Catholic university engages atheism head-on

[rug]

Ron Csillag | Jan 25, 2013

TORONTO (RNS) Talk about an unlikely course in an unlikely place.

The main chapel at Jesuit-run Regis College at the University of Toronto is adorned with stained glass windows, icons of Mary and Joseph, and the Stations of the Cross.

The eight-week course, which meets every Wednesday afternoon, is on atheism. Or more precisely, “Responding to 21st-Century Atheism.”

It’s an attempt, says the Rev. Scott Lewis, for people of faith to understand and come to terms with the increasingly muscular secularism and atheism that has arisen in Western societies over the past generation.

http://www.religionnews.com/2013/01/25/catholic-university-engages-atheism-head-on/

[Fresh_Start]

1. I'm not hopeful

"“One idea for atheists to leave behind is that people who believe are stupid or naive,” Lewis suggested. “And perhaps we should leave behind the idea that an atheist is someone who is not ethical or a good person."

Note the "perhaps"....

[rug]

2. I suspect that was rhetorical.

He also said:

"Both sides need to lighten up"

[Fumesucker]

5. Giordano Bruno just called

He said it would be prudent to make sure the good Reverend was quoted precisely.

[rug]

6. "Se non è vero, è molto ben trovato."

[Fumesucker]

7. Semper Gumby

[cbayer]

4. I think both are excellent ideas.

[cbayer]

3. "Both sides need to lighten up" - ain't that the truth.

[dimbear]

8. Because of the demise of the Index Librorum Prohibitorum, the school could have let an atheist

author be represented in the curriculum. That they did not seems a little heavy handed.

[Phillip McCleod]

9. the phrase 'believe in evolution' always gets under my skin

but it's probably just my general aversion to beliefs

[cleanhippie]

10. It's the way that, to borrow cbayers term, "dumbass creationists" try to equivocate evolution with

their beliefs.