american atheist magazine oct 1991

7/26/2019 American Atheist Magazine Oct 1991

1/48

Vol. 31, No.10

A Journal of Atheist News and Thought $2.95

The

Mos ow

InteEnational

Book

FaiE:

Cathedral onion domes tower over

the Kremlin: A symbol of religions

new position in Soviet society.

What place

will

Jltheism

have in the

Soviet

Union?

lImeri an

lit heist

Press

found out

while

exhilliting its

wares in the

heart of

Mos ow


2/48

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siders the struggle for progress as a

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A m e r i c a n A t h e i s t

A Journal of Atheist News and Thought

Cover art and design

by

Greg Anderson.

Austin, Texas

Editor s Desk

R. Murray-O Hair

Director s Briefcase 4

Jon G. Murray

Anticlericals, Secularists, and Athe-

ists and others who are in dissent to

religion exist in every country in the

world. But their priorities and projects

differas greatly as the challenges they

face in protecting the rights of non-

believers.

Moscow International Book Fair 13

MadalynO Hair

It was not a case of bringing coals to

Newcastle when the American Athe-

ist Press went to Moscow to exhibit at

one of the largest book shows in the

world. If anything, more Atheism is

needed in that city.

The Day I Said Good-bye 29

John Williamson

To love one's parents, must one be

faithful to their religion? In this short

story, a young woman finds that she

cannot follow in her mother's foot-

steps.

Vol . 3 1, N o. 10

Vol. 31, No. 10

3 Masters of Atheism 31

Robert G. Ingersoll

The eloquent agnostic answers the

question Should Infidels Send Their

Children to Sunday School?

Talking Back 33

Atheists, long accustomed to defend-

ing science classes from Christian

missionaries, take on creationism in

Biology and Bible Myths.

Poetry 34

American Atheist Radio Series 35

Madalyn O Hair

Spain was once renowned for its reli-

gious tolerance and enlightenment.

Torquemada tells the story of the

man who changed its reputation for-

ever and made it a center of Christian

repression.

Dial-An-Atheist Directory 38

Under the Covers 39

In a book that became a bedrock cri-

tique of dissent to religion, a Jesuit

puts Atheism Under the Knife.

Letters to the Editor 42

Classified Advertisements 44

Page 1


4/48

A l l e r i c a n A t h e i s t

Editor

R. Murray-O'Hair

Editor Emeritus

D r.

Madalyn O'Hair

Managing Editor

Jon

G.

Murray

Poetry

Angeline Bennett

Non-Resident Staff

Margaret Bhatty

Victoria Branden

MerrillHolste

Arthur Frederick Ide

John G. Jackson

Frank

R.

Zindler

The American Atheist ispublished by Amer-

ican Atheist Press.

Copyright 1991by American Atheist Press.

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The American Atheist Press publishes a va-

riety of Atheist, agnostic, and freethought

material. A catalog is available for $1.00.

All Christian Bible quotations are from the

King James Version, unless otherwise

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This is to certify that I am in agreement with the Aims and Purposes and

the Definitions of American Atheists. I consider myself to be Materialist or

Atheist (i.e.,

non-theist)

and I have, therefore, a particular interest in the

separation of state and church and American Atheists' efforts on behalf of

that principle.

I usually identify myself for

public

purposes as (check one):

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Atheist

D

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I evade any reply to a query

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Other: _

I am, however, an Atheist and I hereby make application for membership in

American Atheists, said membership being open

only

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comfortable with the appellation Atheist may not be admitted to membership

but are invited to subscribe to the

American Atheist

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contributions are to a tax-exempt organization and I may claim these amounts

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American Atheists, Inc., P.O. Box 140195, Austin, TX 78714-0195

Vol. 31, No. 10 American Atheist


5/48

Editor s Desk

m

purpose of the American

Atheist

~ is to present the history, views,

personalities, positions, heroes,

and goals of Atheism as the mainline

media cannot and willnot. Simply put,

ifwe expect the story of Atheism to be

fairly told we must tell it ourselves and

not rely upon those blinded by religious

dogma or harnessed by the demands of

the commercial media.

In some issues of the American

Athe-

ist,

this purpose is even more compel-

ling.Events which gravely concern us as

Atheists are ignored entirely by the out-

side media - for instance, Bush's com-

ment that Atheists cannot be consid-

ered citizens of the United States. If

such incidents are to be discussed at all,

they must find their forum within these

pages. At other times, Atheist happen-

ings or issues are indeed handled by the

mainline media - but in a distorted or

malice-filledmanner. It is the task of the

American

Atheist

to paint a truer pic-

ture of them.

Though my work involves righting

these journalistic wrongs of omission

and commission, I am rarely angered by

them. As a member of America's most

written about Atheist family, my hide

has grown somewhat thick. I have seen

our movement's best spokespersons

treated by the media with more con-

tempt and less objectivity than would be

accorded a confessed child molester.

But then stories both subtly and overt-

1yhostile are what one may expect from

a culture saturated in a viewpoint op-

posed to one's own. One might as well

expect Iran's state press to carry fair

coverage of the Methodist church.

The most unfortunate aspect of this

tainted media handling is the tendency

of the American public - even those

persons sympathetic to or inagreement

with Atheism - to lend credence to any

media report. We all know the old ca-

nard Why would they print it if it

weren't true? but rarely realize the ex-

R. Murray-O Hair

Austin, Texas

Undoing deceptions

tent to which people believe that. They

give the reporter the benefit of the

doubt, rationalizing that his story per-

haps has a grain oftruth ( Well,he istall,

though I myself wouldn't have called

him a 'genetic freak' ).

But would the media disseminate de-

liberate lies?That isa notion from which

allof us in the United States try to avert

our eyes. It is unthinkable. In our nation

the press is a sanctified institution, ad-

ministered by Clark Kent and Lois

Lane, overseen by selfless though de-

manding editors. Its goal is to serve the

public and present the truth; it is pro-

tected by and protects the First Amend-

ment. Itact inmalice? Itbe motivated by

market economics? Perish the thought;

we Americans know that the press

serves the people.

The fact is that it does not. Our news-

papers, radio stations, and television

networks are owned by corporations

devoted to profit, not charity - to stock

holders, not truth. And Superman, in

the guise of mild-mannered Clark Kent,

isn't in the press poo\. Instead it's an

ordinary human being, with ordinary

biases and ignorance and the usual con-

cern for retaining his job.

Nonetheless one media story about

American Atheists shocked me - and

that was a

Los Angeles

Times report on

the American Atheist Press exhibit at

the Moscow International Book Fair in

October

1989.

The story was also sent

on the wire service, appearing in many

other papers.

As part of the usual bit of misrepre-

sentation, the _article never mentioned

the name of the press. The stand was

only identified as Madalyn Murray

O'Hair's booth - this is the standard

media game of pretending that there is

no American Atheist movement, that

there isonlyone lone Atheist inthe Unit-

ed States. (A mistake on the reporter's

part? Signs announcing American

Atheist Press infivelanguages appeared

prominently on the exhibit.)

From the first line, ofcourse, the arti-

cle portrayed the American Atheist

Vol . 31 , No. 10

Press exhibit as a failure. The reporter

authoritatively stated no one stopped

to browse through her [O'Hair's] litera-

ture. Our translator intended to help

Soviets with questions, sat idly. Having

laidthis groundwork, the article launched

into an extensive description of the

smashing success ofthe religious booths

at the Fair. The

Los Angeles Times

arti-

cle was not run as an opinion piece but

a news report. These were the facts,

ma'am.

That at times the American Atheist

Press booth was so crowded we couldn't

move wasn't part of the story. Or that

once, when we were passing out litera-

ture and free pens, Noel Scott and I

were almost trampled by the eager

crowd didn't make it into print either.

That our

two

translators were exhausted

by their work at the end of the day also

slipped through the cracks offair report-

ing.

I have thought that perhaps the arti-

cle should have had a caption stating

that it was provided as a free service for

Christian fund-raisers, for it served that

purpose. Even before American Atheist

Press representatives were back in the

United States, Christian fund-raising let-

ters had been sent out, using the article

as a source for the information that

given a choice of god and godlessness,

Soviets went en masse for religion.

But, as I said, I have grown accus-

tomed to misstatements and misrepre-

sentations concerning Atheism from the

press corps. What shocked me about

this article, what I had not fully under-

stood before, is the ease with which the

press can, if it wishes, deceive us con-

cerning events in foreign lands. For who

is there back home to contradict the re-

ports? The truth is inaccessible, isolated

across borders and language barriers.

Because of production problems and

scheduling delays, this issue of the

American

Atheist

has long been post-

poned. But even wrongs on the back

burner eventually come to boil and the

needed correction is now being issued

here in August of 1991 . ~

Page 3


6/48

Director's Briefcase

Around the world,

those in dissent to

religion face vastly

..differing situations in

their struggle for

intellectual freedom in

their nations.

Their responses vary as

greatly as the

challenges which face

them.

A graduate of the University of Texas

at Austin and a second-generation

Atheist, Mr.Murray is a proponent of

aggressive Atheism. He is an

anchorman on the American Atheist

Forum and the president of American

Atheists.

Jon G. Murray

Page 4

The outreach began as far back as

1%9, when Dr. Madalyn O'Hair, found-

er ofAmerican Atheists, invited GORA

(Goparaju Ramachandra Rao) of India

to the United States. Since that time

American Atheists has sponsored nu-

merous visits of leaders of foreign Athe-

ist and freethought groups to this coun-

try, and the leadership of American

Atheists has journeyed abroad to seek

out other groups on their home turf.

Inyears gone by, visits by representa-

tives from groups inIndia, Great Britain,

Finland, Australia, New Zealand, Israel,

Austria, West Germany, France, Canada,

and Ireland have been hosted. Since

1976,these visitors have come chiefly to

participate in annual national conven-

tions of American Atheists. In addition,

the Murray-O'Hairs have journeyed to

Great Britain, Ireland, Spain, France,

Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark,

(former) West Germany, (former) East

Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Italy,

Finland, Sweden, the Soviet Union,

Hungary, Greece, Turkey, Iran (under

the shah), India, Thailand, Japan, China,

Australia, New Zealand, Kenya, Tanza-

nia,ElSalvador, Mexico, and Canada. In

their travels they have never failed to

meet at least one fellowAtheist leader.

American Atheists has participated in

international Atheist conferences in Vi-

jayawada, India (1980)and Helsinki, Fin-

land (1983), and in a freethinkers' con-

gress in Lausanne, Switzerland (1981).

Inmore recent years, American Atheist

Press has sponsored literature exhibits

in both Moscow, U.S.S.R., and Frank-

furt, West Germany.

This issue of the American Atheist is

devoted to a report on the Moscow In-

ternational Book Fair exhibit of 1989. I

shall not delve into the specifics of that

Fair,since that topic is covered so thor-

oughly elsewhere in this issue.

Anticlericals, secularists,

and Atheists

A

merican Atheists has known for

many years that there are Athe-

ists inother countries ofthe world

besides the United States. In fact, Athe-

ism was alive and well as a point of view

in opposition to religion in Europe and

Asia for hundreds of years prior to the

colonization of the North American

continent. We suspect that there were

also Atheists present in the cultures of

Africa and South America for centuries

before America was established, but it

is difficult to find persuasive historical

evidence to support that assumption.

From time to time, I have found myself,

as I wager most other Atheists have,

wondering ifIwas the onlyAtheist inthe

world or if there were indeed others

out there like me. That feeling can be

compared to the wonder of a stargazer

on a clear night who supposes that there

must be life as we know it on at least

one of those many, many points of light

inthe visible expanse of a nighttime sky.

In the case of the lonely Atheists,

though, it is more like a question of

whether there isindeed other

intelligent

life out there in the world somewhere.

To no surprise of my own, I have

found over the years that indeed there

are other Atheists in the world. Not just

Atheists either, but Atheist activists.

International outreach

American Atheists has made a point

of trying to contact both Atheist groups

and individualAtheists invarious nations

around the world. The motive behind

this international outreach was to deter-

mine whether those Atheists of other

lands view religion, its philosophical

content, and its sociological effect just

as we do inthe United States. There was

a second motive, though, which was to

foster enduring contacts with those of

similar viewpoint and life-styleso that an

exchange of ideas could result. Perhaps

Atheists abroad were facing the very

same fight as American Atheists was in

its own country. Ifso, perhaps we could

exchange battle plans and learn from

one another's successes and failures.

Vol . 3 1, N o. 10

A mixed bunch

What we have found in our meetings

with Atheists of other lands, both on our

soil and theirs, is of great interest and

may come as a surprise to many Amer-

American Atheist


7/48

Below: During his 1969 visit, GORA, the

founder of the Indian Atheist Center,

was interviewed on the American Athe-

ist Radio Series by Madalyn O Hair.

Right: The Thirty-ninth Congress of the

World Union of Freethinkers included

leaders of Atheist, anticlerical, and free-

thought groups from almost every Euro-

pean country.

ican Atheists. Inthe beginning we naive-

ly assumed that others who were with-

out religion would share all, or most, of

our points of view. That turned out not

to be the case. Infact, we found very few

individuals to whom we could strictly

apply the term Atheist. Most of the per-

sons we met were anticlerical, agnostic,

humanist, freethinking, Unitarian, Ethi-

cal Culturist, or rationalist. I willexpand

on those categories a bit, but I must

preface that attempt with a disclaimer

that many of the individuals I have met

could be placed in more than one cate-

gory.

The anticlerical

The anticlerical is one who mayor

may not be certain, or even have an

opinion, as to the existence ofa god, but

for whom the clergy are the enemies of

mankind. With some ofthe anticlericals,

this opinion extends to all clergy, of ev-

ery denomination. The majority of this

category, however, aim their criticisms

at the clergy of the Roman Catholic

church. Most of the anticlerical types I

have met are from countries which have

been dominated by the Roman Catholic

church throughout most oftheir history.

I have also usually found that anticleri-

cals have had a bad personal experience

with a priest or nun whilegrowing up, or

in regard to a marriage or a funeral or

some other church rite. Anticlericals

are primarily concerned with what I call

clergy bashing, and what could be

other separation of state and church or

civil rights concerns often take a back

Austin, Texas

seat to that desire to pound away at the

institution of their upbringing from

which they have fled.

The agnostic

The agnostic is truly one, in layman's

terms, who does not know if there is a

god. He cannot bring himself to say

that god is make-believe, because he

harbors doubts about that fact. Most

cling tenaciously to Pascal's wager.

*

The bulk ofthe agnostics Ihave encoun-

tered internationally deem themselves

to be intellectually superior to Atheists

because they take a nonposition on the

god idea. They hold that a non position

is the only intellectually tenable position

because one cannot prove that a god

does not exist. Agnostics are usually

those either schooled in or enamored of

philosophy. They adhere to the same

unflinching line as their counterparts

*Blaise Pascal (1623-1662), French philoso-

pher, mathematician, and physicist. Pascal's

wager is an argument propounded by this

philosopher which is roughly as follows: If

I live my life as if there is no god, and I die

and find that there is a god, then I have lost

everything because (a) my life has been

wasted livingwithout god and (b) I will cer-

tainly be damned to eternal hellfire for not

believing in god. On the other hand, if I be-

lieve in a god now, if i t turns out in the end

that there is one I am covered because I

have believed all along and I have lost noth-

ing during my life. If it turns out in the end

that there is no god, then Ihave also not real-

ly lost anything for being a silent believer.

Vol.

31 ,

No.

10

within the American Atheist organiza-

tion. Agnostics have an inner fear, inmy

opinion, of just saying no to the god

idea. They cannot bring themselves to

go all the way because they fear some-

thing - which is obviously that they

could be wrong in denying God.

The humanist

The humanist loves his fellowman -

not in a solely sexual sense, of course.

The humanist is friend to the world, in-

cluding religionists. The humanist wants

allpeople, theist and Atheist, to work to-

gether as one big happy family for the

good of mankind. The fact that this has

not ever been possible, even within the

ranks of a particular denomination of

belief, much less interdenominationally,

does not faze them in the least. Dia-

logue is the humanist buzzword. Hu-

manists feel that if both sides of any

viewpoint could just sit down and work

things out, lifecould be harmonious, not

to mention homogeneous. What the hu-

manist does not realize is that no dia-

logue is possible between the Atheist

and the theist because they are operat-

ing from different premises.

The freethinker

The freethinker is usually more ad-

vanced in age and from the old school of

principally European biblical criticism.

To think freely to freethinkers means

mostly one thing: to be able to think

freely about (or criticize) the Bible. They

cling to the idea that biblical criticism is

the essence of fighting religion. If they

Page 5


8/48

could just personally convince, they

think, every Bible believer on earth (pre-

sumably one at a time) that their pre-

cious book is flawed, the theists would

allabandon it at once. This is hardly the

case, but the thought is what counts to

the freethinker. The European anti-

church movements are particularly

filled with freethinkers who still recall

the great war as being World War I.

The Unitarian

The Unitarian is somewhat related to

the humanist, though he does not always

mix well. The European Unitarian be-

lieves in god, all of them at once instead

of any particular one. The Unitarian also

adheres strongly to the notion that

things done in a group, in unison, in

quasi-religious-rite format, are more

meaningful than individual accomplish-

ments. The Unitarian champions the

form of religionwithout, necessarily, the

content. Perhaps it is just an expression

of the herd instinct or, more likely,a de-

sire to preserve what they liked about

traditional church (the music, the com-

radeship, the stained-glass windows,

the opportunity to dress up, the so-

cialization) without retaining the theol-

ogy which bored or disgusted them.

Page 6

count the number of really hard-core

Atheists whom I have met internation-

ally on the fingers of both my hands. I

am not discouraged by this. On the con-

trary, I know that it means that there

must be more of the same out there who

just do not know ofthe existence oftheir

comrades.

Left: The second World Atheist Meet was held in Helsinki, Finland. Representatives

came from as far as India to attend.

Below: In 1984, American Atheist leaders met representatives of the Atheist Society

of China. Left to right are Madalyn O Hair, Zhang Xin Ying (librarian for the Athe-

ist Society of China), Jon Murray, and Professors Gao Wamghzhi and Li Fu-hua,

The Ethical Culturist

The Ethical Culturist is out to prove

a specific point: he can be just as good

as a religionist without the religion.

These individuals want to be thought of

as fine, moral, ethical, and productive

members of the community despite

what the religionists say is their handi-

cap - not participating intraditional re-

ligion in one of its more popular forms.

The rationalist

The rationalist has before him the

task of rationalizing religious dogma and

ritual, but not necessarily allowing a fail-

ure to accomplish that goal to be cause

to abandon it. The rationalists desire to

approach religion with their noses held

high, rational at all times, with no of-

fense given to the religionist at any cost.

They desire to be critical of religion, but

in a nice way.The application of human

reason to religion is fine as long as it

does not go so far as to come to the con-

clusion that religion is not at allgermane

to the human equation.

The current situation in

France, Australia, and New

Zealand is that the word

rationalist

but not the philos-

ophy of rationalism is in cur-

rent use. So oppressive has

religion been against propo-

nents of Atheism that they

have often been forced to

adopt a pseudo-identity, the

least offensive of which ap-

peared to them to be ratio-

nalist. It is also indicative of

the history of many of the freethought/

Atheist groups. At the time organized

dissent to religion was forming down

under, for example, the dominant

group in this field in England was one

which called itself rationalist. This appel-

lation was chosen by the new groups -

at least in part - to indicate their affil-

iation with the English movement.

In my many travels I have met very

few persons who are in general dissent

to religion who do not fallinto one of the

aforementioned categories. I could

Vol . 31, No. 10

Different countries,

different problems

In dealing with the various groups of

persons in dissent to religion outside of

the United States, I have come across

quite a variety of interesting situations.

Unfortunately none of them, so far, are

of sufficient similarity to the position of

those in dissent to religion here in the

United States to make an exchange of

strategies plausible. The largest differ-

ence is between the governmental sys-

tems, in both theory and practice, of the

other countries vis-a-vis state/church

separation. A prime example of a major

difference can be seen in the school sys-

tems of the various nations. Many of the

state/church separation issues here, in

our country, are school related. Prayer

in classrooms, exhibition of religious

symbols in schools, prayer at gradua-

tion ceremonies, state funding of paro-

chial schools, teaching of creationism in

schools, equal access of religious

groups to schools are all issues in the

United States of which we find no coun-

terparts in Europe and the land down

under. Daily prayers and/or religion

classes are commonplace in European

American Atheist


9/48

schools. Most countries besides the

United States have now opted for a

separate but equal concept of state

funding for a dual system of what they

call government (public) and church

(parochial) schools. The entire arena of

the battle to keep religion out of public

(government) schools is not an issue

outside ofthe United States. The schools

in other countries have religion as part

of their daily fare for students, and that

fact isnot likelyto change. Also, the ma-

jority of other nations don't have the

equal of the so-called religion clauses in

our First Amendment in their constitu-

tions or charters. There is, therefore,

little ifany basis for litigation of any sep-

aration ofstate and church issues which

might arise. The church simply relies on

its traditional presence and power to

dominate the culture, particularly inEu-

rope and South America.

Politics and Atheism

There isyet another general observa-

tion about groups in dissent to religion

outside of the United States which I

must make. I have yet to encounter

such a group which does not have

strong political leanings. They rely upon

alliance with political parties or factions

to aid them in their outreach.

Here in the United States we have a

winner take all type of political sys-

tem. We have only one party, the capi-

talist party, with a left branch (the Dem-

ocrats) and a right branch (the Repub-

licans), the distinction between which

draws closer and hazier by the minute.

I n

contrast, in most other countries,

there is a proportional representation

system of government in which a range

of parties from fascist to communist is

Austin, Texas

allowed to be seated in a parliamentary

body in numbers corresponding to how

many votes they garner. There are

socialist and communist parties inmost

of Europe which can have their repre-

sentatives seated in their country's gov-

erning body. That is not the case here in

the United States.

It is because of this situation that

groups in dissent to religion outside of

the United States are able to find some

representation through which they can

occasionally have an idea passed onto

the table to be considered, however

briefly,in a national governing body. We

cannot say the same. It is simply not

possible for American Atheists to con-

vince a single member of

our national Congress to

sponsor a billon our behalf

or to mouth one of our po-

sitions for even an instant

on the floor ofthe House or

Senate. Due to the abilityof

foreign groups to form an

alliance of some kind with

part of their country's gov-

erning structure, most of

the representatives of for-

eign groups indissent to re-

ligionwith whom Ihave met

have been socialist, com-

munist, anarchist, or at least left wing

politically. The governmental represen-

tatives who are willingto help them from

time to time are those of the liberal, left-

wing parties. Here in the United States,

the majority of the members of Ameri-

can Atheists are hardly left politically

and are certainly not socialist or com-

munist.

A few examples of specific instances

Ihave encountered with groups ofother

France has several freethought societies,

as well as an Atheist group. At left is the

Paris office and bookshop of La Libre

Pensee, The Freethinker.

nations willsuffice to giveyou a flavor of

the situations our comrades abroad

face.

The British situation

England presently has a state church.

It has been a theocracy, functionally, for

many hundreds of years. Religion class-

es in the public schools there are oblig-

atory. There is no constitutional basis

for a separation of state and church in

Great Britain. As a result, the British

groups cannot hope to force religionout

of the schools but can only try to obtain

some type of secular presentation in the

schools on equal footing. They are

therefore developing books and a cur-

riculum for humanist classes as an al-

ternate to the required religion classes.

The British freethought and humanist

movements fight against such things as

kosher food labeling (an issue long since

lost inthe U.S.) which requires ritual (in-

humane) slaughter. The increasing Mos-

lem community in Great Britain is ask-

ing for more kosher food availability.

. T h e freethought and hu-

manist groups are also con-

.cerned with obtaining and

maintaining state recogni-

tion of secular marriages

and funerals. If you are to

be married in England, you

have virtually no choice but

to do so in a church. (The

usual alternative is a regis-

Vol . 31, N o. 10

The National Secular Society helped in-

troduce Humanism a short book on the

history and position of the nonreligious,

to the British government schools. Its

author, Barbara Smoker, addressed the

1984 Convention of American Atheists.

Page 7


10/48

The government of Belgium issued several stamps in honor of the Bel-

gian secular movement. One features an owl, long used in that country

to symbolize freethought (below).

The Rationalist Society of New Zealand is headquartered in a historic

building in Auckland (right). As well as providing office space, it also

serves as a meeting place for society members.

movements in Belgium is

obtaining permanent, rather

than provisional, govern

ment funding in the future.

In

order to do so they must

relegate their opposition to religion to

areas such as biblical criticism and phil-

osophical jousting with religious leaders

over moral and ethical issues. They

must also develop programs to provide

social services, just as the churches

do, in order to justify the possibility of

the government's permanent funding of

their efforts. These social services in-

clude providing humanist counselors in

hospitals (next to religious chaplains),

establishing substance abuse counseling

facilities, and setting up counseling cen-

ters to combat child abuse and provide

refuge for abused women (wives) and

children. Additionallythe Belgian groups

provide a job referral service to match

the unemployed with employers. The

secular groups in Belgium cannot dis-

criminate in the proffering of these ser-

vices: they must accept religious appli-

cants along with those of no religion.

try hall, hardly a festive facility.)

In

death

it is hard to avoid a religious service of

some kind. Given an admixture of state

and church which cannot be changed,

the thrust of the British movement must

be in other areas. This basically means

that instead of fighting to keep religion

out of government, they are reduced to

asking for equal recognition by govern-

ment of the secular.

In

simpler terms,

the British movements must try to en-

tangle themselves with government,

next to their religious foes, rather than

attempt to disentangle religion and gov-

ernment.

Belgian sponsorship of humanism

In

Belgium the government funds

both

the religious movements and the

secular movement. The religions re-

ceive permanent funding and the secu-

lar groups have only provisional funding

at the moment. Since the groups of

those in dissent to religion take govern-

ment funding, they cannot protest fund-

ing of religious groups or any of the

other largess of government which the

.religious institutions obtain. The gov-

ernment has, essentially, purchased

their silence.

The main concern of the secular

Page 8

Members of the Bunte Liste Freiberg, a

German Atheist group, were jailed for

displaying this meeting announcement.

Vol . 3 1, N o. 10

Germany and Austria

In

Germany and Austria there are five

main issues. The one which receives the

most attention isthe blasphemy laws (or

paragraphs as they refer to them). Un-

like our blasphemy laws, which merely

sit on the books and are not enforced,

German and Austrian citizens have

been jailed under their blasphemy laws.

Another issue is censorship. The Ger-

man and Austrian groups have been

particularly upset about the Salman

Rushdie affair and its implications for

the European publishing industry. Abor-

tion is an issue now in Germany due to

the reunification movement and the me-

chanics of the application of current

West German abortion laws to what

was East Germany. Austria is wrangling

over the abortion issue too, but to a

lesser extent due to the pervasive posi-

tion and historical power base of the

Roman Catholic church there.

The fourth issue in Germany and

Austria is a bit hard for Americans to

understand. A major outreach for Ger-

man and Austrian groups depends upon

their free access to the university cam-

puses to give lectures to the students

against religious dogma and the church.

Lectures on almost any subject are well

attended at German and Austrian uni-

versities, and so it is with the lectures

sponsored by the anticlerical groups.

Extracurricular lectures are anathema

on U.S. college and university campus-

es. Our students won't attend anything

requiring even an ounce of intellectual

strain unless they get credit for it. Ger-

man and Austrian students, however,

do attend such lectures, on a variety of

subjects, in surprisingly large numbers.

In

order to promote attendance at

these mostly after-class lectures, the

groups which sponsor them advertise

on the campuses and in nearby cities or

towns through the use of posters. The

American Atheist


11/48

The fight to separate state and church is,

for the most part,

long over outside of the United States.

Finally,German and

Austrian groups are

battling the church

tax. Citizens in Ger-

many have a tax tak-

en out of their earn-

ingson a regular basis

which goes to sup-

port the Protestant or

Roman Catholic

churches. The Ger-

man groups have pro-

tested this tax inevery

way possible to no

avail.

India's special

concerns

In India the main

. issues of the secular

groups are threefold. The first isfighting

the caste system with all of its religious

implications. The second is debunking

what the Indians call God-men. These

are fakirs, magicians claiming to have

supernatural powers, who prey upon

the great masses of illiterates in India.

They are not too far removed from our

own tent faith healers. The

third issue is lamenting the

lack of cooperation between

the various sects, of which

India has many, and calling

for unity toward solving In-

dia's population, hunger, dis-

ease, and illiteracyproblems.

Madalyn O'Hair and Jon Murray assemble with the staff of

the Indian Atheist Centre in Vijayawada, India, for a com-

memorative photograph during a 1978 visit.

right to be able to freely display posters

announcing lectures on university cam-

puses is very important to the German

and Austrian groups. They have been

involved in a large fight over this issue,

with religious groups tearing down their

posters as the government authorities

look the other way. This, to them, is un-

conscionable.

It seems trivial to us on the surface

that the Germans and Austrians would

be upset over posters on campuses, but

it makes sense once one understands

that the principal public free-speech out-

reach for those groups is on the cam-

puses. They have no access to the elec-

tronic or printed media, so they have

gone to the campuses. One must also

consider that in Europe fewer persons

use automobiles on a daily basis than in

the United States, and they walk the

small, narrow, crowded streets of the

cities and use public transportation. In

that setting, posters are very effective

because the commuters must walk by

them more than once a day every day.

Posters are not very useful in this coun-

try because we would allspeed by them

in cars. Most European cities also pro-

vide special municipal structures and

areas for the hanging of posters an-

nouncing events.

Austin, Texas

church separation front. Their efforts

must instead be turned to maintaining

equal treatment ( civil rights ) for non-

believers under law. Even that effort,

however, is on a different plane than in

the United States. Here we eschew the

notion of Atheism being classified as a

religion. Inother countries Atheism,

humanism, and all the rest are lumped

together as secularism, as a kind of

religion of a different color. That group

of seculars then seeks - as an off-

brand religion - to be bestowed with

the same rights that are given to the

various types of religions. Once state

and church are entangled to the point of

no return, the only thing left for the non-

religious to do is to say that their non-

religion is a religion and ask to be in-

cluded within the circle of rights granted

to the religious and perhaps stand in line

for receipt of some of the largess of gov-

ernment which is proffered to religious

groups.

This is exactly opposite to what

American Atheists does here in the

United States. We are fighting to keep

the state and the church from becoming

The new religion

of no religion

One can see from just An important part of the Indian Atheist outreach is

these examples that the situ- to demonstrate how the miracles of the God-men

ations abroad for nonbelie

v-

are performed. Here B. Premanand and Lavanam,

ers are quite different from director of the Indian Atheist Centre, show how to

the problems we as Atheists make flames spell out a certain word.

have to face here at home. The fight to entangled in the first place. If we can

separate state and church is, for the maintain a secular state, then we can

most part, long over outside ofthe Unit- maintain our civilrights within that state

ed States. An alliance of religion and structure without needing to pass our-

government is a foregone conclusion, in selves off as a religion to do so. We

perhaps all but France, which leaves have not yet arrived at the point where

groups ind issent to religion ina position there is no separation of state and

where they can do nothing on the state/ church whatsoever. Once we do, and it

Vol . 3 1, N o. 10

Page 9


12/48

One obstacle which groups in dissent to religion in other nations must

overcome islanguage. Europe and India are both patchworks of dialects

and tongues, and the simple problem of not understanding one another

divides groups. In Switzerland, for example, three periodicals must be

produced to serve the freethought community: one in French (upper

left), one in German (lower left), and one in Italian.

is only a matter of time, Atheists in this

country may have to lump themselves in

with all of the other pseudo-Atheists of

the types I have mentioned above, iden-

tify themselves as seculars, and then

try to qualify as yet another branch of

religion in the eyes of the state. This

isthe core of difference between the sit-

uation we face here and what our com-

rades in other lands face.

The disinterest

in church participation

Then we come to another fact that

Americans will find strange also. Out-

side of our country there is a general

apathy toward religion. Church atten-

dance across Europe and in Australia

and New Zealand is a small fraction of

what it is in the United States. Despite

the fact that the dominant churches in

other countries have defeated the prin-

ciple of separation of state and church,

the masses of people in those countries

are more or less unconcerned with the

church. InGermany, for example, there

isno separation ofstate and church, but

at the same time church attendance isin

the teen percentages. Figure that one

out. We have separation of state and

church in the United States, and our

Page 10

church attendance statistics

are in percentage figures hov-

ering in the forties. When for-

eign visitors come here from

other groups in dissent to reli-

gion, they are amazed at our

bumper stickers for Christ, bill-

boards for Christ, television

evangelists, and public prayers

by government officials. For

the most part, they do not have

these things in their countries,

and we are told that if they did

their citizens would just not pay

any attention to them.

In Australia the prime minis-

ter refused to take a god oath

to assume office and turned

down a position as honorary

head of the Boy Scouts in that

country because he said that he

did not believe in God and therefore

could not take the Scout Oath. Yet, at

the same time, Australia has a system of

complete government funding for church

(parochial) schools. In a dichotomous

situation such as that, what is a secu-

lar group supposed to do? The only

thing it can do is verbally attack religion

in the form of debates with religionists,

publish biblical criticism, bash the mi-

nority cults such as the Scientologists,

or generally make fun of religious ideas.

The Australian groups are doing all of

those things. That does not change any-

thing, though. The church has what it

wants, funding for its schools, so what is

a littletaunting from a small group going

to matter?

The battle for separation of state and

church is mostly over, except for the

United States. France is the one major

exception because it has very strong

separation of religion and government

language in its federal founding docu-

merits, language which is largely heeded.

This means that most of the groups in

dissent to religion with whom we are in

contact can only do two things. They

can criticize, taunt, and make fun ofreli-

gion through the written and spoken

word and, at the same time, attempt to

Vol .

31,

No.

10

maintain their civil right to do so by

whatever means possible, including

lumping themselves in with religion as

just another pseudo-religion. The right

to have an opinion in dissent to some

aspects of religion is a very easy one for

institutionalized religion to hand out

once it knows that it has a defined and

permanent place of importance and

dominance within the apparatus of the

state.

American Atheists is fighting in this

country to prevent the organized church

from carving out for itself a permanent

niche in the state as a civil religion.

Once that happens we would then, like

our foreign comrades, be given the

handout of the right to be in dissent as

long as we did so within certain bound-

aries oftype and kind ofexpression. The

groups outside of this country must

look toward us to see ifwe can prevent

the bonding of religion and government

from becoming official here. If we can,

then a glimmer of hope might exist for

them to begin a movement toward re-

versal of the institutionalization of reli-

gion which has already occurred for

them by pointing at the United States as

an example.

M. O'Hair; Ron Marke, secretary of the

Rationalist Association of New South

Wales; Jon Murray; and A. F.Parkinson

gather infront of the Freethought Book-

shop sponsored by the Australian group.

American Atheist


13/48

Leningrad's Museum of the History of

Religion and Atheism was once a cathe-

dral, but in 1983 it was the site for the

meeting of Atheist minds. At right is its

staff with Pam Thoren (center), curator

of the American Atheist Museum, and

other World Atheist Meet delegates. Be-

low is its director, Yakov Kozhurin (sec-

ond from left), with Erkki Hartikainen of

Finland, Lavanam ofIndia, and Madalyn

O'Hair of the United States.

Iam not trying to denigrate any of the

groups of those in dissent to religion

outside of the United States. They are

doing what they can do in the context of

the situation within their country. I used

the term group in dissent to religion

throughout this article because I know

that I can call few of the groups with

whom I have met around the world

Atheist organizations because the

majority of their members are simply

not Atheists. They belong instead to one

of the other types of individuals without

religion that I have described. I am only

reporting on what I have found in my

travels and from meeting with represen-

tatives of many foreign groups. I have

found but a handful of hard-core Athe-

ists. Most of the persons in general dis-

sent to religion whom I have encoun-

tered are just generic seculars. They

do what they can do, with earnest effort,

given the circumstances in their coun-

try.

Can we

help

foreign Atheist groups?

I do not see what American Atheists

could do to help any of these foreign

groups besides assisting them with

funding. Their situations are so funda-

mentally different from what we face

here at home that we really cannot give

them advice. Allof the groups involved

are for the most part smaller than Amer-

ican Atheists and are much less well-

funded. In the case of the German

groups, we were able to help by asking

the membership of American Atheists

to send protest letters to German offi-

cials concerning prosecutions for blas-

phemy which were underway in that

country. We are also able to give repre-

sentatives from foreign groups a limited

platform inthe United States through in-

vitationsto attend our annual conventions

and to appear as guests on our Amer-

ican Atheist Forum program for cable

access television.

The foreign groups certainly cannot

do anything to help us here inthe United

States. The aid we offer is a one-way

Austin, Texas

street. I understand that and do not

mean for that fact, once again, to dispar-

age those organizations in any way.

In summary, then, I can report that

the existence of groups of individuals in

dissent to religion outside the United

States is centered primarily in Europe

and secondarily in India, Australia, and

New Zealand. These groups are not

Atheist in a strict sense. They are

mostly composed of secular persons

who dissent to the tenets and dogmas of

religion ingeneral for widelyvarying rea-

sons. The groups are almost all politi-

cal in nature and tend to be on the

left. The battle for separation of state

and church in their countries has been

won by the church, and they can only

fight now to maintain the civil right to

disagree with religion in a variety of for-

mats. They cannot change the situation

of state capitulation to the church. In

some cases, they can obtain a littlepiece

ofthe largess which the state has heaped

upon the dominant church in their

country. This is done through a variety

of mechanisms which all boil down to

calling themselves a kind of religion of

dissent in order to fulfillthe old adage

if you can't beat them, join them.

Vol . 31, No. 10

Soviet Atheism

I want now to speak just a little to the

situation inthe Soviet Union. When rep-

resentatives ofAmerican Atheists made

their first trip to the Soviet Union, back

under the reign of Premier Andropov,

we did so hoping to find a nation gener-

ally full of Atheists who could perhaps

be our comrades and who could assist

us in our struggle to maintain at least

some separation of state and church in

the United States. We had in mind, per-

haps, that we might be able to sellAmer-

ican Atheist Press books in the Soviet

Union to gain some monetary assis-

tance. We also hoped to persuade the

Soviet Union to speak up for the rights

of Atheists through its seat in the Unit-

ed Nations or through diplomatic chan-

nels, given its slowly friendlier relation-

ship with the United States. In short, we

thought that we could establish ties

within the Soviet Union through which

we could obtain some form of political

(nonmonetary) assistance from the

nation with the second largest popula-

tion of Atheists (behind China).

Our second trip to the Soviet Union,

which is chronicled in this issue of the

American

Atheist,

was a follow-up at-

tempt to put into motion the idea of sell-

ing books within that country. What we

actually found out was that the Soviets

were not really interested in promoting

Atheism within their country. They had

made the mistaken assumption from

the time of their revolution that simple

disestablishment of the church in the

Soviet Union was enough. The Soviets

thought that once the church was dis-

established, deprived of state support,

Page

11


14/48

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and perhaps persecuted a little here and

there, which it so richly deserved, they

would not have to worry about religion

again. There has been and is no positive

program within the Soviet Union to

teach the population about religion in

the sense of demonstrating what is

wrong with it. The government had the

opportunity to educate generations of

citizens as to the falsity of church dog-

ma, the errancy of the Bible, the atroc-

ities in church history, and the psycho-

pathology of religion as a mind-set. The

Soviet Union failed to capture this gold-

en opportunity.

Hunger for Western religions

During our visitto the Moscow Inter-

national Book Fair, we saw the result of

that failure. The Soviet people were as

hungry for the religious experience as

an adolescent might be to try his first

cigarette, completely unaware of the

medical and psychologicalconsequences

of that action. If an adolescent is prop-

Page 12

erly informed as to the dangers ofsmok-

ing, he is less likely to accept that first

cigarette. In a like manner, the Soviet

government had the opportunity to in-

form the Soviet people of the dangers of

religion before they accepted that first

Bible. The government failed to do so,

and now the rush to religion is on inside

the Soviet Union. In a childlike way, the

Soviets willgrab for that which has been

'denied to them as a way of rebelling

against an otherwise oppressive sys-

tem, whether or not it is good for them

or will bring them less freedom in the

long run. When they grab for religion,

they do not understand that it willwork

against their gaining the very liberty that

the act oftaking itwas to symbolize. Re-

ligionwillmake them accept greater lev-

els ofoppression inthe future than they

had been willingto tolerate in the past,

for that is and has been its function and

usefulness to governments.

I came away from meetings with So-

viet publishers and my overall experi-

Vol . 31, No. 10

Atheists were present at the snowy

demonstration of the first ofMay in 1981

in Lohja, Finland. The banner reads

Atheism Up, and the picket sign de-

mands Separate Church from State.

ence in Moscow on a second visit with

the knowledge that Atheists inthe Unit-

ed States could not look to the Atheists

of the Soviet Union for any aid. In fact,

itwas obvious that the Soviet Union was

on its way to abandonment of Atheism

as a majority life-styleand that there was

littleor nothing that the Soviet hierarchy

could do about it because it had not

taken the time to vaccinate the people

against religion in prior decades .

The Atheist leaders I met while in

Moscow had turned into apologists for

the state over the issue of disestablish-

ment of the organized church in the

Soviet Union since the revolution there.

I would not desire even to have any of

the representatives of organized Athe-

ism with whom I met in Moscow come

to the United States to speak because

they have abandoned their principles to

flowwith the trend ofembracing religion

as a show of being socially progressive.

Our responsibility

as U.S. Atheists

We as American Atheists are on our

own to try to stop the one remaining

nation inwhich the idea of separation of

state and church persists from aban-

doning that ideal. We cannot obtain any

help from the Soviet Union. It is all that

China can do to help itself, much less

help a group outside of its borders. The

groups in dissent to religion inthe other

major countries of the world are en-

gaged in an entirely different kind of

fight than are we, one which is more

symbolic at this point than anything

else. The duty falls squarely on us to

hold the line on separation of state and

church here in the United States and

then to help those of like mind in other

countries how we can. Even ifwe should

be able to hold that line, it is only prob-

lematical as to whether or not that

would aid or motivate activists in other

nations by setting an example to which

they could point, toward an effort to

reverse or even mitigate the situations

which already exist vis-a-visthe lack of

separation in their countries. ~

American Atheist


15/48

Mostow

InteEnational

BookPaiE

The storJ of the lImeri an

lit heist

Press exhibit at one of the world s

largest book shows.

Austin, Texas

Vol . 3 1, N o. 10

I J

t was very bright blue with the

most modern printing and design

in white, five by eight inches, just

sixty-four pages, and poised on the apex

of the design was the famous red star.

But inside, thirty pages were in English

and thirty-four pages in Russian, pre-

sumably the one repeating the other -

we never actually found out for certain.

But that little blue book became our

bible for the next eight months as we

attempted to interpret what the gener-

al directorate of the Moscow Interna-

tional Book Fair required for participa-

tion in that event from September 12

through 18, 1989.

Serving peace and progress

Several years before we had been

intrigued by an article which appeared

in a popular u.S. magazine showing a

wet and muddy Moscow street, with a

single person trying to avoid puddles as

he leapt cautiously across it, while rain

poured down. The caption read that the

Moscow International Book Fair had

just closed, and that few - if any -

visitors had been in attendance at the

dreary exhibit. We wondered ifthat was

a correct story or not and wrote to the

directorate asking for the American

Atheist Press to be included in the next

such fair. But the next one came and

went with our knowing about it only

after the fact.

Madalyn O Hair

Page

13


16/48

It was then that our man in Washing-

ton, D.c., Noel Scott, who reads, writes,

and speaks Russian, decided to write a

letter to the head of the continuing ex-

hibit and ask why American Atheist

Press was excluded from such fairs in

Born on April 13, 1919,D r, O'Hair

initiated the United States Supreme

Court case Murray

u,

Curlett, which

removed reverential Bible reading and

prayer recitation from the public

schools of our nation in June, 1963.

She founded American Atheists in the

same year. Together with GORA she

founded the United World Atheists,

sponsor of the triennial World Atheist

Meet. A champion of freedom of

speech, freedom of assemblage, free-

dom of conscience, and the right to be

free from religion, she is known nation-

ally and internationally as an Atheist

spokesperson.

Page 14

which other book exhibitors could par-

ticipate - even ifonly by invitation.

The Moscow International

Book Fairs were held bian-

nually to further the imple-

mentation of the HelsinkiFinal

Act signed in 1975to:

promote inevery waycultural

cooperation among nations,

as well as mutual understand-

ing and cooperation among

people ofdifferent politicalviews,

religious beliefs, races, and na-

tionalities;

popularize and disseminate books

contributing to world peace and

progress;

expand mutually advantageous busi-

ness contacts between book pub-

lishers and distributors, stimulate im-

port and export, mutual translation

of books and periodicals; and

bring up the younger generation in

Vol . 31, No. 10

'.

American University Textbooks distrib-

uted a bright, inoffensive poster which

could have no meaning attached to it at

all. Being totally innocuous, it was very

much in demand.

the spirit of devotion to the ideals of

humanism and moral values ofhuman

civilization.

The traditional motto ofthese repeat-

ing fairs was Books Serve Peace and

Progress. That held in 1989was to be

the seventh in the series.

Invited at last

Itwas on January 30, 1989,that Amer-

ican Atheist Press received its We are

pleased to inform you invitation letter,

dated simply December 1988. Attached

were scores of papers to fillout and re-

turn, formal applications for participa-

tion, instructions, labels, and that little

blue book. Wemust, we were informed,

submit the formal applications by March

30. These included contracts to rent

space, lighting, and guards, for cleaning

our area, for providing identification

cards and credentials, for decoration of

the grounds, and for hiring interpreters,

wardens, and cargo handlers. All the

forms were required to be drafted in

Many of the Soviet exhibitors handed

out wallet-sized plastic calendars on the

reverse side of which was always a

cheery, color photograph.

American Atheist


17/48

both English and Russian, including a

permitted small advertisement for the

Fair's directory. We would be notified

within thirty days of the receipt of this

application if American Atheist Press

had been accepted as a participant.

How do you say that

in Russian?

Anyone wanting an exercise inthe im-

possible should move to Texas and

attempt to get Russian forms translated

into English and then have completed

American Atheist Press representatives

did not realize until they first received it

that they would have a veritable bible

of do's and don'ts for the Fair.

forms translated back into Russian. We

quickly came to doubt that there was a

Russian typewriter in the state - even

ifwe could have cut through the hostility

with one of our famous Texas chain

saws. Wewere quickly on the telephone

to Chicago, Columbus, Canada, and

Washington, D.C.

And then, of course, the thirty days

for our approval came and went with

Austin, Texas

no word. It was in that inter-

imperiod that we scrambled

(there isno other word for it)

to put together a little bro-

chure to distribute at the

Fair, describing what the

American Atheist Press was

and why we were exhibiting.

Itwas decided that littlebro-

chure must be printed in

French, Spanish, German,

Russian, and English. First it

had to be written, and argu-

ments went on for a week as

to just what should go into it,

before itwas sent off to Aus-

tria to be translated into

German, to Canada and Swit-

zerland to be translated into

French, to Washington, D.c.,

for the Russian translation,

and to Costa Rica for the

Spanish translation. A short history and a presentation of the whys and

Working busily, we had wherefores for the American Atheist Press was put

not watched the time slipby, into French, German, Italian, Russian, and - of

and so itwas that on April 26 course - English. They were passed out by the

we became frantic enough thousands at the Fair.

to write, telegraph, and finally to tele- months as we, rather desperately, at-

phone the directorate that our approved tempted to bring ourselves into com-

application had not been received as plete compliance with every rule and

yet. Just as we were ready to call the en- regulation of application and admission

tire thing off, on May 13, a Western procedures, purchase of exhibition

Union Mailgram came in via Morris- space and services, use of stands and

town, New Jersey, Reno, Nevada, and equipment, special payment instruc-

Dallas, Texas, saying that our applications, methods of cataloguing and ad-

tion had been approved on March 31 vert ising, process of entry documents,

and returned to us at that time. We nev- provisions for transportation, tariff bar-

er did receive it, but continued with our riers, and insurance requirements. The

preparations based on the Mailgram packing instructions were explicit;

and the small blue book. marking had to be precise; transport

We were informed that we could documents in numerous copies were

bring four of each title that we published standard; and the process of clearing

into the Soviet Union, but that we must customs was nightmarish with details.

provide a list of the books, both in En-

glish and in Russian. We could sell no

books. Any books brought could be for

e;'hibition purposes only. We decided

then, that to augment our titles, we

would take four of each issue of the

American Atheist magazine.

The small blue book, as indicated,

was to become our bible for the next six

Noodles and pasta,

cookies and tea

Now an application for participation

which contained transportation confir-

mation, airport and hotel information,

exhibit insurance, and a list of required

services needed was demanded, again

inEnglish and Russian. Exhibition space

Vol . 31, N o. 10

Page 15


18/48

Washington, D.C. Atheist Noel Scott

(below) did not realize what he was get-

ting himself into when he volunteered to

translate for the American Atheist Press

at the Moscow International Book Fair.

Exhausting days staffing the display

were ended by grueling hikes to his

room inthe Hotel Rossia (right), an enor-

mous structure one block square.

was measured by stand size. Each stand

was a collapsible structure of anodized

aluminum shape with four bookshelves

on each side, with a box for book stor-

age at the bottom. The overall dimen-

sions of the stands were

220

by

100

by

30

centimeters and the orders had to be

received two months before the Fair,

that is, by July 1- and paid in advance.

We ordered eight square meters indoor

space, with two square meters storage,

all of which was flanked with six of the

stands. In addition, we asked for four

chairs, a writing desk, a coat rack and

one wastepaper basket. We had no idea

why there were order forms for fresh

and canned meat products, soup mix,

canned fish, fresh vegetables and in

cans, fruit juice, fruit mix, beverages,

beer, vodka, cognak [sic], brandy, whis-

ky, gin, rum, wine, chocolate products,

waffles, cookies, tea, ground coffee,

Nescafe, candy without chocolate,

sugar, condensed milk, cheese, nuts,

butter, vegetable oil,noodles and pasta,

spices, and cigarettes.

Another sheet provided a list of sou-

venirs which it might be permissible to

bring into the U.S.S.R. These

included ballpoint pens reg-

ular, ballpoint pens several

colours, lighters, tags, name-

badges, perfume, cosmetic

products, portfolios (attache

cases), calendars, purses,

and pocket knives. We

de-

cided then to order

3,00 0

ballpoint pens, on which

were printed inred Moscow

Book Fairand inblue Amer-

ican Atheist Press, Post Of-

fice Box

2117,

Austin, Texas

78768

USA.

Boxes in which the books were sent

had to be:

Texas, for several weeks before we

could findboxes ofthe right dimensions.

Each box needed to carry a certain

marking, and labels with those markings

were provided, bright red in color, 6 by

9 inches again both in English and Rus-

sian. By dexterous packing we were

able to stuff sixteen sets of four books

each in every box and shipped off eight

boxes having a gross mass of

159.21

kg.

Invoices and packing slips, in both En-

glish and Russian, were required for

each box. Altogether there were eighty-

one book titles, scores of Solstice card

designs, and about four years

ofthe A m er ic an A th ei st mag-

azine. But, then, who would

ship from Austin, Texas, to

Moscow? And this meant

another two weeks attempt-

ing to see how such boxes

could get through customs

on both sides of the iron cur-

tain. We were then apprised

that a draft must be wired to

Moscow to pay for the books

being unpacked at the air-

port, trucked to the fairgrounds, and de-

livered at our stand inside the building

where we were to exhibit. It also devel-

oped that it was necessary to make pro-

visions of which the directorate must

approve for transportation, hotel, and

insurance. Allof this next phase had to

be completed, with the books in Mos-

cow, byAugust

31 .

About this time, itbe-

came apparent that we were in difficul-

ties regarding visas since they would be

... not more than

5

kg [inweight],

with the sum of the three dimen-

sions [ofthe box] not exceeding

90

ern and the biggest dimension

60

cm.

Wescoured Austin, and TravisCounty,

Page 16

Vol . 31 , No. 10

for business and not for tourism -

which is an entirely different world. We

were counseled that they could be ob-

tained only in New York City through a

Soviet consulate affiliate. The process,

however, although begun in New York

was later transferred to Houston. At this

point, the Houston agency informed

that everything had to be approved in

Moscow and that only Moscow could

make hotel reservations. Soon, we were

apprised that Gorbachev had just intro-

duced a new policy of payment in full, in

advance, for hotel rooms and then, final-

ly,that the room rate had been increased

to be more inconformity with that of the

Western world. Hotel rates would be

$500

a night for twelve nights; please

send

$6,244

cash in advance. This was

for four persons in a suite of three

rooms; that is, two bedrooms each hav-

ing two single beds and connected with

a small sitting room between. Each bed-

room was to contain a bathroom. Also,

persons entering the U.S.S.R. had to

show proof that round-trip tickets were

in their possession.

I t

was a standard re-

quirement that airfare had to be paid up

front to show proof of return-travel

arrangements.

As we struggled with all of this, the

translations of brochures, of book lists,

of letters, became almost an impossibil-

ity - and they were barely finished

under the wire, with a score or more of

intercontinental telephone calls and

one-day air letter deliveries as we went

into proofing.

American Atheist


19/48

The introductory reading list which appears in every issue of the

American Atheist

was translated into Russian and distributed at the

Fair.Visitors showed a particularly keen interest inany material deal-

ing with the sexual origins of religion.

Finally on their way -

that is, just barely

September was approaching and

Moscow had stillnot issued the visas or

nailed down the hotel. Frantic tele-

phone calls from and to Houston, and to

Moscow, finallybrought inthe visas two

days before wewere scheduled to leave.

When the time did arrive, we fell onto

the airplane and slept for the entire

flight.

Jon Murray was, meanwhile, coordi-

nating the travel arrangements for Noel

Scott. Mr. Scott, a longtime personal

friend and organization officer, fluent in

Russian, was to assist us on the other

end. He would fly on Pan Am from

Washington, D.C., into Moscow via

New York City. Jon Murray had suffi-

cient mileage points on his frequent fly-

er discount cards to get two business

class flights from Austin, Texas, to

Brussels, Belgium,free on SabinaAirlines.

The only costs for the Murray-O'Hairs

were for the ticket of Robin Murray-

O'Hair and the flight into Moscow from

Brussels for the three of them. Once

again, we sweated something out - this

time the receipt of the free tickets. As

usual, American Atheist Press could not

afford the cost and the trip was paid by

NoelScott for himselfand by the Murray-

O'Hairs for themselves.

When itwas discovered that Aeroflot

now had a first class section, the

suggested

American Atheist

introductory reading list

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20/48

Right:Colorful banners welcomed visitors

at the entrances to the pavilions con-

taining Fair exhibits.

Below:One of many room cards collected

by American Atheist Press representa-

tives as they were shuffled from room to

room in Hotel Rossia.

whom we were jousting would keep the

paper and we never saw it again. With

an arrangement such as this it was im-

possible to prove that we had reserva-

tions at all.

After several go-rounds'' with the

desk, at various times, with Mr. Scott

able to speak Russian, we found that the

rooms assigned to us were incorrect,

not matching our invoice at all. Then

suddenly we had no rooms assigned;

then we did; then we

didn't and we waited,

exasperated, in line, or

were told to return lat-

er. We were physically

moved from one set of

rooms to another; It

was on the third move

that we were able to

obtain several pleasant

rooms with small living

areas but only by beat-

ing another person to

the room by minutes.

He stood outside our

door, with his luggage

in tow,waiting to be assigned elsewhere.

Then again we were moved. Very close

to midnight, with the floor manager act-

ing very myste-

riously, Robin

Murray-O'Hair

and Dr. OHair

were moved

from their

room to a very

grand suite of rooms on the elev-

enth floor. This suite contained a foyer,

a large livingroom, complete with a re-

frigerator and dining room table, a very

large bedroom, and a private bath.

The two women were handled

withdeference and much courtesy

from then forward. Noel Scott and

Jon Murray continued to occupy a

smaller double room suite on the

opposite side of the hotel, on

about the sixth level. The total

time for checking into the hotel,

obtaining our rooms, and settling

into them was about eight hours.

Diagnosis: exhaustion

Insofar as the Fair was con-

cerned, free shuttle bus service

was provided between the Rossia

Hotel and the U.S.S.R. Exhibition of

Economic Achievements Park - a

good one-hour ride in the morning

The USSR Exhibition of Economic Achievements Park - where the Fair was held

- was built on a grand scale, with majestic park grounds. Unfortunately, little

attention was devoted to the upkeep of the buildings or grounds. Here Jon Murray

displays the official tote bag of the Fair.

Page 18

Vol . 31, No. 10

which terminated at a drop-off point

about one mile from the exhibition site.

With the U.S.S.R. being a nation of

walkers, this did not seem to them to be

untoward at all.It was totally impossible

to go anywhere else in Moscow. One

would rise at 7:00 A.M. to try to get into

the crowded hotel restaurants, or cafes,

and then catch the shuttle to the park.

At night, when the booths at the Fair

closed at 7:00

P.M.

and one walked back

to the bus pickup point and had a one-

hour journey home, Moscow was inbed

for the night and Fair exhibitors were to-

tally exhausted and ready for bed also.

At the entrance to the park in which

the Fair was held was the enormous

Kosmos Hotel. No one ever figured out

why the participants in this Fair were

not quartered there instead of in the

Rossia, which was an hour's drive away.

The day after our arrival we found our

own way to the park and managed to

find the pavilion to which we were as-

signed. The weather was quite pleasant,

many fallflowers were inbloom, and the

park was quite beautiful. Finally,we sat

in the open on the big wooden benches,

ate hot shish kebabs on sticks, and

drank a foul-tasting Russian soda pop

wh

american atheist magazine oct 1991

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