Why Religion Classes are a Bad Idea

Brigham Young University is a wonderful university that offers a variety of religion classes taught by professors of various departments. This is a wonderful opportunity for students to learn a variety of different ways to look at religion. For example, if your religion professor is also a professor of physics, then you will get test questions that look like this:

In Daniel 2:34, King Nebuchadnezzar dreamed a dream in which a stone which was cut without hands smote an image of gold, silver, brass, and clay. Suppose that this stone had to roll down a hill in order to reach the image that it must smite. Now suppose that this stone which was cut without hands was a perfectly round sphere weighing exactly 807.85 kilograms, and it started rolling down a hill that is a frictionless surface of a 0.15 gradient and there is a 25 mph wind blowing the opposite direction. Suppose that the stone started rolling down this 10 kilometer hill at precisely 10:46 p.m. What time will the stone, which was cut without hands, reach the bottom of the hill in order to smite the gold, silver, brass, and clay image in King Nebuchadnezzar’s dream?

Questions like these add richness to gospel concepts and allow students to contemplate the deeper meaning of the Old Testament. I cannot count the number of times that I was reading this passage of scripture and wondered just how long it did take for the stone which was cut without hands to smite the image of silver, gold, brass, and clay. Maybe the answer will be revealed to me in the afterlife. If only.