i lived my first year of grad school in the div school dorms. a few of us had a light div student classification project that would entertain us over meals. one of the categories was "divinity dope": those were the people who had no idea what they were actually doing there. the example we liked was a guy who described himself as, and i'm not making this up, although i might be forgetting labels, a "presbyterian/buddhist/rosicrucian/animist" . . . and he had runes on his dorm room door. seriously. and no, he was not joking. he had no irony at all that i could detect. and he was the sort of person who bragged when he thought he'd figured out some deep buddhist insight, especially but not only koans.
ick.
and, as i say, i had two students last term who insisted they had
their very own religions. one was, however, belgian -- not american.
:)
j
-- Among medieval and modern philosophers, anxious to establish the religious significance of God, an unfortunate habit has prevailed of paying to Him metaphysical compliments.
- Alfred North Whitehead