THEISTWATCH FOR JULY 24, 1995 Contents: United States - BABY BOOMERS IN SPIRITUAL CRISIS,
THEISTWATCH FOR JULY 24, 1995
Contents:
United States--BABY BOOMERS IN SPIRITUAL CRISIS, CLAIMS USA TODAY
Egypt--"APOSTATE" WRITER UNDER SIEGE
Washington, D.C.--ABORTION, RELIGION, AND THE NEWT CONGRESS
Colorado--VIRGINIA MAE MORROW DEAD AT 70; WAS BASIS OF
"BRIDEY MURPHY" REINCARNATION LEGEND
South Africa--"CHRISTIAN VOICE" PRESSES FOR OFFICIAL CHRISTIANITY
World--THEISTWATCH SHORT SHOTS
____________________
____________________
BABY BOOMERS IN SPIRITUAL CRISIS, CLAIMS USA TODAY
Article on 40-Something Americans Ignores Concerns of the
"Last Minority" Atheists
by Conrad Goeringer
Truly, Atheists are the "last invisible minority."
Take Thursday's edition of USA TODAY (July 20), which
concluded a four-part "exploration of the issues baby
boomers face with aging parents." Titled "Facing up to
mortality and faith," this article dealt with the
difficulties of the 40-something generation in coping with
the deaths of usually religious parents. And we're told by
Clark Roof, author of "A Generation of Seekers," that
"Baby boomers are in spiritual crisis already." We are
also warned that the prospective death of parents "will be
a serious existential confrontation" and that our lack of
"understanding about religious teachings" can make the
whole experience worse.
Steve Pettit, a co-director of the Commission
Ministries in Florida, told USA TODAY that seniors are
frightened "not for themselves but for children and
grandchildren they believe are on the futureless side of a
salvation gap." A rabbi informs readers that boomers "need
new links to life and healing," whatever that means.
Nowhere is the story told of the experiences of the
26,000,000 or so Americans many of them baby boomers who
are Atheists, freethinkers, nonbelievers, people who have
no need for religious belief or ritual in their lives. As
is the case so often in articles dealing with issues of
life or death, the Atheist perspective gets ignored.
In a sense, Atheists are like everybody else; we have
parents, and we often face the same sorts of problems our
non-Atheist neighbors do. We have periods in our lives
marked by joy, sorrow, doubt, anger, disappointment,
confusion, happiness. But there are crucial differences,
too; the Atheist has to accept life on its own terms,
realizing that if life is to be happy, vital, productive
and meaningful, only we can make it so. The universe is
basically "uninterested" in us, and as for "god" . . .
That's a perspective you do not find in the genre of
articles about "baby boomers" like the ones which have
been running in USA TODAY. That is unfortunate; it
communicates a negative message to countless boomers "out
there" that only through religion can we deal with the
everyday problems of living and dying.
THEISTWATCH readers might want to pick up those
issues of USA TODAY at the library, if you don't already
buy or subscribe to the paper. And you might want to let
the editors know that they've excluded a good chunk of the
American population by not interviewing or discussing
nonreligious boomers, and by serving as a pulpit for
religious psycho-babble.
If you happen to be a "senior" well, tell the editor
that you're not going' down without a fight!
(You can fax USA TODAY at 1-703-276-5513 or E-mail to
usatoday@clark.net)
"APOSTATE" WRITER UNDER SIEGE
Meeting of Potential Defenders of Nasr Abu Zeid Cancelled;
Court Has Ruled That His Wife Must Leave Him
by Conrad Goeringer
In Cairo, Egypt, a meeting called in defense of a
prominent writer who has been threatened with death and
the breakup of his marriage was cancelled by an Islamist
professor. Twenty secularist teachers, all members of the
Cairo University Club, had planned to form a committee to
defend academic liberties, and take up the case of
university lecturer and writer Nasr Abu Zeid. A court
ruled last month that Zeid was an "apostate" and must
leave his Muslim wife because of his social opinions. The
Muslim group Jihad ("Holy Struggle") says that he must be
killed in keeping with Islamic law.
Professor Ahmed Lofti, head of the University Club,
burst into the meeting Monday and ordered the forum to
stopped and television crews covering the event to leave.
"There is a whole atmosphere of cultural terrorism,
which is worrying and making things difficult," English
literature instructor Radwa Ashour told Reuters News.
"Abu Zeid and his wife are in terrible danger because
among those young men . . . anybody can harm them.
Apostasy is a very serious accusation in our society. His
life is in danger and for many years to come." Ashour also
claimed that "Abu Zeid won't be able to go to work,
lecture students, or have a normal life." Zeid's case is
on appeal, and he has left his apartment in Cairo only
once in the past month.
Reuters noted that the teachers supporting Zeid would
attempt to meet again and spoke "about the creeping
influence of fundamentalism at universities, saying many
professors had been told by department heads to withdraw
'sensitive parts' in the curricula because they would
upset Islamists." The report continued: "The Islamists
are making everything related to religion in biology,
medical studies; that is so dangerous (sic) . . . There is
a tug of war all the time. The Islamic influence makes
people avoid prickly subjects and stay away from them."
ABORTION, RELIGION, AND THE NEWT CONGRESS
by Conrad Goeringer
Religious conservatives smell blood in
Congress after last week's anti-abortion victory in the
House Judiciary Committee. First was a bill known as the
"Partial Birth Abortion Ban" which cleared committee and
restricts a form of late-term abortion. Right-to-choose
advocates such as Rep. Pat Schroeder of Colorado rightly
saw it as the "beginning of the end" for Roe v. Wade. And
on Friday (July 21), the committee voted 29 to 25 to force
a major academic group, the Accreditation Council on
Graduate Medical Education, to alter its abortion training
requirements. ACGME has been attempting to require medical
school programs to include training in abortion
procedures.
There was also last Thursday's (July 20) setback in
the Appropriations Committee. One bill cleared by a 28 to
25 margin which deleted funding for the Title X (Ten)
Program, a counselling program which made abortion and
contraception information available to teens. The Dickey-
Wicker Amendment passed by 30 to 23, which banned federal
research money for medical research on human fetal
remains.
All of it was a clear victory for the religious
right. Gary Bauer of the Family Research Council declared
that "This week's historic votes are irrefutable evidence
that the pro-family/pro-life grassroots movement is
picking up steam and will be a major factor in the 1996
election."
"These issues are now center stage, and the Congress
of the United State," he added, "knows they must deal with
them."
Bauer's Research Council group and Focus on the
Family, a Christian organization headed by James Dobson,
flooded Capitol Hill switchboards with thousands of calls.
Focus put out the word on its radio show which is heard on
more than 2,000 radio stations, and 900 stations were
broadcasting hourly updates and urging listeners to
contact their Representatives as the legislation was
winding its way through Committee. One Appropriations
Committee member logged 9,000 calls.
All of this raises a crucial question: is the pro-
choice movement handicapped by its policy of
"softpeddling" the religious dimension of the abortion
debate?
No sooner had the Christian right landed its salvo on
the Capitol than Planned Parenthood rushed out a press
release calling "On Moderate Congress Members to Reject
Extremist Amendment." While there were plenty of
references to "far right extremists" and the "radical
right," the word RELIGION did not appear once. This is
partly due to the strategy over the past decade or so by
pro-choice groups to court "respectable," mainstream
religious elements in hopes of adding a veneer of
respectability to the abortion cause.
And speaking of the ABORTION cause, this particular
"A-word" appeared only twice in the Planned Parenthood
release. "Right to Choose" has become the phrase most
widely employed by pro-abortion elements, and to such an
extent where the term "abortion" has (thanks to constant
religious conservative vilification) become about as
popular as the word "nigger."
Sooner or later, moderates in the fight for legal
abortion will have to deal with the unique, religious
dimensions of this struggle, and they'll have to confront
the fact that this struggle is about "choice" AND
abortion. The failed nomination of Dr. Henry Foster as
Surgeon General is testament to the success religionists
have had in tainting the "A-word." The mere fact that
Foster had performed abortions was made to appear that he
had engaged in an act equivalent to ritual murder or child
sacrifice. Rather than talk about euphemisms such as
"women's health issues," it's time for all of those concerned
to come out squarely and honestly:
"We defend abortion what about it?"
And it's time for our comrades throughout the
abortion-rights movement to begin paying attention to the
religious element in this contest. Before it's too late,
before Roe v. Wade is history.
VIRGINIA MAE MORROW DEAD AT 70; WAS BASIS OF "BRIDEY
MURPHY" REINCARNATION LEGEND
Claims Were Never Verified, But The Story Ignited A
Controversy and Helped Shape Subsequent New Age, Religious
Fads
by Conrad Goeringer
Virginia Mae Morrow, a Colorado woman who was the
center of the popular "Bridey Murphy" reincarnation tale
over forty years ago, died near her Denver home on July
12. She was seventy at least in this lifetime. While her name
is known to few people today, the life she claimed to have
led as an Irish girl known as Bridey Murphy nearly a
century before captured the public imagination, after the
story was first publicized in the Denver Post in 1954.
Those claims were also made in a best seller by Morey
Bernstein, an amateur hypnotist from Pueblo Colorado who
had hypnotized Morrow and fueled the subsequent phenomena
known as "past life" regression. A movie soon followed. In
this hypnotic technique, the subject is allegedly
"regressed" back through time, even to the stages of fetal
development, conception and past lives.
The Bridey Murphy story "became a 1950s phenomenon
rivaling the Hula-Hoop," said the New York Times last
Friday. "There were Bridey Murphy parties ('come as you
were') and Bridey Murphy jokes (parents greeting newborns
with 'Welcome back')."
But more important, the Bridey Murphy controversy
gave impetus to a wide variety of claims and beliefs which
found surprisingly wide acceptance in American culture,
beginning with the interest in "Eastern wisdom" of the
1960s and persisting through the New Age movement that
survives even today. Its importance as a cultural icon is
too easy to overlook. While many people accepted the story
of Bridey Murphy as "proof" of reincarnation the idea that
a "soul" is reborn over and over again as it moves toward
a state of "perfection" critics pointed out that there was
little or no verifiability in Murphy's claim. Some
insisted that the detailed accounts of Irish life from the
previous century were based on information already
available, and that the outpourings were either fraud, or
material from Morrow's imagination.
Yet the link between claims of an altered state-of-
awareness through hypnosis and "past lives" goes back
certainly to the times Murphy-Morrow discussed in the
"regressions." The technique originated with a man named
Allan Kardec, known also as Hypolyte Rivail, who founded
his own branch of the spiritualist movement. Kardec
claimed to have recorded statements by hypnotized subjects
who were serving as "channels" for various spirits, a
precursor for the later fad of "channeling" and the bunko
of organized spiritualism in early twentieth-century
America. That doctrine was then picked up by Helena
Petrovna Blavatsky, who concocted an elaborate mystical
doctrine she called "Theosophy."
Another element in "past lives" regression involved
Professor Theodore Flournoy, a psychologist at the
University of Geneva. Flournoy began studying a self-
proclaimed "medium" named Catherine Mueller, whose
colorful reports of past lives in India, France, and
communications with beings on the planet Mars elicited
wide public interest. Flournoy wrote an expose of Mueller
titled "From India To The Planet Mars," which revealed
that the medium's accounts had a basis in the experiences
and even language of her everyday life.
The Bridey Murphy incident provided a wealth of
detailed claims which subsequent investigators combed
through in an attempt to verify the reincarnation claims
of Virginia Morrow, then known as Virginia Tight and "Ruth
Simmons." There were conflicting claims in the Chicago
American newspaper, which stated that the source of
Morrow's "past lives" was, in fact, a Scotch-Irish aunt
with whom Morrow had lived and from whom she may have
heard stories of the old country. But according to J.
Gordon Melton's "New Age Encyclopedia," the Denver Post
reporter who had originally broke the story, William
Barker, found that the aunt had lived most of her life in
Chicago, and had little factual knowledge of Ireland.
Barker also traveled to Ireland to investigate details in
the Bridey Murphy account, but found that "records from
the period were far from complete."
The renewed interest in reincarnation, along with the
technique of "past lives hypnotic regression" resulted in
an outpouring of spiritualist, religious, and New Age
books on various aspects of the subject. Works such as
"Voices From Other Lives" (1977) and "Many Lifetimes"
(1967) piqued the public interest, and "past lives"-type
beliefs became ensconced as artifacts of the new age
movement. The past-lives motif dovetailed with "life after
death" themes promoted by figures such as the late
Episcopalian Bishop James Pike, who claimed that he had
received communications from his dead son. Hypnotic
regression also became a dubious and much-abused tool in
allegedly recovering memories of satanic cult abuse and
even abduction by aliens.
Despite problems of verification in the Bridey Murphy
tale, the book based on the hypnotic regression of
Virginia Mae Morrow became a best seller, and nearly one-
third of Americans today believe in some variant of
reincarnation. Despite the controversy, Morrow once said
"If I had known what was going to happen, I would never
have lain down on the couch," referring to the hypnotism
session with author and businessman Morey Bernstein.
It will be interesting to see if years from now,
somebody claims to be the reincarnation of Virginia Morrow
just as over four decades ago, Morrow claimed that she had
once walked the earth as a girl named Bridey Murphy.
"CHRISTIAN VOICE" PRESSES FOR OFFICIAL CHRISTIANITY
Group Would Have South Africa Become an Official Religious
Nation
by Conrad Goeringer
Recently, this service told subscribers about efforts
in South Africa by Christian fundamentalists intent on
making sure the nation does not adopt a secular
constitution. We learn from the latest Church & State that
a group known as Christian Voice is apparently
coordinating such efforts, and according to its secretary,
Willie Viljoen, was officially launched at a May 4
gathering attended by representatives of "all Christian
denominations."
In a press release, Christian Voice described itself
as a "non-political organization of concerned Christians
whose main purpose is to make Christians aware of the
dangers of a secular state and to encourage them to
actively participate in addressing relevant issues of
concern in the writing of the new constitution of the New
South Africa."
"Non-political"?
A brochure put out by Christian Voice is even scarier
and may give some insight into the motivations of those in
this country wishing to declare that "America is a
Christian nation." It says that "There are 40 countries
which are officially Islamic states because the majority
of their population adheres to the Muslim religion. Why
then, can South Africa not be recognized as a Christian
nation when over 75 percent of the citizens of South
Africa claim to be Christian?"
THEISTWATCH SHORT SHOTS
by Conrad Goeringer
We keep telling you that "people of faith" (as the
Christian Coalition's Ralph Reed likes to call believers)
just don't get along with each other. Another case in
point is Jakarta, Indonesia, where according to Ecumenical
Press, four people were injured earlier this month when a
church was attacked by gangs organized by a rival faction
of Indonesia's largest Christian movement. It appears that
the Batak Protestant Church split into two factions when
the government stepped in and appointed a replacement for
the group's leader. Fighting ensued, and some 700
attackers, armed with knives and rocks, moved on the
Jakarta church at dawn.
So far, ten people have been killed in factional
battles, 3,000 injured and another 200 arrested.
***************
The American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ), the
legal organization founded by televangelist Pat Robertson,
says that it will challenge a decision handed down Monday
by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court upholding
condom distribution in public schools. The court ruled
that the distribution does not violate parents' rights to
guide their children's moral upbringing, since the condoms
are available from a school nurse or vending machine, and
young people are not required to obtain them.
"We will not allow the opinion to go unchallenged,"
said Jay Sekulow, ACLJ general counsel, adding "Schools
have an obligation to accommodate the religious and moral
teachings of parents."
***************
The Tennessee House of Representatives has
unanimously passed a resolution which encourages "every
citizen of Tennessee to observe the Ten Commandments." It
also asks residents of that fine and enlightened state to
"teach (the Ten Commandments) to their children, and
display them in their homes, businesses, schools, places
of worship," and called upon the citizens to set aside ten
days in May "to honor these Commandments."
Is this Big Brother with a Religious Attitude, or
what?
***************
Briefly noted: check out the August 10 edition of the
New York Review of Books for an excellent article and
review concerning the "militias." Titled "The New
Revolutionaries" and written by Gary Wills, this
thoughtful piece reviews a number of recent books on the
survivalist-militia rights, its history, and
religious-political motivations. It is a good introduction
for those trying to make sense out of the Waco tragedy,
the bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City, and
growing anti-government sentiment, both left and right.
***************
THEISTWATCH has been following developments
surrounding the Joint Appeal delivered to Congress last
month by a coalition of religious organizations asking
that the government forbid the patenting of genetic life
forms. Eighty prominent religious leaders representing
Catholic, Protestant, Buddhist, Muslim, Jewish and Hindu
faiths charged that the practice "represents the
usurpation of the ownership rights of the Sovereign of the
universe." Just so you realize how serious this sort of
anti-science babble is, consider the latest important
development on the bio-technology front. This past
Wednesday (July 9), Progenitor, Inc., a subsidiary of
Interneuron Pharmaceuticals, Inc. announced the licensing
from Vanderbilt University of exclusive rights to a patent
covering a co-discovery by the two institutions. It's
known as "del-1" or developmental endothelial locus-1, and
expresses a protein that might play a central role in the
development and growth of blood vessels. Dr. Douglas B.
Given of Progenitor said that "We believe that it could be
a therapeutic candidate as well as a target to treat a
broad range of diseases." He listed ailments such as
diabetic retinopathy, endometriosis, and tumors. In
addition, this research could offer "an exciting
alternative in cardiovascular disease by enabling the
patient to grow new blood vessels where needed rather than
undergoing treatment to repair old ones."
"Del-1" may or may not fulfill these promises, of
course, but research like this promises to make all of us
healthier and more productive. As for tumors, clogged
arteries, and other nagging health problems, you'd think
that the "Sovereign of the Universe" could have done a
better job in designing us.
***************
We also told you about L. Brent Bozell and his fellow
media watchdog bluenoses. Bozell rated Michael Moore's "TV
Nation" among the top ten blasphemous, irreverent, anti-
family values/Christian religion shows on the air. We want
to let you know that Moore has switched from NBC to the
still-gutsy Fox network, where he promises according to
USA TODAY to "satirize the powerful (especially any who
are right of center), lampoon the malicious and puncture
the balloon of hypocrisy that, he thinks, wafts over
America." It's also noted that Fox executives and
advertising reps "call him constantly with nervous
questions, but he doesn't mind. 'If you're nervous, we're
doing our job'."
***************
Here's the latest in the war over the notorious V-
Chip, that Orwellian device which government wants to put
in all television sets which is capable of shutting off
"violent" or "profane" programming that might stimulate
the imagination or libido. "The networks are considering
funding an alternative technology to avert government-
mandated blocking chips," noted USA TODAY (July /20). But
it appears that a lot of people are waiting to see what
House Speaker Newt Gingrich has to say. Gingrich
surprised some observers lately when he appeared on "MTV Raw"
and came out against censorship of the Internet. He said that
the anal-retentive FDA had "lost its mind" in proposing
that tobacco be treated as a "hard" or "addictive drug"
like cocaine. (Hey, remember, the "war on drugs" doesn't
work either!). Gingrich is first and foremost a
politician. It will be interesting to see how he feels
about the V-Chip a good example of a
paternalistic government "on our backs."
(Imagine if WE proposed a chip to block religious
programming?)
***************
A study being released in the British journal
"Nature" should drive another nail in the creationist
coffin. Remember, creationists are the folks who insist
that apes and humans do not share common ancestry, but
were created a few thousand years ago by the Judeo-
Christian god, a la Genesis. Creationists try to point out
what they insist are "problems" or "contradictions" in
evolutionary theory, and they demand that creationism be
given "equal time" in science classes and biology labs.
This new study by scientists at University of
Wisconsin and UCLA supports an idea dating back to 1822
that vertebrates and arthropods have a common body plan,
but evolution led the arthropods (crustaceans, such as
crabs and lobsters) to crawl with backs toward the ground.
The study identified genes that perform similar functions
in diverse creatures, and in the words of one researcher,
"bespeaks the commonality of ancestry."
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