Whether Anglicans or Zorastrians, it takes a modicum of marketing to make religions and belief systems known, understood and accepted. I observe large religions woefully lacking in that skill, while a few without many followers are able to promote and make it clear what they are about. In recent years, the Humanists, atheists and reason advocates have emerged as smartly equipped and up to the task. Its been helped by the likes of writers Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris.I think back to the 1980s when I met and interviewed Madalyn Murray OHair a number of times. She was feisty, foul-mouthed and so quotable. The late, slain leader of American Atheists brought her group to the Valley a couple times for conventions. OHair, I believe, got more credit than she merited for the 1963 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that barred organized prayer in public schools. Her case was part of a spate of cases broiling at the time about Bible-reading and group prayers in school. Her case against school officials in Baltimore and another, the Abington Township School Distict vs. Schempp, were two of the primary cases that led the High Court ruling 8-1 to end such mandatory practices in public schools. OHair and her tightly controlled operation in Austin, Texas, struggled for legitimacy and financial survival. Chapters in various states seemed to flounder to keep up. Here in the Valley, I would get their meeting notices to publish. Occasionally, they would make the news, usually for protesting religious groups getting advantages in public policy. Once I was invited to speak to a monthly meeting in Phoenix chapter of the American Atheists about newspaper religion coverage. In more recent years, I have spoken to American Humanists, who artfully present themselves as strong in the exercise of reason and hold a more let-live attitude about organized religions. Humanism, while commonly discredited by orthodox religionists, provides a pretty disarming list of principles. Paul Kurtz, editor of Free Inquiry magazine, professor emeritus of the University of Buffalo and author of seminal books on humanism, has compiled definitive statement of 21 principles that hold up well with tenets of major religions. For example, We are committed to the application of reason and science to the understanding of the universe and to the solving of human problems; we cultivate the arts of negotiation and compromise as a means of resolving differences and achieving mutual understanding; we are citizens of the universe and are excited by discoveries still to be made in the cosmos; and we believe in the fullest realization of the best and noblest that we are capable of as human beings.Many traditional religion people repel at such statements as we believe in enjoying life here and now and developing our creative talents to the fullest or we deplore efforts to denigrate intelligence, to seek to explain the world in supernatural terms and to look outside nature for salvation or we are skeptical of untested claims to knowledge, and we are open to novel ideas and seek new departures in our thinking.Through the years, writers like Nat Hentoff, Christopher Hitchens, Gore Vidal and Kurt Vonnegut Jr. have consistently argued for reason over the supernatural. But two writers have seemed to taken it all to another level: Sam Harris, author of the bestsellers The End of Faith and Letter to a Christian Nation and Richard Dawkins, an Oxford University professor and author of The God Delusion. I recently interviewed Harris about his Letter book and found him a no-nonsense intellectual willing to cut religious believers slack if they could just CONSISTENTLY LIVE OUT WHAT THEY SAY THEY BELIEVE.Besides the two mens ability to compellingly chronicle the abuses from religion, they have enormous skill in positing the case as to why human progress and development is held back by the obsession with dogma and entrenched religious tradition. Like this zinger from Dalkins in the February-March issues of Free Inquiry: Religious apologists will try to persuade you that, without scriptural or priestly authority, wed have no moral compass, no guidelines for what is right and what is wrong. Anybody who seriously advocates basing our morals on the Bible has not read it with sufficient attention. The Bible is an ethical disaster area, dotted with small islands of decent morality that you can find if you search hard enough.Or this, in the same issue, from Harris: If reputable scientists cannot be made to agree that there are important intellectual and moral differences between knowing something and pretending to know it, we are doomed.

Call to Action continues to get no respect from Bishop Thomas Olmsted or his counterpart in the Diocese of Tucson, Bishop Gerald Kicanas. The Phoenix and Tucson chapters of the Chicago-based organization, seeking reforms and moderinization in the Roman Catholic Church, have gotten their plans stymied by the bishops, ever obedient to the Vatican. Its an organization that has become a pariah of the church because of its relentless calls for change.Call to Action chapters in Tucson and Phoenix had arranged for retired Detroit Bishop Thomas J. Gumbleton, 77, to speak this week. An outspoken advocate for the victims of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, Gumbleton says he has been restricted by the Vatican because of his statements. A year ago, he told the Ohio Legislature that it should legally expand the time frames for abuse victims to file lawsuits, as people come forward with stories of abuse from many decades ago. Gumbleton has stated that a priest sexually abused him while a boy.Now, the papal nuncio, or Vaticans ambassador to the United States, Piedro Sambi, has been put in charge of approving all requests for the bishop to speak, Call to Action says. Gumbleton further has to get permission of the bishops in the jurisdictions before speaking. He was turned down by the two Arizona bishops and subsequently canceled his talk. Its a policy that Vatican has applied to other dissidents in leadership roles in the church, including barring all kinds of Catholic and non-Catholic speakers from church property if their message departs from Catholic orthodoxy.Gumbleton, longtime writer of The Peace Pulpit column in the National Catholic Reporter, had been slated to speak Tuesday in Tucson on Homosexuality and the Church. His Phoenix topic was to be Gospel for Today. Gumbleton, a founding member of Pax Christi USA and an unspoken critic of the war in Iraq, is being called a prisoner of conscience by Call to Action. According to press reports, Gumbleton has said that it is only in bringing all clergy abuse to full exposure and full accountability, including those barred because of statutes of limitation, that the Catholic church has any possibility of restoring credibility in church leaders as moral teachers and guides.It seems that the time has come for Catholics to reclaim their church, their church property and their God-given freedom of choice regarding selection of prophetic voices, John Chuchman, a Call to Action member from Scottsdale, said in a widely distributed e-mail, including those in the organization. Call to Action was planning to bypass the bishops by playing a DVD of a recent talk by Gumbleton at 7 p.m. this Wednesday (Feb. 7) at the Church of the Beatitudes (United Church of Christ), 555 W. Glendale Ave., Phoenix. In Tuesdays Arizona Republic, Phoenix diocesan spokesman James Dwyer stated that the bishops were not having a problem with Gumbleton but with Call to Action. The bishop (Olmsted) is pleased that Bishop Gumbleton has decided to cancel, Dwyer stated. I dont believe he or any bishop has to explain in detail why we do not endorse Call to Action. The record speaks for itself. Among Call to Actions issues for change are lifting celibacy requirements for priests, allowing women to become priests, and permitting lay people to have greater voice, including in the selection of leaders like bishops.The national CTA web site (www.cta-usa.org) draws attention to the Gumbleton controversy. It urges people to contact the bishops to register their feelings. The good news is that CTA members across Arizona are rising up in gospel nonviolence resistance, providing the opportunity for Catholics to hear Bishop Gumbleton speak via video and creating a cross-country campaign with fellow Catholics in Detroit, it says.Catholics are urged to tell bishops that I am a Catholic who supports Bishop Gumbleton and believe that all bishops should have spoken out like he did to support the survivors of sexual abuse. Said Chuchman, The good to come out of all of this is that the hierarchys oppressive and un-Christian attitude, even towards one of their own who dares speak the truth, gets very visible and public exposure. Detroit.As a result, the Arizona bishops have denied Bishop

On Saturday, I attended the funeral of Elmer Bradley, 76, longtime Tempe homebuilder and a man dedicated to building large community (non-denominational) churches in the Valley. I was stunned that during the 90-minute funeral, there was not one mention that he had served two years (1968-70) as Tempes mayor.Was it an oversight? Was it informational trivia that was cut out? After the funeral, I mentioned it to both former Mayor Dale Shumway, who defeated Bradley in his re-election bid in 1970, and with current Mayor Hugh Hallman. They, too, were nonplussed by the blind spot in the eulogies. A solid lineup of speakers took turns showcasing Bradleys remarkable and earnest life. Midway through the funeral at Grace Community Church in Tempe, the sanctuary darkened and the two overhead screens featured a well-developed video of Bradleys story from Chino Valley pinto bean farmers son to prominent tract homebuilder and philanthropist. But no photos and no mention of him in his public service role as the 12th mayor going back to 1920. I had to find out, so I tracked down the Rev. Guy Davidson in the church lobby after the funeral. The founder of Grace Community in 1967, Davidson told me somehow he had skipped over part of the text of his eulogy. He gave me a copy and said mayor was in there in his prepared remarks, somewhere. Sure enough, its there but in the most minimal sense: Leader: On the basketball court, the home, the church, the community, Elmer sought to give leadership. He helped shape our Tempe community as he served as mayor. One man stated that he was demanding, but most often right. Thats it. So, Elmer Bradley was Tempes best former mayor whose electoral accomplishment was never mentioned at his funeral. Bradley had first tried to win the mayors seat in 1966 but lost 1,849 to 1,382 to Rudy Campbell. But he tried again in 1968 and handily won over Elmo Gerber, 2,999 to 1,839. Bradley ran for re-election in 1970 and lost by 346 votes to Shumway. So here was a man who ran three times for mayor and won once, yet it didnt get a mention in his earthly send-off. During his tenure, the upside-down-pyramid, the city hall in downtown Tempe and the city library at Southern Avenue and Rural Road were constructed, and the city sign and design-review ordinances were adopted, old-timers recall. Meanwhile, the city was being invaded by newcomers in those years, and Bradley the Builder was doing all he could to give the green light to meeting that growth.Everyone in the church the main floor was fairly packed heard much about Bradleys deep, abiding Christian faith, starting with his Sunday school days at an Assembly of God church in Phoenix where he first met Davidson when they were 9. Years later, it was Bradley whose company built Grace. Davidson hinted of conflicts, at times, with his friend. Another large Tempe church, Bethany Community Church, four miles away was Bradleys next contribution to his church-building passion. Then 10 years ago, the Bradley-Davidson team created Arizona Community Church in south Tempe. Along the way, Bradley helped several congregations erect edifices with Bradleys formulas for minimum cost of construction. Bradleys frugal ways were reported again and again by speakers, some of whom said it allowed for him to handsomely donate to his favorite charities including Campus Crusade for Christ, Greater Europe Mission and Far East Broadcasting.Bradley briefly was a pastor in Tacoma, Wash., after graduating from Seattle Pacific University where he played basketball. It was noted that, while in college, he was part of a close group of Christian men, one of which was the famed Presbyterian pastor, the Rev. Eugene Peterson, author of the ground-breaking 1993 work: The Message: The New Testament in Contemporary English.I always enjoyed my brief encounters with Elmer Bradley, the lanky, self-assured Tempean who put a half-century into turning the earth into homes and houses of worship. And one-time Tempe mayor.

Shame on the Scottsdale City Council for voting to make Dumpster diving illegal. The 4-2 vote coming from a council in such an upscale community speaks volumes of its seeming callousness to poverty. And Im not talking about the issue of protecting people from identity theft.America is the ultimate throwaway society. The wealth that goes into garbage cans and by the tons into Dumpsters is obscene. It is just too easy to throw furniture, working appliances, baby strollers, clothing, utensils, toys, books and half of Grandmas home or apartment furnishings into the Dumpster behind her residence. In a smart and caring society, all this stuff would be thoughtfully sorted and looked at for worth and recycle value. Items would be carefully looked at for sending to Goodwill or Save the Family and others. Or there would be a complete carport or parking lot sale, putting that stuff out there for sale. The prices could be low to have it taken quickly. The proceeds might even be given to a charity. There is worth in many possessions we choose to no longer want. Some service clubs even will go into a dwellings or offices and haul stuff away to hold their own sales.Or one can telephone a charity to come get it the stuff we dont want. There are plenty of groups willing to take most stuff and resell what is marketable.In so much of the world, city garbage dumps and landfills are filled with the poorest people rummaging and ferreting for anything of possible worth for their own use or to sell. Often just to eat.If we were thoughtful, our Dumpsters would only have pure garbage and shred stuff that cant be recycled. Paper documents would be shred and put into recycle barrels for transporting to recycling centers to convert into new paper. When it comes to any identity theft through Dumpsters, the blame needs to be put on the dumpers the residents and business people who were too lazy and careless to dispose of their documents properly. We don’t need more "government protection" for people sloppy with their documents and papers.And a good number of Dumpster divers, I suggest, are really after the beer, soda, tea and power drink aluminum cans that can be sold these days for about 70 cents per pound, making each can worth about three cents when sold for recycle. Unless and until people become responsible enough to not discard cans and things of worth and value into their Dumpsters, it all should be fair game for others to rummage through them and take what they want. It is part of the worthy goal of recycling and reusing and preserving the earths resources.Government and law enforcement are obsessed with security and call on the public to be their eyes and ears and be on the lookout for suspicious activities. There have commonly seen reports of Dumpster divers discovering stolen properly, abandoned dangerous materials and even human bodies, including babies, in the receptacles. Clearly people rummaging through them provide a kind of safeguard to keep crime evidence from going straight to landfills to be covered and buriedIt should not be a crime to search the public recesses of this planet for what the haves have had and now no longer want. Other Valley communities should not follow this patrician approach to protecting those with resources. People should take responsibility for protecting their own documents. It should never be a crime to take what others dont want. After all one mans junk can be another persons treasure.