"Man is certainly stark mad; he cannot make a worm, yet he will make gods by the dozen." -- Michel de Montaigne
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| James A. Haught |
Welcome to a quest for mental honesty.
I'm an old newspaper editor who has spent nearly half a century chronicling social struggles and cultural tides.
Personally, I've waged a long crusade for rational, scientific thinking as an antidote for harmful supernaturalism. I've written five books and many magazine articles against religion, astrology, mysticism, psychic claims, cults, "New Agery," fundamentalism, and other magical beliefs.
Although billions of people pray to invisible gods, there's no actual evidence of deities and devils, heavens and hells, spirits and prophecies, etc. They're just imaginary, as far as a sincere inquirer can tell. So, to me, the only honest viewpoint is the humanist one, which doubts the supernatural and focuses on improving human life.
This web site contains some of my skeptical pieces -- plus others on science, sailing, sex, serenity, the joy of nature, and the meaning of life (or lack thereof). You're free to read, download, print out or circulate any of these materials.
"Nobody Hears the 20 Million"
(Playboy, February 1998)
---- One-tenth of Americans (the elite) doubt God and heaven
"UU Humanist Takes on 'Malarkey'"
(Universalist Herald, Jan-Feb 1998)
---- Don't let Unitarianism slip into La-La Land
"Murky Moonie Money" (Free
Inquiry, Winter 1997-98)
---- Mysterious cult cash flowing to George Bush
"The Twilight Zone" (Freethought
Today, Dec. 1997)
---- Religion outrages boggle the brain
"Sex and God: Is Religion Twisted?"
(Free Inquiry, fall 1997)
---- Western faiths inflict shame and guilt for normal sexuality
"Honest Minds, Past and Present"
(seminar talks, Sept. 20-21, 1997)
---- Great skeptics of the Renaissance and the 20th century
"The Army of God: Religious Killers?"
(Secular Humanist Bulletin, fall 1997)
---- Shadowy covert group hits gay clubs, abortion clinics
"Everyone's a Skeptic - About Other Religions"
(university talk, Sept. 10, 1997)
---- All supernatural beliefs seem absurd, except one's own
"Battling Demons of the Mind"
(Free Inquiry, spring 1997)
---- Carl Sagan's struggle against superstition
"Three Little Words: I Don't Know"
(university talk, Feb. 11, 1997)
---- It's honest to admit you lack ultimate answers
"Breaking the Last Taboo"
(Free Inquiry, winter 1996/97)
---- Famous people who doubted religion
"Morality: A Lesson in Values"
(Charleston Gazette, Nov. 4, 1996)
---- Bigotry ruled the "moral" 1950s
"Well, It's About Time"
(Freethought Today, June/July 1996)
---- A backlash against fundamentalists in the GOP
"If Thine Enemy Offend Thee, Rub Him Out"
(Liberty, March/April 1996)
---- Religious atrocities in the daily news
"Does God Exist?" (Great
American Think-Off, 1996)
---- Forces of the universe don't include magical spirits
"Yitzhak Rabin, Victim of Zealotry"
(Free Inquiry, winter 1995/96)
---- Another fanatic thinks God said "Thou shalt kill"
"Long Shadows of Evening"
(holiday reflections, 1995)
---- As death nears, heaven fantasies are self-deception
"Humanism and Existentialism"
(university talk, Nov. 13, 1995)
---- Make life better, in spite of the craziness
"Far-Out Religious Right"
(Washington Spectator, Sept. 15, 1995)
---- Crackpot militias: guns against "the Antichrist"
"True Believers and Utter Madness"
(Free Inquiry, summer 1995)
---- Cultists plant nerve gas to kill subway passengers
"Licensed Astrologers?"
(Gazette, Aug. 14, 1995)
---- Planet positions don't dictate people's lives
"And Now, the Solar Temple"
(Free Inquiry, winter 1994/95)
---- Once again, supernaturalism produces mass deaths
"The Waco Tragedy" (Free
Inquiry, Summer 1994)
---- It stemmed from a famous doomsday fiasco
"Adventures in the Bible Belt"
(Gazette, Dec. 7, 1993)
---- Holy-rollers and holy hucksters
"Lunacy on the Daily News Wires"
(Gazette, Nov. 2, 1993)
---- Women stoned, Ulster bombed, as faith goes bonkers
"The Great West Virginia Holy War"
(Gazette, Oct. 12, 1993)
---- A fundamentalist uprising against "godless" textbooks
"Crooks, Quacks, Kooks, Creeps and Cruds
in the Clergy" (Humanist, July 1993)
---- Criminals and psychos among ministers
"The Beast in the Shadows Behind Religion"
(Free Inquiry, Summer 1993)
---- Waco was merely the latest faith disaster
"Holy Homicide" (Humanist,
November/December 1991)
---- Religious killings are little noticed
"My Name is Jean-Paul Sartre"
(university talk, Nov. 20, 1991)
---- The great existentialist's atheism
"Holy Horrors" (Penthouse,
August 1990)
---- Religious slaughter through the centuries
"Murder in the Name of Religion"
(Free Inquiry, Summer 1990)
---- Saints who exterminated doubters
"The Code of the Universe"
(Humanist, September/October 1988)
---- Real scripture written in quarks, gravity, photons, galaxies
"The God Biz" (Penthouse,
December 1980)
---- Crooked evangelists fleece their flocks
2000 Years of Disbelief: Famous People With the Courage to Doubt (Prometheus Books, 1996 - catalog entry)
Holy Hatred: Religious Conflicts of the '90s (Prometheus, 1995 - catalog entry)
The Art of Lovemaking: An Illustrated Tribute (Prometheus, 1992 - catalog entry)
Science in a Nanosecond: Illustrated Answers to 100 Basic Science Questions (Prometheus, 1990 - catalog entry)
Holy Horrors: An Illustrated History of Religious Murder and Madness (Prometheus, 1990 - catalog entry)
RELIGION NEWS
As a newspaper editor, I scan several news wires daily - and see a sickening array of religious atrocities, frauds, cruelties, absurdities and sex offenses. For a chronicle of such religion news, click HERE.
"Walking in the Woods" (Gazette,
Sept. 10, 1996)
---- Peace of mind from climbing the hills
"The Majesty of the Mountains"
(Gazette, Oct. 28, 1995)
---- How plate tectonics created Appalachia
"Boating in the Boondocks"
(Heartland Boating, June 1995)
---- Gentle sailing on mountain lakes
"Laid-Back Life in the Hills" (Gazette,
Sept. 20, 1994)
---- Country dwellers have inner contentment
"Hark the Quark" (New
York Times wire, May 1994)
---- Discovery completes "standard model" of matter
"Gun-Control Shootout" (Gazette,
May 13, 1994)
---- Fear of pistols makes people buy pistols
"The Horror of the Holocaust"
(Gazette, April 22, 1994)
---- Murdering a religious minority
"We are Reaping the Whirlwind"
(Gazette, Jan. 25, 1994)
---- The fruits of U.S. slavery and segregation
"Sex Still Repels Many People"
(New York Times wire, December 1993)
---- Bill Clinton not the only lusty president
"Democracy Day" (Gazette,
Dec. 15, 1993)
---- The Bill of Rights protects you from the majority
"The Unseen, Creeping News Story"
(Gazette, Nov. 23, 1993)
---- Science quietly transforms the world
"One Hunter Who Stopped Killing"
(Gazette, Oct. 26, 1993)
---- A young squirrel-shooter began to feel pity
"Recalling Long-Vanished Taboos"
(Gazette, Sept. 21, 1993)
---- Puritanism of the 1950s slowly dissipated
"The Dreams of Which Stuff is Made"
(Gazette, Jan. 10, 1993)
---- Subatomic particles are unreal - but very real
"One Man's Road to Addiction"
(Gazette, Aug. 15, 1984)
---- Motorcycling on sleepy rural lanes
"Epic Love Story" (West
Virginia History, January 1971)
---- A plantation owner and his beloved slave woman
"All's Well" (Ellery
Queen Mystery Magazine, March 1961)
---- A rural sheriff scoffs at fancy deductions
The magnitude of agnostic/humanist/skeptic/atheist/freethought effort around the world becomes evident when you search the Internet and find perhaps 1,000 web sites and/or e-mail addresses for such groups. Obviously, doubters have flocked to the World Wide Web in their struggle against supernaturalism.
(Not long ago in history, church leaders would have tortured and burned members of these groups.)
Here are several web sites I've dealt with:
Council for Secular Humanism --- http://www.secularhumanism.org --- (or http://www.codesh.org)
Free Inquiry magazine --- http://www.secularhumanism.org/fi/
Secular Humanist Bulletin --- http://www.secularhumanism.org/shb/
Committee for Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal --- http://www.csicop.org
Skeptical Inquirer magazine --- http://www.csicop.org/si/
Center for Inquiry --- http://www.secularhumanism.org/cfi/
Prometheus Books --- http://www.prometheusbooks.com
Campus Freethought Alliance --- http://www.secularhumanism.org/cfa/
The Secular Web --- http://www.infidels.org
Freedom From Religion Foundation --- http://www.infidels.org/org/ffrf/
American Humanist Association --- http://www.infidels.org/org/aha/
Skeptics Society --- http://www.skeptic.com
Bertrand Russell Society --- http://daniel.drew.edu/~jlenz/brs.html
People for the American Way --- http://www.pfaw.org
For a complete list of 260 on-line skeptic groups I've contacted, click HERE.
E-mail - haught@wvinter.net
E-mail - gazette@wvgazette.com
Fax - (304) 348-1233
Phone - (304) 348-5199
Mail - The Charleston Gazette, 1001 Virginia St. E., Charleston, WV 25301
