Thursday, March 05, 2009



Christian Group Allowed to Return to Ohio Campus -- maybe

We read:
"A Christian group that claimed it was banned from the campus of Wright State University in Ohio because of its religious standards has been reinstated. Members of the Campus Bible Fellowship said they were informed late Monday that they would be allowed to resume holding meetings on the Dayton campus. The reinstatement came after repeated media requests to school officials.

"We're good for now, but come May, we'll be up against the same qualifications they refused us on this time," said Gary Holtz, 62, a Campus Bible Fellowship organizer. "I believe because of public pressure [school officials] changed their case." Holtz said the college banned the fellowship from holding meetings on campus Jan. 30 because the group refused to adopt university-mandated nondiscrimination language. Adhering to the college demands would have prevented the fellowship from requiring that voting members adhere to religious and behavioral standards, he said. University officials also objected to the group's requirement in its constitution that voting members be practicing Christians, Holtz said.

A fellowship member, Joseph Hollaway, said Tuesday that he received an e-mail indicating that the group could meet on campus through the end of the year. He said the group did not submit a revised constitution to university officials.

Dr. Rick Danals, director of student activities at Wright State, said the fellowship had been denied campus privileges because of incomplete registration forms. "They weren't fully registered because they failed to submit the university nondiscrimination clause as part of their constitution," Danals told FOXNews.com Tuesday. "We do allow groups to organize based on their values and beliefs; however, we don't allow groups to discriminate people." The fellowship, which has had more than 20 members in previous semesters, didn't include clauses concerning gender identity and military status in its equal opportunity policy statement that are "required by all student groups on campus," Danals said.

Despite the college's assurance that the group can meet on campus this Friday, Hollaway says he has his doubts. "We were seeking to protect ourselves as a group and what we stand for," he said. "It's a constitutional matter of freedom."

Following their ban from campus, Campus Bible Fellowship representatives contacted Robert Shibley, vice president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, who informed Wright State University President David Hopkins of potential legal ramifications. "They could be sued for violating the First Amendment rights of the Campus Bible Fellowship, and that's a lawsuit they would almost certainly lose," Shibley told FOXNews.com on Monday. "College campuses are supposed to be a marketplace of ideas, and the affect of Wright State's decision would be to reduce the amount of diversity on campus."

Source

15 comments:

Anonymous said...

Fighting god is like shadow boxing. There is nothing there.

Anonymous said...

"Jews don't have it that easy either. College campuses are full of anti-Israel demonstrations, and since Jews are associated with supporting Israel, they get plenty of crap from the leftists as well."... Bobby

The leftists you refer to ARE jews almost 90% of the time. And don't be fooled into thinking that American jews and Israeli's are the same. They're not. The majority of Israeli's reject leftism, while most other jews embrace it. In reality, there's not much love lost between the two.

Anonymous said...

Perhaps I am missing something in history, but I do not remeber when atheists tied people to posts and burned them to death or when they cut off peoples heads for not "believing".

Anonymous said...

Yes, you are missing something. Like the entire 20th century. Atheists were the most prolific killers in it. Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Fidel... etc. Any one of them makes the Inquisition or any witch hunt look like a birthday party.

Anonymous said...

Not that old tired "argument" - those people didn't act in the name of "atheism". They may or not have been atheist, but they acted in the name of a specific ideology like Communism, or just because they were nasty people. The Inquisition, Crucades, witch-hunts, etc. used religion specifically as their justification.

Anonymous said...

"all power comes from the barrel of a gun."
— Mao

Atheism does not provide any kind of foundation for absolute morality, only power. If there is no God, there is no absolute standard of right and wrong; therefore, no reason why they shouldn't kill people who get in the way. They didn't kill "in the name of atheism" (except when killing to suppress the religious who got in their way), but it certainly provided justification for their "anything goes" mentality.

Anonymous said...

11:40AM said: "If there is no God, there is no absolute standard of right and wrong."

Which god are you referring to? There are many of them out there.

Anonymous said...

Does it matter? As far as I know, atheists say there is no god of any kind.

Anonymous said...

PROTIP: When in an encounter with an atheist and this issue comes up, simply point out that atheist dictators killed millions of people over the past century and murdered hundreds of thousands in an effort to eradicate religion itself, because, you know, mass murder is the inevitable result when a community becomes too intolerant of outlandish dogmas and too fond of critical thinking. The atheist will undoubtedly respond with, "BUT THEY DIDN'T KILL IN THE NAME OF ATHEISM!!11", which is bullshit, because they obviously did: Vladimir Lenin, Lmao Zedong Josif Stalin and Mao Zedong all viewed religion as an obstacle to the OBVIOUS ATHEISM envisioned by Karl Marx and thus sought to remove this obstacle by any means necessary.

Anonymous said...

Atheism is only one aspect of Communism - like "collective farming". Would you say millions of people died in the name of "collective farming"? They may have done indirectly as many may have done indirectly because of atheism but not DIRECTLY. Nazism caused millions to die, but most nazis were not atheists.
Religious people throughout history justified killing because of their religious beliefs - that was their God-derived "morality"!

Anonymous said...

How does "collective farming" justify killing? I can see how it can cause deaths as either an unintended consequence, or even intentional consequence, which would make it a method of killing. But that does not explain how it makes killing okay.

"Nazism caused millions to die, but most nazis were not atheists."

What's your evidence for this claim?

"Religious people throughout history justified killing because of their religious beliefs - that was their God-derived "morality"!"

Yes, many have; sometimes even in direct contradiction to their religious teachings.

You're claiming that religions are bad because they've claimed that their worldview justifies the killing. But atheists have also used their worldview to justify killing, so I don't see how atheism can be claimed to be any better on this basis. Or is there some inherent property of atheism which Lenin, Stalin, PolPot, Hitler, Mao and other well known atheist murders violated?

Anonymous said...

All you can say is some atheists are bad people and some religious people are bad people - so what's the point of arguing which group is the more righteous!
Atheism itself is simply a position that doesn't accept theism or belief in a god or gods.

Anonymous said...

"so what's the point of arguing which group is the more righteous!"

Then why did you (or whoever else it was) try to compare atheists to those who believe in a God?

"I do not remeber when atheists tied people to posts and burned them to death or when they cut off peoples heads for not "believing"."

I cannot see any point to making a claim like this other than "Atheists: Good, Religious: Bad". Are you saying that this comparison is invalid/incorrect?

Anonymous said...

I did not make the statement to which you refer.
signed: poster 12:18 AM

Anonymous said...

"I did not make the statement to which you refer."

Which is why using "Anonymous" doesn't work for a debate. You can use a handle without signing up for Google and still remain anonymous. Just select the Name/URL choice and put a handle in for the Name. Like I did for this post.

Did I answer your question about why I was bothering to make this argument?