For a pittance, 32 people of accomplishment bare their : beliefs before the world . . . and that calls for notice

I was a speaker the other day at one of Edna Lillich Davidson’s luncheon literary salons in the Beverly Hilton and shared the platform with a very frustrated and angry young man who can’t understand why his book isn’t a best seller.

Of course almost every person who gets a book published must deal with the eventuality of its not being a best seller, but this young man, Phillip L. Berman, feels that the public is the loser more than he is.

His book is “The Courage of Conviction” (Dodd, Mead), and it contains essays by 32 “prominent contemporaries” on what they believe and how they put their beliefs into action.

Aside from its content, the extraordinary thing about the book, to me, is that Berman persuaded such well-known and busy persons as Steve Allen, Joan Baez, Norman Cousins, Billy Graham, Benjamin Spock, Edward Teller, Lech Walesa, Irving Wallace and Michael York to write these intimate essays for a pittance.

He told me that he had written to each of them, again and again, never giving up, and that he had offered them only $400 each, payable after publication.

It is not easy to write anything, and I imagine it must be very hard to write 1,000 words or so on what you believe, and what you are doing about it. First, you have to think, and that’s the hard part.

“I have learned,” says Berman in the preface, “that for most of them, talking about themselves proved tremendously difficult. Many have said that this was one of the most difficult assignments they have ever had.”

He notes also that more than half of his respondents expressed a belief in God, “yet it is clear that their views of the deity vary.”

I will risk quoting briefly from some of these testaments with the warning that the reader must not consider the quotations definitive. Most ideas or systems of faith are complex and convoluted, and not to be distilled by a single sentence. I have simply chosen quotations that are startling and provocative.

For example the novelist Irving Wallace, whose books have sold almost 2 million copies, says, “My hopes and actions are in no way sustained by a belief in a personal God or a transcendent principle. . . . I believe in nothingness. I believe that we came from nowhere, by some means beyond our ability to understand. I believe that we go nowhere. . . .”

On the other hand, Norman Cousins, longtime editor of the Saturday Review and author of “Anatomy of an Illness,” says, “Nothingness surrounds us, but it cannot claim us. The proof of God is in the rejection of nothingness. Not even science can conceive of pure nothingness; pure nothingness nowhere exists. . . .”

Many of Berman’s respondents take on, with more or less success, the ancient question of evil: If God is omnipotent and loving, why does he permit such misery to befall us?

Harold Kushner, the rabbi whose book, “When Bad Things Happen to Good People,” sold millions, simply redefines God’s capacity: “Compelled to choose between a powerful God who was not good, and a good God who was not all-powerful, I found the latter a more morally acceptable, more authentically religious alternative. . . .”

Philosopher Sidney Hook says, “Although as a secular humanist I reject all faiths, I nonetheless recognize and respect the role of religion in personal human experience. Religion is and should be a private matter. . . .”

Fazlur Rahman, Oxford-educated Islamic scholar, reminds us that traditional Islamic theologians were “instinctively aware” that “the God of religion was a full-blooded, living reality who responded to prayers, guided men individually and collectively, and intervened in history. . . .”

Edward Teller, the Hungarian-born American scientist who is known as the father of the H-bomb, seeks to justify that work: “The one great conflict in my life arose when I was in my early forties. The question was whether a hydrogen bomb should be built. The view I held gained political ascendancy, and I played a significant role in the scientific effort that produced the first thermonuclear reaction on earth. My action was motivated by a firm belief that we must not recoil from knowledge and its fruits. It was also motivated by my opinion that the Russians would proceed with this development regardless of whether we progressed or held back. . . .”

Rita Mae Brown, peace, gay and civil rights activist, feminist and author of “Rubyfruit Jungle,” says, “I believe that piety is like garlic; a little goes a long way. . . . I cannot lie. I will not lie. I must not lie. You don’t have to agree with me. You don’t even have to like me. But you can rely on me. Ask me what I think and I’ll tell you. I expect the same from you, whoever you are. . . .”

Benjamin Spock, peace activist whose “Baby and Child Care” helped shape generations of American children, says, “I still believe that humanity is potentially loving, idealistic, and creative, but also potentially vicious, that what makes the difference is how children are raised and how societies are led. . . .”

Edward O. Wilson, entomologist and sociobiologist, author of “On Human Nature,” says, “I would call myself a scientific humanist, someone who believes in humility toward other people but not toward the gods. . . . I think it probable that mankind evolved without external direction. . . .”

Finally, Michael York, the actor, says, “I believe that one has the responsibility to organize one’s life so that it embellishes society. . . .”

I’m sure I will be criticized for ignoring the transcendental and distorting the irrelevant.

But at least the book has been noticed.