look what happens if you don't go to Bob Jones University!

[ButterflyBlood]

http://www.bju.edu/aboutbju/special_articles/shipwreck

[_Wayne_]

1. Funny

Thx :)

[Dob Bole]

2. Ah, leave Bob Jones alone....

Yes, they are very strange people, at least to me. But they have their beliefs and shouldn't be chided for having them.

Did I just say that?

[SoCalDem]

15. If their beliefs are toxic, people need to know about them

:)

[Melsky]

21. I agree

Do they leave us alone? No.

[camero]

3. You stay sane?

[Rabrrrrrr]

4. OMG!!

That's such pure bullshit....

I could write 1500 words on why this is bullshit, but I won't. But it's damned dangerous and wrong and so obviously made up stories, I can't stand it.

Non-BobJones(tm) science has ever shaken my faith. Not ever!!!! That man is so dnagerous, and is such a money grubbing pharisee fake loser jerkoff.... it's so sad that so many people buy his line of BS and really, truly, think that science classes and secular universities exist ONLY and SOLELY to do the devil's work.

I couldn't even read the third story. By the end of the second story my BS detector, and my need to puke, were both at infinite.

[ornotna]

5. See, going to college IS evil.

Makes you want to blow your brains out.
What a bunch of horse shit.

[Elidor]

7. I'd blow my brains out, too, if I was a student at BJ-U

Hey, that'd make a good t-shirt.

[ironflange]

6. Very disappointing

Why didn't the third guy get a gun and make it three for three?

[SmileyBoy]

8. That is really funny. Is that supposed to be a humour piece???

Sounds like Landover Baptist to me.

[Rabrrrrrr]

9. Dude, you just don't get it

This is a legimate from a "legitimate" (though unaccredited) "university". It is no parody.

[SmileyBoy]

11. I know. (sarcasm)

When one reads it without prior knowledge, it would seem to be on the blurred line between legitimate and parody.

[Archae]

10. Don't forget the founder of that "university."

Bob Jones. the founder of that "university" was a stinking racist who hated science with a passion.

http://rapidnet.com/~jbeard/bdm/Psychology/bju/fundam.htm

[chrisesq]

12. I know that some may see this a pure BS,

however, I have witnessed this behavior first hand, though not to the extreme of suicide.

I have this theory that if one builds their foundation upon strict religious precepts and follows and wholeheartedly believes them, many are doomed for a near complete breakdown once it is shown to be untrue.

Think of the phrase "a chink in the armor." When that is said, one usually means that the outer barrier has been broken and more external forces can enter. I do not look at it that way. I look at strong religious foundation more like safety glass that one may have on a passenger door on their car. It only takes a small bit of external force to crack the glass. Much like religion. Once you show a person that not everything does not adhere to their strictly held beliefs, it is much like delivering the blow that shatters the glass. Sure it still may hold its general shape and its function, however it is weak to anything else that may try to penetrate the barrier.

Once the initial force delivers a reason for someone to have doubt in the protective barrier it cracks or shatters. This breaks down the protective barrier. It allows other forces to easily enter. It builds upon itself with increasing doubt of the beliefs that were once held true.

This is the problem. The people that have led their lives with fundamentalistic foundations are succumbing to an overload of information that is opposite from how they live thier lives. Different from how they see themselves as an individual. Different from how they value themselves as a person. Opposite from how they define themselves as a person.

Think about how you live your life and what you believe. Now imagine someone implanting the seed of doubt into that. You can imagine how a person would feel if they discovered that everything that they built themselves up as a person and as a part of the ultimate plan was based on fallacious theories.

Back to the safety glass analogy. I'm sure that all of you have seen what broken auto glass looks like. Imagine that each of those little sections was a belief. They start crumbling down once the initial penetration occurs. Shortly thereafter, all the glass is gone. Much like the belief structure. Everything that you have held dear is now in doubt or completely destroyed. Everything that you believed is questionable. You are no longer the person that you thought you were. This can be a crushing blow to many people. Some may see that the only recourse for the pain is death or complete abandonment of all oft the precepts that they once held dear.

I swear I'm not smoking anything. I've just thought about this extensively.

[nuxvomica]

16. Good point.

I only read the second story but it struck me how fragile the fellow's belief system is, that one blow shatters everything. These pandering and obviously phoney stories actually reveal the fragility of belief systems that proscribe doubt.

[dmr]

24. Much truth to what you say

and when that student returns home, and his/her parents are shocked, hurt, angry or any other numerous reactions they may give their child, it has to be soul shattering to find that many of these parents unconditional love do have conditions. How very sad.

[trof]

13. drivel

dreck

[baldguy]

14. Eh heh heh, B J u. Eh heh heh

[T Bone]

17. that article makes me want to blow my brains out !!

Why is it that 2 of the 3 examples have references to using a gun to 'blow one's brains out' ? They are so weird.

[NightTrain]

18. Three words: Full. Of. Shit.

Those "Three College Shipwreck" stories are so obviously fake! I mean, who the hell talks like this:

"My father died three months before I was born. All he left me was his good name, and all he left my mother was the memory of his love."

"My mother was a plucky little woman."

"'What are you going to do now, Son?' Mother asked me. 'I am going to go to work and support you, Mother, and you are never going to do another thing. You are such a sweet mother to me.'"

"Brother Bob, while I had been preaching to my country churches, the devil had been sowing tares in the college."

[YellowRubberDuckie]

26. I was going to say the same thing: BULL SHIT...

They are OBVIOUSLY made up. Not everyone who has premarital sex gets horrible diseases. God...I hate that Fundamental bullshit.
duckie

[northzax]

19. how sad

to have such a weak, fragile belied structure that simply being told you are wrong is enough to lead you to suicide.

This isn't the Christianity that Christ taught, was it?

butthe good news: They're hiring!

http://www.bju.edu/aboutbju/positions/index

[Nikia]

20. See what happens when you don't think for yourself

I want to preferce this by saying that I am Christian. I belonged to a church that one might call "Fundamentalist" which I joined as a teenager over the objections of my parents. I even belonged to the church Bible quiz team and did very well at it.I came from a diverse family religious background and embraced Christiantity with a Biblical emphasis by choice knowing other alternatives.
There were other teenagers from my church and the churches which we quizzed against that came from very devotely religious families. Some were even home schooled and did not participate in trick or treating as children for religious reasons. They seemed to be religious for every reason except by their choice. When discussing an issue they would say "Well the Bible says or My parents say or My pastor says." They wouldn't even have any good reasons, religious or otherwise, which they had thought out.
They were shocked that I was going to a secular college. They were all going to Bible based colleges. I told them that Jesus lived in the world and we live in the world too. They were really afraid that they would be lead astray by going to a non Christian college.
I think that some of them would be lead astray since they were such "followers". If their faith had went something to them personally, being exposed to people with different beliefs wouldn't really cause them to completely abandon their religion. They might reconsider certain aspects of faith or theology or become more tolerant than others, but they wouldn't become "Godless atheists" in a short period of time. One must wonder what would happen to them if their parents died and their church closed as adults too.
One of my more thoughtful, indepent thinking friends transferred away from the Christian college he attended saying that most students had what he'd call an artificial faith that he didn't want to be part of. He said that they were too hung up on rules rather than living their faith.
Personally, at my secular, comparatively liberal college, all faiths were tolerated by most. I don't know of anyone who was personally made fun of by having a Bible. There was a large Christian group on campus with both "Fundamentalist" and more liberal Christian members. Some complained about athesist anti Christian faculty members, but there were just a few faculty who were militant atheists and most students could avoid those few if they really wished. Interestingly enough, no science professor was a militant atheists just a couple of humanities and social science professors. There were just as many openly Christian professors. The closest thing to a sermon ever given by a professor I had in class, which was a small discussion class, was ended by "I don't know why I am preaching Christianity. I am an agnostic"

[Seldona]

22. Bah

Yes, all us athiests who grew up in Christian homes MUST blow our brains out or become drunken louts if exposed to the 'devils work'.

Weak. So weak.

Maybe their parents should have gotten thier children a Bible Harness.

http://www.abarnett.demon.co.uk/atheism/bibleharness.html

[MisterP]

23. "Let me get where I can prop against the wall,

for I am feeble and old and trembly in the knees."

AHAHAHAHA!

Who writes this stuff?

[jmowreader]

25. The barracks is designed to instill Christian teamwork, too

http://www.bju.edu/aboutbju/studentlife/dorm/index

"Features: 5 bunks, 1 sink, 2 desks, 3 chairs, 1 phone, over-head and hanging closet space, built-in drawer space, fully carpeted floors, and air conditioning/heating."

Five bunks and two desks? You have five college students sharing one room (as opposed to, say, the Death's Head Delta Basic Training Academy D-4-3 of Fort Dix, NJ, which had eight-man rooms but our education there was largely hands-on and only two months long) with only two desks in it? No wonder the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools can't find this place to accredit it.