By: Dr. Jerry Bergman
Montpelier, Ohio
There were once two professors whose story says much about higher education today. Professor Hardison, a philosophy professor, enjoyed discussing biology, and Bishop, an anatomy professor, liked discussing philosophy.
Dr. Richard Hardison works hard to convince students that his opinions about God, evolution, and the purpose of life are correct.
One of his admiring students said that Hardison was especially effective in helping him “think clearly about theology, particularly concerning reason and faith.”
Although Hardison has helped many people accept his way of thinking, the story of only one such student will be told here, that of Michael Shermer.
Dr. Shermer was introduced to Christianity as a youth. In his senior year of high school, he accepted Christ as his savior. To this day, he remembers the chair he sat in the church when he made his commitment.
Headed for the ministry, he enrolled in Pepperdine University (a Church of Christ school), majoring in theology. While taking a philosophy class at Glendale College, the budding minister took a course with Hardison.
Deciding to witness to his professor, Michael gave him a Christian theology book. Hardison typed out a list of theology’s problems that he gave to Michael. Soon followed many long discussions, both in and after class, in which Hardison won Michael over—and he converted from evangelical Christianity to evangelical atheism.
Shermer now opposes all attempts by believers to “use science and reason to prove God’s existence.” As editor of Skeptic Magazine and author of numerous best-selling books, he spends a great deal of time using “science and reason” to disprove God’s existence.
As the head of the second largest atheistic organization in the world, he has converted hundreds to atheism including many former Christians.
He is especially active in attacking creationism because, in his words, “the number-one reason people give for why they believe in God is the design argument: The good design, natural beauty, perfection, and complexity of the world compels us to conclude that it could not have come about without an intelligent designer.
In other words, people say they believe in God because the evidence of their senses tells them so.” For this reason, many professors like Hardison attack the classic cosmological design argument to win students to atheism.
Although Hardison has been very active in converting students to his worldview, I could not find any record of complaints or concerns about his proselytizing.
He is regarded as an excellent teacher, sincerely interested in students, even as he actively challenges their faith and, evidently not infrequently, wins students to his views.
A few rare students object to his proselytizing against Christianity, but their complaints have never made it to court (and, if they did, the ACLU would defend Hardison’s academic freedom.
Dr. Philip Bishop
Dr. Philip Bishop is a professor of physiology at the University of Alabama, and director of the university’s human performance laboratory.
He was a popular teacher who began each semester’s classes with a two-minute discussion that he believed was abundant evidence for intelligent design instead of evolutionary naturalism.
Challenged by the university, an 11th U.S. Circuit Court upheld the university’s demand that he never mention his beliefs in class. Bishop also included an optional unit titled, Evidence of God in Human Physiology, taught on his own time, which the court ordered him to stop.
The university endeavored to stop only Bishop—no one else—from briefly mentioning his personal worldview in the classroom.
Bishop argued that only professors with an atheistic or agnostic worldview could freely express their views. No other faculty and no other topic have been similarly censored. The Court held that Bishop’s right of free speech in the lecture hall is subject to absolute control (censorship) by the university administration.
Bishop case challenged the college’s claim that they had the absolute right to restrict even occasional in-class and out-of-class comments that mentioned a professor’s personal views on the subject of his academic expertise.
The university argued that allowing professors to present their personal views implies that the university endorses them, claiming that it endorses “everything it does not censor.”
Bishop argued that occasional expressions of personal belief at a public university “cannot be construed as bearing the university’s imprimatur, and thus are protected under the First Amendment when they are non-disruptive and non-coercive.”
The court concluded that speech construed as religious, or even religiously motivated, even if the views expressed are clearly identified as personal, can be censored.
Strictly applied, this ruling concludes that it is inappropriate for a professor to state that he is Jewish or Muslim, goes to church, or believes in God. Yet the same professor is allowed to state that he does not believe in God.
The court of appeals ruled that the university had a “legitimate interest” in preventing religion from “infecting” students “because expression of a religious viewpoint, ‘no matter how carefully presented, . . . engenders anxiety in students.’”
The courts have consistently ruled in favor of faculty who injected anti-religious, atheistic, or agnostic material into their classes.
Cornell University Professor of Biological Sciences William B. Provine, first presents the theistic side in his classes, then, for the rest of the term, endeavors to demolish the arguments for theism.
He noted that at the beginning of his course, about 75% of his students were either creationists or at least believed in purpose in evolution, i.e., were theists and believed that God directed evolution.
Provine proudly notes that by the end of his course the percentage of theists dropped from 75% to 50%. He is very successful in influencing his students toward atheism, and very open about his success.
The university and courts have never interfered with his right to preach atheism. The courts are clear. Only one side the theism issue can be presented in university. This is indoctrination, not education.
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Dr. Jerry Bergman has taught biology, genetics, chemistry, biochemistry, anthropology, geology, and microbiology for over 40 years at several colleges and universities including Bowling Green State University, Medical College of Ohio where he was a research associate in experimental pathology, and The University of Toledo. He is a graduate of the Medical College of Ohio, Wayne State University in Detroit, the University of Toledo, and Bowling Green State University. He has over 1,800 publications in 12 languages and 60 books and monographs. His books and textbooks that include chapters that he authored are in over 1,500 college libraries in 27 countries. All 60 of Bergman’s books are on Amazon, Barnes and Noble and other bookstores.