american atheist magazine june 1982

8/9/2019 American Atheist Magazine June 1982

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THE

2.50

AMERICAN ATHEIST

A Journal of Atheist News and Thought

(Vol. 24, NO.6) June, 1982

T h e O m i n o u s Sptttrt

Religion in Government


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AMERICAN ATHEISTS

isa non-profit, non-political,educational orgamzation, dedicated to the complete and absolute separation ofstate and church.

We accept the explanation ofThomas Jefferson that the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States was

meant to create a wall of separation between state and church.

American Atheists are organized to stimulate and promote freedom ofthought and inquiry concerning religious beliefs,

.creeds, dogmas, tenets, rituals and practices;

to collect and disseminate information, data and literature on all religions and promote a more thorough understanding

of them, their origins and histories;

to encourage the development and public acceptance of a human ethical system, stressing the mutual sympathy,

understanding and interdependence of all people and the corresponding responsibility of each individual in relation to

society;

to develop and propagate a culture inwhich man is the central figure who alone must be the source ofstrength, progress

and ideals for the well-being and happiness of humanity;

to promote the study of the arts and sciences and of all problems affecting the maintenance, perpetuation and

enrichment of human (and other) life;

to engage in such social, educational, legal and cultural activity as willbe useful and beneficial to members ofAmerican

Atheists and to society as a whole. Ath . b d f i d

eism may e e me

as the mental attitude which

unreservedly accepts the

supremacy of reason and

aims at establishing a life-

style and ethical outlook

verifiable by experience and

the scientific method, inde-

pendent of all arbitrary as-

sumptions of authority and

creeds.

Materialism declares that

the cosmos is devoid of

immanent conscious pur-

pose; that it is governed by

its own inherent, immutable

and impersonal laws; that

there is no supernatural

interference in human life; ' .-

. that man - finding his

resources within himself -

can and must create his own

destiny. Materialism restores

~

. to man his dignity and his

.-7 intellectualintegrity.Itteaches

. that we must prize our life

,,0 on earth and strive always to

improve it. It holds that man

is capable of creating a

socialsystem based on reason

and justice. Materialism's

faith is in man and man's

abilityto transform the world

culture by his own efforts.

This is a commitment which

isin every essence lifeassert-

mg. It considers the struggle

for progress as a moral

obligation and impossible

without noble ideas that

Inspire man to bold creative

works. Materialism holds

that humankind's potential

for good and for an outreach

P.O.80x2117 AUSTIN, TX78768-2117 to more fulfilling cultural

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Vol. 24, No.6) June, 1982

ARTICLES

Pope Wojtyla in Fatima, Portugal Part 2

-Jean Yves Riviere 3

FEATURED COLUMNISTS

Tolerance and Intolerance - Jeff Frankel : 4

Life and Death of a Star - G. Stanley Brown 5

Religion's Assault on Information and Learning

- Fred Woodworth 25

PICTORIAL REVIEW

Convention ..Atheist Style 8

NEWS

American Atheists Win a Big One 21

REGULAR FEATURES

Editorial: Reds - Jon Murray 2

Editor~in-Chief

Madalyn Murray O'Hair

Managing Editor

Jon G. Murray

Poetry

Robin Murray-O'Hair

Production Staff

Art Brenner

BillKight

Richard Smith

Gerald Tholen

Gloria Tholen

Non-Resident Staff

G. Stanley Brown

Jeff Frankel

Ignatz Sahula-Dycke

Fred Woodworth

The American Atheist magazine is pub-

lished monthly at the Gustav Broukal Ameri-

can Atheist Press, 2210 Hancock Dr., Aus-

tin, TX 78756, and

1982 by Society of

Separationists, Inc., a non-profit, non-politi-

cal, educational organization dedicated to

the complete and absolute separation of

state and church. Mailing address: P. O.

Box 2117, Austin, TX 78768-2117. A free

subscription is provided as an incident of

membership in the American Atheists or-

ganization. Subscriptions are available at

$25. for one year terms only. Manuscripts

submitted must be typed, double-spaced

and accompanied by a stamped. self-ad-

dressed envelope. The editors assume no

responsibility for un solicited manuscripts.

The American Atheist magazine

is indexed in

Monthly Periodical Index

ISSN: 0332-4310

ON THE COVER

AMERICAN ATHEIS T

T ht O m inous

Sp tt

Rel ig ion in Government

On the one hand, our cover picture for

this month may be considered to be

technically in error. The word spectre

has two meanings. Religion in govern-

ment may be described as anything but a

non-substantive, incorporeal apparition.

Fact is that religio-politicism is a truly

existing blight, not only in our nation's

capitol, but extending completely

through our governmental and political

system on down to our very doorsteps.

No social planning or electoral office

campaigning is free from its twisting

tentacles.

At no time inour history has religionso

thrust its ugly, biased self upon the

nation as it is now doing. So bad is the

situation that our most esteemed branch

of federal government, the Judicial

branch, is in immediate peril for its

continued existence. Our citizenry ap-

parently is not aware of the awesome-

ness of Executive control without the

restraints provided by the Judicial

branch. So, ina sense, religion ingovern-

ment is no spectre - it is a monstrous

reality

On the other hand, the word spectre

suggests a source of terror or dread .

Terror, being a product of human aware-

ness, can be ridden from the mind - if

people are so inclined. In this context our

cover is correct. People have only to

declare, through our electoral system,

that they will no longer tolerate this

incredible coalition. At that point the

misty intruder willbe dispersed into the

realm of non-existence.

G. Tholen'

Austin, Texas

June, 1982

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EDITORIAL

Jon

G.

Murray

Reds

The Soviets know how to play geopolitics in a much more

sophisticated manner than does our national (so-to-speak)

leaders. When it comes to the theopolitical field they are,

in many aspects, superb theological chess players. Having

built into its constitution a complete separation of state and

church, the nation has felt comfortable enough to permit

churches to function - knowing as it does that without

state tax exemption, state financial support, state favorit-

ism, churches can only remain static and small.

Knowing full well that the christian religions are both used

and rewarded for being used by the United States in its

ideological confrontation with the Soviets, that nation in

May pulled off its own black propaganda coup. The United

States is adept at black propaganda and recognized the

ploy so that the White House stepped in to ask Billy

Graham not to go to Moscow to participate in a meeting of

several hundred of the Clergy against Nuclear War. The

temptation of carrying the words of jesus to Atheist

Russia was too overpowering to Graham in his basic

fanaticism and he eschewed the warning of the White

House.

Courteously received and having been shown that there

exist in the U.S.S.R. literally thousands of churches (albeit

small ones) Graham was enthused about incipient reli-

gious freedom in that nation. The news media of the United

States speaking to the ploy instead of the basic issue fell

upon the subsequent words and reports of Graham in

regard to religion. That was NOT the name of the game.

What the Soviets were doing was reaching out for another

group of allies in respect to disarmament and the precluding

of a nuclear war. It was incidental whom that group

represented as long as it could be enlisted on the side of

peace. What citizens of our nation do not understand is [1]

that Russia was decimated in the First World War and her

revolution immediately associated with that war and [2] that

she lost 20,000,000 people and several great cities in the

Second World War. The United States, bounded by two

oceans, knows nothing of the decimation of a war on its own

territory. No civilians, no cities of our nation have ever been

plain bombed, fire bombed or nuked. The magnitude of the

Russian lives lost has never been equalled in all of the

combined countries of the West in any war. Russia wants

and needs peace. Hence, she reaches out, if need be, to the'

utmost enemy, the clergy. And, she stages the outreach by

inviting a leader thereof into the heart of her nation:

Moscow. That is astute geopolitical and theopolitical moxie

The United States cannot pull off the reverse by asking

Atheist leaders of the world to meet in Washington, D.C. to

discuss peace by asking a foreign Atheist leader to address

them. The United States is precluded from doing this

because it has set up Atheism as a real fundamental

enemy so inherently evil, allied with Satan, that the thought

of such rapport is totally untenable politically. The

U.S.S.R., therefore, could and did play one-upman-ship

with elan.

Billy Graham, whose ignorance is surpassed only by his

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basic fanaticism, even after the event, could only see the

hope of a Graham crusade across the wild tundras of Russia

with himself as a Don Quixote of our era carrying the

word. The spectacle is pitiful.

Meanwhile, back in the United States, Graham was

underfire by his colleagues, perhaps as much out of envy, as

out of Soviet hatred. The government was aghast.

Recent media reporting of the plans of the Republican

party for the November election indicates that a religious

issue is planned to dominate the domestic scene during that

autumnal imbroglio humorously known as the democratic

process of free elections. After surveying and resurveying,

the right -wing Republicans, now in possession of the nation,

have found that they have overwhelming support, report-

ed as being 65% of the nation, on one issue and one issue

only: return of prayer to the public schools. Reagan and his

cohorts are failing across the political front in all areas,

hence a tried-and-true emotional issue is not only needed

but has been found.

The escalation of the issue started on two fronts. Within

days of Graham's return to the United States, his reports of

religious freedom in Russia were attacked from all quarters

and a campaign began in the press to show that Russia was

beginning an internal campaign to crush religion and

reinforce Atheism. This was a clear signal then for the

United States to begin an internal campaign to crush

Atheism and reinforce christianity in the United States.

Suddenly the old McCarthy issue of All Atheists are

Communists was being resurrected, while the President

himself opted for the return of prayer to the public schools.

In conjunction with the president's declaration, a test was

instituted to see how quickly a constitutional amendment

could be passed. That the place chosen was the state of

Tennessee has particular significance in the plot. The

largest bible publishing house in the world is situated in

Nashville and it is orchestrating an enormous campaign to

sell, in millions of copies, a book which will assault the

Murray-O'Hairs and the American Atheist organization as

not only tools of communism, but as communists. Due to be

released in June, the building of the campaign is scheduled

to peak in November. That the charges are a tissue of lies

matters little or nothing: the F.C.C. phantom petition (see

Vol.

24,

No.5, May,

1982 issue

of the American Atheist,

an

article titled The Phantom Phenomenon, Christ-insanity

Strikes Again )

has settled that to the benefit of the radical

right. Atheists in the United States may have their charac-

ters besmirched with impunity, public figures such as the

Murray-O'Hairs being fair game in such an exercise. A

roman catholic priest, alleged to be the Madalyn Murray

O'Hair expert for that church, was placed on loan to

Tennessee (from his Massachusetts base) to help effectuate

the legislative coup. A bill to return prayer to public schools

was introduced into the Tennessee congress on March 11th

and by April 6th it had passed both houses soon to be signed

by the governor: a three week romp. The handwriting is on

the wall.

June, 1982

American Atheists


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United World Atheists

Jean-Yves Riviere

POPE WOJTYLA IN FATIMA PORTUGAL

Part Two - THE CHURCH FED UP WITH APPARITIONS

Since last month (April/82), there has appeared a new

place of pilgrimage inFrance. Its name isLa

T alaudiere

and

it lies in the suburbs of Saint-Etienne (Loire), not very far

from La Sallette, the site of the apparition we described at

some length in Part One of this series.

As usual, things began with apparitions. These affected a

14year old girl named Blandine, not illiterate and apparent-

ly sound in mind, but for her visions. Just a detail: her

family is a very pious one and she is very pious herself.

One first assumption can be made. There isundoubtedly

no clerical trick involved in this particular affair. It is a fact

long since acknowledged by psychiatrists that for a girl,

puberty and religious environment, possibly coupled with

an alcoholic heredity, are classical factors of troubles

assuming a visionary form. Moreover, the church has

nothing to gain in calling attention to such things as phony

miracles or apparitions just a few weeks before the trip of

Wojtyla's Circus to Fatima. As we have already seen in our

brief study about the affair of La Sallette, and as we are

going to see next again about Fatima, all the recent clerical

hoaxes have been disclosed by now.

This could be a good and sufficient reason for the

reluctance of the church concerning the apparitions of

virgin mary in La Talaudiere and the interdiction of every

sort of pilgrimage there emanating from the bishop ofSaint-

Etienne himself.

But there ismore to it. Among believers, there are a good

deal of educated people who do not agree with the junk of

the so-called miracles which, in their opinion, make the

catholic religion a laughing stock for not only Atheists, but

also most of the non-catholic christians. Besides, it isworth

noticing that never did the roman catholic church proclaim

the belief in miracles or apparitions compulsory (except for

those mentioned in the holy scriptures). Faith in such

matters is anyone's personal concern, even though the

miraculous character of the fact has been acknowledged by

the catholic hierarchy.

At any rate, the very presence of the catholic church's

leader in Fatima willserve to officialize the sanctity of these

locales and a comparison with the vulgar events in La

Talaudiere is likely to tarnish the oecumenical radiance of

Fatima as one of the most celebrated places of the whole of

christianity. That is why the priests have been upset by

those new apparitions that they had neither organized nor

even wished.

Now let us tell a word about the facts inLa Talaudiere. As

soon as the rumors about Blandine and her apparitions

started to spread, excited pilgrimers hurried up by the

thousands to the young visionary's home where the holy

virgin, according to the girl, had appointed to her a Saturday

(April 17) as the date for a new apparition in the kitchen

garden. Blandine's home was a rather humble one, indeed.

It looked like a slum more than a palace. In short, it was by

no means a place to welcome the queen of heaven.

In the afternoon of April 17th, in spite of the episcopal

interdiction, a huge crowd had gathered in Blandine's

Austin, Texas

SATURDAY - NO MIRACLE AT A LITTLE SPOT IN LOIRE

kitchen garden where a shanty shithouse and a statue of the

virgin mary were the only architectural ornaments to hail

the witness of the apparition. Among the pilgrims there

were not only the local natives but also lots of foreigners

(Belgians, Dutch, and so on), who had come by motor-

coaches chartered for the spectacle. Inthe first ranks ofthe

spectators one could see plenty of cripples in their wheel-

chairs who recited prayers to virgin mary in order to be

healed and reporters armed with their cameras.

Of course, virgin mary never appeared. This can be easily

understood as a kitchen garden is no decent place for a

deity to show itself to its worshippers. So what do you think

the pilgrims did? They searched with their eyes where the

virgin could hide. And they suddenly realized there was only

one place where she could be found. Not on the ground, of

course, but high above their heads in the sky and, more

precisely, in the sun.

Thus, they began staring at the sun. After a few minutes

they saw its color change and then - oh wonder - there

were two suns in the sky instead of just one. The sun was

dancing just like in Fatima sixty-five years ago.

But, luckily, some doctors who knew about Fatima had

foreseen the case. They had come inambulances equipped

with loudspeakers through which they started warning the

SUNBURN A LA TALAUDIERE

From viewers to non-viewers

June, 1982

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crowd: Take care , they said, ifyou see the sun split into

two, this is no miracle, but a mirage. It means that your

retinas are being burnt. Then go to the hospital at once in

order to be treated .

This explains why many pilgrims who had come to La

Talaudiere with a good sight had become blind when they

left.A sort oftopsy-turvy miracle, somehow. Italso explains

why the church would have easily done without all this

publicity.

Asked about the reason why, according to her, the holy

virgin had missed their meeting, Blandine retorted that it

was on account of the presence of too many reporters and

the lack offaith oftoo many people. So also was her father's

opinion.

And now, here are some of the predictions virgin mary

has trusted the girl with:

1) Paris willbe destroyed before long, because it is

the place where the law about abortion has been

passed.

2) The virgin of La Talaudiere willparticipate in the

rescue of Russia .

3) There will be earthquakes wherever morals

become lax.

4) Diseases will strike more and more often in the

godless schools .

(Quaintly reminiscent of the predictions of Fatima.)

Moreover still, according to Blandine, virgin mary wants

the catholic priests to wear cassocks again and say mass in

Latin as they formerly did. (This last item was perhaps

suggested to her through her parents by the integrist clergy,

of which they are fiery supporters.)

to be concluded next month

The Angry Young Atheist

Jeff Frankel

TOLERANCE AND I NTOLERANCE

Tolerance is a nice word. It conjures up good images.

Tolerance would be a major factor in world peace. All

tolerance means is to allow each individual to do and believe

as he or she likes (as long as it harms no one else) without

offering opposition or ridicule. When you look at itlogically,

Atheists and christians should be able to co-exist peacefully

side by side in much the same way those who likedifferent

foods, different music, and different sports teams do. Allitis

is a difference ofopinion and any mature person should be

able to tolerate an opinion different from his or her own.

Unfortunately, it just doesn't work that way when it

comes to religion. That's because most of the major world

religions either originated from or came to prominence as a

result ofa political power struggle. Inpolitics, a difference of

opinion isneither welcomed nor desired. Religion picked its

intolerance up from the politics behind itand took itto even

lower depths.

Christianity in America today is big business above all

else. It's nothing more than a commercial gambit with

preachers promoting christ in much the same way corpora-

tions sell their laxatives, suppositories, and toilet paper.

Naturally, in the business world competition from another

business is not a desired commodity. Just as General

Motors would shed no tears if Chrysler Corporation went

down for the count, the moguls of organized religion would

love to see American Atheists fallflat on their faces. But it's

not just we Atheists they'd love to see fail.We all know the

catholics would feel no remorse if the protestant church

collapsed, nor would the mormons care if the jehovah's

witnesses bit the bullet. In the business world there's only

room for one at the top, and a little thing like each of them

supposedly getting their inspiration and morality from the

same book can't be allowed to stand in the way.

Tolerance has never been a christian virtue. Of course,

when one reads the intolerance which is so common in the

hokey babble, it's easy to see why. Christian doctrine leaves

Page 4

littleroom for tolerance ofnonbelievers or those who follow

other religions. Tolerance would indeed be a hindrance in

the narrow-minded religious opportunist's mind. In fact,

with all the power and prestige up for grabs it would be an

unaffordable weakness.

The best examples of christian intolerance in history are

the inquisition and the takeover ofthe Greco-Roman world

which initiated the Dark Ages. The best current example is

the moral majority. The precepts of the organization are

heavily based on intolerance. Intolerance towards anything

they disagree with, be it political issues like the Panama

Canal or moral issues such as abortion. Ido not mean to

say that being opposed to the sale of the Canal or to

abortion means one is intolerant. But when someone

attempts to build up the canal issue as a moral one with

empty rhetoric to sway public opinion, or try to block the

nomination of a Supreme Court justice on the basis of a

biased analysis of the individual's voting record, then

intolerance isprobably the nicest accusation you could level

at them.

In the name of christ unbelievers have been stoned to

death, as have been prostitutes and adulterers. Books have

been burned, as have people who were thought to be

witches or demons. Women, blacks, homosexuals, and (of

course) Atheists have been heavily persecuted (with the

blessings of god, naturally). This may sound like something

out of an unenlightened past, but it's not. It was only last

year that Santa Clara, California's moral majority spokes-

man Dean Wycoff recommended capital punishment for

homosexuals, and rev. Charles Mcilhenny of the first

orthodox presbyterian church of San Francisco proposed

stoning gays to death. Those record bigots Jim and Steve

Peters have made allusions towards violence against non-

believers in their sermons. Look at the violence directed at

Dr. O'Hair over the years. Can you imagine the things these

warped religionists would do ifthey had the power to do as

June, 1982

American Atheists


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the islamic fundamentalists who run the Iranian govern-

ment do? I'd be shot before I could finish writing this (and

before you could finish it).

At this point one might accuse us Atheists ofintolerance.

After all,we have taken the fightagainst christianity to court

on more than one occasion. But would anybody but the

hardest racist accuse the NAACP of intolerance for going

to court to preserve black rights? Never, to my knowledge,

has any American Atheist pursued any legal action which

would hinder anybody's religious liberty. Yet, many chris-

tians see nothing wrong with blasphemy lawsand statutes

which prevent Atheists and agnostics from holding public

office. We Atheists have to acknowledge a god we don't

believe in every time we pass any U.S. currency. We must

pay higher taxes to make up for what the churches don't

pay, thus indirectly supporting a cause in which we don't

believe. We are expected to sit back and watch our

Constitution be dragged through the mud as the First

Amendment calling for the total separation of church and

state is violated time and time again. Christians are so quick

to scream persecution and gripe about having their rights

to believe as they choose violated. If they want to find out

what persecution and rights violations are all about, they

should become Atheists for just 24 hours. They'd develop a

different viewpoint, I'm sure.

Iknow of no action ever taken byany Atheist which could

be considered unjustly intolerant of religion. That is be-

cause no Atheist action.towards religion is unprovoked or

unwarranted. What has any Atheist ever done but state his .

or her disbelief? Anything further which the Atheist does is

based on the reaction by christians or other religionists

toward the Atheist stand. No actions taken toward Atheists

by christians in this country that I know of have been

provoked. To paraphrase John Lennon the Atheist is the

nigger of the theistic world.

I am not offended by someone being a christian. With

maturity one learns to tolerate what one considers to be

ignorance. What another individual believes (or doesn't

believe) neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.Why

should any christian be offended by one who holds a

different philosophy? No logical reason exists. The only

,motivation behind such a reaction is ... (Idon't need to say

it again).

As long as religion exists, so willintolerance. The two are

linked as closely as a toilet and a septic tank. A wise man

once said that those who don't learn history are destined to

repeat it. I, for one, would hate to think of the future of our

world being nothing but one continuing religious rerun. We

Atheists must each do our part to educate the masses in

regard to the true nature of christianity and other such

superstitions. Only when the world gets an equal look at

religion and Atheism can we expect to see a decrease in

religious influence - which would mean a decrease in

intolerance. Wouldn't it be nice?

Looking Up

G. Stanley Brown

THE LIFE AND DEATH

OF

A STAR

In a previous paper (American Atheist, Vol. 24, No.1, p.

21) the scientific techniques for studying stellar evolution

were discussed. These included building mathematical

models of stars which can be compared with observations.

The initial collapse from a diffuse gas cloud into a spherical

star was described. Now we may proceed with a biography

of the changes in a star and description of a variety of

possible terminal situations.' The past decade of research

has revealed natural phenomena which would previously

have been relegated to science fiction.

Discussions of stellar evolution frequently make refer-

ence to the Hertzsprung-Russell (H-R) diagram (see the

previous paper), that graph of stellar brightness versus

temperature. An oddity of this graph is that temperature

increases to the left and decreases to the right. Brightness

increases upward as would be expected. Mass, the amount

of material in a star is not plotted on an H-R diagram. But it

has a dominating effect on where a star willbe plotted on the

diagram and on the rate of evolution. Young stars lieon the

zero-age main sequence (ZAMS) with mass increasing from

lower right to upper left. All stars lie somewhere on the

ZAMS during the beginning of their stable life.

Since mass isso important to evolution, there should be a

real world check on how stellar mass is correlated with the

two quantities represented on the H-R diagram. True

Austin, Texas

brightness is obtained from apparent brightness and dis-

tance. Temperature is obtained from color, because blue

stars are hot, red stars are cool, in the world of stars. Stellar

mass can be known when two stars are observed revolving

around each other. Such pairing is common. By measuring

the orbital speed and separation of the stars we can

compute their mass. The mathematics for this is an

application of Kepler's third law, which was mentioned in

the third paper ofthis series (American Atheist, Vol. 23, No.

12, p. 9).

STELLAR BIRTH

A star may be large, having more than ten times the mass

ofthe sun, or itmay be small, having as littleas one-tenth the

mass of the sun. For any mass the early phases ofexistence

are the same. The star is an enormous blob of gas, faintly

glowing on the outside and hotter in its center than the

apparent surface of the sun. Its position can be plotted on

an H-R diagram on the right side about mid way up. With the

passage of time the star radiates more energy, becomes

smaller, and the internal temperature rises. This raises the

external temperature, so the star moves to the left on the

diagram.

Physics and mathematics are very adept at dealing with

June, 1982

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large balls of gas. There isa principle which may be applied

to them, known as the VirialTheorem. It tells us that when a

system of mutually gravitating particles contracts, the

gravitational potential released will be split into two equal

halves. One half goes to radiant energy and the other half is

used to raise the temperature of the particles. Thus a star

which is contracting is getting very hot on the inside. The

temperature and density in the core of a new star grows far

in excess of any situation found on or in the earth. The star

continues to contract and get hotter and would continue ifa

dramatic new phenomenon did not take place. But it does; it .

is fusion. Fusion is the merging of two atomic nuclei and

simultaneous release of energy. It occurs in the center of

stars.

Temperature, on the atomic scale, is-directly related to

the speed of atoms. At temperatures found in the center of

the sun, protons move at a speed which would carry them

from Los Angeles to San Francisco in one second. Of

course, they do not move that far because of collisions with

other protons and atomic nuclei. The identical positive

electrical charges on these particles causes them to repel

grazing collisions. But at such speeds there is sometimes a

direct hit and the repulsion isovercome. The protons merge

and a different kind of force, the nuclear force ofattraction,

dominates to hold them together. Simultaneously a quan-

tum of radiation is emitted. This is a new source of energy

which raises the temperature and pressure inthe core ofthe

star. Itstops the collapse and the star settles down for a long

period of stability. The star will fuse hydrogen into helium

and radiate the resulting energy away into space.

STELLAR MIDDLE AGE

What makes a difference among stars at this stage istheir

mass. The more massive stars have higher core tempera-

tures so they can produce enough energy to prevent

collapse. They also have higher surface temperatures and

larger radii. Observations show this and extensive calcula-

tions predict this. Stars spend the largest fraction of their

lives on or near the ZAMS, but not the same amount of

time. The big ones burn up their hydrogen core fuel very

rapidly and proceed to new stages of development. Mean-

while the small stars continue to cook. The sun has been

doing it for 5 billion years.

Evolution changes the chemical structure of a star.

Whereas it was initially homogeneous throughout, the

generation of helium takes place primarily in the center. So

a core of helium grows, surrounded by a shell of fusing

hydrogen. The energy generated slowly makes its way up

through the star toward the surface. The energy

radiated

from the upper layers of the star into space is equal to the

energy created in the fusing shell.

Calculations reveal some interesting behavior in stellar

cores. The law of the Virial Theorem continues to apply; a

core will contract and get hotter and convert half of its

gravitational potential energy into radiation. The contrac-

tion squeezes the electrons closer and closer to the atomic

nuclei so that the matter changes its properties. It is said to

become electron degenerate because of the high pres-

sure. It can no longer expand inproportion to an increase in

temperature. Thus, the core ofthe star loses its thermostat.

Normally it would expand and cool when it gets too hot.

Now the temperature rises to one hundred milliondegrees

Page 6

and a fusion of helium in the core begins. Beryllium and

carbon are created with the release of more energy. This

accelerates the burning of hydrogen inthe shell above. The

core responds weakly to the increase in temperature

because it is degenerate. The result is a burst of energy

generation known as the helium flash. With this tremen-

dous output of energy the core does expand, cool, and

settle down to converting itself to carbon.

These prodigious increases in energy production are

used to expand the part of the star between the core and

top layers. Stellar radius increases. The enclosing top layers

are stretched, expanded, and cooled. Thus, the star

becomes redder. It moves up and to the right from the

ZAMS. It becomes a red giant. The most massive stars, on

the upper left in the H-R diagram, move first. Successively

lighter stars follow. Thus, there is a peeling off of the

ZAMS. The point where, on the diagram, the peeling off

occurs is a measure of the age of a cluster of stars.

Astronomers cannot observe the above happen. But

they can measure the size, brightness, temperature, and

mass of stars. The calculations of the astronomers predict

allof the things they observe. Therefore, the astronomers

believe that the ideas that go into their calculations are a

good approximation of reality.

STELLAR OLD AGE

The process of fusing elements into heavier elements

proceeds gradually with each element being created in

abundance before still heavier elements are built. This is

because nuclear particles carry a positive charge which is

approximately proportional to their weight. Positive char-

ges repel each other, in proportion to the strength of the

charge. Hence, a greater weight means a greater repulsion

and a greater speed required to overcome it. A greater

speed requires a higher temperature. Stars with small mass

are unable to develop the internal temperature required to

build heavy elements. The sun willcreate a carbon core in5

billion years, but cannot go on to build heavier elements.

More massive stars can. They go through a series offlashes,

each time adding a core of still heavier fusing atoms.

Meanwhile the outermost layer maintains the composition

it had when the star first formed.

One way to verifyour understanding ofstellar evolution is

to finddifferent clusters of stars and estimate whether they

are young or old, in cosmic time. Our decision must be

based on plausible arguments involving measurable charac-

teristics. Fortunately our galaxy has many clusters of stars

with diverse properties. Their age estimation rests on a

scenario for the history of the entire galaxy.

Our galaxy is a flattened rotating whorl of stars and gas

and dust between the stars. Two major types of clusters are

sen in our galaxy. They are known as (1) globular and (2)

galactic. The globular clusters are found primarily outside

the flattened part of the galaxy. The galactic clusters are

found in the flattened part amid the gas and dust. Globular

cluster stars have hydrogen and helium intheir upper layers

and little else. Galactic cluster stars do have heavier

elements. We know this because ofspectroscopy (see your

encyclopedia).

Astronomers interpret these facts as follows. The atrno-

spheres of globular cluster stars contain the same elements

and proportions of elements the galaxy had when it was

formed, perhaps 15 billion years ago. They are old. The

June, 1982

American Atheists


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american atheist magazine june 1982

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