American Heathen®

Here’s your week in Freethought History. This is more than just a calendar of events or mini-biographies – it’s a reminder that, no matter how isolated and alone we may feel at times, we as freethinkers are neither unique nor alone in the world.

Last Sunday, May 19, but in 1536, Anne Boleyn, the second wife of Henry VIII, was executed for adultery. King Henry married her, secretly, in early 1533, when she was pregnant with the future Queen Elizabeth. But for Henry, an heir was not good enough: Anne failed to produce a male heir. It is instructive to note that adultery was treated by ancient civilizations as a property crime, with punishment benefiting only an injured husband. The biblical story of Potiphar’s wife was plagiarized from the Egyptian “Tale of Two Brothers” (created before 1194 BCE) to illustrate a similar condemnation in the Old Testament. Adultery is addressed by the Seventh Commandment, but, outside of fundamentalist Christian or Muslim circles, the penalties for adultery are not so drastic, if there are any at all. In fact, our modern, secular society sees adultery rarely punished in law, except as grounds for divorce. And the injury is considered equally grievous for a husband or a wife. Yet the “property crime” mentality persists, as evidenced in the 2002 film Unfaithful, in which the aggrieved husband kills his wife’s lover but not his wife – both of whom participated in the adultery. And in the case of Anne Boleyn, one might think divorce a lesser crime than execution, but that wouldn’t have been the “Christian” thing to do!

Last Monday, May 20, but in 1958, talk radio host, political analyst and son of 40th President Ronald Reagan, Ron Reagan was born. Born in Los Angeles to his father’s second wife, Nancy Reagan née Davis, and reared in Sacramento during his father’s terms as Governor (1967-1975), at age 12 he declared to his parents that he wouldn’t be going to church anymore because he is an atheist. The younger Reagan dropped out of Yale University in 1976 after one semester to become a ballet dancer and joined the Joffrey Ballet, with whom he danced from 1979-1983. After his father completed his second term as President, in 1989 Ron Reagan became politically active – explaining that he had held his tongue during Ronald Reagan’s presidency to avoid creating the impression that he and his father were on bad terms because of political differences. From 2008-2010, “The Ron Reagan Show” aired on the now-defunct Air America Media. Reagan is currently a political commentator on MSNBC.

At his father’s funeral, in Simi Valley, California, on 11 June 2004, Ron Reagan said, “Dad was also a deeply, unabashedly religious man. But he never made the fatal mistake of so many politicians wearing his faith on his sleeve to gain political advantage. True, after he was shot and nearly killed early in his presidency, he came to believe that God had spared him in order that he might do good. But he accepted that as a responsibility, not a mandate. And there is a profound difference.” As for his own beliefs, in an interview on “Larry King Live” (26 June 2004), King asked Reagan if he might run for political office. Reagan replied, “No, I’m not really cut out to be a politician…. I’m an atheist. So there you go right there. I can’t be elected to anything because polls all say that people won’t elect an atheist.” While interviewing convicted murderer Charles Manson, Reagan allowed Manson to explain his “message,” then Manson asked Reagan if he believed in God. “No, I do not,” Reagan replied. In accepting the “Emperor Has No Clothes Award” from the Freedom From Religion Foundation, on 6 November 2009, Reagan recalled as a youth reading the Bible and finding God “positively psychotic,” claiming that people despise atheists “because they’re terrified about the weakness of their own faith.” In February 2010, Ron Reagan was named to the Freedom From Religion Foundation’s Honorary Board of distinguished achievers.

Last Tuesday, May 21, but in 1688, English essayist, critic, satirist and poet Alexander Pope was born. The son of a Catholic convert, and in spite of the anti-Catholic prejudice of the time, Pope became one of the brightest lights of the Enlightenment. By the time he published his Essay on Man (1733), Pope had abandoned Catholicism, and begun associating with skeptics. In his Essay on Man we find an example of Pope’s Deism: “Know thou thyself, presume not God to scan; / The proper study of mankind is man.” Pope was temperate in an age of heavy drinking and drug use, as well as kind and generous to friends – among whom he counted Jonathan Swift, the author of Gulliver’s Travels. Although the Catholic Encyclopedia claims him for one of the faithful, in an earlier age, a Deist of Pope’s beliefs would have been tried and either burned or hanged for impiety. Today, no longer having the power to do that, the Catholic Church lovingly takes him in his arms, so long at it can call him a Catholic poet. No matter: it was Alexander Pope who wrote, “To err is human, to forgive divine.”

Last Wednesday, May 22, but in 1813, German Romantic composer Richard Wagner was born. Wagner was largely self-taught in music. He is justly criticized for his anti-Semitism, but that Adolph Hitler agreed with Wagner in this respect is not Wagner’s fault. And opera (Music Drama) was never the same after Wagner. His librettos, most of which he wrote himself, were chiefly based on Germanic traditions and legends, so his investment in Christian theology was slight: one critic said that Wagner was “a Christian in a large sense, but not a man of the Church,” and that he had “little taste for the otherworldly speculations of dogmatic theology.” Wagner subscribed to the Atheistic views of German philosopher Karl Feuerbach, but had a sentimental regard for Christian mythology. Therefore, Nietzsche’s attack on Wagner for reverting to Christianity was unfair: Wagner wrote his most powerful music in his Ring years, when he was an Atheist.

Last Thursday, May 23, but in 1265 under the sign of Gemini, which places the date between 18 May and 17 June, the author of the Divine Comedy, Dante Alighieri, was born. Dante is chiefly remembered for his three-part epic poem, the Divine Comedy (Divina Commedia), written in vernacular Italian when most writers used Latin. What is telling about the Divine Comedy is that it was the first book written in Christian Europe since Augustine’s City of God (426) which any but a professor of literature now reads – including the pagan epic Beowulf (c. 725). Think of it. In nearly 900 years of the Ages of Faith, there was nothing written, inspired by Christian civilization, that is now considered of literary merit! There is no comparably dry period of world literature, before or since. The Catholic Encyclopedia rather desperately claims Dante for the Church, but it is dishonest to claim, as the Catholic Encyclopedia does, that Dante’s “theological position as an orthodox Catholic has been amply and repeatedly vindicated,” when there are numerous and important doctrinal differences in his greatest work. But Dante’s standing as a precursor of the Reformation, and as a giant of early Italian poetry, is beyond debate.

Yesterday, May 24, but in 1844, Samuel F.B. Morse sent the message “What hath God wrought,” which inaugurated long-distance coded communication over the first telegraph line strung from Baltimore, Maryland, to his colleague Alfred Vail and an astonished Congress at the Old Supreme Court Chamber in the United States Capitol. The four words are the coda to a bible verse in Numbers 23:23. “What hath God wrought” seems a peculiar text for a telegraph transmission – why give credit to God for what man hath wrought? – but considered in context, the choice of the biblical line is better understood: Samuel Morse (1791-1872) was an organizer and polemicist of the anti-immigrant and anti-Roman Catholic “Nativist” movement of the mid-19th century. Moreover, more than a decade before the American Civil War, Morse came down on the wrong side of history in defending the institution of slavery in the United States as divinely sanctioned. So “What hath God wrought” comes from the same source that propagates bigotry and oppression. Giving credit to God for a work of man may in some circles be a sign of humility, but it is better described as a characteristic of intellectual slavery. It is akin to thanking God when the surgeon, or a well researched and tested drug or vaccine, saves your life, without any measure of help from skygods.

Today, May 25, but in 1939, English actor and LGBT activist Sir Ian McKellen was born. In addition to his many acclaimed theatrical roles, McKellen showed up in memorable film roles, such as the Middle Earth wizard Gandalf in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, based on the books by J.R.R. Tokein, and such films as And the Band Played On (1993), Richard III (1995), Gods and Monsters (1998), Apt Pupil (1998) and King Lear (2008). Although still dealing in magic, the Lord of the Rings films somehow dodged much of the fundamentalist Christian outrage consequent to the Harry Potter films. “[M]aybe Tolkien’s work is relatively immune from Christian attacks because of his own Catholic faith,” mused McKellen in 2002, “On the other hand, an atheist friend of mine said how refreshing it was to see a film about good and evil which doesn’t link morality to religion.” Defending his homosexuality in defiance of the Bible, McKellen said to a Christian fan, “The history of your church is the history of how the world changes. Re-interpretation of the Bible is part of it. As an atheist I don’t accept the Bible is the word of a non-existent God. And as for the laws of the land (so often based on Judaeo/Christianity) I prefer the view of Thomas Jefferson quoted on the wall of his memorial in Washington DC: ‘I am not an advocate for frequent changes in law and constitution, but laws and institutions go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind … We might as well require a man to wear the same coat as fitted him when a boy.’” “I was brought up a Christian, low church,” said McKellen in a 1996 profile, “and I like the community of churchgoing. That’s rather been replaced for me by the community of people I work with. I like a sense of family, of people working together. But I’m an atheist. So God, if She exists, isn’t really a part of my life.”

Other birthdays and events this week—

May 20: English philosopher and political economist John Stuart Mill was born (1806).

May 20: French novelist and playwright Honoré de Balzac was born (1799).

May 20: British-American broadcaster Louis Theroux, best known for his BBC series Weird Weekends, was born (1970).

May 25: Canadian novelist and short story writer W. P. Kinsella, well known for his 1982 novel Shoeless Joe, which was adapted into the 1989 film Field of Dreams (1935).

May 25: American essayist, lecturer, and poet Ralph Waldo Emerson, who led the Transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century (1803).

May 25: Pope Gregory VII Hildebrand, “Cursed be he that refraineth his sword from blood” died (1085).

We can look back, but the Golden Age of Freethought is now. You can find full versions of these pages in Freethought history at the links in the American Heathen blog, which take you to my blog, FreethoughtAlmanac.com.

ATTENTION – American Heathen® authors and contributors would like to ask you to make a donation to the Oklahoma Red Cross for Moore, Oklahoma tornado victims. PLEASE make a donation. The tornado tore through Moore around 3pm CDT on May 20th. The tornado path is approximately 10 miles northwest of the American Heathen® office. Please donate today. Thank you.

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(The following post is courtesy of blog contributor/author John Mill)

What can you say about a week that starts with George Carlin and ends with Bertrand Russell? It’s a week in Freethought History! This is more than just a calendar of events or mini-biographies – it’s a reminder that, no matter how isolated and alone we may feel at times, we as freethinkers are neither unique nor alone in the world.

Last Sunday, May 12, but in 1937, legendary American comic George Carlin was born. Notable as a social critic, after his inspiration, Lenny Bruce, Carlin’s “Seven Dirty Words” routine brought about the 1978 U.S. Supreme Court case F.C.C. v. Pacifica Foundation, in which the Court affirmed the government’s power to abridge free speech on the public airwaves when it includes “indecent” material. George Carlin summed up his feeling about Christianity by saying, “I would never want to be a member of a group whose symbol was a guy nailed to two pieces of wood.” Carlin minced no words about his Atheism, as he said in 1999:

When it comes to bullshit, big-time, major league bullshit, you have to stand in awe of the all-time champion of false promises and exaggerated claims, religion. No contest. Religion has actually convinced people that there’s an invisible man living in the sky who watches everything you do, every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a special list of ten things he does not want you to do. And if you do any of these ten things, he has a special place, full of fire and smoke and burning and torture and anguish, where he will send you to live and suffer and burn and choke and scream and cry forever and ever ’til the end of time! But He loves you. He loves you and He needs money!”

Also last Sunday, but in 1907, four-time Oscar-winning American actress, and “First Lady of Cinema,” Katherine Hepburn was born. She was the daughter of a doctor and a suffragette, both of whom always encouraged her to speak her mind and develop it fully. Hepburn distinguished herself in strong leading-lady roles. From Morning Glory in 1933, which won her her first Oscar – to On Golden Pond in 1981, which won her her fourth Oscar, Hepburn was considered a national treasure. “I’m an atheist, and that’s it,” Hepburn told the Ladies’ Home Journal in 1991. “I believe there’s nothing we can know except that we should be kind to each other and do what we can for each other.” And, as for religion in politics, said Katharine Hepburn, “Our Constitution was not intended to be used by … any group to foist its personal religious beliefs on the rest of us.”

Last Monday, May 13, but in 1572, the pope who reformed the calendar, Gregory XIII, was elected at age 70. The former Ugo Boncompagni was noted for his attempt to force Catholicism back onto the intransigent Protestants – indeed, he struck a gold medal commemorating the massacre of Huguenots on Saint Bartholomew’s Day, 1572. But Gregory XIII is also remembered in history for one innovation: the reform of the calendar that now bears his name. For 1500 years, Christendom had been using the Julian calendar, but 13th century astronomers – educated by Arabic translations of classic texts – had noted that Easter was drifting into summer and separating from the Vernal Equinox; that the assumption that a year comprised exactly 365 days plus six hours was about 11 minutes too long, but that those 11 minutes added up considerably over time! In the papal bull Inter Gravissimas, signed on 24 February 1582 (Old Style), Pope Gregory XIII declared that October 4 should immediately be followed by October 15, omitting the ten days between. Catholic Europe, and especially the vehemently anti-Protestant Gregory, saw the Gregorian calendar as a weapon in the Counter-Reformation, a singularly stupid strategy. As a result, Protestant countries in particular, including the United States, took centuries to adopt the new calendar and enter a more astronomically accurate age.

Last Tuesday, May 14, but in 1948, the State of Israel was declared. Sadly, a homeland for Holocaust survivors and other Jews did not end anti-Semitism. The oppression of the Jews throughout the ancient world and through the Middle Ages has been well documented. Evidence of anti-Semitism has been found in the writings from Alexandria, Egypt, as early as the 4th century, BCE. Early Christian anti-Semitism arose out of doctrinal differences, as the new Christian cult began to believe it had to make the break from its Jewish roots. In 1144, a “blood libel” began in England that Jews murdered Christian children and used their blood in the preparation of their Passover meal. Jews fared little better in Muslim countries. In theory, they were to enjoy the protection of the true believers; in practice, Jews were segregated, made to wear distinctive clothing, and otherwise treated as second-class citizens. Although there were bright spots, Jews were expelled from Muslim and Christian countries at whim. Twentieth century Anti-Semitism was driven by envy of perceived economic dominance. The Nazi innovation was in replacing the religious motive for hating Jews with a racial motive – that Jews are by nature an inferior race, not just unbelievers. Adolf Hitler read The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a Russian forgery appearing in 1905, and commented on them in Mein Kampf. Although Jews co-operated with Catholics in opposing Hitler, the Catholics made a separate peace with the Nazis and abandoned the Jews to the tender mercies of Hitler’s Reich.

Last Wednesday, May 15, but in 1891, Pope Leo XIII issued the encyclical Rerum novarum, on the “Condition of Labor,” about the relations of employer and employee. That the churches provided any service whatsoever to working people until the 20th century, aside from relieving them under false pretenses of much of their hard-earned money, is about as phony a claim as that of faith-healers. “Let it be taken for granted,” wrote Leo, “that remuneration should be sufficient to maintain the wage-earner in reasonable and frugal comfort.” But when asked to define just what such a “living wage” should be, Leo fell mute. Worse, in 1931 Pius XI issued the encyclical Quadragesimo anno, which (¶¶ 91-94, 133) endorsed the Fascist-Corporate State. The Nazis eagerly complied, as did many other (mostly Catholic) countries. So, without God’s help, workers had to fight for and win the things we take for granted today: the eight-hour day, a five-day work week, overtime pay, workers compensation, retirement, health care and, most especially, the right to organize.

Also last Wednesday, May 15, but in 1689, English writer Lady Mary Wortley Montague was born. Self-educated in her family’s extensive private library, Mary began writing prose and poetry at an early age She taught herself Latin and translated Epictetus at age 20. Against her father’s wishes, she married Edward Wortley Montagu, a grandson of the Earl of Sandwich, in 1712. While in London, her house became a social and intellectual center for deists. In her time, she was considered the most accomplished woman in Europe. In 1716, she followed her husband to the Ottoman Turkish capital, Constantinople (قسطنطینیه; modern Istanbul) where Edward had been appointed Ambassador. It was there that Mary wrote her Letters from Turkey (1725), “the very first example of a secular work by a woman about the Muslim Orient,” in which she describes considerable deism and skepticism among educated Muslims in Turkey. The letters provided a valuable female perspective on the country where she spent two years of her life. Her personal letters, published in 1906, are full of rationalist sentiments: “Priests can lie, and the mob believe, all over the world,” she writes (during the embassy to Constantinople, 1717). And she condemns “the quackery of all the Churches” and, while professing a belief in “the Author of Nature,” despises “all creeds and theological whimsies.”

Last Thursday, May 16, but in 1912, Pulitzer Prize-winning American author “Studs” Terkel was born. Terkel received the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction in 1985 for The Good War. He has also written such memorable oral histories as Hard Times (1970) and Working (1974). Born into a Jewish family, this self-described “guerrilla journalist with a tape recorder” considered himself an atheist. In a 2001 Rolling Stone interview, Terkel said, “I think of myself as an agnostic, but an agnostic is really a cowardly atheist.” He goes on to say “at the same time I envy those who have faith. Well, I have faith, but they have a religious faith. The recurring phrase used by people in my book is ‘I am not religious, I am spiritual,’ and they don’t mean just Buddhism or pantheism, they mean: ‘I want to believe, but not in something connected to an institution’ – Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Muslim, whatever it might be.” On the NPR program “The Connection,” broadcast on 15 January 2002 – four years before he died at age 96 – and speaking of death and dying, Terkel called himself an atheist several times.

Yesterday, May 17, but in 1971, the Christian musical Godspell opened on Broadway in New York City. Godspell ran for 2,651 performances on Broadway and features the parables and lessons of the Gospel according to Matthew, rather than the life of Jesus. The lessons in Godspell, are surprisingly secular; the parables are of the simple-minded 1970s variety: a gentle Jesus preaches virtuous behavior, adoration of God, doing good works, promoting justice and mercy, and rejecting materialism – without the inherent irony that, if you reject materialism, you pretty much guarantee you’ll never have anything material to reject! None of these things, except for loving God, requires a belief in the supernatural. However, we know that hell awaits the unbeliever because the song, “Learn Your Lessons Well,” threatens “You better pay attention, / Build your comprehension, / There’s gonna be a quiz at your ascension. / Not to mention any threat of hell, / But if you’re smart you’ll learn your lessons well!” In a bizarre twist for any Christian, Godspell ends with the crucifixion – but there is no mention of a resurrection!

Today, May 18, but in 1872, British mathematician, philosopher and Nobel laureate for literature, Bertrand Russell was born. His chief work was the Principia Mathematica (1910-1913), a three-volume work on the foundations of mathematics, co-authored by Alfred North Whitehead. Russell exercised his social conscience, writing and protesting against World War One, for which he lost a teaching post and later was jailed; protesting against nuclear weapons; and encouraging Rationalism and sexual freedom. Indeed, he wrote, “Religions which condemn the pleasures of sense drive men to seek the pleasures of power. Throughout history, power has been the vice of the ascetic.” Throughout his life, Russell was an outspoken critic of religion. In Why I Am Not a Christian, he wrote, “You find as you look round the world that every single bit of progress in humane feeling, every improvement in the criminal law, every step toward the diminution of war, every step toward better treatment of the colored races, … every moral progress that there has been in the world, has been consistently opposed by the organized Churches of the world. I say quite deliberately that the … Christian religion … has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world.”

Other birthdays and events this week—

May 12: English nurse and Crimean War mathematician Florence Nightingale was born (1820).

May 15: The National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA) was formed – in spite of church opposition to votes for women (1869).

We can look back, but the Golden Age of Freethought is now. You can find full versions of these pages in Freethought history at the links in the American Heathen blog, which take you to my blog, FreethoughtAlmanac.com.

(The following post is courtesy of blog contributor/author John Mill)

Here’s your Week in Freethought History: This is more than just a calendar of events or mini-biographies – it’s a reminder that, no matter how isolated and alone we may feel at times, we as freethinkers are neither unique nor alone in the world.

Last Sunday, May 5, but in 1811, English-born American physician, chemist and historian, John William Draper was born. It was his 1874 History of the Conflict between Religion and Science, preceding the two-volume work of Andrew Dickson White’s by 11 years, that stirred the notion that religion and science are irreconcilable. In his introduction, he writes, “The antagonism we … witness between Religion and Science is the continuation of a struggle that commenced when Christianity began to attain political power. … [F]aith is in its nature unchangeable, stationary; Science is in its nature progressive; and eventually a divergence between them … must take place. … As to Science, … she has never subjected any one to mental torment, physical torture, least of all to death, for the purpose of upholding or promoting her ideas.” Although Draper believed in God and life after death, his skepticism toward organized religion (Lindberg and Numbers, 1986, accused him of “strident anti-Catholicism”) made him a Freethinker until the day he died.

Outliving Draper, however, was an idea, inspired by the title of his 1874 work but further developed by Andrew Dickson White in his 1895 History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom, known as the “Conflict Thesis.” Although modern scholars, as Wikipedia would have us believe, consider “Conflict” impolite if not downright antagonistic to religion, the Conflict Thesis is essentially correct as Draper and White formulated it. Critics seem to assume that Draper and White were not first-rate scholars in their own right, or that because they wrote in the 19th century, their scholarship has been invalidated by that of the 20th century. Both assumptions are false, even (perhaps especially) if you accept the “non-overlapping magisterial” (NOMA) view advocated by Stephen Jay Gould – that science and religion each have “a legitimate magisterium, or domain of teaching authority,” and these two domains do not overlap.

Anyone who has read Draper and White, and independently verified their sources, would be hard pressed to fault White on his scholarship and the thoroughness of his research. Their conclusions seem to be ratified by modern scientists, such as Dawkins and Hawking, who are not tempted to make peace with the hostile tribes for the sole purpose of “live and let live.” Some critics of the Conflict Thesis, such as Science & Religion (ed. Ferngren, 2002), Science and Religion (Brooke, 1991) and God and Nature (Lindberg, Numbers, 1986), feature arguments that run the gamut from ahistorical to silly straw men. The consistent mistake is their refusal to see that religion, i.e., religious faith, is not and never has been a way of “knowing” anything. Religion is rather wishful thinking tied with a bow of science-stopping authoritarianism. Science and religion are always in conflict because one is falsifiable and the other is … religion.

Last Monday, May 6, but in 1856, Austrian neurologist and (much caricatured) founding father of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud was born. Freud founded modern psychoanalysis and guided the systematic study of neuroses out of the supernatural realm of demon-possession and into the science of physical causes of mental maladies. And Freud turned the old theory on its head, considering religion the disease rather than the cure of mental problems. In 1927, Freud wrote, “Religion … comprises a system of wishful illusions together with a disavowal of reality, such as we find in an isolated form nowhere else but in amnesia, in a state of blissful hallucinatory confusion.” In a letter to Charles Singer, Freud wrote, “Neither in my private life nor in my writings, have I ever made a secret of being an out-and-out unbeliever.”

Last Tuesday, May 7, but in 1711, Scottish philosopher, economist and essayist, known for his empiricism and skepticism, David Hume was born. Hume professed a belief in God. However, when he applied the scientific method to determining how knowledge is acquired, and formulated the theory that all knowledge is subjective, he pretty much undercut the basis for even Deism. In his Natural History of Religion, he wrote, “Examine the religious principles which have, in fact, prevailed in the world, and you will scarcely be persuaded that they are anything but sick men’s dreams.” Hume was friends with Adam Smith and James Boswell. It was Boswell who attended him as Hume lay dying in 1776 and, hoping to convert him at last, was frustrated when Hume said flatly that “the morality of every religion was bad” and that “when he heard a man was religious, he concluded that he was a rascal.”

Last Wednesday, May 8, but in 1737, English historian and Member of Parliament, Edward Gibbon was born. His father died in 1770, leaving Gibbon enough money to begin writing the first volume of his masterwork, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, which appeared in 1776-1788. It was Gibbon’s aim to elevate history above “the register of the crimes, follies and misfortunes of mankind,” and to wrest the study of the past from clerical confines. He outraged the clerics of his time by describing Christianity as a factor that hastened the decay of Ancient Rome. Gibbon wrote, “… the church and even the state were distracted by religious factions, whose conflicts were sometimes bloody and always implacable; the attention of the emperors was diverted from camps to synods; the Roman world was oppressed by a new species of tyranny, and the persecuted sects became the secret enemies of their country.” Although Gibbon is accused of Atheism and of bias against religion, in his master work he is more charitable toward Christianity than it deserves.

Last Thursday, May 9, but in 1960, the Food & Drug Administration approved the first oral contraceptive, now known as “The Pill”. The effect on sexual freedom for women, a freedom until that time enjoyed only by men, was astonishing. The pill was envisioned by legendary birth control crusader Margaret Sanger. Sanger was in her 80s in 1953 when she met with Roman Catholic Dr. Gregory Pincus (1903-1967). She gave him $150,000 and tasked him to research and develop an oral contraceptive for women that was safe and effective. In defiance of his church, and amid much negative publicity for attempting to thwart God’s will – a will Sanger once described as “biological slavery” – Dr. Pincus succeeded. The reaction of the churches was predictably punitive. The reaction of the Catholic Church in particular was to cobble together reasons why “artificial” forms of birth control were bad and “natural” birth control – also known as death – was good. The result, an encyclical from Pope Paul VI in 1968, known as Humanae Vitae (Human Life), was a masterpiece of mendacity and slippery scholarship.

But where tiresome scholarship and dry historical narrative fail to make the point, it was for country music singer Loretta Lynn to clarify the salutary effect on real women’s lives by sharing her own story, that of a wife liberated from annual pregnancies. In 1975, Lynn released the chart-topping song called simply, “The Pill,” perhaps for the first time frankly publicizing the then-controversial idea of liberation for women through contraception. Many country-western radio stations were so scandalized they refused to play the song, but a number of rural physicians admitted that “The Pill” (in music form) had done more to publicize the availability of birth control in isolated areas than all the literature they had released. In fact, the modern world, with its longer lives, survival of women through their childbearing years and material prosperity, is only possible through such “artificial” impositions on God’s plan: The contraceptive pill, and that other artificial stuff humans created, are all that stand between a humane habitation of planet Earth and devastation by overpopulation.

Yesterday, May 10, but in 1933, Nazi book burning. This particular suppression of free speech and ideas was a tactic of Joseph Goebbels’ Ministry of Propaganda. But the burning of books, often culminating in the burning of people (as Heinrich Heine famously observed), is an old idea. Chinese Emperor Qin Shi Huang (秦始皇) – who created and then buried the famous Terra Cotta Warriors in Xi’an, China – before he died in 210 BCE, ordered the burning of most extant books. Just to be sure, he had the leading scholars executed, too. In Christendom, John Calvin was probably the most efficient when, in 1600, he burned Michael Servetus at the stake for heresy, and “around his waist were tied a large bundle of manuscripts and a thick octavo printed book.” After America and her allies invaded Iraq in 2003, Iraq’s national library and the Islamic library in central Baghdad were burned and destroyed. In early March 2001, about 200 right-wing Hindus burned Korans in New Delhi. In May 1981 Sinhalese police officers burned the second largest library in Asia, in northern Sri Lanka, destroying 97,000 books. The largest single act of book burning in modern history took place in August 1992, when the Oriental Institute in Sarajevo was attacked by Serb nationalist forces, who immolated the National and University Library of Bosnia, destroying a priceless collection of over 1.5 million volumes. But it’s the same old story as when the Nazis burned books on this date 79 years ago: “We know better than you do what’s best for you to read.”

Today, May 11, but in 1888, Russian-born American composer and lyricist, Irving Berlin was born. He emigrated from Russia at the age of five and spent his next 95 years becoming one of the most celebrated film and stage songwriters in US history. Berlin wrote perhaps 1,500 songs, including the scores for 19 Broadway shows and 18 Hollywood films. His songs for film were nominated eight times for Academy Awards, including (perhaps surprisingly for a Jew) “Easter Parade,” “White Christmas” and “Happy Holiday.” In her biography of her father, daughter Mary Ellin Barrett refers to the “agnosticism” of the composer of “God Bless America” and describes him as a “nonbeliever.” Irving Berlin follows a long tradition of freethinkers who used the religious vocabulary familiar to the majority.

Coda: Post 9/11, “God Bless America” has turned the 7th inning stretch at baseball games into a religious observance. Fans are now required to stand up and sing Berlin’s 1938 song, often followed by John Denver’s 1974 song “Thank God I’m a Country Boy.” This is regrettable for two reasons: Not only does the show of public piety makes atheist nonparticipants conspicuous, but God is as relevant to baseball as Santa Claus is to the Olympic luge competition. Indeed, the observance trivializes the faith it purports to celebrate – continuing an unfortunate tradition of conflating religion with patriotism.

Other birthdays and events this week—

May 5: German philosopher, socialist economist and historian, known for The Communist Manifesto (1848) and Das Kapital (1867-1894), Karl Marx was born (1818).

May 6: American actor, film director and political activist, George Clooney was born (1961).

May 7: Russian composer of such works as the 1812 Overture, The Nutcracker and the Serenade for Strings, Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky (Пётр Ильи́ч Чайко́вский) was born (1840).

May 7: German composer of such works as the Piano Concerto No. 1 in D Minor, the Symphony No. 1 in C Minor and Variations on a Theme by Paganini, Johannes Brahms was born (1833).

May 7: Victorian English poet and playwright Robert Browning was born (1812).

May 11: American theoretical physicist and Nobel laureate, Richard P. Feynman was born (1918).

We can look back, but the Golden Age of Freethought is now. You can find full versions of these pages in Freethought history at the links in the American Heathen blog, which take you to my blog, FreethoughtAlmanac.com.

(The following commentary is courtesy of blog contributor/author John Mill)

I’ve been thinking about Game of Thrones…

Just once… I’d like to be treated to a popular TV show about a democratic republic with no kings and no thrones and nobody is better than anybody because of what family they were born into but because of great achievements in science and technology.

Where the drama does not hang on the brutalizing of rival clans but on the challenges of facing down nature and prevailing over adversity to achieve the greatest good for the greatest number. Where there is freedom and liberty for all…

Where the action is not tailored to incurious teenagers, mind-numbed by video games, but to insatiably curious adults who desire to learn something about the human condition and who aspire to make the world better and for the species to survive.

But I guess that’s the ultimate fantasy TV show.

(The following post is courtesy of blog contributor/author John Mill)

Here’s your Week in Freethought History: This is more than just a calendar of events or mini-biographies – it’s a reminder that, no matter how isolated and alone we may feel at times, we as freethinkers are neither unique nor alone in the world.

Last Sunday, April 28, but in 1948, the English author of fantasy novels, especially the Discworld series, Terry Pratchett was born. At 17, he started working as a journalist and in 1971 published his first book. Still writing part time, Pratchett published the first novel in his most famous series, Discworld, The Colour of Magic, in 1983. After finishing the fourth Discworld novel, Pratchett turned to writing full time. Discworld has sold more than 70 million copies in 37 languages. His writing has resulted in Pratchett being knighted, OBE (Order of the British Empire), in 2009. Pratchett’s novels typically cast theocrats and narrow-minded fundamentalists as villains – e.g., Vorbis in Small Gods (Discworld series, 1992) – but he says he is sympathetic to the religious impulse per se and describes himself as a “Victorian-style” atheist, in the sense that he rejects supernaturalism but considers himself culturally and morally Christian. Said Pratchett, “I think I’m probably an atheist, but rather angry with God for not existing.” In a 1999 interview he said, “I’m an atheist, at least to the extent that I don’t believe in the objective existence of any big beards in the sky. That is a religious position, by the way.” He describes himself as a humanist and is a Distinguished Supporter of the British Humanist Association and an Honorary Associate of the National Secular Society. In a 21 June 2008 article in the Daily Mail, Pratchett writes, “There is a rumour going around that I have found God. I think this is unlikely because I have enough difficulty finding my keys, and there is empirical evidence that they exist. … I don’t think I’ve found God, but I may have seen where gods come from.”

Last Monday, April 29, but in 1109, was the first Feast Day of the Abbot of the Benedictine Abbey of Cluny, Hugh of Cluny. He was born into a noble French family in 1024 and died on the 28 of April 1109, when the Benedictine Abbey of Cluny was 200 years old. The period in which Abbot Hugh lived was the beginning point of the so-called Age of Chivalry! As Thomas Bulfinch describes it, “Chivalry … framed an ideal of the heroic character, combining invincible strength and valor, justice, modesty, loyalty to superiors, courtesy to equals, compassion to weakness, and devotedness to the Church.” In fact, the next 300 years of Christendom were characterized in the noble and knightly classes (and by both sexes) as steeped in corruption, theft, violence, and every imaginable (and some unimaginable) sexual deviations, including rape, incest, pederasty, prostitution and general sexual license. This behavior was so generalized that, time and again, the contemporary chroniclers of not only France, but Spain, England and Germany complain of it. The only bad behavior that was not tolerated was infidelity to the Church!

Last Tuesday, April 30, but in 1789, George Washington was inaugurated as the first President of the United States. It is significant, in light of those who would argue that the U.S. was conceived as a Christian nation, that Washington made many euphemistic references to God in his inaugural address, but never – in this address, or in any of his writings – does he make direct reference to Jesus Christ. Every contemporary who knew of his church habits agrees that Washington was never seen to accept communion, and indeed, his wife wrote that he left the church on the occasions when communion was offered. As president, Washington addressed religion with the tolerance we would expect from the leader of a religiously diverse nation. In answer to a congregation that objected to the “godless” US Constitution, Washington wrote, “The path of true piety is so plain as to require but little political direction…. In the progress of morality and science, to which our government will give every furtherance, we may confidently expect the advancement of true religion and the completion of our happiness…” – without defining true piety and true religion!

Last Wednesday, May 1, but in 1866, the first “Labor Day” was celebrated in the U.S. It is known now as May Day and no longer celebrated as a recognition of the workers who create the wealth that supports our capitalist economy. From the 13th century of the classical era, where worker protections were built into the Code of Hammurabi, to the ancient Greek and Roman colleges, which were unions for workers, the value of labor has been recognized by most advanced civilizations. When the Empire fell, the social protections built up for workers disintegrated. Only a quarter of the population in Ancient Rome were slaves, but the Christian Church saw no reason to interfere when four-fifths of workers then became agricultural serfs. This persisted from 600 to 1100. Then political and economic changes began to create a middle class between the lords and the peasants. In 1884, the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions met and voted to designate May 1, 1886, as the day for a general strike to demand an 8-hour day in the U.S. The May Day strike itself was peaceful until, as the strikers over the next few days swelled to 65,000 in Chicago, and industry got nervous that workers might actually succeed, the police were called in. Someone threw a bomb among them. A riot followed and then the Haymarket Massacre ensued, in which police shot and killed several strikers and wounded 200. Without compelling evidence, eight labor leaders were arrested, and all but two were executed by hanging. The Haymarket Massacre forever tarnished May 1 as a day to celebrate labor in the US – although the day is still a holiday in at least 110 other countries!

Last Thursday, May 2, but in 1729, that Catherine II of Russia, who would become Catherine the Great (Екатерина II Великая), was born. She was crowned Catherine II in 1762 – after deposing her own husband, whom she married at age 15 by political arrangement. She was well-read and selected able advisors, so Catherine proved more than suited to the task of ruling the largest empire in Europe. Her goal was to complete the Westernization of the Russian Empire that had ceased 37 years earlier at the death of another Romanov Emperor, Peter the Great (Пётр Вели́кий, 1672-1725). Empress Catherine was initially sympathetic with the French Revolution and its intellectual leadership: she corresponded with Voltaire and d’Alembert and invited Diderot to settle in Russia. A skeptic with advanced humanitarian ideals, in her letters she professed Deism and scorned the “mummeries” of the Russian Church to which she was converted. But after the peasant rising under Pugachev (1773-74), and having heard of the excesses following the French Revolution, by 1790 she became fearful of popular revolt. Catherine imposed repressive measures to achieve stability, which in turn alienated the educated in Russian society.

Yesterday, May 3, but in 1933, American theoretical physicist and Nobel laureate Steven Weinberg was born. Weinberg was born in New York City to Jewish immigrant parents and graduated from the Bronx High School of Science in 1950. After studying at Cornell University and abroad at the Neils Bohr Institute, he earned his Ph.D. degree in Physics in 1957 from Princeton University. In 1979, Weinberg received the Nobel in Physics for his contributions (with Abdus Salam and Sheldon Glashow) to describing the unification of the weak force and electromagnetic interaction between elementary particles. In addition to his academic work, Weinberg has been a popularize of and a strong public advocate for science. His books on science, written for a general audience, combine the history and philosophy of science with a godless view of the universe. Indeed, in a 1999 speech in Washington, DC, Weinberg quipped, “With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil – that takes religion.” Weinberg was the 2002 Humanist of the Year of the American Humanist Association. In a 25 September 2008 essay in the New York Review of Books, Weinberg asserts clearly that he is an atheist and, if not a “Warfare” (as A.D. White would call it), that there is a natural “tension” between religion and science. But, far from subscribing to the “God of the Gaps” thesis, he has also said, “The more the universe seems comprehensible, the more it seems pointless.” It was at the 2006 “Beyond Belief” symposium in La Jolla, California, that Steven Weinberg said, “the world needs to wake up from its long nightmare of religious belief.”

Today, May 4, but in 1825, the English biologist known as “Darwin’s Bulldog,” for his advocacy of Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution, Thomas Henry Huxley was born. Largely self-educated, as a medical apprentice, Huxley signed on as assistant surgeon with the H.M.S. Rattlesnake, to chart the seas around Australia and New Guinea. It was an opportunity much like the one Darwin had aboard The Beagle, and, as with Darwin, the experience changed his life. In 1859, when Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species was published, Huxley read it and at once remarked, “How stupid of me not to have thought of that.” He wrote to the author, “I finished your book yesterday… As for your doctrines I am prepared to go to the Stake if requisite… And as to the curs which will bark and yelp – you must recollect that some of your friends at any rate are endowed with an amount of combativeness which … may stand you in good stead – …I am sharpening up my claws and beak in readiness.” His defense of Darwin’s theories, and especially to their application to the evolution of the human species, earned him the nickname, “Darwin’s Bulldog.” Huxley invented the term “agnostic” to describe his view that the mind cannot reach realities beyond the senses. He disdained Christian doctrines.

Other birthdays and events this week—

April 28: Freemasonry was condemned by Pope Clement XII (1738).

April 28: the Synod of Aachen approves a divorce, but churches hate divorce (862).

May 1: persecutor of Christians, Roman Emperor Diocletian abdicated (305 CE).

May 3: Italian politician, philosopher, humanist and author of “The Prince,” Niccolò Machiavelli was born (1469).

May 4: American education reformer Horace Mann was born (1769).

We can look back, but the Golden Age of Freethought is now. You can find full versions of these pages in Freethought history at the links in the American Heathen blog, which take you to my blog, FreethoughtAlmanac.com.