...but it sounds like this college is avoiding critical analysis. I haven't read the book, I have no personal connections or experiences with this school so I can't be certain on this point.

However, one of the problems I have had with social conservatives and evangelicals (recognizing that they may not be one and the same) is the lack of in-depth analysis. When you hold anything (the Bible, the Constitution, your political party, even your mother) as sacrosanct and unquestionably holy you are missing opportunities to examine your beliefs. This is when issues become overly simplified and turned into black or white, good vs. evil situations.

I wonder if part of the problem with home-schooling and one-sided colleges (no matter their religious or political bent) is that students aren't exposed to multiple view points. When people have opportunities to read, discuss, or meet people of various faiths, beliefs, and understandings of the world they can better understand their own values. Sure they may question, reconsider, and (god-forbid) even change their beliefs but...isn't true faith built on understanding? Blind, unquestioning faith just seems to be built on a foundation of ignorance or at least an unwillingness to consider other ways of thinking. When someone can look at multiple ways of seeing the world, question their own values, and still hold on to them, they will be stronger in their beliefs and values.

Schools like Patrick Henry seem to do students a disservice. By only offering one view of the world, the evangelical version, they are not giving students a full and complete education. In addition, they are failing to impart critical analysis skills that are so necessary to fully understand the world, much less the political animals of Washington DC. I think that students should be taught to embrace all of the world's ideas if they truly want to understand their own.

once someone thinks that being ignorant of other thoughts and beliefs is a good thing, what can you do?

The need to isolate oneself from other points of view suggests insecurity about the validity of your beliefs. I can understand why parents of young children would want to be very clear about religion and morality, so that the kids won't be confused about the basics of right and wrong. But we are talking about college students, young adults. If their elders think they would be endangered by arguments and ideas that don't fall within Christian fundamentalist doctrine, do those elders really have any confidence that their faith is true enough to withstand questioning?

What are these kids and their parents afraid of; that they might be exposed to ideas not right out of the Bible? Are they afraid that their kids might be exposed to other ideas and question the literal truth of the Bible? Of course they are!

The Bible is contradictory right from the start with not one but two creation stories. What about Cain slaying Abel and going to the land of Nod to find a wife. Wasn't he the one of only three people on earth at the time according to Genesis (Himself, Adam and Eve) so where did his wife come from?

There are competing texts throughout the Bible especially when you compare the old and new testaments. The God of the old testament was extremely wrathful while Christ's message was one of peace, love and acceptance of others.

Sadly many Christians especially the "evangelical" types seem to prefer the wrathful, judgemental old testament God to his "son" Christ.

Without doubt there is a deep strain of anti-intellectualism among the kind of Christians and churches we're calling "evangelical" here (I've got big issues with how that term's being thrown around, but that's another story). In the US, at least, some of it's as simple as the difference between pricey imports and homespun domestic models. The European-based mainline Protestant churches sent missionaries into rural and inner-city areas. They arrived with high educational standards for ordination, an emphasis on study and learning, and a lot of other folderol not necessarily very well suited for the people they were bringing it to. God love 'em, their hearts were in the right place, but in those days people just weren't thinking in terms of cultural sensitivity, which hindered their work in a great many places and ways. In contrast, the more fundamentalist (another word I'm not real happy throwing around) churches that grew up among the people themselves tended to emphasize the elements of their culture that the missionaries didn't value. The lives of these people were (well, and are) largely based on hard physical work, limited educational and economic opportunity, loyalty to the people and places around them, and the determination it took to survive an often-difficult life. And so their churches honored "a calling to preach" over education, gifts of the heart and Spirit over gifts of the mind, the sometimes gory blood-and-bone physical reality of the crucifixion over theological abstraction, certainty over ambiguity, literal over metaphorical. I'm not suggesting by any means that fundamentalism, then or now, is limited to lower economic classes, rural people, or the ignorant - although its messages seem especially well suited to those who are oppressed or disenfranchised. But it's easier to make sense of the anti-intellectual element (at a college, no less!) in a social and historical context. Unfortunately, Christianity (or any faith) also makes an excellent weapon, and the world is filled with those who, consciously or unconsciously, out of sinful pride or all-too-human fear, can't resist using it to take a few swings.

emaufmuth:

However, one of the problems I have had with social conservatives and evangelicals (recognizing that they may not be one and the same) is the lack of in-depth analysis. When you hold anything (the Bible, the Constitution, your political party, even your mother) as sacrosanct and unquestionably holy you are missing opportunities to examine your beliefs. This is when issues become overly simplified and turned into black or white, good vs. evil situations.

You're wrong wrong wrong.

Things can be deem good and evil and it doesn't take much debate such as killing is evil. Do you need further debate?

The problem with you atheists or agnostics is you don't understand the thought that Christian put into issues. The Bible doesn't often follow modern society and life, but there are parallels. These parallels are explored quite critically and there is no easy answer.

As with your question about beliefs, this is another issue where you're not aquainted with religion. Haven't you heard all the recent news about Mother Teresa's old papers on her struggles with her beliefs? Every Christians has questions. It's just too bad that not enough Christians are turning against their belief. I suppose it's equally disappointing to you that many people are also converting to Christianity.

Maybe the opportunity for you to examine your belief is missing in your crazy post.

Things can be deem[ed] good and evil and it doesn't take much debate such as killing is evil. Do you need further debate?

Um, yes...because there's a lot of killing going on in the world, and a lot of it is justified for a laundry list of reasons.

The problem with religious fanatics is that they can't get around the hump of postmodern philosophical subjectivity. Nothing has any inherent meaning beyond its relationship to other things. In other words, everything requires context...and nothing is absolute.

Thank goodness for science, which provides the anchor for that drifting philosophical ship. The scientific method is the antithesis of philosophical subjectivity; it requires hard data, an absolute allegiance to objective truth. The scientist is not perfect and makes flaws, but science itself is a self-correcting endeavor.

When Christers attempt to overturn the secular nature of scientific inquiry by insisting that supernatural phenomena must be considered when making observations of the natural world, they are committing doctrinal suicide: they're opening up the hard-and-fast realm of empirical knowledge to the flimsy world of subjective perspective. When that happens, the postmodern nightmare begins, because we will never be able to rest on any objective truth.

I think this is what happens in those parts of the Middle East so radicalized that the madrassahs refuse to teach science or mathematics. These subjects undermine the central authority of the Koran, because scientific laws and mathematical theorems are determined outside Allah's--and of course, His holy spokesmen, the mullahs'--influence.

The "postmodern philisophical subjectivity" dates back much further (past Hume at least) and really should not be simplified that a conclusion that "nothing has inherent meaning" has been widely reached. There remains a major debate in philosophy about that point, with more emphasis now on how we know, perceive, and can approach knowledge.

The worry is always with anyone who believes they have a knowledge of objective truth that they will not subject to reason and sees doubt/questioning as wrong. This is found amongst all political views, and in the US at least is rarely a major problem. It just seems to incite worry (and book sales/listeners) that their ideological opponents are truly dangerous and narrow minded (see Hanna Rosin or Rush Limbaugh, to variuos degrees).

As a liberal Catholic in the Southeast, I disagree with almost the entire agenda of the religious right, but it's just a disagreement. Most people are decent and open minded, regardless of their beliefs. They just disagree. It does sell better if they are just ridiculed or a threat to all that is good in America..

worldview and examined the Christians' claims?

Most Christians I know have struggle more than a little with certain (apparent) paradoxes in the faith. Love vs justice, faith vs works. What is ultimately non negotiable is that there is a God, He is good, and he has revealed Himself to us, through the Bible and Jesus.

The scientific method developed in the Western and Christian world, in a era where atheists were indeed rare. These scientists studied science because they believed that God's glory was revealed in creation. This way to thinking can be still true today. I can study physics, biology, chemistry and marvel at the Maker, and not ascribe these wonders to blind chance.

Stop-truth-decay:

The scientific method developed in the Western and Christian world, in a era where atheists were indeed rare. These scientists studied science because they believed that God's glory was revealed in creation. This way to thinking can be still true today. I can study physics, biology, chemistry and marvel at the Maker, and not ascribe these wonders to blind chance.

Well, sort of. The scientific method developed in an era where people believed that light was a wave through a substance called phlogiston. The belief in phlogiston led to many interesting discoveries about light as a wave, discoveries that still stand today even though we know now that phlogiston does not exist. Though, to be honest, we don't really KNOW that phlogiston does not exist. We know that there is no direct evidence of phlogiston, and that everything we know about light thus far can be explained without phlogiston ever entering the picture. Therefore, we can assume with high confidence that phlogiston does not exist, and we can safely dismiss the scientific theories of those people who cling to the outdated and unneccessary belief in the existence of phlogiston.

You can study anything you want and still believe in phlogiston, witchcraft, Yahweh, Zeus, UFOs, whatever. Knock yourself out. It doesn't change the fact that there is no direct evidence of any of the above, and that, to date, the process of explaining through natural processes without recourse to gods, monsters, or magic has a pretty good track record. Atheism may have been rare when science first started, but so was the belief that washing your hands is good medicinal practice. Time has shown both to be wise positions.

The "postmodern philisophical subjectivity" dates back much further (past Hume at least) and really should not be simplified that a conclusion that "nothing has inherent meaning" has been widely reached. There remains a major debate in philosophy about that point, with more emphasis now on how we know, perceive, and can approach knowledge.

The fact that it is still debated seems to confirm the notion of subjectivity, though.

As for the rest of the post, I stand by it. If you undermine the scientific method, you will eventually have to establish meaning by force. Which is why theocracy is so bad.

but missing the point. You imply that one must be an atheist to be a good scientist, and that is patently false. Whether or not atheism is a wise position remains to be seen...Europe has been thoroughly secular for the last generation (or two) and has its own set of problems.

FYI: People in the Bible washed their hands, too.

You imply that one must be an atheist to be a good scientist, and that is patently false.

I absolutely have not made that claim. Would never make that claim. The only problem a scientist will have is resolving a literal reading of Genesis with evolution, or other such things. But that's a religion problem. Belief in God is a philosophical question, not a scientific one.

but another poster. The older Fray format made it easier to see the difference between comments directed toward you and other posters. I am a Bible believing evangelical, but making everything literal in the Bible is a bit much--there is some place where Herod is referred to as a fox but I doubt seriously that he was a species of Canus at that very moment.