UW Law and Religion Professor...

Ann Althouse (taking off her professorial cap and expounding as a blogger) tells us what she thinks of the Adam and Eve story:

Both have adult bodies. Do they have sex? But they are babies, chronologically! How can you condemn them as sinners under these circumstances? The whole thing is ridiculous. If they screwed up, why should it matter?
...
The Adam and Eve story is a completely perverted example for thinking about whether human beings are all sinners or "fallen" or whatever.

I'm just an alum, obviously. Never taught a day of law school in my life. But still... if you ask me ... I don't think the professor's religious views should ever come across in the classroom if they are so laced with contempt.

Pretty much,
you can cleanly teach about how American law and religion intersect, specifically the First Amendment and Court precedents, if you are a non-believer. It's easy -- stick to the facts, and don't get into the faith. Pretty much, the law only examines whether a believer's beliefs are "sincerely held"; there's no reason to do a scientific-based rational-dissection of whether Adam and Eve were real people or metaphors in a story; whether it was possible for a Virgin to give birth; whether G-d really promised the Jewish people a homeland for ever and ever and ever...

What you pretty much do have to do, as a professor, is maintain the respect of the students by sticking to the materials you are there to teach.

Nobody I know is asking Professor Althouse to intellectually offer up her opinions on what little she knows of religions. Why she thinks it's fine to do so on a blog, when presumably she'll be back in the classroom teaching Christians and non-Christians alike, is beyond me.

I sure wish the academic and administrative staff could pull her aside and say, "Sure Ann, you have the right to spout off on any topic you like. But really, do you think it's wise to mix up secular laws with people's faith-based religions?"

They are babies without parents, without civilization, without any structure around them except a few rules spoken by God. Do you think a 2-year-old toddler would deserve severe lifelong punishment for touching something his father told him not to touch? No, we would in fact probably put the father in prison if he punished that child severely.

Sadly, I think she's untouchable in that regard -- no common sense permitted in.

Also, if Eve were made out Adam's rib, wouldn't they have the same DNA? She's his clone. The big secret is: Eve is a man! If you want to say, but with God all things are possible, then why did he bother extracting a rib from Adam... baby Adam?

I suspect, she doesn't quite understand the idea of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, because she is dismissive and not willing to entertain anything so ... beyond her. Fair enough. But again I ask: is this really the best person to be teaching the Law and Religion class, or would someone more viewpoint neutral in presentation do a much better job by students paying to learn the law?

I also suspect that non-believers like herself -- who seem to lack a stable foundation themselves* -- are much, much more likely to put their secular faith in a leader like President Obama, who promises secular laws and social programs can do a better job of delivering results than religious schools and organizations.

We'll see, but so far, the results are bureacratic, ineffectual, and ... costly.

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* Not all. But that post rings out as fearful and unstable in a (perhaps temporary) way that most religious/faithful people do not question, grounded in a bigger belief and understanding of Man. They/we simply do not need secular help in understanding such evil exists, but will ultimately be vanquished. Perhaps there's something to that "Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil" story afterall...

I remember walking between two large old university buildings on my way back to the street crossing where my colleague had told me the news a few hours ago. I looked at those buildings and thought: I had always assumed these buildings were so solid, but how foolish I was; these buildings are all now going to fall. I really felt, walking between those two buildings, that everything we had built was doomed, and that we had been living under an illusion that the world we had built could stand.

Today, when I go home after work, I still walk between those two buildings, and I often think about how I felt on that day that these buildings could not stand. Yet here they are. I'm amazed at how ready I was on that day to believe that the terrorists had taken our world away, that the will to destruction, now unleashed, would overcome the work of all of the rest of us who wanted to build things and to live our individual lives in the material world. Yet here we are, still building things, still making lives for ourselves.

ADDED: Wow! She continues on, The Christian Faith according to a law professor:
Ann Althouse said...

"These were two people that could communicate directly with a deity and a deity that responded to them. Not mentioned directly in Bible (perhaps it is, but my memory isn't what it used to be), but God was involved in their daily lives. I find it hard to believe, even in a narrative sense, that a caring and loving father-figure, if nothing else, wouldn't help them in every way."

Then presumably, you're not a believer, since God set up a trap and punished them severely and permanently when they fell in it. You can't believe that, you said.

Anyway, the direct communication with God is one of the reasons -- which my comment acknowledges -- that Adam and Eve fail to represent us regular people. We may be sinners or not, but what do we have to do with them? They were in a completely different situation. Now, maybe God hold us responsible for what they did. There could be a God who is vengeful and completely unfair. But you don't want to believe in that God. Nobody does!

8/9/11 1:14 PM

Um, sorry to inform you Ann, but plenty indeed do believe in the theory of Original Sin. Not that you have to buy it, but enough with the criticisms?

(Commenter Scott quickly responds: If a god sets out to create worshipers and grants them free will, then tests it, who are you to say what should and shouldn't be "right"? We failed the first test of our own free will and that allowed sin into the perfection of creation. Everything after, ie us, was tainted by that first sin.)


No wonder Marquette continues to rise in the law school rankings, as UW continues to decline... They are simply more secular there -- non-Catholic students are welcomed as well, and something tells me, there's a lot more respect going all the way around. To those who choose to believe, and those like the professor here, who do not.

I wonder if -- he is charged with teaching similar materials, I think -- the acknowledged atheist Eugene Volokh could give her a tip or two in how to teach these materials, yet not wade into questioning one's personal religious background. I don't think I've ever seen such a tone (of utter contempt) on his blog when discussing law and religion issues. It can be done.