This Ungodly Crew

About the Book

Will, after twenty years in the Navy, returns home to the bedside of his mother, who has suffered a severe stroke. Using Navy savings, he enrolls in college, aspiring to run for Congress. He and Brother Art, who find no reality in God, prepare their father, Joe, to accept their mother’s death without the traditional references to heaven. Joe is weary and ready to retire. Art, also a teacher, takes over Joe’s private school. Will and Art found a society for the Common Good, based on love of mankind and a life of service, with none of the features usual in a religion. On the campus Will finds a life companion, whom he marries, but their homemaking is interrupted when Will gets called back into the Navy to serve in Vietnam.

About the Author

John T. Goldthwait grew up in Pennsylvania, went to college in Georgia, and served in the Navy in the Pacific in wartime. Once ashore again, he took a Ph.D. in philosophy, helping to pull together a very broad education. He then taught philosophy and the humanities in universities in California and New York. Living the examined life, he worked out for himself the worldview known as secular humanism, stressing the meeting of human needs as the basis for ethics. In retirement, he undertook writing novels as an attractive way to communicate his beliefs. These are first of all good stories, as well as presentations of humanistic ideas.