# Would this kind of religious persecution be allowed in college? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 14, 2014, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-this-kind-of-religious-persecution-be-allowed-in-college/683724 "2014-03-14T21:23:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 10
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2014, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-this-kind-of-religious-persecution-be-allowed-in-college/683724/181 "2014-03-21T01:30:54Z")
> [@j666](#): > > You have not been “unfair”, you have been unnecessarily rude. I disagree with the “unnecessarily” part of it, given that your posts to me have been sneering ad hominems wholly lacking in substance. For fucks sake, I’m an atheist arguing that the feelings of religious people should be respected, and all you can think to do is to suggest that I can’t imagine people who think differently from me. > [@](#): > > You have been embarrassingly narrow-minded in your inability to understand that people see your points, but disagree with you. That something is obvious to you does not mean the everyone else will agree that it is true. More stupid ad hominems. > [@](#): > > I could argue that the refusal to write “God is dead” is rank idolatry, believing the word has more power and meaning than God. I would not assume every person who disagree with me did not understand my argument. I don’t give a shit what you could argue, nor do I give a shit about the substance of your religious nitpickery with other religious folks. I don’t think your religious feelings should be hurt by a professor without good reason. > [@](#): > > I also would not assume that every person with whom I discussed the issue was an American of primarily European descent raised as a Catholic in a city on the East Coast. What the everloving fuck does this have to do with what I said? ---
**Author:** ![j666](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9de0a6/32.png) [@j666](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/j666)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2014, 2:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-this-kind-of-religious-persecution-be-allowed-in-college/683724/182 "2014-03-21T02:09:17Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > I disagree with the “unnecessarily” part of it, given that your posts to me have been sneering ad hominems wholly lacking in substance. For fucks sake, I’m an atheist arguing that the feelings of religious people should be respected, and all you can think to do is to suggest that I can’t imagine people who think differently from me. > > More stupid ad hominems. > > I don’t give a shit what you could argue, nor do I give a shit about the substance of your religious nitpickery with other religious folks. I don’t think your religious feelings should be hurt by a professor without good reason. > > What the everloving fuck does this have to do with what I said? I don’t care what your religious beliefs are; i take issue with the quality of your arguments, and the incivility with which you phrase them. People disagree with you. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2014, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-this-kind-of-religious-persecution-be-allowed-in-college/683724/183 "2014-03-21T03:18:06Z")
> [@j666](#): > > I don’t care what your religious beliefs are; i take issue with the quality of your arguments, and the incivility with which you phrase them. Your baseless and unsubstantiated ad hominems are a lot less civil than the naughty words I’ve used, so hop down off that high horse of yours. If you want to take issue with the quality of my arguments, fucking do so. Just saying they’re low quality isn’t actually that interesting: SHOW me why they’re low quality. Or, you know, keep tsking at me as if that’s the civil thing to do, your call. ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2014, 11:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-this-kind-of-religious-persecution-be-allowed-in-college/683724/184 "2014-03-21T11:23:50Z")
> [@j666](#): > > You have not been “unfair”, you have been unnecessarily rude. > > You have been embarrassingly narrow-minded in your inability to understand that people see your points, but disagree with you. That something is obvious to you does not mean the everyone else will agree that it is true. > > I could argue that the refusal to write “God is dead” is rank idolatry, believing the word has more power and meaning than God. I would not assume every person who disagree with me did not understand my argument. > > I also would not assume that every person with whom I discussed the issue was an American of primarily European descent raised as a Catholic in a city on the East Coast. You only responded to the least interesting line from his post. TBH I was genuinely interested to see your response to the rest of his post–I thought things might go in a more constructive direction. Here it is again: > [@](#): > > It’s possible to engage in a provocative activity like this in order to teach. Starting a series of lessons with a hook is a good approach. > > HOWEVER, if the hook is one that causes distress, a good teacher is going to do so in order to channel that distress. If the distress is caused without a clear way to channel it into learning, the teacher’s just a sadist, and should be fired. > > If the assignment is to make someone write something objectionable, then the teacher needs to be sure everyone writes something they find objectionable. If it’s only objectionable to part of the class, then the teacher’s hook fails. > > If the assignment isn’t just a hook–if completing the assignment itself has learning value–then the teacher is justified in requiring it of students. If the only point of the assignment is that contemplating it causes that distress-hook I mentioned earlier, however, then there’s no value (except to a sadistic asshole) in requiring student to complete it: the mere contemplation of it achieves the learning objective. > > I don’t object to the person who required people to stomp on Jesus’s name, as long as that person didn’t actually follow through on the requirement. That’s a fine–if risky–way to introduce a lecture on the power of symbolism. If the teacher requires people to follow through, however, that crosses from clever distress-hook into sadistic control-freak bullshit, however, with no discernible learning objective, and again: fire that fucker. ---
**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:** [March 21, 2014, 12:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-this-kind-of-religious-persecution-be-allowed-in-college/683724/185 "2014-03-21T12:12:19Z")
[QUOTE=astorian] I never got a bad grade for papers I wrote that were critical of any of those thinkers, but the professor made a point of telling all of us, “What I do not EVER want to see in one of your papers is _Plato was an idiot_ or \*Nietzsche is a jerk \* or _Marx is full or crap._ Plato was NOT an idiot. Marx was NOT an idiot. Nietzsche was NOT an idiot. Aristotle was NOT an idiot. They are among the most brilliant thinkers who ever lived. If there’s a fallacy or a contradiction in their work so obvious YOU can see it, assume Plato and Nietzsche must have seen it, too, and try to tell me how you think they would have reconciled the contradiction.” [/QUOTE] Whereas I got 16/20 (would that be an A in American grades ?) for stating in my English Lit. final that Jane Austen was a transparent hack and a \*very \*tiresome bore whose narrative conceits and sociological “insights” in \*Emma \*would have been more subtle had she engraved them on a sledgehammer and hit people in the forehead with it. Sic. I don’t know who graded the paper, but our teacher was basically a worshipper of the nutty old bint. I guess the test reviewer got bored of all the quasi-requisite gushing. ---
**Author:** ![Human\_Action](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ac91a4/32.png) [@Human\_Action](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Human_Action)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2014, 12:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-this-kind-of-religious-persecution-be-allowed-in-college/683724/186 "2014-03-21T12:57:06Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > Whereas I got 16/20 (would that be an A in American grades ?) for stating in my English Lit. final that Jane Austen was a transparent hack and a \*very \*tiresome bore whose narrative conceits and sociological “insights” in \*Emma \*would have been more subtle had she engraved them on a sledgehammer and hit people in the forehead with it. Sic. > > I don’t know who graded the paper, but our teacher was basically a worshipper of the nutty old bint. I guess the test reviewer got bored of all the quasi-requisite gushing. 16/20 is 80%, which would be a B - or a C +, depending on the school. ---
**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:** [March 21, 2014, 1:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-this-kind-of-religious-persecution-be-allowed-in-college/683724/187 "2014-03-21T13:17:17Z")
Wait, C is “up to the upper-thirtd/lower-fourth quarter” ?! I thought C was the mean ? ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2014, 1:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-this-kind-of-religious-persecution-be-allowed-in-college/683724/188 "2014-03-21T13:26:59Z")
Grading systems are very hard to translate from one country to another. Percentages can’t be carried over because they mean different things. Generally speaking, a C indicates “mediocre, at best” and is not the kind of grade that you would reveal if you were trying to impress someone. 80 percent—a B-minus—wouldn’t be terrible but you would be relieved you didn’t get a C. ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2014, 1:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-this-kind-of-religious-persecution-be-allowed-in-college/683724/189 "2014-03-21T13:27:03Z")
The idea is supposed to have been that earning 70% shows a barely minimal level of success, such that you pass with the lowest possible passing score. Graders grade as they will, but many of us, at the end of the semester, feel things are going as they should be going if the average score in a class is in the C range. That may be where you got the idea that “C is the mean.” There’s also the fact that, on the four point Grade Point Average scale, a C is translated to 2.0. This could be another source for your idea that C is the mean. ---
**Author:** ![Human\_Action](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ac91a4/32.png) [@Human\_Action](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Human_Action)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2014, 1:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-this-kind-of-religious-persecution-be-allowed-in-college/683724/190 "2014-03-21T13:28:11Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > Wait, C is “up to the upper-thirtd/lower-fourth quarter” ?! I thought C was the mean ? [It breaks down like so:](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic_grading_in_the_United_States) A - 90% - 100% B - 80% - 89% C - 70% - 79% D - 60% - 69% F - 59% and below There’s also [this one:](http://faculty.washington.edu/scstroup/Gradescale.html) A - 91 - 100% B - 81 - 90% C - 71 - 80% D - 61 - 70% F - 60% and below …and other variations, but they all put 80% as either a low B or a high C. ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2014, 1:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-this-kind-of-religious-persecution-be-allowed-in-college/683724/191 "2014-03-21T13:31:27Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > Grading systems are very hard to translate from one country to another. Percentages can’t be carried over because they mean different things. > > Generally speaking, a C indicates “mediocre, at best” and is not the kind of grade that you would reveal if you were trying to impress someone. 80 percent—a B-minus—wouldn’t be terrible but you would be relieved you didn’t get a C. In my own classes, I try to fight grade inflation by emphasizing that a C is a success. You can get all Cs throughout your degree program and come out with a college degree–so C had _better_ mean success. (Students get the hint when I say this that class will be hard–but by the end I always have “straight A” students thanking me for their first B or even C. 😉 ) ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2014, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-this-kind-of-religious-persecution-be-allowed-in-college/683724/192 "2014-03-21T13:34:32Z")
It’s the mean for who’s mastered the material. A 50% means you’ve failed to master the material and get an F. And you shouldn’t have gotten a very good score: deriding the author as a hack is an intellectually lazy cop-out of a paper, unless your reasoning was far more brilliant than what I’ve seen other kids (including, embarrassingly, myself) come up with when they write this tired cliched essay. If you, as a teenager, think you’ve discovered something about an author that tens of thousands of other more experienced and more knowledgeable readers haven’t, the chances are far greater that you’re just an arrogant teenager with no sense of perspective. No harm no foul, many of us were that arrogant when we lacked perspective, but part of how we gain perspective is by getting smacked down by professors who know more than we do. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2014, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-this-kind-of-religious-persecution-be-allowed-in-college/683724/193 "2014-03-21T13:43:50Z")
The goals of an essay for a teenager are not the same as that for an expert in the field. You’re testing whether they gave read and understood the material with a good level of depth and detail and whether they can construct Anand support and argument rationally and articulately. If they can do it while being iconoclastic than fine. All the better if they are doing more than parroting what they’ve learned on class. ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2014, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-this-kind-of-religious-persecution-be-allowed-in-college/683724/194 "2014-03-21T13:48:57Z")
It’s been a long time since I took an English class but it seems to me that if the teacher did their job right, there’d be nothing to parrot… My own English teachers in high school taught us how to figure out what _we_ think about a text and why we think it. They didn’t tell us what _they_ thought about it. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2014, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-this-kind-of-religious-persecution-be-allowed-in-college/683724/195 "2014-03-21T15:09:58Z")
On reflection, I’d also say a low grade should be given to someone who wrote about what a subtle genius Austen was. A memorable professor of mine in college was terrible at leading book discussions, but one thing he said sticks in my mind: “I’m not at all interested in whether you like a book, so don’t tell me that. That’s boring. Tell me what’s important or meaningful in the book, and what it means.” IME (admittedly limited, from being a college writing tutor), kids that write about an author’s flaws generally aren’t thinking carefully about the author, but are rather interpreting their own lack of understanding of the text into an attitude of bored superiority. A student who was clearly engaging respectfully with a text, aware of their own limitations but still attempting to find flaws in the author’s argument or style, would be someone who could deserve a high grade. Two examples: 1. In high school, I wrote a paper about Huck Finn which I criticized its ending–one of the great moral dilemmas in American literature–as boring and pointless. If I had a time machine, I’d grade myself very low for that nonsense. I wasn’t engaging with the text, I was using contempt as a way to avoid my own difficulties in understanding its significance. 2. In college, we read a book about agricorporations like Monsanto that made some terrible arguments. I came to class having done my research: I pointed students to specific passages in the text, and then referred them to other materials that showed the text was incorrect (for example, the author fundamentally misrepresented an argument Peter Singer had made about in vitro fertilization in order to call him a misogynist; I looked up her footnote, found the original essay by Singer, and brought that essay to class to show how different it was from her claims about it). I’d give myself high marks for that, as I was engaging with the text in a specific, serious fashion. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2014, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-this-kind-of-religious-persecution-be-allowed-in-college/683724/196 "2014-03-21T15:15:50Z")
I wouldn’t expect more than rudimentary essay concepts, writing, and execution in a high school, especially if it’s a timed exam essay question. The premise of the essay would be the least important issue so long as there was a premise and an organized defense of it. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2014, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-this-kind-of-religious-persecution-be-allowed-in-college/683724/197 "2014-03-21T15:41:08Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > I wouldn’t expect more than rudimentary essay concepts, writing, and execution in a high school, especially if it’s a timed exam essay question. The premise of the essay would be the least important issue so long as there was a premise and an organized defense of it. I suppose it comes back to learning objectives. Here are two different objectives: 1. The student will be able to construct an essay based on a self-chosen thesis statement and defend the statement using evidence. 2. The student will be able to identify and discuss key themes and symbols in a work of literature. If your learning objective is only #1, then sure, I agree. But if you’re also trying to assess the second learning objective, then it’s not enough to just have any old premise, the student needs to have a thesis that shows accomplishment of that second objective. Does that make sense? ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2014, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-this-kind-of-religious-persecution-be-allowed-in-college/683724/198 "2014-03-21T16:45:37Z")
Sure but identifying key themes and symbols does not require that the premise be correct or hold up to scrutiny by mature experts or reflect the understanding of literature history and the world reflected my a much older, educated person. The premise may very well be shallow and superficial and immature and naive and reflect the fresh arrogance of youth. That’s exactly what one should expect of a budding scholar in high school. “This respected author is a hack and here’s why I think why” is absolutely appropriate. ---
**Author:** ![YogSothoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/8edcca/32.png) [@YogSothoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YogSothoth)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2014, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-this-kind-of-religious-persecution-be-allowed-in-college/683724/199 "2014-03-21T18:31:57Z")
> [@Frylock](#): > > Yes, of course it can be okay to put certain items off limits. What the professor described in the OP did is not simply “putting certain items off limits.” He didn’t say “we’re not going to talk about God’s existence” and leave it at that, he said “You all have to endorse the statement that God is dead or else fail.” That is an entirely different thing. As an atheist, I would give him that leeway. He should put it more sensitively for the religious kids to avoid trouble, but I would still back him > [@Frylock](#): > > Like the Christian prof who wanted his students to step on the word Jesus, is what I suppose you’re talking about here. But the academic value would be ruined if a student had to step on the name _or fail the class_. And again–that wasn’t an assignment, it was an activity. (Here I define an assignment as something which a student must perform according to a standard by which he will be graded, whereas an activity is intended to help teach the student but has no grade attached.) Well if we narrowly define it that way, sure. But I’m open to other types of teaching methods. I do not think that binding a professor to a set of criteria such as the one you described would be conductive to learning. If students cannot be punished by refusing an activity, or a part of a lesson, then students get too much power to dictate how lessons are run. In the real world example, I’m fine with the teacher failing anyone who doesn’t step on Jesus’s name because presumably, it was part of a graded assignment. In certain classes, I think the teacher should have much more leeway to teach in unique styles, philosophy being one of them. Gym class, not so much. > [@Frylock](#): > > It’s clear that you do, but as far as I can tell from everything I have experienced, if you ask someone to write something down, they will interpret this as you asking them to endorse the written statement, unless you say something (or there is something about the context) that signals otherwise. I believe this is what we need to get away from, especially in a philosophy class. Maybe movie, hypothetical, and real life professors didn’t make that clear. Oh well, too bad for the student. Maybe he should get clarification before he refuses > [@Frylock](#): > > I haven’t claimed that you would not be comfortable with this. And I was stating my own contrary experience as an anecdotal refutation of your claim that it is a general, agreed-upon principle > [@Frylock](#): > > Of course no one here thinks a professor ought not have that power. No one has said anything to imply otherwise. Do you actually think they have, or is something else going on here? I think that had the movie not used “admit”, we’d still be having this conversation. I could be wrong of course, so tell me, if the professor said instead\* “If you cannot bring yourself to **say** that god is dead, you will have to defend the antithesis”\*, would you still object to his lesson plan? > [@Frylock](#): > > Why would they conclude this? It would seem to me they could only conclude this if they assume that statements written down _sans_ further context are most naturally interpreted as an endorsement of the statement. But above you said you don’t think people assume this. I said I don’t think people _in class_ assume this, because in the context of a classroom, especially a philosophy one, things will be said that are not explicit endorsements. Outside of class, I can’t speak to what people would think. > [@Frylock](#): > > Waitaminute, which claim are you talking about? Who made the claim, about what incident? In a hypothetical class. In the movie it probably didn’t come up, I don’t know, I’m not going to watch the movie. In real life we know the teacher said it was a lesson a symbols. In a hypothetical class, however, I do not believe that a teacher would simply tell students to write that statement with no context. > [@Human\_Action](#): > > I will clarify. > > It doesn’t matter whether you, or the professor, thinks the objection is valid. Here’s a list of the people who get to decide if an assignment violates their religious beliefs: > > That person. That is giving waaaaaay too much power to the claimant to get out of doing anything they don’t like. I believe that in this case, there needs to be some sort of commonly understood validity of the claim in order for someone to use it as an excuse. Therefore, in the context of a classroom, I would empower professors to use their discretion to decide which religious claims offer a valid excuse to get out of classwork. If there are objections, the student can take it up the chain of command. Note that I am not saying that professors get to decide which religions are real or false. I am addressing the religiously neutral criteria of which types of objection merits consideration. Refusing to write something on a piece of paper, in my view, is not valid, whether the content of the statement is religious or not, I assert that it is more about the method than the content. Obviously, you could say that in this case, both the real world and the movie world versions, the student did take it up the chain of command (dunno for sure about the movie, but it probably would be a second resort) and the bosses disagreed. That’s ok, the procedure to object is there. But I think that the logic of the professors in both cases are unassailable and it is a valid lesson. A different dean of the school might see it differently, that’s the point. The goal is not to let any spurious claim be given serious consideration. Sometimes the professor should be able to say “you fail” and that’s it I think this situation is analogous to a medical school where the student was a Christian science whackjob and refused to do some required work and claimed religious exemption, I would fail him too. > [@Human\_Action](#): > > Here’s how you, as a teacher, put certain items off limits: by not bringing them up, or by saying that they won’t, and aren’t to be, discussed (like the professor mentioned earlier did with Youth Earth Creationism). This treats all students equally, and doesn’t persecute anyone. > > The wrong way: ask the students to affirm that they don’t believe in the doctrines that are off limits, and punish people who won’t make that affirmation. The professor put himself in the line of fire and caused part of the problem, that I don’t disagree with. But I don’t agree the style of his teaching is the wrong way, merely a more inconvenient way. The student himself holds some responsibility. He could have just wrote it. No skin off his nose > [@Human\_Action](#): > > It is a crucial distinction. Treating a religious objection the same as not doing an assignment out of laziness means that you don’t recognize that religious objections are a valid reason to not complete an assignment. In a philosophy class? I don’t, especially a short, written assignment. I would be interested in knowing what your response would be to a hypothetical situation, so that I can better understand where you’re coming from. Suppose a philosophy professor, on the first day of class, asked all the students to separate by religions. For ease, let’s just say you have atheists and agnostics on one side, and Christians of various denominations on the other. And the assignment was that for whatever side they are on, they have to write an essay against their beliefs. Atheists have to write a convincing essay that a god exists, and Christians have to write that god doesn’t exist. One Christian student objects. Would you consider that a valid objection? Should the professor not assign him something he disagrees with? You may reply that all students are given the same assignment, so lets take it further. Suppose all the students except that one objects, and he is offered to either take a fail or a different assignment: he, unlike his fellow Christians, gets to write an essay on why god exists. Do you think he’s being punished then? What if instead of an essay, he has to do a whole semester long project culminating in a presentation on why god exists? > [@Human\_Action](#): > > It is an activity, one that requires no real input from the students. It doesn’t task them with demonstrating knowledge, it doesn’t teach them skills, it’s nothing. Aren’t you putting yourself as the arbiter of scholarly decisions? Why is that ok but giving the professor the leeway to trust that his decisions are meaningful for the class he’s teaching not ok? Let’s say you don’t know much about quantum physics, would you object if a hypothetical QP professor gives an assignment you can’t see the value of and some student objects because it violates some religious belief? > [@Human\_Action](#): > > Can you articulate how the student’s refusal to write the words harms the academic integrity of the course, or how not doing so precludes the student from gaining sufficient knowledge of philosophy to pass the course? I can, but I’ll be prepared for you to say that those are stupid reasons. By refusing to write those words, the student damages the ability of all professors and schools to create coursework based on academic practices the student is most likely unfamiliar with. It gives students too much power over how they are taught, limiting and altering knowledge to the student’s point of view, rather than enriching them with things they may not have conceived of. It damages teaching. It damages schools. It damages knowledge. I feel the same way to this student as the glurge of Fox News, telling people what they want to hear, rather than the truth. We see firsthand everyday how that is bad for society. It can also give too much power to rich special interests, who not only can field people with one point of view, but can actively object to reality much more easily by raising a stink. Philosophy, specifically, is about knowledge, damage to one is damage to the other. By refusing to do something he doesn’t feel comfortable with, he damages himself by refusing to expose himself to contrary opinions, and damages the above: all knowledge. Yes, I am being quite hyperbolic, but don’t laugh and claim that its not going to happen, nor that its a drop in the bucket. Crap like Fox News exists, these people exist, and they have power, and with a handful of electoral victories, they can shape the minds of millions of students for a generation. It is wrong for the student to, in the context of a philosophy class, object to writing a few words down. > [@Human\_Action](#): > > See, again, you’re choosing what value other people’s religious views have _to them._ Another professor might decide that baptizing you is less of a violation than writing a phrase. Where does that leave you? What is your ultimate goal? I think that if you are not espousing this belief, then your method will certainly take us to a world where any student can claim any religious objection and it must be accepted. I don’t see you limiting your reasoning to specifics or making up caveats, so what limits would you place on student religious objections? Can a medical student pass if he refuses to disturb the humours of the body? Could biology students object to evolution and still pass? What about geology? If you are a YEC, can you still get a degree if you think the earth is 6000 years old? I want to know what, if any, exceptions you would make and then I want to know how that is different from this professor telling his students he must write an objectionable statement on a piece of paper > [@Human\_Action](#): > > Can I borrow your telepathy helmet? I bet it comes in handy. I’m not disagreeing about what he thinks. I’m disagreeing with your statement that “that is his right”. I don’t believe that student should, or does, have that right > [@Human\_Action](#): > > Ask yourself this: if the professor’s goal _was_ to fail religious people out of his class because he hates them, how would his tactics be different from what’s in the OP? Just because religious kids can be singled out doesn’t mean they are, and doesn’t mean they aren’t self-segregating. I think your question is irrelevant because we haven’t established that he wanted to do anything of the sort. > [@Human\_Action](#): > > And I’m comfortable eating pork. What’s wrong with those crazy Jews, am I right? Again, I believe there’s a clear difference between forcing you to eat or drink something than writing on a piece of paper > [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > Are you–are you trying to refute my analysis with the accusation that I don’t like things I think are bad? Seriously, dude? > > Because, Imagonna blow your mind, **I OFTEN DON’T LIKE BAD THINGS**. It’s one of my things. That has fuckall to do with my analysis of why they’re bad things. Are you pretending to be ignorant in order to casually worm your assumptions that those are bad examples into accepted fact? You haven’t given convincing reasons that those are bad things, you don’t get to claim they are bad and act shocked that someone disagrees with you. Those are not bad examples and you haven’t shown that they are, simply saying it doesn’t make it so > [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > It’s possible to engage in a provocative activity like this in order to teach. Starting a series of lessons with a hook is a good approach. > > HOWEVER, if the hook is one that causes distress, a good teacher is going to do so in order to channel that distress. If the distress is caused without a clear way to channel it into learning, the teacher’s just a sadist, and should be fired. Or the student is stupid and the class shouldn’t change because of him, but continue > [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > If the assignment is to make someone write something objectionable, then the teacher needs to be sure everyone writes something they find objectionable. If it’s only objectionable to part of the class, then the teacher’s hook fails. Unnecessary. The teacher could have started the class with a statement about “Plato is an idiot” or “Nietzche was a racist” as a lesson with the assumption that some people will disagree and some will agree. Its not necessary for the students to agree or disagree with the lesson, or be affected the same way. > [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > If the assignment isn’t just a hook–if completing the assignment itself has learning value–then the teacher is justified in requiring it of students. If the only point of the assignment is that contemplating it causes that distress-hook I mentioned earlier, however, then there’s no value (except to a sadistic asshole) in requiring student to complete it: the mere contemplation of it achieves the learning objective. Movie response: This is pointless, we know who made the film and what their perspectives are. Its assumed to be an invalid learning objective Hypothetical class response: You cannot assume that there was no learning objective as the lesson was stopped at its inception. With tweaks to the lesson, or generous leeway given to the teacher, most of us can reasonably assume that the lesson lead somewhere informative. It would be wrong for a student to object in order to prevent himself from being taught something disagreeable > [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > I don’t object to the person who required people to stomp on Jesus’s name, **as long as that person didn’t actually follow through on the requirement**. That’s a fine–if risky–way to introduce a lecture on the power of symbolism. If the teacher requires people to follow through, however, that crosses from clever distress-hook into sadistic control-freak bullshit, however, with no discernible learning objective, and again: fire that fucker. Real world response: The teacher who told her students to stomp on Jesus was stopped by the objection, but it would have lead to a larger lesson. If she felt that the lesson would be better served by forcing students to go through with it, then that’s her prerogative. Therefore the school should have stuck by the teacher and let it go on despite the objection no matter what. Of course, in the real world, we all forgot it was a classroom and not a Wiccan Coven and the student was given power over the teacher. Plus, it taught the lesson that students don’t have to do what the teacher says. I wish they would have forced the issue and the teacher would have instituted a pass/fail for the Jesus stomping ---
**Author:** ![YogSothoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/8edcca/32.png) [@YogSothoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YogSothoth)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2014, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-this-kind-of-religious-persecution-be-allowed-in-college/683724/200 "2014-03-21T18:36:08Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > I disagree with the “unnecessarily” part of it, given that your posts to me have been sneering ad hominems wholly lacking in substance. For fucks sake, I’m an atheist arguing that the feelings of religious people should be respected, and all you can think to do is to suggest that I can’t imagine people who think differently from me. Correction: Their RIGHTS should be respected, not their feelings. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-this-kind-of-religious-persecution-be-allowed-in-college/683724.md?page=9) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-this-kind-of-religious-persecution-be-allowed-in-college/683724.md?page=11)