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God And Man At Yale? God Is Dead, According To Harvard's New Chaplain (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter woodstock
- Start date
AAABatteries
Footballguy
My mother was telling me about this last night. Definitely sounds odd but then when you read the details it makes a little more sense (to me at least). They already had him as chaplain over humanism and they have 20 religions that the head chaplain oversees. He will just oversee everything and presumably be back filled. Now they weird part to me is more humanism as a religion but it does exist. Once they brought that in to Harvard and it was accepted as one of the 20 then it’s not a huge leap to then have the head of that religion promoted over all. I mean, it would work in the other direction too.
I’d be much more inclined to agree with someone arguing that shouldn’t be in the 20. Also, something tells me that a good number of the people offended would also be offended if the head of the Islam group was promoted.*
*I’m making 2 assumptions there - Islam exists as a religion that has a chaplain at Harvard and people would be upset.
I’d be much more inclined to agree with someone arguing that shouldn’t be in the 20. Also, something tells me that a good number of the people offended would also be offended if the head of the Islam group was promoted.*
*I’m making 2 assumptions there - Islam exists as a religion that has a chaplain at Harvard and people would be upset.
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[scooter]
Footballguy
The article says that he got the job after being unanimously elected by the 40 other chaplains at the university. To me, that makes the story less about his own moral decay or institutional failing......and more about the morals and values of the purportedly-Christian chaplains who voted for the guy.
Also....today I learned that Harvard has 40+ chaplains. That seems like a lot. Do they have one chaplain for each of the 40 most popular belief systems? Do they have a chaplain for The Church Of The Flying Spaghetti Monster? Or Jediism? Is there an Aleister Crowley chaplain whose religious tools include copies of Led Zeppelin III and the collected works of John Osbourne? Do the various nonrelgious students have to compete for time with the same chaplain, or do they each get their own chaplains based on the specific type of atheism that they prefer?
Also....today I learned that Harvard has 40+ chaplains. That seems like a lot. Do they have one chaplain for each of the 40 most popular belief systems? Do they have a chaplain for The Church Of The Flying Spaghetti Monster? Or Jediism? Is there an Aleister Crowley chaplain whose religious tools include copies of Led Zeppelin III and the collected works of John Osbourne? Do the various nonrelgious students have to compete for time with the same chaplain, or do they each get their own chaplains based on the specific type of atheism that they prefer?
woodstock
Footballguy
I read the articles and comprehend the structure and the reasoning behind what happened. My comment is that it takes quite the moral relativism to elect a non-believer to facilitate the hard questions of life to students.
And every example in the NY Times makes assumptions about religion that can only appeal to their white collar, unbelieving readership. Such a bunch of silly presumptions.
And my "God Is Dead At Harvard" schtick was seriously tongue-in-cheek. Everybody knows Yale is the more conservative of the universities, and William F. Buckley announced God's dying there back in the late fifties. God being dead at Harvard should come as no surprise to anybody following any University. It's just never been so formalized.
"Veritas," unless you're religion B. Then different strokes for different folks.
And every example in the NY Times makes assumptions about religion that can only appeal to their white collar, unbelieving readership. Such a bunch of silly presumptions.
And my "God Is Dead At Harvard" schtick was seriously tongue-in-cheek. Everybody knows Yale is the more conservative of the universities, and William F. Buckley announced God's dying there back in the late fifties. God being dead at Harvard should come as no surprise to anybody following any University. It's just never been so formalized.
"Veritas," unless you're religion B. Then different strokes for different folks.
AAABatteries
Footballguy
Alex P Keaton
Footballguy
[scooter]
Footballguy
Here are the 44 different chaplains at Harvard. I'm kind of disappointed that there's no FSM or Jedi option. The non-deists are really getting the short end of the denominational stick here.
Adventist
American Baptist
Baha'i
(2) Buddhist
(3) Catholic
Chabad House (Judaism)
Christian Science
(2) Cru
Episcopal
Foursquare Church
Hillel Orthodox (Judaism)
Hillel Reform (Judaism)
Hindu
Humanist/Agnostic/Atheist (3 for the price of one!)
(6) InterVarsity Christian Fellowship
(2) Judaism (nonspecific)
Korean Mission Church
LDS
Lutheran
(2) Memorial Church
(2) Muslim
Orthodox Christian
Presbyterian
Quaker
Sikh
(2) Southern Baptist
Swedenborgian (huh??)
Unitarian Universalist
United Church Of Christ
United Methodist
Zoroastrian
Adventist
American Baptist
Baha'i
(2) Buddhist
(3) Catholic
Chabad House (Judaism)
Christian Science
(2) Cru
Episcopal
Foursquare Church
Hillel Orthodox (Judaism)
Hillel Reform (Judaism)
Hindu
Humanist/Agnostic/Atheist (3 for the price of one!)
(6) InterVarsity Christian Fellowship
(2) Judaism (nonspecific)
Korean Mission Church
LDS
Lutheran
(2) Memorial Church
(2) Muslim
Orthodox Christian
Presbyterian
Quaker
Sikh
(2) Southern Baptist
Swedenborgian (huh??)
Unitarian Universalist
United Church Of Christ
United Methodist
Zoroastrian
woodstock
Footballguy
Because their original mission was to fuse learning and religion as a religious mission. Hence, chaplains.
Alex P Keaton
Footballguy
Quint
Footballguy
dickey moe
Fingerpicker
Sign of the times that reality is more hilarious than The Onion/Babylon Bee.
IvanKaramazov
Footballguy
On one hand, it's always a little surprising to learn that some colleges still have chaplains. That seems like a quaint holdover from a different era.
On the other hand, DEI administrators basically serve a chaplain-like role in fusing their religious views with otherwise-secular education, so it's not like the position really went away. They just mostly switched over to the new quasi-religion.
On the other hand, DEI administrators basically serve a chaplain-like role in fusing their religious views with otherwise-secular education, so it's not like the position really went away. They just mostly switched over to the new quasi-religion.
rockaction
Footballguy
What I find interesting are that the articles praising the move generally reference his ability to set up inter-faith initiatives and to counsel students that hold enormous doubts, which many of the younger people under his watch purportedly hold. Now, on one hand this is good. Some doubt and some some skepticism about religious texts, doctrines, and political energies is a good thing. Skepticism in that realm prevents Crusade or Inquisition-esque atrocities. And outreach is necessary to draw people into thinking about the bigger questions of life than what to buy at Target that night.
On the other hand, at what point is it relativistic to have an atheist doing the inter-faith outreach? It would seem that an absence of faith is different than a difference of faith, that secular morality, as the chaplain professes to have, cannot hold for very long or has no premise upon which to ground itself. Acquiescing in the warehouse of the certainty of truth is different from totally discounting religious truth. (Huh. Consumerism crept in the language there for a moment. It was unintentional, but I like it, so I'll let it stand.)
Color me surprised, but not so much. It seems like a real highbrow yet docile relativism at work here. Finer minds than mine could write about it better than I, but the end result seems like a product of modern relativistic standards, only hidden beneath the surface. I suppose if you were to scratch this secular moralist, you'd find things like "perspective," "different but legitimate," all those things that indicate a creeping or incipient relativism in thought.
That's why maybe woodstock says this is surely an age of doubt, only the age of doubt is about capital "T" truth existing at all. That's where I've always thought atheistic (not agnostic!) secularism leads -- to nothing more than relativism and the prevention of total war of ideology against ideology only by detente.
On the other hand, at what point is it relativistic to have an atheist doing the inter-faith outreach? It would seem that an absence of faith is different than a difference of faith, that secular morality, as the chaplain professes to have, cannot hold for very long or has no premise upon which to ground itself. Acquiescing in the warehouse of the certainty of truth is different from totally discounting religious truth. (Huh. Consumerism crept in the language there for a moment. It was unintentional, but I like it, so I'll let it stand.)
Color me surprised, but not so much. It seems like a real highbrow yet docile relativism at work here. Finer minds than mine could write about it better than I, but the end result seems like a product of modern relativistic standards, only hidden beneath the surface. I suppose if you were to scratch this secular moralist, you'd find things like "perspective," "different but legitimate," all those things that indicate a creeping or incipient relativism in thought.
That's why maybe woodstock says this is surely an age of doubt, only the age of doubt is about capital "T" truth existing at all. That's where I've always thought atheistic (not agnostic!) secularism leads -- to nothing more than relativism and the prevention of total war of ideology against ideology only by detente.
NorvilleBarnes
Footballguy
boots11234
Footballguy
wikkidpissah
Footballguy
one of my best HS buddies became a minister and i dont think he has ever believed in more than the hope of God, the regulating construct of living as tho in His presence. what surprised me when i visited him @ Union Theological Seminary (Columbia's divinity school, more or less) was how many other students were just like him. most of them saw being a minister of God as the most effective way to help others - like being mayor of a community without having to campaign. and as long as one could be a minister of the Word, the personal investment was superfluous. that was half a century ago.
my pal has been at a major church in Cambridge for almost forty years and has been one of Boston's leading homelessness activists most of that time as his ministry. haven't asked if he's hedged his Pascalian wager or not now that he's in his dotage, but i dont think so.
my pal has been at a major church in Cambridge for almost forty years and has been one of Boston's leading homelessness activists most of that time as his ministry. haven't asked if he's hedged his Pascalian wager or not now that he's in his dotage, but i dont think so.
rockaction
Footballguy
Nothing to see here folks, just people cheering a dead God.
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