American Heathen®

(Editorial Comment from  host RJ Evans on his American Heathen® radio show – Air Date 01/28/11)

In his State of the Union address, President Obama said the following:

“Our troops come from every corner of this country — they’re black, white, Latino, Asian, Native American. They are Christian and Hindu, Jewish and Muslim. And, yes, we know that some of them are gay. Starting this year, no American will be forbidden from serving the country they love because of who they love.”

Anyone notice what’s missing?  Does anyone really care?  I do.  And, the very fact that Atheists, Agnostics, Humanists, Secularists are missing from the Presidents accolades to those who serve our country should not go unanswered.

I tweeted a message that night.  “Obama neglects to include Atheists and secularists who serve our country in harm’s way!  Figures.  What an asshole!”

Yes, Mr. President.  You are an asshole.  I gave you my vote and after two and a half years, I can honestly say that you are an asshole and a sellout.  You have bought into manifest destiny, hook line and sinker.  You have hypocrisy written all over your face and throughout your words.  And, hypocrisy always reveals the lies.

But, who deserves the blame?  Sure, we can lay blame on a lot of folks.  But, the truth is that we can only blame ourselves.  The Atheist community is void of direction and without much commitment to changing the social and political paradigm.  Even though a fairly significant number of Americans, about 29.5 million, claim to be without religion, only 902,000 positively claim to be Atheist.  Why?  Why are there so few people willing to live and breathe their non-belief?  Apparently the closet is the place to be.

All over the internet, one can find the only vestige of Atheist openness in quantity.  Here you can find all matter and manner of opinion and protest.  But, outside of this binary venue, the visible voices of non-belief are hushed at best, at worst, they are absolutely silent.  And, while the religious run roughshod over human and civil rights, the only visible, non-binary complaints are from Atheists who refuse to live in the dark and desolate closet bought and paid for by religion.   These Atheists are not afraid to identify themselves as Atheist, and in some cases make it crystal clear.  They are not afraid to wear the badge of non-belief openly and honestly, and they defend the default position of Atheism with honor and vigor.  But how few.

If one were to take the binary world of Atheism at face value, one could easily assume that a war against irrational, unreasoned, religiously driven bigotry was well underway.  A battle so loud and fierce that no one could possibly miss the evidence of its carnage.  Laws changing, people reeling from an onslaught of reason, logic and science rolling across the religious, political and social landscape.  But, in reality… nothing.  Oh yeah, a lawsuit here, a billboard there, a bumper sticker for Darwin…  Shouldn’t reason, logic and science be a universal language that demands an open and aggressive defense?

From my open and aggressively Atheist mountaintop, most of us appear to be cowards.  Keyboard warriors in the first degree.  For whatever reasons… check that… excuses, Atheists would rather hide in fear than live freely and openly.  They would much rather bitch, moan and complain from the comfort and perceived safety of their binary bitch terminal.  For me, this screams cop-out, irrational, unreasoned, unsubstantiated fear.  I ask, where are your balls?  Where is your commitment to force change?  Where is your desire to live a life of freedom and liberty?  How long will you remain in the shadows giving religion a free pass?  How long will you continue to play a helpless victim?  How much longer will you allow religion to soil and tarnish the word atheist, a word that simply means lack of belief?

Go ahead and hide!  Give religion what it wants! Give it your silence! Let religion’s shame of the word atheist be your shame!  Sure, pick a different word or phrase to camouflage your lack of belief.  Make it more palatable to your conqueror.  Appease the self-righteous bigots and their bastardization of the definition of the word atheist!  But, remember… you may eventually have to swear allegiance to their god of choice.  Your silence, your inability to stand for reason, logic, science and evidence, has consequences.  Not only for you but the rest of humanity.  For all your bloviating in cyberspace… for all your bravado on the bits and bytes of the world stage… Is there at least one of you who has the courage to live in the real world unafraid?  Is there at least one of you who can live a life of godlessness outside of your closet?

You know Mr. President… Maybe I was a little to hasty to call you an asshole and a sellout.  Maybe you were right to exclude Atheists from your speech.  From the looks of things, I’d say that we really don’t give a shit enough to deserve that kind of significance when we refuse to stand up and be counted.

(The following commentary is part of a weekly series called “Reflections” by John Mill.  John is a noted free thought advocate and broadcaster.  His series airs on my American Heathen® internet radio show. Air date of this particular segment: 01/28/11)

Is one of the characteristics of the cult of Christianity to be blatantly bigoted and insultingly insensitive?

This is John Mill and I’ve been thinking about the newly-inaugurated Alabama governor who caused controversy by declaring at a Birmingham church meeting,

“Anybody here today who has not accepted Jesus Christ as their savior, I’m telling you, you’re not my brother and you’re not my sister, and I want to be your brother. If the Holy Spirit lives in you that makes you my brothers and sisters.”

Well, that really pissed off the Jews and the Muslims. And that’s not surprising because it’s their job to take offense and enter “high dudgeon mode” at the drop of a tendentious word. But what should we atheists think?

First, some clarification of terms. Was Alabama Governor Robert Bentley being bigoted? Yes, if you define bigotry as being intolerant of people who hold different views. Was Governor Bentley being insensitive? Yes, if you define insensitive as being indifferent to the importance of something, and unaware of the impact of what you say in your official capacity.

So Governor Bentley was being intolerant and insensitive. Now, does it matter?  It matters if you take offense. But taking offense is a choice, not an automatic or inevitable response. Is it surprising? Definitely no. But not because we as atheists expect Christians to be intolerant and insensitive. No, a lot of them, perhaps most of them, are tolerant and sensitive. We as atheists can get along with these Christians, even if we continue to doubt their commitment to logic and reason.

So why is Governor Bentley’s bigotry upsetting? It’s because, as we’ve seen on countless occasions, words have weight. Words incite action. And I think it’s a short step from “you’re not my brother” to “I’m going to kill you.” Let me tell you why.

Every religious group thinks in binary terms: there are “the people” and then there are “the others.” This is something Rodney Stark pointed out in his 1992 book on the sociology of religion called “The Churching of America.” The religious group derives its sense of uniqueness and superiority from groupthink and from living in tension with, and sometimes against, society.

We saw this most horrifically with Jim Jones and the 1978 Jonestown mass suicide. What is the difference, then, between a madman telling true believers to kill themselves because those who are not their brothers and sisters are trying to destroy their religious paradise – and a Governor Bentley warning fellow parishioners that they are better off inside the faith than outside it?

It’s bad enough that Bentley is an elected official who is supposed to be working for all the citizens of his state. With his words he has cut off a good number of them. But more than that, he has sent his bigoted message well beyond the borders of his church and across the nation.

Yes, he has given the standard non-apology apology that most politicians give. He had to. As the poet said, “Those compelled against their will are of the same opinion still.” And he has cut off the portion of the population that stands ready to protect Bentley from himself and the stupid things people do when they follow a bronze-sage moral code and the teachings of a mythical bastard child who preaches the end of the world.

You know what, Governor Bentley? I may not live in Alabama, and you may not think I’m your brother, but me and my atheist friends – you need us, brother!

This is John Mill.

(The following  is a transcript of a LIVE broadcast by John Mill. John is a noted free thought advocate and broadcaster.  “This Week In Freethought” airs on my American Heathen® internet radio show. Air date of this particular segment:  01/28/11)

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

1. Saturday, January 22, was the 223th birthday of English poet George Gordon, Lord Byron (1788). He became skeptical of religion during his student years at Trinity College, Cambridge. Although a Deist, Byron maintained a friendship with Percy Bysshe Shelley, an Atheist. As he wrote in an 1811 letter, “I do not believe in any revealed religion. I will have nothing to do with your immortality; we are miserable enough in this life, without the absurdity of speculating upon another.”

2. Sunday, January 23, was the 228th birthday of the French novelist known as Stendhal (1783). His most famous work is “The Red and the Black” (Le Rouge et le noir, 1830), about political and social conditions in France. Having seen Catholic influence in Paris, and as French consul in the Papal States, Stendhal was able to say, “All religions are founded on the fear of the many and the cleverness of the few.” Prosper Merimée’s memoir of Stendhal quotes the novelist saying, “The only excuse for God is that there is no such person” (“Ce qui excuse Dieu c’est qu’il n’existe pas”).

3. Monday, January 24, was the 299th birthday of Frederick the Great, or Frederick II, King of Prussia (1712). Frederick was a patron of art and literature (he befriended and protected Voltaire), as well as music: he played the flute and composed music that is still performed today. To his intimates, Frederick admitted his Atheism, but outwardly even a monarch could not profess such a thing. In a letter to Voltaire, Frederick wrote, “Theologians are all alike, of whatever religion or country they may be. Their aim is always to wield despotic authority over men’s consciences. They therefore persecute all of us who have the temerity to unveil the truth.”

3. Tuesday, January 25, features three famous freethinkers:

It was the 129th birthday of British feminist and modernist novelist Virginia Woolf (1882). Woolf gave little thought to religion, generally. She despised the arrogance of Christianity and Christian doctrines. But in a 1939 letter to Dame Ethel Smith, Woolf wrote, “reflecting upon my lack of what you possess — faith… how much more pervious to preaching your faith makes you than my lack?”

It was 137 years ago on January 25th, that another British novelist was born: W. Somerset Maugham (1874). Brought up by a religious aunt and uncle, he got himself into medical school, worked for Britain’s MI6 in Russia during the Revolution, and then gave it all up or for fiction and theater. In his 1917 masterpiece, “Of Human Bondage” (Chapter 88), the author’s surrogate, Philip Carey, “looked upon Christianity as a degrading bondage that must be cast away at any cost.…” In “The Summing Up,” his 1938 autobiography, Maugham said, “I remain an agnostic.”

And January 25th was the 252nd birthday of Scotland’s national poet, Robert Burns (1759). Burns was contemptuous of the narrow Calvinism of Scotland. His freethinking is apparent in many of his poems and was well-known among his friends, one of whom addressed him as “Christless Bobbie.” In Burns’s own words: “Jesus Christ, thou amiablest of characters, I trust thou art no Imposter, and that thy revelation of blissful scenes of existence beyond death and the grave, is not one of the many impositions which time after time have been palmed off on a credulous mankind.”

4. It was 447 years ago on Wednesday, January 26, that Pope Pius IV paved the way for the creation of the “Index of Prohibited Books” (1564). The “Index Librorum Prohibitorum” was suppressed in 1966 under Pope Paul VI. But it is still considered a grave sin in the Roman Catholic Church to read any book considered by Catholic authorities to be heretical. However, there was only token concern for sexually explicit writings, much of it enjoyed and even commissioned by the popes of the Middle Ages. The “Index,” at least in Catholic countries, not only stifled debate about religion and delayed the moral advance of civilization, but retarded Italian literature for over two centuries.

5. Thursday, January 27, was the 255th birthday of Austrian composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The Archbishop of Salzburg accused Mozart of neglect of religion. Although he composed memorable church music, even the “Catholic Encyclopedia,” while claiming him as one of the faithful, laments that his compositions “do not reflect the spirit of the universal Church…. What Mozart, with his Raphaelesque (that is, lewd) imagination and temperament, would have been for church music had he lived at a different time…, can easily be imagined.” Surely Mozart’s “Requiem” was inspired, but was it any more inspired than his “Little Night Music,” “Magic Flute” or “Jupiter Symphony”? I don’t think so!

It was also on January 27, 668 years ago (1343), that Pope Clement VI issued a bull reaffirming that the Catholic Church can grant remission of sin through indulgences. The “sale” of indulgences was a chief concern of Martin Luther and the Protestant Reformation. Apologists claim there is no sale, just alms in exchange for remission of sin. But since the Middle Ages you could pay a stipulated price, get change, and receive a piece of paper – and there was no indulgence without “alms.” By any reasonable definition, that is a sale. Nothing in church history or doctrine has so perfectly supported the old saying: The church is happy to exchange treasures in heaven for cash down!

7. Finally, today, January 28,  is the 124th birthday of Polish-born American pianist Artur Rubinstein (1887), who gave his Carnegie Hall debut concert when he was 19. Considered one of the greatest pianists of the 20th century, his biographer, Harvey Sachs, says, “Arthur was given virtually no religious education…. As an adult he referred with pride to his Jewish origins but he called himself an agnostic.”

You can find full versions of these pages and more in Freethought history at Freethought Almanac.com and links to what you just heard at the American Heathen blog. This is John Mill with your Week in Freethought History. And now back to RJ and David 2!

The following videos are part of a new segment called “The Minute Maniac” on my American Heathen® internet radio show which airs LIVE on ShockNet Radio every Friday night.  The audio segments air first, and then David2 puts together the video presentations of these segments for promotional use and entertainment.  The “Maniac” is a reflection of American insanity in religion, politics and social issues. Enjoy!

I found this to be a VERY interesting article.  Enjoy!

Morality Has No Place in the Law.

(The following  is a transcript of a LIVE broadcast by John Mill. John is a noted free thought advocate and broadcaster.  “This Week In Freethought” airs on my American Heathen® internet radio show. Air date of this particular segment:  01/21/11)

Here’s your Week in Freethought History: This is more than just a calendar of events or mini-biographies – it’s a look into our Freethought history that shows not just who came before us, but that we as freethinkers are not alone in the world, no matter how isolated and alone we may feel at times.

1. Saturday, January 15, was the 389th birthday of French poet and playwright Jean-Baptiste Poquelin (1622), who became famous under the pen name Molière. Always in trouble with the French Catholic church, his clever 1664 satire of religious fanatics and hypocrites, “Tartuffe,” so stirred up the clergy, that it was banned for five years. The last scene in Molière’s 1665 play “Don Juan” was described by a contemporary as “a school of Atheism in which, after making a clever Atheist say the most horrible impieties, he entrusted the cause of God to a valet who says ridiculous things.” Don Juan was also banned, of course.

2. Sunday, January 16, was the 225th anniversary of the “Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom” becoming law. Written by Thomas Jefferson almost ten years earlier, the “Statute” overcame the objections of Patrick Henry and his allies.  The new law guaranteed that no citizen of Virginia would be compelled to attend church, to support the clergy or the establishment of any church, or be penalized for failing to do any of those things. Furthermore, the “Statute” guaranteed that there would be free and open debate about religion. And these rights were extended not just to Christians, but to religious minorities such as Baptists, Presbyterians, Jews, and even Freethinkers. The “Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom” was the model for the first clause of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution!

3. Monday, January 17, was the 305th birthday of American statesman, scientist, writer, printer and philosopher Benjamin Franklin. The Thomas Edison of his day, Franklin had a keen interest in science, he invented the Franklin stove, bifocal eyeglasses and the lightning rod. That lightning rod attracted thunderbolts from pulpits: The Rev. Thomas Prince accused Franklin of defying God and blamed a 1755 earthquake on these “iron points invented by the sagacious Mr. Franklin.”  Franklin was a notorious Freethinker, and in 1758 wrote “The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason.” He reasoned against public support of churches, writing, “When a religion is good, I conceive it will support itself; and when it does not support itself, and God does not take care to support it so that its professors are obliged to call for help of the civil power, ’tis a sign, I apprehend, of its being a bad one.”

4. Tuesday, January 18 boasts the birthdays of two famous Freethinkers: Polish-born British mathematician Jacob Bronowski (1908) and French jurist and nobleman Baron de Montesquieu (1689). Bronowski’s career achievement was an 18-month project for BBC television called “The Ascent of Man,” broadcast in 13 parts in 1973. In it, he said, “Man masters nature not by force but by understanding. This is why science has succeeded where magic failed: because it has looked for no spell to cast over nature.” Baron de Montesquieu, born 322 years ago also on January 18, was educated in science, history and law. His famous 1748 work, “Spirit of the Laws,” which did much to prepare the way for the legal reform of the French Revolution, earned a place of “honor” on the Index of Prohibited Books. A Deist, Montesquieu said, “Churchmen are interested in keeping the people ignorant. I call piety a malady of the heart. The false notion of miracles comes of our vanity, which makes us believe we are important enough for the Supreme Being to upset nature on our behalf.”

5. Wednesday, January 19, is remembered for three famous Freethinkers: the 202nd birthday of Edgar Allan Poe (1809), the 213th birthday of Auguste Comte (1798), and the 275th birthday of James Watt (1736). American poet and short story writer Edgar Allan Poe was the author of haunting poems such as “The Raven” and short stories such as “The Fall of the House of Usher.” Poe did not believe in life after death and, in his prose-poem “Eureka,” published the year before he died, says “… ‘God,’ … stands for the possible attempt at an impossible conception.”
Auguste Comte, also born January 19, was the French founder of the philosophy of Positivism, which denies metaphysics in favor of a reliance on sense experience as the source of human knowledge and denies the existence of a personal God, while putting humanity at the center of its concerns.  James Watt, also born January 19, was the Scottish inventor who radically improved the steam engine of his day and made important contributions to industrialization, including coinage of the term “horsepower.” Watt was a Deist and never attended church.

6. Thursday, January 20, was the date, 58 years ago (1953), that the “Piltdown Man” fossils – purportedly of a “missing link” between man and ape – were admitted to be a hoax. Touted by its discoverer, Charles Dawson, and its chief defender, paleontologist Sir Arthur Keith, it took 40 years to expose. The error was corrected from within the scientific community, so there is no cause for gloating from Creationists, who apparently believe, based on Genesis, that night and day were created before the sun was (Gen. 1:1-19), the earth was created before the stars were (Gen. 1:16), the entire earth was once engulfed in a flood (Gen 6:13-8:22), visual stimuli can cause genetic change (Gen. 30:37-39), and the sun (or the earth’s rotation) can be stopped with no inertial effects (Josh 10:12-13).

7. Finally, today, January 21, was the 158th birthday of famous Freethinker Helen Hamilton Gardener (1853). Influenced by Robert Ingersoll, Gardener became a popular feminist lecturer and writer of the 19th Century, blasting by example and scholarship the popular fancy that the female brain is inherently inferior to the male brain. She did not spare religion in her writings: “The bible teaches that a father may sell his daughter for a slave (Ex. xxx, 7), that he may sacrifice her purity to a mob (Judges xix, 24; Gen. xix, 8), and that he may murder her, and still be a good father and a holy man.” In 1920, Helen Hamilton Gardener was appointed by President Woodrow Wilson the first woman on the U.S. Civil Service Commission.

Don’t long for the Golden Age of Freethought. The Golden Age is now. This is John Mill with your Week in Freethought History. And now back to RJ and David 2!

(The following is a transcript of  a commentary made by co-host Dr. Charles A. Doswell III (2Buck Chuck). Air date of this particular commentary: 01/21/11)

Last week’s American Heathen had a decidedly political leaning and I found myself wondering if we’d shifted from being a show mostly about atheism to being just another political program, to join the myriads of rantings on all sides by seemingly endless hordes of people with political grievances to air.  So I griped to RJ about that.

But, upon further review … I retract my complaint. The fact is that politics and religion in many countries, including the USA, are inextricably coupled. In nations with one predominant religious orientation – be it christian, muslim, or jewish – it seems that the majority seeks to impose itself on any minorities within their political reach. I needn’t enumerate all the examples of this. They’re so many, so varied, and so evident that I don’t need to provide any supporting material for that.

In the United States, the predominant flavor is christian and it’s obvious to me that many of these christians have become increasingly aggressive in wanting to thrust their views, their customs, their beliefs, and their morals on all of us. There’s one political party that has evolved so far from its egalitarian roots of the Civil War era that it now is pursuing a wide variety of efforts to impose itself on everyone. We at American Heathen now refer to it as the christian nationalist party (the GOP).

What does the word “conservative” bring to your mind? In today’s world, this means a capitalist, a gun nut, a religious fundamentalist, a fan of the death penalty, an opponent of abortion under any circumstances, a homophobe, a ‘chicken hawk’ soldier favoring jingoistic diplomacy and unlimited defense spending, an advocate of welfare for the rich while staunchly opposing welfare for the poor, and a so-called ‘strict constitutionalist’ who would eviscerate the judicial branch and dominate both the legislative and executive branches of our representative democracy in order to trample triumphantly over the bothersome minorities: blacks, hispanics, atheists, and the despised liberals.

What does the word “liberal” bring to your mind? In today’s world, this means a radical left-leaner. A person who would prefer socialism, strict gun control, an atheist, a fan of welfare for loafers and a crusader for destruction of corporations, an opponent of the death penalty, a fan of abortion for the asking, a homophile, someone who hates our troops, a big supporter of ‘liberal’ judges who turn criminals loose, a hater of democracy and the white race.

How far these labels have strayed from their original meanings!

The reason we’re forced to talk about politics on this show is that Americans are increasingly polarized by political rhetoric. Many of us demonize all who oppose our view and get our opinions from others, rather than thinking things through logically and carefully for ourselves. Religion has become part of the political package in America despite the ‘separation’ clause in the Constitution. Someone has to call attention to the implications of the divisive politics that characterize the start of the 21^st century. So carry on, RJ and the rest of the AH panoply of stars! Fight the good fight! If I didn’t believe in what was going on here, I wouldn’t be a part of it.