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Pepperdinian Christians

Posted by xJane on August 21st, 2008 at 6:04 am · 8 Comments

Yesterday was my first day in the midst of the koolaid-drinking Pepperdinians. (Aside: I told my Apple-coworkers that I felt that the Pepperdinians were a little koolaid for me and one responded, “Didn’t you find that when you came here…?” I hadn’t, but I’ve been drinking the Apple koolaid for a while, so hadn’t noticed.) And I have to say, I was quite impressed. These are Christians that I can hang out with. They are dedicated to what I feel are liberal causes: environmental stewardship, social justice, and loving thy neighbor. There was more Bible study than I felt was necessary for a law school orientation, and the library doesn’t open until noon on Sunday because they hope we will be going to church (they actually said that…), but the people actually seem to take the teachings of Jesus to heart.

On the way home, I listened to the a Christian and an Atheist podcast (which is not worth it, since they have horrendous distortion on their mikes), in which they argued about how, if God exists, then Christians should be noticeably or substantially different than non-Christians. However, if you take a group of people, even a group of Christians, you will find some people who are nice and some people who are not. The atheist’s argument was that, if God exists, there should be a greater number of nice people in the Christian group (or a smaller number of un-nice). The Christian’s rebuttal was essentially that people who self-identify as Christian could be anywhere from “not Muslim” to “made a commitment to Jesus that is still important to them today”.

I do not know the religions of many of the people I met yesterday (although two were Jewish, one who hasn’t been to Temple in years and one who goes every Roshashana; and one Catholic), but I can say that there is a higher proportion of nice people at Pepperdine than I usually encounter. Since I’m a cynic, I’m not sure if this is the right place for me, but the optimist in me says that it is.

Aristotle says that we should surround ourselves with the kinds of people we want to become. This will be a good place to learn.

Tags: Belief · Christianity · Education · Getting over Religion · Personal · Religion · Skeptic

8 responses so far ↓

  • 1 Matt // Aug 22, 2008 at 2:15 am

    I would highly suggest for you, and any one else interested to read the book ““The Devil’s Delusion: Atheism and its Scientific Pretensions.” by self-professed secular Jew and mathematics/philosophies teacher David Berlinski.
    This tells the story of a Jew who was forced to dig his own grave prior to being shot by a German soldier. Prior to being shot, the old Jewish man advised the German that “God is watching what you are doing.” The Jewish gentleman pointed what i think is the real problem with atheism. “If you have the time please check the book out

  • 2 xJane // Aug 22, 2008 at 8:00 am

    Held at my local library. What is the “real problem”, if that would not ruin the ending?

    My sister, arguably a member of the “vast right-wing conspiracy”, and I have been sharing partisan books back & forth recently (she currently has my copy of Lies & the Lying Liars and I hers of Slander). She told me that, before she started reading Coulter’s books, she believed that there was a cadre of far-right wing religious wackos of whom everyone should rightly be afeared. But that she later learned that she was actually a member of the “right wing”, as were many of her friends…and that they weren’t that bad. So I can believe that we have been made to fear a specter of religious extremism that may not actually exist, although I still have my doubts about its more vocal members. These are people I rarely see practicing what I have been lead to believe are the basic tenets of Christianity, but are some of the loudest “Christians” around. On campus, the Security Guard waves at each of us as we drive on, a random pen found on the ground gets left in a visible spot & not taken by anyone, and everyone holds doors open for everyone else. If Christianity made people into nice people, I’d have no argument. But even what I’ve seen here is that this place attracts the nice, regardless of their religious proclivities.

  • 3 Elaine // Aug 22, 2008 at 11:02 am

    That sounds like an interesting book, Matt, and I’ll look for it.

    However, I have an issue with the idea that the problem with atheism is that of “if there is no God watching, then there is no reason to behave.” Unfortunately, throughout history, many people who have done horrible things to other people have done them precisely because they believe that God is watching them…with approval.

  • 4 xJane // Aug 22, 2008 at 2:06 pm

    Ah, thank you Elaine, I totally misread that. Yes, I agree that “God is watching what you are doing” is an in incredibly poor argument for being moral. Just look what belief in Santa does to children.

  • 5 Amber // Aug 22, 2008 at 9:44 pm

    I went to a religious (Christian)-affiliated school for my teaching credential, and I thought my mom’s (Jewish) friends would disapprove, but instead they said, “Oh, that’s great, there will be nice people there.” And it was true–they were not all Christian, but they were pretty much all nice.

    I suspect it is because “moral” people are drawn to religious institutions, and the religious people who are “mean” are also not the ones who seek out education for themselves. That’s my guess, anyway.

  • 6 Elise // Aug 27, 2008 at 3:06 pm

    For some reason I had a stereotype in my mind that very right-wing, in-your-face Evangelical students were the type that attended Pepperdine (I know I shouldn’t stereotype like that, but I’ll be honest: I do).

    Probably because 1) I knew someone who went there that was like that and 2) the student groups from SoCal Christian colleges that visit the Provo/Orem UT area on “conversion missions” are exactly like that.

    Glad to hear that perhaps there is more diversity there than my narrow mind sometimes believes.

    The standard question I have for the “do good because god might be watching” theory of morality is that who is actually the more moral person, the one that does good for the sake of the external motivation of being watched by some sort of all-powerful diety or the one that does good for the sake of doing good even though they believe no one is watching? I generally prefer to be surrounded by the latter, although I have encountered many, many people who do believe god is watching, but still have the integrity/morality to do good just for the sake of doing good. This is probably not an original thought – I’m sure I heard it somewhere but I just don’t know where.

  • 7 xJane // Aug 27, 2008 at 3:21 pm

    Elise: I had the same impression! And while I have some classmates who I strongly suspect to be Mormon, I’ve not seen them do anything that I associate with being Mormon. Why, they’re as nice as John! :-p

    Also, I’ve heard the same argument and can’t remember who made it. Kant, perhaps? I, too, would rather be surrounded by people who do good because they love good (and certainly my husband is one of those) than by people who do good because they fear hell.

  • 8 xJane // Aug 28, 2008 at 3:36 pm

    So I have confirmed that I have three Mormon classmates. One freely admitted it and I saw the holy underwear of the other two…

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