NATHAN Harden, editor of the online US student magazine College Fix, is appalled that Stanford University has appointed an atheist – John Figdor – as a chaplain:

You would think that, of all people, atheists would be the last ones in need of chaplains.

He added:

Apparently, many atheist students are also perplexed. Stanford graduate student Armand Rundquist told The SF Chronicle that many atheists aren’t interested in having a chaplain, which leads us to wonder why anyone bothered to hire one. Although, Rundquist did say there was at least one tangible benefit: ‘He got us some discount tickets to the atheist film festival in San Francisco’.

Cheap movie tickets–what else is an atheist chaplain good for?

Harden pointed out that Stanford’s Memorial Church, a centerpiece on campus where Figdor will do much of his work, was funded by Jane Stanford, who was behind the ousting of R Herber Newton only a few months after the church opened because his Christian theological teachings were too liberal.

It’s true that the church was built to be a non-denominational Christian place of worship. But we hardly think Ms Stanford’s vision of ‘inclusion’ when she donated all that money to the university would have extended to the active spread of atheism among the student body.

More likely, she’s turning over in her grave about now.

Harden concluded:

We think this is a perfect example of the absurdity of modern-day, evangelical-style atheism. The inherent self-contradiction of financing a robust religious infrastructure for those who insist that religion is pointless is truly ridiculous. The need these atheists feel to engage in religious assembly and ritual undermines the entire rationale of human self-sufficiency that so many atheists profess.

As it is written somewhere: Thinking themselves to be wise, they became fools.