God Removed From Graduation at MIT
The commencement at MIT this year was going to include a prayer until a student wrote an op-ed claiming that removing the prayer would make the event more inclusive.
Samantha Reinis of Campus Reform reports.
MIT takes God out of graduation
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) removed religious prayer from its commencement ceremony this year.
Traditionally, MIT Chaplain Robert Randolph has given a religious prayer at the ceremony, as he prayed to the “God of Abraham, Jesus and Mohammed” during last year’s graduation. However, MIT’s Commencement Committee emailed undergraduates announcing the change in May.
This sudden reversal comes from the widespread discussion of an op-ed written by student Aaron Scheinburg in the university’s paper. Scheinburg claimed that, “[i]t would be so easy — embarrassingly easy — to extend [the prayer’s] message to 100 percent of students by simply not invoking religion.”
“If the administration wants to accommodate everyone, it should minimize exclusion, not average presumed personal preferences. Simply not mentioning God would exclude no one. Choosing neutrality would just be like all the other days when MIT doesn’t endorse a religion,” Scheinburg wrote.
Comments
Scheinburg opted for atheism.
The chaplain opted for a lie: “Traditionally, MIT Chaplain Robert Randolph has given a religious prayer at the ceremony, as he prayed to the “God of Abraham, Jesus and Mohammed”.”
The God of Abraham is the same Jesus. Mohammed has the moon god Allat, renamed Allah and a black rock.
Given the lying nature of the the chaplain”s prayer, perhaps it was better that no prayer be said since the lie would not be perpetuated.
Back in my day it wasn’t a very religious place. People had religions, obviously, but they weren’t big on rubbing anybody else’s noses in them.
Some of the Jews were a bit of a problem – a Jewish folk-dance group took up a lot of space in some buildings which were square in my path between classes. Not a religious problem, but purely a safety concern, as some of those dances involved a bit of high-speed running-about. But I managed to avoid any collisions, so there were no international crises.
And there is a chapel right in the middle of the campus, complete with a little moat, but that doesn’t seem to be for defensive purposes; it’s generally ignored. It was also in my path between some other classes, but as it wasn’t moving, dodging it was no problem.
Basically, the ‘Tute managed to avoid squabbles, pro or con, about religious topics.
It sounds like things haven’t changed much.