Archive for the Politics Category
It IS A Game Of Inches – a special comment by David 2
Posted in Politics, Religion with tags Politics, Religion, Separation of Church and State on February 19, 2012 by David 2Recently a sixteen-year old student by the name of Jessica Ahlquist made the news by taking on her local high school’s fifty-year old banner with a passive Christian prayer. She won her battle and the judge ordered it removed from the school’s auditorium. Obviously those in the intolerant religious crowd were screaming bloody murder over this, like they do about everything else they stick their noses in.
But what surprised this commentator, as it did some of my fellow ShockNet Radio personalities, was not from the fundies, but rather from someone who considered himself to be an “atheist”.
Christopher Moraff calls himself a “practicing Buddhist” and a “functional atheist” as well as a heathen and a humanist. He’s also a blogger for the Philly Post, and in his recent column, he suggests that while Ms. Ahlquist should be commended for taking a stand, she should have picked a more blatant target, such as a recent proclamation in the Pennsylvania General Assembly to declare 2012 “The Year of the Bible”.
“We freedom fighters need to choose our battles,” he claims, “because I assure you, there are important ones to be waged.”
Unfortunately, Mr. Moraff, while that may sound reasonable, you are wrong on so many levels.
First of all, Ms. Ahlquist does not live in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. She lives in Rhode Island; a state founded by one of the greatest defenders of both freedom OF religion and freedom FROM religion, Roger Williams. She would not know the inner workings of Pennsylvania Commonwealth politics. She does not spend every single day having Commonwealth politicians shoving their personal religious beliefs in her face every day. Her high school, on the other hand, had that banner and that passive Christian prayer in her face every single day that she was there. This was her issue, her stand to take, and so far she did it quite well.
Second of all, that banner with the passive prayer is probably more of a threat to overall religious freedom simply BECAUSE it is a passive intrusion. For two years previously, that banner had “The Lord’s Prayer” on it before the Supreme Court’s decision in Engle v. Vitale in 1962 made such overt displays unconstitutional. In other words, the school made a conscious effort to continue to interject their religious endorsement but do it in a way that would not be overtly noticed. Like when corporations would contribute to a politician’s campaign to get preferential treatment instead of outright handing that person an envelope full of money. It’s still considered wrong, but it’s not as blatant.
Third, and perhaps most importantly, true defenders of freedom do not have the luxury of picking and choosing which battles to fight, especially when it involves those that impose their religion on the rest of us.
To use a football reference, this really is a game of inches, and every inch that is lost to Dominionism is an inch that is harder and harder to get back, especially when they use passive means to do it.
Every inch gained by the Dominionists, be it a proclamation, or a mural, or a placard or banner, is then used against the rest of us. Every missed challenge, every sneaky and underhanded insertion of their will is used as ammunition later on as further proof of their dominance. Then when some people finally stand up, they point back to those minor assertions and they say “Where were you when these were being done? Why didn’t you speak out about these other insertions then? Why speak up now when you said nothing about everything else we’ve done?”
Even worse, we have a judicial system full of judges ready to use that very rationality to deny later challenges. They will rule that because nobody said anything about these other insertions, no matter how minor, no matter how passive, that we have no grounds to complain about the more overt insertions. We see this today with the “Under God” reference in the Pledge of Allegiance, and with “In God We Trust” being stamped on coins. They are being dismissed in part because nobody challenged these insertions of Dominionism when they initially were imposed.
This is why Ms. Ahlquist’s victory, however minor in Mister Moraff’s eyes, is even more significant, because she was taking on something that was ingrained into the education system for fifty years. In any other jurisdiction, the judge could have easily dismissed the case by claiming that since nobody stood up against it fifty years ago, that it’s too late to do anything about it today.
When it comes to combating Dominionism, we are finding that justice delayed is not only justice denied, but also justice dismissed outright.
Mister Moraff has the luxury of picking and choosing his own fights in his blog as his Buddhist/atheist/heathen/humanist conscience will allow. But the rest of us need to understand that Dominionists don’t play just to win. They play for keeps. They take every gain they make, no matter how slight, no matter how seemingly insignificant it may be, and then use it against people like Ms. Alhquist. They use each gain as the reason and the justification for even more impositions, until they have what they want, which is a theocratic state that has no place for either Mister Moraff or Ms. Alhquist… or, for that matter, myself and most of you reading this article.
And maybe, Mister Moraff, if you were to encourage your readers to challenge those smaller insertions of Dominionism, then you would not have to worry about the General Assembly in your Commonwealth of Pennsylvania trying to impose those blatant assertions in the first place. For then the message would be clear, as Rhode Island’s Roger Williams once said in 1652: “The civil state is humbly to be implored to provide in their high wisdom for the security of all the respective consciences…” Operative word, of course, being “all”, not just the ones considered “dominant”.
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David 2 is a freelance writer and radio personality for ShockNet Radio. He is the co-host of “American Heathen®” and also the host of his own show on ShockNet Radio called “Brutally Honest”.
Religious War On Women
Posted in Politics, Religion on February 18, 2012 by RJ Evans(The following commentary is called “Reflections” by John Mill. John is a noted free thought advocate and broadcaster. This series airs on my American Heathen® internet radio show. Air Date 02/18/12)
The 2012 presidential election is turning out to be a battleground. But the battleground seems at least in part to be women’s bodies – or, at least, control of their bodies and their reproductive health. This is John Mill and I point out that Liberals and Libertarians have already thrown in the towel on the abortion issue. The issue is not the perennial one about abortion (celebrating its 39th year, thank you!), but contraception – an issue we thought was settled with Griswold v. Connecticut in 1965. In setting new rules for employment-provided healthcare, the Obama administration has, if you listen to Republicans and neo-cons, denied religious liberty to those church-affiliated employers who are morally opposed to contraception. Principally, these are the US Conference of Catholic Bishops.
How’s that again? We need to dispense with two big lies right away: first, that any church is “paying for” contraception. No, they are not: contraception is part of the general healthcare coverage that is part of the compensation received by employees. So the church would be paying for contraception in the same way that they’re paying for their employees groceries. Second, that healthcare is somehow a religious issue. No, healthcare is nonsectarian. There is no Catholic cancer; there is no Jewish geriatrics. And there certainly is no Protestant pregnancy.
The trouble with these so-called conservatives is that they are not really conservative. Nothing is really settled with them. We keep having to fight the same old battles. We had to explain to them all over again why torture is wrong. The battle over abortion never really ended. Now we have to re-fight the battle over contraception. What’s next? Having to teach conservatives once again that slavery is wrong?
Do we need any more evidence that the Republican Party has become the anti-American Christian Nationalist party? In fact, there are neither Christian – at least they hate everything Jesus supposedly taught – and they are not even Nationalist – because they hate every principle of freedom America stands for. Here’s a principle I hope the Catholic Bishops can get their head around: You forget that contraception is legal in this country, and has been for two generations. If you disagree with the contraceptive rule, then go ahead and pay you taxes, you and your churches, and then lobby to bring American law in line with church doctrine!
Or, as one writer put it, “If Catholic Bishops want to make their own rules as employers, then they can stop taking federal government subsidies for Medicaid and Medicare patients in their hospitals, or have their schools subsidized by government sponsored student loans.” [Hilary Rosen, Huffington Post, 2/9/2012]
This is not a free speech issue. Nobody is preventing the Catholic bishops from speaking freely. But they are trampling on the rights of women based on religion. And that’s un-American. My hope is that this contraception controversy will finally galvanize women and men who care not just about reproductive rights but about American democracy.
And one more thing: You Republican candidates who disagree with the contraceptive rule: you have turned your back on America. You have betrayed a core American principle. Every one of you has cited a religious reason for opposing the contraceptive rule. You need to go back to Civics class. I’m talking to you, especially, Mr. Gingrich. We do not make laws in this country based on religion. That’s kind of why this country was created – because we had some painful lessons from history as our teacher.
The latest news is that the president with the jelly spine has made a concession he did not need to make. He’s putting the cost of contraception onto the insurance companies, when in fact that will serve only to make contraceptive users more conspicuous. Even though something like 99% of Catholic women of childbearing years use contraception, now they can be subject to employment discrimination based on how they use the healthcare plan that’s part of their pay!
But the real tragedy is that the Obama administration has compromised on women’s rights to appease religious bigots. This is simply wrong. There is no point at which we say women are 99% first class citizens. This is John Mill.
This Week In Freethought History Feb. 12th -18th
Posted in Politics, Religion, Science on February 18, 2012 by RJ Evans(The following is a transcript of a recorded 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: 02/18/12)
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, February 12, was the anniversary of two great lights in Freethought history – one in science, the other in politics, one in England, the other in America – both born on the same day in the same year!
Last Sunday, February 12, 203 years ago (1809), British naturalist Charles Darwin was born. His collection and analysis of specimens from nature across a wide area of the earth, during and after his voyage on the Beagle, led to his formulation of the theory of evolution by natural selection. The response in the scientific community was electric. But in the religious community, where accepting Darwin’s theories was tantamount to rejecting divine creation, the response ranged from dismissive to panic-stricken. Darwin’s own religious views evolved from a passable piety to deep skepticism. Three years before he died, Darwin wrote, “I think that generally (and more and more as I grow older), but not always, that an Agnostic would be the more correct description of my state of mind.”
Also last Sunday, 203 years ago (1809), the 16th US President Abraham Lincoln was born. Presiding over a divided nation in the midst of civil war, Lincoln guided the Union effort with a firm hand. Was his hand guided by God, as many fundamentalists today claim? Though he read the Bible and accompanied his wife to church, Lincoln never joined any church. Perhaps he was a secret Christian? Nobody who knew him well says Lincoln was a Christian in any sense of the word – and in Western civilization nobody has had to be a “secret Christian” since the Roman catacombs! When a delegation of ministers in Chicago, claiming God’s direction, demanded that he issue the Emancipation Proclamation with all haste, Lincoln replied, “[I]f it is, as you say, a message from your Divine Master, is it not odd that the only channel he could send it by was that round-about route by that awfully wicked city of Chicago?”
Last Monday, February 13, 377 years ago (1635), the first US public school was founded. The system of free public education under pagan Rome, says historian William Boyd, “With few exceptions [under Christianity] had disappeared by the sixth century.” What education there was in medieval Christian Europe was for the wealthy and well connected and consisted largely of preparation for church duties, with little science and secular literature. The monks, far from preserving them, destroyed many ancient classics. Most priests were too illiterate to read the Mass. Illiteracy in Europe was 95-99% until the 1800s; 90% in 1900; but it is in single digits in the secular West today.
Last Tuesday, February 14, marked the 63rd birthday of American magician and comedian Teller (1948). Teller is the non-speaking half of the Penn & Teller act, currently running on pay cable as “Penn & Teller’s Bullshit.” They are both outspoken and often funny atheists. Teller was asked if even the most hardened Atheists “search for some kind of personal answers for existence itself.” Teller remarked that “Atheists do look for answers to existence itself. They just don’t make them up.”
Last Wednesday, February 15, 192 years ago (1820), American feminist and social reformer Susan B. Anthony was born. It is a characteristic of the early days of social reform movements that the pioneers were almost entirely Freethinkers, Agnostics, Deists and even Atheists. So it was with Anthony, who said, “I have worked 40 years to make the [Woman Suffrage] platform broad enough for Atheists and Agnostics to stand upon.” Anthony mostly kept her Agnosticism to herself, but elsewhere she said, “What you should say to outsiders that a Christian has neither more nor less rights in our Association than an atheist. When our platform becomes too narrow for people of all creeds and of no creeds, I myself shall not stand upon it.”
Yesterday, Friday, February 17, 412 years ago, Italian philosopher Giordano Bruno was burned alive for heresy on the Field of Flowers in Rome (1600). Bruno was a brilliant scholar and had an astounding memory. Even the Catholic Encyclopedia admits, “His attitude of mind towards religious truth was that of a rationalist.” But there was no safe place for a Rationalist in any country of Renaissance Christendom. Denounced to the Inquisition, in 1592, Bruno was dragged to a dungeon in Rome. Then on 10 February 1600, certain that this one intransigent man could bring down the entire Christian edifice, the Inquisition allowed him a final week to recant or be executed. Bruno’s answer was the same. A monument to Giordano Bruno now looks out over the Campo de’ Fiori where he was burned.
Today, Saturday, February 18, 58 years ago (1954), the First Church of Scientology was established in Los Angeles, CA. There’s a reason why some of us call the Church of Scientology “Where the Bullies Are”: they are notorious for their aggressive defense – not just of their religion but of their copyrighted holy books. Imagine putting a lock on the book of Genesis and charging a fee to learn how your church thinks the world began! Oh, wait. I think they already do – they just call it an offering. Started by science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard, Scientology grew into a multi-million-dollar business that had to litigate its way to tax exemption. The church is also responsible for the largest theft of US government documents in history and for an opposition to the science of psychiatry that has more than one preventable psychotic murder to its credit. Scientology is the medieval Inquisition, the Jesuits and the Mafia juiced up on science fiction, with thugs at its call and Internet-age mind control at its fingertips. Can you say “cult”?
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.
EQUALITY means EQUALITY, even for FREETHINKERS
Posted in Politics, Religion on February 13, 2012 by hewhay(The following commentary is part of a weekly series called “Yahweh Speaks” by Yahweh. Yahweh is an assumed name to protect his identity on-line. He is a noted free thought advocate and Constitutional attorney. His series airs on my American Heathen® internet radio show. Airdate 02/11/12)
In June 2005, in the Case of McCreary County vs ACLU, Justice Antonin Scalia, in dissent, asserted that “the Establishment Clause . . . permits the disregard of devout atheists.” This statement is beyond the pale and totally inconsistent with the tone, tenor and content of the tolerance and enlightenment with which our Framers and Founders sought to imbue our then nascent nation and its people’s. Thomas Jefferson said, “It behooves every man who values liberty of conscience for himself, to resist invasions of it in the case of others; or their case may, by change of circumstances, become his own.” Jefferson also said, “Where the preamble declares, that coercion is a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, an amendment was proposed by inserting “Jesus Christ,” so that it would read “A departure from the plan of Jesus Christ, the holy author of our religion;” the insertion was rejected by the great majority, in proof that they meant to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mohammedan, the Hindoo and Infidel of every denomination.
Of course, “infidel” comprehends “atheists”, “agnostics” and ALL those who do not subscribe to the prevailing orthodoxy. But, Scalia, blinded by his own Catholicism and infused with the piety of his own religious and constitutional inerrancy, says the Constitution affords no protection to those who do not embrace certain theologies. This is alarming, particularly from a Jurist who purports to be the “intellect ” of the Court. Moreover, it is a radical departure from the somewhat tortured course our nation has traveled towards actual equality regardless of race, creed, color,gender, national origin or religion. This spirit of equality and enlightenment of Jefferson has most recently been exemplified by young Jessica Ahlquist, who successfully challenged a Public School “Prayer Mural”. In a Cranston Rhode Island Public School there is an 8 foot by 4 foot mural with lettering 3 inches by 2 inches which reads as follows:
“Our Heavenly Father,Grant us each day the desire to do our best, To grow mentally and morally as well as physically, To be kind and helpful to our classmates and teachers, To be honest with ourselves as well as with others, Help us to be good sports and smile when we lose as well as when we win, Teach us the value of true friendship, Help us always to conduct ourselves so as to bring credit to Cranston High School West. Amen”.
The case went to Federal Court, and the Federal judge employed all the proper tests in theses cases, including “standing” inquiry, “strict scrutiny”, non-sectarian purpose, historical purpose, etc, and reached the correct decision:
“School sponsorship of a religious message is impermissible because it sends the ancillary message to members of the audience who are non-adherents “that they are outsiders, not full members of the political community, and an accompanying message to adherents that they are insiders, favored members of the political community.”
530 U.S. 290, 309-10, 120 S.Ct. 2266, 22
“What to most believers may seem nothing more than a reasonable request that the non believer respect their religious practices, in a school context may appear to the non believer or dissenter to be an attempt to employ the machinery of the State to enforce a religious orthodoxy.”
The Judge ended his opinion with what should be the POLESTAR for ALL PUBLIC schools, assemblies, meetings, and for all politicians, political office holders, public servants,judges, and justices in the exercise of their official public duties:
“Roger Williams, the founder of our state, who left the Massachusetts Bay Colony in pursuit of religious liberty, said, “There goes many a ship to sea, with many hundred souls in one ship, whose weal and woe is common, and is a true picture of a commonwealth, or human combination, or society. It hath fallen out sometimes, that both Papists and Protestants, Jews and Turks, may be embarked on one ship; upon which supposal, I affirm that all the liberty of conscience I ever pleaded for, turns upon these two hinges, that none of the Papists, Protestants, Jews, or Turks be forced to come to the ship’s prayers or worship, nor compelled from their own particular prayers or worship, if they practice any.”
More powerful, more poignant words are hard to find, but obeying them is simple;don’t use the power of the civil authority to impose your religious orthodoxy on others~~~ common decency demands such and THE CONSTITUTION FORBIDS SUCH!
“But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.”
This Week In Freethought History Feb. 5th – 11th
Posted in Politics, Religion, Science on February 11, 2012 by RJ Evans(The following is a transcript of a recorded 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: 02/11/12)
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, February 5, 146 years ago (1866), Scottish scientist Arthur Keith was born. A prominent evolutionist in his time, Keith was one of many experts taken in by the Piltdown fossil hoax. But his defense of Darwinism and his research and publication on the subject of primate and human evolution, put him in the front rank of his peers. Keith once said, “This world of ours has been constructed like a superbly written novel: we pursue the tale with avidity, hoping to discover the plot.” Although this sounds like Keith admitted a divine plan, he was an Honorary Associate of the British Rationalist Press Association.
Also last Sunday, February 5, 172 years ago, (1840), English inventor Sir Hiram Maxim was born. While visiting the 1881 Paris Electrical Exhibition, so the story goes, a man told him, “If you want to make a lot of money, invent something that will enable these Europeans to cut each other’s throats with greater facility.” Maybe for that reason Maxim is best remembered for the Maxim gun, the first self-acting machine gun. Maxim was an aggressive Atheist, co-writing Li Hung Chang’s Scrap-book (1913). In this, Maxim and co-author Joseph McCabe remark that “The Chinese were generally puzzled as to how it was possible for people who are able to build locomotives and steamships to have a religion based on a belief in devils, ghosts, impossible miracles, and all the other absurdities and impossibilities peculiar to the religion taught by the missionaries.”
Last Monday, February 6, 448 years ago, (1564), British poet and playwright Christopher Marlowe was born. He was arguably the most talented playwright in England next to William Shakespeare (who was born in the same year), and, had he lived beyond age 29, he might have equaled or even surpassed the Bard. In Elizabethan England, skepticism could be punished severely, yet Marlowe, Walter Raleigh and others formed a private circle of Rationalists, which clerical critics called “Raleigh’s school of Atheism.” A week before his death, the Privy Council had ordered Marlowe’s arrest on charges of Atheism, blasphemy, subversion and homosexuality. It is posited by some scholars that Marlowe’s death was not a simple dispute over a bill that accelerated under the fuel of drink. Perhaps he was murdered for political reasons?
Last Tuesday, February 7, 200 years ago, (1812), the greatest novelist in the English language, Charles Dickens, was born. Dickens was an acclaimed author by the time he made his first American tour and he returned to invent the modern idea of Christmas with A Christmas Carol in 1843. All of Dickens’ novels are characterized by attacks on social evils, injustice, and hypocrisy – including religious hypocrisy. His chief modern biographer (Edgar Johnson), wrote, “…he had little respect for mystical religious dogma. He hated the Roman Catholic Church, ‘that curse upon the world,’ as the tool and coadjutor of oppression throughout Europe. … He had rejected the Church of England and detested the influence of its bishops in English politics.” It was Charles Dickens who said of religious bigotry, “There is something in the sonorous quavering of the harsh voices, in the lank and hollow faces of the men and the sour solemnity of the women, which bespeaks this a stronghold of intolerant zeal and ignorant enthusiasm.”
Also last Tuesday, 127 years ago, (1885), Nobel-winning American novelist Sinclair Lewis was born. It was his attack on Bible Belt fundamentalist religion, Elmer Gantry (1927 – film 1960), that won Lewis both praise and condemnation. Protestants distanced themselves from the novel by rationalizing it as only a criticism of religious charlatans. Catholics liked Elmer Gantry because it criticized the Protestant heresy. As a boy he was interested in all religions, but it was in college that Lewis lost most of the religion he had, writing as part of his credo, “No cant about Sabbath, & priesthoods & gods, & saints, & blasphemy … If there be saints – they are Voltaire – as well as Christ; Shelley as well as St. Paul.” He at last concluded, “The Christian religion is a crutch. Until it is taken away we can never begin to walk well.”
Last Wednesday, February 8, 193 years ago, (1819), English author and art critic John Ruskin was born. In addition to his passion for architecture and art, Ruskin had a passion for social justice and progress. Although never a Christian, Ruskin was influential in the development of Christian Socialism, which is a political movement that is both Christian and socialist. Ruskin coined the term “Modern Atheism,” meaning “the unfortunate persistence of the clergy in teaching children what they cannot understand, and in employing young consecrate persons to assert in pulpits what they do not know.” John Ruskin who told English writer and raconteur Augustus Hare (1834-1903) that “he believed nothing.”
Last Thursday, February 9, 119 years ago, (1893), the first public strip-tease took place in Paris, when Mona, an artist’s model who thought she had more than just the prettiest legs, jumped nude onto a table for the art students. She got a 100-franc fine from the police, but her student fans rioted in protest. The Moulin Rouge, which had opened just a few years before, picked up on the idea… and the strip-tease was born! The public unveiling of the female body has always had the power to set religious mouths gaping. Or gasping. It seems that church control of women’s sexuality is essential or there would be no church power – just think of all the hot-button modern issues: sex-education in schools, premarital sex, birth control, abortion, pornography, sexual behavior and sexual orientation in the media and movies, homosexuality, bisexuality, breast-feeding in public, same-sex marriage, traditional roles in marriage – even topless sunbathing and nude beaches. In strip-tease, control over women’s bodies and their sexuality is in the hands of the women, where it belongs. Who is being exploited: the dancer or the gullible client?
Yesterday, February 10, 114 years ago, (1898), German dramatist Berthold Brecht was born. Attracted to Socialism and to theater, Brecht combined the two and became a leading reformer on the 20th century stage. Brecht noted a corrupt alliance between religion and capitalism in his 1928 Berlin hit, The Threepenny Opera (Die Dreigroschenoper). In The Life of Galileo (Leben des Galilei, 1938-39), Brecht claimed he had not meant to insult the Church; indeed, Brecht took it easy on the church officials who persecuted the great scientist. Berthold Brecht wrote in his Diaries, “The church is a circus for the masses,” and believed organized religion had been standing in the way of human progress for centuries.
Today, February 11, 165 years ago, (1847), American inventor Thomas Alva Edison was born. Edison had only three months of formal education, but his mother and the public library were his school. By age ten Edison had read Thomas Paine’s Age of Reason, of which he wrote, “I can still remember the flash of enlightenment that shone from his pages.” As for education generally, Edison said, “I do not believe that any type of religion should ever be introduced into the public schools of the United States.” “All Bibles are man-made,” said Edison. To the magazine in which a cleric discounted his religious views as those of “a mere mechanic,” Edison said, “I have never seen the slightest scientific proof of the religious theories of heaven and hell, of future life for individuals, or of a personal God.” Asked “What does God mean to you?” Edison replied, “Not a damn thing.”
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.
This Week In Freethought History Jan. 29th – Feb. 4th
Posted in Politics, Religion, Science on February 4, 2012 by RJ Evans(The following is a transcript of a recorded 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: 02/04/12)
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 29, 275 years ago (1737) American patriot and pamphleteer Thomas Paine was born into an English Quaker family. As a soldier in George Washington’s army, Paine penned Common Sense, which made him so popular that the title became his nickname. The first number of The Crisis, which begins, “These are the times that try men’s souls,” was so powerful, Washington had it read to his troops for motivation. Narrowly escaping the guillotine, after helping in the French Revolution, Paine returned to a nation that had forgotten all his service to American independence and instead reviled him for his honest criticisms in The Age of Reason. Paine was an early opponent of slavery and proponent of social security and general public education. He was a Deist, never an atheist. Paine’s writings influenced Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Edison, and generations of others.
Last Monday, January 30, 237 years ago (1775), English satirist and writer Walter Savage Landor was born. Landor supported the socialist ideals of George Holyoake (1817-1906) and was a firm fighter for freedom with his popular pen. In a series of letters to William Lamb (2nd Viscount, Lord Melbourne; 1779-1848), Landor wrote, “Divorce the Church and State: divorce them; and the one will neither be shrew nor strumpet; the other neither bulley [sic] nor cutpurse.”
Last Tuesday, January 31, 131 years ago (1881) American chemist Irving Langmuir was born in Brooklyn, NY. Langmuir is chiefly remembered for coining the physics term “plasma” to describe a fourth state of matter. He was awarded the 1932 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. A true scientist, Langmuir was deeply skeptical of shortcuts to knowledge, formulating “Irving Langmuir’s Symptoms of Pathological Science” – a list of six characteristics common to pseudoscience. When asked about his inattention to religion, Langmuir responded, “Never believe anything that can’t be proved.”
Also last Tuesday, but 215 years ago (1881) Austrian composer Franz Schubert was born in Vienna. Probably Schubert’s most popular work is his “Unfinished” Symphony in B-Minor (No. 8, D.759). The Catholic Encyclopedia, always eager to claim religious inspiration for art, makes much of Schubert’s church music and waxes rhapsodic about the faith that must have inspired the composer. In truth, like Beethoven and Mozart, Schubert was a skeptic. Sir George Grove, in his standard Dictionary of Music and Musicians, says, “of formal or dogmatic religion we can find no trace,” in Schubert’s short life. Of creeds and churches Grove quotes Schubert saying, “Not a word of it is true.”
Last Wednesday, February 1, 110 years ago (1902) American poet Langston Hughes was born in Joplin, Missouri. “I grew up in a not very religious family,” Hughes noted, “but I had a foster aunt who saw that I went to church and Sunday school.” Consequently, the influences evident in his work include the Bible as much as W.E.B. Du Bois. As a leading light of the “Harlem Renaissance” in the 1920s, the author of “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” depicted the ordinary lives of black people with a realism that crossed racial and cultural boundaries. He believed in God, but did not accept Christianity. Langston Hughes criticized those who used their piety for personal gain, or as a shield behind which oppression could flourish.
Last Thursday, 107 years ago (1905) Objectivist philosopher and author Ayn Rand was born to Jewish parents in Russia. As a young girl, she witnessed the brutality of the Soviet regime in the Bolshevik Revolution. At age 21 she got permission to travel to the US and settled in Los Angeles to become a screenwriter. She published The Fountainhead in 1943, and her most memorable if unreadable work, Atlas Shrugged, in 1957. In a time when most capitalists identified “godless” with “Communist,” Rand “was identifying religion and communism as brothers under the skin.” “Religion,” Rand noted, “is the first enemy of the ability to think. … Faith is the worst curse of mankind, as the exact antithesis and enemy of thought.”
Last Friday, February 3, 69 years ago (1943) four chaplains aboard the US Army Transport Dorchester, sinking from a German U-Boat attack in the icy North Atlantic, helped other soldiers board lifeboats and gave up their own life jackets when the supply ran out, thereby sacrificing their lives to save the lives of sailors and soldiers abandoning a sinking ship. Yet, the story of the Four Chaplains, if it proves anything, proves that nothing fails like faith. That 674 US soldiers had to drown in icy water to give us this heart-warming story, proves not the love of God, but his malevolence.
Today, February 4, 170 years ago (1842) Danish critic and scholar Georg Brandes was born in Copenhagen into a Jewish family. Although born and educated in Denmark, he lived in many countries: Brandes changed address so often because of his outspoken agnosticism. Brandes once wrote, “It would be as impossible for me to attack Christianity as it would be impossible for me to attack werewolves.” And, perhaps anticipating the Arab Spring in the East, and Occupy Wall Street in the West, Georg Brandes noted, “It is useless to send armies against ideas.”
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.
Freedom & Liberty For All – Instruction For The Ignorant
Posted in Politics, Religion on January 28, 2012 by RJ Evans(Editorial Comment from host RJ Evans on his American Heathen® radio show – Air Date 01/28/12)
Don’t do this. Don’t do that. Do as I say, not as I do. But reality speaks in whispers, behind closed doors, and in the shadows of the human mind. Secrets held near and dear for fear of discovery, entombed in the words of demands, warnings, and manufactured fear, crushes downward in an avalanche of personal denial upon anyone within reach of the left fork of the tongue. It’s called hypocrisy, and it always reveals the lies. It also denies freedom and liberty for all.
No matter how well we lie, our lies eventually become a window into truth, the truth of what we hide from others and even from ourselves. The very fact that we can so effectively convince others of our lies, and that we feel we are qualified to instruct others in personal matters of morality, to direct them, to admonish them for their lies, is really a way to sink our lies as deep as possible in the swamp of our fears. We claim that we instruct, direct and admonish others so they can be better than us. But, in point of fact, we don’t really care about them. We simply don’t want them to discover our lies, our inability to reconcile being human with our impossible personal moral compass. We cloak our self-created, self-imposed guilt, and our perceived failings, under a robe of self-righteousness and importance, pretending that we are immune to our core nature. Then we must try to control everyone and everything around us because we’re afraid we cannot control ourselves. We are afraid of our human animal.
Please, stand in judgment all of you who seek to hide your humanness! Go ahead! Sit in judgment with the myth of perfection as your standard for prosecution! But, to whose laws do you really subscribe? Laws based on fables? Tales of woe and torment of fictional characters from a time when laws were the simple whim of ignorant, fearful men, who could not control themselves, could not face their humanness in a mirror? Or, are the laws of your own creation, knee jerk responses to your own fear? Go ahead… Measure me! Measure everyone! Measure us by impossible standards because the fear of yourselves is far too great that others must be sacrificed to pay for your self-imposed inadequacies, for your fear of being human! Declare being human evil! Ah, but you already have, haven’t you? You have made it a crime to be human. And now you demand we redeem ourselves? For what? Being human? And, to whom? A myth and a kangaroo court manufactured to protect your denial? Why must anyone be redeemed, saved, from being human? Why must anyone pay for the fear of yourself, to exonerate you from you, in the dark, cold shadow, of your false piety, purity and chastity? Who are you to judge? Who are you to instruct anyone in your impossibly inhuman morality, one that not even you can live by, and that is truly immoral by standards of humanity? Yes, you! You are afraid aren’t you… Afraid you cannot control your mind, your sexual desires, your loves, your lusts, your humanness. All that is truly good in life scares you because you know so little about who and what you really are! You are so frightened by the image you see in the mirror! You coward!
I can’t tell you the number of times I instructed and destroyed before I finally acknowledged the truth of my existence, the reality of the human animal in me and around me. Denial was far too easy for far too long. I was so afraid… just like you. But, I did not run away from myself when the challenge came, when personal responsibility spoke to me. I removed the robe of self-righteousness. I stood naked before the mirror. I saw my humanness and shouted at myself for my ignorance. It was then that the truth was revealed through the window of my hypocrisy. I saw the destruction that lay in its wake. I had been terribly wrong.
Freedom and Liberty is for all. That is the truth I found out of the rubble of my past. It is a truth that is not bestowed upon humanity by some benevolent myth. It is a truth that cannot be expunged from humanity. It is an inherent truth, one that is born into each and every one of us as we depart the womb. It is ours to own as individuals! It is a truth that cannot be hidden under faux piety, prudishness, denial, or suppressed by manufactured oppressive law. It is the result of being alive, self-aware, and human. Freedom and Liberty for all isn’t negotiable. It is not a commodity that can be bought and sold. It cannot be bartered for under the wages of death for simply living it. Freedom and liberty exists for its own sake, as a matter of natural course.
Go ahead and try to imprison freedom and liberty for all. It cannot be jailed. But for you, you are welcome to cage yourself. Simply deny yourself. Go ahead and deny your yearnings, your desires, your lust, your love, your passions. Deny yourself your compassion, your empathy, your altruism. Deny your wandering thoughts, dreams, fantasies. They are at your prerogative, but they are for you to deny yourself. Not to deny for others. Freedom and liberty for all will live on in everyone else despite your personal denials. And, as you suffer in the prison you have created, you will quickly learn that being human cannot be human without freedom and liberty.
How many of you have imprisoned your freedom and liberty? How many of you have suppressed the very nature of your humanness? How many of you live in hypocrisy? You don’t have to be afraid. You are free. You own liberty. It is yours. Now share the news. Freedom and liberty for all. Live it. Love it. Now is the time to fight for it.
This Week In Freethought – Jan. 22nd – 28th
Posted in Politics, Religion, Science on January 28, 2012 by RJ Evans(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.
