Latest Fundy Fear mongering: Universities make kids atheists

[joseph8th]

Aaahhhh... but yet another study (referenced here) found that Fundies become MORE dogmatic know-it-alls as they get more education -- Progressives and our ilk become more open-minded.

So really, Santorum has nothing to worry about. Meanwhile, we should be focusing our efforts on outreach to uneducated Conservatives, rather than battling their army of white male know-it-alls with degrees from Liberty U.

RE: atheist professors. I hope this is true, though I haven't seen it, myself. Religion never comes up in most of my classes, though (math/CS). Did in Philosophy, but the professor was a godbeliever.

The bigger problem is the centuries-old grip that Xtianity has on western Universities. That's a cause I'll gladly join. If academia's where all the cool atheists are.

 

[MontagK505]

Aaahhhh... but yet another study (referenced here) found that Fundies become MORE dogmatic know-it-alls as they get more education -- Progressives and our ilk become more open-minded.

So really, Santorum has nothing to worry about. Meanwhile, we should be focusing our efforts on outreach to uneducated Conservatives, rather than battling their army of white male know-it-alls with degrees from Liberty U.

RE: atheist professors. I hope this is true, though I haven't seen it, myself. Religion never comes up in most of my classes, though (math/CS). Did in Philosophy, but the professor was a godbeliever.

The bigger problem is the centuries-old grip that Xtianity has on western Universities. That's a cause I'll gladly join. If academia's where all the cool atheists are.

Education is not the same as knowledge.

 

[AvalonXQ]

Aaahhhh... but yet another study (referenced here) found that Fundies become MORE dogmatic know-it-alls as they get more education -- Progressives and our ilk become more open-minded.

Sorry, but that's not what the article you linked to actually describes the studies as saying.

What it says is that conservatives become more likely to hold to conservative views, while liberals are more likely to hold liberal views. The author makes the classic fallacy of conflating holding to liberal views with "being open minded". The only conclusion you can actually get from the article (other than his very strong opinion that "we liberals are right and those conservative are wrong) is that everybody gets more entrenched in idiology as they gain more education.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Sorry, but that's not what the article you linked to actually describes the studies as saying.

What it says is that conservatives become more likely to hold to conservative views, while liberals are more likely to hold liberal views. The author makes the classic fallacy of conflating holding to liberal views with "being open minded". The only conclusion you can actually get from the article (other than his very strong opinion that "we liberals are right and those conservative are wrong) is that everybody gets more entrenched in idiology as they gain more education.

There are other studies that do support the conclusions liberals are more open minded.

That doesn't mean every liberal or every conservative but as a whole, conservatives are more likely to follow dogma and that in itself is one example of how they are more closed minded than liberals.

 

[Astrodude]

This isn't a new claim at all. It is the oldest claim made by the anti-evolution religious lobby. Santorum is parroting very old arguments from the Leuba study and preachers' anecdotes.

William Jennings Bryan wrote:
The special reason for bringing to the attention of
Christians at this time the evil that Darwinism is do-
ing is to show that| atheists and agnostics are not only
claiming but enjoying higher rights and greater privi-
leges in this land than Christians ; that is, they are able
to propagate their viev/s at pttblic expense while Chris-
tianity must be taught at the expense of Christians.

He also said this:
...while only fifteen per cent, of the freshmen
have discarded the Christian religion, thirty per cent,
of the juniors and that forty to forty-five per cent, of
the men graduates have abandoned the cardinal prin-
ciples of the Christian faith.

See his packet, "The Menace of Darwinism"
http://archive.org/stream/menaceofdarwinis00brya/menaceofdarwinis00brya_djvu.txt