AMERICAN ATHEIST

A JOURNAL OF ATHEIST NEWS AND THOUGHT

JANUARY / FEBRUARY 2019

Forced Marriage
Young girls are victims when U.S. laws defer to dogma

Hollywood: How We’ll Highlight Faith Is Guilty

The Atheism Taboo Everyday Activism in the Case of
Is Tough to Lift at Our Convention Women v. Religion
STAND WITH
AMERICAN ATHEISTS!
Every victory you read about in this magazine was achieved
thanks to our members, donors, and volunteers.

We’ve led the fight for absolute separation of religion from

government for more than 50 years, and we work tirelessly to
eradicate the stigma associated with atheism.

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 JANUARY / February 2019
VOL. 57 – NO. 1

In This Issue
4 Editor’s Letter
More Sacred Than Prayer

6 Quick Hits

7 Announcement
Our 2019 Convention Speakers

8 Litigation

10
Taking Their Ball and Going Home

9 Public Policy
Ending Conversion Therapy

10 Activism
Arizona Specialty Plates Fund Hate

11 Government
Religious Profile of Our Congress

12 Cover Story
Child Marriage in the U.S.

16 Perspective
Grounding Your Atheism

18 Report
Hollywood’s Atheism Taboo

20 Commentary
The “Fundamentalist” Label

22 Interview
Women v. Religion

25 Notable Books

12
28 State Director Spotlight
Up in Flames in Iowa

30 Why I Am an Atheist
An Ex-Mormon’s Story

On the cover: Fraidy Reiss (holding megaphone) was

the victim of an arranged child marriage as a young
Hassidic Jew. She now works full-time to help other
women escape this plight.

American Atheist Magazine

225 Cristiani St
Cranford, NJ 07016
908.276.7300
magazine@atheists.org

Editor-in-Chief
Pamela Whissel

Copy Editor
Karen Reilly

Research Editor
Anthony J. Crincoli

Proofreaders
Gill Gaudia
Shelley Gaudia
Den Jackson

20
Managing Editor
Frank R. Zindler

© 2019 American Atheists, Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction

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 EDITOR’S LETTER
More Sacred Than Prayer
A
mericans across
the religious spec-
trum are joining
us in denounc-
ing “thoughts and
prayers” as the
empty rhetoric that it often is. For
example, in the growing movement
for stricter gun control, activists
who also happen to be religious
are now calling out politicians who
evoke the phrase while doing abso-
lutely nothing to reform weak legis-
lation. It remains to be seen wheth-
er that movement will succeed in
changing laws around gun owner-
ship in this country, but it has been
successful in chipping away at the
unwritten law that shields the plat-
itude of “thoughts and prayers”
from criticism.
Meanwhile, over at the Vatican,
the hierarchy of the Catholic
Church is doubling down on
thoughts and prayers. While secu-
lar governments around the world
are circling in on the global crime
syndicate within the Church, the
U.S. Council of Catholic Bishops
was holding a week-long prayer
retreat outside Chicago in early
January. It was a precursor to
4 | AMERICAN ATHEIST | www.atheists.org
the February summit in Rome,
where an international gathering
of bishops convened for an event
that, according to a Vatican press
release, consisted of “plenary ses-
sions, working groups, moments
of common prayer and listening to
testimonies, a penitential liturgy,
and a final Eucharistic celebra-
tion.” In other words, hardcore
thinking and praying.
Listening to the testimonies of
victims—or at least giving the ap-
pearance of doing so—is a relative-
ly new deflection strategy for the
Church, historically speaking. It’s
also been the only visible response
since 2002, when The Boston Globe
broke the story about the systemic
cover-up of child rape and torture.
That was seventeen years ago,
enough time for yet another gener-
ation of Catholic children to grow
up connected to an institution that
refuses to give so much as lip ser-
vice to rethinking its dangerous,
dysfunctional structure.
Atheists should care about this
issue for several reasons, the first
being that child welfare is every-
one’s concern. Another reason is
that the First Amendment of the
JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2019
 17
SEVENTEEN YEARS have passed since The Boston
Globe published its exposé, enough time for yet another
generation of Catholic children to grow up connected to
an institution that refuses to give so much as lip service to
rethinking its dangerous, dysfunctional structure.

“Here is a government
report accusing a
religious institution
of crimes and crediting a
newspaper for shedding
the first light. It’s a
sublime example of what
the First Amendment
makes possible.”
U.S. Constitution deserves as much
recognition as the Globe’s world-
class journalism.
Besides protecting Americans
from coerced religious affiliation,
better known as church/state
separation, the First Amendment
also allows a free press to exist. It’s
what empowered the Globe report-
ers not only to access information
freely, but also to publish what they
learned. A free press is the only in-
stitution in this country equipped
with the structure necessary to
accomplish what they did.
The Globe’s exposé set in motion
a spate of events around the world
that are still unfolding. Two recent
ones in this country are a report
from a Pennsylvania grand jury
and another by the Illinois attorney
general that provide a mere glimpse
into the scope of the horror. If you
read the Illinois report, prepare
to cry. If you read Pennsylvania’s,
prepare to vomit. And then thank
the First Amendment again, this
time for shielding our judicial
branch of government well enough
so that the Church was unable to
wield its formidable influence and
make this inconvenient truth go
away, which it has been trying to
do ever since the criminalization
of rape and child abuse.
I say “well enough” because the
shield was, as it often is, flimsy at
times. On page 300 (out of 884), the
Pennsylvania report says “there
were numerous instances where
law enforcement gave deference to
the religious institution. Whatever
the motives for that deference, it
left children without their rightful
civic watchdogs. It wasn’t really
until the press exposed the story,
in Boston, that things began to
change.”
Here is a government report
accusing a religious institution of
crimes and crediting a newspaper
for shedding the first light.
It’s a sublime example of what’s
possible only because of our First
Amendment, which says, in part,
“Congress shall make no law
respecting an establishment of
religion, or prohibiting the free
exercise thereof or abridging the
freedom of speech or of the press.”
These words grant us rights that
are inconceivable to most people
living today, and to nearly every-
one who was alive in the past. And
for that reason, they need to be as
sacred to us as words of worship
are to people who offer their neigh-
bors little more than thoughts and
prayers.
Pamela Whissel
Editor-in-Chief
pwhissel@atheists.org

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2019 AMERICAN ATHEIST | www.atheists.org | 5

 QUICK HITS

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW U.S. Clergy’s Ethical Rating Continues to Decline
Although the overall average positive rating is 54%,
only 37% of Americans rate the honesty and ethical
standards of clergy as “very high” or “high,” according to
a recent Gallup survey. Gallup has measured Americans’
views of the clergy’s honesty and ethics 34 times since
1977, and this rating is the lowest to date.
The historical high of 67% occurred in 1985. Ratings
first dropped in 2002 amid a sexual-abuse scandal in the
Roman Catholic Church. They rebounded somewhat in
the following years and then fell to 50% in 2009. They
have been steadily declining since 2012.
Source: gallup.com news story by Megan Brenan (December 20, 2018) American Atheists Files
Amicus Brief in Supreme
Canada Repeals Blasphemy Law Court Case
It’s no longer a crime to make fun of someone’s deeply In an amicus brief filed with the
held religious beliefs in Canada. “Blasphemous libel” had United States Supreme Court in the
been punishable by a prison term of up to two years, but case of The American Legion v. American
was recently removed from the Canadian Criminal Code. Humanist Association, American
The repeal followed an e-petition by humanist Atheists argues that a 40-foot Latin
groups across Canada which called for an end to the law. cross on government property is
Although the last conviction for blasphemy in Canada unconstitutional.
was in 1927, the law has been used to bring many private The so-called “Peace Cross” is a
prosecution cases seeking to silence free expression, World War I memorial sitting at a
including the film Monty Python’s Life of Brian in 1979. three-road junction in Bladensburg,
The law, however, did specifically exempt anyone Maryland. The brief argues that Latin
“expressing in good faith and in decent language, or at- crosses are inappropriate as collective
tempting to establish by argument used in good faith and war memorials, dishonor nonreligious
conveyed in decent language, an opinion on a religious servicemembers, and marginalize
subject.” atheists.
Source: humanism.org.uk news story (December 13, 2018) “Claiming that the universal sym-
bol for one religious denomination
somehow represents all the veterans
Greece to Remove Clergy from State Payroll who gave their lives to protect our
nation is an insult to their sacrifice,”
The government of Greece and its powerful Orthodox said American Atheists President Nick
Church have tentatively agreed to remove 10,000 priests Fish.
and auxiliary staff from the state payroll. The agreement “These religious monuments erase
also foresees a settlement to a decades-old dispute over atheist veterans from our nation’s
property between the government and the Church, collective memory,” said Kathleen
which is one of the country’s largest real estate owners. Johnson, immediate past vice pres-
Greece’s creditors have long urged the government to ident of American Atheists and a
sell assets and reduce the number of public sector em- retired U.S. Army first sergeant.
ployees. The agreement coincides with parliamentary “I hope the Supreme Court will
discussions on a revision of Greece’s constitution. Prime allow us to recognize and celebrate
Minister Alexis Tsipras has been calling for clarity in the the contributions of all veterans, not
country’s constitution on the religious neutrality of the just those who are members of one
state. particular religion.”
Source: aljazeera.com story by Chika Oduah (September 18, 2018) The brief was filed jointly with the
Freedom from Religion Foundation,
the Center for Inquiry, the Military
Association of Atheists & Freethinkers,
and the Secular Coalition for America.

6 | AMERICAN ATHEIST | www.atheists.org JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2019

 ANNOUNCEMENT

Our 2019 National Convention Speakers

New voices will grace the stage in Cincinnati, Ohio
Friday, April 19 - Sunday, April 21

American Atheists offers some
of the most diverse speaker lineups
of any atheist, freethought, or sec-
ular conference and is committed
to presenting new, compelling, and
diverse perspectives at our nation-
al conventions.
Come and learn from the every-
day activists who are bringing their
communities and our nation closer
to equality. Some of the announced
speakers are:
Jim Obergefell, Keynote Speaker
Jim once described himself as
an accidental activist after he took
on the role of caregiver for John, his
partner of more than 20 years who
suffered from ALS and was nearing
the end of his life. An unexpected
series of events led to their deci-
sion to marry, eventually taking
Jim to the Supreme Court and the
landmark decision in Obergefell v.
Hodges that resulted in victory for
marriage equality.
Now a self-described purposeful
activist, Jim is dedicated to the fight
for equality not just for the LGBTQ
community, but for everyone.
In his moving story of love, loss,
dedication, and commitment, Jim
brings audiences along on his emo-
tional and empowering journey
and his continued efforts fighting
for human rights.
Gayle Jordan
Gayle is a former Southern
Baptist who left the faith 12 years
ago when her four kids, then teen-
agers, began asking questions she
could not answer. She is the exec-
utive director of Recovering from
Religion, and co-founder of both
NaNoCon and the Murfreesboro
Freethinkers. She ran for the
Tennessee State Senate in 2016 and
2018 as an open atheist and faced a
profoundly unconstitutional attack
on religious liberty.
Hector Garcia
Hector is an assistant professor
in the Department of Psychiatry
at the University of Texas Health
Science Center at San Antonio and
a clinical psychologist specializing
in PTSD in combat veterans. He
has published extensively on evo-
lutionary psychology, stress and
politics in organizations, and the
interplay between war and mascu-
line identity.
Lorelei
Activist Lorelei is a member of
The Satanic Temple and co-founder
of the Western New York Satanists.
Her current activism involves
resurrecting the Detroit chapter of
The Satanic Temple.
Candace Gorham
Candace, a former ordained
minister, is now a licensed profes-
sional mental health counselor,
humanist activist, researcher, and
book author on issues related to
race and religion. She is a member
of The Black Humanist Alliance,
the Secular Therapy Project, and
The Clergy Project.
See more announced speakers,
check out the schedule, and
register at www.aacon2019.org.

Jim Obergefell Hector Garcia Lorelei Gayle Jordan Candace Gorham

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2019 AMERICAN ATHEIST | www.atheists.org | 7

 LITIGATION
Taking Their Ball and Going Home
Why would a county transit system in Pennsylvania
no longer sell ad space to “religious” organizations?
Because some atheists wanted to advertise, too.
A
merican Athe- space on public buses after allow-
ists has joined the ing Christians to do so for decades.
Center for Inquiry COLTS had been permitting
(CFI) in submitting all faith-related subject matter in
an amicus brief in advertisements until 2011. Shortly
connection with a thereafter, NEPA attempted to
lawsuit involving the Northeastern purchase ad space for a sign that
PA Freethought Society (NEPA) and included the word “atheists.” The
the County of Lackawanna Transit transportation agency, however,
System (COLTS). NEPA is an Ameri- rejected the request, pointing to its
can Atheists affiliate. new policy. After unsuccessfully
The brief argues that COLTS, submitting several revised ads in
a Pennsylvania county agency, an attempt to comply with COLTS’
unconstitutionally discriminated requirements, NEPA sued. In July
against atheists and minority 2018, the district court for the
religious groups by banning all Eastern District of Pennsylvania
religious content from advertising ruled in favor of COLTS, holding
that the transit sys-
tem has the right to
STAND WITH US! restrict the content
of advertisements.
American Atheists relies on the support of NEPA then appealed
our members to fight for equality in the courts
and in state capitals across the nation. the ruling to the
Third Circuit Court
Make a tax-deductible of Appeals.
“For eight years,
contribution today! and perhaps as
many as 19, COLTS
www.atheists.org/donate allowed religious
advertisements from
8 | AMERICAN ATHEIST | www.atheists.org
Christian organizations without
issue. But when atheists and
‘controversial’ religious groups re-
quested the same treatment, they
were denied,” explained Nick Fish,
President of American Atheists.
“The Supreme Court has been crys-
tal clear that it is unconstitutional
to discriminate on the basis of reli-
gion, and that appears to be exactly
what COLTS did in this case.”
The brief urges the appeals
court to overturn the previous
ruling and direct the district court
to examine whether COLTS acted
with discriminatory intent.
“Government agencies have the
ability to limit religious speech
in limited public forums,” said
Geoffrey T. Blackwell, litigation
counsel for American Atheists.
“What they can’t do is allow one
type of religious speech for decades
and then shut everything down
when confronted with views they
find ‘controversial.’ This take-my-
ball-and-go-home attitude is reject-
ed by children on the playground
and should fare no better in a court
of law.” 🅐
JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2019

Anti-Science, Anti-Equality, and Dangerous
Protecting vulnerable adults from so-called “conversion therapy”
C
onversion therapy,
sometimes known
as “sexual orien-
tation change ef-
forts,” is the use
of pseudo-science
and prayer to attempt to change
an LGBTQ person’s sexual orien-
tation, gender identity, or gender
expression. Because of its harmful
effects, it has been condemned by
every major mental health associ-
ation.
Mental health providers that
offer conversion therapy are
not all faith-based, but concepts
behind conversion therapy are
deeply rooted in religious ide-
ology. Therapy should be based
on scientific understanding and
evidence-based treatment, and re-
ligious beliefs should never justify
harmful medical protocols. This
is why American Atheists strongly
opposes conversion therapy and
works to limit this dangerous and
discredited practice.
In 2012, California became the
first state to outlaw the practice
of conversion therapy on minors.
Since then, thirteen more states
and the District of Columbia
have legislated similar bans. The
District of Columbia recently
expanded its ban to protect vulner-
able adults as well, thanks in part
to American Atheists’ advocacy.
In October, Alison Gill, American
Atheists’ Vice President for Legal
and Policy, testified at a hearing
before the Council of the District
JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2019
PUBLIC POLICY
of Columbia’s Committee on
Health, where she urged passage
of a bill that would ban the practice
of conversion therapy on adults
who are under guardianship or
conservatorship.
In her testimony, Gill pointed
out that these adults depend on
others for medical and financial
decisions, legal protections, and
more—just as minors do. They
must rely on someone else because
of their impaired ability to evaluate
information or communicate deci-
sions effectively. This makes them
vulnerable to conversion therapy if
the person or institution charged
with their care considers it a sin to
spend one’s life as anything but a
cisgender heterosexual.
While quantitative studies on
vulnerable adults have yet to be
conducted, the harm from con-
version therapy on youth has been
well documented. They are 8.4
times more likely to report having
attempted suicide and 5.9 times
more likely to report high levels of
depression.
When the District of Columbia
outlawed conversion therapy for
minors in 2014, it was only the
third jurisdiction in the country to
do so. And even though this bill did
pass, none of the laws apply to un-
licensed practitioners or religions
organizations.
“While the law can never fully
prohibit conversion therapy, our
work in this area also helps parents
and providers to understand its
dangers,” said Gill. “We oppose
any effort to subordinate medical
decisions to the religious beliefs of
healthcare providers, and we will
take every opportunity to advocate
for laws that protect patients from
conversion therapy or any medical
procedure or policy governed by
faith instead of facts.” 🅐
Testifying at the hearing were Alison Gill,
American Atheists vice president for legal and
policy (left) and Casey Pick from The Trevor
Project, the leading national organization
providing intervention and suicide prevention
services to LGBTQ people under age 25.
AMERICAN ATHEIST | www.atheists.org | 9

Billboard Campaign Exposes $1 Million
Taxpayer Giveaway to Anti-LGBTQ Hate Group
T
he revenue from
Arizona’s “In God
We Trust” license
plates has generat-
ed $1 million for the
anti-LGBTQ hate
group Alliance Defending Free-
dom (ADF) since 2012. In response,
American Atheists and the Secular
Coalition for Arizona (Secular AZ)
launched a billboard campaign to
raise awareness about ADF and
how Arizona is funneling money to
fund this hate group.
The billboard, paid for by
American Atheists, appeared in
three locations in the Phoenix met-
ro area through mid-March.
Designated by the Southern
Poverty Law Center as a hate
group, ADF is a leading voice in de-
veloping and advocating legislation
that denies LGBTQ people access
to public accommodations. It has
defended LGBTQ discrimination
at the Supreme Court and its influ-
ence extends beyond the U.S.
“Public awareness about ADF’s
hate-inspired schemes is thank-
fully on the rise. However, few
10 | AMERICAN ATHEIST | www.atheists.org
ACTIVISM
people realize that the license plate
law funding ADF fits into a larger,
dangerous Christian nationalist
legislative campaign called Project
Blitz,” said Nick Fish, president of
American Atheists.
“Project Blitz pushes seemingly
innocuous bills similar to Arizona’s
‘In God We Trust’ license plate law
in the hopes of building enough
momentum to pass anti-equality
legislation. However, Arizona’s law,
which predates Project Blitz, is the
first we’ve seen that directly funds
a hate group like ADF,” added Fish.
“What’s even worse about the
Arizona license plates is that there
is absolutely no disclosure about
where the money goes when drivers
purchase these specialty plates,”
said Tory Roberg, the director of
government affairs for Secular AZ.
The Arizona laws establishing
the “In God We Trust” license
plates do not inform Arizonans
that the $17 specialty plate fee is
donated to ADF.
On February 4, Arizona State
Senator Juan Mendez introduced
two bills to address the state’s
funding of ADF and the lack of
transparency surrounding these
plates.
The first, SB 1462, would ensure
transparency by requiring the
Department of Transportation to
maintain a database with the name
and mission of each entity receiv-
ing funds from specialty plates.
Any driver selecting a specialty
plate would receive information
on their registration receipt about
the entity funded by their selected
plate.
The second bill, SB 1463, would
no longer allow the “In God We
Trust” specialty plate to be in-
cluded on the list of those that can
generate funds for an organization,
thereby cutting off donations to
ADF.
“We need some reasonable crite-
ria for which organizations receive
state money, and I think a pretty
legitimate starting point is that we
shouldn’t include hate groups. It’s
inexcusable that we’ve already sent
a million dollars to an organization
that’s stripping rights from LGBTQ
people,” said Mendez. 🅐
JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2019
 GOVERNMENT

Congress Still Doesn’t Look Like America

Atheists are vastly underrepresented

T
he religious make- adults identify as Christian. members, all Democrats, rose by
up of the new, 116th The number of Muslims in eight from the previous Congress.
United States Con- Congress rose from two to three, Their reasons for not answering
gress is very dif- thanks to the first Muslim woman aren’t known, but one member,
ferent from that to be elected as a representative. Rep. Jared Huffman (D-CA), an-
of the citizenry it The number of Mormons dropped nounced in 2017 that he identifies
represents, according to a Pew from 13 to ten, the number of Jews as a Humanist and is not sure God
Research Center study. While the rose from 30 to 34, and the number exists. Huffman is categorized
number of self-identified Chris- of Unitarian Universalists rose as “don’t know/refused” in this
tians in Congress is declining, from one to two. The number of analysis because he declined to
Christians as a whole—especially Buddhists dropped from three to state his religious identity in the
Protestants and Catholics—are still two while the number of Hindus is questionnaire the Pew Research
overrepresented in proportion to unchanged at three. Center used to collect data for this
the general public. When asked about their reli- report. The questionnaire asked
The largest difference be- gious affiliation, a growing number members what religious group,
tween the general public and of members of Congress declined if any, they belong to. The survey
Congressional representation is to specify (categorized as “don’t did not attempt to quantify their
in the percentage who are unaf- know/refused”). This category of 18 religious beliefs or practices. 🅐
filiated with a religious group.
While twenty-three percent of the
general public identify as atheist,
agnostic, or nothing in particular,
just one member of Congress does.
She is Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ),
who was just elected to the Senate
after three terms in the House
of Representatives. In keeping
with her non-affiliation, she took
the Oath of Office while holding
an Arizona law book containing
both the U.S. Constitution and the
Arizona Constitution in lieu of a
bible.
There has been a three-percent-
age-point decline in the share of
members of Congress who identify
as Christian. In the 115th Congress,
91% of members were Christian,
while 88% of the 116th Congress
are Christian. Only 71% of U.S.

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2019 AMERICAN ATHEIST | www.atheists.org | 11

 COVER STORY

Forced Marriage
in the U.S.
The religious tradition that ruins
the lives of young girls

Unchained at Last founder Fraidy

Reiss (holding megaphone) leads
a chain-in demonstration on the
Jersey Shore in August 2018. Reiss
was born into an Hassidic Jewish
family and is herself a survivor
of a forced marriage. To read
more about her tireless activism
against child and forced marriage,
go to UnchainedAtLast.org.

12 | AMERICAN ATHEIST | www.atheists.org JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2019

 M
ost child mar-
riage occurs
within the
confines of re-
ligious tradi-
tion, which is
why American Atheists has joined
the National Coalition to End Child
Marriage in the United States.
Launched on International
Human Rights Day, the coalition
is bringing organizations and
individuals together for the first
time to advocate for the repeal of
all religious loopholes and exemp-
tions in federal law, policies, and
regulations that enable, or even
encourage, child marriage.
Many of the activists in the co-
alition are survivors of child mar-
riage, which is defined as marriage
before age 18.
The practice is legal in 48
states. In 18 states, there is no
minimum age for legal marriage.
Approximately 248,000 children,
some as young as 12, were married
in the U.S. between 2000 and 2010.
Girls who marry as minors are
twice as likely to live in poverty and
JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2019
three times more likely than older
women to be physically abused by
a spouse. Between 70 to 80 percent
of these marriages end in divorce.
The U.S. State Department has
called marriage before age 18 a
“human rights abuse.”
Children can easily be forced
to marry before becoming legal
adults because they face over-
whelming legal and practical barri-
ers if they try to leave home, enter
a domestic-violence shelter, retain
an attorney, or bring legal action.
In states that allow exemptions
from marriage age limits, parental
consent requirements do practi-
cally nothing to mitigate the risks
of forced child marriage. In fact,
when children are forced to marry,
the perpetrators are almost always
the parents.
It goes without saying that there
will always be “consent” when
there is parental coercion in the
first place.
The practice of forcing mar-
riage on children is particularly
common in insular Orthodox
religious communities and among
AMERICAN ATHEIST | www.atheists.org | 13

Fundamentalist Christians. In
2018, leaders of the Family Action
Council of Tennessee success-
fully killed a bill that would have
banned child marriage in that
state. The group’s objection to the
law? It would have interfered with a
lawsuit they planned in order to at-
tack same-sex marriage rights. But
it isn’t just ultra-orthodox religious
groups opposing these laws.
“There was a concern that we
would be offending certain cul-
tures within our society,” said New
York Assemblywoman Amy Paulin,
who, in 2016, introduced an unsuc-
cessful bill to end child marriage
in her state. “So instead of seeing
this as an abuse of young women,
[legislators] were seeing this as
something we needed to protect for
certain cultures.”
The coalition aims to remove
statutory rape exceptions so that
perpetrators cannot escape pun-
ishment by marrying the child. The
coalition also aims to have a feder-
al law passed—or at least to have an
official standard—which defines
marriage under the age of 18 as a
human-rights abuse and to ensure
that no other federal laws, policies,
or regulations permit, encourage,
or facilitate child marriage.
The coalition was co-founded
by the non-profit organizations
Equality Now and Unchained At
Last.
Equality Now works through
public policy channels to create
14 | AMERICAN ATHEIST | www.atheists.org
“Girls who marry as minors are twice
as likely to live in poverty and three
times more likely than older women
to be physically abused by a spouse.”
a just world for women and girls.
They hold governments responsi-
ble for ending legal inequality, sex
trafficking, sexual violence, and
inhumane practices like female
genital mutilation.
Unchained At Last is the only
organization in the U.S. dedicated
to ending forced and child mar-
riage across the country through
direct services and advocacy. It
provides crucial and often life-sav-
ing legal and social services to help
individuals resist or escape forced
marriages. They lead in pushing
for social, policy, and legal changes
at both the state and federal levels.
Unchained At Last was founded
by Fraidy Reiss, who was forced
into an arranged marriage at 19.
Lacking any formal education and
trapped in a community where
only men could grant a divorce,
Reiss defied the wishes of her fam-
ily and became the first person in
her family to go to college at the age
of 27. After her graduation at the
top of her class from Rutgers at the
age of 32, her family shunned her
and declared her dead.
She was hired as a reporter with
the Asbury Park Press in New Jersey
and rose to become an investigative
journalist and later an investigator
at Kroll, Inc., one of the world’s
foremost corporate investigation
risk consulting firms.
Reiss escaped the trap of her
forced marriage by successfully
divorcing her abusive husband and
winning full custody of her two
children.
Now she works to ensure that
women and girls who unwillingly
endure an arranged marriage have
the resources they need to escape.
Since joining the coalition,
American Atheists has worked
with advocates at Unchained At
Last and Equality Now to pass child
marriage bans in states with no re-
ligious loopholes and exemptions.
In February, American Atheists
submitted testimony in support of
a bill that would end child marriage
in New Hampshire. The law in that
state currently sets the marriage
age at 18 but allows a dangerous
exemption for children as young as
16 to marry if a parent petitions the
court for the marriage and a judge
approves.
Since 2000, more than 200 mar-
riage licenses were granted in New
Hampshire for children as young
as 14.
All organizations, decision-mak-
ers, activists, advocates, survivors,
and allies who are committed to
ending child marriage in the United
States, and who are in agreement
with this mission, are invited to
join the coalition.
Go to EndChildMarriageUS.org
to learn more. 🅐
JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2019
 Elected officials and government agencies are supposed to be
accountable to us as voters. But too often, atheists are ignored
or are even prevented from participating in public forums
created by the government.

If official government social media accounts are blocking you

simply for disagreeing with them or because of your views, that
is unconstitutional.

KNOW YOUR RIGHTS

www.atheistsengage.org

Those of us who don’t believe

in the supernatural sometimes
struggle to understand how we can
ground ourselves ethically, and how
to find truth, meaning, purpose and
joy.
This book offers ideas about how to
know, without depending on Holy
Scriptures or guidance from a deity,
what it means to lead a good and
ethical life.

“Michael Werner’s statement

of Humanism is clear,
effective, and graceful, just
right for our times.”
Steven Pinker, Harvard University professor of
psychology, author of The Better Angels of Our
Nature and How the Mind Works

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2019 AMERICAN ATHEIST | www.atheists.org | 15

 PERSPECTIVE

Grounding
Your Atheism by Michael Werner

M
y deconversion began at age ten or elev-
en. I was sitting alone in the back of a
church, praying to a supposedly caring
God to relieve my sufferings, but I re-
ceived no response. It suddenly occurred
to me that I didn’t know what I was talking
about—and neither did anyone else. I saw fault lines in all my
beliefs, from the concept of faith grounded in nothing to the
problem of evil in the world. I made a vow then to learn the
truth about life, no matter what. If that led me to hell, so be it.

16 | AMERICAN ATHEIST | www.atheists.org JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2019


Instinctively, I expected my
quest to take years, and I was right.
It wasn’t until I was almost forty that
I became confident in my beliefs.
For too many though, atheism is
an end to their quest, when letting
go is just the beginning. Atheism
is what we don’t believe. But what,
then, do we believe? Well, I believe
Socrates was correct when he said
there are only two main questions
in life: What is true, and how shall
we live?
Atheists use expressions like
“good without God,” “just be good,”
and “no gods, no masters.” While
their simplicity is nice, these terms
are very misleading. They say
nothing about how difficult it actu-
ally is to find your own definition
of morality—and then make your
own decisions according to that
definition. It is distressing to many
people that the majority of philos-
ophers today, after a deep search,
have found there is no certainty, no
absolute moral goal, no absolute
meaning in life.
All scientific knowledge is ten-
tative, fallible, and probabilistic.
Like the search for truth, secular
morality requires a garage full
of tools, none complete and none
without problems. Every value we
hold has downsides and tradeoffs.
There is no one-size-fits-all ethical
goal for everyone. Humanity has
multiple goals, multiple founda-
tions, multiple moral tools.
JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2019
“Secular morality requires
a garage full of tools, none
complete and none without
problems.”
We don’t need certainty to gain
knowledge. The world is indeed
relative, but it is not arbitrary.
Also, we don’t need absolute ethi-
cal paths and goals to make good,
confident decisions. We just need
to do the best we can in a messy
situation.
For me, being a humanist
means to search for and commit to
the highest ideals, our noblest sen-
timents, our greatest values, and
what civilization and science say
matters most. Humanism is a blend
of the best of the Enlightenment
and the Romantic movements say-
ing this world is all and enough.
Most of us, consciously or un-
consciously, need a higher vision
to lift our hearts, move our society,
and push us to higher meanings.
Some may find that integrated sto-
ry is already with us.
Humanism is based on values,
not beliefs. To name just a few, these
values encompass open-minded
critical thinking, science, justice,
freedom, tolerance, democracy,
reason, compassion, human rights,
the inherent worth and dignity of
each person, and the importance
of human flourishing. We can’t
afford the luxury of merely cri-
tiquing religion. We must share
our own stories so that others who
are contemplating a change will
see that a non-religious worldview
can support, inspire, and comfort
them; that knowledge of science,
while tentative, is firmer than
blind faith; that focusing on the
here-and-now is more meaningful
than a focus on otherworldliness;
that compassion and responsibility
can be balanced with self-interest
and freedom. Ambiguity doesn’t
have to paralyze us, but it does
make it crucial that we reflectively
consider all our choices.
Now is our time because there
are more of us than ever, and our
population is continually growing.
Now is our chance to move society
toward reason and the good life.
Now is the time to rid our society of
Dark-Age theocratic and ideologi-
cal controls. We cannot falter in the
face of certain hostility or our own
inherent ambivalence; neither can
we stand idly by hoping for a sec-
ular society to automatically shape
itself. We must show that a secular
worldview need not be nihilistic,
and that we can build communities
that embrace a progressive, ethical
worldview of human and global
good. 🅐
Michael Werner is president
of the Humanist Foundation,
past president of the American
Humanist Association, and a co-
founder of SMART recovery, a
secular program for addictions.
His book, What Can You Believe In
If You Don’t Believe in God?, is
published by Humanist Press.
AMERICAN ATHEIST | www.atheists.org | 17

Hollywood’s Atheism Taboo
Slow progress in the entertainment industry
by Justin Scott, American Atheists’ Iowa State Director
I
think of Britain and
America differing by
about five percent in most
things,” said Hugh Lau-
rie to Larry King when
asked his opinion on the
biggest difference between the two
countries. The year was 2013, and
the British actor and musician had
recently completed an eight-season
run of House, M.D., the critically
acclaimed television series about
a surly physician with a genius for
solving medical mysteries, a lack of
empathy for his fellow human be-
ings, and absolute disdain for any-
one who believed in God.
Laurie joked that “we have
five percent less melted cheese
on our food” to illustrate just how
small our differences are. “Our
lapels are five percent narrower,
maybe. We’re incredibly alike,” he
reiterated.
Except when it comes to reli-
gion. The difference there? “Ten
thousand percent. This is a very,
very, devout religious country.
18 | AMERICAN ATHEIST | www.atheists.org
REPORT
by Pamela Whissel
Europe, by and large, is not.”
To put it in more concrete terms,
he offered England’s former prime
minister Tony Blair as an example.
As a practicing Catholic campaign-
ing for public office, Blair had to
downplay his religious affiliation
to the point of virtually concealing
it.
“Over here, that’s a plus,” King
responded, referring to America’s
attitude toward politicians. That
was an understatement in 2013,
and is even more so now. To run
for president in the United States as
an open atheist would be political
suicide.
Overt atheism is not a smart ca-
reer choice in American show busi-
ness, either. In fact, thanking the
Lord for winning an Oscar, Emmy,
or Golden Globe is common, just as
it is for professional athletes who
win the big game. And even if they
don’t praise their divine maker as
they receive the trophy, athletes
who are atheists aren’t pouring out
of the closet they way they barrel
Actors Stephen Fry (left) and Hugh
Laurie are two of the best known and
most vocal atheists in Hollywood.
Both have spoken at atheist
events, including Laurie’s
appearance at the 2018 American
Atheists National Convention.
Featureflash Photo Agency / Shutterstock.com
out of the tunnel on game day.
Arizona Cardinal quarterback Josh
Rosen is currently the lone openly
atheist player in the NFL.
House, M.D. is on the very short
list of examples of an atheist motif
in a Hollywood production. Others
include The Big Bang Theory, which
stars Jim Parsons as Sheldon
Cooper, a physicist and atheist.
In the prequel spin-off series,
Young Sheldon, Iain Armitage plays
Sheldon as a boy who is not afraid
to stand up in church to debate his
pastor on the existence of God.
Ricky Gervais is also on this
short list. Besides speaking and
writing frequently about being an
atheist, Gervais wrote, directed,
and starred in the feature film The
Invention of Lying, an allegory for
religious belief.
Comedian Kathy Griffin is
another example. In her 2007
Emmy Award acceptance speech,
she said, “A lot of people come up
here, and they thank Jesus for this
award. I want you to know that no
JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2019

one had less to do with this award,
so suck it, Jesus! This award is my
god now!”
Saturday Night Live alum Julia
Sweeney is on the list for writing
and performing her one-woman
autobiographical play Letting Go of
God, which was eventually made
into a film. In his book The God
Delusion, Richard Dawkins gives
high praise to the work: “Part of
Julia Sweeney’s gift is to make you
cry and laugh at the same time.”
Other examples exist, but not
many, and it’s not because there
aren’t atheists in Hollywood.
“There are more than we
realize,” said reporter Natasha
Stoynoff, who interviewed hun-
dreds of celebrities over the course
of a seventeen-year career with
People magazine. “They’re not
open about it for the same reason
other people aren’t. It’s a stigma,
and coming out of the closet could
mean losing your community.”
For celebrities, the loss extends
beyond community. “They may
worry that if they call themselves
an atheist, their fan base will
shrink, making them less market-
able and therefore less employ-
able,” she added.
To be fair, there are actors
JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2019
“Overt atheism is not a smart career
choice in American show business.
Celebrities may worry that if they
call themselves an atheist, their
fan base will shrink.”
who, when asked in interviews,
have professed to be atheists or
agnostic. A recent example is
Daniel Radcliffe. In an interview
with the New York Post, he said, “I
don’t expect there to be a God and
an afterlife—I would be pleasantly
surprised if there was.”
Every time a quote like this
appears, atheism moves a little
bit closer to being normalized in
American show business. The re-
sults are even better when an athe-
ist character’s storyline is integral
to a production without it being a
character flaw. But the strongest
influence comes when a celebrity
lends their considerable clout to
an organization. Hugh Laurie did
just that for American Atheists at
our 2018 National Convention in
Oklahoma City where he, in his
words, stood with us as a proud
atheist.
The actor, writer, and filmmak-
er Stephen Fry is another stellar
example of a performance artist
who can eloquently dismantle
atheism’s stigma. In 2009, he part-
nered with Christopher Hitchens
in a televised debate sponsored
by the Intelligence Squared media
company. Although it wasn’t a
Hollywood production, it is very
much worth mentioning here. The
debate topic was “The Catholic
Church is a Force for Good in the
World” and even though their op-
ponents were an archbishop and a
member of the British Parliament,
the audience poll taken afterwards
declared Hitchens and Fry the
winners.
When a magazine in the U.S.
mentions Stephen Fry and Hugh
Laurie in the same article, some
due diligence is in order. It would
be downright negligent for the
writer not to digress and tell
American fans of House, M.D.
about their early collaborations,
which includes Jeeves and Wooster,
a four-season British television
adaptation of the novels of P.G.
Wodehouse. Watching just a few
minutes of a Jeeves and Wooster
episode is all that’s necessary to
understand that there is no actor
with a range more vast than Hugh
Laurie’s. The difference between
his playing Gregory House and his
playing Bertie Wooster is about the
same as the difference between the
U.S. and Britain when it comes to
religion: ten thousand percent. 🅐
Pamela Whissel is American
Atheists’ membership director and
editor-in-chief of this magazine.
AMERICAN ATHEIST | www.atheists.org | 19
 COMMENTARY

“Fundamentalist” is
the Correct Label
by Brian Bolton and Pamela Whissel

J
ournalists and writers use a variety of terms as blanket descrip-
tions of the Christian faith’s hard-core zealots. They are re-
ferred to as fundamentalists, evangelicals, the Religious Right,
Christian conservatives, Christian extremists, and Christian
supremacists, with the most accurate term being “fundamen-
talist.” The least accurate is “evangelical” for the simple reason
that all Christians are, by definition, evangelicals.

20 | AMERICAN ATHEIST | www.atheists.org JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2019

“Fundamentalism was born as a reaction
to the new understanding of the world
from the work of Charles Darwin and
geologists who determined Earth to be far
older than a few thousand years.”
The words “evangelical” and
“gospel” both derive from the
Greek word “euangelion,” which
means “good news.”
The universal obligation incum-
bent on all Christians is to spread
the good news of Christian salva-
tion to everyone. This is called the
Great Commission and is mandated
by Jesus five times, in the following
chapters and verses.
Matthew 28:19: “Go therefore
and make disciples of all the na-
tions, baptizing them in the name
of the Father and of the Son and of
the Holy Spirit.”
Mark 16:15-16: “Go into all the
world to proclaim the good news
to the whole creation. The one
who believes and is baptized will
be saved; but the one who does not
believe will be condemned.”
Luke 24:46-47: “The Messiah will
suffer and rise from the dead on the
third day, and repentance for the
forgiveness of sins will be preached
in his name to all nations.”
John 20:21,23: “As the father has
sent me, I am sending you…If you
forgive anyone’s sins, their sins
are forgiven; if you do not forgive
them, they are not forgiven.
Acts 1:8: “You will be my witness
in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and
Samaria, and to the ends of the
earth.”
It follows that all Christians
must be evangelicals as instructed
by Jesus in his final command to
his disciples.
In contrast, the term “fun-
damentalist” applies only to
JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2019
a small subset of Christians.
Fundamentalism was born in
the 19th Century as a reaction to
social advances as well as the new
understanding of the world from
the work of Charles Darwin and
geologists who determined Earth
to be far older than a few thousand
years.
In the early 20th Century, the
American Bible League published The words
The Fundamentals: A Testimony to
the Truth, a series of twelve tracts
“evangelical” and
composed to affirm the Bible as “gospel” both
the infallible word on matters of
faith and morals and the flawless derive from
source on history and science. It’s
from this body of work that the
the Greek word
term “fundamentalist” was coined “euangelion,”
which means
to describe militant adherents to
biblical truth.
The two primary postulates of
fundamentalism are the claim that
“good news.”
the Bible is the inerrant word of
God—a perfect expression of his
divine will—and the assertion that
all people who reject Christ as the
Messiah will be punished for eter-
nity, exactly as Jesus described.
So call these fanatics what they
are: fundamentalists! It is the ap-
propriate terminology to identify
this dogmatic, closed-minded mi-
nority of the Christian population
who want to inflict their theopoliti-
cal beliefs on all of us. 🅐
Brian Bolton is a retired
psychologist living in Georgetown,
Texas. Pamela Whissel is American
Atheists’ membership director and
editor-in-chief of this magazine.
AMERICAN ATHEIST | www.atheists.org | 21
 INTERVIEW

The Case Against Faith and

For Freedom

W
hen determining the causes of the infe-
rior status of women around the world,
it’s hard to find a bigger culprit than re-
ligion, particularly monotheism and the
Abrahamic traditions that form the bas-
es for Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.
This is what Karen Garst discovered in 2014 after the U.S. Su-
preme Court’s ruling in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores.
As a woman who came of age before Roe v. Wade, she
couldn’t ignore the rage she felt at the Hobby Lobby ruling,
which gives for-profit, closely held corporations (those with
a small number of shareholders) the right to object to a
government regulation if the objection arises from religious
belief.

22 | AMERICAN ATHEIST | www.atheists.org JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2019

 In this case, Hobby Lobby
did not want to comply with the
Affordable Care Act’s mandate to
include birth control in the health
insurance plan offered to employ-
ees. Their reasons were religious,
so the government covers the cost
of birth control prescriptions for
the female employees of Hobby
Lobby.
Unable to ignore the fact that
women are still having to fight
for their rights in the twenty-first
century, Garst decided to commit
time to activism. The result was
her first book, Women Beyond Belief:
Discovering Life without Religion.
She recently published a second
book, Women v. Religion: The Case
Against Faith...and for Freedom.
In this interview, she talks
about atheism, feminism, and
inspiration.
You were an atheist long
before you were an author.
When did you leave religion?
My belief in God ended about 20
years ago, after I became familiar
with the work of the Jesus Seminar,
which was a group of researchers
and scholars who gathered in the
1990s to determine the historicity
of Jesus Christ. I learned of them
after attending a lecture at a local
community college.
Marcus Borg, a professor of reli-
gion at Oregon State University and
a Jesus Seminar member, was the
speaker. My interest grew, and I
read books by him and other Jesus
Seminar scholars. By the time I fin-
ished reading John Shelby Spong’s
Resurrection: Myth or Reality?, I was
done with religion.
Like Spong, I’m now convinced
that the resurrection is a myth.
JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2019
“More and more Black and
Latinx atheists are coming
together in order to come out as
non-believers. The same goes
for ex-Muslims and ex-Jews.”
What made you choose writing What makes your new
as your vehicle for activism? book unique?
I was having lunch with an au- The face of atheist activism
thor friend who had been encour- in this country has only recently
aging me for some time to write a included minority populations, but
book of my own. This was just two more and more Black and Latinx
days after the Hobby Lobby ruling, atheists are coming together in
so I decided the timing was perfect order to come out as non-believers.
for me to write about the deleteri- The same goes for ex-Muslims and
ous impact of religion on women. ex-Jews.
That’s when I started work on So although the contributors to
Women Beyond Belief, a collection the book are all women, they are a
of twenty-two personal stories of very diverse group with individual
women who have left religion. It perspectives who are contributing
was published in 2016, around the significantly to the movement.
same time that I launched my blog, I’m fortunate to have them as
The Faithless Feminist. collaborators.
How did the second Tell us about some of them.
book come about?
Candace Gorham wrote the
I started to attend the meetings first essay, “Guilt, Shame, and
of some local atheist groups to Psychological Pain.” She is a for-
publicize Women Beyond Belief. mer Evangelical minister and now
I then branched out to national a licensed professional counselor.
conferences. Her struggle with depression
The many intelligent, interest- started in childhood, and in her
ing women I met at the 2014 Women faith community, Jesus was the
in Secularism Conference inspired answer. Well, it wasn’t, and when
me to start work on Women v. she moved away from religion, she
Religion, an anthology of 13 essays, faced psychological obstacles like
each one touching on an aspect of the fear of hell and the overwhelm-
the impact the three Abrahamic ing feelings of guilt for original sin
religions have on women. as well as subsequent sin. She’s
AMERICAN ATHEIST | www.atheists.org | 23

“As a woman who came of
age before Roe v. Wade, she
couldn’t ignore the rage
she felt at the Hobby Lobby
ruling.”
Author Karen Garst
24 | AMERICAN ATHEIST | www.atheists.org
also authored a book, The Ebony Exodus Project: Why Some
Black Women are Walking Out on Religion and Why Others
Should, Too.
The essay “Negotiations with God” was written by
Aruna Papp. As a child in India, she witnessed the immo-
lation of her next-door neighbor who had “dishonored”
the family.
The oldest of seven, Aruna was married to a man cho-
sen by her parents. In 1972, with a third-grade education
and two young daughters, she immigrated to Canada,
was able to earn two master’s degrees, and left a mar-
riage full of domestic violence. She is a pioneer in the
field of counseling immigrant women and has developed
training programs that teach the difference between
honor-based violence and domestic violence.
Hibah Ch is the pen name of the writer who authored
the essay “Women in Islam: Unveiled.” Born and raised
in Syria to a conservative Muslim family, she left Islam
in her twenties. Even though she now studies chemistry
and math in the U.S., she remains in danger because ret-
ribution for Muslim apostasy can take place anywhere at
any time. I’ve never met her personally.
As the graduate of an all-girls Catholic school, Hypatia
Alexandria is well aware of the influence of religion,
especially Catholicism, on the U.S. Hispanic population.
In “Why Hispanic Women Should Abandon Religion,”
she writes about the multiple barriers Latinx women
face in achieving true gender equality. She and her hus-
band, David Tamayo, are the co-founders of Hispanic
American Freethinkers.
“Shaking the Ground: Transgender Atheism” was
written by Kayley Margarite Whalen, the former digital
strategies and social media manager at the National
LGBTQ Task Force.
Kayley shares her origin story as a transgender athe-
ist, a queer woman, and a feminist. As she grew up, her
family’s Catholicism played a huge role in denying her
the language and history to understand that she was
not the only transgender person in the world. She also
talks about how research on gender identity has been
hindered by the influence of religion.
Other contributors include a former Jew and a minis-
ter in a Christian church who is openly atheist.
Why focus on women only?
The majority of Americans populating the church
pews are women, yet in the Bible, the passages and doc-
trines treating women as property are far too numerous
to mention here. Because Christianity is the basis of
Western civilization, I don’t think women will achieve
true gender equality until religion has faded away. 🅐
JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2019
 NOTABLE BOOKS

Ark Encounter: The Making of a

Creationist Theme Park
Besides being total nonsense, the Ark
Encounter theme park is also criticized for
enjoying government-subsidized financial
perks, even though it discriminates in
hiring. This is the reason for the annual
protest held by the Tri-State Freethinkers,
an American Atheists affiliate whose
members have labeled the attraction the
“Genocide and Incest Park.”
In this book, anthropology scholar
James S. Bielo shows how fundamentalists
use state-of-the-art entertainment to
attempt to legitimize creationism for both
their followers and the general public.
Ark Encounter: The Making of a Creationist Theme Park by
James S. Bielo, 225 pages (including appendix, notes,
bibliography, and index), New York University Press

Seven Types of Atheism

Despite the absurd premise that
contemporary atheist discourse is a
“shrill, narrow derision in the name of an
often vaguely understood ‘science,’” this
book is handy as an (extremely) abridged
survey of how great minds throughout
history have attempted to understand the
questions of salvation, progress, evil, and
for reading it is the author’s sweeping
generalizations, which can serve as
a source of abundant debate topics to
prompt conversations that are bound to
be lively.
Seven Types of Atheism by John Gray, 170 pages (including
notes), Farrar, Straus and Giroux

the purpose of existence. The best reason

Mere Morality
“Dan Barker’s Mere Morality is a potent
riposte to C.S. Lewis’ Mere Christianity, a
book much beloved by Christian apologists.
Barker exposes the myriad of biblical
practices that could be deemed immoral
today, especially because so much of the
Bible was written within a master-slave
view of the world. Mere Morality offers
a real-world view of morality grounded
in behavioral biology, reason, and law.”
—Hector Avalos, author of Fighting Words:
The Origins of Religious Violence
Mere Morality by Dan Barker, 167 pages (including notes
and references), Pitchstone Publishing

Eternal White
What awaits us at the end of our lives?
This frightening question drives many
people to religion, often because stories
resonate in a way that facts and logic
alone cannot. Eternal White is the story of
a math teacher whose life is about to be
cut short. Facing the uncertainty of what
comes after death, he must come to peace
with his tragedy through logic and reason
and avoid the temptation of believing in
eternal life.
Eternal White by T. Furuyama, fiction, 297 pages,
TFuruyamaBooks.com

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2019 AMERICAN ATHEIST | www.atheists.org | 25

 ADVERTISEMENT
THE ENEMY OF REASON AND SYMPATHY IS: CHRISTIANITY
ITS ACHILLES HEEL IS: FREE WILL
DON’T BE FOOLED BY OUR ATHEIST FREE WILL “HARMONIZERS”
Christian free will is not by a long shot the free
will of philosophers. They ask: “Can we make
choices entirely free of all antecedents?”
Christian free will insists on three elements: (1) that
all persons everywhere (except children, incompetents,
and those acting under force) are born with the equal
ability to make seriously deliberated moral choices en-
tirely free of the interactions of biological inheritance
and experience; (2) they also know which course is
right; (3) and they can freely make it.
Christianity must have guilt for one to need salva-
tion, and guilt requires that moral choices must not be
affected in any way by forces not within your control.
Thus, those who make wrong choices are evil and de-
serve punishment up to and including eternal suffering
in Hell!
If Christian free will is wrong, that indispensable
foundation of Christianity collapses—as St. Paul said of
the resurrection: “And if Christ has not been raised, our
preaching is useless and so is your faith.”
So, how sad it is to see some of our great atheist-
heroes dancing on pin-heads trying to find ways to “har-
monize” what they know and proclaim: “We will as we
do for reasons beyond our control” with its polar op-
posite: “yet there are ways of stating the case which val-
idates free will.”
Here are depressing quotations from four of those
brilliant atheists:
1. Yes, the brain tumor (or whatever) is one of
the causes of the action, but the individual human
being is the actual perpetrator. It is irrelevant to ask
whether the person was ultimately free or not. We
only assume the person was immediately free.
2. We can be perfectly orthodox materialists and
yet believe in free will, if what we mean by that is
that there is a level of description that is useful in
certain contexts and that includes “autonomous
agents with free will” as crucial ingredients.
3. Even if my choices are entirely determined in
advance, I still make decisions, and my decisions are
still caused by who I am—my thoughts and desires
and personality—just as they must be if I am to be
26 | AMERICAN ATHEIST | www.atheists.org
“free” in any sense that matters. And because I am
the cause I can still be praised or blamed for them.
4. If nobody is responsible, not really, then not
only should the prisons be emptied, but no contract
is valid, mortgages should be abolished, and we can
never hold anybody to account for anything they
do. Preserving “law and order” without a concept
of real responsibility is a daunting task.
It is ironic that these eminences aggressively teach
and are champions of iron determinism which says that
all choices are caused by all the conditions in the uni-
verse, down to the last molecule, as they existed just be-
fore the decision. If time could be rewound, and all
conditions in the universe were exactly the same as be-
fore, the decision would always be the same—with no
freedom for it to have been otherwise.
Meanwhile, as they confuse us with their fine
distinctions, in the world of people, the Roman Catholic
Church and Protestant denominations with the over-
whelming number of adherents, teach and are believed,
that unless everyone uses their God-given free will
correctly before they die, “many,” as Jesus promised,
will go to a “lake of fire to suffer forever,” while only a
“few” will be saved! And that is so good, right and jus-
tified, that the believer in heavenly ecstasy will be
wholly content knowing a beloved wife, child or parent
is suffering in hell!
These harmonizers fail to consider the real-world
implications of their foolish compatibilism. It only serves
to deceive, obfuscate, and divert fellow atheists from
the supreme moral issue—eternal suffering for anyone—
and gives aid and comfort to the religionist free-willers.
They should heed the harrowing testimony of
recovered Christians. Many have written in this maga-
zine how the fear of hell terrorized them, especially as
young children. It did the same to Martin Luther. He
was upbraided by his confessor for imagining non-exis-
tent sins and constant confessing.
With hell believed, is it any wonder that those
adjured to imitate Christ might conclude—if only un-
consciously—that if God so hates his own creatures be-
cause they are utterly evil, then they would also find
those they detest to be evil as well?
JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2019
 ADVERTISEMENT
Does this divine example not incubate, legitimize
and foster the rampant hate—racism, sexism, homopho-
bia, xenophobia and more, which afflicts society today?
The issue is of overriding moral significance. If
Christian free will is true, then hate, retributive punish-
ment, and ultimately, an eternity of suffering for the evil
is right and just.
It is incumbent on us to fight and kill that horrid
doctrine undistracted by sophistry from our best. A new
way to do just that, rarely tried if ever, is to attack and
kill free will. If we don’t have it, mainstream Christianity
must wither.
The case against any kind of free will is already
devastating:
• With the evidence we already have, the
majority of neuroscientists say it is merely an illu-
sion. So do Drs. Sam Harris, Jerry Coyne, Robert
Sapolsky, Sean Carroll, and many others in psychol-
ogy and the social sciences.
• Dr. Sapolsky cautions those not yet convinced
to wait, new evidence is coming in every month at
an increasing rate.
• Some of the greatest scientists and philosophers
of all time wrote against it: Darwin, Einstein, Feyn-
man, Crick, Hawking, Planck and more; Spinoza,
Voltaire, Russell, Schopenhauer, and more.
• It has crucial elements which are self verifiable
—everyone knows he/she had no choice about
being, brain, body, time and place, ad infinitum. They
know the power of these influences on themselves.
• Eternal punishment, enabled by free will, is re-
pugnant to the human instinct for sympathy. Steven
Pinker, public teacher extraordinaire, Harvard Pro-
fessor of Psychology, says in his new book,
ENLIGHTENMENT NOW, “You have been en-
dowed with a sense of sympathy—the ability to
like, love, respect and show kindness…and because
your reason tells you none of this is particular to
you, you have the responsibility to provide to oth-
ers what you expect from them.”
The idea of hell was born of ignorance, brutality, fear cowardice, and revenge. This idea testifies that
our remote ancestors were the lowest beasts. Only from dens, lairs, and caves, only from mouths filled
with cruel fangs, only from hearts of fear and hatred, only from the conscience of hunger and lust,
only from the lowest and most debased could come this cruel, heartless, and bestial of all dogmas.
Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
Whatever your position about this, please e-mail: fellowfeather@gmail.com.
JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2019
• It provides the real reason we should not hate:
truly understanding that there, but for LUCK, go I.
• The common sense case is almost irresistible
and is easily stated; beautifully so by the English
author, Raoul Martinez, in his highly acclaimed
2017 book, CREATING FREEDOM. You can listen
to a 21 minute précis in a TED Talk at:
http://www.creatingfreedom.info/
A great libel on determinism is that if there is no
responsibility there can be no accountability, thus, any-
thing goes. This is quite wrong. It is in the definition of
determinism that experience causes change. In fact it is
probably the only thing which can cause real internal
change. Otherwise, all education would be in vain.
We are—and must be—held accountable for what
we do, even while not ultimately responsible for what
we will. This means being subjected to experiences—un-
derstanding, reproof, education, praise, love, embarrass-
ment, penalty, various jail options, whatever might
work—as the only way to bring about real change.
Much in our criminal system is wholly counter-produc-
tive because we are animated by retributive punishment
rather than rehabilitation. It hardens those most in need
of softening.
Another libel is that it removes all incentive for
self-improvement and self-esteem since, if all is foreor-
dained, our efforts are in vain. But that is not true.
“Foreordained” implies the future is planned. It is not
planned. The instant we call “now” was inevitable given
the state of everything, everywhere, as it was in what
we call the “past”. The “past” always determines what
we and nature do next. All will be as before, our human
nature will not change. It will often require that our
emotional reactions will require the disciplining of our
intellect to remember that we are all equally
brothers/sisters-in-luck—good or bad.
About 80 years ago I saw a wise sign in a Washing-
ton, DC, donut shop: As you ramble on through life
brother, Whatever be your goal, Keep your eye upon
the donut, And not upon the hole!
AMERICAN ATHEIST | www.atheists.org | 27
 Facebook page screenshot

STATE DIRECTOR SPOTLIGHT

Up In Flames
How a religious zealot’s attempt to cause a
scene in Iowa backfired
by Justin Scott, American Atheists Iowa State Director

I
t all started in October. I was scrolling through Face-
book when I came across a story about by Paul Dorr, a
fundamentalist Christian activist in Orange City, Iowa,
who staged an online book-burning. Dorr is the found-
er of Rescue the Perishing, a group that is, according
to their Facebook page, “contending against moral evil
to advance the Kingdom of Christ, by the grace of God and by
the power of His Law/Word. Started in 1988, RTP stands against
abortion, the sexual revolution in general, corruption in the
churches and colleges.”

28 | AMERICAN ATHEIST | www.atheists.org JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2019

 “I was pleasantly surprised when the library
gratefully declined my contribution because the
books had already been replaced several times
over by donations that poured in as soon as the
video went viral.”

The books that fueled Dorr’s fi-
ery rage all came from the Orange
City Public Library. Each of these
four terrible titles were found in …
the children’s section! And because
the books educate young readers
about LGBTQ equality, removing
them from the library was not
enough for him.
In his view, they needed to be
gone, period.
He timed his protest to coincide
with an annual pride event orga-
nized by Orange City Pride, an
LGBTQ advocacy group.
Earlier in the year, Orange
City, located in one of Iowa’s most
conservative Republican counties,
made national headlines when 340
residents signed a petition calling
for the library to ban, or at least la-
bel, materials with LGBTQ subject
matter.
I was unable to sit through
Dorr’s entire 30-minute diatribe,
and before he was done with the de-
struction, I had created a Facebook
campaign to raise $750 to replace
the books and purchase additional
LGBTQ-related material for the
library. World Religion News ran
a story about my fundraiser, as did
The Des Moines Register and other
media outlets in Iowa. Thanks
to the generosity of people from
around the world, I ended up rais-
ing more than twice that amount.
I was pleasantly surprised when
the library gratefully declined my
contribution because the books
had already been replaced sev-
eral times over by donations that
poured in as soon as the video went
viral. Because my fundraiser also
went viral, it caught the attention
of Mike Goll, a founding member
of Orange City Pride, and I was able
to donate the money to them. They
plan to use the funds to encourage
even more representation and liter-
acy for LGBTQ youth and adults in
the community. Book clubs, read-
ing corners, and recommendations
are in the works.
Also in the works is Dorr’s
appearance at the Sioux County
Courthouse. Because his
book-burning stunt was unlawful,
he’s been charged with fifth-degree
criminal mischief, a misdemeanor
that carries a maximum penalty
of 30 days in jail and a fine of $625.
Here’s hoping that if he’s sentenced
he’ll find at least a few books in the
prison library to his liking in case
he wants to pass the time reading.
As for me, I plan on spending
some time reading to my kids, and
I think I’ll start with the four books
that Dorr failed to eliminate: Morris
Mickelwhite and the Tangerine Dress
by Christine Baldacchino, This Day
in June by Gayle E. Pitman, Two Justin Scott is a father of three
Boys Kissing by David Levithan, and a professional photographer
who runs JScott Images out of
and Families, Families, Families! by Denver, Iowa. He serves as American
Suzanne and Max Lang. 🅐 Atheists’ State Director for Iowa.

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2019 AMERICAN ATHEIST | www.atheists.org | 29

 PERSONAL STORY
Why I Am an Atheist
The wiles of knowledge and reason proved more
than this weak mortal could resist.
Steve Cuno
Salt Lake City, Utah
Steve Cuno writes for Free
Inquiry magazine and is
the “as-told-to” author of
the book It’s Not About the
Sex My Ass: Confessions of
an Ex-Mormon Ex-polygamist
Ex-wife by Joanne Hanks.
A recovering advertising
writer, Steve lives in Salt
Lake City. Why no one has
shown up at his door with
tar and feathers remains
a mystery. Contact him
at steve@stevecuno.com.
30 | AMERICAN ATHEIST | www.atheists.org
I
shall be brief: I’m an
atheist because there is
no god.
As to why I wasn’t an
atheist before, I shall be
briefer: hormones.
I was a blissfully religion-free
teen when I found myself smitten
by the new flautist. A noisy high
school band class is not conducive
to flirting, but with a bit of help from
me, serendipity began depositing
us at the same lunch table. Aware
that the flautist was Mormon, I
chose “tell me about Mormonism”
for a conversation-starter. Which,
I later learned, is like inviting a
highly contagious virus into your
mouth for a look around.
I fell for the The Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter-day Saints harder
than I fell for the flautist. I joined
at 19, embarked upon two years of
door-knocking in the province of
Quebec at 21, and returned home
at 23. As any Mormon knows, the
next step in my destiny was to
convince someone to marry me.
Remarkably, I succeeded.
Then I did something naughty:
I began to dabble in thinking.
Church leaders repeatedly warn
against thinking, but the wiles
of knowledge and reason proved
more than this weak mortal could
resist.
My wife was distraught.
Mormons go to heaven as married
couples. A woman can still go if her
husband apostatizes, but she’ll be
assigned to a husband not of her
choosing, most likely someone she
has never met. Chances are she’ll
have to share him with other wom-
en whose husbands apostatized.
Mainstream Mormons stopped
practicing polygamy on Earth, but
in heaven they keep it up. So to
speak.
Breast cancer claimed my wife
a few years after I quit the church.
Had I known that she would relapse
after a five-year remission, I would
have kept my damn mouth shut
during her life. She died lamenting
my apostasy, frightened for our
children’s spiritual future, and
feeling not terribly keen on that
heavenly polygamy thing.
When you leave the Mormon
Church, you find yourself alone.
Conversation waxes superficial
with Mormons who choose to
remain friends. Some choose not
to, for fear you’ll taint them. It took
years to build up a new circle.
It was for me a short step from
tossing out Mormonism to tossing
out religion altogether. After briefly
holding onto and then discarding
an intervening Something Out
There, I re-became an atheist. I’ve
never been happier.
Atheism matters. It is human-
kind’s best hope. God knows reli-
gion isn’t.
JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2019


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