Peter Boghossian
Peter Boghossian is an atheist provocateur. We have meet him before on these pages, calling for the eradication of religious belief,. Now He legitimizes his propaganda with a university course disguised as social and designed to recruit, indoctrinate and brain wash new atheists. This is documented on the shadow to light blog. "Michael discloses the sylubus for the class:
Just as the purpose of religious studies is not to convert students to a particular faith tradition, this course is not about “converting” students to atheism. [1]
Michael goes on:
First, here are the religious studies courses offered by Portland State University. I see no class entitled “Christianity” taught by a Christian apologist who uses his own book, “Manual for Creating Christians” as a required text. Sorry, but Boghossian’s syllabus doesn’t read like any religious studies syllabus from a public university that I have seen. If it did, it would explore and describe the different types of atheism around the world (materialists, idealists, buddhists, communists, humanists, etc). But judging from his syllabus, Boghossian’s course is about viewing the world as an atheist.
While Boghossian denies that the class is about converting people to atheism he chose as the text his own book a Manuel for Creating Atheists.
A Manual for Creating Atheists is a step beyond Harris, Dawkins, Hitchens, and Dennett. A Manual for Creating Atheists offers practical solutions to the problems of faith and religion through the creation of Street Epistemologists—legions of people who view interactions with the faithful as clinical interventions designed to disabuse them of their faith.
And if that wasn’t clear enough:
This book will teach you how to talk people out of their faith. You’ll learn how to engage the faithful in conversations that help them value reason and rationality, cast doubt on their beliefs, and mistrust their faith. I call this activist approach to helping people overcome their faith, Street Epistemology. The goal of this book is to create a generation of Street Epistemologists: people equipped with an array of dialectical and clinical tools who actively go into the streets, the prisons, the bars, the churches, the schools, and the community-into any and every place the faithful reside – and help them abandon their faith and embrace reason.[2]
The book has been endorsed by major atheists such as Jerry Coyne, John Loftus and Michel Shermer, all of whom laud ot fpr ot's cpversopm power.
Jerry Coyne promoted this book as “telling the reader how to become a ‘street epistemologist’ with the skills to attack religion” and John Loftus promoted as “There is nothing else on the market like this book that helps atheists talk believers out of their faith.” The foreword by Michael Shermer is entitled “Born-Again Atheist” and boasts, “If I started reading A Manual for Creating Atheists as a Christian I would have been an atheist by the time I finished it.” And the book also comes with this blurb:
“Since atheism is truly Good News, it should not be hidden under a bushel. Peter Boghossian shows us how to take it to the highways and the byways. I love it!” —Dan Barker, Co-President of the Freedom From Religion Foundation. [3]
Given the purpose of Boghossian’s book is to convert people to atheism, and given the book is a required text in his course, where he spends 3-4 weeks going through the book, the disclaimer about the course not trying to convert people to atheism doesn’t sound very convincing. Even less so once you consider that Boghossian has publicly advocated that “professors should have a primary goal of changing students beliefs if those beliefs are false and seek to replace those beliefs with true ones.”[4]
We have seen Boghossian before as I said. In March of 14:"Atheist Hate Speech and Mental Disorder "
Philosopher Randal Rauser acuses Peter Boghossian (see AW last Friday) of hate speech. He quotes Boghossian from his book where he urges that the DSM (bible of psychiatric therapy) include religious "delusions" as mental illness.
“We must recognize religion as brainwashing. We must recognize the (hyper) religious as mentally damaged.” - See more at: http://chrisstedman.religionnews.com/2014/02/24/5-reasons-atheists-shouldnt-call-religion-mental-illness/#sthash.CWLIWIW8.dpuf
“There is perhaps no greater contribution one could make to contain and perhaps even cure faith than removing the exemption that prohibits classifying religious delusions as mental illness. The removal of religious exemptions from the DSM would enable academicians and clinicians to bring considerable resources to bear on the problem of treating faith, as well as on the ethical issues surrounding faith-based interventions. In the long term, once these treatments and this body of research is refined, results could then be used to inform public health policies designed to contain and ultimately eradicate faith.”[5]
Does this mean that all religious believers would be open to the charge of mental illness. It seems so. Rauser finds this to be hate speech. The end goal of bringing rleigious people under the label of mental illness is to "eradicate faith from society altogether."[6]
we also saw him before that:
Back in Monday, November 18, 2013
http://atheistwatch.blogspot.com/2013/11/atheists-call-for-eradication-of-mind.html
YHe's bee n called the Village Atheist answer to Westboror Baptists, by Trever Logan in First Things.[7]
sources
[1] Michael, Shadow to Light,Posted on May 5, 2016 blog
https://shadowtolight.wordpress.com/2016/05/05/another-flimsy-disclaimer/
[2] Ibid.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Ibid
[5] Peter Boghossian A Manual for Creating Atheists (Kindle Locations 3551-3555).
the same sourced he's using as a text book
"Peter Gregory Boghossian is an American philosophy instructor, activist, author, speaker, and atheism advocate. He is a full-time faculty member at Portland State University." Wikipedia
[6] Boghossian quoted in Randal Rauser, "Is Peter Boghossian guilty of Hate Speech?" Randal Rauser, 1/22/14 (blog) on line http://randalrauser.com/2014/01/is-peter-boghossian-guilty-of-hate-speech/
accessed March 30, 2014.
Rauser is a systematic theologian of the Evangelical camp. He earned his Ph.D. in theology for King's College, London. Associate professor of historical theology at Edmonton.
[8] Trevor Logan, "The Pontificate of Peter Boghossian, First Things, 6/10/14
http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2014/06/the-pontificate-of-peter-boghossian accessed 6/10/14
