{"id":58,"date":"2002-08-19T23:53:30","date_gmt":"2002-08-20T07:53:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/archives\/2002\/08\/19\/habit-driven-academics-still-nervous-about-religion\/"},"modified":"2002-08-19T23:53:30","modified_gmt":"2002-08-20T07:53:30","slug":"habit-driven-academics-still-nervous-about-religion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/archives\/2002\/08\/19\/habit-driven-academics-still-nervous-about-religion","title":{"rendered":"Habit-Driven Academics Still Nervous About Religion"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pro\u00adfes\u00adsor Chris\u00adt\u00adian Smith<\/a> of UNC Chapel Hill<\/a> wrote an inter\u00adest\u00ading arti\u00adcle for Books & Cul\u00adture<\/a> called Force of Habit<\/a> attempt\u00ading to explain a tena\u00adcious anti-reli\u00adgious sen\u00adsi\u00adbil\u00adi\u00adty among many fac\u00adul\u00adty<\/i>.<\/p>\n

Sev\u00ader\u00adal anec\u00addotes effec\u00adtive\u00adly high\u00adlight his the\u00adsis: anti-reli\u00adgion is still alive and well among the uni\u00adver\u00adsi\u00adty pro\u00adfes\u00adso\u00adri\u00adate. Par\u00adtic\u00adu\u00adlar\u00adly anti-Chris\u00adtian\u00adi\u00adty, which dis\u00addains a faith nei\u00adther exot\u00adic nor \u201csub\u00adal\u00adtern\u201d enough to mer\u00adit the admi\u00adra\u00adtion of intel\u00adlec\u00adtu\u00adals.<\/i><\/p>\n

After spout\u00ading some very con\u00adfus\u00ading soci\u00ado\u00adlog\u00adi\u00adcal ter\u00admi\u00adnol\u00ado\u00adgy, he uses a con\u00adcept called habi\u00adtus<\/b> to account for this con\u00adsis\u00adtent triv\u00adi\u00adal\u00adiza\u00adtion of faith. They way Smith uses it, habi\u00adtus seems to mean an idea car\u00adried for\u00adward by momen\u00adtum rather than mer\u00adit.<\/p>\n

In par\u00adtic\u00adu\u00adlar, the notion of habi\u00adtus helps to explain some curi\u00adous fea\u00adtures of aca\u00add\u00ade\u00adm\u00adic anti-reli\u00adgion. One is that none of the anti-reli\u00adgious fac\u00adul\u00adty I know as indi\u00advid\u00adu\u00adals are nasty peo\u00adple out to make reli\u00adgious believ\u00aders feel bad. They\u2019re smart, inter\u00adest\u00ading, moral\u00adly seri\u00adous, and well-inten\u00adtioned. I prize my rela\u00adtion\u00adships with them. They\u2019re not aim\u00ading to be anti-reli\u00adgious, anti-Chris\u00adt\u00adian. They don\u2019t have to try. It just comes nat\u00adu\u00adral\u00adly to them, almost auto\u00admat\u00adi\u00adcal\u00adly, as if from a fun\u00adda\u00admen\u00adtal pre\u00addis\u00adpo\u00adsi\u00adtion. <\/i><\/p>\n

I\u2019d have to say that\u2019s been my expe\u00adri\u00adence: the irre\u00adli\u00adgious among the cul\u00adtured elite seem gen\u00aduine\u00adly shocked when they dis\u00adcov\u00ader some\u00adone that they pre\u00advi\u00adous\u00adly con\u00adsid\u00adered thought\u00adful and well-educt\u00aded is pos\u00adsessed of a deep and abid\u00ading faith. They\u2019re flum\u00admoxed<\/a>.<\/p>\n

More impor\u00adtant\u00adly, this habi\u00adtus is infec\u00adtious. The most per\u00adni\u00adcious<\/a> strug\u00adgle I see stu\u00addents engaged in springs from a per\u00adcep\u00adtion that smart peo\u00adple just don\u2019t believe in God. <\/p>\n

That\u2019s hard to bat\u00adtle: it\u2019s not as though there\u2019s an actu\u00adal argu\u00adment being made here. It\u2019s just an atti\u00adtude picked up by osmo\u00adsis. That\u2019s one of the rea\u00adsons I try to bring infor\u00adma\u00adtion on intel\u00adli\u00adgent believ\u00aders to their atten\u00adtion such as a list of liv\u00ading famous Chris\u00adt\u00adian sci\u00aden\u00adtists<\/a> and infor\u00adma\u00adtion on Chris\u00adt\u00adian fac\u00adul\u00adty at Stan\u00adford<\/a> such as Don Knuth<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Anoth\u00ader schol\u00adar reflect\u00ading on the acad\u00ade\u00admy and it\u2019s lack of respect for reli\u00adgion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-58","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-stanfordministry-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Ded-W","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}