Howard Thompson (Gofreemind), Editor
Number 8 -- March 4, 1996
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News about atheist chat rooms, folders, and AOL happenings invited.
Copyright c 1996 by Howard Thompson.
Freedom Hall chats will allow Susan to use her AOL tools to get rid of Christian harassers who disrupt by scrolling. We do distinguish the usual evangelizers from disrupters. The profanity we can handle. The scrolling drives people away. Other atheists will no doubt continue chats in the public member's chat rooms and keep our presence alive in the wider arena.
"They've (ACLU) really made me feel welcome and are very friendly and helpful," says Susan. Sounds like a huge change from the Sermoner1's negative attitude and treatment.
Congratulations to Susan! She is once again able to contribute to our community as an AOL volunteer. HIP, HIP, HURRAH!
So, The Online Realist Newsletter, with the gracious volunteer help of TxBluEyes (Diane) and Moonsurfr (Rachel) is sponsoring a young realists E-mail list. Using flash sessions for E-mail is a lot cheaper than trying to keep up with folders online.
If you're young and want to talk to other realist, then send an E-mail to TxBluEyes and Moonsurfr. They'll compile the list and send it back out to everyone. That way, you've got a list of other young atheists and agnostics for correspondence. All you have to do after that is E-mail everyone on the list (by putting all their names separated by commas in the To: box on the mail form) and share your opinions.
It's also a good idea to spend a little time online in the Atheist Teen folder and post at least a "hello" to let others know that there are atheist teens to talk to.
The glories of local control have just been demonstrated in Tennessee. The Tennessee State Senate has passed legislation encouraging the posting of the Ten Commandments in homes, schools, businesses and places of worship. The bill was passed with only one fool dissenter crazy enough to buck the religious right's grip on the state.
So, three cheers for local control! In Tennessee, it means a return to the faith of the founders that has been perverted by meddlesome federal laws. "It is time we get back to the basics of morality," said the bill's sponsor Ben Atchley of Knoxville. That's the spirit! Too bad the nasty old federal government still pays lip service to civil rights and the first amendment. (Additional information from Duh Yup Uh).
"In a speech to the Heritage Foundation last month Mr. Buchanan asked whose rights had been protected by the Supreme Court. He did not mention such principal beneficiaries as women, racial minorities, or the press. His answer was criminals, atheists, homosexuals, flag-burners, illegal immigrants (including terrorists), convicts and pornographers'."How charming of Pat to lump us in with all the others who shouldn't have civil rights. If it upsets you to have the potential GOP presidential nominee think so lowly of us, think how uncomfortable you'd feel if he said he liked us.
We all owe Ben Sutter, the web page's creator, a big thanks for offering another service for the online realist community. So, sign on and meet some new friends. If all those receiving the Online Realist Newsletter entered their names on this list, the average city of 500,000 would have 19 names listed.
The page address is: http://www.sdsmt.edu/caa-bin/contact/.
"On 28 December 1995 Gov. Lowry of Washington state proclaimed January to be Celebrate State/Church Separation Month. On 29 Jan 1996 Mayor Geraghty of Spokane, Washington made a similar proclamation for Spokane. Spokane Chapter, Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) was instrumental in getting both of these issued."This will no doubt be followed by sanctimonious howls of outrage from fundies proclaiming that our nation was founded by Christians.
"The Secretary of State of Colorado announced that the initiative to place on the November ballot a proposal to tax the property of Churches and other non-profits has succeeded in obtaining enough signatures from legitimate voters."The Constitutional initiative was sponsored by Coloradans For Fair Property Taxation and collected 88,000 signatures. The issue attracted support partly due to recent activities of Colorado religious right organizations like Rev. James Dobson's Focus on The Family organization in Colorado Springs. It is encouraging that open opposition to the religious right can attract so much support.
"Satan . . . is as dangerous as we allow him to be. His primary weapon is deceit, and he uses it to prevent Christians from exercising the authority that is truly theirs in this world." (Pat Robertson, The Secret Kingdom, P. 207, 1st edition, 1982)."We need strong school board members who know right from wrong. The Bible, being the only true source of right and wrong, should be the guide of board members. Only Godly Christians can truly qualify for this critically important position . . . " (How to Elect Christians to Public Office, P.4, by Dr. Robert L. Simonds, President, National Association of Christian Educators.)
"America is now groaning! Atheistic secular humanists should be removed from office and Christians should be elected." (How to Elect Christians to Public Office, P. iii, by Dr. Robert L. Simonds, President, National Association of Christian Educators.)
Speaking of Barney, PBS's purple dinosaur kid show, "... straight out of the New Age and the world of demons and devils... a pro-liberal, politically correct, teacher of the current social values being promoted by the new generation of 'One Worlders.' America is under siege from the powers of darkness . . . " (Rev. Joseph Chambers, from Cox News Service report by Scott Shepard in Austin American-Statesman 11/25/93. Chambers runs a four state radio ministry in North Carolina.)
"Popular television is flooded with filth and violence; MTV, VH-1, and pop radio stations are sewers of obscenity, rebellion and violence; pop magazines promote the vilest forms of pornography and a form of materialism, selfishness, and greed that has fallen to the lowest levels in human history." (Pat Robertson, The New World Order, P.222-223, 1991.)
The United States is one of Western Civilization's more open, pluralistic societies. We have groups based on gender, sexual orientation, race, ethnic heritage, employment, industry, religion, environmental issues, politics, hobbies and just about anything else that brings people with common interests together.
There is an exception. The realists, who accept reality and reject the supernatural, have no significant infrastructure. Realists are no competition in the cultural warfare waged by Christians. We live in conquered territory. We are tolerated by the dominant Christian culture so long as we cause no trouble by asserting our voice in public issues.
Realists of whatever kind (agnostics, atheists, rationalists, free thinkers, humanists, skeptics, nontheists) are America's invisible minority. We are the silent, powerless outsiders in America's supernatural social and cultural life. Realists are unwanted guests at America's celebration of magic.
We must listen to God prayers as the price of attending government functions. Legislatures open with prayers by government chaplains. School graduations still begin with prayers. Local government meetings often begin with prayer. Governments frequently issue proclamations honoring a prayer day, week or month.
Ordinary consumer transactions use money marked with "in God we trust," our official national motto. Public buildings display religious statements. Our pledge of allegiance is to, "one nation under God." Public holidays honor Christian mythology at Easter and Christmas, celebrating the mythology of Jesus' birth and rebirth.
Federal taxes support official religion in the armed forces with chaplain officers commissioned by Congress. Our children study text books censored by religious activists. Our right to choose our manner of death is criminalized as murder. Our reproductive rights to control our bodies are under violent attack from religion. Our attempts to sanely cope with sexuality and emotional dysfunction are attacked as Satanic humanism.
Realists may not get hired by "Christian" businesses if their disbelief becomes known. Realists may find promotions and opportunities denied by Christian managers who favor fellow Christians, or even members of their own church. Christians in government may deny realists equal treatment through selective application of regulations and laws. Christian landlords may not rent to avowed atheists.
`Realists in America are an unorganized group without voice, without purpose, without power. We have no protection from religious cultural bias beyond the Constitutional rights our courts may occasionally protect. Realists are America's invisible minority.
Who is to blame? Why, we are, of course. We have exactly the amount of public voice and power we have earned for ourselves -- virtually none. We have worked for nothing, built nothing, and have nothing to carry forward our slim cultural heritage.
If our invisible, powerless status within Christian culture is ever to change, we must do it for ourselves. That change can only begin in the minds of realists who choose to act to make things different.
Change begins with accepting the reality of our existence in America. It begins with introspection that refuses to accept second class status. It begins with recognizing the value of organizing and joining together. It begins in individual realist minds that see how things are and choose to act for change.
Change scares most people. If we choose inaction from fear, nothing will ever change. Realists acting for change will be scary, it will rouse opposition, it will make fearful realists uncomfortable. Acting for change is also our only hope for a better future for ourselves and a society freed from supernaturalism.
Is get-along-to-go-along atheism good enough? Have we nothing to contribute to human progress? What future will we leave for younger realists? What will your mind choose?
Because of his connection with the poetic group known as the "school of night," led by Thomas Harriot and including Christopher Marlowe and George Chapman, he was accused of being an atheist. Robertson, after researching Raleigh's writings, considers Raleigh "a deist, given to free discussion." But in Raleigh's History of the World (1614), written in the Tower, if it is authentic, Raleigh makes clear his belief in deity and repudiates atheism and pantheism: "I do also account it an impiety monstrous, to confound God and Nature, be it but interms."
Queen Elizabeth, however, reportedly called Raleigh an atheist. In 1899 papers by Thomas Kyd were found in which Kyd, who had been arrested for atheism, said he got the papers from Marlowe and denied all sympathy with the views expressed. However, F. S. Boas in Fortnightly Review (1899) concluded that the material was a vehement Unitarian argument on Scriptural grounds and was much more likely to have been written by Francis Kett than by Marlowe. Whatever the facts, it was a time when rationalism was becoming more and more popular and a time when persecution of nonbelievers increased the zeal of those who objected to such persecutions.
My own inclination is to take Raleigh at his word, that he was neither an atheist nor a pantheist. But neither was he a devout believer. A rationalist, perhaps, in our current use of that word. But he didn't have that antireligious bug that I have, the kind that Lucretius, Nietzsche, Freud, and Russell had. Or as Paul Edwards and Gore Vidal have today.
Warren Allen Smith
wasm@haven.ios.com
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