Comments on God and Freshmen

• Survey Results-Religious Preference
• Posted by Victoria Bigelow , Program Coordinator and Instructor at Marygrove College on February 11, 2007 at 4:55pm EST

• I'm interested in understanding why the Religious Preference responses panned out the way it did. Do the numbers match the national figures for religious representation on college campuses ? (28% Catholic, 5% Jewish, etc. ) I doubt it. The next question is then why would so many Catholics answer and so few Episcopalians and Jewish students?

• Religious Anxiety
• Posted by John Martin , Visiting Adjunct at Wake Forest University on April 14, 2005 at 12:52pm EDT

• I went into college as a somewhat militant agnostic after surviving a mixed Catholic-Baptist religious environment at home. I was fully prepared to use my enlightened learning to debunk religious thinking altogether, and certainly received my share of support and encouragement from fellow intellectuals and teachers. Fortunately, I had the opportunity in college to encounter a variety of religious people and perspectives, as well as a number of scholars and thinkers that I respected, who gave me a deeper appreciation of the variety, depth, and importance of religious traditions in our culture. I came out an agnostic still, but one with a much more informed appreciation of religious experience and history (indeed, it's become part of my scholarly work). I now think of myself as a "spiritual humanist," but have found room in my thinking and in my classes for people of all faiths and backgrounds.

  Unfortunately, I've also witnessed during my time in the profession the extreme close-mindedness and anxiety of otherwise "open" and liberal academics towards religious ideas and attitudes. Most seem to confront such ideas with either contempt or indifference (if not outright ignorance), forgetting the foundational role that religion has played in their own disciplines and beliefs. This anxiety on the part of my fellow liberals still puzzles me. I, too, cringe at the revival of extreme conservative beliefs in politics and education, but so far that hasn't clouded my feelings and judgment towards religious people in general. I fear that the recent polarization of this country along ideological lines has led to a severe retrenchment and defensiveness on both ends of the spectrum.

  I think this poll indicates the importance of addressing religion and spirituality, or at the very least, moral and ethical questions in our classrooms, regardless of our particular beliefs or attitudes. The students need it, want it, and have a right to expect it, since we, as educators, have assumed the responsibility of ushering them into the adult world of ideas. Ignoring or belittling something as important to them as spirituality is both irresponsible and unethical. I don't support the notion of watering down scholarship, scientific principles, or political analysis to avoid offending religious people--but I do think that rigrous scholarship and religious thinking both have a place in the academy. Perhaps we need to focus some attention on the positive relationships that these ideas can have.

• God and Freshman
• Posted by J. Madison Davis , Professor at University of Oklahoma on April 15, 2005 at 11:39am EDT

• I'll bet a sixpack that if I were to be frank about my opinions on subjects like this, at my own or any other university, I would soon be criticized for imposing my opinions on students. There is as much of the meanning of life in Sartre, Dickens, and Einstein as there is in any religion. Some time ago, no one got out of college with at least one course in philosophy. This was removed because it wasn't "relevant" ot "career-oriented." Instead of the discipline of Aristotle, Aquinas, or Camus, we'll have sensitivity sessions about how Joe feels about God. The university is not supposed to fill every student need. Vacation Bible School is not our job.

• cross-national and cross state comparisons
• Posted by milton rosenberg , Professor of Social Psychology (emeritus) at University of Chicago on April 15, 2005 at 5:20pm EDT

• Avowed religious faith (or interest) definitely co-varies with other "markers." The most obvious is nation of residence. Thus, in western Europe religious interest runs at very low levels for both working class and middle class people, students or older--though, to be sure, it does pick up with imncreased age.

  In the U.S. the data do seem to show greater religious investment among those (students included) in the red states as compared to the blue ones.

  A cautionary note however is that avowed religious interest and/or belief may often be exagerated or even "faked" when the respondent feels that he would win disapproval if he were to display true apathy toward religion. A reasonable judgement might be that for the religious convictions of some of these respondents .."way down deep its shallow."

• Is this accurate?
• Posted by Leslie C. Miller , Assistant Professor of Philosophy (Fall 2005) at Mesa State College on April 15, 2005 at 10:15pm EDT

• My philosophy students (I get to know about 300 of them a year) always tell me that the important things in life are: spirituality, family, friends, self-development, education, knowledge, etc. They would answer, apparently, in accordance with these statistics in the article. However, when I then ask them to rank the things on which they spend the most time and effort, they respond with things like: work, money, shopping, watching T.V., partying, etc. When I point out the disconnection between their professed values and those on which they spend the most effort and time, they just shrug their shoulders. Perhaps that means they believe that the most important and difficult things in life require the least amount of time to develop, and are somehow secondary to money and 'stuff' (I know that makes no sense, I can't make their responses to my inquiries make sense).

  According to the article, "More than half said that their professors never provide opportunities to discuss the meaning and purpose of life. And nearly two-thirds said that professors never encourage discussion of spiritual or religious matters." Seeing as that is what philosophy and religion courses are all about, I wonder why the students are making this claim? Could it be because they are all taking business courses or technical trade courses, and ignoring the liberal arts? Hmmm. Looking at the stats from my school, the answer would be yes.

  They say certain things are important, take courses that ignore or devalue those imporatant things, and then claim that we professors don't care. Seems to me more like it is the students who don't really care; if they did, my school might need more people teaching philosophy than just me.