Kansas Prof. Apologizes for E-Mail [referred to religious conservatives as "fundies" ....]

Yahoo ^

[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."

[js1138]

It means no such thing. It means that I would go to a psychiatrist for chest pains if I were you, but since I am not, I would go to a cardiologist.

You'd be wasting your time and money if you didn't start with a non-specialist. Even a psychiatrist could rule out heart disease if your pains were something else.

In the case of some folks on this thread, I'd recommend starting with a shrink.

[Right Wing Professor]

Officially Abandoning Thread Placemarker

I think I'll join you placemarker.

[furball4paws]

You want to generate an auto-immune response?

[puroresu]

More likely is leftist government trying to breed docile populations.

[cornelis]

Suicide is a human process.

[Diamond]

And then he adds, “Now you tell me, where’s the intelligence in that design?”

That might be a persuasive argument to some people, but it is not a scientific argument. It is just another variation on the old underlying metaphysical, theological assumption, used to great effect by Darwin, that God wouldn't have created it this way because it's not 'perfect'.

Cordially,

[metmom]

"Drugs kill, real food heals. It's that simple" editor-surveyor

"I don't find this in the Bible." js1138

What you do find in the Bible is that Jesus spent a huge chunk of His time healing people of their various diseases. If it were true that an organic, whole grain diet were the answer to all mankinds health woes, then you'd find no illness until recent history, and history does not bear that out.

I certainly believe that our modern diet contributes to many of the health problems we have today. However, I don't believe that *organic* foods have some special, almost magical, ability to *heal* people. Probably the only benefit of organic is that it is not damaging your body any further, and I do believe that many of the additives that are put into foods are harmful.

Because of a food allergy my daughter has to certain red dyes, I googled them and got the FDA website. Hardly a bastion of natural remedies, but I was shocked at some of what I found out on that site about preservatives, dyes, and flavorings. By the FDA's own admission, based on the info provided, these things are NOT good for you. It would be worth checking out for any interested.

Here is a link to the FDA site:
/www.cfsan.fda.gov/~lrd/colorfac.html

[metmom]

"It is just another variation on the old underlying metaphysical, theological assumption, used to great effect by Darwin, that God wouldn't have created it this way because it's not 'perfect'."

Not *perfect* to us. Just because it doesn't make sense to us, doesn't mean that there's no good reason for it. And even if science can't find a good reason *now*, doesn't mean one doesn't exist and won't be found someday.

[furball4paws]

I wouldn't want to be a lemming in a bad year.

[js1138]

Thank you. We don't agree on much, but we seem to agree that medicine is complex, and the failure of mainstream medicine to cure everything is not the result of a capitalist conspiracy.

I actually agree that simpler foods are probably healthier. Certainly better than junk food. But things aren't simple. My mother was lactose intolerant. I have trouble with beef. My brother can't eat peanuts.

The exact cause of these individual differences is something for science to work on. It isn't helpful to assert that one particular diet will cure everything.

[js1138]

Psychiatric training would be useful, however, in probing the motivations as to why anyone would promote this sort of errant crap.

My suspicion is the motivation lies more in the domain of the MBA.

My father got his M.D. around 1930. There were no antibiotics. Except for surgery, most of medicine revolved around good bedside manner and hoping your patient was one of the 70 percent who got better on their own.

I have no illusions about medicine. It's a mess and always will be. There will always be a list of ailments for which there are effective treatments, a list for which there are statistically effective treatments, and a list for which there is bedside manner.

There is scarcely any disease -- even AIDS or tetanus -- for which there are no instances of spontaneous recovery. The ideal stomping ground for the quack is the ailment that has a significant percentage of spontaneous remissions. The remissions only have to last long enough for the patient to sign the endorsement.

[furball4paws]

"There is scarcely any disease -- even AIDS or tetanus -- for which there are no instances of spontaneous recovery"

Rabies. There have been a few "recoveries" that appear to be legitimate, but they were hardly "spontaneous".

[js1138]

I haven't looked at rabies. the survival rate after onset of symptoms looks pretty grim, but perhaps there are people with natural immunity.

At any rate, even with modern medicine, most people recover or experience remissions from most illnesses without intervention. Quackery thrives in this arena.

The problem arises when quack medicine invades a space for which the disease is potentially fatal and the medicine is generally effective.

[editor-surveyor]

Food can heal simply by not preventing healing. Most 'foods' today are not accepted by the body as food. they do damage that acumulates over time, and eventually the damage is enough to cause a crisis that we call illness.

[editor-surveyor]

Could that be because you don't have a bible? or did you tear out the page?

II Chronicles 16:12-14
16:12 And Asa in the thirty and ninth year of his reign was diseased in his feet, until his disease was exceeding great: yet in his disease he sought not to the LORD, but to the physicians.
16:13 And Asa slept with his fathers, and died in the one and fortieth year of his reign. 16:14 And they buried him in his own sepulchres, which he had made for himself in the city of David, and laid him in the bed which was filled with sweet odours and divers kinds of spices prepared by the apothecaries' art: and they made a very great burning for him.

Obviously the king had diabetes, and trusted the physicians (bad move)

[editor-surveyor]

That is clearly not a human skull, thus it is evidence only of your obsessive falacy.

[aNYCguy]

In other words you are too chicken to post an anti Fundamentalist Islam symbol or wear an anti-Fundamentalist Islam T-Shirt...

Eh? I don't see how that symbol specifies fundamentalist Islam. It seems like a broad and somewhat irrational "Nazi" smear against any form of it.

[aNYCguy]

Look at post 498.

I think he's looking for court transcription, not a quote from an alternative health cheerleading site.

I'm open to the possibility that Barrett lost his license involuntarily, but the court testimony that has been provided is far more convincing than a curt summation by internet denizens who hate him.

[js1138]

First of all, II Chronicles 16:12-14 is not the verse you referred me to.

Second, the new verse you quoted does not say that a particular diet will cure all diseases -- the statement of yours I dispute.

You seem to be promoting dietary quackery on one hand and Christian Science on the other, and claiming they are the same thing.

[Coyoteman]

That is clearly not a human skull, thus it is evidence only of your obsessive falacy.

Thank you for your professional opinion on this matter. And your background for this claim is...?

700 ?