Re: Religion and the Sixties

Mark Bunster (mbunster@SATURN.VCU.EDU)
Mon, 16 Nov 1998 12:11:22 -0500

At 10:05 AM 11/10/98 -0800, Karl Slinkard wrote:

>It is no accident, that the Black revolution began in black churches (and
>still continues much to this day.) Even the corruptions of religion such
>as the Black Muslims, etc. show that demagogues had to manipulate real
>religious symbols to gain a hearing in the community.

(and)

>Even secularists, organize their world views around essentially
>unprovable myths.

Um, I feel it necessary to point out that you may be guilty of the
same crime you pointed up elsewhere in your message...that bias has
overtly clouded the analysis. To refer to Black Muslim-ism (I assume
we're referring to Elijah Muhammed and the NoI here) as a "corruption
of religion" shows a less-than-academic treatment. I might agree that
many didacts of NoI are separatist and fractious in their delivery,
but that doesn't qualify as a corruption of the pure (standard
"Arabic" Islam). Or if it does, then we might say the same thing about
Presbyterianism (as one example) in re Catholicism, or even
present-day Catholicism compared to the premodern version. Further, if
by secular " unproveable myths" you mean science, I hardly think they
compare. While the initial "myth" (God vs the big bang) may have the
same basis in faith of its truth, the constructs based on the latter
have more empirical testing behind them to justify that faith.

M

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