Christian vs secular campus life

jenskate1
Thu, 17 Nov 2005 20:38:58 +0000

There are really folks of all kinds here. There are evangelical christians, tons of non-evangelical christians, jews, muslims, buddists, hindus, agnostics, athiests, others, people who haven’t decided what they believe in, people who have no interest in religion, religion majors, etc.

EVERYONE is tolerated, respected, listened to.

There are clubs including Intervarsity Christian Fellowship, Hillel, Secular Students of Rice, Campus Crusade, Muslim Students Association, Rice for Life, Baptist Student Association, Rice for Choice, etc.

There are people who believe in creationism, intelligent design, evolution. There are people who believe the bible is absolute truth and directly from god. There are people who believe the bible is an interesting piece of literature, and nothing more.

The campus newspaper is full of debates about the role of ID, the ethics of abortion, and more broadly, the role of religion. All sides are represented there and in classroom discussions. Who wants to go to a school where one person states their opinon, and then the rest of the class nods and says, yes, we all agree. You can’t learn anything that way.

Whatever your beliefs, as long as you respect others (as almost all Rice students do), you will be accepted and appreciated.

I for one, am a liberal, non-religious Jew. I love going to Katz’s deli, but rarely go to synagogue. And that’s fine.