Students seek own religious ideas
(Editor's note: This is the first of two articles on religion at the University of Kansas. The second will appear in the Thursday Kansan.)
By CASS SEXSON
Kansan Staff Writer
On one wall of the apartment, a poster proclaimed the death of God. A smaller poster showed the Pope pointing an accusing finger and bore the caption "The Pill is a No-No."
Across the room, a fake wanted poster offered $5,000 for the capture, dead or alive, of Jesus Christ—revolutionary and anarchist.
In the corner was a Christmas tree festooned with tinsel and twinkling lights.
Incongruous? Not really, said the inhabitants of the apartment, all KU students.
"I'm religious," said one. "I believe in people; I believe in love; I believe in the free and loving spirit of Christmas. Who says I have to believe in God?"
His reaction was typical of many members of the college-age sector of America which is turning away from the traditional trappings of organized religion. Religion is dying, they say. It's no longer the paragon of social institutions in American society. It's irrelevant, meaningless.
Attempts by churches to be relevant to young people have met with limited success. Folk masses and services put the liturgy in modern language and accompany it with music that reflects the beliefs of the young
—"Come on, people, now, smile on your brother. Everybody get together—try to love on another . . ."
But the new approach, according to many students, is but a device to encourage church attendance. Like most innovations, the "new language" of the church attracts attention for a time and then fades into the commonplace.
"It's effective for awhile," said one coed. "But the church remains the same. A major overhaul is needed, not a face-lifting"
Boeing chief here
Richard Holloway, chief of the aerodynamics and propulsion staff at Boeing Aircraft Corporation in Wichita, will speak at a meeting of the student chapter of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (A.I.A.A.). The meeting will be at 8 p.m. Wednesday in 200 Learned Hall.
Suny prof to talk
To celebrate the Ghandi Centennial, the India Club and the department of political science are sponsoring a talk by Amyia Chakrazarty at 7:30 p.m. Friday in the Kansas Union Forum Room.
Chakrazarty has been a visiting professor at KU and is currently at the State University of New York.
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The questions students pose for religious authorities to answer are of a far deeper nature. Is there a universal right or wrong? How do you re-define God to fit into modern society? How do you substantiate abstract concepts of heaven and hell in a computerized, empirical world?
"There are more important questions to be argued than whether or not to eat fish on Friday and if birth control is immoral," said one student.
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The reformations that are occurring in many religious bodies are inadequate and too late in coming, said several students.
A major criticism of church reformation was the preoccupation with superficial questions.
Some students have rejected all concepts of religion. Others have attempted to formulate their own theories in explanation of God, usually in equally abstract terms, such as "the universal energy," "the correlation between man and universal order" and "the total conscience-ness."
Other students, who classified themselves as religious within the tenents of a church, said that empirical proof of a God was not necessary to their faith in a God.
Admitting that he couldn't explain his theory in a way that would convince anyone else, one student defended his concept by saying, "Maybe it doesn't convince you, but it makes more sense to me than the idea of some old man with a white beard sitting on a cloud."
Another student said that God could be thought of as a three-letter word symbolizing a complex ideal of ethical behavior and moral code.
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"Those who pray to God and conjure up a picture of a gigantic being are caught up in their Baltimore Catechism Number One," she said.
In many Eastern religions, the attempt to define a concept of God is not a problem. In the practice of Buddhism, for example, there is no deity worship, but a practice of denial and moral evaluation.
"Call Him whatever you like," said one. "The fact remains that there is 'something' binding man, nature and the universe together. If I call it 'God' and somebody else calls it 'total consciousness', there's no proof he's right and I'm wrong. Maybe we're talking about the same thing."
"There is no heaven; there is no hell," said one cood fingering a strand of love beads. "And if there were, there would be more hypocrites than hippies there."
A number of students said the emphasis of Western religion should be on personal self-improvement rather than on honoring a nebulous God under the threat of heaven or hell.
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"There's nothing wrong with having a code to live by," said one "Most children get their initial sense of ethics through some form of religion. Those who don't accept any religious body had better give some thought to what they want their children to believe."
Students who said they attended church regularly gave a number of reasons for their attendance. Several said religion
gave them something upon which to base their values.
One student said that those who say religion doesn't offer them anything are offering an excuse. "They would rather cop out than live the kind of life that an organized religion requires. They espouse the same basic philosophy of life organized religion does, only they would rather say it than live it."
Other students said that their religion helped them adjust to the eventuality of death.
Facing eventual death after rejecting the possibility of an afterlife does not seem to bother some students, but others had hypothesized a belief in some idea of "living on."
"That's the only thing that
secares me," said one student. "You can't very well accept the concept of heaven if you don't accept hell, but nobody really likes to think of themselves as a candle that's going to be snuffed someday."
Many students expressed the opinion that a type of ethical ideal was necessary in modern society, but that organized religion didn't serve the purpose. What was more important, they
said, was the application of love as the universal religion.
"Bassically, there's little difference in the ideal of every major religion," said one student. "They're all saying 'live your life as a good person.' What's the difference if you believe in God, Allah or Frank Zappa—as long as you behave as a human being toward other human beings?"
Tomorrow: Men of the cloth
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