BLACKS AND RELIGION?

Newbie First Class Joined: Apr 26, 2008 Posts: 44

[/quote]
What I mean by solutions is tell us what's wrong with it besides merely calling it crap and calling everyone an idiot. You're no help at all.[/quote]

Ditto.

Ralph is obviously a noob poster. Not only here but anywhere. He sat down to his computer with the flame thrower already mounted and lit, which means he has no real experience in gaming or discussion forums. No tact. No style. No dignity. Just tears and fears and a lot of wah wah wah to go along with it. I could spark a tantrum in the boy in three words of less. Poor kid.

Just another juvenile "griefer".

And it was just my unfortunate luck to run into Ralphie the anti-intellectual on my own noob post to TIG.

Everything and everybody sucks. Wah, wah, wah....

Poor kid.

Newbie Joined: Sep 02, 2006 Posts: 12

cant understand why blacks cling to this religion.....

Newbie Joined: May 18, 2008 Posts: 22

I wanted to briefly respond to one of the messages about my book, African American Atheists and Political Liberation. One of you recommended Norm Allen's review of my book, but I think it should be noted that Allen has horribly misrepresented what I said and argued. He claims that I call Hitler a humanist. What I actually say is this: Aime Cesaire called Hitler a humanist. And among university professors, there has been a tendency to condemn humanism and to link Hitler with the humanist tradition. I take the academic critique of Hitler as a humanist seriously, but then I explain why that critique is ultimately misguided and unfair. It is at this point in the book that I examine Richard Wright's work, whom I argue is a postmodern humanist. And given Wright's conception of atheism/humanism, he concludes 1) that Hitler was no humanist and 2) that Hitler was a Christian.

I send this message because Allen's misrepresentation of my book has had a negative effect on people's perception of my work. There are other misrepresentations of my book in his review, but for now, this is the most important one that needs to be addressed.

Many thanks to those of you who have recommended my book--the paperback will be coming out in July, so it will be much more reasonably priced at that time.

All Best,
michael

Newbie Joined: May 18, 2008 Posts: 22

I want to briefly respond to Oncilla, who claims that "Liberal theology and politics go hand-in-hand in the Black community." This claim is certainly very true, but I do think that there has been a vibrant atheist community among blacks for a long time now. Oncilla goes on to say: "As we learn more and more about the world outside the 'Black identity' philosophy, the religious ties that bind us will unravel." It seems to me that the religious ties have already been broken, but only among a certain group of African American intellectuals. For instance, Nella Larsen, Langston Hughes, Richard Wright, and J. Saunders Redding have developed both extremely sophisticated critiques of Christianity as well as internally consistent views of black atheism. In fact, I would say that black atheists have made some of the most insightful contributions to political atheism today. I distinguish political from philosophical atheism in this way: philosophical atheists claim that, given the lack of evidence, we cannot in good conscience take the leap of faith, while political atheists claim that, given the kinds of human rights abuses that religious thinking makes possible and probable, we should not believe in God. Philosophical atheists base their views on the limits of the human capacity to know, while political atheists base their views on human rights abuses that religious thinking makes possible and probable. In my estimation, black atheists have produced the most impressive body of work on political atheism to date.

That's at least my view,
michael

Newbie First Class Joined: Apr 26, 2008 Posts: 44

To "mlackey"...

I wonder if Thomas Sowell might also merit a place on your list? I believe he has been an outspoken and recognized voice of reason for a long time, even though at the moment I cannot recall any specifically atheist tracts. (I will scan my books next weekend and get back to you if I find something interesting. His Hoover digest articles my have something specific as well.)

For 42 of my 55 years I have wondered how and why the "black" man so enthusiastically embraced the mythologies of his Christian "oppressors". My two years living in Oakland also exposed me to the Nation of Islam and its' outlandish myths. I look forward to burrowing into your "list" in the search for understanding.

Thank you for joining this forum. You make up for Ralph the Anti-Intellectua a hundred fold.

Newbie Joined: May 18, 2008 Posts: 22

Everbleed, Thank you so much for your kind remarks. And thank you for sending the name of Thomas Sowell. I have not read any of his works, and it appears that he has published numerous books and articles. If you can think of anything specific to recommend, I would certainly appreciate it.

To your other question (why so many blacks accept the religion of their oppressors), I have been struggling to answer this for years. I think Oncilla made an important observation in an earlier message. In the nineteenth century, when the black church started to formulate its view of liberation theology, blacks conceived of Moses and Christ as the grand liberators. Granted, the Bible does not condemn slavery, and it even condones slavery in many places, but for many blacks within the liberation theology tradition, they felt that they did not have to read the Bible literally. David Walker and Maria W. Stewart explicitly reject certain passages from the Bible. Given this strong tradition of liberation, many blacks felt that the Black Church was the only space where they could experience community and empowerment.

But, to my mind, it was a deceptive form of empowerment. Just as the Black Church was using the Gospels to evolve a theology of liberation, the White Church was using the same Gospels to evolve a theology of oppression--James Baldwin (in The Fire Next Time), Zora Neale Hurston (in Dust Tracks on a Road), and Richard Wright (in White Man, Listen!) demonstrate how the Bible and Christian teaching were used simultaneously to empower and to oppress.

This is a very simple answer to your very complex question, but it is at least a beginning. I am trying to formulate a more comprehensive answer, but I suspect it will be years before I produce anything that will be satisfying. Do you have any theories? I would like to hear them.

All Best,
michael

Newbie First Class Joined: Apr 26, 2008 Posts: 44

Dear mlackey,

I am going to call a dear friend of mine in the SF Bay Area and ask him for some recommendations. He is quite familiar with Sowell (in fact I think he has met Sowell) and has subscribed to the Hoover Digest for many, many years.

In the meantime, I would recommend almost anything by Sowell, but if I had to pick a memorable work it would be "The Vision of the Anointed" published in 1995. This book is amazingly prescient, especially when considering the current presidential campaigns.

Sowell's best known work is probably "Barbarians Inside the Gates" which is a collection of essays including 15 of them in part V dealing with "The Racial Scene". I just dug it out of my library and am going to reread part V tonight and tomorrow. I recall the book was a gem to read.

I am going to buy your book tonight on Amazon and look forward to reading it. I will also look forward to reading the others you mentioned.

As for my thoughts on the subject...

Well, being about as much of a cracker as one can be, I have a tendency to keep any opinions to myself. But very briefly I would say the black man, or for that matter any oppressed men or women, have simply not had viable alternatives presented to them in a way they could adopt them. I also believe that the "black culture" has mistakenly embraced anti-intellectualism and has convinced itself that the way to "liberation" is by separation from the "dominant culture" and the rejection of reason, shared language and science. When Michael Jackson made "bad" "good";when gangsters, drug dealers and pimps became idolized and emulated; when black preachers blamed every ill on the "white man"; it seemed the black man surrendered his free will and his ability and even desire to think. Instead they find complaint and anger as the "solution".

Thinker Joined: Mar 26, 2008 Posts: 429

Ralphellectual wrote:

There are no solutions. As an example of the rampant stupidity prevalent among atheists as others when race--or any social issue--is discussed, see this discussion on the Sam Harris site:

http://www.samharris.org/forum/viewthread/9923/

If Sam Harris' web site attracts this many idiots, what does it say about the caliber of the atheist/humanist movement and the job it is doing to educate its constituency?

Here's another thread on Jeremiah Wright:

http://www.samharris.org/forum/viewthread/9890/

I don't find this running commentary any different from the crap I see on all other blogs.

There are some other threads on Obama and the other candidates, and one suggesting Michelle O is to blame.

The thread on Jews and Judaism is equally depressing.

Not entirely sure what you're saying here.

Newbie First Class Joined: Mar 29, 2008 Posts: 48

Cygnus wrote:

Ralphellectual wrote:

There are no solutions. As an example of the rampant stupidity prevalent among atheists as others when race--or any social issue--is discussed, see this discussion on the Sam Harris site:

http://www.samharris.org/forum/viewthread/9923/

If Sam Harris' web site attracts this many idiots, what does it say about the caliber of the atheist/humanist movement and the job it is doing to educate its constituency?

Here's another thread on Jeremiah Wright:

http://www.samharris.org/forum/viewthread/9890/

I don't find this running commentary any different from the crap I see on all other blogs.

There are some other threads on Obama and the other candidates, and one suggesting Michelle O is to blame.

The thread on Jews and Judaism is equally depressing.

Not entirely sure what you're saying here.

I agree. I'm not sure what exactly his point is with this. I read several of the post and saw nothing racist or anti-semetic. I may not have agreed with everything said but nothing offensive...perhaps I missed the relevant posts.

Newbie Joined: May 18, 2008 Posts: 22

Everbleed, When you get the titles of those articles, please let me know. I'm anxious to read some of Sowell's work.

I do want to respond to some of your other comments. You say: "I also believe that the "black culture" has mistakenly embraced anti-intellectualism and has convinced itself that the way to "liberation" is by separation from the "dominant culture" and the rejection of reason, shared language and science. When Michael Jackson made "bad" "good";when gangsters, drug dealers and pimps became idolized and emulated; when black preachers blamed every ill on the "white man"; it seemed the black man surrendered his free will and his ability and even desire to think. Instead they find complaint and anger as the "solution"."

I don't think that I would say that "black culture" has embraced anti-intellectualism, as much as I would say that anti-intellectualism is rampant in American culture. I have taught at universities in Minnesota, Massachusetts, New York, and Kentucky, and I have found many students, white and black, who have taken an anti-intellectual approach to life, but I have also had the good fortune to teach many students, white and black, who reverence the life of the mind. That anti-intellectualism has infected much of the United States is impossible to dispute. But that the black community suffers from this ailment more than any other community--well, I see no evidence of that.

As for your claim about transvaluing good and bad, I believe that the Marquis de Sade, William Blake, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Virginia Woolf developed those ideas and provided some insightful justification for doing so over the last three centuries. For instance, Woolf argues that the concept of the "Angel in the House" was used as a conceptual instrument to enslave women at an unconscious level. For Woolf, the only way a woman could actually make progress in the world of men was to violate accepted conventions of propriety, which translated into women being bad from her contemporaries' perspective. In other words, the only way for women to make progress, according to Woolf, was to be bad. Conversely, being good was the perfect way to ensure that the condition of women would not improve.

Here's where I think I would make an important qualification. When you refer to Michael Jackson making "bad" "good," you are referencing a pop-culture example, and as far as I'm concerned, pop culture is deeply entrenched in anti-intellectualism. Frantz Fanon, the famous African revolutionary, also transvalues good and bad, as he realizes, like Virginia Woolf, that being "good" has been the best way to enslave disempowered people. Specifically, Fanon realized that colonized Africans were indoctrinated by their colonizers with a system of morality that benefited their oppressors. From Fanon's perspective, therefore, Africans who desired to be "good" were the colonizers' greatest asset. Moreover, Fanon suggests that the only way Africans could actually achieve national and individual independence was to be "bad," that is, bad as their oppressors defined it. This transvaluation of good and bad is not anti-intellectual, as is Michael Jackson's. It is an alternative intellectual approach. The distinction I would make is this: pop culture, in its anti-intellectual way, has transvalued good and bad, and in the process, it has done some serious damage. Intellectuals have transvalued good and bad, and there have been some good political reasons for doing this. But times have changed. Frantz Fanon's model of transvaluation, which was so effective in the fifties through the seventies, is not as effective today.

One last comment: I have given lectures on African American atheism in Germany, Scotland, England, Boston, New York, D.C., Chicago, and a number of other cities, and while my lectures generally inspire a passionate response (both negative and positive), many African Americans confess that they are humanists, atheists, and rationalists. Most tell me the same thing--it took much courage to become a non-believer, for there is much pressure coming from their families to believe. But the numbers of African American intellectuals who are non-believers is staggeringly high, much higher, I believe, than most people suspect.

So sorry for the long post. But your message made me think seriously about all of this, and much more.

Talk to you later,
michael

Newbie First Class Joined: Apr 26, 2008 Posts: 44

Thanks to you mlackey I am finally beginning to think my joining the IG forum was a good idea.

I enjoyed your post very much. That kind of insight and discussion is precisely what I was hoping to find here.

Yes, you are correct, I was talking popular ("current") culture. (I know too little of others to even hazard for them the kind of brief comments I made.) And yes I agree the dumbing down is universal. However, what I am seeing in my little neck of the woods is the interesting phenomena of the "dominant" cultures' youth embracing the black cultures' current distorted value and philosophical systems to what I believe is the detriment of both.

Steve Allen in his books, and many others who write in Free Inquiry, Skeptic and Reason magazines have discussed this issue at length. They are far more eloquent than I.

But from my narrow perspective what I see is interesting (even if not unique). Watch a few episodes of MTV Cribs and wonder how the children of the rioters of the 60's who decried the gross materialism, hedonism and exclusionary habits of society, have now embraced those very same characteristics to an extent not seen since before the French Revolution. Even the least popular rap star must have the obligatory million dollars worth of bling, rides, cribs and bitches. I see all our little white bread hip-hop wanna-bes traipsing off to school in the morning hanging on to the belt loops of their pants with their tidy whities glowing in the morning sun.

When something is really good it is "dope". When something is better than "dope" it is "the shit." Women have become objectified and sexualized to an extent I have a hard time comprehending or comparing. Just the language used to describe them is enough to make Susan B. roll in the dirt. Everything seems to be turned upside down. Only... to me it seems far more dramatic than many more recent prior generational revolts. After all, I am 55 and Nam and drugs and love and music was my generations way of revolting. At least we could run away from a tiger because our pants weren't around our knees.

What is even more strange is the fact that I like Eminem and some other hip-hop and rap music. (I have a 13 year old daughter.) Actually there is quite a lot to admire as art in the genre. I am not a racist. I am a cultural bigot. And I think there is a difference. A big one. I can loath you and/or your "culture" no matter what your color. An ignorant dick is an ignorant dick no matter what color his dick is. For example, I do not recall ever knowing a man of color (pick one) who I did not like more than any of the white men I have known who were "born again".

You made a good point about black atheists. To me it merely confirms my lifelong conviction that color is truly irrelevant. That is why affirmative action and programs of that ilk I find so infuriating. That is why the Hispanic music awards, and the black this awards, and the Indian that awards make me nuts. All these people who say in a perfect world "race" wouldn't matter, and who go to these "racial" events seem to be nothing if not hypocritical.

And anyway, what is race. We are really far more gray than anything else except for maybe the Mormans. My sister-in-law is black. She is the most bigoted racist I have ever known. She was born and raised in Watts and has a copper tone to her skin and yet despises the black "black man". That is why she married my cracker, honky brother. Years ago my wife and I invited a dear (black) friend of ours to live with us which he did for a year. His girlfriend (now wife and mother to his 5 kids), despised "field niggers" and (privately) us as well. I asked her once what she meant by "field niggers" and she told me there were "house niggers" and "field niggers." She was descended from house niggers. Oh my goodness.

So when I see the so-called "reverend" Wright ranting against the white man on YouTube clips, I wonder who he would be ranting against if there were no white men around. Will the Mexicans in the room please raise their hands.

So, here in a nutshell is my synopsis. The black and the white Christian churches and the Christian dominated media and executive branch are largely responsible for the current dumbing down of American culture. They exist only because their constituents have surrendered reason and they continue to thrive because they actively perpetuate the idea that we do not have to think. Let god do it for us. Every ill is blamed on man, every good is given to God's glory. Science is bad. Evolution is bad. Thinking is bad. Compliance makes sheep, slaves and idiots... those are the tenets of the church and that is why we are dumb.

Up until the death of Isaac Newton, the church had a largely positive influence on human potential (with some obvious and glaring exceptions.) Since then, it has merely held us back. It's time is past. Yet it refuses to die (in the US particularly) and we here are watching the rest of the world zip past us at light speed while we rot.

Maybe one rant too far, but what the heck, there are only about 5 people reading this thread anyway so...

Master of Logic Joined: Oct 04, 2003 Posts: 9384

Don't let Reggie fool you. He's got all his bling by selling atheist cooties on the web. He uses it to fund Wane Brady skits on Dave Shapel, "Whats this? Looks like Mr. Franklin is a little lonely".

Newbie First Class Joined: Apr 26, 2008 Posts: 44

To master of logic,

Huh? Bear with an old man. Could you please make your post a little less opaque? I don't get it.

Thanks,
Bleed

Newbie First Class Joined: Oct 01, 2004 Posts: 26

I have been curious about your book for some time. Coincidentally, I stumbled upon Norm Allen's review just a week or two ago. As I recall, he portrayed you as being a postmodernist yourself rather than simply quoting them. Your labelling of Richard Wright as a "postmodern humanist" is prima facie preposterous. Could you clarify?

mlackey wrote:

I wanted to briefly respond to one of the messages about my book, African American Atheists and Political Liberation. One of you recommended Norm Allen's review of my book, but I think it should be noted that Allen has horribly misrepresented what I said and argued. He claims that I call Hitler a humanist. What I actually say is this: Aime Cesaire called Hitler a humanist. And among university professors, there has been a tendency to condemn humanism and to link Hitler with the humanist tradition. I take the academic critique of Hitler as a humanist seriously, but then I explain why that critique is ultimately misguided and unfair. It is at this point in the book that I examine Richard Wright's work, whom I argue is a postmodern humanist. And given Wright's conception of atheism/humanism, he concludes 1) that Hitler was no humanist and 2) that Hitler was a Christian.

I send this message because Allen's misrepresentation of my book has had a negative effect on people's perception of my work. There are other misrepresentations of my book in his review, but for now, this is the most important one that needs to be addressed.

Many thanks to those of you who have recommended my book--the paperback will be coming out in July, so it will be much more reasonably priced at that time.

All Best,
michael

Newbie First Class Joined: Oct 01, 2004 Posts: 26

This is a truly incredible taxonomy, in addition to the other philosophical claims. I fail to see these contributions to "political atheism". A truly political atheism would not be about documentation of human rights abuses, which can be found throughout the literature of atheism, but a sociological and historical analysis of belief and unbelief the kind of which is sadly lacking in the American atheist community. I see no evidence yet that black atheists have made a significant advance beyong this sorry state--something I hoped for in vain 20 years ago--unless your book corrects this imbalance.

mlackey wrote:

I want to briefly respond to Oncilla, who claims that "Liberal theology and politics go hand-in-hand in the Black community." This claim is certainly very true, but I do think that there has been a vibrant atheist community among blacks for a long time now. Oncilla goes on to say: "As we learn more and more about the world outside the 'Black identity' philosophy, the religious ties that bind us will unravel." It seems to me that the religious ties have already been broken, but only among a certain group of African American intellectuals. For instance, Nella Larsen, Langston Hughes, Richard Wright, and J. Saunders Redding have developed both extremely sophisticated critiques of Christianity as well as internally consistent views of black atheism. In fact, I would say that black atheists have made some of the most insightful contributions to political atheism today. I distinguish political from philosophical atheism in this way: philosophical atheists claim that, given the lack of evidence, we cannot in good conscience take the leap of faith, while political atheists claim that, given the kinds of human rights abuses that religious thinking makes possible and probable, we should not believe in God. Philosophical atheists base their views on the limits of the human capacity to know, while political atheists base their views on human rights abuses that religious thinking makes possible and probable. In my estimation, black atheists have produced the most impressive body of work on political atheism to date.

That's at least my view,
michael


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