Chair for the Study of Atheism Established at University of Miami
Why do you need to study something based on non-belief?
The New York Times reports.
University of Miami Establishes Chair for Study of Atheism
With an increasing number of Americans leaving religion behind, the University of Miami received a donation in late April from a wealthy atheist to endow what it says is the nation’s first academic chair “for the study of atheism, humanism and secular ethics.”
The chair has been established after years of discussion with a $2.2 million donation from Louis J. Appignani, a retired businessman and former president and chairman of the modeling school Barbizon International, who has given grants to many humanist and secular causes — though this is his largest so far. The university, which has not yet publicly announced the new chair, will appoint a committee of faculty members to conduct a search for a scholar to fill the position.
“I’m trying to eliminate discrimination against atheists,” said Mr. Appignani, who is 83 and lives in Florida. “So this is a step in that direction, to make atheism legitimate.”
Religion departments and professors of religious studies are a standard feature at most colleges and universities, many originally founded by ministers and churches. The study of atheism and secularism is only now starting to emerge as an accepted academic field, scholars say, with its own journal, conferences, course offerings and, now, an endowed chair.
“I think it’s a very bold step of the University of Miami, and I hope there will be others,” said Richard Dawkins, an evolutionary biologist and atheist luminary who is the author of “The God Delusion.”
University of Miami Establishes Chair for Study of Atheism (The New York Times)
Comments
“Why do you need to study something based on non-belief?”
Well, it is a belief system. It is not like agnosticism which in truly no belief. Most atheists I have dealt with tend to be quite specific, They believe there is no possible way that the Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Druid, Pagan etc god or gods exist.
When I get off of religion and talk about the natural world, and the striving for life in all the nooks and crannies on this Earth, we occasionally get into the ‘sense of awe’ at some the ‘miraculous’ places we see.
Face it, anyone approaching the mythology of most modern religions for the first time, with no history, would laugh at the absurdity of much of it.
I disagree with your definition of agnosticism. Agnostics, including myself, assert that you have to believe because you can’t know (i.e. prove…at least not with present knowledge and technology).
In that sense, agnostics think everyone who definitely states their belief opinion as if it is truth is a zealot of a particular order. It’s not that an agnostic won’t believe (that’s a skeptic)…it’s that everyone essentially must take belief as a surrogate when intellectual gaps prevent certainty.
Ironic that Dawkins thinks this is a good idea. It should be part of the religious studies and/or philosophy department since it is a belief system in itself. However, I would expect scientific atheists to attempt to legitimize atheism as science instead of religion.