Taking God out of Education. A personal story.
Jul. 1, 2005 at 9:04 AM
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Reading the story yesterday about the student who failed a paper because she wouldn't take God out of her text reminded me of my own experiences back in college.
I went to the University of Michigan in 1981. I became a Christian shortly after I arrived my freshman year. When I was a senior, I took a class in Sociology. It was a requirement I somehow missed in my early days. I was the only upper classman among about 50 freshman. It was a pretty uneventful class until toward the end of the semester. The professor started to talk about "religion" and free will. He lectured us for about 30 minutes on why there was no such thing as free will. Most of the class sat there feverishly taking notes. My temperature was rising but it wasn't from taking notes.
He concluded his lecture with the question, "So, does anyone still think they have a free will?"
He was met by blank stares from most, a few shakes of the head, and one hand that went up. Mine.
"Yes, I have free will." I stated emphatically.
"Oh, really. And what young lady do you have the free will to do?" He said, looking down at me.
"I can worship God any where I choose." (The class groaned.)
"I coud make it illegal and put you in jail." (The class squirmed.)
"Yes, but I can still worship God in jail."
"I could cut out your tongue." (The class stared at me.)
"Yes, but I can still worship with my mind."
"I can have you killed." (The class was silent.)
"You haven't solved a thing, I will now be in heaven worshipping my creator eternally."
At this point, a friend interrupted the discussion and said to the professor, don't argue with her you're never going to win.
The flustered professor looked at his watch, muttered something about having to get going and dismissed class early. Intimidtion only works for those who are not convinced of their own beliefs.
I passed the class.
I went to the University of Michigan in 1981. I became a Christian shortly after I arrived my freshman year. When I was a senior, I took a class in Sociology. It was a requirement I somehow missed in my early days. I was the only upper classman among about 50 freshman. It was a pretty uneventful class until toward the end of the semester. The professor started to talk about "religion" and free will. He lectured us for about 30 minutes on why there was no such thing as free will. Most of the class sat there feverishly taking notes. My temperature was rising but it wasn't from taking notes.
He concluded his lecture with the question, "So, does anyone still think they have a free will?"
He was met by blank stares from most, a few shakes of the head, and one hand that went up. Mine.
"Yes, I have free will." I stated emphatically.
"Oh, really. And what young lady do you have the free will to do?" He said, looking down at me.
"I can worship God any where I choose." (The class groaned.)
"I coud make it illegal and put you in jail." (The class squirmed.)
"Yes, but I can still worship God in jail."
"I could cut out your tongue." (The class stared at me.)
"Yes, but I can still worship with my mind."
"I can have you killed." (The class was silent.)
"You haven't solved a thing, I will now be in heaven worshipping my creator eternally."
At this point, a friend interrupted the discussion and said to the professor, don't argue with her you're never going to win.
The flustered professor looked at his watch, muttered something about having to get going and dismissed class early. Intimidtion only works for those who are not convinced of their own beliefs.
I passed the class.
6 Comments and Trackbacks
posted by HolyExperience on Jul. 1, 2005 at 11:06 AM
You spoke the right words in the right time and right place--for the right Person! May we all raise up children who can speak as boldly for the right purposes!
Most warmly,
Ann V.
posted by PatriciaWHunter on Jul. 1, 2005 at 7:27 PM
I love it!
posted by Quincy on Jul. 6, 2005 at 3:33 AM
Nice one! I suspect, though, the professor made the inexcusable mistake of not clarifying his terms at the beginning of the lecture. It sounds as if the professor was confusing the physical manifestations of free will with the will itself. By the professor's thinking, someone like Stephen Hawking would be all but powerless. He (the professor) deserved to be embarrased in front of his class. Good going.
posted by Anonymous on Jul. 6, 2005 at 12:51 PM
I had a roughly similar exchange at uni. My riposte was,
"Which seems more likely - that I am predestined to believe
in free will, or that you have freely chosen to believe in
predestination?" It's remarkable how people react to having
their little boxes shaken up, isn't it?
Oddly enough, the exchange was with a fellow student. When the
professor brought it up (in connection with the European religious
wars of the 15th/16th centuries) he asked the class of roughly 200
how many of us had ever given serious thought to the issue of
predestination vs free will. I (in the front row) immediately raised
my hand. Seeing the look on the instructor's face, I turned around -
there were two other hands up. He told me later that he hadn't seen
that many hands up in several semesters. . . .
posted by B. Durbin on Jul. 6, 2005 at 1:18 PM
Viktor Frankl's book Man's Search For Meaning is a great book about free will. He was in a concentration camp in World War II and decided that, no matter what your circumstances, you ALWAYS have a choice, even if it is only your mental state as you die. (His time in the camp was also the catalyst for his faith, since it became obvious to him that there was a qualitative difference between someone who was alive and someone who was dead, and that quality might well be called a soul.)
We have gotten to the point where we can influence people, drive them crazy, brainwash them, whatever... but we still cannot influence a person's mind directly. We can at most narrow their choices to a series of bad alternatives, and force them to choose, but it is always their choice.
I can't imagine how foolish it would be to theoretically be studying people and still believe that free will is a myth. One can only assume that there was little real study going on, and that the professor was content with the repetition of information.
posted by Polski3 on Jul. 6, 2005 at 9:49 PM
I hope that prof. did not hold it against you when it came to providing you a grade for the class. As I learned later, a philosophy prof. I had for a class valued a great "exchange" between himself and his students, or student v. student. He never said so at the beginning of the course, but after grades were posted, it turned out that about 25% of the grade was attributed to "active participation".