Atheist Internet Outreach Newsletter
SPRING 2001 NEWSLETTER
The Code of Hammurabi:
ORIGIN OF THE TEN COMMANDMENTS
by David L. Kent, AAI Individual Member
With the drive of the Religious Right to place the Ten Commandments in public buildings nationwide, the public should know where those commandments came from, lest it remain in ignorance and vulnerable to religious propaganda. In view of the state-church separation issues at stake, these Ten Commandments should be scrutinized closely.
The Moses on Mount Sinai drama cannot be placed by scholars historically or geographically for a very good reason. It seems to have been drawn directly from the legend of Minos of Crete, who every nine years ascended Mount Dikte to receive from the god of the mountain the laws for his people. Like Moses (Exodus 33:11), Minos was described as god's friend. Moses is supposed to have lived three centuries after Minos.
The Ten Commandments were written five centuries after the time of Moses (ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, 11th ed., VII:907-909, XVIII:895-96, XXV:138; HEBREW MYTHS, by Robert Graves and Raphael Patai, 1965, p. 138; and EYEWITNESS TO DISCOVERY, by Brian M. Fagan, 1996, p. 189).
The Jahvist priesthood composed the first five of the Ten Commandments to consolidate their political power and reinforce their hierarchy. These were direct orders concerning what to worship and how to worship it. They placed a curse in the mouth of their deity on the innocent offspring of any who disobeyed (Deuteronomy 5:9, Exodus 20:5). The second half of the Ten Commandments was lifted from the Code of Hammurabi.
Both Hammurabi and his code are historical. Any visitor to the Louvre Museum in Paris can view the eight-foot pillar of black diorite, discovered in 1901 at Susa, Iran, by J.V. Scheil, on which is incised "one of the most important documents in the history of the human race" (Webster's BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY) in 44 cuneiform columns. Hammurabi was the sixth king of the first Babylonian dynasty, ruling the entire area between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers and composing the Code in the fortieth year of his reign, approximately 1910 BCE.
The Code has a strikingly modern feel. As in Egypt, women were the equal of men. Forty-four sections provided justice and a minimum wage to workers of all classes. Priests had no privileges and were mentioned only as citizens.
Hammurabi said expressly that he compiled the Code, not a deity (THE BABYLONIAN LAWS, by G.R. Driver and John C. Miles, Vol. 2, 1955; LAWS OF MOSES AND THE CODE OF HAMMURABI, by S.A. Cook, 1903). The Jahvist priesthood omitted these sections, selecting only those that would bolster its patriarchal hierarchy.
A point-by-point comparison of the latter half of the Commandments with the Code shows clearly how crude, vague and ethically inadequate the Jahvist edition is.
MOSES--Thou shalt not kill. HAMMURABI--If a man strikes the daughter of a man and causes her to lose the fruit of her womb, he shall pay 10 shekels of silver [#209]. If a surgeon causes a man's death...they shall cut off his fore-hand [#218]. If a man strikes a man in an affray, and if he dies of the striking, he may swear, "Surely I did not strike wittingly," and pay 1/2 maneh of silver [#206,#207].
MOSES--Neither shalt thou commit adultery. HAMMURABI--If a married lady is caught lying with another man, if her husband wishes to let his wife live, the king shall let his servant live [#129]. If a man has taken himself off and there is not means for food in his house, his wife may enter another man's house; that woman shall suffer no punishment [#134]. If a woman hates her husband and states, "Thou shalt not have me," her history shall be determined in her district and, if she has kept herself chaste and has no fault, while her husband is given to going about out of doors and so has greatly belittled her, that woman shall suffer no punishment; she may take her dowry and go to her father's house [#142].
MOSES--Neither shalt thou steal. HAMMURABI--If a man has broken into a house, they shall transfix him at the breach he has made [#21]. If the robber is not caught, the man who has been robbed shall formally prove his loss, and the city and the mayor in whose district the robbery has been committed shall replace whatever he has lost for him [#23]. If a man occupying a house has paid its full rent for a year in silver to the owner, who then has ordered him to quit before the full term, the owner forfeits the silver which the occupier has paid [#E]. If a herdsman to whom cattle or sheep have been given to tend, alters the brand and sells them, they shall convict him and he shall replace them ten-fold to their owner [#265].
MOSES--Neither shalt thou bear false witness against thy neighbor. HAMMURABI--If a man has come forward in a case to bear witness to a claim for corn or money and then has not proved the statement that he has made, he shall be liable for the penalty for that suit [#3,#4, with the following copied verbatim from the Code into Deuteronomy 19:15-19: "If a false witness rise up and the judges make diligent inquisition, if the witness be a false witness, then shall ye do unto him, as he had thought to have done unto his brother."]. If a man has caused a finger to be pointed at a married lady and has then not proved what he has said, they shall flog that man before the judges and shave half his head [#127].
MOSES--Neither shalt thou desire thy neighbor's wife, neither shalt thou covet thy neighbor's house, his field, or his manservant, or his maidservant, his ox, or his ass, or anything that is thy neighbor's. HAMMURABI--If a fire has broken out in a man's house and a man who has gone to extinguish it has coveted an article of the owner of that house, and takes that article, that man shall be cast into that fire [#25].
Moses addresses his commandments to men, not to women, whom the Jahvist priesthood consider equivalent to livestock. In contrast, Hammurabi establishes a wide range of legal rights for women:
If a man has bestowed a field, a plantation, a house, or chattels, on his wife; after he dies her sons shall not bring a claim for it against her; she shall leave her estate to the son she loves [#150]. If a widow sets her face to go out, she shall surrender the settlement which her husband gave her to her sons; she shall take her dowry which she brought from her father's house, and a husband after her heart may marry her [#172]. If the father bestows a dowry on his daughter high priestess, priestess, or epicene, and grants her written authority to give her estate to whom she pleases and concedes her full discretion, after he dies she may give her estate to whom she pleases; her brothers shall not claim it [#179].
Women could become judges, elders and witnesses under the Code. The marriage ceremony included the joining of hands and a declaration by the groom: "I am the son of nobles, silver and gold shall fill thy lap, thou shalt be my wife, I shall be thy husband. Like the fruit of a garden I will give thee offspring." The penalty for rape was death for the man [#130].
Hammurabi summarized his Code in these words: "I, Hammurabi the shepherd, king of kings, have inscribed my precious words on my monument, that the strong may not oppress the weak, and to give justice to the orphan and to the widow.... I have set forth truth and justice throughout the land and prospered the people."
The Jahvist priesthood drew a small part of this age-old code of laws into its "command-ments" to sell its patriarchal propaganda to the people of Israel. As Joseph McCabe put it, "The moral code of the Decalogue is not, as regards human relations, higher than that of primitive peoples, and differs only in clauses, such as Sabbath-keeping, which point to the post-Exilian organization by the priests of the Jahvist religion. At whatever date this crude list of moral prohibitions was first compiled, it shows merely that the Hebrews were one of the last peoples of the ancient world between the Nile and the Persian Gulf to reach the general level of civilization."
That the ethical part of the "Ten Commandments" was never intended to be taken seriously is made clear in Deuteronomy 20:16, where the same god who purportedly commanded, "Thou shalt not kill," proceeds to command his people, under penalty of destruction, to kill everyone in the cities they are promised: "Thou shalt save alive nothing that breathes." That would include children and animals.
It would be extremely degenerate to accept a code of conduct emanating from such a corrupt source, much less adopt such an insincere ethical system for this country. Our Founding Fathers were careful to exclude religion from government. Their thinking was sound then, and it is sound now.
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The Price is High for Pie in the Sky:
HOW RELIGION "PICKS YOUR POCKET AND BREAKS YOUR LEG"
Marie Alena Castle, Atheists of Minnesota for Human Rights
Thomas Jefferson said, "...it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg."
True enough if religious belief were only a matter of personal opinion like belief in tarot cards and flying saucers. But this has never been so. Religions are, and ever have been, set up to control people one way or another, always with evil results, sometimes mild, often severe. This is done most effectively by controlling an entire society through laws and customs--that is, by putting the coercive power of society's institutions to the service of the politically dominant religion.
There are about 24 million atheists in the U.S, only a handful of whom get involved in efforts to resist religious control. The non-joiners' rationale is that religion isn't injurious to them personally. They're wrong. We are living in the backwash of Christianity and are so swamped by the insanity of it all that we no longer see the injuries. The following is a summary of what religion costs YOU in terms of your money, your personal freedom, your health and sometimes even your very life. You may escape some of these costs, but not all.
COST #1. RELIGION PROSPERS FROM YOUR MONEY The wall separating state and church is full of pass-throughs. Who do you think makes up the revenue shortfall caused by religious tax exemptions? You do! If you own or rent any property, residential or commercial, the property taxes are several hundred dollars higher than if religious property, worth billions of dollars, was also taxed. You pay more, because they pay nothing.
IRS estimates of money that accrues to religion in exemptions, subsidies and donations is over $270 billion a year--just to promote religious fantasies! That's over $2 billion a year per state on average. Think what a truly secular society could do with that! Lower our taxes substantially, fix our roads and bridges, improve our schools, rebuild deteriorating neighborhoods. And if you think religious charitable works are paid for by religious institutions, think again. Anything significant they do is funded by the government.
It is always extremely difficult politically for governments to find a compelling reason to deny religion whatever it wants. If you own a business and want to expand, you must abide by zoning laws designed to preserve neighborhood values. Not so for religious institutions. They can expand as it pleases them, adding to traffic congestion and noise, restricting views, destroying historic preservation areas and generally enhancing their interests at the expense of everyone else's.
Now, here's a low blow: If you lend money to religionists who then declare bankruptcy, the money they tithe to their church cannot be touched to help repay you. The church gets its tithes while you get the shaft. It's the law.
COST #2. RELIGION MESSES WITH YOUR SEX LIFE If you think your sex life and reproductive decisions are your business, check the statutes. Most states forbid adultery, fornication and sodomy, and they apply various unnecessary restrictions on sex education, contraception and abortion. These laws are based entirely on religious beliefs, serving only to legally validate those beliefs. Whether you are heterosexual or homosexual, have a disability that makes government- approved forms of sexual relations difficult or impossible or find yourself needing accurate sex information or trapped in an unwanted pregnancy, there is a law to intimidate or even force you into conforming to someone else's religious beliefs.
COST #3. RELIGION MESSES WITH YOUR RELATIONSHIPS If you're an atheist, you have another problem--finding a nonreligious partner. Chances are you will fall in love with a religious person who will not hold still for any atheist talk or action from you. She or he will be active in church, get religious literature in the mail, brainwash your children into religion and be happily identified openly as religious. If you are equally expressive of your atheism, be prepared for marital discord and one of two choices: keep your atheism to yourself or split up. (And good luck getting custody of your kids when it's a devout church-going parent against a "morally suspect atheist" parent.)
COST #4. RELIGION AFFECTS YOUR HEALTH Fetal-tissue research is discovering how to cure Parkinson's disease, diabetes, spinal-cord injuries and many other afflictions, but religion-dominated legislators have restricted funding severely. Why? Because of the belief that an embryo, a microscopic cluster of eight cells, is a real human being with an immortal soul. These undifferentiated cells are hyped hysterically as "baby body parts" and destroying these nearly invisible specks is called murder. This is human imagination run amok while sick people pay with their health and their lives.
Then there's the hospital mergers, which is seen as a solution to financial problems. Trouble arises when one of the hospitals in a merger is Catholic. All staff in the merged institution are required to sign an agreement to adhere to the "Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services" dictated by the Catholic bishops of America. They apply to everyone, Catholic or not.
Treatment must conform to Catholic doctrine, not your medical needs. If you live in a small town where the only hospital is Catholic, you are in trouble. No contraceptive advice, no abortions even if your life depends on it, no removal of a life-threatening ectopic pregnancy, no prenatal diagnosis if the hospital suspects the purpose is to determine the need for abortion, no sterilizations, no morning-after pill, no in-vitro fertilization or other fertility technology, no aggressive end-of-life pain remission no matter how much you plead for it. (From the Directives: "Patients experiencing pain that cannot be alleviated should be helped to appreciate the Christian understanding of redemptive suffering.")
It's not just Catholic hospitals. If you live in a small town where the only pharmacy is at Wal-Mart, you can't get the morning-after pill. It's against the religious beliefs of John Walton, the born-again corporate founder.
COST #5. RELIGION AFFECTS YOUR EDUCATION Many school systems or individual teachers nationwide downplay the teaching of evolution in science classes. This is due to pressure from fundamentalists who believe the Bible is a divinely inspired science textbook and anything that contradicts it is in error. The theory of evolution consists of a solid body of evidence that explains the development and speciation of earth's biosphere. The concepts undergird all other sciences, which cannot be understood without them.
If you are unfortunate enough to have been graduated from a school system that sold you out educationally to avoid controversy, you will have a lot of catching up to do in college science classes.
Worse, as a citizen, you will be surrounded by people who come out of school scientifically illiterate. These people will vote for politicians who also have no understanding of the physical world and will most likely make destructive decisions. You will suffer the consequences along with everyone else.
And don't forget sex education, or the lack of it, in our schools. In northern Europe, where religion is not a controlling factor, comprehensive sex education is a standard part of the curriculum and contraceptives are widely promoted, available and affordable. If we had that here, we'd get the same results they do. Like them, we'd have far fewer unplanned pregnancies, far fewer abortions and far fewer teenagers and their babies on welfare for you to help support.
COST #6. RELIGION AFFECTS HOW WELL YOU LIVE It's been said that, if it hadn't been for religion, Columbus would not have landed in the New World--he would have landed on the moon! Because of religion, we lost 1,500 years of progress toward improving human life. The ancient Greeks knew the earth was round. They speculated that matter is made up of ever smaller particles, the smallest of which they called an atom. They made major strides in mathematics. They were beginning to think along evolutionary lines about biological changes. They were developing rational treatments for diseases. They, along with the ancient Romans, made impressive technological advances that eased physical labor and improved the quality of life, including indoor plumbing.
Then the Dark Ages of Christianity rolled over Greco-Roman civilization and destroyed everything. The Library at Alexandria was burned to the ground and a world of knowledge with it. Learning became limited to theological musings. Scientific investigation was replaced by speculation about how many angels could stand on the head of a pin. Technological advances consisted of improved torture instruments for the Inquisition.
If not for religion, many diseases and birth defects would be history, and contraceptive technology would have long ago achieved population growth control. As it is, our overpopulated world now faces the prospect of proliferating wars, disease epidemics and economic disasters as fossil fuels, forests, fishing grounds and fresh-water supplies dwindle.
Religion continues to affect our lives adversely as we suffer the consequences of religion-driven wars, global family-planning restrictions and economic and social oppression of women. Refugees by the thousands are at our borders seeking safety and economic survival. And they bring with them the primary cause of their homeland's misery-- their religious beliefs.
COST #7. RELIGION AFFECTS YOUR SELF-ESTEEM Maybe you have no problem being atheist. If your family and friends do not take religion seriously, all is well. You live a sheltered life. Most likely you never venture into areas where people do take religion seriously. So, go sign up for the Boy Scouts and refuse to take their god oath and see what happens. Get a job in a company where the boss is a born-again fanatic and likes the employees to follow suit and see what happens. Attend a company dinner meeting where the boss starts with an invocation to Jesus and asks you all to bow your head. Want to take a chance on not being noticed if you don't go along with this? Care to speculate about your career repercussions?
Get into politics and be just as up front about your atheism as religious people are about their beliefs. As a campaign committee member, you are likely to be kept well out of public view lest your atheist identity get your candidate in trouble for associating with you. Try running for office, but don't expect your party to nominate you, however much you are admired personally. You can count on your opponent letting the public know you're an atheist and playing the religious bigotry card to advantage. You won't even survive the primary election.
You can avoid all this, of course. Just keep quiet about your atheism. Like the light-skinned "colored" people years ago who "passed" as white to avoid discrimination, you too can "pass" as a god believer. Just bow your head and bend your knee when told to, and sprinkle a little god- talk in your conversation. Let religion have its way, because you sure don't want to rock the boat. But whatever you do, don't look in the mirror. You won't be proud of what you see.
COST #8. IT'S NOT A COST IF YOU REFUSE TO PAY IT Consider that 1987 news conference at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport when former President George Bush responded to a reporter on the subject of non-religious people as follows: "... Faith in God is important to me.... I don't know that atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered patriots. This is one nation under God."
The media never made an issue of this, because former president Bush only reflected the popular sentiment. That sentiment exists, because we have rolled over and played dead rather than stand up for our rights. We don't have to continue doing this. We don't have to "pass" with demeaning groveling and god-talk. Like other minorities who organized against their oppressors, we atheists can also "...take arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing end them."
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As Far As I'm Concerned: TRUST IN SANTA CLAUS
Dan Culberson, Boulder Heretics
Here's what I think.
Trust in God is no more realistic and rewarding than trust in Santa Claus.
After all, the concept of God and believing in God's existence is merely childhood fantasy grown up, because God is nothing more than Santa Claus for adults.
Think about it. Occasionally, some very old people will be singled out on television, and many times one of them is likely to say, "I attribute my long life to clean living, good health and trust in God." If they are born-again Christians, they might say "trust in Jesus" instead, but think how substituting "Santa Claus" for either one makes absolutely no difference to the validity that the trust had anything to do with the person's longevity and absolutely nothing to the validity of the existence of any of those named individuals.
Look at the similarities. Santa Claus, Mrs. Claus and all of Santa's elves live up at the North Pole, and their only reason for being is to reward good little boys and girls one night a year by giving them presents. And when does Santa do this? On CHRIST'S birthday!
God, Jesus, the angels and every good person who has ever been rewarded with eternal life lives up in Heaven just waiting for new souls to come on up and live forever. And when does this happen? On each "saved" person's death!
Depending on the religion or denomination, people are rewarded with an all-expenses-paid, free trip to Heaven for their good deeds on earth, for "accepting Jesus Christ as their savior" or merely for believing that God exists.
Santa Claus keeps a list, checks it twice and knows who has been naughty or nice in the past year, which he uses to reward those who have been "good" with presents and to punish those who have been "bad" with either no presents or a lump of coal in some cultures. And what do we associate coal with? Hot burning fire!
Have you ever known anyone who actually did receive only a lump of coal for Christmas, or is that just an empty threat that parents use to try to keep their children in line?
Santa Claus has lots of impersonators during the Christmas season standing on corners ringing their bell and collecting money and sitting in malls in order to let little children sit on their laps and tell them what they want for Christmas presents.
God has lots of churches throughout the year on practically every corner collecting money every Sunday or whenever a service is held and plenty of representations of either Jesus nailed to a cross or the Virgin Mary, Christ's mother, God's concubine, to which people can pray and tell them what special favor they would like.
This is where the Santa Claus myth is lacking. Astute creators and perpetuators of the myth should have thought to have given Santa a son so that Santa Jr. and Mrs. Claus could stand on corners and sit in malls to relieve some of the burden during the holidays, which, of course, comes from "holy days."
Santa Claus uses the parents of all the children to make them be good for their rewards, punish them as need be throughout the year, make empty promises as to what they might get on Christmas morning and then make the actual purchases, hide them in closets, wrap them neatly and finally place them underneath the tree for the excited and eager children to find on Christmas morning.
God uses priests, preachers and other self-anointed representatives to "guide" the people, relay God's words and intentions to them throughout the year, convey special requests, if need be, back up to God, make empty promises as to what they might expect upon their deaths and then finally perform the memorial services for those people when they do die.
Trust in Santa Claus is expedient for parents to encourage their young children, because the promise of presents for good behavior and threats of no presents or that lump of coal for bad behavior is another tool in the parents bag of parenting tricks.
However, when children reach the age of about six, they should be clever enough to figure out on their own how all the contradictions and illogical details in the Santa Claus myth enable them to conclude that their is no Santa Claus and their parents have been misleading them all those years, even though their parents will claim that it was "for their own good."
Amen.
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Found on the Internet:
RESIDENTS NOTIFIED WHEN CATHOLIC CHURCH MOVES INTO NEIGHBORHOOD
BR> Controversial "Egan's Law" Expected to Gain Widespread Support
Trenton, N.J. (SatireWire.com)--Under a new law designed to protect minors, local police departments will now be required to inform residents any time a known Roman Catholic church moves into their neighborhood.
The law also mandates that Catholic churches register with authorities, wear electronic monitoring devices and be prohibited from moving to within a half-mile radius of a school.
A follow-up to Megan's Law, enacted by New Jersey in 1994, the so-called "Egan's Law" is named for Cardinal Edward Egan of New York and Cardinal Bernard Law of Boston, who are both accused of covering up sexual abuse by priests under their authority. Like Megan's Law, Egan's Law is expected to spread quickly to other states, but for parents in towns across New Jersey, it's on the books none too soon.
"Last year, we discovered that a Catholic Church had been in our neighborhood for 30 years! And nobody told us!" said Ruth Harper of Redbrook, NJ. "My sons used to walk by that church every day on their way to school. Even now I shudder to think of what might have happened."
"I always told my kids to steer clear of that place," added neighbor Scott Carlyle. "But that's because there were a lot of strange people going in and out at odd hours, even at midnight on Saturdays. I was worried it was some kind of druggie hangout."
"To think the whole time it was a Roman Catholic Church. Now I know why they had all those stained glass windows--so nobody could look in," Carlyle said.
Critics, however, charge that Egan's Law is unconstitutional, specifically because it relies on religious profiling and is intended to safeguard only one segment of the population: young males. But NJ State Sen. Carmela Truto, a Catholic who co-sponsored the bill, used church doctrine itself to prove only one segment needs protection.
"In the Catholic Church, after 2,000 years, Mary is still a Virgin," she said. "So clearly, they're not interested in girls."
That statement, however, angered Vatican spokesman Edgar Palowski, who said it propagated a common misconception about the church. "This doesn't get reported enough," he said, "but it's a fact that our priests abuse just as many girls as boys."
"Oh. Oh, dear...." he added.
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In the News:
THE ELEVENTH COMMANDMENT
The attempt to post the Ten Commandments in public places continues to raise its ugly head.
Charles Wysong, president of Ten Commandments-Tennessee, wants to see the biblical laws posted in public places throughout Tennessee.
"I think what is happening in this country is we're finding out we cannot run this country without a moral code from God," he said.
Wysong vows that his organization will pay all legal expenses for defending three displays in Hamilton County. In Tennessee within the last year, more than a dozen counties have approved displays of the Ten Commandments, but other counties have been displaying them for years, such as Washington County in northeast Tennessee, which has displayed them for more than 80 years.
One of the latest counties is Sumner county, near Nashville, which voted in March to post the Ten Commandments in the county administration building along with the Bill of Rights and the Declaration of Independence.
"Those Ten Commandments provide the foundational basis for law in the United States, and I don't think anyone would deny that the framers of the Constitution relied on their knowledge of the Bible and the Ten Commandments," said Sumner County Commissioner Frank Freels.
"All laws that we have in one form or another can be traced back to the Ten Commandments," he added.
However, Hedy Weinberg, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union in Tennessee, believes differently. "Unfortunately there are communities within our state who, rather than celebrating religious diversity and religious freedom, want to use government to promote particular religious doctrine," she said. "Of all times, this is a time to unite, and instead we see efforts to divide."
The ACLU sued Hamilton County in January because of its three displays, and trial is set for April 29. The national organization also has legal challenges pending in Alabama, Kentucky and Ohio.
An opinion issued in April by Tennessee Attorney General Paul Summers supports the ACLU position, calling Ten Commandment displays on government property an unconstitutional promotion of religion.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1980 that displaying the Ten Commandments in schools amounted to an unconstitutional promotion of religion. Also, the Court refused in February to take up the issue when it rejected an appeal from Indiana Gov. Frank O'Bannon, who wanted to display a seven-foot stone monument of the Ten Commandments at the state Capitol.
However, last May the justices showed their division when they passed on considering a dispute over a Ten Commandments display in front of the Elkhart, IN, Municipal Building. In a dissent joined by Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist argued that the case should have been heard, noting that a wall carving of Moses in the justices' own courtroom signals "respect not for great proselytizers, but for great lawgivers."
Douglas Kmiec, dean of the Catholic University Law School in Washington, believes the Supreme Court will eventually decide the issue.
"The court is increasingly saying that the government should not be hostile to religion...even when that private religious belief manifests itself in the public square," Kmiec said.
Why don't the religionists just claim they miraculously found a lost Eleventh Commandment: "Thou shalt post these commandments in public places."
Watch the skies, watch your back and watch the walls.
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On the Other Hand:
TALK ABOUT FUTILITY
submitted by Miriam Basart, Boulder Heretics
A journalist assigned to the Jerusalem bureau took an apartment overlooking the Wailing Wall. Every day when she looked out, she saw an old Jewish man praying vigorously. So the journalist went down and introduced herself to the old man.
She asked, "You come every day to the wall. How long have you done that and what are you praying for?"
The old man replied, "I have come here to pray every day for 25 years. In the morning I pray for world peace and then for the brotherhood of man. I go home, have a cup of tea and I come back and pray for the eradication of illness and disease from the earth."
The journalist was amazed. "How does it make you feel to come here every day for 25 years and pray for these things?" she asked.
The old man looked at her sadly. "Like I'm talking to the wall."
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Attention:
TEEN WRITERS WANTED
The AIO Newsletter is a little over three years old. During that time, atheists have contacted us from all over the world, and a growing number of them are teens, some as young as fourteen. All of us know from experience that being a nonbeliever in a religious society can be difficult, but being an atheist teenager is even harder. Their voices, like ours, are seldom heard. For some time, a "Young Atheist" column has been planned in the Newsletter. This is an invitation to our teenage members to submit their stories, their thoughts and their experiences. All submissions that are genuine and thoughtful will be considered.
See submission information at the end of the Newsletter.
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Notable:
QUOTABLE
"As the caterpiller chooses the fairest leaves to lay her eggs on, so the priest lays his curse on the fairest joys." -- William Blake (1757- 1827)
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FROM THE ATHEIST INTERNET OUTREACH PRESIDENT
Welcome to 2002. Atheist Internet Outreach has a new editor for the Atheist Internet Outreach e-Newsletter, Dan Culberson. Dan has significant experience with freethought newsletters, and we thank him for volunteering for this effort.
One goal of Atheist Internet Outreach is to help start new atheist organizations where there are none today. On Atheist Alliance, the Freethought Directory is a list of many of the freethought organizations throughout the world. If you would like to help start one where you live, let us know. We can help you by providing information to start an organization.
Recently there have been an ever-increasing number of United States government initiatives to put religion in our lives. For example, the Ten Commandments Defense Act (H.R. 3895) has been introduced in Congress which, if passed, would allow states to decide if they would like to put the Ten Commandments in public buildings. Another example is when the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) produced, with government dollars, religious texts for schools in Afghanistan. As freethinkers, we need to watch out for these issues and strongly encourage our government through letter writing, phone calls and other initiatives not to take these actions.
On a positive note, the President of the United States acknowledged nonbelievers in his radio address of March 30 (see http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/03/20020330.html) in which he said "Americans practice different faiths in churches, synagogues, mosques and temples. And many good people practice no faith at all." This is a greater acknowledgement of nonbelievers than we have heard from most political leaders. As we need to let our leaders know when we want them to promote state-church separation, we also should let them know when they do acts that we appreciate. This would be one of those cases.
As I monitor the traffic on Atheist Alliance, it is noticeable that there is an increasing number of Americans who are not happy with the religious direction in which the United States is moving. By starting new freethought organizations and responding to church-state separation issues, we can do more to help bring freethinkers together and separate the government from religion.
Thanks.
Joe Zemel
President, Atheist Internet Outreach
info@atheistalliance.org
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ABOUT ATHEIST OUTREACH
The primary goals of AO are to connect atheists with existing organizations nearby or to encourage them to form new Atheist Alliance member societies where there currently are none.
Our AO Officers/volunteers are:
Joe Zemel, President/Webmaster
Dan Culberson, Vice President/Newsletter-editor/writer
Dave Feroe, Atheist Alliance/Atheist Outreach Web designer
Bobbie Kirkhart, E-mail responder
With a very small staff of volunteers, we endeavor to personally answer every question or comment we receive. Our hope is that those who contact us will no longer feel, in the words of one e-mail, that "coming out as an atheist is rather lonely."
If you'd like to help start an atheist group in your area, please contact info@atheistalliance.org. There are no dues for any organization to join Atheist Alliance, and we can assist with various aspects of organizing, such as bylaws and with tips on finding potential members through the Net.
Financial support is vital, and there are various ways to support non- prophet organizations. AAI and its member societies are run by volunteers, but there are expenses involved in helping new groups get started, undertaking atheist projects, handling correspondence through postal and electronic mail and hosting a Website. Please donate to the Atheist Alliance to help support the creation of new groups. Your support is greatly appreciated.
We also encourage your membership in the Atheist Alliance. One benefit is the international magazine, Secular Nation. See http://www.atheistalliance.org/aai/membership.html#individuals for membership information.
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ABOUT THE AIO NEWSLETTER
Unless otherwise noted, all contents of the Atheist Internet Outreach Newsletter are written by Dan Culberson (danculberson@juno.com).
AIO Newsletter is an online publication of Atheist Outreach, a member organization of Atheist Alliance, Inc. We are volunteers whose goals are to promote issues concerning separation of state and church, provide a means for atheists around the world to communicate with each other, and support the aims and purposes of the Atheist Alliance and its member societies.
Membership in Atheist Outreach is free. Simply send your name and e-mail address to AtheistOutreach@atheistalliance.org. Should you prefer not to receive future issues, send "unsubscribe" to the above address.
All newsletter subscribers have permission to utilize the articles on thematically-appropriate Internet discussion groups, Websites and organizational newsletters. Please give credit to Atheist Outreach when doing so. We would appreciate your citing the Atheist Outreach Website: (http://www.atheistalliance.org/outreach/)
Submissions from any reader reflecting an atheist point of view are invited. Submissions by young atheists through high school are solicited for a "Teen Atheists" column. All other atheists college-age and up are encouraged to submit their thoughts as well. Send manuscripts to danculberson@juno.com.
Visit Atheist Outreach at http://www.atheistalliance.org
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ADMINISTRIVIA:
Copyright 2002 by Atheist Outreach. No part may be reproduced without written permission.
No e-mail standard exists for the Internet. E-mail programs and Internet browsers display this newsletter in the program default, font and size you have specified within your specific browser/reader. This newsletter is designed for optimal viewing with a 7-inch page width and the text in the Geneva industry standard font.
Reproduction of this publication in electronic media is encouraged. Signed articles do not necessarily represent the views of the publisher. To reproduce signed articles individually, please contact the authors for their express permission. NOTE: Other than "fair use" quoting of approximately 50 words, to reproduce the works in this publication by copying, faxing or quoting either directly or electronically requires the express written permission of the publisher or the author.
This newsletter is printed on 100% recycled electrons.
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