<p>While I do not agree with what PCC and BJU, Charisma, I must point out that it is also really that way at many very liberal schools–it’s just that it’s done via more subtle means. One way this is done is by which profs are hired and/or tenured. If you keep mostly liberal profs, the students will tend to adapt toward their profs’ ways of thinking–regardless of the relevance of the topic at hand to that prof’s training!
Even if a handful of students disagree with what the professor is presenting, they are unlikely to realize there are other students who agree with them simply because the social norm at that time is to generally accept what a professor says and <em>certainly</em> not to question it! Many professors use tactics similar to the above-mentioned video to silence potential trouble-makers early on by forcing them into an outgroup. By separating them from the in-group of the class, the professor actually marginalizes and isolates the student socially, which effectively prevents that student from having <em>any</em> influence on later class discussions! (It also can actually <em>kill</em> the student–research shows that social isolation is fatal, although hopefully no student is marginalized to that degree)
While the techniques used may not be as obvious as PCC or BJU, they are certainly there, and they could actually be far more dangerous! For those students, it is actually similar to the tactics used against the Korean War American POW prisoners (which was the concentration camp with the highest fatality rate of any POW camp in recorded history). Had you walked into that camp and spent a day there, you wouldn’t have noticed anything out of the ordinary–no physical torture, decent food, opportunities to speak on the radio, nothing physically draining, quick transportation of their mail from home, etc.–they simply destroyed those soldiers from the inside out using subtle sociopsychological techniques that undermined the soldiers’ social networks, sense of cohesion (entitiavity), sense of what was going on at home, and even their own beliefs about themselves.</p>
<p>In the same sense, many of these universities use subtle methods of getting rid of students they don’t agree with that can actually psychologically damage the students.</p>
<p>im catholic but rarely go to church…when a friend of my family told my mom when she was missing something to pray to saint anthonys i thought it was a joke…
i wouldnt step foot on those grounds
all though im no atheist</p>
<p>From a religious perspective, the main question these uber-strict schools bring up is one that has been asked since Puritan times. If you don’t give people the option of behaving badly, then what value does good behavior have? Ever heard of Paradise Lost by John Milton?</p>
<p>How can being put into a different group “isolate” the student? Maybe I’m not understanding you correctly but, you’re basically saying that if a student disagrees with the prof, the prof will move the student to work in a separate area/group? How is this in anyway comparable to POW camps? How is that “social isolation” if it’s only one class? Or do you mean In-group vs. Out-group as in social popularity? I can’t see how a prof. could influence social relations between students. Sorry, but your post made little sense to me.
Also, specific examples/schools please.</p>
<p>Roonil_Wazlib, please say you didn’t just open the creationism/evolution debate!!!</p>
<p>Since it appears you did, both sides are begging the question in the root of all their arguments. Nothing productive is being accomplished because people are looking to refute the other side’s arguments (futilely i might add, rather than doing something more productive).</p>
<p>One thing interesting that you people might not know is that Bob Jones is not only an university, it also has an elementary school, middle school, and high school. They have a really amazing music program and I’ve met some of the kids who have been at BJ for their whole lives and plan to attend the uni there. Everything about them was so conservative that it actually stuck out in a room full of people, similar to how a goth would stick out.</p>
<p>I’m really not looking to open any debates, I just think it’s weird that a college can choose not to teach evolution but people can still graduate with a degree in biology. I mean, what kind of a job will a biology major have if they’ve never studied evolution and believe the world was created in six days. I mean if that’s what you believe, I’ll try and respect that but why major in biology? I wouldn’t major in theology because I’m an atheist, it’s along the same lines.</p>
<p>Your logic there is faulty. You are trying to compare studying A (biology – the study of living things) while not believing B (evolution), which is fundamentally different from studying C (theology – the study of God) while not believing in C’ (God).</p>
<p>There are actually plenty of jobs for a creationist in biology and your attitude toward that could easily be interpreted as bigotry. If you choose to believe in evolution, that is fine, but you should realize that science is not based upon evolution, even though evolution could be considered the “religion of science” insofar as it fulfills the scientific need to explain the world using a set of hypotheses and (technically bad) theories (technically bad because they have zero falsifiability – a critical component in a good scientific theory).</p>
<p>My problem with calling this “liberal” hypocrisy is that you’re implying that only liberals disagree with Bob Jones and its style, when this is very untrue. Bob Jones might be a majority conservative, if not 100%, but it is by no means a politically based university. To disagree with its teachings doesn’t mean you are a liberal, it is just a disagreement with the idea of controlling children’s lives. As a matter of fact the whole idea of this type of control is very much against conservative values which look for less government control in our lives, not more.</p>
<p>So again, there is no political aspect to this. By disagreeing with the Bob Jones is run is not an implication of political values but an implication of personal values. Don’t call it liberal hypocrisy, because you cannot infer the political leanings of anyone on here unless they specifically say to which side they lean.</p>
<p>And Roonil, I know an atheist who is studying theology. That major is more about reading the texts of many different religions than it is believing in one in particular.</p>
<p>I’m well aware that there are many conservatives out there that disagree with the rules at Bob Jones University. But these responses here are very ‘untolerant’, in my honest opinion, and that’s where I recognized the initial hypocrisy. I’ve pointed out plenty of examples in this topic (did you even read my last post?). </p>
<p>Also, I think that you need to read/reread unpolloloco’s and college2332’s posts, they did a good job (especially college2332’s first post) of explaining the hypocrisy that I pointed out in my first post on this thread.</p>
<p>“I don’t understand why it is has become acceptable on College Confidential to persistently bash and criticize religiously conservative schools. Personally, I would never attend BJU and I don’t agree with the schools ideological vision. However, if people want an atmosphere where they can engage in prayer groups, abnegate materialistic goods, and watch G-rated movies – I can fully respect their lifestyle choices. However, there is an extreme double-standard on these boards. If I made a thread that bashed the lifestyle choices of homosexuals at NYU, people would be abhorred by such offensive and narrow-minded thinking! Seriously, for all you cooler-than-thou hipsters if you claim tolerance this means respect of all ideological lifestyles and not merely the ones you agree with or the ones that support your agenda”</p>
<p>There’s a difference between lifestyle choices and lifestyle mandates. If NYU required its studies to be gay, to attend anti war protests, and to watch brokeback mountain, I’d most certainly mock them.</p>