properly by a priest and may be exercised only with permission of the bishop and in accord with formulas of the Roman RitualChrist manifested His own power over devils by driving them from a possessed person (Mark 6:7) (207). As you surely know, people long ago thought
Bible facts do not fit with history, logic, archeology, or physics.

(37). It does not state from where these apotropaic angels originate (heaven? dead people? god-magic?), but claims a persons angel watches over him, defends him, and helps in prayer and in thought (37). CE-TN claims Psalm 91 as proof that you must devote yourself to your personal cherubic copilot. After all, with your angel along for the ride you can safely meet a lion or step on poisonous snakes, yes, even trample them beneath your feet (Ps 91:13)! Communion. The Christian arrogation of communion - Catholic as well as Protestant - holds that if you consume Jesus blood and guts you will live forever. Apparently thats about all it takes. Best, it seems, to do it on Sundays after paying money for your miniscule meal of Jesus juice and unleavened body part. The CE-TN claims that communion is the fount and apex of the whole Christian life (198). I have to wonder how many Christians, despite this fantastic fount, this astounding apex, just do what they are told: swallow the stale wafer and drink some generic grape juice, like all the other sheep in queue. Next, off to watch football after the services - a much more true apex and fount of the Sabbath. But wait: the article on transubstantiation claims communion is a singular and wondrous conversion of the total substance of bread into the body and the total substance of wine into the blood of Christ, the external appearances only remaining unchanged (583). This concept was plagiarized from several ancient religions. Here again we have an arrogation. First, from Egyptian beliefs: Spell 19 from the Book of the Dead affirms, And there shall be given to him food and drink in presence of this god. Thou shall say it at dawn twice; a great protection is it. This being several millennia before Christianity. You might be familiar with these words: He who will not eat of my body and drink of my blood, so that he will be made on with me and I with him, the same shall not know salvation. If you are in fact devils were actual supernatural entities. Those who still do today are barred from tables of rational discussion. Holy Water. This is H2O blessed by a priest, thereby becoming a sacramental, used by the faithful to invoke Gods blessing (270). As a child, I heard someone declare that something was a blessing, and had wondered what that actually meant. Apparently it involves a sacerdotal act, placing a thing or person under the favor of God (77). To this day I dont get it. It is ludicrous hocus-pocus borne of Bronze-Age superstition, nothing more. There are four kinds (did you know?) of holy water, distinguished chiefly by their use: ordinary, baptismal, Gregorian, and Easter. One wonders how each of the four is sub-atomically assembled and arranged differently when observed under an electron microscope. Multiple Mendacities The CE-TN avers a multitude of outrageous falsehoods that are provably untrue, asserting each as if of unquestionable verity. Here are but a few. US Bill of Rights. The CE-TN claims the concept of man which they set forth in the Declaration of Independence and on which they based the Constitution and our Bill of Rights, is essentially a religious concept - a concept inherited from Christian tradition (75). The opposite is true, and I am sure you will agree; the Bill of Rights (thank god?) is the antithesis of Christian tradition. In fact, it answered and quelled Christian dictatorial dogma. The CE-TN goes on to claim the First Amendment is considered by all to be the basic absolute that human beings require for the seeking of personal salvation. Salvation in the First Amendment? Methinks not. Without doubt my favorite amendment is a separation, a great wall: freedom from superstitious dogma, from soteriological silliness, as
Continued p. 34 1st QUARTER 2013 www.atheists.org | AMERICAN ATHEIST | 11
Ages of Atheism:
by James Luce
Why Its Difficult To Be An Atheist From Day One To Death
Studies have shown that the entire portion of the brain devoted to analytic thought actually shuts down completely while in a state of religious contemplation or ecstasy.
Part Two: School Daze
In the previous issue of American Atheist, I explored why children so frequently and easily become slaves to religion and also what we as adult Atheists can do about fostering Atheism in the young (Part One: Childhood). This second piece concerns problems with Atheism (and their resolutions) that confront teens and twenties. As we all recall, puberty strikes with the ferocity of a migraine and then lingers on painfully for years like some sort of post-adolescent arthritis. In a very real sense, all teenagers are born again when hormones and enzymes restructure every part of their bodies, inside and out.
Rebels: And We Know the Cause Until a few hundred years ago, the process of growing up was facilitated by reassuring rituals and by the societal expectation that the transition would be brief, measured in months. Unfortunately, children today face a prolonged, unguided journey called the teen years, often lasting several decades in many parts of the world. Starting around age twelve, children are treated like babies but expected to act like adults. This dichotomy is reflected in the adolescent brain, a work still in progress. The prefrontal cortex (the region that allows us to rationally plan ahead) is not yet sufficiently developed to consistently quell the hedonistic impulses of the hormonally-driven limbic system. Adolescents are capable of reason, but their ability to do so is inhibited by impulsive behaviors. Metaphorically, they often cant hear the classical music over the rock and roll. They are physically mature enough to leave home, but cant financially afford to do so. They are sexually mature, but expected to remain celibate. These frustrating physiological and social factors make most teenagers rebel against their parents, and society in general, to one degree or another. But this rocky and turbulent playing field is not an even one for
Atheistic parents as compared to religious ones. The child of any normative Christian will likely rebel against parental authority by adopting some evangelical or Eastern faith rather than rejecting outright the belief in a supreme being. Adolescents brought up with an unquestioning faith in any variety of creator will continue to suffer from religious beliefs that are strongly imbedded into their brains. Rebellion in the form of worshiping an alternative god does not require any fundamental change in how an adolescents brain has been wired in childhood. Once a teen becomes an adult, there remains a good possibility of reverting to their original belief system or even becoming agnostic or Atheist. On the other hand, the rebellious children of Atheists must reject entirely their parentally-induced disbelief in any god in order to declare independence. This change does require a fundamental rewiring of the teens brain and can become permanent if not reversed in a relatively short time. A religious person - and even some Atheists - might ask at this point, Whats the harm in a belief in god, either permanent or temporary? In brief, as with any other delusion, a belief in a supreme being adversely impacts every decision, every emotion, and every action because, among
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many other reasons, such a belief distorts, indeed often obliterates, any understanding of cause and effect. For example, if a person can excuse an act of brutality on the grounds that it was Gods will, then there is no reason for such a person to alter their behavior in the future. Of course, there are many other events and emotions that precipitate conversion from Atheism to religion other than adolescent rebellion and biochemically-induced bewilderment. But a discussion of these causal factors will be deferred to Part Four: Until Death Do Us Depart because such events occur almost randomly throughout our adult lives. Evolution vs. The Big Brain One of the few behaviors that are hard-wired into the human brain at birth is that infants believe everything their parents tell them. Infants dont always obey, but they always believe. Fortunately, that same evolutionary process also resulted in Homo sapiens having the cognitive power to override basic evolutionary drives once they enter puberty. Almost all mammals evolved so that the young, especially the males, would separate from their parents. This is a result of genetic pressures to maintain diversity within any given species. Humans thwart this evolutionary drive because our brains have
Learn about the process of conversion from both sides by reading two books, one by a Christian who converted to Atheism, the other by an Atheist who converted to Christianity. Two good sources are Why I Left the Ministry and Became an Atheist, by G. Vincent Runyon, and Mere Christianity, by C.S. Lewis. Being now well versed on the topic, give a copy of each book to your wayward child, relative, or friend. If there is any chance of reason prevailing, the content of these books will motivate the person to discuss with you the factors that led to a conversion from Atheism. If they occur, such conversations should be merely inquisitive and non-judgmental, although you may be able to mange some reminiscing about your recollections of this persons earlier Atheism. Unfortunately, in this video/virtual reality world, reading is out of fashion with many young people. Ancient wisdom can still prevail. As in Aesops fable of the mother crab telling her offspring not to walk sideways, people still do learn by watching the behavior of others that they respect. When a teenager sees you acting with charity, love, and forbearance without any divine guidance or invocation of divine intervention, they may gain or regain an understanding that god is an unnecessary appendage to leading a good and successful life.
As Thomas Paine said, To argue with a person who has renounced the use of reason is like administering medicine to the dead.
developed elaborate social structures that are simply unnatural. In Western countries like Spain, Italy, and on most of the continent of South America, this process has gone berserk with many children, especially males, staying with their parents well into their thirties. Even in those Western cultures where parents physically send their children off to boarding school, expect them to get a job shortly thereafter (if not before), and frequently move out of and away from the ancestral home into early retirement, the Western way is to keep children psychologically and even financially dependent on their parents for twenty or thirty years. The composite result is that parents are faced with teenagers and grown children who are resolutely rebellious yet reluctantly dependent. What is a good Atheistic parent to do when faced with a grown child whos suddenly and mysteriously chosen god over logic? What We Can Be Done? So there you are sitting in your living room, chatting with friends and family. You discover that your son, daughter, niece, nephew, or neighbors teenager has renounced Atheism and believes in some species of god. What do you do? As Thomas Paine said, To argue with a person who has renounced the use of reason is like administering medicine to the dead. This concept will be explored further in next issues article, but for now it is sufficient to note that faith is not touched by direct attack. Indeed, studies have shown that the entire portion of the brain devoted to analytic thought actually shuts down completely while in a state of religious contemplation or ecstasy. Logic, however, must arise from inside a persons own brain in order to have any impact. Just like the physical barrier that keeps harmful clots and chemicals away from the brain, so also does the religious brain have a soft-wired net stretched across its cognitive superhighway. If argument is ineffective and forcible intervention is deplorable, how can a good Atheist proceed? As is always the case, first be prepared.
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These efforts may go unrewarded or you may succeed. But then, perhaps its gods will after all? This question is the genesis of Part III, Days of Whines and Bosses, which will explore defending Atheism in adulthood against a hostile worldand preserving it for yourself as well. Endnotes 1. B.J. Casey, The Adolescent Brain, Weill Medical College of Cornell University and California Institute of Technology, 2008, http://www. ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2475802/ 2. See, for example, New Clues on Rewiring Your Brain, Psychology Today, March 28, 2012; the Pew Forums US Religious Landscape Survey at http://Religions.PewForum.org/Reports; and Blogs.ScientificAmerican.com/Brainwaves/2012/08/29/TheNeuroscience-of-Twenty-Somethings 3. A recent example is the comment by Republican Richard Mourdock of Indiana, the defeated candidate for US Senate. He said that when a woman is impregnated by a rapist its something God intended. Historically, we find thousands of examples of brutality is Gods will during the Inquisition and other pogroms. 4. Read Runyons essay on the subject at http://www.infidels.org/ library/historical/vincent_runyon/left_ministry.html James Luce is the author of Chasing Davis, An Atheists Guide to Morality Using Logic and Science. After four years as a criminal investigator in the US Air Force Office of Special Investigations, he spent 25 years as a trial lawyer. Now retired, he lives in Spain. Read more by him at LucelySpeaking.com.
Power Coming
The of
Out
by JT Eberhard
This is, of course, largely how Christianity maintains itself:
Its hard to come out of the closet.
through fear.
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like arguing about gods existence. I think its productive and, I hope, Ive gotten pretty decent at it over the years. But I often get emails from people lamenting their inability to effectively argue, and they wonder what they can do. There are a lot of answers to this question, because there are about a gajillion things a person can do to further the Atheistic cause. But there is one thing you can do which, I think, is more powerful than all the others. Come out of the closet. The words, Im an Atheist, in the right circumstances, can be a more powerful argument than anything I have ever written. Faced with a person who thinks Atheists are pathological to the extreme, it will take the best debater time and years of developing their skills to get that person to budge. But that same person may not be able to think that their own son is wicked, or their daughter, or their parents, or their friends. This is why the coming-out movement for the LGBT community has been so effective. With gay people being encouraged to come out of the closet, many Americans are realizing (many for the first time in their lives) that not only do they know gay people, but that they like, and often love, gay people. This is a power to alter minds that is unavailable even to Richard Dawkins, but which potentially rests in the hands of swaths of non-believers. I know, its hard to come out of the closet. Believe me, I know. This is, of course, largely how Christianity maintains itself: through fear. You can see it all along Americas highways. How many billboards do you see promising an escape from hell (or threatening unbelievers with hell)? Lots. How many do you see saying, Come to our church, we have evidence!? None. But fear is not merely how Christianity exerts control over its own followers, it is also how it exerts control over Atheists. Fear of hell doesnt work on Atheists,
but fear of social consequences does. It is no secret that many Atheistic teens live terrified of being ostracized from their families, of having their tuition revoked, even of being booted out of their homes should their parents discover that they do not believe a Canaanite Jew rose from the dead. Adults fear mistreatment in the work place, or even termination, should it come to light that they do not share the same myths as their coworkers. Its hard to come out of the closet. I know youre likely afraid if you are faced with this choice. You should do it. Realize that part of the reason it is so hard for you is that generations before you stayed quiet. With every Atheist who makes their disbelief known, more religious people are forced to confront the negative notions of Atheists that have been pounded into them and reinforced by other believers. Think not only of yourself, but also of the young people growing up right now who may one day face the same social consequences. Do for them what you wish would have been done for you. This is what you can do to support our movement. In the end, this is what we will have to do in order to gain equality in the minds of other Americans. Your life belongs to you. Those close to you are fortunate that you are sharing it with them. If you love them, do not share a lie. If they are to love you, let them love you. Let them love somebody who trusts them with the truth. I could sit down and reason with those you love to the fullest of my abilities for days on end, and perhaps never sway them one inch closer to the fact that Atheism does not corrupt people. But you, in one sentence, might be able to do more than I ever could. This is the power of honesty, and it can change the world. I know this may result in losing the love of a lot of people. But if they love a character that you are playing for them, if they love someone who isnt you, then that love is already dead. I know thats horrible to hear, and a part of me
feels cruel typing it. But its the truth. There are people in the world, closer than you think, who will love you for who you truly are. We have Atheist communities in pretty much every town and city in this country now. Coming out may be difficult, but hop on Meetup.com or attend an Atheist conference; it will quickly become apparent that you will not have to face this choice alone. There are even people sitting next to you in the pew who share your dilemma, but dont have the bravery that you have to face it. They are waiting for someone like you to be their example. And, if you are out of the closet, dont consider your work done. Reach out to the closeted Atheists you know and support them. This is how we change minds. This is how we change the world.
If they are to love you, let them love you.

JTs blog, What Would JT Do?, is at Patheos.com/Blogs/WWJTD. He previously worked for the Secular Student Alliance, where he was their first high school organizer. He is the cofounder of the Skepticon conference and served as the events lead organizer for its first three years.
dont consider your work done.

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If you are out of the closet,
Gods Work
by W.E. Gutman
Opus Dei and the Knights of Malta
utside its own doctrinaire circle of followers and fans, Opus Dei, or Gods Work, has a dappled reputation, mostly bad. A fabulously rich, aggressively right-wing cloak-and-dagger Catholic organization, it wields powers infinitely greater than the imaginary ones the Church ascribes to its favorite scapegoats: Jews, Freemasons, and Socialists. Andrew Greeley, the American Catholic priest, sociologist, journalist, and bestselling author, described it as a devious, antidemocratic, reactionary, semi-fascist institution, desperately famished for absolute dominion in the Church and quite possibly very close now to having that power. Calling the exclusive group authoritarian and powermad, Greeley warns that Opus Dei is an extremely dangerous organization because it appeals to the love of secrecy and the power lust of certain kinds of religious personalities. It may well be the most powerful group in the Church today. It is capable of doing an enormous amount of harm. It ought to be forced out of the shadows or suppressed. Opus Dei has about one million members worldwide. At least 2,000 are ordained priests. With this international cohort of dedicated warriors, Opus Dei has successfully penetrated
The Filice is an open chain with spikes pointing inward, worn under clothing by members of Opus Dei as a form of corporal mortification.
schools and universities, banks, publishing firms, television and radio stations, ad agencies, and film companies. It has been accused of deceptive and aggressive recruitment practices, including love bombing, a
arms its members with special and far-reaching powers driven by the longing to cleanse the world of heretics.
deliberate and syrupy show of affection by an individual or group as a tool of conscription or conversion, as well as instructing celibate members to form friendships, attend social
Opus Dei
gatherings, and submit written reports on potential converts. The core precept of Opus Dei is to help shape the world in a Catholic manner. Helpers include clergy, captains of industry, highranking military officers, and government officials. The group comes surrounded by a political miasma, the British daily The Guardian noted recently. The super-stealthy organization was founded just before the Spanish Civil War and blossomed in the halcyon Catholic days of El Caudillo, fascist dictator Francisco Francos crusade against the Republican left. When Opus Dei came to prominence in the late 1960s, it was because Francos cabinet included an inordinate number of Opusdeistastoo many to be the result of coincidence. Opus Dei, which strives for a reunification of church and state, arms its members with special and far-reaching powers spurred by the God-driven longing to cleanse the world of heretics and deliver sinful, rudderless, humanityby force if necessaryinto Christs loving arms. Nine Centuries of History But Opus Dei pales in comparison with the militant Knights of Malta, a closed fraternity of the Roman Catholic Church whose upper-
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tier members are fastidiously aristocratic. The 900-year-old organization was formerly known as the Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of the Saints John of Jerusalem, Rhodes, and Malta. Modeled after an ancient group of soldier-monks who massacred infidels (Muslims, Jews, and Cathars), the Knights ceremonies and rituals inculcate lessons of chivalry and courage, and inspire a militant spirit in opposition to all non-Christian ideologies and powers. With over 10,000 members in 42 countries, the Knights are influential Vatican surrogates with extensive ties to right-wing intelligence networks. Originally trained as ruthless tactical fighters, later adopting a fiercely anticommunist stance, the Knights were instrumental in the creation of the Central Intelligence Agency. They also took part in US global black (covert) operations. The founding fathers of the CIA, William Wild Bill Donovan and Allen Dulles, the longestserving CIA director, were Knights, as were
for Donovan and Dulles and then for the Office of Strategic Services station chief in Switzerland. Gehlen handed over the names of several OSS officers who were members of the US Communist Party. A year later, Gehlen was flown back to Germany where he resumed his spy work, this time as a lackey of the US. He set up a dummy organization composed of 350 former German intelligence officers. That number eventually grew to 4,000. For many years, the V-men, (V-mann or Vertrauensmanntrusted man) as they were known, were the eyes and ears of the CIA in Western Europe and the Soviet Bloc during the Cold War. Recruited among men who had as little culture, common sense, objectivity or logic as possible, they were used primarily to maintain surveillance of civilian populations in Germany and occupied countries. Overall, the Gehlen organizations performance was at best disappointing. One rare, successful mission infiltrated some
alleged expertise on the Red Armyand was bilked by the many mass murderers he hired. In appreciation for his work, the Knights of Malta awarded Gehlen their highest decoration, the Grand Cross of Merit. (In 1988, Ronald Reagan received the Grand Cross for his devotion to Christian principles.) People in Central America still remember Reagan as the man who funneled millions of tax dollars to repressive regimes whose US-trained death squads murdered hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians. One of the Knights of Maltas main spheres of influence is Latin America, where fascists and escaped Nazis were given a warm welcome. The late Chilean strongman General Augusto Pinochet, a CIA stooge and convicted humanrights violator, was a Knight. So is deposed Peruvian dictator, human-rights violator and embezzler Alberto Fujimori, Americas man in Lima until his arrest in 2005. So was the late Argentinean president Juan Peron who, recently declassified CIA documents suggest,
With over 10,000 members in 42 countries, the Knights of Malta are influential Vatican surrogates with extensive ties to right-wing intelligence networks.
many in the CIA hierarchy, including John F. Kennedys director, John McCone, and Ronald Reagans director, William Casey. McCone helped engineer the 1973 military coup against Chiles democratically elected president, Salvador Allende. According to journalist Carl Bernstein, Casey gave Pope John Paul II unparalleled access to CIA intelligence, including data on spy satellites and field operatives. There is compelling evidence that the Knights of Malta were linked to the Rat Run, the post-World War II getaway route to the Americas used by Nazi top brass and death camp scientists from defeated Germany. These thugs were issued new identities and special credentials that ensured escape from prosecution for crimes against humanity. One of them, Major General Reinhard Gehlen, Hitlers Eastern Front intelligence chief, surrendered to the US Army CounterIntelligence Corps in 1945. Because of his experience and useful contacts in the Soviet Union, he was freed, as were seven of his senior officers, in exchange for their pledge to gather intelligence for the United States. Flown to Washington, Gehlen went to work
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5,000 anti-communists of Eastern European origin into the Soviet Union and its satellites. These agents were trained at a facility in Oberammergau, Germany, site of one of Hitlers favorite diversions, the unambiguously anti-Semitic Passion Play, which is still performed today. The organization was severely compromised when it was infiltrated by communist molesas were the CIA and the British MI6. One of the double agents was the illustrious Harold Kim Philby, spyextraordinaire who served the communist cause until his death in Moscow in 1988. Gehlen employed hundreds of ex-Nazis, among them Alois Brunner, Adolf Eichmanns right-hand man and commander of the Drancy internment camp near Paris. Brunner was responsible for the slaughter of 140,000 Jews. His death has never been confirmed; he was believed to be still alive in 2007, perhaps in Syria where he is alleged to have fled as late as 1954. The CIA turned a blind eye and, owing to the exigencies of the Cold War, even took part in some of Gehlens operations. Robert Wolfe, historian at the US National Archives wrote, US Army intelligence accepted Reinhard Gehlens offer to furnish
laundered Nazi gold through the Vatican Bank subsidiary Banco Ambrosiano, which collapsed in 1982. The Vatican Bank is widely believed to have channeled covert US funds to Polands Solidarity trade union and transferred laundered money from the illegal sale of arms to Iran to fund the Contras in Nicaragua. The scandal, characterized by persistent duplicity and inordinate secrecy, would prompt the US Congress to conclude that a cabal of zealots (members of Reagans cabinet and the first Bush administration) violated the Hughes-Ryan Act and the Boland Amendment by failing to inform congressional intelligence committees about its covert actions in the Middle East and Central America. (Passed in 1974, the Hughes-Ryan Act requires the president of the United States to report all covert operations of the CIA to at least one Congressional committee. The Boland Amendment was a triad to amendments enacted between 1982 and 1984 aimed at limiting US assistance to the CIA-financed Contras in Nicaragua). There are those who wonder to this day why Ronald Reagan wasnt impeached and why wasnt George H. W. Bush indicted for their approval of black missions.
The Catholic Church no longer relies on inquisitorial torture. It now engages in psychological extortion by exacting unconditional obedience from its crestfallen congregants.
After World War II, writes Roman Catholic author Penny Lernoux in People of God, the Vatican, the OSS, elements of the SS, and various branches of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta joined to help Nazi war criminals escape. Documents reveal that New York Cardinal Francis Spellman, head of the Knights in the US from the 1940s to the 1960s, was directly involved in the 1954 right-wing military coup in Guatemala during which at least 200,000 indigenous Maya were massacred and in which the CIA has acknowledged complicity. Spellman was also linked to organized crime by his long involvement with Archbishop Paul Macinkus of Chicago, former head of the Vatican Bank and a suspect in the highly suspicious death of Pope John Paul I a month after his election. Losing Ground The Catholic Church no longer relies on inquisitorial torture chambers and auto-dafs. It now engages in psychological extortion by exacting unconditional obedience from its crestfallen congregants. Growing disenchantment will have woeful historical consequences for the Vaticans archaic and unyielding mandates. Virulent opposition to reproductive rights; vicious attacks on feminism; an eagerness to coddle Jewish and Islamic hard-liners when their fanatical anti-choice, anti-progressive, homophobic agendas converge; and refusal to accept moral responsibility for the political crimes committed by the right-wing regimes it favors all demonstrate how desperate and estranged the Church has strayed from reality. Worse, attempts to demonize grassroots religion by equating it with communism has had a dispiriting effect on the faithful, especially those in Latin America who, benumbed by years of armed conflict, dislocation, oppression and privation, have tried desperately to wrest their nations politics from the merciless clutches of a privileged few. H. L. Mencken defined religion as the illogical belief in the occurrence of the improbable. Nietzsche viewed it with greater ferocity: Religion has been reduced to not wanting to know what is true. It is an affair of the rabble. While conceding its fragile potential for good, I see religion as a supercilious, divisive, and exclusionary artifice contrived to benefit the theocracy. Like capitalism, religion is a diseased and avaricious system driven by and dedicated to the fattening of the corporate queen at the expense of captive worker ants. Like capitalism, it is fickle, unpredictable, and blind to human needs. The deep and palpable pessimism of Latin Americas poor, whose faith in the hereafter exceeds their prospects in this life, can be characterized as a rational response to an inescapable kismet that religion cannot forestall. For them, such predestination includes more of the same, courtesy of the hegemonic interests of a few.
Sic transit gloria mundi.
W.E. Gutman is a veteran journalist and author. From 1994 to 2006 he reported from Central America where he covered politics, human rights, and other socioeconomic issues. The foregoing is an excerpt from his autobiography, A Paler Shade Of Red: Memoirs of a Radical, available in paperback (ISBN 978-1-927360-96-5) or as an e-book (ISBN 1-927360-96-X).
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Voices of Reason Rally

Our past coverage of the March 24, 2012, Reason Rally on the National Mall in Washington, DC, has been a mere glimpse of that day. So for the next several issues, we will continue to feature the words that were spoken by some of todays greatest voices of reason.
Jamila Bey
Please bow your heads. Oh, wrong crowd.
Photo by John Welte
e are here and aint it a great thing! Whenever an American people demand to more fully take part in this grand experience, we join, we assemble, and we speak out. We secular Americans have too long been without a voice. With good cause, weve been hiding. But today we come out into the light of reason and we say, Were here. Now you will hear us. We are your future, America. We speak for those who are 16 percent of this nation but who are still afraid to be identified. We are the children mistaught science because school boards and principals are too afraid of church and community pressures to enjoy the security of church/state separation. We are women demanding that our bodies not be made political battlefields. We are women demanding that our health care not be dictated by those who wish us to be submissive to our husbands and fathers. We are those who have been cast out of our families and our communities for daring to question the dogma beaten into ussometimes literallybeaten into us by those who teach us that love means fearing a god who will eternally torture us if we dont love him enough. We are your scientists. We are your doctors. We are artists, creators, musicians, and comedians. We are your children. We are your friends, your siblings, and we are your countrymen. We are voters.
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America, get it straight. We are your hope, we are your future. We embody the grandest tradition of this great country: the freedom to think, the freedom to question, and the freedom to demand proof. We love this country. We love our fellow human beings. We want to use the sum of our knowledge and the summit of human ideals to cure, to answer, and to enlighten. We dont fear the tree of knowledge. (We developed hydroponic techniques so that we could put one in every kitchen!) We dont fear god. We fear dogma. We fear closed-mindedness. But we aint afraid. Our eyes are open and we see the beauty that lies before us and the promise before us. But that potential needs us all. It needs black boys in hoodies. It needs girls being raised to be more than just helpmeets. It needs gay kids. It needs trans kids. It needs bi kids. It needs people who are able-bodied and people who are not. It needs every one of us. We are this nationof the people, by the people, for the people, this one nation indivisible. Each of us today stands here for its present and its future. Count us. And keep counting us because we are only going to continue to grow. Jamila Bey is a journalist living in Washington, DC. Her first book, about the role of religion in the lives of African-American women, is to be completed this year.
From American Atheists Marine Liaison
David Petraeus, Spiritual Fitness Guru?

by Paul Loebe
he United States was founded on the notion of liberty. Admittedly, that liberty it was at an infantile stage. Women had few rights and blacks were considered less than human and held under the bondage of slavery. Fortunately, as knowledge has progressed, so has society. With every passing generation, more of the world becomes more humanitarian, liberal, and caring. With one exception: religion. Religion has played a part in most, if not all, wars that have been waged. Id venture to say that even secular wars still had members from
Photo from Wiki Commons
news from an American perspective only and are thus robbed of the opportunity to perceive ourselves as many foreign nations do. Over the years, we have built a reputation and a perception that we are a nation of Christians on a warpath determined to spread not only democracy, but also the message of Christ. Many around the world have come to understand the words America, democracy, and Christianity as being synonymous with the term dominion state. We may proclaim to have a secular government and military but our actions and our intent are two separate things. With traditions such as Congressional prayers, taking oaths of office over the Bible, attempts to make the Ground Zero cross into a national monument, In God We
We have built a reputation and a perception that we are a nation of Christians on a warpath determined to spread not only democracy, but also the message of Christ.
Trust emblazoned on our money how can we not be viewed in such a light? One of the unfortunate side effects of a civilian-controlled armed forces is that those blunders of unconstitutional policy bleed
both sides of the conflict praying to a godsometimes the same one. To this day it continues to happen in our military as a matter of policy. In this nation we are surrounded by media that report world
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Many Iraqis I encountered also believe the U.S. military is attempting Christian dominionism in their country. They think we are crusaders.
into the military itself. We have Christian prayers aboard Navy vessels every night over the loudspeakers, forced prayers at boot camp graduations, and strict policies that prohibit individuals from pressing their religion while in uniform. However, those policies are conveniently forgotten for a member of the Christian faith, whereas someone like me would be held fully responsible for my actions. Yes, the majority of Americans are, or claim as a matter of familial heritage to be, Christian. But this does not mean that the government or the military are institutions under any type of Christian rule. But for many other nations of the world, that is the perceptionwhich, of course, only brings smiles to the faces of American Evangelicals. The Christian dominion of our nations military is so dangerous because of the perception outside of our nation. After seven years in the Marines, I have come to understand that perception is reality. If a host country views us as a Christian military ready to convert their land into another Christian utopia, then that is exactly what we are despite any protestations. During my first deployment in Iraq, I had a one-sided conversation with an Iraqi who had been captured after the Haditha massacre. I was fortunate that my training included learning Iraqi Arabic. My friend was fluent and I was good enough to understand it and speak a broken version. This Iraqi expressed great interest in why we were in his country. Our only response essentially turned into, We were told to come here. He attempted to ask us why Christians and Muslims fight. He attempted to ask us what our (Christian) problem with them (the Muslims) was. We werent authorized to speak with him or answer his questions so we just continually told him to be quiet. He didnt listen. He asked when we planned on building a Christian church in Haditha, since he assumed that those who conducted the massacre were American Christian warriors and were acting on the authority of their god. Sadly, many other Iraqis I encountered also believe the US military is attempting Christian dominionism in their country. They think we are crusaders. Perception is reality. I hope within this next generation there will be a movement to secularize the military and defuse this ticking time bomb that we have so foolishly wound up. One of the instances where foxhole Atheists stood up to religious favoritism was last years Rock Beyond Belief event at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. American Atheists military director Justin Griffith organized the event in response to the Billy Graham Evangelistic Associations Rock the Fort concert in 2010. But Rock Beyond Belief took place only after two years of jumping over many, many hurdles not imposed on Rock the Fort. director after his affair with his biographer was exposed. His adultery does not concern me, but I am concerned that he was a major proponent of the Armys Spiritual Fitness Test, a component of the Comprehensive Soldier Fitness Exam. When the exam was rolled out in 2010, the Army had spent $117 million dollars on its development, and the spiritual fitness portion was required to be taken by everyone. Thanks to the activism by American Atheists and the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), the spiritual fitness portion is now optional. In an op-ed piece on Truth-Out.org, MRFF founder Mikey Weinstein calls military spiritual fitness little more than a disingenuous and transparent Trojan horse for Evangelical Christian fundamentalism within the US Armed Forces. Indeed, it is a sinister Star Chamber, an unlawful means by which nationalism and militarism are merged with sectarian Christian zeal. One of the core components of spiritual fitness is matrimonial loyalty, but since when were religious fundamentalism and outright hypocrisy mutually exclusive? But I digress Petraeus, I can only assume, took this test himself. I also assume that because he felt so strongly about his own religious convictions, or lack thereof, that he felt inclined to push it on the entire Army to ensure everyone was held up to his religious standards. I even wonder if he held this same standards for his mistress. Now I digress The Spiritual Fitness Test is one portion of the Armys five-part Comprehensive Soldier Fitness exam. The spiritual fitness portion you are asked to rate how strongly you agree or disagree with each statement, which seem to have nothing to do with an individuals ability to be a soldier: I am a spiritual person, My life has lasting meaning, I believe that in some way my life is closely connected to all of humanity, I often find comfort in my religion and spiritual beliefs, and I believe there is a purpose for my life. American Atheists Vice President Kathleen
Paul Loebe
Rock Beyond Belief 2 will take place at Camp Pendleton in San Diego at a date to be determined. Details are at RockBeyondBelief. com. I find it ironic to be writing this around the time that Christian fundamentalist David Petraeus, the former commander of forces in Afghanistan, has resigned his post as CIA
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With the fall of Petraeus it would only make sense that the fundamentalist Christian policies he supported while in the military should follow in his footsteps.
Johnson, an Army veteran and our former military director, answered the questionnaire voluntarily to see how she would rate. She wrote about it on her blog at Atheists.org: I basically answered the questions in the following way, which is the way a lot of Atheists would answer them. I am not a spiritual person, I dont believe my life has a lasting meaning, I do not feel connected to all of humanity and the world, and I dont believe my life has a defined purpose. What I do believe, and whats not possible to address using this assessment, is that although there are no such things as spirits or spiritual connections and human lives have no preordained meaning, we can make meaning for ourselves which doesnt require calling on anything spiritual. I also believe there is no such thing as being spiritually connected to humanity, but that it is possible to honor and respect humanity and all life, and that while there is no preordained purpose to my life other than what I create for myself, there is nothing wrong with that. Justin Griffith was required to take the test in 2010. Like Kathleen, heunsurprisingly scored low on the spiritual fitness portion. He wrote about it on his blog: Im a bit furious about a mandatory survey that I just took. The survey, Soldier Fitness Tracker (SFT), measures individual soldiers competency in four areas: emotional, social, family, and spiritual. As a foxhole atheist, I was a little annoyed at first, but Ive learned that Ive really got to pick my battles on some issues. This quickly turned into one of those issues. According to the SFT, Im unfit to serve in the U.S. Army because Im a non-believer. Heres what the survey says about me: Spiritual fitness is an area of possible difficulty for you. You may lack a sense of meaning and purpose in your life. At times, it is hard for you to make sense of what is happening to you and others around you. You may not feel connected to something larger than yourself. You may question your beliefs, principles, and values. Nevertheless, who you are and what you do matter. There are things to do to provide more meaning and purpose in your life. Improving your spiritual fitness should be an important goal. Change is possible, and the relevant self-development training modules will be helpful. If you need further help, please do not hesitate to seek out help from the people you care about and trust strong people always do. Be patient in your development as it will take time to improve in this area. Still, persistence is key and you will improve here if you make this area a priority. Afterwards, it gave him options for remediation including praying and attending church. It even attempted to curve the religiosity of the test and give a secular definition of prayer to better accommodate substituting the term religion for spirituality: When people think of prayer, they are likely to think of someone sitting in a church, kneeling or folding their hands, and receiving a memorized prayer to whichever greater power they believe in. While prayer could look this way, it does not have to. Prayer is for all individuals, does not have to be said to a specific spiritual being or religious figure, and does not have to be tied to religion, and does not have to be formal. (Read the entire blog post at RockBeyondBelief. com/2010/12/22.) In his op-ed piece, Mikey Weinstein also writes about what he found while reading an issue of the Air Force Times one day in 2008. I stumbled on an ad for a book by Army chaplain Lt. Col. William McCoy entitled Under Orders: A Spiritual Handbook for Military Personnel. And who gave this shining, universal endorsement on this books back cover? None other than the top commander of the US forces in Iraq, General David Petraeus, who stated, Under Orders should be in every rucksack for those moments when Soldiers need spiritual energy. Upon inspection, the book proved itself to be a disgusting parochial screed promoting Christian religious supremacy while also denigrating the integrity of the 21% of American servicemembers who define themselves as atheists or having no religious preference. (Read the entire piece at TruthOut.org/opinion/item/12869.) With the fall of Petraeus it would only make sense that the fundamentalist Christian policies he supported while in the military should follow in his footsteps. Petraeus retired last year, so its now safe to speak out against the work he has done. There is still much work to be done on behalf of Atheists in the military, and if it does cost me my career, at least I can leave the service with the honor of knowing I defended the Constitution not only in uniform and abroad but back home in my civilian clothes. The content of this column does not in any way speak on behalf of any part of the US government in any official context. Paul Loebe is speaking from personal experience and opinion.
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American Atheists Files Suit Against the IRS

Churches receive preferential treatment under IRS code for 501(c)(3)s
n December 20, American Atheists filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in the Eastern District of Kentucky demanding that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) stop giving preferential treatment to churches and religious organizations via the process of receiving non-profit tax-exempt status under the Internal Revue Code (IRC) procedures and definitions. American Atheists receives tax-exempt status under IRC 501(c) (3), said President David Silverman, but because the organization is not classified as religious it costs American Atheists, along with all other secular non-profits, significantly more money each year to keep that status. In this lawsuit, American Atheists and the other plaintiffs are demanding that all tax-exempt organizations, including those characterized as religious by the IRS, have the same requirements to achieve tax-exempt status. For example, in order to qualify for nonprofit tax-exempt status, any religious or secular organization must demonstrate it exists to benefit the public. After that basic element is established, religious nonprofits are almost always declared automatically tax-exempt under the current IRC rules and definitions. However, secular non-profits face a lengthy application and a fee, which can be as high as $850. National Legal Director Edwin Kagin said, Religious organizations
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Photo by Rick Wingrove
and churches are treated differently from secular organizations. The exemptions are applied in a way that discriminates solely on the basis of whether an entitys members express beliefs and practices accepted as religious. The IRS treats your organization better if you profess belief in a supernatural deity. The lawsuit also covers discrepancies in how secular and religious organizations are treated in maintaining their tax-exempt statuses. Secular nonprofits complete Form 990 annually, which details information about finances, donors, volunteers, and personnel; the IRS estimates it requires 211 hours to complete the Form 990, which is then public information. Religious nonprofits are exempted from filing the Form 990, so there is no public record about their finances, donors, volunteers, or personnel. The IRS hands religious organizations a fundraising advantage, Silverman said. It puts American Atheists at a significant disadvantage when it comes to fundraising because many Americans choose not to reveal their Atheism for fear of prejudice and discrimination. American Atheists and its co-plaintiffs are asking the Court to find that such disparity of treatment between religious and secular nonprofit organizations is unconstitutional, and to require the IRS to make the tax-exempt filing process uniform for all nonprofit organizations. To read the entire lawsuit, go to Atheists.org/uploads/2012/ AmericanAtheists_v_IRS.pdf.
Photo by Michael Dorian
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Times Square Billboard

From December 11 to January 10, American Atheists hung a billboard in Times Square encouraging closeted Atheists to shed their religious baggage and truly enjoy the season. We know that a large population of Christians are actually Atheists who feel trapped in their familys religion. You dont have to lie in order to have a festive holiday. You can be merry without the myth, and indeed, you should, said President David Silverman. If you dont believe in god, tell your familyhonesty is the greatest gift, and they deserve it.
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Science Interview Series

There are as many ways to study the evolution of morality as there are ways for it to evolve.
by Ce Atkins
Two of the aims and principles of American Atheists, Inc., are to promote the study of the arts and sciences and of all problems affecting the maintenance, perpetuation, and enrichment of human (and other) life and to engage in such social, educational, legal, and cultural activity as will be useful and beneficial to members of American Atheists and to society as a whole. American Atheist supports these principles with this Science Interview Series, where some of the top scientists and thinkers in the world discuss their work with contributor Ce Atkins. In the previous issue, Atkins talked with Robert Trivers, author of The Folly of Fools: The Logic of Deceit and Self-Deception in Human Life. For this issue, he interviewed anthropologist William Irons.
Its Never Simple
Yomut Turkmen - Photos by William Irons
volutionary anthropologist William Irons is a professor emeritus at Northwestern University and founder of the Evolutionary Anthropological Society. He also played a role in organizing the Human Behavior and Evolution Society in 1988, and served as its president from 20012003. His primary field of study concerns the evolutionary forces that shape human social behavior. He began his career in 1965 with research on the Yomut Turkmen of northern Iran. He used ethnographic and demographic data gathered there to formulate and test several evolutionary hypotheses. He has also developed more general theoretical ideas, such and the cultural-and-biological-success hypothesis, which proposes that human beings tend to behave in ways that maximize their representation in future generations. Some of his papers can be found on his website, WilliamIrons.net. They include The Intertwined Roles of Genes and Culture in Human Evolution, How Did Morality Evolve? and Religion as a Hard-to-Fake Sign of Commitment.
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Dr. Irons, what is an evolutionary anthropologist? As an evolutionary anthropologist, Im interested in the evolution of human social behavior. But its a broad category. You can be an evolutionary anthropologist whos interested in fossil evidence for the origin of bi-pedalism, for example. I have to have a label to let people know what Im doing, so thats the one Ive come up with. These labels are not wholly accurate; theyre just a handy way to throw yourself into an initial box. Is there a standard definition for culture in your field? Almost nothing has been standardized in anthropology. Of course there are people who would claim their particular definition is the standard. But its close. There are basically two definitions of culture. The one I grew up with is: events that are the result of our ability to symbol, where symbol is used as a verb, to let one thing stand for another. We acquire information through symbolic communication. The collective body of that information is culture. The other definition of culture includes not only this information, but also the behavior that results from it. Books would be considered
compete with other groups. This does seem to bring group selection in through the back door. He didnt address the question. I tried to skirt it, too, because it was a very sensitive issue. But David Sloan Wilson, who has worked hard to revive the study of group selection, has finally persuaded me that if you have these cohesive groups competing with one another, some of them will function better than others. The more successful groups increase in size and have the potential to fission into more groups. Those groups that dont function as well will eventually disappear. Thats how you get group selection. But the other forms of selection, including kin selection, havent been eliminated. If culture partly evolved because imitation is a faster means of learningof information processingthan genetic or individual learning, would you then say that culture is, in part, an information technology in that it allows for a more rapid processing? Thats a new phrase and I havent thought it through, but it sounds good (laughs). But it isnt just imitation. We pass information in other ways. And Id like to say that genetic evolution is more rapid than we used to assume. Which came first, language or culture? Or does anyone really know? I dont think anyone really knows. Its kind of hard to imagine culture without spoken language. And its hard to know when spoken language first evolved. All modern human populations have the same linguistic capabilities. And all languages are basically equally able to convey information. You wrote about the function of morality and religion in culture. What is the primary function? The primary function of both morality and religion is to minimize intra-group conflict and to maximize the ability to compete with other groups. That idea came from Richard Alexander. I took his idea that we build a consensus, that moral rules are the result of consensus, and pointed out that there is unequal power, so this is not that simple. The powerful people of the society tend to have more influence on the rules of society than others and you have to take that into account. In my article Religion as a Hard-to-Fake Sign of Commitment [posted on WilliamIrons.net], I take on Richard Schellings idea of hard-to-fake signals. Religion is a symbol you can rely on, since its a signal of loyalty thats hard to fake. If a signal is easy to fake, then you cant rely on it. Most people are able to see through fake signals. And religion is related, in many ways, to morality because religions usually contain a code of morality. But we dont want to oversimplify, because the code of morality and the beliefs of a religion are always in motion. People are arguing and changing and sometimes claiming that theyre not changing when they are. How does that sit with you? As things grew more complex, we added codes. We had moral codes, then religious, then we added legal codes because the Ten Commandments say nothing about parking meters. Well, the parking rules would be an extension of love thy neighbor, combined with our human nature that says, I need mine (laughs). So legal codes are an extension of that ongoing attempt to generate group cohesion? Yes. And again, some people are more powerful than others and they get in there and try to jiggle the codes in their favor. They dont come out and admit what theyre doing. They say its for the good of society. The group selection component is badly muddled and muddied by the fact that we tend to say that its for the good of society. Some
culture, as theyre products of symbolic behavior. This interview would be considered culture, according to the second definition. But according to the narrower first definition, this interview would be considered information only. I go with the narrower definition because its easier to use analytically. In your review of Not By Genes Alone: How Culture Transformed Human Evolution by Peter Richerson and Robert Boyd, you wrote that their theory states that culture became prominent in human evolution because it allowed relatively rapid adaptation to changing environments by means of imitation. Do you agree? Im sure that was a factor. How strong it was, I dont know. I dont think it was the primary reason. I have a different theory. I think the reason culture evolved was that it allowed people to form larger, more cohesive social groups. For what purpose? To compete with one another. I wrote a paper on the evolution of morality, where I cite Richard Alexanders book The Biology of Moral Systems. In it, he argues that intergroup competition was an important element in human evolution, and that we evolved with traits that allowed us to form larger, more cohesive groups that can successfully
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Gods Non-Existence Makes Sense
The compelling evidence from logic, evil, and scripture

Excerpted from A Crisis of Faith: Atheism, Emerging Technologies, and the Future of Humanity by Phil Torres
any thinkers today hold the argument from evil to be the most powerful Atheistic argument around. It begins with two simple propositions. The first is that the world is full of evil and suffering; this is an indisputable fact. The second is that god (as traditionally defined) is an omnibenevolent (perfectly moral) being whos also omniscient and omnipotent. The idea is that these two propositions are contradictory, and this contradiction provides strong evidence for god not existing. Basically, if god can do anything he wants, if he knows about every last bit of pain and agony, and if he really is morally perfect, then how could he not stop the evil and suffering that envelopes us? I can say for myselfas a morally imperfect beingthat if I had the properties of omniscience and omnipotence, I would eliminate the troubles of the world in a moment. After all, what sort of person would I be if I didnt?
28 | AMERICAN ATHEIST | www.atheists.org 1st QUARTER 2013
Photo from Wiki Commons

Arrival and Orientation by Luca Signorelli
The best response to this argument goes as follows: a world in which human beings have free will is a better world than one in which we dont. But just as soon as human beings are given free will, we acquire the ability to do evil. Thus, the evil and suffering around us are byproducts of free will, which by itself is a good thing. It follows that god didnt want the world to be awash in pain and suffering; this is just the unavoidable cost of giving us free will. I find this counter-argument unconvincing. The first problem is that it entails that gods abilities are limited, even though god is defined as being omnipotent. That is to say, there are things that god cant do, such as give us free will and stop evil and suffering. Many theologians, in fact, have argued that omnipotence should be understood as the capacity to do anything that is logically possible. Thus, it doesnt count against god that he cant make a circle (in a Euclidean plane) whose circumference is greater or less than pi times the circles diameter. Similarly, it doesnt count against god that he cant make an actual Penrose triangle, since Penrose triangles are impossible to make. My worry is that this puts logical possibility over and above god. That is, if the rules of logic constrain god, then who came up with these rules in the first place? Who decided that logic is the way that it is and not some other way? Presumably, if god is the creator of all things, then he should be able to do whatever he wants, even make a rock too heavy for him to lift. An analogous problem arises with respect to god and morality. In a Platonic dialogue called Euthyphro, Socrates famously asks whether something is pious because god loves it, or whether god loves it because it is pious. Both
Bible, evil and suffering dont appear to be unavoidable byproducts of free will. Consider what the Bible says about heaven: God will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain (Revelation 21:4). Chapter 22 of Revelation makes it clear that sin will exist only outside of heaven. Yet most Christians believe that people in heaven will have free willi.e., that they wont be mere automata genuflecting before god for eternity. It follows that evil and suffering could be abolished without compromising free will after all! Thus, if god really is a morally perfect being, then why hasnt he done this for Earth as well? Similarly, if god gives people absolute free will, then he cant guarantee that a certain state of affairs will be realized in the futurethat is, insofar as the realization of this state of affairs depends on the free choices made by human beings. Theologians must contend with not only how logical impossibility challenges gods power but how logically possible scenarios do as well. Finally, there are very good reasons for thinking that free will is an illusion. In the words of neuroscientist Sam Harris, There is simply no description of mental and physical causation that allows for [the] freedom that we habitually claim for ourselves and ascribe to others.2 One can follow a single signal from our sensory organs (which is how we make contact with the external world) through our brains and back to our muscles (which are what we use to interact with the world). This signal travels along a concatenation of unbroken causes, from one neuron to the next. Since this circuit is gapless, its unclear where exactly free will could possibly enter the picture our thoughts and behaviors are nothing more
have had many Christian friends and family members pray that god will open my heart for Jesus to enter. But think about this: in what sense can one say that my will is free if it can be influenced by supernatural forces compelled by human entreaties? If we have absolute free will, then praying that god will change someones behavior is entirely futile. Furthermore, the Bible itself mentions several instances when god encroached upon the supposed free will of individuals and made them act in accordance with his own plans. Exodus 10:1, for example, states, Then the Lord said to Moses, Go to Pharaoh, for I have hardened his heart and the hearts of his officials so that I may perform these signs of mind among them. This is repeated in Exodus 10:20, 10:27, and 11:9-10. Its also not clear that Peter was exercising his free will when he denied Jesus three times before the rooster crowed, just as Jesus had predicted. The same could be said of Judas; was his betrayal of Jesus a freely chosen act, or was it part of gods preconceived plan to save humanity from its sins? I often wondered as a child whether Satan, the god of this world (2 Cor. 4:4), has free will. The standard view is that Satan freely chose to rebel against god, and that this is why god threw him out of heaven. Thus, Satan has free will. The problem with this is that the Book of Revelation makes many quite specific predictions about what Satan will do in the futureand about the terrible things that will happen as a result. Thus, if we already know what Satan will do, then in what sense is Satan really free? Furthermore, if hes not free to pull a fast one and do something other than what the Book of Revelation says hell do, then what
If we have absolute free will, then praying that god will change someones behavior
is entirely futile.
than the product of one mechanism activating another in an immensely complex network of probabilistic connections. As it happens, many Christians themselves seem to hold that free will is illusory. For example, religious people often pray that god will sway the hearts of non-believers. I
answers are highly problematic. For example, the second option seems to compromise the independence and sovereignty of god, since it implies that god is bound by the laws of morality instead of being their establisher. 1 Another problem with the response mentioned above is that, according to the
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does this tell us about god? It entails that god is a puppet master pulling strings to which Satan is attachedit suggests that Satan doesnt have control over all his actions, since some of these actions have already been determined (as recorded in Revelation). Before moving on, we should note that
COUNTS!
by Rick Wingrove
lot of deeply religious people, content to live in a compact, human-centered universe, are able to do so largely in proportion to their inability to do math.
numerical relationships may find themselves more easily fooled by misinformation or deceived by charlatans. Like televangelists. If one has no mental tools for the validation of claims, then one is likely to believe in some really stupid shit. A lot ancient beliefs envision a small, intimate universe, one which extended only from some very toasty underground real estate to someplace above the clouds but below the canopy of stars. Some even thought the stars could be reached with a tall enough tower. Some thought that it was possible to fly too close to the sun. Some thought it was turtles all the way down. But everyone thought the universe centered around us and was, more or less, set up just for us. That is how men, unequipped with the knowledge and technology now available to us, thought the universe worked 3,000 years ago. I think that dispelling that myth requires only a gentle lesson about the size of the universe, requiring nothing more than a calculator and a sense of awe. Millions and Billions First, a simple lesson in scale. A million is the smallest increment on the cosmic yardstick. And a million, to us, is really a lot! To illustrate, lets look at a million of something. Something easy to understand. Like seconds. 1,000,000 (one million) seconds = 11 days, 13 hours, 46 min, and 40 sec. Lets call it 11.5 days for convenience. 1,000,000,000 (one billion) seconds = 11, 500 days or 31.5 years! One billion seconds ago, Jimmy Swaggart was telling people that the Bible was the greatest science book ever written. And banging prostitutes in Louisiana motels. But I digress. Anyway, on to
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Of course they can add and subtract, maybe even still do some algebra, but they are woefully lacking in the tools necessary to understand the numbers that describe the cosmos. As a result, they cant begin to grasp the mind-boggling immensity of the universe and what that implies for the ancient god myths. It is a sad manifestation of what John Allen Paulos wrote about in his enlightening book, Innumeracy. Innumeracy is the mathematical equivalent of illiteracy and, although many people joke about their own inability to do math, it actually has real, adverse effects on the ability to understand the universe in a rational manner. It has less to do with ability to do long division than it has to do with the ability to understand scale and logical relationships. A more practical consequence is that those who are unable to judge, or even think about,
The Size of the Universe! Lets look at our nearest star, the sun, as a big yellow beach ball three feet in diameter. We will start all our measurements from there. If the sun were a beach ball sitting on the goal line at Sun Devil Stadium, the earth would be a tiny round piece of pea gravel 93 yards away (93 million miles). Mars would be a little orange bead almost 400 feet away in the seats behind the goal post (142 million miles). Jupiter would be a baseball just over one quarter-mile away (484 million miles). Saturn would be tennis ball about on halfmile away (888 million miles). Pluto, smaller than our moon, would be a pinhead almost two and a half miles away (3.67 billion miles). BTW, to drive out to Pluto at 60 miles per hour would take you 6,975 years. After that, things start getting bigger in a
over 12 billion years to get there. If the sun were a grain of sand, the stars in our galaxy would fill an Olympic-size swimming pool. If our galaxy were a grain of sand, the galaxies would fill several Olympicsize swimming pools. From Where We Sit From where we sit, we can see well over 100 billion galaxies beyond our own. On average, they each have over 100 billion stars and other stuff. And that is just the stuff we can see from here. I dont see any reason to think that everything suddenly stops just past that galaxy. So, as you can see, the universe is, in scientific terms, freakin huuuge! I think that a lot of the adamantly religious have an institutionally mandated and studiously maintained level of ignorance regarding not just the size of the universe, but
Some thought it was turtles
all the way down.
hurry. The nearest star, Alpha Centauri at a distance of 4.3 light years, would be a slightly smaller beach ball, in Sydney, Australia, 12,440 miles away. Driving time at 60 miles per hour: 47.6 million years. If one year were one second long, it would still take you a year and a half to drive there. The nearest spiral galaxy, the lovely Andromeda, is a mere two million light years away. Like our galaxy, the Milky Way, Andromeda is approximately 100,000 light years in diameter and contains over 200 billion stars. If the Milky Way were a house, Andromeda would be another house four football fields away. If you were driving at one million miles an hour, it would take you six million years to drive across our galaxy 120 million years to get to the outskirts of Andromeda. The Milky Way is one of about 20 galaxies in our local cluster which, in turn, is part of the local super cluster which contains thousands of galaxies. The farthest observed galaxy would be another house 2,000 miles away. Driving at the speed of light, 186,000 miles per second or 11 million times the speed limit, it would take you
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also our relative importance in it. I personally do not find myself diminished by it; I find it the most fascinating thing imaginable. Perspective Isaac Asimov put things in perspective in the title of his sci-fi novel The Stars Like Dust. Even looking around in our local neighborhood, the stars are, in some places, so numerous they look like haze. Bertrand Russell, in his book Why I Am Not A Christian, says (and I am paraphrasing) that our inflated sense of self-importance and placement in the universe can best be cured with a little astronomy. But I think P.W. Atkins, in a remarkable little book called, ironically, Creation Revisited, opened up a whole new perspective when he called the universe a local outcropping of matter. That is the kind of scale and perspective which show the ancient god-myths for what they truly are: local outcroppings of lunacy. Rick Wingrove is the layout and graphics editor of this magazine and American Atheists Virginia state director.
Paul Kurtz
December 21, 1925 October 20, 2012

He felt deep compassion for the poor and the suffering, and not just for those hurt or destroyed by religion, much as that enraged him.
American Atheists Former President Remembers the Founder of the Council for Secular Humanism - by Ed Buckner
aul Kurtz was an incredible man: brilliant, creative, and energetic well into his declining years. He accomplished far more than any ordinary man. Read his obituary in the New York Times (TinyURL.com/ KurtzNYTObit), easily his favorite newspaper, and in the Washington Post (TinyURL.com/ KurtzObitWP) for a good summary of the breadth and depth of what he accomplished and to learn of the numerous organizations he set in motion that are continuing to contribute to improved odds for progress, happiness, and even survival of our species. I did not know Kurtz nearly as well as others, but I did know him for a dozen years and worked for him for about three, and I want to write of him from my personal knowledge. He was by all accounts imperfect, but this is not the place, and there will likely never again be a good time to go into all that. Suffice it to say that sometimes it can be ambiguous whether a decision demonstrates obsessive control tendencies or a remarkable attention to detail; that disagreements that seem at the time to be crucially rooted in important philosophical matters can, with perspective, be interpreted as merely differences about strategy. But however important the flaws of Paul Kurtz, the sweeping, deep, great good of the man easily outweighed them. Those of us fortunate to spend time with him knew that he practiced what he preached in very important ways. His coining of the word eupraxophy seems destined to fail as an enduring philosophical label, but what it referred to he embraced. He did practice the good life with exuberance, joy, and personal
Paul Kurtz
generosity. He relished life, worked long and hard with great passion, enjoyed good food, good conversation, telling stories, educating, and stirring people up. He adored Buffalo, New York, and the Buffalo Bills, and tried to attend as many of their gamesboth at home and on the roadas he could. He was corny and relished that, too. Only Paul Kurtz could offer up a lame line and declare that doing so made him a sexual humorist instead of a secular humanist. Only he could convulse a Sunday morning meeting of secular humanists, who were expecting, perhaps, a dry disquisition on the importance of emotion, instead with a tale of how his passion for the Buffalo Bills led him to shout at a Miami Dolphins football gamein Miami, and amazing himself by doing so. Only Kurtz could give you (more than once) a line about his support, not for compassionate death with dignity but for the youth in Asia. He was not a modest manit was he who assured me that he was an entrepreneurial genius, a comment that would have been laughable in a lesser man but verged on understatement for him. But no one who knew himfriend or enemycould reasonably have thought that he should have been modest. (See those newspaper obituaries if youre in doubt.) He felt deep compassion for the poor and the suffering, and not just for those hurt or destroyed by religion, much as that enraged him. He let his compassion infuse his political and personal ideas. I saw him, more than a few times, reach into his pocket and hand an apparently miserable street person some folding money. He was certainly wise enough, and skeptical enough, to know that some of
these recipients may, in some sense, not have deserved his handout. But he was unwilling to take the chance that the pitiable person before him might in fact greatly need a small bit of help. Paul bought innumerable meals for people who were with him when it was time to eat and drink. When I served as executive director of the Council for Secular Humanism (one of those fine organizations he created), many was the time that someone said, or at least implied, that Kurtz was getting rich off his organizations. I knew better, knew that he never drew a salary despite long hours, and often under-claimed reimbursement for his travel. He also gave moneyfrequently and generouslyto support the Council. I was in charge of writing the thank-you letters, or I might not have known this, for he refused most public recognition of his financial support. When I invited him to speak at an American Atheists conference in his native Newark, New Jersey, I wasnt sure hed accept. I knew that he had known Madalyn Murray OHair and had worked with her on at least one board, but I also knew from him (I never knew her) that their relationship had soured before she was murdered. But not only did he accept, he also gave American Atheists a generous contribution in addition to his well-received and stimulating talk (not all his listeners were equally happy about what he said). He was unfailingly gracious, courtly in fact, to my wife and son, as was his wife, Claudine; his daughter, Annie; and his son, Jonathan, and I know this was true for many others he knew. I loved the man and I miss him. Humanity needs him still; fortunately, his writings and those many organizations he started will help.
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Religion and
Grief
O
Adapted from David G. McAfees new book, Mom, Dad, Im and Atheist: The Guide to Coming Out as a Non-Believer, published by Dangerous Little Books
ne therapeutic benefit of spirituality is the hope of an afterlife. If you truly believe youll see your loved one again in heaven, the argument can be made that the religious persons mentality provides a sort of peace with the loss. However, this can work in reverse. Regardless of your religious beliefs, you should never tell a mourning mother that it was Gods plan. For some people, that can be worse than saying nothing at all. For a non-believer, the words that are meant to console a religious person can do quite the opposite. A mother who loses her son, for example, might not wish to hear that God took her child or that she might see him as an angel someday. She probably just wants her son back. Holly Samel was five months pregnant when she and her husband went to the hospital for an ultrasound. But, she said, the technologist was acting suspiciously. She kept measuring stuff over and over, Holly said. I asked her what was wrong, but it wasnt her job to tell me. Holly and her husband left the ultrasound without being told any specifics, but they were happy. She began to call everyone she knew to tell them that her unborn child was a boy. Just as she was hanging up the phone after giving her mother the good news, her excitement quickly turned to immeasurable sorrow. Holly got the call from her midwife. She told me he wasnt going to make it. I started crying instantly, Holly said. I have never felt anything that fast or real before. Even in my most uncontrolled emotional
moment, I did not lean on religion. I had been non-religious my whole life. It never even crossed my mind that it could help me out. Hollys son had a rare form of dwarfism that meant his bones were improperly developed. Coupled with other genetic defects, he wouldnt survive. They offered me an abortion because there was absolutely no chance of him making it, but I chose to continue the pregnancy, Holly said. My midwife allowed me to come in and listen to his heartbeat as often as I wanted. I wanted to keep what I had with him as long as I could. The stress put me into early labor anyway when I was almost six months along, and Ethan weighed 1.9 pounds. Looking back at how tiny and frail he was, plus [all] the religious sympathies getting to me, I started to think about what they could possibly think heaven would be like for him. They all wanted to tell me how sure they were he was now in heaven having a good afterlife, but no one had the details. People told Holly many things about her experience, especially the typical comforting statements: Hes in a better place now or It was part of Gods plan or that God (for whatever reason) needed Ethan. She just ignored the statements at first. She knew they meant well. That stayed true until a few years later, when her grandmother said something that Holly couldnt ignore. She found out I was an Atheist and e-mailed me. She said she knew that I had to believe in heaven because I want to see my son again. She
Continued p. 36
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Catholic Encyclopedia (From p. 11)

well as ensuring freedom to believe. Any case for Christian salvation in the Constitution is nonsense. Noahs Ark. In its Deluge article, CETN claims God made it rain for forty days, causing an almost (their word, not mine) worldwide flood. In a rare mote of honesty, CE-TN admits the idea of a worldwide flood covering the entire earth has been abandoned (157). Science! Yet CE-TN has contrived for itself a solution: Gods flood was of mixed or relative universality and all mankind perished except those in the ark of Noah since the race of humans had not spread beyond this region (157). All Homo sapiens are of African decent. This has been proven. The CE-TN claims we all come from common ancestors (namely Adam and Eve) originating in Mesopotamia. What followed, of course, were centuries of testosterone-laden, sexually frustrated priests who would molest thousands (more likely, millions) of innocent children - rape in the name of Christ one might rightly say with the 305 CE ecclesiastical Elviral edict being the root of this particular Christian evil. Forgeries. The papacy and numerous Christian clerics produced many fraudulent documents over the centuries to augment their authority and gain property and wealth. CETN provides an article on the False Decretals of Pseudo-Isidore, but is utterly mendacious regarding the purpose of the Decretals, claiming they were chiefly issued as an attack on the authority of the pope (155). Quite the opposite is true: the Decretals were forged papal letters of the eighth century; the Church created them in order to claim - systems of belief and unbelief that were not Christian. Theater of the Absurd Like the Bible, CE-TN becomes, as Charles Lutwidge Dodgson coined, curiouser and curiouser, as well as, one might say, hilariouser and hilariouser, especially when read from stem to stern. Here are some of the more laughable averments. Humanism. I proudly consider myself a Humanist. So I was naturally thrilled to discover that CE-TN disapproves. It claims the error [sic] of humanism... is that it neglects Christian revelation, ignores the necessity for Christs second coming, and makes man serve only his own purposes. Apparently, Humanism also denies God in the areas of life where God is most needed
Salvation in the First Amendment? Methinks not. Without doubt my favorite amendment is a separation, a great wall.
Thus, CE-TN proclaims that evolution must be nonsense (or just a theory - not yet proven, as indicated on page 202). Gods purpose for his mass murders, you may ask? The CE-TN claims it was punishment of the wicked after they failed to repent and a means of freeing the sons of God from corruption (157). Absurd Edicts The Church has a long history of ecclesiastical pronouncements of nonsensical and superstitious origin, often with hideous and even genocidal consequence. Celibacy. CE-TN refers to celibacy as ecclesiastical law (100). No married person may become ordained, and the church forbids those in holy orders to marry, or to engage in sexual activity. One must wonder why the clergy countermanded Gods orders in Genesis 1:28, to be fruitful, and multiply. Absurd, and clearly contradictory to human nature, yes. But this was not always the case. Before the fourth century, Christian leaders were allowed to have romantic relationships, sexual intercourse (gasp!), and even marry. The Council of Elvira (305 CE) first proposed that church clerics remain unmarried and celibate. It seems this inane idea merely festered awhile, almost forgotten. Then in Rome, in 386 CE, the Church officially enacted that noxious notion as law. The CE-TN cites I Corinthians 7:32 as a reason, as well as Matthew 19:11-12.
unlimited authority in all matters, and attain undeserved global license via unfair and violent means.7 Dark Ages. Those terrible times were indeed dark, being caused by nothing less than the rise of the repressive Christian citadel. Shortly after Christianity was proclaimed the only legal religion of the Empire in the fourth century, religious authorities burned books by the millions. Reading was banned, witches were murdered, and Roman society rapidly lost its body of people knowledgeable in engineering and science. Christian law even condemned bathing, being a mark of vanity.8 The CE-TN, however, claims that in Catholic circles this period is more appropriately called the Age of Faith (151). Faith would indeed explain its darkness. Crusades. The Christian juggernaut essentially declared that the only good non-Christian is a dead non-Christian. The CE-TN claims the Crusades were a major military expedition undertaken for an exalted purpose, and laments that they failed to save Palestine. However, they were a good thing, as they encouraged travel and commerce, broadened the outlook of Europe, and fostered religion. I ask you, Is fostering religion a good thing? It depends; Jainism, Buddhism, maybe. Christianity? According to the CE-TN, it widened the gap in the Eastern schism and permitted the entrance of heretical teachings into the West (145-146). Thats right, heretical teachings
(277). When I am confronted with the need, or the evidence of god, I always have to ask, Which one? Short Prayers. The term ejaculation according to CE-TN is the name for short affective prayers of a few words - e.g., Jesus, I love You (184). And what is an affective prayer? Well, it includes more of an emotional than an intellectual motive (25). It seems that longer prayers have intellectual motives - perhaps as proposed in Matthew 21:22, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive. Stick in a prayer, out comes your wish: the Christian precatory vending machine. What a load of selfish and childish bullshit; I believe I shall stick with ejaculation of the secular, biological sort. Adam and Eve. A work of supposed modern scholarship, CE-TN laments that we do not know where the Garden of Eden was located, but it is placed somewhere along the middle Euphrates River (183). CE-TN proffers no evidence for this assertion. My guess is that Eden is located very near Jacks beanstalk. Age of Enlightenment. The CE-TN claims that the outcome of the Enlightenment was a series of ideological errors that we still are molested with and that only the firm social teachings of the Church can combat effectively (190). Imagine: Catholic authorities using the word molested. Youd think they would steer clear of it. Pious Obstinacy. The CE-TN states (202) that ...the theory of evolution... remains a
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Seth Andrews Deconverted (From p. 9)

theory. However, should proof be eventually produced, the teaching of Genesis and its inspired narrative would remain, for it tells that the world was created for human beings and that human beings themselves came from God... Against its own self-righteous dogma, the same book also claims that deliberate resistance to the known truth is a sin against the Holy Spirit (555)! Conclusion It is risible that this book calls itself an encyclopedia. Do Catholics really buy into this crap? Yes, even officially. The book bears the noble Nihil Obstat and Imprimatur seals of the Catholic Church. So it must hold nothing but infallible truths. References Catholic Encyclopedia, First Edition. The Encyclopedia Press, 1907-1913. Gasquet, Amde, Essai Sur le Culte et les Mystres de Mithra. Boston: Adamant Media, 2006. Haught, James A., Holy Horrors. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2002. Marcus, Jacob Rader, and Marc Saperstein, The Jew in the Medieval World: A Source Book, 315-1791. Hebrew Union College Press, 1999. Mead, G.R.S., and Edward Clary, The Mysteries of Mithras. Sequim: Holmes, 2004. Prtner, Rudolf, Mit dem Fahrstuhl in die Rmerzeit. Munich: Knaur, 1967. Smith, David Whitten, and Elizabeth Geraldine Burr, Understanding World Religions: A Road Map for Justice and Peace. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield, 2007. Smith, Homer W., Man and His Gods. New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1957. Endotes 1. Gasquet, 84-86. 2. Mead, 20. 3. Catholic Encyclopedia, 1907-1913, Canon I,
Exposition of the Catholic Faith and of the Dogma of Transubstantiation, vol. 9, p. 18.
I completely understand how difficult it must be for a parent to spend so much time and so many resources in a genuine attempt to protect a beloved child from hell.
Seth Andrews and Jesus at Reason Rally
4. Haught, 43. 5. Marcus, 169. 6. David Whitten Smith, 63. 7. Catholic Encyclopedia, 1907-1913, vol. 5, 773-780. 8. Homer Smith, 228. Michael Paulkovich is an aerospace engineer who, in addition to authoring this series, contributes to Free Inquiry and The American Rationalist. Eschewing dogma and myth, his work is full of hope for the world to replace ancient cult beliefs with more and more freethought.
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Deconverted is available as a paperback from BarnesAndNoble.com and Amazon and as a download on Nook and Kindle. The audio book is on Audible. Com and iTunes. The Thinking Atheist Radio Podcast airs Tuesdays at 6:00 p.m., Central Time. Go to TheThinkingAtheist.com to hear the podcast, read Seths blog, watch his videos, and participate in the forum.
Science Interview (From p. 27)

codes are, and some arent. And then theres Robert Trivers idea that we tend to deceive ourselves in order to better deceive others. So the Republicans who argue that lower taxes for the rich are good for everybody really do believe what theyre saying. We know that human behavior and culture rest on a biological foundation with varying degrees of latitude. Thats the sociobiology premise, but what about culture feeding back on biology? My response will upset some people, but I think it does. Culture creates a definite environment and there are going to be different selective pressures. Ill take the example of Steven Pinkers book, The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence has Declined. Pinker asks if we evolved genetically to be tamer. Its a new idea, and somewhat taboo, so theres not a lot of evidence systematically gathered to evaluate it. But that doesnt mean its false. I think its almost certainly true. I dont see how we could go through the huge transformations in our environments without changes in selective pressures. And thats going to be one of them; were going to be tamer. I want to refer to the naturalist fallacy here. If we encounter a group that, given the history of their ancestors, is not as tame as we are, they are still entitled to the same level of dignity as we are and the same rights because they, too, are human beings. And that may be tough in some cases. What is the naturalistic fallacy? Basically its the proposition that the fact that something is natural doesnt tell you anything about its moral qualities. It can be immoral, moral, or neutralyou just dont know. Morality comes from people arguing with one another in an attempt to work out a code about how to behave. And the codes that may be the most effective in holding a society together may not be the ones that encourage all of the natural behaviors. But its even more complicated than that, because many of our natural tendencies are in conflict with one another. We kind of sort those out as we mature and become part of a society. We suppress some natural tendencies while encouraging others, but the ones that we suppress dont go away. They can emerge, and when they do, they may be socially destructive, in which case we would probably call them immoral. Did you like Robert Trivers The Folly of Fools? Yes, but the tender-minded are not going to like it. If you read it and think about it, its an upsetting book. I know him, and he has a different way of seeing the world and he sees things that other people miss. But theyre really there.
Religion and Grief (From p. 33)

You define the evolutionary concept of mismatch as the failure of evolved adaptations to deal effectively with environmental novelty. Can you elaborate? There are lots of mismatches. Mismatch is where you behave in a certain way because in the past your ancestors gained a reproductive advantage by behaving that way. But because the environment is different now, that way of behaving no longer works. Let me mention here a book by Lee Cronk, That Complex Whole. He was a graduate student of mine who is now at Rutgers. He did a study with Trivers in Jamaica that yields data showing that men who are better dancers have better mating success. Its documented, and thats not surprising. It appears that religion and its influence in this country is waning, and we might need some cohesive agents. Would you care to speculate on what might replace religion? I dont know what might replace it. But the idea that you cant be moral if youre not afraid of god punishing you is not valid. I dont think people will suddenly lose their morals if they stop believing in god. You can be concerned about the welfare of others for reasons other than being accountable to an invisible world. How theyll formulate what theyre doing is a good question. Loose kinds of philosophies, I guess. Not the heavy philosophy they teach in philosophy class. There are lots of humanist groups that are trying to answer that question by saying in essence, We dont believe in religion, heres what we believe instead that tells us how to resolve moral issues and how to cope with lifes problems. In their book, Sacred and Secular, Ronald Englehart and Pippa Norris observe that people become less religious as quality of health improves, poverty declines, and life expectancy increases. So for religion to thrive it helps to have sick, poor, frightened people afraid that theyre going to die. And they have data to back it up, country by country. Its rather crude data, but I think theyre correct. As our lives become more secure, we feel less need for religion. Thats a psychological phenomenon thats real. We all eventually die, and that stresses us. But Im not sure that religion does all the wonderful things that it claims. Ce Atkins is the creator and editor of PostGenetic.com, which proposes the development of crowd, computer, and individual-sourced, post-genetic codes integrated with technology to help us navigate the exponential increases in cultural complexity and reality in general. said my Atheism was just a phase, Holly recalled. She had the same thing happen to her first son. I couldnt help but think that it has been more than 40 years since she lost her son, and every day shes needed to believe she is going to see him in heaven. It has been only five years since I lost Ethan, and I never needed a similar comfort on my worst days. I feel like a non-religious grieving process allows you to deal with death more honestly. Holly wanted to learn more about how and why this happened to her son. I asked the midwife to explain to me as best she could, Holly said. I was confused and I didnt believe that he really had no chance. They told me the science behind why he couldnt have lived, and about how horrible his life would have been if he had. If anything, the experience reinforced her Atheism. She knew that no all-loving and all-powerful god would allow this type of injustice, not just for her, but for the millions in similar situations around the world. Holly said that with the complexities of religious portrayals of afterlife, assuming a pre-birth child is in heaven, theres no telling whether or not that would even be a good thing. Would he be a fetus in heaven? Would he grow? Who would care for him? Would he go to hell? While none of that made sense to her, the scientific reason did help her through the grief. In the end, what really helped Holly were the logical explanations of her sons genetic disabilities, and not the false hope that religion offers.
Grief Beyond Belief is an online support network for people grieving the death of a child, parent, partner, or other loved one, without belief in a higher power or any form of afterlife. Atheists, agnostics, humanists, freethinkers and anyone else living without religious beliefs are invited to participate. Grief Beyond Belief was launched by Rebecca Hensler after the death of her three-monthold son. Go to Facebook.com/ FaithFreeGriefSupport.
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Gods Non-Existence (From p. 29)

the problem posed by evil in the world is not merely How could god allow any instance of suffering? but How could god allow every such instance? That is to say, much of the evil and suffering in the world appears to be entirely gratuitous (or unnecessary). Consider the theological distinction between moral and natural evils. The first refers to situations that result from intentional human action. Evils such as the Holocaust, the enslavement of Africans, and the denial of rights to women and homosexuals all fall under the category of moral evils. In contrast, the second category includes evils for which no intentional moral agent is responsible. Earthquakes, birth defects, and brain tumors are all natural sources of human suffering.3 (This is why natural disasters are called acts of God.) There is no rhyme or reason to such events, and indeed it would be hard to argue that a possible world without earthquakes, birth defects, and brain tumors would be a worse world than our actual one. Thus, the most difficult part of the argument from evil is explaining how an omnibenevolent God whos both omniscient and omnipotent could allow so much gratuitous sufferinga large portion of which is caused by phenomena beyond our control. Is God Just? Another argument against the existence of god (as traditionally defined4) concerns the sort of justice that god will wield on judgment day.5 Let us begin with these questions: what is the point of the afterlife and what is the purpose of heaven and hell? According to the Christian apologist Dinesh DSouza, heaven and hell are about cosmic justice, or the settling of earthly accounts. The idea is that because there isnt any justice in this life, we have the afterlife to even things out. Evil people like Hitler and Stalin are burning in hell forever as punishment for their horrific crimes against humanity. Cosmic justice is served and moral people can sleep better at night. The problem here is that god doesnt send people into the eternal flames because of their moral behavior on Earth. That is to say, cosmic justice isnt divine justice. Rather, godor at least the god of the Biblesend people to hell for committing (with one exception discussed below) one and only one crime: the crime of disbelief. As John 1:12 says, But to all who have received himthose who believe in his namehe has given the right to become Gods children (italics added). And John 3:18 states, The one who believes in Him is not
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condemned. The one who does not believe has been condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the one and only Son of God. Thus, it doesnt matter whether youve raped, murdered, or tortured someone. It doesnt matter if youre a monstrous dictator responsible for mass genocide. All that matters is whether or not you sincerely believe in Jesus, admit that youre a sinner, and ask for forgiveness. If Hitler had sincerely asked Jesus into his heart before dying, then he wouldve been forgiven and admitted into paradise. This is exactly what happened to one of the criminals crucified next to Jesushe repented and was saved. The question thats troubled me since
If the rules of logic constrain god, then who came up with these rules in the first place?
I was a child is this: is divine justice really a kind of justice at all? It seems to be both arbitrary and capricious and it doesnt seem to even things out (morally speaking) at all, as DSouza suggests. The issue boils down to a fundamental principle of justice, namely that the punishment of a crime must fit the crime, just as the reward for some deed must fit the deed. In other words, there must be some degree of proportionality between actions and consequences. Giving out life sentences for jaywalking or merely fining someone for murder are failures of justice precisely because the consequences are disproportionate to the actions. Not only does disbeliefespecially when its sincere, as in my own caseseem entirely disproportionate to damnation, but damnation is eternal while our lives here on Earth are not. Thus how could an infinite punishment or an infinite reward possibly be proportional to whats done in a finite amount of time? It seems patently unjust to send people to heaven or hell for ever and ever (Revelation 14:11) because of what they believed after only (say) sixty or seventy
years. (Obviously, there are many people who die young, and thus dont have much time to decide for themselves which religion, if any, is the true religion. This seems profoundly unfair.) Its also worth noting that the Bible states that one sin is unpardonable. As Jesus declares in the Gospel of Mark, Assuredly, I say to you, all sins will be forgiven the sons of men, and whatever blasphemies they may utter; but he who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is subject to eternal condemnation (3:22-30). This hits home for me because when I was 14 or 15 years old, I was thinking about the problem of evil and not knowing that cursing the Holy Spirit is unpardonableI cursed the Holy Spirit. Now, unless Jesus meant something other than what he literally said (and note that he didnt add any qualifications to his claim he didnt say that there are exceptions for impetuous adolescents), I closed off the possibility of going to heaven for myself long ago. This is why I tell Christians not to pray for my soul. Even if I were to believe (once again) that the Bible is the word of god, I still wouldnt get through the pearly gates. I am not merely unforgiven but unforgivable. A Crisis of Faith is available at Amazon. com. For more information, go to ACrisisOf FaithTheBook.com. Phil Torres has a masters degree in neuroscience from Brandeis University, and is currently an Affiliate Scholar at the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies. Hes published numerous articles in journals such as Erkenntnis, Metaphilosophy and the Journal of Evolution and Technology. Endnotes 1. Michael Murray and Michael Rea, An Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion (Cambridge University Press, 2008), p. 247. 2. SamHarris.org/blog/item/the-mysteryof-consciousness 3. Obviously, some birth defects are caused by human action. The point is that some are not. 4. Maybe god isnt good, but evil. Why not? 5. Although Im thinking specifically about Christianity here, the argument could apply just as well to many other religions.
State Directors Spotlight
Photo by Joey Piscitelli
n July, the Oakland Zoo, a public institution owned by the City of Oakland, California, removed a sixfoot monument to the Ten Commandments erected by the Fraternal Order of Eagles in 1966, when the land was a state park. The zoos actions averted by four daysa protest scheduled by the East Bay Atheists and Atheist Advocates of San Francisco. The protest was organized after Joey Piscitelli, the Northern California director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) contacted Larry Hicok, American Atheists California state director. Piscitelli made his first formal complaint to the zoo in 2008 after deciding to hold his daughters wedding a special events facility on the grounds. He never noticed the nearby monument when he first toured the facility because he was only shown the venues interior and the garden at one end of the exterior. By the time he learned about the Ten Commandments, it was too late to find an alternative, and the zoo never responded to his complaint. When he recently decided to rent the venue again, he discovered
Released from the Zoo, these Ten Commandments Have a Chance to Find their Natural Habitat
by Larry Hicock, California State Director
the monument still in place. This time he formally complained to numerous city officials as well as to the zoo. The only reply he received was from a deputy city attorney, who claimed a recent Supreme Court decision regarding a similar monument in Texas protected the one at the zoo. Regardless of legal issues, the zoo administration did remove the monument. Executive Director Joel Parrott told the San Francisco Chronicle that the zoo had actually decided about ten years ago that the religious monument had no place on the grounds and that they had been planning to remove it. Whether or not the removal date was finally set only because of the protest plans, and whether or not the citys attorney was correct in claiming the monuments constitutionality, the bottom line is that a six-foot slab of granite, with no purpose other than to endorse a religion, has been eliminated from government land. The zoos official reason for removing the Ten Commandments was to be sensitive to the community, and to be inclusive. American Atheists applauds the Oakland Zoos reasonable response, which shows, once again, why church/state separation is the best thing for everyone.
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New State Directors
In Nebraska, New York, and Alabama
illiam Newman of Omaha, Nebraska, is the founder of the Omaha Coalition of Reason. He was also the co-signer of a letter proclaiming May 3, 2012, as a Day of Reason in Omaha. William was raised Catholic, but started on the road toward Atheism in the late eighties. Hes been openly Atheist with his boss and coworkers for the last seven years and with his family for almost as long. An avid ham radio operator, he has been the volunteer emergency coordinator for Amateur Radio Emergency Services in Nebraskas Douglas and Sarpy Counties for several years. Contact William at WNewman@ atheists.org.
ichael Dorian is our new state director in New York. Michael is a long-time member of American Atheists and our affiliate, New York City Atheists (NYC-Atheists.org), whose discussion forum he has hosted for the past four years. Michael is also a filmmaker currently working on the documentary A Cross to Bear about American Atheists lawsuit over the placement of the Ground Zero Cross in the National 9/11 Museum. As New York state director, I hope to engage people of all backgrounds in substantive dialogue about the crucial importance of church/state separation, civil rights for nonbelievers, and the First Amendment. Promoting reliance upon facts, evidence, and sound reason to support moral positions and claims about the physical world is a recurring theme in my life. I am also deeply committed to diminishing the irrational thinking that somehow continues to affect public policy in the modern age. Both the cover of this issue and the photo of our Times Square billboard (pages 24-25) were photographed by Michael. Contact him at MDorian@atheists.org.
cott Savage, Alabama state director, has moved to Georgia and will assume the state director position there. He replaces Al Stefanelli, who has resigned for personal reasons. We thank Al for his service and look forward to reading his next book. We also thank Edwin Hensley in Kentucky for his two years of service. He stepped down as state director in order to spend more time on local activism in the Louisville area. Contact Scott Savage at SSavage@atheists.org.
If you or someone you know would like to volunteer as a state or regional director, please contact Ken Loukinen at KLoukinen@atheists.org.
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American Atheists Goes Green
President David Silverman
George Watley Solar Array

merican Atheists, an organization best known for taking a hard stance in the fight for the civil liberties of atheists, is now fighting for the future of our planet. In a bold move, the organization announced today, the installation of the George Watley Solar Array on the roof of its headquarters in Cranford, NJ. Not only will the solar array generate 100% of the electrical needs for the main office, it will also produce a surplus of energy. The additional electricity will be sold back to the local electric company, generating revenue for the American Atheists Legal Fund. President David Silverman stated, "As atheists, we understand
that the responsibility to make positive change in our world lies within us, not in a supernatural force or deity. We take this step toward a better future with great pride." Teresa MacBain, Public Relations Director said, "American Atheists continues to raise the bar for freethought organizations around the world. In making this transition to solar energy, our hope is that others will follow suit to help protect our planet for generations to come." American Atheists is able to make this transition to clean energy a reality through a generous gift from the estate of George Watley. The array became operational in mid-November, 2012.
NEW LIFE MEMBERS
n the past few months, seven American Atheists members increased their commitment by becoming Lifetime Supporters or by upgrading their Lifetime Supporter memberships! Thanks to our new and upgraded Lifetime Supporters for their significant commitment to our organization and for their continued support. Since our last issue of the magazine, the following members have decided to increase their commitment to American Atheists and further promote our shared goals and values:
LIFE
Bettye Gossard Harvey Gossard Raul Martinez Amita Sharma Robert Wright III Emmy Johnston
SILVER
Mary Fleming
GOLD
Christopher Bohn
PLATINUM
David Reichert
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From the author of the Dogma Watch series in this magazine
Religion, especially Christianity, has enjoyed unwarranted respect for far too long. Jesus did say a few nice things, but he was no humble or wise prophet. How do we know? Its in the Bible.
Available in hardcover, paperback, and e-book
NoMeekMessiah.com
On the Shelf
A PEACEFUL WORLD BEYOND RELIGION AWAITS YOU

Christianity comes from the myth of Mithra, a Persian savior god born to a virgin on December 25. The story of Moses comes from the Legends of Sargon I, King of Akkad. The extensive hieroglyph records of ancient Egypt have no mention of Moses leading over 600,000 people away from Pharaohs army. Joseph Smith was convicted of fraud shortly after capturing the golden tablets. Learn about all this and more. Beyond All Religion, a new book by Sam Butler, is available at Amazon.com or by sending $9.95 to: Sam Butler, SB 197, POB 25292, Miami, FL, 33102.
merican Atheist is now on the shelves of 200 Barnes and Noble stores nationwide. Please find one near you and buy it. Also, if your store does not carry it, you need to go to the customer service desk and ask them to carry it. This marks the first time the word ATHEIST is on the shelves of the magazine racks, facing out, for all to see. It will add value to the magazine for the local affiliates, the local partners, and American Atheists. We can sell more ad space, help out the Clergy Project, and add legitimacy to the movement on the whole. This takes us one big step closer to normalization.
At Barnes & Noble in Cincinnati, Ohio
Progress is fun!
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American Atheists Affiliates

For detailed information visit Atheists.org/Affiliates or contact Stuart Bechman at SBechman@Atheists.org.
ALASKA
Alaskan Atheists
ILLINOIS
The Chicago Freethought Project IL/WI Stateline Atheists Society IWU Atheist, Agnostics, and Non-Religious The Secular Segment
NEW YORK
Hudson Valley Humanists New York City Atheists Westchester Atheists
ALABAMA
Alabama Atheists & Agnostics (UA) Auburn Atheists & Agnostics Birmingham Atheists Meetup Marshall County Atheists & Agnostics Montgomery Area Freethought Association North Alabama Freethought Association UAH Non-Theists
KANSAS
Kansas City Atheist Coalition University of Kansas Society of OpenMinded Atheists and Agnostics
OHIO
Free Inquiry Group Freethought Dayton Humanist Community of Central Ohio Mid-Ohio Atheists
ARKANSAS
Arkansas Society of Freethinkers Ark-La-Tex Freethinkers, Atheists, Agnostics & Humanists
KENTUCKY
Humanist Forum of Central Kentucky Lexington Atheists Louisville Atheists and Freethinkers
OKLAHOMA
Oklahoma Atheists Atheist Community of Tulsa
ARIZONA
Tucson Atheists
LOUISIANA
New Orleans Secular Humanist Association
PENNSYLVANIA
NorthEast Pennsylvania Freethought Society PA Non-Believers*
CALIFORNIA (North)
Atheist Advocates of San Francisco Atheists and Other Freethinkers Contra Costa Atheists & Freethinkers East Bay Atheists San Francisco Atheists Santa Cruz Atheists
MASSACHUSETTS
Atheists of Greater Lowell Boston Atheists
SOUTH CAROLINA
Piedmont Humanists Secular Humanists of the Lowcountry
MARYLAND
Freethinkers Union at McDaniel College Skeptics Freethinkers Agnostics and Atheists (aka Maryland Freethinkers)
TENNESSEE
Memphis Freethought Alliance Nashville Secular Life Rationalists of East Tennessee
CALIFORNIA (South)
Atheist Coalition of San Diego Backyard Skeptics Humanist Society of Santa Barbara New Atheists of East County Orange County Atheists
MICHIGAN
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State Directors
DIRECTOR OF STATE OPERATIONS Ken Loukinen (S. Florida Reg. Dir.) 7972 Pines Blvd., #246743 Pembroke Pines, FL 33024 954-907-7893 kloukinen@atheists.org MILITARY DIRECTOR Justin Griffith jgriffith@atheists.org MARINES LIAISON Paul Loebe PLoebe@atheists.org ARIZONA Don Lacey P.O. Box 1161 Vail, AZ 85641 520-370-8420 dlacey@atheists.org CALIFORNIA Larry Hicok P.O. Box 277 Pinole, CA 94564 510-222-7580 lhicok@atheists.org CONNECTICUT Dennis Paul Himes 860-454-8301 dphimes@atheists.org GEORGIA Scott Savage SSavage@atheists.org IOWA Randy Henderson P.O. Box 375 Ankeny, IA 50023 rhenderson@atheists.org MASSACHUSETTS Zach Bos zbos@atheists.org MINNESOTA Randall Tigue rtigue@atheists.org MISSOURI Greg Lammers P.O. Box 1352 Columbia, MO 65205 573-289-7633 glammers@atheists.org
For detailed information visit Atheists.org/State-Directors or contact Ken Loukinen at KLoukinen@Atheists.org NEBRASKA William Newman WNewman@atheists.org NEW YORK Michael Dorian MDorian@atheists.org NORTH CAROLINA Wayne Aiken P.O. Box 30904 Raleigh, NC 27622 919-954-5956 waiken@atheists.org OHIO John Welte jwelte@atheists.org OKLAHOMA Ron Pittser rpittser@atheists.org PENNSYLVANIA Ernest Perce eperce@atheists.org RHODE ISLAND Brian Stack bstack@atheists.org TEXAS AronRa Nelson AronRa@atheists.org Dick Hogan, Regional Dir., Dallas/Ft. Worth DHogan@athiests.org VIRGINIA Rick Wingrove 703-433-2464 rwingrove@atheists.org WASHINGTON Wendy Britton 12819 SE 38th St., Ste. 485 Bellevue, WA 98006 425-269-9108 wbritton@atheists.org WEST VIRGINIA Charles Pique P.O. Box 7444 Charleston, WV 25356 304-776-5377 cpique@atheists.org
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Aims and Purposes

merican Atheists, Inc. is a nonprofit, nonpolitical, educational organization dedicated to the complete and absolute separation of state and church, accepting the explanation of Thomas Jefferson that the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States was meant to create a wall of separation between state and church.
American Atheists is organized:

To stimulate and promote freedom of thought and inquiry concerning religious beliefs, creeds, dogmas, tenets, rituals, and practices; To collect and disseminate information, data, and literature on all religions and promote a more thorough understanding of them, their origins, and their histories; To advocate, labor for, and promote in all lawful ways the complete and absolute separation of state and church; To act as a watchdog to challenge any attempted breach of the wall of separation between state and church; To advocate, labor for, and promote in all lawful ways the establishment and maintenance of a thoroughly secular system of education available to all; To encourage the development and public acceptance of a humane ethical system stressing the mutual sympathy, understanding, and interdependence of all people and the corresponding responsibility of each individual in relation to society; To develop and propagate a social philosophy in which humankind is central and must itself be the source of strength, progress, and ideals for the well-being and happiness of humanity; To promote the study of the arts and sciences and of all problems affecting the maintenance, perpetuation, and enrichment of human (and other) life; and To engage in such social, educational, legal, and cultural activity as will be useful and beneficial to the members of American Atheists and to society as a whole.
Definitions
theism involves the mental attitude that unreservedly accepts the supremacy of reason and aims at establishing a lifestyle and ethical outlook verifiable by experience and the scientific method, independent of all arbitrary assumptions of authority and creeds. aterialism declares that the cosmos is devoid of immanent conscious purpose; that it is governed by its own inherent, immutable, and impersonal laws; that there is no supernatural interference in human life; that humankind, finding the resources within themselves, can and must create their own destiny. It teaches that we must prize our life on earth and strive always to improve it. It holds that human beings are capable of creating a social system based on reason and justice. Materialisms faith is in humankind and their ability to transform the world culture by their own efforts. This is a commitment that is, in its very essence, life-asserting. It considers the struggle for progress as a moral obligation that is impossible without noble ideas that inspire us to bold, creative works.
A A
theism is the comprehensive world view of persons who are free from theism and have freed themselves of supernatural beliefs altogether. It is predicated on ancient Greek Materialism.
M
M
aterialism holds that our potential for good and more fulfilling cultural development is, for all practical purposes, unlimited.
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1st QUARTER 2013 www.atheists.org | AMERICAN ATHEIST | 45
In Memoriam
by Frank Zindler
Conrad Goeringer
July 23, 1949 - November 3, 2012

Photo by Edwin Kagin
the board to rescue the organization from dissolution and save the Charles E. Stevens American Atheist Library and Archives from destruction. By then, he had relocated to Ocean City, New Jersey, and when the American Atheists Center was moved from Austin, Texas, to Cranford, New Jersey, in 1999, he helped organize and curate the library. He also started to catalogue Madalyn Murray OHairs personal papers, but more urgent duties at the center continually interfered with his completing that project. For many years, Conrad was a regular columnist for this magazine, and when it was revived after the Murray OHair murders, he became part of the editorial staff, as well as that of the American Atheist Newsletter. He was a frequent speaker at our conventions, always giving hard-hitting, well-researched presentations. David Chris Allen, a current member of the Board of Directors who joined the movement at about the same time as Conrad, recalls that in the 1980s and 1990s Conrad produced Dial-An-Atheist, a weekly message that included music, sound effects, and spoofs of TV shows and commercials. After the Internet took off, he produced AANEWS, a subscription e-mail service. Arlene-Marie, founder of the Michigan chapter of American Atheists and former member of the Board of Directors, knew Conrad longer than anyone now alive. She reminisces, I first met Conrad during his hippie years with his long ponytail and fringed suede jacketsa time when his passion for social justice and equality made a lasting impression on me. While we could spend hours talking about those issues and Atheism in general, it was obvious that Conrad was a very private person. Only occasionally, and very briefly, would he speak about himself or his lifestyle. I wish, for instance, he would have told me more about the beautiful multiethnic womanas he described herto whom he was once married, but alas, I dont even know her name. I often worked with Conrad, and much can be said about his dedication. When he was in his task mode, he had little time for niceties, often leaving the impression that he was distant. Though he was a powerful speaker, he shied away from photos or any overt attention. But he possessed great wisdom and a unique sense of humor. He often said, Life is not a rehearsal. So be sure to eat dessert first. American Atheists and all who loved and respected Conrad express their profound gratitude to New Jersey antiquarian bookseller Harry Reist, his closest friend. Orchestrating Conrads healthcare, rescuing his library of over 4,000 volumes, and managing his estate, Harry was ever faithful in taking care of Conrads needs and offering comfort. A voice that sounded forth for reason has fallen silent, but his ideas continue to reverberate among those who knew him and in the minds of those who still can read his essays, articles, and speeches in the American Atheist on-line archives and elsewhere on the Internet.
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n November 3, scant hours before clocks were made to fall one hour behind, a clock that chronicled the course of freedoms thoughts, was halted altogether. At about 10:30 p.m., Conrad Goeringer slipped from sleep to death when he succumbed to the complications of belatedly treated diabetes mellitus. Born in Philadelphia to a fanatically Catholic family, Comrade Conrad grew up in the Cape May region of New Jersey, where his father was a prominent surgeon. Roman Catholic boarding schools made the misery of his early life, and little is known about him before he became an Atheist activist in Tucson, Arizona, in the early 1980s. An avid amateur astronomer, he had moved there from the East Coast to enjoy the clear night atmosphere of the Sonoran Desert. Appropriately, he opened up Goodbooks, an antiquarian bookstore specializing in rare books of interest to astronomy enthusiasts. Soon after arriving in Arizona, he helped to found the Tucson Chapter of American Atheists and quickly caught the attention of Madalyn Murray OHair, who increasingly entrusted him with important tasks and came to treat him as another son. He was a member of the Board of Directors of American Atheists, Inc., at the time of the disappearance of the Murray-OHair family in 1995. (It wasnt until five years later that police confirmed they had been brutally murdered and dismembered.) Conrad worked mightily with the rest of
March 28 31, 2013 Austin, Texas the birthplace of American Atheists Hyatt Regency Austin
Featuring: Pete Stark, Cara Santa Maria, Seth Andrews, Matt Dillahunty, Ed Buckner,
Katherine Stewart, Richard Carrier, Robert Price, Linda LaScola, Jerry DeWitt, Teresa MacBain, Margaret Downey, Damon Fowler, Jessica Ahlquist, Greta Christina, Troy Conrad, Hector Avalos, Ryan Cragun, AronRa, Jamila Bey, Edwina Rogers, Eddie Tabash, Indra Zuno, AC Grayling, Janet Heimlich, Jay Jay French, and more!
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American Atheists

FIRST QUARTER 2013

Its only the beginning.

1st Quarter 2013

Photo by John Welte

Letter from the

4 | AMERICAN ATHEIST | www.atheists.org

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www.atheists.org | AMERICAN ATHEIST | 5

From Christian Broadcaster to Thinking Atheist

Seth Andrews is Deconverted

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www.atheists.org | AMERICAN ATHEIST | 7

8 | AMERICAN ATHEIST | www.atheists.org

Through the Catholic Encyclopedia

My guess is that Eden is located very near Jacks beanstalk.

Bible facts do not fit with history, logic, archeology, or physics.

Why Its Difficult To Be An Atheist From Day One To Death

Part Two: School Daze

This is, of course, largely how Christianity maintains itself:

Its hard to come out of the closet.

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If they are to love you, let them love you.

dont consider your work done.

If you are out of the closet,

Opus Dei and the Knights of Malta

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www.atheists.org | AMERICAN ATHEIST | 17

Sic transit gloria mundi.

18 | AMERICAN ATHEIST | www.atheists.org

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Voices of Reason Rally

From American Atheists Marine Liaison

David Petraeus, Spiritual Fitness Guru?

Photo from Wiki Commons

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www.atheists.org | AMERICAN ATHEIST | 21

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American Atheists Files Suit Against the IRS

Photo by Rick Wingrove

Photo by Michael Dorian

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Times Square Billboard

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www.atheists.org | AMERICAN ATHEIST | 25

Science Interview Series

Its Never Simple

Yomut Turkmen - Photos by William Irons

Gods Non-Existence Makes Sense

The compelling evidence from logic, evil, and scripture

Photo from Wiki Commons

30 | AMERICAN ATHEIST | www.atheists.org

Some thought it was turtles

all the way down.

December 21, 1925 October 20, 2012

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