<p>Put aside all the jokes. There is a very nice and large Christian group at Harvard. My son has been involved with Christian Impact since starting last year at Harvard. His bible study group that he met last year all got along so well last year that they decided to room together this year. They’re a great group of guys. They go to ball games, go out for pizza, go to movies, all the normal things that guys this age do. My son’s girlfriend is in the girls bible study group. Anyway, check them out if you decide on Harvard. </p>
<p>Havard definitely respects Christian students, but Yail and Prniceton are run by the Saudi Arabian Ministry for Religious Affairs (just kidding!)</p>
<p>I too am personally an atheist and it is very likely that Harvard has a higher degree of secularism relative to the greater American population, particularly among those pursuing the sciences. There are other more prominent undergraduate bastions of secularism, however. For instance, over half of the students at Harvey Mudd College actively identify themselves as agnostic/atheist.</p>
<p>Thanks Admiral! That sounds really interesting, should I get in, I’ll certainly take a look into the group. The mythbusters are amazing by the way, good choice! </p>
<p>I am not a very active atheist, in the city where I live (Amsterdam…) most people do not hold any religious views, so there isn’t much opportunity for debate, but I’ve always been interested in discussing religion with people who do believe (devotedly). That is actually one of the things I like best about Harvard (and peers), since it is so diverse, I’d have the opportunity to do so. </p>
<p>I can imagine that a lot of science-inclined people would not believe in a God, but I do think blatantly believing in the postulates of science is a form of religion too. I recently read this, rather ridiculous, book about the laws of science disproving the existence of any higher power (I forgot the title) and I have also read Dawkins’ The God Delusion, and I can’t help to question their theories as well (Dawkins to a lesser extent though). It should be interesting if more theories about atheism would develop, because religion is nowadays usually only juxtaposed to hard scientific theory (which remains partially conjecture too). More valid arguments against religion should be possible.</p>
<p>EDIT: How fun, how fun! I just googled the club Admiral mentioned, and it sounds really great!</p>
<p>OP, The fact that several responses on the first page alone provided no useful information but made fun of your questionon a board which has the purpose of answering college questionsindicates that your question is a relevant one. There are people like this at Harvard.</p>
<p>There are also people at Harvard like the poster who used the words characteristic mix of paranoia and triumphalism concerning a high school student he has never met based on one question. (This comment surely violates CCs prohibition of personal characteristics being questioned by others.) Perhaps when youre at Harvard, youll be able to help those with open minds see that this is an unfair characterization. </p>
<p>There are others at Harvard who will group cultural Christians and practicing Christians together. When I told my new law school roommate (a Harvard graduate) that I was happy to have met another student (a Harvard graduate) and discover that she was a Christian, my roommate responded, Arent we all? </p>
<p>There are surely also committed Christians at Harvard.</p>
<p>To determine whether Harvard might be a good place for you as a Christian, you might want to do the following:
Read the book, Choosing the Right College (edited by John Zmirak), which evaluates, among other things, how tolerant various colleges are of diverse religious views. I discovered the book in my public library; it can also be ordered through the internet.
Conduct internet searches to determine which Christian organizations exist on campus, and which churches are available nearby. Then read their websites to discover what they believe.
When you visit or attend a college fair, ask the Harvard representative which Christian groups are active at Harvard. When I asked this question at another selective university, the admissions officer described all the Muslim and Jewish possibilities on campus. As I had prefaced the question by saying that my daughter currently attends a Christian school, and as she was standing there wearing her Christian school sweatshirt, there was no chance that he did not understand the question. As a result, I found his answer to be very informative.
Ask your guidance counselor. As it happened, my daughters guidance counselor was familiar with the selective university described above, as her husband had graduated from it. </p>
<p>I hope this will be helpful information to you.</p>
<p>If you do choose to engage in debate, don’t expect to make any impact on the beliefs of religious conservatives. </p>
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<p>Yes, blindly believing any doctrine is not rational. In science, for instance, mindlessly accepting that UFOs and parallel universes exist is impracticable since we lack empirical proof (although measures like the Drake equation make extraterrestrial life very likely given the sheer immensity of the universe). Mathematical laws and concepts that have been observed and verified through empirical evidence, on the contrary, are rational to accept and rightly contribute to our own intellectual fulfillment.</p>
<p>^ Could not agree more. (Also well put and succinct! :P)</p>
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<li><p>Its probably more inciting and deliberately provocative than anything else to try and change the minds of devotees. Though I get the more general principle of trying to engage with a diverse range of views. </p></li>
<li><p>Science as a religion? Logically that’s very odd. For many religions *faith<a href=“by%20definition,%20not%20relying%20on%20evidence”>/I</a> is a large component of that religious belief. For scientific principles, and the scientific method, empirical evidence and a large degree of skepticism (originally based on the Socratic method) is a large component. I think its a very false analogy to treat science as a religion. </p></li>
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<p>However, that’s not to say that science is not compatible with religion. Paul Davies, among many other scientists (particularly those dealing with astrophysics, cosmology) certainly feel a degree of spiritualism (but don’t necessarily make reference to a particular deity) in their science.</p>
<p>Einstein referred to “God” in his scientific quibbles, although he used it not to affirm some degree of religiosity but rather to convey the transcendent sense of spiritualism that surrounds scientific inquiry.</p>
<p>Well, I never said I wanted to attempt to convert people to come to the dark side of Atheism, it just seems interesting to actually hear their point of view. </p>
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<p>Once again, I just compared science to religion, I never said I was an actual religion, although both religion and science are like languages used to “explain”. The axioma’s of mathematics sprung from the human mind and are therefore indubitable (a deductive process), so we could say that mathematics in a way form the grammar of our language, but you can still make a grammatically correct sentence to describe something that isn’t true. And that is my point; a lot of scientific assumptions are indeed mere assumptions. Our ideas about, say, the features of an atom or the nature of black holes remain (partial) conjecture, the theory of evolution is still just a theory (I could even argue here that all theories based on empirical evidence cannot be held for absolute truths). But a lot of scientists regard scientific theory as infallible and are just as stubborn in their believes as devoted Christians.</p>
<p>EDIT: Don’t flame me for grammatical and idiomatic errors! English is basically my third language XD.</p>
<p>I wholeheartedly agree with you, but you must take into consideration the fact that science does ground itself from a certain metaphysical view of the world and certain epistemological principles. To attack a religion such as Christianity that maintains a different metaphysical view than the one that scientists assume to be true and has different epistemological principles as its foundation than those that are the foundations of science from the very epistemological principles by which science takes its grounding is, without argument for their (your argument, if you are indeed making one, seems to be somewhat of a pragmatic one, not necessarily one that is reached through deductive means alone) truth, to simply beg the question.</p>
<p>EDIT: First off, GuiltyByStander, I highly recommend that you read Bertrand Russell’s Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy (especially the first two chapters, which might be available on google books - not sure). As well, I probably should have read your post as I basically said the same thing as you did, I just worded it differently. And, another point, the infallibility of science remains in question until the problem of induction is adequately solved and (again) its metaphysical and epistemological principles are shown to be the correct ones (I could bring up some points that stem from the theories of Thomas Kuhn and Paul Feyerabend, but I have homework I want to do before the Superbowl (Go Saints!):>)</p>
<p>Food for off-beat thought: How does Harvard regard Satanists? Assuming that they do not conduct those ludicrous rituals (or would calling them ludicrous be disrespectful?) and are respectful towards Christians (although is the idea of Satanism in itself disrespectful towards Christians?). And it’s nice to hear that Harvard is open towards spiritual beliefs, but is it also open towards respectful arguments over belief systems, or is arguing over spiritual beliefs seen as disrespectful in itself? But wouldn’t a lack of debate be intellectually dishonest, and make Harvard close-minded and open-minded at the same time?</p>
<p>Paradoxes, my friends, paradoxes…But valid and pertinent paradoxes nonetheless, so it seems. I truly am curious how the responses to my questions will be.</p>
<p>Yes, you are absolutely correct. If I refer to the cosmological concept of parallel universes once again, mathematically it is feasible. But mathematics, despite its ability to provide meaning and order to abstract phenomena, does not necessarily prove reality but rather conjectures ontological possibilities. The parallel universes theory speculates that an infinite number of every living being exists since every small quantum state fluctuation produces a separate existence. Mathematically nothing disproves it, which is precisely why physicists have this romanticized notion of the possibility, yet intuitively it is an impractical and delusional existential concept.</p>
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<p>Very true; our knowledge is far from complete. Even so, with technological and cognitive limitations, humankind will never obtain a complete understanding of all natural phenomena.</p>
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<p>Actually, the evolution of living organisms is a fact. The fundamental * basis * on which the process of natural selection drives evolution, however, provides the degree of uncertainty that truly makes it a theory. Most evolutionary biologists believe in one of two fashionable paradigms – evolution as a gradual progression or as a spontaneous occurrence in the presence of factors that drive natural selection (punctuated equilibrium). Nonetheless, evolution is not vitally established in one particular intellectual dimension. For anyone, using only one method of thought demonstrates a tenuous understanding of the primary concepts of the theory. It can be thought of in terms of a deductive line of reasoning, a mathematical assessment of the magnitude and distribution of populations in different ecological niches, a chronological sequence of events, an illustration of the relationships among species, a remarkable depiction of the struggle to survive among other living entities, and so forth.</p>
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<p>I believe that many scientists are adamant regarding the process and the rational method through which science is conducted. Science, at its very foundations, relies on systematic observation and experiment to confirm hypotheses. But despite empirical evidence, it is true that we cannot say that scientific “proof” is infallible. Newton’s Law of Gravitation, which we all use in our physics classes, becomes more inaccurate as the distance between two given objects increases. Moreover, how do we reconcile the inexplicable discrepancies between inertial mass and gravitational mass? But recognizing that our comprehension of the natural world is fragmentary is precisely what drives a sustained curiosity in studying science and adding to its cumulative body of knowledge.</p>
<p>Of course, no one is directly deprecating any system of belief. Atheism and Christianity are simply different expressions of the human desire to transcend the uncertainty of the world to obtain intellectual fulfillment. But as you state, science and religion, at their very foundations, are competing intellectual systems that hold the essential purpose of rationalizing concepts such as nature and existence. </p>
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<p>Indeed. Although I am not watching the game, I am pulling for the Saints as well, but my rational side is with Indianapolis.</p>
<p>As for Satanism, I am sure that many Satanists have debates among themselves given that the belief itself has many categorical offshoots.</p>
<p>I would assume that there is some form of open discussion regarding religious beliefs that provide arguments in favor for one system while pointing out the faults or contradictions in the other. To truly reach a university’s idealism of promoting interaction among diverse subgroups, it is essential to encourage amenable, healthy forms of debate. I believe that these are absolutely fine and intellectually beneficial to the extent that explicit criticisms are not made upon the system of belief or its followers.</p>
<p>As we continue to add to our body of knowledge, we continue to realize how much more there is that we don’t know than what we do know. It is an idealized concept of obtaining a perfect, complete, and unequivocal finality to our understanding of the natural world. The creation or deduction of new knowledge inevitably creates more uncertainty and future ideas for humankind to ponder.</p>
<p>Congratulations to them! That is a true victory for not only the organization but for the city of New Orleans and the hardships that they have been through over the course of these past few years. (But watch out for the 49ers next year! Sorry for my bias. :))</p>
<p>How does Newton’s Law of Gravitation become less accurate for greater distances beyond the statistical and General Relativity predictions? Also, what are the inexplicable discrepancies between inertial mass and gravitational mass?</p>
<p>On that note, I’d also highly recommend Paul Davies’ book The Mind of God, which goes into a lot of the questions raised here (logic, axioms, the physical laws and origins of the universe etc and its relation to teleology,intelligent design and religion).</p>
<p>I’ve only read Russel’s History of Western Philosophy (which was quite a pointless project) but I’d love to read more of his own theories. Thanks! It is quite a coincidence, because I was just working on a project in which I mentioned Thomas Kuhn quite a lot (although it was mainly on Karl Popper, possibly obsolete, but still my hero, and logical positivism). </p>
<p>I have never read anything by Paul Davies, I will add it to my readinglist!</p>