TeamBeer said

Marriage at Cana…sips

6 proof.

Have fun with that!

:D

I don't think Poole had the INTENTION of being disrespectful. I assume if everything went right, no one would step on Jesus' name. I believe the class was expected to refuse. For the atheist and satinists in the class, they probably do it at home anyway.

As for the wine thing. The bible says not to consume strong drink which is undiluted wine. Who knows what proof it was but it was better than what they were drinking earlier.

illinoisowl said

I don't think Poole had the INTENTION of being disrespectful. I assume if everything went right, no one would step on Jesus' name. I believe the class was expected to refuse.

Exactly.

illinoisowl said

For the atheist and satanists in the class, they probably do it at home anyway.

I know this is in jest but I wanted to mention a few things…

I don't know what Satanists do but I do know quite a few atheists and I think Christians envision them as worse people than they actually are. Their position (which I'm not saying is right or wrong) is philosophical and people like Dawkins aside, the majority are not militant and they don't proselytize.

The fact that atheists are often mentioned in the same breath as rapists and murderers indicates that they need to do a better PR job to mitigate these desperate shame campaigns against them.

Obviously Christians disagree with them, and that's fine, and I understand why there's that constant struggle for power in the classroom ("one nation, under God") and on the dollar bill ("in God we trust") but everybody's trying to do what they think is right for this country - even if we all disagree what that is.

I just ordered the text book on amazon, used, for 5 bucks. I want to see for myself.

Here is the committee findings…

It's lengthy, but for those who want to understand the entire outcome from the institutions point of view:

Academic Freedom and Due Process Committee Report to the FAU Faculty Senate June 20, 2013

If you find that report too long, this blog (which has been all about making FAU look bad before) has combed through the report and now seemed to have a change of heart now that all the details are out.

It also talks about the great lengths the other students went through to make sure Poole and the FAU Administration knew that they were not offended, that they thought Poole was excellent, and that the student who complained was… how to put this nicely… problematic.

I know he was under a gag order but come on. This is the kind of information FAU shouldn't sit on while social media and religious outlets burn them at the stake.

Yea this is basically the .01 percent bitching and moaning and causing problems.

If a student isn't able to comprehend the purpose of the excersize without getting offended to the level he did and responding the way he did…its our administrators fault for letting a kid that lacks the ability to think on that level into our University.

The report mainly laid the blame on the student who brought the incident to the media, and allowed it to become a bigger story than it should have been. If the student did not go to the media, this whole incident would have been handled in house. The report stated the university was trying to get ahead of the story when they fought out that the student contacted the media, but it went beyond the university too quickly. They also blamed the administration at the university for not sticking by the professor and the exercise it self, but the university was trying to quell the growing cry of outrage. But as for safety of the professor and the students, come on Faculty it would be easy to get close to Dr. Poole on campus and saying it not a smart move to remove him from campus for his safety. What are these people smoking?

I'm just floored at the total breakdown of the student. Calling the instructor "brother" and using threatening gestures and language.

I was so curious about this whole thing that I bought a used copy of the book on Amazon for $5. No big deal. I pay more than that for lunch.

It arrived today and I have skimmed through it trying to find the chapter or any wording that ties to the exercise in question. It might be and probably is only in the teacher's manual. BUT i have been reading bits and pieces and I have found nothing in this book so far that even resembles anti God, anti Jesus, anti faith. I believe the author wanted to drive home the point and used a very strong symbol he knew would create discussion. If he chose one of the 33 million Hindu gods, slight chance anyone would know the name or anything else about it.  As a matter of fact this book is instructions on how to respect other cultures, languages, races, religions, etc.

This whole thing was just a bunch of crap and it ended up probably costing a lot of money getting it resolved. This book is probably used in other colleges and universities without ending up in national news. The student should not have been disrespectful to the professor and by all means should not have threatened him either verbally or with gestures.