Religion on the College Campus

I think that Bill O'Reilly has it right when he says that we are in the midst of a culture war. In these days where everybody's lives are so compartmentalized, and it is so easy for us to spend time only with people that are a lot like us, it's hard to tell who is winning. Some companies try to take polls, but those are hard to gauge for accuracy sometimes... statistics can often say crazy things. So most of what you end up with is anecdotal evidence.

I've heard anecdotal evidence about professors who believe in creationism rather than evolution to lose their jobs, grants, fellowships, etc. The same goes for scientists. But rarely does a difference of religion affect my life, other than perhaps a lost friendship or somebody thinking I'm a little silly for my beliefs.

It's hard to tell whether someone's religious views can affect their grades sometimes. I once wrote a paper about pet microchip implants, and its relationship to the prophesied mark of the beast, back in the 90s for a college class (back before most people had heard about pet microchipping) and I didn't get a very good grade on it... but with such a subjective subject as English, it is hard to tell whether I was marked down due to the content of the paper, or whether it was just a lousy paper. On rare occasions, it is obvious that someone's grades are affected by their religion.

Recently, my husband got to experience this. He is currently a college student, and is taking two religion classes. The professor obviously does not share his religious views. My husband studies hard in the classes, and for the most part has done well. However, there is one question on his final exam that he knows will be marked wrong due to his religious beliefs:

True or False: Allah and the God of the Bible are different gods.

Or something like that.

My husband knows the answer that the professor wanted. The professor believes that Allah and Jehovah are the same. However, the answer to this question is strictly a matter of faith. Neither me or my husband believe that Allah is the same God in the Bible... their characters are completely different. The Koran says that Allah claims to have no son... Jesus is the Son of the Biblical God.

My husband answered that Allah and the God of the Bible are different, knowing that the professor would mark it wrong. In fact, he wrote next to the answer "go ahead and mark it wrong." If he were to say what the professor wanted, he would have gotten the question correct, but he would at the same time be denying God himself, equating him with something that he was not.

So my dear husband wasn't thrown to the lions or anything, and that one question probably won't affect his final grade or anything, but it was a small faith litmus test on a college campus. I'm sure that this happens all the time, I had just not seen it so obviously in my own life before.

Note To OJ: "Fight On" Doesn't Mean Armed Robbery

OJ Simpson has been recently in the headlines... this time for armed robbery. Evidently somebody ended up with some of his sports memorabilia, he found out that it was going to be auctioned off, and he was caught trying to steal it back.

While normally I really don't care about football players, since I don't watch football, OJ Simpson is different. We went to the same college (different years). I was attending the University of Southern California during the OJ Simpson trials. I was hoping that everything would turn out to be a big mistake and he'd be found not guilty, since at the time, he was one of our more famous football heroes.

What a difference several years makes. While OJ Simpson still did great things for our football team back in the day, he's now one of our more infamous graduates, rather than one of the people we proudly say "yes, I went to the same school as _____." I'm sure that every college has them, but ours is pretty visible right now... and because he was such a football hero back in his college days, his name will unfortunately be forever linked with the University of Southern California. I'd rather have George Lucas or Neil Armstrong come to mind first.

But then again, I suppose that other colleges have their infamous graduates as well. Ted Kaczynski, aka the Unibomber, went to Harvard. Ted Bundy, a famous serial killer, went to the University of Washington. I suppose when they were admitted nobody knew what they would become.

So here's a note to OJ Simpson, and every other USC alumni out there... "fight on" may be a great fight song for football and basketball games, but it doesn't mean breaking into houses or stores and committing armed robbery.