Essentially, the Christians at Prior Lake do not take Christianity seriously. If the Christians were really Christians, there would have been a bloody cleansing of blasphemy throughout the school by now. If not this, the Christians would be preaching in every classroom and pod, baptisms in the bathrooms, and communions at lunch.
Okay, okay. Maybe I'm being a little sarcastic, but one would expect a school with nearly half of its 2000 students calling themselves Christians to have a more significant presence of religious thought and action.
Instead, there is really none of this. Occasional references to "My man Jesus," "Heaven," "Hell," "Bible," and other keywords are sometimes heard. Even among the groups of kids who are all Christians, the topic never comes up. Judging by their actions, one would never guess that these are religious people. You hear them talking about hot girls/guys, drinking, masturbation, profanity, drug use, and generally "immoral" behavior just as much as the agnostic and/or atheist students.
And it's not like the faculty is surpressing religion. Half the teachers are Christians themselves; those who aren't are very careful to never bring up the topic of religion. If they do, they are even more careful to maintain their neutrality on the subject. The population whose kids are sent to the school is predominantly Christian as well.
There's not prostitution or gang wars or public vivisections (when you cut a person up into little bits) or burning of Bibles or anything blatantly against the Christian religion in Prior Lake. It's just that there isn't really anything Christian about it, either. The half-assed Christianity of their parents becomes the half-assed Christianity of the students.
This is a strange balance. Devout Christians would be pleased to see the presence of religious belief in the area, but would be disgusted to see the indifference of it. Strong atheists would be pleased to see the lack of religious fanaticism, but would be disgusted to see widespread belief in Christianity. So a weird, uncommitted "truce", if you will, is established.
I would love to see whether or not this is common in the United States and the world, or if it is just some odd anomaly.
Agnostics, not atheists, are the other end of the common spectrum at the school. During my interviews I often hear kids say, "There might be some force out there, and there might not be. Who knows?" These people do quite a bit of thinking before they make a statement like this, they usually have a lot to say about their religious beliefs. It's odd that the ones with little to no belief have more to say and have done more thinking than the ones who have belief. You'd think it would be the other way around.
Once again, I would love to see whether this is just something about Prior Lake High School or if this is common to hear.
My opinion? I'd say that the strong majority of the people at PLHS were raised in somewhere between a slightly religious to a moderately religious household. The parents's beliefs are passed to the kid and she adopts them as her own. However, if a kid is raised in an agnostic household, they won't really be taught to "sit on the fence." The parents would probably never really bring it up if they had no opinion about religion. But those who do believe in gods will certainly pass their beliefs onto their children. So the standard is to be somewhat religious, since most of the people in the Prior Lake-Savage school district are religious. Unless you deliberately question and mull over your parents's beliefs, you will accept them as your own. So the critical thinkers are usually the ones who become the agnostics, and the more receptive children are usually the ones who live as (alleged) Christians.
I will certainly be looking into this some more.
I agree, it does seem that in general the humans who think, and wonder, and question their beliefs and really take the time to wonder, are the ones who find themselves following along the agnostic thought line. In fact, it is my opinion that the VAST majority of people who label themselves are Christians or Jews or Scientologists or Whatever, have never truly questioned their beliefs. They Fear the questions. Because in the back of their minds they know if they question their believes they may actually start to think their religion is wrong. And then the people whose opinion they respect and care so much about, will be changed. So from what i can see, save a small minority, most 'Christians' at Prior Lake are only that way because they are afraid of what the other 'Christians' will think of them.
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