In your Feb. 24 paper you ran an article informing the public how several students within the campus' Christian population are up in arms over particular courses offered within Penn State's religious studies curriculum. These students, you reported, feel that these courses are hell-bent on destroying their individual faiths by attacking them at their very foundations, i.e., the New Testament, interpreted as the word of God, and belief in the divinity of Jesus Christ as Lord.

Well, rest assured, Christians, these heathen professors do not have their hearts set on disassembling each and every one of your faiths, on leading the lot of you, your flock, astray, on diverting you away from the paths you have chosen. Believe me, they have much better things to do than brainwash their students into abandoning the institution, a religious tradition which has lasted for 2,000 years.

I should know; this semester I am enrolled in Religious Studies 4 -- Jewish and Christian Foundations, with Dr. Gary Knoppers. Knoppers' purpose in teaching the course is to present to the students who enroll in it an -- and this is the key word here -- objective history of both Jewish and Christian traditions. Knoppers does not try to convert anybody to either religion, nor does he try to mock anyone's beliefs. In fact, his personal beliefs are never once mentioned in his lectures. His course is geared toward offering an objective education in the history of both religions to any student who so desires one.

An objective education in the religious studies is important in order not to offend any students attending the course who may happen to have contrasting religious beliefs. It is important for both the instructors and the students to keep an open mind. The college classroom is not meant to be a Sunday pulpit from which red-faced, loud-mouthed ministers preach one-dimensional, hell-fire-and-brimstone sermons to kneeling, repenting, God-fearing congregations; it is meant to be exactly what it is: a classroom, where people learn ... nothing more. The kind of "religious studies" these students who cry "heresy" seek belongs in a Sunday School, or from within one of those religious-education groups that many churches offer to the public.

The reaction of these students to the subject matter of these courses was way out of line; it displays the exact same type of anti-intellectualism so exhibited by the Penn State Young Americans for Freedom when they openly and verbally attacked Professor Robert O'Connor last November in a poor excuse for a response to a comment O'Connor made concerning Rush Limbaugh. Again, I had the opportunity to attend such a controversial class. O'Connor merely used Limbaugh as an example of how some individuals in the media can twist the truth in order to better express their political beliefs; he made little, if in fact any, derogatory remarks about Limbaugh. In fact, he even stated openly before the class that he did not totally disagree with all of Limbaugh's views.

The situations are the same. The so-called "YAFers" saw what was one minor, almost insignificant aspect of an objective lecture on the part of a Penn State professor, an educator, as a direct infringement on their constitutional right to free speech, and countered by attempting to revoke the same right of whom they view as a traitor. The same is true with these Christians; they view anyone who attempts to provide an individual or group of individuals with an opinion contrasting their own as a heretic, one who must be punished, silenced. Everybody is right, unless they can think for themselves.

This closed-mindedness on the part of these students is unhealthy and outright disrespectful for the right to free speech of both the professors who offer these courses, and for the students enrolled in these courses. People should have and do have a guaranteed right to not be made public spectacles of by these anti-intellectual cliques for expressing their constitutional freedoms of speech and religion. God forbid an American citizen should choose to think differently, hold beliefs contrasting to other members of our society.

Besides that, drawing public attention to such reactions only makes these people look ridiculous, unintelligent in the public eye, thereby tarnishing the role of self-proclaimed protectors of freedom, liberty and morality they perceive themselves as holding by divine right.

Such unfounded conservativism further expresses the dire need for classes expounding culturally diverse beliefs, advocating open-minded free thought among students in the Penn State curriculum. If these students are going to feel so offended by courses in the school's curriculum, they don't have to enroll in them.