American At eist

Autumn

1997

A Journal

The Great And Late Church

In Washington
Modeling

Arson

The Twelve:

God: Deferred

of Atheist

Conspiracy

Further

Absurdity

$5.95

News and Thought

Hoax

Fictions

Angels

American

Atheists

From The New Testament

Can Atheists

Have Morals?

American Atheists, Inc.

is a nonprofit, nonpolitical, educational organization dedicated to
the complete and absolute separation of state and church, accepting the explanation of Thomas
Jefferson that the First Amendment to the Constitution of the
United States was meant to create a "wall of separation" between
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American Atheists, Inc., is organized
to stimulate and promote freedom of thought and inquiry concerning religious beliefs, creeds,
dogmas, tenets, rituals, and practices;
to collect and disseminate information, data, and literature on
all religions and promote a more
thorough understanding of them,
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Materialism holds that our potential for good and more fulfilling
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American Atheist
A Journal of Atheist

News and Thought

Cloning Christ
Humor from Dial-an-Atheist'P

Editor's Desk
Frank R. Zindler

American Atheist

.
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In his cover design, artist

Tom Sullivan captures the
hysterical dimensions of the
church-burning conspiracy
that never was.

American Atheists
In Washington
4
Ellen Johnson
The president of American Atheists
discusses the never-ending problem
of religious-privilege amendments
and tells of her press conference at
the Capitol.
The Great and Late Church
Arson Conspiracy Hoax
8
Conrad F. Goeringer
Allegations of a conspiracy to burn
black churches led to millions of
dollars in government aid to religion. Now it is clear the "conspiracy" was simply a social form of hysteria.
The Twelve: Further Fictions
from the New Testament
17
Frank R. Zindler
The Twelve Apostles and the
Twelve Disciples never existed. So
why were they invented? Politics,
of course!

36

Masters of Atheism
37
Annie Besant (1847-1933)
The second part of a reprint of her
1887 pamphlet Why I Do Not
Believe In God.

~ll
c

.
".:.

'.

Can Atheists Have Morals?

Part II
Doug Krueger
A second excerpt from a forthcoming book by a young
philosopher.

Angels:
An Introduction
24
Arthur Frederick Ide
In an excerpt from his latest book,
Dr. Ide gives us the background
and history of angels - the growth
industry of the nineties.
Modeling God:
Deferred Absurdity
32
Thny Pasquarello
Professor Pasquarello treats us to
some delightful mental teasing as
he teases apart the meaning - or
lack thereof - of the god concept.

50
Letters to the
Editor si

Volume 35, NO.4

Austin, Texas

Autumn 1997

Page 1

American Atheist

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Volume 35 Number 4
EDITOR / MANAGING EDITOR
Frank R. Zindler
ASSOCIATE EDITOR
Ann E. Zindler
CONTRIBUTING EDITOR
Conrad F. Goeringer
PRODUCTION MANAGER
Spike Tyson
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Editor's Desk

The Paradox of Democracy

merican
Atheists
will
return to Washington in
October to present a symposium on state-church separation,
in conjunction with a demonstration against the Promise
Keepers' he-man version of the
"Million-Man-March." As the time
approaches I find myself worrying
about the Dominionist
and
Christian-Restorationist
motivations of the powers that drive
the PK movement. I can't resist
relating Christian muscle-flexing
in the nation's capital to other
things I see in my local newspaper.
Fearing
that "imam and
preacher schools" are breeding
grounds for activists seeking to
establish an Islamic despotism,
Turkey's
Parliament
has
approved a measure reducing
attendance in he country's religious schools. The law increases
from five to eight years the time
students must spend in secular
schools.
Perhaps as many as 300
Algerians have been massacred
by the Armed Islamic Group, a
militant organization spawned in
1992 after the army cancelled an
election that the now-banned
Islamic Salvation Front appeared
certain to win.
What does this all mean for
America? What does it tell us
about democracy as a viable and
sustainable form of government?
The suspension of elections
(thereby abrogating democracy)
by the Algerian government

Franh R. Zindler
Austin, 'Thxas

reminds me of the innocentsounding explanation given by an

American marine during the
~etnam War: "In order to save
the village, we had to destroy it."
In order to save democracy, it had
to be abolished. It is an ironic
aspect of true democracy that it
.gives freedom to people who seek
to destroy freedom. All democracies are potential suicides. Ours is
no exception.
It should not be supposed that
Islam is the only enemy of the
free society. Christianity, wherever it has come to power, has
always been the enemy of liberty,
and the number of people killed
for Christ dwarfs the numbers
killed in the Nazi Holocaust. (It
must not be forgotten that Hitler
was a Catholic, supported by both
Protestant and Catholic clergy
who cited Romans 13 as proof
that their god wanted Adolf to be
the boss.) We owe our own liberty
to men of the Enlightenment,
men who had outgrown Christianity and gave it no place in the
constitution they created. Nor did
they create special privileges for
religion when they wrote the Bill
of Rights. Religion was given no
preeminence over nonreligion.
Knowing full-well the selfdestructive capabilities of democracies, the Founding Fathers
placed basic freedoms in the constitution - amendable only by
three-fourths vote of the states where they could be safe from the
transitory waves of mob-rule that
ever unsettle our society.
Despite the precautions taken
by the Founding Fathers, freedom is not safe in our society.
Autumn 1997

Tirelessly, religious zealots wage

their jihad against the Constitution itself. In this issue, American
Atheists President Ellen Johnson
tells of her efforts to combat
Christian attempts to amend the
Constitution to create special privileges for religion. Such an
amendment would, of course, be
but the nose of the camel in the
tent. Were it adopted, it would in
time be followed by amendments
that further establish a privileged
position for religion and further
limit or abrogate altogether the
freedom from religion.
Will America ever come to the
point that it, like Algeria or
Turkey, will have to limit the powers of religion? Not likely. But
what can be done to prevent
America from coming to a situation such as Algeria, where outright shooting war against religion is necessary? Thomas J efferson, who more than any other single person is responsible for the
freedoms we cherish, realized
that liberty can survive only if the
populace be sufficiently educated
and if information can flow freely.
We too believe that, and so it is
that American Atheists is chartered as an educational organization. So it is that we publish
books intended to provide antidotes to the poisons of religion. So
it is that we disseminate information in the form of this magazine
and its sister publication, the
American Atheist Newsletter. To
paraphrase the Gospel of John,
"Ye shall know the truth, and the
truth shall keep you free."

Page 3

American Atheists In Washington

The Never-Ending Problem of
Religious-Privilege Amendments
By Ellen Johnson
President of American Atheists
n July 22, seventeen members of American Atheists
came together in the nation's
capital to attend public hearings on
the Religious Freedom Amendment
(RFA), and to hold' a demonstration
and press conference at the Capitol

their names here. Besides myself,

there was Spike Tyson, Conrad
Goeringer, Neal Cary, Noel Scott,
Dick Hogan, Stan Brown, Bob
Zauner, Liz Tyahla, Dale Hicks,
Dave Vining, Rice Odell, John
Obert, Jim Senyszyn, Chris Prokop,
George Tipton, and Mark Spencer.
The RFA has been bandied
around Congress since 1995, when

proposed amendment. They were

represented
by Representative
Henry J. Hyde, Republican of Illinois, who was more concerned with
preventing what he and other religious conservatives perceived as discrimination against (private and
public) religious expression. And
there was Representative Ernest J.
Istook, Republican of Oklahoma,

American Atheists President Ellen Johnson and supporters

give a press conference at the Capitol.

with regard to the same.

Upon very short notice, these
dedicated individuals took time off
from work to stand together in the
summer heat and humidity in
Washington, D.C., and to protest the
exclusion ofAmerican Atheists from
the select panel testifying against
the RFAbefore the House Judiciary
Committee's Subcommittee on the
Constitution. We are proud to list
Page 4

it was called the Religious Equality

Amendment (REA).It is an offshoot
of the Christian Coalition's 1995
"Contract With the American Family" which, in part, called for "Aconstitutional amendment to protect
the religious liberties of Americans
in public places."
In 1995 two factions in the
Republican party emerged in disagreement over the wording of the
Autumn 1997

who wanted the REA primarily to

sanction school-sponsored prayer.
The compromise wording of the
1995 version of the REA reads:
Neither the United States
nor any state shall deny benefits
to or otherwise discriminate
against any private person or
group on account of religious
expression, belief, or identity;
American Atheist

nor shall the prohibition on laws

respecting an establishment of
religion be construed to require
such discrimination.
By June 8, the subcommittee on
the Constitution began nationwide
field hearings
on the proposed
amendment. They weren't an overwhelming success for the amendment proponents and were not
repeated in 1996 or 1997.
In the June 1995 issue of the
American Atheist Newsletter, we
asked our members and supporters
to write to the House Judiciary
Committee and ask that a representative from American Atheists be
allowed to testify at the 1995 hearings. After all, the main objective of
the REA was to circumvent the 1963
Supreme Court decision of Murray v
Curlett, which removed forced
prayer and reverential Bible reading from the nation's public schools.
The plaintiff in that case was, of
course, the founder of American
Atheists,
Dr. Madalyn Murray
O'Hair.
No one would be more profoundly affected by the REA than the
nation's Atheists. If we were facing
the emasculation of the establishment clause of the First Amendment, we damned-well wanted to
have a say about it. As it turned out
we were the one group of citizens
specifically excluded from giving
testimony before the subcommittee.
The only option for American Atheists was to provide a written copy of
our testimony for submission into
the Congressional Record on the
hearings, which then American
Atheist's President Jon Murray did.
It read in part:
What we have here is the
mind-set of the religious. Their
assumption is that there are
certain inherent values in religion which (1) must be appreciated by all. Therefore, religious
practices (2) must be protected,
(3) have an enlarged arena in
which to function and (4) be
openly accepted by government.
Austin, Texas

All of this is under the banner of

"protection of religious belief."
But the intent is really to promote religion and to force inclusion of the populace in the religious belief system.
The religious position is
that religion must be a pervasive factor in our culture that
penetrates and permeates every
institution without exception. If
the influence of religion in any
given public institution or area
is curtailed even partially, then
that area is attacked not alone
as being "wholly secular" or
"religion-free" but accusations of
religious intolerance are voiced.
The religious mind cannot
accept a situation in which religion has its areas and then
there are separate secular concerns in which religion is an
unnecessary part of the equation. This, of course, relates
back to the New Testament,
Romans 14:11, "For it is written,
As I live, saith the Lord, every
knee shall bow to me, and every
tongue shall confess to God." the ultimate sectarian demand.
The testimony never appeared
in the Congressional Record.
In 1995 the REA derailed at the
committee level. Some say the split
in the Republican ranks over the
language of the proposed amendment doomed it from the start.
In 1996, the Religious Equality
Amendment reared its ugly head
again, but this time with a new
name and a facelift. It was now the
"Religious Freedom Amendment"
(RFA) and it read:
In order to secure the right
of the people to acknowledge
and serve God according to the
dictates of conscience, neither
the United States nor any State
shall deny any person equal
access to a benefit, or otherwise
discriminate against any person, on account of religious
belief, expression, or exercise.
This amendment does not authAutumn 1997

orize government to coerce or

inhibit religious belief, expression, or exercise.
Congressional Republicans had
scheduled hearings on the amendment for July of 1996 in an attempt
to get a congressional vote on the
record before the fall presidential
elections. They planned to have
presidential hopeful Bob Dole sign
on the RFA thereby distinguishing
himself on so-called morality issues
from Bill Clinton. Clinton did not
support the RFA, considering it
unnecessary because students could
already pray, voluntarily in school.
If the measure was voted on by
September, the Christian Coalition
would report on the votes in its 45
million Congressional voting guides
sent to 100,000 churches in October.
Hoping to create a perceived
urgency and need for the RFA, the
measure's
proponents
began to
paint a picture of Nazi-like persecution of religious citizens in America,
especially school children. However,
close examination of the claims by
TV news programs and liberal religious groups indicated that such
stories were usually distortions of
the truth or were simple mistakes
that were remedied quickly. Two
examples will suffice.
The transcript
of the NBC
Nightly News segment "In Depth"
on September 20, 1995 read:
Reporter Bob Faw: Ten-yearold Joshua Burton is now suing
his Orlando, Florida, school district, arguing that when he read
his Bible quietly before class
last year, teachers confiscated it
and, he says, humiliated him.
Mr. Joshua
Burton:
They
thought that I had no rights. I
felt that they-I felt that I was
getting trampled on.
Faw: Said Joshua's
father,
'What is this, Iraq?'
Mr. Mark Burton (Joshua's
Father): These children should
not have to go to school in fear
that they're going to be turned
in just because they're reading
something that they feel is
Page 5

sacred to them.
Faw: And the Christian Coalition insists students are persecuted all the time for their religious beliefs. Listen' to Ralph
Reed describe a 15-year-old student in Metropolis, Illinois.
(Mr. Ralph Reed) "...who
was escorted into a police
paddy wagon, handcuffed,
and threatened with mace .
because she tried to lead a
prayer around the school's
flagpole."
Faw: Outrageous?
Indeed. But visit
tiny
Metropolis, talk to local
officials, and you'll hear
Ralph Reed's horror story
did not happen.
Mr. Don Smith (School
Superintendent):
There
was no paddy wagon.
There was a police car.
There were no handcuffs
used, And there wasn't no
mace. The so-called Christian Coalition has, in
essence, misrepresented
the facts.
Faw: As for Joshua, the local
school board attorney says his
allegations were untrue, that
Joshua was disruptive; and his
principal adds ...
Ms. Sylvia Boyd (Principal):
Students are allowed to bring
anything that they wish to read.
The real poster child for the
"religious-oppression" hysterics is
Brittney Kaye Settle of Dickson,
Tennessee. In 1991 her ninth-grade
class was assigned a research paper
in which the students had to obtain
prior approval for their topics from
the teacher. Brittney was denied her
topic selection of "The Life of Jesus
Christ" and she sued the Dickson
County School Board for violating
her right to freedom of speech. The
Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled
against her saying the teacher was
not censoring speech about Jesus
Christ per se, but rather Brittney
did not follow the teacher's guidelines for selecting her topic. Part of
Page 6

the purpose of the paper was to have

students do research on a subject
with which they were unfamiliar."
The teacher thought that, being a
devoted Christian, Brittney knew a
lot about the Jesus character, and
therefore could write an outline

expression cloaks itself in religiosity is not grounds for accommodation or agreement. In the
free marketplace of ideas, religion should be treated like any
other idea, given no special
treatment,
no special protec-

Getting our ideas across at the Capitol

without
doing any significant
research, and thus defeat the purpose of the exercise.
Lacking legitimate claims of
religious intolerance, the Christian
Coalition continues to this day to
parade Brittney Kaye Settle around
as an example of censorship of religious speech.
Once again, American Atheists
asked for - and was denied - the
opportunity to testify at the 1996
hearings on the proposed amendment. We submitted our re-written
testimony, which stated in part:
Passage of this amendment
would give special protections
and special rights to the vague,
varied, and often contentious
issues surrounding
'religious
expression.'
Simply because a manner of
1Brittney Kaye Settle v Dickson County
School Board, et al., May 8, 1995. US Court
of Appeals For the Sixth Circuit.
Autumn 1997

tions or advantages, subjected

to neither preference nor prejudice mandated by government.
Rejection of an idea is as democratic as is its acceptance. The
attempt to legislate respect for
'religious' ideas raises the question as to just how valid are
these arguments if the arm of
the state is to be employed to
accomplish wholesale conformity. We are agairi reminded of the
words of Jefferson who wrote,
"It is error alone which needs
the support of government.
Truth can stand by itself."
(Notes on Virginia, Query 17)
And we would urge those asking for government intervention
to remember the words of the
Supreme Court in 1952: 'It is
not the business of government
in our nation to suppress real or
imagined attacks upon a particular religious doctrine.
We don't know yet if our testiAmerican Atheist

mony appeared in the Congressional

Record on the. 1996 hearings. Again,
the amendment never came up for a
committee vote in 1996.
In the true tenacious fashion of
the religious right, the Religious
Freedom Amendment was rolled out
again in 1997, but this time we were
ready. Even before the new round of
hearings was scheduled, American
Atheists was organized. At the urging of the national office of
American Atheists, our supporters began to fax, e-mail, phone,
and mail letters to. the entire
House Judiciary Committee asking that I be allowed to testify at
the hearings.
We bombarded
them with requests up until the
day before the actual hearings.
And our Texas State Director,
Dick Hogan, went to Capitol Hill
to see Brian Woolfolk, counsel to
Representative Robert Scott of
Virginia. Woolfolk selected the
panel to testify against the RFA
He said that it wasn't our
Atheism that kept us from testifying, but rather our lack of political
clout.
The new 1997 version read:
To secure the people's right
to acknowledge God according
to the dictates of conscience:
The people's right to pray and to
recognize their religious beliefs,
heritage, or traditions on public
property,
including
schools,
shall not be infringed. The Government shall not require any
person to join in prayer or other
religious
activity,
prescribe
school prayers,
discriminate
against religion, or deny equal
access to a benefit on account of
religion.
The extent to which our members and supporters communicated
our message to the HJC was made
clear to me when former board
member Caroline Gilman phoned
Rep. Charles Schumer's office about
the hearings. Immediately upon
hearing that Ms. Gilman was with
American Atheists she was told to
Austin, Texas

go no further, they knew exactly

why she was calling.
American Atheist Board member Conrad Goeringer suggested
that we hold a press conference on
Capitol Hill to tell the media why it
was wrong to exclude us from testifying. It was a great idea, and so we
did that.
On Tuesday morning July 22,
our contingent of American Atheists

TV Reporter records the position of

American Atheists on the
Religious Freedom Amendment
went to the Rayburn Building to
attend the public hearings on the
amendment.
There wasn't any
noticeable attendance from any
major media, but I was interviewed
on camera in the hearing room.
Copies of our written testimony
were quickly picked up by the press
as some of our members made the
rounds of the hearing room and
spoke with people on both sides of
the issue. It was clear to many people that American Atheists were in
attendance. And we all felt very
good about it.
As I sat there I took notes on the
proceedings and it became very
clear to me that there was another
reason why we weren't given an
opportunity to testify. We are not
apologists for religion. Everyone
that I heard testifying for and
against the RFA qualified their
statements by saying how they were
"the friend" of prayer. For example,
Representative
Walter Capps of
California testified against the
amendment, but added "I come here
today as a scholar and a friend of
Autumn 1997

religion." And, "While I agree with

the sponsors of the amendment that
we must foster respect for religion, I
have grave reservations about this
legislation and the impact it would
have on the lives of many Americans."
If allowed to testify, we would
not show such respect for prayer.
While some would argue that, as
long as we all agree to the same
ends, what difference does it
make how we get there? That is,
so what if apologists testify
against the amendment? The difference lies in our fundamental
assumptions about religion. The
position of American Atheists is
that if there is nothing wrong
with prayer and religion, then
there is no need to oppose the
RFA
When it was time to hold our
press conference, AA member
Bob Zauner, a recently retired
D.C. attorney, deftly guided us
through the maze that is the
Capitol and to our designated
spot for our press conference. We
held up our signs, some of which
read, "Atheists Need to Be Heard",
"The First Amendment, Not the
First Commandment" and "Open
The Hearings."
I told the press why we were
there and what my impressions of
the hearings were. Afterwards, we
all agreed that we were determined
to have our "seat at the table" in
Washington, D.C. We needed political clout to do that and we were
going to work for it.
Being in Washington, D.C. felt
good. That's where we belong.
American Atheists' goal is to have a
full-time office in Washington, D.C.
so that we no longer have to sit at
the back of the proverbial bus.
Those days are over. We are on our
way to the front.

Page 7

THE GREAT AND LATE

CHURCH ARSON
CONSPfRACY HOAX

A spree of arsons directed at

churches - many of them
black, and located in the
rural south - attracted
national media and political
attention. It also led to
claims that religious exercise
and freedoms were under
attack, and that the burnings
were the result of a
conspiracy. A year following
the peak of the "arson
epidemic," a look back
reveals a remarkably
different picture, and asks
some tough questions about
media responsibility and
popular credulity.

Conrad F. Goeringer is an
antiquarian bookseller and
freelance writer who lives on
the cape of New Jersey. A
frequent speaker at American
Atheists national conventions,
he is director of American
Atheists On-line Services and
a contributing editor of
American Atheist.

Conrad F. Goeringer

Page 8

n the summer of 1996, national

attention was riveted on what
appeared to be a series of
arsons directed primarily at black
churches, many of them located in
the rural south. A number of religious and political leaders expressed the opinion that the fires were
deliberately set, and possibly the
result of a coordinated effort - perhaps by racist groups intent on
intimidating blacks. Government on
several levels became involved, and
the U.S. Department of Justice
assembled
multi-agency team to
investigate the fires. Congress enacted a hastily-framed Church Arson Prevention Act, and the Clinton
Administration,
denouncing the
arsons in strong language, established a special government fund to
guarantee loans for the reconstruction of churches damaged by the
fires. Political and religious groups,
including such diverse organizations as the Christian Coalition and
the National Council of Churches
established their own special funds
as well. Certain government and
religious leaders denounced what
they termed a "conspiracy against
religion" or "attacks" on religious
exercise.
This past summer, a special
Task Force formed to investigate
the church arsons released its final
report, and concluded that there
was no evidence of a single, coordinated conspiracy. Many factors,
noted the report, accounted for the
burnings.

A study in hysteria
My own interest in the "great
church arson conspiracy theory"
Autumn 1997

began early in 1996 when I noted an

increasing amount of media coverage being devoted to the alleged
arsons. Claims about the extent and
nature of the fires were abundant,
and usually expressed in dramatic
and inflated terms. By the summer
of 1996, the issue of burning
churches had become a focal point
for religious and political leaders;
but in many cases, the more sober
and pertinent information - that,
for example, there really was no significant statistical increase in the
rate of fires involving churches was being steadily pushed off the
front pages of the nation's newspapers, and received little prime time
news coverage. There were exceptions, such as an investigative
series about the fires by USA
TODAY. Despite claims by arson
investigators that "suspicious" fires
were not linked, religious and political figures continued to advance
various types of sinister theories,
and reject much contrary evidence.
There are several points I will
attempt
to demonstrate
here,
including the salient one that the
"church arson conspiracy" was a
narrative with remarkable similarities to other forms of social hysteria.
Crucial in this understanding is
Elaine Showalter's
recent book

HYSTORIES, Hysterical Epidemics

and Modern Media (1997, Columbia). Dr. Showalter, Avalon Professor of the Humanities at Princeton,
does not explore the church arson
"epidemic," devoting her attention
to other artifacts of modem pop culture, such as claims of Satanic ritual abuse, "recovered memories,"
tales of alien abduction,
and
American Atheist

Chronic fatigue and Gulf War syndrome. * I argue that there was no
"epidemic" of arsons, and that no
credible evidence of a "conspiracy"
against churches, religious belief or
free exercise exists - the statements
of Ralph Reed and the head of the
U.S. Civil Rights Commission notwithstanding. The "epidemic" was of
a conspiratorial narrative fueled by
unverified pronouncements
from
religious and political leaders and,
to a certain extent, by the news
media.
As with other "social epidemics,"
the church arson conspiracy (CAC)
reflected stresses and conflicts being
played out throughout the culture,
including the black community. A
number of possible "triggers" and
other factors may have contributed
to the conspiracy theory and its
attendant Angst, including the O.J.
Simpson trial, the heated debate
over partial-birth
abortion, the
beating of motorist Rodney King,
Louis Farrakhan's
"million man
march" on Washington, D.C., and
the far-flung debate over racism and
equality in America. And then there
was the base enthusiasm of political
figures, especially those operating
out of the White House, to exploit
the CAC notion for more immediate
ends. The church arsons provided
an opportunity for politicians of
both parties to "reach out" to specific voting blocks. In this respect, not
one major political figure stepped
forward to criticize the more brash
arson conspiracy scenarios, or challenge any of the more outrageous
claims such as Mr. Reed's assertion
that the fires were an attack on reli*It should be acknowledged that Showalter
treats these different phenomena with varying degrees of success. The case against outrageous claims of alien abduction or ritual
cult abuse is a persuasive one; but while
Showalter mounts similar attacks
on
Chronic fatigue and Gulf War syndrome, the
results are not always so definitive and far
less compelling. There may indeed be a
physical cause or cluster of measurable factors behind these last two medically-related
items. Showalter does, however, demonstrate that many descriptions of these maladies are vague and are not always verified
(especially by the media and possibly by certain researchers).

Austin, Texas

gious belief. Religious

groups
seemed unanimous in either agreeing that the number of arsons was a
significant and unusual event something which arson statistics
did not support. At the height of the
arson panhysteria, eleven different
organizations were busy collecting
donations to rebuild churches. They
ranged from the National Conference of Christians and Jews to the
Promise Keepers, the National
Council of Churches, and the Congress of National Black Churches.
In addition, religious organizations
had their own agendas for exploiting and even fueling the CAC bandwagon, or at least for not questioning the notion that the fires were
part of a conspiratorial pattern.
The church fires also provided
an unprecedented opportunity for
government to become involved
with suspect legislation which clearly favored religion and displayed
discriminatory emphasis on behalf
of religious groups. Despite findings
by insurance and arson prevention
groups that there was no significant
increas in the number of arsons
involving churches, over $24 million
was appropriated for special law
enforcement efforts at the federal
level. At one point, over 500 Special
Agents of the FBI and the Treasury
Department's Bureau of Alcohol,
Tobacco and Firearms were dedicated to church arson investigations.
Their efforts were supplemented by
state and local investigators. And
when the church arson craze peaked
in the summer of 1996, President
Clinton signed the Church Arson
Prevention Act, which provided for
stiff penalties against those convicted of such offenses and "granted federal prosecutors greater power in
pursuing burnings and desecrations
at houses of worship ..."t The legislation had been introduced on both
sides of Capitol Hill, uniting liberals
such as Senator Edward Kennedy
(D-MA) and
Senator
Lauch
Faircloth (R-NC) with Rep. Henry
Hyde (R-Ill) and Rep. John Conyers,
Jr. (D-MI).:t: The measure
was
passed unanimously in both legislaAutumn 1997

tive houses.
This scenario may be best visualized as a series of concentric circles, with black community-based
churches at the center. Historically,
the black church has been perceived
as one of the few truly independent
black institutions in the nation, and
has traditionally played the role of
being an organizational
locus in
civil rights efforts. Indeed, especially throughout the era of the 1950s
and 1960s, black churches were
often the target of violence, including arson, by whites opposed to integration, and organizations such as
the Ku Klux Klan.I To many blacks,
including those active in social
movements for racial equality, the
fires were too reminiscent of an ugly
time in American history. USA
TODAY noted that "burning a black
church is more than an attack on a
house of worship; it is an assault on
the culture itself."
Diving into the significance if
any of the church fires became a
preoccupation with columnists, political commentators, religious leaders and the general news media.
Here, the second ring of participants
tFirst Year Report for the President, National
Church Arson Task Force, p. 6. Amended as
18 U.S.C. 247, it empowered federal prosecutors to me charges in "racially motivated"
arsons without the need to show that the
incident involved the use of interstate facilities. It also stiffened penalties for burning a
church, allowing the state to ask for up to 20year jail terms.
:J:That political alignment was a convenient
one. The Kennedy electoral base is heavily
rooted in the black community. The motives,
however, for Faircloth - a former Democrat
who joined the Republican Party as part of
the power shift in the deep south - are more
suspect. The church arsons provided welcome
relief for the North Carolina senator who was
under attack for his involvement in allegations of scandal and political favoritism in
the state's thriving hog-farming industry.
Similarly, Hyde's name had figured prominently into the S&L debacle, having been a
board member of the bankrupt Clyde Federal
Savings.
The first of what was to become hundreds,
even thousands of such acts of violence was
in 1882 when the African Methodist
Episcopal Church in Charleston, S.C. was
burned by an enraged white mob that had
heard that slaves were supposedly meeting
there to plan an uprising.

Page 9

forces. This mythos has been useful

tioned the constitutional implicain the CAC scenario entered the
in trying to analyze many social
tions of proposals like the Church
fray; while their respective analyses
phenomena, such as the infamous
Arson Prevention Act. The Act took
of what was taking place differed,
Salem witch trial mania or, more
there seemed to be little interest in . an unprecedented step in providing
recently, some of the outbreaks of
for a $10 million special fund to
questioning whether the number of
"Satanic panic" during the 1980s
rebuild churches which had been
fires was extraordinary, the work of
and early '90s.
victimized by arson, to be adminisclandestine groups with racial or
Murray Friedman, for instance,
tered by the Secretary of Housing
political agendas, or even warranted
urged communities to mobilize in
and Urban Development. By the
the ground swell of media interest.
"Uniting to fight attacks against
time the Act was introduced, passed
Embers were still hot, for instance,
God and the law,"! and compared
and signed in June, 1996, media
when C. Eric Lincoln, a religion pro"the recent spate of burnings of
interest in the church arson "epifessor at Duke University insisted
black churches" to the
that "It is an attempt to
Kristallnacht in Germany
show absolute contempt
when
Nazi
goons
for whatever is of greatest
Investigations which concluded that launched
attacks
on
value or whatever has
greatest
meaning
for fires were caused by faulty wiring or other Jewish-owned businesses
black people." The assis- more prosaic factors were dismissed, and and homes. Friedman
opined that, "An attack
tant attorney general in
some
religious
leaders
charged
that
a
coveragainst a house of worcharge of civil rights
ship must be understood
enforcement
for
the up of some sort was in the works."
as a crime against the
Justice
Department,
human spirit and against
Deval Patrick, warned
demic" was peaking. Even hotter
God. By burning a church, arsonists
ominously, "We are dealing with a
demonstrate that they fear neither
than burning church fires, though,
pattern that grows out of racial hosGod nor the law."
were the statements from certain
tility in this country."
New York Times religion reportmedia and many religious leaders,
The third and outermost seger Gustav Nieburh was equally
ment involved in the CAG story was
as well as political figures, who
poetic, describing "Unholy fires on
a relative handful of arson investiadvanced their own theories as to
gators, insurance industry experts,
Hallowed Ground." He charged that
the causes and nature of the church
the fires were rooted "in an attempt
burning. The statements became all
select media and anyone else who
to disrupt a community of believers,
critically examined the many claims
the more significant in light of the
desecrate their altars and smash
growing gap between conspiracy
about the alleged conspiracy and
found them seriously lacking. USA
the spiritual rhythm of their lives."2
theories which purported to explain
the fires, and a slowly growing body
TODAY devoted exceptional resourNieburh also quoted Rev. Joan
of empirical evidence unearthed by
ces in tracking the church arson
Brown Campbell of the National
arson investigators and some reporstory; it was one of the few papers to
Council of Churches,
writing,
give relatively balanced coverage to
"Church burnings register on a
ters. It was as if two or even more
the affair. It should also be noted
'soul-deep level,' where even the
different narratives were being told
at the same time. As a result, the
that while none of the nation's
Constitutional
guarantee of reliprominent religious leaders or orgainitial spirit of cooperation between
gious freedom seems imperiled ..."
nizations openly criticized the CAC
investigative agencies and congreCampbell warned, "You begin to
hysteria,
some local pastors gations members or church leaders
ask, can one not go to a church of
was strained. In certain cases, pasincluding those at churches which
one's choice and worship free of
had been burned - urged caution in
tors accused investigators of "unfair
fear?"
conduct" in not arriving at certain
painting alarmist visions of a widePolitical leaders
seemed to
spread conspiracy.
conclusions. Investigations which
quickly reflect the Angst of their
concluded that fires were caused by
religious counterparts. Deval PatThe Religious, Political
faulty wiring or other more prosaic
rick, Assistant Attorney General for
Response
factors were dismissed, and some
Civil Rights, labeled the burnings
The church burnings evoked
religious leaders charged that a
"an epidemic of terror." At the time,
nearly universal calls from political
cover-up of some sort was in the
Patrick was co-chairing the newly
figures for investigations,
stiff
works.
created National Church Arson
penalties, and financial compensaThe fires took on the dimension
Task Force that had been haphaztion, and there is no indication in
of a subversion mythos, a situation
ardly formed by the Clinton adminthe record that at the federal level
wherein a group or community is
istration. The report of that body a
any Representative or Senator quesperceived as under attack by unseen
year later would suggest that Mr.

"-======================

Page 10

Autumn 1997

American Atheist

the investigation, but the sense of

ter race plot in the design... The
Patrick had been somewhat dramatintimidation that they feel from
mysterious
thing
about these
ic in his claim.
investigators."?
church burnings
is that very
From
the
religious
right,
few...arrests have been made."5
Christian Coalition Director Ralph
An AANEWS report of 12 June
Reed expressed similar conspiracy
Early Findings
1996 observed:
theory sentiments, and told a press
In particular, religious groups
conference on June 16, 1996 that
Meanwhile, federal agents
the arsons were proof that "religion
which had, by early 1996, adopted a
from the FBI and the Treasury
conspiracy scenario blaming racists
is under attack in the United
Department continue to encounor anti-religious groups in order to
States."3 Robert George, assistant
ter resistance from church leadexplain the church fires, found
head of the U.S. Commission on
ers who want the investigation
themselves in an increasingly in deCivil Rights expressed equally dark
deflected from certain
thoughts, insisting that
areas including possible
the fires were "an attack
insurance
or
on Christianity."4 .
"
Rev. Mac Charles Jones of the National 'insider' arsonfraud
for publicThe government had
already responded to the Council of Churches complained that investi- ity or other motives ...
alleged CAC by mobiliz- gators were issuing subpoenas for church
By the middle of
ing an unprecedented
June, sufficient numbers
number of agents; but records and asking ministers of congregation
of fires had been investieven that action did not members to take polygraph tests."
gated to provide a more
satisfy many church leadaccurate profile of what
ers, especially when the
was going on. The findings did not
fensible position as fire investigaresults of investigations began to
support any CAe scenario, but
tors and various law enforcement
unearth evidence pointing to multiinstead suggested a wide range of
groups made public the results of
ple causes behind the fires rather
their work. The gap between what
causes and motivations. "You can't
than an overarching conspiracy. The
blanket the entire picture by paintsome religious leaders had insisted
Christian Coalition, for instance,
ing them as a racist motivation,"
was a plot and the evidence had
called upon Mr. Clinton to have the
observed Craig Valentik, assistant
started to grow. There was precious
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and
special agent with the Birmingham,
little to support the claim that the
Firearms (BATF) removed from the
fires were an "attack on Chrisinvestigations. The White House
Alabama office of BATF.8
tianity" as some had claimed;
responded to growing discontent
Of 39 fires under active investifrom certain religious groups by
arrests in connection with church
gation at the time, one had been
fires was revealing a diverse profile
calling for a dedicated national
ruled an accident, and two were
of arsonists, a point we shall deal
prayer Sunday in June on behalf of
determined to be the result of a
with shortly.
those victimized by the church
race-based hate crime. Seven more
In early June, as the National
arsons. Other political leaders took
suggested possible hatred, but that
Church Arson Task Force was
Clinton's adroit cue, and issued simdetermination was less than conclubeginning its work, about thirty
ilar proclamations for prayer days
sive, and based on the presence of
religious leaders traveled to Washin their respective states or municianti-black graffiti left at the scene,
ington for meetings with Attorney
palities.
or the existence of a cluster of black
General Janet Reno and other officongregation churches which were
cials, "to voice dissatisfaction with
Media Reaction
in the same area and burned on the
federal, state and local investigaAlong with writers in major
same night. Eleven cases involved
tors, which they say have focused
media outlets such as The New York
arson for reasons other than racial
Times, editors and columnists
more on the church members and
or religious hatred. Eighteen of the
remained divided on the nature and
clergy than on outside suspects."
fires remained unsolved.
extent of the church fires. An editorRev. Mac Charles Jones of the
An examination of fires dating
ial in the Shreveport (Louisiana)
back to the previous year indicated
National Council of Churches comSun declared, "It is inconceivable
a similarly diverse profile. "Just a
plained that investigators
were
that this is just a cultist fad, some
issuing subpoenas for church refraction of church fires traced to
idea some ill-advised group of teens
hatred," noted two reporters in the
cords and asking ministers of conhave concocted as a lark. Obviously,
gregation members to take polyArkansas
Democrat-Gazette
(20
there is a conspiracy of sorts afoot
graph tests. Jones later told CNN,
June 1996). While some fires were
clearly linked to racial hate groups
and obviously, since black churches
"The sense of dissatisfaction (among
are being targeted, there is a sinispastors) is not around the amount of
such as the Ku Klux Klan, * others
\ustin, Texas

Autumn 1997

Pagel!

BATF agent mused to CNN, "Conspiracies are easier to crack,

because it's harder for two people
than one to keep a secret."
There was no church fire conspiracy, though, concluded USA
TODAYll after conducting what
was, in retrospect, the most exhaustive investigation into the fires carried out by any private news organization. The paper zeroed in on 64 of
the leading cases of black church
arsons over an eleven state
area-s "including 18 unreported by federal authoriacc~sed arso~sts.
were
If accurate those statistics suggested ties." "This investigation
white, 1.3% Hispanic, and
I
32.9% black. If accurate, that an unusually high percentage of blacks rules out any possibility of a
those statistics suggested were torching black churches compared to national or even regional
conspiracy."
The paper
that an unusually high
."
percentage of blacks were the general population profile.
added, "There is no one
answer to the frightening
torching black churches
compared to the general population
involved black congregations and 29
collection of torched churches across
- almost half - involved white or
the South, black and white," and
profile. But the statistics tell us little, though, about the individual
cited a wide range of activities
mostly white church groups.
including insurance fraud, revenge,
arsonists, black or white. There
By late June, 1996, a better proderangement and, "to be sure, open
were clear examples of racist motifile of the church fire situation was
beginning to emerge. Assistant
or latent racial hatred."
vation, as in the case of farmer
Ernest Piece who described himself
A,ttorney General Deval Patrick,
Two arson clusters or zones
as an Imperial WIZard of the Ku
who earlier had described the burnwere identified, areas which did
Klux Klan. He was convicted of
ing as an "epidemic of terror," was
have unusual amounts of fire inordering a fellow Klan member to
now qualifying his public statevolving black churches. One cluster
was a 200-mile oval which included
burn the Barren River Baptist
ments. "The prospect of a conspiracy
is a chilling thing," said Patrick.
Church in Bowling Green, l{y. in
portions of western Tennessee and
December, 1991. But other cases
northwest Alabama. A second zone
"But the prospect that these are sepwere less clear-cut. One man
arate acts of racism is even
stretched across portions of North
worse.".10 The Assistant Attorney
attempted to cover his burglary
and South Carolina. Sixty percent of
General seemed to be echoing the
attempt by using church hymnals as
the reported investigations in 1996
an incendiary
device. Another,
took place in these zones. "That
sentiments of other government
Robert Lee Johnson, claimed that
agents who wished that there were
means the national uproar (over
he had been cheated in a back room
church arsons) could be the work of
a conspiracy. One unidentified
poker game which took place at a
as few as one or two serial arsonists
t ~any were drinking alcohol heavily on the
black-owned road house. Indeed, a
operating
in those zones."
night the churches burned," observed USA
massive investigation
into the
TODAY (July 1, 1996), adding that "'Several
.had been taking drugs, mostly marijuana. .
Villains - Real and Imagined
church arsons by the newspaper
USA TODAY described most of the
The USA TODAY report con:j: Even so, of abput 350,000 churches nationwhite arsonists as "Young, poor,
firmed what had long been known to
wide, only about 65,000 have predominantly
uneducated," noting that drinking
black congregations. Did this suggest a high
rate of arson involving black churches? At
In this crucial respect, the USA TODAY
appeared as a factor.t Most were not
were not. "Vandalism is a leading
motive;" noted the DemocratGazette, "and churches are easy targets."
Where
authorities
made
arrests of whites accused of torching
churches with predominantly black
congregations, the raw statistics did
not always reveal motivation. The
final National Church Arson Task
Force report observed, for instance,
that in fires involving black churches (a total of 50 arsons and
2 bombings), 65:8% o~ the

. affiliated with any group, and some

even regretted their actions. "I feel
like slime," remarked one accused
firebug.
.Persuasive evidence that there
was a "wave" of arsons directed at
black churches required a statistical
legerdemain that was ultimately
impossible
to achieve. White
churches were burning at a similar
paceDand in the BATF probe of 59
church fires since January, 1995, 30

"~===============================

On 20 June 1995 for instance, authorities

arrested two members of the Klan and
charged them with setting the fire in the
Mount Zion African Methodist Episcopal
Church in Greeleyville, S.C. The fact that
investigators had originally blamed electrical problems for the fire contributed to a
growing sense that arson experts were either
overlooking evidence of foul play, or engaged
in a cover-up.

Page 12

first, it appears that it does. But other factors must be 'amsidered, including the fact
that the overall rate of arsons involving
churches both black and white had not
Increased, Many of the black churches were
in remote, rural areas making them an easy
target. And, "Churches are vulnerable to
arson and sometimes the target of serial
arsonists," noted USA TODAY. ~any are
vacant a good part of each week and located
in isolated areas. Security systems are rare."
Autumn

1997

probe was more focused than that of the

National Church Arson Task Force. The latter's First Year Report (June 1997) tabulated
fires in 25 states which clearly were not part
of any pattern. The USA TODAY probe identified two significant "arson zones" or "clusters" in the south, whereas the NCATF
included rues such as one set at a
Presbyterian
Church in Spring Valley,
California by a 28-year old white male who is
now in a state mental facility.
American

Atheist

arson investigators and insurance

firms: many of the churches were
"isolated and empty at night," were
in rural areas, and involved "wideopen constructions (which) makes
them bum fast." And a higher percentage of black churches were to be
found in economically depressed
areas, "traditionally
a factor in
arson." In addition, arson - regardless of motive - accounted for about
30% of the 1,750 or so annual fires
involving churches. * One investigator added that "A decade ago, fraud
accounted for 80% 'of all arsons ...
now kids start 80% of them."t
Indeed, some ofthe church burnings
were part of a larger and growing
problem, namely, juvenile arson. In
1994, for the first time since records
were initiated, more than half of all
convicted arsonists arrested were
under the age of 18.12 In 1980, juveniles accounted for about 40% of
arson arrests, but sixteen years
later that figure had risen to 55%.13
"The recent concern has risen in
part because the nation stumbled
upon a phenomenon that's gone on
for decades and mistook it for something new," added USA TODAY.14
"Churches of every color are a traditional favorite of arsonists." But
here, the paper erred. Churches are
not a "traditional favorite of arsonists," since they account for only
about 1% of the "suspicious fires"
which occur annually in the entire
country. Arson for profit, particularly in depressed inner-city areas,
remains a multibillion dollar industry.

* In the course of investigating material for

this article, the author found incredibly wide
variations in some statistics and in how they
were reported. The most consistent (and perhaps reliable) seem to be generated by the
National Fire Protection Association, which
reported a recent average of 1,330 fires striking "places of worship" annually. Of those
where the cause is known, about 27% of these
are arsons. Every source I located, however,
provided the figure of 1% for the rate of
church arsons compared to all other incidents
of arson activity.
t

The youth connection was present again

when it was noted that some of the rural
churches had become "party spots" for young
people.

Austin, Texas

Other findings in the report

included the fact that some of the
fires "don't even belong on a list of
arsons." Four of the blazes involved
burning piles of trash, and one fire
which occurred at a black church in
Houston was caused by children
playing with matches in a churchrun play group. Another fire in
Alabama was recorded during a violent lightning storm.tf
Other incidents of alleged arson
which were tabulated and reported
may have had nothing whatsoever
to do with churches. For instance,
arson lists in the media reported the
fire at the Greater Ebenezer Baptist
Church in New Orleans on 29 June
1996. "Someone torched a stack of
lumber near this church in the early
stages of construction," noted USA
TODAY, "and authorities said it was
not obvious a church was being
built." One factor gingerly avoided
by much of the domestic media was
the question of bitter internal rivalries or activities within religious
congregations,
both black and
white. In the case of arson involving
black churches, nothing caused as
much confusion and consternation
as the arrest of a black defendant.
Early on the morning of 23 May
1996, fire swept the Mount Tabor
Baptist Church in Cerro Gordo,
North Carolina, causing $60,000 in
damage to the main hall. The Cerro
Gordo fire was in one of the two
"arson clusters" and there had been
four other church fires in the state
within the past seventeen months
linked to probable arson. Investigators soon arrested two black contractors who had been remodeling
the church annex; the alleged
motive was to conceal the fact that
they had exhausted their funds
prior to completing the work. Other
similar cases involved black children, a black mental patient, and a
black man who told authorities that
he had set the fire at a Methodist
church in order to conceal a burglary.
Racism was considered an early
winner in explaining most, or at
least many of the arsons at black
Autumn 1997

churches, even considering the perplexing phenomenon that blacks

were being arrested in connection
with some of the fires. But what
about arson at white houses of worship? Reporter R. A Zaldivar noted
that "Burnings of white churches
and synagogues ... are down from the
early 90S... "16 There was "no clear
motive" in most of these torchings,
but experts suggested delusional
thrill seekers, copycats, vandals,
and ethnic bigotry as factors. Six of
the targets were synagogues.
Unlike some of the black church
arsons, the white targets were
spread throughout the country and
included congregations in Arizona,
Colorado, New York, Pennsylvania,
Texas, Utah and elsewhere. Dian
Williams of the Center for Arson
Research told The Inquirer that
some church arsonists were in the
grip of a "religious psychosis."
"Sometimes they hear a voice
telling them over and over to bum
churches in order to avert Armageddon, because the church has become
a component of the Antichrist,"
Williams remarked.
The flip side of that scenario,
though,
occurred in Charlotte,
North Carolina on 6 June 1996
when fire swept through the sanctuary of the Matthews-Murkland
Presbyterian Church. Local investigators soon determined that the fire
was "deliberately set, "17 but stopped
short of linking it to any other
arsons. Police then arrested a 13year old white suspect who they
charged with the burning, and
added that the juvenile "harbors
anti-Christian, anti-African American beliefs. "18 That prompted an
article in the Charlotte Observer
("Teen Satanists are mostly just
dabbling, experts say...") discussing
teen interest in the occult, and a
report that six years before, police
discovered a "crude stone altar" in a
neighborhood
where
residents
feared that cultists "gathered at
night to worship and possibly sacrifice animals." A sidebar to the arrest
article was titled ''Warning Signals,"
and advised parents to be on the
Page 13

lookout for "warning signs" that

their child would be active in
Satanist activities.
Different groups thus perceived
the arson "epidemic" in different
ways. Blacks, particularly
those
active in the churches, were suspicious of investigators,
and often
clung tenaciously to some variant of
the Church Arson Conspiracy. Mainstream white or mixed congregation
groups, especially the National
Council of Churches and the American Jewish Congress, embraced elements of the CAC, and reached-out
with high-profile
fund raising
efforts to rebuild black churches.
The Clinton administration hedged
its bet,* supporting Janet Reno and
Justice Department
agents who
found a mixed-bag of motives and
personalities behind the arsons, all
the while aggressively using the
public notoriety of the arsons to
push for special legislation, including the Church Arson Prevention
Act, and a $10,000,000 special fund
to guarantee church reconstruction.
The height of the church arson
occurred during the 1996 campaign,
one heavily laced with religious
claims, metaphors and appeals from
both major parties. In fact, Clinton's
handlers succeeded in using many
Republican Party culture war issues
on their own behalf; indeed, by
embracing churches and a call for
religious faith, Clinton substantially muted the GOP character-issue
attack which painted the former
Arkansas governor as a philandering adulterer.
Behind the Arson Epidemic
Hysteria
It is over a year since the church
arson hysteria peaked, and since
that time, news of any church burnings has steadily moved off the front
pages of papers, or prime time news
broadcasts. The First Year Report of
the National Church Arson Task

* Clinton artfully insisted that he saw nothing political in assailing the burning of black
churches, and he urged Americans to "stand
up against the desecration of houses of worship." See USA TODAY, 13 June 1996.
Page 14

Force was released in June, 1997,

and reported the current extent of
the arson probe. Some 429 separate
investigations had been made into
arsons, bombings, or attempted
bombings covering all of 1995, 1996,
and the period up to May 27, 1997,
and 199 arrests had been made.
Thirty-five percent of the cases had
been solved, a figure double the
arrest rate of general arsons, and
110 convictions had been obtained.
Of the 199 persons arrested, 160
were white, 34 black, and 5 Hispanic. Eighty three were juveniles.
While the bulk of media publicity
focused on black churches, particularly those in the "arson clusters"
found by USA TODAY, the NCATF
noted that of the 429 incidents it
probed, only 162 involved African
American churches. The report
noted:
The Task Force had found
that only a few of the fires are
linked by common defendants.
Conspiracy charges have been
filed in a limited number of
cases.
These
conspiracies,
though, have tended to be confined to the small geographic
areas where the arsons have
occurred. Investigators continue
to pursue the question of
whether broader conspiracies
were responsible for some of the
fires, but to date the evidence
has not established the existence of a national conspiracy.
From the beginning of the arson
craze and even into mid-1996, there
was little evidence to support claims
of any sort of conspiracy motivated
by either racial prejudice or "antireligious" sentiments as hypothesized by Ralph Reed and others.
Why, then, were conspiracy scenarios so eagerly embraced? Why were
no political or religious leaders willing to seriously and openly question
the conspiracy claims?t .
I suggest that the answer to
these questions resides, in part,
with events taking place at the
approximate time ofthe church fires
Autumn 1997

which touched on key cultural

issues. For blacks, the overarching
conspiracy scenario involved an
extension of historically documented facts from the Civil Rights era,
namely, white supremacist groups
burning churches.
Another factor which could well
have fueled a climate of acceptance
for conspiracy theories was the
steady rise in influence within certain segments of the black community of Louis Farrakhan, head of the
Nation of Islam. Farrakhan continued the conspiracy ideology of the
late Elijah Muhammad, fusing together a message of black selfreliance, Muslim religious doctrine,
and bizarre theology with tales of
white plots and black aliens in flying saucers. Even so, he has enjoyed
surprisingly wide (albeit somewhat
conditional) acceptance within the
black community; and the presence
of major black leaders at the
October 16, 1995, Million Man
March in Washington, D.C., affirms
the fact that among the leading
blacks, only Farrakhan could have
orchestrated such a massive undertaking. If the Nation of Islam's Final
Call could advance conspiracy theories about the CIA inventing AIDS,
then the idea of a conspiracy to bum
black churches was not altogether
that implausible.
For white evangelicals, particularly groups like the Christian Coalition, the events surrounding the
church arson imbroglio were adapted to fit a slightly different conspiracy theory, one which affirmed the
religious-right theme that religion
is under attack. Traditionally, conservative religious movements cast
themselves as active defenders of
t Remarkably, it was perhaps only Clinton
himself who consistently urged skepticism
regarding any conspiracy. Why did he do
this? One reason was that as a politician,
Clinton was still able to exploit the "religion
card" throughout the 1996 Presidential campaign. He also had to stand-by the Justice
Department and his former nominee, now
Attorney General Janet Reno. Reno had
weathered a storm of criticism over the Waco
debacle. Did Reno later re-pay Clinton by not
appointing
a Special Prosecutor
over
Whitewater and related affairs?
American Atheist

the political status-quo. While still

affirming
"traditional
values,"
though, groups like the Christian
Coalition and Family Research
Council increasingly speak of "government
hostility"
to religious
expression, and cite the need, for
instance, to amend (rather than
defend) the U.S. Constitution.
Institutions like the U.S. Supreme
Court are branded as "judicial
activists" and rogues. While Ralph
Reed and others on the religious
right did not specify exactly who
was supposedly "attacking religious
belief' by burning churches, the
fires provided the ideal time to find
common cause with a group long
ignored by evangelicals - namely,
the black churches.

Outcome
The notion that churches (or
specifically black churches) were the
victims of a coordinated, intentional
attack involving groups or individuals with a racial-political agenda
proved to be highly problematic.
The more emotive statements from
clergy or political leaders were
rarely supported with evidentiary
material. In fact, the number of
reported fires involving churches
actually declined to an average of
2,100 fires per year (1990-1994)
compared to approximately 2,600
annual fires in the period 19851989.19 Arson is likewise the country's leading "fire cause" for property damage, and totals approximately $2 billion for year. Other statistics put the Church arson conspiracy in a somewhat different perspective.
Churches and related properties do not constitute a "major part"
of the U.S. arson problem. In fact,
99% of all "suspicious" fires involves
businesses, homes, vacant buildings
and apartment dwellings. * In addition to a steady decline in the number offires involving churches, there
has been a comparable decline in
the number of fires known to be
arson-related.
The only increase
appears to be in the category of
"property-related damage," estimatAustin, Texas

ed at around $16 million in 1994

compared to nearly $30 million in
recent years. Arson nevertheless
remains the leading cause of fire in
churches and related property, but
it does not account for the majority
of the fires. About one out of every
four church building fires have been
linked to deliberate arson, but 75%
involve other causes - everything
from poor wiring to collateral damage from other fires.
Statistics from other time
periods suggest a similar pattern.
There are approximately 350,000
churches throughout the United
Statest (a figure which suggests
that "people of faith" certainly have
adequate opportunity to worship as
they see fit). With such a number,
fires take place at a church somewhere every day. For instance, one
insurance industry study noted, "In
the years 1980 to 1983, approximately 1700 fires occur in church
sanctuaries and another 3100 fires
occur in other church properties
(including halls, classrooms, etc.)."20
That suggests a rate of thirteen fires
on church property every day in the
U.S. Later figures support a similar
rate. According to the National Fire
Protection Association, arson is the
leading cause of fires in churches,
"as in all public and commercial
buildings."
As with other examples of social
epidemics or "hystories," their passage from the contemporary consciousness goes relatively unnoticed. They are quickly replaced by
other fads or phobias. The NCATF
report elicited only passing commentary, and after a two- or three-

* Uniform Crime Report figures from the

U.S. Department of Justice for just the year
1982-83 showed, for instance, that about
50,000 structures were damaged by arson,
and almost half were defined as "single-occupancy residents." That figure may be low and if church fires are reported more faithfully, it suggests that the percentage of
church burnings may be artificially inflated
as a result. See Patrick Jackson, Criminology, 26, 181-95 (1988),which suggests
that only about 60% of arsons are ever
reported in the ueR. In smaller communities (those under 25,000) only about 32% of
arsons are included.
Autumn 1997

day period of news coverage, seemed

to vanish from the popular stage.
The authors of the report congratulated themselves, and praised the
idea of "how government agencies
and private groups can work together to help rebuild a house of worship."
There were state-church separation concerns, though, which were a
critical part ofthe church arson hysteria, that were usually ignored by
media and by political interests.
They included
passage
of the
Church Arson Prevention Act, which
American Atheists charged clearly
treats churches and other houses of
worship as more valuable and worthy of government sanction than
mere secular institutions, such as
homes and private businesses. The
Act also drew the government into
the business of funding religious
institutions through a $10,000,000
loan guarantee program; and it took
the unprecedented step of prohibiting insurance companies from not
renewing
policies on high-risk
churches. In the heady, emotionally
charged climate of the church fires,
legislators rushed to provide stiffer
penalties for attacks on churches.
The church fires also conveniently occurred during a campaign
which many observers saw as a high
point in the use of religious rhetoric
and symbols. Candidates from both
parties embraced religious metaphors to stake out their respective
position in the "culture war" issues.
Indeed, strong religious rhetoric
helped Mr. Clinton survive the 1996
election. Ralph Reed and other religious-right
groups
within
the
Republican Party ran their political
strategy on social and "values"
issues rather than economic points.
The fires also served to cast
religious groups, or specific congregations, in a victim role - one sure
to elicit sympathy and support.
Ironically, at a time when many
t That figure may actually be low, since it
does not include the "weekend congregations" which rent auditoriums, school halls
and other buildings for their activities, or
meet in private homes and other venues.
Page 15

black churches were under attack

during the civil rights era ofthe late
1950s and early 60s, much of white
America - and nearly all white
evangelicals - expressed little or
mixed support. But the Angst over
church fires in the later 1990s
reflected racial considerations as
well. For many blacks, the fires
were simply a tragic replay of what
had happened before, and served as
an unwelcome reminder of certain
political and economic realities in
the present.
From a wider" perspective,
though, the "church arson conspiracy"was one ofmany blips on the cultural radar screen which happen to
scroll across our view with greater
and greater frequency. We are truly
a culture saturated with epidemics
and syndromes, obsessed with plots,
victimization, and conspiracies.
From movie and television programs to the evening news, we consume a steady diet of subversion
mythology. Showalter traces the
evolution of this "hysteria," suggesting its pre-millennialist character
and noting, "In our ownfin de steele,
as medical institutions expel hysteria, literary critics take it up."
Indeed, a "hysterical narrative"
runs through the popular consciousness. Reinforced in print and video,
it affects the way we interpret the
political and social landscape
around us.
The hysteria over church arsons
was a double tragedy. It became a
popular expression of the penchant
for unsubstantiated claims and
unsupported scenarios. And, as an
expression ofAngst and uncertainty
about the future, it resulted in misplaced (though in many cases, sincere and well intentioned) deeds.
Churches were rebuilt, but after the
legislators had gone home and religious groups had congratulated
themselves for yet another new
partnership with the state, no new
hospitals, or schools, or youth programs, or scholarship funds had
been created. The secular institutions which ultimately can address the concerns underlying the
Page 16

phobias - the "hysteria," the

institutionalized dysfunctions - remain unbuilt or neglected.

14.
15.

REFERENCES
1.

2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
B.

9.
10.
11.

12.

13.

Philadelphia Inquirer. 5 July 1996.

The New Yor4 TImes. 23 June 1996.
CNN reports of 16 and 17 June 1997.
CNN reports of 1B and 19 June 1997.
Quoted in USA TODAY. 13 June 1996.
Associated Press release. 9 June 1996.
CNN broadcast. 9 June 1996.
Ar,wsas Democrat-Gazette, 20 June
1996.
USA TODAY. 1B June 1996.
CNN News. 23 June 1996.
USA TODAY. 1 and 2 June 1996.
The Bakersfield Californian. article on
arson spree in Kern County libraries by
Robert Price. 16 Feb. 1996. Statistics
also from National Fire Protection
Association.
"Experts say adults start fires for profit
or personal gain. or sometimes to cover

SNAPSHOTS ~y Jason

16.
17.

is.
19.
c.

20.

other crimes. Juveniles start fires for

kicks. out of curiosity or for purposes of
intimidation ...(Price. ibid.)
USA TODAY. 1 and 2 June 1996.
By the time the NCATF issued its June,
1997 report. these two incidents had
dropped off the list of "officially investigated" church arson events.
Philadelphia Inquirer. 15 June 1996
CNN. 7 June 1996; Associated Press dispatch. 7 June 1996
Charlotte (N.C.) Observer. 17 June 1996.
Fact sheet provided by Federal Emergency Management Agency. "Fact Sheet
on Arson and Church Fires in the
U.S.A .Washington.
William H. Rodda. Underwriting Update.
"The Price of Worship." Best's Review
(Property/Casualty
Insurance Edition)
B7. June. 19B6. pp. 70. 72.

Love

The Antichrist
Autumn 1997

American Atheist

The Twelve
Apostles and the
Twelve Disciples
are just as

imagmary
as
their master
Jesus. So why
were they
invented?

Formerly a professor of biology

and geology, Frank R. Zindler
is now a science writer. He is a
member of the American
Association for the Advancement of Science, the New York
Academy of Science, The
Society of Biblical Literature,
and the American Schools of
Oriental Research. He is the
Editor of American Atheist.

Franh R. Zindler
Austin, Texas

Cbe ewelw:
further fictions from
Cbe New Cestammt
he silence regarding the
earthly career ofthe god-man
Jesus is amplified - if amplification of silence were possible - by
the silence which surrounds all his
companions and most of the places
in which he is supposed to have
worked his wonders. While it is
indisputable that Augustus Cassar
and Pontius Pilate existed at the
time Jesus is supposed to have
lived, and while Jerusalem most
certainly existed (and was called by
that name), there is no secular
record to be found of the twelve disciples,the twelve apostles, St. Mary,
St. Joseph, St. Paul, St. Stephen, or
the vast majority of the characters
that people the gospels and the rest
of the writings preserved in the
New Testament. Nor is there to be
found any mention in the Old
Testament or in the writings of
Jewish or pagan geographers and
historians of such important Christian places as Nazareth, Bethany,
Bethphage, lEnon, Magdala, or
Capernaum.! The fact that New
Testament accounts even of historical figures are often confused or
impossible2 makes the argument

1In my article "Where Jesus Never Walked"

(American Atheist, winter 1996-1997) I show

that
the "Capernaum"
mentioned
by
Josephus is a spring, not the city of the New
Testament!
2For example, the supposition that King
Herod (who died in 4 BCE) was still alive at
the time of the census under Quirinius in 6
CE, or the erroneous report by the author of
Acts that Theudas (who appeared at the time
of the procurator Cuspius Fadus, ca. 44 CE)
came before Judas the Galilean (who
appeared at the time of the census in 6 CE.).

Autumn 1997

from silence even more forceful,

simply because the novelistic character of the writing becomes more
obvious, and one does not expect to
find much historical documentation
for the characters populating the
average novel. The supposition that
Jesus and his companions were real
must confront the embarrassing
fact that the characters in most historical novels can be documented in
far greater percentages than can
the characters in the New Testament.
The silence of extrabiblical
sources concerning New Testament
geography and characters has a
curious counterpart in the silence of
the gospels concerning most of the
places that we know did exist in the
areas alleged to have been venues of
Jesuine activity. Thus, the major
city of Sepphoris - a mere five miles
from what is now called Nazareth is wholly unknown in the New
Testament, even though people living in its shadow could reasonably
be expected to interact with it at
least occasionally.Neither Jesus nor
his followersbetrays any awareness
of this great pagan city in their
midst. Apart from Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Tiberias, and the Sea of
Galilee, there is little evidence that
the New Testament authors knew or
cared anything about the geography3 or real-life circumstances of
the stage on which their actors play
out their parts. If the New Testament is a work of fiction, and if its
characters are the creations of religiopolitical necessity, this all makes
sense. If Jesus and his associates
Page 17

were real, however, these compoundings of silence are quite

impossible to explain credibly.

The Fictive Twelve

Among the many imaginary
characters of the New Testament,
perhaps the most blatantly obvious
fictions are the Twelve Disciples. Of
course, if Jesus was a sun-god (and
who else is born on the winter solstice and worshiped on Sunday?), he
would have needed twelve zodiacal
accomplices, one for every month of
the year, or one for every sign of the
zodiac through which the sun's
chariot journeys. It is not surprising
that most of the disciples are mere
names - not always the same names
from gospel to gospel - and only a
- few have any definable character.
Moreover, it appears that some
evangelists had trouble coming up
with enough names for all twelve although the authors of the gospels
of Mark and Luke were able (as we
shall see), by combining three separate stories about disciples or apostles, to come up with thirteen
names!
Even though both Matthew and
Luke are known to have copied the
narrative
framework
of Mark's
gospel, it is interesting to note that
their lists of disciples (or apostles)
do not match Mark's exactly. The
simple Thaddreus
of Mark is
Lebbreus in Matthew. Attempts at
harmonizing
this
discrepancy
resulted in later manuscripts
of
3 Mark Chapter 5 tells of Jesus and The
Twelve crossing the Sea of Galilee and landing in the region of the Gerasenes, unaware of
the fact that Gerasa was at least 31 miles
from the shore and did not have control of
that area. The evangelist did not realize that
when he had Jesus make 2,000 pigs run down
a slope to drown they would have to run a
course longer than a marathon! Further ignorance of Palestinian geography is found in the
story about Jesus going from Tyre, on the
Mediterranean, to the Sea of Galilee, thirty
miles inland. According to Mark 7:31, Jesus
did this by way of Sidon, twenty miles north
of Tyre on the Mediterranean coast. Since to
Sidon and back would be forty miles, this
means that the wisest of all men walked seventy miles when he could have walked only
thirty.

Page 18

Matthew
listing
LebbeeusThaddreus - a change that was
transported back to later manuscripts of Mark as well. I believe
that harmonizing needs such as this
arise most commonly when legend
or fiction is involved. This opinion is
reinforced by the fact that both
Lebbreus and Thaddreus are missing in Luke, who instead has a mysterious Judas the brother of James.
And of course Lebbreus, Thaddreus,
Judas the brother of James, and
James all four are missing in the
gospel of John! To make up the
defect, John gives Jesus a disciple
named Nathanael, a guy unknown
in the other gospels. (In fact, even
the apocryphal gospels are devoid of
Nathanaels until the sixth century
CE)

Amazing to say, the gospel of

John makes no mention of any disciple named John - even though a
John helps make up the count of
twelve or thirteen in the other three
official gospels. But then, John's
gospel has no Bartholomew either
- nor Matthew, James the son of
Alphreus, nor Simon the Canaanite.
Nor has he any Simon Zelotes, Levi
the son of Alpheeus, nor any Levi or
Matthew the publican (tax gatherer). It is a bit startling to discover
that the gospels that do have a Levi
and a Matthew appear to have one
too many disciples - thirteen.s As already noted, this is due to the fact
that Mark's gospel, the oldest one
and the one from which Luke
copied, combines three different stories: two dealing with the calling of
disciples and one dealing with the
appointing of apostles. It appears
that already by the time of Mark's
authors there was considerable confusion of disciples and apostles.
We may recall that the disciples
were supposed to have been Jesus'
students, the men (or women also,
in the Gospel of Thomas and in
4This compensates, perhaps, for the fact that
John names only seven disciples and refers
obliquely to a possible eighth: the disciple
whom Jesus "loved." Why Jesus couldn't
have been in love with NathanaelI'd like to
know. After all, Nathanoel means "God's
gift." Shouldn't that have sufficed?

Autumn 1997

some other gospels) who lived with

Jesus and learned the master's
secrets. Apostles, on the other hand,
were individuals - allegedly appointed by the living or resurrected
Jesus - who had to assume the role
of missionaries for the new cult.

Apostolic Politics
The confusion of disciples and
apostles that we find in the gospels
can tell us something of the political
necessities
behind
the various
gospels and the stages of their writing. Although the New Testament
doesn't tell us very much about history directly, it does tell us quite a
bit indirectly about the circumstances in which its parts were written and the men who wrote .it, What
do the stories of apostles and disciples tell us about the inventors of
those fictional characters?
Why
were the so-called Twelve Apostles
(or Disciples) invented, ifthey never
existed as real men traipsing
around after an itinerant
rabbi
called Jesus, relaying his message
to the world?
I would argue that the answer
to these questions lies in early
church politics. Christianity condensed out of a variety of Jewish
and pagan mystery cult and club
associations.s and there came a time
of fierce competition among these
organizations. One group of Jewish
proto-Christians claimed that their
church was the only authentic one
because it was supposed to have
been founded by men (apostles) who
had had visions of the risen Christ.6
To this, the Pauline
(Gentile)
churches could reply, "We're authentic too: our founder, Paul, also had
visions of Christ and Christ told him
what's what." The Jewish church
could only top its rivals by adding
some more details to the history of
5.The cult of Christianity is older than the
scriptures it caused to be written. The various epistles and gospels were written to create fictional histories that could be used to
validate and justify the peculiar practices,
governance, and political stances of the cult or more accurately, cults, since Catholic
Christianity resulted from the amalgamation
of a number of different religious bodies.

Disciples and Apostles:

How Many and Who?
The canonical New Testament, the apocryphal New Testament, and Jewish sources give names to
the followers of Jesus, and many assert that those persons constituted a group known as ''The Twelve."
Nevertheless, only the gospel of Matthew gives exactly twelve names. As shown below, named members
of The Twelve ranged in number from three to thirteen, depending upon the source.
The Thirteen Disciples or
Apostles in Mark
[2:14and 3:1401
Levi, son of Alpheeus,
a tax gatherer
Simon, renamed Peter
James, son of Zebedee
John, son of Zebedee
Andrew
Philip
Bartholomew
Matthew
Thomas
James, son of Alpheeus
'I'haddeeus, or Lebbeeus, or
Daddeeus
(manuscripts disagree on
the name)
Simon the Canaanite
The Thirteen or More
Disciples-Apostles in Luke
[5:27ffand 6:1201
Levi, or Levi son of Alpheeus,
a tax gatherer
Simon, given the name of Peter
Andrew
James
John
Philip
Bartholomew, or Martholomew
Matthew
Thomas, or Thomas the Twin
James, son of Alphesus
Simon, called the Zealot
Judas, son of James
Judas Iscariot

Austin, Texas

The Seven or Eight Disciples in

John [1:40,1:42, 1:44ff, 6:71,
11:16,12:22,20:2]
Andrew (brother of Simon
Peter) and an unnamed
other.
Simon, son of John (or Jonah),
to be called Cephas (interpreted "the Rock")
(manuscripts disagree on
Simon's father)
Philip
Nathanael
Judas son of Simon Iscariot (or
Simon from Karyot)
(manuscripts disagree on
the name)
Thomas the Twin
Judas not Iscariot
"The other disciple, the one
whom Jesus loved."
The Four or Five Disciples in
Thomas [Prologue, 13:2-4,21:1,
61:2-4]
Didymos Judas Thomas
Simon Peter
Matthew
Mary (not certainly a disciple)
Salome
The Five Disciples in the
Babylonian Talmud
(Sanhedrin 43a)

The Twelve Apostles in

Matthew [10:2]
Simon, called Peter
Andrew
James, son of Zebedee
John, son of Zebedee
Philip
Bartholomew
Thomas
Matthew, the tax gatherer
James, son of Alphssus
Lebbeeus, or Lebeus, or
Thaddeeus, or Lebbeeus
surnamed Thaddeeus, or
Thaddseus surnamed
Lebbeeus
(manuscripts disagree on
the name)
Simon the Canaanite
Judas Iscariot
The Seven Disciples in the
Gospel of the Ebionites
[Epiphanius Adversus Hsereees
130:13]
Simon, surnamed Peter
John, son of Zebedee
James, son of Zebedee
Andrew
Thaddeus
Simon the Zealot
Judas Iscariot
Three Disciples Remaining in
the Gospel of Peter [14:13]

Matthai
Naqai
Netser
Buni
Thoda

Simon Peter
Andrew
Levi, son of Alphesus
Autumn

1997

Page 19

its alleged foundation. It turned out,

wouldn't you know, that the apostles
who founded it not only had had
visions of the risen Christ, they had
eaten meals with him and studied
with him before he died. That made
their church much more authoritative than churches whose founders
had only had visions. Thus, the
invention of twelve apostles led to
the invention ofthe twelve disciples.
Probably, one of the Jewish churches was led by twelve officials called
apostles (perhaps equivalent to the
"pillars" mentioned in Galatians
2:9) - one for each of the imaginary
tribes of Israel. The tribes in turn,
as you may know, were associated
with the twelve signs of the zodiac.
The twelve governing apostles were
descended, it was claimed, from the
original twelve apostles, at least
eleven of whom had also been disciples.? Top THAT for justification of a
church's authority!
It is highly likely that the apologists for certain other proto-Christian groups did in fact try to do that
justification one better. I can just
hear one of their apologists exclaim6These were among the many groups that
depended upon "oracles" to convey supposed
messages from the deity to members of the
cult. Oracles could involve visions of the
risen Christ who, it was claimed, orally conveyed knowledge of the mysteries (as in the
case of Paul) or bits of wisdom (as in the case
of the author of the gospel of Thomas). The
receipt of oracular knowledge from hallucinations of the resurrected savior god was the
warrant for taking up the life of an apostle or
missionary. Of course, this also conveyed
great prestige and probably led to ranks and
privileges above those of the ordinary faithful- whose eyes and ears could only function
normally.
7Not all the churches knew of the story of
the traitor Judas and his two deaths - a
story unknown even to Paul. (I Cor. 15:5,
even though a late interpolation into the
Pauline text, has the resurrected Jesus
appear "to Cephas, and afterwards to the
Twelve," not Eleven.) Nor does I Cor. 11:23
show any knowledge of the Judas story.
While the King James Version reads "Jesus
the same night in which he was betrayed ... "
- incorrectly rendering the Greek verb paredideto as "betrayed" - the New English Bible
reads "Jesus, on the night of his arrest ... "

Page 20

ing, "MY Jewish church is ruled by

people who are descended from
Jesus' family! You can't get any closer to Jesus than that!" Now, at the
time that this competition was flaring up, probably no one remembered
that in the early days of that particular church there were officials
known as "Brothers of the Lord."
They were no closer to Jesus familywise than are today's monks and
nuns. (Many monks and nuns, you
may know, are "brothers and sisters
of the Lord" too.) At some point in
proto-Christian
history, the title
"Brother of the Lord" became politically more useful if it was misunderstood or deliberately misrepresented as signifying blood relationship
to Jesus. So how do you trump the
ace of the church that claims
authority by virtue of blood relationship to Jesus?
Easy. You write gospels in which
Jesus himself puts down his supposed family. Of course, you will
have to create a family for him to
put down. But it will be worth it if
you establish the superiority of your
own church over the others. So, you
will make Jesus be rude to his mother at the wedding at Cana: ''Woman,
what have I to do with thee?" [John
2:4] You will have him reject his
entire family at once as in Mark
3:3f{: "There came then his brethren
and his mother, and, standing without, sent unto him, calling him.
...And he answered them, saying,
Who is my mother, or my brethren?
And he looked round about on them
which sat about him, and said,
Behold my mother and my brethren!
For whosoever shall do the will of
God, the same is my brother, and my
sister, and mother."
Politically, having Jesus put
down his whole family this way
must have been devastating to the
churches claiming family relations
as the basis of their authority. But
so it is; the New Testament is political history written by the victors even if its substance is mythical.

Autumn 1997

Disciples in the Making

When in the course of ecclesiastical events it became necessary to
create disciples as the earliest
embodiment of the Christian faith,
there was a minor difficulty: no
Twelve Disciples and no Jesus
Christ had ever existed in actuality.
What to do?
Just as various evangelists
found it useful to mimic Old
Testament themes and stories when
inventing things for Jesus to do
(e.g., making him a new Moses), the
author of Mark (the oldest of the
official gospels) mined the Old
Testament for a model involving disciples. The best he could come up
with was that of the story of Elijah's
calling of his disciple Elisha (See
sidebar "Old Testament Model For
the Calling Of Disciples"). It was a
start.
In Mark 1:16-39 there is an
account of the calling of four disciples and some relatively integrated
narrative telling of Jesus' adventures with them. The four names
introduced in this story are Simon
(not yet "Peter" in this early
account), his brother Andrew, and
James and John, the sons of
Zebedee (they are given the epithet
"Boanerges, Sons of Thunder" in the
separate story told in 3:13-19). The
significance of Simon will be discussed later, but the significance of
Andrew (Andreas, "manly": a Greek,
not Hebrew, name) is unclear to me.
It is possible that he was created to
symbolize the Hellenized Jews that
were the focus of so much controversy in the early church. The characters James and John, however, may
have astrological
meaning. The
name Zebedee resembles the Old
Babylonian Zalbatanu, the equivalent of Jupiter "the Thunderer,"
making it only reasonable
that
James and John would be the sons
of thunder.
Mark 2:14, a passage seemingly
just dropped at random into the
text, tells a separate story about
how Jesus acquired a disciple, a taxAmerican Atheist

Old Testament Model For

The Calling Of Disciples
Mark's story about the calling of the first disciples is modeled after
the call of Elisha by Elijah in I Kings 19:19ff (probably known to the
evangelist only it its Greek form), but it outdoes its model. Elijah "calls"
just one man (at the rear of twelve yoke of oxen) and allows the man to
say goodbye to his family. Jesus "calls" five men by commanding them to
follow him, without allowing them to take leave of their families. Instead
of twelve yoke of oxen, Jesus will have twelve "fishers of men."

The Greek

Septuagint

version

of Elijah's

calling

of Elisha

III Kings (= I Kings in the

Hebrew bible) XIX:19. And he
[Elijah] departed
thence, and
finds Elisaie [Elisha] the son of
Saphat, and he was ploughing
with oxen; there were twelve yoke
before him, and he with the
twelve, and he passed by to him,
and cast his mantle upon him. 20.
And Elisaie left the cattle, and ran
after Eliu [Elijah] and said, I will
kiss my father, and follow after
thee. And Eliu said, Return, for I
have done a work for thee. 21. And
he returned from following him,
and took a yoke of oxen, and slew
them, and boiled them with the
instruments of the oxen, and gave
to the people, and they ate: and he
arose, and went after Eliu, and
ministered to him.

gatherer named Levi, the son of

Alpheeus. Both Levi and Alphseus
appear to have symbolic purpose
here. Levi, of course, symbolizes the
priestly tribe of Levites - Israelites
imagined to have served Moses by
taking charge of the old tabernacle
cult, a cult now fancied to be superseded by the cult of Christ. The
name Alpheeus, it would appear, has
astrological significance. It probably
derives from the Babylonian alpu,
Austin, Texas

Mark's
Jesus

version
calling

of
four

disciples
Mark 1:16. Jesus was walking by the Sea of Galilee when he
saw Simon and his brother
Andrew on the lake at work with
a casting-net; for they were fishermen. 17. Jesus said to them,
"Come with me, and I will make
you fishers of men." 18. And at
once they left their nets and followed him. 19. When he had gone
a little further he saw James son
of Zebedee and his brother John,
who were in the boat overhauling
their nets. 20. He called them;
and, leaving their father Zebedee
in the boat with the hired men,
they went off to follow him. 2:14.
As he went along, he saw Levi son
of Alpheeus at his seat in the custom-house, and said to him
"Follow me"; and Levi rose and
followed him.
'bull' [Taurus] a name of the chief
god Marduk, or to the zodiacal sign
Taurus. It would appear that the
purpose of this disciple story is to
reduce the priesthood, the erstwhile
leaders of the Israelite religion, to
the rank of simple students at the
feet of the new teacher.
Finally, we must consider yet a
third disciple story (Mark 3:13-19)
retailed by Mark. Like the Levi
story, this one also seems gratuAutumn 1997

itously introduced into the midst of

an unrelated narrative.f It is in this
story that the connection between
disciples and apostles is forged. It is
here, finally, that we get a list of all
twelve disciples and - by implication - all twelve apostles:
3:13. And he goeth up into a
mountain [even though he has just
been on the shore of the Sea of
Galilee, and there are no mountains
for miles] and calleth unto him
whom he would: and they came
unto him. 14. And he ordained
twelve, that they should be with
him, and that he might send them
forth to preach, 15. And to have
power to heal sicknesses, and to
cast out devils. [The names of
eleven disciples-apostles are then
listed.] 19. And Judas Iscariot,
which also betrayed him: and they
went into an house. 20. And the
multitude cometh together again
[in a house on a mountain?!] so that
they could not so much as eat
bread.

The wording in verse 14 makes

it appear that in one fell swoop,
Jesus appointed all twelve as both
disciples and apostles, high-lighting
the obvious interpolation
"which
also betrayed him" after the name
Judas Iscariot in verse 19. As a matter of fact, the manuscript text history of this story is quite confused
and variable. The earliest manuscripts do not mention that the
twelve had "the power to heal sicknesses." Other manuscripts do various things to clarify the distinction
between disciples and apostles. The
manuscript known as W (the socalled Freer Gospels, in Washington), for example expands verse 14
to read "And he appointed twelve
disciples to be with him, who also
8Jesus already has disciples in Mark 3:7-12,
and they are told to have a boat ready for
Jesus to save him from being crushed by a
crowd. The boat is never heard of again until
the beginning of Chapter 4, where Jesus is
forced to get into the boat to preach because
of the large size of the crowd. Besides the
passage describing the calling of the Twelve,
material denigrating the family of Jesus 'has
also been inserted, further interrupting the
story about Jesus preaching from a boat.

Page 21

were named apostles, whom he

could send out to preach the gospel."
Curiously, even though W makes it
still more clear that theTwelve
Apostles were the same guys as the
Twelve Disciples, it too has a comment about Judas being a betrayer.
The comment differs grammatically,
however, from the wording of the
other major manuscripts.
Once again, the variability in
our text reinforces the notion that
we are dealing with the growth of a
tale of fiction. If the twelve disciples
had actually existed," wouldn't we
have a single, connected narrative
telling how they came to hold their
office? Even if they had not been
appointed all on one occasion, can
we not expect that the narrative
explaining the stages by which this
sacred college accreted would be
more coherent? As it is, we have at
least three unrelated stories in this
oldest gospel's attempts to account
for the origins of the church's first
board of directors. Even so, despite
the assertion that there were twelve
of them, combination of the three
stories yields a total of thirteen, not
twelve disciples! Don't we find an
attempt by the author of Luke to
cover up and smooth over this
embarrassing
situation when he
tells us (Luke 6:13) that Jesus
"called his disciples to him, and
from among them he chose twelve
and named them Apostles"? Isn't
this an attempt to reduce the thirteen to twelve?
The political motivation behind
the creation of disciples and apostles can be seen especially clearly in
thecontradictory? account of disciple-calling given in the gospel of
John. The story related in Chapter
9According to Mark 1:16, as we have already
seen, Jesus is walking on the shore of the Sea
of Galilee when he sees Simon and Andrew
fishing and invites the two of them simultaneously to join him in fishing for men. In
John 1:35-42, however, the acquisition of
Andrew takes place at the mythical "Bethany
beyond Jordan," and Andrew is not fishing
but in the entourage of John the Baptist, his
master. Jesus attracts to himself Andrew and
an unnamed second Johannine
disciple.
Simon explicitly is not with Andrew when the
latter runs off to see where Jesus is living.
Page 22

1:35f{ tells how John the Baptist

lost two of his own disciples

(Andrew and an unspecified other
one) to Jesus when the latter simply
passed by the Baptizer at the imaginary "Bethany beyond Jordan."
John previously has made the
Baptist confess his inferiority to
Jesus; now he has him lose his disciples to the one who was to become
the victor in the cult competitions of
the late first and early second centuries. This story also has Jesus
acquire Simon - who already is
known as Peter - and give him the
Aramaic epithet Cephas, which is
explained as being the equivalent of
Peter, "the rock." All this makes
sense if at the time this story was
written there was intense competition between a proto-Christian
church and a Baptist cult on one
side and a Peter cult on the other.
Rivals are subjugated, reduced in
status, and harnessed to pull the
plough for Christ.
Astral Apostles?
Although the twelve disciples
and twelve apostles clearly have
astrological or zodiacal significance,
attempts to relate all their names
(there are, remember, more than
twelve names!) to particular signs
have not been very successful.
Although we have already seen that
several of the disciples' names may
have astral (e.g., planetary) or zodiacal significance, even if we explain
the name Thomas (perhaps from
Babylonian
Tusmu,
'twin',
or
'Gemini') or suppose that the female
disciples listed in some of the noncanonical gospels were put there to
represent Virgo, we still fall short of
explaining all the names zodiacally.
This may be due to the fact that
we know too little of the details of
the astrological systems in vogue in
the East Mediterranean world at
the turn of the era, or it may be due
to the fact that political necessities
forced some characters (such as
Peter) who were not strictly zodiacal
but originally rival gods to be subjugated and made to serve as mere
understudies of the real savior. It
Autumn 1997

also may be due to the equally political necessity of subjugating vaguely remembered but actual leaders of
various proto-Christian "churches."
(The various characters
named
James may fall into this category.)
To make things even more confusing, it is highly likely that the
names of some early leaders were
related to gods that had to be subdued. Thus, the "Cephas" of the
Pauline writings is usually equated
with the Simon Peter of the gospels.
But the Peter of the gospels is clearly a god who had to be shown inferior to Jesus.
There appears to have been a
Samaritan god named Simon who,
like Mithra, was given the nickname of Peter ("rock"). He could
walk on water an held the keys to
the gates of heaven. In this regard,
he was the equivalent of the Roman
god Janus, whose cult was headquartered a short distance from the
present-day Vatican (the site of an
equivalent "Peter cult"). It is altogether possible that the Cephas of
the Pauline literature was a real
person, a leader of the quasi-Jewish
Samaritan savior cult who took the
title of his god. If so, Matthew
(14:30) scored a "two-fer" when he
portrayed Peter's failure to walk
successfully on the water. The god
Simon was shown to be inferior to
Jesus in power, and Simon's earthly
representative's Peter (Cephas) was
made to matriculate as just another
pupil in the Christian Playtime
Academy.
Despite all the exceptions just
discussed, the Twelve clearly serve
a zodiacal function in the gospels,
and the sun-god nature of Jesus
becomes clear as crystal when one
examines the early history of the
Christian cult. (Excavations beneath the vatican have revealed a
mosaic depiction of Christ as the
sun-god Helios - with solar chariot,
horses, and all!) The core narrative
of the gospel of Mark is played out
in twelve months (suggestively
solar), and some scholars have
thought that the original version of
the gospel of Mark had a twelveAmerican Atheist

part structure sort of the Christian

equivalent of the Twelve Labors of
Hercules (another savior godlet). In
later works, however, the time of
Jesus' ministry is increased - to as
much as three years in the late
gospel of John. In any case, the purposes and beliefs of the various
churches that controlled the rewriting of the gospels changed from time
to time, and so what might originally have been clear patterns became
obscured as more material was
inserted into the sacred texts and as
some material most surely was
expunged. 10
The solarity of Jesus and the
zodiacal nature of the Twelve is further underscored by the fact that
the latter are related to the mythical Twelve Tribes of Israel:
Matt. 19:28. Jesus replied, 'I tell
you this: in the world that is to be,
when the Son of Man is seated on
his throne in heavenly splendour
[what is this, if not the sun?], you
my followers will have thrones of
your own [i.e. the twelve zodiacal
houses], where you will sit as judges
of the twelve tribes ofIsrael.

It has long been known that the

tribes are themselves zodiacal symbols, part of the solar development
of the Yahweh cult that took place
centuries before the turn of the era.
The disciples both represent the
twelve tribes and judge them.

Those Dumb Disciples

It yet remains to explain one
further function of The Twelve, a
function that has seemed to many
scholars inexplicable: the disciples
function as veritable stooges. Again
10If it be true that the Gospel of Mark originally existed in the form of larger "Secret
Mark" document used for instruction in the
Christian mysteries but then was drastically
expurgated for use by the uninitiated, a very
great amount of material may have been
expunged indeed! If the brief note (Mark
14:51-52) about the youth who fled naked
during the melee attendant upon the arrest of
Jesus is an example of a passage that accidentally eluded the expunger, the mind runs
wild contemplating what sort of document
Secret Mark must have been before being
neutered for public display.

Austin, Texas

and again, we are startled in reading some of the gospels to learn that
the disciples were uncomprehending when Jesus said something any
second-grader should have understood.t! Why did the evangelists
portray the disciples as slow-witted,
unreliable, or even treacherous?
Some have even argued that this
was evidence of the genuine historicity of the gospels. Why, it has
been asked, would the evangelists
paint such unflattering pictures of
the Twelve if it weren't true? If they
were just making up stories to glorify the founders of their church,
wouldn't they make them up without warts?
The answer
seems simple
enough if one considers once again
the political framework in which the
gospels (or at least, certain parts of
some of them) were written. For
some period it was necessary for the
nascent society to disassociate itself
from the Jews, the group from
which it claimed some considerable
degree of descent. It was necessary
to curry favor (or at least acceptance) with the Romans. It was
unable, unlike the full-fledged
Gnostics, to disavow Judaism
entirely and discount the Old
Testament as the record of a fiend.
Too much of its doctrine was derived
from Judaic models, and of course
the church founders needing to be
justified had long before already
been identified as being in some
sense Jewish. What could the
llFor example, in the sixteenth chapter of
Matthew we read that right after Jesus has
performed his second miracle involving the
multiplication of loaves of bread, the disciples are made to suppose that Jesus' admonition "Beware, be on your guard against the
leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees" was
in reference to their having forgotten to
bring bread along on the boat - as though
anyone would ever again be concerned over
a lack of bread! Jesus, after reading their
minds, says (Matt. 16:8{fJ "Why do you talk
about bringing no bread? Where is your
faith? Do you not understand even yet? Do
you not remember the five loaves for the five
thousand, and how many basketfuls you
picked up? Or the seven loaves for the four
thousand, and how many basketfuls you
picked up? How can you fail to see that I was
not speaking about bread?"

Autumn 1997

church do?
The church could explain that it
wasn't really Pilate or the Romans
who killed Jesus, rather it was the
Jews. A disciple could be created to
betray him and could be given the
name Judas, which means 'Jew'.
Further, it could be shown that
Jesus tried to get the Jews to mend
their wicked ways and tried to teach
them a higher philosophy. Twelve
disciples could be created to represent the uncomprehending,
stubborn, and fickle twelve tribes of
Jews whom the Romans had to put
down in 70 CE and for some time
thereafter (until 135 CE). The disciples were thus created at least in
part as surrogates for the reprobate
Jews. In the strategy to survive in
the world of Roman power, it was
deemed necessary to cut the church
free from what was seen as a Jewish
albatross around the neck. The antisemitism of the gospels all derives, I
would suggest, from this historical
circumstance.
Although much more could be
written on the subject ofthe Twelve,
it seems that enough has been presented here to show at a minimum
that there is no good reason to suppose the Twelve Disciples or the
Twelve Apostles ever existed as
groups of men who actually had
known the god-man Jesus "in the
flesh." It is possible to account for
their creation by the evangelists
without the assumption of their
reality. By Ockham's Razor - going
with the explanation that requires
the fewest fundamental
assumptions to account for the facts adequately - a fictional Twelve seems
more reasonable than a historical
Twelve. Whether any of the individual characters listed as disciples or
apostles ever existed - of course,
without any real-life association
with the Jesus character - is another question that I hope to deal with
in future articles.

Page 23

Angels: an
Introduction
A

ngels. They were a

part of most world
religions and myths
long before the Hebrew* or
the Christian bibles were
written or even conceived.
Some of the angels
were considered gods.
Others were seen as
demigods. They were thought of as
having slightly less power than the
gods have. A few were associated
with the "upper world" (life), while
others were thought to control the
"under world" (death). Still others
were seen as being in charge of this
world and the lives of mortals. But
in each case, as time lapsed and a

Excerpted from Arthur Frederick

Ide, Angels (Las Colinas, TX:
Monument Press, 1997), used with
permission of the author and
publisher. Copyright 1997,
Arthur Frederick Ide.

Dr. Ide is well known to

American Atheists as a prolific
author, scholar, speaker, and entertainer. His delightful
Unzipped: The Popes Bare All
continues as an American
Atheist Press best-seller. This
year, he is publishing his 392nd
book, a work bearing the simple title of Angels. This article
is an excerpt from that book.

Arthur Frederick Ide

Page 24

*There are only two "eye.witness" accounts

to the existence of angels in the Hebrew
bible. They are: Ezekiel 1, and Elijah's
record in 2 Kings 2:11. Enoch 14:8VB also
recounts the presence of angels. The
accounts, however, must be approached
with caution. Enoch is spurious as an individual, fleshed out only in Apocalyptic literature. The only record of his lineage is found
in Gen. 5:18-24, and Jude 14. His existence
is suspect, since he "walked with the gods"
who ultimately took him to heaven (see:
Sirach 44:16, 49:14, and Hebrews 11:5).
These records have strong Babylonian parallels. For example: Enoch is accounted the
"seventh from Adam" (Jude 14; cp, Enoch
1:9, 5:4, 27:2). This parallels the seventh
name in the list of the antediluvian kings
given by Berosus in Evedoranchus. The list
most likely is a corru ption of Enmeduranki,
a king of Sippar who was received into the
fellowship of the Sun God Shamash and
Ramman. Under these Babylonian deities,
the Enoch-prototype is inducted into the
"mysteries" of creation and heaven and
earth. Mastering this divine material he is
made the founder of a guild of priestly diviners, so that his life would last for 365 years
(the same number of days in a solar year).
Enoch has the rare distinction of being
titled "Son of Man" and also "Son of God."
Ethiopic Book of Enoch 60: 10ff; 71: 14, 17ff.

Autumn 1997

priestly class was invented by those

who opposed manual work and preferred to dedicate themselves to
mental activities, the angels were
considered to be messengers. They
were seen as agents of death and
life, seducers of men and women,
boys and girls, as well as champions
of mortal
beings.
They were
acclaimed as potentates, until the
arrival of henotheism and monotheism. They were both benevolent
(always styled as "angels") as well
as malevolent (always styled as
"demons"). For this reason, especially in Egypt and the Mesopotamian
kingdoms, magic became a part of
the worship ritual. New rites were
invented.
Water
miraculously
changed into wine. Bread, it was
preached, was transmogrified into
flesh, and the sport of bloodletting
was sanitized through the mutilation-torture of circumcision. In each
situation, the draconian act served
as a guarantee of winning the favor
of the messengers and the godts) the
angels represented.
In the Old Testament they are
called malrakn (l~?1;I). The Hebrew
word goes back to the Ugaritic
mal'ak. They are referred to as
"divine ones."! Some are styled
"sons of divine beings."2 Then there
are "mighty ones,"3 as well as
"saints" or ''holy ones."4 They are
the "host" of the ''host of Yahweh":
guards.f the ''host of heaven,"6 who
assemble around god (Yahweh)."
They do this in the very same manner as do the celestial beings
fleshed-out in the Ugaritic texts.
For in Jewish
and Christian
mythology, they are a revised version of the Ugaritic ilm, the bn ilm,
American Atheist

and the bn qds that were a group of

young men who stationed themselves around the god EI* in a sexu*EI translates as "The Lord." He was the
greatest of all the Old Testament gods. In
part, his fame grew because of his exceptional fecundity. Records show that EI was the
biological father of most of the gods who
would rebel against or be challenged by
Yahweh. Chief among these gods that EI
spawned was Baal (along with at least seven
brothers and seven sisters). Together with
his brothers and sisters, Baal {his name
means and translates
as "Master" and
"Possessor" and his squadron of kin were the
greatest threat
to Yahweh, although
Yahweh's most fierce competitor who won
the hearts of all Canaanites
and most
Israelites was Baal's sister Asherah. 'Ib conquer Asherah, Yahweh married her, bedded
her, and kept her occupied as did her priests
and worshippers. Both of the Canaanite
deities are given in the plural with the definite article prefixed to indicate their
strength, grandeur and support by the other
deities. See: Numbers 22:41. Cf", their major
rivalry with Yahweh in Judges 2:11,13; 3:7;
6:31-32. The Canaanite god is even mentioned in the New Testament: Romans 11:4.
As for Baal's famous sister Ashtaroth {it
means "wife"; she was also known as
Ashtoreth (the singular form), among other
names; her Greek name is Astarte, and she
was the goddess of fertility, love and war),
see: Judges 2:3, 10:6; 1 Sam. 7:3-4, 12:10,
31:10; 1 Kings 11:5 (noting that Solomon also
worshipped her). Solomon's Temple was
hardly unique. It was patterned
after
Canaanite temples. For example: in the
Orthostat Temple there are two pillar bases
at the entrance from the porch into the main
hall (cp. 1 Kings 7:21). The small Stelse
Temple in Area C featured upright slabs like
the i1~1;1 mll$~eba(or cultic pillars) mentioned
and condemned (Exodus 23:24; and so forth)
in the sanctuary of the moon god and the
statue a representation of the mood god. Cr.
Yigael Yadin, Hazor: The Rediscovery of a
Great Citadel of the Bible (New York:
Random House, 1975). Later many of these
gods became Hebrew angels.
tJob 25:2, 21:22; cf. Isaiah 24:21. The
Canaanite god EI (el olam: the eternal god)
dwelt in a tent-shrine on a mountain. This is
identical to the god of Moses whose presence
was on Mount Sinai. See: Exodus 19:20; cf.
Richard J. Clifford, The Cosmic Mountain in
Canaan and the Old Testament, Harvard
Semitic Monographs 4 (Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press, 1972). A stele was
found at Ras Shamra and dated to the thirteenth century; it represents EI seated on a
lion-footed throne, with his feet on a footstool, wearing a long robe and a high crown
with horns. He raises his hand in benediction over a lesser figure holding a vase and
an animal-headed scepter (possibly the king
ofUgarit). Behind him are subordinate gods,
including Zebul (meaning Prince) Baal. This

Austin, Texas

al rite of passage to increase the

country's fertility. Since the young
men held tight the shafts of spiritual renewal, they had bargaining
power with the god EI and those
deities who followed him. t
The angels were ferocious in
appearance. Their wings (those who
had wings) were weapons, as they
appear in Persian art and reliefs,
and on Sumerian cylinder seals,
Assyrian bas-reliefs, and Babylonian vase paintings. The Greek
god Mercury was one of their direct
descendants and stood like them in
protective order on Mount Olympus.
The angels did not become the
insipid soft and fat figures that we
know today until the end of the
Middle Ages and into the Renaissance, and none wore clothing+
Some of the angels tired of the
god who didn't have the strength to
withstand the entire heavenly host,
and challenged him. This led to a
major war, and the ultimate expulsion of some of the rebellious angels.
Many of them hurled themselves, or
were hurled by the avenging deity,
to the earth.t The closer the Jews
came in contact with the Gentiles,
the further and more complete did
their angelology develop until it had
no equal. Most of the Jewish angels
were strictly of pagan origin.
In the New Testament, angels
are styled arrclo; angeles. It is the
same word used in ancient Greek
texts to recognize mortals who
served their ancient kings as
later becomes the foundation for additional
biblical stories, people and places with various deliberate distortions: 2 Kings 1:6, 16;
Josephus, Antiquities 9.19. Matthew 12:24
turns Zebul Baal into Beel-zebul as another
name for the "prince of demons." T. H.
Gaster, "Baal-zebub," Interpreters Dictionary
the Bible, ed. G. A. Buttrick (4 vols.;
Nashville, TN: Abingdon, 1962), vol. 1, p.
332. The ancient Hebrews will use this to
feed their wars of the angels, and set themselves aside as a Chosen People to be seen as
separated from the Canaanites and those
around them.

or

t Genesis 6:24 cum Jude 6, 2 Peter 2:4. Cr.

Isaiah 27:1, and 34:4-5. In these incidents we
know that the angelic choirs were not in
song but in war maneuvers. For example, in
one passage one angel is styled a "captain"
(sar).

Autumn 1997

ambassadors, envoys and messengers. New Testament records aren't

that much different than the Old
Testament accounts. Good angels
and bad angels! are clearly segregated and marked.f The good angels
are fiery spiritual beingst? who,
under normal conditions, dwell in
heaven where they attend to prayer
and praise, glorifying god)1 Yet
these angels are equally ready to
form and fight in armies.w both in
heaven and on earth to which they
"come down" regularly to help one
man,13 Jesus, in particular.t+ and
men in generaJ.15 They continue as
communicators and messengers of
the intent and wishes of their god.16
They prophesy what will be in the
form of revelations-? as they are
charged to guard men18 and oversee
their salvation.t?
They help in
man's salvation, by carrying man's
prayers to god,20and after man dies,
convey his soul to a resting-place.21
To ensure that man has the
opportunity of salvation, the angels
in the New Testament are charged
even with the chastisement
of
man.22 This is divine punishment
which must be accepted in the manner Job endured his tribulations.
The "evil angels" are similarly
charged. On god's instruction they
are sent to the earth to test man.23
They visit anointed kings on the
expressed
order of their godleader.s+
As in the Old Testament, New
Testament angels appear to men in
dreams, and always in the form of
radiant,
beautiful
males.' They
wear garments, ** and speak with
human voices in the language of the
Bad angels are referred to as "evil angels"
in Psalm 78:49. Although evil, they are sent
"from the Lord" with the full permission of
the deity to do what is allowed or commanded; see 1 Sam. 16:14-23.

'Matt. 28:3; Luke 2:9; Acts 1:10, 10:30; Rev.

18:1. Testament of Abraham II.2 records the
Lord of the Universe ordering the Angel of
Death (Sammael) to "cast aside thy terrific
aspect and thy impurity and assume the
radiant and lovely form of a shining angel. In
the garb of a bright and beautiful angel of
light, in the shape and form of a handsome
youth, exhaling the beauty of regions celestial, go and appear to Abraham ... "

Page 25

dreamer.25 Yet, they are of limited

knowledge.26 Only god is granted
complete knowledge. Their rank
and station define the knowledge of
angels: archangels are wisest.s? The
New Testament even adds new
groups of angels. These celestial
groups include Powers, Dominion,
and Principalities.sf Some of the
early Christian churches even worshipped these new angelic groups as
if they were gods.29
New Testament angels have
assigned duties as they did in earlier literature. One angel is set over
the bottomless pit.3o Others are in
charge of the phenomena
of
nature.s! In the Last Day, they too
have tasks that they will share.32
And those angels who rebelled
against god will be judged,33 along
with their Principalities and Powers
and lesser angels who flocked
behind their banners.e+ The ruler of
this evil lot is singled out as The
Satan.w The only legitimate Satan
was
imported
from
ancient
Babylonian
myths.
He is the
"Divine Son," the "Prince of Light"
as well as the "Prince of Darkness,"
"the Morning
Star"
and the
"Beloved Son." Satan is one of the
brne lohim, because he is hostile to
traditional piety and those who
appear as pious people, from Job to
the high-priest Joshua.36 He scorns
these seemingly saintly servants of
the Lord for he feels that they are
acting piety and not living it, and so
he becomes the Divine Advocate to
test them, completely with the will
and permission of the god-head.
At first, Satan was considered
an important
Son of God. He
remained subject to the will of the
god(s). It was only when it became
necessary to make the tribal god
Yahweh supreme did the writers of
the myths of angels take deliberate
action in making the angels subordinate to Yahweh. With the rise of
the priestly
class, when evil
**Luke 24:4; John 20:12; Rev. 19:14. There is
a problem with the angels wearing garments.
Clothing, from aprons to robes, was a sign of
sin and the avenues to sin (cf. Gen. 3:7).
Before the mythical fall in Eden, mortals
were naked as were the angels (Gen. 3:11).

Page 26

occurred, it was no longer the result

of the will ofYahweh; instead, it was
the connivance of certain angels.
Actions that were previously attributed to the godis), become transmogrified into being called the actions
of angels.37
Even though he is the attorney
for the godhead in all matter concerning mortals, the Satan is particularly singled out for libel as being
the "instigator of evil."38 Not until
the mythical meandering of the
writer(s) of Wisdom, or the hallucinatory presentation of "John" was
he associated with the evil serpent
in the Garden of Eden.39 Then it
occurred as the writers
were
charged with making moral distinctions. These distinctions were based
on the ethics the priestly class
determined would best meet their
needs in controlling the "chosen"
people of Israel.
Priestly connivance wasn't new
or unique. On the contrary, it was
fitted around popular rival pagan
mythologies in an effort to keep the
Israelites loyal to them. For this
reason, priestly phraseology included such fantasies as "dark forces" of
chaos, "chaos introduced at creation," and so forth. It is the "dark
forces" of chaos that demonstrate
that not everything was peaceful or
celestial in heaven. Instead, we read
that there were battles over suzerainty and sovereignty in heaven,
as the various armies of the heavenly hosts battled for primacy.w
A minor god, Yahweh, tried to
keep the peace, but he wasn't
always successful, given his lack of
character, strength and command.O
Furthermore, the message Yahweh
gave was unwelcome as the heavenly hosts wanted a more stringent set
oflaws of man, even though some of
their number would deal closely in
"wickedness." This "wickedness"
centered on sexuality and the natural pleasure sex brings the participantts), Since sex was seen as a part
of non-Yahwhistic worship exercises, it was abruptly condemned and
legislated against in the form of
commandments,
injunctions and
Autumn 1997

priestly pronouncements prohibiting the carnality of the chosen people. But here, too, neither the
priests nor the god Yahweh were
successful in turning the people
from carnal pleasure. Realizing
their own celestial ineffectiveness
and the resistance of the people who
saw human sexuality as a normal
function and a positive good, to
shore up their claims, prophets
wrote and preached at length that
Yahweh and his righteous angels
would deal with all recalcitrant
powers.sSome writers became so disgusted with the entire emerging
mythology of angels, that they
ignored these fantasies completely.
The priestly writer of the P documentt doesn't mention angels. The
books of Proverbs, Esther, and
Ecclesiastes give angels little or no
mention. Ezekiel, which seems to
belong to the period of transition
has many problems for scholars, for
redactors of his work have added
"angels" where the original text
talks of the actions of men. The only
authentic inclusion of angels in
Ezekiel is where he names various
groups of celestials:
Seraphim,
Cherubim,
Ophannim
(wheels),
Hayyoth. (living beings), and a certain Spirit.w
The concept of angels being
spirits is an old one. Out of this concept came the development
of
ghosts as angels.tf'or some faiths,
ghosts became the incarnation of
evil. For others, ghosts represented
a special spiritualism and its systp is the abbreviation for the Priestly source
in the Pentateuch. The role of the priest is
highlighted, as seen in its celebration of
Aaron and his priesthood, even at the
expense of Moses. P is described as a creation of the exilic or postexilic period (eighth
to the fifth century BeE), and stresses
Israelite ritual and religious observances.
Its narratives
are etiological, providing
explanations for numerous functions such as
circumcision (Genesis 17:9-14), dietary laws
(Genesis 9:4), the Sabbath (Genesis 2:2-3);
and, it describes in detail vestments of the
high priest, the Passover ritual, the tabernacle and its furnishings, and more. Most of
it is taken from far older manuscripts (J and
E). P's god is more transcendent and less
anthropomorphic than J's.

American Atheist

tematic approach to mediumship

that is the communication of intermediaries with various spirits who
were helpful entities who remain on
earth to aid their loved ones in various capacities. In some situations
they reveal various truths such as
finding lost objects or uncover the
nefarious plots of others. Still others
remind a loved one of the location of
an object lost. These spirits (or
ghosts) are earthbound
angels.s+
and include gnomes (dwarffairies),*
gremlins,
brownies,
and other
minor denizens of forests and wooded areas.
Gnomes are charged with maintaining the earth in an inhabitable
fashion. Working with elementals
and devas (an angel who works
within nature), they build up forms
in the natural world: dunes, natural

1: Etymologically, ghost is linked to the

German word Geist (meaning spirit). The
Bible has two words for spirit: !!i~l, nephesh
which is equivalent to breath and the energy
of a soul (Job 11:20 and Jeremiah 15:9), and
is from Persian antecedents.
The New
Testament offers 1rVrulla pneuma, a form of
life within the body (spirit) which activates
and sustains the body (Matthew 27:50 and
John 19:30). The "Holy Ghost" is a New
Testament invention that has no biblical
precedent or justification. Cf Matt. 1:18,20;
Mark 1:8; Luke 1:15,35,41,67; John 1:33;
Acts 1:2,5,8,16; Romans 5:5; 1 Cor. 2:13; 2
Cor. 6:6; 1 Thess. 1:5, 6; Titus 3:5; Hebrews
2:4; 1 Peter 1:12; 2 Peter 1:21; Jude 20. All
evidence points that these lines were added
to the original texts for impact or instruction
and have nothing in common with the actual
text or message; cf The Five Gospels: The
Search for the Authentic Words of Jesus, by
Robert W. Funk, Roy W. Hoover, and the
Jesus Seminar (A Polebridge Press Book;
New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., 1993).
*Fairies were lesser spirits in ancient
Arabia, and rivaled angels in kindliness, and
were venerated by Muhammad's tribe, the
Quraysh. Fairies were considered children,
and were praised as being without evil, in
contrast to the desert-ranging jinn (a predominantly demonic group) who struck terror in Arab hearts as the active agents of evil.
The jinn consorted with ghouls who lay in
wait where men were destined to perish that
they might satisfy their depraved appetite
for feasting on festering human flesh in the
full stage of decomposition. Sometimes the
ghouls robbed graves to feast on bodies in
midnight orgies; only fairies could preserve
the sanctity of the grave with their own innocence.
Austin,

Texas

Him the Almighty Power

Hurled headlong flaming from the ethereal

sky.

Milton, Paradise Lost, Book I, lines 44-45.

grottos, and the like. They are

under the rule of the archangel
Uriel.45
Angels don't become a part of
the official Hebrew/Christian
pantheon until the appearance
of
Daniel and Zechariah. This becomes
even more pronounced
with the
writing of the Apocrypha
and
Pseudepigrapha.
Yet there is no
general agreement. Angels become a
fluid force in Jubilees, Fourth Ezra,
Tobit, the Testaments
and the
Enoch literature.
Angels make
scant claim for the attention and
Autumn

1997

musing of the readers of Ecclesiasticus, Judith, Maccabees I-IV, and

Psalms of Solomon. Ar. increasing
divergence of opinion began to take
its toll on the Hebrew people, with
classes separating
over belief and
practice. The Sadducees were skeptical about the existence and activity of angels.sf while other groups,
especially the Essenes, made much
of angels.s? Since angels figure
prominently
in the Dead Sea
Scrolls, those who began to decipher
the scrolls erroneously
concluded
that the Essenes lived at Qumran
Page

27

and wrote the documents.

Angels in Hebrew lore lived in
heaven.48 They traveled freely to
earth when they wearied ofliving in
the stars (or in some instances, as
stars).49
They
were
in most
instances either invisible or in a
fiery appearance.w They had superhuman powers.e! had exceptional
wisdom and insight, 52yet were easily corrupted,
and failed. 53 They
appear to mortals in human form.54
They are men who have the power
of speech and articulation as men
have.55 They stand and they sit,56
walk about.s? eat,58 wear clothes,59
brandish weapons.w and even ride
horses.s! when not having sex. * A
few had wings, although the number of wings varied according to station and religion. 62
The angels had leaders (archangels)!
and followers
(angels)
among their own kind. Angels, of all
levels, are messengers (or "ambassadors") and compose an innumerable multitude.vs
In the earlier
books of the bible, extracanonical
Jewish and Christian writings only
their mission is discussed. In the
Qur'an (the Moslem bible), angels
are never sent out of heaven without a purpose.s- They are in the
middle ground between the god(s)
and mortals. They are to warn mortals of their sins, to declare that
there is only the One True God, and
to fear god. They were intermediators between the god(s) and man,
and even in the New Testament
they are considered to be the promulgators of the Law.65 Jesus considered them spiritual beings. Yet,
Jesus
qualified
his comments,
*

Genesis 6:2, 4. Usually it was coitus with

women, but occasionally the angels had sex
with men as in the case of the dog-priests.
tThe word "archangel" appears only twice in
the New Testament. Once in Jude 5:6, where
Michael is referred to as "the Archangel,"
and the second time in 1 Thess. 4:16 where is
written "the voice of the archangel" but no
specific archangel is mentioned. According to
traditional angelology and Pseudo-Dionysius
the Areopagite, archangels belong to the
third and lowest hierarchy of the angelic
beings.

Page 28

declaring that they would accompany him during his Second Coming.w
The same hidden terror that this
message fosters is prevalent in the
Qur'an."? In both cases, this is in
keeping with the ancient Hebrew
tradition. That tradition holds that
the angels, like the god(s) of
Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, being
physical entities as well as spiritual
beings who were engaged in a variety of occupations,
tasks,
and
requirements:
all of which match
vocations and jobs on earth.
The
writers
of the
New
Testament go so far as to have the
angels with Jesus at the most critical times in his life and death. They
announce his conception (the "incarnation"),68 birth,69 serving as ministers when he is in the desert.ivand
when he is in the garden agonizing
over what he saw as his destiny.t!
They are ready to defend him when
he is captured.P and are the. first
witnesses
to his resurrection. 73
Angels get the most attention in the
Book of Revelation, written, allegedly, by the Apostle John. Their worship is considered a prototype for
the early church, yet the rise of a
cult
worshipping
angels
was
denounced by Saul of Tarsus (St.
Paul) in his letter to the Church at
Colossee.t+
In the later Old Testament
books and apocrypha the nature of
angels is more precisely discussed.
The authors of the Book of Isaiahtf
and Job, angels are placed in choirs
to praise the god(s) who made mortals.76 Daniel has the angels performing the god(s) work for nations
and mortals. It is in the canonical
books that the names of three of the
angels are recorded. The remainder
of angelology is developed in Jewish
apocryphal writing, especially in
the Book of Enoch.
In some Hebrew mythology, the
archangel Michael is a priest. He
offers sacrifice in the Temple in the
Heavenly Jerusalem that spins in
the sky above its earthly counterpart in a ring known as Zebhul. A
pair of angels are millers who grind
grains for manna. They are in
Autumn 1997

Shehaqim.
The gods of the various heavens
populated by angels are arrogant,
cruel, and totally uncertain of themselves. The deities keep a host of
ministering angels in Macon to sing
their praises all night. The angels
fall silent with daybreak so that the
gods can hear their praises sung by
mortals.
Other angels in other Hebrew
myths populate a variety of heavens. They include those who watch
the stars. The stars are storehouses
of snow, ice and dew. They were
known as Watchers (1tin).*
The Watchers were good angels.
They are not like the angels in
Genesis 6 who come to earth in the
guise of giants to have sex with
women.
Bad angels are in the fifth heaven. They couch there in silence and
agony. They will remain miserable
throughout eternity.
The sixth heaven is filled with
angels who are astrologers
and
farmers. They are radiant.
The seventh heaven houses the
archangels. It also contains the bulk
of cherubim, seraphim, and divine
wheels."?
Cherubim are considered to be
the highest order of angels in the
nine divisions.P They are the god(s)
immediate attendants.P
Surrounded by a strong Assyrian influence
which generated the first cherubim,
Old Testament cherubim guard the
god-head so he doesn't hear profanity,SOand in gratitude had representations of their likenesses crafted to
set in Solomon's Temple at Jerusalem to guard the Ark of the
Covenant.s!
Myths fleshed out the cherubim.
At first they were winds that the
gods of creation would ride across
the heavens.82 Later, when the gods
had the cherubim under their con*Daniel 4:14, 17. The term or name
"Watchers" first appears in the Second Book
of Enoch. It is a composite of two Aramaic
words: irin. (the ir is actually the deity Eloah)
and qaddishin ("holy ones"). A better translation is "guardian angels."

American Atheist

trol, usually by breaking them like

wild horses.I they would appoint
them to be messengers
to other
gods, angels, and various celestial
entities.
Seven cherubim were set aside
for the special distinction of living
in the Sixth Heaven along with
seven Phoenixes. There they spend
eternity signing praises to the gods
without cease. They remain assembled before the Divine Throne of the
Gods in ineffable light.83 Their only
joy is in making a "joyful noise" so
that gods will know that the gods
are great and good. "
Seven
cherubim
were
dispatched to Eden after Adam's expulsion. Their duty was to see that neither he nor his mate returned to the
Garden. To that end they were
transfigured
into "the Flame of
Whirling Swords" and entrusted
into the hands of Michael and other
angels.s+ One cherub stood sentry
before each ofthe seven gates*leading into the walled park. 85 Tall,
strong and flushed red with fire, the
cherubim gyrated and grew thick
and menacing
while the angels
stroked them to perpetual vigilance,
for the gods would not give up what
they created.
We know of one of the seven
gatekeepers. He is the angel Had Psalm 65:7 speaks of the "calming force" of
the gods in their riding the elements. In
many ways, the taming of the cherubim can
be seen as analogous to Zeus' ride on
Ganymede.

* Some records claim they only guarded two

gates, but this would not fit within the
Jewish concern for spiritual numbers such as
seven. The argument in favor of there only
being two cherubim guarding two gates is
made on the assumption that the "Flaming
Swords" were swastikas (fire-wheels). This,
however, has come under attack as this
would require that the swords (swastikas) be
painted on the gates as a warning to mortals
that the garden lay under taboo. Some scholars of the Hitler era argue that it is on this
premise that
the Nazis adopted
the
swastikas to warn the Jews that they were
unwelcome within the Third Reich. There is
also the argument that the cherubim were
posted only at the East Gate to Eden since it
was through that gate that Adam allegedly
left when he was ordered out of the Garden.
See: Gen. 3:20-24.
Austin, Texas

So numberless were those bad Angels seen,

Hovering on wing, under the cope of Hell
Milton, Paradise Lost, Book I, lines 344-345.

raniel. Once a god (Hadrani-El), he

was assigned to the second gate in
heaven and was an imposing sight.
He was sixty myriads of parasangs
(2.1 million miles) tall, and a frightening figure to face. He was the first
angel to speak to Adam,86 and he
figures closely in the Moses myth.
In the lore concerning
Moses,
Hadraniel was the angel that struck
the Lawgiver speechless when he
caught sight of his tremendous size
and countenance. Hadraniel jarred
Moses back to reality when he
spoke, as his voice was so strong
Autumn 1997

and cutting
that it penetrated
through
200,000
firmaments
(which, in the Revelation of Moses,
"with every word from his [Hadraniel's] mouth goes forth 12,000
flashes of lightning."t
Seraphims?
are supernatural
creatures with six wings. According
to Isaiah, they are near the Throne
tThe voice of a god being lightning is reflected in older texts, such as that of Job 37:2-3
where the keyword is ,ill ('or) encompassing
both sound and light. Since thunder follows
lightning, the sound of it was believed to be
the voice of angels.

Page 29

of God, standing guard and keeping

the air cooled and moving.88
The seraphim are monsters.
They are shaped like fiery serpents
and became the prototype of dragons.89There is no biblical or historical foundation to associate the
seraphim with the cherubim, even
though they are so positioned in the
Preface of the Roman' Mass, and in
the Te Deum. Christians
have
ranked them highest in the nine
orders of angels, with cherubim following second. Ancient fables concerning the seraphim -don't agree
with this ranking. Instead they are
considered to be equals residing in
the Seventh Heaven, along with the
Archangels, Cherubim, and Divine
Wheels (known as the Ophannim).90
Names of select angels don't
fully appear until the writings of
later books such as Daniel and
Zechariah. These are enhanced in
the intertestamental
period by the
formation of such books as Tobit,
Jubilees, Fourth Ezra, the Testaments, and the Enoch literature.
They are absent in Ecclesiasticus,
Wisdom, Judith, the Maccabees, and
the Psalms
of Solomon. The
Sadducees were skeptical about the
existence of angels.v! although the
Essenes were among their greatest
proselytizers and advocates.w They
figure prominently in the Dead Sea
scrolls of the Qumran community,
which saw them as numerous
beings,93 who tirelessly sing and
praise the Lord,94when not busy
with men to whom they appear with
Divine Aid.95 The Divine Aid
appears as specific angels serving as
guides (as with Tobit), or as martial
guardsw or security agents for individual property''? or nations. ss They
remain teachers.w and savage instruments of the divine wrath to
punish transgressions
that defy
their god.lOOIt is in this period that
the "Sons of God" become clearly
identified with Fallen Angels, a definition or resignation that had not
existed earlier, but catapulted the
concept of evil being a creation of a
lesser being on which the concept of
sin gained strength.lOl It is also at
Page 30

this time that the most trusted and

beloved Son of God, Satan, is libeled
to be the chief of the Fallen Angels
and the deviant planner of a heavenly rebellion. Satan is crowned
with new names of disgust: Belial
and Mastema,102 names which
clearly set him and the other Fallen
Angels apart from the good angels
so that the latter can be separated
from the fabrication of demons. 104
It is also in this time period that
archangels are clearly addressed.l'f
Male names are given to the angels,
who are defined as men. Definite
assignments and duties are recorded for different angels and groups of
angels. 100
In all the early legends,
throughout the Torah and Talmud,
and into the Qur'an (Koran) of the
faithful Moslem, angels are all
male.* While Jews and Christians
feel comfortable to call upon angels
to intercede for them with their god,
the Moslem is cautioned against it.
The Qur'an reads: "Many as the
angels be in heaven their intercession will not avail in the last without Allah's [God's] permission for
whomsoever
He
please
and
approve."107
One point that Jews, Christians
and Moslems agree upon is that the
angels are all male in gender. While
the Jews and Christians merely
write as ifthe knowledge ofthe gender of angels is a given, the Moslems
are instructed that all angels are
male. The Qur'an is specific on this
point. The chapter entitled 'The
Star" (An-Najm) reads: 'Those who
do not believe in the Hereafter give
the angels names of females."lOS
Allah [God] condemns this as a feeble, mortal conjecture. It is a conjecture that will separate the learned
faithful from the lax and lazy, the
infidel and the ignorant. "Surely
your Lord alone knows best who has
strayed away from the path and who
has come to guidance. "109

EDITOR'S POSTSCRIPT
After this survey of the extraordinary "unnatural history" and taxonomy of the heavenly messengers
called angels, we can only wonder
"What next?" Angels are a growth
industry in contemporary America,
with books available in every air. port kiosk giving travellers advice
on how to establish more functional
relationships with their guardian
angels. Belief in angels is probably
at an all-time high, despite the
enlightenment available due to the
growth of sciences of all sorts. No
angels appear in telescopes, and the
heavens themselves are voids, not
habitations. To the ancients, the
universe was a three-story affair.
The upper floor (above the "firmament") housed the gods. People populated the main floor - and we all
know who lived in the basement.
There was no radio, telephone, or
intercom by which the gods could
communicate with their servants on
the floors below. They had to use
messengers angels. Strangely, the
gods have not availed themselves of
the modern tools of communication
and still, we are supposed to believe,
depend on angelic beings to carry
their communiques to us mortals.
Curiously, the main messages conveyed seem to be either "Buy this
book," or "Enroll now in this seminar." The angels that flutter about
in America today seem to be real
"come-downs" from the exotic creatures detailed by Dr. Ide. But who
knows? In the next millennium
angels may come to be as peculiar
as the people who cultivate them.
Billy Graham has mused that UFOs
may actually be sightings of angelic
beings. Perhaps the Cherubim and
Seraphim will be supplanted by
Star-Wars-type Jedi and Wookies.

* Females

exist only in the heaven where the

saved believers go, and then only to serve
men if they are "maidens with swelling
breasts" (AI QUr'an, An-Naba 78:33). These
celestial maidens are known as the houris.

Autumn 1997

American Atheist

REFERENCES
(1) Elohira in Psalm 8:6(5) 82:1, 6; 97:7.
(2) b;}n2 ';}[ohlm in Gen. 6:2,4. Job 1:6;
and as b;}n2 'ellm in Psalm 29:1; 89:7(6).
(3) 'abbirim in Psalm 78:25. (4) tf'dosh1m
in Job 5:1. (5) Joshua 5:14, 15. (6) 1
Kings 22:19. (7) 1 Kings 22:19-22. Job
1:6, and 2:1. Psalm 89:7(6). (8) Cf.
Manfred Barthel, Was Wirklich in der
Bibel Steht (Econ Verlag GmbH, 1980).
(9) Rev. 12:7.(10) Hebrews 1:7. (11)
Matt. 18:10; Rev. 5:11. (12) Rev. 7:12,
9:14. (13) Matt. 28:2; Luke 2:9; Acts
10:3. (14) Matt. 4:11, 26:53; Luke 22:43.
(15) John 5:4; Acts -5:19, 12: 7ff. (16)
Acts 8:26ff, 10:3-7 and 30-32. (17) Rev.
1:14, 14:6, 22:16. (18) Matt. 18:10; Acts
12:15. (19) Luke 15:10; cf. 11im. 5:21.
(20) Rev. 8:3-4. (21) Luke 16:22. (22)
Matt. 13:49, 50; Rev. 9:15, 16:1, 21:9.
(23) Job 2:1ff. (24) 1 Sam. 16:14-23.
(25) Matt. 1:20, 2:19-20. (26) Matt.
24:36; Mark 13:32. (27) Jude 9; 1 Thess.
4:16. (28) Col. 1:16; Ephes. 1:21. (29)
Col. 2:18. (30) Rev. 9:11. (31) Rev. 7:1,
14:18; 16:5; 19:17. (32) Matt.16:27,
24:31. (33) 2 Peter 2:4; Jude 6. (34) 1
Cor. 15:24; Ephes. 6:12. (35) Rev. 12:7,
20:1-3,10. (36) Zech. 3:1-2. (37)
Compare 2 Sam. 24:11ff with 1 Chron.
21:18. (38) 1 Chron. 21:1. (39) Wisdom
2:24; Rev. 12:9. (40) Job 25:2; Daniel
10:20. (41) Gen. 6:2-4. (42) Isaiah 24:2122. (43) Ezekiel 2:2. (44) Rosemary
Ellen Guiley, The Encyclopedia
of
Ghosts and Spirits (New York: Facts on
File, 1992). (45) Ted Andrews, Enchantment of the Faerie Realm: Communicate
with Nature Spirits & Elementals (St.
Paul, MN: Llewellyn Publications,
1993). (46) Acts 23:8. (47) Josephus,
War of the Jews, II.viii.7 [142]. (48)
Gen.28:12. (49) Gen.32:2(1); Job 1:7;
Isaiah 6:6; Zech. 4:1. (50) Psalm 104:4;
Judges 13:20; 2 Kings 6:17; Daniel 10:6.
(51) Psalm 103:20; Gen. 19:10, 11;
Judges 6:20, 21. (52) 2 Sam. 14:17, 20;
Daniel 10:21. (53) Job 4:18 shows that
the angels were not perfect. (54)
Gen.19:1ff. (55) Joshua 5:15. (56)
Daniel 8:16; Judges 6:11. (57) Gen.
32:2(1);Job 2:2; Zech. 1:10, 11. (58) Gen.
18:8. (59) Ezekiel 9:2; Daniel 10:5. (60)
Numbers 22:23. (61) Zech. 1:8, 6:1ff. (62)
Qu-ran Al-Fatir 35:1. Cherubim: Exodus
25:20, 37:9; 1 Kings 6:24, 27; Ezekiel
10:16,19, 22; Rev. 9:9. Phoenixes or
seraphim: Ezekiel 1:4-9, 11. (63) Gen.
32:2; Daniel 7. (64) Qu'ran, Al-Hijr 15:8.
(65) Acts 7:53; Gal. 3:19; Hebrews 2:2.
(66) Matt. 16:27. (67) Qu'ran Al-Furiin
Austin, Texas

25:22, 25. (68) Matt.l:20, 24. (69) Luke

2:9-15. (70) Matt. 4:11. (71) Luke 22:43.
(72) Matt. 26:53. (73) Matt. 28:2-7;
John 20:12f. (74) Col. 2:18. (75) Isaiah
6. (76) Daniel 10:13, 21; and 12:1. (97)
Bavli (Babylonian Talmud), Hagiga 12b.
(77) 2 Enoch iii-ix, (78) Psalm 18:11
(10); Ezekiel 9:3. (79) J. Petersen,
Cherubim. Kurze Zusammenstellung
der wichtigsten Ansichten und Erhlarungen seit Luther (1898). O. Vincent,
"Les Cherubims," in Revue Biblique 35
(1926), pp. 328-358 and 481-495. (80)
Gen. 3:24; Ezekiel 28:14. (81) Exodus
25:18-22. (82) Psalm 18:10 and 104:3-5.
(83) 2 Enoch 3-9. (84) Philo, De Mundi
Opif., 60. (85) Beth HaMidrash, ed.
Adolph Jellinek (6 vols.; Leipzig, 18531877; photostat reprint, Jerusalem,
1938), vol. 2, p. 52. Zohar Hadash, compiled by Abraham Halevi Berokhim
(Warsaw, Levin-Epstein, no date), p. 41.
(86) Zohar I: 55b. Cf. Yehuda Liebes,
Studies in Zohar, translated by Arnold
Schwartz, Stephanie Nakache, and
Penina
Peli (Albany, NY: State
University of New York Press, 1993).
(87) Isaiah 6:2,6. (88) Isaiah 6:2-7. (89)
Isaiah 14:29, and 30:6. (90) 2 Enoch 3-9.
(91) Acts 23:8. (92) Josephus, Bellum

Judiacum
[hereafter cited with the
translated
English title War of the
Jews] II.viii.7 [142]. (93) Enoch 40:1,
60:1, 71:8; Apocalypse of Baruch 48:10,
56:14, 59:11; Jubilees 2:18. (94) Tobit
8:15; Enoch 61:7; Song of the Three
Children 36. (95) 2 Maccabees 11:6; 3
Maccabees 6:18; Bel and the Dragon 3439; Tobit 3:17; Jubilees 4:21. (96)
Jubilees 35:17. 2 Maccabees 10:29-30.
(97) 4 Maccabees 4:10. (98) Baruch 6:7;
Jubilees 15:31. (99) Jubilees 4:15,
32:21; 4 Ezra 5:31ff; Tobit 6:3ff. (100)
Enoch 53:3-5; Testament of Levi 3:2.
(101) Enoch 6-15; Jubilees 5:1, 7:21;
Apocalypse of Baruch 56:11-13. (102)
Mastema, in Hebrew, translates as "animosity." (103) Tobit 5:21; 2 Maccabees
11:6. (104) Tobit 6:14; Jubilees 10:3;
Enoch 99:7. (105) Testament of Levi
35(a). (106) Some are placed in charge of
controlling nature (Jubilees 2:2; Enoch
60:14-21; 4 Ezra 8:22) while others are
intercessors for man (Enoch 9:3, 15:2;
Tobit 12:12,15; Testament of Daniel 6:2;
Testament of Levi 5:6). (107) Qur-an,
An-Najm 53:26. (108) Qur'an,An-Najm:
Makki 53:27. (109) Qur'an, An-Najm:
Makki 53:31b.
.......

Did't you guys

predict that the world
would end in 1975 ?

Autumn 1997

Page 31

Modeling God:
Deferred Absurdity
I
On her birthday, Miss A
found a large box on her
doorstep; a card identified it as from Mr. B. But,
upon opening the box, she
discovered
another
box,
which contained another
box, and so on through
twelve boxes. The last one
was quite tiny, and quite
empty.

Thny Pasquarello is an
emeritus professor of
philosophy at The Ohio State
University, Mansfield,
a professional pop/jazz cocktail
pianist, and philatelist. Major
articles by him on the
philosophy of religion have
appeared in Free Inquiry,
The Skeptical Inquirer, and
American Atheist. He is on
the board of directors of the
Mansfield Symphony and
serves as its program annotator
and pre-concert lecturer. He
has given solo lecture-recitals
in the Americas and
throughout Europe. His quasiautobiographical book The
Altar Boy Chronicles is
awaiting publication.

Tony Pasquarello
Page 32

Using just this information, did

B give A a gift? A present? Initially,
we want to say "Yes";the gift from B
was on the doorstep. After opening,
we don't know what to say. "No,
there's no present in the boxes";
"Yes,he gave her nested boxes"; "No,
he was trying to insult her"; "Yes,
but it was a thoughtless gift."
Obviously, with additional specification, more definitive answers are
possible. "Yes,"if the boxes are made
of progressively more precious metals, or are hand-painted Florentine
crafts, or are an intricately nested
puzzle, (and A loves that sort of puzzle). "No," if they are plain cardboard, or must be destroyed in the
act of opening, or contain empty
wads of tissue paper; (B really
wants to end the relationship.)

When, in pursuing her

genealogical research,
Ellen found in an
Italian village church, some
rather detailed records concerning her direct ancestors,
she also uncovered the tragic fact that, for a period of 3
or 4 generations - some 70
years - all her progenitors
had fallen victim to the
plague, and perished as
Autumn 1997

small children. Sitting there

in that dusty alcove, she
could almost see the innocent tykes of long ago running across the Tuscan hills.
Then, they get feverish, slow
and fall, and eventually are
struck down by the dread
disease. Her own greatgreat .... grandparents.
I do hope that the inherent contradiction in my sad tale wasn't too
apparent.
Clearly, none of your
direct ancestors, not even one of
them, could have died before reaching reproductive maturity. That's
contained in the meaning of "ancestor." But that meaning has to be
extracted, a bit of work has to be
done to see the inconsistency in the
description - "ancestor who died as
a child."
(Remember the old puzzler kids
liked to use to entrap unwary
adults? They would present lots of
complex details involving an airline
disaster, state borders, locations of
the wreckage and the bodies, and
finally pose the "difficult" question
- "So, where should they bury the
survivors?" Some will ponder the
legalistic issues for a few minutes I must have been a victim - before
realizing - Surv ivors don't get
buried!)

Sam couldn't contain

himself when describing the desirable characteristics
of his
new
ladyfriend,
Sue. He must
have rambled on through 20
or 30 attributes:
"What a
sense of humor; an expert
renologist; an oriental beauty
of pure Siamese stock; so milliary; a perfect figure; quick
American Atheist

witted; very, very, sesamoid;

a violist of near-professional
caliber; piercing blue eyes
and curly, natural blonde
hair like shavings of gold
ingots; at just the right times
she was parabolic; a canny
epistemologist;
a great
cook...
I've attempted
to give this
model everything but the kitchen
sink, thus making it, structurally,
closest to "God." Here, are found:
Ordinary, unproblematic qualities;
unusual
qualities
which
may
require dictionary reference, but are
then clear; qualities that have no
conceivable application, even metaphorically or analogically, to human
beings. Here, we struggle mightily
to understand how Sue could possibly exhibit this property, but to no
avail. This is where the term "meaningless" most readily comes to mind.
Finally, there is a thinly-veiled contradiction. Some properties, when
unpacked,
are inconsistent
or
incompatible with other properties.
Sue cannot be pure Siamese and a
curly-haired, natural blonde.
Do we tell Sam that he is confused, lying, or drunk? That he has
no lady-friend? That Sue doesn't
exist? Or do we say that Sue is a
complex woman, indeed? It is hard
to say that his entire description is
vague. It isn't. Does the presence of
those inscrutable,
inappropriate
characteristics
make his entire
description nonsense? Does the contradiction, once revealed, retroactively cancel all prior meaning?
(The branchings of an overgrown
concept like "God" do resemble a
majestic, vigorous oak. We cannot
believe that such a tree would be
instantly vaporized were we to discover a bug on one leaf, and an antibug on another far-distant leaf')
If there are no square-circles
(and there aren't), then there aren't
any pretty, blue, square-circles. If
there are no blond Thai women,
then Sue, together with her laundry
list of fascinating attributes, doesn't
exist. Period.
Austin, Texas

Sam can avoid that drastic conclusion by employing the usual techniques; make fine distinctions,
retract part of his description, modify, hedge, blur, obfuscate ... (It is
worth pointing out that these all
amount to a kind of surrender; an
abandonment of the original position.) For example, that nasty
inconsistency can be eliminated by
abandoning just one of the pair of
mutually exclusive qualities. Drop
."natural" from "blond" and that will
do the trick. Sue can be an Asiatic,
bleached blond. Any property can be
relinquished or drastically reconfigured if the property is not an essential, "defining" property. "Ugly Mermaid" is not a contradiction in
terms, if "beautiful" is not a necessary component of mermaidhood.
IT
It hardly seems necessary to
point out the many comparisons
between the concept of "God" and
these models. Vestiges of thousands
of years of theological befuddlement
have been resonating in our minds
as we ponder these specimens of
what might be called "Deferred
Absurdity."
Those claiming that "God" is
meaningless, must grant that it is
not prima facie meaningless, like
"grod." Whatever lack of meaning
one attributes to terms like "squarecircle," "married
bachelor,"
or
"prime divisible by 4," it is not the
meaninglessness
of "grod." Nor
would anyone deny that such terms
may have significant
"emotive
meaning," or provoke rich, visual
imagery. The entire skeptical tradition, including Logical Positivism,
proceeded upon the presumption of
initial significance for "God." "God"
was then analyzed (a de facto
admission that there was some
meaning to explore) into other concepts, viz, the package of characteristics listed as the standard meaning in the dictionary. When that
package, at some near or far point,
is shown to contain either intractAutumn 1997

able vagueness and obscurity, or a

definite contradiction in the form of
incompatible attributes, then, logically, the charge of "meaninglessness" may be levied retroactively.
"God" is equivalent to the package
of properties, some (all?) of which
are unintelligible or self-contradictory or incompatible
with other
properties, given that all the properties are essential ones. It is, of
course, tempting to assert that
whatever is equivalent to nonsense
is itself, nonsense. That may be logically correct, but a trifle too facile.
What actually happens is this:
deferring absurdity through a series
of deductive inferences - and, historically they have been long, tortuous, and convoluted sequences of
analyses - itself creates the illusion
of meaning. The chain may end nowhere, but there's the chain itself,
isn't there? (Remember the nested
boxes?) That is what lends the suggestion of substance, of significance.
And, there are psychological traps
springing from our own natural
humility and openness to genuine
inquiry. Arguably, "God" is inscribed, voiced, or thought some trillion times daily. Surely, the billions
upon billions of paragraphs about
God penned by the devout, by theologians, even by philosophers, can't
all be pure gibberish, on a par with
"Twas brillig ...."? Those thinkers
weren't all blithering idiots, were
they? Here, the weight of tradition,
prestige of the author, and the sheer
volume of repetition, can combine to
produce a semblance of significance
- meaning by iteration. The Logical
Positivists, in their frequent parodies of Hegel, described how, though
our first encounters with that rococo
Hegelian prose detailing the activities of the Absolute might appear
mystifying, after 100 pages (and
metaphysical grogginess sets in),
the Absolute's cavortings will seem
as understandable
as the antics of
an old school chum.
Another neat bit of self-deception is simply to avoid thinking
about those nasty incompatible
attributes, a vicious but comforting
Page 33

form of rationalization. Sue did have

a terrific figure, and was a great
cook, wasn't she? Never mind that
contradiction lurking somewhere
down the road. Since any given entity will have many (perhaps uncountably many) properties, we can
avoid difficulty by not thinking
about the problematic ones. Just
concentrate on how pretty, and how
blue, the square-circle is.
Furthermore, is a contradiction
literally nonsense? A contradiction
is a statement that is false in all
possible worlds. False, Not "meaningless." "Square-circles exist" isn't
meaningless; it's false. It means that
we can find, in the relevant domain,
a closed plane figure with the defining properties of a square, and the
defining properties of a circle. But
no figure simultaneously combining
both sets of properties can be or ever
will be found.
Many may recall the first glitch
encountered in the theistic definitional picture as being the incompatibility between God's being AIIJust and AIl-Merciful. Just what
does He do when sentencing a dastardly, but contrite sinner? However,
it is doubtful that those properties
would be considered fundamental,
except by fundamentalists.
My first philosophy instructor, a
savagely brilliant professor at the
University of Pennsylvania, shocked
his introductory logic class by boasting that if you gave him any two of
God's properties, he could derive a
contradiction from them. Few, perhaps, believed him, and fewer stilI
would have dared challenge him.
However, it now appears that he
was absolutely
correct, though
unduly modest. Take anyone property; when unpacked, a contradiction can usually be found lurking
therein.
Let's try "perfect," un arguably a
fundamental,
defining property.
These brief, familiar
scenarios
afford an inkling of just how quickly
the analysis can bog down in confusion and inconsistency:

Page 34

"Perfect" means that God is

ultimate Being
And that means ...?
He includes all Being within
Himself.
Even germs, cancer, and bad
breath?
No, those are aspects of
Non-Being
And what's that?

OR
"Perfect" means that God
has all perfections.
What's a perfection?
Well, a desirable, positive
attribute.
For people? Or for bacteria?
For people.
So God is healthy, wealthy,
and wise?
Wise, yes. Not healthy or
wealthy, except metaphorically.
So God has only those perfections applying to minds?
Yes, that's it.
Then, He must have a great
sense of humor?

OR
"Perfect" means that God is
the best, the highest,
the
Supreme Being.
Can He react, respond,
answer prayers, know a changing event?
Of course! Why not? If He
couldn't, He wouldn't be perfect.
But all of those necessitate
change in Him.
So what?
A perfect being can't change.
That's "what."
Why not?
If your
bowling
score
changes from 300, it's worse.
If a perfect being changes,
it's a change from perfect. So
He's worse.
O.K. So He doesn't change.
But, you just said that
would mean He was imperfect,
since He couldn't react, respond,
or do anything.
These, of course, are only
sketchy indicators, using one property, of some directions the critiques
have taken. But countless real
Autumn 1997

analyses, extensive, detailed examinations by the incredible minds of

the Enlightenment and the Analytic
schools in philosophy, have reduced
the concept of "God" to a shambles.
In every case, the analysis ends in
terminal opacity, due to absurdity,
or in an obvious contradiction. In
either case, we hesitate to pronounce semantic judgment on the
concept "God" that got us there. This
analysis has suggested that we align
ourselves with the majority of the
skeptical tradition in saying that
"God" is meaningful, while "God
exists" is false.

ITI
When discussing "God," we are,
of necessity, analyzing concepts. We
cannot just directly "read off" God's
properties from a careful examination of him, as we would from direct
examination of a new invertebrate
specimen. Any discussion of God
must proceed from those first-order,
standard, essential, properties listed in the dictionary, to other properties deduced from them. The firstorder properties and those inferred
from them comprise all of our
"knowledge" of God. And, since none
of the primary properties is empiricalor
reducible to sensory data,
then neither are the derived properties. The entire package is conceptual. This is not necessarily the same
thing as "imaginary"; (we must keep
math in mind; there is nothing
imaginary, in the sense of "arbitrary" or "fantastic" about mathematical concepts). But, in God's
case, it may be. It is just that there
is no reality check to rein in the religious imagination. Religious and
non-religious alike inherit this tangled skein of many concepts, this
bloated package called "God." It is
not surprising that a multicultural
concept dating from humanity's
infancy, and proliferating in fevered
imaginations for millennia without
restraint - it is not surprising that
such a concept should contain obscurities, inconsistencies, and plain, old
gibberish. It is not surprising that
Santa Claus is both seriously obese,
American Atheist

yet traverses chimneys with ease!

What is surprising is that, on the
threshold of the 21st century, God
has not joined Santa in Never-Never
Land.
It is the profession of theologians and the clergy to address the
mess; suggest alternative meanings;
devise, revise, and compromise;
patch and mend, and make excuses
for the tumescent growth that is the
"God" concept. Indeed, sometimes
they don't even bother with that;
they merely announce that mystery
is good for us! Atheists, skeptics,
and secularists have no need of pretense. They are free to call nonsense,nonsense, and the false, false
- to forthrightly declare that the
Emperorhas no clothes.
The term "God" certainly does
have a meaning. It has intentional
meaning.It connotes a set of essential, core properties such that anything having all those properties is
God,and anything missing one or
more is not God. The question is
whether it denotes, whether it
names any entity.
But the claim that God has a
meaning will draw the immediate
retort that "God" has millions of
public and private meanings, from
sometribe's golden idols, to "money
is Sam's god."Yes,"god"does have a
number of denotative meanings, but
"God"doesn't. The latter probably
condensed from all the varied uses
of the former, as the common, consensus, concept. (Still, the dictionary meaning must itself be
adjudged a compromise, since it
does not include properties such as
"male,""bearded," "savior," "sits on
golden throne," "answers to the
name 'Jesus' ".... FUndamentalists,
ifnot the majority of Christians, certainly convey the impression that
they think of these properties as
essential ones.)
Moreover, the controversy is
about "God," not "god." The issue
between atheists and theists is
whether God exists, not whether a
certain tribe actually worships a
golden image, or Sam values money
above all else. We must deal with
Austin,Texas

the contemporary concept at the

center of the controversy, as it has
developed over millennia and now
stands as semantic hard fact.
Toooften, we are discussing personal or private, local, tribal, sectarian, ethnic, ... gods, not God. Too
often, the word "God"seems to be an
open invitation to speculation, ("God"means to me ...) - a field day
for fantasy, as though meaning were
entirely subjective and private. In
this respect, "God" is similar to
other abstract terms "Beauty,"
"Justice," "Love."Everyone and his
brother stands ready to expound his
theory of what "Love"truly means.
Consider the chaos if that were to
happen for other terms, each having
his own meaning for "pi" or "piano."
And try to conceivehow a common
language, to say nothing of science,
could possibly have evolved on that
theory of meaning.
Too often, thinkers - great
"thinkers - have discussed their concept of "God"; or what the term
"really, really" means; or how it
evolved in another culture; or what
it could, would, should, or ought to
mean (Dewey). Too often, great
thinkers have rejected the given
meaning of "God" out-of-hand as
unthinkably silly, and gone on to
discuss their altered, modified, renovated god, sometimes concluding
that that being exists. This is like
saying there's nothing at all wrong
with the toaster, after you've
repaired it.) Too often, intellectuals
have thought it beneath them to
consider the patently anthropomorphic, juvenile, standard definition of
"God" and proceeded directly to
expounding their refined, esoteric,
interpretation of the concept. (But,
after all, it isn't atheists' fault that
"God"is such an absurdity; they didn't create the concept; they aren't
responsible for its Freudian origins
being so transparent; they're not the
reason God's Freudian slip is showing.)
In declaring one's allegiance to a
"remodeled"God, thinkers employ a
suspect maneuver that sidesteps the
nasty business of calling oneself an
Autumn1997

"atheist," with all the social stigma

attached to that sort of coming out.
No, it is far safer, though surely
disingenuous, to declaim that one
certainly does believe in God, while
knowing full well that your meaning
is not the ordinary meaning, not the
"God" of Aquinas or the Pope,
Falwell, or Billy Graham. In fact,
this charade takes place thousands
of times each Sunday when the liberal, educated priest, minister (or
rabbi) perpetuates a shameless
deception, knowing full well that his
rarefied, theoretical,
Tillichian
"God" is definitely not the "God"of
his congregation. Consistency and
honesty are here called for; if you
call yourself a theist vis-a-vis your
private conception of "God," then
you ought to have the integrity to
call yourself an atheist, with respect
to the public meaning.
On these matters, I believe it
prudent to be a "dictionary philosopher." "God" means what the dictionary says it means. And that statement should be no more controversial than the assertion that "table"
or "piano" mean what the dictionary
says they mean. Barring unlikely,
extreme scenarios (Webster is a tool
of the Baptists), the dictionary is
merely reporting and reflecting common usage, as determined by a
large, prestigious editorial board
and contributing specialists. It is
that meaning that comes first; that
meaning that must be analyzed and
discussed; that meaning that will
form the basis for deciding the question, "Does God exist?" No matter
how ingenious, provocative, and
consistent other definitions of "God"
may be, they are all either historical, describing what God has meant
at some time or place, or theoretical
reconstructions, disguised proposals
for adopting a new definition, on the
grounds that "God" ought to mean
such-and-such. Regarding such proposals, if we are to achieve any semblance of clarity and sanity, we must
take them "one deity at a time." If,
for example, a thinker advocates a
picture of God as not perfect, where
perfect means "complete," that sugPage 35

gestion, with all its implications, is a

new definition, to be evaluated on
its own merits. However, our first
order of business is to deal with the
definition we have, in this time and
place.
With understandably Draconian
simplification, these remarks have
attempted: to deal with the thorny
questions of meaning and significance for the term "God" and the
statement "God exists"; to show how
they can acquire "belated meaning,"
psychologically, from the very complexity of the analysis and our
propensity for self-deception; to use
different models exhibiting "deferred absurdity" cases where there is
justification for either the claim of
"nonsense" or "meaning."
Pardon one final analogy. The
concept of "God" could be compared
to some Byzantine, Rube Goldberg
contraption. When switched on, it
initiates a sequence of dozens of
wacky, clanking, stages that produce nothing. But, there's a twist:
the last step contains a tachyon circuit which, when activated, sends a
pulse back in time that demolishes
the machine, the moment before it's
switched on. Though endlessly fascinating, vastly entertaining, addictively compelling, our final verdict
on such a machine and God must be
that it does nothing, accomplishes
nothing. Indeed, it was never there
to begin with! But, oh, it was such
fun.

CHECKOUT
AMERICAN ATHEISTS
IN

CYBERSPACE!

http://www.atheists.org
Page 36

Fun From Dial-an-Athaistw

CLONING CHRIST
tal-an-Atheists' is proud to be
the first to announce the exiting news: The Second Coming
has occurred! Jesus has returned to
earth after a long absence. Although
the Bible says that he will come riding
on clouds of glory and that everyone on
the (necessarily flat) earth will see him
at once, we are rather smug to tell you
that the Bible was wrong about that.
Actually, he has returned the way he
arrived the first time: emerging from
the womb of a surrogate mother.
It so happens that the Vatican
Institute of Molecular Genetics, which
usually is opposed to genetic engineering and in vitro embryo techniques,
decided it had waited long enough for
the Second Coming and decided to do
something about it. After prolonged
and delicate, secret negotiations with
the Archbishop of Turin, the Vatican
geneticists were allowed to extract
some DNA from blood spots in the
Shroud of Turin. Supplementing that
DNAwith more extracted from various
foreskins of Jesus preserved as holy
relics in half-a-dozen Catholic churches and nunneries in Europe, the
Vatican "techies" were able to clone
Christ. (You can imagine the trouble
they had trying to persuade a bunch of
nuns, who consider themselves "brides
of Christ," to let go of their husband's
foreskin.)
There is a problem, however. Not
only has Jesus thus returned, he has
returned in multiplicate. For you see,
the Vatican engineers used the polymerase chain _reaction to produce
many copies of the surviving DNA
sequences and reconstructed them in
numerous enucleate human ova subsequently implanted in the wombs of
surrogate mothers - as it turns out,
thirteen nuns who secured the honor
as part of the terms for their releasing
one of the foreskins. Toeveryone's surprise, all thirteen ova implanted and
developed. Two years ago, all thirteen
brides of Christ gave birth to identical
baby Jesuses. (I guess that means they

Autumn 1997

gave birth to their husbands.)

Christianity has a further problem
in all this. Since Jesus is a god, and
there are thirteen Jesuses, it follows
that there are thirteen gods, not just
one as the popes have always claimed.
But the theological implications of the
Vatican engineering have become even
more complicated recently. Although
the babies are only two years old, they
have already reached physical maturity - proof positive that they are indeed
gods, even if they are provably fabrications of the Vatican.
Unfortunately, as in the case of
Jurassic Park, the genetic engineers
had to use African frog DNA to fill out
the missing parts of the Jesus genome.
Would you believe it? The Vatican now
has the same damn problem that
developed in Jurassic Park. The thirteen Jesuses maturing all together
created some sort of sexual transformation pressure, just as sometimes
happens in certain fishes and frogs.
Seven of the thirteen J esuses have
matured into Jesinas - absolutely
divine figures. Goddesses, in fact.
As you know, the First Coming
occurred two thousand years ago, and
Jesus has been "building up pressure"
for a long time. So it comes as no surprise to learn that he - I mean they, six
of them - couldn't hold it in any longer.
They impregnated their seven sisters
- I mean they impregnated themselves, since genetically they are all
identical. Now a second divine generation is about to begin, and it's anybody's guess if Jesus will give birth to
himself, or perhaps themselves, or
whether we are in for some unimaginable surprise. "With God," the Ohio
state motto tells us, "all things are possible." Meanwhile, all thirteen Jesoids
are finishing their catechism studies
and shortly will be confirmed by Pope
John-Paul II as Roman Catholics,
Eastern Rite. Unless, of course, he
excommunicates them for the sin of
incest - or would it be "self-abuse"?
American Atheist

Masters of Atheism

'

Why I Do Not
WHY I DO NOT BELIEVE
IN GOD.
BY

ANNIE BESANT.

Believe In God
Part II

L<NXlN:
fREETIDUQIT MLJSHN; COMPANY,
63, FlJiIIT S1REET, sc
1887.
FlUeB 1llRBBI'I!NCB..

Annie Besant (18471933)

Reprinted from a pamphlet of
1887 printed by Annie Besant and
Charles Bradlaugh.
In Part I Mrs. Besant argued that
the burden of proof rests with those who
allege the existence of fabulous beings. It
is not the skeptic's responsibility to disprove every extraordinary claim. More
importantly, though, she pointed out
that one cannot accept or reject that
which is undefined or self-contradictory.
"No man can rationally affirm 'There is
no God,' until the word 'God' has for him
a definite meaning, and until everything
that exists is known to him, and known
with what Leibnitz calls 'perfect knowledge.' The Atheist's denial of the Gods
begins only when these Gods are defined
or described. Never yet has a God been
defined in terms which were not palpably self-contradictory and absurd; never
yet has a God been described so that a
concept of him was made possible to
human thought." Part I concluded with
a demonstration that there is nothing in
the world of nature that can be considered evidence of a creator god or of a god
that is good.
Austin, Texas

eaving the pheenomena of

nature exclusive of man, as
yielding us no information as
to the existence of G1>d,
we turn next
to human life and human history to
seek for traces of the "divine presence." But here again we are met by
the same mingling of good and evil,
the same waste, the same prodigality, which met us in non-human
nature. Instead of the "Providence
watching over the affairs of men" in
which Theists believe, we note that
"there be just men, unto whom it
happeneth according to the work of
the wicked; again, there be wicked
men, to whom it happeneth according to the work of the righteous." A
railway accident happens, in which

Autumn 1997

a useful man, the mainstay of a

family, is killed, and from which a
profligate escapes. An explosionin a
mine slays the hardworking breadwinners at their toil, and the drunken idler whose night's debauch has
resulted in heavy morning sleep is
"providentially" saved as he snores
lazily at home in bed. The man
whose life is invaluable to a nation
perishes in his prime, while the selfish race-haunting aristocrat lives on
to a green old age. The honest conscientious trader keeps with difficulty out of the bankruptcy court,
and sees his smart, unscrupulous
neighbor pile up a fortune by tricks
that just escape the meshes of the
law.
If indeed there be a guiding
hand amid the vicissitudes of
human life, it must be that of an
ironical, mocking cruelty, which
plays with men as puppets for the
gratification of a sardonic humor.
Of course, the real explanation
of all these things is that there is no
common factor in these moral and
physical propositions; the quantities
are incommensurable; the virtues or
vices of a man are not among the
causes which launch, or do not
launch, a chimney pot at his head.
Outside these "changes and
chances" ofhuman life, the thoughtful mind feels conscious of a profound dissatisfaction with many of
the inevitable conditions of human
existence: the sensative faculties
Page 37

are at their keepestC;C;~::==::====================~=====================

when the intelligence is
The argument
not sufficiently
de- Truth is always fighting; each new truth
from
veloped to utilise them; undergoes a veritable struggle for existence,
causation
the perceptive faculties and if Hercules is to live to perform his
There is another
begin to fail as the
line of reasoning,
reflective touch their labors he must succeed in strangling the
however, apart from
fullest
development;
serpents that hiss round his cradle."
the consideration of
and when experience is -------------------------phren omena, which
ripest, judgment most trained,
children sobbing themselves in
must, it is alleged, lead us to believe
knowledge most full, old age lays its
hunger to sleep. Our earth rolls
in the existence of a god. This is the
palsy on the brain, and senility
wailing yearly round the sun, bearwell-used argument from causation.
shakes down the edifice just when a
ing evidence that it has no creator
Every effect must have a cause,
life's toil has made it of priceless
who loves and guides it, but has
therefore the universe must have a
value.
only its men, children of its own
cause, is a favorite enthymeme, * of
To recognise our limitations, to
womb, who by the ceaseless toil of
which the suppressed minor is, the
accept the inevitable, to amend countless generations are hewing
universe is an effect. But this is a
so far as amendment is possibleout the possibility of a better and
mere begging of the question. Every
both ourselves
and
our engladder world.
effect must have a cause; granted;
vironment, all this forms part of a
Similar testimony is borne by
for a cause is defined as that which
rational philosophy of life; but what
the slow progress of the human
produces an effect, and an effect as
has such self-controlled and keenrace. Truth is always fighting; each
that which is produced by a cause;
eyed sternness of resolve to do with
new truth undergoes a veritable
the two words are co-relatives, and
hysterical outcries for help to some
struggle for existence, and if
the one is meaningless separated
power outside nature, which, if it
Hercules is to live to perform his
from the other.
existed as creator, must have modlabors he must succeed in stranProve that the universe is an
elled our existence at its pleasure,
gling the serpents that hiss round
effect, and in so doing you will have
and towards which our attitude
his cradle. The new truth must first
proved that it has a cause; but in
could be only one of bitterest, if
be held only by one, its discoverer; if
the proof of that quietly-suppressed
silent, rebellion?
he is not crushed at the outset, a
minor is the crux of the dispute. We
To bow to the inevitable evil,
few disciples are won; then the little
see that the forces around us are the
while studying its conditions in
band is persecuted, some are marcauses of various effects, and that
order to strive to make it the
tyred, and, it may be, the movement
they, the causes of events which folevitable, is consistent with strong
destroyed. Or, some survive and
low their action, are themselves the
hope which lightens life's darkness;
gain converts, and so the new truth
effects of causes which' preceded
but to yield crushed before evil
slowly spreads, winning acceptance
such action. From the continued
deliberately and consciously inflictat the last. But each new truth must
observation of these sequences, oured by an omnipotent intelligencepass through similar ordeal, and
selves part of this endless chain, the
in such fate lies the agony of madhence the slowness of the upward
idea of causation is worked into the
ness and despair.
climb of man.
human mind, and becomes, as it
Nor do we find any reliable
Look backwards over the time
were, part of its very texture, so
signs of the presence of a god in
which has passed since man was
that we cannot in thought separate
glancing over the incidents of
emerging from the brute, and then
phamomena from their causes, and
human history. We note unjust
compare those millenniums with
the uncaused becomes to us the
wars, in which right is crushed by
the progress that has been made,
inconceivable.
might, in which victory sides with
and the distance which still sepaBut we cannot rationally extend
"the strongest battalions," in the
rates the race from a reasonably
reasoning wholly based on phren omissue of which there appears no
happy life for all its members. If a
ena into the region of the noumetrace of a "God that judgeth the
God cannot do better for man than
non.t That which is true of the pheeearth." We meet with cruelties that
this, man may be well content to
nomenal universe gives us no clue
sicken us inflicted on man by man;
trust to his own unaided efforts. We
when we try to pass without it, and
butcheries that desolate a city, perturn from the phren omena of
to penetrate into the mystery of
secutions that lay waste a province.
human life, as from those of non*Editor's note. In logic, an enthymeme is a
In every civilised land of to-day we
human nature, without finding any
syllogism in which one of the premises is not
see wealth mocking poverty, and
evidence which demonstrates, or
expressed but implied. Here it is the minor
poverty cursing wealth; here, thoueven renders probable, the exispremise ("The universe is an effect, that is
"suppressed."
sands wasted on a harlot, and there
tence of a God.
Page 38

Autumn 1997

American Atheist

existence per se. To call God "the

first cause" is to play with words
after their meaning has been emptied from them. If the argument
from causation is to be applied to
the existence of the universe, which
is, without any proof, to be accepted
as an effect, why may it riot with
equal force be applied to "God," who,
equally without any proof, may be
regarded as an effect? and so we
may create an illimitable series of
Gods, each an assumption unsupported by evidence.
If we once begin puffing divine
smoke-rings, the only limit to the
exercise is our want of occupation
and the amount of suitable tobacco
our imagination is able to supply.
The belief of the Atheist stops where
his evidence stops. He believes in
the existence of the universe, judging the accessible proof thereof to be
adequate, and he finds in this universe sufficient cause for the happening of all phrenomena. He finds
no intellectual satisfaction in placing a gigantic conundrum behind
the universe, which only adds its
own unintelligibility to the already
sufficiently difficult problem of existence. Our lungs are not fitted to
breathe beyond the atmosphere
which surrounds our globe, and our
faculties cannot breathe outside the
atmosphere of the phrenomenal. If I
went up in a balloon I should check
it when I found it carrying me into
air too rare for my respiration; and I
decline to be carried by a theological
balloon into regions wherin thought
cannot breathe healthily, but can
only fall down gasping, imagining
that its gasps are inspiration.
Our lungs are not fitted to
breathe beyond the atmosphere
which surrounds our globe, and our
faculties cannot breathe outside the
atmosphere of the phrenomenal. If I
went up in a balloon I should check
it when I found it carrying me into
air too rare for my respiration; and I
t

Editor's

note:

In Kantian

noumenon is the "thing-in-itself'

philosophy,

(Ding an

sick) which cannot be known via perception

but is postulated as the intelligible ground of

a phenomenon.

Austin, Texas

decline to be carried by a theological

balloon
into
regions
wherein
thought cannot breathe healthily,
but can only fall down gasping,
imagining that its gasps are inspiration.
There remain for us to investigate two lines of evidence, either of
which suffices, apparently, to carry
conviction to a large number of
minds; these are, the argument
from human experience, and the
argument from design.

The argument from

human experience
I have no desire to lessen the
weight of an argument drawn from
the sensus communis, the common
sense, of mankind. It is on this that
we largely rely in drawing distinctions between the normal and the
abnormal; it is this which serves as
test between the sane and the
insane; no thoughtful student can
venture to ignore the tremendous
force of the consensus of human
experience.
But while he will riot ignore, he
must judge: he must ask, first, is
this experience universal and unanimous? Secondly, on what experimental or other evidence is it based?
The universal and unanimous verdict of human experience, based on
clear verifiable experience, is one
which the thinker will challenge
with extreme hesitation.
Yet cause may arise which justifies such challenge. Perhaps no
belief has at once been so general,
and so undeniably based on the evidence of the senses, as the belief in
the movement of the sun and the
immobility of our globe. All but the
blind could daily see the rising of
the sun in the eastern sky, and its
setting in the west; all could feel the
firmness of the unshaken earth, the
solid unmoving steadfastness of the
ground on which we tread.
Yet this consensus of human
experience, this universality
of
human testimony, has been rejected
as false on evidence which none who
can feel the force of reasoning is
Autumn 1997

able to deny. If this belief, in defence

of which can be brought the ne plus
ultra of the verdict of common
sense, be not tenable in the light of
modem knowledge, how shall a
belief on which the sensus communis is practically non-existent, on
which human testimony is lacking
in many cases, contradictory in all
others, and which fails to maintain
itself on experimental or other evidence, how shall it hold ground from
which the other has been driven?
The reply to the question, "Is
the evidence universal and unanimous?" must be in the negative. The
religion
of Buddha,
which is
embraced by more than a third of
the population of the globe, is an
Atheistic creed; many Buddhists
pay veneration to Buddha, and to
the statues of their own deceased
ancestors, but none pretend that
these objects of reverence are symbols of a divine power. Many of the
lower savage tribes have no idea of
God. Darwin writes:
"There
is ample
evidence,
derived not from hasty travellers,
but from men who have long resided
with savages, that numerous races
have existed, and still exist, who
have no idea of one or more Gods,
and who have no words in their language to express such an idea"
(Descent of Man, pp. 93, 94, ed.
1875).
Buchner (Force and Matter, pp.
382-393) has collected a mass of evidence showing that whole races of
men have no idea of God at all. Sir
John Lubbock has done the same.
When savages reach a stage of intelligence at which they begin to seek
the causes of phrenomena, they
invariably postulate many Gods as
causes of the many objects around
them.
A New Zealander who was told
of the existence of the one God by a
missionary, asked him scoffingly if,
among Europeans, one man made
things of every sort; and he argued
that as there were various trades
among men, so there were various
Gods, each with his own business,
and one made trees, another the
Page 39

sea, another the animals, and so

on ...
Not only is the universal evidence a-wanting, but such evidence
as there is wholly lacks unanimity.
What attribute of the divine character, what property of the divine
nature, is attested by the unanimous voice of human experience?
What is there in common between
the Mumbo-Jumbo of Africa and the
"heavenly Father" of refined nineteenth century European Theism?
What tie, save that of a common
name, unites the blood-dripping
Tezcatlepoca of Mexico with him
"whose tender mercy is over all his
works"?
Even if we confine ourselves to
the Gods of the Jews, the Christians, and the Mahommedans, how

"-=====
Now,it may be taken as
an undeniable fact that
where there is confusion
of belief there is
deficiency of evidence."

great is the clash of dissension. The

Jew proclaims
it blasphemy
to
speak of a divine Trinity, and
shrinks
with horror
from the
thought of an incarnate God. The
Christian calls it blasphemy to deny
the deity of the man Christ Jesus
and affirms, under anathema, the
triune nature of the Godhead. The
Mahommedan asserts the unity of
God, and stamps as infidel everyone
who refuses to see in Mahommed
the true revealer of the divinity.
Each is equally certain that he is
right, and each is equally certain
that the others are wrong, and are
in peril of eternal damnation for
their rejection of the one true faith.
If the Christian has his lake of
fire and brimstone for those who
deny Christ, the Mahommedan has
his drinks of boiling water for those
who assert him. Among this clash of
tongues, to whom shall turn the
bewildered enquirer after truth? All

Page 40

his would-be teachers are equally

positive, and equally without evidence. All are loud in assertion, but
singularly modest in their offers of
proof.
Now, it may be taken as an
undeniable fact that where there is
confusion of belief there is deficiency of evidence. Scientific men quarrel and dispute over some much controverted scientific theory. They dispute because
the experimental
proofs are lacking that would decide
the truth or the error of the suggested hypothesis. While the evidence is
unsatisfactory, the controversy continues, but when once decisive proof
has been discovered all tongues are
still. The endless controversies over
the existence of God show that decisive proofhas not yet been attained.
And while this proof is wanting, I
remain Atheist, resolute not to profess belief till my intellect can find
some stable ground whereon to rest.
The argument from design
We have reached
the last
citadel, once the apparently impregnable fortress of Theism, but one
whose walls are now crumbling, the
argument from design. It was this
argument which so impressed John
Stuart Mill that he wrote in his
Essay on "Theism":
"I think it must be allowed that,
in the present state of our knowledge, the adaptations
in Nature
afford a large balance of probability
in favor of creation by intelligence.
It is equally certain that this is no
more than a probability"
(Three

Essays on Religion, p. 174).

This essay was, however, written between the years 1868 and
1870, and at that time the tremendous effect of the hypothesis of evolution had not yet made itself felt;
Mill speaks (p. 172) of the "recent
speculations" on "the principle of the
'survival of the fittest'," recognising
that if this principle were sound
"there would be a constant though
slow general improvement of the
type as it branched out into many
different varieties, adapting it to
Autumn 1997

different media and modes of existence, until it might possibly, in

countless ages, attain to the most
advanced
examples
which now
exist" (p. 173). He admits that ifthis
be true "it must be acknowledged
that it would greatly attenuate the
evidence for" creation.
And I am prepared to admit
frankly that until the "how" of evolution explained the adaptations in
Nature, the weight of the argument
from design was very great, and to
most minds
would have been
absolutely decisive. It would not of
course prove the existence of an
omnipotent and universal creator,
but it certainly did powerfully suggest the presence of some contriving
intelligence
at work on natural
phrenomena.
But now, when we can trace the
gradual evolution of a complex and
highly developed organ through the
various stages which separate its
origin from its most complete condition; when we can study the retrogression
of organs
becoming
rudimentary
by disuse, and the
improvement
of organs becoming
developed by use; when we notice as
imperfections
in the higher type
things which were essential in the
lower: what wonder is it that the
instructed can no longer admit the
force of the argument from design?
The human eye has often been
pointed to as a triumphant proof of
design, and it naturally seemed perfect in the past to those who could
imagine no higher kind of optical
instrument;
but now, as Tyndall
says,
"A long list of indictments might
indeed be brought against the eye-its opacity, its want of symmetry, its
lack of achromatism,
its absolute
blindness in part. * All these taken
together caused Helmholtz to say
that, if any optician sent him an
instrument
so full of defects, he
would be justified in sending it back
with the severest
censure" (On
Light, p. 8, ed. 1875).
*Editor's note: Helmholtz is referring
here to the retinal "blind spot."
American Atheist

It is only since men have made

optical instruments
without the
faults of the eye that we have
become aware how much better we
might see than we do. Nor is this all;
the imperfections which would show
incompetence on the part of a
designer become interesting and
significant as traces of gradual
development; and the eye, which in
the complexity of its highest form
seemed, notwithstanding
its defects, to demand such great intelligence to conceive and fashion it,
becomes more intelligible when we
can watch it a-building, and, as it
were, see it put together bit by bit. I
venture to quote here from a pamphlet of my own a very brief statement of the stages through which
the eye has passed in its evolution:
The first definite eye-spot that we
yet know of is a little colored speck
at the base of the tentacles of some
of the Hydromedusre, jelly-fish in
common parlance. They are only
spots of pigment, and we should not
know they were attempts at eyes
were it not that some relations, the
Discophora, have little refractive
bodies in their pigment spots, and
these refractive bodies resemble the
crystalline cones of animals a little
higher in the scale.
In the next class (Vermes), including all worms, we find only pigment
spots in the lowest; then pigment
spots with a nerve-fibre ending in
them; pigment spots with rodshaped cells, with crystalline rods;
pigment spots with crystalline
cones. Next, the cones begin to be
arranged radially;
and in the
Alciopidre the eye has become a
sphere with a lens and a vitreous
body, layer of pigment, layer of rods,
and optic nerve.
To mark the evolution definitely in
another way, we find the more highly developed eye of the adult appearing as a pigment spot in the embryo,
so that both the evolution ofthe race
and the evolution of the individual
tell the same story....
In the Arthropoda
(lobsters,
insects, etc.), the advance continues
from the Vermes. The retina is
formed more definitely than in the
Alciopidee, and the eye becomes
more complex. The compound eye is
'.ustin, Texas

an attempt at grouping many cones

together, and is found in the higher
members of this sub-lringdom....

The line of argument here

applied to the eye may be followed
in every instance of so-called design.
The exquisite mechanism of the ear
may be similarly traced, from the
mere sac with otoliths of the
Medusm up to the elaborate external, middle, and internal ears of
man .... Step by step is the ear built
up, until we see it complete as a
slow growth, not as .an intelligent
design.
And if it be asked, how are these
changes caused, the answer comes
readily: "By variation and by the
survival of the fittest." Since organisms and their environments re-act
on each other, slight variations are
constantly occurring; living organisms are ever in very unstable equilibrium, chemical association' and
disassociation are continually going
on within them.
Some of these changes are
advantageous to the organism in
the struggle for existence; some are
indifferent; some are disadvantageous. Those that are advantageous
tend to persist, since the organism
possessing them is more likely to
survive than its less fortunate competitors, and-since variations are
transmissible from parents to progeny-to hand on its favorable variation to its young. On the other hand
the disadvantageous
variations
tend to disappear, since the organism which is by them placed at a
disadvantage is likely to perish in
the fight for food.
Here are the mighty forces that
cause evolution; here the "not ourselves which makes for righteousness," i.e., for ever-increasing suitability of the organism to its
environment.

The argument from

absence of design
It is, of course, impossible in so
brief a statement as this to do justice to the fulness of the explanation
of all cases of apparent design which
Autumn 1997

can be made in this fashion. The

thoughtful student must work out
the line of argument for himself.
Nor must he forget to notice the
argument
from the absence of
design, the want of adaptation, the
myriad failures, the ineptitudes and
incompetences of nature.
How, from the point of view of
design, can he explain the numerous rudimentary organs in the higher animals? What is the meaning of
man's hidden rudimentary tail? of
his appendix ceeci uermiformis [the
appendix of appendicitis infamy]? of
the branchial clefts [gill slits] and
the lanugo [fine fur coat that covers
the face and body of the fetus] of the
human being during periods of antenatal life? of the erratic course of
the recurrent laryngeal [nerve]? of
the communication between the larynx and the alimentary canal? I
might extend the list over a page.
The fact that uninstructed people do
not appreciate these difficulties
offers no explanation
to the
instructed who feel their force; and
the abuse so freely lavished on the
Atheist does not carry conviction to
the intellect.
I do not believe in God. My mind
finds no grounds on which to build
up a reasonable faith. My heart
revolts against the spectre of an
Almighty Indifference to the pain of
sentient beings. My conscience
rebels against the injustice, the cruelty, the inequality, which surround
me on every side. But I believe in
Man. In man's redeeming power; in
man's remoulding energy; in man's
approaching
triumph,
through
knowledge, love, and work.

Don't forget the

AMERICAN ATHEIST HOT
LINE

in Austin!
(512) 458-5731
GIVE IT A CALL!
Page 41

Can Atheists Have Morals?

Part II
Doug Krueger
Part I presented a critique of the
notion that morals or ethics come
from god and began a critique of the
idea that the bible is an adequate
source for moral principles. Plato's
"Euthyphro Dilemma" was used to
show the falseness of the proposition
that we know what is good only
because god tells us what is good.
Doesgod command what is good because he recognizes what is good, or
is it good because god commands it?
If "good" is defined simply by
the fact that it is god's will, we must
admit that anything, including
genocide, could be considered good
as long as god commands it. Theists
who accept this horn of the dilemma
must admit that they don't have a
standard of ethics: they have a standard of obedience.
The other horn of the dilemma
is that god recognizes what is good
and then wills what is good. This
admits that god is not the source of
ethics, and if god is not the source of
ethics then there is nothing in principle which could show that the
Atheist cannot have an ethical system also.

Doug Krueger presently is completing his dissertation for the

degree of Doctor of Philosophy in
philosophy at the University of
Arkansas. He has written an
excellent book entitled What Is

Atheism? A Short Introduction,

which is forthcoming from Prometheus. This article is a second
excerpt from one of the chapters of
that book.
Page 42

A. Theism is an inadequate
foundation for morality.
2. The bible is also an inadequate source for moral
principles.
My first critique of theistic
ethics was theoretical. This second
part addresses the source which
many Christians claim shows them,
in practice, what god's will is - the
bible.
d. The bible recommends actions which are
unethical!
Below are a few of the many
principles in the bible which run
contrary to common sense or intuitive notions of what is right and
wrong.
(i) The bible says
that one should not resist
evil.
The bible reports Jesus as having said, "But I say unto you, That
ye resist not evil: but whosoever
shall smite thee on thy right cheek,
turn to him the other also," (Matt.
5:39). Does anyone really think that
it would be wise to allow evil to
reign unchecked? Should we get rid
of our police force and our criminal
justice system? If someone is trying
to rape your daughter should you
not interfere? If someone is stabbing
your father should you do nothing?
Surely this is bad advice.
. Some commentators
suggest
that Jesus' precept only applies to
oneself, that one could render aid to
another but one could not help oneself if attacked or abused. Even if
this is correct, this does not solve
anything. If you go to the aid of
someone who is being harmed, for
Autumn 1997

example, and the attacker turns on

you, then you would not be allowed
to defend yourself. You would be
unable to stop the attacker. At best
you would be allowed to distract
him or her by offering yourself as
another victim. Imagine how much
worse the world would be if those
with malicious intent knew that
their victims would not resist their
efforts.
(ii) The bible is proslavery!
The Old Testament has a number of pro-slavery verses. Exodus
21:7 explains how a father is
allowed to sell a daughter into slavery to pay a debt. Exodus 21:20
states explicitly that it is permissible to beat a slave to death as long
as the slave does not die right away.
Leviticus 25:44 explains where to
get slaves. There are scores of other
such passages.
In the New Testament, Ephesians 6:5 tells slaves to obey their
earthly masters
as they would
Christ, with sincerity of heart.
Colossians 3:22 says the same thing.
Titus 2:9 also tells slaves to obey
their masters in everything and to
try to please them. 1 Peter 2:19 says
the same thing about obeying harsh
masters as well as good ones. 1
Corinthians 7:21-24 tells slaves that
if they were "called" while a slave
(that is, called to become Christians), then they should remain
slaves and not try to be free. The
entire book called Philemon is a letter from Paul to a slave owner. Paul
encountered the runaway slave,
Onesimus, and is sending him back
to his owner! Paul, of course, was
aware that, upon receipt, the slave
owner must either kill the slave or
American Atheist

brand his forehead with an F for Fugitiuus "fugitive."

Was Paul doing to another what he would have wanted
done to himself?
There are many other unmistakably pro-slavery
passages to be found in the bible. Some translations of
the bible, such as the King James Version and the New
International Version (NIV), translate the Greek word
for slave, doulos, as "servant," to try to minimize the
pro-slavery slant in the New Testament, but the bible is
clearly pro-slavery. Jesus was well aware of slavery. He
even used slaves in parables. Now ask yourself: why
didn't Jesus condemn slavery? How odd that Jesus got
angry that people were changing money in a temple
(Matt. 21:12-15, Mark 11:15, etc.), but he was obviously
not angry about slavery. (And, incidentally, why did
Jesus chase out the people who were changing money in
the temple? He said not to resist one who is evil [Matt.
5:39].)
(iii) Jesus was a racist.
When a foreign woman asked Jesus for help, he initially refused to help, or even to speak to her, because of
her race. He explained this by referring to Gentiles as
"dogs" (Mark 7:26-27, Matt. 15:22-26). Jesus also told
his disciples not to go among the Gentiles (Matt. 10:5),
thus assuring that Gentiles get sent to hell. Jesus made
it clear that he was only here for the "lost sheep of the
house of Israel" (Matt. 15:24). Was Jesus loving his
neighbor as he loved himself when he was being racist?
Was he doing to them what he wanted done to himself?
These days compassionate people consider racism
immoral.
(iv) The bible sometimes shows genocide as a moral duty!
Genesis 7: God commits genocide on an epic scale,
killing everything on earth but Noah, his seven kin and
the animals. Children, babies, pregnant women, and
everyone else drown. God does not set a good example of
how one should treat others.
Deuteronomy 20:16: Moses tells his armies that, in
the countries god is going to give them as inheritance,
they are not allowed to leave alive anything that
breathes. Joshua 10:40 reports that god also told Joshua
to kill everything that breathes in neighboring regions.
He did. According to the bible, god made sure that the
people in those areas could not negotiate for peace
instead of being massacred. Joshua 11:20 states: "For it
was the LORD himself who hardened their hearts to
wage war against Israel, so that he might destroy them
totally, exterminating them without mercy, as the LORD
had commanded Moses" (NIV). This is reported in the
bible again and again, this mass genocide on god's command.
1 Samuel 15: 3: Samuel quotes to Saul the orders
from god: "Now go, attack the Amelekites and totally destroy everything that belongs to them. Do not spare
them; put to death men and women, children and
Austin, Texas

infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys" (NIV).

Saul does not kill everything, however. He leaves a few
healthy animals alive. Later the bible tells us that god
"grieves" that he made Saul king because Saul did not
carry out the instructions to the letter, and god sends
someone to kill Saul! Here it is clear that genocide,
wholesale slaughter, is a moral duty, inasmuch as failure to kill everything was punishable by god! Are we to
believe the bible on this matter? Are we to believe that
it is morally good to slaughter men, women, children,
and infants without mercy?
(v) The bible says that we should
obey all governing authorities.
According to the bible, we should obey all rulers and
civil authorities, and we should not resist their orders
"for there is no authority except from god, and the
authorities that exist are appointed by god. Therefore
whoever resists the authority resists the ordinance of
god, and those who resist will bring judgment on themselves" [Romans 13:1-2 (New King James version)]. * See
also Titus 3:1.
Is this a good principle? Was it a moral duty for all
Germans to rally behind Hitler simply because he was a
governing authority? Was it, as the bible suggests, immoral to resist Hitler's orders to kill the millions sent to
the death camps? Is the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.
suffering eternal agony because of his peaceful but
sometimes illegal activities? Was Hitler appointed by
the Christian god? Then so was Stalin, Mussolini,
Pontius Pilate, and all other governing authorities.
Surely this is nonsense.
(vi) The bible approves of kidnap and
rape.
Numbers 31:15: Moses' army kills all the men of the
Midianites. Moses is angry with his soldiers for allowing
all ofthe women to live. He tells them to kill all the boys
and all the women except for the female virgins. These
they can keep for themselves. They end up keeping
32,000 virgins, of whom 32 are given as tribute to the
Lord, whatever that means. (Many scholars think that
this means they were human sacrifices.) According to
the bible, then, on god's authority Moses tells his army
to kill the men, women and sons, and that they may
rape the daughters. t
In Deuteronomy 21:10-14, Moses explains to his
army that, with regard to a kidnapped virgin, she is to
be taken home, have her head shaved and her nails
trimmed, and kept as a wife on a trial basis. If she is not
satisfactory, she is to be released. Judges 21:10-24 tells
of another two instances of kidnap and rape. Remember,

* Instead of "bring judgment on themselves,"

has "shall receive to themselves damnation."

the King James Version

t How curious that the bible says that Moses was the meekest of all
men (Numbers 12:3)!

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Page 43

this is from the book which is supposed to be a guide to

moral conduct.

(vii) The bible endorses the oppression

of women.
Those who oppress women have long been able to
rely on the bible as a resource. In addition to the examples of biblical passages which approve of the kidnapping and raping of young women, there are other verses
which also disparage women. Genesis 3:16 states that
the husband shall rule over the wife. This is reiterated
in 1 Peter 3:1-7, Ephesians 5:22-24, 1 Corinthians 11:3,
and is implicit in scores of other passages. 1 Corinthians
14:34-35 states that women are not to speak in church,
and if a woman has a question she must ask her husband at home. 1 Timothy 2:11-14 says that a woman is
not to teach or have any authority over the man. The
passage explains that the reason for this is that Eve was
sinful but Adam was blameless. Because Eve was
deceived before Adam, women have often been considered temptresses in the eyes of the Church.
Genesis 3:16 says that childbirth is a sin. Thus,
Leviticus 12:2-4 states that a woman who bears a son is
unclean for seven days, and Leviticus 12:5-8 states that
a woman who bears a daughter is unclean for fourteen
days. Apparently it is twice as sinful to bear a daughter
as it is to bear a son. Luke 2:22, incidentally, explains
that Mary was unclean after the birth of Jesus.
Leviticus 19:20-21 explains that if a master has sex
with a female slave who is engaged to someone else, she
is punished but the man may be forgiven. Deuteronomy
22:23-24 states that both a woman and her rapist are to
be stoned to death. Deuteronomy 22:28-29 states that
she must marry her rapist. Numbers 5:11-31 has an agonizing adulteress test. There is no test for a man.
Deuteronomy 22:13-21 has a barbaric virgin test. The
tenth commandment (Exodus 20:17 and Deuteronomy
5:21) calls a wife a husband's possession and lists her
along with an ox and an ass.
Perhaps now the Christian should be asked: if the
bible is so wrong about such issues as racism, slavery,
kidnapping, rape, genocide, and so forth, why should
anyone trust it to be a reliable guide to morality in other
areas?
There are many other verses ofthe bible which advocate principles and conduct which people of conscience
would consider immoral, far too many to include here.
Here is an interesting thought experiment: If you had
gone into one of those regions and had watched soldiers
kill little babies, rip open pregnant women and rape
young girls, would you have been able to place your hand
on your heart and honestly say, "This was commanded
by the god of love and peace" (as he is called in 2
Corinthians 13:11)? Surely this is absurd. Is this really
the sort of ethics which might be the product of divine
omniscience and omnibenevolence? Ask yourself: could
the commands of a demon be any worse?
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e. The bible contains contradictory ethical

views.
Another important part of why the bible is inadequate as a foundation is that it contains so may contradictory principles and examples of hypocrisy. Below are
just a few of these.

(i) Should we love our enemies?

We should love our enemies and do good to those who
hate us, according to Luke 6:27 and 6:35. But the bible is
not consistent about how one's enemies should be treated.
According to the bible, Jesus contradicted the "love
your enemies" principle. Jesus said that all those who
are not for him are against him (Matt. 12:30). Those who
are against him are his enemies. Thus, he should love
those who are against him. But he did not. Jesus made
it clear that those who were not his followers would be
sent to hell. There are numerous instances of this sort of
thinking in the bible, such as Matt. 13:41-42,49-50, etc.
Is this love for his enemies? Of course not. You don't send
those you love to eternal torture. That's not doing good to
one who hates him. If Jesus would send his enemies to
hell, he certainly doesn't love them, and thus he violates
his own teaching. If, on this view, one can love another
person and still send that person to hell forever, then
love means nothing in the Christian perspective.

(ii) Is lying immoral?

Jesus told his followers that lying is evil (Matt.
15:19, Mark 7:22). Proverbs 6:17, 19 tell us that god
hates a lying tongue and a false witness.
However, according to the bible itself, Jesus was
sometimes dishonest. During his hearing before the high
priest, Jesus says, "I spoke openly to the world. I always
taught in synagogues and in the temple, where the Jews
always meet, and in secret I have said nothing" (John
18:20 (NKJ. Other parts of the Bible show that this is
false. Jesus did not always teach in synagogues and temples. He taught on a mountain (Matt. 5:1-2), on a boat
(Matt. 13:1-2), on a plain (Luke 6:17) and other places.
And did he say things in secret? He told his followers
that he spoke in parables so that those who are not part
of his group would not be able to understand his teaching, "So that 'Seeing they may not see and not perceive,
and hearing they may hear and not understand; lest
they should turn, and their sins be forgiven them' "
[Mark 4:12 (NKJ)]. Matt. 13:11-15 says the same thing.
Jesus admits that he used parables so that the meaning
of his stories would remain a secret to everyone except
his close followers.
Here's another example of a lie told by Jesus. Jesus
was invited to go to the Feast of the Tabernacles in
Jerusalem. He told his followers, ''You go up to this feast.
I am not going up to this feast, for my time has not yet
fully come" [John 7:8 (NKJ)]. But after his followers left

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American Atheist

Jesus went up to the feast "not openly, but as it were, in

secret" (John 7:10). This caused people there to complain
about Jesus and say that he "deceives the people" (John
7:12), which, according to the bible, was true! Note that
many versions ofthe bible insert the word "yet" between
"not" and "going" in John 7:8 to suggest that Jesus was
actually saying that he was "not yet going" to the feast,
with the possibility that he would go later. The word
"yet" was added by a copyist sometime long after the
writing of John to try to make it seem that Jesus was
not lying. The word is missing from early manuscripts of
the book, so scholars know that it does not belong there.
Some of the more scholarly versions of the bible will concede this in a footnote. Clearly, Jesus was not always
honest.
.
1 Kings 22:20-23 also shows god endorsing outright
lying. Verse 23 states: "Now therefore, behold, the LORD
hath put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these thy
prophets, and the LORD hath spoken evil concerning
thee." This is repeated in 2 Chronicles 18:22. Ezekiel
14:9 says: "And if the prophet be deceived when he hath
spoken a thing, I the LORD have deceived that
prophet ..." Interestingly,
the bible states that the
punishment for false prophesy will be death even
though the prophet was deceived by god himself.
Ezekiel 20:25-26 states that god intentionally gave
his people bad laws, including those which required the
sacrifice of their firstborn children, in order to fill them
with horror so that they would know that he is the lord.
Is it compatible with being omnibenevolent to cause people to sacrifice children so that they can know that god
is powerful? Could little children who are sacrificed benefit from such a law? And is that how one knows that god
is at work in the world, when one is filled with horror?
If god sometimes gives people laws which he knows are
bad, which are calculated to fill people with horror and
not to make them better or moral, then god cannot be
trusted to be forthright and honest about explaining our
moral duties. If god has lied in the past about whether

some laws are moral, then one can never be certain that
laws which are supposedly from god now are moral.
Jesus and god are supposed to be morally perfect,
yet the bible shows them engaging in deception. The
bible thus gives contradictory views about the moral status of lying.

3. Objections to the above critique of theistic ethics fail.

Below are a few of the common objections to an attack upon Christian ethics and theistic ethics. None of
the objections are successful.

a. Can't the Christian just reject certain parts of the bible and keep others? Can't
he or she reject the "bad" parts and keep the
"moral" parts?
Why would someone adopt a book such as the bible
Austin, Texas

for a supposed source of moral teaching when most of

the ethics in the book have to be ignored? How would
you respond to a Nazi who used Hitler's Mein Kampf as
a guide to ethics and then replied to your objections that
the immoral parts would be rejected? If a book is filled
with immorality, if many of its main characters are
bloodthirsty butchers, why would someone who disagrees with such a view use that book as a guide to
morality?
If one accepts parts of the bible and rejects others,

this is admitting that the bible is an inadequate guide to

morality. If one picks and chooses from the bible, then
one needs to be able to recognize what is moral and what
is not before beginning the selection process. Th do this,

one must have a non-bible source of morality which

determines what to pick and what to reject. Perhaps one
has a gut feeling about what is right and wrong. Call it
moral intuition, human compassion, whatever. One may
even have some moral system which allows one to
choose what is moral from the bible. A person who uses
these sources as guides to morality apparently thinks
that his or her own gut feeling or moral system is a better guide to morality than the bible and thus would have
to admit that the bible is an inadequate source for
morality.
If one already has a biblically independent source of
morality, and parts of the bible must be denounced as
immoral, of what use is the bible for morality? It plays
no role in forming the ethical view. It is merely being
used to ease the conscience of the person who does not
want to admit that his or her moral view is not based on
the bible. Picking and choosing from the bible, rather
than defending the bible as an adequate source of
morals, admits defeat!

b. Can't the Christian just claim that

god will guide him or her through prayer or by
some sort of feeling about what it is right to
do?
A quick look at human history, or even at the bible,
shows what atrocities have been committed by those
who thought that they were guided by god. The Spanish
Inquisitions, the slaughter of Jews by Christians during
the Crusades, John Calvin's reign of terror in Geneva,
all shed a great deal of blood and unleashed the most
sadistic impulses of the human heart, and all were the
products of those who thought that they had been guided by god's inspiration. It seems unlikely that relying on
prayer or other vague criteria could serve as an adequate basis for morality. However, there are more specific responses to the notion of being guided by prayer.
(i) One problem here is that if one
appeals to "feelings" and not reasons, then there is no
clear way to tell whether someone, even oneself, has
been guided by god. The Christian can never condemn
another's actions, even the slaughter of infants or the
torture of children, if the person performing the act sim-

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Page 45

ply makes the claim that god is on his or her side.

Anything is then permitted, and it would not be difficult
to cite bible passages to "justify" anything from rape to
infanticide. Because there is no way to distinguish
between being inspired by god and mistakenly thinking
that one is inspired by god, claims that one is inspired by
god are worthless.
(ii) Christians have incompatible claims
that they are inspired by god. Baptists disagree with
Catholics, Seventh Day Adventists
disagree with
Lutherans, and so on, yet members of each claim to be
inspired, guided, by god. Again, since there is no criterion for morality used other than the mere assertion of
inspiration itself, there is no way to distinguish between
the "true" claims and the false ones. So the claims are
useless.
(iii) Another problem is that those of
other religions also appeal to the same "feeling" or
response to prayer, yet the Christian does not believe the
claims of other religions. This shows that not even the
Christian believes that an appeal to "inspiration" is sufficient justification for conduct.
c. How can the Atheist say that the
bible recommends
immoral actions and principles? What standard is the Atheist using?
Sometimes Christians retort that one cannot condemn the atrocities of the bible because one would need
another moral system in order to condemn them. To this
there are two responses:
(i) Some Christians have actually tried
to tell me that going into a neighboring region and
slaughtering anything that breathes is not immoral,
that slavery is not immoral, that kidnap and rape are
not immoral, etc. To such people I have this to say: it is
your so-called system of ethics which is deplorable, not
mine. If you can't see that these actions are immoral,
then it is you who are living unfettered by a moral system, not me. Even if one did not have a well-developed
system of ethics with which to condemn the atrocities
described in the bible, surely one could still say that a
system of ethics is designed to allow one to denounce exactly those sorts of actions which I have presented from
the bible. If any and all of those horrible actions described above are permitted on the Christian view, then
what is it that you can't do on that "morality"? What is
the point of claiming that you have an ethical system if
anything is permitted? As I have noted above, the
defense of such horrible conduct reduces Christian
ethics to a system of slavery, of obedience, instead of a
system of morality. Such a view makes a mockery of the
concept of ethics.
(ii) There are many powerful systems of
ethics which can be used to condemn the atrocities of the
bible, and none of these systems require belief in gods.
That is the subject of the next section.

B.

There

Page 46

are

many

powerful

ethical

systems

which do not require belief in gods.

Throughout human history, theists, atheists, and agnostics have recognized that the divine command theory
of ethics does not work and that holy books such as the
bible cannot serve as adequate foundations for morality.
As a result, many philosophers have developed complex
and intellectually powerful systems of ethics which do
not rely on the concept of god in any way.
Because many people have never heard of ethical
systems which do not require god, a brief summation of
some of the most important features of these systems is
provided below. Remember that these are not "Atheist"
ethics, as if all Atheists adhere to anyone of these views.
They are, instead, moral systems which can function in
the absence of belief in god. I will briefly describe Kant's
ethical theory, utilitarianism, and virtue-based systems.
1. Kant's ethical theory does not require god.
Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) was extremely influential in the development of many areas of philosophy. His
immense Critique of Pure Reason, published in 1781,
changed the way philosophers examined the nature of
human knowledge. His small booklet, Groundwork for
the Metaphysics of Morals, published in 1785, was
influential in the field of ethics.!
Kant thought that the only thing which could be
called good unconditionally is a good will. In other
words, it is not what w~ do which makes us morally good
or bad, it is what we intend to do and what we attempt
to accomplish. For example, if a conscientious lifeguard
Jones does his best to save Smith from drowning, but
fails, we would not say that Jones is a bad person simply
because the results were undesirable. Even though
Jones failed, Jones attempted to act according to what
was morally required. What is important is one's motive.
Suppose two couples on a date walk past a person
asking for a handout. One of the two in the first couple
thinks, "This poor soul is in need. I haven't given to the
poor for a while. I should do so now," and gives the beggar some money. However, the man in the next couple
sees that same beggar and thinks, "It is a shame that
society allows such filth to walk the streets, but perhaps
I can use this opportunity to my advantage. I will
impress my date by giving this eyesore some money. I
think this will land me in bed with her. It's worth parting with the money," and gives the beggar the same
amount of money as the person from the first couple.
Surely there is some moral difference between these actions, although the two people gave the same amount of
money to the same person. The difference seems to be
the motive for the actions. As long as one is acting out of
respect for the moral law, and not out of selfishness, for
example, then one is acting morally. But how does one
determine the moral law, one's moral duty?
Kant distinguished between two kinds of commands
or imperatives. Some are called hypothetical; that is,
they depend on some further goal in order to have any

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American Atheist

force. For example, the statement "If you want to get a

good grade on the test, then you should study hard for
the test tomorrow" is based on the assumption that the
person addressed wants to get a goodgrade on the test.
If he or she does not want to get a good grade, then the
"should" in the command has no force. Kant held that
commands of this kind are not ethical commands.
On the other hand, states Kant, there are other commands such as "You should not steal" or "Youshould
keep promises" which, Kant argues, do not rest on additional assumptions or goals. These kinds of commands
apply regardless of the particular circumstances or
desires of the person in question. These commandshave
force because to violate them is to contradict oneself.
For example; suppose that Ms. Johnson wonders
whether it is morally permissible to steal. She wants to
act according to the maxim, the principle of action, that
stealing is permissible. Accordingto Kant, there is a way
to find out whether acting according to this motive is
moral or not. It requires a thought experiment, an exercise in the imagination. Ms. Johnson needs to "universalize" the principle; that is, she would imagine that
everyone else also accepts the principle that stealing is
permitted and then examine the result. What would be
the result? Well, Ms. Johnson would imagine that she
couldcalmly walk to the localjewelry store and walk out
with free handfuls of gems. In her thought experiment,
this would be all right, since everyone agrees that stealing is fine. But her neighbor may also want gems and
would be free to come over to Ms. Johnson's house and
take them. Ms. Johnson would not object,since everyone
in this thought experiment, including herself, agrees
that stealing is permitted. Perhaps another person may
then steal the gems from the neighbor, and then the
store owner may steal them back to put in the store, and
so on.
What has happened here? It seems that the gems
are just changing hands, but since each person agrees
that the next person has the right to take the gems, they
are no longer stealing. The concept of ownership and
personal property becomes vacuous, and taking another
person's property without permission becomes impossible, since they all give such permission.
Thus, universalizing the maxim that stealing is permitted has resulted in a contradiction. It can't he the
case that everyone is permitted to steal, since the result
would be that no one could possibly steal. On Kant's"
view, this shows that stealing is not permitted. The
maxim that stealing is permitted results in contradiction, and a contradiction is always, by definition, false.
Thus, it must be false that stealing is permitted, so to
act according to that maxim is immoral.
What Kant's strategy shows, then, is that if the
maxim one wishes use as a principle of action cannot be
universalized, then acting according to that maxim is
immoral. Kant believed that many other moral duties
were discoverable in this way,by checkingfor contradicAustin, Texas

tions when universalized.

For Kant, the cornerstone of ethics is the recognition
of the categorical imperative, a command which,
unlike the hypothetical ones, holds under all circumstances. Kant explains the categorical imperative:
Act only according to that maxim whereby you
can at the same time will that it should.become
a universal law;2
This categorical imperative serves as an objective,
impartial test for morality. One's own desires and needs
donot affect the laws oflogic.The categorical imperative
is, in the end, an unbiased test for logical contradiction.
Its force is the power of reason itself. The fact that an
immoral maxim is contradictory proves that it must be
false.
If one defines an objective moral value as one in
which individual wishes or goals are irrelevant to the
force or truth of that moral value, then clearly Kant's
moral theory produces objective moral values without
appeal to god or any supernatural guidance.
Kant thought that anyone who needs some ulterior
end or motive to act according to the moral law is contemptible.s Getting into heaven or avoiding hell would
be examples of ulterior motives.
There is, of course, much more to Kant's view, and
modern-day scholars who endorse and elaborate on
Kant's ethics have continued to defend their position
from criticism and have made the Kantian moral theory
even more powerful and robust than the original.
2. Mill's utilitarian system of ethics does not
require god.
The English philosopher and jurist Jeremy Bentham
(1748-1832) developed a moral theory known as utilitarianism, of which there are many versions. The influential philosopher, social critic, and economist John
Stuart Mill (1806-1873) popularized and defended
Bentham's view in his book Utilitarianism, published in
1861.

The principle of utility, which Bentham called the

"greatest happiness" principle, is the foundation of the
utilitarian system. Mill explains:
The creed which accepts as the foundation of
morals "utility" or the "greatest happiness principle" holds that actions are right in proportion
as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as
they tend to produce the reverse of happiness.s
The utilitarian view, then, advocates that, when
faced with the various choices in life, one should choose
to perform those actions which promote the greatest
amount of happiness in comparison with the other possible choices, or, if no choices cause any happiness, one
should choose those actions which allow the least

Autumn 1997

Page47

amount of pain. Of course, this does not mean that one

would choose these actions with an eye toward how
much happiness or unhappiness is caused only for oneself. On the utilitarian moral theory, one's own happiness and unhappiness do not play any more prominent a
role in one's decisions than the happiness or unhappiness of any other person.
The different versions of utilitarianism use a variety
of definitions of "happiness" and "unhappiness" (or "the
reverse of happiness"), but on Mill's version "happiness"
and unhappiness" means pleasure and pain, respectively. Mill believed that pleasure and freedom from pain
are the only things desirable in themselves. It seems, he
said, that anything else we desire is desired only for the
sake of the pleasure that it brings or for its role in promoting pleasure or causing freedom from pain.f
Perhaps an example would be useful. Suppose that
two college students, Carol and Penelope, live together
in Penelope's large, expensive apartment. Penelope lets
Carol live in her apartment rent-free because their parents are old friends. Suppose further that, one day in
March, Carol finds out that her friend and roommate
Penelope has stolen a car in order to drive to South
Padre Island during spring break. If Carol is a utilitarian, she will consider the effects of her possible courses of
action. Suppose, for simplicity, that her options are that
she may tell the police or she may keep quiet about the
whole affair. If she tells the police about Penelope's theft,
she risks losing both Penelope's friendship and the use
of the apartment rent-free. On the other hand, if she
says nothing about it to anyone, a great deal of unhappiness will befall the car's owner and, perhaps, the
owner's spouse, children, insurance agency, and so on.
Carol realizes that her own unhappiness caused by the
loss of a friend and the use of an apartment, as well as
Penelope's unhappiness caused by imprisonment, etc.,
would be outweighed by the unhappiness which would
result if she kept quiet, and she decides to report the
crime to the authorities. Although this results in Carol's
own unhappiness, the utilitarian calculus has shown
Carol her moral duty, and she performs it.
The idea that as one goes through life, and one is
faced with a number of moral choices, that one should
choose to perform those actions which make the world a
better place for people by causing more happiness than
unhappiness, that one should not simply choose what
would make oneself happy at the expense of others, is an
approach to life and morality that many people find
intuitively satisfying. Mill, and others, have thought
that such a life, a life of "few and transitory pains," and
"many and various pleasures" was a real possibility and
that the only hindrances to such a life being available to
everyone are the "present wretched education and
wretched social arrangements."6
The utilitarian theory of ethics produces objective
moral values. Mill's Utilitarianism
explains many
advantages of his moral system, and defends it against
Page 48

various objections. Utilitarians of today have taken

Mill's initial insights, and have, in the light of objections
and the insights of other philosophers, molded utilitarianism into a formidable ethical theory.

3. Virtue-based systems of ethics do not

require god.
The ethical views which are subsumed under the
name of "virtue-based" systems, sometimes called "aretaic" ethics, are part of a philosophical and ethical tradition which dates back as far as 300 or so BCE with
Aristotle.
While many other ethical systems focus on the rightness or wrongness of a particular action or class of
actions, virtue-based theories focus on the character of
the agent, the person making the choices. Virtue-based
ethics promote certain character traits, the "virtues," in
the belief that the central issue of morality is not what
sorts of.actions are best, but what type of character, and
what kind of life, is best. After all, if a society can promote the development of good moral character in its citizens, then there will no longer be a concern over
whether people will choose the right actions instead of
the wrong ones. Virtue-based ethics address the motivational and communal dimensions of ethical conduct, not
just the rule-making aspect.
The Greeks saw each individual as a part of the
whole community, not as an isolated unit. Their
approach to ethics reflects this emphasis, and it is evident in virtue-based ethics.
Aristotle explains that moral virtue, also called
moral excellence, is "a state of character concerned with
choice, lying in a mean ..."7 The state of character is instilled by habit.f Society works to instill in its young citizens the habitual practice of responding with the appropriate action to situations which require moral choice.
The "mean" refers to the state of character which does
not respond with an inappropriate extreme in a given
situation. For example, it is appropriate to give to the
needy, but it would be a mistake to give all one has at
every- opportunity, since then one would be needy as
well, and nothing would have been solved. Although giving away all that one has may be appropriate in some
situations, it is clearly not appropriate in all. A state of
character which responds appropriately to the situation
is, according to Aristotle, the best state of character, but
it must also be informed by phronesis, or practical wisdom. Practical wisdom is the ability of a person to decide
the appropriate action in a given circumstance.
But what are the appropriate actions? What should
one do in a given situation? The virtue theorist might
say that such questions are to some extent misguided.
Virtue-based ethics are systems which recognize that
the command or legalistic model of ethics is inadequate.
Even if it were possible to construct a long list of commands to cover every possible situation (and a brief
stroll through a law library should be enough to show

Autumn 1997

American Atheist

that this is a daunting task), it would be impossible for

anyone to memorize such a lengthy array of "moral laws"
in order to put them to use.
The virtues which usually serve as the basis for a
virtue-ethics system are well-known. In Forbidden
Fruit: The Ethics of Humanism, Paul Kurtz lists what he
calls the "common moral decencies": Integrity, including
truthfulness, promise keeping, sincerity, and honesty;
Trustworthiness, including fidelity and dependability;
Benevolence, including good will, refraining from harming others, respecting the property of others, sexual consent and beneficence; and Fairness, including gratitude,
accountability, justice, tolerance and cooperation.? Many
philosophers have held that the value of such character
traits is self-evident. No justification of such moral values is needed. Virtue ethicists hold that the Greeks were
wise in recognizing that it is more practical to attempt to
instill in people a character which is the source of correct
moral choices than to have every person memorize a long
list of laws. Each situation which demands a moral
choice is unique. A person who has a character which exemplifies
honesty,
fairness,
gratitude,
kindness,
patience, etc., and who has a good dose of practical wisdom, is more likely to respond in a morally appropriate
way to a given situation than someone who is greedy,
selfish, dishonest, etc., and who has merely been given a
long list oflaws and a host ofthreats. Which type of person would you rather have for a neighbor?
Of course, Aristotle and other virtue-based ethical
theorists do give specific, practical advice, but the
emphasis is upon the person, not the law. Virtue-based
ethical theories are comprehensive explanations of what
it is to be moral. They address the role of the individual
in society, morally appropriate action, the ideal kind of
life for humans and many other basic issues which are
related to ethics but which are outside the scope of many
other moral theories. Without a proper understanding of
how these areas are related, according to virtue-based
theorists, one cannot have a true understanding of the
nature of morality and proper conduct.
Many bible scholars and theologians, as well as
nonbelievers, have noted that the ethics of the bible, and
especially of the Old Testament, entirely neglect the
development of good moral character. A shallow, slavemaster attitude toward being moral is what is promoted
instead. All too often, being obedient is considered equivalent to being moral. Perhaps a good dose of virtue ethics
would be a welcome change in many theists' households.

In order to show that the nontheistic ethical systems

described above are inadequate, the theist must show
that either: (a) the theistic moral system works, and that
it contains some morally important element(s) which
these nontheistic systems lack, and/or (b) the systems
listed above, and others which do not require god, cannot
serve as foundations to morality due to some other inherent flaw. No theist has ever been able to show either
(a) or (b).
Historically, there is no evidence that one who is a
theist is any more moral than one who is not. In fact,
given the atrocities which have been committed in the
name of god, it is surprising that theists still have the
audacity to suggest that god is the foundation of morality.
1Immanuel Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals,
James W. Ellington tr. (Indianapolis, Hackett Publishing Co.,
1981).
2Ibid., p. 421 on the traditional

pagination.

3Ibid, p. 4.
4John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism,
reprinted
in Ethical
Theories: A Book of Readings, AI. Melden, ed. (Englewood
Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, Inc., 1967): 395.
5Ibid., p. 395.
6Ibid., p. 399.
7 Aristotle, The Nicomochean Ethics, David Ross, tr. (New
York: Oxford University Press, 1980), section 1006b36.
8Ibid., Book II, section 1.
9paul Kurtz, Forbidden Fruit: The Ethics of Humanism
(Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 1988), chapter 3.

***
CONCLUSION
1. Theism is an inadequate foundation for morality.
2. There are many powerful systems of ethics which do
not require belief in gods. Therefore, the charge that the
Atheist cannot have a system of morals is groundless.
Austin, Texas

Autumn 1997

Page 49

ONE MOMENT PLUS EIGHT YEARS

Poetry

It shouldn't happen to a dog.

In fact it wouldn't, since Norma's been bedridden
for eight years, while most dogs
-even healthy ones-don't live that long .

THE ATHEIST'S DEBATE

."You'll bum to ash
in Hades' fires!" they screamed out,
clubs in hand.
He stared them down, then strode
away.

Before her stroke, when I took a geology class,

she asked, "What you studying that for?"
I said, "Well, I might learn
how those rocks on Cedar Ridge got there."
"I reckon they been there since the flood," she replied.

You think I give a damn?

A lone voice called out from the crowd,
Baffled by his stand;
"How could you be an atheist?"

Noah's flood, you understand. Contest that,

or any word of God's, and you were going straight to hell.
Her husband died twelve years ago, and she consoled herself
by convincing herself that he Believed at the last moment.

I think, therefore I am.

J. Grier

UNCERTAIN

The
The
The
The

INSPIRATION

A sunlit slick of rain lying on the empty street

Adds a kind of brightness to the morning
Pulls the sky down to where we can feel
The rays of heaven light upon the grave and
stoney earth.

but
she
that
that

Or maybe it is some rising in ourselves

That paints this elevating spell across our path.
But no god is there to arbitrate this illusion.
And so we stumble on Victims of uncertain inspiration.
Jim Williams

INSECTS AT A LIGHT
A dancing of primeval celebrants
They swarm to this first of all fires
Flying electric about their fluorescent sun
Swatting themselves ecstatically against
its cold heat.
They are the true believers,
Uninhibited worshippers of this
luminescent Jesus,
Alive beyond life, immortally free,
The incarnate visionaries of the
New Millennium
Who blissfully glide the rainbow's arc
In an endless orgasm of flight.
And then, without a thought,
A hand turns off the light.
Jim Williams
Page 50

angina didn't get her.

diabetes didn't get her.
medication reaction didn't get her.
stroke would have gotten her,

somehow, hours later, realizing that one arm still worked,

dragged herself to the buzzer
alerted her daughter
fetched the doctors for another miracle.

Eight years without moving! Now the arm that rescued her
has just strength enough to push the switch
that turns on the transmitted evangelist.
On lucid days she tells me I must repent.
No longer able to reach the syringe-steepled shooting gallery,
the T.Y. feeds her methadone, and she doesn't see the difference.
That's what I think. But I can walk away,
while she lies dreading to explain to God her moment of doubt.

Greg Arens

VICTROLA ROLLS
Voices that are stilled
still sing
Of never-fading beauty,
Of never-dying love.
Unmoved movers reach
through time
To play on heart-stringed
lyres,
Yet stir no mote of dust.
Immortality is proved
By waxen memories
That linger after life.

Frank R. Zindler
Autumn 1997

American Atheist

Letters to the Editor

"Letters to the Editor" should be
either questions or comments of general concern to Atheists or to the
Atheist community. Submissions
should be brief and to the point.
Space limitations allow that each
letter should be three hundred words
or, preferably, fewer. Please confine
your letters to a single issue only.
Mail them to:
American Atheist:
P.O. Box 140195
Austin, TX 78714-0195

The fate of Vardis

Fisher's books
While
I enjoyed
Richard
Andrews' useful and appreciative
article, "Vardis Fisher: An American
Atheist Author," in the American
Atheist (Summer 1997), one aspect
of the article needs clarification.
After the death of Opal Fisher,
Albertsons College (nee College of
Idaho) in Caldwell was to receive
the book bequest Andrews cites.
However,
Albertsons
initially
declined the gift and Vardis' sons
decided to gift the Library of Congress-affiliated Idaho Center for the
Book, instead. At the last moment,
Albertsons reconsidered their refusal. After some deliberation and
negotiation with the Fishers, Albertsons agreed to split the bequest
50/50 with the Center.
Thousands of first edition hardback and paperback bequest books.
arrived at ICB in June of 1996 and I
spent most of the summer inventorying, pricing, and marketing the
titles, along with thousands of three
Fisher hardback reprints (Children
of God, Mountain Man, and Pemmican) which the University of
Idaho Press had briefly listed in
their catalogue, the result of an earlier agreement with Opal Fisher. U
of I decided to divest itself of these
titles and give them to the ICB; they
Austin, Texas

were not included in the estate

bequest. Subsequently, the Idaho
Center for the Book became the
exclusive source for these three
titles.
Vardis Fisher biographer and
Idaho Statesman columnist Tim
Woodward was most considerate in
his coverage of the ICB bequest. By
October 1996, 75% of the bequest
had been sold to individual readers
and dealers in rare books and
Western Americana, most notably
Weller's Zion Bookstore in Salt Lake
City. Appropriately
enough, the
Fisher bequest and U of! gift helped
insure continued operation of the
ICB, particularly important at a
time when state funding was and is
being reduced.
All Fisher titles available from
the ICB are listed in Books in Print,
are on the ICB Website, and may be
ordered from the Boise State
University Book Store (toll-free at 1800-992-TEXT).
Tom Trosky, Director, Hemingway
Western Studies Center and
Idaho Center for the Book

Antiquities of the Jews was a forgery? And who is Christopher Drew?

It would be nice to have some biographical information.
Also, this may be a minor point,
but there was no explanation of
what "CE" and "BCE" mean, and
that, too, was a bit unsettling. I do
not believe those terms are commonly used, and therefore deserve
explanation.
Robert Phillipoff
Austin, Texas

Christopher Drew replies

My article is the first chapter in
an as yet unpublished book titled

The Birth of Christianity and

Judaism - Jesus and Moses are unhistorical.
Here are some of the references
given in my book:
The Nag Hammadi Library,
James M. Robinson, editor (Harper
and Row, 1988); The Quest of the
Historical Jesus, Albert Schweitzer
(Macmillan, 1910); Jesus, God, man

or myth? - An examination of the

evidence, Herbert
Cutner
(The

Who is Christopher Drew?

Christopher M. Drew's article
"A Glimpse of the Invention of
Christianity" (Spring 1997) appears
to be convincing, and it seems to
contain much original research. I
was unpleasantly surprised, however, by its complete lack of any scholarly references. I am no fan of
pedantry, but I do not believe an
article would be accepted for publication in any scientific journal without at least some references to the
writings of other scholars on the
subject (a procedure that was followed in the case of the other extensive articles in your spring issue,
but not in this case).
Are there no other historians
who have challenged the existence
of Jesus? Is there no authority other
than the author that believes that
the reference to Jesus Christ in
Book 18, Chapter 3 of Josephus'
Autumn 1997

Truthseeker

Company, 1950); and

The Jesus of the Early Christians A Study of Christian Origins, G. A

Wells (Pemberton Books, London,
1971).
Christianity
might be weakened if it became known that Jesus
is unhistorical, so professional bible
scholars are not allowed to say so.
Schweitzer
(1875-1965), Cutner,
and Wells are three of the many
competent authors who have. It terminated Schweitzer's career in the
church.
My book has a chapter on the
Jesus Christ paragraph in Josephus
showing why it is an outright insertion. The scholars are indecisive
about whether it was written by
Josephus, a modified text, or an outright insertion.
I am a retired mechanical engineer of 68. I grew up in England. I
was indoctrinated
at boarding
Page 51

school into the Church of England,

but I was not indoctrinated
at
home. I came to the US Middle West
in 1952. For many years I was publicly active in Atheist causes. I am a
life member of American Atheists
who became interested in the historicity of Jesus in 1971.
CE and BCEare the initials for
Common Era and Before the
Common Era. They are being used
by scholars in place of AD and BCin
an attempt to be less offensive to
non-Christians,

Postscript from the editor

It is the policy of American
to use the nonreligious
CE.and BCErather than the both fictional and religious BC ("Before
Christ") and AD (Anno Domini, "in
the year of the Lord"). Obviously, if
Jesus never existed, all dates are
"before Christ"! "Before the Common Era" and "Common Era" simply make reference to the division of
time prevalent in the western world
without making an implicit assertion that the birth of an actual
Jesus marks the division point.

Atheist

Praise for Webmagazine &

Dennis McKinsey
First let me say that your Web
magazine
(http://www.americanatheist.org)
is truly
awesome!
Definitely the best Atheist Web site
I've found so far!
I was so delighted to read your
article entitled "Apologetic Defenses," by C. Dennis McKinsey in your
Spring 1997 issue. You see, I was
raised by Jehovah's Witness parents and, needless to say, had one of
the worst childhoods you could
imagine. Although I know my parents loved me very much and only
did what they thought was right, let
me just say that being a JW as a
child is the worst kind of cruelty a
kid can endure. I don't even want to
rehash those memories here and
Page 52

now. I'll spare you the gory details.

At my first possible chance, I ran
far and fast and never looked back.
After attending college and taking
such wonderful courses as biology,
astronomy, anthropology, world religions, and philosophy, I confidently
realized that the whole Jehovah
thing was so much hooey.
Well, I'm 35 years old now and
my mother is still a devoted JW.
(Dad passed away last year believing, of course, that he will someday
be resurrected.) Mom and I have
had many a heated argument over
her precious bible. Of course, after
being bombarded by astounding
feats of logic on my part, she hasn't
budged an inch. However, thanks to
your article, I am now armed with a
whole new arsenal of facts.
I know some of the things
brought out in your article are going
to have a serious impact on her
thought processes even if she never
admits it to me. I just can't wait to
lay it on her. I do love my mom of
course, and I don't really want to
destroy her whole view of the world.
She's had a lot of pain in her life and
I think she needs her faith to help
her cope with her losses. I just want
her to admit that there might be
some validity to what I'm saying. I
want to score at least one point and
now, thanks to you, I might be able
to. I know I'll never convert her to
my side, but at least I might be able
to stump her once.
Thank you, thank you, thank
you!
I'll practice on the next JW that
knocks on my door. They'll probably
run away in terror and warn all
their JW cohorts to stay away from
that "devil's" house. Thanks again,
and keep up the good work!
Robert Gonzalez
(From the Internet)

American
~

Atheist

American Atheist Magazine

in now on the
World-Wide-Web

http://www.
americana theist.org

Dial an Atheist
Current Atheist opinion
on just about every
thing that matters.
Frequently up-dated
recorded messages

Columbus, Ohio
(614) 294-0300

Salt Lake City, UT

(801) 364-4939
Autumn 1997

American Atheist

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.~&i;i;i;i;&i;i;i;i;&i;i;i;i;&i;i;i;i;eAeAeAeAeAeAeAeAeAeAeAeA~4
.4
414141"4.illlI11.jiii!

rarely waste time in reading on theological

subjects ... Ridicule is the only weapon which can
be used against unintelligible
propositions.
Ideas
must be distinct

before reason can act upon

them; and no man ever had a distinct

the trinity.

It is mere Abracadabra

mou ntebanks

of the

calli ng themse Ives the pri ests

of Jesus. If it could be understood

not answer their purpose.

it would

Their security

thei r facu Ity of sheddi ng darkness,

scuttle-fish,

idea of

thro' the element

move, and making it impenetrable

is in

Iike the

in which they
to the eye of

a pursuing enemy, and there they will skulk.