American Atheist Magazine March 1978

8/10/2019 American Atheist Magazine March 1978

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This Issue: ATHEISTS SUE COUNCILS COIN SUIT FILEDCURE FOR NEUROSIS AN ATHEIST RESPONDS

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Vol . 20, No.3 March, 1978


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AMERICAN ATHEIS TS

A im s an d Pu rp o s es

1. To stimulate and p romote freedom of though t and inquiry conce rning religi ousbeliefs, creeds, dogmas, tenets, rituals and practices.

2. To collect and disseminate information, data and literature on all religion s andpromote a more thorough understanding of them, their origins and histories.

3. To advocate, labor for, and promote in all lawful ways, the com plete and absoluteseparation of state and church; and the establishment a nd maintenance of athoroughly secu lar system of education available to all .

4. To encourage the development and public acceptance o f a humane ethical system,stressing the mutual sympathy, understanding and interd ependence of all peopleand the corresponding responsibility of each, ind ividu a lly, in relation to society.

5. To develop and propagate a social philosophy in w hich man isthe central figure whoalone must be the source of strength, progress and id eals for the well-being andhappiness of humanity.

6. To promote the study of the arts and sciences and o f a ll problems affecting themaintenance, perpetuation and enrichment of human (a nd other) life.

7. To engage in such social, educational, legal and cultural ac tivity as will be usefuland beneficial to members of American Atheists and to s ociety as a whole.

Def in i t ions

1. Atheism is the life phi losophy Weltanschauung) of pe rsons who are free fromtheism. It is predicated on the anc ient Greek philos ophy of Materialism.

2. American Atheism may be defined as th e men ta l at titude which unreservedlyaccepts the supremacy of reason and aims a t es ta blishing a syste m o f phi losophyand ethics verifiable by experience, i ndependen t of al l arbit rary assump tions ofauthority or creeds.

3. The Materialist philosophy declares that t he cosmos is devoid of imm an e nt con -scious purpose; that it is gover ned by its own inherent, immutable and i mpersonallaw; that there is no supernatura l interference in human life; that man -findin g hisresourceswithin himself-can and must create his own destiny; an d that his poten-tial for good and higher development is for all practical purposes unlimit ed.


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Vol . 20, No.3

EDITORIA L 2LETTERS TO THE EDI TOR 3NEWS

Atheists Take City Counci ls To Court .4Coin Suit : No Trust In God s 7

FEATURE ARTICLESAtheism: A Cure Fo r Neurosis 10

The Cost Of Freedo m, Ruminations: Ignatz Sahula -Dycke 14A Loss Of Faith 16Twain On Death, Sh ibles Corne r: Wa rren Shibles 20The Soul-Just A CaseOf Bad Brea th 22Old Habits Die Hard 23Rooting For The Cannibal s , Reflect ions: Voltaire E. Heywood 26

AMERICAN ATHE IST RAD IO SERI ESMark Twain, American Ath e is t 29

ATHEIST BOOK REVIEWJesusSon Of Man 32

Editc)r -in-Chief : Madaly n Murray O'Hai r/Managing Editor : Jon Garth Mu rray/

Editor: Edmund Bojar ski/As sistant Editor: Barba ra Grimes/Circu lation : John Mays /Production : Ralph Shirley/Non-residential Staff: Anne Gaylor, War ren Sh ibles ,Ignatz Sahula-Dycke, G . Richard Bozarth , Voltaire E . Heywood, James Erickson .

The American Athe ist maga zine is publi shed monthly by Amer ican Atheists,2210 Hancock Drive, Aust in, Texa s, 78756 , a non-prof it, non-political , tax-exempt,education al organization . Mailing Address: P. O. Box 2117, Austin, TX , 78768;copyr ight @ 1977 by Socie ty of Separat ionists, Inc.; Subscription rates: $15 .00 pe ryear; $25 .00 for two yea rs. Manuscripts submitted must be typed, doub le-spacedand accompanied by a stamped , self-add ressed envelope . The ed itors assume noresponsibility for unsolicited manuscripts .

THE AMERICAN ATHE IS T MAGAZINEPost Office Box 2117Austin, Texas 78768

Enter my subscri ption for on e year a t $1.5.00 (two years at $25.00).

NEW RE NEWAL

Total Enclosed , _

Name

Addres s

City, State , & Zip

Austi n, Texas

Ma rch , 1978

ON THE COVER

Despite the armament ra ce andthe escalating sophisticatio n of kill-power, there is only one p ossiblekind of revol ution to day in ourwo rld -and that is the revoluti onwhich can occur only with eachindividual: a revolution betweenthe ears .

Unless and until each individualperson, everywhere , comes to gripswith the ob jective reality of natureand human life, we will be sore putto ordering the human communityso that the fall -out bene fit of suchordering wi ll be not alone the free -doms from hunge r, from want, fromfear , but also the elusive freedomof equal justice for all .

Mankind's laws need to be asimpartial as natu re's laws, fallingon all equally , not giv ing or takingquarter .

It is for this reason that Am eri-can Atheists have insis ted uponthe seizing of four g\eat natura lholidays set by the inex orable lawsof nature. These belong to allmen, everywhere, for all time.They ce lebrate the geom etricprocession of the earth as it re achesfour cardinal points in the c ease-less ellipse which it g enerates a roundthe sun: the vernal and autum nalequinoxes, the summer and w intersolstices.

The cover p icture , a depic tionof the bluebonnets o f Texas, o neof the 1 ,600 wild flower vari etiesin thi s state alone, joyously r epre-sents the bu rsting fullness of thevernal equinox, the entran ce ofspring --and surely a time for y ou tostart your revolut ion and to rejoicethat you a re a part of na ture andof mankind .

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-o n G . M u r r a y

The Vernal Equinox

Whan that Aprille with his shoures soteThe droghte of Marchehath perced to the rote,And bathed every veyne in swich licour,Of which vertu engendred is the - flour;Whan Zephirus eek with his swete breethInspired hath in every holt and heethThe tendre croppes, and the yonge sonneHath in the Ram his halfe cours y -ronne,And smale fowles maken melodye,That slepen al the night with open yeSo priketh hem nature in hir corages

Than longen folk to goon on pilgrimages

These immortal words are, of course, from Chau-cer's Prologue to The Canterbury Tales. Theydescribe the wonders of spring bursting upon theEnglish countryside--the most awaited seasonof thefour when winter's blight is lifted and the greenoflife returns to the land. But even this joy must bedenied to those who follow the false savior for asChaucer puts it, their first duty is the holy blisfulmartir for the seke . Death to be honored first be-fore the wondersof birth.

On this, the holiday season for all mankind,transcending all boundaries of nation or race, theChristian gang of bandits rob us of life to salutethe death and imagined resurrection of their Iord.The vernal equinox (5:34 p.m., CST March 20th,this year) is the first day of spring. Visions of babybunnies, chicks and ducklings bounce in children'sheads. Eggs, the symbols of life itself, the newchick bursting forth colored brightly for the cele-bration. A ll subverted by lillies of death and thecarnaqeof crucifixion.

How dreadful to celebrate the murder of one'sonly son. A kind creator that kills his only child

in cold blood in order to save him? Such a storyis not fit for the eyes or ears of a singlechild . Therenewal of life is the most wonderful of all events.A birth of any new entity, be it plant, mammal ,insect or fish, is a moment of happiness. New ad-ventures, things for the fledgling to do and seeand learn. Is death and the promise of a dream

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world more dear? To the uneducated m in d, th esavagethat dwells in the va lley of ignorance st ill,perhaps, but to the 20th century mind tales ofhorror fit only for the films of Vincent P rice.

The choice is yours; spend you r life preparingto die for the experience of a never-ending dream,or live now in the only world you know. Ingersollput it best when he said, Give me the storm andtempest of thought and action rathe r than thedead calm of ignorance and faith . Ban ish me fromEden when you w ill, but f irst let me eat .of thefruit of the tree of knowledge.

In short, life is to be grappled w ith a nd in thatstruggleto enjoy all the victories and de feats astheycome, becausethey are all you'll know . S eek to passon asyou go a bit of kindness to all that crossyourpath so that their struggle may be enjoyed all themore .

, Atheism breaks down the barriers of nat ional-ities and, like one touch of nature, makesthe wholeworld kin, said Joseph Lewis. The seasonsof life,the four great holidays we seek to save from the

Christian cloud of gloom, do just that.In th is seasonof so much life let nature be yourguide to the best of all things . Like the bluebonnetson the Texas field scenewhich gracesour cover thismonth, bloom so that you and your fellows aboutyou may fulfill your only purpose here, to live andto help others to come to I ive better.

American Atheist


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Dear Edito r:We recently m ade a tr ip to Seattle, and while given a tour of the

unde rgro u nd p art of the c ity (Pioneer Square) we were told bythe tour g u ide t h a t a fa m ou s Seat tle resident and Atheist willed alarge amoun t o f mo n ey to the c ity on condition that the city pro -vide a pla q ue co ntaini ng hi s name. The money was used for theSeattle ope ra ho u se , bu t because he was a notorious Atheist , thecity fat h ers p ut th e p la que in the basement of the opera house.Perhaps the S e a ttle Ch ap te r could mount a campaign, or even sue,to rig h t th is wrong .

Lastly , I n ote tha t th e o rg's (pardon the use of a Scientology

term) conve n tio n wi ll be he ld i n S.F. n ext year . I have some freetime and if there i s anyth ing I can do here (provided it doesn'tconflict w ith m y f irst love, vegetarianism, and provided I won'thave to layo ut money--I dropped out and don't have much) Iwill be happ y t o help.

David PressmanSan Francisco, CA

P .S . When we entered Was h in gton State we were given the en-closed photograph wit h i nformation about the governor at theinforma tio n booth . O n t h in king about Dixy Lee Ray, it occurredto me tha t she a n d D r. O 'H a ir have a lot in common: physicalappearance , age , P h .D ., icono c lastic, gender, accomplishments

in unre lated fie lds , etc. I wo n der if she's an Atheist. The pictureof Dr. O'Hai r in Newsweek for Dec. 1, 1975, p. 22, looksastound ingl y s imi la r to the enclosed picture of Gov. Ray.

Pres. O'Hair Gov. RayDear Dave,

We agre e w h ol eh e arte dl y that someth ing needs to be done aboutthe Seattle o p e ra house . Let 's h ear it from our people in the Seattlearea

Thank you fo r the of fe r of help in San Francisco. We'll needall we can ge t bec ause we expect the largest turnout in AmericanAtheis t histor y . We' ve a lready writ ten to you on this matter andhereby re q ue st a n y fo rm o f h e lp from our readers in the far West.What we nee d in p ar tic ul ar is pre-convention publicity.

The Editor

Dear Editor :I was very glad to rec eiv e your

letter. It is delightful for me toreceive a letter from you. Pleaseextend to your pres id ent, Dr .Madalyn Mu rray O 'H a ir mywarm regards .

I am very much in terestedin American Atheist s , andwould like to know moreabout your or ga nizat ion .

Your letter wa s po stmarkedAug, but it was de l ive red tome on Octobe r 2 8. Si n cesurface ma il take s so long,will you please send you rmail by air n e xt time ifpossib le?

I hope that I m a y continueto correspond with you be-cause I adm ire th e work youare doing fo r AmericanAtheis ts. The mo re oppor-

tunities to ge t to g ether withAmerican Ath e ist s given tome, the more I can do forthe futur e o f AmericanAthe ists. I'll do my bes t.

I fee l it a n h ono r, to be -come a membe r of Americ a nAthe ists. And I am e ncl o sing$30, half for me mb er ship andhalf fo r a subscr ip tion . I sh o ulddeem it a grea t favo r if youwould kindly le t me h a ve ananswer at yo ur ear l ie s tconvenience . Tha nk y o u.

San g M a n, KimSung Buk- Ku, Seoul

Dear Mr. Kim :We . are please d to have sub-

scribers in ma ny countries ofthe world and war ml y we lcom ethis one from Korea. We alsohope that you wi II kee p usinformed of an y A th ei st ac-tivities and developme n ts in .your count ry b eca us e ourreaders enjoy hearing abou twhat their fel low Ath e is tsin far away pla c es a re d oin g .

The E dito r


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1111[ - . . . . . - :_ N _ E W l _ SJ I i\1 I I i\t tf I1 1 1 1Atheists Take City

Councils To CourtThe legal strategy was to file (almost) identicalsuits--one in a New Jersey Federal District Court,one in a Texas Federal District Court, both chal-lenging opening invocational prayers in city gov-ernments. In both cases the governmental bodiesto be challenged were the city councils.

In New Jersey, the litigant would be Paul Marsa,Director of the New Jersey Chapter of AmericanAtheists. In Texas, the litigants would be JonMurray, Director of American Atheists and Madalyn

Murray O'Hair, President of the Society ofSeparation ists.In Texas, the city council prayers had already

been used as a vehicle to challenge the archaiclaw of Texas that all persons elected to publicoffice and all persons employed by the state arerequired to have a belief in a Supreme Being.In order to make that challenge it had been nec-essary for Dr. O'Hair to have herself arrested inrespect to the city council prayers. In that in-stance, she went to the council chambers and whenordered to either participate in the prayers or to

leave the room, she refused to do elther -resultinqin her arrest. That case, being underway and pro-ceeding satisfactorily, was the precedent for thetwo caseschallenging the prayers.

All things being agreed, the law firm of JudithAbbott and Debby Gardner was again employed.Their collaborator, David Horton, a Denver, Colo -rado attorney, flew to Austin for the planning.After days of research, grueling hours, collabora-tive constructive criticism from the Society ofSeparationists own in-house attorneys, RalphShirley and Madalyn O'Hair, a substantive battleplan was accepted.

Hostile Judges

The suit being scheduled for filing in Austinon December 18th, David Horton flew to NewJersey the weekend before to consult with severalConstitutional experts in several Eastern univer-sities. A New Jersey attorney of record was neededand after exploration with the New Jersey CivilLiberties Union it was discovered that the federaldistrict court judge in New Jersey was so hostilethat a suit there would be almost futile. Actually,

the same situation exists in Texas with the federaldistrict court judge in open hostility. However,the judges are bound by prior decisions and theirdecisions are open to appellate review and becomea part of legal history and of the precedent systemitself. It was felt necessary to take a chance on onefedera l judge and to move the other case to a statecourt, with the knowledge that we must expectadverse decisions in both lower courts and that wewould obtain relief only as we got into the appellate

system.On December 18th two cases were filed. In theUnited States District Court for the Western Dis-trict of Texas, Austin Division, Civil Action No.A-77-236, the case of Madalyn Murray O'Hair andJon Murray v. Lee Cooke, Richard Goodman , BettyHimmelblau, Mayor Carole McClellan, Ron Mullen ,Jimmy Snell and John Trevino, City Council Per-sons, was filed. In New Jersey in the Superior Courtof New Jersey , Chancery Division, Middlesex County,Civil Action No. C 1311 77, the case of Paul Marsav. Mayor Donald J . Wernik, Donald J. Barnickel,

John W. Bertrand, Diane Forney, Dennis O'Leary,Thomas E. Sharp and John Wiley Jr, BoroughCouncil Persons, was filed.

First Amendment Issue

In the Texas court, it was pleaded that the Mur-ray-O'Hair plaintiffs were seeking to secure theirrights guaranteed by the First and Fourteenth A-mendments to the Constitution of the UnitedStates and specif ically the right of freedom ofreligion, including both the right of free exerciseand invoking the prohibition of the governmentalestablishment of religion. The heart of the matterwas contained in a specific paragraph:

The Defendants, (Mayor and City Council'members) acting under color of law and exercisingthe authority they hold as elected officials of theCity of Au st in , State of Texas, have established,

I and now m aintain and sanction the custom andusage of incorporating a rei igious ceremony as partof the off icial business of the City Council of Austin,Texas by conducting a religious prayer ceremonyat such official meetings.

The news which fills one half of the magazine is chosen to demonstrate , month after mont h, the dead react ionar y hand of religi on. It dictatesgood hab its, sexual conduct , famil y size, it cen sures cinema , theater , televi sion, even edu cation. It dictates life values and li festyle. Reli gion i spolitics and , always , the most authoritarian and reactionary polit ics. We editorialize our n ews to e mphasize this thesis. Unlik e any other maga-

~ine or newspaper in the United State s, we are honest enough to admit it.

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It was concluded that: Each Defendant having knowledge of the wrongs

onspired to be done ... and having the power torevent or aid in preventing the commission of sameefuse and neglect to take such appropriate action toemedy the continuing violation alleged herein which

with reasonable diligence she or they could haverevented ...

Wherefore, the Plaintiffs asked the court torant relief of the following nature:

Ita. Declare unconstitutional as an admixture

of church and state the practices complained of;b. Issue an injunction enjoining Defendants fromconducting such prayers in connection with CityCouncil meetings;c. To award Plaintiffs and the class they representthe sum of One MillionDollars ($1,000,000);d. Issue a declaratoryjudgment that suchpractice is unconsti-tutional;e. Award Plaintiffs at-

torneys' fees;f. Award Plaint iffs all fcosts and expenses.. .In New Jersey a simi-

r complaint was filedth Robert A. Vort,e attorney of record,t with Abbott, Gard-r and Horton doing

of the work . In thatate the Defendantuncil members asked

r an extra 30 daysgive their response .Austin, the response

s been received .One of the precau-

ns taken in Austin,xas, was to obtain ' pies of the agenda

the Austin City Council meetings . On these, itclearly indicated that the bus iness meeting of

e council is first called to order and that the secondcident of the meeting is the invocation, called for

the mayor . It was therefore somewhat of a shock,e kind which brings a chuckle , to find in the answer

the Defendant members of the council the fol-wing:

1. Defendants admit that most meetings of theCity Council of the City of Austin commencewith an invocation.2. Defendants deny that they established thepractice of commencing the Austin City Councilmeetings with an invocation .3. Defendants deny that the prayer or invocationreferred to in Plaintiffs ' Compla int is part of the

official business of the meetings of the City

ustin, Texas

Council of the City of Austin.In New Jersey, the Borough attorney immediately

went to the newspapers ( The News Tribune and The Home News ) to advise what his battle tac-tics would be against Paul Marsa. He pointed outthat he would not, (unlike Austin) dispute thatthere are prayers at the meetings, but rather he woulddepend on a nine-point defense:

* Under the law, the plaintiff fails to state a causeof action; the mayor and council have the rightto decide the ru les and regu lations of the body.

*The invocation is solely for the benefit of thecouncil, not for anyone else .*The plaintiff has no standing since he is nota member of the council .* Even if the plaintiff is caused discomfort (by

being subjected to theprayer), as he contendsin his suit, one cannotsue for that type ofdiscomfort.*The plaintiff has notcommenced a class ac-

tion, therefore he maynot contend that otherpeople would be dis-suaded from attendingcouncil meetings be-cause of the invocation.*The defendants shou Idbe allowed their rightof free speech, underthe Constitution.*The plaintiff's civilrights have not been

violated.*No member of thepublic is required toparticipate in the invo-cation. There is a lackof compulsion in theconduct of the meeting.*The invocation is

consistent with other spiritual recognitions, suchas the president's Thanksgiving message, the Pledgeof Allegiance, the phrase In God We Trust onU.S. currency .

Meanwhile, Councilwoman Diane Forney voted no to a resolution authorizing the borough at-torney to defend the council noting that she didn'twant to spend the taxpayers' money defendingsuch a position when she agreed with Marsa. Allalong, she said, she had felt more comfortablewith a moment of silent meditation. Mrs. Forneyalso announced her resignation from the counciland she will probably be severed from the suit.Her replacement on the council could be included,in her stead.

All of this, of course, is only a part of the pre-

liminary jockeying which comes with a political

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s u it filed in the courts. There must be an interchange estimation of most reason a ble people, giVing theof interrogatories, several more pre-trial motions, full implication that A theists mu s t then be unreason-pre-tria l findings, before e ither case even gets to a able people . On e membe r sta te d t ha t si nce thetrial . council must conside r iss u e s af fe c tin g th e l ives o f

Much of what goes on could well be titled under 16,000 borough residents, 1 th ink every add itiona l Iitig ious education. When such suits are filed, they bit of guidance we can ge t is hel pful. Thi s re in force sa re the n used as vehic les through which the public the idea that there is a god a nd th a t h e c an direc tlym ay be educated in respect to the principle of state/ interfere in such mun dane h uman ac tivit ies asc hurch separation. In New Jersey, the news was council meetings and b rin g ther eto g u idanc eele c tric . The Home News newspaper of Middlesex which would otherwise no t be a va ila b le.and Somerset Counties, N .J., carried a series of In the general Bibl ical theme of a little c hild

articles, as did the News Tribune of Woodridge, shall guide them , the H om e News newspa perN .J., the magazine New Jersey, The Star featured a large a rtic le w h ic h r eported - tha t 400Ledger newspaper, The Recorder newspaper, elementary school c hi ldre n of St . H e lena's sc hool The Cour ier -News newspaper, New York Daily in Edison, New J e rsey s e nt pr aye rs to the cityNews and-of course-- The New York Times news- council members in su p po rt of their pos ition topaper. The pictu re reproduced on the previous retain prayer . Th e tow n of E dis o n , o f co urse , waspage i s th at carr ied in the New York Times on named for the Ame rican Ath ei st w ho gave us theNovembe r 25th , 1977. light bulb, Thomas Alva E d iso n, even if the town

The is s ue s , facts and ideas brought out by these is still unenlightened n ow . A la rge pi cture of onerepo rts are sometimes hostile, somtimes distorted, child, age nine , wa s featu red in thi s a rt icle , whichs ometime s inflamatory, but seldom in favor of described the children at len g th as includin g prayersthe pos ition of Atheism. For example, The New for Marsa, whether o r not h e wan ts th e m. When

York Times story stated that Marsa had enlisted asked i f the ch ildre n h ad the idea of writing thethe support of the executive director of the state letters , - the princ ipa l, a Roma n C a th o lic nun , saidof New J ersey chapter of the American Civil Lib- that the idea had come f rom . a l oc al priest. How -ert ies Union. That executive director very carefully ever, she volunteered that Th e C o nstitution wasstayed away from the attorney who travelled to founded by Ch rist ians -- ind ic ati n g that she isNew Jersey to meet w ith him. He was actively completely ignorant o f Ame rican history.

P aul Mar sa is an A theist. That makes him a target for ab usi v e telephone calls , th reateninglette rs, bomb s cares an d accusations of communism. --A New Jersey newspap er.

di s couraging in his conversations and later made Paul Marsa instan tly replied t o th e Sister advisi ngit publicly known that he felt a different and her that the nation was fo und e d by Deists, n o t bette r suit could have been filed by attempting Christians and charged:

to keep s tate salaries away from ministers stationed Finally, you h ave co lle c tively and f la g ra ntlyin New Jersey institutions. Marsa is also cited as misinformed and l ied to yo ur c h a rge s. M o re sig-havi ng obtained the support of a Unitarian pastor nificantly and at roc io u sly , y o u have manipul a te dwho had o n ce led a meeting of the council in prayer, them deceitfu lly to gain p ublicity by d e lib er a te lybu t who now opposes the practice. The minister keeping them u n in fo rmed an d limit e d in the scoped id speak out at a council meeting but was very of their understanding . O f course, the p a per didmuch missing at the time of the filing of the law not de ign to prin t Mars a's re ply .su it a n d s ubsequent needed publicity. Naturally , loc al cler gy we re pol led as to o p in ions

T h e New York Times was the sing le news - in respect to th e su it. S in ce Mars a is of Je w ish e x-p ape r which nodded to another one of our valiant traction, a rabb i was appro ac h e d in Metuch e n,me mb e rs w h en it noted that Marsa and other rnern- New Je rsey, Marsa 's ho m e tow n. Th e ra bbi opin edber s o f Ame rican Atheists --including the actress tha t, If th ey did aw a y w ith it I w oul dn't o b jec t.

Bu tte rfly McQueen, best known for her role as Prissy It 's sa luti n g Go d f or two seconds . T h e p a stor o fin 'Gone With The Wind '--paced the council cham- the U ni tarian C hurc h in Eas t B ru nswick, New Jers ey ,be rs earlier to argue for abolition of the opening depicted t h e inv oca tion as a corpor ate a ct andinvoca tion. The paper quoted Marsa as saying, stated that th e pr a ye r is reci ted with litt le m ea ni ng, I'm an A theis t, but more than that I'm a separa- hence he objec ted to it. The p riest of St . Fr an ci s '

tion ist. I believe in the absolute separation of Roman Catholic Chu rch fel t th at t h e co u n ci l rea llychurch a n d state . It is not a minor point because believed in p ra yer an d that It is a tim e-honoredP au l Mar sa is a separationist, but more than that precedent s in ce th e founding of ou r co u nt ry toan Ath e ist since the choice of Atheism comes acknowledge the sup reme be ing pub lic ly. Thefirst. pastor of the Ce ntena ry Uni ted Method ist Chu rch

Much o f this art icle was taken up with comments in Metuche n al so pra ised the decis io n t o kee p theof t he co u nc il members that the invocation is always invocat ion . 1 s ee p rayer as posi tive and con s true -n o n de n o min a tiona l and not a harmful thing in the tive and would fee l tha t th e decis io n t o p reserve

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prayer at the council meet ing would be a healthydecision. The New Jersey C ivi I Liberties Uniondirector has said that his group is not ready to

d h .make a statement or take a stan on t e SUit. The Hecorder : newspaper treated Paul Marsa

asan aber rant , in language such as this : Never mind that he is clean cut, well spoken,

conservatively dressed--the embodiment o f middleAmerica. Or that by his own admission, he is aloyal American, a capitalist, a chamption of lawand order. And that he was wounded in the KoreanWar.

The papers delight in recording : Paul Marsa is an Atheist . That makes him a

target for abusive telephone calls , threateningletters, bomb scares and accusations of communism.

We sometimes feel that if the newspapers wouldnot play up the few zanies , if they did not go tothe re ligious leaders for opinions, there would notbe the abusive telephone calls , the threatening let-ters, the bomb scares or the accusations of com -munism. The newspapers dwell on these ideas sothat religious freaks are encouraged to enjoy thefun of targeting an Atheist for fou l play. They in-sist that the heretic has a lone ly life, which is afantasy the news media builds. Always , a gratu itousinsult is included: Marsa is as zealous in his causeas the most devoutly rei igious are in the irs. Wefeel this adds insult to injury. In no way can thefanatically religious person be equated to the cool,determined , logical Atheist.

The final deprecation is always similar to thatwhich was found in The New York Times NewJersey Opinion column written by a rabbi . In thisarticle. the rabbi decries that the giving of invo-

cations is token window dressing and not a signi-ficant religious experience and hence he believesthat there should be none. The inference of his

contribution to the issue is that only 'prayer whichis significant and a manifestation of a religiousexperience should be included. That would be evenmore unconstitutional than the token prayer,but the rabbi , in an effort to make 'the Jewishposition' p a latable to the dominant Christ ian pop -ulace of New Jersey and New York fawns andmalingers intellectually before them all .

Meantime, in Austin , Texas, the Austin Amer-ican-Statesman newspaper cont inued the straight

reporting which it had begun in late November.The issues were accurately reported. There wasno attempt to distort. Facts were marshalled a llin a straight row . The Letters To The Edi to rcolumn , of course, erupted. Every radio a ndtelevis ion station in town bristled with the ne ws.The telephones never stopped ringing a t theAmerican Atheist Center.

And, BBC (the British Broadcasting Comp any)phoned from London, England, to wo rk outsome coverage; The New York Ti mes newsp apersent a reporter to Austin to do extensive co ve rageon the Center; John Dean (yes, THE John D e an)called to interview Dr. O'Hair for h is nationalradio program ; and, Harvard Law Schoo l req u e stedan autographed pictu re of her to hang in its hal lof fame.

Meanwhile, all suits continue, w ith m ore to come.To date, the legal costs have been sli gh tly ove r

$6,000 with more coming up . We nee d to pushall of these suits. We ask yo u , and we w ill as k youagain and again, to keep the legal fund in mind andto write what checks you can . We want to p u s hevery suit as far as we can. The add ress again , n o w,for you is

Legal Fund, American A the is tsP . O. Box 2117

Austin, Texas 78768

C O IN S U IT :

No TrustIn Gods

Madalyn Murray O 'Ha ir,American A theist leader andJon Garth Murray , her son andGeneral Manager of the Ameri -can Atheist Center this monthannounced their attack on thenational motto of the UnitedStates, In God We Trust.

Dr. O 'Hair and Jon Murray,in answering the United Statesgovernment's claim that I nGod We Trust on our nation'scurrency only reflected a pa-

triotic slogan which was the

nationa l motto, charged thatthe nat ional motto, too, thenwas unconstitutional andasked that it be stricken as such.

The government 's reply camein a demand that the suit filedby the Murray-O'Hairs to re-move In God We Trust fromall currency and coins be dis-missed.

Scoffing at the reply JonMu rray pointed out that aser ies of laws were passed

during the time of the Mc -

Carthy hyste ria when t h e g o v-ernment was ask ing thenation's relig ions to ra llyagainst the menace of G o d -less Communism . Th eselaws, he said, passed u n de rthe Eisenhowe r-Nixon regim ewere:

June 14, 1954 , ad d ingthe words under God t othe Pledge of Allegiance;

July 11, 1 955,it mandatory that

rency and coins

ma kin gal l cu r-

bear th e


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pejorat ive : In God WeTrust ;

July 3 0 , 1 9 5 6, r e p lac ingE Pl ur ibu s Unum (o ut of

many--one ; i.e . ou t of manypeople ca me o ne n a tion)with In Go d W e Trust.

Mr. Mu rray not e d that t hecold wa r is ov e r, that ma n ypatriotic Americans a reAtheists and Agnostics andhat it wa s time to corr ectthe violat io ns of stat e /c h urchseparation wh ich had b ee n pe r-petrated a t th e time the n a tio nwas seized w ith hy st eria and fea r.

He also noted that sin ce afede ral la w, 18 U.S . C o de 331,333 pr ohibi ts mutilation o f th emo n ey so that Ath e ists/ Agnos -tics m ay not e ve n d ra w a linethrou g h th e off e n d ing p hr ase ,this leave s th e m witho ut aremed y, forcing th e m to si -lently ac qui e sce in a g ove rnmentestablis h ment of r e i ig ion andeven dep riving them o f fre edomof sp e ec h in th e matt e r a sthey ha nd Ie th e mo ne y.

Meanti me, a more exten s ivehist or y of the coinage l a w s.has bee n o b ta ine d.

It is , o r o ught to be, w idelykn o wn in the na tio n th a t o urfo un ding fat h er s were, almos tto a man , De istic . T ha t is ,they be lieve d in n a tur e a n dnat u re's go d a nd we re an ti-Christian , vie win g C h ris tianityas a bane u po n mankind.

It appe ared th a t in 18 3 2a little company of Bap tistsstarted wh at cam e t o beknown a s the Old Ri d leyBapt ist M e e ting H ous e inProspec t Park, Pen n s ylvania.At th e time of the b e gin ning

of the Civ il War in th e U nitedStates the minist e r th e re wasMark R . Wa tk in s o n. On Nov.13, 1861 h e w rot e a letterto Salmon P . Ch a se, Secretaryof the T reas u ry p rop o sing th a ta motto g iving reco g niti o n t ogod be p la c ed o n the c o in sof the n at io n. His speci ficidea was:

One fac t to u c hing ourcurrenc y h as hitherto b een

ser ious ly o ve rlooked. I meanthe recogn ition of the Alm ighty

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God in some form on our coin s.What if our republic were nowshattered beyond reconstruction.Would not the antiquaries ofsucceeding centuries rightlyreason from our past that wewere a heathen nation 7

The reverend was correct.It was an old theme. From thetime of the inception of thenation the ministry had beenharping that the exclusion ofgod from the Constitutionwould br ing disaster upon thenation. In th is instance, Wat -kinson suggested a motto onthe theme of God, Liberty,Law and asserted Th iswould relieve us from theignominy of heathenism. Thiswould place us openly unde rthe Divine protection we have

national recognition.An Act of Cong ress on

April 22, 1 864 gave Treasuryofficials discretionary authorityconcern ing inscriptions on then ation 's m in or coins, and . them otto first appeared on thes hor t-live d t wo cent bronzepi ece coined in May, 1864.On March 3 , 1865 this author-ity was extended to gold ands ilve r coins and in the leg is-lative act, for the first time,the motto I n God We T rustwas specifical ly mentioned.Th e mo tto then bega n t oappea r on $ 5, $ 10 and $ 20g old p ieces and on sil ver25-cent, 50-cent and 5 -centp ieces . Because of design lim-itations it was dropped fromthe Liberty Head Ni c ke l first

personally claimed . From myheart I have felt our nationa lshame in disowning God asnot the least of our presen tnational disasters .

Secretary Chase receivedthe letter, decided that theidea had merit and promptly

dispatched a letter to JamesW . Pollock, director of theU .S . Mint at Philadelphia,Pa.

No nation can be strongexcept in the strength of God,o r safe except in H is defense.The trust of our people inGod should be declared ono u r national coins. You willcause a device to be preparedwithout delay with a mo tto

expressing in the fewest andtruest words possible th is

coined in 1883 and from itssuccessor , the Buf falo Nickel .The cent remained withoutthe motto until 1 906, thedim e until 1916 and then ickel until 1938.

Meanwhile, Pres ident TeddyRoosevelt caused a tum u ltuous

response w h en he v iewed thes ituation. At the time of hise lection to office the UnitedS tates eagle and double eaglec oins were literally the coinsof the realm . The eagle hadbeen in circulation since 1838and the double eagle since 1854 .Teddy did not like the coinsand asked the sculptor AugustusSaint -Gaudens to redesign thecoins in 1907 , without the

motto. My own feeling in the

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matte r, he wro te, is due tomy very fir m co n viction t h atto put s uch a motto on coins,or to use it in a ny kindredmanner, n o t on ly does nogood but doe s p o s itive h arm,and is in effe ct irreve rence,wh ich comes dan gerous lyclose to sacri lege.

. it se em s to me emi -nently unw ise to ch e a pen

such a mott o by use on coins,just as it wou ld b e to c he apenit by use on po sta ge s tamps,or in advertisem ent s.

He noted th a t h e hadheard the e xp ression In GodWe Trust use d li te rallyhundreds of time s a s an oc -casion of, and inc ite m e n t to,the sneering rid icu le which i tis above all th ing s un de sir a blethat so beautifu l a n d exal ted

a ph rase shou ld exci te. . . . Ever yo n e , must re-

member the u nnum era bl e [ sic]cartoons and articles b ased o nphrases like 'I n God we trustfor the other eight cent s'; 'I nGod we trust fo r the s h ortweight'; 'In God we t rus t fo rthe thirty -s even c ents w e donot pay'; and so fort h an d s oforth. Surely I am wel l wit h inbounds when I say that a use

of the p hrase which in vitesconstant levity of th is typ eis more undesi rable .

I f Congress a lters the la wand directs me to repla c e onthe coi n s the s ente n ce in ques -tio n , the direction w ill be i m -mediately put into e ffect ; b utI very earnestly trus t th a t th ereligious sentiment o f th e coun-try, the spirit of reve rence inthe country , wi ll pre ve nt any

such notion being t a ke n . Teddy, of course, wa s wro n g.Congress was ov e rwhe lm ed withcommunicat ions f ro m th e cle rgyand religious folk a nd on May18, 1908 it passed leg is lationwhich made it m a ndat o ry t h atthe motto be us ed on a ll goldand silver coins (e xcept thedime --where it ha d not yetappeared).

The situatio n r em ai n ed - s ountil the e arly 1 9 5 0's whenanother perso n l aunched a cam -

Austin, Te xas

paign to have the m o tto appearon all paper money, MatthewH. Rothert, an industrialist andprominent numismatist ofArkansas. Through h is effortsand the rei igion ists' he rail iedaround him the Congress ofthe United States which passeda law on July 11, 1955 makingit mandatory that the phrasebe used on all coins and on all

printed currency. It took theBureau of Engraving and Printingsome time, and the first $1silver note bearing the mottoentered circulation on October 1,1957 . It then took more than10 years to finish the transitionand th e process was not com -pleted unti l April 1968, at whichpoint all U.S. printed currencybore the inscription .

Matthew Rothert went on to

become president o f the Ameri-can Numismatic Association.He assists in badgering of t h eUnited States to keep the slogan.Rep. Jack Kemp, a Republicancongressman from Buff a lo, NewYork has introduced a resolutionin the House of Repres e ntativ e sto put Congress on record asrea ffirming support for the useof the motto. Across the nationg roups and individuals mount

p e tition drives . A TreasuryDepartment official n o tes thathis department has an immensevolume of correspondence ...and constant congress ion a lphone ca lls , since everyone'ssupporting the motto .

Atheists Inactive

What hurts is that we findthe Atheists doing nothing .

The religious could ta ke overour n a tion tomorrow, a n d wes o metimes feel that the Atheistswou Id stand and watch themdo it. There are no A theistpetitions. There are no Atheistletters to congressmen. Th e reare no Atheist communica tionswith the Treasury Departmen t.The contributions to th e le g a lfund for the suit ar e slow inarriving and modest in amount .

If we permit our symbols toremain religious, we cannot

complain when the gov e rn men tundertakes the fu II suppor t o freligious schools, colleges, anduniversities. When the religiou shave no opposition , it is aclear signal to them that th e ymay dip into tax funds with theconsent and approval of thepol iticians of the nation whorely on their votes to bringthem to office.

The Atheists in the UnitedStates must speak up and beheard. They must support theendeavors of their local andnational Atheis t Centers, andthey must finance these effortsto return our nation to theposture of separation of stateand church --a principle uponwhich the nation was predi-cated. We cannot do less: thisis our minimum ob ligation

and commitment .

An Atheist's Prayer

An atheist was allow ed to JOin anon-sectarian club , which had the fool -ish habit of opening all its meetingswith an invocation . One day, the presi-dent, who did not know what faith theatheist clung to, if any, called uponhim to g ive the usual invocation . Themembers bowed their heads and werequite startled to hear him say :

Oh, mythical god, invented by He-brews and derived by them from amultitude of older Greek and Romangods , look down upon the poor, be-nighted heathen who are ga theredhere, a nd shower them with thy p ity,in great measure, because thou know-est, oh god, how they need it.

They are too lazy-minded , oh god,to wish such things for themselves, sogrant them, we pray thee, not all th ewisdom of the ages, but jus t a littlecommon sense, so they may com e torealize how foolish, how silly, ho w ri-diculous it is for grown-up pe ople,who have lived, 10 these many years,to raise their eyes to heaven and in-tone such things as this to thee, or tobow their heads, in pretended rever -ence and pious smugness .

And , dear god, along with somemeasure of common sense, grant th em,we pray thee, the courage of their c on-victions , so they , who don't believe inthee (and you'd be surprised, if y ouknew, how many don't really be lievewhat they profes s to) may h ave th e in-testinal fortitude to raise th eir heads,look their fellow hypo crites in the eye,and tell them - and also thee - to 'goto hell ' wherever that is.

AMEN

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NEUROSIS

ATHEISMURE FOR

Albert Ellis, Ph. D.

Director, Institute for Advanced Studyin Rational Emotive Psychotherapy,

New York, New York

Although millions of words have been written,especially since Freud's day, on the subject of emo -tional health and disturbance, most of them dolittle more than obfuscate the fairly obvious factthat what we usually call neurosis, nervous break-down, mental illness, or some other term denotingserious emotional malfunctioning is really a subtledesignation for religiosity. For in virtually everyinstance where an individual is disturbed, he/sheis devoutly convinced of some kind of arrant non-sense: is bigotedly, dogmatically, and absolutis -tically certain that he/she is a worthless individual,that other people are contemptible and damnable,or that the world is incontestably rotten and un-questionably should and must not be the way itindubitably is.

People who are easily and continually upset,in other words, are true believers in horseshit.They not only deplore their own and others'fallibilities and incompetencies (which is saneenough) but they also insanely and Jehovianlydemand, insist, and command that they andthese others be infallible and outstandingly com-petent. So they frequently create needless painsin their own guts.

Evidence to back up these hypotheses isvoluminous and I report some of the details invarious of my Writings, such as my books A New Guide to Rational Living, Reason andEmotion in Psychotherapy and HumanisticPsychotherapy: The Rational-Emotive Approach.Let me just give a common clinical example here.Mary J. is an attractively built woman of 24 whorarely dates, who has never had an intense emo-tional relationship and who holds down a boringcivil service job even though she is very bright andspends much of her leisure time reading good books.She has a badly scarred face, as a result of her beingcut up by her father, in the course of one of hismany drunken rages, when she was nine. She droppedout of college in her second year because shecouldn't stand the social life there and had no friendsor lovers. She is now continually depressed and angryand is well on her way to becoming the same kind ofhabitual drinker that her father was. As might beexpected, she blames the circumstances of her earlylife for most of her troubles and is convinced that

Page 10

had she not been done in by her terribly weak motherand near-psychotic father, she would now be happilymarried and well on her way in some promisingcareer.

Let us first examine Mary's depression. She saysshe is depressed because (1) she is ugly and cannotattract the kind of males she would like to go with;and (2) she foolishly dropped out of school, failedto prepare herself for a high-level career, and nowhas to take the consequences of her own stupidityand low frustration tolerance by working at a boringjob for the rest of her life. She believes that becauseof the unpleasant Activating Events (at point A)--especially, her being scarred by her drunken fatherand her refusing to stick it out at college--she nowsuffers dire emotional Consequences--depression--at pointC. Nearly all disturbed individuals, suchas Mary, similarly believe that Activating Eventsat A cause emotional Consequences at C. .

But that is pure magic A (an Action or stim-ulus in the outside world) never really causes C(an emotional Consequence in one's gut). Thesimple proof of this is that if 100 girls were scarredin exactly the same manner as Mary was and laterfoolishly dropped out of college and ruined theirfuture careers, by no means all of them would nowfeel severely depressed. Practically all of themwou Id tend to feel sorry, regretfu I, and frustratedabout these unfortunate Activating Events but agood many of them would stop right there andwould ot go on to depress themselves and afew of them would even manage to be happierthan most women of 24 who had never ex-perienced such misfortunes.

Mary's emotional Consequences, at point C,then, do not stem from the Activating Eventsof her life, at point A . They arise, rather, fromher Beliefs (at point B) about these events. And,like practically all humans, Mary has both arational and an irrational set of Bel iefs about A .Her rational Beliefs (rB's) are along these l .ines: Isn't it too bad that my father scarred me andthat this led to certain difficulties in my life.I strongly wish that this had never happened.How annoying it is to be rejected by many maleswho might otherwise like me if I were not thisscarred Whatbad luck

If Mary rigorously stayed with this set of rationalBeliefs and didn't in any way magically go beyondthem, she would feel (as I implied above) excep-tionally sorry, regretfu I, and frustrated about herhandicap but she would not feel depressed (thatis, self-pitying and self-hating) and she might even

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manage to be quite happy most of the time and tomake a good sex-love relationship with a man whocould accept her and love her in spite of her un -fortunately scarred face.

But, in addition to her rational Beliefs, Mary alsodevoutly, religiously, and anti-empirically has a setof highly irrational Beliefs (iB's); and these reallycause her depression . Her irrational Beliefs largelyare: Isn't it awful that my father scarred me andhelped ruin my entire life I can't stand his havingdone this He shouldn't have done this horriblething to me How completely bleak and lovelessmy life must always be

Why are these Be liefs irrational and senseless?Because they actually have nothing to do withreality and they can never possibly be empiricallyvalidated; they are based on magical demands insteadof on healthy desires. For Mary to insist that it isawful (awe-full) that her father scarred her is forher to contend that it is more than very inconvenient,exceptionally handicapping, or unusually frustratingfor him to have afflicted her in this manner .

But nothing--if you really think about it--can

be more than 100 per cent inconvenient or dis-advantageous; and awful is a magic-filled wordthat has surplus mean ing that can never beempirically validated. What is more, when Maryfeels--religiously, devoutly -- that it is awful for herto be very disadvantaged, she will usually be sostunned by the awe-fullness she has invented thatshe will be able to do Iittle to remove or overcomethe inconveniences and frustrations that her scarringmay well produce. The purpose of bel ieving thatsomething is inconvenient or disadvantageous isto work concertedly at removing that inconvenience

or to live happily in sp ite of it. The goal of be lievingit is awful is to change the world, magically, bywhining about it; for actually one terrorizes andimmob ilizes oneself by th is silly belief.

For Mary to believe that she can't stand herhaving been muti lated by her fat h e r is , again, forher to be dogmatically convinced of drivel . Ofcourse she can stand it She'll never, in a millionyears, like or prefe r being scarred; she'll always,if she is sensible in her goals of wanting sex-lovecompanionship, feel displeased and discomfitedabout her handicap . But she'd damned well better,

if she wants to stick with rea lity and make themost of an exceptionally unfortunate set ofconditions which have been fo isted on her, standwhat she dislikes . Othe rwise, she wi ll be so per -petually focused on her hand icap that she willnot develop her good points and will fail to gethalf as much out of life as she could otherwise get.

For Mary to claim that her father shouldn 't havedone th is terrible thing to he r is for her, with com-

Austin, Texas

plete religiosity, to invoke a kind , p le as a nt or de rof things that must exi s t. Well , w he re the de vilis this kind order? She is, first of a ll, essenti al lycontending that , Because I wo ul d have like d myfather not to have scarred me , h e sh ould no t havedone it Well, is she God or the Ho ly Ghos t? Doesshe magically arrange the unive rse to be wh at shewould like it to be? She is , s econdl y, av owingthat whatever is good, r ight , o r p ro p e r for a nyoneshould exist. Well, why on ea rth should it? It would,naturally, be better if the world were re plete with

kind, fair , undrunken fathe rs who never s lashedtheir daughters. But the hypot h e si s t h a t it wouldbe better, wh ich is empir ically con firma ble (sincethere obviously are advantages to humans l ivingin a kindly , fa ir, undrunken atmosph e re), neverequals therefore it shou ld be. Fro m an empiricaland atheistic standpo int , there are c le arly (as faras have yet been determ ined) no ab solut e shoulds,oughts, or musts in the world. A n d e very time Mary(or anyone else) upsets herself ab out the way he rfather should have beha ved t o wa rd h er , she isfervidly saying that absoluti s tic (and presumably

God-given) shoulds , oughts , or musts do exist --or that they should

For Mary to h old that he r life mu s t now be com-pletely bleak and loveless becau s e s he h a s unf o r-tunately been scarred by her fat h e r is mor e ov e r-generalization and religiosity. Fa c tu a lly, h e r lifewill, in all probability, be bleake r a nd more lov ele ssthan it would be if she were no t ph ys ic a lly h a ndi -capped.

But a more disadvantaged ha rd ly mean s a com -pletely disadvantaged life- -un le ss Ma ry choos e s,by her crazy thinking , to m a ke it so. Actually,

there are a few attractive ma les who m ig ht actuallylike her because she is scarred ; and the re ar e manyothers who could come to like her in s pite of h e rscarring. But if she piously b el ie ve s th a t she mustlose all suitable male companionsh ip because man yor most males would reject her p hys io gn omy, sh eis just as insanely re ligious a s the p er son who be -lieves that she must roast in h ell be c aus e she w asnever baptized.

If, then, Mary keeps upsett ing he rse lf a b ou t h e runfortunate sc a rring (instead of fee lin g so rry orsad about it but stil l managing to live fa irly su c-

cessfully with it) , she is aw fulizing and d emon iz in genormously --and awf u lizing and demon iz in g a re th eessence of just about all kinds of s e ve re e m o tionaldisturbance. She is not on ly lame n tin g s ome o f thecond itions of her existence bu t pietis tica lly dema nd -ing that because they are u nple a sant th ey m us tnot exist. She is consequent ly w in ding up b y fee lingself-pitying and dep resse d .

The other main sour c e of Mar y's depre ss io n i s

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her self-castigation--which is also pure magic. For,knowing that she herself has shirked at her schoolingand at her career, she is telling herself Beliefs likethese: How terrible it is that I dropped out ofschool and stupidly didn't get the degrees thatwould have enabled me to get into a more enjoy-able career What a worm I am for acting soweakly and idiotically I'll never be able to forgivemyself for this shirking These are all religious,unempirically validateable statements because:

1. It is hardly terrible (full of terror) that Marycopped out on her schooling. At most, again, itis merely extremely inconvenient or handicapping.But by calling her acts terrible, she doesn't reallymean that they are unusually self -defeating. Shemeans that they are more than that; that theyhave some immanent shouldness or should-not-nessabout them.

She means, for example, Because I could havefinished college, I should have done so; and becauseI didn't do what I should, that is terrible But,as noted above, there are, scientifically, no ineffableshoulds or should-nots in the universe. Mary iscompletely inventing them in her head. And sheis thereby needlessly making herself self-hating

and depressed.2. Mary is palpably not a worm for acting so

weakly and idiotically. Even though her actionsmay be wormy, it is an arrant overgeneralizationto conclude that she, in toto, is a worm . For aworm could never do anything unwormily; andMary is a human who can act wormily today andnon-wormily tomorrow. Hence she can never ac-curately be designated as a worm (or a weakling,or an idiot, or an anything else.)

Moreover, when she calls herself a worm, Maryreally means that she is subhuman --much worsea creature than all other humans and hence un -deserving of human kindness and human relation-ships. But no human, obviously, is subhuman, justas no human is superhuman. Humans can only behuman; and if they were truly, thoroughgoinglyatheistic (or humanistic in the sense that membersof the American Humanistic Association are),they would clearly see that, and never categorizethemselves in any subhuman ways. Humans cannotbe worms, lice, rats, vermin, slobs, shits, no-good-niks, or any other entity that even mildly impliesthat they are less than human . They are always(as far as we scientifically know) human and (asNietzsche said) all too human. That is to say, theyare always fallible, error-prone, liable to be weak,

and imperfect.When Mary condemns herself as a worm, she

really means that she should be perfect: shouldnot have human failings (or, at least, importantones like goofing at college.) She should, in otherwords, be goddess-like. All humans who condemnthemselves are really demanding that they be near-

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perfect and be able, in heaven, to sit on the righthand side of god. They are, actually, damningthemselves and putting themselves into hell .For that is what self-condemnation (as opposedto condemning one or more of one's traits) reallyis: and insistence that one not have weaknesse sand stupidities and a thorough putting down o fone's entire self , one's being, for actually havin gsuch failings.

All feelings of inadequacy, insecurity , worth -lessness, slobhood, inferiority, etc. are reallyforms of self-malediction and are magical, relig iousconcepts. If one were a true atheist, one wou ldnever condemn or excoriate one' s self for anyth ing.One would merely negatively assess one's traits ,deeds, acts, or performances (which are aspectsof one's being but never one's total being) a n dwork to change those traits for the better .

3. When Mary says that she will never be able toforgive herself for her own shirking, she is of courseagain being devoutly religious. She is really believingthat since god and the universe are sadistic enoughto eternally condemn her (roast her in hell) for herown poorly chosen behavior , she must fo llow the irall-encompassing dictates and e ternally condemn

herself. This is a completely unval idateable hypo-thesis, for which she could neve r ge t c onfirmatoryor disconfirmatory evidence and yet she piouslyclings to it. If she were truly an empiricist or anatheist, how could she possibly believe such hog-wash?

I n many ways, then, Mary is concertedly makingherself emotional ly disturbed by her true believe-rism: her inventing devils (herself , her father, theconditions of her life) and gods (he r idealizedimage of herself and the ineffable fates that shouldmake things go perfectly well in the world.) This,I hypothesize, is what all people w ith emotionaldisturbances do . They simply refuse to stick withreal ity--that is, the way th ings actually are andthe way that, with considerable time and effortthey cou Id possibly o r probably change them forthe better--and they constantly deify or devil ifythemselves or others. Consequent ly, they fre-quently whine about unpleasant reality instead ofworking hard to change it or gracefully acceptingit the way it is.

Virtually all emotional disorder , in other words,stems from demanding and awfulizing. You demandthat you act unusually well and competently--andawfulize about and down yourself when you don't.You demand that others act fairly and intelligently

--and awfulize about and damn them when theydon't. You demand that the world be exceptionallyeasv and pleasant--and awful ize about and. whineabout it when it isn't. But both demanding andawfulizing are palpable religious, grandiose attitudes.They are childish, authoritarian, and Jehovian.Scratch a person who is truly disturbed and you

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ON OUR WAY gnatz sahula dyeke

T h e C o s t o f F r e e d o mThe religion ists of today are heard intoning the same siren

song as in t he days following Wor ld War I, that freedom,peace, prog ress, and improvement in the human conditionall awa it our making American education basically reli-gious .

Were we to follow their advice it would mean that wewould be lett ing them, and not our own consciences, guideus. Bu t above a ll, this means that in more than 50 years ofeventful history these adv isors haven't learned very muchfrom t he cataclysm ic war that followed the first one, norfrom the tragic adventure of recent memory in Vietnam.And to think that people once thought that Irving's taleabout old R ip who slept a mere 20 years was unbelievable

Hence it's no wonder that the advice of these seers hasn'tgot everyone kneeling and groveling as of old.

These bumb ling visionaries are so blinded by their daz-zling dogmas , they can' t see that the people they long bullied,now using common s ense, are seeing the big difference bet -ween a paradise promised, and one de livered- -are thinkingless an d less o f the promise, and more and more about aheaven here and now . The clerics are sl ipping, or they'ddo bette r than try to have us believe that religious educationand intellectual growth are one and the same--anidea farshort of the fanta stic trinity the y invented .

Intell ec tual Paralysis

Minds like thei rs, occupied with supernaturalistic fantasiesand dog mas, deject me ; and make me wonder where todaythey'd ta ke us if we pe rmitted them to lead. I feel sure thaton the basis of past performance they'd do as before, andtry to conduct into intellectual paralysis as many people asposs ible who learned no better than to trust the fable thatlife w ithout religious education is devoid of purpose .

Well, ha s any religiously rooted educational process everbeen anyth ing but constrictive and stagnating? Can anyprocess th us circumscribed be depended on to liberate andamplify anyone's potentiality for mental creativeness? Afterall, it must be remembered that the essentially negativeout-look which thes e profit-conscious mentors recommend

isn't altruist ic. It started out as a codification of taboosdevised for uniting a talen ted and ambitious people demora-lized by centu ries of escap ing from genocide- -a code glowingwith prom ises of Elohistic favoritism which dissuaded themfrom se lf-demeani ng despondency .

Toda y's Judeo -Christian ecclesiasticism threatens withperd ition all who won't kowtow before its dogmas. A mix-ture of bluff, homi ly and bluster, it is the world's richestbeggar and its most expert business; two-faced and designing,it sides w ith the power ful while praising humil ity; it entreatsthose least privileged to suffer patiently dire wants and crueloppressors , though ranting abou t its compassionate and just God ; haughty and proud, i t lauds truth but itself lies.It is sadly unwort hy of loya lty and trust.

Though ts like these possibly occu rred to the Israeliteclans who, a fter their deportation from Assyria by Sargon II ,scattered over the desert sands of Araby and Sinai until

Nebuchadnezzar repatriated them to Babylon , a part oftheir numbers escaping from his kind of ens lavement tothat of Egypt . Not the religion but their misery unitedthem. However, never forgetting the green strip of Judahand Israel's Jordan valley which in their centuries of roamingthey discovered, they returned to it and to the l ife describe din biblical tales and anecdotes .

Throughout the Bible these anecdotes repeatedly te llus that the human creature is sinful, evil-minded, revenge-ful, and awaiting a Messiah , a Christ , who is to come and redeem it. Hence it's no mystery whence today's parentshave got the idea that their progeny needs cleansing bybaptism as the one right way of starting the offsp ring's

rearing and education.The cleric never fails to abet the parents in this , everreminding everyone that baptism is vitally important --thatthe Bible confirms it as the first of the saving steps thehuman takes toward heaven . He, of course, does not tellanyone that without th is procedure the foibles of religionwouldn't be lastingly transferred from generation to gene ra-tion.

Just because something was imitated, and reimitated ,for many centuries, doesn't mean that i t is irrevocablyright. One of l ife's subtle jokes is that there are two waysof going about anything : the right way , .and also the wrong .And still more wry is that the way cal led right ve ry oftenturns out as wrong- -and the majority approves of it. Andlet's not forget the many times when someth ing deemedright was scorned to begin with, it later was pra ised.

It is consequent ly inescapable that majority opinion at anygiven time decides-but only for the time being --who or whatis right . There never was nor ever can be , absolute right norabsolute wrong. So long as life exists thine w ill be no finalanswers to anything whatever . At the present time morepeople call religion absolutely right because these, who don'tknow how religions evolved , outnumber those who do know.

The trend to atheism and agnosticism is a positive signthat people are becoming aware that Christian itv , after 17centur ies of acceptance and activity, actually complicatedthe life that during all those years it was supposed to simp -

lify, and that now it is of but little value to the new genera-tions who must devise ways to correct the ills bred by ourhypermechanized century.

Priestly exhortations that ptayers to some god will re -pair such damage a re being roundly ignored by those whoknow that this will take intensive work , preceded by thinking--by planning for its efficiency . We who des ignate ourselvesas American Atheists are in this committed to guidance bythe doctrine of human rights procla imed in the Decla rationof Independence and our Constitution's Bill of Rights .

The Christians think they der ide the Atheists in callingthem godless. But Atheists gladly admit to living a godles sexistence, seeing how v iciously religions misadv ise peopleto trust that the specter called god, and not the people'sresolute use of their intelligence , will take care of all andsundry that annoys them.

So, the superstitious folk who today support the reli -


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gions are uselessly doing whatever told by the ir pastor to do ,and not in vain are called his flock of sheep. Pushed into itby their fear of their god's retribution, they're really beingtyrannized into it less excusably than when it was done inthe same way to the far less informed people of ancient times.

It happens now, and always will , whenever anyone permitshis or her self-reliance to be eroded by an addiction to wish-fulness. The harm in this isn't in the fantasizing (imaginative-ness is a mental trait to be prized) . but in the mind's confine -ment by fear to a supernatural milieu wherein mere fantasiesare worshipped, the living world ignored, and punishmentinflicted for disobedience.

A situation such as this puts an end to free thinking,and isolates the freethinker as an enviable person whomthe prejudiced believer tends to deride. But why? Thebelievers didn't originate the concepts of their rel igion;they are told to worship what long ago their religion'sfounders lined up for them : all of it l ined up unilaterally,dictatorially. Nor do the believers have to do this ; they couldbe as free as the winds had religion not taken away fromthem the instinctive desire for freedom, that in everyhuman mind dispels all spectral fears: the desire which, Itake it, somehow made man into the creature he thinkshe is .

When man's yearning for freedom--both physical andmental--inspires him, he becomes the creature that his everyfiber impels him to be. Christianity, as well as the world'sother theistic religions, planted a ver itable forest of mis-conceptions about life: misconceptions out of whoseshadows we of the human race of today still haven't foundour way into the sunlit expanse of meadowland where foreveryone exists the challenging goal that enables us tothink of existence as something meaningful .

Will-o'-the-wisp or not, to reach one's goal involvesskinned shins, tired feet, and often enough a badly tornhide. So what the attainment of nearly anything ofconsequence was ever opposed tooth and nail by tradi-tionally respected beliefs of unthinking men . Traditionsserve for good purpose, not only for the satisfaction of

defeating them, but also for protect ing mankind's hard-won gains against collapse : enabling its thinking creaturesto view with satisfaction their animal progress from pre-historic arboreal life to the freedom of self-governmentby consent of the governed.

Then what's so objectionable about religions? Well,first of all, excepting a few nontheistic religions, all of themstand on a foundation of fear, fear of the bogey they named god . Next, they exist because, as soon in anyone's lifeas possible, they persuade the human earthling that the god exists. And never the persuasion by consent , butby the application of pressure: rel igious, social, or fiscal(or any other) which at that time will serve religion's aim.

The religions talk endlessly about the brotherhood of man,but themselves are wholly and blatantly undemocratic. Be-cause everyone of them is largely the result of only oneindividual's sanity--overwhelming belief that he or she isdivinely chosen to lead others to his or her imagined god --not one of the religions ever presented its taboos, dogmas,or precepts to prospective believers for consideration, ap-proval, or acceptance at a time before such tenets were madepublic.

Religion, as such, comes ready-made . The excuse ordinarilygiven for this intended negligence is that such commandsare a god's express orders . It's almost incredible that any-one in this enlightened age could take such things seriously.But it goes on, and at a time in which no governing body

would attempt to legalize any code , law, or ordinance with-

out consulting the people for whom intended. Anything donewithout the consent of the electorate would nowadays beexcoriated as unjust .

The clerical disciplinarians of Christianity's tremblingvictims know full well that religions weren't created forthe people. It's the other way around: the people for thereligions . And temples, cathedrals, and chapels? The fabledand much maligned carpenter's son of Nazareth attendedno churches. He fought against them. Ecclesiasticism hasbeen around for a long t ime.

Nary a one of the people who've once experienced therelief or release from religious dogmatism would ever re-

turn to such dire bondage of their intellect unless mentallyderanged. My opinion is-besides-that once people have beeninformed about religion's way of impinging on mankind ,they're privileged to remain in the rut where driven, o rget out of it as opportuned. It's intellectually rewardingto investigate the very many torts and crimes that (nowbecoming generally known) gave impetus to religion 'sdecline in recent decades. Details of these happenings areto be found in the literature of preceding centuries, inphilosophical tracts and in monographs by the world 'smost eminent intellectuals. It takes a bit of digging, butthe resulting insights are worth the effort. Too, it willprovide what no university lecturer would even nowadaysdare to discuss except in veiled terms. Those who forsome reason might find this impossible to unde rtake, canat least keep a sharp eye out for the religious gentrywho will be seen moistening a finger for test ing whenceblows the wind--promising theism an easy advantageover the unthoughtful and the gullible of our religion-beset humankind.

. sp O E M SPROGRESS

The Christians do not kill asonce they did.The rack and flaming stake we now forbid.The holy wars of yore are not the fash ion.Fanatic Christians must restrain their passion.The times have changed since medieva l daysWhen, unopposed, the priests pursued their ways.

THE LUNATIC

The Christian is a superstitious clodWho tries, upon the world, to force his god.If he no longer burns the hereticIt's not becausehe is less mentally sick.It's just becausethe world is not so madAs to allow his former burning fad.

THE FOLLOWERS OF INFAL LIBILITY

Infallible all Roman Catholics areTheir lordly self -esteem no one can jar .The pope is always right, and so are they,For him they never, never disobey.

- Maxwell Morton


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A loss of faith.

Th e dec line of th e R om an C ath olic Empire B y H u b ert d e S an tan a

I M ~ S AY,1 1-1 C H U R C HI~AlO TM ~ LlV t LY- m A NIT U S b }T OB E 1 /For m ost Canadian Cathol ics over 30, t hecompl ex experience of Ro man Catholi-cism remains fixed foreve r in the amber ofmemory. From the crad le we were s ub-jected t o a s y stem of intense indoctr inationand force-fed with religion until our soulsbulged like the livers of S trasbourg gees e.It was easy to understand why the Jesuit-ical boast Give me a c hild of high faith tothe age of seven, a nd I have him for lifewas not made idly.

Very often the Church was not so mucha loving mother as a censorious sp insteraunt whose pronouncements, especiallyon sex, made up a long litany of prohibi-tions. But the church also provided Ca tho-lics of the Forties and Fifties w ith sublimetheatre: rituals of majesty a nd mystery,with p riests in gorgeous go ld-trimmedvestments chanting Lati n prayers andhymns amid fuming censers of incense.For those of us w ho served as a ltar boys,surpl iced and soutaned, it did not ma tterone whit that beneath the rubric and therhetori c were paga n rites of sy mpatheticmagic. We were priv ileged to assist at themiracle of transubst antiation-the c hang-ingof bre ad and wine into the actual bo dyand blood of Jesus Christ. We mumbledresponse s to praye rs we could n't hear in a

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languag e we didn 't understa nd. TheChurch gave us solace and so phistry, peaceand ignoranc e.

We all went to confession on S aturdays,kneeling in the screened dar kness o f con-fession boxes, humbly telling our sins to apriest who took the place of God. We wentto Mass and Communion on S unday s. Weyawned throu gh sermo ns, and swea tedwith terror during retreats, when priestsdescribed for us the horrors of hell, a vas t,burning infernal sewer popu lated by de-mons endowed with suppu rating bodiesand mo re teeth than the shark in Jaws. Wehad our throats blessed on St . Blaise Day;our foreheads daubed with as hes on As hWednesday; we suffered through t he Sta-tions of t he Cross on Good Friday, a nd re-joiced in the triumph of t he Resurrectio non Eas ter Sunday.

The school kids go t holidays when theProtestants didn't; and we grew up eati ngfish on Fridays because we 'd go to hell ifwe ate meat. We gathered for t he familyrosary every evening, reciting our beadsbefore a shrine which contai ned statuesand relics of sa ints. And wore me dals andscapular s to ward off evil spirits. The wal lsofour hom es were e mbellished wit h cruci -fixes, and p ictures of the Sac red Heart

which showed Jesus holding in one hand aflaming heart wre athed with thorn s, with agash in its side from which blood oozed ; across protruded from the aorta . His freehand was held up palm outward, like a po-liceman stopping traffic . These grotesqueand powerful i cons held our imaginationsprisoner-splend or and superstition hadan equal place in Catholicism. For some ,Catholicism was balm for the spirit ; forothers it was more like napalm-tenaciousand destructive.

All that has changed and changed ut-terly. The Catholic Church, which 20 yearsago talked of its laity as the church mili-tant, is now thrashing in the agon y of thechurch disillusioned. Canada 's to millionCatholics today are engaged in a debatewith their church as never before .

It started with Pope John XXIII , whothrew ope n the windows with the secondVatica n Council. But the windows openedon perilous seas, a nd with the light theyalso let in a flood which carr ied away thehistorical implants and traditional under-pinnings of t he Church . Suddenly therewere no more comfortable certainties .There was instead a headlong questioningof all the old verities, and many of them nolonger seemed veracious .

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In the 12years since the council ended,the Church has sustained heavy casua lties.There has been a steep decl ine in chu rchattendance. A Gallup su rvey showed thatin 1965 83% of Canadian Catholicsclaimed weekly attendance at church ; IIyears later the figure was down to 55% . In1975 a Gallup poll indicated that 67% ofCatholics felt that religion was losing it s in-fluence on Canadian life . Seminar y enroll -ment has fallen from 1,565 in 1962 to amere 195in 1977,because of a continuing

crisis of vocations. In 1962 there were7,107 priests in Canada; today there are5,414.0f these the largest segment(25 .6%)are between the ages of 55 and 64. Totallythere are 41 ,145 nuns in Canada , com-pared with 59,712 in 1960. Most of theseare middle-aged; those between 25 and34 years make up only 5 .2% of the totalnumber.

The principal cause of all this turmoilhas been identified by Andrew Greeley, apriest-sociologist who isdirector ofthe Na-tiona I Opinion Research Centre at theUniversity of Chicago . Last year Greeley

published a .study called Catholi c Scho olsIn A Declining Church , which was pa ckedwith scientific data that exploded likeshrapnel among conservat ive Catho lics. Itoffered a cogent theory to expla in the pres-ent chaos in the Church , and reinforc ed itwith detailed statistics. Greel ey hasemerged as one of the most out spoken andimportant voices in the liberal ranks of theChurch; as an author and soc iologist (hislatest book is The Communal Cathol ic) heis popular and influen tial and, howevertrying he may be to con servat ives in his fa-vorite role as ecclesiastical gadfly, he can-

not be ignored.Intense and highly strung , Greeley does ':lnot mince his words ; he is convinced t hat ~the crisiswas not caused b y Vatican II, nor ~was it the result of any long-term seculari- ;:zation. It is the result of the massive mis-takes made after the council, most pa rticu-larly with the birth control encyc licalHumonae Vitae . This controversial en-cyclical wasissued by Paul VI inJuly 1968.It forbade the world 's 600 million Catho-lics to use any artificial methods of birthcontrol; it gave its approval only to therhythm method (mock ingly dubbed Vati-

can Roulette ). It mo ralized loftily about mastery of self , a nd spoke of the needfor ascetical practices and pe riodiccontinence. Predictably, the encyclicalwas a disaster.

Moving to try and defuse an explo sivesituation, Canadian bishops issued a hu-mane and sympathetic statement on theencyclical in September 1968. It did notcontradict the Pope on any point, but it as-sured Catholics who found it difficult to bebound by his decree tha t whoever hon-estly chooses that course wh ich seems rightto him does so in good conscience . Never-

Austin, Texas

theless Humanae Vitae polarized Catho-lics as no other en cyclical has done beforeor since. I was horrified when I read it , says Greeley , and I read it with an openmind . He [Pau l VIllisted the reasons fo rchange and then dismissed them withou tanswering them. Greeley states flatly thatthe encyclical was a misuse of papalauthority.

The oppos ite view is expressed by AnneRoche , who spoke for thousand s of con-servat ives in her book The Gates Of Hell ,

which att acked liberals in term s of shrillhyperbole more usually associated withher father-in-law, Malcolm Muggeridge .She is a very formidable lady , a New-foundlander with dark flashing e yes and avoice that can flake a listener' s mastoidbone. She isthe sCQu rgeofliberal s, who re-fer to her asAttila the Nun . Roche writes ofthe Pope : Conservatives love Pope Pauland pray for him ; they would n ot be sur-prised to liveto see him canoniz ed becauseof Humanae Vitae , when it has proven tohave been the last great gallan t attempt tohalt the destruction of Christi an society.

A 1968 survey showed that 94 % ofCath-olics in Toronto felt that the enc yclical hadnot settled the matter of birth con trol; and80% felt that they could practise con-traception in good conscience.

The Second Vatican Council wasopened by Pope John XXIII in October1962 and was closed by Pope Paul VI inDecember 1965 , after four sess ions. Vati-can II was a watershed in the history of theChurch . Its ostensible purpose was ex -pressed in the word aggiornamento: abringing up to date. But what it

amounted to was the tremendous

Pope P.u I: he deco yi ng the Churc h,or vl ng , The current t unnol l 8 11.geeta the tonner, but h latory wil l Juc lge

task of br inging a medieval church intothe contemporar y world, and it could notbe accompl ished without a severe trauma.

The 16document s that the council pro-duced affirmed all the central teachings ofthe Church , but they were informed with aliberalism previously unknown in aChurch who se authoritarianism was leg-endary. The De claration On ReligiousFreedom stated that religious freedom wasa human right-an adm ission the Churchhad ne ver made before . Gaudium et Spes

declared, among other things , that theChurch cannot allow itself to remain unin -volved when human rights are trampled .

The council introduced litur gical re-forms. The Latin Tridentine Mass , whoseform ha d been fixed b y the Counc il ofTrent in 1570, was modified , and perm is-sion was given for the mass to be said in theverna cular, though Latin remained the o f-

Page 17


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ficial language of the Church . A dialogueon ecumenism was opened with Protes-tants. And Catholics were granted greaterfreedom of conscience .

The council sought to dilute anti-Semit-ism which was one of the most deplorableaspects of Christian teaching. Instead ofacknowledging, and rejoicing in, the factthat Christianity is an offshoot of Judaism,Christian churches had for centuries madeignorant assertions that the Jews were

guilty of the death of Jesus by insisting onHis execution . Pope Pius XII's silence dur-ing the holocaust and the help provided bythe Vatican to escaping Nazi s at the end ofthe war are hardly surprising in view ofthis tradition of anti-Semitism .

The council's liberalism, and particu-larly its liturgical reforms, were stronglycondemned by conservative Catholics,who bitterly mourned the passing of theold magnificence and mystery set aside infavor of simpler rites . In her book AnneRoche describes the new Mass as wall-to-wall noise , amplified by microphones andurged on to greater heights by priests. Youget the irreverent feeling that youare a member of a studio audience

ttJ~f I

, ,Pope John, In por t rai t and opening theacumenleel Council In Rome In 1982: d idthe wind of change become a hurr icane?

Page 18

at a give-away television show.I recently attended a Mass at Our Lady

of the Airways Church in Mississauga, andfound the ceremony barely recognizable.The glory and solemnity , ' e gone; in theirplace is a homely, informal service. Thewords of hymns and prayers are projectedon a screen for benefit of those who don'tknow them. The congregation stands forthe elevation of the Host and the chalice,instead of kneeling with bowed heads as in

the past . Communicants also stand, andmay receive the Host in the harid if they sowish. The sermon is now a homily, butits effect seems to be the same-the yawnswere as frequent and as cavernous as theywere during my youth. The walls were bareexcept for large banners with such legendsas: Jesus Brings New Life; Start of a NewBeginning; The Fire of Life. Gone are theStations of the Cross, holy pictures andstatues.

Most young Catholics prefer the new lit-urgy, because it makes church services ac -cessible and comprehensible . The newMass is more human and less boring , saysWilma Cortelucci, a 22-year-old socialworker . I can understand what' s going on ,and I c an take part more ful ly than I couldwith the Latin Mass . But for an older gen-eration of conservative Catholics, a cher-ished tradition was irrevocably lost in thewake of Vatican II .

The most extreme example of resistanceto change has come from French Arch-bishop Marcel Lefebvre in Switzerland ,who stubbornly refuses to celebrate theTridentine Mass in defiance of the Vati-can. Lefebvre hopes for a r eturn to a pris-tine Church which will be free of thieves ,mercenaries and wolves ; but he is fight-ing a losing battle , for insubordination to

Rome is futile. Far from posing a seriousthreat of schism in the Church, l'affaireLefebvre i s little more than a me-diaevent, for the archbishop has alreadyplaced himself outside the Church, and thenumbers of his fo llowers are insignificantwhen compared with the world's totalCatholic population.

The Catholic conservative today is likethe old Australian aborigine who wasgiven a new boomerang and spent the restof his life trying to throw the old oneaway.The only thing to do is to drop it; but this issomething conservative s are unwilling todo. Instead they complain of the psycho-

logical torture to which they are subjectedby a church that they feel has badly mis-treated their sensibilities.

The Most Reverend Emmett Carter,Bishop of London , Ontario, isan authorityin the field of religious education and anexpert on liturgy. And as president of theCanadian Conference of Catholic Bish-ops, his word carries exceptional weight,authority and influence. Carter unhesita-tingly admits that the Catholic Church -in

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Canada is in trouble. But he carefully de-fines what he means by trouble . He ex-plains that the Church is incarna-tional -Catholics believe that Godrevealed himself in and through a man .Therefore the Church is inextricablybound up with the human condition. SaysCarter: The Catholic Church has alwaysbeen a church of the people, never achurch ofthe elite ... Viewed from an his-torical perspective , Carter feels thai theChur ch's present troubles are nothing. He claims that the crisis of the Church isthat of all mankind . Carter uses the wordtemporality to characterize the man oftoday, who has looked away from eternityand is concerned only with things of themoment: He lives from one televisionprogram to another; from one sexual expe-rience to another ; from one pa y day to an-other; from one car or yacht to another.The Church has to be troubled by this be-cause it lives with man ; and the peoplewho a re in the Church are not divorcedfrom it .an d mustn't be divorced from it .

Yet most of Canada's 10million Catho-

lics(they constitute 47%of the population)feel that there is not enough communi -cation between the hierarch y and the laity .This was borne out by Grant Maxwell'sstudy , Project Feedback , under taken forthe social affairs department of the CCCB.Maxwell proposed an experiment in socialjournalism: he would explore and reporthow a cross-section of Canadians at local 'levels fe lt about social goals , everyday life,faith experiences , religious and civil lead-ership , and prospects for the 1980s.

Bishop Carter 's asserti on that the Cath -olic Church is a church of the peopl e wasnot supported by many of Maxwell's re-spond ents. A random samplin g of their ad-vice to the hierarchy:

Western Canada: Community worker - In the first place , get out of the churches,get down to the people and find out whatthey want and what their needs are . .

Quebec : Suburban homemaker - Bewith the people -women, blacks, theweak . Be a church for a ll the people . Widow - I'd try to fo llow the simple ways

of Jesus . He was not complicated ; Rome

Austin, Texas

L

complicated it. Jesu s was with the people . At lantic Canada: Single parent-

Come down to earth and get back withthe peop le.

Prayer and social action groups havemultiplied across the country like sporeson a petri dish . The most dynamic of theseis the Charismatic Renewal movement ,whose membership numbers hundreds o fthousands in Canada, and about five m il-lion in the United States. A Pentecostalgroup which began in California in 1960 ,its first members were Protestant . But it isinterdenominational , and today at leasthalf its members are Catholic. Last June ,eight bis hops and 900 pr iests officiated at ameeting of 45,000 Charismatics in Mont-real's Olympic Stadium . It was a spectacu-lar display of mass hysteria, with membersrolling their eyes in a fine frenzy , swayingand chanting, practising glossolalia(speaking in tongues),

American Atheist Magazine March 1978

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