The inflammatory comments write themselves

The Times has a piece about the increasing religiosity of American university students.

My initial reaction is: "Ugh." Not because of the subject matter, but because it seems every few weeks someone trots out a new survey about what kids these days are up to and, generally, it's from a ridiculously small sample set. It's absurd to draw conclusions about an entire generation from a survey of a couple thousand people. For this they surveyed over 112,000 college freshmen, which is another problem: freshmen, by and large, have a very different view of the world than someone three or four years their senior.

Then there's this, which...uh, I'll just let you imagine my response:

Peter J. Gomes has been at Harvard University for 37 years, and says he remembers when religious people on campus felt under siege. To be seen as religious often meant being dismissed as not very bright, he said.

Heh.

Anyway, this is one of my favorite paragraphs:

University officials explained the surge of interest in religion as partly a result of the rise of the religious right in politics, which they said has made questions of faith more talked about generally. In addition, they said, the attacks of Sept. 11 underscored for many the influence of religion on world affairs. And an influx of evangelical students at secular universities, along with an increasing number of international students, means students arrive with a broader array of religious experiences.

...yes, I certainly want a piece of the religiosity that drove a dozen whack-jobs to murder a few thousand people in the name of God. Wait, what? Yes, for a lot of Americans, those attacks did reveal that there are some non-Christian religious crazies out there (I draw the distinction solely because America is no stranger to Christian fanatics), and that...makes people go to church more? Okay, if you say so.

Anyway, it's an interesting read. I'm particularly fond of the viewpoint that several quoted people express, that students are fairly universally yearning for the "certainty" that comes from organized religion. I also like the way it focuses almost exclusively on Christianity, because everyone knows that that's what real people are...