Adrienne Williams

I am so glad that I found this website! I just finished summer semester and for the past two weeks I've been reading about evolution vs. creationism. I've never believed in the Genesis version, and have never really been exposed to much creationalism rhetoric. I recently moved from Oregon to Mississippi and during my summer semester I had the bizarre experience of being taught sociology by a fundamentalist Christian. Here's what I learned in ten weeks:

1. Western thinking=good and godly/Eastern thinking=bad and evil.
2. Humanists have no moral codes and can justify murder, rape, stealing, etc.
3. "Situational" morals lead to genocide.
4. Christians have an obligation to be ethnocentric.
5. Ravi Zacharias is brilliant.
6. The scientific method encourages godlessness.
7. If you question your sociology teacher, you are an atheist.
8. The text book is useless and biased because it looks at sociology from a "world view", not just a Western (=godly)point of view.
9. I am disrespectful for asking questions that indicate that I don't accept what I am being taught.
10. My classmates "feel sorry for me" because I "don't get it".

My teacher actually gave me "Evidence That Demands a Verdict" after the term was over, my final analysis of the book is "guilty as charged". And to think I'm taking biology next term...I can hardly wait.

Adrienne

Adrienne Williams

I'm sorry, I forgot to change forums.
I apologize for being off topic

Adrienne

ex-preacher

Welcome to the Secular Web! What kind of college are you attending?

Foxhole Atheist

To Adrienne Williams:

I sincerely hope that this does not sound like parental lecturing. In any case...

You’re of an age now where you should be formulating your own concrete beliefs and understandings. That is, if you haven’t already done so. And, as Thomas Jefferson advised his nephew, question everything.

Any instructor or professor that you approach with a question, either of material that they have presented or any question in general, will handle that questioning as coming from an inquiring and growing mind. If taken as an affront, then I would not call that person a teacher and would advise to steer far and wide from that individual.

Unless you question, you can never satisfy those little, inconsequential doubts and uncertainties in your own thinking. A missed opportunity can result in traveling the wrong road for a period of time. So, when a question arises, ask it, without hesitation or fear of reprisal. A good and honest “teacher” will understand completely.

Follow your mind and keep it open.

Skip

Adrienne Williams

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Foxhole Atheist:
[QB]To Adrienne Williams:

I sincerely hope that this does not sound like parental lecturing. In any case...

You’re of an age now where you should be formulating your own concrete beliefs and understandings. That is, if you haven’t already done so. And, as Thomas Jefferson advised his nephew, question everything.

I'm 30 and still trying to find answers. lol, but I don't expect that my beliefs will be concrete for some time to come. I like to think of myself as a work in progress..always evolving. hehe. What I meant by "Here's what I learned in ten weeks" was really meant to be read as "Here's what I "learned" in ten weeks", as in I didn't buy a single shred of what he was telling me, but that is what he attempted to "teach".

I suppose to some extent I have to expect this, I am attending a public college..but it's in rural Mississippi, where nearly everyone belongs to the Baptist Student Union. What I feel that I lack in instruction, in this case due to religious bias, I research on my own. That's what brought me here, to this website! You offer sage advice and it is well taken!

Adrienne

Marduk

Just one word "Transfer"!

Adrienne Williams

Transfering isn't an option. Down here we are short on schools and long on churches. The only school to which I could possibly transfer is a technical college where I could become skilled in the ways of animal husbandry and "poultry sciences". (No, I'm not kidding).

For the time being, I am where I am. It's funny, in many ways it makes me nervous, but in some ways I feel that it will challenge me. I just don't appreciate the fact that I am paying for classes that become sermons.

I don't know that I would have felt compelled to seek answers at this particular point in time if not for my recent experiences.

Adrienne

joedad

Adrienne,

Well, I'm a bit older, but had someone give me the same book not long ago, but it was the New Evidence That Demands A Verdict. It happened through a forum like this one in the course of my arguing the mythicist's position on the historicity of Jesus. No big shakes. Funny how people look at the same evidence and conclude differently.

As for college experiences like yours, nothing even remotely close ever happened with me. But my roommate and one of his comrades were snatched from the dorm one morning for buying/selling grass. Went upriver for awhile. Two sememsters later they were speaking from the pulpit of the Newman Center as assistants. I thought that was strange at the time.

The good thing was that after their initial departure, I didn't get roused in the middle of the night anymore by some doorbanger asking to buy some substance I'd never heard of.

joe

hezekiah jones

Re: McDowell. Funny too, how some people only consider the evidence, and furthermore, the interpretation of that evidence, that suits their thesis.

Muad'Dib

They teach that stuff in a public college? IPU bless California!

Edited to add: speaking of Evidence that Demands a Verdict, here's the library's analysis.

[ August 12, 2001: Message edited by: Muad'dib ]