In Feb. 24's article entitled "Courses threaten students' faiths," it is stated that "most come to the University expecting to get an education that does not include a threat to their religious faiths or beliefs," and that is what some students find, especially Christians, who enroll in religious studies courses. Well, if someone has come to the University to learn knowledge and truth, and I think almost all of us have, then this threat is exactly what you should find.

When something is examined closely and scholarly, as should happen in the classroom, the truth usually, or at least hopefully comes out. It sounds like this is what happened in the religious studies classes where Christianity is torn apart.

I have not taken such a course at Penn State, but I'm sure the idea is to present different ideas from different cultures about the existence of all kinds of higher forces, afterlife, and so on. I also assume that the courses then assess, but don't judge, the effect these religions have on the mind set of the people and the culture, not judging them, against any preconceived notions or morals, but examining them objectively, in the way an alien with no concept of religion or morality might study it.

Well disgruntled Christians, you've found such an alien -- me. Looking at all of the religions of the world objectively, as they do in these courses, I can call them all idiotic, enslaving, and for the weak, but instead, for the sake of argument, for the sake of making a study out of it, I can take the position of an isolated student of religion like a professor might, and just tell you why Christianity sucks.

Perhpas you've forgotten about slave morality or ideology to justify the oppression, so let me refresh your memory. Christians are told it's OK to be oppressed, downtrodden, and generally eaten by the lions because God decided that their place in society was to be a mindless serf with no free will, who shouldn't try to change anything because God decided that you should be beaten to death by the slavemaster at age 16, so just put up with all this and then you'll be rewarded in the afterlife. Jesus tells you not to stand up for yourself or for your people, just love the factory owner who canceled your Christmas bonus so he could make a downpayment on his new mansion. They then tell you that, since you don't have any pleasure in your life, pleasure is bad, and evil, and you don't want any anyway.

As for a student complaining that "the material was not ... taught the way it is presented in the Bible," perhaps it is because the New Testament is a bunch of lies, much of which was written by people who never even met the little bastard. When the professors tell you this, they're telling you the facts, or would you rather they not teach objectively, changing things around or telling you just what you want to hear, like how Soviet students were taught that there are two kinds of humans, homo sapiens and homo sovietus. I suppose you'd like them to teach that there are two kinds of people, homo christians and homo hellbounds.

The intelligent, respectable professors of this University aren't going to lower themselves down to you, so get used to it. One hundred and some years ago Darwin shattered your whole religion, but powerful officials weren't going to have to take their power over the Christian masses away, so they changed things around. This has happened time and time again. I guess God was just kidding when he said psychological disorders were causes by possession by evil spirits and that women are the root of all evil.

By the way, I was raised a Roman Catholic and was an officially confirmed member of the church, so don't think I don't know or understand the religion. Anyway, if you want the facts and the truth, come to a university. If you want your little reality, get out of here and get into the coliseum.