American Association for the Advancement of Atheism

American Association for the Advancement of Atheism
Formation 1925
Location
Key people
 Charles Lee Smith
James Hervey Johnson
Affiliations Junior Atheist League

The American Association for the Advancement of Atheism (4A), was an atheistic and antireligious organization established in 1925.[1][2] It was founded by Charles Lee Smith,[3] and organization's "only creedal requirement was a formal profession of atheism".[1]

Activities

The Special Committee on Un-American Activities (1938-1944) wrote that "The American Association for the Advancement of Atheism is attempting to abrogate nil laws enforcing Christian morals; to stop 'bootlegging of religion in public schools'; to stop 'issuance of religious proclamations by Government officials,' such as Thanksgiving, etc.; to tax ecclesiastical property; to repeal Sunday (blue law) legislation; to tax and nationalize church property."[4] The Junior Atheist League was founded in 1927, and enrolled students from the age of seven to seventeen.[5]

Elizabeth Dilling in The Red Network, wrote that "Blamegiving Day has been officially established by the Association as a day of protest against Thanksgiving services."[6] The program for a Blamegiving event run by the American Association for the Advancement of Atheism advertised itself as “a protest against Divine negligence, to be observed each year on Thanksgiving Day, on the assumption, for the day only, that God exists.”[3] The New York Times further delineates Blamesgiving Day, writing that "A protest sermon explained the purpose of Blamesgiving: 'While others are expressing their gratefulness for the good things of the past year, there can be no harm in making a similar list of things that were not so good.'[7]

In the 1920s, Ilya Ivanovich Ivanov "submitted to the Soviet government a project for hybridizing humans and apes by means of artificial insemination" and the "American Association for the Advancement of Atheism announced its fund-raising campaign to support Ivanov's project but gave it a scandalously racist interpretation".[8]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 Beau, Bryan F. Le (1 March 2005). The Atheist: Madalyn Murray O'Hair. NYU Press. p. 8. ISBN 9780814751725. The American Association for the Advancement of Atheism, the most explicitly antireligious movement in America prior to O'Hair's American Atheists, organized in 1925. Its only creedal requirement was a formal profession of atheism.
  2. ↑ Misiroglu, Gina (26 March 2015). American Countercultures: An Encyclopedia of Nonconformists, Alternative Lifestyles, and Radical Ideas in U.S. History. Routledge. p. 49. ISBN 9781317477297. In 1925, nonbelievers organized the American Association for the Advancement of Atheism, the most explicitly antireligious movement in America to date.
  3. 1 2 Cheadle, Harry (25 November 2013). "The Hateful History of Blamegiving Day, the Most Bitter, Godless Holiday of All Time". Vice. Retrieved 26 November 2015. Case in point: the American Association for the Advancement of Atheism (4A), a particularly ill-tempered organization founded in 1925 by activist Charles Lee Smith.
  4. ↑ Investigation of Un-American propaganda activities in the United States. House Un-American Activities Committee. 1938. Retrieved 26 November 2015.
  5. ↑ Robinson, Thomas A.; Ruff, Lanette R. (5 December 2011). Out of the Mouths of Babes: Girl Evangelists in the Flapper Era. Oxford University Press. p. 21. ISBN 9780199790876. Even children were invited to join the atheists'path. In public schools, atheist clubs were being formed, actively promoted by the American Association for the Advancement of Atheism and its school-level subgroup, the Junior Atheist League. This youth group was formed in 1927 for school students from age seven to seventeen--roughly from the first grade to high school graduation. The League had a number of early leaders, largely the consequence of a high turnover.
  6. ↑ Dilling, Elizabeth Kirkpatrick (1934). The Red Network. Retrieved 26 November 2015.
  7. ↑ Steinberg, Stephen (26 November 1981). "Cranberries from a Political Bog". The New York Times. Retrieved 26 November 2015.
  8. ↑ Etkind, Alexander (2008). "Beyond eugenics: the forgotten scandal of hybridizing humans and apes". Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences. 39 (2): 205–210. doi:10.1016/j.shpsc.2008.03.004. ISSN 1369-8486. In the mid-1920s, the zoology professor Ilia Ivanov submitted to the Soviet government a project for hybridizing humans and apes by means of artificial insemination. He received substantial financing and organized expeditions to Africa to catch apes for his experiments. His project caused an international sensation. The American Association for the Advancement of Atheism announced its fund-raising campaign to support Ivanov's project but gave it a scandalously racist interpretation.
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