# 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:** 5
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2014, 5:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-this-kind-of-religious-persecution-be-allowed-in-college/683724/81 "2014-03-16T05:02:44Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > Writing “god is dead” at the behest of a third party, even more so under the threat of coercion, is not blasphemy or cardinal sin or whatever. Doesn’t even violate the Ten. God won’t mind. And if he does, just say you’re sorry and you won’t do it again, pinky swear ; that seems to hold him for about a half an hour. Uh, I don’t think religious beliefs work that way. :rolleyes: Some might consider blasphemy, or taking the Lord’s name in vain. They do consider denying their faith a sin. You may think it’s stupid, but it’s still important to them. Or how about this: would the professor accept an Orthodox Jew who writes it “G\_d is dead”, for example? ---
**Author:** ![Ibn\_Warraq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e19b73/32.png) [@Ibn\_Warraq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibn_Warraq)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2014, 5:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-this-kind-of-religious-persecution-be-allowed-in-college/683724/82 "2014-03-16T05:07:15Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > Sure. Interestingly enough, Sunni Islam specifically allows one to deny their religion under coercion. Minor nitpick. If you’re thinking of Taqqiyah that’s actually a Shia tradition not a Sunni. That said, even then I don’t think you’re explicitly allowed to deny the existence of the God of Abraham. In fact, IIRC, according to one Hadith, one of the sins God will not forgive is doing just that. However, Islam is a very practical religion and I think most Islamic scholars would find ways to forgive such trespasses due to coercion. That said, I think the “coercion” would have to be more serious. ---
**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 16, 2014, 5:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-this-kind-of-religious-persecution-be-allowed-in-college/683724/83 "2014-03-16T05:17:34Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > The shortcut isn’t to allow \*him \*to move on. Obviously he can teach whatever he pleases. It’s just a brusque and self-important way of saying “I don’t want you lot to bring up religious arguments in this class, ever”. The “written exam” is further reinforcement of the point. Over the line, yes, probably. It _is_ a stupid movie. That’s rather undercut by his response to someone objecting to the shortcut: spend several days engaged in a religious argument, with the outcome determining if the student would pass or fail the course. > [@Kobal2](#): > > Sure. Interestingly enough, Sunni Islam specifically allows one to deny their religion under coercion. Hey, Peter did it three times and is still a saint. [QUOTE=Kobal2] Yeah. Which is why I’m not interested in defending the absurd premise of the biased writer. [/quote] Well, if what you’re saying is that there are some circumstances in which a professor might ask his students to write “God is dead” on a paper without it being furtherance of religious discrimination, I don’t object to that. The circumstance in the film isn’t one of those, though. [QUOTE=Kobal2] Ah, well, that was going to be my follow-up question :). If the professor, instead of requiring his students to write “god is dead”, had simply intimated “If any of you brings up god at any point this year, for any reason, I will immediately fail you. You have been warned.”, that would have been OK with you ? [/QUOTE] It’s sufficiently harsh that one might object it on that basis, but it’s not discrimination, no. The sole exception I can think of would be if a student asked for a religious exception to some assignment or activity and was immediately failed without the exception being considered; as opposed to general religious discussion or writing, like asking YEC questions. > [@Snowboarder Bo](#): > > Maybe it was a Philosophy of Religion class. Didja ever think of that, Mr. Smartypants? Huh? Huh? Didja? I did not, no, and am shamed. ---
**Author:** ![Jragon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19b73/32.png) [@Jragon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jragon)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2014, 5:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-this-kind-of-religious-persecution-be-allowed-in-college/683724/84 "2014-03-16T05:31:49Z")
The only context I think a professor would be excused for this is if it was a deliberately provocative move that **expected** somebody to refuse. I’ve known several friends who had classes that opened with the teacher asking students to say or do something stupid, and then once someone refused, they stopped the experiment and asked “why”? And that was the discussion. While certainly some professors, even philosophy professors, will mark off papers for having “bad logic” just because they don’t agree with the professor’s beliefs, I doubt that in an entry level philosophy course a professor would get away with something so brazen as outright stating “I will fail you if you don’t believe \” and it wasn’t a transparently empty threat for educational purposes. The whole anthropology and biology thing is a bit different, IMO. In the sciences these are more or less closed questions. In philosophy, pretty much everything is an open question. Expecting students to denounce religion in a major where you try to have discussions seriously discussing the merits of monistic idealism is a bit of a stretch. Edit: “We take it as truth” can be used in philosophy, but just for argument. I had a philosophy of AI course and it opened with “we won’t get anywhere if we assume humans aren’t intelligent creatures, or solipsism is true, or anything like that. So for our purposes we’ll assume they’re not because bringing it into discussions just invalidates the entire thing.” Outright forcing people to reject a belief is a bit different. ---
**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 16, 2014, 5:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-this-kind-of-religious-persecution-be-allowed-in-college/683724/85 "2014-03-16T05:48:03Z")
> [@Ibn\_Warraq](#): > > Minor nitpick. If you’re thinking of Taqqiyah that’s actually a Shia tradition not a Sunni. That’s what I was thinking of, yes. Apologies for the confusion, and thanks for the correction & clarification. [QUOTE=Jragon] Edit: “We take it as truth” can be used in philosophy, but just for argument. I had a philosophy of AI course and it opened with “we won’t get anywhere if we assume humans aren’t intelligent creatures, or solipsism is true, or anything like that. So for our purposes we’ll assume they’re not because bringing it into discussions just invalidates the entire thing.” [/QUOTE] Yes ! Much like it’s pointless to discuss the zombie apocalypse if all participants don’t first agree that Romero zombies are the only valid zombies. Least that’s how I understood the prof’s opening diatribe - the fact that he undercut himself 2 seconds later with his personal axe to grind as dumb\_story bait is besides the point 😛 ---
**Author:** ![buddha\_david](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ee7513/32.png) [@buddha\_david](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/buddha_david)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2014, 8:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-this-kind-of-religious-persecution-be-allowed-in-college/683724/86 "2014-03-16T08:03:44Z")
> [@Orr\_G](#): > > I was privileged to see an advanced screening of this movie. > > I won’t spoil anything _too_ important, but the post credits scene shows a chicken strutting quite triumphantly away from a heavily beshitted chess board. Very poignant, IMO. > > That chicken’s name? Albert Einstein. Wait…what? The movie’s about **Albert Einstein???** So what’s the dénouement? Does the evangelical slant of this propoganda film purport that A.E. rejected God and is currently burning in Hell, despite all his earthly accomplishments? Or does the dramatic thrust suggest that Einstein never gave up his evangelical Christian beliefs (which is Historically Inaccurate, of course, but that’s never stopped dumb Christian filmmakers) and therefore failed the class, but it doesn’t matter because he changed scientific history and (as a bonus) went to Heaven? I’m confused. ---
**Author:** ![Robert163](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/4af34b/32.png) [@Robert163](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robert163)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2014, 9:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-this-kind-of-religious-persecution-be-allowed-in-college/683724/87 "2014-03-16T09:05:42Z")
reminds me a bit of this debunked story. I’ve also heard it told from the Muslim POV as well: > **[Did Albert Einstein Humiliate an Atheist Professor?](https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/false-einstein-humiliates-professor/)** > > A young Albert Einstein did not humiliate an atheist professor by using the 'Evil is the absence of God' argument on him. Einstein humiliates Atheist professor ---
**Author:** ![j666](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9de0a6/32.png) [@j666](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/j666)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2014, 12:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-this-kind-of-religious-persecution-be-allowed-in-college/683724/88 "2014-03-16T12:43:57Z")
> [@Human\_Action](#): > > It’s there: > Him, and only him. No other student was burdened with this no-win assignment. > > That’s there too, though it’s implicit: the reason that only this one student was given the punitive assignment, is because every other student made the mandated declaration that “God is dead”. > > I’ve watched the trailer for the film, so that’s the scenario I’m responding to. I can’t un-watch it, though I’m attempting to limit it to what **Czarcasm** specifically wrote about…but, the things he wrote about are the salient points of the film scenario. > > “Is there some bright-line distinction between the two?” is a salient question, if you wish to make a distinction between requiring a declaration, and requiring belief. You identified that such a distinction existed: > > …but not how it’s defined. > > The baptism analogy was just that, an analogy. To be strawman, I would have had to attribute a position to you. Plainly, I did not. > > As that aspect is what makes the action discriminatory, it can’t be separated from the rest of the scenario. If there’s no negative treatment, it’s no discrimination. > > Sure. That’s not what this scenario was, though. There was no general assignment to make an argument; on the contrary, the “assignment” was to write three words. No, now you’re just making shit up. For example, nothing in the post suggests everyone else wrote the phrase. If you want to debate persecution of the Christians in the 21st century, have at it with **kobol** , s/he’s enjoying it. I thought the scenario would be an interesting way to start a class in many disciplines. I still think that, and would be willing to discuss it. But claims of persecution of True Christians, plucky or otherwise, in the United States in the 21st century, is errant nonsense. Furthermore, I will not engage in a discussion with constantly shifting hypotheticals justified with false claims of implied statements. ---
**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 16, 2014, 1:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-this-kind-of-religious-persecution-be-allowed-in-college/683724/89 "2014-03-16T13:00:44Z")
> [@j666](#): > > No, now you’re just making shit up. For example, nothing in the post suggests everyone else wrote the phrase. I have no idea what you’re talking about. > [@](#): > > There a movie coming out soon, God’s Not Dead, that has as a premise a philosophy class where the students are told to write down on a piece of paper “God is dead” and hand it forward, and that failure to do so is an automatic failure. When the one righteous Christian tells him that he will not do so, the professor tells him that he must prove the existence of God, or fail the class. It’s right there. **One** student refused to write the phrase, and was given the additional assignment. What does that imply about the rest of the students? Hint: There was more than one student in the class. > [@j666](#): > > If you want to debate persecution of the Christians in the 21st century, have at it with **kobol** , s/he’s enjoying it. That is what this scenario is, so that’s the discussion that can be wrought from it. > [@j666](#): > > I thought the scenario would be an interesting way to start a class in many disciplines. I still think that, and would be willing to discuss it. Absolutely. That’s not the objectionable part. The objectionable part is giving a punitive assignment to a student for stating a particular religious belief. That is part of the scenario in the OP: > [@](#): > > …the professor tells him that he must prove the existence of God, or fail the class. If you wish to discuss a different scenario than that in the OP/movie, feel free to outline it. > [@j666](#): > > But claims of persecution of True Christians, plucky or otherwise, in the United States in the 21st century, is errant nonsense. In reality? It certainly is nonsense. In the fictional scenario in the OP/film, it’s the only way to accurately describe what the professor is doing (really, it’s simple discrimination on the basis of religion, but you could call it persecution). > [@j666](#): > > Furthermore, I will not engage in a discussion with constantly shifting hypotheticals… You mean analogies? They are a standard debate tactic, though they only work if the other party is willing to consider and address them. > [@j666](#): > > …justified with false claims of implied statements. So, saying that **one** student objected to writing the phrase, and this **one** student was given an additional assignment, _does not_ imply that the other students did write the phrase? That is a remarkable claim. ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2014, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-this-kind-of-religious-persecution-be-allowed-in-college/683724/90 "2014-03-16T14:12:41Z")
Even better: the OP says “ **the** one” student refuses to write it. (Emphasis mine.) ---
**Author:** ![MsRobyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/90ced4/32.png) [@MsRobyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MsRobyn)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2014, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-this-kind-of-religious-persecution-be-allowed-in-college/683724/91 "2014-03-16T14:13:01Z")
A tenured professor can pretty much do whatever he pleases, as others have pointed out. In fact, I have had professors in college and grad school who have required such essays from students who have, shall we say, unorthodox views about the subject of the course. The purpose is to force the student to think about his belief and to defend it, as well as to help the professor understand where it’s coming from. (In a couple of cases, the student was invited to drop the course, and another was encouraged to find another college that would be more in line with his belief system. [The student in question was evangelical Christian and in the habit of complaining about faculty who didn’t share his religious philosophy.]) So it does happen, and fairly often. ---
**Author:** ![Octarine](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/22d042/32.png) [@Octarine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Octarine)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2014, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-this-kind-of-religious-persecution-be-allowed-in-college/683724/92 "2014-03-16T15:48:48Z")
Just saying, an actual atheist wouldn’t have his students write “God is dead.” For God to be dead, God would’ve had to have been alive at some point. ---
**Author:** ![Stringbean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Stringbean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stringbean)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2014, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-this-kind-of-religious-persecution-be-allowed-in-college/683724/93 "2014-03-16T15:53:33Z")
What a moronic, pandering pile of excrement. Movies like this only serve to further isolate religion from our society. I, as an atheist, would walk out of that classroom and drop the class. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2014, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-this-kind-of-religious-persecution-be-allowed-in-college/683724/94 "2014-03-16T21:16:51Z")
> [@Stringbean](#): > > What a moronic, pandering pile of excrement. > > Movies like this only serve to further isolate religion from our society. > > I, as an atheist, would walk out of that classroom and drop the class. I noticed that this _unreleased as yet_ movie has a bunch of positive reviews, due to the fact that it was sent out to a lot of fundamentalist religious groups. I am really looking forward to the first non-biased reviews. I knew about the Snopes version of this fanciful tale, but I was more interested in talking about whether it could happen in the future, rather than if it did happen in the past. ---
**Author:** ![j666](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9de0a6/32.png) [@j666](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/j666)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2014, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-this-kind-of-religious-persecution-be-allowed-in-college/683724/95 "2014-03-16T22:05:48Z")
> [@Frylock](#): > > Even better: the OP says “ **the** one” student refuses to write it. (Emphasis mine.) Hmm, I am not used to that term of phrase meaning “only one”; but more of a “this one, that is the subject of” this story or discussion or whatever. If that is the usage, I misunderstood the OP. Wait - the OP says “the one righteous student”, not “the one student”. > [@Stringbean](#): > > What a moronic, pandering pile of excrement. > > Movies like this only serve to further isolate religion from our society. > > I, as an atheist, would walk out of that classroom and drop the class. I would refuse to write the phrase. ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2014, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-this-kind-of-religious-persecution-be-allowed-in-college/683724/96 "2014-03-16T22:35:42Z")
> [@j666](#): > > Hmm, I am not used to that term of phrase meaning “only one”; but more of a “this one, that is the subject of” this story or discussion or whatever. If that is the usage, I misunderstood the OP. > > Wait - the OP says “the one righteous student”, not “the one student”. > I would refuse to write the phrase. “The one righteous student” means “the only righteous student.” I can dream up examples where the context would make them mean something different from each other, but the OP ain’t one of them contexts. ---
**Author:** ![j666](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9de0a6/32.png) [@j666](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/j666)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2014, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-this-kind-of-religious-persecution-be-allowed-in-college/683724/97 "2014-03-16T23:57:52Z")
> [@Frylock](#): > > Even better: the OP says “ **the** one” student refuses to write it. (Emphasis mine.) > [@Frylock](#): > > “The one righteous student” means “the only righteous student.” “The one” does not necessarily mean “the only”. “The one” student is not the same as “the one righteous student”. Don’t quibble. It’s silly. ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2014, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-this-kind-of-religious-persecution-be-allowed-in-college/683724/98 "2014-03-17T00:07:10Z")
I agree that “the one” student is not the same as “the one righteous student,” and didn’t mean to be saying otherwise. (I was in other words taking your correction on board and then explaining why it doesn’t matter.) I’m not quibbling. “The one righteous student” means “the only righteous student” as far as I can tell. It’s actually very hard for me to imagine a context where it wouldn’t. In the OP, it’s _certainly_ what it means. This isn’t a quibble, it’s directly to the point. You said you didn’t get the idea from the OP that this was the only guy who refused, and you said this was part of why you interpreted the professor’s action as permissible. I’m saying that from the OP, you should have understood that student was being singled out–that he was the only one. As you said, “If that is the usage, I misunderstood the OP.” I am saying that, given that the phrase “the one righteous student” means “the only righteous student,” you did indeed misunderstand the OP. ---
**Author:** ![j666](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9de0a6/32.png) [@j666](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/j666)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2014, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-this-kind-of-religious-persecution-be-allowed-in-college/683724/99 "2014-03-17T01:27:56Z")
> [@Frylock](#): > > I agree that “the one” student is not the same as “the one righteous student,” and didn’t mean to be saying otherwise. (I was in other words taking your correction on board and then explaining why it doesn’t matter.) > > I’m not quibbling. “The one righteous student” means “the only righteous student” as far as I can tell. It’s actually very hard for me to imagine a context where it wouldn’t. In the OP, it’s _certainly_ what it means. This isn’t a quibble, it’s directly to the point. You said you didn’t get the idea from the OP that this was the only guy who refused, and you said this was part of why you interpreted the professor’s action as permissible. I’m saying that from the OP, you should have understood that student was being singled out–that he was the only one. > > As you said, “If that is the usage, I misunderstood the OP.” > > I am saying that, given that the phrase “the one righteous student” means “the only righteous student,” you did indeed misunderstand the OP. > [@Czarcasm](#): > > There a movie coming out soon, [_God’s Not Dead_](http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/gods_not_dead/), that has as a premise a philosophy class where the students are told to write down on a piece of paper “God is dead” and hand it forward, and that failure to do so is an automatic failure. \*\*When the one righteous Christian tells him that he will not do so, \*\*the professor tells him that he must prove the existence of God, or fail the class. > Skipping the artificial angsty backstory of the professor losing loved ones and the scene where the Righteous Christian stands up before the class to cry out “Why do you hate God???”, would a professor be allowed to have anti-religious requirements like these? Refer to bolded section. This does not say only one student doesn’t sign. It doesn’t imply it. This statement implies there is only one righteous Christian in the class. It states that this righteous Christian will not write the phrase. It does not say that only the righteous Christian does not sign. You can clip and snip all you want, I maintain “the one” and “the one righteous” have different meanings, and that I did not misunderstand a usage; the usage was not actually used. The OP is about the one righteous Christian, who will not write the phrase, and NOT the one Christian who will not write the phrase. Eats, shoots, and leaves. ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2014, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-this-kind-of-religious-persecution-be-allowed-in-college/683724/100 "2014-03-17T02:08:47Z")
One of us is certainly quibbling. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-this-kind-of-religious-persecution-be-allowed-in-college/683724.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-this-kind-of-religious-persecution-be-allowed-in-college/683724.md?page=6)