Honest Doubt: Essays on Atheism in a Believing Society

by James A. Haught

Despite the prevalence of religious belief in the United States (nearly 200 million Americans belong to 350,000 congregations), a growing minority (14 percent) of U.S. adults identify with no religion whatsoever. Journalist James A. Haught addresses the secular segment of American society in this interesting collection of incisive essays that give voice to honest doubts about religious beliefs. Taken together, Haught's essays endorse the idea that freedom of religion must include freedom to doubt as well as to believe. Individually, the articles present many different reasons to • Intellectual integrity demands that we express doubts about beliefs for which there is no scientific evidence.• The historical record, past and present, shows that religion is often the cause of evils, from the Inquisition and the burning of witches to current terrorist violence committed in the name of religion.• Natural evils, such as the 2004 Asian tsunami and devastating diseases, should make any thoughtful person question whether an all-powerful and all-merciful God governs the universe.• The sheer number and diversity of often-conflicting belief systems raise serious doubts about the philosophical coherence of religion as an approach to finding the truth.• Scandals among the clergy undermine the credibility of religion as a sound basis for morality.Written in a straightforward conversational style that makes clear the many scientific, philosophical, and ethical difficulties that plague religion, Haught's thought-provoking essays will appeal to atheists, agnostics, and anyone with questions about religion.

152 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2007

About the author

James A. Haught was born in 1932 in a small West Virginia farm town that had no electricity or paved streets. He graduated from a rural high school with 13 students in the senior class. He came to Charleston, worked as a delivery boy, then became a teen-age apprentice printer at the Charleston Daily Mail in 1951. Developing a yen to be a reporter, Jim volunteered to work without pay in the Daily Mail newsroom on his days off, to learn the trade. This arrangement continued several months, until The Charleston Gazette offered a full-time news job in 1953. He has been at the Gazette ever since – except for a few months in 1959 when he was press aide to Sen. Robert Byrd. During his half-century in newspaper life, Haught has been police reporter, religion columnist, feature writer and night city editor – then he was investigative reporter for 13 years, and his work led to several corruption convictions. In 1983 he was named associate editor, and in 1992 he became editor. He writes nearly 400 Gazette editorials a year, plus occasional personal columns and news articles. Haught has won 19 national news writing awards, and is author of eight books and 60 national magazine articles. Thirty of his columns have been distributed by national syndicates. He also is a senior editor of Free Inquiry magazine. He is listed in Who’s Who in America, and Contemporary Authors. He has four children, 12 grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. Personally, he enjoys hiking with Kanawha Trail Club, participating in a philosophy group at Edgewood Summit, and taking grandchildren swimming off his old sailboat at Lake Chaweva, where he lives.

Currently the editor of the CHARLESTON GAZETTE in West Virginia, Mr. Haught has spent more than 50 years as an investigative journalist, columnist, and author. A self-proclaimed skeptic and agnostic, Haught writes and lectures frequently on religious topics, particularly injustices and atrocities committed in the name of religion, and the scientific debunking of supernatural claims.

He is the author of five books, including HOLY HORRORS: AN ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF RELIGIOUS MURDER AND MADNESS; HOLY HATRED: RELIGIOUS CONFLICTS OF THE '90s; and 2000 YEARS OF DISBELIEF, a paean to freethinkers, atheists, and religious doubters. Haught also serves as a senior editor at FREE INQUIRY magazine, published by the Council for Secular Humanism.

More: http://infidels.org/library/modern/ja...

http://uuhumanistsymposium.com/author...

Reviews

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

One star off for the lack of footnotes and references, which makes it harder for me to do my own research.

But a really good collection of essays.