American Atheist Magazine July/August 2010

The Fallible Human Section
The American Atheist owes an apology to three very talented photographers that did not receive credit in two recent magazines. John Welte provided all of the convention photos for the June issue, including the cover shot of Blair Scott and David Silverman. Dan Dion is responsible for the excellent photo of Jamie Kilstein on the cover of the May issue. C.S. Muncy also provided a creative photo of Jamie on page 18 of the May issue. Thank you all very much for sharing your work with us, and please accept our sincere apologies and deep appreciation of your craft.
American Atheist Staff
2010 Photos.com
July/August 2010
Vol 48, No.6
American Atheist
ISSN 0516-9623 (Print) ISSN 1935-8369 (Online) AMERICAN ATHEIST PRESS Managing Editor Frank R. Zindler editor@atheists.org AMERICAN ATHEIST A Journal of Atheist News and Thought Editor David Smalley editor@americanatheist.org Assistant Editor & Proofreader Paul Palmer Published by American Atheists, Inc. Mailing Address: P.O. Box 158 Cranford, NJ 07016 908.276.7300 P 908.276.7402 F www.atheists.org
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in this issue...
6 Book Review: The God Strategy Christianity at the Crossroads: Nazareth in the Cross Hairs Book Review: The Case Against the Case for Christ Protesting the Protestors How Atheists Can Help Resolve the Arab-Israeli Dispute Godless Americans Why Does God Kill Children? Is Deist or Agnostic More PC Than Atheist? Book Review: Feet of Clay 8 13 14 18 22 28 30 33
2010 American Atheists Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission is prohibited. American Atheist is indexed in the Alternative Press Index. American Atheist magazine is given free of cost to members of American Atheists as an incident of their membership. Subscription fees for one year of American Atheist: Print version only: $20 for 1 subscription and $20 for each additional gift subscription. Online version only: $35 Sign up at www.Atheists.org/aam Print & online: $55. Discounts available for multiple-year subscriptions: 10% for two years 20% for three or more years. Additional postage fees for foreign addresses: Canada & Mexico: add $15/year. All other countries: add $35/ year. Discount for libraries and institutions: 50% on all magazine subscriptions and book purchases.
ach year, American Atheists gives away the Affiliate of the Year award at the American Atheists Convention. Affiliate of the Year is not a random award: it actually means something. It means the Affiliate earned the award through hard work and dedication. The criteria looked at for consideration of Affiliate of the Year are: Activism for the separation of church and state and civil rights of non-theists (protests, demonstrations, letterwriting, action alerts, etc) Events, activism, or programs that promote a positive image of Atheists and Atheism (public events, parades, editorials, etc). Provides a social outlet for local Atheists (in addition to regular monthly meetings unless they are exclusively social) Charitable works, community outreach, or some other social programs or events (such as blood drives, feeding the homeless, donations, etc.) Please note that as a policy, American Atheists does not participate in charitable works or social programs. While American Atheists certainly does not discourage affiliates group from participating in charitable works and engaging in social programs, such activities are by no means required or expected of Affiliates. Affiliates submitted their resume to Blair Scott prior to the American Atheists Convention covering all of their activities for the 2009 year. The amount of activism out there being conducted by Affiliates was overwhelmingly amazing! Last years recipient of the Affiliate of the Year, the Florida Atheists & Secular Humanists (FLASH) still continued to amaze us with their dedication and hard work to the cause. But this year there was another group that did even more...
American Atheists 2010 Affiliate of the Year Award

winner is announced on page 37...
American Atheist - July/August - 2010
Magazine Schedule Announcement

President Ed Buckner & Editor, David Smalley
ear the beginning of the year, we announced the new magazine production schedule and our plan to put the publication back on track. Were happy to say it was successful, and our deadlines were met without incident. Since that time, we have been quite proud of the quality and timeliness of our flagship publication, yet we still made improvements along the way. While the magazine is very important to the American Atheists organization and its members, we must note that it is one piece of the puzzle. Our members stand prouddefending the rights of Atheists and other non-religious freethinkers, and maintaining that wall of separation between church and state that we all cherish so dearly, and will fight to protect. Our rallies all over the country bring awareness to our cause and further the Atheist movement encouraging new activists to get involved and speak out. Our books are produced by American Atheist Press, primarily managed by Frank Zindler, which plays a vital role with its responsibility to continue publishing Atheistic material from freethinking authors. Our conventions and other events bring together Atheists from all over the world to share views and strengthen our network. Our Web-site is vital to worldwide communication, Atheist news, renewing memberships, accepting donations, and selling merchandise through the online store to support our efforts and spread our message. Our newsletter keeps members updated on specific events, lawsuits, and opportunities for activism encouraging everyone to stay involved. As you know, these critical pieces function together, and require a financial stronghold to continue operating.
We have many hard-working volunteers and a small, modestly paid staff that certainly arent here to get rich! These proud men and women do everything they can to ensure the success of American Atheists. We all deeply care for the organization and want nothing more than to continue its success as the nations leader in the Atheist movement. With the economy in its current state, several cost-saving ideas have been presented in a nationwide commitment to rebuild the financial security of American Atheists. With that commitment, comes sacrifice. The single most expensive cost to the organization is the production of the magazine. For that reason, to give the organization some much needed breathing room, we are reducing the load of production costs by printing the magazine on a bi-monthly basis for the remainder of the year. (Just imagine how effective it would be for your home budget to reduce your largest living expense by 50 %!) While we would prefer to continue producing a monthly publication, as we are sure most of you would prefer receiving it that way, we are excited about the opportunities this will open up and the stability it will provide for the organization. We certainly hope that our members will understand and appreciate the moves we are making to further secure our position in the Atheist movement. We do promise to revaluate our financial situation in the fourth quarter of 2010 to see if monthly issues can resume production in 2011, or as soon thereafter as is affordable. To ensure our members and loyal magazine readers arent too disappointed, we are adding 8 additional pages to each publication, beginning with this one. Be on the lookout for our September/October and November/December bi-monthly issues coming soon.
July/August 2010 - American Atheist
Book Review
Stephen J. Gallagher on David Domke and Kevin Coes The God Strategy: How Religion Became a Political Weapon in America. Oxford University Press, 2008. 208 pp.
Accepting Jesus Christ in my life has been a powerful guide for my conduct and my values and my ideals. George W. Bush? Think again. It is Barack Obama speaking, and authors Domke and Coe believe that this kind of religious rhetoric is poisoning American politics. More than any other developed nation, America is a place where ones beliefs about God are a significant component of daily life. Nowhere is this more obvious, and dangerous, than politics, where religion continues to establish an extreme baseline against which all political rhetoric must be measured. Like it or not, God has always been part of American politics. Religion formally entered the US presidency at its inception, when George Washington, in his 1789 inaugural address, declared that it would be peculiarly improper to omit in this first official act my fervent supplication to the Almighty Being who rules over the universe. To pretend that religion in politics is something new is a bit nave: America has always been a conservative, religious country, and Americans want to know where a politician stands on what they consider to be one of the most important issues of all: the politicians relationship to his or her god. Most American Atheist readers have read several books on the subject of religions pernicious influence on the political space. As one reads yet another book on this subject, one cannot help but think: Ive read this all before. This was not a problem with The God Strategy, because this short
(208 pp.) book does something surprising and refreshing: it replaces rhetoric and polemic with statistics and graphs. This is a brilliant new approach to this thorny subject, and the authors belief that it can be freshly illuminated with statistical analysis is borne out by the material they offer. Graphical representations of trends in American politics bring the information up off the page and into the readers face, lighting up alarm centers in the brain that straightforward narrative cannot reach. And make no mistake: the current situation is very alarming. We like to pretend that the loopy religious rhetoric of George W. Bush was an aberration in what has otherwise been a comparatively sane, rational political milieu. In fact, appeals to religiosity have always been part of the fabric of American political life. That being said, Domke and Coe show that as recently as 1960, it was downright politically prudent to actively defend against the intrusion of religion into politics: In a pivotal speech in 1960 that many believed helped him sew up the election, John F. Kennedy proudly declared that I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute. This was surely a
high-water mark for the efforts to make American politics hew to the letter and the spirit of the Separation Clause. However, even then the American heartland was itching for the chance to change the discourse. New technologies helped bootstrap fundamentalism out of a thousand little painted-concrete churches on a thousand dusty back roads and broadcast it on millions of television screens. The backroom dealmaking of Billy Graham gave way to the overt activism of Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, and when the people in those dusty churches saw their faith and their aspirations up there on TV, they experienced something new: the feeling of power. Jimmy Carter, who wore his faith on his sleeve as proudly as any man, was nevertheless the last old-guard defender of secularism in politics. Carter was no fool; he understood that South-
ern evangelicals, seeing him as one of their own, had turned out heavily for him at the polls, but he was too honest, both as a man and as a politician, to feed the American public the kind of triumphal, feel-good noble lies that it demanded. Carters 1980 convention speech had not so much as a whisper of the Christian god or religion, and he went down to inglorious defeat before a man who represented a new, proud, overtly political religiosity: Ronald Reagan. The phrase God Bless America in political speech was almost entirely absent from the American presidency until Ronald Reagan took office. But Reagan believed that the United States was still Gods country, still the ordained leader of the free world, still that well-loved shining city on a hill. Reagan understood that Presidents are first and foremost the nations storytellers, political bards who spin the narratives about the countrys past, present, and future. Reagan was the master of infusing the nations political story with an uncomplicated, homespun religiosity. Domke and Coe emphasize that while the Reagan administration did not create this dynamic, they perfected it. As one example, we discover that proclamations of national days of prayer were almost non-existent before 1981, averaging 0.58 proclamations per four-year term. After 1981, something disturbing happens: the proclamations of national days of prayer shoot up to 6.15 per term. The Lord was being invoked for any old reason under the sun. And the citizens loved it. Domke and Coe emphasize repeatedly that this pathological coupling of religion and politics is not just a Republican problem. Case in point: William Jefferson Clinton. It is not surprising that this man who grew up a dirt-poor southern Baptist would have
brought the 1992 Democratic convention to a crescendo with a speech centered on a new Covenant, hammering away at the importance of religious faith. In true Baptist tent-revival fashion, Clinton brought the audience to its feet in a collective swoon of religious vapors with a chant of one nation ... UNDER GOD. Clintons rhetoric of faith served as a dog whistle for those religious Democrats who were uncomfortable with the direct, manic appeals to The Lord that were so popular with the Republican base. Clintons problem was that he tried to have it both ways: He took steps to appeal to devout Christians during the Christmas season, but also served up a secularized greeting for those less interested in overt religiosity. Fencestraddling in this area, as with so much of the fence-straddling that Clinton did, failed to achieve its purpose. Predictably (and perhaps inevitably), Clinton had almost no success in attracting evangelical conservative voters. Religious rhetoric coming from the Democratic side was seen (correctly) as a reaction to the wholesale escalation of religious demagoguery by the Republicans. The Democrats have never really mastered the seemingly earnest, uncompromising rhetoric that would have signaled the presence of a consistent moral compass. They paid the price in 2000. When you accept Christ as your savior it changes your heart. When George W. Bush spoke these words in 2000, he not only drew a rousing ovation from his audience but also set the norm. Or perhaps we should say he re-set the norm to a much more intense and unapologetic religious witnessing. With this proclamation (no other word will do), the bar was immediately set so high that, from that point on, nothing less than intemperate
Hosanna-shouting and feverish falling out in church would do if a politician aspired to high office. Bush forged ahead with his fierce, uncompromising religious project in his inauguration speech; this speech was filled with pre-Enlightenment words that could have been spoken with equal impact in the seventeenth century about the restorative powers of faith and prayer and good deeds. There was to be no fence-straddling and moral equivocation from this president. When he spoke of God, Bush didnt mean some fluffy, ecumenical, New Age god: he meant Jesus Christ, and Bush seized every opportunity to pepper his speeches with references to Christ. In the Bush administration, church-state separation began to feel foreign, and the Constitutional principle was being called into serious question by more and more Americans. A truly dangerous development and one not likely to go away merely because George W. Bush has gone away. If Barack Obamas god-besotted campaign taught us nothing else, it taught us that the fevered, extreme religious rhetoric born in the Reagan era and brought to a kind of hideous perfection by George W. Bush is still with us. It will be interesting to see if the overtly pious Barack Obama will gear back on some of the more elaborate rhetoric, or if, having found it useful, he will simply bring us more of the same. To roll back this very dangerous religious trend, Domke and Coe believe that the citizens of America will need to do what we rarely do: engage in a robust societal conversation. But in a society that considers the demagogic rants of Bill OReilly and Keith Olbermann to be reasoned intellectual discourse, is a robust societal conversation on such a controversial subject even imaginable anymore?
Christianity at the Crossroads Nazareth in the Crosshairs

Ren Salm
few days ago I had lunch with my neighbors. Ben is a retired financial analyst, a practical, intelligent man with a dry wit and little patience for superstition. His wife Karen works as a psychiatric nurse and had the day off. As we ate, the TV was on in the background, tuned to CNN. This was Holy Week, the time of year when Christs death and resurrection are celebrated, and when the Christian world is more than usually interested in topics religious. This year those topics were spicier than usual, for the breaking news was the Catholic Churchs sex scandal. Perhaps catering to Americas insatiable appetite for the salacious, the top story on CNN that day was pedophile priests. Our table talk was a commentary on the increasingly lurid revelations which now threatened to implicate even the pope. Over coffee and dessert, Ben (my neighbor, that is, not the pope) muttered in disgust, Why does anyone still go to church? Karen shook her head in silence. There are still a lot of believers, I answered with a sigh. The three of us were raised Roman Catholic but, in a perhaps revealing statistic, not one of us remains a believer today. Does anybody, Ben continued, really think that the wine turns into Jesus blood, and the bread into his body? Isnt this the twenty-first century? It is, but theyre still teaching those things in catechism class, I said. Cannibals! Ben retorted, taking a bite of pie. The TV droned on: ... molested two hundred children. ... difficult to prove the popes direct involvement ... Vatican very angry with the New York Times ... thousands of cases now surfacing in Germany ... Ba-
varian Catholics leaving the Church in droves ... I glanced at my watch and turned to Karen. That was a great lunch, I said, standing up to leave. More pie and ice cream? she offered. Wish I could stay longer, Karen, but I need to write an article this afternoon. Its for American Atheist magazine. Maybe you can include something about these scandals, she said. Thats a good idea. But the article is about the bogus archaeology of Nazareth a long time ago. Is there a tie-in? Yes, Ben interjected, rising from the table to get my jacket. The latest sex scandals are just the most recent form of hypocrisy, arent they? I mean, the Church didnt become this rotten overnight. It must have gone wrong some time ago ... a long time ago maybe even at the very beginning. Thats where Nazareth comes in. My neighbor is absolutely right. The hypocrisy now surfacing in the Catholic church has a long and sickening pedigree. Todays pedophile priest, yesterdays holier-than-thou inquisitor, and the grand dissemblers who led western civilization astray two thousand years ago with a cock-and-bull Jesus story all have one thing in common: a pathological betrayal of trust. A House from the time of Jesus? On December 20 of last year, the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) notified major wire services as well as journalists from leading newspapers around the world of breaking news about to take place in Nazareth. I read the following notice on my computer in Eugene, Oregon:
This morning the IAA Spokesperson circulated a notice to journalists inviting them to a Press Conference to be held tomorrow morning, December 21, at which The IAA will Reveal a New Archeological Find in Nazareth. The meeting point will be behind the Church of the Annunciation, next to the upper entrance to the old school of Saint Joseph at 10:20 AM. I found the timing predictable, even suspicious, as the Catholic Church has a penchant for announcing convenient news on or about the winter solstice and just a few days before Christmas. That is peak piety season when the congregation is, presumably, at peak receptivity.
Bill Hemmer (FOX news interviewer): Its such a wonderful time of the year to have such a great discovery.... James Hamilton Charlesworth (noted academic at Princeton Theological Seminary, professor and Methodist minister): I almost said at the beginning, Lets be cynical. You know, this is the time of year when nonsense hitsbecause its Christmas. But wait a minute.... This is not nonsense. This is REAL stuff, from Jesus Nazareth, from Jesus time! Bill Hemmer: Wait a minute.... You dont need to be cynical, you can be skeptical. You dont necessarily have to be cynical! James Hamilton Charlesworth [somewhat taken aback]: Thats a good correction. Yeah.... (Excerpt from Glimpse into Jesus time, FOX news video, Dec. 22, 2009)
On winter solstice morning a veritable gaggle of international media representatives were assembled on Franciscan property in Nazareth, Israel, for the promised news. They stood outside the Church of the Annunciation, a few yards from the fabled spot where the fourteen-year old Virgin Mary received the assignation from the archangel Gabriel that she would be bearing God, or the Son of God, or God with Us (Emmanuel, Mt 1:23). Christian theologians have long debated the exact nature of this interruption in the young maidens life by the LORD. The hardest information we have of this history-changing event remains the contradictory reports in the first chapters of Matthew, Luke, and (for more intrepid readers) the once popular Protevangelium of James. AP, UPI, Reuters, and Agence France Presse were all present (I mean, at last years press conference, not at the Annunciation, for which there were no witnesses). By nightfall the news had circled the globe. HOUSE FROM THE TIME OF JESUS FOUND IN NAZARETH screamed the FOX headline. A plethora of print, video, audio, and digital reports eventuated in succeeding weeks, all basically saying the same thing since they ultimately all go back to the same news conference. Instantly, the Internet was buzzing with the story. Google returns for nazareth archeology soared from 50 to 1350 hits overnight. Newspapers from the New York Times to the Jerusalem Post carried the story on Dec. 22, and it made all the network TV newscasts that evening. Personally, I was less impressed with the content of this story than with the awesome speed of its dissemination. Everything about this discovery betrayed a coordinated, first-class publicity effort which, in our day, only a mountain of money can buy.
Firstly, there was that preannouncement which instantly reached far beyond the media to the general public and people like myself. In other words, there was not merely a story herethere was also massive preparation for the story. Secondly, there was coordination between the Israeli government and the Christian establishment. After all, the announcement was by the IAA, a staid arm of the Israeli government and one which does not routinely hold press conferences. On the other hand, the venue (both of the excavation and of the press conference) was Franciscan church property, and the headliner was none other than Jesus. This rather small Nazareth house excavation had, evidently, enlisted the vast publicity efforts of both the Jewish
and Christian mega-establishmentsa breathtakingly broad base. Thirdly, the post-conference publicity across all the worlds major media and at warp speed was a public relations accomplishment worthy of Madison Avenues finest. Similar excavations in Israel (which occur almost daily) routinely garner only a paragraph or two summary in an austere archaeological journal. They lack a scintilla of media attention and, from a publicity standpoint, die an instant death. Obviously, this Nazareth house excavation was quite different. Fourthly, big name Christian scholars instantly jumped on board. Within twenty-four hours James Charlesworth (see above) discussed the excavation on FOX news in an extended interview, and the matter was important enough to
find him on a plane to Nazareth within days. Other prominent Christian scholars, such as James Tabor, also voiced their interest, support, and pleasure at the new Nazareth house finds which, finally, offered proof of the towns existence at the time of Jesus. One could almost hear a collective sigh of relief from the Christian world. Alexandres Ragtime Band At the center of this story is a name suddenly catapulted from virtual obscurity onto the global stage: Yardenna Alexandre. Hers is the smiling face of a sixtyish woman that appeared last Christmas on so many TV screens and computers, almost apologetically explaining: I dont think I really appreciated the extent of interest that [this excavation] would generate in the world. Ms. Alexandre has been active for several decades as an archaeologist
for the IAA, either assisting or directing a number of smaller excavations in Israel, some in the vicinity of Nazareth. I corresponded with her a few years ago during the lengthy research for my book, The Myth of Nazareth. She first surprised me with the claim of having found Hellenistic evidence at Marys Well in Nazareth, a small excavation she directed. Such evidence was entirely inconsistent with the rest of the data from the Nazareth basin that Id collected. If true, it would effectively scuttle my case against Nazareths existence at the time of Jesus. However, Alexandres claim proved to be unfounded, for when I challenged her on this point, she was either unwilling or unable to produce documentation or even a description of her Hellenistic evidence. I was surprised. In a bizarre twist, Christian excavators a year or so later independently alleged that Alexandre had discovered
The Nature of God

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To inspect the book go to www.ablithse.com The book examines the scientific evidence and resolves the conflict between the evil around us and meaning and purpose to the universe. It will make a believer out of you! How confident are we? Order the E-book by an e-mail to ablithse@yahoo.com Send no money! We will e-mail you the E-book, free of charge. If you like the book send a check or money order (no credit cards, please!) for $5.00 to: A.B.Literary House, P.O.Box 528, Lawrence, Kansas 66044, USA. If you dont like the book, hit the delete button! No questions asked; no harm done!
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Hellenistic coins at Marys Well. Since she herself had said nothing about such coins, I wondered how these Christian excavators (working at the other end of the basin, at the Nazareth Village Farm resort) could know more about her discoveries than Alexandre did herself. If valid, this Hellenistic coins claim could similarly undermine the skeptical case against Nazareth. However, to date Ms. Alexandre has not substantiated this claim with any verifiable data, and has refused to address it. (On the NVF shenanigans see American Atheist, Jan. 2010, pp. 1013). This was a second surprise. Thus, Ms. Alexandre has been at the center of several pro-tradition claims at Nazareth, yet her inability to support them with demonstrable evidencetelling silences which amount to a default in the science of archaeologyalert us to the questionable character of those past claims which have invariably bolstered the traditional Christian view of Nazareth. Given this track record, I was not surprised to see Ms. Alexandre chosen by the church to direct this latest dig, at the behest of the Association Mary of Nazareth, a Catholic association with plans to incorporate the ancient house Alexandre excavated into a tourist destination called the International Marian Center of Nazareth. The excavator described the dig as a rescue excavation in a very small area adjacent to the Church of the Annunciation. In the winter solstice press conference she concluded as follows: The discovery is of the utmost importance since it reveals for the very first time a house from the Jewish village of Nazareth and thereby sheds light on the way of life at the time of Jesus. (Residential building at the time of Jesus of Nazareth, IMFA release, Dec. 21, 2009) Alexandres claim is based on a few pieces of pottery dating (in her words) from the Early Roman Period. Were talking about the first century
BCE (before the common era) and the first century CE, which is really the time of Jesus Christ (FOX news video, A Christmas Discovery, Dec. 27, 2009). For the record, let me state that this claim is highly improbable. First of all, the presence of Nazareth pottery from the time of Jesus (the turn of the era) flies in the face of the rest of the evidence from the area, evidence gathered in over a century of digging which clearly shows the beginning of settlement several generations after Jesus time (see The Myth of Nazareth, Chapter Four). Secondly, we have yet to see any such pottery in the documented, published literature. As discussed above, Alexandre has a track record of making pro-tradition claims and not backing them up with evidence that can be properly itemized, drawn, and described, as is normal in academic literature dealing with archaeology. Im by no means the only skeptic. An American archaeologist (who shall remain nameless) has eloquently observed: ... What I find most notable is that to date the excavators [of the Nazareth house] have yet to report even one shred of evidence that places this structure in the first century CE as opposed to the second century. People can trust all they wish, but it is precisely this type of trust that leads the gullible to pay no heed to the requirements of evidence. Instead, they buy into the spurious idea that the traces of farms, Roman bath houses, garrison works, vineyards, caravansaries, synagogues, etc., have been discovered from a turn of the era Nazareth. These edifices do not exist in the factual record, but they widely populate apologists fiction. The same archaeologist contacted a colleague in Israel and continues: ,,, After reading the MFA [Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs] press release, which states that the ceramics found at the site were perhaps second
century CE, I contacted a friend of mine who is a director at the Albright [W. F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research]. He confirmed for me that the typology is first-second century CE, and presently the ceramic finds are so sparse and disjointed that it is still too early to rule out stratigraphic intrusion. So, judging from the finds themselves, the Jesus era is apparently first-second century CE or perhaps even later. Obviously, this dig adds little if anything to our previous body of knowledge at this time, as we already have scarce first-second century ceramic remains at Nazareth and an evidentiary profile that confirms occupation of the site in the second century CE. ... I find it highly revealing that an IAA [Israel Antiquities Authority] representative would state that we have a few written sources that [let us] know that Nazareth was a small, Jewish village in the first century CE. Anyone care to venture a guess as to what these written sources might be? Nazareth is a cash/political cow and professional/confessional bulwark that they will never allow to crumble, no matter what the evidence might be. Thus, there are prominent archaeologists both in Israel and the U.S. who doubt Alexandres early dating regarding this house from the time of Jesus. Perhaps even more telling is that the official IAA report of this excavation also does not support Ms. Alexandres claim. It took me only fifteen minutes online to track down the terse one paragraph report which gives a very different picture from Alexandres words to the press. It reads as follows: The excavation in the Church of the Annunciation was expanded to include two squares. Remains of a building from the Roman period were exposed in which there were two rock-cuttings in the bedrock: one a silo and the other, in the excavators opinion, a refuge pit. There were also the remains of a large building there that dates to the Mamluk
period, of which a vault and a number of walls were exposed. The excavation has ended. Remarkably, the above IAA report merely mentions structural remains from the Roman period, which lasted into the fourth century CE. The only other dating divulged is the Mamluk period (13th19th centuries). It makes no mention of first-century remains, much less of evidence from the turn of the era (time of Jesus). Once again, Ms. Alexandre appears to be making early claims that are not backed up by the evidence. As for the refuge pit, this would point to a hiding place at the time of the Second Jewish Revolt (132135 CE), consistent with much other material from Nazareth, not to the time of the First Revolt (c. 70 CE). In other words, the official statement from the Israel Antiquities Authority, though very brief, does not support Alexandres stunning remarks which have been trumpeted across the globe since before Christmas. There really is no story here at all! This is the dirty little secret known to myself, to a few othersand now to you too. This pattern of deception repeats over and over again in so-called Christian archaeology. Against the encroaching work of science, the church makes claims which support the fantastic gospel story of Jesus. Upon investigation, however, those claims invariably turn out to be bogus. In the case of this recent Nazareth house excavation, an Israeli archaeologist is the mouthpiece for the church. Nevertheless, her interpretive remarks to the press must be supported by the presentation of verifiable evidence if they are to be taken seriously. Until the archaeologist decides to do that, we have absolutely nothing to go on except her word. So it is in science when someone makes a claim, s/he must support it with facts. Will Alexandre choose to publish a report with diagrams, description, and discussion, so that the rest of the world can verify
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what she says? Who knows? But until she does, her statements which contradict the official IAA report must be viewed with skepticism. As the American archaeologist cited above aptly concludes: It really looks like our Israeli and Franciscan friends are merely up to their old tricks. I could not agree more. A Time of Change and Challenge Our generation is one of transformation and change, when the Catholic Church is embattled on several fronts, and when the axiomatic religious assumptions of the past two thousand years may be finally giving way. For an Atheist, this is an exciting time. The Nazareth issue is a small but critical element in the multivalent demise of Christianity, in the
Bible Study
Angelo Giambra
dismemberment of an entitled, corrupt, and power-hungry organization which will probably endure continuing torture by a thousand stings. We must be patient, for the beast has been around an awfully long time and is exceptionally well rooted in our culture. No one need look for the death of Christianity anytime soon, however, and I would not be surprised if, five hundred years from now, there is still a pope, the Vatican, priestly pedophilia, and belief in the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth (among a bullheaded segment of the population). Nevertheless, that real possibility should not deter us. Given mans penchant for wishing, occasionally dissembling, and often dreaming, Atheists and reasoning people need not set their sights on utterly destroying Christianity in the near term. Rather, we need to make
sure that religious unreason never gains the ascendancy in human affairs, now and in the future. Our generation is especially empowered in this regard. If we persevere in our mandate for reason at this critical juncture, we will finally succeed in giving a post-mortem voice to the myriad victims of Christianitys bloody past, and we will ensure that future generations live forever free from mindnumbing religious tyranny. Note: The author has started an online forum, Mythicist Discussion, for those who may wish to further explore the issues broached in this article. For more information, please visit http:// groups.yahoo.com/group/mythicist_ discussion/.
She looks out on a field and doesnt see the dinosaurs, She denies doesnt feel the earth quake, their two hundred the brook tremble. and fifty million year reign, sees instead a lovely garden, a man, a woman, the things she learned in Bible Study. She rapes the land with her skewed eyesight, gouges out entire epochs with her astigmatism, blind to brontosauruses still nibbling at the trees, and pterodactyls overhead, their talons clutching at the clouds. Be silent, press your hand to the earth and listen with your pores. Even the earthworms will tell you of the pressure they still feel.
2010 Photos.com
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A review by Frank R. Zindler of Robert M. Prices The Case Against The Case For Christ: A New Testament Scholar Refutes the Reverend Lee Strobel (American Atheist Press, 2010, ISBN13: 978-1-57884-005-2, $21.95)
Reporting? Or Appeal to Authority?

defuse the weapons of intellectual mass destruction now being deployed against those who should become the leaders of the next generation. So, he has written The Case Against The Case For Christ, and I accepted it for publication with delight and immense admiration. According to Prices introduction, The Reverend Mr. Strobels whole effort is predicated on the fallacy of the Appeal to Authority. That is, being admittedly no expert himself, he lists the supposedly impeccable credentials of those whom he interviews as if that should lend weight to their arguments, on top of what they actually say. And Reverend Strobel, I dare say, is being disingenuous with us when he says he embarked on his series of interviews as a way of testing out the claims of Christ. How dare I say so? His true intention becomes clear by the choice of people he interviewed: every one of them a conservative apologist! I cannot believe he did not purposely avoid seeking the opinions of Burton L. Mack, Gerd Theissen, John Dominic Crossan, Theodore J. Weeden, James M. Robinson, Gerd Ldemann, and countless others who would certainly have been available. No, Strobel was seeking out spin doctors for the party line. He tossed them softball questions with the faux-skeptical demeanor of the interviewer on a late-night infomercial. Price goes on to criticize the manipulative use of a reportorial style to make it look as if Reverend Strobel were uncovering facts rather than merely soliciting opinions he already wants to promote. The irony is that, if anyone in Jesus day had actually done what Strobel claims to be doing, seeking out informed authorities to interview, there would be no need for such exercises in apologetical futility. But the gospel writers were in no sense reportersbut then again, neither is Strobel! He is engaging not in journalism but in propaganda. He speaks as one trained in the law; however, he sounds not like a lawyer but like a sophist. He is the equivalent of Johnny Cochran, F. Lee Bailey, and Robert Shapiro. His Jesus is like O.J. Simpson. Strobel has signed on to make the best case he can for a client whose defense requires the obfuscation of the evidence and the confusion of the jury. [] it is clear that (as with all apologetics books), Strobels The Case for Christ is aimed at buttressing the faith of his coreligionists who buy almost all the copies sold. They want to be convinced of what they already believe, and Strobels fraudulent arguments give them an illusory permission to do so. The Case Against The Case For Christ is a witty and very readable book. It should be in every Atheists library. Because Strobel drew upon the best-known, most prolific apologists alive today, and because he has brought their arguments together for easy reading, Dr. Price has seized the opportunity to wipe out the entire field of Christian apologetics in the course of refuting Lee Strobel. As I just said, this book should be in every Atheists library. Moreover, it should be a gift for anyone in danger of succumbing to the seductions of missionaries and InterVarsity storm troopers.
he Rev. Lee Strobel must have become a very wealthy man since I met him when I debated William Lane Craig in Chicago back in 1994 or 1995. His popular apologetics books The Case For Christ and The Case for A Creator have gone through multiple revisions and reprintings and have spawned a lucrative home-schooling and Sunday-schooling industry. Even study-guides have been developed to enhance the brain-washing efficacy of Strobels intellectually detergent products. Strobels goal is nothing less than the overturning of all the conclusions of modern science and the decisions of secular analysts of the Christian bible. Several years ago Earl Doherty dismantled The Case For Christ in his powerful Challenging The Verdict: A Cross-Examination of Lee Strobels The Case For Christ. Despite the excellence of Dohertys expos, Strobels apologetics empire has continued to grow and has established beachheads in every secular institute of higher learning in the United States. Clearly, something has to be done! Robert M. Price, author of the important AAP title Jesus Is Dead, arguably is one of a dozen leading New Testament scholars in America. Like Doherty, he is an Atheist. Not only that, like me, he holds the opinion that Jesus of Nazareth never existed as a historical figure. He has decided that more has to be done to defend legitimate New Testament scholarship against Strobels mutilations and misrepresentations. He has realized that more must be done to disarm and
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n Wednesday, February 10th, 2010, Kansas Citys Heartland Mens Chorus came to Columbia Missouri to perform at the historic, and recently remodeled, Missouri Theater. The program that evening was And Justice For All, a musical program documenting and celebrating the struggle for civil rights for various groups of Americans. It was sponsored by
Protesting the Protestors

Greg Lammers & Erin Blaise
the City of Columbia Human Rights Commission and KBIA, a local radio station. The performance was a fundraiser for The Center Project, a gay and lesbian community center in Columbia. The Heartland Mens Chorus is a gay mens chorus. From Topeka Kansas, the Westboro Baptist Church (WBC) announced that they would protest the performance. Most readers of American Atheist magazine will be familiar with the Westboro Baptists. Some will remember the moving presentation given by Nate Phelps at the 2009 American Atheists conference on growing up in the Westboro Baptist Church. The WBC was founded and is led by the now aged Fred Phelps and is best known for its message of hate (of gays, Jews, and almost anyone else) and its picketing of various events, such as artistic performances, funerals of gay people, and funerals of soldiers. The group claims to have participated in over 40,000 events. Erin Blaise heard about Westboro Baptists plans to come to her town to protest the performance and she decided to do something about it. Erin launched a facebook group which was to be used to organize a counter protest. Five or six people were milling about in front of the old Methodist Church across the street from the Missouri Theater when I showed up at about 6:30 that Wednesday evening. Some of those gathered were in costume, a long luxuriant fur coat and a multicolored top hat among them. The tone of the counter protest was to be lighthearted and mocking, not directly confrontational. (In fact we were all mindful not
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All photos for this article were taken by Greg Lammers & Ginger Masters
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to respond to or interact with the Westboro Baptists, as they have a reputation for suing people who have responded to them with rage.) A similar strategy of absurdity and pointed humor had been used at a recent counter protest in San Francisco to great effect. The idea was to highlight nonsense through the use of the absurd. It was very cold that night, well below freezing. We stood around, bundled up and chatting. A couple of the members of the Mens Chorus came over, very sharp in their tuxedos, to take some photos and to talk. They would continue to communicate with us throughout the night. Police cruisers were a regular sight. An officer came over and spoke to us for a bit, making sure, somewhat (but not completely) jokingly, that none of us were there to cause trouble. He told us that we were actually on the corner reserved for the Westboro Baptists and that our group could stand across the street in front of the theater, so we got the better spot (rightfully so). That same officer would work the area throughout the evening. We crossed the street. A few more of our group had shown up. We were introducing ourselves, chatting through shivering lips with each other and with those arriving to attend the performance, and pulling out mostly handmade signs. Some of the signs were responses to the classic Westboro Baptist message God Hates Fags. We brought a God Hates Shrimp sign (old testy Book of Leviticus anyone?).
Also included were Dogs Hate Figs, Bats are Birds, Im happy, Look at me, Wheres the Beef, Monkey Love, and possibly my favorite: Okay, who farted? I alternated between two signs I had made for the event: People before Prophets and I am an Atheist. Buy me a beer. So there we stood talking, shivering, and laughing when someone said there they are. I looked across the street and sure enough, the Westboro Baptists had arrived, all four of them. There were two adults and two children. One of the children had an American flag and a rainbow flag. They would alternately trample one flag while wrapping the other around their waist. One of the adults, whom I took to be Shirley Phelps-Roper (spokesperson and daughter of Fred Phelps), was out in front, the leader of the group. Somehow she held five or six signs at once and led the Westboro Baptists in song. Their signs were all bright, colorful, and professionally made. They had brought the well known God Hates Fags there was also God Hates Jews, and God Hates Haiti (the monstrous earthquake had just occurred, that sign was brand new). There was also a sign featuring Barack Obamas face with large ram-like horns coming out of his head. One sign that caught my attention was God Hates You.
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So in case they had inadvertently left you out with one of the other more specific signs you were included with this one. Their songs consisted of hate-based lyrics set to popular melodies. I wish for the purpose of this article I had written some of the lyrics down but imagine the words you suck and are going to Hell to the tune of Jingle Bells and youll have the basic idea. People continued to wander by, checking out both groups, watching the spectacle. They would stop to read signs, sometimes laughing or scratching their head. I heard a few groups of mostly young people pass by discussing politics and theology, stimulated no doubt by that evenings events. At 7:30, by signal or prior planning, the Westboro Baptists packed their signs in, turned and shuffled up the street, looking for the most part like any other family. Then they were gone. Our group disbanded, nodding our good-byes and heading our separate ways. We had outnumbered the hate group, by my reckoning, 5 or 6 to 1. I ambled off to the regularly scheduled Columbia Atheists meeting having really enjoyed myself, I think others did as well. More importantly we supported a group of talented people who are targeted by deluded hateful extremists for who they are. As mentioned above Erin Blaise organized the counter protest of the Westboro Baptist Church in Columbia Missouri this past February. I asked Erin to share with American Atheist readers her reasons for organizing the event and some of her thoughts about it. She graciously agreed, her remarks follow: I first noticed the Westboro Baptist Church members in Columbia shortly after a mentally unstable man killed his ex-wife and children. The Westboro church members went to the high school the children had been attending and basically made a lot of noise near the property line of the school. They waved crazy, nonsense signs and walked on the American flag. They told the classmates of the murdered children their friends were going to hell and deserved to die, although Im not sure those were their exact words. There were some very upset high school kids! Afterwards, the Westboro protestors staged another hateful demonstration near my office. Our office had no connection to the murders but we are located near a busy intersection. One of my co-workers was a good friend of the murdered woman and had been taking care of her cat. I was worried my co-worker might be affected by their tactics.
After that, I decided I would stage my own demonstration next time they came to town. I had all kinds of ideas for signs or costumes to wear. I wanted to be a buffer between them and people who were grieving or just going about their business. My idea to counter protest wasnt new. Google employees had made funny signs to hold up when the Westboro Church demonstrated in front of their office. I saw photos of their signs and that inspired me. It didnt take very long for Westboro protestors to make their way back to Columbia. They were protesting a Heartland Mens Chorus concert at the Missouri Theater only a few days after I made my decision to stage a counter protest. I called some friends to do the anti-protest with me. One of them suggested making the anti-protest an event on Facebook so they could invite more people. We called it God loves the Heartland Mens Chorus. I did that and all my friends invited their friends. I was totally shocked to see that 464 people had been invited! At that point I felt the event was taking on a life of its own and I was excited and a little bit scared. I was really nervous, and then just angry when I was asked to cancel our event. Carol Snively from The Center Project told us she wanted us to cancel. The concert is a fundraiser for her organization and she thought we should all pay $10 for tickets and watch the show instead. She put a message on our wall asking us not to go through with our plan. For a brief moment, I wondered if we should cancel. Ms. Snively thought there was a chance arguments or some physical fighting might happen and ruin her event. In the end, I thought canceling would be the wrong thing to do. I wanted to go ahead and Im glad we did. We probably had about 20 people attend. I considered it great turnout for a last-minute event. It was not only lastminute, but also freezing cold and outdoors! I made up signs that said God hates Chihuahuas, My sign is Pisces, and God hates vampires. There were so many funny signs. One of my favorites was a sign that said Look at me. That sign basically summed up my mission. I wanted people to look at us. If they were looking at us, they wouldnt be upset by people who are spreading a message of hate and anger. I think it was a great success because we were a source of amusement to everyone who saw us. Im ready for them when they come back. I just hope its warmer next time.
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F F
other.
or the ultra-devout believers in a supreme being and the efficacy of prayer, the time has come for them
malign intent from such rogue nations as Iran and Syria, the threat of nuclear weapons raises the specter of the Armageddon that fundamentalist Christians believe is inevitable. President Barack Obama, with unquestionably good intentions, opted to tackle this seemingly intransigent impasse with the appointment of ex-Senator George J. Mitchell to
him, it is entirely possible that he has taken on a mission impossible if he resorts to conventional approaches to the millennia-old problems of the Middle East. Despite his record of helping to bring to the table the Irish Protestants and Irish Catholics, the task of resolving the differences between the atavistic Semitic Arabs and the
to show their faith in the abilities of divine power to bring an end to the ceaseless wars, ethnic cleansings, terrorist killings and other examples of humankinds inhumanity to one an-
How Atheists Can Help Resolve the Arab-Israeli Dispute

Marvin Brown
2010 Photos.com
With all the historic and prevailing balderdash from the pope and other religious figures of authority maintaining the millennia-old traditions of praying for peace, the practical accomplishments are few in number and of short duration. Isnt it time then, that the worlds diverse religious denominations, creeds, sects and cults pool their resources on behalf of the common goal of global harmony? A good place to start would be one of the thorniest and longest-running conflicts in the bloody history of wars, the Israel-Arab continuing confrontations. Now, with possible
bring the opposing parties together for a durable peace agreement. Despite the fact that his latest assignment is the second such undertaking in the past ten years, perhaps no one is better qualified to attempt to bring the Palestinians and Israelis together in a durable peace agreement than this man selected for the challenging task. This widely respected envoy with a distinguished career entered a tumultuous arena with high optimism, having stated that men make the decisions leading to warfare and men can make the decisions leading to peace. While the worlds best wishes go with
fractious Semitic Jews, all children of Abraham, is a totally distinct and thus far intractable predicament. How Mitchell can overcome the centuriesold fundamental beliefs of Muslims is likely to be too high a hurdle to be cleared. Since the pugnacious Irish have a common ground in that they worship the same god, they were perhaps more amenable to settlement. The Muslim Arabs Allah, on the other hand, demands death to nonbelievers and Arab oil money funds schools that inculcate the sacred duty of Muslims to wipe out pig and dog infidels.
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Contrary to the audacity of hope expressed by the new United States administration with the appointment of Senator Mitchell, there are no reasons to expect that even so accomplished and highly regarded a mortal will be any more successful than other mortals of many millennia past. Even George W. Bush, as dense as he is, understood that and made only perfunctory efforts to resolve Mideast issues in his eight years of rule. But in one of his rare flashes of insight, he declared, when questioned about seeking advice from his father, former president George H. W. Bush, that he listened to a higher authority. That signal of inspired leadership offers hope for a possible solution to the inability of mere men to bring lasting peace to the entire world, not just to the Middle East. But a realignment of approaches to obtaining peace calls for outside the box thinking. It is time to consider calling a summit meeting unlike any such gathering that has ever been undertaken, a sine qua non of summits. The apexas high as it is possible for humankind to gothe mother of all summits. And what higher authority is there than god? But whose god? Yahweh or Adonai, the god of the Hebrews? The god of the various Christian denominations or sects? Allah, the god of the Muslims? Brahma, Krishna, Vishnu, Shiva,gods of the Hindus?Wahegra or Karta Purakh or
other gods of the Sikhs? The god of the Bahai? No summit could be considered complete unless the voices of all these deities are considered and their followers and believers given a role in so momentous and vital an undertaking. And by including the gods of those religions not directly involved in the permanently ongoing ArabIsraeli dispute, there would be objective and impartial participation that would lend credence to the discussions and findings of the gods and the dicta issued by them, making it more likely that the warring parties would accept whatever terms were handed down. And there may well be a constructive role for Atheists to fulfill, as we shall soon see. Of course, many practical matters must be considered in calling for, explaining the issues to, and reporting the findings of so many supreme beings. To get the discussion ball rolling, lets look at some of the propositions involved: Q. When should the process begin? A. Now. Q. What guarantee is there that this procedure will work any better than all previous attempts to resolve this situation? A. Humankind cannot promise results on behalf of the divinities. But then, do you get a guarantee of positive returns from your stockbroker?
Do you get a guarantee that a marriage will endure? Do you get a guarantee that your children will become honorable and responsible adults? There is little in life that can be guaranteed, except the old bromide of death and taxes. But what have mere mortals achieved in the past? The seemingly insoluble and ever-worsening situation demands that the failed efforts of peoples be supplanted by the will of their god.
It is time to consider calling a summit meeting unlike any such gathering that has ever been undertaken
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Q. How would the summit be convened? A. With the exception of a segment of preachers who claim to speak with and for god, an infinitesimally tiny fraction of the worlds population appears to have direct two-way communication with any deity. But only those deemed qualified shall be selected for the task. They would be the messengers to the gods. Q. What is the determination of qualified? A. A process of elimination would screen out those obviously not suited, including but not limited to, clergy not only of the Hebrews and Muslims but also those of other denominations too wedded to their dogmas or who have axes to grind on behalf of their own followers. Atheists and agnostics, who by definition cannot communicate with any god because of their denial or doubt of the existence of a deity, could not qualify as messengers but would be ideal in acting as impartial selectors. Q. Who is left then? A. There are only 15 department heads and the vice president in the Cabinet of the United States government, composed we are led to believe, of the best minds and capabilities of the nation. That number is less than 1/1,000th of one percent of Americas population. Surely, by scouting the entire globe for great minds of impeccable fairness and objectivity, we ought to be able to find an equal number of capable, responsible, credible and willing persons
from the fields of science, academics and Nobel winners to staff the selection panel for choosing messengers of god, some of whom may already be hearing from god a la Joan of Arc. Some, if too aggressive in proclaiming their relationship, might have been deemed dangerous to themselves or others and my thus be incarcerated. But they could be included in a pool of rare talents that would be ideal for this special mission. Q. What if the only person available to represent a specific religion is committed to a psychiatric ward? A. If he or she is otherwise qualified, whats wrong with that? If tests show them capable of reasoning logically and communicating effectively, could they be any less able than the investment bankers, mortgage brokers, real estate developers, hedge fund managers, the theater of the absurd that is called Congress, the cataleptic Federal Reserve Bank or neglectful government regulators, the ostensible leaders and Masters of the Universe who so brilliantly brought the nation, yea even the world, to the worst economic situation since the Great Depression? Q. How would these so-called qualified messengers proceed with the process of summoning the deities to a meeting? A. By whatever means that work: Prayer, supplication, drug-induced trances. Selectees could determine on their own which method works best. But nothing should be ruled out. Who among us is ready to de-
clare which channel of communication best reaches god and elicits a response? Who knows which Moses or Mohammed or Mormonism founder Joseph Smith or other messengers of god may arise from such proceedings? Q. Suppose the messengers do succeed in reaching their gods. How would we know the response of the deities and the willingness of the disputants to accept them? A. If the stringent and intensive selection process is carried out thoroughly and properly, we must have faith in the process and it would be incumbent on the parties to accept their findings. Q. What is the worst case scenario? A. Probably that the gods might fail to communicate with the messengers, but if past history is a guide, that outcome is highly unlikely. It doesnt seem possible that the same gods who gave Moses the Ten Commandments, parted the Red Sea for him, and brought Mohammed to heaven on a winged white horse would be so callous as to wash their hands of humankind. Another danger, though, is that the messengers report such conflicting findings from their gods that there is no generally agreed upon route to achieving a durable peace. Q. Why shouldnt only Yahweh and Allah, the gods of the warring parties, be consulted? A. It is important to demonstrate to the entire world that everyone of any religious persuasion has a role
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to play and a vested interest in establishing a just and permanent peace. This will set an ecumenical example for others than the Hebrews and Muslims who also are in current conflicts throughout the world. Q. Why not just put the matter in the hands of the worthy justices of the Supreme Court of the United States? A. The same court that elected George W. Bush president? Are you out of your mind? Q. What if a particular god declined the honor of meeting with his/ her/its peers? A. Then the Atheist selectors would remove that messenger from the panel. Q. How would the gods be contacted? A. In a myriad of ways. Sending signals into space asking them in the name of humanity to convene, offering special prayers in churches, synagogues and temples. Perhaps even such bloviating windbags as Rush Limbaugh, Bill OReilly and Glenn Beck could be prevailed upon to once in their lives perform a genuine public service by adding their influential voices to the pleas. And, of course, there is always Oprah and Sarah. Q. What specific issues would the supreme beings be asked to resolve? A. Reestablishment of brotherly love between the warring Semitic factions, political boundaries, joint rule, restoration of trust, voting rights, social and cultural ties. Q. How would the decision of the gods be communicated to the waiting
What if the gods cant reach an agreement?

world?
A. Hopefully, all print, broadcast and electronic media would recognize the significance and import of the gods edicts and spiritedly bear the findings to their constituencies. Q. What if the warring parties were to disregard the gods will? A. How could they dare? Jews have been beseeching Yahweh to bring peace to Israel and restore the glories of Jerusalem for some 290 generations over nearly 6,000 years. So great is their reverence for god that a modern addition to some prayer books thanks the deity for saving the lives of the Jews who were not murdered in the Holocaust. Muslims have such great fidelity to Allah that their men and women willingly sacrifice their bodies in suicide attacks against infidels, nonbelievers and occupiers. That such devotion and obedience would be reversed is inconceivable. The findings must be accepted as new dogma as sacred as the Ten Commandments to be forever observed.
Q. How much time should be allowed for the process? A. The parties have been at odds since biblical days with the gulf between them ever widening. Every passing day means more people being killed and maimed, more positions hardening, less likelihood for a genuine and lasting peace to supplant the temporary and illusory truces and cease fire agreements. But perhaps a full four seasons could be allowed. Q. What if the gods cant reach an agreement? A. Then we are in the immortal words of George H. W. Bush in deep doo doo. Q. Isnt this entire scheme a flippant, blasphemous, outrageous and ludicrous proposal that tries to make light of a grim situation? A. There is certainly an element of truth to that question. But after reason and logic by the devout have failed for so many millennia, whats wrong with giving Atheists an opportunity to bring the gods together? Perhaps the very consideration of such an admittedly outlandish idea could force the parties involved to rethink their futile positions and come to a meeting of the minds. It is ridiculous that in this twenty-first century of the modern era we still have incessant wars in the name of religion and god. So let us place ourselves in the laps of all the gods with everybody pledging to abide by their profundity, wisdom and love of humankind. Give Atheism a chance. And let us pray.
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Godless Americans
Damian Bramlett
How Non-religious Persons Are Labeled as Deviant in a Religious Society
n America, Atheists and other non-believers are treated as deviants and social outcasts. Atheists are seen as corrupt and abominable, somehow incapable of doing good deeds. Numerous forms of deviance exist in modern American society. Everything from physical deformities, to illicit drug use, to homosexuality are constructed as deviant in dominant American culture and ideology (Adler & Adler, 2009). Where Christianity is also the dominant religious/spiritual paradigm, it should come as no surprise when Atheists and agnostics are similarly constructed as deviant. Whether Americans realize it or not, we live in a heavily religious society. A vast majority of politicians affiliate themselves with some form of religion in order to gain favoritism among their constituents. With that having been said, let us explore what it means to be a deviant and how Atheists are classified as such. So what is a deviant? Deviance is commonly defined as behavior that deviates from what is considered normal in a group or a society. Patricia and Peter Adler (2009) take this definition one step further by identifying three types of norms which deviants tend to break; folkways, mores, and laws. The first type of norm, called folkways, and is based on etiquette, customs, and traditions (Adler & Adler, 2009). Wearing clothes that are unfashionable or bad table manners may be considered against normal behavior, but are not worthy of complete societal outrage (Adler & Adler, 2009). Mores, it would seem, represent social moral norms that tend to create more serious social condemnation (Adler & Adler, 2009, p. 11).
Such moral violations can include drug use, interracial or gay marriage, and illegitimate childbearing (Adler & Adler, 2009). Lastly, laws consist of moral norms dominantly constructed to the extent they have been codified in formal legal discourse, and attached to formal state sanction (Adler & Adler, 2009). Homicide, arson and child molestation are considered violations against these legally established norms. Who are these so-called deviants? Currently, only 14%15% of the American population is listed as Atheist/agnostic/ secularist (Edgell et al., 2006). By not conforming to traditional religious roles/ideals (especially Christian), non-religious persons are seen as deviant. Atheists are singled out as the focus of this article since they tend to be vilified more so than agnostics or secularists. Atheists, in short, are individuals who do not believe in a higher power. Their non-belief in a higher power earns them the label of Atheist and they are essentially treated unjustly because of this title. Atheists tend to be chastised by the public as being unethical, incapable of integrity, and not to be trusted (Downey, 2004). President George H.W. Bush once stated in an interview I dont know that atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered patriots. This is one nation under God (OHair, 2009). I take this statement very personally since I am both a patriot and a U.S. Army veteran. By not conforming to religious/societal standards, Atheists
2010 Photos.com
are targeted as problematic since their ideologies do not agree with the majority of Americans (Downey, 2004). In short, the simple act of not conforming to religion makes them deviant. Those who control our nation are the same people who also define how we are expected to live and act within its borders. America has evolved from a country founded on rights, freedoms, and secularism as a means of conducting political business, to a nation built upon religious values and ideology. In fact, the motto In God we trust did not appear on U.S. currency until 1864, after an increase in religious sentiments during the Civil War (U.S. Department of Treasury, 2010). This merely provides an example of how those in power have
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systematically instilled their religious beliefs on to others. The Cold War was another point in history where those in control injected religious ideology into the veins of Americans. During the Red Scare, people were tricked into believing that godless communists were taking over, and would force their nontheistic ideals onto others. The pledge of allegiance is a prime example; the words under God did not exist in the pledge until 1954. As a byproduct of all this religious rhetoric, Atheists have taken a backseat within American society. Atheists are not considered to be on the same playing field as those in control because of their lack of belief in a higher power. So then, why are Atheists viewed as deviants within America? To be blunt, society labels Atheists as deviants because of their lack of faith in a higher power. By not conforming to religious standards and values (especially Christian), Atheists and other non-believers are left open to criticism, ridicule, and oppression (Stenger, 2009). To theists, not worshipping a god is seen as worse than worshipping a god different from their own (Edgell et al., 2006). After the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Muslims were seen as deviant because of their religious and cultural beliefs (Cainkar & Maira, 2005). The irony here is that these same religious groups quarrel with one another over which god is better, when they in fact all worship the same basic god (e.g., Christianity, Judaism, Islam, etc.) (Harris, 2005). In 2006, a University of Minnesota study found that Atheists are the least trusted among several categories. Forty percent of Americans said of Atheists, This group does not at all agree with my vision of American society (Edgell et al., 2006). Compare this number to other groups that often experience discrimination (Muslims who were next at 26% and gays at 23%), and you gain a broader perspective of the type of discrimination that Atheists can expect to face during their lifetime (Edgell et al.,
2006). In fact, only 4.8 million (1.6%) of people in the U.S. claim they are Atheist, but this figure is assumed to be an underrepresentation (Stenger, 2009). It is believed the actual number is much higher, but because of the stigma surrounding the Atheist label people are less willing to admit their non-belief for fear of retribution (Stenger, 2009). In America, Atheist is a dirty word. Atheists in particular see themselves as being deviant because that is how they are labeled and treated by society. Even the media helps to portray Atheists as other (other is defined as someone from within who is treated like an outsider) or to further the belief that Atheists are unwanted (Edgell et al., 2006; Stenger, 2009). Every holiday season newspapers, television, and the internet bombard people with ads for Christmas sales, movies, and television
erence. On my tags, I had Atheist stamped as my religious preference. Upon seeing this, my rifle team leader told me to change it to some type of religion (like Christianity) because If youre captured by Iraqis and they see that on your tag, theyll kill you. To which I replied, Theyre gonna kill us anyways. I was amazed that after serving several years with this guy, he was telling me to change my beliefs to match those of everyone else in the unit. For the first time in my military career I felt discriminated against and like I was an outsider within. In order to curtail situations like the one above, a means of acceptance needs to be formulated. For Atheists and other non-religious person to be accepted by American society, a plan of action needs to be developed that addresses the issues of
The fool says in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt, they do abominable deeds, there is none that does good. (Psalms 14:1)
specials. Christmas is promoted (especially above Hanukkah and other religious holidays) as THE religious observance that matters. When this is taken into consideration, it further promotes the idea within an Atheist that they are not important to the broader society. I will now momentarily explain my personal experience as an Atheist treated as other during my time in the Army. While in the Army, I experienced discrimination because of my non-theist ideology. During training for a deployment to Iraq, my rifle team leader at the time made an inspection of all our personal identification documents. This included such things as I.D. cards, shot records, and dog tags. Dog tags in particular, list four different pieces of information: Name, social security number, blood type and religious prefboth theists and non-theists alike. The following is merely a proposed plan for the acceptance of non-theists in the United States, and is not meant or implied to cover the full range of issues. This is only a jumping off point from which we might develop a foundation. Whether Americans fully accept it or not, we live in an extremely religious society. Most politicians run for office on a platform where religion is a driving force in their election. President George W. Bush presented himself during both elections as a god-fearing Christian. This presents a problem since American politics should be based on secularism as a means of protecting the rights of everyone. Furthermore, politics is power based, which in turn leads to the amalgamation of like-minded individuals who control all aspects of
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References Adler, P. A. & Adler, P. (2009) Construction of Deviance (6th ed.). Belmont, CA; Thomson Wadsworth. Associated Press. (2007, March 19). Fans applaud politician for revealing Atheist beliefs. Napa Valley Register, Retrieved (2009, December 10) from http://www.napavalleyregister.com/articles/2007/03/19/news/national/ doc45fe8660bcdb9407470445.txt Cainkar, L. & Maira, S. (2005). Targeting Arab/Muslim/South Asian Americans: Criminalization and Cultural Citizenship. Amerasia Journal, 31(3). 127. Downey, M. (2004). Discrimination against Atheist: The facts. Council for Secular Humanism. Retrieved (2009, December 4) from http://www.secularhumanism.org/library/ fi/downey_24_4.htm Edgell, P., Gerteis, J., & Hartmann, D. (2006). Atheists as Other: Moral boundaries and cultural membership in American society. American Sociological Review, 71(2). 211234 Goffman, E. (1963). Stigma: Notes on the management of spoiled identity. New York, NY; Simon and Schuster. Harris, S. (2004). The end of faith: Religion, terror and the future of reason. New York, NY; W.W. Norton and Company Limited. OHair, M. (2009). Atheists neither citizens nor patriots. Positive Atheism. Retrieved (2009, December 3) from http://www.positiveatheism.org/writ/ghwbush.htm Starobin, P. (2009). The godless rise as a political force. National Journal. Stenger, V. J. (2009). The New Atheism: Taking a Stand for Science and Reason. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books.
society. This poses a serious problem for those who represent a small portion of the population since they are at the will of their overlords. In order for non-religious persons to be accepted into mainstream society, they should be involved at all levels of local, state and federal government. Pete Stark (D- CA), is currently the only openly Atheist politician in Washington D.C. (Associated Press, 2007; Starobin, 2009). Additionally, the development of true secularism in the U.S. is a key to level the playing field. By allowing non-theist politicians to have political positions, power could then be balanced a bit more than it currently exists. At this point it becomes possible for Atheists to become less an object of ridicule and scorn, and more of a citizen worthy of equal rights. It is important to stress that politicians should not be elected just because they are Atheist, but because they are qualified to fulfill an elected position. An additional solution to the acceptance of Atheists in American society; it is important for them to be more vocal of their beliefs. Stigmas are a side effect of labels, especially when they are applied to a specific person or group of people. Erving Goffman (1963, p. 3) once noted that stigmas are attributes that are deeply discrediting, and this holds true when the definition is applied to Atheists. In order for
Atheists to shed the label of deviant, they need to publicly acknowledge and affirm their beliefs. Atheists also need to raise awareness of what we are not. We are not mongrels incapable of integrity or morals. We are not a belligerent horde bent on stamping out religion altogether and taking back the power in order to further our own agenda. In fact I could care less that people believe in religion or a higher power, provided the devout and pious are not pushing their religion onto others, or causing harm to the greater society. Much in the same way that gays and lesbians came out of the closet en masse during the 70s and 80s, we too must also make public our beliefs and hold fast to them. I am not saying that Atheists and their struggle for equality is the same as those of gays and lesbians, but merely using it as an example of what can be accomplished when persons come together collectively for a common goal. Grant it, homosexuals still have a ways to go in achieving true equality, but they have come a long way in the past few decades. It is imperative that Atheists maintain persistence and continue to be vocal about their ideals. America needs to know that Atheists are the same as everyone else with the only major difference being our lack of belief in a higher power. To stay silent about the issue will only lead to the further oppression of yet another group.
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P P
erhaps no crime stirs more fury and disgust than the murder of a child. Taking the life of a child is more than murder, and any adult who willfully murders an innocent child is more than a criminal: he or she is dubbed a monster. Even more heinous are those parents who murder their own children. Susan Smith and Andrea Yates, two mothers who drowned their own small children, were rightfully despised and imprisoned for their unthinkable crimes. Ronald Clark O Bryan killed his eight-year-old son with Halloween candy laced with cyanide so that he could cash in his childs life insurance policy. Such crimes against children are unthinkable acts. Psychologists and criminologists can perhaps explain what led these adults to commit the heinous crime of child murder, but no explanation is ever sufficient.
Why Does God Kill Children?

Michael Creamer Simply put, there is nothing, can be nothing, that ever justifies the murder of a child. Yet the Christian god has murdered children since the dawn of time. In 1 Samuel 15:3, for example, Yahweh sends his prophet Samuel to the city of Amalek, with clear instructions: Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass. Infant and suckling. Oh, my. The fate of the children of Amalek was no isolated instance. Yahweh already had quite a track record when it came to the murder of children. Consider the story of Abraham, one of the patriarchs of the Old
Testament. In Genesis 22, Yahweh sends Abraham into the land of Moriah on a mission: Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of. Abraham, who may have been faithful to his god but who certainly was not a contender for father of the year, obeyed. According to Genesis 22, Abraham built an altar there, and laid the wood in order, and bound Isaac his son, and laid him on the altar upon the wood. And Abraham stretched forth his hand, and took the knife to slay his son. As Abraham raised his knife to murder his own child at the behest of his god, an angel appeared and stopped him at the last second. So Abraham passed the Christian gods test, which consisted of proving that he would butcher his own child
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to prove to this sadistic deity that he loved him enough to commit infanticide. And for this, Abraham is revered by Christians, many of whom are parents. The irony is hard to miss. Consider, too, the floodYahwehs punishment for man who he supposedly created and who he now deemed unworthy to live because of their sin and decadence. The flood destroyed every living substance which was upon the face of the ground, both man, and cattle, and the creeping things, and the fowl of the heaven (Genesis 7:23). That included, of course, children. Yahweh spared Noah and his wife, their sons and their daughters-in-law, and two of every animal in existence, according to the Biblical account. But not children. He made no exception for children. They were drowned with the rest of humanity, guilty of the wickedness of man. The childrenlike their parents, were punished because every imagination of the thoughts of [their] heart was only evil continually (Genesis 6:5). Yahweh killed them alldrowned the born and the unborn. It beggars the imagination to think of what newborn babes might have done to bring down the wrath of such an angry god upon them: coveting other infants rattles, perhaps? Whatever the reason, this god washed their lives away with the same ease with which he dispatched murderers and rapists. Suffer the little children indeed. So there it is. The Christian god clearly and with malice aforethought sent Samuel to Amalek, not just to take the city and destroy its army, but to slaughter every innocent
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child in the population. He sends a flood to destroy born and unborn children whom he condemns for their wickedness. Abraham proves he is worthy to serve his god through his willingness to hack his own son to death. How do Christians explain their gods apparent taste for child murder? The easy answer here would be to trot out the old chestnut that these were ancient times, and in ancient times the world was different. Yahwehs harsher Old Testament laws were needed in that time and that place, but were subsequently set aside as the world changed, presumably for the better. That means, I suppose, that he allowed atrocities in ancient times that he does not allow now, such as infanticide. Yahweh was cool with baby-slaughter back then, but over time, changed his mind. But if his mind changed, doesnt that mean he changed? So much for perfection. If he changed, he either wasnt perfect before or he isnt perfect now. Perfection is an absolute. Youre either perfect or you are not. With perfection, there are no degrees or stages. If Yahweh changed, does that mean that he was an imperfect being who saw the error of his judgment in killing babies, or does it mean that he was perfect then (which would, by implication, mean baby-killing wasnt wrong since it was the act of a being incapable of error) but, because he changed, is imperfect now? Either way, Christians are saddled with a deity callous enough to order the murder of children or kill them with his own hands, and who also, on occasion, sits on the sidelines and watches while children are murdered. Considering the biblical account of the Christ child, for example, an omniscient god would have known that the birth of his son would result in the slaughter of the innocents. He would have foreseen that Herod would order his legions to [slay] all the children that were in Bethlehem ... from two years old and under (Matthew 2:16). Surely an all-powerful god could have prevented such an atrocity from happening. Herod was a manYahweh a supposed omnipotent beingso how is that Herods will won out? Was god incapable of thwarting the will of Herod, thus imperfect, or did he, through inaction, coldly sanction the death of every baby in Bethlehem? Is this how that god changed from the Old Testament to the New? Did the kinder and gentler New Testament god merely adjust his position on child murder from killing them himself or
working murderously through others to sitting idly by while populations of children were butchered? I am stunned by the ease with which modern Christians gloss over their gods taste for infanticide. As a child, I remember the yearly reenactments of the biblical Christmas story (like Charlie Browns friend, Shermie, I was always a shepherd), which always included a reading of the bible verses that recounted the story but which always omitted the slaughter of the innocents. In the midst of all the Christmas cheer, no one stopped to ask why that god mutely sanctioned the murder of children. I remember hearing the story of Abraham and his son Isaac, and in the telling of this tale, Abraham was hailed as a faithful servant of Yahwehnot as a man who obeyed the voices in his head telling him to stab his son to death. I remember being taught the story of the flood, with emphasis on the appearance of the rainbow, Yahwehs supposed promise to never again destroy the world by flood. But no one ever stopped to explain why the death of every innocent child in the world was needed to satisfy this god in the first place. As a parent, I would do anything to protect my children from harm. Like every other parent, I laugh with them, worry about them, and love them unconditionally. I would gladly give my life to save theirs. As an Atheist, I am appalled that Christians cling to and defend a violent, bloody god who not only kills children or coldly allows them to die because their deaths serve his divine plan, but who does so with impunity. Christian parents shake their heads in anger and disbelief, and rightfully so, whenever an innocent child is murdered, but bow 2010 Photos.com their heads in loving homage to the baby-killing god of the Testaments. I know the Christian god doesnt exist, I know the stories of Abraham and Amalek are only apocryphal tales intended to frighten believers into subservience to their god. The marvel is that Christians believe their god does exist, which means they believe these myths of children murdered by their god are true, yet they pledge their lives to a being who, according to their own sacred texts, has killed more children than all the Susan Smiths and Andrea Yates of the world combined.
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Deist or Agnostic
is
More PC than
believe that almost all the freethinking skeptics I know who refuse to call themselves Atheists do so for one or both of two reasonsone emotional and the other intellectual. Ill try to spell these out in some coherent manner, although they are not easy to separate. In fact, the emotional frequently influences the intellectual, and in the relatively rare instances when the reverse is true, another Atheist may be born. At times it is hard to say which is which. Is it ever possible to make an intellectual decision that is not mediated by our emotions? The fear of renouncing or rejecting the Christian god is a powerful one and its roots run deep into the psyche of even the most logical of scientists like Albert Einstein. He claimed he believed in the god of Baruch Spinoza, a well-known pantheist philosopher who said that God was Nature. Stephen Hawking, the worldrenowned cosmologist, whom I greatly admire, plays the same game. The late Stephen Jay Gould went so far as to advocate NOMANon-Overlapping Magisteriaby which he meant that there are two domains of knowledge, the religious and the scientific, an absurdity in which never the twain should meet. Atheists like Einstein, Hawking, Gould and Spinoza are unable to overcome the religious indoctrination of their childhood, so decades later and despite achieving great intellectual stature and scientific acumen, they grope for a connection between the absurdities of their traditions and the common sense of their reason and apply to themselves descriptions like pantheist, agnostic, deist, and other philosophical
Atheist?
Gil Gaudia, Ph.D.
disguises. Fear that is implanted early and deeply, usually by priests, nuns and parents who need a weapon to encourage compliance, is virtually impossible to eradicate. It need not, however, be imposed overtly by some maniacal nun or parent. Even people like me who were raised without formal religious instruction, manage to absorb it early on through the culture where it is conveyed through friends, schools, the media, music, art and literature. I still respond emotionally to the Ave Maria and the soaring strains of the Intermezzo from Mascagnis Cavalleria Rusticana, because of mysterious but pleasant early childhood associations, and have to remind myself that Its only music, Gil. The desire and need for acceptance, either by family, friends or employers, and the corresponding dread of ostracism, especially in the workplace, is another powerful force based on fear. I have known more than one Atheist, including dear friends, who reject the label Atheist because they know it might affect their careers. One Atheist professor friend of mine who enjoyed reading my American Atheist Magazine refused a gift subscription from me because he did not want the mailman to see the word Atheist on mail being delivered to him in the Mississippi town where he taught. The word itself carries with it a subtle negative tone like communist or homosexual because of repeated cultural and political portrayals of undesirability and deliberate connections with evil.
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Fear of being tarred with the brush that smears radical Atheists like the reviled Madalyn Murray OHair, or the abrasive Christopher Hitchensdoes not help to allay the general fear that leads almost invariably to many Atheists saying more politically correct things like: Im really an agnostic, I just dont know, or Im a Deist like Thomas Paine, or I believe in the Great Watchmaker who created the universe and stepped back to allow it to run and, of course, the banal I think there has to be something that started the Big Bang. These terms like agnostic and deist have more acceptable connotations because they allow for some theistic possibility, hence they elicit a more likely positive response from believers, or to put it another way, they are less likely to be rejected. Harsher critics than I might call it pandering. It reminds me of a gangster who is basically a decent guy who rubs out a store clerk just to gain respectability with the gang. Many nascent Atheists hesitate to accept Atheism because of what they see as the limitations of scientific knowledge or gaps in sciences ability to explain the cosmos. They fall back on what is sometimes called the God of the Gaps. What caused the Big Bang is currently unexplained, so it is not able to be a complete theory and therefore a god must be the answer. The implication is that a god was the uncaused first cause. This is a frequent ploy of liberal Christians who have a motive for such equivocation, but agnostics and other freethinkers should know better. There are numerous refutations of this argument from personal incredulity or argument from ignorance. For me, the best reason is that it is pointless to substitute one mystery for another. If the Christian god could have always existed, then why couldnt the universe have always existed? One uncaused cause is as good as another. The meaning of god as it has been conveyed to us through countless religions including the contemporary few major playersChristianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism and Judaismis not consistent with any of the tenets of science, reason, logic or mathematics, to name a few products of human intellectual potential. To remain compatible with educated, information-oriented human intelligence, strategies like renaming or redefinition of the meaning of terms have to be employed. As Stephen Hawkings assistant wrote to me in response to a query about Hawkings frequent references to God in his wonderful book A Brief History of Time, published in 1981, When Professor Hawking uses the term God, he is referring to the laws of the universe. Straws have to be grasped at, like the invocation of quantum physics (which none of the invokers understands)
or quasi-scientific proposals of neurobiologists who find trivial electronic indications on sensitive brain-monitoring instruments sufficient reason to proclaim biological proof of a god. All of this derives from fear in the broadest sense, meaning a response to a perceived present or future threat, occurring in the face of danger. Fear is probably one of a few innate emotions. It may be the fear of Hell, the fear of gods, the fear of retribution, the fear of Karma, or any of a number of imaginary consequences, as well as rational fears like accident, disease or venomous snakes. In any case, it influences the intellectual process. In my opinion, the most inept description in all of philosophy, and probably the most widely invoked, is the word agnostic. It is a platitude that derives from without knowledge or to not know, and while it is usually applied to theological subjects, one can be agnostic about anything. In fact, in the strict empirical sense, almost everyone is agnostic about almost everything. We simply cannot know very much, as Ren Descartes so famously pointed out when after tortuous introspection in the first two of his six Meditations on First Philosophy he concluded, Cogito ergo sum . . . I think, therefore I am. No one knows if there is a god. Not even the Pope. You either believe there is or you dont. In either case you do not know. Knowing is not the same as believing. You can believe in anything you want, including Bertrand Russells famous celestial china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, but to know that it exists is another matter. Despite this obvious fact that no one knows if there is a god, many Atheists, rather than saying simply and unequivocally, I do not believe that a god exists, adopt the evasive strategy of calling themselves agnostics, which saves their proverbial hides while allowing them to retain an illusion of acceptability. Because everyone doesnt know if a god exists, we are all agnostics, which of course illuminates nothing and renders the description useless. Think about it. I think that what most people who reject the appellation Atheist, seem to want is the luxury of having the intellectual satisfaction of not believing in absurdities, along with the emotional comfort of protecting their image among those who might matter, and most importantly, they want to have an insurance policy against some gods wrath. Blaise Pascal said it best in what is known as Pascals Wager when he advocated: Let us weigh the gain and the loss in wagering that God is . . . If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager, then, without hesitation that He is. To which I add, and call yourself a deist, or better yet, an agnostic.
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American Atheists Essential Reading List

Enjoy the introductory information provided in these books, which are of topics of interests to Atheists. These titles represent only a fraction of the books available from American Atheist Press, yet collectively they provide a broad overview of Atheist thought. Stock # Price Pages Book Style
STOCK# 16010 PRICE $22.00 PAGES 490
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Atheism Advanced: Further Thoughts of a Free Thinker by David Eller An anthropologist advances Atheists and Atheism beyond belief! Christianity before Christ by John G. Jackson Christian doctrines are traced to their origins in older religions. The Case Against Religion by Albert Ellis A psychotherapists view of the harmful aspects of religious belief. Living in the Light by Anne R. Stone Subtitled Freeing Your Child from the Dark Ages This book serves as a manual for Atheist parents. Our Constitution: The Way It Was by Madalyn OHair American Atheist Radio Series episodes about the myth that our founding fathers created a Christian nation. What on Earth is an Atheist! by Madalyn OHair American Atheist Radio Series episodes on various topics of Atheist philosophy and history. The Bible Handbook by G. W. Foote, W. P. Ball, et al. A compilation of biblical absurdities, contradictions, atrocities, immoralities and obscenities. An Atheist Epic by Madalyn OHair The personal story of the battle to end mandatory prayer and bible recitation in schools in the United States. 65 Press Interviews by Robert G. Ingersoll Ingersolls 19th-century newspaper interviews as a Freethinker and opponent of superstition. An Atheist Looks at Women & Religion by Madalyn OHair Why attempts to reconcile religion with civil rights for women are self-defeating. The Jesus the Jews Never Knew by Frank R. Zindler A search of ancient Jewish literature yields no evidence for the existence of any historical Jesus. The Great Infidels by Robert G. Ingersoll How nonbelievers and Atheists have contributed to civilization and enriched our lives. The Myth of Nazareth: The Invented Town of Jesus by Ren Salm Jesus couldnt have come from Nazareth because no one was living there at the time. Illustrated Stories From The Bible by Paul Farrell You can bet this book wont ever be used In Sunday Schools! Jesus is Dead by Robert M. Price Not only is there no reason to believe Jesus rose from the dead, there is no reason to think he ever lived or died at all!
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Book review by Patrick Bens
My Favorite Guru
ould you believe that my favorite guru started out as an objectivist and Atheist? Thus proclaims Anthony Storr in Feet of Clay, a Study of Gurus. As gurus go, Bhagwan Rajneesh is my all time favorite. He is the one with the 93 Rolls Royces, whose flock of ten thousands, 90% of them middle-class college graduates, discovered that orgies rather than prayers satisfy the gods. Holy man Rajneesh himself turned out to be an impotent voyeur who preferred narcotics to libido. He regarded his impotency as divine purity. Posted at the door of his temple, the catch phrase Leave your shoes and mind outside established that subjectivism was not to be discarded to build a following. Banning materialism and reason from the sacred room, invited the freedom to explore most if not all cultist cultures prospective adherents brought along with them. These religious traditions included child prostitution, the making and selling of drugs or the poisoning of local officials who disagreed with their practices. Like other Indian spiritual authors, the Bhagwan integrated a smorgasbord of eastern and western customs of faith to formulate a creed designed to suck up as many devotees as fast as possible, first in India and later in the UK and the USA. With the promise of meager rations, his university-educated sannyasins followed in droves from the four corners of the earth to till and seed and weed the soil all day, and all night devour the cowboy sagas of Louis Lamour, the only literature allowed in the compound and incidentally the favorite reading ofpresident Ronald Reagan.
Thanks to the speed, arrogance and ease with which he organized his herd, Rajneesh is by far the most interesting of gurus. His enterprise collected millions in short time and with it bought entire communities. Wherever his incompatible sannyasins settled, they overwhelmed the inhabitants and authorities with a new-wave morality. Nothing stood in their way. Their land was dotted with armed guards to keep outsiders out and insiders in. Among them were lawyers and accountants, teachers and architects. With accuracy, these professionals wormed their way into the zoning department of the towns they bought into and forced the good citizens to flee. They fought with weapons as diverse as insults and poison. To discredit rival politicians, salad bars in area restaurant were laced with poisonous bacteria, provided by Rajneeshs sidekick, the notorious chemical engineer known only as Sheela. After Rajneeshs death, her desperate criminal attempts to rule the roost in secret went public worldwide along with the news that the idyllic cults core was rotting from STDs including the first AIDS cases in the nation, even though homosexuality itself was looked upon as a disease. Deviant eroticism, cruelty, child abuse, poisonings, hallucinates and illegal weapons sum up what denominates a master guru. Feet of Clay analyzes a number of these superstition peddlers: Jesus, Loyola, Rajneesh, Jim Jones, David Koresh, Jung, Freud, Steiner, Gurdjieff. One inspired the other with unbridled charlatanism. Immaculately absent from the list is Mormon founder Joseph Smith. I wonder why. Anthony Schorr draws obvious comparisons between these men gone mad. He is a highly honored Oxford psychologist who approaches his subject matter analytically, thus proving the presence of a common thread that connects all gurus and threatens the starving poor as well as the wealthy elite.
You will be surprised to read how Carl Gustav Jung, whom we all respect as a monumental Atheist, toyed, like Rajneesh, with cult ingredients in his writings, speeches and private letters to patients, permitting a fundamentalist, fanatical, functional following, not just for commercial promotion but to ordain his lusts. To be frank, sex is big in Feet of Clay. After all, isnt that what gurus, like rock stars, employ to most efficiently fertilize and cultivate the flock to harvest crops of cash? Feet of Clay is a great scientific work, yet it reads like a gossip column. You cant put it down. With such wealth of details, you think you are reading a How to book. How to become a guru? First make sure you have a crappy childhood and get bullied at school. As a teenager concoct some unbelievable, off the wall delusions. As a young adult, lure loads of mindless creatures to believe in them. Then fleece them. As a middle aged man, expect to have a lot of sex with all of them. Finally, do destroy them all, because no man is qualified to be a guru unless he can lead us all into a fiery, wide-screen Armageddon.
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MILITARY DIRECTOR Kathleen Johnson 411 E. Hwy 190 Ste. 105 PMB66 Copperas Cove, TX 76522 (318) 542-1019 kjohnson@atheists.org http://www.atheists.org/mil ALABAMA STATE DIRECTOR Blair Scott P.O. Box 41 Ryland, AL 35767-2000 (256) 701-6265 bscott@atheists.org http://www.atheists.org/al/ ARIZONA STATE DIRECTOR Don Lacey P.O. Box 1161 Tucson, AZ 85641-1161 (520) 370-8420 azatheist@atheists.org http://www.atheists.org/az/ CALIFORNIA STATE DIRECTOR Michael Doss P.O. Box 10541 Santa Ana, CA 92711 (714) 478-8457 mdoss@atheists.org Mark W. Thomas (Asst. Dir.) 472 Lotus Lane Mountain View, CA 94043-4533 (650) 969-5314 mthomas@atheists.org http://www.atheists.org/ca/ CONNECTICUT STATE DIRECTOR Dennis Paul Himes P.O. Box 9203 Bolton, CT 06043 (860) 454-8301 dphimes@atheists.org http://www.atheists.org/ct/ FLORIDA STATE DIRECTOR Greg McDowell P.O. Box 680741 Orlando, FL 32868-0741 (352) 217-3470 gmcdowell@atheists.org Ken Loukinen (So. FL Reg. Dir.) 7972 Pines Blvd., #246743 Pembroke Pines, FL 33024 (954) 381-5240 kloukinen@atheists.org http://www.atheists.org/fl/ IDAHO STATE DIRECTOR Susan Harrington P.O. Box 204 Boise, ID 83701-0204 (208) 631-5012 sharrington@atheists.org http://www.atheists.org/id/ KENTUCKY STATE DIRECTOR Edwin Hensley PO Box 6171 Louisville, KY 40206 (502) 713-8354 EHensley@atheists.org MASSACHUSETTS STATE DIRECTOR Zach Bos PO Box 354 Boston, MA 02125 (617)935-4951 ZBos@atheists.org MICHIGAN STATE DIRECTOR Arlene-Marie George Shiffer (Asst. Dir.) Both can be reached at: P.O. Box 0025 Allen Park, MI 48101-9998 (313) 938-5960 amarie@atheists.org gshiffer@atheists.org http://www.atheists.org/mi/ MINNESOTA STATE DIRECTOR Randall Tigue 201 Golden Valley Office Center 810 North Lilac Drive Golden Valley, MN 55422 (763) 529-9211 rtigue@atheists.org http://www.atheists.org/mn/ MISSOURI STATE DIRECTOR Greg Lammers P.O. Box 1352 Columbia, MO 65205 (573) 289-7633 glammers@atheists.org http://www.atheists.org/mo/ NEW JERSEY STATE DIRECTOR David Silverman 1308 Centennial Ave., Box 101 Piscataway, NJ 08854 (732) 648-9333 dsilverman@atheists.org http://www.atheists.org/nj/ NORTH CAROLINA STATE DIRECTOR Wayne Aiken P.O. Box 30904 Raleigh, NC 27622 (919) 602-8529 waiken@atheists.org http://www.atheists.org/nc/ OHIO STATE DIRECTOR Michael Allen PMB289 1933 E. Dublin-Granville Rd Columbus, OH 43229 (614) 678-6470 mallen@atheists.org http://www.atheists.org/oh OKLAHOMA STATE DIRECTOR Ron Pittser P.O. Box 2174 Oklahoma City, OK 73101-2174 (405) 205-8447 rpittser@atheists.org http://www.atheists.org/ok/ TEXAS STATE DIRECTOR Joe Zamecki (512) 758-0060 jzamecki@atheists.org http://www.atheists.org/tx/ Dick Hogan (TX Reg. Dir., Dallas/Ft. Worth) dhogan@atheists.org http://www.atheists.org/dfw/ UTAH STATE DIRECTOR Rich Andrews P.O. Box 165103 Salt Lake City, UT 84116-5103 (801) 718-7930 randrews@atheists.org http://www.atheists.org/ut/ VIRGINIA STATE DIRECTOR Rick Wingrove P.O. Box 774 Leesburg, VA 20178 (703) 433-2464 rwingrove@atheists.org http://www.atheists.org/va/ WASHINGTON STATE DIRECTOR Wendy Britton 12819 SE 38th St., Suite 485 Bellevue, WA 98006 (425) 269-9108 wbritton@atheists.org http://www.atheists.org/wa/ WEST VIRGINIA STATE DIRECTOR Charles Pique P.O. Box 7444 Charleston, WV 25356-0444 (304) 776-5377 cpique@atheists.org http://www.atheists.org/wv/ DIRECTOR OF STATE AND REGIONAL OPERATIONS Ken Loukinen (So. FL Reg. Dir.) 7972 Pines Blvd., #246743 Pembroke Pines, FL 33024 (954) 381-5240
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Atheists and Other Freethinkers Aofonline.org Atheists of Silicon Valley godlessgeeks.com Central Valley Alliance of Atheists and Skeptics cvaas.org East Bay Atheists eastbayatheists.org Humanist Society of Santa Barbara santabarbarahumanists.org Orange County Atheists OCAtheists.com
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American Atheists Affiliates

ALABAMA Birmingham Atheists atheists.meetup.com/132 Florence United Nontheists FlorenceFreethought.org Montgomery Area Freethought Association montgomeryfreethought.org North Alabama Freethought Association thenafa.org West Alabama Freethought Association meetup.com/westalabamafreethought ALASKA Anchorage Atheists http://meetup.com/anchorageatheists ARIZONA Tucson Atheists atheists.meetup.com/69 CALIFORNIA Agnostic & Atheist Student Association daviswiki.org/agasa Atheist Coalition of San Diego atheistcoalition.org Atheists & Agnostics Group of Rossmoor rossmooratheists.info Atheists & Freethinkers of Contra Costa County contracostaatheists.com
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KENTUCKY Humanist Forum of Central Kentucky facebook.com/group. php?gid=88546849234 Kentucky Atheists chambers.michael@gmail.com Lexington Atheists meetup.com/The-Lexington-AtheistsMeetup-Group LOUISIANA Ark-La-Tex Freethinkers (Shreveport) facebook.com/group. php?gid=128265161375 New Orleans Secular Humanist Association nosha.secularhumanism.net MARYLAND Freethinkers Union at McDaniel College mtm007@mcdaniel.edu Maryland Freethinkers mdfreethinkers.com MASSACHUSETTS American University Rationalists & Atheists facebook.com/group. php?gid=34367344446 Atheists of Greater Lowell atheists.meetup.com/331 Boston Atheists bostonatheists.org MICHIGAN Michigan Atheists michiganatheists.org Mid Michigan Atheists and Humanists mmah.org MILITARY (APO/FPO) Southeast Asia Freethought Assoc. 379th AEW swafreethought.freeforums.org MINNESOTA Campus Atheists & Secular Humanists cashumn.org
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NEW YORK Freethinkers of Upstate New York funygroup.org Hudson Valley Humanists hudsonvalley.humanists.net Long Island Secular Humanists LISecHum@aol.com New York City Atheists nyc-atheists.org Science Club of Long Island sciencecluboflongisland.com NORTH CAROLINA Charlotte Atheists & Agnostics CharlotteAtheists.com NORTH DAKOTA Red River Freethinkers redriverfreethinkers.org OHIO Free Inquiry Group, Inc. gofigger.org Humanist Community of Central Ohio hcco.org OKLAHOMA Oklahoma Atheists OklahomaAtheists.info PENNSYLVANIA Atheist Station atheiststation.org Central Susquehanna Valley Freethought meetup.com/Central-susquehanna-valleyfreethought Northeast Pennsylvania Freethought Society atheists.meetup.com/622 PA Nonbelievers panonbelievers.org RHODE ISLAND Rhode Island Atheist Society riatheist.com SOUTH CAROLINA Secular Humanists of Lowcountry lowcountry.humanists.net
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TENNESSEE Chattanooga Freethought Association chattanoogafreethoughtassociation.com Memphis Freethought Alliance memphisfreethought.com Nashville Secular Life atheists.meetup.com/699 Rationalists of East Tennessee rationalists.org TEXAS Atheist Community of Austin atheist-community.org Atheists Helping the Homeless Atheistsvolunteers.org/Austin Denton Atheists Meetup meetup.com/The-Denton-AtheistsMeetup-Group Freethinkers Association of Central Texas FreethinkersACT.org Freethought Oasis of Amarillo freethoughtoasis.org
Houston Atheists Meetup meetup.com/Houston-Atheists Lubbock Atheists Meetup atheists.meetup.com/496 Metroplex Atheists metroplexatheists.org San Antonio Atheists sa-atheists.org UNT Freethought Alliance facebook.com/group.php?gid=7647566521 UTAH Atheists of Utah atheistsofutah.org VIRGINIA Beltway Atheists meetup.com/beltwayatheists Secular Student Alliance @ George Mason myspace.com/rrs@gmu WASHINGTON Freethinkers United Network freethinkersunitednetwork.com
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Want to be an affiliate? Want a full list of affiliates contact info? Contact Blair Scott, National Affiliate Director
bscott@atheists.org http://alabamaatheist.org/naod American Atheists
2010 Affiliate of the Year

Presented to Over the past year Seattle Atheists have shown outstanding dedication to activism, community support, and the advancement of a positive view of Atheism. The personal drive of the leadership and members of Seattle Atheists, their dedication to activism, community support, and a positive view of Atheism, their unselfish application of time and talent, are a great credit to themselves, Atheist groups across the United States, and Atheists everywhere. Bravo Zulu and Well Done!
Seattle Atheists
It is our hope that the activism and community outreach of Seattle Atheists promotes the same in affiliates across the nation. American Atheists encourages all affiliates to increase activism and outreach! Blair Scott, the National Affiliate Director for American Atheists is available for questions or advice at bscott@atheists.org or by phone at (256) 701-6265. If you would like to check out what Seattle Atheists is up to, please visit their Web Page at http://www.seattleatheists.org.
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American Atheist Magazine July/August 2010

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The Fallible Human Section

American Atheists 2010 Affiliate of the Year Award

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Christianity at the Crossroads Nazareth in the Crosshairs

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The Nature of God

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Reporting? Or Appeal to Authority?

Protesting the Protestors

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How Atheists Can Help Resolve the Arab-Israeli Dispute

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What if the gods cant reach an agreement?

How Non-religious Persons Are Labeled as Deviant in a Religious Society

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Why Does God Kill Children?

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American Atheists Essential Reading List

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Book review by Patrick Bens

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