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opinion
Think
for yourself, don't just agree
Recently, signs and posters have been sprouting up around
the campus of Cal State Long Beach.
You have likely all seen the ubiquitous yellow signs that
ask the vague question, "Do you agree with John?"
No, it's not a fashionable new cult, but merely a group that
agrees (apparently whole-heartedly) with a CSULB student who
has publicly declared the need for God in his and everyone
else's life.
What is initially disappointing is seeing legions of college
students marching around campus in identical yellow T-shirts,
proclaiming their allegiance to the cause.
College, which is supposed to be where you go to learn how
to use your brain to analytically examine all evidence presented
to you, has produced a group of pod people as insidious as
Rush Limbaugh's deplorable Dittoheads.
Of course, the argument could be made that colleges are merely
breeding grounds to indoctrinate the young to a certain left-leaning
worldview. Or, maybe I've just taken too many general education
classes.
Faith is something that is very important to people's lives,
but it is something that should happen on a personal level,
regardless of whatever this or that holy book might say.
The urges to go out and persuasively (or forcefully) make
others believe like you do have brought us historical highlights
like the Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, and the genocide
of countless indigenous populations, thanks to well-meaning
and disease-carrying missionaries.
Seeing a gaggle of yellow T-shirt clad students congregating
in my path gives me the same sense of unease I feel when I
look out the front window and see Jehovah's Witnesses creeping
down the street, arms full of Bibles and pamphlets.
With world events getting scarier by the day and our psyches
as yet unrecovered from Sept. 11, it is understandable that
people need to make sense of the world.
But just because some bad things are happening around the
world and here in America does not mean that Armageddon is
upon us.
Bad things happen all over the world every day and have throughout
history.
It is only American narcissism and vanity that leads some
to believe the horrific events that have befallen us portend
the end of the world.
And please save yourself the time of searching out that perfect
Bible verse that will prove me wrong. It is just that sort
of selective interpretation that gives some people the self-righteousness
to go out and forcibly convert the heathens.
If we truly used the Bible to guide our lives, men would be
enjoying their sexual rights with their brother's widows and
we'd spend our time trying to figure out compensation when
we kill our neighbor's slaves.
Oh, and there'd be a lot more smiting.
For the sake of those who have given these issues much thought
and are firmly convinced of our beliefs, please go back to
having Bible study in designated rooms at designated times
where people who are interested can seek you out. And leave
the rest of us alone.
So, to make a short story long, no, I don't agree with John.
Phil Witte is a journalism major at Cal State Long Beach.
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Phil
Witte
- Witticisms
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