Hey, Liberty University Students… May 15, 2010

Hey, Liberty University Students…

By Guest Contributor
May 15, 2010

I know you’re excited about being done with school and Glenn Beck speaking at your graduation and all…

But you should really double-check the spelling on the top of that graduation cap…

Especially before you put the picture up on the school’s website.

Hilarious.

(via Kevin)

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  • Yaeger

    45 minutes of prayer followed by 15 minutes of techno music is considered a “rave”?

  • Yeonghoon Joung

    fail to the most divine degree – I mean surely one would think that amazing Christian magic makes them somewhat smarter than all of us, after all they are blessed by the almighty cosmic nanny right?

  • Nakia

    Maybe they took Creationist Grammar classes, where they debunked the theory of spelling.

  • John

    Please tell me that their “degrees” are NOT RECOGNIZED as having ANY educational merit? I mean, Liberty “University” (and I use the term LOOSELY here!) is NOT “accredited” at the same level REAL university’s are, right?

  • Brian C Posey

    I loved the description of the finals week rave:

    The event drew several hundred students and involved a session of prayer for about 45 minutes, followed by 15 minutes of students jumping to techno music while wearing crazy colorful costumes.

    I guess they would have to pray for 45 minutes to undo the sin of dancing.

  • Erp

    Actually it is accredited. Note that some degrees such as in music it might have a reasonably good program. Just don’t trust it on history, astronomy, biology, etc..

    I will note that the president of its seminary, Ergun Caner, is being internally investigated as having lied about his history. The unraveling is most fascinating.

  • That’s absurd. They should revoke that person’s diploma immediately.

    And I believe Liberty is accredited.

  • S.

    It’s entirely possible they are being ironic, like any university student could be.

    I mean, the tick would indicates the ‘finishing college’ and but the misspelling points fun at it not achieving the intended goal.

    It’s this kind of petty bitchiness that keeps me out of ‘organised atheism’. It’s just childish.

  • This could easily be a deliberate joke on the part of the student. Moreover, not catching a typo in a picture doesn’t say anything substantive about Liberty. I’ve seen perfectly respectable universities have directly bad typos in text, not just pictures. There’s so much to call Liberty out on, having a blog entry on this distracts from all the many substantive problems.

  • Steve M

    I seriously doubt it was intentional. If it was, I would expect it to be more obvious, like maybe “colluj” or “coledge”, wouldn’t you?

    At any rate, not defending Liberty and their ridiculous ideas about what constitutes education but this student developed their poor spelling abilities in grade school and junior high, long before they made it to college.

  • Maybe the student made an error, or maybe this is how atheists get accused of not having a sense of humor.

    Liberty University or not, I’d give the benefit of the doubt to the graduate.

  • Epistaxis

    Maybe the student was playing a joke, but of all the photos they could put on the website… I don’t know which is more likely: that the web designer didn’t notice the error, or that it never occurred to them Liberty U is more likely than most to be the butt of a joke.

  • muggle

    Man, that’s bad — even if it was a joke.

    S., what organized Atheism? It ain’t no freaking church.

  • Friendly atheist?

    I decided not to post about the firing of the local drawcard to the global atheist convention, for hoping that an 11 year old “get laid” on my blog. I thought it was too petty. After this I’m reconsidering…

  • Anyone who thinks this story is unfriendly or “petty bitchiness” needs to firmly grasp the stick up their ass with both hands and pull with all their might to extract it.

    Seriously. Sense of humor: get one.

  • JD

    The fact there is any dancing at all suggests that Christianity has actually lightened up a bit in the last 50 years. 50 years ago, even the mainstream Christians thought of dancing as a path to sin.

    I think the cap is a student being ironic. Another concept that might have been considered sinful if you asked a Christian several decades ago.

    S., You’re right, but if you looked, I think you’ll find that every belief (or unbelief) system has people that are doing petty bitching. However, I think this case it is mocking, not bitching.

  • mb

    Liberty “University” is in the process of investigating their President, Ergun Caner, because it appears likely that he has been lying about his life story. He claims to be a x-tian convert from RADICAL islam. Evidence is to the contrary.

    http://www.aomin.org/aoblog/index.php?itemid=3911

  • Carlie

    I showed the Liberty webpage this screencap is from to my 12 year old – he noticed the misspelling in less than 2 seconds. And then said “I would not ever go there.”

  • littlejohn

    The missing “L” is actually there – it has been flipped and turned into a checkmark.
    I suspect this student can spell just fine, and this is just a joke.

  • liz

    does anyone else think that they should have had the student quote corresponding with the picture? Then we would KNOW if it was a joke or not instead of just having to guess if the student is stupid or humorous.

  • Dale

    Since the page itself is entirely serious I highly doubt the misspelling is a joke. This would not surprise me at all considering the soource.

  • Erp

    @mb it is the president of their seminary that they are investigating. The head of the whole university is Jerry Falwell, Jr. who has the title of Chancellor.

    What is most troubling is he has taught classes and written books on Islam when he apparently knows little about it and people have accepted it because he was supposedly a devout Muslim (it does seem he was a nominal Muslim at least until his parents divorced when he was in elementary school).

  • BH

    It’s hilarious to note that the website has now changed that particular picture. That makes me even more inclined to say it wasn’t intentional.
    But whether it was or wasn’t, I agree with Steve M. Spelling (at least the word “college”) is something that is taught at a younger age, so you can’t blame Liberty. It’s just a coincidence, an entertaining, ironic coincidence.

  • ajd

    We all make mistakes in spelling at some point, and spell check does not have every word in it, or someone clicks on the wrong word once in a while.

    Also you can look on the web and find a sight where they show you that you do not have to us the correct seplilng so long as you have all the right letters for a word, just have to have the first and last letters right. Its one of those brain things they can’t explain.

  • DrH

    As a faculty member at a fairly prestigious school, let me just say that degrees from places like this do not stack up the same way that a degree from a “regular” university does. For example, when we consider applicants for our Master of Arts in Teaching program, applicants are unlikely to get in if all of their academics are things like “History of the Bible,” and “The Science of Creation.” We know that given that type of undergrad education, they just don’t have the necessary academic background to teach. They would have to have some other really outstanding stuff on their application for us to even consider them. So, while the university may be accredited, I would venture to say that their options for graduate schools will be limited.

  • Dan

    It’s outstanding…

    Even if the misspelling was intentional, how did the webmaster not notice?

    Or if the web master did notice, why put the image up anyway, without some sort of explanation about the misspelling?

    No matter which way you look at it, someone, or everyone messed up bad.

    UPDATE: They’ve since changed the images on that page, which means someone caught the problem and removed it, or it’s updated automatically.

  • bukithd

    this is pretty funny. I’m from lynchburg where liberty is at. A few years ago richard dawkins did a lecture at another schol near liberty and pretty much trounced it.

  • Nick

    I gotta give Liberty credit for having a bit of a sense of humor at commencement. I graduated from a conservative bible college and they were very clear about their dislike for anything that showed your individuality (cap decorating, silly string fight, etc).
    Also, as silly as the 45/15 rave… never would have happened at my school.

  • jim

    I think it is time to do away with the “a” word. It is negative and was invented by the mentally disadvantaged. I suggest “Open Minded” to call those who without blocking themselves into prefab, limiting mental structures are open to new ideas (spiritual and otherwise) enjoying the unfolding of a gigantic and fascinating universe with its forces and secrets presented to their developing understanding.

  • Cliff

    Jim is correct… the A word has too many negative connotations and isn’t useful except to promote mouth-foaming reactions from Christians. There are a lot of things I *don’t* believe in (ranging from Astrology to Santa Claus) — it’s not sensible to define yourself by the things you don’t believe in.

    If I have to label my belief system, I call myself either a Scientific Humanist or a Rationalist, because I do “believe” in the scientific method and rational thought.

  • Andy

    Speaking of evangelical scandals and Liberty University in the same breath, readers can Google “Appendix F: Thou Shalt Not Steal” (line-by-line proof that THE Jerry Falwell’s 1981 “Fundamentalist Phenomenon” book was a huge plagiarism of George Dollar’s 1973 “History of Fundamentalism in America”!). Also Google “Thomas Ice (Bloopers).” Ice is a prof at LU whose “Ph.D” was “obtained” from a tiny Texas school that was fined by the state of Texas for illegally issuing degrees! When “Dr.” Ice reproduced in 1989 Margaret Macdonald’s short “pre-tribulation rapture” revelation of 1830 (Margaret originated this 180-year-old escapist endtime view which had made millionaires of Lindsey, LaHaye etc.!), he somehow left out 49 words when copying it – the same 49 words LaHaye left out in the same sections when a book of his reproduced it three years later! (LaHaye has been one of LU’s biggest donors.) Ice, BTW, also had the same distinctive copying errors Lindsey had when he had reproduced MM’s revelation in his 1983 book! Since Liberty University is one of the top promoters of the same fringe-British-originated pretrib rapture fantasy, interested readers can also Google “Famous Rapture Watchers,” “Pretrib Rapture Diehards,” “Pretrib Rapture Secrecy,” “Letter from Mrs. Billy Graham,” and “Pretrib Rapture Dishonesty” (documented plagiarism and other dishonesty since 1830 by some of the best known names in evangelicalism) – all uncovered by the author of the bestselling book “The Rapture Plot.” (Evangelicals should take some tranquilizers before reading the above!)

    [Discovered the above web bit – Andy]

  • Kim

    I think the spelling was a joke. And as for LU’s accredidation, they are just as accreditted as any public or well-known private university. Just because you don’t believe what someone else believes doesn’t mean you have to be rude or make fun of them. If I’m intolerant towards your lack of religion and you’re intolerant towards my religion, at the end of the day, we’re BOTH ignorant and intolerant….except, I forgot, I don’t make fun of you.

  • Dino V

    Damn, an entire hour of bullshit… I’m glad I turned down their scholarship lol…

  • OM

    As a faculty member at a “fairly” prestigious school (whatever that means), you should have an accurate idea of the actual curriculum taught by Liberty before making such a statement that their classes “don’t stack up to that of a regular university”.  Classes are much more diverse at that university than you give them credit for.  The classes are very much the same as other universities with the exception that they integrate a biblical worldview.  Yes, I’m a Liberty graduate student and my undergrad degree is from a private university in the South.      

  • OM

    As a faculty member at a “fairly” prestigious school (whatever that means), you should have an accurate idea of the actual curriculum taught by Liberty before making such a statement that their classes “don’t stack up to that of a regular university”.  Classes are much more diverse at that university than you give them credit for.  The classes are very much the same as other universities with the exception that they integrate a biblical worldview.  Yes, I’m a Liberty graduate student and my undergrad degree is from a private university in the South.      

  • Guest

    Amen!  That Dr. H. up there doesn’t know what he’s talking about.  I have an MBA from Liberty and it is more substantive and rigorous than many MBA programs from state schools.  Our local state school has a 30 credit hour MBA program while Liberty’s is 45 credit hours.  The bible is a “text” of sorts in every class, which I found refreshing.  But, they did not teach the bible (except in the seminary) in my business classes…they merely taught business from a Christian perspective with a hefty focus on ethics. I’ve found that my Liberty MBA “stacks up” better than an MBA from many “regular” universities.  I’d be curious to know where he got his Ph.D. from?