College Chaplain

Mark Hamill wrote: »

I am saying its very nature precludes some people, so secular alternatives are more preferable.

STD/STi clinics precludes some people. Secular counsellors precludes people looking for advice on faith related issues etc. The Erasmus students office precludes some people. The Post Grads room precludes some people. The Engineering lab precludes some people... and so on.....

Mark Hamill wrote: »

Firstly that several students specifically sought out the chaplaincy over other services and they felt helped after it all does not necessarily mean that the students where helped in any meaningful way.

So now you are going to decide how someone else is best helped. Going to a secular counsellor does not guarantee being helped in any meaningful way either tbh.

..and so it descends as I feared into the farcical.

Mickeroo wrote: »

This STI clinic comparison is ridiculous. It's not like someone is going to go to the chaplain after coming down with a bad case of catholicism because they didn't take the necessary precautions.

Is it? Why must all students contribute to providing a service which will be used by only some? The comparison only seems ridiculous in that the original claim that because not everyone will use a chaplain providing the service is not needed is ridiculous.

prinz wrote: »

STD/STi clinics precludes some people. Secular counsellors precludes people looking for advice on faith related issues etc. The Erasmus students office precludes some people. The Post Grads room precludes some people. The Engineering lab precludes some people... and so on......

STD clinics preclude people who dont have a need to use them (the only people not willing to go, are those without std issues). Secular counsellors dont preclude anyone, people with religious issues can be unbiasedly refered on to religious advisors. Erasmus office/postgrad rooms and engineering labs preclude those who cant be helped by them (erasmus office cant help a new undergrad very much). Your arguments are getting pathetic.

prinz wrote: »

So now you are going to decide how someone else is best helped.

Yes I am. Just like I will decide that someone sick in bed is not best helped by an exorcism, even if they want it.

prinz wrote: »

Going to a secular counsellor does not guarantee being helped in any meaningful way either tbh.

You have a much better chance than if go and have your religious ego massaged be a chaplain.

Mark Hamill wrote: »

Firstly that several students specifically sought out the chaplaincy over other services and they felt helped after it all does not necessarily mean that the students where helped in any meaningful way. Thousands of people every week specifically seek out homeopthic treatments, and at the end will feel better, doesn't mean they gotten anything more than an empty sugar pill. You cannot say that the students wouldn't have gotten a better class of help from a real counsellor instead of the emotional placebo the chaplain provides.

If a girl goes to the college counsellor with a series of problems and claims that speaking to the counsellor has helped her, how do we know if this is true or if she has just deluded herself into thinking she was helped? The only person who can say if someone was helped in a 'meaningful way' is the person themselves.

These are embarassing occasionally life threatening infections you're talking about. Wanting to go to confession is hardly in the same league imho.

For the record, I'm not against having the chaplain, I just find this particular comparison a bit ,well, silly.

They're similar in the sense that they are both specialised branches of the health service. You could argue that STI services could be lumped in with the regular GP service. By having a specialised STI service you are pandering to a specific group of people.

Mark Hamill wrote: »

Firstly thanks for this information.
Now, there are one or two issues with this reasoning.
Firstly that several students specifically sought out the chaplaincy over other services and they felt helped after it all does not necessarily mean that the students where helped in any meaningful way. Thousands of people every week specifically seek out homeopthic treatments, and at the end will feel better, doesn't mean they gotten anything more than an empty sugar pill. You cannot say that the students wouldn't have gotten a better class of help from a real counsellor instead of the emotional placebo the chaplain provides.

Although the details of the various cases dealt with by the chaplaincy that were brought to our attention (in several cases, the source was the students themselves rather than the chaplains) were of course confidential, we were aware that the chaplains had counselled several students each year who were on the point of dropping out, but after receiving moral and emotional support from the chaplains decided to finish their degrees. There was one case where one of the chaplains provided support to a student who decided for good personal reasons that the course being followed wasn't what the student wanted to do, but who was afraid of a hostile reaction from the student's parents. This student was therefore supported in leaving the college. But normally universities want students to complete their degrees, and if students who were reluctant (for whatever reason) to use the student counsellors but were willing to see the chaplains were helped, then from the college's point of view that's a good outcome.

Mark Hamill wrote: »

Secondly, its always nice to see colleges cost/benefit analysing services in terms of how much money they can make from the students continuing their study, as opposed to what is most efficient in terms of the students best interests.

University finance officers, especially in the current economic climate, are looking desperately for things to cut. Showing that the chaplaincy helped to reduce loss of fee income from students' dropping out and was, at the margin, cheaper than hiring an additional counsellor, was simply presenting things in the language that the finance officer understood.

Mark Hamill wrote: »

I guarantee you would get a distinctive student support service if you replace all your chaplains with strippers. They could be payed from the tips from the students, and what with the massive influx of students you would get, think of the money you could make!

Curiously, the students we consulted didn't ask the college to replace the chaplains with strippers, though perhaps Irish students would be less inhibited.

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

Certainly not, but my point is that it is naive to think that someone coming into a college and working voluteer without pay is still far from “free“ in any sense of the words. Facilitating such a person has resource drains of its own.

The main costs relate to buildings and accommodation. Some universities, like TCD and UCC, have dedicated churches or chapels (UCD at Belfield has both St Stephens and Our Lady Seat of Wisdom, as well as a Contemplation Room), and these have to be maintained. They can, of course, also be sources of revenue if they can be hired out (for example, for weddings and concerts), but they usually require ongoing maintenance and periodic repairs and redecoration. However, such chapels are often considered to be important architectural features of the university site, and hence would have to be maintained even if they were not used as chapels.

In addition, volunteer chaplains usually require office accommodation. Universities normally have a standard "space" charge (for notional rent, cleaning, services, energy costs, maintenance, security, etc.), which they use in costing research grants. If the annual space charge is €300 per square metre, then a 10 square metre office would be costed at €3,000 per year.

There will also be office costs such as telephone, computer services, printing and duplicating, publicity, and the cost of hosting social events, though some of these costs may be reduced through donations or sponsorship. Where all the chaplains are volunteers, it may be necessary to allow for the salary and other costs of an administrator or secretary, though I would not think that a full-timer would be needed (in practice, this role could be combined with the duties of one of the administrative staff in another student support service).

It's not possible to disaggregate the costs of the Chaplaincy service from the published financial statements of Irish universities, but to give some context, the most recent HEA Funding Statement for UCD that I have found on-line (for the year to 30 September 2008), shows total expenditure (excluding contract research costs) of €291 million. Of this, student services cost €6.7 million. In a note to the accounts, this is broken down into various sub-headings. The cost of the chaplaincy service is not shown separately, but the cost of health and counselling services is €1.2 million and the cost of sports facilities is €0.9 million.

prinz wrote: »

...and? You still haven't shown that most chaplains are paid by the universities. So really you only have an issue with those that are...or you have issues with chaplains in general. You seem to swing back and forth.

I have an issue with both, although I had been trying to keep the issue of university chaplains in general out of this discussion.

prinz wrote: »

It only seems that way to you tbh, because you are seeing everything through a prism of your own admitted biases.

Everyone here seems to be so shocked at the idea of having chaplaincies and claim that removing them would be so damaging to the students, and yet none of you have admitted that given the choice, a counsellor would be better than a chaplain.

prinz wrote: »

Why should I? Has it ever been presented as an either/or choice? Any examples of this, or are you going to persist with this pointless line of reasoning that one must be accomodated at the expense of the other?

Lets try it now, hypothetically, if there had to be a choice (for whatever reason) between having a chaplain and a counslellor, which would you choose?

prinz wrote: »

(a) their need is questionable..to you. It's not questionable to many others

Their need is questionable because its a want not a need. People dont need religious chaplains any more than they need strippers, its an desire born of irrational thinking, and a university should be no more funding them that they should homeopaths.

prinz wrote: »

, and (b) of course the service is not secular, but you have yet to demonstrate how the facilitation of a chaplaincy service affects the secular spirit of an institution.

If the service is not secular, then the institution supplying it cannot be secular.

prinz wrote: »

So how exactly do chaplains preclude people who are willing to go/need their services?

Chaplains preclude people needing to be able to talk to someone about their personal issues (such as homosexuals). The only people willing to go to chaplains are people with religious issues that match the religion of the chaplain, or those that dont care about religious issues.

prinz wrote: »

Are they? I have yet to resort to "covering my bases" by throwing out ridiculously unfounded claims, nor repeating claims that you have yet to actually back up.

You continuously claim that no one would ever have an issue with going to a religious chaplain (bar those doing it out of spite), the most ridiculous thing claimed on this whole thread.

prinz wrote: »

Really, so without even knowing what issue someone is troubled by you know who is best in a position to help? Got a newsletter by any chance? Something pathetic about all this alright. :rolleyes:

Yes. This ties in with my "religon is a load of bs" view, but I dont have to now that someone who thinks they are possessed is better of seeing a psychologist than an exorcist.

Truley wrote: »

If a girl goes to the college counsellor with a series of problems and claims that speaking to the counsellor has helped her, how do we know if this is true or if she has just deluded herself into thinking she was helped? The only person who can say if someone was helped in a 'meaningful way' is the person themselves.

Not true, no-one can really say it a menaningful way. However, impartial observers can look on and see that the help from counsellors will be better than chaplains as counsellors deal with reality and chaplains deal with fantasy.

Truley wrote: »

They're similar in the sense that they are both specialised branches of the health service. You could argue that STI services could be lumped in with the regular GP service. By having a specialised STI service you are pandering to a specific group of people.

By having specialised sti clinics you are helping to cope with strain on that part of the system. We have clinics for stds, but for, lets say the common cold, because stds affect a relative large number of people, with far worse symptoms.

Kooli wrote: »

I am one of these 'secular counsellors' you speak of. You are suggesting that someone who is looking for religious guidance, or a sense of community that ties in with their religious beliefs, or some spiritual counselling, should come to me?? Are you really suggesting that? What do you suggest I do with this person in our session??

What would you do to someone who comes saying they are hearing voices? Would you not talk to them about their issues and try to give them a real world cure?

Kooli wrote: »

You don't seem to be able to understand that these two services have very little in common. The reasons people would go to them are completely different. What people want to get out of them are completely different.

And what people want to get out chaplains that they cannot get out counsellors is not the type of thing that a university should be directly funding. If it is a case, like has been claimed, that chaplains are usually not-paid/far cheaper than counsellors, then the religious societies should fund them with the money given by students who are actually interested in religion.

Kooli wrote: »

You need to accept the fact that if the chaplaincy was gone, there would be a group of students who would have benefited from that service who no longer have access to it. Don't kid yourself by thinking that they can choose a different service that does a different thing. At least have the honesty to admit that yes, they wouldn't have that service, but that you actually don't care, 'because it's not secular' (which, as I pointed out before, is becoming a meaningless mantra akin to 'because it's in the bible' because it shuts down discussion, allows no critical thinking, and makes no allowances for flexible ideas or shades of grey. It's fundamentalism. It's pushing your agenda onto other people, which is exactly what we atheists are fighting against in the other direction).

Do I need to explain why secular is better than the alternative? From which point of show shall I present it, that you cant have a society that panders to the major religion, or that societies should be actively working to improve their citizens and move them away from the pandering witch doctors you get in religion (and pseudoscience)?

hivizman wrote: »

Although the details of the various cases dealt with by the chaplaincy that were brought to our attention (in several cases, the source was the students themselves rather than the chaplains) were of course confidential, we were aware that the chaplains had counselled several students each year who were on the point of dropping out, but after receiving moral and emotional support from the chaplains decided to finish their degrees. There was one case where one of the chaplains provided support to a student who decided for good personal reasons that the course being followed wasn't what the student wanted to do, but who was afraid of a hostile reaction from the student's parents. This student was therefore supported in leaving the college. But normally universities want students to complete their degrees, and if students who were reluctant (for whatever reason) to use the student counsellors but were willing to see the chaplains were helped, then from the college's point of view that's a good outcome.

How did you decide which was the bigger number: the students who didnt want to see the religious chaplain or the students who didnt want to see the secular counsellor?

hivizman wrote: »

Curiously, the students we consulted didn't ask the college to replace the chaplains with strippers, though perhaps Irish students would be less inhibited.

My point, which you didn't seem to pick up on, is that "distinctive student support" is a largely meaningless term in this case (distinctive just means distinguishable from others) and that what the students value is not necessarily need.

Mark Hamill wrote: »

What would you do to someone who comes saying they are hearing voices? Would you not talk to them about their issues and try to give them a real world cure?

.

Wow. Just wow. At this point I'll probably have to bow out, because you have so little understanding of what a counsellor OR chaplain actually does for a student!

But first let me get this straight. You are saying that the chaplaincy should be abolished, and the students who were seeking help from the chaplaincy could use the secular counsellor instead, who would then use their professional training to CURE them of their religious belief? (that's a genuine question, I want to make sure I am clear on your position)

So religious people are all psychotic? Wow, that's quite a claim!!

If you were a counsellor, and you had a client who believed in God, would you use your professional position and expertise to try and dissuade them or show them the 'truth'? (I would really like you to answer that question if you could). Because it seems you are suggesting that's what I should do with my religious clients (of whom I have many, but they are not coming to me for religious guidance, because they have the chaplaincy for that).

Like others have said, you don't need to explain the benefits of secularism to me, because I believe in a secular state as much as any reasonable atheist! (And of course you don't have to be an atheist to believe in a secular state).

But you are talking about fundamentalist atheism. Where any expression of religious belief, which has ZERO affect on non-believers, is not tolerated. Where your views are pushed onto others who are not interested in them, and not seeking them. It's a 'my way or the highway' approach, and is completely intolerant.

robindch wrote: »

Moderator note -

Mark Hamill did not claim that all religious people are psychotic and it was you who brought up the topic of fundamentalist atheism without prompting. Or indeed, any reason to.

Calm down a bit and try to reply to what the poster actually said.

thanks.

Moderator intervention to set the terms of the debate - worrying. Mark Hamill, in the passage quoted by Kooli, implied that a university counsellor (the statement was pointed to Kooli who has already identified himself/herself as holding such a position) would seek to "cure" somebody of their religious convictions. Kooli is surely, in an open forum, quite entitled to query the full implications of such a statement without undue intervention by a moderator.

Mark Hamill wrote: »

Not true, no-one can really say it a menaningful way. However, impartial observers can look on and see that the help from counsellors will be better than chaplains as counsellors deal with reality and chaplains deal with fantasy.

Lots of mental health problems are based on fantasy. For example if a girl goes to a counsellor with self esteem issues due to poor body image. The girl's perceived weight issues may be all in her head, a fantasy. But her problem is still 'real' in the sense that is causing her real distress and having an adverse effect on her quality of life. At the same time a person can go to a chaplain with a 'real' and practical problem, such as I did with my mother dying, or my classmate's funeral arangements. You can't say that I didn't have a legitmate problem, or that the chaplain didn't deal with it effectively. It's not up to you to decide who's problems are real and whos aren't.

Likewise it's not up to you to decide whos service is more effective. A counsellor deals with people based on a particular theory of how the mind works and how mental health issues should be dealt with. There is no way of quantifying the effectiveness of a counsellor or a chaplain, only the receiver of the service can decide that.

robindch wrote: »

Moderator note -

Mark Hamill did not claim that all religious people are psychotic and it was you who brought up the topic of fundamentalist atheism without prompting. Or indeed, any reason to.

Calm down a bit and try to reply to what the poster actually said.

thanks.

Well maybe I misunderstood - if he claims I should treat religious clients as those who are 'hearing voices' and need a 'cure' then he is talking about psychosis. Unless I misunderstood. I didn't mean 'psychotic' in a general way like people say 'what a psycho', I meant in the real terms of psychosis, where people are 'hearing voices', like in schizophrenia. If that's not what he meant, then I do apologise, but I don't know what else to read from the implication that I 'treat' religious people in such a manner. So I was replying to what he actually said, but maybe I misunderstood what he actually meant.

And I'm not sure what the problem is with mentioning fundamentalist atheism, but I will refrain from doing so if I'm not allowed to. I just felt it was relevant because Mark is claiming to talk about secularism, but I think he is misrepresenting secularism, and what he is actually describing is more like fundamentalist atheism.

axer wrote: »

This combination of words doesn't make sense.

I can't think of a better way to put it, but I get that it's probably the wrong word. I'm trying to find a way to describe a type of atheism that tries to force itself on other people, rather than the more common type of atheism which takes the line of 'I don't care what religion you are or what beliefs you hold as long as long as they don't impact on my life, education, choices etc.'

When you talk about stripping services for people of religion, 'curing' people of religion, invading their private lives, then it's something a bit more than the 'live and let live' philosophy most of us would like to see in a secular society.

I would like to see a natural removal of religious services, but only as a result of a natural decline in the numbers of believers, not as a result of force.

The other reason I used the word fundamentalism was because of the constant repeating of the mantra 'because it's not secular'. It was like an ideology was being blindly put above any logic, rationality, reason, debate with no further explanation.

I hope it was OK for me to explain what I meant. Perhaps someone else could suggest a better term for what I'm describing.

robindch wrote: »

Neither, to start with, is there anything "fundamentalist" about secularism -- basically, the idea that religion is something that the state should not fund or favour. A bit like atheism or pregnancy, it's a state that you're in or you're not.

But this thread shows that it's not as black and white as it first appears. I believe in secularism, but I don't have a problem with a college providing a service for its religious students that has no impact on its non-religious students. If it involved favouritism towards religious students in the college at large, or the promotion of a certain faith being tied in with the educational activities of the college, then I would have a problem with it. At the moment I don't. Others believe that to be secular means removing any religious services on the basis of ideology, regardless of whether they compromise the secular nature of the institution. The ideology comes ahead of the best interests of the students and the college, and I just don't agree with that.

So am I 'a bit pregnant'?