Professor Bainbridge...on law, politics, religion, culture & food

I had a professor in law school who had a habit of making snide remarks about evangelical Christians.  I cannot believe that she was incapable of doing the statistics necessary to figure out that there must have been, in each class, a handful of such people.  She just didn’t care.

But what she didn’t realize (at least while I was there) is that she was mostly hurting herself.  Because while students like me got to sit there and listen to her, and think in our heads about all the various reasons and evidence that suggested she was wrong, all she got to here was herself.

The “here” should be “hear.” You don’t find yourself by talking to yourself.

Uhhh...well Dawkins, Hitchens, Myers and Harris (the four horsemen of the apocalypse to some) of course!  They are amazingly good writers and rely on facts and science, not superstition and the supernatural.  Maybe you should read some of Dawkins’ non religious books, such as The Selfish Gene (which revolutionized genetics at the time) or even better The Devil’s Chaplain (check out the letter to his daughter in the back, it is priceless.

I have to agree with Brooks that the difference in quality in writing isn’t there.  But not for his reasons!

Prof. Hills has stacked the deck by pointing only to recent atheists in support of his arguments.

Earlier, there was Hume, Russell, Huxley, and others.  Thomas Huxley in particular was apparently considered a great prose stylist by his age cohort.  (That’s the reason I give him credit; I’ve never cared much for his stuff myself.)

Theophobia (God I hate those phobiawords)is merely a question of competition, starting with a angel named lucifer.

I suspect most all of the truly proud and arrogant (elitism is a form of arrogance)are Theophobes.

I am embarrassed for academics who refer to anything other than scientific method.  God, I would hate a professor to justify something on the basis of his religious beliefs, how silly that would be.

I myself am agnostic, and I don’t relate well to people who believe in the talking snake.
Toby

Quite an exemplary straw man Rick’s erected.  I can’t recall meeting any “theophobes” in my university’s philosophy department, but I do recall my baptist pastor demonizing college as inherently sinful. 

I find it a confused argument to decry excellent scientists, like Mr. Dawkins, as “irrational” while implicitly affirming the faith of Christian fundamentalists with baseless appeals to authorities like Miguel de Unamuno.

Mr. Martin may have been upset by his insensitive professor’s rare quips; however, I doubt that she held weekly sermons proclaiming to him and the general Christian community that they should repent their religious beliefs or suffer enternal torment.

While I respect Rick and enjoy his columns, I can’t help but find these particular assertions to be disingenuous sophistry… and I expected better.