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This is really fantastic. While I don't agree with religion in university (but if it works for you great!) I completely agree with the gist of her argument. Stu

This is really fantastic. While I don't agree with religion in university (but if it works for you great!) I completely agree with the gist of her argument. Students are coddled too much. If you're not uncomfortable then you're not paying attention. If you need "trigger warnings" or "safe spaces" at a university then you're not ready for university, or at the very least, you have a lot of growing up to do. This may sound harsh but it's reality, and the real problems in life won't be at university, they'll be out in the real world. There are no safe spaces and trigger warnings in the real world.

SmokyBorbon 11y ago
> While I don't agree with religion in university Catholics invented the university. Secular universities are cultural appropriation. This is like saying you don't approve of Japanese in anime.
ikeboy 11y ago
The defense to "you're being a jerk" can only be "I'm not". This article says "I am, but it's okay, get used to it". There's a huge difference between telling someone that their beliefs are wrong to telling them that they are bad and should feel guilty, especially if the doctrine says that everyone is bad and should feel guilty all the time.
- AnimalMuppet 11y ago
  > The defense to "you're being a jerk" can only be "I'm not". No, because the response is going to be "Yes you are", and we descend into a shouting match. The reply is "What is your standard for 'being a jerk', and is that standard a reasonable one?" > There's a huge difference between telling someone that their beliefs are wrong to telling them that they are bad and should feel guilty, especially if the doctrine says that everyone is bad and should feel guilty all the time. That seems like a fair description of how "victimhood culture" treats the rest of us.
  - ikeboy 11y ago
    No, because the response is going to be "Yes you are", and we descend into a shouting match. I don't mean literally, the words you say must be "I'm not a jerk." I mean the defense must consist of a denial that the behavior was jerkish. If that's achieved by laying out standards for jerkishness, that's fine. The OP read to me as not even achieving that. It wasn't "we aren't jerks, because what we did wasn't jerky", it was "we're going to be jerks, tough on you, shut up". >That seems like a fair description of how "victimhood culture" treats the rest of us. I'm not discussing victimhood culture. I'm discussing a specific defense to a specific complaint, which I think lacks value. The specific complaint was not trying to make people feel bad, it was to make themselves feel good. The response explicitly acknowledges that they're trying to make people feel bad.
    - AnimalMuppet 11y ago
      > The response explicitly acknowledges that they're trying to make people feel bad. Let's start here: The point of Christianity is to make you holy, not to make you happy. When you teach something like I Corinthians 13, if it's going to help anyone's life instead of being merely an academic exercise, you wind up saying "Yes, you really are supposed to love like this. Do you?" If that makes someone feel bad, well, that's not actually the point. The point is that they recognize that they don't love in the way that they should, and therefore see the need to change. And if you're going to say that changing your life in that way isn't the job of a university, well, this is a Christian university, and they think it is exactly their job. And if you're a student there, then presumably that's what you wanted, too. You (ikeboy) seem to want this Christian university to be a secular one. That is not a reasonable expectation. Now, I recognize that there are lots of ways that "making them recognize that they don't love in the way that they should" can be manipulative and even abusive, but it is not inherently so. And the fact that people feel bad (guilty) along the way isn't a flaw, if in fact they are guilty in terms of the biblical standard. To repeat, the point of Christianity is to make you holy, not to make you happy.
      - ikeboy 11y ago
        Saying something is Christian does not imply it is fine. The proper response to "I'm a jerk because I'm Christian" is "fine, be Christian, but you'll face the consequences of being a jerk, one of which is public shaming for being a jerk". There was a valid point made that the student chose to go to a Christian college. But note that the logic that that implies is precisely the logic behind trigger warnings: that people can choose what to associate with. Clearly, the student did not anticipate the content of the sermon, despite knowing it was a Christian university. So in that case, a warning for that lecture would have let the student know whether to go, and, depending on how important it was to them, possibly drop out. Deliberately not having trigger warnings is deliberately deceptive.

SmokyBorbon 11y ago

> While I don't agree with religion in university Catholics invented the university. Secular universities are cultural appropriation. This is like saying you don't approve of Japanese in anime.

ikeboy 11y ago

The defense to "you're being a jerk" can only be "I'm not". This article says "I am, but it's okay, get used to it". There's a huge difference between telling someone that their beliefs are wrong to telling them that they are bad and should feel guilty, especially if the doctrine says that everyone is bad and should feel guilty all the time.

AnimalMuppet 11y ago
> The defense to "you're being a jerk" can only be "I'm not". No, because the response is going to be "Yes you are", and we descend into a shouting match. The reply is "What is your standard for 'being a jerk', and is that standard a reasonable one?" > There's a huge difference between telling someone that their beliefs are wrong to telling them that they are bad and should feel guilty, especially if the doctrine says that everyone is bad and should feel guilty all the time. That seems like a fair description of how "victimhood culture" treats the rest of us.
- ikeboy 11y ago
  No, because the response is going to be "Yes you are", and we descend into a shouting match. I don't mean literally, the words you say must be "I'm not a jerk." I mean the defense must consist of a denial that the behavior was jerkish. If that's achieved by laying out standards for jerkishness, that's fine. The OP read to me as not even achieving that. It wasn't "we aren't jerks, because what we did wasn't jerky", it was "we're going to be jerks, tough on you, shut up". >That seems like a fair description of how "victimhood culture" treats the rest of us. I'm not discussing victimhood culture. I'm discussing a specific defense to a specific complaint, which I think lacks value. The specific complaint was not trying to make people feel bad, it was to make themselves feel good. The response explicitly acknowledges that they're trying to make people feel bad.
  - AnimalMuppet 11y ago
    > The response explicitly acknowledges that they're trying to make people feel bad. Let's start here: The point of Christianity is to make you holy, not to make you happy. When you teach something like I Corinthians 13, if it's going to help anyone's life instead of being merely an academic exercise, you wind up saying "Yes, you really are supposed to love like this. Do you?" If that makes someone feel bad, well, that's not actually the point. The point is that they recognize that they don't love in the way that they should, and therefore see the need to change. And if you're going to say that changing your life in that way isn't the job of a university, well, this is a Christian university, and they think it is exactly their job. And if you're a student there, then presumably that's what you wanted, too. You (ikeboy) seem to want this Christian university to be a secular one. That is not a reasonable expectation. Now, I recognize that there are lots of ways that "making them recognize that they don't love in the way that they should" can be manipulative and even abusive, but it is not inherently so. And the fact that people feel bad (guilty) along the way isn't a flaw, if in fact they are guilty in terms of the biblical standard. To repeat, the point of Christianity is to make you holy, not to make you happy.
    - ikeboy 11y ago
      Saying something is Christian does not imply it is fine. The proper response to "I'm a jerk because I'm Christian" is "fine, be Christian, but you'll face the consequences of being a jerk, one of which is public shaming for being a jerk". There was a valid point made that the student chose to go to a Christian college. But note that the logic that that implies is precisely the logic behind trigger warnings: that people can choose what to associate with. Clearly, the student did not anticipate the content of the sermon, despite knowing it was a Christian university. So in that case, a warning for that lecture would have let the student know whether to go, and, depending on how important it was to them, possibly drop out. Deliberately not having trigger warnings is deliberately deceptive.