PHL111_haught and haught

 

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John F. Haught is a Distinguished Research Professor at Georgetown University. He specializes in systematic theology, with a particular interest in issues pertaining to science, cosmology, evolution, ecology, and religion. He has authored numerous books and articles, including Science and Faith: A New Introduction (2012), Making Sense of Evolution: Darwin, God, and The Drama of Life ( 2010), God and the New Atheism: A Critical Response to Dawkins, Harris, and Hitchens (2008), Christianity and Science: Toward a Theology of Nature (2007), Is Nature Enough? Meaning and Truth in the Age of Science (2006), Purpose, Evolution and the Meaning of Life (2004), God After Darwin: A Theology of Evolution (2000, 2nd ed. 2007), Science and Religion: From Conflict to Conversation (1995), The Promise of Nature: Ecology and Cosmic Purpose (1993, 2nd ed. 2004), What is Religion? (1990), What is God? (1986), and The Cosmic Adventure: Science, Religion and the Quest for Purpose (1984). In 2002, Haught received the Owen Garrigan Award in Science and Religion, in 2004 the Sophia Award for Theological Excellence, and in 2008 a "Friend of Darwin Award" from the National Center for Science Education. He also testified for the plaintiffs in Harrisburg, PA "Intelligent Design Trial"(Kitzmiller et al. vs. Dover Board of Education). SOURCE - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_F._Haught

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James Baldwin, arguably America's greatest black writer, was a popular Pentecostal preacher in Harlem at age 14 - but at 17 he renounced religion as a sham.

Years later, he described his boyhood transformation in an essay titled Down at the Cross, first published in The New Yorker, then reprinted in his civil rights book, The Fire Next Time.

He told of growing up amid the bitter hopelessness of the black ghetto, watching jobless men drink and fight, resenting tyrannical treatment by his preacher stepfather, wishing for escape. The misery around him "helped to hurl me into the church," he wrote.

One night at a prayer meeting, "everything came roaring, screaming, crying out, and I fell to the ground before the altar. It was the strangest sensation I have ever had in my life." He soon became a junior minister at the Fireside Pentecostal Assembly, and became "a much bigger drawing card than my father."

"That was the most frightening time of my life, and quite the most dishonest, and the resulting hysteria lent great passion to my sermons - for a while," he said. Considering all the evils of Harlem street life, "it was my good luck - perhaps - that I found myself in the church racket instead of some other, and surrendered to a spiritual seduction long before I came to any carnal knowledge."

The "fire and excitement" of Pentecostalism were captivating, Baldwin wrote -- but he sensed subconsciously that it was bogus, and by 17 suffered "the slow crumbling of my faith." It happened "when I began to read again.... I began, fatally, with Dostoevski."

He continued handing out gospel tracts, but knew they were "impossible to believe."

"I was forced, reluctantly, to realize that the Bible itself had been written by men." As for the claim that the Bible writers were divinely inspired, he said he "knew by now, alas, far more about divine inspiration than I dared admit, for I knew how I worked myself up into my own visions."

Baldwin wrote that he might have remained in the church if "there was any loving-kindness to be found in the haven I represented." But he finally concluded that "there was no love in the church. It was a mask for hatred and self-hatred and despair." So his religion ended.

Years later, he visited Black Muslim leader Elijah Muhammad and concluded that Elijah's "revelations" about Satan creating "white devils" were just as irrational as Christian beliefs.

When Elijah asked his faith, Baldwin replied:

"I left the church 20 years ago and I haven't joined anything since."

"And what are you now?" Elijah asked.

"I? Now? Nothing," the great writer replied.

By James A. Haught

SOURCE - http://www.wvinter.net/~haught/baldwin.html

Author/Editor/Journalist

Haught, editor of the Charleston Gazette, has several books including Holy Horrors: An Illustrated History of Religious Murder and Madness (Prometheus, 1990) and Holy Hatred: Religious Conflicts of the '90's (Prometheus, 1995).

Haught's writings can be found at his web site http://www.wvinter.net/~haught.

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Haught is the editor of 2000 Years of Disbelief, Famous People with the Courage to Doubt (Prometheus Books, 1996)

PHL111_baldwin

WHAT is the false premise of Christianity?

 

I was asked to read a book titled "VINTAGE BALDWIN"
I wanted to know who he was. In my research I came across
Clarence E. Hardy, III





Hardy’s thoughtful, provocative interpretation of Baldwin’s intellectual legacy reveals the portrait of a writer whose greatest contribution was not his novels but his preachy, non-fiction essays, whose timeless relevance and passion were due to Baldwin’s connection with the black holiness heritage. The irony of it all, Hardy urges, is seen when one realizes that this black evangelical heritage––marked by a loveless white Christian god and black self-loathing––is the very thing Baldwin spent his life trying to escape. Hardy thus concludes that it was Baldwin’s nemesis, yet also his strength, the marrow and substance of his impassioned public intellection.

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ETHICS with Ben

The Martin Campbell interview

fighting for a fairer, more ethical america

563 words draft 3

Do the stated beliefs of an individual consistently affect their decisions? Is human behavior only determined by conditions 'in the moment'?

If the problem of nihilistic chaos is caused by the absence of moral order, then Blood Meridian tells a tale of such rampant savagery as could well describe a time of moral uncertainty or moral confusion. Rather than the influence of moral imperatives; Cormac McCarthy's novel demonstrates a "nihilistic chaos" in the human experience that is driven by fate or the 'givens' of nature; by human perception of threat, and animal-like survival instinct; and by pure chance. The saga could lead the reader to conclude that human behavior is meaningless.

If, however, human experience is based on moral absolutes, then, as a computer with a corrupt or missing operating system (OS); moral uncertainty or moral confusion could allow the human being to disintegrate into a state of nihilistic chaos, resulting in, behaviors not unlike those "survival-driven life-styles" 'observed' in lower or non-human life forms.

To the casual eye, it may seem that there is a pattern to life. One may be inclined to conclude that there is purpose in the endless cycle of life and death. In the 'animal world', we humans observe a consistent predatory cycle, yet it is not always the fittest that survive. McCarthy begins his story in the Tennessee home of a  family with a child, a pale unwashed child. A dead mother. A drunk father. An 'estranged' sister. A meteor shower and wolves. A 'scene' that captures a wide swath of nature; at once depicting human and animal life as well as death and things beyond, he mentions the heavens. These givens of nature: people, childhood, animals, trees and the sky in this opening scene, quickly primes the mind with anticipation. McCarthy will now take the reader on a 'historic journey', through New Orleans to Texas and the Mexican borderlands. A saga of chaotic violence will play out; not mindless, but willful violence.

As the drama unfolds, the scenery is now set in Texas, a church, not the conventional edifice but a religious tent-meeting. If the author would have our attention drawn to the notion of human 'goodness', what better place to be than 'in church'. The reader, however, will soon be divested of all hope of the normal peacefulness and piety of such places. Chaos quickly overtakes the supposedly pious assembly. The persuasive preaching is interrupted by "the devil", so described by the preacher. There will be no desired penitence. The gathering quickly descends into pandemonium brought about by a tall noticeably hairless man who will become known throughout the remainder of the novel, as "the judge". He interrupts the meeting by making slanderous accusations against The Reverend Green, rousing a certain moral indignation among the congregants who are quickly transformed into an outraged and violent mob.

Having now witnessed chaotic unraveling in two basic institutions of moral authority, namely the family and the church the reader is 'moved' by the narrative from a whiskey drinking episode in a bar out onto a wild landscape where the author will describe a bloody altercation involving the runaway child who becomes known as "the kid". He fights an alleged horse thief named Toadvine who has no ears. Another savage fight is soon followed by the burning down of a hotel by the kid and Toadvine. The kid leaves town.