American Heathen®

(The following is a transcript of a segment by John Mill. John is a noted free thought advocate and broadcaster. “This Week In Freethought” airs on my American Heathen® internet radio show. This segment did not air.  The show is on Summer Break and will return Saturday, July 7th.)

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, June 24, but in 1842, journalist and social critic Ambrose Bierce was born. After serving in the Union Army in the American Civil War, Bierce published his first short story in 1871, already mining the macabre and spicing it with satire. Twenty years later saw Bierce’s most famous short story, the hauntingly twisted “Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” – which was adapted into an episode of the TV series “Twilight Zone” in 1962. The world of which Bierce writes is not only an ironically cruel one, but also a godless one: in the 1912 edition of his Collected Works, Bierce wrote, “Religions are conclusions for which the facts of nature supply no major premises.” His most famous satirical work, The Devil’s Dictionary, is a collection of sardonic epigrams, such as,

CHRISTIAN, One who believes that the New Testament is a divinely inspired book admirably suited to the spiritual needs of his neighbor. One who follows the teachings of Christ in so far as they are not inconsistent with a life of sin.

INFIDEL, In New York, one who does not believe in the Christian religion; in Constantinople, one who does.

PRAY, To ask that the laws of the universe be annulled in behalf of a single petitioner confessedly unworthy.

Last Monday, June 25, but in 1903, the famous political satirist George Orwell was born Eric Arthur Blair. Orwell’s fame rests largely on two books he published in the 1940s: a devastating satire of Stalinism called Animal Farm (1945), played out with beasts on a farm, where the pigs rule, and featuring a raven named Moses who describes to the animal masses a great mountain in the sky, called Sugar Candy Mountain, that all would go to when they died. The other famous Orwell satire was 1984 (1949), featuring a future totalitarian bureaucracy overseen by “Big Brother” who appears only in pictures and descriptions, never in real life. It is this novel that comes closest to a critique of God. It is because of 1984 that we have come to use the sinister adjective, “Orwellian.” You might think from his satire of Stalinism that George Orwell was an Ayn Rand follower, but he came closer to idealistic Socialism, while maintaining a deep skepticism of religion: “In theory it is still possible to be an orthodox religious believer without being intellectually crippled in the process,” he wrote, “but it is far from easy, and in practice books by orthodox believers usually show the same cramped, blinkered outlook as books by orthodox Stalinists or others who are mentally unfree. The reason is that the Christian churches still demand assent to doctrines which no one seriously believes in.”

Also born on June 25, former evangelist preacher and current co-president of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, Dan Barker in 1949, who wrote is his 1992 autobiography, Losing Faith in Faith: From Preacher to Atheist, “For my money, I’ll bet on reason and humanistic kindness. Even if I am wrong I will have enjoyed my life, the existence of which is under little dispute.”

Also born on June 25, English comedian Ricky Gervais in 1961, who said in a 2008 interview, “Wow. No God. If Mum had lied to me about God, had she also lied to me about Santa? Yes, but who cares? The gifts kept coming. And so did the gifts of my newfound atheism. The gifts of truth, science, nature.”

Last Tuesday, June 26, but in 1892, American novelist Pearl S. Buck, was born. Her novels – especially The Good Earth (1931), which won her the 1938 Nobel Prize in Literature – focused on life in China and the culture clash between East and West. All her writings show a nontheistic humanism. As Buck said, “I am so absorbed in the wonder of earth and the life upon it that I cannot think of heaven and the angels. I have enough for this life,” and “I feel no need for any other faith than my faith in human beings.”

Also born last Tuesday, June 26, but in 1826, was the anthropologist and pioneer ethnologist Adolf Bastian. In 1860, Bastian published Man in History, a study in which he proposed a theory of cultural evolution which anticipates, and may have sparked, Carl Jung’s idea of the collective unconscious. Man in History is shot through with passages testifying to Bastian’s Agnosticism. Speaking of science as foe and God as protector, in volume one he says, “we no longer fear when a mighty foe shakes our protector from his heaven, to sink with him into an abyss of annihilation.”

Last Wednesday, June 27, but in 1850, the international writer, best known for his books about Japan, Lafcadio Hearn was born. While attending St. Cuthbert’s in England, Hearn shook off his Catholicism and adopted a Pantheism little removed from Atheism. Between 1889 and 1890, during the Meiji period, he settled in Japan, where he spent the rest of his life. He taught English and literature but was particularly adept at interpreting Japanese Buddhism as a way of life rather than as a belief. In this he found a perfect complement to his own lack of religion. He never became a Buddhist, and disagreed with some of its principles, but, as Kenneth Rexroth wrote (1977) Hearn “passionately believed that Buddhism promoted a far better attitude toward daily life than did Christianity.”

Also born last Wednesday, June 27, but in 1806, was English mathematician and logician Augustus De Morgan. De Morgan strongly objected to the theological test required for the MA at Trinity College, Cambridge, so his formal education ended there. For the same reason, he also rejected his parents’ wish that he become a priest. Augustus de Morgan was a Theist with an ethical appreciation of Christianity. He described himself as an “unattached Christian,” and refused to join even the Unitarian Church.

Last Thursday, June 28, marks the birth of three famous freethinkers—

On June 28, 1712, French writer Jean-Jacques Rousseau was born. While in pre-Revolutionary Paris, he associated with Denis Diderot, who introduced him to Jean d’Alembert, Baron d’Holbach, Madame d’Epinay and the other resident Rationalists and Encyclopedists, including Voltaire. At age 50, Rousseau published his most notable work, On the Social Contract (1762), in which he writes, “Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.” Although he was expelled from both Paris and Geneva for “irreligion.” in Émile (1762), which urges educational reform, Rousseau demonstrated that he was a Deist, saying, “The Supreme Being is best displayed by the fixed and unalterable order of nature. If there should happen many exceptions to such general laws, I should no longer know what to think; and for my part, I must confess I believe too much in God to believe in so many miracles so little worthy of him.”

On June 28, 1867, Italian playwright Luigi Pirandello was born. In his most famous play, Six Characters in Search of an Author (1921), Pirandello’s characters rebel against their creator, attack the foundation of the play, refuse to follow stage directions and interfere with the structure of the play until it breaks down. One critic said of his works that Pirandello’s “conception of reality is the exact opposite to the religious.” And a biographer grudgingly admits, “God is too absent from his work, and there is no trace of the wonderful balm of mysticism.” As Pirandello wrote in Six Characters, “A man will die, a writer, the instrument of creation: but what he has created will never die! And to be able to live for ever you don’t need to have extraordinary gifts or be able to do miracles.”

And on June 28, 1824, French anthropologist Pierre Paul Broca was born. Broca’s chief contribution to brain anatomy, based on observations of patients with brain damage who were unable to talk, was the discovery of the location in the brain of the speech center, which has become known as Broca’s area. Because he was sympathetic to Darwin’s theory of natural selection – saying, “I would rather be a transformed ape than a degenerate son of Adam” – Broca was accused by the Catholic Church of being a rebellious person, a materialist, and a corrupter of youth. Broca has been described as a Christian, but he must have practiced it lightly, because he founded a society for free-thinkers in 1848. Indeed, he had little patience for superstition, saying, “Greedy for explanations, and rather than being satisfied with ignorance, the human mind treats itself to words devoid of meaning, like those American savages who in time of famine swallow clay to silence their empty stomachs.”

Finally, it was on today’s date, June 30, 1909, that the Pontifical Biblical Commission, which had been formed by Leo XIII (Pope 1878-1903) seven years earlier, decreed that the first 11 chapters of the biblical book of Genesis must be interpreted by Catholics as history, not as mythology. As in ages past, this meant that Catholics were compelled to accept as genuine history the childish and derivative stories of the Creation, the Garden of Eden, the Fall, the Flood, and the confusion of languages at Babel. In the creation, the earth is formed before light and stars, birds and whales before reptiles and insects, and flowering plants before animals. Science tells us the true order of events was just the opposite. The flood covered the highest mountains, but there is no explanation of where the water came from, where it went, or why there is no geological record of it. In the Babel story, humans separated into groups on the basis of their language, but historical linguists will tell you that languages evolve within groups already separated. The Pontifical Biblical Commission ratified the prescription of its founder, Leo XIII, who said, “All the books which the Church received as sacred and canonical were written wholly and entirely, with all their parts, at the dictation of the Holy Ghost. It is impossible, therefore, that any error can co-exist with divine inspiration.” So there it is!

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 is a transcript of a segment by John Mill. John is a noted free thought advocate and broadcaster. “This Week In Freethought” airs on my American Heathen® internet radio show. This segment did not air.  The show is on Summer Break and will return Saturday, July 7th.)

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, June 17, but in 1782, was the last legal execution of a witch in Switzerland. From the records we know that Anna Goeldi was hanged for her heresy – as woman most often were accused – talk about a “war on women”! Roman Catholic Switzerland began the witch-hunting craze in 1427 and, along with neighboring Germany, was hell-bent on persecuting this delusion between 1580 and 1660. An especially lethal period coincided with the Thirty Years War between Catholics and Protestants in Europe. Confessions of witchcraft were often extracted under torture – and not only was torture supported by the clergy, but the accuracy of confessions acquired under torture was scripturally supported. The tide at last turned toward reason, not because God’s ministers on earth saw the light, but because the skeptical Age of Enlightenment dawned in Europe. There were a few more sputterings of witch executions: in Italy in 1791, and in Poland in 1793. But in the witch-hunting heartland, the delusion died with Anna Goeldi on this date in Glarus, Switzerland.

Last Monday, June 18, but in 1948, the American Library Association adopted its “Library Bill of Rights,” an affirmation that libraries are charged with providing the information and ideas necessary for an informed populace and a vibrant democracy. It has been amended twice since 1948 and its current version is still less than 200 words. The “Library Bill of Rights” exhorts each library to select and to make available its information and facilities without prejudice for or against religious or political correctness, to represent a diversity of viewpoints in the materials provided, to challenge censorship and to ally with groups promoting free expression. When librarians receive a complaint about items in the collection, instead of defending or removing the material, the protester is asked to suggest something to add that would provide balance to the library collection – so the answer to speech considered offensive is more speech, not less. What a mature concept!

Last Tuesday, June 19, in 1623, was also the date that French mathematician and philosopher Blaise Pascal was born. He was always in ill health, so it is tempting to attribute his preoccupation with the afterlife and God to being so close to finding out for himself. He was a contemporary of René Descartes and was ten when Galileo was forced to recant his belief that the earth circled the sun. Together with Pierre de Fermat, Pascal created the calculus of probabilities. Pascal is chiefly remembered for his Thoughts on Religion, which was published posthumously in 1870.

Pensées was a defense of the Christian religion, and in it Pascal makes his famous Wager, which is not as clear in his language as in this summary: “If God does not exist, the Atheist loses little by believing in him and gains little by not believing. If God does exist, the Atheist gains eternal life by believing and loses an infinite good by not believing.” So, il faut parier: we must choose.

While the argument at first seems inescapable, there are a number of flaws in Pascal’s Wager: (1) The choices are not limited to two. If God is infinitely incomprehensible, then there are infinite variations of God from which you must choose. (2) Pascal’s Wager amounts to a choice between Roman Catholicism and Atheism. But if you choose to believe in God, yet choose the wrong religion, you are in just as much peril as if you chose Atheism. (3) Believing in God, if it turns out that God does not exist, is a colossal waste of a limited life. At bottom, Pascal’s Wager is a fancy way of arguing for belief based on self-interest. What if it turns out God rewards belief based on evidence and punishes belief based on selfish solicitation of reward?

Last Wednesday, June 20, but in 1632, Cecilius Calvert, the second Lord Baltimore, was issued a charter by Charles I of England, entitling him to create a Catholic colony in the New World that became known as Maryland (where I was born). The colony of Maryland was named not for Queen Mary but for his wife, Queen Henrietta Maria de Bourbon. Much has been made of the story of how the Catholic settlers of Maryland pioneered religious toleration in the New World. Virginia was none too pleased to have a Catholic-dominated colony right next door. Here’s the interesting thing about Catholic tolerance in Maryland: Bancroft’s History of the United States (1876) examined contemporary sources and found that there were “very few Catholics” in the colony by 1654; the figure in 1640 was about 25 percent. Although Lord Baltimore offered English Catholics asylum in the new colony, few accepted. In fact, Maryland never had a Catholic majority in all of its history! So Maryland’s 1649 Act of Toleration was passed by the ruling Catholic elite to protect themselves from the Protestant majority!

Last Thursday, June 21, but in 1905, French existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre was born. Sartre studied the writings of the German philosophers Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger, as well as Voltaire, Hugo, and Flaubert. He distinguished himself as a novelist and playwright, as well as a philosopher and teacher. But the Nobel laureate is chiefly known for his philosophy of Existentialism. As Sartre said in a lecture on 29 October 1945, “There are two kinds of existentialists. There are, on the one hand, the Christians … and on the other the existential atheists, amongst whom we must place Heidegger as well as the French existentialists and myself.” Sartre’s Existentialist idea was that life is meaningless and that people must fashion their own purpose out of the materials at hand; that God or Nature or whatever power may exist above mankind doesn’t enforce any moral code. Summing up, Sartre said, “The existentialist … finds it extremely embarrassing that God does not exist…”

Last Friday, June 22, but in 1633, Florentine-Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei (15 February 1564 to 8 January 1642) was compelled by the Roman Catholic Inquisition to recant the theory he held that the earth travels around the sun. What seems obvious to us today was unscriptural then, and therefore by definition untrue. The ecclesiastical notion that the earth was the center of the universe was supported by passages from Joshua, Psalms and Ecclesiastes. Galileo was supported only by his observations and calculations. Galileo could have been more cautious: he well remembered the burning of Giordano Bruno for heresy only 16 years earlier. In 1633, Galileo was nearly 70 years old, going blind, and in frail health. It took little to bully him into recanting the sun-centered theory. If it demonstrates anything, Galileo’s recantation demonstrates that you cannot choose what you believe, or be compelled to believe something. The story of Galileo shows that you can believe only insofar as you are convinced.

Today, June 23, but in 1964, third-generation TV writer and “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” series creator Joss Whedon was born. In a 2002 Onion AV Club article, entitled “Is There A God?”, Whedon was asked the question. “No,” he replied. Pressing on, The Onion asked, “That’s it, end of story, no?” Whedon said, “Absolutely not. That’s a very important and necessary thing to learn.” In a Q&A session promoting his 2005 movie Serenity, writer-director Whedon was asked: “What do you have against being a Christian?” He answered in part, “I don’t actually have anything against anybody, unless their belief precludes everybody else. I am an atheist and an absurdist and have been for many, many years. … So the answer is: ‘Nothing, unless you’ve got something against me.’”

Finally, it was on today’s date, June 23, in 1858, that 6-year-old Edgardo Mortara was kidnapped from his Jewish parents in Bologna, Italy, by agents of the Inquisition, under the Dominican Father Feletti. The parents, Momolo and Marianna Mortara, later learned that their Christian maid, Anna Morsi, had secretly baptized the boy when he was ill, fearing that he would go to hell if he died a Jew. The Pope’s police force spirited little Edgardo to Rome, to a home built with funds from taxes levied on Jews. Appeals for Edgardo’s release – from Jewish organizations, intellectuals and government officials in Britain, Germany, Austria, the US and France, as well as French Emperor Napoleon III, whose troops protected the Pope – were to no avail. Instead, the 66-year-old pope smirked, “I couldn’t care less what the world thinks.” The kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara tipped Italy toward unification and erased the power of the Vatican over the Papal States. Italian unification dates from 1870; Pius IX died eight years later, his Dominican hounds defanged. Edgardo Mortara actually stayed a Catholic, dying a priest in a Belgian monastery at age 88 in 1940. However, the kidnapping was a failure in the long term: liberalism and anti-clericalism took hold in Italy and has not faltered to this day.

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 is a transcript of a segment 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: 06/16/12)

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.

Sunday, June 10, in 1797, President John Adams signed into law the Treaty of Peace and Friendship between the United States of America and the Bey and Subjects of Tripoli of Barbary (Tripoli is in modern Libya). The Treaty with Tripoli, as it is now known has become a lightning rod in the debate over whether or not the United States is, or ever was, or was intended to be, a Christian nation, or even founded on Christian principles.

Christian partisans say that the article must be read “as a declaration that the federal government of the United States was not in any sense founded on the Christian religion,” and that “such a statement is not a repudiation of the fact that America was considered a Christian nation.” But the Declaration of Independence refers only to a creator, not to a Christian God, and has no force of law, anyway. And the Constitution is conspicuously godless – Jefferson wrote that an attempt was made to insert a reference to Jesus Christ, and that it was voted down.

The Treaty with Tripoli was not only adopted unanimously, but there was no debate, no dissention. Were the ratifiers pressed for time? Such haste speaks ill of the importance of their cherished religion, for the treaty claimed something (supposedly) morally reprehensible – a denial of the Christian God! True, the majority of Americans in 1797 were at least nominally Christian, even if no more than 10 percent of Americans were actually members of congregations. But, no, the United States is no more a Christian nation because most of its citizens are Christians than it is a “white” nation because most of its citizens are white. We are Americans not because we practice revealed religion and believe in Bible-based government, but because we practice democracy and believe in republican government.

Last Monday, June 11, but in 1864, German composer Richard Strauss was born. The Encyclopedia Britannica calls Strauss’s famous Till Eulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks (1894) “one of the most brilliant dramatic scores ever penned.” What the Encyclopedia doesn’t mention is the Rationalist philosophy evident in the piece. Strauss followed that work with what has become known as the theme music for the Stanley Kubrick film, 2001: A Space Odyssey. Also Sprach Zarathustra (1896) was based on the work of the notoriously skeptical Friedrich Nietzsche. Its premiere caused great consternation in the German churches.

It was also on June 11, but in 1572, that English playwright Ben Jonson was born. Jonson was imprisoned in the Marshalsea for co-writing a satirical play that was declared seditious, The Isle of Dogs. His playwriting continued to be politically volatile: “What excellent fools religion makes of men,” he wrote in his 1603 tragedy, Sejanus, His Fall. The play caused him to be interrogated by the privy council for “popery and treason” – popery an accusation of being Catholic. Two years later, in Volpone, Jonson tweaked the clergy by writing, “Hood an ass with reverend purple, so you can hide his two ambitious ears, and he shall pass for a cathedral doctor.”

Last Tuesday, June 12, but in 1381, Wat Tyler’s Rebellion, a peasant revolt in England, began in the year Geoffrey Chaucer turned 41. An overzealous tax collector sought to determine if Tyler’s young daughter was of taxable age. He stripped the girl naked and sexually assaulted her. With a hammer, Tyler smashed in the tax collector’s skull. What followed was a textbook example of how a popular revolt can be co-opted: Tyler’s fellow peasants cheered and banded together to seek redress from 14-year-old King Richard II. Their party grew 100,000 strong and converged on London. Artisans and tradesmen provided food and shelter along the way, and the rebels attacked those bastions of idle wealth and ecclesiastical corruption, the abbeys and monasteries. The next thing they did was kill all the lawyers and judges they could find, and release their brother peasants from prison. But in London, Tyler and his band, still in the grip of the myth of the “divine right,” believed the king a natural ally of the poor. Young King Richard seized the moment and declared to the mob, “Wat Tyler was a traitor. I’ll be your leader” and immediately agreed to all the rebel demands – chiefly, the abolition of serfdom (which was sort of like slavery without the benefits) – so Tyler and his band went home satisfied. Thereupon the king reneged on his promises and hunted down and hanged 1,500 of the rebels after trials in which the judge told the jurors that he would hang them if they didn’t convict. So the oppression of the peasant class persisted, the churches and priests continued to ignore them in preference to their royal patrons, and Richard II, king of England by divine right, declared to the peasants seeking an end to their slavery, “Villeins ye are, and villeins ye shall remain.”

Last Wednesday, June 13, but in 1865, Irish poet and playwright, William Butler Yeats, was born. He spent much time in London, where he became close with such Rationalists as poet William Ernest Henley (1849-1903), artist William Morris (1834-1896), and poet and playwright Arthur Symons (1865-1945). In addition to his poetry, Yeats wrote twenty-six plays. He cannot properly be claimed by any Christian sect. Yeats criticized Christianity in his poem, “The Second Coming,” in which he mixes pagan and Christian symbolism in a horror-filled vision of the rebirth of paganism from a dead Christianity. Furthermore, in 1937 Yeats opposed the adoption of Article 44 of the Irish Constitution, which would have established a state religion, saying, “Once you attempt legislation on religious grounds, you open the way for every kind of intolerance and religious persecution.”

Last Thursday, June 14, the United States celebrated Flag Day. June 14 was the date in 1777 that the Continental Congress proposed that the United States should have its own national flag. The date was officially established by President Woodrow Wilson on 30 May 1916. On 3 August 1949, President Harry Truman signed an Act of Congress designating June 14th of each year as National Flag Day. It is important to remember that the US flag is not an object of worship, and that Flag Day is not a religious observance. Flag Day is instead a celebration of the nation the flag represents. Far from being founded on Biblical principles, the United States was the first nation in history to be founded on Enlightenment principles: empiricism, individual rights and science. This trinity of secular principles cannot be found anywhere in Bible, Torah, Koran or any other holy book and were not handed to humanity by some divinity. It is also important to remember that what the flag represents is more important than the physical flag itself. That is why – especially in a country whose Constitution’s First Amendment protects nothing if it does not protect political speech – although a federal law banning the burning of the flag as a form of protest seems to be proposed at least once a year, such a law is clearly unconstitutional, as well as contradictory.

It was also on this date, June 14, 1954, that President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed a Congressional resolution which added the words “under God” to the Pledge of Allegiance. The pledge, which Congress had recognized officially a dozen years earlier, was originally written in August of 1892 by Francis Bellamy (1855-1931), a Baptist minister, and active Socialist. The Pledge was first published in a children’s magazine, Youth’s Companion, to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Columbus’ arrival in the Americas. The original 22 words were:

I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Bellamy considered including the word “equality” in the pledge, but decided against it to avoid offending the many Americans who opposed equal rights for women and black people. The American Legion and the Daughters of the American Revolution in 1924 changed “my Flag” to “the Flag of the United States of America.” On 22 April 1951, the Board of Directors of the Roman Catholic men’s group, the Knights of Columbus, mounted a campaign to add the words “under God,” after the words “one nation,” in the Pledge. “Apart from the mention of the phrase the United States of America,” wrote a supporter, “it could be the pledge of any republic. In fact, I could hear little Muscovites repeat a similar pledge to their hammer-and-sickle flag in Moscow.” Eisenhower was impressed. News spread, public opinion grew. A bill to add “God” to the Pledge was approved as a Congressional joint resolution on 8 June 1954. It was signed into law on that Flag Day, June 14. It should not be surprising that this should happen during the “red scare 1950s, but many have forgotten that Americans fought and died in two World Wars and the Korean conflict without acknowledging God in their Pledge of Allegiance, so those who claim that everything has gone downhill in this country since the 1950s – when amending the Pledge divided the nation into believers and non-believers – might reflect that adding “under God” to the Pledge could just as well have been the cause!

Last Friday, June 15, but in 1520, Pope Leo X (p. 1513-1521) issued the Bull Exsurge Domine (Arise, O Lord), condemning Martin Luther for forty-one doctrinal errors and threatening him with excommunication if he would not recant. The pope, born Giovanni de’ Medici (1475-1521), was the son of a wealthy, powerful and politically connected family. His father got him into the priesthood at age 7; he was a cardinal at 13; he became Pope at age 37, at which newly minted Leo X remarked gleefully, “Let us enjoy this Papacy which God has given us.” The historian and statesman, Francesco Guicciardini (1483-1540), gives us a fascinating précis of Pope Leo’s lifestyle: “His expenditure was such that he degraded the spiritual authority, corrupted the Papal Court, and was compelled to be always in search of extraordinary methods of raising money. He was passionately fond of music and jesters, and his mind was entirely occupied with these. In the early days of his pontificate many believed that he was quite chaste, but it was discovered that he was excessively devoted to pleasures that cannot even be mentioned with decency.” Those unmentionable pleasures, described delicately as “venery,” were not in fact sporting with hawks, but sporting with young boys. Leo X spent lavishly on banquets, entertainments, jewels and gifts. He was lying and duplicitous in diplomacy and raised money through the sale of offices and indulgences, which combined simony with nepotism. Threatening to cut him off from the Catholic community in the 1520 Bull, Leo finally excommunicated Luther on 3 January 1521. At last the Romans had had enough and Leo succumbed to a poisoning on 1 Dec 1521, although modern Catholic historians dispute the physicians who actually saw the dark and swollen body. Luther, inhibited by neither Exsurge Domine nor his excommunication, outlived the next two Popes.

Finally, today, June 16, but in 1824, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals was founded in a London pub. It was the first society in history set up to end animal cruelty, so you may wonder why it took the religion of Gentle Jesus and St. Francis of Assisi so long to condemn the ill-treatment of the lower branches on the evolutionary tree. It all started on the sixth day of creation (Genesis 1:26, 28):

And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. …And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

We’re a little behind on the replenishing part, but we humans have nailed the “dominion over” part! It never occurred to Christians that animals were anything but the personal playthings of people: after all, God created the creatures of the earth, air and water for our use, not for our protection. Bear-baiting, cock-fighting, the mistreatment of draft animals and brutality toward stray cats and dogs, were no laughing matter to Richard Martin (1754-1834), an Irish member of Parliament who got “Martin’s Act” against animal cruelty passed in Parliament. He was nicknamed “Humanity Dick” by King George IV. Two years later, on this date in 1824, at Old Slaughter’s Coffee House, Martin oversaw the founding of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, which put teeth into Martin’s Act. His efforts so impressed Queen Victoria that, in 1840, the SPCA was renamed the Royal SPCA, as they have been known ever since.

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 is a transcript of  co-host 2Buck Chuck’s (Dr. Charles A. Doswell III) segment “Leading Horses To Water” which airs on my American Heathen® radio show.  Chuck is a world-renowned scientist in the field of meteorology.  Air date of this particular segment – 06/09/12)

Ancient Greeks began the way of thinking originally known as natural philosophy but which we now call science. Science emerged as we know it during the Renaissance, in an age dominated by fear, superstition, injustice, and brutality. In other words, pretty much like the present. These musings are aimed at explaining how science works, and how science can serve even nonscientists in their efforts to make sense of the world. I can try to explain things but it’s up to you to decide whether or not you wish to drink from these waters.

If you listen to all the propaganda against global climate change, a scientific topic that has been politicized to an extent I never would have dreamed possible, it seems the deniers of the reality of global warming are proposing that there’s a vast conspiracy amongst global climate change scientists. Since these airheads seem capable of understanding others only by looking in the mirror, they see profit as the main motive for scientists to become involved in this putative cabal. Climate scientists are being accused of lying to the public purely for personal gain!

Apart from the utter absurdity of a global conspiracy among scientists to publish science they know to be wrong, this raises the question of just how scientific research is funded. There are only a few basic mechanisms for supporting high-level research: (1) government science laboratories that employ scientists to do research, (2) private sector support for research, and (3) university-based academic research funded predominantly through the National Science Foundation (NSF – a Federal agency), although academics also accept other sources (governmental and non-governmental). They take whatever they can get, of course.

The work done in Federally-funded research labs is done by their staff scientists, who receive a respectable wage for their work, comparable to academic salaries for faculty in the sciences. Apart from their salary (and any bonuses they might receive for their accomplishments), there are very strict rules imposed on these government scientists – they cannot accept money or expensive “gifts” from anyone else for any purpose, on pain of losing their jobs and perhaps being prosecuted. Thus, scientists in these Federal laboratories are as independent as it’s possible for anyone to be. No enhancements to funding for climate research can possibly find their way into the pockets of these folks! Virtually all of climate science being done in such facilities is supportive of the IPCC findings about global climate change.

The science done in universities by research faculty and associated scientists is dominated by NSF funding. In order to obtain such funding, scientists must submit a proposal to the NSF, which is sent out for review by other scientists working in that discipline. If the reviews are favorable, the proposal is ranked according to internal NSF criteria and those highly-ranked are funded (nowadays, often with NSF-required reductions to the proposed budget). The researchers are paid for some fraction of their time for participation in the project – typically an amount comparable to their salary for 2-3 months, as many universities actually pay their faculty only for the 9 months of the school year (3/4 of their nominal salary). The faculty have to cover the summer months of their salary by obtaining external grants like those from the NSF.

The salaries for university researchers are not set by the researchers themselves. Rather, they’re paid according to the university’s standardized salary rules, varying primarily with the seniority of the researchers. There’s simply no way for university scientists to add to the university-mandated income for their faculty or staff position. The rest of the proposal’s budget supports graduate student assistants, the actual research costs (charges for data, personal computers, field experiment costs, and so on), and university-provided infrastructure, such as computer facilities, laboratories, offices, phones, Internet access, etc. An NSF grant is not simply a check handed over to a researcher to spend as desired. Virtually all the budget is prescribed by various rules designed specifically to prevent the very abuse the deniers are accusing climate scientists of perpetrating! Virtually all of climate science being done in such facilities is supportive of the IPCC findings about global climate change.

Finally, consider funding by the private sector. This is precisely what the conservatives believe to be the proper way to do things: the pseudo-sacred, free-market, private sector way. In this domain, however, there are few, if any, rules governing how private sector funding is to be used in support of research. There may or may not be any strings attached to the resources contributed by the private sector, so there’s considerable room for abuse. Like the research contributed by cigarette companies for resources into the health hazards from smoking, many private sector contributions for global climate change research have been targeted at that small minority of scientists who are known to deny the reality of anthropogenic global warming. When someone is paying you for your research who has a pecuniary stake in the outcome of that research, it seems almost inevitable that your results would wind up favoring your supporters. If one were to seek a conspiracy regarding the science of global climate changes, this would be the right place to start! If you must be distrustful of scientists, here is where to look to find those unworthy of your trust! A considerable fraction of climate science being done under such circumstances is not supportive of the IPCC findings about global climate change. Is this a coincidence? I think not!

Science is not a religion but rather a tool for those who wish to think for themselves about the natural world. Its primary characteristic is its willingness to entertain questions from those who wish to obtain believable answers.

(The following is a transcript of a segment 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: 06/09/12)

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, June 3, but in 1727, the Scot called “the first great British geologist,” James Hutton was born. Hutton studied medicine, took his degree, but, there being no employment for him, he almost gave up science for agriculture. In 1785, Hutton submitted a paper to the newly established Royal Society of Edinburgh outlining his Theory of the Earth, an idea that pretty much invented the science of geology. But this theory flew in the face of the Biblical teaching that the earth had been transformed only once, catastrophically, by a universal Flood. Since the beginning of the Christian Era, the book of Genesis was the only acceptable book of geology. Before fundamentalist Islam clamped shut Muslim minds, Avicenna in the 11th century came up with a gradualist theory of the formation of the earth. But in Christian Europe the clerics thought research into the age of rocks distracted the mind from the Rock of Ages – and led to infidelity and Atheism. Only with James Hutton, and later with Darwin, was the truth of the scientific theory of gradualism gradually accepted.

Last Monday, June 4, but in 1648, Margery Jones became the first woman in Massachusetts to be executed explicitly for being a witch – that is, for dispensing healing herbs. Bay Colony Governor John Winthrop wrote in his diary: “Her behavior at the trial was very intemperate, lying notoriously, and railing upon the jury and witnesses, etc. and in like distemper she died. The same day and hour she was executed there was a very great tempest at Connecticut, which blew down many trees, etc.”

That was nothing like the tempest over woman suffrage that took 70 years to subside: On June 4 in 1919, the words, “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex” were written into the US Constitution. The so-called “Susan Anthony Amendment” passed the Senate 56 to 25, or two votes more than the two-thirds majority necessary. Tennessee took the honor of becoming the final state to ratify the 19th Amendment – by a one-vote majority – on 19 August 1920. What was the role of religion in winning this basic civil right? The 19th Amendment was named for Susan B. Anthony (1820-1906), who co-authored a History of Woman Suffrage (1881-1887), with Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815-1902) and Matilda Joslyn Gage (1826-1898), and who co-founded the National Woman Suffrage Association. Anthony was an Agnostic. Stanton, who answered in the negative in her essay “What Has Christianity Done for Women?”, and Gage, author of Woman, Church and the State (1893), were also Agnostics. So were Fanny Wright (1795-1852), Susan B. Anthony’s biographer Ida Husted Harper (1851-1931), Ernestine Rose (1810-1882), Lucy Colman (1817-1906), Lydia Child (1802-1880), Helen Hamilton Gardener (1853-1925), Eva Ingersoll-Brown, and 90 percent of the rest of the early leaders – and also, perhaps, 50 percent of today’s leaders. But now that women can vote, it will be more difficult to burn them as witches…

Last Tuesday, June 5, but in 1723, Scottish economist Adam Smith was born. Early in his education, while attending Glasgow and Oxford Universities, he adopted the philosophy of fellow Scot David Hume (1711-1776), who later became a good friend. He declined an obligation to enter the Scottish ministry, but instead at age 28 became a professor of logic, and later of moral philosophy while still living at home with his mother. He would remain there all his life, never marrying. Clerical Scotland was startled to read Smith’s 1759 Theory of Moral Sentiments, a work that espoused a naturalist, that is to say, a Deistic world view. The clerical reaction persuaded Smith that further advocacy of the idea that morality comes not from God but from sympathy, would not help his career. Smith visited Voltaire at Geneva, who persuaded Smith to believe that, “Science is the great antidote to the poison of enthusiasm and superstition.” And he began to work out his own ideas on political economy. In the same year that his friend David Hume died, 1776, Smith published the work that entitles him to be called “the father of British political economy”: Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, popularly known as Wealth of Nations. When Hume died, Smith edited some of his friend’s non-controversial papers for publication and even wrote a sympathetic life of Hume, which Chalmers’ General Biographical Dictionary describes as “a powerful blow against Christianity.” The work caused such a stir among the clergy in Scotland, especially from the Bishop of Norwich, John Home (1722-1808), who practically accused Smith of Atheism. But Smith was trying to make a living as a public employee, so he remained silent about his religious beliefs. It is generally accepted that Adam Smith was at most a Deist, but considering how close he was to Hume, he may in fact have been an Agnostic.

Last Wednesday, June 6, but in 1799, the founder of modern Russian literature, Alexander S. Pushkin (Алекса́ндр С. Пу́шкин) was born. His family was aristocratic but poor. Nevertheless, Pushkin managed to acquire an education and between 1811-1817 he began writing his first major work, Ruslan and Ludmila (Руслан и Людмила), a fairy story in verse based on Russian folk tales his grandmother had told him – in French. Pushkin’s masterpiece, Eugene Onegin (Евге́ний Оне́гин), a novel in verse published between 1823 and 1831, features a duel between his characters, Lensky and Onegin, over a woman named Olga. Life imitates art: In Moscow Pushkin met, and in 1831 married, the beautiful 16-year-old, Natalia Goncharova. Pushkin was twice her age. But rumors of Natalia’s infidelities afflicted Pushkin. She was seen with the French Baron George-Charles Dantes once too often at social functions, so Pushkin felt compelled to challenge Dantes to a duel on November 16, 1836.

Dueling was one of the more noxious innovations introduced after Europe was compelled to adopt Christianity. So much for the claim that Christianity tamed the passions of the barbarians! The practice was not confined to men: in the Middle Ages, women fought their own duels – sometimes against men. In 1165, Pope Alexander II, instead of condemning duels, simply forbade wounded priests from saying Mass. If anything, the practice expanded during the so-called Age of Chivalry. As late as 1830 London newspapers carried advertisements for how-to books on dueling. Spain, France, Britain, Ireland, Russia, Germany and the rest of the Christianized world had their own longstanding traditions of settling insults to honor through personal combat – and no gentle Galilean stood in their way. In the US, perhaps the most famous duel was on July 11, 1804, when Aaron Burr shot Alexander Hamilton. Dueling was not just about blood for honor. Pushkin’s duel extinguished a brilliant poet’s life: shot on a snow-covered field outside of St. Petersburg, he died from his wounds two days later. It was 10 February 1837, and Pushkin was 37. What great works might he yet have created? A monument stands in the very center of Moscow where, on this date each year, people gather to honor the memory of Alexander Pushkin, cut down by a bullet that no creed tried to stop.

Last Thursday, June 7, but in 632, Muhammad, the founder of Islam, died of a stroke at Medina. Muhammad (محمد‎) was born on a date uncertain in 570 in Mecca, in what is now Saudi Arabia, orphaned, brought up by an uncle, and became a camel driver and shepherd as a boy. Muhammad thought it tragic that his Arab race were idolaters and polytheistic, so in 610 (he was about 40) he started having visions from the Angel Gabriel and began a life as a prophet and teacher. Islam (الإسلام‎), means “submission,” as in submission to the one God. In 622 Muhammad was forced to flee from Mecca to Yathrib, which is now called Medina, and found his religion welcomed there. The date of that flight is called the hegira (هجرة) and that event marks the beginning of the Muhammadan era. The holy book of Islam, the Qur’an (القرآن‎), means “the recitation” or “the lesson” – of Allah. Because Muhammad was illiterate, he memorized his visions and dictated them afterwards, sometimes long enough afterwards to have forgotten contradictory earlier visions.

Inasmuch as the Qur’an reflects the ideas of Muhammad, a few points need to be made. First, neither in Islamic history nor in the Qur’an is Islam anymore a “religion of peace” than Christianity – like Christianity, it all depends on what you accept and what you reject in your interpretation of your holy book. Second, and for the same reason as Christianity, it is not true that Islam is a tolerant religion. If we discount the early suras in the Koran, which were revealed when Muhammad was struggling for acceptance, and concentrate on the later ones, written when Muhammad was master of Arabia, you will understand the context of holy words such as “[22.9] As for the unbelievers, for them garments of fire shall be cut and there shall be poured over their heads boiling water whereby whatever is in their bowels and skins shall be dissolved and they will be punished with hooked iron rods.” And [47.4] “When you meet the unbelievers, strike off their heads; then when you have made wide slaughter among them, carefully tie up the remaining captives.”

It was yesterday June 8, but in 1810, that German Romantic composer Robert Schumann was born. His mother encouraged him to study law, but Robert was distracted by his love of music and poetry. Deciding at last to undertake a career as a concert pianist, he lived with and studied under the master, Friedrich Weick. But Schumann managed to injure his right hand and soon it became impossible to play. Schumann fell back onto composition. However, his studies had one other benefit: he fell in love with his master’s daughter, Clara Weick, a polished pianist and composer in her own right. But it was five years before they were able to marry, over her father’s strong opposition (1840). Although religious compositions made up a significant part of Schumann’s works, he was a Pantheist like his countryman, Goethe.

Today, June 9, but in 1843, the first woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize, Baroness Bertha von Suttner, was born in Prague, in what is now the Czech Republic. She was the posthumous daughter of Field Marshal Count Kinsky, yet despite the militaristic tradition in which she was reared, Bertha became a peace activist and an international figure in the movement to offer arbitration in place of warfare between nations. Bertha tried to popularize the idea of the Permanent Court of Arbitration. She was the only woman at the First Hague Convention of 1899. Her former employer, Alfred Nobel, had established a peace prize to be awarded after his death, and in 1905 Bertha won this much-deserved award – the first woman to be so honored. It is arguable that no such award would have existed had not Von Suttner and Alfred Nobel been so close. And Baroness von Suttner made no secret of her Rationalism. Her beliefs might best be described as Pantheism, seeing God only in nature. She died on 21 June 1914, age 71, two months before the eruption of the world war she had warned and struggled against.

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.