Interesting post Russ. I have now read Ms. Lakritz's original article and agree with your assessment. It is a one-sided article that simply breaths of reactionaryism.
Her attack on reason is of course laugable. Ironically it is her own reason (even if one disagrees with this reason) that motivates her to respond to the athiest students of the University of Alberta. The way she tries to make her point would be unacceptable in an elementary school.
All knee-jerk reactions aside, I think the place where she truly went wrong was where she decided to seperate God and reason from one another (despite her misinformed attempt to reference him, St. Thomas Aquinas would be spinning in his grave.)
In fact her characterization of reason as 'malleable' and a source of entitlement is a claim that, if taken seriously, would set the world of philosophy back somewhere in the neighbourhood of several thousand years.God is a concept that, despite what Christians, Jews, Hinduists or probably even the Scientologists would say, is itself malleable. The word God is merely a word and depending on who is doing the defining, it could mean any number of things. To one person God could be the creator of all things but to another it could be a less definable concept, something more abstract such as a code of morals the idea of perfection. Even the athiest must admit they have some sort of concept of God; after all, how could an athiest deny God without first having some sort of idea of what they are denying?
As a final note, I went to the University of Alberta website and stumbled across the university's motto which is proudly displayed on the university's crest. The Latin reads 'Quaecumque Vera' or 'whatsoever things true.' Personal beliefs aside, truth is the main goal. Reason is the tool we have to reach this goal. No matter what truths we come to as individuals, reason is the road there. Lakritz undermines the truth of her own article by ripping up this road.
Will Grassby
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