Frustration

So this is a column that was written just today in our school newspaper:

There were four letters to the Editor in the Nov 8 issue of The Phoenix (our school newspaper). Each was an instance of tiresome self-righteousness, and each carried the rank stench that arises whenever hypocrisy and poor argument intertwine.
In the first letter, Alicia de los Reyes describes the turmoil of entering Swarthmore as a Christian. She claims that had her faith not stood up to secular skepticism, she would have rejected it. But it stood up. So she is still a Christian. However, Reyes gives no positive evidence on behalf of her beliefs, no examples of how "they held up to all those questions." She doesn't think she needs to. Her implicit claim is that as long as one feels that his or her own beliefs hold up to questioning one should continue believing in them- more over, that they are correct.
By this reasoning, if I grow up believing that babies are delivered by storks, and no one manages to convince me otherwise, the mere fact of my inconvincibility proves that babies are delivered by storks. That is, I hope, clearly false. The mere endurance of an individual's conviction entails no truth and justifies no belief.

He then continues to tear apart three other letters written to the editor. This campus is a difficult place to be at times when trying to hold on to a belief that is torn apart so mercilessly, and ignorantly for that matter. The way in which this article is written is such that there is no meat to his argument, he is simply repeating an argument made by many who have not believed in the past and from my perspective completely misinterpreting what this girl had written about in her column. His view of her want to express how her faith has held up in the midst of this "spiritual cesspool" as a friend once called it, should not really get under my skin as it is the view that many hold this campus. But it is the way in which he presented it. Snide, arrogant and completely undermining a belief that many hold sacred as meaningless and even silly as he demonstrates in his example of the stork, unless you can argue its existence.
It is one thing to have a lack of spiritual support on this campus, but it is another to have to be attacked because of your beliefs. In a place that so "liberally" prides themselves on their openness to ideas and people, the students here can be some of the most closed minded and unaccepting group of people I have encountered.