Kansas Anti-Creationism Professor Resigns 1469
An anonymous reader writes "A Professor of religion at University of Kansas has resigned from his position at the university because of his anti-creationism views." From the article: "Mirecki had planned to teach a course in the spring that examined creationism and intelligent design after the State Board of Education adopted science standards treating evolution as a flawed theory. Originally called 'Special Topics in Religion: Intelligent Design, Creationism and other Religious Mythologies,' the course was canceled last week at Mirecki's request." The article goes on to explain that Mirecki evidently sent poorly worded email with anti-Christian sentiments around to people interested in the class, and was subsequently beaten for his troubles.
It sounds like email (Score:5, Funny)
Re:It sounds like email (Score:3, Funny)
Maybe you descend from monkeys. Not me.
Now, where have I put my banana *scratch* *scratch* ?
Re:It sounds like email (Score:5, Funny)
"I got a teaching job at the University of Kansas and all I got was a lousy beat-down by some Christians."
Re:It sounds like email (Score:3, Funny)
Rule #1 (Score:4, Funny)
Never argue with people that have imaginary friends.
Rule #2 (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Rule #2 (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Rule #2 (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Rule #2 (Score:5, Insightful)
Why cant i just love god and be a good person for whatever god is, or may not be?
Why does one have to be in a cult to get some place? Heaven, Halebob, burned to the ground in Waco...
It seems whenever a group of people get together in the name of god, they seem to miss the entire message of god.
I wont claim to know what god wants... but it sure as hell cant be hating each other over sexual preferences, fairy tales, or exploiting the poor to become even more wealthier. I'm sure as hell national health care is a good "christian" thing to do, yet so many seem to be against it.
Ah well.. GOD.. who knows what he, she, it, wants...
Lets just be nice to each other... i think thats the whole point.
Re:Rule #2 (Score:5, Informative)
Re:It sounds like email (Score:5, Insightful)
Perhaps improvement in theological education is the first step. Enlightment reloaded. If uneducated preachers spread unenlighted views and therefore a kind of scum of public opinion undermines real science, it is time to think why people in other Christian countries in the world do not even talk about this bullshit. I mean, the US is not Iran...
Proper university education for preachers and scientific reflection on theological issues and "Christian" pseudoscience will fade away.
Re:It sounds like email (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:It sounds like email (Score:5, Interesting)
The Southern Baptists, in particular are almost post-rational when it comes to any sort of reasoned argument. It's amusing in a sad/scary sort of way.
Re:It sounds like email (Score:5, Informative)
Fortunately, the history of the Baptist denomination is one of independent behavior, so we have no pope or central authority figure who can tell us what to believe, or what creed we have to sign up for in order to stay members of a Baptist church. (I could go into great detail about some of the finer points of Baptist tradition that demonstrate this kind of independent thinking, but that's a bit OT... not Old Testament.)
As it stands today, much of the work that had been done in integrating pastoral care with well-researched psychology is virtually out of the cirriculum in most of our seminaries. Sadly, the work of Baptist leaders and theologians in the 50's, 60's, and early 70's has been cast aside by a large segment of our denomination in favor of segregating language/theology, and radically poor politics.
In spite of this, there are a few of us left who still think for ourselves, so please hesitate to flip the bozo bit on all of us just yet.
Tim
Re:It sounds like email (Score:5, Interesting)
Public school should be about proven fact and science meets that standard. Religion doesn't require proof but that's what makes it subjective. Science should be the one thing they all can agree on. Saying that science is wrong and three to four thousand year old religous text is right does make us look ignorant and that's how much of the world has begun to view us. Jewish scholars have found much of the old testment is incorrect. The irony is they have accepted the science and have begun to view much of it as stories with a message where as Christians in this country are still holding that it is fact and children should be taught as much in public schools. Can you see the irony? Christians borrow part of their religion from Jews who later find it is a collection of stories and not fact, they accept it but the later religion chooses to hang on inspite of what the parent religion now believes to be true. Even the Catholic faith has accepted evolution. What people need to consider is it the Bible that makes you disbelieve in evolution or what the preacher on Sunday told you? The New Testment makes no mention of how creation occured. What's really ironic is most Bibles these days don't even include the Old Testment yet that seems to be the part where all the contention is, that's the PreChristian part to be more specific. If the world being 6 billion years old instead of six thousand years old shakes a person's faith I think they need to exaimine the strength of their faith and not simply try to silence those who don't share their beliefs, in this case most of humanity. Just an FYI, if you think the preacher on Sunday morning is telling you the whole truth double check what is said against the Bible. There's alot of grossly inaccurate information being thrown around if the point is literally interpretation. My favorites always revolve around Angels and Heaven. Most are taught Heaven is full of good people and they turn into Angels when they die. Not sure where they got that? It wasn't from the Bible. The only "person" that comes to mind currently in Heaven is Jacob, direct assention. Everyone else is waiting judgement. Also Angels predated men/humans. They were never people but another race and were called "The Sons Of God". In fact there's no mention of female angels anywhere in the Bible. Sadly a lot of the intent has been lost. Praying to get things and passing judgement on others aways drives me nuts, they are blanantly unChristian. According to the Bible you are supposed to accept God's will and whatever happened to "Judge not lest yee be judged"? God is supposed to judge not man. I have no problem with re
Re:It sounds like email (Score:4, Funny)
"Why shouldn't I?" he asked.
"Well, there's so much to live for!"
"Like what?"
"Are you religious?"
He said, "Yes."
I said, "Me too. Are you Christian or Buddhist?"
"Christian."
"Me too. Are you Catholic or Protestant?"
"Protestant."
"Me too. Are you Episcopalian or Baptist?"
"Baptist."
"Wow. Me too. Are you Baptist Church of God or Baptist Church of the Lord?"
"Baptist Church of God."
"Me too. Are you original Baptist Church of God, or are you Reformed Baptist Church of God?"
"Reformed Baptist Church of God."
"Me too. Are you Reformed Baptist Church of God, Reformation of 1879, or Reformed Baptist Church of God, Reformation of 1915?"
He said: "Reformed Baptist Church of God, Reformation of 1915."
I said: "Die, heretic scum," and pushed him off.
(Stolen from http://www.shipoffools.com/Features/2005/laugh_ju
Re:It sounds like email (Score:4, Interesting)
a = "without"
theism = "belief in a god or gods"
a-theism = "without belief in a god or gods"
As a fundamentalist atheist myself, I'm perfectly prepared to say there might be one. In fact, might be two or three. Or 42. Or thousands of them.
But since none have shown their heads, or their works, around my neck of the woods there is no point in getting all tangled up in some belief without a reasonable basis in objective fact to reason from. So I keep the idea in the same drawer with other ideas that require extraordinary evidence, such as pink unicorns, UFOs and telepathy. Sure would be interesting to see. When and if that happens, I'll re-evaluate the situation.
Re:It sounds like email (Score:4, Insightful)
Example:
Religion: People exist because God wanted there to be people
Science: People exist because random genetic change enabled there to be people.
What is contradictory in my example?
I have a friend who is agnostic. I get from him that since there is more than one religion he has no basis to say that one is correct and another is not. He also does not see any relgion that does what is says (i.e.: radical muslims and christians both contridict their values). He isn't agnostic simply because he feels science and religion contridic each other. In fact, he has helped me reconsile some of my beliefs and science.
Also, please do not judge all christians by the STUPID actions of a few. Why should some dumb ass in Kansas, who can't possibly belive that God wanted evolution to happen and made it and science cannot say "God willed it," so we can only comprehend random change and statistical patterens as left overs from God's will, should make me, who can reconsile belife and science, look like an idiot?
Re:It sounds like email (Score:4, Insightful)
Science puts forth the idea that random genetic change was part of the process because science has observed this process, and the theory, in a fairly basic and reasonably well accepted intellectual exercise, simply extends the idea that this has been going on since DNA has been the blueprint mechanism for building another biomachine similar to the previous biomachines. In short, there is decent evidence for this idea, and given that so far, it seems to be the idea with the best evidence in support, it is reasonable to use it as the current working model until, or unless, something better comes along. Add to this the observation that DNA is a combination of chemicals, and apply the idea that this combination might have come together as the result of some natural series of events, and we have a general overview of a theory of life, sans god or godlike influence.
Religion puts forth the idea that people are here because god wanted it that way. This is in the final analysis an attempt to answer the same basic question: How did life get started? If you want to start with the premise that god started us by triggering and/or designing DNA-based organisms, that just moves the domain of the question to: How did god get started?
If your answer is that god was always here, then why can't your answer be that we were always here? If your answer is that god's existance arose spontaneously, then why can't your answer be that we arose spontaneously? If your answer is that god was designed by someone else, then you've just moved the domain one step further and we go around again.
The bottom line is that we do not know how life got started here. Science, to its credit, is trying to find potential answers to that using the tools that belong to it: Examining evidence, deduction, theorizing, testing, falsification and around again. In the process, many interesting things have been uncovered (DNA, for instance) and many many more can reasonably be expected. That's the reason science is so popular; it is very productive of real-world benefits, not just metaphors for objective reality. That, in turn, gives at least some of us considerable confidence in science, and the scientific method in general.
Still, we do not know. We will not know even if life is created in the laboratory. We may have discovered something that is one of the possibilities, but we can't be certain, because we were not there when it happened. There is no "proof" forthcoming from science, only theory. And theories are mutable — that is their primary strength.
Turning to religion, the first question is, ok, if god kicked this off, where is the supporting evidence for this idea? We have the NT (AD 300 or so) and we have the OT, which is quite a bit BC compared to the NT, but still, very, very recent in terms of the planet's apparent geological age. We have nothing that backs up any of the bible's accounts, and in fact, we have quite a bit that contradicts the bible's accounts. Now, if you want to step away from the bible (a long way!) and just say that god did it 4 billion years ago using natural tools, then I simply ask, where is your evidence to back that assertion up? We look to the sky and we see solar systems in all stages of formation; theory accounts for much of this without a huge number of unknowns. We don't see god up there, but we do see physics.
So perhaps you'd like to go back to the formation of everything instead (which pretty much removes the idea of god from our day to day lives [or even eon to eon existance as a race] and I would question why you would even care at this point, but...) and then we are back to but who created god? And if your answer is "was always there", then we're back to that can be the answer for everything, and there is no need for a god to explain anything at all.
Re:It sounds like email (Score:5, Insightful)
Here's the short version:
Most atheists have gone on to 2nd thought, and further. Seriously.
Now, if I say to you, "Yesterday, I had a ham on rye, and I got it from the deli", how likely are you to believe it? Let's look at it. First, ham on rye is a reasonable foodstuff. Second, delis sell this combo, and it's in the common experience of most people to have that confirmed as objective fact. Now, you don't know if I had it in fact, but inasmuch as it's a reasonable claim, you might be inclined to accept it unless it is shown that I have a habit of lying about my lunch, or it turns out that there is no deli later. ok?
But, if I say to you, "Yesterday, I had manna from heaven, which was given me by an angel", now how seriously are you going to take me? What is manna? How often has it been noted coming from heaven? How many people have been observed to have been fed by an angel? When was the last time anyone photographed or measured an angel? Even if you skip all of that, still, are you going to take me at my word?
I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that you're going to agree that my story is unlikely. Most people would, and for good reason. Here it is: I'm making an extraordinary claim, one that is outside the realm of common (or even known) human experience, and so your instinct is going to be to want some pretty good evidence for my claim before you get all jolly and decide I'm telling you the truth.
The refined phrase is: "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence."
Finally, the problem here is that the bible(s) are full of extraordinary claims. People rising from the dead. People being turned into pillars of salt. The entire world being flooded, which would require more water than there is on the planet. Everyone having common ancestors in the persons of Adam and Eve. Geological formation of planets (this one, specifically) in non-geological time frames as well as creation of complex life in very, very short time frames. So, just as you probably found it in your heart to doubt my story of manna from heaven at the hands of an angel, atheists find good reason to doubt the stories told in the bible. These stories make extraordinary claims. Not only is there no extraordinary evidence, there appears to be no evidence at all for those stories, and quite a bit (like fossils, current amount of water on the planet, observed evolution and speciation time frames, various methods of dating geological formations, DNA comparisons between one human being and the next) which actively argue for disproof of some of the specific points made in those stories.
Re:It sounds like email (Score:4, Interesting)
Oh, for Pete's sake. Let's be perfectly clear here. If indeed anyone rose from the dead, it happened about 2000 years ago, didn't happen in front of me, wasn't recorded in any contemporaneous documents of the regime in power at the time, nor by any contemporary historian, and is only described as such by a book that was put together from codexes that date back to about 300 years after the fact [ideaspike.com]. To top it off, we know of no such event, and our knowledge of the universe says it can't happen. This reasonably leads me to the position of doubt. I'm not doubting because I'm just a crank, I'm doubting because there is an extraordinary event here, and no proof any kind, much less extraordinary. If someone rises from the dead in front of me after three days of rigor mortis, putrifaction, and zero life signs of any kind, I will be duly impressed.
If the story is true (which I do not believe to be the case), God sent his son to hang about on earth for thirty years, then gave him the best seat in heaven, after having him suffer a few days of moderate-level torture. For just one of many instances: Many Americans have sent their sons to die, where they ended up in the hellholes of Vietnam's POW camps, where those fellows endured being stabbed with dung-encrusted pungi sticks, maimed, beaten, caged, starved, diseased, mentally abused and worse, for years at a stretch. After which these fellows came home (well, those who survived) and were pretty well ignored by both the government and most of their fellow citizens, if they weren't actively reproached for having done what they were told to do. On a scale of one to ten, where let's call prisoner of war service a 7, I'd say Jesus's reported troubles rate about a two. If god wants to impress me with a sacrifice, then he can get down here and clean up some of the messes he's let go on without interference, such as birth defects, tsunmamis, regular failure of the female reproductive tract (with the side effect of killing the mother), Hitler, Cancer, Pol Pot, plagues, Stalin, the Spanish and Papal Inquisitions, the Crusades and so forth.
As a story, god's "sacrifice" of Jesus lands with a dull thud because (a) it was no sacrifice, it was a very short though admittedly annoying interval with a HUGE reward, and (b) human sacrifice dwarfs it on every level. By the numbers, and by intensity, and by the degree of what was hoped to be accomplished by many of the sacrifices made by humans. True story: I had a relative who was burned to death going into a burning home after a little girl's kitten. He tossed the kitten out of an upstairs window, but he didn't make it out himself. He was an atheist; I'd say his sacrifice dwarfs that of Christ's, even if, no especially if, the crucifiction story is true. My relative burned to death and according you and yours, he's going to suffer for all eternity. Christ, in the meantime, is where? At god's right hand.
I afraid you're ruffling my feathers here, because of all the Christian mythos, this is some of the most offensive tripe that hits the fan.
Your god is too something-or-other to help out, for instance, the most honorable, giving, self-sacrificing atheist who wishes for a child to be saved from cancer (or saves a little girl's kitten, as I related above); but he'll help you out for any random thing because you "have faith." I would not want anything to do with your god. Your god doesn't meet my standards for a decent hu
To clarify... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:To clarify... (Score:5, Insightful)
This is an important point that I think people aren't paying enough attention to. He has resigned only an extra administrative position that he may not particularly have enjoyed anyhow. In American universities (outside of the medical schools) being Chair of the department is usually not that big a deal. It isn't like some European universities where the Chair is really the person who runs the show. Mirecki still has his job and his academic rank - all he's done is stepped out of the limelight a little, whether to make life easier for himself or to keep himself from being a lightning rod for anti-University sentiment.
Re:To clarify... (Score:4, Insightful)
Suppose the school board decides that you have to point out to the students that what you're teaching is just a theory, and that you have to point out that there are other theories. (Nobody has SEEN the molecules react!). Someone is appointed to teach the "earth, water, air and fire" theory. How would that make you feel? How's that for science?
The most recent noteworthy news from Rome is that they have found a reasonable way to make science and christianity work together. If a super-being set off the universe a long, long time ago, setting the rules of physics, evolution and chemistry, then they don't see anything inconsistent with the bible.
Now suddenly the "war" between creationists and evolutionists is defused. Good. Science is not inconsistent with the bible. Good.
His sign (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:His sign (Score:5, Insightful)
That's why, for example, the University of California not only tolerated, but defended Angela Davis [ucsc.edu] and her pro-Comummunist party views, despite the current "governator" being one Ronald Reagan.
So maybe he didn't say it very well. It's what he believes.
Re:You fail to realize... (Score:3, Funny)
and as a fundie I can tell you that you are misunderestimating how fat our faces are!
Re:His sign (Score:5, Insightful)
Lets just take two:
1) It leads to an infinite regression. If complex things cannot come to being by themselves, then the creator can't come to be out of nothing either. And so forth. Que the infinite regress of creators.
2) As a scientific theory, it lacks all predictive power. Apply the theory of evolution to, for example, Avian Flu, and you can imagine that, during the course of it's fluish mutations it will hit upon the combination that will make it contagious among the dominant species on the planet, thats natural selection among countless flu variations.
What do you get when you apply ID to Bird Flu? The Creator is a bastard? The Creator is annoyed with us because there's too much sex on television?
I sat in a coffeeshop listening to an ID advocate committing logical error after error. He was sitting there,and reasoning backwards from any number of existing things to their inevitable nature as created things. Hilariously bad science. I have in my hand a hairbrush, it is made of a substance I will call plastic. I cannot imagine making such a thing, it is not wood, nor stone. Therefore there must be a magician involved somewhere! Oooo, look a landbridge! Could something so useful have come about by accident? No!
I sat and tried not to listen, while eating my damn lunch, and trying to imagine how any Intelligent designer could design a creature as foolish and ignorant as man.
Yeah, well... what did he expect? (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm an atheist, but I don't go pissing on church doors. That's (figuratively) what this guy did, and screwed up his career in doing so.
Re:Yeah, well... what did he expect? (Score:4, Insightful)
You can teach Greek Mythology without always speaking the name of "Zeus" with reverential awe.
You can even poke fun at your subject matter, depending on the focus of the course - I fondly remember my 1st semester physics professor ended practically every topic with something along the lines of "and of course in the days since Newton, we've discovered that most of this counts as complete rubbish, but I still expect you to know it for the test".
In the case of the topic under consideration, I (and any potential studend would) have every expectation this professor did not plan to merely present it as an objective overview of the tenets of ID (though students should of course have come away understanding those); but rather, a thorough debunking of a laughable-yet-popular ("popular" in the sheer-number-of-fools sense) topic, possibly broad enough to include a general overview of the roots of the dangerously antiintellectual attitude currently brewing in our culture.
Re:Yeah, well... what did he expect? (Score:5, Insightful)
The mistake was not the class, it was sending insulting email in a professional context, that's all.
Re:Yeah, well... what did he expect? (Score:5, Insightful)
He attacked "faith run amok". The problem isn't that people have this faith. The problem is that some of them try to pass it off as science and to make laws out of it. Their zealotry goes against what this country stands for.
Re:You don't get it either. (Score:3, Insightful)
Also, there's no reason to assume "fundies" are idiots. They may be misguided, wrong, or just of a different opinion than you, but that doesn't make them idiots.
I've met some brilliant preachers, and I recognize that even though I don't believe in their Magic Man In The Sky (tm)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Only from the Chair position not as a prof (Score:5, Informative)
Of course ..... (Score:3, Funny)
Religious Violence (Score:4, Insightful)
Then again, Im agnostic and havent attended church and base all my knowledge on written word and whatnot. Maybe in church they are saying to strike those evil doer anti-christians down like the wrath of god?
It depends upon the Church. (Score:5, Insightful)
It all depends upon what part of the Bible the church you attend wants to focus on. There's as much legitimacy in focusing on God's Rightous Wrath as there is in focusing on Jesus Forgiving.
Re:It depends upon the Church. (Score:5, Insightful)
If you're a christian church and focusing more on the old testament than the new - and especially the loving and forgiving christ (Jesus), isn't it a fair case to call you a jew instead of a christian?
As I understand it, christianity builds on the old testament, sure - but it weighs in much more heavily on forgiveness (obviously forgotten during the crusades and inquisition) and love than on "smiting your enemies". Pretty sure you'd be shit out of luck if you tried portraying Jesus as wanting you to "smite and even kill or enslave your enemies".
Or did I not get the memo?
Again, it depends upon the church. (Score:3, Insightful)
Who's to say which is "correct"? Except God/Jesus, that is. And neither of them return my calls anymore.
Pay attention to the stories you'll be seeing about this. Check how many local churches publicly condem those actions and how many "Christians" write about how "he deserved what he got". You might have to hit local papers for that last one.
The church is shaped by the preacher and the congregation finds a preacher who shares their view.
Right (Score:4, Insightful)
As a person of faith, I find that such a stance frees me to be rather more objective about the Bible, especially the Hebrew Bible. If I find out that Christ's story is a cheat, I can drop it, finally, in the knowledge that I was faithful to my reasons as far as they went. But now I don't have to concentrate on every so-called contradiction in the Bible. Instead, I can begin to know Jesus by examining the writings of the people who knew him best, and slowly expand from there.
So I don't always know how to take the Hebrew Bible. The sons and daughters of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob talked about God, at times, in ways I don't recognize. I am not trying to revive the Manichean heresy (he thought that the Adonai of the Old Testament was the evil God, and Christ was the good God who defeated Adonai). But I can allow the questions to get a lot deeper into my thinking this way.
As Mark Twain wrote in 'Letters From The Earth'... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:It depends upon the Church. (Score:3, Interesting)
Oddly they miss out on the fact that "An Eye for an Eye" is meant as an alternative to unlimited retaliation not as an alternative to forgiveness. It's a like a speed limit. It's supposed to be a maximum, but everyone treats it like a minimum.
From the article (Score:5, Insightful)
Me thinks "poorly worded" is an understatement. It's one thing when you're a troll on Slashdot using that language. It's a completely different thing to be in a respected teaching position and acting like a Slashdot troll. And he wonders why people are upset with him. *shakes head*
(P.S. I do hope they catch the assholes who beat him. That's not exactly acceptable behavior, either, no matter what he said.)
Re:From the article (Score:3, Insightful)
He handled it wrong (Score:3, Interesting)
The darn fool. (Score:5, Insightful)
All he had to do was stick to science and his ideas would have won. Instead, he played into the stereotype that 'scientists are anti-Christian' and has paid the price.
But there are really three sides to the issue:
1. Dogmatic Christians pushing their belief system as the anti-science.
2. Dogmatic Athiests pushing their belief system as the anti-religion.
3. The Rest Of Us.
Re:The darn fool. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The darn fool. (Score:4, Insightful)
It is true that he may be lying (although I doubt it). Anyone could be lying - but no evidence that he is lying is actually presented in the article to which the parent links.
Re:The darn fool. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:The darn fool. (Score:3, Informative)
What the hell are you talking about? He's a religious professor, not a scientist. I guess not only is it too much to ask that you RTFA, but now people aren't RTFSummary either?
Re:The darn fool. (Score:3, Informative)
But there are really three sides to the issue:
1. Dogmatic Christians pushing their belief system as the anti-science.
2. Dogmatic Athiests pushing their belief system as the anti-religion.
3. The Rest Of Us.
No, Not Really "Insightful" Let's try:
1. Irrational religious fundamentalists who believe their "Holy Book" is literal truth and is the direct "Word of God".
2. Scientists, mathematicians and philosophers who point out that the "Holy Book" contain contradictions and therefor cannot be li
Re:The darn fool. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:The darn fool. (Score:4, Informative)
No, he hasn't. An agnostic asserts that the answer to the question of existence is unknowable and states nothing about their actual belief or lack thereof in gods. Many Christians are agnostic. Many atheists are agnostic. Most (traditional) Buddhists are atheists. Most Christians are not atheist (I'm not saying all because I'm sure there is some nutter who claims to be Christian but doesn't believe in the existence of any god).
The Americanised versions of atheist and agnostic have basically made agnosticism a watered down version of atheism (ie, doesn't believe but isn't sure) which is stupid, because the term agnostic was specifically invented by Huxley to define his lack of gnosis (knowledge), not his uncertainty. I'll leave you with the words of Huxley.
Brilliant guy. Total nutcase, but brilliant.
...Chair of Religious Studies Dept.? (Score:5, Insightful)
That's the part that confused me enough to make me read it twice. The CHAIR of the Religous Studies Dept. was saying things like:
- referring to religious individuals as "fundies"
- "a nice slap in their big fat face"
- others described as "repugnant and vile"
That boggles the mind. No excuse for beating the man, for any reason.-theGreater.
hur hur hur (Score:3, Funny)
bloody bible bashers :-P
Boy, I sure am surprised! (Score:5, Insightful)
What's the total up to now? A few billion?
Interesting... (Score:5, Insightful)
Also, anti-fundamentalist is not the same as anti-christian. Being opposed to a specific, fanatical, often belligerent sect of a religious denomination is not the same as being opposed to the entire faith.
Re:Interesting... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Interesting... (Score:3, Funny)
It's easy to teach intelligent design - here it all is:
The world is too difficult to explain because the God ate my homework.
Fron the article... (Score:5, Interesting)
It's too bad he had to be so unprofessional. I'm all in favor of his class, but I can't sympathize with someone who acts like that. He's basically ruined it for other universities that may want to do something similar because he made it into a personal issue instead of an academic one.
Re:Fron the article... (Score:3, Insightful)
Anti-Christianism in Kansas is legitimate (Score:4, Insightful)
Something similar happened at a friend's school... (Score:5, Interesting)
A law professor was going to give a talk about "Difference between political prisoners and criminals". The pseudo-students didn't let him start the talk, and he had to run away because they were all throwing him rotten food.
Lesson: Unless you're willing to become a martyr, never tell an angry mob they're WRONG.
Religion Professors Aren't Very Religious (Score:3, Insightful)
However, it's very myopic to reach any kind of opinion that all of this reflects poorly on Christian fundamentalists, Kansas, or religion in the United States. Consider that for his heresy, this guy got a beating that 99.99% of his fellow countrymen think was unjustified. Compare that to Iran, for instance, where writing a book that others consider disrespectful to Islam will get you a giant-sized can of fatwa.
And vice versa... (Score:5, Insightful)
Way to go (Score:5, Insightful)
Keep your religion out of our science! You beleive what you want, but anyone that thinks they have a right to force what they beleive on someone else needs a swift kick in the ass (and yes, that includes other people's children, its tragic enough that parents are allowed to brainwash their own children)
Substitute "Blacks" for "Christians"? (Score:5, Insightful)
People are extrapolating the actions of a small group of hateful idiots to an entire class of people who happen to have an overlapping characteristic and disparaging the entire group as stupid, backward, or violent.
I suspect those same people would be horrified if the actions of a single minority member were to be unfairly extrapolated to their entire race or culture.
More coverage (Score:3, Informative)
The Lawrence Journal-World is a newspaper in Lawrence.
The Daily Kansan is the student newspaper run from KU.
Beating story http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2005/dec/06/mirecki_
Follow-up to beating http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2005/dec/07/mirecki_
Prof. Mirecki resisns as dept. chair http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2005/dec/07/mirecki_
Several of Prof. Mirecki's posts [PDF warning] http://media.ljworld.com/pdf/2005/12/02/mireckiem
News of cancelling the course and a quote from a message Prof. Mirecki posted http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2005/dec/02/intellig
I see a catholic revival in the future (Score:4, Interesting)
Every unfair stereotype of a an American WASP from 10 years ago has started to come true. Expect the unfair sterotypes of today to be true within 10 years (religious warriors, indeed).
This contrasts oddly with the vatican, who has decided to embrace science as the language of God's tapistry.
Even me, the dedicated Agnostic, finds that ringing a tone of truth.
What these ID idiots don't understand is that there is NO WAY a creator would use such a blunt tool as Creationism to *poof* the world into existence. "God works in mysterious ways". "All miracles are subtle". Blah Blah Blah; if THATs the case, than why WOULDN'T he use evolution?
In one swift motion, the creator, the mover unmoved, fathomed the universe. From that point on, utilizing all the 'random' constants that he blinked into existence, the universe expanded outwards in the big bang, following the scientific explanation of creation, evolution occurred, and we are currently at the present day.
How is that explanation not FAR, FAR more amazing, and mind blowing, and worth of a creator than, "Well, kids, God dreamed up our world, and a week later, it was there."
I guess the problem is that the American-style Protestant is really just not that smart.
Re:I see a catholic revival in the future (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,17162341-137
Living in Lawrence (Score:4, Insightful)
The attack on Professor Mirecki is heartbreaking. Violence in the name of God is disgusting. I think that the rift between members of academia and radcial Christians is growing. We are becoming the society that as a nation, we most actively despise: a society driven by radical religious fundamentalists who have misinterpreted the tenets of the locally dominant religion.
Kansas has always been a little weird. Nobody can debate that. However, Lawrence has been proud to stand out from the rest of the state and see things more thoughtfully. This most recent regression has hurt what Lawrence has always stood for: freedom. Freedom to live, freedom to express one's ideas, freedom to explore the unknown, and the freedom to stand up for those things.
Whatever your current thoughts are about Professor Mirecki, the criminals who attacked him, or the course he was trying to teach, you should probably get your news from sources a little closer to the action. The Lawrence Journal-World [ljworld.com] has covered this quite thoroughly and has some very interesting blog posts from a wide variety of bloggers (myself included) discussing the articles. I recommend it if you want to get a better view of the scenario.
Plenty of stupid things have taken place in Kansas this year. Let's work to fix the problems that we have caused here and try to move forward.
Nick M.
Research Assistant
Kansas NASA EPSCoR
Observations from an actual KU student (Score:5, Informative)
As someone who is both interested in dismissing the conspiracy theories and was enrolled in the cancelled class, I think it is time to post some real information.
First, Paul Mirecki is a well-respected scholar in the field of Christianity. He is regularly chosen as the lecturer for the week that covers the Old Testament of the Bible in an Honors Western Civilization I course. Mirecki's personal beliefs regarding religion never came up in that lecture - he stuck to the facts. My experiences echo those of nearly every student who has taken a course taught by him. In his 20+ years as head of the Religious Studies department, Mirecki's scholarship and teaching have been praised by scholars and students alike.
Second, the email in question was sent via a Yahoo listserv to members of the KU Society of Open-Minded Atheists and Agnostics (SOMAA). While the group may be a part of KU, it is about as disconnected from the everyday processes of the University as can be. Student groups are funded through the KU Student Senate, which means the University's own democratic processes (which include plenty of Christians as voters) elected a body of individuals who sanctioned funding of SOMAA. The Christian individual who released the one paragraph of the email had no business doing so. The released text was taken out of any context (the vast majority of the message had nothing to do with the class in question). In addition, complaining about SOMAA being anti-Christian is akin to me joining the listserv for any of the multiple Christian student groups and then whining when they mention God or Jesus in their emails.
Third, the Kansas legislature has a history of trying to destroy the University of Kansas. Several years ago, a state legislator claimed a student came to her and accused the professor of a popular Human Sexuality course of promoting pedofilia among other things. After much hubub and threats from the state, it came out that the 'student' was actually an aide of the legislator in question, had been encouraged to falsify her claims, and an investigation by the University found zero evidence to back the claims. Keep in mind here folks that we have more than one legislator without so much as a high school diploma. A prominent representative from wealthy Johnson County has vocally voiced her opposition to the 19th Amendment and women's suffrage. The conservative majority in our state legislature is uneducated, inept, and scary - only our governer is keeping things from getting too out of control.
And finally, the beating is real. I notice one of the sources often cited for inconsitencies in stories is www.kansan.com . That is the online version of our student newspaper, and I would shudder to think that The Kansan would be used as a serious resource. The journalists on our newspaper staff have difficulties differentiating between their/there/they're, much less getting their facts straight on a criminal investigation. Please, if you're going to cite a Lawrence paper, at least go with something more reputable like the Journal World. After visiting with several faculty members of the Religious Studies department, they all gave similar accounts of Mirecki's injuries. Sorry to say, but I trust the accounts of professors with whom I have developed personal friendships over CNN journalists who probably did not even know where Lawrence was before this whole incident occurred.
Re:Beaten? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Beaten? (Score:5, Informative)
If you look at Mirecki's areas of expertise [ku.edu] his irritation with fundamentalists becomes all the more understandable. His areas areas are Ancient Mediterranean Religion, Early Christianity, and Coptic Papyrology. That means that he knows a lot about about religion in the area in which Christianity developed about the origins of Christianity, and about branches of Christianity that either died out (e.g. gnosticism) or have followed a rather different course from the one that led to fundamentalism (e.g. Coptic Christianity). For someone with this background, the belief of fundamentalists that their interpretation of the particular compilation of texts that they consider holy is God's Truth must seem particularly crazy. I can't speak for him, but I bet that to him fundamentalists seem ignorant, naive, and arrogant even if one looks just at the religious texts and their interpretation, without concerning oneself with the conflict between fundamentalist beliefs and science.
Re:Beaten? (Score:4, Insightful)
Probably even more so when he looks just at the fact that two of them beat the shit out of him for disagreeing with them.
Re:Beaten? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Beaten? (Score:5, Funny)
--Bill Hicks
Intelligence is Clearly not a Dominant Trait (Score:3, Insightful)
The idea that people get worse with each generation has been around since at least Plato!
Personally, I think the intelligence design debate will peter
Re:Intelligence is Clearly not a Dominant Trait (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Beaten? (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh Hell yeah.
I happened to catch a book-signing talk by John Gibson about his new book "The War on Christmas," a few weeks back. In his talk he mentioned several incidents where people had removed references to Christianity or Christmas from a public place and subsequently received death threats. He even said that one of those men had to move his wife and kids out of town for the holidays because he feared for their safety. Let me reiterate, the ones getting threatened were the seculars and they were getting threatened by people who were presumably very much Christian.
My girlfriend raised her hand and asked why Gibson was claiming seculars were perpetuating a war when his own examples showed Christians doing all the threatening behavior and she pointed out that he had said several times how nice the seculars seemed to be when he interviewed them. Gibson gave a very watered down reply that there are two sides to any war while the crowd proceeded to turn around and try to shout down my girlfriend. They neither noticed the substance of what she said, nor the fact that the she was taking every part of her point directly from the rhetoric of the author they had come to see. They didn't seem upset in the least that Christians were engaged in threatening behavior.
I certainly don't have an agenda against Christianity, but I must say that in my mind Christians are doing very big damage to their reputations with these kind of antics. Death threats and beatings are so over-the-top wrong that it amazes me when I hear Christians give the contradictory proclamation that Christianity is about Love. That it's about turning the other cheek.
I'm not against Islam, but I'm very much against Muslims who fly planes into tall buildings. I'm not against Christianity, but I'm very much against Christians who beat college professors on country roads. I don't think there's anything remotely like a war on Christianity right now, but if Christians keep insisting on beating and threatening people who disagree, they shouldn't be surprised when we eventually fight back.
TW
Re:Beaten? (Score:5, Insightful)
Does smear have no bounds in this country?
Re:Beaten? (Score:3, Insightful)
http://www.kansan.com/stories/2005/dec/08/ne_mirec ki_folo/ [kansan.com]
http://www.kansan.com/stories/2005/dec/07/ne_mirec ki/ [kansan.com]
Who knows? I don't, but I feel sorry for all involved... the militant religious, the militant atheists, and stupids who have to put up with such a politicized anti-Evolution anti-religious crap. Long story short, people are idiots.
Re:Beaten? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Beaten? (Score:3, Insightful)
At the risk of feeding the troll, I'll put in my two cents or whatever here. I am not American, and I had heard of both of these, but the Swift Boat Veterans "thing" seemed to be far larger in scale (of both the smear and the controversy) than the Texas National Guard thing. So to choose one good example, a more prominent one would be the advi
Re:Beaten? (Score:5, Insightful)
I know, he had his friends beat him up! Or, err... He managed to convince a hospital to fake a report or something.. err... and the police department too! Yeah, that's it! Obviously anybody who's beaten up is going to remember the exact road it's on and everything. And you're going to remember exact details about your attackers too, even when it's at night. Nobody's confused, frightened or panicky after being physically assaulted, especially atheists!
Perhaps we ought to test out these theories on the stupid idiot who's trying to cast some sort of cloud over the guy's credibility without having any hard evidence to back it up.
Re:Beaten? (Score:5, Insightful)
This is complete trash. It barely even suggests that Mirecki lied, let alone naturally pointing towards that conclusion. There are no inconsistencies. There is no need for double-quotes round the word 'beating'. There is only a respected member of the academic community, who planned a controversial course (and then made a stupid comment about it on an obscure mailing list), getting beaten up by two punks and a heavy object for suggesting that their beloved Creationism might, just possibly, be classed as a 'myth' in Religious Studies circles (which happens to be factually accurate, and wouldn't even count as tactless if he hadn't made the aforesaid dumb remark). This is unjustifiable and I'm mildly shocked to see anyone other than the monosyllabic perpetrators fighting Mirecki over this.
More, I'm deeply worried by the chilling effect this will have on other courses similarly critical of Intelligent Design and Creationism. Evolutionary biologists critique evolution every day - why should ID and 'scientific creationism' be exempt merely by dint of being scientifically vacuous?
Re:Beaten? (Score:5, Informative)
And I can't believe that the townhall.com column is the transcript of an actual interview; it's obviously satire. We're supposed to believe that Mirecki listened patiently to a couple dozen questions and replied "no comment" to each one, rather than simply cutting short the conversation at the outset?
Re:Beaten? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Beaten? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Beaten? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Beaten? (Score:4, Insightful)
He'd lie on the ground bleeding, same as Mirecki did.
Re:Beaten? (Score:4, Funny)
Or more importantly...
WWJD for a Klondike Bar?
Re:Beaten? (Score:3, Insightful)
All of them? There aren't any sensible people of those faiths?
Re:Kansas... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Kansas... (Score:5, Funny)
The United State of Kansas.
U SOK?
Re:Gotta love that... (Score:5, Funny)
The two men on a country road sound like the kind of christians who do say "turn the other cheek" as well as "squeal like a pig, boy!"
*roll eyes* (Score:4, Insightful)
Some facts
Percentage of the U.S. population who self-identify as Christian: %82
Percentage of Senators = 89%
Percentage of Representatives = 90%
Percentage of Supreme Court Justices = %78
Percentage of Presidents = %100
Percentage of Current Governors = 94%
Christmas = Federal Holiday
and I can go on and on.
Poor little Christians. So very, very oppressed.
Re:I don't really get this... (Score:3, Informative)
Sources?
http://www.crosswalk.com/news/weblogs/kmc/?adate=
http://www.newadvent.org/library/docs_jp02tc.htm [newadvent.org]
Why religious people get upset (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is that evolution is not like a tool. Instead it is a self-propelled dynamic that needs no outside maker/creator etc. The prerequisites for evolution (differential reproduction of heritable variation) is both basic and abundant in all biological systems of all levels of complexity (it even applies to "nonliving" prebiotic chemical systems such as RNA soups and lipid mycelles). The point is that even the simplest bacteria has all the tools it needs to make itself a different species given enough time.
That is what upsets the religious. Evolution doesn't need any gods.