OT - Ping JSB

There could be multiple things going on here. We don't know enough. If we could question the student and the teacher in separate rooms, we'd probably find they both had agendas which don't belong in the classroom.

No professor has any business labeling anyone. But if the college course was one called "Skepticism, Atheism and Religious Faith", as opposed to a plain vanilla "Philosophy 101" course, I can envision a religious robot (as opposed to religious thinker) becoming argumentative and defensive. A young robot would be especially prone to such behavior, since youngsters tend to be blindly passionate about anything from strange diets to worshipping musicians because they have great tattoos. You don't take a philosophy course to proclaim your beliefs. You're there to explore what others have written in the past.

Your clergy person may be a devout believer, but if he (or she) got a high quality education in theology, I'll bet he took some courses involving disbelief, and realized it wasn't the place to make a ruckus over their own beliefs.

Here's the course listing from that college. We need to know which course was involved.

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2331 Atheism, Agnosticism, and Secularization Historical roots of atheism and agnosticism in the Western tradition. Dialogue with atheism. New language about God. Post-secular shape of the God question. EXISTENTIALISM (3) This course examines the main themes of contemporary existentialistic thought. Atheistic, agnostic, and theistic existentialists are treated. The course begins with Kierkegaard and Nietzsche and studies, among others, Heidegger, Jaspers, Sartre, Marcel, Camus, and Merleau-Ponty. The phenomenological method is also examined and evaluated.

Religion 195 - (3) - Varieties of Unbelief - topical description - A study of atheism, agnosticism, and religious skepticism. The course begins by discussing unbelief in the ancient world (e.g., India, China, Israel and Greece) and its role in the creation of new religious movements, and then turns to unbelief in the modern world, in particular, the writings of Hume, Feuerbach, and Nietzsche. This course offers students a chance to examine their own faith and doubts by confronting some of the most formidable skeptics in the history of religion and philosophy. (GE4) Davis

She would have been flunked or expelled if the school had been a Jesuit college.

For refusing to acknowledge the possibility that God does not exist?

Speaking as a Jesuit graduate, I would be very surprised if any Jesuit college would flunk or expel a student for failing to acknowledge the possibility that God does not exist.

Jeff

We don't know enough about the course in question to pass judgement either way. I explained this in my magnificent response to witfal.

Then you must have gone to the world's easiest Jesuit school and probably made only 800s on your SATs. OK, that's still impressive, but...

I went to public schools but had a Jesuit priest for a couple of history classes, and he'd say some of the most anti-Catholic things about the church's behavior throughout history, but only because he was trying to be intellectually rigorous.