Posted on 11/29/2005 9:31:13 AM PST by Sub-Driver
Kansas Prof. Apologizes for E-Mail
11 minutes ago
A University of Kansas religion professor apologized for an e-mail that referred to religious conservatives as "fundies" and said a course describing intelligent design as mythology would be a "nice slap in their big fat face."
In a written apology Monday, Paul Mirecki, chairman of the university's Religious Studies Department, said he would teach the planned class "as a serious academic subject and in an manner that respects all points of view."
The department faculty approved the course Monday but changed its title. The course, originally called "Special Topics in Religion: Intelligent Design, Creationisms and other Religious Mythologies," will instead be called "Intelligent Design and Creationism."
The class was added to next spring's curriculum after the Kansas State Board of Education decided to include more criticism of evolution in its standards for science teaching. The vote was seen as a big win for proponents of intelligent design, who argue that the universe is so complex that it must have been created by a higher power.
Critics say intelligent design is merely creationism — a literal reading of the Bible's story of creation — camouflaged in scientific language.
Mirecki's e-mail was sent Nov. 19 to members of the Society of Open-Minded Atheists and Agnostics, a student organization for which he serves as faculty adviser.
"The fundies (fundamentalists) want it all taught in a science class, but this will be a nice slap in their big fat face by teaching it as a religious studies class under the category mythology."
Mirecki addressed the message to "my fellow damned" and signed off with: "Doing my part to (tick) off the religious right, Evil Dr. P."
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
You ignore the rather basic problem that ID doesn't have any actual science that could be taught in a science class. Behe admitted this in court, under oath. The Discovery Institute admitted this when they declined to participate in the Dover trial. They said ID needed to establish a research program and do some actual science before attempting to get into the science classroom.
I'd go beyond that, and say that the whole point is to ridicule--to find someone who doesn't know the score--do a gangup organized by IM, if they even need IM--and then high-five one another a la Beevis and Butthead.
And there's the uncanny similarity in discourse--the same one-liners over and over. "You need to get back to biology class." "You've lost what little credibility you ever had."
How is it, too, that they can show up on a thread, en masse, so quickly?
In sum--these engagements are in bad faith. They are not for exercising the restless arguing muscle ( a motive I assume of most arguers here, since it's my own motive)--they are a means of exerting control and domination over others. Yes, a kind of fascism, albeit rhetorical and limited to online exchange.
The "virtual ignore" thing appears unique to evos--at least, I've seen it nowhere else but from evos. In eight years, I've only asked one poster to leave me alone because he was calling me "Satan" and I thought him deranged (he wasn't an evo).
You noticed that too?
The thread started you with a few evolutionists posting, but no attacks on other posters. (The prof under discussion was another matter).
Then we got
#31 Simply proves the fascist nature of Darwinists and atheists.Calling all of them fascists, including those conservatives here on FR.
Oh wait, that came from the creation side
As did
"61 Probably one of the freaky evo-clique here on FR,
And don't forget "why do you lie", "your a liar" etc.
Good heavens, this is so absurd I don't know how to respond.
This is terrorism:
This is terrorism: 
This is terrorism: 
This is terrorism: 
Throwing around terms like "fascist" and "terror" so casually cheapens the deaths of the victims of genuine terrorism and fascism.
Calling ID science cheapens both science and religion.
Aren't we about due for a rulling in the Dover case?
Or at least a ruling.
Indeed. Trying to pass theology off as science does a disservice to both science and faith.
Knock it off
I see someone must have objected to a picture of a lynching. I apologize for offending anyone due to the graphic nature of the picture, but I do not regret posting it.
"Scientists, in describing one class of observations, are honestly not trying to tell you that your religion is faulty."
Unfortunately, reality does not bear that out. While the ToE does not address origins, as we've been told, and science cannot in it's present state deal with the supernatural; a quick reading of some of these threads shows that many *scientists*, as opposed to science, do just that. There have many comments on *the ramblings of bronze age goat herders* and *If you want your kids to grow up to be idiots or janitors* and calling religion outright mythology. Since science does not deal with the supernatural, it always seemed to me that anyone who then tells me that it is not true or not real has overstepped the bounds of what they are qualified to speak on because they don't know that it's not real; they just can't measure it scientifically. There is reality that cannot be measured in the lab but is no less real. Emotions, art, music, social interctions, are all real and perhaps science can record some of the physical properties of some of these things, but it still misses what they are as a whole.
Depending on how you interpret scripture, there may be no way to reconcile science and your faith.
There is no way that science can arrive at an age of the earth that is significantly different from 4.5 billion years.
The scientifically trained advocates of ID admit that evidence overwhelmingly supports common descent.
You can choose to believe otherwise, but faith not belong on a science classroom. If you insist it does, you will face ridicule. You can call science itself a faith, but it is a faith that built the computer you post with.
Indeed.
Welcome to FR and the bit of fresh air.
The key is "depending on how you interpret Scripture". I don't have a problem with the age of the Earth being very, very old. I think that some of the accounts in Genensis happened far longer ago than the YEC say which could be why there has not been any evidence to support them found YET. The Bible doesn't give the specifics on HOW much of what it states happened but I don't find as much discrepancy as some here do.
I don't know a huge amount of ID theory, but from what I've gathered here, I don't see that ID denies the evolutionary process at all. What it seems to be saying to me is that everything was created and designed and evolution was the mechanism used by which life evolved on the Earth. I don't see that as a contradiction to evolution at all, unless evoluion can definitively state that there was no design or purpose.
If we understand that faith is in its most general sense a trust in the agency of something, it makes perfect sense that every scientist operates in some way or other on the basis of faith. This is what you say when we speak of a "faith that built the computer you post with"
But we don't talk this way and there is a good reason for this. The term faith may be reserved for a trust that is placed not in any object. We don't speak about having faith in the computer because the computer doesn't have a will of its own. Faith is therefore best reserved for a trust in the agency of someone with a will. We do speak of having faith in someone or somebody. Reconciling a faith and a science is to reconcile two kinds of thinking about two different objects. The one is a trust in the agency of someone, the other the trust in a conformity to certain chosen principles. There are many features operative here that it has become quite common mistake to simply make it an either or between two things. But, sad to say, it is more than a logical opposition. In one sense, trust in the agency of a will and trust in the conformity of chosen principles may not ever need reconciliation. One deals with determinate objects, the other as objects of free agency.
There is at least one way that a scientist may have faith in the right sense: the scientist would trust that the principles of nature have an aspect of free agency and expects things along the line of unpredictability.
There have many comments on *the ramblings of bronze age goat herders*
Indeed, it is not unknown for me to post such things myself. Though I would prefer to say "campfire tales" rather than "ramblings" which I consider to be less pejorative.
Genesis is a great story, and the triumph of the Western World over the last thousand years would suggest that Christian societies are often powerful and enquiring societies. But some modern Christians take those tales to be literal revealed truth, to be interpreted as if they were a science and history textbook. There is considerable evidence that even our ancestors could see that this was not so, and that in particular tales like Noah's Ark and the Tower of Babel are absurdities that don't bear serious critical examination. Captain Fitzroy, the fundamentalist Christian captain of the Beagle, who believed that Genesis was literal truth, was considered odd for his beliefs even in those days by his officers.
Again and again in these threads however we are told that it is Christianity OR Common Descent. The fundamentalists will allow no middle ground. If you don't reject common descent they will tell even you that you aren't really a Christian. Evolution is held to be equivalent to atheism, the signed letter of 10,000 clergy to the contrary notwithstanding. Presumably those clergy aren't Christians either.
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