Anti-Creedance Front

I have been thinking for a long time about taking electives in religious history and archaeology, or possibly even minoring in it. Obviously, the class is going to be full of people wanting to know about the Bible, but the question is, is it going to be filled with people who believe it is a literal truth, and an accurate book for all lifestyles? Will they chastise me for being the "opposition" and being in that class? I'm really interested in learning more about what went into the so-called monotheist equation, and just religious history in general. I've been reading up so much on my own about Sumer, Babylon, the Roman Empire, and other things that I probably have a college semester's worth of knowledge packed away already. But yes, the question looms: Even though they can't legally kick me out, do you think they would pressure me to drop the class if I took it?

Toto

By "they" do you mean your fellow students?

I think it is more important to find a professor that you feel comfortable with, and I think that a significant number of religious studies teachers are tolerant.

Old Man

The episcopalians have yet to kick out Spong, even though he categorically denies the faith:

From

http://www.infidels.org/library/maga.../001front.html

In a recent article in Human Quest, he offered the following defense of this thesis:


To me it is obvious that unless we expose the barbaric quality of this ancient interpretation of the meaning of Jesus' death and of the God who was said to have required it and remove this spiritual monstrosity from the Christian enterprise, then Christianity has no future. I do not believe that modern men and women will ever find appealing a God whose will is served by the human sacrifice of Jesus on the cross.

leonarde

Partial post:Not unless you were SO insistent upon arguing, disputing, and challenging that the class itself was being disrupted.....in most cases.

Cheers!

Bumble Bee Tuna

I took a religion class last semester.

In my experience, there were a few fundies (University of Colorado). But none of them had answers to my arguments. And there were probably more, but they didn't have the balls to talk. I had numerous debates where I ritualistically trounced them. It was an enjoyable experience (it only bothered me when we had to move one and I couldn't blow them even further out of the water). It really depends on your professor (mine was a Christian, but entertained all perspectives and showed no bias), your school (mine is a public school, and therefore secular), your debating ability (Hopefully not a problem), how much you enjoy debating, and what kind of school it is (Do you live in a fundyland state). I enjoyed mine but I really don't know if you would enjoy it or not.

-B

Jackalope

The answer will largely depend on the professor and TAs for the class. I've taken sociology courses where the profressor and TAs were seperatist feminists...since I'm a female, but not a frothing-at-the-mouth fanatic feminist, I just barely scraped by with a passing grade. On the other hand, I took "Old Testiment as Literature" which was taught by a little old jewish man. The fundies really were in for some rude awakenings in his class. I passed that course with flying colors, since there was no requirement to agree with the professor on the truth of the text, only of the historical context.

Some of the fundies had real problems learning the historical and archeological evidence against the standard interpretations of the text. But even they passed the class if they could actually form coherent arguments. Some of them couldn't.