The founders of colleges in America originally intended to create isolated learning environments that freed individuals from the whims, trends and noise that characterize mainstream society and hinder intellectual discovery.
As college degrees become the norm, institutions shy away from this founding intent, instead opting to cater to a more diverse student body. They no longer endorse any single culture, religion or creed; now they support any and all of them equally. The multiculturalism that grips colleges now is a product of this shift. It helps students accept the idea that all cultures, philosophies and religions are of equal and unquestionable value.
The Tufts Freethought Society seeks to undermine this noble brainwashing. According to its website, its goal is an innocent one — to "encourage freedom from superstition, irrationality, dogmatic religious assumptions & extremism." Unfortunately, the Society is doing more than encouraging freedom from non−intellectual pursuits; it is promoting a default morality that is supposedly based on reason rather than dogma, thus distinguishing it as superior.
Like the atheists it represents, the Freethought Society is a maverick in that it refuses to bend to the will of a system that denies its right to exist. Its members are the last true rebels of Tufts University. With the ability to fire off op−eds about the need for a Humanist chaplain or host a discussion about viable alternatives to religion at a moment's notice, these students have proven to be most the courageous Jumbos that Tufts has witnessed.
What's more, their unparalleled intelligence led them to the discovery that associating an attack on their society with an attack on a religious minority, like when they compared a recent Primary Source quip to one that offended Muslims four years ago, they could gain support among students. Even more impressive than this is their ability to deny any connection between Humanism and religion, despite Humanism's partial insistence on faith in an overarching moral framework and endless appeals to the public for recognition.
Apparently, the non−freethinking students at Tufts sense the threat posed by this group. Their refusal to endorse a Humanist chaplain showcases a refusal to empathize with those who are encountering some of the most ethically, morally and metaphysically challenging conundrums imaginable. These conundrums are so deep that neither counselors nor philosophy professors, nor people outside of Tufts, can even begin to understand them: Even if they could, their ensuing advice would be rubbish as it would be corrupted by its grounding in some religiously−rooted moral framework.
Critics provide straw−man arguments to combat the progress of the freethinkers. They say there exists no objectively true system of secular morality or ethics that one can interpret and provide advice on. They claim that free thought requires the maturity to think independently from leaders who might claim to offer guidance based on what is morally, ethically or metaphysically correct.
If Tufts Freethought Society's self−stated mission is to free the school from dogmatism, it should work toward an environment in which individuals don't rely on some randomly appointed dude to tell all people who overcome religion what they should and should not value. Instead, they should seek out the great thinkers who wrestled with this issue for the duration of their careers — men like Immanuel Kant, Friedrich Nietzsche and Jean−Jacques Rousseau — and come to a personal decision on the delicate matter.
But these critics are stupid. They are too dumb to see that Humanism is not some competing religion but an alternative system that is obviously not open to debate. It's not some random creed for non−religious people but a means of thinking for oneself. Perhaps if Tufts Freethought Society changed its name to Tufts Replacement for Religion Society, critics would stop critiquing.
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CJ Saraceno is a senior majoring in political science. He can be reached at Christopher.Saraceno@tufts.edu.
