This Week In Freethought – Jan. 22nd – 28th
(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: 01/28/12)
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.
Last Sunday, January 22, 451 years ago (1561), English science essayist Francis Bacon, a contemporary of William Shakespeare, was born in Elizabethan London. Bacon professed religious orthodoxy in public, and from the line clerics love to quote – “A little philosophy inclineth man’s mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men’s minds about to religion.” (Essays, “Of Atheism”) – he would seem so. But in the very next essay, Bacon shows that atheism is socially superior to superstition: “Atheism leaves a man to sense, to philosophy, to natural piety, to laws, to reputation; … but superstition dismounts all these, and erecteth an absolute monarchy, in the minds of men. Therefore atheism did never perturb states; …” (Essays, “Of Superstition”)
It was also on January 22, but 224 years ago (1788), that English poet George Gordon, Lord Byron, was born. He became skeptical of religion during his student years at Trinity College, Cambridge, but moderated into a Deistic belief, remaining skeptical toward life after death. Byron was friends with Percy Bysshe Shelley, an Atheist. As Byron wrote in his 1819 epic poem, Don Juan—
Christians have burnt each other, quite persuaded
That all the Apostles would have done as they did.
Last Monday, January 23, 229 years ago (1783), the French novelist known as Stendhal was born. His most famous works are The Red and the Black (1830), about political and social conditions in France, and The Charterhouse of Parma (1839). Having seen its 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 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”).
Last Tuesday, January 24, 300 years ago (1712), Frederick the Great was born. As King of Prussia, Frederick created a stable legal code, established a superior school system, allowed a free press and religious toleration. He was a patron of art, literature and music. To his intimates, Frederick admitted his Atheism, but outwardly even a monarch could not profess such a thing. In a letter to his friend, 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.”
Last Wednesday, January 25, 253 years ago (1759), the national poet of Scotland, Robert Burns, was born. He is remembered chiefly for “Auld Lang Syne.” Bobbie Burns was contemptuous of the narrow Calvinism of his day. A friend of Burns’s addressed him once as “Christless Bobbie.” In 1788 he wrote, “it becomes a man of sense to think for himself.” And in the “Epistle to Rev. John McMath” Burns denounces religious hypocrisy, claiming,
But twenty times I rather would be
An atheist clean,
Than under gospel colours hid be
Just for a screen
Last Thursday, January 26, 448 years ago (1564), Pope Pius IV created the Index of Prohibited Books. The Index Librorum Prohibitorum, as it is called in Latin, was finally suppressed in 1966 under Pope Paul VI. The result of the Index, at least until the Age of Enlightenment, was not only a stifling of debate about religion, but the suppression of literature generally: except for the writers the Church ruined, between 1564 and the appearance of Deist writers, Italian literature was a blank page.
Yesterday, Friday, January 27, 256 years ago (1756), Austrian composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born. For his 35 years of life, Mozart’s body of work was prodigious: some 40 symphonies, numerous concertos, much sacred choral music and the unfinished Requiem (K.626, 1791). Although Mozart composed memorable church music, even the Catholic Encyclopedia, while claiming him as one of the faithful, laments that these compositions “do not reflect the spirit of the universal Church, but rather the subjective conception and mood of the composer.” In fact, Mozart, like Beethoven, was a Catholic apostate. And you can listen in vain for any more religious inspiration in Mozart’s Requiem than can be found in his Little Night Music, Magic Flute or Jupiter Symphony.
Today, Saturday, January 28, 125 years ago (1887), American pianist Artur Rubinstein was born in Łódź, Poland. By age five he was already performing classical works at the piano. When he was 13, Rubinstein gave his first formal concert in Potsdam. Six years later, he made his Carnegie Hall debut. 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.” His younger daughter, Dr. Alina Rubinstein, a psychiatrist, says he was reluctant to call himself an Atheist “because it was so hard to accommodate the idea that a musical ‘gift’ like his could have come ‘out of nowhere.’”
Also born this week—
On January 22: August Strindberg (1849)
On January 24: Emperor Hadrian (76 CE)
On January 25: Virginia Woolf (1882)
On January 25: W. Somerset Maugham (1874)
On January 28: Sarah MacLachlan (1968)
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.
