Atheism of Astronomy: A Reply to Critics

SINCE "The Atheism of Astronomy" was published many letters of comment and criticism have reached the Truth Seeker. Some of these were printed in the paper, and I am extremely grateful to Editor Smith, as well as to the various contributions who have helped to widen the scope of the discussion.

Some of the letters which have reached me privately express a deep interest in the subject of astronomy. Some are very illuminating on the behavior patterns of mankind--and some very religious. One, from an exotic female, I am told, can only be construed as a burning love letter, proposing that I accept Jesus, through her. I had no idea that a simple work of mine, defending "gross'' materialism and a godless universe, should have caused such a "spiritual" awakening and religious fervor in one of my readers. Others, as pathetic as this, seem more interested in the salvation of my soul than the facts I discussed. Still another, hopeless of my future, has already consigned me to regions close to the core of the earth. Communications like these have been conveniently filed in the wastebasket for future consideration.

Rabbi Ahron Opher, of the Hebrew Tabernacle, Washington Heights, New York City, who wrote me concerning "The Atheism of Astronomy," calls attention to the theories of "Keppler," "Genes," and "Ettington" as likely to refute its arguments. The way these learned doctors of Judaism toss the names of scientific men about. (and misspell them) is enough to make a freshman groan.

Rabbis of today get their wisdom from the ancient Jews, whose knowledge of the world was below that of the not very over-bright Egyptians. Says the historian Buckle: "Science properly so called, the Egyptians had none; and as to their wisdom, it was considerable enough to distinguish them from the barbarous nations like the old Hebrews, but it was inferior to that of the Greeks, and it was of course immeasurably below that of modern Europe."

Kosher knowledge today is canned ignorance from the past.

I propose here to consider some of the more recent issues raised by several of my critics. Among these is the question as to whether or not there are likely to be other worlds inhabited like the earth.

One writer argues that since millions of stars can be seen merely as tiny points of light, there may be planets, unseen through the telescope, circling about them. He is entitled to his "may". We know enough, however, of our planets close at hand, the peculiarity of their origin, and their requirements for the sustentation of life, to accept a conclusion other than that planetary existence is a minor occurrence, and that life, as we know it here, is as nothing at all in the stellar depths. Those who believe in a "well-populated" universe will have to "populate" billions upon billions of "white hot" stars.

Some find it difficult to believe that life is a rare occurrence in the universe and that the earth is probably the only inhabited planet of our system. It is their contention that such a "unique" situation is counter to the "expectancy" one would look for among so many worlds. They seem to think that physical and chemical forces, operative everywhere, must necessarily bring into existence things very much alike through to the universe, and that we should always find duplications. This is definitely not so.

One does not have to look far into space to confirm this. Nature can be as sparing and restricted in some of its activities as lavish in others. There are many "rare" occurences in nature. Such as the evolution of a Darwin or a Shakespeare out of so much human scum. Since our earth began there has been only one age of Reptiles. The dinosaur was "unique" among all forms of life. Among the multitudinous species of plants and flowers, "Dionaea muscipula," a distinctive type, is found only in one tiny corner of the globe. The kangaroo is a native of Australia -- and nowhere else.

The manatee is restricted to a few tropical waters, the gorilla to small areas in Africa. The rarity of planets and the scarcity of life in space are in no way startling to one who takes a long range view of things. It is a view which is definitely warranted by the findings of astronomy, which show that what happens at one point in space does not have to be duplicated elsewhere. The sun is an exceptional star, and its planets are an exceptional "birth."

As to the question, Whence comes intelligence?, it will be found answered in any good text-book on organic evolution. Intelligence, both in the race and in the individual, gradually develops with the brain and the nervous system. It is a physiological activity which manifests itself in a large part of the biological world, including man. It is not a mysterious subject at all, except to those who like to indulge in a "tyranny of words." And it is readily comprehensible, I believe, to any individual who is not too deeply absorbed in contemplating Plymouth Rock and in asking why, if matter really thinks, rocks cannot "acquire knowledge?

Psychology, true to its ancient heritage, is still dominated by a vast amount of Hottentot ignorance. Psychologists of the mystic school still talk of the mind as a ghost. What cannot be picked up and weighed on a butcher's scale must be a "spirit". They cannot seem to grasp that a motion of matter in the skull, or a vibration in the nerveganglia of the brain cannot be taken out of one's head and tossed on scales. They are as obsessed with a belief in spirit possession as the "benighted" savage, who, seeing a watch for the first time, concludes there is a ghost inside. The savage sees a "spirit" in the watch case, the mystic sees a "spirit" in his head.

The spirit mongers can no more comprehend the mechanistic character of the brain and its material functioning than they can comprehend the implications of materialism in their broader aspects. Life, they think, must be a dreary, meaningless affair without a recognition of "spirit." Being muddled on the one hand, they are sure to be muddled on the other. They are as quickly disturbed over a godless universe as a ghostless brain.

One critic marvels how a materialist, facing the "dismal" picture I have drawn, should "so shuffle the faculties of his mind" as to preserve his "poise" and "equanimity." I have seen, perhaps, a fair share of the grim side of life. But I see no reason why any man, unless his nerves are shattered or he faces some unbearable afffiction, should jump off a dock or turn on the gas. No one need become panic stricken merely because there is no paternal intelligence in the sky. Life can be made an interesting adventure in solving human problems and mastering the art of living. That art consists, in part, of cultivating one's intelligence and helping others to rise from the slough of ignorance and superstition.

If any one should be dejected and disheartened by the evils of the world, it is he who, having accepted belief in a guiding "intelligence," is compelled to witness the cruel behavior and callous indifference of his "Heavenly Father." It is the Christian who, praying to be relieved from an excruciating cancer, gets nothing in return but a celestial slap in the face, who should feel his despondency most. It is the theist, not the atheist, who should be tempted to slit his own throat. That is something our pedagogical theists and blackboard "psychologists" will never understand.

Certainly nothing I have put into words could offer a more "melancholy" picture of things as they are than that presented in the mass hysteria caused by our recent "invasion" by monsters from Mars. The radio broadcasters simply over-estimated, as I have done myself too often, the average intelligence of the race. It was the "spiritually-minded," who are said to derive "poise" and "equanimity" from their convictions, who were most easily demoralized, and who fled to their churches like flocks of frightened geese. If had they known more about Mars and less about "spiritual" matters, they would have probably enjoyed the radio entertainment.

Those who talk of: the dreariness and drabness of existence for the materialist, deceive themselves. Such jargon as that we must search for understanding in the depths of infinite reality" belongs to the age of priests. The materialist can be, and generally is, the highest cultivator of the finer things of life. He is better able to appreciate the cultural and esthetic values of life precisely because his eyes are open and he can think more clearly. In the fine arts and, in science, in music and drama, he generally excels. Lucretius, the greatest of didactic poets, was a materialist. So, too, was Holbach, whose home, indeed, was "one of the chief social centers of culture in Europe." Haeckel, who believed in neither God nor immortality, was an artist of high rank, whose hundreds of drawings of marine life in color would have made him famous independent of his accomplishments in the biological field. Buchner, whose "Force and Matter" rocked the religious world took time off from scientific pursuits to write exquisite verse. Vogt so lived that he, was "a brilliant man, of exceptional culture" whose "standard of conduct was rigorous'' and "humanitarian zeal intense." It was the teaching of Diderot, says Bury, "that man's energies should be devoted to making the earth pleasant." Girard, the philanthropist, put this into practice by founding a university and giving away millions to the poor. In brief, the zest for life and the cultivation of character will not be dulled because, of the discovery that there is no one in the clouds interested in our welfare.

Those who look for a moral crack-up under materialism, or for an era of gloom, should turn again to the pages of history. Under "spiritual" influences men became morbid, sour, and cruel. And it was precisely the most "spiritual" ages which contributed most to the destruction of man's happiness. Buckle, writing of the Scotch Kirk and its influence, says:
"Cheerfulness, especially when it rose to laughter, was to be guarded against. . . . Smiling, provided it stopped short of laughter, might occasionally be allowed; still, being a carnal pastime, it was a sin to smile on Sunday. Even on weekdays, those who were most imbued with religious principles hardly ever smiled, but sighed, groaned and wept.... A Christian had no business with love or sympathy. He had his own soul to attend to, and that was enough for him. Let him look to himself. On Sunday, in particular, he must never think of benefiting others and the Scotch clergy did not hesitate to teach the people that on that day it was sinful to save a vessel in distress, and that it was a proof of religion to leave ship and crew to perish."

Of what significance, therefore, are fulminations against materialism? The plea that we acknowledge a "spirit" within and accept an "intelligence" in the clouds is Sunday school prattle. Man has progressed morally, and grown culturally, in proportion as he has abandoned these ideas. The closer we stick to matter the more we understand the workings of the universe. Culture has been advanced by ditching the ghosts.

What has "spirituality" to offer? The age of "spirituality" and ghost worship marks the most degrading and bloody period of man's existence. Those who sought culture in the "depths of infinite reality" by glorifying "spirit" and degrading matter usually ended up by burning one another at the stake. It was a sordid age, when pious scoundrelism prevailed and fanaticism ran amuck. No tragedy has equaled the dark ages of religion, when "spirituality" triumphed and materialism was crushed.

These things will never come again if men learn to think.

Sociology in Slumberland

I READ with sustained interest, as many probably did, the challenging article by Prof. Edward Maslin Hulme in the April, 1944 issue of The Truth Seeker, and was particularly attracted by the underlying importance of this paragraph:
"The second basic thing with which scholarship should be concerned is the prevention of war. The general causes of war are economic rivalries, national jealousies, religious hatreds, the pressure of overpopulation, the influence of a military class, and the selfishness of profiteers. And every one of these causes can be met and overcome."

I paused rather hopefully here, and looked expectantly to his next paragraph, and throughout the balance of the article, for some clue to the solution of the problem, but not a line-was forthcoming, not even the shadow of a hint, to tell us how "these causes [of war] can be met and overcome", Which confirms a longheld opinion of mine, tentatively accepted throughout the years but now approaching a settled conviction, that sociology has nothing to offer but jasmine-scented platitudes.

When an historian as well drilled in the scanning of history and as distinguished as the one who graces the pages of this paper talks on human relations, he is accorded a most respectful hearing, When he tells us, in dulcet tones, that "religious hatreds" and ''the selfishness of profiteers" are social evils, we quietly assent. When he tells us that these among others are causes of war that can be "met and overcome", we naturally expect him to tell us the means. And when he doesn't, we are left to wonder what has suddenly sent matters askew or disrupted the orderly process of his thinking. Can it be that he has momentarily entered a dream-world of his own as fantastic as that of the theologian?

If the things enumerated by Prof. Hulme are "the general causes of war'', as I think most of them are (though he makes no mention at all of man's disposition to enjoy a good gory fight or a vicious fist-fest, as may be seen at bull-rings, cock-pits, and prize-fight stadiums), then it is incumbent on us at once to eliminate them if we can. But how? That is precisely the question that Prof. Hulme leaves hanging in the air.

The cure for wars is not so simple, I think, as Prof. Hulme believes. Man is a cantankerous animal still, and will bomb and bayonet and poison gas, if necessary, those who seriously get in his way. And he will cast aside his last ounce of culture to do it. His fury when aroused is deadlier than that of any jungle beast, and his means of venting that fury are made more terrible by his technological knowledge. Private dueling has gone out of fashion (or largely so), but mass slaughter with machine-guns, flame-throwers and block-busters has superseded the sword and pistol on the hell of honor. What has an historian to offer in way of proof that man is any less a fighting animal today than he was in the days Of Hannibal or the Siege of Troy?

This country of ours, in a little more than three times my own span of life, has fought seven major wars, one of them civil, engaged in numerous Indian wars, and sent punitive expeditions and occupational forces to Mexico, Santo Domingo, Nicaragua, and Cuba. We are (or think of ourselves as being) the most peace-loving nation in the world, yet is there anything to indicate that we would not again take up arms against those whom we consider guilty of overt or provocative acts? If there is a cure for war, it is time that the machinery of the "humanists" were put to work.

"The pressure of over-population" is often a cause of war, but what does Prof. Hulme offer in a remedial way? Tell a people to reduce their birth rate, and they will laugh in your face. Tell them to sterilize their morons and they will think you are one yourself. We can't move the people of Puerto Rico to wider areas, nor can we shove a continent under their feet. Wherever there are congested populations, there will be more mouths than food and a dependency on other nations for basic supplies. If the congested nation is big and strong enough (as in the case of Japan), it will launch out to get what it vitally needs, by hook or crook. The niceties of trade will be sustained only as long as they fill a reciprocal want; given a military clique and a beating of drums, and a nation will find "honorable" means to pounce upon and seize adjoining territory. You then have another war, or several wars on your hands and more yapping for a League of Nations. The cure? I don't know, not being a sociologist. But one thing is certain. We will get another League of Nations or a revised League and another slough of treaties, just to keep up appearances and continue our delusion that, by some miracle of fate, human nature will some day behave differently.

And even now, while the High Court of the League of Nations is draped in mourning for a global war it couldn't prevent, we are treated to the bland assertion that this war will be the last. The Atlantic Charter will see to this.

Meanwhile, the distribution of land on the face of the globe has not followed an intelligent pattern for the provision of human sustenance; there are large areas that have never sustained or never will sustain populous groups. Some nations have grabbed off the high-spots; those which have been short-changed by Providence must, by the laws of necessity, do a little looking around. They not only look, some of them, but decide to take a slice. Then follows a nice little brawl known as war. There is a cure for it, of course, because Prof. Hulme says there is, but what he thinks the cure is, he doesn't say. It is the sociological approach to a grave and pressing problem.

"The influence of a military class" is named by Prof. Hulme as one of the causes of war, but isn't it true that our own "military class" is using its ''influence" right now to ward off the blows of those who seek our destruction? Where would we be today without this "military class" and its protective activities? How could "culture" alone hope to meet and "overcome" the Nipponese and Nazi armies?

Distressing as the race for national armaments is, it is nevertheless based on what each nation feels is its needs for self-preservation. I can no more imagine a large and prosperous country existing for long without an armed force to protect it than I can visualize a city without a police force or a village without a town constable. Even Switzerland, tiny as she is, believes in having one of the best trained armies in the world; she trusts no one and keeps her powder dry. Military cliques may, at times, beat up the world, but matches sometimes set fire to buildings and are bad implements in the hands of incendiaries. Yet will anyone propose doing away with matches? I am, as you see, no "pacifist". What is one to do in the face of stern reality? We are not living in a make-believe-world, but in one of cold, hard facts, which, though sometimes annoying to our finer sensibilities is indisputably real.

Does anyone believe that you can reform a "profiteer" by talking to him nicely in academic terms? Maybe it can be done, but unless I have been dozing for the past fifty years, our sociological experts have been slumping in their chairs. What have they accomplished and-- what is still more important--what can they accomplish in eliminating selfishness"?

But even supposing that our industrial profiteers could be induced to give up their private practice of hijacking the public, might we not have to face even greater lootings than before? They could still go into politics, and treat us to more scandals like Teapot Dome or to the bureaucratic holdups and unbridled squanderings of another New Deal. Is there any less political corruption today than in the days of Boss Tweed? If you think so, ask the people of Jersey City.

"National jealousies", it is true, may sometimes lead to war, but I do not consider them evils in themselves. Being a firm believer in the benefits of competition (in sports, in classroom, and in the fields of industry), I see no reason to condemn "national jealousies". They are incentives for greater expansion and national improvement. A physician, distinguished as a writer, once wrote me that he was "envious" of me for something I had written, though I had secretly aspired to write as well as he, but I do not think that this kind of "envy", could have brought us to blows. There is nothing materially wrong in one nation's being, jealous of another.

As, for "economic rivalries", something may be said here. If there were no "economic rivalries", Smith Brothers would not try to turn out a better coughdrop, or Cadillac a better car than somebody else. Rivalries within industries, as rivalries between nations) are spurs to ambition and ingenuity; they are not necessarily a cause of war. We have been turning out cheese since the Republic was founded and have never had a war with the Swiss people or the Dutch.

No study in human behavior falls more naturally within the province of the historian than the hatreds engendered by religion. They are found everywhere. From Herodotus down to Gibbon and Lea and the far-reaching Buckle himself, and thence on to modern chroniclers like Lecky, Bury, and McCabe, there is an unbroken procession of recorded events which places religion in the pillory of shame. Even Buckle alone, among the truly great historians, gives us enough of a horrifying picture of what religion did to even so small and as sturdy a people as the Scotch, to damn it forever in the eyes of civilization. Religious hatred is, as Prof. Hulme reminds us, one of the causes of war; we see it manifested today in the intrigues and instigations of Vatican circles. There can be no doubt, as McCabe shows in his "Papacy in Politics Today", that a part of the world conflagration we see around us was ignited by papal machinations.

Wars over religion are less popular today than they were during the days of the Crusades, not because religionists are any less addicted to war, but because there are other things more important to fight about. Christian clergymen still bless our cannons and our battle-flags and our boys under arms. And since we have their assurance that there are no atheists in foxholes or even in the skies, one must assume that those who are doing the fighting are at least religious. Many of them doubtless are, but they are not fighting over religion. Catholics are bayoneting Catholics with as little concern as they would stick a pig, back home on the farm, and the chaplain (on our side or the enemy's) will tell them they are doing a good job. This holocaust, in its larger aspects at least, is not a religious war, though some element of the Jewish question has entered part of it. We have "heathens" on our side as well as against us, and nearly every religion is represented on the battlefield, with their followers either fighting side by side or blowing one another to bits.

The animosities of religion are less intense in wartime than in times of peace. In war, under the iron rule of military discipline, men of different faiths are welded together for a common cause; in peace, they have more time to think about their religious differences. It is then that the ancient animosities have more time to reassert themselves.

When will these ancient animosities disappear! You can draw your own conclusions. My own impression is: when the cow jumps over the moon. If this sounds a little too hopeless, I will be more encouraging religion will cease to breed hatreds when it ceases to exist. You can figure out for yourselves when mankind will cease to be superstitious. At the rate of human progression, it may be some time around the end of the world.

Hatreds are inherent in the very nature of religion itself. How, then, does Prof. Hulme expect to obliterate these hatreds? Let him try to convince a Brahman that an "untouchable" is as good as a Hindu, and he will get a look bordering on scorn. Let him assure a Mohammedan that "a dog of a Christian"' is as worthy as a follower of the Prophet, and he will learn how a Mohammedan can hate, Let him tell an Irish Catholic that a denier of Christ is as good as a follower of the Pope--and anything may happen.

It is much the same in all parts of the world. Wherever we turn we are confronted by religious animosities.

The Falashas, or the Jews of Abyssinia, says the Encyclopaedia Britannica, "do not mix with the Abyssinians, and never marry women of alien religions. They are even forbidden to enter the houses of Christians, and from such pollution have to be purified before entering their own houses".

The hatreds caused by differences in religion are worldwide; those we see manifested in our own country are, like those everywhere else, deep-rooted in the sub-soil of religious habits. Catholics, Protestants, and Jews still carry on their age-long feuds and vendettas of hate, and the flames of fanaticism are constantly fanned by a difference in creed. To this day, in some of our States, an atheist cannot testify in a court of justice, either an his own behalf or on behalf of others; judicially considered, he has no more rights than a dog in the pound. What does Prof. Hulme propose here? Scholarship can no more penetrate the thick skull of bigotry than it can teach a drug addict to give up his dope. It is a waste of words to talk the niceties of civilization and the language of culture to those who do not know the meaning of "decency". And it is bordering on inane repetition to talk about the elimination of war, so long as men are what they are and ready to fight for what they want.If we are not misled by our newspapers, the biggest and bloodiest war in history is going on right now; and I venture to predict that those that follow will be bigger and bloodier than ever. And I will add right here that it will be a sad, sad day when decent men are unwilling to fight, and fight to the last ditch, for the principles they hold right and the things they cherish most. If I ever resume the reading of fiction, I will turn to the sociologists.