Moments in time captured with various odd symbols referred to in the lingua franca as letters.

Saturday, May 23, 2009

Intolerant religion

The title sounds harsh. This is not an anti-religious post. Its time to talk about Liberty University, the school of Falwell. This last week they banned a group of students who had organized a student Democrat group. The thing is the group had already been around for a while and there had not been any problems with them before. Note that the republican group was not banned. So what is going on here? First Liberty is a private institution and therefore has the right to say who can and who cannot be represented on campus, however if they in any way accept federal funding than I think that they have to allow groups like these.

The statement that is really being made here is that one cannot be an accepted Christian and a Democrat in the eyes of the people running Liberty. They are also saying it is completely in line with Christian teaching to be a Republican. How do they come up with this line of reasoning? I really do want to understand this but I have to say it looks like they are taking a real black and white approach to such issues. This is not a black and white kind of world.

Secondly they are doing something that a university should not be trying to do: they are indoctrinating. Wait don't get me wrong I know most professors lean one way or another in university life, I am not an idiot who is suggesting there should be no bias. However if what you preach is real, then you should allow for a powerful debate so that it can be tested. Banning a group is only pouring gasoline on a fire: are they willing to play with the fire?

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