College does not cause one to lose thier faith.
I mentioned on our latest podcast which can be found at http://www.candidradio.com/ show 172 an article that said Universities are causing young people to lose their Christianity. article here.
http://www.afajournal.org/2006/august/0806colleges.html
Basically the article is saying that because colleges encourage a culture of tolerance and existence of others beliefs the college life causes many Christians to stray away from their faith.
I find this argument to be just plain silly for several reasons. First, if all it took for you to lose your faith was to go to college you probably were not that strong in your beliefs anyway or as in my case were already questioning what you had been indoctrinated with long before you set foot in college. Although some like my mom would say that you're not supposed to question God. In othe words these people think God wants a bunch of mindles drowns who don't think for themselves and believe everything their told. The fact is just going to college is not going to cause a person to lose faith although this article would have you believe differently.
In my case I was questioning the beliefs I was brought up on way back before high school. Sitting in church when I was younger and actually listening to what the preacher was saying actually helped me question what I was being taught. We received the whole, "Christianity is the one true religion". speech every Sunday but as I discovered many other religions say the same thing. Jewish, Muslim, etc they all claim their religion is the only true religion. I also loved the "The bible says it is true therefore it must be true." argument. Heard in Church and from my parents when I would dare to ask, "how do we know this is true." The problem with this logic is that all other religions say this about their holy books and trying to site the source as proof of itself is a false argument.
Also family played a big part in me questioning my beliefs. Five major things happened while growing up that led me to think that what I was being thought was not necessarily worth listening too.
These are in no particular order.
1. I have a cousin who became pregnant at the age of 16. Some guy told her she could not get pregnant in a swimming pool. She became pregnant. One day she wanted my sister and I to do something with her. My Christian mother who is supposed to be non judgmental. You know the saying they love to spread around, "judge and you will be judged." told us we should not hang out with, "people like that because of how people in church might view us for hanging around her." Excuse me but I thought God fearing Christians were supposed to help people who made mistakes and not shun them. My mother is one of those who worries way too much about what others think.
2. At a church youth convention a bunch of us teenagers were sitting in our room and watching TV. During the conversation one of the guys in our group, we'll call him Dan made the comment that no one should talk to me because I was different. Basically referring to the fact that I don't follow the crowd and think for myself and also I happen to be blind. You would think that a group of you supposed Christian peers would be more understanding of disabilities and not make judgments like that but I guess I was wrong in thinking that way. Luckily everyone else in the room ignored his comment and figured him out to just be an immature child.
3. My mother used to constantly accuse me of things I did not do. It was easier for her to think I must have done it than to find the actual person. If one of my sisters said I did something I must have done it. did not matter if there were witnesses to prove me right witch over 90% of the time there were. Apparently the Christian commandment of don't bring false whitens against thy neighbor had some provision that I was not aware of that made it ok to falsely accuse your son. Again, I was not aware of this provision and searching for it has yielded no proof of its existence but it must be around somewhere because my mom sure seemed to think it was right to do so.
4. If we chose for some reason other than being ill or having to work not to attend church we were made to feel guilty about it. I recall once having my mother threaten to return my high school graduation gift because I dared to miss a Sunday of church. Didn't matter that I did not follow or believe the Christian teachings that were being shoved down my thought. And we all know using threats which by the way most of my moms threats were idol anyway and not taken seriously, is a great way to make someone want to attend church. That was one of my moms ways of handling any argument she was losing. Just make an idol threat. Not realizing it was making her look foolish.
5. In college I got mixed up with the wrong kind of girl. She turned out to be a liar and a cheat. The first "friends" to abandon me were my church going friends. The ones who stuck by me and helped me out were my mom church going friends who turned out to be more "Christian" than most Christians I know.
There are a few other things that helped me in questioning my beliefs but those are the five major ones.
Other things that played a role.
I grew up in the Lutheran church. and it seemed to me that if you did not conform to a certain way of thinking than you were somehow a bad person. In other words, mind control. You had to think like someone wanted you to in this case a supreme being or bad things would happen. Nice scare tactic. In other words having your own opinion was not encouraged. I get a kick out of people who will quote the bible in an argument. I've said in these cases. "now that you told me what a book says, how about telling me what you think." All of the sudden those people are at a loss for words when they have to give their own opinion. It was the whole, "follow the crowd" mentality but only in a church setting. It does seem like most religions use scare tactics to get people to believe a certain way. You better not be for this or that or something bad will happen." If anyone else tried to pull that we'd think they were nuts but for some reason when religion does it many people don't think twice about it.
All that being said, I do believe in a higher power I just don't believe in religion. and I came to these conclusions long before I set foot in college.
http://www.afajournal.org/2006/august/0806colleges.html
Basically the article is saying that because colleges encourage a culture of tolerance and existence of others beliefs the college life causes many Christians to stray away from their faith.
I find this argument to be just plain silly for several reasons. First, if all it took for you to lose your faith was to go to college you probably were not that strong in your beliefs anyway or as in my case were already questioning what you had been indoctrinated with long before you set foot in college. Although some like my mom would say that you're not supposed to question God. In othe words these people think God wants a bunch of mindles drowns who don't think for themselves and believe everything their told. The fact is just going to college is not going to cause a person to lose faith although this article would have you believe differently.
In my case I was questioning the beliefs I was brought up on way back before high school. Sitting in church when I was younger and actually listening to what the preacher was saying actually helped me question what I was being taught. We received the whole, "Christianity is the one true religion". speech every Sunday but as I discovered many other religions say the same thing. Jewish, Muslim, etc they all claim their religion is the only true religion. I also loved the "The bible says it is true therefore it must be true." argument. Heard in Church and from my parents when I would dare to ask, "how do we know this is true." The problem with this logic is that all other religions say this about their holy books and trying to site the source as proof of itself is a false argument.
Also family played a big part in me questioning my beliefs. Five major things happened while growing up that led me to think that what I was being thought was not necessarily worth listening too.
These are in no particular order.
1. I have a cousin who became pregnant at the age of 16. Some guy told her she could not get pregnant in a swimming pool. She became pregnant. One day she wanted my sister and I to do something with her. My Christian mother who is supposed to be non judgmental. You know the saying they love to spread around, "judge and you will be judged." told us we should not hang out with, "people like that because of how people in church might view us for hanging around her." Excuse me but I thought God fearing Christians were supposed to help people who made mistakes and not shun them. My mother is one of those who worries way too much about what others think.
2. At a church youth convention a bunch of us teenagers were sitting in our room and watching TV. During the conversation one of the guys in our group, we'll call him Dan made the comment that no one should talk to me because I was different. Basically referring to the fact that I don't follow the crowd and think for myself and also I happen to be blind. You would think that a group of you supposed Christian peers would be more understanding of disabilities and not make judgments like that but I guess I was wrong in thinking that way. Luckily everyone else in the room ignored his comment and figured him out to just be an immature child.
3. My mother used to constantly accuse me of things I did not do. It was easier for her to think I must have done it than to find the actual person. If one of my sisters said I did something I must have done it. did not matter if there were witnesses to prove me right witch over 90% of the time there were. Apparently the Christian commandment of don't bring false whitens against thy neighbor had some provision that I was not aware of that made it ok to falsely accuse your son. Again, I was not aware of this provision and searching for it has yielded no proof of its existence but it must be around somewhere because my mom sure seemed to think it was right to do so.
4. If we chose for some reason other than being ill or having to work not to attend church we were made to feel guilty about it. I recall once having my mother threaten to return my high school graduation gift because I dared to miss a Sunday of church. Didn't matter that I did not follow or believe the Christian teachings that were being shoved down my thought. And we all know using threats which by the way most of my moms threats were idol anyway and not taken seriously, is a great way to make someone want to attend church. That was one of my moms ways of handling any argument she was losing. Just make an idol threat. Not realizing it was making her look foolish.
5. In college I got mixed up with the wrong kind of girl. She turned out to be a liar and a cheat. The first "friends" to abandon me were my church going friends. The ones who stuck by me and helped me out were my mom church going friends who turned out to be more "Christian" than most Christians I know.
There are a few other things that helped me in questioning my beliefs but those are the five major ones.
Other things that played a role.
I grew up in the Lutheran church. and it seemed to me that if you did not conform to a certain way of thinking than you were somehow a bad person. In other words, mind control. You had to think like someone wanted you to in this case a supreme being or bad things would happen. Nice scare tactic. In other words having your own opinion was not encouraged. I get a kick out of people who will quote the bible in an argument. I've said in these cases. "now that you told me what a book says, how about telling me what you think." All of the sudden those people are at a loss for words when they have to give their own opinion. It was the whole, "follow the crowd" mentality but only in a church setting. It does seem like most religions use scare tactics to get people to believe a certain way. You better not be for this or that or something bad will happen." If anyone else tried to pull that we'd think they were nuts but for some reason when religion does it many people don't think twice about it.
All that being said, I do believe in a higher power I just don't believe in religion. and I came to these conclusions long before I set foot in college.
posted by zman977 at 8:11 AM
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