# College is against your religion? Then why are you in it? **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [June 1, 2012, 4:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-is-against-your-religion-then-why-are-you-in-it/623736 "2012-06-01T04:48:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![vivalostwages](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/d07c76/32.png) [@vivalostwages](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vivalostwages)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2012, 4:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-is-against-your-religion-then-why-are-you-in-it/623736/1 "2012-06-01T04:48:15Z")
In college, I mean… > **[If It's Not Against Your Religion, Please Offer Some Comments](http://collegemisery.blogspot.com/2012/05/if-its-not-against-your-religion-please.html#comment-form)** > > Academic blog where professors vent their misery about students, Deans, and colleagues. _Sigh_ This is beyond tiresome. I can see that I’ll have to add even more wording to my ever-increasing syllabus just to let everyone know ahead of time that a story I assign or a film I show may offend their delicate sensibilities, but they’ll just have to suck it up and deal. ---
**Author:** ![Gukumatz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/74df32/32.png) [@Gukumatz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gukumatz)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2012, 8:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-is-against-your-religion-then-why-are-you-in-it/623736/2 "2012-06-01T08:01:15Z")
“I will permit the excuse of ‘against my religion’ if I require you to participate. I will not accept it if I merely require you to observe. I will spare you complicity, but I will not spare you your curriculum.” My high school biology teacher’s maxim when a student walked out on a dissection of rats after protesting that her religion forbade her from taking a life. (She was a neo-pagan of some stripe, I recall.) I always thought it was a fair way to handle it. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2012, 9:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-is-against-your-religion-then-why-are-you-in-it/623736/3 "2012-06-01T09:10:34Z")
> [@Gukumatz](#): > > My high school biology teacher’s maxim when a student walked out on a dissection of rats after protesting that her religion forbade her from taking a life. (She was a neo-pagan of some stripe, I recall.) Must have been some fairly hardcore intro to bio, if the teacher required students kill their rats themselves 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2012, 10:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-is-against-your-religion-then-why-are-you-in-it/623736/4 "2012-06-01T10:46:56Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > Must have been some fairly hardcore intro to bio, if the teacher required students kill their rats themselves 😛 Shrug, my 9th grade Science labs involved dissection and we mostly did our own killing. The rabbits and chickens were rejects from a local farm. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2012, 11:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-is-against-your-religion-then-why-are-you-in-it/623736/5 "2012-06-01T11:00:48Z")
One is reminded of the vampire in Feet of Clay who is always complaining to the Watch about getting “killed” on the job - in garlic packing, holy water making, pencil factories… ---
**Author:** ![MsRobyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/90ced4/32.png) [@MsRobyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MsRobyn)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2012, 11:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-is-against-your-religion-then-why-are-you-in-it/623736/6 "2012-06-01T11:11:54Z")
I think I’ve shared this before here, but people who are too religious to participate in their own education are a real PITA. My grad school advisor had an undergraduate advisee who went to him to complain that one of the professors in the department wasn’t being fair to Christians, and he found that personally offensive. The advisor was in the rather lousy position of having to talk to the other professor to find out what had happened. The other professor (who really is something of a dick) explained that he’d done a lesson about how to cover religion, and that the student took offense to the lesson and how it had been taught. The advisor had a very gentle talk about how, in journalism, you can’t always do your job so as not to offend your sensibilities. He also suggested that the student find a college that better reflected his worldview, and if the student needed a recommendation for a transfer, the advisor would be more than happy to give a good one. ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2012, 1:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-is-against-your-religion-then-why-are-you-in-it/623736/7 "2012-06-01T13:18:08Z")
It’s hard for me to read stuff like this and not remember one of my fellow college students. I went to music school. Writing arrangements of standard jazz tunes was pretty core to the curriculum. One born-again drummer did an arrangement of Dave Brubeck’s _Take Five_. But 5/4 is the devil’s time signature, so he rewrote it in 4/4. Yeah, it sounded every bit as wrong as you’re now imagining. ---
**Author:** ![Raygun99](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6f9a4e/32.png) [@Raygun99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raygun99)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2012, 1:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-is-against-your-religion-then-why-are-you-in-it/623736/8 "2012-06-01T13:23:26Z")
> [@tdn](#): > > But 5/4 is the devil’s time signature Maybe Kathy Bates’ character in The Waterboy wasn’t a wild exaggeration after all. ---
**Author:** ![Dave\_Hartwick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7feea3/32.png) [@Dave\_Hartwick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dave_Hartwick)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2012, 1:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-is-against-your-religion-then-why-are-you-in-it/623736/9 "2012-06-01T13:24:29Z")
Damn, you white folks sure have a lot of problems. What charity can I donate to? ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2012, 1:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-is-against-your-religion-then-why-are-you-in-it/623736/10 "2012-06-01T13:32:31Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > Shrug, my 9th grade Science labs involved dissection and we mostly did our own killing. The rabbits and chickens were rejects from a local farm. Wait, seriously ? That… I don’t know that I would have been able to do that, specially at 14. I never made me no never mind to cut up dead frogs, rats, cow fetuses (cut out from actual cow placenta ! Med school was fun while it lasted) or sheep eyes… But even now I don’t think I could take a living rat in my hand and just kill it for the purpose of cutting him up immediately after. Which is probably hypocritical of me, since that’s exactly what most bio teachers do and have to do for their students, and I jolly well expect them to keep doing it For Education! 😕 Ethics is hard. ---
**Author:** ![hopesperson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e95f7d/32.png) [@hopesperson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hopesperson)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2012, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-is-against-your-religion-then-why-are-you-in-it/623736/11 "2012-06-01T13:43:40Z")
> [@Dave\_Hartwick](#): > > Damn, you white folks sure have a lot of problems. What charity can I donate to? Might as well end the thread then, I suppose. This one random guy doesn’t seem to think it’s very interesting. ---
**Author:** ![Dave\_Hartwick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7feea3/32.png) [@Dave\_Hartwick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dave_Hartwick)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2012, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-is-against-your-religion-then-why-are-you-in-it/623736/12 "2012-06-01T13:54:14Z")
> [@hopesperson](#): > > Might as well end the thread then, I suppose. This one random guy doesn’t seem to think it’s very interesting. I’m pretty random. Hate you, though. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2012, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-is-against-your-religion-then-why-are-you-in-it/623736/13 "2012-06-01T14:04:17Z")
> [@tdn](#): > > But 5/4 is the devil’s time signature… 😕 He must have **loved** _Unsquare Dance_. (7/4, for those who don’t know.) ---
**Author:** ![Soylent\_Juicy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/82dd89/32.png) [@Soylent\_Juicy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Soylent_Juicy)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2012, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-is-against-your-religion-then-why-are-you-in-it/623736/14 "2012-06-01T14:11:05Z")
> [@tdn](#): > > But 5/4 is the devil’s time signature, so he rewrote it in 4/4. What is a “time signature” and why would the devil need one? 😕 ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2012, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-is-against-your-religion-then-why-are-you-in-it/623736/15 "2012-06-01T14:20:28Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > 😕 > > He must have **loved** _Unsquare Dance_. (7/4, for those who don’t know.) 😃 It made him masturbate like a motherfuck. ---
**Author:** ![Ichbin\_Dubist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/51bf81/32.png) [@Ichbin\_Dubist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ichbin_Dubist)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2012, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-is-against-your-religion-then-why-are-you-in-it/623736/16 "2012-06-01T14:26:46Z")
> [@Dave\_Hartwick](#): > > Damn, you white folks sure have a lot of problems. What charity can I donate to? So nonwhite people aren’t religious and don’t go to college? Interesting. Or are you just paid by the tiresome Internet cliche? ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2012, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-is-against-your-religion-then-why-are-you-in-it/623736/17 "2012-06-01T14:30:43Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > Wait, seriously ? > That… I don’t know that I would have been able to do that, specially at 14. I never made me no never mind to cut up dead frogs, rats, cow fetuses (cut out from actual cow placenta ! Med school was fun while it lasted) or sheep eyes… But even now I don’t think I could take a living rat in my hand and just kill it for the purpose of cutting him up immediately after. Totally seriously, but then, we were from a small town (c. 30K people) surrounded by much-smaller villages; pretty much all of us had already taken part in butchering hogs, rabbits or chickens. Getting some earthworms and later some frogs, chloroformizing them and killing them was a lot more… dainty than the process of grabbing a terrified-with-good-reason hog and helping hold her down. **Soylent Juicy** , the time signature is both the symbol at the start of a musical score (or sometimes halfway through it) marking how many beats per measure it has and the concept of “beats per measure”. For example, the “1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3…” of waltzes translates in musical terms to “a 3/4 signature”. And I now feel like I should send Mother R a note letting her know I’m still using those four years’ worth of _solfeo_, 30 years later… 🙂 even if I can’t remember how it’s spelled in English. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2012, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-is-against-your-religion-then-why-are-you-in-it/623736/18 "2012-06-01T14:40:36Z")
> [@tdn](#): > > But 5/4 is the devil’s time signature, so he rewrote it in 4/4. Is this in Leviticus or something? I know what a time signature is, but why is this one in particular considered evil? ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2012, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-is-against-your-religion-then-why-are-you-in-it/623736/19 "2012-06-01T15:35:02Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > Is this in Leviticus or something? I know what a time signature is, but why is this one in particular considered evil? Because people want to dance to it. Also, we must fear that which we don’t understand. I’m sure Blue Rondo was written for schizoid Christians (9/8 interspersed with 4/4). ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2012, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-is-against-your-religion-then-why-are-you-in-it/623736/20 "2012-06-01T15:42:42Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > And I now feel like I should send Mother R a note letting her know I’m still using those four years’ worth of _solfeo_, 30 years later… 🙂 even if I can’t remember how it’s spelled in English. _solfeo_ in English is spelled _solfège_, although some musicians prefer to spell it _solfeggio_. 😃 We hardly ever bother making our own music technical terms if we can borrow one from the Italians or the French. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-is-against-your-religion-then-why-are-you-in-it/623736.md?page=2)