Protecting the constitutional principle of the separation of state and church

Freethought Today

Vol. 22 No. 6 - Published by the Freedom From Religion Foundation, Inc. -
August 2005

View the Table of Contents for this issue

Letter Box

Minnesotan Becomes Life Member

The statement that "absolute power corrupts absolutely" is nowhere more clearly illustrated than when government and religion combine to enforce their agenda on an encircled populace.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation is one of the few courageous and effective organizations to point out the dangers and to fight the constant encroachment of this agenda.

I admire your strength, your skill, and your incredibly positive spirit, and I am happy to offer some small support with a Life Membership.

Lila Nelson
Minnesota

Joining in Parents' Memory

My father was a "secular Jew," as he phrased it. My mother, also from an Orthodox Jewish background and a nonbeliever, worried that I would describe myself as an atheist and get in trouble for it. My father often complained to me (even when I was a teenager in the 1950s) that in America, we have freedom of religion but we don't have freedom from religion.

My parents both lived into their 90s, but now they have both died. My father left an amount of money that ought to trigger the responsibility to pay some of it to society at large, but we don't really have an inheritance tax anymore. So I decided how much I believe the inheritance tax should be, and I'm paying it. I am mostly choosing groups I consider appropriate, based on my understanding of what mattered to my parents.

In the January 3, 2005, issue of The Nation, which would have been my father's 95th birthday if he had lived, Katha Pollitt's column recommended your organization. To further prove the power of coincidence, you are located in Madison, Wis., where my parents went to college and met, and that's why I'm in existence. I respect Katha Pollitt, and when I saw the name of your group, echoing an expression my father used, I saved her column.

So--like evolution--it's sort of "contingent." There may never be another that quite matches the series of coincidences that brought you to my attention.

I was pleased to see your publication--we certainly have some of the same heroes and I appreciate your activities. You can consider me a Lifetime Member. I'm 62 so I'm hoping for another 20 years or so.

Janet Arnold
California

Supporting the Foundation's Work

Last October, Anne and I attended your 27th annual convention in Madison, and we celebrated Independence Day at Lake Hypatia with the Alabama Freethought Association.

We want to support the Foundation and its great work. Please accept my application for Life Membership and my check for one thousand dollars.

Anne encloses her check for individual membership renewal and says "maybe next year for 'life.' "

Charles H. Miller & Anne K. Steiner
Oklahoma

Supporting Reason & Logic

In the irrational world of religious beliefs, my Lifetime Membership is one of the few ways I can give support to fundamental reason and logic based on science and materialism.

Keep up the good work!

David Noorthoek
California

"Had to Join FFRF"

Black Collar Crime Blotter and the rest of the paper is outstanding. I love the name of the section.

Once I read Freethought Today I had to join FFRF.

Tom Cousins
New York

"Love 'Beware of Dogma' CD"

Thanks for the information on your organization and a copy of the newspaper.

I love the CD, "Beware of Dogma."

Wish I had joined years ago. I am so upset with what is happening in this country today with the takeover by the religious right.

Keep up the good fight!

Doris Nixon
Maryland

"I'll Pass on Spells & Chants"

I have been a member of your fine organization for about seven years now and have enjoyed reading your newspaper as well as the bumperstickers, etc.

I own a Honda Gold Wing, the purchase of which automatically enrolled me in the Gold Wing Road Riders organization. I went to one meeting, everyone was very nice, but I did not go again. However, I was still on the local club's email list when I got notification that there would be a blessing of the bikes. Freaked me out.

I sent this reply, which got me kicked off of the email list:

"A Biker Blessing? Just who's going to be doing the blessing? The same guys who have been diddling little boys or the ones who were covering up for them? When did my motorcycle start needing to be blessed? I have a 24,000 mile service scheduled in two weeks. I guess that will have to do. I'll pass on letting the medicine man say his spells and chants over it."

Rudi Mueller
Wisconsin

Towns Arbitrate Luther, Zwingli?

An important point not discussed in the debate over posting the Ten Commandments on public property is which version goes on display--the decalog of Catholics and Lutherans (37% of the U.S., according to the latest CUNY Graduate Center Survey) or that of other Protestants or Jews (45%)?

The numbering systems of these versions are different--products of Reformation disputes, particularly over graven images. What makes this a not trivial distinction is that at some level--federal, state, city or town--it will be government representatives who decide which of the several versions is to be officially sanctioned.

Will the displayed Sixth Commandment forbid killing or adultery? Will the Seventh forbid stealing or bearing false witness? Some governing body will have to throw its weight on the side of one group of believers against the other. Luther and Zwingli may have argued, but the town council will decide.

It would be useful to point this out as often as possible in legal actions, public debate and discussions with religious friends who find posting the Ten Commandments a good thing.

Neil Leonard
New York

"Seventy Years A Humanist"

My life belies the saying, "Baptized a Catholic, always a Catholic." I went to a public school through the third grade. Then my Catholic parents moved near a Catholic school. I began my Catholic indoctrination in the fourth grade at nine years of age.

Our teachers were nuns without much required education and training in teaching.

One day we were learning to recite the Hail Mary prayer.

I raised my hand: "It says, 'Blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.' What does womb mean?"

The nun knew that all sexual items must be avoided. She hesitated and her face reddened.

I decided to help her. "Is it an adjective?"

She said, "Yes."

A little girl said: "Fruit of, seems like a tree."

The nun said, "Yes."

My best pal pointed out that in the prayer Jesus is the fruit, "How about that?"

The nun said, "Yes, how about that. Now we'll recite 'Our Father' again."

I had the makings of a skeptic.

Toward the end of summer vacation, before my sophomore year in high school, my best friend talked me into going to Campion, a Jesuit-run boarding school at Prairie du Chien, Wis.

In my year at Campion, I learned that the Jesuit brothers were not my idea of holy persons. For the first time, I heard adults use all of the sinful swear words. On weekends, some of the seniors would spend a night in town with brothers. I would hear stories. I decided that no one took hell seriously.

During Christmas vacation I went to the library and read about the sinful activities of popes, Martin Luther and during the Reformation. My friend did not go back to Campion after Christmas. I went back and finished my sophomore year. The day I left, the prefect in charge of my rooming hall hugged me and said, "Joe, do not come back another year. You do not need this place." I did not go back.

For 70 years I have been a humanist. I practiced law for 59 years. I am satisfied in my own mind that this great, marvelous, natural universe is all there is for me and my fellow humans and life-forms.

Religious leaders are hypocrites obtaining money and power from persons who do not think for themselves, while they exploit the natural universe for all its rewards and pleasures.

The death and installation of a successor pope for the Roman Catholics is fresh in our minds. What a display of wealth and power. Examine the election process, which claims to be an expression of the will of a supernatural power. If that is true, why does the Pope need a bullet-proof carriage? There is no evidence of a supernatural power.

Jos. A. Renihan
Michigan

No Testing of Voucher Schools

Some commentators, such as George Will, argue that school vouchers would give students a choice to escape "failing public schools" by attending private and parochial schools.

Aside from constitutional questions, unless private and parochial schools undergo the same rigorous testing under the "No Child Left Behind" Act, they may be failing even worse, and the diminished funding would destroy the public school system.

John Tomasin
New Jersey

"Poligiousity" Is the Problem

Here are two new words I have coined:

Poligious--two meanings:

1. Using religion to pursue political aims

2. Using politics to pursue religious aims/goals

Also poligiousity--excessively and obtrusively using religion to pursue politics or vice versa.

Julius Larson
South Dakota

A Small World

It is with great pleasure that I include our first donation to the Freedom From Religion Foundation. My husband and I have received so much from the newspaper and we look forward to the arrival of each new issue.

Like Dan Barker, I, too, was at one time deeply involved in fundamentalist Christianity. It has taken me 20 years or so to stop feeling guilty about thinking--it's all hogwash!

Dan's father Norm Barker plays in the orchestra I conduct. We just think Dan's "Beware of Dogma" CD is great! Dan is one helluva piano player!

I finished reading Woe to the Women by Annie Laurie Gaylor the other day, and it really opened my eyes to the devastating effect the bible has had on women for centuries. I will definitely be ordering more books from FFRF.

Thanks for fighting the good fight.

Skeets & Julie Mahoney
Arizona

"Sainted" Pope Hurt Humanity

Who has done the most damage to mankind: Pope John Paul II or Saddam Hussein?

This is really a rhetorical question. There can be no doubt about the answer. The late Pope wins the race, hands down!

Saddam Hussein was profoundly callous and evil while in office. He had thousands and thousands of his own people killed and certainly many, many thousands of Kurds. The upcoming trial will no doubt throw light on these and possibly many more atrocities. His "scene of operation" was essentially limited to Iraq (and, briefly, Kuwait) and this mercifully limited the extent of his profound misdeeds.

On the other hand, Pope John Paul II had a very large part of the Western World open to him and he was indeed a dedicated traveler. For a quarter of a century he traveled the world addressing the poor, the uneducated, the miserable, common people of the world.

In the name of a god whose existence has never been proven, he proceeded to tell his listeners what they were allowed to do and not allowed to do. He preached abstinence--a biologically unreasonable position. He forbade the use of birth control measures, with the result that millions of children were born to people who could not afford, or even knew how to take care of, the children or feed, clothe, shelter and educate them.

He forbade abortion, thus grievously infringing on the rights of every woman. But perhaps worst of all, he condemned the use of condoms, and as a result has single-handedly done more to spread AIDS in Africa than any other single cause!

This, probably, is his most sadistic act. Saddam Hussein's record pales in comparison to the harm done to humankind by the late pope. And now the Vatican is considering making John Paul II a saint!

Be rational--not religious.

W. Drost-Hansen
Virginia

Nothing Fails Like Prayer

Dan Barker sings out that "Nothing Fails Like Prayer." He is dead right!

For thousands of years, billions of Christians have offered up trillions of this same old prayer:

"Lord, let there be peace on earth!"

Nancy Littell Fox
87 years old
New York

Take Action, Atheists and Agnostics

When I get my Freethought Today, I have it out of the wrapper before I can get back in the house. I love all the articles and the letters. I especially identified with all the thoughts expressed by Frank A. Havasi (May 05). Frank, you are a true patriot and humanist. It was good to read your letter. You are so right, we all need to take some action. No action is too small, however small it might seem to us at first.

If all atheists would just take a small action, what a great force we would be!

Sybil F. Smith
Arkansas Atheist Grandma

Tyranny by the Majority

I love your newspaper and enjoy reading opinions from people who see life much the same as I do. I've been surrounded by "good Christians" my entire life; I grew up not expressing my nonreligious views to anyone.

The most difficult areas for me to reconcile are religious belief systems and the hypocrisy of those who profess to believe in the systems. As you're aware, lies and "double-speak" are prevalent in every area of our lives, and the right wing has learned how to use it to their advantage in politics and religion!

I fear for the safety of the democratic process now that one party owns god and they're in the majority (according to the 2000 US census). This country is subject to "tyranny by the majority" which is specifically outlawed by the Bill of Rights.

Thanks for your courage and dedication to the principles of the USA.

Bette C. McCurdy
Oregon