A Quarterly Newsletter
Autumn 1995
Web Edition
Believers: “The sheep who beg to be fleeced and butchered, and who will battle to preserve their right to be victimized.”
James Randi
These REAL Women fought against the promotion of rights for lesbians in the Beijing Platform for Action and urged women to just say no to “reproductive health” and “fertility regulation” fearing these may lead to abortion as a “right”.
REAL’S reps are “women, who with God’s help, will encourage the support of “family values” and pressure our government delegation to represent the wishes of the pro-family majority of Canadians rather than special interest groups” says Laurie Geschke, REAL Women’s western vice-president, according to Christian Info News, Aug/95 issue. Well, Geschke wouldn’t have had much to worry about if the other Canadian government delegates were anything like B.C. Reform Party M.P. Sharon Hayes. As chair of the Reform Party’s family task force, Hayes has been zealously spreading stories that the Chinese people are cannibals, that they eat aborted fetuses -- a story being promulgated by the homophobic, anti-woman American evangelical organization Focus on the Family. “Dr.” James Dobson, its founder, condemned the U.N. conference as “the most radical, atheistic (yikes, that’s us!) and anti-family crusade in the history of the world.” Hayes planned to blather the prevarications of this powerful evangelical group (formerly known as the Christian Coalition) in Beijing and we taxpaying dupes bought her ticket!
Meanwhile, Amnesty International had condemned and hoped to spotlight China’s condoning of the brutal torture of women in that country. But Sue Mackay-Smith, an Anglican and head of a development education coalition of five mainline churches hoping to attend the conference, said she understand’s Amnesty’s concerns but “I’m ambivalent”. Her special interest appears to lean more towards gender equality so we can only suppose that that would include the equal right to be tortured. (Conference update: Reform Party MP Sharon Hayes couldn’t take all that human rights stuff and walked out of the conference two days early. Hope she enjoyed her “holiday”) Pray, n. To ask that the laws of the universe be annulled on behalf of a single petitioner, confessedly unworthy. Ambrose Bierce
THE ABlMELECHS named themselves after the bastard son of Gideon and
his followers who, in the story related in the lXth Chapter of the
Book of Judges, were inspired to usurp the work of the Judge Gideon
and his associates, who had wrought havoc upon the many peoples whose
religious beliefs differed from their own conviction that Yahweh was the
Only True God.
The above “mission statement” of the ABIMELECH SOCIETY describes the purpose
and the work. It is not a formal organization: there are no dues or
elected officers, no annual meetings, and anyone who supports the aims
of the society as described in the mission statement is welcome to consider
themselves a member. We do encourage discussions among members of topics
relevant to the Society such as: what to do with specimens once confiscated.
The Society maintains a Book Depository in Winnipeg, Manitoba for temporary
storage of specimens.
Among the known final uses of specimens are: insulation material in
home construction and rolling papers for smoking tobacco and other herbs.
Because of their dense nature, specimens burn poorly in fireplaces,
although they have been employed as fuel in restored steam locomotives
by Atheist rail buffs. Bible paper usually is poorly absorbent and therefore
is not recommended for hygienic purposes except in case of extreme need.
It is hoped that the direct action of Atheists in endeavours such as
those represented by the mission statement of the ABIMELECH SOCIETY
will contribute to the diminishing influence of organized religion
worldwide. From the psychological point of view, involvement in this
type of direct action gives freethinkers a sense of participation in
the ongoing struggle against ignorance and superstition, and reduces
their sense of helplessness in a society of religious dupes.
The question has been asked at times, is this confiscation of Bibles and
New Testaments possibly an illegal activity? Would we be liable to
prosecution for theft? Although I have not secured a legal opinion, I
rather think not, for many of the specimens indicate that the reader
should take it along if they become engrossed in the text. So I don’t
think the removals are in themselves actionable, given that the original
distributor, the Gideon Society, permits their removal. Prudence is
nevertheless advised to avoid hassles: so far the ABIMELECH SOCIETY is
not listed in the Yellow Pages.
The Founder and Dominion Director of the Society, Mr. E. Van Beetfield,
may be contacted by Email at:
The Canadian Atheist Society
Is there an election looming near you? Then know this. It
is strictly illegal for bibles or prayer books to be placed
over ballot box openings at polling
stations. We challenged this arrogant tradition in
Revelstoke, BC in 1993 and being backed by a
letter from Jacques Girard, Director of Legal Services at
the office of the Chief Electoral Officer of
Canada in Ottawa, we threatened to get an
injunction to close down the polling stations if they
did not remove the bibles.
Those bibles disappeared like magic!
We are sick of having the simple civic act of
voting linked with illegal, forced, religious piety!
If you are too, get out there and stop it.
(A copy of M. Girard’s letter is available on request.)
POPE JOKE
(no kidding!)
The chicken Industry was in terrible shape, losing money and laying off
employees. Industry leaders hit upon a plan: they went to see the Pope
and said, “We’ll give a million dollars to the Church if you agree to
change the Bible: where it says, “Give us this day our dally bread,”
change it to “Give us this day our daily chicken.”
The Pope was outraged and said, “No.” The chicken leaders said, “OK,
10 million dollars.”
“Absolutely not! I won’t tamper with the Word of God!”
After some consultation, the chicken leaders said, “Okay, 100 million
dollars and that’s our final offer!”
The Pope couldn’t turn it down. He accepted.
At the next General Council, the Pope announced, “I have some good
news and some bad news. The good news is that I’ve made 100 million
dollars for the Church, The bad news is, we lost the Wonder Bread account!”
A CRUSADER BY DEFINITION
James Randi is one of our genuine heros. He is an internationally
famous magician and debunker of new age quackery and author of Flim
Flam, The Mask of Nostradamus, etc. The following statement was gleaned
from “the net” at
The Canadian Atheist Published by The Canadian Atheist Society
Editor: Ray Blessinparacom@cyberstore.ca
Phone:(604)525-0233
Fax: (604)525-4911
Contributing Editors: Fern Wayman Richard Nistuk Laurence Wayman
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P.O. Box 41613923 12th Street
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V3M 6L1
If you think we can use help with the cost of postage and production -
You’re right! Please do!
“Children see clearly; they see things as they really are. Only after
we’ve sent them to school and taken them to church do they see things
the way we do.”
Tom Anderson
Summerland, BC
superstition, n. a belief or practice founded on ignorant fear or
mistaken reverence. World Book Dictionary
NOT SO STRANGE BED FELLOWS
An interesting item pointing out who hangs with whom appeared in the Spring/95
issue of Covertaction Quarterly. We offer it without comment:
Another Canadian Holocaust denier with links to the anti-abortion movement
is Barry Wray, President of the local Pro-Life Society in Melville, SK. His
association with neo-Nazis goes back at least to 1986, when he attended a
meeting of the Aryan Nations at Hayden Lake, Idaho, a leading centre of the
North American white supremacist movement. He currently counts among his
associates Wolfgang Droege, founder of the neo-Nazi Heritage Front, and Ernst
Zundel, one of the world’s largest publishers of neo-Nazi literature. A
frequent contributor to . . . The Christian Info News, Wray wrote in the
September/94 issue that he couldn’t condemn Paul Hill’s double murder.
Wray’s brother Dan, a former leader of the British Columbia Ku Klux Klan,
spoke at a 1989 public meeting on “Satanism and Bolshevism,” co-sponsored
by the racist “white culture” group Canada First, the anti-abortion Life
Gazette, and supporters of US neo-fascist Lyndon LaRouche. Sharing the
platform with unadulterated neo-Nazis and fascists were Peggy Steacey
of the anti-abortion group REAL Women; Elaine Stewart of Concerned Citizens
for Fetal Rights and Dignity; and Dr. Wayne Poley, editor of Life Gazette.
The church is only a secular institution in which the half-educated
speak to the half-converted. W.R. Inge
NO CHRISTIAN MONOPOLY ON IDIOTS
Thousands of Hindus around the world are placing seriously-misguided
importance on an easily-explained “phenomenon”, that porous material
absorbs liquid. The liquid of choice is milk, and the absorbers
are idols. Hindu big-shot Murh Ram in Vancouver says “It’s a
miracle . . . a sign of peace and love and unity.” We wonder what
it would all mean if the “offering” was ink. Or whiskey. Or cow’s
blood.
THE POLITICAL BULLDOZER
According to Project Censored, an inter-nationally recognized
media research project based at Sonoma State University in
California, the number 2 story of 1994 “missed” by the corporate
media was the disturbing rise to power of the religious right wing
in the US. Project Censored researchers argue that “the Republican
establishment is married to the Christian right. It can’t win an
election without them.” One of the lesser known but kookier
characters of this righteous cabal is R.J.
Rushdoony of the Christian Reconstruction movement. He wants to
transform the country into a Christian nation where “true to the letter of old testament law, homosexuals . . . adult-erers, blasphemers, astrologers and others will be executed.” The Christian right is highly organized and works hard to elect people to high office, town councils and school boards all over the country. (We do not argue against their perfect right to do that.) The Canadian connection to this phenomenon is evident in Abbotsford, BC. The chair and vice-chair of the Abbotsford school board both teach at a large Fundamentalist Evangelical “University” in the Fraser River Valley.
Kudos to BC’s Minister of Education Art Charbonneau for forcing
the board in Abbotsford (The Land That Time Forgot, as talk-jock David Berner calls it) to follow the BC curriculum and not teach religious mythology as science. Having issued a strong directive to the board with a Sept. 15th deadline, Charbonneau said “It is not a debatable issue.” Quite right. Now, if the rest of the NDP cabinet would have the guts to eliminate prayers and bibles at parliamentary ceremonies and openings, it might assure us that they really don’t believe that a deity is running the province.
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lost text
insert wherever?! Tell us where and win a prize [just joking]
rt of Concerned Citizens for Fetal Rights
and Dignity; and Dr. Wayne Poley,
Hand coded to HTML by Galen Thurber oct95 [in a rush as usual]
by converting thru MSword to HTML writer. Wow all is not lost!
Sorry for any mistakes.