I know that students fear doubting because the University threatens to take away their diploma and alter their entire future based on their agreement to the honor code.
This weekend, I pled (past tense of “plead”) the case of the BYU-I student who, for one reason or another, realizes the church isn’t true to higher-ups of BYU-I.
At first, they claimed that no one there stopped believing without sinning. I’m not kidding. But after a while, they realized that there might be a /tiny/ number of kids who really honestly didn’t believe, rather than “just wanted to sin.”
After discussing the issue in detail, they admitted they had no course of action for people who didn’t want to be expelled, but honestly had lost faith.
This is the recommended course of action:
- Go to your Faculty Advisor. He/She should be your advocate to get you as much as you’ve earned out of the university. He/She will have a list of universities you can easily transfer to.
- Another option is to exit the university, and come back in as a different religion. They are discussing making this a painless process. Your tuition will not be supplemented by tithing dollars so prepare for the increase.
- If you fear your faculty advisor (say that you are not willing to submit to them, because he/she is harsh), contact Dr. Lines in the physics department. He will act as your advocate.
I think this is a big step, and I think it would be helpful to illustrate how big of a problem this is, to have everyone who is considering contacting an advisor over this issue to at least contact Dr. Lines, and let him know that you might be part of this sub-group of non-sinning, but still questioning students.
Helping them know the sheer size of the individuals may even get a dedicated counselor helping people in transition.
Best wishes… it’s the best I could do.
-Mithryn
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