Bible-Bashing Comments from NYU Professor generate Facebook debate
Social media is a cornerstone in student interactions on campuses nationwide, to the point one college now offers it as a major.
The College Fix Assistant Editor Jennifer Kabbany tracked a recent Facebook discussion that started when one student complained about her professor’s derogatory references to the Bile.
A New York University student’s Facebook post that her professor frequently referred to the Bible as a “Book of Spells” and “The Original Harry Potter” sparked a feisty debate among the NYU community, a back and forth that played out publicly on the social media website…
A student secret posted on the site Dec. 21 was that their “ConWest teacher freshman year for ‘antiquity and the 19th century’ referred to the Bible as a ‘Book of Spells’ and ‘The Original Harry Potter’ regularly when he would use it as a piece of the lecture. I am not even that religious, but found it so disgusting and disrespectful that I had no choice but to file a complaint. He no longer teaches classes at NYU.”
The comment prompted about four dozen responses, many of them using harsh and accusatory tones against the student who lodged the complaint. The responses led to an opinion column in the university’s student newspaper calling for more civility on the secrets Facebook site.
Some of the comments supported the complaints against the anti-Bible remarks.
“I’m a pretty hardcore atheist, but even I think (the original poster) was correct in doing what s/he did,” one response stated. “A professor should never use his or her position of power to proselytize. No one was learning anything by the professor insulting the Bible. It’s completely irrelevant and unprofessional.”
Some offered critiques of the criticism.
“As someone with an immense respect for many different modes and channels of religious faith, I certainly empathize with those who feel awkward when their beliefs are demeaned in a classroom setting,” one responder noted. “However, when examined through science, most scripture is fantastical and ludicrous. While not politically correct, comparing the Bible, Qu’ran, Haggadah, even (and especially) the Gita, etc., to fiction novels can be an apt critique of exactly what we are taught by the scriptures we follow, sometimes a bit blindly.”
It seems that the instructor in question was fired after the complaint originally posted in Facebook. So, some of the dialog was a debated whether the complaint got the professor fired.
… “who knows if your complaint aided in his firing, but I’m pretty sure he likely had other complaints befall him in order to get sacked. … I’ve seen my fair share of bad teachers and wrote them harsh critiques on their evaluations, yet they still continue to teach.”
Student’s Complaint Over Bible-Bashing Professor Sparks Debate (The College Fix)
Comments
It would bother me a lot if a teacher did that in class. So far I’ve just had a couple of professors make jokes making fun of Republicans or the right. It’s hard to know what to do or how to react to that.
In one class the lady made “Republican” jokes but then later described a Republican “date” as manly and commanding and oh so sexy (that sounds way worse than it was because sex was at least more or less on-topic for that class) and in another class that was about *rocks* the joke was, above all not to be politically moderate, that you should pick a side and be radical… and she thought about it and added… but only on the left. Later on she explained that it was profoundly important that no hint of climate denialism be allowed, that questioning that in any way was DANGEROUS.
So how should a student respond to that? Maybe religion or politics won’t ever come up, but you take a risk if it does and you dare to disagree or defend yourself.
“…most scripture is fantastical and ludicrous…”
On what grounds? Setting aside the contingent nature of science and the metaphysical assumptions which undergird it, the scriptures the person listed as examples, where they make assertions about reality, deal mostly with the metaphysical and the miraculous, i.e. with things that are usually outside of the sphere of science. With miracles, were talking about peculiar events that are, almost by definition, exceptions to nature’s usual mode of operation, not a denial that there is a regularity to way the world works. In the case of metaphysics, we’re talking about what is “meta,” about the essential nature of reality that comes before physics. If we accept the notion that a Supreme Being governs the universe, then things like miracles become possible, but you would need a solid grounding in philosophy to know that.
But what is really laughable is the ignorance in the initial comments about the Bible. The Christian and Jewish scriptures contain many genres of literature, but they don’t contain spells. What is interesting, however, is that some of the early examples of modern scientists had a close affinity with the Renaissance occult tradition (Francis Bacon and Isaac Newton were alchemists). Indeed, them stemmed from a shared conceptual root, in that both sought manipulate unseen forces to gain a mastery over nature, which stands in contrast to the earlier natural philosophy, which sought an understanding of nature, motivated by a want to glorify God. Of course, it’s probably too much to bring up the fact that the foundations of physical science were built by theologians and universities were a medieval invention. That would make their heads explode.