Paglia's Religion Fetish

Atheist Camille Paglia writes:

I have been calling for nearly two decades for massive educational reform that would put the study of comparative religion at the center of the university curriculum.... I view each world religion, including Judeo-Christianity and Islam, as a complex symbol system, a metaphysical lens through which we can see the vastness and sublimity of the universe. Knowledge of the Bible, one of the West's foundational texts, is dangerously waning among aspiring young artists and writers.

But as a "symbol system," ancient religious texts have no peculiar spiritual virtue whatever, and those less parochial than Paglia appears to be will see the signs of vastness and sublimity in far more diverse things: An Attic tragedy or a baroque dance; a star or an atom; a scientific law or philosophical idea; the touch of a lover or the smile of a child; a grain of sand or the egg of the wren.

To paraphrase Clemenceau, religion is too important to be left to religious texts.

(Via Arts & Letters Daily.)