>>Stephen Black wrote:
>> First, France, then the US, now India. Is this some new kind of
>> virus?
>>
>>From the newsletter for the Chronicle of Higher Education 9sept
>> 6, 2001):
>>
>> "THE SUPREME COURT OF INDIA has agreed to hear a petition
>> lodged by academics seeking to quash the government's
>> decision to allow universities to award degrees in astrology.
>> The move comes amid increasing criticism that the
>> government's nationalistic Hindu campaign is damaging higher
>> education."
>Rick Adams wrote:
>There's a major element that everyone seems to be missing in this attitude
>toward such degrees--religion!
Yer ole nemesis, eh?
>How many people who think the idea of a degree in "astrology" is stupid
>simultaneously support the concept of one in "divinity," "theology," or
>"Christian Philosophy?"
Are we raising our hands? Mine’s up.
>NONE of those degrees are based on anything other
>than pure belief.
So, are you suggesting we not study whatever you mean by “Christian
philosophy” (sounds like an oxymoron) simply because it cannot be
verified scientifically? A religious ideology that many people believe in,
find use in, and might benefit from a more adequate academic analysis
thereof.
We teach philosophy on campus, don’t we? What’s so empirical about
that?
>Why is it acceptable to award a PhD in one "superstitious"
>subject but not in another? Because in _our_ nation we don't believe in
>an
>influence from the "stars?" Who decided that Western religious beliefs
>should be an acceptable academic discipline but not Eastern?
Well, one difference I see between astrology and Christian religion is that
you can scientifically debunk astrology, because its basic premises are
flawed. If I remember my occultic knowledge, is not astrology seriously
flawed because it adheres to the old myth of geocentrism?
I'm not sure how you're tying astrology to religion. I’ve never met a single
individual who held to it as a religion, but as a science. How does
astrology qualify as a religion? What are its moral teachings? What is its
concept of a god or salvation or anything else generally associated with
religious teachings?
>Sorry, but while I don't happen to personally believe in astrology (I don't
>happen to believe in a Supreme Being either)
One day I’d be curious to hear from the atheists on their personal theories
of how everything came to be. If not God, then what? I can barely
understand some of the most complex aspects of life, and so the creation
of an entirely complicated system of life, on various levels, defies how a
nice synthesis of pre-universe farting developed
this multitude of complexity.
>I fail to see why it isn't at
>least as valid an area of study as is divinity. NEITHER is scientific, and
>EITHER can be debunked (to an objective observer) with equal ease
by modern
>science. Either both should be valid areas (in their respective cultures)
>for the awarding of an academic degree--or NEITHER should be.
As always, you make a good point. The religious individual needs to
accept that opening the door to his beliefs cannot allow slamming it shut
on others, whether he likes it or not.
I do applaud you for your sense of fairness.
By the way, I am curious how easily you see Christianity being debunked,
given that much of it cannot be scientifically validated. Doesn’t seem like
much debunking or bunking is possible.
Could you be more specific? You can do this off-list for those
who might yawn at such a topic (as well as consider it irrelevant to the
purposes of the list).
By the way, did you know that in the book of Isaiah he describes God as
sitting above the circle that is the earth? Can you imagine this religious nut
teaching something like that? He claimed his knowledge came from God.
Now we all know that in 500BC the world was flat...
Not to mention “Job” – another religious nut. One thousand years before
Isaiah was written the author of this book had the nerve to claim that the
earth was suspended into space by nothing at all. Must’ve really irritated
the scientific elite from the East who knew full well the earth was riding on
a turtle.
************************************************************************
Jim Guinee, Ph.D.
Director of Training & Adjunct Professor
President, Arkansas College Counselor Association
University of Central Arkansas Counseling Center
313 Bernard Hall Conway, AR 72035 USA
(501) 450-3138 (office) (501) 450-3248 (fax)
"Almost every sect of Christianity is a perversion of its
essence, to accomodate it to the prejudices of the world."
-- William Hazlitt
**************************************************************************
