I have no objection to the kind of philosophy questions you have provided. I think they’re good. It does not surprise me at all that a good graduate program in philosophy would have a set of comps questions like that. I’m not saying there are no good graduate programs in philosophy anywhere. But since we are discussing religious belief, and in particular conservative religious belief, how is this relevant to what I’m talking about? Are you denying or accepting my claim that a preponderance of philosophy professors do not accept traditional religious beliefs? Are you denying my claim that faculty are sometimes hostile to students who do have such traditional beliefs? Not just in philosophy, but in many other departments? Are you denying my claim that the religious ideas of most faculty in arts departments are liberal, agnostic, atheist, and maybe in a few cases “New Age”, but very rarely traditional and conservative? Are you denying my claim that this affects what they teach, how they teach it, how they respond to students with traditional beliefs, who they vote for when they hire new faculty, etc.? Are you denying that many students with traditional beliefs have experienced hostility, mockery, condescension, etc. from profs who don’t share those beliefs?
I disagree. The idea of God is worthy of respect. The idea of a soul is worthy of respect. The possibility of special revelation is worthy of respect. The possible existence of absolute moral standards is worthy of respect. The possibility that pre-Enlightenment thought may be superior to post-Enlightenment thought is worthy of respect. The possibility that liberal theology was a wrong turning is worthy of respect. All these ideas should be discussed in religion, philosophy, and other departments, without a massive tilt or slant of faculty prejudice. But anyone who has studied in such departments lately (which includes almost nobody here) is aware of the massive tilt or slant. And why the people here, who spend their lives producing technical articles on genomes that read to a layman as if they are written in Sanskrit consider themselves to be knowledgeable about the current faculty composition and biases of Arts departments, is beyond me.