On this date in 1949, author and philosopher George Hamilton Smith was born in Japan to Juanita and Frank Smith. He grew up mainly in Tucson and attended the University of Arizona but left without graduating.
After moving to Los Angeles, he secured a contract with the help of libertarian editor Roy Childs Jr. to write a book on atheism. His book “Atheism: The Case Against God” was published in 1974 when Smith was 25.
In a 1982 review in Teaching Philosophy, Michael Martin criticized parts of the book for using flawed reasoning and said Smith too often contradicted arguments he’d made elsewhere in the book. But, Martin concluded, the book “provides a lively introduction to atheism. Although professional philosophers will no doubt find fault with many of Smith’s arguments, his critical attack should challenge our students and awaken them from their dogmatic slumbers.”
“Through inculcating the notion that sacrifice is a virtue, Christianity has succeeded in convincing many people that misery incurred through sacrifice is a mark of virtue,” Smith wrote in “The Case Against God,” adding, “Pain becomes the insignia of morality — and conversely, pleasure becomes the insignia of immorality. Christianity, therefore, does not say, ‘Go forth and be miserable.’ Rather, it says, ‘Go forth and practice the virtue of self-sacrifice.’ In practical terms, these commands are identical.”
Reviewer Margaret Placentra Johnston wrote that the book’s strongest contribution was Smith’s arguments separating religious belief from morality: “He cleanly refutes the conventional world’s stereotype of the atheist as an insensitive amoral cynic.” A new edition, with the foreword by Lawrence M. Krauss, was published in 2016.
Smith founded the Forum for Philosophical Studies on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles and taught there. From the mid-1970s to mid-1990s, he spent summers teaching political philosophy and American political and intellectual history at seminars sponsored by the libertarian Cato Institute and the Institute for Human Studies, also working as a research fellow at the institute located at George Madison University in Fairfax, Va.
Smith also worked in the 1980s as the general editor of Knowledge Products, a Nashville-based company that produced audio recordings in philosophy, history, economics and current affairs. He published “Atheism, Ayn Rand, and Other Heresies in 1991 and “Why Atheism?” in 2000.
In the latter, he wrote: “The leap of faith is a strategic impasse that confronts every Christian in search of converts; and, as he sees the matter, there is no wrong way to become a Christian. It is the end that is important, not the means; it does not matter why you believe, so long as you believe. For the philosopher, in contrast, the paramount issue is the justification of belief, not the fact of belief itself.”
Smith’s extreme libertarian views sparked controversy when he defended a Boy Scout troop in Anaheim, Calif., for expelling 10-year-old twins for refusing to include God in the Scout pledge. “Need I explain to my fellow atheists why we become infuriated when government tries to control our organizations?” Smith wrote. “Decent people should resolve disputes through reason and persuasion, not force, including the force of government. If atheists cannot persuade the Scouts to admit atheist children, we should respect that decision.” (New York Times, Jan. 9, 1992)
Smith addressed an FFRF mini-convention in San Francisco in 1999 just prior to publishing “Why Atheism?” His speech is here. He married Laura Kroutl in 2000, in Bloomington, Ill., where they settled. His book “The System of Liberty: Themes in the History of Classical Liberalism” was published in 2013.
He continued to promote libertarian and freethought views in various publications such as Reason magazine, Free Inquiry and The Humanist until suffering a stroke in 2021. He died at age 73 in the Bloomington Rehabilitation and Health Care Center. (D. 2022)
PHOTO: Smith in his 30s.
