<p>I know there are similar threads like this, but none seem to reflect the questions I want to know.</p>
<p>I'm currently a Junior in high school and I was thinking about going to Grand Canyon University in Phoenix, AZ. It's close to home, will give me a boat load of financial aid, and carries the majors I'm most interested in.</p>
<p>Not sure if you've already found out but I'm an atheist and GCU is a Christian University. I'm not against Christians in anyway (since the majority of my friends practice some form of Christianity) but I want to be comfortable and not pressured into any conversions. :/</p>
<p>So in reference to student life, will it be best if I just go to a liberal arts college with no Christian background, or pursue life at GCU?</p>
<p>Different religion-affiliated schools have different levels of religious influence on academics and student life. For example, Holy Cross and Christendom are both Catholic, but the level of religious influence differs. So you may want to closely investigate how strong the religious influence is at any religion-affiliated school.</p>
<p>GCU appears to require a “Christian Worldview” course in its general education requirements.</p>
<p>I have had friends go to private Christian schools. It always depends, but their school has prayer and faith discussion before every class and had weekly devotionals to present in front of everyone. That may be a little uncomfortable…but of course every school is different.</p>
<p>As an atheist, why would you want to even consider going to a “christian university?” Being around christians all day, especially in an academic setting would drive me nuts. If you want to keep you sanity, stay away from that place.</p>
<p>As a Christian myself, I would advise you not to attend GCU if you are a firm atheist. While I don’t know much about GCU in particular, I have had many friends go off to other private Christian colleges (i.e- Biola, Whitworth, Wheaton) and receive a fine education, but they were all practicing Christians. These types of schools will usually have a weekly mandatory church service/chapel, and you will likely be expected to regularly participate in prayer. Even if you aren’t an outspoken atheist, you might gain that reputation on campus if you are honest when asked questions about your spiritual life or refuse to lie and lead a devotional in class. I’d advise you to go to the school without any religious affiliation, or at least a place where you won’t be the token atheist of your class and a target for conversion and heated debate.</p>
<p>And to IsThisNameTaken-
I don’t want to start a debate or be “that poster” on this forum, but that was an extremely ignorant comment. There are plenty of brilliant Christians in the academic world, and even the traditional Creationist “the world is only several thousand years old” Christian is as tolerant and open minded as you appear to be.</p>
<p>penguin369 calm down. He said nothing bad about Christian universities in the context of their academics. All he said was dont go to a school where you have a 100% chance of being an outcast and being forced to do things outside of your comfort zone. If you actually read his post you would clearly see he said nothing bad mouthing Christian universities in general, he would just never advise it for the situation OP is in. I mean come on, if you went to a Christian university and there was that one kid who never participated in any of the religious aspects of the school, and even would refuse to do something like lead a prayer, wouldn’t you have an instant dislike towards him? It would be like there being a university for the openly gay, and there was ONE straight guy that went there. It’s just not a good idea to be such an outcast especially when you’re going to be forced to do things you don’t like.</p>
<p>Reading my post again, I guess I did sound a little too harsh myself. I apologize for that, but I didn’t read it as badmouthing Christian universities- I read it as badmouthing Christians in general - “being around Christians all day, especially in an academic setting, would drive me nuts”. I doubt IsThisNameTaken deliberately meant to be offensive, but that sort of comment does not come across to well.</p>
<p>If I were attending a Christian university, I’d probably like the guy for not following along and thinking for himself as long as he wasn’t openly antagonistic against the religion (and in that case, I’d wonder if he was just extremely misinformed or insane for choosing that sort of school). Personally, I’d never attend that sort of university- I attended a Christian high school like that, and even I felt like an outcast at times because I hated doing things like being required to talk about my faith in front of a classroom and having mandatory journals about what God had done in my life. </p>
<p>Anyways, I kind of took this post off track. Unless you’re prepared to BS a bunch of college (even if you don’t have to join a Bible study group, you’ll likely have some sort of mandatory work like what I had in high school), don’t attend a Christian university as an atheist. I’m a Christian, and I never considered applying to these places because I knew that even I would have to fake my way through some of the religious aspects of the schools and that I would feel out of place.</p>