Charles Chilton Moore
Encyclopedia
Charles Chilton Moore was an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
atheist, and the editor of the Blue Grass Blade, one of the United States' first newspaper
Newspaper
A newspaper is a scheduled publication containing news of current events, informative articles, diverse features and advertising. It usually is printed on relatively inexpensive, low-grade paper such as newsprint. By 2007, there were 6580 daily newspapers in the world selling 395 million copies a...
s promoting atheism.
C. C. Moore's grandfather was the 19th century religious reformer Barton W. Stone
Barton W. Stone
Barton Warren Stone was an important preacher during the Second Great Awakening of the early 19th century. He was first ordained a Presbyterian minister, then was expelled from the church after the Cane Ridge, Kentucky revival for his stated beliefs in faith as the sole prerequisite for salvation...
. Moore became a preacher, in his grandfather's tradition, but came to doubt the Bible and its teachings. He left the church, passing through deism
Deism
Deism in religious philosophy is the belief that reason and observation of the natural world, without the need for organized religion, can determine that the universe is the product of an all-powerful creator. According to deists, the creator does not intervene in human affairs or suspend the...
and agnosticism
Agnosticism
Agnosticism is the view that the truth value of certain claims—especially claims about the existence or non-existence of any deity, but also other religious and metaphysical claims—is unknown or unknowable....
before becoming an atheist. He founded the Blue Grass Blade in 1884 in Lexington
Lexington, Kentucky
Lexington is the second-largest city in Kentucky and the 63rd largest in the US. Known as the "Thoroughbred City" and the "Horse Capital of the World", it is located in the heart of Kentucky's Bluegrass region...
, Kentucky
Kentucky
The Commonwealth of Kentucky is a state located in the East Central United States of America. As classified by the United States Census Bureau, Kentucky is a Southern state, more specifically in the East South Central region. Kentucky is one of four U.S. states constituted as a commonwealth...
. Due to financial and legal problems, he was only able to publish it sporadically. The journal contained articles advocating such positions as agnosticism, women's suffrage
Women's suffrage
Women's suffrage or woman suffrage is the right of women to vote and to run for office. The expression is also used for the economic and political reform movement aimed at extending these rights to women and without any restrictions or qualifications such as property ownership, payment of tax, or...
, and prohibition
Prohibition
Prohibition of alcohol, often referred to simply as prohibition, is the practice of prohibiting the manufacture, transportation, import, export, sale, and consumption of alcohol and alcoholic beverages. The term can also apply to the periods in the histories of the countries during which the...
.
Moore spent time in prison
Prison
A prison is a place in which people are physically confined and, usually, deprived of a range of personal freedoms. Imprisonment or incarceration is a legal penalty that may be imposed by the state for the commission of a crime...
for his outspoken opposition to religion and The Bible. In February 1899, he was indicted for mailing obscene literature through the mail - a federal crime. The obscene literature in question was a discussion about free love
Free love
The term free love has been used to describe a social movement that rejects marriage, which is seen as a form of social bondage. The Free Love movement’s initial goal was to separate the state from sexual matters such as marriage, birth control, and adultery...
that Moore had engaged in with a local judge in the pages of the Blade, but merely printing such a taboo conversation was enough to get him into a courthouse and set another historical precedent for the First Amendment
First Amendment to the United States Constitution
The First Amendment to the United States Constitution is part of the Bill of Rights. The amendment prohibits the making of any law respecting an establishment of religion, impeding the free exercise of religion, abridging the freedom of speech, infringing on the freedom of the press, interfering...
. Moore, not wanting to burden his family financially, decided to defend himself in court. He would come to regret his decision when the district attorney managed to direct the jury's attention from Moore's mailing of lewd content to his atheism and the many articles of blasphemy in his newspaper. Moore's hopelessness was evident when he tried to convince a jury of twelve Christians that he, an atheist, was innocent. Though he was indicted for mailing obscene literature, it was his blasphemy
Blasphemy
Blasphemy is irreverence towards religious or holy persons or things. Some countries have laws to punish blasphemy, while others have laws to give recourse to those who are offended by blasphemy...
that led the jury to deliberate for five minutes before returning with a guilty verdict. The next morning, the judge heeded Moore's plea to not impose a monetary penalty and instead sentenced him to two years in the Ohio State Penitentiary. Before Moore's friends at the Ohio Liberal Society could file his appeal, he was whisked away to the penitentiary. The Ohio Liberal Society and an African-American newspaper, The Lexington Standard, edited by R.C.O. Benjamin, fought for Moore's release. There is no indication which group managed to be successful in their efforts, but Ohio's former governor, President William McKinley, ended up commuting Moore's sentence to six months, with one month off for good behavior. Moore was released from prison in July of 1899. His autobiography
Autobiography
An autobiography is a book about the life of a person, written by that person.-Origin of the term:...
, mostly written in prison, is called Behind the Bars; 31498.
Moore's legacy is that of a father of American atheism. His Blue Grass Blade was widely circulated, gaining him notoriety among the religious and non-religious alike. He helped to promote arguments against much that is contained in the Bible, for example, geological evidence that Earth
Earth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets...
existed far before the date of October 23, 4004 BC, calculated by James Ussher
James Ussher
James Ussher was Church of Ireland Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland between 1625–56...
from the Old Testament
Old Testament
The Old Testament, of which Christians hold different views, is a Christian term for the religious writings of ancient Israel held sacred and inspired by Christians which overlaps with the 24-book canon of the Masoretic Text of Judaism...
. His legal trials helped establish precedents in free speech law, as it relates to religious dissent.
Moore died at his homestead, Quaker Acre, just outside Lexington, on February 7, 1906 after a long illness. News accounts declared that thousands attended his funeral. Orations were given by J.B. Wilson, of Cincinnati, President of the National Liberal Party, noted suffragist, Josephine K. Henry
Josephine K. Henry
Josephine Kirby Henry was an American Progressive Era women's rights leader, suffragist, social reformer, and writer from Versailles, Kentucky in the United States. Henry was a strong advocate for women and was a leading proponent of legislation that would grant married women property rights...
, and close friend, Moses Kaufman. Rumors of a deathbed conversion made a few newspapers, but many quoted his wife as saying that Moore had died as he had lived. His publisher, James Edward Hughes, made sure the Blue Grass Blade survived him and in January 1908 it became a boisterous 16-page magazine featuring portraits and photographs of prominent and local freethinkers, scientists, and skeptics on the cover until budget constraints forced it to revert to text in May 1909. The following December, more money woes led the Blade to degrade to its original 4-page format. The last known issue of Moore's beloved Blue Grass Blade was published on August 21, 1910.
Charles Chilton Moore is buried in Lexington, Kentucky. His epitaph reads: "Write me as one who loves his fellow man."
Books Written by Moore
- The Rational View
- Behind the Bars; 31498
- Dog Fennel in the Orient
Recent Mentions
- C.C. Moore was reintroduced to American freethinkers when Madalyn Murray O'HairMadalyn Murray O'HairMadalyn Murray O'Hair was an American atheist activist and founder of the organization American Atheists and its president from 1963 to 1986. One of her sons, Jon Garth Murray, was the president of the organization from 1986 to 1995, while she remained de facto president during these nine years....
's American Atheist Press reprinted his first book, The Rational View, in 1984 and his autobiography, Behind the Bars; 31498, in 1990. - Kentucky's Most Hated Man: Charles Chilton Moore & The Bluegrass Blade, a biography, written by almost famous, part-time writer, John Sparks, was published in the summer of 2009.
- Biology professor, atheist, and uncanny reinterpretation of Moore, PZ MyersPZ MyersPaul Zachary "PZ" Myers is an American biology professor at the University of Minnesota Morris and the author of the Pharyngula science blog. He is currently an associate professor of biology at UMM, works with zebrafish in the field of evolutionary developmental biology , and also cultivates an...
, mentioned Moore on his popular blog, PharyngulaPharyngulaIn developmental biology, the pharyngula is a stage in embryonic development. Named by William Ballard, the pharyngula stage follows the blastula, gastrula and neurula stages...
, on March 4, 2010. - Hemant Mehta mentioned C.C. Moore on his blog, Friendly Atheist, on April 28, 2011, using Watson HestonWatson HestonWatson Heston was an irreverent cartoonist who peaked in the late 19th century. Born in Ohio in 1846, he spent the majority of his life in Carthage, Missouri. His cartoons, which poked fun at religion in general and Christianity in particular, appeared in the famous freethought newspapers Truth...
's Rationalism Is Not Dead to start a conversation about how the so-called New AtheismNew AtheismNew Atheism is the name given to a movement among some early-21st-century atheist writers who have advocated the view that "religion should not simply be tolerated but should be countered, criticized, and exposed by rational argument wherever its influence arises." New atheists argue that recent...
at the beginning of the 21st century is not very new at all. - Daniel Fincke, of the blog Camels with Hammers, mentioned Moore and the Blue Grass Blade on September 20, 2011, and again on September 28 after hearing about Thomas Lawson's Letters from an Atheist Nation, which was being published at the same time.
- PZ MyersPZ MyersPaul Zachary "PZ" Myers is an American biology professor at the University of Minnesota Morris and the author of the Pharyngula science blog. He is currently an associate professor of biology at UMM, works with zebrafish in the field of evolutionary developmental biology , and also cultivates an...
mentioned the Camels with Hammers post and commented on Moore on his blog, PharyngulaPharyngulaIn developmental biology, the pharyngula is a stage in embryonic development. Named by William Ballard, the pharyngula stage follows the blastula, gastrula and neurula stages...
, on September 28, 2011. - Letters from an Atheist Nation: Godless Voices of America in 1903, by Thomas Lawson, features a short biography of Moore and the Blade. It also includes a compilation of letters written by Blade readers detailing their reasons for becoming atheists. It was published as an eBook on Amazon.comAmazon.comAmazon.com, Inc. is a multinational electronic commerce company headquartered in Seattle, Washington, United States. It is the world's largest online retailer. Amazon has separate websites for the following countries: United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan, and...
on September 25, 2011. - On October 9, 2011, PZ MyersPZ MyersPaul Zachary "PZ" Myers is an American biology professor at the University of Minnesota Morris and the author of the Pharyngula science blog. He is currently an associate professor of biology at UMM, works with zebrafish in the field of evolutionary developmental biology , and also cultivates an...
, upon reading Thomas Lawson's Letters from an Atheist Nation, decided to emulate Moore by asking for submissions from his readers as to why they are atheists, just as the Blue Grass Blade did in April 1903.
