(16532) Sat 15 Apr 95  7:53p
By: Robin Murray-o'hair
To: All
Re: American Atheists On Easter
St:
------------------------------------------------------------
@MSGID: 1:382/1006.0 87F21BE8
@TID: WILDMAIL!/WC v4.11  94-0279
                     American Atheists, Inc.
              P O Box 140195, Austin, TX 78714-0195
 Voice: (512) 458-1244   FAX: (512) 467-9525 BBS: (512) 302-0223
                  E-mail: info@atheist.org

                 Easter? It's Crazy, Say Atheists

For Release on April 14, 1995


     American Atheists today issued a position statement on
celebration of Easter:

                EASTER: A HOLY DAY TO BE ABANDONED

     Colonel Ethan Allen (1738-89), the American Revolutionary
hero who won the battle of Ticonderoga, without whom there would
probably never have been a United States, put it correctly: no
one can impute his "sins" to another.

     Abraham Lincoln (1809-65) saw it for what it was and labeled
it "the Christian scheme of salvation."

     Adam and Eve are said to have "imputed" their original sin
to you. Since you are born with that "sin," you can never get to
heaven unless you ask J.C. to "impute" your sin to himself --
when he has been dead for 2,000 years, or, as Atheists hold, at
most existed only as a mythological figure.

     Sound nuts?

     It is! "This is why the bloody, baleful, death-centered
Christian tale of Easter must be abandoned," Jon G. Murray,
president of American Atheists, said in an interview today. "It
is neither rational nor acceptable. This is the season of Spring,
when life and hope are in the air, everywhere blooming around
us," Murray said. "It is the Vernal Equinox, a time to slough off
the grim, the drama of death, and robe ourselves in the revelry
of life aborning everywhere."

     No three-day-old rotting body ever descended to hell or rose
to heaven with or without a bagful of sins.

     You're on your own, dummy. Pick up your life and enjoy it.

     American Atheists Inc., headquartered in Austin, Texas, is
the nation's only organized membership group of Atheists
dedicated to the "resurrection of reason" in our culture.

 * WCE 2.0/2394 * Jesus Christ: Imaginary Playmate to Millions of Adults!

--- WILDMAIL!/WC v4.11
 * Origin: American Atheists Online (512) 302-0223  (1:382/1006.0)