Thread:User talk:WaitingforGodot/Religious studies at Atheism Wiki/reply

Right from the start, you jump in with judgement - a judgement I don't think came from anything you have read, but rather from something you just sorta pull out of your head. Virtually no religious studies departments, at least here in the states, are theologically bent, nor do they have faith based issues. You walk into them being told from the first, that if you are religious, this is likely not the place for you, cause we will look at all religion as man made, and as equally "truthful" in the sense that philo is "truthful". there is no capital T Truth studied in Religious Studies.

We tend to rip the crap out of holy books, especially the bible, since that is wha tmost people are interested in. We look at religion as a way to help people in times of struggle, but equally a way to control people.

The vast majority of PhDs teaching religious studies are atheists or agnostics. As you and I both have said, something about looking at all religions as equal, as man made, and actually searching the history of holy texts tends to make people highly dubious of any kind of transcendent god. I do have quite a few friends that are extreme god of the gap types "I cannot totally give up my view of god, but i'm going to push it all teh way back to 'the thing that started the big bang".

I'm also dubious of your view of "accomidists". we tend to be realists. There is good in religion. but there has been tons of "bad". we address both sides.

"Atheists who strongly oppose" actually would fit into Chicgo, colorado, UCLA, UC Berkley, Oxford and Harvard to name places I have atheist friends. Again, it is an academic disclpine. and we are highly critical of looking at it from any other point of view. to the extent we can, we want to be quasi (or "soft") scientific. we want to make statements supported by evidence, and challenged.

Virtually NO ONE would oppose you, as an atheist, in a RLST program. they are totally different from theogly.

one thing you CAN mention, though is that most RLST programs do encourage you to take some theology. but trust me, we all know what we are getting into, and are ready to laugh. ;-)