Anthony B. Pinn: from the Black church to atheism

The more I see Anthony B. Pinn, the more I like him. Also, he turns out to be a fellow Buffalonian. Sunday March 9 he gave a talk in Washington DC under the auspices of the Center for Free Inquiry and its affiliate African Americans for Humanism, in conjunction with the publication of his memoir Writing God's Obituary: How a Good Methodist Became a Better Atheist.

Because the arguments concerning religious beliefs, religions, God, etc., are all old hat to me, I'm not interested in them, and I find storytelling much more valuable, as seeing how people develop and react to their social and ideological environment in context is more revealing to me. In Dr. Pinn's case, we see his total immersion in family and church in childhood, his growing pains and doubts in adolescence, his experience of a diversity in New York city he had not known, and the conclusions he drew from the discrepancies between Bible belief and coping with real world issues. He also gave his reasons for continuing to intervene in Religious Studies rather than to wash his hands of the whole subject as many of his fellow atheists would prefer. One of those reasons is to seek to minimize the harm caused by religion.

There were a few audience members so convinced of the power of reason they could not fully appreciate how it could be resisted to the last atom of one's being. I tend to be pessimistic about the prospects, but we all have our job to do.

So by all means, check out Dr. Pinn, see him if he shows up in your town.

Anthony B. Pinn: Remembering African American Humanism

From the Humanist Network News:

Remembering African American Humanism

A noteworthy statement by Anthony B. Pinn. I am puzzled though by his final statement, whose meaning I find unclear:

"That is to say, rather than simply acknowledging the diversity of our movement, we might take the next step and make diversity—difference—the hallmark of our movement . . . "

I think the words "diversity" and "difference" miss the mark, that they actually reinforce what Pinn apparently seeks to transcend, i.e. mere diversity. There's actually a stronger argument to be made.

I can't read Pinn's mind, but my reasoning goes like this: if there is an argument to be made about what goes beyond the mere acknowledgment of difference, it's the centrality of the black experience to the understanding of American history, but even this is too bloodless a way of stating it. Various black thinkers and writers have stated that the black experience crystallizes all the tendencies and social forces of the modern world. The implication is that no one's historical experience can be understood without the black experience being addressed. In one way or another, this has been stated by Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison, Duke Ellington, James Baldwin, and C.L.R. James. This way of looking at things, which may have dropped out of popular consciousness for a few decades, was resuscitated in Paul Gilroy's 1993 book The Black Atlantic.

Howard University symposium 2: Science & Faith in the Black Community (2)

Here is the video of the entire panel discussion.

Howard University symposium 2: Science & Faith in the Black Community

I have already blogged about the first symposium at Howard University on 28 September 2010, a dialogue on "The Poetry of Science" featuring Richard Dawkins and Neil de Grasse Tyson. In the evening there was a second event, a panel discussion on the topic "Science and Faith in the Black Community", with Howard University student Mark Hatcher again serving as moderator, and panelists Richard Dawkins, Anthony Pinn, Sikivu Hutchinson, and Todd Stiefel. I have not yet got around to writing up my notes, but you can find my report on this panel as well as on the Dawkins-Tyson dialogue on the latest installment of my Internet radio show "Studies in a Dying Culture", recorded and posted on 18 October, courtesy of Think Twice Radio:

10/18/10 Manny Fried's memoir published / Science, Religion & the Black community: symposia at Howard University

Following my preliminary remarks and my tribute to labor organizer & playwright Manny Fried, my segment on the black freethought movement begins at 18 minutes into the broadcast. My account of the evening panel discussion begins at the 43-minute mark. My apologies for the misremembering of names and other details. Finally, remarking on my forthcoming review of a new scholarly book on the "New Atheism", I have time only to comment (beginning at the 57-minute mark) on a regrettable historical amnesia that disables an honest accounting.