REV. ART'S ATHEIST PIN-UPS!

TASLIMA NASRIN - HUMAN RIGHTS ACTIVIST-NOBEL LAUREATE

From CelebAtheists

Clerics in Bangladesh have offered a $5,000 bounty for the murder of Taslima Nasreen because of her her active engagement for women's rights and outspoken criticism of religious fanaticism.

In an article in New Politics magazine, Nasreen is described as

"A self-declared atheist, [who] warns that fundamentalist tendencies -- whatever the particular religion -- invariably oppress women: 'Fundamentalism is the misuse of religion as an instrument of power for political ends."'

In "International Humanist News" (Vol.6 No.2 October 1998) there is a quote by Taslima Nasreen:

"Again I dare to write against male-made religion. I believe that women are oppressed by every religion. If any religion allows the persecution of people of different faiths, if any religion keeps people in ignorance, if any religion keeps women in slavery, then I cannot accept that religion. Freedom for women will never be possible until they cross the barrier of religion and patriarchy." (quoted from her Oxford Amnesty Lecture [whatever that may mean] in 1995)

1998 'Humanist of the Year'.

ARTHUR MILLER - PLAYWRIGHT

(shown with Director of 2 Miller Plays - Elia Kazan)

1940s

ARTHUR MILLER was an ethnic Jew, and an avowed unbeliever, quoted in the program for the Sydney Theatre Company's production of his play "Broken Glass", from an interview by Caroline Scott and Alexandra Lautenbacher in Sunday Times Magazine, 1995, he said:

"I have no formal religion but there's a space in my head for it. Maybe I would believe in God if he believed in me. But we're living in a reality that's so hard to understand. In the last 75 years the human race has been humiliated in a way we've never known before..."

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FROM the Arthur Miller Society website: ~~~ ARTHUR MILLER died with the same dignity by which he had always lived, at his home in Connecticut on February 10th, at the age of 89, and he will be greatly missed by all who knew him or his work. A great writer, a staunch humanitarian, and vital human being, his biggest legacy is his writing, and he has thankfully left us with a great wealth. It will be the society's privilege to continue to promote and study this national treasure. ~~~

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~~~ With his first successes--All My Sons (1947; film, 1948), winner of the Drama Critics Circle Award, and Death of a Salesman (1949; film, 1952), winner of both the Drama Critics Circle Award and the Pulitzer Prize - Arthur Miller condemned the American ideal of prosperity on the grounds that few can pursue it without making dangerous moral compromises. Death of a Salesman, with its expressionistic overtones, remains Miller's most widely admired work. The keen social conscience evident in these plays has continued to manifest itself in Miller's writing.

In the Tony Award-winning The Crucible (1953), for instance, he wrote of the witch-hunts in colonial Salem, Mass., and implied a parallel with the congressional investigations into subversion then in progress. The probing psychological tragedy A View from the Bridge (1955) questions the reasonableness of U.S. immigration laws. After the Fall (1964), which includes a thinly disguised portrayal of Miller's unhappy marriage to film actress Marilyn Monroe, offers a second, candid consideration of the congressional investigations in which Miller had been personally involved. Two one-act plays, Incident at Vichy (1964) and The Price (1968), deal with the universality of human responsibility and the guilt that often accompanies survival and success. ~~~ Levity.com

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~~~ Along the way Elia Kazan ... engaged in a long and bitter debate with other figures from the theater, the playwrights Arthur Miller and Lillian Hellman conspicuous among them, ever since that day in 1952 when he identified eight people who had been, along with him, Communist Party members in the Group Theater in the 1930's . . . Mr. Miller, who also testified before the committee but refused to answer questions about other people, (said) little, overtly hostile about Mr. Kazan personally, though, at one point in his autobiography, "Timebends," published by Grove Press (in '87), he (referred) to "those who groveled before this tawdry tribune of moralistic vote-snatchers."

For Mr. Miller, the hearings came out of paranoia and hysteria. He wrote: "With the tiniest Communist Party in the world, the United States was behaving as though on the verge of bloody revolution." Mr. Miller, argued ... that most of the people targeted by the committee had long since given up their youthful, idealistic enthusiasm for Communism and the Soviet Union. ~~~ University of PA

(Miller defended Kazan's controversial award of a special Oscar in 1999.)

MARILYN MONROE - ACTOR-GODDESS

NORMA JEAN WAS A PIN-UP -
"A CANDLE IN THE WIND"

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[Ayn Rand's Tribute to Marilyn:]

“Marilyn Monroe on the screen was an image of pure, innocent, childlike joy in living. She projected the sense of a person born and reared in some radiant utopia untouched by suffering, unable to conceive of ugliness or evil, facing life with the confidence, the benevolence, and the joyous self-flaunting of a child or a kitten who is happy to display its own attractiveness as the best gift it can offer the world, and who expects to be admired for it, not hurt …

A woman, the only one, who was able to project the glowingly innocent sexuality of a being from some planet uncorrupted by guilt--who found herself regarded and ballyhooed as a vulgar symbol of obscenity--and who still had the courage to declare: "We are all born sexual creatures, but it's a pity so many people despise and crush this natural gift."

… The evil of a cultural atmosphere is made by all those who share it. Anyone who has ever felt resentment against the good for being the good and has given voice to it, is the murderer of Marilyn Monroe.

SARAH MCLACHLAN - CELTIC (Canadian) SINGER

From Celeb Atheists

Sarah MacLachlan - Recording Artist

Though she has performed for the Pope, she is reported to regard herself as agnostic.

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She covers the bitingly atheistic XTC song 'Dear God' in a 1996 XTC tribute CD, A Testimonial Dinner (thirsty ear recordings).

One reader suspects McLachlan to be a full believer, pointing to her songs mentioning 'Heaven, Hell, God, Jesus, angels, and even Eden'.

This reader also reports that in an interview featured on the program 'Egos and Icons', which was shown on the Canadian music channel MuchMusic, she says, 'It's like, God!' She says the word 'God' in a disgusted sort of manner, but then immediately covers her mouth with her hand and says, 'Sorry, I didn't mean to say that.'

Excerpted from a May 28th, 1996 SprintChat:

Q: Hi, Sarah, I hope you won't mind a personal question. What religion do you follow?

A: I don't follow any organized religion, but I do believe in the idea of god as a verb -- being love and light. and that we are part of everything as everything is part of us.

Q: Your most recent releases contain quite different examples of direction. 'Full of Grace' and 'I Will Remember You' are very soft and restrained, while your cover of Dear God contains a building intensity and anger that makes the song so sublime (and you may have guessed that I prefer this). Will we see more of this on your next album?

A: 'Dear God' is not a song that I wrote and it has an intensity that perhaps I don't possess on my own.

Q: Did you have any reservations from an ideological standpoint about covering the song 'Dear God'?

A: None whatsoever.

JULIANNE MOORE - ACTRESS

Celeb Atheists

Moore was interview on the Actor’s Studio (Episode # 9.7 - 22 December 2002)

The host asked (paraphrased) "What would you say to God at the pearly gates?"

Moore answered (not paraphrased) "Wow, I was wrong, you really do exist."