Religion At Middlebury (2007)

[Published as a letter to the Editor of MIDDLEBURY Magazine, Spring, 2007; “Take the Gloves Off” (p.3)]

Religion at Middlebury

     While reading “Of Faith and Reason” (Winter 2007), I kept waiting for some mention of voices at Middlebury who would reject many of the fundamental assumptions reflected in the article. Are there professors or students or people occupied with “student life” at Middlebury who hold that “faith,” i.e., believing things without evidence or contrary to available evidence, is not a virtue but is in fact incompatible with genuine intellectual integrity? Does anyone defend the notion that “different faith traditions” getting people—especially young children--to believe in such absurdities as virgin births, ascents into heaven, and adventures with angels undermines all that separates the mind of a critical thinker from the phantasmagoria of the National Enquirer? Does anyone question the notion—apparently taken for granted in much of the activity reported in the article—that we can assume a foundational link between religion and ethics/morality? Most decent people have the ability to distinguish between right and wrong without reliance on religious dogma, which is why they can read the Old Testament and be outraged by its views on women, slavery, and punishment, or the New Testament’s nonchalant condemnation of large numbers of people to eternal torture. As Plato’s Socrates pointed out long ago (Euthyphro 10-11), the gods favor the good because it is good; it is not the case that the good is good because the gods favor it. Ethics/morality is not intrinsically tied to religion.

     No one can be opposed to studying about religion: its history, sociology, anthropology, psychology, etc. But the claims of religion to truth and authority cannot be accepted without rigorous critical scrutiny. In the fuzzy atmosphere of “interfaith dialogue” and “spirituality”---apparently enthusiastically encouraged and handsomely underwritten at the College---religion seems to get a free ride with respect to its pretensions to intellectual and moral respectability. Undoubtedly there are people at Middlebury who are critical of the whole enterprise of religion. I would urge the editors to make their views known. Are there courses where students read works by lucid critics of “faith” like Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris? Are there forums that welcome real “gloves off” examinations—rather than the usual deferential pabulum---of religion? Is anyone at Middlebury openly and explicitly critical of the pretensions of religion? If so, let’s hear about them!

 Richard Hogan ‘67