Atheist

"Read your Bible, if you have not done it before, and you will find hundreds of passages relative to the Divine Being which any moral and honest man would be ashamed to have appended to his character.

"The God of the Bible is depicted as one who ... cursed a snake, sewed skins together for clothes, preferred the savory smell of roast cutlets to the odors of boiled cabbage; who sat in a burning bush or popped out from behind the rocks.

"This irate old God who thunders imprecations from the mountain or mutters and grouches in the tabernacle, and whom Moses finds so hard to tame; who, in his paroxysms of rage, has massacred hundreds of thousands of his own chosen people, and would often have slaughtered the whole lot if cunning old Moses hadn't kept reminding him of 'what will the Egyptians say about it?' makes one feel utter contempt for the preachers and unfeigned pity for the mental state of those who can retail serious countenance as they per the stories of his peculiar whims, freaks and fancies."

Thus wrote recently, in Toronto one Ernest V. Steiry, editor of newly established atheist weekly Christian Inquirer. Last week he was arrested, charged with "blasphemous, indecent and profane libel of and concerning the holy scriptures and the Christian religion." In vain he pleaded: "I was not writing of the Christian God but the God' of the Jews."

Referring to the case, Crown Attorney (Prosecutor) Eric Armour said sternly: "One may attack the Christian religion if one does so in decent reasonable language; but publications which in an indecent spirit asperse Christianity or the Scriptures, and do so in a language calculated and tended to shock the feelings and outrage the belief of mankind, are held to be liable to prosecution.'

Jailed, Atheist Sterry, a short, mild, slim man, was able to turn $1,000 bail within a few hours, was thereupon released. Blinking diffidently at newsgatherers he said a toneless voice:

'I don't believe in God; I do believe in Heaven or Hell; I do believe in the Bible as the inspired work of a God. All I know is that we are on this earth. The one thing we can do here is try overcome the forces of nature in order to make it a better place for the generations that come after us."

Straightway the Rationist (Atheist) Society of Canada, Inc. announced that its entire resources would be expended, if neceessary, on the defense of Mr. Sterry. Only twice in Canadian history has a blasphemy charge of this nature been upheld.