Friday, January 26, 2007
The New Campus Activism?
Max Weiss, a student at the University of Nevada - Las Vegas, writes in The Rebel Yell about an encounter with a religious zealot. After passing over evolution and creationism, the conversation finally got around to morality.
The proselytizer's take on morality, as you might imagine, was that without God, you're no better than a murderer.
"Right at this very moment people are fighting and dying for their beliefs," observes Weiss, "beliefs that none of them can prove...
"[I]n an age where nuclear weapons and instructions to build them are available to any interested party," he concludes, "we cannot afford to have people who believe in martyrdom and in their (self-proclaimed) inerrant books. Atheists, secular humanists, and, though I have intellectual disagreements with them, religious moderates need to step up to the plate and start demanding that people justify their beliefs before the human animal annihilates itself."
That's the sort of thing that makes an old activist like RSR proud.
Update: The article in the Rebel Yell that RSR linked to originally carried the byline of another student author. We have edited our post to reflect the author currently listed on the Rebel Yell online edition.
The proselytizer's take on morality, as you might imagine, was that without God, you're no better than a murderer.
"Right at this very moment people are fighting and dying for their beliefs," observes Weiss, "beliefs that none of them can prove...
"[I]n an age where nuclear weapons and instructions to build them are available to any interested party," he concludes, "we cannot afford to have people who believe in martyrdom and in their (self-proclaimed) inerrant books. Atheists, secular humanists, and, though I have intellectual disagreements with them, religious moderates need to step up to the plate and start demanding that people justify their beliefs before the human animal annihilates itself."
That's the sort of thing that makes an old activist like RSR proud.
Update: The article in the Rebel Yell that RSR linked to originally carried the byline of another student author. We have edited our post to reflect the author currently listed on the Rebel Yell online edition.
