The Newsletter of
The Humanist Association of Massachusetts
The Humanist Newsletter for
March/April 2002
"Terrorism
and the Role of Mind Control"
March 17 at 1:30 PM
Steve Hassan, Cult Counselor
Science Center, Rm E
John Walker Lindh seems to
be the latest example of a young person whose mind has succumbed to the
attractions of a powerful fanaticism. His conversion to Islam is not
exceptional, but his enthusiasm for Al Qaeda is disturbing. The extremism of
those who ordered and carried out the horrible acts of September 11 is
engendered by the compelling exhortations of a world-view alien to authentic
Islam. To what extent have deception and psychological coercion been decisive
factors? Unless we understand the attraction inherent in Al Qaeda, and "the
pseudo self" it provides, we cannot win the war against Terrorism. Young
Mr. Lindh holds a store of precious information available only through adept
counseling. We must learn how the mind of a dedicated adherent works – to
impel him toward a violent martyrdom.
Our speaker on Sunday, March 17 (1:30 pm), experienced a similar fanaticism
twenty five years ago as a devotee of Sun Myung Moon and the Unification Church.
His experience has led him to a life of preventive education and mental
counseling. Considered an effective mind control expert, he has written the
perfect guide for those who might escape destructive cults, "Releasing the
Bonds: Empowering People to Think for Themselves." Every advisor to young
people should have a copy. If you visit his web site, freedomofmind.com, you
will learn more about his work and the humanistic principle: think for yourself.
Mr. Hassan, writing to President Bush about the John Lindh case, said:
"It appears that John did make a legitimate conversion to Islam when he was
sixteen years old and changed his name to Sulayman al Faris. It was only years
later that he changed his name to Abdul Hamid – at a point when I believe he
was under mind control…The good news is that mind control does not succeed in
erasing the person’s "real self"…It is my firm belief that freedom
and justice would be best served by providing the necessary counseling, and then
utilizing this young American to help others imprisoned by terrorist cult mind
control."
Steve Hassan is a longtime friend of humanism and this Chapter. It will be a
pleasure to hear him again and converse about such a burning and timely issue.
We hope everyone will be on hand Sunday afternoon, March 17. Note that he will
speak in Room E, on the lower level. And remember that we have parking
privileges in the Littauer Lot behind the Science Center. Enter from Oxford St
at the Maxwell Dworkin Building and go left toward the Law School.
A Humanistic Rabbinic Student Speaks on
"Living as a Jew – And a Humanist, in the 21st
Century"
April 14, at 1:30 PM
Harvard’s Science Center, Rm A
Ever since the Scientific
Revolution and the Age of Enlightenment, people in the West have easily
distinguished between supernatural faith and natural reasoning. Perhaps the
majority have moved between these two zones with occasional discomfort; the
minority, calling themselves humanists, atheists, freethinkers or such, have
chosen a distinctly secular path void of traditional religious aspects. But we
live in an ever -changing world, respecting tolerance and inclusion. In some
cases, a deep respect for one’s roots, one’s ethnic customs and cherished
values calls for a community expression. In April, we are going to examine one
brilliant example of this duality, that of Humanistic Judaism.
A Graduate Student at the University of Michigan, Greg Epstein, is a thorough
Humanist who is becoming a rabbi! This is all perfectly "kosher" if
you have heard of the Society of Humanistic Judaism founded by Rabbi Sherwin
Wine, which fosters a liberating approach to conflicting loyalties – to
rationality and to a Jewish heritage. Rabbi Wine, who has been highly honored by
the American Humanist Association, was a founder of the Humanist Institute that
today trains both the leaders of our movement and of Ethical Culture. Mr.
Epstein is one of his most promising students and aspires to being a university
chaplain, (at Harvard?). When we heard of his unique vocation, we quizzed him
about the talk he would give and his recent notoriety.
He will be asking, Are you "spiritual" but not traditionally
religious? Do you have a cultural connection to Judaism but not a religious one?
If you so chose, can you comfortably inhabit both worlds? How does this
challenge apply to other religions?
Epstein, 25, was featured as part of Newsweek Magazine's cover story of
November 12 ("Generation 9/11") for his role as a Humanist and a Jew
in leading and redefining a 15,000 student "religious" vigil in Ann
Arbor on the night of September 11. He has recently appeared or been discussed
on MSNBC, the Fox News Network, and CBS News Detroit.
Epstein, who is preparing for rabbinic ordination in 2005, will lead a
Humanistic Shabbat service on campus on Fri. April 12 at 8pm (location tba) and,
on Sunday, April 14, he will speak at Harvard’s Science Center, Auditorium A,
on Humanistic Judaism. Both events are free and open to the public. On Sunday,
he will read selections from his new play, Yom
Kippur at Ground Zero.
The Holocaust Explainers
by Joe Gerstein
We have all heard of the
Holocaust Deniers: There were only 1,000,000 killed, not 6,000,000; those who
expired died of privation and starvation as did many other people during WWII,
they were not murdered; the ovens at Auschwitz were only for cremation of those
who died of natural causes; tuberculosis, dysentery and typhus were epidemic in
the camps; there were some individual acts of cruelty and even murder, but there
was never a state policy of genocide; it’s all a propaganda plot, part of a
worldwide Jewish conspiracy; etc; etc.
The same sort of litany emerged during and after the Armenian Massacre of
WWI. The Turkish government to this day has never acknowledged that any sort of
government policy of annihilation existed, but claimed and continues to claim
that 1,000,000 Armenians sort of just died. Although the Armenian genocide was a
cause celebre in its time, as Hitler once said: "Who remembers the
slaughter of the Armenians now?"
Although there is apparently no denying the Cambodian and Rwandan Genocide,
for which ample grisly documentation certainly exists and clear premeditation
was demonstrated, ultimately, the world’s response appears to be trivial in
relation to the bestial magnitude of these crimes against humanity. At least
some traction is being exerted by the International Court in the Hague in the
instance of the Bosnian and Kosovar mass murders, but the results appear likely
to be modest in relation to the magnitude of the crimes.
It seems clear, as well, that millions were intentionally starved to death by
Stalin and his cronies at the height of the Soviet regime’s land
confiscations. At least 15-20,000,000 Chinese starved during the inadvertent
famine induced in the late 1950’s by Mao’s misguided agricultural policies
and by his decision not to seek outside help during this catastrophe. These poor
decisions stemmed from his desire to avoid exposure of the calamity to the world
and the inference that Communist social and agricultural polices had failed
miserably. I guess you could defend this sort of activity as only mass murder in
the second degree. The Chinese peasants were clearly not conforming to Biblical
dictates and perhaps they got what was coming to them. A Flood would have been
more humane.
Aware though I am of the frailties of History as illuminated by many astute
historians and philosophers in the last century, I think any fair-minded
individual would agree on the historical validity of the episodes I have just
depicted.
However, how to "explain" the occurrence of these incredible
horrors is a challenge that each of us has to grapple with as a human being and
as a believer in any particular system of ethics, morality...or religion.
A prominent Chasidic rabbi explained The European Jewish Holocaust this way:
The Jews of Europe had strayed from the proper path. They had attempted to
assimilate, had abandoned the true faith of their fathers, had ceased performing
the proper rituals and obeying The Law, as clearly articulated in the Hebrew
Bible and interpreted by Orthodox rabbis for millennia. So, the race was
punished by a vengeful G-d who had warned it amply what would happen if it
deviated from the straight and narrow.
This assertion provoked a stentorian howl of derision and indignation from
the survivors of this horror as well as from the general public of the Western
world. This interpretation of the events absolves the Nazis and their flunkeys
throughout occupied Europe of guilt (clearly, they were the instruments of G-d’s
will) and places the blame for the genocide directly upon the victims. ALL the
victims, even those who did not stray, apparently. They were their brothers’
and sisters’ keepers and failed in the task. Therefore, the most fervent and
pious were also slain, along with the slackers and apostates.
And don’t forget the innocent babies. But maybe they weren’t so innocent.
After all, sin permeates unto the third generation. The old "blood of the
lamb on the door post" routine apparently didn’t work in Poland or
Hungary as it had in Egypt. Or maybe the Angel of the Lord was a vegetarian. The
Egyptians apparently got off easily...only their firstborn sons were slain and a
few nasty boils and mosquito bites were inflicted.
The Bible is full of such cruelties and genocide. After all, were not the
instructions of G-d to annihilate the Canaanites - man, woman and child - and to
spare not even the infants? And so it was done. Did G-d not intentionally drown
almost every man, woman and child on Earth with the Great Flood? That goes way
beyond genocide, to the brink of eradicating the entire human race. Isn’t the
Bible a litany of admonitions to the Jews by G-d (via the Prophets) followed by
drastic retribution for failure to behave exactly as instructed. Weren’t the
Philistines similarly obliterated?
There have been many calamities in the history of the Jews. Much internecine
strife occurred among The Chosen People themselves. Josephus’ history presents
a litany of successive bloodletting, mass killing and internecine slaughters,
usually in the name of religious orthodoxy of one stripe or another (who is
orthodox and who is heterodox is often a conundrum!) Believing, as do most
religious zealots, that G-d was on their side, the Jews tried to eject the
heathen Romans from the Holy Land on a number of occasions and finally, in 73
AD, Titus led his legions to the Levant producing the virtual obliteration of
Israel with most of its population and the start of the Diaspora. Was this G-d’s
will? I would suppose so. What else is a believer supposed to believe? That G-d
is a perverse psychopath? Or as Woody Allen has surmised, an underachiever?
This brings me to our friends Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell. Given their
perspective, it was not the least bit unreasonable or unpredictable for them to
gloat over the divine retribution that was doled out by their jealous "God
who will not be mocked" to that Gomorrah-on-Hudson, The Big Apple. This
time, the instruments of G-d were not the heathen Romans, but the infidel
Muslims. Same difference. And did you notice that Satan got a bye on this one?
He usually manages to get at least a footnote. Nary a mention.
And while we are seeking our reconciliation with G-d and our affirmation of
the inerrancy of the Bible, we had better reinstitute all the laws of
Deuteronomy, annul the Enlightenment and prepare for Armageddon.
The Highly Regarded Scoundrel
A Review of King David: the real life of the man
who ruled Israel by Jonathan Kirsch
Reviewed by Peter B. Denison
Jonathan Kirsch knows the
Bible as thoroughly as any Fundamentalist minister, and certainly much more
perceptively. His previous books are, Moses: a life, which I have previously
reviewed, and The Harlot by the Side of the Road, which retells the tales of
sex, incest, and perversion in the Old Testament. Now he has turned his
attention to a close reading of the history of King David. Much of the Hebrew
Bible ("Old Testament" to the Christians) is great literature. It is
as worthy of a close reading as is Shakespeare and other great poets. I feel
sorry for the Bible literalists who cannot allow themselves to read critically,
for then they would come up with the contradictions they so stoutly refuse to
admit. For instance, Kirsch quotes 2 Samuel 21:19 to the effect that a man named
Elhanan "slew Goliath the Gittite, the shaft of whose spear was like a
weaver’s beam." So who really killed Goliath? Or were there two killers?
Kirsch goes into all the relevant passages about the relationship between
David and Jonathan, including the likelihood that David was bi-sexual. Certainly
he had a sexual history which makes that of President Clinton boringly
bourgeois. Apparently he had a charismatic personality as well as good looks,
causing almost everybody to fall in love with him. King Saul initially loved
him, but grew to hate him as a rival. David kept adding wives to his harem. The
story of Bathsheba is well known. When Bathsheba became pregnant because of
David’s adultery, David had her husband murdered. God punished him by having
the baby die. Even God loved David so much that He allowed David literally to
get away with murder, even encouraging the mass murder of his enemies. Having a
harem, David had many children who were half siblings to each other. Amnon fell
in love with his half sister Tamar. He raped her by trickery and then, due to a
feeling of revulsion, his love turned to hate. David did nothing to punish Amnon
but two years later, Absolom, the full brother of Tamar, murdered Amnon in
revenge only to die himself in a bloody revolt.
Many despicable people are admired by their contemporaries, but why is David
still admired? The books of Samuel present him warts and all, and it is mostly
warts. But he is so admired that millions have read about him in the Bible and
apparently have not noticed his nasty side. Both Matthew and Luke, in their
genealogies, have Jesus descended from David. Matthew’s line goes through
Solomon as well, but Luke, realizing that Solomon’s mother was the adulterous
Bathsheba, has the line go through Nathan in stead.
Did David even exist? In 1993, a stela (stone pillar) was discovered with an
inscription that might refer to David, but this ambiguous evidence is the only
non-Biblical reference to the Biblical David. We really don’t know.
I highly recommend Kirsch’s book. Unlike the Bible, it does have a moral
point of view. Kirsch is clearly appalled by David’s crimes, but ultimately he
fails to explain why such a person has been so highly admired - but then, who
can? He shows that an open-minded, close reading of the Bible should inoculate
anyone against fundamentalism.
Science and Religion
by Peter Denison
Paul Kurtz of the Center
for Inquiry, organized a symposium on science and religion which was held in
Atlanta, Georgia last fall. Nearly 5,000 people attended. His plan was to have
both freethinkers and religious people meet together and discuss their opposing
viewpoints.
To my mind the most effective speaker was Raymond Moody who is the Bigelow
Chair of Consciousness Studies at the University of Nevada and the author of
Life After Life. He gave a very convincing argument that near death experiences
do point to something spiritual, and that the studies at his university have had
all the proper controls. A naive listener would have fallen for him hook, line
and sinker.
Pat Kurtz started off by saying that science and religion can be compatible:
that religion can dramatize human purposes, hopes, longings, and need not
conflict with science. Vern Bullough was a little more blunt. There is no
conflict between the two except when religion tries to dictate science. Religion
was originally based on, or at least compatible with the science of the day,
from Aristotle on. But when science changed, religion stayed locked into the old
scientific theories. So in theory there is no conflict, but in reality there
certainly is.
Eugenie Scott, director of the National Center for Science Education made the
statement that it is possible for a person to be a good scientist and a
Christian at the same time. A questioner said that her statement was good
strategy considering the present political situation, but implied she didn’t
really believe it. Scott indignantly replied that she wouldn’t say it if she
didn’t believe it. It is a fact that many religious people are excellent
scientists. One can argue that these people are intellectually inconsistent, but
one cannot argue that such people don’t even exist. They are good scientists,
and they are religious.
Of major significance is
the Humanist of the Year Address by Dr. Joe Gerstein on April 28 at the Ethical
Society of Boston, the Longy School, 27 Garden St, Cambridge, 10:30 AM. His
title will be, "What Humanists Can Do to Foster Humanism." Don’t
miss it!
Consider attending the Annual Conference of the American Humanist Association
in Houston, May 10-12 or the International Humanist and Ethical Union’s 50th
Anniversary Meeting in Amsterdam, July 3-6, for which Tom Ferrick and some
members have already signed up. Call our office for information, (617) 547-1497.
Our friends, the American Atheists are gathering at the Hyatt Harborside
Hotel from March 29 to 31 to hear some wonderful speakers. Call us for more
information or, better, email: info@atheists.org
Lastly, our Fund Drive 2002 is underway. Be sure to renew your membership
($35.00) and make an additional contribution compatible with your income to help
us meet our goal of ten thousand dollars. Feel free to call us about our 2002
budget.
An Open Letter to Pastor Brock
by W. J. Good III
(Editor's Note: Here we introduce a playful satirist to these pages. John is
a HAM member living in Natick. Last December he was amused and irritated by the
news story about New Mexico's Rev. Brock's burning of the popular but
"diabolical" Harry Potter books. Here's what he wrote.)
To Pastor Jack Brock:
I am delighted to know, according to a news report I read on the web at a
Yahoo news web site, that you will be burning the books of J. K. Rowling, author
of the Harry Potter series, because they are an abomination of the word of God.
I can speak from personal experience how damaging the Harry Potter series is
to a person's psyche. In my former life (I have been reincarnated six times,
twice in the past year alone), I studied the Harry Potter books, became a witch,
and devoted myself to the study of the arcane and the worship of the Devil, who,
contrary to popular opinion, does not wear red, have a tail, breath fire, or
carry a pitchfork, but who usually wears a white loin cloth, a crown of thorns,
and carries a large wooden cross. However, upon my former self's death, which
was at the hands of a torch- and stone-bearing populace, my soul was blessed
with a beatific vision of God, as well as a vision of other things unbeknownst
to mere mortals, such as impossible phenomena of physics in which effects
preceded causes and marvels of mathematics such as square circles, round
triangles, and the like. Now that I know these things are true -- after all, if
I witnessed them, they must be true -- I intend to carry out God's word to the
best of my abilities.
My belief that the word of God is true was also solidified by the advanced
beings from the planet Arcturus Omicron IV who abducted me this past March while
I was driving through the White Mountains of New Hampshire and showed me a
translation of the Holy Bible in their own language. Amazingly, the same
accounts of the creation of the world in six days, the flatness of theearth, the
stopping of the earth's rotation during the time of Moses, and the death and
resurrection of Our Lord Jesus Christ, were recounted in their translation,
which they could not have gotten from any other source. This convinces me of the
truth of the word of God.
Carry out the burning of those insidious books and God bless you!
William Good, Fourth Level Guru of Tallstoria |
