Roland98

Don't know whether this would be better in here or in lifestyle, but there seem to be many who may be quite knowledgeable on this subject in here, so I thought I'd try it out in this folder first. This was posted on another forum I'm on:

This poster always throws out these blanket assertions and never backs them up, but this one just bugs me because I don't know enough about the first part to successfully refute him. (Deists don't count, apparently; I already countered with Jefferson and Franklin).

So...a little help? Atheist/agnostic university founders, anyone? Can be universities anywhere in the world...the more, the better.

Thanks!

Rusting Car Bumper

Simply look at how many Nobel prize winners are atheists or agnostics.

Richard Feynman and Steven Weinberg come to mind.

DC

Roland98

Yeah, I've posted that (as well as % atheists who are members of the National Academy of Sciences, etc)--the sticking point is the university one; it's still glaringly unrefuted, which bugs me. There must be some outright atheist (or agnostic), somewhere, who's founded a university. I'm just not versed in university founders for the most part, let alone what their religious leanings may have been.

Biff the unclean

You must be quite young. Until a very short time ago a person who admitted to being an Atheist was immediately a pariah. There was (is) no level playing field. Christians love to claim that they have done all sorts of wonderful things that Atheists have not but neglect to remember that anyone who declared themselves an Atheist put their careers and their safety at risk.

Ask how many American Presidents were Atheists and you can come up with an impressive list. Ask how many publicly admitted they were and you'll find none.

Hopeful Monsters

I like the American President point - could a person be elected President (or even win a Party nomination) if she or he openly declared themself as a non-thesist or atheist?

PaulPritchard

Apparently not. According to this survey,

Roland98

Well, I am fairly young (no spring chicken, though!), but I realize the implications of open atheism (and argued that point as well). But I still think there had to be someone out there....

*Sigh* Perhaps the closest thing I can argue are the deists, but he's already rejected that (since, technically, they are theists, though certainly not Christian.

Phooey.

Stew

How about ummmm... Brigham Young.


Yes Brigham Young. He certainly had his athiestic bent. He was at last report, most athiestic in his beliefs regarding Odin, Hera, and the IPU.


Seems to be a semantical issue.



Maybe bring up the issue that all the western theistic centers of learning owe their existance to Islam. Gutenberg (sp?) may be thought of as the inventor of the printing press, but it would not have gotten far without the Arabs who brought paper to Spain and the rest of Europe.



.

Biff the unclean

And how would you know? There are plenty of secular Universities out there. But the records would say that they were founded by Dr John Doe. It would never say founded by Atheist Dr John Doe. While a religious school would quite clearly say founded by the Reverend Dr John Doe

Because it doesn't say the religion of the founder. You must keep in mind that all those good Christians who would not vote for a qualified Atheist also will not donate to a qualified Atheistic College. Fund raising is a fact of life.

JerryM

I'm not certain of this person's actual beliefs, but you might do some research into William Barton Rogers, 1804 -1882, who was the founder and first president of MIT. He was a chemist and geologist and was an early supporter of Darwin in the U.S. From the little I know, it seems he was at least a free-thinker, if not a true agnostic/atheist.