An interesting take on the God question

[eisely]

This has nothing to do directly with scouting, but since scouting has staked out a position that some kind of belief in a god or gods is necessary, this guy's story is kind of interesting.

______________________________

 

How I found God at Columbia

Dennis Prager (archive)

 

December 2, 2003

 

Very few people can say that they found God or religion at college or graduate school. The university, after all, is a radically secular institution that either ignores or disparages religious belief in God.

 

Yet, one day, when I was a graduate student in international affairs at Columbia University, I had what can honestly be called an epiphany.

 

I remember it very clearly. Since entering graduate school, I was preoccupied with this question: Why did so many learned and intelligent professors believe so many foolish things?

Why did so many people at my university believe nonsense such as Marxism? I was a fellow at the Russian Institute where I specialized in Soviet affairs and Marxism, and so I encountered professor after professor and student after student who truly believed in some variation on Marxism.

 

Why did so many professors believe and teach the even more foolish notion that men and women are basically the same? At college, it was a given that the differing conduct of boys and girls and of men and women is a result of different, i.e., sexist, upbringings. The feminist absurdity that girls do girl things because they are given dolls and tea sets, and boys do boy things because they are given trucks and toy guns, was actually believed in the mind-numbing world of academic intellectuals.

 

And why were so many professors morally confused? How could people so learned in contemporary history morally equate the Soviet Union and the United States, regard America as responsible for the Cold War, or regard Israel as the Middle East's villain?

 

One day, I received an answer to these questions. Seemingly out of nowhere, a biblical verse -- one that I had recited every day in kindergarten at the Jewish religious school I attended as a child -- entered my mind. It was a verse from Psalm 111: "Wisdom begins with fear of God."

 

The verse meant almost nothing to me as a child -- both because I recited it in the original Hebrew, which at the time I barely understood, and because the concept was way beyond a child's mind to comprehend. But 15 years later, a verse I had rarely thought about answered my puzzle about my university and put me on a philosophical course from which I have never wavered.

 

It could not be a coincidence that the most morally confused of society's mainstream institutions and the one possessing the least wisdom -- the university -- was also society's most secular institution. The Psalmist was right -- no God, no wisdom.

 

Most people come to believe in God through what I call the front door of faith. Something leads them to believe in God. Since that day at Columbia, however, I regularly renew my faith through the back door -- I see the confusion and nihilism that godless ideas produce and my faith is restored. The consequences of secularism have been at least as powerful a force for faith in my life as religion.

 

If our universities produced wise men and women, curricula of moral clarity, and professors who loved liberty and truth, not to mention loved America -- there is no question that my religious faith would be challenged. I would look at the temple of secularism, the university, and see so much goodness and wisdom that I would have to wonder just how important God and religion were.

 

But I look at the university and see truth deconstructed, beauty reviled, America loathed, good and evil inverted, elementary truths about life denied, and I realize that one very powerful argument for God is that society cannot function successfully without reference to Him.

 

So as much as I shudder almost every time I read of another academic taking an absurd position, I also feel my faith renewed.

 

Ironically, the worse the universities get, the greater their tribute to God.

[Fat Old Guy]

Ah-ha! We are supposed to love and obey God but to be wise, we need to fear him. This goes along with the old fashioned concept of child-parent relations: love and obey your parents but fear them as well.

[Rooster7]

eisely,

 

Great post! I truly appreciate and agree with Mr. Prager's words. However, I would submit that Mr. Prager's experience in college is not as unique as he believes. I'm convinced that many believers and "non-believers" are born in college dorms.

[Fat Old Guy]

I'll go with Rooster. College is a time when you get to explore ideas. We used to sit up late at night in my dorm arguing philosophy, religion, politics, drugs, etc.. A very interesting time. I actually became a liberal for a day or two.

 

 

[acco40]

What is the old saying (Churchill?), if you are not a liberal in your youth your are mean, and if you are not a conservative in your later years, your are foolish.

 

Not as good as his retort to a high society lady who reproached him by citing that he was drunk and his response was yes and you are ugly but in the morning I will be sober.

 

I view the article as more tripe. I found just as many religious fanatics at school (University) as "godless heathens." What I found interesting was than many of the "polarized" students tended to be the opposite of their parents. Institutions are neither godless or moral. They are inanimate. Only people (some would argue animals as well) can have ethics, morals, and faith. I laughed when the author labeled Columbia University as a radically secular institution that either ignores or disparages religious belief in God.

[NJCubScouter]

Maybe I'll comment on the main point of this later. For now, I can't help being amused that this guy chose to devote his graduate studies to "Soviet Affairs and Marxism" at the "Russian Institute" (in the early 70's, according to a bio I just found on the web), and he was shocked and upset to find so many Marxists. That sounds like someone majoring in biology and being upset to find so many plants. (I do understand that in the social sciences, one may study things that are contrary to one's own views, either just to understand them, or to try to figure out how to change them. But when you specialize in a philosophy that you disagree with, don't be surprised when you meet people who believe in that philosophy.)

[Adrianvs]

Not quite, NJ. Most who study "Nazi Affairs and the Holocaust" aren't Nazis or sympathizers. In fact, Marxism is more alien to the rest of Russian culture than Nazism to German culture.

 

The post reminds me of Chesterton's journey. A self-described pagan by twelve and agnostic by sixteen, he set out to create his own philosopy based on the way he saw the world. As he neared completion on the new philosophy, he made a startling discovery. It was nineteen hundred years old.

[Rooster7]

That sounds like someone majoring in biology and being upset to find so many plants.

 

Or, someone joining the BSA and being upset to find so many traditional values!

[NJCubScouter]

Adrianvs writes:

 

Not quite, NJ. Most who study "Nazi Affairs and the Holocaust" aren't Nazis or sympathizers.

 

I can't argue with the second sentence, but I can argue with the first. There is a difference between a philosophy that is almost completely a matter of history, as Naziism fortunately is, and a philosophy that has a large number of current adherents. If Mr. Prager was a student specializing in Soviet studies now, you would be correct, because the Soviet Union is history. Marxism is largely history too, though not completely (and we could discuss whether China today is really Marxist or just a brutal dictatorship.) But I think he was at Columbia in the very early 70's, at which time the Soviet Union was very much in the present, and still making moves to expand its power and influence. Under those circumstances, I think that you would find that a lot of people studying it would be adherents of its governing philosophy.

 

And I think Mr. Prager agrees with me: "I was a fellow at the Russian Institute where I specialized in Soviet affairs and Marxism, and so I encountered professor after professor and student after student who truly believed in some variation on Marxism." What he does not seem to get is that there was no reason why he should have been surprised or upset about that fact. If he didn't want to meet so many Marxists, he could have done his graduate studies in business administration or chemistry or something.

 

This whole thing isn't a big deal. I just find it funny.

 

[NJCubScouter]

Or, someone joining the BSA and being upset to find so many traditional values!

 

Ha, ha. I love the values of the BSA. The real ones, not the political one.

 

[acco40]

Membership?

[Fat Old Guy]

" Institutions are neither godless or moral. They are inanimate."

 

Not really. Institutions are organizations and, as such, are composed of people.

 

[Rooster7]

Institutions are neither godless or moral. They are inanimate. Only people (some would argue animals as well) can have ethics, morals, and faith. I laughed when the author labeled Columbia University as a radically secular institution that either ignores or disparages religious belief in God.

 

There is no Switzerland in the spiritual world. Youre either for Him or youre against Him. Institutions that devoid their culture and history of references to God and/or force individuals to hide their relationship with God, will suffer a consequence. If you think Columbia University and other universities are guiltless in this pursuit, then you should remove the scales from your eyes. I will agree with this thought Individuals, not institutions, will be held accountable.