Mike Metzger at The Clapham Commentary asks why no one really watches the NFL's Pro Bowl. He suggests that it's because it's not a competitive event and therefore there's little interest in it. He uses this as context for stitching a silver lining into the dark cloud of the exclusion of religious ideas from university campuses. Putting the best face on this sad phenomenon he suggests that it may be a good thing that universities are attempting to create a monopoly for materialist explanations of life and the world by banishing all competitors. Monopolies, Metzger notes, are not competitive and, like the Pro Bowl, there's little interest generated by them.
I think there's merit to this view, but I'd like to look at his idea from a slightly different angle. The Pro Bowl is not competitive because it doesn't mean anything. Nothing comes of it. This I think is the fundamental problem for the materialist hegemony on campus.
Materialism, the belief that matter is all there is, strips life of any real meaning. Nothing comes of it. If all we are is a pile of atoms then death is the complete and utter end of our existence, and there's nothing about life that makes it in any way purposeful. When people realize this, when they realize that only through the categories of traditional religion can there be any real meaning to their lives, then it won't matter whether materialism is the only metaphysics on offer on campus. It will be rejected root and branch by those looking for something to make their existence, their work, and their loves significant. And perhaps they will then see that significance can only be achieved if physical death is not the end of our being. If it were, then, sub specie aeternitatis (as Spinoza would say), our lives really would be no more meaningful than the life of a nematode.
Thanks to Byron for the tip on Metzger's essay.
RLC
