<p>I often find that the anti-Christians try to impose their beliefs on me than the actual Christians themselves.</p>
<p>^ Interesting, can you give some examples?</p>
<h2>“Noble views, but often what happens on campus goes beyond reasonable intellectual debate.”</h2>
<p>How so blue-box? Could you give a specific example where you’ve encountered something that “goes beyond reasonable debate” on a college campus? In the four years my daughter attended UNC-CH, the only thing she encountered that could be described as “beyond reasonable debate” was a pretty strong intolerance of any criticism directed toward presidential candidate Obama or of positive discussion of John McCain or Sarah Palin. And though she found political views on the campus of UNC to be narrow in that regard, she certainly didn’t consider this to be out of line or an infringement of her personal rights or an impediment to her learning process. She actually viewed being in the minority politically as a valuable learning experience. </p>
<p>This whole conversation is surprising. Young people are really not supposed to be adverse to ideas different from their own. They should be more worried about those who would stop the expression of those ideas with political correctness. That should be the real priority.</p>
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<p>A debate would imply an argument where opposing views are discussed. Ad hominem attacks, insinuations, and assertions that I (or my family) are committing sin and will be going to hell, or whatnot, and then refusal to listen to counter-arguments is not a debate.
Then again, I can’t really blame them for what they do. A debate relies on logical arguments, and faith could probably be accurately defined as the absence of logical reasoning.</p>
<p>I daresay if an Islamic Imam tried to preach on-campus, he’d be treated with hostility and derision.</p>
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<p>That is irrelevant. I do consider free-speech a priority. I don’t like what they say, but I’m going to let them say it. What’s being discussed out here is not the right of the religious groups to do what they do, and say what they say, but the fact that it takes place, and that the Christian influence is more than any other religion’s. It is incorrect to say that there is absolutely no pressure to be a Christian on this campus. If someone were to say there was absolutely no pressure to be a Shinto, or Buddhist, I’d agree. I haven’t had any Buddhists or Shintos (or Jains/Bahais/Muslims/Confucianists/Hindus/Canaanites) come up to me to tell me what I (dis)believe in is wrong.</p>
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<p>Nah, they just try to run you over.</p>
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<p>Which was an absolutely terrible act. I cannot fathom what prompted him to do such a thing, can you?</p>
<p>You can’t compare thousands of people on one campus pressuring and bothering you with religion to one random radical who decided to kill a bunch of people.</p>
<p>Again, someone is going to have to cite an example where this sort of pressure exists on the campus of UNC-CH. My d is a 2010 grad, and we’ve spent quite a bit of time on that campus and I’ve never observed any pressure to be a Christian. My daughter confirms this (and in fact thinks the claim is ridiculous). Given it is a state-supported school, I would think that sort of thing would not be allowed anyway. </p>
<p>So, either bluebox is using hyperbole to make a point or he/she is talking about the Pit Preacher, an eccentric old coot students have managed to ignore for 20 years. And if it is the latter…then I have to say “Seriously…you were trying to debate the Pit Preacher?”</p>
<h2>“I cannot fathom what prompted him to do such a thing, can you?”</h2>
<p>The student who drove his car into the pit was very clear about his reasons.</p>
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<p>He didn’t actually kill anyone. Even with an SUV. Arguably that was because he was worshiping the wrong god.</p>
<p>Wow, really, worshiping the wrong god? Let’s not get to personal about the reason’s why nutcases act like nutcases. The guy’s act was inexcusable for sure, but stuff like that seems to portray the sort of intolerance that you argue against. He wasn’t even traditionally religious. </p>
<p>From the wikipedia page about the attack:
Fellow Muslims characterized Taheri-azar as “cantankerous and unorthodox in his practice of Islam” and “anything but traditionally devout.” During prayers on campus he “wouldn’t pray toward Mecca and refused to recite prayers in Arabic – contrary to standard Islamic practice.” One Muslim student, Atif Mohiuddin, recalled Taheri-azar as being “anti-Arabic” and never using the standard Arabic greeting of “Assalaamu Alaikum”</p>
<p>Totally out of character with other cases of extremism. </p>
<p>I’m not trying to start a big debate, I just want people to know the facts. It was one guy who decided to “run you over,” not a community.</p>
<p>dm - bluebox was being sarcastic and a wee bit hypersensitive with the “wrong God” comment. Of course the guy who ran through the Pit was irrational. Anyone who would cite the WTC terrorists as their heroes is not right in the head and reflects poorly only on himself. (However, I don’t think it is unusual for an Iranian to reject being affiliated with Arabs or Arab traditions. Iranians are not Arabs.)</p>
<p>The point is that offensiveness is not a one-way street. All people, regardless of their chosen faith, have an equal opportunity to offend and to be offended. So it would be best for humanity if everyone adopted a high threshold of tolerance and chose not the sweat the little stuff. And…an old geezer standing on an assigned spot in the Pit exercising his legal right to spout his religious beliefs IS the little stuff.</p>
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<p>Apparently, his religious beliefs. I’ve never seen the pit preacher try to kill anyone.</p>
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<p>Ah he won’t do that; he’s a Christian, and they’re all so morally righteous.</p>
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<p>Just stating the truth here. You can read into it however you like.</p>
<p>I must say, I disagree with everyone on this thread!</p>
<p>Cuse0507, that one guy has as much to do with Muslims in general as the Christian terrorists all over the world have to do with Christians in general.</p>
<p>blue_box, I’ve never found a particularly strong element of Christian prosletysing at UNC. You see the odd flyer and sign, but then again you also see the odd flyer and sign from followers of Ayn Rand too. You are right that if there was an Islamic version of the pit preacher, they’d be treated with hostility and derision. But the pit preacher is treated with hostility and derision!</p>
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<p>True. Although I’d say that Muslim terrorism is a much bigger problem in the United States (and at UNC) than Christian terrorism is. </p>
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<p>Also true.</p>
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<p>I’m not so sure about that. In the US we have the Oklahoma city bombers, not to mention the state supported white terrorists who pointed to the Bible as justification for attacking and oppressing black people, and finally of course the people who bomb or otherwise attack abortion clinics.</p>
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<p>Oklahoma City bombing was almost two decades ago and the man responsible for it has already been executed. I’m not sure who the “state-supported white terrorists” are that you are referring to; if you are talking about the KKK, I agree that they were a terrible threat between the 1890s and 1960s, but the KKK now is a mere shadow of its old self and is not really worth worrying about. Likewise, the abortion clinic incidents, while terrible, were very isolated incidents that resulted in only one or two casualties.</p>
<p>Now, contrast that with 9,11 (3,000 Americans killed), the Fort Hood attack, the Little Rock recruiting center attack, the UNC pit attack, the botched Times Square bombing, and plots broken up to bomb the Sears Tower, ten trans-Atlantic airliners, JFK airport, the Brooklyn Bridge, the Washington metro system, the NYC subway system, the IMF headquarters & New York Stock Exchange, a shopping mall in Columbus, an American Airlines flight from Miami to Paris, downtown Portland, a dirty-bomb somewhere in NYC, a Northwest Airlines flight on Christmas last year, and four UPS flights over American cities. All this within the last ten years. I think it is pretty clear what the bigger threat is.</p>
<p>^ Actually, I think it’re pretty clear that neither is really a threat anymore. That’s a pretty extensive list of incidents you have there, but even if all those had succeeded, how much real damage would they have done to the USA? About 1 hour’s worth of damage in a ‘real’ war.</p>
<p>I take your point about the KKK, but if you take a slightly longer perspective, say of American history over the past 200 years, it’s the Christian and Christian-inspired terrorists that have done the most damage. </p>
<p>It was even Christian men who pointed to the bible as the justification for the slavery that led them to start the Civil war! Now that really was a threat.</p>