jelun

Sometimes I really wish we could use foul language cuz you have to admit this is PFF. STUDENTS...plural. WHAT?

Duke University students refuse to read award-winning novel, calling it anti-Christian

http://wgntv.com/2015/08/24/duke-university-students-refuse-to-read-award-winning-novel-calling-it-anti-christian/

mwdegutis Loc: Illinois

So what's your problem?

archie bunker Loc: Texas

They are rebelling against their indoctrination.

She Wolf Loc: Currently Georgia

It was a long time ago, but when I attended university you did the assignments or you failed. Simple as that. If these students have the courage of their convictions and are willing to accept the consequences of their actions then so be it.

The freedom of religion or the freedom from religion is an important building block of this country. However, if you are making a statement regarding your religious beliefs, you must be prepared to accept the consequences.

My faith is strong. There is no book or person who can successfully change that. Reading a book written by someone attacking my faith would only serve to make me sad for the author. To live in a world, where you put your faith in your fellow man is to be disappointed a great deal.

jelun

Exactly, not to mention but I will, that it is a great reinforcer of a belief system to expand a knowledge base through reading or experience and realize what one prefers.
Someone describing their own experience is not an attack on another person's belief system, is it?
It is simply a description of her life and those around her.
HAHAHAA, life is sometimes disappointing and sometimes joyful.

She Wolf Loc: Currently Georgia

Call me old fashioned but I thought the purpose of higher education was to expose the young person to different ideas. That what it was for me. I studied many different cultures and many different faiths. I studied different forms of government. My Father always told me one has to be a citizen of the world. To do that one must at least investigate other ways of doing things as well as other people's perspectives.

Before I can judge another's belief system should I not at least make an attempt to understand it? You may decided the author is incorrect but how do you know a book challenges your faith if you haven't read it? You may actually learn something. I have always been curious about others. Why do you believe what you believe? How did you arrive at your beliefs? These things interest me.

jelun

It is odd, I think, unless the challenge of syllabi was the point of the enrollment to attend a university that would present work that these young people had to know would take them outside their comfort zone.


The article that I posted mentions a young man (child?) who is questioning the assignment by saying "Duke did not seem to have people like me in mind. It was like Duke didn’t know we existed, which surprises me.” It seems to me that, as you imply, this would be exactly the student that Duke should be reaching out to with this part of the list.
I thought I read that some of the group refusing is home schooled. That may fit, the students may have experienced a great deal of self determination withing certain parameters. It could be that their instructor will offer an alternative. Maybe some of those Jody Pluote(?) books, they have moral dilemmas entwined throughout the chapters.
:XD:

My journey has been pretty simple, I was raised in a mainstream Christian church in New England because my atheist parents thought I should have the experience. As I matured I was repelled by what I saw as hypocrisy and drifted. When my children were latency age they wanted to go to church so I went occasionally just to be a presence. I was not impressed. I considered myself an agnostic or atheist at different times.
Happily tooling along, I met a "friend of Bill" and while engaged in hours and hours of discussion I came to believing in God. For me, it is a journey.