American Atheist Magazine Winter 2003-2004

8/9/2019 American Atheist Magazine Winter 2003-2004

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Jesus And Moses

WereInvented

Jesus and )\'loses

Were In ented

by Christopher M. Drew

Alate American Atheist scholar

shows that Jesus and Moses

never existed as historical

figures.

124 pp. Paperback.

Stock #5592

ISBN 1-57884-912-8

$8.00

an ATHEIST An Atheist Primer

PRIMER

by Madalyn O'Hair.

This children's book explains what

religion and what Atheism are all

about. It is a great introduction to

Atheism for readers of any age.

Grades 2-4. Illustrated. 30 pp.

Stapled.

ISBN 0-911826-10-9

$6.00

CD-ROM from Bank of

Wisdom

FREETHOUGHT AND

THE BIBLE

25 volumes on a single CD

With AdobeAcrobat= PDF

format, it works on both IBM

Macintosh computers.

Includes: The Bible

Comically Illustrated (2 vols.), The Bible, by John

Remsburg, The Jefferson Bible, Bible Myths and their

Parallels in Other Religions, by T.W.Doane, and

much more

Stock #4504 $30.00

To order, please include check (payable to American

Atheists) or credit card payment for the price of the

books plus shipping and handling ($2.50 for the first

title plus $1.00 for each additional title.

Send order to:

American Atheist Press

P.O. Box 5733

Parsippany, NJ 07054-6733

Credit card orders may be faxed to:

(908) 276-7402

Living In The Light

Freeing Your Child From The

Dark Ages

by Anne R. Stone

LIVING

IN THE LICHT

Rearing children as Atheists isn't easy,

. but this manual will be invaluable for

parents who want their children to grow

up with reality-testing skills intact and

L'==========-JJ strong immunity to the wiles of super-

naturalism.

157 pages, paperback

Stock #5588

ISBN 1-57884-908-X

$12.00

THE ATHEIST'S

HANDBOOK

to Modern Materialism

by Philip A. Stahl

Materialism is minimalist by defini-

tion. Focusing on manifestations of

matter, fields, and energy, it

excludes distracting and unverified

entities such as spirits and souls.

Professional Press. xxiv + 250 pp.

Paperback.

ISBN 1-57087-539-1

Stock #7001

$15.00

The

Altar Boy Chronicles

by Tony Pasquarello

The hilarious romp of a logical mind try-

ing to grow up Catholic in Philadelphia s

Little Italy during

World War II.

214 pp. Paperback

Stock #5583 16.00

The Great Infidels

By Robert G. Ingersoll, with fore-

word by Jon G. Murray

Newly reprinted and reformatted,

Ingersoll's sketches of the lives of

great Freethinkers is one of his most

inspiring works. Includes his amusing

discussion of the fallacy of informal

logic known as the appeal to the

cemetery.

-

T H E G R E A T

S

N F I D E r

76 pages, paperback ISBN 0-910309-08-6

Stock #5197 $7.00


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American Atheist

A Journal of Atheist News and Thought

Cover Art:

Keith McCaffety's poly-

chrome realization of

Pannemaker's engraving of

Gustave Dore's The Deluge, one

ofmany illustrations for the 1866

The Holy Bible with Illustrations by

Gustave Dare.

EDITOR SDESK

A Second Noah s Flood

Frank R. Zindler

Disinforming the Faithful 4

Frank R. Zindler

The truths of science and objective

scholarship are being swamped in a sea

of religious disinformation. Can reality

survive?

LUTHERBURBANK:INFIDEL

GENIUS

Introduction

Frank R. Zindler

Luther Burbank 13

E. Haldeman-Julius

The Plant Wizard as described in E.

Haldeman-Julius'Little

Blue Book

No.

1020.

Volume 42, No.1

Parsippany, New Jersey

Why I am an Infidel 14

Luther Burbank

The genius who developed the

Burbank Plum, the Shasta Daisy, and

800 other varieties of fruits, vegetables,

and flowers comes out of the closet.

Burbank Answers Some

Questions 16

George E. Macdonald

The author of

Fifty Years of Free-

thought

publishes Burbank's answers

to the religious questionnaire that

unleashed a storm of abuse from

Christians all over the world.

Luther Burbank, Infidel 18

Edgar Waite

Aweather report on the storm that

broke out on 22 January 1926 when

Burbank's infidel views became public

knowledge.

3

Luther Burbank

Speaks Out 23

Joseph McCabe

Afamous Atheist journalist and

author gives his account of the hurri-

cane that swirled around the Plant

Wizard of Santa Rosa.

13

Burbank the Infidel 26

Joseph Lewis

Agreat Atheist author delivers a

eulogy in New York's Central Park at

the 1927 tree-planting memorial exer-

cises conducted by the Freethinkers of

America in honor of Luther Burbank.

Winter 2003-2004

Winter 2003-2004

Atheism and Natheism,

Part II 30

Tony Pasquarello

The author of

The Altar Boy

Chronicles continues his argument on

how to define Atheism.

Tony Pasquarello s Atheism a nd

Natheism, a Response 35

George Ricker

Aretired newspaper editor offers his

opinion on how to define

Atheism.

Agnosticism: The Basis for

Atheism, Not an Alternative

to It 37

David Eller

The author of the forthcoming book

Natural Atheism

argues that

Agnosticism is a method, not a philo-

sophical or religious position.

The Word Is Freedom 41

David M. Fitzpatrick

A short story set in our religious

future. Don't let Ashcroft see this - he

might get ideas

Christmas Eve In Heaven 48

G.W.Foote

St. Paul wasn't the only one who

could be snatched up into the seventh

heaven. Evan an Atheist could do it -

and just as reliably.

OnAvoiding That last Visit 50

Tony Pasquarello

Areprint of an article about the

funerary fate ofAtheists that made a

deep impression on American Atheists'

founder Madalyn Murray O'Hair.

The Deja-Viewing 53

Tony Pasquarello

After seeing another goodAtheist

suffer the indignity of 'a good Christian

funeral,' Tony reminds us that he

warned us about this back in 1982.

A Physicist s Critique of

the Existence of a God 54

Alfred Bahr

A German physicist has a new way to

prove that gods are impossible.

Page 1


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American

Atheist

Volume 42 Number 1

EDITOR/ MANAGING EDITOR

Frank R. Zindler

ASSOCIATE EDITOR

Ann E. Zindler

CONTRIBUTING EDITOR

Conrad F. Goeringer

BUSINESS MANAGER

Ellen Johnson

The American Atheist is published by

American Atheist Press four times a

year, in December, March, June, and

September.

Printed in the USA, © 2004 byAmerican

theist Press. All rights reserved.

Reproduction in whole or in part without

written permission is prohibited.

ISSN: 0332-4310.

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Voice:908-276-7300

FAX: 908-276-7402.

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bility forunsolicited manuscripts.

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variety of Atheist, Agnostic, and

Freethought material. A catalog is

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scriptions are $50for 4 issues

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Winter 2003-2004

American Atheist


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Editor s Desk

A

merican civilization is awash

in a flood of disinformation -

a flood that, like the biblical

flood of Noah, threatens to engulf

most of the world. Some of the disin-

formation is political. In this category

we might place the disinformation

that led many to expect that the Iraqis

would welcome American troops as

liberators; the daily dispatches that

portray Israel as always on the good

side in 'the war on terrorism,' and the

arguments employed to perpetuate

the economic and social isolation of

Cuba. Most political disinformation,

however, does not threaten to engulf

the rest of the world. Mainly Ameri-

cans are being deceived, although

infection does sometimes spread to

our closest allies. Political disinforma-

tion tends to be local, with each nation

having its own - to be used for its

own purposes. Rarely does it threaten

to become pandemic.

There is another form of disinfor-

mation, however, that is much more

pernicious and has the potential to go

global, even though at the moment it

is largely limited to the United States

and the Muslim world. This is the

type of disinformation that is created

for religious purposes and to advance

the political ambitions of major

investors in the superstition market.

Religious disinformation is more dan-

gerous than ordinary political disin-

formation due to the fact that it

becomes the energizing catalyst for

political reactions of above-ordinary

scope and power. For example, the

political and military repercussions of

the Islamic disinformation cranked

out by the Ayatollah Khomeini have

only grown louder and more forceful

as they have flowed into other nations

and continents.

Frank R. Zindler


The gravity of our situation can

easily be gauged by a simple measure-

ment. Take up a copy of the Yellow

Pages

for your area. Count the num-

ber of churches, synagogues, mosques,

and other entities that have religious

tax exemptions. Then count the num-

ber of schools and colleges, subtracting

from the total all that are obviously

religious in purpose. Consider the

remainder to be the number of places

where objective scholarship and learn-

ing may be possible. Add the number

of religious schools to the number of

churches to find the number of places

that exist for the purpose of impeding

or annihilating the learning that

might take place in the secular

schools. These are the fountains of

the deep (to extend the biblical

image) from which the surging flood of

falsehood emanates in your neighbor-

hood.

If you still own a radio, turn it on

and completely scan the AM and FM

bands, counting the number of sta-

tions that are completely religious,

partially religious, or nominally secu-

lar. Caution Even if you don't live in

the Deep South, this exercise may

unleash a seizure of deep depression if

you are at all bipolar. If you are not

yet catatonic, consult your local edi-

tion of

TV Guide.

Tally the percentage

of programming time devoted to reli-

gious vs. secular programs. This is

actually much harder to do than the

radio survey, because religious disin-

formation permeates the supposedly

secular channels and programs to an

astonishing extent. The Discovery

Channel and History Channel may be

giving serious consideration to Noah's

Flood, the resurrection of Jesus, or the

Shroud of Turin. CNN Headline News

may be devoting three days to report-

ing how the Catholic Church deter-

mines which miracles are genuine.

The religious broadcast media are the

Winter 2003-2004

windows of heaven from which a

downpour of disinformation threatens

to snuff out the last lamps from which

the light of learning yet shines.

In the western world, it is only

America which staggers due to the

dementia caused by religious disinfor-

mation - for the moment. Even

before America's recent surge in impe-

rial ambitions, however, we had been

exporting our delusions to markets in

other parts of the world. After the

breakup of the Soviet Union, a plague

of creationists and other missionaries

flooded into its remnant republics,

and creationists captured the educa-

tional system of Turkey. We soon shall

be expanding our 'Faith-Based

Programs' to include international

affairs. Will the presently sane citi-

zens of our client or captive nations be

able to withstand the fantastic force of

the fantasies with which we shall

envelop them? Believing is much easi-

er than thinking - hence believers

have always and everywhere greatly

outnumbered thinkers. Will anyone

still be willing to study geology and

genetics if they are told that reading

just the first eight chapters of Genesis

is more efficacious?

The hard-won truths of science

and historical research are being

swallowed up and lost in a surging sea

of superstition and revisionist propa-

ganda. Atheists, Humanists, and

rationalists of all denominations must

stem this rising tide. We must pre-

serve the legacy of learning we have

inherited from the illustrious thinkers

of the past - many of them infidels

who suffered privation or even death

for the cause of truth. How this is to

be done is not clear, but we dare not

reject the challenge. The first Dark

Age lasted nearly a thousand years.

The darkness that is about to fall

could last even longer.

Page 3


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D I S I N F O R M I N G

T H E F IT H F U L

By Frank R. Zindler

dis.in.for-ma.rion

n.

deliberately false

information leaked by a government, as

to confuse another nation's intelligence

operations

-Webster's New World Dictionary of

American English

Third College Edition

T

hroughout the course of the twen-

tieth century, human knowledge

increased at an astounding, explo-

sive pace. Newtonian physics gave way

to relativity and quantum mechanics.

The very concept of causality itself had

to be rethought in the face of

Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, and

Kurt Godel shook the foundations of

mathematics and logic.AsDarwin's the-

ory of natural selection found confirma-

tion in the blossoming of the science of

genetics, a veritable flood of fossil dis-

coveries filled in most of the gaps in the

evolutionary history of tetrapods, birds,

whales, humans, and many other types

of organisms. The sequencing of genes

and genomes made it possible to refine

our understanding of the evolutionary

interrelations of microbes as well as

those of the plants and animals of ordi-

nary human experience. Chimpanzees

were found to be 98.5%human. The con-

clusion that we live in an unplanned,

insentient universe became ineluctable.

Formerly a professor of biology

and geology in the State

University of New York system,

for many years Frank R. Zindler

has worked as a linguist and ana-

lyst of chemical literature for a sci-

entific society in Ohio. Since the

1995 murder of Robin Murray-

O'Hair, he has served as editor of

American Atheist Press.

Page 4

Discoveries in biochemistry, physi-

ology,and medicine transformed biology

from a collector's hobby into a scientific

discipline that by the end of the century

came incredibly close to understanding

the nature of life itself. They changed

medicine from a mysterious profession

that couldbe seriously challenged bythe

mumbo-jumbo of Christian Science

practitioners into a branch of science

that understands the biological basis of

infectious diseases, the biochemical and

genetic bases of cancer, and the neuro-

physiological underpinnings of mental

illness. The human mind began to

explain itself to itself.

During the same century, human

achievements became more and more

impressive as the knowledge gained

from pure research found practical

applications. Our species went bodily

from Kitty Hawk to the moon and vicar-

iously journeyed to other planets -

even sending a probe outside the bound-

aries of the solar system into interstel-

lar space. The discovery of antibiotics

and improvedvaccines, the development

of sophisticated imaging and diagnostic

systems, and the refinement of surgical

equipment and techniques transformed

medicine into a life-saving science with-

out equal in the history of humanity.

The average life expectancy of

Americans after 1900increased bymore

than thirty years, climbing to 77.2 years

in 2001. The increase is nearly the

entire life span of the composer Franz

Schubert, who died at the age of 31

Gods have ruled only the unknown

ever since the evolution of language cre-

ated names for them. Gods have never

been needed in spheres of human acti-

vity where knowledge was sufficient to

make accurate predictions of the future

state of the system in question. Of

course, at the dawn of civilization igno-

Winter 2003·2004

ranee was the norm and gods and

goddesses of all kinds never had to look

forwork. They had to heat the sun, send

the rain, hurl lightning bolts, sprout

seeds, ripen fruit, and form each fetus in

the womb.

Steadily but surely, however, the

advance of science and other fields of

human knowledge shrank the domain of

the unknown to ever smaller dimen-

sions. As answers were found for more

and more questions towhich the answer

formerly had been God, the gods of

Christianity, Judaism, Islam, and other

religions were sent into the ranks of the

unemployed. Today, there is nothing

worth mentioning left for gods to do.

Even church steeples are protected by

Benjamin Franklin, and storm gods are

out ofwork because of meteorology.

A Paradox Arises

During the second half of the twen-

tieth century, as knowledge of reality

was growing, a paradox was developing

in America. As mainline religions were

shrinking and relinquishing ground to

science, the most ignorant and primitive

forms of religion not only were surviv-

ing, they were actually thriving.

Disinformed fundamentalisms of every

type were gaining in power and threat-

ening to inaugurate a new Dark Age.

Snake handlers, Pentecostalists,

Jehovah's Witnesses, Baptists, Mor-

mons, Latinate Catholics,

Scientologists, and faith-healing fakirs

in alligator-skin boots were taking con-

trol of the superstition industry - the

biggest business in the history of civi-

lization. The paradox was stunning: the

technology of the twentieth century

CE

was being used to propagate the scien-

tific misunderstanding of the twentieth

century

BCE.

American Atheist


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Children will learn that reality

includes magic and make-believe,

as well as physics and physiology.

and more. ($14.99) The colorful pic-

tures on the box are calculated to be

irresistible to children and Christian

parents alike. But don't forget the Jonah

songs on CD: Jonah, Jonah's

Overboard Sing-Along, and Pirates

Boat Load of Fun. Of course, these are

also available on cassette, and we are

titillated by the promise that a new

Jonah movie will be available on

video and DVDin March

A complete biblical 'educa-

tion' is available to the child

whose parents purchase The

Beginners Bible Series and save

$69 by buying the entire set of

videos. The best-selling

Beginners Bible comes to your TV

screen Now your whole family

can share the timeless truths of God's

Word, because these videos combine

charming animation and memorable

songs to bring the Bible to life for all

ages. A delightful way to nurture your

kids' faith Among the 14 half-hour

videos that make up the set are ''The

Story of Creation, The Story of Noah's

Ark, The Story of Joshua and the

Battle of Jericho, The Story of David

and Goliath, The Story of the

Nativity, The Story of Jesus and His

Miracles, and The Story of Easter.

(Normally retailing for $168.87, the

entire set is yours for just $99.99.)

Children will learn that reality includes

magic and make-believe, as well as

physics and physiology.

Nochild's brain could be considered

completely washed and properly laun-

dered, however, without exposure to

Bibleman videos, DVDs, and action fig-

ures. An absurd caricature of Star Wars,

the featured Bibleman video is Jesus,

Our Savior. Finally, Luxor Spawndroth

is vanquished once and for all But just

when the good citizens ofAndersonville

think it's safe to go out, a new, even

more sinister villain takes his place -

Primordius Drool. Bibleman's super-

powers are put to the test when he must

convince the townspeople that nobody

can ultimately save them , except God

himself] Probably of more utility for

parents who want to stunt the intellec-

tual and personal growth of their chil-

dren, however, would be Bibleman

videos such as Breaking the Bonds of

Disobedience, Defeating the Shadow of

Doubt, and Shattering the Prince of

Pride.

There are so many books in the

CBD catalog aimed at propagating the

faith by imprinting it upon the imma-

Page 6

ture minds of children that it is hard to

decide what else to note at this point.

Shepherding a Child's Heart,

by Tedd

Tripp, however, seems sinister enough

to describe. Many parenting books are

based on hit-or-miss theories steeped in

secular thinking. This one draws from

Pastor Tripp's seasoned experience as a

father-and from God's holy Word

Grounded in the Bible's divine plan for

parenting, this guide defines your goals

as a parent and provides the scriptural

methods for accomplishing them. Covers

infancy through the teen years. One

wonders if Pastor Trippwill advise us to

stone to death our unruly sons as com-

manded in Deut. 21:18-21.

One last title in this genre: Every

Young Man's Battle, by Stephen

Arterburn and Fred Stoeker. From the

authors of Every Man's Battle comes a

survival guide for male teens and young

adults engaged in a high-stakes struggle

with sexual temptation. Learn how to

help these young men implement a prac-

tical, realistic 'battle plan'-exchanging

their shame and confusionfora positive,

thriving relationship with Christ.

Aaaachhh

If a Christian 'education' has been

successful, its graduates will remain

childlike and undiscerning forever after

and will provide a market for 'adult edu-

cation' products such as

A Life God

Rewards - Video Curriculum.

Just

$69.99, the catalog asserts that Some

questions never seem to goaway- such

as what will life be like when we step

into eternity? In this 8-part series,

Bruce Wilkinson offers a fresh, biblical

view of heaven and shows why it's vital

to serve Godwholeheartedly now soyou

can enjoy the hereafter. I'll bet you can

serve God today by sending your faith

dollars to the followingaddress ...

Apologetics

In the culture towhich the CBDcat-

alog panders, few things are more

important than defending the faith. Of

course, the more irrational the faith, the

greater the defense required. Defending

faith against the facts of the real world

Winter 2003-2004

has never been easy, and help in the

form ofbooks on apologetics has always

been in demand for believers who are

short in the fantasy department and

have to fight a proclivity to think ration-

ally. Successful apologetics books are

written so well that otherwise sane and

rational believers are completely taken

in by what passes for reasoning and,

after some amount of practice,

will proceed to try out their

arguments on hapless friends,

neighbors, school board mem-

bers, and even well-educated

members of society.

In the CBDcatalog before

me, pride of place is given to

The Case For Christ, written

by the apologist Lee Strobel. If you

were a journalist, how would you inves-

tigate the hottest news story in history?

Join award-winning reporter Strobel as

he probes the life of Jesus Christ.

Interviewing 13 of the country's top

Christian scholars, he ferrets out incon-

testable historical, scientific, and psy-

chiatric evidence to support the claims

ofJesus. Aunique approach to apologet-

ics In this book you can examine the

mockeryStrobel makes of myown argu-

ment that Nazareth was uninhabited at

the turn of the era and you can specu-

late about how uniformed a fool I must

be to write the stuff I write.

It is perhaps to be expected that

this catalog does

not

carry Earl

Doherty's Challenging the Verdict: A

Cross-Examination of Lee Strobel's 'The

Case for Christ'. You'llhave to goto ama-

zon.comto order this meticulous, point-

by-point refutation of Strobel's apolo-

gies. Further to be expected, the catalog

does

carry Strobel's

The Case for Faith:

''Why does God permit evil? Why do

some prayers go unanswered? Why has

God allowed the church to engage in

brutality and hypocrisy? Tough ques-

'tions demand convincing answers. Join

award-winning journalist Strobel as he

once again journeys across the country,

challenging philosophers, theologians,

and ordinary believers to defend their

faith. The evidence he uncovers may

surprise you Indeed they will.

As upsetting as these books may be

to those who are objectively engaged in

the quest for truth, it is downright repel-

lent to learn that the two Strobel books

are available in Student Editions. An

arsenal of truth for your teens on the

frontlines of faith Biblically sound rea-

soning and convincing evidence equip

American Atheist


9/60

Defending faith against the facts of the real world

has never been easy,and help in the form of books

on apologetics has always been in demand for

believers who are short in the fantasy department

and have to fight a proclivi ty to think rationally.

them to defend their faith and answer

challenging skeptics' questions - all in

contemporary language. Just $12.99for

the two-volume set. It is hard to overes-

timate the damage that will be done by

the disinformation crammed into this

apologetic effort.

For many years, one of America's

most visible and vocal apologists for bib-

lical inerrancy and evangelical dogmas

has been Josh McDowell. CBD carries

his three-volume ApologeticsLibrary,

consisting of Handbook of Today's

Religione.; The New Evidence That

Demands a Verdict,

and

A Ready

Defense - all for $43.99 ($79.97 list

price). More than ever, Christians

must be prepared to defend their faith.

Equip yourself with well-reasoned argu-

ments, conclusive evidence, and accu-

rate information about creation, the vir-

gin birth, the resurrection of Jesus, the

reliability of the Bible, the nature of

truth, postmodernism, cults, the occult,

non-Christian religions, and much

more. Ideal for curious skeptics and on-

guard believers.

Extremely clever volumes all, they

are calculated to cause discomfort

among unbelievers and misbelievers of

all educational levels. Many arguments

require careful and detailed research to

find the fallacies A good example is his

defense of the historicity of Jesus. He

asks, Is absence ofevidence evidence of

absence? To be sure, this is an old

chestnut, but it requires considerable

philosophical sophistication to show

that it misrepresents the problem and

fundamentally misunderstands the

methods of science.

If there could be such a thing as

academic respectability for apologetics

and apologists, Norman L. Geisler and

his productions would be the most likely

tobe accorded it. Geisler can be thought

of as a philosophically sophisticated

Josh McDowell.He can argue about the

meaning of meaning, the foundations of

scientific knowledge, and the nature of

truth. A formidable opponent in debate,

he is perhaps the single most important

apologist for Atheists and skeptics to

understand and refute.


The CBDcatalog features the

Baker

Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics.

At last, a handy one-volume reference

that covers every issue, person, and con-

cept related to the defense of

Christianity - and gives you responses

to arguments against the faith. Geisler's

comprehensive work covers a variety of

topics, including the relationship

between science and Christianity, philo-

sophical systems, contemporary con-

cerns, and more. Other Geisler titles

available are The Battle for God,

Christian Apologetics, Christian Ethics,

From God to Us, Introduction to

Philosophy: A Christian Perspective,

Unshakable Foundation, and Why I Am

a Christian.

Geisler has also co-authored with

Ron Brooks the perennial best-seller

When Skeptics Ask: A Handbook on

Christian Evidences. When skeptics

ask questions, believers need tobeready

with evidences for their faith. This

handbook helps you do that. Geisler ...

and Brooks give understandable expla-

nations why belief in Christ and the

Bible is reasonable. Their question-and-

answer format makes it easy to find

what you need, and a glossary of terms

helps with unfamiliar words. When

skeptics ask ... you need this book

In the post-9-1-1world, Islam is on

everyone's mind. Evangelical Christians

are up to the challenge, however, and

the CBD catalog has a number of

polemic works aimed at defusing the

Islamic bomb. Although they do not

name Geisler's co-author (AbdulSaleeb)

for Answering Islam, Second Edition,

The Crescent in Light of the Cross, they

will send it to you for $12.99 plus ship-

ping. ''Understand the most formidable

religious challenge to Christianity

today Written by a lifelong Christian

and a former Muslim, this theological

critique clearly presents the basic doc-

trines of Islam, offers a Christian

response to Muslim beliefs, and argues

in support of Christian claims. New

preface written in light of 9/11.

It will be recalled that waters for

the biblical flood came from opened

windows of heaven and broken-up

Winter 2003-2004

fountains of the deep. If disinforma-

tion were water, the contributions of

Geisler and McDowel to the disinforma-

tion flood which has engulfed our civi-

lization would probably be equivalent to

the effusions from the fountains of the

deep.

Creationism

Creationists never tire to tell us

that their work is scientific and not reli-

gious. The developers of 'Scientific

Creationism' and more recently

'Intelligent Design' eschew religious lan-

guage as much as possible and sport a

veneer of scientific language and.

appearance. The cat is out of the bag,

however, thanks to the CBDcatalog. On

the page headed Defending the Faith

and More on Apologetics we find cre-

ationism under all disguises correctly

located and identified for what it really

is: religious apologetics.

The politically important Focus on

the Family Creation Videos are both

available for $15.99 each or for $29.99

together. Titled Unlocking the Mystery

of Life: The Case for Intelligent Design

and Icons of Evolution: Dismantling the

Myths, these revisionist views of evolu-

tionary science claim to have the real

facts. How did life originate? Was it

from an undirected evolutionary

process, or was something - or Some-

one - else at work? No questions are

more important, and these thought-pro-

voking videos offer revolutionary

answers. State-of-the-art computer ani-

mation and insights from leading scien-

tists provide an in-depth look at

Darwin's theory and the powerful new

evidence in favor of intelligent design.

Apart from professional biologists, it is

not likely that very many people will be

able to detect the distortions of these

disinformative examples of religion in

the clothing of science.

Intelligent Design 'theory' is repre-

sented prominently in the apologetics

section of the CBD catalog, and all the

usual suspects have been placed in the

lineup. Starting with the lawyer Philip

E. Johnson's Defeating Darwinism by

Opening Minds, we are asked ''What's

the best way to defeat the misleading

claims of Darwinism? The answer

according to the CBD catalog, is B;

developing solid critical-thinking

skills... [Johnson's] non-technical dis-

cussion of evolutionary naturalism

offers sound advice on spotting decep-

tive arguments, grasping scientific

issues, understanding the impact of the

Scopes trial, and more. Ideal for teens,

Page 7


10/60

teachers, pastors, or anybody concerned

about the creation/evolutiondebate. As

with earlier creationists, Johnson's lob-

byists make an appeal for fairness and

open-mindedness - equal time for ID

and evolution. Unfortunately, many

school board members can't tell the dif-

ference between a mind that is 'open'

and a mind that is gaping. Other offer-

ings fromJohnson are

Darwin on Trial,

The Right Questions: Truth, Meaning

Public Debate, The Triumph of Design

and the Demise of Darwin

(video), and

The Wedge of Truth: Splitting the

Foundations ofNaturalism. It is hard to

tell just how many school boards have

been taken in by this creationist apolo-

gist, but he is a serious threat to science

education in the public schools.

Michael J. Behe, the biochemist

(really ) who almost single-handedly

started the intelligent-design (lD) revo-

lution in creationist politics, has for sale

Darwin's Black Box: The Biochemical

Challenge to Evolution, a book that

brings the nineteenth-century argu-

ments about 'design' in nature down to

the sub-cellular level. Whereas back

then creationists argued that such

things ashalfa wing or half an eye could

not even be imagined as adaptive (and

thus selectable by natural selection),

convincingexplanations of organ evolu-

tion have forcedBehe to retreat down to

the cytologicaland biochemical levels to

find yet-unexplained conundrums.

Bloodclotting systems and the flagellar

motorsofbacteria are nowclaimed to be

irreducibly complex, and thus evi-

dence of an intelligent designer. Since

Behe can't see how these systems could

have evolved from other pre-existing

systems, his conceit leads him to assert

that no one else will ever understand

these systems either.

It is not surprising that we do not

yet know how these systems evolved,

even though we are closing in fast on

such understanding. These systems are

still being mapped at the molecular level

and we don't have a full picture ofwhat

exactly we have to explain. (For per-

spective, consider the fact that I myself

am older than the science of biochem-

istry as a separate academic discipline )

We are disputing at the leading edge of

science, the boundary line where every-

thing on the other side is unknown and

where every newly discovered fact rais-

es new questions ofmechanisms and ori-

gins. Without a doubt, however, all these

discoveries are informed by Darwinian

insights and are, one after the other,

being explained in evolutionary terms.

PageS

Evolutionary theory has great

heuristic value; that is, it makes useful

predictions and leads to discovery. By

contrast, Behe's god is the quintessen-

tial 'god of the gaps.' It leads to no dis-

coveries, and as each gap in knowledge

is narrowed, the god shrinks proportion-

ally.As each gap is filled, Behe will have

to goback to the vanguard of discovery

to find a new unanswered question

raised by evolutionary scientists. Then,

for a time, he will be able to proclaim,

This system is irreducibly complex and

can't be explained in evolutionary

terms. But Behe will probably still be

alive when that problem is solved, and

he will have to recyclehis claim with yet

another newly uncovered conundrum.

As a matter of fact, the prestigious

journal Nature has just published a dis-

covery that undermines Behe's con-

tention that cilia and flagella are irre-

ducibly complex entities. It has just

been discovered that the intraflagellar

transport proteins that are needed for

growth and maintenance of flagella in

the single-celled alga Chlamydomonas,

are also needed for normal development

of the brain and spinal chord in mice.*

While these particular proteins are

essential for the functioning of cilia and

flagella, they don't need these motor

structures to bebiologically employed. It

can beexpected that other flagellar com-

ponents soon will be found to have a

variety of other functions as well. Cilia

and flagella will be seen to be jerry-built

organelles resulting from the same sort

of evolutionary tinkering that is seen

everywhere as the hallmark of the blind,

undesigning process of natural selec-

tion.

One of the theoreticians behind

Behe is William A. Dembski, whose

Intelligent Design: The Bridge Between

Science

&

Theology

is on sale for just

$11.99. With great affectation of erudi-

tion, Dembski claims that there are sci-

entific ways to detect design in objects

and systems. Well, so did Archdeacon

Paley at the beginning of the nineteenth

century, when he first used the now-

cliched example of watches pointing to

the existence of watchmakers. The

Blind Watchmaker, by Richard

Dawkins, quite thoroughly has laid this

question to rest. Another ID title avail-

able is Designer Universe: Intelligent

Huangfu, Danwei, Almin Liu, Andrew S.

Rakeman, Noel S. Murcia, Lee Niswander,

&

Kathryn V . Anderson, Hedgehog signalling

in the mouse requires intraflagellar trans-

port proteins,

Nature,

Vol.

426, 6

Nov.

2003,

pp.83-87.

Winter 2003-2004

Design and the Existence of God, by

Harry L. Poe Jimmy H. Davis - just

in case anyone were in doubt as to

where ID 'theory'is intended to lead the

public school system.

Creationists of all stripes and spots

are available in this catalog. There is

Kurt Wise's

Faith, Form, and TIme:

What the Bible Teaches & Science

Confirms About Creation

&

the Age of

the Universe.

Kurt was a doctoral stu-

dent under Steve Gould at Harvard,

would you believe? Despite his funda-

mental misunderstanding of science, he

passed all his exams (with flying colors,

I'm told) and Harvard had no choicebut

to grant him a Ph.D.

Hugh Ross, an old debate opponent

of mine, is represented by The Creator

and the Cosmos,

as well as

Lights in the

Sky and Little Green Men: A Rational

Christian Look at UFOs and Extra-

terrestrials (with co-authors K. Samples

and M. Clark). The founder of modern

'creation science,' Henry Morris, has a

catalog entry for his

The Biblical Basis

for Modern Science, Revised and

Expanded.

Morris, it should be noted,

has always refused to debate me, send-

ing his son John to argue Noah's Flood

with me in his stead. (Since I have no

Ph.D., you see, he has not wanted todig-

nify my position by bringing it up to his

level. A transcript of the debate can be

found on the American Atheists Web-

site under the

BonePit button.)

Spiritual Warfare

It may be that the editors of the

CBD catalog are a bit embarrassed to

include books about 'spiritual warfare'

in their inventory. Nowhere do they

explain exactly what spiritual warfare

is, nor do they have even one explana-

tory blurb pushing the twenty-one titles

listed under the heading Spiritual

Warfare. Fortunately, I am something

of an authority on this subject - due to

the fact that last year I debated a

Christian college professor whose doc-

toral dissertation devoted hundreds of

pages to the subject. Naturally, I had to

read the whole verschluggene treatise

before debating the fellow. Like many

true Christians, he believes in what may

be dubbed 'jinni-geography.' Every par-

ticular region of the world, it seems, is

being plagued by a specific demon or

devil whose job is to stymie the efforts of

Christ's salvation army. These all can be

defeated, first, by 'discerning the powers'

- i.e.,

learning the name and antisocial

American Atheist


11/60

lia and flagella will be seen to be jerry-built

lles resulting from the same sort of evolu-

onary tinkering that is seen everywhere as the

lmark of the blind, undesigningprocess of natu-

l selection.

curity number of each demon in

arge of each region. Then, once the

is have been identified, their names

n be used magically in prayers and

orcisms. In the darkest days of the

k Ages, no superstition surpassed

is one for silliness, fatuousness, or

plain ignorance.

Among the titles offered to legions

clueless Christian soldiers are How to

st Out Demons, by Doris M. Wagner;

hat the Bible Says About Spiritual

byC. Peter Wagner;

Strategy of

by Warren E. Wiersbe;

Warfare

by C. Peter Wagner; The

ndbook for Spiritual Warfare

evised and Updated), by Dr. Ed

Spiritual Warfare, by A. Scott

; Deliverance from Evil Spirits,

Francis MacNutt [howappropriate a

me for this

authorl};

Unmasking the

zebel Spirit, by John Paul Jackson;

ngdom Warfare: Prayer, Spiritual

, and the Ministry of Angels, by

ck Hayford; and Preparing for Battle:

Spiritual Warfare Workbook, by Mark

Bubeck.

These theorists and some of the

ders in George W. Bush's military

ve been busy of late 'discerning the

wers' in Iraq and are believed by

any to be doing a far more important

than that done by our troops on the

. More important even than our

r force, these mentally hapless

plites constitute the spiritual

e

that our president is counting

to turn the tide in the Near East.

ow that Saddam Hussein has been

ptured, it will be possible for these

iritual intelligence experts to deter-

ne for certain which evil spirits have

en possession of the demonized ex-

er. While rationalists must perforce

nsider all this tobe absurd and ridicu-

us, they must at the same time realize

e grave importance of the fact that

any of their disinformed elected offi-

als and military leaders take all this

seriously as body-counts.

rsippany, New Jersey

Prophecy

When Ronald Reagan was yet gov-

ernor of California, he expressed his

belief in the BookofRevelation publicly,

indicating that he believed he was living

in the 'end times' foretold in that apoca-

lyptic book. When he became president,

I lived in constant fear that he might at

any minute decide that it was necessary

to catalyze the advent ofArmageddon. If

Godwants the world to end in our time

howcould any God-fearing president act

contrary to the divine will? Would that

red telephone be in his officeif the Good

and the Middle East Crisis-Revised.

Armageddon is closer than we think,

believes noted Bible scholar Walvoord

Explaining how biblical prophecies are

nowbeing fulfilled in such events as the

ArablIsraeli conflict, Walvoord prepares

you for the final drama leading to the

second coming of Christ. Are you ready?

Walvoord offers a plan of salvation so

you can be sure. While rationalists

must be amusedly skeptical of a

prophetic book that has had to be

revised, legions of true believers at all

levels of our society have taken this

book quite seriously and are trying to

figure out exactly where they fit into '

this divinely designed scenario.

No prophecy section of a truly

Christian catalog would be complete

without the works of Tim LaHaye,

including Charting the End Times: A

Visual Guide to Understanding Bible

Prophecy. Does apocalyptic literature

leave you bleary-eyed? Gain a clear pic-

More important even than our air force, these

mentally hapless hoplites constitute the spiri tual

uftwaffe

that our president is counting on to turn

the tide in the Near East.

Lord hadn't planned it? Would

Armageddon become a self-fulfilling

prophecy? If any Bible-believing

Christian is sitting in the Oval Office,

will Armageddon become a self-fulfilling

prophecy?

Reagan was the darling of reac-

tionary Christians everywhere, and his

belief in the importance of biblical

prophecy greatly amplified an already

loud clamor emanating from true believ-

ers who claimed that everything hap-

pening in our world was predicted by

the ancient authors of their sacred

books. This prophetic chorus has contin-

ued to grow in volume up to the present

day, and it is now the opinion of a con-

siderable number ofvery high officials in

Washington. In the case of the president

himself, it is hazardous to try to sepa-

rate public pretense from private profes-

sion. He does appear genuinely to

believe that he has been chosen by the

god of his Bible to invade Iraq and

depose its demonic leader. Where might

he (or the spiritual powers behind his

throne) have gotten such ideas?

Possible answers can be found in the

CBD catalog. Consider Dr. John

Walvoord'sbest-selling

Armageddon, Oil

Winter 2003-2004

ture of Bible prophecy with this aston-

ishing visual guide Features stimulat-

ing text; over 50 dynamic color charts;

timelines to clarify end-times chronolo-

gy; and a 6-panel foldout panoramic

view of God's plan for the ages. The

result of decades of research and study

by two prophecy experts. Also available

are LaHaye's Are We Living in the End

Times?; The Complete Bible Prophecy

Chart; The Merciful God of Prophecy;

The Rapture: Who Will Face the

Tribulation?; and Understanding Bible

Prophecy for Yourself Keys to Unlocking

the End Times.

Once again, rationalists may laugh

at the whole concept of prophecy, with

its fundamental assumption that

Yahweh or Jesus wasn't really speaking

to the people the Bible says he was

addressing but rather was talking to

people who would live thousands of

years later in lands yet unimagined. It is

no laughing matter, however, to consider

the danger inherent in a world whose

leaders and lobbyists not only actually

believe such nonsense but think, more-

over, that the future is not going to be

the logical result of actions we have

taken in the past and present, but

Page 9


12/60

rather was all planned out by a presci-

entific society that wouldn't have had

the faintest idea ofwhat to dowith a 6-

panel foldout panoramic view of God's

plan for the ages. Belief that the future

of human society not only has been

determined by causes outside human

control but is unalterable by human

actions is noxious. It

canonlyfoster societal

paralysis. No true

believer can be expect-

ed to do the slightest

thing toprevent a real-

world Armageddon -

hence my alarm years

agoduring the Reagan

regime. Of all the dis-

information leaked to

credulous American governmental

'intelligence' personnel by all the vari-

us insurgent theocracies now contend-

ing for control of this land of ours, none

s as pernicious as the notion that the

Biblecan foretell the future without the

need ofscience or rational actions of any

ind.

Obesity is rampant in America, as I

am painfully aware from my own sol-

diering in the 'Battle of the Bulge.'

Practically everyone today is overweight

- or thinks so. Is this a challenge for

Bible Man's accountant or what? Who

can forget that Moseswrote that Allthe

fat is the LORD's Lev3:16]?Any enter-

scientific writings of men who would be

implacable enemies of science if they

were alive today. I suspect Dr. Colbert

has reaped a healthy harvest from the

sale of these best-selling books. His

investment in Christian credulity and

ignorance must be returning tidy earn-

ings for him.

It would appear

that Dr. Colbert is a

mere novice compared

to Carole Lewis in the

art of cashing in on

Christian credulity and

gullibility. She has cre-

ated an astonishing

money-making scheme

the equal to which will

be hard to find - even

in the CBD catalog. She is selling not

just a book; she is selling a

plan: First

Place: The Original Bible-Based Weight

Loss Plan.

Here's a weight-loss pro-

gram that's about gaining ... a life-

changing relationship with God

Participants in the 13-weekprogram fol-

low a fitness and Bible study plan that

includes regular meetings, prayer,

Scripture reading and memorization,

healthy eating, accountability, fellow-

ship, and exercise. Learn to be victori-

ous over old eating habits and commit

your spirit, heart, mind,

and

body to

God.

The catalog cheerfully assures its

readers Here's everything you need to

start a First Place group: Group Starter

Kit $149.99 [$119.99 for CBD cus-

tomers], Member Kit $79.99 [$63.99].

Everything, apparently, is more

than just the Group Starter Kit and the

Member Kit. You're not going to get on

this diet for just $183.98. Oh, no: there

are the Books in the series that you

will need:

Elmer Gantry can show you that Lev 3:16

does not just apply to the fat of sacrificial ani-

mals. Jehovah wants

your

fat as well, and you

really shouldn t ignore his kinky desires.

Dieting and Health,

With

Key

to the Scriptures

For many decades, American

theists has been arguing before state

legislatures and in its various periodi-

cals that religion can be dangerous to

one's health. Wehave focused, ofcourse,

on the most dangerous cults such as

Christian Science, the Faith Assembly,

and other groups that eschew scientific

medicine in favor of treatment by

prayer alone. Our polemic has been

directed mostly at the religious 'healing'

of children, many of whom have died of

prayer over-dose during the last thirty

years. Alas, this horrific form of child

abuse continues to be legal in most

states of the union, thanks to the lobby-

ing expertise of the Christian Science

Church.

It must be admitted that killing

kids with prayer is not a widespread

practice in mainstream American

Christianity, but I remain cynical as to

the reasons for this apparent benignity.

Perhaps it is due to the simple fact that

there's little money to be made from

dead children. (As far as I am aware,

only Christian Science Practitioners can

collect from Blue Cross and other

sources for prayer 'treatment' even

when it has killed the patient.) On the

other hand, there are other markets

where religions and religious authors

can invest their time and energy.

Page 10

prising Elmer Gantry can showyou that

that verse does not just apply to the fat

of sacrificial animals. Jehovah wants

your

fat as well, and you really shouldn't

ignore his kinky desires. Besides, Jesus

agrees with his dad completely on this

issue, as you can find out by reading a

popular book by Don Colbert, M.D.

For just $16.99 you can own What

Would Jesus Eat? The Ultimate

Program for Eating Well, Feeling Great,

and Living Longer.

Does Scripture

teach us how to live and eat? Based on

medical and' historical research, this

health specialist say yes Dr. Colbert

shows youwhy those foodsJesus ate are

ideal for 21st-century living-and why

those he avoided continue to posehealth

risks. Discover a comprehensive nutri-

tion plan that incorporates Bible-based

eating. For just $15.99 more you can

get Colbert's The What Would Jesus Eat

Cookbook.

Another $14.99 (unless you

want it on audiocassette or CD) will get

you Colbert's

Toxic Relief.

Dr. Colbert's

proven 30-day fasting and detoxification

program will help cleanse your system,

restore your vitality, shed toxic fat, and

reclaim your health.

Of course, it cannot be assumed

that everything in these books will be

silly or ill-advised. I have not had the

time to obtain these books, and I am

willing to grant that they may be rea-

sonable rehashes of common medical

wisdom on the subject of health and

nutrition. My gripe is that where these

books may be giving good advice it will

be for the wrong reasons. Instead of

credit accruing to the lineage of infidel

scientists whohave slowly and painfully

accumulated knowledge of the function-

ing of

the human machine, credit - and credi-

bility - will be conferred upon the pre-

Winter 2003·2004

Eating Healthy, Eating Right: A

Complete 16-week Meal Planner to Help

You Lose Weight, Scott Wilson, E.E.E.,

A.A.C.

Jody Wilkinson, M.D., M.S.

$18.99 [$13.99]. [For some reason, the

meal planner is for 16 weeks even

though the program is only 13weeks.]

First Place: The Original Bible-Based

Weight Loss Plan,

Carole Lewis with

Terry Whalin, $18.99 [$13.99].

First Place Bible Study, $19.99

[$13.99].

First Place Leader's Guide, $19.99

[$15.99].

Health 4 Life: 52 Simple Ideas for

Living Healthy in Every Area,

Jody

Wilkinson, M.D., M.S., $14.99 [$11.99].

American Atheist


13/60

[Normally 29¢ each, you can get each

simple idea forjust 23¢ a piece in lots of

52or more ]

Today Is the First Day: Daily

Encouragement on the Journey to Weight

Loss and a Balanced Life, Carole Lewis,

19.99 [ 14.99].

Even though you must have real-

ized that the

actual foods to be

eaten are not

included in the

prices listed

above, you should

not suppose that

it will only cost

you the discount

price of $268.92

plus postage and

handling. I have

not told you yet

that you alsoneed

Bible studies

with Scripture memory CDs to do this

diet. In addition, you need to buy:

biblical weight-loss scheme, publish it

under a pseudonym, and launder it

through a high-volume Christian dis-

tributor such as CBD. If only he were

alive today to see how even his fantasy

has been surpassed by the Christians

themselves.

Bible, Bible Studies, and Bible

Reference Works.

It must be said at the outset that

there is almost nothing of any scientific

value in those pages. That is, there is

very little representing objective and

impartial scholarship in them. A great

deal has been discovered about the ori-

gins and evolution

of the various bibli-

cal texts, but you

won't find much of it

for sale here. Tothe

contrary, you will

find only books and

reference works

that toe the evan-

gelical line and

eschew 'Modernism'

and other secular or

scientific heresies.

There are endless

series ofbible-study

guides and courses, not one of which is

worth naming in this essay. Not one of

them will give any insight into the

nature of the biblical texts or let the stu-

dent know what real scholars have fig-

ured out, say, about the forgery known

as the Book of Daniel. Not one of them

will alert the student to the fact that the

authors of Matthew and Luke plagia-

rized the Greek text ofMark, fitting it to

their theopolitical circumstances. Not

one will derive the creation myths in

Genesis from Canaanite and

Mesopotamian mythologies. Only

benighted ignorance is for sale in the

bible-studies pages of the CBDcatalog.

There is so much more to tell you

about the books and paraphernalia

being sold to the child-like, believing

population that has helped an ultracon-

servative 'Neocon' oligarchy to seize con-

trol of our country, but I fear I have run

out of antacids and cannot turn another

page in this catalog without suffering

ulceration of my splenic mucosa. I have

already discharged all the bile I can pro-

duce for a single review and shall have

to let the hundreds of remaining catalog

items go unclassified as well as

unnamed - unscored and unscourged.

Instead of credit accruing to the lineage of infidel

scientists who have slowly and painfully accumulat-

ed knowledge of the functioning of the human

machine, credit - and credibi li ty - will be conferred

upon the prescientific writings of men who would

be implacable enemies of science if they were alive

today.

Everyday Victory for Everyday People,

19.99 [ 15.99J.

Giving Christ First Place, $19.99

[ 15.99J.

Living the Legacy,

19.99 [ 15.99].

Pathway to Success,

19.99 [ 15.99].

Pressing On to the Prize, $19.99

[ 15.99J.

Seeking God's Best, 19.99 [ 15.99].

In short, the fatted faithful should

bewilling to sacrifice $364.86 in order to

begin

letting Jehovah lap up the lard

that rightfully belongs to him. Some

truly true-believing dieters might worry,

however, that the LORD may look

askance at their discount sacrifice - he

might think they aren't sufficiently sup-

pliant by not presenting Him an offering

at full sticker price. True Christians

such as they might well want to avoid

this discount catalog and buy everything

straight from the manufacturer at

Suggested Retail Price, so the LORDwill

know they are sincere.

It is hard to imagine an easier way

tomake money from

Homo boobus,

as H.

L. Mencken once christened the believ-

ing American multitude the

'booboisie.' I am reminded of Jon

Murray, when he became president of

American Atheists indulging in some

fantasizing about how to get Christians

to pay for Atheism to make up for the

ages through whichAtheists have had to

pay for Christianity. He had just seen a

bumper-sticker inscribed with Lev 3:16

- The Fat is the Lord's - along with

something suggesting Christian dieting.

He thought it would be fun to cook up a


Bible Study

I have to confess that I get the CBD

catalog for more reasons than just keep-

ing abreast of what the Fundies are up

to. As a scientific student of the bibles of

Judaism and Christianity, I possess a

very large library of scholarly resources

for studying those bibles: Aramaic,

Greek, and Hebrew dictionaries in great

number, bibles in Greek, Hebrew, and

other languages, journals, symposia,

concordances, commentaries, atlases,

collected works of early church fathers,

and photocopies of scholarly treatises in

German, French, and other languages

published as far back as 1793. As the

reader may suppose, such things don't

usually come cheap and they make up a

significant part of my annual budget (as

if I were well enough organized to have

a budgetl). Naturally, I try to buy such

things at the lowest-possible prices.

Once in a great while, I can find some-

thing I need in the CBDcatalog. Great

Most often, however, there is noth-

ing I can use in the catalog. Although it

does carry standard grammars and dic-

tionaries for the biblical languages, I've

owned them all for over thirty years now

and they are of no interest to me.

Certainly, however, they will be ofuse to

young scholars beginning their investi-

gation of the bibles of Judeochris-

tendom, although most of them are not

discounted all that greatly. Unfortu-

nately, young scholars will be impeded

in their inquest into the nature of the

biblical texts by all the nonsense that

blights the pages under the headings

Biblical Studies, How to Study the

Winter 2003-2004

What Does It All Mean?

The CBDcatalog conceals an impor-

tant message, one that can be extracted

from every page: America is on the verge

ofplunging back down into the depths of

the Dark Ages of Faith. The most

abysmal superstitions of a prescientific

world are selling faster than Freedom

Page 11


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15/60

Luther

Burbank:

Infidel

Genius

Introduction

by Frank R. Zindler

a

rowing up on my grandfather's

small farm in Michigan, I

learned early-on that someofthe

ost beautiful flowers and the most

elicious and productive varieties of

its and vegetables had been 'pro-

ced'by a man named Burbank. After I

arned how to read real books, not just

he primers and readers taught in the

o-room school I attended, one of the

irst books of any kind I was to read all

he way through was a children's bio-

raphy of the Plant Wizard Luther

. The bookgavenohint that the

an who had been named after the

under ofmy family's religion held het-

rodox views in the sphere of faith.

here was not a word or phrase that

ould have suggested that Luther not

nlywasn't a Lutheran, he wasn't even

a Christian or believer ofany kind at all.

uther Burbank (1849-1926) became

y first hero, and I read his biography

at least twice. I resolved to followin his


footsteps - perhaps to become a

Lutheran Luther Jr. Life

is

irony

It wasn't until years later, after I

had graduated from college - perhaps

significantly, as a biologist with a heavy

emphasis in botany - that I happened to

learn the truth about Luther Burbank.

(No, Burbank California is not named

after Luther Burbank; rather, it is

named after a Los Angeles dentist,

David Burbank.) The man whose fun-

gus-resistant potatoes had restored to

life Catholic Ireland was an 'Infidel' -

an unbeliever in any of the superstitions

afflicting this credulous world ofours.

I have longwanted topublish a trib-

ute to Burbank in this journal, but I

have never had the time to research a

completely original article. As other

projects have had to take priority over

the Burbank project, I have begun to

worry that it will never come to publica-

tion and that my childhood hero will

pass into oblivion and be forgotten even

by members of the American Atheist

community. For this reason, I have

decided to reprint the full text of the

'Little Blue Book'ofE. Haldeman-Julius

dealing with Burbank: Why I Am An

Winter 2003-2004

Infidel: Luther Burbank,

LITTLE BLUE

BOOK NO. 1020, Edited by E.

Haldeman-Julius (Girard, Kansas:

Haldeman-Julius Company, no date). In

addition, I am reprinting part of a chap-

ter from George E. Macdonald's book

Fifty Years of Freethaught (1931) that

contains the actual survey question-

naire to which Burbank replied and

touched off the wave of hostile reaction

alluded to in the Little Blue Book.

Luther

Burbank

(Apparently written by

Haldeman-Julius)

[Pages 3-4 ofE. Haldeman-Julius' Little

Blue Book No. 1020]

L

uther Burbank, naturalist, origina-

tor of new fruits, flowers, etc., was

born in Massachusetts in 1849. he was

always devoted to nature study, espe-

cially plant life, with which he early

Page 13


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17/60


18/60

T

he hot debate on evolution in

1922 acquainted us incidentally

with the reason why scientific

truth makes slow headway against

religion. It was that the exponents of

truth never could depend upon the sci-

entists to rally around and battle for

the right interpretation of facts. From

the first of my Freethought reading I

had learned that science traversed

every article of faith held by the

Christian world. The light of science,

the writers of fifty years ago finely

said, had dissolved the mists of super-

stition, or were destined to do so at an

early date. And Evolution - Why, evo-

lution didn't leave religion a peg to

hang its millinery on. But they hoped

against experience. Science didn't dis-

solve the mists; the mists befogged

science.

There is that old Science of

Astronomy, with all its facts. that in

the days of Galileo and Copernicus

created a new heaven and a new earth

wholly incompatible with Bible geog-

raphy, aeronautics, and ascensions.

The Bible had residents in heaven and

on earth swapping visits and return-

ing calls; and belief in that sort of

thing - this ascension of persons from

the pages of the Bible into heaven -

has survived the clearly demonstrated

truth that there is nowhere for such

persons to go. The belief is still so com-

mon that it is only the unusual man or

woman who will openly express doubt

Page 16

Burbank

Answers

Some Questions

Excerpted from Fifty Years of Freethought: Story of The Truth Seeker

From1875,

Vol. II, by George E. Macdonald (New York: The Truth Seeker

Company, 1931), pages 548-553

that Jesus was received bodily into

heaven wearing his Sunday clothes.

There is prospect that before my book

is out, the pope, yielding to tradition

and the request of many heads of reli-

gious societies, will promulgate the

dogma - and see it accepted next day

by the newspapers - of the assump-

tion of the virgin; that is, that the

mother of Jesus was snatched alive,

with all her disabilities, into the pres-

ence of her son, seated just to the right

of his father in heaven. Copernicus

handed that foolishness a fatal blow;

yet one may now examine orthodox

faith closely and not find a dent made

in it by astronomical fact.

That other great science, Geology,

by which it is certified that the six

thousand year period since Genesis is

less than sixty seconds on the clock of

the world, disturbs the faith of no one

who really wants to be a child of God

and accept Jesus as his personal sav-

ior. This notwithstanding that no man

having such endowments of horse

sense that he knows a contradiction

when he sees one can believe in mod-

ern astronomy and geology and in

Christianity at the same time.

Still it is hard to give up the

belief, taught some of us at our moth-

ers' knees, as it were, that knowledge

shall yet dissolve the morning mists of

superstition like fog before the rising

sun.

Winter 2003·2004

In 1922 Miss Lovisa Brunzell of

San Francisco, who had been brought

into Rationalism by the 1915

Freethought Congress in that city,

thought to hang Christianity higher

than Haman by taking the depositions

of all the men of science in America

and publishing them in a book for gen-

eral circulation. Hence her famous

Questionnaire, which before she com-

pleted her part of the work had been

sent to all of the eleven thousand men

and women who were members of the

American Association for the

Advancement of Science. Luther

Burbank, the Darwinian plant wiz-

ard of Santa Rosa, California,

answered promptly and favorably on

one of the first forms distributed, and

returned the questions with the

answers here appended:

Q. Do you believe in the divinity

and miraculous conception of Christ?

B. I do not; there is no proof of it,

either natural or otherwise.

Q. Is it your opinion that prayer is

answered by an intelligent being from

without?

B. I do not believe that prayer has

been or ever will be answered by any

intelligent being from without. There

is absolutely no proof whatever of this,

though it may be very comforting to

some to believe this myth.

Q. Do you think that the sole

value of prayer consists in its effect on

American Atheist


19/60


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Luther

Burbank,

Infidel

[Pages 9-25 of E. Haldeman-Julius'

Little Blue Book No.

1020]

I

W

hen Luther Burbank, disci-

ple, prophet and high priest

of nature, announced him-

self as an infidel he loosed a shot in

the hierarchy of orthodox thinking

that was destined, like another shot

before it, to be heard around the

world.

On the morning of Friday,

January

22, 1926,

before Burbank's

avowal of disbelief was broadcast

through the press, California's gentle

patriarch went about his experimen-

tal labors with the serenity of one who

knows that he has harbored no evil

thoughts of his fellowman and that in

seventy-seven years of life he has

never consciously hurt a living being.

He was the revered, kindly old

gentleman of an admiring world. No

voice had ever been raised against

him. How could any voice be raised

against a man who had done only

good, who had filled the world's gar-

dens with more beautiful flowers than

they had ever known before, who in

times of hunger and war had helped

replenish the world's granaries by his

genius, and who had given mankind

meaty vegetables and gorgeous fruits

such as nature, working blindly, had

never before visioned?

At noon of that day the

San

Francisco Bulletin,

shielding its sen-

sational beat against the buccaneer-

ing plagiarisms of rival papers, rent

wide its pages to make space for my

copyright interview in which the

famous horticulturist described him-

self fearlessly as an infidel, expressed

disbelief in immortality, and of course

scornfully dismissed Henry Ford's

Page 18

by

Edgar Waite

recently pledged adherence to a fan-

tastic theory of reincarnation.

And before night Burbank, wrest-

ed violently from his calm nature-lore

in the thriving little city of Santa

Rosa, became the center of the most

exciting philosophical and theological

discussion of our era. Letters and

telegrams began pouring in, first from

nearby cities, but, as the days passed,

from an ever-widening circle that

finally took in Canada, England,

Germany and a score of ether coun-

tries. From scientists and laymen who

with Tennyson believe that there is

more faith in honest doubt than in

half the creeds, came messages of

commendation. From the orthodox

Like kernels of popcorn, livid defend-

ers of the faith, scorched by the heat of

what a great man sees as Truth,

jumped high into the air, and with

quavering voices went into convul-

sions. Sententious champions of the

gospel squared off to engage Burbank

in Quixotic jousting, and fanatics ran

amuck with anonymous threats of

every dire punishment known either

to God or the evil eye. One writer,

addressing his protest to the newspa-

per that had first interviewed

Burbank on the subject, consigned the

plant wizard to no less a tropical cli-

mate than hell itself, where it was

promised he would meet Conan Doyle

and Sir Oliver Lodge.

Like kernels of popcorn, livid defenders of the

faith , scorched bS the heat of what a great man

sees as Truth, jum ped high into the air, and w ith

quavering voic es wen t in to convu lsions.

clergy, and from cranks of all condi-

tions of mental servitude, there came

an avalanche of expostulation,

reproof, and sibilant recrimination for

the man who had the temerity to tell

what he thought In the face of estab-

lished doctrine.

Ministers in Luther Burbank's

own town, whose churches he had

attended at times and for whose con-

gregations he had more than once

spoken on scientific subjects, winced,

looked first askance, then scandal-

ized. With wry faces religious leaders

pecked at his words, outraged orators

enveloped him in the gases of wither-

ing, trenchant criticism, and fanatics

lashed him with biblical platitudes.

Winter 2003-2004

And for many days thereafter, the

furore, drawing fuel into the vortex

with tentacles that encircled the

earth, continued unabated. Rather

was it marked with increased intensi-

ty, for many things were happening

after that first interview was pub-

lished.

But through all the fury and the

flailing of a fetid atmosphere Burbank

himself remained unperturbed. The

Women's Christian Temperance

Union in Santa Rosa, of which he was

an honorary life member, held a meet-

ing of prayer (which only ten women

attended ) for the misguided scientist

- a meeting that became not so much

a time of prayer as an indignation

American Atheist


21/60

council - yet Burbank refused either

to have his soul saved or to recant.

They could pillory him for the leering

stares of a morbid public. They could

burn him, figuratively, at the stake.

They could unroll eternal thunder to

peal out threats of everlasting damna-

tion, but Burbank remained inflexible

on his original platform.

From the outset the storm that

blew so suddenly to rattle the holy

Eucharist became a battle of the dic-

tionary.

ness of the Christian Church.

2.One who does not believe (in

something understood or implied).

Thus the harried, lovable old

man, met his well-wishers with

unflinching eye, and was able to say:

I am an infidel. I know what an infi-

del is, and that's what I am.

I heard these words with keen rel-

ish, for doubtless it would have gone

hard with me had Burbank squirmed

out of an unpleasant situation by

From the outset the storm that blew so

suddenly to rattle the holy Eucharist

became a battle of the dictionary.

Burbank had said he was an infi-

del. Self-constituted apologists, as

represented by the newspapers that

had missed the story and by zealous

ecclesiastics, insisted at once that

Burbank had been misunderstood,

that he had meant agnostic or some-

thing else less offensively noxious

than

infidel,

Churchmen and newspa-

permen invaded Burbank's home

grounds in hordes, all apparently bent

on the determination to substitute a

less inflammatory word.

But Burbank evidently had con-

sulted the dictionary before employing

the word infidel in the first place, or

in any event he peeked into its confid-

ing pages after the first storm clouds

began to break.

He had found that an agnostic is

one who professes ignorance as to the

beginning of things and the power

behind them. He had found that an

atheist is one who denies the exis-

tence of God. And he had found, in

Webster's New International

Dictionary

that an infidel is:

1.In respect to a given religion, one

who is an unbeliever; a disbeliever;

especially a non-Christian or one

opposing the truth or authoritative-

declaring what so many wanted him

to declare - that he had been mis-

quoted, that his sentiments had been

garbled and distorted as the words

and deeds of Christ himself.

II

I had been sent to Santa Rosa to

quiz Burbank as to his theories on

immortality and reincarnation.

Burbank had that day been quoted in

a brief dispatch as disputing the theory

of his old friend, Henry Ford, that we

return to earth after death to live

again in some other form - perhaps a

maple tree or a fox terrier.

All right, said the managing edi-

tor, Burbank has told us what he

doesn't believe. Now it's your job to

have him tell us what he does

believe.

Burbank answered the question

first by an epigram, and he asked that

the Interview begin with the thought

it contained.

Most people's religion, he said,

is what they would like to believe, not

what they do believe. And very few of

them stop to examine its foundations.

Then, going on to tell why he does

not believe in a resurrection: The

universe is not big enough to contain

perpetually all the human souls and

the other living beings that have been

here for their short spans. A theory of

personal resurrection or reincarnation

of the individual is untenable when

we but pause to consider the magni-

tude of the idea. On the contrary, I

must believe that rather than the sur-

vival of all, we must look for survival

only in the spirit of the good we have

done in passing through. This is as

feasible and credible as Henry Ford's

own practice of discarding the old

models of his automobile. When obso-

lete, an automobile is thrown in the

scrap heap. Once here and gone, the

human life has likewise served Its

purpose. If it has been a good life, it

has been sufficient. There is no need

for another.

The scientist, who thus took

exception to theories of a man whom

he had but recently described as one

of the living geniuses who can truly

typify our age, then went on to his

adopted principle, true in his plant

world as in human life, that there is

no repetition in nature.

The theory of reincarnation, he

said, comes, like all other religious

theories, from the best qualities in

human nature, even ifin this as in the

others its adherents sometimes fail to

carry out the tenets in their lives.

Religion grows with the intelli-

gence of man, but all religions of the

past and probably all of the future will

sooner or later become petrified forms

instead of living helps to mankind.

Until that time comes, however, ifreli-

gion of any name or nature makes

man more happy, comfortable, and

able to live peaceably with his broth-

ers, it is good.

But as a scientist I cannot help

feeling that all religions are on a tot-

tering foundation. None is perfect or

inspired. As for their prophets, there

are as many today as ever before, only

now science refuses to let them over-

step the bounds of common sense.

~ Burbank had that day been quoted in a brief dispatch as disputing the

i

i theory of his old friend, H enry F ord, that w e return to earth after death 1

~ to live again in some other form - perhaps a maple tree or a fox terrier. ~


Winter 2003-2004 Page 19


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Edison, Burbank, and Ford

The idea that a good God would

send people to a burning hell is utterl

Documents

American Atheist Magazine Winter 2003-2004