Good, Liberal’s apologized, Lissener’s accepted, we all learned a little about life and Seattle (which is more than 2% non-white, incidentally). Can we get to the backrubs and heavy petting now? I’ve got a new Bernadette Peters Sings The Sex Pistols bootleg that I’m dying to use for Doper lovin’ mood music.
“Settled to your satisfaction” doesn’t mean “settled.” You apologize, and pretend that’s the end of it, but still feel the need to continue with your criticism. That leaves the issue open, as far as i’m concerned.
But this isn’t what was going on here. Bob Jones University has a very explicit philosophy about the type of Christianity and Christian values that constitute the institution’s raison d’etre. It is not unreasonable to assume that anyone who chooses to enter that university knows about its philosophy and agrees with it. While it might not be the case that every individual has the same level of commitment to all of BJU’s key positions, there must at least be a minimum level of sympathy with the university’s aims and ideals. The folks in the other thread merely noted that the person in question did not seem to them to be typical of a BJU-type Christian, based on the explicit philosophies of the institution itself.
You surely understand the difference between these two things dont you? Don’t you? Because if you don’t, you’re not as smart as i gave you credit for (come to think of it, i seem to be arriving at that conclusion about you a lot lately; maybe i need to reconsider my default assumptions).
The difference here, as you surely must understand, is that joining an institution like BJU involved knowing and understand and being in sympathy a certain explicitly-stated set of beliefs and ideals. The school itself is very clear about the sort of thing that it expects from its students:
It seems to me that adhering to this set of values and ideals requires one to be what Diogenes called a “Bob Jones University type of Christian.” I know plenty of Christians—Catholics and Episcopalians and Methodists and Presbyterians—and none of them would adhere to all the strictures listed above. If i meet someone from BJU, i will assume, until they give me reason to think otherwise, that they adhere to the BJU philosophy and code of conduct.
Being at BJU and being a particular type of Christian is not the same as being from Seattle and being white. There is nothing inherently “white” about Seattle, nothing about the city that requires people to make a conscious decision to be white before they live there. Now, if i learn that 90% of Seattlites are white, then i understand that if i meet a person from Seattle, he or she is likely to be white. But that’s not the same thing as the BJU population.
You can (incorrectly) label what Diogenes did “reasoning from the particular to the general” if you like, but that’s not what’s gong on here. If anything, he was doing precisely the opposite—reasoning from the general (in general, you need to support certain philosophies and ideals if you want to attend BJU) to the particular (the philosophies and ideals supported by Sligh).
It’s one thing to argue that not all Christians, or all Protestants, or even all Methodists. Clearly they don’t. But as we get into narrower groupings, with narrow and explicitly-stated sets of beliefs about conduct and morality, it becomes reasonable to make certain assumptions about people who join those groups. Of course a group of individuals will never all be identical, but there comes a time when the shared values of a group become significant enough to help outsiders define that group. In the same way that members of NARAL or MoveOn or the KKK or PETA share certain similarities that define them to outsiders, so do the people affiliated with Bob Jones University.
FWIW, your “white” figure is off by upwards of 20%. Seattle is actually about 67% white.
No way. Not until we hash out whatever bizarro world we’re inhabiting in which the songs from OLIVER! count as being part of the British Invasion!
As appealing as her performance was and her smile is, she shoulda been DQ’d for that…
You’re wrong. It might be the only way a person can go to school and get a degree. If he can’t get a scholarship anywhere and dad is willing to pay his way at BJU, a guy can tough it out four years and get his sheepskin. Your reasoning lumps him in with everyone else.
Even if that were true, the minimum could simply be that it’s Christian. I wouldn’t mind attening Notre Dame, and I’m far from being Catholic.
I’m not so sure you would, especially since I’ve pointed out that Chris has given us plenty of reasons to think otherwise.
But the city is extremely white and modern-liberal (leftist). Why would it not be likely to attract others of that type?
That’s not what he said. He said that since Sligh attended that particular university, he must be that kind of Christian.
But not Sligh. If you want to criticize something, then why aren’t you criticizing the obviously bogus assertion that because Sligh went to BJU, he must be “that kind of Christian”? Do you agree with it or something?
Well, my source says it’s 70 for the city, 76 for the county, and 82 for the state. But yeah, I did exaggerate.
See, people who don’t read them think AI threads are all poppy and feel-goody and reality showy. Which they are. But they are also full of drama, religion, hurt feelings, righteous indignation, demographics, science, history, the science of history, the history of science, race, ugliness, baldness, adolescent sexual urgings and bestiality.
Wait! No bestiality— yet.
Oh and trouble. Nothing but trouble.
Silver lining to this cloud?
Last year at about this time, Lib became similarly bizarrely illogical in his rabid defense of his Idol favorite, Chris Daughtry. He finally became so unhinged that he posted his now famous “please ban me” thread, which was followed–for too short a time–by his sweet, sweet absence.
Pray with me, everybody.
I always notice you – us Looney Tunesians gotta stick together!
He could always pay himself $500 to leave.
Sheepskin for what? Did you miss the part where BJU is unaccredited by SACS, and therefore any sheepskin attained from there is worth just slightly less than the ink used to print them? In the real world, the BJU degree is worth bupkis. Only in a Christian Fundamentalist context does it mean anything.
According to Wikipedia’s cited article, its accreditation is “recognized by the Department of Education and the Council for Higher Education Accreditation”.
Good catch, and you can find their accreditation info on this website. Just search for Bob Jones.
That said, Liberal, the chance that any individual member of BJU falls into the category of “dad will only pay for BJU and student can’t obtain any scholarships” seems vanishingly small, especially when coupled with “student doesn’t believe in BJU’s brand of intolerance but agrees to this deal anyway.” When we’re discussing Klansmen, PETA members, and other groups, are you prepared to go this far out of your way to hypothesize an out for them?
If our country were different–if, say, we were discussing someone attending a Wahabi school in Saudi Arabia–such conjecture might be appropriate. But in the US, there are so many educational options available that this just doesn’t seem realistic or plausible.
Daniel
Uh, that hardly says anything, since the accrediting body (TRACS) also accredits the Institute for Creation Research. In other words, gimme a freakin’ break already
Interestingly, on the same site that I linked to before, ICR doesn’t return any results. The DoE must be filtering TRACS’s accreditation somehow.
Daniel
Wow. That’s a bit shady, don’t you think?
I’m not trying to be snarky, but I don’t follow. Shady of the DoE? Of TRACS? I don’t understand the accreditation process very well at all.
Daniel
Search on TRACS. The ICR graduate school ( :rolleyes: ) comes up.
(In other words, nix the “shady” comment. I thought that the DoE conveniently left out ICR’s accreditation. It turns out that it’s listed there, but not under “Institute for Creation Research.” It’s just “ICR,” which, now that I think about it, might be a little shady after all, or at least, obfuscatory.)
Oh, I see. That is a little weird, and my earlier comment about their not being accredited is clearly wrong. Thanks for figuring that out!
Still, Liberal’s comment was that someone might find BJU the only way they could get a sheepskin, and someone said that since BJU wasn’t accredited, that was irrelevant. I think his conjecture is faulty, but not for that reason: BJU is, however much it shouldn’t be, accredited, as near as I can tell.
Daniel
My favorite part of this thread is that Liberal withdrew his complaint and apologized civilly in #31… and nobody let him.