DesertFox
03-24-2008, 06:11 PM
Tony Snow recently reviewed Dinesh D’Souza’s compelling new book (What’s so Great About Christianity?) for the magazine Christianity Today. At the end of his review he thanked Dinesh for exposing atheism “more as a bundle of sentiments than a coherent doctrine.” My recent failed efforts to encourage campus debate with atheists have led me to believe that Snow might be on to something.
This semester, I learned that one of my colleagues is teaching our Sociology of Religion course with two supplemental texts, neither of which could be characterized as sociological in nature. One is The God Delusion, by Richard Dawkins. The other is God is Not Great, by Christopher Hitchens. (The latter is an especially odd choice because it merely documents all the bad things members of each religion have done. The professor, who also teaches a course in Race and Ethnicity, would certainly never choose a course that merely documented all the bad things done by every race other than his own).
Because I was concerned about the lack of balance in the offerings, I spoke to my colleague about the class. Despite our religious differences, he is a good friend who has often been very honest about issues related to academic freedom. Indeed he often concedes that ideologues in our department exert a substantial chilling effect on free speech. And he is a courageous fellow who isn’t afraid to name names.
More (http://www.townhall.com/Columnists/MikeSAdams/2008/03/24/is_atheism_only_a_bundle_of_sentiments)
This semester, I learned that one of my colleagues is teaching our Sociology of Religion course with two supplemental texts, neither of which could be characterized as sociological in nature. One is The God Delusion, by Richard Dawkins. The other is God is Not Great, by Christopher Hitchens. (The latter is an especially odd choice because it merely documents all the bad things members of each religion have done. The professor, who also teaches a course in Race and Ethnicity, would certainly never choose a course that merely documented all the bad things done by every race other than his own).
Because I was concerned about the lack of balance in the offerings, I spoke to my colleague about the class. Despite our religious differences, he is a good friend who has often been very honest about issues related to academic freedom. Indeed he often concedes that ideologues in our department exert a substantial chilling effect on free speech. And he is a courageous fellow who isn’t afraid to name names.
More (http://www.townhall.com/Columnists/MikeSAdams/2008/03/24/is_atheism_only_a_bundle_of_sentiments)