The most popular song of the several thousand Steve Allen wrote was one called “This Could Be the Start of Something Big,” and it begins:

You're walking along the street,

Or you're at a party ….

And it was at a Halloween party on the first night of a convention in 1991 when I first happened to meet Steve Allen. My philosophy teacher, Verle Muhrer, was hosting Free Inquiry’s annual conference in Kansas City that year, and I was invited because I used to perform as a magician at freethought events from time to time. I already counted the legendary skeptic and stage magician James Randi as a friend, and it was at this particular convention that I was introduced to Paul Kurtz, whom Muhrer admired tremendously. Kurtz’s good friend, Steve Allen, was also at this convention both as an attendee and performer. Upon meeting Mr. Allen it indeed became the start of something big for me, for I have him to thank for influencing my present career in high level security, where I work to protect celebrities and politicians. Providing security to Steve Allen was my first assignment.

Or else you're alone and then

You suddenly dig …

There are many stories of people’s first ‘aha!’ experiences that would eventually put them on the road to – and an appreciation of – reason and logic.

When I was a kid, I loved to read comic books. I especially liked the DC Superman and Superboy comics. One particular storyline piqued my interest like no other, the one featuring Superman’s macabre doppelganger Bizarro. In Bizarro’s realm down was up and up was down and good was bad and bad was good. Everything was the total and complete opposite of what we would know in our world. I still remember thinking what a bewildering domain that would have been to live in, where things were topsy turvy and illogical.

Steve Allen observed that his chaotic childhood may have inspired his abiding respect for rationality:

When my mother was in a good mood, she was great company. But when she was not, her heights of irrationality were spectacular. No one could live with her then. Now, and adult who couldn’t live with her could say, “Well, to hell with you, too!” and walk out of the house; but a three-year-old son couldn’t. Instead, he – I – was simply crushed.

Consequently leery of emotion, I learned to protect myself to a degree by relying on logic. To this day I prefer things to be stated sensibly and analyzed reasonably. When emotions are appropriate, I let them flow as they should. But I tend to be at least somewhat legalistic and rationalistic. Human affairs are not run that way, of course, but to abandon reason altogether is to plunge into chaos.

You suddenly hear a bell …

When I studied magic during my youth, I did it with the kind of determination and commitment that made me good enough to be able to entertain at parties and for small groups. When I began to travel with Mr. Allen on tours and began to think about a more practicable career path, he taught me skills that would prove to be so valuable in my profession.

One of the most memorable moments during one tour in Buffalo, New York happened when Mr. Allen reinforced the importance of efficiency to me. We were riding in a limo on our way to a venue after we had just had a long conversation about Lenny Bruce. I asked Mr. Allen if he had information on Lenny and the show, when he suddenly grabbed his mini-recorder and stated, “Note to self: Send Anthony all Lenny Bruce materials.” Days later, the materials arrived at my house (and I have them to this day).

Hanging out with him in his dressing room while he prepped for his shows, Mr. Allen would often talk to me while he went through his performance cards (the cards included questions from audience members that he would go through in order to have a witty response prepared). He would tell me about how people make choices in life, and one time he asked if doing the kind of work I was doing for him was something I really wanted to pursue. When I answered yes, he said, “Then pursue it. Do it. And do it better than anyone else.” His advice meant the world to me.

Who knows what's written in the magic book?...

Paul Kurtz wrote about how Allen would spend long stretches of time in hotel rooms during his travels, so he took up reading those Gideon Bibles that were provided. With his keen inquiring mind, Allen began to scribble a few criticisms until eventually Allen had enough material to fill two books that Prometheus published: Steve Allen on the Bible, Religion and Morality in 1990, and More Steve Allen on the Bible, Religion, & Morality in 1993. In the preface to the first volume, science writer Martin Gardner wrote:

…It is no less than a detailed, scholarly (though Steve denies he is a scholar), skillfully reasoned analysis of Scripture. No other work by an American can be likened more favorably to Thomas Paine’s classic The Age of Reason….

[…]

Like The Age of Reason, Allen’s book is not written from the standpoint of an atheist. Again and again he reminds us that belief in God seems to him “less preposterous” than atheism. His central theme is simply this: The Old Testament’s portrait of Yahweh is too loutish and brutal to be worthy of worship by any theist who accepts the ethics of altruism of who is familiar, even marginally, with modern science and biblical criticism.

In the two centuries since Paine wrote his book, an enormous amount of research on the Bible has been undertaken, much of it in recent decades by Catholic and Jewish scholars. Archeologists, as well, are shedding light on what could and could not have happened during the Bronze Age, the era of Pentateuch.

It is Allen’s knowledge of this literature that gives his work a timeliness and persuasive power that Paine’s book or the lectures of Robert Ingersoll necessarily lack.

That this could be the start of something grand….

With deep humanitarian impulses, Mr. Allen was a political liberal. He was a proponent of rationality, and thought it important that schoolchildren, from an early age, be exposed to critical thinking. He posited a fourth “R” be added to reading, ‘riting, ‘rithmetic, that of reasoning.

Mr. Allen was humble and self-effacing. While he exhibited an encyclopedic knowledge about so many subjects, Allen was essentially a self-taught autodidact. Paul Kurtz once introduced him as “one of the leading intellectuals in the media." He replied, "Thanks Paul, it's like introducing me as one of the leading automobile mechanics among brain surgeons!" Mr. Allen was comfortable in his own skin.

Allen would assert, "Look, I may be humorous, but I am serious. I may be a master of wit, but also, I hope, of some reflective wisdom."

Mr. Allen and I both found our philosophical home in humanism, a set of values, after all, inherited from other great world religious traditions. With that idea in mind it has occurred to me what a wonderful world it would be if instead of those religious divisions, we could be making connections across the lines.

References

Allen, Steve (1999). Steve Allen's Songs: 100 Lyrics with Commentary. NC: McFarland & Company, Inc., 1999.

Allen, Steve. Beloved Son: A Story of the Jesus Cults. IN: Bobbs-Merrill Co., 1982.

Allen, Steve. Allen on the Bible, Religion, and Morality. NY: Prometheus Books, 1990.

A Tribute to Steve Allen Paul Kurtz Skeptical Inquirer Volume 25.1, January / February 2001

http://www.csicop.org/si/show/tribute_to_steve_allen

A Tribute to Steve Allen by Dr. Paul Kurtz https://infidels.org/library/modern/paul_kurtz/allen.html