'The Faith Fallacy,' and other fallacies

A few days ago one of my friends notified me of an op-ed publication in her university's (Grand Valley State University's) paper Lanthorn titled "The Faith Fallacy: Why belittling believers makes no sense."  The piece of course attempts to defend faith, particularly religious faith, particularly by showing how everyone else has 'faith' in something else.  If everyone else has 'faith,' then religious people are at least safe in, maybe justified in, their faith.

Gee, haven't heard the old "you do it too!" one before.  It's a very difficult argument to construct well, and has to be premised on actions from non-believers that really do mirror religious faith in one critical aspect: lack of evidence for these beliefs.  In accordance with this argument's tradition of throwing things at the wall until they stick, the action-flavor of the month is getting a college education:

"College, like religion, is an institution. [...] In both cases believers in these institutions take a gamble, hoping their investment makes a return: most students believe they will leave college with a degree/career potential and most religious people believe when they leave this earth they will be rewarded for their faith."

Before addressing this basic premise though, I would be amiss to not mention a following line that struck me as out of place (my emphasis):

"Believing in something, so long as it is not blind faith, should be commended– not chastised."

That's basically the whole point, the crux of one of the most important reasons why non-believers don't believe in a god or in religion.  Right there is a written rejection of the 'critical aspect' of religious faith I mentioned earlier.  I would ask why this statement was put into an article that is trying to refute non-believer arguments against religious faith; it's not clear from the rest of her article, however, that Christine Colleran has an understanding of what non-believers even mean by 'blind faith.'  I think that a useful illustrative tool here would be contrast to something else we might believe in: college.

Anti-Discrimination Policy

EDIT - please see discussion at the end of the article over the phrasing of student organizations as "registered" or "recognized."  Article has been edited to adjust all to "registered;" again, read on why.

The University of Michigan's Center for Campus Involvement (CCI) has recently refused to re-recognize re-register a student group on campus, the InterVarsity Christian Fellowship (ICF), because of a provision in the group's constitution that required student officers to sign a statement of faith.  The Center claims that the policy is not in line with the Anti-Discrimination Policy that the University put in place in 1980, I think specifically the general policy statement in the EEO/Affirmative Action Policy that dates from at least 1980 (my emphasis):

"The University is committed to compliance with all applicable laws regarding non-discrimination.  Furthermore, it shall strive to build a diverse community in which opportunity is equal for all persons regardless of race, sex, color, religion, creed, national origin or ancestry, age, marital status, handicap, or Vietnam-era veteran status.  It shall exert its leadership for the achievement of this goal by all parties which it recognizes or with which students or employees of the University are involved."

What this essentially means is that the University is no longer offering services to ICF that come with being a registered and recognized student organization – free room rentals from the Student Organization Accounting Services, advertising space, floor space for fundraisers or event promotions, office equipment, and so on.  As the University owns and operates these spaces and services, they have a right to withhold or otherwise condition use of these resources.

De facto this means that if ICF wants to meet, they will not be able to find a space on campus to do so.  This is how they have been "forced" off of campus; the group's operations will be hurt to the extent that these lost privileges can't be made up for with extra funding or donated services and space.  But, the University has not taken from the group what it hasn't granted every year when ICF was able to successfully register.