#i'm being slightly facetious here but the quotes are real

[ihavedonenothingright]

I had a history class a few years ago with a man who (in addition to spending his senior year trying to bang the freshmen) liked to remind everyone once in a while of how moral and Christ-like he was. This was, in part, an attempt to negate the many title XIs he had against him. A few times this led to quoting scripture, and more importantly, quoting it poorly.

We were on day four or so of a discussion about the transatlantic slave trade and revolts against slavery. Our readings for that day had specifically been on the Baptist War. I'm specifying this because midway through class, this man raised his hand and asked our professor, "Was the Bible around at this time?"

Four days into a discussion of slavery. The same day readings on the Baptist War were due. We stared, he stared back, and finally the professor said, "Yes?"

This man responded, in the same intonation as a Redditor saying "Checkmate, atheist!" with "Well, the first commandment says to 'Treat others how you want to be treated,' so why did they think slavery was okay???"

Three hands immediately went up. The class spent the next five minutes explaining to this man every single way the Bible had been used to uphold and justify slavery, all the way up to modern Mormonism, and he just sat there, looking smug and self-satisfied. In the chaos that ensued, we all forgot to tell him that he'd gotten the first commandment wrong.

There were a few similar instances (he accidentally declared that the two genders were nonbinary and lesbian). Worth noting that at the time he said this, myself and another classmate were actively pursuing title XIs against him for harassment. Convinced of his superior morality, we were not.

When I was getting my associates degree I took a Mythology class that I loved. But one of the girls in class was absolutely off the rails conservative Christian which made things… interesting.

The professor started off the class by being like, “Mythology is stories associated with religion.”

This girl. Haaaated that. She was like, “No, Christianity is true. It’s not mythology.” Mythology was delivered in the same tone as someone trying to spit excrement from their mouth.

The professor raised her eyebrows and said laconically, “Yes, most people believe their religion is the real one, that’s part of it, and the stories surrounding religion are referred to as mythology.”

The girl stewed in a hateful sullen rage. I truly don’t understand why she didn’t drop the class but perhaps it was court mandated education. We all expected her to drop the class but she dug in like a tick and derailed discussions as often as she could.

On a different occasion the professor was drawing a comparison between social constructs like gender. The girl raised her hand. The class hushed to hear her announce, “It’s just a fact that women like domestic work and even though men are awful and stinky we just have to love them anyway. It’s biology, we’re just hardwired like that.”

I was sitting next to my friend a baby gay Jewish girl and our eyes met in mutual hilarity while the professor tried to pretend she hadn’t just been stricken with a stress induced migraine while she steered the class away from that landmine.

The next sticking point was a week later when the professor informed us that many mythologies have overlapping events like floods but these didn’t necessarily happen in such literal terms. It was a metaphorical way to process and understand the world.

This girls hand shot up. I watched the professor exercise extreme self control to keep her expression bland before calling on her.

“The world did flood. And Noah saved all the animals. Before the flood all the water was in a dome outside the earth and then the dome broke and the world flooded. All of it.”

The whole class stared at her as if struggling to comprehend the overlap of her acceptance that the world was round while also firmly believing that there had previously been a barrier that held up all of the earths water before god smashed it in a fit of pique.

She raged under the attention, glaring balefully at our astonished faces.

The professor stared at her blankly, unable to form words to such a bizarre belief. I wanted to ask clarifying questions- what they’d drunk before the dome broke, if there were rivers or lakes prior, or did the dome allow some rain in somehow, but then I really looked at her.

She had the eyes of a feral, cornered animal who regarded any deviation in worldview from her own to be a physical assault on her person. Like the professor, I said nothing, and after a wretchedly long pause class moved on.