Time for Atheism

The belief of greying, sad-faced Robert Harold Scott, 57, is deep and abiding. Its single tenet: there is no God. For five years godless Robert Scott pestered San Francisco radio stations to let him air his atheism. Last week, more than three months after an FCC decision in his favor (TIME, Aug. 5), Station KQW gave him 30 minutes of Sunday morning time to rehash the arguments that have been the unbeliever's stock-in-trade for many a Christian year. Excerpts:

"Though it has not been proved scientifically that no God exists--after all, it is impossible to prove a negative--it is, at any rate, a truth of the highest certainty that there is no God all-wise and allgood who is also all-powerful; for it goes without saying that an almighty God could have prevented all natural evils. ... He could have prevented the evolution of parasitic and carnivorous forms of life. ... He could have prevented tuberculosis, cancer and infantile paralysis. . . .

"The fact that no deity of any kind has ever, in any way, made himself unmistakably known to everybody in every generation, amounts, I submit, to positive proof that there is no such being."

The broadcast over, Christians, atheists and studio officials sat back to see what would happen. The reaction was immediate. Within seven days 5,000 listeners had written KQW. Said one: "My hope and prayer is that God will have mercy on [Scott] and [KQW] for your disbelief." Said another: "This is unconstitutional and should be discontinued." Members of the Southern Baptist Church of Modesto, Calif, voted a protest. Yet 24% of the letter writers, while mostly disagreeing with Scott's irreligion, commended the station for letting him speak his mind. A Congregational minister expressed their views: "It is good for any institution to be under healthful criticism, including the church. It is good for any theory to defend itself from time to time."

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