Another Questionable Op-Ed in the D…

I disapprove of religious zealotry, to be sure, but does it really pose that large of a threat to the Dartmouth educational experience? I had no idea that our College on a Hill was overrun with Christian fundamentalists due to our campus being too tolerant of religion. Lucy Stonehill ’10 calls out a religious classmate in her Daily Dartmouth op-ed today and writes:

If, however, [her classmate] had endeavored to detach his reasoning from his personal creed and emotion, he would have understood — if only minimally — the critical comments of his peers. Furthermore, he would not have had to frantically rack his brain in order to regurgitate the memorized snippets of Sunday School “fact” that leave no room for alternate interpretations of God’s benevolence. Such feeble attempts to defend the sacred book were blatant acts of religious apology — in other words, denial. More importantly, however, they solidified an already existing belief of mine — namely, that expressing religious zeal is antithetical to academic learning… The undue “tolerance” we have for the imposition of religion upon any secular educational institutions — let alone those with Dartmouth’s outstanding academic reputation — is a troubling phenomenon that can only inhibit learning.

It’s not that I disagree with her, per se — obviously, there’s a huge difference between religion studies and religious evangelism, and it’s generally agreed upon that religion should largely be kept out of public schools. But… is this a problem at Dartmouth at all? I feel bad for her classmate, even if he is a religious zealot and thus (it seems to follow…) worthy of our utter contempt.