Get a degree in atheism!

June 3, 2011 • 1:00 pm

According to the Wall Street Journal, you can now get a bachelor’s degree in atheism at California’s Pitzer College.  Well, not really atheism: the major is called “secular studies,” whose driving force is none other than sociology professor Phil Zuckerman, whom we know from his book Society Without God, a study of the pervasive secularism in Sweden and Denmark (I’d recommend it.)  Since the article is 1) in the Wall Street Journal, and 2) is written by Alan Jacobs, a professor at the Christian school Wheaton College, in Illinois (Jacobs appears to be an Anglican), and 3) Jacobs has written quite a bit for the Templeton Big Questions Online site, we can expect some snark in this news report.  And of course Jacobs provides it:

One could respond in several ways to the news that California’s Pitzer College is starting a department of “secular studies” and creating a major in the field. Religious believers may see another sign of encroaching, well, secularism on American campuses. Conversely, just as the rise of religious studies—as opposed to theology—happened when religious belief was in precipitous decline among academics, perhaps the rise of secular studies indicates that secularism is a fading enterprise.

This is just a snide crack at secularism, which of course is on the rise.  “Fading enterprise”? I think not.

This assumes that Pitzer’s program in secular studies will bring a critical, analytical approach to its subject. Mr. Zuckerman—who runs a website called “Phil Zuckerman’s 65 Greatest Songs for Atheists and Agnostics”—might belong to a team and be inclined to cheer for it. But that doesn’t mean he can’t be a fine scholar in his field, just as many Christians are fine scholars of the history of religion.

Some of Mr. Zuckerman’s scholarship acknowledges that secularism is far from dominant or inevitable. In an article in “The Cambridge Companion to Atheism,” he notes that “most nations in Africa, South America, and Southeast Asia contain almost no atheists.” And while some societies are seeing increasing non-belief in God, “atheism overall may be in decline, due to the demographic fact that highly religious nations have the highest 22 birthrates in the world, and highly irreligious nations have the lowest birthrates in the world.”

Condescending and distorting!  Why is there no mention of Zuckerman’s serious research embodied in Society Without God, a very nice book.  Why the mention, instead, of  only “Phil Zuckerman’s 65 Greatest Songs for Atheists and Agnostics”?  To denigrate the man, of course.

Any intellectually serious program in secular studies will avoid triumphalism and deal with the complexity of secularism’s history.

If Jacobs were reviewing a major in theology, would he admonish it to “avoid triumphalism”?

A serious program will also acknowledge that some of the best work on secularism has been done by Christians, foremost among them the Catholic philosopher Charles Taylor.

Thank you, Dr. Jacobs, for your helpful advice on how Pitzer should design this major so that it gives religion the proper credit for atheism.  That advice is like having a fox design the chicken coop.

There are more obliquely snide remarks, but you can read them yourself.  Templeton and The Wall Street Journal: a match made in heaven!

h/t: Diane G.

46 thoughts on “Get a degree in atheism!”

  1. Conversely, just as the rise of religious studies—as opposed to theology—happened when religious belief was in precipitous decline among academics, perhaps the rise of secular studies indicates that secularism is a fading enterprise.

    wait, isn’t this entirely contradictory?

    Religious belief has been in decline for decades among academics, and shows no signs of resurrection.

    Religious belief AND secularism can’t be falling at the same time.

    1. No, it doesn’t appear contradictory. The statement itself speaks in the past tense when referencing religious belief declining, and makes no reference to what’s currently happening with religious belief in academics. Thus, there is no claim that religious belief and secularism are falling at the same time.

      The implication is certainly there that religious belief has stopped declining, and the statement may therefore be misleading, but not really contradictory.

      I’m not sure which would be worse, actually: misleading or contradicting.

  2. Why the mention, instead, of “Phil Zuckerman’s 65 Greatest Songs for Atheists and Agnostics”?

    Five bucks says no religionaut (person of adventurous religious delusion) will note that this is pure ad-hominem, but will be more than happy to project and accuse you of employing ad-hom when replying the purpose was “merely to denigrate the man”.

    1. Heh, heh. Well, maybe I’ll apply for a PhD in Institutionalized Superstition from Oral Roberts University. They call it Christian Studies, but I prefer the more accurate title. Wonder if Life Experience credits are available.

  3. “the best work on secularism has been done by Christians, foremost among them the Catholic philosopher Charles Taylor”

    Whenever I see a plug like that I go to Google Books and search for a couple obvious keywords like “science”, knowing that I’ll probably be treated to a good laugh. Sure enough, Taylor delivers one on page 835 of A Secular Age, conflating faith in religion with faith inscience:

    Dawkins’ reasons for believing that science can sideline religion hardly inspire confidence. They draw heavily on an oversimple distinction between ‘faith’ and ‘science.’ ‘A case can be made that faith is one of the world’s great evils, comparable to the smallpox virus but harder to eradicate. Faith, being belief that isn’t based on evidence, is the principal vice of any religion.’ As for science, it ‘is free of the main vice of religion, which is faith.’ But to hold that there are no assumptions in a scientists’ work which aren’t already based on evidence is surely a reflection of blind faith, one that can’t even feel the occasional tremor of doubt.

    Confusing different meanings of the word faith in science and faith in religion is really the “best work on secularism done by Christians”? Yes, yes it is.

    Taylor deserves his degree in philosophy. But not one in atheism.

      1. Yes, it’s wonderful to see another person connected to Templeton touting the work of a Templeton Prize winner and making the bizarre claim that

        [J]ust as the rise of religious studies—as opposed to theology—happened when religious belief was in precipitous decline among academics, perhaps the rise of secular studies indicates that secularism is a fading enterprise.

        without noting that the rise of religious studies has been driven in significant part by, y’know, Templeton.

  4. Society Without God…(I’d recommend it.)

    It is nice to see that there is a Kindle version for $9.99.

  5. France has banned the teaching of theology and awarding of PhD’s in theology in its state universities since 1905. Rightly so, why PhD’s in theology and not in astrology? The German universities got very upset about the status of their doctorate degrees when politician zu Guttenberg was found out plagiarizing. What about the scientific value of the doctorates awarded in theology? Are they any different than the doctorates in astrology (as awarded in India)? Are these degrees not just bogus?

  7. And while some societies are seeing increasing non-belief in God, “atheism overall may be in decline, due to the demographic fact that highly religious nations have the highest 22 birthrates in the world, and highly irreligious nations have the lowest birthrates in the world.”

    Possibly, but of course movement plays a role, and religion and atheism aren’t genetic.

  8. Religious believers may see another sign of encroaching, well, secularism on American campuses.

    Pitzer has always been a liberal, nontraditional college emphasizing critical thinking. I can’t imagine that anyone ever thought of it as a bastion of religion in the first place.

  9. It’s a silly article with a transparent agenda.

    Secularization—a long-term decline in religious belief, at least in the form we know it in the West

    Well, there are a few aspects of secularization, and they’re all important. In addition to decline in beliefs, it includes the privatization of belief and the separation of religious rationales and organizations from, or their declining importance in, other social spheres (especially politics).

    Pitzer’s press release concerning the new program was less nuanced: “The creation of a Secular Studies Field Group reflects an emerging interest in an awareness of the notable growth of secularity in America and elsewhere.” This is followed by bullet points listing evidence only of secularism’s recent growth.

    Secularism is moving slowly in America, but the story of religious belief and practice here looks even more complex if one takes a long view. More than 60% of Americans belong to some formal religious body today. In the late 18th century, that number was less than 10%.

    I keep seeing this figure, and I’m dubious that it means what it’s argued to mean. I’d like to know more about the data-gathering in the late 18th century, and what belonging to a “formal religious body” at that time meant, including in terms of belief. Are they really suggesting people in the US are far more religious now than they were in the late 1700s? And what about the centuries in between?

    A few years down the line, how can we know that secular studies at Pitzer is living up to its promise? One sign: If some of its students come in as devout atheists or agnostics and leave as religious believers.

    *guffaw*

    1. Are they really suggesting people in the US are far more religious now than they were in the late 1700s?

      Hell, they’re far more religious now than they were in the late 1960’s.

    2. He manages not to be curious about how that 60% compares to the per centage obtaining in the 1950’s.

  10. “encroaching” secularism?

    Is that “snark” or “snap?”
    As the kids say…

    1. It seems to me I hear an awful lot about Evangelical prosyletization in Central & Latin America these days. Silly me–I’d always thought of missionaries as preying on the heathens, not the already churched…

      1. According to many Evangelicals, Catholics are heathens (sometimes even atheist heathens: no joke, I’ve actually had fundis tell me that).

  12. Personally it feels a little strange to major in beleiving in nothing, or specifically in no religion. Well then again, I suppose that as opposed to religious studies at least you would be majoring in common sense.

    1. How is ‘Secular Studies’ a major in “believing in nothing”??

      1. Exactly in the same way that Computer Science is a major in believing in bits, or Physics a major in believing in particles.

        No, it doesn’t make sense to me either.

        1. Physicists don’t “believe” in particles, the have evidence about their existence just like you have evidence of the existence of the chair you sit on. I think that by now everybody participating in this blog should know the fundamental difference between “believing” (not based on evidence) and knowing (knowledge based on evidence). Of course Physics is a major in *not* believing in things.

  13. A few years down the line, how can we know that evolutionary biology at Pitzer is living up to its promise? One sign: If some of its students come in as accepters of the ToE and leave as creationists.

    1. Hmm. My last attempt disappeared. Perhaps I’m leaving too many comments…

      Anyway, what it said was to substitute “science studies” for “evolutionary biology.”

      1. I haven’t trashed any comments; don’t know why yours disappeared.

  14. Obviously Jacobs is yet another English professor who is severely deficient in reading comprehension skills. If he weren’t, he would be able to distinguish between secularism and atheism (which is usually but not necessarily a correlate of secularism).

  15. Another big PHD in such woo is Edward Feser, whose book on gnu atheism, shown by Googling, reveals how nonsensical theologians are!
    Oui, ma France! Paul Kurtz appelle tous les deux, le surnaturalisme et le paranormalisme, ces superstitions jumelles “La Tentation Transcendentale.”
    Kurtz calls both the supernatural and the paranormal,those twin superstitions, ” The Transcendental Temptation.”
    http://fathergriggs.wordpress.com

  16. I am surprised that Wheaton would hire Jacobs. If he really is an Anglican – well he is almost Catholic for chrissakes!!!! Those good evangelicals have no use for papists and their ilk.

  17. “Thank you, Dr. Jacobs, for your helpful advice on how Pitzer should design this major, so that they give religion the proper credit for atheism.”

    LOL! 😉 Religion IS entirely responsible for Atheism! … If it was not for centuries of deliberate terrorism, murder, torture, lies and distortion perpertrated by religion against unbelievers, the rediculous ideas about god would never have survived, and there would be no “athiests” – there would just be people with rational thinking for whom the concept of “god” would be laughable, and there would be a few people with mental problems who engaged with “god delusions” but who would have no religion to support their delusion, and would therefore be easily identified and treated.

  18. Jerry, just came across this, so I hope my comment isn’t too belated.

    Please understand that the WSJ only gave me 800 words to start with — and then at (almost literally) the last minute chopped 150 more words off of that, so I couldn’t do a lot of nuance.

    The opening maybe-secularism-is-on-the-decline line was meant to be a joke, not snark. Maybe it didn’t come off, but I thought it obvious that, in the Western world anyway, secularism isn’t declining. And of course I acknowledge that later in the op-ed.

    You ask, “Why is there no mention of Zuckerman’s serious research embodied in Society Without God, a very nice book. Why the mention, instead, of only ‘Phil Zuckerman’s 65 Greatest Songs for Atheists and Agnostics’?” But I did mention his serious scholarship — not that particular book, but I quoted from his fine article in *The Cambridge Companion to Atheism*, at as much length as I could, and commended him for being a fine scholar and offering a more nuanced account of atheism than Pitzer’s press release did. There was more of that in the “full” version — if 800 words can be called full — but it’s right there in the version you link to.

    If the WSJ is only going to give me 650 words, the least you could do is read them all before making your judgments. You didn’t even seem to notice that I think the creation of a secular studies program is a good idea. (Sometimes people don’t say what you expect them to say.)

    Not incidentally, Phil Zuckerman wrote to tell me that he thought it was a good piece, and I expect I’ll be in further conversation with the people at Pitzer. Certainly Zuckerman didn’t feel “denigrated.” Maybe if you read my piece again, with a cooler head, you’ll see that, whether it’s right or wrong, it doesn’t say what you thought it said.

    1. We all knew that your article was a joke. But for it’s unintentional—rather than intentional—irony.

      Your silence here on several points says much. You really can’t defend your’s and Templeton’s practice of incestuous promotion? Your recommendation of Templeton publications that feature laughably and transparently tendentious mistakes? Templeton’s anti-science agenda?

      If you understand just a single one of these issues, you will understand why we do not take your article or the blind faith that motivated it seriously.

      1. You really can’t defend your’s and Templeton’s practice of incestuous promotion? Your recommendation of Templeton publications that feature laughably and transparently tendentious mistakes?

        I’m wondering if you’re perhaps confusing me with someone else — I don’t recall ever having recommended any Templeton publications, though it’s possible I’m forgetting something. And who have I incestuously promoted? Seriously, I’m curious.

        As for my “silence”: wasn’t that comment long enough? Not much shorter than my original article. How much longer do you want me to go on?

        1. Alan Jacobs wrote:

          the best work on secularism has been done by Christians, foremost among them the Catholic philosopher Charles Taylor

          As already noted, Taylor is a Templeton Prize recipient, the fact most prominently displayed on the cover of his book on secularism that you recommend in your WSJ article.

          The problem with your comment isn’t length, but a failure to address the salient criticisms. You’re welcome to go on for as long as that takes—this isn’t WSJ column space—but a failure to do so in a long post is also very communicative.

          1. Ah, now I see. I responded to Jerry’s criticisms by pointing out that they were factually incorrect. I’ll do the same for you. You referred to my “recommendation of Templeton publications,” but Taylor’s A Secular Age is published by Harvard University Press, and was written before he received the Templeton Prize.

            I’m happy to respond to criticisms if they are clearly expressed and bear some relation to the facts. Jerry’s met criterion 1 but not criterion 2; yours didn’t meet either.

            Not sure I understand the emphasis on the Templeton people anyway. They play no part in the article I wrote. I wrote a few essays (about non-science matters, since I’m not a scientist) for one of their websites, and that’s the extent of my involvement. I’m not responsible for them any more than Jerry is responsible for the editorial policies of The New Republic. It seems to me that this is a way of playing guilt-by-association and avoiding the real issues.

            In general I don’t write long blog comments until I have a sense that my interlocutors think it worthwhile to get the facts right. I mentioned a couple of things that Jerry got wrong; I could mention a few more, but I don’t know whether he (or anyone else here) cares. I’m getting older and want to conserve my energies.

          2. I’m happy to respond to criticisms if they are clearly expressed

            But the criticism has been clearly expressed, both here and elsewhere: Templeton writers invariably and misleadingly promote the Templeton Foundation’s agenda, as you did when you plugged the book of a Templeton Prize winner in the WSJ. A second on Google shows how widely this practice is criticized.

            John Horgan: “One Templeton official made what I felt were inappropriate remarks about the foundation’s expectations of us fellows. She told us that the meeting cost more than $1-million, and in return the foundation wanted us to publish articles touching on science and religion. But when I told her one evening at dinner that — given all the problems caused by religion throughout human history — I didn’t want science and religion to be reconciled, and that I hoped humanity would eventually outgrow religion, she replied that she didn’t think someone with those opinions should have accepted a fellowship. So much for an open exchange of views.”

            A. C. Grayling: “Templeton is to all intents and purposes a propaganda organisation for religious outlooks; it should honestly say so”

            And so on.

            As much as you’re trying to turn this discussion to irrelevant matters (word counts, writing quality, that HUP published the Templeton Prize authored book you recommend), you’ve again failed to address the widespread criticism of Templeton’s incestuous propaganda, which includes your WSJ article. Are you able to address this criticism?

          3. Oh, another little thing: I wrote that “some of the best work on secularism has been done by Christians,” but your quotation left off the “some of.” Purely accidental, I’m sure!

          4. Come off it. The full quote is included in the original post above, and the quote is cited as evidence for the standing criticism of incestuous promotion of Templeton’s agenda. The misreading you accuse me of is another non sequitur that, again, avoids the criticisms of your article.

Comments are closed.