I recently came across this quote that in my own experience as a student at a secular school in the Northwest during the 1990's, and as one who works closely with many students who attend a secular school in the Midwest today, rings quite true:"Indeed, parents who send their children to college should recognize that as professors 'we are going to to right on trying to discredit you in the eyes of your children, trying to strip your fundamentalist religious community of dignity, trying to make your views seem silly rather than discussable.'"
The quote is from Dinesh D'Souza's book, What's So Great About Christianity, and illustrates how religion in general and Christianity in specific is viewed in the majority of the academic community. What D'Souza (a devout and very conservative Catholic) points out is that there is an organized movement afoot to discredit faith as an option in the public square. College students are taught not that their beliefs are debatable, but that they are laughable. Unable to win a fair fight with religion in the academic arena, atheists (humanists/materialists/etc.) have deemed it prudent to instead attempt to marginalize believers of all faiths by terming their views silly, antiquated and ignorant. Incapable of winning the debate on religion these "brights" (a term they invented for themselves, but now try to avoid, realizing belatedly that arrogance doesn't sell) use the bully pulpit of the college classroom to teach their students that faith is not worth discussing because only a fool would engage in such an exercise. They want desperately to convince the world that, "The Cosmos is all there is or ever was or ever will be." (Carl Sagan)
Why am I posting about this? I post it as a warning in the hope that maybe, just maybe, a light will come on and someone will realize that they are being systematically manipulated by people who want nothing more than to eliminate religion from the world stage. More than anything these 'brights' long for the day when students are too afraid or too ashamed to speak of a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, and they are happy to use their position as educators to accomplish the task. And the sad fact is that all too often students are willing to comply. Willing because the humanities professor has a Ph. D. and they don't. (Maybe now would be a good time to point out that there are plenty of Ph. D.'s on the other side as well. They just don't tend to get hired by liberal state schools.) Willing because their grade is somewhat dependent on their ability to appease their prof. Willing because they are scared of losing an argument, or being embarrassed or getting labelled by their peers. I remember being afraid to speak up because if I did, and I was somehow beaten, it would be like failing God. Better just to keep quiet...
But, the dirty secret is that Daniel Dennet, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins and their sycophants are desperate. They are desperate because they are losing. Losing to truth, losing to logic, losing to common sense, and losing to reality. They're like the emperor who's new clothes are a bit drafty. They need to deny the reality of their intellectual nudity in order to save face. And the louder they wail and moan, the more obvious it becomes that they have nothing truly threatening to say. Their best arguments are tired and beaten. All they can really hope is that the students they want to influence are too ignorant or lazy to fight back.
