It has been a few months at least since I've been driven to the point of passion about a religious topic or incident. But recently, during my English class, I felt that familiar sense of indignation. As the tips of my ears turned a dark shade of pink and my restless right foot tapped the floor incessantly, I marveled at the troubling degree to which religiosity expressed in an academic setting obstructs the learning process.
The homework assignment the previous night was to carefully read and analyze the Genesis creation story, so one would expect that class discussion would revolve around astute comments addressing the tone, rhetorical character and recurring themes of the biblical text.
Midway through a fluid rally of interesting observations, however, one student -- a self-professed priest-in-training -- took it upon himself to combat some of the insightful, well substantiated comments made by members of the class, using obscure religious reasoning and citing isolated, irrelevant examples to give the illusion that textual evidence supported his points -- the ultimate goal of an English class.
The blindness of this particular classmate was an unfortunate reminder that the expression of religious zeal within the context of academic discipline is a severe problem. It was clear that this student had not carefully analyzed -- let alone even attempted to understand -- the text in an objective manner. Blinded by his faith, this young man had refused to consider the work from a critical, literary standpoint.
If, however, he had endeavored to detach his reasoning from his personal creed and emotion, he would have understood -- if only minimally -- the critical comments of his peers. Furthermore, he would not have had to frantically rack his brain in order to regurgitate the memorized snippets of Sunday School "fact" that leave no room for alternate interpretations of God's benevolence.
Such feeble attempts to defend the sacred book were blatant acts of religious apology -- in other words, denial. More importantly, however, they solidified an already existing belief of mine -- namely, that expressing religious zeal is antithetical to academic learning. The former requires rigid close-mindedness, while the latter demands the fluid exchange of ideas between malleable, unprejudiced minds; it is obvious that the latter ascribes to academic ideals while the former fails to do so.
Even if you think this article bears the literary trademark of Satan, I ask you to open your eyes and ears and entertain the prospect that one can perform critical, insightful analysis only by placing one's personal creeds on the backburner. The only appropriate way for religion to manifest itself in academics is by way of the curriculum itself. After all, the goal of religious studies is radically different than the goal of religious evangelism.
The undue "tolerance" we have for the imposition of religion upon any secular educational institutions -- let alone those with Dartmouth's outstanding academic reputation -- is a troubling phenomenon that can only inhibit learning. In the United States alone, an increasing number of schools have successfully managed to defy the constitutional ruling against teaching religion in public institutions.
Whether it is an Atlanta school board that ordered science teachers to inform their students about "other" forms of creation theory besides Darwinian evolution, or a school in Dover, Pennsylvania that was sued by parents for claiming evolution as theory not fact, the interference of religious doctrine in the learning process of young people simply has to stop.
Just because religious indoctrination is oftentimes couched in euphemistic, and illusory language -- "Intelligent Design" springs to mind as the most obvious example -- does not mean it ceases to infiltrate our educational systems.
