Can Atheists Teach Philosophy of Religion?
Can Atheists Teach Philosophy of Religion? Saturday February 11, 2006 There is nothing to bar an atheist from teaching the philosophy of religion – indeed, in some places this may be the norm rather than the exception. On the other hand, we would never find a person teaching aesthetics if they denied the existence of aesthetics – that is, if they denied there was anything about art that differentiated it from other cultural artifacts. Is this difference justified? That’s the question asked by Tom Stoneham in his blog: A philistine [someone who thinks that there is no such thing as aesthetic value] thinks that philosophical aesthetics has no subject matter, while an atheist thinks that philosophy of religion has no subject matter. What is the difference? I was going to respond to this by email, but the issue is interesting enough that I thought I would write about it here. The answer, though,
#spacer{clear:left}#abc #sidebar{margin-top:1.5em}if(zs>0){zSB(3,3)}else{gEI(“spacer”).style.display=’none’;gEI(“sidebar”).style.display=’none’}There is nothing to bar an atheist from teaching the philosophy of religion – indeed, in some places this may be the norm rather than the exception. On the other hand, we would never find a person teaching aesthetics if they denied the existence of aesthetics – that is, if they denied there was anything about art that differentiated it from other cultural artifacts. Is this difference justified? That’s the question asked by Tom Stoneham in his blog: A philistine [someone who thinks that there is no such thing as aesthetic value] thinks that philosophical aesthetics has no subject matter, while an atheist thinks that philosophy of religion has no subject matter. What is the difference? I was going to respond to this by email, but the issue is interesti
