DiscussMormonism.com

The large body of university professors in America represent the finest standard of our civilization. However, some few professors (thank the Lord at this school there are but a few) delight in relieving the student of basic spiritual values. Across our land at the universities, more and more of the faculty members look forward to the coming of a new crop of green freshmen with a compulsive desire to “educate” them.

Each year many fall victim in the colleges and universities of our country. There, as captive audiences, their faith, their patriotism, and their morality are lined up against a wall and riddled by words shot from the mouths of irreverent professors.

I hope that while you were taking courses you found time enough after the study of your subject to study the professors. One may well learn more from studying the professor than studying the subject.

Be assured that one who strives to widen the breadth of accepted moral conduct does so to condone what he is doing. Not infrequently you will find him unworthy. If he derides spiritual development, it can generally be concluded that he has failed in the subject. He defends himself by declaring it an unnecessary discipline. He is the one to ridicule faith and humility, to smile in contempt when anyone mentions virtue, or reverence, or dedication, or morality.

Let me give you a clue. There is something very interesting about a person who is anxious to forsake the standards of his church, particularly if he leaves them and encourages others to do likewise.

Have you ever wondered what it means when he can leave it, but he cannot leave it alone? Normal behavior would have him cancel his affiliation in the church and let that be that. Not so with this individual. He can leave it, but he cannot leave it alone. He becomes consumed with it and obsessed with it. That says something about him.

And one might ask, Is he talking to the student, or to himself? You might ask also, and he might ask himself: Is he happy, really happy?

Let me alert you to one other thing.

The professor who is “up-tight” about the subject of religion, the one who can’t, just positively can’t seem to conduct a class without tossing a barb or two at the church, belittling the minister, the rabbi, the priest, the bishop, or the stake president, or at the standards they teach—he is not the major source of concern. His bald-faced brand of prejudice is obvious even to the unwary student. Even the freshman fawn will move aside when he strings his bow.

But there is another that I would like to describe to you. I can best make the point by referring to Shakespeare’s Othello.

Othello claimed the two desires of his life. He became the general—he had arrived at the top—and he won the hand of the lovely Desdemona. Two other characters in the play complete the main cast: Cassio, his trusted lieutenant, and Iago, conspiring and jealous.

Two things Iago wanted in life—to be general and to have Desdemona. Othello had them both.

Motivated by malignant jealousy, he set out to destroy Othello—never openly, always careful and clever. He does not, in the play, tell an open, bald-faced lie. He works by innuendo and suggestion.

“Where is Desdemona tonight?” he would ask.

“Oh, she has gone to Relief Society,” Othello would answer.

“Oh, has she?” Iago would question.

It was not the words—on paper they are a harmless inquiry—but the inflection made them contagious with suspicion.

On one occasion Cassio came to Othello’s home with a message. After a conversation with Desdemona he left to attend to other matters. As he was leaving the home, Othello and Iago approached.

Iago perverted an innocent situation with his comment, “I cannot think it that he would steal away so guilty-like, seeing you coming.”

And so it unfolds. Nothing to incriminate Iago, so innocent was he. Just a sly reference, a gesture, an inflection, the emphasis on the word or the sentence.

Othello is finally convinced that Desdemona is unfaithful and determines to destroy her. The tragedy finally concludes with Othello threatening his innocent wife. She pleads for a week, for a day. Her final plea: “But while I say one prayer.” But he denies her that. How terrible the tragedy of her death when he then finds proof of her innocence.

You may meet an Iago one day. Through innuendo and sly remarks, through an inflection or a question, in mock innocence he might persuade you to kill your faith, to throttle your patriotism, to tamper with drugs, to abandon morality and chastity and virtue. If you do, you have an awakening as terribly tragic as that of Othello.

This is the man that ridicules belief in a hereafter and says there is no such thing as God. He’d better hope he is right. For if, as some of us know, the opposite is true, the final scene will be his, and justice more than poetic and penalties adequate in every way will be exacted from him.

Ultimately we are punished quite as much by our sins as we are for them.

I hope that while you were taking courses you found time enough after the study of your subject to study the professors. One may well learn more from studying the professor than studying the subject.

Lucretia MacEvil wrote:Sometimes I engage in wishful thinking, like, why oh why didn't I go somewhere else, anywhere else, than BYU? If I'd only gone anywhere else I might have found my way out of the church at a much earlier age and much less painfully. And gotten a better education too! I majored in English and never heard of sexual symbolism until after getting my degree, and god only knows what I learned about Shakespeare.

Oh, well.

Runtu wrote:

Lucretia MacEvil wrote:Sometimes I engage in wishful thinking, like, why oh why didn't I go somewhere else, anywhere else, than BYU? If I'd only gone anywhere else I might have found my way out of the church at a much earlier age and much less painfully. And gotten a better education too! I majored in English and never heard of sexual symbolism until after getting my degree, and god only knows what I learned about Shakespeare.

Oh, well.

Heh. Maybe we know each other. I have a BA and MA in English from BYU. However, we did talk about sexual symbolism in my classes.

Alter Idem wrote:

Runtu wrote:

Lucretia MacEvil wrote:Sometimes I engage in wishful thinking, like, why oh why didn't I go somewhere else, anywhere else, than BYU? If I'd only gone anywhere else I might have found my way out of the church at a much earlier age and much less painfully. And gotten a better education too! I majored in English and never heard of sexual symbolism until after getting my degree, and god only knows what I learned about Shakespeare.

Oh, well.

Heh. Maybe we know each other. I have a BA and MA in English from BYU. However, we did talk about sexual symbolism in my classes.

Hi Runtu, my daughter is at the U majoring in English and she plans to apply to BYU for her graduate work. Is it a good program? (I won't ask Lucretia...apparently she was dozing in her classes :) )

The large body of university professors in America represent the finest standard of our civilization. However, some few professors (thank the Lord at this school there are but a few) delight in relieving the student of basic spiritual values. Across our land at the universities, more and more of the faculty members look forward to the coming of a new crop of



Be assured that one who strives to widen the breadth of accepted moral conduct does so to condone what he is doing. Not infrequently you will find him unworthy. If he derides spiritual development, it can generally be concluded that he has failed in the subject. He defends himself by declaring it an unnecessary discipline. He is the one to ridicule faith and humility, to smile in contempt when anyone mentions virtue, or reverence, or dedication, or morality.

The italicized part above, which is my own of course, is at the crux of the matter, isn't it? As with Kinsey, much of what happens in the rarefied, abstract world of theory is the highly rationalized and sophisticated remnants of much cruder self justifications writ large as grand theorems of political and social structure, human psychological dynamics, and ideologies of oppressor/oppressed that validate and justify the basest human passions and prejudices.

Let me give you a clue. There is something very interesting about a person who is anxious to forsake the standards of his church, particularly if he leaves them and encourages others to do likewise.

The large body of university professors in America represent the finest standard of our civilization. However, some few professors (thank the Lord at this school there are but a few) delight in relieving the student of basic spiritual values. Across our land at the universities, more and more of the faculty members look forward to the coming of a new crop of crop of green freshmen with a compulsive desire to “educate” them.

Each year many fall victim in the colleges and universities of our country. There, as captive audiences, their faith, their patriotism, and their morality are lined up against a wall and riddled by words shot from the mouths of irreverent professors.

I hope that while you were taking courses you found time enough after the study of your subject to study the professors. One may well learn more from studying the professor than studying the subject.

Be assured that one who strives to widen the breadth of accepted moral conduct does so to condone what he is doing. Not infrequently you will find him unworthy. If he derides spiritual development, it can generally be concluded that he has failed in the subject. He defends himself by declaring it an unnecessary discipline. He is the one to ridicule faith and humility, to smile in contempt when anyone mentions virtue, or reverence, or dedication, or morality.

Let me give you a clue. There is something very interesting about a person who is anxious to forsake the standards of his church, particularly if he leaves them and encourages others to do likewise.

Have you ever wondered what it means when he can leave it, but he cannot leave it alone? Normal behavior would have him cancel his affiliation in the church and let that be that. Not so with this individual. He can leave it, but he cannot leave it alone. He becomes consumed with it and obsessed with it. That says something about him.

nd one might ask, Is he talking to the student, or to himself? You might ask also, and he might ask himself: Is he happy, really happy?

Let me alert you to one other thing.

The professor who is “up-tight” about the subject of religion, the one who can’t, just positively can’t seem to conduct a class without tossing a barb or two at the church (or conservatives, or America, or white males, or Ronald Reagan, or Margaret Thatcher, or Capitalism etc - Loran), belittling the minister, the rabbi, the priest, the bishop, or the stake president, or at the standards they teach—he is not the major source of concern. His bald-faced brand of prejudice is obvious even to the unwary student. Even the freshman fawn will move aside when he strings his bow.

But there is another that I would like to describe to you. I can best make the point by referring to Shakespeare’s Othello.

Othello claimed the two desires of his life. He became the general—he had arrived at the top—and he won the hand of the lovely Desdemona. Two other characters in the play complete the main cast: Cassio, his trusted lieutenant, and Iago, conspiring and jealous.

Two things Iago wanted in life—to be general and to have Desdemona. Othello had them both.

Motivated by malignant jealousy, he set out to destroy Othello—never openly, always careful and clever. He does not, in the play, tell an open, bald-faced lie. He works by innuendo and suggestion.

“Where is Desdemona tonight?” he would ask.

“Oh, she has gone to Relief Society,” Othello would answer.

“Oh, has she?” Iago would question.

It was not the words—on paper they are a harmless inquiry—but the inflection made them contagious with suspicion.

On one occasion Cassio came to Othello’s home with a message. After a conversation with Desdemona he left to attend to other matters. As he was leaving the home, Othello and Iago approached.

Iago perverted an innocent situation with his comment, “I cannot think it that he would steal away so guilty-like, seeing you coming.”

And so it unfolds. Nothing to incriminate Iago, so innocent was he. Just a sly reference, a gesture, an inflection, the emphasis on the word or the sentence.

Othello is finally convinced that Desdemona is unfaithful and determines to destroy her. The tragedy finally concludes with Othello threatening his innocent wife. She pleads for a week, for a day. Her final plea: “But while I say one prayer.” But he denies her that. How terrible the tragedy of her death when he then finds proof of her innocence.

You may meet an Iago one day. Through innuendo and sly remarks, through an inflection or a question, in mock innocence he might persuade you to kill your faith, to throttle your patriotism, to tamper with drugs, to abandon morality and chastity and virtue. If you do, you have an awakening as terribly tragic as that of Othello.

This is the man that ridicules belief in a hereafter and says there is no such thing as God. He’d better hope he is right. For if, as some of us know, the opposite is true, the final scene will be his, and justice more than poetic and penalties adequate in every way will be exacted from him.

Ultimately we are punished quite as much by our sins as we are for them.

Runtu wrote:

Lucretia MacEvil wrote:Sometimes I engage in wishful thinking, like, why oh why didn't I go somewhere else, anywhere else, than BYU? If I'd only gone anywhere else I might have found my way out of the church at a much earlier age and much less painfully. And gotten a better education too! I majored in English and never heard of sexual symbolism until after getting my degree, and god only knows what I learned about Shakespeare.

Oh, well.

Heh. Maybe we know each other. I have a BA and MA in English from BYU. However, we did talk about sexual symbolism in my classes.

Alter Idem wrote:

Runtu wrote:

Lucretia MacEvil wrote:Sometimes I engage in wishful thinking, like, why oh why didn't I go somewhere else, anywhere else, than BYU? If I'd only gone anywhere else I might have found my way out of the church at a much earlier age and much less painfully. And gotten a better education too! I majored in English and never heard of sexual symbolism until after getting my degree, and god only knows what I learned about Shakespeare.

Oh, well.

Heh. Maybe we know each other. I have a BA and MA in English from BYU. However, we did talk about sexual symbolism in my classes.

Hi Runtu, my daughter is at the U majoring in English and she plans to apply to BYU for her graduate work. Is it a good program? (I won't ask Lucretia...apparently she was dozing in her classes :) )