"I could pick a better century out of a hat."
Posted on 11/25/2005 8:34:07 AM PST by Exton1
KU prof's e-mail irks fundamentalists
http://www.kansas.com/mld/eagle/living/religion/13252419.htm
Associated Press
LAWRENCE - Critics of a new course that equates creationism and intelligent design with mythology say an e-mail sent by the chairman of the University of Kansas religious studies department proves the course is designed to mock fundamentalist Christians.
In a recent message on a Yahoo listserv, Paul Mirecki said of the course "Special Topics in Religion: Intelligent Design, Creationisms and Other Religious Mythologies":
"The fundies 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."
He signed the note "Doing my part (to upset) the religious right, Evil Dr. P."
Kansas Provost David Shulenburger said Wednesday that he regretted the words Mirecki used but that he supported the professor and thought the course would be taught in a professional manner.
"My understanding was that was a private e-mail communication that somehow was moved out of those channels and has become a public document," Shulenburger said.
The course was added to next semester's curriculum after the Kansas State Board of Education adopted new school science standards that question evolution.
The course will explore intelligent design, which contends that life is too complex to have evolved without a "designer." It also will cover the origins of creationism, why creationism is an American phenomenon and creationism's role in politics and education.
State Sen. Karin Brownlee, R-Olathe, said she was concerned by Mirecki's comments in the e-mail.
"His intent to make a mockery of Christian beliefs is inappropriate," she said.
Mirecki said the private e-mail was accessed by an outsider.
"They had been reading my e-mails all along," he said. "Where are the ethics in that, I ask."
When asked about conservative anger directed at him and the new course, Mirecki said: "A lot of people are mad about what's going on in Kansas, and I'm one of them."
Mirecki has been taking criticism since the course was announced.
"This man is a hateful man," said state Sen. Kay O'Connor, R-Olathe. "Are we supposed to be using tax dollars to promote hatred?"
But others support Mirecki.
Tim Miller, a fellow professor in the department of religious studies, said intelligent design proponents are showing that they don't like having their beliefs scrutinized.
"They want their religion taught as fact," Miller said. "That's simply something you can't do in a state university."
Hume Feldman, associate professor of physics and astronomy, said he planned to be a guest lecturer in the course. He said the department of religious studies was a good place for intelligent design.
"I think that is exactly the appropriate place to put these kinds of ideas," he said.
John Altevogt, a conservative columnist and activist in Kansas City, said the latest controversy was sparked by the e-mail.
"He says he's trying to offend us," Altevogt said. "The entire tenor of this thing just reeks of religious bigotry."
Brownlee said she was watching to see how the university responded to the e-mail.
"We have to set a standard that it's not culturally acceptable to mock Christianity in America," she said.
University Senate Executive Committee Governance Office - 33 Strong Hall, 4-5169
Faculty
SenEx Chair
Joe Heppert, jheppert@ku.edu , Chemistry, 864-2270 Ruth Ann Atchley, ratchley@ku.edu , Psychology, 864-9816 Richard Hale, rhale@ku.edu ,Aerospace Engineering, 864-2949 Bob Basow, basow@ku.edu , Journalism, 864-7633 Susan Craig, scraig@ku.edu , Art & Architecture, 864-3020 Margaret Severson, mseverson@Ku.edu , Social Welfare, 864-8952
University Council President Jim Carothers, jbc@ku.edu , English 864-3426 (Ex-officio on SenEx)
Paul Mirecki, Chair The Department of Religious Studies, 1300 Oread Avenue, 102 Smith Hall, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, University of Kansas,Lawrence, KS 66045-7615 (785) 864-4663 Voice (785) 864-5205 FAX rstudies@ku.edu
(See an earlier post in this thread where I explain that G.K. Chesterton wanted to deny women suffrage, on the grounds that the voting power in the body politic would discourage women from exercising political power by persuading their husbands.)"
Still looking for something that Chesterton was wrong about.
"It could be reasonably argued that singling out a student for scathing insults based on their religious beliefs denies that student equal access to education."
Thank you. And congratulations, you're the first to admit even that much.
"Good luck convincing a court that the existence of a college course which refers to supernatural legends as "myths" denies anyone equal access to education under the law."
Ah, but in this case we have more than that. We have an admission by the head of the department that he did it specifically for the purpose of delivering a slap in the face to the adherents of a specific religious view.
"Again, if I belong to a religion whose myths deny the existence of mass, am I being persecuted by the existence of physics courses?"
No. But it might be persecution if the university published a course title in its official materials reading, "Physics vs. the No-Mass Superstition." If, of course, yours was a valid religion.
"Christian Creationism, as a traditional supernatural story which explains origins and world view, is a myth as surely as are other forms of Creationism."
I believe it is an allegory. However, religious freedom is not limited to people who agree with me. It has no meaning unless also extended to people I believe to be wrong. Using public funds and the resources of a public institution to deliberately slap people in the face for their religious beliefs is a clear infringement on the free exercise of religion.
"This is a fact."
No, it's your belief. Mine is that the stories in Genesis are allegorical, and contain theological but not historical truths.
"But to call something a myth is not ipso facto denigration, as is calling something a "perversion."
Well, this religion professor thought it was. He assumed (rightly) that calling Creation a myth would be extremely insulting. That's the whole point of this exercise.
If calling people's religious beliefs "myth" is not insulting, why would he even bother to have done it? And then crow about the slap in the face he delivered?
You people arguing that it's not an insult remind me of that "Home Improvement" episode where one of the kids threw a brick through a greenhouse window. Tim asked him, "You threw a brick at a window, and you weren't trying to break it? What, did you expect it to stick?"
"Aw. You got to pop the cherry."
Well, I am a great swordsman.
Given that it was the "gender gap" (women's vote) that put Clinton over the top (and remember he didn't get 50% of the vote the 1st time, he won because Perot split the conservative vote)...
Remember Jimmy Kimmel's The Man Show on Comedy Central in which he set up a booth to gather votes to "End Women's Suffrage" ?
Full Disclosure: Oh, by the way, in one of his short stories, Chesterton tossed off as an aside a character who had the idea--novel for its day--that evolution proceeded irregularly, in fits and starts, so to speak.
"Remember Jimmy Kimmel's The Man Show on Comedy Central in which he set up a booth to gather votes to "End Women's Suffrage" ?"
I've been living overseas. The only TV shows I've seen in the last 20 years have been on DVD.
Is The Man Show worth watching?
"Oh, by the way, in one of his short stories, Chesterton tossed off as an aside a character who had the idea--novel for its day--that evolution proceeded irregularly, in fits and starts, so to speak."
He also presented the idea that leftism is functionally indistinguishable from mental disease.
Thanks for the compliment. (Everyone needs one now and then...)
Ah, yes, the jewish half-candelabra. For the harried non-orthdox.
"You claim that because "myth" is a more insulting term than "allegory," a college course referring to myths denies certain religious students equal access to education."
Once again, you find it necessary to restate my position as something other than what it is, and to exclude from consideration the most important points: we *know* that the course was so titled specifically for the purpose of insulting students of a specific religious persuasion. We *know* that this was done by the head of the department, and that he *intended* to create hostility toward those students. And we *know* that the course title didn't merely "refer to myths," but explicitly labeled a specific religious persuasion "mythology."
And it's not that "myth" is "more insulting" than "allegory."
"Myth" is insulting, and "allegory" is not.
"Are students really being denied an education because their religious "allegories" are referred to as "myths" in an elective religious studies course?"
They are not merely referred to as myths in a course; they are labeled "mythology" in official materials published by a public institution, in print and most likely on the Internet.
There is a substantial difference between a professor stating that he believes it to be myth, and the institution itself stating in print that it *is* mythology, particularly when the representative of that institution is on record as saying that he did it to deliver a slap in the face to adherents of that belief.
"What would you say about the religious students who don't have the exact same aesthetic sensibilities as yours, and consider it an insult to refer to their beliefs as "allegories?"
Produce one. Produce someone who thinks I am insulting him by saying that I respectfully disagree with his interpretation of the Bible, while defending his right to interpret it that way under the freedom of religious expression clause.
And further note that I am not lableling his views "allegory" in official publications of a public institution, nor would I do such a thing. I might allow a course title such as, "Genesis: Allegory or Literal History?" but a title such as "Genesis and Other Allegories" would be entirely inappropriate.
"With this understanding, my question to you is whether or not you think a course entitled "Aztec Mythology" or "Greek Mythology" would deny adherents to those faiths equal access to education."
There are no legitimate living adherents of any Aztec or ancient Greek religion, so the question is moot.
"Firstly, sure there are. I haven't heard anything about Aztec, but certainly Greek and Norse. Not to mention adherents of American Indian myths."
Living people who claim to be adherents of ancient Greek and Norse religions are not. They are whackos who have invented new cults loosely based on what we know of those religions, solely as an act of rebellion against Christianty. They are not legitimate adherents of legitimate religions.
The dirty little secret about American Indian religions is that the Christian missionaries who sought to eradicate these religions were succcessful. What exists today is a hodge-podge of half-remembered stories, patched together with new accretions, that Indians in the second half of the 20th century used to throw up their own rebellion against Christianity. These are legitimate religions in the same way that the Unibomber's rantings are.
Peyote? Used solely by shamans south of the Rio Grande. Unknown north of the Rio Roja. Sweat lodge? Not a religious ceremony, pre 20th century.
"Secondly, I don't see how the question would be moot even if there were no living adherents. Either something is a myth or it is not."
It is moot because the Constitution deals with the government of the living. It protects the rights of living citizens, not the long-dead. The question here is not whether anything is or is not a myth; the question is whether using public funds and the resources of a public institution to label something a myth infringes on the free exercise of religion by living US citizens.
I expect that you will next argue that if freedom of religion extends to Christianity that it also extends to any nutso crap that any looney-toon whacko cares to invent.
It doesn't.
"Sorry, it doesn't work that way."
You continue to distort my position. I wonder if you're just unwilling to stop doing that, or actually unable.
Brownian Motion (neither QM nor chaotic) seems to be another non-reproducible (in detail) system. The existence of atoms (or molecules or whatever particles) implies Brownian Motion so Einstein's work was rather interesting in this regard. The problem is that a probe that could measure the locations of (the large) particles needs to be about the size of the measured particle and is thus subject to Brownian Motion itself.
On the other hand, we have many examples of people who fail to observe. The ability to make an observation is rather rare.
"I could pick a better century out of a hat."
And the conudrum about the probe brings to mind several unsuccessful "thought experiments" of my own to try to circumvent uncertainty principle :-(
> Living people who claim to be adherents of ancient Greek and Norse religions are not.
In a word: bullcrap. I know of at least a few Asatru (adherants of the Norse beliefs) right here on FR.
> They are whackos who have invented new cults loosely based on what we know of those religions
Nope. Quite a bit is known about those old religions. Wicca was invented in the 20th century the followers of the Olympian and Norse gods have as much to go on as followers of the Judeo-Christian god.
> solely as an act of rebellion against Christianty.
You wish.
> They are not legitimate adherents of legitimate religions.
Again, bullcrap. Asatru, for example, is officially recognized by the state in Iceland and Norway.
> the question is whether using public funds and the resources of a public institution to label something a myth infringes on the free exercise of religion by living US citizens.
And the answer is: no. No more so than your pathetic and ignorant squeaking about other religions not actually existing constitutes an infringement of the free excercise of those other religions.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.