An Atheist Responds
To The September 11th
Terrorist Attack
Chester Twarog
(a series of monologues)
From: "Chester Twarog"
To: <editor@usatoday.com>
BCC: "Positive Atheism" <editor@positiveathveism.org>
Subject: An Atheist Responds
Date: October 03, 2001xs
I have served my country and the military honorably for over twenty years (different periods from 1968-1994) as an Atheist ("God" does not exist). And, I will continue to support and defend the United States Constitution and its freedoms and rights for everyone as an Atheist. The United States of America's most significant contribution are the Bill of Rights, the secular U.S. Constitution, and our Democratic Republic.
Public schools have not taken "god" out! They (administrators, teachers, and visitors) can't compel a captive public school audience (students) to listen to, receit from, or pray to a particular religious deity because public school students are a mix of Christians, Hebrews, Muslims, Agnostics, Atheists, Hindus, Buddhists, etc. Individually, however, students can pray to themselves at anytime; can read to themselves from their own religious texts; can be excused from classes that they find "offensive"; can compose religiously orientated essays regarding holidays or their own personal heroes, etc., as long as it is within the context of the class; can talk to others students about their religious beliefs or non-beliefs but cannot preach or distribute religious materials during school hours, etc. Public schools are required to be and must be religiously neutral.
Children can say the Pledge of Allegiance during home room but are not required to say "Under God" if they should not want to (I personally substituted "Under the Constitution" or "Under Blue Skies" for "Under God" for myself). I even provided a historical lecture about the Pledge. I know, I was a science teacher at a public school.
"It was not until 1942 that Congress officially recognized the Pledge of Allegiance. One year later, in June 1943, the Supreme Court ruled that school children could not be forced to recite it. In fact, today only half of our fifty states have laws that encourage the recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance in the classroom!
After the Communist Red scare of Joseph McCarthy to root out Communists and Socialists, the U.S. Congress proposed an amendment and "In June of 1954 an amendment was made to add the words "under God". Then-President Dwight D. Eisenhower said "In this way we are reaffirming the transcendence of reigious faith in America's heritage and future; in this way we shall constantly strengthen those spiritual weapons which forever will be our country's most powerful resource in peace and war."
http://www.usflag.org/the.pledge.of.allegiance.html
I have seen a Looney Toon Cartoon prior to 1950 wherein Porky the Pig dreams of American History with Uncle Sam and upon waking from the dream, immediately stands up, salutes the flag, and recites the Pledge of Allegiance: "One Nation, Indivisible, with Liberty and Justice for All!" You also should research the history of the Pledge of Allegiance at:
http://www.vineyard.net/vineyard/history/pledge.htm
You cannot have "Liberty and Justice for All" under an imaginary god with religious beliefs that divide and kill/
What has religion given us:
The Koran: "So (believers! now that you know the will of your Lord) when you meet in (regular) battle those who disbelieve strike off their heads ... As of those who are slain in the cause of Allâh He will never let their works go in vain. He will guide them (to success) and will improve their condition. Rather He will admit them into the Garden which He has made known to them in the Qur'ân." (Koran 47:4-6). These are direct commands from Allâh on high, and there is no cease fire command to be found anywhere unless the enemy converts to Islam or are slaughtered.
As an Atheist, I have researched the "Holy Bible" -- Hebrew and Christian mythology. The Old Testament combines the holy books of the Kingdom of Israel and the Kingdom of Judah. The Old Testament consistently refers to the Lord (El), Lord God (Elohim), or God (Yahweh/Baal) of the Israelites (Jews/Hebrews). "He" even tells them that there are other gods and the Israelites must choose but they will be slain if they reject their own god.
The Bible fares no better than the Koran in that its commandments to kill are stated clearly and unequivocally. Search the Old Testament for the words slay, kill, slaughter and destroy. The past, according to the Bible, is one long grisly list of massacres and rapes and torture, all glowingly and gleefully described in graphic details: "Samaria shall become desolate; for she hath rebelled against her God: they shall fall by the sword: their infants shall be dashed in pieces, and their women with child shall be ripped up." (Hosea 13:16); "Their children also shall be dashed to pieces before their eyes; their houses shall be spoiled and their wives ravished." (Isaiah 13:16); "Then Menahem smote Tiphsah, and all that were therein, and the coasts thereof from Tirzah: because they opened not to him, therefore he smote it; and all the women therein that were with child he ripped up (so much for pro-lifers)." (2 Kings 15:16).
Why don't you read these passages during Bible Study groups or as bedtime stories. Of course, you wouldn't but Judaism and Christianity and Islam are founded on them.
Jesus is not an exception either: Luke 12:51-53 -- Suppose ye that I am come to give peace on earth? I tell you, Nay; but rather division: For from henceforth there shall be five in one house divided, three against two, and two against three. The father shall be divided against the son, and the son against the father; the mother against the daughter, and the daughter against the mother; the mother in law against her daughter in law, and the daughter in law against her mother in law. Matt 10:33-34 -- But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven. Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. Luke 14:26 -- If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple."
"God" in the Old Testament even states that "I form the light and create the darkness. I make peace and create evil. I the Lord do all of these things." Isaiah 45:7. And, do you want your children to "believe and pray" to a god that creates evil?
Read the "Holy Bible" all the way through.
Therefore, historically, now, and into the near future, religious fundamentalist terrorists or freedom fighters will kill and destroy and terrorize. Until we can all intellectually and emotionally rid ourselves of religious mythologies and develop a Secular Humanist philosophy, there will be no peace.
"The Affirmations of Humanism: A Statement of Principles" has such statements as:
"We are committed to the application of reason and science to the understanding of the universe and to the solving of human problems.
"We believe in the cultivation of (secular) moral excellence.
"We are deeply concerned with the moral education of our children. We want to nourish reason and compassion.
"We deplore efforts to denigrate human intelligence, to seek to explain the world in supernatural terms, and to look outside nature for salvation.
"We are concerned with securing justice and fairness in society and with eliminating discrimination and intolerance.
"We affirm humanism as a realistic alternative to theologies of despair and ideologies of violence and as a source of rich personal significance and genuine satisfaction in the service to others."
As an Atheist, I wholeheartedly support these and more. I have donated blood to the Red Cross as well as monies to various secular charities. I have volunteered to tutor, teach lessons and donate materials to public schools.
I am a humanitarian and an Atheist.
Chet Twarog
From: "Chester Twarog"
To: <editor@usatoday.com>
BCC: "Positive Atheism" <editor@positiveatheism.org>
Subject: An Atheist Responds to Sept 11th Terrorist Attack
Date: October 04, 2001 2:35 PM
Yesterday I expressed why I am an Atheist, no loss of "god" in public schools, the Pledge of Allegiance, and the terror of religion.
Today I want to express my thoughts of September 11th.
While watching CNN live with the north tower on fire, I spotted the second jetliner banking and turning towards the south tower. As soon as I saw the horrific fireball explosion, I started to cry. I immediately knew it was now a terrorist attack on the World Trade Center and anguished over the thousands who were killed -- their lives suddenly, inexplicably, and tragically gone. And, within the hour, more tragedy at the Pentagon and on the other jetliner. And, more tears.
Yes, I cried at this horror and for all of the families and friends that would be forever affected by this religious terrorist attack. I was emotionally distraught and drained because I also know that those "killed" are gone for always; they exist only as memories.
And, yes, as a humanitarian, I will donate blood and whatever I can for them.
But later, frustrated, when public and political emotionalism went over to religious mythology of "God Bless America" and "God's Love and Mercy".
My immediate thoughts were critical of the religious, things that I could not express openly: "sure God blessed America and the several thousand people killed by terrorists that their God could've stopped"; "if their God was their personal savior and was merciful, why didn't they question why "God" had not warned Pope John Paul, the Evangelicals, the Fundamentalists, or those affected in dreams, or the psychics?" Religiously, "God" is also "Allah, Jehovah, the Christ, Virgin Mary, Holy Spirit, etc.".
If these religious figures really had appeared in "miraculous visions (hallucinations)" before, why not before this world affecting terror? Couldn't "Christ" or the "Virgin Mary" appear before church services the weekend prior to warn them, or on CNN, or CNBC, etc.? Of course not! The answer was obvious, religious myths couldn't!
And, I was frustrated at the fabrications religion teaches children. An elementary school girl said, sadly, at a memorial reflection for one of her school friends who died on one of the jetliners, "she is now in Heaven, safe from the terrorists who can't hurt her any more". Well, the terrorists were also promised Heaven in the Koran for self-sacrifice for "God Allah". Is it the same "Heaven"? We should be teaching everyone that death is end of our existence and one very vital reason that every life, every living organism, is unique, precious, one-of-a-kind, and never-to-be repeated -- there isn't a "spiritual Heaven or Hell".
We are the most intelligently evolved complex organism that we know of. We have become, as a Biblical Genesis Rabbi writer composed, "gods". Therefore, as "gods" shouldn't we be doing our darnest to make the most of our creative abilities in the sciences, technologies, the arts, etc., to benefit all species on our planet. Or, do we, as "Gods", use these same abilities to terrorize, destroy, kill, create weapons and warfare and ecological destruction? Isn't a shame that as one species, we let religion dumbth us? We live in a wonderful, marvelous, continually fascinating, all-that-there-is, Universe (revealed through science) -- we need to make it our destiny.
Why? The Rabbi writer of Genesis 11:6 wrote: "And the Lord said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do (a tower to reach unto heaven [Heaven is the sky between the ground/waters and the clouds]): and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do." The Universe or extinction. Imagine!
Chet Twarog
From: "Chester Twarog"
To: "Positive Atheism" <editor@positiveatheism.org>
Subject: Fwd: An Atheist Responds to Sept 11th Tragedy
Date: October 04, 2001 4:46 PM
As an Atheist humanitarian, I would like to express my thoughts of September 11th tragedy.
While watching CNN live with the north tower on fire, I spotted the second jetliner banking and turning towards the south tower. As soon as I saw the horrific fireball explosion, I started to cry. I immediately knew it was now a terrorist attack on the World Trade Center and anguished over the thousands who were killed -- their lives suddenly, inexplicably, and tragically gone. And, within the hour, more tragedy at the Pentagon and on the other jetliner. And, more tears.
Yes, I cried at this horror and for all of the families and friends that would be forever affected by this religious terrorist attack. I was emotionally distraught and drained because I also know that those "killed" are gone for always -- they exist only as memories.
And, yes, as a humanitarian and an Atheist, I will donate blood and whatever I can.
But later, frustrated, when public and political emotionalism went over to religious mythology of "God Bless America" and "God's Love and Mercy".
My immediate thoughts were critical of the religious, things that I could not express freely or openly: "God blessed America and several thousand people were killed by terrorists that their God could've stopped"; "if their God was their personal savior and was merciful, why didn't "God" warn Pope John Paul, the Evangelicals, the Fundamentalists, or those affected in dreams, or the psychics?" Religiously, "God" is also "Allah, Jehovah, the Christ, Virgin Mary, Holy Spirit, etc.". If these religious figures really had appeared in "miraculous visions (hallucinations)" before, why not before this world affecting terror? Couldn't "Christ" or the "Virgin Mary" appear before church services the weekend prior to warn them, or on CNN, or CNBC, etc.? Of course not! The answer is obvious, religious myths couldn't!
And, I was frustrated at the fabrications religion teaches children. An elementary school girl said, sadly, at a memorial reflection for one of her school friends who died on one of the jetliners, "she is now in Heaven, safe from the terrorists who can't hurt her any more". Well, the terrorists were also promised Heaven in the Koran for self-sacrifice for "God Allah". Is it the same "Heaven"? We should be teaching everyone that death is end of our existence and one very vital reason that every life, every living organism, is unique, precious, one-of-a-kind, and never-to-be repeated -- there isn't a "spiritual Heaven or Hell".
Read the Holy Bible. Read Isaiah 45:7 "I form the light, and create darkness; I make peace and create evil: I the Lord do all these things". Is this your "God"?
We are the most intelligently evolved complex organism that we know of. We have become, as a biblical Genesis Rabbi writer composed, "gods". Therefore, as "gods" shouldn't we be doing our darnest to make the most of our creative abilities in the sciences, technologies, the arts, etc., to benefit all species on our planet? Or, do we, as "Gods", use these same abilities to terrorize, destroy, kill, create weapons and warfare and ecological destruction? Isn't a shame that as one species, we let religion dumbth us? We live in a wonderful, marvelous, continually fascinating, all-that-there-is, Universe (revealed through science) -- we need to make it our destiny.
Why? The same Rabbi writer of Genesis 11:6 wrote: "And the Lord said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do (a tower to reach unto heaven [Heaven is the sky between the ground/waters and the clouds (Genesis 1:7-8)]): and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do." The Universe or extinction. Imagine!
Chet Twarog
From: "Chester Twarog"
To: "Positive Atheism" <editor@positiveatheism.org>
Sent: October 05, 2001 5:58 PM
Subject: Jesus/Osama bin Laden
Thanks, Cliff, for making a separate section for my letters to USA Today and CNN. Have any of our comments been published?
I am reading through "The Ways of an Atheist" by Bernard Katz. His chapter "Jesus and the Dagger Men", ppg 95-98, uses New Testament Gospels and convincing interpretations Jesus was, in all probability, a Jewish Zealot -- a resistance fighter (terrorist) in the Jewish war against the Romans.
"The original meaning of Zealots comes from associating them with the kind of religious fevor that recalls the Phineas in Numbers 25:7-13."
"Two of the Zealot leaders were crucified a few days later, one on the right side, the other on his left of Jesus. For the New Testament says specifically that they were 'under the condemnation', that is, under the same sentence for the same crime as Jesus."
"Jesus refers to these Zealot ambitions when he says that the kingdom of heaven 'has been coming violently' and 'men of violence will take it by force'" (Matt 11:12).
"In Luke 22:36 Jesus tells his disciples "who have no sword to sell their mantle and buy one."
In the KJV, LK 22:36-38: "Then said he unto them, But now, he that hath a purse, let him take it, and likewise his scrip: and he that hath no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one. For I say unto you, that this that is written must yet be accomplished in me, And he was reckoned among the transgressors: for the things concerning me have an end. And they said, Lord, behold, here are two swords. And he said unto them, It is enough."
Darnest revelation, if ever there is one! I would certainly love to be able to tell those Christian Fundamentalists that believe Jesus is love, peace, and was crucified for the sins of the world was just a Jewish terrorist caught by the Romans and crucified just as President GW Bush wants Osama bin Laden "dead or alive".
Can I?
Chet
From: "Positive Atheism Magazine" <editor@positiveatheism.org>
To: "Chester Twarog"
Subject: Re: Jesus/Osama bin Laden
Date: October 05, 2001 7:27 PM
Hyam Maccoby says that the Zealots were materialistic in that they didn't think God would intervene and that anything that was going to happen would be the result of their own efforts. Jesus, if he existed, most likely believed in supernatural intervention (very un-Zealot like!); almost all myths about him revolve around the supernatural. Even his probable use of the Zachariah passage (of which only hints remain) shows that he probably thought the Mount of Olives would literally cleave in two, to the south and to the north, in a supernatural extavaganza.
But that didn't happen, so he was caught and later crucified for sedition.
What to do when your "Messiah" turns out to have been yet another false messiah? Simple: Change the meaning of the word Messiah! Hey! The Jehovah's Witnesses did something similar when the end of the world didn't happen in 1914 as they had been predicting: they changed the meaning of the phrase the end of the world and all was fine and dandy after that! The year 1914 was now simply the end of the world as we know it, the end of the current order of things spiritually (whatever that means)! Had World War I not started around then, we wouldn't even know about the JWs today; it is only because of that coincidence that they maintained enough followers to still be around today..
Cliff Walker
Positive Atheism Magazine
Six years of service to
people with no reason to believe
From: "Chester Twarog"
To: "Positive Atheism" <editor@positiveatheism.org>
Subject: Osama "Jesus" Bin Laden
Date: October 05, 2001 6:50 PM
Dear Cliff,
After re-interpreting Luke 22:36-38, "Our Lord and Savior" certainly has new meaning! Osama bin Laden could become the "Lord and Savior" of the Islamic Jihad movement.
Should We send emails to Community@CNN.Com (Judy Woodruff) and editor@USAtoday.com to enlighten them?
Probably not as that would push our incredibility too far.
Note aside. My son, Tim, saw a women drop a $5 at the mall, rushed over, picked it up and handed to her saying, "I think you dropped this."
She smiled and thanked him.
One doesn't need "religion" to have integrity and honesty. I praised Tim and told him how proud I was of him. And, I am.
Chet
From: "Chester Twarog"
To: "Positive Atheism Magazine" <editor@positiveatheism.org>
Sent: October 09, 2001 1:31 PM
Subject: Re: Jesus/Osama bin Laden
Ok, but if you reread through the NT passages regarding Jesus and compare those to Osama's statements, I have "rocking chair" thought out that both are similar.
For examples: "give me your children and they will be mine forever"; "you will meet me in paradise this day", Jesus' knocking down the money tables in the temple -- return to orthodox fundamentalism; "hate your father, mother to be a disciple -- or separate mother from daughter, son from father, etc.; "I have not come in peace but with a sword"; meeting in secret locations to hide from the Roman authorities; being crucified for "terrorist" acts against the Romans.
Or, Osama's dislike to Western Imperialism just as "Jesus" disliked Roman Imperialism -- overthrow it and get it out of Arabia (Islamic States) just as the Hebrew's wanted to get the Roman legions and government out of Palestine. "Jesus" is Greek for Joshua -- the warrior king of ancient Israel -- the "reincarnated Joshua" to rid Palestine of Roman Rule over the former Israeli controlled major trade routes -- and the tribe of Israel were "terrorists" in the OT against all of those "kingdoms" in and around Palestine -- much slaughter there.
I now sense (too imaginary?) parallels between them both or any other religious fundamentlistic "terrorist" lead groups. Remember, after the failure of the Jewish uprisings/terrorist attacks against Rome in Palestine in 68-70 AD, another group lead by another Jewish leader, "Son of the Star (person not astronomical object) of David" (his name will come sometime), tried to lead an insurrection against Rome in 120 AD and also failed?
I also would like to make a firmer connection, if there is one, between Osama (Islam) and Jesus (Jewish/Christian) because -- all those crucifix wearers worship a "terrorist/Zealot", all those nuns are "spiritually married" to him, etc.
Plus, I would really like to get some letters to the editor published about the connection ... or write about how Osama and Islam "In Allah-God we Trust" and "Allah-God Bless Islam/Afghanistan" or "Thank Allah-God for Sept 11th" and the US of A, "In Judeo-Christian-God we Trust", and " J-C-God bless America", etc. If the "A-God" can't protect Afghanistan from Western Bombs and cruise missiles and the "JC-God" can't protect the USA against Islamic Terrorists, why doesn't anyone connect that there isn't any "stupid" God?
I also read a short editorial by the Otis ANG Base Chaplain about "God's peace to you and praise be unto God for his blessings on America" after he quotes from the OT Nehemiah 4:6-6:15
No wonder Atheists go crazy!
Chet
From: "Positive Atheism" <editor@positiveatheism.org>
To: "Chester Twarog"
Subject: Re: Jesus/Osama bin Laden
Date: October 09, 2001 7:41 PM
Well, the Hebrews had occupied that land before. All the Romans did was give it back to the Palestinians.
Now, Osama, through terror, occupies Afghanistan (Osama is an Arabian refugee with no place to lay his head).
Cliff Walker
Positive Atheism Magazine
Six years of service to
people with no reason to believe
From: "Chester Twarog"
To: <letters@phx.com>
BCC: "Positive Atheism" <editor@positiveatheism.org>
Sent: October 09, 2001 4:56 PM
Subject: Allah vs God
Letter to the Editor,
Isn't it positively amazing?!? As an Atheist I noticed that:
Osama bin Laden and the Taliban praise "Allah (A) God", ask and receive "A God's blessings" on Sept 11th, and "In A God they Trust." Here most praise the "Judeo-Christian (JC) God", didn't get "JC God's" blessings on Sept 11th, and "In JC God we (most of us) Trust".
On whose side is "A God" or "JC God" on? Why doesn't "A God" and the "JC God" battle it out in the sky "Heaven"? Why not? Because the "A God" and the "JC God" don't really exist! Imaginary beings they are, created in our image, because "they" are really us.
And while reexamining New Testament, it occurred to me that Jesus (Joshua in Hebrew) may have been the "Osama" of the Hebrew Zealots trying to overthrow and expel the Roman Imperialists out of Judea, failed as the embodiment of the former warrior King Joshua, and was crucified by the Roman anti-terrorist legionnaire as a Zealot. Reading Osama's remarks and comparing them to those of Jesus'(Luke 22:36-38) are quite insightful. Perhaps Osama will "sit at the right hand of Allah" when he is killed? Could it be true? Might be!
Chet Twarog
Hudson, Massachusetts
From: "Positive Atheism Magazine" <editor@positiveatheism.org>
To: "Chester Twarog"
Subject: Re: Allah vs God
Date: October 09, 2001 8:15 PM
What if Osama ends up being called "the Prince of Peace" in a few thousand years, the history of this whole affair having been erased and rewritten by the party who controls education and law during the interim?
Ever seen that happen before?
Cliff Walker
Positive Atheism Magazine
Six years of service to
people with no reason to believe
From: "Chester Twarog"
To: PAM
Date: October 12, 2001 2:28 PM
To Whom It May Concern,
Since September 11th's unfortunate tragedies, the major media (CNN/MSNBC/USA Today), radio, television, and magazines have been actively verbalizing and demonstrating intolerance, discrimination, and slandering Atheists.
We are a diverse group of United States of America citizens and patriots who uphold, support, and defend the U.S. Constitution. We do not deserve the very negative prejudice, unfairness, preconceive notions, and injustices heaped upon us by the media. We should be respected and inquired for our views just was we respect those of others.
Atheist, is most commonly defined: "One who denies the existence of God" as if "God" actually existed. Now, wouldn't it be quite odd that an Atheist would actually define themselves that way? Sure it is. A-theist means "without a religious belief". That's all! Atheist, for most of us, but only speaking for myself, is defined: "no deities exist; no gods exist". Basically: "God does not exist, anywhere, at anytime". Religion is essentially: "faith and belief in a non-existent God (God as undefined)".
I have contributed to NPR/PBS before but I will not continue until Atheists are recognized positively, with fairness, justice, and a sincere respect for our views, contributions, and feelings. NPR and PBS would do our nation an educational public service if it interviewed Atheists and included Atheists as commentators on its programs.
After all, the program "All Things Consider" should consider us, too!
Chester Twarog
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