THE OTHER day my wife attended a funeral of an acquaintance who had committed suicide.  The minister who preached the funeral sermon recounted the story of a period of despair in her own life, when she had thought about killing herself. But God intervened, she said, and saved her. 

      I suppose the man she was burying wasn't good enough to be saved by God. Or perhaps it just wasn't God's whim to stop him from blowing his brains out. 

      As the various interpreters of God's will appear and crash airliners into buildings, or on the contrary assert that God frowns on people crashing airliners into buildings, or that God will help our blessed nation in its quest for Osama bin Laden, or that God will help bin Laden to escape, one might ask again an epochal question: Huh? 

      Back when the Aztecs were immolating virgins atop pyramids so that God would bless the people, there was a little guy sitting at the bottom shaking his head and remarking to himself that folks will believe anything. 

      As Homer sang of Zeus becoming a swan and mating with Leda, there was a dude in the back of the audience with a cocked eyebrow. 

      When, on the Indian subcontinent, the elephant God of eight arms was being adored, there was a woman with her head in her hands wondering what they'd think of next. 

      When the followers of Jesus reported that after his death he hung out for a meal or two, there was a sad, faithless cynic listening and going: Say what? 

      And when Mohammed said that God was giving him dictation again and it turned out that he, Mohammed, was supposed to be in charge, there was a Bedouin who retreated to his yurt before he started snickering. 

      We won't hear about these blasphemers because it's the believers who ended up writing the histories. 

      And actually, if you mumbled your skepticism a bit too loudly, those same believers would make sure your voice was lost to history by silencing you eternally. 

       Even today in a relatively secular society like ours, it's rare to hear someone point out in the clearest way that systems of religious belief are more or less baldly arbitrary and obviously ridiculous. 

       I guess maybe I'm just a long way from a religious point of view, but my question isn't which one is right, but how can anyone possibly believe any of them? It's as if you decided that Harry Potter was inerrant or that the film version of The Lord of the Rings was a documentary. 

      The operation of religious belief in history has of course been unbelievably complex: war and peace, oppression and liberation, love and pain. 

       Trying to sort out where we'd be without it is bootless. So I'm not asserting that religion has been a disaster. But I am asserting that the stuff is just a wee bit cracked. 

       One of the most annoying arguments I've ever heard from believers is that actually, deep inside, everyone really does believe in God. And so, backatcha: No one really "can" believe it. Deep in your heart, you know it's false. 

       The great philosopher Soren Kierkegaard asserted that Christianity was the best religion because it was the craziest religion. "The eternal God has appeared in time and died." It's not that that's unlikely, as Kierkegaard pointed out. It simply cannot be true. It's an absolute paradox. So the only way you're going to believe it is to let go of your experience of the world and your rationality utterly and simply leap into the abyss. 

       I can respect that position, because it at least acknowledges the basic bizarreness of the belief system. What I can't get a hold of is the idea that this stuff makes sense. Maybe, just maybe, a dose of skepticism would be helpful to a world in which the clash of belief systems is a continual killing. 

       The world just doesn't eyeball to me like the creation of an all-powerful and perfectly good being, who saves ministers from suicide and condemns family men to utter despair and self-destruction and their children to live through it. 

       If you believe that, more power to you. But why should you? 

Crispin Sartwell teaches philosophy at the Maryland Institute College of Art. This article first appeared in the Los Angeles Times January 3, 2002 and was reprinted in the Baltimore Sun

       The estimated number of non-religious has increased.  The 2001 American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS 2001) just released by The Graduate Center of the City University of New York showed that combining those identifying themselves as "Christians"  (Catholics and Protestants) declined from 86.2% in 1990 to 76.5% while those with "no religion" increased from 8.2% in 1990 to 14.1%. 

       As most of you know, I am working with the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) as an Atheist spokesperson for their "Teaching Tolerance" program. With SPLC's permission, I took SPLC literature to the United Nations conference. Everyone there was very impressed with the pamphlets, magazine samples, and booklets SPLC produces. I was the only one at the conference who set up a free literature table. I also distributed brochures from FFRF, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, and People For the American Way. 

       In the near future, ADSN will have a Teaching Tolerance program that echoes SPLC's techniques. In the meantime, I have been experimenting with teaching methods on the invitation of a Temple University professor. After six classes (one per semester since 1999), I think I'm ready to make recommendations for other Atheists who would be interested in Teaching Tolerance. Before I put this on paper, however, I am surveying the Atheist community to find out who in the Atheist community has conducted similar programs. I want to know what was learned, how the message was conveyed, and what the reaction was from the students. 

       Stuart Bechman-Besamo has been conducting a Sunday School class at the United Church of Christ of Simi Valley. He courageously represents the Atheist community as he dispels myths and stereotyping of nonbelievers. 

       Herb Silverman has conducted open dialog sessions with Southern Baptists. He attempts to find common beliefs that surface beyond a belief in God and scripture. These beliefs are; concern for the environment, civil liberties, the human condition, etc. The conclusion is reached that Atheists and Baptists have more in common than not -- a great way to teach tolerance. 

       I am looking for more examples such as the two described above. Please send me your story of how you teach tolerance. 

      Atheist Alliance International is committed to helping local groups become strong and effective. We have a matching funds program available that you can tap into for help in covering the costs of any project that involves public outreach. Be sure to discuss this with your group's representative on the AAI board of directors, who has all the details. 

      The basic grant per year at this time is $200, so if you raise any amount up to $200, AAI will match it, giving you twice the bang for your local bucks. Very shortly, we expect to have additional funds available for more ambitious projects, but this is a start. An eligible project can be almost anything that lets the public know you exist -- a listing in the phone book, an ad in the local paper, a public forum, public access TV production, etc. 

      Plan an outreach project and apply now! 

      Members at the November 2001 monthly AAW meeting  voted to withdrawal their offer to host the 2003 AAI convention in Madison, Wisconsin.  This  decision was reaffirmed at the December meeting.  Members sited the stagnation of membership growth, the lack of consistent active involvement by a significant number of existing members, and the failure of those who initiated the proposal to follow through on their promises as reasons for the change.  We hope that one of the other member societies who offered to host the 2003 conference will come forward to do so. 

      A six-month study conducted by the prestigious Mayo Clinic has found that prayer had no effect on rates of death, heart attacks, strokes and hospitalizations. 

      The study was directed by cardiologist Dr. Stephen L. Kopecky, and was conducted between July, 1997 and October, 1999.  Results were released in the current issue of the Mayo Clinic Proceedings.  A statement from the Clinic said that researchers "found that... intercessory prayer had no significant effect on patients' medical outcomes after hospitalization in a coronary care unit." 

      Kopecky's team followed  799 male and female patients aged 18 years or older.  The survey was described as a "single-center, randomized, double-blind, controlled trial." 

      "We sought to improve on the design of earlier studies of intercessory prayer through the application of standard experimental methods with the hope of obtaining scientific evidence to elucidate the potential role of intercessory prayer in medical care," said Kopecky. 

      Patients were randomly placed into an "intercessory prayer group" and a control group.  Those in the former cohort were prayed for at least once a week for 26 weeks by a prayer-team of five people.  "No significant differences were found between the intercessory prayer group and the control group," noted the Mayo Clinic team. 

      The findings add to a growing debate among religious leaders, scientists, health-care workers and even public policy makers about the role of spirituality in physical well being.  Nearly 1,200 studies have attempted to examine the effects of prayer, and even Kopecky suggested that some forms of religious involvement and spirituality are linked to healthier lives.  One possible explanation, though, suggests that benefits occur not because of the intervention of a cosmic deity exchanging medical outcomes for prayer, but rather the fact that when people pray, they are often relaxed and have lower blood pressure rates.  Indeed, some have pointed to the benefits of laughter as a source of potential medical benefit. 

      "Although the relationship between religious involvement and spirituality and health outcomes seems valid (in some studies)," said Dr.  Paul S.  Mueller of the Mayo Clinic, "it is difficult to establish causality.  The benefits of religious and spiritual involvement are likely conveyed through complex psychosocial, behavioral and biological processes that are incompletely understood." 

      For those who argue that intercessory prayer and other spiritual practices benefit health due to the intervention of supernatural beings, the Mayo Clinic study offers little sanctuary.  "Researchers could discern no scientifically significant differences" between groups of patients who received prayer, and those who did not.  Fully 25.6% in the prayer group even suffered "negative outcomes" such as death, heart attack, re-hospitalization or a trip to the emergency room.  More bedeviling, of course, are the deeper philosophical and theological questions the Mayo study, and even surveys suggesting a link between health and spirituality don't answer.  Why would God or angels wait until someone is on his/her deathbed, or in a serious medical crisis, before intervening?  Why might prayer be said to work for some, and not others? 

     Equally puzzling is the comment of Rev. John Hatgidikas, "who teaches University of Minnesota medical  students about spirituality" according to the AP story reporting the Mayo Clinic findings.  He said that people who are unaware that they are being prayed for by others "may benefit in ways that we can't know or see." 

      The Palm Beach Post reported an unexpected New Year's Day event when Christian skywriter Jerry Stevens soared at 10,000 feet in his crop dusting plane over Palm Beach County Florida, writing in letters, each nearly three-fourths of a mile long, "God is Great."  Instead of the lofty inspiration he hoped to instill, his message caused dread and panic on the ground. 

      Palm Beach County, after all, was ground zero for the nation's first anthrax attack. It also was a hide-out for nine of the 19 Sept. 11th  hijackers. This is where terrorist Mohammed Atta honed his piloting skills. And he did inquire about crop-dusters in Belle Glade. 

      Stevens says he's not a terrorist and he's not doing it for money. His only motivation, he says, is spreading the love of the Lord. The fact that he chose the dying cry of the Sept. 11th fundamentalist Islamic terrorists was simply an oversight.