Although I attend a conservative Christian private college, and so the sexual realm is much more... toned down (I am tempted to say repressed), I had a similar complaint when my university had a "Relationships" theme week for chapels. While maybe beneficial for freshmen who are still a bit socially inept, I found it to be overstepping boundaries into a type of parenting role. There have been a number of things happen at my school that have made me think that the role of the university should avoid being overly didactic in its functions, since the point of being in college is to mature and become a self-motivated, self-disciplined adult who forms discretion and wisdom in their own life sphere. Sometimes the "programs" offered by colleges can unnecessarily coddle students and encourage them to remain in their immaturity and rely on an institution for personal guidance?

I was particularly struck by the line, when John Goodman was asked, "how much do you think that crucifix cost?", and he replies, "in dollars or common sense?"

The opposition of faith to common sense seems to be a dominant conception of religion today, that faith is by necessity unreasonable and therefore less reliable, while a more robust attachment to an abstract notion of "common sense" is what should be our guide. I like the above conversation about science v. scientism, because I think it interesting to understand all tools/guides for our understanding of reality as a type of interpretation--there is no such thing as a detached reason that can give us an impartial view of reality, but all approaches have assumptions--all frameworks for understanding the world are, essentially, bound by our perceptions, even an appeal to "common sense." (I am harkening to the intellectual work of the likes of Immanuel Kant, Karl Barth, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer, for any interested).

Evangelicalism has its roots in late 18th century Britain, where it was associated with a revival of moral piety, the teachings of Calvinism, and a focus on synthesizing personal belief with social justice. Evangelicals, for instance, are generally considered the progenitors of the abolition of the British slave trade (famous Evangelicals, also with roots in American Puritanism, include Jonathan Edwards and William Wilberforce).

In the early 1900s, evangelicalism began to gather negative connotations as movements such as Pentacostalism and Fundamentalism grew across the US. Indeed, the stereotypes of Bible-thumping hell-fire preachers who would rather see you tortured than to continue in your 'sinfulness' remains today.

It is fascinating thinking about how people today have the ability like never before to immerse themselves within the growing technology of video-audio stimulation/entertainment... it is interesting that both the Matrix and Inception represent not just fantasy, but a kind of cyber-fantasy that has grown with changes in internet technology and psychology.

A thinker named Jean Beaudrillard talks about the "simulacrum," which for him is the situation of contemporary popular society--fictions on top of fiction on top of fictions, simulations on top of simulations, etc. At a certain point people do not have access to the "real" or "natural," but Baudrillard says that at this point people develop nostalgia--hence, perhaps, engaging in fictional cyber-relationships. It is a cheap imitation of intimacy, but it is all that people trapped in that world are capable of.

Baudrillard may be a little over-baked to make a sweeping claim about all of reality, but perhaps his thoughts come in handy when analyzing things like video-games and the cyber-world (Baudrillard, The Procession of Simulacra)?

Good point about replication not being useless. I tend to become cynical about, for instance, audio tour guides that re-enact how a day in a palace used to run. I still, however, find it intriguing that so much effort and resources into preserving things for the sake of profiting off of tourism. In a place with such history as England this has become especially poignant (most buildings there are older than the US!). The question of how the purpose of structures have changed over time is raised, and we must ask why we find it so important that old structures have the purpose of preservation? Could there be something more useful? For instance, should a thousand year old cathedral be raising and spending the millions it takes to preserve itself, or fulfill the spiritual purpose of caring for the sick and the poor?

In political discourse, especially surrounding elections, a key distinction in argumentation relates: that between 'discrediting' and 'disproving'. Too often candidates and voters seek to credit and discredit a politician's arguments based on their religious or otherwise backgrounds, rather than to attend to the arguments set forth. However, I don't think background can be completely neglected... is there a way to keep it in conversation without allowing it to be a dismissive way to squash the competition?

Also, Joshua, an interesting quote from Soren Kierkegaard says that (summary) we think that unbelief comes from doubt, but that it actually stems from rebelliousness. How we orient ourselves toward God/Jesus/religion says more about the state of our willingness to submit and serve and obey, than about our conscious beliefs. The tricky thing about voting seems to be that it is often enacted from passion and rhetoric rather than wisdom.

It seems that philosophy can meet the road in the branch of ethics. Sadly, in many US forms of authority--dialogue in churches, local and federal governments--there seems to be little to no interest in ethics. Perhaps this stems from the American trend toward anti-intellectualism (at the risk of generalizing). In a philosophy of religion class we began the class with a distinction between practical philosophy and theoretical philosophy. In the West we have tended toward the later--however, to the ancients (Stoic philosophers and the like), theoretical philosophy was only useful insofar as it lent to the practice of day to day wisdom--practical philosophy. In America especially, people should fight for a view of philosophy that informs day to day decisions of governance, foreign policy and lifestyle by seeing its direct connection to ethics.